Wikipedia:Help desk/Archives/2006 December 29

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[edit] December 29

[edit] presidential decisions

how do i find facts about presidential decisions with george washington? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 207.69.137.40 (talk) 00:24, 29 December 2006 (UTC).

Try looking at George Washington or asking on the Reference Desk (linked at the top of this page). -- Kesh 00:31, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Policy on articles being hijacked?

I know there is a policy that says you cannot hijack an article and insert material on another subject, but I cannot find this in the Wiki policy. I seen it a few weeks ago, but despite an extensive search I am at a loss to find it. I am having a problem with a user who is hijacking an article on a specific crime and using the article to talk about definitions of crime in general.

--87.80.140.49 00:56, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

The only thing that comes to mind, without more information, is no edit wars. -- Kesh 01:04, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
Also people are not allowed to OWN an article see WP:OWN or add their own original research see WP:OR - hope they help. Lethaniol 01:07, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
You could have seen this, but thats all I can think of. -- Sir Escher talk 01:16, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
Just remove the material as vandalism, and give the user a stern (or better yet, friendly and inviting)talking-to. Has this user been welcomed yet? They might not know what they're doing.Nina Odell 01:38, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

That's the problem with the Wikipedia policy and guidelines. It is hard to find things that should be there under a clear section. There is definately a part that says not to take over one article with another subject. It states it in much stronger terms than the above link. --87.80.140.49 01:49, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

  • Perhaps they put material about something with the same name in because they don't know about naming conventions and disambiguations? You could try explaining those... - Mgm|(talk) 12:24, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Question about blocking

I can't believe this, but for the life of me I can't remember the link to get to the page where a non admin can put users up for blocking. This one guy vandalising Rocky Balbao needs to be blocked, just need the link. Here's a link to him, in case you'd like to do it. DoomsDay349 01:19, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

WP:AIV. -Amarkov blahedits 01:20, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
Thanks! DoomsDay349 01:21, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Temporary fonts needing to be installed

I'm having an issue that every Wikipedia page I load, I get a dialog (from IE6) saying

This page uses fonts that need to be temporarily installed. This is usually safe. 
Do you want to allow these fonts to be downloaded?

It's very annoying, there is no noticeable difference from answering yes or no, and I don't see how to automate the answering of this question.

Is this just me with this problem? NSilter 02:16, 29 December 2006 (UTC)


  • Here is something you can try: (from yahoo answers) Go to tools > internet options > security > custom level > downloads > font download > "enable" > ok > yes > ok. --Infrangible 03:50, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] "Stable version" of wikipedia website?

Remember once coming across a website that used some kind of algorithm to direct you to the history of an article's page to what they have determined is the last stable version. Can anybody else remember the website? Mathmo Talk 03:08, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

You might be thinking of User:Messedrocker/Stablepedia, where versions are identified by criteria set by that user.Also, there was a proposal to do this more formally, but that project page is now marked as inactive.24.20.69.240 06:32, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
Nope, was something totally different. So that it could "work" for all articles on wikipedia. Did it by analyzing the history of edits to the article. Mathmo Talk 06:47, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
Just noticed, there is also an external Stablepedia site,which uses a computer algtithm to find the "best" version to direct you to on the wikipedia site. Seems decent, though it`s really slow.--24.20.69.240 06:45, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
Exactly! Thanks, that is what I saw earlier. Mathmo Talk 06:47, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] monobook.js subpage question

Question probably for an admin, or someone familiar with monobook.js subpages:

If you look at [1], or AfD_debates_Not_yet_sorted, there are 8 monobook pages that keep showing up in the AfD debates category! It appears that the wording in the monobook script is getting picked up by the software/bot that creates the AfD pages. Not a big deal, but they probably shouldn't be showing up there!

