Wikipedia:Help desk
- For other types of questions, use the search box, see the reference desk or Help:Contents. If you have comments about a specific article, use that article's talk page.
- Do not provide your email address or any other contact information. Answers will be provided on this page only.
- If your question is about a Wikipedia article, draft article, or other page on Wikipedia, tell us what it is!
- Check back on this page to see if your question has been answered.
- For real-time help, use our IRC help channel, #wikipedia-en-help.
- New editors may prefer the Teahouse, a help area for beginners (but please don't ask in both places).
January 11
Image quality problem
I have used Wikipedia for a good while but have rarely worked with images. Today I uploaded an image and placed it in the article Nigel Payne. On the image upload page, the image looks exactly like it does on the source site, but in the linked article the image is too big and blurry. I can't figure out how to resize it and couldn't find anything in help. Help here? SmartGuy 03:18, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
- The problem lies in the Template:Infobox_Celebrity box. It's designed to display an image at 220px. That's larger than the source image so it gets pixelized when stretched. Can you find a higher res source image? Alternatively, you can copy the template's source code and change the value of 220 px. Mitaphane talk 03:24, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
- Straight away I can't find a higher res image with clear copyright or fair use status. I'll try messing around with the template later, thanks. SmartGuy 03:47, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
Editing section zero
I had modified my profile page, or whatever you call it, so that I had a tab at the top of articles to edit section zero. As of a couple days ago, this tab has dissappeared. Does anyone know why this is? Thanks, Dismas|(talk) 03:37, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
- You could try the updated version at Wikipedia:WikiProject User scripts/Scripts/Add edit section 0. I assume you are talking about your User:Dismas/monobook.js, I did hear someone complaining about something breaking in their monobook.js a couple of days ago, something to do with a change in MediaWiki somewhere I suppose.--Commander Keane 04:48, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
- Yes, I meant monobook.js. I couldn't think of the word to save my life... Anyway, I'll try the updated version, thanks! Dismas|(talk) 05:21, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
What's wrong with my signature?
I get the "Invalid Raw Signature" error message, but it works properly in the sandbox...
This is the code. Can you please tell me what's wrong with it?
<span style="color:hotpink">'''<sub>- [[User:Miriam The Bat|Miriam The Bat]]</sub> <sup>([[User talk:Miriam The Bat|Talk]])</sup>'''</span style>
Edit: changed it slightly, still doesn't work.
Thank you. Miriam The Bat 04:32, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
- It is <span ...> text </span>, not <span style="..."> text </span style>. The actual tag code is the span part. The style is a parameter within the span tag; as such, when closing tags you always use the tag name, with no parameters. I have debugged your signature code, and it saves in my preferences with no errors. Here is the raw code:
- <sup> [[User:Miriam The Bat|<span style="color:pink">Miriam The Bat</span>]] - [[User talk:Miriam The Bat|<span style="color:hotpink">Talk</span>]]</sup>
- Which produces:
- I hope this answers your question. If you have any additional questions feel free to inquire. Have a wonderful day, and happy editing. Kyra~(talk) 04:45, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
- Thank you. I ended up fixing it myself by changing it to a font tag (I don't know why I didn't think of it first) but now I understand where my mistake was. - Miriam The Bat (Talk) 04:49, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
I suggest to you (and, well, everyone) to avoid using the font tag and use CSS in one way or another (the span tag will do) instead. BigNate37(T) 19:11, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
Report a user
How do I report a user for inspection by someone who may temporarily ban the user?--WhereAmI 06:39, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
- If you are referring to a user who is vandalizing, and they have received the appropriate series of warning templates and have vandalized after the final warning, then you would go to Wikipedia:Administrator intervention against vandalism and add their name their using the template that is within the comments. So, for example, if user JohnDoe had vandalized after a final warning template, then you would put * {{vandal|JohnDoe}}, and then a short explanation of why you reported them. There are also separate noticeboards for WP:3RR violations, suspected sock puppets, and many more, so be sure to select the one that pertains to your issue. I hope this answers your question fully, and if you have any more questions, you are welcome to ask me or here if you wish. Have a great day, and happy editing. Kyra~(talk) 07:02, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
using LaTeX to create articles.
Hello.
I would like to write some articles for Wikipedia in my field of work, but I have a technical problem of mathematical symbols - I wouldn't like to learn you language of notation. I use Latex in my work. Can I give you a latex text to compile on the cite? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Yshtok (talk • contribs) 08:37, 11 January 2007 (UTC).
- You're in luck. Our formula syntax uses a lot of LaTeX. See Help:Displaying a formula for help on how to format formulas. - Mgm|(talk) 08:49, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
Missing article on "Queen's Scout Award"... where did it go?
Searching for "QSA" or "Queen's Scout Award" used to bring up a page detailing the Queen's Scout Award, a Scouting award obtained in the UK and several Commonwealth countries similar to the Eagle Scout award in America.
However I can find no trace of the page anymore. Searching for "QSA" now links to a page called "Quaker Social Action" and searching for "Queen's Scout Award" fails.
Where did the "Queen's Scout Award" page go? Can somebody please bring it back?
Thanks. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 88.111.188.198 (talk) 11:30, 11 January 2007 (UTC).
- It's still there: Queen's Scout. It's just that Wikipedia's search function is down at the moment. You could help the search function out by creating a redirect, but you would need to create a username in order to do that. --ais523 11:34, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
Next time, use google, and type in "Queen's Scout Award Wikipedia". It's better at finding Wikipedia articles than we are, just that it's usually out of date. | AndonicO Talk | Sign Here 11:37, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
- "site:en.wikipedia.org Queen's Scout Award" should work even better. --Sam Blanning(talk) 13:37, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
- I found the problem. QSA used to be a redirect to Queen's Scout. Somebody threw in an extra link to Quaker Social Action instead of changing the page to a proper disambiguation page. Later someone thoughtlessly removed the original link. Try searching "QSA" now ;-).Circeus 17:43, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
Mdash in article names?
In the name of article War in Somalia (2006–present) is included an mdash -- that makes problems with printing or storing it locally in other Windows versions than plain US-english. Could one please correct that? --213.155.224.232 12:09, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
- I've changed it to a hyphen, and corrected all the double redirects accordingly, per this request (you can't move pages, because you don't have a username). If anyone wants to change it back, I recommend they get an admin to mass-rollback my double-redir-fixes. --ais523 13:09, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
- Is there a problem with using m-dashes in article titles? I think just about all of the Canadian Parliamentary constituency articles have m-dashes in their titles. User:Zoe|(talk) 17:12, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
Is there an official WP policy on this? --213.155.224.232 19:49, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
- Found it: At WP:MOSDASH is mentioned: Hyphens and dashes are generally rather avoided in page names (e.g., year of birth and death are generally not used in a page name to disambiguate two people with the same name). (...)If hyphens and dashes are needed to write a page name correctly (e.g., Piano-Rag-Music, Jack-in-the-box, Nineteen Eighty-Four), prefer simple hyphens, and avoid hair spaces, even in the odd case of a range forming part of the title, e.g., History of the Soviet Union (1985-1991). --213.155.224.232 20:35, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
- Good job finding it, yeah it is an Manual of Style thing. Arjun 20:37, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
- Well, we're going to have to do something about all of the articles at List of Canadian federal electoral districts. User:Zoe|(talk) 22:39, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
hi
What is the meaning of computer? What is the four basic components of computer?
- Have you tried Wikipedia's Reference Desk? They specialize in knowledge questions, and will try to answer any question in the universe (except how to use Wikipedia, since that's what this Help Desk is for). Just follow the link, select the relevant section, and ask away. I hope this helps. You might also want to try reading computer. --ais523 12:24, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
- This sounds a lot like a homework question. Try reading the article on computers and then come back if you don't understand something. I'm pretty sure you will find the four basic components in there. I'm not sure what you mean by "the meaning of computer". - Mgm|(talk) 12:31, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
You might get better luck by asking the question at the Computing Reference Desk itself. --JDitto 03:08, 17 January 2007 (UTC)
Email obfuscation
I add a picture taken by a friend and I gave their email address without obfuscation it by writing dot for . and at for @. The page with the email address is here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:RealityCheckpoint.jpg#Summary
I tried to change the email address but now its in the File History section.
Help! how do I get rid of it and save my friend from spam?
Thanks in advance. JP —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Joosypigeon (talk • contribs) 13:31, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
- The only way I can think of is to have the file deleted, then reupload it with a different summary. If you add {{db-author}} to the page, an admin will come along and delete it, and you can reupload the file. --Sam Blanning(talk) 13:35, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
Unexplained deletions of posts on discussion pages
Twice now posts have been deleted from discussion pages and the edit history shows that I did it. Neither time did I do anything that should have had this result, at least as far as I know. Is this a common bug in the Wikipedia program or am I making a common mistake? SmithBlue 14:21, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
- Most likely, you're going to the page via the history or a diff, and your timing's sufficiently unlucky that you open an old version of the page just after a new one's been saved. As this is the method used to revert an edit, the software removes the previous edit. You then add your comment and save, and apparently nothing is wrong (because reverts can't lead to an edit conflict). In order to stop this happening:
- Use the 'edit this page' button or a section-edit link if you're editing a page, not the (edit) links on a diff, and
- Check for a warning above the edit box that tells you you're reverting (it looks like this:
- and will be quite obvious on many, but not all, browsers). --ais523 14:36, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
- Thanks - I'm lucky this is virtual or I think I'd eventually be lynched if I kept up doing things the old way. SmithBlue 14:51, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
Quicky
I'm editing List of United Kingdom locations and some of it's children articles. I have split the Ha-Hh article into two articles, but I need to change the little banner at the top of all these related articles to reflect the new division. I do not know how to do this. --Acewolf359 16:59, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
- If you edit a page with the banner on and scroll right to the bottom of the page (past the box of characters), you'll see a list of all the templates used on that page. You can click on one in the list and edit it from there, and it will change on all the articles that use it. --ais523 17:18, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
prefix
In the word preserve is pre- a prefix?65.70.71.125
- No. It's a derivation of preserve as in to preserve something. For future reference, questions such as this belong in the Reference Desk: the Help Desk is about solving Wiki-related issues. Adrian M. H. 17:08, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
WP:AN/I programming question
After reading through a post by user JzG,[1] I sudenly wondered; is there a flaw in the way we post at AN/I board? What would happen if someone create another account or posted annonymously purposelly impersonating an administrator? For example, let's take my friend JzG. If I user:CyclePat decided to start a new thread called User is Sockpuppeteering and needs block but impersonated my friend by signing at the end his name. I decided to test the theory by doing the first step and starting a new tread (On my user talk page).[2]
The rest of the comments on this subject can be found on my User talk page. --CyclePat 17:04, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
- Impersonation of an admin would have been a serious offence (if you hadn't gone to the trouble to make it clear what you were doing). The signature in itself doesn't cause anything to happen. If a user did maliciously impersonate someone on WP:AN/I, it's likely that someone would notice (because the user who actually made the edit is displayed in history and on watchlists), and the edit would be marked as having a fake signature (more or less like happened on your user talk page). --ais523 17:16, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
Protection
How do I request protection for an article? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Saintjimmy777 (talk • contribs) 17:20, 11 January 2007 (UTC).
Historic Photos in NA Kew - Copyright Experiences?
Historic Photographs in UN National Archive Kew. Relating to this page & discussion - please see:-
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Cornwall_Railway_viaducts
This well-drafted artcle that is currentluy bare of illustrations, but I know there are exellent ones in the UK NA Kew. Do any editors have experience of using these? Are there likely to be great Copyright difficulties? They are likely to be more than 70 years old, and orginally possibly copyright of the GWR. Now curated by the NA, of course, who will have their own rules.
If there is a possibilty of using them, I am willing to do the legwork.
Goodbye, Dendrotek 17:23, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
Harassment
An inappropriate comment was place in my talk page, most likely by an admin. It was unsigned, and said "Stop being a d***." How do I track down who did this? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Saintjimmy777 (talk • contribs)
- Why do you think it was most likely an admin? Notinasnaid 17:28, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
- You click on the 'history' tab of your talk page, which lists all the editors who have been on that page. The 'diff' links let you see the individual edit. Strangely, you seem to have added the message yourself, probably by mistake, so you're probably safe in deleting it again. Hope that helps! --ais523 17:30, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
Oh, sorry for that. My buddy knows my password to this account. He must've done it as a joke. Thanks for your help.
- In that case, I'd recommend changing your password (via Special:Preferences). If more than one person knows a password to an account, it can lead to problems with copyright when it's not certain who made an edit. --ais523 17:39, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
- Puerile behaviour reflects badly on you when it looks as if you were responsible, and is not appropriate on Wikipedia (or anywhere else, IMO), so you should certainly change your password and - in this instance - delete that comment. Adrian M. H. 17:43, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
Page protection
How do I go about protecting a page from anonymous vandalism? In particular, this page: Tenderloin, San Francisco, California
An individual regularly attempts to sneak in a link to his commercial website (tenderloin.net). This person inserts the link and then makes other edits to hide his sneakiness. It's sort of a chore to clean up all the time, and I think locking this page for anonymous edits would be a good idea. Please help =)
- You want to request semi-protection; the page for protection requests is Wikipedia:Requests for page protection (WP:RFPP). Hope that helps. --ais523 17:58, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
- However, an article won't usually be protected because of only one link. Warn the user by posting {{test3}} or one of the other warning templates, and if it persists contact an admin to have the user temporarly blocked. Bjelleklang - talk Bug Me 18:00, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
- The problem is that it's not a user, per se ... just an IP address.
- It's hard to get a semi-protection just to stop one user. If he persists, get him banned. Xiner (talk, email) 19:03, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
- The problem is that it's not a user, per se ... just an IP address.
- However, an article won't usually be protected because of only one link. Warn the user by posting {{test3}} or one of the other warning templates, and if it persists contact an admin to have the user temporarly blocked. Bjelleklang - talk Bug Me 18:00, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
Alright, it was denied ... but thanks anyway =)
Tenderloin.net is NOT a commercial website. Open your eyes and try reading it before you speak.
