Wikipedia:Village pump (assistance)/Archive

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Village Pump - Assistance archive

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[edit] Adding Voice

I would like to add voice files to my page and give it the additional dimension of voice is there any way to add voice files as produced by Voice 2 Page example at [williamgreen.info]V2P

Can you please clarify? You can add audio content to a page using [[Media:Example.ogg]], but otherwise I don't know what you're saying. The preceding unsigned comment was added by Nol888 (talk • contribs) 23:22, 15 March 2007 (UTC).
It sounds like you want to add a voice message to your user page(s) so that whenever someone goes there, they automatically hear a voice message from you. That's not possible here - individual users don't have access rights to install the needed program for this. Moreover, per WP:NOT, this is an encyclopedia, not a social networking site; there really is no reason why someone going to one of your user pages should be talked to (literally). -- John Broughton (♫♫) 22:03, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Any idea on the length of article sections

I vaguely remember that I have seen an essay or a guideline or something on the length of article sections on Wikipedia, like pros and cons of longer and shorter sections or something in that line. May be there is something to tell me how long or short I should make a section. Can someone lead me to those pages? Aditya Kabir 18:36, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, I recall a page but can't find it now. That said, it should really be a sensible figure, such as 4-5 lines maximum on resolutions with width 1280 or greater, or 6-7 for ones below that. Any articles in particular you would like to have advice on? x42bn6 Talk 19:57, 9 March 2007 (UTC)
Yes, I had the article on Jayne Mansfield in mind. But, it's a general question as well. Is there anything like - "5 to 12 words a sentence, 4 to 10 sentences a paragraph, 2 to 5 paragraphs a section - on the whole 50 to 200 words a section" (I'm sure nothing in reality would resemble this example, but you get the idea). I really need to take a look at the policy, guideline or essay or whatever. Aditya Kabir 13:07, 10 March 2007 (UTC)
Perhaps Wikipedia:Guide to writing better articles? -- Rick Block (talk) 23:43, 10 March 2007 (UTC)
Thanks. But, is there anything more elaborate? Aditya Kabir 19:23, 11 March 2007 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Summary style and Wikipedia:Article size. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 21:54, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Smithfield Foods help

Hi,

I was looking up Smithfield Foods, and found the article to be read rather strange, almost like a member of the company wrote the majority of the article. I have no proof of this, it just reads funny to me. It may very well just need a rewrite due to its POV, or a Cleanup Template. Anywho, if someone could check it out, and get it another opinion, I'd appreicate it. Thanks Zidel333 04:06, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

I looked at it. I can't see any strong self-promotional point of view on it, as it does have some negative or balancing controversial aspects included. It seems to be a notable company, as it is (allegedly) the largest pork producing company and multinational. However, where its place is in an encyclopedia, I'm not sure. I'm not sure that it has encyclopedic value, and that might be the question to ask. Richiar 17:41, 17 March 2007 (UTC)
Odd statement, However, where its place is in an encyclopedia, I'm not sure. It's a major multinational company; the article has 10 footnotes, and clearly meets WP:ATT. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 21:50, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] help eco-village design team use wikis

I am with non-profit organization (www.groundwork.org) that is working to design and build an eco-village in China. We are attempting to establish an international team (designers, community members, officials) collaborating via the internet. It looks like wikis would be a good way to do that. I am looking for someone who would be willing to give us some advice on how to go about doing this. Is there anyone here that might want to do that or can you tell me of a forum or other place where I might ask?

Thanks for any help,

Huck —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Huckrorick (talk • contribs) 16:42, 15 March 2007 (UTC).

You might want to contact the Wikimedia Foundation. The software that powers this site is available free of charge, though I'm not certain how to obtain it. DurovaCharge! 05:26, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

I was hoping to find someone knowledgeable about wikis who could help guide us. It seems there is a lot of software and also quite a few wiki hosts and also software we can use on our own computer, but knowing which way to go seems to require someone with experience. Again, thanks for any guidance.

