Wikipedia:Help desk/Archive 31

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[edit] can't find smackdown

If there is anyone on who can tell me why I can,t get smackdown on t.v. since they changed days from thurs. to fri. and my guide doesnot even have a listing for this show like it does not exist please help having withdrawrals

This is an encyclopedia, not a TV Guide, and we don't even know where you live, so how could we know what might be available on local, network, cable, or satellite channels accessible to you? *Dan T.* 22:41, 30 September 2005 (UTC)
  • If you are in the USA, go to UPN.com, then look up the state and city where your local television station are, for the station's web site with contact information. If the local station is not showing "Smackdown," write a letter to them and ask why not. --Metropolitan90 09:21, 2 October 2005 (UTC)
Forget writing a letter, walk up to the TV station and lay the smackdown! --Ballchef 06:24, 10 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Archiving a Talk page

How does one archive a talk page? I need to do this to the discussion page for Media bias. Thanks. --Kerowyn 23:42, 30 September 2005 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:How to archive a talk page. Titoxd 23:47, 30 September 2005 (UTC)
  • Thanks. Kerowyn 10:07, 3 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Correspondence Address for Rudolph Guilani.

Hello. The Wikipedia:Help desk is for questions about Wikipedia. Please see Wikipedia:Reference_desk for factual questions. thanks. --Kewp (t) 05:10, 4 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] a question

how to add a biographie?

See Wikipedia:Starting a new page. Dismas|(talk) 14:38, 1 October 2005 (UTC)


same here, i know what a subpage is, its a mini page refereing/link to a main article, so i am wondering, is a sand box a subpage or... HOW DO I MAKE A SUBPAGE>:-( ><ino 07:57, 6 October 2005 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Subpages.--Sean Jelly Baby? 21:46, 9 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] fact or fiction

Thank you for having such an incredible resource centre available. My only concren ios that the matter printed before me be of truth and faction without falsehoods. Can this Be Verified? email removed —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 203.220.148.65 (talk • contribs) 21:03, 30 September 2005.

Please see Wikipedia:Replies to common objections. --Andy Janata 01:44, 1 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] see if an article has been deleted

i recently wanted to check on an article, the link was still there, but it did not exsist. i want to either write the article or something similiar, but i think it had been deleted. how can i check to see if it has been deleted, and if so, see why so i know how to improve it thanks. --Herzog 02:39, 1 October 2005 (UTC)

You can look in the delete log, see Special:log/delete. Any admin can let you know what the contents were, or you can request an undeletion at Wikipedia:Votes for undeletion. -- Rick Block (talk) 02:58, 1 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] intel xeon motherboard compatibility

What kind of motherboard can I use for Intel Xeon 3.2 Ghz? Can I use any type of motherboard as long as it is an Intel processors compatible?

The help desk is for questions about Wikipedia. You may want to ask this question on Wikipedia:Reference desk/Science. Evil Monkey∴Hello 03:41, 1 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Nihon no terebi bangumi

Ima Nihon dewa donna terebi bangumi ga ninki ga arunode shoka? Kokosei gurai o taisho to shite imasu. Risa Ii

Please state your question in English. I have no idea what that means in Japanese. Andy Janata 14:20, 1 October 2005 (UTC)
You might be interested to know that Wikipedia has a Japanese language version. Thryduulf 17:16, 1 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Messages

How do I check messages from other wikipedia users? Duke53 08:09, 1 October 2005 (UTC)|Duke53|05:50, 1 October 2005 (UTC)}} 05:49, 1 October 2005 (UTC)}}

If you received a "You've got new messages" box, you can click on the underlined text to go to your talk page. You can also click on "My talk" at the top of the window to access it anytime. Titoxd 05:49, 1 October 2005 (UTC)

Thank You .... still finding my way around. Duke53 08:08, 1 October 2005 (UTC)Duke53

[edit] History fixes?

Is there any way to move article history from one page to another, after a page move?

I started an article at Christopher Wood which was later moved to Christopher Wood (artist) and the page has since turned into a disambiguation. Is there a simple way to move the history from the original page to the new one? I'm not unhappy or anything, just curious.

-Tim Rhymeless (Er...let's shimmy) 09:18, 1 October 2005 (UTC)

In other words, you mean someone did a copy/paste move instead of a real page move, and you want to fix it by merging the articles? Yes, it's possible (I'll do it if you confirm that this is, in fact, what you are talking about) →Raul654 09:21, 1 October 2005 (UTC)

I think we might have a slight misunderstanding. Last year, I created an article at Christopher Wood for the person whose article is now at Christopher Wood (artist). Christopher Wood is now a disambiguation article for three separate people. However, when it was turned into a disambiguation page, the pre-disambiguation history on Christopher Wood was not moved along to the appropriate article (Christopher Wood (artist) I'm just wondering if it's possible to move a page's history in a manner that could fix that (although I'm not really concerned by it, only wondering how it could be done). -Tim Rhymeless (Er...let's shimmy) 23:51, 1 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] As you can see I am new to wikipedia...

As you can see I am new to wikipedia.... I tried to add a link to this site... so forgive me for not knowing how to use this stuff as yet.... Looking for software in the performing arts field, that I can convert a play to html statements.... does anybdy know of such software.... this wikipedia is pretty cool... sorry if i added things i shouldn't have and where... my email is <removed>

Welcome to Wikipedia, If you are facinated by it you should register. Registering a free account takes only a few seconds, you don't have to register, but there are reasons why you should.
For your question about text format convirsion software, please re-ask your question at the Reference desk, the Help desk is for questions regarding Wikipedia itself. — Kjammer ⌂ 10:31, 1 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Self-reverted tests

I sometimes see anonymous IPs "vandalize" pages, then immediately revert their own vandalism. Template:test seems a bit, well, testy as a response. Is there a convenient template that says "thanks for reverting your own test, here's the sandbox, user accounts are good, welcome to Wikipedia"? — ciphergoth 09:33, 1 October 2005 (UTC)

Template:Welcome would probably be closest.Geni 13:45, 1 October 2005 (UTC)
{{selftest}} seems good to me. [[Sam Korn]] 13:46, 1 October 2005 (UTC)
teh winnar! Thanks! Have edited it a bit and I'll use it in future. — ciphergoth 15:48, 1 October 2005 (UTC)
There is nothing wrong with writing your own message, much like the one you has suggested in quotes, plus some wikilinks. --Commander Keane 15:05, 1 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Can Numbered Lists Start at Zero?

Erm. Pretty much what it says in the subject line. Is it possible to make a numbered list start at zero rather than one? Joe King 13:09, 1 October 2005 (UTC)

No, not if you use the # from the wikicode to make that list. You could just do it manually... Why do you need the list to start at zero? - Mgm|(talk) 13:58, 1 October 2005 (UTC)
You can always start the numbered list with the second entry, which will be assigned 1, then go back and edit in the zeroth line above the list. User:Zoe|(talk) 03:50, 4 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] satellite communication

history of satellite

[edit] factors to consider in building modern shopping market

Please read the big pink box at the top of this page and follow the directions therein. Dismas|(talk) 14:54, 1 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] How to cite Wikipedia the MLA way?

In order for me to fully cite this page i would like the following questions to be answered pleasw.

Who are the authors of wikipedia? What edition and volume is it? What is the publishing city? The publishing company? The publishing date? What is the page numbers?

I think what would help you is what i was researching on. I researched Vietnam.

Thankyou so much!!

Please read the top of this page. Specifically the first line under How to ask a question. Dismas|(talk) 14:52, 1 October 2005 (UTC)
  • Since Wikipedia is a collaborative endeavor and not a print source, you need to cite it differently. The link Dismas is referring to is How to cite Wikipedia. - Mgm|(talk) 14:54, 1 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Weird revert

I was using the Newer edit button to view a series of changes. Latter I looked on my watchlist and found that I had somehow reverted the changes on that page. Revert isn't even an option that appears anywhere on the page when using the Older/Newer edit. What happened? Rmhermen 14:59, 1 October 2005 (UTC)

When you're on the most recent, there is no "newer edit" button but the admin "rollback" button is fairly close to where "newer edit" would be. My guess is you were repeatedly clicking "newer edit" to step through a bunch of edits, didn't realize you were at the most recent edit, clicked again and your mouse had slipped enough to hit "rollback". If the servers were busy, the resulting "post" might have worked without successfully updating your screen so you might not have seen the output of the rollback request. -- Rick Block (talk) 15:36, 1 October 2005 (UTC)
  • Was it an automatic revert (with admin message in summary) or did you perhaps accidentally edit an old version of that page? What page are you referring to? - Mgm|(talk) 15:39, 1 October 2005 (UTC)
  • this diff appears to be the one in question, and that does look like an admin rollback edit summary. Thryduulf 17:07, 1 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] postnominal letters

What is the wikipedia policy on postnominal letters for orders such as The Order of the Garter, or The Order of Canada? If a person has more than one of these should they all be listed? SHould we include postnominal letters at all?

The standard seems to be to inlcude them in the full name, but not in the article title. See for example John Major. Thryduulf 17:01, 1 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Adverbs

Help I need to find an adverb that begins with an X.
Del 197.

Xenophobiacally? *Dan T.* 15:54, 1 October 2005 (UTC)
This belongs on the reference desk, but my wordlist contains: xenically, xenomorphically, xerically, xerographically, xerophytically, and xylographically. — mendel ☎ 21:10, 2 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] WikiThanks

What's the German equivalent of a WikiThanks? --HappyCamper 16:04, 1 October 2005 (UTC)

  • I've searched using all sorts of queries for 15 minutes, but all I could come up with is the Dutch equivalent nl:Afbeelding:Stervvrederustruimtehumor.gif. Sorry. German doesn't have a interwiki link in the barnstar section. Do they even have awards of any sort? - Mgm|(talk) 16:51, 1 October 2005 (UTC)
I don't know. But today, I had a lot of people help me out when I tried to write an article there. I just wanted to thank them all. Gave one of them a nice snowflake. --HappyCamper 20:26, 1 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Image Format

I'm trying to Upload a drawing for my user page; however, I made the drawing in OpenOffice Draw and a want to change the format to PNG, which Wikipedia:Uploading images says is the preferred format. One complication: I use Suse Linux. Does anyone know how to change it?

Lee S. Svoboda 17:06, 1 October 2005 (UTC)


I've just checked the Windows version of OpenOffice.org Draw and under File, Export on the menu offers the option of saving as a .PNG (choose it in the drop down box). I haven't got my Linux box running at the moment (I use Mandriva Linux 10.1) but I imagine that version also offers this option.
-=# Amos E Wolfe talk #=- 01:03, 2 October 2005 (UTC)
Thanks

Lee S. Svoboda 01:37, 2 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] hi

will like to know more about how to used this medium65.172.4.250 18:19, 1 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] How can I determine the correct copyright tag?

I want to include a couple of images in an article, but am stumped by the process of selecting a copyright tag. Here is the basic data: I am not the creator of these images, but I did get permission from the originators to include the images in the article as long as I mentioned the following: the source URL, that the image is being used with permission, and the names of the originators. Obviously most of this info is required anyway for uploading a Wikipedia image to an article, but I can't figure out how to select the proper copyright tag for it. How can I determine the correct copyright tag?

--Wowbobwow12 22:26, 1 October 2005 (UTC)

none. We can't use wikipedia specific releases.Geni 22:41, 1 October 2005 (UTC)
You need more than permission to use the item. You need for the item to be released either into the public domain, or under the relevant license. This will allow the image to be used in any other venture, free or commercial. That is only two choices... you cannot do this, the copyright holder must do this. There cannot be additional conditions, though there can be additional information. Notinasnaid 22:42, 1 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Help correcting inaccuracies regarding Jill Gibson entry, as per Jill Gibson herself.

Hello,

I would like to first compliment you on a WONDERFUL encyclopedia! I hope that my question will garner an answer via email, as it concerns the feelings of one of your entry subjects: the talented, and gracious Jill Gibson.

I sent Jill a link to check out the article posted about her in Wikipedia, and she replied that it was "impressive, filled with surprising truths and falsehoods!". She wondered if there was a way to edit the article, and correct anything that she found to be amiss. So, that is why I am writing to you today. Would you welcome Jill Gibson's input to her own entry? I would think so, of course. Is there a direct way for Jill to get ahold of your organization, to be able to do so?

Jill can be reached via her website www.gibsonarts.com, wich is linked at the bottom of your page about her. A response from you would be most appreciated. I am happy to be of help myself, if I can be. My email address is : <removed>

I would like to say again just how much I enjoy your encyclopedia, and I hope to help make it even better, in this small way.

Thank you so very much, Christopher Bryant Olson

Probably the best way for her to make the corrections is for her to list them, in detail, on her website(the one you mentioned above), then you(or anyone else), can, personally, make the changes, and reference them to the page on her website. While, depending on the changes, people may object and ask for further confirmation, it is likely that most of them will be happily accepted. They will be appreciated in any case. Thanks for asking! (And you might find Wikipedia:Introduction useful, if you haven't looked it over already.) JesseW, the juggling janitor 22:50, 1 October 2005 (UTC)
Thank you for your suggestion! When you feel an article needs improvement, please feel free to make those changes. Wikipedia is a wiki, so anyone can edit almost any article by simply following the Edit this page link at the top. You don't even need to log in (although there are many reasons why you might want to). The Wikipedia community encourages you to be bold in updating pages. Don't worry too much about making honest mistakes — they're likely to be found and corrected quickly. If you're not sure how editing works, check out how to edit a page, or use the sandbox to try out your editing skills. New contributors are always welcome. Dismas|(talk) 12:08, 2 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] How to fix a page that redirects to itself?

I notice that the page http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breast_stroke re directs to itself. Clicking on history and then older revision does not go back beyond the current revision. I am not sure if this is because there IS no earlier version or the circular re-direct is masking it?

Mike Collinson

A circular redirect does not mask the history of an article. In the case of Breast stroke there were no previous revisions, it had been newly made as a redirect. The user that made it probably meant to redirect to the existing article Breaststroke, but put in a space by accident, creating a circular redirect. I've fixed this by removing the space in the link. --Canderson7 22:49, 1 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] drx9000

HI there,im an injure triathle with lower back pain.This machine DRX-9000,it supouse to strech the spine,i wonder if any body out there have used or know somethig obout it. A MAN IN PAIN

  • Please read the notice at the top of this page in relation to what types of questions belong here, as opposed to at the Wikipedia:Reference desk. --Kwekubo 14:10, 2 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Setting up side-by-side columns...

I need advice on setting up side-by-side columns. I know that columns are somewhat discouraged, but I think I have a good reason for employing them: to have a side-by-side translation, transliteration, and original-language versions of a poem.

What I'm working with is on my user page (User:Ex0pos). Currently, there are two problems:

1. The columns are not evenly-spaced. I'd like three clean, vertical columns. 2. I can't figure out how to add a space between lines, to break the poem up into paragraphs. (In the version on my user page, I've forced a space by ending one series of columns, entering a period (.) and beginning a new series of columns. There must be a better way...

Thanks for any help. Please feel free to answer here or on my user talk page. - Ex0pos 23:35, 1 October 2005 (UTC)


Sounds like what you need is a table - see: Wikipedia:How to use tables.
Heading 1 Heading 2 Heading 3
content 1 content 2 content 3
This is the first column notice how the width adjusts to the width of the text inside
This line is longer, using a "colspan"
-=# Amos E Wolfe talk #=- 01:12, 2 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Off-Label Use; FDA Application for

This question has been moved to Reference Desk - Science.--inks 23:42, 1 October 2005 (UTC) Wikipedia:Reference_desk/Science#Off-Label_Use.3B__FDA_Application_for

[edit] Key Allies or Friends of slovakia in the EU

Please read the notice at the top of this page in relation to what types of questions belong here, as opposed to at the Wikipedia:Reference desk. --Kwekubo 14:10, 2 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Editing an article

Hello!

I recently edited an article on Al Qaeda but was disappointed to see that the following day my changes were edited out. I once again made the edit and again they were changed back. Is this being done by wikipedia or by other individuals? <e-mail address removed>

To find out exactly what happened to an article in the past just go to its history, which you can view by clicking the "history" tab at the top of any page. If you do this on the Al-Qaeda article you will be taken here. Your changes are identified by your IP address (68.196.176.166). Please post again here or on my personal talk page if you have any more questions. --Canderson7 01:59, 2 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Permission to use the layout of Wikipedia page?

Hello!

I have a copyright-related question.

May I use the layout of Wikipedia page, that is, an HTML template, CSS, and images related to the layout, but not to the Wikipedia content, in a derivative, completely noncommercial, freely accessible personal web page?

If you answer this question positively, then here's the following one: on what conditions may I use this layout?

Thank you!

  • If you mean the MediaWiki software, then yes, just use the provisions listed on their website. However, Wikipedia logos are protected by copyright by the Wikimedia Foundation, and you would require their permission to do so. Titoxd 03:38, 2 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Potential technical issues with these changes?

A Wikipedian I met has posted a proposal here Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)#Add Categorybrowsebar-like wikilinks to every wikipage, which hardly anyone seems to have noticed. Are there any technical issues that might be encountered by implementing those changes? If not, can we go ahead and try to implement them? If more discussion is necessary, where is a good place for this? It has been posted to the WP:VP a few times already and not a single response has occurred... --HappyCamper 03:39, 2 October 2005 (UTC)

  • Have it included in the next Signpost? - Mgm|(talk) 08:19, 2 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] how to grow cannabis

Not only is this the wrong place for this query (it should be at Wikipedia:Reference desk), but I doubt many Wikipedians are going to assist you in activities illegal in the United States. ~~ N (t/c) 03:55, 2 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] American English or British English

Is the main Language of the English Wikipedia, American English, or British English? The majority of tha articles I see, use lots of British terminiology. Especially dates. Pacific Coast Highway 05:54, 2 October 2005 (UTC)

Neither. We're using a compromise as defined at the Wikipedia Manual of Style. As for the dates, make sure that you've set your preferred date format on your preferences, because we've designed the software to display them the way you want. Titoxd 06:01, 2 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Something wrong with the diff code?

Recently it seems like Wikipedia is having an awful lot of trouble generating useful diffs between versions. See this, for example. This makes it even more difficult to track changes than usual, especially on frequently vandalized pages. I don't know when this started happening, but it didn't seem to be a problem until a month or two ago at most. Has anyone else been having trouble? —HorsePunchKid→龜 06:05, 2 October 2005 (UTC)

Unless something has changed since you posted this, the diff you posted looks fine for me. User:Zoe|(talk) 03:54, 4 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] who is the writer of all this

  • Click the History button on any article to see who contributed. Notinasnaid 07:59, 2 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] who is the author

See Wikipedia:FAQ. There is no one single author. Dismas|(talk) 12:00, 2 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Wikimania 2005: Scientific papers? --FND, 2005-10-02

Hello there,

as a student of Information Science, I am considering choosing wikis as the topic of my MA thesis. Since I have not been able to attend the Wikimania conference this year, I had hoped there would be papers on the topics discussed. However, I cannot find any papers at the Wikimania website. Since there is (or was) a Call for Papers though, I assume that a number of papers will still be published?

I'd really appreciate some input on this issue!

