Wikipedia:Help desk/Archives/2008 February 19

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[edit] February 19

[edit] bullets

Can you explain to me how to make bullets on wikipedia? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Lilija01 (talk • contribs) 03:00, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Hi

Hi, I found an article about a guy I know, but I am sure he is not notable enough to be mentioned in an encyclopedia. Please see Robert Gardiner. What should I do about this? Thanks. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.77.247.53 (talk) 01:10, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

First off, make sure you know what we consider to be notable. For people, we have a specific guideline at WP:BIO, however if he fails those criteria, the more general criteria at WP:N may also apply. If you don't believe he is notable (which does appear to be possible, just at a glance), here are some options:
  • Be Bold. If you can improve the article, do so! The main thing it seems to suffer from are a lack of references for verification, however there are also issues with a neutral point of view and possibly some other things as well. If you can edit the article to justify his notability and improve the style errors, there's no need to delete it.
  • Mark for cleanup. If you're not comfortable making these changes yourself, you can add cleanup templates to indicate to other editors that the article needs work. Again, if the problems are fixed, there's no need to worry.
  • Nominate for deletion. Deletion should really be a last resort, but if there is no chance of meeting our inclusion policies, this is the way to go. The best deletion procedure for this article would probably be Articles for Deletion, where editors discuss the merits and failures of the article in terms of our guidelines and policies to determine its fate. In order to complete the nomination, however, you will need to create an account. You may not be able to finish the nomination procedure until your account is at least four days old, as the nomination requires creating a new page. Alternatively, you can provide a valid reason for deletion here and we'll list the page for you. Please note, however, that there are certain arguments to avoid and you will also need to fully familiarize yourself with our deletion policy beforehand.
I hope this helps! Let me know if you still have any questions. Hersfold (t/a/c) 01:56, 19 February 2008 (UTC)


[edit] Query on "Did you know..." section

Dear Sir/Madam,

I just want to quickly understand how Wikipedia chooses these topics for the "Did you know..." sections on the front page. I do not visit Wikipedia as much as I would like, but this is usually a good source of general knowledge. I try to visit Wikipedia daily, and the "Did you know..." section serves as a very good starting point for me.

Thus my first reason for understanding how Wikipedia works on this subject. Does Wikipedia chooses the topics on that section automatically? or does it do so by certain editors or specific contributors? I generally find the site very well run, but recently on a couple of occasions, I find that there were feeds on Singapore that are downright mundane, but highly suspicious of mild propaganda to promote the city.

Today's example is: "did you know..... that during the construction of Centennial Tower in Singapore, the tower rose 20 storeys in just three months?"

I am only recalling from memory, but a few days ago, it was something like: did you know... that after the construction of Circle Line MRT, Singapore will have the highest density of railway per sq mile in Asia... or something similar. I do not remember the actual entry, but I hope you understand my point that this is entirely useless, very vague on information, and highly suspicious of self promotion.

What I wonder and worry about, is whether Wikipedia is being used as a base for some form of soft advertisement, whether there are any checks to guard against this, and what should we do if we start to see a worrying amount of propaganda, non-specific to any city/country?

Is it possible for Wikipedia or users to check if specific people (or IP addresses) are consistently promoting their interests on Wikipedia, or vice versa?

Thanks for your help and insight, Ian —Preceding unsigned comment added by FB002310 (talk • contribs) 06:08, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

Hi there! I've divided your post into three questions:
1) How does the "Did you know?" feature on the front page work?
  • There is a whole system behind submitting, writing, and posting DYK items which can be found at Wikipedia:Did you know.
2)What measures are taken to prevent the misuse of wikipedia? (as an advertisement, propaganda, so on...)
3)Is it possible for wikipedia users to check if specific people (or I{ addresses) are promoting their interests?
  • Each page on wikipedia saves every edit that is made to it in the Page history. There, every user or IP that has edited a page can be located. From there (or from the user's User page) the user's contributions can be found. From there editing trends can be discovered. However, it is wikipedia's policy to focus on content not conduct. As such, the articles are usually re-written or modified to remove the material in question.
I hope this helps! Welcome to wikipedia. If you have any other questions, feel free to post here or on my talk page and I (or somebody else) would be happy to help! Cheers! --omtay38 06:19, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Safari issues?