Can't colonize a cat
In User:SebastianHelm/watchlist/lk, I have several links like [[:Category:War crimes in Sri Lanka]]. I would expect them to show up as normal links, but instead they show up only in the header, as if I had not put a colon in front. What's wrong? (See history for a couple things I tried in vain.) — Sebastian 18:42, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
- Yeah, that's weird. Could it have anything to do with the fact that pages in user space act differently? CfD pages contain tons of such links without problems. Xiner (talk, email) 19:33, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
- I found the problem: There were some hidden characters before the colons. The way I found it was: I copied the text in notepad, saved, and then it asked me if I wanted to ignore the Unicode characters. When I reopened the file, it showed question marks before the colons for most of the cats, and after the colon for the one cat that was displayed correctly. Not sure what these characters were, though. — Sebastian 21:04, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
Two very different questions..
1) I am under the belief that a wikipedia article on a certain amateur song maker is an autobiography..it isnt written by one but the original creator of the article has the same name as the article. also one of the links is to myspace. anything i can add the article (i couldnt find a tag)?
2) Is there a way to be notified when an article is changed..like one that is often changed so i can see them easily..like an expanded watchlist (which i dont find too useful)
many thanks Fethroesforia 19:03, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
- Uncontraversial articles that should be deleted can be tagged with {{prod|reason for deletion}}. Otherwise, you can bring it to WP:AFD. WilyD 19:09, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
- {{Autobiography}} also exists as a maintenance template. If the biography has no assertion of notability at all (as autobiographies often do), {{db-bio}} may be used to tag it for deletion.
- I don't really understand 2) - showing when an article has been changed is exactly what the watchlist does. Could you be more specific about what you want? --Sam Blanning(talk) 19:11, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
- If you want to see every change to some articles, rather than just the most recent, then you could make links to them on a page (possibly a user subpage) and use the 'related changes' function of that page. --Cherry blossom tree 19:37, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
Editing
How do I add a superscript referencing a web page?
- If you're asking about how to cite a source after a sentence, have a look at WP:FOOTNOTE. A variety of templates for citing different kinds of sources are also available at Template:Cite. Trebor 21:32, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
- The simple answer is to put your URLs in <ref>...</ref>, but yeah, to be more helpful to other editors, read those pages. Xiner (talk, email) 23:02, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
Nightmare
Hello. I have been working on an article called Portrayal of Women in Comic Books. After making an edit, I found something horrible. If you scroll down on the page, the font size gets smaller and smaller. I do not know how this happened. Your help is desparately needed!!! Maple Leaf 21:44, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
- Look for problems like this one
<blockquote>'''Odin:''' "Now rise God of Thunder. In thy heart of hearts, thou knowest godhood was not for one such as she." <ref>”A World Gone Mad”, Journey Into Mystery, Stan Lee, 1965 </blockquote> <ref>”To Become an Immortal”, Thor, p .12, Stan Lee, 1967 </ref>.
Two ref tags, /blockquote inside the reference. Notinasnaid 21:56, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
- Erm, isn't writing Women with a capital letter a WP:MOS violation? I think it should've been called Portrayal of women in Comic Books. - Mgm|(talk) 23:19, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
- So is writing Comic Books. Portrayal of women in comic books is where it should be at. And there it is! Zunaid©® 09:20, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
Signitures
How do I make one of those signitures that can link to my talk page and look diffrent than normal ones? Thanks--ASDFGHJKL 23:10, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
- Read this page, but you can always hit the "edit" button and copy the signature you like, then change the names from that person to yours. Xiner (talk, email) 23:13, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
- (after confict):
- Have a look at WP:SIG#Customizing_your_signature, basically you just use regular wiki markup like you do when editing, and paste it into the box at Special:Preferences
:)
— Deon555talkdesksign here! 23:15, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
- Don't use images! Arjun 23:22, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
As of - template or similar?
Is there a template or something to mark facts "as of (date)?"Garrie 23:23, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
- Wouldn't it be simpler to just state the date and not worry about the formatting problems associated with templates? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Xiner (talk • contribs).
I understood (maybe wrongly!) that it's purpose was to help track down time-sensitive facts which may need to be re-confirmed periodically. Hey, if I knew what I was talking about I wouldn't be here!Garrie 23:53, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
- Generally, that's only necessary for internet links used as sources. In which case, the reference link at the bottom would just have that info appended to the description. There's no special template for it. Take a look at the Wendy's References section for an example. -- Kesh 01:15, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
- Thanks, I hope that's what I remember seeing... at least you seem to have confirmed, I haven't been doing anything wrong!Garrie 01:54, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
Deleting history
Is there a way to delete my history? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 24.15.67.23 (talk • contribs).
- Generally, admins do not do that. Xiner (talk, email) 23:29, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
- Assuming you are talking about the history of an article, this is vary rarely done. See Wikipedia:Oversight. Dar-Ape 23:33, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
- Admins however are generally happy if you are the author of a revision to delete just that specific revision. It's similar to oversight, except oversight hides the revision from everyone. Admin-delete-restore hides it from editors only (admins and above can still see it on demand) — Deon555talkdesksign here! 23:38, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
- Assuming you are talking about the history of an article, this is vary rarely done. See Wikipedia:Oversight. Dar-Ape 23:33, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
January 12
Problem creating an article
I want to create an article for the Greek organization "The Tabard" - but when I try to create a new page, an edit page for the already existing (but totally unrelated) article for "The Tabard" comes up, since it has the same name.
I was hoping it would lead me to a disambiguation page, or that I might be able to find "The Tabard" as a red link so that I could create the article from an existing link, but I couldn't find one.
How do I create an article entitled "The Tabard" about the organization, without overwriting the existing (unrelated) article?
- Create a "The Tabard (Greece)" page or something similar, then place a "See also" disambig link at the top of the current page. If you feel your organization is what most people mean when they use the term, you may want to negotiate a move on their discussion page. Xiner (talk, email) 00:11, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
What on Earth?
I've got the "new messages" bar despite the fact that they are, in fact, old messages which I have seen several times. I know about clearing the cache (which I have done, both with control+shift+R and manually, through the options menu [I'm running Firefox]) and yet the little orange bar keeps bugging me. What's going on?--69.144.234.146 00:49, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
- Are you seeing this on only your talk page, or your watchlist as well? If the former is the case, then it may be a fake banner that has been placed there (check the diffs). Adrian M. H. 21:09, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
My too. I've got the "new messages" bar, and I've read those messages, AND they're for an IP address that isn't mine! -- 12 January 2007 (UTC) (why isn't this anywhere to copy and paste from?!)
- Answering one of my own questions... the IP address that gets logged isn't the IP address of my machine; it's a machine in the same subnet as our router, which appears to be in a completely different xxx.yyy.zzz network. At least, the IP address of my computer aaa.bbb.ccc.nnn, and the IP address two hops up in the traceroute is a machine called router1.example.com, with IP address xxx.yyy.zzz.ppp, where what is getting logged is xxx.yyy.zzz.qqq. Jibber jabber.—Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.132.187.240 (talk • contribs) 20:08, January 12, 2007
Removal of warning templates
I placed a warning template onto an editor's Talk page earlier today, after the editor made a rather blatant and racist edit to a page. This editor has since removed the warning from their page and, after I reverted & asked them not to do it again, they removed it a second time with no explanation.
I know there's no set policy on this, but is there anything else I should do? Or should I just let it go? -- Kesh 00:49, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
- It would be helpful to know who said user is, but generally you should give them a warning for removing the other warnings (there's a template for it, but I don't remember what it is), and if they continue, report them to Administrators against vandalism. --69.144.234.146 00:56, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
- You may want to watch the user. If it's a one-off, then no harm done. If the person persists, you can ask for AIV then. Xiner (talk, email) 00:57, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
- The warning-removal-warning templates referred to above ({{wr}} etc) were deleted, and there is no real consensus about what to do about warning removals. Plenty of discussion can be found at Wikipedia:Centralized discussion/Removing warnings and other places. Instead of the warning removal, you should probably focus on subsequent acts of vandalism or policy violation. -- zzuuzz (talk) 01:08, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
- Thanks for the advice, folks. The user in question doesn't seem to be a rampant vandal, but I'll keep an eye out. The strange thing is that I'm seeing the same racist vandalism from various accounts to this one article (Evil). I'll just check the user's edits periodically. -- Kesh 01:19, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
Up-loaded Ogg Theora video does not run
I have recently joined Widipedia and created an article containing up-loaded .png images and an ogg video clip. However, the video does not run. I can view animations in other articles but they are .gif animations, which are no longer being allowed for up-load (please correct me if I am misinformed). Do I need an ogg-friendly player on my PC to see it run or should the clip run off of an application hosted on the wiki server - that is, is the problem with my syntax, perhaps the file itself or missing software at my end? I have searched all the faq's and related help topics I can find. Thanks for any help you can offer. Tano 01:24, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
- See Wikipedia:Media help. Yes, you will need to install an OGG video player to actually see the video itself. -- Kesh 03:17, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
- Thanks for the info. Regarding installing an ogg player (mplayer for example) - when I go to the mplayer website they say that you should be in a developer environment with compilers and other development tools loaded on your computer in order to install their player. I am not one of these (the ogg file that I am working with was converted from an avi by a helpful friend). These are not user-friendly installations and so, I submit, the vast majority of Wikipedia users will not have access to ogg animations as they browse articles. Does this concern wikipedians? Can you confirm that gif animations are no longer permitted (except grandfathered ones) or up-loadable to Wikipedia? Tano 15:49, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
- Try VLC media player which runs on most systems.Geni 15:54, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
- Thank you for the recommendation - I will certainly try it. Tano 20:31, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
- Try VLC media player which runs on most systems.Geni 15:54, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
- Thanks for the info. Regarding installing an ogg player (mplayer for example) - when I go to the mplayer website they say that you should be in a developer environment with compilers and other development tools loaded on your computer in order to install their player. I am not one of these (the ogg file that I am working with was converted from an avi by a helpful friend). These are not user-friendly installations and so, I submit, the vast majority of Wikipedia users will not have access to ogg animations as they browse articles. Does this concern wikipedians? Can you confirm that gif animations are no longer permitted (except grandfathered ones) or up-loadable to Wikipedia? Tano 15:49, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
Tracking an IP
There's a user who persistently removes speedy delete tags, recently another user whose only contrib is to remove the warning appeared, likely sockpuppet, but I want to track the ip to make sure. Is there a way to do so? DoomsDay349 01:25, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
- If it's a registered user, you have to file a complaint and a steward will be able to do a lookup. If it's an anon IP, your only recourse is to get it banned through something like WP:AIV. Xiner (talk, email) 01:30, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
- Argh... well 99% chance that it's a sockpuppet, so I don't think I have much to worry about. DoomsDay349 01:36, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
debugger
how do I delete the debugger?
- What debugger are you referring to? -- Kesh 02:15, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
Signitures...Again
Sorry, but I used the pages that I was given and everything went smoothly. I put it onto my prefrences and it looks like this with it as my signiture.
- --''[[User: ASDFGHJKL|ASDFGHJKL=[[User talk:ASDFGHJKL|Greatest Person Ever]]+[[Special:Contributions/ASDFGHJKL|Coolest Person Ever]]'']] 02:00, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
But when I just paste paste the signiture somewere, it looks like it should, like this
Thank you. ASDFGHJKL 21:00 (EST), 1\11\07
- Did you check the box that says "Use raw signature"? Xiner (talk, email) 02:07, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
- Nope, I didn't think of that. Thank you. --ASDFGHJKL=Greatest Person Ever+Coolest Person Ever 02:17, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
- That is the most POV signature I've ever seen. ;) -- Kesh 03:19, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
- Nope, I didn't think of that. Thank you. --ASDFGHJKL=Greatest Person Ever+Coolest Person Ever 02:17, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
Article written like advertisement, but other editors blocking tag and personally attacking rather than fixing
The Learjet 35/36 article is written as a list of personal specs on the plane. The article's editors admist that this is so, however the article is not titled "List of spec of Learjet 35/36," but rather has pretentions of being an article about the jet. I tagged it with a "this article reads like an advertisement" tag, as it does. However, this tag was removed and a group of editors contacted each other and are currently pretty much ganging up on me to keep the tag off the page. I would like the tag replaced, so that someone who understand the general purpose use of Wikipedia and knows about Learjet 35/36s, or someone willing to do the proper research, will rewrite the article to better fit the Wikipedia intentions. I have put specific comments on the talk page. I tagged it, it was reverted, I explained my reasons and asked for the tag to be replaced, instead I am being attacked. What am I supposed to do now, admit defeat and allow a list of jargon-laden specs written for potential buyers of the airplane to pass for an article? Advice would be appreciated. KP Botany 03:29, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
- Which part of the article do you believe reads as an advertisement? -- Kesh 04:01, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
- The whole article was an advertisement, although it's being changed, but not particularly well. One editor admitted it was simply a list of specs, not an article, another who is more experienced in airplanes than I am (I'm not) admitted that it simply looked like it had been copied from the Learjet site. So, that it's an advertisement is not at issue, what's at issue is that instead of being corrected, discussing corrections, dicussiong the issue, the article, the talk page has turned into a special uses page for taking potshots at me for having the gall to tag the article. Now I'm accused, essentially, of acting in bad faith by tagging the article to begin with. If tags are meant to be placed on articles that need attention from editors, maybe someone could warn us new folks around here that they shouldn't be used, and delete them from all the Wikipedia articles? I believe the tag should stay up until the article reads like an article, and other plane articles are just as bad, some worse, and they need tagged and corrected. KP Botany 14:44, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
- Without researching the History in-depth, it really depends on when you were adding the tag. Also note that simply listing the specs of, say, an automobile as an entire article does not constitute said article reading as an advertisement. If the article contained phrases such as "the Flumph 250 Roadster's innovative automatic handling sytem offers smooth cornering," that would be 'reading as an advertisement'. If it simply says, "the Flumph 250 Roadster includes an automatic handling adjustment system, which improve cornering over normal shock absorbers alone," that would just be a statement which needs citation.
- As it stands, the article doesn't need the tag now. There's a couple statements that need reworded and/or citations, but the tag would be inappropriate. It may be that you re-added the tag after someone made the effort of removing the advertising-like phrases, and they objected to that. -- Kesh 21:11, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
- No, I didn't, I replaced it before hand. And that still isn't the point. KP Botany 22:04, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
- Skip it, it's a jargon-laden completely unusable article written as a technical specifications brochure, but that appears to be what Wikipedia wants. KP Botany 22:24, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
- No, I didn't, I replaced it before hand. And that still isn't the point. KP Botany 22:04, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
- The whole article was an advertisement, although it's being changed, but not particularly well. One editor admitted it was simply a list of specs, not an article, another who is more experienced in airplanes than I am (I'm not) admitted that it simply looked like it had been copied from the Learjet site. So, that it's an advertisement is not at issue, what's at issue is that instead of being corrected, discussing corrections, dicussiong the issue, the article, the talk page has turned into a special uses page for taking potshots at me for having the gall to tag the article. Now I'm accused, essentially, of acting in bad faith by tagging the article to begin with. If tags are meant to be placed on articles that need attention from editors, maybe someone could warn us new folks around here that they shouldn't be used, and delete them from all the Wikipedia articles? I believe the tag should stay up until the article reads like an article, and other plane articles are just as bad, some worse, and they need tagged and corrected. KP Botany 14:44, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
Christian magazine deleted by professed atheist.
