From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Help desk
< August 5	<< Jul | August | Sep >>	August 7 >

Welcome to the Wikipedia Help Desk Archives
The page you are currently viewing is an archive page. While you can leave answers for any questions shown below, please ask new questions on one of the current Help Desk pages.

Contents 1 August 6 1.1 Stub Articles 1.2 Yung Berg: "Superstar (All Night)" 1.3 I added a page for renanthera monachica and it was deleted 1.4 physcology 1.5 worlds greatest wedding 1.6 I have endeavored to complete a stub-Now what? 1.7 Album cover 1.8 three girls those have balance disorder 1.9 Article 1.10 Moving Category 1.11 Re: Hard Water Link to your page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hard_water from www.hardwaterscale.com and a link back if possible? 1.12 Aliens in America 1.13 Spammer? 1.14 e-mail adres 1.15 Adding my Company's profile 1.16 Linking an Email address via HTML 1.17 I CAN'T EDIT A PAGE!!! 1.18 AWB 1.19 Collapsible table 1.20 Richard kopelle 1.21 E-mailing a User form 1.21.1 E-mailing a User form II 1.22 An opinion from a wikipedian please 1.23 Problem with text in an SVG image

[edit] August 6

[edit] Stub Articles

I recently expanded an article on Cynthia Rhodes that was previously a stub, but I'm not sure if it's ok to remove the stub tag at the bottom. How do you know when an article ceases to be a stub? --Candy156sweet 01:46, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

You have just as much right to remove the stub status as anyone else. Add a comment on the talk page that you removed it and why you think it should be removed. Then, if someone disagrees, they can discuss it with you. -- Kainaw^(what?) 01:47, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

Thank you very much for your help. Have a great week!  :) --Candy156sweet 01:54, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Yung Berg: "Superstar (All Night)"

I wanna find an article to this. Anyone help?

An article for that song has not been created. Lara♥Love 04:46, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] I added a page for renanthera monachica and it was deleted

by Wikipedia. It was complaining about not having a tag about licenses.

Yet when I uploaded the picture and inserted it, I checked the box for free to use licensing.

It is giving me some crufty message about tags for use. Can you help? I could not understand the directions and I've been in the computer industry for 30 years.

E4baec 03:01, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

Unless your version of Wikipedia is radically different from mine, the image upload form does not have a "box for free to use licensing". There is a drop-list that contains different forms of licensing. There is no option for "free to use licensing" that I can see in the list of options. -- Kainaw^(what?) 03:58, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

I'm 99% sure s/he's saying s/he opted for one of the free licenses. If that is the case, WP:IT may be of help. Regards. Lara♥Love 04:43, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] physcology

compare moral development of Bandura, piaget and Kohlberge's work.````

Perhaps you should post that to Talk:Psycology or Talk:Physiology. Regards, Lara♥Love 06:15, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] worlds greatest wedding

what was the worlds greatest wedding

This question is more appropriate for the reference desk. The help desk is for questions regarding using Wikipedia. Regards, Lara♥Love 06:12, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

While we're on the subject, I wonder why people often invite their friends and family to their wedding but never to their divorce? --Teratornis 14:22, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

For divorce ceremonies with some faith-based rituals you might refer to http://love.ivillage.com/lnsproblems/lnsdivorce/0,,nrft,00.html

For divorce parties and celebrations, see http://www.divorcepartyplanner.com/ Marycontrary 15:16, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

I doubt this question would fit in at the Reference desk either. Try a Google search.--Max Talk (add) 00:05, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] I have endeavored to complete a stub-Now what?

