Wikipedia:Help desk/Archives/2008 April 2

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[edit] April 2

[edit] How Do I Delete?

I have another account now, so I want to know how to delete my old account. I can't find a delete spot on "my preferences," so how do i do it?Halldandude (talk) 00:25, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

You cannot delete your own account (see this), but that page also gives other routes to what you can do. x42bn6 Talk Mess 00:27, 2 April 2008 (UTC)
You may request that your user page and talk page be deleted by requesting speedy deletion by placing {{userreq}} on the page. Also see Wikipedia:Right to vanish. Wisdom89 (T / C) 02:49, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Kanute or Canute?

Saying for a Canadian- Kanute or Canute? Which is correct and where did the saying come from- the Danes? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.234.232.158 (talk) 00:56, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

Do you mean Canuck? DuncanHill (talk) 01:00, 2 April 2008 (UTC)
I am Danish and that term/word means nothing to me. Does not sound Danish either. IbLeo (talk) 20:45, 2 April 2008 (UTC)
I'm also Danish. Canute is not Danish but it's an anglicized form of a Danish name. See Knut (which Canute redirects to). Knut and especially Knud are current Danish names (k is not silent before n in Danish). However, I don't know a Canadian connection and also suspect the poster means Canuck. PrimeHunter (talk) 21:16, 2 April 2008 (UTC)
Since the user is Canadian I think they almost certainly heard about Canute the Great in grammar school sometime or other. In English history it's always spelled as in the article. -- BPMullins | Talk 03:52, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Daily Emails

Is it possible to receive a daily email of a random article? This would be great!01:12, 2 April 2008 (UTC)01:12, 2 April 2008 (UTC)~~ Thanks, Neil

Wikipedia doesn't do this (I don't think), but you could follow this article to do it. (Or you can get the featured article of the day from Wikipedia directly by email here. Cheers, --Bfigura (talk) 01:14, 2 April 2008 (UTC)
Not what you asked for, but you could make http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random the home page or a bookmark in your browser. PrimeHunter (talk) 01:22, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Protection of User pages

Shouldn't userpages be protected?!? why are they not protected? at least partialy, i mean, there is no reason for someone to edit an userpage except in the discussion area... (except when there is abuse from the user). I think that disencourages people to create their page, that way, they have to be always vigilant for vandalism, because no one is going to take care of their userpage... it's one more responsibility, have to go to wikipedia, just to check if it has not been vandalized... Can someone enlighten me on this subject? Thanks. SF007 (talk) 01:38, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

Many userpages of high-visibility users (like vandalfighters) are often protected, but they have to go through the WP:RFPP page, same as any other page. They can't be semi-protected by default, and full protection would prevent the user from editing the page. They can't be made to only be editable by you (like your .js and .css pages), because sometimes people need to place template messages on it (like for sockpuppets). Hope this helps! Calvin 1998 (t-c) 02:05, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Help Using a Specific Infobox

I am using the Infobox_Golf_Facility template and I cannot get the multiple course feature of it to work on the Raintree Country Club page and I do not understand why. I believe that I am setting everything up right. I also noticed that it doesn't seem to be working on the TPC at Sawgrass page either. Does anyone who is familiar with infoboxes mind taking a look at the pages for me to see what may be wrong? CAPTAIN: FOR GREAT JUSTICE. (talk) 02:44, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

Fixed. The problem was that when each new section goes up in numbering the parameters which must also be named with that higher number, contained the numbering from the prior section. Thus, though the parameter names in course1, are par1= length1= rating1=; the next section, course2, must be followed by par2= length2= rating2= or the template breaks. By the way, there's no reason to wikilink prosaic things like numbers; par1= 70, not par1= [[70]], which then provides a link to our article on the number 70, which isn't quite needed for context here:-) Cheers.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 03:04, 2 April 2008 (UTC)
Thanks CAPTAIN: FOR GREAT JUSTICE. (talk) 03:16, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] info about youngest commercial pilot

Dear All

I want to know who is the youngest commercial pilot liencens holder in the world.