Also, I couldn't find the source for that specific monobook.js at the user scripts page, possible it's just one that was discontinued and simply not deleted, as it's just a few users? Thanks SkierRMH 03:33, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

It can't be a bot, monobook pages are fully protected to everyone but the user and admins. -Amarkov blahedits 03:40, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
Oh, I see, the category template is transcluded somehow. I'll figure out where and try to fix it. -Amarkov blahedits 03:41, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
Yeah, we're going to need an admin to go through there and fix it up. It's in the autoafd() function. -Amarkov blahedits 03:43, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
I would be happy to do it, but I do not see how the script is referencing the category. Could you point it out please? Prodego talk 04:12, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
Ah, the "Template:REMOVE THIS TEMPLATE WHEN CLOSING THIS AfD" template... Prodego talk 04:16, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

Muchas gracias to whomever cleared this up! The pages are no longer being picked up and puut into this category. SkierRMH 18:48, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Deleting Unsourced Material

Okay, the "Controversy" section under Heelys is getting ridiculous.

Almost everything there appears to be pulled directly out of the air, and the one source given (Winston Ng's page) to support one claim isn't exactly credible.

I mean, if I wanted to, I could easily make a webpage saying that the moon is made out of green cheese and source that, but I don't think it'd last long under the article Moon, nor could I keep the same claims there under "Citation Needed"!

I'm tempted to purge the whole section but I don't want to be accused of vandalism.

What exactly is the Wiki etiquette with regards to nuking unsourced garbage? 24.111.32.167 03:49, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

I'd go with WP:V on this one. If it's completely unsourced, based on something someone believes and/or "heard somewhere," then it should simply be removed. If a user objects, it could be moved to the Talk page where it can be worked on provided those users are willing to expend the effort of helping find sources. Otherwise, it turns into vandalism.
A large section of that article is not neutral, and obviously based on personal opinion rather than verified fact ("may contribute to the overweight children syndrome"). I'd lean towards removing the Controversy section entirely until someone can provide verifiable facts. -- Kesh 04:05, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
Alternatively, if the information is just unsourced but not necessarily untrue, see WP:REF#Tagging_unsourced_material. -- Sir Escher talk 04:13, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Potentially negative info on people is treated more harshly. See WP:BLP. - Mgm|(talk) 12:22, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] what is the name Ponzi Scheme named after?

Insertformulahere —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 75.36.225.244 (talk) 06:57, 29 December 2006 (UTC).

This question would be more appropriate on the Humanities desk, but while it's here, if you read the Ponzi scheme article, you will find out the answer. Anchoress 08:16, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
Looks like it was half a question, half a test. X [Mac Davis] (DESK|How's my driving?) 02:39, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Useful Photos?

Hi, I wonder if a kindly Dutch speaker and/or photo license expert can help?

On the Dutch wiki site, use is frequently made of a Belgian database of photos at http://www.ferz.be/fiche/photo.php. These photos are all of chess players and use of the site in augmenting the writing of english chess biographies would be as useful as it has proved on the Nederland site.

An example, if you go into nl.wikipedia, is 'Vlastimil Jansa' - go to his bio and see the licensing attached to his photo. It appears that permission is valid for use of wiki projects only ( - the english text at the bottom of the license) and that acknowledgement should be paid to someone called Marc Rogers, I'm guessing ( - near the top). It also says on the license that it is no longer a valid license. My questions are then - can I use these photos? Do I need to acknowledge Marc Rogers each time? and What is the appropriate license to use on the english wiki?

A positive outcome on this would be worth its weight in gold, as many of our existing chess bios are pictureless. Can you help? Brittle heaven 08:32, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

We cannot use wiki permission only photos as they have to be useable downstream for derivatives of the project. Any images uploaded with this kind of license is now speedily deletable.—WAvegetarian•(talk) 08:36, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

Okay, fair comment, but most everything is written in Dutch so I don't know what is and isn't allowed - maybe the pictures are fair use for wiki AND all of its derivatives. Anyone else have an opinion on this?Brittle heaven 10:20, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

Incidentally the pictures are all low definition and isn't there an argument that says they can be used with acknowledgement of the author in the absence of anything available in the public domain? - Brittle heaven 10:24, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Rating Articles

I rated all 16 of the unassessed Blackadder articles (see list here). I did this by going on to each page, putting the rating on the talk page, and if it was a stub, adding that to the bottom of the normal page. Why hasn't the list been changed? (I've waited long enough for the list to be updated) Rocket71048576 10:07, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

Hang in there. If I remember correctly, Mathbot gets around to it once a day and updates the pages. So give it a day and you'll see it done — Lost(talk) 10:26, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] "I am not able to edit semi-protected articles..."

