Wikipedia:Help desk/Archives/2007 May 17

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[edit] May 17

[edit] Captain James Campbell

A few weeks ago, I inserted a paragraph on Captain James Campbell, but I have not been able to find that which I have written. I may have done something wrong but are you able to help me ? ({helpme}) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 210.246.12.199 (talk • contribs)

Unless you have an account, users probably won't be able to help you find what you're looking for, since you are not logged in and your current contribution history doesn't reveal any edits mentioning Captain James Campbell. Your IP address probably changed recently - this is a good reason to register an account. On the other hand, do you remember the name of the article to which you added this paragraph? If you don't, the only thing I can suggest is Googling Wikipedia and checking for your entry. Nihiltres(t.c.s) 00:10, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Retired

How do we retire a user? My friends decided they weren't fit for Wikipedia and announced on their pages that they are retiring. Do they have to do anything else? Meldshal42 00:13, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

No, they don't. They could have their user pages deleted, if they wanted, but this is not neccessary. Carom 00:36, 17 May 2007 (UTC)
See also m:Right to vanish. PeaceNT 04:09, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Can I start a bot?

Can I start a bot named Meldshalbot? Please tell me A.S.A.P.! Thanks, Meldshal42 00:33, 17 May 2007 (UTC) Someone please answer.Meldshal42 00:46, 17 May 2007 (UTC) {{helpme}} please help me with the bot! Meldshal42 00:47, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

Yes, you can, but it needs to be approved first. Read WP:BOT. Prodego talk 00:50, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

Thanks! Meldshal42 19:43, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Large page solutions

Chicago Landmark is now over 100kb. I am wondering if there are solutions other than altering the page drastically or splitting the list alphabetically. What causes a page to be large? Does resizing images affect the page size. Is it mostly the citations that are making this article long. What is going on? TonyTheTiger (talk/cont/bio/tcfkaWCDbwincowtchatlotpsoplrttaDCLaM) 03:40, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

To see why the article is large, click the edit tab at the top and scroll through the article's wikitext. It's easy to see that most of the bulk is in the long table's entries, which contain many citations. As to what you might do about it, see: Wikipedia:Article size as the note above the edit window says. --Teratornis 04:40, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] upload file

I am a new user (treehappy), and I want to upload a file (Hermetic Alchemy, my own original work), but whenever I click on the upload file link, it takes me to a page designed for uploading images. How do I upload a file (article)?—Preceding unsigned comment added by Treehappy (talk • contribs) <email removed>

If it is your own original work, it is unfortunately not within the scope of this project. Take a look at Wikipedia:No original research. If you feel the work is notable enough to be included, an article about the work would possibly be apropriate. ∴ here…♠ 04:03, 17 May 2007 (UTC)
Wikipedia is but one of many wikis. You may find another wiki which will accept your original work by searching WikiIndex. Note that many if not most other wikis have content policies that differ from Wikipedia's. --Teratornis 04:46, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] 8 seconds

    I want to know who pick 8 seconds, why not 28 seconds and how do i find that out

pete

I'm not quite sure what you are talking about. x42bn6 Talk Mess 05:00, 17 May 2007 (UTC)
It could refer to the film 8 Seconds, but I can't find any explanation as to why that was the chosen time ... although, looking at the Bull riding article (which is apparently the focus of the movie), I wouldn't know for sure but if you want to try and stay on a bull for 28 seconds be my guest, but don't expect to have many children afterwards. Confusing Manifestation 05:21, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Problems with Articles

I live in the city of Sierra Madre, CA and I review the article to find mistakes people make. I recently found an external link which pointed to a nonsense news site, which I hardly think belongs in an encyclopedia. To avoid a Wiki-War, I talked about it on the article's talk page instead of deleting it, but I am not sure if people are seeing the talk page. Is there something that I can place on the article's main page that would bring attention to the problem discussed on the talk page?
--FastLizard4 04:47, 17 May 2007 (UTC) -- You may also reply on my Talk Page.

