Wikipedia:Help desk/Archive 35

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[edit] Archive of past questions

Contents


[edit] November 21

[edit] Translating articles

I would like to translate many articles in Wikipedia to the Spanish version, however I have not found a proper procedure for doing so. Cross-wiki links and such. Is there a place that outlines the general procedure for this? Thanks! --Kitsune Sniper / David Silva 00:44, 21 November 2005 (UTC)

Please see Wikipedia:Multilingual coordination. -- Rick Block (talk) 03:33, 21 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Search Terms and accepted usage

1. I wrote an article about TALKING ATMs

2. Someone wanted it merged into the ATM article, where it now resides under the heading "Disability Assisted ATMs"

3. The term "Talking ATM" is not a searchable term even tho the term is in the part of the ATM article referred to above.

4. How can I set it so if someone searches for "Talking ATM" they end up in the "disability Assited ATM" section - or at least in the ATM section?

5. Also - NOBODY refers to these machines as "disability assisted" -- the term is not used and incorrect. Where would I put a suggestion to change the term back to "Talking ATM"

Thanks!

Lainey Feingold (who has been working with the blind community on TALKING ATMs for 10 years!)

Hi, Lainey. The easist thing to do would be to create a redirect. See Wikipedia:Redirects for information on how to create one. I know you can redirect to a section within an article, but I'm not sure how common it is. It may be confusing to the user. Anyway, what you do, in brief is create an article called Talking ATM and put the text:
#REDIRECT [[Automatic Teller Machine#Disability Assisted ATMs]]
into it and save the page. —HorsePunchKid→龜 2005-10-21 04:19:30Z
It sounds like you might want to be bold and change the section name to "Talking ATMs" first (before adding the redirect). Note that redirects to sections within an article do not currently work - the redirect will go to the article, but not the specific section. It's probably not a bad idea to redirect to the section anyway, anticipating some point in the future when redirects to sections will work. -- Rick Block (talk) 04:50, 21 November 2005 (UTC)
I don't think it is a good idea to redirect to a section. If the section is renamed, the redirect would die. - 131.211.210.16 08:19, 21 November 2005 (UTC)
The Wiki software doesn't support redirects to sections.
The correct term to use here is the one used in the sources on which the article was based, although the article seems to fail to identify them. --David Woolley 10:50, 21 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Apparent duplicate article

In "What links here" for the article "Stroboscope", one of the linking articles is also named "Stroboscope". Is something wrong? BrownBean 04:28, 21 November 2005 (UTC)

  • No, articles often (if not always) have themselves listed in that section. If you check orphan pages, you'll see the same thing happen. Check if the term isn't linked in the article instead of bolded, though. - 131.211.210.16 08:20, 21 November 2005 (UTC)

Thanks! BrownBean 01:39, 22 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] FALSE and False programming language

I wrote a fairly extensive article on the programming language FALSE. Then not long after, I found that there already was an article called False programming language that I had managed to miss entirely. I'm working on merging them, but I need some help as to which of the two article titles I should merge into.

In favor of FALSE:

  • the manual for the language always capitalizes it, indicating that FALSE is the proper form.

In favor of False programming language

  • the homepage for the language never capitalizes it, indicating that False is the proper form.

The manual is in plaintext, so perhaps it is only "FALSE" there to give emphasis to the name. On the other hand, the author doesn't seem to add any more emphasis to the name than a leading capital in the remainder of the site (where he is not restricted to all-caps to add emphasis; having html it could be bold or some such).

Given this contradiction, I'm at a bit of a loss. Also see Talk:FALSE.

Ethan (talk) 04:43, 21 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Lately edited page exchanged by an older version

I renewed a page with up-dated facts and nice pics, but it is replaced by a very old short version every second day. Why? Thanks in advance Sky Tower

There could be a number of reasons, some good, some bad. But before you can get a clear answer, you'll need to tell us which article you changed. jnothman talk 06:24, 21 November 2005 (UTC)
If you're referring to your edits on the Carlsberg Sky Tower article, it was stated in the edit summary that the user was making their edits so that the article would be more in line with Wikipedia standards. For instance, they removed some of the sensationalistic wording that was present. Also, when making a section title with double = signs, it's not necessary to put the words in between the ='s in bold. I see that you're a new editor, at least under your current user name, so I would suggest taking a look at the pages under Help:Contents for more information on article style and various other helpful topics. Dismas|(talk) 06:41, 21 November 2005 (UTC)
You can get more details about edits by clicking the History button at the top of any page. In this case, your edits were also removed because, the history says, they were copied from http://www.melchers.com.sg/st/index.htm. Wikipedia cannot allow this, as it would be a copyright violation (unless there is a special form of permission from the original author). Almost all text, like almost all photos, on the internet, are copyright so you cannot just copy them. Notinasnaid 08:33, 21 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Moel Tryfan

I was re-directed to Tryfan from Moel Tryfan while cross checking links from North Wales Narrow Gauge Railway. I know enough to know these are different mountains, 9½ miles apart.

Can we have the re-direct taken off please? AHEMSLTD 14:22, 19 November 2005 (UTC)

Retrieved from "Talk:Tryfan"

You can edit the redirect yourself. You either need to make it into an article for the mountain or into a Wikipedia:disambiguation page for that and the railway engine that comes out top on Google. You could also make it into a redirect for the railway, assuming that there is mention of the engine, there, but it will have to change if someone adds the mountain.
You shouldn't, however, create an article on the basis of "I know enough to know", but only on the basis of verifiable sources.
More information, including how to get the redirect completely removed, can be found at Wikipedia:Redirects for deletion. --David Woolley 13:55, 21 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Problem with search

I don't know if this is a bug or a problem with my set-up. When I search for "Kitchener Ontario", in the user namespace, I get results 1-20 of 225. But if I click on "next" or "2" to get the second page, it says there were no matches to the query. What's going on? -- 192.206.151.130 16:11, 21 November 2005 (UTC)

It seems to be working fine now. - Akamad 19:28, 21 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Blocked for Vandalism

A note has come up whilst using Wikipedia saying that I have been blocked from amending articles because of repreated vandalism of articles. I was not aware I have done this, and if I have it is certainly inadvertent. I have used Wikipedia to get much information, and I have been amending just the birth and death records of politicians which I have the information and Wikipedia does not and have added this information to the articles. But I appear to have upset someone (who hasnt contacted me directly). HELP! I am happy continuing using Wikepedia but just wanted to put something back in. :) RobStreatham —The preceding unsigned comment was added by RobStreatham (talk • contribs) 16:23, 21 November 2005 (UTC).

Is it possible you got this message while you were not logged in as RobStreatham and just your IP address identified you? I have suggested that no one without a username be allowed to edit since this would solve a lot of these cases of mistaken identity, but that seems to be counter to some basic wiki concepts.... At any rate, you don't seem to be blocked now....

Charlie Richmond 16:50, 21 November 2005 (UTC)

It's also possible that he was editing from a shared IP address—through an ISP proxy server or IP address pool. Even if RobStreatham was logged in, the autoblocker will still nail you if the underlying IP address has been blocked—this helps to prevent vandals from creating new accounts while blocked, but can sometimes result in collateral blocks to good editors. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 17:31, 21 November 2005 (UTC)
It could possibly be a Trojan Horse which can mimic an open proxy or shared ip which has been used for vandalism. Perhaps it would good to run a security check on your system.--Dakota t e 17:45, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Can a user be blocked from certain pages.

Just out of curiosity. When someone is banned from editing a certain group of articles or topic, how does the community make sure he hasn't broken his punishment? Does Wikipedia have a feature that allows to block certain pages from a user, or the decision is followed by watching the user's activities? CG 17:15, 21 November 2005 (UTC)

Per-page blocking has been discussed in the past, and met with quite good support, but isn't yet implemented. Generally, if a page is contentious enough, someone will be watching it and aware of banned editors... Shimgray | talk | 17:25, 21 November 2005 (UTC)
  • If someone is banned from editing certain articles, someone will be checking their list of contributions and the articles they're banned from. - Mgm|(talk) 22:10, 21 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Index case-sensitive

This behavior causes articles to be effectively lost or duplicated.

Is there any way around this problem?

Thanks!

Please see Wikipedia:Naming conventions (capitalization)#Case sensitivity and searching. -- Rick Block (talk) 20:21, 21 November 2005 (UTC)


[edit] November 22

[edit] Can't get this right

would someone please have a look at the Paddy Casey page? In the singles section of the discography the first single is out of place in the table. i can't get it to go down where it should be, and i feel like i've tried everything... any chance anyone else would have a look and see if they can set it right?

cheers guys!

NaLaochra 02:40, 23 November 2005 (UTC)

Fixed. --LesleyW 04:02, 28 November 2005 (UTC)
Additional comments on User_talk:NaLaochra --LesleyW 04:21, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] need a translation

what is "nik" and "donatello's"

[edit] User is promoting a book

Hi. How do I report a user who keeps on adding material about a person and this person's book on various pages? He never adds HTML links, so I can't call it link-spamming. He has never contributed anything else. I suspect this user and this book author is the same person. Also, what warning can I give? -- Perfecto Canada 01:37, 22 November 2005 (UTC)

If you're unsure what to do, try leaving a note at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents, with some links to articles and the user in question, and someone there will have a look at it. It does sound fishy, from your brief description; is it a recent book, and are they particularly relevant articles? Shimgray | talk | 01:43, 22 November 2005 (UTC)

(reply removed by author)

[edit] Straits Of Magellan/Drake Passage

The pictures in these articles are failing to load.

  • As the note near the top of your screen should say, server installation is preventing the display of images. Deltabeignet 05:11, 22 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Need help reading German to verify article

There is no German/Deutsch/Germany/Deutschland regional notice board, so I don't know where to ask for help. I need help from someone familiar with Germany or German to verify the article THTR-300. Is this a notable, real-life power plant? -- Perfecto Canada 04:17, 22 November 2005 (UTC)

It was a real-life power plant, and imho notable enough - notice the building costs and the size of the cooling tower, also because of its political significance in the nuclear power controversy in Germany in the 70s and 80s. The article is a clumsy translation of de:THTR-300, but you can google english-language sources - for example, here the European Commission stated THTR 300 is the largest reactor of its type in the world. regards, High on a tree 02:20, 23 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Quick revert?

I've noticed the typical text to revert something is: Reverted edits by 12.217.63.92 to last version by K1Bond007, but with the 12.217.63.92 changed to that person's contributions. How do I wikify that? Also, is there an easy way to write that without constantly typing that in? Thanks. --JHMM13 05:49, 22 November 2005 (UTC)

Admins can do it by doing something they call a rollback. The rest of us have to type it in if we want it to read that way. Dismas|(talk) 05:51, 22 November 2005 (UTC)
Ah, man. Well in that case, is there any sort gold standard to which everyone must adhere, or can I just say "rv" or "rv from blahblah back to shimsham?" --JHMM13 05:54, 22 November 2005 (UTC)
  • Yes you can, provided you are clear about what "blahblah and shimsham" mean. - Mgm|(talk) 05:59, 22 November 2005 (UTC)
Oh, well obviously! I simply meant that those would be the two users. Thanks, guys. --JHMM13 06:01, 22 November 2005 (UTC)
The recommended edit summary is "rv edits by 219.148.86.36 to last version by David Shear". See WP:RV. It is particularly important in the case of multiple edits by David Shear to state explicitly the version to which you are reverting. --Walter Siegmund (talk) 06:18, 22 November 2005 (UTC)
I'll chime in to note that if it's simple, obvious, clear vandalism then you can use a very abbreviated edit summary. rvv for 'revert vandalism' is sufficient. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 08:38, 22 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Hrm, is my cache acting up, or is my subcat not working?

Just a really quick question, but I tried to create the subcat of Category:Religious NPOV disputes to help subcat the extrememly large Category:NPOV disputes, but when I look at the latter, it's not showing the subcat the first as a subcat >:\ Sherurcij 09:06, 22 November 2005 (UTC)

You need to add a subcategory to the category like you do with articles for it to be automated. I'll do it for ya. - 131.211.210.16 09:17, 22 November 2005 (UTC)
Hmm, you seem to have done it correctly, but the category isn't showing up as a subcategory in Category:NPOV disputes. Odd... - 131.211.210.16 09:21, 22 November 2005 (UTC)
Yeah...anybody have any ideas what's going on? Sherurcij 09:43, 22 November 2005 (UTC)
The category is showing up. The problem here is (what may be a MediaWiki bug) that the category only shows up under R, and not up the top. That is, you will find the category listed here but not on the main category page. jnothman talk 12:41, 22 November 2005 (UTC)
  • That's a bug all right. Subcategories should be showing up under a subcategory header, not along with the articles. Can someone with more time on their hands please report it? - Mgm|(talk) 17:33, 22 November 2005 (UTC)
It was reported by David Gerard in December 2004, but is still unassigned. jnothman talk 04:54, 23 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] how do i cite

—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 71.120.176.26 (talk • contribs).

Do you mean how do you cite your sources when writing an article, or do you mean, how to cite Wikipedia elsewhere? --David Woolley 13:43, 22 November 2005 (UTC)
I could imagine this to be a troll, given the number of times one is told not to ask that question on this page. Banana04131 04:28, 23 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Changing link colour in one instance

I'm sure there's a clever CSS way to do it, but I'm not sure how. How can I get a wikilink to appear in white text when it's against the black background of a table cell? If left its normal blue colour, the link is virtually invisible. --Gareth Hughes 13:55, 22 November 2005 (UTC)

Well, if I wanted to type the link Wikipedia in white, I would type the following:

<font color="#FFFFFF">[[Wikipedia]]</font>

This looks like Wikipedia. I'm not sure if this is what you want, though. Izehar 17:47, 22 November 2005 (UTC)

The other question is—does the table background need to be black? TenOfAllTrades(talk) 18:19, 22 November 2005 (UTC)

No, the script I typed above will make the letters white, regardless of the background colour. Izehar 18:57, 22 November 2005 (UTC)

That is just obvious when somebody shows you the answer. Thank you all. The text is in {{language/quilt}}: different language classes are colour coded. Unfortunately, one of the chosen colours is black, and in a few cases, I want link text on the black background. I hope that's clear. Thanks. --Gareth Hughes 23:27, 22 November 2005 (UTC)
I was wondering if there was something wrong with my browser, as it appeared to format the link as only the blue underlined bar, then I remembered that white text on a very pale blue background doesn't stand out too well. Rather than strain my eyes out, I used xmag to verify that there were white pixels there. — JIP | Talk 15:25, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] use keywords

—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 216.11.209.13 (talk • contribs).

No content, but this IP address has a history of subtle (date changes), and unsubtle (sexually explicit passages in inappropriate articles) vandalism. --David Woolley 17:09, 22 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Table Of Contents

Unlike other items in an article (wikify, copyedit, etc), I never see a {contents} tag, so I wonder what makes one? How do you add it? Right now, I can only do this by copying a segment out of an existing article with a Table of Contents. Also, How do you set where the Contents appears? I see some pages with it at the top, but most have it after the intro paragraph. What is the "proper" location? Rlevse 17:42, 22 November 2005 (UTC)

Please see Wikipedia:How to edit a page#Table of contents. -- Rick Block (talk) 17:53, 22 November 2005 (UTC)
  • The proper location is after the intro paragraph, but sometimes images and infoboxes don't allow this placement, in which case it's moved. - Mgm|(talk) 05:57, 23 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Pictures

Why are some pictures not showing up? 130.111.98.131 18:58, 22 November 2005 (UTC)

There should be a note at the top of this very page about the new image server that's being installed. That's probably why; hopefully they'll start showing up again soon! —HorsePunchKid→龜 2005-10-22 19:22:18Z

[edit] Taxobox

What is a taxobox? Someone said I needed one. and how do I make one? Thanks --LPW 20:26, 22 November 2005 (UTC)

A taxobox, like an infobox, is a table near the top of a page that summarizes the information given for an organism. See Wikipedia:Infobox and WP:TOL for more. Deltabeignet 22:47, 22 November 2005 (UTC)
(after collision)
It's the thing at the top right hand side of the Oleander article. However, I also said that you needed to merge your article into Oleander, or take both articles and produce one about the plant, which needs the taxobox, and one about the associated toxicology that doesn't. At the moment, I think you should merge; you can split when the toxicology part gets large enough. --David Woolley 23:03, 22 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] November 23

[edit] "Save Page" editor button only previews page.

I recently set up a personal wiki to manage notes and whatnot. The install went through without much trouble. But whenever I attempt to save a page using the "Save Page" button I get sent to a preview page with the generic

Remember that this is only a preview, and has not yet been saved!

preview page line. i have tried editing various types of pages (main page, talk, discussion), as well as creating new pages. None of them allow me to save pages. I've tried editing from a sysop account and regular account, no dice. saving my preferences is also out of the question.

however, i am able to edit pages anonymously, which makes it all the more confusing. it seems like something gets set read-only once i log in, but i'm not familiar enough with mediawiki to know what.

TIA, tom link to my wiki

I signed into your wiki and couldn't reproduce your problem. sorry. jnothman talk 04:00, 23 November 2005 (UTC)
Something similar sometimes happens on Wikipedia; I'm not sure whether it's related to server load, bad luck, or the phase of the Moon, however. The question has definitely come up before. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 04:05, 23 November 2005 (UTC)

after reading your posts i tried connecting to the wiki via a proxy and i had no problems. i turned off the proxy and encountered the same problems. i am on the same subnet as the server, i wonder if that could be causing the problem. -tom

[edit] Edit conflicts in reverting

Or better yet, the lack thereof. Many times I've reverted vandalism, saved my edits, and found via the history that someone else had already reverted it; however, I can't remember ever getting an edit conflict for any of these. I'm guessing this is either a technical issue or something to do with merging identical edits. Deltabeignet 05:59, 23 November 2005 (UTC)

That's how it should be. When you and someone else are reverting vandalism, you are, in fact, making the exact same change - rv'ing to the last good version. Since the changes are identical, there's no reason for an edit conflict to come up. Solver 15:27, 23 November 2005 (UTC)
Yup. Try it out sometime: Just hit the edit button on an article and hit "Save page" without making any changes. When you click on "history", you will not see a new entry, since no change was made. I agree that it's a little disorienting when you hit "save" and nothing appears to happen, but it's a good thing once you get used to it! —HorsePunchKid→龜 2005-10-23 20:15:37Z

[edit] Contacting an Admin on Danish Wikipedia

I am working on the Wikipedia Mailing List. A user in Brazil wants to leave information for an admin on the Danish Wikipedia. How can I get in touch with her and let her know.

Capitalistroadster 06:04, 23 November 2005 (UTC)

Well, if the information is for any admin on da:, not for a particular one, she might want to contact one of the admins listed on Special:Listusers/sysop for that Wikipedia. Titoxd(?!?) 17:09, 23 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Copying multiple pages from one wiki to another

I want to transfer all the Taxobox templates from en wiki to telugu wiki. Is there a way I can do this quick ? --Vyzasatya 07:10, 23 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Article on Methane is being messed up

Article on Methane is being messed up with random words

Yes, it was vandalized. Thanks for trying to clean it up, I've now gone ahead and reverted to the last uncompromised version. You can help us when you see that happening by reverting the vandalism yourself. Titoxd(?!?) 18:23, 23 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Last names

Does a last name have it's own symbol? I am looking for a symbol for the last name HURTADO.

Thank you

I've never heard of a last name haveing a symbol. A royal or other wise important family may have a symbol but not usually ordinary names. This is a place to ask for help on useing wikipedia. You might want to see the refrence desk although I doubt they could help you. Banana04131 20:49, 23 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Linking

How do I create a link to: Wikipedia Article Web URL

Thanks,

Yesselman 17:33, 23 November 2005 (UTC)

Inside Wikipedia, you can try [[Wikipedia]]. As for the URL, it is http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia Titoxd(?!?) 18:19, 23 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] dora the explora

I am interested in purchasing Dora the Explora dubbed in German and have tried multiple web sites with no sucess. I have also called Niceledoen to no avail. Are you able to help tell me where I can order via e-mail Dora the explora dubbed in german.

Thank you.

Linda McBride <email address removed>

Can't you read the rules? It says do not list your e-mail address! In response to your inquiry: I don't think we can help you. Izehar 18:16, 23 November 2005 (UTC)

This page is to ask Wikipedia-related questions only. I'm not sure how we can help. Titoxd(?!?) 18:17, 23 November 2005 (UTC)
  • I'd recommend trying Amazon.de. My german isn't good enough to see if they have them translated there. Wikibofh 18:18, 23 November 2005 (UTC)

BTW, it might help if you had the show's name & the network's name correct; the show is "Dora the Explorer," and the network is Nickelodeon.

[edit] Has anyone ever gotten solicited over wikipedia?

Has anyone ever gotten solicited by chatting over wikipedia? --anon

Not to my knowledge. Izehar 18:51, 23 November 2005 (UTC)
Frequently, haven't you? You must be contributing to the wrong kind of articles. Try solicitor. --Gareth Hughes 19:06, 23 November 2005 (UTC)

Does this mean that Wikipedia isn't as safe as it seems? Is it like a chat room you're saying? --anon

Read Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not; all your questions will be answered there. Izehar 19:48, 23 November 2005 (UTC)

I read it, but it didn't say, "Wikipedia is not a chat room." It just said not to talk about other things on article's talk pages and do it on a user's talk page instead. --anon

Anon, I think Gareth was making gentle fun of you, as you didn't immediately specify which of the many meanings of "solicited" you were asking about. If you means "solicited by sex-weirdos for illegal meatspace fun" then no, I don't think that's happened, nor do I think it's likely. Everything here is logged and correlated back to its author, and discussions that diverge from wikipedia articles (over to "what kind of porn movies do you like") get stepped on pretty hard. -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 20:58, 23 November 2005 (UTC)
A couple of years ago we had a user claiming to be a women who wanted to cyber. Last heard of over at wikinfo other than that no. Everything is just too public here.Geni 14:28, 25 November 2005 (UTC)

Many members of wikipedia are teenagers and this site is friendly to them. Banana04131 21:05, 23 November 2005 (UTC)

Okay...Guess I overeacted a bit! Sorry! --anon

[edit] How do you clean up an article?

How do you clean up an article? I have attempted to clean the E-102 Gamma article many times, but the tag is still there! Could I please have some advice? --anon

After cleaning up an article (see the Manual of Style for guidelines) you can actually remove the {{cleanup}} tag yourself to remove the notice. .:.Jareth.:. babelfish 18:54, 23 November 2005 (UTC)

But how do I know that it's actually not clean? --anon

Read Wikipedia:Cleanup and Wikipedia:Cleanup process, it may help you. You can also ask whoever added the tag to check the article after you "cleaned" it and ask him/her if it's OK for you to remove the tag. Izehar 19:52, 23 November 2005 (UTC)

Okay, I read it, and I think the article's clean! And I already wrote to the person who put the tag on, but she/he isn't answering. --anon

If the article's clean, then remove the tag - if whoever added it objects, ask him why. Izehar 20:26, 23 November 2005 (UTC)

Okay, thank you! --anon

[edit] How do you make an external link spread out?

How do you make an external link spread out? For example, I want it to look like www.wikiepdia.com, but instead, I get [1] instead. Why? --anon

In order to get www.example.org, you must type:

[http://www.example.org/ www.example.org]

Izehar 19:00, 23 November 2005 (UTC)

To provide a proper URL, you can simply miss out the square brackets, e.g. http://en.wikipedia.org/. However, in almost all cases, you ought to be providing a full citation, so that people can find the page again, even if its URL changes. There is a template, {{Web reference}}, that you can use to include almost everything you might want to include for a web citation. --David Woolley 19:17, 23 November 2005 (UTC)

Now I'm confused... Izehar 19:25, 23 November 2005 (UTC)

I'm a little confused, but I'll go test it out. www.wikipedia.com. It works! Thanks! But I still don't get the URL and web reference thing. --anon

Looks like you have what you want. If you want to see how the template works, examples are provided on its talk page. --GraemeL (talk) 19:49, 23 November 2005 (UTC)

Is it okay if I just don't use those templates? --anon

I'm sure it is - I never use them. Izehar 20:23, 23 November 2005 (UTC)

Okay, thanks! --anon

But if you're trying to reference Wikipedia, be sure to link to it at its proper address, wikipedia.org... the .com address just redirects to it. (I make it a point to fight against dot-com-itis, the disease that causes people to refuse to realize the existence of domain names that don't end in .com.) *Dan T.* 16:17, 25 November 2005 (UTC)

Okay, thanks, again! --anon

[edit] Finding an Article with Google

In October I wrote an article on the "Battle of Salineville", a Civil War battle fought in Ohio. It was my first original article. Google does not locate that article. Also if I type only "Salineville" into the Wikipedia search box, Wikipedia does not locate my article.

I also extensively editted an existing article on capture-recapture called "mark and recapture". Google does locate that article, and Wikipedia locates it too even if I don't type in the exact name.

Is there some way I can make my "Battle of Salineville" article easier to find for people searching the internet for that information. Note that I wrote that article before I registered here. I tried linking my Civil War article to several other Civil War pages, but that hasn't made mine easier to find.

Thanks for any thoughts. -- Mark W. Miller 21:03, 23 November 2005 (UTC)

It depends. It was created on October 15 meaning that most crawlers (such as Google) will get round to crawling to it. This could take months. The best way to get search engines to recognise it is to link to the article from other articles here on Wikipedia. Obviously don't start linking on every page but there are probably some articles that can link to it. --Thorpe 21:08, 23 November 2005 (UTC)
I just searched for "site:en.wikipedia.org Salineville" on google, and Battle of Salineville was the 22nd match. Wikipedia's search index is irregularly upated. I see Salineville now redirects to Salineville, Ohio. You could add a history section to this article and link to the article about the battle. It seems to already be in Battles of the American Civil War and a number of appropriate categories. -- Rick Block (talk) 22:03, 23 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] #REDIRECT

Whenever I try to redirect it comes out as

  1. REDIRECT.

I don't understand why. I've tried How to edit a page and Redirecting. --AidPc 21:38, 23 November 2005 (UTC)

To redirect a page to, for example Wikipedia, you must type:

#REDIRECT [[Wikipedia]]

Izehar 21:40, 23 November 2005 (UTC)

The confusion might be the preview appearance (which interprets the "#" as a numbered list indicator). When you actually save the article, it will transform itself (as if by magic) into the redirect you're seeking. -- Rick Block (talk) 21:52, 23 November 2005 (UTC)
  • If you get that, you typed a space between # and REDIRECT. Remove it and it should work fine. - Mgm|(talk) 05:56, 24 November 2005 (UTC)
  • Thanks. --AidPc 17:24, 24 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Links

How do I create a link to a Web URL for the word Religion"

Example: Definition of Religion http://www.yesselman.com/SpinIdea.htm#Religion

Thanks,

Yesselman 17:33, 23 November 2005 (UTC)


PS: I think I am a member; am I not? If not a member, how do I become one?