Um..how do I edit semi-protected articles if my account is 4 days old or more? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Hpbiggestfan (talk • contribs) 11:21, 29 December 2006 (UTC).

I don't recall the exact technical specifics -- if the software literally does use 4 days (96 hours) as the standard, without any loopholes or other caveats, then it's probably worth noting that your account was about 95 hours and 21 minutes old, at the time you made this post to the help desk. Try again in a short while, and see if you can edit. Hope that helps! Luna Santin 11:32, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
I believe it is actually the lowest x% (1% maybe?), of users that can edit semi-protected articles. Prodego talk 17:28, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
According to WP:SEMI, the criteria is 4 days, though it doesn't specify how or when it calculates this. -- Sir Escher talk 18:00, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
Prodego, I think Special:Contributions/newbies shows edits from the last 1% of users, which is what you may be thinking of.--Werdan7T @ 19:39, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] WIKIPEDIA TOOLBAR

Can i put a wikipedia search box on my browser toolbar? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 69.19.14.34 (talk) 12:16, 29 December 2006 (UTC).

  • Probably, check WP:TOOLS. If you want a more detailed answer, please tell us what browser you are using. - Mgm|(talk) 12:19, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
    • I believe there's some mention of that at [2]. Luna Santin 13:00, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
I am about to write how to put a search box in your browser toolbar if you have Safari. The rest of the browsers are all covered. X [Mac Davis] (DESK|How's my driving?) 02:39, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] WIKIPEDIA TOOLBAR

im using firefox —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 69.19.14.34 (talk) 12:30, 29 December 2006 (UTC). Thank you!

One Wikipedia toolbar for editing in Firefox can be found here [3] Cheers Lethaniol 14:21, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
In Firefox 2.0, just click on the little drop down arrow in your search box (next to the Google icon) and select "Manage Search Engines." In the box that pops up, click on "Get More Search Engines." Then just click on the link for Wikipedia in the browser window/tab that opens and let it install. -- Kesh 18:17, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Storing articles

HOW CAN I STORE ANY ARTICLE FROM WIKIPEDIA IN MY WIKIPEDIA ACCOUNT? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 196.1.114.240 (talk • contribs) 07:23, December 29, 2006 (UTC)

The easiest thing to do is just click on the Watch tab at the top of the article. Then it will show up on your own Watch List. It's best to actually sign up for an account to do this, though. -- Kesh 18:13, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Posting Company Profiles

I wrote an article about The Catamaran Company(www.catamarans.com) and it was deleted. This is a valid and existing company. My question why can IBM have an article up on Wikipedia and not The Catamaran Company?

What are the requirements? Is there a specific outline to follow?

Thanks you, —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Catamarans (talk • contribs) 19:00, 29 December 2006 (UTC).

Try reading through Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/The Catamaran Company, which may shed some light on why this was deleted (though the link given is from a deletion on 23 August 2006). There are a few pages cited which you may find informative, specifically WP:AUTO, WP:CORP, and WP:NOT. If I'm missing the point, could you give the exact name of the article that was deleted and a rough idea of when it was deleted? BigNate37(T) 19:20, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Almost scammed!

Thank you so much for providing this website to the public! We were almost scammed and are currently in the middle of it. We found the letter that we have answered from the scammers listed on your website. Please, as this scam is still active (the scammers don't know we are on to them) we would like to contact the proper authorities to have these people arrested. Can you guide us on how we are able to achieve this? The scam is the inheritance scam with unclaimed money held in the Caixa De Catalunya bank Spain. Thank you.

Gina —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Gstockwell (talk • contribs) 19:53, 29 December 2006 (UTC).

It depends on your jurisdiction. My guess is, were you in Canada as I am, local police would be who to call (if there exists a municipal force) or failing that the RCMP. Who would you call if your car was stolen? BigNate37(T) 20:21, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Weird change in userbox... How can it be fixed?

This user is not an administrator and does not wish to be one.

