Wikipedia:Help desk

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Help please in dealing with inappropriate edit

About a week ago someone added the following sentence to the Carl Rogers article.

He was a friend of Sean Courtney, a wonderful professor.

Can this just be removed? We all know that Carl Rogers was a true friend to a great many people. But this is not NPOV, its about someone who is not properly identified and its right in the opening paragraph. Is nobody else watching this page?— Preceding unsigned comment added by 220.233.118.94 (talk • contribs)

Thanks for catching this! I went ahead and removed it, but in the future, do feel free to make edits yourself! You can always leave a note here or on my talk page if you are unsure what to do. You seem to know your stuff though. If it's at all controversial-seeming, it's good to discuss a removal or large change on the article's talk page, but I thought this was pretty clear-cut. Thanks again! delldot | talk 00:26, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

lolllllllllll

Making an Article using the proper guidelines

How do you make an article using the proper guidelines? E-mail me at <email removed for your protection>.

Go to Help:Starting a new page. And please don't put your email address on wikipedia, if you don't want spam. --K.Z ^{Talk • Vandal • Contrib} 05:31, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

Frustration

Hi,

My name is Whitney Bost and I am uploading information onto Wikipedia for a research paper in my history class. I wanted to email someone directly to make sure that someone knows about these problems or glitches but I couldn't find any contacts. Anyway, I have two concerns.

1 - In my first entry, Midnight Judges, I had a lot of difficulty with my footnotes and resources and I found the Wikipedia instructional page about footnotes to be very confusing and unclear and it didn't really help me.

2 - In my second entry, I had four paragraphs of information. When I clicked "See Preview" and "Save changes," the information that came back was half of my first paragraph and then some random sentences from the middle of my second paragraph. After trying to fix it and re-saving many times, I logged out and closed Wikipedia completely and then tried again but nothing worked and the same problem still occured.

Why is this happening and what can you do to fix it?

Thank you. — Preceding unsigned comment added by WBost22 (talk • contribs)

Hi Whitney, I bet I know what's happening: It's probably trouble with the <ref> formatting. If you don't put </ref> after where you want the footnote to stop, the software includes everything in the footnote until it finds a </ref>! (Trust me, I'm talking from experience here!) I'll try to fix the article by looking in your contributions, but if that doesn't work or you need further help, don't hesitate to let me know on my talk page. Or you can always post again here. You can email me by going to my user page and hitting the "email this user" link on the lefthand side. delldot | talk 02:51, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

I cleaned up the references on Midnight Judges. I have a concern about this article that I'll send to your talk page. *Mishatx*-In\Out 03:03, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

I can't edit pages!

I have a problem with eding pages, whenever I click the edit this page link my browser opens up a download file dialog and I can't open a page to edit it...? (Only when i click Edit this page tab
by the way... i am using IE7
--Dangergranger 02:25, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

• What happens when you click this? or this one?--70.107.112.158 02:35, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

The first one did not work, but the second one did... The box thing happens when i click the first one --Dangergranger 02:38, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

Have you tried using an alternate browser?--70.107.112.158 02:43, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

no i haven't but i can try that now --Dangergranger 02:54, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

I am currently using FireFox and I get the same problem. --Dangergranger 03:01, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

• That's quite odd--70.107.112.158 03:13, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

Do I need special addons or software to make it work properly? --Dangergranger 03:18, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

It should work normally without any addons or anything, I've never seen anything like that happen before--70.107.112.158 03:20, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

It is always asking me to download Index.php... and my computer doesn't recognize the file, (all this because i wanted to start my user page...)--Dangergranger 03:23, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

Check your user preferences, go to the editing tab, and make sure that use external editor by default is unchecked. – Luna Santin (talk) 03:51, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

Image without a copyright

Someone please help. I recently added this much-needed image to an article on Ninja Gaiden video game. I was not able to find any source of copyrights or ownership! I only have information of the page that the image came from. I don't know what to do....

 http://ninjagaiden.classicgaming.gamespy.com/frames.html

You really shouldn't add images that you've just found on websites, unless you can find out the correct source information. -- Chairman S. Talk ^Contribs 03:13, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

Everything is copyright unless it's done by certain people (like the US federal government), or it's really old (think 100 years or so), or it is released into the public domain (you'd need an official note of that). If it doesn't say anything, it just is copyright, automatically. So if you don't know, and it doesn't say, the picture has to go. The sad fact is, most articles will never be able to be illustrated with free pictures. Notinasnaid 23:14, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

wikipedia's publisher and date of publication

How do I find Wikipedia's publishing information for use in my school assignment? 202.67.65.165 03:12, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

How do I change capitalize the s in scary and the g in guy to make the name show correctly?

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

See WP:MOVE for an explanation of how to re-name pages -- I've taken care of this for you, since it's limited to users who have established accounts. As for citing Wikipedia, I'd recommend you see Wikipedia:Citing Wikipedia and/or the cite this page link which should appear on the left bar (toolbox) of the article you'd like to cite. – Luna Santin (talk) 03:31, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

make a page

How Do you create your own page?

See Help:Starting_a_new_page and Wikipedia:Your first article for information on creating your own page. -- Chairman S. Talk ^Contribs 03:42, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

Cookies are enabled, but the server doesn't believe me

I have enabled all cookies, but I keep getting an error message telling me to enable cookies! Help please.

Hello! For us to answer your question, we need to know what web browser you are running. Could you produce the information, please? Yuser31415 04:02, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

Also, are you using a satellite internet connection?--Werdan7^{T @} 04:07, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

I'm using Microsoft Internet Explorer 7.0 on XP Professional (SP2). I'm just using a dial-up internet connection (AT&T Worldnet). Thanks.

The boxes at the tops of pages

I've added the little boxes at the tops of pages to say whether an article is unreferenced, or if it needs to be cleaned up, but I always forget how to get to the page with the large list of all of them. Each time it takes me about a half an hour of browsing the help page. Can someone tell me how to get to that page, or provide a link for me? Thank you! VonShroom 04:28, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

Perhaps WP:MAINT? -- Rick Block (talk) 04:51, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

What browser are you running? If your browser has a history feature, you might find the link there if you visited it in the past few days. Once you find the link, remember it with this tip. Also check the source of the "little boxes" to see where they categorize the pages you put them on. For example, I checked your contributions, and you edited Honda Fireblade with Template:Inappropriate tone and Template:Advert. Viewing those templates indicates they both categorize articles to Category:Wikipedia articles needing style editing, which may be what you're looking for. --Teratornis 06:49, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

Or maybe not. Upon re-reading the question, I realize the referent of "them" in "the large list of all of them" might mean the "little boxes" themselves rather than the pages the boxes categorize. Template:Inappropriate tone#See also links to: Wikipedia:Template messages/Cleanup (shortcut: WP:TC), and maybe VonShroom should bookmark that page. --Teratornis 16:37, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

Thanks a bunch, you guys are quick. And don't worry, as soon as I found it, I intended to bookmark it. VonShroom 17:33, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

Unable to log in

To whom it may concern:

I have saved my password and had the computer remember me but for some reason tonight I am unable to use the wikipedia sign in screen. I have been contributing regularly for the past year and two months. This is my first sign in problem in a while. I have been contributing to Basal Metabolic Rate. When I follow instructions to have the password emailed the message comes on saying the servoer is having problems. Is that the case? My user name is BRileyPTA for the talk page.

Thanks for your help!

Sincerely,

Bill Riley, LPTA <home address removed>

Could just be minor server problems which appear to solved now. It isn't a good idea to put your name and address up because it opens you up to spam. You might want to remove it.--John Lake 06:01, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

Search Not Finding Page

On February 9 I created a Coy (Disambiguation) entry to distinguish between the adjective, the Spanish city, the Arkansan city, and the common misspelling of the fish koi, but a search for "coy" lists my disambiguation page 12th. Shouldn't it be first? And if so, how do I make a "Go" search for "Coy" automatically redirect to the disambiguation page? I appreciate your help.

Candent shlimazel 05:56, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

To the second question: the best plan would be to move it to Coy, since there's no page there. -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 06:00, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

s

how to write articles —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Sggandh (talk • contribs) 10:11, 18 February 2007.

See: Help:Starting a new page. You might also look at Wikipedia:Your first article and Wikipedia:How to write a great article. Jacek Kendysz 10:36, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

To whom it may concern:

My IP address was recently blocked by an editor called FT2 who claims that I've been spamming. FT2 removed a contribution of mine about a legitimate film called COMING SOON (www.comingsoon.cz). The film won an award at the largest competition for Czech films called the Festival Finale Plzen and has become one of the most critically-acclaimed Czech films of the year. Why on earth would this be considered spamming?

I've also included information about a legitimate zoophile-rights organization called E.F.A. (www.equalityforall.net) which is one of the main subjects of the film. These edits are repeatedly removed with the explanation that it is considered "commercial spamming." But there is absolutely nothing for sale on any of the sites and I can't see why it should be considered spamming.

I hope that one of the Wikipedia editors can advise me. I am a huge fan of Wikipedia and don't have the slightest intention of polluting it with spamming. On the other hand I can't see why controversial organizations and films should be banned. Isn't the main beauty of Wikipedia that is censorship-fee?

Thanks for your advice!

Sincerely yours,

Equalityforall

Articles must be written within Wikipedia's inclusion criteria, the bare minimum of which can be found here: WP:STUB. Articles which appear to be written as advertisements meet our criteria for speedy deletion and are marked as such. Even if your sites aren't selling anything, writing your article in a non-neutral point of view could make it seem as though you are marketing the sites, even if that is not your intention. Please read our NPOV policies and consider re-writing the articles to meet those criteria. If the article is tagged with a speedy deletion template again, consider adding {{hangon}} to the article and explaining why you think the article is not spam on the article's talk page. You may also want to contact one of our editors associated with WikiProject Films for assistance with writing the article in a neutral manner.

I hope this has helped some. If you have any more questions, please reply here or leave a comment on my talk page. Hersfold ^(talk|work) 15:10, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

Phone numbers

Hi. Someone vandalised the Prank call article to add three phone numbers, which they said belonged to three girls. [1] Now, obviously I've removed this, however I wonder if this is the sort of thing that actually needs the edit history 'cleaning out'. Certainly it seems to call for it more than, for example, some silly claim that a public figure was involved in a murder, since it is actual personal info. So, if it does call for this, where would I ask about it? I assume it requires at least an admin. Thanks. Skittle 13:47, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

Oversight is what allows this to happen. To request action to be taken, you'll want to follow the instructions at Wikipedia:Requests for oversight. -- Natalya 14:12, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

Thanks, very helpful answer. Skittle 20:43, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

Adding image

I have just copied an image from another site, but how can I paste it onto Wikipedia? Henchman 2000 14:06, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

You can't paste :P, but you can upload it. PeaceNT 14:13, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

Also you should have permission to use the image. Kamope·?·! Sign! 14:14, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

How could I get permission? Henchman 2000 14:25, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

Contact the owners of the website and ask them who owns the copyright, or if it's licensed under a free license like the GDFL, or even better in the Public Domain. Wikipedia can only use copyrighted images with permission of the copyright owner or with a reasonable fair use rationale. Hersfold ^(talk|work) 15:13, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

Actually, we don't just need permission to use the image on Wikipedia. Permission for others to re-use the image for any reason must also be included, so long as the re-use is also under the GFDL (or similar) license. The copyright holder must license the image under a free license like the GFDL, or must place the image into the public domain. See Wikipedia:Copyrights and Wikipedia:Copyright FAQ.–RHolton≡– 16:37, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

membership

if I stop making contributions for a long period of time, does the user page deletes itself?Coffsneeze 15:59, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

No. Your user page will remain. Jacek Kendysz 16:12, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

That being said, you can request deletion of your user page at any time by adding {{db-userreq}} to it. Canderson7 ^(talk) 17:09, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

New article

How can I write an new article about somebody without making it a link that branches off from another article? (new submission?)— Preceding unsigned comment added by Vinkni9 (talk • contribs)

Have a look here for instructions. Hope that helps; ask if you still have trouble. Trebor 16:26, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

Finding AN/I Discussion

on February 16 I placed the item "Suppression of Notification to Users Whose Edits are Subject to AfD/DRV)" on AN/I. It can no longer be found there. The discussion was productive but probably had fairly played out. I assume its removal was normal maintenace of AN/I. I can view the discussion by accessing the diff from my "user contributions" but I am not certain this reflects the complete discussion. How can I find the full discussion? Closely related how do I cite the discussion? Thanks. Edivorce 17:21, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

It's been put in the archives (accessible from the main WP:ANI page) and the discussion you said was here. Just link to the discussion to cite it. Trebor 17:26, 18 February 2007 (UTC) Well okay, it's in that page of archives; can't seem to get my link to the exact discussion to work... Trebor 17:28, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

Thanks. Edivorce 17:51, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

Wikitext in table titles

Greetings. I have created a template containing a table. In the table, I've set the title exactly like this:

|+ ==Title {{{More Title}}}==

But when the template is used, the title of the table ends up being:

==Title{{{More Title}}}==

However, <b> tags seem to work just fine. Is there some way of getting == == and {{{ }}} wikitext to work? or at the very lest some documentation on what wikitext works in titles and what doesn't?

EDIT: Sorry, the variable works, made a stupid mistake. But making the title of the table a subtitle of the page with == == still does not.

The idea is to put the ==headline== on a different line than the |+. If you want to customize the headline, you can fake it with the following code:

<h2><span class="mwheadline">Title {{{More Title}}}</span></h2>

Assuming you have the wikitable class, try the following

{|class=wikitable
|+
<h2><span class="mwheadline">Title {{{More Title}}}</span></h2>
|-
! Column 1
! Column 2
|-
| A
| B
|-
| C
| D
|}

And if you want to get rid of the line underneath the h2 (which goes across the interface), use

<h2 style="border:0px;">

. Hope this helps. Gracenotes^T § 18:36, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

Why isn’t editing WYSIWIG (What you see is what you get)?

I am very interested in how Wikipedia works (I’d like to use these concepts in another project). I just tried to see how to edit an article for the first time today. I notice that editing does not seem to be “WYSIWIG” (What you see is what you get). Seems you have to click a “preview” button to see what your edits will look like.

Why did you choose to do it this way? Or did I miss the right way to do it? It seems very awkward and undesirable to me. If I were doing a Wiki (which I intend to do), I’d want the edits to work like word processor. I am interested to understand your approach.

Thanks,

Huck

Most Wikis use a Wikitext, which is meant to be a simplified markup accessible to anyone with the only requirement for use being a web browser. There's a discussion about this at the article on Wiki. -- Rick Block (talk) 19:00, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

To tell you the truth, Huck, I dislike WYSIWYG editors a lot; it feels more natural working with raw wikitext for me. So it's a personal preference, really. Gracenotes^T § 19:36, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

Fairly sure an addition (if very large) to your monobook.js file can turn your editor into a WYSIWIG editor without putting additional strain on the server, parsing the entire edit box as a preview, but I don't think such a thing exists. The advantage is, I suppose, not having to encode Wikipedia's parsing in JavaScript and then doing elaborate JavaScript to dynamically recreate a page. Doesn't work if JavaScript is disabled, too. If you are thinking of dynamic loading, then this is an effective way of DDoSing Wikipedia, by forcing

the server to regenerate the page again and again by pressing keys. Also, I think Wikipedia tries to parse broken wikicode, such as unclosed wikilinks which can be very off-putting when you add a wikilink in the middle of an article, and the text from then onwards becomes a wikilink. x42bn6 Talk 01:55, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

You might be thinking of User:Cacycle/wikEd, a large addition to your monobook that you can make that lets you use a WYSIWYG editor if you use FireFox. It's somewhat slower to load than using wikimarkup, however, and not compatible between browsers at the moment. As it's a monobook.js script, you also can't use it unless you have a user account. --ais523 16:49, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

I am trying to put an open international team together to work on an eco-village project in China. This project is a concrete example addressing a broader issue of how we can live sustainably and happily on this planet. Participants are located in different parts of the world (currently different parts of the U.S., Canada, England and China. We have other projects in Africa, Central America and Pakistan). They are from different backgrounds from architects, engineers and government officials/politicians to local villagers and farmers. Do you think anyone at Wikipedia would be interested in helping us do this? (The text input question is important because the system needs to be very simple)

how to add a picture to an article?

I want to know how to add a picture to an article. My daughter recently was diagnosed with a scarcely heard of skin disorder/syndrome and I wanted to post pictures of it to help other parents in the future. How do I do this?

Thanks! User:Kaleysmom71

Look at the bottom left of the screen in the box marked "toolbox" you will see a link called "upload file" click on it and find your file on your computer. Don't forget to add a licence tag such as PD self so we know it isn't a copyright violation.

Once you've done that you can add the file by putting square brackets around the file name on the page you want to add it too. Try uploading it first and we'll add it for you if you like. Theresa Knott | Taste the Korn 19:00, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

Lemnos

Hello,

After searching google on lemnosexplorer, the name of my company name, which I represent, as well as hosting a site under URL http://www.lemnosexplorer.com,

I have found results page, and after clicking on the link below,

http://www.reference.com/browse/wiki/Lemnos, then a link to edit text which led me to your Lemnos page and eventually I have added a proper description for what I will describe below.

I have found my URL listed there without my permission as well as desription which I find incomplete, therefore, I believe it is insulting in its textual form.

It seems google displays EXACTLY the text description I find incomplete EVERYWHERE, ON EVERY search result link. It seems someone added an entry on my behalf, without knowing the person at all !!

I read some Q&A at reference.com, which says about DMOZ project, and after writing an e-mail to them asking for explanations, I write one to you as I am not a computer geek, being able to track the pages and the way to edit the description beside my URL, instead of sending solicited material to all responsible for this input, as well as asking for compensation for the time I am waisting to write to you etc. please.

As e-mail is not the best way for me too communicate, however, it is quite direct and I express my thoughts directly to your party, I would like to know why the search results on google especially, did not update with correct description please, so far.

Even when I find pages with licence GNU etc, when I click on the domain name link of mine, it redirects to advertising pages !. As you understand, I am not getting so far compensation for such disputes to my name and my company name !

So, I am waiting for your answer in the near future, giving me full instructions on why wiki link-results appear everywhere with incorrect usage of my domain name please !

Friendly greetings,

Vassilis I.F. Triantafyllidis F.A. Photographer & mixed media artist - Publisher

Interactive Multimedia Communications S/W Engineer Electrical Engineer (I.E.I)

Business Address: 'TAXANDRIA' Store. 1 RALLI KOPSIDI and KIDA Str., MYRINA, 81400, LEMNOS ISLAND, GREECE.

Hi, I apologise if you feel your website has been misrepresented in any way. Your link has now been removed from the Wikipedia article on Lemnos. Is that alright? Wikipedia is mirrored on many other sites, which is why it is still showing up. These mirrors are periodically updated with the latest Wikipedia article, so hopefully in a couple of weeks it will be gone. Hope that helps; please say if there are any other problems. Trebor 19:33, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

This is without a doubt the first time that I've seen a company COMPLAIN about having their external links on WP. -Wooty Woot? contribs 20:17, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

Maps

Hi, I'm an experienced editor I'm just wondering - where does Wikipedia get there map images from, for example on the Tyne and Wear and many others there is a map of England and the appropriate area shaded in with a colour? Any help appreciated, cheers.Tellyaddict^{Editor review!} 20:04, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

You can see who uploaded any particular map by looking at the image file (by clicking it). This particular one was uploaded by user:Morwen, who is still an active contributor. There is also a Wikiproject for maps, see Wikipedia:WikiProject Maps. -- Rick Block (talk) 20:15, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

quiting

how do i quit —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Nejicool (talk • contribs).

If you really wish to quit you csn add the following template to your userpage and talk page; {{retirement}} . This shows to other editors that you have stopped editting, but you don't really have to do anything if you don't want to. I'll talk to you more about your reasons why you wish to quit on your talk page RyanPostlethwaite^{See the mess I've created or let's have banter} 21:47, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

See also m:Right to vanish. x42bn6 Talk 01:49, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

February 19

Adding a section to an article

How do I add a section to an article? Arthritix 16:29, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

Just create a new section header - for example == New Section == and then add content underneath it. It's hard to explain - my best suggestion is to look at a good article and mimic its form. —Keakealani·?·!·@ 00:09, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

Thank you so much. Arthritix 16:29, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

squidward vandal and pisschrist vandal

Was thare or is thare a real squidward and or pisschrist vandal like shown on this website[2] or are thay making it up?--Crocadog 00:23, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

Indeed there was - follow their links, one of theme ws deleted, though there was something there. ST47Talk 00:27, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

double categorization

bsd. i was checking the categorization of a few shipping companies, and saw that a few are listed under both "transport" and "(transport>)shipping" categories. i searched a little around the policies an found that being listed in two subcats is ok. is it true also for listing the article in both parent and subcat, specifically in the above mentioned case, when the affiliation of the subcat is obvious? thanks Ben Stone 01:18, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

Only if the subject is more often related to the parent cat. See here. Xiner (talk, email) 01:20, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

Got it. thanks Ben Stone 01:27, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

clearing wikipedia search browser

How do I clear the Wikipedia Search Browser and its history? 24.46.230.179 01:54, 19 February 2007 (UTC)John D

Err...do you mean clearing the little automatic fill-in in the search box? That's a browser thing, rather than something to do with Wikipedia. What browser are you using? I only know how to clear it in Mozilla-based browsers like Firefox, where you can select 'preferences' and then 'clear saved form data' in one of the privacy settings. But it depends on your browser. —Keakealani·?·!·@ 02:03, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

use Ctrl+H then delete the history you don't want by right clicking. Works with most web browsers. --K.Z ^{Talk • Vandal • Contrib}

This question has been asked 4 times in a week now, so it's fast becoming an FAQ, although technically speaking it's to do with the browser you're using, not Wikipedia. I'll just copy the original answers here:

This is nothing to do with Wikipedia; however, some browsers will have this as a feature. I think it's called 'AutoComplete' in Internet Explorer, so there might be some way to clear it in the menus somewhere (I don't have access to the relevant menus on this computer, though, so I can't check). --ais523 15:01, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

I think you can delete individual items by highlighting them with the cursor and pressing the Delete key, or alternatively:

• In Internet Explorer, click Tools -> Internet Options..., click the Content tab, click AutoComplete and there are options there.
• In Firefox, to disable the feature go to Tools -> Options..., in the Privacy section, click the Saved Forms tab and uncheck "Save information I enter in forms and the Search Bar" and click OK and then click Tools -> Clear Private Data... and make sure Saved Form Information has a tick and then click Clear Private Data Now. It's up to you to determine what other data you want to clear. I think that's everything I can tell you, but it's more a question for the Reference desk. --WikiSlasher 12:18, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

I hope that helps! --ais523 09:44, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

Well it's good to know my instructions are helping so many people :) --WikiSlasher 07:42, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

Automated Entity Extraction - Where to post?

I'm wondering where I could post information for Wikipedia users / maintainers on two subjects. Guidance on where it would be appropriate to discuss these would be appreciated.

1) We have deployed a web service (URLs removed) that may be of use to Wikipedia maintainers. The SWS web service provides semantic extraction of people, places, companies and organizations from unstructured text. This may be of use to Wikipedia in automatically generating intra-site links, etc.

2) We've created a Firefox extension on top of that web service that, we believe, enhances the Wikipedia browsing/surfing process. It automatically processes the text of the page you are reading and does the extractions mentioned above. You can then hover over auto-generated links to launch searches in Wikipedia and other sources.

We think these tools are great - but have two very different audiences. Where would be a good place to tell people about them? Obviously not in an article - but a discussion group, etc?

Thanks for any input. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ttague (talk • contribs)

You may wish to email info-en-o@wikimedia.org, which can advise you on ways to avoid conflict-of-interest and advertising issues on Wikipedia. Xiner (talk, email) 04:39, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

Regarding the first item, the Wikimedia Foundation generally does not use commercial software, partly for philosophical reasons, and partly because of its small budget.

If the Firefox extension is free, you might post a note at Wikipedia:Community Portal about it. If it is not free, then unfortunately there really isn't any place to make a pitch to editors about paying for it (there are no discussion groups or forums, per se, here; it's not a social networking site). -- John Broughton (♫♫) 04:02, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

Internet explorer 7 / wikipedia problems

I am not sure if this is the right place to address this problem, sorry. If there is a more appropriate place I hope someone moves this there instead of just deleting it.

In the new Internet Explorer 7 there is a feature where you can add Search Providers. That means you can search on a page you have added without first going to that page, but instead use a search field that you always have when you use the Internet, no matter what page you are on. Wikipedia is one of the standard search providers. However it doesn’t work if you search for any topic with more than one word.

Also: If you try to manually add Wikipedia as a search provider via the “create your own” method (I wondered if doing that would fix the problem) it does not work because you have to write TEST in capitals, and Wikipedia changes the URL so that it is not in capitals. (That sentence is probably hard to understand, but if anybody tries it they will see what I mean.)

I tried finding some way to complain on the Internet Explorer homepage but couldn’t. Perhaps some wikipedians either know how to contact the Internet Explorer people and can make them fix this, or can fix it themselves from Wikipedia’s end.

I just tried it, and didn't have the problem you're describing. Make sure you are not putting quotation marks around your search terms. Dave6 ^talk 08:44, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

You might want to try this URL: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Search?search=TEST. --ais523 09:34, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

I am the one who wrote the original problem. That url works, thanks. But I was not using quotation marks so I suspect this is a problem for some other users, though no longer for me.

Unable to Edit - text code does not appear or is missing

Hi,

I am writing to ask about text which appears within an entry, but does not seem to correspond to the code in the edit section, and is therefore difficult to challenge. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.239.145.64 (talk • contribs)

It was most likely a case of vandalism. Please see WP:REVERT for how others must've reverted it before you could. Thanks. Xiner (talk, email) 04:43, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

incorrect info

Dear Wikipedia, you have an article on your website about the Lancaster Rattlers and one of items is incorrect. You have our manager listed as Gus Iguraran and he is no longer with our organization. Our coach is Steve Mackenzie and our Director of Operations is Toni Brunner. I hope you are able to correct this. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.166.200.197 (talk • contribs)

Yes. This is Wikipedia. That means that you should have corrected it. Just click "edit this page" and make the corrections as necessary. --Kainaw ^(talk) 07:07, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

To Kainaw: Note that the WMF now has a policy of referring people from external organisations to the Help Desk when they complain about factual information: see Wikipedia talk:Help desk#New Wikimedia policy - referring organizations complaining about factual problems to the Help Desk. In such cases (and this might be one of them), it makes more sense to fix the problem for the person requesting help, after checking that it isn't an attempt to skew the neutrality of the article (and this clearly isn't), then just to tell them to {{sofixit}}. (This change is, as it happens, perfectly safe to make even if there is a conflict of interest involved, in this case, and I see that 76.166.200.297 has made the change now.) --ais523 09:40, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

Date of Thrisur Pooram in the year 1958

Will appreciate informing the date of Thrisur Pooram in the year 1958.

Regards,

Ravi M.R.

Open G tuning

Open G tuning: where can i find the chords charts for chords in G when tuned to open G?

then chords for other popular keys played in open G tuned guitar?

