Wikipedia:Help desk/Archives/2006 November 26

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[edit] November 26

[edit] How to find a previous question

Earlier today there was a question at the Reference Desk about acne. I've tried to find it again now, but I don't see it anywhere. History doesn't let me go back far enough to see if it was deleted. I believe it was originally in Miscellaneous. Could it have been moved to another section (Science)? I don't see it...I'll watch this page.

[edit] Today's Featured Picture

Is today's featured picture for real? It looks pixelated, colour adjusted, and the mountains look like they were sprayed on with MSPaint. Anchoress 02:52, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

  • Are you looking at the same picture I am? There's some minor artifacts around the clouds but that's it.. - Mgm|(talk) 11:05, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Questionable image copyright status

I've found an image where the uploader claims they scanned the photo and uploaded it under Creative Commons. As I understand it, copyright is still retained by whoever published the original photograph the uploader scanned. Source and license tags are present, but likely invalid. How should I tag this? --Dgies 04:33, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

WP:PUI would be the best place to raise the issue. Essjay (Talk) 05:22, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Page Creation

How do I create a page?

Please see WP:VFAQ. --Wooty Woot? contribs 07:22, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] The names of articles

Why are the names of articles in capital letters not small letters? The names of pages in Wikitionary is not capitalized. Thank you.

--196.202.91.146 10:59, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

  • This feature, which is turned on in Wiktionary is turned off in Wikipedia. I have no clue why, but I'd prefer not to have to move over 1.5 million articles and fix the resulting redirects, do you? - Mgm|(talk) 11:07, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Downloading the database of Wikipedia

I want to download the database of Wikipedia. I know that the German Wikipedia has released a DVD but the English one hasn't. I also know about the 2006 SOS Children Wikipedia CD but it only contains 2011 articles. During my search, I have found this page but the files have a strange extension. Will these files work on my computer if I downloaded them? I use Windows XP. Thank you very much.

The files you found are the only downloads available. To use them, you will need to either import them into a local installation of MySQL or create a program to parse the XML files. In short, they aren't for the average consumer user, unfortunately. Cheers, Tangotango 11:29, 26 November 2006 (UTC)
I am really not sure you want that, I severely doubt you will be able to accomodate the file when is is decompressed. As to the extension, I can't help. ViridaeTalk 11:30, 26 November 2006 (UTC)
The gz extension is gzip, a common unix/linux compression algorithm. You can decode it on Win machines using free utilities like 7-zip or ZipGenius. The others are 7z = 7-zip and bz2 = bzip2; use the same utilities as above or see Comparison of file archivers. --Justanother 16:54, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Uploading Files

I tried to upload a file of Lewis Hamilton on the day he was announced as McLaren F1 driver. However after I clicked upload file, the following appeared: "." is not an accepted image file format. What does this mean and how can you help? Can you leave a message on my discussion page naming it upload info. Many thanks. Davnel03 11:41, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Images

It is said on the upload image page that images cannot be renamed. However, I think that this is not correct because any administrator can download any file to his computer, delete the file from Wikipedia and then reupload it to Wikipedia using a different name. Here we ignore the fact that the history of the file will be destroyed. Am I correct?

  • Images can't be renamed, what you just described is the workaround for "renaming" an image since you can't actually change the name in the software. — Dark Shikari talk/contribs 15:06, 26 November 2006 (UTC)
Actually, it does not take an admin. Anyone can perform the workaround and I recently did it with a misnamed image after first discussing it with the image owner. Since he gave his blessing I reloaded it, and then asked for WP:SPEEDY on the original. --Justanother 16:49, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] What happens if an admin goes rogue and starts deleting random aricles?

--71.172.28.136 15:52, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

Likely they'll be blocked for a bit, and their rights removed. --Majorly (Talk) 15:56, 26 November 2006 (UTC)
Their admin rights will likely be removed in a matter of minutes by one of the m:Stewards or a developer. All admin actions are reversible and are unlikely to cause long-term damage. - Tangotango 16:10, 26 November 2006 (UTC)
Technically, it's the Arbitration Committee that has the power to de-sysop (the Stewards only flip the switch after the ArbCom has ruled). Deleted articles are still in the database, so another admin would bring back any articles that were deleted improperly. Newyorkbrad 16:19, 26 November 2006 (UTC)
  • I don't think we'd need an arbcom ruling if there was a general concensus amongst users and other admins that the admin turned rogue. But yeah, that's pretty much it. -- Mgm|(talk) 16:30, 26 November 2006 (UTC)
The ArbCom would have to act before the Stewards would desysop (other than perhaps on an interim emergency basis). On the other hand, there is precedent that this could be done by informal conferring among the ArbCom members rather than carry out a whole formal case. Newyorkbrad 19:41, 26 November 2006 (UTC)
All admin actions are reversible: weeeeell, yes, but undoing a history merge of two articles with long histories is a horrible job, so if a very naughty admin wrote a malicious history-merge bot and history-merged lots of long-historied articles, that would be an asymetrically tough job to fix. There comes the point where we'd just protect those articles and have a developer selectively restore the histories from the backup. Sooner or later we will have a genuinely rogue admin, and we really need some more sophisticated handling of admin-blocking - admins shouldn't be able to unblock themselves, and one admin should be able to block another admin only once per day (the former to avoid the rogue admin writing a fast-unblock-me bot, the latter to avoid the rogue admin writing a mass-block-other-admins-bot). -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 16:33, 26 November 2006 (UTC)
The fact that we have a thousand or so admins and very little history of any of them going rogue (we've had the odd wheel war, and we've had admins make errors in judgement, but I don't recall any cases where an admin has set out to maliciously damage the encyclopedia) suggests that developing advanced tools to deal with a genuine rogue might not be worth the effort, compared to the work involved in cleaning up afterwards if and when it occurs in the future.
By the way, could you try not to stuff quite so many WP:BEANS up your nose when you pose these sorts of questions? TenOfAllTrades(talk) 19:33, 26 November 2006 (UTC)
There is one recent situation I know of like that in another project, but none on the English Wikipedia. I agree that the very occasional involuntary desysoppings here have involved poor judgment but not, as far as I know, allegations of intentional malice. (This isn't a good forum to try to classify any particular cases, of course.) Newyorkbrad 19:41, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Template for "very few incoming links"

