Wikipedia:Help desk/Archives/2007 July 8

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[edit] July 8

[edit] Adding a deleted page which you did not create

Hi, I'll cite the specific example. I was looking up the female 80s alternative rock group, Splendora [[1]], and saw there was no page - so I went to create one. However, when I went to do it it said that the page had already been created - and deleted in March of this year. I could not find any more information - but I would rather suggest that this page be re-instated, especially if it had information that I do not and if it was a real page for this group. I know that wikipedia tends to delete band pages very often on false positives - some that I've been interested in and which I had to petition to get back - so I wanted to check first. (Never mind that it seems such a waste of time having to constantly petition to get pages back!) Luminifer 12:40, 13 July 2007 (UTC)


[edit] Using ref name for multiple use footnote but with page number changes

I have figured out how to use ref name and cite templates for multiple footnotes referring to a single source. I combined a series of references into footnote 1 on Henry Pering Pellew Crease and it tidied things up a lot. There are times though when you want to refer to the same source several times but to a particular page of the source that changes each time you use it like footnotes 2 and 4. Is there a way to do what footnote 4 in that article does using something like ref name? --KenWalker | Talk 00:28, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

  • Typically, in the "Pages" section, delineate them by commas, or use multiple references. --Haemo 00:30, 8 July 2007 (UTC)
There is a relatively new template providing a solution to the problem of an article cited many times and which you want to provide the page numbers but keep the citation as a single entry. after each subsequent cite (i.e. after each iteration of "<ref name="The name you chose before"/>, just add {{rp|page number(s)}}. This will make it so that in the text the footnote citation has a page number appended. As an example, if you were citing to page 282-3 of the article's third citation, the footnote would look like this: [3]:282-3, while the footnote itself wouldn't change. You can enter for pages listed in the footnote, "various".--Fuhghettaboutit 01:45, 8 July 2007 (UTC)
Sounds perfect, thanks.--KenWalker | Talk 02:56, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Header for talk page

How do you make your own header like for your Talk page like Gracenotes did. It looks nice and I want to know how to make one. Please explain it simple enough for anyone who reads this to understand, as I am not the top with technical computer language. And please do not answer in Binary Code. ☺EfansayT/C☺ 01:01, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

It takes a good bit of code to do something that nice. Best thing to do when you find a layout you like is to click on the Edit link and see what they did. In this case, it's a template stored at User talk:Gracenotes/Header. If you visit that page, and click Edit, you can see exactly how the template was made. -- Kesh 01:47, 8 July 2007 (UTC)
You can try Wikipedia:WikiProject User Page Help. Or you could start by copying some of the source at User talk:Gracenotes/Header to User talk:Efansay/Header, and then insert this at top of User talk:Efansay:
{{User talk:Efansay/Header|archive = no}}
If you just want the background and orange box with text then you could copy the below from the source of this section:
Welcome to Efansay's talk page! Don't forget to sign your posts with four tildes (~~~~).
I have replaced with your user name and removed the images (Image:Grace note.svg) which are apparently called grace notes. Give Gracenotes credit if copy content, e.g. with edit summary "uses content from User talk:Gracenotes/Header". I have limited experience with this and don't promise anything will work. PrimeHunter 02:08, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] New user has created parallel article

Hello. A new user has just created the article Union Organizer without realising that there is an existing article Union organiser. His new article is more extensive than the existing stub. I have informed him, but he may not be familiar with the messaging system. It seems silly to have two articles. What should I do? Advice appreciated. Thanks and best regards Tree Kittens 04:42, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