I also want the detail biodata and achivements by that great one.


plz reply me on email removed


regards

jayesh

Mumbai(India) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.188.226.118 (talk) 07:17, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

Sorry, we don't respond to posts here via email. We also don't answer questions that aren't about using Wikipedia. You might get an answer if you ask at the reference desk. Someguy1221 (talk) 07:49, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] First time user

Hi. I have found a page about a friend of mine, Dominic Killalea. In that page it has a highlighted link for a band we used to play in together, Zoo Story. When you click on that link, there is no page about that band. Obviously no one has added any information about the group at this stage.

I would like to create a page for that link. How do I go about this? I have just gone through all the different areas trying to find out what to do and now have a headache and am very confused.

Your help would be much appreciated.

Thanks, Michael... Mykool1 (talk) 08:02, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

First, read WP:COI. As you were a member of the band, it's going to be a lot more difficult for you to remain neutral when writing the article. Second, you are going to need to cite verifiable, independent sources for the facts you cite in the article. Also, the band must meet our notability guidelines, specifically WP:BAND. If you think there are enough sourced to satisfy these rules, check out WP:FIRST for tips on how to write your first article. -- Kesh (talk) 10:25, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] When I search my article is not found.

Why when I search for the title of my article or name as author it cannot be found? Tara Mirling (R) Florida (talk) 08:23, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

You've not actually posted the article where it's supposed to be. You put the article on your User page, which is supposed to be for information about yourself, and what you're working on in Wikipedia (take a look at User:Kesh for what mine looks like). That said, the information you posted to your user page is unsuitable for a Wikipedia article, and would likely be deleted. First, you have a conflict of interest in writing about your self, and autobiographies are discouraged. Second, the article is not written in a neutral tone, and comes across as advertising yourself. Finally, you don't actually cite any sources for any of this information, which is especially bad for biographies of living persons.
Basically, Wikipedia is not for self-promotion. If you feel you are notable enough for an article, I'd suggest making a request at our requested articles board for someone to write an article about you. Hope that helps! -- Kesh (talk) 10:31, 2 April 2008 (UTC)
And if you're looking for Liberal Logic is an oxymoron by Tara Mirling, that was speedily deleted as an opinion piece/essay, not even remotely suitable for Wikipedia. --Orange Mike | Talk 15:16, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] American cities

Which American city has most of Hungarians to live in? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.99.156.117 (talk) 09:46, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

Have you tried Wikipedia's Reference Desk? They specialize in knowledge questions and will try to answer any question in the universe (except how to use Wikipedia, since that is what this Help Desk is for). Just follow the link, select the relevant section, and ask away. I hope this helps. -- Kesh (talk) 10:33, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] I am not sure if my entry is fixed now

Hi again,

Thanks for your help about fixing my issue. I had asked about the problems that I had in editing this page:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computational_electromagnetics#Partial_Element_Equivalent_Circuit_.28PEEC.29

Now I re-edited it and added "edit summary" which I did not do last time. My questions are:

1. Is my entry now finalized? I am newbie and not sure whether my post is completely done and accessible for all or not. 2. Should I add my signature which is (I think!) "130.240.188.36 (talk) 12:24, 2 April 2008 (UTC)" to my post? How and where can do it? Will my post have problem without my signature? 3. I have added a reference (link to a web site) at the and of my post but it is does not work. My link does not appear in "references" part of the whole page and when I click on it the page will not redirected to that page. I followed instructions in Wikipedia help but it still doesn't work!

Regards,

Danesh Daroui

Hi, Danesh! You've added the section "Partial Element Equivalent Circuit (PEEC)" to the article Computational electromagnetics, and it's visible for all to see. I'm not sure how much of the rest of the article was written by you.
We don't put signatures in the articles. We put signatures on pages like this one here, and on talk pages (click the "discussion" tab at the top when looking at an article to get to its talk page) but articles can be edited by anyone so they count as collaborative efforts. The page history (click the "history" tab while looking at the article) shows your name to show that you contributed. Thanks for contributing to Wikipedia! Looks like an interesting topic -- I may come back and read that article when I have a little time! --Coppertwig (talk) 12:49, 2 April 2008 (UTC)


Thanks for your help. The issue related to the references is not solved yet. Can you please give me a clue about that too? My reference in that page still doesn't work.