I'd like to add a template for "very few incoming links" to the article Tchekrekjian, but I've forgotten what it is. Can anyone help me out? Many thanks. --HappyCamper 16:08, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

Template:Linkless or Wikipedia:Orphan --Justanother 16:42, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Template parameter defaults

Suppose I create a template foo:

<green>{{{1|bar}}} '{{{2|baz}}}'''</green>

Now I call it with

{{foo}}.

I'll get bar baz, as expected. And if I do

{{foo|tball}},

I'll get tball baz, also as expected. Finally, if I do

{{foo|dfi|ght}},

I'll get dfi ght. But if I do

{{foo||lish}},

I'll get lish, which is not what I want. The presence of the third argument causes the second one to be implied, even though I want it to be defaulted. Is there any way around this without using named parameters?

By the way, the template where this problem came up is {{npler}}. -- Matchups 16:28, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

I believe {{foo|2=lish}} does what you want. See m:Help:Template. -- Rick Block (talk) 17:09, 26 November 2006 (UTC)
Thanks, that works. Matchups 18:00, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Items mysteriously appearing on my watchlist

Hi. Why do items do that? Right now I have Baibars and Roger Needham on my watchlist and I did not add them. Not the first time this has happened, either. No-one else has access to my computer or to my wikipedia account. Could it have to do with page-move vandalism? Or is there another explanation? Thanks --Justanother 16:32, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

If someone moves a page, the location it is moved to stays on your watchlist even after it is moved back. — Dark Shikari talk/contribs 17:04, 26 November 2006 (UTC)
Thanks --Justanother 02:03, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] -

Hi can anyone help. i need to use some information i found and put it into my essay but there seems to be no name of the editor, no year it was written, etc. I really need that information for my reference, thanks. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 172.203.36.65 (talk • contribs)

Wikipedia is a collaborative effort, so there is no "one editor" of an article. A popular article may have been edited by hundreds of different editors. Also, articles change all the time, and therefore there isn't a particular date on which the article was written - today's version may be different from tomorrow! :) If you'd like to link to a particular version of the article, look on the bottom right - there's a link called Permanent Link. If you use that link, it will link to that version of the article, and it won't display any subsequent edits. I hoped this helped! –- kungming·2 (Talk) 17:52, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Use of images used in other Wikipedias

I would like to use in the article Republican, Radical and Radical-Socialist Party an image I found in fr:Parti radical valoisien. How? --Checco 17:19, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

  • Can anyobody help me? --Checco 17:58, 26 November 2006 (UTC)
    • First, upload the image to Commons. Then, replace the image in the old article with the one on Commons and nominate the old version to be speedy deleted. Then, use the commons version in the English Wikipedia. — Dark Shikari talk/contribs 18:18, 26 November 2006 (UTC)
      • I don't understand what I have to write about: 1) "Source filename"; 2) "Destination filename"; 3) "Summary (author, source, URL, fair use rationale if applicable, extra {{tags}}, etc.)"; 4) "Licensing". I have tried to upload the image, but every time they said me that there was something missing. --Checco 18:33, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Reference Desk search

The Reference Desks do not appear in the search area options in the selection bar displayed after an unsuccessful keyword search. How do I do a keyword search on the Refeence Desk questions and answers??? Adaptron 18:04, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

They don't appear in the search area options because they're all part of the Wikipedia: namespace. I'd suggest that you either select that, and possibly include "reference desk" as part of your search, or else go to google and search for site:en.wikipedia.org "wikipedia:reference desk" + your keywords. Try both, because they might give slightly (or maybe drastically) different results. Confusing Manifestation 03:21, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Wikipedia

How do you pronounce "wikipedia"?

