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Contents


[edit] June 11

[edit] S. Scott Bullock

For some reason, someone keeps removing the birthday from the article S. Scott Bullock. Whenever I go to look it up, his birthday is not listed. Then I put it back up there, and then, a random amount of days later, it's gone. I'm beginning to feel like Template:Pp-semi-vandalism should be put on the article, because it's making me suspect that a vandal (or more than one of them) may be behind this. I found out in the history that one of the vandals is 76.172.223.174, who should've been warned since last month for removing text without an explanation! Any kind of admin help would be appreciated. Thank you. Kitty53 (talk) 00:15, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

Hmm. From the history, I doubt it's vandalism per se. It's been removed twice by similar IP addresses, perhaps the same person each time - although I'd be interested to know whether the other information added in the same session by the first IP is accurate. However (a) is there a reliable source for the birthday? IMDB isn't generally regarded as reliable. (b) Are we in Wikipedia:BLP#Privacy of personal information territory here? Is the birthdate, as opposed to the birthyear, necessary? (c) the template by itself does nothing. What counts is whether an administrator has actually protected the page. On the current history, I wouldn't semi-protect it (which stops IP edits, not established editors). BencherliteTalk 00:27, 11 June 2008 (UTC)
I don't know. When the editors removed the B-Day, did they provide an explanation? Nooooooooooooooooo! Removing text and not providing an explanation is considered vandalism, which they should have been warned about.Kitty53 (talk) 00:52, 11 June 2008 (UTC)
That's a very strong statement there, Kitty53, and one that is not supported by WP:AGF.... or WP:VAND for that matter. -- ShinmaWa(talk) 00:57, 11 June 2008 (UTC)
Let's go back to the WP:RS issue regarding the birthdate; Kitty can you provide a reliable source for this date? Tiggerjay (talk) 03:17, 11 June 2008 (UTC)
Let's back up even further. I would definitely say that Mr. Bullock is not particularly famous. As such, we should be very careful about publishing his birthdate for privacy concerns. In fact, birthdates are specifically called out in WP:BLP#Presumption in favor of privacy. The IP editor both times only edited this article and only to do the same action (remove the birthdate). I can not ignore the fact that this pattern suggests we are gearing up for a WP:DOLT scenario where those IPs are, in fact, S. Scott Bullock himself removing his own birthdate. I, of course, can't prove that. I only have an editting pattern which supports this conclusion. So, it comes to a balance of needs here -- Is providing this information weighed more than the privacy concerns laid out in WP:BLP? Without evidence that this information is already widespread (outside of IMDb), I have to lean in favor of privacy for this living person. As such, I'm removing the birthdate myself until multiple reliable sources showing this information is already widespread, per WP:BLP. -- ShinmaWa(talk) 03:42, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Unusual text

What has happened to the contents box in Euthanasia and the Law? To me, it looks like:

เนื้อหา [ซ่อน]

Did a template malfunction, or my browser? 129.215.49.243 (talk) 01:08, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

Try clearing your cache, because it looks just fine for me.--Kerotan-Have a nice day :) 01:19, 11 June 2008 (UTC)
Fixed I just fixed it [1]. It looks like the Thai-language refrence inside the {{quote}} template caused MediaWiki to think that the page was on the Thai Wikipedia. That's just bizarre. When I moved the reference outside of the quote, everything went back to normal -- ShinmaWa(talk) 01:22, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Edit not appearing

Resolved. Spam link removed. --TNX-Man 01:54, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

Hi folks - I only occasionally edit, so please forgive me if I've missed something obvious, but I just tweaked the Chopsticks article to remove a commercial link, and while my edit shows up in the revision history, the main page doesn't show it. What did I do wrong? TIA. Herichon (talk) 01:15, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

Try clearing your browsers cache, because Its not appearing for me.--Kerotan-Have a nice day :) 01:20, 11 June 2008 (UTC)
Weird, I had refreshed the page and it was still there for a while, but I agree, now it appears to be gone. Oh well. Thanks for checking. Herichon (talk) 01:23, 11 June 2008 (UTC)
Sometimes just hitting refresh won't do the job. Try bypassing your cache next time it happens. The link I gave has instructions on how to do that. Raven4x4x (talk) 06:07, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Please do not filter JCN and KICS email as spam

Dear Server Manager of shahed university

We publish International Journal JCN and we have overseas editors and reviewers. However, we recently cannot communicate well with the authors, editors or reviewers in shahed university by email and have problems with review process of our journal.

Therefore, I'm writing to ask you to check whether JCN emails are filtered as spam or not. If so, please remove JCN IP or domain immediately from your spam list so that shahed university members can receive JCN emails correctly since the mutual communication among memebers is very inportant.

The detailed information of JCN email is as below. JCN IP: 211.116.129.40 JCN Domain: @jcn.or.kr / @kics.or.kr/ www.e-society.or.kr

Please contact me if you need further information. Your cooperation will be highly appreciated.

Thank you.

Best regards, Yumin —Preceding unsigned comment added by 221.148.77.8 (talk) 06:15, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

Er... does this question have to do with Wikipedia? – Luna Santin (talk) 06:38, 11 June 2008 (UTC)
"Dear Server Manager of shahed university". Apparently not. --grawity 12:33, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Please Help Me.

Somebody has chosen to omit data from the definition of "Bear Magazine" repeatedly.

My magazine, 100% BEEF, is the publishing heir to Bear Magazine, which unceremoniously disappeared in 2002. The former staff, plus contributing writers, photographers and artists who created Bear Magazine now contribute regularly to my magazine, 100% BEEF, now entering our 7th year of publishing. When Bear Magazine disappeared, 100% BEEF continued the publishing legacy, and became "the" community magazine for Bears and like-minded men. Now, a new publisher who, through legal wrangling, has acquired a copyright for the "Bear Magazine" name, has chosen to edit and omit references to my publication in the "Bear Magazine" definition; references which have been part of that Wikipedia Definition for a long time, now. This individual keeps editing the content to that end, even though 100% BEEF Magazine's information has been part of the Bear Magazine Wikipedia definition for years now. And, when I re-edit the page for accuracy, they report me for "Vandalism". I have not vandalized any Wikipedia Pages and I have not deleted any of their information; they have. Please help me. Thank You. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Rustyspot (talkcontribs) 07:31, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

Hi Rustyspot, and welcome to Wikipedia! I've looked at your edit here which was called vandalism, and it looks like you're trying to add categories to the page. The correct syntax to use is:
[[Category:Human sexuality]]
[[Category:LGBT argot]]
...
with each category in a new set of square brackets. You had the syntax slightly wrong, but you're correct that that wasn't vandalism (a mistake made in good faith is never vandalism). I've let the user who warned you know on his talk page that I think he was being overzealous.
As for the content of the article itself, you might want to take a look at the policy Wikipedia:Verifiability, which explains what Wikipedia articles need to do to establish the veracity of their content: if an article contains reliable, third-party sources it'll be much less likely to have its content removed. At present neither version of the article contains sources so it's impossible for another editor to tell which if either is correct.
Finally, you should also read our policy on conflicts of interest. We discourage people from editing articles about themselves, their companies, or other things closely related to them in the interest of openness and neutrality. Perhaps you would be best off finding a third editor and suggesting the changes to them, or doing so on the article's talk page, rather than doing it yourself. Wikipedia:Third opinion is one place you might be able to get a neutral editor to take part.
I hope all of that helps. If you have any more questions you can contact me on my talk page, or ask again here. Happy editing! Olaf Davis | Talk 10:24, 11 June 2008 (UTC)
I apologize for being a bit harsh. When I was patrolling recent changes, I instinctively labeled references to sex as vandalism without reading the content of the article. Cheers, King of ♠ 00:09, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] writing new article

I am trying very hard toget to grips with writing a new article, which is valid and no other article exists with the title. I have opened my user page and have also opened what I think is a sub page which has the working title /marchmont in brown just below the heading of my user page. I have tried to type the article into here where I understand it cannot be editted by anyone else until I press save at which point it is launched into shared Wikipedia space. Can I not just copy/paste the document into this sub page space and then start formatting adding photos, references, links etc? I tried this and then it disappeared, why was this and why is it so hard to find an area in my user page where I can work on an article for a few days on my own? I am determined to crack this but find the whole writing a new artice un-user friendly. I would be grateful for some basic help. Thanks. Mark J Richards (talk) 10:58, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

I have created a Sandbox page for you (User:Mark J Richards/Sandbox) that you can use to develop an article. I'm glad you're interested in writing articles, this guide has a lot of useful tips. You can caopy and paste the article you're writing into the sandbox, at which point you can click save, and it will be there to edit and update. Or you can just start the article from scratch in your sandbox. Just remember to hit save to save your progress. Feel free to ask questions too. Cheers! TNX-Man 11:42, 11 June 2008 (UTC)
You can keep track of your subpages by placing a section on your user page like the section I have:
That is, on your user page: User:Mark J Richards, you can have this wikitext somewhere:
==Subpages ==

These are my [[Wikipedia:User page#What about user subpages?|user subpages]]. 

*[{{fullurl:Special:Prefixindex|namespace=2}}&from={{PAGENAMEE}} See all my user subpages] and [{{fullurl:Special:Prefixindex|namespace=3}}&from={{PAGENAMEE}} all their talk pages]

=== Sandboxes ===

These are pages for my test edits.

*[[{{FULLPAGENAME}}/Sandbox]]

To make this simple, I'm adding this to your user subpage for you. If you don't like it, you can remove it. The sense of "unfriendly" you get from Wikipedia is actually from the complexity of the process by which 7,305,515 registered users (and many more unregistereds) built an encyclopedia of 2,412,439 articles. With that many participants and topics, getting them all to work together productively cannot be simple. Wikipedia requires highly complex policies, guidelines, and procedures to organize everyone to work well together - if we just let everyone do whatever, the result would be utter chaos. Wikipedia is unlike anything most people have experienced - after all, most people don't have any experience with organizing 7,305,515 strangers from all over the world to work together with virtually no face-to-face contact or spoken communication. Learning to edit on Wikipedia means learning an incredible number of details, many of them new. This tends to overwhelm the short term memory of the new user, creating the sense of anxiety and distress you feel just now. However, Wikipedia is amazingly friendly in the sense of having all its instructions in writing. In most large organizations, much of what a member needs to know exists only in a kind of oral tradition, which people have to pick up inefficiently through socializing face to face, getting experienced people to explain it all to them, and by a clumsy process of trial and error learning. On Wikipedia, we can't use the lazy method of speaking; our only tool is writing. Written instructions are actually friendlier than unwritten instructions, because writing is more definite. A person can write something once, and then we use computers to repeat it to anyone who needs it. All those people who wrote all those instructions spent thousands of hours being friendly - in a kind of abstract, disconnected way - to all those other people who will read those instructions in the future. To see the scale of this friendliness, peruse the Editor's index to Wikipedia.
I might mention that you seem to have chosen the hardest way to learn Wikipedia - going straight to creating a new article without first learning the ropes by editing existing articles. This is like jumping into combat without first going through boot camp. The urge to create an entirely new article from scratch is a common motivation for people to learn how to edit on Wikipedia, but unfortunately a complete article involves an incredible amount of know-how. It's easier to work with the collaborative editing model of Wikipedia by making small edits to existing articles, thereby learning one thing at a time. But if you want to do it the hard way (and why not, that's pretty much what I did too), see WP:LAYOUT, WP:LEAD, WP:ARTICLE, WP:CITE, WP:FOOT, and WP:CITET for just a little warmup. And keep Help:Editing and WP:CHEAT handy. Oh yeah, and be prepared for other users to mercilessly edit all your contributions, or even delete them outright if you unknowingly violate some rule you haven't read about yet. --Teratornis (talk) 17:51, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] columned tables