Danesh Daroui (talk) 12:54, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

Hi Danesh, I have fixed the references for you - look at this diff to see what I did - [1]. I added {{reflist}} in the "References" section, this makes the inline references (like the one you added) show up. DuncanHill (talk) 15:01, 2 April 2008 (UTC)


Thanks! It works now. I found out what the differences are.

Danesh Daroui (talk) 19:09, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Signature

How do you make a signature that links to two or more things, such as Nick4404 yada yada yada, in which the Nick4404 links to your UserPage and the yada yada yada links to your TalkPage? --Nick4404 (talk) 14:12, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

Use:

[[User:Nick4404|Nick4404]] [[User talk:Nick4404|yada yada yada]]

See also Wikipedia:How to fix your signature. :) --PeaceNT (talk) 14:19, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

Now, how do I make it a different color and font? [[User:Nick4404|Nick4404]] [[User talk:Nick4404|yada yada yada]] (talk) 15:15, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

And, I think there's something wrong with it. [[User:Nick4404|Nick4404]] [[User talk:Nick4404|yada yada yada]] (talk) 15:16, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

That's better. Nick4404 yada yada yada 15:17, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

So, about that diff color and font... Nick4404 yada yada yada 15:20, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

Please...just don't. Multicoloured signatures just draw attention to the flashy signature and distract others from the valuable and insightful words words that you just wrote. Give your words the credit and respect they deserve—keep your signature plain and functional! On a more practical and less philosophical note, it's a bloody nuisance to try to edit a discussion where editors have multicoloured signatures because the comments are buried in HTML nonsense. I have seen a number of editors whose signatures span multiple lines in the edit window, and whose comments are regularly much shorter than their signature code. I have no respect for these editors. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 16:05, 2 April 2008 (UTC)
is this better? --grawity talk / PGP 18:14, 2 April 2008 (UTC)
And wouldn't "no respect" be a bit extreme? I can be bothered by certain things people do, without losing respect for other things they do. I too find customizable signatures to be largely a mistake - surely with all the problems remaining on Wikipedia, we have better things to do than frivolously monkey with our signatures. But for some reason lots of people like to monkey with their signatures, and according to Jimbo Wales the ultimate purpose of editing on Wikipedia is to have fun. As long as the fun doesn't sidetrack the encyclopedia project too much. --Teratornis (talk) 18:57, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Editing articles

If I add an article and someone else edits the article afterwards, will I be notified that someone has edited my article? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Constructionline (talk • contribs) 15:53, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia isn't set up to email you or actively notify you, but you can add an article to your watchlist. The watchlist, when you visit or refresh it, shows the most recent edit (and editor) of all your watchlisted articles. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 16:07, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Trouble with Save page

Hi,

Trouble editing this page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andreas_Öberg

After editing this text, such as bold and links, I press "Save page". The changes will go online, but only for a couple of hours, then they disappear and the text is back to "normal" again.

On "edit this page" everything seem to be correct, but again, after saving the page the changes will not last very long. On the "history" page I can't see any problem. I haven't found any answer to this problem in FAQ.

Perhaps someone can help?

Kind regards,

Hans 213.100.89.251 (talk) 16:15, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

Most likely, your browser is just pulling a cached version of the page when you visit it later. See the instructions on how to clear your cache here. That said, the article really doesn't look like it adheres to our policies and guidelines, specifically: WP:NPOV, WP:BLP, and WP:BAND, as well as WP:N and WP:V. You'll want to read those, and add proper references if this article is going to stay on Wikipedia. -- Kesh (talk) 16:26, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for your advice. Being a new user, where do I add proper references? Perhaps you can refer to a link (one of the above?)? I don't want this article to be deleted. Thanks. 213.100.89.251 (talk) 16:48, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

Check out WP:CITE. It can be a little tricky, so take a look at how some other pages formatted their reference tags as examples. -- Kesh (talk) 18:59, 2 April 2008 (UTC)
WP:FOOT (which WP:CITE links to) is our attempt to tell how to add references to articles as footnotes. (The basic instruction kit for references is: WP:CITE, WP:FOOT, and WP:CITET.) If you find something in WP:FOOT confusing, let us know, and maybe we can make it clearer. However, a lot of new users have tested those instructions by working through them, so I hope the instructions are getting pretty good by now. One of the great strengths of Wikipedia is that we document everything about how to make Wikipedia, and everybody who reads the documentation is free to improve anything they find unclear. Over time, this leads to some pretty good documentation, although the sheer volume tends to overwhelm new users at first. --Teratornis (talk) 04:02, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Problem adding references

I am a newbie and just can't find info on correcting the page Throughput Accounting where it sais "This article does not cite any references or sources. (June 2007) Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unverifiable material may be challenged and removed." at the top.