Just boldly merge the two articles and make one a redirect. --Haemo 04:44, 8 July 2007 (UTC)
See Help:Merging and moving pages for how to do it. PrimeHunter 04:50, 8 July 2007 (UTC)
Eek! I've never done a merge or redirect before! Which one do I make into a redirect? In other words, which spelling or title should be the main one and which the redirect? I don't want to freak him out, so I'm not confident of the proper order to do things... Tree Kittens 04:57, 8 July 2007 (UTC)
Union Organizer and Union organiser should be merged into Union organizer, as organiser is an alternative spelling of organizer. See Wikipedia:Naming conventions.
I have moved Union Organizer to Union organizer, so Union organiser should be merged into Union organizer, as organiser is an alternative spelling of organizer. See Wikipedia:Naming conventions --Silver Edge 05:29, 8 July 2007 (UTC)
Very well. I will edit the text from the older stub into the newer and larger article, which seems to have been renamed already. Then I will delete the content of the older stub and add the markup for redirect and merge as described in Help:Merging and moving pages. It'll be good to learn how to do this. I'll only be able to do it tomorrow, but I will remember. I hope this is ok. Thanks a lot for all your help. Tree Kittens 06:09, 8 July 2007 (UTC)
Update - Yay! Completed the merge. Not as complicated as it looks! Thanks again to all. Tree Kittens 23:25, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Search box focus

The site would be much easier to use if the cursor automatically went to the search box, as it does on many sites. Wouldn't this be an easy thing to implement? It would save me alone dozens, even hundreds, of "tabs" a day.--Pharillon 05:32, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

This would be most easily fixed by a setting in your browser. Just turn off the feature that tabs to links, and the Search bar will be the first form item you can tab to. -- Kesh 05:43, 8 July 2007 (UTC)
It is the first one I can tab to; but it would be nicer if one didn't have to tab at all, as on many sites where the search function is a primary one.  • Pharillon • (T) 06:29, 8 July 2007 (UTC)
The reason the search box is not selected is that having a focus on part of the page interferes with scrolling. Prodego talk 06:51, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Engelbert Humperdinck (singer)

Why is it I have edited the biography of Engelbert Humperdinck (singer) several times, and it was changed at the time I edited, but when I go back into the bio, the changes are back to the original false facts. Engelbert is NOT Anglo-Indian, and neither was his mother. His Mother and Father are both British, but Engelbert was born in India where his father was working. Please correct these mistakes thank you M.Sacker--Msacker 05:33, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

Your changes were altered here. I believe you are arguing his heritage, which should be done on the article's Talk page. Note that in many countries, simply being born there grants citizenship. Either way, what we need are verifiable sources as to how he identified himself. -- Kesh 05:48, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] CAN PEOPLE PLACE THEIR RESUMES AS AN ADDED INFO ABOUT THAT PERSON

CAN PEOPLE PLACE THEIR RESUMES AS AN ADDED INFO ABOUT THAT PERSON... —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 71.37.218.162 (talk • contribs).

Can you try to be a bit more specific, please? Sebi [talk] 09:00, 8 July 2007 (UTC)
If there isn't already an article, don't add a resume. If there is an article, there shouldn't be a 'resume' section either, but the info that you would normally find in a resume (significant work experience, education) should instead be integrated into the article. ssepp(talk) 12:59, 8 July 2007 (UTC)
Wikipedia is an encyclopaedia. In most cases, the addition of a separate document such as a resume is not useful as encyclopediac content. The very nature of resumes are in the most part, not suitable for an encyclopaedia. For more information about what Wikipedia is not, please see WP:NOT

Thank you,

Kevinwong913 Speak out loud! 20:07, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] question

Shall i get any answer for the questions which is related to aeronautics —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 122.167.63.121 (talk • contribs).

What question? where?Blacksmith2 talk 09:32, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Forcing a preview

I constantly come across history pages that show multiple edits by the same editor in the space of a few minutes, simply because they don't preview their changes before saving them. Wouldn't it be a great idea to force all editors to preview their changes (by removing the save changes button), so that they can only save them after previewing? This seems to be standard procedure on many other interactive websites. (I thought there was a "requested features" page but I can't find it.)--Shantavira|feed me 09:34, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

This would be very annoying to editors who make many small edits to different articles, doing for instance things like fixing spelling errors or bulleting lists and who don't need a preview. Also if for instance if I make a redirect page, I don't need a preview. Forcing everyone to always preview would do more harm than good in my opinion. You can use the template:preview to ask users to preview their edits. I wonder if a solution to messy history pages would be to have an option to 'collapse' editing streaks into a single entry in the history... ssepp(talk) 12:10, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Problems in Submitting

I did a tutorial on using Ad-Aware 2007 Free and someone suggested that I put it on WIKI. I tried but it was deleted; the first time, it was for links for images (I deleted them). The next time, I was told not to use WIKI.