To link to that website under the label religion, type the following:

[http://www.yesselman.com/SpinIdea.htm#Religion Religion]

That will produce Religion. Yes, you are a memeber - please sign you name using four tildes ~~~~ Izehar 22:01, 23 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] DYK

Where is the DYK page? Why is there no wikipedia entry for DYK ?

I don't understand. Izehar 22:37, 23 November 2005 (UTC)
Uhm, there is a DYK page -- have no idea if it contains whatever you might have been referring to though. .:.Jareth.:. babelfish 22:42, 23 November 2005 (UTC)
Do you mean the feature section on the main page "Did you know. . ."?Banana04131 00:16, 24 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] November 24

[edit] Random Logouts?

Why am I getting logged out every few hours or days, instead of every few weeks or months as it used to be? Kaz 01:04, 24 November 2005 (UTC)

C'mon, guys, someone speak up! I've tried both IE and Netscape, and both are logging me out pretty much every time I close the browser, despite my cache and cookie settings being very liberal. What gives?Kaz 03:40, 24 November 2005 (UTC)

This won't exactly be the most helpful piece of advice I've given here, but you are about the tenth person I've seen here on the Help Desk who's been having problems in the last few months. Perhaps a quick search through the archives will turn up something useful; I don't recall any specific solutions. The standard advice is to check your browser's cookie settings and make sure that they're being allowed properly. Worst case, give Firefox a try; it seems to solve so many problems! —HorsePunchKid→龜 2005-10-24 04:10:31Z
Whenever this question pops up there is a user who thinks purging your browser's cache does the trick. Give that a go.--Commander Keane 12:03, 24 November 2005 (UTC)

OK, I already checked the cookie settings, they're as liberal as possible, but I'll try manually clearing the cache.

Firefox is actually a part of the problem, in this case, not the solution. Aside from IE simply working better, whether we like MS or not, Firefox manifested this problem first, though now IE and Netscape 8 (a good compromise for people who want to be able to view websites correctly, yet hate Microsoft) are also doing it. Kaz 16:52, 24 November 2005 (UTC)

Have you remembered to check remember across sessions at your preferences;. And I agree IE works better for for this but it isn't my favorite either.--Dakota t e 18:00, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Improper redirect

Black Mamba is a redirect that refers to Mamba, however the Mamba article is about Black Mambas specifically. I'm not sure how to rectify this or how to bring it to the attention of someone who can. Thanks. --Bad carpet 06:33, 24 November 2005 (UTC)

You could leave a message at Talk:Mamba, and see what other editors think, or you could post a request to move it at WP:RM (make sure to read the instructions). --Gareth Hughes 15:42, 24 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Rena Mero (also known as the professional wrestler Sable)

In between the Title lineage and External links sections lie ALL the [edit] links. I don't know what is wrong with the article, but could someone help? x42bn6 Talk 08:36, 24 November 2005 (UTC)

It is the pictures that are doing this. I've seen it on many articles over the time I've been here, but equally I've seen many more articles where this does not happen. I've not heard any explaantion for what is causing it though, perhaps you should raise it at Bugzilla:? Thryduulf 09:32, 24 November 2005 (UTC)
I've sorted out the real problem, which was simply too many large photos! I've moved the Playboy ones into a gallery element within the Playboy section. wangi 11:05, 24 November 2005 (UTC)
Ah, thanks a lot. Another solution I just thought of, given the fact I now know the problem, would be to alternate the images from left to right. Not only does it look better than having the images on one side, but it also fixes the problem. x42bn6 Talk 09:39, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] limp bizkit

i updated some text about limp bizkit and it was deleted almost immediately. Here's the message I received:

User talk:172.148.243.195 From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Jump to: navigation, search

Hello, and welcome to Wikipedia! We welcome and appreciate your contributions, such as Talk:Limp Bizkit, but we regretfully cannot accept copyrighted text or images borrowed from either web sites or printed material. For more information about Wikipedia's policies and guidelines, take a look at our Five Pillars. Happy editing! --Nlu 08:49, 24 November 2005 (UTC)

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Can someone tell me whas' up with that?

thx

I assume you a referring to this edit, which is on the Limp Bizkit talk page. I can't find any websites that match the text you placed in, so to be honest, I don't know why it was deleted. Perhaps you should ask on Nlu's talk page. In regards to the actual contents of your post, feel free to add info such as that to the actual article instead of the talk page. - Akamad 11:00, 24 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Change username

Hello,

I created my very first account on wikipedia this morning and mistakenly used my email address as my username. When I then added a new entry, I noticed that my email address was visible. I then added a nickname, which changed the visible text, but when clicking on the nickname, my email address is again visible. I would like to change my username so it is no longer my email address and stop the display of my email address on wikipedia. Help!

JonathanKing 15:46, 24 November 2005 (UTC)

Your username is currently "<removed email>". Since you have only made one edit (this one), I'd recommend you just start again - sign off, then sign in using "JonathanKing" or "Commander King" or whatever. You could get your current username changed over at Wikipedia:Changing username, but it's much easier for everyone to just to start again. Good luck! --Commander Keane 16:26, 24 November 2005 (UTC)
The reason that we remove email addresses from comments is that a lot of naive users don't realise that including one may start them receiving spam. At least one of the reasons this user doesn't want their email is almost certainly that and they are sufficiently aware of the risks to realise what they have done. Although the address may be left on the history and list of users, it is less likely to get trawled by spammers than exposing it in the current version of this page - if it can be removed from the history, as well, I think that would be advisable. --David Woolley 18:00, 24 November 2005 (UTC)
Bureaucrats are now able to rename users again. See Changing username for more information on how to do it. Titoxd(?!?) 00:18, 25 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Formatting of image in table

Could someone tell me how to get an image to sit squarely in the middle of the cell of a table on Wikipedia? I've got it horizontally centred, but it keeps floating to the top of the cell. --Gareth Hughes 16:05, 24 November 2005 (UTC)

Adding style="vertical-align: middle;" should do it. Are you perhaps specifically talking about the map in Tuareg languages? -- Rick Block (talk) 03:28, 25 November 2005 (UTC)

Thanks Rick! It's not just in that article: there are a few articles which use this new feature to allow a map or other image to be displayed in the bottom of the infobox. The bit of wikitext that is included when this option is switched on is at {{language/map}}. This includes the 'vertical-align' property. I've tried using <div> tags around the image in the article space, but that makes it disappear completely. I'm a bit stuck with this one. --Gareth Hughes 13:59, 25 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Restarting a hung Article for deletion process

There is an article that I've become aware which had a hung ("no consensus") Afd, but new seems to have been abandoned by its creator without having fixed its problems. I would like to restart Afd on it, but there is an archived debate sub-page, marked "please do not change". I can find procedures for appealing completed deletions, but I can't find a procedure for retrying after a mistrial (or, for that matter, deleting a page that has had a definite keep in the past). What's the correct procedure? --David Woolley 23:28, 24 November 2005 (UTC)

You redo the nomination process, but add a "2" to the name of the AFD page ("Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Foo2" instead of "Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Foo"). Make sure to mention,, and link to, the old vote in your nomination for the new one, and in addition to saying why you think the article should be deleted, say why the circumstances that pertained in the former vote have changed. Without this latter part you risk people getting upset that you're renominating the same article repeatedly hoping to get a different conclusion. In any event, I wouldn't advise renominating something for at least a couple of months after its first vote. -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 23:43, 24 November 2005 (UTC)
I should note that "someone said they'd fix it, but didn't" probably isn't likely to swing things, as presumably someone else can later. If only the original author can, then the article is probably OR, however. -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 23:48, 24 November 2005 (UTC)
This almost certainly is a case of OR. Note though that no-one promised to fix the problem in question, which was that it was not V. There are other problems that are potentially fixable by third parties. The original nomination was effectively for NN, but that statelmated (it was keep by default rather than a postive decision to keep). It certainly was NN in a Western context (and by Google), but there weren't enough people with relevant regional knowledge to defnitely say it was NN in a regional context. I'll give it a little longer. --David Woolley 20:10, 27 November 2005 (UTC)
  • Wasn't there instructions on how to renominate something on AFD? Where is that now?- Mgm|(talk) 05:58, 25 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] November 25

[edit] Zimbabwe map showing contours and coordinates

I wish to make a map with the following: contour lines and coordinates. The map is intended toi be used to develop a disaster reduction paln for a communal area in Zimbabwe.

Macadonald Kadzatsa

I don't know if we can help you here. You should post your request on Wikipedia:Requested pictures; they may be able to fix you up with something. Izehar 11:41, 25 November 2005 (UTC)
It is not clear what question you are asking, although it is likely that the question really belongs on the reference desk, because it isn't about how to use Wikipedia.
If you want a ready prepared map, the problem you may find is that this level of detail is only available in maps with copyrights that wouldn't allow their use on Wikipedia (e.g. UK Ordnance Survey maps). This will vary from country to country, but I suspect that the United States is the only real exception.
If you want to create one yourself, have a look at the Surveying article.
--David Woolley 12:13, 25 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Redirect: how to switch SRC and DST?

Roman (disambiguation) → Roman which claims to be a disambiguation page (although it has too much stuff on it IMHO), and I think it should be the other way around, i.e. the disambiguation content should be on Roman (disambiguation) and Roman should redirect. Can a mere mortal switch them over? If not, how do I queue it up for an an admin to look at? Or am I wrong in thinking they should be switched? --LesleyW 11:40, 25 November 2005 (UTC)

Before making a change like that, it's customary to discuss it first on the talk page, as some people may have serious objections. Page moves are a big deal, and you need at least 60% support before moving them. In my opinion, they shouldn't be switched - as Roman is not being used for anything else, it's easier to enter into the address bar. If you are set on making the change, follow the guidelines on WP:RM. Izehar 11:46, 25 November 2005 (UTC)
In my view it is correct as it is. Your proposal doesn't change the essential disambiguation nature of the page and if the primary title is free, it is generally better to use that rather than title (disambiguation). Have a look at the edit history on the Roman (disambiguation) page. There are currently no links to it other than this page, but moving it (which I believe is possible for an ordinary user) would result in double redirects (e.g. Romans which would need to be repaired). I think it would be more useful to diambiguate the incoming links to Roman, which are many. --David Woolley 12:03, 25 November 2005 (UTC)
Thanks for the input. I'll work through some of those links, then. --LesleyW 21:28, 25 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Use of Images in Articles

How do I insert an image into my article and upload it? I'm having trouble finding thisRlevse 15:00, 25 November 2005 (UTC)

Not sure where you looked, but from Help (linked on every page) under "Modifying a Wikipedia page", the 6th bullet is "How to use images", which links to Wikipedia:Picture tutorial. -- Rick Block (talk) 16:35, 25 November 2005 (UTC)
To upload an image, you use the upload page. Inserting an imige is done like [[Image:image.jpg]] this. There are lots of different options for formatting the images on a page and you can find more details at Help:Editing#Images and Help:Images and other uploaded files. --GraemeL (talk) 16:38, 25 November 2005 (UTC)

Thanks! I'm using the Wiki browser-based Upload File method.Rlevse 21:11, 25 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Targets in Wikipedia Articles

Dear Help Desk,

Is it possible to create targets in Wikipedia Articles so that one can link to the target within the Article?

If possible; kindly tell me how.

Many thanks,

Yesselman 15:28, 25 November 2005 (UTC)

Every section header within an article becomes a target, and you can add "id=..." to many HTML elements as well, please see Wikipedia:How to edit a page#Links and URLs (which is itself an example of a target). -- Rick Block (talk) 16:28, 25 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Featured Article

Can Wikipedia feature the 2005 Southeast Asian Games, a sporting event in Asia, in the main page for the next three days? The "soft-opening" happened November 25 and the games will formally open on November 27. Homboy 17:21, 25 November 2005 (UTC)

not really. It isn't a featured article (which only get one day in the sun) and I don't think it has a high enough profile for the in the news section.SorryGeni 17:26, 25 November 2005 (UTC)
  • Why isn't it high-profile enough? Based on the pictures, it's pretty big in Asia. We're supposed to be an international project. I do agree, though, that the article should be updated. - Mgm|(talk) 21:09, 25 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Adding Photographs When You Are The Photographer

If I wanted to add a picture to a page, and I'm the owner and photographer of the picture, which license choice do I choose? It's a public building (a bridge) and it was taken from public land. Also, since I'm the owner/photographer, is there anything else I need to do to make sure this is appropriately identified? Thanks! --EaglesFanInTampa 18:25, 25 November 2005 (UTC)

There are a number of copyright tags that you could use. The simplest is perhaps {{GFDL-self}} which indicates that you are the creator of the image and that you release the image under the GFDL: the same license as the rest of Wikipedia. Alternately, you can release the picture to the public domain using {{PD-self}}. As always, it's a good idea to put as much information about the image as possible on its description page (when and where the photograph was taken, links to our articles on the subject, etc.) TenOfAllTrades(talk) 18:46, 25 November 2005 (UTC)
We can tell you what licenses are currently acceptable to Wikipedia, what we can't do is tell you what licences are acceptable to you. In the past, people have tried to revoke the licence because they didn't understand how many rights they were giving away. Whether or not you can use public domain may depend on which country your are in --David Woolley 19:24, 25 November 2005 (UTC)
Be sure, too, you are happy with the idea that your photo can be modified, or used by others to make money (e.g. on a postcard, or their web site, or in a collection of art work for sale). The main difference among the choices is not that you can stop this, or get any share, but whether you get credit. Notinasnaid 19:47, 25 November 2005 (UTC)
Some allow people to prevent you from using versions that they have modified. I think all allow them to be modified in ways you may find offensive. --David Woolley 22:10, 25 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] How can I make a small improvement in an article?

A small improvement in the formulation of Alexander's sub-basis theorem. The current formulation uses the phrase "sub-basic cover" without explanation; at first I thought it meant just "sub-basis"; but in fact it meant "cover contained (as a subset) in a sub-basis". Better for the statement to be more explicit.

Harold Hodes (<email removed - see instructions at top>)

You edit the article in essentially the same way as you edited this page. If the text is in a aubsection, there will be an edit link next to it. Otherwise use the edit this page tab. You can use help in the side menu for more more details. Please remember to say what you've done and why in the edit summary. That's particularly important if you edit anonymously, although, as you don't mind giving your name here, you shouldn't mind creating yourself an account. --David Woolley 21:46, 25 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Uh... pictures not showing

Sometime last night all thumbnailed pictures on wikipedia stopped displaying on my computer. Not just on wikipedia but the commons too. The wikipedia and commons logos on the top left show, though. Now the pictures are just white blanks that have the appropriate size but nothing shows. Even full-size images don't appear, and the only way to get them to show is to view the image by itself, ie. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:CERN_Atlas_Caverne.jpg doesn't work but http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/8/8d/CERN_Atlas_Caverne.jpg does. Not sure if this is localised, just me or universal. Some help is appreciated. Thanks. -- Миборовский U|T|C|E|Chugoku Banzai! 21:18, 25 November 2005 (UTC)

This site is usually a good place to see how the Wikipedia servers are doing. - Akamad 06:15, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Formatting Help

Hi, Im trying to format my articles. I want a new section to start after pictures or tables. Right now I have to use <br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br> until I reach the end of the table or picture. Is there a better way to do this?--Ewok Slayer 21:37, 25 November 2005 (UTC)

Using <br> in this way is not a good idea, because it assumes characteristics of the output device that you shouldn't assume (and also the probable original inteneded meaning was that in Tex or nroff, in which multiple instances have no more effect than a single one). Rather than trying to control the layout, I think you should be moving the images so that they don't interfere with the text on common browsers. HTML was never intended to be a page description language and Wiki tends to be fairly true to the original aims of HTML. --David Woolley 21:59, 25 November 2005 (UTC)
  • WP:FPC use a clear:all command in a br tag, but usually, having text wrap around images and tables look better, so I recommend you use it sparingly. - Mgm|(talk) 22:09, 25 November 2005 (UTC)
  • Exactly what I was looking for! Thankyou. MacGyver Im using this command now: <br style="clear:both;" />


[edit] November 26

[edit] Help with AOL IP address issues

Ciao, and many thanks in advance for assistance. I am new to Wikipedia and have been wandering around the site, lost. I have AOL and when I created my account, negative banning comments appeared on the 'my talk' area. I created the account today and have yet to do anything but correct a typo. I read the part about AOL and the dynamic IP addresses, but is there a way for an AOL user to have a solo account? What I mean is, is there a way to have my account only be mine so that I can contribute in peace, or will this problem continue? I am sorry if this is a stupid newbie query, if there is a link or FAQ that I missed, I would appreciate some direction.

Mille grazie, Alipes 01:36, 26 November 2005 (UTC)

Alipes 01:57, 26 November 2005 (UTC)

You have successfully created an account and, at the time of writing, your talk page is completely empty. You will only see the IP address related page if you are not logged in. --David Woolley 10:11, 26 November 2005 (UTC)
As David has said, your talk page is now yours. AOL reassigns IP addresses in a way not easy to understand. Everytime you browse with AOL your IP will be different. We have to write messages on anon/IP talk pages for vandals to ask them to stop, but, if the IP belongs to AOL, it is likely to be reassigned to someone nice. Recently, a vandal was so bad that I had to block them. Realising they were using an AOL IP address, I put a temporary, 3-hour block on the account. It stopped the vandalism, but within the hour I had an e-mail from a user with a full account who had been assigned the blocked IP by AOL. I unblocked the IP instantly, of course. Therfore, AOL does create problems for Wikipedia users. As you use login/username to get into your account, that is yours alone. However, your underlying IP address is not yours. We try to keep blocks on AOL IPs as short as possible, but who is to say how short is short enough? --Gareth Hughes 16:27, 26 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] "wall of shame"

I heard there is a place where people who wrote really stupid things have them posted and I was wondering where I could find this, Thank you.

You're thinking of Wikipedia:Bad Jokes and Other Deleted Nonsense. -- Миборовский U|T|C|E|Chugoku Banzai! 01:39, 26 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Help find information

How do I use this to find out what is a Real Estate Limited partnerships and what does derivaatives options mean?

I'm lost on how to use this, can you e-mail me at <e-mail removed>

Thanks,

Carla

  • Please read the notice at the top. We ask you to only make one heading, to not ask general knowledge questions here (instead, ask them at the reference desk), and not to list your e-mail. Deltabeignet 02:09, 26 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Film Clips on Wikipedia

A user has e-mailed the Help mailing list inquiring whether there were any film clips on Wikipedia.

I am not aware of any although I am sure that it would be possible to add it to the commons.

If you are aware of any non-copyvio clips on Wikipedia, could you please respond.

Capitalistroadster 02:11, 26 November 2005 (UTC)

There are some, though I can't say how many. One of my favorites is at Controlled Impact Demonstration (near the bottom). Most that I've seen, if not all, are in Ogg Theora format. There's a fee codec for just about every platform; I believe there are details at the link. —HorsePunchKid→龜 2005-11-26 05:09:49Z
Meta:Video policy may be of some interest.--Commander Keane 10:27, 26 November 2005 (UTC)

Yes, there do indeed exist film clips on Wikipedia - Brian0918 and I uploaded virtually all of them (I'm the one who showed him how to do convert them to ogg theora). They can be found on commons:Category:video Raul654 14:01, 26 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Changing Image Description and other data

I just uploaded an image but after pressing the button to upload, I realized I made a mistake in the image description and other data. Questions:

  • How can I change the write-up below the image?
  • Do I have to have the whole thing deleted? then upload the same image again?
  • On a previous occasion, I used the "Upload a New Version of this File", but it became complicated--I did not know if the old image was really deleted or it was just shoved off to another place; after uploading the image anew, it started asking some questions I couldn't answer...So I suppose this is not the right way to ensure that the write-up below the image is change? Walter Ching 13:58, 26 November 2005 (UTC)
The caption on the page using the image is on the page using it. The long description and the licence tags are on the Image: page, which you can edit using edit this page, like any other page. The history entries for the actual image (File History) are history entries, so can only be entered when you upload a new image. Uploading a new image makes it the current image for that name, but you can still access the old versions by clicking on their dates in the File History. --David Woolley 14:51, 26 November 2005 (UTC)
Thanks a lot, David Wooley! That was helpful. Walter Ching 13:47, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Get Rich or Die Tryin' and Get Rich or Die Tryin' (2003 album)

Rebelduder69 (talk • contribs) cut the content of Get Rich or Die Tryin' (which was previously about the 2003 album), pasted it into Get Rich or Die Tryin' (2003 album), and has turned the original page into a disambiguation page. The problem is, this happened almost three months ago, and several users have edited both pages since then, so the edit histories are very wrong. Does anybody know how to fix this? Thanks in advance. Extraordinary Machine 14:33, 26 November 2005 (UTC)

What do you mean by, "edit histories are very wrong"? -- Perfecto Canada 03:57, 27 November 2005 (UTC)
I imagine that he means that the article appears to have been created by Rebelduder69 on 2005-09-05, when it was actually created by 198.81.26.44 on 2004-03-04. As it is that sort of article, there is no edit summary, so it contitutes a GFDL violation as the full list of copyright owners isn't available, nor is the full History. If it had been moved properly, the edit history would have moved with it. --David Woolley 14:05, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Publishing a Wikipedia article for commercial purposes

Can somebody publish a Wikipedia article and sell it for commercial purposes? GFDL license it seems allow commercial use of uploaded photos. How about the text and the photos together, can they be printed and sold without any legal restriction? Thanks to whomever answers this. Walter Ching 14:41, 26 November 2005 (UTC)

They can be printed and published, but under the legal restriction that the person doing so must comply with the GFDL, which means that they must provide a copy of the approved version of the GFDL text, they must include a full list of copyright owners and a full modification history (these two tend not to be enforced because they don't work well with the nature of Wikipedia), and, if printing more than 100 copies, must also provide a machine readable editable version of the document or a web reference to such a version. (Note this is for the GFDL operated properly. I would argue that the de facto Wikipedia licence is weaker with respect to several details of the GFDL, e.g. Wikipedia doesn't provide a URL that retrieves the complete document (including GFDL, copyrights, and history) and for the parts, doesn't provide them without extraneous material (the page and form in which they are mebedded).)
Provided someone complies with the GFDL requirements on licensing, etc. they can use them, and modify them, for use in any sphere of endeavour, at least as far as copyright law is concerned, although some used might constitute defamation, or migh violate criminal law. IANAL --David Woolley 15:04, 26 November 2005 (UTC)
For offline things like magazines and books, a link pointing to Wikipedia and the GFDL along with a notice it can be edited and a list of contributors appears to be enough. If the list of contributors is particularly long, I'm sure it can be linked too. - Mgm|(talk) 23:35, 26 November 2005 (UTC)
That's the de facto Wikipedia licence, not the GFDL (that is my perception, it is not legal advice about the licensing terms). At least for the GFDL, if they modify the article, any "transparent" form maintained by Wikipedia ceases to helpful; they have to provide access to the transparent form of their modified version. The printed version is known as an opaque version in GFDL terms. (My user page explicitly gives the Wikipedia Foundation permission to relicense because I don't think that the current licence is GFDL.) --David Woolley 00:02, 27 November 2005 (UTC)
Thanks a lot to both of you, MacgyverMagic and David Wooley. Walter Ching 14:02, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Case for undeletion

Hello: I am the owner of a web site that previously had an article in Wikipedia. This article was recently deleted and I would like to discuss/contest this move. What is the appropriate way to do so? Thank you.

See WP:DRV for information on how to ask for a deletion review. --GraemeL (talk) 16:01, 26 November 2005 (UTC)
The place to do this is Wikipedia:Deletion review. You can also read the reasoning behind the delete at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/(insert name of article here). If your article doesn't have such an AFD page, it was likely speedily deleted. However, unless your website had exceptionally high traffic or information that expanded the scope of an encyclopaedic article it is unlikely to succeed. --Gareth Hughes 16:10, 26 November 2005 (UTC)
Contesting that your web site deserves a spot in Wikipedia is, IMO, crass. But that's just me. -- Perfecto Canada 03:54, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Book Cover Image

I created an old version of this picture Image:Betrayal(LOF).jpg. I tried uploading a new one but everytime I do it only shows the old one. I tried reverting but I can't get my newone to show up. It's in the file history ones though.--User:Jedi6 November 26, 2005

You need to flush all the caches back to the server. That's typically done using one or both of control and shift to modify the browser refresh command. Most web proxies cache images quite agressively. At least here, the latest version (after a cache flush) shows a last modified date of 2005-11-26 22:32:20 and an expires date of 2005-11-27 00:13:51,
These headers on the response show the caches at Wikimedia that are being used to speed up the serving of images but also delay updates:
 Server: lighttpd/1.4.7
 X-Cache: MISS from will.wikimedia.org
 X-Cache-Lookup: HIT from will.wikimedia.org:80
 X-Cache: MISS from vandale.knams.wikimedia.org
 X-Cache-Lookup: HIT from vandale.knams.wikimedia.org:80
 Via: 1.0 anchor-cache-01 (NetCache NetApp/6.0.1)
I don't know what the standard is for book covers, but my personal view would be that you want to halve the size of the image before you can claim that it is low resolution, i.e. to the size at which I see the thumbnail. Also, the parenthes are normally separated from the title by a space.
--David Woolley 00:23, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] November 27

[edit] Adding audio samples to music bio pages

Is it possible (legal) to add audio samples to a wiki page? For example, 30 second clips of essential material of a certain band? I've seen some pages link to *.ogg files that have been uploaded to Wiki. More info would be appreciated. Thanks!