Replied on user talk. PeaceNT 04:57, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Citing an article

How do you cite the article about pistachio?

Special:Cite/Pistachio should give the information you need to cite the current article elsewhere. --ais523 07:55, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Lack of nofollow?

Good morning,

I wondered if anyone could explain why wikitravel fails to have the attribute nofollow applied on at least Peru and Tanzania. I apologise if this has been dealt with elsewhere, if someone could explain or direct me to where I could find this out I would be very grateful.

Thank you!

PSBennett 08:11, 17 May 2007 (UTC)PSBennett

I'm not sure why you are asking in Wikipedia. Wikitravel isn't run by Wikipedia or its parent. Notinasnaid 08:37, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

I think I have failed to be clear. I am asking because this is the case on the wikipedia Peru and Tanzania pages; wikitravel has external link section (in the external links section) but does not have a nofollow attribute. Moreover these are just two examples. PSBennett 09:11, 17 May 2007 (UTC)PSBennett

The nofollow attribute isn't used for links in the m:interwiki map. You might want to comment on the talk page there if you want to know why (I don't know why). --ais523 11:27, 17 May 2007 (UTC)
A Google search on Wikipedia for: nofollow yields these links: nofollow#Usage on other websites and Wikipedia:Nofollow as the first two hits; they appear to explain the nofollow attribute on Wikipedia and many MediaWiki wikis. Everyone should learn to Google Wikipedia with their questions. Don't just think; think about Googling! --Teratornis 15:03, 17 May 2007 (UTC)
And see this search which yields more links such as Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2007-01-22/Nofollow. --Teratornis 15:23, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

Thank you all! I will see if these sources help, if not I will post the question again. PSBennett 14:52, 18 May 2007 (UTC)PSBennett

[edit] New template

If a project or task force wants to create a new template, are there official announcements that must be made. Does one post information about the proposed template on the village pump or elsewhere? Thanks! --Mackabean 08:22, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

Any template can be freely created without consultation (as far as I know). Although there are some restrictions on some templates, but for WikiProjects, etc nothing is needed for approval. Go ahead and create it! ~Spebi 08:27, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Protection

I work for a higher education institution.

Is there any way to protect the entry from malicious changes?

Any advice welcome.