I'm a rank amateur who took a stab at editing my first "article", a stub Shannondale, West Virginia because I tired of seeing it, well, stubbing out there. Do I find out whether I receive approbation or condemnation for my effort and how do I get Shannondale, West Virginia "delisted" as a stub? I REALLY don't want to by wikis for dummies but this old dog has about run out his string of mastering new tricks. Thanks Willis.n 06:35, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

See #Stub Articles section, which also asks the same question. --Silver Edge 06:44, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Hi. Thanks for posting. Check out the manual of style to get an idea of how to improve various aspects of the article. Also check out Article development. To declassify as a stub, simply click to edit the page and remove the stub tag near the bottom, just above the category tags. Lara♥Love 06:47, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Album cover

For America's Yodeling Sweetheart, Taylor Ware I tried to add the album cover information but apparently did something wrong. I uploaded the correct photo but had problems adding it to the Wiki page. Any help will be appreciated. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Xxxtexan (talk • contribs)

See WP:IMAGES. Lara♥Love 06:49, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] three girls those have balance disorder

dear sir 

we are girls those have balance disorder how could we contact to sand you more about our teragedy case

We cannot help. Wikipedia does not provide medical advice. Apologies.

The Rhymesmith 08:33, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

We're also not all "sirs" here.--Max Talk (add) 00:07, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Article

could I ask how I go about putting an article in the magazine? my name is Nichola and email is Removed thankyou for your time. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 58.179.100.151 (talk • contribs)

I'm assuming you mean creating a new article on Wikipedia.

You will need to first register an account, which has many benefits, including the ability to create articles. Once you have registered, please search Wikipedia first to make sure that an article does not already exist on the subject. Please also review a few of our relevant policies and guidelines which all articles should comport with. As Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, articles must not contain original research, must be written from a neutral point of view, should cite to reliable sources which verify their content and must not contain unsourced, negative content about living people.

Articles must also demonstrate the notability of the subject. Please see our subject specific guidelines for people, bands and musicians, companies and organizations and web content and note that if you are closely associated with the subject, our conflict of interest guideline strongly recommends against you creating the article.

If you still think an article is appropriate, see Help:Starting a new page. You might also look at Wikipedia:Your first article and Wikipedia:How to write a great article for guidance, and please consider taking a tour through the Wikipedia:Tutorial so that you know how to properly format the article before creation. --Silver Edge 09:18, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Moving Category

I want to move Category:New South Wales Central Coast to Category:Central Coast, New South Wales, is there a way to do it without swapping all the articles manually? .....Todd^#661 08:55, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

See WP:CDP#Speedy renaming and speedy merging and WP:CFD. --Silver Edge 09:13, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Re: Hard Water Link to your page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hard_water from www.hardwaterscale.com and a link back if possible?

Wikipedia www.hardwaterscale.com The Free Encyclopedia Pexon Investments S.L. Calle de San Bartolome 9

                                                                              Atzeneta 12132
                                                                              Castellon
                                                                              Spain
                                                                              
                                                                              6th August 2007

Re: Internet link to your webpage regarding Hard Water http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hard_water

Dear Sirs,

We are very impressed with your website. Of particular interest to us and our company is your page regarding hard water: your link address above.

www.hardwaterscale.com part of Pexon Investements S.L.is an authorised dealer for the internationally selling environmentally award winning Scalewatcher®

With www.hardwaterscale.com up and successfully running, we sell Scalewatcher within Europe as a treatment for hard water. We would be delighted if you allowed us to have a direct link to your web page regarding Hard Water from where clients can then view Wikipedia as a whole.

We feel this would be of real benefit to both organisations in spreading awareness of hard water issues.

Indeed, we would be delighted if you had a link to our home page of www.hardwaterscale.com Is this possible as well?

Looking forward to hearing from you on botter matters.

