Wikipedia:Help desk/Archive 33

Can someone take a look at [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Limbo_%28weapon%29&diff=prev&oldid=26049715 this] and [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Ruby_Application_Archive&diff=26049763&oldid=23476501 this] and [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Williamstown&diff=26049749&oldid=23479762 this], please? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 144.131.118.135 (talk • contribs) 01:52, 21 October 2005

: On first glance, it looks as though the user in question made a couple of errors. If they are indeed errors, you should fix them, and (if you anticipate further discussion) explain them on the user's talk page. -- SCZenz 01:57, 21 October 2005 (UTC)

::looks like standard reverting of a banned user (skyring).Geni 01:59, 21 October 2005 (UTC)

::: See the history at WP:AN/I for more about this. Titoxd^(?!?) 02:02, 21 October 2005 (UTC)

::: Ahh, ok that makes sense. I guess this is done on sight, without regard to the edit content, yes? It does look a bit silly in this case, because the edits were incorrect. -- SCZenz 02:05, 21 October 2005 (UTC)

:::: Well, the thing is that banned editors are not allowed to contribute to Wikipedia in any way, and should be reverted on sight by any user. See Wikipedia:Ban for more about our banning policy. Titoxd^(?!?) 02:08, 21 October 2005 (UTC)

I attempted to figure out how the request for comment process works, but no luck-can someone describe it in a nutshell?

Actually, here's the issue that made me look into an RFC: I applied the PotentialVanity tag to an article that already had the Cleanup tag, since it seemed borderline notable; it appears to me that PotentialVanity is more specific than just Cleanup, and therefore a better tag under the circumstance. The article in question is Annie Easley. The PotentialVanity tag has since been reverted to Cleanup by a somewhat unhappy user, apparently the article's creator. Basically,did I use the tag properly?

Thanks for any info you can give about either the PotentialVanity tag or about RFC. Paul 04:35, 21 October 2005 (UTC)

: I think the subject is noteworthy and at least one of the editors is well-respected on Wikipedea. If you really want to pursue it, you can nominate it under the Articles for Deletion process which doesn't permit the removal of the tag until the process runs its course. But, my wisdom is that it is a good addition to Wikipedea; I doubt if we have very many articles about African-American computer scientists, male or female, born in the 1930's. -Walter Siegmund 05:07, 21 October 2005 (UTC)

:: Borderline, in my opinion. I'd allow it to stay; it has verifiable references, and it's not disruptive to the rest of Wikipedia. --Ashenai (talk) (Galatea!) 11:16, 21 October 2005 (UTC)

:The story of this article is as follows. I had NEVER heard of this Annie Easley in my life, until one day my daughter came home with an assignment from school. It was during the African American day or African American week or something like that. She had to make an article about an important African American personality. One of the names in the list was Annie Easley. I am not sure if she chose to do that one or if it was assigned to her. My daughter asked for my help because she tried to locate references on the Internet and she couldn't find many. I told her to check in Wikipedia and there was no article, or if there was there was not much info on it. So, I helped her find some references on the Internet, and then also decided to start (or improve) the article about Annie Easley in Wikipedia and did some work on it gathering information from different sources I could find (very few at the time). I guess that if she was on a list of "important African American people" given to my daughter at school, then the people there are notable enough for a good portion of the population (African American people), which in turn means that those people are notable enough to be in Wikipedia. I would also recommend to User:PaulHanson and others like him not to be so "trigger happy" and avoid converting "clean-ups" into "destroy-ups" if they don't know enough about the subject. It is not nice to see our work of hours destroyed because somebody "thought" it was vanity or whatever. Regarding the question about the "potential vanity" tag, it is my opinion that it should be use when there are strong signs that the author of the article is writing about himself, when there are no other references to that person on the internet(not the case of Annie Easley...you can find several school essays posted on the Internet about her) and when the editor has no ID or has not written about any other article that that one--AAAAA 06:01, 22 October 2005 (UTC)

:Image:Cscr-featured.png as well as some other images used in talk page templates (such as FA, warnings, etc.) have a transparent background. However, when they're shrunk down, a white background forms where there shouldn't be any background at all. Is it just with my browser (IE) or is this a universal thing? If it's universal, should we change them back to the organde-background images? It seems like the transparent background sometimes works and sometimes doesn't.

-Nameneko 04:54, 21 October 2005 (UTC)

:The issue of IE support for transparent PNGs is somewhat complex (see our png ariticle]]. I'm using firefox and I don't see any problems.Geni 05:05, 21 October 2005 (UTC)

Two pictures, :Image:Hebban.jpg and :Image:Vogala.png, both depict the same thing, the Hebban Olla Vogala. The JPG (78KB) is linked from one article (Dutch language) and the PNG (41KB) is linked from two (Dutch literature and Probatio pennae). Both are Public domain. I plan to relink the article(s) from one to the other and delete the to be orphaned image. The thing is, I'm no expert when it comes to Black and White/Sepia photographs of 900 year old Dutch literature. Despite their file types and sizes, which picture is better suited for Wikipedia? — Kjammer ⌂ 07:54, 21 October 2005 (UTC)

:I'm no expert either, but it looks to me like :Image:Hebban.jpg has an extra line (well most of one) and that while :Image:Vogala.png doesn't have the extra line it is clearer. So we should keep both. --Commander Keane 08:13, 21 October 2005 (UTC)

I have made my first real contribution to Wikipedia an article - Ossian the Scottish Traditional Music group of 1976 onwards.

I find that unwittingly I have made an error, by compounding an error on the disambiguation page.

There are two references to bands on the disambiguation page;

Ossian Scottish Celtic band

Ossian Hungarian Band

I now realise they lead to the same end page. While editing the stub I assumed that the mistake had been that there were two identical linked to from the above links.

Actually it is the same page with to links.

This was the mistake in the disambiguation page.

I edited out the only text on the page - a link to the hungarian band's website. I assume that can be recovered.

I need help with; editing the disambiguation page, making sure the links are to two pages, recovering the material that was on the page- link to hungarian band's site.

I hope someone can help!

--Paw42 10:47, 21 October 2005 (UTC)

:The article your expanded used to look like [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Ossian_%28band%29&direction=prev&oldid=26027107 this], I have delinked the Hungarian band name on the disambiguation page as there is just as much information there as the old version article had. If someone wants to write an article on the Hungarian band, both pages can be moved to distinct names. Alf ^melmac 11:04, 21 October 2005 (UTC)

Is there a way to trace someone's IP from their user name? There are a few pages that are having serious problems with sockpuppets. Please leave response here instead of on my talk page. Thanks! Davidpdx 13:40, 21 October 2005 (UTC)

:A developer can do this. See m:Developers. Tempshill 16:50, 21 October 2005 (UTC)

[http://www.dnsstuff.com DNSSTUFF] is THE spot to trace IP's

Use: IPWHOIS Lookup or City From IP

It is not perfect but gives a good idea of those anonymous posters.--Kebron 17:55, 21 October 2005 (UTC)

This morning when I tried to access Wikipedia, I got the dreaded IE 'This page does not exist'. Later, I managed to get to the main page but not everywhere else to ask what happened. I have only just been able to get back on. What happened? Thelb'⁴ 15:19, 21 October 2005 (UTC)

:Like many other websites that are growing in popularity, Wikipedia occasionally has problems with handling excess traffic. The most common problems lately have been slow loading of images, and errors given when trying to save an edit. See [http://openfacts.berlios.de/index-en.phtml?title=Wikipedia_Status the Wikipedia Status page on BerliOS] for a wiki that you and other Wikipedia users can use to describe the speed of what's going on. Tempshill 16:47, 21 October 2005 (UTC)

=October 22=

Hi ~ I really enjoy clicking on the "random article" feature of Wikipedia. Is there any sort of mailing list that I could join that sends out a daily random article to one's email address? If not, is there any way to create such a mailing list? Thanks, anon.

• There is indeed an Article of the Day mailing list, which mails you the day's featured article, plus anniversaries and the Wikiquote Quote of the Day. See [http://mail.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/daily-article-l here]. An RSS feed would be good too. --Kwekubo 14:54, 22 October 2005 (UTC)

is this permitted?

i have found your information to be superb,and of the highest degree.

i wish to use this information,to give people a guide to regions within romania,and about romania also, so as to boost my own knowledge of the country.

is it also possible to put a link to wikipedia on my website?

many thanks.

zac m.

:You can always put a link to wikipedia on your site. However, if you wish to copy content from wikipedia into some sort of guide, or onto your real estate site, the entire document/site must be released under the GFDL, which means that anyone else may copy and republishe your contnet, with or without changes, provided that they comply with the GFDL. You may well not want this result. DES ^(talk) 00:07, 22 October 2005 (UTC)

I have been told that between these two Volcanoes, Fuji-san is the dormant one and Mt Orizaba is the active one. I have always believed that Fuji-san is active.

I was just wondering what is actually the correct answer for this question?

Thanks

:Please ask this question in the Wikipedia:Reference Desk, the help desk is for questions about Wikipedia itself. — Kjammer ⌂ 02:40, 22 October 2005 (UTC)

When I see red links and I click on them to try to start a new page, it usually just goes to a "This page can not be found" page. It doesn't say "This article has not been written yet" like the help pages say they will. Why is this?

--Alexseattle 02:23, 22 October 2005 (UTC)

:There is currently a bug in the system which causes this to happen when using certain versions of IE. I am hoping this is going to be fixed soon. User:Zoe|^(talk) 02:42, 22 October 2005 (UTC)

I'm not really sure if boxes is the right term, but for example the red and blue boxes on the Community Portal of Wikipedia.... Is there a help file on how to create those (change the size, color, border, style, have one right next to the other etc...)? I have been looking for a couple of days for a page explaining this. Thanks, 66.61.53.2 10:41, 22 October 2005 (UTC)

:You might take a look at [http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Help:Table meta.wikimedia.org's page on tables] and Wikipedia:How to use tables for more information. These pages seem pretty confusing to me, but you may be able to make some sense of them. Also, you might look at the source of the Wikipedia:Community Portal, found here [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Community_Portal&action=edit] (click at the edit tab on the top of any page) to see how they did it over there. Best, Kewp (t) 11:00, 22 October 2005 (UTC)

how can i add some articales written by arabic ???

:If you want to add content in Arabic, please add it to ar.wikipedia.org. If you want to translate articles from Arabic into English, check Wikipedia:Pages needing translation for pages in Arabic, or you can copy-paste and translate articles from ar.wikipedia into a new article on English Wikipedia, as long as you say where you got the content from. — Kjammer ⌂ 12:27, 22 October 2005 (UTC)

Wikipedia was blocked by Communist Party of China.

• If that's the case, then it isn't the first time. See [http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/foundation-l/2004-June/000365.html], [http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikipedia-l/2004-June/033266.html], [http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikipedia-l/2004-September/035262.html] for past discussion, and for info on the current incident, see [http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikipedia-l/2005-October/042205.html]. --Kwekubo 14:46, 22 October 2005 (UTC)

Hello,

A few weeks ago, I posted a page that has been since deleted (marked for deletion after debate).

see it here

My question: I only posted this page because there was a similar page about Invision and, I believe, one about phpBB.

I am the author of NextBBS, which happen to be free and open-source. I felt that Wikipedia was the best place to document the existence of this software and unfortunately it seems that I was wrong.

I was just wondering what makes posting a page about it advertising?

What criteria have to be met for it not be considered advertising anymore, in the same manner Invision is not advertising?

Thanks a lot,

-Chris.

• Thanks for asking. I know nothing about NextBBS, so I'll give some general ideas regarding the issue.

1. If you don't have a strong userbase yet and you are trying to use Wikipedia to draw such users in, you are using Wikipedia to advertise it. In this case it's not a good idea to start an article. If you have many users, it's a good idea to cite a reliable 3rd party source who reports the numbers so people will know you're not just a small board.
2. A person in the deletion discussion suggested the text might be a copyright violation, meaning you took it from another source without crediting it. Note that all text in Wikipedia is freely available, so people might use it for purposes you didn't intend it. If the text you used was originally meant to promote the boards, it's probably not a suited text to start a Wikipedia article.
3. Most articles that are perceived have issues with their tone. (I for example consider Invision's article more neutral than the one on phpBB. While it give a lot of useful information it lists some of its "greatest advantages" which is needless praise for the software. Try to report the bare facts don't use any marketing type talk. Don't call the application "powerful", don't say it has an easy installation (it may not be for everyone).

In short: Try to adhere to neutral wording and report as much facts as you can that show the software had some inpact on internet message boards. I hope my comments have given you some useful insight. - Mgm|^(talk) 13:12, 22 October 2005 (UTC)

Mgm,

Thanks a lot. These are very useful insights. I will keep these rules in mind whenever posting about my own software or anyone else's.

Thanks again,

-Chris.

: I'd recommend that no-one should write about their own software, project, company, etc. It's just impossible to properly distance oneself from it enough to be able to write neutrally about it. Wikipedia:Autobiography has more information. -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 23:12, 22 October 2005 (UTC)

I am interested in creating a new article about the Songhua Stalemate map of the very popular PC game Battlefield 2.

Would it be considered a relevant enough topic for me to make such an article and not have it immediately voted for deletion?

There is already an article on the Mashtuur City map, but it does not appear to be of desirable quality, and I doubt it has had much peer review because it is not directly linked from the Battlefield 2 article.

Remy B 13:36, 22 October 2005 (UTC)

• I think you should go ahead if you think you can make an interesting article about it. If you can, try to make it relevant to non-players (random article users) as well by providing context. Does it have anything to do with the real Songhua River? If you can't make a reasonably sized article, think about expanding the entry in List of Battlefield 2 maps first. Kappa 13:45, 22 October 2005 (UTC)

I have an image (:Image:Auckland_Ferry_Terminal.jpg) listed for deletion here Wikipedia:Images_and_media_for_deletion#October_16 with two votes in favor of deletion and none against. My understanding from the instructions of the "Images for deletion" page is that images listed for deletion will be removed five days after being listed if a consensus has been reached for deletion or there is no opposition. Five days from October 16 is October 21, yet the image remains on October 22. I have a lot of similar deletions/substitutions in the pipeline and thought I had done all I needed to get them moving. What have I missed? JShook | Talk 14:18, 22 October 2005 (UTC)

:an admins with the time and energy to carry out the deleteion. Most such pages do end up with a backlog of some form.Geni 14:31, 22 October 2005 (UTC)

:: OK, Thanks. Patience is a virtue. I'll have to try it sometime. JShook | Talk 15:20, 22 October 2005 (UTC)

Hi

I like the free encyclopedia-idea and want to cooperate with Wikipedia .

I'm offering myself as an occasional translator from/to English/Dutch and (Brazilian) Portuguese in any combination

of these 3(I am native dutch speaker , lived 19 years in Brazil and workedmost of the time for an American company.)

Preferentially technical articles.

In the page were one is supposed to enlist , and indicate the chosen languages, I could not find the actual field "sign-up" or "log-in " or similar ?

Can anyone help me with that , please

kind regards

Qeqeke.