Please forgive my error. I will not make it again. suebaby41 —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 65.87.132.183 (talk)

This is Wikipedia. We have an article on Ad-Aware, but Wikipedia is not an instruction manual. There are a lot of other wikis and your subject is probably suitable for some of them. List of wikis has some of the more notable wikis. http://wikiindex.org has far more. PrimeHunter 12:57, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] GRRRRR, lol

Um, hi, I'm Ryan Seacrest.j/k Seruoisely how do i make a submission??? Please reply at my email below: *email removed* Thanks.—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 71.96.243.190 (talk • contribs).

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. --Fuhghettaboutit 12:42, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

THANKS!!!! —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 71.96.243.190 (talk)

Please also remember to sign your comments. As a courtesy to other editors, it is a Wikipedia guideline to sign your posts on talk pages, user talk pages, and WikiProject pages. To do so, simply add four tildes (~~~~) at the end of your comments. Your user name or IP address (if you are not logged in) and the date will then be automatically added along with a timestamp when you save your comment. Signing your comments helps people to find out who said something and provides them with a link to your user/talk page (for further discussion). For further info, read Wikipedia:Talk page guidelines. Thank you. -- S up? 13:51, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Template help

The reply to the post directly above this was made with {{creation}}, a new template for the constant question we get here "how do I create a page", but it has functionality problems that are beyond my meager coding skills. The template has two parameters, one for users with accounts: {{subst:Creation|user}} and one for ips: {{subst:Creation|ip}}.

  • It displays fine in view mode, but in edit mode, you see a lot of the coding. Specifically, you see {{#switch:ip | ip = (text of template), followed by the entire text of the second parameter. This is done apparently with {{Switch}}, which is deprecated;
  • In the template itself, the usage section is supposed to display the text, as it will appear in articles, but the paragraph spacing isn't present;
  • Finally, it does have paragraphs, and wouldn't be very readable without, but the problem I see is that right now it only will format correctly if a user posts it with one leading colon. This will work most of the time; but if, for whatever reason, a help desk replier is posting the template as the second replier, and thus uses two leading colons, it will format like this:
First paragraph text
Second paragraph text
Third paragraph text

Is there a way to make it so that all paragraphs of the template will format indented to the same number of leading colons a user places when they type the template? Fixing the template, rather than telling me how would, of course, be preferred;-)--Fuhghettaboutit 13:16, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