Yours Sincerely,

Mark Bradley Scalewatcher Agent —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.41.224.139 (talk • contribs)

Sorry, but this would be unacceptable. Please see our policy on external links and our policy on advertising. Wikipedia does not use link trading, although you are free to display and use our content in your materials and websites, provided you follow the terms of the GNU Free Document License. --L-- 11:58, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Aliens in America

The article and talk page for the upcoming show Aliens in America seems to be creating some controversy. Basically, a bunch of editors have seen the preview and decided the show is racist. Now, not having seen the preview yet (which I think is linked from the article) I cannot judge the validity of these claims; it is very possible that this is the case, and likewise possible that the editors are missing the point. But the issue is that they are posting their opinions in the article as well as the talk page. I have tried explaining that it is not up to us to decide that, but only to put in information from outside sources - if a published source calls it racist, then we can publish it, but we can't just say that ourselves. To do so violates both NPOV and is original research. Now, I don't know if I am overstepping my bounds as an editor, or just plain wrong, because I am not all that familiar with Wikipedia policy and I have gotten myself in trouble before. So I decided to bring this to the attention of the Wikipedia community as a whole, and hopefully someone more knowledgable than me can take a look at it. Eran of Arcadia 12:45, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

See: WP:CONTROVERSY. Whenever there is a dispute on Wikipedia, it usually means the people on at least one side of the dispute do not fully understand Wikipedia's policies and guidelines (because the policies and guidelines cover most situations that come up, are generally pretty clear and logically consistent, and are readily available in comprehensive documents for anyone to read). Therefore, resolving most disputes simply comes down to looking up and citing the relevant policy and/or guideline. There are two basic ways to look them up:

• Drill down by browsing from some sort of a contents page. The best one I know of is: User:John Broughton/Editor's Index to Wikipedia
• Use a search tool, such as: Search Wikipedia's Wikipedia: (Project:) namespace with Google

--Teratornis 14:18, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

L has sorted the article out for you. Wikipedia:Verifiability says that the burden of evidence lies with the editor who adds or restores material, so you can add the article to your watchlist and delete that assertion if it reappears, unless it comes back with a citation. Be careful of the three revert rule, though. --HughCharlesParker (talk - contribs) 15:07, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Spammer?

Have come accross the following user recently and can´t believe he is still around. Just had to change one of his edits:

Psveindhoven

Talk about a talk page longer than my arm... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.50.54.18 (talk • contribs)

I examined a few edits by this user. He is not a spammer. The external links point to websites that add useful, neutral information on the article topic. Shalom ^Hello 17:41, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] e-mail adres

Good day I am looking for an e-mail adres of the french golfer Julien Gurrier. I was his caddy last year 2006.Is it possible that you can find his adres for me. He gave me an adres:(address removed to prevent spam) to mail him.

The instructions at the top of this page say this page is for questions about using Wikipedia. Wikipedia is not a directory, so you would need to look elsewhere to locate this golfer. A Google Search for "Julien Gurrier" finds no results, but Google suggests the alternate spelling: Julien Guerrier. (If you were his caddy, why did you misspell his name? Given that a caddy's job requires understanding a golfer in some depth, I would think getting his name right would be the first step.) Julien Guerrier has no article on Wikipedia yet (which is why his name appears as a red link), but he is still young and earning his reputation. Presumably as he accumulates more placings he will eventually warrant an article here. In any case, the best we can do is tell you to read through all the Google Search results for this golfer, and contact the people who have written about him. Maybe one of those people will tell you how to contact this golfer (or maybe not). --Teratornis 15:18, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

All we currently say about him is that he won The Amateur Championship in 2006. PrimeHunter 15:46, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Adding my Company's profile

Hi! Please refer to the article below: "Online Recruiters Directory is an ideal free database for job seekers and employers alike to identify a recruiter, headhunter or staffing firm to help with their search. The directory, with its main office located in New York, USA, was founded in 2002 by Esther Barzel. The uniqueness of this online portal lies in the fact that it helps job seekers get connected to recruiters keeping in mind their specialty, location, type of firm, type of jobs handled and geography covered. In addition, the directory also caters to employers who are searching for recruiters to fill job positions in their companies. All this without any registration or cost. No wonder this portal has about 1,000 searches daily. Online Recruiters Directory also conducts regular surveys on professional recruiters, employment, job-seeking and compensation." Can someone, who is not involved with the orgaization, publish the article above? The organization does not sell anything, it only helps job-seekers for free. --Anubhaverma 15:24, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