--Flunkycarter 00:06, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

I see nothing wrong linking to them, though I haven't seen it done. Submitting them as .ogg to Wiki Commons though means you're releasing it to the GFDL. -- Perfecto Canada 03:46, 27 November 2005 (UTC)
Um, no. Commons files can be under any copyleft license - not necessarily licensed under the GFDL Raul654 03:47, 27 November 2005 (UTC)
Reply to Flunkycarter - There are some full-legnth songs uploaded to commons. You can find the master list at wikipedia:sound/list Raul654 03:49, 27 November 2005 (UTC)
As for clips of copyrighted songs without a license, that's a legally fuzzy area called fair use. See wikipedia:Copyright FAQ Raul654 03:49, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

So a copyrighted song, with the quality dramatically reduced (A low OGG bitrate, reduced in quality) and only providing a 30 sec. (reduced in quantity) sample of a copyrighted song would be allowed under Fair Use to illustrate an educational article(Wiki Article)?

--Flunkycarter 22:09, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

I don't see the point of posting snippets of audio you do not own. No one will gain anything from it except the copyright holder. I think the copyright holder ought to release the rights to the snippets himself. But that's just me. -- Perfecto Canada 03:18, 28 November 2005 (UTC)
  • The point is to enable users to understand what the article is talking about. A short-reduced quality snippet both helps to explain the topic, and benefits the copyright holder, so it definitely qualifies as fair use. Kappa 03:39, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] how do i delete a page?

How do I delete a page, title and all? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 66.28.235.62 (talk • contribs) 06:30, 27 November 2005 (UTC).

You can't. Only an Administrator can do that. You can nominate a page for deletion, though. Titoxd(?!?) 06:30, 27 November 2005 (UTC)
I'm pretty sure you meant to delete Heather kalachman. Since you were the only editor, I've deleted it under the Criteria for Speedy Deletion. Titoxd(?!?) 06:33, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Wikipedia main page RSS feeds?

Is there any way to get a feed URL for specific sections of the Wikipedia main page (i.e., In the News)?

  • See Wikipedia:Syndication. As far as I can tell there's feeds for today's featured article and today's featured picture. - Mgm|(talk) 10:38, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Creating a portal

I've been looking at some of the articles that link to Roman (a rather detailed disambiguation page with lots of links), and its history. All of the articles that I have looked at so far (maybe ten, I know it's a small sample) have very general references to "the Romans". I believe that people will continue to write "the Romans..." and link to Roman without giving it a second thought, as they should be able to do. Therefore, I now think that one possible solution is that "Roman/s" could redirect to a portal on Ancient Rome, but no such portal exists as yet.

My question is, what requirements need to be met for the operation of a portal? Would it need a maintainer, or can it be set up so that no maintenance is necessary? Is there a proposal discussion process that should be followed before going ahead?

Portals are intended to be reader oriented and Ancient Rome sounds worthy of a portal to me. Most, though not all of the portals listed at Wikipedia:Wikiportal have maintainers associated with them, though WP:PORTAL suggests that they should be set up to be low maintenance. There doesn't seem to be a formal process to go through before creating a portal and instructions for creation can be found at Wikipedia:Wikiportal. --GraemeL (talk) 14:01, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Why does wikipedia break my sig now?

Why does the wiki break my sig now? It only started happening recently (sometime between Nov. 10 and 22 judging from my contribs). It should look like #1 (that's copy-pasted), but wikipedia is now auto-reformatting it to #2. I assume some software change is to blame, but how can I get the desired result back?

  1. Lommer | talk 21:18, 27 November 2005 (UTC)
  2. Lommer | [[User talk:Lommer|<sup>talk</sup>]] 21:21, 27 November 2005 (UTC)
See WP:SIGHELP. Markup is no longer parsed within the default signature; you need to put your entire signature in the field and use "raw signatures". — Knowledge Seeker দ 21:38, 27 November 2005 (UTC)
Great, thanks for the quick reply. -User:Lommer | talk 21:43, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] November 28

[edit] How to search in textbox while Editing?

I realize there are external tools for this but I'm looking for a javascript implementation, whether a bookmarklet or something I can add to my monobook.js. There's a replace function on user scripts, perhaps there can be one for searching and highlighting or going to that place while editing. Gflores Talk 00:14, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

I don't know of one that'll take you directly to the word your searching for (I'd love to know of one too), but if you use Firefox and use "Edit/Find in this page..." (CTRL-F), then click "Highlight" on the Find toolbar, it will highlight the word you're looking for in bright yellow within the text box. You may have to scroll to find it, and occasionally I find that editing the word while it's highlighted is difficult for some reason, but you can just click the Highlight off temporarily. Hope that helps at least a little bit. — Catherine\talk 01:23, 28 November 2005 (UTC)
Good news, I've found an extension that does this exact thing (and only this) for Firefox here. Works wonderfully. Gflores Talk 02:20, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Wiki Definitions

There are some non-existent (red) links which seem to call more for definitions than articles, even brief ones (because there are good specialized links out there). I have a vague notion that there is a WP place for such items and that it is fact poor practice to make articles out of definitions? Is so, no? Can you point me to a how-to? Thanks, Halcatalyst 01:26, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

You're looking for Wikipedia is not a dictionary. However, depending on context, things that might seem only to require definitions can actually merit real articles. -- SCZenz 01:30, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] login timeouts

About 20 minutes after I log in, if I haven't physically communicated with WP, I get logged out. I might be in the middle of editing a page. (OK, I think slowly.) Is this the work of a watchdog on the WP servers, or is it some other part of my total system? I use Win XP. Is there a workaround? Thanks, Halcatalyst 01:32, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

Well, it's nothing to do with Windows XP, because I use Windows XP and this doesn't happen. The answer is around there somewhere, I remember it: check the archives. Thelb4 18:06, 29 November 2005 (UTC)
--- That's a good clue. But WP is so big the archives intimidate me. Are any search engines available to search WP only? Halcatalyst 18:40, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Printing problems at Crystal system entry

A Wikipedia user has sent an e-mail to the Help mailing list as follows:

In the "Crystal system entry", the last four trigonal point groups can't be printed, i;e., they are left off of a print out. They do show up just fine on the screen. I have looked at the HTML and I can not see what the problem is. I would be interested in knowing what the problem is as well as having it corrected.

I have had a look and cannot find the problem. If you can see what the problem is and can fix it, it would be greatly appreciated.

Capitalistroadster 02:17, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

  • It sounds like a fairly common printing problem - web pages getting interpreted as being unusually wide by the browser and thus printed off to the side of the page. Perhaps he could try printing it from a different machine, or in a different browser, and see if that helps? I suspect it's the images in tables causing the problem, but I don't know how to deal with that... Shimgray | talk | 14:55, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Citing Wikipedia

How do you cite a page?

Usual answer: Go look at Wikipedia:Citing Wikipedia!
New answer: click on "Cite this article" on the article you're looking at!
Ok, the developers have coded a new feature so we don't have to answer the age-old question. The new page is Special:Cite. However, I need some help to customize the page to give MLA, APA and other citation styles. Anyone knows what to do? Titoxd(?!?) 03:43, 27 November 2005 (UTC)
  • Wow...that's the niftyest thing I've seen since wrist PDAs. Makes me wish I needed to cite sources in such a fashion, just so I could use it. Kaz 02:50, 29 November 2005 (UTC)
If you are an administrator, edit MediaWiki:Cite text. If you aren't, then make your proposed changes on the talk page and a friendly adminsitrator will do it for you (I'll do it if nobody else has when I get back from the m:Wikimedia UK meeting in London). Thryduulf 07:49, 27 November 2005 (UTC)
Um, yeah, I'm an admin, and I have in fact already changed it... I just asked here if someone wanted to help CatherineMunro and me. Thanks! Titoxd(?!?) 01:20, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Who are authors for wikipedia

<no contents> —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 130.117.106.114 (talk • contribs).

Most people asking this qustion really wanted to ask "how do you cite Wikipedia as a source, however, the literal answer is the thousands of people whose user identities appear in article histories and the, probably even larger number of people, like you, for whom only the IP address appears. --David Woolley 14:44, 27 November 2005 (UTC)


[edit] source cards for school project

What is the publishing company, city of publication and copyright date for the article "Military Tribunals in the USA"

You must be talking about a sub-heading in the article Military tribunal. There is no publishing company, city of publication, or copyright date for this or any article in Wikipedia. For general information on citing Wikipedia sources in school work or for any other purpose, see Wikipedia:Citing Wikipedia. Halcatalyst 04:13, 28 November 2005 (UTC)
I would say that the publication company was the Wikipedia Foundation Inc. The foundation is based in St. Petersburg, Florida, and that (or possibly where the servers are, if different) is important, as certain coyright issues depend on it (e.g. some source material may still be in copyright in the UK, where a 70 years after death rule is applied). The copyright date is the last modified date that appears at the bottom of the article. This is also important, as it determines when the copyright in anonymous contributions expires (more precisely, that is detemined by the history entry for the specific anonymous contribution).
As noted in other recent replies, there are preferred ways of citing Wikipedia, although they all include the modified date from the article. The date is particularly important because articles frequently change (and it is the existence of different versions, that is more likely to be the reason for capturing the copyright date in this case). --David Woolley 13:34, 28 November 2005 (UTC)
It's true that for legal purposes there is an organization behind Wikipedia. But the Wikipedia Foundation is not a publisher, only a host. That said, your point about the last edit date is crucial for anyone citing WP. This is somethng that many people, not to mention students, would not know. To cite properly, the date the page was last edited as well as the date it was accessed must be included. The author will be anonymous and the title will be that given on the article page. The URL must of course be given. In most cases, this will be all that's needed. Halcatalyst 02:47, 29 November 2005 (UTC)
There is now an easier way to find a citation for a Wikipedia article: go to Special:Cite and enter the title of the article, or click on "Cite this article" on the navigation bar on the left once you are at the article you need to cite. Titoxd(?!?) 02:51, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] website author

I am doing a bibliography for a speech and I used your site as a source. Who do i put as the author?

Usually at the front; see proper citation guides here. Thanks! εγκυκλοπαίδεια*(talk) 02:52, 28 November 2005 (UTC)
Please see Wikipedia:Citing Wikipedia. There's a "Cite this article" link on every page as well. -- Rick Block (talk) 02:55, 28 November 2005 (UTC)
Woops, I wished I made that suggestion, but I used to rely on the Purdue site myself, so that is why I recommended it. No harm done. εγκυκλοπαίδεια*(talk) 02:56, 28 November 2005 (UTC)
It's really very simple. No Wikipedia articles have authors as such. All are officially anonymous collaborations. So, for the author, use Anon. This is acceptable in any system of citation. Halcatalyst 02:53, 29 November 2005 (UTC)
You can also use "Wikipedia contributors" as the author for your citations. See Special:Cite to obtain a citation for the page you want to cite. Titoxd(?!?) 02:58, 29 November 2005 (UTC)
--- Special:Cite or "Cite this article" in the Toolbox sidebar of every article is a great resource. I'm glad to have found out about it. Halcatalyst 18:54, 29 November 2005 (UTC)
Articles do have authors. It is one of the stated principles of the GFDL that it exists to ensure that authors of a document receive due credit. In particular, if you use Wikipedia content in a context that requires a copyright licence, the GFDL requires you to list all the authors of the article. --David Woolley 19:07, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Hey

I created this template here for new people who'd be pretty pissed off when there recent article gets deleted. Any thoughts? Should it even stay? εγκυκλοπαίδεια*(talk) 02:52, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

I fear its lack of specificity will often make things worse. -- SCZenz 03:01, 28 November 2005 (UTC)
Yep. εγκυκλοπαίδεια*(talk) 03:10, 28 November 2005 (UTC)
  • Apart from the fact, VFD was renamed AFD a while ago, I agree with the others, maybe use something similar to {{db}} and leave a space for the poster to fill in a reason. That would make it a lot more useful. Also, I don't think the welcome needs to be in the same template. There's enough newbies who already have been welcomed. I think those need to be separated. - Mgm|(talk) 08:26, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Listen! Oyez! Oyez!

Vandal ova here: User:James of Wales. Put a template on already. Looks like the Wikipedia is Communism dude impersonating whoever the guy was who created this site, I have to remember his name. At any rate, delete him! εγκυκλοπαίδεια*(talk) 03:10, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

Pardon me? -- Perfecto Canada 03:21, 28 November 2005 (UTC)
Never mind, an admin has taken care of the problem. εγκυκλοπαίδεια*(talk) 03:37, 28 November 2005 (UTC)
What? I did what? I'm innocent! I didn't do it!!! :P Titoxd(?!?) 17:37, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Wierd article

I ran across William D. Ferris while trying to fix the hockey dab page. I'm pretty sure there's something wrong with it, maybe WP:VAIN, but I really can't put my finger on it. Help from a more experienced user would be helpful, along with recommendations for next time. D-Rock 05:58, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

It could be vanity, but more important (as WP:VAIN says) is what's in the article. It has a lot of information that is not notable or encyclopedaic, and could legitimately be cut down considerably. In fact, it may be that there is nothing that's notable enough in there at all, so you might consider AfD'ing it after looking more closely and some research (a goggle search/maybe). -- SCZenz 06:26, 28 November 2005 (UTC)
The asteroid 10937 Ferris named after him is easily verifiable outside his website. I'm sure this will survive AfD. The list of comets and near-earth objects also prevent a merge. (I'm sure I've seen weirder articles.... though because I'm here more often.) -- Perfecto 01:11, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] why does melting point determination must be finely powdered?

(No question)

  • Welcome to Wikipedia. Please see the instructions at the top of this page, so that you can effectively get help. This page is for questions about Wikipedia. Notinasnaid 13:10, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] How do I get wikipedia articles to appear in google searches?

eg, If I do a google search for my friends band called "juju space jazz", it doesn't come up, but if I do a search on "Simon Posford" (the producer) it comes up with ";;;Simon Posford - Wikipedia" etc —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Zangtubba (talk • contribs).

The reason for this is very simple - Wikipedia does not have an article on "Juju Space Jazz", but it does have one on Simon Posford. You could write and article on Juju Space Jazz by clicking the link, but you should only do so if they meet the crieria for inlcusion at WP:MUSIC, otherwise your article is likely to be deleted. Note that your article will not be found in a Google search until Googlebot indexes the page and it is incorporated into the search database. This usually takes a few days, but can take much longer than that. Thryduulf 17:35, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Micronations

Good Day

I have visited Wikipedia often and have read many extremely well written articles, however, today I stumbled into something quite confusing. I am reading up on Micronations, the reason being that I am aspiring to be granted political asylum by a certain country, but should it nor be granted I would like to consider alternatives. To me it is a vital issue, an issue that would affect my family and myself in a most serious manner. I ask for your serious consideration of my question(s)

My specific question centers around the entry about the dominion of Mechizedek. I read through the contents as in the Wikipedia entry, then noticed a section called "talk" clicked on it and entered into a discussion that, put simply, astounded me. I believe wholeheartedly in UNBIASSED facts, and thought that this was what Wikipedia was about, but after reading the entire thread (a few times over to understand the implications) I was forced to conclude that whoever was responsable (in this case rather unresponsable..my opinion) certainly was NOT looking for factual or even balanced entries. There seemed to be decided "camps", each with a very unforgiving and seperate agenda. Now, at the risk of dragging my question out. I shall just ask it straightforward.

In reference to the specific entry abdout the dominion of Mechizedek, why can there not be an independant review of the entire entry, by people that have a PROVEN ability to be unbiassed?

I would like to qualify my question further by equating my thoughts..

If certain individuals of a country commit "crimes"..I put this in inverted commas because, what is described as a crime in some countries would not neccesarilly be so in others...eg. drinking a alcoholic beverage in USA is legal(at the moment, but not in the past)...elsewhere it would be VERY illegal (at the moment, but not neccesarilly in the past) Thus, the impression that I get is that OPINION should be disregarded when FACTS are at stake. The facts should be balanced and given with impartiality.

Again with reference to the Mechizedek site, I found it absolutely bewildering to read through a series of claims, counter-claims and at the end of the day...absolutely no consensus and leaving me no other option but to revert to trusty old GOOGLE to try and find FACTS and decide for myself.

Please help me on this issue, I am not too familliar with the editing and administration of the wikipedia articles, but I would like to believe that someone would clear this queation up for me.

Kindest Regards immigrationissues2002 Caracas, Venezuela

Well, it's Wikipedia policy to present a neutral and objective (non-biased) point of view (see WP:NPOV). However, as far as I can see, this widely viewed as a totally moronic rule that no one follows. You may want to check Wikipedia:General disclaimer. While in my opinion Wikipedia is fairly obective and accurate - there are certain instances where biased articles can be found. It's one of the drawbacks of Wikipedia being the "free encyclopaedia". Izehar 19:38, 28 November 2005 (UTC)
  • At a quick glance over the article: The Dominion of Melchizedek does not "exist", at least not as a nation - it holds no territory, it is recognised by no governments. It is not a nation - it cannot grant you asylum. Nothing that describes itself as a micronation is a "real country" in the way that, say, Venezuela is, and many are little more than either personal amusements or attempts at fraud. Please bear this in mind.
  • The article itself is an attempt to conform to a "neutral point of view" - reflecting that there are those who insist that the Dominion exists, and that various countries have done things that might look like diplomatic recognition - but, you're right, is probably a bit wishy-washy. The key is, though, that the two camps are divided over the nature of the "FACTS", so an unbiased observer is going to decide one way or the other... and then by doing so they fall into one camp, meaning the other side won't accept the conclusion. Here we get an impasse. Shimgray | talk | 19:48, 28 November 2005 (UTC)
Thank you Izehar and Shimgary for your comments. Could you perhaps tell me how I can contact the editor(s) of that specific entry. I think they need to get told a few things in no uncertain terms and be explained about the reasons why someone might want to read their entries. I won´t enter into their food fight, just explain in a nice way that what they write actually has consequinces far beyond an on-screen message. immigrationissues2002

You can contact them by leaving a message on the article's talk page at Talk:Dominion of Melchizedek. Izehar 20:02, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

You can leave a message on Talk:Dominion of Melchizedek.
My guess is that the major problem with that article is that it starts off "...is a micronation..." To someone very familiar with the concept - which will include every author of the article - "micronation" automatically means "not a real country". However, to the casual reader, "micronation" can be interpreted - as I think you did - as being "a kind of country". When you know that a micronation isn't a country, the article seems a lot less vague; if you think it is a country, it's pretty bizzare.
The reason for this is that if you think it's a country, the claims and counterclaims seem to be disputing whether the country exists. Since a micronation exists as soon as someone claims it does, though, its existence isn't actually disputed in the article - it's whether it's what it claims to be that is disputed. Does that make sense? Shimgray | talk | 20:03, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] November 29

[edit] (Unheaded)

what kind of lawyer should i get for at fault cases?

  • Please read the notice at the top of the page. We request that you ask factual questions at the Reference desk. Deltabeignet 04:12, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Numbered list items with multiple paragraphs

Is this possible? What I want is

1. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat.

Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur. Excepteur sint occaecat cupidatat non proident, sunt in culpa qui officia deserunt mollit anim id est laborum.

2. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat.

Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur. Excepteur sint occaecat cupidatat non proident, sunt in culpa qui officia deserunt mollit anim id est laborum.

(except moreobviously as a list)

I tried this (standard wiki syntax):

  1. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat.

Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur. Excepteur sint occaecat cupidatat non proident, sunt in culpa qui officia deserunt mollit anim id est laborum.

  1. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat.

Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur. Excepteur sint occaecat cupidatat non proident, sunt in culpa qui officia deserunt mollit anim id est laborum.

obviously wrong. I tried a hack (inserting <P> where I want a break, but leaving on the same line):

  1. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat.

    Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur. Excepteur sint occaecat cupidatat non proident, sunt in culpa qui officia deserunt mollit anim id est laborum.

  1. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat.

    Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur. Excepteur sint occaecat cupidatat non proident, sunt in culpa qui officia deserunt mollit anim id est laborum.

Any suggestions? Thanks, pfctdayelise 05:50, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

  1. This is a test.
  2. This is also a test.
The syntax:
#This is a test.
#:&nbsp;
#:&nbsp;
#:&nbsp;
#This is also a test.


→ Ξxtreme Unction {yakłblah} 00:54, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

In case anyone else is interested, me and Extreme Unction have puzzled out a solution. Forget wikisyntax and use <ol> (ordered list) in combination with <br&;gt or <p> tags.

eg.

<ol>
<li>
Item 1 blah blah blah
<p>
Item 1 is so important it needs two paragraphs 
<li>
Item 2 is also very important
<p>
So it has two pars as well
</ol>

-->

  1. Item 1 blah blah blah

    Item 1 is so important it needs two paragraphs

  2. Item 2 is also very important

    So it has two pars as well


You can also close your <li> tags if you want, it's better html I think but it works anyway. <ol> MUST be closed. pfctdayelise 02:44, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Preferred spelling?

Just wondering what spelling is preferred, American, or English (UK, Canada, etc), as in color or colour? Thanks!

  • Nevermind, forgot to look in the FAQ

[edit] How can I change my user name?

How can I change my user name? --Yochai Twitto 10:20, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Changing username. As a general tip, if you don't know how something works on Wikipedia, you can try typing "Wikipedia:Whatever you're trying to do" in the search bar - if we don't have a howto article with that exact title, there will probbaly be a redirect to the howto -- Ferkelparade π 10:49, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Tagging Images

Hi I was wondering what tag is appropriate (if any) for scans of video games manuals. Also is the same tag appropriate if its taken from a pdf file found on the games disc? Thanks. Examples Image:Alterac-warcraft2-with-orc-symbol.jpg - User:UnlimitedAccess

{{copyvio}} or {{db}}. I would say that both cases would be copyright violations. --David Woolley 14:07, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] How to remove rel=nofollow?

Hi,

I have my own copy of WikiMedia installed, and I'd like not to have rel=nofollow tag along with my external links. Whrer can I change the script settings to restrict placing this tag?

Thanks.

--> Already found: edit includes/Linker.php

function makeExternalLink( $url, $text, $escape = true, $linktype = ) { $style = $this->getExternalLinkAttributes( $url, $text, 'external ' . $linktype ); global $wgNoFollowLinks; if( $wgNoFollowLinks ) { $style .= 'rel="nofollow"';

Remove rel="nofollow" :)

[edit] Image Upload

Hey, guys. I'm a pretty regular article editor, but I've run into problems in the past with uploading images, so I'm looking for a few tips in general, and if it's OK to upload this picture which is a part of this article from vatican.va. Thanks, JHMM13 16:12, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

I doubt it's public domain. Vatican-produced material is covered by copyright, unlike in the US where it would be public domain. There is no explicit copyright notice, but I doubt one is needed. The image is of an artwork, suggesting that under Bridgeman Art Library v. Corel Corp. we would be allowed to reproduce it if the original was public domain - but we can't tell when it was painted (probably 1915-1930) or when the artist died, which is usually the key factor in European copyright laws (and the Vatican certainly has them - it's a signatory to Berne and the UCC). Shimgray | talk | 19:07, 29 November 2005 (UTC)
Tell it to me straight, Jonny Esquire. JHMM13 22:04, 29 November 2005 (UTC)
The straight answer is "no... but I am not a lawyer". It's possible it's sort-of-free, at least good enough for our purposes, but we'd need more information to be sure. Sorry. Shimgray | talk | 14:31, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] How to link event to city?

I was looking for information about the Treaty of Lausanne, but didn't know what it was called exactly, so I opened the Lausanne article, first. However, I didn't find a reference to the treaty there.

How should I add a link to the treaty to the Lausanne article? Of course, I could write something about it in the History section, and link to it in the "See also" section, but I wonder if there should also be a disambiguation remark at the top of the Lausanne article, since "Lausanne" could also refer to the Treaty of Lausanne, just like "Maastricht" could refer to the Maastricht Treaty. --Benne 16:44, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

You could use the {{for}} tag. Basically you would just put {{for|the treaty of the same name|Treaty of Lausanne}} at the top of the Lausanne article. It would expand to:
For the treaty of the same name, see Treaty of Lausanne.
Dismas|(talk) 20:51, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Help

How do i find out the information that you put on a bibliography card?

On the side of every article, under the heading Toolbox, there is a Cite this article link. Clicking that will give you seven forms for citing a Wikipedia article. For more information see Citing Wikipedia. Canderson7 20:49, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Picture borders

How do I put a border on a picture? Izehar 21:20, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

{{border}}, IIRC. ナイトスタリオン ✉ 21:32, 29 November 2005 (UTC)
Or use [[Image:imagename.jpeg|frame|Your caption goes here]], as explained at Wikipedia:Extended image syntax. - IMSoP 23:58, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] licensing?

HI, if I have made a mistake in the licensing of a photo how do I correct it? and if I took the Photo and release all right would (GFDL-self) be the correct licensing? --LPW 21:50, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

{{GFDL-self}} would be valid and acceptable to Wikipedia. It doesn't release all rights. Only you or your lawyer can say whether it is acceptable to you. IANAL TINLA. --David Woolley 22:26, 29 November 2005 (UTC)
See WP:ICT#For_image_creators for a list of licenses you could use that would be acceptable to WP. Also, please consider uploading to Commons instead. This will make your image available for use by all wikimedia projects, not just the English 'pedia. pfctdayelise 23:00, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Wikipedia as a Press Source for an offline publication

I'm sorry if this is obvious or answered in some FAQ or guidline page that I missed but I've been trying to put in a template on the Oxford Street talk page that notes that the article was used as a press source in Time Out London this week. I'm pretty useless at filling out templates as it is but thought I'd give it a go. Problematically, I couldn't seem to find one that allows me to skip putting in a URL or website. There is a Time Out London website, but they don't have the article on there. I've put it down on the Wikipedia as a press source listings anyway so someone might put it in for me but it would be nice to find out how it's done for the future. Thanks in advance. Jellypuzzle 22:16, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

As predicted, it's been done for me on Talk:Oxford_Street. I suppose I can just copy what they've done now. Jellypuzzle 23:17, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Infoboxes

When editing articles about fictional objects, I frequently use tables based on Infoboxes (though not the actual box itself) to summarise the information. See either the box on this page: Springfield (The Simpsons), or a couple of (hypothetical) examples on the user page (User:Smurrayinchester/Infoboxes). But, I just realised that this could potentially be confusing to some users, making a fictional thing seem 'real', even just briefly, and am no longer sure whether I should keep them. Should I? smurrayinchester(User), (Talk) 22:28, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

  • Aristotle said fiction$ was truer than history because it opens up mind and experience to more possibilities. I agree, so I applaud what you're doing. Analysis and information about human creations is just fine. Halcatalyst 22:46, 29 November 2005 (UTC)
$ Actually, he said "poetry." But don't worry, because per Wallace Stevens poetry is the supreme fiction. Halcatalyst 22:46, 29 November 2005 (UTC)
Thanks! You've cleared my conscience! smurrayinchester(User), (Talk) 10:38, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Portals

Okay, I'm really confused here. What is the difference between a category and a portal? If it's layout then how come the links on the main page (culture, geography, etc.) point to categories rather than portals, even though they have the same layout as a portal?

