Wikipedia:Help desk/Archives/2007 November 10

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[edit] November 10

[edit] Signatures

I see lots of multicoloured signatures on this and other pages, how does one go about creating one with colours, access to talk page, even images in signatures? and where can one sandbox tryout? Jagra 00:40, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

I use plain ol' HTML and Wiki markup [Is that what they call it?]. Mess around in the sandbox and see how you like it. Pacific Coast Highway {talk • contribs} 00:48, 10 November 2007 (UTC)
edit conflictThere is a short description at Wikipedia:Signatures of how to change your signature. The easy part is changing it, the hard part is coding it. To make your signature green, and link to talk, for instance,
  1. Go to my preferences
  2. In the signature box put [[User:Jagra|<font color="009900">Jagra</font>]] <font color="009900">(</font>[[User_talk:Jagra|<font color="009900">talk</font>]]<font color="009900">)</font>
  3. Check the "raw signature" box
  4. Save changes. It should appear Jagra (talk)
The tricky part, of course, is coming up with the code. All I have done here is put font tags around the text I want to appear green. If you have something complex in mind for your signature, let me know and I would be happy to help code it. Images generally should not be included in signatures, although you can do a wide range of things with unicode characters. --TeaDrinker (talk) 00:55, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] reboot

How do I reboot laptop computer and why does this come up when battery runs out? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 58.104.175.225 (talk) 00:55, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

Have you tried the computing section of Wikipedia's Reference Desk? They specialize in answering knowledge questions there; this help desk is only for questions about using Wikipedia. For your convenience, here is the link to post a question there: click here. I hope this helps. PrimeHunter 01:11, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Wiki Contributor in Juneau, Alaska?

Hello, I am radio journalist and I am looking for a regular wiki contributor in Juneau, AK to do a story on for Alaska Public Radio. Is this the right place to look?

Thank You, Scott Burton Juneau, AK sburton [at] aprn [dot] org —Preceding unsigned comment added by 206.174.68.71 (talk) 01:10, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

Try the talk page at WP:ALASKA and leave your request there. Hope this helps Woodym555 01:15, 10 November 2007 (UTC)
A few editors have added themselves to Category:Wikipedians in Juneau-Southeast Alaska. Such categories are optional and many editors don't use them. PrimeHunter 01:26, 10 November 2007 (UTC)
The Wikimedia Foundation, which runs Wikipedia, has a Press room page which may be helpful. I've restored your email with obfuscation so people can get in touch via email. --h2g2bob (talk) 02:03, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Editing menus/linking to Userpage / Protection / Blogs

  • I'm going to create a sandbox page and I'd like to put a link to it on my user page or, better yet, add it to the menu that appears at the top of the page (As per "discussion", "Edit this Page", "history", etc.) Or, can I add it to my menu that appears at the top of the screen next to my handle after I log on ("my talk", "my preferences", etc)?
  • Can I protect my user page and sandbox?
  • A lot of the user and talk pages on this site look like blogs. Is blogging part of the setup here?

LuckyThracian 01:23, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

You cannot protect your user page or sandbox.
Not only is blogging not a part of the setup here, but Wikipedia actively discourages the misuse of its server space as any kind of ersatz social site, including in the user and talk pages. There are lots of other places for that. --Orange Mike 01:28, 10 November 2007 (UTC)
Just to clarify: you may request your userpage/sandbox to be semi-protected at Requests for page protection, but only in response to an unusually large amount of vandalism. You cannot do it yourself Before I got my userpage protected, it was getting vandalised on average twice a week (14 times in two months), so be sure that it is absoutely necessary. NF24(radio me!Editor review) 01:38, 10 November 2007 (UTC)
Further reading: Wikipedia:Protection policy
Also, I do not believe that you can add your own "tabs" at the top of your page; a plain ol' link will do fine. NF24(radio me!Editor review) 01:39, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

Okay, thanks, how can I do the link? (I'm finding the advice on the Links help page confusing.)

Also, is there a part of the site that explains definitively what you can tamper with and what is protected programming?

