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December 19

3rr and Jay-Z's wealth

I've been keeping an eye on the Jay-Z page (I don't know why), and I am wondering what the policy is on dealing with the anonymous revisions of his net worth which keep reoccuring. I have referenced his net worth of 286$ mil in this recent version of his page, but the page is often reverted to saying "between 80$ and 100$ mil" uncited. Can I keep reverting this particular edit until someone brings up a better reference? I guess I'm just asking if I keep reverting, am I going to run against the 3rr or is this sort of thing ok? Smmurphy^(Talk) 03:13, 19 December 2005 (UTC)

Net worth is something that changes, but you're right in that it's unlikely to change from $286M to $320M in the course of 2005, as [1] implies was cited in Rolling Stone magazine. A change to $80-100M is less likely, though. Nonetheless, the user who made this claim still has a red-link for a talk page. If you really want to clarify someone's sources, you're best off asking them on their talk page. You're much more likely to get a response there than on the article talk page. I agree that a figure with a citation is best, but if someone disputes this, make an active attempt to find out upon what basis.

As for 3RR, this is just about the most specific rule we have, and there is no such thing as "going to run against the 3rr" until you do! That is, until you "revert any single page in whole or in part more than three times in 24 hours", no one can hold anything against you. In the sense that this sort of input is presumably not an exception to the 3RR (ie, is not vandalism), yes, you are susceptible to the 3RR if you do it four times in 24 hours.

jnothman ^talk 04:06, 19 December 2005 (UTC)

Various anons have made this change, and one signed in user (that I have noticed) VitoCorleone, who is apparantly a big Master P fan (relevant only if his edits to Jay-Z are due to his preference). I mentioned it to Vito, but I am not sure if mentioning it to anons with one or three edits (such as User:24.216.141.56 and User:68.57.162.192) will help anyway. Otherwise, I don't log in more than three times a day, but constantly making this reversion hardly seems within the spirit of the 3rr, so I am mentioning it here to at least clear my conscious before continuing to police that section of the article. Smmurphy^(Talk) 06:29, 19 December 2005 (UTC)

The idea behind 3RR is to force you to seek community consensus. If other editors feel that the correct figure is indeed $286m, then they too will revert any changes, thus saving you from reverting more than 3 times a day. enochlau (talk) 08:43, 19 December 2005 (UTC)

A proposal

I don't know where I should go for this, but I think the standard signature created with ~~~~ should include a link for the talkpage by a method such as

User (talk) 05:40, 19 December 2005 (UTC)

Please help to create such. εγκυκλοπαίδεια*(talk) 05:40, 19 December 2005 (UTC)

• If you want to do it, just for yourself, see Wikipedia:Signature#Customizing_your_signature. If you want it to be done per default for anyone, please file a feature request at Bugzilla. - Mgm|^(talk) 05:55, 19 December 2005 (UTC)

I'm sure he has done it himself. I don't think it belongs in bugzilla, though. I would start at Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals) where you can get better feedback than bugzilla. jnothman ^talk 05:57, 19 December 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for the suggestions. εγκυκλοπαίδεια* 16:23, 19 December 2005 (UTC)

Is there anything I can do to stop the policy of not letting anonymous users create articles?

Is there anything I can do to stop the policy of not letting anonymous users create articles? Cause I would like it to end! --anon

• Go to WP:AFC and submit a lot of articles (while following instructions at the top of the page), which would show Jimmy Wales anonymous users can in fact create more good articles then they appear to can at the moment. Out of curiosity, why don't you just create an account? - Mgm|^(talk) 05:52, 19 December 2005 (UTC)
• Create an account, and then start creating pages to show us what you could have done if you could have created pages when you were an anon. As a first step, maybe look at why to create an account and see if you have any remaining unanswered questions about creating an account. Is it really such a problem? Palmiro | Talk 05:58, 19 December 2005 (UTC)
• While maybe you can do something, I don't think you should: I am of the opinion that you should create a username as this will violate less of your privacy than not! I am further of the opinion that the current policy has been effective in lightening the load on vandal-fighters and AFD-ers. Many less nonsense/vanity new pages on the recent changes list. So if it were up to me, until a better policy can be determined, this should remain. (I hope that was not all too soapboxy.) jnothman ^talk 06:03, 19 December 2005 (UTC)
  • In particular, it only took me about 5 minutes to identify anon's ISP and, to a reasonably high degree of confidence, the city in which he lives. There's a good chance that the IP address is actually traceable to a much smaller region. --David Woolley 12:44, 19 December 2005 (UTC)
    • Absolutely. I think my own example is the worst I've ever heard of: my ISP gives out static IPs with accompanying hostnames, and there is a one-to-one correspondance between physical and IP address in my area. So to find out my neighbours' IP, I can just lookup a hostname describing his location... and anyone on the net can find out exactly in wich room in my dorm I live in my reverse-lookup of my IP. — Sverdrup 22:35, 19 December 2005 (UTC)

• • • • I've encountered one slightly worse - the in-room networking at one of the Oxford colleges gives machinenames like jsmith.college.oxford.ac.uk. Not even a username, just an actual real name... not much chance for ever having any anonymity with that splashed across logfiles. Okay, so tougher to track you down, but... Shimgray | talk | 00:21, 21 December 2005 (UTC)

Well, I might get a username, but I still don't think it's right that Wikipedia has to force a person to get a usrname just to create articles! I mean, isn't this the free encyclopedia? And if I put many good articles into the WP AFC, does that mean the policy will end (or have a better chance at least)? --anon

Even anarchist organisations (which Wikipedia isn't) have to have some rules to allow themselves to function. Wikipedia could no longer function under the old rule. As for "force a person to get a username just to create articles" - well, getting a username is trivially easy. Creating articles is something you really shouldn't need to do very often - there's plenty of work to be done cleaning up existing ones. Anyway you're probably best off arguing on the mailing list, IMHO. Stevage 02:30, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

What's an IMHO? And I know that it's easy, but I have a few reasons for not getting it yet. And I would like to create some articles because I believe they are needed. And if put many good articles into the WP AFC, does that mean the policy will end or have a better chance at least? By the way, I'm sorry if I came off a bit too strongly about the policy! --anon

• IMHO means "in my humble opinion". Frankly I don't think the policy is at all likely to end, but if there is any chance it would be improved by having more quality articles show up at AFC, there are not very many at the moment. Kappa 03:05, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

How to rename a SECTION of an article?

What is the proper way to change the title of a section?

I would like to rename a section of an article, but it occurs to me that there might be links from other pages to this particular section. I don't want to break those links (but I don't know where they are).

Is there a way to find out what pages link to a section of an article?

(I see the "What links here" link in the left column, but that is for the whole article. I would like something more precise, but I'm beginning to think there is no such thing. I may just have to slog through all the linking pages looking at each link. UGH.)

Thanks in advance, --Tiger Marc 06:04, 19 December 2005 (UTC)

No, there is no way to find out whether another page links to a particular section of a page, because they rely on the anchor tags inserted for each section, and not by some special formatting that MediaWiki recognises. enochlau (talk) 06:11, 19 December 2005 (UTC)

Although it's not like MediaWiki doesn't do anything related to them: it puts in the ID tags and modifies them so that they can be used. The problem is that only the page linked to is recorded in the links table of the database. So there would be no database query that could be run to get a list of links to a section. jnothman ^talk 06:16, 19 December 2005 (UTC)

To my knowledge there is no way to do this. There may well be a bot that can do this, or can be easily modified to do so. Generally, I think links to sections within another article should not be used, except on talk pages, help pages like this, etc. Links to sections within the same article are fine, though. So you shouldn't really find any incoming links to the section. jnothman ^talk 06:14, 19 December 2005 (UTC)

• jnothman is correct and let's not forget about pages in the Wikipedia namespace, especially policy related ones. In articles though, you should have no problem with section renaming. Do make sure, though, that you're not breaking a common style for that type of article. - 131.211.210.10 08:24, 19 December 2005 (UTC)

Typo in Title

Hi, I have a typo in the title of my contribution... how can I revise it? _{(preceding unsigned comment by Rluv16)}

Once you have been on Wikipedia for a little while and done some editing, you will be able to use the "move" function. This appears at the top of the page alongside the other tags such as "article", "discussion" and "history".

I assume you are talking about the Ubiquiti-Networks article which you appear to have created, and you want to replace the hypen with a space - I will do this for you.

However, you need bear in mind that Wikipedia policy is to maintain a neutral point of view - see Wikipedia:Neutral point of view. The article in its present form could be considered a "vanity article" (Wikipedia:Vanity guidelines) so it would be a good idea to rework it a little with these guidelines in mind. --LesleyW 07:21, 19 December 2005 (UTC)

Article moved to Ubiquiti Networks and redirect marked for speedy deletion. --LesleyW 07:34, 19 December 2005 (UTC)

Redirect deleted. enochlau (talk) 08:10, 19 December 2005 (UTC)

how can I change my pasword,I forgot what it was

First things first--have you gone to the login page and asked for your password to be emailed to you? If not, try that. Jwrosenzweig 09:01, 19 December 2005 (UTC)

This is of course only an option if you put in your password in the first place. If not, well... I guess just remember your passwords in the future! jnothman ^talk 22:01, 19 December 2005 (UTC)

I have to have passwords at TONS of different places. I not want to have samne one all places because if one cracked, then they all cracked, so I have a SYSTEM that works, most of the time. User:AlMac|^(talk) 10:33, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

protecting pages

How do I propose a page for protection if there's a full-scale edit-war on that page? --Dijxtra 09:59, 19 December 2005 (UTC)

• Wikipedia:Requests for page protection. - Mgm|^(talk) 10:17, 19 December 2005 (UTC)
  • Thanks! --Dijxtra 10:24, 19 December 2005 (UTC)

Category tree browsing?

Someone told me that there exists a tool for easy browsing of Wikipedia category trees (or "graphs", I realize they're not real trees, but I'd like to browse them as such). That person did not know the URL, and I can't find it, so I'm wondering if anyone has an idea of what s/he might have meant. /Skagedal 12:04, 19 December 2005 (UTC)

It exists for de: and commons: but not, AFAIK, en:. The commons one is here: http://tim.alder-digital.de/tree-commons/wcat-search.php pfctdayelise 12:43, 19 December 2005 (UTC)

Thanks a lot, pfctdayelise - this helped me find http://tools.wikimedia.de/~daniel/WikiSense/CategoryTree.php , which works with all language wikipedias (although the new one that you mentioned is nicer). /skagedal^[talk] 17:28, 19 December 2005 (UTC)

Nice tool there... Thanks for finding it! Now it's an Opera panel for me! Neat! jnothman ^talk 22:04, 19 December 2005 (UTC)

Copyright vs Public Domain vs No Original Research vs Plagiarism

Hi, I've just joined Wikipedia and would like to contribute some articles on places in Portugal which I have visited and which have not yet been described. I would also like to add some photographs I have taken myself.