Also, where can I find a comprehensive list of portals? I've tagged Category:Wikiportals, Category:Portals, and even Wikipedia:Portal, because I found them confusing, and, frankly, a mess. Category:Wikiportals gives me links to several portals, but also "subcategories" which are just the category links from the main page. Category:Portals gives me an alphabetical listing, but when I click a letter, just shows me a list of various categories, and no portals. Wikipedia:Portal has 2 lists, which are inconsistent, and I suspect neither is complete. Some portals listed as complete are red, and yet some work when I click them on the other list.

Can anyone explain this more clearly for me? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 82.7.125.142 (talk • contribs).

A Category is a group of articles with similar aspects; the large ones are managed by WikiProjects. A Portal is the "main page" of the Project (like the cover of a book). A list of Portals can be found at Wikipedia:Portal#All existing Wikiportals. Unfortunatly, there is not much consistency and Portals are created on whims. Izehar 23:14, 29 November 2005 (UTC)
I'm not surprised you are confused. Consider Category:Cricket. They have transcluded the Portal onto the category page.--Commander Keane 05:54, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Alphabetical Sections

I'm working on this article, and it seems obvious to me that it would be better if the contents list went crossways rather than downwards because the sections are A, B, C etc.

Is there a straightforward way of achieving that? I realise I could go:

A | B | C

...and so on, but that seems a bit of a palaver. Besides, even then I wouldn't know how to supress the automatic contents list.AndyJones 23:20, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

Try using the template {{TOC}}. pfctdayelise 23:41, 29 November 2005 (UTC)
{{compactTOC}} also works nicely, I think. —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 23:53, 29 November 2005 (UTC)
__NOTOC__ disables the generation of the table of contents.

[edit] November 30

[edit] What template made this ->

Sunday
8
April
12:39 UTC

I'm curious. -- Perfecto 00:53, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

Where did you see it? You might figure out who added it and ask them. -- Rick Block (talk) 02:05, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Plagarism

While doing some research about Expedition Robinson, the European version of North America's Survivor, I noticed that second paragraph from the Overview section of the Expedition Robinson article is plagarized from the third paragraph on this website [2]. I'm not sure how to go about reporting plagarism so someone can clean it up, but I am not familiar enough with the European version of the game to correct this. The best I could do is reword it. How should this be taken care of? Jtrost 00:57, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for reporting a possible copyright violation. This isn't actually a case of plagarism though. Answers.com is one of many sites that mirrors Wikipedia content. It is copying from us, not the other way around. This is allowed however as long as it notes where the information came from. If you spot another copyright violoation in the future, you can follow the directions at Wikipedia:Copyright problems to deal with the issue. Canderson7 01:20, 30 November 2005 (UTC)
Thanks for the clarification. I didn't look at the copyright notice. Jtrost 01:49, 30 November 2005 (UTC)
Only, it seems the article has undergone some major edits since Answers.com last took a capture of its content. jnothman talk 02:21, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Category link is unreliable

Hi, The other day I added this category, [[Category:Historical pederastic relationships]] to the article on George Gordon Byron, 6th Baron Byron and got a redlink that leads to a page claiming that "Wikipedia does not yet have a Category page called Historical pederastic relationships." However, the same category link leading from Marsilio Ficino works perfectly well and leads to the correct category page for this very category. Can you help fix this problem? Haiduc 01:32, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

That is very odd. I compared the two category links and saw no difference, but by copying the text of the working link and replacing the text of the one that didn't work, I somehow fixed the problem. Here's the diff: [3]. Canderson7 01:41, 30 November 2005 (UTC)
The broken revision includes a control character called "PDF" shown after the category name. You probably inserted it by accident, Haiduc. The character shows when editing the broken revision in Opera and does not work in Firefox, which is why Canderson seems to be confused as to how he changed the same thing into the same thing.] jnothman talk 02:29, 30 November 2005 (UTC)
Thank you both, I could tell that there was something strange there but as I do use Firefox. . . Haiduc 02:32, 30 November 2005 (UTC)
Thanks for clarifying, jnothman. Canderson7 02:47, 30 November 2005 (UTC)
I have just realised what the "PDF" character may have been doing there. Someone else fixed the same in anther article, where Unicode control character "LRE" preceded the text, and "PDF" followed. [4] indicates that LRE is "Left to write embedding", indicating that the following text is to be left-to-right (like English), whereas PDF ends such a marked passage to "pop directional formatting". Do you use any Hebrew or Arabic, Haiduc? jnothman talk 02:49, 30 November 2005 (UTC)
There's more on this at Wikipedia:Village pump (assistance)#Design changes? Disappearing ".7C" signs in category sections when using Safari. The mediawiki software was changed fairly recently to include these characters when displaying the list of categories. My guess is Haiduc yanked a category from a displayed list (and the yank included the invisible bi-di indicators) and when pasting it in another article included the invisible characters without realizing it. I suspect the developers might be interested in this. -- Rick Block (talk) 02:32, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] paid

do i get paid if i constantly supply wikipedia with information and various articles that are of public interest?

Short answer: no. Long answer: Wikipedia is run entirely by volunteers and funded entirely by donations, so there aren't any paid positions, except for Chief Technical Officer. Titoxd(?!?) 01:45, 30 November 2005 (UTC)
Technically, there is nothing preventing you from getting paid, but there is nothing requiring you to get paid either. I suppose if you're a really good editor, Jimbo Wales might send you a small sum of money as thanks, but it would be entirely a humanitarian gesture and not to be taken as any kind of official salary. If you really want to be employed by the company that owns Wikipedia, you could try asking Jimbo Wales directly. I can't speak for him. — JIP | Talk 15:17, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Image problem

I've recently nominated a few pictures on Ifd, because they are in violation of the original owner's copyright. It clearly states it cannot be used without prior permission by the webmaster. I have yet to see this proof. In addition, I've attempted to use one of the photos, and recieved this response, from the very same user that defended his actions. A couple of minutes ago, I came across Copyright Violations, and saw that I could nominate for immediate deletion.

Any help? What should I do? Thanks in advance. Pacific Coast Highway|Spam me! 12:39, April 8, 2007 (UTC)

The image should either be listed at WP:CP (not ifd), or simply tagged following the instructions in the orange box at WP:CP. If properly tagged any admin going for deleting speedies will find it and it will disappear quickly. — Sverdrup 11:19, 30 November 2005 (UTC)
The guy even blanked the ifd template on one of them. Pacific Coast Highway 01:29, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Merging two articles

I posted comments on Talk:Ushabti, but I'm afraid my comments may not be seen if I just leave them there. It seems to me that the Ushabti article should either be deleted or merged/redirected into the Shabti article. The trouble is that I'm not sure how to proceed. I tried looking through the help pages, but it's hard to find the information I need in the limited time I have (my lunch break at work). Could someone tell me what I need to do, or do it for me in a way that will allow me to see how it was done? I see this sort of thing occasionally and am never sure what to do about it. Unfortunately, I'm rarely able to spend more than a few minutes at a time helping out with Wikipedia, so I tend to look for projects I can complete quickly. --CKA3KA (Skazka) 20:46, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] template

I created a template to write categories without having to type 'category' (I always spell it 'cateogyr' because of typos) and on the first page I used it, the template didn't work. Why didn't it work? Is it because of subst? Maybe that I used subst: and User: together? It just appeared on the screen as {{subst:User:Thelb4/cat|British record producers|Parsons, Alan}}. Thelb4 21:04, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

I tried again, it worked now.--Patrick 01:42, 1 December 2005 (UTC)
  • Wouldn't it be easier to just use the preview button and correct your typo before saving. This template is so much longer, I'd make tons more mistakes when using it than the regular code. - 131.211.210.16 09:08, 1 December 2005 (UTC)
    • I realised that and will not use it again, but I'm curious as to why it just appeared like that. Thelb4 19:18, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] December 1

[edit] wikipedia

What does wikipedia mean?

Wikipedia is a papier-mâché word formed out of wiki (i.e. a group of Web pages that allows users to add content) and -pedia (from encyclopaedia). In other words, it means the free encyclopedia; free meaning open for anyone to edit. Izehar 00:03, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

It's an ancient Celtic word that roughly translates to "look up the corresponding article" :P -- Ferkelparade π 00:05, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] cascading William F. Gibsons, redirects & disambigs

There currently are 4 William F. Gibson pages, at least:

1) redirect William F. Gibson => redirect William Ford Gibson

(fixed) William F. Gibson => redirects to William Gibson (novelist)

2) redirect William Ford Gibson => article William Ford Gibson (writer)

(fixed) William Ford Gibson => redirects to William Gibson (novelist)

3) disambiguation William Gibson

(OK) William Gibson => disambig page

4) article William Ford Gibson (writer)

(OK) Doesn't exist.

How do I set it up so that a search on William F. Gibson gets straight to 4) article William Ford Gibson (writer), without having to go through intermediary pages such as 2) and 3) ?

--Kessler 00:22, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

Things ^ up there do look a bit confusing however, the main article you that want to go "straight to", William Ford Gibson (writer), doesn't exist. Before someone fixes the redirects problem, are you satisfied with the existing article title William Gibson (novelist)? --hydnjo talk 01:18, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

Oops yes I didn't check my link: I was referring to William Gibson (novelist). And altho I haven't read that article in detail it looks OK to me: my concern right now is with the redirecting -- I'd like my William F. Gibson search to get to that article direct. --Kessler 01:28, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

OK now (that part anyway). --hydnjo talk 01:51, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Identifying New Articles I have created

I can easily get a list of all my contributions, but these don't identify which of them was a new article. I haven't created many, but there are some. Where do I find this info? JackofOz 01:06, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

Is this a hard question, or am I not being clear? I want a list of all the new articles that I have ever created. How do I find it? JackofOz 09:14, 1 December 2005 (UTC)
It's a hard question. I don't think you could do it easily without an SQL query (and then I'm not sure how easy it would be...), which could be done either through a developer or by adding a new special page to the next version of MediaWiki... I may be wrong, though. jnothman talk 10:12, 1 December 2005 (UTC)
Thank you. This is very odd. They're all listed on "My contributions", just not identified as new. Minor edits are still marked m, so how come new articles are not marked N, as they are on Recent Changes or my Watchlist? It just seems so intuitively obvious to me that it should be that way, that, not being an IT person, I don't understand why it isn't. JackofOz 12:40, 1 December 2005 (UTC)
I am something of an IT person and I also can't see why Wikipedia can't store information about which contributions are new article creations and which are merely edits. Wikipedia already saves information about the contribution's date and its user in some database table, it shouldn't be too much difficulty to use an additional column, or a flag bit in some other column, to store whether the contribution created the article or edited it. Of course this would mean changes to the MediaWiki software, but it shouldn't be too hard for the developers to implement. However getting it done retroactively seems too much to hope for, as then the whole database would have to be queried thoroughly, which could take days, possibly even weeks. — JIP | Talk 15:14, 2 December 2005 (UTC)
I couldn't find a bug related to this, so I filed a new one at Bugzilla; see Bug 4150. — Catherine\talk 01:28, 3 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Wikipedia for Windows/Linux?

I doubt this is the place to ask, but I dunno where one should:

Might someone point me at a link for installing the Wikipedia's data on one's machine and setting it up to be accessed via web server? In other words, something like "Download the SQL export, import it into MySQL, then download any of these three software packages: X (for PERL), Y (for php), and X (Java), then plug in the corresponding front end code, found (here), using any web server software which supports CGI-BIN."

Something like that. Pretty please. 209.33.24.118 02:57, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

What's an actual link for instructions to dump and import the data, and a link to mediawiki? Kaz 03:10, 1 December 2005 (UTC)
The pages you want are:
-- jnothman talk 04:07, 1 December 2005 (UTC)
UltraMegaThanks! Kaz 06:49, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Random Logouts

I AM SO EFFING SICK OF BEING RANDOMLY LOGGED OUT! The above was (as that ip always is) me. Kaz 03:00, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

  • Click "Remember me" (ie cookies) You'll need a database dump and import, and a mediawiki installation. Not that hard. Wikibofh 03:05, 1 December 2005 (UTC)
I always have Remember Me clicked, and have cookies fully allowed on my machine as well. This is a problem which has grown gradually over the last year or two...I used to stay logged in for weeks or months, then sometimes it would only be days or weeks before a random logout, then it was hours or days, now it's every few hours, occasionally it's just minutes apart. Kaz 17:36, 1 December 2005 (UTC)
  • Go to My preferences and see if you have remember across sessions checked. Until I checked that button I had the same problem--Dakota t e 19:48, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Server locations

Where is Wikipedia run? It is strange to see that the last time a page was edited was tomorrow morning.—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 68.119.44.82 (talk • contribs) 03:07, 1 December 2005 (UTC).

[edit] help please?

what is the edition of wikipedia?

Maybe Wikipedia:Citing Wikipedia would help? -- SCZenz 03:53, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] My "test" has been removed?

"This message is regarding the page Opium. Thanks for experimenting with Wikipedia. Your test worked, and has been removed. Please use the sandbox for any other tests you want to do. Take a look at the welcome page if you would like to learn more about contributing. Thanks.

Sycthos 04:24, 1 December 2005 (UTC)"

Why thank you Sycthos, bot or mod, comparable as though they may be. I feel all welcome now. I guess adding Edgar Allan Poe to the list of famous opium users is stubid.

More like a complaint than a question, but couldn't find a complaint section, which annoys me further. Pssh, copyleft people and mistakes? Get out of here.

—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 80.160.181.90 (talk • contribs) 05:40, 1 December 2005.

The complaints section is Wikipedia:General complaints. You could also have left a message on User_talk:Sycthos to ask about the message. He (an ordinary editor, like you) may have just made a mistake. I'll look more and then tell you what I think happened. -- SCZenz 06:00, 1 December 2005 (UTC)
After looking, I am not sure if you edit was right for the article or not, but it surely wasn't vandalism or a newbie test. I'll leave Sycthos a message asking him to be more careful. I'm sorry about the mixup, and I hope very much that you continue to edit Wikipedia. -- SCZenz 06:06, 1 December 2005 (UTC)
  • Did you provide a source of the information, when you made that addition? - 131.211.210.16 09:10, 1 December 2005 (UTC)
  • Sorry about the mishap. I did not thoroughly research Edgar Allen Poe before reverting and thought this was not a good-faith edit. Please re-do the addition to Opium. Also, please note that the notice was based on a template and the exact wording may not be accurate. Again, sorry about the issue. Sycthos 22:34, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] I'm having a hard time adding an image

I'm having an incredibly tough time adding a simple Temple University logo to my Temple football page. I just keep getting that box to ask me to fill out the information and when i do that the logo doesn't show up in any context but a word file. As far as copywright because it's a generic logo, it's considered "fair use" so that shouldn't be a problem. A similar example is listed on the Villanova University page with its logo. Thanks for any help you can give me. Mike

If you've already uploaded the image to Wikipedia servers here, then follow the Wikipedia:Picture tutorial to show it on a page. Gflores Talk 06:23, 1 December 2005 (UTC)
Be sure that if you claim "fair use" you know what it means. It is a specific legal term, meaning you are breaking copyright in a way that's allowed; you must give credit to the copyright holder and a valid reason for the claim of fair use. Notinasnaid 08:50, 1 December 2005 (UTC)
  • And don't forget to add a source. - 131.211.210.16 09:11, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Seleucia disambiguation

I was just passing this page, and it seemed ripe for a bit of editting, as the part I wanted turned out to be the last sentence. I thought: "aha, this really is a geo disambiguation page!" But after I started to work on it, I discovered that the several paragraphs had actually been separate pages, and are now combined (having redirects from them) -- no sections, it was all one big amalgam (so I made them sections now for clarity). What's the procedure for "undoing" the consolidation? It turns out there are nearly 100 links to this page, so not for the faint-hearted! I've got no vested interest in the content. (Given directions, though, I'll gladly do the work.) William Allen Simpson 07:32, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

Well, as long as the redirect pages weren't AFD'd with a result of merge (and it doesn't seem they were), I think you can just copy-and-paste the content to the various articles you think it should be in (noting where it came from, for GFDL purposes). However, you'd then have to make sure that all the existing links were to the relevant article. It is a lot of work, and the way it is now probably isn't the end of the world. In any case, you should wait for more comments in case I haven't thought of something. -- SCZenz 09:03, 1 December 2005 (UTC)
Thanks! No more comments were posted. Followed the plan, am about 1/3 way done with the links. Some of the ecclesiastical links are not clear (and already have unknown links to a Council at Seleucia), so somebody more familiar should update them as found. William Allen Simpson 00:25, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] We have an illegal immigrant!

Re: Parellada. This article is part of the English wikipedia, yet it's written in (95% sure of this) Spanish. Should the article be deleted, translated or moved? It c ertainly needs copyediting and wikifying... but there's not much this poor old monoglot can do right now. Should I be posting this message somewhere else? Is Articles Requiring Attention just for important articles, for example? *Satis 11:15, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

The topic of the article *was* a Spanish family name (non-notable, only person with that name mentioned was some backwards village mayor in the 17th century); Parellada is, however, also a type of grape, so I wrote some basic information about that and made it a {{wine-stub}}. ナイトスタリオン ✉ 12:19, 1 December 2005 (UTC)
Were the article more notable and longer, but nonetheless in a language other than English, it may be virtuous to list it on Wikipedia:Requests for translation. jnothman talk 12:22, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Random Table Error

On loading my user page, the page normally appears as two tables set out side-by-side like columns (as it should). However, about 1 in 4 four times when loading the page, the tables stack on top of each other instead of side by side. The error normally fixes after refresh, but oddly, the error only occurs in Firefox, not Internet Explorer! Is it a fault with the browser, or the table layout? smurrayinchester(User), (Ho Ho Ho!) 15:46, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

Perhaps update to Firefox 1.5, if you haven't already and see if it fixes it? Gflores Talk 20:54, 1 December 2005 (UTC)
Have similar problem using Netscape 7.01 with Yahoo! I suspect the coding has become so complicated that sometimes our old favorites just miss a tag ... sort of like us old farts! :-) ttocsmij 08DEC05

[edit] Sandbox?

Hiya, I'm a college professor, and I encourage my students to be critical thinkers regarding Wikipedia and the internet as I think Wikipedia and the internet have similar strengths and weaknesses. As such, I have changed a page in a crazy way (and then immediately change it back).

I got a message to do this in the sandbox, but have since been unable to find said sandbox--can anyone point me in the correct direction? Can I do it without my students realizing it is "fake"? I really want them to think critically about what they read and putting that Abe Lincoln was the son of teenage mutant ninja turtles and seeing that live on the screen (which we immediately change and talk about ethical communication) has gotten the point across more clearly than anything else I've tried. Thanks!

Technically, one of the rules of Wikipedia is 'Do not disrupt Wikipedia to make a point'. However if you are looking for the sandbox, it is here: WP:Sandbox. It won't just contain your information though; if you want to do that you could try starting a user account (Click 'Create user account') at the top of the screen, and then use your User Page for that sort of thing. smurrayinchester(User), (Ho Ho Ho!) 16:49, 1 December 2005 (UTC)
If you mean one of these messages:

Thanks for experimenting with Wikipedia. Your test worked, and has been reverted or removed. Please use the sandbox for any other tests you want to do. Take a look at the welcome page if you would like to learn more about contributing to our encyclopedia. Thanks.

Please stop adding nonsense to Wikipedia. It is considered vandalism. If you would like to experiment, use the sandbox. Thank you.

They are the first and second level vandalism warnings. The first may be skipped if the change to the article looks to have been deliberate disruption, rather than a naive user experimenting. After the third one, your account, or failing that, your IP address becomes eligible for progressively longer blocks on editing. After the fourth you become eligible for listing as a known vandal. In principle this could progress up to permanent banning of the whole sub-network from which you are operating, and/or contacting the abuse department of your service provider. Most people get bored before then. --David Woolley 18:05, 1 December 2005 (UTC)
I think the point that you are making is an excellent one. All too often people complain at the editability of Wikipedia, as if that makes it useless, and the rest of the internet doesn't mirror the same faults (only larger). And it ignores the point that if it wasn't editable, it wouldn't exist. But, on the other hand the aim of Wikipedia is to provide an ever improving encyclopedia, not to be an experiment in social anarchy. (There are such experiments: Wikipedia is only one of many wikis). And there are two problems with using this method. One is that many people here find the addition of bad information, even temporarily, deeply offensive. It happens all the time, but that doesn't make it better. Second, people resent the extra time they may have to spend monitoring the changes that might arise from your lessons (yes, they will check the changes, and then examine the other changes you have done when they find you are adding nonsense, to make sure other articles aren't damaged): time which might be spent in improving articles rather than fire fighting. Hence, you will find Wikipedia is not without its defences, and you do invite increasingly severe blocks to your editing, as described above. Getting your students to write an essay on what they think will be the short, medium and long term effects of Wikipedia might be a good way to get them to think, once they understand something of how it works. Notinasnaid 20:17, 1 December 2005 (UTC)
If you want to show the risks in using Wikipedia, you can use purely passive methods. Just use the article history, and, in particular, you can use the compare versions options to create a URL that shows exactly what changes a vandal made, or to show the changes made during an edit war. (Please don't use this on edits that created or removed a copyright violation.)
Any high profile article (e.g. one that has been featured) will show lots of vandalism that you can select from, and almost any controversial article will show edit wars. --David Woolley 23:14, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Tables

I am in no way code-literate (other than what i've picked up through copying, pasting, and changing the text contained therein) as far as tables go, so if someone could take a look at Apollo Sunshine (album) and tell me why the date "2003" under "Apollo Sunshine Chronology" is bold, i'd really like that. a whole lot. jfg284 you were saying? 20:30, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

It's not bold to me, nor should it be. Gflores Talk 20:46, 1 December 2005 (UTC)
that's what i thought, too. but on two of my browsers, it reads with the 2003 as bold but the 2005 as normal. and it was frustrating the hell out of me. oh well.jfg284 you were saying? 20:55, 1 December 2005 (UTC)
At first I thought you were crazy and then I viewed it in IE and it was bold! :) I fixed it now. The new album infobox template should prevent these problems from happening again. Thanks Jfg284. Gflores Talk 21:06, 1 December 2005 (UTC)
excellent. thanks a bunch.jfg284 you were saying? 21:12, 1 December 2005 (UTC)
I don't know whether you saw what was done to fix the problem, but what had happened was you opened a cell with ! instead of |. The difference between these is that | defines a normal "table data" cell, where as ! defines a "table header" cell. In an ordinary table, the latter would usually be found across the top or down the left to indicate that the cell contained a heading and not data, so this cell is often formatted bold. See Help:Table.
And Gflores, although I thought that was the case, I didn't know where to find the correct difference in the history because you didn't use an edit summary. Please do. With every edit. (I notice you have generally used none.)
-- jnothman talk 21:49, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Mental Imagery Articles

Hello,

I am a student at Harvard College, a research aide in the Stephen M. Kosslyn Neuropsychology Lab, and the creator of the user "KosslynLab".

This summer, in my capacity as an employee of the Kosslyn Lab, I prepared and posted a cluster of articles about Mental Imagery, Motor Imagery, Visual Imagery, and Auditory Imagery. The articles were adapted from a Nature article by Kosslyn, Thompson, and Ganis, all of whom gave me permission to post the content on wikipedia. I also received permission via email from Nature to post the content.

I was dismayed to find that the articles that I posted were recently deleted. Users worried about copyright violations and that the content constituted "original research". I apologize if I violated any wiki regulations - I am a new user and I certainly have much to learn about the wiki world. However, since I do have permission to post this content from all parties involved, it is a shame that the world no longer has access to it.

I would like to repost the articles in a form acceptable to the wiki community. Can you give me pointers about how I might do so?


Thanks,

KosslynLab

Hello, KosslynLab.
  1. The only article you have edited is Auditory imagery. At the time of your last edit, the page looked like this. The page is original research (see also Original research), and Wikipedia only allows actual facts.
  2. Don't worry about not realising that this is not the wiki-way; you can still contribute to that article with actual facts, as you seem to know a lot on the subject.
  3. If the pages are on the Internet, you may link to them an External links section (see Wikipedia:How to edit a page#Links and URL for the how-to).
Thelb4 20:51, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

Hmmm... I certainly made all four pages that I mentioned. See here.

If there was a page that you created that has been deleted (but it meets that standards for inclusion, ie it's not orgianl research) you can ask an admin to restore the article. Maybe you were not logged in when you made those other pages, so they don't show up in your contributions.--Commander Keane 21:15, 1 December 2005 (UTC)
Edits to deleted articles don't show up in your contributions (logged in or not). To request a review of the deletion, please see Wikipedia:Undeletion policy. -- Rick Block (talk) 01:11, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] How does each traditon define the purpose of baptism

This isn't an appropriate question for the helpdesk. Please ask at the Reference Desk and be more specific. jnothman talk 21:51, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] HTML to Wiki

Is there a HTML to Wiki translator anywhere? --Member 23:37, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Tools/Editing tools#From HTML. jnothman talk 23:43, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] December 2

[edit] Lists: columns and numbered bullet points

Is there an easy way to split a list into two (or more) distinct columns? I have been editing the planemo article and the list is far too long to go down one side of the screen.

Additionally, is there any way to maintain the number bullet points down a list when one of the numbered points is then broken down into further bullets? e.g.

  1. Mercury
  2. Venus
  3. Earth
  • Luna
  1. Mars

Here "Mars" is given the number 1, and not 4 as it should be.