Great work! I'm glad to see you working on our badly-needed standard response templates for the Help desk. I have a few ideas which you may consider or ignore as you like:
  • How about keeping it as simple as possible: have all the standard response templates for the Help desk display their output in a box, like: {{Resolved}} does (and all the infoboxes, user boxes, {{Talkheader}}, etc. Make a template look like a template). Just use a fixed indenting of one level; probably in the vast majority of cases, once the Help desk volunteers get up to speed with the standard response templates, the canned response will be the first response to a question anyway. Then you don't need any elaborate coding to figure out how much to indent multiple paragraphs. In my opinion, struggling to make the template appear to generate a human-typed response complicates the template coding unnecessarily (and undesirably; see below), and limits the number of people who can design and improve more of the many standard response templates we need for the Help desk. We need a simple template design to facilitate the maximum number of Help desk volunteers adding to the collection.
  • Putting the template output in a box makes the template output look distinctly different from human-typed output. I think that's a good thing, so other Help desk volunteers can realize that we have templates. The Help desk gets constant volunteer turnover - in six months we will have a whole new crew here, and probably a lot of them will learn how to answer questions by reading other people's answers. So let's make the answers self-documenting as to the methods we use to generate them, or at least make sure they don't look like we wrote all that stuff by hand every time, which could mislead the new volunteers.
    • That's another reason to transclude such a template rather than substitute it, so the wikitext for the question clearly shows other Help desk volunteers where the text came from. I don't think it matters that template text might change in the future, because the Help desk archives are not like a normal article's talk page; we do not need to preserve an exact record of what was said in response at the time. I.e., our answers are more or less disposable here.
    • Making a standard response look like a standard response also drives the point home to questioners that they are getting a canned answer to a frequently asked question. In my opinion, we should be honest about what we are doing, and not try to fool people into thinking we are doing something else. I don't think there's anything to be ashamed of here. We should promote the idea that we have engineered a system to answer questions efficiently, and expose the details for all to see. A new user should learn that there are frequently asked questions and where to find the answers without having to ask another human every time.
--Teratornis 15:34, 8 July 2007 (UTC)
Another issue is that we need to document all these standard response templates in a table somewhere (for example, on Wikipedia:Help desk/How to answer), so Help desk volunteers can look them up. Making the template output compact will help keep the table manageable in size. All a standard response template has to do is link to a single FAQ entry anyway. (If we aren't happy with the existing FAQ pages, we can write our own Help desk FAQ.) Sticking a lot of template-generated text directly on the Help desk page makes this already long page even longer. I don't think it burdens the questioner too much to click one link to get the canned answer. Compacting the template output also has the desirable effect of not crowding out any additional human-typed responses. --Teratornis 15:53, 8 July 2007 (UTC)
Putting it inside a box is a fine idea and would take care of the indenting issue right off; I agree that it's a good idea to make it obvious it's a canned template response. Note, though, that I have asked for assistance at requested templates, so some uber-template-coding-god will probably be along shortly to fix the {{switch}} and other problems, so I'm not going to change anything for a little while. We do get constant new volunteers, but many faces don't change. I've been fairly regular for a year and a half and recognize others that predate me.
Regarding the transclusion issue: like many templates, it has a commented out <-- Template:name --!> at the end. We can just switch that to the beginning to make it more noticeable (transcluded or not, editors still will have to view it in edit mode to check its origin). The reason I question keeping it transcluded is that most of that ilk are temporary (CSD templates, etc.) while the help desk archives remain forever and will continue to call the template. Think ten years down the road—we may have thousands of these templates calling. So it's not an issue of preserving exact responses to questions, but server load.
(On the more philosophical end of matters) I wholeheartedly agree with you that "new user should learn that there are frequently asked questions and where to find the answers without having to ask another human every time..." but I'm pretty pessimistic it will actually result in anything but marginal returns. I added the standard answer in the VFAQ to this very question (how do I create a new page?); at that time the header for this page was changed to make it very clear the VFAQ existed (it now links to Nubio), what this page was for, and what the refdesk was for and so on. Of course, it's hard to prove a negative, but I think it did bupkis–certainly we haven't seen any reduction in refdesk questions asked here, nor of the question this template was created to answer or other daily VFAQ-answered queries. There's a self-selection process going on: those who would search, did, and never asked their question here; those who didn't, aren't the types to. I know that's a pretty broad brush I'm painting with, but I'm generalizing.--Fuhghettaboutit 16:37, 8 July 2007 (UTC)
  • I think there is another factor to consider: the role of repetition in learning. Most people need to see a really new tidbit of information several times before it sinks in. Something that is alien to their previous experience tends not to "register" the first time. So even if they seem to be ignoring an instruction here, which may be their first ever exposure, possibly they benefit later from having received their first repetition here. They might get it the second or third time around. Another way to look at it: if we don't tell people something they need to know here, we merely postpone the process of giving them the needed repetitions, and possibly shift that part of the training burden onto someone else. So even if it seems our efforts to instruct are futile, I suspect we are planting the first seeds that will only later produce fruit. It seems that virtually every user who goes on to make substantial contributions does eventually learn to navigate the FAQ pages, manuals, etc. So, how do they all learn that lesson? Obviously, someone or something had to tell them, and probably several times. We should not shrink from our chance to get the first repetition in, even if there is no instantly visible payoff. A farmer who plants seeds cannot judge their success the next day.
  • About server load: as far as I know, templates only load the server when someone views a page that transcludes them. Since we don't have hit counters on Wikipedia pages, we don't know how many people are viewing the Help desk archives. However, I would be very surprised to hear the Help desk archives are getting enough views to generate significant server load. If people were looking frequently at the Help desk archives, we might not get so many repeat questions. It might actually be better for server resources to shrink the size of the (infrequently viewed?) Help desk archives by compacting their repetitive content into template calls. That is, if we have large pages that few people view, maybe it is better to make them a bit smaller. Admittedly, this whole issue is hypothetical since we have no solid data about number of views and server loads or the future relative costs of CPU vs. storage etc. I would think the value of having clean wikitext for Help desk volunteers to learn from outweighs the hypothetical downside of template-laden but probably seldom-viewed Help desk archive pages. That is, I would take the known benefit for the doubtful cost. (But that's just me; see below for my comments on how to make everybody happy.) --Teratornis 19:08, 8 July 2007 (UTC)
Regarding your follow-up post: So are you suggesting that instead of having the standard templates contain the canned answer, the template should say something to the effect of

