Help Page Patrollers are a group of Wikipedians who patrol the help desk and help users who have placed the {{helpme}} template on their talk pages. The patrol is an optional service. Patrollers can come and go, and there is no official sign up process.

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What helpers can do

Make sure all messages are formatted correctly,
Answer questions,
Check the Help Me Category and answer questions from users,
Check archives

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Add yourself with

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September 30

Don't know where to turn

I'm a pretty experienced editor but I'm in a bit of a fix and I don't know what to do or where I'm allowed to turn.

I know of a user who continually goes against a certain guideline. It's nothing major such as WP:BLP or WP:COPYVIO but it still affects the quality of articles. I have discussed it with them and still have not gotten anywhere.

Secondly, they have in the past violated WP:NPA. They seem to have cooled down recently but still, the events are there.

So, I looked through the dispute resolution processes.

WP:3O requires that the issue be with a single article. This issue involves most every article that the other editor touches, so that's out.

WP:RFC/USER requires that at least two editors have discussed the same issue with the editor. Right now, it's basically just me who has butted heads with the editor in question.

There isn't a related notice board that I've seen to report issues with the guideline in question.

WP:ANI will just tell me to start at the bottom of the dispute resolution ladder but as I've been saying, the lower rungs of the ladder don't help in this situation.

And finally, avenues that don't involve admins will most likely be ignored by the editor. And even then, it's if-fy. I had a dispute over another guideline with the editor and they were difficult because they had found one admin (somehow) who didn't agree with the guideline and then used the "See, this admin has no problem with my actions" argument.

So, is there a way to work with an admin to get this user to understand that what they are doing is having a negative impact on articles and that they should cease their actions?

Thanks, Dismas|^(talk) 00:50, 30 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

You are being too discreet. Please state the problem in a forthright but nonaccustoryu manner on the user's talk page or on your own talk page, and then tell us who the user is. If one of us cares enough, we will read your discussin and comment, thus invoking the "second opiniopn" rule. Alternatively, your can request a WP:third opinion or ask for help from the WP:mediation cabal. -Arch dude (talk) 04:04, 30 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Different areas of Wikipedia have differing levels of compliance with policies and guidelines, just as different areas of a country may have differing levels of law enforcement (less-developed frontier regions, for example, may tend toward anarchy). If a particular topic area has lots of featured articles, then it probably has a number of experienced editors who for the most part follow the rules. In this case, an editor who violates a particular guideline on many articles in the topic area would almost certainly be butting heads with more than one other editor. In contrast, if a topic area on Wikipedia has a high proportion of articles at a poor stage of development, then there could be multiple editors who aren't following the rules. Another indicator is to look at the talk pages of articles. Almost nobody comes to Wikipedia already knowing the talk page guidelines, so a messy talk page may indicate a large proportion of new or casual editors. So, I'm going to go out on a limb, and guess that your guideline-violating editor hasn't been violating that guideline on many featured articles yet. If I guessed incorrectly, then you might want to bring the violation to the attention of other editors who have worked on those articles. The better articles on Wikipedia usually have multiple experienced editors watching them. Basically I'm saying that if someone is really going against consensus on Wikipedia, there are potentially lots of other editors who will oppose that behavior when they become aware of it. But on the other hand, it's not the job of you or me to "defend" Wikipedia. Our only job, really, is to articulate the policies and guidelines as they apply to a given situation, and then let the community defend Wikipedia. That is, if you cannot convince another editor to take action against this editor you mention, then maybe you aren't interpreting the guideline correctly. So the real sanity check is whether you can get someone else to take up your cause. --Teratornis (talk) 05:36, 30 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Template help

How might I make a template that does both of the following:
This:

{{TemplateThatNumbersNames|Joe|John|Mary}}

would yield:

Number	Name
1	Joe
2	John
3	Mary

while:

 {{TemplateThatNumbersNames|Joe|John|Mary|Sam|Sandra|Sue|Dave|Marcus Brutus}}

would then yield:

Number	Name
1	Joe
2	John
3	Mary
4	Sam
5	Sandra
6	Sue
7	Dave
8	Marcus Brutus

Basically, the template forms new rows for each new name, and numbers each new row accordingly. Is a template like this possible to create? Also, is there another place where I could ask if nobody here knows? Thanks, αЯβιτЯαЯιŁΨθ ^(talk) 00:54, 30 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

You would need to set up something like this:

{| class="wikitable" style="blah blah blah" |- ! Number !! Name {{#if: {{{1|}}} |  {{!-}} {{!}} 1 {{!!}} {{{1}}} }}{{#if: {{{2|}}} |  {{!-}} {{!}} 2 {{!!}} {{{2}}} }}{{#if: {{{99|}}} |  {{!-}} {{!}} 99 {{!!}} {{{99}}} }} |}

This uses ParserFunctions, special templates which can read in information and execute different bits of code if a certain condition exists. The {{!!}} things are escape templates, templates which allow us to print pipe characters (|) that we use in tables that would otherwise get confused with the ParserFunction. Hope this helps, although if you have any more template trouble, feel free to come back, or let me know. For future reference, you can contact anyone in this category or its subcategories with template-related questions. Anyone who considers themselves level 3 or higher ought to be able to handle a conditional template like this. Hersfold ^(t/a/c) 02:52, 30 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Citation Help

Hi, I am a new user and I have 3 venerable sources that each put up different numbers as a given fact. Can some one please tell me which help desk I can go to. If it is here then, the number of shares traded on October 29, 1929 was:

less than 16million, the NYSE official web site http://www.nyse.com/about/history/timeline_trading.html
exactly 16million (yeah right) http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=94721470
over 16million, http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/crash/timeline/timeline2.html
or 16.4 million http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wall_Street_Crash_of_1929

(the wikipedia one has NO CITATION) Best regards Johndoeemail (talk) 02:38, 30 September 2008 (UTC) had to fix a typo Johndoeemail (talk) 02:39, 30 September 2008 (UTC) fix another typo Johndoeemail (talk) 02:41, 30 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

BTW, I did put all of this on the discussion page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Wall_Street_Crash_of_1929 Johndoeemail (talk) 02:55, 30 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Be bold; WP:BOLD. Change the article to say "about 16 million," and cite all three references. If you need help with how to cite the references, come back here. Good luck, adn thanks for your efforts. -Arch dude (talk) 03:53, 30 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

On Wikipedia, we don't try to decide which side of a controversy is correct, although we don't give undue weight to fringe views. If respected authorities or schools of thought differ on some claim, we can cite reliable sources and present the various viewpoints, with attribution. The word "reliable" doesn't necessarily mean "correct," but rather it means an accurate portrayal of the views of some identifiable person or group. All new Wikipedia editors should read WP:NPOV several times, over a period of weeks, until it sinks in, as writing in a neutral point of view is not something most people have had experience with before arriving at Wikipedia. It kind of runs counter to the evolutionary purpose of language, which is naturally about trying to change the behavior of other people, to maximize the biological fitness of the speaker in a social species. --Teratornis (talk) 05:18, 30 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

OK, thank you. I am going to change it to "about 16 million". I think I should be able to come up with more citations on that number Johndoeemail (talk) 11:10, 30 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Citing_sources says: Cite the place where you found the material, So I have a quote from a google books web page. How do I preface the quote, "the author says", "the author writes" ??? Best regards. Johndoeemail (talk) 17:03, 30 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

If you tell us the title and author of the book, we could tell you exactly what to do. To figure it out in general, see {{Cite book}}. I like to use {{Google scholar cite}} to look up book references, because if the underlying Universal reference formatter finds the book in Google Scholar, it generates the {{Cite book}} template automatically. Usually it gets close to filling out all the necessary fields. --Teratornis (talk) 20:53, 30 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

As to how to preface the quote, I would use the author's exact name: "According to Joe Bigbucks, the number of shares ..." and put the ref tag after the period that ends the sentence. If a claim is at all controversial, we should be explicit about whose views we are presenting. --Teratornis (talk) 20:55, 30 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Hi,

1) The article is Wall street crash of 1929 and it is pretty much a ghost town as far as the discussion page is concerned. IOW, I do not think there is any controversy among editors. 2) I and I alone put in a quote that says: "the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act "...exacerbated the problem..." 3) I and I alone found a quote that says: "There is no persuasive documentation that the Smoot-Hawley Tariff precipitated the stock market crash. Nor is there compelling evidence that it exacerbated the Great Depression."

http://books.google.com/books?id=5Z76pz33EPwC&printsec=frontcover&dq=Opening+America%27s+Market:+U.S.+Foreign+Trade+Policy+Since+1776&sig=ACfU3U2nFFSxf9psEJHPV2e8jF-vCIX1hQ#PPA139,M1 page 139 of that book.

I just happen to search around and find the quotes and the sources seem to make completely opposite statements. Both sources look notable to me. But I think it would be difficult to find someone more ignorant of the ways of wikipedia than me.