You have a problem in your markup: the line with Luna starts with : which indicates indentation, rather than the nesting of a list. The correct markup is:
#Mercury
#Venus
#Earth
#*Luna
#Mars
As regards your second question, there is a description of what to do at Help:List#Multi-column numbered lists. Basically you need to use two concepts:
  • HTML lists which start at a given number, eg:
<ol start="111"><li>a
<li>b</ol>
gives:
  1. a
  2. b
  • Emulating columns with a table (see example at linked page).
-- jnothman talk 01:39, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Old version a .jpg and new verison a .gif

I made a smaller (in kb) and easyer to see version of Image:Communistpartyrunstates.jpg (link). The problem is that if i try to upload a new version, the fact that the current is a .jpg and the new is a .gif conflicts, so is there any way to update it or do i have to upload the new then delete the current one. --ThrashedParanoid 03:01, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

As the old image gave you the idea to upload this one, I think it would be a GFDL violation to delete the old version. Can't you just upload your gif and tell the uploader to put it at Image:Communistpartyrunstates.jpg? - Mgm|(talk) 05:55, 2 December 2005 (UTC)
This is not as simple as it seems as the JPG version claims to be based on a PNG version, and has no other copyright information and the PNG version has been deleted, so the PNG version now has an invalid copyright status. I cannot find the deletion debate record for the PNG version. JPG is certainly the wrong format. PNG is possibly better than GIF except for some limits on browser support.
Also the link for the proposed new version doesn't lead to an image. If that is just a simple oonversion to GIF, it shouldn't be used to replace the existing higher resolution image. However it was created, it will need valid copyright status information for the underlying map. --David Woolley 11:18, 2 December 2005 (UTC)
The old JPEG says it will be deleted very soon unless its copyright status is cleared up. So your GIF must be deleted too, unless you can solve this. Notinasnaid 11:52, 2 December 2005 (UTC)
Note: I added the {{nolicense}} flag when I discovered that the licence trail was broken. There are, however, two ways in which the new map could be based on it: one is to manipulate the actual image, in which case there is a copyright dependency, and the other is to use the facts that it conveys, in which case the problem is that this image also needs to be flagged with {{unreferenced}} (note that you are not allowed to use Wikipedia items as sources in this second context).
Without more information about the PNG version, I don't know how the JPG version was derived. Unless the PNG was deleted for copyright violation, it may be necessary to re-instate it to maintain a complete edit history. --David Woolley 12:29, 2 December 2005 (UTC)
OK. The talk page for the image gives a good URL for the GIF version. The GIF version does have a copyright problem because it is derived from something else that has a copyright problem. The cleanup of the image has also made the country boundaries uneven. I think you need to start from first principles and re-source the data about the countries and the obtain a base map with known, and usable, copyright status. The captioning is also misleading in that it seems to imply that the states are currently communist. --David Woolley 13:07, 2 December 2005 (UTC)
I've now found the correct link to the upstream version and propagated its licensing and copyright owner information, although I'm still wary about the copyright on tbe base map. As the upstream version is .PNG and therefore lossless, it should be updated and the JPG version abandoned. --David Woolley 13:48, 5 December 2005 (UTC)
Excellent, it appears my clipboard is a little messed up, so it didnt paste the correct URL the first time (wierd, rather confused about it myself). So should we just replace the links on the Communist state wiki page to use this image?
After you've updated it; the JPG has an extra country. --David Woolley 15:44, 5 December 2005 (UTC)
Okay, added Somalia, Nicaragua, and Benin to the PNG version, all that is left is to have the redudnant .jpg deleted. --ThrashedParanoid 15:55, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Edit count

I notice a lot of people 'advertise' their edit count. How is this statistic obtained? can someone tell me how I can find out mine (for my own vanity/interesting). novacatz 04:02, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

The simplest method is Kate's tool. Annoyingly, this is currently unavailable, and you have to count your edits manually. That is, go to your contributions page, view 500 edits, and find how many pages you can get through, 500 at a time. Then cut down to 100 at a time, etc, until you have a close count. jnothman talk 04:11, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] WP Search Engines

Are any search engines available to search WP only? Halcatalyst 05:07, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

Yes, Google for one. If you put "site:en.wikipedia.org" (without the quotes) into the search field along with the words that you're searching for, Google will only return results that are in the English Wikipedia. Dismas|(talk) 05:12, 2 December 2005 (UTC)
  • There's also WikiWax which I can recommend. - Mgm|(talk) 05:53, 2 December 2005 (UTC)
Clusty has a special Wikipedia "tab". - IMSoP 23:43, 2 December 2005 (UTC)
A9 also has a "Wikipedia" check box; checking two boxes will display results side by side. — Catherine\talk 01:40, 3 December 2005 (UTC)
LuMriX is similar to WikiWax.

Thanks to all who responded. The WP link on my Firefox search window is most cool! Halcatalyst 04:00, 3 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] monobook.js

How do I edit my monobook.js? When I go to "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Bmdavll/monobook.js" I get an error message: The database did not find the text of a page that it should have found, named "User:Bmdavll/monobook.js". Trying to edit that brings me to a new page. Do I need to create it first? Bmdavll 06:22, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

It's a strange error message, but yes, just edit the page. Maybe see Help:User style and User Scripts project. What's important is what you see at http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:Bmdavll/monobook.js&action=raw&ctype=text/javascript&dontcountme=s as this is what is loaded by the browser. jnothman talk 06:50, 2 December 2005 (UTC)
Yes, you need to create it first if you haven't created one before (I'm not sure how strange the error message is), just like creating a user page, talk page, and other pages in your user space. Of course, aside from you, only administrators may create/edit your monobook.js file. So if you haven't created one, it's extremely unlikely anyone has already created one for you without telling you, so yes, you should go ahead and create it. — Knowledge Seeker দ 07:11, 2 December 2005 (UTC)
  • Of course it didn't find the page. If it doesn't exist yet, there's nothing to find. - 131.211.210.14 09:16, 2 December 2005 (UTC)
What's strange are the words "should have found" in the message, and its appearance in a preformatted text box which requires horizontal scrolling. jnothman talk 10:53, 3 December 2005 (UTC)
I think the preformatted box is a product of how .js files render, as I tried to fix that when I made the edit to the message but it didn't work. Thryduulf 13:18, 3 December 2005 (UTC)

I've added a note to the error message (MediaWiki:Missingarticle) about this, so it now reads:

The database did not find the text of a page that it should have found, named "$1".

This might be because no page has yet been created with this name, in which case you can start it by clicking the "edit this page" link.

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

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

Thryduulf 12:44, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Can't login or register

Whwn I try to log in or register it tells me I must have cookies enabled which they are. I am in Malaysia since early November and just today got internet access which might be the reason but I can't see why it would be. There are testy messages on the talk page of this ip and I sure would like to distance myself from them because they are not mine. I am a registered user with over 800 edits and I have never vandalised. Any user here got any advice. I would appreciate any input. thank you.--219.93.174.106 09:08, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Login screen

MediaWiki:Loginend has been moved to MediaWiki:Signupend because of some redesign, but in the process the username instructions disappeared of the login screen. Can someone fill me in about what happened in this redesign and why the mover blanked it after moving?

  • Forgot to sign. - Mgm|(talk) 16:32, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Always Quickly Booted After Signing In, Even Though Cookies Allowed

I have been using Wikipedia for some time, but only recently created an account. After doing so, I immediately ran into a confusing problem. My browser, Internet Explorer to be exact, is set to allow cookies in most cases and I even added wikipedia.org to my list of "Always Allowed" domains. I tried setting by browser privacy settings to entirely eliminate restrictions on cookies, yet still experienced the same problem. When I log in, everything appears in order and it says "Login Successful." However, after I click on a link or run a search only once, occasionally twice, the buttons in the top right corner are replaced by "Sign in / create account." Additionally, when I do appear to be logged in and I attempt to edit my preferences, add a site to my watchlist, or perform any action related to my account, I get a message stating that I "must be logged in to do that." No matter how many times I try logging in and repeating the process, I always get the same result. What is wrong and how can I fix this?

  • Did you select: "remember my password"? - Mgm|(talk) 11:16, 2 December 2005 (UTC)
  • Yeah, I always check the "remember me" box when I log in and I appear to be signed in when I initially access the home page. I tried accessing Wikipedia on the same computer, but using Mozilla Firefox instead of Internet Explorer - this had no effect.
See discussion at Wikipedia:Help Desk#Random Logouts above: it might help. (and always sign your contibutions, please, using four tildes, i.e. ~~~~, which automatically generates a signature) SiGarb 18:02, 10 December 2005 (UTC)
  • After logging in, clicking "My Preferences," receiving the "Not Logged In" error message for about ten repetitions, it finally allowed me to see the "My Preferences" page. The "Remember Me Across Sessions" box was already checked. I tried saving my preferences again to be sure, but got the "Not Logged In" message when I clicked the button. I'm very confused. - 67.142.130.23 01:16, 11 December 2005 (UTC) (Login is "Raoul-Duke" - can't stay logged in to save)

[edit] Force link to open in new window

Anyone know how to do this pleae ? In my wiki I have several external links, and the back button on the navigator doesn't always work. I know the user can force a new window (eg using IE via a right-click, open in new window) but I would like to make this automatic. Many thanks in advance Hilary

Do you mean you want to change how links work in a Wikipedia article? I don't think that would be appreciated. Notinasnaid 14:46, 2 December 2005 (UTC)
No, I agree that wouldn't be good practise. Actually this is a problem on a wiki I've done for work purposes so style is under my control
Very common question, this one; it is, therefore, on the MediaWiki FAQ, which points you to meta:Opening external links in a new window. Note that this isn't really the right place to ask this - see http://mediawiki.org for where to find help with MediaWiki. Also note that whenever this has come up on the development mailing lists, people have pointed out fairly forcefully that you shouldn't really force such behaviour on your users; they can right-click and do it themselves... - IMSoP 23:41, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Targets in Articles

Is it possible to place a target between Headers in articles? If so, how?

Many thanks,

Yesselman 14:54, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

What do you mean by "target"? — JIP | Talk 15:05, 2 December 2005 (UTC)
What he means is <a name="fred"> in old HTML dialects, and the same with id in modern ones, so that you can then have [[#fred]] as on on page link to it or [[Article#fred]], as an off page one, but without having ====fred====, or any other heading like display of fred.
He shouldn't be trying this on Wikipedia because it will confuse other editors, especially if he clashes with a heading added later, and because it will represent information that is lost when the article is printed.--David Woolley 17:52, 2 December 2005 (UTC)
Section headers are can be targetted, but since such links aren't updated as moved articles are people are discouraged to link to such a header and are recommended to just link to the main article instead. - Mgm|(talk) 16:35, 2 December 2005 (UTC)
I agree with all the caveats already stated about why it might not be a good idea, but if you do want to do it, I believe you can use <div id="foo">...</div> to do this. Just beware of using the same ID more than once - like when someone put such a tag in a template which was used multiple times on one page... - IMSoP 19:40, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Unable to view deleted edits

I recently deleted a vandalism redirect for the second time. However, when I visit the deleted redirect, it merely shows "View or restore 2 deleted edits?" without making it into a hyperlink. Thus I am unable to actually view those edits, even though I am an admin. Viewing deleted edits of other pages works fine. Here is the link to the deleted redirect: [5]. What is the reason for this? — JIP | Talk 15:04, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

  • I'm not sure, but I have a sneaking suspicion devs have removed it entirely from the database, so we can't view any of it. - Mgm|(talk) 16:39, 2 December 2005 (UTC)
  • I came looking for help and clicked on your link and I saw the page big bold many worded article name. Now how did I do that, shouldn't been able to. Everything here is schized today.--Che Perez 22:04, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] <noinclude> tag?

What does the <noinclude> tag do? (For example:Template:Nasdaq) Shawnc 16:10, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

In a template, if you wanted to include something that shouldn't be in the actual article (like a category of that type of template, or template usage instructions), then you would surround it with <noinclude> and </noinclude>. Likewise, a template that puts something in the article (a category for example), you would surround it with <includeonly> and </includeonly>. Thelb4 16:17, 2 December 2005 (UTC)
I see, thank you for the response. Shawnc 16:26, 2 December 2005 (UTC)
Is there a page in Wikipedia that documents this feature? I know there's http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Help:Template#Noinclude_and_includeonly at Meta, but I don't see it here. — Catherine\talk 01:56, 3 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] What is going on?

Every other edit I make makes a stupid error message pop up; and then I get logged out sometimes. I ruined my edits of Military ranks of Mexico, and I was hoping that someone could help. Is there a problem with Wikipedia's servers? εγκυκλοπαίδεια*(talk) 19:57, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

It happens from time to time. You should still be able to go back, while keeping your edit text and hitting Save page again. Gflores Talk 22:24, 2 December 2005 (UTC)
Until then, it just sucks, huh? :). εγκυκλοπαίδεια*(talk) 02:49, 3 December 2005 (UTC)
If you wantt to buy Wikipedia a server farm, I'm sure they'd be happy... jnothman talk 13:02, 3 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Unecessary links

Can someone direct me to the help page or policy regarding links? The reason I ask is this: I often find articles cluttered with links that aren't beneficial. Some seem to double bracket every word in an article that may lead to another article without regard if it adds anything but color to the topic. Other than clutter, I think that spurious linking likely adds to the tasks of the disambiguation project. Likely this is a common question, and I'll be glad to RTFM if anyone can tell me which M to R. =) --Bad carpet 22:17, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

Sure, it's in the Manual of Style. Gflores Talk 22:22, 2 December 2005 (UTC)
Thanks! --Bad carpet 22:30, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Template

How do you make a deletion template that isn't for speedy deletion?--Anti-Anonymex2Come to my page! I've gone caliente loco! 23:04, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

You mean {{AfD}}? Says something about "This page is being considered for deletion in accordance with the deletion policy"? Those are the only two deletion templates I know of. Be sure to read the instructions on the AfD page before marking a page for deletion. Hermione1980 23:12, 2 December 2005 (UTC)
You're best off reading the 3-step process instructions at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion#How to list pages for deletion, but first read the Wikipedia:Deletion policy. Because this process takes three steps, there have been a few scripts made to speed it up. See the User Scripts project if you are interested. jnothman talk 13:01, 3 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Signature

What just happened to my signature? It was fine several weeks ago. -- King of <font color="red">&hearts;</font> [[User talk:King of Hearts|<font color="red">&diams;</font>]] [[Special:Contributions/King of Hearts|&clubs;]] [[Special:Emailuser/King of Hearts|&spades;]] 23:46, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

Wikipedia:How to fix your signature. Thryduulf 00:21, 3 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] December 3

[edit] Deleted article

I decided to make my first contribution to wikipedia. Created an article on Richard Gregg (an empty link refered from Simple living). After being put to quick deletion after 2 days was deleted. How do I refute the deletion criteria? I was given a reason (not important enough). I explained why I didn't agree. The article was deleted without further explaination. Is this a normal way of acting here? I dont want to defend here the relevance of the article only ask if this could be considered abuse of deletion powers and if not how a person can start the discussion about the relevance of the article? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 81.193.82.160 (talk • contribs) 02:55, December 3 2005 (UTC).

  • I hope someone can answer this question. Gregg was the first American to develop a substantial theory of nonviolent resistance (see his The Power of Non-Violence, 1934). Martin Luther King, Jr., said this was one of the five books that most influenced him. Halcatalyst 04:08, 3 December 2005 (UTC)
    • The link to MLK Jr. (unmentioned in the article) convinced me the speedy was an error. However, it should clearly assert the importance of the subject, and be expanded. The connection to MLK in particular should be added and cited from a reputable source. -- SCZenz 06:44, 3 December 2005 (UTC)
  • The article stated he was an author who coined a word, thus the person who tagged it thought it was just another person. If you had included the fact he started the theory of nonviolent resistence you would've established notability and avoided it being deleted. It's all in how info is presented. Perhaps Wikipedia:Stub will help. - Mgm|(talk) 09:58, 3 December 2005 (UTC)
  • I am the poster of the original article. Congratulations! The article is republished and in a much better form, restoring my faith on this comunity. However one question remains: an article was deleted without any attempt of discussion. Even if I did attempt to refute the criteria and start a discussion my reasoning was no answered. The relevance of the article was clearly stated on the external links and on the original article himself (was an empty article coming from another entry and he coined a philophical word). I know vanity can be a problem, but deleting a first contribution without giving further explainations on the discussion can be also a form of vandalism.
  • See WP:CSD for a list of the very precise rules that govern when an article can be speedily deleted. Except for the specific cases described there, deletion is a much more involved process (see for example WP:CP which covers copyright problems and WP:AFD which covers the normal, slow, deletion process). RJFJR 17:06, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Is it necessary to give an additional external link?

Hi,

1... I made some minor alterations to the Down Syndrome page and was wondering how I let anyone know that the source of my information is already contained in an existing external link? I know it is a requirement to provide the sources so that it's not simply me voicing off.

2... I also made some minor changes to the Down Syndrome page just before signing up, is there anyway to associate the earlier change with my new identity?

Thanks Donald.

Hello, Donald.
  1. I think that the best thing to do with Down Syndrome is just put the external link again at the bottom (unless it already is, in that case you would move it from external links to sources).
  2. I don't think that associating changes is possible. (It could be done by developers, but their service is currently inactive.)
Thelb4 08:18, 3 December 2005 (UTC)


Hi,

I've just left it in the external links, as there are no sources listed for the page.

Thank you, Donald.

Sources is a proposed new name for References, and I proposed it precisely because people confuse references and futher reading. The article doesn't have a References section either. I think you should start such a section and put your source in there. There are only three inline sources, so you might as well add the others as well. At least that will start the article towards being properly sourced.
I'd also suggest that you consider a change to Harvard referencing. Wikipedia can't link those well but it is much easier to quickly see what source was used for a particular fact, and to identify and repair all instances of broken links when a page gets moved. (You should use a full citation, e.g. as produced by {{Web reference}} in Sources/References, so that web resources can be re-located if they move. (That would be desirable for all the External links, whether or not they are sources, but there are a lot of them.)
A change to Harvard style requires consensus from everyone who has provided inline references, but as there are only three, that ought not to be too difficult to achieve. --David Woolley 10:00, 3 December 2005 (UTC)
Hi again. That was much more difficult than I anticipated.
Could you please check the page and see if it is what you wanted - I'm still not sure if I fully understood your direction correctly - I checked out the Harvard link - but it doesn't really tell one how to cite a web page.
I realised you asked for consensus, but I have no idea from who or how to get it. The only one I 'moved' was the book author, the others I left in tact, but marked them by numbers so the reader could cross reference them to it's source, under the Source heading. You'll see what I mean when you see it.
If I've done it wrong, please make at least one correction to act as a guide for me to fix the rest.
When I respond to your comments here, I'm doing it via the page editing feature. Is this the correct way to do it?
Thank you,
Donald.
I've done one. The Harvard reference for that would be (Urqhart 2005). Sometimes you have to improvise the author, e.g. use the company. The accessed date is important, because web sites change easily. Also, good web references are often copies of journal articles, and should be referenced as such.
The problem with explicit link numbering is that it becomes difficult to maintain as the page is updated. There's also an expectation that the links will link to the full citation.
By the way, I would try and find a better source than the one used in that first reference. It looks like a secondary or tertiary source that is tainted by really existing for commercial reasons. The web design is horrible, too. You should really be looking for ones aimed at the medical profession.--David Woolley 15:20, 3 December 2005 (UTC)


LOL. I've copied the page so that I can work on it on Monday and reversed the changes I've made already. BUT how do I get the permissions?

"A change to Harvard style requires consensus from everyone who has provided inline references, but as there are only three, that ought not to be too difficult to achieve. --David Woolley 10:00, 3 December 2005 (UTC)"

Thanks Donald.
Firstly, a move to Harvard style is just a suggestion, although one other advantage is that it will print much better becasue the URLs won't get expanded at the point of hte citation. Also, agreeing on a change of style applies to any change of style, not just one to Harvard.
I think you only need agreement amongst people who have provided in-line citations, so one approach is to search the history to find who added them, and ask on their talk pages. The other approach is to simply propose the change on the article's talk page and then wait to see if anyone objects. In both cases, no response after a reasonable tiime ought to be OK. --David Woolley 08:49, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Displaying East European characters

User Larry sent the following question to the Wikimedia Help Desk.

I run Windows Me and InternetExplorer 5.5, and have full set of Arial Unicode MS. I can display every Latvian, Romanian, and Croatian character properly when going to ordinary Eastern European and Baltic web pages, but many characters do not properly display on English Wiki pages about foreign languages. Can anyone help?

Thanks in advance.

Any help you can give him would be appreciated. Capitalistroadster 09:49, 3 December 2005 (UTC)

His two problems are Windows ME and Internet Explorer. Windows ME is really just a version of Windows 98 and it doesn't have native Unicode support. IE adds Unicode support, but its font handling isn't compliant with the W3C standards. Specifically, it will not fill in gaps in the fonts that it has chosen, even when another font does have the required glyph.
Windows XP is a Unicode based system, and seems to have somewhat better font selection processing, although I have a feeling that it is still flawed. I think almost any other GUI web browser than IE is likely to work better.
Although I haven't experimented with this myself, he might be able to create a monobook.css file that specifies fonts that work better for the pages that he uses, although he will still be at the mercy of people who think they know better than Wikipedia and specify fonts explicitly in the pages. --David Woolley 10:25, 3 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] List of names of people living in villages of Dumri Block

...is probably not a good title for an article. ;) Seriously, though, if you're looking for factual information, try the Wikipedia:Reference desk. If not, clarify your question. -- SCZenz 09:55, 3 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Wikipedia in the press

There was an article about Wikipedia in today's Helsingin sanomat. Is there a place in Wikipedia where I can translate the article to make it available for other Wikipedians to see? — JIP | Talk 12:28, 3 December 2005 (UTC)

Given that the article will be copyrighted, no. If it weren't, you could put it in your own userspace. [[Sam Korn]] 12:37, 3 December 2005 (UTC)
But you should give a listing and summary at Wikipedia:Press coverage#December. jnothman talk 12:51, 3 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] How do I link a picture Directly from the Wikipedia Commons?

I decided (a couple of weeks ago) to add an image of my own Mangle to the article about, well, mangles. I've never uploaded an image before and Wikipedia's help page adviced I upload it to the Wikimedia Commons, which I duly did under commons:Mangle.jpg.

When I tried making an image link to Mangle.jpg, however, another image (image:Mangle.jpj) resident on Wikipedia itself blocked it. Can someone explain how I'd write the image link so that I bypass this image and go directly to the one on the Commons? commons:image:Mangle.jpg doesn't work, and I can't find information on this anywhere. (BTW, the blocking image is up for deletion soon so it's not a big issue for this article, but I'd like to know for the future.) --Birdseed 13:38, 3 December 2005 (UTC)

you can't. Local wikipedia images override commons ones. Always check if there is a resident file before uploading (or do what I do and make highly descriptive and long filenames). Reupload the image on commons and then ask for the first to be deleted. By the way you can direct link (without displaying) by writing [[:commons:Image:Mangle.jpg]] which makes commons:Image:Mangle.jpg. Or else, just wait for someone to delete the local file (which is going to be deletable soon, a week after Nov 29). Broken S 15:10, 3 December 2005 (UTC)
This seems to be a feature that wikipedia could benefit from having - it's not likely to be the only time something like this has happened. Where do I request its addition? --Birdseed 15:32, 3 December 2005 (UTC)
http://bugzilla.wikipedia.org/ Broken S 16:03, 3 December 2005 (UTC)
  • Why would you want to if it can be avoided by using a filename which isn't blocked? - Mgm|(talk) 00:43, 4 December 2005 (UTC)
Because (a) it seems a waste of time to check every time, (b) "Mangle.jpg" is a better file name than "Mangle1.jpg" (or whatever you can find that isn't blocked), (c) someone might afterwards create a file on Wikipedia (if I understand things correctly) that will block the commons image inadvertedly, and (d) Why the earth not? There are hundreds of only marginally useful features in the wiki software, this would certainly be one of them.
--Birdseed 11:55, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Piped links in timelines

I am trying to disambiguate Pantheon to Pantheon, Rome in the timeline Template:Roman Empire by the usual piping Pantheon. However, this edit breaks the formatting of the rest of the table. Is this a bug in EasyTimeline or am I doing something wrong? Kusma (talk) 15:26, 3 December 2005 (UTC)

You could ask Erik Zachte, he wrote EasyTimeline and is very friendly. It worked when I did a similar edit to another timeline, so I don't know what the problem is.--Commander Keane 17:30, 3 December 2005 (UTC)
I have asked this question on Erik's talk page. Thanks for pointing me there, Kusma (talk) 18:04, 3 December 2005 (UTC)
This bug seems to be independent of what you're trying to do: changing "Gallic wars" to "Gallic warsa" also messes up the picture! jnothman talk 01:05, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Template II

How do I make a template?--Anti-Anonymex2Come to my page! I've gone caliente loco! 16:31, 3 December 2005 (UTC)

Go to Template:Nameoftemplateyouwanttomake. Edit as you would any page. Save. Now you have a template, and if you named it "Nameoftemplateyouwanttomake", all you have to do is add {{Nameoftemplateyouwanttomake}} to a page. jfg284 you were saying? 16:35, 3 December 2005 (UTC)
For a more detailed look at the syntax and use of templates, see Help:Template, Wikipedia:Template namespace, Wikipedia:Templates. jnothman talk 17:10, 3 December 2005 (UTC)
Usually, a template is just a table, saved in the template namespace.--Commander Keane 17:13, 3 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Displaying Superscript and Subscript on top of each other

How can you do this? My signature shows a small try but the problem is pretty obvious. --Worthawholebean TalkContribs 17:53, 3 December 2005 (UTC)

I found the way to fix it. You have to set margin-right to the same value you set left to. --Worthawholebean TalkContribs 19:39, 3 December 2005 (UTC)

The only legitimate way of doing it is with maths mode, but that is expensive, because it generates images, so should be reserved for real mathematical contexts. It also isn't going to respect user font sizes, which means it is undesirable from an accessibility point of view. No use of CSS should affect the meaning, and, in some contexts, it will be ignored, anyway, so CSS tricks shouldn't have a place outside of user space. Base^{Super}_{Sub}. --David Woolley 19:57, 3 December 2005 (UTC)
Your way to fix it, Worthawholebean, has issues: because you are working with pixels, it is highly dependent on the font-size and browser implementation. On normal size your sig looks wrong in Firefox. It looks alright in Opera, but not perfect. The Zoom function in Opera works differently to IE & FF, so it zooms alright in Opera but not in the others.
One way to make sure that things alight correctly on the left is to use absolute positioning within a relatively positioned box. But when I tried this I got browser-dependent results, so I'll back away from that.
But I realised then that I could do similarly (a floating box) but make use of <br> and line-height control. So it's a mess of fidgety CSS, but the following works quite nicely in Firefox and Opera (not in Windows, so can't test IE):
Your sig <span style="position:relative;margin-right:3.8em;font-size:80%"> <span style="position:absolute;left:0;line-height:90%;top:0">contribs<br>talk</span></span> text afterwards.
Which gives:
Test with text above
Your sig Contribs
Talk text afterwards.
Test with text below.
To explain some possibly unfamiliar CSS: an absolute object is positioned against its outer relatively-positioned element. "margin-right: Xem" sets where the text afterwards appears. The unit em is measured as 1em = height of full letter in current font. The nbsp is there because if there is nothing in the absolutely-positioned element, Firefox acts strangely. The necessity of "left:0" is again because FF acts strangely without it. "top:0" is not necessary, but you could use it to adjust the vertical position of the small text, noting that it is positioned differently in different browsers (somewhat lower in FF than Opera). The line-height then sets, as a percentage of font-height, effectively the distance between the top line and the next.
Enjoy! jnothman talk 12:24, 4 December 2005 (UTC)
Hmmm So this worked nicely as long as I didn't save it. Now that it's saved, it's buggy in both Opera and Firefox. Any suggestions from CSS experts? jnothman talk 12:26, 4 December 2005 (UTC)
Lemme try some experimenting. This paragraph is ment to show how the sig will look in the middle of a parahraph. Once I finsh typing this, that will be pretty obvious. worthawholebean
contribs
talk
18:28, 4 December 2005 (UTC) Now I am trying to show how a line under the signature will look, as well as how that spacing compares to normal paragraph spacing, which should be shown as well. Now, the problem is that the space under the sig is too large. Can anyone help fix this?