Have you tried contacting the people at the Wikimania site from their contact page? http://wikimania.wikimedia.org/wiki/Contact I would think that would be the most direct way of getting answers to your questions. Dismas|(talk) 11:53, 2 October 2005 (UTC)
See commons:Wikimania 2005 Presentations. --Kwekubo 13:56, 2 October 2005 (UTC)
Also, a lot of the papers are at b:Category:Wikimania05, but not everyone who gave a presentation submitted a paper. Recordings of the presentations are at [1]. Angela. 14:28, 2 October 2005 (UTC)
Thanks a lot, I didn't find that on my own (for whatever reason - maybe because I was looking for an index of "traditional" PDF files or something :o ). That's gonna be really helpful!
Oh, and I did contact cfp@wikimedia.org about two weeks ago, but didn't get any response yet. --FND, 15:24, 2 October 2005 (UTC)
PS: Does http://www.knams.wikimedia.org/wikimania/ really contain videos of all presentations? That's amazing!!

[edit] marriage plan

hii sir,

i am from india .i am sa indian citizen .my lover is malaysian citizen.we are planning marry next year..is possible..because i am a indian citizen his malaysian citizen how is poosible sir...please how we will get married

  • Please read the instructions at the top of this page. Questions like this belong on the reference desk - Mgm|(talk) 08:21, 2 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Keep Count Octavian Kinsky childless

I notice that many sources cite Wikipedia and you have put down Count Octavian Kinsky as being married to the wrong person (Agnes...) and having a son (Prince Karel Andreas, or some such thing). As my family descends from this line, I know that it is all NONSENSE. Octavian Kinsky had no son and his brother inherited from him. Prince Karel who was so famous with horses was from another line entirely. I have tried to correct this misinformation, but it just keeps returning. What can I do?

-anon

There are a couple things that you could do. First of all, cite your sources. Edits carry more weight when reputable sources can be cited for the changes to articles. Secondly, create an account. It's free and you need not even supply your e-mail address. Edits from people with accounts are normally thought to be more reputable than random edits by anonymous IP addresses. Since, as you've found, anyone can edit articles there comes with that a lot of vandalism which your edits may have been seen as. So please, create an account and cite your sources. Thanks for your help! Dismas|(talk) 12:59, 2 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Irish Enterprise Exchange

I am posting here because I am completely baffled in my attempt find the IEE site which lists shares traded. I wish to locate "Minmet" a Mining company in order to find the company share price.

Can you help, please.

Regards,

Peter Taylor

e-mail address ;- (removed)

Please read the notice at the top of this page in relation to what types of questions belong here as opposed to the Wikipedia:Reference desk and also in relation to the posting of e-mail addresses. Dismas|(talk) 12:49, 2 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Help Please

Dear Friend

I am trying to locate the exact location of the Drawings of Ignacio Tirsch.

Can you provide any help or assistance?

Are they locate at The University of Prague?

Thank You,

sincerely Robert Tirsch (e-mail address removed)

Please read the notice at the top of this page in relation to what types of questions belong here as opposed to the Wikipedia:Reference desk and also in relation to the posting of e-mail addresses. -- Reinyday, 13:34, 2 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] economics

[edit] Sega Mega Drive/ Sega Genesis compatibility

Does the Sega Genesis play Sega Mega Drive games? They look like the same thing to me. I have a Genesis and would like to buy Mega Drive games to play on it from eBay, but I don't know whether or not they will work. PLEASE RESPOND!

  • With this sort of thing, following instructions precisely is key. And that leads me to the instructions at the top of this page. Please read them. If you can figure out what it is that tricked you into posting a factual question on here, we'd love to hear it, so we can improve the Wikipedia experience. Notinasnaid 15:58, 2 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Differences

Whats The difference between public IP Address and private IP Address

Private addresses are used on a private network as opposed to the publicly accessible internet. -- Rick Block (talk) 17:21, 2 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Media

Is it possible to upload your own media to an article? If so, how? HyperHobbes 16:58, 2 October 2005 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Image tutorial for some info on this. Dismas|(talk) 21:20, 2 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] New pages

[edit] New Pages

I just quickly browsed some 500 new pages and could not find a single well developed article. What do you do with all of this fluff? It would take 1000's of hours to develope articles from them. Who looks at them? Are they included in the count we see on the main page? Phil talk 18:08, 2 October 2005 (UTC)

They are included and if you find anything that doesn't belong, feel free to put it up for a deletion vote at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion. Some things can be speedy deleted as well. And then some are simply stubs that people intend on expanding at a later time. I know that I'll usually start out with something small when I create a page just to get a little info out there. And then flesh it out as I go. Dismas|(talk) 21:12, 2 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Changing a title of an article

In asking for how to do this, I guess I'm also asking if I should do this!

In my opinion, Weill Cornell Medical College should be called: Weill Medical College of Cornell University (I've just added to the discussion, agreeing with another user)

How do I/Should I:

Change the titel of WCMC to WMCOCU?

Find what redirects to WCMC, change redirect to WMCOCU, so as to avoid multiple redirects?

Thanks!

--anon

A page move can only be done by a registered user. This was done to prevent a peculiar vandal from shuffling pages in Wikipedia and prevent everyone many headaches. As for this particular page, I'm not sure if the page should be renamed, since the new title is fairly long and not many users will go out looking for it with the long name. However, what can always be done is to create a redirect to the original page. That can be done quite easily by any user.
Also, to check what redirects to any page, click the "What links here" link on the left navigation bar. Titoxd 19:07, 2 October 2005 (UTC)
Someone Else Pipes In: and add a mention in the main article of what the official name of the school is.

[edit] This is horrendous...

The following page is x-rated. Why show graphics? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anal_sex

WP:NOT#Wikipedia is not censored for the protection of minors. ~~ N (t/c) 18:53, 2 October 2005 (UTC)
While it is not Wikipedia policy to censor articles, the only actions of the account in question were to upload and include this image for apparent shock value. I reverted the article to an earlier version. --GraemeL (talk) 18:57, 2 October 2005 (UTC)
Shouldn't you write shock value ;)

[edit] Adding picture from foreign wikipedia

I want to add a picture of Don Lawrence to his page. On the german wikipedia there's a picture of him. Can I simply do that with a (special) link or do I have to download and upload it to somewhere? Plus, my german is real bad, so do I have to worry about the fact that the image might be copyrighted, or can you assume that's since it's uploaded in the german wiki you can use it everywhere else? Garion96 03:14, 2 October 2005 (UTC) (forgot to sign the 1st time)

In theory you should reupload it to commons. Personaly I reupload to en wikipedia with a linkback.Geni 22:45, 1 October 2005 (UTC)

Tnx for the response. But either way, I still don't know about the copyright? Is just a link back good enough? So someone (if he/she wants to some day) can check the german site about the copyright? Garion96 03:14, 2 October 2005 (UTC)

the image at de: has no source or any copyright information, so I wouldn't take it. It is probably a copyright violation. Broken S 00:32, 3 October 2005 (UTC)
Yeah, I was afraid of that, it seemed indeed a too small amount of text for good copyright info. Thanks for the response, quess I will try to find a good picture now somewhere. Garion96 01:45, 3 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Search Results not as expected

I put in an article for Louis James Pesha but the only time the page shows in search results is when you type the full name. Typing "pesha" or "louis pesha" does not work. Any ideas? --Walt 19:43, 2 October 2005 (UTC)

  • Are you sure you're clicking search and not "Go"? Go will try to take you to the article by the exact title you typed. - Mgm|(talk) 20:04, 2 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Question

I want to add a new story all together how do I do it? I know that the sotry I want to add does not exist. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Michaelbeckham (talk • contribs) 20:06, 2 October 2005.

If there is no article on the subject, all you have to do to to create a new article is determine the title and enter it into the search box. When the search comes back as not being able to find it, it will ask you if you want to create the article by that name. Click the link, start typing, and wah-lah, you have just created an article. If you need help with anything else, just let me know. Psy guy (talk) 20:12, 2 October 2005 (UTC)
That is if by "story" you mean "article". Fictional stories aren't the types of things that belong in encyclopedias. Dismas|(talk) 21:07, 2 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] whatisthemeaningoftitle

erm, have you read the Title article and the Title entry at Wiktionary? Or if you are wondering why Wikipedia is called Wikipedia, see the Wikipedia article. Thryduulf 21:30, 2 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] showmethemeaningoftittle

Why do you ask? Notinasnaid 07:22, 3 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] How to dehighlight internal links ?

Surely there is an option somewhere to quickly and easily take off the highlighting of links so that a piece can be read in the same font etc ?

The simplest way is probably to click the 'Printable version' link in the toolbox in the lefthand column (assuming you are using the default skin). Other than that I think you can define your own CSS to do it, but I wouldn't describe that as either quick or easy. Thryduulf 21:28, 2 October 2005 (UTC)
If you've created a User account, you can set your Preferences to turn off underlining on links. User:Zoe|(talk) 03:59, 4 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Thank You!

I just "discovered" your website (looking for information on Ruby Dee) and was most impressed and wanted to tell you. There being, as far as I could tell, any other way to convey this message, I used this route. Reading about Harlem, where I grew up 70 years ago, the subway, etc., was a real thrill ride back in time. There were other rememberances and they brought back lots of memories. Thanks, again.

Please feel free to edit any of the articles you mentioned, or any others, if you feel there are any things not mentioned or incorrect. User:Zoe|(talk) 04:01, 4 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Ron Cobb, The Cartoonist

Hello. Am searching for a copy of the cartoon by Ron Cobb that is captioned "Man demonstrating his superiority over the animals" The black and white graphic is of a skeleton-headed man in a lab coat pressing a button, frog looking up at him as his head blows up in mushroom cloud. DDoes anyone know how to help me find this, it is for an art project and I live in a remote town on the Oregon Coast i.e. no library of any consequence, etc. Thanks.

I'm sorry, the Ron Cobb article is all Wikipedia has of him. We do not have any of his cartoons on file, and unless he releases them under the GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL), we never will.
It might help if you did a Google web and image search for [Ron Cob "Man demonstrating his superiority over the animals"]. — Kjammer ⌂ 04:12, 3 October 2005 (UTC)
Also see http://www.fastbooks.com.au/cobb.html which tells you who to contact for permission to reproduce. Note that a fee is normally payable in such situations. (This would apply even if you could find the cartoon in a book.) Notinasnaid 12:37, 3 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Possible to have linespace within unordered (bulleted) list?

I have a bulleted item. It needs a linespace between two paragraphs within the same bulleted item. The second paragraph needs to indent the same amount as the first paragraph.


  • Here is my first fascinating paragraph. It's got lots of info. It goes on for awhile. hfadjkhasdk askdhaskd akdhaskdh aksdhaskh aksdhaskdh aksdhjaskdh akdhjaskdh akdhaskdh aksdhaskdh akdhaskdh aksjdh askh askdjha sk. See how it wraps around nicely, with the same indent?

But then I have another paragraph that is separated by a linespace. It really needs to be separated by a linespace for clarity. But it also really needs to be indented as much as the preceding paragraph, because it's part of the same bulleted point.

Houston, we have a problem with uncloseable tags.

  • Then I move on to my next bulleted point.
I tried the colon, but that indents too far.
  • Desperate Wikiwife.


Is there any way to do this currently, and if not, it there any process for suggesting (or creating) new Wiki markup?

Thanks


See m:Help:List#A_blank_line_within_a_list_item_or_between_list_items.--Patrick 22:22, 2 October 2005 (UTC)


Thank you -- here I am testing that approach...

  • Testing

Not Indented

  • Testing with HTML "break-break"

    Indented
  • Testing with just one HTML "break"
    Indented


Hmmm. It doesn't really work in my browser (NS7) -- the break-break code is producing more vertical space than a normal line break. The single break code is producing too little vertical space.

Anyone else have a suggestion -- how to do this, or how to create/request new Wiki formatting code?

Thanks


[someone else asked:]

What is onomatopoeia?

please look that word up in a dictionary. this forum is for questions on creating Wikipedia articles.

[edit] Showing Images from Articles in a Different Language

How exactly do I do this? I want to show an article from a Dutch language article in an English language article. Thanks. --Dri3s 23:32, 2 October 2005 (UTC)


I see a post on this very topic a bit further up on this page: "Adding picture from foreign wikipedia"

[edit] pets in australia

They exist. If you want a more specific answer, please ask a more specific question. Before you do so though, you would do well to read the big box at the top of the page and follow the instructions within it. Thryduulf 07:42, 3 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Pages that link to ____?

I know there's the little heading for images that show "Pages that link to _____." Can such information be easily accessed for articles as well? Staxringold 01:48, 3 October 2005 (UTC)

You mean the "what links here" button on the sidebar (Special:Whatlinkshere/Wikipedia:Help_desk)? Broken S 01:54, 3 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] what is an acre

requests for information belong at WP:RD and see acre.

[edit] Instructions for the use of a Tutove rolling pin in puff pastry making

Ideally should a Tutove rolling pin be used for all of the rolling stages involved in puff pastry making? Or should a regular rolling pin used for the final roll prior to cutting the dough? Also should the Tutove pin be covered with a rolling pin cloth to prevent dough from clogging the groves?

Why do you ask? Notinasnaid 07:21, 3 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] need to know about hospitals

I have someone I love in a hospital in Lagos,Nigeria. His son is the only one who is able to help me and he doesn't know. I need to know which one of the hospitals in Lagos, Nigeria is part of the Holy Group Hospital Group. And how would I get thier phone number to the main switchboard. Thank you very much, Cindi Engelke

Are you sure the group is named Holy Group Hospital Group? There are google hits for Holy Rosary Hospital but I could not find Holy Group. alteripse 03:23, 3 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Checking red links when starting new article

I had started editing Indian Native States about kingdoms and principalities in India when it was a British Colony. It was on the requested articles page and showed 36 requesting links. I would have liked to list those requesting pages to check if they all referred to the same subject and not to something such as, say, "native red-indian tribes". The requested page having been started, the links (previously red) on all the requesting pages, even if off-topic, would have been activated. If one could list the requesting pages the off-topic pages could have been edited suitably. Or, as Indian Princely States, covering my intended subject, exists (as I found on doing a search in the middle of this edit/post) the requesting pages which refer to the "princely states" subject-matter could be suitably edited; and my edit of "native states" deleted. My look at the Help pages drew a blank. As my topic's covered, I'm deleting my edit of "native states". But I think the question remains relevant. Thanks. VivekM 03:21, 3 October 2005 (UTC)

I'm not exactly sure what you're asking but you can see what pages link to the page in question by clicking on "What links here" in the "toolbox" on each page in the left hand column. For Indian Native States check here [2], and for Indian Princely States check here [3]. Hope this helps!--Kewp 04:38, 3 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] articles

Why when I creat a page in this encyclopedia it ends up all spread out?

Can you be more specific? Can you show some examples or provide links to the "spread out" pages? — Kjammer ⌂ 03:46, 3 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] How do I access your info line for episode #184 ?

Hi, I tried to look all over your pages (Leo Laporte) and could not get a straight link into your wiki or similar blog system. I spent over 30 minutes trying to access your page for messages but as an IT tech, I am lost!

I wanted to help that lady in Carson who need the laptop repaired.

Your system is too confusing to someone who does not IM, IRC or Blog.

Any help accessing the past Sunday show # 184 using your password would be appreciated.

Thanks, Pat

If you are referring to Leo Laporte's blog or Leo Laporte's radio show notes wiki: Neither of these are affiliated with Wikipeda. For future reference, the little arrow symbol after the link indicates an external link (a link to a different website). Also I would like to point out that Wikipedia is not a blog, and the Wiki software that runs it shouldn't be used for blogs either. — Kjammer ⌂ 04:40, 3 October 2005 (UTC)
But we would be really interested to know how you came to post here. Countless people post in the wrong place on Wikipedia, and nobody has been able to figure out why. As a tech you might be able to give us the clues that are needed to set people straight. Notinasnaid 10:40, 3 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Ancient Macedonian language - is it Greek or something else ?

Claims that ancient Macedonian was a Doric dialect, should not be based on one or two stone tablets found in Macedonia around the 4th century BC. This point does not take into account, the langauge of the region before the 4th century, [or after] so why is the langauge on this tablet suddenly 'Macedonian' - and why draw wide sweeping [and scientifically unethical] conclusions about the ancient Macedonian langauge and culture as a whole. It astounds me that all the evidence to the contrary is dismissed, because there is alot of it. I won't go over that here. Reputable philological organisations, like the APA, provide a more balanced and accurate account of the various lexicons found in ancient Macedonia, because there is an entire langauge there besides 4th century Greek. Counting which words are Greek, and which words are not, from a stone tablet [whose authenticity], could be questionnable, from one point in time, should not be leading anyone to hasty conclusions about the 'origin' of the ancient Macedonians - your web page therefore is misleading. It provides fuel to nationalists. There are just as many 'non-Greek' words in ancient Macedonia, that do not get a mention. The HEADING, and the content, therefore works within the nationalist framework of modern Greek historiography, and modern Greeks, who claim kinship to the ancient Greeks [even though they are not], use this kind of information to oppress and censor other cultures [even as we speak].

Paul.

Hi! Thanks for your question/comment. This page is for questions about Wikipedia. Factual questions should go to the Wikipedia:Reference desk. May I also suggest that you discuss this matter on Talk:Ancient Macedonian language with other editors, where you might suggest making changes to the article. Hope this helps. --Kewp 05:13, 3 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Yi Sun-Sin?

I was looking through the article titled "Yi Sun-Sin." However, I noticed that the actually name is spelled at least three of four different ways. I realize that you guys stress the importance of maintaining a unified system for translating foreign languages into English, and so I am confused by the inconsistency of the spelling of Yi Sun-Sin by the McCune-Reischauer system. I would edit the page, but I am unsure about the real spelling myself. Could you take a look at this article and fix it to prevent further confusion? Thank you.

--anon

I would suggest looking at Wikipedia:Naming conventions (Korean) for more information about this. I am going to look over the article right now to see if I can standardize the page.--Kewp 05:19, 3 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Question regarding User Talk pages

I know in the talk pages for articles, users are not supposed to remove anything even if the issue is resolved (except when archiving). But in user talk pages, can that user remove obsolete discussions at their own discression? I am asking this because I saw some Users do this on their talk pages, I have no intention of removing any content from my own talk page. — Kjammer ⌂ 04:59, 3 October 2005 (UTC)

Some users remove personal attacks (see Wikipedia:Remove personal attacks). Many (most?) archive their talk pages (see User talk:Thryduulf/archive3 for example), but some just delete old discussions. The latter method is frowned upon by many of those who use the first method, and is not uncommonly commented upon negatively during a request for adminship debate - to the extent that some users will vote oppose solely on that basis. It is not breaking any rules though, and as long as you aren't removing very recent content or are doing it to hide negative comments or something of that nature, you can argue, like user:Eloquence does, that everything is available in the page history anyway. Thryduulf 07:37, 3 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] networking

(no content)

A Network is a system of interconnected components. If you want to learn how to network computers & electronics, or learn more about computer networks, see the afore mentioned article or ask your question in Wikipedia:Reference Desk#Science and Mathematics. — Kjammer ⌂ 07:05, 3 October 2005 (UTC)
By the way, this page is not a search engine. It's... Thelb4! 17:29, 3 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Female freedom fighters of India

[edit] about elligibility in postgraduatemedical education

Sir, > I am doing my final year B.A.M.S [bachelor of ayurvedic medicine and surgery} 51/2 years course .(41/2 +1yr intern ship) in INDIA


After complition of my internship AM I ELLIGIBLE to do my postgraduation in allopathic medicine abroad?