Thanks, Mike

Page protection is available, but not normally used except as a temporary measure when faced with extreme levels of vandalism. Since it is impossible for an automatic program to tell a "malicious change" from an "improvement", the only way for articles to remain "good" is for each article to have vigilant editors. Notinasnaid 09:55, 17 May 2007 (UTC)
It is currently impossible for a program to detect all forms of vandalism, but that is also true of human editors who sometimes fail to recognize subtle vandalism which masquerades as plausible content. It is also impossible for a program to detect all forms of SPAM e-mail, but SPAM-checkers can detect lots of SPAM. SPAM-checking software is more advanced than Wikipedia-vandalism-detecting software because hundreds of millions of people suffer from SPAM and want a remedy, whereas only a few thousand people care about guarding Wikipedia from vandalism. Wikipedia could sharply reduce vandalism if the leadership wanted to, simply by requiring users to create accounts and log in before editing. But for some reason that I have never seen adequately explained (the usual explanation for this policy is an Appeal to tradition, i.e., "We've always done it this way"), the Great Leader would rather see thousands of volunteers wasting countless hours of their time repeatedly cleaning up the vandalism left largely by unregistered users. How much time between his TV appearances and trips around the world does the Great Leader spend personally cleaning up the vandalism his curiously permissive editing policy invites, I wonder? Just as it is easy to be generous with other people's money, it is easy to be generous with their time.
While I see the point of making Wikipedia as welcoming to new users as possible, for example by providing extensive sandboxes and tutorials, mentoring programs, the Help desk, and so on, the fact remains that as an article gets better, the number of people capable of further improving it declines. By the time an article has reached featured status, only a tiny percentage of people could realistically hope to improve it. In any other large organization, there are filtering mechanisms to prevent people from working beyond their qualifications. For example, hospitals do not allow passersby to wander into operating rooms and start cutting on patients. Hospitals strictly regulate the kinds of jobs casual volunteers get to do. To do the advanced work in any real-world organization, you must first demonstrate your competence in some way. You have to work your way up. This is as true in corporations as it is at barn raisings.
Wikipedia has gotten along well enough without much of any formal mechanism for evaluating contributors' editing skill, and the result has been that Wikipedia has gotten large before getting good (only a tiny percentage of articles have attained good or featured status). That is, the current policies work very well if the goal is to build the largest possible encyclopedia. However, the Great Leader has also stated that he wants to give the world "a free encyclopedia of the highest quality." Instead we have an overall article count that is increasing exponentially while featured content seems to be increasing just linearly. Which means the percentage of high-quality content may be decreasing. Personally, I don't see that as a tragedy, because I find Wikipedia extremely useful - it's nice to have some sort of Wikipedia article on almost everything because at least they are all in a fairly consistent format (compared to jarring stylistic chaos one finds when attempting to search the World Wide Web on a given topic), and usually a Wikipedia article will be one of the better introductions to a topic one can find online quickly. But there is a certain conflict between some of the Great Leader's stated ideals, namely the fantasy that everyone should be free to edit an encyclopedia of the highest possible quality. In addition to the deliberate vandals, we also have the problem that incompetent people tend to overestimate their competence. --Teratornis 16:31, 17 May 2007 (UTC)
For why people shouldn't be required to register to edit, see this - I think it sums it up nicely. WilyD 16:37, 17 May 2007 (UTC)
The paper merely notes that a number of non-logged-in users contributed much content to a particular article. The paper tells us nothing about how many of those non-logged-in contributors would create accounts and log in if Wikipedia required it. For all we know, some of those "anonymous" contributors may have accounts that they simply forgot to use, because there is no requirement for them to log in every time they edit. Haven't we all forgotten to log in from time to time?
The paper also does not measure (nor can it) the number of edits which do not occur because potentially constructive editors don't want to waste their time reverting vandalism to their work.
The question is whether requiring editors to log in would produce a net gain for Wikipedia. That is, if the resulting loss (if any) of quality edits would outweigh the reduction in vandalism. There is only one way to test this question: Wikipedia would have to require log-ins for a test period, say three months, and carefully evaluate the results.
As no such test has ever been performed on Wikipedia, the current belief that we must not require editors to log in is religious rather than rational in nature. That is, the Great Leader maintains this policy as an article of faith and is unwilling to source his claim. Also note that times change. In the early days of Wikipedia, when Wikipedia was begging for content, and it hadn't grown large enough to attract many vandals, allowing anyone to edit was probably a much better idea than it is now. But the only way to know how the policy is working is to keep testing it for a while every few years.
I suspect that requiring log-ins would reduce vandalism by a large amount (as evidence, consider that merely semi-protecting a page tends to drastically reduce vandalism to it, which pretty much demonstrates that most vandals are too lazy to create accounts and wait four days, or perhaps they fear that creating accounts makes them easier to identify). However, I have no idea how many constructive contributors would be deterred by requiring log-ins. Neither do I know how many constructive contributors are currently deterred from further editing after being disgusted by having their work repeatedly vandalized. I do, however, believe there is only one way to answer these questions, and given the Great Leader's claim to be an objectivist I find it rather stunning that he does not feel a need to test whether his policy does what he thinks it does. --Teratornis 17:32, 17 May 2007 (UTC)
I should revise my claim that "no such test has ever been performed on Wikipedia." In fact, Wikipedia does small-scale tests of this nature on pages which receive semi-protection, although I don't know that anybody is keeping track of the results. Has anyone rigorously analyzed the results of semi-protection to determine whether it creates a net harm to articles? That is, does semi-protecting an article discourage the further improvement of the article? The Great Leader asserts that semi-protection is to be used "sparingly." What is the objective basis for this assertion? Do we see that semi-protected articles begin to stagnate or deteriorate faster than non-protected articles? Or do we see that semi-protection encourages more in the way of constructive contributions because the constructive editors are no longer wearied by the nonsense of vandalism? --Teratornis 17:54, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] getting my password