An article on a very important magazine contributing to Christian living and discussion - WHOLE Magazine - was deleted by professing atheist.
There was sufficient information and logic to support the inclusion of the article. I have done some investigation of my own. Other magazines similar in circulation, premier and notability have been submitted without controversy. The difference in the magazines is in the content.
How will this issue be handled? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Lillietrotter (talk • contribs).
- It appears to have been deleted three times by three different admins. If you disagree with the deletion, and can make a strong case for it indeed being a notable publication, and not a conflict of interest (i.e. you are not yourself personally involved in the magazine), I suggest taking it to Deletion Review. By the way, the deletion reasons given had nothing to do with the religious belief of the deletor -- please be cautious about making ad hominem assumptions. Hope this helps, Antandrus (talk) 04:51, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
Where do Templates come from?
If I want to question the content of or suggest a change to a template, where would I go to do that? Specifically the Template:Biome includes Riparian as an Aquatic biome, but I believe it is more properly a Terrestrial biome. Also, I think the template could be improved by listing the various Biomes in order (according to whatever scheme) rather than the present (what appears to me to be) random order. Thanks! -- Newbie Mpwrmnt 06:29, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
- Go to Template:Biome and you will be able to discuess this on the template's discussion page - or just make the changes yourself. --Kainaw (talk) 06:34, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
- Ha! That was easy! Thanks! ~ Mpwrmnt 08:16, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
Subject / headlines on Talk Pages (or the lack thereof)
I have noticed that if you are the first person to make a comment on a Talk Page, the instructions say to just type in the box below, etc. But if you do that, your comment will not have a Subject / headline (unless you manually enter it with the ==x== function). However if, instead of following the instructions, you simply click on the + next to edit this page, the Subject/headline box automatically appears! So I guess my suggestion (and I don't know where else to propose it, hence I come to the lovely people on the Help Desk!) is that "we" either change the instructions to tell people to click on the + next to edit this page, rather than just typing in the box below, OR change the format of the page, so that it automatically includes a Subject/headline box. I KNOW that can be done, because when you click on Click here to ask your question about using Wikipedia, as I just did, the page that comes up DOES have a Subject/headline box! As always, thanks for your help! ~Newbie Mpwrmnt 07:33, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
Userpage
How to set up a user page?
- Create an account, log in, click the top left-most link and edit like you would any other page, keeping in mind Wikipedia:User page. I recommend you don't start one until you've committed some time to the project, otherwise your setting up a userpage might be seen as an attempt to use Wikipedia as a free webhost which is forbidden by WP:NOT. - Mgm|(talk) 10:28, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
study in finland
i want to study in finland
- Good luck, have fun. ViridaeTalk 09:34, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
- Bit chilly, but the people are nice. Adrian M. H. 21:13, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
Latest IT trends
Hi
How can I come to know about the latest trends using Wiki? How are the topics covered? for ex. if my search goes for programming, how would wiki help to me to access the latest developments goin on?
Thanks
Shekhar
(Deleted; not a request for help) Xiner (talk, email) 15:43, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
help
an HouseOfScandal are having a dispute over Party and Play he keeps on gutting my edits, not letting me change any wording, he says im "fucking up the article" and he removed content w/o using edit summaries very well.qrc2006/email 13:48, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
- Civility could help a lot here; I've posted at both user talk pages. -- Natalya 13:59, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
Turning parts of the same string into both an external and internal link
Hello,
I'm new to editing and have run into a funny little gotcha which is probably something I'm:
(a) Not supposed to be able to do; or
(b) Too stupid to figure out.
In a new article I'm busy creating, I'd like to have the following text:
RFC 2832
That's easy enough. But now, I'd like for (only) the "RFC" part of that text to be an internal link to the existing Wikipedia article called "Request for Comments", and at the same time, for the whole string ("RFC 2832") to be an external link pointing to http://www.faqs.org/rfcs/rfc2832.html.
Hope this makes sense. If so, what do you suggest the best way would be to handle this? I'd really like to link to both the "RFC" part, so the reader can understand what an RFC is, as well as to the whole string, which is a page that exists outside of Wikipedia, but I don't think just duplicating the same thing is the best (and hopefully, only) course of action.
Thanks for your help!
P.S. I've noticed, upon previewing before I save this, that "RFC 2832" is automatically turned into an external link, pointing to http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc2832, interestingly enough. How does that work?
Xhantar 14:28, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
- Your request would look like this:
[[Request for Comments|RFC]] [http://www.faqs.org/rfcs/rfc2832.html 2832]
, which looks like this: RFC 2832. (There's no way to express in HTML the linking of the word RFC to two different places, and anyway it's not clear what would happen if you clicked on it if it could be linked like that, so it's linked internally and the 2382 to be linked externally). As for the automatic external link, some strings set off the code like that; the best-known example is probably something like ISBN 01-234-5678-9 (I just made that one up, it's probably not a real book). --ais523 14:37, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
- Thanks, ais523. That makes perfect sense.
- You've also inadvertently answered another question (they just don't stop coming, do they!) when I looked at the markup of your reply: How to include a "code sample" on a page, using <nowiki>.
<nowiki><nowiki></nowiki>
...hmm, this is fun! :P
- Cheers, have a great day. --Xhantar 15:02, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
Template "link"
In an edit I saw this added at the end of the article: {{Link FA|zh}}, just above the interwiki links (here). I've tried in vain to figure out what it does. Any clues? Notinasnaid 14:45, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
- It triggers a bit of coding in MediaWiki:Monobook.css that causes the bullet on the zh interwiki link to change into a star instead. --ais523 14:51, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
Thanks. It's now blindingly obvious that my problem was looking at Template:Link rather than Template:Link FA. Notinasnaid 14:57, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
help finding an article
About a month ago, I saw part of an article (while doing a search not on wilkipedia) about someone who stopped by the Erinsville General Store for some pulled pork sandwiches. I tried to read the article but had to get an account first. After a few failed attempts for some reason we could not get an account. I decided to revisit that article today...I set up n acount with no problems but cannot find that article. It is driving me nuts; I have to find out what the rest of the article says. You see, I am the owner of the store in the article and would love to see comments. Is there any way to locate this article?? Thanks for your help
- That sounds a bit non-encyclopedic. The only reference I find is Erinsville, Ontario [3]. Look in the article's history. Perhaps the bit's been reverted? Xiner (talk, email) 15:18, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
theatre origination
(Directing questioner to correct forum. Xiner (talk, email) 15:37, 12 January 2007 (UTC))
Sarah Dash article
Hi -
You put a box on top stating that there were no references for the article. I added sources, but I can't get rid of that box that says "This article lacks references."
Can you help? Thanks.
- Hi. Please see the history for that page for my response. Thanks. Xiner (talk, email) 16:21, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
Changing a Title - Move function
I cannot find the 'move' button to edit the title on the United States Visitor and Immigrant Status Indicator Technology page. Please help.
Thanks!—The preceding unsigned comment was added by Mgherty (talk • contribs) 16:39, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
- Your account is too new to move pages. The "move" button should appear in two days or so. Until then, you may request moves here. Happy editing, Kusma (討論) 16:46, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
New article
Hello, i'm new here and i would like to write a new article, but i don't were to do it. I'll hope you could help me. Thanks —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jamila513 (talk • contribs)
- You'll probably want to read Wikipedia:Your first article for some general tips, and then Help:Starting a new page. -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 17:27, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
- When you get to the specifics of writing a good article, if you happen upon any users that have specialist knowledge in your chosen subject, you might like to ask for help on their talk page. I'm sure they'll be glad to assist you. Also have a look at Wikipedia:WikiProject to see if there are any relevant WikiProjects where you could find assistance or collaboration. Adrian M. H. 21:19, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
Tanarus
I created this article for the computer game Tanarus [4] If I search for "Tanarus" it redirects me to this page [5] Should I put a link on the 2nd link to the article I wrote like is done here [6] ? Or do something else? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Kcpdad (talk • contribs)
- Yep, that's exactly what you should do. If you want more information, you can read about disambiguation top links. Let me know if you need any help, or have any questions. -- Natalya 18:22, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
How do I center a text?
I'm writing a userbox and would like to have the text centred. Been searching but can't find a code for that. How do I do it? Thanks Crazy Murdoc 19:07, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
- The good old HTML code <center>...</center> will do. Xiner (talk, email) 19:13, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
- Thanks man, that worked...Crazy Murdoc 19:25, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
John Vanderleest
The fact that the article on John Vanderleest was erased is ridiculous. I demand that it is brought back, for the fact that it is all true.
- Please go to Wikipedia:Deletion review. Thank you. Xiner (talk, email) 20:05, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
- "True" it may have been - having not seen it, I can't comment on that - but was it notable and well sourced? No-one can simply "demand" that an article be reinstated. Adrian M. H. 21:28, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
- "John was first elected to his dual position when he was only 9 years old" sounds quite hoaxy. To give it a chance of of being undeleted, you need a source to back that up. Otherwise the article isn't verifiable. If you can verify, I find that quite notable, but other opinions may vary. - Mgm|(talk) 22:29, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
- For reference, the AfD is here. Looks pretty clear-cut to me. -- Kesh 01:06, 13 January 2007 (UTC)
How do i make propostion on wikipedia
Is there a discussion page wich is dedicated to propositions to improve wikipedia? Z E U S 20:00, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
- State it here. Someone will direct you to the relevant place. Xiner (talk, email) 20:06, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
I was willing to make the proposal that , since english is the most edited language , it would be approriate to synchronise the english language with all the other languages. This can simply be done by indicating with a banner in the discusion page that this article could need some syncronisation with other languages. This is also true for article that are already present in the other language but that lack the amount of information or isn't updated as much as in the english version of the article for instance. And finally , this proposal is also true for the contrary , articles that are more developed in other languages could get this banner in order to improve the english language if it isnt specified. In that banner itself , a langue ,or more could be specified for synchronising , or even no language could be specified in the case that this article is only in the present language. Assistance with tranduction software is also another way of translation , as long as the user puts attention to the translation and makes sure that the article makes sense. Z E U S 20:21, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
- I'll admit I'm too lazy to search but I've seen templates like that. As for listing pages available in other languages, check out the left column on the page Baiji and the code at the bottom of the page (or Wikipedia:Interlanguage links). Xiner (talk, email) 21:10, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
- Right, it sounds like a template would be just the thing for that. It's not automatic but, then again, it shouldn't be. "Better" is a subjective term. So, the template may be worded so that, "(Article) on (language) Wikipedia may have more information. Please help translate this information if you can!" It would, of course, need to be worded in the correct language for that Wikipedia. -- Kesh 21:24, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
I knew it's there; The last one looks good. Xiner (talk, email) 21:44, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
In this case , can i create another template .Am i allowed to create templates? Z E U S 22:04, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
- Sure can. It's a bit complicated, but you can read up on it at Help:Template. -- Kesh 22:18, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
Page keeps getting deleted - help?
I keep reposting the same topic Re: Pump music as nobody has talked about it, but it keeps getting deleted? Help? Thanks
- Please read Wikipedia:Deletion review. Thanks. Xiner (talk, email) 21:52, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
- There's a deletion criterion that allows the deletion of reposted material that was previously deleted. If I had to guess I suspect the problem was verifiability. - Mgm|(talk) 22:06, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
Song or single?
Is it ..example (song) or example (single). they are used interchangably, such as Mutter (song), Mutter (single). I know i should probably use the non redirect page but annoys me that theres a link page for songs and the (song) and (single) is used randomly Fethroesforia 22:41, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
- ...(song) is the standard title on Wikipedia, and for good reason. A single can later be released on an album, or already be on one. And really, it's a song, right? Xiner (talk, email) 22:45, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
Right:) the one i currently see..is as you say (song) but some..i think Schtiel might be one..where it is (single) for some reason..anyway..thank you :) Fethroesforia 22:48, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
- Be bold. When you see that, move it. Xiner (talk, email) 00:29, 13 January 2007 (UTC)
- In fact, Schtiel (single) redirects to Schtiel, which is even better because if there's no confusion that Schtiel refers to a song most of the time, then the simplest name should do. Xiner (talk, email) 00:31, 13 January 2007 (UTC)
Dreamgirls
Good Day,
I am a writer, editor and researcher. I have written many articles. I put a external link in Dreamgirls the film to my blog in which I am the writer/author.
I link has been removed. Why was my link removed? There are external links there from other blogs and even myspace. So why was my external link removed? Would you know? Please response. Thank you very much.. Yes and mines would be considered to be a fan blog and I am a writer. Here are the external links that are there right now and mines was removed.
Official DreamWorks/Paramount Dreamgirls feature film website Dreamgirls at the Internet Movie Database Official Dreamgirls profile at MySpace Dreamgirls reviews at Metacritic Dreamgirls at Rotten Tomatoes Dreamgirls at Box Office Mojo Dreamgirls fan blog Dreamgirls trailers at Apple.com Dreamgirls reviews at Spill.com Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dreamgirls_%28film%29"—Preceding unsigned comment added by Uniqueinvest (talk • contribs) 18:37, January 12, 2007
- Blogs are not considered verifiable sources of information. Of the links you list, the "Dreamgirls fan blog" is the only really objectionable one I see. The rest are either official pages or notable review sites. -- Kesh 00:25, 13 January 2007 (UTC)
- Per policy one fan site is allowed. See WP:NOT. I'm not here to discuss which one deserves to be picked, though. The article's talk page may be a better forum for that. Xiner (talk, email) 00:28, 13 January 2007 (UTC)
- Ah, I had overlooked that in WP:NOT. Thanks! -- Kesh 00:37, 13 January 2007 (UTC)
- Per policy one fan site is allowed. See WP:NOT. I'm not here to discuss which one deserves to be picked, though. The article's talk page may be a better forum for that. Xiner (talk, email) 00:28, 13 January 2007 (UTC)
January 13
Image Uploading
I've never uploaded an image before, and I want to upload this for an article I've written. Can someone tell me what licenses I'd have to put on it? It's located here. Thank you. DoomsDay349 03:02, 13 January 2007 (UTC)
- Is anyone there? Has anyone been monitering the page for the last couple of hours? There's been no response...DoomsDay349 03:54, 13 January 2007 (UTC)
- Your comment was posted less than an hour ago. Be patient! A lot of Europeans are in bed by now, and Americans are either going to bed or just off work and having dinner.