I am considering creating a columed list, much how a multiplication table looks/short of spreadshetish, but with all words contained within inline and outlined boxes. however I have no idea how to go about starting this, is there a tutorial you could direct me too or a ready made template that i could use, and just & fill in the gaps? i want several boxes each with thier own main heading, consiting of columns with headings, and various numbers of rows to correspond with each column . To form easily read grids of information, and easy to edit. Bloodkith (talk) 13:20, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

Please see Help:Table. I am posting below a multiplication table for your to look at in edit mode. Cheers.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 14:55, 11 June 2008 (UTC)
Multiplication table
× 1 2 3
1 1 2 3
2 2 4 6
3 3 6 9
4 4 8 12
5 5 10 15
Where do you want to put this table? If you intend it for an article, there may be some Manual of style guideline you need to comply with. --Teratornis (talk) 19:48, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] how to contact OTRS email system

I have an issue with an article that is biased and not susceptible to negotiation, so I'd like an editor to pay attention to it. From what I've read, I'm supposed to use the OTRS email system in a case like this, but Ican't find instructions on how to do so (I am barely literate re computers). Can anyone clue me in please? thanks - MtnWolfLadyMtnWolfLady (talk) 14:49, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

To which article were you referring? I couldn't see any articles in your recent contributions that have dispute issues. More info on OTRS can be found here, but hopefully we can help you out on this page. Cheers! TNX-Man 14:54, 11 June 2008 (UTC)
I think the user means how to get in contact with OTRS - you just need to send an email to info-en@wikimedia.org. Stwalkerstersock:talk ] 14:57, 11 June 2008 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Stwalkersock (talkcontribs)

[edit] Template:Infobox Museum Image caption

I am unable to caption the infobox image within {{Infobox Museum}} at Boeing Galleries.--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTM) 14:58, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

Looking at the code and documentation for the template, it does not support an image caption. Discuss it on the talk page and see if there is consensus to add it. --—— Gadget850 (Ed) talk - 16:48, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] printing

An article in Indopedia will not print. "Hanilgalbat" will only print the first page the rest come out just with a header. I have tried highlighting it all, after the 'printable version' only printed the first page, right clicking - nothing works Suggestions?? thing u —Preceding unsigned comment added by 124.181.108.90 (talk) 15:48, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

This is Wikipedia, your question refers to Indopedia, direct your question there...... Dendodge .. TalkHelp 16:56, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Changing a page's title

Hi.

I've just created my first Wikipedia page ("Professor sa'ad medhat") and have manged to lower case the name in the title.

How can I edit the title to capitalise the first letters of the name?

Thanks, Weottelescope (talk) 17:04, 11 June 2008 (UTC)Dan

If you look at the top of the article, one of the tabs should say "move". This tab allows you to move the entire article to a new title, assuming it's not already in use. You should be able to move the article to "Professor Sa'ad Medhat". Give it a shot and let me know if it works. Cheers! TNX-Man 17:07, 11 June 2008 (UTC)
I went ahead and moved the page to Professor Sa'ad Medhat. I believe that IPs and very new users cannot move articles. Be weary that articles require notability, and thus might be deleted. See if you can find some references which show that he is notable. :) <3 Tinkleheimer TALK!! 17:09, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

Thanks, guys. I really appreciate all that. Many, many thanks. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Weottelescope (talkcontribs) 17:34, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

Completely a vanity page. In fact, it might be the guy's resume. Tan | 39 17:35, 11 June 2008 (UTC)
I have nominated this one for speedy deletion per G11, as blatant advertising for the subject and his foundation. – ukexpat (talk) 17:45, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Using "Commons" Files to Edit Wikipedia Article

Hello,

I uploaded a picture to Wikipedia Commons called Image:Bill McCollum.jpg. How do I removed the outdated picture on Ira "Bill" McCollum's wikipedia page, and add this new one?Flegal (talk) 17:34, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

There's no such image on the commons. But to link to a commons image, just use the same syntax as a standard en.wp image - commons images are common to all wikimedia projects. -mattbuck (Talk) 17:50, 11 June 2008 (UTC)
Please read Help:Images and other uploaded files - the name is Wikimedia Commons rather than "Wikipedia Commons". Wikipedia and the other Wikimedia Foundation projects have so many similar-sounding terms that we have to be careful to use terms correctly - being off by even one letter can lead to misunderstandings sometimes. I know it sounds like hairsplitting, but hairsplitting is how we keep 7,305,515 registered users working together more or less coherently. You can make your questions easier to answer if you link to any article you mention. Otherwise, help desk volunteers have to search for it. (I hope it would be obvious, but for some reason it often doesn't seem to be obvious, that for someone to help a questioner with a problem, that someone would need to look at whatever Web page the questioner was looking at when the problem came up.) Are you talking about the article: Bill McCollum? If so, the link to the image at the top of the article is inside the code for the {{Infobox Politician}} template. That's up in the lead section of the article, so to edit it, you would click the "edit this page" tab at the top. The code in question looks like this (and if you are new here, this is probably somewhat scary):
{{Infobox Politician
| name          = Bill McCollum
| image         = Bill McCollum 106th Congress.jpg
| width         = 200px
| height        = 
| caption       = 
...
You would change at least the image parameter value. For more about these kinds of templates, see Help:Template and Help:Infobox - you shouldn't have to learn all that stuff now just to edit the image parameter value, but the farther you get with Wikipedia editing, the more instructions you will need to read. --Teratornis (talk) 20:05, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Printing pages from Wikipedia

I've printed many pages from this wonderful source but in the last week math equations have failed to print. Everything else is fine; just the math formulas(LaTeX?). —Preceding unsigned comment added by Mytg8 (talkcontribs) 19:59, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

Try changing the setting in the 'Math' section of Special:Preferences, I don't know what to though...... Dendodge .. TalkHelp 20:34, 11 June 2008 (UTC)
Drat, didn't work. This happened once before; I copied and pasted to Word. A couple weeks, later all was OK. Now, as before, the LaTeX just won't copy even when I select it.Mytg8 (talk) 00:04, 12 June 2008 (UTC)
Are you running Firefox rc2 on MacOS X? There's a known bug with that combo, and a new release (rc3) of Firefox to fix it. — The Hand That Feeds You:Bite 17:23, 12 June 2008 (UTC)
No, I've got a PC. I think it's got something to do with copying and pasting to Word; I do that because I want to change the font size, etc. I can 'whittle down' the size of the doc so it takes less ink and paper(I do a lot of printing). This problem comes and goes, which baffles me. I tried Word Help but no joy. Anyone here familiar with Word on Office XP Professional? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Mytg8 (talkcontribs) 15:50, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Column problem

When I click on any of the film links in the second column on my user page, the column just disappears. However, the other three columns work just fine. How can I fix it? Clarityfiend (talk) 20:04, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

I tried clicking on a link in each column, and they all work for me (Firefox 2.0.0.14 on Ubuntu). Try purging and reloading the page. If that doesn't work, tell us what Web browser and Operating system you are running. See Wikipedia:Browser notes. --Teratornis (talk) 20:09, 11 June 2008 (UTC)
Whoa! The same things happened to me. I'm using Firefox 2.0.0.14 on Windows 2000. Hmm. Let me look around. TNX-Man 20:11, 11 June 2008 (UTC)
OK, I changed the number of columns to 5 (don't worry, I didn't save it) and it worked fine. I have no idea what that indicates though. TNX-Man 20:26, 11 June 2008 (UTC)
I've got Firefox 2.0.0.14 on XP MCE Version 2000, with SP2. Five columns is a bit too squished, but three works, so I can live with that. Thanks. Clarityfiend (talk) 20:52, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Creating Discussions / Requesting Page Edits

Resolved. User issue resolved. --TNX-Man 00:41, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

Hey guys,

I feel really lame. I've been a software developer for 10 years, in nearly every language you can think of, and I have no idea how to figure out how to add a discussion, comment, or question under a page. On a couple of pages I started, like in particular, the Enterolobium Cyclocarpum page (Elephant Ear Tree / Guancasta), I have been editing it for a while, but I would like to request an edit from someone with more experience. In particular, I wanted to request a "endangered species" chart be added to it (if it's needed). I click on Discussions, and since there is not one currently there, I don't know how to add or edit, or create a new one?

How can I create a new discussion under an individual page, or request that someone make an update?

Thanks, and sorry if this has already been covered, I wasn't sure how to search for that either.


Todd —Preceding unsigned comment added by Todd82TA (talkcontribs) 20:44, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

You see the tab "discussion" at the top? That's where talk pages exist. If it's redlinked, it means no-one's created it yet, so you can create your comment in the same way you'd create an article. If it's bluelinked, click it, and then the tab "new section". Add your title in the smaller box, and your question/comment/request in the bigger box. Then click "save page". And you're all done/ :) See also WP:Discussion. Best, PeterSymonds (talk) 20:47, 11 June 2008 (UTC)
(e/c) To add a discussion page, just click the red link and type what you want. Then click Save Page. If you want attention from editor put an applicable template at the top. Also, to sign just use ~~~~ instead of a name. Paragon12321 (talk) 20:49, 11 June 2008 (UTC)
(e.c.*2 grrr) There should be a 'new section' tab at the top, sometimes it's a + sign. Click that. Harland1 (t/c) 20:52, 11 June 2008 (UTC)
On the need for an endangered species template, if you haven't already, wander over to Wikipedia:WikiProject Plants and ask on their discussion page. You should be able to get some better advice there. I had a quick look at their list of templates but did not see one for endangered species but the plant experts are over there, not here. SpinningSpark 00:23, 12 June 2008 (UTC)


Thanks guys!!! I really appreciate this. That totally explains it. Thanks so much! Todd82TA (talk) 00:38, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] help with footnote

I tried to add a reference to the article on the The Dave Thomas Comedy Show but I must be getting the formatting wrong, because when you click on the reference, it doesn't go to the link I provided, it just refreshes the page. Can somebody please help with this? Minaker (talk) 21:37, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

In order to display references, a {{reflist}} template must be listed. I've added one to the article, under the References heading. It displays the reference you provided. The reflist doesn't actually display in and of itself, but causes everything between a <ref> and </ref> to display as a reference. Hope this helps! TNX-Man 21:41, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] image formating

How do I add an image to an article

The syntax is [[Image:Imagenamehere.jpg|right<alignment; right or left>|thumb]] The comments enclosed in <> should not be placed in that syntax; they're just additional instructions. Best, PeterSymonds (talk) 22:09, 11 June 2008 (UTC)
{ec) Has the image been uploaded yet? If so just type [[Image:Foo]] where you want it and see WP:IMAGE. If it hasn't, make sure it is right for wikipedia and then go to Special:Upload. Paragon12321 (talk) 22:11, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Help with Portuguese

Hello, all. I recently merged all of my wiki accounts using the new opt-in single-user login system. Everything went smoothly, except that there seems to be an account with the same user name on the Portuguese Wikipedia that was not created by me and could not be merged (it has a different password). (This is the account.)