This userbox used to say 'This user is not an administrator and does not want to be one', but the last part is now gone. I don't know how to find the userbox to see what happened, how do I do that? Anchoress 21:12, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

The template is located at Template:User wikipedia/Anti-Administrator. You can view the history from there. For future reference, all templates can be found in the Template namespace. =) Kalani [talk] 21:19, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
Thank you!! Anchoress 21:24, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] OK need more help if poss?

k, per my talkpage, and the template talkpage, it seems the issue was User:SqueakBox wanting a userbox that identifies editors as non-admins without the qualifier. Since s/he had already created a new userbox:

This user is not an administrator.


I just removed the redirect from the old userbox and restored the original text. But in order to make the whole thing more skookum, I thought I'd create a Category so editors using the box will be correctly identified (Category: Wikipedians who aren't administrators), but I don't know how. Anchoress 22:08, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

Oh, I think I figured it out. Anchoress 22:11, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] What happened to "Bob Barr" article

A few days ago I read an article about former congressman Bob Barr, and when I went back to it today it was gone. How do I find out what happened, and how to retrieve the article if it is still available?

Knabnek 23:04, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

I can see Bob Barr just fine. --Derlay 23:28, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

Thanks, it's working fine now. I just don't understand why it wasn't working yesterday.

Knabnek 18:32, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] deletion

hi, I was looking for the article called "City Limits" that was deleted in july of 2006 and I wanted to save that onto a document on my computer because I lost it once. Can you tell me which deletion log in july it is located in. --Chikinpotato11 01:59, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

The AFD discussion for that article is Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/City Limits (2nd nomination). Is this what you needed? - cohesion 02:04, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
Deletion log is here [4] - you can use this special page in future - Special:Log/delete. Cheers Lethaniol 02:31, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
Also if you need to get a copy of the page back - see Category:Wikipedia administrators who will provide copies of deleted articles cheers Lethaniol 02:33, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Merging articles and preserving history

Hi. I noticed that there were separate articles on Green Bin and Green bin, covering the same topic albeit with different content. I followed the merger instructions and copied the content from the former article into the latter and edited to make it consistent, and then made the former a redirect to the latter. Shortly after, User:Finlay McWalter pointed out on my talk page that this causes lost copyright information. First, I'd like to suggest that this issue be made clearer in the instructions at Wikipedia:Merging and moving pages, and second, I'd like to ask for advice on the best approach to correcting this problem. Should I revert both articles back and then tag them for mergers, or should I tag Green bin to have a history merge made from Green Bin? Daveharr 02:41, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

Dave, by doing a cut'n'paste merge, you've made Green bin a copyvio, as it doesn't credit the contributors of the merged content. Please follow the merge procedure at Wikipedia:Merging and moving pages, and an admin can do a proper history merge which preserves the histories and contributor logs for both articles while producing a single one. Thanks. -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 02:04, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

Copied from User talk:Daveharr

Is that right about the copyvio? Ah see this -

Do not move or rename a page by copying/pasting its content, because doing so destroys the edit history. (The GFDL requires acknowledgement of all contributors, and editors continue to hold copyright on their contributions unless they specifically give up this right. Hence it is required that edit histories be preserved for all major contributions until the normal copyright expires.) If you come across a cut-and-paste move that should be fixed by merging the page histories, please follow the instructions here to have an administrator repair it.

This is from Wikipedia:Merging and moving pages but from the Moving pages part (where the edit history is lost) - I do not think it is relevant to the Merging of pages - as the history is kept.
So unless anyone disagrees I think you have done right Daveharr, Lethaniol 03:21, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Wikipedia

Do you have to pay a fee to join Wikipedia?

70.133.147.170 02:44, 30 December 2006 (UTC)Confused Kid

You do not, everything is free including membership. X [Mac Davis] (DESK|How's my driving?) 02:46, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
Take a look at Wikipedia:Introduction to help get you started, and if you decide to contribute here you may want to create an account, although even that is not required to edit. Prodego talk 02:48, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
No it is all free - though if you want to donate to help support the work here then go to - [5]. Am so tempted to make a joke about giving money to me but am afraid I will get lynched! Lethaniol 03:13, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
I assume you mean "lynched" of course, since technology has not yet advanced to the point where we can congregate as an angry mob digitally yet! Prodego talk 03:18, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
Well, quite ... :0 Lethaniol 03:38, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] How do I restore a deletion..?