• The link to sign up is at the top right of every page. You'll probably want an account on the Dutch and Brazilian Wikipedia as well. http://br.wikipedia.org and http://nl.wikipedia.org - Mgm|^(talk) 16:46, 22 October 2005 (UTC)

• You are already logged in and I left a welcome message out your talk page. The procedure for signing up to be a translator is outlined at Wikipedia:Translators available#Instructions. Find the section(s) that you want to sign up for, edit them and add "*~~~ -" followed by your fluency as described at the instructions link. The three tildas will be traslated to your user name when you save your changes. (Edit conflicted with Mgm) --GraemeL ^(talk) 16:51, 22 October 2005 (UTC)

:*A minor correction—the Portuguese Wikipedia is at http://pt.wikipedia.org. I think br.wikipedia.org is the Breton version. Cheers! TenOfAllTrades(talk) 23:15, 22 October 2005 (UTC)

Hello,

I'm interested in translating the pages I read to bulgarian! So, my question is: How can I do that(is there any specific way to do it ot just copy&paste) and do you consider this to be useful?

Tnak you

Ivo Yordanov

--Alanon 18:52, 22 October 2005 (UTC)

• Yes, translations are considered very useful. English Wikipedia is much bigger than the Bulgarian one, so I'm sure they welcome any translation they can get their hands on. A few pointers:

1. Also register on the Bulgarian Wikipedia so you have a place to drop off your translations. http://bg.wikipedia.org/wiki/
2. Never put Bulgarian text in the English Wikipedia or English text in the Bulgarian Wikipedia unless it's on a subpage of your user page (for example: User:LAlanon/Translation). Articles in the main article part of Wikipedia can be deleted when they are not in the correct language.
3. Make sure you know Wikicode and include sufficient wikification in your work.
4. Note the fact it's a translation on the new article discussion page and in the edit summary, so people know where it came from.
5. Make Wikipedia:Interwiki links so the articles in the different languages are interlinked.

Good luck! - Mgm|^(talk) 21:13, 22 October 2005 (UTC)

I found a list that contains important information about an article. Since the list is large, linking to the list itself could potentially be confusing, so I was hoping to link directly to the List Section, in this case Governors of Ohio and Candidates in the List of Ohio Politicians (by state office) article.

I tried "List of Ohio Politicians (by state office)#Governors of Ohio and Candidates" but it seemed to link only to "List of Ohio Politicians (by state office)".

How can I link to a specific section of this list?

-- N okla 20:15, 22 October 2005 (UTC)

• If you got the capitalization correct, such a link should work fine. However, redirects that point to a specific section within an article won't work as section titles can change which could cause such links to die easily. - Mgm|^(talk) 21:17, 22 October 2005 (UTC)

I was an officer in our local Sea Cadet Corps TS Penelope. England and I am about to have all our ships that have been named Penelope painted.

I'm lost to ask that after six months tring to find the seventh Penelope

1918 to 1922 that is on your list - Wikipedia - HMS Penelope tendership

Information From Answers.com. I am afriad that I can find no ship at this time except the sixth ship between 1914 to 1924. Could you please let me know where you have got your information so that I can try and get a picture of it. I have found numorous 'Penelopes' to have them painted but this 'Penelope' elodes me. Thanks again.

Lt K. Huttley Rtd. Blackpool

:[answered by email, address removed] Shimgray | talk | 22:13, 24 October 2005 (UTC)

Hi pretty new so this is the only place I can find to raise this issue.

There are 2 pages, E-poetry and Digital poetry, and I believe the 2 topics are the same thing under different names. For what it's worth, I think E-poetry is the more common term.

Not sure I'm up to merging pages and anyay I didn't want to upset anyone...

• See Wikipedia:Merging and moving pages for instructions on how to go about flagging the articles. --GraemeL ^(talk) 22:01, 22 October 2005 (UTC)

=October 23=

When I click a link to a yet uncreated article that I wish to edit it get this:

The page cannot be found

The page you are looking for might have been removed, had its name changed, or is temporarily unavailable.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Please try the following:

If you typed the page address in the Address bar, make sure that it is spelled correctly.

Open the en.wikipedia.org home page, and then look for links to the information you want.

Click the Back button to try another link.

Click Search to look for information on the Internet.

HTTP 404 - File not found

Internet Explorer

Why is this? Shouldn't I get a blank editable article?

:Further up the page it is reported that a bug is causing this behavior for soem but not all versions of Internet Explorer, but not other browsers. DES ^(talk) 02:06, 23 October 2005 (UTC)

Are you aware that you have TWO pages on Swami Dayananda Saraswati? Shouldn't they be merged? The addresses are: Swami_Dayananda and Dayananda_Saraswati.

:See Wikipedia:Merging and moving pages for instructions on how to go about flagging the articles or doign the merge. DES ^(talk) 03:07, 23 October 2005 (UTC)

Alright, i got a picture of myself, but i don't know what tage to put? i need a tag for non-commercial use, you know, like no one shouldn't use it and it's created be me:D

thanks> 00:37, 23 October 2005 (UTC)

:We don't allow non-commercial images.Geni 00:47, 23 October 2005 (UTC)

? so...you are trying to tell me, i take a digital camera snap a photo of my self and put it in my user page, that is not allowed?

:i need it for my User Page

> 00:49, 23 October 2005 (UTC)

:That's not what Geni said at all. Geni just said there's no option to restrict it to non-commercial uses. When you go the upload page to upload your file, you'll see a list of possible licenses in the dropdown. All you have to do is choose the one that you feel is most appropriate. If you need to know more about a specific license, ask a specific question about it. {{mono|:)}} For what it's worth, I tagged my photo with the GFDL. —HorsePunchKid→龜 01:09, 23 October 2005 (UTC)

I know, listen i know about the combo box/ drop box, i am just saying i don't know what one to use for MINE, not a picture of a cartooon or celebrity, just a picture of me! myself, so.. what tag should i use!?

> 01:37, 23 October 2005 (UTC)

:The photo I mentioned is a photo of me; that was my point. {{mono|1=;)}} —HorsePunchKid→龜 07:15, 27 October 2005 (UTC)

You might consider the license statement at :Image:David Siegel.jpg which is a picture of me, uploaded for my user page. I specifically allow use by wikipedia, and by all reusers of wikipedia content, commercial or non-commercial, but I restrict use to illustrating my contributions to the wiki (that is, my user or user talk page), or to an article about me or where I am mentioned. It can't be used to illutrate an articel about John Foo (though why anyone would want to do so i don't know) nor taken to illustrate a whisky ad (though again, who would want to). I may incorporate a version of this into a template. However, for an image of yourself, which you or a friend took, and which you don't mind anyone using, use {{tl|GFDL-self}}. DES ^(talk) 01:55, 23 October 2005 (UTC)

:But indeed, you cannot restrict commercial use. This is because Wikipedia might be sold at some time in the future, by anyone, without seeking permission. Notinasnaid 06:58, 23 October 2005 (UTC)

::Try {{tl|Limited Use-person}} DES ^(talk) 07:58, 23 October 2005 (UTC)

:We really cannot advise you here because that would constitute legal advice. Even lawyers won't give you that in this context. Firstly you need to determine what restrictions you want to impose, then you need to find out if they are compatible with use in Wikipedia at all - an absolute ban on commercial use will basically prevent your including the image. After that you need to read the terms of the various possible licence options and choose one that meets your own personal goals. We cannot tell from what you have written exactly what would be acceptable to you and would risk being sued by you if we got it wrong.

:--David Woolley 11:59, 26 October 2005 (UTC)

This page is for help using wikipedia. for factual questions, use the reference desk. 01:58, 23 October 2005 (UTC)

How do you report an admistor that you feel is abusing his or her power or revering real edit for no reasn?

:You can do so at WP:ANI. Note that many such accusations are made, and most are judged invalid, beign by users who were doign things properly inviting admin intervention, but who dot understand that, or don't want to acknowledge it. Therefore, such claims face a bit of an uphill struggle. It is advaisable to be calm, and to explain as clarly as you can what the admin did and why you think it was improper. Provide links, or better yet diffs. Good luck. Or you can leave a message for any individaul admin, who may look into the matter and intervene or bring it up for you at WP:ANI, if the situation seems to warrant that. If you haven't left a message of the dmin involved, on his or her talk page, explainign why you think the actions are improper, do that first. Also look at Wikipedia:Dispute resolution. DES ^(talk) 03:43, 23 October 2005 (UTC)

Since upgrading my brower (IE) a few days ago, the link colour (dark blue) for recently visited pages in Wikipedia is barely distinguishable from the other links (dull blue). Since recently visited pages are quite likely what I'm looking for it is useful if they can stand out. I don't see any way of setting this colour as a preference, and it looks to be the same in all the alternative skins. The way I set up colours for recently visited pages in my browser settings also seems to be ignored on Wikipedia pages. Any ideas (short of using a better browser, which I mean to do in due course)? Shantavira 12:13, 23 October 2005 (UTC)

:Ah, I just found the solution over on the WP:GC page. Shantavira 15:16, 23 October 2005 (UTC)

I was trying to contribute to wikipedia about a week or so ago. I got banned for two days. I was just trying two help and I get penalized for it. I might not have known that much info about the topic but I knew enough to start the article. Why is this fair?

—Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.3.11.252 (talk • contribs) 22:38, 23 October 2005

:I don't think edits like this [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Google&diff=prev&oldid=25557348], [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Google&diff=prev&oldid=25557680], and [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Game_%26_Watch&diff=prev&oldid=25555435] can be characterized as "trying to help." Now that you've been unbanned, use the Sandbox to experiment. --Kewp (t) 13:48, 23 October 2005 (UTC)

Is there a Wikipedia policy on using non standard fonts for an entire article? I would think this would be mentioned in the help files but haven't been able to find anything related to it. The article that made me wonder this is on Alexis Bledel specifically this edit [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Alexis_Bledel&diff=26269442&oldid=26243453]. Thanks, Dismas|^(talk) 14:21, 23 October 2005 (UTC)

:That is the dodgiest edit I have ever seen. I think the Manual of Style sums it up in its opening sentence:

"This Manual of Style has the simple purpose of making things easy to read by following a consistent format"

:Easy to read and consistent. It seems so obvious to use the defualt fonts I'm not surprised that an official policy is hard to find. --Commander Keane 15:18, 23 October 2005 (UTC)

::Thank you. I thought I was missing something but I guess I just had to interpret the first sentence of the MoS. Dismas|^(talk) 15:37, 23 October 2005 (UTC)

• Font size should not be changed with HTML. That's something for a reader's css or js style sheet. - Mgm|^(talk) 16:04, 23 October 2005 (UTC)

The page on Diving_cylinders lists DIN threads as M25x2, which is incorrect. M25x2 is the (metric) tank thread, and the DIN thread is clearly (and measurably, since I have examples sat in front of me) different. The problem is that I don't know the correct thread size since this is what I was trying to find out. Should the information be left as is until a definitive answer can be found, or removed on the basis that no data is better than wrong data?

:It should be removed until the answer is found, then it should be put back in correctly. Thelb⁴ 07:12, 24 October 2005 (UTC)

I have been granted permission to use several pictures from a website that sells goldfish in order to help cleanup and expand upon the Goldfish article. The condition is simply that the owner of the website wants the pictures to have his URL placed on them. What would be the most appropriate way to do this? Should the URL be placed in the frame of the picture, or simply in the summary? Links to examples of this being done would be helpful, as I am sure I am not the first to do this.

Also, what would be the appropriate Licensing notation to use considering that they have a copyright, but permission has been given to use them for Wikipedia articles? Thanks in advance for the help. Phauge 15:25, 23 October 2005 (UTC)

• Please make sure you've also been granted use for outside Wikipedia. Images with only permission to use on Wikipedia are not allowed. The link and the fact they want it attributed to that with its use should be mentioned on the image description page. Commercial links in a frame are not appropriate, the description in teh frame should describe the image like for example "Japanese goldfish in bowl". - Mgm|^(talk) 16:08, 23 October 2005 (UTC)

::*Ok, I'l add the URL in the image description, but I still don't know which Licensing notation I should use. Thanks again. Phauge 17:00, 23 October 2005 (UTC)

I believe my Internet/gaming handle (Ihmhi) to be quite unique. Feel free to do a Google search for Ihmhi; the first page is almost entirely filled with instances of me posting on forums, as well as profile pages for services I have signed up for. Also, my home page should be in there somewhere, but it is not. In fact, one of the top searches (I just checked) is a mirror of my User Page!

I am 95% confident that my handle is unique, and thus I wanted to know if it would be acceptable for me to make a redirect from a search for "ihmhi" or "Ihmhi" to go to my User Page on Wikipedia. No other article could conceivably take the name as it is something I created entirely on my own. A search for it renders absolutely nothing on Wikipedia.

Please consider that I am asking to make a redirect to my user page, not create an article based on my name. I think this sufficiently passes the vanity test. Any assistance and relevant opinions would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.

--Ihmhi 15:25, 23 October 2005 (UTC)

:When accessed or searched in the "User" space, "Ihmhi" already goes to your user page. Unless you're sufficiently notable to have an article in the main space, I don't understand why there would be any need to have a redirect from there either. *Dan T.* 15:28, 23 October 2005 (UTC)

::I concede that point. I was just thinking in the context that since I am pretty much the only one, when someone types in a general search for "Ihmhi" they should be directed towards me.

--Ihmhi 15:44, 23 October 2005 (UTC)

• No, pages in the article space are only for articles and should not redirect to a userspace. Sorry... - Mgm|^(talk) 16:11, 23 October 2005 (UTC)

:I agree that it wouldn't be appropriate. Don't worry though, anyone familiar with wikipedia will be able to find your user page. :-) --Quasipalm 18:08, 23 October 2005 (UTC)

Hello everybody, bonjour à tout le monde, guten Tag allerseits,

I'd like to edit articles in different languages, but apparently my user account exists in English only, because this is where I've created it. What shall I do? Having a new account for each language doesn't make much sense, does it?

:Yet, it is the only way to do it (people have long requested that all accounts be unified, though). The best thing to do is to create the same account (i.e. the same name) at each wikipedia. Broken S 15:56, 23 October 2005 (UTC)

• All Wikipedias have their own databases and merging all user accounts may cause duplication problems with the more common names. Until those problems are sorted out, I'm afraid you'll have to sign up on each Wikipedia separately. - Mgm|^(talk) 16:14, 23 October 2005 (UTC)

I am cleaning-up an article on James Burke (the boxer) and I need an image. Since he was born in the 1800's there is not a photo of him. I googled him and found a GIF file of him, but I don't know its copyright status. I thought that if I drew it and photocopied it, it might be okay, but it might not. I can only find one picture of him. What should I do?

Cookerb 16:36, 23 October 2005 (UTC)

:If it's a period-piece (e.g., drawn while he was still alive), then (given that he died in 1845) the picture is in the public domain. However, you obviously have to verify that it is in-fact a period piece before you upload it. →Raul654 16:41, 23 October 2005 (UTC)

How do I view one section at a time so I can request it to be moved to a separate, more specific location if the section gets too long? HereToHelp 17:32, 23 October 2005 (UTC)

:you can't view just one section at a time and there is not move button for sections. You can discuss the move on the talk page or be bold and move the section yourself. Broken S 18:55, 23 October 2005 (UTC)

::You can, however, edit a single section with the section edit links, this will let you see the wiki-code for just that section, which might be useful if the section is to be split off into a separate article. DES ^(talk) 19:15, 23 October 2005 (UTC)

You mean a cut and paste move? HereToHelp 20:09, 23 October 2005 (UTC)

:cutting and pasting is the only way to move/rearrange sections of articles. Cutting and pasting should never be used to move whole articles. See Wikipedia:How to fix cut and paste moves. Broken S 20:56, 23 October 2005 (UTC)

Is it possible to clear the history of edits/changes/suggestions that Wikipedia has tied to your IP address. I don't want my friends knowing articles that I have edited if they know my IP address.