(email removed to protect you from spam)

You might find what you are looking for in the article about Open G tuning. If you cannot find the answer there, click here to post your question at that article's talk page. If that doesn't solve your problem, you can try asking your question at Wikipedia's Reference Desk. They'll be glad to answer questions about anything in the universe (except about how to use Wikipedia, which is what this help desk is for). I hope this helps. --ais523 09:47, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

Religious and ethnic slurs on Wikipedia

I came on an article which has included a religious and ethnic slur. What is Wikipedia doing to stop such offensive material being passed off as the truth? As things stand, I see Wikipedia as providing a platform and credibility to racists, religious bigots etc? Until some kind of quality control is introduced, it would be better for Wikipedia to close down. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 212.60.234.246 (talk • contribs) Viridae^Talk 12:03, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

Because wikipedia is free an open to edit some peopel use that as an opportunity to vandalise. On the other hand, because we are not censored, we do have article that some people may find offensive. But rest assured we try and maintain the encyclopedia so that everything is referenced properly to reliable sources. Viridae^Talk 12:03, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

I think you meant to say we're not censored. - Mgm|^(talk) 12:25, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

thanks. Viridae^Talk 13:05, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

What article has the problem? It may violate one or more of Wikipedia's policies. Wikipedia's quality control system consists of editors such as you and me. If an article violates one or more of Wikipedia's policies, getting it fixed is generally straightforward. Also check the history and talk page for the article in question, to see if the material you find offensive is already disputed, or may be simple vandalism. --Teratornis 01:09, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

power saving

please let me know whether tube light choke consume how many watts electricity

It looks like you have a question for the Reference Desk. The Help Desk is here to help people learn how to use Wikipedia, not for information. Hersfold ^(talk|work) 14:44, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

if and pipe-characters

In general, one can use if to do something similar to what if-else does in programming-languages. However I have a small problem: The "then" text (ie the text I wish displayed if the expression is a non-zerolength string) contains pipe-characters (specifically: it is a row to be added to a table, in wikitext-format.

This causes trouble offcourse, since the parser uses pipes to separate then-text from else-text. Any advice ? --Eivind Kjørstad 12:21, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

• I had a similar problem when I tried to put an image caption in a collapsible box. At the time there wasn't a solution to the problem. - Mgm|^(talk) 12:24, 19 February 2007 (UTC)
  • In many cases, you can use {{!}} as a substitute for | or {{!-}} as a substitute for |-; they do the same thing in tables, but avoid using the | character. (Don't use them unless necessary, though, because they're less intuitive than the | and |- versions.) --ais523 12:54, 19 February 2007 (UTC)
    • I thougth that those created a th-cell as opposed to a td-cell ? (which is the same in most user-agents, modulu default alignment being centered, which can be compensated...) Migth be worth a try. Or I can use xhtml-tables offcourse. --Eivind Kjørstad 13:03, 19 February 2007 (UTC)
      • ! creates a th-cell, {{!}} (with the braces) creates a td-cell. --ais523 13:04, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

petty users

What can be done about petty users who blow up out of all proportions minor gramatical edits into full blown personal atacks, ridicule the users prior edits and try to instigate edits wars over the subject?--Lucy-marie 13:31, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

• 1) Follow the WP:MOS when it comes to regional varieties of grammar and spelling in English. 2) Warn people about how civility is required. 3) Report them to the administrator's or community noticeboard if such actions persist. - Mgm|^(talk) 13:44, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

Read WP:EQ; follow its guidelines and ask others to do the same. Also be aware that there are many other wikis. Sometimes when Wikipedia editors irresolvably disagree, one or both factions may be happier editing on some other wiki(s) with editorial policies and institutional biases more to their liking. See for example Wikinfo. Wikipedia is merely the world's largest and most visible wiki, by no means the only one. It's one thing to battle over a specific wiki as a matter of informed choice, but I suspect in many cases the combatants are not yet aware of other wikis where they could concentrate on enjoying themselves. In real life, most people gravitate toward other people who reinforce their various biases: religious, political, lifestyle, etc. A special kind of learned mental discipline is necessary to function in an environment like Wikipedia, where we encounter more diversity of opinion than any real-world community could probably tolerate (given that the real world has no "off" switch). Most people do not naturally maintain anything resembling a neutral point of view in everyday life, as the rampant sectarian violence around the world indicates. After all, NPOV requires an exceedingly unpopular trait: humility, as in honestly admitting to oneself that one is not omniscient, and therefore anything one cannot yet disprove might turn out to be true. (I cannot disprove the existence of leprechauns, therefore I should resist the urge to laugh at the possibility; I can, however, feel dismay toward people people who form strong beliefs without even realizing a need to start with conclusive evidence to support their beliefs.) It's easier to set up diverse wikis for diverse people than to homogenize everyone's manner of thinking. --Teratornis 20:40, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

Commons accounts and Unified login

I recently created a Commons account (on the 1st January 2007), and I have plans to upload some pictures I took recently. I was told I should create an account with the same name as my en-Wikipedia account, but when I tried, was told that the name was already taken. I eventually created commons:User:Carcharoth (Commons). I have three questions: (1) Was there another way to do this and successfully create an account with the same name? (2) Will these accounts be merged when single-log-in arrives (I've read the SUL pages and I don't really understand what they are saying)? (3) Should I just upload the pictures and not worry about having the separate accounts, or should I wait and unify the accounts first? Carcharoth 14:04, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

According to the current plans for SUL (m:SUL), if you have two accounts with different names but the same email address (make sure you set the same address on each account, if you haven't already!), you can merge them manually during the migration (you can log in to each account and link them together then). If you have more edits than commons:User:Carcharoth (which seems likely, as that user has 22 edits at the moment), you will be able to usurp their Commons account then, and they will be able to, and have to, choose a different username. For the time being, feel free to use your Commons account with a slightly different name to your :w:en account; you may find it useful to link the accounts together in people's minds by writing 'my :w:en account is w:en:User:Carcharoth' or the like on your Commons userpage. I think that answers questions 2 and 3; as for question 1, the answer is no, because someone else took and used that name first on Commons (your :w:en account is older than the commons:Carcharoth account, as it happens, but the Wikimedia wikis are independent at the moment as far as username priority goes.) Hope that helps! --ais523 15:16, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

Thanks. I have already set the same e-mail address. What happens if there is an account with the same name on another language Wikipedia, run by a different person, that has thousands of edits, and tries to usurp the Commons username? I surveyed the top 12 Wikipedias (by number of articles) and a few other languages where Tolkien is popular, and I found one example of someone chosing the same name: Utilisateur:Carcharoth (they have less than 200 edits; the account was created in June last year and has been editing in recent months). What happens in cases like this? How would I edit the French Wikipedia under SUL and how would they edit the English Wikipedia under SUL? Carcharoth 15:54, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

As you have more edits, you would become fr:Utilisateur:Carcharoth, and they would have to pick a different name (which they would then use on both fr and en). The exact details of what would happen in this situation haven't been worked out yet, I don't think. --ais523 16:28, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

The single-user login conflict search says there are accounts with that name only on commons, en, and fr. --cesarb 01:58, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

Images from other language Wikipedias

Is it possible to use images from another language Wikipedia in the English Language Wikipedia? One Example: fr:Image:La Poste 2006.jpg--Natl1 (Talk Page) (Contribs) 15:08, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

No. You can use images from Wikimedia Commons or from this Wikipedia itself on this Wikipedia, but not ones from foreign languages. To some extent, this is a copyright issue. The image you've linked to is not a free use image, but a fair use image; this means that to use it here, you would have to download it from :w:fr (the French Wikipedia) and upload it here, on :w:en; you would also have to show that it met the fair use criteria here, because copyright rules are slightly different between the different language Wikipedias. (In particular, you would need to use it in an article here, because the English Wikipedia fair use criteria require that the image is used in an article, and that a fair use rationale is provided with respect to that article.) If you find a free use image in another language Wikipedia that you want to use here, why not upload it to Commons, or ask its uploader to? (Commons only accepts free use images, as its images have to comply with the copyright rules of all the different language Wikipedias at once). Hope that helps! --ais523 15:21, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

Thank You! That answers my question.--Natl1 (Talk Page) (Contribs) 15:45, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

Question about #ifeq

I'm working on a conditional template for the first time (mostly copy/pasting together other peoples work as I learn). I'm trying to insert an #ifeq condition into a table to define the cell colour, and somewhere it seems to be blowing up. If I manually put either of the colours in there, everything seems to work, but when I make it a condition it blows up. You can see my work at User:Maelwys\afc top for the template, and User:Maelwys\afc test for a page using it both ways (with and without the proper variable, so see the two results). If you could take a few minutes to look at it, I'd really appreciate it. I'm probably just making a simple mistake, but can't find enough documentation on the #ifeq condition or how it interacts with other formatting to figure it out myself. Thanks for any help/advice you can offer! --Maelwys 15:50, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

The problem seems to be that the | in the #ifeq (or any other template) is interpreted as a table-cell separator. See below, for instance (show1 is a template that just returns its first argument):

style="background-color:#FF0000"

style="background-color: FF0000;" | style="background-color:{{show1|#FF0000}}"

You seem to have discovered a bug in the software. You might want to report this at mediazilla:, the MediaWiki bug tracker. For the time being, you might want to see if it can be done a different way. I hope that helps! --ais523 16:26, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

Ais523:Yes, that is a bug, but {{!}} exists as a workaround.--Werdan7^{T @} 16:43, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

No, you're thinking of the bug with generating table markup from templates (i.e. table markup is interpreted as template markup); this is a bug where template markup is interpreted as table markup. --ais523 16:51, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

Maelwys: Changing

style="background-color: {{#ifeq:{{{1}}}|accept|#A0FFA0|#F2DFCE}};"

to

{{#ifeq:{{{1}}}|accept|style="background-color:#A0FFA0"|style="background-color:#F2DFCE"}}

makes it work.--Werdan7^{T @} 16:43, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

Unfortunately, it doesn't quite. That makes it not display the incorrect thing, but it still seems to be completely ignoring the ifeq and background-color tags. With the change you inserted above, the initial (compressed) view always shows as blue. But according to the criteria of the ifeq tag, it should be either green (if true) or red (if false), and never blue. So I guess maybe this is indeed just a software bug? --Maelwys 19:17, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia Offline

Hi there,

I am interested in having an offline version of Wikipedia. I am aware, that this is an online collaborative product, but due to circumstances I would like to have an offline version. We are running a charity program in Africa, where internet connection is not possible (only by expensive satellite), but wiki could provide a massive source of free information to local learning programs.

Please let me know if this offline version is a possibility, what are the restrictions, whom do we need to contact.

Kind Regards, Roland Bartl

Wikipedia produces database dumps which contain all the information in Wikipedia, so you might want to start from there. They aren't in a particularly useful format for offline use without further processing, however. As for restrictions, Wikipedia is licenced under the GFDL; you can read the full legal details at Wikipedia:Text of the GNU Free Documentation Licence. --ais523 17:16, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

See also Wikipedia:Forking FAQ, Wikipedia:Wikipedia-CD/Download. --Teratornis 19:58, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

DELETE an uploaded image

How do I delete an uploaded image? I uploaded it but it was the wrong image. Please tell me how to delete it?

Tag with {{db-author}} and an admin should come along and delete it. Hope that helps. Trebor 17:16, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

How to add an archive to what is displayed by the {{Archives}} template

I archived the talk page of an article, to find that the template used is {{Archives}}. The archive I created isn't listed in the generated Archives box. Rather than default to using {{Archive box}}, which is the only one I know how to use, can someone tell me how to get the new archive listed in the archive box generated by the "Archives" template? Thanks! Joie de Vivre 17:21, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

Click edit at the top right of the box itself, and add the archive there. Trebor 17:25, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

Thanks, Trebor! Joie de Vivre 17:28, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

"fonting" all my name

How do I get all of my name to be the light blue that the last characters of my name are without putting fonts in every link. Because lately thats what I've been having to do.

'''[[User:Darkest Hour|Dark]][[User talk:Darkest Hour|est]] [[Special:Contributions/Darkest_Hour|Ho]]<span class="plainlinks" style="font-size: 100%;">[http://tools.wikimedia.de/~interiot/cgi-bin/Tool1/wannabe_kate?username=Darkest+Hour&site=en.wikipedia.org ur]</span>'''

Is what I have now.

'''<font color="blue">[[User:Darkest Hour|Dark]][[User talk:Darkest Hour|est]]</font> [[Special:Contributions/Darkest_Hour|Ho]]<span class="plainlinks" style="font-size: 100%;">[http://tools.wikimedia.de/~interiot/cgi-bin/Tool1/wannabe_kate?username=Darkest+Hour&site=en.wikipedia.org ur]</span>'''

See? Try this it does not work. please help before I have no linking name. --User:Darkest Hour/name 17:41, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

There's one thing that you must do first. You have the text {{User:Darkest Hour/name}} in your raw sig, right? Please change that to {{subst:User:Darkest Hour/name}}. Thanks! As for font colors, you can't do that to the whole link, you have to do it to the piped display text. For example, <font color="red">[[O RLY?|Hello]]</font> will display as Hello, but [[O RLY?|<font color="red">Hello</font>]] will display as Hello. Finally, you could also use <span style="color:red;">red</span>, which displays as red. CSS is better than the font tag, but I use the font tag in my signature for brevity. Gracenotes^T § 18:05, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

• Funny. It automatically makes it a subst in my pref. Any way I made my user name an external link and it works just the same. Thanks,--Darkest Hour 18:17, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

subject

How do I shot web?

Can you be more specific as to what your asking.Cheers — WilsBadKarma ^(Talk) 18:08, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

To shot web, choose Spidey and put your middle finger in your palm and your wrist back. It's a 4chan thing. ;) -Wooty Woot? contribs 20:13, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

Changing the title of an article.

Is it possible to chang the title of an article once the page has been created?

I created a page a whil ago but need to alter its title with a extended version of the album name. i hope this makes sence. thank you.

See Wikipedia:How to rename (move) a page. ColourBurst 18:02, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

Thank you i've sorted it.

Citing Question

I have tonnes of information that would be of use to wikipedia, but it is in a magazine, and I have been unable to find anywhere on the internet that has the same information, so how would i cite this?? Mattyatty 18:03, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

You can use the template {{Citation}} to cite a magizine. You can also check out Wikipedia:Citation templates for a full list of template that can be used to cite references.Cheers — WilsBadKarma ^(Talk) 18:06, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the help Mattyatty 18:10, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

To be absolutely clear to other readers, it is not necessary for things to be on the internet for them to be references on Wikipedia. Skittle 19:55, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

citation

How do I cite a page from wikipedia?

See WP:CITE. --Darkest Hour 18:18, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

The phrasing of the question is slightly unclear, so I'll add that if you want to cite Wikipedia itself, click on "cite this article" in the toolbox at the left of the screen. Trebor 18:40, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

Top & bottom

How do I get an arrow, when clicked on, to take me to the bottom or top of a page?

<div style="float:right; position:absolute; z-index:100; right:5px; top:5px;">
{| style="background:transparent"
| <imagemap>Image:1uparrow.png|16x16px|Top
rect 0 0 50 50 [[top]]
desc none</imagemap>
|}</div>

<div style="float:right; position:absolute; z-index:100; right:5px; top:500px;">
{| style="background:transparent"
| <imagemap>Image:1downarrow.png|16x16px|Bottom
rect 0 0 50 50 [[bottom]]
desc none</imagemap>
|}</div>

--Darkest Hour 18:37, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

You want anchors, I think. See here for a working example. No luck trying to incorporate that with your code above, though—sorry. Looks like the page will "reload" when clicking on your image arrows, probably due to them being part of an imagemap. —Xhantar^Talk 23:32, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

Regarding new pages

While patrolling recent changes, I have noticed that many of the authors of new articles are the actual subject of the article - is this enough criteria for speedy deletion, especially if they are not very notable? Some examples include Walter A. Perez and Patrick R. Westerkamp - just check the page history. Thank you for your assistance! --Nevhood 18:53, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

No, being written by the author is not a criteria for speedy deletion. However, criterion A7 ([[Wp:csd#Articles|here) is for articles on "unremarkable people, groups, companies and web content...that does not assert the importance or significance of its subject" - some might fall under that. Trebor 19:21, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

Remind them of WP:COI, WP:N, and WP:V. WP:AFD is a good place to list suspect pages about which you're not sure. Xiner (talk, email) 01:21, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

creating sub articles

how do you do it?

Nosredna 19:54, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

Do you mean like how History of Wikipedia is kind of like a sub article of Wikipedia? --WikiSlasher 07:16, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

What do I do if I fand an entry where someone was goofing around?

What do I do if I fand an entry where someone was goofing around?

If you find a vandalized article, the proper thing to do is to edit that article to remove the vandailsm, going into the history (by clicking the History tab at the top) if necessary. As to creating sub articles, do you mean subpages or subsections? Veinor ^{(talk to me)} 21:38, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

Help Needed on Photo Upload Policy

I have a great photo for the Archie Green article I started, and the photographer is willing to grant a GNU Free Documetation License -- but the suggested text for the license refers to having a digitized version available on a web site, and this is a film photograph which he has digitized, but not placed anywhere on the internet. Can we simply substitute language to this effect in his permission statement? Also, I need to be clear on the practical steps to get the image from its upload point to the author infobox I'm developing in my sandbox. Expert assistance please! Dwalls 20:31, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

Since I haven't gotten an answer yet, perhaps I wasn't clear. I'm referring to the following text suggested for permission:

I own the copyright to the image mentioned in your email letter and found at http://www.<URL OF SOURCE> I grant permission to copy, distribute and/or modify this document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2 or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; with no Invariant Sections, no Front-Cover Texts, no Back-Cover Texts, and subject to disclaimers found at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Text_of_the_GFDL

Can we substitute some language for: http://www.<URL OF SOURCE> in the first sentence that would refer to film photo? Am I being clear? Dwalls 21:42, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

Dwalls - there is a completely separate page for questions like yours - Wikipedia:Media copyright questions. And here are some pages that might provide some answers:

• Wikipedia:Picture tutorial
• Wikipedia:Image use policy
• Wikipedia:Uploading images

I hope this helps. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 03:45, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

Wikitext question

Greetings. Just a quick question that I can't seem to find a good anwer to. What would be the equivelant of this, in wikitext:

<a href="http://www.google.ca">[[Image:google.jpg|Google]]</a> —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 24.141.105.181 (talk • contribs).

None, as far as I know. Images on Wikipedia, if clickable (due to thumbnail resizing), link to themselves as enlarged versions. x42bn6 Talk 21:03, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

There is a way, but why do you want this? [[Image:]] pages are needed for copyright information, so they should be easily accessible.--Werdan7^{T @} 21:17, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, maybe I should have been more clear. This is for my own wiki, not Wikipedia. I would greatly appreciate it if you could tell me how, Werdan7.

There are two ways. First, on Wikipedia, the {{click}} template has always been used. It involves a somewhat ugly CSS hack, but definitely works. Then there's the move versatile imagemap extension. You can see it working at {{NYC imagemap}} (currently in-progress), although because it's an extension, you need root access to put it in a folder called "ImageMap" in the the extensions folder. See mw:Extension:ImageMap. Gracenotes^T § 01:35, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

Hello

Are there templates for warning IP addresses for vandalism? --Nevhood 21:21, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

The {{uw-}} templates can be used for IP addresses and registered users. For example, {{uw-vandalism1}}. x42bn6 Talk 21:28, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

You can find all the templates for this purpose here: WP:UTM Hersfold ^(talk|work) 22:17, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

How can I make my own "wiki" page?

I've seen other people make wiki pages of their own. How exactly can you do that?

-A curious person.

To create a userpage, you have to register (use the link at the top right). Once you've registered and logged in, you'll see a small person and your username in red text at the top right. Click it, and you can create a page. ST47Talk 21:58, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

"Wiki pages of their own" might also mean "their own wikis" (as opposed to their own user pages on a given wiki). For a useful review of some options for starting one's own wiki, see b:Wiki Science/How to start a Wiki, although be aware that this is considerably more advanced than merely editing a user page on an existing wiki. Since most people have some sort of persistent information to share with some group of people, perhaps in the relatively near future wiki editing will become as common as e-mail editing is today. It wasn't long ago that I was one of the few people I knew in real life who used e-mail; wikis today are at a similarly early stage of possible mass adoption. Wikis fill a large gap between e-mail and instant messaging programs (convenient and targeted for disposable information, but not so good for information that has persistent value, which people need to reference at random times in the future) and formal documents (usually too expensive for small audiences, but very good for reference when professionally made) that hasn't been well served by other tools. --Teratornis 02:20, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

Vandalisim

look i added another nickname to the john o shea pae and it was deleted and i was told it was vandalisim how do i make this stop —The preceding unsigned comment was added by -the-muffin-man- (talk • contribs).

A quick glance at a Google search for your nickname that you added gives us a whopping 1 hit. Since it could also be in bad faith, I suggest you find a source that states this seriously before adding it. Either way, I have never heard of <Xiner: what you wrote>. x42bn6 Talk 23:25, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

February 20

Templates

How do you make the {{CURRENTDAY}} tag in a template so that it doesn't change after it is used, but rather is the day of when the template is applied to the page?

Thanks in advance,

--Falconus|Talk 01:26, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

Use {{subst:CURRENTDAY}}. Prodego ^talk 01:30, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

I tried that, but it all it did was put "20" (today's day), replacing the {{subst:CURRENTDAY}}.--Falconus|Talk 01:34, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

That's intended. In that case, you'll want substitution to occur only when the template is transcluded. There is an HTML-like tag made specifically for that: <includeonly>. So instead of having the text be {{subst:CURRENTDAY}} in the template, put {{<includeonly>subst</includeonly>:CURRENTDAY}}. There's only one catch, though: the template that has this text in it must ALWAYS be substituted, not transcluded, or else an extremely ugly mess will occur. Gracenotes^T § 01:42, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

This is what the final output looks like: Message posted on {{subst:CURRENTDAYNAME}}, {{subst:CURRENTMONTHNAME}}, {{subst:CURRENTDAY}}, {{subst:CURRENTYEAR}} :-( Here's a link to my project.--Falconus|Talk 01:49, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

Oof. I made a typo! Instead of "{{<includeonly>subst</includeonly>CURRENTDAYNAME}}", try "{{<includeonly>subst:</includeonly>CURRENTDAYNAME}}". Note the difference in colon position. And feel free to borrow elements from {{mwarn}} if you need to, which I created and previously used. Gracenotes^T § 02:01, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

Thanks greatly! It works now. Hopefully this will help me go more quickly with my patrols...--Falconus|Talk 02:29, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

searching by wikipedia article editor's name?

I know how to click the history tab to see who edited article X, but how can I search to see all the articles which a particular editor has contributed to?

Thanks! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.203.36.60 (talk • contribs)

Just click on the "User contributions" link on the left of the page when you're at a user's user or talk page. Xiner (talk, email) 01:33, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

A few questions about AfD policy

Hi, could someone please answer these three questions:

1. May non-admins close AfDs?
2. Is it policy (or just a guideline) that admins who participate in an AfD shouldn't close it?
3. What is the effect of conducting a pagemove during an AfD? Is it discouraged (even if there is consensus support)? Would any technical problems arise (e.g., renaming [[Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/PageName]])?

Thanks, Black Falcon 01:42, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

1. Certainly, as long as the consensus is clearly "Keep", or any other action that involves keeping (for example, "Cleanup"). See Wikipedia:Deletion process#Articles for Deletion page for information on how to do this. In general, don't close something as delete and then ask for an admin to do it. But keep closes are fine.
2. It is strongly discouraged for admins to close discussions they've participated in; same with non-admins, I assume. See Wikipedia:Deletion guidelines for administrators#Deciding whether to delete
3. No technical problems would arise. If you want to move the page to attempt a WP:HEY, then that would be fine if uncontroversial. Moving a page to conform with WP:NC, or to fix a spelling error, should also be fine. The AfD page shouldn't need to be renamed, I don't think, although someone else could back me up on this, perhaps.

If you have any more questions, don't hesitate to ask. Gracenotes^T § 01:53, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

• Thank you very much for your detailed and informative responses. Cheers, Black Falcon 02:01, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

Page Title Capitalization

What is the policy about capitalizing a hyphenated phrase in a page title? I couldn't find any reference in the Manual of Style or the like. The phrase I'm wondering about is "Cross-country". My instinct was not to capitalize the 2nd word but i wanted to check. Thanks Goodnightmush 01:43, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

It really depends on the context. If it's the name of something else, try to keep it as accurate as you can; otherwise, keep everything lowercase that you can. But I don't know, so Wikipedia:Naming conventions (capitalization) should provide all the help you need. Gracenotes^T § 02:19, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

Gare Centrale (Montreal)

Aldershot (GO station) & Fallowfield railway stationare quite irrelevant, but I can't find where they are embedded in the table (box) so I can't remove them. Peter Horn 20:55, 5 February 2007 (UTC) Peter Horn 20:57, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

I'm not sure what you are asking. Can you specify exactly which line of the box you are trying to remove? --`/aksha 01:29, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

I'm talking about the phrases "toward Aldershot" and "toward Fallowfield", two phrases that do only appear in the finished version and that are meaningless & irrelevant. "Dorval" is OK. Peter Horn 02:06, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

"toward Aldershot (GO station)" & "toward Fallowfield railway station". Within this context this info is erroneous. How does one get rid of those out of "Dorval????? Peter Horn 01:40, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

It appears as though whoever made these templates thought that railroads will stay where they are for all of eternity :) Check out this page for how far this kingdom extends! I'm looking into it... ack... Gracenotes^T § 01:59, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

It seems like User:Mackensen created these templates. Really an awesome (if not magnificently terrifying) system. You could try asking him any questions. Gracenotes^T § 02:10, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

At this point, my lack of knowledge about these sorts of systems kicks in. I'm sure that Mackensen would know, though. Gracenotes^T § 02:17, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

discrimination in our small school district

do you know who I can get help from or what I can do as a parent to help my children against an administrator in a high school who has it in for them,and in order to get what he wants is putting one race against another and then turning a blind eye until these two races fight so he can kick them all out of school?

I personally would first complain to people higher up than him, and if that doesn't work, go to the media (newspaper, TV News, Internet News, etc.) See what other people have to say.--Falconus|Talk 02:31, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

Parents have been known to relocate to different school districts they like better. It's sometimes easier to move than to get other people to do what we want. Another option is private school. Some parents resort to home schooling. If you suspect the administrator is doing something actionable, consider hiring an attorney. But this is the Wikipedia Help Desk, where the only conflicts volunteers attempt to resolve are edit wars; perhaps someday your children and the administrator will write conflicting accounts of their experience on Wikipedia, and then we can get some traction. In the meantime, you might pose your question to the Reference desk where volunteers attempt to answer any question. --Teratornis 02:37, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

Portal

I want to make a portal I already read the instuctions but when it says I should " Create a new page using Portal:Topic as the title of the page " I know how to make a new page but when I put the name of the portal in the 'Type a title:" it says "The requested page title was invalid, empty, an incorrectly linked inter-language or inter-wiki title, or contained unsupported characters".Bewareofdog 02:09, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

What portal topic are you trying to create? (copied from WP:RD/M) V-Man737 02:34, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

Desktop Widget for Photo of the Day

Is there a desktop widget that will automatically post the daily feature photograph? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 202.155.82.2 (talk • contribs)

I rather doubt there is. You can ask at WP:VPT or on WP:IRC whether anyone's whipped up a script doing that, though. Xiner (talk, email) 14:04, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

Citation formatting

Is there any guideline about how references in the form Template:cite news or Template:cite web should be formatted--horizontally or vertically? I find the horizontal format to make editing harder and to increase the likelihood of accidentally deleting from/adding to a citation (e.g., the URL). Another user I've communicated with has indicated a preference for horizontal formatting because it requires less scrolling through an article. Does the MOS (or some other guideline) say anything about this? By the way, here's the section of text we were discussing in horizontal and vertical format (as it appears in the editing window).