I have entered 4 references but the page still shows that the article does not cite any references or sources. Can anyone help this lost newbie. Thanks, TAUser TA User (talk) 16:20, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

  • Sure, the template is not removed automatically, it has to be manually removed. I'll remove it now. Cheers, Steve Crossin (talk to me) 16:24, 2 April 2008 (UTC)
Too late, I already updated the temp, to refimprove... = ) --Cameron (t|p|c) 16:26, 2 April 2008 (UTC)
  • Thanks for your help. TA User (talk) 20:32, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Gartner

In the spirit of transparency I wanted to let you know that I am Anthony Bradley an analyst with Gartner covering social software and April 2 I removed this link http://www.johnmwillis.com/tapscott/entperprise-20-all-the-kings-men-gartner-and-the-coase-theorem/ from the "External Links" section of the Gartner wikipedia article. I removed it because it is a bloggers opinion piece that has many factual errors (including an obvious error that Gartner analysts were gods in 1977 when even the wikipedia article (accrately) lists Gartner's founding year in 1979). I don't believe wikipedia (which I love) should be a platform for bloggers to promote their views. I can see exceptions made when propper citation and research attribution is evident. In general, with the social web, I beleive that correcting bad research with better research is the way to go vice deleting but I don't beleive, in this instance (or similar ones) that wikipedia is the right venue for those discussions.

Thank you, —Preceding unsigned comment added by 207.140.148.33 (talk) 16:30, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

Thank you for explaining your edit to the Gartner article. You may wish to read WP:COI and WP:EL. --Teratornis (talk) 18:42, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Thinker

This article is libelous and presents false information.

"daily extremist conservative internet publication"

We are not extremist, we are a mainstream conservative publication. Presenting this as fact is wrong. We do not advocate violence, overthrow of the Constitution or anything that could reasonably be described as extremist. Only someone who believes the entire GOPP is extremiost could think this. I challenge the author to present substantiation for this libel.

"The site frequently endorses controversial conservative commentators such as Michael Savage and Rush Limbaugh.[2][3]."

We do not "endorse" any radio commentators. We have barely mentioned Michael Savage in 4.5 years of publication. We do not "endorse" Rush Limbaugh either, though we often agree with him. While we are proud that he frequently reads from our articles on air, our standing in the world of internet journalism is based on much more than his readership.

I challenge the writer to show me any instance where we have "endorsed" either man

We have been quoted in publications ranging from the New York Times and Le Monde to Newsweek and the UK Telegraph. We are a serious publication, and widely recognized as such around the world.

Douglas Hanson has not been our national security correspondent for several months, as he has accepted an assignment which precludes his writing for the public.

Please feel free to contact me for further information.

American Thinker deserves a much more extensive article, as we are one of the most influential and respected political websites in the nation. We certainly do not deserve the publication of falsehoods fabricated to discredit us.

Thomas Lifson email removed —Preceding unsigned comment added by Thomaslifson (talk • contribs) 16:49, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