i realize that from time to time people may disagree with a subject matter but have no contribution to make of their own so they just delete what other people are discussing. How do I restore such a deletion that has not other purpose than to casue others a pain? Adaptron 03:43, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

Do you mean the content of a Talk page or article? See WP:Revert. If you mean an article that was actually deleted, you'll need to look at the deletion log to see why and go from there. -- Kesh 03:45, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
If it was an article/image that was deleted - see Wikipedia:Deletion review and to find the page in question see Special:Log/delete. Cheers Lethaniol 03:59, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
It was a completed discussion on the reference desk I wanted to make a copy of. What some people do not seem to realize is that burning books did not work either. Whenever they delete a discussion they think it will keep others from learning anything new. They do not want anyone else to benefit from the discussion. However, the very purpose for the reference desk not being a two way email conversation is so that others can benefit from the questions and resulting discussion as well. Only a selfish idiot would attempt to deprive others of the benefit of a discussion if for no other reason than not having to cover in the future similar ground. Besides that the deteter obviously does not care about the topic themselves as evidenced by their not being a participant in the discussion. Is there someone in charge of the reference desk who can deprive others the benefit of a discussion they have no participation or interest in? If so then we should seriously rethink our monetary contributions as well. Adaptron 04:08, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
Slow down a second - if you had a question answer at the Reference Desk then it will be possible to track it down. You may be able to find it in the archives here Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives. But for us to help you find it, it would greatly help if you could say what subject you posted the question under, when, and even what the question was? Cheers Lethaniol 04:17, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
My apologizes... I was wound up due to a threat that had been made to delete it... after doing a little research I discovered that my consequential expectation of an unwarranted deletion is at fault. The discussion was not deleted but rather archived. This is becasue it was begun on the 25th and continued until the 28th. eBay has the same problem with its auctions compared to some others which do not end the bidding until 15 minutes after the last bid instead of at a precise time after the item was put up for sale. If the Wikipedia had a similar policy and left a discussion up for a longer period of time then it could be archived without cutting everyone off. However, I just wanted a copy and not to add anything new. Thanks. Adaptron 04:44, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] A bug?

This page: Ashoka:_Innovators_for_the_Public

Has this text in the reference section (which seems normal):

[edit] References

1. ^ Internal Revenue Service Form 990, 2003/2004 Fiscal Year. Filed for Ashoka, EIN 51-0255908, submitted on 2005-04-01. Available online at Guidestar.org (free registration required to access PDF of scanned form)

2. ^ The 200 largest U.S. Charities (page 8). Forbes.com (2005-11-23). Retrieved on 2006-09-27. The smallest nonprofit on the list has $34 million in revenue.

3. ^ Wealth of the Poor program Ashoka website, retrieved on 2006-09-26

4. ^ Support Social Entrepreneurs. Ahoka. Retrieved on 2006-10-03.

But clicking on [edit] produces this text (as shown in the edit window here) in the browser edit window:

==References==
<references/>

This is very abnormal.

Reloading makes no difference. Editing the whole document produces a normal result, except for the references section.

Harold f 04:20, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

That's how ref-marked references work. The text is in-line, where the citations are. See Wikipedia:Footnotes. —Centrx→talk • 04:25, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
Thanks! Harold f 04:33, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] What is preferred? [[Insect]]s or [[Insect|Insects]]?

I personally think that the latter is more appropriate. It's not just "s" at the end, I am also talking about [[friend]]ship versus [[friend|friendship]]. Thanks. --Ķĩřβȳ♥ŤįɱéØ 04:34, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

Either way is appropriate. The former saves space in the database, while the latter is more reliable if code changes in the future. I tend to prefer the latter in my edits, but will sometimes use the former if it's simply pluralization. -- Kesh 04:38, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
  • I'm not sure where I read it, but I think using the first is preferred. The code won't change so much that it will need changing and if it does, bots will probably be used to fix things. Go with whatever is quickest to type/shorter on the database. - Mgm|(talk) 17:13, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Yes, according to Wikipedia:How to edit a page#Links and URLs the first is preferred. -- Rick Block (talk) 18:42, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Help!