Huck

well the software we use can be found at http://sourceforge.net/projects/wikipedia/ but this may not be ideal for smaller projects. If you want an existing wiki host rather than setting up your own I'm not sure what option would be best.Geni 00:48, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

I just found out that SharePoint seems to have the capability to create a wiki. The wiki hosts I found were rather expensive. The web host we use for our web site (www.groundwork.org) is inexpensive and a modest upcharge for using SharePoint. Does anyone know if SharePoint is a good solution for creating and maintaining a wiki? Huck

There is a new book due out this month called MediaWiki Administrators’ Tutorial Guide that might be helpful. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 21:46, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] F-104 Starfighter

Could someone please add a voice of reason to the edit war I currently fight with Clawson? He just stopped discussing entirely and fell back to just reverting. Thanks. --217.235.210.177

It is obvious that he did not find any more arguments to persuade you. The F-104 Starfighter is no longer used and, therefore, should be referred to in the Simple Past tense.--Orthologist 20:09, 18 March 2007 (UTC)


[edit] Positron emission tomography

There is a horribly offensive picture that pops up when you view Positron emission tomography. I'm not sure what the problem is, I suspect someone has edited one of the pictures that used to be there, as when you open old versions of the page the image still displays.Flying fish 02:12, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

  • Not sure what you're seeing - the article looks fine now and hasn't been changed in two weeks. WilyD 13:49, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] My First Edit War

I've done 2,274 edits without asking for help or having an edit war, but it looks like one's starting at American Maritime Officers. If anyone feel like sheparding a n00b through the process, I'd appreciate any input. Thanks! Haus42 16:22, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

I don't see any discusson on the article's Talk page - maybe that would be a place to start? - DavidWBrooks 16:40, 19 March 2007 (UTC)
Okie dokie, I'll get on that. I noticed another user added a template to a user talk page. I'm learning stuff left and right. Haus42 16:50, 19 March 2007 (UTC)
Hmm... The content that User:Wills26 dumped in is copyrighted. Cf. http://www.amo-union.org/AboutAMO/Present.htm Haus42 19:21, 19 March 2007 (UTC)
Removed --83.253.36.136 09:16, 20 March 2007 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Resolving disputes does a pretty good job of laying out the process, starting with informal discussions. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 22:44, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Spaming? need answer

I don't where else to take this, but I think this is spam. This user is adding links to quite a few articles from AOL video [1]. Correct me if I'm wrong.--Paloma Walker 21:08, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

I would agree, and left a warning. Before I rollback the edits though, I would like 1 more opinion. Prodego talk 21:19, 19 March 2007 (UTC)
Looks like commercial spam to me. -- MarcoTolo 21:47, 19 March 2007 (UTC)
Yup - plus copyright questions, as with any video of commercial product. - DavidWBrooks 21:54, 19 March 2007 (UTC)
All cleaned-up. -- MarcoTolo 22:39, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Article that needs to be on more watchlists

Reuben Singh needs to be on more watchlists. A very determined vandal consistantly changes it to an attack piece. As I'm currently extremely busy in real life, I'm posting this here to ask people to keep an eye on it. It's a living person. ~ ONUnicorn(Talk|Contribs)problem solving 01:09, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] College residence halls

I recently put a residence hall (Carman Hall) of Columbia University up for speedy delete. In retrospect, I probably should have made a redirect instead. (And someone did just that after I tagged it.) I was wondering if someone could point me to guidelines for residence halls or dorms of colleges and universities. I assume that, unless the building itself has a notable and verifiable history, these are usually incorporated into the main college article but I'm curious if there's specific info on this. Help? --Pigmandialogue 02:13, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Monobook.*

I'm having trouble finding the monobook files, such as monobook.js or monobook.css. Can anybody show me what I need to do find find it? //Mac Lover TalkC 15:14, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

MediaWiki:Monobook.css and MediaWiki:Monobook.js. For the global ones - you appear to have found your own quite nicely. x42bn6 Talk 17:23, 19 March 2007 (UTC)
Oh, that's what you were looking for, Mac Lover? GracenotesT § 22:17, 19 March 2007 (UTC)
Yes, it is. Thanks.//Mac Lover TalkC 02:52, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Stylesheet Substitution