LuckyThracian 02:03, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

To link to another page on Wikipedia, type [[Pagename]]. Be sure to insert the appropriate prefix (User:, User talk:, Template:, Template talk:, etc) in front of the pagename. For articles, simply type [[Article name]], or [[Talk:Article name]] for the talkpage. Templates can be transcluded onto a page by typing {{Template name}}
As for your "tamper" question, you may edit the following:
  • Article pages
  • You may not edit semi-protected articles until your account is four days old.
  • Fully protected articles cannot be edited by anyone lower than an administrator.
  • Pages in any other namespace EXCEPT:
  • It is considered bad practice to edit other's userpages, even to fix an error, unless they have specifically asked you to.
  • Again, fully protected pages (e.g. high risk templates)
  • You may want to read up on the user access levels, this is a simple, broad description. NF24(radio me!Editor review) 02:40, 10 November 2007 (UTC)
Further reading: Wikipedia:User access levels — Useful links: Help:Linking, Help:Templates

Thank you NF24. That's simplified it to the necessary. LuckyThracian 01:09, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

Hmmm. Isn't it considered appropriate to edit someone's userpage to leave them a message? Several people have left me messages that way. PeteJacobsen

[edit] Socrates References

I am trying to set up the cnote/cref template over at Socrates. I am not fully experienced in these things and would greatly appreciate it if someone could help me to fix or explain to me how to properly use cnotes. I am trying to copy the system as implemented (quite well) at Alcibiades. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Across.The.Synapse (talk • contribs) 03:08, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

I experimented and discovered that it is the two equal signs (=) that are messing it up. Replacing them with {{equals}} fixed the problem. (I knew nothing about cnote or cref so took this question as an opportunity to explore and learn a bit more about Wikipedia. Using Show Preview and progressively moving around the closing braces narrowed down the problem to the equal signs. Then I guessed that there might be a template for displaing an equal sign and voila.) Sbowers3 17:46, 10 November 2007 (UTC)
Thank you very much for your experimentation with the format. I will continue citing on Socrates by using the cnote system. across the synapse 03:59, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Swap Engine

Hi I have A 1984 Elcamino and I would like to know can A Ls1 engine go in it and what do I have to do and changes i must do. Thanks,GOTTI —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.150.250.108 (talk) 03:30, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

This page is for questions about using Wikipedia. For other kinds of questions, maybe the reference desk would be able to help you. However, we do have a page on the Chevrolet El Camino. Astronaut 14:20, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] How do I send messages to other users

Wikipedia could you please tell me how to send messages to other users without using their profiles Watts 11 05:51, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

Without leaving a message on their talk page, if the user has their Email enabled you can do it that way. When you go to a user page or a user talk page, notice the left side of the screen under the "toolbox" section it says "Email User". - Rjd0060 05:53, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] federal system of government

What is federalism and how does it function?195.202.88.145 07:19, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

See Federalism. --Hdt83 Chat 07:21, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Pay

I will contribute to wikipedia if you reduce the amount of deletion, e.g for notoriety. The nobel prize takes 20 years+ to get awarded so who can say what is important after a few months! Deleting articles that took a lot of effort to create to save disk space issues is silly. Just leave it and delete it in 10 years,if ever. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.101.160.213 (talk) 09:23, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

  • Notability exists in different degrees. Not everything takes as long as the nobel prize. There are other recognized awards people can get. And the deletion is not to save disk space, in fact recording the deletion takes more space. It's to avoid people using Wikipedia as an advertising platform. - 87.211.75.45 09:50, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] saponaceous

I referred to your dictionary to find the meaning of 'saponaceous' only to find no result to my search.

I do however have an old dictionary 'The New Standard Dictionary Language of the English Language' printed in 1922 by the Waverley Book Company Ltd of Farringdon street which gives the following meaning of the word:


'Having the nature of quality of soap; especially compounded of a base and a fatty acid'

Would you recognise this word and the meaning??

Regards Richard Calhoun —Preceding unsigned comment added by Richardcalhoun (talk • contribs) 11:19, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

Hi Richard. Wikipedia is one of several projects run by the Wikimedia foundation. It is an encyclopedia and thus does not have dictionary definitions. However, Wiktionary, a sister project, is a dictionary and the word does have an entry there. See saponaceous. Cheers.--Fuhghettaboutit 11:38, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Numbered list

There is a numbered list, using a hash. How do I insert a line without restarting the numbering? - Kittybrewster ☎ 12:00, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

Use #:, #:: etc .
e.g
  1. Hello
  2. Hello
    Hello to you
  3. Hello
Hope this helps. Woodym555 12:18, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Regarding Article

Hi.