This account appears to have no edits at all on the Portuguese Wikipedia, so it should be a simple matter to usurp it. The problem is I don't speak a lick of Portuguese. Does anyone know where the usurpation requests page is on the Portuguese Wikipedia? Can someone give me a boilerplate Portuguese usurpation request that I can copy and paste there? Thanks for any help! — Dulcem (talk) 23:32, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

You'll have to request the deletion of your global account here first, which may help you tremendously if you ask for the name of the Portuguese Wikipedia's usurpation page in your post (I have no idea myself). —Animum (talk) 23:41, 11 June 2008 (UTC)
The Portuguese username change page is here. It looks like they have a bunch of Anglophones looking to usurp. Just ask in English and you should be fine. Paragon12321 (talk) 01:03, 12 June 2008 (UTC)
Thanks! I've put up a usurpation request. Crossing my fingers that all goes well. :) — Dulcem (talk) 05:00, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] June 12

[edit] possible sockpuppets

i think the users: fatalerror, pwange8, and nouse4aname are sock puppets, they all hate me, they all make the same edits and type the same way, they all edit the used page and they all try to get me banned and tell me im a vandal and they have the nerve to say i have a sockpuppet. ive had many problems with them for the past few months on the used page. its just to the point of redicolous where they say i need permission from them to make an edit but it is ok for them to edit whatever they want with out talking about it, it is very frustrating and there is an admin on there side where if they say i made a vandal edit when i didnt, the admin wud just go and block me, i get into many edit wars with them and when i do, im the only one to be banned, it just seems weird to me how 3 users could all edit the same page and all hate me and go against everyhting i add and edit to the page which is why i think those 3 users are sockppupets, or shud i say this one person has 3 sock puppet accounts. im at the point of being s frustrated, they all showed up starting to edit the page in dec/jan which is more prrof of my theory that they are sock puppets, also when pwange8 made 3 edits to the same page, to aviod the 3rr rule, fatalerror just happened to show up on the page 5 minutes later to make the same edit the pwange8 did (leaving me helpless beacause i already made 3 edits and couldnt do anything more about it) someone please help to get rid of what appears to be these sockpuppets account because it is just too frustrating now. USEDfan (talk) 00:59, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

I'll take a quick look, but you may want to try WP:SSP. Just because people "hate you" doesn't mean they're the same person, and that's more a reason to look for dispute resolution. Hersfold (t/a/c) 01:02, 12 June 2008 (UTC)
Sorry, my brain's not working just now... USEDfan, all of those editors are long-established contributors who don't appear to be sockpuppets at all. I'd highly suggest that you review what consensus is and seek some form of dispute resolution if you're having problems with editors. The Help Desk isn't the place for this. Hersfold (t/a/c) 01:08, 12 June 2008 (UTC)
You might find this interesting: Wikipedia:Suspected sock puppets/Archive/May 2008#User:USEDfan. --Pwnage8 (talk) 03:35, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] business ethics

who are the major contributor of business ethics? what is the mening of ethics? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 119.94.161.209 (talk) 01:24, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

Have you tried Wikipedia's Reference Desk? They specialize in knowledge questions and will try to answer any question in the universe (except how to use Wikipedia, since that is what this Help Desk is for). Just follow the link, select the relevant section, and ask away. I hope this helps. Calvin 1998 (t-c) 01:29, 12 June 2008 (UTC)
Another thing you might try doing is - your own homework. At least make an attempt before asking others for help. SpinningSpark 02:04, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Simple question

Now, before I state my question, I have exhausted all other resources. I have looked in the FAQ. I have asked users, and I still can't get a straight answer. All I want to do is to add a picture to an article or two. Again, I have checked the editing FAQ, no luck. Just give me a straight answer on how to add a picture to a few articles —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.70.142.205 (talk) 01:50, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

  • First of all, you're editing anonymously. You need to register an account, and that account has to be active for at least four days. To create an account, click the link at the top of WP:ACCOUNT. Ten Pound Hammer and his otters(Broken clamshellsOtter chirps) 01:54, 12 June 2008 (UTC)
  • By "active", he means 10 edits. Soxred 93 01:55, 12 June 2008 (UTC)
  • The above answer assumes you want to upload a picture. As already stated, you can only do that as a registered user and thereafter being autoconfirmed. If both of those thresholds are met, and the image is not free, then please see Wikipedia:Upload.

    However, if an image you want to upload is free content, such as an image you took yourself that you are willing to release into the public domain, then upload it to the Wikimedia Commons rather than here. They have no autoconfirm restriction and as soon as you upload it there, you can use it here.

    If, on the other hand, you want to know how to place an existing image or an uploaded image into an article, please see Wikipedia:Images and Help:Images and other uploaded files. An example of standard markup for placement in an article is [[Image:name of image.jpg|thumb|caption text]]. Cheers.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 03:01, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

To get a simple answer, you have to ask a simple question. For a question to be simple, it must be specific. The more general the question, the more complex the answer has to be to cover all the possibilities. If you would tell us the picture (preferably with a link so we could look at it) and the articles you have in mind (again, with links so we could just click to see them), that would make your complex question into a simple question. Your vague question allows even more possibilities than Fuhghettaboutit's answer covers (for example, images sometimes appear in templates, creating an additional layer of syntax). Wikipedia did not get to be one of the world's top ten sites by being simple. Wikipedia got to be popular by having a fantastic depth of features and content. Managing all that stuff is unavoidably complex - and Wikipedia doesn't really even try to avoid complexity. See the Editor's index to see what I mean. --Teratornis (talk) 06:00, 12 June 2008 (UTC)
You guys make it sound so difficult. What you do is:
  1. Register, make some edits, and wait 4 days.
  2. Make sure the image is on your computer (you cannot link directly to an image on another website).
  3. Click on the "Upload file" link in the box on your left and follow the instructions there including all the stuff about license and (if appropriate) fair-use rationale.
  4. Add "[[Image:imagename.jpg]]" to the articles where you want the image to appear.
Astronaut (talk) 11:39, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Drawing

I'm wondering about using a drawing when you can't get a free use photograph for an article. If the drawing is from a photograph found on the net, would this be copyright-acceptable? Julia Rossi (talk) 03:58, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

What, if you drew a picture from a picture on the Internet? That depends, I suppose, on whether that drawing counts as yours or a derivative of the original... it's confusing, that's why they hire lawyers to sort this stuff out :) I'm going to tentatively guess the copyright is yours and you can do whatever you want with it... but I don't know. Calvin 1998 (t-c) 05:09, 12 June 2008 (UTC)
Yep, if I drew from a picture on the internet. It wouldn't have to be the exact same, just an extract or a drawing made up of several images to get a portrait or line drawing for example. I saw a drawing of Sartre on that article (now looks like it's been replaced by a photo); and one of Pierre Bourdieu on the French pedia. Julia Rossi (talk) 06:05, 12 June 2008 (UTC)
The answer probably depends on the specific meaning of the word "from." WP:IUP#User-created images says:
  • Simply re-tracing a copyrighted image or diagram does not necessarily create a new copyright — copyright is generated only by instances of "creativity", and not by the amount of labor which went into the creation of the work.
How "creative" will your drawing be? "Creativity" might be the criterion that matters, not that I know how attorneys define the term. (Perhaps their definition depends on who is paying them.) See the links under WP:EIW#Image for possible clues. For example, someone in Wikipedia:WikiProject Illustration might have experience with this. I might add that in the not-too-terribly-distant future, we can expect to see software that analyzes a collection of 2D photos of a person, and then constructs a 3D model of the person, and from that, it would be possible to synthesize photo-realistic fake portraits of the person from any camera and lighting angles. I think Hollywood studios already have this stuff (and the various CSI franchise television shows purport to have it); if anybody has it, then we can expect Moore's law to steadily beat down the price until even the little people can have it. I would imagine when that day arrives, it will guarantee lifetime employment for lots of attorneys. Unless voters ever become smart enough to vote away copyrights. --Teratornis (talk) 06:21, 12 June 2008 (UTC)
Wow. Are we in the wrong business? Personally, I'd rather create using several 2D images through hand sketching. I'd feel more culpable if I simply manipulated an existing image digitally though not to the extent of an image I saw (direct copy) of Shantaram's author Greg Roberts' dust jacket mugshot displayed on Amazon but then they gave him black hair and dark eyes while he is fair and blue-eyed. That ends up being misrepresentation. So maybe the best thing is to ask the illustrators, thanks for your help. Julia Rossi (talk) 08:20, 12 June 2008 (UTC)
Sorry forgot to answer your question about how creative. Different size, media and rendering manner would contribute to it. Julia Rossi (talk) 08:24, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Talk:BP Pedestrian Bridge/GA1

Why aren't my comments showing at Talk:BP Pedestrian Bridge/GA1?--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTM) 06:07, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

Do you mean these comments? That page is doing something weird with parserfunctions, in particular what are those {{#if:...}}'s doing there? I don't see anything in Wikipedia:Reviewing good articles which explains that odd markup. I have not participated in any good article reviews yet (shameful, I know), so I'm not familiar with the markup people might use for that. You could probably search for more information about it. You might try copying the whole section you edited to a sandbox page, and see if it renders correctly when you remove the peculiar parserfunction stuff. --Teratornis (talk) 06:33, 12 June 2008 (UTC)
For some reason everything appears twice and if I move my comments to the second location they appear on the page.--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTM) 07:21, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Optical fiber question

I have edited a page on optical fiber, under subheading other uses of optical fiber. Under this I have placed a photograph depicting how optical fiber is used to monitor strain, but the photo is not showing up, kindly advise.thanks —Preceding unsigned comment added by Mascotmayank (talkcontribs) 06:30, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

The image you are trying to link to: Image:OTDR.jpeg shows up as a red link. Its Wikipedia log and Commons log are both empty, suggesting that nobody has uploaded a file with that exact name. Did you upload the image? If you have an image you want to upload, see: Wikipedia:Uploading images. --Teratornis (talk) 06:44, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] not able to attach a photo to a topic

i have edited an article on optical fiber and have attached a jpg file for the same but the photo is not showing up, kindly advise.--Mascotmayank (talk) 06:36, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

Duplicate of "Optical fiber question" above.--85.158.139.99 (talk) 08:18, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Automatic reverts

Twice, on two different articles, I've had serious editing reverted. In both cases, the ones doing the reversions left stock phrase posts on my Talk page (very good practice). What concerns me is that these search-and-revert missions seem to be automatically generated. Is there such a bot or function, and if so, how can I lodge a deep concern that it is much more disruptive than useful? Thanks. DOR (HK) (talk) 09:02, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

There are bots which revert edits automatically, but that's not what happend here. For the latest case, User:Arienh4 made a simple mistake and apologized for it; no need to blow this out of proportion. For the earlier one - That's not how you get rid of redirects. You need to put something in the article in the same edit, otherwise you get a blank page which is bad. -- Meni Rosenfeld (talk) 09:26, 12 June 2008 (UTC)
By the way, as far as I know, the bots I mentioned have a very low rate of false positives. While having a good edit reverted is never pleasant, vandalism is rampant in Wikipedia, and the occasional mistake is better than having all articles full of junk and all editors leaving the project because they get tired of fighting vandalism bare-handed. -- Meni Rosenfeld (talk) 09:35, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

Meni Rosenfeld, thanks for your useful comments. I've edited (in detail) only about a dozen articles, and only created one or two. To have two auto-reverts erroneously remove my work is an unusually high percentage. Where do I file my concern, other than here? Thanks. DOR (HK) (talk) 02:29, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

Continued at User talk:DOR (HK). -- Meni Rosenfeld (talk) 12:42, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Time in signature

Can someone take a look at this user's talk page and suggest why the time in the signature is 8 hours ahead of the time the comment was made (01:39, 12 June 2008 according to the page history)? The same has happend when this user has left comments on my talk page, though I have since "corrected" the tine so the discussion appears to be in the right order. My own preference page is for times to be UTC. Astronaut (talk) 09:47, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

I guess the user is in that time zone and wrote it [2] manually in good faith without knowing that signatures should be made with ~~~~ and without knowing what UTC means (but having seen it in other signatures and just copied it). PrimeHunter (talk) 10:03, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Right place to post that stuff ?