sir.,

I am a registerd user of your site.My User name is Gopinath Shimoga and my mail id is (email removed to protect you from spam). I have forgotton my passoword.Kindly send my password.

with regards Gopinath k.s.

I've emailed a new password for that account to the email given when it was created. (For security reasons, we can't send a password to an address that we don't know for certain is associated with the account.) Hope that helps! --ais523 12:38, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Posting articles in sandboxes

I posted a new topic yesterday, but it hasn't gone to the main wikipedia. It remains as a "test edit." How do I change this?

See Help:Starting a new page for information on how to create an article. The sandbox in the Introduction is for people to test how Wikipedia works, and anything posted there is ignored; don't worry, though, you can find out what you posted by looking at your contributions (click on 'my contributions' at the top of the screen) if you've forgotten or don't want to retype it. (Click on 'diff' for the latest of the changes followed by the 'revision as of...' on the right and then 'edit this page' if you want the exact code you wrote.) As further reading, see Wikipedia:Your first article. Hope that helps! --ais523 13:04, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Searching Policies and Help sections

The only non-article Wikipedia search functionality I am finding is of the FAQ section. How can I search all official policy, help, and other "wp:" articles? (And, if it's easy, who isn't this information in a FAQ somewhere? Or why isn't my brain better configured to be able to find it?) Gruber76 13:40, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

You might try Wikipedia:List of policies. PeaceNT 13:48, 17 May 2007 (UTC)
You might like to try Nubio, which is a search engine/content management system dedicated to FAQs on Wikipedia, including policies and help pages. Cheers, Tangotango (talk) 13:50, 17 May 2007 (UTC)
There is a method, but it's somewhat hard to find. Search for something that can't possibly be an article (such as wo4ea245v98pa24ny), and you'll get a namespace selector on the results screen. You can then select the namespaces you want to search in at the bottom of the screen and put your actual search there. (I don't know why this is so hard to access, seeing as it's quite useful.) --ais523 13:56, 17 May 2007 (UTC)
I have created Nubio 160 to help answer this question.--Commander Keane 14:01, 17 May 2007 (UTC)
Another way to search for Wikipedia pages of interest to editors is:
The editor's index is fairly comprehensive, and tends to get more comprehensive when people who use it notice it is missing something, and we add it. Another page you can search this way is WP:CUTS, a list of Wikipedia pages that have shortcuts. A large number of policy and guidelines pages appear there.
Another method is to use Google Search on the Wikipedia: namespace. For example, here is a search for the keyword: nofollow (to revisit another question on the Help desk).
You can narrow the search, for example by searching just the Help desk and its archives. --Teratornis 15:21, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] about Sending Sms

can i send sms using this particular site????????

You can communicate with another editor by posting a message on their talk page or by emailing them. Please sign your posts with four tildes (~~~~). Hersfold (talk/work) 14:45, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] April 22, 1993

what events happened on April 22, 1993—Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.250.10.248 (talk • contribs)

Well, you might find the information at 1993#April. See also April 22. PeaceNT 14:55, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Upload file  

Hi, I'm wondering what the specific MediaWiki page is for the file upload dialogue. Thanks. Mfko 15:37, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