[edit] Edit summary

On any edit page (the one I'm typing on, even), the words Edit summary have been split. The edit is on the same line as the typing box (squeezed into the side), but the summary is where it should be, underneath the box. I don't want to bring this up on Bugzilla, as I don't want to give an e-mail address. Thelb4 22:11, 3 December 2005 (UTC)

I can't replicate your problem: Edit summary appears to the left of its textbox. jnothman talk 01:02, 4 December 2005 (UTC)
Sounds like a browser problem to me. Which one are you using? Firefox works well for me. It's free. Halcatalyst 04:29, 4 December 2005 (UTC)
Opera works well for me. It's also free. I also know its web address and you got Firefox's web address wrong. But if you look at the top of the page, this HelpDesk is not a soapbox. jnothman talk 05:24, 4 December 2005 (UTC)
I'm using IE 6 on Windows XP. Is that any help? Thelb4 08:57, 4 December 2005 (UTC)
Does it help in what sense? In one sense: no, I can't replicate the problem in IE 6 on Windows XP either; I don't know what it is. Is it on particular pages, or all edit pages? In another sense: no, using IE 6 on Windows XP is unlikely to help you in general. jnothman talk 09:32, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] December 4

[edit] how cars work

That's not much of a question, but the correct place to ask it is the Reference Desk. But your answer would be found by following links from the car article. The car is made up of lots of things that work together, so you may want to look at the internal combustion engine article. There is also a lot of information elsewhere on the net, for instance at Howstuffworks.com's auto channel. jnothman talk 07:29, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] How to edit my signature?

How do I edit my signature. I have seen many people with colors, images, and background color in there signatures. What page has the ability for me to change my signature? JedOs 09:19, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

If you are logged in, at the top of the screen, click on my preferences. In the box that says Nickname, type in what you want your signature to be, then check the box below it that says raw signatures (don't use templates). Click save at the bottom of the screen, then follow the instructions that appear after the save button. Thelb4 09:26, 4 December 2005 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Signature#Customizing your signature.--Commander Keane 10:35, 4 December 2005 (UTC)
When I check the Raw Box and put this in[[User:JedOs | <FONT SIZE="2"><FONT COLOR="#000000">J</FONT><FONT COLOR="#1f3f00">e</FONT><FONT COLOR="#3f7f00">d</FONT><FONT COLOR="#5ebe00">O</FONT><FONT COLOR="#7cfc00">s</FONT> ]] [[Image:Lily2.png|20px]]

It tells me that the HTML is invalid, how can i fix this? JedOs 11:31, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:How to fix your signature. Thelb4 12:05, 4 December 2005 (UTC)
You're missing the </FONT> for the initial <FONT SIZE="2">. -- Rick Block (talk) 17:28, 4 December 2005 (UTC)
Thanks, I decided just to delete, <FONT SIZE="2"> -- JedOs 19:31, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Changing the Font

Is there any way you can change the font style on Wikipedia?--XenoNeon 11:52, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

Other than standard stylings (strong, emphasis etc) most styling in Wikipedia is done by including HTML in wikitext. That is the <font> tag can be used to change font to Times New Roman. (I just typed <font face="Times New Roman">Times New Roman</font>.) You can also use <span> which gives a little more control with CSS. Read up on HTML if you don't know how to do this. Note that changing fonts in Wikipedia articles isn't recommended, as not everyone has fonts you may use, and it creates non-uniformity of article style. jnothman talk 13:41, 4 December 2005 (UTC)
Although of course you generally shouldn't be changing the font/colour... That's the job of the stylesheet. See: WP:MoS. Thanks/wangi 13:47, 4 December 2005 (UTC)
You should not normally try to change the font seen by other users. For one thing, you cannot presume that they have any particular fonts avaiable. A possible exception to this is to help people with browser with broken font support (e.g. IE) to see unusual characters, although two common cases of this are already covered:
  • for International Phonetic Alphabet text, you can use the {{IPA}} template (/tɛmplət/);
  • for mathematical symbols, you can use the maths feature, which offers readers various options for how difficult text is displayed.
  • also there are the Polytonic template, for Ancient Greek with the full set of diacritics, and the Unicode template for a variety of other special characters from various languages.
If you want to change the fonts that you, personally, see, I believe you can overwrite all or part of the Wikipedia style sheet by creating a sub-page of your user page called monobook.css, but I haven't tried this.
Note that if you have one of the unusual cases where it is appropriate to force the font for all users, <font> elements have been deprecated for six or more years and styles can be placed on almost any element, so it is rarely necessary to use <span> as there will normally be a more appropriate element that can be used. --David Woolley 14:16, 4 December 2005 (UTC)
There is an instance where it is appropriate to use a different font: the internationally agreed convention on botanical names suggests that all botanical latin names should be shown in the italic version of the main font, but that all trade names or selling names of cultivars should be in a different style of font from the rest of the name. In other words, if the main text in which the name occurs is in a serif font, the trade designation should be in sans serif, and vice versa. Is there a styling tag which will automatically show the opposite style, without being as font-specific as the Times New Roman example above? SiGarb 18:26, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] My edits are being erased!

Why are my edits erased without giving a reason? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 81.215.34.90 (talk • contribs) 2005-12-04 13:04:14.

Looking at your contributions you have made only three edits (including this one), none of which are reverted. I'd recommend signing up for an account as it will allow all your edits to be listed together. Your edit to Azerbaijanis doesn't fit in with Wikipedia guidelines, and your talk page edit really is quite, eh, excitable! Assume good faith! I'd recommend working through the links in the message below. Thanks/wangi 13:15, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

Welcome!

Hello, and welcome to Wikipedia. Thank you for your contributions.

Currently, you are editing without a username. You can continue to do so as you are not required to log in to Wikipedia to read and write articles, however, logging in will result in a username being shown instead of your IP address (yours is Help desk/Archive 35). Logging in does not require any personal details. There are many other benefits for logging in to Wikipedia.

Please note these points:

The Wikipedia Tutorial is a good place to start learning about Wikipedia. If you have any questions, ask me on my Talk page – I will answer your questions as far as I can! Thank you again for contributing to Wikipedia.

from Wikipedian: wangi 13:15, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Can someone please fix the search?

For the past week, it's been giveng me an error whenevr I try to search for anything. Can someone fix this?

  • As the error message you recieved said, the server had a problem and would be back online soon. It now works, although I had nothing to do with this development. I suggest using the provided external search engine feature if it happens again. --WAvegetarian (talk) (email) (contribs) 22:21, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Standard translations of WP terminology

I am interested in doing some translation of project space pages (eg here, the Wikipedia: space) for the commons project, mainly. I believe that translators often tend to have lists of particular words (eg technical) that are always translated a certain way, so wherever you have "watchlist" in en: you have word/phrase "X" in language Foo. "Standard translations", if you will. Does anyone know if lists like these exist on wikimedia anywhere? I am not sure where to look or who to ask.

Specifically, I am interested in en:->zh: (Chinese). Where is the best place to ask about this type of thing?

thanks, pfctdayelise 14:46, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] choosing what articles will be featured articles

how does wikipedia choose what articles will be featured articles.

A good place to read would be Wikipedia:Featured article candidates. FireFox 15:01, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] "Reverted edits by (X) to last version by (Y)"

Every time someone reverts an artivle, they seem to use exactly the same message, "Reverted edits by (X) to last version by (Y)" (complete with links).

It seems rather odd that nearly everyone should take the time to write out the formatting for this exact message (without ever changing a word or making a typo) every time they revert vandalism, so I though it must be an automatically generated message (it isn't). Is there some sort of shortcut people use for this (a template, maybe?) It just struck me as quite strange.

Admins have a feature called "roll back" that puts that text in. The rest of us usually just put "revert - (reason)" or "rvv" for Revert - Vandalism. Dismas|(talk) 16:37, 4 December 2005 (UTC)
Why only admins? It seems like a feature everyone could benefit from.
Because it's such a quick way of reverting people, it's only granted to users who have demonstrated that they are trustworthy, so others can't abuse it. Hermione1980 18:28, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Translation - Spanish into English

Spanish usage of the word romper and quebrar . Translate into English

This should have been posted at Wikipedia:Reference desk/Language. However, "romper" means "to break", "to shatter", or "to tear"; "quebrar" means "breaking", according to FreeTranslation.com, but I would hazard a guess that it really means "to break", as it's an infinitive. Hermione1980 17:53, 4 December 2005 (UTC)
Romper is more akin to "to rip/tear", and quebrar is more similar to "to shatter", but yeah, Hermione got it quite right. They are both infinitives, so they have to be conjugated. I'm a native speaker, so I should know ;). By the way, post questions like these on the Reference desk in the future, this page is to ask questions related to Wikipedia. Titoxd(?!? - did you read this?) 18:06, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Googling namespaces

What's the easiest way to search in specific Wikipedia namespaces with Google? ‣ᓛᖁ♀ᑐ 18:06, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

I use something like site:en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia Foo beans , when I'm searching for Foo beans in the Wikipedia: namespace.--Commander Keane 18:59, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Edit Summary links

How do I get those links in the Edit Summary poniting to parts of the article to appear (the ones that are arrows)? --LifeMega 19:39, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

When you edit a section of an article (using a mini "edit" button), the edit summary will automatically start something like /* Edit Summary links */ (That's for editing this question. I used the edit section button for this edit, and I found that in the edit summary). When I save this edit, there will be a little arrow in the edit summary.--Commander Keane 20:41, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Unblocking and autoblocker

I understand how to block specific IP addresses/usernames, but I don't have a clue how to unblock them. I'm sure it's something very stupid and simple I'm missing. I also don't understand the autoblocker. Could some more experienced, patient admin explain this to me? Hermione1980 21:10, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

Block can be undone through Special:Ipblocklist. There is also a workaround where you reblock the person for 1 second which will kill the previous block. The autoblocker blocks any IPs they have recently used if any account tries to edit through those ips.Geni 21:24, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Printing colors from List of Colors

User Manuel has sent the Help Desk an e-mail that I was unable to resolve for him. His original email read:

I am trying to copy and print several colors from your "Color List" so I can relate the names to their color. The names will print but the colors will not. Is there anything I can do to get the color to print ? Will appreciate your help

My initial response referring to the article didn't resolve his problems. He has sent me a followup e-mail.

Thank you for your e-mail. I may not have explained what I wanted to do correctly.

I get your LIST OF COLORS in my screen but when I try to print one color, any color, to relate the name of the color, as for example "Crimson red" to the color red square next to the name the "color" shown, does not print.

I have tried clicking on the Printable Version link shown on the left hand side of the screen and I have tried highlighting the wholo line and non of these will work.

Sorry if I am giving you too much of a problem.

I would be grateful for any assistance you could give him.

Capitalistroadster 22:56, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

The colours are implemented as background colours, which is semantically wrong, but, as HTML, is not a graphics language, difficult to avoid without playing tricks with CSS (which shouldn't be used for semantics).
I think all browsers default to not printing backgrounds as it wastes ink and toner and can make the printout difficult to read. Some do allow you to enable their printing, and that may be the easiest solution.
However, the introduction to the article states that the colours aren't gamma corrected, i.e. they are in a linear RGB colour space. As conforming web browsers and their printing software assume a gamma of about 2.2 (strictly an sRGB colour space, the colours will be wildly incorrect both as displayed and as printed. A better approach might be to screen grab and then use image manipulation software to adjust the gamma. Process limitations also mean that printed colours will be less accurate than those on CRT displays.
The best way of implementing this page so that it prints correctly is probably to use Unicode character U+2588, that is solid ink with no margins (██████ - a red bar), but that may well cause problems on platforms with poor font support, e.g. IE, especially on Windows 98 variants. A trick might be to use CSS to create margins that occupy the whole cell, but that's definitely an abuse of CSS, but maybe no more than abusing background colours. Neither of these solve the gamma problem. The template on the individual colour pages would need changing as well if teh Unicode technique proves safe.
--David Woolley 23:47, 4 December 2005 (UTC)
  • Also, you can never really assume your printer will print the colors exactly as you see them on the screen. - Mgm|(talk) 05:55, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Bookmark to edit lead

I used to have a bookmark swiped from someone's user page which let me edit just the lead of an article. Now I've changed computers, lost my bookmark, and can't remember where I first got it. Help! Mark1 23:30, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

I don't know about a bookmark (it shouldn't be hard to write, but I don't know who has it), but you can install a user script to add it as a tab (marked "0") at the top of the page, kept at the user scripts project. There is also a second variant which puts an "[edit top]" link to the right of the article heading. Both are available from Wikipedia:WikiProject User scripts/Scripts. Ultimately, if you want to make it into a bookmarklet, all you need is a javascript that grabs the page title and transforms it into <http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=MY_ARTICLE_TITLE&action=edit&section=0>, to which it sends the browser. jnothman talk 23:51, 4 December 2005 (UTC)
Thanks; what exactly does one do with a user script? Mark1 02:12, 5 December 2005 (UTC)
The user scripts project (WP:US) does try to explain that, but doesn't do it very clearly, maybe. So if you are using the default skin for Wikipedia, what you need to do is edit your monobook.js file. There you can put some custom scripts which will get loaded by the browser on all Wikipedia pages. Then (as long as they don't need any additional helper functions) just paste in the code from either of the scripts mentioned above. Save, and you should have the appropriate tab/link available on the next article you load. jnothman talk 02:48, 5 December 2005 (UTC)
Thanks, that worked. ;) Mark1 13:07, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] December 5

[edit] Creating and Editing Templates

Hi After reading about 30 pages on templates, I still can't figure out how to create and edit templates like the one at the bottom of this question. By expimentation I have made some sucessful edits, but the whole template page looks like giberish to me and I can't find a page which explains it. Here is the link to the template page, thanks: Template:StargateTech Tobyk777 04:44, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

Technology in Stargate Edit
Tau'ri GDO | Horizon | IDC | Stargate Iris | Kull Disruptor | P90 | MALP | The Seeker Project | Naqahdah Generator
Wraith retrovirus | F-302 | Prometheus (BC-303) | Daedalus-class Battlecruiser
Goa'uld/Tok'ra Al'kesh | Death Glider | Ha'tak Mothership | Hand Device | Healing Device | Intar | Memory Recall Technology | Sarcophagus | Staff Weapon
Tel'tak | TER | Tunnel Crystals | Zat | Zatarc detector
Ancient Ancient City Ship | Ancient Control Chair | ATA Gene | Atlantis | Aurora-class Battleship | Dakara Weapon | DHD
DNA Resequencer | Drone Weapon | Healing Device | Project Arcturus | Puddle Jumper | Repository of Knowledge
Ring Transporter | Sangraal | Stargate | Time Dilation Device | Zero Point Module
Asgard Beliskner-class ship | Daniel Jackson-class ship | O'Neill-class ship | Thor's Hammer
Other Wraith Dart | Wraith Hive-Ship | Supergate | Ori Mothership
Lists by race All | Tau'ri | Ancient, Aschen, Asgard, Goa'uld, Ori, Tok'ra, Tollan, Wraith | Other
What you are calling gibberish is nothing to do with templates, but is how MediaWiki formats tables. See Help:Table for more info. You will need some understanding of HTML tables in general and of CSS to get the stargate template. jnothman talk 04:57, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] IRC policy on Wikipedia

Recently, I've been logging #Wikipedia on IRC. According to one of the users on the channel (who is an experienced editor here on Wikipedia), if I were to quote any content from the IRC channel, this would be against the rules. I've reviewed Category:Wikipedia official policy, Category:Wikipedia guidelines and even Category:Wikipedia proposals and Category:Wikipedia rejected policies, but have found nothing stating this is against Wikipedia policy. I've also reviewed Wikipedia:Arbitration policy/Precedents attempting to find some guidance on this point but outside of ArbCom acknowledging lack of jurisdiction over IRC, I've found nothing to state that quoting IRC would be against policy. I've found several instances here on Wikipedia where IRC has been quoted. Could someone please point out where this is supposedly against the rules? Thanks, --Durin 17:59, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

As I understand it you could do so but it could not be used as evidence of anything.Geni 19:10, 5 December 2005 (UTC)
There is also some promise of no public logging of the channel on meta:IRC channels but I don't know if that applies. Against what rules specifically, anyway? Copyright rules, or arbitration/RFC rules? Where is this trying to apply exactly? jnothman talk 05:19, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] "Preceding unsigned comment" message

Is there a template for the message "The preceding unsigned comment was contributed by User:SampleUser"? Or is it, like rollback, just a perk of being an admin? jfg284 you were saying? 18:35, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

There is a template, but you have to manually put in the details, such as the username and the timestamp.
Example: {{Unsigned|SampleUser|08:43, November 24 2005 (UTC)}} will produce: —The preceding unsigned comment was added by SampleUser (talk • contribs) 08:43, November 24 2005 (UTC)..
Akamad 19:24, 5 December 2005 (UTC)
If you are like me and aren't bothered with getting the date you would use {{unsigned|SampleUser|.}}.--Commander Keane 20:52, 5 December 2005 (UTC)
{{Unsigned|SampleUser|~~~~~)}} would also work. [[Sam Korn]] 21:01, 5 December 2005 (UTC) (edit: too few nowikis spoil the broth)
Actually, you can just use {{unsigned|SampleUser}}. I routinely use {{unsigned2}} though because you can copy and paste the user/time out of the history, insert a pipe (|) and be done with it. As an example from the history for this page, I copied "13:01, December 5, 2005 SampleUser", put a pipe between the time/user, "13:01, December 5, 2005|SampleUser" and put this in: {{unsigned2|13:01, December 5, 2005|SampleUser}}
to get this: —The preceding unsigned comment was added by SampleUser (talk • contribs) 13:01, December 5, 2005 (UTC)
(Changed user name to SampleUser to protect the innocent). The only difference between {{unsigned}} and {{unsigned2}} is the second variation reverses the parameters (making it easier to copy/paste from the history view of an article). It also goes without saying that you can't omit the date/time from {{unsigned2}} because it's the first parameter. :P —Locke Cole 21:22, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

Thank you much. jfg284 you were saying? 23:15, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] UserScript question

I want to use this script as a tab to get the title of the page and copy that to my clipboard (for easy pasting) or to maybe make the Location Bar equal the title so I can just highlight that and copy it. Is that possible? I'm not familiar with scripting...

Also, is there a script that will search the textarea when I'm editing? Firefox doesn't do it and I only see a replace script. I can't imagine it'd be that difficult, but what do I know. Thanks, I appreciate any help. Gflores Talk 18:37, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

With searching in text boxes, I think Opera 8.51 does it (but Opera 9TP1 doesn't, so I assume they'll fix that by the next full version). As to making a script, you may want to search general Firefox user scripting web sites. As regards to clipboards, access to them is going to be browser-dependent and the javascript varies. [6] indicates that there is an option to allow scripts Firefox to access the clipboard, but it doesn't indicate how to do te settign or reading. You may get more fruitful answers on a talk page at the user scripts project. Then again, you mayn't. jnothman talk 22:50, 5 December 2005 (UTC)
Thanks for the response. Firefox doesn't do it. Both Opera and IE do... I'll try searching again and hopefully I'll find something. Gflores Talk 05:16, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] notification when a page is edited

Is it possible to receive an automatic alert when a page is edited? I could not find the answer to this question by searching and apologize if it is often asked. Josh

Not, as far as i know, the same way you're notfied with new messages. But, if you create an account, you can add pages to a "watchlist." Then, simply by checking your watchlist, you can see all the most recent changes to pages you've marked. jfg284 you were saying? 19:03, 5 December 2005 (UTC)
meta:Help:Related changes notes that email notifications are available in MediaWiki 1.5 with a particular extension. Seeing as the option is not available in prefs, I presume it's not installed here. If you really want changes in real time, I'm sure it would not be difficult to make a bot that checks on the Recent Changes IRC, or a little slower with the RSS feeds avaiable. Right now, though, I've lost where to find either of these. jnothman talk 05:51, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] user e-mail

How does user e-mail work?

Registered users can go to Special:Emailuser/username and email from there if they have an address specified in preferences. [[Sam Korn]] 21:44, 5 December 2005 (UTC)
If you send an email using the Special:Emailuser, then your email address will be revealed to the recipient. If they choose to reply to you, then their email address will be revealed to you.--Commander Keane 22:26, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] What happened to the ability to create new articles?

How come my ability to create new articles has all of a sudden been cut down today? --69.117.6.28 22:08, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

  • Wikipedia is conducting an experiment on the effects of limiting new article creation to registered users. This may be temporary. You can easily register in order to bypass the restriction, or you can suggest that a registered user create the article for you. You can also discuss this experiment at the Village pump. Dystopos 22:30, 5 December 2005 (UTC)
  • And do note, that once something has been created, you can edit it just like before. - 131.211.210.16 08:27, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] December 6

[edit] Link to commons

How to get an image in the commons to appear on a wikipedia page? [[Image:commons:Bball.gif]] doesn't work. [[Commons:Image:Bball.gif]] doesn't work. I'm sorry I soiled your Help page with this question. Metarhyme 00:09, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

Unless I'm mistaken, you have to copy the image from commons, upload it here and then link it. Alf melmac 00:11, 6 December 2005 (UTC)
[[Image:Bball.gif]] will suffice, if there is no file with that name at en.wikipedia.org, the software automatically tries to retrieve it from Commons. 130.243.135.145 00:30, 6 December 2005 (UTC)
Ie, DON'T reupload it here. That's precisely against the purpose of the commons. jnothman talk 02:00, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

Thanks, 130.243.135.145! [[Image:Bball.gif]] works. Metarhyme 02:46, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Creating a Table

Where can I find out how to create a table or something like that to put stuff side by side or beneath each other? Str1977 01:42, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

Try Help:Tables, and let me know if you have any more specific questions. Another idea would be to look at an existing article that uses tables and copy the code. One that comes to mind is American Silver Eagle. —HorsePunchKid→龜 2005-12-06 01:44:45Z

[edit] Is there a policy on slang and/or "vulgar" usages?

I added a couple of definitions to the disambiguation page for "spinner", one a computer-science definition, and the other a sexual definition.

I just checked it, and someone removed the sexual definition, commenting "deleted a vulgar/slang definition whose importance is sub-encyclopedic and whose mention essentially amounts to vandalism".

Now, that seems a rather extreme viewpoint to me, especially since my addition wasn't particularly graphic or gratuitous.

After reading up a bit on this site regarding policy, I couldn't find anything saying if there is a stated policy on such definitions, so I thought I'd ask you if there is such a guideline or policy. Are sexual definitions in disambiguation pages specifically discouraged, or was this just an instance of an easily-offended person?

Yours,

Tim Bessie -- Tbessie

If it follows Wikipedia:Content_disclaimer, then it is fine. x42bn6 Talk 01:25, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

Wikipedia is NOT censored for minors. Info on vulgar/sexual words is fine. -Greg Asche (talk) 03:20, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

I had a look at the page in question (spinner). While Greg and x42bn6 (what a name!) are correct, that Wikipedia is not censored for minors and that sexual content is not a problem, I'm not sure whether the definition you added is encyclopedic. Wikipedia is not a dictionary, and the primary purpose of disambiguation pages is to point users towards pages that otherwise might share a page name. I doubt that the sexual meaning of "spinner" is notable enough ever to have a Wikipedia entry, so it probably doesn't belong on the page. In other words, the editor who removed it did the right thing for the wrong reason.
I don't know enough about the GUI usage to know whether it's notable enough for inclusion or not, but you might want to look here to determine for yourself. —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 06:05, 6 December 2005 (UTC)
  • This is all correct. I would only caution that slang, and sexual or vulgar slang in particular, is hard to pin down in such a way that citations can easily be made. If there are verifiable, and preferably scholarly, accounts of the use of a term, that's great - but if it's just something all the 10th graders use, then it may not be very encyclopedic. Dystopos 06:02, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Pipe links

Which is preferred (i.e., more server-friendly): [[The Republic|''Republic'']] or ''[[The Republic|Republic]]''? Or does it not matter? --zenohockey 03:12, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

I don't think there is a preferred version since either works just as well. Evil Monkey - Hello 04:23, 6 December 2005 (UTC)
Neither is more server friendly or changes functionality. But the user should not need to know that the pipe has been used. Since without the pipe, you don't have an option (ie "My article" is different to "My article") I think it would be preferable to have the quotes around the link. jnothman talk 04:41, 6 December 2005 (UTC)
  • I don't think there's specific policy about it, but I prefer to have quotes and and other coding outside links, so links can be changed without affecting the quotes or code. - 131.211.210.16 08:40, 6 December 2005 (UTC)
There is one specific instance where you need formatting inside links - for ship names like the [[USS Enterprise|USS ''Enterprise'']]. Evil Monkey - Hello 20:20, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Is it okay to write articles on characters from television shows and movies?