If possible in whinch university ,what will be the duration of course and the fee structure.


please help me in this regard.. Thanking you sir.

Hello, this is not a suitable page for such questions. It would help us if you could explain why you asked it here, so that we can make sure that there are no misleading instructions. Notinasnaid 07:20, 3 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Plagiarism of Wikipedia

Do you suppose this web page plagiarise Wikipedia's look and feel or just protected under Fair Use law for parody?

Please have attorneys familiar with copyright law examine this matter. The web site in question is deeply cynical and not so objective about its disregard for respect by deriding and mocking people, etc.

http://www.encyclopediadamatica.com/index.php/Main_Page

The "look and feel" you are referring to is the default skin used by Mediawiki, the software that that Wikipedia runs on. That software is freely downloadable. So anyone can start running the program, and copy the look and feel of wikipedia. →Raul654 09:11, 3 October 2005 (UTC)

Thank you for your prompt answer, sorry about my cluelessness. Siegheilneocon 09:20, 3 October 2005 (UTC)Siegheilneocon

[edit] Password

I have a machine operating system but cannot open it because it is password protected. Can these PASSWORD be cracked?

As it states at the top of this page, the Help desk is for questions about Wikipedia and the software that runs it. For factual questions, please refer to the Wikipedia:Reference desk. Also, in order to answer your question, people are going to have to know a bit more about just what machine you are talking about, what operating system and which password within that operating system. Dismas|(talk) 11:30, 3 October 2005 (UTC)
Also since a lot of people try to crack passwords into computers they not authorized to be accessing, the laws are changing. We might get in trouble as an accessory to your crime if in fact you do not have legal right to crack the password. If you came by the machine legally, there should be some kind of manual associated with it, with that kind of info.
This kind of discussion belongs on the WD;RD Science section. AlMac|(talk) 06:52, 11 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] List of wikipedia galleries

Is it possible to search for articles that include either of <gallery> or {{gallery}}? (Or indeed any other specific tag or template? -- SGBailey 09:44, 3 October 2005 (UTC)

Tags are hard to do (impossible), but Templates are easy: go to Template:Gallery and click on "What links here" to get a list of articles using that particluar template. — Sverdrup 12:13, 3 October 2005 (UTC)

Not completely impossible - you can do a database query for every page containing a <gallery> tag - but pretty time-consuming and not very up-to-date (you'd be getting pages which had it a couple of months ago, probably, depending on when the most recent dump is). Shimgray | talk | 18:59, 3 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Opera

Navigation Box seems to have been shunted to the bottom of the page in Opera Browser. This must be a fairly recent formatting change —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 194.60.106.5 (talk • contribs) 09:19 (EDT), 3 October 2005.

It's in the right place for me, Opera 8.5 build 7700. Perhaps you should purge your cache? Andy Janata 14:46, 3 October 2005 (UTC)
If the page loads slowly, Opera will sometimes foul up the stylesheets, dumping a lot of the sidebar text down at the bottom. I suspect this is what was being reported - I've seen it today, come to think of it. Reloading solves the issue. Shimgray | talk | 14:59, 3 October 2005 (UTC)


This is Opera 7 build 2637. Reloading didn't help. Updating to Opera 8 fixed the problem. But it did look OK in Opera7 a few weeks ago.

[edit] Massachusetts Counties

How do I find a list of them ?

[edit] How to contact an author

I found an interesting fact in an article and need to valid the source. I have tracked down the editor. How do I contact him/her? What's the format? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 132.183.220.239 (talk • contribs) 17:09, 3 October 2005.

Click the history tab at the top of the page and you can see every user who has contributed to the article. You can click "diff" to compare versions. That way, you can figure out what contributed contributed what text. Once you find the editor, just click the talk link next to their user name. If you need any more help, just let me know. Thanks, Psy guy (talk) 17:15, 3 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Correct spelling of Victor Niederhoffer name

Wikipedia,

Victor Niederhoffer is the correct spelling of the name of a person described in one of your entries.

At present, someone searching on "Niederhoffer" is redirected to "Neiderhoffer."

I changed the content to reflect the correct spelling of the name, but cannot determine how to change the redirect or the entry title. How is this done?

You must create an account, which is quite simple- all you need is a username and password- and then you will have a "move" tab at the top, enabling you to move an article to a different title. I've gone ahead and done it for you. Thanks! Flcelloguy | A note? | Desk | WS 18:18, 3 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Category -- how to?

I authored the article "Hikkake Pattern" and can not figure out how to add it to a specific category. Can you provide instructions so I can do it myself in the future? Thanks.

All you have to do is to add this to the end of the article: [[Category:CATEGORY NAME|ARTICLE NAME]] , adding in the category name, and the article name (in this case, Hikkake Pattern). Hope this helps! Flcelloguy | A note? | Desk | WS 18:44, 3 October 2005 (UTC)
  • ARTICLE NAME is used to sort the entry and should say for example Bush, George W. if you were trying to sort Bush into a category. One word articles don't need that bit added and can just have [[Category:CATEGORY NAME]] . - Mgm|(talk) 19:25, 3 October 2005 (UTC)

When I do this the preview does not show a category line at the bottom. Is this normal? Treesmill 18:34, 6 October 2005 (UTC)

For some reason, the preview does not show the category line - its a software limitation or something like that. But when you hit save page, it will be there. So yes, it's normal. Whitejay251 18:51, 6 October 2005 (UTC)
Well, it actually is there, just not in the preview window. If you scroll the screen all the way down past the edit summary, insert tags section ,warnings etc. it will be the last thing on the page. - Trevor MacInnis (Talk | Contribs) 20:42, 6 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] What to link to, and redirects?

Which of the following links is better? The first causes a redirect but is clear. The second doesn't cause a redirect, but doesn't correctly indicate the term intended in the sentence when you hover over the link.

[[millimetre|mm]] versus [[metre|mm]]

Or stated differently, which is worse? A redirect? Or an unclear bubble help (or status bar) when hovering over an internal link? I'd appreciate advice from experts on this subject. Thanks. --Simian, 2005-10-03, 18:42 Z

[edit] Transwiki-ing just a section

I want to transwiki only the "Seinfeld sayings" section of the page Seinfeld characters and culture to the already existent Seinfeld wikiquote page. The instructions for transwiking (which I've never done before) that I've been able to find are for whole pages. Should I just cut and paste or is there a method that will preserve the edit history? Whitejay251 18:50, 3 October 2005 (UTC)

Nevermind. I split the section off instead to List of Seinfeld terms. They were not quite right for wikiquote anyway, as it's list of words which allegedly have passed into pop culture. I will likely work on figuring out which of the terms can be attested to, in order for inclusion in the wiktionary. Any advice or guidance on this would be appreciated. Whitejay251 20:15, 5 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Oh, Well

Hey there Seems that you don`t know anything about Finland and our language. Before wrinting those wrong stories, it can help ,if you ask from somebody who really knows about our country. And i mean Finland , not russian.

Would you mind clarifying? Are you referring to our article, Finland, or our Finnish language Wikipedia? If it's about the article...
Thank you for your suggestion! When you feel an article needs improvement, please feel free to make those changes. Wikipedia is a wiki, so anyone can edit almost any article by simply following the Edit this page link at the top. You don't even need to log in (although there are many reasons why you might want to). The Wikipedia community encourages you to be bold in updating pages. Don't worry too much about making honest mistakes — they're likely to be found and corrected quickly. If you're not sure how editing works, check out how to edit a page, or use the sandbox to try out your editing skills. New contributors are always welcome. Flcelloguy | A <font color = brown> note? | Desk | WS 19:09, 3 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] DRM Protection key

How do a person bypass the Drm Protection key on the Sony Ericsson V800.

  • Assuming you're talking about Digital Restrictions Management. At Wikipedia we value adherence to copyright law, so you're unlikely to find someone willing to tell you how to bypass a protection key here. - Mgm|(talk) 20:41, 3 October 2005 (UTC)


[edit] how to extend my working holiday visa

I have a working holiday visa that allows me to stay in England for two years.I am not a student and i also got no degree as yet.I would love to become a resident or stay much more longer than what my visa allows,could you please inform me if you know more about immigration.I am a South african resident.

Please direct your question to Wikipedia:Reference_desk for factual questions. This page is for questions about Wikipedia. You might also look here [4] Thanks. --Kewp (t) 15:30, 4 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Afghanistan 1978 coup

In the Afghanistan article, it refers to a bloodless coup in 1978, however the link to the coup refers to a bloody coup. I am hoping that this can be rectified.- Tripmastermonkey


[edit] Suggesting Articles

Here comes one more query from the mind of a lazy procrastinator.

If I had a good idea (in my opinion, anyway) for an article, but was too lazy and not in the position to actually write it myself, how would I go about propogating this idea? (We could endlessly debate the merits and necessity of the articles I would like to see, I just want to know how I can suggest this idea to others.)

Refugee621 22:01, 3 October 2005 (UTC)

You're in luck, there's a page for that: Wikipedia:Requested articles. Go to that page and follow the directions at the top. Be sure to put your article ideas in the appropriate category. Whitejay251 22:21, 3 October 2005 (UTC)
  • If there's a relevant WikiProject, you could suggest it on their discussion page too. - 131.211.210.14 12:43, 4 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] prayer time

i need to know how to find times for praying

  • This question belongs at the Wikipedia Reference Desk, but you will probably need to specify what religion you follow, since some religions prescribe specific times to pray. --Metropolitan90 04:19, 4 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Image:Heart2.jpg

Image:Heart2.jpg is an image of Jesus Christ as the Sacred Heart - no copyright.

Questions. Does anyone know the identity of the artist who painted the original picture of Jesus as The Sacred Heart?

What is the source of this copyright information: "Copyright info says copyright has been released into the public domain by the copyright holder, its copyright has expired, or it is ineligible for Copyright. This applies worldwide."

Anyone I can contact?

Jim Lundy

[edit] licensing windows xp professional

Is it legal to use a single licensed windows xp for installation of a local area network?

Probably not, since Microsoft usually gives you a license to install on one computer and keep a backup copy of the software. However, that information should be written in your EULA, and found at Microsoft's Website. And please address future inquiries of this type to the Reference Desk. Thanks. Titoxd(?!?) 01:24, 4 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Creating A Data Table

I was wondering, How do you insert a table like the one on the right of the page in this link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ratchet_and_Clank If you could list directions, that would be great.

Mike15 00:18, 4 October 2005 (UTC)Mike LeinweaverMike15 00:18, 4 October 2005 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Templates or for that specific template see Template:Infobox CVG Dismas|(talk) 01:11, 4 October 2005 (UTC)


[edit] Does Wikipedia Know What I Like?

The featured articles on the wikipedia front page often seem to be related to topics I am interested in, or have been looking at recently. Does wikipedia log what I am looking at and choose certain topics for me. It's starting to freek me out :/

No, we don't. Articles are voted on for featured status at WP:FAC, and then an admin decides from the featured articles (WP:FA) which one to place on the main page. -Greg Asche (talk) 00:56, 4 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] typo

Check the entry for Daniel Brodhead. There is a typo in his date of birth. It should be 1736, not 1836. Thank you. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 24.195.169.172 (talk • contribs) 21:30, 3 October 2005.

It looks like someone already changed it for you, but next time be bold and edit it yourself, anyone can. -Greg Asche (talk) 02:08, 4 October 2005 (UTC)
Thank you for your suggestion! When you feel an article needs improvement, please feel free to make those changes. Wikipedia is a wiki, so anyone can edit almost any article by simply following the Edit this page link at the top. You don't even need to log in (although there are many reasons why you might want to). The Wikipedia community encourages you to be bold in updating pages. Don't worry too much about making honest mistakes — they're likely to be found and corrected quickly. If you're not sure how editing works, check out how to edit a page, or use the sandbox to try out your editing skills. New contributors are always welcome. Andy Janata 02:09, 4 October 2005 (UTC) (Posts crossed)

[edit] Titles of articles

If the title of a video game is technically wrong in some way in English (for example, there's a Japanese game called "ef - a fairy tale of the two." with the hyphen and period as a part of the title, and with that capitalization), should it be corrected (for the example, to, say, "Ef: A Fairy Tale of the Two")?

The first letter must be capitalized due to software limitations, but the rest should be presented as the creators intended, generating "Ef - a fairy tale of the two". Also, you should include {{lowercase|title=ef - a fairy tale of the two}} at the top of the article. HTH. Meelar (talk) 02:31, 4 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit]  ?

who is the web manager?

Wikipedia is run collectively by its users. There are varying levels of authority and responsibility, however. We have a team of developers, who actually write the code; there are also site admins, who are designated trusted users who have a few more editing powers than regular users. The whole project is overseen very loosely by Jimbo Wales, but it's in a "British monarch" sort of fashion. What do you need help with? Meelar (talk) 02:29, 4 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] artist biography

I am looking for information on an artist named

n. albertis

I own two pieces of this artist work and am interested in learning more about the artist

one of the pieces is a watercolor on paper signed in ink. it measures 21 1/2" w x 5 1/2" h

the second piece is also a watercolor on paper but appears to have charcoal highlights. This piece measures 7 3/4" w x 10 3/4" h.

where can I get information on this artist?

thank you in advance for your assistance

j.v.

  • See the Alberti page to see if he/she's there. There isn't an 'Albertis', though. Also, questions like this should go to the Reference Desk. It's... Thelb4! 15:28, 4 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] How Long Before Articles are Posted/Indexed on Wikipedia

I submitted an article on work at home parents 2 days ago. When I try to pull it up via Wikipedia's search box (I press search not go), I don't see the entry. I do not see the entry unders deletions either. The entry does show up if I type in the URL http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Work_At_Home_Parent_(WAHP). Does it just take a while for it to show?

I have come across this problem too. I think it is just a delay in new articles appearing in the wikipedia search results. I am not sure how often this is updated. Martyman 03:15, 4 October 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for the response and the edits! Tracey

[edit] Propaganda Soapbox Discovered

Dear Wikipedia Community:

I noticed an atheistic "soap box speech" on the Introduction page (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Introduction). Is this not against Wikipedia policy?

Thanks.

Nah, not really, though you're free to remove it if you like. That page is not so much a soap box as a sandbox, in that it's intended for people to test out editing; they can put pretty much whatever they like as long as it's civil, not libellous or violating copyrights, and not disruptive of other people doing the same. --fvw* 03:44, 4 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] possible vandalism of article on Caspar Friedrich

In the article on painter Caspar Friedrich, the second line is very questionable and seems to be vandalism:

---Caspar David Friedrich (September 5, 1774 – May 7, 1840) was a 19th century German romantic painter. Hahaha critics consider his work outstanding and consider him one of the most important German romantic painters.

I am, of course, referring to the Hahaha beginning the second sentence.

I will also point out that Wikipedia seems to undergone major revision, and so my old way of dealing with this, which would have been to leave a message on the talk page of the article in question, is no longer an option, and I do not have the time to go through the whole suggested rigmarole of searching the forums, etc.

I've reverted the vandalism. You can do that too, follow the instructions at Wikipedia:Revert. One question: what do you mean by "Major Revision"? Do you mean Wikipedia as a whole, or the article itself? Because you should be able to leave a message of any article's talk page. Titoxd(?!?) 04:56, 4 October 2005 (UTC)
I'm not sure what you mean when you say that you can't leave a message on the talk page. Just click on the "discussion" tab at the top of the page. Here is the talk page for Caspar David Friedrich [5] You may also revert vandalism yourself by clicking on "edit this page", or going to the page's "history" tab, finding an earlier correct version, and saving that earlier correct version. Don't forget to leave an edit summary of "Reverted vandalism" or something to that effect. best, --Kewp (t) 05:01, 4 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] What do I do about an article which contains information I am pretty sure is inaccurate?

Your entry on Dissociative Identity Disorder has been marked for cleanup, and I'd tackle it, but I'm not sure where to start. I'm not an expert on the subject but I have quite a bit of knowledge about it, and I'm fairly sure much of what the article claims is either false or misleading--not maliciously, but it seems to have been written from quite a subjective point of view without much in the way of fact-checking, and there are internal inconsistencies as well.

I don't want to go in and edit for readability, grammar, etc. if the underlying information is misleading or inaccurate. But I don't have time right now to do the research to track down every claim and determine its truth or falsity.

So if I were to edit for accuracy as well as for readability, I'd end up with an article that's much shorter, because I wouldn't want to include anything I wasn't certain about. However, it's an important topic, and I love Wikipedia, and I would like Wikipedia's entry on the subject to be clearer, less subjective, and as accurate as possible. As it is now, it's almost worse than no entry at all.

Should I go ahead and slash and burn?

I'm not a Wikipedia regular; I've contributed bits and pieces and some editing here and there. Please contact me at <removed> if the Wikipedia community thinks it's appropriate for me to go ahead and transform the piece. 63.231.119.135 06:09, 4 October 2005 (UTC) P. Rhiannon Griffith Albuquerque, NM

It is a Wikipedia guideline to Be bold in updating pages. I would say dive right in, but to make sure to discuss any major changes on the Dissociative Identity Disorder talk page (Talk:Dissociative identity disorder). Also, I would suggest creating an account Wikipedia:Why create an account?, it's easy (you don't need to provide your e-mail address) and it will make it easier to communicate with other editors. Welcome to Wikipedia!--Kewp (t) 06:50, 4 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] how

how can enter in to a server through a port, with a port number?I know the number. I want to ruffer some docs in that server.please help me.

[edit] error message from one wikipedia page

At the end of page "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Particle_in_a_spherically_symmetric_potential"

there are two links that I would like to access but which are currently not working. Could anybody look into that? Regards

Marina (e-mail address removed)

  • If you're talking about the images at the end of the article. Image:Sphericalbesselzeros.png was corrupted or missing and the other image failed to give any copyright information and will soon be deleted, why it's not showing properly, I don't know. - Mgm|(talk) 07:58, 4 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] caffeine issues

Hello, well i was looking for info on caffeine and when i came to your site i notice that the molecule for caffeine seemed different to the other diagrams of caffeine on the net as your site has 3 CH3's in your molecule and the others have 2 CH3's and one H3C (not including the O's and N's) so if you could please help with my dilemma. Thanks you.