Special:Upload is the page; an admin can edit MediaWiki:Uploadtext and MediaWiki:Licenses to modify it. --ais523 15:43, 17 May 2007 (UTC)
Is there a general procedure for identifying the MediaWiki: namespace page that contributes a particular chunk of text one sees on another page? The only method I know is to search the MediaWiki: namespace for the text in question. That often results in a judgement call when the search yields more than one hit. Is there a more direct method, such as to analyze clues in the HTML code for a wiki page? --Teratornis 17:01, 17 May 2007 (UTC)
The only way I can think of (short of asking) is to copy some text from the page, go to Special:Allmessages (a very long page) and use either a browser based "Find" tool (Ctrl-F on IE) or something like Google toolbar to find that text on the page. Mr.Z-mantalk¢ 17:06, 17 May 2007 (UTC)
The only method I know is to compare Special:Allmessages to the message that you're seeing, to figure out which one it is. --ais523 17:14, 17 May 2007 (UTC)
Yes, I forgot to mention that other search method. So I guess that so far, nobody reading this knows of a direct way to trace the MediaWiki: namespace contributions to a given page elsewhere on a MediaWiki wiki. Thanks for your help. I wonder if someone could write a new special page that would work like Special:Whatlinkshere except that it would show all the MediaWiki: namespace pages that a given page uses. --Teratornis 18:00, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Using the "Ask a Question" in Reference desk...

I cannot connect to IRC nor via the Web. I need to know if a thermodynamic capacitor exists?

I'm not sure exactly what you mean. You don't need to use IRC to ask a question on a reference desk. Just go to the desk that seems the most relevant and click on the link that says: ask a new question by clicking here. Mr.Z-mantalk¢ 17:01, 17 May 2007 (UTC)
At the moment, google:"thermodynamic capacitor" yields exactly one hit. I have no idea if that search result uses the term to mean whatever the questioner means. --Teratornis 17:04, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] verifiablility

I wish to add a section to a page. However, the information I wish to add has no published source, although there are a number of people who have posted related information on the internet (blogs, forums etc.) I wish to add this as it is highly relevant to the topic and has not yet been included. Am I able to add this section to the page without having any means of verification other than links to blogs, groups, internet forums etc?

Generally speaking, Wikipedia would want a source for what's written, otherwise it's original research. (Although deletion discussions don't have to go with precedent, this deletion discussion (one whose result is frequently challenged) decided that forums, blogs, etc. weren't reliable enough sources for something. You might want to read the reliable sources guidelines to see what is a reliable source (websites can often be reliable sources, but not always, for instance). Hope that helps! --ais523 17:18, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] deleted article

I posted an article, but it was deleted shortly after. Is there somewhere that I can find out why it was deleted?

Yes, there's the deletion log (Special:Log/delete). If you enter the article's exact name in the 'Title' field, it'll let you know which administrator deleted it and why. Some administrators use shorthand in the log; see Wikipedia:Why was my article deleted? for an explanation. Hope that helps! --ais523 17:50, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] would like to change name details

need to change name details

To change your username, see WP:CHU. To change other details about your account, go to Special:Preferences. --ais523 17:48, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Need editing help

hi,

i'm not sure how to change or add to an article. i want to add some points to a story that i feel are important.

i signed up and then went in and added the information. but it doesn't show up on the article. can you tell me why?

the changes i made or added was to the article about james "ike" altgens.

Your edit doesn't show up because it was reverted (removed). This happened for two reasons:
  • You added it in the middle of some other text, interrupting some code that made a reference work right.
  • Your added text, according to the reverting user, User:ATinySliver, was "for assassination articles, not Altgens".
Perhaps you should try adding anything relevant like this to an article on the assassination itself, I imagine it would stay there. Nihiltres(t.c.s) 18:38, 17 May 2007 (UTC)
If you make future edits and they are reverted, read up on some of Wikipedia's policies and find what you have done wrong. ~Spebi 05:24, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Pros & Cons

To whomever can answer my question - I cannot find anything about "pros and cons" here or in the dictionary. I know that pros is proponents, but what does the word cons represent?

Sorry - I'm not your average bright person.

