Wikipedia:Help desk/Archives/2007 May 27

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[edit] May 27

[edit] Upload image

Hi. A friend of mine registered a new account on May 25 and he wants to upload a new version of an existed image. But why he can't see that button? Can anyone explain to me?? Thanks. AW 02:01, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

WP:UAL says: The rights of "registered users" are fully accessible to everyone who has held an account for more than four days. --Teratornis 02:12, 27 May 2007 (UTC)
Thanks. AW 02:27, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] multiple names

I'm making a page with biographical details. Ive created links to the various personalities, but some are already recognised and will automatically take me to the biography of a person with the same name. How do I make sure the link goes to the right person?—Preceding unsigned comment added by Jkorman2000 (talk • contribs)

Please see Wikipedia:Disambiguation. Also, if you would like to mention the title of the article, I would take a look at it and see what can be done :) PeaceNT 03:18, 27 May 2007 (UTC)
Try Help:Link, this may help you get started on how to link to and from articles. Stwalkerster talk review 15:23, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Creating Tables

How do you create tables or charts.

See Help:Table for complete information about that. Hersfold (talk/work) 03:20, 27 May 2007 (UTC)
Tables can be complicated, depending on how complex they are. Let me know if you'd like to have one designed, or if you're having problems with the syntax. tiZom(2¢) 03:25, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Create an article?

How do i create my own article.

This article gives you some things to think about before creating your first article. At the end of it, there are some other help links to assist you with the technical details of how to create an article. Good luck, and happy editing! --Tkynerd 04:54, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] untitled

Address: <address removed> Zip code: Date:27-may-2007 The sale dept(wikipedia)company. Dear sir I am a computer student of university in iran. I would like some information about your products and price list. would you send me information please. thank you. your faith fally. Elaheh Mansouri

Products: online encyclopedia. Price: $0. Wikipedia doesn't sell anything. -Wooty Woot? contribs 07:23, 27 May 2007 (UTC)
Wikipedia itself may not sell anything directly, but you can buy shirts, mugs, caps, wall clocks, etc., imprinted with the Wikipedia logo. See: Wikipedia:Help desk/Archives/2007 March 1#T-shirt. --Teratornis 13:00, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] How can I get an image on an article?

If I want to add image in article, what should I do?—Preceding unsigned comment added by Kapil Dolas (talk • contribs)

Write something like [[Image:Example.png|thumb|right|Example image caption]] in the article. Also see WP:Image. ssepp(talk)
Browsing your contributions, I don't find any images uploaded by you, so first, upload it, you might want to take a look here for detailed instructions. Next, please see Help:Image#Linking. Also, if you don't mind telling me the title of the related article, I would assist you in adding the image PeaceNT 08:40, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Can't log in

Every time I want log in it says Incorrect password, although it's is the right one. I also can't get a new one by e-mail since I never typed in an e-mail address. Is there an option to get a password without creating a new account? Diabound00 08:23, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

If you didn't set an e-mail, there is no way to recover your password. -- John Reaves (talk) 08:25, 27 May 2007 (UTC)
Try things like caps lock, and check the keyboard layout hasn't changed on your computer. Stwalkerster talk review 15:27, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Automatically adding a template to a set of user pages

Is there a way to automatically add a template to a user’s talk page? Over at WikiProject Iceland, we’re trying to find a way to automatically add our monthly newsletter to user’s talk pages. Perhaps there is a bot that can do this? Any help would be greatly appreciated. Max Naylor 09:10, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

  • I think I'd come at this problem the other way around: set up the newsletter as a template, then ask your members to transclude the template on their user: or user talk: pages. AndyJones 09:28, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Switch articles please.. (UPN)

Article 'UPN' should be renamed to 'United Paramount Network'.
And 'UPN' should then point to 'UPN (disambiguation)'
I know these kind moves are tricky so I think an administrator should do it. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Electron9 (talk • contribs) 10:11, 27 May 2007 (UTC).