You seem to have removed those bits yourself, which, under WP:Libel you are allowed to do, why come here also? --Cameron (t|p|c) 17:08, 2 April 2008 (UTC)
I'm somewhat surprised to hear a conservative assert a claim to entitlement. I had heard only liberals believe in entitlements. How does American Thinker, or any other subject, "deserve" any particular treatment on Wikipedia? Wikipedia is entirely written by its unpaid volunteers, ordinary people who work on whatever they feel like working on. If American Thinker doesn't have a very good article on Wikipedia yet, that means nobody who has bothered to make the considerable effort to learn how to edit good articles on Wikipedia has yet taken an interest in catering to Mr. Lifson's sense of entitlement. However, see WP:DEADLINE. Wikipedia is a work in progress, and should continue to improve over the coming years, as more and more people roll up their sleeves and apply the good old-fashioned conservative values of hard work and self-improvement, by reading our friendly manuals and learning how to make Wikipedia better. On Wikipedia, there is definitely no free lunch. Everything here exists only because someone took it upon themselves to do the hard work necessary to build it. If it turns out that liberals are more willing to do that work than conservatives, well then I guess we're going to end up with some liberal bias here, if only in coverage rather than point of view. --Teratornis (talk) 18:30, 2 April 2008 (UTC)
I should point out that if my above response appears to border on violating WP:CIVIL, I get the idea from Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter that conservatives understand straight talk. (Disclamer: I lean toward conservatism on some issues, particularly some economic issues insofar as meritocracy goes, but decidedly not on the anti-science stuff. I'm also aware of the tragedy of the commons.) --Teratornis (talk) 21:46, 2 April 2008 (UTC)
From what I see in the edit history of the page, the word "extremist" was on the page from the 11-14 march.[3] --h2g2bob (talk) 22:04, 2 April 2008 (UTC)
Our Extremism article gives some interesting information. Almost no group calls itself "extremist"; the word is almost always exonymic and a pejorative. (Perhaps I should start a new organization: The Popular Front for People Who Self-Identify as Extremists, and see if anyone joins.) Thus the word "extremist" as an unqualified descriptor is not suitable for encyclopedic writing (sort of like the other extreme from promotional language). However, if some notable commentator called someone else an extremist, and we had a reliable source for that, then we could mention that with proper attribution. --Teratornis (talk) 03:43, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] How do I upgrade the eSignal entry from stub status (I am not the original author)?

Hi,

I hesitate to send this, given all the warnings on the previous page, but I would like to change the status of the eSignal entry in Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Esignal) to something above "stub" status and can't seem to find an article that would step me through the process.

I should note here that I am not the original author of the article.

Daniellegs (talk) 17:29, 2 April 2008 (UTC) Please advise, Daniellegs

I've removed the stub template since, very simply, it's not a stub anymore. As to giving it a new status, the majority of articles with a specified status or "class" are so assessed by a relevant WikiProject, and indicated as such on the talk page. Individual projects have their own assessment procedures. Someguy1221 (talk) 18:03, 2 April 2008 (UTC)
At the moment, eSignal has no talk page (Talk:eSignal is a red link), which means no WikiProject has claimed it yet by adding a project banner to the talk page. See WP:LAYOUT for some hints about how to further improve the eSignal article. For example, an obvious addition would be a "See also" section with links to similar software packages, or articles describing the general concepts behind the software that aren't linked elsewhere in the article. Also read Help:Link to learn how to link to our articles compactly rather than by pasting in entire URLs. --Teratornis (talk) 18:52, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] is this notable?

would a bus operating company be notable? it operates 20+ buses and even more other vehicles. cargo trucks and such. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.131.72.13 (talk) 18:54, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

Not for that, no. There are bus and truck companies all over the world, so simply having X amount of vehicles is not notable. -- Kesh (talk) 19:00, 2 April 2008 (UTC)
The only real guideline for notability is WP:N, or in this case WP:CORP. If it's been in the news, then it's likely to be notable. Confusing Manifestation(Say hi!) 22:42, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] ADDING A PICTURE

HOW CAN I ADD APICTURE IN AN EXISTING ARTICLE? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.157.155.77 (talk) 19:08, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

There are lots of ways; see Wikipedia:Images. And please don't use all caps when posting a comment. Someguy1221 (talk) 19:31, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Advice on knocking people out

Dear wikipedia. I am alarmed to find on your site advice on knocking people out, as seen on your reference desks. It seems almost like you are encouraging the questioner to carry it out. There are dozens of answers advising one of the best method to render someone unconscious. Do you stop to think that this kind of information could be used by a rapist, pedophile or criminal? Please take this down. Thank you. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.75.129.143 (talk) 19:42, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