I would like to know , is it possible users like me to post an article?

Please reply.

MasterWann —Preceding unsigned comment added by MasterWann (talk • contribs) 15:29, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

Yes.
Before creating an article, 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. PrimeHunter 15:49, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] HTML/CSS code for Table of Contents

Greetings! I emailed the volunteer staff about this, and they told me I should try asking here: Could anyone give me the HTML and CSS code needed to create a table of contents similar to the ones at the top of most Wikipedia entries? I've tried looking at the page source, but it seems like all of the documents have an external style sheet. I've managed to find a few of those style sheets, but there must be one or more I haven't found, because the Table of Contents code refers to a few elements (i.e. toclevel, tocnumber, toctext) that I haven't found the styles for. Could anyone please help me? Thanks!

Omega234 16:05, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

Hi Omega234! Just to give you a quick answer, the page Wikipedia:Catalogue of CSS classes should help you. Though as far as I can see, the classes you mention don't actually have any rules defined in CSS (but someone else can probably clarify/correct me on this). Also, if you use the Firefox browser, there's an extension for it called Firebug which really helps you to see how the HTML and CSS of a page are being used. (There may be other extensions too that are just as good or better, and there's a similar tool for Opera, but it's not yet so good.) -- DatRoot 16:30, 10 November 2007 (UTC)
Hey, thanks! But I still have one problem left: the Javascript for hiding the table of contents. I have no experience with Javascript, so if you could give me the code or send me to where I can find the code, that'd be helpful. Thanks for the other help, though! -- Omega234 02:03, 11 November 2007 (UTC)
You need to copy 3 functions from wikibits.js; they are showTocToggle, changeText and tocToggle. Conveniently they're next to each other in the code. You need to have showTocToggle run just after the document is loaded, and then tocToggle is the function that will automatically be called when the user clicks the show/hide button. Hope this helps -- DatRoot 22:59, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] NTOC???

How do I turn off the table of contents? I thought the code was ___NTOC___, but that just seems to render as a bit of text. AndyJones 16:21, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

You were close! it should be __NOTOC__ (see also Help:Section#Table_of_contents_.28TOC.29) -- DatRoot 16:32, 10 November 2007 (UTC)
Excellent. It works! Thanks. AndyJones 16:39, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Image Uploading

I am trying to upload an image and description but each time it tells me that I have no source information. I've spent several hours trying to fifure this out and cannout find anything on Wikipedia explaining how to actually include the source information. Can it be explained step by stepJohnplesh 16:35, 10 November 2007 (UTC)?

I think Wikipedia:Uploading images should have the information you're looking for. Good luck! GlassCobra 16:37, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] wikipedia as home page

How do I set up Wikipedia as my home page? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Barbara33 (talk • contribs) 17:39, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

This question comes up occasionally on the Help desk. You can try searching for some previous answers to get instructions for various Web browsers: Search Wikipedia Help desk for: Wikipedia "home page". For example:
--Teratornis 23:31, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] I would like to remove a comment from a image that i uploaded...

Can anyone assist me in removing a comment from an uploaded image? —Preceding unsigned comment added by WaccamawLovers (talk • contribs) 18:42, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

Which image are you referring to? You can normally just click "edit" and remove it manually. -- Jack 19:56, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Lots of Userpages listed in Category:Medieval reenactment?

Does anyone know how to fix this? I thought it was because a userbox was included in the category, so I removed the category from that userbox and the userpages are still showing up. They also appear to be some userpages are also showing up in Category:Islamic history and Category:Arab dynasties. 172.200.249.15 19:09, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

You fixed it correctly and the user pages are gone from Category:Medieval reenactment now. I have removed Category:Islamic history and Category:Arab dynasties from Template:User Islamic Civilization.[1] It may take some time for the categories to register the change when the user pages haven't been edited. PrimeHunter 20:25, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Toccata

Hey, I was just wondering: I created a page for the Emerson, Lake, & Palmer song "Toccata". It's called Toccata (Song). But when I put a link to that page from the track listing on the album (Brain Salad Surgery), it goes to Toccata, the page about the song type, instead of the page about the song. How do I get it to go to the song's page instead of the song type? Captainpancreas 19:34, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