:sorry this is not possible. Howver, if you register and log in, thereafter your edits will be displayed only under your user name, not yiour IP address. If your firends don't know what your user name is, and you don't put your real name on your user page, there is no easy way for them to find out what you have edited. DES ^(talk) 18:50, 23 October 2005 (UTC)

::Especially with the servers being up and down like they are today, it is very easy to miss the fact that you've got logged out, like has happened to me just now. I'd therefore say that logging in is not a safe way of hiding the IP address.

::(I made my user name explicit here but not in the history).

::-- David Woolley 19:31, 24 October 2005 (UTC)

I looked up Wikipedia's defination of "frappe," and a lot of its useage/history is incorrect/incomplete. If I became a member and added to the content, who would correct/verify the material I added? Likewise, who corrects the grammar of the articles? (So far the articles/definitions have been well written). Thank you!

:anyone, logged in or not, can add content, and anyone, logged in or not, can correct errors of grammer or spelling, as well as errors of fact. Click on the "edit this page" tab at the top, or the various section "edit" buttons at the top of each section. Click on the "discussion" button on an article to reach it's talk page, where ideas about what should and should not go into an aricel are discussed. Hoever if you do register and log in, you will get a user page and it will be easier for people to communicate with you. people can also see the record of what you did, and may well take your edits more seriously (although many good contributors never sign in). DES ^(talk) 18:47, 23 October 2005 (UTC)

• Be sure to provide sources for the info you change or add, so people can check your work and know you're right. A lot of incorrect information is not placed on purpose, but by people who think they're right. - Mgm|^(talk) 19:14, 23 October 2005 (UTC)

:Other than that. Just go ahead and get stuck in! - Mgm|^(talk) 19:27, 23 October 2005 (UTC)

Ma'am/Sir,

If the pages of this site are able to be edited by users, how can I be certain of the information presented? Other than to chase their sources if properly cited.

Thank you,

anon

:Not only are they edited by users, but also not-logged-in anonomous users (like you). Although we can't be sure of the content (see Wikipedia: Disclaimers and Wikipedia: criticism), it often is correct in the main articles. Although it is not guaranteed, Wikipedia has a wide bredth and depth of knowledge. We hope you will use us for you're future needs of an encyclopedia. HereToHelp talk 20:36, 23 October 2005 (UTC)

• See Wikipedia:Replies to common objections. - Mgm|^(talk) 21:45, 23 October 2005 (UTC)

Dear Sirs,

I am trying to find a graphics tablet which can be connected to the computer wirelessly. A USB graphics tablet is needed to control the computer from a distance of 10 metres (wirelles connection to the computer).

I will appreciate your advise on that.

Best regards,

Pantelis Makris

• Please direct such questions to the reference desk. This page is for questions regarding Wikipedia itself. - Mgm|^(talk) 21:45, 23 October 2005 (UTC)

Hello

I have just edited the Blackwood entry to remove references to gold-mining in Alaska, which did not happen. I want to add a link to the Blackwood home-page, http://hem.fyristorg.com/bd/ab/, and make it look like the rest of the entries and add a description. How do I do that please?

Thanks, Sue

• If you click "edit this page" at the top or "edit" in the section header of a page. You'll see the code for a page which will show exactly how other links have been formatted. Mgm|^(talk) 21:47, 23 October 2005 (UTC)

I have uploaded a file :Image:Sulfureous Fumeroles n.jpg which is being used by Fumarole. Notice that the word "fumaroles" is misspelled in the file name. Is this a problem? I can replace the image by renaming it, uploading the new version, editing the article to point to the new version, and then list the old version for deletion. Is this worth the trouble?

JShook | Talk 22:19, 23 October 2005 (UTC)

• Image file names should be descriptive of their content, so it's probably a good idea to correct the error. It'll only take a few minutes. - Mgm|^(talk) 22:31, 23 October 2005 (UTC)

:: OK. JShook | Talk 22:45, 23 October 2005 (UTC)

:: Done. JShook | Talk 23:03, 23 October 2005 (UTC)

=October 24=

I have submitted a number of contributions to Wikipedia, but by the time I submit them, I'm no longer logged in and all it shows in the "history" area is my IP address. Is there a way to get those entries tied back to my username?

:See Wikipedia:Changing attribution for an edit, though the page is marked as "Service suspended" at the moment. Tempshill 00:32, 24 October 2005 (UTC)

Whatever happened to the full "see all" function of my watchlist? It only seems to go back to September 25... -Tim Rhymeless (Er...let's shimmy) 02:53, 24 October 2005 (UTC)

:I think the watchlist function relies on server logs wich we don't keep forever.Geni 02:58, 24 October 2005 (UTC)

::I think, rather, that the watchlist is intentionally limited, since see all has the potential to really hammer the database servers. My guess is that it is based on the database, not the logs, but I don't know for sure. —HorsePunchKid→龜 03:08, 24 October 2005 (UTC)

:::It certainly used to "show all", back at least the better part of a year... perhaps ask on Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)? Shimgray | talk | 21:59, 24 October 2005 (UTC)

All namespaces doesn't work, is it a bug?

:Hello. Sorry, but which page or wikipedia service are you referring to? — Sverdrup 14:00, 24 October 2005 (UTC)

Hi, I am in Shanghai, China. I cannot visit Wikipedia.org recently.

When I PING, it shows:

""C:\Documents and Settings\guli>ping www.wikipedia.org

Pinging rr.yaseo.wikimedia.org [211.115.107.140] with 32 bytes of data:

Request timed out.

Request timed out.

""

And I have to use a proxy to visit your website. Please chekc the issue and contact me at

• You may need to contact your government and ask them to remove the block which is rumoured to have been placed. http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20051020/1453211_F.shtml for example. Notinasnaid 07:34, 24 October 2005 (UTC)
• If it was because Wikipedia was down (which sometimes happens) then there are also Wikipedia mirrors you can find with any search engine. This is of course only useful for reading; if any of the mirrors let you edit the articles then your edits won't find their way back to Wikipedia. If you want to see whether Wikipedia is down, see [http://openfacts.berlios.de/index-en.phtml?title=Wikipedia_Status the OpenFacts Wikipedia status page], which is a wiki page that other Wikipedia users can edit to indicate whether Wikipedia is down, slow, fast, whether editing works, etc. Tempshill 17:34, 24 October 2005 (UTC)

• See this Wikipedia article Great Firewall of China.

:Your government recently started blocking Wikipedia. Here's a news article: [http://blog.searchenginewatch.com/blog/051021-123505]. This was pretty widely reported in the US and Europe, but I guess China doesn't announce these things inside their borders. Sorry. :-( --Quasipalm 18:55, 26 October 2005 (UTC)

• Here's an idea: Get rid of the Commuist Party! SD6-Agent 09:23, 2 November 2005 (UTC)

Hello,

Can i know whether Wikipedia can be a valuable source of income making part time job. If so can i know can i make money with it.

:Not with writing articles, coypediting etc - that kind of work is entirely done by volunteers, and although I've certainly sometimes dreamed about getting paid for all th ehours I've spent on here, it's not likely going to happen :P Apart from that, see m:Wikimedia staff and m:Official positions for an overview of the (very limited) paid positions the Wikimedia foundation offers. -- Ferkelparade π 09:24, 24 October 2005 (UTC)

Hello,

What is the syntax for links that send not to the start of an article, but to a specific section of the article instead?

Like for example, how could I create a link to a particular question of this article. Just so you know I need the "Kuhn segment" link of the worm-like chain article to link to the "generality of the model" section of the polymer physics article.

Also, if someone could post a link to a page that sums up the whole syntax for editing articles, that would be just great. User:ThorinMuglindir

• Use a # like this: Polymer physics#Generality of the model making sure that you have the capitalization correct. Do remember, however, that such links should only be used when absolutely necessary. Sections can be renamed and there's no easy "whatlinkshere" tool to fix links to sections as there is with renamed articles. - 131.211.210.17 09:30, 24 October 2005 (UTC)

While I'm here, I have another question about links: for some reason, foreign language links within the articles do not appear when I read the articles, only when I edit them. It's weird because I see them perfectly when I'm reading the discussions. Can someone help me on that? user:ThorinMuglindir

• Such links are put in a bar on the left of the article when you need to link such an article in a discussion you put a : in front of it. like so :nl:Nederland which expands to :nl:Nederland. - 131.211.210.17 09:36, 24 October 2005 (UTC)
• You can also use piped links to get rid of the nl: bit and make it look like any other link. - 131.211.210.17 09:38, 24 October 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for answering so quickly. Perfectly clear for both questions.user:ThorinMuglindir

:I think you will find that my question on this is still in the current Help desk page. The syntax for a real link to a foreign Wiki is "" [ ] "". Note the subtle extra ":" at the beginning"

:--David Woolley 19:19, 24 October 2005 (UTC)

Could I please have an explanation and a copy of the deleted article that I wrote: Steven Roddis

If possible please email

• For explanation see http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special%3ALog&type=delete&user=&page=Steven+Roddis . "nn" means "Not Notable". Notinasnaid 11:54, 24 October 2005 (UTC)

• You can ask for a copy at Deletion Review. DES ^(talk) 15:06, 24 October 2005 (UTC)

Newbie question:

I would like to start/add a historical overview of, for example, software-products so as to show which 'suite' (or product) is formed from several older bits of software.

The same feature would apply to companies to show mergers and name-changes: a recent example would be to show Siebel, Peoplesoft, JDEdwards and other companies being 'incorporated' into Oracle. The historical timeline showing takeovers and mergers of companies like General Motors or Microsoft would be interesting too. It could also be used to show which brands belong to one holding etc.

The same feature would also greatly improve the display of family-tree information in Wikipedia.

What I would like to do is build (collaboratively of course) a tree-like 'history' for certain subjects..preferrably(!) with graphical representation along a timeline, very much like a traditional family-tree.

Now, my question: How do I go about this?

(or, more specific: How to find out if this is useful, if this is wikipedia-stuff, if people would want to contribute, can it be done, can we generate images dynamically, how to do it, where to start, is this the right spot to ask this question, what forum to use etc.)

:I have often wanted to see graphical family trees of corporate mergers. Yes, I think it would be a great type of analysis that would help every reader's understanding while looking at the article on, say, the inelegantly named ChevronTexaco. Pictures are worth a thousand words. I don't know of any graphical feature of Wikipedia that would make this easy. Probably the easiest way to do it would be to make your own PNG files and use them to illustrate the articles. For readability reasons you'd want these to span the page and not be thumbnails, which is unusual in a Wikipedia article. See Wikipedia:WikiProject if you decide you want to devote a lot of time to this, get other people inspired to assist you, etc.

:The best family tree of this sort that I remember seeing was horizontally oriented to form a timeline. Each company was represented by a line whose thickness was based on its revenue, and then the lines merged to become really thick lines as time progressed.

:By the way, please sign your posts with four tilde marks (~~~~) when typing on talk pages so we can look up histories and such more quickly. Thanks - Tempshill 17:50, 24 October 2005 (UTC)

I made a cool program for people to configure a screen of clocks for only the time zones they want to see:

http://clock.waveright.homeip.net/

There are no ads on my program and it is a very useful tool. On the page for time zones at wikipedia there is about 10 links to web pages like mine.

So I added a link to my page right by the others:

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Time_zone&oldid=25751999

but my link was removed by Joe Kress in the next revision with the message "rv spam":

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Time_zone&oldid=25751999

Other people can put links to thier pages on wikipedia and those pages have advertisements and so forth on them.

Why is my site considered spam and the others get to add thier site to the page?

• The person who knows best why it was removed, is Joe Kress himself. Try asking him by visiting his talk page (User talk:Joe Kress). Do your best to stay friendly as you did here and not to sound accusatory. Good luck! - Mgm|^(talk) 16:07, 24 October 2005 (UTC)

I asked Joe on his discussion page (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Joe_Kress#Time_Zone_program_link) a week ago and he hasn't responded. Can I put my link back up or do I have to go through the request process?

Hello, I've just created an account, but I'm not really sure how to edit articles. How do I use links to other articles and to other websites; how do I fix a mistake I made? I don't know anything. I also tried something on the article "The" and I can't take it of. Could someone please check it. Thank you.

• Hello Izehar! Welcome to Wikipedia. The best way to learn how to do a specific thing is to look at the coding of the page on which you saw something. You can also check Wikipedia:How to edit a page and Wikipedia:Tutorial for the basic things to get you started. Also, please use four tildes (like this: ~~~~) to sign post you make to discussion pages like this. I'll drop you a welcome on your discussion page with another few useful links. -- Mgm|^(talk) 17:46, 24 October 2005 (UTC)
• No worries about your edit on The. User:Vilerage took care of that (probably before you had the chance to do so yourself. If you want to test something, you can use the Wikipedia:Sandbox. - Mgm|^(talk) 17:55, 24 October 2005 (UTC)

I would like to know how to modify variables, such as the date. For example, today's date is {{CURRENTDAYNAME}}, {{CURRENTMONTHNAME}} {{CURRENTDAY}}, {{CURRENTYEAR}} and is displayed by the code:

{{CURRENTDAYNAME}}, {{CURRENTMONTHNAME}} {{CURRENTDAY}}, {{CURRENTYEAR}}

However, I do not know how to modify this code to diplay yesterday's or tomorrow's date. Shashe 18:30, 24 October 2005 (UTC)

• These variables are known as "magic words". There is only a limited number defined of them, and they cannot be modified. See meta:Help:Variable. --Kwekubo 19:57, 24 October 2005 (UTC)

• You can create/use templates like m:Template:Tomorrow or m:Template:Add 1.--Patrick 00:07, 26 October 2005 (UTC)

I am the author of a book that I have put on Wikipedia several times and continually it gets deleted. How do you get a book listed on Wikipedia, there are plenty of books on book stubs that noone deletes but everytime I add my book someone deletes it. The books name is Car Accident Secrets my id is DSPublications.

• It's been deleted as copyvio, see Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Car accident secrets, and as "spam": see Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Car accident secrets. Kappa 21:10, 24 October 2005 (UTC)
• General guideline: Don't try to get your own work listed/mentioned in Wikipedia. — Sverdrup 21:39, 24 October 2005 (UTC)
• It is not spam nor is it a copyright violation. If it is then all the other books listed under book stubs are copyright violations and spam
• Here's a simple tip: if you are ever in the position of adding references to your own work, own site, own biography, etc. then you shouldn't. It's impossible for you to be sufficiently neutral about it. Wikipedia requires things to be notable. If they are actually notable, someone else will add the information soon enough. Notinasnaid 07:26, 25 October 2005 (UTC)

Can an interview with an "expert" (e.g. a surgeon) be used as a source in an article, and how is this listed in the references?