On a different note, I am having trouble with what, or what not, to include in the article with respect to Smoot-Hawley. Right now, I am going to have to live with the fact that I am going to make mistakes because I feel that is a very advanced topic from where I am now. Thanks for all your help. Johndoeemail (talk) 23:59, 30 September 2008 (UTC) (fix typos, forgot to use Show Preview button) Johndoeemail (talk) 00:01, 1 October 2008 (UTC) (had to fix another typo) Johndoeemail (talk) 00:17, 1 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Creators of Wikipedia

Who created the Katy perry webpage? Because I have to do a bibliography, & it doesn't state who created the page.. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 219.88.53.53 (talk) 04:45, 30 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

On the "toolbox" section to the side of the article (under the search box), there's a link that says "Cite this page." If you click on it, it has citations formatted in several different styles, APA, MLA, Chicago, etc. Because an article really is the composite work of many editors, you can't really attribute any one person. The cite page for the Katy Perry article is here. bibliomaniac 1 5 04:49, 30 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

You might want to read Wikipedia:Citing Wikipedia both for more information about how to cite, and some warnings about why you should be careful with what you're citing. Confusing Manifestation(Say hi!) 05:12, 30 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

WP:FAQ#WROTE --—— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk - 15:32, 30 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

health care

what are the growth requirements for microorganisms? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.223.165.73 (talk) 05:25, 30 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Microorganisms thrive on students who do not do their own homework. (Note: it's September, clearly back to school time in much of the northern hemisphere.) --Teratornis (talk) 05:46, 30 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Depends heavily on the microorganism. They all need food, obviously, but they have differing demands for light, air, temperature, leisure time, etc. --erachima talk 05:52, 30 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

A broad variety of mind-sucking and homework-doing-time-wasting television shows probably doesn't hurt, either. --Alinnisawest,^{Dalek Empress} (extermination requests here) 05:49, 1 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

All known microorganisms absolutely require a universe. Time is another important factor. Franamax (talk) 05:59, 1 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Please do your own homework. Welcome to the Wikipedia Help desk. Your question appears to be a homework question. I apologize if this is a misevaluation, but it is our policy here to not do people's homework for them, but to merely aid them in doing it themselves. Letting someone else do your homework does not help you learn how to solve such problems.
Please attempt to solve the problem yourself first. You can search Wikipedia or search the Web.
If you need help with a specific part of your homework, the Reference desk can help you grasp the concept. Do not ask knowledge questions here, just those about using Wikipedia. -Optigan13 (talk) 05:59, 1 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia "Contents" in IE8

Why can't I use "Contents" (table of contents) in Wikipedia pages in IE8? I click on the link in "Contents" section, but nothing happens. I can use it only in "compatibility mode".--Moscvitch (talk) 11:42, 30 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

It's an error in IE8. See Wikipedia:Help desk/Archives/2008 September 9#Contents Navigation links within articles - not working! :s. PrimeHunter (talk) 11:56, 30 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Deleting History/Contributions

Resolved

– PeterSymonds (talk) 16:13, 30 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Am I able to, and, if so, how can I, delete my edit/contribution/article creation history? Since I have not been able to find information that addresses this, I suspect that I cannot, but I appreciate any help in this regard. Thanks. —Preceding unsigned comment added by The Gazel Ministry (talk • contribs) 12:59, 30 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

You can't edit the the page history or your contributions. Only a very limited number of users have the rights to do this, and only under exceptional circumstances. Please see Wikipedia:Oversight for more info on this. Check Help:Page history & Wikipedia:User contributions if you want more info on histories and contribs. Cheers. Chamal ^Talk ± 13:20, 30 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Because Wikipedia content is licensed under GFDL, all your contributions have to be maintained for attribution purposes. This is the law, per the text of the GFDL. This is why your contributions cannot be altered. Best, PeterSymonds (talk) 13:43, 30 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Okay. Thanks for the information, guys.The Gazel Ministry (talk) 13:49, 30 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

You're welcome. PeterSymonds (talk) 16:13, 30 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

How long...

My schools IP address (170.185.76.19) has been blocked for quite sometime now, but this IP address is to the Alternative Learning Center and when that was placed there was about 13 kids in here who were horrible students, but now there is only kids (3 besides me) who want to contribute to Wikipedia, so I was wanting to know how long the block was because it doesn't say a specific time on the block of this IP address. Thank you!

Hairy Perry 15:15, 30 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Hi HairyPerry. That IP address is no longer blocked; it was blocked for one week in December 2007, so users will be able to edit anonymously from that address. The block notice at the end of the talk page is merely a notification after the block was originally issued. Best, PeterSymonds (talk) 16:11, 30 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Well my real question was it says that this IP address is restricted from making accounts and the people that made most of the vandalism are all gone and we only have 3 other kids besides me who want to make accounts (I made one before the restriction), and that ability is not available. Does that mean were still blocked or our priviledges to make accounts are just blocked. We have people at the Alternative Learning Center that can make useful contributions to this encyclopedia. Thanks!

Hairy Perry 16:45, 30 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

File a requect through our "request an account" tool if you wish. weburiedoursecretsinthegarden 19:35, 30 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I was wrong; the IP is blocked until 2009. To request an account, follow the link provided by WBOSITG. Best, PeterSymonds (talk) 19:37, 30 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Citing books

If I cite a book multiple times in an article, do I have to cite particular pages, and if so how? Thanks, Grsz ^talk 15:17, 30 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, you need to cite pages, see Wikipedia:Citing sources#Including page numbers. This will be especially important if you take the article to FA. You can use shortened footnotes, parenthetical referencing or footnote system with {{rp}}.

On the off-chance that someone reading this does not know what "FA" means, see WP:FA, or more specifically in the above context: WP:FAR. And don't forget to sign those replies. --Teratornis (talk) 16:24, 30 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I think you mean WP:FAC. :) PeterSymonds (talk) 16:27, 30 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

See what happens when we don't link our jargon terms? Even users we trust to guide us on the Help desk can resolve the ambiguities suboptimally. (What a frightening thought - that someone might trust my advice. Note to our ~~victims~~ readers: trust the written policies and guidelines, not our imperfect allusions to them.) (I say "suboptimally" rather than "incorrectly" because getting the footnotes right will also be an issue if a featured article comes up for review. Anyone who edits a featured article should know enough about Wikipedia editing to do featured-quality work.) --Teratornis (talk) 21:01, 30 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Like so? Then pages would be under the Notes section as Chasteen XX. Grsz ^talk 16:53, 30 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Yep. Alternatively, to make life somewhat easier, you could just cite the full book in the references section and footnote the author's surname and the page number. An example is here. Best, PeterSymonds (talk) 17:52, 30 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

(Per reply on my talk page.) You'll note that the references, ie. the book's name, publisher, author, date etc are in a different section. This saves having to repeat that style of referencing in the footnotes themselves. In the Notes section, you have several pages by the same author, for example, "Wake, p. 30" (Jehanne Wake, one author in the references). So if you pretend that book is your example, you would cite different page numbers like this:

I am Peter.<ref>Wake, p. 54</ref>

My username is PeterSymonds.<ref>Wake, p. 36</ref>

which would produce: I am Peter.^[1] My username is PeterSymonds.^[2]

Hope that helps; if you need further clarification feel free to ask. :) Best, PeterSymonds (talk) 19:30, 30 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I think you can also do it this way (and we may be talking about the same thing): create the ref with the appropriate cite template, in your example with {{Cite book}} and ref tag it with a name such as <ref name="wake" > (remembering to close the ref tag after the cite template with </ref>). Then, to reference different pages of the same book use <ref name="wake" page 1 />, <ref name="wake" page 2 /> etc in the appropriate places. I am pretty sure this works, but it's been a while since I used it. – ukexpat (talk) 20:13, 30 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

My Watchlist

Hi I cant seem to access my Watchlist. I have tried different browsers in Opera I get a 301 moved permanently error. With Mozilla Firefox I can't even login I get an error that states Firefox has detected that the server is redirecting the request for this address in a way that will never complete. In Internet Explorer I can't login either the page just freezes with no warning. In Safari I get this error Too many redirects occurred trying to open “http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:UserLogin&returnto=Main_Page”. This might occur if you open a page that is redirected to open another page which then is redirected to open the original page. At least Google Chrome is letting me login but when I try to get to my watchlist I get this error This webpage has a redirect loop. I have cleared cookies in all the browsers I have tried yet nothing can anyone help thanks. BigDunc^Talk 15:30, 30 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I'm also getting the "redirect loop" error message on FF3... anyone? – Toon ^(talk) 15:33, 30 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I was getting those messages/errors, but it seems to have stopped now. I'm not sure what happened. Have you checked at the Village Pump? TN‑X-Man 15:34, 30 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I am getting the same "Redirection Loop" problem, using Firefox. I have not made any changed to my browser today, cookies are enabled, I have tried clearing my cache, but nothing seems to help and I cannot load my watchlist. RolandR (talk) 15:37, 30 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Same problem here ... can't access the watchlist in Firefox at all, though it works in IE. Obviously a server problem then; have never had this before. --Jayen 466 15:38, 30 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

See here for the relevant discussion at the Village Pump. TN‑X-Man 15:39, 30 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Number in my watchlist?

