Wikipedia:Help desk/Archives/2008 January 15

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[edit] January 15

[edit] my blocked ip

hi i noticed my ip address was blocked from editing again. I dont have anything against this as my brothers friends like vandalising wikipedia. That is why i created my own name. But i Have one question could the admins block me because of people on my ip like to vandalise? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Tuxthepenguin933 (talk • contribs) 00:39, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

This could happen automatically: see WP:autoblock. Other than that, unless you reveal it, there's no way of linking your ip address to your account, so you won't get any non-automatic blocks. Algebraist 00:48, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Sorry

Just a sort of factual question. Does the English WP use British or American spellings in articles? Or is there any consensus?Wikilost (talk) 00:50, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

Hi there! At the moment, no, not any consensus; generally, go along with what dialect is already established in the article; also, if the dialect is about a geographical location, try to use the dialect corresponding with that location (for example, British English for Britain, Canadian English for Vancouver, etc.). See Wikipedia:Spellchecking, and here for more information. Cheers, Master of Puppets Call me MoP!☺ 00:55, 15 January 2008 (UTC)
  • (edit conflict) Mainly, it depends on the subject of the article. If the subject is American or from somewhere else American spellings are prevalent, American spellings are used. Otherwise, British spelling is used. —Travistalk 00:59, 15 January 2008 (UTC)
    • And if the topic has no inherent geographic nature, then it's simply based on who created the article (which is why we get these lame edit wars when cranky Americans want to change the name of the article Orange (colour), which was begun by an English speller). See WP:ENGVAR for more on this topic. --Orange Mike | Talk 14:37, 15 January 2008 (UTC)
If we take the view that computers exist to serve humans, rather than the other way around, then obviously a well-designed World Wide Web would adapt itself to the user's preferences, rather than requiring the user to adapt him/herself to one fixed state of the system. MediaWiki already has the capacity to localize (localise) to various languages; an obvious future improvement would be to localize/ise to variants of a given language. English is not the only language with this problem. If the edit wars resulting from deficiencies in our software are "lame," then the software deficiencies that predictably generate the edit wars are equally lame. Humans are diverse, and that diversity includes lots of lameness, so software design must account for human limitations. This is the basis of the field of ergonomics, to design for real imperfect humans, rather than imaginary superhumans. --Teratornis (talk) 19:30, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Posting Multiple Photos

This is my first attempt to post anything on Wikipedia.

I grew up in the subject Frank Lloyd Wright designed Edward Serlin house, watching it being built and even meeting Mr. Wright several times. I then listened as the story of the house was told time and time again to various architectural students and historians.

I have recently recovered a trove of old photos, some taken by my father and some by me (some with Mr. Wright in them) that were lost for several decades. I am sure these will be fascinating to fans of the Frank Lloyd Wright Usonian Home and want to post several of them. Is this possible? I seem to be over-writing each previous posting when I try a new one. —Preceding unsigned comment added by David Serlin (talk • contribs) 00:51, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

Yes. We have an easy to use upload form at Wikipedia:Upload and you can see Wikipedia:Images for information in general about images. There is also Wikipedia:Uploading images if you need help with the upload process. I also see that you're having trouble posting multiple images - be sure that you are giving a different filename for each one. Come back here if you're still having trouble. NF24(radio me!) 01:13, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] what is gish and fish technlogy? how is it used?

can you explain the principle behind the fish and gish technology? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 122.163.7.20 (talk) 00:57, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

Hello! Thanks for using the Help Desk; however, please only ask questions about using Wikipedia here. If you'd like to ask a question about specific knowledge, please try the reference desk. Thank you, Master of Puppets Call me MoP!☺ 00:59, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Auto-archive bots.