- For the technical details on how to upload an image, see Help:Image. As for the licenses, it has to be freely available, but I don't have a link handy. I'll keep looking. -- Kesh 04:01, 13 January 2007 (UTC)
- Heh, sorry. Has it only been that long? I guess I'm used to faster replies. That's what you get for spoiling me! :) I was creating a really boring article in the meantime, endless bibliographing, if it's any excuse. I know how to upload it, but I'm unsure of what to tag it. The subject in question (Nancy Varian Berberick) owns the picture, but I'm not quite sure on the tag. DoomsDay349 04:04, 13 January 2007 (UTC)
- No problem. Here's an article on Wikimedia Commons, which is where most folks upload their images. Keep in mind that any image uploaded to Commons or Wikipedia itself needs to be either released under a free license (examples given in the article) or have explicit fair-use rationale given. It's always safest to use images released under a free license, so simple permission from the copyright holder won't work. Unless they're willing to release the image with one of the free copyright licenses, you're best off finding another image or creating one of your own. -- Kesh 04:09, 13 January 2007 (UTC)
- So where does this creative commons thing come into play? I noticed some other authors in the same genre are under that tag. God, images are very confusing. DoomsDay349 04:12, 13 January 2007 (UTC)
- Creative Commons licenses are some of the free licenses available. Basically, pictures, movies, etc. released under CC are freely available for other people to use. There may be a few restrictions, but Wikipedia wants everything to be as free as possible. -- Kesh 04:32, 13 January 2007 (UTC)
- So where does this creative commons thing come into play? I noticed some other authors in the same genre are under that tag. God, images are very confusing. DoomsDay349 04:12, 13 January 2007 (UTC)
- No problem. Here's an article on Wikimedia Commons, which is where most folks upload their images. Keep in mind that any image uploaded to Commons or Wikipedia itself needs to be either released under a free license (examples given in the article) or have explicit fair-use rationale given. It's always safest to use images released under a free license, so simple permission from the copyright holder won't work. Unless they're willing to release the image with one of the free copyright licenses, you're best off finding another image or creating one of your own. -- Kesh 04:09, 13 January 2007 (UTC)
- Heh, sorry. Has it only been that long? I guess I'm used to faster replies. That's what you get for spoiling me! :) I was creating a really boring article in the meantime, endless bibliographing, if it's any excuse. I know how to upload it, but I'm unsure of what to tag it. The subject in question (Nancy Varian Berberick) owns the picture, but I'm not quite sure on the tag. DoomsDay349 04:04, 13 January 2007 (UTC)
I've contacted the author and am awaiting response. DoomsDay349 04:36, 13 January 2007 (UTC)
Linsang
Is there anyway of requesting a picture for a page and if so how? TeePee-20.7 03:46, 13 January 2007 (UTC)
- Best thing to do is to post the request on the article's Talk page. The trouble is going to be finding a freely available one. -- Kesh 03:58, 13 January 2007 (UTC)
- What do you mean by finding a freely available one? — Preceding unsigned comment added by TeePee-20.7 (talk • contribs) 23:18, January 12, 2007 (UTC)
- Basically, the image has to be Public domain or licensed for free use, using things like GNU Free Documentation License, Creative Commons, etc. Basically, whoever created the image has to release it as freely available for anyone else to use. And most stuff on the Internet is not. See Wikimedia Commons for more info. -- Kesh 04:29, 13 January 2007 (UTC)
- So what your saying is if someone does find an image of a site they have to ask the owner of the site or whoever posted for permission to use it?, like they can't copy and paste. --TeePee-20.7 04:42, 13 January 2007 (UTC)
- Yes, basically, see Wikipedia:Image use policy. To request a picture take a look at this template and its talk page. -- zzuuzz (talk) 04:47, 13 January 2007 (UTC)
- Thank you! I've been looking for those in all the wrong places. Your link-fu is strong. -- Kesh 04:50, 13 January 2007 (UTC)
- Quote: "like they can't copy and paste". I hope you don't actually do that. You're talking about other people's I.P. and in most countries, the law provides for the owners of such material to sue you for misuse. As a website designer, that sort of behaviour really annoys me. It's basically theft. As for Wikipedia; if you upload copyrighted material, Wikipedia becomes jointly liable, and it does not have a pot of money for making settlements. Adrian M. H. 12:41, 13 January 2007 (UTC)
- Thank you! I've been looking for those in all the wrong places. Your link-fu is strong. -- Kesh 04:50, 13 January 2007 (UTC)
- Yes, basically, see Wikipedia:Image use policy. To request a picture take a look at this template and its talk page. -- zzuuzz (talk) 04:47, 13 January 2007 (UTC)
- So what your saying is if someone does find an image of a site they have to ask the owner of the site or whoever posted for permission to use it?, like they can't copy and paste. --TeePee-20.7 04:42, 13 January 2007 (UTC)
- Basically, the image has to be Public domain or licensed for free use, using things like GNU Free Documentation License, Creative Commons, etc. Basically, whoever created the image has to release it as freely available for anyone else to use. And most stuff on the Internet is not. See Wikimedia Commons for more info. -- Kesh 04:29, 13 January 2007 (UTC)
- What do you mean by finding a freely available one? — Preceding unsigned comment added by TeePee-20.7 (talk • contribs) 23:18, January 12, 2007 (UTC)
Wikipedia largest website?
Is Wikipedia the largest website (by virtue of real disk space size and/or number of pages) on the Web? DragonRouge 08:02, 13 January 2007 (UTC)
- Since there are sites which use a copy of Wikipedia, and add more stuff from other places, it doesn't seem that this can be possible. In terms of disk space used, I suspect Google may take some beating. Notinasnaid 08:39, 13 January 2007 (UTC)
can this link be translated from italian to english?
http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/L%27Aura
ty in advance
benni @ (email removed)) -- 08:54, 13 January 2007 (UTC)76.175.253.226
- What you might want to do is bring a copy over to Wikipedia as-is and apply the Template:Notenglish template. That will add it to Category:Wikipedia articles needing translation, which will hopefully attract enough attention to get someone working on it. Note that if no one does so within two weeks, the article can be deleted, but it's at least a place to start if you don't speak Italian yourself.
- If you do speak some Italian, be bold! Even if your translation is spotty at best, it will at least get the article started on here. You can then put Template:RoughTranslation on there, and see if someone can help fix it. -- Kesh 23:20, 13 January 2007 (UTC)
conspiracy theories in an article 2nd attempt
I wrote: Someone is using Wiki to put forth his or her conspiracy theories in the article about the federal reserve system of the USA. The person is linking his own biased documents etc. How can I report this / can somebody do something about it?
Answer was: If you are certain that the subject is being put across in a misleading away, be bold and edit the article. If you think that might be controversial, post on the talk page first and have a discussion. Or you could post on the user in question's talk page, explaining why you think their documents are biased and should not be used as sources. Trebor 23:07, 10 January 2007 (UTC)
My answer: I did edit the article but the person always changes it back. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 80.218.153.176 (talk • contribs).
- Please see Wikipedia:Resolving disputes. The issue has been brought up on the talk page of the article, see Talk:Federal Reserve System. Discuss it there with other editors and if resolution cannot be obtained follow the steps described on the resolving disputes page. -- Rick Block (talk) 18:04, 13 January 2007 (UTC)
Moving a Talkpage only
Is it possible to move a talkpage without moving it's corresponding article page? The talkpage at Talk:Linksys iPhone is from when the article was at iPhone and mostly discusses the Apple iPhone. This is because the iPhone article was about the Apple iPhone and then was edited to be about the Linksys one. The previous iPhone article (Linksys ver) has been moved to Linksys iPhone, taking the talk with it. I would like to move the page Talk:Linksys iPhone to Talk:iPhone/Archive but without moving the article. JP Godfrey (Talk to me) 12:20, 13 January 2007 (UTC)
- I would suggest explaining the situation and that there was considerable discussion, on the talk page of iPhone, with a link to the old talk page. In other words, on the new talk page, state what's happened and have a link to the old talk page. Perhaps there is a template for this? I'm not sure. James086Talk | Contribs 12:33, 13 January 2007 (UTC)
- For the moment, until the naming dispute is resolved, we need to keep the Talk page for the Linksys iPhone with the Linksys iPhone page. Also, those discussions were with the article they're linked to now, so moving the whole page probably would be inappropriate. If there's discussions about the (then future) Apple iPhone on that page, it might be worthwhile to do a copy&paste archive into the Apple iPhone article's Talk page. See How to archive a talk page. -- Kesh 23:04, 13 January 2007 (UTC)
link a e-mail
how can i link a e-mail? --Maestrotaku 14:53, 13 January 2007 (UTC)
- In general, e-mail addresses should not be used in Wikipedia. In what context would you want to use it? Notinasnaid 15:23, 13 January 2007 (UTC)
how long does it take...?
thank you for the opporotunity to be a part of Wikipedia. I dont know if i am doing everything wright, i tryied to upload images and try again, how long does it take to upload to be aproved for these images? and what if one is too big, will you let me know..? thank you Sincerly Catherine Manna...House of Israel music
- There is no approval process (though unsuitable material may be deleted): images once uploaded are immediately available. Yours are there. I do see a some ppssible issues, looking at Image:Proverb maple leaf.jpg. This identifies a source, http://music.download.com/houseofisrael. However, I have visited this page and cannot find the original of this picture to check the copyright. You have also written "fair use", yet the license you have chosen is ", the creator of this work, hereby grant the permission to copy, distribute and/or modify this document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License". You will need to clarify this, or the image will be deleted. I we can help you if you explain more about it. Finally, though, it isn't obvious which article you plan to add these images to, since you haven't yet edited any articles. Maybe we can help you with that too. Notinasnaid 18:15, 13 January 2007 (UTC)
A bot account that isn't a bot?
I worry I am artifically inflating my edit count through mass WikiProject banner tagging and newsletter delivery. Would it be OK to create an account called Devbot, but to edit entirely by hand and AWB? I'm useless with scripts and find it helpful to go through everything personally, as it flags up other issues that need fixing. I don't want to mislead anyone, but I don't want to have hundreds of repetitive contributions either. Dev920 (Have a nice day!) 19:32, 13 January 2007 (UTC)
- You would need to read through the guidelines pages (there are more than one) about user accounts and sock puppetry, which I have not been able locate at this time, but you may well be able to create a second user account, as long as you give it a clear description on its user page, outlining what it is and is not used for and why it was created. That way, it should be clear that it is all above board and not an attempt at sock puppetry. If what you want to achieve can be done with a bot, you may be able to enlist the assistance of a bot expert - perhaps place the {{helpme}} template on your talk page. Adrian M. H. 20:10, 13 January 2007 (UTC)
- Cool. I guess even if it is named a bot name it still counts as a sockpuppet, so I'll mark it as such. Dev920 (Have a nice day!) 22:38, 13 January 2007 (UTC)
- What you're looking for is Bot policy. Just mark on the "bot" user page that it's not a live bot, but used for automated editing with AWB, then link it back to your own account. -- Kesh 23:07, 13 January 2007 (UTC)
- Cool. I guess even if it is named a bot name it still counts as a sockpuppet, so I'll mark it as such. Dev920 (Have a nice day!) 22:38, 13 January 2007 (UTC)
- I believe if it says bot, it should be a bot. But if you have a second account and you mark it as your account for doing those sort of things, I don't think that would violate policy. For one, you're not pretending you're a wholly different person if you stated it on the userpage of the 2nd account. Additionally, if you don't contribute to disputes/votes as the second account, there'd be no real sockpuppetry. .V. (talk) 06:29, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
Doukhobors
I have made revisions to this section, but when I closed it down and went back to access it, the changes disappeared. What do I need to do ensure the changes remain?
PS: How do I log in?
- It seems like you are viewing an old version of the page - if you are using Mozilla FireFox, press CONTROL + Reload Button (at top) and you should see your changes appear as they are presently.
- To log in, use the "log in/create account" button at the top right hand corner of the screen; of course, you need to create account if you have not already.
- For more, see Help:Logging in.
- Regards,
Anthonycfc [T • C] 20:01, 13 January 2007 (UTC)
how to receive the old Vmf Autosave if i have formated my copyrighted file of the map
hello there is my problem
i have formated my cpu and formated the maps too in my hammer.. so i dont have vmf .. but juste the BSP WITH COPYRIGHT ..
so i want to know if valve can send me the old autosaved files .. because there is online connection to join SDK i think there is too a save programm for all the users ..
or a method to decompile a copyrighted map ..
plz help i need to upgrade my online map !
- Sounds like you're wanting to talk to Valve Software. This page is for questions about Wikipedia itself. -- Kesh 23:10, 13 January 2007 (UTC)
Could someone block this user?
Garycocker...he left an obscene message on my tlk page and his edits have been vandalism to pages (usually right-ist political pages) i hope an admin is around to ban this person..(could not find an apporpriate tag to put on his talk page either) Fethroesforia 21:12, 13 January 2007 (UTC)
- List it on WP:AIV. Trebor 21:20, 13 January 2007 (UTC)
Where to go to ask for comments
RfC's are for conflict situations. How about if you just want feeback on a page? Sethie 22:40, 13 January 2007 (UTC)
- In that case, you're looking for Wikipedia:Peer review. -- Kesh 23:11, 13 January 2007 (UTC)
- Thank you! Sethie 23:47, 13 January 2007 (UTC)
Contents Box
I noticed many pages have a "Contents" box. I don't see any info about how to add it. Is it automatically generated" If so, what triggers the generation?