• Horizontal

The suicide attack killed at least 135 people and injured 339 others.<ref name="Washington Times">{{cite news|title=Terror takes toll on market, vendors|url=http://www.washingtontimes.com/world/20070206-115808-3925r.htm|work=[[The Washington Times]]|date=[[2007-02-07]]|accessdate = 2007-02-07}}</ref> The bomb, estimated to be about one ton in weight, brought down at least 10 buildings and coffee shops and obliterated market stalls in a largely [[Shia Islam|Shi‘ite]] enclave less than a half mile from the [[Tigris River]].<ref name="NY Times">{{cite news|first=Richard A.|last=Oppel, Jr.|coauthors=Qais Mizher|title=Dozens Killed in Baghdad Bombing|url=http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/04/world/middleeast/04iraq.html?hp&ex=1170565200&en=59fcaa94aad23546&ei=5094&partner=homepage|work=[[The New York Times]]|date=[[2007-02-03]]|accessdate=2007-02-03}}</ref>

• Vertical

The suicide attack killed at least 135 people and injured 339 others.<ref name="Washington Times">{{cite news
 | title = Terror takes toll on market, vendors
 | url = http://www.washingtontimes.com/world/20070206-115808-3925r.htm
 | work = [[The Washington Times]]
 | date = [[2007-02-07]]
 | accessdate = 2007-02-07}}</ref>
The bomb, estimated to be about one ton in weight, brought down at least 10 buildings and coffee shops and obliterated market stalls in a largely [[Shia Islam|Shi‘ite]] enclave less than a half mile from the [[Tigris River]].<ref name="NY Times">{{cite news
 | first = Richard A.
 | last = Oppel, Jr.
 | coauthors = Qais Mizher
 | title = Dozens Killed in Baghdad Bombing
 | url = http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/04/world/middleeast/04iraq.html?hp&ex=1170565200&en=59fcaa94aad23546&ei=5094&partner=homepage
 | work = [[The New York Times]]
 | date = [[2007-02-03]]
 | accessdate = 2007-02-03
}}</ref>

I know this may sound like a minor technical issue (and it probably is), but there've been a number of times where I've found and/or made errors in sourcing when using the horizontal format. Thank you in advance for any comments, Black Falcon 04:51, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

• Comment. For some reason, I can't get it to show appropriately for the vertical formatting, so please view it in your edit window. -- Black Falcon 04:52, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

It's normal for text to do that. I changed the blockquote, nowiki text into "pre", an HTML tag that combines nowiki formatting, monospace font, and line breaks. If the source code of a document says mary had
a little

It would display as:

mary had a little

First, this is definitely a matter of preference. No one way is really suggested. Now, I personally prefer the horizontal format. It's a lot easier to edit with than vertical, and certain you can work with vertical and then turn it into horizontal. Now, you could set up a poll, but it wouldn't accomplish much. It's really just a matter of preference. (And someday I'll get around to make a subst-able {{cite news}}, if people like the idea.) Gracenotes^T § 05:04, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

Thanks again for your response and for the new text format--I can think of some possible uses for that on my user page. Cheers, Black Falcon 05:45, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

Signing out

For some reason, I keep getting signed in or out, depending on the page. I'll get signed out from going from one page to another, and then, without signing in, I'm signed in when I go to the next. Any ideas as to why this is happening? ShadowHalo 05:08, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

There's a discussion about this at Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)#Constantly being logged out, by the way. It happened to me, once, when I was looking at a diff page. No idea, though. Gracenotes^T § 05:11, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

The same thing has started happening to me today as well. I don't even leave the site - just going to and from certain pages has me apparently signed out and in again. No settings have been changed on my computer whatsoever. ComaDivine 07:57, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

• (reloading the page seems to work) ComaDivine 08:04, 20 February 2007 (UTC)
  • It sounds like a cache issue, but at the moment I have no idea whether it's your cache or one of Wikimedia's caches that's acting up. I have had situations where occasionally I get someone else's preferences (this clears up next time I access or reload a page), so presumably there are crossed wires in the caches somewhere on Wikimedia's end. --ais523 08:56, 20 February 2007 (UTC)
    • Actually, there's something about this on the developer's mailing list. It seems that there was recently a change which introduced a bug that does this; the bug has now been fixed, but there are buggy pages still left in the cache. The error should sort itself out over time now, so I'd suggest just refreshing when a page goes wrong. --ais523 08:58, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

Special Procedure for WikiProject deletion?

Is there a special procedure to speedy delete a wikiproject, or do you put a normal speedy delete tag on it? See, I've come across the page Wikipedia:WikiProject Ham Sandwiches And I'm pretty sure it should be deleted. The speedier the response, the speedier it is off Wikipedia! Thank you! Cream147 _{Shout at me for doing wrong} 09:19, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

You can only use G-class (general) speedy deletion criteria on Wikiprojects; see G-class speedy deletion criteria. If any apply, you can use its speedy tag (for instance, {{db-vand}}) to request its deletion as normal. If none of them apply, you can request the project's deletion by using the Miscellany for Deletion process, which works in a similar manner to Articles for Deletion. I hope that helps! --ais523 09:24, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

Or you can get a rouge admin to delete it for you. No need to waste time on process with this. Kusma (討論) 09:33, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

Yes, thank you (both of you). And this Idunnoreally guy is getting annoying. Cream147 _{Shout at me for doing wrong} 09:38, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

I blocked him as a troll account. Kusma (討論) 09:55, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

Category not to be found in wikitext

The article William Gaines has a category I want to change: Category:MAD Magazine to Category:MAD Magazine people. However, I can't find the first category in the wikitext. What should I do ? stefanomione 11.50, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

The category's added by the navbox {{madcontribs}}; it's probably best to use both categories in this case, but I'm not at all sure (some other navboxes I checked didn't use categories at all). --ais523 12:00, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

It's probably best to remove the category from Template:Madcontribs and to add it to the individual articles to allow for better sorting in the category. Or at least remove the {{PAGENAME}} in the template and use {{DEFAULTSORT}} in the articles. Kusma (討論) 12:01, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

Where exactly do I find the category in Template:Madcontribs ? Removing {{PAGENAME}} in the template doesn't work. stefanomione 12.20, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

It's right at the bottom, where it says [[Category:MAD Magazine]]. --ais523 12:31, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

Really, it doesn't work. The redundant category [[Category:MAD Magazine]] is still there. Are you sure its wikitext is added to the template ? Maybe you can remove the category [[Category:MAD Magazine]] and I'll learn a lot. stefanomione 19.20, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

How to rename (move) a page? "Move" tab missing.

I was following the steps outlined in the "Wikipedia:How to rename (move) a page" Help article, but with the correct page displayed, I found no "Move" tab near the top of the page. (the default skin is on and the Quickbar is enabled)

How can I have the "Move" tab appear, or otherwise rename a page (request renaming)?

thanks!

Which page do you want to move, and to what name? How long ago did you register as a user? Notinasnaid 13:13, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

Earthrotator, your account is less than 3 hours old. Renaming pages becomes available once your account is 4 days old; until then, you could place a request for a page to be renamed on Wikipedia:Requested moves or Wikipedia:Village pump (assistance). --ais523 13:17, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

Geocode Definition Replacement

I am trying to replace the basic defintion of geocode in the wiki. The page is: Geocode.

I am requesting that the basic definition of geocode be replaced with the following. <message edited for clarity, info being moved to Geocode page> I you need to contact me please do so at <email removed>. — Preceding unsigned comment added by GeoQwest (talk • contribs)

Be bold and add it yourself! That's the great thing about Wikipedia. Hersfold ^(talk|work) 16:45, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

Actually, this thing and WP:COI suggest that this may be the way to go for people involved with the subject of a Wikipedia article. I'll do it now. Xiner (talk, email) 16:56, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

Done. It'd be great if you could provide references for the info, too. Xiner (talk, email) 17:04, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

Linking question

I have a question about external links. On the Warriors (book series) page we had some problems with linking to fansites. I was going over Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not and found that we could link to one major fansite. But my main question is: Does the Harry Potter fandom article violate the external linking guideline under Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not?--Res2216firestar 17:40, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

You're misreading WP:NOT if you think it says that one fansite is acceptable but two or more are not. It depends. If an article is about a fansite (rare), then it's okay to link to that fansite, just as if an article is about a well-known blogger, it's okay to link to his/her blog. The more relevant policy is WP:EL.

To answer your question - yes, in the article about fans of Harry Potter books, it's certainly appropriate to link to multiple fansites (in this case, to those that - reportedly - have won awards). Note that links to tens or hundreds of fansites would make the page into a directory of sorts, which isn't acceptable. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 02:35, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

If John is right, then what is the action we should take?--Res2216firestar 22:26, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

Help finding similar template to {{la}}

I'd like to have a template similar to {{la}} that contains the same information but in an abbreviated format. So instead of: Wikipedia (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views), I'd like to have something like Wikipedia (e|t|h|li|w|lo). Anybody know if such a template exists?↔NMajdan•talk•EditorReview 17:52, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

{{la}} uses {{Lx}}, whose code should be easy to modify to read as you wish. Xiner (talk, email) 18:15, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

Got it, thank you. I decided not to create a separate template so instead I just created it as a subpage on a WikiProject. If you feel I should create a template, I can do that as well. The only bad thing is it is broken when you view Wikipedia:WikiProject University of Oklahoma/Articles but it looks fine when you view the main project page. I know this is because I am using {{/OUarticle}} but I guess I'll just live with it for now.↔NMajdan•talk•EditorReview 18:49, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

Cite?

How do you cite wikipedia as a source?

In the 'toolbox' to the left of each article, there's a link saying 'cite this article', which should give you the information you need. Be warned, though; many educational institutions won't accept Wikipedia as a valid source to cite; you may be better off looking at the sources for the article you want to cite and using those instead. See Wikipedia:Citing Wikipedia for more information. --ais523 18:52, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

some one stop this!

I CANNOT & WILL NOT STAND FOR NO MORE DISRESPECT FROM NO EDITORS! I HAVE HAD IT WITH USER: wooty! I WAS JUST SLECTED FOR A SPEEDY REMOVAL FOR NO REASON! MY PAGE WAS JUST REMOVED! NOW THIS AS..THING WANTS ME GONE! IF SOMEONE DOESENT TELL ME WHAT I AM DOING WRONG...I..I DONT KNOW WHAT IN THE NEKO I AM GOING TO DO! PLEASE TALK TO THIS THING PLEASE!--Lolicon(Anti Child Porn)Saikano 19:00, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

Can you please be more specific in your question? Is this regarding an article/another user/etc?↔NMajdan•talk•EditorReview 19:21, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

He's referring to the fact that Wooty recently had his Userpage deleted through MfD because it contained a lot of attacks and was being used as a soapbox. After it was deleted and replaced with a more friendly version, Saikano re-added some of the information to his userpage, prompting Wooty to flag it for speedy deletion, as a recreation of previously deleted material. To Saikano: This has nothing to do with deleting you as a user, or banning you, or anything like that. It's just regarding the information on your userpage. --Maelwys 19:50, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

Articles

How do you delete unwanted articles?

• Articles can only be deleted in accordance with the Wikipedia:Deletion policy. Depending on what you think is wrong with the article, you can submit it for speedy deletion, articles for discussion or WP:PROD. - Mgm|^(talk) 19:31, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

adding terms in the Glossary

Am I able to add a term to the glossary? if so how is that done?

• Adding a term to the Wikipedia:Glossary should only be done if it is in wide use by Wikipedians. If that's not what you mean, you may misunderstand what Wikipedia is about. Try reading Wikipedia:About and Wikipedia:Your first article. - Mgm|^(talk) 19:36, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

Bismarck State College

Hi, I am the webmaster at Bismarck State College.

I was asked by various depratment at our institution t0 edit the original Bismarck State College site http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bismarck_State_College because it contained biased and inaccurate info.

I asked the original author to removed the biased info. He did so.

I then added objective info about BSC.

The original author continues to tag the site indicating that it contains "errors" and does not follow policy.

This is not true. The site follows policy and is free of errors.

I have attempted to reason with the original author (MatthewUND) but he is intent upon acting as if he solely controls the page. Bottom line: he is seeking retribution simply because it was brought to his attention that he had interjected his own point of view into an article without provided any evidence.

As I said, I cannot reason with this individual so please resolve this issue as you see fit.

Thank you and, if need be, I can be reached at 1-800-445-5073.

Bjork53 19:27, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

• Editing an article in which you are involved is a conflict of interest. Be particularly thourough in citing your sources and make sure they're reliable. As long as controversial or negative content is sourced, please don't try to delete it. - Mgm|^(talk) 19:34, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

Please note also Wikipedia:Three Revert Rule. You are in breach of this, and can be blocked from editing if you continue this revert war. Notinasnaid 19:38, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

• Also, I have no problem having a {{cleanup}} tag on the article as it does still need some cleanup. Please try to limit external jumps and try to add citations.↔NMajdan•talk•EditorReview 19:42, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

Bjork feels that, since he is the webmaster for this college, he owns the article. I suggest he take a look at Wikipedia:Ownership of articles. I don't really have a problem with a paid employee of the college editing the article on their own time and while they are not editing in the capacity of being the school's webmaster. However, I do have a problem with that editor continually using his position at the college as the reason why he and he alone should be able to edit the article. I should mention that, although Bjork calls me the "original author" of the article, that isn't the case...any edits that I had previously done on the article were routine and minor. Any material that Bjork objected to was not added by me. Over on my talk page, Bjork just left me a message which included this sentence: "As a result I have registered a general and legal complaint with Wikipedia, and have asked other editors to contribute their complaints as well. You are attempting to subvert the Wikipedia's very "reason for being.". Bjork should know that leaving a message on the Wikipedia help desk page doesn't consitutute a "legal complaint". My original problem with Bjork was that, even though I repeatedly warned him against doing so, he routinely added copy-and-paste material taken verbatim from the school's website. Finally, he started changing a word here and there to make it "in his own words". I disagree that the text was adequately rephrased, but I'm more than willing to move on from that. I thought that, since Bjork's edits to the articles still contained text virtually the same as that found at the college's website and that since the article now looks very poorly put together and clearly needs some work, I would put up a cleanup tag on it and try to work on it in the near future. I also left a message at WikiProject North Dakota requesting help cleaning up the article. Bjork has repeatedly removed the cleanup tag and filled in the edit summaries with misleading things like "editing to remove unnecessary and inappropriate commentary" and "Edit for insignificant text". I'm tired of trying to reason with Bjork, so I'm going to simply leave the college's article alone for the time being. It's unfortunate that a paid employee of an institution would try to bully others into accepting him as the only legitimate editor of that institution's article. --MatthewUND^(talk) 21:55, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

Cleaned up, taking all of 30 seconds. Instead of editwarring over a cleanup tag, why not just fix the damn article? -Wooty Woot? contribs

Thanks for cleaning up the article, Wooty. I would have done the cleanup myself, but I can guarantee that any changes I made to the article would have been quickly reverted by Bjork. I hope he is satisfied with the article now and doesn't feel the need to fill it up with misplaced/redundant external links and material ripped from the school's website. I would appreciate it if you could keep this page on your watchlist for a while. --MatthewUND^(talk) 00:35, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

Bismarck State College Followup

Hi again, this is the webmaster from Bismarck State College<email removed>

I have checked other sites that MatthewUND has written to, and have discovered that he has responded in a similar manner to others who choose to edit his submissions.

You may want to look thru some of MatthewUND's submissions (Baker Boy, in particular). How he responds to other submitters replicates my own experience.

Clearly he is displaying a dictatorial approach to Wikipedia by misrepresenting your policies.

Bjork53 19:52, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

Could you indicate a specific occasion where you feel that Wikipedia's policies have been misrepresented, and which specific policy you feel is being misrepresented? Thank you. Notinasnaid 19:55, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

I should point out that the Baker Boy article was another example where a paid employee of a company tried to add material that was taken verbatim from the company's website. --MatthewUND^(talk) 21:59, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

"Wild Brain" versus "W!LDBRAIN" ;; which is the correct orthography

The official company name has (apparently) been changed from "WildBrain" to "W!LDBRAIN." Is it appropriate to use the latter form in the WP article Wild Brain? dr.ef.tymac 20:18, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

From WP:MOS-TM: Avoid using special characters that are not pronounced, are included purely for decoration, or simply substitute for English words (e.g. ♥ used for "love"). In the article about a trademark, it is acceptable to use decorative characters the first time the trademark appears, but thereafter, an alternative that follows the standard rules of punctuation should be used:

• avoid: Macy*s, [ yellow tail ]
• instead, use: Macy's, Yellow Tail

Which says to me ... probably not. But I'm not 100% convinced. *Mishatx*-In\Out 21:43, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

• The MOS page you cited is about trademarks, the article isn't. I'd go for the Wikipedia:Naming conventions. Use whatever is the correct name of the company. - Mgm|^(talk) 00:22, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

Persistent vandalism

I was just wondering where to report persistent vandalism by a certain IP address? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jedmiller (talk • contribs)

Please see WP:AIV. —Xhantar^Talk 20:38, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

Inmarsat

Wikipedia incorrectly redirects queries for "Inmarsat" to "International Mobile Satellite Organization". The article correctly describes Inmarsat but the IMSO is a different body entirely.

Some of the recent discussion on the page describes the issue correctly.

For reference see www.imso.org and www.inmarsat.com

If there's anything in particular you want fixed, let us know. You're more than welcome to edit the article yourself as well. This link: (clicky) should bring you to the Inmarsat page without redirecting you. Hersfold ^(talk|work) 23:25, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

Substituting (as opposed to transcluding) templates in a signature

The reasons given at Wikipedia:Sign_your_posts_on_talk_pages#Transclusion of templates for why one's signature should not include any transcluded templates make sense to me, but is this also the case for substituted templates? Specifically, a user wanted to know whether it is possible to change one's signature timestamp from UTC to EST, and I thought that something like the following (as a raw signature) might do the trick (when then signing with ~~~ instead of ~~~~:

—[[User:Username|Username]] {{subst:UTC|2}}

—Xhantar^Talk 22:58, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

Yup, that definitely works. For example, I have just changed my raw signature from {{subst:User:Gracenotes/sig}} (meaning that every time I sign, my signature is substituted from User:Gracenotes/sig) to {{subst:User:Gracenotes/sig}} {{subst:#time:H:i, j F Y|-5 hours}} (EST), and sign with ~~~, the result is

Gracenotes^T § 18:09, 20 February 2007 (EST)

However, four tildes will result in

Gracenotes^T § 18:09, 20 February 2007 (EST) 23:09, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

Not pretty. See m:PF for more information, specifically the time section. Gracenotes^T § 18:09, 20 February 2007 (EST)

Ah, using #time - even better! Thank you. —Xhantar^Talk 23:17, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

Why is the edit option missing from some pages/sections?

I have yet to try editing any pages on wiki, but I've been using it as reference for sometime. However, today was the first time I noticed that certain pages are lacking the edit options, such as:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/September_11%2C_2001_attacks#Conspiracy_theories

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/September_11%2C_2001_attacks

what's up? Are these articles uneditiable?

That page is semi-protected. *Mishatx*-In\Out 23:30, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

Some articles on Wikipedia are heavy candidates for vandalism, and steps have to be taken in order to ensure that they maintain useful, neutral content. I'm not surprised at all to see that the 9/11 article is one of them. Semi-protection means that the article cannot be edited by unregistered users, or by accounts less than four days old. Once you've registed and hit that mark, you will be able to edit the page. Other pages, such as the Main Page, are fully protected and may only be edited by sysops (Administrators). These pages are open not only to vandalism by IP addresses, but by actual members as well. Wikipedia tries to limit the number of pages with protection and only does so when absolutely necessary, but unfortunately it still happens more often than we like. Hersfold ^(talk|work) 23:50, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

February 21

Your continued donations keep Wikipedia running!

Can the "Your continued donations keep Wikipedia running! " be moved up onto the line under sign in/create account (-10px?) or over left to the middle (500px?), because it is covering up templates like the help contents back, the semiprotect templates and many others and its really irritating. Thank you, 00:07, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

I suggest asking at Wikipedia:Village pump (technical) - that's where the developers and technical folks hang out. (And please sign your questions by using four tildes, not five - if you sign with five, you leave only a date/time stamp, without a username.) -- John Broughton (♫♫) 02:26, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

I can confirm that this is a problem for logged-out users; there is no problemn for logged-in users. The problem is that people are using the same space for two different messages. For the time being, you could avoid the problem by creating an account, although I agree that a better solution will need to be found in the long term. --ais523 10:19, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

Biography on C. E. B. Cranfield

Hi,

I'm looking for information on C. E. B. Cranfield (Rev. Charles Ernest Burland Cranfield). You mention him on the biography page of John Warwick Montgomery, but I can't find a biography on E. E. B. Cranfield. All I can find on the internet is that he is supposed to be one of the best-known New Testament scholars in the world. Professor emeritus of theology at the University of Durham in England. I read that he served as an army chaplain in World War II, as a pastor to prisoners of war, and as a minister before teaching theology for thirty years (1950-1980).

I was wondering if you might have any information on him, or if I somehow missed his biography on wikimedia. I really like your website, too, because I have found much useful information on it.

Thank you! Niki

Please see Wikimedia note below.

I am afraid that the Wikimedia sites don't yet contain any other info on him. I searched quite thoroughly.

We're an organization that relies entirely on volunteer work, so when you find more info on him, future readers will appreciate if you add it to Wikipedia.

However, there is a page on the English Wikipedia where various volunteers try to answer specific research questions, called the Reference Desk <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Reference_desk>. Instructions for using the Reference Desk are on this page.

Though there is no guarantee that they can provide an answer, they are often able. Please be specific in your question so that others can better assist you! Sorry I couldn't be of more help; good luck in finding the answer to your question.

Yours sincerely, Ivan Masár

Note: the entire posting, above (the question by "Niki" and the response by "Ivan Masár") were posted in the same edit, which was done by User:24.128.248.113 at 00:09, 21 February 2007. This is the only posting by that IP address to Wikipedia. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 02:17, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

Talk page

How do i delete my old messages from MY TALK PAGE?

• You don't. See Wikipedia:How to archive a talk page. - Mgm|^(talk) 00:25, 21 February 2007 (UTC)
  • You're not required to archive old messages, but it's strongly encouraged. Archiving also gives you a chance to practice making subpages, something that is useful as you become more experienced. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 02:03, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

Akward Thing With Esperanza Page

Every time I go to Wikipedia:Esperanza, no matter how I get to it, I end up logged out. It doesn't bother me because it only happens there, and I don't feel compelled to edit that page anyway, but I was just wondering if that is a coincidence, or if the servers have been set up to do that automatically because full protection isn't enough. 声援 -- The Hybrid 00:53, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

It's the cabal. No, seriously, it's a cache issue, see Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)#Constantly being logged out. This link should purge the page. Gracenotes^T § 01:20, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

Technical question about editing/sizing an infobox

I recently used Template:Infobox performer for Brett Somers. The width of the box seems to be off. For example, it looks like "Birth name(s)" should fit on one line; it's just off by a few pixels. How do you edit an infobox template to adjust its size? Also, I'm not sure why this template offers "Date(s) of birth," in the plural (or Birth name(s), for that matter). How does you edit out the plural? Can you make such changes only on a use-by-use basis or can the template be permanently edited?--Vbd | (talk) 00:53, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

I would be inclined to keep "Date(s) of death" in the latent plural if Lazarus were a performer, but that's not the case :) You can remove the plural by merely changing the text of the template, as Xiner did (he beat me to it!) Check out Help:Table for more information about setting tables with CSS and such. If you want me or someone else to adjust the table width, ask away. Gracenotes^T § 01:13, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

Haha, Gracenotes, you did get one I wasn't sure about! Vbd, you found the template, all you had to do was press "edit this page", ignore the gibberish, and hone in on the "(s)"'s. Xiner (talk, email) 01:18, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

Intergrading Wikipedia into Internet Explorer

To:Help Desk

Intergrading Wikipedia into Internet Explorer

I find that I much prefer Wikipedia as my source in finding a word, subject, event or person while reading articles. While in Explorer If “View” on the toolbar is selected then “Explorer Toolbar” can be selected. At the bottom of that column is “Research Options”. Select that and you get a list of reference books and sites that are used when you select “Look Up” while reading an article. While the resources listed there are all fine they in no way compare to Wikipedia. Would you please advise me as to how to add Wikipedia there as a source of information that Explorer would look to. I have already spent several hours searching through Microsoft’s site to no avail. I have sent them Emails without getting any reply.

I would greatly appreciate this, Thank You for your time and effort in this matter.

Praeda — Preceding unsigned comment added by Praeda (talk • contribs)

Hello, Praeda. This page lists a few options available for Internet Explorer. Hope this helps! —Xhantar^Talk 01:22, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

Treatening remark

How do I handle IP that make treatening remark.

• 58.106.133.89 http://ms.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Malaysia&diff=next&oldid=217194 Yosri 01:54, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

The comment in the edit summary, ".IF I EVER SEE A MALAYSIAN OR INDONESIAN IN THE STREET, I WILL BASHED THEM UP AND STRANGLED THEM.", is not a personal threat. Just ignore it. (If 58.106.xxx posts something to your user talk page -- and I'll give you very good odds that this will not happen -- please ask here, again, regarding what to do.) -- John Broughton (♫♫) 02:01, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

That particular user decided to remove the final warning template I placed on his talk page earlier today - that should be enough grounds for a block. I'm reporting him to administration now. Hersfold ^(talk|work) 03:45, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

how to make articles???

how can i make an article on wikipedia?? 69.168.138.250 01:59, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

welcomed user on his/her talk page Xiner (talk, email) 02:48, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

My Sig

Why is

[[User:Redskunk|<font color="red">Red</font><font color="black">Skunk</font>]][[User talk:Redskunk|^{<font color="black">talk}</font>]]

not valid HTML? It works when put in the sandbox. RedSkunk 02:43, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

Did you check the "Raw Signature" box in your prefs? Xiner (talk, email) 02:46, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

Yeah. RedSkunk 03:17, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

Closing the font before closing the sup (around "talk") may help. If not, try putting the font outside the link. -- Rick Block (talk) 03:26, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

I think the font thing is the problem. You may have to settle on one color per link as a result. Xiner (talk, email) 03:34, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

[[User:Redskunk|<font color="red">Red</font>]][[User:Redskunk|<font color="black">Skunk</font>]][[User talk:Redskunk|^{<font color="black">talk}</font>]] Try that. It should separate the link, but allow the link to work with the colors. Hersfold ^(talk|work) 03:42, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

eXremeDB

I thought I'd prepared sufficiently to create a new page -- fooled around with the text in the Sandbox for a couple days, looked at the formatting of similar pages.

So I went ahead and created the page -- and now I'm concerned I've gotten in over my head.

You see, the article is about a software product called eXtremeDB -- and like so many pieces of technology, its spelling is 'funny' -- with the first letter lowercase, the second letter and the final two letters uppercase, and the first letter -- "e" -- as well as the "treme" -- in italics.

I did not research how to accomplish this formatting in the article title. What I've managed to establish, in my attempts to give it the proper name, is an article titled Extremedb, which then redirects to the page EXtremeDB.

Does this redirect eventually "melt away", with the only "surviving" page name being EXtremeDB?

I see now that I have to learn to use a special template in order to permit an article title that begins with a lower case letter. Several templates are described at

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Redirects_from_other_capitalisations

Am I correct in understanding that I'll have to use one of these templates in order to establish an article whose title begins with a lower-case letter (I know there must be a way -- I see that iPod has gotten it done).

Do I need to wait a period, until the existing redirect "goes away", before I try this template-based redirect?

Is there any way to italicise some (but not all) of the letters in a title word?

Ted_nwTed nw 04:28, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

You likely want the redirect (this lets people enter "extremedb" in the search box and get to the article by clicking the "go" button). To make the title look correct, add {{lowercase}} as the first line of the article. -- Rick Block (talk) 04:51, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

...and you can't include italics in the actual title (can't is probably too strong, but you really don't want to bother). -- Rick Block (talk) 04:56, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

WP:TWINKLE

I am currently using the latest version of Twinkle - my question is, how can I stop Twinkle from automatically adding every page I revert to my watchlist? --Nevhood 06:40, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

Oooh, didn't know that -- see WP:TWINKLE#Configuration. Try this:

TwinkleConfig = {
        revertMaxRevisions              :       50,
        userTalkPageMode                :       'window',
        showSharedIPNotice              :       true,
        openTalkPage                    :       [ 'agf', 'norm', 'vand' ],
        openTalkPageOnAutoRevert        :       false,
        openAOLAnonTalkPage             :       false,
        summaryAd                       :       " [[WP:TWINKLE|]]",
        deletionSummaryAd               :       " [[WP:TWINKLE|]]",
        watchSpeedyPages                :       [ 'g3', 'g5', 'g10', 'g11', 'g12' ],
        watchRevertedPages              :       [ 'agf', 'norm', 'vand', 'torev' ], //<--- this line is what you want to change
        markRevertedPagesAsMinor        :       [ 'agf', 'norm', 'vand', 'torev' ],
        deleteTalkPageOnDelete          :       false,
        markWarningsAsMinor             :       true,
        markAIVReportAsMinor            :       true
};

You could try giving it an empty array (or []) and see if that does the trick. I don't know quite enough JS to say for sure, unfortunately. If you have trouble, let me know, and I'll give it a test run on one of my socks. – Luna Santin (talk) 06:58, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

I tried it and it didn't work... What should I do? --Nevhood 07:07, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

Oops, never mind... it did the trick, thank you for your help! I just didn't bypass my browser's cache after I put the empty array in the configuration. --Nevhood 07:10, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

hello! my question: which types of disambiguation pages are supposed to be linked? for instance, Cheney is linked, but 300_(disambiguation) is not supposed to be, according to the edit.