"This question and other frequently asked questions are answered at [[______]]. Please read that page?" Or maybe: "See [[______#how do I create a page]]", or do you mean that the canned template should be far more terse, giving the answer and referring them to a faq for more information?

I would be opposed to the last of these. The template should either refer to another place where a full explanation is given without giving the answer, or give the full explanation, but not give the answer without forcing someone to read on. We want people to have to read about notability, and COI, and formatting and searching first, and other policies, before they get the answer (did you see my post on the talk page where I alluded to this when I announced the template's creation?) If users are provided a link to how to create a page in a compact answer, most won't go to the faq, they'll just create the page without reading about all the issues. Keeping this short, because I'm not sure I grok you.--Fuhghettaboutit 17:01, 8 July 2007 (UTC)
Not necessarily instead of standard response templates containing the full text of the canned answer, but in addition to. There is no limit to the number of templates we can make. It's probably a good idea to have several alternative templates to answer the same question, so we can evolve different design styles without getting into edit wars or philosophy arguments over one particular template (like we are doing with the Help desk instructions! People keep adding instructions, then someone comes in and chops them down, then people add bits back, etc.). In my opinion, the first priority is to make the Help desk fun for the helpers, because if the helpers don't have fun, they leave. Any (correct) help is better than no help, I think, and more helpers are better than fewer. Therefore, if some helpers like to use explicit, verbose standard response templates, and other helpers want compact (one-sentence) templates, or very compact (one shortcut link) templates, everybody should get the templates they want. I don't see a reason to force everyone to answer questions the same way (and anyone who thinks a terse answer is too terse is free to tack on more explanation - we do this routinely now). As far as what sort of response is most effective for "users," I think we have to agree that once again we don't have sufficient evidence to draw sweeping conclusions. Few questioners post follow-up replies telling how they did with the answers. We don't always know if they are following links or understanding what we tell them. Was the shortcut link good enough? If they don't tell us, we probably never know. Every questioner is different, and we have no idea who we are writing to. In any case, if someone creates an article the wrong way, it often gets deleted. At least we gave them a chance to get it right first, and maybe they won't be as angry when they think back and remember that we did try to warn them. I think that's all we have to worry about here. We're not going to enlighten everybody 100% on the first go. Wikipedia has multiple lines of defense to deal with whatever slips through the cracks. --Teratornis 19:08, 8 July 2007 (UTC)
I actually sometimes check to see the actions users take after getting help desk responses. It sometimes gratifying and other times amusing in a pathetic way. So I get you now. You're not calling for compacting this particular template but saying that we can have a compact version. That's fine to an extent, but on this particular issue, I think if it says little more than "See Help:Starting a new page" that would not be good. First, I don't think a template is necessary, that has little utility as it can just be typed. But especially in this area (article creation) we should do our best to inform people of at least the basics of COI, verifiability, sourcing, notability requirements and so on. The processes that have to come into play when articles that shouldn't be created, are, are a waste of a lot of people's time. CSD deletion takes more time than people think if it's done with due diligence (which I strive for); there's usually a middle man new pages patroller; and if the article ends up at afd that's more resource intensive. While there's no guarantee that a person will refrain from posting an inappropriate article if they are provided those links, some number won't, whereas, not posting is cannot lead to abstention because the information isn't provided. You say "maybe they won't be as angry when they think back and remember that we did try to warn them"—nail on head.--Fuhghettaboutit 04:56, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Posting an article about myself