I have done it for you. Just see 'edit this page' tab over there to find how it was done. Hope it helped. DSachan 19:51, 10 November 2007 (UTC)
You have to make sure you link to the actual page. For example: [[Toccata (Song)|Toccata]]. If you link to just Toccata it will take you to the song type. -- Jack 19:53, 10 November 2007 (UTC)
(e/c) What you need to do is pipe the link like this: [[Toccata (Song)|Toccata]]. which will look like this: Toccata. Basically, the text on one left side of the pipe ("|") tells the software where to go, and the text on the right tells it what to display.--Fuhghettaboutit 19:54, 10 November 2007 (UTC)
By the way, I just wanted to tell you that the page name should be Toccata (song) rather than Toccata (Song). So, consider renaming the page. DSachan 19:57, 10 November 2007 (UTC)
  • Since there's no need for the capital letter, I've moved this to Toccata (song). - Mgm|(talk) 20:33, 10 November 2007 (UTC)
Also by the way, Emerson, Lake, & Palmer were the best musical group of all time, up until Love Beach anyway (how's that for my neutral point of view). And it's a shame that Jimi Hendrix killed himself before joining them. --Teratornis 23:27, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] F-16

I have questions about the F-16, but they are not saved, or are removed, please tell me what I need to do. Thank you68.245.183.235 20:21, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

Not saved where? And by F-16 do you mean the F-16 Fighting Falcon? --Teratornis 23:27, 10 November 2007 (UTC)
I see some discussion about the F-16 in User talk:68.245.183.235#F-16XL & F-16E/F. Did your questions get answered? If you want to have discussions with other Wikipedia users, you may wish to create an account, so you will have a talk page of your own. See Help:Talk page for more about how to "talk" to other Wikipedia users. Currently, User talk:68.245.183.235 "belongs" only to the IP address you seem to be currently using, and it may be possible for someone else to share that. --Teratornis 00:00, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] talcott parsons

If you alter a piece about a subject you know a good deal about and what you added disappears within a day, what has happened to what you have added?

87.194.115.59 20:50, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

Your edits were reverting as being vandalism. Saying things like "Talcott Parsons is a knob" is not appreciated here. GlassCobra 20:53, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] maps

i need to know if you can look up maps of mexico close up —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.94.107.114 (talk) 21:58, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

Try Google Maps. In the future, though, please ask questions like this at the Reference Desk. The Help Desk is only for questions about using Wikipedia. Good luck! GlassCobra 21:59, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Disambiguation??

OK.....it is clearly apparent that I JUST DON'T GET IT WITH DISAMBIGUATION, so let's try a scenario:

There's a page/article for "Bob".......it's an OK article....it discusses Bob and Bob's cat and Bob's love for cheese omelets......great.

I want to create a page about a different "Bob (the skinny one)"....there's no page for THIS Bob.

I want: A. A disambuigation page listing each of the Bob's and, B. Bob (the skinny one) to have HIS OWN PAGE.

HOW DO I DO THAT?!?!?!?? Buddpaul 22:15, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

People named Bob are already listed at Bob. Bob (the skinny one) does not sound notable. See WP:BIO before creating an article on this Bob. -- Jack 22:18, 10 November 2007 (UTC)
I think this is a hypothetical situation, Jack. Buddpaul, have you tried reading Wikipedia:Disambiguation? If so, and you still don't understand, come back and we'll try to help you more. GlassCobra 22:22, 10 November 2007 (UTC)
Oh right, sorry. If it is a certain person with the same name as someone else, normally the profession of the person follows the name in the title of the article. So for example, if there was a person already under the article named "Jack McWiki", and you wanted "Jack McWiki" who was a musician, you could name it "Jack McWiki (musician)". Hope this helped a bit more! -- Jack 22:28, 10 November 2007 (UTC)
An article about the magician Mark Horowitz would be at Mark Horowitz (magician). But make sure he satisfies WP:BIO, and please read Wikipedia:Conflict of interest if you are him or close to him, for example if you are Paul Sifen or Buddy Stein. PrimeHunter 22:40, 10 November 2007 (UTC)
Add {{for|the skinny one|Bob (the skinny one)}} to the top of the Bob page. Click the red link to make a new page called Bob (the skinny one). Fill that page with what you want to say, listing the sources you used to make the page. See your first article for more on creating articles. --h2g2bob (talk) 01:10, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Forum