Some anon users on Wikipedia have been determined to be a particular school. How does one determine this information exactly? I understand that you might find out which city in which country, but how do you narrow it down to a particular school?

IP Address Determination > Schools

Some anon users on Wikipedia have been determined to be a particular school. How does one determine this information exactly? I understand that you might find out which city in which country, but how do you narrow it down to a particular school? --Seans Potato Business 07:40, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

Regional Internet Registry information. There's several available services that have that information, and which will locate an IP address back to its owner (or at least, its ISP). Titoxd^(?!?) 07:42, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

If you go to an IP's talk page with messages on (it doesn't work if the talk page is a redlink) and click on WHOIS at the bottom of the page, it will tell you information about the IP. Sometimes it can be traced down to an individual school, city, or organisation, sometimes you don't get any more information than which contintent the IP's located on. --ais523 10:21, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

British

What exactly is the problem that Wikipedia has with the word "British" ?.

There is no independent country called England, Scotland or Wales. There is one country called the United Kingdom and the citizens are called "British".

Self appointed Wikipedia geeks are going around replacing "British" with "English", "Scottish" or "Welsh".

Who gave Wikipedia the right to break up the United Kingdom ?

Does Wikipedia think it is more important and competant than 60 million British people ?

If Wikipedia feels it can break up the United Kingdom then the United States should also be broken up so that people are defined as Californians, Texans, etc - and not as Americans.

What is going on ?Tovojolo 11:16, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

For a start, in the sentance "Does Wikipedia think it is more important and competant than 60 million British people?"; you are assuming all UK nationals regard themselves are British. This is wrong (a recent poll showed only 21% of people from England labelled themselves British). The comparison with America is very misguided and ignorant, California and Texas do not have long histories as independant countries; England and Scotland were countries for hundreds if not thousands of years before parliamentary unification in 1707; and they remain today nations with their own culture, sports team, flags and so on. --Berks105 11:49, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

British refers to the people of Great Britain, which consists of England, Scotland, Wales and the islands like Isle of Wight. I don't have a problem with classifying people from Great Britain as British even though polls say that some do not classify themselves as British. This isn't important - if person A was born in Italy but raised in Germany, he/she may consider himself/herself German but that doesn't matter - that person is still Italian (assuming nationality is still held).

By saying that it isn't allowed, you are implicitly saying that the people are not British. If they aren't British (not "If they don't consider themselves British"), then be bold and change the infobox. If they are, then leave it there. x42bn6 Talk 13:13, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

I'd like to add a follow-on question, because I regularly see articles being changed back and forth between English and British (or similar changes). It seems to be there is unlikely to be a consensus, and having edit wars over this cannot be productive. It's rather similar to spelling differences: we try to avoid edit wars over "color" versus "colour", and have guidelines specifically to help avoid that. Is there any guideline in existence that is relevant to this point? Without one, I tend to take the view that changing an article (in either direction) is simply making a point and I will sometimes reverse it on that principle, especially when I see editors doing it across a block of articles. Notinasnaid 13:30, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

Blocking

Is there anyway to block someone from leaving messages on my talk page ? --Tovojolo 11:25, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

Again your attitude here is quite amazing. The idea of a talk page is too discuss problems. All you do is delete the messages and ignore the situation. Why not reply at my TalkPage with your point. By ignoring the problem we get no where. Wikipedia is not your personal encyclopedia and we have to discuss things we disagree on. --Berks105 11:49, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia is not your personal encycolpedia either. I happen to be British and proud of being British--Tovojolo 11:57, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

Indeed, its not mine which one reason I tried to have a conversation with you. I am also going by general consensus on the British issue. --Berks105 11:59, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

Please do not bring your personal conflict into this. While removing comments is frowned upon (unless they are personal attacks, for example), it is not breaking any guidelines or policies. Other than that, it is possible for sysops to ban users from talk pages, it's not a procedure; rather, it's an explicit warning not to edit it.

Regarding your fairly obvious problem with Berks105, that is a content dispute or something and isn't a reason to (I assume) block him from your talk page. Why not discuss it at WP:BLP if you are unsure or have a dispute with a user? Take these comments as a pinch of salt and if it becomes heated, then take it to WP:AN/I or something. x42bn6 Talk 13:07, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

Let's do some clarification: often times it isn't possible to agree as to who is right or wrong regarding behavior; the best that can be hoped for is that both sides agree to follow Wikipedia rules such as WP:CIVIL and WP:NPA in their future postings. Wikipedia isn't a social group; editors who have had past differences should focus on improving the content of articles, not continuing to argue over past behavior.

In short, a back-and-forth on user talk pages about past behavior is generally pointless. Make your point (mention a policy, post a warning, whatever) and then get back to editing articles, please. Don't post again on someone else's user talk page unless they've done something new (and serious, not minor) that you object to, and not just an edit to an article that you disagree with (see next paragraph).

If you disagree about content, the place to discuss the disagreement is on the talk page of the article, not personal talk pages. That way, other editors (current and future) can see the discussion. Wikipedia:Resolving disputes lays out useful guidance and the process for resolving disputes; ideally, when both editors want to be constructive, matters can be resolved informally, particularly if other editors add their comments on the article's talk page.

And finally, no one "owns" their user talk page - no one can be "blocked" or "banned" from posting. On the other hand, repeatedly posting similar comments, excessive warnings, etc., on someone else's user talk page is harassment, and is also unacceptable. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 05:05, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

Watchlist

In a Watchlist, for instance :

1. (diff) (hist) . . Marilyn Monroe‎; 11:08 . . (-2) . . Downtownstar (Talk | contribs) (→Quotes - corr.)
2. (diff) (hist) . . Scarlett O'Hara‎; 11:02 . . (+49) . . 219.104.30.124 (Talk)

what do the numbers (-2) and (+49) mean ? and what do they represent ?--Tovojolo 12:11, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

(+49) refers to the number of bytes by which an edit changed the article. Negative means the article got shorter. See also Help:Recent changes. Hope this helps. PeaceNT 12:15, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

Complaint

What is the process to follow if you want to complaign about a Wikipedia policy or complaign about another Wikipedia member for rudeness or bullying and intimidating language ?--Tovojolo 12:44, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

• Wikipedia:Village pump (policy) is the place to discuss policy. Disputes with other members should be handled through Wikipedia:Dispute resolution. - Mgm|^(talk) 13:12, 21 February 2007 (UTC)
• Two rather different things. If you feel a user is rude to you, the first thing to do is to ask them politely not to be, on their talk page. It is extremely important to be extra polite in such cases, because if it gets to a bad argument, both parties can end up blocked from editing: who started it does not matter. It is entirely in order to ask them to bear in mind Wikipedia:Civility and Wikipedia:No personal attacks. It is also often helpful to post a link to a "diff" showing where you consider they stepped over the line, because opinions differ and things may not be so obvious, especially when people are from different cultures to yourself. You can get the URL of a diff by using the page history, viewing the differences, and copy/pasting. Finally, I'd like to draw your attention to Wikipedia:Talk page guidelines, in particular that deleting things from your talk page is discouraged. I hope this helps, Notinasnaid 13:18, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

Referencing

In the Aberdeen article there are both book and web references. Currently both types of reference are put in an overarching 'footnotes' field at the bottom using the {{reflist}} tag. Is there a {{reflist}} style tag that can allow seperation of the book and web references? I want to create a 'Futher Reading' section, but one that still references within the article and which is not just a list as in the Dundee article for example. Bobbacon 12:55, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

"reflist" is simply a way of displaying footnotes; there is no way for the software to know that one type of footnote (books) is different from another type (web references) - so, to answer your question, there is no style tag to do this.

As for "Further Reading" sections, they are always bulleted lists; sorry. There is limited flexibility in what Wikipedia articles look like. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 04:53, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

How does Notability apply to bands?

Yesterday I created a page for the band 10 Minute Warning and I went back today to see if anyone had changed anything/requested a change to find it flagged for deletion/merging due to the fact that it "doesn't assert notability". I understand that the band is not well known and that the article is far from perfect so I have no problem with the article being merged or removed if nessesary, but I would like to understand why this action is being considered.

I read the page on notability but it was obviously written with concepts or historical events and figures in mind and I'm having difficulty understanding how it applies to a band. The issue seems to be one of sources, specifically there are not enough, or they are not varied enough. But the article in question has no fewer/worse sources than others on similar bands, Green River for example.

I'm still very new to any kind of serious editing of Wikipedia and obviously I've made some kind of mistake with this article. I'd very much like to understand what the problem is in order to avoid a repeat performance in the future. Thanks. Danikat 13:02, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

There is a specific page dealing with notability as it applies to bands: some of the tests are easy to apply e.g. "has had a charted hit on any national music chart." See Wikipedia:Notability (music) and remember that it isn't enough that the band be notable, the article must say so (by giving a sourced reference showing the notability guidelines are met). Notinasnaid 13:07, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

Thanks, thats a lot of help. I'll get to work on re-writing the article. Danikat 21:56, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

Photos, User Page

Are you free to put any photos you like on your own User Page ?

Or do Wikipedia's rules - regarding fair use - on Photos still apply even when the photo is only on your own user page and is not linked to anywhere else on Wikipedia ?--Tovojolo 13:04, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

The rules for user pages, talk pages and other non-article pages are stricter. Fair use is not allowed at all. Only free images may be used. Notinasnaid 13:08, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

Where can I find Wikipedia's rules on User Pages, Talk Pages and Non-Article Pages ?--Tovojolo 13:11, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

• Wikipedia:Userpage and WP:TALK. Other non-article pages have different rules depending on what they are discussing. Try Help:Table of contents and find the policy library. - Mgm|^(talk) 13:16, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

Also see:

• What can I have on my user page?
• What can I not have on my user page?

And specifically:

• Images on user pages

Hope this helps. —Xhantar^Talk 13:19, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

• Also relevant, Wikipedia:Fair use, especially the section "policy", item 9. Notinasnaid

downloading article as text/audio file

Hi, i want to download articles to drop on my iPod's Notes folder, so I can read on the move. Is there a way of saving articles just as text files. In firefox I am trying to do this with Save As text file but viewing in Notepad the HTML formating is still present. I thought there may be a text formating link? Thanks

138.40.144.27 13:29, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

How about selecting the article text, copying, and pasting into your favourite text editor (Notepad will do)? Cheers, Tangotango (talk) 15:12, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia Blog ? Wikipedia Chat Room ?

Is there a Wikipedia Blog that would allow contributors to blog ? or a Wikipedia Chat Room using a real time instant messaging program that would allow for "live" debates ?

If there is not then there should be.

How do you propose new features ?--Tovojolo 14:12, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

There isn't an official Wikipedia blog that I know of, but feel free to use your userspace to write about Wikipedia-related items. See WP:UP for more info about that. And yes, there is a Wikipedia "chat room", to which I frequently go. WP:IRC explains the different IRC channels for this (I personally use the ChatZilla client)... #wikipedia is the most active one. Gracenotes^T § 14:26, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

In general, you can propose new ideas at WP:VPR if it relates to how Wikipedia runs; you can propose them at WP:VPT if it relates to technical aspects of Wikipedia's functioning (bugs, sketching out feature requests). See WP:PG's section on how to propose a policy or guidelines, if that's what you're interested in. Gracenotes^T § 14:44, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

Is this a free service and how do I become a member ? Thanks. Bill Wykoff

The problem with a "real time" debate is that the Wikipedia membership is all around the world. Real time debates could therefore be biased towards people in similar time zones. In my opinion, you've done the right thing by suggesting on your user page that there is a problem with Wikipedia's image policy. This is the start of the debate. However, when I responded on your user talk page, which seems to me the right thing to do, you deleted my message. It's not possible to have a debate in this situation (a debate in Wikipedia terms is one which serves as a lasting record of all participants views in the discussion), so I would ask that you reinstate all the messages that you have deleted from your talk page, to indicate a willingness to debate. Notinasnaid 15:37, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

By that argument, real time debates should not determine significant actionable consensus... an argument with which I agree. It's best to keep discussion where it makes sense to have it. Gracenotes^T § 20:01, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

Help

Is this a free service and how do I become a member ? Thanks. Bill Wykoff

You become a Wikipedian by editing a page! Hey, welcome to Wikipedia. If you have any questions about how it works, this page covers the basics. You can get an account to have other users identify you better. Gracenotes^T § 14:56, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

Also, wikipedia is free, in terms of cost and information. Chris M. 16:27, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

email notification of responses?

Is there a way to get an email notification when there is a response to a question?

thanks,

Huck

No, as it'd place a big burden on the servers, but you can ask visitors to your talk page to email you (just post a note on the top of the page). Xiner (talk, email) 15:59, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

Image upload

Good morning. I've uploaded a file, thinking i can post it to the web page i created earlier, but instead it created an absolutely new page with the image. how do i delete that page with image and post it to the article web page?

thank you. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Kisulenka (talk • contribs)

If you are referring to this page, that's fine. When you upload an image, a page for it is also created in the Image: namespace, where its copyright status/tags and so on are displayed. I see the image has already been included in the Ezra usa article, by User:Cehe4ka. —Xhantar^Talk 16:56, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

How do I delete this page with image? thank you! Kisulenka 20:43, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

You can't, as the page Image:Ezra.JPG exists for that image, the way to delete that page would be to delete the image, but that clearly isn't your intention. Why do you want it deleted? Chris M. 21:09, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

Edit button disappeared

HI The edit button has disapeared from the first section of this page http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euromoney_Institutional_Investor_PLC

How do i get it back?

Catherine

Works for me (Euromoney Institutional Investor PLC). Xiner (talk, email) 15:57, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

How can I request that anonymous editing be blocked ?

I would like to request that a my subnet be blocked from anonymous editing as we have had problems with students posting bogus information — Preceding unsigned comment added by 166.66.202.116 (talk • contribs)

WP:RFPP. :) Xiner (talk, email) 16:07, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

I don't want to have a single page blocked from editing I want to block anyone from my subnet that is not logged into the wiki to be blocked from editing anything in the wiki

Sorry, I was thinking it'd be kinda ironic. WP:AIV is the place to go. Xiner (talk, email) 17:20, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

Maybe I'm not seeing it but I looked around and just found how to report vandals. As a network admin I want to request that no one from my IP block can anonymously edit anything. I'm just trying to keep from having students mess things up but I want them to be able to access the wiki as a read only resource — Preceding unsigned comment added by Penmanor (talk • contribs)

You could explain your situation there, because admins man those pages and only admins can issue blocks. You can also try WP:ANI. I'd suggest a soft block, so that only registered users can edit the site. However, if you're dealing with, say, elementary school students, then a hard block could be useful. Xiner (talk, email) 01:18, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

You should probably post it on WP:ANI. If you can, some sort of proof that you're the network admin would be nice. Say, WHOIS information backed up with something posted to the website of the organization that the range belongs to, or allowing an admin to send a confirmation email to the organization (and you responding). -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 01:27, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

How to substitute an article

I know that {{subst:templatename}} substitutes a template, while {{templatename}} simply uses that template. I also know that {{:articlename}} uses an article, but I'm curious, how would one substitute an entire article into another article? Since {{subst:articlename}} doesn't work (as far as I could tell. Thanks! Chris M. 16:22, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

May I ask why you'd want to do that? You can always just do a copy and paste. Xiner (talk, email) 17:18, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

Pending an answer to Xiner's question (I prefer not to step on toes), I will at least confirm it's possible to transclude and substitute articles. – Luna Santin (talk) 19:53, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

Another wiki (strategywiki) has a situation with several small articles that would very easily be put into one simple article using a template that has this code:

<includeonly>== {{{1}}} ==
{{subst:Super Mario World/Enemies/{{{1}}}}}</includeonly>

But my {{subst: code doesn't do as I'd like.

I simply took the list of articles and used Word to change them into a series of substituting templates that would form one merged article out of about 20 or so. But my template doesn't subst as I'd like, so how would I do so? Chris M. 21:03, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

Just as with transclusion, you would merely add a colon. {{subst::Article}} should do the trick, I believe. Gracenotes^T § 22:02, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

Eh, really? Wow. That was simple... Thanks :) Chris M. 23:50, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

Oops, sorry I forgot about this question. Gracenotes, you were too nice. Xiner (talk, email) 01:14, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

Russian WP

Hello, I am registered user in the English part of Wikipedia, but I am also fluent in Russian and would like to contribute to Russian part of Wiki as well. When I tried to work in Russian part, Wikipedia did not recognize my login. Do I have to create a separate account for Russian Wiki, or do I need to adjust some setting?

Yes, each WP requires a separate account. Chris M. 16:35, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

Welcome to Wikipedia! Not to quibble, but wiki is distinct from Wikipedia. Wikipedia is but one of many wikis. Wikipedia is the largest and most-visited wiki in the world, and for many of us it was (or will be) our first exposure to wiki editing. This leads some new users to use the term "wiki" as an abbreviation for "Wikipedia," which is technically incorrect and sometimes confusing. When editing Wikipedia articles, we should take care to use the correct names for things, or at least the most definitive names. One way to do this is to link any technical terms we use to their defining articles. When previewing our edits, we can open those links in new browser tabs, and verify that the terms mean what we think they mean. The ease of adding wikilinks allows us to communicate here with a level of precision and accessibility beyond what is attainable in everyday conversation. --Teratornis 18:52, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

I was referring to each wikipedia, not each wiki, as there are separate WPs for different languages. I believe that's what they meant as well, although I could be assuming, :) Chris M. 21:12, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

Please look at Wikipedia:Babel, Wikipedia:Pages needing translation into English, and Wikipedia:Translation, if you're interested in translating articles between different language Wikipedias. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 00:33, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

Templates

Hello, I was wondering how do you make a template of a band. On the Girls Aloud article right at the bottom is has a template of all the songs they've done and everything. How do you make one?Oriana is cool 17:14, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

Hi, Oriana is cool;

That's a table, actually, and not a template. See Help:Table for all the wondrous details on how to go about creating tables. You can also look at the source of the Girls Aloud article (for that section) to see what its wikicode looks like in action.

Hope this helps! —Xhantar^Talk 17:26, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

Name change?

I remember seeing some page that explains how you can request a name change to one that is already taken, provided that there are no edits attributed to the username you want to take. Unfortunately I lost this page and can't find any more information about it, could anyone point me in the right direction? --Xertz 18:04, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Usurpation -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 18:06, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

Thanks! Exactly what I needed. --Xertz 18:12, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

HOW DO I ALIGN SOMETHING TO THE RIGHT????????

Ive been at it for several hours trying to get User:Darkest Hour/TAB to be on the right side of my userpage and it will not go there. I am using thes diffs but to no avail:

<align="right"> </right>
<valign="right"> </right>
<align=right> </right>
<valign=right> </right>

--Darkest Hour|DarkeBot 18:13, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

<div align="right">{{User:Darkest Hour/TAB}}</div>

or

<div style="align:right;">{{User:Darkest Hour/TAB}}</div>

-- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 18:16, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

Oh, well, I've added align="right" to your table at User:Darkest Hour/TAB; don't know if that's what you had in mind, though. —Xhantar^Talk 18:27, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

Utopian society

My article is more relevent as any as it portrays the feelings many have felt for years about creating a utopian society, we are currently trying to set up a website and are pursuing a recrutement program that we hope to expand our influence, and are considering creating a new country, please email me if you have any questions <removed e-mail address>

N.B. <removed e-mail address> — Preceding unsigned comment added by Angelanarcy (talk • contribs)

Please see WP:NOT - Wikipedia is not a place for recruiting similar-minded people to do anything - we're here to build an encyclopedia. Sorry. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 00:31, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia might contain articles like How to Start Your Own Country, provided their subjects are already sufficiently notable to have been written about elsewhere. For intentional advocacy, please try another wiki. Wikinfo, for example, offers considerably more latitude than Wikipedia for expressing non-neutral points of view. --Teratornis 00:54, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

Currency/Money tags and automatic conversion/inflation adjustment?

I'm sure this has come up in the past but I can't seem to find any of those previous discussions.

I was thinking that a lot of articles contain references to sums of money and many of those are historic. It would be great if there was a currency tag where the editor can input the amount, type and date of the currency and the wiki would automatically convert that to present day US/EU amounts while still displaying the original amount. This could be done pretty easily with a lookup table with inflation and exchange rates for various popular currencies.

Hmm... agreed, a lookup table would be handy for that. Unfortunately, wikis aren't good at making lookup tables (at least not the sort the page parser can read) -- if we do it on-wiki, it'd have to be done with an army of meta-templates. I probably know enough about templates to set it up, if I can get the methods down, although (funny thing) I don't know enough about currency exchange to know the methods -- I'd need at least a crash course in getting that done. However, this sort of proposal should probably be run past the community, before being implemented; the village pump is as good a forum as any (if nothing else, they may be able to direct you to any prior discussions, if they do exist). – Luna Santin (talk) 20:01, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

using {schoolblock}

How do I go about using {schoolblock} for a range of 50 ip addresses ? How can I restrict it so only my username can remove the block > — Preceding unsigned comment added by Pennmanor (talk • contribs)

To able to block, you have to be a administrator. Even if you were, there is no way you can restrict the block so only you can remove it. Trebor 20:36, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

If I map my proxy server to a single address can I then go about blocking that address using the schoolblock ? What do I have to do to become an admin or can someone block the address for me ? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Pennmanor (talk • contribs)

The ability to block people would have such enormous potential for abuse that only administrators can do it directly. Becoming an administrator requires a long and fruitful editing career. Unless you have 5000 or so edits to your name you aren't likely to succeed in a nomination. Otherwise, you will need to contact administrators to request this. Try Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents, but bear in mind that blocking is considered a last resort, and so you need to make a good case: it isn't automatic. Notinasnaid 20:58, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Pennmanor: You cannot block the IP address or range of IP addresses yourself; this can only be done by an administrator. The {{schoolblock}} template is usually put on the talk page of the IP address in question by said administrator, once the block is in place. I'm guessing the best place to request for this block to be implemented, is at WP:ANI—a "noticeboard" monitored by administrators who will be able to assist.

As explained by the template:

"If accounts need to be created at school for class projects, please have your teacher or network administrator [you] contact us (with reference to this IP address) at unblock-en-l from an email address listed on your school's website."

I hope this helps. —Xhantar^Talk 21:15, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

First article

How can you start your own article? I want to know how to make your own article. Thanks in the future. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Moneytime123 (talk • contribs)

Have a look here. Trebor 20:34, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

User Sub-Page

How do you create a User Sub-Page ?--Tovojolo 20:48, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

On your userpage, create a link like so: [[User:Tovojolo/SubPageName]] it'll be red and look like User:Tovojolo/SubPageName. You can follow that link to a new page that will be a user sub-page. Chris M. 21:05, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Subpages for details. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 23:48, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

creating a reference

How do I add a reference. I have updated sales data on the Nintendo DS article but cannot verify it users without a reference. I need to make one but I dont know how. Gartheknight 20:50, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

Enclose your references with <ref>...</ref>. For more help, please see WP:CITE. Xiner (talk, email) 22:03, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

Want to add history to Eglin AFB's Wikipedia dialogue.

On the Eglin Air Force Base page there is a subcategory for the 33RD Fighter Wing.It quotes the official motto.The unofficial motto is " The worlds largest distributor of MIG parts". This is posted on both ends of Nomad Way coming into & out of the Thity-Thirds area on Eglin AFB.It is a joke referring to them having the highest number of kills in the First Gulf War.The 33RD used to have 3 squadrons;the 58th,59th&60th.In 1999 the 60th was inactivated and the other 2 absorbed their planes and personnell. 12.77.148.43 21:13, 21 February 2007 (UTC) Pat Dwyer

Hello Pat, welcome to Wikipedia. If you have something to add to an article, go ahead and add it, but be aware of the requirement to cite published references. Merely knowing something to be true from personal experience is not enough here; you should also provide a citation. If you don't have a proper citation for the interesting bits you list above, you might mention them on the article's talk page and ask if anyone else knows of published references for them. --Teratornis 01:16, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

Clip Art

Are Clip Art images, like those in Microsoft Word allowable for use in Wikipedia or are they copyrighted? Mr.Z-mantalk¢ 23:54, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

At most you can use them on MS articles under WP:FAIRUSE, and only if absolutely necessary to illustrate a point. Xiner (talk, email) 00:09, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

Issues after move

I moved the article The Last One to The Last One (Friends episode). Then I found every reference to "The Last One" and updated it to point to the new article. But some of the articles still show up on the "Whatlinkshere" page as pointing to the old article. I think it has something to do with the template, which was also updated. I tried to do "action=purge" on most of the articles thinking that would fix it, but they still show up on the "Whatlinkshere" list. What am I doing wrong? :: Zachary Hauri ^{(T C E)} 00:22, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

I don't know if someone else did something or if it just took a while to do the purge, but the problem is fixed now. :: Zachary Hauri ^{(T C E)} 00:52, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

IMO, according to WP:MOS, most users probably are looking for the Friends ep, and using a disambig page for two items is usually unnecessary. A simple link on top of the original Friends page to the Aqua Teens ep would've sufficed. Xiner (talk, email) 02:43, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

picture problems

why can't i seem to load the pictures on wikipedia. do i have to download anything?69.236.175.219 00:43, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

Go on Special:Upload, locate the name of the file you want to upload, add summary information and license details, then click on upload file.--Seraphim Whipp 01:07, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

If you're just looking to load the pictures already on Wikipedia, there shouldn't be a problem. Try pressing F5 on your computer to reload the page, or Shift+F5 to completely reload the page. Ziggurat 01:11, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

Please note that you must log in or create an account to upload pictures. --WikiSlasher 11:18, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

Colours used on infoboxes

Someone said that the colour of a infobox for a deceased person should be silver. Is this true? Are there any other colour guidelines? --Seraphim Whipp 01:04, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

Haven't heard of that one specifically, but see Wikipedia:Infobox colours for a (now-historical) treatment of colours. Ziggurat 01:08, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

You may wish to file a request for third opinion about Anna Nicole Smith, or flip a coin, or something like that. It's quite possible that silver for deceased people was once convention, but it's clearly not followed anymore. Just make sure that in discussing the color of the bikeshed, you don't paint the town red. Gracenotes^T § 02:39, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

• Colors still have a specific meaning in album and other music-related articles, so it's quite possible it is a convention. Ask them where they get it from. If it was once convention it doesn't hurt to follow it, unless that convention was replaced with another. - Mgm|^(talk) 08:24, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

new page

how do you start a new page? zach powell 02:36, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

See Help:Starting a new page —Mitaphane _?|! 02:38, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

As you get farther along in editing on Wikipedia, you will probably have more questions. This page is becoming my favorite method to find answers to an enormous number of them:

• User:John Broughton/Editor's Index to Wikipedia

That's handy to bookmark on your user page. Be sure to come back here in a few months when you have learned all the answers (a small attempt at humor there, as I doubt many mortal humans could learn all of this stuff, and by the time they did, there would be a whole bunch more new material), and help out the next wave of new users. --Teratornis 06:09, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

net100

I was told to sign on and search tool Net100 and I would find the page that was created through edisoncollege but there is nothing here? What am I doing wrong? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Pam Clark (talk • contribs)

I'm not sure I understand your question. Are you looking for a page that was created by a specific member or IP address? Hersfold ^(talk|work) 03:43, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

There is an Edison College article (actually a redirect to Edison Community College), but I am unable to understand the question sufficiently to guess whether that's relevant. Pam, if you could, please give us more details: who told you to sign on? Sign on to what? What page are you trying to find? --Teratornis 05:34, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

Blue Box

Hey guys,

When I'm editing articles, I'm always selecting stuff. I select stuff to copy it. I select stuff to keep my place as I scroll down. Recently, however, somebody tweaked the Wiki software so that selecting stuff generates a live, mini-preview in JavaScript in a little blue box on the edit page.