I pronounce it "Wee-kee-pee-deeya". Not sure how other Wikipedians pronounce it, though. =) –- kungming·2 (Talk) 19:45, 26 November 2006 (UTC)
Yeah, exactly. Though I've heard "Wik-uh-pee-deeya" somewhere. <--Sounds pretty weird! Kyo cat¿Qué tal?♥meow! 19:48, 26 November 2006 (UTC)
I've heard "wick-kuh-pee-dia" as well from others. I like "wic-kee" better - however the original Hawaiian word sounded like. –- kungming·2 (Talk) 21:12, 26 November 2006 (UTC)
Something like <wick-ee-pee-dee-ah> (according to Wiki, wee-kee should work as well, though I haven't heard that one very often). See wiktionary:Wikipedia, and try the two audio pronunciations there (they look like little speakers) to hear someone else pronounce them. -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 19:48, 26 November 2006 (UTC)
I've always said <wick-uh-PEE-dee-uh> and didn't know there was any question. That's also Weird Al's pronunciation in White & Nerdy, so I think that makes it the canonical pronunciation, right? Newyorkbrad 21:35, 26 November 2006 (UTC)
Yeah, that's where I heard it too. Kyo cat¿Qué tal?♥meow! 23:47, 26 November 2006 (UTC)
My goodness - the amount of times the Atlantic Records page has been vandalized because of that music video... :'( "Weird Al" pronounces it quite good, I suppose, but I think it doesn't matter ultimately how we pronounce it, as long as we contribute well! =) –- kungming·2 (Talk) 21:51, 26 November 2006 (UTC)
I usually say both...depending on my mood! I have always thought it was Wee-Kuh-Pee-dia, but everyone else I know says Wi-Key-Pedia. I guess it is personal preference,__Seadog ♪ 21:59, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

As a note, the original Hawaiian for "wiki" would be somewhere just in between "wee-kee" and "wick-ih" - vowels are basically like italian/latin but open-er, so it's very hard to say which is more appropriate. Then again, my Hawaiian is pretty bad, now, so I'm not at all the end all. I pronounce it "wick-eh-pee-dee-uh"...ish. —Keakealani 23:32, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Citing Refrences in a different way

I recently adopted another user, and he/she was wondering if rather than citing seven different books, they could put all of the statements from these books on a separate page and list that page as a source. I'm not sure that is possible, or allowed, but does anyone have any thoughts? -- THLCCD 19:18, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

In my humble opinion, that'd probably be harder than just using the tags to cite the works involved. It's best to use the tags for that purpose, and not create a separate page. –- kungming·2 (Talk) 19:44, 26 November 2006 (UTC)
  • The point of citing sources is to make tracing a fact to its source easier. If you want to source the facts in the entire article to a group of books, just put those sources in a separate "sources" section on the bottom, but never ever put them on a separate page. That page would get deleted. Personally, I would recommend them to cite possible dubious statements specifically with a source from the group with the ref-tags. - Mgm|(talk) 21:37, 26 November 2006 (UTC)
That's what I was thinking. Thanks everybody, -- THLCCD 13:11, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] citing an artical

how do i cite an artical found on your site? i could not find the posting date, editor, or author.

  • Well since wikipedia is a collaborative website your best option would be citing the enitire article.__Seadog ♪ 22:39, 26 November 2006 (UTC)
  • At the side of an article, in the toolbox, is a link saying "cite this article". Trebor 23:26, 26 November 2006 (UTC)
  • And there's also Wikipedia:Citing Wikipedia. - Mgm|(talk) 08:57, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] US Authorities on Wikipedia?

I was wondering whether the US government is granted special permission to as editors and administrators on Wikipedia? I ask that because many of the articles associated with the September 11th attacks read like press releases from the Whitehouse instead of encyclopedia articles. Also reading through endless discussion pages reveals they look more like usenet newsgroup discussions than discussions about writing wikipedia articles. A core group of administrators and editors pretends to be ignorant of Wikipedia polices and uses they're administrative powers to be disruptive, and intimidate other editors and administrators. They seem to be immune from any disciplinary policies.

I thought about jumping into these discussion, but I do not want to get in any trouble with the authorities. From looking at the history any dispute reolution measures look futile. If these articles are only intended for US authorities to edit, why doesn't wikipedia simply place a notification on those articles to indicate such special treatment. I think we're losing good editors and admins who just don't know these articles are off limits. --68.30.94.147 22:38, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

I think that a better place to discuss this would be the Admin's Noticeboard, the village pump, or even the mailing list. -Royalguard11(Talk·Desk·Review Me!) 22:42, 26 November 2006 (UTC)
No, no special rights are given to the US authorities. The reason many articles tend to agree with the official line on things is that, well, the official line on things often tends to agree with reality... Shimgray | talk | 22:45, 26 November 2006 (UTC)
No, they are not given those. It would compromise the integrity of the encyclopedia, and its Neutral-Point-of-View Policy. If you think an article too strongly leans toward one direction, you can change the article (explain why in the edit summary), but better yet, bring it up on the talk page, and cite specific examples. -Patstuart(talk)(contribs) 22:52, 26 November 2006 (UTC)
Shimgray, you raise a good point. However, I didn't realize Wikipedia had an official line that tends to match reality. These are the sme type of bizzarre arguments I see these privileged aditors and administrators make.
Royalguarfd11 I will try to take this to the village pump. Thanks for the suggestion. --68.30.94.147 23:05, 26 November 2006 (UTC)
Wikipedia doesn't have any kind of an "official line" on topics - what I mean by this is that when our articles tend to agree with what the White House says, or what Number 10 says, this is because what those people are saying happens to be vaguely right, not because we're letting them control the articles. Much to my astonishment, it does sometimes happen that government spokespeople make statements that describe the real world... Shimgray | talk | 23:23, 26 November 2006 (UTC)
That's true of every press release every issued. They always "make statements that describe the real world" Unfiltered press releases have no place on Wikipedia IMHO. --70.8.49.7 23:53, 26 November 2006 (UTC)
...I think you and I are completely talking at cross purposes here. Perhaps I ought to go back to the beginning -
Wikipedia does not give editorial control to government agencies.
Wikipedia does not give special rights to representatives of government agencies.
Wikipedia does not take its editorial line from government agencies.
Wikipedia does not place articles "off limits" on behalf of government agencies
Hope that clarifies things. Shimgray | talk | 00:04, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