I'm not sure which obscure help page this question belongs on so I'm coming here with it... For the last week or so, whenever I come here to Wikipedia on either my G4 or my MacBook, the main page will not show me as logged in. Although, if I hit the log in link in the upper right of the page, all the usual links for my userpage, talk page, etc. will show up and everything else shows up as if I'm logged in. I'd think this was a cookie issue if it were just on one system but it's on both. I run Safari on both systems, so is there a new bug with Safari? Dismas|(talk) 09:37, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

Please see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Help_desk#Log_in_.2F_.27remember_me.27_problems and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Help_desk#Logging_in_2 on this page. 212.123.186.64 (talk) 09:46, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
Ah! Thanks! I should have searched first... Dismas|(talk) 09:59, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Vandalism

I was wondering how I could get rid vandalism. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Valtoras (talk • contribs) 11:06, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

This may help you out. STORMTRACKER 94 Go Sox! 12:17, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] How to export the picture file?

I am trying to export my articles on Wikipedia back to my personal wiki. It is easy to export the articles, but I can not export the pictures which are in these articles. Is there any way to export the pictures, including the introduction pages of pictures? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Abhaac (talk • contribs) 12:35, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

This question and the following one suggest you have your own personal wiki running on the MediaWiki software. Evidently you found the Special:Export (works on Wikipedia) and Special:Import (only admins can use it) features which allow you to easily export the text of articles from Wikipedia as XML code and import it on your wiki. Images, unfortunately, do not travel conveniently in XML format. I haven't tried exporting many pictures from Wikipedia yet; the few I have exported, I exported in the obvious but not clever way: right-click an image in Wikipedia, select Save image as... from the Web browser's context menu, then use Special:Upload on my own wiki. That's awkward but tolerable for a few images. If you want to import thousands of images into your wiki, then you will need a more efficient method. I have not looked for such a method but one must exist, because lots of people mirror Wikipedia and they can't be doing it by hand. You could start by reading WP:DUMP. Also, the Wikipedia Help desk is not the most appropriate place to ask questions about administering your own MediaWiki wiki. Instead you should ask at mw:Project:Support desk. Most of the technical information about running your own MediaWiki wiki is on two other wikis, and you can search them with Google by using the following two links from the Template:Google_custom/doc#Examples#examples on the {{Google custom}} template page (you may want to bookmark these search links):
For example, you can search both wikis for "how to export images":
Some of those search results may be relevant to your question. --Teratornis (talk) 17:59, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] How to set the editing permission of guest?

I am trying to build my personal wiki site, and I got a question. For an administrator, can I prevent the articles from the editing of un-login guests? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Abhaac (talk • contribs) 12:39, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

Yes. Wikipedia:Page protection says that semi-protection can be done for "User pages, but not user talk pages, when requested by the user." So any admin should be able to do this for you. I suggest waiting a few hours to see if any admin responds to your question here, and if not, then listing your user page at Wikipedia:Requests for page protection. Semi-protection means that users must be logged in with accounts at least 4 days old to be able to edit. Your account is more than 4 days old, so you will still be able to edit. --Coppertwig (talk) 13:52, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
People say "wiki site" about different things. Coppertwig assumed your question was about your user page User:Abhaac here at Wikipedia. I guess it is about your own wiki unrelated to Wikipedia but using the same MediaWiki software. See mw:Manual:Preventing access. PrimeHunter (talk) 15:56, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Wikipedia's Maps

Hello, I was seeking a map of Europe, c.1710, after the War of the Spanish Succession besides the ones provided on that article, and I decided I needed to make it myself. So my question is what program is used to create a lot of the maps on wikipedia that look like the one below?

--24.177.120.98 (talk) 14:07, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:WikiProject Maps. PrimeHunter (talk) 15:46, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Manually updating signatures after change of username

I am in the process of changing my username. Since I have been active on some talk pages, my (old) signature is scattered all over the place. WP:RENAME states:

  • This change will not affect signatures you have already left on talk pages, or other places where you signed your username with ~~~~. Those pages will continue to display your signature (including the link to your old username) unless edited manually.