Donna Gramigna

:If the interview is from a reputable source, sure. If you do it yourself, this would count as original research and is not allowed. Friday (talk) 21:04, 24 October 2005 (UTC)

::To clarify, you can't walk next door and ask your neighbor the surgeon about something and then cite him in a Wikipedia article. You could ask him about something and insert the information in an article as uncredited / uncited information, but this is bad practice; we are supposed to cite our sources because everything in our articles are supposed to be verifiable by other editors. (Wikipedia:Cite your sources.) Another alternative might be to get him interviewed on a site that other editors will find credible, and then cite that interview. Tempshill 21:25, 24 October 2005 (UTC)

It sounds as if you know the surgeon and plan to personally ask for information to put in an article. There are some ways to do it that to reduce likelihood of accusation of original research, and some types of information that would be less likely to be challenged. If my surmise above is correct, here are some tips:

1. Feel free to use an expert source for general information. General information about medical topics is often introduced into articles without specific attribution. Even if the surgeon was your source, this would not be likely challenged unless it was erroneous (for example, if you misunderstood what the surgeon said or wrote it in a way that was open to other interpretations). For example, if your surgeon tells you that most of the time a surgeon knows before an appendectomy whether the appendix is inflamed, or tells you what the preliminary information a surgeon needs to safely operate (like the patient's blood sugar or blood count) those are general statements that are pretty unlikely to be challenged.
2. Ask him to suggest a possible published source for anything that someone is likely to challenge.
3. Ask him whether significant disagreement exists about what he tells you. He will be able to tell you what is controversial or unsettled and what is universally accepted. For a statement that may be controversial, express it in an NPOV way by attributing it to those likely to hold such a position. alteripse 21:30, 24 October 2005 (UTC)

Are the latest edits to this article legit or are is the Thomas the Tank Engine vandal back? - Mgm|^(talk) 21:07, 24 October 2005 (UTC)

:What a bizarre edit history. I didn't see any vandalism myself. Tempshill 21:29, 24 October 2005 (UTC)

=October 25=

In checking the Wikipedia:Requested_articles page, I would like to suggest that "Medicine" be added as a new category. Subcategories might include physicians, specialties, medical discoveries, etc.

How can this be done? It is not apparent that editing the page is the correct answer.

:To refer to a category without including the page where the reference is in the category, put a ":" before the "category:" part of the name (like :Category:Medicine, which is already a category). Markup details are included at Wikipedia:How to edit a page, which you can find from the "Help" link on all pages. -- Rick Block (talk) 01:08, 25 October 2005 (UTC)

The reason that there is no "requested category" page, or requested category section of Wikipedia:Requested_articles, is that unlike an article, it takes no skill or exprtise or time worth mentioning to create a category. To create {{cl|Foo}} simply put Category:Foo near the end of a relevant articel, adn save it. Then click on Foo in the categorty line, and type in a brief description of Foo, with a link to Foo or whatever seems a relevant article. Ta Da! You have created a category. DES ^(talk) 02:07, 25 October 2005 (UTC)

• There already is such a category. See Wikipedia:Requested_articles/Applied_arts_and_sciences#Medicine - Mgm|^(talk) 04:46, 25 October 2005 (UTC)

Thanks MacGyver. Just what I was looking for. It didn't occur to me to look in "Applied arts and sciences." ERcheck 05:10, 25 October 2005 (UTC)

:Oh, THAT kind of category. Sorry, I misunderstood. And I'm very glad Mgm noticed. -- Rick Block (talk) 01:13, 26 October 2005 (UTC)

CAN SOME ONE HELP ME? MY NAME IS C.J. AND I'M A NEW MEMBER WHO DOES NOT KNOW HOW TO INSERT A PHOTO TO A FILE AND PLACE CAPTIONS UNDER IT. CAN SOME ONE TELL ME STEP BY STEP (1. 2. 3. ETC.), I WOULD APPRECIATE IT.

:See the tutorial at Wikipedia:Picture tutorial AND PLEASE STOP YELLING, IT'S RUDE!! Dismas|^(talk) 04:04, 25 October 2005 (UTC)

:--------

:There is a lot of help available. In the left-hand navigation bar, you will see "Help". Lots of information can be found by exploring there.

:Specifically, for instructions on how to insert an image, see How to Edit a Page - Images; for general editing, see How to edit a page

:In order to upload images you want to insert, see Special:Upload Files upload instructions

:BTW. Please try to avoid the use of all capital letters; it is considered SHOUTING. Thanks. ERcheck 04:09, 25 October 2005 (UTC)

:--------

Fantastic! I've been a journalist for 20 years in radio and have dreamed of such a project...thank you!

Kittywaymo

• We all love wiki, kittywaymo, but this is not the place. Ask questions here. - William
• I'm glad you like the project, Kittywaymo. I'd be even happier if you decided to register an account and help out with improving Wikipedia. - 131.211.210.17 07:54, 25 October 2005 (UTC)

Has anyone read 99% of English Wikipedia, after it gained a substaintial amount of articles (say: 500,000)? I want to.

--William sharkey 07:49, 25 October 2005 (UTC)

:doubtful as that would involve digging through a load of bot created articles which are not exactly the worlds mosting interesting read. (it wouls also involve reading articles at a rate of more than 1 per minute).Geni 12:12, 25 October 2005 (UTC)

::Of course if you have a burning desire to read the whole thing, these should put you off: List of places in Arkansas, Microeconomics. smurrayinaHauntedHouse...Boo!^{(User), (Talk)} 22:01, 25 October 2005 (UTC)

Hi

I'm looking for information on something called the Pade' approximation, a method of estimating a matrix exponential. The actual name Pade should have an accent above the e, but I do not know how to insert this. Is there a way to do this, or does anyone know where I can find the info?

Thanks

Colin Phillips

• When you are at an edit window, scroll down a bit. There should be a list of accented and otherwise odd characters there. Click to insert a character at the cursor. é is Alt+130 on an English keyboard. It doesn't appear as if we've got anything on the Padé approximation, so if you need to know something about that, please visit the science reference desk. - Mgm|^(talk) 08:03, 25 October 2005 (UTC)
• See also Wikipedia:Special characters. - Mgm|^(talk) 08:04, 25 October 2005 (UTC)

Hello, why has the page on Westminster School been given a new title of "the royal college of st. peter at westminster" ? That may be the original name as mentioned in the article, but is known to virtually no-one in this way, including most ex-pupils who would not even recognise the name at all.

• Probably because that's the official name. I reverted to the most common use as per the Naming Conventions. - Mgm|^(talk) 10:45, 25 October 2005 (UTC)

thanks.

right

As the image.

I hate the edit links in content area. Why not move the links to the right corner of the box header? I tried but my solution only works in Safari and Firefox, it failed in Microsoft Internet Explorer. Anyone who familiar with HTML/CSS and help me to do so? Yaohua2000 11:24, 25 October 2005 (UTC)

:You will have to suggest that to the developers and maybe it will be in the next update. -- Thorpe ^talk 17:34, 30 October 2005 (UTC)

What template do I use for an article that is lacking important information on the subject matter?

I can't seem to find one that says that...

::Template:Expansion or stub?

I am trying to get the wikipedia page for yoism back. There used to be a lot of good info in the yosim page, but it has been deleted, apparently by administrators! for reasons that don't make sense. As the yoism homepage also got hacked recently, I assume that this is part of an anti-yoism vandalism campaign.

I haven't been able to figure out how to revert the document, and requests for undelete seem to be...incomplete. Please help! —Preceding unsigned comment added by Qkslvrwolf (talk • contribs) 08:46, 25 October 2005

:You say that the reasons don't make sense. What are the reasons quoted? Sometimes a little too much jargon is used. Notinasnaid 15:08, 25 October 2005 (UTC)

:The article was deleted after going through the official deletion process. You can see the discussion at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Yoism. Recreating the article with substantially the same content will result in the article being deleted again. If you want to have the deleteion reviewed, you should post a request at WP:DRV. --GraemeL ^(talk) 15:11, 25 October 2005 (UTC)

I noticed today there is a new option on the Special:Upload page. It has a check box next to it and says "Ignore any warnings". What exactly does this mean? -- Thorpe ^talk 15:41, 25 October 2005 (UTC)

:I'm guessing here but it may ignore the "Filename is missing underscores" and "Already picture with that filename" warnings that appear. Evil Monkey∴Hello 00:27, 26 October 2005 (UTC)

::Thank you for the information. -- Thorpe ^talk 17:36, 30 October 2005 (UTC)

I cannot understand why this was deleted:

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

I saw no reason posted. It isn't foul language or abusive or anything of that nature. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.162.193.33 (talk • contribs) 12:18 EDT, 25 October 2005

:I can guess at reasons why it was deleted. The main one is that Wikipedia is not a dictionary or slang guide. As a short article that did not attempt to go beyond a dictionary definition, it's not really in line with what Wikipedia is about. Friday (talk) 17:28, 25 October 2005 (UTC)

::(after edit conflict) In general, articles that are simply dictionary defs are not welcome on wikipedsia. See What wikipedia is not. And then an articel writtne in the dirst person "I'm not sure" is even less like an encyclopedic arilce. Strictly speaking this may not have conformed to the WP:CSDspeedy deletion criteria, and so arguably should hve had an [[WP:AFD debate, but in the current form, it would I think have been deleted without question, unless drastically rewritten. if you really want, you can ask for the deletion to be undone at deletion review, but you may not have much luck. You might do better, if you want such an article, to do enough research to write an actual article about this word and the concept behind it. That would probably not be deleted. If you have any qestions about this, feel free to drop me a note on my talk page. And please sign comments on discussion pages like this oen with four tildas (like this ~~~~). Thank you. DES ^(talk) 17:33, 25 October 2005 (UTC)

:To find why an article was deleted, the most direct route is to search for it in the deletion log ("Special pages", then "Logs", then "Deletion log" - [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special%3ALog&type=delete&user=&page=Twitterpated here] for Twitterpated) and ask on the talk page of the admin who deleted it (user talk:Finlay McWalter and user talk:Postdlf in this case). If you ask politely, you'll increase your chances of getting a polite reply. If you ask rudely you should still get a polite reply, but admins are only human. -- Rick Block (talk) 00:56, 26 October 2005 (UTC)

Please review the article about the cold war as I believe there may be a typying error within the first line.

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cold_War)

:Thank you for your suggestion! When you feel an article needs changing, please feel free to make whatever changes you feel are needed. Wikipedia is a wiki, so anyone can edit any article by simply following the {{MediaWiki:edit}} link. You don't even need to log in! (Although there are some reasons why you might like to...) The Wikipedia community encourages you to be bold. Don't worry too much about making honest mistakes—they're likely to be found and corrected quickly. If you're not sure how editing works, check out how to edit a page, or use out the sandbox to try out your editing skills. New contributors are always welcome. DES ^(talk) 18:25, 25 October 2005 (UTC)

What is the biggest wiki article? As in, what article on wiki has the most information. Maybe i should be asking what is the Longest article... im not sure.

• Please don't use "Wiki" as shorthand for Wikipedia; Wikipedia is a wiki, but that's not true the other way around (for more on this, see meta:Wikipedia is not Wiki. Special:Longpages says that List of places in Arkansas is the largest article in terms of number of bytes. --Kwekubo 21:00, 25 October 2005 (UTC)

:::(Touchy! --Quasipalm 02:01, 26 October 2005 (UTC))

::I'm not sure this has the most useful information, though. The longest useful article (ie. not a list) is probably microeconomics, although Prophets of Islam and Companies listed on the Shenzhen Stock Exchange don't sound too boring. smurrayinaHauntedHouse...Boo!^{(User), (Talk)} 22:07, 25 October 2005 (UTC)

How would one find spelling mistakes very quickly? Such as purplefeltangel does?

Please answer on my talk page Prodego ^talk 19:59, 25 October 2005 (UTC)

• Heading over to answer unless someone else has already done so. - Mgm|^(talk) 20:37, 25 October 2005 (UTC)

For some reason, hitting 'Save Page' comes up with the 'Preview' page, as does pressing it again and again until it eventually goes through. Why is this (I have checked. I am definitely pressing Save Page). smurrayinchester^{(User), (Talk)} 20:10, 25 October 2005 (UTC)

:It's not just you, and it's been asked before. It's some sort of bug and as far as I recall the best answer that was posted so far was "They're working on it." Dismas|^(talk) 20:47, 25 October 2005 (UTC)

::Thanks. Annoyingly, it keeps happening when I try to thank you for the message! smurrayinchester^{(User), (Talk)} 21:40, 25 October 2005 (UTC)

:::Ha! Funny how life works like that sometimes. :-) Dismas|^(talk) 22:16, 25 October 2005 (UTC)

I'm trying to encourage some people I know to join and use Wikipedia. One specific query they have is the frequency of vandalism. I am attempting to find the actual frequency of all acts of vandalism on Wikipedia. I don't need the statistic processed in any way; a raw, hourly, or general figure would do. Can anybody point me in the direction of such a piece of information? --Davril2020 22:29, 25 October 2005 (UTC)

:No your best bet would be to go over to Recent changes and load up a minutes' worth of changes in a tabbed browser and sift through them. repeat a couple of times to get a rough average.Geni 22:53, 25 October 2005 (UTC)

The article I'm referring to is TV IV. Doing a wikipedia google search with TV IV returns the article as the first hit. With the wikipedia search, it doesn't return it at all. How can I make it so when a person searches in the wikipedia search field for 'tv iv', the article appears as one of the results. I'm sure this is in a faq somewhere...

:First of all, be sure to sign your comments with --~~~~ so we know who is speaking. To answer your question, add the redirect code to the tv iv article for it to redirect to TV IV:

::#REDIRECT TV IV

:I've taken the liberty of adding the code, so now anyone who searches for tv iv will be redirected to TV IV. --tomf688^{talk} 02:37, 26 October 2005 (UTC)

:Note that this redirect only affects "searches" in the sense of wikilinks, so tv iv will now link to the article. Entering "tv iv" in the "search" box and hitting "go" found the article without the redirect. And, the redirect has no effect on entering "tv iv" in the "search" box and hitting "search" (which still doesn't seem to find it). This last form of searching used to be based on an index of all wikipedia articles built somewhat infrequently (so changes and new articles didn't show up until the next time it was rebuilt), but I thought the software was recently changed to "re-index" continuously. In any event, full text searching is a distinctly secondary function of the software - it's even turned off at times (without notice) to help performance of more primary functions (retrieving and editing articles). For more on searching see Wikipedia:Searching (from the "Help" link on every page, click "How to search for an article"). -- Rick Block (talk) 13:49, 26 October 2005 (UTC)

The article on incineration has a big NPOV tag on it.

I've reorganised it, tried to remove the bias and organised it so that anyone wishing to add more information could do so easily.

Can I just remove the NPOV?

Do I need to delete it from a few different places or will deleting it from the article work.

Since I did the reworking I feel uncomfortable just removing the NPOV myself without getting someone to check it over and improve it some more. Bandraoi 23:47, 25 October 2005 (UTC)

: Removing the tag from the article is all that's necessary to make it not marked that way anymore -- but you might want to post a new comment to the talk page asking for any objections, to avoid the possibility of someone turning around and adding it again right after you remove it. If no-one objects after a few days remove the tag. — mendel ☎ 02:09, 26 October 2005 (UTC)

=October 26=

I don't suppose anybody knows what's wrong with my infobox? Here's the original article Qui-Gon Jinn and this is the one I've started: :io:Qui-Gon Jinn. See, Qui-Gon's just standing there on the left completely devoid of a border. I always have a problem with the border even though I just copy and paste the exact code and after a number of occurrences it looks like I just have no idea how to work these things. Mithridates 02:39, 26 October 2005 (UTC)

:I think it is because the io wikipedia does not have a CSS class of "infobox" like the English Wikipedia (that class does all the formatting). I've modified to io template to get rid of the class and just use the straight formatting. Evil Monkey∴Hello 03:20, 26 October 2005 (UTC)

Thanks! That's exactly what I was hoping for. Good to see that there is also a reason why the infoboxes don't work as I didn't have a clue. Mithridates 03:27, 26 October 2005 (UTC)

I've recently replaced :Image:Flag of Scotland Pantone300.png with :Image:Flag of Scotland.svg - the same image but in vector format for better scaling. I'm going through the list of articles that use the image and updating them to use the new one. Now most actually use it via various templates and I think I've updated most of these and the list of articles using the image should now be quite small, however the list has not updated - the articles making use of the image via a template are still listed even though the template is now using the new image. Is there anything that can be done to purge the cache and update the list of backlinks?