Hi. I've read that there are three bots which auto-archive talkpages: MiszaBot, ClueBot III, and MercuryBot. What are the differences between them? Which one is best? In other words, which one is prone to the least errors and stays up the most often? ☯  Zenwhat (talk) 01:39, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

  • I, for one, was hoping that someone with more experience with the three bots you listed would respond. All I can say is that I employ MiszaBot III to archive my talk page and, for the most part, I’m satisfied. I don’t have any experience with the other two, however. —Travistalk 03:55, 15 January 2008 (UTC)
Jimbo uses MiszaBot III. • Anakin (contribs • complaints) 15:00, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

Please see the logical fallacy Argumentum ad Jimbonem. ☯  Zenwhat (talk) 20:22, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] site doesn't always recognize logged-in contributor

It has happened more than once that I have logged in, made changes or major edits, checked previews, fine-tuned my contribution, only to have a BOT revert all my work and accuse me of vandalism. I don't appreciate this; I am a highly-trained professional of many years' experience and my time actually is valuable. I took on the rewriting (nothing less will do) of two major articles, with several minor articles as offshoots, which require much research and correlation of information. To have almost an hour and a half of work undone is not acceptable. There is a glitch in your program. And it takes time to hunt through various pages to contact Wikipedia. YOU really have to simplify this.Freiherrin (talk) 06:12, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

Replied on your talk. – Luna Santin (talk) 07:14, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Threads or agreement etiquette?

I read somwhere that the colon used to indent a comment is meant to mean something, such as, if they are the same indent it's in agreement, and is a thread thing. I thought it was to distinguish one comment from one above in a section of talk (as in desk answers) so the number is not important. Now I'm curious – what's the wiki style? Julia Rossi (talk) 06:58, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

Some discussions might be broken up into rough sections (formally or informally) -- requests for adminship subpages tend to be divided into support, oppose, and neutral comments, for example. Speaking generally, though, I'm not aware of any sorting method of that nature. The general idea as I understand it is that we'll end up with threaded discussion: someone replying to me would use ::, people replying to those comments would use :::, and :::: to reply to those replies. In practice, of course, it rarely works so perfectly -- I suspect everybody has their own ideas of what exactly the indents should be used for. There are usually better things to worry about. ;) – Luna Santin (talk) 07:20, 15 January 2008 (UTC)
All cool then, many thanks. Julia Rossi (talk) 09:47, 15 January 2008 (UTC)
The one time when a comment may have less indentation than one it's replying to is when the person chooses to "de-indent" on purpose, usually because the comment "cascade" has gone so far that it is likely to be pushing up against the right edge of some people's screens, resulting in hard-to-read text. At that point, they may choose to drop back to somewhere between 0 and 2 colons again. Confusing Manifestation(Say hi!) 03:46, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Extra pages on user page

Is it allow to build extra pages on user page for weeks and months as it get googlelised, like on this one ? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Simon_D_M

Thank you --Agenor 77 (talk) 08:15, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

User sub-pages are certainly allowed (and are encouraged for things like Archives). The sub-pages need to follow the same rules as the main User page. Those rules are described here.—Noah 08:46, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Most wanted Accused in Gujarat

I want to get Gujarat's Most Wanted List also those Accused who are absconding in diffrent Case —Preceding unsigned comment added by 220.225.156.67 (talk) 09:16, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

Greetings this section is for answering questions on how to use wikipedia (see bi-iig red banner at the top of this page). Try putting some of your topics in the search box top left side of page. Julia Rossi (talk) 09:52, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] mgt501 question:

The “One-On-One Selection Interview” is irremediably flawed because

it offers too much scope for the exercise of prejudice and favoritism. a) To what extent do you agree with this statement? b) Discuss alternatives to one-on-one selection process. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 118.107.137.21 (talk) 09:41, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

See what wikipedia is not in intro box, and we don't answer assignment questions. (edit add: this section is about using wikipedia in case you need to know.)Cheers, Julia Rossi (talk) 09:48, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Changing a headline

Dear... Is it possible to alter a "headline"? I've just altered information about a danish company, that is now called "NNE Pharmaplan" instead of Novo Nordisk Engineering. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 152.73.54.255 (talk) 12:08, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

Pages are renamed by moving them to new target names. This procedure preserves the page's edit history. If your account and it is at least four days old, you can move a page yourself; go to the article and click on the move tab at the top (near the history and watch tabs). You can then specify a new name for the article. The old page name will automatically become a redirect to the new page. However, if the desired target page name already exists, you will need an administrator to move the page for you, which can be requested at Wikipedia:Requested moves. Hope this helps.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 12:25, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] reliable sources and quotations...