Heero- I forgot my password. Unfortunately, any hope of me remembering the correct one(I use several) was lost when I clicked the "Email me my new password" button. I think that changed it to a randomly assigned password. I didn't register my e-mail address with Wikipedia. Can anyone help me? I don't want to reveal my e-mail address(although it is very obvious, with the exception of the @yahoo.com part and the _ between my first and last name). Help? --67.190.180.238 04:55, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

Unfortunately, if you don't have access to the email address you registered with, I don't know of any other way to recover your acccount. -- Kesh 05:00, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
However clicking "e-mail password" didn't make anything worse. The old password remains valid until the new random password is used, which apparently won't happen. --Dapeteばか 16:21, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] User Talk

Hi there,


I am looking for the bottom line on user-talk pages, something that I can't find elsewhere.

Questions:

  • Should an non-abused userpage ever be protected?
  • Should the contents of a conserative user page ever be removed by an administrator?

Thanks Superspokesperson 04:59, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

Generally, protection should be used as a last resort against vandalism, and while it is forwned upon to edit another person's user page without permission, it is also not grounds to protect unless there is a good reason. The contents of a userpage probably shouldn't be removed by an administrator, but if they did, chances are they had a good reason for it, and it's really a case-by-case issue. —Keakealani 08:46, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Search

I made an account and wrote an artical, but when i search it doesn't appear. what should i do?

The search does not update immediately - try pressing the "Go" button instead of the "Search" button; if you type the title exactly it should appear. Otherwise, it is possible that you did not save the changes. It is also possible that the article has been deleted - you would have to check the article's logs to find out. —Keakealani 08:46, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Comments

how do I make a comment about specific content on wikipedia? Editing is very difficult to navigate. Direct me if possible, thank you! -Nathan

You can comment on any article on its associated talk page. If you are feeling lost, I strongly suggest this introduction for a beginning; I would also suggest reading up on Wikipedia's policies and guidelines as well as the Manual of Style. There are plenty of help guides which discuss nearly every aspect of Wikipedia, so it should be hard to get lost. —Keakealani 08:46, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Firefox/editbox weirdness

weird, huh?
weird, huh?

When having a look at another user's page in the editbox, I noticed something positively weird: as you can see in the screenshot, the whole contents of the editbox are displayed right-to-left. The page itself looks perfectly normal, diffs also show the text normally written from left to right - this is only visible when editing. If it's any help, I am using Firefox 1.5.0.9 on Windows, I have various language support modules installed (including some for right-to-left scripts like Arabic and Hebrew)...but I don't quite get why the editbox is displayed the way it is while the rest of the page is displayed normally (I guess that rules out having accidentally set the wrong text encodig in firefox). I have not clicked on "save" to see what happens, because I did not want to mess up Misza's userpage. Has anyone else ever seen this weird behavior? -- Ferkelparade π 15:38, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

There's probably a right-to-left mark in the editbox somewhere; direction marks are needed to write right-to-left languages, but they can get very confusing sometimes (I remember a checkuser case where a stray left-to-right mark got into the title and confused attempts to rename the page). I thought there were templates to add the marks without reversing the edit box, but I can't seem to find them at the moment. --ais523 16:00, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
No panic there, everything is normal. As ais523 noted above, there indeed is a RIGHT-TO-LEFT OVERRIDE character (unicode 0x202E) hidden which effectively inverts the content of the edit box. The page itself is rendered normally, because the character is apparently not interpreted by the MediaWiki software. And as of "why?", it's just a geeky joke and at the same time a vandal/plagiarism deterrent. User:Gurch used to have the same thing on his userpage. Миша13 16:09, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
Oh? How does that work? I want to use it on my userpage! Scienceman123 talk 08:58, 1 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Redirect issues

I totally messed up the Redirect I was trying to enter. I was doing a search on American comedian Wendy Liebman. Since it is often misspelled "Leibman", (it was even in the Wiki list of comedians), I tried to create the redirect but was unsucessful. Now i cannot get it back. Please help.

Thanks Alfred Ray

The redirect is fixed now - there were two problems with what you were trying to do:
  • First, the redirect page cannot contain anything other than the #REDIRECT [[foo]], or the redirect will not work. The template you were trying to add seems to be deprecated, see Template Talk:R from misspelling (I was also confused about this, see the history of Wendy Leibman for evidence :P ).
  • And second, the #REDIRECT needs only to be inserted into the article you wish to redirect, not into the target article...that can remain unchanged. The way it was set up, Wendy Liebman was trying to redirect to itself :)
Cheers, Ferkelparade π 17:54, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] why is username capitalized?