Hello,

First of all I would like to apologize for any spelling mistakes as english is not a language I spell well.

My question is whether or not the article about microsoft excel is the right place to post a guide on how to create certain types of graphics that are not originaly possible in microsoft excel (such as a Boston consulting group matrix or a financial risk analysis graph). It is not original work it comes from the work of Jean Rougier, Excel teacher at the Lausanne hotel school in Switzerland and I can provide sources (a published book) to support it. My worry is that it would be at odds with the actual content of the microsoft excel article that does not give any usage tips.

I would like to stress that this information is not available (for free as a user build solution that is) anywhere else (that I know of) on the internet. I have secured permission by the creator of the method to post it so no worries there.

So, can I write it or should I go elsewhere to share this type of info ?


Thank you very much for the free help.

Regards, Andrea D. Edelman Switzerland —Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.78.52.157 (talk) 11:55, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

It sounds like you have good intentions, but one of the things that Wikipedia says about itself is that it is not a manual or guidebook or textbook, so it doesn't seem like instructions on how to do someting in Excel would be appropriate for the encyclopedia. -- Natalya 12:00, 12 June 2008 (UTC)
But it might be appropriate for Wikibooks. --—— Gadget850 (Ed) talk - 12:44, 12 June 2008 (UTC)
Wikibooks has several pages about Microsoft Excel, including:
Wikipedia may not want its articles to be a how-to guide, but wikiHow does:
For example:
It looks like you could find a suitable place on Wikibooks and/or wikiHow. --Teratornis (talk) 15:58, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Multli Column bulleted list

I've looked extensively around in the helps and FAQs hoping not to duplicate the question here with no luck. My question is: Does Wikipedia support a multi column (my use is for two) format for construction of bulleted lists. It seems that a single column bulleted list takes up so much space and forces you to scroll at length.--Johnnybegood12 (talk) 13:15, 12 June 2008 (UTC)


Yes:

{{Col-begin}}
{{Col-3}}
* 1
* 2
* 3
{{Col-3}}
* 1
* 2
* 3
{{Col-3}}
* 1
* 2
* 3
{{Col-end}}

Gives:

  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 1
  • 2
  • 3

You can tighten this up by using {{Col-4}} or higher, but only defining three columns. --—— Gadget850 (Ed) talk - 13:40, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

Or use {{multicol}} with {{multicol-break}} and {{multicol-end}}; these templates do not require that you specify in advance the number of columns that will be needed. Gary King (talk) 16:11, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] cannot log in

have been trying to log in but system will not take password - keep getting wrong password or secret word is incorrect. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 153.103.190.11 (talk) 13:53, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

What is your username? Is Help:Logging in of help? PrimeHunter (talk) 17:39, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Hurricane Katrina editing

I noticed the Hurricane Katrina entry is now Semi-Protected. I have been a Wikipedia user for some time, and lived through the storm, and from time to time added little things to the article. I cannot see any way to do so now. Am I totally blocked from making edits and additions? Thanks.

Whatsyourexcuse (talk) 14:34, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

Have you made 10 edits? The autoconfirmed level (at which you can edit semi-protected pages) is 4 days and 10 edits. PeterSymonds (talk) 14:41, 12 June 2008 (UTC)
What PeterSymonds said is correct. Alternatively, you can wait until the semi-protection expires. The time a page is protected varies, but looks like NawlinWiki protected the page last month. TNX-Man 14:44, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for this. I have not made ten edits, nor have I made any edits at all in the last few months. I'm not sure I understand... Do I need to have made at least 10 edits in 4 days to be eligible to edit a semi-protected page, or does that preclude me from doing so (in which case, I should be eligible, correct?)? Many thanks for any help. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Whatsyourexcuse (talkcontribs) 13:59, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

You need to have at least ten edits AND be a user for at least 4 days. Reviewing your edit history, the four days should already be taken care of. A few more edits and you'll be up to ten. After that, you should be able to edit semi-protected articles. Cheers! TNX-Man 14:03, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Help POV Pushing Tag Team In Play What To DO?

Not quite up to speed on what to do or who to contact?


I am looking for some input to help in a POV Push tag team who seem hell bent on pushing a 3RR war, reverting large amounts of data and also controlling the edits of others. This exercise has not been pleasant and I don’t believe editors have to put up with this type of behaviour.

The aggressive member of this team is User:ScienceApologist and he is constantly back up with a revert from User:Kwamikagami


At the controversial page Unidentified_flying_object


These two will not play wiki and seem to be in a hell long path to edit wars. I have been as helpful and polite as I can without any threats, but it seems totally impossible reason with these POV pushers.

User:ScienceApologist seems to be very un Wiki in his bully tactics, his discussion page is littered with unhappy editor… this does not bode well for Wiki.

User:ScienceApologist also has a very poor history with admin block.

User:Kwamikagami if I am right also has admin rights? So he should know better.


Unfortunately I live in Australia and need to go to bed to sleep, these pushers are in the US… so if I can help please leave me a message.

Can anyone advise or help?

Thank you for your help.

Best Regards Vufors (talk) 16:07, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

See the links under WP:EIW#Dispute. Wikipedians have documented almost every imaginable aspect of content disputes and how to resolve them. Wikipedia is the world's largest do it yourself project, which means everything is a matter of reading and following instructions - there is really no mystery to what we do here; it's all in the Editor's index. The best way to get help on the Help desk is to make it as easy as possible for Help desk volunteers to understand a problem. You did link to an article and to two user names - that's good. However, you merely editorialized about your problem, rather than describing it coherently. For a Help desk volunteer to understand what you are asking, the volunteer would have to slog through the revision history of Unidentified_flying_object, and analyze the edits of everyone who is edit warring. Tip: whenever there is any kind of dispute on Wikipedia, the side which demonstrates the best understanding of Wikipedia's policies and guidelines wins. (See: WP:CONSENSUS - Wikipedia doesn't care about my opinion or your opinion, or pretty much anybody's opinion except in rare cases Jimbo Wales'. What matters on Wikipedia is what the policies and guidelines say. Your ability to influence Wikipedia is directly proportional to your knowledge of the policies and guidelines and your ability to link to the sections relevant to any situation.) User:Kwamikagami is indeed an administrator, which puts you in a shaky position, because the RfA process is supposed to insure that admins have a solid grasp of policies and guidelines. That doesn't mean all administrators do everything perfectly, but most of the time when a non-admin complains about an admin, the admin turns out to be most compliant with Wikipedia's policies and guidelines. It's analogous to a dispute between a shopper at a store and a security guard at the store. A few guards might abuse their power, but most of the time the guard understands the store's rules better than someone who just wandered in. Therefore, you have to meet a substantial burden of proof if you want to overturn an administrator's actions, and your poorly-phrased question isn't a promising start. I'm not trying to be mean here, just explaining how the Darwinistically merciless world of Wikipedia works. --Teratornis (talk) 17:39, 12 June 2008 (UTC)
  • Thanks for that info. Vufors (talk) 03:48, 13 June 2008 (UTC)
    • Well if User:Kwamikagami is admin then when does a person in such power make such a large edit see [[3]] the in the tag blame it on me aka (remove redundant material from intro per Vufors).Vufors (talk) 03:48, 13 June 2008 (UTC)
      • Why (?) as an admin does User:Kwamikagami get into a 3RR war? Should he not be a pillar of sanity to the editors? Vufors (talk) 03:48, 13 June 2008 (UTC)


  • I think the first thing to do, Vufors, is to engage in the ongoing discussion on the talk page of the article, in which both of the other editors are engaged. Currently I think their version is better; although I don't want to get involved in an edit war to support them I think you should take into account the fact that it's those two plus me against one (you), so the only way to make progress here is to discuss why your proposed changes would be better. --Anticipation of a New Lover's Arrival, The 17:52, 12 June 2008 (UTC)
Thats great but these two did not engage in the discussion at all they just did a mass edit. Well I guess 3 to 1 is how the bully system works. Thats how the POV system plays. One of you does a mass edit without any talk in the discussion then the other two back him up in a tag game. I thought wiki was better than that... but I see I am wrong. So sad.Vufors (talk) 03:23, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] using referense desk archives

It is strange, but on the pages of the referense desk there are no (or there are?) links to the archives. For example, I need to check once more answers to my question asked in the beginning of May on linguistics, but I can't find the link to it. How can I do this? Thank you. --88.84.200.1 (talk) 16:20, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

If you look at bullet point number 1 at the top of this page, I believe there is a link to search the archives. Is that to what you're referring? TNX-Man 16:23, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Silkscreen (typeface)

Hello, I'm wondering why the article on the typeface Silkscreen has been deleted and would like to see it undeleted. Silkscreen is a typeface used everywhere in the Internet and I'm quite convinced most Internet consumers run into it daily. –Zinjixmaggir 17:07, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

I believe it should then be taken to WP:Deletion review. Calvin 1998 (t-c) 17:30, 12 June 2008 (UTC)
The article was proposed for deletion and there were no objections after 5 days. The proposal reason was "non-notable font." Simply being used is not enough to satisfy our notability guideline. If you really want, you can request it be undeleted at WP:DRV, but you're better off writing a new article with citations to show how this is a notable subject for an encyclopedia. — The Hand That Feeds You:Bite 17:33, 12 June 2008 (UTC)
See WP:WWMPD. On Wikipedia, what we know does not matter as what we can reliably source. I tried some searches and didn't find anything that looked promising on the first results pages:
I'm not familiar with how Wikipedia decides the "notability" of a typeface. See the articles in:
I had to click a few times to find a typeface article that wasn't just a stub, and actually has some references: Centaur (typeface). Perhaps those references will give you some ideas about what sort of references would establish notability for the silkscreen typeface. I did not see a WikiProject banner template on the talk pages of the typeface articles I looked at; often a WikiProject has additional style guides for articles under its purview, which might give clues about how to fend off the deletionists. And speaking of stubs, check out Category:Typography stubs - as to why the Silkscreen (typeface) article got deleted, yet all those kajillion typeface stubs are still here, your guess is as good as mine. --Teratornis (talk) 18:06, 12 June 2008 (UTC)
It seems we have an article about Jason Kottke, the author of the silkscreen typeface. --Teratornis (talk) 18:09, 12 June 2008 (UTC)
Warm thanks for your answers :) –Zinjixmaggir 08:16, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Company link in "Gasket" article

While reading the article on Gaskets, I noticed that a user from 24.190.232.30 added a company link to the list of sources without adding anything else to the article. The user, itself, has not made any other contributions to Wikipedia. All in all, it seems suspicious, but I am unsure as to how to proceed. Please advise.