CH3 and H3C are the same thing. IT's jsut a slightly different way of representing a methyl group.Geni 12:49, 4 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Signiture

I have tried to make a coloured signiture (smurrayinchester 09:20, 4 October 2005 (UTC)). However, as you can see, the underline is still blue, despite the green text. Is there a way to change this? smurrayinchester 09:20, 4 October 2005 (UTC)

The underline is blue, because it is a Wiki link to a page that currently exists (your User Page). You can make the underline red by deleteing your User Page (not recomended). The other alternative is to change your signature so it doesn't link to your userspace (also not recomended). In your case I would recomend something similar to this this:smurrayinchester (User), (Talk)
<nowiki></nowiki>]]<font style="color:#00BB55"><u><b>s</b>murray</u><font style
="color:#00AA77"><u>in</u><font style =""color:#00EE55"><u>chester</u>
<sup>([[User:Smurrayinchester|User]]), ([[User talk:Smurrayinchester|Talk]])</sup>
The name doesn't link, but the links afterword link to your userpage (required) and talk page (optional). Start you signature with <nowiki></nowiki>]] to cancel the initial link to your user page. — Kjammer ⌂ 17:33, 4 October 2005 (UTC)
That's certainly strange. My signature does have a green underline, and the code I used in Special:Preferences to do so is:

[[User:Titoxd|Tito]]<font color="#008000">[[Wikipedia:Esperanza|xd]]</font><sup>([[User_talk:Titoxd|?!?]])</sup>

Just make sure the "Raw signature" checkbox is selected. Titoxd(?!?) 18:07, 4 October 2005 (UTC)
Although you say your signature has a green underline, Titoxd, to me your sig has ehither a blue or purple underline like normal links. "Tito" matches the link colors, "xd" is green and remains green even after following the link. The underline under the "xd" seems to be part of your user page link, as that didn't change color until I followed the "Tito" link after the "xd." — Kjammer ⌂ 20:51, 4 October 2005 (UTC)
The "Tito" part is supposed to be a regular wikilink. The "xd" part of the signature should always be green with a green underline, and that's how my browser displays it. Maybe it is a browser rendering problem, but then, I do see a blue underlink in Smurrayinchester's signature. This is really weird. Titoxd(?!?) 21:02, 4 October 2005 (UTC)
Thanks! This signature seems to work much better.But why has the date now gone green?]]smurrayinchester(User), (Talk) 08:44, 5 October 2005 (UTC)
Don't worry, Ive solved it. smurrayinchester(User), (Talk) 09:47, 5 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] essential comodity

plese i would be grateful i fyou could answer me this question. Assuming milk was an essential comodity, what will happen to the equilibrium price and quantities if its price were to be reduced? please explain with the aid of a diagram. You could send the answer to <e-mail address removed>

  • Please read the instructions at the top of the page. We don't answer by email and we don't make other people's homework either. - 131.211.210.14 12:40, 4 October 2005 (UTC)
  • You should See Wikipedia:Reference_desk for factual questions, they might be able to point you in the right direction there. best, Kewp (t) 15:21, 4 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] energy funding

list energy funding sources

[edit] what is operating system in computers

This page is for questions about the usage of this web site (Wikipedia). Factual questions should be directed to the reference desk, please see the instructions at the top of the page. You might be interested in operating system. -- Rick Block (talk) 14:22, 4 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Not sure what to do with this...

User:Benmarcotte seems fishy to me, and I'm not sure where to voice my suspicions and to whom, so I'm putting 'em here for now. :)

The problem: it seems at least somewhat likely that User:Benmarcotte is not, in fact, Ben Marcotte, and is using the user page as a sly personal attack on Ben. Looking at the history, it seems that it was originally created by Ahoerstemeier moving the "Ben marcotte" article into userspace; possibly Ahoerstemeier thought or was led to believe that User:Benmarcotte was, in fact, Ben Marcotte?

Again, I'm not certain what I can or should do in this situation. It's not exactly vandalism, and I don't want to tag other people's user pages with any templates; that seems rude. Putting it here seemed like the best option for now; if there's a better place, please tell me and I'll use that in the future. Thank you! :) --Ashenai (talk) 15:07, 4 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Cannot find newly enterd voice

As a first contribution to Wikipedia I entered Sant'Andrea in Percussina page a week ago.
The page exists, is pointed by a referring page (Niccolò Machiavelli) and has been accessed for update by others.

My question is why I cannot find my page it when searching "Percussina" or the entire "Sant'Andrea in Percussina" keywords in Wikipedia search box ?

(Maybe it has to be approved by someone or it is waiting the indexing.)

Our search engine is a bit iffy, and the index probably hasn't been updated yet. I don't know how often it is updated, but it does seem to lag a bit... Shimgray | talk | 17:54, 4 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] haiku

How many syllables are in a haiku?

There are 17 (5-7-5). This really belongs in the Reference Desk, though. It's... Thelb4! 18:34, 4 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Philipine literature

To find some way around the problem that I posted here, I changed the Template:phil-lit-stub to a different category. Yet only a few of the pages with the template showed up. I was starting to put a space below each '{{phil-lit-stub}}' to fix them (it seemed to work) but I came across some that had a space below the template but didn't show up in the category. How do I get them in the category? It's... Thelb4! 18:32, 4 October 2005 (UTC)

The key is actually making the edit, any edit, rather than adding the space. Basically, inline templates don't fully refresh until the article is saved again - they'll update text and images fine when someone looks at them, but for some reason categories don't load up that way. Shimgray | talk | 20:01, 4 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] How can I link to a category page?

In Trinity_College,_Cambridge there's a section containing a long list of Alumni.

There's also a category: ALumni of Trinity College Cambridge.

Of course the lists are different and merging them will not be easy!

How can one link from the first page to the category page?

Mhkay 19:13, 4 October 2005 (UTC)

Put a colon at the start of the link [[:Category:Alumni of Trinity College, Cambridge]] produces Category:Alumni of Trinity College, Cambridge --GraemeL (talk) 19:23, 4 October 2005 (UTC)


Thanks, brilliant, now done. Mhkay 16:48, 5 October 2005 (UTC)

You can also use {{cl}} (category link). {{cl|Alumni of Trinity College, Cambridge}} displays as Cat:Alumni of Trinity College, Cambridge This template was created for pages where category are discussed a good deal, such as WP:CFD and WP:SFD and Wikipedia:WikiProject Stub sorting/Proposals, but it can be used anywhere. DES (talk) 16:53, 5 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Making articles "Safe for work"

First of all, I'm most definitely a "clueless newbie" with only a couple of minor edits under my belt, so if what I'm suggesting is completely infeasible then please have mercy!

I've been an avid browser of Wikipedia for many months now. As my internet connection is provided by my place of work, I am often confronted with a page stating that the requested page "has exceeded the allowed amount of questionable words", and so cannot be displayed. I am sure that other users on similarly provided connections have had the same experiences.

What I am suggesting is a "translation" of pages with questionable words, similar to the "Simple English" pages. In my experience, most filtering software has a list of words which it searches for in the source of a page. These are usually related to s*x, dr*gs, v*olence, etc. This "translation" could be effected by following a similar style to the one I have adopted in my previous sentance (in the hope of being allowed access to my own suggestion!); replacing an obvious letter with an asterisk or similar character. Doing so would allow users on "borrowed" connections to access Wikipedia fully.

I realise that this would require a large number of simingly trivial edits with no obvious benefit to the editors. However, it would provide a simple way for new, unconfident users to feel that they are making their mark on Wikipedia; they can perform a useful service without the neccesity of any knowledge of the subject on which they are editing.

I look forward to hearing any feedback from anyone who is interested in helping or has any suggestions/criticisms.

--Scubbo 19:44, 4 October 2005 (UTC)

I doubt you'd find sufficient editors willing to bowlderise wikipedia. It's a waste of newbies time IMO. We still have plenty of bad writing to improve, spelling and grammar errors to fix, new material to be added and so on. A far better solution to the problem you are experiencing is for workers to pressurise their employers not to use silly censorship programs that restrict legitimate use of the internet. (Sorry to be so negative) Theresa Knott (a tenth stroke) 19:52, 4 October 2005 (UTC)
It's established policy that Wikipedia is not censored. *Dan T.* 22:54, 4 October 2005 (UTC)
Ah, ok, thanks. I was unaware of this policy. Thanks for the speedy replies though. --Scubbo 12:12, 5 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Does this count as original research?

My article on the book Tempest Feud for the Star Wars Roleplaying Game lists two allusions—or references, or tributes—to Monty Python sketches. Neither of the allusions have been confirmed or even mentioned by the book's two authors—in fact, I made the observations myself. Does that count as original research?

Yes, it does. Stuff that a wikipedia author's interpretation, no matter how compelling you feel it is, is essentially original research. The no-OR rule is really just a clarification of a more overarching Wikipedia law - Wikipedia:Cite sources. Now, if you found some reasonably reliable commentator (a review in a games magazine, an article in a newspaper, a quote in an interview from some notable person like George Lucas) then you could report that XYZ said it was an allusion to whatever. But if XYZ is you, then you should take it out of the article. -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 23:28, 4 October 2005 (UTC)
Thanks for the clarification! I'll edit that text out of the article when I get home from school. Now, I'd better get to work on getting my observations published somewhere. ;) – Reverend Duck 12:20, 5 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] "This page is a candidate to be moved to Wikisource"

I recently posted an entry at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interoperability_in_health_IT

When I returned to it, I saw this message at the top in a pink box: "This page is a candidate to be moved to Wikisource. If the page can be edited into an encyclopedic article, rather than merely a copy of the source text, please do so and remove this message. Otherwise, you can help by formatting it per the Wikisource guidelines in preparation for the move."

I don't understand why this is here. My content is indeed an encyclopedic article, and not mere copy of source text. I have two references cited at the bottom, and I'm wondering if I did something wrong with that which is causing the problem. Any advice would be much appreciated, thanks!

Take a look at your article, and take a look at some other articles. You should be able to see that your article doesn't follow the normal layout of a Wikipedia article. For example, Wikipedia articles do not use numbered clauses, just sub-heads. There should be no extra sub-heads through formatting: Wiki headings should be used throughout. And the opening sentence should define the term which is the title of the article, quoted in bold. So the article would need a quite substantial rewrite to be an encyclopedia article in Wikipedia style. Another clue that the article isn't really part of Wikipedia is that it doesn't have many links. Only one, to an external web site. Jargon is used without definition (e.g. EHR) suggesting it was written for a specialist audience.

All of these things, by themselves, would be enough to convince many people that it isn't an encyclopedia article, whether or not a close reading of the text shows that really it is. The presumption will be that this is a copy of an article elsewhere, even if it isn't. In this case, I suspect that the author may simply be more familiar with a different style of presentation.

Of course, the adjustment may happen: people might now start hacking it around to turn it into the correct format. Now, if you leave it in Wikipedia, and it survives, it will have to be turned into a general article on Interoperability in Health I.T., presenting a differing range of views on this subject. But this is a strange article: it looks "closed". I mean, it can't really be hacked around without losing its meaning. It looks more like a research article. Phrases like "it is hoped that this definition will help standardize the discussion of interoperability" don't really belong in an encyclopedia, unless you can quote the source that is doing the hoping.

So, since it looks more like a research article, it might be better to move it into a place where it can be preserved as an original source, rather than mercilessly edited. That in turn will make a real Interoperability in Health I.T. Wikipedia article stronger, because it can refer to your source.

Just my thoughts based on a quick scan. Notinasnaid 10:16, 5 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Bibliographies

How do I write a bibliography using the information from this site?

  • First of all, be careful when citing Wikipedia. Since anyone can edit it, sometimes the information is not valid. I know some teachers who deduct points from kids who cite wikipedia. You might want to check with your teacher first. If it all checks out see: Wikipedia:Citing Wikipedia Tobyk777 22:04, 4 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Hebrew at the bottom of disambiguation pages.

while editing a disambiguation page a few minutes ago, I saw Hebrew letters at the bottom of the page. Since I speak Hebrew, I was able to easily determine that they were just random letters not forming any words or patterns. Also, when I just viewed the article (not in edit mode) they were not there. Why are they there? Tobyk777 22:00, 4 October 2005 (UTC)

  • Could you link to the page in question, so I can have a look? - Mgm|(talk) 22:12, 4 October 2005 (UTC)
    • sure, here Restoration Tobyk777 22:52, 4 October 2005 (UTC)
      • It's an interwiki link. Look to the left hand side of the page, underneath the toolbox section. --GraemeL (talk) 22:56, 4 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] User Page

Someone cahanged my user pages name to "User:Eatme". How do I change this?--anti-anonymex2

User:Anti-Anonymex2 exists at this point. The history doesn't show anything about having been moved. -- Rick Block (talk) 00:00, 5 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Do I understand GDFL correctly?

I'm a freelance photojournalist interested in posting some of my concert shots to illustrate various articles about specific musicians. But even after reading the article on GDFL, I'm not sure if I'm misconstruing GDFL - do I understand correctly that by posting an image of say, Joe Strummer, that I am giving up ownership of the image? And do I understand correctly that someone can take my image, make changes to it (even derogatory changes) and reproduce it elsewhere?

Note that I'm not a lawyer (and certainly not your lawyer), so the following is only my understanding of the GFDL. You're not giving up ownership - you retain copyright, and can sell the image any way you like, just as now. But what you are giving up (I view it as donating to charity, really) is control over the image. So someone can take a copy, print it, sell it, and they don't need to tell you, to get your permission, or to pay you. But they can't claim they took it, they can't give someone else a copy without also telling them that they too can do those things with it, and they can't distribute a copy without crediting you (in some form). They certainly can take your image and alter it in any way, however derogatory and horrible, that they desire. Furthermore, if they comply with the GFDL properly, that derogatory copy will be distributed with your name credited. Now, in practice that really doesn't happen much, and I guess for pictures of musicians nothing terribly bad is realistically going to happen. But I suppose it's not impossible that you could upload a picture of BB King if it found its way onto some racist website where it was used in a derogatory context, that would be legal. I've uploaded a lot of photos to wikipedia, and the way I look at it is this - when you donate money to some famine charity, you have to realise that it's possible some of your money will be diverted by some corrupt official, but most will go to a good cause. It seems like a worthwhile tradeoff to me, but your mileage may vary. Personally, I don't think it's possible to act with charity without surrendering some control. -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 00:09, 5 October 2005 (UTC)
In addition, I'd say the following is true - if you upload a picture to Wikipedia, doing so greatly limits (or entirely abolishes) your practical capacity to make money from it (as someone can always get a free copy here). Some people upload only small (screen-ready) versions of images, keeping larger print-ready versions to themselves (and thus they only licenced the small one under the GFDL). Personally I don't do this, as it means a print copy of wikipedia would look bad (and I find doing so rather meanspirited). A very few people try to link the image page of that small image to their commercial website, and a few put their photo credit on the image as a watermark. Both of these latter tactics appear (to many people) to be advertising, and the GFDL allows both to be removed. In a few cases in the past this has led to some acrimony. -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 00:19, 5 October 2005 (UTC)
You don't have to release images under GFDL, just text. ~~ N (t/c) 00:31, 5 October 2005 (UTC)
Indeed. But to use the image on Wikipedia it has to be in a licence that has the same issues (from the original questioner's perspective) as GFDL. For images made by the uploader, really only cc-by-sa, GFDL, PD, and copyrighted-anyuse are practical. Licences which would solve the questioner's concern (wikipedia-only, no-changes) aren't acceptable here. -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 00:44, 5 October 2005 (UTC)
What if he retained the copyright and all rights and tagged it with {{fairuse}}? Does being the creator somehow disqualify him from that? ~~ N (t/c) 00:48, 5 October 2005 (UTC)
My understanding is that fair use really amounts to "I know I don't have the owner's permission, but I assert that it's okay to use it here under the fair use doctrine". Our fair use article specifically says "...another author's work" (my emphasis). Asserting {{fairuse-self}} would, I guess, be reserved for those with split personalities :) -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 00:57, 5 October 2005 (UTC)
Okay... he can send his photographs to another user, who can upload them as fair use. This all strikes me as silly, though. Maybe we should have a template that says "I, the uploader of this image, grant the rights for it to be used only in articles relevant to its subject, and not modified" - sure, people should be discouraged from doing that, but it's the exact same restriction set as fair use, so why not? ~~ N (t/c) 01:02, 5 October 2005 (UTC)
It'll be very rare for a contributor here to be the copyright owner of an image we can use under fair use, and even then it would severely limit which articles we could use the image on. Even worse, it doesn't solve anything, because if wikipedia is entitled to use the image under fair use, so is whatever nasty organisation you don't want using your image. --fvw* 01:08, 5 October 2005 (UTC)
Good point, everything he's worried about would be allowable as "parody". ~~ N (t/c) 01:11, 5 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] info-en

Where can I find the page for info about info-en? Jtkiefer T | @ | C ----- 01:52, 5 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] How long before media can be posted up for Ifd?

Through my various copright tagging down at Category:Images with unknown source, I've noticed a lot of images that have been uploaded but are orphaned, and are unlikely to be linked since the user would have linked to it immediately after uploading it, rather than let it sit there for oh, maybe 20 hours without touching it? My question is, how old must the image be before I can post it on Ifd?

On another note, can I speedy delete images that are just plain silly? i.e. a guy wrapped in tape? --Bash 03:35, 5 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Back to discuss whatever is happening, if anything to Team Liddell et al article

Hi, I finally found my way back to you folks about two days late. Two weeks ago I provided an article about our worldwide genealogy group and what we are doing that's already accomplish, in progress and pending. I spent about 30 hours two weeks ago in in studying your editing software, styles and entering the material. I finished about 6PM local EDT USA. Within 30 minutes it was being labeled as self-promotional, the artwork was challenged and a "certificate" demanded, and so forth. I spent four more hours trying to respond to and answer criticisms and finally gave up. I can't figure out your softwear and just left the message that I had given the thing my best shot and I'd be back in a week to see what if anything survived the editing or deletion.

I see in your archives that somebody very kindly read the capture under our artwork and noticed that I had issued your required legal release at the time of uploading a copy of our original artwork emblem. I thank that person and I have to apologize for any antimosity I showed. I am an experienced retired newspaper editor with national awards for investigative reporting and opinion-piece writing as well as general excellence of my newspapers, and I was tired at that point and to have someone spend at most 15 minutes reading my product, which was based on a article we post to the world at one of our websites and represented two years of refinement, and putting a challenge/let's delete sticker on it was too much.

I additionally cannot figure how how to activate a user page (I think that's your name for it). I have used the thing and the results show up in my contributions list. there is no activation button that I can find. I'm at a loss to do anything else. I left my email address but no one has written me which is no difference from posting a msgs here which doesn't send me an alert that I have a message in the first place.

I see an Oct 3 and Oct 5 indication that someone has done something, perhaps write me a message but I can't find anything about those actions. I go to the links and just see discussions of Wikipedia internal affairs and nohting about me or the article.

I see long articles about there being no such thing as objectivity and that just burns me up as an old-fashioned journalist as we were ALL objective, which means that we avoided bias and did no editorialization in the news stories and dealt only with facts that would be verified by at least two independent sources. That is objectivity and it is possible to achieve. That was the world of journalism until the "social responsibility" theory of Maynard Hutchines came into play about 1975 and the news world lost all of its public respect. Sorry for the digression, but this has a bearing on the proposed article I wrote you. In it, we are having to be our own witnesses because we are in a totally new terrain that did not exist prior to 2000 when the science of genealogy genetics was established at the Max Planck Institute.

GG did not become commercially viable until 2002 and we began working in it in 2003 and launched our first GG study in the fall of 2004. We are one of the trailblazers in this. There are no outside references available because we are the world's cutting edge right now. We are the model, the standard, the authorianative source for everyone else. ANd that is the purpose of the article--to detail where we came from, what we've done, where we are going and how to copy our programs. We are providing information based on our unbiased observation of our actions and objective reportage thereof.

How anyone can accuse us of being self-promotional misses the entire issue at hand. In that article, there is nothing but fact in the artilce and unbiased objective reportage thereof. There are no unnecessary or inflationary adjectives or adverbs anywhere in it.

Again, I am depending on you folks to either kill the thing, edit it as you see fit, or let me know where your pain is located. I cannot respond intelligently to the generalized charge of "self-promotional". That is a meaningless term to me without specifics being cited.

And I'd appreciate you figure how how to communciate with me in some manner or by a method different from this Wonderland of endlessly receding pages of instructions and debates about the contents. I have no idea after at least a dozen attempts of being able to write anyone except at this help desk.