However, I could not find any guidelines on how acceptable it is to manually update these signatures. I guess it should be no problem for user talk pages (expect old vandal warnings, which are not important) and article talk pages, but what about archived discussions (on all types of talk namespaces)? For the time being, I will be maintaining a link (such as {{Doppelganger}} or {{UserUsur}}) from my old username to my new one, but I might eventually decide to erase it. Any opinions or precedents would be appreciated. CounterFX (talk) 14:09, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

I wouldn't worry, just change it on non-archived versions (as many as you can) and nobody will be bothered about the archived ones. Just put a link to your new userpage at the top of your old one so people can get to the right place (or even redirect it). Thanks, George D. Watson (Dendodge).TalkHelp and assistance 14:27, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
A lot of people consider making a lot of minor changes like that disruptive. User:White Cat has done that at least twice now, and he's been reported to WP:ANI both times. I would suggest that you not bother. Corvus cornixtalk 00:24, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
You may do it, especially if the rename was for privacy reasons. However, if you don't really care about it, having your old username as a redirect would suffice. Prodego talk 00:27, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

Thanks all three for the advice :-) There was an obscurity concern behind it, but only slight. I guess I could restrict myself to just the archives which are likely to be referred to in the future (such as talk pages of contentious articles). CounterFX (talk) 00:43, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

I read the discussion at White Cat's (here and here). In my case, the change is not merely cosmetic, since I might eventually severe the link between my old username and my new one, in which case it would no longer be straightforward for editors reading the archives to contact me. Again, this need only be done on archives which are likely to be revisited at all. CounterFX (talk) 00:57, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Offensive Edit summaries

Not sure if anything should be done for use of offensive edit summaries [1]) Vivio TestarossaTalk Who 14:29, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

I'm pretty sure accounts can be blocked if it happens too much. Thanks, George D. Watson (Dendodge).TalkHelp and assistance 14:32, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
I've dropped him a moderately-worded note on his talk page. If he persists, you'll need to file a report at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard. --Orange Mike | Talk 14:44, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
Or you can report at WP:AIV. Note that reports are normally not acted upon unless the person has been warned up through a final warning. Accordingly, if it becomes necessary, you can follow up the now second stern warning with a final warning and report if the same conduct continues thereafter. I do not believe there is a dedicated final warning for inappropriate edit summaries ( but see WP:UTM and the templates there in "level 4" for the general format of a final warning ({{Uw-npa4}} is close for this conduct).--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 15:04, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] How can I find a question and answer that was posed by a coworker of mine about a month ago?

How can I find a question and answer that was posed by a coworker of mine about a month ago?198.57.13.68 (talk) 15:04, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

First you can search the help desk archives, which are ordered by date. As you scroll between the pages that are about the right date, you can use your computer's find function (usually accessible by hitting cntrl+f) to search for text that was in the question, the section header, or your friends username or ip address. You can also hit the history button at the top of this page and again use find to search for your friend's post by username or ip name. Finally, you can go to the same history, find a date you think is a few days after your friend's date of posting, then click on the linked date which will show you the help desk as it existing on that date, and just scroll for the question, which should not yet have been archived at that time. A final option: you can use Google to search the help desk.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 15:12, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
The Google method is pretty nice as it tolerates misspellings and variations on word stems. Plus we have a nice {{Google help desk}} template to make it super-slick. For example, if your co-worker has an account, and thus a user talk page, and you can think of some distinct search keywords in the question and answer, you could leave a message on your co-worker's talk page with the {{Google help desk}} template, like this:
--Teratornis (talk) 08:16, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Flickr review template?

Is there any equivalent to the Commons {{flickrreview}} template here on en? In particular, I'd like some way to tag an image as correctly licensed, in case a Flickr user later decides to delete the image or change the license on Flickr after it's been uploaded here. —Bkell (talk) 16:30, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] water pressure and surges

Iam trying to get back to a question i asked on aboutjanuary 14th.2008 and the replies thatwere made.how can i accessthis?robd —Preceding unsigned comment added by Robdoc77 (talk • contribs) 16:57, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Reference_desk/Science&diff=prev&oldid=185887863 here is one reply, scroll through the page versions to get the others.--KerotanLeave Me a Message Have a nice day :) 17:25, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Online library

how to get connected to online library59.96.203.55 (talk) 17:38, 19 February 2008 (UTC)shekar