--James-Chin (talk) 18:56, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

That edit has been reverted. – ukexpat (talk) 01:57, 13 June 2008 (UTC)
Thanks. I thought that might eb the correct procedure, but I wasn't sure. I appreciate your assistance. --James-Chin (talk) 18:47, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] "Back to Top" Link

I am creating my own Wiki for my company and i was wondering how to create a "Back to Top" link. The article is long and has many sections. At the end of each section i want there to be a link that says "Back to Top" and will direct the user back to the top of the document. I've tried to find a help page that explains how to do this, but i haven't found anything. Thanks for your help. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Loffles (talk • contribs) 19:14, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

You must create a <div> that is positioned where you want it. Then wiki-link it to #globalWrapper (for reference, the bottom is #footer). Hope that helps. Calvin 1998 (t-c) 20:00, 12 June 2008 (UTC)
You can see the code in Wikipedia:Help desk/Header. --Teratornis (talk) 20:25, 12 June 2008 (UTC)
To make much headway as a MediaWiki administrator, a person needs to get good at reverse engineering well-developed wikis such as Wikipedia. Wikipedia users have customized Wikipedia extensively, and a lot of features one comes to expect on Wikipedia are not part of the plain MediaWiki package. Thus an early step in setting up one's own MediaWiki wiki is to copy a bunch of stuff from Wikipedia, including a few dozen (or hundred) templates, some or all of MediaWiki:Common.css, installing some extensions such as appear in Special:Version, and more things than I can write here. Questions about MediaWiki belong in mw:Project:Support desk. You might try learning how to answer questions on the Help desk - perhaps nothing else teaches a person how to find answers about this stuff faster. Help desk volunteers have collaborated with other Wikipedians to build some interesting search tools (such as {{Google custom}}, {{Help desk searches}}, the Editor's index, and the FAQ). --Teratornis (talk) 21:01, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] in text wiktionary link

how do you link a word directly to the wiktionary, i saw it done but forgot the exact formatting. i know it is something like "{{wikt|insert word here}}" but "wikt" didn't work so what is it exactly?Myheartinchile (talk) 19:39, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

You can use an interwiki link prefix like this: wikt:example. There is also a {{Wiktionary}} template. Where do you plan to use this? There may be rules for where we can insert such links (see possibly WP:SELFREF). --Teratornis (talk) 20:29, 12 June 2008 (UTC)
thanks a lot, ahh so your supposed to use a colon as a separator not a pipe and double brackets not braces, and you can use a pipe after the title to remove the wikt part from the article. thanks man.Myheartinchile (talk) 23:29, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Verifiability for fiction articles

Hi,

I found an article that I'm interested in working on: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Game_%28novella%29.

But it has a tag at the top that says it needs sources or references and I'm not sure what to do about that. It is a new novel by a very well known and successful children's author, so it seems like it should be notable, but I just don't think there are any sources. I signed one academic book about this author out of the library, but she is a children's author, so academic works aren't that common and this book is way too new to have anything like that written about it. I looked all over the Verifiability page and I can't seem to find anything there about how to work with fiction.

Is the tag correct? Should it be there or can I just take it off? Is there a page that tells me how to write about things that exist and are notable, like many works of fiction, but that don't have many, if any, sources? CharlotteMR (talk) 19:46, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

You can link to articles more cleanly, like this: The Game (novella). (But thanks for giving us a real link; too many questioners don't even mention the article they have a question about, leaving Help desk volunteers to work on our mind reading skills. Of course you could have helped out lazy helpers like me by also providing a link to the author you mentioned but did not name: Diana Wynne Jones. It's not just that we're lazy, but also the longer we take to research a question, the more likely we are to get edit conflicts with other helpers.) Welcome to the often vexing world of Wikipedia! Finding reliable sources can be one of the hardest things to do here. It's often easier to start with some reliable sources, and go find articles to put them in, than to start with an arbitrary article and try to find sources for it. But since you seem to like a challenge, what can we do? First, see Wikipedia:Notability (books). ("Notability" on Wikipedia is more or less synonymous with (or analogous to, or at least reminiscent of) "verifiability," although enough people seem to regard the two concepts as being distinct enough to require their own names and policies. Whatever the difference, the similarity is we establish both by finding reliable sources.) Once you find some suitable references, the fun is only beginning; see: WP:CITE, WP:FOOT, WP:CITET, and WP:LAYOUT. Lately I've been playing with an interesting citation tool, {{Google scholar cite}}:
That finds some links to the author's books, and to some scholarly papers about the author, from which you can get a citation template by clicking the handy {{Wikify}} link, for example here is one (which may or may not apply to the article you are asking about, this just illustrates one way to get citations):
<ref name=Rosenberg2001>{{cite journal
 | author = Rosenberg, T.
 | journal = Papers: Explorations in Children�s Literature
 | volume = 11
 | pages = 14–25
 | year = 2001
}}</ref>
--Teratornis (talk) 20:46, 12 June 2008 (UTC)
(e/c) Some very good questions. It is assumed that if a novel is "notable" (in that it is worthy of note), that someone reliable has actually made a note of it. To this end, notability and verifiability are tightly coupled. What does this mean for a work of fiction? Well, if the book is notable, then odds are that a reliable source (a book reviewer, a literary critic, etc) has made some mention of the book, including a summary. Other sources might be the New York Times Bestseller List. The publisher (although a primary source) would serve as a good source of uncontentious information, such as the publication date and the author. I hope these clarifications help. -- ShinmaWa(talk) 20:51, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Possible risk of copyright infringement.

I would like to create a new item on Wikipedia and link it to to other Wikipedia items. My concern is that I may be infringing on someone's(someones'?) copyright. What I would like to do is create a page "San Quentin Quail", and link it to Wikipedia's "Jailbait" page.The term "San Quentin Quail" is used in Mary Hemingway's 1970 publication of Ernest Hemingway's novel "Islands in the Stream" describing the possibility that one of the characters may have had sexual relations with an underage person and then had legal difficulties because of it. Although the term may now be in the public domain and might have been at the time the novel was written or published, I am not sure. Can you clarify this for me?

Thanx, Rumpedia (talk) 22:49, 12 June 2008 (UTC).

If I understand correctly, want to write an article defining “San Quentin quail” as “jailbait.”, That wouldn’t be a copyright violation just because someone used it that way. But it probably wouldn’t be an appropriate topic for an encyclopedia article either: dictionaries give definitions—not encyclopedias. —teb728 t c 00:28, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] how can i have video on a wiki page?

how can i have video on a wiki page?

Thanks

--CharlesCkaloustian (talk) 23:26, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

Well, the short answer is, you can't. The longer answer is, what is the video, and why do you want it on here? Is it an addition to an existing article that is appropriate for an encyclopedia? Tan | 39 23:28, 12 June 2008 (UTC)
(e/c) Hosting video is currently so limited as to be almost nonexistent. Please see m:Video policy. There is a link there to one extant article with a video.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 23:31, 12 June 2008 (UTC)
You can include videos on articles just like you can include images; here is an example: Hitler#Hitler_in_media. Gary King (talk) 01:47, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] June 13

[edit] Trouble Formatting

I just created a page for the production company I work for, Benderspink. However, when I try to put info about the movies they've made into table, my text actually runs off the table in the final version. What's going on?

Also, I'd like to add a little box on the side with a picture and some basic info (ex. Walt Disney has one), but I can't find an option where I can add a text box like that. Please help...thanks!

Sincerely, Adrienne

<email removed> —Preceding unsigned comment added by Aethiery (talkcontribs) 01:19, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

You are currently using fixed-width formatting, which means that the text will appear as you typed it in—so line breaks will only appear when you force them. The text appears as fixed-width because there are spaces at the beginning of the line; remove those spaces then the text will turn to normal. Gary King (talk) 01:46, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] What's the point?

What's the point in having a soft redirect from WP:DICK in Wikipedia to an essay on Wikimedia if it keeps getting removed when put on a user's talk page? I realize the 1st time I used it could be construed as a personal attack, but the 2nd? Come on! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.12.114.215 (talk) 01:50, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

  • Perhaps it's because you keep inserting the link willy-nilly into the middle of other peoples conversations [4], [5], [6], [7], and [8] without signing any of your posts. We have all read wp:dick, you might want to check out wp:point. Cheers. L0b0t (talk) 02:08, 13 June 2008 (UTC)
It's not "willy-nilly" in the middle of a conversation. It's at the end of one and it's a comment/reply directed towards that user. Show me the rule (not the suggestion) that says I have to sign my posts. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.12.114.215 (talk) 02:12, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

Now where did I say there was a rule about signing? What I will say, however, is that signing your posts will go a long way towards them not being regarded as vandalism. Cheers. L0b0t (talk) 02:15, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

Can someone please give me a straight answer here instead of all the warnings? 24.12.114.215 (talk) 02:21, 13 June 2008 (UTC)
No. You need to stop edit warring and making personal attacks. Once you calm down and stop misbehaving, you can ask nicely and people would be more than happy to help explain to you how things work here. But coming here as a new editor and promptly getting into fights with multiple editors who are asking you to stop is no way to approach any website, much less Wikipedia. Wikidemo (talk) 02:27, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

(undent) There is a guideline about signing your posts on talk pages: WP:SIGNATURE. Failing to follow that guideline tells other users you either do not know much about how Wikipedia works, or you are deliberately defying Wikipedia. That isn't the best way to gain influence here. Influence on Wikipedia follows from demonstrating knowledge of Wikipedia's policies and guidelines, especially the ones that are relevant to a particular situation. Unsigned comments on talk pages fairly scream "newbie" - and this will tend to make one less persuasive to Wikipedia users who know enough to sign their comments. It's like going into any type of culture or community that has well-understood rules, and demonstrating no understanding of them. It makes one stand out in a negative way, and attracts unfavorable attention. That's just how humans are - as social creatures, we instinctively apply massive pressure on everyone else to conform to whatever social norms other people pressured us into earlier. --Teratornis (talk) 08:56, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

Of course we do have the ignore all rules rule, but only expert users can get away with much of that. In most cases, following the rules leads new users to a better outcome than ignoring the rules. It's OK to ignore a rule if by doing so, one clearly improves Wikipedia. And that means the improvement is clear to anyone who looks at it. Not many new users know how to ignore rules like that. --Teratornis (talk) 09:02, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Bathams - Black Country Brewers

<article text misplaced in this forum and thus removed> —Preceding unsigned comment added by MrPhil-ex-BathamsKing (talkcontribs) 02:11, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

Hello. You have posted what I assume to be the text of an intended article but to a help page, rather than actually creating an article on the topic. Posting here is not the way an article is created. Please see Wikipedia:Your first article for information on the way an article is created. Please note that for any article you want to remain here (that is, an article that will not be deleted), you must provide references to reliable sources which discuss the subject substantively in order to show that the world has taken note of the subject, and the information in the article must also be verified through such use of references.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 02:44, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] plagiarism

An anonymous editor made several additions to the American lobster article, but all of them were cut-and-paste directly from other sources (not Wiki mirrors). I thought I saw a help page on dealing with plagiarism but couldn’t find it. What is the procedure for dealing with this? I left details of the edits on the American lobster talk page.Bob98133 (talk) 02:54, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

Just remove it! Plagiarism is not permitted on Wikipedia; if necessary, report the issue to the administrators' incident noticeboard. – Thomas H. Larsen 02:56, 13 June 2008 (UTC)
After removing the infringing edits (you can revert them or undo them), please warn the user/ip on his or her talk page. You can use {{subst:nothanks|name of article}}--~~~~ --Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 03:01, 13 June 2008 (UTC)
See WP:BOLD. JaakobouChalk Talk 17:42, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] New Subject

Can I request a new subject? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.155.243.33 (talk) 03:44, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

If you mean new articles, then yes. It is at WP:RA, or if you have the text already, it is at WP:AFC. Soxred 93 03:48, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Table formatting

Resolved.