It's still promotional in tone, so it will get deleted. All Wikipedia articles have to be written from a Neutral Point of View, and articles about companies must be notable (see our notability guidelines for organisations and companies). Writing about yourself, or the company you work for is also discouraged. - Zeibura ^(Talk) 15:34, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Linking an Email address via HTML

Greetings,

I have been trying to add my Email address as a link (using mail:to), but I cannot seem to do it without all of the HTML coding appearing. I have tried the following, but it still shows some of the coding that I don't want appearing:

<removed email>

Ideally, it would be great if I could have:

[removed]@ferris.edu

as the only linked portion (as the only text showing).

Are you able to help? Many thanks.

Scott D. Atwell

Go into your user preferences and select the box to allow users to email you. The address with be Special:Emailuser/Pseudo-Ockeghem Lara♥Love 16:00, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

For more information, see Wikipedia:Emailing users, Help:Email confirmation, and Help:Preferences (although note that the last page is a copy of the generic MediaWiki help page, and does not seem to reflect some customizations to the user preferences on Wikipedia). On Wikipedia, we generally do not expose our e-mail addresses directly, as the MediaWiki software has features to allow other users to e-mail you from forms, thus giving spammers one less route to you. --Teratornis 20:33, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] I CAN'T EDIT A PAGE!!!

Hello. My problem is this: I went to the "Quenn Latifa" page to see her true name. then I went down the page and found some gramer errors, but NOT THE BLUE EDIT BUTTON!!! WHATS UP WITH THAT!? FROM~~!!@@##$$%%^^&&**(())__++ —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.228.107.231 (talk • contribs)

I cannot get the article. Anyway, whenever you wanna edit a page, click the "edit this page" tab on TOP. If you just want to edit a section, look for [edit] which is on the right hand side of the line, then click on the word "edit". --Edmund the King of the Woods! 17:49, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

Queen Latifah is semi-protected due to vandalism. Only users who have been registered for at least 4 days may edit it. Leebo ^T/C 17:50, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

(Edit conflict) That is because the Queen Latifah article is semi-protected, which disables editing from anonymous users and registered accounts fewer than five days old. --Silver Edge 17:55, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

Four days. Melsaran (formerly Salaskаn) 18:23, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Protection policy says five days. Wikipedia:Requested moves says accounts must be four days to move a page. I don't know why there is a difference. It would be simpler with one limit. PrimeHunter 20:21, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

You may add an {{editprotected}} tag to the talk page with the text that should be changed. Melsaran (formerly Salaskаn) 18:23, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] AWB

I want to remove a certain parameter from a template with AWB. How do I do this? I guess I need to go to Find and replace -> Advanced -> If contains: "{{templatename", but I don't know what to put in the Replace tab. If, for example, I want to remove the "| Cover = " parameter, what should I do? Replace "| Cover = {{{cover}}}" with (none) doesn't work, obviously, because {{{cover}}} isn't the text you see when editing the article. Melsaran (formerly Salaskаn) 18:23, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Collapsible table

On my talk page (click Love in my user name) there is a table on the left for the Virtual Classroom. Is there a way to make that collapsible so that only the title will show with a "show/hide" option? Lara♥Love 19:21, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

Y Done Melsaran (formerly Salaskаn) 19:27, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

Let me know if anyone objects to the change in this template, if they do, I will make the collapse optional (i.e. {{VC lessons|c=c}} makes it collapsible, {{VC lessons}} doesn't). Melsaran (formerly Salaskаn) 19:41, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

User:The Transhumanist would be the one to talk to about that. Lara♥Love 19:51, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

Oh, I just looked. That's great! Thank you. Lara♥Love 19:54, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Richard kopelle