- It's automatically generated once you create the fourth section on the page using = symbols. -- Kesh 23:12, 13 January 2007 (UTC)
- See Help:Section. Two equals signs produces a level two heading (the first that you would use) with an underline, while three equals signs provides a level three heading, which appears in the TOC (Table of Contents) as a sub section. Adrian M. H. 15:53, 14 January 2007 (UTC)
Starting a WikiProject
I would like to know how a WikiProject can be started. I would like to start one for the Sonci the Hedgehog series and articles. GrandMasterGalvatron 22:45, 13 January 2007 (UTC)
- Wikiprojects are essentially user-made. You can read more about how to get started here. -- Kesh 23:13, 13 January 2007 (UTC)
- I have seen a console games WP somewhere, which you should fid listed at WP:WikiProject. It might be better to consult its members first, as your subject comes under their remit. Adrian M. H. 15:55, 14 January 2007 (UTC)
Date Error
Looks like we've got a problem with the dates here. The last date header is still just January 10th. Not sure who to notify of this one. -- Kesh 22:59, 13 January 2007 (UTC)
- Fixed by hand Cheers Lethaniol 23:57, 13 January 2007 (UTC)
Mod Please Delete Article
Some one please delete this article[7] because there is another one.
- Have redirected instead -see WP:redirect Cheers Lethaniol 01:05, 14 January 2007 (UTC)
January 14
wiki links on my userpage
I would like to put a link on my userpage to 'Articles with unsourced statements' and another to 'Help: Contents/links' everything I have tried so far has not worked, and I know someone out there is going to tell me it is easy just do this. Is there a dreaded list of the full names of internal pages and their shortened link titles Many thanks --Matt 01:02, 14 January 2007 (UTC)
- You want Category:Articles with unsourced statements for the first. Note that you have to put the ":Category:" part in front. This means the page is in Category space, instead of article space (aka "mainspace"), so it won't show up when folks do a normal search for articles. Same with the latter: Help:Contents/Links is in Help space, so you have to put the "Help:" in front. -- Kesh 01:14, 14 January 2007 (UTC)
Hm. Okay, the category isn't working. I'll have to look into that one. -- Kesh 01:16, 14 January 2007 (UTC)- Okay, not as nice, but this can work in a pinch.
I'm still not sure why it's not working in the first spot...-- Kesh 01:19, 14 January 2007 (UTC)
- Okay, not as nice, but this can work in a pinch.
- You have to put a colon before the name of the category or you'll include the page in the category instead of providing a link. --Sopoforic 01:22, 14 January 2007 (UTC)
- Aha! That's what I forgot. Thanks. -- Kesh 01:25, 14 January 2007 (UTC)
- Thank You Kesh and Soporific got it working now --Matt 01:44, 14 January 2007 (UTC)
- Aha! That's what I forgot. Thanks. -- Kesh 01:25, 14 January 2007 (UTC)
Current date!
Hello, I'm working on a WikiProject called Curent Local City Time (WP:CTT) And I'm having trouble with the date at the Ottawa article. The date says the 14th of January, when in fact we are still the 13th. Are there any specific instructions for date and time? --CyclePat 01:28, 14 January 2007 (UTC)
- What date are you referring to? Note your date/time right here. These things are going to show up on UTC, to keep a standard for everyone. And right now, it's the 14th in England, where that standard starts. -- Kesh 01:44, 14 January 2007 (UTC)
- I imagine it's the time that he put at the top of the Ottawa article, right under the disambig link. It needs manual updating through a purge though, so I'm not sure that it's a good idea. -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 01:51, 14 January 2007 (UTC)
- Note: I just removed it. See diff. -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 01:54, 14 January 2007 (UTC)
- I imagine it's the time that he put at the top of the Ottawa article, right under the disambig link. It needs manual updating through a purge though, so I'm not sure that it's a good idea. -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 01:51, 14 January 2007 (UTC)
login won't stick and cookies are enabled etc
I read your article carefully about login problems and still can't get my login to stick.
I signed up, created an account, and was sent an email enabling me to confirm my membership.
I seem to log in successfully using the userid and password. The banner at the top shows me logged in.
But as soon as I go to any page, including returning to the page I hoped to edit, I am told I must be logged in, and the top right area shows the "Sign in / create account" button. Refreshing the page does not help.
I have tried using both FireFox and MS IE 7.
Cookes are enabled on both.
My firewall is ZoneAlarm and en.wikipedia.org is a permitted site, including enabling of mobile code.
I have run out of options in your help files.
Any other ideas on things to try?
Thanks!
- What kind of connection are you using? Some folks on satellite connections have problems with this. In any case, try logging in through the secure login link and see if that helps. It's slower, but more stable. -- Kesh 01:45, 14 January 2007 (UTC)
Kesh,
Thanks - I am using HughesNet satellite access. That may be the problem, then.
... a little later - it worked! Using the secure login link kept me logged in and permitted me to edit pages under my login. Thank you very much for the help! This Help Desk works!
How can I get other editors or admins to monitor a discussion?
I feel that another editor is over-reacting to my reversion of a section he added to the Primal Therapy article. I felt it was poorly sourced. I think that my only mistake was to not carefully explain immediately all my reasons for reverting it. Since the editor in question admitted he would be further researching sources I suggested leaving it on the talk page until he had finished that research. I won't take such an easy out in future. In the meantime, it seems that I unleashed the furies and would appreciate it if some less involved people with experience in such matters would monitor the discussion on the article's talk page where I put the reverted section. GrahameKing 05:30, 14 January 2007 (UTC)
- You may wish to have a look at WP:RfC and/or Wikipedia:Resolving_disputes - Adrian M. H. 15:59, 14 January 2007 (UTC)
Bar charts and Javascript in article namespace
Is it possible to use js on article pages? If so, would you please point me in the right direction for guidelines. Alternatively, is there an exisiting template for generating bar charts in articles? Thanks you.
— Jim Dunning talk : 05:55, 14 January 2007 (UTC)
Image tagging
I have contacted an author about using her photo, and she has sent me one and stated "Feel free to use it on the wiki." It was a photo taken of her by a friend in a coffee shop. Should I put it under creative commons, public domain, or what? Thanks. DoomsDay349 06:29, 14 January 2007 (UTC)
- You shouldn't upload it. One, you have to be able to prove that there is permission, and two, even if you can, Wikipedia only permission isn't allowed. It has to be public domain, free licensed, or fair use. -Amarkov blahedits 06:31, 14 January 2007 (UTC)
- I can prove there is permission...I can show you the emails. But I understand. Isn't there tagging for images released to Wikipedia? DoomsDay349 06:35, 14 January 2007 (UTC)
- OK, she has explicitly states "I agree to release this photo into the public domain." Now, then, I can show you a record of the conversation if you need proof. Any way to prove this, tell me and I can. DoomsDay349 06:56, 14 January 2007 (UTC)
- I don't think you need to do more than upload the email conversation. Oral agreements don't work, though. -Amarkov blahedits 16:34, 14 January 2007 (UTC)
- It needs to be verifiable, which means the artist needs to release the image under one of the free licenses, and explicitly show that on a website with the image. That way, it's easily shown that the image is legitimately available to use on Wikipedia. Emails won't do. -- Kesh 17:46, 14 January 2007 (UTC)
- I don't think you need to do more than upload the email conversation. Oral agreements don't work, though. -Amarkov blahedits 16:34, 14 January 2007 (UTC)
- OK, she has explicitly states "I agree to release this photo into the public domain." Now, then, I can show you a record of the conversation if you need proof. Any way to prove this, tell me and I can. DoomsDay349 06:56, 14 January 2007 (UTC)
- I can prove there is permission...I can show you the emails. But I understand. Isn't there tagging for images released to Wikipedia? DoomsDay349 06:35, 14 January 2007 (UTC)
David Sekiguchi
David Sekiguchi is one of Japan's latest phenomenons. With his new hit singe "Can you guess" he has become the leading artist as far as record albums are concerned.
- Do you have a question? —Keakealani·?·!·@ 07:16, 14 January 2007 (UTC)
Thomas Bollinger Photographer
Thomas Bollinger Photographer b. August 3rd 1964, Washington D.C Education Parson's School of Design , The New School for Social Research Dubbed one of the last of the photographic cowboys by a recent critic of his work,
His body of portraits range from Tongan Princesses having tea in the South Pacific to Marine One and The President at the White House. Bollinger's portraits and landscapes grace Fortune 500 collections and private collector's homes worldwide. Pop Artist Peter Max has recently done a series of paintings based on and combined with his portraits. Starting off with a fine art education, years of printing for gallery and museum collections, and combined with his love of adventure travel and ironic satire his work is a rare glimpse of the frenetic heartbeat of contemporary society.
External Link:
[8] Official Site for American Photographer Thomas Bollinger
- This page is for asking questions about using Wikipedia. You seem to be in the wrong place. -- Kesh 07:42, 14 January 2007 (UTC)
Maybe not so much about using WP..
Does anyone have any input on a page I'd like to create but I'm not sure about it: Eye Color Generator. See the following: ECG. The current page of ECG on wiki links directly to Calgary Science School Which is only the school that the generator designers attend. I don't think thats the best place to link, but eye color doesn't do either. Any suggestions/comments? Please let me know on My Talk Page, otherwise I probably won't see it, as I'm no good at monitoriing my watchlist. Thanks, Ard0 (Talk - Contribs) 07:59, 14 January 2007 (UTC)
- You probably should not make a page for eye color generator. See WP:WEB for details. Also answered on talk page. --Sopoforic 09:23, 14 January 2007 (UTC)
Category Links
I want to link William D. Francis to Category: Australian botanists How do I do it? thanks--Matt 09:06, 14 January 2007 (UTC)
- Just put [[Category:Australian botanists]] at the bottom of the article. --Sopoforic 09:17, 14 January 2007 (UTC)
- Thanks again I was using the wrong sort of brackets--Matt 09:26, 14 January 2007 (UTC)
- Now William D. Francis is appearing in [[Category: Australian botanists]] but under surnames starting with "W"--Matt 09:33, 14 January 2007 (UTC)
- You needed to pipe the category link. For reference, this is what I am referring to [[Category:Australian botanists|Francis, William D.]]. Essentially what that does is it sorts the page under the correct letter, which in this case is the first letter of the last name, instead of the default sort action which is the first letter of the article name. Have a wonderful day and happy editing. Kyra~(talk) 09:53, 14 January 2007 (UTC)
- Thanks for the info and repair job, some days are all cruise and other days seem to be full of bumps--Matt 10:09, 14 January 2007 (UTC)
- You needed to pipe the category link. For reference, this is what I am referring to [[Category:Australian botanists|Francis, William D.]]. Essentially what that does is it sorts the page under the correct letter, which in this case is the first letter of the last name, instead of the default sort action which is the first letter of the article name. Have a wonderful day and happy editing. Kyra~(talk) 09:53, 14 January 2007 (UTC)
There is a new way to get pipe sorting by last name done automatically. I think you have to add something to the article page. Here we go: Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2007-01-02/Technology_report: "The default sort key of a page for categories can be changed using the new {{DEFAULTSORT}} magic word. For instance, on George Washington, {{DEFAULTSORT:Washington, George}} would cause a subsequent [[Category:United States presidents]] to be equivalent to [[Category:United States presidents|Washington, George]], not [[Category:United States presidents|George Washington]]. This is especially useful when the article belongs in many categories.(Rob Church, bug 5908, r18629)" - so you can put {{DEFAULTSORT:Francis, William D.}} (anywhere in the article, though putting it with the category tags would make sense) and then categorise away without pipesorting manually for that article. Carcharoth 20:19, 14 January 2007 (UTC)
Summary
How can i get summary on typhoons in Wiipedia?
- Since we are an encyclopedia, we have information on many things already written. Please see typhoon. Notinasnaid 09:24, 14 January 2007 (UTC)
hello
what is the real meaning of a professional nurse all around the world?124.217.69.242 10:14, 14 January 2007 (UTC)
- See the article Nurse. But notice: this is the help desk, which is meant for questions about using wikipedia. Questions seeking information belong at the appropriate reference desk. --Sopoforic 10:18, 14 January 2007 (UTC)
Slow Wiki Navigation
Can someone tell me why my wikipedia navigation has slowed right down, sometimes not responding at all, on external sites it is as fast as ever.--Matt 10:15, 14 January 2007 (UTC)
- More detail the most difficult page to get to is this one --Matt 10:51, 14 January 2007 (UTC)
- It isn't slow for me right now, and this page doesn't mention unreasonable slowness. It's possible that there's just a little trouble somewhere between wikipedia and you, which should (hopefully) resolve itself after a few hours. --Sopoforic 11:01, 14 January 2007 (UTC)
Bot
What is a bot? - Patricknoddy 7:52am, January 14, 2007
- A bot is a software program designed to do repetitive tasks that are too tedious for humans to do themselves. See WP:BOT for a description of bots on Wikipedia. Cheers, Tangotango (talk) 12:56, 14 January 2007 (UTC)
- You can also have a look here – m:Using the python wikipediabot. Regards, — Nearly Headless Nick 12:57, 14 January 2007 (UTC)
ASTROLOGY
I am interested in studying Vedic Astrology.Looking for Free lessons
- You would be better off asking this question at the appropriate section of the Reference desk. The Help desk is for questions about using Wikipedia itself. --Tkynerd 15:54, 14 January 2007 (UTC)
My Signature
Hi there, I am having a few problems with my signature. When I sign some some wikipedia talk pages my signature is not displaying correctly, it's doing This (I warned this user using vandal proof). On some wikipedia talk pages, I sign with three tildes and it keeps going weird and making some of the date go on to a second line. I used to sign with four tildes but when I made my own advanced signature with help from this user I only had to sign with three and it was fine, but I rcently totally changed my signature so it looks different and ever since then it's been going totally weird. On my User Page its displaying the date in light green even though it displays black on other pages and it generally seems to be a mess and I require help to fix it. It doesn't always go funy though just on certain pages. I hope you can help!. Incase you need it my signature page can be found here and it is subst' on my user preferences, so I am not sure whats going wrong.
Tellyaddict Talk 14:33 14 January 2007 (UTC)
- Not to be mean or anything, but that is not a very good signature, and goes against the spirit of WP:SIG. The inclusion of a broken <noinclude> tag, in particular, is extremely worrisome. Please stop using this signature immediately; the best signatures are the shortest and plainly coloured ones. There should be no need to include the date/time in your signature; that is what the fourth tilde is for. Thanks, Tangotango (talk) 14:37, 14 January 2007 (UTC)
- P.S.: In short, please create a new signature that will fit into the form at Special:Preferences; that will probably fix all the problems you are facing with your signature. Cheers, Tangotango (talk) 14:39, 14 January 2007 (UTC)
Duplicate articles
Hi, don't know the appopriate pages and/or templates here dealing with this to fix it myself. Could someone please have a look at White Spirit and White Spirit (band). The former is the largest of the two, the latter the oldest. Maybe someone with adminbuttons can merge the history? Niels|en talk-nl talk (faster response)| 16:46, 14 January 2007 (UTC)
- Any registered editor can initiate a merge proposal, in which some or all of the content from one article is copied into another before the donor article is marked for deletion. See WP:Merge Adrian M. H. 17:05, 14 January 2007 (UTC)
- I'll try to remember WP:Merge, thanks for the hint. Niels|en talk-nl talk (faster response)| 01:21, 16 January 2007 (UTC)
- I'm having caching problems, but I'm on it. All I need to do is get the history to show the restored edits so I can revert to the correct version. - Mgm|(talk) 20:38, 14 January 2007 (UTC)
- Thanks for solving it, Mgm. Niels|en talk-nl talk (faster response)| 01:21, 16 January 2007 (UTC)
WIKIPEDIA RSS FEEDS.