UPN#Viacom takes full control says :
Viacom dropped the "United" name for its new network, opting to change the official corporate name to the three-letter initials, "UPN."
If you still think it should be renamed then you can suggest it at Wikipedia:Requested moves. PrimeHunter 12:01, 27 May 2007 (UTC)
Additionally...
  • The defunct television network clearly is the primary English-language usage of the "UPN" initialism.
  • More than 1,000 articles are linked directly to UPN.
  • Redirecting UPN to UPN (disambiguation) would contradict our naming conventions.
—David Levy 12:38, 27 May 2007 (UTC)
If there's more than one meaning, acronyms should point to an disambiguation page. Just because some commercial entity have flooded the public with their logo doesn't mean wikipedia should follow that. And articles that links to another should certainly specify the context of an acronym. Two wrongs doesn't make one right. In math one doesn't follow the majority, but what fits the equation. Electron9 22:20, 27 May 2007 (UTC)
1. When one meaning is overwhelmingly the most common in the English language (for whatever reason), that's the one that we assign to the title in question. (To do otherwise would make it more difficult for most users to find the desired article.) If there are two or more other meanings for which we have articles, we link to a disambiguation page. That's what we've done in this instance.
2. I don't understand what you mean by "articles that links to another should certainly specify the context of an acronym." —David Levy 04:32, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Fulcanelli

I am a published author and expert on the subject of Fulcanelli. I edited the article slightly on May 26 2007 on Fulcanelli. Yet my edits were not there the next day. Why not? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jay Weidner (talk • contribs) <email removed>

It seems they were removed in this edit: [1]. The edit summary indicates that your edits were 'identified as vandalism', but I don't think that is fair. I have alerted the person who removed the content of this discussion. ssepp(talk) 15:30, 27 May 2007 (UTC)
Your edits were mainly self-promotional, though, and many Wikipedians see that as a red rag. You should read WP:SPAM and WP:COI before making any further edits which name-check yourself or your work. AndyJones 15:38, 27 May 2007 (UTC)
The Fulcanelli IP edits were made in the midst of a spamming spree,[2] for which I warned him on the talk page of the IP he used to make the edits.[3] - Kathryn NicDhàna ♫♦♫ 18:20, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] When I saved the changes, there were no changes saved!

I spent quite a while filling in plot details of the film On Borrowed Time, including a plot spoiler warning. I previewed it and it looked fine, and then I saved it, but there were no changes in the finished article. This is the first time this has happened ­ I always use Mac OS X and Safari. I had an account, but I apparently forgot my user name so I just now created a new one ­ I have edited several articles.

Thanks.

Wlegro —Preceding unsigned comment added by Wlegro (talk • contribs)

I assume your edit was this by 76.81.9.239. It was reverted by User:Pilotguy the next minute.[4] Another editor has commented it at User talk:Pilotguy#On Borrowed Time. PrimeHunter 15:44, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

Thanks, PrimeHunter. I'm new at this, don't know coding, etiquette, and so on, so I just do my best in the time I have - I have no idea if I'm violating some rule even responding here this way and at this length. FWIW, I am a writer and editor IRL. Nice to have the mystery solved- the guy wasted no time, did he? - though I don't know quite what to do about it and don't see how to enter that nascent discussion. It's not hugely important to me - it's just that I had watched the movie again the previous night and was still caught up in it, and found the summary lacking. I see there's a huge controversy going on about spoiler warnings, which to me are a simple courtesy and nothing to get upset about. And some don't appreciate POVs in plot summaries - I can understand that. Thanks again. Wlegro

Hello Wlegro. One of the basic policies of Wikipedia is to have no POV in articles, whatsoever. This is why your edit was problematic. See WP:NPOV. ssepp(talk) 16:13, 27 May 2007 (UTC)
Thanks, S_Sepp. Didn't know that, given how much POV I see throughout the encyclopedia. Is this a new policy (I've read lately about efforts to clean up Wikipedia), and is there a drive to comb through the articles and eliminate it? And why wouldn't an editor simply delete the POV instead of the entire edit? That's what I tried to do in my second attempt to expand the "stub" of an entry, as we are invited to do. Wlegro (William)
It's one of the five basic principles of Wikipedia. Of course, it's not always easy to achieve. It's not uncommon for editors to remove edits when a POV pervades the whole thing in such a way that it's essentially unsalvagable <- definitions of that idea vary widely. WilyD 16:38, 27 May 2007 (UTC)
(edit conflict) It has been this way from the start. There is always ongoing effort to improve wikipedia, in many ways. There are 'wikiprojects' to fix everything from typos to cultural bias. But because of the very large quantity of edits that happen, there is always much work undone. As for why the editor didn't just delete the POV instead of the entire edit: I think most editors would have just removed the POV. Perhaps this particlar editor only took a quick glance and didn't see the 'whole story' of your edit, or perhaps he didn't have time to remove the POV, and thought it would still be better to remove the edit in whole than leave it. ssepp(talk) 16:45, 27 May 2007 (UTC)
Thanks all for the education, and thanks S_Sepp for the header - looks much better. - Wlegro
Wikipedia is the encylopedia that (almost) anyone can edit. Millions of people have created accounts, and perhaps comparably vast numbers have edited without accounts. However, probably only a few thousand people have much of a grasp of Wikipedia's staggeringly complex policies, guidelines, and procedures. The result is that only a tiny percentage of articles have achieved the top two ratings of featured or good. Thus, more than 99% of articles on Wikipedia need work; some people think this means Wikipedia is failing. (I think Wikipedia is failing to meet some of its stated aims quickly, particularly the bit about "an encyclopedia of the highest quality," but Wikipedia is certainly not failing to be popular, fun, and probably more comprehensive and generally usable than any other single reference on the World Wide Web.) When you browse to random articles, the odds are overwhelming that most of them violate some policies or guidelines, or have deficiencies in need of correction. These problems may be serious, yet untagged. Thus you should not use random existing articles as guidelines for what to do here. Instead, read the actual guidelines (at WP:POLICY and elsewhere). This is unfortunate, because most people tend to learn by imitating examples they see, rather than by consulting definitive documents. However, little by little, experienced editors can go around and fix things, citing the relevant documents as they go. Then others can learn what to do from them. --Teratornis 17:40, 27 May 2007 (UTC)
If you do want to use another article as a guideline, try finding a similar featured article or good article. Mr.Z-mantalk¢ 17:47, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