Thank you for your help.

ftbird

The Wiktionary Entry says the phrase "pros and cons" is from Latin pro et contra, meaning (apparently) "for and against". --Tugbug 18:52, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Pentecost Sunday in 1980

Can you tell me what date Pentecost Sunday fell on in 1980

This desk is for help with editing Wikipedia. You want the Reference desk which is for factual questions about the world outside of Wikipedia. Dismas|(talk) 19:02, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Tool page complete, needs copy editors / proofreaders

I've completed my tools page (or at least I think I have). It needs to be gone over by advanced editors and newcomers to see if it is easy to understand and optimally informative.

Please look it over, and let me know...

Did you find it easy to follow and understand?

Was it useful?

Are there any essential tools missing?

Anything else you can think of to improve the page.

Thank you,

The Transhumanist   

[edit] User Name change

I was given a message indicating I should change my UserID. I checked to see if the name I want to use instead was being used and it is not. But, I don't understand how to actually change the name. One of the links doesn't work. It's confusing to me. Can you do it or help me?

Deborah L Kassmann <e-mail removed>

Answered on talk page. · AndonicO Talk 19:52, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Community Service

I am a student at Eckerd College, in St. Petersburg, Florida. Over the past semester I have contributed roughly 30 hours of service to the site, and am curious about how to get credit for it. One of my classes requires 40 hours, and I need credit for this time to pass the course. If someone could let me know how to take care of this it would be extremely helpful. Thanks.

See this discussion at the VP. I agree with the consensus of that discussion; this is not community service. There must be plenty of genuine acts of kindness that you can do in your local community. Adrian M. H. 21:11, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

I heard there's a way to get get open url/sfx links to show up in the references section of articles. Is there a way to do that?

[edit] open url/sfx links?

I heard there's a way to get get open url/sfx links to show up in the references section of articles. Is there a way to do that?

  • sorry this question was posted twice

[edit] bad page reporting

Hi,

I'm not sure where to report this, but this page (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patrick_Swayze) has some major content "issues" (content is gone and replaced with peeeeeeennnnnnnniiiiiiissssss.)


Just thought someone would want to know.

m

Hi there thanks for letting us know, I have reverted the edit! Andytalk 22:35, 17 May 2007 (UTC)
If you see any vandalism anywhere on Wikipedia, you can click the [edit this page] button at the top of almost every page and remove the vandalism yourself :) (expection of protected pages). ~Spebi 05:27, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] what's going on

I keep getting new messages intended for 66.230.200.xxx, what's going on here?--172.167.124.120 22:52, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

It appears from User talk:66.230.200.144 that there currently is a bug which causes this for many users. Just ignore it. PrimeHunter 23:10, 17 May 2007 (UTC)
The bug is mentioned with some links at Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)#MAJOR IP issues. PrimeHunter 23:20, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Fire Breathing

Please note that the product that is referenced in the article http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fire_breathing, Ultra-Pure is a registered trademark owned by Lamplight Farms, Inc. of Menomonee Falls WI. It is okay to use the word but please kindly change the word to Ultra-Pure(r)with a link to the Lamplight Farms website. http://www.lamplightfarms.com/lamplightlampoil.html

Thank you,

Christina Johnson Assistant Product Manager

  • I'm not clear what the rules are on this one. However, I do not think that WP is required to do anything of the sort, as the context here is not one of advertising. Nothing about this in Wikipedia:Manual of Style (trademarks). Anyone know what the guidelines are? We use trademarks all the time...see Oreo, Pepsi, etc. —Gaff ταλκ 23:09, 17 May 2007 (UTC)
The reference didn't seem to be to that particular brand of lamp oil, so I rephrased it to "highly purified lamp oil." Veinor (talk to me) 23:16, 17 May 2007 (UTC)
  • Hold on...The reference that particular brand remains: see references section at bottom of page. The question that I have is what are the requirements from a legal standpoint in writing about trademarks?—Gaff ταλκ
The Manual of Style says don't use them unless it's absolutely necessary. More details at the link. Tony Fox (arf!) 04:37, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Slight problem with an user

Greetings:

I am an user of Wikipedia and have enjoyed it since it first came on the scene. I am a writer/journalist myself by trade, so the information it provides has been invaluable at times to my work. This said, I have occasionally made a few minor changes to articles that I know intimately to be the in error or incomplete. As I found that this could be done easily enough on Wikipedia I did so while following every guide and example available to me. I never made an account simply because I never planned on being that heavy of an user.