It seems your question escaped notice because you typed it without a separate heading, so I added one. You did not specify which online library you want to connect to. You can find lots of books or booklike things on Wikibooks, Wikisource, and Google Books, for starters. If that's not what you mean, then see: {{astray}}, as you may be confusing Wikipedia with a library mentioned in one of our articles that we have nothing to do with. --Teratornis (talk) 08:22, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Single/Double spacing after period

I know it is an issue of personal preference, but would editing articles for the sole purpose of changing them to your preference, be considered disruptive? Astronaut (talk) 17:42, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

It makes no difference to the rendered page whether there is one or two spaces after a period, so it would be pointless to edit a page just to change it. Is somebody doing that? Sometimes a dummy edit can be useful to make an edit summary, and changing number of spaces is one way to make a dummy edit. Or is this about rendered spaces made with &nbsp; or another method? PrimeHunter (talk) 18:37, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
It does seem pretty pointless to me too, but an IP is indeed going round adding an extra space (regular space chars, not nbsp or something else), with no edit summary. I just find it creates an unnecessarilary large difference listing that is distracting when I look for potential vandalism. Astronaut (talk) 20:12, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
If it's recurring then have you tried politely asking them to stop? Who is it? PrimeHunter (talk) 22:07, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
Not yet - I wanted to find out whether it was generally considered disruptive or I was just being a bit picky. If you're interested, I first noticed it in this edit and then a couple of hours later I was looking at this edit and thought that IP address looks like the one from earlier. Astronaut (talk) 01:24, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
Most of the edits I looked at also made real and sensible changes. It didn't look like anything negative was intended and I have posted a friendly note at User talk:24.11.114.86. PrimeHunter (talk) 16:47, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Deleting warnings

Is a user allowed to delete their warnings and templates from their talk page, or do they have to keep them for others to see? User 79.215.119.195 just deleted his 2 warnings, and I was wondering if this was allowed.

Thanks very much! -- Blake01 17:45, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

No. It is considered bad practice to remove vandalism warnings from one's talkpages. It also causes confusion if the vandal carries on causing trouble, and further users and bots give out warnings, thinking the user hasn't been warned before. I'd revert the edits to bring back the warnings, and drop a note on his/her talkpage saying the removal of warnings is frowned upon. Lradrama 17:51, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
Thanks - all sorted now! -- Blake01 18:03, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
OK, no problem. :-) Lradrama 18:04, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
This is accepted practice yes, but I always thought that the removal of a warning may be viewed as the user understanding and acknowledging said warning, basically blanking it in good faith. Afterall, blanking the warnings does not actually remove them from Wikipedia. Wisdom89 (T / C) 18:42, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia:TALK#User talk pages says: Users may freely remove comments from their own talk pages, though archiving is preferred. They may also remove some content while archiving some. The removal of a warning is taken as evidence that the warning has been read by the user. Bovlb (talk) 20:29, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

See also Wikipedia:Don't restore removed comments. Bovlb (talk) 19:32, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] ISBN links

Hi How do you make the ISBN links? I don't see any code when I go to edit this page.

Also,

Where is the little diamond (?) in the code for posting pictures? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 139.135.111.64 (talk) 17:53, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:ISBN.
Which diamond? See Help:Images and other uploaded files for how to post pictures. PrimeHunter (talk) 18:24, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Coordinates

Resolved.

How do you get coordinates on your user page, like at the top of Grimsby and other location articles? Thanks, George D. Watson (Dendodge).TalkHelp and assistance 18:23, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

The practical usage of coordinate markup in Wikipedia is described in the style guide for geographical coordinates. For use on maps and other services, parameters may also be required. A complete entry could for example be: {{coord|51|28|40|N|0|0|6|W|type:landmark_scale:2000_region:GB}} See also: Obtaining coordinates. Good luck! ~RayLast «Talk!» 18:52, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
Yeah thanks! I used a slightly simpler version but I wouldn't have found it without your help. Thanks, George D. Watson (Dendodge).TalkHelp and assistance 19:12, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Contacting members of Wikipedia casually

Where do I go to contact members of Wikipedia with unrelated Wikipedia comments? I just want to say a few things regarding similar interests... Do I post it on their discussion board, or would that be frowned upon? - tbone (talk) 18:26, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