When I look at my watchlist, there is a number in parentheses (e.g. "(+47)"). What does that number mean? —Preceding unsigned comment added by JoelWhy (talk • contribs) 17:23, 30 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

It's the number of bytes the last edit added/subtracted from the article. +47 means 47 bytes were added. TN‑X-Man 17:27, 30 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

<joke>And if you see 666 it means we are all doomed.</joke>. – ukexpat (talk) 17:40, 30 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

There's a headline for you: World Doomed By Single Wikipedia Edit. TN‑X-Man 18:03, 30 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

These bytes can loosely relate to the number of characters added or removed (from text editing). This does not necessarily hold true for template/image and other editing. Scotty dude _review 18:11, 30 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

New Question

development of education supervision in nigeria

I'm not quite sure what you're asking. If you'd like to ask a question regarding education in Nigeria I suggest you read the article Education in Nigeria. If you have other knowledge based questions you can ask them at the Reference Desk. This is the Help Desk where people can ask questions regarding the use of Wikipedia. Scotty dude _review 18:08, 30 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

October 1

How to change the title of a Wikipedia Article?

Hi there. How do you change the title of a Wikipedia Article? Sonic99 (talk) 02:02, 1 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

It needs to be for a very good reason. What did you have in mind? Grsz ^talk 02:04, 1 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

This user seems to be a bit experienced and doesn't seem to have done anything wrong in the past, so I don't think there's any harm letting him know. That's what the help desk is there for, after all. Anyway, to rename the article, you have to move the page. See Help:Moving a page. But as Grsz11 said, you have to have a good reason for it. Cheers. Chamal ^Talk ± 02:26, 1 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Somebody just changed the name of an article in a vandalizing way. I wonder if it was this person. I don't know how to change it back. Original name of article: "Political correctness". Vandalized name "It must be stopped with brute force." Can someone change it back who knows how? I think that whoever it was must be stopped from further editing. Korky Day (talk) 17:59, 1 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Someone fixed it. Can someone discipline the vandal (who is MBoarSidwell according to the "History" of the article)? Korky Day (talk) 18:04, 1 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

User talk:MBoarSidwell shows an indefinite block. It's logged here. This sort of page move vandalism is unfortunately common. You can report it at Wikipedia:Administrator intervention against vandalism. Page move vandal accounts are usually blocked indefinitely right away. PrimeHunter (talk) 22:09, 1 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Image not scaling

Why isn't the first image on the left at Cubs Win Flag not scaling correctly.--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTM) 04:09, 1 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

It shows OK after I purged the cache. —teb728 t c 04:20, 1 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks.--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTM) 04:41, 1 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

For future reference, this can also be cleared browser side using a cache clear. Neurolysis 10:44, 4 October 2008 (UTC)

Problem with editing. Have I deleted half an article accidentally?

I just made some changes to this article:- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moura,_Queensland

After making the changes, I looked at the article and the latter half of it is missing. My immediate reaction is that I have done something wrong. I did a comparison of my edit and the previous version and it looks OK.

I looked at the article with a different browser and the last half is still missing.

I tried to use the "discussion" page for the article but cannot enter anything.

Can someone please check this page and provide feedback as appropriate. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Mailliwyrrahwollac (talk • contribs) 07:53, 1 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, it's quite a common problem: if you use a <ref> tag you need a later </ref> tag, or the whole of the rest of the article gets relegated to the footnote. AndyJones (talk) 07:59, 1 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I see you've found it! AndyJones (talk) 08:01, 1 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

PS:- I found my own mistake. It should be OK now. It was just a referencing command in the wrong place. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Mailliwyrrahwollac (talk • contribs) 08:02, 1 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

can i add my own content (about my site & buseiness) using wikipedia.

Dear Sir,

can i add my own content (about my site & buseiness) using wikipedia.

Regards,

Shirish kanabar —Preceding unsigned comment added by Shirishkanabar (talk • contribs) 08:44, 1 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Hello there. Although we allow editors to contribute anything, it's generally advisable not to write anything about a subject you're connected with. This is because it is very difficult to write with a neutral point of view. Also, before contributing, please ensure that your company is notable, with the notability backed up by verifiable, reliable and independent sources. If it does not meet the notability guideline for organisations, the article is likely to be deleted by an administrator. Please read through Wikipedia:Your first article for more information, and take a look at the tutorial for further editing assistance. Feel free to drop me a note anytime should you run into difficulties. Best, PeterSymonds (talk) 08:53, 1 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

And don't forget WP:Spam. – ukexpat (talk) 12:26, 1 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Why cant I add a page about a band I like??

I tried to add a page. Taylor Australia. but it got deleted. Why? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 220.236.112.108 (talk) 10:28, 1 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

See Wikipedia:Why was my page deleted?. In your case, it was deleted by User:Akradecki for failing to comply with notability standards, in particular WP:CSD#A7 and WP:GROUP. Zain Ebrahim (talk) 11:10, 1 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Michael Hemmingson

Michael Hemmingson (b. 12 July 1966) is a novelist, short story writer, editor, playwright, and screenwriter who has published dozens of books, produced a handful of plays and screenplays. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Worfpoe (talk • contribs) 12:17, 1 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Do you have a question? --grawity 12:28, 1 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Does he have a question? Seriously, if you want to create an article about Mr Hemmingson, please read WP:YFA, ~~but you must be autoconfirmed to create an article.~~ – ukexpat (talk) 12:31, 1 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

You don't need to be autoconfirmed to create an article. Zain Ebrahim (talk) 12:57, 1 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Struck by user:Scottydude. Zain Ebrahim (talk) 13:39, 1 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry, I should have noted that! Scotty dude _review 14:19, 1 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Dang it I keep forgetting that, thanks for the correction. – ukexpat (talk) 17:47, 1 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Is SVG the best format?

I believe there is a trend in Wikipedia to convert images (especially maps) into SVG format. However, I noticed that SVG files take several MBs while PNG files take few dozens of KBs. So what's the real benefit of SVG? Eklipse (talk) 12:55, 1 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The articles PNG and SVG provide the details, but in short - SVG are vector graphics, which mean they can be enlarged to (almost) any size, while PNGs are raster images which cannot (without becoming blurry and losing definition). They both have their uses in different situations. — QuantumEleven 14:59, 2 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Watch my Page

Hi, I was wanting to know if anyone out there would mind watching my page from Oct 2-13. If anyone Could please message me or leave it here or something. Thanks and Happy Editing.

Hairy Perry 13:29, 1 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Could you be more clear? Are you talking about your userpage or talk page or perhaps some other page you edit frequently? Also, what are we watching it for... vandalism? I'd be happy to watch a page if its necessary (for some yet unforseen reason). Scotty dude _review 14:11, 1 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Well if you watch a user, doesn't that watch changes made in both userpages and talkpages? But I'm going to be gone one and a half weeks due to me being in HS and I have fall break and I don't have access to any other computer besides the school computer. If both can't be watched then I would prefer my userpage be watched before my talk page. So if anyone could help, please leave here or contact me.

Hairy Perry 16:00, 1 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Well, both page are watched at the same time (user and user talk). I guess my question is: Is there something specific for which I should be looking? Do you just want someone to ensure that your page isn't vandalized? If that's the case, it's no sweat and I'd be happy to do it. TN‑X-Man 16:04, 1 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

As would I. If any vandalism pops up I'm sure it will get taken care of. You may consider putting a Wikibreak template such as {{Wikibreak}} or {{Attempting school wikibreak}} on your user and talk pages so that other users know that you may not respond to posts and such. Scotty dude _review 16:21, 1 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Ok, thank you to everyone who is watching my page(s), oh and to answer your question vandalism edits are all I'm looking for because people on wikibreaks are easy targets, you know. Once again, thank you and happy editing.

Hairy Perry 16:45, 1 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I guess inactive users' pages are easy targets for vandalism, but on the other hand, an inactive user isn't actively annoying vandals by reverting their edits. If you are an active vandalism fighter, you might want to ease back for a week or two before you leave, to give any vandals you have scolded a chance to forget about you. I'd be surprised if many vandals have the emotional discipline to live by the mafia saying, "Revenge is a dish best served cold." --Teratornis (talk) 04:39, 2 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Oh, but I see you don't have two weeks before you leave, assuming you refer to October of this year in your question. --Teratornis (talk) 04:40, 2 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

hy

project_ —Preceding unsigned comment added by 124.104.137.76 (talk) 13:38, 1 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Well if you have a question feel free to ask it here. Simply click 'edit' next to the section heading ("hy") and then type your question below. Anyone will be happy to answer your questions. Scotty dude _review 14:17, 1 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Hope you are ok and didn't have a stroke while typing. 903M (talk) 03:09, 2 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Fixing "edit section" boxes

If you look at 359 BC, all of the edit boxes for various sections are clumped together. How can I fix this and keep the text and the template boxes at/near the top? I've tried a {{clear}}, but drops the text down near the bottom. I feel like I'm missing something obvious. Thanks in advance! TN‑X-Man 14:38, 1 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

They are not bunched in my browser but see WP:BUNCH. PrimeHunter (talk) 14:52, 1 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I knew I missed something. I've given it a shot, if you could take a look and let me know if it looks OK, it would be greatly appreciated. Thanks! TN‑X-Man 15:07, 1 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Looks all right in Firefox. Chamal ^Talk ± 16:13, 1 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