Why is my username capitalized, both in the login screen and in references in other screens? 'Spinhead', capitalized, is my web design company name; 'spinhead', all lower case, is my commonly used nickname and username. They're not the same, and the inaccuracy bothers me in print just as it bothers me in speech when someone refers to me as 'joe' when my name is, in fact, joel. Spinhead 17:49, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

You can make your signature appear lower case by adding a nickname in your preferences and you can add {{Lowercase-user}} to your userpage. You can find out more about this in the lower case first letter section of the naming conventions. Angela. 18:25, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Image Gallery Does Not Show

I am working on a article about the Danish contemporary painter Adam Saks, and i have tried to upload an image gallery. When I select edit this page and preview, and then save it, it shows correctly. However I have found that it only does so on my computer, when I try to test it on other computers the image gallery does not show, why is that? Beatle81 19:11, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

I have looked at the Adam Saks article on two different computers (Windows based) using two different browsers (Mozilla Firefox & IE7.0) the gallery of four pictures shows up fine on both of them. SkierRMH 21:53, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] "See also" guidance

I've spent a couple hours digging through the MoS, and can find nothing about when a "See also" section is to be used for internal links to related articles. I'd appreciate it if someone could point me in the right direction. -- "J-M" (Jgilhousen) 19:12, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

The see also section is usually used to add links to articles that are relevant but not linked to in the text of the article. I may not be understanding your question right; let me know on my talk page if you have a more specific question or if you want to discuss anything. Peace, delldot | talk 21:33, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Block Reasons

What does ({{username}}) mean as a block reason? Bowsy 20:19, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

It means that the name violates the Username policy. Some usernames, like "Administrator", "Vandal", names of well-known living or recently deceased people, extremely lengthy names, names that resemble an IP address, or random sequences of letters are not allowed because they are too confusing.--Werdan7T @ 20:28, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Contacting an editor

I would like to contact the volunteer editor of the page on Winnipeg, Manitoba. I would like to offer several external links for consideration as additional resources.

--Siamandas 20:58, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

All articles are collaborated on by a number of editors, so I'd suggest leaving a note on the article's talk page (by clicking the "discussion" link at the top of the page at the article) suggesting the information you want to include. You can also be bold and edit the article yourself! You can also find specific editors of an article by clicking the "history" link and looking through the various edits that have been made (e.g. by clicking the "last" button). You can click on their user names and leave them messages on their talk pages. Let me know on my talk page if you have any questions or want to discuss anything. delldot | talk 21:25, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Borders

How do you get borders around pages in your userspace? Kamope 22:04, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

You would have to employ HTML. I would suggest finding a userpage that you like, copying the basic code, then changing it to suit your fancy (such as using different colours, etc.) That is, unless you happen to have time to learn HTML or are already proficient... —Keakealani 22:52, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Positive and Negative numbers?

What are all those positive and negative numbers sometimes seen beside names of articles (on the Recent Changes page for example) and what do they mean?SilentWind 22:27, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Added or removed characters. Titoxd(?!?) 22:29, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Drop Down Menu

I was wondering how to create a drop down menu for my userpage to hold my awards in. Can someone give me the code and I'll try it out? If it doesn't work I'll ask again. Thank you. DoomsDay349 22:36, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

Incidentally, while I'm asking questions about my userpage, none of the links in my bio box (top left) are working. I've looked at everything but can't quite get it; can someone figure out what's up with that? A million thanks all around. DoomsDay349 22:47, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
template:hidden might be of use to you, although I tried it in preview mode on your page and it didn't obviously do the right thing. The talk page mentions a workaround for a quirk you may run into as well. -- Rick Block (talk) 02:38, 31 December 2006 (UTC)
I fixed my second problem and will try out that template. Thanks. DoomsDay349 20:50, 31 December 2006 (UTC)
Fixed, thank you! DoomsDay349 21:03, 31 December 2006 (UTC)
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