I'll butt in with a hypothetical question of my own here. What if a really high ranking official, say the President, demanded adminship on Wikipedia. Are you obligated to give it to him? DoomsDay349 00:39, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

...why on earth would we be obligated to give it to him? that's a bizzare concept. Shimgray | talk | 00:42, 27 November 2006 (UTC)
Bizzare is personal preference. For example: Any online encyclopedia that anyone can edit is also a bizzare concept. ^_^ --ElectricEye (talk) 02:17, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

Shimgray, I don't know how you or any editor could be so confident of what you're saying. I mean as a fairly new editor to Wikipedia I would say I would think Wikipedia doesn't grant special permission. However,

  • when you look at the articles I'm talking about;
  • when you follow through with the editors and administrators who maintain them; when you see the mocckery they make of other editors other administrators and Wikipedia policies;
  • when you see the selected topics of the articles they preside over;
  • when you see the contempt they hold for every other editor they encounter (remember these are mostly administrators); and
  • when you see how it seems to be a coordinated effort on 24-hour watch,

it really makes you wonder. I know I said I'd take this to the village pump and I will do that now and stop posting here. --70.8.49.7 00:54, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

There is no cabal. --Wooty Woot? contribs 01:02, 27 November 2006 (UTC)
There is no cabal may apply to USENET, but in actuality there are many cabals. To simply say there is no cabal is propaganda propably started by the cabals themselves. --ElectricEye (talk) 02:15, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

Let's take this to the VP then (WP:VPM actually). The reason I posted that first was to prevent the help desk from turning into a discussion fourm. That is what VP/AN/The mailing list is for. The help desk is for help. As for the cabals, if anyone actually believes there is no cabal, then you need to look up. Most of the time it's called IRC. -Royalguard11(Talk·Desk·Review Me!) 04:28, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

Point taken, I've never been on IRC. I was just trying to address the anon's comment about the suspicions he has. Rest assured, there isn't a coordinated effort to influence articles to a pro-government POV, as far as I know. --Wooty Woot? contribs 05:54, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Birthdate lookup

Can you search birthdays of individuals? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 68.103.180.121 (talk • contribs) .

Not directly, but a google search of something like site:en.wikipedia.org "1879 births" "march 14, 1879" comes close. Also note that there's an article for every day of the year, like March 14, with a "births" section. -- Rick Block (talk) 00:10, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] User subpages

How do I create user subpages? --Littleghostboo[ talk ] 01:05, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

There are two ways. First, you can go to your userpage and add "/subpage", without quotes, to what appears in the address bar, click go, and create a subpage there. Second, you can just create a link from your userpage to User:Littleghostboo/subpage, click on the redlink, and then put whatever you want on that page. The second method has the benefit of giving you a link immediatly. In either case, you can title the page what you want, not just the rather bland "subpage". Let me know if you need further help.--Kchase T 01:08, 27 November 2006 (UTC)
Thanks. --Littleghostboo[ talk ] 01:19, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] A page about you

Can I create a page about myself or someone I know?

Unless they are famous and/or notable, you shouldn't create an article about someone in the article namespace. However, you can create a page about yourself called User:(your username), since that is in the user namespace. —The Great Llamamoo? 01:43, 27 November 2006 (UTC)
Yes you can create one about you but It would have to be in the userspace so what you would do is Edit this link and what you edit will become your userpage.__Seadog ♪ 01:51, 27 November 2006 (UTC)
If you think you really could write an article about someone you know in the main article space, check out WP:BIO and WP:COI first to get an idea of what you'll need to have in mind to avoid having the article deleted. Confusing Manifestation 03:15, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

OK, I can talk from personal experience about this one... A little tale for you. After lurking around the deletion process pages (AfD) for a while, I came to the conclusion that I was very nearly as notable as some people whose articles were kept, and more notable than several whose articles were deleted (trying to be as objective as I could about this). I decided that I'd write a practice article about myself in userspace, as much as anything as a test of my WP article writing skills (it's at User: Grutness/Grutness non-article). It was there for about a year until another Wikipedian noticed that my name was a red-link at about a dozen articles around wikipedia, and made an article on me, using the information from my "non-article". I was sort of pleased, but also embarrassed, and after a couple of weeks decided to take it to AfD myself to see what other Wikipedians thought (registering no vote either way personally). The article was deleted with a vote of 5-3, but the original article remains in userspace. I suppose the moral of that story is that things are a bit more lenient in userspace, and autobiographical articles are more likely to survive there than in article space (as long as they don't look like spam or an out-and-out CV). Grutness...wha? 12:31, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Gina Lash

In the show, Angela Anaconda, the faces of the characters are pictures of kids taken before they made the show. Anyway, the face of Gina Lash is Cloe Weir. She lives in Ontario and is an active participant in Woodstock Community Theatre. She's also The pictures taken for the show were taken when she was little. She is probably around 15 years old now. I don't know about any of the other characters on Angela Anaconda. Shouldn't there be any mention of those who posed for the characters of the Angela Anaconda show? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Spence28 (talk • contribs)

[edit] How do I add the guides?