Is there any way to make it so that the stylesheet at say, MediaWiki:Monobook.css is disregarded and instead a stylesheet that I made is used? I know that I can go over and write display: none; on all of the classes/ids, but that would take a while. //Mac Lover TalkC 03:10, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

Depends on your browser – which one do you use? [Oh, Firefox I see]
With Firefox, you can turn off page style with View > Page Style > No Style (or something like that, I have a Swedish Ffox, so the above is my own translation). Install the Firefox extension StyleSheet Chooser Plus to make Firefox remember this setting. Install the Stylish extension to specify your personal stylesheets. (Some more stylesheet and CSS extensions (sorted by rating).)
With Safari (on my old 10.2 system), you can specify one personal stylesheet at Preferences... > Advanced, which will be additional to and have higher precedence than page-supplied styles.
Note that * { display: none } will hide elements, not turn off styling. --83.253.36.136 15:46, 21 March 2007 (UTC)
You can run personal CSS under your personal monobook. Your version takes precedence over the default. Prodego talk 20:41, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Please help

I have no idea how to to file the right kind of request for comment or mediation or arbitration, or whatever. I have a determined troll following me around "proceduring" me to death. He has been following me around through a series of articles that I have been working on, constantly editing things while I am in the process of editing them too, demending changes, moving things around.

One of the big problems, frankly, is that the topics I am working on require some knowledge of Hebrew and a lot of knowledge of Jewish philosophy and theology. This editor, who knows nothing about these matters, is simply creating one stumbling block after another, always citing some wikipedia procedure. He appears to be going to my contributions file to see what I am working on, and then going there to mess something up.

I frankly don't want to know all the Wikipedia policies and procedures. I want to write. I've been doing so for about a year, and so far, I've been very happy with it. I've asked him to back away. I asked him to come back and edit the article later in the day, or in the evening. I've offered for both of us to leave and come back in a week, to allow some other writer a chance to work. Whereever it is I am working, he seems to want to be there.

Wikipedia needs contributors who are writers, who know a subject well, who do careful research work in the subject and write well balanced and thoroughly sourced articles. I am such a person. I don't claim authority in any field, like an advanced degree. (I do have a degree, I just don't claim that it matters here on Wikipedia.)

What I can do is easy to see from what I have done. I have started dozens of articles, and never had one deleted, working some of them through to completion. Many of them are on serious scholarly topics. I enjoy writing. I don't claim to "own" these articles. If I wanted that, I would write somewhere under my own name.

What happened to me over the last few days was an incident of procedural harassment. I have never experienced anything like it. User:ZayZayEM has been following me around through a group of articles that I have been working on, creating a long series of procedural problems. Each time, he cites some Wikipedia policy for why he is of course right.

I'm not interested in arguing about Wikipedia policy X or Y. I am interested in writing. I am not interested in going thourgh some kind of elaborate Wikipedia arbitration determination procedure, in which we somehow determine who was right.

It's very simple. There are 1,697,500 articles on Wikipedia that this person could be working on right now, and most of them do need work. User:ZayZayEM could be working on any one of them, but instead, he chooses to harass me.

Looking at his recent logs, his last RfC was a few days ago. I've never had one. I didn't even know what an RfC was until a few days ago. This user is simply looking for fights.

If I'm supposed to go to some kind of arbitration panel and write some kind of elaborate defense or request, I'm outta here. I'm not interested in spending time doing that. I've never bothered to figure out how to cite logs, and I don't want to. User:ZayZayEM has presented an endless series of procedural hurdles, and such a process would be more of the same, and a complete waste of time. I'm sure that once the process was finished, he would be back to more of the same.

He knows nothing about the topics that I am trying to write about. I would welcome a collaborator or two who does, but this fellow isn't that collaborator. He simply creates endless headaches. Each time, he cites the wikipedia policy under which he is of course "right," but if I then try the same thing back, or try to suggest something else, there is some other Wikipedia policy under which he is also right, or he switches to something else that he wants.

I've read that Wikipedia is interested in the product, not the process. Well this user is obsessed with the process, and presents endless hurdles to improving the product.