I am trying to alter Template: hockeybox which is used to display match summaries for field hockey matches. I want to add an optional right hand column next to "umpires" noting the cards given out in a match (see right hand column of Men’s field hockey Qualifying Tournaments for the 2008 Summer Olympics#Pool). The heading "Discipline" and its contents never line up correctly with each other and sometimes need a little more space for the longer names etc... i've tryed but my advanced table writing skills aren't too flash. Could someone help me fix this??.... Goldfinger820 (talk) 05:12, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

thanks Aleenf1. Goldfinger820 (talk) 07:18, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Follow up on reporting NOR violations

A few days ago I posted a question asking appropriate forum for reporting NOR violations. One user replied “WP:NORN should be OK”; another replied, “Even if it is the wrong place, the admins there will be able to help out or point out where the right noticeboard is.” My original concern has since been resolved satisfactorily. But in case such a question comes up again, I would like to report that my post to WP:NORN produced no response at all. —teb728 t c 05:58, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

You might want to bring your concern to the discussion page at WP:NORN. Wisdom89 (T / C) 07:42, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] ADDING A PAGE

How can I add a page to the wikipedia? example.. If there was not a page named cardiac uro specialist. How would I add one and write about it. —Preceding unsigned comment added by David4249 (talkcontribs) 06:46, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

Search for the article in question. If the page does not exist, Wikipedia will notify you and a link will be present that reads "create this page". Click on that and you're on your way. Be sure to read notability guidelines and reliable sources to prevent your article from being deleted. You also might want to read your first article. Wisdom89 (T / C) 07:37, 13 June 2008 (UTC)
You might want to edit other articles so that your new page won't be an orphan page: a page that isn't linked by any other page. --Kjoonlee 11:32, 13 June 2008 (UTC)
Also add it to a WikiProject and add some categories as well. Limetolime Talk to me look what I did! 14:45, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] My own private wiki

Can I create my own private wiki sites, and i have all rights to doing for my sites?219.68.144.162 (talk) 06:49, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

Yes, you can. I even have one my own. But it would be better if you asked at the Wikipedia:Reference desk since your question is unrelated to wikipedia. Thank you, RyRy5 (talk) 06:54, 13 June 2008 (UTC)
Yes. You can get cheap ones (which are so rubbish, especially scribblewiki) or pay for them. I hope thats not advertising. StewieGriffin! • Talk Sign 07:16, 13 June 2008 (UTC)
That’s yes, assuming that by your “own private wiki sites” you mean sites on your own server. But if you mean your own private pages on Wikipedia, then most definitely no. (Some people call Wikipedia pages “sites.”) —teb728 t c 07:25, 13 June 2008 (UTC)
I have had several wikis in my time (probabally around 20 by now....), all using the MediaWiki software (the same as Wikipedia), and all running on a web server installed on my main desktop machine, for my network only. :-) Stwalkerstertalk ] 07:38, 13 June 2008 (UTC)
See b:Wiki Science/How to start a Wiki. Caution: becoming a MediaWiki administrator can be a lot of work, depending on how much you want to customize your wiki. --Teratornis (talk) 08:46, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] DEATH INTERVENTION SPECIALIST

The term DEATH INTERVENTION SPECIALIST was created in Bowling green Ky in the year 2005 by EMS personel that were assigned to B shift. This group has eleate training in several specialties including medical, trauma care as well as high risk rescue. Each member is highly qualified and dedicated to saving lives.

I see that you have created a Death intervention specialist page. I am not sure about the notability of the subject. —teb728 t c 07:30, 13 June 2008 (UTC)
In fact, there's a specific guideline for terms that have been invented by a small group of people recently and has not gotten widespread use: Wikipedia:Avoid neologisms. -- ShinmaWa(talk) 15:56, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Difference?

Is there a difference between [[Category:Positional numeral systems| 4]] and [[Category:Positional numeral systems|4]]? Thanks.68.148.164.166 (talk) 08:10, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

I don't think so, no. MediaWiki ignores extra spaces by default (check the edit window to see what I mean)...... Dendodge .. TalkHelp 09:48, 13 June 2008 (UTC)
Usually so, but not in this particular case. [[Category:Positional numeral systems| 4]] sorts it by space (before digits and letters) in the category. See Wikipedia:Categorization#Priority sort keys. Notice how most articles in Category:Positional numeral systems are placed in the first group with no letter or other heading. The special sort keys are used to sort by base. It also makes a difference whether there are one or two spaces. If two articles both start with a space in the sort key then the next character is used for sorting. Quinary has sort key "  4" (two spaces) so it's placed earlier than Decimal which has " 10" (one space). Normal category sorting would place anything with "1" before anything with "4". PrimeHunter (talk) 12:23, 13 June 2008 (UTC)
No, there isn't. It's similar to article headings; == Heading 1 == and ==Heading 1== will look the same when saved. Limetolime Talk to me look what I did! 14:44, 13 June 2008 (UTC)
WP:CAT#Sort key appears to side with PrimeHunter in this passage:
  • As seen from the ASCII sequence above, forcing items to the beginning or end can be done with a sort key starting with a space or ~, respectively. Another common sort key for the beginning of the list is the asterisk (*).
This seems to indicate that leading spaces are significant in sort keys. In any case, the question is easy to resolve with a direct test. Try categorizing some sandbox pages with sort keys having various combinations of no or some leading space characters, then purge the category page to update the sorting of its entries (I think a purge is sometimes necessary to get the category page to show the latest state of all the category links). --Teratornis (talk) 18:57, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

(undent) Leading spaces in sort keys seem to behave somewhat similarly to leading spaces in Piped links - MediaWiki preserves the first space in piped links. For example:

  • "[[WP:HD|Help desk]]" produces: "Help desk"
  • "[[WP:HD| Help desk]]" produces: " Help desk"

Any second and or following space immediately after a leading space does not seem to survive in a piped link. Thus we see that MediaWiki is not universally consistent in its handling of leading spaces, since MediaWiki ignores a leading space in a section heading. --Teratornis (talk) 19:07, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

No new testing is needed. I already linked to Category:Positional numeral systems with comments showing that it both matters whether there is a space or not, and whether there is one or two spaces. PrimeHunter (talk) 21:29, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Wikipedian protester

Image:Webcomic xkcd - Wikipedian protester.png

The image above has been released under the CC attribution license.[citation needed]

There's no longer any written proof that the above is true. Where should I report this? --Kjoonlee 11:29, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

Um, it still is. See the comic page [9]:

"This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 2.5 License."

Also see [10].
--grawity 12:59, 13 June 2008 (UTC)
Nope, it says non-commercial. Commercial use is forbidden, so we can't use it unless the author gives explicit permission. We no longer have written proof for that permission. --Kjoonlee 13:16, 13 June 2008 (UTC)
While I'm 100% sure that User:Mike33 was truthful when he said that he did get a letter from User:Xkcd saying this image is licensed under CC-BY-SA [11], you are also 100% correct that Mike33 should have opened a OTRS ticket on it when you wrote the author some months ago with no response. There's a number of ways of going out this, which aren't mutually exclusive: 1) Bring up the issue at the Administrator's Noticeboard.. again. 2) Nominate the image for deletion on Commons. That'll definitely get people's attention. 3) Email Randall Munroe directly. You may get a better response if he knows that his image is/may be up for deletion. If he responds, open the OTRS ticket like Mike33 should have done the first time around. 4) Lastly, see if you can get an administrator to restore the en-wp copy of the image. If we can get a diff of User:Xkcd adding the CC-BY-SA tag himself and putting that diff into OTRS (maybe a screenshot or a copy and paste of the diff with database numbers), that might be sufficient. Definately an idea to bring up at WP:AN. -- ShinmaWa(talk) 16:22, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] can you track page visits on Wikipedia

Our company has a wikipedia page and we were wondering can we track page uniquie views or visits to our Wikipedia page for research purposes.

Thanks, —Preceding unsigned comment added by 158.111.4.25 (talk) 13:50, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

I don't believe there is a way to track the number of views a page has. I'm not positive, but maybe Alexa can do something like that? TNX-Man 13:53, 13 June 2008 (UTC)
See Wikipedia article traffic statistics. --—— Gadget850 (Ed) talk - 14:02, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for your replies... TN-X-Man what is ALEXA? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 158.111.4.25 (talk) 14:16, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

Alexa Internet is a website that tracks traffic to webpages. I am not very familiar with it, but have heard the term used occasionally. It may be worth looking into. Cheers! TNX-Man 14:25, 13 June 2008 (UTC)
See WP:FAQ#HIT. --Teratornis (talk) 18:15, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] GAR

Talk:Blood donation/GA1 discussion has been completed. Some edits (more than just formating for clarity) have been added after the GAR result was given. Do these late edits need to be removed? Can only administrators close the discussion putting a box around it? Snowman (talk) 16:30, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

As I'm not familiar with all the ins and outs of the good article reassessment system, I am only going to half-answer your question by saying that GAR is not an administrative process (like xFD) but a community process, meaning that administrators are not needed to do anything in regards to a GAR. As for the particular etiquettes involved in the GAR process, perhaps another user here can assist with that, or you can ask your question on the GAR talk page. -- ShinmaWa(talk) 17:15, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Article Copy/Paste

I've noticed that a company has copied and pasted a Wikipedia article (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corset) onto their own site (http://www.corsetsdiva.com/CORSET-INFORMATION) and was wondering if this was allowed. I looked around and couldn't find anything one way or the other. Thanks in advance. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.81.48.147 (talk) 17:19, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

It is allowed only and only if the website is in compliance with the GNU Free Documentation License, the license that covers all Wikipedia text. If not, it is illegal as copyright infringement. Calvin 1998 (t-c) 17:31, 13 June 2008 (UTC)
They appear to be of "low-to-medium compliance". You can find more information, and place an entry on this website, at WP:MAF and WP:GFDLC. -- ShinmaWa(talk) 17:46, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Account Creator on Listuser?