My problem:

1. Most info sources are not Public Domain (i.e. reference books, Portuguese internet sites); books are almost always copyrighted.

2. Most of the internet sites I have checked for data are not copyrighted as far as I can see, but how can one be sure?

3. Original Research is NOT allowed.

4. I have read all of the data on Wikipedia on these subjects and also the one about Verifiable Sources, which strangely enough states, and I quote: >> One of the keys to writing good encyclopedia articles is to understand that they should only refer to facts, assertions ...etc., that have already been published by a reputable publisher<<. Surely, anything which has already been published by a reputable publisher is by definition almost always copyright material?

How on earth is one supposed to obtain the facts about a town/place, such as population, historical dates, etc., when the only available sources are probably all protected by copyright? Or is it OK for me to extract the facts from these sources, write about them in my own words and quote the sources and provide internet links as confirmation of verifiability?

Also, regarding photographs I have taken myself; can I somehow indicate this fact when inserting them to indicate that they are therefore not subject to any copyright?

MacGuiver 17:52, 19 December 2005 (UTC)

The key here is that copyright applies to creative works; facts cannot (generally speaking) be copyrighted. So you're able to use these facts as a basis to write something of your own, but you're not able to just copy their text.

Assume anything on the web is copyrighted unless explicitly stated otherwise.

When you upload photographs, you'll see a drop-down menu. This allows you to select the licensing method of your choice; {{GFDL}} is the same license all your text contributions to Wikipedia are released under; you retain the copyright, but allow people to make use of it, attributing you as the source. Shimgray | talk | 18:13, 19 December 2005 (UTC)

New member needs help, first article was marked to be cleaned up

I joined Wikipedia because there is very little here in my field of "quilt history". I thought I'd gradually add information as I have time.

I just wrote my first article and it got a sign saying, "This article needs to be cleaned up to conform to a higher standard of quality."

The article I wrote was http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baltimore_album_quilts

I haven't a clue what I did wrong and am a bit overwhelmed with the long help pages. If it's just something simple I will fix the page. If it's too time consuming to write these articles won't be able to contribute.

Please let me know if the article is easily fixable or if I should just delete it.

Thank You — Preceding unsigned comment added by Quiltpatch (talk • contribs)

No, it probably means that the user who tagged it with {{cleanup}} thought that it was too dependent on the external links you have. But that's ok, Wikipedia is a work in progress and you don't need to submit finished drafts of your articles for review. You may want to ask Kilo-Lima to find out what exactly made him apply the tag. Welcome to Wikipedia! Titoxd^{(?!? - help us)} 19:57, 19 December 2005 (UTC)

Hello, Quiltpatch. In my opinion the article is easily fixable, and it would be a pity to delete it. It has good potential. You say that you "thought I'd gradually add information as I have time". Please do! If people see that the article is expanding in a menaingful way, they will certainly be impressed by the author's seriousness. I do not see why this could not be done step-by-step. Only one piece of advice, if I may: please do work on it regularly. If readers notice that the article remains unchanged during a couple of weeks, say, they might conclude that someone has just posted then abandoned it. Unfortunately, this often happens. But you seem quite interested in your subject, so make a success of it! Lots of luck! Bessel Dekker 21:05, 19 December 2005 (UTC)

I am actually very impressed, Quiltpatch. It's quite nicely written.... Not all users' first articles are.

The placement of a cleanup tag usually means that the article does not yet conform to the Manual of Style; maybe you should have a browse there. It seems Kilo-Lima did half that cleanup job before adding the cleanup tag, and it's a little strange he didn't finish it and not bother tagging for cleanup, but he may have run out of time. He left a few things not quite clean (some of which still aren't):

1. External links, which should come at the end of the article, and not really be part of the content with cues like "take a look" (as Dismas fixed up)
2. Title inconsistent with name: are they "Baltimore album quilts", "Baltimore Album quilts" or "Baltimore Album Quilts"?
3. Opening sentence lacks context: Dismas helped by adding in Maryland (Wikipedia is an international project), but the first sentence still implies that one knows what a Baltimore album quilt is, and only gives them some background. The opening sentence needs to explain what the thing is, as well as optionally giving some background. It would need to specify that it is a quilt design style / pattern. See Wikipedia:Lead section which explains this more clearly.
4. Seeing as it's the only article on Wikipedia that links to Baltimore album quilts is Applique, you might want a link back to it, maybe in a discussion on the style, and maybe in a "See also" section.
5. You may also want to mark the article as a stub as it lacks a lot of detail, illustrations (can you take any photos? get permission from web sites?), etc yet.
6. If you intend to make further articles on quilting (something maybe Wikipedia is short on), you might want to put them all in a category together, or even may your own stub type for them. Or even just use the category embroidery.

Try cleaning these up yourself. It will give you help in better and more consistent style for future work on Wikipedia. Besides, you're more of an expert than me in this domain.

As to deleting the article because of the cleanup tag: I'm sure we've allayed your fears by now, but you aren't really able to delete anyway. See Wikipedia:Deletion and you'll find that this article doesn't pass criteria for speedy deletion, and I am sure it would fail if it were proposed for deletion.

So, welcome! I hope you make many more great contributions! jnothman ^talk 22:33, 19 December 2005 (UTC)

Perhaps the lesson here is that particular template was interpreted by this particular user as being "This article sucks. Clean it up or else." Perhaps it should be reworded to indicate the real meaning "Would someone mind cleaning this article up?" Stevage 01:14, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

We've seen it a few times actually. You're right. I'll suggest a change on Template_talk:Cleanup. jnothman ^talk 03:46, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

No, the "This article sucks" template is {{d}}. ;) Titoxd^{(?!? - help us)} 06:17, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for the help everyone. I understand much better what needs to be done. Quiltpatch 06:11, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

Sure, and again, Welcome! Titoxd^{(?!? - help us)} 06:17, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

BTW I didn't start the page. I found it linked from applique and it was empty so I decided to put in some information. It does make more sense to start a page on quilt history then gradually add different quilt history topics there. Quiltpatch 06:27, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

Propagation of Categories

I recently created the Category 'Thelemite Wikipedians' under 'Wikipedians by religion' and the Category 'Hermetic Qabalist Wikipedians' under 'Kabbalist Wikipedians.' I also added both of these Categories to my user page. When I reloaded my page the links were red and when I followed them they opened the Categories I created, but they were on the 'Edit' page not the Category page. After a few minutes the 'Thelemite Wikipedians' link on my user page turned blue and opened on the Category page as I would have expected, but after more than thirty minutesthe 'Hermetic Qabalist Wikipedians' link is still red and it still opens on the 'Edit' page. Are there issues of propagation of which I am unaware? Puck 21:02, 19 December 2005 (UTC)

It appears it is simply an issue of time. After about an hour it everything seems to be working as I'd expect. I have now added a clue to my very sparsely populated clue box. Puck 21:19, 19 December 2005 (UTC)

Its not simply a matter of time (or at least it shouldn't have been). It was simply a matter of you putting a description or other content in those categories (having articles in a category are not enough to make a blue link). And if the edit page kept popping up after there was a description, then maybe you weren't refreshing the page with the link? jnothman ^talk 22:40, 19 December 2005 (UTC)

In both of them I added a brief description and content to explain that people should use subst:PAGENAME to avoid ending up in the "U" list. When the edit pages opened the description and content I had entered was there waiting to be edited. I also logged out and shut my browser down at one point, so I don't think it was a refresh issue. Around the same time I noticed there were some serious timeout issues all across Wikipedia. For a while I wasn't able to open any pages, but Google and Yahoo! were working fine, ruling out in my mind network congestion. My guess is there was Wikpedia wide sludge and it just took time to digest everything. As I said, eventually everything worked out and I'm not having any issues now. | Puck 01:31, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

stopping redirect

Can I link to a redirect page without activating the redirect? or For the effect I'm looking for: can I link to a redirect page's edit history?

Links to edit histories have to be done as external links anyway. That is, the history of my user page has to be linked as [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:jnothman&action=history my user page history] which appears as my user page history. So hopefully from that link you can work it out for any other page. But if it is not history you are interested in but rather the redirect page before it redirects, we don't want "action=historu" but instead "redirect=no". That is [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=WP:HD&redirect=no] (or [2]) will not follow the redirect to this page. jnothman ^talk 22:44, 19 December 2005 (UTC)

Thank you. Since I'm referencing a page I merged from, I think I'll link to the history directly. Sensible, right? TheLimbicOne 22:47, 19 December 2005 (UTC)

This works for me. Is that what you had in mind? AndyJones 00:01, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

Computer Language

What computer language does Wikipedia use? If you are going to move this question, tell me.--Anti-Anonymex2^{Come to my page! I've gone caliente loco!} 22:24, 19 December 2005 (UTC)

This has already been answered farther up the page. Dismas|^(talk) 22:32, 19 December 2005 (UTC)

In particular, it is at #Language above. jnothman ^talk 22:46, 19 December 2005 (UTC)

December 20

How do we put up a Disambiguation page?

Dreadfully simple, I know, but how do we put up a disambiguation page?

Guyu needs disambiguation between a Chinese solar period, and the Australian native freshwater fish Guyu wujalwujalensis.

Thanks

Codman 00:29, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

You just start a page Guyu (disambiguation), and put the following on it:

Guyu may mean:

• Guyu, a Chinese solar period
• Guyu wujalwujalensis, an Australian freshwater fish

At the bottom you add {{disambig}}

On Guyu, you add at the top: {{otheruses}}

And of course you'll have to write an article about the Australian fish. :-)

Hope that helps, Kusma (討論) 00:56, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

Reference Pages

Do the various reference pages get archived? Where? Halcatalyst 01:07, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Reference desk archive. Simple enough? jnothman ^talk 03:27, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

To coin a (really old, American) phrase, I hope to shout! Thanks, Halcatalyst 04:29, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

Infobox glitch in Parachutes

There's an infobox glitch in Parachutes - the Parr Street Studios, Liverpool, &c line appears at the top of the article as well as in the infobox. Can't see why & too tired to investigate. --Tagishsimon (talk)

Fixed - problem seems to have been line breaks within the infobox content. I'm no expert on infoboxes, but it appears you shouldn't break lines up within infoboxes. At least, not that particular one. --LesleyW 02:36, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

Where do I go if I have a proposal?