ow do i post something regarding myself, i am a composer, and regarding my musicals.my name is linda samet—Preceding unsigned comment added by 63.215.27.195 (talk • contribs)

Please don't create an article about yourself. If you are notable as we define that terms here, i.e. you have been the subject of significant coverage in reliable sources, some third party will come along and write the article. Please see Wikipedia:Conflict of interest. In short, we very strongly encourage you to avoid editing Wikipedia in areas where there is a conflict of interest that would make your edits non-neutral (biased).--Fuhghettaboutit 14:58, 8 July 2007 (UTC)
Of course if you register an account on Wikipedia, you will automatically have a User page which you can use to put a little information about yourself, but remember the User page is not designed to replace your own blog or website (see WP:NOT for what Wikipedia is not for). Most user pages refer to the person in relation to their activities at Wikipedia. -=# Amos E Wolfe talk #=- 18:37, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Request for article

Please can you do some research on PAL and post on wiki Phenylanine Ammino lyase, < New treatemnt in Phenylketonuria> You have a good reference to PKU and the Biochemistry, just no reference to new treatments that are hopefully one day going to be availible soon.

Many Thanks—Preceding unsigned comment added by Jbeaumo233 (talk • contribs)

I'm not 100% sure if you are asking for this material to be added to the existing article on Phenylketonuria or a new article. If the former, this is the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit, so you can just go ahead and add material yourself, but please cite to reliable sources if you add material. For the latter, you can create the article yourself. See Help:Starting a page, Wikipedia:Your first article and Wikipedia:How to write a great article]. If you don't feel like writing it yourself, you can ask for someone else to create it at Wikipedia:Requested articles.--Fuhghettaboutit 15:15, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

Answer: The most recent published update on phenylammonia lyase enzyme therapy for phenylketonuria was published by Christineh N. Sarkissiana (Montreal) and Alejandra Gámezb (Scripps La Jolla) in December 2005. At that point they were facing the usual challenge of getting a working enzyme into a body without an immune reaction. They were having limited success with a mouse PKU model. It sounds like this is still a distance from human trials, but I may be unduly pessimistic. Does this answer your question? alteripse 15:38, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] infobox datespan

I found this on a page about Charles Parnell. Where can I found information on how to create another infobox datespan?

It appears to be at: {{Infobox datespan}}. Also see: Help:Infobox. --Teratornis 19:18, 8 July 2007 (UTC)
The template page doesn't seem to have any help text to guide you. Generally the easiest way to put another instance of the same infobox in another article would be to copy the wikitext that generates the infobox from the Charles Parnell article into the other article, and edit the input values to the template to be correct for the other article. If you need help with this, tell us the name of the other article you want to add the infobox to, and someone can start the process for you. Also see Help:Template. --Teratornis 19:22, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] i need help

i need to find out how to get information about the rich and the poor parts of rio de janeiro

I looked at the article on Rio de Janerio and found this section. Does that help out? --JDitto 19:52, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Daltonganj

Hello. I was looking through some of the recent changes when I found this weird looking section in the article Daltonganj. I find it weird because it's just a list with little explanation. However, I'm not familiar with much Indian geography so I'm requesting somebody else fix this up. Thanks. --JDitto 19:47, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