Hey there,

I was just approved for Account Creator rights, but it doesn't show on Listusers. Is there a reason for this? Is there a delay for listuser updates? Thanks, Perfect Proposal Speak Out! 17:24, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

Actually, you haven't been given accountcreator rights, just been approved for the tool on the toolserver. :-) Stwalkerstertalk ] 17:29, 13 June 2008 (UTC)
There you go - you have the account creator userright now. [12] :-) Stwalkerstertalk ] 17:31, 13 June 2008 (UTC)
Thanks for the fast response and solution! Cheers, Perfect Proposal Speak Out! 17:33, 13 June 2008 (UTC)
Excellent, now go create some accounts! But remember: you create accounts at your own risk. Make sure they're not vandals (they probably are)... :( L'Aquatique[talk] 06:05, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Licensing review

Does WP have an analogue to {{flickrreview}}. In the last twelve hours I have moved Image:Paintings below zero'.jpg, Image:Paintings below zero from front'.jpg, and Image:Boeing North Gallery'.jpg from Commons because they are fair use art. I need confirmation of their licensing for the permanent record.--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTM) 17:26, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

This question might be easier to answer if the {{flickrreview}} template wasn't a red link - then we could see the example of what the template you want would be analogous to. If you are looking for a specific messagebox template, see WP:TEMPLATES, or search the Template: namespace with your favorite search method (for example, with {{Google custom}} or see the handy search link on {{Help desk searches}}). --Teratornis (talk) 18:51, 13 June 2008 (UTC)
I am sorry. On commons this tag summons reviewers who authenticate licensing. Does WP have an analogous template or system?--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTM) 20:23, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Live scores of sports events

What does policy say about keeping live scores of ongoing sports events, e.g. live updating the score of a soccer match during the match? dorftrottel (talk) 17:39, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia is not a live news outlet. Maybe WikiNEWS supports this type of updating. JaakobouChalk Talk 17:58, 13 June 2008 (UTC)
I fully agree, but there are people who are not used to listen to reason and common sense (let alone know what an encyclopedia is and is not); clearly worded policy and the blockhammer is the only language they understand. dorftrottel (talk) 18:02, 13 June 2008 (UTC)
I believe you are referring to WP:IINFO, specifically WP:NOT#NEWS.
Hope this helps, JaakobouChalk Talk 18:06, 13 June 2008 (UTC)
Thanks, but actually I had hoped for something more specific. NOT#NEWS doesn't explicity mention game scores, and that alone means people will dismiss the notion that it somehow could apply. They need a picture and clear words, or they will simply game like crazy. For what it's worth, I've started a thread at WT:NOT dorftrottel (talk) 18:12, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

(undent) See the links under WP:EIW#Current, for example:

--Teratornis (talk) 18:24, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

Thanks to you as well, but I'm afraid none of those will do. dorftrottel (talk) 18:30, 13 June 2008 (UTC)
Wikipedia tries not to overburden us with instruction creep. You're not going to find something as specific as "don't post live game scores." It's commonly assumed practice here that WP:NOT#NEWS covers that fact, so it doesn't need to be spelled out. — The Hand That Feeds You:Bite 18:48, 13 June 2008 (UTC)
Yes, it does. Many people in many areas will ignore everything on the basis that it's not explicit or that it's "just a guideline". It must be policy, and it must be ungameably worded, or else it will be gamed. Look e.g. at UEFA Euro 2008, esp. [13] and [14] (=the reason I asked). I did try to address this without invoking any policy, just by common sense. But it's useless. dorftrottel (talk) 19:01, 13 June 2008 (UTC)
Initially you asked a question. In your later followups, you told us why you need the answer. If you had initially described your goal, not just your step, then we might have been able to address the real question earlier. I personally disagree with some (by no means all) aspects of the WP:CREEP essay, and one of these days I might get around to writing my counter-essay. Wikipedia is the world's largest do it yourself project, and our voluminous instructions create the structure in which 7,305,515 registered users can work together somewhat coherently on 2,412,439 articles. Obviously with that many users and articles, the necessary instruction set will become massively complex, otherwise users with different points of view will endlessly game the ambiguities. (Even users who edit in good faith may prefer to follow explicit instructions rather than having to guess what to do.) If the current instructions are ambiguous with respect to some area of ongoing content dispute, then whenever the Wikipedia community resolves that dispute (thus further modifying or extending our consensus), we will need to codify that resolution into yet another instruction. (I suspect people who object to instruction "creep" in principle must fail to understand the incremental accumulation of structure and know-how that builds Wikipedia. Consider the analogy with biological evolution; there is such a thing as junk DNA, which would be analogous to unprofitable instruction creep, but for living things to evolve new traits, they must accumulate new instructions. A human, for example, represents a whole bunch of genetic instruction creep to get from our last common ancestor with, say, the bonobo.) As far as the specific dispute you describe above (the posting of live game score updates on Wikipedia), I don't have an immediate opinion about it. Perhaps we need to discuss this somewhere. Perhaps the talk page of one of the date-related guideline pages would be appropriate (Wikipedia talk:Avoid statements that will date quickly maybe?). --Teratornis (talk) 19:36, 13 June 2008 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Avoid statements that will date quickly focuses on wording. And the situation at the Euro 2008 article is not the reason I'm asking this question, it's merely the occasion. I've often seen this and always found it idiotic. Looking forward to that counter-essay of yours (had actually been looking for one when someone above cited CREEP). However, there's nothing that can be done. Strict rules are the only way of fighting off stupidity. And although I do understand the spirit behind CREEP, people must sooner or later wake up and smell the 2,412,439 cans of coffee. dorftrottel (talk) 19:47, 13 June 2008 (UTC)
You can't stop ppl coming there are writing in the score (Probably everyone who visits the article and see that the score is "wrong" will correct it.). It's the same with all football articles that covers ongoing matches, it's just unnecessary to go in and create edit wars over it. ← chandler 19:45, 13 June 2008 (UTC)
Well, I tried this and it was removed. dorftrottel (talk) 19:47, 13 June 2008 (UTC)
  • Thanks for posting the a link to the article in question. I was curious as to when this situation would even come up. I would have thought that if an event is ongoing then it has no business as an article anyway. The best solution might well be to just not worry about it at all. As long as the scores in the article are correct at the end of the game there is no problem. On the other hand, I would humbly suggest that those who feel an obsessive need to update articles in the middle of a game need to, as Shatner once said on SNL, "...Get a life..." L0b0t (talk) 19:50, 13 June 2008 (UTC)
Thanks for understanding. I suppose it's yet another pet peeve of mine (I create them as I go...). What bugs me is the feeling that those who use Wikipedia for such purposes just don't get the encyclopedic spirit. dorftrottel (talk) 20:08, 13 June 2008 (UTC)
    • I truly feel your pain. My particular devil involves trivia sections. Cheers. L0b0t (talk) 20:12, 13 June 2008 (UTC)
  • Please don't get me started on fancruft and trivia. :D dorftrottel (talk) 05:13, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Speedy Deletion of a Image that exisits on Commons

I have tagged Image:Euro 2008.png, now I went to this category and there it says: "Images in this category are potential candidates for speedy deletion under criterion I8 once this category is seven days old." sn't there a way to just get it deleted now? As the picture will be rapidly updated within the coming seven days. And I think it would be best to just do it at one place. What can be done here? ← chandler 19:33, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] New page

Resolved. User blocked for spam. --TNX-Man 19:46, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

I just created a new page that I want to be called Long Distance Post, LLC. However, the title shows as User:LongDistancePost (which is my username). How do I make the title be what I want it to be? When I search for Long Distance Post, I don't get any results, but when I search for User:LongDistancePost, I get to the page. —Preceding unsigned comment added by LongDistancePost (talkcontribs) 19:34, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

User indef blocked for obvious advertising account (with nice notification and recourse, of course). Tan | 39 19:43, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Automatically Archive

Can somebody help me with archiving automatically. I looked at the help page and it didn't help very much. I've got a 2007 archive page and I just want to set it up for automatic archiving from now on. I just need it to archive by year. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Bfalexander (talkcontribs) 20:05, 13 June 2008 (UTC)---Brian Alexander

[edit] adding accounts to unified profile

This may have been asked elsewhere in the last two weeks. I have created a unified account for WP and commons. How can I create accounts for wikinews and wiktionary to add to the profile?--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTM) 20:24, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

I believe it should have created accounts for all of them the first time. Paragon12321 (talk) 20:26, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Image

I am still not well-versed in uploading images outside Flickr. This is why I am asking for help. Can anyone please upload this image for the article Anti-tobacco movement in Nazi Germany. In this case a {{Non-free historic image}} tag would be appropriate, as it is a unique historic image, and the copyright for it is most likely held by the person who took the image or the agency employing the person. I have tried to upload it, but I am still not well-versed in this filed. An intervention in this case will be a great help. Thanks. Otolemur crassicaudatus (talk) 20:28, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Badge for HMCS Port Colborne

My uncle served on the HMCS Port Colborne during WW2. I am attempting to find the badge for this ship or determine if (possibly) there never a badge designed.

Regards Doug —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.66.228.7 (talk) 20:35, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

Have you tried the Humanities section of Wikipedia's Reference Desk? They specialize in answering knowledge questions there; this help desk is only for questions about using Wikipedia. For your convenience, here is the link to post a question there: click here. I hope this helps. PrimeHunter (talk) 21:19, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] can I somehow upload a photo I took showing an informative state historical marker at a nearby public park?

I took a photo of a state historical marker at a nearby public park that explains the origin of the term "Butte des Morts".

I want to include that photo n my page I created today called "Butte Des Morts"

You see, there are two lakes near me in northeastern Wisconsin called "Litte Lake Butte des Morts" and "Big Lake Butte des Morts". I live on a street called "Butte Des Morts Ct".

The page I created was to help everyone understand the meaning and origin of "Butte Des Morts".

Please help me get this page up and I have no idea how to get you to use the photo I took because I don't have Admin or the other kind of membership where I can do that.

Thanks.

Nicholas Suess (talk) 21:31, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

Due to a recent change in the rules, you have to have ten edits before you are allowed to upload images. Try fixing up some of the pages listed in Category:Cleanup from June 2008, and after you have ten total conributions, you will be able to use Special:Upload to upload your photograph. - SigmaEpsilonΣΕ 22:15, 13 June 2008 (UTC)
Butte des Morts really appears to be redundant with Little Lake Butte des Morts and Lake Butte des Morts. --—— Gadget850 (Ed) talk - 22:38, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] New Language Wikipedia

How can a Wikipedia be set up in a new language? Thanks, Ζρς ι'β' ¡hábleme! 22:46, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

Hi! See the Wikimedia Incubator :-) Stwalkerstertalk ] 22:50, 13 June 2008 (UTC)
Strangely, that link was not in the Editor's index (nor in my brain, before you mentioned it), so I added it under WP:EIW#Translate. --Teratornis (talk) 23:01, 13 June 2008 (UTC)
Thanks! I have one more question though. Where can I post that I am trying to start this and obtain potential contributors? Ζρς ι'β' ¡hábleme! 23:12, 13 June 2008 (UTC)
Maybe you can find a venue in one of the links under WP:EIW#News, such as Wikipedia:Mailing lists. Another possibility would be to look at some other language versions of Wikipedia that started recently, and ask the people who started them how they did it. For example, you can search the Wikipedia Signpost with Google for "language Wikipedias" and read some articles about the Wikipedias in other languages as they started up. Maybe you will find some clue about that process. --Teratornis (talk) 05:58, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Copyright?