Where do I go if I have a proposal? --anon

That would depend on what kind of proposal you have in mind. If you want to suggest a new article but can't create it because you're a new user or wish to remain "anonymous", start at Wikipedia:Requested articles. If you have a proposal to improve the running of Wikipedia, I guess you could try Wikipedia:General complaints, which despite the name seems to be intended as a kind of suggestion box. --LesleyW 02:47, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

Or better yet, Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)... pfctdayelise 03:27, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

Well actually, I remembered somebody told me to go somewhere called WikiMedia: Proposals or something like that, but I can't remember where it was! --anon

Yes, if it's a proposal about Wikipedia it should go to Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals) (but look at the top of the page there, as your proposal may be more appropriate elsewhere). jnothman ^talk 03:31, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

(Yes, pfctdayelise, I don't think it even bothered telling me you'd changed it - and said the same. =P)

Edit history never lies... :P pfctdayelise 10:07, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

Actually, I was looking for m:Proposals for new projects, but I found it nearby at the village pump proposals. Thanks! But actually, I have a question about that place:

At the top of the page, it says "if you are willing to take responsibility for it, post it here. otherwise, post it on the discussion page." But what does that mean by taking responsibilty? I asked the same question on the discussion page there, but nobody has answered! --anon

At the top of which page did you find this? Not this help desk as far as I can see... And I don't see your question in the Help Desk's talk page... What exactly are you asking? jnothman ^talk 01:43, 21 December 2005 (UTC)

The poster is talking about the m:Proposals for new projects page. I removed the heading which you inserted, because it was all written by the same person. (Dear anon, it would be great if you could sign your posts. You don't have to have an account to do this. Just type ~~~~ at the end of your message, and it will print up your IP and timestamp.)

As for the question, I think they mean if you are willing to DO the project, implement it, run it, control it, etc. It's the difference between going, "Wouldn't it be great if we had a pig latin wikipedia?" and "I have already translated@ 100 articles into pig latin, I've gathered a group of interested pig latin editors, we've got pig latin policy, let us loose on a pig latin 'pedia." See what I mean?

@ (Actually, I think there are several automated pig latin translators, so it probably wouldn't be that hard.)

--pfctdayelise 02:38, 21 December 2005 (UTC)

Aligning Babel and Instrument boxes?

Is there any good way to align the Wikipedia:Babel and Wikipedia:Instruments boxes in one's userpage? Right now in mine they are just aligned to the right on top of each other, but it would be nice to get them next to each other and centered. I have seen them nicely organized on other user pages, but have not been able to make sense of how. Thanks! -- Natalya 03:13, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

One easy way to put them next to each other is using a table. What you would do is build a table like this:

{| align="center"
|valign=top| {{babel|.......}}
|valign=top| {{User:Natalya/instruments}}
|}

Note that I had to use {{User:Natalya/instruments}} and not just include your table already there. Nested table markup doesn't work so happily in Wikipedia; the easiest solution is just to include the table from elsewhere. So if you stick that instruments table into a page like User:Natalya/instruments and then include it, you should be fine. I hope that works! jnothman ^talk 03:36, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

RSS feeds or JavaScript

Are any ways to incorporate RSS feeds or JavaScript within Wikipedia pages?--Natkeeran 06:04, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

It is possible for you to incorporate them in your own Wikipedia experience using user scripting, but not in an actual page, no. jnothman ^talk 06:09, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

You may be interested in WP:RSS. Gflores ^Talk 06:21, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

cancellation of the account

Sir I want to create an account to be able to edit your pages & to contribute to your encyclopedia.But I want to know if I can at anytime unsubscribe or discontinue to use your website.

You don't need to give an email address to sign up, and even if you do Wikipedia does not send you mail, so there is nothing from which to unsubscribe! And yes, you are allowed to discontinue contributing to Wikipedia at any point. jnothman ^talk 11:33, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

Membership on Wikipedia is completely free of charge. - Akamad 06:34, 21 December 2005 (UTC)

Music

Who is the composer of Excelsior

OK, calm down. You only need to ask once. This page is answered by humans, not computers. Also, at the top of this page you'll notice it says "This page is for questions about how to use Wikipedia. For factual questions, try the Reference Desk." So try it: Wikipedia:Reference Desk. Or why not even try using http://www.google.com/ yourself? pfctdayelise 14:12, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

contacting pjm

How do I contact the user PJM via his talk page? I am new to Wikipedia and do not know how to do this. Ianmacm 15:26, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

Simply go to his page, you can search in the search field for 'User:PJM' and then go to the Discussion from the top links (next to edit this page). From there, click on the '+' next to edit this page. This will create a new message for PJM, simply type what you want to say to him. I've provided a direct link to his page, just in case. Leave a new message for PJM. Gflores ^Talk 16:43, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

Publised

when was this site published?

Wikipedia was started in January 2001. For more information, see the Wikipedia article. --LesleyW 22:48, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

... and, if you're looking for how to cite an article, please see Wikipedia:Citing Wikipedia. -- Rick Block (talk) 22:55, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

December 21

What is Wikipedia's home timezone?

What is Wikipedia's home time zone - in other words, what is it that triggers the date on the Main Page? I live in San Diego in the US Pacific time zone (GMT-8), and usually find that the page displays with tomorrow's date. Can a feature be added to query the browser/operating system (assuming that the user's operating system has these set correctly) so that Wikipedia sends the page for that day?

David B. Barkhimer

Wikipedia uses UTC (similar to GMT). Broken S 02:35, 21 December 2005 (UTC)

The time used by Wikipedia is UTC (Coordinated Universal Time), which is a slight modification on Grenwich Mean Time. So this follows the time zone of London. I am not sure about your feature request:

• You can change your preferences (if you have a username) to give you some information (like "last modified" dates) in your own timezone
• Changing the times may be confusing: some times, like the one I am about to sign below can't be fixed to your timezone because they are hard-coded into the page. So to keep it universal, you're better off just finding yourself a UTC clock some how (or putting one on your user page, which is what I did).

(PS: Argh! I hate edit conflicts in sections!)

jnothman ^talk 02:39, 21 December 2005 (UTC)

For California Wikipedians, "tomorrow" begins at 4pm. That's not necessarily a bad thing, it means we're still awake to see the new "today's" content.  :) Jamie ^{(talk/contribs)} 18:49, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

original work

Why is original work discouraged/banned at Wikipedia? Halcatalyst 05:13, 21 December 2005 (UTC)

Briefly, because it falls outside our scope. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, that is, a tertiary source that reports on things that are already documented, not a publisher for new ideas. Wikipedia is not the way to present research that needs to be peer reviewed by other members of the appropriate academic communities, nor the way to bypass the scientific method. Titoxd^{(?!? - help us)} 05:20, 21 December 2005 (UTC)

I think you should be careful, Halcatalyst, to use the term original research, which is not allowed on Wikipedia (see also WP:NOT#Wikipedia is not a publisher of original thought), while original work is nearly always what Wikipedia is producing, as long as it is compiled from prior (and preferably citable) research and knowledge. jnothman ^talk 05:38, 21 December 2005 (UTC)

Merci bien de vos promptes réponses. Halcatalyst 13:59, 21 December 2005 (UTC) (oops, wrong Wikipedia =) )

Signature

How do I change how my signature looks without having to manually change it every time? --Member 05:50, 21 December 2005 (UTC)

1. First, make sure it works by testing it in the Sandbox. If you are having trouble, you can look at WP:SIGHELP for more advice.
2. Click on My preferences and copy the Wikitext on the "Nickname" field.
3. Make sure you click on the Raw signature box.
4. Save your preferences and purge your cache to make sure your change works.

Titoxd^{(?!? - help us)} 05:53, 21 December 2005 (UTC)

Thanks! --hello, i'm a member | talk to me! 06:12, 21 December 2005 (UTC)

Disambiguation

Hi guys,

bit of a newb here.. I am uncertain about making a disambiguation and would like some help on the issue. I have gone through the disambiguation article but it tells more about when and less about how. Did I miss something or can you folks help out.

Muchas gracias!

--Hurkummer 09:26, 21 December 2005 (UTC)

Someone else asked about disambig pages yesterday. You can find the answer that they got about 12 questions up from yours here. If that doesn't help, by all means, ask about what specific things that you don't understand. There's also a similar question that was asked on the 18th. You'll find that farther up the page as well. Dismas|^(talk) 09:38, 21 December 2005 (UTC)

lost questions

i am not a member of wikipedia. however i posted a question in the 'humanities' section and i would like to see how people have responded. however i do not know how to find my article now. this is probably a stupid question. so i appologize if the answer is very obvious and im not seeing it. thank you!--- Chloe

Are you sure it was Humanities? I just read your question about Arthritis (if you're the same Chloe) in the Science section. It's at the bottom of the page. All new questions get tacked on at the bottom. For an older question, older than the last few days that is, it would have been put into the Wikipedia:Reference desk archive. Dismas|^(talk) 13:37, 21 December 2005 (UTC)

But generally you should be looking at the Reference Desk, either the science or humanities page. jnothman ^talk 14:54, 21 December 2005 (UTC)

Changing a redirect to a disambiguation page

I have a specific example here! There are two pages available at present - Spiritual healing (which redirects to Faith healing) and Spiritual Healing which is the title of an album by Death.

My question is this - as the two "Spiritual Healing" titles are so similar, would it make sense to change the redirect page to a disambiguation one with links to both "Faith healing" and a renamed Spiritual Healing (album)? I appreciate in the latter case, I'd ideally need to track down pages that link to the album and update them but I'm happy to do this.

Or am I missing a point of etiquette here and the capitalisation alone in the original article titles is enough to differentiate them?

Thanks for any help on this. IainP (talk) 13:19, 21 December 2005 (UTC)

The capitalization already handles this for you as you can see when you click on the links in your question. If there were a third instance then there would be need for a disambig page to keep them straight. If you wanted to create such a page at Spiritual healing then you could click on that link, get automatically moved to Faith healing, then click on the link back to Spiritual healing at the top of the page where it says "redirected from..." That will allow you to edit the page at Spiritual healing.

You could also put a notice at the top of Faith healing that says something to the effect of "Spiritual healing redirects to this page. If you were looking for the album by that name see Spiritual Healing." Dismas|^(talk) 13:41, 21 December 2005 (UTC)

At the top of Faith healing, you might like to put a message that goes along the lines of: "Spiritual healing" redirects here. You may be looking for the album entitled Spiritual Healing by Death. -- enochlau (talk) 13:43, 21 December 2005 (UTC)

Thanks to you both. I'll add a mention to the top of Faith healing article. IainP (talk) 15:28, 21 December 2005 (UTC)

Where should the {{1911}} tag go?

Over at the 1911 Encyclopedia topics page we are enjoined to put the {{1911}} tag in any article that contains material from the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica. It doesn't say where in the article. I am guessing at the top so that it appears before the overview. Is this right?