Thanks/Wangi 09:07, 26 October 2005 (UTC)

:What you can do is dummy save the articles that are occurring as "false postives". To do this you just open up the edit window for the article and save it, without changing anything. The edit won't appear in the edit summary, but it will clear it from "What links here". Of course, this process is tedious, and there is a bot that will do this for a particular template that you nominate. Unfortunately my bot is having a rest at the moment, but I (or someone else hopefully) should be able to clear a template of your chosing later tonight - which template is causing the bother?--Commander Keane 10:24, 26 October 2005 (UTC)

::I'd appreciate that. The following templates used the image, and need seeing to:

::*Template:Country flag alias Scotland

::*Template:Football in the United Kingdom

::*Template:Hebrides-geo-stub

::*Template:PoliticsScotland

::*Template:ReligionScotland

::*Template:SCO

::*Template:Scotland subdivisions

::*Template:Scotland-bio-stub

::*Template:Scotland-geo-stub

::*Template:Scotland-stub

::*Template:UKFlags

::*Template:UKFormation

::*Template:United Kingdom

::*Template:United Kingdom regions

::A nice short list! Thanks/wangi 10:58, 26 October 2005 (UTC)

:::Yeah, that's probably more work than I was expecting. I'll spend the next couple of days working through.--Commander Keane 14:27, 26 October 2005 (UTC)

whatisthepurposeofwikipediaortheadventageofwikipedia

--anon

• See WP:FAQ. It helps people learn about spacing and punctuation for starters. - Mgm|^(talk) 12:10, 26 October 2005 (UTC)

i am doing a project and i need to know the original creator of the site

::Jimbo Wales is the founder and leader of Wikipedia. Alf ^melmac 12:25, 26 October 2005 (UTC)

:If you need to know this for giving a source, see Wikipedia:Citing Wikipedia Shimgray | talk | 14:34, 26 October 2005 (UTC)

I've just added a brand new article on the European Association for Quality Assurance in Higher Education (ENQA).

I've linked to it from the article on the Bologna declaration and now that takes you through to the new article.

It also appears in the Education category where it should do.

So why when I search for it does it not appear in the search results list? Is it just me or does it take a while for the search to pick up new articles?

--Madmedea 14:35, 26 October 2005 (UTC)

:Yup. The search isn't done against the live database, but rather against an index which is generated from time to time. The resources needed to recreate the index each time an article was created are immense - even Google doesn't update its index on the fly - so the index always lags. (That said, our search function isn't the best anyway, but you get what you pay for...) 83.151.239.214 15:20, 26 October 2005 (UTC) (Shimgray, not logged in)

::Correct. The search is also not our strongest point anyway. Try [http://www.google.com/custom?sa=Google+Search&domains=wikipedia.org&sitesearch=wikipedia.org this link] to use google to search wikipedia. DES ^(talk) 15:32, 26 October 2005 (UTC)

:::There should be a message at the top of the page. Something like: "If a newly created article does not appear in the search, please wait 3-4 hours before posting. The search database can be slow to update." smurrayinaHauntedHouse...Boo!^{(User), (Talk)} 19:58, 26 October 2005 (UTC)

The interwiki link to :ja:昭和電工 on Showa Denko is showing up as a redlink to an article in enwiki! I can't see what's wrong with it, could someone else take a look? Cheers, Physchim62 15:04, 26 October 2005 (UTC)

• Fixed it now: Japanese is :ja: not jp:!! Physchim62 15:10, 26 October 2005 (UTC)

I've been banging my head against the arcane Help:template files, so I thought I'd come here. Caveat: this is for a Wikicities [http://wot.wikicities.com project], not Wikipedia proper, but it will help me understand templates on both sites. Also, I believe they are still on MediaWiki 1.4 for a few more days/weeks over there.

In any case: What I'd like to do is create a template that can be used to reference a particular chapter in a particular book. I've stared at the convoluted help on variables, and played in the Sandbox, to no avail. What we've got now is:

:{{tgh|9}} == The Great Hunt, Chapter 9 == The Great Hunt, Chapter 9.

We're going to use these with subst: to reduce server load. What I'd like to be able to do is twofold:

1. Use a template for the book title, i.e. {{tgh}} expands to The Great Hunt, so we can use that as {{{1}}}. But if we can't, we can't; a dozen templates is not that bad.
2. More importantly, some books have both Prologues and Epilogues; these obviously don't fit under the above subpage schema, and if there was a way for the template to recognize {{wh|p}} and expand it correctly to Winter's Heart, Prologue, that would be perfect.

I know the piping of the chapter link may be a problem, as well; if that's what's holding us back, we'll see if we can rework the templates. Thanks in advance. -- Nae'blis _{(I'm not signed in here at work)}

Hello everyone, question...an article I nominated for deletion (which was subsequently deleted) somehow became undeleted - the article is Flaming Milka. The history log doesn't give any insight as to how it came back, and I added subst:afd to the article again. What should I do seeing as how the article already has a deletion talk page? Does anyone know how the page was undeleted? Thank you... Paul 18:13, 26 October 2005 (UTC)

:This article came up at Wikipedia:Village_pump_%28policy%29#verifiable_sources. According to the [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special%3ALog&type=delete&user=&page=Flaming+Milka deletion log] (which includes restores) the article was restored by user:Grue, who I suspect would be happy to discuss this with you. The usual practice when a page is relisted on WP:AFD is to add a number after the AFD page (changing references as appropriate). So, in this example, the AFD page would be Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Flaming Milka 2. -- Rick Block (talk) 19:04, 26 October 2005 (UTC)

:First off, with only 2 votes, both delete, the article was a borderline case anyway. User:Grue undeleted it on October 22, 2005, 14:27 (UTC) and, IMO, was right in doing so. The article is written reasonably well, seems plausible, and is verifiable, even if that might involve a trip to the library. See [http://www.denverbrown.com/union_05_05.html Slaughter in Serene]. Interestingly, the article was created by one User:Richard Myers, and one Richard Myers is one of the co-authors of that book mentioned at the above extlink. Even if that is a Union-sponsored book, that doesn't mean they'd invent things. Maybe the book has the sources needed, and if not, archives of Denver newspapers should have something on her. If you asked them nicely, they might even tell you for free whether or not that woman really existed. BTW, your AFD notice refers to the old vote page. Lupo 19:21, 26 October 2005 (UTC)

:: If Richard Myers = User:Richard Myers, doesn't that make this a form of original research? I'm not being facetious, I truly want to know if it matters that the book was only 'co-authored'. The newspaper sources, of course, would be fine, provided they get cited. 64.126.24.10 20:08, 26 October 2005 (UTC)

::: An expert on a subject, who cites his own published works, is not writing an article on "original research." See WP:NOR#The role of expert editors. -- SCZenz 20:27, 26 October 2005 (UTC)

:::: I am certainly surprised to see that the article was undeleted, but i am also pleased. The book is an anthology with many hundreds of footnotes, and two authors refer to Milka. Also, this is the second book to describe Milka (with both including phtographs.) So i feel the research is verifiable.

:::: I have resolved to come back with a more carefully documented version of the article for Wikipedia, and having the article restored will make that effort easier. I note that someone has added a couple of references, and i will add more at a later time.

:::: In my research for the book, i found references to Milka in dozens of newspapers, found her in the 1910 and 1920 census reports, and an associate found her in a city directory. I have also exchanged email with relatives.

:::: Wikipedia does work in a mysterious manner. Just when someone did something that i felt was unjustified, someone else corrected it. Thanks, everyone, my appreciation of this wonderful website grows with each new experience. User:Richard Myers

My subject line makes this sound worse than it is, honest.

I work in the publishing arm of a huge international media company. Lately I've been looking at what information exists in Wikipedia about this publisher. There is some, but much of it incorrect. I would fix it myself, but I'm not sure I've got all the details right, either.

For this reason, I've been considering contacting my PR department and suggesting that *they* update and correct this information, since they know much more about the company's organizational structure, etc. This would not entail any significant expansion of the article, and they would of course be careful to maintain a neutral point of view. It would simply be a matter of correcting the facts on which imprints are which, and etc.

I assume that this is kosher, but I wanted to check since I know it gets murky in questions of advertisement/vanity/self-promotion. In my opinion, this would be none of the above, but I did want to solicit opinion before I approach the PR dept.

My second question is even murkier. For existing Wikipedia articles about the books that my company has published, I am assuming it would be OK for us (meaning, probably, the editorial and PR departments) to edit the articles in cases where there are factual inacuracies, provided that we are careful to maintain a neutral point of view.

However, I'm not sure how appropriate it would be for us to create *new* articles about books that we judge are important enough. I would like very much to recommend that our PR department create articles on a few books that are not currently in Wikipedia. We would probably employ some objective criteria to determine which titles are appropriate--number of weeks on the New York Times bestseller list, author prominence, number of reviews, etc--but I do worry that creating entirely new articles for a product we are selling might be crossing that nebulous line of self-promotion, even if the tone of the articles was (as it certainly would be) rigidly neutral.

So, thoughts?

--Babyhedgehog 19:19, 26 October 2005 (UTC)

User talk:195.93.21.36

Not sure what this is all about but I seem to be getting abuse when I ahven't done anything. I found it because there was a note "you have messages" when I came to look at something.

:I'm not sure why this comment was made here, but I myself got the same mysterious message last week (before I created this account). I haven't been vandalizing anything, and my IP address is, as I understand it, usually randomly assigned by the firewall I'm behind, so my guess was that someone else at my company was screwing with Wikipedia. But now that this guy--who is *not* at my company (I confirmed this before the email address was removed) has had the same problem with what seems to be the same IP address... well, it's very strange. --Babyhedgehog 22:01, 26 October 2005 (UTC)

Strictly speaking, it is "okay". Afterall, anyone can edit wikipedia. Ideally though, people at your company would do this individually, not on company time and pay. Also, by not setting this standard, you help to ensure that wikipedia does not turn into a giant billboard for companies. You should use your best judgement. --William sharkey 20:59, 26 October 2005 (UTC)

:In the interest of propriety, you could discuss the changes first on the talk page, although that would only work if the pages are being actively watched. As for the books - it all depends on whether the books are notable enough to get past AfD. If they are notable enough, then I doubt anyone would object to a neutrally written article. If you want to be fully aboveboard you could always write the articles in your user space, and then ask other editors to have a look at what you have written. It all comes down to quality - if you can write something that is NPOV, and the topic is unambiguously notable, then you are fine. You could also raise the issue at the author's article (since authors are likely to be more notable than are individual books, most of the time). Basically, be honest, be aboveboard about it, and I doubt anyone will get too upset (and if they get upset, take it in stride and with good humour). Guettarda 21:17, 26 October 2005 (UTC)

::You might want to read WP:SPAM#How not to be a spammer for tips on avoidign the impression that you are using wikipedia as an advertising vehicle, which is generlaly objected to. DES ^(talk) 21:43, 26 October 2005 (UTC)

I have started a stub. My article is still pretty short and I would like to know how I can add that small line saying "This article is a stub. Please help Wikipedia by expanding it." I feel that would be a good addition for others to read. Also, I would like to know if there are other demands to be placed at the bottom of an article like "Please help cite references in the text" or "Please add external links" and so on. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Screwball23 (talk • contribs) 16:47 EDT, 26 October 2005

:You can add the phrase {{stub}} to the bottom of the article. This adds the sentence automatically. That will put the general stub notice up, which is fine. Even better would be one of these more specific stub tags. Johntex\^talk 21:54, 26 October 2005 (UTC)

:As for other demmands on the reader: oh, yes - we have many more such templates covering things like the need to cite sources, make more neutral in tone, translate, etc. Please see this list Johntex\^talk 21:57, 26 October 2005 (UTC)

::(after edit conflict) Most of these are done by templates. There is a useful but long list, organized by categories at Wikipedia:Template messages. For stubs, rather than using the generic stub tempalte, please find the correct stub category for the particular article you are using. The list is at Wikipedia:WikiProject Stub sorting/Stub types. Please use a proper stub tag from that list, and do not use the generic {{tl|stub}}. You can read more about stubs in general at WP:STUB. Also please sign messages on discussion pages with four tildas (like this ~~~~). Thank you. DES ^(talk) 22:00, 26 October 2005 (UTC)

:::For anyone reading this who, like me, wanted to read the stub in question it looks like it's Christopher X. Brodeur. That the one you were referring to? Also, you can sign your posts here and on talk pages with four tildes (e.g. ~~~~). Dismas|^(talk) 22:02, 26 October 2005 (UTC)

::::{{US-politician-stub}} seems like it might be appropriate for that article. It is a little long for a stub though, some sort of cleanup tag might be better. Johntex\^talk 22:08, 26 October 2005 (UTC)

If I use some of wikipedia's content in a website, can I place the required copyleft info in the source code rather than a visible link on the webpage? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.113.100.60 (talk • contribs) 17:20 EDT, 26 October 2005

:While I am not a lawyer, nor an official of the Foundation, I think that if the information is visible to users, and you are claiming to use it under the GFDL then at the least you must have a visible acknowledgement of your source, wikipedia, with a link -- preferably a link to the specific article of which you are using text; and you must have a visible acknowledgment that the text is used under the GFDL, and a link to the text of the GFDL. See WP:FORK for more on this. DES ^(talk) 22:27, 26 October 2005 (UTC)

• No you can't put the info in the source. The whole point of it is that visitors can find it easily. - Mgm|^(talk) 04:43, 27 October 2005 (UTC)

:(GFDL section 2)

:You may copy and distribute the Document in any medium, either commercially or noncommercially, provided that this License, the copyright notices, and the license notice saying this License applies to the Document are reproduced in all copies, and that you add no other conditions whatsoever to those of this License. You may not use technical measures to obstruct or control the reading or further copying of the copies you make or distribute

:(GFDL section 3)

:If you publish printed copies (or copies in media that commonly have printed covers) of the Document, numbering more than 100, and the Document's license notice requires Cover Texts, you must enclose the copies in covers that carry, clearly and legibly, all these Cover Texts: Front-Cover Texts on the front cover, and Back-Cover Texts on the back cover... The "Cover Texts" are certain short passages of text that are listed, as Front-Cover Texts or Back-Cover Texts, in the notice that says that the Document is released under this License. A Front-Cover Text may be at most 5 words, and a Back-Cover Text may be at most 25 words.

:So in my non-lawyerly opinion, no -- if you create a webpage which verbatim-copies Wikipedia content, you have to have the equivalent of a front and back cover text. Traditionally, where webpages are concerned, we have been OK with some sort of acknowledgement at the foot of the page saying that you got it from page XXX Wikipedia (where XXX is a hyperlink back to the souce page), and that it is licensed under the GFDL. →Raul654 05:06, 27 October 2005 (UTC)

::The copyright notices aren't part of the title page, they follow it!. In my view, as expressed above, Wikipedia doesn't comply with the GFDL either in this respect, although making it comply would probably make the web interface and printouts unusable. As others have noted, there is no way that hiding the licence notices in the transparent version would be acceptable. Judging by what both the GPL and GFDL say, I believe the the FSF considers it important that all recipients be made aware of the licensing status of the material.