Yes, I'd like for the article to appear. No, I don't know what else to do, and no, as long as that sticker is attached to the article, I don't think any of you have read it for comprehension or to understand its purpose in and for being

Jim Liddell (email address removed) —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Teamliddell (talk • contribs) 2:42 EDT, 4 October 2005.

Mr. Liddell, I have not fully read your article but I have been following your questions and discussions here at the help desk. I'd like to address your following statement, "I additionally cannot figure how how to activate a user page (I think that's your name for it). I have used the thing and the results show up in my contributions list." When you create an account here at Wikipedia you get assigned a User page. If your user name were "teamliddell" you would find your user page at "User:Teamliddell". In addition to that you get a "discussion page" or "talk page". Your talk page is where people can leave you messages and you may have discussions about articles. These things are not handled through e-mail because this is a community and to have private conversations via e-mail would defeat that purpose. Also, at the top of this page is a set of instructions, one of which is that answers will more than likely not be provided via e-mail. Again, because if someone asks a question and gets a response via e-mail, anyone else who happens through and wants to know the answer to that question will be left with just an unanswered question. I encourage you to create an account if you have not already done so. And also, respond to the comments at the discussion page for the possible deletion of your article which you can find here: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Team Liddell et al. If you have further questions, please feel free to ask either here or at my talk page which is linked in my signature: Dismas|(talk) 05:00, 5 October 2005 (UTC)
  • User:Dismas is quite correct. Most of the comments about the Team Liddell et al article have to do with the notability of the organization. The current articel has no links to information about the team provided by anyone outside the team, if i have read it correctly. Have you received news coverage? If so, a mention of this with a citation and/or a link would be a good idea. DES (talk) 16:27, 5 October 2005 (UTC)
  • You user page is at User:Teamliddell and your talk (discussion) page is at User talk:Teamliddell, since I see you are logging in to edit. There is no nead to "activate" your user page, simply go follow the link, and click 'edit this page" just as on any other page. Most users put something about themselves on their user pages. Other users may leave you meassages by editing your user talk page, and you can leave messages for other users by editing their user pages. This is used for communication on wikipedia instead of eamil in most cases. Feel free to ask me a question on my user talk page, which is linked in my signature. DES (talk) 16:27, 5 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Where do I find a list of Templates?

I need to find a list of possible templates so I know what needs to be applyed to the page I made (FIS) and just so I have the list in general. Thanks AGruntsJaggon 03:56, 5 October 2005 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Template messages provides lists of templates. A list of all templates can be found at Wikipedia:Template messages/All (Warning: Very, Very Long Page). — Kjammer ⌂ 04:31, 5 October 2005 (UTC)
The FIS page that you've linked to seems to have the correct template (3 letter Disambiguation), unless you are referring to one of the "FIS" pages listed on the Disambiguation page. — Kjammer ⌂ 04:36, 5 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Iphigenia

Hello, I don't have a clue about markup language so I did not want to try editing a page. I just wanted to let you know that Aeschylus' Orestia uses Agamemnon's sacrifice of Iphigenia as the reason for Clytemnaestra's murdering of him and Cassandra upon their return. I didn't see it mentioned. SMC <removed> 68.236.248.233 05:08, 5 October 2005 (UTC)

Hello! Thank you for your comment. You can edit any article on Wikipedia by hitting the "edit this page" tab at the top of the page, or the "edit" link on an article's individual section. The best place that describes wikipedia markup is Wikipedia:How to edit a page, which describes the basic stuff concisely. Be bold and jump right in! Welcome to Wikipedia!--Kewp (t) 05:48, 5 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Correcting spelling in article title

I have just been looking at the page on 'ALGOL' and was horrified to find that the name of one of the dialects was incorrectly spelled: Elliott Brothers, creators of Elliott Algol is spelled with two 't's. When I corrected this, I discovered that the link to the page on "Elliot Algol" had become a link to the non-existent page "Elliott Algol". The page on Elliot Algol also attributes the language to Burroughs, which is arrant nonsense. The language was designed and implemented by a team from Elliott Brothers led by guru Anthony Hoare. Burroughs may well have used it to write their stuff, but if they had any involvement in the original, I'd be glad to hear more details.

Can someone with the required authority please change the spelling of the page title and the material at the top which repeats the spelling and has no 'edit' button.

Thanks, Bill (e-mail address removed)

I've done it. For future reference, if you create your own user account and make a few edits, you gain a "Move" button, which you can use to move an entire article to a different title. — JIP | Talk 09:10, 5 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Special:Allmessages

I just discovered the Special:Allmessages page. Apparently since I'm an admin, I have the power to edit the messages Wikipedia shows during its operations. But I don't want to make any edits yet because I don't know how the page works. What is the meaning of the different background colours? How can I know where which message is used and what its parameters mean? — JIP | Talk 09:14, 5 October 2005 (UTC)

A coloured entry indicates that its value has been changed from the defaults (defaults are encoded in the mediawiki distribution). For a changed entry, two values are shown. On top, in pink, is the default. Below that, in cyan, is the current value. Frankly, to figure out what some mediawiki entries mean, I've found myself searching the mediawiki code. I don't know of a page on meta that describes what each does. -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 09:47, 5 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Traffic

Is there a way to see how many people have viewed an article? The obvious answer, a hit counter, would not work at all on an encyclopedia like Wikipedia. smurrayinchester(User), (Talk) 11:14, 5 October 2005 (UTC)

No, not really. The mediawiki software does contain code for a hit counter, but it was disabled long ago for performance reasons. It wouldn't be meaningful anyway: between vistors and the webservers are an array of squid web proxies, which serve the great majority of page views from their cache. To produce accurate statistics for a page (which one day we may do) the logs for all of those squids would have to be collected and aggregated with apache log files (something that, for the most part, we don't do). Wikipedia:Statistics does show some statistics which might answer some of your questions (but probably won't answer the "how many vistors viewed my article" question). -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 11:26, 5 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Watersplash

I have drafted a short entry about watersplashes but can't decide what category it should be in. It's a geographical feature.

Help please?

Scaree 11:28, 5 October 2005 (UTC)

  • Just post it and put a link here, so we can see what we're talking about. If it's indeed a geographical feature and not a geological one, I'd expect it to be a {{geo-stub}}. Alternatively, you could just post the article and please a lot of stub sorters. -- Mgm|(talk) 11:58, 5 October 2005 (UTC)
  • And if it's not stubby enough, you could see what the Category:Geography has to offer. - Mgm|(talk) 12:01, 5 October 2005 (UTC)

I have posted the watersplash stub but couldn't decide what kind of feature it was, as I am never certain of the difference between geographical and geological so I have left that bit blank. I'm not very experienced at editing these things, although I have done some very small items before.

scaree 13:23, 5 October 2005 (UTC)

edit to say - just found entry on 'Ford' which was at one point redirecting back to ford motor company. How do I delete the page I just made so I can add deatil to the ford page (although the watersplash activity doesn't really apply to all fords.) I am now confused.

scaree 13:57, 5 October 2005 (UTC)

I've merged the text from watersplash into ford (river); this puts them both on the same page. watersplash will now send you to ford (river) as a redirect. Shimgray | talk | 14:58, 5 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Game articles on wiki?

While looking for OpenAL, I noticed there's a lenghty list of commercial games. I believe I'll remove them from the page in the next few days is no one has a good reason to mantain them. I'll just list engine technologies instead. Now the question is: do article on commercial games need to be hosted here? It's just free promo. Unless the discussion is technical I don't see why they shall be here. Could you comment a bit on this?. MaxDZ8 11:44, 5 October 2005 (UTC)

I believe the list should stay. There's no reason not to link or mention commercial things (specifically, wikipedia does not take a pro-free software position). Having a modest list like that shows OpenAL is used in practice, rather than being just another neglected API. Equally all the articles about the games seem entirely appropriate. -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 11:50, 5 October 2005 (UTC)
  • Commercial games, films, and products are widely available so people are likely to look them up. If they're already established and don't need our promotion, I don't see why we can't discuss them in an NPOV article. - Mgm|(talk) 12:00, 5 October 2005 (UTC)

I understand. I am now well aware of this point and I agree on leaving them here. However, I still believe they shall be checked. Technically speaking, there are only minor differences between, say Unreal Tournament 2003 and Unreal Tournament 2004. They use the same engine technology so lower-level APIs can be inferred from this. Is there anything wrong if I group titles to show this fact? Is this the right place to discuss it? OpenAL page seems to be getting low traffic. The average user may think they are a lot, but this list carries actually less information than it should because it's more an engine feature than a game feature. This actually has the problem to keep the list up to date with engine list (management/redoundancy problem). MaxDZ8 18:04, 5 October 2005 (UTC)

  • If the article on Unreal Tournament isn't too large, it would be a good idea to merge all content of the separate versions into it and redirect them there. - Mgm|(talk) 09:54, 6 October 2005 (UTC)
    • No, I don't think the different unreal tournament articles should be grouped together. They're sufficiently distinct to warrant their own articles, and both are quite large and well developed. The question of their being developed on the same technological platform is irrelevant; the primary function of articles about software is not a technical analysis of them. -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 10:33, 6 October 2005 (UTC)

The fact they are based on same technology is relevant when getting here from OpenAL. However, I have now gruped all them to show this relationship. I hope you're satisfied with this. Thank you for (fast!) your feedback. MaxDZ8 15:53, 6 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Listed directors

Hi, I'd like to be included in your movie director section, how do I go about this please?

Some of my films can be viewed at:


Phoenix (24 mins)

http://www.ifilm.com/ifilmdetail/2667448


Dead Clean (15 mins)

http://www.ifilm.com/ifilmdetail/2667735


Hellion (2 mins)

http://www.ifilm.com/ifilmdetail/2667452


The Reckoning (12 mins)

http://www.ifilm.com/ifilmdetail/2667736



my website is www.angloamericanpictures.com


Many thanks


Chris Barfoot chris@anglo-ap.com

You could add the article yourself but be warned that it may be deleted if fellow editors do not think that you are notable enough. For your reference, please see: Wikipedia:Autobiography, and Wikipedia:Notability. Dismas|(talk) 19:44, 5 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] florida/what is florida's major attractionand landmark

Moved over to the reference desk --216.191.200.1 14:13, 5 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Templates

I was wondering, (again) I have an artircle about a game in progress. What is the template I use to have it say that? Also, I still have another question: How do you get a table with the developer, publisher, etc. like this one (right side): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ratchet_and_Clank If you can give Detailed Instructions that would help.

Mike15 14:13, 5 October 2005 (UTC)Mike15

  • The template. Could you be thinking of {{cvg-stub}}? Literally paste "{{cvg-stub}}" at the bottom of the article and that will indicate that it is a work in progress.
  • The table. It is an infobox. To get it into your article, I recommend pasting in the one used at Ratchet and Clank and changing each bit of info appropriately. If you don't have a certain detail, leave it blank. If you want help, let us know the name of the article you are working on and we will visit. By the way, your signature seems to display "Mike15" twice. Ask again if you want clearer instructions. --Commander Keane 15:00, 5 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Question: IPA characters/symbols

I use Wiki in connection with my linguistics/phonetics research. However, I find that, in most instances, IPA characters do not display correctly, but are replaced by the 'white box' symbol. In an attempt to overcome this problem I downloaded and installed IPA Unicode software appropriate for my OS (Windows XP). However, this has had no effect and Wiki pages/articles continue to display the 'white box' symbol. As I have limited technical competence I would be grateful if someone could explain in simple terms how to overcome this problem. --Geoff Powers 14:46, 5 October 2005 (UTC)

Hello, is anybody there???

I really would like a reply on correct display of International Phonetic Alphabet symbols! Apologies if it appears an 'idiot question'!

I would be quite happy to re-direct this question to the Languages Helpdesk if this would be prefererable. However, it seems to me a technical problem rather than a purely linguistic one, so felt a posting here would elicit a response. --Geoff Powers 09:24, 10 October 2005 (UTC)

You are probably using Microsoft Internet Explorer - most other browsers do not have the problem. However there is a good solution which is to use the IPA template — more information at Template Talk:IPA. --rossb 10:09, 10 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Adding to a category

I have created a couple of pages so I understand the basics but I can't figure out how to edit the following page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Internet_service_providers

I'd like to add and link it to a page I've created - Aspen Communications

The source looks nothing like the page. Maybe I don't have high enough clearance to edit that page since its categories and not an article?

Categories work a little differently from regular articles, to add your article to a category, add the link [[Category:Internet service providers]] to the bottom. This will both add your article to the category page and link to the category page from your article. I've done it for you this time, if you go hit edit this page on your article, you can look and see how it's done. Whitejay251 15:57, 5 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] how to rename or delete redirections to articles

hi,

i saw an article "Deustchland_uber_alles" which is misspelled and should be named "Deutschland_uber_alles". the article "Deutschland_uber_alles" already exists and should be redirected to "Das Lied der Deutschen" as the misspelled "Deustchland_uber_alles" does now.

so: how/who may do that?

  • Anybody can alter redirections - just go to the article it redirects you to, click "What links here" and select the redirect page you want to edit. There's no need to rename or delete misspelt redirects as these help people who misspell article names find the article they want, unless they are abusive or misleading, in which case see WP:RFD. Warofdreams talk 12:56, 6 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] How do I find a list cities and counites together?

[edit] network home

Ihave tow computer in my home was i wan't make network home and they mak it to me already (best buy store) and they tell me you have broblem with game

I have no idea what you're talking about, as that "sentence" doesn't make sense. However, it seems to be a question more suitable for the reference desk. Could you please ask it there in a coherent English sentence? Thanks. Andy Janata 22:19, 5 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Including signature in templates

Is there any way to create a template with the unexpanded signature string (four tildas), so that it expands when the template is used (perhaps via {{subst:...}}) ? Ornil 18:01, 5 October 2005 (UTC)

  • As far as I know, no. Templates only allow for arguments to be inserted other templates and sigs which work essentially the same won't expand within a template. What do you want to do with it? Perhaps you can adapt your signature to show while still using ~~~~ or perhaps you can make a template that includes your username but that would require you to still add 5 tildes for the date. - Mgm|(talk) 20:51, 5 October 2005 (UTC)
  • If you subst in Template:Sig then it will display your signature and date. I just made it and I'm not 100% sure it will work. Broken S 21:56, 5 October 2005 (UTC) (it worked when I signed here, but I'm not sure what will happen if you transclude it)
    • It might be easier just to create a parameter at the place you want the signature to appear and then write in the ~~~~ when you're using it. Also, that allows other users to use your templates. Titoxd(?!?) 18:26, 8 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Bad redirect in Wiki article

The stub re Richard Schrock, who has just won the Nobel Prize in chemistry, gives his birthplace correctly as Berne, Indiana. That stub is at:

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

However, the "a href" URL is redirected to Bern, Switzerland. The correct URL for Berne, Indiana, is as follows: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berne%2C_Indiana

I don't know how to change that. Can someone do it, or instruct me in the procedure?

anon (for now)

  • Don't read the HTML code. That's confusing. You can edit by clicking the edit button on top of the page which I did to fix the link like this. If you want to know the basics on editing see Wikipedia:How to edit a page. I hope you'll consider joining so you can do corrections for yourself. - Mgm|(talk) 23:06, 5 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Moving back articles

There were several articles that were improperly moved by this user. I moved back the content to the original and proper titles, but in the process, the move blanked out the history of each page. How do I move back the history of each article like nothing happened. I do recall in trying to move pages in the past that I wasn't allowed to overwrite an existing article. ErikNY 02:00, 6 October 2005 (UTC)

  • You can move articles back if they were improperly moved, if the resulting redirect of the original move still stands. Don't forget to use the move tab instead of copy past moves. - Mgm|(talk) 05:09, 6 October 2005 (UTC)
  • By the way, I'm on the job of moving things back. - Mgm|(talk) 07:39, 6 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Watchlists and categories

If I add a category page to my watchlist, any changes to the introductory section of the category page appaer on my watchlist page, as you would expect. I was wondering if it is possible somehow to "watch" a category in the sense of having an entry appear on my watchlist whenever an article is added to or removed from the category. Is this possible, and if so, how? -- AJR | Talk 02:07, 6 October 2005 (UTC)

No. It's not possible. Dismas|(talk) 02:17, 6 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Clearing my IP Address

Hi, I logged in in order to edit a page, but after I edited it, my IP address appeared. I do not want anyone to see my IP address. What should I do?

  • Your IP address should not appear if you have successfully logged in to a user account. Maybe this is a bug in Wikipedia. It's been known to sporadically log users off. — JIP | Talk 05:22, 6 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] WIKIPEDIA MORE FUN!?

ok why don't you admin/ people that edit on wikipedia make this thing more fun... like make a part where people are awarded for best/interesting profile, best editor, Cleaner Up of the month... you know ect to make it interesting

AND by the way HOW DO I MAKE A SUBPAGE>:-C ><ino 08:05, 6 October 2005 (UTC)

Like any other page. Type User:Xino/{{subpage}} in the search box (replacing {{subpage}} for the name of the subpage you want to create) and follow the instructions to create a page. Titoxd(?!?) 08:09, 6 October 2005 (UTC)
As for the awards, that's what Wikipedia Barnstars are for. →Raul654 08:10, 6 October 2005 (UTC)
See also Wikipedia:Personal user awards. nae'blis (talk) 17:47, 6 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] appedic

[edit] Public Domain Resources

I am interested in helping contribute to Wiki, but I am unsure how. I would like to help in researching, editing, adding..etc. However, I definitely do not want to infringe any copyrighted material. How can I help, and where can I access resources to aide in building the Wiki site? Rcb6689 09:39, 6 October 2005 (UTC)

  • You can use pretty much anything as a source, as long as you don't copy the text verbatim into Wikipedia. Read the source text and use your own words to rephrase things and you should be all right. - Mgm|(talk) 09:51, 6 October 2005 (UTC)


SAME HERE! i am wondering for example if i want to edit a article for Megaman, i need a picture, this Wikipedia says NO COPYRIGHT IMAGE AND TEXT. the text is cool and fine by me because i can do mines but the picture... that is the problem, if i take a image from a website which shows Megaman posing, grab the image and posted it on the article, then i put a copyright tag on the image, can i still use it? or do i have to email the person and ask for permission!?><ino 13:56, 6 October 2005 (UTC)

Screenshots are allowed. Just see Pitfall! for an example. Dismas|(talk) 14:00, 6 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] *Un*protect the Help desk?

Why is there an unprotect tab instead of a protect tab at the top of the Help desk? Trying to edit the Help desk doesn't give me a "Do you really want to edit a protected page?" warning, and I was even able to log out and try to edit it as an anonymous user without getting any message about it being protected. Is the Wikipedia database somehow messed up? — JIP | Talk 10:39, 6 October 2005 (UTC)

  • It's protected against page moves. - Mgm|(talk) 11:23, 6 October 2005 (UTC)
    • Ah, thanks. There should be an easier way to see which page is protected against what than looking at the tabs or trying to edit the page. — JIP | Talk 12:20, 6 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] What is Project Management?

What is Project Management?

  • Why not read our article on Project management and find out? Please read the instructions at the top of the page and direct questions like this to the reference desk in the future. - Mgm|(talk) 11:25, 6 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] american red cross

What is the organizational structure of the American Red Cross? What is the chain of command? How are new initiatives introduced to the organization and what are the steps to take in order for the initiatives to come about?