How do I turn this off? Does anybody know?

Thanks in advance, – Lantoka (talk) 05:35, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

This is part of the popups feature. To turn it off, put popupOnEditSelection=false; into your monobook.js. -- Chairman S. Talk ^Contribs 05:50, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

Uploading powerpoint presentations?

Yet another class where the professor pawns off the teaching on her students...As a result, I'm making some great, well-researched (not to mention good looking) powerpoint presentations on 20th and 21st century designers (So far I have Adolf Loos, the Bauhaus school, and Isamu Noguchi); any way to upload them? The only problem I could forsee would be citations;l they have bibliographies, but no in-text citations. Also, come to think of it, some "borrowed" images. 69.149.24.6 05:53, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

Good question. Wikipedia:Presentations links to some PowerPoint presentations, but they don't seem to be part of Wikipedia. I've read lots of Wikipedia articles, but I have yet to see any that use PowerPoint files as intrinsic content (even the PowerPoint article does not use PowerPoint). I don't see anything on Help:Image about PowerPoint. However, I'm not the ranking authority on this, just the first person to respond to your question. My guess is your best bet would probably be to add your material to existing or new Wikipedia articles in the usual way (by re-working it as wikitext). There might be some other wiki that would welcome your .ppt files directly. --Teratornis 06:35, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

Media should be in as free a format as possible. I doubt it,s possible to uplaod a .ppt file anyway. Try asking around for making a .ogg movie.Circeus 18:09, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

Trans-language image use

I'd like to insert an image into an article, but since it's located in the German Wikipedia, it doesn't show it with a straight "[[Image:Fasching-maske-7.jpg]]." How would I go about displaying the picture in an English article? V-Man737 06:54, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

Upload it to Commons (Wikipedia:Moving images to the Commons) & tag it with {{subst:ncd}}. afaik, you can't use images from other wikipedias, the ideal solution is commons uploading.-Wooty Woot? contribs 07:30, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

The Incredible Ceylon Hovering Man!!!

Howdy folks. I've been working on an extensive offline revision and expansion of the Sesotho article. One of the many truly insane choices I've made is to have every example word or sentence (all 57 thousand of them) in bold and, if it's not directly followed by Template:IPA (when specifically talking about phonetics), to have the (raw) IPA guide appear in a popup box when you hover the mouse above it. My question is: is there an alternative to Template:H:title that has the desired effect without underlining the text or causing any other style changes? There's another one in the user namespace I saw but it turns the text green! Using the full <span title = "bar"> foo < /span > is too cumbersome. Thanks for any help. Zyxoas (talk to me - I'll listen) 10:21, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

• Having examples in bold violates the manual of style which says this should be used sparingly. Instead of having IPA boxes popup for every word, have you considered getting someone to do a a spoken version of the article? Wikipedia:WikiProject Spoken Wikipedia. - Mgm|^(talk) 11:01, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

Category tag question

The category Category:Conversion templates seems to be self referencing itself or am I wrong? I thought I'd remove it from its own category but I wasn't sure if this was some odd way of cataloging things. Dismas|^(talk) 10:22, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

For some reason, the category was moved out of the noinclude tags that appear above in the instructions section. I've fixed it so it should look normal now. Harryboyles 10:49, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

Okie, thanks! Dismas|^(talk) 15:12, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

problem with uploading image

I have uploaded an image file, Dreaming Lhasa movie.jpg, but it does not show up. I get this error message:

The image “http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/0/0f/Dreaming_Lhasa_movie.jpg” cannot be displayed, because it contains errors.

I have tried my best to follow all the guidelines but still no luck.

Can you help?! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 10zing (talk • contribs)

Looks like it has been uploaded successfully. Here's how to link to it: [[Image:Dreaming_Lhasa_movie.jpg]] SubSeven 20:08, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

i appoligize

last year i uploaded alot of stupid stuff, at the time i created a joke entry for a non existant band, i was just figuring out how to use wikipedia, at the present time there are a bunch of images on your server that i uploaded and i would like to delete them, they are of no use to me, and are a bigger waste to wikipedia, i would appreciate it if ether you guys could delete all of my content so i may start fresh on wikipedia, or if somebody could assist me in deleting it id appreciate it, Mike Rosenberg — Preceding unsigned comment added by Mikercool1 (talk • contribs)

Having your stuff deleted is easy, just go to the Image page and click the "edit this page"tab. Put {{db-author}} at the top of it, (make sure it's not marked as a minor edit,) and save it. It should be gone in three days tops. -- RoninBK _{T C} 12:44, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

Redlinked articles on Watchlist, that I never put there.

I was just poking back onto Wikipedia after a bit of a wikibreak, and looked through my Special:Watchlist/edit list. Strangely I had the following articles listed:

• ‎Jimmy Wales did porn (Talk)
• ‎Jimmy was involved in porn, yet he continually denies it (Talk)
• Why on earth wouldn't anyone protect this? (Talk)

I assume that these pages were recently deleted, but I have no idea how they got to my watchlist. I don't see any reference on Special:Contributions/Roninbk that show any editing by me on those pages.

Is there any way an admin can look into this situation and confirm how this happened? I don't want to jump to the conclusion that my login info might be compromised, but if it is, I need to take precautions. -- RoninBK _{T C} 12:25, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

Hang on a sec, can you please move User:WikiSlasher/Test to User:WikiSlasher/Test ON WHEELS!!! for me? (Explain in your edit summary I asked you too ;).) --WikiSlasher 13:29, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

See, my theory is that you had Jimmy Wales on your watchlist and when a pagemove vandal moved the page those pages were added to your watchlist as well. If someone can move my subpage for me I can see if it magically appears in my watchlist to test my idea. --WikiSlasher 14:14, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

Moved. Happy Editing by Snowolf^(talk)_CON^COI on 14:57, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

WP:BEANS WP:POINT etc... _→AzaToth 14:58, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

This isn't being disruptive to illustrate a point. --WikiSlasher 07:20, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

OK, I am far less confused now. This is what I get for putting vandal-targets on my watchlist. Chalk this up to "I didn't know Wiki could bend like that..." -- RoninBK _{T C} 05:36, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

Yep it worked, User:WikiSlasher/Test ON WHEELS!!! is in my watchlist. So it was the moving of the page that added those pages to your watchlist. --WikiSlasher 06:05, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

University Of Massachusetts

I am a student at the University of Massachusetts in charge of a group engaged in a project in which we are supposed to make contributions to Wikipedia. One of our goals is to create archives that have some longevity to them, and are unique and distinct as they represent Umass. My thought on this is to create an article called "Umass Rights" and simply present our findings under this title. We are a political science class studying the bill of rights, and our discussions would be limited to this area. I have charged my coworkers with finding credible discussions of rights, and basing our arguments on areas of the constitution, and on supreme court findings. Some of our discussions will inevitably overlap articles that have already been written, but we are trying to create a one stop shop for a variety of materials concerning rights under the U.S. constitution. I have been reading the guidelines for what is acceptable to post, and I feel that our project is borderline. I wanted to check with someone with Wikipedia before we began posting, but I assure you that our intention is to present only academic findings, with citations, based on research, not to infuse the article with personal views, or biases. Please let me know if what I've described violates the terms and conditions of posting on Wikipedia.— Preceding unsigned comment added by Mbrecher (talk • contribs)

One thing it sounds like you are in jeopardy of violating is Wikipedia's policy on no original research. Whatever you contribute, make sure it is well cited with verifiable sources. To me, it doesn't sound like the article you are thinking of creating will last. Wikipedia is not a publisher of original thought nor is it a webspace provider. To me, it sounds like your contributions would be best directed toward an existing article on Wikipedia such as United States Bill of Rights (although it is already a Featured article), or you may want to look into the US Supreme Court cases WikiProject. Hope this helps.↔NMajdan•talk•EditorReview 14:38, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

I looked on the editor's index and found this: WP:SUP. Read that to see what other student groups are doing here. Wikipedia is not necessarily the best wiki for this type of assignment, because Wikipedia has stringent requirements for its articles. Your group might do better on another wiki such as Wikinfo, which accepts original work and does not demand a neutral point of view. I hope that whoever assigned the project does not share the common misconception that Wikipedia is the only wiki; there are many wikis. Wikipedia is the world's largest and most popular wiki, and often it is the only wiki some people have heard of yet. This causes Wikipedia to be the first choice of many people who have goals which differ from Wikipedia's goal (which is to write an encyclopedia). I suggest you go back to whoever assigned the project, and ask why you don't start on a wiki with more lenient requirements. A student group project may be too brief to allow the group members time to read and master much of the material for editors. If the student group contains no members who are already experienced Wikipedia editors, it would probably need supervision from someone who is, such as a faculty member. Otherwise the (unguided) members might end up making stereotypical new-user mistakes. Among these mistakes is to start right off by making new articles, a strategy with low probability of success, rather than making improvements to existing articles which have already passed the initial gauntlet of reasons for speedy deletion. There are lots of existing articles which need improvement, and there are ways to improve articles that would be easy for a group of students with no prior Wikipedia editing experience to master quickly, without running afoul of the extensive rules that govern the allowable Wikipedia content. For example, many articles contain jargon they do not define, but for which defining articles exist elsewhere on Wikipedia. It is very helpful for the reader if editors fill in those missing wikilinks, and this work is usually non-controversial, provided the links are relevant. Perhaps the person who assigned the project might do well to pose the following question to the Help desk: "How should I structure a student group Wikipedia editing project?" Also see: WP:ACST. --Teratornis 18:42, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

remove a curse?

we have had the worse luck someone suggeted a curse, is there any way to find out and can i remove it?----helpme—The preceding unsigned comment was added by Angela smylie (talk • contribs).

What exactly do you mean by that? Could you be a little more specific? Veinor ^{(talk to me)} 14:37, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

Curses don't actually exist, so you shouldn't have any problems. .V. _[Talk|Email] 23:35, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

Where can the Your continued donations keep Wikipedia running! be found?

Because if I could find it and have access to it I could move it as was requested above. I know my stuff. I just need to find it. --Darkest Hour|DarkeBot 16:08, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

The actual message is available and editable at MediaWiki:Anonnotice, but as this is a MediaWiki interface message, only administrators can edit it. I'd suggest either suggesting changes to the talk page, or to the Village Pump (technical) as was suggested above. Cheers, Tangotango (talk) 16:15, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

Drugs

Do you give information about drugs and their reactions?

You can find more information by asking at the Reference Desk - the Help Desk here is more for how to use Wikipedia, not information from it. But I would try looking at Drugs. Hersfold ^(talk/work) 16:23, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

Suggestion?

Hi,

I was wandering through "Random Article"s and noticed the use of the terms "new", "currently", and "next" in several articles. Wouldn't it be better, in terms of building a resource with continuing future relevance, if these relative terms were avoided or at least used with a temporal context.

eg: "In 1977 this was the new gizmo on the block."

or

"Coming in 2008 the next big advance in CPUs will be giggle circuits."

Just my $0.02.

There are guidelines against what you're advising against: see Wikipedia:Avoid statements that will date quickly. The 'as of' mechanism is most commonly used to date statements as you suggest: the preferred form would be "[[As of 1977]] this was the new gizmo on the block." It might be that people aren't following the guidelines; in this case your main options are ignoring the problem, fixing it yourself, or notifying the people responsible about what the problem is. Hope that helps! --ais523 17:17, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

• You're right, statements that date quickly should be reworded. If you can spare the time, please help us out. _ Mgm|^(talk) 22:17, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

Editing a "campaignbox"

Good day,

I've edited an incredibly incorrect page today and it contains something I see on a lot of historical information pages, something called a "campaignbox" which lists battles (with links). I need to be able to edit one, but I can't find any way to do that.

Any help?

Many thanks in advance, Sarah—The preceding unsigned comment was added by Pvtchauncey (talk • contribs).

The page in question is Battle on Snowshoes, and the "campaignbox" is {{Campaignbox French and Indian War}}. You can edit it by going into Template:Campaignbox French and Indian War; even though it does have some parser functions, it's fairly self-explanatory. Veinor ^{(talk to me)} 17:33, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

WOW! I'm impressed you found the page and answered so quickly. Many thanks!!—The preceding unsigned comment was added by Pvtchauncey (talk • contribs).

No problem; it was actually very simple (the MediaWiki software maintains a list of all the edits a user has made). Also, can you sign your talk page comments? It makes it a lot easier to identify who says what. To do so, just type four tildes, like ~~~~. Thanks! Veinor ^{(talk to me)} 17:48, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

answers

I asked a question on 1/2/07. How do I find out if anyone has answered it?Ameliapitt 17:56, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

The question, and any answers it might have, will be in the Help Desk archives by now: Wikipedia:Help_desk/Archives/2007_February_1. You can find the archives from the 'Archives' link near the top of the Help Desk. Recent questions stay on the Help Desk until they're archived. --ais523 18:00, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

Actually, it seems you asked a Reference Desk question; the answers you got are archived at [[3]]. --ais523 18:57, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

• 1/2 could also refer to the January 2. In an international setting like this, it's best to write out a date. - Mgm|^(talk) 22:15, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

Navigation boxes in Finnish railway station articles

How should we do the "previous - next" navigation boxes in articles about Finnish railway stations? For the VR commuter rail network, it is easy: simply treat Helsinki Central railway station as the heart, and have one box for each route, or group of routes, having the same previous and next station and this one.

But long distance trains pose a huge problem. The long distance railway network in Finland (see List of railway lines in Finland) is much more interconnected and decentralised than the VR commuter rail network. How should we mark each box? With the ultimate endpoints (Helsinki and Kolari in the best case)? This would create a problem when deciding which stations are more important than which. Or should we do it like the Finnish Wikipedia appears to do, by only marking one individual, nonambiguous piece of track at a time? For example, the track from Helsinki to Riihimäki is a straight line with no forks. From Riihimäki it then forks to Tampere and other directions. And how to decide which way the routes go? Automatically treating central stations in large cities as starting points and minor stations in surrounding municipalities as ending points can lead to collisions between two major cities, such as between Helsinki and Turku. Should we decide "it begins in the south" or "it begins in Helsinki"?

If this is inappropriate for the Help Desk, can you suggest another place for discussion? JIP | Talk 18:29, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

This would be best suited to discussion with editors more knowledgeable in the matter, rather than a general help desk. You could try raising the issue on the template talk page (you may wish to add notes to related article talk pages directing people to the template discussion). Hope that helps. Trebor 19:00, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

There is also a wikiproject for rail transport, you could probably get some help from them as well. Mr.Z-mantalk¢ 20:11, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

Follow-up to technical question about infobox

Thank you, Xiner and Gracenotes, for your help. Somehow, it didn't occur to me that I was allowed to edit a template. Is there a way to make temporary changes to a template for use in a specific article? For example, if you want to make an entry (like "spouse") plural, can you? I've tried to simply add the "s" to the template after cutting and pasting it into the article, but that doesn't work. Do I edit the template, then revert it? That doesn't seem right. --Vbd | (talk) 19:58, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

In the case of Template:infobox performer, which is widely used by other pages, you can't customize it for one page. Conceivably you can re-code the template so that it accepts an optional argument that'd display the extra "s", but that seems like a lot of work. In the case of "Spouse", I'm not sure what the answer is - "(s)" is the best I can think of! Xiner (talk, email) 20:22, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

Rude/Agressive Editor

I am new on this page. There is another editor that keeps reverting any changes I make, including ones where I simply request a citation, and makes very insulting comments about me on the talk pages such as "you need to go back to your trailer". He is harrassing me. I wanted to join the community because I thought that it would be a fun place to go where people would have reasoned conversations and discussions, but I am afraid to do anything anymore! Is there something to do about this harrassment? I don't want to communicate with this person because he is SO agressive and insulting. (and I looked at his profile and there have been problems with him in the past too). What should I do about this kind of problem? (I'm almost afraid to add my signature) --Kattie90 20:39, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

You can try putting {{subst:uw-npa1}}, {{subst:uw-npa2}}, {{subst:uw-npa3}} or {{subst:uw-npa4}} on the talk page of the user who is behaving like that. >Kamope< Talk · Sign Here 20:58, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

Include the page where he made such comments in the section header on his talk page. You can also try WP:AMARQ, but I don't know how long the wait time there is. Xiner (talk, email) 21:10, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

Can't the user just remove the tag on his talk page? I think that he checks his wikipedia account about 5 times a day--Kattie90 23:01, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

It stays in the history, so that doesn't matter. If you think it's particularly serious, report it to WP:ANI right away to get some admin attention. Even if he's not blocked immediately following that, he will be if it continues. Otherwise, move progressively towards npa4; if he makes a clear personal attack after that, report him to WP:AIV; if he makes an unclear personal attack after that, report him at WP:ANI. If he drops the personal attacks and just starts pointlessly reverting your edits, WP:ANI. -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 23:12, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

help needed

> Hello: My name is Kevin (username: essetarabus) and I posted an article on > Psychogenetic and found this information on the site. I have been unable to > discover how to place a comment on the editors talk page to refute his claim. > I have listed over 10 references which use psychogenetic as a name for the > science which is currently still viable amongst psychologists. he mentions > errors in some of his comments, yet all of the work is clearly referenced. > > I am very appreciative for the existence of wikipedia and use it often. I > also have produced what I and others feel as a viable article. I would be > happy to help wikified the article, except that I am not an expert computer > programmer and have difficulty following your programming instructions. I > would be happy to discuss reasonable compensation to wikify the article, but > do not know whom to contact. > > additionally, I ocassionally get lost trying to follow the flow and > instructions to post articles, edit them, and resolve issues such as these. > Is there a "how to use wikipedia manual" for beginners like me. Several of my > colleagues who would like to contribute, have also expressed similar concerns. > > An editor has expressed concern that this article or section may be > unencyclopedic and should be deleted. > This is primarily a statement about the article's subject, not necessarily its > quality or veracity. Please review what Wikipedia is not and try to resolve > the objections on the talk page. > > This article (or section) may need to be wikified to meet Wikipedia's quality > standards. > Please help improve this article, especially its introduction, section layout, > and relevant internal links. (help) > This article has been tagged since January 2007.

Have you tried here? [[4]]

By the way, you don't need to start each line with a >. .V. _[Talk|Email] 23:35, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

uploading images

I am unable to figure out how to upload an image to the Ashley Bickerton page. Can you help?Lmgallery 21:33, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

Go here: Special:Upload. Just make sure you read through Wikipedia's policies on images before uploading an image. I'd hate to see you go through the trouble of uploading, only to have it deleted.↔NMajdan•talk 21:35, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

How to: Have a thumbnail link to another page within my site.

What is the syntax to have a thumbnail on the main page link to a subpage on my site. I was unable to find anything related to this in the help section.

-js

• Are you talking about your own website or Wikipedia? If it's the first, you should ask at the reference desk, if it's the second, you probably need to know "your site" is not the correct way to talk about a Wikipedia page (see WP:OWN). If it's neither, please be more specific. - Mgm|^(talk) 22:13, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

My Edits Keep Cancelling

Hello, My name is Clive Cowan son of British Comic Scriptwriter Ted Cowan.

Someone began a page concerning my father which was not entirely correct in its information. I have spent considerable time in correcting it, adding new content, and adding and testing links. However, having saved my changes after a couple of hours the page is reverting back to the original cancelling out all my edits. The History shows the work I have done.

If I do not clear the Internet Cache on my computer then my edits remain - but not if viewed from another PC.

I have created a Registered User Account, entered details openly in my User Profile Page and Made an entry in the Ted Cowan Talk Page - all open and above board. I have received no contact nor explanation, nor can I see any obvious changes by other authors or malicious attacks.

What is going on please as I fail to understand.

I would be most grateful for your help - it seems pretty pointless if correct updated information is being overwritten by innaccuracies.

I look forward to hearing from you.

With Thanks,

--Clive Cowan 00:00, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

When I look at that article, all your edits seem to be there, and the page being displayed is consistent with your last edit. Perhaps your cache is not as cleared as you think? *Mishatx*-In\Out 00:07, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

See WP:PURGE and make sure you are viewing the latest revision of the page. --Teratornis 02:58, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

templates

how do i make (picture templates) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Rsivad (talk • contribs)

I'm sorry, could you explain what you mean by that? Xiner (talk, email) 00:21, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

templates like those little pictures in the user boxesi dont no how to find them and then but it in my user box sory about that i forgot to sign --Rsivad 02:16, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

Ah, userboxes with images...sorry I can't help you with that. Hopefully someone with more technical knowledge can answer your question. All I can say is copy one such template and play with it. Xiner (talk, email) 02:33, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

You may also want to try WP:VPT or WP:IRC. Xiner (talk, email) 02:34, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

You have new messages?!

OK, why does every Wikipedia page I open today have an orange box with "You have new messages (last change)," which, when I click on it, says "User talk:[IP address]" and admonishes me not to add nonsense content, "as [I] did to Goostrey" and to stop vandalizing pages, otherwise I'll be blocked. Needless to say, I don't even know what "Goostrey" is and have never even been to that page. What on Earth is this about?!— Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.108.175.186 (talk • contribs)

• IP addresses are often shared. This edit indicates that back in December a vandalizer used your IP address to vandalize Wikipedia. Even though you did not make the edit, it still shows under the IP's contribution history. That is why it is often encouraged to edit under an account name so as not to be unnecessarily blocked for edits you did not even make.¤~Persian Poet Gal ^(talk) 00:52, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

And that particular person never clicked the box to check the messages. Hence it was still showing for you. -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 00:55, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

a house-cleaning question

On the page for Category:People infobox templates, there are several items that seem to be userpages (or their sandboxes), and one that appears to be a problematic article (Karen (Remember to Forget)). Should these be cleaned out of this category page? I know WP encourages boldness, but I didn't want to delete something that should be left alone.--Vbd | (talk) 01:02, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

The Karen one is probably an error, and can be safely deleted. I might suggest to the authors of the user space templates to comment out the category inclusions. Xiner (talk, email) 01:12, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

Actually, no one can fault you for being bold and commenting out the code yourself. Just make sure if you do, you're very nice about it. Xiner (talk, email) 01:15, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

Okay, I've gone ahead and been bold (and hopefully polite). Question: Can anyone create a template for others to use? If so, how does one properly name or save a template so that it is not a user subpage? At least a couple of the ones I looked at seemed to be finished products, not just tests. I've skimmed WP:TEMP, but found it kind of dense (or maybe that's just me). Is one option simply to move the page? For example, if you go to User:Peter G Werner/Template:Infobox Scientist and move it to "Template:Infobox Scientist," would that work? (I don't want to experiment without contacting the User first; he may not intend for it to be available.)--Vbd | (talk) 04:43, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

Be careful about creating duplicates for already existant templates, but that is the way to creating a Template name space template. Xiner (talk, email) 13:57, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

Pictures

I cant seem to put a picture on an artical when i try to create one or when just editing.Gostanford22 01:45, 23 February 2007 (UTC)When i trie to put a picture on it just shows the link. Not the picture, what do i put for the pictures as in what code is put in and where do you store the images, i have mine on photobucket, but when i click the "embeded image" button and put in the code from photobucket, it just shows the link not the picture.Gostanford22 15:31, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

Can you be more specific? Have you tried adding an image to the sandbox? What error do you get when you try to upload an image? Xiner (talk, email) 04:05, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

It sounds like you're trying to link to an external image (one not hosted on Wikipedia's servers). You can't do this - you should first upload your image to Wikipedia, then link to it as you link to any article. Ale_Jrb^talk 17:56, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

How do u do that (upload the picture to wikipedia)Gostanford22 19:06, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

You can upload the picture by clicking the link "upload file" on the menu bar to the left in the toolbox. Please note that your image needs to have a tag saying where it came from and why it is going to be used otherwise it could be deleted. User: Hdt83 | Talk/Chat 08:53, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

Cookies...

I finally found the problem. It was in my security service, not the browser. I know the mantra "rtfm", but I didn't have an fm to r. Sorry to take up your time. Thanks again.

other web sites

are we aloud to put other web sites on our member page for instance Sone web site i like to go to are bla bla bla or are we not aloud to do that shoot i forgot to sign agin here u go --Rsivad 02:29, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

Yes, I don't know of any policy etc that forbids listing your favourite web sites, as long as you only do it in your userspace (for example, here), rather than the article space and make sure the links are tasteful. Post back if you need anything else — Deon555^talk_desk^{sign here!} 02:37, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

thx that helps alot but what do u mean by tasetfull?--Rsivad 02:44, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

For example, don't post shock sites or your favorite pornography sites. -Wooty Woot? contribs 03:55, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

As I understand it, the guidelines allow you to express your interests, so long as you're not advertising for someone else or using your user page as your browser bookmark file. Xiner (talk, email) 04:00, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

Remember, though, that your user page is only there to support your work as an editor of the encyclopedia; it isn't personal web space of any kind. In particular, if an editor doesn't edit articles, some would argue that they have no entitlement to a user page either. Notinasnaid 08:59, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

There are many other wikis. You might find one with few or no restrictions on user page content. --Teratornis 03:01, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

Style question about sub subsections...

I'm currently editing a rather large article. For clarity and ease, I think several sections need to be conflated into one large section. It just so happens that several of the sections to be conflated also contain subsections, which would then become sub subsections. I first attempted to edit all the sections by just adding all the additional "=" where needed. The problem is that, while the hierarchy of the sections looks correct on the TOC, the sub subsections looked indistinguishable from subsections in the actual body of the article. It appears that MediaWiki doesn't lend any additional formatting properties to sub subsections to make them look any different than subsections other than how they appear in the TOC.

Dissatisfied, I experimented with several formatting tricks and finally settled on using <h5>...</h5> tags on the sub subsection headers (to make those headers look different than subsection headers) and indented all the text that appear under sub subsection headings. Here is what it looks like on a subpage I'm working on: World of Warcraft. As you can see, all the section headers under Realms are done the way I described. This trick seems to solve the problem of making sub subsection headers and text more distinguishable from subsection headers and text. What's more, the TOC still recognizes them as sub subsections and displays the correct hierarchy even without using all the "=" one would normally use.

My question is: is this an acceptable style? I know it's unconventional. Is there a better way to do this without resorting to this trickery? Thanks in advance. Luis1972 05:58, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

I personally believe that using =====These sections===== is overall best for the article. However, you may wish to note that

;Title
text

more text!

Results in:

Title

text

more text!

The semicolon may be to your purposes, then, but my advice is to keep the regular sections. In addition, it's not convention to indent paragraphs with the colon. I don't know whether this is intended to be permanent or not. Good job with the article, and keep on writing! Gracenotes^T § 06:58, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

Thank you for your response. I have gone ahead and implemented the ===== markup for sub subsection headings. I actually think it's the same exact result you get when using the <h5>...</h5> tags, but I also deleted the indents as I agree that it would be an inconvenience for future editors. Thank you again. Luis1972 14:19, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

how to email a page to someone?

im unable to email a page which is needed for my future reference.