Stroika 13:23, 21 December 2005 (UTC)

I couldn't find the specific ref in Manual of Style but I believe it goes at the foot of the page. --Alf ^melmac 13:31, 21 December 2005 (UTC)

It's conventionally somewhere at the bottom, along with any other sources listed. Shimgray | talk | 13:32, 21 December 2005 (UTC)

IOW it can go anywhere and still appear in the right place on the page? Halcatalyst 13:55, 21 December 2005 (UTC)

I don't think so; templates tend to go where you put them. You can put a category (eg Category:Foo) anywhere in the page, and they are automatically listed at the bottom, but I haven't seen a template work like that. pfctdayelise 14:01, 21 December 2005 (UTC)

Thank you all for the replies. In further answer to Halcatalyst I know for sure that the {{1911}} tag goes where its put because I put one at the head of an article and that's where it stayed. Stroika 15:31, 21 December 2005 (UTC)

display of sub-comments on user pages, including here

On the French Wikipedia, as for example here ("Wikipédia dans Le Monde"), the sub-comments are displayed with cool left and top margin lines. This vastly improves readability. The WP edit boxes look the same as here. How dey do dat? Could the same thing be implemented here? Halcatalyst 14:28, 21 December 2005 (UTC)

It is only a matter of stylesheet. Indeed there may be a skin to Wikipedia that already does this. Anyway, you can make this change for yourself, by editing User:Halcatalyst/monobook.css. Add in the code from User:Jnothman/fr style monobook.css and then you'll probably want to change the colours. (This code can be shortened a lot if your web browser is new enough to support CSS3 selectors.) jnothman ^talk 14:51, 21 December 2005 (UTC)

• Thanks, jnothman! It worked! Halcatalyst 01:14, 24 December 2005 (UTC)

GDFL & public domain

Hello, all. I posted this on the talk page to the GDFL a while ago, and no body answered. Is there a difference between liscensing something under the GDFL, and releasing it into the public domain? If so, what? Which one is less restrictive to future users of the work? Where should I use one or the other if I want to release something? Can anyone help?

Also, where could I go to find the edit count for myself or someone else? Thank you! --Trevdna 17:32, 21 December 2005 (UTC)

The GFDL is a license. When you release soemthing under unt, you retain the copyright. You can still do anythign that you want eith it, such as sell it, although its value ism likely to be much reduced, sicne anyone can get it for free by complying with the GFDL license. When you release work under the GFDL, thsoe who use it must comply with the terms of this license. These include a requirement to acknowledge the authorship. The terms also require that if the user publishes copies those copies must also be relsed under the GFDL, including any m,odified copues, and including any derived works or composite works that include GFDL content. This is what makes the GFDL a "copyleft" license. There are other requirements as well.

If you place work in the public domain, uyou are giving up all rights to it. you have no control over what anyoen else may do with it. Someone may take public domain work, change it very slightly, and publishe it under their own copyright eith no acknowlegment of the original author. (This may be unethical but is legal under U.S. law.)

For most text that a person might contribute to wikipedia, the practical effects are not very different. If you are publishing a complete work of your own, there are advantages to retaining copyright but grantign a broad license. The GFDL is not the only suchn license. The details of the requiremetns each license imposes on reusers varies. Some people think one is better than another. DES ^(talk) 17:52, 21 December 2005 (UTC)

For your edit count (or anyone else's), see Wikipedia:Kate's Tool. pfctdayelise 01:48, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

Thank you. --Trevdna 20:02, 24 December 2005 (UTC)

Combining two articles

There are two articles, Toronto_Parks_and_Recreation and Toronto_Parks,_Forestry_and_Recreation_Division. Due to a recent city reorganisation the two articles apply to the same topic and need to be combined into one. I am not sure how to accomplish this task.

See Wikipedia:Merging and moving pages. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 21:53, 21 December 2005 (UTC)

Articles so technical they're impossible to comprehend

Is there a way to flag an article that is incredible technical and provides no layman introduction, leaving the general person confused as to what the subject matter even pertains to? --Bad carpet 22:34, 21 December 2005 (UTC)

• Add the template {{technical}}, IIRC. Leave a note on the talk page as well, describing the problem. Shimgray | talk | 22:37, 21 December 2005 (UTC)

Thanks! --Bad carpet 16:16, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

Two articles for the same person

I created the page Liel Kolet today. Later I dicovered that the page Liel does exist already. So there are two pages for one and the same person. Question is now which page has the better name and should stay and which should be deleted? Thanks! --torusturtle 13:43, 21 December 2005 (UTC)

I would suggest keeping Liel Kolet as the main article, merging in any additional information from Liel. I say this simply because the name Liel Kolet is more specific. Liel could then be made a redirect. --Rcsheets 01:58, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

I think with each article only having a very small number of edits, it's fairly arbitrary. But I agree that keeping Liel Kolet with a redirect from Liel would be the most obvious answer. jnothman ^talk 02:57, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

I copied the text from Liel to Liel Kolet but did not enter a redirect yet. --torusturtle 04:18, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

Sounds about right. No point in calling them by one name if they have more unless that's the name they're known for (i.eMadonna) karmafist 04:43, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

In my oppinion it makes sence to use the artificial or short name for people that are know by a very different name. Example Sting who's real name is Gordon Matthew Sumner. For articles about artists who just only use there first name to make it easyier for the audience to memorize it, I think the full name would be better as wikipedia is limited in keywords. --torusturtle 04:58, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

I entered the redirect Liel to Liel Kolet --torusturtle 05:08, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

Note a page move is different to a copy-and-paste move. Copy-and-paste moves destroy the page's history, which violates the terms of the GFDL. When you have been at WP "long enough", a "move" tab appears at the top of pages. If it hasn't appeared yet, you can ask an administrator to move it, but you should never do a copy-and-paste move. pfctdayelise 01:57, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

I put a note on the admin's noticeboard here. pfctdayelise 02:04, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

December 22

user sub-pages

How do you create sub-pages on your user site? Halcatalyst 01:54, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

Simply go to a page such as User:Halcatalyst/test. When you get the message that it doesn't exist, clcik on the link to create it. Then edit as any other page. DES ^(talk) 01:56, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

Simply edit them! So I just created User talk:Jnothman/Mar-Oct 2005 by simply editing that page. (If you want you can create the link first, preview and then click it to edit it.) Some tips:

• If you want to link to a page that is under your page (ie, following a /), you don't need to link with a full reference. Ie, on my User talk:Jnothman page, I could have just made a link [[/Mar-Oct 2005]] which would have linked to the correct page. Here, though, /Mar-Oct 2005 links to Wikipedia:Help desk/Mar-Oct 2005. This is called a relative reference (as opposed to absolute).

Jnothman's talk page archives:

2005	Mar-Oct	Nov	Dec	RFA
2006	Jan	Feb	Mar-Jun	Jul-Dec
2006	Jan-Dec

• Often it is useful (and neat!) to create templates within your own user space. It allows you to neaten your page's code, and also to provide the same content on multiple pages. Note, then, that relative references mentioned above aren't usually appropriate in such templates. I just created the template to the right in my own user space: to include it all I needed to do was use {{User:Jnothman/Template:archives}}: only if another namespace (such as User, Image, etc) isn't given will MediaWiki assume the Template: namespace. I didn't even need Template in the name.

I don't know if that was clear enough, but I hope so. jnothman ^talk 02:03, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for reminding me (indirectly) that I was overdue to archive some of my stuff. I copied your template as given. I not see it looking as nice as your illustration so I suspect

• There's more to do than you say here;
• I am somewhat dense when it comes to getting it;
• The lovely effect might not kick in until I got more than one archiving going on;
• It may be related to the actual text used ... I have multiple sub-pages already, with different text conventions.

User:AlMac|^(talk) 16:10, 24 December 2005 (UTC)

Cleaning Up/Reverting Vandalism

On Talk:Tree of life (Kabbalah) I noticed a couple instances of vandalism--though to me it more along the lines of graffiti--and I took it upon myself to clean it up. The changes I made are here. All I did was go back to before the first instance, open up edit this page and then save. My first question is: is that the way it's normally done in trivial cases like this? and second: can you point me to an Help article that explains the reversion process? I've looked in Help, but couldn't find it. I want to be sure I'm doing this correctly. I'd hate to be guilty of doing the very thing I'm trying to defend against and end up doing more damage than I'm repairing. < Puck 05:03, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

That's pretty much what you do. The page you're looking for is Wikipedia:Revert, and the instructions there are pretty much what you did. Titoxd^{(?!? - help us)} 05:04, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

Thanks < Puck 05:25, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

• Please make sure that you re-enter any valid information that was lost in such a revert. It is always possible someone made a valid edit after the vandal struck. - Mgm|^(talk) 05:56, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

Measuroo.com

Through the Wikipedia Help desk Mailing list, I've received a notification about abovementioned site not complying with Mirror guidelines. Could someone with a little more experience on Wikipedia:Mirrors and forks than I have list them there and send some boilerplate messages to ask them to comply? - Mgm|^(talk) 12:25, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

I've never looked at this mirror business before, but I sent them the standard letter just through the form on their site. It certainly is a GFDL violation. jnothman ^talk 14:11, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

I've listed them on Wikipedia:Mirrors and forks/Mno. DES ^(talk) 19:55, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

Evaluation Toolkit

Hi,

on the german wikipedia I found a list of tools for evaluating articles (http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Bewertungsbausteine) - I remember, that I have seen something like that on the english page, but I can't find it anymore ... sometimes wikipedia is a bit difficult to orientate in (on?), maybe someone could help me?

desperatly searching, --Enfiladissa 17:18, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

Is anything in Category:Editorial validation what you're looking for? -- Rick Block (talk) 19:53, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

not really ... but I found it, by chance: Wikipedia:Template messages/Cleanup, merci anyway, --Enfiladissa 07:16, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

You might want to put this on your user page:

This user has a ton of edits.

the coding to accomplish it is: {{tonofedits}}

The link then takes you to statistics about what you have done. User:AlMac|^(talk) 16:16, 24 December 2005 (UTC)

Text Templates

Are there any text affecting templates on Wikipedia?--Anti-Anonymex2^{Come to my page! I've gone caliente loco!} 18:19, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

I'm not sure what you mean, can you be more specific? -- Rick Block (talk) 19:39, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

Such as small caps templates and blinking text templates. For example:

                  {blink|Text}(add the extra "{}s.")