I HAVE A VERY FINE RSS READER. I HAVE HAD NO TROUBLE OBTAINING FEEDS FROM OTHER SOURCES. BUT OTHER SOURCES PROVIDE AN ICON I CAN CLICK ON AND OBTAIN AN RSS FEED ADDRESS. ALL I HAVE BEEN ABLE TO FIND ON WIKIPEDIA ARE COMPLETE HTML PAGES WHICH WILL NOT WORK OR I CAN'T MAKE THEM WORK. SURELY SOMEPLACE WITHIN THIS WONDERFUL SYSTEM IS A LISTING OF ALL THE AVAILABLE RSS PROGRAMS AVAILABLE WITH A LITTLE RED ICON MEXT TO EACH ONE THAT I CAN CLICK ON TO OBTAIN THE ADDRESS FROM. I MAINLY WANT THE DAILY PICTURE AND MUSIC FEEDS. YOUR HELP WILL BE VERY MUCH APPRECIALTED. ROBERT ALBRIGHT email removed —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Robert Bruce Albright (talk • contribs) 18:57, 14 January 2007 (UTC).
- Page histories have an RSS link in the monobook (default) skin. Not all pages feed RSS, and that would be the problem you might have. I don't know how your RSS reader works, so I can't help you in that regard. Either way, I would really appreciate it if you didn't yell so much. It's extremely rude and will not get you the best answers. —Keakealani·?·!·@ 19:17, 14 January 2007 (UTC)
- Have you visited the WP:RSS page? - Mgm|(talk) 20:30, 14 January 2007 (UTC)
edit not showing up
why is my edit in Vancouver, WA arts section not showing up ? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 24.20.108.151 (talk) 19:10, 14 January 2007 (UTC).
- You may want to try clearing your cache - often edits appear delayed because your computer is loading an older version of the page. Also, you may want to check the history of the article to see if anyone has removed your edit and why. —Keakealani·?·!·@ 19:13, 14 January 2007 (UTC)
Tried all that, how can I tell if someone is deleting the entry
- Are you asking how to tell whether the entire article was deleted? Try checking the log for that article, if that's the case. It would be really, really helpful if you provided some indication of where you are having the problem, or nobody will be able to understand what your issue is. —Keakealani·?·!·@ 19:37, 14 January 2007 (UTC)
- You can always click on the History tab for a page to see what edits were made. Your last edit was removed as advertising spam. diff -- Kesh 19:58, 14 January 2007 (UTC)
- Guys, this is the anon user that keeps adding "VANCOUVER COMMUNITY BAND" and a phone number. They have put nothing on Talk, never add a summary, and type always in all caps. I have removed it a few times, and some other patrollers have done likewise. --Bill W. Smith, Jr. 20:21, 14 January 2007 (UTC)
- In that case, the user should probably be warned for spamming. He appears not to realise that what he's doing is against policy, and it does need to be taken care of if it's a problem. —Keakealani·?·!·@ 21:07, 14 January 2007 (UTC)
Is Wikipedia HTML?
I have done quite a few edits on here, and have not known what I was really doing! I went to another website, and it asked for HTML codes to edit, after looking on google it appeared to be similar to Wikipedia's editing, so quite simply is this HTML? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 81.77.147.229 (talk) 19:32, 14 January 2007 (UTC).
- No. There are elements of Wikipedia markup that are the same as HTML, but there are many significant differences. For example, two apostrophes ('') created italics in Wikipedia, but in HTML the code would be <i>Italic Text</i>. While there are certainly similarities, they are not one and the same. —Keakealani·?·!·@ 19:35, 14 January 2007 (UTC)
- While Wikipedia generally supports HTML syntax, in articles one is generally supposed to use the Wikipedia syntax. See Help:Wikitext. Nihiltres 19:35, 14 January 2007 (UTC)
- No, not really. WML (wiki markup language) has some elements of HTML that it recognizes, but it is NOT a full-set implementation of the HTML standards. --Bill W. Smith, Jr. 19:36, 14 January 2007 (UTC)
moberly department of corrections
can you give me info on whAT the inmates do there and what it looks like and how to get there —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Heathercruz (talk • contribs) 20:05, 14 January 2007 (UTC).
- We don't currently have an article on the facility. Your best bet is to ask this on the Reference Desk. The Help desk is for questions about Wikipedia itself. -- Kesh 20:07, 14 January 2007 (UTC)
My revert tools don't work
I tried to fix my revert tools, jesus christ if I know what I've done, I've reverted so many damn times I don't know, but now they don't work, nothing on the whole damned monobook works. Help? DoomsDay349 20:14, 14 January 2007 (UTC)
- What was the last time they did work? Was it on another computer or browser? Perhaps the tool just doesn't work with a specific one. If I were you I'd revert to a version with a date I know works before all the changing. - Mgm|(talk) 20:21, 14 January 2007 (UTC)
- Well, I blanked the page and readded the only two tools I really use, extra edits buttons and reverting, and when I readded reverting everything worked correctly. I dunno. All is well now. DoomsDay349 20:27, 14 January 2007 (UTC)
Image viewing
I'm almost certainly doing something tremendously dumb here - help would be much appreciated!
I just started a new article at Nappy Brown and uploaded a pic to accompany it. When I preview the article, the picture shows - once saved, the picture didn't show, although it did leave a link which led to the original pic. The image is fair use and nobody has deleted it - what am I doing wrong? --Squeezeweaseltalk 21:14, 14 January 2007 (UTC)
- Seems to be working for me here. —Dark•Shikari[T] 21:19, 14 January 2007 (UTC)
That's odd - just tried it on my other machine, and it didn't display...then came back to this machine and it was fine again. Fine on the other one now as well - I shall blame gremlins. Sorry and thanks for looking! --Squeezeweaseltalk 21:23, 14 January 2007 (UTC)
- Next time, try purging the page by going to the edit page mode and changing the url so that it reads "&action=purge" instead of "&action=edit" - that usually solves the problem, I find. Nihiltres 21:47, 14 January 2007 (UTC)
Making part of a table header non-bold
I have a table like this, and I would like the "B" to be not bold. Is there any way to write an inverted '''?
{| class="wikitable" |- ! A B C | D E F |}
Result:
A B C | D E F |
---|
Thanks! — Sebastian 22:35, 14 January 2007 (UTC)
- I'll assume, for now, that you don't need the darker grey cell background for that data, which is intended to highlight fields rather than values:
- Instead of ! A B C, enter | '''A''' B '''C'''. That will give you a bold A and C. If you do want the darker cell background, enter this:
| bgcolor="#efefef" | '''A''' B '''C'''. If you're pasting from my edit, ignore the nowiki tags. Adrian M. H. 22:52, 14 January 2007 (UTC)
- Thanks, but that's not an option. This is actually for a template, so I have no way to control the surrounding format. — Sebastian 01:54, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
A B C | D E F |
---|
--Kjoonlee 02:08, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
- Cool, thanks! — Sebastian 02:28, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
- It's a pity that you didn't think to mention that at the beginning... Adrian M. H. 20:22, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
January 15
Duplicate Entries
Quick question: what should one do when finding articles that are exact duplicates but have different titles? Thanks, Xnuala 00:41, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
- You'll probably want to merge them (see Wikipedia:Merging and moving pages), and have one become a redirect to the other. -- Natalya 00:49, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
What should I do if I think an article has been vandalised?
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=The_Noisettes&diff=100775168&oldid=100775082
I thought the best thing to do would be to revert it (so I did) and then I came here to ask what to do next, would anyone mind explaining please? ^^ -Painezor 01:26, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
- I just took a look at the person's userpage and it appears that the anti-vandal bot has already been to his page once about vandalising the same page. -Painezor 01:32, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
- You can find instructions for warning potential vandals here, basically just add {{testx}} to the users talk page, with x=1 for the first time, x=2 for the second, ect, until you get to test4. Then you can report the vandal at WP:AIV. Prodego talk 01:35, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
- I reported another vandal who replaced an entire section with ... expletives, and since he had a {{Test-5n}} warning I figured that it was the best idea to put it on the WP:AIV page... did I do right or wrong... hopefully right because I'm scared of what might happen if I did wrong :( -Painezor 02:06, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
- Nothing will happen if you do anything wrong, except someone would probably explain your mistake to you. If the test5 was recent, then that was the correct thing to do. Prodego talk 02:07, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
- Sorry for all the questions, but two more just sprang to mind. Firstly, do I have to start at {{test}} or should I start with the blatant vandalism (if the case may be) warnings? Also, the 3 Revert Rule thingy. If I'm reverting blatant vandalism this rule surely shouldn't apply right? -Painezor 02:22, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
- See WP:UTM for choice of template. The choice depends on how much good faith you are prepared to assume - usually as much as possible. WP:3RR explains that it does not apply to blatant vandalism. -- zzuuzz (talk) 02:58, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
- Sorry for all the questions, but two more just sprang to mind. Firstly, do I have to start at {{test}} or should I start with the blatant vandalism (if the case may be) warnings? Also, the 3 Revert Rule thingy. If I'm reverting blatant vandalism this rule surely shouldn't apply right? -Painezor 02:22, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
- You can find instructions for warning potential vandals here, basically just add {{testx}} to the users talk page, with x=1 for the first time, x=2 for the second, ect, until you get to test4. Then you can report the vandal at WP:AIV. Prodego talk 01:35, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
contacting users
how do i contact users?? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Merlot70 (talk • contribs) 01:50, 15 January 2007 (UTC).
- You can contact them on their talk pages, simply type [[User talk: <Name of user>]] in the search bar, and you will be able to leave a message there, that they will receive. For example, your talk page is located at User talk:Merlot70. Note that this page is public, and everyone can see your message. Prodego talk 01:52, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
- If you want to send private messages, some people allow you to send them e-mail messages from Wikipedia. You can check if someone has an "E-mail this user" link on their user page. --Kjoonlee 02:15, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
How do I delete the "you have a new message" notification?
Hello, I am a sporatic Wikipedia editor and I have received a message. The notification for this message is orange and appears as a band on top of every page that I access. When I click on the message, I am sent through to a link but I have found no where on that link or elsewhere that will enable me to hide this orange band. It is a page about "Talk," or "Wikipedia:Talk." This band is especially pestering as it is from another editor accusing me of vandalizing an article. I would also like to contest such an accusation. As I did edit the page in question, but only to correct a place name (which actually had to do with my high school). Thank you for any help. ~`FrancesCFrancesC
- You don't seem to have any messages on your talk page. Are you sure you're logged in when you're receiving this message? Either way, it ought to disappear when you visit your user talk page. --Sopoforic 01:58, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
No, I am not logged in when it appears, it appears when I just go to Wikipedia. Would a good option be to always be signed in as a user?
- Yes, you should just stay signed in, otherwise you'll get messages intended for other users who have the same IP (such as people using the same public computer, or people on the same dial-up ISP that uses dynamic IPs). That's one of the main benefits of making and using an account: it makes it easy for people to contact you while making sure the right person gets the message. --Sopoforic 02:19, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
Medical Disclaimer or Warning
Hi, There is some freakishly biased/outdated medical information on wikipedia. Is there a warning template to place on top of such pages warning readers to seek medical advice elsewhere? (At the risk of underestimating the Wikipedia reader's intelligence.--Hollerbackgril 02:16, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
- Well, it is in Wikipedia:Medical disclaimer. Wikipedia is not a medical reference, and should not be used as such, regardless of whether the page is superbly accurate, or awful. Prodego talk 02:19, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
- As Prodego said. Plus, see Wikipedia:No disclaimer templates for info. --Sopoforic 02:21, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
- Thanks, exactly what I was looking for. I pity the fool! --Hollerbackgril 02:40, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
Indenting bulleted lists consisting of multiple paragraphs
Hi there,
Let's say I have the following in an article:
Something or another can consist of these two things:
- Blah blah blah, blah blah blah. Blah blah blah blah, blah blah, blah.
- A second bulleted item, but consisting of two (or more) paragraphs, which all actually belong under the same (second) bulleted item.
So in other words, this second paragraph also belongs to the second bulleted item, but now its indentation is all screwy and messed up.
And this third paragraph is also supposed to belong to the second bulleted item.
- Blah blah blah, blah blah blah.
My question is, is it possible to also indent the second and third paragraphs of the second bullet item, without turning them into new bullet items?
Thanks in advance for any help.
—XhantarTalk 02:47, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
- Foo
- Bar
Baz
Quux - Quuux
- --Kjoonlee 02:58, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
- Thanks. I've ended up using
<p>
instead of<br />
though, as that keeps the spacing in between the paragraphs intact, as well as the indentation. —XhantarTalk 03:20, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
- Thanks. I've ended up using
- I think you should note that in general prose is preferable to lists. I don't know about your particular situation, but I'd say that if you have a list whose members are paragraphs, it's probably possible to convert it into prose. --Sopoforic 02:59, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
- I'm in the process of wikifying Linux color management, and the section in question was written to expand quite a bit on its mentioned "two approaches" (see the first bullet item).
- What is your thoughts in a case such as this? —XhantarTalk 03:20, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
- Well, I don't really like the way that section reads, but I'd probably just say something like "one method is to ... foo bar baz" and "An alternative method, which does not modify the video card LUT..." to replace the bullets. Then again, I'm not sure that that'd make it sound much better, so use your own judgment. --Sopoforic 03:28, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
- Thanks for your input. —XhantarTalk 03:39, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
- On the subject of lists (Sorry to hijack this but you just reminded me...). I've noticed that in certain subjects the original writer may put something like "Other magazines in this style are Mad, Sick, and Cracked", whereupon someone else comes along and adds "Also Crazy, and Wacko". A little later some smartarse looks at this and adds seventeen more titles to the list. At this point an individual with a more educated backside decides that he's going to add the number of issues that each magazine ran for to the list...