Imagine my dismay when this gem below shows up on a page I am looking up. While it is conceivable that I may have made a mistake or that my ip was jacked to make a change (I am pretty security minded so that seems unlikely), I think the person who made this comment is being a tad overzealous in calling my contributions vandalism. They are no such thing, at least as I intended them. Furthermore, they gave no specific example of a page, or at least did so in a manner unrecognizable to a "newbie" such as myself. I would email them directly to rectify the situation, but I have found your website incredibly difficult to maneuver in doing so. As a journalist, I work toward always providing clear responses and factual accounts, so the often highly technical and non-intuitive directions herein seem very obtuse. Furthermore, I am sight-impared to some degree with limited time and not a techie, so your forms make it difficult to sort through. Suffice to say, this is only forum I can find within reason to lodge a complaint at.

My complaint simply is this: if you want amateurs to edit your site to the best of their abilities using every resource they can find (believe me I was very careful and consulted examples) to correct or add to your site, then I would suggest that you restrict "watchdogs" from "barking up the wrong tree" in terms of their accussions. As a journalist, I have no problem with being edited, I do however have a problem with being unjustly accused. I would tell this to the person myself, but they are unreachable. Perhaps they can be relayed via this channel... I dont know. If I have proposed a grevious crime in doing this, then accept my apologies and feel free to erase this. If you would like to contact me via email, it is gillkonam at dc.rr.com. Please do, as I am a tad ticked by the whole thing. This said, I would love to see your resource continue to provide a valuable service to the whole world and will do everything within my power to avoid a "flame war" as that isn't my intention.

In regards, Gene


User talk:66.230.200.146 From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Jump to: navigation, search

Please do not add unhelpful and unconstructive content to Wikipedia. Your edits appear to be vandalism and have been reverted. If you would like to experiment, please use the sandbox. Thank you. Realkyhick 21:50, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

  • Hi, it looks like you have a dynamic IP, or an IP that changes occasionally. The person who held your IP was vandalising wikipedia and got warned for it. When you got on with the same IP, the warning was also shown to you. If you look at the IP's contributions, you can notice some vandalistic edits.

The best and easiest way to avoid this would be to create an account. Corpx 23:20, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

It's a wikimedia IP with a bad squid, or something like that, all IPs every where on wikipedia just recievbed the same message, see [Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)#MAJOR IP issues]--172.145.25.205 23:24, 17 May 2007 (UTC)
Yes, it's the same bug as mentioned in the above section "what's going on". Thanks for your contributions to Wikipedia. Please ignore this incident and continue editing. PrimeHunter 23:34, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Creating new pages

Is it possible to create an entirely new page. when I search for a person I don't get any results

Yes. Type in the title of the page in to the search box and click go. If the page doesn't exist then there is an option to "create this page". Make sure that the subject is notable and the article is well sourced. -- Hdt83 Chat 23:58, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

Or it might say no page here purge or create a page Duggie647 00:02, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

Need Help Just Ask On My Talk Page http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Duggie647

See also Help:Starting a new page and Wikipedia:Your first article. PrimeHunter 00:08, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Login not working

I am a long time user and contributor. My user ID is mgrand. A few days ago, my login stopped working. It claims I'm using the wrong password. Twice now I've have a new password e-mailed to me. The e-mailed passwords don't work either. Is there something else wrong with my account?