Is it okay to write articles on characters from television shows and movies? I have never see one on Wikipedia, so I'm wondering if it's okay. For example:

The Parkers: Nikki Parker (Acted by Monqiue)

Mean Girls: Cady (Acted by Lindsay Lohan)

Moesha: Moesha (Acted by Brandy Norwood)

So is it okay? --anon

Yes, for examples see Darth Vader, Lisa Simpson, and George Costanza. Dismas|(talk) 05:31, 6 December 2005 (UTC)
There is a policy on articles on fiction and fictional characters. See WP:FICTION. jnothman talk 05:52, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

Okay! Thanks! --anon

[edit] organisation structure of Microsoft

Please ask in more detail at the Reference Desk, not here. jnothman talk 13:52, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Date in templates?

I'm sure this must have been asked before, but since I can't find it I'll ask it here (again?): is there a way to add a timestamp (or rather, a date) to a template. I've been experimenting a lot with this, but all I can manage is either the day on which the template was created (when using subst:), or the current day (when not using subst:). But what I'm looking for is the date on which the template was used.

Thanks in advance, --IJzeren Jan In mij legge alle fogultjes een ij 10:05, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

To my knowledge, this data isn't stored and hence may not be used. jnothman talk 13:56, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Links underlined?

This is partly a trivial matter, and I've been meaning to ask this question for a while now, but why is it that wikilinks are always underlined when logged in, and only underline when "hovered" over when not logged in? For example, this link to Science is underlined always when logged in, but when not logged in, it simply appears blue and is only underlined when one "hovers" the mouse over it. Is there a technical reason for this, or does it have no purpose? -- Daverocks 10:18, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

They are only underlined on hover for me, which suggests that either you have selected a skin other than monobook, or you have provided your own monobook.css file to override the styling. --David Woolley 12:45, 6 December 2005 (UTC)
Check your preferences under "Misc.". Dismas|(talk) 14:06, 6 December 2005 (UTC)
Behaviour seems to vary, regardless of settings in prefs. I am set to always underline, but sometimes they are, some other times not. Another random WP glitch like the log out problem? --Cactus.man ✍ 14:10, 6 December 2005 (UTC)
The Google caches of WP pages are never underlined, at least in my experience. (I use Firefox, FWIW) --zenohockey 04:43, 7 December 2005 (UTC)
I forgot to mention before, I use Firefox. I don't have a monobook.css as a user subpage, and in my prefs it is set to always underline. My theory is that when one is not logged in, they don't have preferences set, and the default setting is only underline on hover. Thanks for the help though! -- Daverocks 09:49, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] How do I contribute

HOW DO I CONTRIBUTE AN ARTICLE TO WIKIPEDIA? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 68.44.94.171 (talk • contribs).

See next question. --David Woolley 15:32, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] editing article without an account

Why is it that I cannot create new articles without an account at this time? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 166.61.232.18 (talk • contribs).

Adam Puckett

Because too many anonymous users were creating silly articles, anonymous users must now request creation on Wikipedia:Articles for creation --David Woolley 15:29, 6 December 2005 (UTC)
You can also use Wikipedia:Requested articles, or find a sympathetic registered user who could start the article for you, or take a few seconds to register. Dystopos 01:58, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Question

Hello, I do not find where I can ask this question, so I do here: It seems, that the article about The Salvation Army is suddenly very very much shorter. Was this a vandal or was this a correct editing? There are no more external links and just one picture. Please have a look at it. I do not really know. thank you regards HAMUBA 6 December 2005

That was most likely vandalism since they simply removed images and half the article with no explanation -- I have reverted it. By the way, you can sign messages with your name and the date using ~~~~. Thanks for pointing that out. .:.Jareth.:. babelfish 16:00, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

Thank you for your answer - I had first to create an account also in English. The username from another language does not work... HAMUBA 16:21, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] What is an atomic symbol AND how is it used? Give an example for a specific

(no question)

See the Reference desk this TYPE of question.--Commander Keane 20:51, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] refering search subjects

I recently made an article entitled "The iBridge Network". However when I search for "ibridge" or "iBridge" I get no returns. I believe these two descriptors will be used the vast majority of the time when searching for this article. How do I go about making those two words return a result that either goes directly to the original article or reurn a link that goes there?

Thanks for your help.

It's there -> The iBridge Network, I have redirects for those two terms. Alf melmac 21:16, 6 December 2005 (UTC)
The reason it wasnt turning up in the search is that the search engine only indexes every day or so. It will turn up in time. Wiki_Alf created redirects which will work for the two terms you mentioned immediately. -Lanoitarus 00:02, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] "section=new" on URLs

I copied the "Ask a new question" code from Help Desk onto Wikipedia:Articles for creation. On Help Desk, the code creates a new *subsection* (===), while on Articles for creation, it creates a new *section* (==). Why is this? What would I have to change from the current Articles for Creation page to organize it by day? -- Creidieki 23:01, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

The HelpDesk one does just do a level 2 heading (==), not level 3 (===)... It seems when you say section and subsection, you're referring to the table of contents, but this just treats the highest level heading present as "sections" and thus "section" or "subsection" aren't defined by the number of =s in the headings, if you jusdge it from the TOC. Technically, == defines a section heading, but what is used to delineate days here on the HelpDesk is what could be termed a supersection heading, given by "= Heading text =". So that's what you have to do to delineate by date. jnothman talk 02:39, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Discussion Page

How do I make a new discussion page and archive the old one?--Anti-Anonymex2Come to my page! I've gone caliente loco! 23:39, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

Please see Wikipedia:How to archive a talk page. -- Rick Block (talk) 02:09, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] December 7

[edit] Monitor this page

Could someone help monitor this page? People are joining in the 'fun' due to the controversy with his father. Nil Einne 01:17, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] I have a suggestion!

I have a suggestion about wikipedia, but I'm not sure who I should give it to.

Try WP:GC for "general complaints [or suggestions]"; if your suggestion regards the content of a specific article, post your suggestion on that article's talk page. --zenohockey 02:40, 7 December 2005 (UTC)


Ideas go into the Village pump, in particular, probably the proposals page. Just make sure first that it's not a perennial proposal (one that gets made all the time). jnothman talk 02:42, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] essay on fantasy movie Gattaca

See Gattaca. -- Rick Block (talk) 02:56, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Picture issues - can't view in IMAGE, can't change size

I have uploaded my first image. I have 3 questions. 1) I am unable to see the image when I go to view it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Alter-auto-1.gif . Did I upload it wrong? It does show up on the Wiki page it is referenced on. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alter_%28automobile%29 2) I am unable to change the size of the image on the Wiki page it is referenced on, I have tried numerous "resizing" commands. I just get an empty box w/ the red X. 3) I was unsure of how to classify it with a COPYRIGHT TAG. I documented the web page that it was downloaded. It was a historical photo from approximately 1915. I received permission from the web site "owner" ---DRUSSEL3--Drussel3 03:24, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

(1) and (2) are the same problem. I have a feeling it is something to do with your file being a GIF. If you convert it to JPG or PNG, these should resize with no problem. I am not a copyright expert, but I'm not sure if an image of that age can hold a copyright. Possible templates include {{CopyrightedFreeUseProvided}}, {{Copyrighted}} or maybe others. jnothman talk 03:41, 7 December 2005 (UTC)
If you cannot identify the licence tag, you should at least include what the society's director wrote back to you and, if not implied by that, the question that you asked. Those form the licence, and it is important that they do not restrict use to Wikipedia. The site copyright notice says that licences must be given in writing to be valid. Note that the age of the photograph may be less than that of the car. I suspect it was taken in 1975. --David Woolley 19:39, 7 December 2005 (UTC)
The source site has captioned this image "Picture Circa 1969." --132.162.218.221 05:10, 8 December 2005 (UTC)
I obviously didn't do my research carefully enough! :-S jnothman talk 05:26, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Are the things put here free to use?

Are the things put here free to use? Because I wouldn't want to be vandalizing Wikipedia if I put it on another site. --anon

I'm not sure I understand your question—or want to—but in any case, there is no cost for reading or editing articles (though you must create an account to edit). Vandalism is forbidden, and there are a number of "mirror sites" that take Wikipedia articles—[answers.com], for example. --zenohockey 05:02, 7 December 2005 (UTC)
All Wikipedia content is licensed for public use under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License. Basically this means you have to attribute it to "Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia", and license any derivative work under the same terms, including the full text of that license with the work. Dystopos 05:07, 7 December 2005 (UTC)
Oh, I see now...the perils of late-night editing... --zenohockey 05:10, 7 December 2005 (UTC)
Please read the GFDL. Attributing to Wikipedia is only sufficient when the copyright doesn't apply (fair use and pure citation without copying). Including the text of the GFDL is required for all non-fair use copies, as is including all the copyright owners (editors) and the document history. If you modify the content (e.g. by making an extract and including it in another document, and distribute in significant numbers, you must provide the revisable form of the document in a format for which it is reasonable to edit it with simple text editors and for which it is possible to get free rendering software (e.g. Microsoft Word is not an option). This is complicated because Wikipedia, itself, doesn't obey the letter of the GFDL (which is why my user page allows Wikipedia to re-license my contributions).
You need to read the GFDL, as even the above is only a selective summary. --David Woolley 10:38, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

I'm trying to say that there's another site (looks kind of like another encyclopedia) and I would like to put one of the articles on Wikipedia on that site. --anon

  • You can do that Iff that site licenses its content under the GFDL and complies with all the conditions it imposes. A summary of those conditions is above. Thryduulf 20:52, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] What does this pref do?

In "my preferences" there's a box that says "Enable 'jump to' accessibility links." What does this do? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Zzedar (talk • contribs).

The standard examples are people using text to speech ("screen readers") and Braille displays. They cannot easily scan for the start of the real text. As web designers like having navigation on every page, rather than separate navigation pages, a convention has arisen that, at the very beginning of the page, there should be a link to the main text. I believe this option suppresses those links (which are probably normally obfuscated by the styling). --David Woolley 10:42, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Image problem

I don't know much about about images, so... how would one go about fixing the syntax problem here? --zenohockey 05:13, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

  • I fixed it for you. In templates like that you dont need the [[ ]]. JedOs 05:23, 7 December 2005 (UTC)
It seems someone corrected it, but the problem was not within the image markup, but with the definition of that template, which just requires the filename and size, but not the full link to the image. jnothman talk 05:29, 7 December 2005 (UTC)
Yeah, you added [[ ]] in thoughs type of templates the [[ ]] is automatically added. Since you put [[ ]] it some how rendred the image 2 times. But I fixed it for you. JedOs 05:36, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Userbox firefox

I used User mff enclosed with {{}} on my user page (it's still there) and it worked fine for awhile. Now the image is gone and REDIRECT Template:Userbox firefox remains. What happened? Halcatalyst 05:18, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

  • Here use this {{userbox firefox}} JedOs 05:25, 7 December 2005 (UTC)
This was caused by a double redirect of Template:User mff to Template:User fox to Template:Userbox firefox. Fixed now. jnothman talk 05:32, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Adding 2 scripts to monobook.js

How do I add 2 or more scripts to monobook.js ?? JedOs 05:20, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

Well, you simply need to add the one script after the other... Importantly, everytime you change your monobook.js, you have to refresh your browser's cache which can be done most surely by visiting http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:JedOs/monobook.js&action=raw&ctype=text/javascript&dontcountme=s and hitting your browser's refresh button. See the User Scripts project. Or maybe you need to be more specific with a problem you've had. You also might get better response on a talk page there. jnothman talk 05:36, 7 December 2005 (UTC)
Yeah I am current using Lupen's Filter Changes. But after I put the Live Preview script after it, neither work. I want to use this version of Live Preview, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikiproject_User_scripts/Scripts/livepreview.js JedOs 05:45, 7 December 2005 (UTC)
Currently your monobook.js includes:
/* [[User:Pilaf/livepreview.js]] */
// [[User:Lupin/recent2.js]] - please include this line
document.write('<script type="text/javascript" src="' 
             + 'http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:Lupin/recent2.js' 
             + '&action=raw&ctype=text/javascript&dontcountme=s"></script>');
This only activates the "recent2" functionality, and doesn't use LivePreview. You have to copy in the entire contents of User:Pilaf/monobook.js and not just the one line you have there. // at the beginning or, surrounding by /* and */ means that the text inside will be ignored and does nothing in javascript. jnothman talk 05:57, 7 December 2005 (UTC)
Yeah thats an artifact from the prior script, I left by accident, thanks for helping, by the way. JedOs 06:06, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Weird edits from possible bot

Can some one take a look at this history page. It's almost like a strange bot that copies a user. This thing/person has also set up an jgrutz (I'm jgritz) account which puzzles me even further. Can someone else take a look at this and comment Jgritz 09:27, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

I'm not sure i would quite consider this a BOT persay, he seems only to have done two edits ever and they were both differnt. However, since the link added had already been added anonymously severaly times (and removed by you), id say its clearly an deliberate imposter. It seems pretty clear that the user ought to be blocked and Template:Imposter applied, as he has no other contributions except more adds elsewhere, but an admin would have to do that.-Lanoitarus 09:39, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Claiming anon edits?

I seem to remember reading somewhere that you can lay claim to anonymous edits you've made if/when you register. Is this possible? If so, how do I do it? (By "claim", I mean so that the edit shows up as being done by your username, instead of just an IP.) Ends Of Invention 10:19, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

  • Only developers can change edit attributions. There used to be a service where people could request having their edits reattributed, but it has stopped now. — JIP | Talk 10:49, 7 December 2005 (UTC)
But you can just link to your old IP's contribs from your user page... jnothman talk 11:09, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Adding images

How can I add an image to my article???

See Help:Images, but in general, upload the image (it must not be copyrighted, or can be taken with permission but this is not preferred) using the "Upload file" link on the left, and then insert in the page [[Image:filename.jpg|options]] where options are appropriate as found on the Help:Images page. jnothman talk
As copyright exists by default in most things and in many countries cannot be abandoned (even in the USA, some people question the validity of abandoning to the public domain), it is normally best to have an image that is copyrighted but with a GFDL compatible licence. For modern images that are considered to be in the public domain, you should document this as though placing in the public domain were a licence grant, stating the original copyright holder and that they have placed the material in the public domain, and how you know that they did this. --David Woolley 18:16, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Unattributed image

An image from my website has been posted on the Wikipedia without attribution. I discovered it by accident. I wish proper attribution. I do not know how to contact the person who posted the image. What should I do: (1) insert proper attribution? (2) other? Thanks. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 160.79.32.242 (talk • contribs).

All images uploaded to Wikipedia require a free license so that they can be relicensed under Wikipedia's Gnu Free Documentation License. The person who uploads a copyrighted image is in violation of Wikipedia policy and copyright law. If you can provide clear evidence of a violation, you can go to Wikipedia:Request for immediate removal of copyright violation to request an immediate removal. Alternately, you can contact Jimmy Wales, Wikipedia's designated agent, directly about copyright infringements.
On the other hand, if you are happy to relicense your image under the terms of the GFDL, you can go to the image page and edit the page to indicate the correct attribution and license. Dystopos 16:27, 7 December 2005 (UTC)
If you do legitimise it, ideally, you should make the uploader aware they have transgressed. --David Woolley 18:30, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] unsigned by...

What is the reason for adding to a question the "Unsigned by (ISP address)"

I thought it was pretty obvious. This way other users can see who added the question, and also have access to the user's talk page, where they can reply to him/her directly. — JIP | Talk 16:55, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Hubble Heritage

Does Wikipedia have permission to use images from the Hubble Heritage Project? ‣ᓛᖁ♀ᑐ 17:17, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

Interesting question. PD-NASA would be a first guess, but they're not - it's the STSI who operates it, and I'm not sure who they are legally... Shimgray | talk | 17:35, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] CatAZ template

Hi, I am trying to use the above template but it doesn't seem to be working. I have gone to the webpage, "List of famous naturalized citizens of the United States" to find an example of how it is used, but this one is not working too. Can you please advise how it ought to be used? — PM Poon 18:41, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

Hi. The CatAZ template is only for Category pages, so that List incorrectly uses that template. If you would like to use a table of contents on an article page, use one of these here. I have now added toc6 template to it. There was also some formatting issues which I fixed. Gflores Talk 20:02, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Is there anything I can do to create a page without a username?

Is there anything I can do to create a page without a username? I don't really want another person to create it for me (cause I like doing it), and I don't really want a username. Is there some kind of place to discuss the matter? --anon

Read here for more information GFDL Gflores Talk 19:50, 7 December 2005 (UTC)
  • Creating new pages has been switched off for anonymous users as a test to see if it can get rid of the masses of vandalism we get that way. Wikipedia:Articles for creation was set up so established users can start a page for anons. Once it is created you can let your creativity flow and add to it to your heart's content as long as you stay within Wikipedia regulations. However, if you really want to be the first one to start a page, you either have to wait for the test to finish (and hope it won't continue) or simply register a username. It has in fact got loads of benefits one of which is getting a username which makes you a lot more anonymous (your IP address won't be shared directly with everyone). Is there a specific reason you don't want to create an account? - Mgm|(talk) 20:40, 7 December 2005 (UTC)
I can't really understand why any frequent editor here wouldn't want to register a username; it's quick and easy, and doesn't involve any mandatory nosy questions (unlike the Yahoo registration process). You aren't required to use anything resembling your actual real-world name, or to reveal your e-mail address or any other personal information; you can pick something just as cryptic as your IP address (and less revealing) if you want. *Dan T.* 20:44, 7 December 2005 (UTC)
A recent, and apparently experimental policy change has been announced by Jimbo Wales, preventing anyone from creating a new page unless that person has a user name and is logged in. There has been debate at the village pump (for example in this thread) and elsewhere as to the value of this policy change, but for the moment it is being enforced. While it is you will have to either get a user name, or ask someone who has one to create any new pages you wish created. Wikipedia:Articles for creation has been created specifically to place such requests. I am curious, why don't you want to have a user ID, anyway? DES (talk) 20:48, 7 December 2005 (UTC)
Personally, I'm all for preventing anonymous IPs from creating articles. I'm also dubious about anonymous IPs editing Wikipedia at all. But that's as far as I'm going to go. Any non-blocked IP is, and should be, allowed to create an account, without having to reveal any personal information, even an e-mail address. There should probably be a CAPTCHA for creating an account but it should merely distinguish automated scripts from humans, not one kind of humans from another. — JIP | Talk 21:02, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

I don't think it's nice! Besides, I'm not sure if having a username is safe. If somebody hacked into my username, will they see any personal/important info? --anon

The only information they could get is what you typed. Look at the registration page and see what personal info you have to give. Even the e-mail address is optional. Notinasnaid 11:28, 11 December 2005 (UTC)
In fact, creating a User name is more anonymous, because if you don't use a User name, your IP address is displayed, and that can be traced to a particular provider, whereas only developers and certain admins (not all admins) can see the IP addresses of logged-in Users. Zoe (216.234.130.130 19:09, 13 December 2005 (UTC))

[edit] IPA help

Is there a WikiProject or some other page where one can request help for IPA transcription?

A user has just added the pronounciation "Lay Mizz-rob" to Les Misérables (musical), which doesn't seem terribly accurate to me. I figured that the pronunciation ought to be in the IPA, per Wikipedia:Manual of style (pronunciation), but I don't know enough about either the IPA or French to do it properly. Where is the best place to ask for assistance on this? —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 20:15, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

I'm sure the language reference desk would be more than happy to help in general. I personally pronounce this something like lɛ mɪzəʁab(l), but I don't know what's correct. jnothman talk 22:28, 7 December 2005 (UTC)
I've flagged it with {{cleanup-ipa}} which should get it the necessary attention. --David Woolley 22:37, 7 December 2005 (UTC)
Thanks, David and jnothman. —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 22:42, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Reverting vandalism edit summary?

I've gotten into the habit of just typing "rvv" as the edit summary when I revert vandalism. However, I'd like to know how some people (very speedily, BTW, so they don't seem to be typing it out) get summaries like:

"(Reverted edits by [VANDAL] (talk) to last version by [LAST GOOD POSTER])"

Is there a set template to put in the summary box or something? Staxringold 22:32, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

  • When you're an admin you get the rollback button which does that automagically. I think there is a "god mode lite" .js somewhere that helps for non-admins, but don't know where. Wikibofh 22:35, 7 December 2005 (UTC)
See WikiProject User scripts or Wikipedia:Tools for godmode-lite. Nonetheless, Staxringold, while the standard rollback notice identifies which version one is rolling back to, and also rolls back multiple vandalisations by one user, its consistency means a lack of detail. That is, we should really be using messages that say either "rvv" = "revert vandalism", or "rv test" = "revert something that wasn't quite vandalism", or "rv blanking" which could just be "rvv", or "rv " with some other reason, such as "added duplicate content", or "copyvio", etc... jnothman talk 22:45, 7 December 2005 (UTC)
Also be very careful not use that type of rv explanation for other content disputes. I use the rollback button a lot but only for indisputable vandalism for pages in which I have a content interest; for those pages which I do not actively edit or engage in discussion I will use the rollback for obvious nonsense (a slightly broader category). Every other kind of reversion deserves an explanation in either edit summary or talk page. alteripse 13:02, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Changing My Password

Does there remain any means of changing my account password? Where this option would ordanarily be on the log in page, it is gone. Could you help?--Thomas Aquinas 23:25, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

Go to "my preferences" at the top of any page, just to the left of "my watchlist". AnnH (talk) 23:28, 7 December 2005 (UTC)


[edit] December 8

[edit] Category and foreign article

Is it possible to link a foreign article into a English category? How? WriterFromAfar755 00:38, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

Do you mean to add an article in another language Wikipedia into a category in English Wikipedia? No, this is not possible: Why would you want to do it? English Wikipedia should rather have an article on that topic than add a non-English-language article to the English encyclopaedia's category. jnothman talk 01:58, 8 December 2005 (UTC)
A good solution to the problem–assuming that jnothman's reading of it is correct...?–is to create a new stub article on the English wikipedia, and then to put the English article into the appropriate category. The English article can then be linked using an interlanguage link to the articles in other languages. (For bonus points, add a note to the talk page of our article that there is extensive information in the foreign article waiting for translation.) TenOfAllTrades(talk) 15:08, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] discussion

Please answer me quickly, im a new user. how do i add to discussion? --Chormang 02:07, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

Click on "Discussion" at the top of the screen, right next to "Edit this page", which will take you to the talk page of the article you want to discuss, and once there, click on "Edit this page" and say what you want to say. Titoxd(?!? - did you read this?) 02:32, 8 December 2005 (UTC)
Discussion happens on the "talk page" of an article, which you reach by clicking "discussion" up the top. You can either add to a discussion that is already taking place, or start a new topic of discussion. To start a new topic on the discussion page, click the "+" button up the top; type the subject and the content, save and you're done. To reply to a current discussion, go to the appropriate section of the page and click the [edit] link. Indent your comment with colons (:) [although some people use asterisks (*)], make an edit summaryy and save. Don't forget to sign! I hope that helps. jnothman talk 02:35, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Fairuse on screenshots

Do we really need a fairuse rationale for screenshots? - Ta bu shi da yu 02:30, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

Yes. See Wikipedia:Screenshots, maybe. jnothman talk 02:37, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Wikipedia on PDA

Joe sent the following question to the Wikimedia Help Mailing List.

Hello, i am a software developer, and i am involved in a project concerning your wiki software. My partners and i have a few questions on how to use your software. it basically involves putting your wiki software onto a PDA handheld device. i downloaded the source to the software but we dont know what to do with it from there. if you could help me out on how to put and access your wikipedia software on other devices. if you need anymore info please let me know.

I would be grateful for any assitance you can give him. Capitalistroadster 04:36, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

Joe, I get the impression you don't mean that people should be able to access and edit wikipedia from their PDAs... Just that the Wikipedia articles should be available there, like all the other dictionaries and encyclopedias one can get on a PDA? Because PDAs aren't meant to be web servers, they're unlikely to be able to run a PHP server-side script like MediaWiki, but you could produce a static set of HTML or otherwise pages with MediaWiki (first you have to download the database), or you can use the static dump of Wikipedia already available from http://static.wikipedia.org/ and maybe modify it for the medium of use. But ultimately, this is nearly a 2GB download, so anyone who wants to use it has to have that sort of space free; any web server ready to provide such a package for free would need to allow for such high bandwidth downloads. If I've got your idea all wrong, please clarify. jnothman talk 05:24, 8 December 2005 (UTC)
Erik Zachte has already ported to PDA: http://members.chello.nl/epzachte/Wikipedia/ --Commander Keane 15:29, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Language symbols

In some articles (but I can't remember which) I noticed a symbol before an external link signalling that it's in French or Spanish etc. Where do I find those? David Sneek 12:02, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

  • Can you point us to such an article? - Mgm|(talk) 13:08, 8 December 2005 (UTC)
The use of symbols instead of naming the language is highly controversial. See Wikipedia talk:External links#Foreign-language external links. Susvolans ⇔ 13:09, 8 December 2005 (UTC)
Mgm - No, it's something I encountered a few times, but forgot to bookmark and only later I realized that they might be useful for some of the pages I keep an eye on.
Susvolans - thanks for that link. Now I'm not sure if I will use the symbols, but at least I know how to put them in there. ({{es icon}}=(Spanish), {{nl icon}}=(Dutch), {{fr icon}}=(French), etc.)
David Sneek 15:27, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] User's own talk page bolded in Recent changes

Why is the link to my own talk page suddenly bolded in Recent changes? — JIP | Talk 12:48, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

Have you put it on your watchlist? Susvolans ⇔ 13:11, 8 December 2005 (UTC)
Must have. For me only watchlisted stuff is showing bold. - 131.211.210.16 13:56, 8 December 2005 (UTC)
I had my user page on my watch list but not my user talk page. But I don't rememeber ever putting anything in my watch list. — JIP | Talk 14:00, 8 December 2005 (UTC)
When you watch a page, you automatically watch the associated talk page, and vice versa - as a result, your watchlist can sometimes show pages that were never created. Shimgray | talk | 14:24, 8 December 2005 (UTC)
(after edit conflict) You cannot watch talk pages independently of article/project/user/etc pages and vice versa. If you have your user page on your watchlist you also have your user talk page on your watchlist; if you add Wikipedia talk:Help desk to your watchlist, you get Wikipedia:Help desk as well. See Mediazilla:1862 for a request to be able to filter your watchlist by namespace. Thryduulf 14:25, 8 December 2005 (UTC)
Yes, but how did my user page get on my watch list without me putting it there? — JIP | Talk 14:26, 8 December 2005 (UTC)
Quite easy to do it by accident, if you're editing without paying much attention - you accidentally tick the box saying "Watch this page" when going to save or preview. I quite often accidentally tick the minor-edit box... Shimgray | talk | 14:29, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Custom reference numbering

I've been doing an extensive makeover on Hopkins School (I've been doing mostly cosmetic work until the school archivist gets back to me so I can improve the short history section). You'll notice there is a reference in the sidebar for the Endowment, auto-numbered 1 (because the side-bar is the first code for the article) and a note over financial aid, auto-numbered 2. The problem is when READING the article the endowment is the second thing you see, not the first. I was wondering if there was something one can add to the ref code to custom number (or do I just have to shift the references around to match the auto-numbering, even if it isn't perfect)? Staxringold 14:01, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

Yes, there is a way of using multiple references to the same footnote that should be adaptable to what you want to do. See Wikipedia:Footnotes#Example with multiple references to the same footnote for the templates in question. Thryduulf 14:20, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Is There a Link?