Where is the Wikipedia Forum that I keep reading about? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 63.3.6.2 (talk) 23:06, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

Can you give us a link to what you have been reading? Then we might be able to narrow it down. See WP:EIW#News for some of the forum-type things about Wikipedia. --Teratornis 23:22, 10 November 2007 (UTC)
Perhaps they mean Wikipedia Review? GlassCobra 23:35, 10 November 2007 (UTC)
Or maybe talk pages? --h2g2bob (talk) 00:58, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] How addictive?

How addictive is Wikipedia and why is it so good? I know someone who loves it. Can it damage your health from too much computer use? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.141.65.154 (talk) 23:08, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

Lots of different people get "addicted" to different things. However, psychologists use the word addiction in a stricter sense than you may hear the word in everyday speech. See Internet addiction disorder for more about the argument as to whether your friend is really "addicted." Just my opinion, but I think before the Internet can truly become addicting, first it would have to start working more reliably. --Teratornis 23:19, 10 November 2007 (UTC)
See also Wikipedia:Wikipediholic. PrimeHunter 23:21, 10 November 2007 (UTC)
See also Wikipedia:Why Wikipedia is so great for more about your second of three questions. --Teratornis 00:02, 11 November 2007 (UTC)
Very. Because of the candy center. Yes, we are all at risk.--Fuhghettaboutit 09:05, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] EXTREMELY ANNOYED

I went to a LOT of trouble to get you five photos of rustons engines (Ruston (Engine Builder)) from the guy who owns 99% of the Rustons Archive, only for wikipedia to delete them bar one. You will not get any more photos like this, and the five I found were unpublished up to now. I had the owners permission to use them, on wikipedia. Yet they were deleted. Im fed up with wikipedia doing this, so ive now WITHDRAWN permission for wikipedia to use ANY other images ive posted that i can control useage on. If my stuff isnt good enough for you then you can stick it.

I dont know whats the matter with personal attack removed. Dont you WANT people to contribute? Well im done, im fed up wasting my time trying to help only to get it repeatedly walked over or deleted.

You can stick your encyclodpedia where the sun dont shine. I wont be adding any more content. I hope your entire project goes tits up and fails.

Lincolnshire Poacher 23:27, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

First, The GFDL is irrevocable, second you can't release images for Wikipedia use only, they have to be reusable. -- John Reaves 23:32, 10 November 2007 (UTC)
The images were legitimately deleted per CSD I4 - missing license information. Whenever you upload an image, you need to select a license tag to place on the image page. There's a handy drop-down menu on the upload form that will help you select the correct license. If you had included a license, the image would not have been deleted. NF24(radio me!Editor review) 23:34, 10 November 2007 (UTC)
[Comment removed] -- DatRoot 23:45, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Bad category "Categorizing article - You can help! using AWB"

I've cleaned out the top level category "Computing", recategorizing the many low level detail articles that did not belong there. But articles keep being incorrectly categorized there, often with the message quoted in the subject line. CAM Table has just arrived. There is NO computing category that is a dumping ground for articles that people are not willing to make the effort to categorize correctly. How do I fix AWB so that it does not dump articles into Category:Computing? tooold 23:58, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

From my experience, AWB only does what you tell it to do. Occasionally it does something rather stupid, but that's why it makes you approve all edits before they get saved - so theoretically, if AWB is doing something you don't like, just edit the options to tell it to stop, or decline those particular edits. Category options are on the second tab in AWB. You could also add {{CatDiffuse}} to the category page if it is not there already - this should alert other editors to find a more specific subcategory for their page if possible. Hersfold (t/a/c) 01:42, 11 November 2007 (UTC)
So it's other editors that are my problem. I'll assume they don't even look at the category page, if they did - it's obviously not used for product pages. Can I get into trouble for reverting their edit, the CAM Table edit for example, with an edit summary something like "The top level computing category is not appropriate for product categorizations. Better to leave it uncategorized so that some future editor can assign its correct category."? tooold 05:23, 11 November 2007 (UTC)