It looked better before on my screen in IE7. All the text lines are very short now with 3-5 words per line and then a big blank space before the template boxes. PrimeHunter (talk) 16:54, 1 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Arrgh. I give up. I can't get the whitespace to go away. I've restored the old version after trying a couple other things. I think I'll give it another shot later on this evening. Thanks for the help! TN‑X-Man 17:40, 1 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The whitespace in your edits is caused by the top box {{Year nav BC}} being much wider than the other boxes. As WP:BUNCH#Using the FixBunching template says: "Note that the resulting column of objects will be as wide as its widest component throughout." Avoiding the whitespace will apparently require that the first box is not grouped with the others in {{FixBunching}}. There are no bunched edit links in any of the versions for me so I cannot test whether something at the same time avoids bunching and excessive whitespace. Maybe {{Year nav BC}} should just be made less wide, for example by omitting most of the "BC" in the links or reduce the number of links. {{Year nav}} is not as wide. PrimeHunter (talk) 20:09, 1 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

(outdent) Whoo-hoo! I think I got it this time. Give it a once-over and let me know. Cheers! TN‑X-Man 20:17, 1 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

It looks good to me. The excessive whitespace between text and templates is gone. The first heading is below {{Year nav BC}} (and there is no lead) but that doesn't matter to me when {{Year nav BC}} is relatively low. PrimeHunter (talk) 20:31, 1 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

WP colour

Does anybody know the exact grey colour that's underneath the toolbox etc. (or even in the general background, but not the blue) and its hex digits? -- Menti sock 15:25, 1 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I think it's #FBFBFB. That's what's described as "background" in monobook.css Fribbler (talk) 16:13, 1 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Yup, that's the colour in the toolbox. But if you're talking about the background behind the toolbox, that's not this one. An image is used as the background, so it's hard to find the exact colour there. Chamal ^Talk ± 16:18, 1 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Isn't the colour in the toolbox not white, as opposed to #FBFBFB which is shown here? Fribbler (talk) 16:22, 1 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

transclusion of page with categories without duplicating category count

For ease of editing, and keeping pagesize reasonable, I have several pages transcluded onto my user page. One is this one, of userboxes. However, in order to avoid having the transcluded page appear in all the categories assigned by userboxes which do so, I have used <noinclude> and <includeonly> to avoid that, while allowing my main user page to be so categorized. However, as a consequence of that, when viewing the transcluded page, the main content is necessarily invisible.

So my question for help: is there a way to make the content on the transcluded page visible somehow, without triggering its categorization? Many thanks, Baccyak4H (Yak!) 15:45, 1 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The best way is to fix the userboxes so there is an option to suppress the category. See User:Willscrlt/commons/Category suppression in templates (en). --—— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk - 15:50, 1 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, at first glance that page looks quite relevant and useful. Baccyak4H (Yak!) 16:33, 1 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Warning Vandals

If a vandal defaces the same page multiple times successively, lets say at 16:02, 16:03, 16:05 etc. and nobody reverts in-between vandalism, would that count as one case of vandalism in terms of warning the user? Also, let's say I notice a vandal has defaced Page Z, I revert it but then looking at their contribs I see they also have vandalised Page X, Page Y, and Page Foo, all of which were reverted by other users without the vandal being warned. Should I give this user a level 1 warning or a final warning? Fribbler (talk) 16:20, 1 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Well, there is a chance that he might be doing it just for fun and without knowing the consequences, so it's best to let them realize what they are doing with sufficient and appropriate warnings. But if it's multiple and blatant vandalism, with the user fully aware of what he's doing and intending harm, then I guess it is appropriate to issue an only warning. But unless it's an extraordinary case like that, I would give them sufficient warnings before reporting. But according to WP:VAN: "...warning is not an absolute prerequisite for blocking; accounts whose main or only use is obvious vandalism or other forbidden activity may be blocked without warning." As for the successive vandalism, generally a single warning is issued, since the vandal has not been made aware of what he's doing and given a chance to stop. Chamal ^Talk ± 16:31, 1 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

That makes sense. Thanks! Fribbler (talk) 16:35, 1 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I would be surprised if many vandals are "fully aware of what they are doing." The modifier "fully" would imply more knowledge of Wikipedia than I suspect most vandals have. For starters, how many vandals know we call them "vandals"? A "fully aware" vandal would probably be difficult even for humans to detect. I suspect the majority of vandals (especially the majority of those whose work is visible) probably know very little about Wikipedia other than that it is a site which to a rational but unempathetic person invites defacement. A large fraction of the human race appears to think in such terms, as becomes obvious during times of calamity, when many people will loot with impunity when they realize the police are absent. For a lot of people, fear of punishment seems to be a greater motivation toward civility than actually caring about strangers. So, anyway, given that a previously-unwarned and easily-recognizable vandal probably doesn't know much about Wikipedia, it's reasonable to start the warning process at the bottom. Of course if the vandal edits under one IP address, the vandal might have edited under others, and we cannot easily determine that. So in keeping with assume good faith we would give the vandal all possible benefit of the doubt. Maybe the vandal is merely stupid and does not realize the harm in vandalizing Wikipedia. This is common in adolescent males, because the portions of the brain responsible for judgment have not fully developed yet. (Most older males can think back to their adolescent days and wonder what they were thinking at the time. At the time they actually could not think the same way they can now.) --Teratornis (talk) 17:40, 1 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

youtube as a source

I was just wondering,

can say, a lecture or video clip, from You tube or Google Video be used as a source? (Im assuming the clip satisfies copyright laws of course). How do things like wp:verifiability or reliability apply to them? —Preceding unsigned comment added by زرشک (talk • contribs) 17:53, 1 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

In short, no, YouTube is not a reliable source. See Wikipedia:Reliable source examples#Are IRC, MySpace, and YouTube reliable sources?. Same would apply to Google Video. – ukexpat (talk) 18:26, 1 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I found an error

Under the section about Al Davis it states the following: "Along with appearing in 5 Super Bowls, the Raiders have also played in their Conference/League Championship Game in every decade since their inception" The Raiders though have only appeared in 4 Super Bowls. They won 2 as the Oakland Raiders, 1 as the Los Angeles Raiders and lost 1 as the Oakland Raiders. This should be corrected on the Wikipedia page. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 199.43.32.87 (talk) 19:25, 1 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Actually, you can correct it yourself. :) That is why this is a free encyclopedia - you don't need an account to edit. —La Pianista ^{(T•C•S•R)} 19:26, 1 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

But please only add or change things when you have a reliable source. According to List of Super Bowl champions they have appeared in 5 Super Bowls: 1968, 1977, 1981, 1984, 2003. They lost as the Oakland Raiders twice, in 1968 and 2003. PrimeHunter (talk) 20:20, 1 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Which Came First?

If one of our articles is a "near duplicate" of text on other websites, are there ways to determine whether "they copied from us" or "we copied from them"?

Wanderer57 (talk) 21:16, 1 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

There are a list of sites that copy our content at WP:FORK. (And the chicken, by the way) Hersfold ^(t/a/c) 21:48, 1 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

A dated page in the Internet Archive#Wayback Machine can sometimes settle it. You can also try looking at the Wikipedia article history to see whether the near duplicate content is the result of multiple edits by different editors, making it unlikely that it was all copied from the same source. And you can try asking the editors who added it by posting to their talk pages. PrimeHunter (talk) 22:02, 1 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

If I conclude that we plagiarized material from elsewhere, who can I tell about this (aside from a priest)? Wanderer57 (talk) 23:33, 1 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

See Wikipedia:Spotting possible copyright violations and Wikipedia:Copyright problems. PrimeHunter (talk) 23:43, 1 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you. I have put a note HERE. You might be interested to have a look. Wanderer57 (talk) 00:31, 2 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

You may wish to note that 'copying' does not infer 'copyright violation'. Any website with a GFDL-compatible license is able to have text copied directly from it without causing copyright infringement. — neuro^(talk) 10:38, 4 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Editing content that has no edit link

On the Wikipdeia page for Battleship Texas BB35, I wish to edit - The section above the "Contentx" box - Box titled "Career (US)" which is at the top-right - Box "General Characteristics" - which is below "Career (US)"

There are no 'edit' links to the above areas ” —Preceding unsigned comment added by 206.180.136.23 (talk) 22:19, 1 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

You can click the "edit this page" tab at top. See also Wikipedia:Lead section#Editing the lead section. PrimeHunter (talk) 22:27, 1 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Note that the box is generated by a template so changes must use the parameters documented at {{Infobox Ship Begin}}. PrimeHunter (talk) 22:34, 1 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Can I find out why a particular article has been deleted from WP?