You may do such a thing, but bear in mind WP:TALK - you can give general comments, be friendly, give a compliment, but whole conversations are usually frowned upon. Some users make their email addresses available, so that is another route. Wisdom89 (T / C) 18:39, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
Also see Wikipedia:Emailing users for details about the latter. Wikipedia users can set their preferences so you can e-mail them, but this does not reveal their e-mail addresses to you. It's possible for two users to correspond by e-mail without actually learning each other's e-mail addresses. Of course users can voluntarily divulge their contact information to anyone they choose. All the usual cautions about contacting strangers over the Internet would apply, of course. --Teratornis (talk) 08:09, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Suggestion

I'd like to know where and to whom I can submit a suggestion, which would be a pretty big overhaul of the user talk pages system used by Wikipedia. I have noticed that users always struggle with this when commenting and replying in user talk pages. When someone leaves a comment, do you reply on their talk page or on your own? If you do it on your own, will they see the reply? Have they set your talk page for watching? The result of this is almost always having half a conversation on one page and the other half on another page. Sometimes they even duplicate messages on both talk pages.

My suggestion is to have each comment section in a type of "template" in some Wikipedia Comments database, while only adding tags to all user talk pages of those who have participated (left a comment) in the section. Whenever someone edits the comment, they can do it on their own talk page, and even when it seems thay are editing their talk page, they are actually editing the template, so the changes will appear in all pages who have the tag. This way the full conversation will be visible in all user talk pages, and will never be duplicated. Every comment would have an ID (e.g. 00215468) and its template page has everything including the title, all messages and a list of all users who have commented on the section. When a user chooses to add a section to any user talk page nothing will be apparently different since the interface would remain the same, but they will be creating or editing a "template" without openly realizing it.

An example tag that would be included in user talk pages could be something like this:

{{Comment:00215468|title=Suggestion}}

Everytime the comment is edited, all users listed for the comment will receive the "new message" notice.

This would not apply for article discussion pages since it is better to keep those attached to their articles like they are now.

Where can I submit this suggestion? Thanks! ~RayLast «Talk!» 18:54, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

You can send suggestions to Bugzilla, where developers and interested users can review and vote on your suggestion. Hersfold (t/a/c) 19:35, 19 February 2008 (UTC)


Discussion of technical changes can also be done at the Village Pump/Technical. Something like this sounds like a good idea. Exactly as phrased, I'm afraid it will be difficult to implement. You may want to check out User_talk:Alphax/Threads for a possible implementation. JackSchmidt (talk) 19:45, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
Talk pages may be in for a complete overhaul with LiquidThreads. I have no idea how this might affect user talk pages specifically. We have a big problem with talk pages in general that it's hard to monitor for replies on talk pages other than one's own user talk page, especially on article talk pages where replies may take days or weeks to appear. The whole talk page mechanism in MediaWiki is kind of an opportunistic hack, albeit a clever and very useful one. That is, the MediaWiki software designers opportunistically added talk pages by basically re-using wiki page technology, rather than using modern threaded discussion technology. LiquidThreads might give us the best of both, although I wouldn't want to be responsible for the probably nightmarish job of upgrading Wikipedia's millions of existing talk pages from the current format. --Teratornis (talk) 08:05, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Use of company name in a definition

Hello,

I have noticed that some company names appear as "providers" of technical solutions within a defition of a specific technology. I was under the impression that listeing providers (in the promotional sense) was not allowed. Specifically several of my company's competitors are listed as providers and we are not. I'm curious as to your policies about this. 64.119.142.198 (talk) 20:11, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

Our policy on advertisements is at WP:SPAM. If you provide a link to the article in question, we can take a look at the situation. Hersfold (t/a/c) 20:29, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

Here's the URL for the article I'm referring to: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_asset_management

Specifically, the providers section.131.239.45.198 (talk) 20:35, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

The section was removed by another user. Looking at the history, you were correct in bringing this up. Thanks! Hersfold (t/a/c) 21:22, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
That whole article's a mess; but at least now it's a somewhat less spammy mess! --Orange Mike | Talk 21:27, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Minot, ND page

I have tried to change the nickname of Minot, ND back to the right nickname, but something keeps putting the wrong name in. The wrong name that keeps getting put in, says the queefed city. Why does that wrong nickname keep staying in they?