You don't know how to e-mail text from a web page? Perhaps we can help you, what kind of computer system do you have (example: Windows Me, Mac OS X.3), what browser (that is, the program which shows you web pages), and what e-mail program? Notinasnaid 09:40, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

I'm not sure what Notinasnaid is driving at... You can either send them a link to the page by copying the address of the article (this would be the line that starts "http://") or you can copy the text of the article and paste it into a new email message to them. The first way is better since they can then go to the most recent version of the article instead of reading a possibly old version which may have been updated several times by the time they read it. If you need help with copying and pasting, please don't be afraid to ask for more instruction. Dismas|^(talk) 09:48, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

I'm just driving at getting enough detail to give step by step instructions (since, for example, "select all" varies by platform and browser). Notinasnaid 10:05, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

Using the contents of wikipedia articles

Please let me know if the contents given in the articles of Wikipedia can be reproduced or used in some other articles, journals or books, without seeking copyrights permission.

SNS

Wikipedia is licenced under the GFDL; for full legal details, see the Text of the GNU Free Documentation Licence. Wikipedia:Copyrights contains more information you may find useful. --ais523 12:16, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

new version of image not showing up

I uploaded a new version of Image:Plainsboro-twp-nj.png (highlighted red with simple outline map) to the Commons. However, the Plainsboro Township, New Jersey article, in which I included the map, still displays the old version (highlighted pink with bodies of water). Even after refreshing, bypassing the cache, and purging the page, it still shows the old version of the map. When I click on the image, however, the image page does display the new version. How can I fix this problem? --Schzmo 12:24, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

I've purged it on Commons, and it looks OK to me now. Bypass your cache again, and if there are still problems report back here so we can try to think of what else might be wrong. --ais523 12:26, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

E-comments by subject citable

Cynthia Leigh is a notable cosplayer, made famous primarily on the 'net. I'm trying to skim her biography down into a more manageable form and size. One of the things someone mentioned in the article is that she has asthma, based in this post. Is this valid to be cited? -- Zanimum 14:26, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Reliable sources#Bulletin boards,wikis and posts to Usenet - a e-comment is not a reliable source. As it says on there, there is no way of telling who wrote them, and if they are just writing a load of rubbish! Hope this helps, Asics talk ^{Editor review!} 19:38, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

Good, thanks. That's what I thought, but just wanted to check. -- Zanimum 21:47, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

Sandbox

What is sandbox — Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.77.82.165 (talk • contribs)

It's a place you can test your edits without affecting real pages. Xiner (talk, email) 15:48, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

Randomly choosing users

I know we have Special:Random to pick random articles but I need a random sample of users. Is there any way to do this other than to copy all 3 million into a spreadsheet and pick random numbers? _└^Jared_┘^┌_talk^┐  17:26, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

Maybe pick a random article (with Special:Random) and then look at user that did the most recent non-bot edit to it? That way you get a random user, and you're sure to get one that's still active (and the more active the user, the more likely you'll get them). Of course, that could seriously skew your results if the purpose for the survey is to pick completely random people and then see how often they contribute, or how recently they've contributed. Maybe you can tell us why you're doing it, and see if that helps come up with any ideas? --Maelwys 17:47, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

Special:Random/User will return a random userpage or subpage; this may not be what you want, though, as it won't pick up redlinked users, and is weighted towards users with lots of subpages. --ais523 18:04, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

How to update a page relating to your own organisation

I work for an organistion called English Partnerships which currently has a stub article on Wikipedia. We'd like to add some more information to this stub but is it OK for me as a member of this organisation to do so? If not what would be the best way of submitting information which could be considered for inclusion on this page? Helenaball 17:31, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

Certain info like history should not be too much of a problem but anything that says how great English Partnerships is without citing an external source might be a problem under WP:NPOV or WP:COI. However, if you can find reliable sources (news, etc.) to back up what you want to say, it shouldn't be a problem.Mr.Z-mantalk¢ 17:40, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

It is probably better if you do avoid editing this article, in fact. It is better to propose changes on the article talk page. Please take a look at Wikipedia:Conflict of interest. Thanks, Notinasnaid 19:12, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

Sometimes it is best to add information on the talk page, and other users will find decide whether or not it is relevant, and from a neutral point of view. That would be what I would suggest, as it would avoid any Conflicts of interest. Hope this helps! Asics talk ^{Editor review!} 19:29, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

Free Language Resources for Computational Linguistics

Hi. I would like to upload a list of Spanish words for use by Computational Linguistics, Information Retrieval, and other natural language processing domains.

The list consists of hundreds of thousands of words, and each line is composed of three items: surface-form, lemma, part of speech. For example

• ...
• perros perro N
• ...
• tengo tenir V
• ...

The list is generated by decompiling ISPELL files for doing spell checking in emacs. These files are under the GPL license.

The resulting data set is large. It took up 30 megabytes when I formatted it in the wiki format of a three column list.

Since it is an automatically generated lexicon, I think it should be modifiable and thus appear in a wiki. I also want to produce the same data for thirty other languages.

It is useful for automated treatment in natural language processing to have all the information on one page rather than spread out over hundred of thousands of pages.

Which wiki is most appropriate for this data

• Wiktionary? ... seems to have adopted a one word per page approach
• Wikibooks ? ... but this is not a published work
• Wikisource ? ... but this is not a published work
• Wikiversity ? ... this resource is more for automatic treatment of language than language learning
• Commons?

Please advise.

148.204.211.250 19:14, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

Not actually sure if the data is useful for any of Wikipedia's projects. As far as I know, there isn't anything that compiles lists of words without their meanings. Perhaps look at Wikia, if you wish to make it a wiki? x42bn6 Talk 20:12, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

How about if I add in a user modifiable column that has the English translation(s) of each word

• • ...
  • perros perro N dog
  • ...
  • tengo tenir V hold, keep
  • ...

I still don't think so. It might qualify for Wiktionary but I doubt it because it requires meaning rather than translation - just look at es:Wiktionary:tilde, for example. x42bn6 Talk 17:08, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

Entering Videos into an article

I am interested in the article Street Light Interference. I have tried several times (in good faith) to make edits to this article, however an administrator ("Rspeer") takes out any edits I do; especially when it has to do with video. I have referenced all my changes to the main source reference book on this called The SLI Effect, published in London 1993 by Hilary Evans. I am NOT entering in any original research. I am ONLY saying the same thing he is saying throughout the book (which just happens to be a free download into a PDF file). The "basics" are that certain type people (unknown reason why) seem to effect street lights to go off (and sometimes back on again). I am showing this phenomenon in these videos. I tried to negotiate with this administrator with the idea of getting a "third opinion" on my videos. I agreed to these terms. However since there was no objections to my videos by other administrators or editors, I then entered back my videos. Immediately he reverted back saying this was original research; not allowing the videos to be used in spite of the fact that "third opinions" did not object. Here is what I am proposing (since I know he will object to anything I edit on this article):

1. Look at my User Page under Articles I Am Working On for the one named Street Light Interference. These are the edit changes I would like to submit. They are nothing drastically different than the way the article is now, except perhaps for the TWO short videos showing a SLIder effecting the light to go off and to effect the light to go on.
2. Allow all the proposed changes to stay for a period of time (i.e. 30 days) for other editors to look over for changes and improvements. See what others have to say on the idea of videos to illustrate a previously published phenomenon! Asking to just copy and paste this complete article written here as in my "proposal" in this sandbox to replace the existing.
3. If there are at least 3 independant editors (not associated with those that have edited the article in the last month) that object or change or remove these changes I propose (especially the videos), then these submissions proposed here not to be used. I agree then these proposed edits I am submitting are objectional and will not resubmit; however I feel I should not be "censored" on this material (especially since it is within guidelines and it is nothing real gross like that of say moral issues or religion or other such things).

If this sounds like an agreeable proposal, please drop in these changes and notify "Rspeer" what is being done. Thanks. --Doug ^talk 20:15, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

By third opionion, did Rspeer actually say 'third opinions of Wikipedia editors'? Because I would assume what they would direct you to would be WP:V, which explains that you need to report opinions of other people about things, and cannot post original research. That means, no matter how true something is, you can't just add it to an article, and you can't add your own videos in as evidence, with your own interpretation. If you can find a reliable source which describes these videos as showing SLI, then you could include them and say "(name of source) says '(blah blah blah)'". Skittle 22:28, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

Oop, sorry I misread. It was you talking about 3rd opinions, so you probably did mean that. Video you made of something happening is, by its nature, original research. However, if you can find some published source that describes these videos as showing SLI, or maybe if you described the videos as showing what SLI would probably look like, I would say they would be fine. Skittle 22:31, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

That wording sounds good to me. I have added this wording into the sandbox in the "edits" of Street Light Interference under my section Article I am Working On. Otherwise the other changes I made are basically minor and I would like to submit these now for a 30 day "test period" so that others can view the videos. If they object, I will pull them. Deal or no Deal?? Street Light Interference sandbox edit proposals for a "test period." Can I make these edit changes and the two small videos? --Doug ^talk 00:51, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

Vanishing Account

I had a registered account on Wikipedia, under the name "Alexannah". I had quite a few items on my watch list and I had my login info saved on my computer. Just now when I tried to access my watch page I found I wasn't logged in; when I tried to log in it said there wasn't a user with my name. I haven't got it wrong because I never register on sites as anything else. Has my account been terminated for some reason or is there just a bug?

Alexannah

I don't know why you are unable to log-in earlier. Your account shows up[5] I tried to log in as "Alexannah" and it said incorrect password not no such user.Perhaps you misspelled the name in the login or had caps lock on? Why don't you try again.--BirgitteSB 21:00, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

Bircham International University

Dear Wikipedia,

We have recently found your definition about Bircham International University. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bircham_International_University The definition currently posted is inaccurate, incomplete and misleading. I suggest that this definition is updated with a most accurate and precise content. First I will propose the definition and then I will provide the references and proofs in order to support the inaccurate leads detected. I thank you in advance for your time and I hope that you reconsider that this incorrect definition is quite damaging for our institution and it does not honor the commitment to accuracy and truth from an Encyclopedia

CORRECT DEFINITION ABOUT BIU:

Bircham International University is an independent institution of higher education that offers degree programs through distance learning for the adult professional student. BIU is a non accredited institution according to the USA accreditation standards (CHEA) and a provider of non formal higher education according to the Spanish Law. Its unaccredited degrees may not be acceptable to employers or other institutions, and the use of its degree titles may be restricted or illegal in some jurisdictions, such as the States of Oregon, Maine or Texas.

INACCURATE DATA ARGUMENTS AND PROOFS

I also ask that any reference to Diploma Mill or Fraudulent school are taken away from the definition for the reasons, arguments and proofs provided below.

AACRAO AND SOME STATES CLASSIFICATION OF BIU

The Oregon State Office of Degree Authorization listed BIU as a degree mill in the past. BIU provided documentation and a review conducted by Alan Contreras from the Oregon State Office of Degree Authorization any negative definition of BIU was deleted. It is though listed correctly as not accredited school with no further comments, except an “F” which means Foreign institution. http://www.osac.state.or.us/oda/unaccredited.html

AACRAO http://www.aacrao.org/international/consulting.cfm conducted a simple review of BIU legal status that lead to the incorrect statement posted by the State of Maine and Texas. The Oregon State Office of Degree Authorization who required this evaluation from AACRAO did not post the statement “Bircham is not accredited and it not authorized by the Spanish government” because it was explained to them by BIU. After detecting the the Wikipedia definition, BIU has taken the actions to get the Maine and Texas sites corrected the same way the Oregon Office did. We do not know how long this will take. First we have presented the same documents and proofs provided in this email to AACRAO who is the institution used by different States organism to verify foreign institutions. I understand that posing an inaccurate question or addressing the incorrect department in Spain may have lead AACRAO to this conclusion. Allow me to clarify that there are two types of higher education in Spain:

1. Formal Education leading to officially recognized degrees is monitored by the corresponding departments of education that ensure that the programs curriculum meet the standards set forth by the Ministry of Education. Completion of such homologated programs leads to an official degree.

2. Non-Formal Education (Educación no reglada) leading to non officially recognized degrees is monitored by the corresponding departments of consumer affairs that ensure consumer protection and quality of instruction delivery. Non formal education programs do not follow the Ministry of Education programs curriculum standards. Non formal education provides much more freedom in the program curriculum. Degrees granted after completion of non formal programs leads to a non official degree.

Bircham International University is a provider of non formal education and as such no further authorization form the Ministry of Education is required. The Ministry and Departments of Consumer Affairs monitors that BIU programs clearly state the non formal nature of the programs offered and the quality of instruction delivered. In 2004 a law was specifically approved on this regard. Before this law there was a disperse collection of norms and directives that could have lead the person conducting the AACRAO evaluation to the inaccurate and false conclusions stated above.

The applicable law is Decreto 84/2004 de 13 de Mayo. Enseñanza General. Quoting the law. It applies to private institutions that offer non formal education leading to non official degrees (...“los centros privados que imparten enseñanzas no dirigidas a las obtención de un título con validez oficial”...) You may read this law directly from http://gestiona.madrid.org/wleg/servlet/Servidor?opcion=VerHtml&idnorma=3480&word=S&wordperfect=N&pdf=S You may also verify other related laws at: http://gestiona.madrid.org/wleg/index.htm

Then you should download the PDF Documents called BIU Legal Docs and BIU Recognition on the top part of this link http://www.bircham.edu/pdfdownload/ This should provide documentary proof that neither AACRAO nor the States of Maine or Texas ever looked at while the Oregon State did look at. http://www.osac.state.or.us/oda/unaccredited.html

The PDF called BIU Legal Docs provides copies of the following documents and much more:

- Copy of the Official Registrar of Companies authorizing the name Bircham International University College and the purpose of the company (objeto social): Higher education. - Copy of the Economic Activity License under paragraph 932.2 (Professional Education and Improvement) - Copy of the Office license for the activity Higher Professional Education - Copy of a certificate from the Spain National Distance Learning Association (ANCED) stating the european residents may legally work in Europe with a non official degree granted by BIU. - Copy of the Consumer Affairs Quality Seal granted by the Ministry of Consumer Affairs that guarantees that BIU meets the regulations set forth by the law Decreto 84/2004 de 13 de Mayo. Enseñanza General. mentioned above.

BEING NOT ACCREDITED IS NOT EQAL TO BEING A DIPLOMA MILL

BIU may be listed as a non accredited school but this is not equivalent to be defined as a fraudulent institution or diploma mill. Quoting Wikipedia definition of unaccredited institutions “According to the United States Department of Education, it is possible for postsecondary educational institutions and programs to elect not to seek accreditation but nevertheless provide a quality postsecondary education” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/School_accreditation

You are also welcome to visit BIU website at http://www.bircham.edu/ to gather for more information and find out if BIU meets the criteria to be classified as a diploma Mill. BIU is NOT a Diploma Mill. A diploma mill is an institution of higher education that grants degrees without ensuring that students are properly qualified. The following aspects will allow you to properly differentiate BIU from a Diploma Mill or any questionable school. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Degree_mill

1. Legality: A diploma mill does not provide clear references about its legal status or authority to grant degrees. BIU does. Sometimes the school is based in countries that lack of any regulations in matter of education such as several Caribbean countries, some nations from Africa, or some States from the USA (Hawaii, Idaho, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri and Montana). A diploma mill often operates from another country through PO BOX addresses. Visit the About BIU section of BIU web for further explanations of BIU legal references. You may also download copies of BIU Legal Docs from the PDF Download area. http://www.bircham.edu/english/aboutbiu/

2. Contact offices: A diploma mill does not usually provide a physical or verifiable contact address or telephone. Any international structure is not real or just a group of commercial agents. There are no offices to visit or to call during office hours. BIU provides real addresses with real offices that may be visiet on working hours. Visit the BIU Offices to know worldwide contact details. http://www.bircham.edu/english/contactabiu.html

3. Admission & Fees. A diploma mill does not have a real admission process. Anybody is usually admitted into any degree program offered. Fees are negotiable and there is usually no criteria or regulations regarding any transfer of credits from previous education and professional experience. A diploma mill never offers a refund policy nor enforces any students rights or consumer protection. Visit the Admission section of BIU web to learn about our admission requirements, student rights and refund policy. http://www.bircham.edu/english/adm.html

4. Academic support. A diploma mill does not have a list of academics and staff. If there is a list, there will be no description of their educational qualifications. No detailed information about the content of the academic program is provided accurately or in detail. No learning methodology and teacher tutoring or counseling is available. There is never any academic feedback about any work submitted to the institution. Visit the Who We Are section of BIU web to know BIU Staff and academics. http://www.bircham.edu/english/graduados/ You may also download the Study Guide from the PDF Download area. http://www.bircham.edu/pdfdownload/

5. Recognition. A diploma mill does not provide clear information about recognition and accreditation. Any reference to third party accreditors is misleading, not sound and not verifiable. There is never a consumer protection guarantee such as the one that BIU provides. Visit the About BIU section of this web for further explanations of BIU recognition. http://www.bircham.edu/english/aboutbiu/ You may also download copies of BIU Recognition from the PDF Download area. http://www.bircham.edu/pdfdownload/

BIU is NOT a Diploma Mill. BIU web provides clear arguments against these issues. If you wish to verify further about any issue do not hesitate to ask or request additional documents.

CITYLINK ARTICLE “Bircham International University was referred to by a former DipScam federal agent as a degree mill.[2]” http://www.citylinkmagazine.com/archives/101503coverstory.html

This article deals with several diploma mills and the whole business around it. It mentions BIU once through the opinion of one former BIU student (Hullender). Michelle Moultrie Hullender was granted admission into BIU on 4/11/2003. She was assigned to do several reports on several textbooks that she never submitted. On 10/27/2003 she request to withdraw from the program. BIU sent the corresponding Refund Form according to the student rights and refund policy. Michelle Moultrie Hullender never submitted any academic work so she ca not provide an accurate opinion about BIU programs of study. The Citylink article then provides a comment about Deric Bircham without even bothering to verify if Deric Bircham credentials are good or not. Deric Bircham full and detailed Biodata is available upon request. A short summary of the academic part of his background (The honors are not included here) may be read at http://www.bircham.edu/english/graduados/ Academic Board

BIU lawyers have contacted Citylink magazine in the past in order to demand a correction of this references. The answer from Citylink magazine and Jim Di Paola the wirter is that the article only express an opinion. If Wikipedia considers that an article of opinion is a fact, then we also request that the following references about BIU are added to the definition of BIU provided by Wikipedia. This definitions are factual references and not mere opinions:

AADP - American Association of Drugless Practitioners http://www.aadp.net/ APICS - Accademia per la Promozione Internazionale della Cultura e della Scienza http://www.apics.com/news.htm ABED - Associação Brasileira de Educação a Distância http://www.abed.org.br/ AHEA - Adult Higher Education Alliance http://www.ahea.org/about/institutions.htm ANCED - Asociación Nacional de Centros de Enseñanza a Distancia http://www.anced.es/centros.asp BLA - The British Learning Association http://www.british-learning.com/home.htm EDUCAUSE http://www.educause.edu IACET - International Association for Continuing Education & Training http://www.iacet.org/about/providers.asp IARC - International Accreditation & Recognition Council http://www.iarcedu.com/directory.aspx INC - Instituto Nacional del Consumidor http://www.consumo-inc.es/guiacons/interior/infpract/infpract.htm

ECBE - European Council for Business Education http://www.ecbe.eu/what-is-ecbe.php?page_id=7 ICA - International Communication Association http://www.icahdq.org/

AADP - American Association of Drugless Practitioners http://www.aadp.net/ AAMA - American Alternative Medical Association http://www.joinaama.com/ AHHA - American Holistic Health Association http://ahha.org/ahhameb.asp BCMA - The British Complementary Medicine Association http://www.bcma.co.uk/bcma_Spain.htm

AHP - Association for Humanistic Psychology http://www.ahpweb.org/aboutahp/hum_edu.html ATP - Association for Transpersonal Psychology http://www.atpweb.org SIOP - Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology http://www.siop.org

IACEE - International Association for Continuing Engineering Education http://www.iacee.org/academic.htm

QUACKWATCH Lists BIU as questionable non-accredited school Wikipedia provides a very accurate definition of Quackwatch http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quackwatch BIU presented a report with all the course contents of our Natural Health Sciences programs for their review and evaluation. It is true that there is a lot of quackery in the Health Sciences Business but it is also true that there are good professionals and schools. I just refer the related links provided above. Quoting the answer received from Stephen Barrett, M.D. should be enough to prove the partial and obsesive personal war of this person has against all Natural Health Sciences. The question then is why Wikipedia considers such references as valid references for the definition of an academic institution.

Stephen Barrett, M.D. Email received on 02/12/03:

“I have been to your Web site, which, by the way, is one of the most poorly functional sites I have ever seen. The fact that you have a PhD program that offers to convey expert knowledge of iridology, homeopathy, and several other pseudosciences is enough for me to conclude that you teach nonsense. Sorry, but that's how I feel.”

Stephen Barrett, M.D. Board Chairman, Quackwatch, Inc. NCAHF Vice President and Director of Internet Operations P.O. Box 1747, Allentown, PA 18105 Telephone: (610) 437-1795

Finally I want to thank you again for taking your time to get to the end of our request and kindly ask you to modify the definition of BIU as suggested. Do not hesitate to contact me at willy@bircham.edu if any additional information or dicuments are required. I have provided quick internet references to support BIU arguments but of course additional documents are available. I did not want though to overload this email with an excess of documents.

Regards

William Martin BIU Vicepresident & CEO Plaza Chueca 8, Madrid 28004, Spain Tel: +34915217009 Fax: +34915219827 willy@bircham.edu

• Wikipedia is not subject to Spanish law.
• Several sources say you're a diploma mill, you offer a doctorate in homeopathy, you're not accredited in any way, and you've fallen under the suspicion of the US department of education. Utterly unconvicing sir --froth^T 01:43, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

Adding a wikipedia search box to a web page

Is it possible to add a Wikipedia search box, like the one on the Main Page of Wikipedia, to another webpage like a blog? Then when I talk about esoteric concepts in my blog, my friends can just type in what they want to know about and get a wikipedia page. 64.168.239.205 20:50, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

<inputbox> type=search bgcolor=#CCCCFF default= </inputbox>

 

• Like this? --Darkest Hour ǁ 21:34, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

There should be. http://mozdev.mozilla.org has a searchplugin for Firefox that does the exact match, and I know an older version did the full search thing. The code is fairly simple and someone who knows HTML should be able to adapt it easily. Xiner (talk, email) 21:40, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

<h5><label for="searchInput">Search</label></h5>
<div id="searchBody" class="pBody">
 <form action="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Search" id="searchform"><div>
 <input id="searchInput" name="search" title="Search Wikipedia [alt-f]" accesskey="f" value="" type="text">
 <input name="go" class="searchButton" id="searchGoButton" value="Go" type="submit">
 <input name="fulltext" class="searchButton" id="mw-searchButton" value="Search" type="submit">
 </div></form>
</div>

--Darkest Hour ǁ 21:52, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

The Vegan Vandal and supertroll

Is thare or was thare ever a vandal called The Vegan Vandal and or supertroll or mr treason?--Fang 23 21:35, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

short answer: no. Dåvid Fuchs ^{(talk / frog blast the vent core!)} 21:38, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

Actually "Supertroll" existed a long long long time ago. One of my first edits was an attempt to remove vandalism of his. I didn't do it right (I blanked the page instead of reverting), but I do remember it. Prodego ^talk 22:25, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

Here is the edit if you are interested. 15:09, 18 October 2005, my second edit ever. Prodego ^talk 22:27, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

Correct answer: yes. --WikiSlasher 02:39, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

February 24

Blanking your own talk pages

The user DX DX DX DX DX recently blanked his own talk page that contained numerous warnings for vandalism. Is this allowed? If not, what is the course of action to take against this user? --Eastlygod 00:39, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

It's allowed. WP:VANDAL used to have a note about it not being so, but that was removed a good while ago. Warnings are supposed to warn the user; removing them is just an acknowledgment that they're seen them. And it stops the trolls who place warnings on innocent user's talk pages and demand that they not remove them. If giving the user a new warning, just go up to the next level as usual. -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 00:42, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

Yes, and the warnings can be discovered in the page history. You can always report vandals to WP:AIV if they break the rule after the final warning. Xiner (talk, email) 00:45, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

I fondly remember WP:Vandal mentioning that it's "frowned upon". See the heading Talk page vandalism. —Xhantar^Talk 01:33, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

I really think that, unless the warning is a mistake, it should be kept. Otherwise, how will we know when to report them. This rule needs to be changed. Maybe I should try to change it. Though should I just put it as a comment in a talk page or create a new "Proposed policy" page? Mr.Z-mantalk¢ 02:22, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

It can be frustrating, but vandalism is one of the easier situations because there's WP:AIV. If you step back and think about it, it really doesn't matter what they do to their talk pages unless they're using it as a soapbox or personal attack page, in which case there's a lot of grey areas and you could easily start sinking to their levels. It is indeed "frowned upon" to blank one's talk page, but discourtesy is not a crime, just like in the real world. Xiner (talk, email) 02:33, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for your replies. I'll keep an eye on it, if he continues to vandalise, I will watch the warning given --Eastlygod 03:09, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

using someone else's images

I just spent a couple hours wading thru all the stuff about images & licensing but havent' found an answer.

I found some images that would be good illustrations for my article and I feel there's a good chance the artist/copyright owner would allow them to be licensed. But how do I go about asking him to do so?

All kinds of references to GDFL but how is it applied to an image? "Included in the text..." doesn't seem to apply.

KenGr8white 01:06, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

Show him the license and ask him if he'd agree to, basically, release the images for use by anyone, including profit-seekers, so long as they attribute it to him, or if included in an article, to Wikipedia. Xiner (talk, email) 01:05, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

Right yes. Wikipedia:Requesting_copyright_permission basically says what Xiner said, in a copy-and-paste-link kind of way. —Xhantar^Talk 01:24, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

CSS hover

I want to use CSS hover effects in a navigation template I'm working on. Is there any way to define a CSS class on a wikipedia page? Is there a template or something that would directly let me do hover effects (I'm specifically looking for a change of background color on hover) --froth^T 01:34, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

You might want to ask at the Technical Village Pump - the people there are a lot more code-savvy and probably would be able to help you more than most of us here. Off-hand, though, I think there might be a way to do it. Hersfold ^(talk/work) 01:54, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

Confused by hierarchy of authority of policy

What is the hierarchy of rules and regulations that govern procedure on Wikipedia? For example, Wikipedia:Vandalism; who backs that policy exactly? Just the users? The Foundation? Jimbo? Does the Foundation, the body that owns Wikipedia, explicitly forbid vandalism anywhere?

I'm trying to understand the rules in the same way that: a) British Law is really important b) The school's rules as determined by the head master and school board and whoever else is involved is somewhat important (e.g. no mobile phones allowed - is that legally enforceable?) c) The teachers preference that we don't smile during class is less important --Seans Potato Business 01:36, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia policy and guidelines exists by virtue of summarizing the current practices (with a few exceptions) and common sense. If all else fails, ignore all rules.Circeus 01:45, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

Jimmy Wales, through the Wikimedia Foundation, owns the Wikipedia servers. His word is law and he has the ability to do whatever he wants on Wikipedia. He does exercise this power- see Brian Peppers. For the most part he lets the Foundation and WP:ARBCOM do a lot of his dirty work. --froth^T 01:59, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

Policies on Wikipedia are generally determined by the consensus of the community. For the most part, Jimbo Wales (and the Foundation), whilst he has the final say on all issues, usually does not determine or formulate specific policies. -- Chairman S. Talk ^Contribs 02:29, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

MediaWiki failing to subst a sig?

I made a post signing it as normally: [6] but for some reason it looks like MediaWiki failed to expand out my signature and in stead placed four tildes in the wiki markup. Then on the next edit to the page, it picks out the tildes and signs someone else's name to my comment. What gives? —Dgies^t c 01:56, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

The only thing I found was an HTML <pre> beginning with no end, this causes the text to be displayed as it is laid out in the file.

like this ~~~~

The next editor must have removed it.Mr.Z-mantalk¢ 02:17, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

Ah yes, that would do it. I actually noticed the pre after saving my edit but someone beat me to fixing it and I failed to notice it had caught my signature. —Dgies^t c 03:12, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

Categories

How can I force Category:Multiracial Wikipedians to be listed on the first page of its parent category? Thanks. Xiner (talk, email) 03:54, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

Nvm, I figured out a hack; just give a sortkey of a space character. Xiner (talk, email) 04:04, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

How do I get a Copyright?