I'm curious to know why Shean McConnell has been removed from the encyclopedia. Thanks. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.75.171.124 (talk) 23:44, 1 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

It was not an article but a redirect to Robert Shean McConnell. PrimeHunter (talk) 23:54, 1 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The deletion summary here says why, though it's somewhat cryptic if you don't know wikispeak. csdr1 refers to 'criteria for speedy deletion, redirects, criteria 1'. Richard001 (talk) 02:07, 2 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Essentially it was deleted because it was a redirect to an article which had also been deleted. If you wanted to know why the article itself (Robert Shean McConnell) was deleted, then the reason on that page's log (click the red link) cites WP:Notability and WP:BLP and claims that the subject had requested deletion. Does that help? Olaf Davis | Talk 14:04, 2 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

October 2

Lists of (x) alumni

I'm not sure if this is the right place to ask this, so please feel free to point me to the right place if it isn't. I'm running into conflicts with other editors about the notability of people listed in "List of (x) alumni" style articles. My understanding, though I can't seem to find where I read this, is that non-wikilinked and redlinked people on these lists are presumed to be not notable and can be removed. Other editors seem to think differently. See [1] and [2], and [3] and [4] for examples of what I am talking about. I suppose my question here is, where are the relevant policies about this, and am I in the right? Hbent (talk) 00:27, 2 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

There's Wikipedia:Lists and Wikipedia:Stand-alone lists, the second of which mentions that "Selected lists of people should be selected for importance/notability in that category and should have Wikipedia articles (or the reasonable expectation of an article in the future)." So, if a reasonable argument can be made that a Wikipedia article should exist on a person, then they can generally be left on the list (of course, that then prompts the question as to why not write the article first, prove that it's notable enough to survive deletion, and then add them). Confusing Manifestation(Say hi!) 04:26, 2 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Just being an alumnus does not make these people notable, so you must establish the notability. What you are really missing are references, important in any article, but especially if you want to work towards Featured List; you need a reference for each entry even if it has an article. You don't have to have an article on everyone, but if they are truly notable, then they should have an article. I help maintain List of Eagle Scouts (Boy Scouts of America); for every redlink that is added and can be verified and demonstrates notability we will create an article. --—— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk - 10:14, 2 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

See also Wikipedia:Notable alumni which did not become a guideline byitself but resulted in the guideline at Wikipedia:Notability (people)#Lists of people. PrimeHunter (talk) 10:32, 2 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Editing the Wikipedia Page on Morgan Freeman

Resolved

I am trying to edit the following section of the entry on Morgan Freeman:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morgan_Freeman#Films

I have tried to add the narration he did for the 1990 film "The Civil War" (produced by Ken Burns). Freeman was the voice of Frederick Douglass.

Every time I have tried to exactly imitate the format for putting this into the Wikipedia page, it comes out over on the right hand side of the page instead of the left. Here is what I want to add:

1990 / The Civil War / Voice of Frederick Douglass

I don't know what I'm doing wrong as I have tried to exactly copy the format used....but it won't correctly appear on the page.

It might be easier if you could go to the Wikipedia page (listed above) to make the edit - could you? Again, it is simple:

1990 / The Civil War / Voice of Frederick Douglass

Thanks. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 200.107.49.97 (talk) 00:57, 2 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

That should take care of it Deezil (talk) 01:47, 2 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for your help. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 200.107.49.97 (talk) 21:23, 2 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Can you mark articles as 'read'?

Is it possible to mark an article as 'read' if you are a logged in user? After a time it becomes difficult to remember if you have read an article or not. It's possible to keep a manual record of what you read, even a list here maybe as a subpage or something, but wouldn't it be better if there was a feature that allowed you to mark a page as 'read' (and maybe even 're-read') similar to how you would mark it as 'watchlisted'? Wikipedia could keep a similarly private record of all the articles you had read, which would certainly be handy. This is really a feature request, but I first want to be sure that nothing like this exists already - that you would have to do all this manually at present. Richard001 (talk) 02:04, 2 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Nothing like that exists. Maybe you could just use your browser history. -mattbuck (Talk) 02:59, 2 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry, not possible as part of the basic Wikipedia services. You could probably whip up a .js extension to allow instant adding to a userspace list if you wanted to, though. --erachima talk 04:13, 2 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Google Desktop and similar desktop search software can keep track of the Web pages you view. I don't know whether these programs allow you to mark the pages you view as "read," but as long as you read every page you view, that might work. On Wikipedia, you can add pages to your watchlist, which could be an ugly way to keep track of what you have read - clearly not what the MediaWiki designers intended, but it might sort of work. Since Wikipedia constantly changes, the article you read a year ago may not be the same article today. If you cannot remember whether you have read an article before, why not just read it again? Forgetting an article means you are effectively in the same situation as if you had never read the article at all. --Teratornis (talk) 04:31, 2 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

A browser history is no use because it doesn't last and doesn't travel with you when you go to another computer. A userspace list would be more portable but doesn't offer any privacy like a watchlist does. It also uses up more space/processing power (read/not read requires only one bit). Pages you read are only a small subset of those you view. Not being able to remember whether you read an article is certainly not synonymous with never having read it at all.

Would it be possible to construct a .js extension that would allow you to do this without creating a page? I suppose one that did create a list would be okay, though the existing watchlist function (which keeps any article in one of two states - watched/unwatched) could so easily be modified to allow this (just remove the showing of changes, and maybe add multiple states (e.g. unread, read, re-read, triple-read, to-read). Richard001 (talk) 06:00, 2 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia futurology section

What is the name of the section where people can write essays about the future and futurology and the original research guidelines are relaxed somewhat? I visited it a couple of weeks ago but I forgot the name of it. Keraunos (talk) 03:26, 2 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think we have a section like that... WP:CRYSTAL and whatnot. --erachima talk 04:12, 2 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

(Though I now notice that the policy section I just linked has a link to wikia:future:, which might be what you meant...)--erachima talk 04:14, 2 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

example.com/yourownwebsite :) But seriously, this is outside of the scope of wikipedia or any of the related projects I know of. Wikia is not wikipedia project, but it might have a place for your essays. ---J.S (T/C/WRE) 18:59, 2 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

a list what sells the most online

Im trying to find a list of stats and demographics about what sells the most online please help thank you —Preceding unsigned comment added by 162.39.151.142 (talk) 04:34, 2 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

See Electronic commerce, Amazon.com, and search with {{Google}} for:

what sells the most online

If you can't find an answer, try asking on the Reference desk. --Teratornis (talk) 04:48, 2 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

40 corrections to Wiki Battleship Texas BB35 - recommendations how to proceed

I am a first time Wiki editor and I have 40 corrections to make to the wiki Battleship Texas BB35. I would like some suggestions as to how to proceed for I am concerned that such a quantity will cause a disturbance. Using a sandbox, can I place a copy of the complete wiki article along with all of my corrections for other editors to view?

All of my corrections are cited with original source documents. I am cited in the reference for I had the most extensive and detailed BB35 website. My data was based on my research using original source documents. I have source documents that the ship's administrators do not have (though I offered). Using a variety of computer programs I created the only know set of as-built 12 March 1914 Booklet of General Plans with several detailed drawings and data pages. I mapped the ship's complete movement history with a computer mapping program (MAPINFO) and data that I purchased from the National Archives. I made an ACCESS database of the ship's drawings that are in the ship's files (paper and microfilm) having looked at every paper drawing. I also created an ACCESS database of 2,500 ship photos that can be searched on and photos displayed in hundreds of ways. I also scanned over 1,500 photos. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 206.180.135.204 (talk) 05:18, 2 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

welcome to wikipedia. my first step would probably be to discuss the proposed changes on the article's "talk" page (clicking on that blue/purple phrase will take you to that page, then click the "new section" tab at the top). although you're not required to create a this is a problem...with everyone can edit account, it's often easier to communicate with other editors if you *do* have an account and log in before posting/editing - you can read about that here. it sounds like you're already aware of wikipedia policies regarding original research and verifiability, but in case you want an introduction to wikipedia fundamentals, you might find this page useful: WP:Introduction oh and please "sign" your posts to "talk" pages by typing four tildes at the end. happy editing ... Sssoul (talk) 08:40, 2 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Or just be bold and change the article. Just don't get fussed if everything gets changed back! Signing up for an account might help your credibility, but don't worry about it too much. If you make good changes, they'll stay, if you don't, they'll get reverted. You could always try making the changes five-at-a-time, to see how well it goes. Good luck! Franamax (talk) 09:03, 2 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Since you know a lot more about USS Texas (BB-35) than you know about Wikipedia editing yet, the simplest way to get started might be to team up with someone who has more editing experience on Wikipedia and shares your interest in the ship. You can find such users on Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Peer review/USS Texas (BB-35). (Note: the fact that someone requested a peer review for the article shows that the article needs improvement. You could add your comments to the peer review.) The most effective way to communicate with other users on Wikipedia is to first create an account, so you establish a fixed identity (or pseudo-identity) on Wikipedia. That lets other users build up an idea of what you are about and the things you are doing here. Then read Help:Talk and Wikipedia:Talk page guidelines to learn how we communicate with each other. You might also join Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history; at the very least, read that project's pages. For a general introduction to editing, take the WP:TUTORIAL. --Teratornis (talk) 20:16, 2 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Note that the Peer Review is over a year old, so posts there may no longer get much attention. If you look on the "discussion" tab for the page, and make comments for discussion there. The project is currently showing as part of multiple WikiProjects, all of whom would likely have participants that will watch the discussion page for new comments.