If your answer is that I'm supposed to file wiki-dot-colon-xxxcite-procedure and wait for a wiki-xxxxarb-med-committee to volunteer to handle the case, my answer is no. That's his game, not mine. I'm sure he is good at it too. --Metzenberg 05:33, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

If what he is doing is serious enough to be considered vandalism, report him to Wikipedia:Administrator intervention against vandalism. − Twas Now ( talk • contribs • e-mail ) 15:33, 21 March 2007 (UTC)
You could always try citing WP:IAR... ~user:orngjce223 how am I typing? 16:09, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Re-Using a Reference

For the life of me, I cannot figure out how to put together the references when the same reference is used more than once (^abcde). As you can see on my great project, Reagan assassination attempt, I've used the same references for several statements, but cannot figure out how to put them all together. The Post references were put there with the assistance of another user. The help guides weren't helpful at all in showing me how to do this. Need help! Thanks. --Wasted Sapience 23:57, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

You need to name the references. <ref name="something">{{cite ...}}</ref> the first time, and then <ref name="something" /> for subsequent uses. Chris cheese whine 00:02, 22 March 2007 (UTC)
Wow, someone explained something in plain English for once, and now I understand. Thanks. --Wasted Sapience 00:17, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Don't feed the trolls

There are a (small) number of contributors whom I have come across in my normal course of editing, vandal-watching and AfD monitoring who aren't really doing anything that fits into a warning template but their contributions are still either non-constructive or disruptive. For example, one keeps nominating AfDs in a manner that appears that he's trying to prove a point, but it's difficult to prove and it's getting ridiculous. Another is a self-proclaimed troll who is a newly registered user, but seems to have knowledge of the inner workings of Wikipedia beyond the usual new user. He contributes either obviously contrary or wholly unconstructive (or even inflammatory) comments in AfDs, and he has also created userspace templates which allow him to add several hundred thousand characters of text to talk pages under the guise of "spreading the Wikilove."

I know that I could ignore them (the best course of action with trolls, I know), but Wikipedia is no place to be a troll. Are there some pertinent user warning templates that I could use in order to kindly let them know in an official manner that their behavior is neither condoned nor appreciated, and if necessary, bring them to the attention of administrators in process? LaMenta3 03:02, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

Don't use a template, carefully construct and appropriate friendly message. If there is no suitible response, try WP:AN. ViridaeTalk 03:06, 22 March 2007 (UTC)
I agree with the WP:AN recommendation. When you open a thread please provide specific usernames and diffs along with a summary of the problem. The first of your examples appears to be a WP:POINT problem and the second sounds like a probable WP:SOCK violation. DurovaCharge! 05:38, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Reliable site?

Would this be a reliable site for the release date of Mario Party 8? It just seems unlikely to me that it would come out in the UK before the US and I thought that we needed a source from Nintendo. I could be wrong, though, and I don't want to start an edit war. –Llama mantalkcontribs 21:23, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

The source looks fine to me since it has no reason to be unreliable or purposefully incorrect. Also, a company that sells the game seems like an ok source for an article about a game. I could be wrong, so sorry if I am. Captain panda In vino veritas 01:32, 19 March 2007 (UTC)
But Best Buy and other stores are very often wrong in the release dates of games. –Llama mantalkcontribs 19:17, 19 March 2007 (UTC)
(Reposting, as I got no reply to my second comment previously) –Llama mantalkcontribs 22:22, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] a vandal-ish account

This guy seems to be slowly deleting stuff (vandalize) all over WP, Special:Contributions/Jahleeldaruis, can someone do something? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Patcat88 (talk • contribs) 22:50, 22 March 2007 (UTC).

Warn the user and, if it continues, report the user to WP:AIV. –Llama mantalkcontribs 23:02, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Page seems strange

Hello. I was wondering if you could help me with somethign that another user asked me. The page Warped Tour 2007 appears to ignore any text that is added to the bottom of the page. This includes references and any additional that may be added in the future. Hope this seems clear enough. GDon4t0 (talk to me...) 13:44, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

Fixed. One of the ref tags was not closed. -SpuriousQ (talk) 13:53, 23 March 2007 (UTC)
Thanks a lot. GDon4t0 (talk to me...)
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