How do I add the guides that you can click on to bring you to another place in the article? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Prankie (talk • contribs) 13:58, 27 November 2006.

If you're talking about the table of contents, that should automatically appear in the article once you have at least three sections (make sure each section has a heading for this to work). If you want to just link to a section directly, make a wikilink like this: [[Wikipedia:Help desk#How do I add the guides?]]. Oh, and I did two things to your question: removed the leading space (the space creates a dotted box around it and removes all formatting, which is generally pretty ugly) and added a template where your signature should go. In the future, please sign your posts with four tildes (~~~~). Thanks. Confusing Manifestation 03:13, 27 November 2006 (UTC)
If there are not enough sections, you can manually force a table of contents by adding __TOC__ to the top of a page. --ElectricEye (talk) 03:17, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Changing my password

I've looked and looked but can not find a page where I can change my password.

I did find a FAQ that said "Enter your new password twice" but no link to the actual page where one would do this.

Why is it so hard to find (or search for) this basic information???

I'm also having 'cookie' problems and even though I've lowered my browser's security, I still keep getting logged out and can't see my user id page

04:00, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

How do we change the password?

Via Special:Preferences. Luna Santin 04:09, 27 November 2006 (UTC)
The OP is right; this wasn't anywhere in the on-wiki FAQ, according to Google. I've added the answer to the Technical FAQ, next to the FAQ about password reminders, so the answer can be found there now. --ais523 12:44, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] The Rolling Stones

I thought I was doing it right, fixing facts that were wrong. So how does one fix something? I couldn't figure out how to leave a message with gnewol or some name like that. It might be my computer too. The sandbox makes no sense to me.

MylesFOmaha 04:10, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

I'm sort of confused. Are you having trouble editing the page? Just click Edit This Page (like what you just did here). Are you trying to leave a message on someone's talk page? Could you elaborate further? --Wooty Woot? contribs 04:13, 27 November 2006 (UTC)
If you're trying to leave a message, you can leave him a message on his talk page here. Just click on the "+" button on top, and leave your message. Remember to sign! =) –- kungming·2 (Talk) 04:15, 27 November 2006 (UTC)
You need to explain what you are doing in your edit summary. For instance in [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=The_Rolling_Stones&diff=prev&oldid=90352569

], you appear to have corrected one spelling error while breaking two links. People may not read past breaking the links, since you didn't explain why you were doing this. You wrote "minor details edited", which in this case doesn't really explain. Why were you breaking the links? Was it to follow Wikipedia style guidelines - if so, just say so. Notinasnaid 10:24, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Are book covers in public domain?

If book cover images were in the public domain then they could be uploaded to wikipedia for articles. I would like to add an image of Charles Handy to his entry and I have several copies of his books one of which has a really great picture of him. Please let me know if this is considered a public domain image. Thanks. Wikikob 07:35, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

Depends on when it was published. I believe newer books are classified as "fair-use" images. –- kungming·2 (Talk) 07:40, 27 November 2006 (UTC)
  • No book covers are not in the public domain. They are made by illustrators with just as much right to copyright as the author of the book it is on. The same rules apply as for text. It has to be VERY old to be in the public domain. Images of book covers can be used under the clause of "fair use" in articles about the book, but nowhere else. - Mgm|(talk) 08:56, 27 November 2006 (UTC)
If it's not too late for me to answer, I found a lot of images of him under http://images.google.com/images?q=charles%20handy. Some of these might be OK, as long as you make sure they fall under the fair-use guidelines. -Patstuart(talk)(contribs) 09:28, 27 November 2006 (UTC)
Born 1932, none of his book covers will be in the public domain, and in any case book covers typically use a copyright photo under license. Fair use criteria used for book covers do not apply to author's pictures taken from elsewhere on the cover, though a different fair use claim may be valid. Notinasnaid 10:20, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Problems viewing mathematical symbols...

Hi.

I'm not sure if you can help me with this... but as you have access to other people's pages, it is possible. I am talking about sites like this one: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vector_space

Are you able to tell me want fonts the creator is using? because i cannot view most of the symbols, but instead get one of those default boxes where they should be. Are you able to tell me what to download/do in order to see them?

I know this is a slightly irrelevant question but it's quite important to me because i use wiki as a main resource for maths.

Thanks, Sam

(P.S. Sorry if this has been mailed to the wrong section)

Hi Steve. I can't answer your question, but you may be interested in a short note on the topic under Wikipedia:Technical FAQ. You can also try going to WP:VPT, where they're considerably more knowledgeable about such things. Good luck. -Patstuart(talk)(contribs) 09:27, 27 November 2006 (UTC)
It seems ok to me (Internet explorer 6). Which browser are you using? Special characters are sometimes not supported by older browsers — Lost(talk) 10:15, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] VandalProof

I registered my name to use VandalProof on the Awaiting approval list but I haven't got a message on my talk page stating that I was accepted or declined. I downloaded the software but when I try to use it a message appears saying that my name is not on the user list. Can I know why no response was sent to me, please?