--Anti-Anonymex2^{Come to my page! I've gone caliente loco!} 18:57, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

How to find article I edited

Is is possible to relocate pages I edited? I've only made a few edits and want to locate one, but can't remember enough to find it. It was within the last year. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 171.66.200.4 (talk • contribs) 14:14, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

If you can remember any key words or phrases, you might be able toi find it with a google search of wikipedia. If you had logged in, all your edits would be listed under your user ID. if you consistantly used the same IP address, the edits would be listed there. But only one edit is listed for User:171.66.200.4, so i'm afraind the google search is the best i can suggest. DES ^(talk) 19:36, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

Although, if you had an account and had made the edit while logged in, this could be solved very quickly... :P pfctdayelise 01:38, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

How do I create a template that can be implenmented using a simple {{word}} code?

How do I create a template that can be implenmented using a simple {{word}} code? --Ac1983fan 19:34, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

If you mean you want to create a template named "word" that can be activated simply by entering {{word}}, simply go to Template:word and create it. If you want to crreate a new template with any particular name simply enter "Template:NAME" in the search box and click GO (replacing NAME with the name you wish. If you are not conversant with teh tempalte syntax, study some similar templates and read Help:Template or ask for advice before tryign to create and use a complex tempalte. DES ^(talk) 19:41, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

Now I get it. thank you very much. --Ac1983fan 19:44, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

December 23

Help Requested re: how to get a blocked entry back up and running?

Hi, I am a newbie, and have wet my toes by creating a couple small entries. The second entry Craik Sustainable Living Project was blocked within a few minutes for possible copyright violation. I fixed the section, but don't know what happens next. Its been a couple days now, and I've posted to the user talk page of the person who blocked my entry, I've put the revised version on the temp subpage, and I've posted on the talk page for my entry. Is there anything else I can do besides wait? The violation was inadvertant (had been using text from a website as a placeholder while I worked on my layout), and I've corrected it. Before I contribute anything else, I want to figure this out. I'd appreciate responses on the talk page associated with the article I created, if possible. I don't mean to sound impatient, but it took only minutes before someone blocked the entry; surely it can be rectified quickly too... --Delzen 00:10, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

In this case, I might actually discuss with Nandesuka who "blocked" the page, listing as a copyvio:

• It is not clear whether his complaint is about the whole article, which is often just lightly paraphrasing sections of the copyrighted web site, or whether the complaint is on only the one paragraph, which you have fixed.
• Nandesuka did not list the article on the Wikipedia:Copyright problems page. It would have also been nice to inform you. Anyway, there is an appropriate place to make comments on fixing the article, and yours is listed at Wikipedia:Copyright problems/2005 December 21.
• The article is currently very close in content to some paragraphs on the CSLP web site. I'm not sure if a long quote on mission statement is appropriate, either.

I don't know, though, how departed the article needs to be to still be considered a copyright violation: can any other users here please check the revised article at Craik Sustainable Living Project/Temp and compare with various pages at [3] for copyright violation?

Hopefully once you've fixed it, it can be moved back in place. jnothman ^talk 01:10, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

Thanks jnothman. I had emailed Nandesuka, and posted to the user's talk page; must be busy, although not 'away', since it appears almost 2 dozen contributions have been made by this user since mine. Is this block up to the single user who did it; what if they don't bother attending to it again? I think the revised version should be acceptable, although a bit brief; I intend to improve on it over time. I will delete the mission statement just in case. I hope others users can help advise. This is my second contribution and first new entry, so I want to do it right. Also, I want to learn the proper etiquette; I already can see there is a certain amount of 'tension' out there (though not bad, considering what's being attempted). Thanks for the support! --Delzen 01:56, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

I'd expect Nandesuka to reply shortly. Anyone can tag a page as a possible copyright violation (instructions are at Wikipedia:Copyright problems). The articles so tagged are reviewed by one of Wikipedia's administrators. If you've resolved the issue, there should be no problem. BTW - you could ask for personal assistance (on this or any other matter) from the user who left you the welcome message on your talk page. I hope you don't find this experience off-putting. Wikipedia has had continuing problems with users including copyrighted material. It sounds like you understand the issue and are eager to fix it. Thanks! -- Rick Block (talk) 02:36, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

Thanks Rick Block. I've tried a couple other small contributions, and will keep trying to learn the ropes.--Delzen 03:39, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

I've checked it out, and although the article seems to follow the introduction on the web site, you have done a careful job of summarising and not copying the material. IMO, it should be fine to move in in place of the copyvio. But it seems to be implied that only administrators should do this, and I'm not one yet. jnothman ^talk 04:01, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

Login problem

I was trying to move a page back to its correct placement and got an error message:

Not logged in

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Jump to: navigation, search

You cannot move pages because either you are not logged in, or your account is too new. In the latter case, please list the page at Wikipedia:Requested moves. Please do not attempt to "move" the page via copying and pasting its content, as that destroys the page's history.

Something wrong there - I am logged in (and am not 'too new', having been around nearly 2 years!). Anyone know what might have gone wrong and how to solve it? - MPF 00:28, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

Try clearing your browser cache, and then restarting the browser. enochlau (talk) 00:35, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for the tip; tried it but it didn't work - MPF 00:39, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

Try log out and log in; make sure you have cookies still set on properly... But I really don't know the answer. jnothman ^talk 00:48, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

Gave that a go . . . no joy. - MPF 00:51, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

Portal Layout

I am working on Portal:United Nations and the page is entirely messed up. Please HELP!!!!! — Preceding unsigned comment added by Yorktown1776 (talk • contribs)

Essentially, the box-header was opening a <div> in HTML, but this wasn't being closed in the box-footer, so all the different sections were being nested in HTML, and so looking rather haphazard. I fixed this by simply making the box-footer a redirect to the standard Portal:Box-footer. jnothman ^talk 01:18, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

WHY?!

WHY IS MY MOVE ABILITY DISABLED!!? I AM GETTING PISSED! εγκυκλοπαίδεια* 01:19, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

I have been here since January, and some stupid MESSAGE pops up saying that my ACCOUNT IS TOO NEW!!! I am trying to write African American military history and I want to move it to African American Military History, don't add anything about putting this to requested moves, I have been here long enough to have a simple function like this!!!εγκυκλοπαίδεια* 01:21, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

Don't know, but if it's any consolation, I'm having exactly the same problem - and I've been here since January 2004. I'm hoping it's a temporary quirk that'll be sorted soon - MPF 01:31, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

(edit conflict means I didn't know about MPF's post:) This is curious: MPF complains of the same above, and yet I just moved it without a problem. I don't know why you wanted to move it to that capitalisation (ie African American Military History), but now that I've moved it for you, you can fix up the double redirects =) If this doesn't get cleared up, though, we may need to see what the developers can say to it. jnothman ^talk 01:33, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

On the bright side, you probably shouldn't move that article to the new title anyway—Wikipedia's manual of style indicates that words in article titles should be capitalized only if they are proper nouns, or if they are the first word in the title. The current title is correct.

I agree, however, that being unable to move pages after your long history is unusual. Is it possible that the page was protected from page moves due to vandalism? (after edit conflict) Oh—I see that jnothman has fixed it. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 01:34, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

Fixed it or not, you are probably right that I shouldn't have moved it (I think you are correct that the first name was more proper). I needed something to test move abilities on, and maybe I should have created something in my user space. The annoying thing about such moves is you need an admin to revert them. jnothman ^talk 01:42, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

Yippee!! All back to normal now - seems it was some temporary blip - MPF 01:41, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

GUYS! I was just playing by acting angry: ), I only did that to attract attention to the problem, I am glad that is sorted. εγκυκλοπαίδεια* 02:11, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

Dharan

About Dharan

Dharan is the most beautiful city in the eastern region of Nepal. Beautiful roads, remarkable homes and natural beauty aren't all that makes Dharan. It embraces cleanliness, openness, friendly people and their smiles.

Dharan stands as a junction between the Terai and the Hills. It is the gateway to many beautiful hills in the eastern region. It offers some spectacular sight-seeing places and pilgrimage site.

Dharan is the most fertile land for the arts, literature, and culture. Dharan has given birth to many famous personalities, who have always endeavored to maintain her fame at the highest level.

Things that make Dharan known for.

• Dharan is known for having B. P. Koirala Institute of Health and Science, one of the major health care and educational Center in the south Asia.
• Dharan is fortunate to have the only food technology campus in the county.
• It is also known for remarkable roads, beautiful homes and friendly people, their smiles and their speech which is unique.
• Dharan is gateway to Bhetetar, one of the most beautiful hills famous for picnic spot.
• Dharan has over 39 Temples and holy sites, making it an important pilgrimage destination.

Profile

Land Area: 1,223 Hect.

Population: 110316 (1998 est.)

Male: 55.514

Female: 54,802

Administrative Break Down:

Zone: Koshi

District: Sunsari

Number of Wards: 19

Covered halls: 2

Temples: 39

Sports/Cubs: 28

Cinema Hall: 2

Others:

18-Hole golf course, swimming pool, tennis court, billiards hall, basketball courts, football ground.

History

Dharan is known for its brilliant history and culture. The places inhabited mostly by Kiratis, migrated from northern districts.

Vijaypur is a historical town from where the rulers in the historic age used to exercise their kingship as the capital. It is equally holy place for pilgrimage as many famous temples like Pindewhwor, Dantakali, Panchakanya, Budasubba and other pilgrims sites are existed there.

The British aided the growth of Dharan in 1953 by opening the Gorkha Recruitment Center. This added many new developmental facilities.

People & Culture

Dharan, the place inhabited by different people has almost 110,316 (1998 eat.) total populations. Dharan is homeland of kirantis (Rai & Limbu) however, other peoples like Newar, Brahman, Chetris, Tamang etc. can be found here. Dharan is multi-lingual place. Deferent languages and various dialects are spoken here. However, Nepali is the official & common language. Because of the multi racial structure, Dharan has been the meeting point of different cultures. The people in it share respect to each others culture. Not only the Kiratis but other people also enjoy Chandi and Dhan Nach like wise Kiratis and people from another tribe enjoy Lakhe Nach. The people believe in different religious. Hindu, Buddhist, Christian and Muslim, all the people are treated equally.