I am getting very frustrated that I can't add pictures that I think are good to anime and manga articles.

Please be more specific in your question. All original works are automatically under copyright, held by the author. —Centrx→talk • 04:06, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

If you're saying what I think you're saying, plesae read Wikipedia:Image_use_policy, Wikipedia:Fair use, Wikipedia:Fair use criteria and Wikipedia:Image copyright tags. Yeah, that's quite a bit. -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 04:12, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

You should also be aware that the rules are likely to be enforced much more strictly in future: this probably means no copyright pictures for things like cartoon characters, celebrities, book or album covers at all. The rules haven't changed, but the enforcement has been rather relaxed. Wikipedia's aim is to produce an encyclopedia of free content, and using copyright pictures doesn't match that aim. 08:50, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

Detail box at bottom

How do you edit the info boxes at the bottom of an article. I am talking about the ones at the bottm of a page for a musical artist that details band members and official album releases etc... i hope this makes sence. thanks.

Some of them have an edit button in the corner. If it doesn't, then try editing the page and look for a template name in double curly brackets (e.g. {{The Bluetones}}), and type template:templatename (e.g. template:The Bluetones) in the search box to get to the template page (e.g. template:The Bluetones). PrimeHunter 12:54, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

A question for the reference desk

can i get some details about customer relationship management intiatives of creditcard agency

Possibly, if you ask at the reference desk. --Teratornis 23:15, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

Reference to Forums

I would like to use the wording (or something similar): This phenomenon is reported by thousands worldwide in discussion forums that can be found by anyone using the normal search engines like Google or Yahoo. Would this be proper, or is there better wording that I could use that doesn't indicate that I am using "forums" as a type of reference. The idea behind this wording is for those that have FURTHER interest, that they can then go to other places for information. My intent is that I am NOT using it as reference material. Could I then use a "link" in the statemnent like: There are discussion forums on paranormal here. --Doug ^talk 13:16, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

You might bring this up at Wikipedia talk:Attribution. I'd say avoid this, and instead look for a source that says something similar. -- Rick Block (talk) 17:51, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

Forums are not an acceptable source for Wikipedia NOR an acceptable external link. Your form of words could be seen as a way to try to get around that by inviting people to look in forums themselves. You really need to find what is considered a reliable source or acceptable link; for example a newspaper writing about forums could be quoted. Notinasnaid 19:04, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

If you participate much in forums, you've probably grown tired of those lame student survey questions that roll through unceasingly like the seasons. Instead of merely flaming the lame surveys, enjoyable as that may be, consider trying to enlist one of those students to conduct and publish a study about whatever sort of online phenomenon you wish to mention. With luck you might end up with a peer-reviewed study you can cite. For best results, you might need to get in touch with the professor who sent out the sacrificial survey lambs, and see about getting him/her to perform an actually useful investigation for a change. See WP:ACST for some links to studies about Wikipedia; from there you might find your way to some studies about discussion forums (should we say "fora"?). --Teratornis 23:13, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

You can't use a discussion forum as a source to prove or disprove a fact in an article, but you may be able to use it to prove the discussion itself existed, or as an example of such discussion. I wouldn't send the reader to search engines though ( links to seach engine result pages are frowned on ) but might say something like "This is a perennial topic of discussion on ABC-site and XYZ-site, as well as USENET's rec.m.n.o.p", with links to examples of these discussions in the footnotes section. Squidfryerchef 18:12, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

Video "Ogg" files

Presently there are approximately 400 "ogg" video files. Approximately how many of these are actually used in articles and can I get a list of these articles? The others (20% +/-, I'm guessing) that are NOT used on articles then are for what purpose? --Doug ^talk 14:22, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

If you go to the video file's page, there should be a section titled "What links here" or something along those lines that lists where the video is being used. There probably is a way to write a script to figure out which ones are "orphan" files, but I'm not sure how to do it myself - maybe someone else will figure it out.

As for what purpose they serve, none really. If there are any videos uploaded under a fair use rationale that aren't being used, they should be speedy deleted. Hersfold ^(talk/work) 15:15, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

How do I request for an Article to be made?

How or where do I request for an article to be made? I don't have that much skills in writing a full article yet, so I am wondering about asking people if I ever need to. Thank You

Sincerly

Kenny Sullivan 16:55, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Requested articles. PeaceNT 17:06, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

Also, please remember to find the sub-topic in which your request best fits. Hope this helps. PeaceNT 17:10, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

Be sure there is not already an article covering the topic you are interested in, perhaps under some other name. See Help:Searching. Wikipedia has many articles, so a topic has to be fairly obscure or specialized not to have an article yet. Ask at the reference desk for article(s) on any topic; if they cannot find an article, then you could request it. --Teratornis 23:05, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

Search for a Wikipedia policy

Is there a way I can quickly search for a Wikipedia policy? Right now, I enter the Community Portal and manually search/browse to find any info I need. --Madhu 17:14, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

I find most wikipedia space pages by guessing shortcuts. Most wikipedia namespace shortcuts go along the lines of "WP:<acronym or abbreviation>". Examples: WP:SHORT > Wikipedia:Shortcut, WP:NOT > Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not, WP:HD > Wikipedia:Help desk. If that doesn't turn up what you're looking for try the search box (or posting the question here). —Mitaphane _?|! 17:29, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

I suppose you're looking for Wikipedia:List of shortcuts, there you can find the full list of Wikipedia policies and guidelines, the redirects are also useful. Hope this helps. PeaceNT 17:29, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

You may find what you are looking for by browsing the Category:Wikipedia policies and guidelines -- zzuuzz^(talk) 17:32, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

There are lists as well, see Wikipedia:List of policies and Wikipedia:List of guidelines. -- Rick Block (talk) 17:36, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

Thanks, everyone. Mitaphane, yes, searching 'WP:xxx' in the search box works - this is what I really wanted to know - if there was a 'tag' I could use to search within the Wikipedia policy/help page instead of the encylopedia! Thanks again. ---Madhu 17:50, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

Lately I'm liking: User:John Broughton/Editor's Index to Wikipedia. Open the page, browse to a specific letter entry, or type search words in your Web browser's page search box. --Teratornis 21:50, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

Can I use a picture that was already use on Wikipedia?

If I wanted to use a picture that is already on Wikipedia do I still need a premission from the site or person that Wikipedia got it from? Kenny Sullivan 17:15, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

That depends on the license on image. What do you want to use it for? Do want to use it for another wikipedia page? That would be ok (assuming the image is already under Fair Use or some other license granting it use on the wikipedia). Do you want to use the image for your own, copyright protected project? That could violate wikipedia's license. Post the image in question so that one of the editors here could interpret what the license on the image means. —Mitaphane _?|! 17:39, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

• Mostly true, but not entirely. If it's fair use on one page, that doesn't automatically mean it can be used on another. Fair use has strict rules and requires a rationale for that particular page. Please read the page Mitaphane linked for more detail on fair use. - Mgm|^(talk) 22:27, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

wikipeadia for mobiles?

Thx for a great web page. Is there a wikipedia home page that can be used from mobiles?

Regards, P.

See WP:WAP. —Mitaphane _?|! 17:41, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

wikitables

Hello, I have a question, how do you create wikitables? Do you type them directly or use a program? Do you create them easily or not? I visited a page in Internet which converted HTML tables to Wikitables. But I don't know how to make HTML tables. I make tables with MS Word, but they aren't HTML, and in Frontpage codes have many surpluses and they'll corrupt Wikipedia. So what do you suggest? Thanks a lot --♥MehranVB♥ ^{☻talk | ☺mail} 17:36, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

I wouldn't bother with HTML since you're going to be converting to wiki markup anyway. Check out Help:Table. It covers all you need to know on making tables with wiki markup. —Mitaphane _?|! 17:45, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

Name change

Hi, I'm an experienced editor and the creator of WikiProject Tyne and Wear and it is currently being proposed that its name be chanegd to Wikiproject North East England. I'd be happy to edit the project logo and help with the change over its just that I'd like to know if there is a way all of the categories and subcategories for the proect easily because they are automatically update by the wikipedia editorial team bot (or something like that) on a daily basis and I was thinking if I change the categories will that stop the bot from working properly or will it jsut adjust, do you have any suggestions please? Thanks!Tellyaddict 17:56, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

Well, I know considerably less about your WikiProject than you do, but I do know how to click on links and look at things, so maybe I can find some clues. Wikipedia:WikiProject Tyne and Wear#Categories has a list; the first one is Category:Tyne and Wear. Click the history tab to see what's been editing it. A bot edit points to: User:Escarbot, and its page says: This robot is only used to make interwiki links. You could ask on the owner's talk page if what you want to do will cause a problem for that bot. Then look at the histories of other pages you want to move, and ask the owners of bots that have edited those pages if what you want to do will cause a problem for them. For more information on bots, see: User:John Broughton/Editor's Index to Wikipedia#Bot. --Teratornis 21:45, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

John Quincy

Who was John Quincy's first wife?

Please see John Quincy Adams. If that article doesn't have the information or if you meant a different John Quincy, then please ask over at the Reference desk which handles factual questions like this. Dismas|^(talk) 18:48, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

Template

Hi, can someone please remind me where I put new templates, in case anyone wants to use them... I've put it on the Death Grunt talk page, and wikiproject metal talk page, but I am sure there was somewhere else I could put it... Any ideas? The template is

This user growls in a heavy metal band.

({{User Metal Singer}}) Thanks, Asics talk ^{Editor review!} 18:54, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

You may want to add it to Wikipedia talk:Userboxes/New Userboxes, or were you looking for something else? Dar-Ape 20:35, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

That's what I was looking for, thanks! Asics talk ^{Editor review!} 21:13, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

Reporting content

I was wondering (as I can't find anything searching the FAQ) if there was a way to report or highlight content that needs changing because it is wrong, but that you don't know the right answer to.

For example, I just found the following on the "Chicken" page:

"Going broody

A moody hen guarding her legs

Sometimes ben will stop laying and instead will focus on the masterbation of eggs, a state that is commonly known as going moody. A moody pie will shit fast on the nest, and protest or peck in defense if disturbed or removed, and will rarely leave the nest to eat, drink, or dust bathe. While brooding, the hen maintains constant temperature and humidity, as well as turning the legs regularly."

This is obviously wrong, but I don't know enough about chickens to do anything else other than remove the wrong words.

If you look at the history of edits (top of the page) you can see when the edits were made and using the undo button (you'll see when you click on it) you can revert the edits. Also it is an idea to leave comments on the vandal's talk page, information on what to leave can be found here. Asics talk ^{Editor review!} 19:18, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

Also, a list of talk page warnings can be found here. Mr.Z-mantalk¢ 21:16, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

Scroll boxes

How do you create scroll boxes? By this I mean small boxes with the scroll bar (similar to what is normally far left of the screen on IE) down the side of it. I have seen it on wikipedia before, but I am unsure where I saw it! Thanks, Asics talk ^{Editor review!} 19:23, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

There's one on my user page actually. I can't remember where I copied it from, but the code is:

<div style="height:20em; overflow:auto; border: 2px solid #088">

Page contents here

</div>

You'll have to find someone more knowledgeable than myself if you want to know what all the code actually means. Raven4x4x 02:44, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

Sending something

i would like to send something to my friend on cleopatra how would i be able to send him something

You'll have to be more specific. However if your friend is a user, you can leave messages on the user's talk page, type in Talk:username into the search box. If you are trying to send him information about the article from here, you can send him the link... Other than that I am unsure, but if you could be a bit more specific, I would be delighted to help Asics talk ^{Editor review!} 20:22, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

You mean User talk:username --WikiSlasher 02:29, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

Thats what I mean! doh! Asics talk ^{Editor review!} 13:31, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

signpost

where can i read the wikipedia signpost newspaper?qrc2006/email 20:01, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

See WP:POST. Cheers, Dar-Ape 20:16, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

how do I add an article to wickepedia?

above, I cannot find a link to add an article. There is not even a button to send this message. I take it you do not want people to easily add articlews or contact you — Preceding unsigned comment added by Itrsteve (talk • contribs) 07:19, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

See Help:Starting a new page for information on adding a new article. -- Chairman S. Talk ^Contribs 20:25, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

A page listing all red image links?

Is there a page on Wikipedia that lists all pages containing links to non-existent images (ie, red image links)? This would be very useful, for example, in finding chemical compounds who need pictures of their structures.shoy 17:42, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

I was going to suggest Special:Wantedpages, but it has been turned off. You might find WP:WANTED or Wikipedia:WikiProject Red Link Recovery useful for what you're searching for. I think there's a problem with search though; people usually don't create image tags for non existent images. The only time I've seen red links for images were for deleted or renamed images, not for images that someone thought would be created at a later time. For that you might want to see Category:Wikipedia requested photographs by subject—Mitaphane _?|! 18:03, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

The reason I ask is that adding the template {{chembox}} to a page will automatically add a link to the image [Page Title].png. This would be an easy way of seeing which chemical pages needed structural formulas.shoy 22:31, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

I see. Perhaps this is a job for the AutoWikiBrowser? You could tell it to go through the pages Special:Whatlinkshere/Template:Chembox and have it report which pages have broken image links. I've never created a AWB plugin so I don't know how difficult/time consuming that could be.

I'm looking at the list of what links to chembox, it looks like it would be quicker to do it manually by checking each page. It doesn't look like there's that many pages that uses chembox (maybe around 350?). If it takes around 10 seconds to load up a page (an a fraction of a second to check to see if there's a red image link) that's 3500 seconds, roughly an hour, to check them all.—Mitaphane _?|! 16:39, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

Forgeting the edit summary

I reverted some vandalism and forgot to say so in the edit summary. It wont let me change it either. What should I do SlakaJ 22:37, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

It shouldn't be too much of a problem unless you do it repeatedly. You can go to the page, make an unnoticable edit, and refer to your previous edit in the summary for your new one. Mr.Z-mantalk¢ 22:49, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

If you'd like to avoid accidentally leaving an edit summary blank, you might want to go to "my preferences" at the top of the page, click "Editing," and then select the checkbox next to "Prompt me when entering a blank edit summary." Also, your signature does not contain a link to your userpage or talk page-- I think you may have accidentally checked the "Raw signature" box under "User profile" in preferences. If you could uncheck this, that would be great. Thanks, Dar-Ape 23:19, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

ThanksSlakaJ 10:12, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

February 25

Search Box Memory

How do I get the search box to forget what articles i've been to and never store that information again? Bacon warrior 04:26, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

That information is stored by your web browser, and you can change it in your web browser's preferences (either under Edit->Preferences or Tools->Options or somesuch). —Centrx→talk • 01:17, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

Thank you very much Bacon warrior 04:26, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

Ernest Hemingway and polydactly cats being called "Hemingway cats"

Hi.

Although I don't subscribe to the fact that almost anyone can edit Wikipedia, I have an additonal fact about Ernest Hemingway!

I just adopted a cat who is polydactyl -- which means that he has extra toes! I have since found out that polydactyls are also called "mitten cats" because it looks like they have mittens on their front paws (VERY cute!) but, most importantly, that Ernest Hemingway loved these special cats! Because he had so many, I've heard, is the reason why polydactyl cats are also called

                 "Hemingway Cats"

I thought that was interesting enough to be added to your article on Hemingway!

I will be certified as a teacher in December, and use our high school library regularly. I will have to say that most of the teachers at our high school advise students that when doing research, they cannot rely on Wikipedia for obtaining completely valid research.

I think that this is a shame, as I fully enjoy your website! I was glad when the Hemingway article could not be added to -- I only found out about the polydactyl cat "love" last week, so I certainly don't feel I can reliably write about this fact!

Thank you, Connie Goranson71.33.170.136 02:49, 25 February 2007 (UTC) Englewood High School

Welcome to Wikipedia. You can add any relevant fact to an article, even if you just now discovered it, as long as you can cite your sources. For example, when you hear something interesting, you might look up a reference for it in your library. If more teachers would look up references for all the unsourced statements on Wikipedia, and add them to articles here, and encourage their students to do likewise, then Wikipedia might become more reliable. However, WP:CW says encyclopedias are often considered an unacceptable source for school papers. In any case, Polydactyl cat mentions Hemingway cats, complete with photos. You could add a link to Polydactyl cat to the Ernest Hemingway#Trivia section. --Teratornis 05:20, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

I should point out that Wikipedia has lots of articles, so lots of interesting facts are hiding here somewhere. If you don't find a particular fact in the first article you think to search for it, try searching the rest of Wikipedia. For example, just because the Ernest Hemingway article doesn't mention Hemingway cats, there might well be another article that does (in this case, Hemingway cats which is a redirect to Polydactyl cat). You might show your digitally hyper-endowed feline that he is notable enough to warrant mention on Wikipedia, then show him the mouse article. --Teratornis 05:31, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

Are disambiguation pages necessary when only one article exists?

Until yesterday Walker House had a list of 14 different Walker Houses, but the only one that actually had a link to an article was right at the bottom of the list [7].

My understanding is that disambiguation pages are created to disambiguate between articles of the same name, not for creating long lists of possible titles for articles that may or may not exist one day, especially when only one article by that name currently exists on Wikipedia.

Anyway, I turned the "disambiguation" page to a redirect for that one article and soon after the creator of the page reverted it, after just have created a new stub for a second Walker House, apparently just to make a point and to justify creating the disambig page in the first place. All the other unlinked titles are back on there too.

Is this the way to do it on Wikipedia? If only one article exists, then create a dab page anyway because one day someone might make articles with the same name?Saikokira 03:47, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

Even if there's a disambig page, the title should probably direct to the most likely House, with a link on that page to the disambig page using one of these templates. Propose a move on WP:RM as there's obviously disagreement, but hopefully it will get you allies. Xiner (talk, email) 03:57, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

Cfd page coding

I added an entry to Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2007 February 25 but screwed up the template coding so that now the entry doesn't appear in the TofC. Instead of "Category: Best Drama Actor Golden Globe (film)," it reads "NEW NOMINATIONS." Can someone help recode this (if it is not too much trouble)?--Vbd | (talk) 06:27, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

Chikungunya, homeopathy etc.

To The Editor Wikipedia

I would like to share my experience in helping patients suffering from Chikungunya on Wikipedia but do not know how I may do so. I live in Sri Lanka, am 77 years old and Homeopathy is only a hobby to me. I have studied this science since 1968 but am not qualified in this science although I do have over 20 years of helping patients who consult me in Sri Lanka which I do completely free of charge, including the remedies that I dispense.

Chikun Gunya was first reported in Sri Lanka in November 2006 and I used Polyporus Pinicola 200c to treat this disease with success. I also used Apis 6c to help with the usual edema that usually follows about a week after the first symptoms and continues for months thereafter. I used Gelsemium 30c as a prophylactic to help members of the same household to avoid contracting this disease.

This disease was pandemic here in Sri Lanka from last November to the end of January when about 20% of the population were affected but no new cases are reported today. I have had some remarkable success in helping patients who present today with the after effects of Chikungunya with swollen ankles and pain in the joints which continue even 3 months after the onset of this disease. I now use a lower potency of Polyporus Pinicola in the 30c potency.

I have observed that in the case of patients who have got used to the general aches and pains which are a characteristic of this disease, they respond in a few days to the Polyporus Pinicola 30c in the water dose which is made by inserting 2-3 drops of the remedy in Ethanol, into a 500ml bottle of spring water. A dose is a teaspoonful which is taken twice daily.

I would like to share my therapy on the Treatment page of the article on Chikungunya: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chikungunya I do not know how I may do so and would appreciate if any member of your staff can help as this information can be valuable to those who may be affected by this disease for which modern medicine does not have any cure.

Polyporus Pinicola is a Homeopathic remedy and is described in Boericke on the link below: http://homeoint.org/books/boericmm/p/polyp-p.htm

Joe De Livera Colombo Sri Lanka

email: <e-mail address removed> — Preceding unsigned comment added by Joe De Livera (talk • contribs)

You can not do what it sounds like you want to do. Wikipedia is not a host of original research; things have to already be published in reliable sources. Relevant policy/guideline links include: Wikipedia:Verifiability, Wikipedia:Fringe theories, and Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not. -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 07:13, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

One image has enough licensing info and another does not, but what is the difference?

An image was recently removed from Homunculi of the Fullmetal Alchemist anime and it needs to be replaced, but I am having difficulty understanding the rules. It won't do any good if I replace the image with another one that will be removed.

Here is another image from that page: Image:FMASloth.png. It seems to have whatever it takes to keep from being deleted. As I understand it, that is source and copyright information, but I can't find anything that I recognize as a source on the page for that image. In fact, this image seems to come with almost no documentation, and yet it is not removed.

This is the image that was removed: Image:Lust.JPG. As I write this, it has not been deleted, but I expect it will be deleted shortly. What exactly is it missing, and where can I find that for Image:FMASloth.png? -- Lilwik 07:47, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

1. Source. Where did it originally come from?
2. Fair use rationale. Why do we need these imaages in the first place?
3. Copyright holder. Whose image is this?

The first image does not have a source. It may eventually be tagged for deletion in the future. Titoxd^(?!?) 07:54, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

In case it is not clear, the above response does not actually explain anything. Those points are given directly on the page of Image:Lust.JPG. I know that those things are supposed to be required and I would like to know how to supply them, but I cannot find that information in the other images on the same page which all ultimately come from approximately the same source. I presume that the information must be somehow there, because those images were not removed as this one was. -- Lilwik 09:35, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

Multiple samples of same songs (Not what it seems to be, read below)

A Funk Odyssey is a Jamiroquai-related article I've been contributing to, especially on the topic of the controversial test pressing of the album, which is very different from what the final album came to be. Some of the congs are very dissimilar to their "official" counterparts. I need to know if I'm allowed to upload 2 (TWO) samples per song, for comparison purposes between the test pressing and the final album. (User:MrFunkster)

I'm no expert on this sort of thing, but I would be concerned that fair use wouldn't apply to copyrighted recordings that haven't actually been released. -- Chairman S. Talk ^Contribs 09:46, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

So that means that I can not upload them? Well, that's just "awesome". MrFunkster 10:02, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

wikiproject central america help

i'm wondering how i can become a participant in the wikiproject central america? i went to the project page where it said i can join but can't quite figure out exactly how to go about dong this. i would really like to contribute and help others.

thanks Matteo747 10:46, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

Just click on the edit tab beside Wikipedia:WikiProject Central America#Participants and add your name. Hope this helps. --Joshua Chiew 10:59, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

I added his name to Wikipedia:WikiProject_Central_America asa participant. Hope this helps. BuickCenturyDriver (Honk, odometer) 11:56, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

how can i become a volunteer for the central america project? please help!

hi im from el salvador and i would like to help make improvements on the article and on this site can you please contact me about the procedure... thank youGuacamaya

Please see the question directly above this one. Dismas|^(talk) 11:45, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

how do i

how do i create a user page with the little boxes with my information on them?

Those little boxes are called userboxes. To find all the userboxes, go to WP:UBX and copy the code (the {{ }} and the stuff inside them) and paste it on to your userpage >Kamope< Talk · Sign Here 12:26, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

Hi there. I want to publish an article about a company in Ireland called, www.celtictrails.com An incredibly good company that I believe deserves to be publisised. How do I do it? 86.41.15.236 13:10, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

You can either create an account or request it. >Kamope< Talk · Sign Here 13:19, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

Bear in mind that if the article is aiming to promote the company, it will probably be deleted. Wikipedia articles should only be written about companies that are notable (click that link to get a description). You need to write in an encyclopedic tone, without a specific point of view, so you can't just write an article about how great the company is. Wikipedia is not supposed to publicise things, it is supposed to write about things that are already known, and not say more than is already written about them in reliable sources. I advice you to read the links I've provided in this paragraph and think about them before creating an article. But we'd love to have you editing! Skittle 16:25, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

Mobile Wikipedia

Hello & congratulations on the project.I've been using the Palm based encyclopedia for a while but have now bought a mobile phone with a 1Gb card,on to which I hoped to load the file.Is there a text version of the encyclopedia which I could use,or is there a convert program to produce text? If not,could you please advise me of the correcty Tomeraider program to buy fot the phone.

The model is a NOKIS 6680,running symbian 60 ( I think)

thankyou≈ very much & regards - Peter

Does WP:WAP help? --Teratornis 16:58, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

Deletion of a re-direct in order to change the title of an article

I would like to move Parliament of Italy to Italian Parliament and The Socialists (Italy) to The Socialists, but there is a problem: Italian Parliament (correct translation of Parlamento Italiano) is a re-direct to Parliament of Italy and The Socialists is a re-direct to The Socialists (Italy). Can anyone help me? --Checco 15:21, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

I proposed the deletion of the two pages mentioned before (Italian Parliament and The Socialists) in Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2007 February 25. I hope that it is all right. --Checco 15:52, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

Can't you just move the page Parliament of Italy to Italian Parliament using the move tab? I thought that worked if the article's only history was being a redirect. Skittle 16:21, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

I can't understand what you're saying. Anyway I tried to put my move request at Wikipedia:Requested moves, but, as you can see there, I had some problems with it. Can you help me about it? --Checco 17:01, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

Creating a Wiki

I was just interested in how I would be able to make a wiki. I have seen some other Wiki's for specific sites (Ic-wiki.com for instance) And I was wondering how I could make another one for a similar some other site. How would I be able to get host permissions from Wikiepdia in other words? Thank you for your help!

~KtC Angel of Peace

There's no need to get permission from us. Wikipedia is built on the free software, MediaWiki. You can download it yourself and run it on your own website host (see the link for instructions on installation). Or, if you can't afford web hosting, an alternative is to try out Wikia. —Mitaphane _?|! 16:45, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

Also see b:Wiki Science/How to start a Wiki, and check the List of wikis to see if a wiki already exists that you can use. --Teratornis 17:04, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

I have no sound in my compiuter.

Please ,will you say ,"why have I no any sound in compiuter that Tv VDO or CD plyers ? I have sound box . May be I have no programe sound downloding.Please help me,white can I do?

Have you tried Wikipedia's Reference Desk? They specialize in knowledge questions, and will try to answer any question in the universe (except how to use Wikipedia, since that's what this Help Desk is for). Just follow the link, select the relevant section, and ask away. I hope this helps. delldot | talk 19:19, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

new article not posting

hello, i've posted an article for a friend of mine and it does not come up in a search. also, the picture is always being removed. i received permission from her to use this photo and upload the article. can you please help me.

the page is for Colleen Patrick Goudreau of Compassionate Cooks.

the login I used to create the page was compassionatecooks

you can contact me at [email address removed by Lilwik 22:27, 25 February 2007 (UTC)]

thank you. danielle 17:40, 25 February 2007 (UTC)— Preceding unsigned comment added by Compassionatecooks (talk • contribs)

It won't show because you created it on your userpage. And remember to sign your comments--SUIT^-n-tie 17:50, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

Also remember not to include your email address. I removed it for compassionatecooks's own good, but I suspect it is already too late. -- Lilwik 22:27, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

RFC for best way to handle table of figures

I've been fixing up the article on CB radio, and we've gone through several different ways to handle the list of frequencies. I'm looking for a pointer to a template, if any, that would resolve the issue.

One way of doing it is at http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Citizens%27_band_radio&oldid=109975353. Here we have a good multicolumn table, with fixed-width fonts and shading. However it looks a little "broken" because the space between the columns is not shaded, and it looks a little like an example of the use of a template on a how-to page.