--Meno25 09:06, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

You'll have to report that to VandalProof; the product has a way of acting up like this. Try User_talk:AmiDaniel/VP/Bugs. That's where I reported I got kicked off the list. :) Patstuart(talk)(contribs) 09:23, 27 November 2006 (UTC)
  • Approvals are handled manually. If you haven't gotten a message, that's probably because you haven't been approved yet because AmiDaniel hasn't got around to it. - Mgm|(talk) 11:48, 27 November 2006 (UTC)
I have been approved to use VandalProof. Thank you very much.
--Meno25 01:29, 28 November 2006 (UTC)
Did you see the list? It was huge. They're getting around to it... I'm not sure what to do except to look through the history and see who approved you and then contact them on their talk page. I've been approved but am away and haven't downloaded it or tried it out yet. Cbrown1023 01:33, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] math formula texts

the text for the math formulas are not appearing in their correct format. this happened so in the fourier section. i am presently using firefox as my internet browser. is there any changes that i need to make or is it a system problem???194.54.223.9 10:01, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

194.54.223.9 10:01, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] misspelled title

The page Tattoo machine is misspelled and I can't figure out how to fix it. It is a typo in just the title, but I'm still new enough to be totally confused. If anyone can either explain how-to, or just run and do it, I would appreciate it a great deal. There is a request in the talk page also, and apparently I'm not the only one there who's not sure how to do it. Thanks! Resonanteye 10:04, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

You need to move the article to the new name. If your account is older than four days and if the move is uncontroversial then you can do it yourself. Just look for the move tab near the top of the page. Else you can request at Wikipedia:Requested moves. — Lost(talk) 10:13, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

Thanks! Resonanteye 16:58, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

I tried to move the page, but there was a redirect with the name Tattoo Machine. Me and another person tried to relocate the existing Tattoo Machine redirect by moving it, which simply made a double redirect. I'll put the existing Machine rd up for speedy, then move it in. --Wooty Woot? contribs 19:56, 27 November 2006 (UTC)
What exactly is the misspelling and where do you want it moved to? (uh... dangling preposistion...) Cbrown1023 01:34, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

I put it up in the "ask admin for help" page, hope they get to it. It is spelled "tattoo machoine" haha and someone other than me built an empty page on tattoo machine... Resonanteye 02:04, 28 November 2006 (UTC) thanks so much! haha misspellings in my request for help, even.Resonanteye 09:05, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Images not appearing at certain dimensions

I uploaded Image:Meishi-example.svg recently, but all I can see there is a blank space. The image has definitely been uploaded, since it appears correctly in the Meishi article. In fact, it seems that the image only fails to display properly at the uploaded dimensions of 552x360 pixels. At any other size, it looks fine. For example, compare this (552x360 pixels) with this (550x359 pixels.

The same thing is happening with another image I uploaded some time ago:

  1. (Image:Kimigayo.score.png, 149px wide)
  2. (Image:Kimigayo.score.png, 150px wide)
  3. (Image:Kimigayo.score.png, 151px wide)

Has anyone else come across this problem? What can I do to fix it? -- Sakurambo 桜ん坊 10:16, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

Though I have no solution to it (other than the obvious one of changing the size), I did run into this problem just a few minutes ago: I inserted an image at 20px and it didn't show up, but changing it to 30px fixed it straight away. Something for Village Pump technical, perhaps? Essjay (Talk) 12:02, 27 November 2006 (UTC)
It's probably worth bringing up at WP:VPT... again. This question's been asked quite a few times, and I can't remember anyone coming up with an answer that explains what's happening (although the resize-one-pixel workaround is known); there was a post on wikitech-l that suggests it might be something to do with error messages being cached, but I'm not sure. --ais523 13:25, 27 November 2006 (UTC)
Great, thanks. Apparently purging the server cache fixes this problem. The 550x359 image has stopped working now for some reason, but the 552x360 image in the description page looks OK, so I think it's safe to ignore the problem for the time being. -- Sakurambo 桜ん坊 15:39, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Wikipedia software conventions

My wife wants to make a personal website using the Wikipedia formatting conventions, which she's used to. Can that be done? JohnClarknew 10:49, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

  • She could start a website that runs the MediaWiki software. Currently, there's easy WYSIWYG editors out there to edit a website, so I doubt she actually needs to use any formatting syntax at all. - Mgm|(talk) 11:51, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Mispelled name problem

There is an extensive article on Luc Bondy, the theatre director. It does not have the theatre director category. There is, however, a theatre director listed as Luke Bondy, with a very short stub. This is the wrong spelling, but the same person. I tried changing the spelling within that article, but the name is the same. I don't want to replace the original correct article.

The original article should be added to the theatre director category, and the wrong-name stub deleted.