Can you copy content from usgs.gov to Wikipedia because the works of the U.S. Federal Government are not copyrightable by Federal Law? You should read Copyright status of work by the U.S. government also. -- RyRy5 (talk) 23:35, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

Head over to Wikipedia:Upload, and you'll see a link there – something like "... from a U.S. Federal Government source ...". Cheers! – Thomas H. Larsen 00:10, 14 June 2008 (UTC)
I meant is it okay if you copied content from there and then pasting it to Wikipedia articles. Is that allowed? --RyRy5 (talk) 00:12, 14 June 2008 (UTC)
Oh! Well, I'm not a lawyer, and copyright application on images differs from that on text. Unfortunately, I'm afraid I don't know the answer to this question. Wikipedia:Copyright FAQ might help; otherwise, simply use the U.S. Federal Government source as a base and write in your own words, ensuring that you cite the source as a reference. Cheers. – Thomas H. Larsen 00:19, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Tim Russert's page

Can you guys please check out Tim Russert's page? I has been desecrated. I'm using a MAC and I am disgusted. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.188.67.83 (talk) 23:38, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

Can you be a bit more specific on the problem? SpinningSpark 00:30, 14 June 2008 (UTC)
{{Infobox journalist}} was vandalized with porn; it has been fixed. --—— Gadget850 (Ed) talk - 00:39, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] June 14

[edit] absolutely inactive users

Recently, I was going to change my username (Flaminglawyer) to just Flaming. So I fill out the form thing, click preview, then decide to check if Flaming is already taken (here). And look what pops up: User:Flaming. Zero edits, no activity whatsoever since s/he was created about 2 years ago. Would it be safe to assume that this user is never to come back to Wikipedia, and let me change my username to Flaming? Or do we have a No User Left Behind rule or something? flaminglawyerc 01:35, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Changing username/Usurpations. --—— Gadget850 (Ed) talk - 01:37, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Colour Codes

I was wondering if there is a wikipedia article with a list of codes for colour, e.g. the fireworks codes? If anybody knows of an article like this, I would be very grateful, as I am a member of WikiProject Userboxes, and need a list of colour codes for Userbox Creation. Thankyou, Green1Blue2 (talk) 01:51, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

See List of colors and web colors. --—— Gadget850 (Ed) talk - 02:07, 14 June 2008 (UTC)
And the Wikipedia-specific links under WP:EIW#Color. --Teratornis (talk) 05:48, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Edit conflict

While attempting to answer the above question about web colors, I had an edit conflict with Gadget850. When displaying the Edit Conflict Edit Window, the entire Help Desk page was loaded into the edit box. Is there a way to avoid loading the whole page? (Should I take this to WP:VPT?) - SigmaEpsilonΣΕ 02:12, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

I don't know, but when I get an edit conflict on the Help desk, I just open the Help desk again in another browser tab, and copy my response into a fresh edit window containing the latest addition that conflicted with my first attempt to save. One way to avoid the ugliness of the edit conflict page is to click "Show changes" before clicking "Save page". That way you are still at the edit window when you detect the edit conflict - the "Show changes" button clearly shows new text that snuck in while you were editing. --Teratornis (talk) 05:46, 14 June 2008 (UTC)
You've probably noticed the odds of an edit conflict are higher when a question is new and the answer is likely to be obvious to many Help desk volunteers. For those kinds of questions, you'd want to edit quickly. A difficult question that has languished for a few hours is probably free for you to edit without much interference. --Teratornis (talk) 06:54, 14 June 2008 (UTC)
At the moment, no, there's no way to avoid this. If you want to do your part to attempt to fix this, please add your support vote for the following bug report: 4745 Section edit conflict expands edit box to entire article. I advertised about this here and on the help desk talk page a while back but we still only have twelve votes so far.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk)

[edit] Wikiprojects

1. Are there any policies, guidelines or approval processes associated with the creation of new Wikiprojects?

2. Is a forward slash (/) in the Project title likely to cause any technical problems with the engine software or Wikimedia?

3. Is the word 'Awareness' in the Project title at all likely to be interpreted as advocacy? The proposed project is about linking Articles relating to certain medical conditions.

Jagra (talk) 03:40, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

  1. WP:PROJGUIDE
  2. Probably - a forward slash will create a Subpage in the Wikipedia: (Project:) Namespace.
  3. Difficult to answer without the whole title, but my first reaction would be "yes." Just given the huge number of people on Wikipedia and all the good reasons they have to object to things.
--Teratornis (talk) 05:43, 14 June 2008 (UTC)
To see what other people have done (not necessarily an accurate guide to what is allowable), you can search the Wikipedia: namespace with Google for: wikiproject awareness. --Teratornis (talk) 06:06, 14 June 2008 (UTC)
There is a Wikipedia:WikiProject Awareness, but in the first few pages of search results, I don't see any other WikiProjects that have the word "awareness" in their titles. There is a Wikipedia:WikiProject Palestine/Raising awareness subpage. See WP:PROJGUIDE for information about making Wikipedians aware of a WikiProject, as opposed to raising awareness among the general public about a particular topic, which could fall under WP:NOTSOAPBOX. Of course, the whole point of publishing a free encyclopedia on the Web is to raise the public awareness of the "sum of human knowledge." So in a sense, Wikipedia is a soapbox for knowledge in general. I think pretty much every WikiProject ends up promoting its subject of interest to some extent, but the way to do that is by improving the articles on that subject, rather than by using Wikipedia to advertise somehow. --Teratornis (talk) 06:15, 14 June 2008 (UTC)
Thanks, I have some homework to do with the Projguide and I see the problem with subpage creation in a title. Still not sure about using 'awareness' in title, in this instance it would not advertise as such, but generally support (without being about) a public health initiative of the CDC Atlanta in a broader forum, given such issues are universal. Jagra (talk) 08:05, 14 June 2008 (UTC)
On the otherhand there is no subpage created in a string of related Article such as ME/CFS history so is there a difference in Article and Project title software that might apply?Jagra (talk) 09:46, 14 June 2008 (UTC)
Yes. Subpages are disabled in the main (article) namespace. Algebraist 10:00, 14 June 2008 (UTC)Thanks Jagra (talk) 10:53, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Copyright makes my head spin [image copyright question]

As a graphist for the graphics lab, I've been dealing with copyright issues for a while, and I've got to say, some of it doesn't make a lot of sense to me. Especially the concept of making images in the style of others and whether copyright law counts there (i.e. I had a problem with one of my ads because it used the pattern from the italian flag without sourcing it, even though I had created the pattern myself without actually using the flag). So I figured I'd come here with this question.
I have a picture that I've been using on forums as my avatar that I really like and would like to put on my user page- it's an illustration of me. I made it using a free flash app at South Park Studios and the animation is unmistakably similar in the style of the television show South Park- which is the point. The app is designed for this purpose, to create avatars and it says you can use them as such.
My question is, can South Park Studios copyright the images that their app creates, or only the app itself? The creators of the show have been quoted as saying that they don't care about copyright law, is this akin to releasing their stuff into public domain? Does the media company that broadcasts the show then have the right to supersede the wishes of the creators and impose copyright restrictions? Furthermore, can you copyright a style of animation, or only the individual characters? In other words, could I go in and, with photoshop, create an illustration of myself in that particular animation style and it would still technically belong to Comedy Central?
I'm so confused! Any advice, or is this a pandora's box that I should not be trying to open?
L'Aquatique[talk] 06:08, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

Well, usually the results of running an application are copyrighted by the user of the application, not the copyright owner of the application (for example, if you create a Word document it is copyrighted to you and not Microsoft). However, if the application does indeed output a result that is very similar to a copyrighted image, it could be considered derivative work of the original image, and therefore copyrighted by the software owner (for example, if you take a copyrighted picture and delete the background to make it black, it is derivative work and your "new" image is copyrighted to the copyright owner of the original one). I am not sure, though, what happens when it is procedurally generated by a software. My guess is that, regardless of what the show creators think, all their characters are actually copyrighted by Comedy Central, and therefore their assurance is void. -- ReyBrujo (talk) 06:28, 14 June 2008 (UTC)
See the #Drawing question above for some vaguely related answers and links. You'd have to consult an attorney to get a definitive answer (which is not to say all attorneys agree on everything - if they did, nothing would go to trial). I'm by no means an expert, but you get what you pay for, so here goes: on Wikipedia we don't use avatars, so already if there's a potential copyright problem, things are going against you, and from what little I know about fair use criteria, there probably isn't a fair-use rationale for a user page. So, my advice would be to get over the need for a user page avatar and just focus on fixing some real problems. Who knows, maybe someday our 7,305,515 users will increase to a voting majority, and we'll just get rid of copyrights altogether. --Teratornis (talk) 06:35, 14 June 2008 (UTC)
Sorry, I thought it was a fairly valid question, I was using the "user page picture" situation partially as an example to illustrate my confusion. Being condescending is really not necessary, considering I spend more time than I care to think about cleaning up articles, making images, etc (If I'm reading conflict into the situation that doesn't exist, you'll have to excuse me, I took a bit of a fall earlier and bumped my head, so I'm not entirely running with all circuits operating, if you get my drift...)!
Thanks for the response, although it seems to raise more questions than it answers! Copyright is a fickle mistress, it seems...
L'Aquatique[talk] 07:07, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Many many users

I have a problem. I want to now: do i have to create a new user for every project? (wikiquote, commons, wikipedia, etc), because i think that my Wikipedia user should be usable in others wikiproyects, so i could't have to log every time i need to move on another place. my questions:

  • Is possible to do a only-multiple user for different projects?
  • If thats not possible, please tell me why?
  • something else, the wiki code for edit pages (and my user page) is html or some codes are only of wikipedia?

Neotex555 - Do you have something Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious to say? —Preceding comment was added at 06:14, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

See m:Help:Unified login (and for the history of this feature, WP:EIW#SingleSignon). As for the last question, see Help:Editing, WP:CHEAT, and Help:HTML in wikitext. --Teratornis (talk) 06:18, 14 June 2008 (UTC)
With unified login you don't have to create multiple accounts, but you do have to login on each project. But if you are using your own computer, you can tell it to remember you. —teb728 t c 09:44, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Wiki logo

Is there a page in the MediaWiki: namespace that allows you to set the logo for the wiki that appears on all pages? -- 213.152.52.38 (talk) 11:11, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

And, at the same time... is there some guided, structured index to the pages in the MediaWiki: namespace somewhere? :-S It's confusing to search them randomly. -- 213.152.52.38 (talk) 11:21, 14 June 2008 (UTC)
I don't think so...Only developers can change the logo. Also, Special:Allmessages is an alphabetical list of MediaWiki messages. :) Best, PeterSymonds (talk) 11:28, 14 June 2008 (UTC)
First question: No. The MediaWiki namespace is for system messages - for instance, the message that says "You are logged in". To add a logo, you must add the $wgLogo line to LocalSettings.php in the server directory where MediaWiki is installed. If you don't run the wiki where you want to change the logo, you must contact the person who does. See the MediaWiki FAQ for more information.
Second question: Special:Allmessages is a list of all MediaWiki namespace pages. If you want documentation, then the MediaWiki manual has documented about 20 of them. Xenon54 11:33, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

Okay, thanks. -- 213.152.52.38 (talk) 11:41, 14 June 2008 (UTC)