All of the WikiProjects involved seem to have rated the current state of the article as GL-Class on the quality scale, which suggests that any large-scale changes will be looked at very closely, making posts on the discussion page even more important. --- Barek (talk • contribs) - 20:38, 2 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Adding a section to a page

Hello I would like to ask you guys how to add a section to a page, because as I was looking at my old school I found it did not have a feeder list like South Dade Senoir High School. The page in question is http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homestead_High_School_(Homestead,_Florida) . I would like to add a feeder list to it. Thank you. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 169.139.118.253 (talk) 12:05, 2 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Do you know what the feeder schools are? Then go to the section History and click the edit button there, at the bottom add a blank line and then place something like ==Feeder list== and then on the next line start editing. Hopefully that will help you. 211.30.12.197 (talk) 12:11, 2 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

For more information on this, and about editing in general, refer to WP:EDIT. Please make sure that the information you include is suitably referenced. Cheers. Chamal ^Talk ± 12:14, 2 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Dr. Joyce Cherono Laboso

Hon. Dr Joyce Cherono Laboso sister to the late Hon Lorna Laboso who died in a plane crash won the Sotik seat in a recent by- election held on 25th September 2008. She beat 11 other contestants after she garnered 23,880 to clinch Sotik parliamentary seat with a vote margin of 10,000 to her close challenger Rtd. Brigadier Sitienei. Dr Joyce is a former french Lecturer at Egerton University and currently serving as a Commissioner of the National Commission on Gender and Development.

Hon. Dr. Joyce is a Phd holder whose name came to the limelight when she read a moving Euology of her late Sister Hon. Lorna Loboso. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Kalyet08 (talk • contribs) 14:02, 2 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

If you want an article on the honorable doctor, you can create it here. See WP:YFA and WP:BLP. If you want to request that an article be created, see Wikipedia:Requested articles. Zain Ebrahim (talk) 14:26, 2 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I flagged the article for further review due to likely non notability. The notability seems mainly inherited, no assumed notability is established and the article also does not seem to comply to the notability guideline for politics. Excirial^{(Contact me,Contribs)} 11:48, 3 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

A member of the National Assembly of Kenya is inherently notable. I've done some work on the article and sourced it a bit, but would welcome some assistance. --Orange Mike | Talk 01:48, 4 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Sync of portal and boxes

Hi, I have a portal on which I have done some edits to the individual boxes within the portal. Each box on itself displays correctly the changes, but when I return to the main portal page none of the changes are apparent. Its as if the portal page is frozen. However there are no warnings or anything. Can anyone help? FYI this is also the first time this happens - are the Wiki servers and dbs having problems? User: Nicolas39 —Preceding unsigned comment added by Nicolas39 (talk • contribs) 14:18, 2 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Try purging the portal page. Zain Ebrahim (talk) 14:22, 2 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

If that doesn't work, you might want to supply us with the diffs so we can help you out further. :) — neuro^(talk) 10:48, 4 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Can't get multiple college students signed on to do a project on Wikipedia!

Each semester I do a wonderful "History of Education" project with my beginning freshmen education students at Morningside College. When my first class attempted to sign in today, they were all told only 6 from the same IP address can sign on in 24 hours. I understand why this is but why am I having this difficulty this semester when I never had it before?

I have NEVER had this problem before: Is this a recent change???

Can you note my IP address and allow more students to sign in, please??? I need approximately 75 students to be able to sign on in www.wikipedia.com!

Is there some way we can work this out? Their inability to sign in almost makes this project impossible.

Please reply as soon as possible. I'm going into a second class and will probably have the same thing happen.

Dr. Chobar Education Professor —Preceding unsigned comment added by Edprofessor5302 (talk • contribs) 17:37, 2 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

You should consider asking your students to each create their own account on Wikipedia. The benefits of creating an account are set out here. – ukexpat (talk) 18:02, 2 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

You're hitting account creation limits design to limit abuse/vandalism on wikipedia. Persons needing accounts should email accounts-enwiki-l@lists.wikimedia.org. You're may need account creator rights, or Wikipedia:Request an account. If you're already in your second class I'm guessing this hasn't been cleared up by then. You may also want to read Wikipedia:School and university projects. -Optigan13 (talk) 18:33, 2 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Actually, visit http://stable.toolserver.org/acc/acc.php rather than emailing that list, as the list has been deprecated. I am inclined to give Edprofessor5302 accountcreator permission for a week or two to help him clear the matter up. Stifle (talk) 19:15, 2 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

You might find something useful in User:Teratornis/Tips for teachers, in particular User:Teratornis/Tips for teachers#Choosing the right wiki. Since Wikipedia is constantly changing, the fact that Wikipedia worked for your class in the past does not predict whether it will always work equally well in the future. Wikipedia has its own agenda, changing constantly due to many factors none of us individually control. Perhaps the most reliable method to insure that you have a tool that meets your particular needs would be to set up your own school wiki. Since you teach this same class each semester, perhaps you have (or want to have) each successive class of students repeating some things the previous class did. That might be inconvenient to arrange on Wikipedia, because Wikipedia continuously evolves in the direction of greater complexity and technological sophistication. Over time, we can expect Wikipedia to become gradually harder for new users to get started with, because most of the easy beginner-type jobs will be long since completed. For example, Wikipedia already has 6,825,637 articles covering most of the obvious encyclopedia topics. The remaining topics to write about tend to be of increasingly questionable notability, making them more prone to deletion. The ultimate goal of Wikipedia is to bring all the articles up to featured quality - while this might require centuries at the current pace, technological and organizational progress may speed up the improvement. If Wikipedia does reach its goal, then there won't be much easy work left to do on Wikipedia - most of the further editing will require lots of skill and knowledge. Since your class is already underway, you probably cannot set up your own school wiki in time to help the current students, but you could have it ready for next semester. Contact the people who set up your school's Web site and tell them you want them to add a MediaWiki wiki to it. For example, see UMassWiki. --Teratornis (talk) 20:01, 2 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

You might also consider Wikiversity which is open to these kind of projects. –xeno (talk) 20:09, 2 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

How do I tell if a wiki page is 'semi-protected' or 'protected'?

I have never edited Wikipedia before and don't know how to tell what level of protection is on a page. I am looking to edit/update a 'City of' page... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.230.144.88 (talk) 18:16, 2 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

If you see a padlock at the top right hand corner of a page, the page has some degree of protection on it. See this page for the various types of protection and what they mean. To which page were you referring? Cheers! TN‑X-Man 18:35, 2 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Type the name in the protection log and it'll come up when it has been protected. Sunderland06 (talk) 18:46, 2 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

A more practical way to tell is to just edit it. It will immediately tell you if you can or can't edit the page. ---J.S (T/C/WRE) 18:57, 2 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

(edit conflict) The presence of a template such as {{Pp-semi-protected}} is not a sure-fire indicator, as there may be both false positives and false negatives:

Only administrators can set the protection status of a page, but anyone can stick a template on it. Someone may put a template on a page that indicates the page is protected, when it isn't, either due to a mistake, or a deliberate attempt to make the page appear to be protected.
An administrator who protects a page may forget to stick a template on it.

Thus we need a definitive way to determine the protection status of a page. One way is by trying to edit the page. If the page is fully protected, and you are not an administrator, the edit tab at the top of the page will say "view", and you won't see any section edit links. If the page is semi-protected, you will only be able to edit it if you have logged in. Another way is to look up the page on Special:ProtectedPages, but that page appears to lack a way to show the protection status for a given page. Instead the page lists various types of protected pages, in no particular order as far as I can see (this is unlike Special:AllPages which does sort its page list, making it straightforward to get to a particular page). However, on Special:ProtectedPages you can prune the list by specifying a namespace and a size range. You can see exactly how large a page is by looking at its history. That's a rather awkward method to look something up on Special:ProtectedPages, but given the rather baffling lack of the obvious feature of sorting the list of pages, I don't see another easy way to look up a specific page. A less obtuse way is to check Special:Log, where you can look up a particular page by its title, and view its protection log (among other things). For example, the Henry Ford article is fully protected, and its log page shows the history of various administrators protecting and unprotecting it. --Teratornis (talk) 19:14, 2 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Maybe I'm being denser than usual here, but isn't the easiest way to go to the history page of the article in question and click on "View logs for this page" at the top? If the article is currently protected, "edit=autoconfirmed" in the protection entry will indicate semiprotection, and "edit=sysop" will indicate full protection. Deor (talk) 23:45, 2 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you, it turns out the page wasn't protected. I have been reading up on the ins and outs of Wikipedia and overcomplicated the matter. I appreciate the input! And if you'd like to take a peek, it's the City of Minot, ND homepage. 24.230.167.32 (talk) 21:02, 3 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Translators (radio)

Yesterday I saw a newspaper article online about a new radio station, 98.1 the River, which did not list call letters. I started the article using all the information I had available (though if I had more time, like I do today, I could have seen more). I have found call letters for the station, which was a translator and still uses call letters that a translator would use.