  • Since someone misspelled it, chances are someone else will do it too. I'll redirect the wrong article to the right one and add the category. - Mgm|(talk) 11:52, 27 November 2006 (UTC)
  • Done. - Mgm|(talk) 11:55, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Just Asking This Again Cause This Was Archived100110100 12:05, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] In The Below Table

Group Western European North/East European East Asian Middle Eastern
Civilizations


For the above table, I want to make cell lines that divide the 1st 3 groups from the left in 3rds EQUALLY. Then I want to divide the last group from the left in fourths EQUALLY. Is this possible? Thanks.100110100 04:27, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

Not sure what you're exactly asking, but I think you can try to create a table within a table. I'm not terribly clear about how wikitables work, but you could try it in HTML. Also, try posting your questions at WP:WPT, as they might be able to better assist. -Patstuart(talk)(contribs) 04:34, 13 November 2006 (UTC)
What I'm asking is if the 1st 3 groups can be split in 3 EQUAL cells, and the last group in 4 EQUAL cells. Thanks.100110100 06:48, 13 November 2006 (UTC)
I think i know what you're talking about. Basically, you end up wanting just one civilization in each cell right? What you need is either a method to set the height of a cell within a columne exactly (so you can manually divide it into thirds/quaters), or to have a table within a table. I'm afraid i can't explain how to do either of those things, but hopefully that makes it more clear for the next person trying to answer your question. --`/aksha 07:53, 13 November 2006 (UTC)
Yes let's hope:D. Ok, what I want to do is divide B2,C2 & D2 in 3rds and E2 in 4ths, from the top [imagine an excel worksheet]. Is there anyway? Thanks.100110100 12:05, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Temporary images

How should I go about when I want to upload an image that is needed for a certain discussion, but may not be of interest in the future? Just as an example, there might be several versions of an image that need to be uploaded so that others can give their opinion on which one is the best. Should they (the images) go into the regular name space? Should they (the images!) be deleted afterwards? —Bromskloss 12:08, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

  • If the image in question presents copyright problems, they should definitely be deleted, but it's reasonable to assume someone might want to reread the discussion later so you can leave it if source and copyright info are all complete and correct. - Mgm|(talk) 12:11, 27 November 2006 (UTC)
    • So, it's OK to litter the namespace and take up room on the… data storage devices? I don't object, I just want to know. —Bromskloss 12:15, 27 November 2006 (UTC)
        • Of course it's not okay to litter Wikipedia. The image has to be relevant to encyclopedia building or an honest HD or RD question. - Mgm|(talk) 12:34, 27 November 2006 (UTC)
      • Deleting an image doesn't free up room on the servers anyway (it in fact increases storage slightly because the software has to remember the fact that it's been deleted), and anyway server space is not a limiting factor on Wikipedia at the moment as far as I remember. --ais523 12:23, 27 November 2006 (UTC)
        • Oh, so it keeps the images behind the scenes? If there was a copyright problem, is that really legal? Anyway, thanks for the help. I feel I can comfortably go ahead now. —Bromskloss 12:30, 27 November 2006 (UTC)
  • As far as I can tell, it's legal to own a copyrighted image if you don't try to distribute it. But then again I'm not a lawyer. I'm pretty sure the Wikimedia Foundation looked into the legal issues. - Mgm|(talk) 12:34, 27 November 2006 (UTC)
    • Also, what she was talking about was the log of the deletion on this history. The image can only be viewed by administrators after it has been deleted. Cbrown1023 01:39, 28 November 2006 (UTC)
  • Uploading a series of fair use images for discussion would violate copyright, as the only place that a fair use image can be displayed is on the article about the image. Otherwise, if they're public domain, you could create a subpage of your User page, put them there, then link to the page in a discussion somewhere. User:Zoe|(talk) 17:35, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Table formatting problems

The table formatting at List of monarchs in the British Isles#Monarchs is screwed up for me (using IE 7). The text in the right hand table ("Monarchs of Scotland") is clipped. For example, scroll down until you get to "The House of Balliol" subheading. The first line of the explanatory text reads "When Margaret died in 1290 there was no clear heir. King Edward I o". In other words, the end of the word "of" is clipped. Other lines in this table are similar. I have looked at the code and can't immediately see anything wrong. Does anyone know how to fix this? Is it an IE bug? Dodgy Wikipedia syntax? Bug in Wikipedia conversion to HTML? Matt 12:23, 27 November 2006 (UTC).

  • It works fine for me. Is it screen resolution issues? IE 7 is relatively new, so if it's not that, I suspect it's an IE bug. - Mgm|(talk) 12:38, 27 November 2006 (UTC)
How would I tell if it's a screen resolution issue? Matt 21:12, 27 November 2006 (UTC).

[edit] my concerns about User:FisherQueen

I was highly insulted to find that his person has been delting my articles and I want you people to help me disipine this pathetic admin.

Please respond on my talk page. Thank you. --Hammersmith123 12:29, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

  • You must have the wrong idea. According to the deletion log, FisherQueen never deleted anything. I doubt they're even an administrator. - Mgm|(talk) 12:40, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] main page update

I have wikipedia set up as my main home page, it now wont update every day unless i purge the cache. Does anyone know how I can get round doing this every time i want to viewe the main page?

I use a method involving scripts to do this on my user page; it's possible that setting your home page to http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Main_Page&action=purge will solve the problem, but I'm not sure about that one. --ais523 13:10, 27 November 2006 (UTC)
  • I think setting your homepage as ais523 suggested will indeed work. - Mgm|(talk) 13:17, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

Yeah that is working that suggestion ais523 but every time i click on the main page link it is still returning to the old (not updating) main page which is quite annoying. Any other suggestions?