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

Laxlaxman has a point here, even though it is not clearly put (something I don't blame a new contributor for at all) - he is talking about the town Dharan in eastern Nepal, whereas on Wikipedia, Dharan is currently a redirect to the Saudi Arabian city of Dhahran. This should really be changed to add the Nepalese town (I'll do it tomorrow if no-one else gets in first) - MPF 02:16, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

Sorted - we already have a page on the Nepalese town at Dharan, Nepal, so I've changed Dharan into a disambig - MPF 02:22, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

Indeed, MPF! How amusing: User:67.161.32.248 has now been reverted twice for trying to make Dharan the city it is... Vandal fighters check too little that what's being changed isn't nonsense. But I think it would be better if the article with title Dharan was the one in Nepal, with a disambig link, rather than being a disambig page... jnothman ^talk 02:33, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

By all means! I'll not do it now as I'm already way too far into the small hours here - MPF 02:43, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

Editing Categories

I want to add Leonardo DiCaprio to the category of sex symbols, but I can't figure out for the life of me how. HE is already listing on the sex symbol list. kralahome 6:26 UTC, 23 December 2005

While the real help desk folks should chime right in if I get this wrong, you just need to add [[Category:Sex symbols]] to the other categories on the page in question. You might want to read Help:Category, Wikipedia:Category and Wikipedia:Categorization as well. < Puck 07:50, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

• To add an article to a category, you don't edit the category, but instead you add a category tag to the article. - 131.211.210.11 08:28, 23 December 2005 (UTC)
  • This particular category is in the process of being deleted, so please don't add it to any more articles. See Wikipedia:Categories for deletion/Log/2005 December 8#Category:Sex symbols. -- Rick Block (talk) 16:55, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

Move pages to a new namespace

Can anybody tell me what i have to do? i am trying to create a new namespace (i followed the instrucions at Custom Namespaces). i now have to move articles that are already written and that are linking one to another. how can i do this? i want the links to be working still. thank you so much for your help!

• Just move like you would to any other location (the move button at the top of the page). Just to be sure, those instructions referred to what you can do with your own MediaWiki run wiki site. Namespaces in Wikipedia are decided on by developers. - Mgm|^(talk) 18:22, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

Graphical Family Tree

I would like to add a graphical family tree to an article of a famous family. That would be a tiered set of pictures, or boxes, showing generational relationships. Born, died, married, children... I have done a bit of looking, but have not found a good example to use. Any help or reference pages would be appreciated. Thanks. --Drussel3 13:00, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

Have you seen Wikipedia:Family trees?--Commander Keane 13:58, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

wikisanta logo

why don't we use Image:Wikisanta.jpg for the logo for this week? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Running (talk • contribs) .

Re-worded, (un)signed, and image =>image wikilink by --Commander Keane 15:55, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

Probably because there are many Jews, Hindus and many other religions on Wikipedia. They don't all celebrate Christmas. Thelb⁴ 15:50, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

They don't need to celebrate; that's no reason for it not to be commemorated, is it? Sbz5809 16:00, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

Because it is not transparent and would therefore look Very Ugly. [[Sam Korn]] 16:02, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

Get back credit for the article creation

Hi,

I already asked here but had no answer.

I created my first article Super City and I noticed that when I saved the article, I was no more logged in. So I don't have the credit for the creation of the article, only for the addition of the picture done later.

Please can you tell me how this article can be added to my contributions ? Thank you.

Ther was a procedure for this, but it hasn't been running for months. It required a developer to directly modify the database. What you can do is leave a note on the talk page indicatign that you created the page, and make a small edit or a null edit (changign nothing) with an edit summery that says you created the article. Not the same, but nearly as good. I have left a note on the IP that I usually get when i'm not logged in that its work is mostly mine. DES ^(talk) 16:26, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

Hacking?

I noticed that someone used my account to create an article called Wikipedia is Poop. Is my account being hacked? Macintosh User 16:19, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

The article was created and then blanked within the same minute (at 16:17 23-Dec), and then you noticed and posted a question here less than two minutes later. I would guess chances are your account has not been hacked. If you're actually concerned, any of the users in this list can track down the IP address from which the article was added (and from which your question was posted). If these are the same IP address and you have clicked "remember me" someone else quite close to you (anyone else in your household?) may be using the computer you generally edit from. -- Rick Block (talk) 16:50, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

It seems at least as likely that someone got ahold of a computer where you were logged in. Do you ever use communal computers, such as at work or the library, for editing WP? Was someone in your house able to get up to mischief, possibly? Just trying out Occam's razor... -- nae'blis _(talk) 16:35, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

When your computer connects to others via the Internet, is the connection made over lines that can be easily tapped? Examples:

• The phone line that the computer is talking on, is also associated with a portable or cell or mobile phone in which there is a handset some place in the same building, broadcasting to the world, in the clear, everything you are keying.
  • There are people who like to monitor police calls and private civilian talk, for their entertainment. There are easily accessible technologies (illegal some places, but unenforced) that can take the computer signals and convert them to text, or make available to another computer to use.
• Modern portable computers come with WiFi (radio) turned on by default, with WiFi security turned off by default. This means that if you have a modern PC, and you have not yet got around to figureing out how to fix the defaults from a security perspective, the odds are that everything you have done on it is known to a ton of people you know nothing about.
• You might want to ask about additional possibilities over at WP:RD or computer insecurity talk pages.

User:AlMac|^(talk) 16:24, 24 December 2005 (UTC)

My photo..

Hi, Can i put my photo on my user page?

Jayant, 17 Years, India (Talk) 16:24, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

Yes you can. I have. You have to uplaod the photo and put proper source and copyright info on it, juist as with any other photo. DES ^(talk) 16:27, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

Thanks a lot..

Problem with AfD Step 3

Hi,

I proposed the article Slave Market for AfD and I did step one and two, but when I tried to do the third step ... it did not worked. Instead of creating the link to the Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Slave Market the text just apeared as such (Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Slave Market) on the preview. I tried it a couple of times, but it did not worked. I don't know, how to deal with it. Delete the AfD entry and start everything from the beginning??? Would this cause problems? Is there any way to fix the thing?

(Just fyi: yes, I typed in the right syntax (subst:afd3 | pg=PageName), with the brackets --> Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/PageName, copy-pasted from Template:AfD in 3 steps)

--Enfiladissa 17:57, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

I think you miscapitalised. If you typed in "Slave Market", it wouldn't have worked because everything is case-sensitive here. You would have needed to type "subst:afd3|pg=Slave market". I've added it to the AfD page now. Hermione1980 18:13, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

Enfiladissa: Actually, you did it right the first time. But you were confused by the template "transclusion" . The afd3 tag that you used does not insert a "link" to the AfD subpage you created -- instead it uses a template command to include the entire contents of the subpage into today's AfD list. This is how all AfDs are done, as it allows each entry to be edited separately (avoiding edit conflicts when voting), while showing that status of all the nominations on one page. Jamie ^{(talk/contribs)} 18:29, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

Merci for the help!--Enfiladissa 19:02, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

Watchlist issues

Hi all.

My watchlist has recently gone from viewing the past three days as the default to viewing the past 12 hours. Any idea how I can reset this? Shimgray | talk | 19:01, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

That happens when your watchlist goes over 1000 items. You could unselect some items from the list, or select the time period you want the list to use, and then set this page to a favourite. Doubtless you could also change your user JavaScript so the navigation bar links straight to that page. smurrayinchester ^{Merry Christmas!(User), (Go Carolling)} 21:12, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

I figured it was a size threshold - I've recently gone from 800 to 1200 thanks to Special:Unwatchedpages, so whilst the watchlist has grown the actual number of "hits" hasn't changed much. I've corrected the link I use in the browser shortcuts, which should solve the problem; thanks. Shimgray | talk | 00:05, 24 December 2005 (UTC)

Image:Turkish_Van_Example2.jpg

Sorry for this post location and for my language,may any admin delete this file please as it is now in Commons??

Thanks,

de:User:Klever Edit: May you delete Image:TurkishVansexample3(smaller).jpg too?

Normal procedure is to add {{nowcommons}} to the image and it is deleted in time. Thanks/wangi 21:17, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

• No, yesterday I read they need to be tagged this way for attribution reasons. So as far as I know they shouldn't be deleted. Then again, images are not my speciality. - 82.172.14.108 11:41, 24 December 2005 (UTC)

What happened to my picture?

Hello wikipedians. Have been contributing on and off for a while now, just a question about where a picture I uploaded (and, afaik, had the rights to do so [1]) went? Check out KCLSU and scroll down to Mascot - there ought to be a picture of 'Reggie' there but there is only a link to a picture requiring upload.

Do please drop me a line, so I can sort out any issues or perhaps take a new picture to go up as it's a nice touch for that page. Naturally comments and improvements welcomed!

1. I am a trustee of said organisation, photograph was taken for the organisation by either a staff member/fellow trustee.

--Coffeelover 21:13, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Undelete/Image:Reggie.JPG

See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Undelete/Image:Reggie.JPG

You originally tagged the image {{fairuseunknownsource}}, and never updated this to provide source information. It was later deleted under item 4 (Lack of licensing) of WP:CSD. You need to provide source and copyright information for image you upload to Wikipedia, see Wikipedia:Uploading images Thanks/wangi 21:30, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

From the deletion log:

19:12, 9 December 2005 User:JesseW deleted "Image:Reggie.JPG" (WP:CSD Image #4 - "Images in category "Images with unknown source" or "Images with unknown copyright status"which have been on the site for more than 7 days, regardless of when uploaded.")

It appears that you failed to indicate on the image page either the source of the image or it's copyright staus. Note that all new images must be under a license that permist free reproduction by content reusers, includign commercial reusers, and all images must have an explicitly specified source, includign the copyright holder if copyrighted (as most images are, by default, at creation). See Wikipedia:Copyright and WP:CSD. Ifyou re upload, please be sure to include a proper image copyright tag, and to specify the source. DES ^(talk) 21:27, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

Many thanks - I couldn't get at the deletion log for some reason, but I will go ahead and sort out a one fixed for copyright to upload --Coffeelover 00:19, 26 December 2005 (UTC)

ERP and Wikipedia:Manual of Style

Look at the Disadvantages section of Enterprise resource planning article. Is this good Wikipedia:Manual of Style? It seems to me that it may have the kind of failing that I was criticised for when I tried to write some articles in the area of Computer security, or it just may be that I am too sensitive, having been burned several times for failing to meet WIKI's high standards. ERP is an important subject to have an article about, and I think I can improve the content here.