Should the name of the article be those call letters? Vchimpanzee · talk · contributions · 18:17, 2 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Take a look at WP:NAME#Broadcasting. – ukexpat (talk) 18:25, 2 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Essay

can you please help me to write a specific essay. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 220.227.88.91 (talk) 21:39, 2 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

No, we don't do your homework for you. But you can look up information in Wikipedia. And if you have a specific question, they may be able to answer it at the Wikipedia:Reference desk, but they won't do your homework for you either. —teb728 t c 22:35, 2 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Actually, the answer to this query is "yes". We, WP and the RefDesk can certainly help the OP write her/his essay subject to the usual constraints. Zain Ebrahim (talk) 11:52, 3 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

We can indeed help, as that is the nature of Wikipedia, but it would be wise to note that 'help' does not equal 'writing it for you'. Neurolysis 10:41, 4 October 2008 (UTC)

Darts problem

Resolved

Hi. I have just edited darts by adding a citation. It is Cohen and Tonkes (which is currently ref number 6). The Journal is open-access. Can some kind wikiguru tell me how to make a live link to the PDF? Best wishes, Robinh (talk) 21:56, 2 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The citation templates contain an optional "url" parameter. Just enter the full web-address of the pdf to include a link. Someguy1221 (talk) 22:08, 2 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Sweet. That's really good. Thanks, Robinh (talk) 07:28, 3 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Page disappearance

I spent 3 hours editing "Mezcal" yesterday as I am THE expert. I have been very depressed by the faulty info on the page. It was almost complete... 5 minutes from finish and;

1. the page dissapeared

2. I was logged out

3. I can not log back in

4. requested new email and it has not been sent.

Is this the usual user experience with Wiki?

Ron Cooper 209.188.122.44 (talk) 21:57, 2 October 2008 (UTC) [e-mail address deleted][reply]

The edit history (here) shows that Mezcal has not been edited since 9/28... – ukexpat (talk) 23:53, 2 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Actually, Ron, you may have been caught in a server problem. You might wish to save your changes as you go along to avoid losing your work if the page crashes. This means you only need to redo a little bit if you run into a snag. Spartaz ^Humbug! 06:52, 3 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

All movie

For Template: Infobox film where would you find amg id on the site.--Adrian 1001 (talk) 22:23, 2 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Go to http://www.allmovie.com/, type in the name of the film. I've constructed an example for you, I searched for Empire of the Sun (film) and made the necessary edit. You can see the diff here. Basically, the last section of the url when you search for a film is what you need, regards ——Possum (talk) 22:41, 2 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks very much--Adrian 1001 (talk) 22:50, 2 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

October 3

Citing Wikipedia

Do I have to cite wikipedia if I use it for information. If so, is the name of the site "Wikipedia - The Free Encyclopedia?" Thank you —Preceding unsigned comment added by 158.103.0.1 (talk) 00:16, 3 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Take a look at WP:CW. – ukexpat (talk) 00:26, 3 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Cats Singapore.

Why do so many cats in Singapore have unusual short malformed tails? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.146.49.72 (talk) 01:16, 3 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Have you tried the Miscellaneous section of Wikipedia's Reference Desk? They specialize in answering knowledge questions there; this help desk is only for questions about using Wikipedia. For your convenience, here is the link to post a question there: click here. I hope this helps.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 01:37, 3 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Perhaps you refer to the Japanese Bobtail. I found this article in two steps:

I pasted part of your question into {{Google}}: cats in Singapore have unusual short malformed tails
That found a link which mentioned "bobbed tail" so I searched Wikipedia with Google for: cat bobbed tail, and the top result was Japanese Bobtail, a cat breed common in Japan and Southeast Asia.

My cursory search did not reveal for sure that the cats in Singapore are Japanese Bobtails, but the breed fits the description and lives in the general area. The next step would be to read more about that breed and see if it is common in Singapore. For example, you could probably call any pet shop or veterinarian in Singapore and ask them, or search for cat fancier associations in Singapore. Or just read this page. --Teratornis (talk) 17:43, 3 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Postcard's License

Aquitania (talk)If I want to upload postcards, what license will be?Aquitania (talk) —Preceding undated comment was added at 02:40, 3 October 2008 (UTC).[reply]

See my reply to your similar question here. The answer has not changed. —teb728 t c 07:58, 3 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Leighrayment.com

I just found another instance of [:http://www.angeltowns.com/town/peerage/ Leigh Rayment's Peerage Page] on Eardley-Wilmot Baronets (see history) although google and wiki don't list it. There are numerous others that need changing, because he is now at www.leighrayment.com, e.g. Williams Baronets and Baron Coleraine. How do I find them all? Kittybrewster ☎ 12:23, 3 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Try this Special:Linksearch. You can plug other urls with a wildcard before them such as *.leighrayment.com--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 13:10, 3 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

New question - wealth

do you know the links between wealth and value creations —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.230.34.24 (talk) 16:19, 3 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Welcome to the Wikipedia Help Desk. Your question appears to be a homework question. I apologize if this is a mis-evaluation, but it is our policy here to not do people's homework for them, but to merely aid them in doing it themselves. Letting someone else do your homework does not help you learn how to solve such problems. Please attempt to solve the problem yourself first. If you need help with a specific part of your homework, feel free to tell us where you are stuck and ask for help. If you need help grasping the concept of a problem, by all means let us know. Thank you! TN‑X-Man 16:25, 3 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Start by reading the Wealth article. If you want to surprise your teacher, you could work in some of Richard Heinberg's articulation of Ecological energetics from The Party's Over: Oil, War, and the Fate of Industrial Societies. Heinberg focuses more on energy as an input for wealth creation. Other authors such as Raymond Kurzweil focus more on information. One can characterize the many various inputs for wealth creation in terms of energy, material, and information. For example, labor provides highly sophisticated forms of information processing, and small amounts of energy from muscles. Humans provide only negligible amounts of material directly (such as human hair for wigs, and donor organs); most material that humans convert into useful products comes from natural resources; some of these are finite, and others are renewable. Computers are an attempt to automate the information processing formerly done by human brains, but at the moment computers can only replace human labor in a tiny subset of tasks, and are mostly useful now to augment human intelligence by handling the highly repetitive grunt work, freeing humans to focus more on the sloppy, noisy, unstructured, and ill-posed problems which humans can sometimes solve by mental processes that no one fully understands yet. When someone fully understands the underlying mental processes, they will program them into computers. For more about that, see:

Kennedy, Noah (1989). The Industrialization of Intelligence: Mind and Machine in the Modern Age. Unwin Hyman. ISBN 9780044403456.

--Teratornis (talk) 18:05, 3 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Infobox?

Resolved

– Tnxman307 was kind enough to answer my question Anonymous101 (talk) 19:35, 3 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

What is the appropriate infobox for Constitution of Cyprus? Anonymous101 (talk) 19:28, 3 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

{{Infobox document}} is the box on the page for the US Constitution. I think it would be the best one to use. Cheers! TN‑X-Man 19:30, 3 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. That is exactly the type of infobox I was looking for, I just couldn't find it. Anonymous101 (talk) 19:35, 3 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Single and double spacing

Hi. Is it just me, or is it that when you edit an article the text seem to randomly switch between single and double spacing, and the changes seem to register on the main text as well? Thanks. ~A H 1^(TCU) 22:33, 3 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I'm inclined to say it's just you, as I've no idea what you're talking about. Could you possibly provide a screenshot? Hersfold ^(t/a/c) 00:08, 4 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

This is because some editors prefer to double space, and some prefer to single space after a full stop. See here. — neuro^(talk) 10:34, 4 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Namecalling, to-do list, and any general words of wisdom

Hi there,

I'm a newb Wikipedia editor (joined July and contribute intermittently). I haven't done much editting to actual articles yet (mostly talk pages) because I'm not yet comfortable I know the rules well enough (although I feel my knowledge of the material I wish to edit is excellent). I'd like to move on to focus on article edits themselves now.

Does good etiquette require I always have to discuss an edit on a talk page? For example can't I just make an edit and wait and see if anyone objects before going the talk page route? (seems less time consuming)

Nope, be bold. Of course, if you anticipate the edit being controversial, you should discuss it first. Tan | 39 00:13, 4 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

How does Wikipedia define name calling? For example on a few hot political topics I've already been called irrational, insane, POV-pusher, clueless, nationalist, and several other names. Up to now I just use the exact same words back because I don't want to be someone's dartboard but neither do I wish to overshoot. Ideally though I would prefer no name calling at all (seems immature on a personal level no matter what the issue). Is this practically achievable? I'm sure everyone here has encountered this instigater issue on some level so some good practical advice on how to reply would sure help.

See WP:CIVIL for some information. Follow the golden rule, and try to assume good faith. Take any serious cases to dispute resolution, such as WP:3O or WP:ANI. Tan | 39 00:13, 4 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I have a boatload of facts (several pages) that appear to be missing from various Wikipedia articles I'm interested in editting. I'd like to assemble them into a to-do list (formatted to Wikipedia standards) but am unsure where the line between a to-do list and "soapboxing" is drawn.

Any general words of wisdom based on experience?