Not going to happen..sorry. 1.) Wikipedia is not censored and 2.) There is nonsense all over the internet that people can use to research to commit crime. I think that would be enough to absolve responsibility. Wisdom89 (T / C) 19:44, 2 April 2008 (UTC)
Can you provide a link to the page where you found such discussions? What was the context? This is just out of curiosity, since it seems unlikely to me that violence is being encouraged. Leebo T/C 20:05, 2 April 2008 (UTC)
I found it. It seems to be this: Wikipedia:Reference desk/Science#alternative to chloroform. The question was not asking for advice about knocking people out. The questioner is a writer trying to come up with a less conventional plot device. Leebo T/C 20:08, 2 April 2008 (UTC)
Wikipedia also has an extensive collection of articles about small arms. In the wrong hands, this information can and does lead to things like the War in Darfur; however, criminals, warlords, etc. were obtaining this information long before Wikipedia appeared. We can only hope that with enough information, we can understand and eliminate violence. That might seem farfetched, but Google for Steven Pinker's lecture A Brief History of Violence (here, I'll help) for some surprising facts about how the per capita incidence of violence has decreased enormously over the centuries. That's no comfort for anyone who does fall victim to crime or war, of course, but it does suggest that social and intellectual progress tends to reduce violence more than increase it. Hopefully, Wikipedia can be part of that overall historic trend. --Teratornis (talk) 03:53, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] help locating topic

I asked a question about claustrophobia on what I thought was a science talk page. I can't find it. Maflint (talk) 19:54, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

Try WP:RD/SCI. weburiedoursecretsinthegarden 20:02, 2 April 2008 (UTC)
If it's not there, it might have been archived; try Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Science/March 2008 for last month's archive. weburiedoursecretsinthegarden 20:06, 2 April 2008 (UTC)
If you know which IP address or account was used then you can use Special:Contributions. PrimeHunter (talk) 20:39, 2 April 2008 (UTC)
Or maybe it is in these search results. —teb728 t c 23:00, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Checking user levels

Hi - I'd like to know if there's a way that I (or in practice a script of mine) can check whether a given user is a newbie (less than four days), a bot, or the like. I've searched Wikipedia as thoroughly as I can and can't find anything on this. Thanks! Pseudomonas(talk) 20:16, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

Special:ListUsers can be helpful. For instance, if you search for me, it’ll show you I am an administrator. Many other designations are indicated too. You can search within them, or just by name. Leebo T/C 20:28, 2 April 2008 (UTC)
That's true, but apparently "recently-registered-user" isn't one of the listed designations, and that's the principle one I want. Pseudomonas(talk) 20:33, 2 April 2008 (UTC)
You'll have to check the logs for individuals to determine when they registered and figure out if it's been fewer than 4 days. Most people don't have many log actions if they're new, and it would be the first one listed. Leebo T/C 20:35, 2 April 2008 (UTC)
There's no direct way to get at the flag that deals with people editing semi-protected articles and appearing in newbies' contribs? Pseudomonas(talk) 20:39, 2 April 2008 (UTC)
I don't know of a more automated process of determining new-user status. Such a flag may exist in the code that runs those functions, but I'm not aware of it. A developer might know, but that's as much help as I can provide. Sorry. Leebo T/C 20:42, 2 April 2008 (UTC)
Ah, well - thanks for the suggestion of doing it through the logs. I'll get cracking on that. Pseudomonas(talk) 20:44, 2 April 2008 (UTC)
You may already know about the API - it's usually very good, but the best I could get out of it this time was the account creation date. --h2g2bob (talk) 22:50, 2 April 2008 (UTC)
Some of the counting tools provide some portions of this data. For example, Interiot's tool tells you whether a user is a sysop and/or a bureaucrat or not. It also shows the date of a user's first edit. While a first edit may not necessarily correspond to the date of a user's account creation, it very often does; enough so that you can tell when most users' accounts are or are not yet autoconfirmed. I'm not sure if it would be useful for what you want to do. But I think you can see all approved bots, thus all having a flag, through Category:Wikipedia approved bot requests.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 22:56, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Make it bigger?

I have a picture on Wikipedia that I want to make bigger. It's a small picture and I want to get it up to at least 1000px. How do I do it? Here is the picture.