This page is for questions about Wikipedia, please direct your question to Wikipedia:Reference desk for information about about non-wikipedia related subjects. Thanks. --Kewp (t) 13:52, 6 October 2005 (UTC)
Also, your question was already answered here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Reference_desk/Humanities#american_red_cross Dismas|(talk) 13:57, 6 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Eileen Collins entry

Hello,

The entry for astronaut Eileen Collins says that her daughter Bridget "was born several months after Eileen's first shuttle mission, making Eileen quite possibly the first person to be pregnant in space."

I asked Eileen about this last month in an interview and she said that she was not pregnant when she went into space on her first mission. She says that it would have been too dangerous for a developing fetus because of the higher radiation levels.

Does this warrant editing the article?

Anthony Trotter <email removed>

Absolutely:
Thank you for your suggestion! When you feel an article needs improvement, please feel free to make those changes. Wikipedia is a wiki, so anyone can edit almost any article by simply following the Edit this page link at the top. You don't even need to log in (although there are many reasons why you might want to). The Wikipedia community encourages you to be bold in updating pages. Don't worry too much about making honest mistakes — they're likely to be found and corrected quickly. If you're not sure how editing works, check out how to edit a page, or use the sandbox to try out your editing skills. New contributors are always welcome. Whitejay251 14:27, 6 October 2005 (UTC)
Was this interview published anywhere? You may want to cite a source that can be verified by other wiki editors. Whitejay251 14:39, 6 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Citing Wikipedia

How do I reference Wikipedia in a research paper?

see Wikipedia:Citing Wikipedia. Whitejay251 14:27, 6 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Cleanup Taskforce heading

I've just updated Captain George Shelvocke, but I'm not sure what I'm supposed to be doing to the header that now there saying "Please see its [[Wikipedia:Cleanup Taskforce/{{{1}}}|Cleanup Taskforce page]] for more details." The article doesn't have its own Cleanup Taskforce page, as far as I can see, so I'm not sure what to do. Can someone point me in the right direction? 16:42, 6 October 2005 C i d

[edit] How to make a project page?

This is more a general Wikimedia question than a Wikipedia question. We are thinking of setting up a wikimedia wiki at work for internal use. I notice that there are special kinds of pages in Wikipedia (such as articles for deletion) which are basically all "discussion" and other pages (such as this one) which are flagged as "project page". Is there some way to set up pages like these in our own local wiki? Where do I find out how to do this, and is it something an administrator/sysop can do, or does it have to be done in the settings for the wiki? Thanks! 16:28, 6 October 2005 (UTC)

  • It's a question of namespaces, i.e. the things in page names before a colon (:). Discussions are in the Talk: namespace, project pages in the Wikipedia: namespace, images in the Image: namespace, categories in the Category: namespace, and MediaWiki messages (which mere mortal non-admins usually can't edit) are in the Mediawiki: namespace. — JIP | Talk 16:55, 6 October 2005 (UTC)
    • To clarify, MediaWiki messages is another name for the various system messages you see on this web site, such as all of the error messages and the copyright disclaimers at the bottom of each page. Zzyzx11 (Talk) 02:11, 8 October 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for your help with this, you have given me the clues that I needed to figure out how to do what I needed to. 14:17, 14 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Copyright Information

I am interested in obtaining copyright information for several photographs appearing on you website. The pictures are to be published. I have read your copyright information repeatedly and am still quite confused. Pardon my ignorance. Sincerely, Myra

If you click the image involved, you will be taken to the image page, which ought to have information about the copyright status of the particular image in question. Not all images on wikipedia are free for use. If the image is Public Domain, you can do whatever you like with it. If the image has been released under the GFDL, you may use it, but you must acknowledge the source and link back, or othewise provide access to, the wikipedia version (a url would probably do in a printed version). If the image page said "Fair use", then wikipedia is justifing using it despite its being copyrighted, but you would need to separately justify your use of it, and for a commercial publication you quite probably could not. If there is no copyright status given, or no original source listed, you should not use it, and it will quite probably be deleted from wikipedia before too long. DES (talk) 17:40, 6 October 2005 (UTC)
If you're still confused after doing this, come back here and tell us the names of the photographs in question, or the articles you found them in, and we can explain the specific examples. Shimgray | talk | 20:00, 6 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] copyright rules and disclaimers?

I want to quote Wikopedia Vebatim on my site. How do I list it and stay inside your copyright rules and disclaimers?

Wikipedia is released under the GFDL -- for full information read that article and the licences text it links to. The key passage is:

"You may copy and distribute the Document in any medium, either commercially or noncommercially, provided that this License, the copyright notices, and the license notice saying this License applies to the Document are reproduced in all copies, and that you add no other conditions whatsoever to those of this License."

This means that if you are using a substanital amout of text from wikipedia (say most of an article or more) you need to release your site under the GFDL in turn, making its entire content free for anyone else to use or copy, and you must acknowledge and link back to the source.
If however you are simply quoting a relatively short passage from wikipedia, then I think simply saying "This text quoted from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia", plus a link to the article you are quoting, would be good enough. Oh you should probably also give the version or date of the articel you quoted, because it may change at any time. You can get a stable link to the curreht version of any article at the link "Permenant link" inthe toolbox ar the side of the article.
Wikipedia is copyrighted, but anyone may use the content if they comply with the GFDL rules. DES (talk) 20:04, 6 October 2005 (UTC)
    • I don't think he needs to release his entire site under the GFDL - just the content itself that he has reused or altered. --Kwekubo 20:27, 6 October 2005 (UTC)
      • This is plain wrong. He needs to credit the copyright holder, not Wikipedia. Trollé 01:18, 7 October 2005 (UTC)


        • ture but for some reason people object to hosting the whole of wikipedia's history on thier site.Geni 01:42, 7 October 2005 (UTC)
  • One of the points of the GFDL is that if you incorporate GFDL text into a new work by virtue of the GFDL licence, you must relese the entire combined work under the GFDL. That is what makes it a copyleft license. If you don't do this, you can only quote as allowed by fair use, as you might from any copyrighted work. Wikipedia is copyrighted as a collective work by the Wikimedia Foundation. Individual contributions are copyrighted by the various contributors, but those can be vary hard to separate on an extensively edited article. By crediting wikipedia, and providing a link to the original article, a user also provides access to teh histroy tab, which is the full and accureate list of contributors to that article. That is wahy i gave the advice that I did. DES (talk) 15:12, 7 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] help!

How do you find the Author of the article im reading?

Wikipedia is a group work; any given article has been written by a large community of people. If you click the "history" tab at the top, it'll show a list of contributors. If you're wanting to reference a Wikipedia page as a source, see Wikipedia:Citing Wikipedia. Shimgray | talk | 21:53, 6 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Lee Hughes

I've noticed a factual error on the page about the footballer, Lee Hughes, but there's two ways the fact might be in error. I don't know how to flag this up for someone to have a look at. -- Bruce.

Thank you for your suggestion! When you feel an article needs changing, please feel free to make whatever changes you feel are needed. Wikipedia is a wiki, so anyone can edit any article by simply following the Edit this page link. You don't even need to log in! (Although there are some reasons why you might like to...) The Wikipedia community encourages you to be bold. Don't worry too much about making honest mistakes—they're likely to be found and corrected quickly. If you're not sure how editing works, check out how to edit a page, or use out the sandbox to try out your editing skills. New contributors are always welcome. Titoxd(?!?) 23:18, 6 October 2005 (UTC)
  • Another thought: Am I right to assume that you didn't know what to correct? If so, a message on the talk page [[6]] might help, since most people who have contributed to the article will have it on their watchlist. In fact, I wonder if you have beaten me to it! I see an unsigned enquiry there, posted a few days ago, about the location of Featherstone Prison. AndyJones 16:07, 7 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Why Doesn't My Article Show Up In Search?

I created and uploaded an article on 9/19/05 -- Geary, Leslie Edward "Ted" (1885-1960. It does not show up when I search on "Geary". Why not?

Our search engine is known to be slow to update, but it will update eventually. Your article is at Geary, Leslie Edward "Ted" (1885-1960). This problem can be averted by using Special:allpages when the title of the article is known. Titoxd(?!?) 23:13, 6 October 2005 (UTC)
I've moved the page to Leslie Geary to fall in line with our naming conventions. Although I don't know how long the article will stay with the text being copied word for word from another source. You may want to put evidence of the permission you received to reprint the article on the article's talk page. Dismas|(talk) 00:25, 7 October 2005 (UTC)
The search engine is also notoriously crap, and quite useless in practice. Use google with the site:en.wikipedia.org suffix. Trollé 00:26, 7 October 2005 (UTC)
I'm quite dubious about that "all rights reserved", which really doesn't sound GFDL-compatible... Shimgray | talk | 01:40, 7 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] How do you create an information box?

I'm sorry I my title isn't more specifc, but how do you create an information box that is shared among common articles (e.g. an example of the "mountain box" can be viewed here.

I would like to create one for the vessels of the Alaska Marine Highway System but don't know how. Anyone know how/where I can find it?

Wikipedia:Infobox and Wikipedia:Infobox templates are good starting points. Basically you have to make a template and I'd think the best approach would be to copy an existing Infobox and modfiy it. Also, have you discussed the idea of the infobox anywhere? Maybe you could create a more general infobox (or one exists) for marine highway systems. --Commander Keane 09:02, 7 October 2005 (UTC)

Thanks much! I should've been able to find this by myself (kicking myself in the butt), but thanks for helping out. I'll lookin intocreating a general infobox for all ferry vessels. Jarfingle 10:31, 7 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Linking to own site

I run a site that deals with literature that is already linked to in various articles. There are many more cases where a link to a page within my site would be appropriate. Until now, I have been refraining from linking to it in articles that I expand. What is the general policy on this? I've read through the FAQs and have not found anything that relates directly to this situation. previous unsigned comment by 70.92.88.4 --Kewp (t) 06:31, 7 October 2005 (UTC)

Hello, thank you for your question. In general, see Wikipedia is not a mirror or a repository of links]. If you add too many links to your own website, other users might consider it Link spam or advertising. That being said, adding a good link to an external website is often helpful for readers who want to find more information. If you add new material, make sure you Cite your Sources. I would suggest adding your links to existing articles that don't have any (or very few) external links so that your links aren't redundant. Hope that helps. Also I would suggest Creating an account so that it's easier to recieve feedback from other editors. (it's easy and you don't need to give your e-mail address). Best, --Kewp (t) 06:31, 7 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] citation

see Wikipedia:Citing Wikipedia Broken S 03:26, 7 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] phonetic symbols deleted

In several linguistic-philology related articles, certain phonetic symbols appear as a box □, rather than the symbol. Examples can be seen in the following articles, certainly not a complete list:

There are many more. Can anything be done to solve this?

Thanks,

J. Mark Freckleton

  • The code appears fine in the source of the page. Have you got an appropriate font installed? - Mgm|(talk) 05:03, 7 October 2005 (UTC)
    • Yes, I get this same problem on one computer but not another. I believe it's exactly what Mgm suggests: the font isn't installed at the user's end. AndyJones 16:24, 7 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] adding myself into wikipedia?

can i add my own entry...i'd like to start one if i could...just an entry on myself..since i am only me, i would know best..and trust me, i do know best!

  • Um that's not a very good idea per WP:VAIN... if you are important enough to have an article, someone will probably make it for you. Why don't you just use your user page (User:Pferlita) to tell us about yourself? Kappa 07:09, 7 October 2005 (UTC)
    • In addition to that, Google indexes Wikipedia's user pages, not only article pages. As you can see, a google search on me lists my user page as the best result. Titoxd(?!?) 02:17, 8 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Template for link to Wikitravel

Is there an existing template for linking to the Wikitravel project? --Plastictv 08:39, 7 October 2005 (UTC)

  • I don't think there is. Because Wikitravel is not a Wikimedia project. Those templates only exist for Wikibooks, Wikisource, Wikinews, etc to avoid confusion about which wikis we're affiliated with. - Mgm|(talk) 08:42, 7 October 2005 (UTC)
    • Oh! Wasn't aware that they weren't part of us! --Plastictv 01:32, 9 October 2005 (UTC)
  • See Template:Wikitravel and Template:Wikitravelpar. —Cryptic (talk) 09:57, 7 October 2005 (UTC)
    • As far as I know, an interwiki link exists for Wikitravel, as well as for a lot of other third party wikis. Can't find the page on meta, though. --Kwekubo 01:43, 8 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Self-updating content from Wikipedia

Hi

I have subscribed to your Daily Article Mailing list. I have a page i manually update everyday with two articles from Wikipedia (one possibly from the daily mail..not necessary) and some dates and a quote. I would now like to include more content, like recipes, travelouges, and lots of the stuff on this site. (By the way the stuff is EXCELLENT!).

However, it would obviously take a lot of time per day to manually update the page. Is there any way i can automize this? Ramdom articles can be picked up from Wikipedia and displayed as also random dates & quotes. Could also extend for displaying randomly picked recipes etc.

Awaiting a reply. Rgds

[edit] Image Rights

Is it allowed within 'Fair Use' to place images from inside books (not the covers). For example, an article on a fictional character I am working on (Elderado Dingbatti) could use an image of him from the books. Is this allowed? smurrayinchester(User), (Talk) 09:35, 7 October 2005 (UTC)

  • If there's no free alternatives, you could probably justify the fair use of ONE such image on the article. - Mgm|(talk) 09:51, 7 October 2005 (UTC)
Have done that. However, I could not find an appropriate Fair Use template. For now, it uses an adapted 'Comic Book Illustration' tag. Is there a better one? (The image is image:Elderado.JPG) smurrayinchester(User), (Talk) 19:01, 7 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Two films with same title

There is a 1990 film titled Where the Heart Is with Dabney Coleman and Uma Thurman and there is another film of the same title in 2000 with Natalie Portman and Ashley Judd. The two stories are completely different. Only the title is the same. Now, on WP, Where the Heart Is is almost a dab which has a few things on it -- one of which is Where the Heart Is (film) which goes to an article about the film made with Judd and Portman in 2000. If I want to make an article on the film made in 1990 with Coleman and Thurman, how should I handle this. What should I title the page since "Where the Heart Is (film)" is already taken? Qaz (talk) 10:40, 7 October 2005 (UTC)

"Where the Heart Is (1990 film)", at a guess. It disambiguates cleanly. Shimgray | talk | 10:51, 7 October 2005 (UTC)
Agreed. Make one Where the Heart is (1990 film) and the other Where the Heart is (2000 film). Dismas|(talk) 13:18, 7 October 2005 (UTC)
Thanks. I just wanted to make sure the obvious solution did not violate some WP style I did not know about. Qaz (talk) 19:54, 7 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Admin vandalism?

Can someone tell me what the parted buttocks is going on here? It looks like an admin is repeatedly reverting an article to an old version containing a whole heap of spelling mistakes inserted by a different admin! 143.238.245.62 11:21, 7 October 2005 (UTC)

  • I'm not sure, but I've asked the admin in question for clarification. In the mean time, I'll revert it for you. Thanks for reporting it and keeping your cool. - Mgm|(talk) 11:44, 7 October 2005 (UTC)
  • Since the anon is Skyring any of his edits can be reverted as an admin sees fit.--nixie 11:57, 7 October 2005 (UTC)
    • Ye-es, but there's a difference between "reverted as see fit" and "revert on sight on principle"... Shimgray | talk | 12:39, 7 October 2005 (UTC)
    • No. Any user, not just an admin, can revert any and all of Skyring's edits on sight without contemplation. He's a banned user, and that's what happens to banned users. We don't make exceptions because, when we do, there has to be a debate over when we can/can't revert them. If another editor wants the edit to stand, they should make the edit themselves. -Splashtalk 13:22, 7 October 2005 (UTC)
      • Good-o. Could someone go over the rest of his edits in all his many guises and change them back please? He made a lot of spelling corrections here, for example. It's probably worth someone keeping an eye on him to stop him making good edits. He probably thinks it's funny to see admins intentionally reverting back to mistakes to prove a point.

[edit] Data base for references (BibTeX, Wikiref)?

Hello to all,

Days ago I was searching if there in some way similar to BibTeX to manage the references, like it is done in LaTeX, but for using in Wikipedia documents.

For those who do not know what is BibTeX, it is a database in text format that allows to store in a file you references (books, conferences, articles, etc), then it process the text document in order to insert the bibliographic references in the style (for example the American Mathematical Society bibliographic syle, etc) the user has specified before.

With this idea two things are gained:

  1. First work saves itself since it is not necessary to write every time the reference that already you have used in other documents.
  1. On the other hand there is no connection between the contents and its format. Since this idea connects with the possible styles of the author places the information in the document, for example that is in italic the title, author names in bold face, etc. The file (data base) does not store information about the style, the database engine (BibTeX) knows the style it has to put the information.

Now you can imagine it is a very good idea, but I have not seen there is the slightly similar one to use in wikipedia. I have seen that exists some templates in order to simplify the reference process, such as: Template:Ref (for putting the link to a reference) and w:es:Plantilla: cita bibliografica (for putting the reference footnote, for example). Event it simplifies the process, you have to write each reference every time.

I have looked in the FAQ so much in English like in Spanish and have not seen anything about this topic.

Please I would appreciate any help about this, thanks,

P.D.: This idea open the door to specific repository of bibliographical references (WikiRef, for example), which all we can use, organised by categories, etc.

--194.140.65.241 12:01, 7 October 2005 (UTC) write me here

  • I'm going to throw this idea on Meta. Which page is most appropriate? Titoxd(?!?) 04:49, 12 October 2005 (UTC)
    • Never mind, I found it. Everyone is welcome to chip in at m:WikiRef Titoxd(?!?) 05:38, 12 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Adding a new article

I want to add a new article under the category 'Australian Environmental Organisations' but can not find where I would need to link from. Other articles are listed on the page in alphabetical order, but I can't find where to edit that list. I would appreciate some directions...

Thanks, Lauren.

See Wikipedia:Starting a new page for info on starting the article. Then when you're writing the article put [[Category:Australian Environmental Organisations]] at the bottom of that article. That will add it to the category. You can't just add the article to the category via the category's page. See also: Wikipedia:Categories. Dismas|(talk) 13:13, 7 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Electronic Poetry Review (now at epoetry.org)

Our journal has changed its web address: it's now at http://www.epoetry.org instead of http://www.poetry.org . Is it possible for you to change the link on your site or is there a way that we can change it ourselves?

Many thanks,

The Editors Electronic Poetry Review http://www.epoetry.org

Welcome! This is a wiki, so anybody can edit almost any page. All you have to do is press either the 'edit this page' link at the top of the page, or for an individual section, press the relevant 'edit' link. By the way, which page are you talking about? It's... Thelb4! 18:03, 7 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Copyvio question

I've been here long enough I should know how to deal with stuff like this, but on the article North Georgia College and State University, the "Quick Facts" section is copy-pasted from here. I don't know if any of the rest of the article is a copyvio, but can someone more familiar with the procedures check this out? Thanks, Hermione1980 18:45, 7 October 2005 (UTC)

The rest of the material is copied from the New Georgia Encyclopedia. When copyrighted material is added to one of our existing articles, the quickest and easiest method to respond is to revert the article to its pre-copyvio state. (If there have been other beneficial contributions since the copyvio material was added, it is also possible to remove the offending sections as long as all of the copyvio material is identified.)
In the NGCSU article, I've reverted the article back to its original stub form, and I hope someone will write something original. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 22:31, 7 October 2005 (UTC)
Thanks. I just wanted to make sure there weren't any concerns about it staying in the history. Hermione1980 14:20, 8 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Wikimedia copyrighted images of celebrities??