Thanks for any help in advance --Crossthets (talk) 00:07, 4 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

We encourage editors to be bold in their editing. Unless you know something you're planning to do is going to be controversial, you're welcome to go ahead and do it. If someone does revert you, however, you are expected to try to discuss with them to figure out why they don't like what you did.
WP:CIVIL is probably the best policy to link you to here, and WP:COOL wouldn't hurt either. If you're being called names like that, it's usually best to simply stay calm, and avoid retaliating if you can. Should things get really nasty, you may want to seek dispute resolution on the issue to help smooth things over. Something else you can do is look over what you've done to see if the other person actually has a case, and if you're not sure, you can always ask for a third opinion.
You should probably add such a to-do list to the talk page of the relevant article (or a link to one of your user subpages which has the to-do list) and discuss with other editors what is necessary and what either doesn't need to be included or should be placed elsewhere. Some talk pages have a {{todo}} template which allows you to post such lists onto a subpage of the article's talk page, so it's easy for everyone to find and change.
Use common sense, and don't be a dick. Those are the main rules around here, and everything pretty much falls under one of those two, or in some cases both. Don't focus on what is "right", focus on what can be referenced and checked over by others. Consensus is not unanimous, nor is it always majority rule, but it's not a flag to wave around so you can get your way. Most importantly, when all else fails, drop everything and talk. If talking fails, take a breather or two and go back to talking when everyone's ready to go. Everything else is, as I said, more or less common sense. Hersfold ^(t/a/c) 00:20, 4 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

As Hersfold indicates, the general policy is WP:Be Bold. However there are controversial articles where a more cautious approah to editing is advisable and is specifically requested. See for example Talk:Abortion, Talk:Homeopathy and Talk:Book of Mormon. In each of these talk pages, there are special instructions about how to approach editing. These can be found in text boxes at the top of each talk page. Wanderer57 (talk) 00:39, 4 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

(undent) If you've already been called "irrational, insane, POV-pusher, clueless, nationalist, and several other names", that suggests you are selecting controversial topics that are much too difficult for a new Wikipedia editor. You should begin by editing non-controversial articles. Stay away from politics, religion, and other topics that cause people to hate or kill each other in real life. Stick to boring nonpolarizing topics until you develop the sangfroid necessary to contribute effectively to the hysteria-generating articles. You can find lots of safely dull yet important work to do on Wikipedia:Maintenance. Another excellent option is to answer questions on the Help desk - that's one of the best ways to learn what Wikipedia is about, and the environment is mostly positive for the editors who answer questions here, since the volunteers absorb themselves in other people's problems. Also, whenever someone calls you insulting names, it's best to just stick to demonstrable facts rather than get sucked into responding in kind. This could be important if you ever try to become an administrator - in which case other editors will look for evidence of your sangfroid (the ability to avoid flying off the handle when dealing with people who fly off the handle). --Teratornis (talk) 04:20, 4 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Reporting Vandelism

Yesterday, an articles I wrote ( Goodpasture Bridge ) was vandelised by User talk:216.235.136.195. I reviewed well over a dozen of the hundred or more entries on the user's history page and found nothing but vandelism. The user talk page has many/many warnings, but it appears user-site is a school. Still the site is producing lot's of vandelism. Isn't there any thing that can be done to close that site?--Orygun (talk) 01:09, 4 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

An administrator could block the IP address from editing if it continues vandalizing Wikipedia. Neptune5000 (talk) 02:21, 4 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Oh, and on an unrelated note, I am sure it was unintentional and simply a misunderstanding by myself, but "an articles I wrote" sounds like ownership. You might want to read WP:OWN, but as I say, it is most likely just a misunderstanding. :) — neuro^(talk) 10:32, 4 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Deletion of Regan Mizrahi Article

I wanted to ask about the deletion of the Regan Mizrahi article I posted earlier today. Regan is a young actor who has a starring role in Dora the Explorer as well as having minor roles in two motion pictures. Finally he has been in many commericals which air on a regular basis. I did my best to link to other relevent sites such as his IMDB entry and a site which has videos of all his commericials.

So, what did I do incorrectly and what can I do to remedy it. Thank you. Eteran (talk) 02:16, 4 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

It has been deleted because you hadn't asserted why the subject is notable enough to have an article here. This is under criteria A7 of WP:Criteria for Speedy Deletion. Please see Wikipedia:Notability and Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons for more information about this. Cheers. Chamal ^Talk ± 02:38, 4 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

And see WP:WWMPD. --Teratornis (talk) 04:03, 4 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

notability/shared name/disambiguation

I share my name with another "person of notability". We are both listed on Wikipedia.

She is listed under our shared name, noted for film contributions. I am listed under a band name, I am a musician. However, I am filmmaker, designer and business owner (as well as a musician) and I do not wish to have confusion over our creative contributions to film or otherwise.

I am aware that one should not create a page about themselves, but feel the need to clarify my name for those who search for my creative work, and not have my film contribution mixed with hers.

I would like to create a small page about myself, link it to the current on Wikipedia information about me and "disambiguate" under our (shared) name. I could substantiate information with several articles of significant coverage in reliable, independent secondary sources.

Is this fair? If so, how do I make my listing if her name already exists?

Thank you. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Maximumalien (talk • contribs) 03:29, 4 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The relevant guidelines are WP:BIO, WP:AUTOBIO, and WP:DISAMBIG. --Teratornis (talk) 04:00, 4 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

If you want someone to interpret those guidelines for your specific case, you'll have to identify the existing article you allude to in your question, and tell us the reliable sources you have for your biographical information. Note that on Wikipedia, there is not really a concept of "fairness." See Wikipedia:There is no common sense. Instead, Wikipedia is like a giant MMORPG with 47,430,082 other people, in which we all try to guess what we can write that everyone else will refrain from deleting or editing beyond all recognition. This comes as quite a shock to most people, since in most other kinds of writing, what we write tends to stay put until we ourselves decide to change it. Nothing in prior real life experience for most people prepares them for the cruel world of Wikipedia. --Teratornis (talk) 04:28, 4 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

It appears that the more popular of the women is Monica Breen. The questioner is likely an ex-drummer for the Gore Gore Girls. There is a disambig link on top of Monica Breen now. -- kainaw ™ 04:37, 4 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I'm currently working on the article List of Prime Ministers of Sri Lanka. The table of contents does not appear in the article. I tried using {{TOCleft}}, but that changes the layout of the page. Can someone give me an idea about how to include the table of contents? Chamal ^Talk ± 04:47, 4 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I have added the table of contents for you on the article. To read on how table of contents are structured, go here WP:Table of contents. This will tell you most everything you need to know on how they are used and how to manually adjust them. Good luck.-JavierMC 04:55, 4 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Great! Thanks a lot. Chamal ^Talk ± 04:57, 4 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

did i do it correctly?

I added a character, Orlanda Ramos to the Noble House page, but I have no idea how to position it. Sorry for any inconvenience. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Moonchildalways (talk • contribs) 06:28, 4 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I've fixed it. Consider reading Wikipedia:How to edit a page and Wikipedia:Your first article to learn about editing Wikipedia. Cheers. Chamal ^Talk ± 06:35, 4 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Category:People from Yolo County, California

On the Category:People from Yolo County, California page, the subcategories have parenthesis that reflect that zero people are in those subcategories. Its not because of recent additions, because there were already people in those categories. Killiondude (talk) 08:08, 4 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The zeros indicate that there are no subcategories under those categories. It does not indicate the number of articles in that category. Chamal ^Talk ± 08:27, 4 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

an incomplte/not correct bio on me published on Wikipedia to be deleted

Hello,

I'm Christian Leotta and I have found on Wikipedia a Bio, searching my name, which is not correct or incomplte. How can be it cancelled? There is actually published a bio on my which I would like to cancel. I can then provide my correct and complete bio.

While awaiting for you reply, I send my best greetings. Thank you for your answer.

Christian Leotta Ludwig11132 (talk) 09:13, 4 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Hello, thanks for using Wikipedia. If your biography is incorrect or incomplete, why not be bold and fix it? GlassCobra 09:14, 4 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

That said, in general you should not edit articles about yourself. If you are editing the facts themselves, make sure to reference them with appropriate sources. :) — neuro^(talk) 10:30, 4 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

this will probably be worthwhile reading for you: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:AUTOBIO#If_Wikipedia_already_has_an_article_about_you

Sssoul (talk) 11:15, 4 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

See also Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons#Dealing with articles about yourself. PrimeHunter (talk) 12:40, 4 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

and this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Biographies_of_living_persons/Help Sssoul (talk) 12:45, 4 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

It is a myth that you should not edit articles about yourself. Provided you comply with the relevant polices, anyone may do so. Andy Mabbett (User:Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 12:52, 4 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Privileges

If you check, I have recently been allocated Wikipedia:Rollback_feature but find my name to self centered (A Cool Editor). Is it possible to change my username, while still preserving my rollbacking rights?? A Cool Editor (talk) 09:23, 4 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Hi there. If you want to change your user name, just go to Wikipedia:Changing username, I believe your rollback rights will still be preserved. (Why not? :)) Even if your rights is somehow accidentally removed, you can certainly get it back easily without having to go through formal requests (Just ask any admin!). No worries. --PeaceNT (talk) 09:31, 4 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Sidemenu creation

Does anyone know how to replicate one of the menus on the left with normal wikitext on any page? (Like 'interaction', 'toolbox' etc. and all the links and colours.)

And also, for a second attempt... does anybody else possibly know anything about this? -- Menti sock 12:09, 4 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

You might want to ask the latter at WP:VPT, but as for the former, from what I can see Wikipedia will allow the source code to be C&Ped with no blocking of code, but I might be wrong. — neuro^(talk) 12:31, 4 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

^ Wake, p. 54
^ Wake, p. 36

[1] Wake, p. 54

[2] Wake, p. 36

[1]

[2]

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