::Note that the link back in the GFDL is for unmodified opaque versions (which would properly contain the full History and set of copyright notices). What is being proposed here is a modified version, which needs to have its own transparent version and own updated History. The linked URL is also supposed to be to the transparent version, and there is no exact transparent version in Wikipedia.

::Wikipedia does, effectively, contain the licence notice in opaque copies, so even being pragmatic about the real licence terms won't excuse you from including that. IANAL

::--David Woolley 18:03, 27 October 2005 (UTC) (yet again had to put this in manually because of the system losing logged in status)

=October 27=

Several of the Javascript keyboard shortcuts Wikipedia uses on OS X, such as Ctrl-W and Ctrl-E, conflict with my system-wide keyboard shortcuts. How can I disable keyboard shortcuts on Wikipedia? I have looked at the preferences but I cannot find any such option there. If this cannot be done, is there some option for me to disable Javascript altogether on Wikipedia without disabling it in my browser? --HunterX 05:02, 27 October 2005 (UTC)

:I have asked this same question here multiple times and never received a response. All I have been able to do is try to hack out something with [http://greasemonkey.mozdev.org/ Greasemonkey] (a Firefox extension) to forceably remove the access keys with Javascript. And even that seems to have broken now. This is really a serious accessibility problem, though I applaud the MediaWiki folks for the attempt to make it more accessible via these shortcuts. If all else fails, you might want to look into [http://juicystudio.com/article/access-key-companion.php Access Key Companion]. —HorsePunchKid→龜 07:00, 27 October 2005 (UTC)

:HorsePunchKid, have you tried asking at Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)?--Commander Keane 08:02, 27 October 2005 (UTC)

:I have no idea if this works, but it might:

:The keys are defined at the javascript include file MediaWiki:Monobook.js. Look at that page to see the syntax and try to use it to override it with custom "nonsense" keys in a user javascript file (like User:Sverdrup/monobook.js). HTH — Sverdrup 18:02, 27 October 2005 (UTC)

::I've just found a simpler solution that probably was introduced in the new 1.6 alpha. Go to your preferences, hit the Misc tab, and uncheck the Enable "jump to" irritating accessibility links box. —HorsePunchKid→龜 20:09, 28 October 2005 (UTC)

How do I position a user box so that it is like the babel boxes, all aligned neatly along the right of the page?

On the below example, can someone move it to the right so that i can view the source code? thanks! --Ballchef 05:54, 27 October 2005 (UTC)

: There you go. Titoxd^(?!?) 06:03, 27 October 2005 (UTC)

oh thank you so very much. I had tried that thing but I never noticed the <-/div-> at the end. thanks thanks again. --Ballchef 01:34, 28 October 2005 (UTC)

Ok, so how do i list these userboxes along the right of the page, like babel boxes? same procedure as last time would be good, thanks. Here's three boxes to play with:

:--Ballchef 01:56, 28 October 2005 (UTC)

:*That's how I'd do it, in a table. Didn't know what the ":m" was though. --Commander Keane 04:52, 28 October 2005 (UTC)

::That was to show you how good I am at this stuff. Thanks. --Ballchef 08:27, 28 October 2005 (UTC)

I'm in the process of building consensus on a proposed guideline for inclusion of webcomics (WP:COMIC). What is the generally established procedure for turning such a proposal into a real guideline? Presumably WP:MUSIC would be a logical precedent. -- SCZenz 06:14, 27 October 2005 (UTC)

• There's no real process to turn such a thing into a guideline. Generally, when a page has been reviewed by numerous Wikipedians and used in an AFD debate, it's considered widely acknowledged as useful and becomes a guideline automatically. The real problem lies in getting something to become policy. - 131.211.210.17 07:10, 27 October 2005 (UTC)
• So after there's been discussion and a rough consensus among interested users, I can just change Template:Proposed to Template:Guideline? -- SCZenz 07:34, 27 October 2005 (UTC)
• Comics seem to be a heavily discussed topic, so it may be a good idea to announce your plans on the Village Pump and the mailing list so it gets adequate attention before you do so. - Mgm|^(talk) 11:24, 27 October 2005 (UTC)
• The village pump I can handle, the mailing list I know nothing about. Where's the info on it? -- SCZenz 11:35, 27 October 2005 (UTC)
• Wikipedia:Mailing lists. - Mgm|^(talk) 20:16, 29 October 2005 (UTC)

Hi,

Although there is quite a bit of information on the Afrikaans language and some articles written in Afrikaans, there isn't an Afrikaans Wikipedia (under 'in other languages'). How can this be organised or set up, or what is the requirements for Wikipedia to list a language specifically?

Thanks

David

• There is a Wikipedia in Afrikaans ([http://af.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuisblad click here]) It was under the header for Wikipedias with less than 1000 articles. Proposals for new languages on existing projects belong on http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Requests_for_new_languages - 131.211.210.17 07:14, 27 October 2005 (UTC)
• If you take a look at here, you will find a link to the [http://af.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuisblad Afrikaans Wikipedia] towards the bottom: you will (should!) find similar links in all articles on languages for which there is a Wikipedia. HTH HAND Phil | Talk 10:41, 27 October 2005 (UTC)

Hey there! I noticed that some userpages have 'fancy-looking' styles like tables and the like. Do they do that with HTML, C++ etc. or there's a page about this. Thanks! --Uncke Herb 09:52, 27 October 2005 (UTC)

:can you give an example. As for as I know all user pages are put together with the normal mix of html and wiki markup.

• Most userpages are a combination of HTML and wiki markup. There's no real templates, but feel free to copy the bare bones of a userpage and replace things with relevant info about yourself. I copied my layout from someone who themselves copied it from Blankfaze. - Mgm|^(talk) 11:22, 27 October 2005 (UTC)

• See Wikipedia:How to use tables and (especially) m:Help:Table for information on wiki table syntax and usage. (Most of the HTML table formatting commands also work). TenOfAllTrades(talk) 14:17, 27 October 2005 (UTC)

What does putting "Subst:" in front of a template wikicode do? --Commander Keane 12:13, 27 October 2005 (UTC)

:When you use a template without subst, the server reads the template and includes it every time the page you added it to is loaded.

:When you use subst, the server adds the content of the template to the page when you save it. This reduces the amount of work that the server needs to do every time the page is loaded as it doesn't need to go and find the template contents every time.

: See Wikipedia:Transclusion costs and benefits for more information. --GraemeL ^(talk) 12:48, 27 October 2005 (UTC)

From what I've read I should be able to edit my Cologne Blue skin by visiting http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Bodnotbod/cologneblue.js - but when I visit that page it says:

The database did not find the text of a page that it should have found, named "User:Bodnotbod/cologneblue.js".

If it is a recently changed page, trying again in a minute or two will usually work. Alternatively, you may have followed an outdated diff or history link to a page that has been deleted.

If this is not the case, you may have found a bug in the software. Please report this using the procedure given at Wikipedia:Bug_reports, making note of the URL.

(It displays with those

tags unrendered and appearing as I have made them do. I haven't previously tried to edit a skin before, so whatever I'm doing wrong is probably simple. --bodnotbod 14:02, 27 October 2005 (UTC)

• Perhaps this page may help. Look at the CSS and Javascript sections. [http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Help:User_style Link] --Gflores 21:13, 27 October 2005 (UTC)

• Thanks, but I stumbled on that page and couldn't find anything mentioning the error message I'm getting was getting. Ah, perhaps that's just what it returns if you've never made an edit to the page before? In any case I haven't received my God Light mode as hoped. Anyone see what I've done wrong (or failed to do)? --bodnotbod 05:17, 28 October 2005 (UTC)

I am putting together product images for a commercial site. What are the copyright issues surrounding using images from wikipedia?

:Each image tends to be used under different copyrights. For example, some are public domain, so you could use them without fear. However, some are used under fair use which would mean that if you were to wish to use them for a commercial site you would not necessarily be able to do so. Yet other images are donated by users only if they are not for commercial projects. The best thing would be to visit the page of each image you wish to use, which you can do by clicking on it. See also Wikipedia:Copyrights#Image_guidelines. --bodnotbod 14:10, 27 October 2005 (UTC)

On the site [http://fisher.lib.virginia.edu/collections/stats/histcensus/] there are historial census population figures for states and counties. Could a bot be used to add this data to the appropriate articles, as I have done by hand to Warren County, Ohio? PedanticallySpeaking 16:29, 27 October 2005 (UTC)

:As I recall there is a bot running (or it has run in the past at some point) that is adding articles about cities and towns. I don't recall the bot's name but you might want to ask over at Wikipedia:Bots for more info. They would know all the details. I know this doesn't specifically answer your question but I believe it would be a step in the right direction. Hope this helps. Dismas|^(talk) 19:39, 27 October 2005 (UTC)

::I think that is Rambot. I don't know what info it adds or what sources it uses. DES ^(talk) 19:44, 27 October 2005 (UTC)

Data exists from the Census on Ohio's townships [http://www.osuedc.org/profiles/ here] and [http://factfinder.census.gov/servlet/DTGeoSearchByListServlet?ds_name=DEC_2000_SF1_U&_lang=en&_ts=132068218359 here]. Would it be possible to creat a bot to create articles on Ohio townships as was done to create basic county and municipality articles? I've created a number of these township articles by hand, as have SwissCelt and Beirne, and created Wikipedia:WikiProject_Ohio_townships to provide guidance. But there are many townships to go—over a thousand—and I'd appreciate some help. I'd appreciate replies to my talk page. PedanticallySpeaking 16:29, 27 October 2005 (UTC)

My question is why was this put on the web, and who maintains the site? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.222.53.225 (talk • contribs) 2005-10-27 19:24:06

:Welcome to Wikipedia. Why was it put on the web? Well because it is of encyclopedic value I guess. This site is maintained by you, me... everybody! If you see an inaccuracy in the article then please be bold and correct it, likewise if it does not maintain a neutral point of view. To learn more about Wikipedia please start at WP:WELCOME and Wikipedia:About. Thanks/wangi 18:37, 27 October 2005 (UTC)

how did Sigmund Freud die

: Sigmund Freud: After contracting cancer of the mouth, he underwent over 30 operations to treat the disease; his death was by a physician-assisted morphine overdose. wangi 21:02, 27 October 2005 (UTC)

I've reverted the edits of an anon user twice now for the Val Kilmer article. I've left a message on the IP's talk page about this. I don't want to violate the 3RR but I'm not sure how to proceed. There's a little bit of good info in the edits but quite a bit of what I see as "Hollywood hype" type editing. So where do I go from here? Can I revert an anon's edits a third time if I've already left a note for them on their talk page (or the closest thing they have to a talk page)? Should I post my reasoning on the Val Kilmer talk page? Where do I go from here? Dismas|^(talk) 21:00, 27 October 2005 (UTC)

: Per WP:3RR "Do not revert any single page in whole or in part more than three times in 24 hours." (my emphasis). So you have one revert in hand, if needed. Although the anon's edits are indeed unacceptably POV, I don't think they really qualify as "simple vandalism", so you shouldn't go beyond that. I've added that page to my watchlist, and it looks as if someone else is helping too. Someone should inform the Kilmer-fan of 3RR, as it only fair he know about it before we threaten to block him on it. -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 21:11, 27 October 2005 (UTC)

::Should that someone be me or an admin since they'd be the ones doing the blocking?Ah! I see you've already left them a message, thanks for the info! Dismas|^(talk) 21:30, 27 October 2005 (UTC)

:::Sure, anyone can leave the message. For newbies, it's only reasonable to be gentle. -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 21:42, 27 October 2005 (UTC)

• Great! You hit my pet peeve. The anon made repeated POV edits. If they were NPOV, there wouldn't have been a problem. Please take care and don't mixup NPOV and POV. - Mgm|^(talk) 21:31, 27 October 2005 (UTC)

Can i get a physical map of Virginia?

: In a map shop, yes. -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 21:11, 27 October 2005 (UTC)

::Finlay, you wanting a drum roll for that one? ;) Anyway, the Virginia article includes a topographical and an atlas map which both show physical features. Probably not exactly what you're after, but you've got to do some leg work yourself! (it's not hard) wangi 21:17, 27 October 2005 (UTC)

Hi, I seem to have forgotten my password, and the e-mail recovery feature doesn't seem to be working either. Is there any other way I can recover my account?

• No, not really, unless you can convince a developer with time on their hands the account belongs to you. Are you sure you've checked the correct email account? Perhaps you should try again later. - Mgm|^(talk) 21:34, 27 October 2005 (UTC)

• I've check all my e-mail accounts (and spam folders) and I don't see anything. This is the third time I've tried, so I guess that leaves talking to an admin. Who should I contact?
• Admins can't do anything about it. You should try contacting a developer. Developers have direct database access. (see the link) - Mgm|^(talk) 04:43, 28 October 2005 (UTC)

How do I make a suggestion?

: Try going to the Village pump, and going to the appropriate subpage, and follow the instructions there. Titoxd^(?!?) 22:45, 27 October 2005 (UTC)

=October 28=

Can someone take a look at the picture of a greenland paddle I added to Kayak? Is it a record for the thinnest photo?! I'm really not happy with the formatting... Trollderella 01:30, 28 October 2005 (UTC)

:Thought about rotating it? -guety is talking english bad 02:18, 28 October 2005 (UTC)

:I dunno—the vertical format is visually appealing; it makes a nice accent down the side of the article. Unfortunately, the image is too narrow for the caption to work properly. You could rotate it as Guety suggests, but I'd be afraid it would lose its visual punch. Perhaps you could pad the image with a bit more whitespace on the left and right. The current version is about 10:1 height:width; maybe pad it out to 6:1 or so? TenOfAllTrades(talk) 02:42, 28 October 2005 (UTC)

Another user has been tracking my IP address from what I've posted on this site, and has been trying to locate me. What should I do?

:For starters, get a user name so that your IP is no longer displayed in the history etc, see Wikipedia:Why create an account?. --Commander Keane 04:56, 28 October 2005 (UTC)

:Is this by any chance a reference to the message you were sent "Please stop vandalizing the article Metroid: Zero Mission, or this IP address may end up being blocked. --Poiuyt Man talk 06:41, 28 October 2005 (UTC)"? Notinasnaid 06:55, 28 October 2005 (UTC)

I really can't upload an SVG file at all; every time I try I get a big red message saying "This file contains HTML or script code that may be erroneously interpreted by a web browser.", even though the SVG file contains no Javascript or weird stuff whatsoever (in fact, it's rather conspicuously plain-jane). The so-called "warning" in fact actually seems to be an error, since it gives me no way to proceed, and then I have to press the back-arrow button about three times to escape the big red message, and at the end of it all I don't end up returning to the file upload form (so any information I typed into the file description box etc. is lost).