Recently, User:Polon has uploaded a number of images that all seem to be screenshots of movie stars. The copyright tag that he's put on them all say that they are copyright of Wikimedia as an official logo. Would it be possible to have an admin look at this? Polon's contributions are here. Thanks, Dismas|(talk) 18:57, 7 October 2005 (UTC)

donme, see User talk:Polon. Not that any admin powers were needed. The incorrect tags have been removed, {{unverified}} has been used instead, and a note sent top the user asking him to provide source and proper copyright info, and offering to help. DES (talk) 20:41, 7 October 2005 (UTC)
Thanks, I wasn't really sure which course of action to take. Dismas|(talk) 21:03, 7 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Historic recordings of certain early musicians

What a great concept for information! Would it be wellcome to add factual information about some historic recording, more or less available comercially, from several great musician? Such as a 1904 recording with piano by Pablo de Sarasate of his Zigeunerweisen, or a 6 July 1920 recording of Brahms Hungarian Dance #1 in G minor played by Leopold Auer. There are many others. Thanks. REC, 7 Oct 2005.

[edit] Tobacco plantations and slaves

Would some kind person have a look at the subject article and give me pointers on how I can improve it? It has no history other than my own. Thank you. Phil talk 21:44, 7 October 2005 (UTC)

  • I'd recommend you rename it to Tobacco farming or Tobacco plantation (currently redirects). The current name doesn't follow naming conventions. An article about Tobacco plantations could be more comprehensive and list more than just the slavery. Let me know if you need help moving anything. (Copy paste moves destroy the edit history, so you need to use the move button) If you really want to stay this specific call it Slavery in tobacco plantations, but in that case you'd have remove stuff about the richest people, so that may not be the best thing you can do. - Mgm|(talk) 22:25, 7 October 2005 (UTC)
  • Thanks for your constructive comments. I searched Wikipedia and it seemed to me that it offered short coverage of the extent of Colonial day slavery. I limited my coverage to the state of Virginia, so that I could cite specifice instances. This article was precipitated by my article on the James River Bateau which showed how tobacco and slavery were intertwined. The article on Slavery acts almost as slavery did not exist in America.Phil talk 13:51, 8 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] translations

Dear Help Desk,

I'd like to know how I can colaborate with Wikipedia as a translator of articles from English and Spanish into Bulgarian and viceversa.

You can contact me at: <removed> Looking forward your answer

Veneta Medarova

It's really straightforward. Just make an account on all the wikipedias in question, find yourself an article in one language that you're interested in, and get to it. There's no organised translation effort; everyone just does what they feel like. Frankly Bulgarian and Spanish need more help than does English, but anything you can contribute is very welcome. Don't worry if your writing in one language is a bit rusty; native speakers of that language will soon help fix things up. When you translate one article (say from Spanish to Bulgarian) make sure to mention (ideally both in the edit summary and on the new article's talk page) that you've translated it from the Spanish (or whatever) version - that we we keep in compliance with the GFDL, and the admins on the destination wikipedia know it's legal Wikipedia text, not someone inserting content from some other (perhaps copyright-questionable) source. -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 22:38, 7 October 2005 (UTC)
The above advise is good, but there is a soemwhat organized effort at Wikipedia:Pages needing translation into English which might also be worth looking at. DES (talk) 23:16, 7 October 2005 (UTC)
Following up on DES's comment, you can also list yourself at Wikipedia:Translators available. Titoxd(?!?) 01:13, 8 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] native american

whats a sundancer

[edit] Media

I want to put a movie in a page. (not a link!) How do I do this?

Even if it's possible, please don't since there are still a lot of dial up users that access Wikipedia. Animated gifs are possible but not normally used. Dismas|(talk) 03:41, 8 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Help! Looped redirect problem!

Hi,

I tried to change the name of the Mahmud of Ghazni page to Mahmud of Ghazna and ended up in a loop, as that was its previous name. I don't know how to get the page out of the loop and it seems inaccessible now. Haiduc 00:53, 8 October 2005 (UTC)

I have reverted your change and broken the loop I am not claer what article you wanted to move to exactly what title -- do you need assistance in compelting the move now? DES (talk) 01:03, 8 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] External links being removed, why?

I was adding some external links to a non-profit website that I do not even own but just really like and wanted to support. I added the external links in proper sections that had to do with what the site is about (and there are even other links there that are the same type of site) but mine get deleted and I get a message saying no advertising...yet the other sites stay there.

Why?

The only person who can really answer this question is the editor who removed them. In the "History" tab of the article you can see who removed your links: try leaving a message on their talk page and they will probably explain their reasoning. Also, keep in mind that external links exist to help readers, not because you want to support a particular organisation. Wikipedia:External link has some guidance. Good luck, --Commander Keane 06:30, 8 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] quicktime key

i bought quicktime key how do i find it

[edit] carbon trading

what is the scope for indian industries in carbon trading?

[edit] uploading applets

If I write an applet to illustrate a mathematical concept, can I upload it? Applets are no bigger than images.

  • No, like other scripts, applets are disabled on Wikipedia because they can possibly contain harmful code. You could try uploading it somewhere else and linking to it, though. - Mgm|(talk) 08:08, 8 October 2005 (UTC)
    • Note that Java applets and Flash whateverits are also unsupported because no realistic free/open software solution exits for viewing them (a similar justification, on patent grounds, explains the prohibition of mp3s). If a free, portable solution did exist for viewing them, then it's quite possible we'd chose to support them (both feature sandboxes of sufficient strength). -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 23:59, 8 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Merging pages

Am I missing something here? The help page on moving pages strictly prohibits what it terms copy-and-paste moves. However, the help page on merging pages seems to call for doing something that as far as I can see amounts to the same thing (opening the two pages for editing, merging the content into one of the two as a textual edit, and then turning the other page into a redirect). Is my interpretation of the merge procedure incorrect? And if it's correct, does it not violate the same principles which result in the prohibition of copy-paste moves? Palmiro | Talk 07:17, 8 October 2005 (UTC)

  • Copy-paste moves don't automatically create redirects from their original location and often merging histories may result in in edits of different pages being used as diffs. Moves are to empty pages merges are to existing ones. That's what makes the difference. - Mgm|(talk) 09:34, 8 October 2005 (UTC)

Thanks. Palmiro | Talk 13:04, 8 October 2005 (UTC)

  • Tony Sidaway also made a good point on the mailing list: "A history merge should be limited to situations such as those where a fork has been created. A proper merge is one that would permit

the merge to be reversed at some time in the future, and this would require the use of a redirect, not a history merge." - Mgm|(talk) 18:12, 8 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Change username

I want to change my username for privacy reasons. I checked on Wikipedia:Changing_username, but this is currently disabled. Is there a way to change my username in the meantime? If not, does anyone know when Wikipedia:Changing_username will be working? --anton 10:01, 8 October 2005 (UTC)

"Is there a way to change my username in the meantime?" - A dev can do it manually, but in practice you'd have more luck getting an appointment with St. Peter
"does anyone know when Wikipedia:Changing_username will be working?" - When I asked (I'm a bureacrat), the response I got was something along the lines of 'Not for the forseeable future, maybe never' →Raul654 10:04, 8 October 2005 (UTC)
  • You don't seem to have made all that much edits under that name. If you find your privacy really important, you could also consider abandoning this particular account and creating a more private one. - Mgm|(talk) 14:58, 8 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] MLB playoff games

I found the pages for the 2005 American and National League Division Series and made them look better, as well as started the pages for the League Championship Series, and made a template for the playoff series. What I was wondering is: I started to put the box scores for all the games on the articles for the particular series, and it's starting to look a little cluttered to me. Would it be better to have a separate page for each game? For instance, an article titled "2005 National League Division Series, St. Louis vs. San Diego, Game 1"? Would that be ok? I wouldn't mind to make them. -- FPAtl 13:59, 8 October 2005 (UTC)

There's a lot of debate going on about the degree of inclusionism to have regarding individual sports games. Some people occasionally try to add pages for individual regular season games (I think there's a British cricket season that's set up that way), but that's usually regarded as excessive, and if anybody tried to do it with the Major League Baseball season that would produce an immense amount of what would be regarded as "sportscruft" by non-fans. Postseason games are more defensible, but I would probably still stick to one page per series rather than trying to itemize all the games. *Dan T.* 21:36, 8 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] oooh help

I began to write an autobiography about myself, meaning it to be put in the sand box, but instead made a mistake and posted it. Of course the wikipedians deleted it (thanks) but somehow it's ended up on something like corky.net. How has this happened?

The copyright license by which all Wikipedia edits are submitted makes the content available for reuse anywhere else with proper credit. This license is not revokable, so the fact that Wikipedia subsequently deleted it doesn't affect the ability of other sites to keep it up if they grabbed it while it was still online here. The license compliance of the other site with respect to credits, now that the Wikipedia article they may be linking to for that purpose isn't there, is an interesting question. *Dan T.* 21:28, 8 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Why?

did someone ask me wisky tango foxtrot, and why did it send me here? what does wisky have to do with me having a foxtrot with the helpdesk, will this confusion never end?--Q1werty was here 16:04, 8 October 2005 (UTC)

Probable troll from the quality of edits like this, SqueakBox 16:39, 8 October 2005 (UTC)

In 'police language', whisky tango foxtrot means WTF. It's... Thelb4! 16:44, 8 October 2005 (UTC)

See WTF for a fuller explanation. As I said, pure trolling, SqueakBox 17:08, 8 October 2005 (UTC)

Oh, you mean World Taekwondo Federation, of course. :-) *Dan T.* 21:25, 8 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] What is vandalism?

To refine the question: Is an external link to a company on one of the Wikipedia sites vandalism?

I detected an external link on the bioinformatics web site which lead me to a commercial company working in that area. Does the Wikipedia community tolerate such behaviour?

--anon

  • It is Wikipedia:Spam not Wikipedia:Vandalism, SqueakBox 18:21, 8 October 2005 (UTC)
  • Thanks for finding it. I've reverted. Please see WIkipedia:External link for our policy on external linking. In a nutshell, external links should point to relevant site with good information. However, links to commercial sites are allowed in the article about the company itself, if the Wikipedia community thinks that company deserves an article. - Mgm|(talk) 18:27, 8 October 2005 (UTC)
  • I don't think a site being commercial or not is that major an element of the criteria for link inclusion or exclusion; more important is whether it has relevant, unique information; a link that is irrelevant, or duplicates information found in other links already there, is likely to be removed. *Dan T.* 21:24, 8 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] winter paralympics, Italy

I have looked at your reference to the Winter Paralympics in the Turin area of Italy but cannot find any reference to when and where the different events are. Please clarify this for me. Thanks

Samantha Searles, <email removed>

  • Those would be the 2006 Winter Paralympics in Turin, Italy. (I found that by visiting the Paralympics page). The reason you can't find where the events are being held is probably because they haven't been announced yet. If anything is announced, I think the link in the article is the place to check for news. - Mgm|(talk) 18:37, 8 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Cicada

Is Dog Days Cicada the common name?

I don't know how "common" it is, but "Dog Day Cicada" is mentioned in the Cicada article as a name used for one variety of this insect. It sounds like a good name for a rock group, too. *Dan T.* 21:21, 8 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Hebrew characters

How do I go about writing a word in Hebrew characters? I would like to spell out "Breslov" in Hebrew on the Breslov (Hasidic dynasty) page, but I can't figure out where to find a tutorial. Thanks, Yoninah 22:08, 8 October 2005 (UTC)

Wikipedia now uses UTF-8, so pretty much any character can be used directly (assuming your browser and OS are up to it). One way that probably works is to simply copy and paste the characters one at a time from another source (like Hebrew alphabet). -- Rick Block (talk) 16:30, 9 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Spelling

In reading articles sometimes there will be british spelling of words (example-harbour or colour). Should those articles be edited to American english style?71.28.243.246 22:53, 8 October 2005 (UTC)

This is an International Encyclopedia edited by users all over the English speeking world, so there will be differences in the spellings. Before your change the words see WP:MOS#National varieties of English, But for the most part leave them alone. — Kjammer ⌂ 23:07, 8 October 2005 (UTC)
Basically, no. Wikipedia is written in pretty much every major dialect of English, with spellings and phrases to match, though we do try and avoid the latter - everyone reads armour/armor with no confusion, but "Table the matter, John wrote Sarah." means half-a-dozen things in different countries).
We try and ensure that articles on specifically national topics are written with the local spellings, and otherwise just try and conform to one style in any given article. This looks a little odd sometimes - our articles on labour politics are split 50-50 over namings - but we're happy with it and people get a bit sensitive about "corrections" that aren't needed. Best to avoid it unless you're confident it looks wrong in that particular context - and be doubly careful when editing links. Shimgray | talk | 00:27, 9 October 2005 (UTC)
Perhaps labour/labor politics is a bad example, since in Australia (and perhaps elsewhere) the politcal party is the Australian Labor Party, and the other spelling would be incorrect, not a regional difference.--Commander Keane 06:29, 9 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Getting Your Articles to be Searched by the Search Feature

Hi, I just created an article, Coit Cleaners. When I typed in, Coit, Coit Services, or anything else related to the article, it did not come up. Only when I typed the exact title of the article, it showed up on the search. I thought that the search page will give you a list of matches. When I search for anything else, anything relevant turns up. Why does someone have to type in the exact title of this article for it to come up on the search, and why does it skip the matches page if you tuype in the exact article title? Tobyk777 00:11, 9 October 2005 (UTC)

According to Wikipedia:Searching, "For reasons of efficiency and priority, very recent changes are not always immediately taken into account in searches. At the moment, the search engine uses an index that isn't updated at all. This is temporary." Evil Monkey∴Hello 00:18, 9 October 2005 (UTC)
Two different systems. When you press enter, it treats it as "go" - it checks the phrase you enter against the database of article titles, and if it's there takes you to it. If not, it then falls back onto the normal search system, and takes the words you entered as keywords. The search system puts the keywords into its index of the site - but, for technical reasons, this index isn't updated each time a new article is added - which means any recently created articles won't be on it. Shimgray | talk | 00:19, 9 October 2005 (UTC)
In the meantime, you may try to use Special:Allpages/Coit if you're looking for a particular article. Titoxd(?!?) 00:21, 9 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Movie

How do you put a link for a movie in? I am doing an article for "Shattered Union" and would like to put in the official trailer. If you want the link to the trailer and my page, here they are:

Official Movie link (second one down.)

Shattered Union


Mike15 00:32, 9 October 2005 (UTC)Mike

  • External links like this one generally go in the "External links" section of an article. However, there is already a link to Gamespot, so if readers are interested they can follow through to the movies if they wish, so I recommend just leaving the page as it is. Is that what you meant? By the way, if you want to link to a page in Wikipedia you can use an internal link, so to point readers to the Shattered Union article you would use [[Shattered Union]]. --Commander Keane 06:17, 9 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Copyright Question - Please Read

Hello Wikipedia,

My name is Devin and I am 19 years old. I come to you for some resolution. I am currently enrolled at Coleman College in San Diego, California. I wrote an essay for my psychology class. I coped this article from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instrumental_conditioning without the proper way to cite my source. I took the statement, “Thorndike theorized that successful responses, those producing satisfying consequences were "stamped in" by the experience and thus occurred more frequently. Unsuccessful responses, those producing annoying consequences, were stamped out and subsequently occurred less frequently.”

I am asking if it was “ok” for me to put this in my essay without the proper citations. I will fail the class because I did not properly cite my paper. I thought Wikipedia is meant to be freely used. Because, if you grant me permission this once and only time, I could pass this class.

Your response will be GREATLY appreciated.

Thank you,

Devin

<email address removed>

See Wikipedia:Citing Wikipedia.Geni 01:25, 9 October 2005 (UTC)
I suspect that your course instructor/professor isn't concerned about copyright infringement. Rather, proper citation of all of your sources is an important part of academic writing in order to avoid charges of plagiarism. It is very important to identify what writing and which ideas are your own, and which were created by others. Giving credit where it is due is a central concept in academic writing.
If you included the material from Wikipedia in quotation marks and indicated somehow that the material was from Wikipedia
As reported in Wikipedia, "Thorndike theorized that successful responses..."
then you at least demonstrated a good-faith effort to name the source, and you can probably negotiate with your instructor. If you didn't enclose the material in quotation marks, or if you didn't identify the external source–Wikipedia–you're probably out of luck. You'll have to chalk it up to experience.
In the future, your school's library will often have online or paper resources that can guide you in how to properly cite sources. (Librarians will also usually be willing to help you with difficult cases.) Asking your professor or TA about their preferred citation style is also a good move. Your school's academic calendar may provide you with their policies on academic honesty and plagiarism. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 03:11, 9 October 2005 (UTC)
  • There's no problem with you using Wikipedia's text in your essay, but you indeed need to properly cite your source. That's a requirement of our free license. It is free as long as the source is mentioned. For tips on how to do it see, Wikipedia:Citing Wikipedia. - Mgm|(talk) 10:54, 9 October 2005 (UTC)
Your professor isn't worried about defending our copyrights, he's worried about academic integrity. Copyright infringement and plagiarism are separate issues. Copyright infringement is using a work without permission. Plagiarism is representing someone else's words or ideas as your own. We might be able to grant you permission to use our copyrighted text, but if you used our words without citing them properly, it was still plagiarism. Sorry. Isomorphic 06:40, 10 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Lesson Plans for English Grades 9-12

Are you looking for general lesson plans, or are you looking to use Wikipedia in your lesson plans? Joyous (talk) 00:59, 9 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Not quite vandalism?

User:12.205.152.137 isn't quite vandalizing, but they're posting atrocious movie reviews. I'm not sure what the Wikipedia policy on this is - block? Report as a low severity vandal? What shall I do? — ceejayoz ★ 05:05, 9 October 2005 (UTC)

  • You could start by leaving a friendly note on his talk page to tell we're an encyclopedia and that movie reviews aren't appropriate. If keeps adding them afterwards, a block might be appropriate. In the mean time, just remove them. - Mgm|(talk) 10:56, 9 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] how can i search for new topics for my assignments?

hi i am doing business studies and i used to get work on different assignments.i have to make many assignments in every month.i was really in bad position because it was very hard for me to find information regarding the assignments, but one of my net friends gave me link of your site and there was too much good and nice materal about my assignment. but now i dont know how to search for getting different kind of material,like now i want material on formation of a company. it can be any company but company should be in real,so please tell me in detail that how can i get more and more material about my assignments,in other words how can i search effectively thank you preet

[edit] What exactly should be counted for 3RR breaking?

It i clear, if someone restores exactly the previous version of the article more than three time. But what about the case restores not exactly the previous version of the article, but with very minor changes (a coma added or removed or similar, etc.) and does this more than 3 times removing useful information from the article? (The minor changes are different at each step) Does it conform with 3RR?