My concern is whether the presentation method is appropriate to WIKI standards, and perhaps that should be cleaned up before I explode the content that is in that format. But I still consider myself too much of a newbie in WIKI standards to be placing a cleanup tag at ths beginning of the Disadvantages section. Perhaps that format is perfectly within WIKI accepted standards. User:AlMac|^(talk) 21:37, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

I wouldn't say there's anything wrong with using a list in particular. You should be mindful, however, of WP:NPOV when writing about disadvantages/advantages etc. enochlau (talk) 21:44, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

putting speedy tag if article already in afd

if an article matches all criteria for a speedy delete tag (e.g. db-club) is it ok to slap the db-club tag on it, even if its already in afd? i guess it just means adding a comment that its been tagged as such on the afd page right? Zzzzz 22:12, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

Personally, I'd recommend letting AfD handle it once it's already there. -- SCZenz 22:13, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

doesnt that add extra unnecessary burden though? if someones mistakenly put something on afd when they should have marked it for speedy wastes a lot of peoples times. Zzzzz 22:16, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

I frequently add a speedy tag to an articel if IMO it clearly matches a speedy delete criterion. If I do so, I always make a comment on the afd, usually of the form "speedy delete and so tagged." (see User:DESiegel/A7V). If Someone else has added such a speedy tag, adn i agree that the articel is clearly speedy deleletable, I will delete it. In such a case, I always clsoe the AfD, with the result of "Speedy Delete". Not everyone agrees with this, and if there is significant debate on whether soemthign is a valid speedy, or if there is any significant number of people indicating a desire to keep the article and presenting IMO plausible arguments, i won't do this. DES ^(talk) 23:15, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

Image link

Is there a syntax that allows images to link to articles and not to their respective page in the image namespace? CG 22:16, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

I'm not quite sure what you mean; you can just use [[this]] kind of syntax on the image description page to link to an article? Or do you mean linking to an image instead of embedding it - in that case use [[:Image:Logo.gif]] (put a colon in front), which renders as Image:Logo.gif instead of . enochlau (talk) 23:04, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

Whoops I just re-read your question. No, that isn't possible (it was discussed at length on the Main Page talk page before). enochlau (talk) 23:05, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

Yes, but it's discouraged. Having the image page redirect to the article works, but it is strongly discouraged. [[Sam Korn]] 23:52, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

Sam, I understand by your answer that it's possible. I was going to use it with [[Template:fr icon}}, which was created to warn readers that some external links are in the French language. But it was rejected because the user is likely to click on the template which links to the image page. The solution would be the image links to French language. Is it possible? CG 08:14, 24 December 2005 (UTC)

Yes, I have found this frustrating with language markers, too. Currently, though, this is not possible. It may be worthwhile to add a clear explanation to the image page, though. jnothman ^talk 15:07, 24 December 2005 (UTC)

I've found Template:Click that appears to answer to my question. Take a look. CG 15:41, 24 December 2005 (UTC)

I can't remember what I tried it with that caused me to say this, but I found it faulty. See /Archive 36#Using an image as a link to an article. jnothman ^talk 15:57, 24 December 2005 (UTC)

How to add a photo to a Wikipedia article

Hello, Could you please tell me the procedure for adding a photograph to a Wikipedia article? Are there particular requirements for the size, file-type, etc. for the photo to be added?

Thank you. M. Dufy

In order to add a picture to the article, it has to be already on the Wikimedia image servers. To upload a file, you have to go to Upload file and follow the instructions there (make sure you have permission to use the image and have source information about it, though, or it may be deleted). Then, in your article, you can just add the image by typing [[Image:Filename]] to the article. To customize the appearance of the picture on the article, you can see our Editing help page.

As for the file type, ideally, you should use JPEG files for photographs, or PNG files for logos. You can also upload GIF files, but they're not the preferred format. Titoxd^{(?!? - help us)} 23:36, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

You should upload images at the highest resolution you have, unless they're fair use (if they are, read that page for more info). And if they're not fair use, please upload to the commons! See Wikipedia:Commons for some tips. pfctdayelise 14:27, 24 December 2005 (UTC)

December 24

New Article Not Showing in Search Results

I created a new page/article, Processed Book Project, found at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Processed_Book_Project.

But if I or others enter "processed book" or "processed book project" (or with the first letters capitals) in the Wiki search box, we don't get the page in the results.

What, as a clueless newbie, have I not done?

Thanks, CML

Try this link: Processed Book Project. Careful, WP is case sensitive for all but the initial letter, so you need to enter "Processed Book Project" in upper case (because that's how the article was started. You can make a redirect called "Processed book project" if you like. --hydnjo talk 00:30, 24 December 2005 (UTC)

Remember also that the search (as opposed to the direct like with the "GO" button) runs off cached data, so new articels do not appear no matter what case is used. try a google search of wikipedia] instead. DES ^(talk) 00:41, 24 December 2005 (UTC)

(Would that actually help? I didn't think Google instantly updated their records of WP...) pfctdayelise 14:19, 24 December 2005 (UTC)

These comments have been helpful, in that it is now clear that Go and Search choices (for the Wiki search box) are different functions--Go finds links, Search finds words. Go does not seem to be case sensitive and the new article is retrieved using Go. But the new article does not show up using Search--neither directly on Wiki or via Google. I will have to stay posted to see how and when the new article shows up using Search.---CML

Google may not find your page for a while as there are few links to it. None on Wikipedia but here on the help desk, that is... The article, though, seems to be an advertisement, and not necessarily encyclopaedically notable. Please provide a defence of the project's notability in the article's talk page or it will be nominated for a vote on its deletion. jnothman ^talk 16:04, 24 December 2005 (UTC)

Definition or Policy Regarding Infoboxes

Specifically, I edited Lord North and nearby PMs of Britain to have a consistent style for the biographical infobox on the right side. Is there a specific policy on how these boxes should be built and what colors to use? Quantumstream 00:45, 24 December 2005 (UTC)

Not really. I've seen many infoboxes around, and there is quite a large variation. Just make it look roughly similar to the others you've seen around. As for colours, any will really do, but please no pink and purple! enochlau (talk) 08:27, 24 December 2005 (UTC)

Colors in infoboxes can mean different things. It's best to check the infobox's discussion page. For instance, see Wolverine and Superman. One is a Marvel Comics character and the other DC Comics. According to the Comics WikiProject they should (and do) have different color bars at the top of the box depending on the publisher of the comic book. So look into what other pages have for other PMs to see if there's a consistency there that should be followed. Dismas|^(talk) 14:34, 24 December 2005 (UTC)

Duplicate title - different subject: how to deal with

I have skimmed the FAQs and delved into help pages but can see nothing that suggests that there's a set answer to this particular problem.

I want to add an article about 'Joe Scarborough' an artist based in Sheffield, UK. There is an already existing entry with the title 'Joe Scarborough', apparently a North American politician/political commentator; there is also a disambiguation page for 'Scarborough' which lists the exant 'Joe Scarborough' article.

Advice appreciated on a) how I create a new article on 'my' 'Joe Scarborough'.

I think I could then deal with the disambiguation side of things; but advice again appreciated.

--SubtleBlade 00:47, 24 December 2005 (UTC)

You would create the article at Joe Scarborough (artist), and add the page to the Scarborough disambiguation page. Make sure your author meets the biographical inclusion guidelines, or someone might nominate it for deletion. Titoxd^{(?!? - help us)} 00:53, 24 December 2005 (UTC)

Wow that was quick, cheers! I also found advice some distance above on this page, appologies for not having worked through it first :)

--SubtleBlade 00:59, 24 December 2005 (UTC)

Sockpuppets, how and when can they be revealed?

When and how can a sock puppet be revealed? Brothersinblood 01:17, 24 December 2005 (UTC)

Found the answer: Help:CheckUser. Thank you for the user who posted on my talk page! Brothersinblood 01:54, 24 December 2005 (UTC)

requesting

hello. i just want to know how i could request somebody to write an article here on co-operative systems arond the world. riyaroy1

• Try Wikipedia:Requested articles or ask a question at a related Wikipedia:WikiProject, if you can offer some information yourself, you can submit an article proposal at WP:AFC. - 82.172.14.108 11:49, 24 December 2005 (UTC)

Userpage

Something is terribly wrong with my userpage. Can someone here help, or is this a question for another help page on Wikipedia? — Preceding unsigned comment added by schyler (talk • contribs)

better? One problem was that you hadn't closed a table in Template:AmE-4 or Template:woodwind-0. You may want to take a look at Help:Tables if you don't know it already, and just be careful of how many tables are closed and how many aren't. You closed too few and so your page text was inside other tables, a true mess. You also don't need to create a template in the public template namespace everything you want something for your userpage. Consider creating templates in your own user space- see #user sub-pages above. I also stuck the babel stuff in a right-floated <div> as this seemed the easiest way to make them all stick together. jnothman ^talk 15:42, 24 December 2005 (UTC)

Btw, I suggest you move all your babel-like stuff (although the name Babel is technically for language stuff only) to somewhere like User:schyler/Babel and place this in your page as a template: {{User:schyler/Babel}}. This will keep your page code clearer and make it harder to mess up. jnothman ^talk 15:44, 24 December 2005 (UTC)

Userboxes and Babel

Hello. I want to put Template:User religion|jew (it won't format into a link) in my Babel template but because it uses a pipe ("|"), it doesn't work. As such, I want t track down the code for that template and either create a copy at {{User Jew}} which is compatable with Babel, or move it there permenantly. However, I cannot seem to locate the source of this elusive template. Can someone provide a link to the source code (or if you're feeling really generous just do the above action) for me? Thank you. --HereToHelp (talk) 18:33, 24 December 2005 (UTC)

My first note is that Babel is intended only for languages (thus its name). If you still want to stick it in something like Babel, the template in question can be found at Template:User religion, and the code for the Jewish one is:

  {{userbox
    |border-c=#adadee
    |id-c=#e9e9ff
    |info-c=#fafaff
    |id=[[Image:Israeli blue Star of David.png|35px]]
    |info=This user is '''[[Judaism|Jewish]]'''<includeonly>[[Category:Jewish Wikipedians|{{PAGENAME}}]]</includeonly>
  }}

You could stick this in Template:User Jew, or maybe just create your own template under your user page. jnothman ^talk 21:24, 24 December 2005 (UTC)

Yeah, I know that Babel is for languages, and I put them first. But Userboxes are cool, too, and a lot of people (ab)use it like descibed above. Thanks, though. You guys are really helpful for the nuances like this.--HereToHelp (talk) 21:45, 24 December 2005 (UTC)

I just realised creating it in your own user space would not be useful for babel. You can either include that code or just {{user religion|jew}} at Template:User Jew. The reason maybe you couldn't find the template is that the template is {{user religion}}, and jew is just an argument. See Help:Templates. jnothman ^talk 21:49, 24 December 2005 (UTC)

I went ahead and created the copy, thanks. A quick search for "argument" in Help:Template turns up nothing. the important thing is the source code. By the way, there's no period at the end of the info; I'd like to add that in if I could find where the heck you got the code. I fixed that with the copy, though. Thanks for your help.--HereToHelp (talk) 22:02, 24 December 2005 (UTC)

Why didn't I think of looking in the source code sooner? Thanks anyway.--HereToHelp (talk) 02:32, 25 December 2005 (UTC)

I do not know when Wikipedia:Userboxes/Religion created their solution which I am displaying here (not displayed since it includes a categorization - Rick Block (talk) 23:11, 25 December 2005 (UTC)), in case you have not yet got what you need perfected. The code used is {{user religion|jew}} . I am still struggling to learn how to work this stuff as you can see at Userbox design kit and 2 pictures reverse engineering.