None of this helps me understand the what the problem is. AnonMoos 06:14, 28 October 2005 (UTC)

:I don't think it's possible to upload SVG files here (sadly). It seems that the software mistakes XML for HTML here. — Sverdrup 23:46, 28 October 2005 (UTC)

::Well, I know it can be done on the Commons but they come out as PNG. -- Thorpe ^talk 23:48, 28 October 2005 (UTC)

:::I was trying to do it on Wikimedia Commons first, but it doesn't work for me here or there. Here's the file I was trying to upload: User:AnonMoos/SVGuploadtest . Thanks for any help. AnonMoos 02:03, 29 October 2005 (UTC)

::::User:Wangi has successfully uploaded :Image:Flag of Scotland.svg to the commons, maybe you could ask them about it.

I am trying to obtain any information concerning a collision in the Video channel 1972 between the S.S. Royston Grange and the TIen Chee. The name and address of an English language newspaper in Montevideo would be helpful. Thank you

:This page is for questions about Wikipedia. For factual questions, please go to Wikipedia:Reference desk. Thanks. --Kewp (t) 12:26, 28 October 2005 (UTC)

Hello friends, I'm from Argentina and I would like to know if you could possibly tell me what was the position of Argentina in the world rank in terms of GDP (nominal) in 1970 and 1950.

If you can´t give me the information, I'll be glad if you tell me where to find it.

Thank you very much.

Kindly,

F.R.

• This is a page for questions regarding Wikipedia itself. Please post your question on the reference desk. - Mgm|^(talk) 17:59, 28 October 2005 (UTC)

About seventeen hours ago I got a message while I was editing, announcing that WP was being vandalized and was in the process of restoring/recovering data. The message seemed to be at the top of all the pages I looked at. I finished up, saved my edits, and logged out. Now I don't see the message, and I can't find any notice that indicates it happened, was fixed, or was stopped.

Was the message itself a form of vandalism, or an actual notice of what was going on? Was it a message to everyone, or just some subset, or just me? Is there a log of such announcements where I can check what the outcome was? I notice I got a similar announcement when I received an incoming welcome message on my talk page (announcing an incoming message, not vandalism) and I don't know what triggers such messages.

--Dan Hoey 17:00, 28 October 2005 (UTC)

:Odd I don't think it was a legit message sitenotice hasn't been edited for days. what page was it on?Geni 17:09, 28 October 2005 (UTC)

:: I was editing Map-coloring games, a page I started a while earlier to cover some redlinks and some undisambiguated usages. But I recall the notice was appearing on other pages, too. I could be wrong, I suppose.--Dan Hoey 18:02, 28 October 2005 (UTC)

How do you make a user page/regular page? Such as User:Essjay/WikiPhilosophy.--Anti-Anonymex2^{Come to my page! I've gone caliente loco!} 17:46, 28 October 2005 (UTC)

:You can just make a page: For example User:Anti-Anonymex2/stuff. It appears as a red link at first since you haven't made it yet. But after you've made it, it will be just like a regular page. It's easiest to just put User:Anti-Anonymex2/stuff (like this User:Anti-Anonymex2/stuff) on your user page, and click on it there, so you will be able to find it again.--Kewp (t) 18:01, 28 October 2005 (UTC)

: (edit conflict) Just enter the name of the page you want to create, and then press go. It will show you a "Create this article" redlink, which you click on, and then, you edit it as if it were a normal page. The same goes for subpages. Titoxd^(?!?) 18:03, 28 October 2005 (UTC)

On the article about Guy Fawkes, there is a section called "Gunpower Plot." Under that section, in the first paragraph, there is a line that read "[...] English Islamic extremists [...]". It should read "English Catholic extremists," but when I go into "edit this page" it already reads "Catholic" but will not change to reflect so.

Why not?!?!

:This means that vandalism had been committed on this artilce but has already been fixed. You may need to refresh your view of the article, or clear your browser cache, before the display version shows correctly. DES ^(talk) 18:17, 28 October 2005 (UTC)

how do you get the genus,family,order,class,phylum,and kingdom of a lion.

:see Lion where all that info is provided. If you were asking how the taxobox is used to display that info, see Wikipedia:WikiProject Tree of Life/taxobox usage new. DES ^(talk) 19:24, 28 October 2005 (UTC)

I'm not sure exactly how to merge, but these two articles are about the same thing, Tulip_Time_Festival and Tulip Festival. I'm not sure which is the source, since the festival takes place in different places. I know in one place, the name is tulip time festival, other cities may use the same name, they may not. I'm kind of new, so I'm not sure what to do. Gflores 19:17, 28 October 2005 (UTC)

Generally one simply suggests such a merge, and then, if people agree (or at least don't object) after a while, copies infor from one articel to the othe, leaving one as a redirect to the other. In this case Tulip Festival has much more content, and seems a more likely search term, so i would think that a proper destination for the merge. I have used the {tl|mergeto} and {{tl|mergefrom}} tags to suggest such a merge. Anotehr tiem you can do the same yourself. DES ^(talk) 19:30, 28 October 2005 (UTC)

I am looking for the following SMS solution and wanted to know if I can use your service.

A user calls into a predefined phone number.

The user is asked to enter option 1-5

Based on the selection user receives a predetermined SMS message to their phone.

How is billing handled?

Do u support ALL carrier in the US?

TY.

:Please tell us who you think we are? There may be some confusing stuff on our web site. Notinasnaid 21:09, 28 October 2005 (UTC)

I have posted a few photos I took but after re-reading the licencing specs, I must admit I am now more confused then anything. Basically, which one is it that could be sumed up as:

"I made it, people can do with it what they want but if someone starts making money off it, I'd like to see some of it too."

:There is no approved wikipedia license that says that, or anything at all near it. Nor is preventing commercial reuse allowed. I created {{tl|Limited Use}} to restrict uses to an encyclopedic context, but that has been proposed for deletion. (It is been disccused now at WP:TFD#Limited Use, and in any case that does not suggest that anyoen should pay the copyright holder anything for any use. I'm afrains if you upload an image (or a text) to which you hold copyright, you will have to live with the possibility that soemone will make money off it, and you may not get any of that money. DES ^(talk) 19:48, 28 October 2005 (UTC)

:: Fair enough. Out of curiousity, what was the reason it was decided not to have any such limited use ? was it a fear of copyright holder removing some of their items further down the road or something else ?--Marc pasquin 20:13, 28 October 2005 (UTC)

• I think it's related to the whole open source ideal of Wikipedia. Wikipedia can freely be copied, cloned or sold, in whole or in part (subject to acknowledgements). If each of hundreds of thousands picture licenses had to be separately examined, relicensed, etc. the whole ideal could fail. Notinasnaid 21:08, 28 October 2005 (UTC)

• Strictly speaking it hasn't "been decided" the deletion of that template is being debated. (and one must now examine each image separately in any case, due to the huge number used via "Fair use") The "limited use" tag would not require any reexamination for a direct copy or copy with modifications, it would only require examiantion when using an image in a completely different context -- which is somethign that ought to be done anyway. I think some people are persuing the "open source theory" here farther than is sensible or wise, and farther than is needed by wikipedia's basic purposes and principles. That said, at the moment those views seem to be in the majority here. But anyone is free to enter the debate and express a view. I gave a link to the discussion on this particualr template above. DES ^(talk) 21:44, 28 October 2005 (UTC)

Is there a hospital in Cheboksary that is called Polyclinics or something like that? I am trying to locate someone there but unable to find it on the internet. Any help is appreciated.

:First of all, this page is for questions about Wikipedia and how to use it, the place for factual questions is Wikipedia:Reference desk. Secondly, we would need to know what country/state/province/etc. Cheboksary is in to be able to help you. Dismas|^(talk) 21:03, 28 October 2005 (UTC)

I was doing a search on google and I noticed that this site:

[http://www.guideofcasinos.com/Spring_(device).html]

appears to have copied the contents of this article without any mention of wikipedia in an attempt to get people to click on the ads that surround the page. I'm not sure what to do about this, so I'm posting it here and hoping a more experienced user can inform the right people. Oh and there seems to be a claim in the bottom left corner that this is their content: “2000-2005 guideofcasinos.com”

--Canageek 22:00, 28 October 2005 (UTC)

:see the forks & mirrors page for a list of many such sites, and recommended actions, including letters that can be sent to the operators requesting that they comply with the GFDL. DES ^(talk) 22:06, 28 October 2005 (UTC)

Hi, I think the Wikipedia:Merging and moving pages article could use a bit of clarification. It includes info on how to propose a merge, and how to perform a merge, but doesn't really explain when each action is appropriate.

• Do all merges need to be proposed first?
• How long should a proposed merge wait for objections to be lodged before the merge is performed?
• Can anybody perform the merge? Is it appropriate for the person who proposed the merge to perform it?

Thanks! --Red Robot 22:38, 28 October 2005 (UTC)

:Anyone who feels competent (and willing) can perform a merge. A merge usually requires some kmowledge abouth the subject in order that information is merged smoothly, rahter than simply plumping done redudnant chuncks of text in an article. It also often requires soem judgement on wht to include in the merged version. Sources (and their citations) to specific facts should be preserved. Soem skill at wiki editing and markup is also desirable, but a merge is no (or not much) trickier than any edit of comperable size -- some are larger than others.

:No one is ever required to propose a merge you can be bold in editing and a merge is an edit. However whenr you suspect a merge might be contrversial, it is usually better to propose and discuss it first. otherwise edit wars adn revert wars may occur, or at the least bad feelign, and this is not good.

:One may also propsoe a merge if one hopes to persuade someone else to do the actual merging.

:Once there seems to be pretty celar consensus on performign a merge, ther is no neeed to wait longer. Anyone, includign the original proposer, may do a merge that seems to have consensus. There is no formal standard fo how long to wait or how many people must support a merge. It is usually a poor idea to just do the merge while active discussuion is still in progress.

:I hope that helps. I think merges are often a good idea. DES ^(talk) 00:11, 29 October 2005 (UTC)

::Thanks, that does help. Red Robot 00:44, 29 October 2005 (UTC)

In the light of this exchange, I moved Court citation to Case citation. I'm now wondering whether that was too glib an idea, though, as I've subsequently discovered there are [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Whatlinkshere&target=Court_citation&limit=500&offset=0 nearly 500] links to Court citation which are (or might be) double redirects - far more than I can fix manually.

Apart from "that'll teach you", are there any suggestions you can offer to help with this problem? AndyJones 22:40, 28 October 2005 (UTC)

:Don't fret mate, there were only about a dozen double redirects, which I have fixed (assuming that no one else was helping out, which I'm not sure about). Anyway, there will soon be a bot to fix double redirects (see here), so even if there were 500 it wouldn't be a problem.--Commander Keane 07:11, 29 October 2005 (UTC)

::Brilliant, weight off my mind! Thank you. AndyJones 17:50, 29 October 2005 (UTC)

When Im looking at an article, to the far left i see a list of different languages i can get the article in, but some have orange stars near them. What does that mean?

• The star means that the version of that article in that language has been made a featured article on that Wikipedia version, which means that they represent some of the best articles in that language available at Wikipedia. --Kwekubo 23:49, 28 October 2005 (UTC)

The photo used for the entry on Little Wolf (Cheyenne Leader)is not correct. Little Wolf was born in 1820 and died in 1904. The caption on this picture reads he was born in 1868. This is a picture of a man called Laban Little Wolf who was born on the Red Cloud Agency which was in Nebraska at that time. Little Wolf is a name that is used a lot. I would like to have the picture deleted. Though I have a bit of knowledge on my ancestry, I have very little on computers. How do I accomplish my goal?

:I'll do it. -- 23:40, 28 October 2005 (UTC)

::Isn't Laban Little Wolf famous enough for their own article, so we can preserve the image in the right context? - Mgm|^(talk) 08:19, 29 October 2005 (UTC)

Not really, he has the name but not the fame

=October 29=

What font was the english wikipedia logo text written in? (I don't care about the puzzle symbols, just the "WIKIPEDIA The Free Encyclopedia" text) This is useful information that ought to be included in an article. If it wasn't one I probably have already, but still a free/creative commonsish font, where can I download it? --Nerd42 01:24, 29 October 2005 (UTC)

• The "Wikipedia" is in Hoefler Text Regular, and the "The Free Encyclopedia" is in Hoefler Text Italic. I don't think it's free though - try Google. --Kwekubo 03:03, 29 October 2005 (UTC)

:*And if anyone's unsure as to what irony actually means, this is one of the better examples. — PhilHibbs | talk 14:47, 31 October 2005 (UTC)

Yes, indeed. Shame on you all! --Nerd42 19:47, 2 November 2005 (UTC)

I got the following question on my talk page. I don't know the answer, but I figure someone here would. Please post your answer to User talk:Kandar. Thanks, Isomorphic 03:27, 29 October 2005 (UTC)

:As a sysop in Sundanese Wikipedia (and some other sister projects, which is still "underdeveloped"), would you inform me, if any, how to copy the system messages automatically from one project to another?

:FYI, in the Sundanese Wikipedia, I've never translate & sumbit the language.php file, but directly translating every message, one by one, listed in the "special:allmessage" page. kandar 05:17, 26 October 2005 (UTC)

Is constructing a visual representation of a concept considered original research?

• No. As long as the information on which the diagram is based is well sourced. We had diagrams on flight patterns of planes and nuclear bombs all of which require research to be accurate. Original research is looking for first hand information. Wikipedia only includes already described knowledge. - Mgm|^(talk) 08:24, 29 October 2005 (UTC)
• An extension. Say you have a diagram of a train tunnel from a journal article. The diagram uses information freely available. Can you make your own version and give your version a public domain license? --Commander Keane 18:12, 29 October 2005 (UTC)
• I would think so, as long as you don't try to replicate the exact style and visual presentation details of the original diagram (in cases where the nature of the diagram leaves such choices open). But I'm not a lawyer, so don't rely on anything I say. AnonMoos 21:15, 29 October 2005 (UTC)

something like Darren Daunt GangofOne 07:47, 29 October 2005 (UTC)

• You label it {{db|put your reason here}}. In this case you'd write something like "attack page" as the reason. The creator removed the tag before, so if you want to make sure it ends up deleted you can contact an administrator at WP:AN. I took care of the deletion this time. - Mgm|^(talk) 08:15, 29 October 2005 (UTC)

I would like the person who wrote the article on the above general to contact me if possible about the above General who i have being researching since last Oct, the contributor appears to go under the name CLIODULE.

—Preceding unsigned comment added by 195.93.21.6 (talk • contribs) .

:Cliodule may not look at this page, but you can contact him by posting a message on his talk page. By the way, the above page is at Henry Hugh Tudor. Thelb⁴ 08:36, 1 November 2005 (UTC)

1. Who are User:Thorpe and User:EastEnders the great?
2. How do you change your signature?

::Unsigned questions by User:4836.03. --hydnjo talk 14:42, 29 October 2005 (UTC)

• You can change your signature in Special:Preferences (see Wikipedia:Signature). The people you mentioned are Wikipedians and you can read a bit more about them on the userpages you linked. - Mgm|^(talk) 14:51, 29 October 2005 (UTC)

This is probably a server-side problem, but I really can't seem to get < noscript> tags to work.

Testing:

Is this a problem with the software, or my browser not rendering things properly, or something?