This is Richard Kopelle.It appears that the site for Richard Kopelle is to be deleted due to not enough third person articles. Please go to Video dog Salon.com and bring up article by Heather Havrilesky "little blue doll". Article is titled "Reassure me Elmo". permalink[13.29 edt. april 19,2006] Also, Fast Company Polls x=2243 Davidj.org ScienceGuardian news Patent authority Reality tv magazine

I did not initiate the article but I would like to see it continued. Richard kopelle 19:52, 6 August 2007 (UTC)Richard Kopelle

If you disagree with the proposed deletion, feel free to remove the prod tag (like the tag says). However, please try to improve the article based on the concerns raised in the prod tag, in this case that it only cites primary sources. Please find some reliable third-party sources, or your article might be deleted (via the articles for deletion process). Melsaran (formerly Salaskаn) 19:56, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] E-mailing a User form

Is there a good tutorial on setting up a page similar to this one ? I'm looking for functionality to allow a User to submit a form pre-populated with text directly from my wiki site. * I tried pasting the source code directly from this site, however was unsuccessful in getting it to work

Thanks for your help.

I don't think i's a good idea to enable pre-programmed text in Wikipedia email, and I'm not sure why you can't copy and paste. It would make it easier to send spam to many users. If you have a message for one or two users, just write the message like anyone else would do. Shalom ^Hello 17:38, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

The pre-programmed text would be used on an internal corporate wiki site where spam is the last thing anyone would want to do. The form would be easier because of the centralized location and ease of use to submit. Can you help?

[edit] E-mailing a User form II

Is there a good tutorial on setting up a page similar to this one ? I'm looking for functionality to allow a User to submit a form pre-populated with text directly from my wiki site. The pre-programmed text would be used on an internal corporate wiki site where spam is the last thing anyone would want to do. The form would be easier because of the centralized location and ease of use to submit. Can you help?

* There is no edit button on that site so I can't cut and past the code

Thanks for your help.

This is an inbuilt function in the MediaWiki software. If you are using MediaWiki then visit mw:Project:Support_desk for assistance with this feature. If not then you will have to investigate the support provided by whatever software you do use. --Cherry blossom tree 22:23, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

You might find it easier to build form-driven wiki applications with a structured wiki like TWiki (although in my brief look at TWiki I found a few immediate differences from MediaWiki that I rather disliked - I'd like to see MediaWiki get some more corporate wiki features while preserving all the great things we love about MediaWiki, such as real categories, no ugly CamelCase, actual talk pages, and just the general overall feel of literacy of the project). If you want to try to do this on MediaWiki, see: mw:How to become a MediaWiki hacker. Beware, however, that what you want to do is probably one of those "if you have to ask..." kind of problems, as in if you have to ask how to do this, you might lack the necessary search skills to look up all the stuff you will have to learn on your way to doing it. However, probably everything you need to know is find-able with these two searches:

• Search Meta with Google
• Search MediaWiki.org with Google

--Teratornis 00:28, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

• I did not have my preferneces set to accept email! Once I selected this - all is good.

[edit] An opinion from a wikipedian please

Please note this is just a request for the opinion of a wikipedian and not an attack on wikipedia in any way or form. Just out of interest, how seriosly do people take wikipedia and what is its aim? As you may know Wikipedia has been a cause for criticism in the past as it aims to be a proper encyclopedia which can be used for research. Many have criticised this idea saying that it is just not possible as anyone is free to edit wikipedia, unlike Encarta or Britannica wh have paid professionals. This doesnt really apply to articles related to current affairs and hobbies / interests but does apply especially to professional subject areas. Thanks.86.141.52.196 22:07, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

How seriously do people take Wikipedia? Well I doubt if any proper editors consider it a joke so the answer to that is very. What is it's aim? To quote Jimmy Wales - "Imagine a world where every single person is given free access to the sum of human knowledge. We don't have to imagine it. We're doing it.". I presume somebody is going to come along with links to various essays and quotes and pages that will better explain things but the only one I can recall right now is: Wikipedia:Why Wikipedia is so great. AndrewJDTALK -- 22:25, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