Is there a link to a list of all the classification templates for users?, If you don't know what I mean ....

en This user is a native speaker of English.
fox This user contributes using Firefox.
gb-0 This user cannot tolerate any form of Gibberish language, and is therefore easily emotionally traumatized by The Sims.




1337-0 This user has no idea what 1337 is and/or prefers to contribute using proper words.
175 I scored a 175 on the Are You a Wikipediholic Test.




xp This user uses Windows XP.
win This user contributes using Microsoft Windows.
This user opposes the installation of any kind of advertisements on Wikimedia Foundation operated sites.


I mean that sort of thing.They are a great idea - well done to whoever thought of it - but I would like to see them all. . To anyone who replies - thank you. image:WikiThanks.pngDTR 17:03, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

I have tried looking myself, but as of yet have found nothing. The best I can find is just a search [7] of templates with the word "user" in the title. It's not ideal. FireFox 18:00, 8 December 2005 (UTC)
Templates starting with "user" can be found from Special:Allpages, here. The language ones categorize users in subcategories of Category:User languages. The others almost certainly end up categorizing in some subcategory of Category:Wikipedians. -- Rick Block (talk) 19:36, 8 December 2005 (UTC)
While the language ones are at Wikipedia:Babel, a fair collection of others are available from Wikipedia:Userboxes. Tis list is nonetheless incomplete. jnothman talk 21:47, 8 December 2005 (UTC)
There are also many that haven't been made into templates and exist soley on user pages. You can make your own using the following:
{{userbox|icon background color|text background color|userbox icon|text of userbox}}
--WAvegetarian (talk) (email) (contribs) 03:12, 9 December 2005 (UTC)
  • I just dug up some of those boxes for my own userpage by going through the "what links here" for Template:Userbox. Worked like a charm. - 131.211.210.16 08:35, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Pronunciation

How do you pronounce the words Wikipedia? Thanks,--166.66.60.42 17:40, 8 December 2005 (UTC) Tipper

See Wikipedia. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 17:55, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Diagram on Bremelanotide (formerly PT-141)

Hi!

I was trying to fix the Chemical structure structure diagram on the Bremelanotide article, but I couldn't figure out what was wrong. Can anyone help?

Thanks, Rasmus (talk) 18:50, 8 December 2005 (UTC).

Code has been added to the image server to stop it from trying to thumbnail very large images - doing so was causing an undue burden on it, and posed a ripe avenue for denial-of-service attacks. I suggest you reupload at around 1000 pixels wide, and it'll thumbnail fine. -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 18:54, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Table is displayed at the bottom of the article

I made a table for fuel oil, but it is always displayed at the bottom of the article, even though there is text beneath it in the source. Thanks, Kjkolb 22:49, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

I'm guessing that is HTML, and I have no idea what was wrong with that. I have replaced it with wiki table syntax, although I changed the style a little - you may want to take a look at Wikipedia:Table to modify it. Or just ask here.--Commander Keane 23:32, 8 December 2005 (UTC)
Thanks! -- Kjkolb 01:43, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] December 9

[edit] Use someone's real name or their pseudonym?

I looked in the WP:MOS but I couldn't find any guidance about this. If a person has one or more pseudonyms/pen names etc, which one should be used? Which one should even be the article name?

I have a couple of feelings about this. 1. The usage should be consistent throughout the article, otherwise reading it may make it seem schizeophrenic. 2. It would probably make sense for the name used to be the same as the article name. Obviously you'd have RDRs from all the other names.

Some examples...

  1. I realised this was a problem when editing William Wharton (author).
  2. Lewis Carroll mostly uses Dodgson, but inconsistent. Someone said to me on the Talk page that there are times when it is appropriate to use both (eg in the context of book commentary, use Carroll, elsewhere use Dodgson).
  3. Sean Combs consistently uses Combs.
  4. Elton John doesn't even mention his real name until the first section (although he changed his name by deed poll, so fair enough).
  5. John Wayne real name not mentioned until first section, then used for precisely two pars before switching back to Wayne, with no reason given.

sigh. a little help? --pfctdayelise 00:02, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

It depends on how and when the pseudonym was or is used, I think. Charles Lutwidge Dodgson is a good example. He published his books as Lewis Carroll, while in all other contexts he was Dodgson. It therefore makes some sense to write that "Dodgson took up the new art form of photography" and "Carroll wrote poetry". But with so many contributors it's hard to get consistency and I notice the article also suggests "that Carroll used the fungus ergot", which should probably be changed to Dodgson... In the John Wayne article the final reference to "Morrison" seems reasonable, because that paragraph juxtaposes the icon Wayne with the real person behind the myth. David Sneek 07:35, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Changing Color/Font of Signature?

Hi. I've noticed various users, when signing their names, use purple backgrounds and yellow text, or brown backgrounds and purple text, or some strange combination of the like. Is there a way to edit what happens when you sign with 4 tildes (~), or are they manually editing each instance?--Canaen 02:34, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

You essentially can use HTML formatting in your signature as set on your preferences page. See Wikipedia:Signature#Customizing your signature. jnothman talk 03:00, 9 December 2005 (UTC)
<td bgcolor="#008000"><font color="#ffffff">[[User:Canaen|Canaen]]</font></td>
I enter this into thje nickname area, and my name ends up jumping down a line, after the timestamp. Any way I can fix this? 10:48, 9 December 2005 (UTC)
Don't use <td>. <span> might be better. — JIP | Talk 11:01, 9 December 2005 (UTC)
Using <span> gives me this: Canaen 22:01, 9 December 2005 (UTC) The text is white, as I wish, but the background is no longer Green.
Canaen
This issue has been resolved. I thank you all. Canaen 23:27, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Font

Please, what font does Wikipedia use?-Gillean666 03:44, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

Please, ask more specific questions. This depends on where you look and what skin you use; for the default skin it uses your browser's default sans-serif font:
body {
        font: x-small sans-serif;
       ...
}
— Sverdrup 14:10, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Award!

when do i get an award, reward or star.

Because i have actually being contributing mostly every day, and stopping fools from vandalism,(reversing)

>x<ino 10:35, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

Usually, when someone notices your work on their own, and gives you one.
  • It also helps to give people awards yourself. Giving yourself often leads to people appreciating you and giving something in return. - Mgm|(talk) 10:57, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

":Usually, when someone notices your work on their own, and gives you one." What!? I though, when creating article, it isn't yours nor you shouldn't clame it.
Anyway How do i award myself?.

like i said, I either want to be an admin or award.

I am not pushing my luck..but come on:P

>x<ino 11:11, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

If you want to be an admin, you can nominate yourself on WP:RFA. I don't particularly think anyone is going to give you an award merely for asking for one. As for MacGyverMagic's comment, it's true that no one owns articles, but Wikipedia still keeps track of which editor has contributed what, and people can see what you have added to articles. — JIP | Talk 11:27, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for the link

And what do you mean, they won't give me one, because i asked!?

If i don't ask, they won't notice, "it's good to give it a try!" "MacGyverMagic's comment" you mean mine:)

I know you can see the contribution, you mean the person that first edited an article, is like the owner(not owner but he started it)

>x<ino 11:43, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

Sorry, I misread the indentation and thought MacGyverMagic's signature applied to both comments. Notice I didn't say "for asking for one", I said "merely for asking for one". Asking for awards doesn't hurt, but if all you do is ask "can I have an award, please?" without showing what contributions you have made, it won't probably work. Also, aren't awards supposed to be additional gifts given solely as an expression of goodwill? It's not like they're some sort of wages that people are legally entitled to. — JIP | Talk 12:38, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

maybe MacGyverMagic maybe a fool:P

First, i ask for an award, because i deserve it! I don't need to list my contribution, because i already listed them at my UserPage [8]
Gift!? is it because of the "Leave a Complaint, SITE, CONTRIBUTION/GIFT" is it because of that

First of all, if i get payed for contributing, i won't bother putting it there, second, voluterring is also a gift, a free gift to give, without asking for money. I wasnt asking for money from wiki >x<ino 12:46, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] WIKI CREATOR

Like i asked again!...

Who is the fool:P that owns/created/form this wikipedia!?

>x<ino 12:48, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

Please look it up in your encyclopedia! Read Wikipedia. — Sverdrup 14:06, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Prevent anons from creating talk pages for nonexistent articles

Today I've seen a couple of talk pages created for nonexistent templates, created by anon users, which have turned out as vandalism. I seem to remember that although anons can't create articles any more, they can create talk pages. I suggest that anons should be prohibited from creating talk pages for articles, categories, templates or project pages that don't exist yet, to prevent this sort of vandalism. — JIP | Talk 12:58, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

  • Shouldn't this be at the village pump proposal page?- Mgm|(talk) 13:57, 9 December 2005 (UTC)
I've copied this to wikien-l, to see if anyone can forsee problems. I'd advise bringing it up on appropriate Village Pump pages, though - you'll get more useful feedback there. Shimgray | talk | 17:26, 9 December 2005 (UTC)
I'm already on record as opposing the prevention of anons creating pages, but I really oppose not letting them create Talk pages. How are they supposed to discuss changes they made to the articles they're allowed to edit? Zoe (216.234.130.130 19:14, 13 December 2005 (UTC))

[edit] about my ipod mini

i've has , and my ipod for about a 2 weeks and now it's saying o.k to disconnect. what does that mean?

[edit] Convert images from svg

Please could someone convert Image:Soccerball.svg from svg to png, jpg or psd so I can't edit it using Adobe Photoshop? Thank you. CG 17:31, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

Mediawiki already did that before it sent it to your browser: just hit save-as. But why would you want to edit it with photoshop, as opposed to a free SVG editor like Inkscape? -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 17:48, 9 December 2005 (UTC)
In general, you should not convert vector graphics to raster formats for editing. This image is public domain, but, if it had been GFDL, you would be violating the spirit of the GFDL by making the image more "opaque" than the original. --David Woolley 10:36, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Re-naming a category

Hi, It has become apparent that a couple of categories I have created have been improperly named. Specifically, these are "Category:Pederastic relationships" and "Category:Mythical pederastic relationships". Since the included articles are not about relationships but about persons, I'd like to request that they be re-named "Category:Pederastic lovers" and "Category:Mythical pederastic personages". Thanks in advance Haiduc 18:00, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

Renaming a category can be quite a long process depending on how many articles there are. Since these two categories have only a couple of articles, all you have to do is change each article so instead of [[Category:Pederastic relationships]], they would say [[Category:Pederastic lovers]]. To stop the new categories from being a red link, you would create them the same way you created the first set. Thelb4 19:12, 9 December 2005 (UTC)
Also, you would then take the original categories to Categories for Deletion. Thelb4 19:14, 9 December 2005 (UTC)
It might be better form to nominate for CfD before depopulating it, and indicate in your nomination what should be done with the articles (ie moved to your preferred category). I have a feeling this is better Wikiquette, but I can't find the guideline anywhere on CfD, so I dunno. pfctdayelise 22:49, 9 December 2005 (UTC)
On WP:CFD, under "How to use this page", it's the second bullet of part II, step 5. -- Rick Block (talk) 17:30, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Userboxes along side of page

Can anyone help turn the series of userboxes on my page into a long line along the right side, alongside the remainder of the page's text, a la User:Cmdrjameson? Thanks! - Wezzo 20:59, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Category:Role-playing games weirdness

The Category:Role-playing games page has several problems that I can't figure out. First, some entries (such as Engel and RhyDin) seem to be listed under "*" and not under their first letter. Second, the page seems to end at "R", when I know at least Worlds of Wonder should be listed. Thanks to anyone who can explain or help. --GRuban 22:06, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

I came across this same problem at commons. It's very annoying. It happens when categories become huge. The reason RhyDin (which needs some serious wikification, btw) is listed under "*" is because on its page it has [[Category:Role-playing games|*]]. To me, this is kinda cheating, to force it to the front of the listing. This kind of syntax is useful for pages like List of movies featuring roleplaying. You would want this to list under M for movies, not L for list. So on its page, it should have [[Category:Role-playing games|Movies featuring roleplaying, list of]] (or just "movies", which AFAICT would do a good enough job). This feature is especially useful when you want to have people list under their last names rather than their first, which is what happens by default.
What I tried to do to fix it, was to go to each page and change it to [[Category:Foo| ]] so it was sorted by space. But then it collapsed again a couple of days later.
Basically, it's a bug. I don't know enough about bugzilla to point you to a link for it, but I'm sure there are plenty.
de:User:Kolossos has created a tool to show you a category tree on commons. You could ask him nicely to implement a similar tool for en. :) pfctdayelise 22:59, 9 December 2005 (UTC)
also, to see further listings, click on "next 200". There is World of Darkness, but I don't see Worlds of Wonder.pfctdayelise 23:03, 9 December 2005 (UTC)
I've fixed the category links on RhyDin and Engel (game) to remove the blatant advertising. — JIP | Talk 17:15, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

Thank you all, folks. I didn't see the "next 200" link, but findings it, yes, Worlds of Wonder is there. Thanks for fixing those two hacks, JIP. I think this means we need to split this category page somehow, since it's too large if people are resorting to hacks to make names findable. Will mull over. GRuban 21:45, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Babel

What is a "babel"?--Anti-Anonymex2Come to my page! I've gone caliente loco! 23:49, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

Babel means "confusion" in Hebrew. It is in the name of the Tower of Babel, which is where G-d confounded the language of mankind. In Wikipedia, Wikipedia:Babel refers to a set of templates which display the level of proficiency a user has in various langages. Izehar (talk) 23:52, 9 December 2005 (UTC)
Wikipedia is not censored for minors. It's safe to say God here. — JIP | Talk 07:23, 10 December 2005 (UTC)
  • Especially when you refer to the deity with no additional bad meanings or swearing. - Mgm|(talk) 12:21, 10 December 2005 (UTC)
Yes, but it is actually contrary to the religious beliefs of some people to speak or write the name of God: hence G-d. Palmiro | Talk 16:53, 10 December 2005 (UTC)
This is something I've never understood. "God" is an English word. It's not something God chose a name for himself. If we're so afraid of incurring God's wrath by speaking his name in vain, why don't we start writing "d-ity", "c-eator", "m-ker", "L-rd", "o-nipotent b-ing", "i-telligent d-signer" and so on as well? — JIP | Talk 17:08, 10 December 2005 (UTC)
Don't ask me why, I'm an atheist! As far as I know, it has to do with the idea in Judaism that the original name of God is sacred; some Jews carry this over into other languages as well by writing D-o, G-d etc., considering those words to represent the name of God (unlike descriptive terms such as deity) while others, I think, consider that only the original Hebrew name must not be uttered. I'm sure someone else (possibly Izehar) could give you a more accurate and complete account of it. Palmiro | Talk 18:00, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] December 10

[edit] Installing Bots

Is there I can install a bot on my own wiki? I have no knowledge of programming (other than PHP, HTML and such) - would it be possible to install some kind of simple bot to delete things and check things or whatever? Thank you kindly for any help you could offer!

WP:BOT might help you. Broken S 03:43, 10 December 2005 (UTC)
I was hoping for some simple instructions for the complete newbie )-: but that helped a little; just cant like find onw I can download and install then tear apart to learn to build my own... -- 24.237.6.216 19:15, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Siblings on Wikipedia

Is there a known amount of Wikipedians with siblings who are also Wikipedians? --Ali K 01:34, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

  • This is not really the right place for factual questions, even if they regard WP. Wikipedia:Reference Desk Would be more appropriate. That said, however, I sincerely doubt this statistic exists, because of the tons of anonymous users and the fact that registration doesn't require anything more than a user name and email address. -Lanoitarus 03:36, 10 December 2005 (UTC)
  • I was a bit sceptical about placing my question here, maybe someone should mention that at the top of the page? Thanks for your help.--Ali K 05:23, 10 December 2005 (UTC)
    • Good idea. (See top of page). Dystopos 05:56, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Men vs Women

Does anyone know the ratio of men to women users of Wikipedia--Ali K 01:35, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

  • This is not really the right place for factual questions, even if they regard WP. Wikipedia:Reference Desk Would be more appropriate. That said, however, I sincerely doubt this statistic exists, because of the tons of anonymous users and the fact that registration doesn't require anything more than a user name and email address. -Lanoitarus 03:36, 10 December 2005 (UTC)
  • The intro says: Here you can ask questions about Wikipedia and get help editing articles.. I don't see why asking factual questions about Wikipedia shouldn't be placed here. The intro clearly allows it. - Mgm|(talk) 12:24, 10 December 2005 (UTC)
  • Thankyou, someone who sees my point!--Ali K 14:07, 12 December 2005 (UTC)
  • But nobody who gives an answer... -- 66.58.233.23 02:47, 13 December 2005 (UTC)
    • How could one possibly give an answer that doesn't exist? There's no data to base it on. -- Mwanner | Talk 02:59, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Are Articles Listing (or Describing and Linking to) Important National Dates Appropriate For Wikipedia?

Is it an appropriate subject for a Wikipedia article, or for a category, to write about dates of national importance? Not all such dates are included in (for one example) List of holidays by country. Or in any other list or category I've seen here. Yet, it seems to me just as important a way of understanding a nation, to describe the dates (and the reasons why those dates matter) which resonate in the memory and culture of a country -- as it is to describe the geology or the population or the GDP of a country.

Please comment, I'd welcome direction on this. Cheers, Madmagic 03:52, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

  • Yes, dates of national importance can be quickly covered in a one-line description in the date article like July 31 (Independance Day in the US IIRC) or December 5 (Sinterklaas in the Netherlands). If you want to describe the holiday or event itself in more detail, a separate article named after the event (instead of the date) is probably appropriate. Do you have anything specific in mind? - Mgm|(talk) 12:30, 10 December 2005 (UTC)
Hi Mgm, thank you for the response. Re-reading my question this morning I can see I wasn't clear. :) I'll try giving an example of what I mean.
Imaginary article (or category) title: Important Dates In British History. Article/category includes a January-December list of dates, with links to the articles on the Gunpowder Plot, the signing of the Magna Carta, Norman Invasion of 1066, etc. Cheers, Madmagic 15:12, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] I can't edit long articles/sections anymore!

Sometime within the last 24 hours, I've lost the ability to submit changes to moderately long articles and sections of articles. User:Melchoir#Test_1 seems to be about the limit; if I add a few more characters and click "Save page", it times out; after a few minutes a Wikipedia Error message shows up. The same happens if I click "Show preview". If I then remove the offending characters, going back under the limit, I can submit and preview with almost no lag at all. This happens whether or not I'm logged in, in both Safari and Firefox, and I've tried two static IPs in the same building.

On the other hand, I'm able to post extremely long sections of text to forumer.com, as in here, and I can post to Wikipedia as normal if I go through a remote proxy, such as at Anonymouse.org.

What's going on? Melchoir 05:01, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

I just checked, and I have the same problem on the other languages, as well as Wikisource... Melchoir 07:22, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

I have this problem in the office, e.g. I can't resubmit this page after an edit conflict. My guess is that it is due to the web proxy that is used, in this case a Microsoft one. Note that many ISPs don't let you not use one. In most cases it is better to use sectiion edits --David Woolley 10:17, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] how to create special pages

i am starting my own wiki (http://wikiclassifieds.org) and would like some directions on how to create custom special pages. thanks. -- Zondor 05:25, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Time in Time Stamps - How to edit?

I've noticed the time in timestamps is all UTC. Is it possible to change mine to read my own time zone, or is there something I don't know about Wikipedia which means they all have to be "UTC or bust"? Gohst 15:22, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

Click on the "my preferences" up on the top right hand corner, then go to "date and time". Click "fill in from browser". pfctdayelise 15:25, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] How do I attribute anonymous edits with my IP to my username?

How do I attribute anonymous edits with my IP to my username? I remember reading somewhere that you could do this however I can't seem to find instructions. I'm not sure if this is no longer possible or what. :/ I've been editing for a while anonymously so it would be great if I can indeed add all my anonymous edits to my username without actually having to publically reveal my IP (e.g. making a big message on my user page saying "xx.xx.xxx.xx was me editing anonymously, here are my contributions".. I really would prefer not to have to do that -_-

Thanks for anyone that can help!

Wikipedia is cool :D

--Red-skinned femme-fatale black-latex-clad b-tch from Hell 16:45, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

1) If you are the sole user of that IP, you don't need to make a mess and list those edits on your userpage, you can refer people to the contribution history for that IP. 2) If you are not the only user of that IP, changing the attribution for those edits wouldn't have been possible anyway. Are you unhappy with revealing your IP, or with listing all your anon contributions on your userpage? - Mgm|(talk) 19:19, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Possible Licence Mixup

Führerbunker
Führerbunker

This is not a copyright violation, but I would like to know whether the licence on a picture is ok as it is: The picture included (and others linked from Führerbunker) includes a text which forbids commercial use, as does the text on the picture's page. Is this an acceptable licence for Wikipedia? Complicating matters, the picture's page also states that the picture is licenced und a Creative Common by-sa licence, which does not exclude commercial work. So is all this just fine or should something be done?

I looked for any answer in the FAQ and elsewhere, but couldn't find anything useful. Any pointers are welcome! --Yooden

  • This is decidedly not okay. I have left a message on the uploaders talk page and will list it for deletion if it is not promptly fixed. WAvegetarian (talk) (email) (contribs) 19:18, 10 December 2005 (UTC)
    • Seems deletion might be a bit hasty-- the uploader is clearly the same person as the copyright in the corner states. Should be fixed certainly, but doesnt seem deletion worthy IMHO. -Lanoitarus 19:46, 10 December 2005 (UTC)
  • If commercial use is not allowed, it's NOT okay, but cc by-sa should work. The fact those do not mix is a problem. - Mgm|(talk) 19:21, 10 December 2005 (UTC)
  • Hi! I am the one who did the image and thus the responsible one:). I have fixed this issue on all three images (removing the "non-commercial" text on the description pages and inside the images. I just wanted to ask you guys: Is there any way for me to specify the licence as free for all uses except commercial? I would be very thankful for a reply on my talk page. My regards, Dennis Nilsson. --Dna-Dennis talk - contribs 00:27, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Same problem...

Ironically, the above section describing my problem has already grown too long for me to edit it. So, no, just editing sections doesn't work for me! Melchoir 18:31, 10 December 2005 (UTC)


[edit] CatAZ template

Hi, is it possible to sort articles based on the first few letters instead of just the first letter? Example: If I have Mosque Acheh, Mosque Kampong, can I sort using "Mosque A", "Mosque B", etc instead of just "A", "B", etc.? Unlike in English where the word "mosque" is written at the back of the name, eg. "Acheh Mosque", it is reversed to read "Masjid Acheh" in the Malay language.

I have tried using the above template with one letter (with Gflores assistance) and it works. It didn't work when I tried to extend it thus:

[{{SERVER}}{{localurl:{{NAMESPACE}}:{{PAGENAMEE}}|from=Masjid A}} A].

I understand that one way is actually to use: [[Category:Mosque|Acheh, Mosque]] at the bottom of an article, but then again, when there are many users involved, some may not be able to follow. — PM Poon 18:56, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

The category listing includes subheaders for the first letter of the article name, or the first letter of the sort key. If you want the listing to be divided by the first letter of the mosque name, as far as I know the only option is to add the sort key as you suggest. If you don't add a sort key, they'll all appear under "M", sorted alphabetically. The "index" shown by the template does not affect the appearance of the category listing, but was created to match it. If you don't add the sort key, and there are hundreds of entries in the category, the template approach could produce an index allowing a user to traverse to the indicated point in the category listing (still under "M" in the category listing). I believe this would "work", but it sounds like it might not do what you're looking for. -- Rick Block (talk) 16:58, 11 December 2005 (UTC)

Hi Rick Block, actually it is alright if all the articles in the category page begins with "Masjid" (meaning "mosque"). I am trying to use the template, CatAZ, to navigate the category page. Apparently it cannot work with more than one letter. Do you know how to modify the template so that it can work? Thanks. — PM Poon 19:52, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Citation

An article I just wrote, Q TV, has been flagged as in need of citations. However, the article only contains basic information obvious from watching the channel such as Channel number, content, etc (ie: not sourced information). What should I do for the citation? smurrayinchester(User), (Ho Ho Ho!) 22:24, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

I believe that the policy is that {{unreferenced}} shouldn't be applied where there is also a stub template. However, I thiink that watching the channel could well be interpreted as original research, and to the extent that that is not the case, the television channel transmissions themselves are what should be quoted as the source. The problem with this is that they are ephemeral and not easily available to all readers of Wikipedia, so a more permanent and available source would be highly desirable and surely exists. The information is not obvious to someone with the technical knowledge (very little) needed to understand the article, unless they also subscribe. I believe that one suggested test of a valid source is that the information should still be verifiable from it in 10 years time.
The info-box does include a reference, which should be given a full citation in the References section, as well as the numbered link in the info-box. --David Woolley 00:34, 11 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Where do I go to discuss the ban of anonymous users creating articles?

Where do I go to discuss the ban of anonymous users creating articles? --anon

  • As is often the case on Wikipedia, discussion is happening in a multitude of different places, in a comparatively unorganized fashion.
The central locations that I am aware of include:
You may also wish to look at:
-- Creidieki 00:25, 11 December 2005 (UTC)

Which is the best place? --anon

If what you want to do is challenge rather than just discuss, you might as well share your reasons here. There's a good chance that this exact point was discussed and a conclusion already reached, which someone can share. If you disagree, though, you'd need to go to one of the other places for a discussion. Notinasnaid 11:25, 11 December 2005 (UTC)
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