- The result makes for unpleasant reading. Would it not be better by this point to have turned the line into a vertical list? I often think I'll do it, but I don't want to step on anyone's toes or break any rules. Deke42 04:12, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
- Responding to Deke42: My own stylistic feeling, FWIW, is that in a case like that -- assuming all that information really does belong at that point in the article -- a list would make more sense than running text. --Tkynerd 04:31, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
- Yes, there are times when a list is better. Wikipedia:Embedded list gives some tips on what to do. If information of the sort you mentioned does belong in an article, probably a list or table is more appropriate. But, it's a decision that really needs to be made on a case-by-case basis. If you come across this sort of thing, the best thing to do is to use your best judgment and be bold. After all, if things look worse afterward, we can always change it back. --Sopoforic 07:03, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
Question about WP:REVERT
WP:REVERT says not to revert content dispute edits unless it's vandalism. I've noticed that quite a few users, though (including some administrators) revert immediately when new content is put in or old content rephrased in a way they don't like. This seems to directly contradict the "don'ts" section of the policy. I've sent messages to the users and administrators which I've noticed tend to do this. I've noticed that others have also posted on their talk pages complaining of similar behavior. It doesn't seem to change their actions in the least. I won't name names because I don't want to cause anyone any undue grief, but what can be done about this situation? It's clear they're don't care about the revert policy, but the only solid revert rule seems to be 3RR. Is this the kind of thing that you just "have to put up with"? .V. (talk) 06:11, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
- WP:REVERT is copied from Meta-wiki. Unfortunately, Meta has a strong mindset of "to hell with neutrality", even in help files. Most editors I know do not view reverts so stringently. -Amarkov blahedits 06:18, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
- Hmm. I always favor discussion on a talk page rather than revert wars. I find it's more polite. So the "unwritten" policy is not to follow WP:REVERT? .V. (talk) 06:20, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
- That particular part, yes. But help pages aren't official policy, anyway. -Amarkov blahedits 06:32, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
- Interesting. I wonder why it's not an official policy. .V. (talk) 06:37, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
- Because it's a technical assistance page providing general, common sense advice, not hard and fast rules.Circeus 06:40, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
- Interesting. I wonder why it's not an official policy. .V. (talk) 06:37, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
- That particular part, yes. But help pages aren't official policy, anyway. -Amarkov blahedits 06:32, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
- Hmm. I always favor discussion on a talk page rather than revert wars. I find it's more polite. So the "unwritten" policy is not to follow WP:REVERT? .V. (talk) 06:20, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
- I have several computer/video game articles on my watchlist. Users frequently add unsourced information, rumours, commentary, nonsense, spammy external links, etc. These things aren't vandalism exactly, but they do damage the article. Having to talk before reverting them would honestly not be helpful at all. -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 06:41, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
- Hmm, maybe if it wasn't patently inappropriate (unsourced, speculation, etc.) I've noticed a lot of people using reverts very liberally in content disputes, and that kind of bothers me. .V. (talk) 06:47, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
- I hope it at least doesn't surprise. usually, WP:3RR is what you want then.Circeus 06:49, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
- Heh, it certainly doesn't surprise at all. .V. (talk) 06:54, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
- I hope it at least doesn't surprise. usually, WP:3RR is what you want then.Circeus 06:49, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
- Hmm, maybe if it wasn't patently inappropriate (unsourced, speculation, etc.) I've noticed a lot of people using reverts very liberally in content disputes, and that kind of bothers me. .V. (talk) 06:47, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
- Wikiquette certainly allows a single revert of basically anything that's unsourced - beyond that you can become rude, and hit WP:3RR. But talking out every edit that's bad by some editor who's probably not even watching the article? Sounds like a big waste of time. WilyD 18:59, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
When I first got reverted I read WP:REVERT and agreed with it. Ans so thought that many editors were uncivil at least. Some even go so far as to state "any edit by a new(or unregistered or single issue) user will be reverted on sight unless they discuss it first." I still think such actions are uncivil. However I'd like to know more about what pushes editors to such a position on reverting. Maybe there are very good reasons. And if there are maybe we could find a more civil way to meet those editors needs. SmithBlue 06:04, 16 January 2007 (UTC)
How to include a diff in a template?
User:SebastianHelm/sandbox/diff is a simple sample template that contains just one parameter. I'd like to pass a diff, such as http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Politics_of_Sri_Lanka&diff=100146801&oldid=97860683, to the template and have it display it as a hyperlink.
The problem seems to be that the equal signs mess the URL up. Of course, I can ask the user to not enter the URL, but <nowiki>URL</nowiki>. But how can I make the template recognize that as a URL and display a hyperlink?
Code is always {{User:SebastianHelm/sandbox/diff|URL}}, where URL varies as follows:
URL | result |
---|---|
http://en.wikipedia.org | Here is the template, which says that http://en.wikipedia.org is the URL. With brackets, it looks like this: [9]. |
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Politics_of_Sri_Lanka&diff=100146801&oldid=97860683 | Here is the template, which says that {{{1}}} is the URL. With brackets, it looks like this: [{{{1}}}]. |
"http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Politics_of_Sri_Lanka&diff=100146801&oldid=97860683" | User:SebastianHelm/sandbox/diff |
<nowiki>http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Politics_of_Sri_Lanka&diff=100146801&oldid=97860683</nowiki> | Here is the template, which says that http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Politics_of_Sri_Lanka&diff=100146801&oldid=97860683 is the URL. With brackets, it looks like this: [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Politics_of_Sri_Lanka&diff=100146801&oldid=97860683]. |
I need this for vandalism templates, so your help really helps Wikipedia in general. Thank you! — Sebastian 08:00, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
- You can also use, for example,
{{unblock|1=difflink}}
. Luna Santin 11:40, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
- Found the solution: Use names, as in User:SebastianHelm/sandbox/diffa. — Sebastian 08:09, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
- Don't know if you're aware, but there is a similar template: {{Wp-diff}}.-NMajdan•talk 16:52, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
Doubled-up page
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kenshiro Somebody has edited the entry for the Fist of the North Star character Kenshiro to have completely unrelated information about a hip-hop producer also named Kenshiro into it. How would one go about splitting this to remove the unrelated content to its own page? ZaininOmega 12:20, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
- Start a new page at for example Kenshiro (hip-hop) and move the relevant material to the new article, making a note of where it came from in your edit sunmmary. - Mgm|(talk) 12:49, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
- Moved to Kenshiro (Musician). --Kjoonlee 13:38, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
- And I moved it to Kenshiro (musician). Make sure you watch your capitalization. Don't use them if the word doesn't require it. - Mgm|(talk) 14:00, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
how to get smart while sitting in home
how to get smart while sitting in home —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 202.125.143.69 (talk) 12:48, 15 January 2007 (UTC).
- The only way to get smarter is by actually doing something. Sitting alone is not gonna work. Reading Wikipedia, doing puzzles and watching educational documentaries may improve your knowledge, but not your intelligence. - Mgm|(talk) 13:05, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
Search links
Pretty new to Wikipedia. Just wrote an article, but when I searched the title of it, it didn't appear, even though I think my article is the only one on that subject. What am I doing wrong?
- You're not reading the VFAQ. ;) It takes time for articles to be indexed by the search engine. - Mgm|(talk) 13:56, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
3rr "Previous version reverted to: VersionTime"
What do I need to do to fill in the "Previous version reverted to: VersionTime" line in the 3rr Admin noticeboard? To put it another way; where do I go to find this information? SmithBlue 13:51, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
- What is meant by that is the original verison of the page that the editor in question kept revering the page to. You will want to provide a link to the diff of this version, which you can find from looking in the edit history (also where you will have to look to show the evidence of four reverts). -- Natalya 13:57, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
- This is at the edge of my tech know how and the instructions on the page are less than explanatory) If the editor did just edit out the offending phrase and not actually "revert" what is the appropriate info to be added in "Previous version reverted to: VersionTime"? SmithBlue 14:26, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
Bar chart template
Is there a template that generates bar or pie charts? I've been unable to find anything in my searches, but this seems like a useful need. Thanks.
— Jim Dunning talk : 15:30, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
- Ew. That would be a reeealy hard template to code. I might be able to do it, but I recall some reason about server load saying it's a bad idea, and anything I hacked up would look ugly and wouldn't show enough detail. Just upload a picture of a bar chart. -Amarkov blahedits 15:33, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
- Could it be generated with the extended ASCII character set? .V. (talk) 16:28, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
- It could probably be done with a little creative coding in a standard table. Well, a bar chart at least, not pie chart.--NMajdan•talk 16:50, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
dixie square mall
why do you keep erasing my posts ?
i am the person who has the sign from the mall , i have pictures video and witnesses to prove it .
i am not a vandal , but appearently you have a problem with posting the truth , you rather print half assed lies and stolen material .
no wonder nobody uses this shit for any real use except to laugh at it —The preceding unsigned comment was added by I have the sign (talk • contribs) 15:39, 15 January 2007 (UTC).
- Because this is an encyclopedia, not a blog or MySpace. Even if you had something encyclopedic to add to the article based on your possession of the sign, it would constitute original research, which is not allowed here. Please read WP:NOT. Thanks. And BTW, I'm not the one who reverted your edits; I just try to answer questions here on the Help desk. --Tkynerd 15:45, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
Add de.wikipedia article to en.wikipedia?
Is there a way I can automatically add an existing Wiki German language article of Carl Ludwig Nietzsche to an English version of the same article,which does not exist? Daytrivia 16:00, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
- Automatically? No, how would that work? Translation (or at least good translation) can't be done automatically. You're welcome to translate the article and add it to the English Wikipedia, though, if you like. Even if you're not a native speaker of English, you're welcome to do this and add a tag to request cleanup of the language, if you feel the need for that. --Tkynerd 16:18, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
how do i............
hey how do i make a wiki page. not on wikipedia, but sorta like the homestar wiki or the WoW wiki, except i want to make one for kingdom hearts. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Lord kame0 (talk • contribs) 17:12, 15 January 2007 (UTC).
Admin
How exactly do you become an admin on WikiPedia? Saintjimmy777 17:30, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
Pictures
isnt there a way to drag ur pictures to where u want them on the page...some easy method? i have difficulties shaping the pages so the pictures and the text are in the right spot and i get a nice balanced page design...thanks...user:benjiwolf
- You are not making page layouts in Wikipedia, so that wouldn't really apply. Notice how, if you make your browser wider or smaller, or change the text size, everything moves around anyway. So don't put too much time into it, that's the nature of web page design: it isn't like paper. Notinasnaid 19:10, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
Colours in Signatures
How do I add colours to my signature?Sam 18:23, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
- Easy enough to do if you know some wiki and html mark-up. Here's an example —
- [[User:Sam ov the blue sand|<span style="padding : 1px 3px 1px 3px; border : 2px solid #BFDF9F;background: #660066 ; color: #BFDF9F">'''''Joe Schmoe'''''</span>]] <sup>[[User talk:Sam ov the blue sand|Say]]</sup>•<sub>[[Special:Contributions/Sam ov the blue sand|Do]]</sub>
- That produces —
- Joe Schmoe Say•Do
- The code attributes allow you to set font size, type and color, as well as putting background colors and borders around parts of your signature. Placing 5 tildes (~~~~~, not 4) at the end will produce the date/time stamp you want for contributions. If you want, you can go to my preferences and store the code you come up with as your signature so you don't have to copy/paste it everytime you sign something. Just remember to not use images, templates, or external links in your signature — they're not permitted.
- Play with the code in a Sandbox and see what you come up with. Learn more about Wikitext markup here. Have fun being creative.
Unsure of deletion criteria
I came across Armenian phrases while editing...surely this falls under some deletion criteria, but I'm unsure of what that is. Ideas? DoomsDay349 18:54, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
- I've redirected to Armenian language. Tell me if that is correct or not. DoomsDay349 18:55, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
Proverb: Hay Is For Horses And Grass Is Cheaper...
Dear Wikipedia,
I've tried searching WWW for this particular proverb, "Hay is for horses and grass is cheaper."
I can't seem to find anything in regards to this saying origin or its complete content and I've been hearing my children say it a lot.
Can you tell me what does "Hay is for horses and grass is cheaper" mean and where does the saying come from?
Thank you kindly, OdonnellII@Yahoo.ie Cobh, Ireland —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 66.215.239.142 (talk) 19:18, 15 January 2007 (UTC).
Palm
Is there a palm version of Wikipedia?
Roselyn Feliciano
- If, by palm, you mean a PDA, the answer is no. You'll have to squint a bit. Adrian M. H. 20:29, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
flagging articles
if there is a statement in an article that needs a citation how do i indicate this requirement? in this case the article on erlotinib the section on "side effects" under "rash" states: "Interestingly, some clinical studies have indicated a correlation between the severity of the skin reactions and increased survival though this has not been quantatively assessed." this has no citation listed and therefore it has little to no real value. is there a way for me to flag it as "needs citation" ? 19:54, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
- Look at the {{fact}} and {{cn}} tags. ~ BigrTex 20:06, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
- I prefer the {{citation-needed}} tag. Although it is exactly the same thing as {{fact}} and {{cn}}, it is more gentle than the former (which I would use only for something that looked pretty dubious), and more comprehensible than the latter. It has the advantage of having the exact words an editor might be looking for. Notinasnaid 20:12, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
- if you come across statements about living figures that you feel need sources - don't tag them, delete them. Best to have little or no information rather than unsourced crap. --Larry laptop 20:43, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
putting a {{POV}} without explanation
What should I do if somebody puts a {{POV}} on top of the page without giving any explanation in the discussion page? Should I see that as vandalism and revert?
- Check to see if there's a reason in the page's history and see if you can find a reason yourself. If neither helps, feel free to remove it. - Mgm|(talk) 23:55, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
Uploading artice/Formats
I am creating an article in Microsoft Word, but Wikipedia won't let me upoad it as Web, Text or Word (Doc) formats. How may I upload it? Thanks Dr Robert Lewy —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Kingseason (talk • contribs) 21:41, 15 January 2007 (UTC).
- what article is it you wish to create ? --Larry laptop 21:49, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
- You can highlight all the text, right click, and choose copy, then right click in the edit window of your article and choose paste. You might find these pages helpful: Wikipedia:Tutorial, Wikipedia:Article development and Wikipedia:Manual of Style. Be sure your article meets notability and verifiability criteria or it may be deleted. Let me know on my talk page if you have any questions or want to discuss anything.. delldot | talk 22:25, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
Editing Germaine Greer
Hello, I am not sure if it is a caching problem at my end but on the page on Germaine Greer there is a rather offensive sentence in the Recent Section.