For a general community response to these issues you might find Wikipedia:Replies to common objections interesting. --Cherry blossom tree 22:27, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

Here's a challenge: read Wikipedia:Why create an account?, register, and then edit for a week. Find out first hand. --wpktsfs 22:53, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

The question seems to refer to Wikipedia as some sort of a monolith: "how seriously do people take Wikipedia" seems to imply that someone could actually read everything here. I think it is more accurate to picture Wikipedia's users as only viewing relatively tiny subsets of pages on Wikipedia. Then the answer to "how seriously do people take Wikipedia" would depend on the quality of those pages they actually read. Wikipedia's quality is at the moment very uneven (for more on this, see: Wikipedia:Wikipedia is failing and Wikipedia:Wikipedia is not failing). Many people might think rather highly of Wikipedia's featured articles and good articles, while not thinking highly of the poor-quality articles, so a lot would depend on which articles a person happens to read. Also, Wikipedia's readers are highly diverse; two readers might form sharply different impressions of the same article, depending on their personal biases and so on. This probably leads to a situation similar to the story of the Blind Men and an Elephant, in which the blind men feel different parts of the elephant and reach very different conclusions about what an elephant is. --Teratornis 00:18, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

I might add that to me Wikipedia is like a new and vastly richer form of communication, due to the ease of linking important words in almost every sentence to articles that explain them further. This makes writing easier for the writer and much clearer for the reader. It's getting so I can barely tolerate writing e-mail now, since I have to paste in huge ugly URLs to reference the various complex and or subtle concepts I like to use. --Teratornis 00:33, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

One more opinion here - whenever I search for basic definitions on the internet, I often get the clearest, simplest information from wikipedia. yes, it has been criticized (what hasn't) and it's not perfect. but, when i want depth and breadth of information, i always go to wikipedia. i grew up on encyclopedia britannica, and wikipedia outdistances that by miles!rich 03:18, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

I agree with the first sentence especially - by comparison with Wikipedia's clarity and standard article layout, pages from other sites that come up in search results often make me feel as if I am overhearing a stranger talking on a cell phone. Most random Web pages that mention a subject seem to assume the reader already knows not only all about the subject, but also the backstory behind the site's mention of the subject. Only Wikipedia seems to consistently answer the obvious who, what, when, where, why, and how questions, and the information is where I expect it to be. You can start with almost any article and get your bearings on a subject; if you need more background to make sense of technical jargon and so on, the article usually links to it (and if not, you can easily add the missing links yourself to improve the article for the next reader). Plus it's just annoying to see typos on other sites that I cannot fix. --Teratornis 05:46, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

Just to add a voice of discontent, I don't take Wikipedia very seriously at all, at least not any more. The wiki model, without an appointed "board of editors" means that the content and quality of articles shift continuously, most generally downwards. There is no "trusted editor" or "stable article" system in place to safeguard any editor's genuine improvements against the likes of vandalism and the addition of trivia/vanity/cruft. Even Featured Articles can only be "trusted" to be of high quality for the short period of time around which they obtain Featured status. This means that any article that you edit will have to be watchlisted by you until the end of time in order to maintain its quality. When I started editing about two years ago I was very keen, aiming to improve and substantially expand articles (check out my user page for more info on my Wikipedia-interests). Almost the ONLY thing I do these days is revert articles to the last version I edited and incorporate what little new information has been introduced by subsequent editors (amongst the MANY crufty additions). I have a theory around this issue: the general public view Wikipedia almost as a "public noticeboard" for new information with very little regard to our policies and guidelines. They thus add absolutely ANY information to an article they might think is warr Panted. This creates a HUGE cleanup burden/backlog for more entrenched editors, a backlog that will NEVER be cleared due to Wikipedia's exponential growth. New article creation and additions grow faster than the rate at which "policy-and-guideline aware" editors are created. It is also MUCH easier to make a vandalistic/crufty edit than to come back and clean it up. Policy-aware editors are thus outnumbered and out-gunned by those that are policy-unaware, hence any article's natural state is to decline in quality unless someone (almost always the primary contributor/s to the article) watches and constantly reverts subsequent additions. This is evidenced by the high rate of article deletion (hundreds per day) and speedy deletion. There is more, but I think that gives a good picture for now. Zunaid©® 14:24, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