• Did you really want <nowiki>this shouldn't be bold</nowiki>? Notinasnaid 14:41, 29 October 2005 (UTC)

::Damn, sorry, I thought it was

:::<noscript> tags cause browsers that support and have enabled JavaScript to ignore everything until </noscript>. This tag is normally used for malicious purposes. The same goes for <noframes>. Andy Janata 16:37, 29 October 2005 (UTC)

I have nominated Nefertiti piercing for deletion, and I went through the steps, and it doesn't appear to be coming up properly on Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Log/2005 October 29 -- my text appears under "Stig Olai Kapskarmo" (but not at that article's entry). I've nominated an article before and it worked fine, and I can't for the life of me figure out what's wrong. Can anyone please see if they can find the problem? --Qirex 15:41, 29 October 2005 (UTC)

:Fixed it for you. Are you sure you followed the second step correctly? I re-entered the second part and it worked fine. Dismas|^(talk) 15:55, 29 October 2005 (UTC)

::Actually, I'm far from sure that I did it right, considering that it messed up, and that it's two in the morning where I am :) I did have the help page right infront of me with the steps but ahwell.

::Anyway, thankyou heaps for fixing that Dismas, especially so quick! --Qirex 16:07, 29 October 2005 (UTC)

While researching an article on the porn industry (yeah, I know), I came across a tantalising snippet about the gay porn star Logan Reed but the full article had been deleted. Is it possible for me to access the deleted article without being an administrator, or at least find out who contributed it?

• You can ask at WP:VFU or ask any admin personally to give you info on a deleted article. - Mgm|^(talk) 18:43, 29 October 2005 (UTC)
• It's not worth much (which is why it was deleted, I guess) "Logan Reed, was born as Larry Hicks. He now lives in West Hollywood, California and quietly enjoys his friends and boyfriend of many years. Larry is well liked and healthy after giving up his career in adult film sometime before 2004." -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 18:52, 29 October 2005 (UTC)
• It was basically deleted because it did not assert the importance or significance of Reed. Zzyzx11 (Talk) 18:55, 29 October 2005 (UTC)

Shrenik is a copy right violation from [http://www.jainworld.com/literature/story16.htm here]. I gave the anon. creator a message and was going to list it as a speedy delete because of copy right. But then I read that only text from commercial websites can be speedy deleted. I can't find the page to list non-comericial copy rights. Please help! Banana04131 17:57, 29 October 2005 (UTC)

• You can list it on WP:CP and replace the article content with {{copyvio|url=http://www.jainworld.com/literature/story16.htm}}. - Mgm|^(talk) 18:46, 29 October 2005 (UTC)
• Whoops, I did not read your question closely and accidentally speedy deleted the article. I have now restored it and it is now listed on WP:CP. Not only is the content from a non-commercial site, but you identified it after the 48-hour creation time limit. Zzyzx11 (Talk) 19:10, 29 October 2005 (UTC)
• Thanks so much! Banana04131 19:17, 29 October 2005 (UTC)

I've noticed a discrepancy among various US goverment agency seals on wikipedia. There appears to be no template (that i can find) that specifically covers these, and there are certainly very many of them.

Several, such as :Image:CIA_seal_reg.jpg and :Image:NavySeal.png use the Template:Seal Template, but this template (at least in it's current wording) only applies to Local Government seals. Several others use the more generic Public Domain / Government templates, such as :Image:FBISeal.png which uses Template:PD-USGov-FBI and :Image:Us senate seal.png which uses Template:PD-USGov-Congress. This approach also seems somewhat incorrect, since the seals arent really works of the respective agencys persay, and although i am not entirely sure they are actually copyrighted, i dont think they are quite in the public domain, either, because their use is typically heavily restricted by federal laws.

I've tried to locate an equlivant of Template:Seal for federal seals, but i cannot find one. Is there one? Should there be? Should Template:Seal be modified to apply to federal, state, and local seals? Any help would be much appreciated. --Lanoitarus 20:09, 29 October 2005 (UTC)

:I'd suggest bringing this up at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Fair use; they're usually good people to query about this sort of thing (the fair use tags are all being rewritten just now, so...). {{tl|Coat of arms}} is probably what you want, or the more general {{tl|Logo}}. {{tl|seal}} does look excessively... precise just now; I don't know why it says local government, but we should probably Do Something About That. Shimgray | talk | 23:11, 30 October 2005 (UTC)

::Thanks Shimgray, ill this question at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Fair use instead. --Lanoitarus 23:15, 31 October 2005 (UTC)

I did a Google search on a page which I created (Michel Dorfman). Rather than finding a link to that page, however, I found a link to my user page! Since I recorded on my user page all the pages I'd created, using wikilinks, I removed the wikilinks and waited a few weeks to check Google again. The link to my user page is still there! Is there any way to take it off Google, other than to erase the list of all the pages on my user page? Yoninah 23:58, 29 October 2005 (UTC)

• Both the Wikipedia search engine and Google are updated at intervals. That's why you get served with old information. Unless you can find a way to make updating those search indexes not take all the server resources they take, it's impossible to update the indexes more often. - Mgm|^(talk) 10:49, 30 October 2005 (UTC)

::Thank you, but this doesn't quite answer my question. I want to know how to make sure that my user page doesn't end up on Google Search. I would prefer that the article pages be included on Google instead. Yoninah 16:53, 30 October 2005 (UTC)

::: You can't prevent your user page from ending up on Google, because Google indexes both the article and the user space here. Of course it would be ideal if Google returned the article when you search for it, but that's something Google needs to fix -- it looks like their crawlers [http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&safe=off&c2coff=1&q=http%3A%2F%2Fen.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2FMichel_Dorfman&btnG=Search haven't indexed it yet]. Keep in mind as well that you've licensed your user page under the GFDL by editing it in the first place. — mendel ☎ 17:26, 30 October 2005 (UTC)

=October 30=

Greetings

I recently found some data regarding Religious Distrbution in England on this page http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/England, that I sincerely believed to be erronous.

I left a note on the page, to ask if someone could improve this ( see history for that page ). I now realise this wasn't the best way to go about it, and I'm sorry. However it did result in the data being updated and better presented.

Although I still believe a lot of people indicate they belong to a certain reigion in a census because they were perhaps christened in a certain church, rather than because they actively belong to that particular religious organisation. My 45 years experience of being english and living in (and being widely travelled in ) England tells me this data is still not accurate.

My question is.......

When finding data you believe to be innaccurate, what's the correct procedure for a] reporting this, and just as importantly b] discussing the issue?

Thanks in advance , and sorry for the newbie question. :)

Paul

: I think what you ought to have done is clicked on the discussion tab, which would take you to Talk:England, and left your note there. That way people could see it without it being in the article itself. Typically you'd leave the note at the bottom, with a new subject header that looked something like == Concern about XYZ == . At the end, you'd put your user name, using four tildes, like this: ~~~~ -- SCZenz 01:36, 30 October 2005 (UTC)

::Exactly. The talk page of the article in question is the normal place to disccus possible errors in or improvements of the article. If you mention something there and noe one seems to be taking note, you can try to draw added attention at requests for comment or the village pump. DES ^(talk) 01:41, 30 October 2005 (UTC)

::: Thanks Folks! I'll try the Talk route next time. it also looks like there is a quite a bit of Wiki syntax to learn. Worth it though :)

:::: The best way to learn is just to click on "edit" on a page that uses a trick you don't understand, and see what's there (then don't submit). For example, how did I put Wiki syntax straight into my answer above without it having any effect? You can find out. ;) -- SCZenz 01:49, 30 October 2005 (UTC)

Greetings

About 1 hour ago, I asked a question here regarding the correct procedure when coming across data that I believe ot be erronous. It was a fairly detailed question, adn I posted it because I want to contribute to the Wikipedia, but wish to do it correctly.

My question was serious and contained nothing that anyone would find offensive.

Why would someone delete a question for no apparent reason?

Cheers

Paul

:Deleted? It looks like it's right above this section. —HorsePunchKid→龜 01:35, 30 October 2005 (UTC)

Thanks - yes It's back now. It re-appeared after i posted this question. the following is what I posted when the Wiki told me someone else - yuu - had changed the page.....

EDIT: Now that IS strange. After psoting this question, I noticed that my original question ( above ) is now showing. I honestly checked through this page about 4 times in case I'd missed it. I also noticed there were over 200 questions when I previoously viewed the page, and now there are aroudd 180 odd.

Anyway, please skip this one, as the question is back - cheers everyone - Paul

( normal service is now resumed :) )

::It might have been cache issue, with the version before your edit still being displayed. Clearign your browsaer cache, or if that fails purging the server cache may help when soemthing seems to disappear. Check then history first to see if soemone reverted or deleted for some reason. DES ^(talk) 01:45, 30 October 2005 (UTC)

:This page is for questions about Wikipedia and how to use it. Please place factual questions at Wikipedia:Reference desk. Dismas|^(talk) 03:25, 30 October 2005 (UTC)

When I read an article and something is unclear, how can I ask the recent or any editor to add information or smooth things up?

Detlev Schmidtke

:This is a wiki so you can do it yourself. There are edit links at the top of every page and at the top right hand side of the major sections of the articles like the one to the far right of your question here. Or if you don't know enough about the subject to change the article, you may leave a message on the article's discussion page to suggest content that you feel should be added. The discussion pages (also known as talk pages) can be found via the link at the top of every page. Each article has its own talk page. Dismas|^(talk) 07:45, 30 October 2005 (UTC)

• If you click on the "history" tab, you can see who edited it most recently. Clicking their name will bring you to their userpage. Click "discussion" here and leave a note at the bottom of the page to draw their attention to it. - Mgm|^(talk) 10:53, 30 October 2005 (UTC)

I can't do it, can you tell me some methods?

Well, basically you just name it Template:Whatever, and then write in what you feel like. But there are pretty complex things to do--why don't you look at the code for a similar template to what you want to make? -- SCZenz 08:31, 30 October 2005 (UTC)

:A template is just a table that's saved in the Template: namespace. They usually have fancy borders and other styling and the best way to make one is to find a similar one (as SCZEnz suggested) and modfiy it. You can always ask here for more help, templates are rather tricky in my opinion. --Commander Keane 07:05, 31 October 2005 (UTC)

::Templates don't have to contain tables—it's just that most of them do. — PhilHibbs | talk 14:50, 31 October 2005 (UTC)

I just came across a user creating stub after stub about specific instances (i.e. individual appearances of a certain type of dungeon) in the World of Warcraft computer game. This seems to be clearly contrary to WP:FICT, but it is quite widespread, with a bunch of categories under :Category:World of Warcraft instances (or heck, even :Category:Warcraft locations. Putting merge notes, or even grouping and redirecting these articles per WP:BOLD and WP:FICT myself would take forever. Is there a good way to deal with this? -- SCZenz 10:30, 30 October 2005 (UTC)

• Mentioning all the pages so someone else can deal with them, will probably take just as long. I guess the best thing you can do is either do it yourself or request help at the assistance village pump. - Mgm|^(talk) 10:57, 30 October 2005 (UTC)
• I'm sure there's enough to say about a whole dungeon to make an interesting article, why don't you just leave them alone? Kappa 11:09, 30 October 2005 (UTC)
• Um, they're not real? Wikipedia isn't a detailed computer game guide? From what I've seen of how this game works, writing a real article on every dungeon would involve summarizing the entire course of the game. There are a lot of things I've learned to leave alone, lately, but each of these articles is a small part of one computer game, and there are relevant guidelines about article structure for works of fiction. This is not a borderline case. -- SCZenz 11:21, 30 October 2005 (UTC)
• And, it's worth noting, I am not suggesting removing one jot of information. WP:FICT is explicit about that too. -- SCZenz 11:23, 30 October 2005 (UTC)
• Not being a game guide means not telling people how to play the games, it doesn't mean "don't describe the fictional worlds". Dungeons seem to be similar to episodes of a television series. Kappa 11:28, 30 October 2005 (UTC)
• I do see your point. However, if these articles remain stubs, it seems perfectly appropriate to merge them based simply on how articles are usually organized. In some cases, the info actually already does appear in a larger article and in the stub. I honestly doubt (from what I've seen of this game) that there really is enough information about each dungeon to bring them out of stub status without creating a game guide, but I suppose we'll wait and see. -- SCZenz 11:39, 30 October 2005 (UTC)
• If they remain stubs, i agree with your point. However, you may be underestimating how large these "small parts" of the game are. Some of these instance dungeons take hours and are extremely detailed both in storyline and strategy... i could see a potential for some interesting and informative articles, assuming the creator actually expands them. --Lanoitarus 15:15, 30 October 2005 (UTC)

I have noticed that on some images (e.g. :Image:New Orleans Fire 2005-09-02.jpg), there is no file history, and the link at the top to file history doesn't work. However, it appears on some other images (e.g. :Image:SakuraHealed.png). Why is this? Is it to do with JPGs and PNGs? Thelb⁴ 16:32, 30 October 2005 (UTC)

: The original upload of :Image:New Orleans Fire 2005-09-02.jpg was on the [http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Main_Page Wikimedia Commons]; this wiki imports the picture automatically from there when it is used, so the file history remains on Commons. While :Image:SakuraHealed.png has been uploaded to Commons, the original upload was here, so the file history is visible here. — mendel ☎ 17:21, 30 October 2005 (UTC)

If someone repeatedly vandalised an article, and starts being rude (and flames you) when you tell them to stop, doesn't that warrant a ban?

Where can I report these kinds of problems?

:WP:AIV if it is serious and needs immediate attention, or WP:VIP for not so serious vandals. -Greg Asche (talk) 20:21, 30 October 2005 (UTC)

...why do their names (or something after their names) come up in green instead of blue or red?

:They have created a custom signature. See Wikipedia:Sign your posts on talk pages#Customizing your signature. -Greg Asche (talk) 20:30, 30 October 2005 (UTC)

::Thanks. gtdp 21:38, 30 October 2005 (UTC)

Is there any way to get statistics on how many visitors go to a particular Wikipedia page per day, week or other period of time?

-- Ben Best 21:08, 30 October 2005 (UTC)

:NoGeni 22:27, 30 October 2005 (UTC)

There used to be hit counters (way back in the olden days) but it put too much strain on the servers. Theresa Knott (a tenth stroke) 23:27, 30 October 2005 (UTC)

:Memory Alpha, which uses the same wiki software as Wikipedia, has this hit counter on. For example, see MemoryAlpha:Star Trek. --Perfecto Image:Flag_of_Canada.svg 00:44, 31 October 2005 (UTC)

::There's total number of visits [http://en.wikipedia.org/wikistats/EN/TablesWikipediaEN.htm here (right at the bottom)]--Commander Keane 06:51, 31 October 2005 (UTC)

If capitalized the word Sun, is it necessary to add "the" in front of the word "Sun"? And what if Moon and Earth? -- Yaohua2000 21:17, 30 October 2005 (UTC)

:The is required in most cases. Please see Sun, Moon and Earth for examples of how these words are used. -Walter Siegmund 23:02, 30 October 2005 (UTC)

Is there a bookmarklet, widget or one-click-tool that reverts vandalism with a note in the form of "rv edits by 219.148.86.36 to last version by David Shear" -- perhaps one that pulls out the usernames from the history? Thanks! --Perfecto Image:Flag_of_Canada.svg 23:18, 30 October 2005 (UTC)

Only for admins I'm afraid. Non admins can simply type "revert vandalism" no need for all the other stuff. Theresa Knott (a tenth stroke) 23:24, 30 October 2005 (UTC)

:I think there may be a way to do it through monobook.css but I don't know the details.Geni 07:33, 31 October 2005 (UTC)

::It can be done with monobook.js. Check out the excellent [http://sam.zoy.org/wikipedia/godmode-light.js godmode-light.js] by User:Sam_Hocevar. Add the following to your own monobook.js:

::

 document.write('