Channel 01   26.965 MHz
Channel 02   26.975 MHz
Channel 03   26.985 MHz
Channel 04   27.005 MHz
Channel 05   27.015 MHz
Channel 06   27.025 MHz
Channel 07   27.035 MHz
Channel 08   27.055 MHz
Channel 09   27.065 MHz
Channel 10   27.075 MHz

| class="col-break " |

Channel 11   27.085 MHz
Channel 12   27.105 MHz
Channel 13   27.115 MHz
Channel 14   27.125 MHz
Channel 15   27.135 MHz
Channel 16   27.155 MHz
Channel 17   27.165 MHz
Channel 18   27.175 MHz
Channel 19   27.185 MHz
Channel 20   27.205 MHz

| class="col-break " |

Channel 21   27.215 MHz
Channel 22   27.225 MHz
Channel 23   27.255 MHz
Channel 24   27.235 MHz
Channel 25   27.245 MHz
Channel 26   27.265 MHz
Channel 27   27.275 MHz
Channel 28   27.285 MHz
Channel 29   27.295 MHz
Channel 30   27.305 MHz

| class="col-break " |

Channel 31   27.315 MHz
Channel 32   27.325 MHz
Channel 33   27.335 MHz
Channel 34   27.345 MHz
Channel 35   27.355 MHz
Channel 36   27.365 MHz
Channel 37   27.375 MHz
Channel 38   27.385 MHz
Channel 39   27.395 MHz
Channel 40   27.405 MHz

In http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Citizens%27_band_radio&action=edit&oldid=110275187, it's been changed to a different kind of table, and might be more correct except I don't like the spacing and I don't like the variable-width font.

Channel 01 26.965 MHz Channel 02 26.975 MHz Channel 03 26.985 MHz Channel 04 27.005 MHz Channel 05 27.015 MHz Channel 06 27.025 MHz Channel 07 27.035 MHz Channel 08 27.055 MHz Channel 09 27.065 MHz Channel 10 27.075 MHz

Channel 11 27.085 MHz Channel 12 27.105 MHz Channel 13 27.115 MHz Channel 14 27.125 MHz Channel 15 27.135 MHz Channel 16 27.155 MHz Channel 17 27.165 MHz Channel 18 27.175 MHz Channel 19 27.185 MHz Channel 20 27.205 MHz

Channel 21 27.215 MHz Channel 22 27.225 MHz Channel 23 27.255 MHz Channel 24 27.235 MHz Channel 25 27.245 MHz Channel 26 27.265 MHz Channel 27 27.275 MHz Channel 28 27.285 MHz Channel 29 27.295 MHz Channel 30 27.305 MHz

Channel 31 27.315 MHz Channel 32 27.325 MHz Channel 33 27.335 MHz Channel 34 27.345 MHz Channel 35 27.355 MHz Channel 36 27.365 MHz Channel 37 27.375 MHz Channel 38 27.385 MHz Channel 39 27.395 MHz Channel 40 27.405 MHz

So, how would I get a multicolumn fixed-width table to shade the entire table, or, on the other hand, how do I modify the second table to get the "typewritten" font back? Or, is there another template that would be better suited for this table? Squidfryerchef 17:53, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

Replied on User talk:Squidfryerchef. —Xhantar^Talk 21:14, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

adding some MP3 samples to an article about rubato in music.

Hi, I did add an article about the rubato in music, and I wish to add some samples of it by a American concert pianist that I know, and which gave me the permission to do it, since she is to my knowledge the only one today to do it that way... And after trying to upload the file, I was told that the MP3 format can't be uploaded... so, what can be done, I could put it in any other format if you wish... I believe it has to be possible to have some music data, since otherwise it all stays completely theoretical... Discussing about a special year of a particular Burgundy bottle is fine, but without tasting it, the words are not enough! Thanks to advise me Dsoslglece 18:29, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

Convert it to .ogg and upload it. -Wooty Woot? contribs 18:46, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

Adding a text file... ?

I'm trying to upload a text file but it keeps coming back saying incorrect file format... am I really supposed to upload a JPEG of text?

I've looked around at the FAQ and other help materials but am obviously missing the answer. Thanks for any insight.

You're not s'posed to upload text files, only images and such--SUIT^-n-tie 19:09, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

Why do you want to upload a text file? Can't you include the text directly in the article? -- Lilwik 06:24, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

References help

I have recently created a page on the game Emergency Mayhem, but the references havent worked. I have looked at the help pages, and i am sure i have done it right, so can someone check it to see what i have done wrong? Thanks Mattyatty 19:54, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

You forgot to close the last ref, so it tried to include the refrences section in the ref. I fixed it for you. Mr.Z-mantalk¢ 19:57, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the help Mattyatty 20:04, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

User Talk

Is there a user page sandbox that i can practice with. I want to see how something will look as a comment on someones user page, but I'd like to test it out first. JWP --Jwikipro 21:40, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

If you want to create your own personal sandbox , just click on this link: Special:Mypage/Sandbox, and it will create one. See Wikipedia:User_page#How do I create a user_subpage for more info. -- Chairman S. Talk ^Contribs 21:57, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

You can also use the preview button. --WikiSlasher 07:27, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

Author

who is the author of this site? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.215.107.36 (talk) 10:38, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

See Wikipedia and Wikipedia:Introduction. There is no one single author - Wikipedia can be edited by anyone. Jimbo Wales and the Wikimedia Foundation are in charge, however. -- Chairman S. Talk ^Contribs 23:51, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

• People who ask this question usually think they need this to cite their source. If this is the case with you, please read: Wikipedia:Citing Wikipedia. - Mgm|^(talk) 11:50, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

Page has vanished without a trace!

Hi! I created the Quarantine Nightclub page on Friday night at about 20:00 GMT. I tried to go back there again just now and the page no longer exists. More than that, it's almost as if the page had never existed...All references to it have vanished from my contributions log (So it's not just null-out vandalism...It's been done by someone at Wikipedia), although the article itself still comes up in the search system and referances to it may be found on other pages. No deletion or other message has been left in my talk page about this, and given that there are several pages for nightclubs across the UK, I would hold that my contribution was a perfectly valid one.

What I want to know is: 1. Why has this page been deleted (Or so I presume) with neither referance to myself, nor an explanation being given? 2. As I have a right to defend any articles that I create, why was I not contacted and given a chance to defend my article before it was deleted? Incidentally, I ran a search through the deletion log, and couldn't find an entry there either, so someone at Wikipedia has obviously taken a dislike to my work! :-@

Please copy any responses to my talk page as this page can be impossible to navigate at the best of times, so I'm more likely to read replies there. Thanks in advance.

Hyperspeed 23:59, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

According to the article's deletion log, it was deleted by Jaranda. The "A7" refers to the following (from WP:Speedy):

Unremarkable people, groups, companies and web content. An article about a real person, group of people, band, club, company, or web content that does not assert the importance or significance of its subject. If the assertion is likely to be controversial or there has been a previous AfD, the article should be nominated for AfD instead.

Should you wish to appeal the deletion, please see: Wikipedia:Speedy deletions#Appealing speedy deletions

—Xhantar^Talk 00:21, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

Lots of articles get deleted from Wikipedia for lots of reasons. If you want to make a page and actually see it again, make sure you are making the page on a wiki that wants the type of content you want to publish. See List of wikis for some places to look. --Teratornis 01:14, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

February 26

Plumber's putty

I was searching Wikipedia for information about "Plumber's putty". I have an old can and it has asbestos in it. I needed to know if this was common or a very OLD can and represented a health risk if I used it.

I wanted to properly file a question under say "construction" or "plumbing" or the closest thing I found was "architecture" and was routed to a massive page on computer architecture. Not wanting to offend by my lack of wiki knowledge, I tried looking in the FAQ and still got very little guidance (ALBEIT, for a new user of a wiki... I at least know what a wiki is).

My last resort after about 30 minutes of trying to "do things the right way", I am now forced to just ask a question in general. I am very sorry if I have approached this improperly, but you REALLY need some kind of information about how folks do home improvement. Even a DIY (do it yourself) category would be helpful. All I really wanted to know was if asbestos is dangerous in plumber's putty. Heck I can't imagine how many questions folks would have about what pressure treated lumber is or the difference between a crescent wrench verses channel locks.

I hope you will do something to add this kind of functionality to your web site.

Thanks for your time. 68.217.113.163 00:07, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

Please see WP:NOT#IINFO. Wikipedia is an encyclopaedia, not a how-to guide, and the community consensus is that it shouldn't contain information of the type that you are suggesting. -- Chairman S. Talk ^Contribs 00:19, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

That said: Have you tried Wikipedia's Reference Desk? They specialize in knowledge questions, and will try to answer any question in the universe (except how to use Wikipedia, since that's what this Help Desk is for). Just follow the link, select the relevant section, and ask away. I hope this helps. —Xhantar^Talk 00:24, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

Did someone say how-to guide? Try wikiHow! Wikipedia does not wish to be a how-to guide, but wikiHow does. Whenever Wikipedia doesn't want some type of non-encylopedic content, there is probably another wiki that does. There are lots of wikis. Wikipedia is merely the world's largest and most famous wiki, the one that shows up in every other Google search any more. For most of us, Wikipedia is our first introduction to wiki technology. However, we learn pretty fast that Wikipedia is actually a very specialized kind of wiki, and doesn't necessarily want every sort of useful content. Fortunately, setting up more wikis is so easy (well, sort of) that thousands of people have done it. There is probably a wiki for everything that needs to be said. --Teratornis 01:06, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

Can't edit very large article

At List of medical topics (S), there is a link to Subway, which is a dab page. Because none of the dab targets is a medical topic, I wanted to remove the wikilink and post about this on the article talk page. But I've made about seven attempts to edit the article just to remove the wikilink, with no success -- the edits never take. Could this have anything to do with the fact that the article is 286 KB in size? Any help would be appreciated. --Tkynerd 00:21, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

I just checked the page, and there is no wikilink on the word "Subway". Your edits took, you just can't see them. Try purging the database first by adding &action=purge to the end of the page's URL. If that doesn't work, clear your browser's cache (In Firefox, press Ctrl+Shift+R). Sometimes this happens, I'm not quite sure why. Hersfold ^(talk/work) 00:30, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

I can't even get the damn page to display! Thanks for checking this for me. (PS I took the liberty of indenting your comment above, hope you don't mind.) --Tkynerd 00:40, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

No, that's fine. I usually do anyway, not sure why I didn't indent it here. The page isn't loading for me, either. Wikimedia may be having some server issues, or it could be that the page is too big after all and is just freezing up... but that doesn't explain why this page is loading when it's much larger. If you still can't get it working, try asking about it at the tech village pump - someone there might know what's going on. Hersfold ^(talk/work) 00:49, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

EMANIO deleted

I uploaded an article on EMANIO which has been deleted for some reason. I haven't been informed as to why, but would you please check what happened.

I will upload a replacement now, but would appreciate your feedback.

Thanks, Excebiche

A reason was posted to your talk page. Please make sure articles about companies meet WP:NOTABILITY and are phrased like encyclopedia articles, not advertisements. *Mishatx*-In\Out 02:48, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

Copying over Template:Navigation

I want to create a navbar on another wiki (this X is part of a series on Y, has a bunch of links to related things at the bottom). However, I can't figure out how to copy over Template:Navigation for use on it. Some weird transclusion is going on. Help? -Wooty Woot? contribs 01:25, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

What wiki? (→Netscott) 02:46, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

It's private, running MediaWiki. If there's no easy way to do this I'll just code my own little table. -Wooty Woot? contribs 05:52, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

The main template that Navigation relies upon is Template:Tnavbar. Just copy Tnavbar over to your Wiki and then copy Template:Navigation and you'll be good to go. (→Netscott) 13:07, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

Boring Piped Link Question

Does Wikipedia:Piped_link#Easter_egg to my userpage? --Seans Potato Business 02:12, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

It appears you are missing at least one word in your question. Without it, the question makes no sense as "Easter Egg" is not a verb, so nothing can Easter Egg to your userpage. --Kainaw ^(talk) 04:40, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

I'm guessing there should be an "apply" before "to". In which case, I'd say, "No", as long as it meets the requirements of WP:USER. Some userboxes and the Motto of the Day contain easter egg links. *Mishatx*-In\Out 09:00, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

Correct, Mishatx; you found the missing word! Thanks :) --Seans Potato Business 10:59, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

Wikimedia Commons vs. Upload to Wikipedia

When I upload an image, should I upload it to the Wikimedia Commons instead of to Wikipedia? How do I use it on Wikipedia if I do so? If I upload an image to Wikipedia, does it get automatically moved to the commons? Is it prefered that I upload to the commons or here? Can my image achieve "quality image" or "featured image" status if it is not in the Commons, but is on Wikipedia? Thanks Steevven1 ^{(Talk) (Contribs) (Gallery)} 02:44, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

If you can, upload it to the Wikimedia Commons. All the images there can be used here exactly the same way. However, there are added licensing restrictions on Commons; see Commons:Licensing for more info. There's no restrictions on whether Commons images can become Featured pictures here, but only Commons images may become Featured pictures in Commons. Titoxd^(?!?) 02:53, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

(after edit conflict) A lot of questions... let's try to answer them. First: if your image is under a free licence (e.g. you made it yourself or you can prove it with permission from the original copyright holder), it's better to upload it to Commons, because other Wikipedias and other Wikimedia projects can use it at well. Second question: Using an image from the Commons works in the same way you would use an image you have uploaded locally, just use [[Image:Foo.extension]]. Thid one: No it doesn't, it has to be moved by hand, re-uploading it to Commons and marking it for deletion here (use {{NowCommons}} and see Wikipedia:Moving images to Commons). Fourth question: Not up to speed on the processes here, but a "featured picture" or quality image on the Commons can only attain that status if it's hosted there. Hope that helped, Niels|en talk-nl talk (faster response)| 03:03, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

a user on wikipedia

i know one of the users you have on here "LaNicoya" i just wanted to advice you and let you know (i am sure as time goes by you will find out and you'll see that what i say is true so keep this in mind) that i ran into her a couple of times in yahoo answers and she got her account canceled because she cheated to gain points and she harrased/stalked me and other users of salvadorian and costa rican decent she is also known for defamation impersonating and cloning wich means she doesnt like el salvador or costa rica and she will trash it and do whatever to make those countries profiles the worst because she always wants to make nicaragua sound better than costa rica and el salvador because it offends her that they are doing better so keep this in mind and watch her every move because she is not trust worthy at all she is a racist that will do whatever to make once again el salvador and costa rica the worst profiles. LaNicoya will probably not let anyone help improve the el salvador or the costa rica profiles so for when that happens i have already told you and you im sure will be able to see its her, im sure her ip adress will appear even if she does make 100's of accounts like she is known to do. I will keep an eye out for her because i do plan to contribute to the el salvador page and im sure she will do whatever to make sure the country sounds bad, if i were you i wouldnt allow a racist as a volunteer.Judith Gonzales

i will pull some files from yahoo answers that she wrote descriminating costa rica and el salvador so you will see i am not making this up and you will know its her because her nickname is always 7 squares then LaNicoya and she says she is buddhist she supports daniel ortega she is from panorama city los angeles she is 17 etc...Judith Gonzales

If she gives you trouble please consult Wikipedia:Dispute resolution and always remember our policies on civility and no personal attacks. If you suspect multiple accounts to be the same user trying to push a particular point of view, please see Wikipedia:Requests for CheckUser. --WikiSlasher 07:23, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

Oh and remember to assume good faith as well, and welcome! --WikiSlasher 07:33, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

IP User talk page warnings: deletion by IP user

By the end of the answers to Wikipedia:Help_desk#Blanking_your_own_talk_pages I'm still unsure, though I appreciate the reminder of WP:VANDAL. For an IP user talk page, where the IP user is deleting recent warnings (like 'today'), what are the usual policies? And, if it is not permitted because that would be erasing the tracks of bad behavior, what would be a good template to use? uw-tpv1 doesn't seem right for an IP user talk page. I read through the WP:UTM area and nothing seemed to fit nicely. Shenme 04:48, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

There used to be an appropriate template, but it got TfD'd. I, too, am unclear on the best course of action in these situations. *Mishatx*-In\Out 08:53, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

Well the IP indeed turned out to be a sockpuppet (admitted) so the revert was okay, but the lack of an appropriate warning was not okay. I don't want to make one up on the fly, as it might start out "Hey! you @#&^@#...."   :-)   Shenme 09:08, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

Do I get credit for what I write on Wikipedia articles?

Hi, My name is Morgan talbot and I am 11 years old. I added some information onto an article about garden skinks (Lampropholis guichenoti) yesterday and I was wondering if I will get credit for what I wrote. I thought this might be important because I found this imformation by observation (observing live garden skinks) and I Might want to include it in a school project ect. and I don't want to be accused of copying other people (or, in this case myself). Below I have copied the article on to this page and put a blank line in between the original article and what I wrote (the peice on top is the original article and my added info is on the bottom)

Original Article:

The Common Garden Skink or Pale-flecked Garden Sunskink (Lampropholis guichenoti) is a small common skink often seen in suburban gardens in Melbourne, Australia, but is common across most of Southern Australia. It grows to a maximum of 14 cm, but rarely exceeds 9 cm. It lays its eggs in communal clutches. Like most other skinks, the tail will drop if grasped roughly. The tail then twitches vigorously for a while, to hold the attention of the predator while the lizard makes its escape.

What I wrote:

Garden skinks rely purely on the movement of their prey when hunting. if their prey is not moving, they will not see it as edible and will not strike. When hunting, the skinks will either hide and wait for prey to come by or actively pursue it (this depends on how hungry they are). Once they have caught their prey, they shake it around vigourously to kill it before swallowing it whole. Once they have had one meal, they begin to actively persue prey with their newfound energy. The skinks only need one prey item per 4 or 5 days, but will eat every day if conditions are good. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 202.168.49.226 (talk • contribs)

Only in so much as it shows your IP or username on the history page. You can give the URL of the diff to show the actual edit and which user wrote it, but you'd need to find a way to prove that the user shown on said diff is actually you. -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 06:38, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

If you do want credit for your writing, you can join a wiki which allows signed articles, for example: Wikinfo. Also be aware that lots of people edit Wikipedia, so someone might edit what you write. After a few rounds of that, the passage might no longer be recognizable as yours. It's best to ask your teacher first for the rules on what you can use for your assignments. --Teratornis 06:47, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

Just a note, adding information from personal observation is original research, and not appropriate for Wikipedia. I don't too much doubt the truth of what you added (and it's a nice starting point for a stub article), we'd prefer that you can cite a source. *Mishatx*-In\Out 08:51, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

uncited material

I found an article on "Anglo-Norman language" that is largely just copy-pasted from a real paper written by a linguist named David Trotter- but there are no citations or references. Some words or phrases have been changed, but the bulk of the article is word-for-word from the original paper. The issue is not that the article is inaccurate, just that the person who posted it clearly copied this man's work without citing his source. I looked at the faq's about fair use and public domain, and I don't think it's a copyright violation (since we used the same article in a class I'm taking) but, I don't know how to tag it to say "cite your source."

Thanks, 71.206.190.91 07:34, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

No, if it is as you describe then that is a copyright violation, unless the article is over (perhaps) 100 years old. And if it is, then it is plagiarism instead. Citation doesn't allow an article to be copied; the entire article must be rewritten in the editor's own words. Is the original article on the web anywhere, and if so, can you let us know the URL? If not, can you please let us know the publication detail of the original. Notinasnaid 09:11, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

Username

I have another username that I normally use on websites, the name is taken on wikipedia and i'm wondering if it was me that is signed up to it and I have forgotten the password, or if it's someone else who has taken the account name? If it's the latter then I don't mind, but if it's the former i'd rather use that username than this one. Is there any way I can find out? Capubadger 07:51, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

What's the name? --WikiSlasher 07:54, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

Help:Logging_in#What_if_I_forget_the_password.3F or Wikipedia:Usurpation. -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 07:55, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

The name is Capuchin, I've just done the e-mail new password thing, I have several inactive email accounts though and it may be registered to one of those - we will see. How do I go about seeing if the user has contributed - as per the usurpation process? Also, the Usurpation process requires that the person requsting usurpation be a contributing member - I only activated this username today, and have made several contributions (of a Wikipedia:WikiGnome-like nature), but as an anonymous user. Is that a problem? Capubadger 08:16, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

Well, according to Special:Contributions/Capuchin, there have been no contributions from that username. According to the log the account was created on Sept 5, 2006. Do you remember what email address you would have been using then? *Mishatx*-In\Out 08:39, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

Hmm, it may be my old e-mail address. That sounds like the kind of time I would have created it. It's more likely to be one of my new ones though, I'll have to see when I get home. Thanks for your help.Capubadger 08:52, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

Musical Group Entry

hello, i was interested in starting a wikipedia entry for an american musical group that may or may not still exist, but is very mysterious to most people and i am constantly questioned about their history and sound. bas on this, i decided that i would like to make a wikipedia entry for this group but i do not know if this would fit the guidelines for a real entry. i noticed their name is mentioned when you search for the tag "noise rock".

please let me know if this is a possibility and how i would go about creating such an entry. thank you.

bill (email removed)

Wikipedia:Your first article and Help:Starting a new page for starters, and make sure it satisfies WP:MUSIC, otherwise it will be speedy-deleted. This involves reliable sources, neutral points of view and lack of conflict of interest. Because your band seems to clash with the genre noise rock, you need to look at disambiguation as well. x42bn6 Talk 13:22, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

How to report offensive statements?

The article on 'Winder, GA' contains this sentence, "It is also the asshole of the earth." I could not find a link to report offensive language/statements; so I went in to try and edit (remove it), but could not (you will see my attempt in the history log, this date). Could someone please remove this? And where is the 'report' link? Thank you.

I have removed that statement from the article. Unfortunately, as Wikipedia can be edited by anyone, this kind of vandalism happens. The best thing to do is to click on "edit this page" at the top and remove it yourself. Thanks for letting us know though. Will (aka Wimt) 12:18, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

Thank you. I will read how to edit correctly so I can do this in the future.

Mathmode in titles

I was editing the page on Trigonometric_substitution#Examples, and wanted to include three cases with headings. What's the best way to do this? Mathmode in titles? Sub/superscripts? Should I just leave this entirely in normal case?

Advice would be very much appreciated, I've tried to look for guidance in the help here and mediawiki pages, but didn't find anything suitable. DavidMcKenzie 12:33, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

WP:TITLE gives guidelines for many other kinds of titles, but I don't see anything about math in there. WP:MSM does not mention titles either, but you should read it if you haven't already, just in case any clues jump out. You might try looking at other well-edited mathematics articles for ideas to copy. See what the folks at Wikipedia:WikiProject Mathematics are doing - wow, there's an impressive WikiProject. Perhaps you should join it. I would imagine the members of WikiProject Mathematics know everything there is to know about writing mathematics articles on Wikipedia. --Teratornis 17:41, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

how do i put my page on wiki

hi, we are an energy consulting firm and would like to upload a page for us in wikipedia. how do i do that. thanks.

Anyone can edit Wikipedia. There is some restriction with creating new pages, but that is easily avoided by creating a user account and using that instead of an anonymous IP address. However, it is against Wikipedia policy for people/companies to put pages in for themselves. If your consulting firm is notable, someone who is not related with the firm will likely create the page. --Kainaw ^(talk) 12:57, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

First, you have to make sure that you really do want a page on Wikipedia, and that it wouldn't be deleted straight away. You would need some reliable sources independent of the company that referred to it, so that the article could be attributed and to prove that the company was notable. Make sure that you can write neutrally in this situation, despite the conflict of interest involved (or wait for someone else to write the article if you can't). If you haven't already, you should read the Introduction and Tutorial for information on how to edit Wikipedia pages, then Wikipedia:Your first article and Help:Starting a new page for information on how to start a new page. I hope that helps! --ais523 13:00, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

Search Wikipedia to see if any articles exist about other firms such as yours. (Also check the category pages to see if your company's article would fit into an existing category; for example, maybe something like: Category:Energy companies of the United States.) If other firms similar to yours have uncontroversial articles, so can yours. Check the article histories and their talk pages to see if any of those articles have stimulated controversy in the past. Read other well-established articles about corporations to get an idea of what a corporation article should be (for example, pick virtually any major company and see what's here: Microsoft, Google, Exxon Mobil, etc.). Above all, avoid peacock language - that will get your article flagged for deletion straightaway. Just state the sober facts about the company, provide published citations to support them all, and let readers draw their own conclusions as to how marvelous everything is (or not). Demonstrate your good faith by leaving a note on your article's talk page that explains your potential conflict of interest, that you want to play by the rules here, and you invite and will graciously accept correction from more experienced Wikipedians on how to get the article in proper shape (if your first attempt isn't). If you do want to advertise or promote, you will need to find another wiki. If your firm already has its own Web site, someday you might consider starting your own corporate wiki, so you can collaborate efficiently with your employees, customers, and suppliers. See b:Wiki Science/How to start a wiki and TWiki. --Teratornis 17:23, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

One more thing - if you aren't sure you can write a neutral article about your company, you could request that someone else write the article. There should be no conflict of interest in merely asking. By the way, welcome to Wikipedia! If this place seems to have lots of complicated rules, well, it does. But you did the right thing to ask first, rather than just write something because it's so easy to write something (getting something to stick is often much harder). --Teratornis 17:30, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

purkinje fibre's conductivity

Hi, I want to know why purkinje fibre has the highest conductivity despite the long duration of its action potential. (electrical activity in cardiovascular physiology)-------....

How long does it take for a photo to show up?

How long does it take for a photo to show up?

I made some comments on talk pages.

My comments were stupid, it was not about the article itself, as I am a somewhat new user. Can I delete my comments? Or, content on talk pages cannot be deleted, so should I keep it?Ayasi 18:35, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

Don't quote me on this, but I believe that you can delete your own comment as long as nobody's replied to it.

How do you add info so a search for an article abbreviation comes up?

If you search for Westerly, RI; Westerly, Rhode Island comes up.

If you search for Weekapaug, RI.... nothing comes up; but if you search for Weekapaug, Rhode Island an article comes up.

How could you fix the article for Weekapaug so a search for Weekapaug, RI would redirect to Weekapaug, Rhode Island.

Thanks

You just create the article Weekapaug, RI with the following text (only):

#REDIRECT [[Weekapaug, Rhode Island]]

That's all there is to it. --Tkynerd 18:44, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

Using lastname, firstname format for a redirect

What is Wikipedia's policy on making "Lastname, Firstname" redirect articles?
For example Gates, Bill
Thanks,
Kevs 19:58, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

Talk pages

how do I talk on the talk pages Nighthawk455 20:33, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

You talk on talk pages by editing them just like a normal article (like you did to add this question). Veinor ^{(talk to me)} 20:37, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

Reverting multiple edits

I recently dealt with a couple of articles that had suffered vandalism where a single user made six or seven vandalising edits in quick succession. Is there any way to revert them all at once, or do you have to do it (as I did) one edit at a time? Heliomance 20:35, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

Do you mean that the same user had vandalized more than one page, or that he had vandalized the same page more than once? Veinor ^{(talk to me)} 20:37, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

Same page more than once Heliomance 20:43, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

Well, the most efficient way is then to just restore the version present before they vandalized; to see how to do so, see Help:Reverting. Veinor ^{(talk to me)} 20:53, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

uncited material (part 2)

I know it says in the instructions that if you have a follow-up question you should just click 'edit,' but there is no 'edit' button showing up. I think it's because I don't have a username. Anyway, last night I asked how to report a possible copyright violation, and one of the users confirmed that it is a copyright violation, but I still don't know how to fix it. Do I email wikipedia? I have the name and URL of the article that the author copied.

Edit section link

I no longer get the "Edit" link next to the section headings in this article (help desk). I get it if I log off. I get it in other articles. Any ideas? Notinasnaid 21:04, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

using wikipedia as a work cited

how to note wikipedia as a work cited

US BOWLING CONGRESS AFFILIATED CLUBS E-MAIL ADDRESSES

TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN: DOES WIKIPEDIA HAVE ACCESS TO E-MAIL ADDRESSES FOR THE VARIOUS US BOWLING CONGRESS PROFFESSIONAL CLUBS AND HOW WOULD I FIND THEM---- RICK

Wikipedia does not have email addresses. Keeping emails displayed online can lead to spam. Mr.Z-mantalk¢ 22:25, 26 February 2007 (UTC)