Please change it back to the right nickname, which is the Magic City. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 165.234.210.59 (talk) 22:03, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

Somebody vandalized the page. See Wikipedia:Vandalism. Thanks for fixing it. PrimeHunter (talk) 23:08, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Six degrees of Wikipedia

Out of interest, has anyone got a working link for the Six Degrees of Wikipedia tool ? (On the article, the link provided [2] does not work, and I haven't managed to find any working one.)

Thanks. -- Xedi (talk) 22:11, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

I have no idea, but Wikipedia talk:Six degrees of Wikipedia#Status of tools says that link has been broken for a while. If you don't get an answer here, you might start a new comment at the bottom of that talk page. Also, this is an encyclopedia so no hair is too small to split in our quest for correctness: WP:6DOW is not an article, but only a page. --Teratornis (talk) 08:34, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] List of solar eclipses

Hi. Yesterday I tried to edit the antiquity section, but I ran out of time and I messed up the table. Can someone fix the table so I can keep adding more another time? Please do not remove any of the information, unless there is a single entry that only has one piece of information and it is not possible to align it into a table. I think I may have added the wrong number of | s or maybe I added an extra | - || - || - . Please help correct this error. Thanks. ~AH1(TCU) 22:10, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

In [3] you made a short row for November 24 2037 BCE, and forgot |- to indicate a new row. I fixed it with empty cells and |- in [4]. Can you add more to the short row? PrimeHunter (talk) 22:25, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_S._Truman PORN!!!

When the fifth grade class at our school was doing presentations about the presidents of the U.S. one of the little girls clicked on the link <en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_S._Truman> from google She becane the innocent victim of PORN! and Hate pictures. I've already asked our IT director to block this page. Do we have to block the entire site to prevent other such incidents?! Don't you have any regulatory procedures to prevent things like this.... it's no better than a blog! Anybody can put anything. KKirkl08 (talk) 22:22, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

It's definitely been fixed, probably almost immediately after the porn and hate pictures were added. The chances are the girl saw the article in the couple of minutes before an editor found out. There are procedures in place to prevent this from happening again. I am currently requesting semi-protection of the page and I apologise most sincerely on behalf of Wikipedia. Thanks, George D. Watson (Dendodge).TalkHelp and assistance 22:40, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
Note that you can get the active version of the page by clicking "Permanent link" at the left-hand toolbox on an unvandalised version - this is the most recent "stable" version at the time of me writing this post. x42bn6 Talk Mess 22:47, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

You are correct: in a narrow sense, Wikipedia is "no better than a blog" -- at any given instant. You should not permit a child to use Wikipedia any more (or less) than you should permit a child to use the Internet. Wikipedia is in fact the "encyclopedia that anyone can edit." This means that at any given instant, an article may have been edited by a nut-case, a vandal, an extremist, a fundamentalist, a ten-year-old, a conservative, a liberal, a pederast, a priest, or ... anyone. The only thing that distinguishes us from a random blog is that most edits are scrutinized by other editors, so most truly incorrect information is removed very quickly. But we are a purely volunteer operation, so any given article may retain incorrect information for a long time. In addition, many of our more than 2,000,000 articles contain information that many parents would consider inappropriate for children. Conclusion: Do not let children access Wikkpedia any more than you let them access the open Internet. Wikipedia is in general more accurate than other encyclopedias (online or off-line) but the user must understand the way Wikipedia works. I have three daughters. I permit them unrestricted access to the internet, but I discuss the consequences with them. -Arch dude (talk) 03:35, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Licensing question

I don't know if this is the right place to ask this sort of question, but it didn't seem to fit into any of the Reference Desk categories. If I was to include information from Wikipedia into a research paper/term paper, would I need to cite it? I am wondering because of the license under which it is released, the GNU Free Documentation License, because it implies that the information is free, which leads one to believe that it can be used without credit to those who contribute to it. Flaminglawyer (talk · contribs) 22:44, 19 February 2008 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Flaminglawyer (talk • contribs)