I went in to edit and couldnt find the html to remove the setence. So I went back to the main page, hit refresh and I could still see it.
Can someone more familiar with editing the wikipedia site check that it is really gone?
Many thanks
AA —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 148.182.25.4 (talk) 23:03, 15 January 2007 (UTC).
- I think the negative info has been removed. Thank you. Xiner (talk, email) 23:39, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
WAP or Mobile Phone Access?
I'd like to know if there is a Mobile (or Wireless) access point? for a user to be able to access it through a mobile phone or such things like that?
Thanks —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 66.207.89.159 (talk) 23:08, 15 January 2007 (UTC).
Abuse or misuse of AfD?
A user has separated content from an article into its own article, and then immediately nominated the new article for AfD. Because the AfD was initiated by the article's own author, it was deleted as db-author. Is this an abuse or misuse of AfD procedures? Would it be acceptable to add the content back into the original article, where it really was acceptable in the first place? Wyatt Riot 00:06, 16 January 2007 (UTC)
- That really does seem like "gaming the system" to me. .V. (talk) 00:14, 16 January 2007 (UTC)
- You may want to look into Wikipedia:Deletion review. Xiner (talk, email) 00:23, 16 January 2007 (UTC)
User Page Elaboration
How can I add the captions and images, such as "this user plays guitar" or "this user is a teenager" on my user page? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Fading Into Green (talk • contribs) 00:22, 16 January 2007 (UTC).
- You're probably talking about Wikipedia:Userboxes. You can always press the "Edit" button on anyone's page to see their code. Xiner (talk, email) 00:24, 16 January 2007 (UTC)
TOMATOES
65.9.93.200 00:53, 16 January 2007 (UTC) DEAR GENTS: I AM LOOKING FOR INFORMATION ABOUT WHEN TO PLANT TOMATOES IN FLORIDA (MIAMI)
NOT FOUND IN THE FLA. AGRICULTURAL PAGE, NO IN THE UNIVERSITY OF FL.COLLEGE OF AGRICULTURE PERHAPS SOMEBODY IN WIKIPEDIA CAN HELP WITH THIS QUESTION.
THANKS JULIO KLEIN
- Please ask at Wikipedia:Reference_desk, and use lower case. Thanks. Xiner (talk, email) 00:56, 16 January 2007 (UTC)
- Try the early Spring. By the way, this isn't the place to post this. You might be looking for the Reference Desk. .V. (talk) 00:57, 16 January 2007 (UTC)
Lines under headers
I have a formatting problem involving the headers.
The = and == headers both give a horizontal ruled line below the header text.
However, the === header doesn't have that horizontal ruled line. To add the horizontal ruled line below the === header, i added a "----" below the header. THe problem is, this creates a slight gap between the header text and the actual horizontal ruled line, which looks very bad.
The point is, does anyone know any fancy tricks to incorporate a horizontal line into a === header (like the way a line is incorporated into the == and = headers)? --Saintmagician 00:56, 16 January 2007 (UTC)
- Such subsections should not have the horizontal line, for they're but minor subdivisions within an article. Xiner (talk, email) 00:58, 16 January 2007 (UTC)
- That really doesn't help. The point is - we need to use the === to show a MAJOR division within the article. The only other alternative we had was to use the ==, but then that meant using = in some parts of the article, which some editors seem to have a problem with. Now does anyone actually have a constructive answer to this problem? --Saintmagician 01:10, 16 January 2007 (UTC)
- I agree with Xiner (and complaining about Xiner's answer isn't constructive either). What article is this? My instinct is that you need to sit on the editors who are whinging about using =. --Tkynerd 01:13, 16 January 2007 (UTC)
- The articles in question are the Digimon species articles, which are currently going through a major merge. (see Agumon for an example). We're merging all the different forms of digimon together into one article. Each of those sections *is* a major section. However, the way the articles are laid out means we need them indented by one on the TOS. So that means we either use = and ==, or == and === + ----. So here i am asking for a method to combine the === and ----. Getting told the === doesn't need a ---- doesn't help. In this case it does, but we can't quite figure out how to add it.
- And what do you mean by "sit on the editors who are whinging about using ="? --Saintmagician 01:27, 16 January 2007 (UTC)
- If you want an example, here is an article using === + ----. and here is an article using the = and == format. --Saintmagician 01:29, 16 January 2007 (UTC)
- By "sit on those editors," I basically mean ignore their whining and get the job done (i.e., use =). As another point, articles on Wikipedia really don't need to be several times as long as Agumon, so I would question the wisdom of this merge on that basis alone. I think the fact that you are finding yourself needing levels of topic separation that you can't get (at least, not in the form you want) is also an indication that the merge may not be very wise. Just my $0.02, though -- I'm not familiar with the subject. However, what you're being told is that the MediaWiki software can't do what you want. Your choices are: (1) live with that; (2) file a bug report to get it changed somehow (and that will probably take a very long time); (3) start your own wiki and either use some other wiki software, or modify your copy of the MediaWiki software to work the way you want it to. That may not be "constructive," but it's the way it is. If you have an example of an article that actually accomplishes what you want to do, then I'm wrong about MediaWiki not being able to do it -- but in that case, all you have to do is use the "edit this page" link at the top of that article page to see how it's done, then copy the method for your own article. --Tkynerd 01:46, 16 January 2007 (UTC)
- Well, the MOS does actually say not to use = headers in articles. I don't understand why, i figured it was just another arbitraty formatting decision, but i don't want to argue with the MOS. As for the article length, i think you misunderstand, Agumon as it is now is the merged version. Most of the other merged articles aren't that long either - take Guilmon. --Saintmagician 02:00, 16 January 2007 (UTC)
- Thanks for the clarification. (I told you I wasn't familiar with the subject! :-)) Actually, on further reflection, I am inclined to agree with the MoS guidance, because the article title at the top of the page is in the same type size as a = header, so such headers in an article would appear to be on the same level as the article itself. Where that leaves you is that you simply can't do what you want to do with the MediaWiki software on Wikipedia as it currently works. Your main choices are as I described them in my previous post above. You got another suggestion at WP:VPT, but as was said there, it's an ugly hack and can't be counted on to work with all skins. PS I don't think it was appropriate to accuse Xiner of not assuming good faith (below). You may not have liked those answers, but I don't see any reason to believe they were not given in good faith. --Tkynerd 02:08, 16 January 2007 (UTC)
- well, i'm just about to ask why that suggestion won't work on all skins. I would have thought html would show up the same no matter how you view it. As for Xiner's answer, i just found it unhelpful really. But anyway, i think i'll stop here. I was really hoping someone here would understand how the horizontal rule is incorporated into the = and == headers, but i doubt i'm going to get such an answer here. --Saintmagician 02:14, 16 January 2007 (UTC)
- Thanks for the clarification. (I told you I wasn't familiar with the subject! :-)) Actually, on further reflection, I am inclined to agree with the MoS guidance, because the article title at the top of the page is in the same type size as a = header, so such headers in an article would appear to be on the same level as the article itself. Where that leaves you is that you simply can't do what you want to do with the MediaWiki software on Wikipedia as it currently works. Your main choices are as I described them in my previous post above. You got another suggestion at WP:VPT, but as was said there, it's an ugly hack and can't be counted on to work with all skins. PS I don't think it was appropriate to accuse Xiner of not assuming good faith (below). You may not have liked those answers, but I don't see any reason to believe they were not given in good faith. --Tkynerd 02:08, 16 January 2007 (UTC)
- Well, the MOS does actually say not to use = headers in articles. I don't understand why, i figured it was just another arbitraty formatting decision, but i don't want to argue with the MOS. As for the article length, i think you misunderstand, Agumon as it is now is the merged version. Most of the other merged articles aren't that long either - take Guilmon. --Saintmagician 02:00, 16 January 2007 (UTC)
- By "sit on those editors," I basically mean ignore their whining and get the job done (i.e., use =). As another point, articles on Wikipedia really don't need to be several times as long as Agumon, so I would question the wisdom of this merge on that basis alone. I think the fact that you are finding yourself needing levels of topic separation that you can't get (at least, not in the form you want) is also an indication that the merge may not be very wise. Just my $0.02, though -- I'm not familiar with the subject. However, what you're being told is that the MediaWiki software can't do what you want. Your choices are: (1) live with that; (2) file a bug report to get it changed somehow (and that will probably take a very long time); (3) start your own wiki and either use some other wiki software, or modify your copy of the MediaWiki software to work the way you want it to. That may not be "constructive," but it's the way it is. If you have an example of an article that actually accomplishes what you want to do, then I'm wrong about MediaWiki not being able to do it -- but in that case, all you have to do is use the "edit this page" link at the top of that article page to see how it's done, then copy the method for your own article. --Tkynerd 01:46, 16 January 2007 (UTC)
- If you want an example, here is an article using === + ----. and here is an article using the = and == format. --Saintmagician 01:29, 16 January 2007 (UTC)
- I agree with Xiner (and complaining about Xiner's answer isn't constructive either). What article is this? My instinct is that you need to sit on the editors who are whinging about using =. --Tkynerd 01:13, 16 January 2007 (UTC)
- That really doesn't help. The point is - we need to use the === to show a MAJOR division within the article. The only other alternative we had was to use the ==, but then that meant using = in some parts of the article, which some editors seem to have a problem with. Now does anyone actually have a constructive answer to this problem? --Saintmagician 01:10, 16 January 2007 (UTC)
- I'm sorry you didn't find my answer helpful, Saintmagician, so let me try again. Sometimes when we have to try very hard to achieve something few others seem to want, it may be time to question if it's worth the trouble. Tens of thousands of pages live happily with the convention. What makes this case so different? I think those pages of yours look good without the unique formatting. Xiner (talk, email) 01:35, 16 January 2007 (UTC)
The problem with your answer, is that you took one look at my question and went "oh...this person doesn't understand what headers are for", and gave me a textbook answer from the MOS, telling me that the === don't have a horizontal line because they're for minor divisions and therefore don't need one. The fact that i'm asking, it should have been obvious that i'm talking about a very specific case where such a 'minor division' does need a horizontal line (and did have horizontal lines, but with the ugly gap). The 'minor divison', in fact, isn't minor at all. It's a major division in the article, but for variuos formatting reasons, we have parts of the article that are an even major-er division. In other words, we need two divisions that both have the horizontal rule.
Now how about you assume good faith next time you answer help desk questions, and not make assumptions such as "something few others seem to want", and "tens of thousands of pages live happily with the convention". Now if you've read my last reply, you may realize that i'm not trying to change any pages which 'live happily' as you say. The DIGI wikiproject just started a mass article merge, and despite all the planning before hand, it seemed that we overlooked this detail. Or rather, i didn't think anyone would have such a problem with just using the = headers.
So finally, does anyone here actually have a constructive answer to the question of how to incorporate a ---- into a ===. Or at least reduce the space that's created when a ---- is placed below a ===? --Saintmagician 01:44, 16 January 2007 (UTC)
- Actually, I read your talk page before I responded. Anyhow... Xiner (talk, email) 02:10, 16 January 2007 (UTC)
- I have just restored the above comment from User:Xiner, which User:Saintmagician deleted. Saintmagician, you have absolutely no business deleting (or otherwise changing) other people's comments on talk pages. Don't do it again. --Tkynerd 02:17, 16 January 2007 (UTC)
National Mint of America
Hello, Unlike most of your articles, when I enter "National Mint of America wikipedia" into Google, the related article does not show up. Why is this so?
Thank you, Sherv54
- If you are looking for the article about the official government mint, it can be found at United States Mint. If you are looking for National Mint of America, which is a one-sentence article about what seems to be a private firm, it probably does not show up in a Google search because the article was only created last week. It can take some time before the Google bots index all the new pages. Newyorkbrad 01:53, 16 January 2007 (UTC)
- Bah. Newyorkbrad answered that kinda. Anyway, Google operates under a system called PageRank. If you were to search for "National Mint of America wikipedia" in google, and you found the wikipedia article and clicked on it, that link's "score" would go up. Kind of. A link's score determines where it is in relation to every other hit. Kind of. This is the reasoning behind Googlebombing. GofG ||| Contribs 01:55, 16 January 2007 (UTC)
Boy's& Girl's Clubs, Fort Peck, Montana
We have approximatly 900 Children between the ages of 9 - 18 years of age. These young people are Assiniboine & Sioux American Indians.
We need Help in obtaining funds for a new "Club Teen Center" for the high school age young adults.
Are there any persons of organizations the would like to help or contribute to the 13,000 square foot building being planned for the Wolf Point, Montana area?
The building will have two stories with a mezzanine for supportive staff living quarters. The main floor will have a basketball/volleyball/badmitten courts, with restrooms. The basement floor will have a study room, a library room, a computer room, a Television room, a quite room, a gathering room for social activites, & several staff offices.
The building will be built on a property owned by the Boy's & Girl's Club in Wolf Point, Montana;04:58, 16 January 2007 (UTC)76.176.181.160 at the cost of $874,000.00 @ $67.00 per square foot. The top floor will be steel construction, the basement will be Amvic reinforced concrete block.
If anyone is interested please contact us.
Bob
Links to subject's site
There is currently a link at Shawn Hornbeck that leads to a profile he has created at a social networking site. Is this an appropriate link? Is it a "posting personal information" issue? John Reaves 05:33, 16 January 2007 (UTC)
Image Using
I already had started using wikipedia and found it to much benefiting and interesting.Among the others,I had a user page and an article on it,But I want in that page to appeare the image I insert. Thank you verry much —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Yonas (talk • contribs) 05:51, 16 January 2007 (UTC).
Restrictions
I am researching for a debate tournament in which one of the topics has to do with and the good and harm it has done. I have no doubt the other team will refer to Wikipedia as being an unreliable source for information so I was wondering whether or not that was true. What restrictions are there on editing and posting information on articles? My tournament is on January 20, so the sooner you could get back to me, the better. Thank you very much. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 72.134.158.153 (talk) 06:11, 16 January 2007 (UTC).
- As it says on the main page, anyone can edit. You should not consider wikipedia as a reliable source by itself, but articles often provide references which are reliable. You should look at those if you need to be certain. --Sopoforic 06:17, 16 January 2007 (UTC)