I am the uploader, if that helps any.Mattkenn3 (talk) 22:18, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

You'll have to do that on your computer (say, with Photoshop or something like that) then re-upload the picture. Calvin 1998 (t-c) 22:23, 2 April 2008 (UTC)
You will get poor detail if you do stretch it to 1000 pixels. Probably best to download a higher res from here (I presume that is where it came from, then someone cropped and rotated it). Astronaut (talk) 00:22, 3 April 2008 (UTC)
Yes, such a blowup would likely be too poor for Wikipedia mainspace. And Wikipedia:Image use policy#Displayed image size recommends a maximum of 550px for any image. PrimeHunter (talk) 00:28, 3 April 2008 (UTC)
PrimeHunter: The MoS is for the image displayed in the article, not the image itself. It's absolutely OK to upload an image more than 550px, just don't put it that big on an article. Calvin 1998 (t-c) 00:35, 3 April 2008 (UTC)
I know. The link says "Displayed image size" but maybe I should have said it more directly. However, I don't see a good reason to enlarge an image from below 550px to 1000px with the resulting loss in quality. But if you can get your hands on a good high resolution original then it's fine to upload. PrimeHunter (talk) 01:09, 3 April 2008 (UTC)
Indeed. You can make them as large as you want. Titoxd(?!? - cool stuff) 08:53, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

Sorry, didn't mean 1000. I meant at least 100.Mattkenn3 (talk) 00:58, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Bibliography on Wikepedia

I've been looking for a way to write a bibliography on wikepedia.org but have not found the information necessary. Would you please help me? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.251.160.143 (talk) 23:01, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

It depends. If you want to use Wikipedia to store your bibliography for a paper, then no as Wikipedia is not a file-hosting server. But if you want to cite reliable sources for an article, then Wikipedia:Citing sources will contain information you want. Xenon54 23:26, 2 April 2008 (UTC)
Also see No original research. However, depending on what you may be researching, you might find something useful under WP:EIW#Research. Be aware that lots of other wikis exist, and many other wikis accept original research, if that's what you're doing; see wikiindex:. If you tell us the subject of your bibliography, we might be able to give you some definite advice rather than this conditional branch advice. --Teratornis (talk) 03:21, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Image from German Wikipedia

I would like to use an image that is used in German Wikipedia here on English Wikipedia. What is the procedure for this? Thanks. Nick Graves (talk) 23:58, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

Since the image is on Wikimedia Commons, not the German Wikipedia (look closely at the page on the german wikipedia), you can link to it like any other picture by doing [[Image:Schmidt-Salomon.jpg]]. Calvin 1998 (t-c) 00:02, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Help editing the title of my page

I know this is won't stop searches from coming to my page but I would like to edit the main title of the page. For some reason (maybe during the initial search before creating the page), parts of the title is lower case and I would like it all to be upper case for proper formatting. How do I go about doing this? I went into Edit This Page but there wasn't a place to change the title but only the body of text.

The page is: "James irvine foundation" should be "James Irvine Foundation"

Grantmaker (talk) 00:08, 3 April 2008 (UTC)Grantmaker

Use the "move" tab at top of the page. PrimeHunter (talk) 00:12, 3 April 2008 (UTC)
(edit conflict) Hi, I fixed it for you - at the top of the page is a tab marked "move". I used this to move it to the correct capitalization, at James Irvine Foundation. DuncanHill (talk) 00:13, 3 April 2008 (UTC)


[edit] Willy on Wheels

How many sockpuppets does Willy on Wheels have? 124.176.173.188 (talk) 22:06, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

It's impossible to know given the number of impersonators he has. I checked the sockpuppet categories, and it seems it's not being kept track of at all, which isn't needed for a move vandal anyway. Someguy1221 (talk) 03:17, 3 April 2008 (UTC)
You can find lots of information about Willy on Wheels by using some of the sample searches in the documentation for the {{Google custom}} template. For example:
Perusing the search results finds quite a few mentions, for example:
But see WP:DENY - we aren't supposed to call attention to vandals. In any case, this question is probably not about using Wikipedia; if it's a general knowledge question, the Reference desk would be more appropriate; if you're actually having a technical problem with one of these sockpuppets, maybe you could try the Village pump. --Teratornis (talk) 03:31, 3 April 2008 (UTC)
Who's Willy? --grawity talk / PGP 14:15, 3 April 2008 (UTC)