That isn't how we define free. We still require credit. I would however suggest not using material from a tertiary source such as wikipedia or pretty much any encyclopedia in a term paper.Genisock2 (talk) 22:54, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
If you want to read the whole license, you'll see that it says you are free to use the content, as long as you abide by the license (as opposed to fully copyrighted material, which you can only use under explicit license from the copyright holder or in small parts under fair use doctrine). See Wikipedia:Citing Wikipedia to see how to make citations. Confusing Manifestation(Say hi!) 23:38, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
You're allowed to use it and it would be best to cite it. In reference to Genisock's comment, I remember reading that encyclopedia Britannica has more errors than Wikipedia so it's actually a pretty reliable source. Thanks, George D. Watson (Dendodge).TalkHelp and assistance 00:17, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
You remember wrong.Genisock2 (talk) 12:47, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
Note that facts cannot be copyrighted, only the words. License issues don't come into the picture at all if only you want to use Wikipedia as a reference. In other words, rewrite it in your own words. • Anakin (talk) 14:20, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

Be careful. Almost all material on Wikipedia is fully protected under copyright law: if you use it without a specific license, then you are in violation of the law and are subject to statutory fines of up to $150,000 USD per violation in the United States, and of equivalent fines under the Berne convention in almost all other countries. Therefore, you should be very careful to use the material only if you have a valid license from the copyright holders for each individual instance of your use of copyrighted material. Wikipedia has more than 6,000,000 contributors, each of whom can claim a copuright interest in some portion of the Wikipedia corpus. Fortunately for you, Wikipedia refuses to accept material unless the copyright holder grants a license that anyone can use the material under a fairly liberal license. That License is the GFDL. If you comply with the GFDL, then you are OK. If you do not comply with the GFDL, then you expose yourself to lawsuits: 6,000,000x$150,000 x the number of copys... that's a fairly large exposure. I recommend that you comply with the GFDL if you intend to use material from Wikipedia. Let's personalize this: I have made almost 10,000 edits to Wikipedia. I personally own the copyright to each of these edits. If you use any of my edits without complying with my license (i.e., the GFDL,) I can sue you. -Arch dude (talk) 03:08, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Category:Non-talk pages that are automatically signed

There are quite a few pages in that category that are, indeed, talk pages, which the name implies shouldn't be in there. Maybe a category should be started: "Category:Talk pages that are automatically signed" ? F-L-c 23:04, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

Those pages can actually be removed. Unless there's a {{bots}} or {{nobots}} template on the page, SineBot will monitor the page automatically. Hersfold (t/a/c) 01:38, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] table help

Resolved.

Is it possible to make two tables float, one on right, one on left, on the same line? such as on the main page? How? F-L-c 23:22, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

Nevermind, I got it. F-L-c 23:32, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] a section I put some info into has been declared vandalism????

I added a chunk of stuff I have about the history of the london to brighton run. It got deleted. Was I putting it in the wrong place. Also I had difficulty adding a figure in the middle of the text. What should I do. Login name sabresix. regards Geoff Cooper —Preceding unsigned comment added by Sabresix (talk • contribs) 23:42, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

Am I right in guessing that the text you added to London to Brighton Veteran Car Run is something you copied from a copyrighted source? I suspect it was deleted because the other editor thought it was a copyright violation. —teb728 t c 00:05, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

- Well it was written by a chap called Eric Parsons but he died a few years ago. It was written for the magazine of Surrey Sporting Motor Club which has disbanded. I am the only person with the text on my computer because I was editor of the magazine and typed it up into a readable form. It contains a lot of interesting facts and I thought it worth airing for the benefit of others as the stuff that was currently on Wiki was very sketchy. There is nothing contentious and it adds some background info. Regards Geoff —Preceding unsigned comment added by Sabresix (talk • contribs) 00:19, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

Just because the author died doesn't mean that it isn't still copyrighted (in fact I believe that the typical time scale for copyright is 70 years past the author's death in the UK). You may want to use the article as a source, and paraphrase its content in the Wikipedia article, with a citation (see WP:CITE to see how you can do that). Oh, and as an aside, while it is not uncommon for people to call Wikipedia "Wiki", it's technically incorrect - there are many wikis, and if any of them has claim to the name "Wiki" it's the original WikiWikiWeb. Confusing Manifestation(Say hi!) 03:14, 20 February 2008 (UTC)