I appreciate the generosity you've all offered and the patience displayed. God knows how many times you have to repeat yourselves. I like the commitment I see here. Thanks. Wlegro 16:52, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] editing tamplates

how do I edit tamplates? —Preceding unsigned comment added by ArnoldPettybone (talk • contribs)

See Wikipedia:Template namespace and Wikipedia:Template messages...--Cometstyles 15:09, 27 May 2007 (UTC)
Ha, did you mean "templates"? :) Well, you may edit them normally as editing articles. However, if you encounter some templates which you can't modify, it's because they are proctected, and you may propose changes on the related talk pages by using the {{editprotected}} template. PeaceNT 15:12, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Liscencing

What tag would I put on a photo I have created that allows it to be used in an article without allowing someone else to steal the image and make money from it? ≈ Maurauth (nemesis) 15:43, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

That is not possible. Wikipedia content (including all articles) is meant to be reusable in any way, including commercial. See also: Wikipedia:Image copyright tags ssepp(talk) 16:06, 27 May 2007 (UTC)
Well, what liscence is there that says they have to credit you with the image? ≈ Maurauth (nemesis) 16:39, 27 May 2007 (UTC)
According to Wikipedia:Image copyright tags, both the GNU Free Documentation License and the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike require this. I think the prefered way to license is to dual-license under those two licenses, because that allows more flexibility in re-use (re-users can then choose either license). You might also want to consider uploading the image at Wikimedia Commons instead of locally at the English wikipedia. At the Commons it becomes available for use in any wikimedia foundation project. But of course you can also just upload it here. ssepp(talk) 16:55, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] List Question

Can you make numbered lists and not have them interrupted by pictures? What I mean to say is, I want to have a list, and have a picture or two between some of the numbers without the numbers becoming skewed, is this possible? Mr.KlicK 15:47, 27 May 2007 (UTC)Mr.KliCK

Yeah, just put the image on the same line as the number (with a br tag if need be). for example
  1. a
    this now works
    this now works
  2. b
  3. c
  4. d
  5. e
  6. f
  7. g
  8. h
  9. i
  10. j
    this now works 2
    this now works 2

--User:Rock2e Talk - Contribs 16:03, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

Not exactly what I was looking for, but it'll get the job done. Thanks. Mr.KlicK 16:46, 27 May 2007 (UTC)Mr.KlicK

If you want more flexibility for mixing various types of formatting with numbered lists, use an HTML numbered list. See for example: Wikipedia:Help desk/Archives/2007 May 3#Numbered lists and tables. --Teratornis 18:32, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Correct website address for the MINUSTAH UN peace keeping mission in Haiti

Dear sirs, my name is othniel Etienne. I'm the webmaster of the website www.minustah.org , which is the correct address for the official website of this UN peace keeping mission in Haiti (instead of www.minustah.org/index-english.html which was an old link, as listed on this page : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MINUSTAH).

Thank you for the prompt correction

Best regards

Othniel

(E-Mail removed for security purposes)

I've fixed it. In the future, you can fix things yourself by finding the edit link on the page, making the changes, and saving. If you would like to have someone else do the changes for conflict of interest reasons, then just request the update on the page's talk page. tiZom(2¢) 18:55, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Iskenderiye

A few months ago (December 7th to be exact) a friend of mine thought he'd be funny and made a completely fictional article about me. It was, of course, deleted in a few hours and he never told me about it. I just googled my name and this page came up: http://www.iskenderiye.com/wp_encyclopedia/?p=29698 which contains, according to him, the exact article he made. Is there any reason anyone knows of why it would suddenly appear where after several months, and is there any way of getting rid of it?