That is true, unless SOMEONE is watching a FA or GA it will just get worse in quality over time. The school district in my area has completely banned Wikipedia because of its inaccuracies and I'm sure there are plenty of college professors and the like that do not allow their students to use Wikipedia by any means. Isn't the only way to solve this yet keep the whole "anyone can edit" slogan in place would be to only allow registered people to edit and those that have will have to provide additional information about themselves? If this project continues to be this open it will never fully be Encarta or Britannica quality and always be subject to this by the media. FMF 14:57, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia is a wonderful place really. The fact that ANYONE can edit makes it the best encyclopedia in the sense that it has the widest range of articles and topics than any other. Of course people who edit it take it seriously - otherwise we'd be just wasting our time. You do meet some jerks along the way, but if you can put up with that, it's a wonderful creation. Long may it continue. Lradrama 15:37, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

Just another thing to throw in here, currently we have 2,412,742 articles, which I have to say is one hell of a lot. People are quick to point out how Wikipedia doesn't, hasn't or won't work, but the fact is we have got this far. And as far as I see it, there's not much stopping us from going further. AndrewJDTALK -- 21:50, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

The fact is none of this makes it more reliable though. When people get an article to FA, it should not need to constantly be on someone's watchlist to stay that way. We have gotten this far, but this project cannot continue as is. Vandalism should be on the sideline, a rare occurrence. These problems need to be fixed. FMF 22:24, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

I'm new here, but my impression is that for little-accessed pages, a small number of individuals - or a single-minded person - can take control of content by sheer perisitance. Just as trolls destroyed Usenet groups by outlasting serious regulars, I don't see how Wikipedia can avoid similar problems, if only on a minor subgroup of pages. MarkinBoston 22:22, 11 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Problem with text in an SVG image

I have been trying to upload this SVG image:

And as you will notice, there is no text in it. If you download the SVG and open it in Illustrator (or other SVG viewers) it will work fine. Could somebody please take a look at this and tell me why the text isn't showing up? I can't figure it out. If you fix it in the process, feel free to upload it over the one that's there now.

This image will be used for a TOC template for "List of xxxxx in the United States" type of articles. (Ex. List of Museums in the United States.) Clicking the state should take you to the appropriate section of the article through use of an image map. I think this could be used for a lot of articles. It appears that you will even be able to scale the image and the link mappings will scale with it, so this could be a very flexible TOC template and I look forward to making it.

Ben Boldt 23:22, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

I think your image uses flowtext/flowregion, which the renderer doesn't appear to support - see this discussion on commons. That details how to fix it in Inkscape; I've no idea how to do it in Illustrator. -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 23:26, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

I see text here? ~ Wikihermit 01:33, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

When you open the SVG directly, it will render locally on your machine. So whatever your browser is using to render it is doing a better job than Wikimedia's renderer. Finlay McWalter: I really think you're really on the right track. I don't have Inkscape, but I'll look into trying to do something similar with what I have. I tried turning the text into actual outline vectors and that made the image show up totally blank! But I'll keep messing around.

Ben Boldt 03:21, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

Thank you all for your help. I removed the existing text and replaced it with big abbreviations, then I converted the text to outlines in Illustrator. This avoids the whole text problem. Thanks again, Ben Boldt 07:43, 7 August 2007 (UTC)