User:AlMac|^(talk) 03:50, 25 December 2005 (UTC)

Vandilism I don't know how to fix

On the page Wikipedia:Userboxes/Computing someone has converted all the browsers into nasty words, I do not know how to fix this it would be nice if someone else with more knowlege of Wikipedia could fix it. --80.2.239.50 19:38, 24 December 2005 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Revert. Thelb⁴ 19:55, 24 December 2005 (UTC)

It was someone messing around with the templates [4]. Looks like it's been fixed now. Kappa 20:02, 24 December 2005 (UTC)

Capitalization in page titles

1995 NFL draft: This link is red. Yet when I type it into the search box and hit "Go," it takes me right to 1995 NFL Draft, without so much as a "Redirected from" note. What's going on? --zenohockey 23:20, 24 December 2005 (UTC)

This is because page links and article titles are case sensitive, but the search box isn't. AIUI if the search finds an article with the same capitalisation as the query entered, it takes you there. If it finds no matches then it will try alternate capitalisation. I'll create a redirect from 1995 NFL draft to 1995 NFL Draft. If you come accross anything like this in future you can create a redirect yourself - Wikipedia:Redirect has the very simple instructions. Thryduulf 01:23, 25 December 2005 (UTC)

December 25

• Could someone point me a document explaining what effect the "Enhanced recent changes (JavaScript)" item on "my preferences" page actually does? Please put a link on my Talk, thanks. Pavel Vozenilek 10:17, 25 December 2005 (UTC)

m:Help:Enhanced recent changes might help. --Commander Keane 10:45, 25 December 2005 (UTC)

What links here

Having moved a bunch of stubs into one article, I then altered a template which contained links to some of these stubs. However, the "what links here" tool still shows that every article containing that template still thinks it links to the stubs, and it's difficult to find the pages with links that need changing. How long does it take for "What links here" to update? Merry Christmas. smurrayinchester ^{Merry Christmas!(User), (Go Carolling)} 15:15, 25 December 2005 (UTC)

Unfortunately, after a change in transclusion like this, the "What links here" doesn't update until the article is next saved. This can be done manually (with a null edit) or with a bot, which can touch each of the articles that used to have the template on them - removing then from the "What links here". My bot will happily do this for you, just give me the details.--Commander Keane 16:11, 25 December 2005 (UTC)

Never mind; someone seems to have sorted it out. smurrayinchester ^{Merry Christmas!(User), (Go Carolling)} 16:19, 25 December 2005 (UTC)

Viewing deleted articles

Several days ago, non-admins could see the edit history of the deleted article with the user(s) who edited it, just not the actual text of the deleted document. Why can't I view them now? Was anything changed, or are the servers having an error? -- King of Hearts | (talk) 21:30, 25 December 2005 (UTC)

If you check the news, there was a major scandal with respect to a prankster posting a totally false article that libeled a VIP in the USA. The policy changes were not by accident. User:AlMac|^(talk) 21:36, 25 December 2005 (UTC)

The following may reflect a bug that the admins will fix now that I have brought it to everyone's attention, but there is a back door that I explain here how I am able to browse my deleted edits. As of a few days ago I had 1800 edits and 60 deletes, according to

This user has a ton of edits.

... the code for this is {{tonofedits}} ... notice the link "browse" just beside the count of deletes ... that gets to where you want to go ... first off you need to put {{tonofedits}} on YOUR user page or talk page, then use the link to get to YOUR user statistics, then you can browse your deleted edits, until the admins fix this loop hole. You can follow the instructions on the page to browse edits deleted associated with some other user.

I figure over 3/4 of my edits are to fix el typos that I made, and did not see promptly, so that would put my real count like 300, with a ratio of 5 still good edits for each 1 got deleted. I figure that ratio will drop as the admins catch up with my flaws.

User:AlMac|^(talk) 21:43, 25 December 2005 (UTC)

Well this back door has been closed, a short time after I illuminated it. If you use the {{tonofedits}} link from your user page to see the important statistics (which are still there) then click on browse, there is a mesage about the change in policy. Click on that, then follow the associated thread in the WikiTech ciscussion list. You can see that there may be something in the works to give back some access, while not exposing the vandalism data to the general viewing public. User:AlMac|^(talk) 02:01, 26 December 2005 (UTC)

Help with image sizing

Hey I was wondering why the picture of Bo Diddley on the rapping article cant be resized even when i change the specification of how many 'px' it should be? Thank you, --Urthogie 22:13, 25 December 2005 (UTC)

P.S When someone mentioned jewish wikipedians, this page got categorized that way.

You can resize thumbnails smaller, but not larger, than the original. Please see Wikipedia:Picture tutorial. -- Rick Block (talk) 23:20, 25 December 2005 (UTC)

P.S. I've fixed the category issue.

December 26

Culture in Asia template on Culture of Asia

The Culture of Asia article includes a template Template:Asia in topic which gives links to articles such as Culture of Iraq. However, it also included red links to Culture of the West Bank and Culture of the Gaza Strip, whereas there is an appropriate article, Palestinian culture, which should in fact be linked to. As an immediate fix I have created the two red-linked articles as redirects to that, but how can the root problem be fixed? The template looks technically very complicated, the Templates FAQ is no help, and i simply have no idea how to proceed or indeed whether the problem is replicated over a whole range of "Asia in..." template applications. Help! Palmiro | Talk 04:41, 26 December 2005 (UTC)

Request to block

How do I alert an admin that someone should probably be blocked? -- Rediahs 08:03, 26 December 2005 (UTC)

• WP:AIV if it's really persistent, if it's less urgent WP:VIP. - Mgm|^(talk) 11:49, 26 December 2005 (UTC)

Question re:WikiBabel

Wikipedia:Babel

enThis user is a native speaker of the English language.

ukУкраїнська мова для цього користувача є рідною.

Search user languages

When using Wiki:Babel (see the example) - Why doesn't "Uk" link to Ukrainian Language section while "En" does link to English language section? I tried to find an answer to this for an hour and am finally hoping that someone can help. Thanks--Riurik 08:11, 26 December 2005 (UTC)

I do not know answer to this question, but you might like to know that the Wikipedia:WikiProject Userboxes is quite active upgrading the capabilities of this stuff. User:AlMac|^(talk) 09:55, 26 December 2005 (UTC)

Done. enochlau (talk) 10:17, 26 December 2005 (UTC)

Enochlau, Thanks--Riurik 17:34, 26 December 2005 (UTC)

Recent changes page: what is exclamation mark?

I've installed MediaWiki in my office. In the recent changes page, there's a red exclamation mark for each change. I've looked in the [MediaWiki help] but the mark isn't even mentioned there. What could it mean, and why isn't it documented? Thanks Gil_mo 10:30, 26 December 2005 (UTC)

Yes it is documented see http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Help:Patrolled_edit -- enochlau (talk) 10:58, 26 December 2005 (UTC)

Archive Red on Watchlist

I started archiving my talk pages (pushing 50k) and I put "watch this page" on everything I working on, then I noticed my new archives were red link on my Watch list. I clicked on the link. My efforts there all right. Would it be a fair statement that sometimes the WP server tasks get stacked up, so that in time all will be Ok on my new page(s)? User:AlMac|^(talk) 11:12, 26 December 2005 (UTC)

Yes, there is some caching going on. To force the Wikipedia servers to purge the cache, append "?action=purge" to the end of the URL. enochlau (talk) 11:30, 26 December 2005 (UTC)

Define Portal

I just discovered WP Portals. (I am forever stumbling over wonderful stuff here). Would it be correct to say that a Portal is a directory of all articles on a related theme, to make it easier to navigage them than having humongous link farms on each and every article in the collection? User:AlMac|^(talk) 11:14, 26 December 2005 (UTC)

No, that's too narrow a definition. A "directory" over a service might have to be infinite, for example. Anyway, see Web portal. HFuruseth 14:47, 26 December 2005 (UTC)

Insert newlines in paragraphs?

I'm editing an article where the source text has no newlines between sentences in paragraphs, but would prefer that it did. (My own fault - it originally had just a few paragraphs of text, and without newlines - so I continued in that style.)

So I'm wondering - what is the "cost" of changing such details - is it worth bothering with? If so, do I do a single separate edit with reformatting? Or is it better to insert newlines in a paragraph when I edit that paragraph? Or does that muck up the diff feature or something?

It is the Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) article. (And I asked this in the wrong place at first, and removed it again:-)

HFuruseth 13:27, 26 December 2005 (UTC)

Using images from wikipedia article in a different language

I'd like to use an image from a dutch article in an english article. I assume I should reupload the image to the english server, right? How should I cite the copyright info? Thanks for any help, sorry if this question is addressed somewhere else, but I couldn't find it. --Osbojos 14:30, 26 December 2005 (UTC)

• Yes, you need to reupload it here, if you want to use it. You need to provide the images with English language copyright tags that cover the Dutch ones and copy its source information as well. If either of these is missing, they need to be tracked down before you can use it. If the image is available under a free license (like GFDL or PD), you can upload it to the commons. Uploading to the commons allows for use in ALL Wikimedia projects without uploading multiple times. Can you tell us what image you are talking about? - Mgm|^(talk) 16:17, 26 December 2005 (UTC)

Userboxes

Is there a list of things I can use for my userbox? Like that I use Mozilla Firefox, I welcome newcomers and am apart of WikiProjects? --Thorpe | talk 17:44, 26 December 2005 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Userboxes has links to various lists of userboxes. --GraemeL ^(talk) 18:13, 26 December 2005 (UTC)

That's what I needed. Thanks! --Thorpe | talk 19:39, 26 December 2005 (UTC)

Bonzi Buddy

I am trying to download Bonzi Buddy(the purple gorilla), but when I click on "Download Bonzi Buddy" either nothing happens, or it just erases the page. How can I download Bonzi Buddy?

Factual questions should go to the Reference desk. You don't want Bonzi Buddy anyway, it's just spyware. Hermione1980 18:12, 26 December 2005 (UTC)

English speaking country indication in articles

Sometimes I read an article about an individual, organization, or other topic, and it is clear by the Anglo-Saxon name that one of the English-speaking countries is referrred to, but the article does not indicate. Is there a guideline as to how, where, and to what degree such articles should be placed in context into the country they refer to? I have looked around in FAQs and the Manual of Style, and other references, but I cannot find such (there is a lot of reference material!) SailorfromNH 21:05, 26 December 2005 (UTC)