For general information about how this page got there, see WP:MIRROR. As to how to get rid of it, that would be up to the site operators, who do not appear to be affiliated with Wikipedia. Ideally, sites which mirror Wikipedia should periodically freshen their copies with the latest revisions of articles. However, the real world is not uniformly ideal. --Teratornis 20:04, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] columns

I've looked all over but I can't figure out: is there a way to make the text in a section flow down two (or three) columns? (I have a list of articles I started on my userpage, and it's getting a bit longer than looks nice.)Stevecudmore 20:01, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

Examples: Ilities (using <div> tags); GPSBabel#File formats supported (using {{top}}, {{mid}}, and {{bottom}}). You can also use tables. --Teratornis 20:14, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

Thanks! Stevecudmore 21:06, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] QESTION

Wiy was JIVE made YOURs Exelensi Jeane van Dyk

Not sure I understand your question. —Anas talk? 20:15, 27 May 2007 (UTC)
I don't even understand the "QESTION" but there is a JIVE article, believe it or not, and it summarizes the purpose of (that) JIVE's existence. --Teratornis 01:56, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Combining galleries and tables?

Is there a way to get internal borders in galleries, like tables have? Or if not, is there a way to create tables such that information can be listed vertically rather than horizontally? As in, everything I've been able to find for tables starts by creating the columns, then filling the table by row. Is there a way to fill the table by column instead? -Bbik 20:13, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

The {{top}}, {{mid}}, and {{bottom}} templates that I mentioned a few questions above might sort of work the way you are describing, but they do not exactly produce tables. Whether you can use those templates to do what you want depends on what you want. You might also try searching the help desk for: table column, and read everything about tables in the Editor's Index. That's all I've got. --Teratornis 02:05, 28 May 2007 (UTC)
I think one of the userspace links in the Index might be what I need, actually. I hadn't managed to find those couple pages in my searching. I'll fight with it later when I have a bit more time, but in the meantime, thanks! -Bbik 06:32, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Editing

Hello,

I'm a new editor, amd have done a few minor edits today and have ticked the 'Minor Edit' box. On re-reading the definition of a 'minor edit', I think that I shouldn't have ticked this box, as I have added to and slightly changed some articles.

Could you look at these please and make sure they're OK with you.

Sorry —Preceding unsigned comment added by Fanners (talk • contribs)

It doesn't matter. It's bad etiquette to strike major edits as minor but we are all newcomers at one stage. Everything is OK as long as you avoid doing it from now onwards. x42bn6 Talk Mess 22:13, 27 May 2007 (UTC)
Well, you provided nothing to look at. But the kinds of edits you describe don't seem to be technically minor. Under the Minor Edits entry, read this:
If you accidentally mark an edit as minor when it was in fact a major edit, you should make a second edit, or dummy edit, noting that "the previous edit was major" in the edit summary. As a trivial edit to be made for this purpose, just opening the edit box and saving (changing nothing) will not work, neither will adding a blank space at the end of a line or a blank line at the end of the page—in these cases the edit is cancelled and the edit summary discarded. However, one can, for example, add an extra space between two words, or a line break. These changes are preserved in the wikitext and recorded as a change, although they do not change the rendered page.
You'll have to judge whether you should make a second edit. Hope this helps. - Wlegro
No one will mind a day from now, as long as you more or less get the idea of what a minor edit is, and more or less mark them properly in the future. Titoxd(?!? - cool stuff) 00:59, 28 May 2007 (UTC)
Another option is to explain what you did on the talk pages of the articles in question, providing links to your diffs. Explaining your edits on talk pages is a good idea if a short edit summary doesn't explain it well. Mentioning that you are a new user is advisable, to alert experienced editors to check your work. Most new users have not yet mastered the staggeringly complex policies, guidelines, and procedures, so it's easy for a new user to violate something unwittingly — in fact, it's easy for an experienced user to make mistakes too (even after a year of dabbling on Wikipedia, I'm still running across new guidelines, recommendations, and procedures that I hadn't heard of before, not to mention the infinite regress of templates and so on). It never hurts to ask for a sanity check. Talk pages exist so we can talk about what we are doing to the articles, and focus more eyeballs on the problems. --Teratornis 01:50, 28 May 2007 (UTC)