A script is the only other possibility, to automatically redirect from the normal Main Page to the purged one (for your account only). Try adding the following to Special:Mypage/monobook.js:
addOnloadHook(function() {
if(location.href=="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page")
  location.href="http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Main_Page&action=purge";
});
This is adapted from the script I use to autopurge my user page. The script will only work when you're logged in, though. --ais523 15:32, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Radio

Good Morning,

I like to call and find out how I can use your new cast on Radio?

Sonny Hill [telephone number removed to prevent spam]

  • I think you are mistaken. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia. Nothing to do with radio. - Mgm|(talk) 13:17, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] 1.1, 1.2, 1.2.1 numbering

Often other types of numbered lists are needed, like

1. Main item
  1.1 First sub item
  1.2 Next sub item
    1.2.1 Sub sub item
    1.2.2 Sub sub item
  1.3 One more
2. Next main item
3. One more main item
  3.1 etc
  3.2 etc

The only supported list type is

1. Main item
  1 First sub item
  2 Next sub item
    1 Sub sub item
    2 Sub sub item
  3 One more
2. Next main item
3. One more main item
  1 etc
  2 etc

Is the first type not possible? Using headers for every item does not solve the problem, as they are headers, not numbered lists. Is there no list syntax that would provide this? (Like # and ##, etc.) Maybe by changing the skin? Or by using HTML? Or a template? --mabahj 13:37, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

  1. I can't figure out the 1.2.1 numbering, but there are interesting things that can be done with CSS.
  2. It's possible that templates could be used for the 1.2.1 numbering, but there's nothing in wikimarkup for it AFAIK, and nothing in CSS.
  3. The problem with using templates is the memory issue; I can't think of a way for the templates to figure out which number they should show unless you told them in a parameter (which would defeat the point of the numbering; you might as well add it by hand.)
--ais523 13:48, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] is buck wheat from wheat

is buck wheat from wheat

Try at the Wikipedia:Reference Desk. Joshua Chiew 15:12, 27 November 2006 (UTC)
Or go up to the Search box on this or any other Wikipedia page, type in "buckwheat" (without the quotes, of course), and click on "Go". The answer is in the first paragraph of the Wikipedia article on buckwheat. --Tkynerd 15:52, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Login Problems for accound Daveulmer

My email confirmation may have expired on account Daveulmer

The email address on record is wrong and needs to be (email removed to prevent spam; it is still visible in page history)

I know the password and can log in but can't stay logged in to change my preferences.

What can I do?

Thanks,

Dave...

First try the 'remember me' box to see if that helps; also check if you've got cookies enabled on your browser (they are required to log in). If both of those fail, there's an alternative URL linked in the FAQ at the top of Wikipedia:Village pump (technical) that has resolved login problems for some Wikipedia users; note that that connection is much slower. --ais523 15:03, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Monobook problem

My monobook is protected instead of semi-protected, so I can't edit it. Why? brendan smith 15:10, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

All users' monobooks (you're probably refering to your monobook.js, possibly to your monobook.css) are protected from all users but the user they affect and administrators, to reduce the possibilty of abuse. If you can't edit your own monobook, it's likely to because you aren't logged in or have the wrong name for the page (the links above should link to the correct pages). --ais523 15:19, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] How to delete an archived article

How can I delete the following articles, I have had discussions with people concerned in regards to this article and its content, and apparently because these article have been edited to the extent that they are no longer factual but distorted and out of context they should be therefore deleted. Also because these three pages serves no real purpose in Wikipedia other than paint the ECOPAVE company and its trademark protected words Trademark dilution in bad light bad faith,Fact Finder2 12:54, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

Fact Finder2 15:21, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

You would need to show that there was some sort of copyright infringement or other reason to delete to have an archive deleted. You could try the Miscellany for deletion process, but you would need to give a reason within the deletion policy for the deletion, or the discussion almost certainly wouldn't go your way. --ais523 15:28, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

How about the Wikipedia courtesy blanking? [1] is that allowed to be inserted on top of the page? Fact Finder2 15:34, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

Courtesy blanking is an extreme measure occasionally carried out on AfDs, and is unlikely to be applied to archives except in exceptional circumstances; you could make your case on the administrator's noticeboard if you think it's desirable. --ais523 15:44, 27 November 2006 (UTC)
Several employees of Ecopave (including Ecopave (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · block user · block log), Fact idiot (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · block user · block log), Fact Finder (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · block user · block log)) spammed Wikipedia. Their spam was deleted, they were blocked. I unblocked Fact Finder on the understanding that he contribute to the encyclopaedia, his sole edits after that were to tag for deletion two articles on Ecopave's competitors, to obscure the word Ecopave in debates, to insist that to use the Ecopave trademark in discussion was corporate libel (i.e. WP:LEGAL violation) and sundry other abuses. The account was blocked again as a result (not by me). Fact Finder has also posted threatening messages on his Talk page demanding blanking of all references to the Ecopave spamming campaign, and has sent me threatening email to the same effect. I would suggest that by this time the appropriate response is "go away". Or the Anglo-Saxon equivalent. Guy (Help!) 21:35, 29 November 2006 (UTC)