Wow. I marked the article for a complete rewrite - that needs a heck of a lot of work. Thanks. Hersfold (talk/work) 21:18, 8 July 2007 (UTC)
Wow is right. I guess the reason that article doesn't get deleted straightaway is because the topic is geographical. It looks like WikiProject India has the expertise to fix Daltonganj because there are a number of featured articles about India. I'll leave a request on Wikipedia talk:WikiProject India for someone with knowledge of the area to have a go at it. --Teratornis 02:42, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Template Help

On my userpage I have modified a welcome template to provide myself with a quick reference for various things (and at some point I will modify to suit my needs better). What I want to do is remove the ugly grey bar in the centre, but after many hours playing with it I can't work out how to do it. If an editor would be so kind to do this for me then I can check the diff and work out how the hell they did it. Ta muchly Xarr☎ 20:17, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

Done. As is often the case, the fix was probably too simple; that pencil you've been looking for the last hour? it's behind your ear:-)--Fuhghettaboutit 21:06, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] off-site icon?

How does the off-site icon (box with broad arrow pointing NE) get into the HTML at the end of the anchor text for the anchor link?

Is it copyrighted or otherwise intellectual property?

May I use it on my own web pages?

Regards, -- Chris Johansen —Xojo (talk) 20:56, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

There seems to be version here (svg file) licensed under the GDFL. ssepp(talk)
Another version is here (png file). ssepp(talk) 21:37, 8 July 2007 (UTC)
See also m:Help:Link#External links (it's possible to avoid the arrow). An external link normally produces html with CSS class "external" which has the arrow. For example, http://google.com produces this html (seen with view source in my browser):
<a href="http://google.com" class="external free" title="http://google.com" rel="nofollow">http://google.com</a>
Note that Wikipedia uses nofollow (unrelated to the arrow) for external links. PrimeHunter 22:09, 8 July 2007 (UTC)
Thanks, S_Sepp and PrimeHunter. I thought the mechanics involved CSS, but I could not put my finger on it precisely. My questions are answered. Again, thanks. —Xojo (talk) 22:18, 8 July 2007 (UTC)
In main.css, this code appends Image:External.png.
#bodyContent a.external, #bodyContent a[href^="gopher://"] {
background:transparent url(external.png) no-repeat scroll right center;
padding-right:13px;
}
Prodego talk 05:41, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] no:Title_of_Article

Someone put the link [[no:Title_of_Article]] in an article I created. What is this link supposed to do? -- Hot Dog Wolf -- What's your beef? 20:57, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

That will place a "In other languages" link on the left side of the page to whatever language occupies "no."wikipedia.org (in this case, I believe norwegian) --Laugh! 21:01, 8 July 2007 (UTC)
See more at Help:Interlanguage links. If the person literally wrote "Title_of_Article" then it's a mistake but if it was the title of the corresponding article in Norwegian then it's right. PrimeHunter 21:05, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Style question: references within footnotes

In the current revision of our Area 51 article, I have a footnote (the first one) that explains something, as something of a tangential aside (it doesn't belong in the article text, particularly not the opening paragraph). To support the claims made in that aside I have three references (they really should be {{cite-web}}s). But how do we handle such references when the refering text is already inside REF tags? Wikipedia:Footnotes doesn't help, so I've inlined them for now - but that doesn't look nice and isn't especially easy to read. Is there a better way? -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 23:43, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

I think the way you did it is the best way. Once someone takes the time to read the footnote, they won't mind seeing inline references there. If you ever send the article to Wikipedia:Peer review, they may have another idea, but on a "help desk" level, I'm just happy that you have the references at all, since I see so many articles lacking references. Shalom Hello 23:47, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Word

Hello, can you tell me the term or word used for words that are spelled the same; forward or backward: Bob, Eve, civic, etc.? It starts with "p" and has "drone" or "drome" at the end, I think. Thank you for your time. :) —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 66.220.75.80 (talk)

See palindrome. My personal preference is palindromic primes which is one of the prime number forms I hunt. PrimeHunter 00:26, 9 July 2007 (UTC)