  • In my opinion, a minor change like a comma or any other punctuation mark are not important when there's other material in the article being reverted. What is and isn't a minor change may differ from person to person. - Mgm|(talk) 10:59, 9 October 2005 (UTC)
  • The boundaries, as MGM says, are debatable - but whoever ends up looking at it probably won't be kind to what they see as screwing around with the rules, and they're quite at liberty to consider that a "proper" revert. It certainly breaches the spirit. Shimgray | talk | 13:15, 9 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Wiki memory

How much memory does Wikipedia use by keeping track of every edit of every article? Gillean666 11:35, 9 October 2005 (UTC)

I think to download a dump it's about 29 Gig, but I can't remember if that includes the entire history of each article. --Commander Keane 12:59, 9 October 2005 (UTC)
Oh no I dont wanna download it, just curious that's all. Thank you, Gillean666 18:41, 9 October 2005 (UTC)
Just to clarify, reading the wikilink I gave, its 40GB for the full database and only 1.2GB for just the current revisions. --Commander Keane 15:52, 10 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Why are some links red?

As a rank newbie, I wondered why some links are blue and some links are red. (Apparently it is NOT a browser-related thing like red links are sites previously visited, because I'd never been to ANY of the linked sites) A related question might be how could I have found out the answer to this question without having to ask it? It should be somewhere in Help, but I certainly can't find it!

Links that are red have no corresponding article; they are "dead" links. For example, appl has no article; apple does. Red links usually indicate a problem; the link should be fixed, the article should be created, or the link should be removed. Since Wikipedia is always a work in progress, red links generally disappear or become blue over time, and new red links are continuously being created.
As to your related question... well, you might have tried clicking on a red link. :) --Ashenai (talk) 14:34, 9 October 2005 (UTC)
Red links are often removed from articles but they should really be left since there is a page where you can check the most linked to pages which are red. -- Thorpe talk 14:49, 9 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] starting a new page

HOW DO I START A NEW PAGE Matigetufynmsn

See Wikipedia:Starting a new page. And please turn off your caps lock. Dismas|(talk) 17:52, 9 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Translating articles

How do I translate an article from english into another language? (Or from another language into English?)

- anon

It helps to know both languages :). If you really mean that you want articles translated for you automatically, wikipedia deos not, as far as I know, include such a feature. All translations are done by volunteers, just like all other edits. There are free online traslators, such as babelfish. Search google for "Free Translation" to find several. Their quality is generally not high, but they are often good enough to get a sense of the content. If you mean that you are volunmteering to do such translations your self, thank you! Simply be bold and do it. Do include a comment on the relevant talk page on the source of the text you traslated, particualrly if it is another wikipedia. Ther is a page lisiting articles on this wikipedia which need traslating into english Wikipedia:Pages needing translation into English. DES (talk) 19:04, 9 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Help on revert

At Dartmouth College Greek organizations, the last revision (to the Phi Delta Alpha) section is entirely wrong - it's not even about the same frat. I've never edited on Wikipedia before, so I don't know how to revert it to the last revision. Could someone do that please? --129.170.202.3 18:45, 9 October 2005 (UTC)

Alright, I had a stroke of inspiration and did it myself. Could someone check up and make sure I did it right? --129.170.202.3 19:47, 9 October 2005 (UTC)

Looks good to me. Thanks for doing that! Dismas|(talk) 00:38, 10 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] bonzibuddy.com

You're probably after Bonzi Buddy. -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 19:02, 9 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] finding pictures

How can I look at a listing of all the pictures?

You can select to view pages in the "image" namespace from Special:Allpages. All of them should be in a subcategory starting at Category:Wikipedia images as well. -- Rick Block (talk) 20:18, 9 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] AfD's with many unsigned votes and possible sockpuppets

If I see an AfD with many unsigned votes, and with users with no edits except on the AfD, what do I do? Do I note what I've found on the page, bring it to the attention of an admin somewhere (where?), or trust that whoever closes the vote will figure it out without my help? Thanks. -- SCZenz 23:56, 9 October 2005 (UTC)

If you are inclined to go through their contributions, you can certainly note something on the page about User's first edit. ~~~~. That certainly helps the closing admin know which votes to discount. Hermione1980 00:09, 10 October 2005 (UTC)
As an admin who's deleted a couple of pages whose only keep votes were by sockpuppets, I am thankful to anyone who indeed takes the trouble of noting sockpuppet votes in AfD discussions and wish people would continue to do it. — JIP | Talk 17:47, 10 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Using own photos of exhibition pieces

In most museums it is allowed to take photos of the works on display. But is it also allowed to publish them? These places are probably „nonpublic“. Do I need to get a permission from the institution?

In general, if a statue or other 3-d work of art is copyrighted, then a paicture of it is a derivative work, and the photographer has a copyright, but must also have the permission of the owner of the copyright of the work being photographed. A picture of a 2-d work generally does not have a separate copyright, but only whatever copyright there is in teh orignal artwork. So if the art on display is copyrighted (as it likely will be if it is modern art, but not if it is ancient, say well over 100 years old) you would need the permission of the copyright holder (probably the owner of an original artwork, but not always) unless you could make a reasonable fair use claim. As to the museum, if they have a "no-photograhs" rule (as some do) it is probably a condition of entry, and taking a photo would violate the contract under which you are admitted. If they have no such rule, and don't tell you "no-publication" when you enter (perhaps in fine print on a ticket or flyer) you are probably legally ok, but it would be courteous to ask, i think. (IANAL). If you upload such an image to wikipedia, please indicate where and when it was taken, and why you think it isn't coveren by copyright or that you have permission to release it under the GFDL on wikipedia. DES (talk) 05:10, 10 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Using "saint" when referencing Christian figures

I've gone through several articles related to Christianity and have noticed that there are varying ways in which those who have been granted sainthood by the Catholic church have been referenced — for example, Augustine of Hippo is often listed as St. Augustine. I have the feeling that somewhere on the site is a page with an agreed upon format on whether or not the term "saint" should be used, but have no idea on where to find it. Any help? Thanks in advance. --Deadsalmon 03:37, 10 October 2005 (UTC)

In general if a historical figure is msot commonly known as Saint Foo, that name should be used. Augustine of Hippo, for example, is probably better known as St. Augustine. On the other hand the French king Saint Louis is probably better known as Louis IX of France, and so that name is probelm most used on wikipedia. In short for any person, the most commonly used or most well known anme will be used, with appropriate other names so that a reader knows the various ways that a parson may be referred to. DES (talk) 04:56, 10 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Question / Suggestion re Hebrew Wikipedia

As a solution for those of us who can view hebrew their PCs, but not type in Hebrew, would it be possible to add a "virtual keyboard" in hebrew to the Hebrew Wikipedia home page ? An example of such a keyboard can be found on the following page:

http://www.144.bezeq.com/

Thank you !

J., in Ireland.

[edit] Units

Which is the prefered unit for writing about, for example, speed. MPH? KmPH? Km/H? m/s? ms-1? MPH or Km/H are the best recognised, but ms-1 is the most logical, especially when you need to add other units such as acceleration (ms-2). smurrayinchester(User), (Talk) 09:22, 10 October 2005 (UTC)

I would think that it would depend on what you were writing about. If it's about a car for an U.S. audience, MpH would seem the logical choice. If you're talking about the speed of light for a scientific community, MpH would be a poor choice. Can you provide some greater context? Dismas|(talk) 10:13, 10 October 2005 (UTC)
  • SI units are preferred for scientific articles, when you're talking about cars or speed records both mph and km/h should be mentioned so both people used to the Imperial and Metric systems can understand it. Which comes first depends on the context of the article and the style of the original author. -- 131.211.51.34 10:45, 10 October 2005 (UTC)
  • That is corrrect, see Wikipedia:Manual of Style#Scientific style. 64.12.116.12 15:21, 10 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Becoming a developer?

How does one become a Wikipedia developer? I was successfully able to become an admin, and could submit a request for bureaucratship if I wanted to. Currently I don't want to, because I feel bureaucratship adds too little power in regard to adminship. But I don't know how developers are chosen. If I were to request developership, would I submit an application to the Board of Trustees? Or would I have to be a personal friend, on first name basis, with Jimbo Wales? — JIP | Talk 13:40, 10 October 2005 (UTC)

Asking Tim Starling would probably be a good place to get an answer. He is the Developer Liaison and Developers says he has day to day control over access to the servers. --GraemeL (talk) 13:49, 10 October 2005 (UTC)
can't remeber where but I did run across some instructions once. Basically you start by submitting bug fixes and feature hacks and work up from there. Somewhere along the line they made decide to trust you with certain levels of server access.Geni 16:18, 10 October 2005 (UTC)
I was about to call this a chicken-and-egg problem because of having to submit bug fixes to code in order to get to see the code, but then realised the MediaWiki software is freely available for download. Only problem is that I don't know PHP. Why isn't MediaWiki written in Java? — JIP | Talk 17:44, 10 October 2005 (UTC)
I presume it is in PHP because all the processing of the users' requests is done in the server that way (but I don't really know, so it is a wild guess). On the other hand, maybe you would like to be a Steward? They hold more power than Bureucrats. Only that you have to be elected. Titoxd(?!?) 18:25, 10 October 2005 (UTC)
PHP is open source. I think the page you want is here.Geni 18:25, 10 October 2005 (UTC)
First off, I'm currently happy as an admin. I don't need more power. I was just curious about whether developers were an exclusive "insiders' club" or whether it was possible to request to be one. Second off, yes I know MediaWiki is freely downloadable and PHP is open source, but it's another programming language, and I don't have the time to learn it. Learning Perl for a one-time job in my civilian service work was enough. I have lots of experience in Java, and that's where I'm staying for the moment. — JIP | Talk 19:46, 10 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] "Wikipedia is not an "American" encyclopedia"

Wikipedia states: "Wikipedia is not an "American" encyclopedia. We have readers, editors and administratiors from all over the world, and when we say that Wikipedia is not POV, one of the most important parts of that is avoiding a nationalist or nationally limited viewpoint." However, in Wikipedia's drive to be "balanced" and non-nationalistic, it has gone to the other extreme and shows an overwhelming anti-American bent on even articles that have nothing to do with the United States. Most of the dribble that shows up on this Web site would never stand up to scholarly scrutiny, unless the scholar happens to be a disciple of Karl Marx. And why shouldn't Wikipedia be an "American encyclopedia"? It was an American who orinigated Wikipedia--why pretend you're canadian, German or Bolivian? Let the rest of the world devise its own innovations if it wants so badly to represented. Even the Internet is American. Why apologize for that? Instead, you tread upon America as if it is to be punished for the crime of making people like Jimmy Wales filthy rich. Give it up and step aside. Let the truth shine. Marxism is just another cult.

Oh brother.....Garion96 15:04, 10 October 2005 (UTC)
Are you saying, in the land of freedom and opportunity, that Jimbo Wales doesn't have the right to make a non-American encyclopedia if he wants to? -- SCZenz 15:12, 10 October 2005 (UTC)
I do wonder quite how one can be anti-American on pages that don't deal with the US... Shimgray | talk | 15:56, 10 October 2005 (UTC)
Free clue: Wikipedia doesn't pretend to be Canadian, German or Bolivian any more than it pretends to be American. Wikipedia is not related to any specific nation. — JIP | Talk 16:11, 10 October 2005 (UTC)
The World wide web (which is a fairly critical part of how you accessed this page) however is european in origin. Technically the first computer was british. The discover of Silicon was French. Does this mean that only European POVs (not that that limits things much) my be expressed when using computers? Geni 16:13, 10 October 2005 (UTC)
Tim Berners-Lee invented the Internet at the CERN labs... Titoxd(?!?) 18:28, 10 October 2005 (UTC)
Tim Berners-Lee invented the World Wide Web, not the Internet, which was invented in the United States as a project of ARPA. *Dan T.* 18:36, 10 October 2005 (UTC)
Smacking myself in the head for making such a clueless mistake. Titoxd(?!?) 01:12, 11 October 2005 (UTC)
But the Merkins saved all those countries' asses in World War II, and thus they should all be making Wikipedia a blatantly pro-American encyclopedia! — JIP | Talk 06:00, 11 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Move the focus to the search textbox when the front page loads

Hi,

I am finding myself using wikipedia more and more as a first point of reference for some information, bypassing even Google.

Typically I'll go to the main wikipedia page and search for what I need.

However the usability of the site is hampered in a subtle but major way: it doesn't work like Google does. I need to click in the searchbox before I can type.

The search box seems the most logical place for keyboard focus to be; there's nowhere else a user can type into.

Would it be possible to implement this functionality in the same way that Google does? It would be a major improvement, however subtle.

  • There is another place where it can focus, the address bar at the top of the page which I tend to use when looking something up. And in the edit screen of an article, it should focus on the edit box. It's not as easy as it sounds. - Mgm|(talk) 16:22, 10 October 2005 (UTC)
Personally, I can't stand pages that mess with focus. It happens often that such a page will take a long time to load, and meanwhile I've manually focused on an input field (or the browser address bar) and started typing something, and then when it finally finishes loading it changes the focus and messes me up. Wikipedia is pretty good at avoiding the annoyances common on most other Web sites, so let's not add that one. *Dan T.* 18:39, 10 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Geographical coördinates

Is there a policy for the placing of geographical coördinates. Like in De Wallen it looks kind of stupid there in the middle of a paragraph. Should it be kept in that article in the first place? I want to change that article a lot, therefore this question. Garion96 15:04, 10 October 2005 (UTC)

I don't see a problem with it being in the article. If it looks funky you should make it nicer (maybe putting it under it's own section called ==Location== or something and mention it more smoothly than just putting it there in the middle of the text. gkhan 22:37, 10 October 2005 (UTC)
Tnx for the response. Yes, I guess I will do that. I was just wondering if there was a policy/guideline or wikiproject about this. Garion96 23:00, 10 October 2005 (UTC)
Wikipedia:WikiProject Geographical coordinates. --cesarb 23:35, 11 October 2005 (UTC)
Can't believe I missed that one. Tnx. Garion96 11:40, 12 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Identifying Jews

Why is Michael Dell identified as a Jew? His counterparts, such as Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Paul Allen and Steve Wozniak, are not identified by their religion. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 65.200.254.66 (talk • contribs) 10:05, October 10, 2005 (UTC).

  • Well, he's not identified as a Jew. It's just mentioned he is one. A Jewish American apparently is someone who has strong ties to the religion so if he's done something major for the Jewish community, I have no hangups about it being mentioned. - Mgm|(talk) 19:56, 10 October 2005 (UTC)
    • I'd say the reason why it has "Jewish-American" in the first line is that editors (generally) like to have an American person's cultural background in the first line. I've seen thousands of pages with "Italian-American", "Jewish-American" etc, so maybe the question is not why is Michael Dell indentifed as a Jew, but rather why is there a need/facination to have an American's cultural background (however irrelevent) in the leading line of the ariticle. Maybe it's an identity crisis thing, but I'm only guessing.--Commander Keane 10:59, 11 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] When do you plan to answer me?

You are still ILLEGALLY using my real name and my Rihannsu name, despite instructions to remove them

You have previously been instructed that you ARE NOT PERMITTED to use : Merle Elaine Matthews Merle E. Matthews M.E. Matthews M. Elaine Matthews Elaine M. Matthews Merle Matthews Elaine Matthews Romath alt.romath Tach'Ara Ch'Lan Romath

Yet you still flagrantlly persist. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 209.91.172.148 (talk • contribs) 10:21 EDT, 10 October 2005.


Now- WHEN do you plan to obey the law and REMOVE ALL ARTICLES containing my name? Or will I have to discuss this with my LAWYER?

The names people have used are part of the public record, and there is no law requireing anyone not to truthfully record what names people have used and actions they have taken under those names, particularly if the action is newsworthy. Also, see Wikipedia:No legal threats. It is against policy to make legal threats in wikipedia postings -- you could be banned from posting for doing so. DES (talk) 15:28, 10 October 2005 (UTC)
I believe this person was banned for a week the last time they brought this up. Perhaps it's time for a longer ban? Or what's the policy on that? Andy Janata 18:11, 10 October 2005 (UTC)
Is there a page somewhere in the "wikipedia:" namespace listing all the people who have made demands or threats, or committed vandalism, in an attempt to get an article about themselves removed or altered? That would be an interesting list, I think. *Dan T.* 19:23, 10 October 2005 (UTC)
User:Mr Treason is the place you're looking for Dan. And to you Merle, I can't see what your problem is with the page about you. I would be flattered, but you are just being silly. Please, go ahead and try to sue, you clueless romulan. On WHAT grounds can you possibly sue!?
  1. the use of a name, Merle Elaine Matthews. $100 bucks says you are not the only one, so you should probably sue anyone else who has your name, before they steal your identity, and give me my $100 while your at it.
  2. Some made up words? (Tach'Ara Ch'Lan Romath), get outta town. I suggest you do take this to you're lawyer so s/he can point out your sheer ignorance on the subject of the internet and fair use --Ballchef 23:50, 10 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] underground papper

me and a friend have an idea for a papper. short and some long stories that we want to put together as a calaboration. i was wondering what would be the way to go about getting started or printed i should say. we know that they dont belong in the local papper, they wouldnt print it, its most definetly for adults. so if u could point me in the right direction that would be really awsome. thanks, a fellow writer, kenny —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 157.91.59.227 (talk • contribs) 17:22, 10 October 2005 (UTC).

Perhaps self publishing would help? I don't know exactly what you want, but it should be noted that Wikipedia is not a search engine or a vanity press (or any kind of publisher, for that matter).--Sean Jelly Baby? 17:22, 10 October 2005 (UTC)
Knowing something of standard English spelling, grammar, punctuation, and capitalization would be useful for somebody wishing to write stories or articles for publication. *Dan T.* 18:44, 10 October 2005 (UTC)
Hes spelt awesome rungly Gillean666 19:58, 10 October 2005 (UTC)
Well, yeah. I thought that was obvious.--Sean Jelly Baby? 22:07, 10 October 2005 (UTC)
I don't think that it's necessary to be rude. Many new users come here when they are first editing Wikipedia, and rude comments like these might give them the impression that this is not a very friendly place (maybe it isn't very friendly, but is that the impression that we want to give in such a highly visible location?).--Kewp (t) 06:48, 11 October 2005 (UTC)
Lighten up Frances! It's probably a joke question anyway. Why would anyone with that level of literacy want to write. I suggest he carries on with his skateboarding.. Awesome :-) Gillean666 11:37, 11 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Kicking me off

I have been logging in all day, and can stay logged in for a minute or two, but then I get kicked off (happens most often on my first attempt at editting a page). Is this a Wikipedia thing, or a "my computer" thing? Is anyone else having this problem? --198.185.18.207 17:42, 10 October 2005 (UTC)

It's not only you, sometimes it does that to me too. What I do is just to log back in, and then immediately click on the "my watchlist" link at the top of the page. Usually that solves the problem. If that doesn't work, try purging your browser's cache. Titoxd(?!?) 18:20, 10 October 2005 (UTC)
Deleting cookies can soemtimes help too, in my experience. I have found this quite frustrating at times, however. DES (talk) 16:00, 11 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Bibliography

How do i reconise the source in my Bibliography on sources I got of this site? Hence author date

i want to download ur site for non comercial and educational and person use only , it will not be shared by another person,how can i download ur site by using site mirror tools such as WINHTTRACK etc....if it is illegal plz escuse me & ignore this email. how can i download ur site.... my mail is <Email removed>

 thanks!
See Citing Wikipedia and Wikipedia:Database download.--Sean Jelly Baby? 22:04, 10 October 2005 (UTC)
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