Hello, I'm new here... I built a new page for Giacomo Marramao, a professor of mine who asked me to do it but the page has not yet been "wikified": there are 2 warning notes saying that the article does not quote reliable sources and that there are no internal links. How can I do it? My professor gave me his bibliography, complete with ISBN codes, and I copied onto the page, thinking there were all the necessary information needed by Wikipedia. But it seems it is not so! Please help me! Thanks

Dreammy —Preceding unsigned comment added by 192.167.199.170 (talk) 13:07, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

Hi. The templates placed on the article Giacomo Marramao both contain links to pages that will help you figure out how to do it. (Links show up as colored text.) The guidelines in the first template of note are Wikipedia:Manual of Style, Wikipedia:Only make links that are relevant to the context and Wikipedia:Build the web. Those three documents will give you some advice on organizing your article and on determining what terms in your article might need to be wikilinked to other articles. Wikilinks connect articles inside Wikipedia and exist so that a reader of your article who wants to know more about an important point can easily find out more by clicking on the word. As far as sources are concerned, the guidelines are Wikipedia:Citing sources, Wikipedia:Verifiability and Wikipedia:Reliable sources. I can't quite tell but assume that bibliography refers to books that the professor has written. The article needs sources for his biographical information. Can you provide reliable sources to verify both that he did this (At the beginning of the 1980s he was co-founder of influent magazines like "Laboratorio politico" and "Il Centauro".) for instance, and that the magazines are influential? Those are the sorts of things being requested. Hope this helps. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 13:51, 15 January 2008 (UTC)
Since this person asked you to write the page, I would recommend reading over WP:COI as well to familiarize yourself with any potential conflicts of interest that could arise from your working on that page. I don't think editing on its own is an issue since your affiliation is not entirely direct but it is a bit of a gray area.--Oni Ookami AlfadorTalk|@ 14:26, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Quick Question

Resolved.

I noticed that when viewing the page history of a protected page the rollback button remains in place (whereas the undo button does not appear), I assume if I click it that I'll just go to a screen saying something like "action restricted to admins" but have no real way of testing this without potentially misusing the tool. So I was just wondering if someone with greater knowledge of how things work could confirm it for me (there is no mention of protected pages at either Wikipedia:Rollback policy or Wikipedia:Rollback feature). Regards, [[Guest9999 (talk) 14:12, 15 January 2008 (UTC)]]

No rollback feature enables an edit that would normally be prevented based on the user's permissions. So long as you are not an admin, the rollback feature should not work through page protection, and it should work trough semi-protection so long as you meet the criteria for editing the page.--Oni Ookami AlfadorTalk|@ 14:24, 15 January 2008 (UTC)
Thanks for the quick (and informative) response. [[Guest9999 (talk) 14:28, 15 January 2008 (UTC)]]
Anytime. A rollback is basically just a shortcut that takes away the manual need to provide input by clicking save/etc. Otherwise its just a normal edit.--Oni Ookami AlfadorTalk|@ 16:02, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Checking if my edits were reverted

How can I find out which of my edits over the last couple of years has been reverted? Not just so I can contest them, but also know if I did something wrong. ----Seans Potato Business 15:55, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

You may go to the page and check its edit history. Also, the page may have been added to your watch list (see the set of links on the upper-right of each page). If it is not on your watchlist and you cannot find it, check your user contributions (also linked above) for a link to the edit.--Oni Ookami AlfadorTalk|@ 16:01, 15 January 2008 (UTC)
You have a lot of contributions. I don't know an automated way to search for edits that were reverted. PrimeHunter (talk) 16:35, 15 January 2008 (UTC)
I would find such a tool useful, but there are people that I wouldn't trust with such a tool. Bovlb (talk) 19:00, 15 January 2008 (UTC)
Fortunately, we don't have to trust anyone on Wikipedia, other than Jimbo Wales who has the final say. There is the somewhat similar WikiBlame tool; that suggests it should be possible to write a tool that track the eventual fate of all our edits. I think it would be useful as a learning tool, for example when a new user writes something "unwiki" and other users come along later and wikify it. If the new user is not aware of what other people did to his or her work, then he or she is likely to edit something else which will require just as much cleanup. It would also be interesting to know, along with our raw edit counts, how many surviving edits we have made. --Teratornis (talk) 17:32, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] page not showing

Resolved.

Hi

I created a page a couple of days ago and yet it is still not showing in the search.

Will it show up later?

regards

Gandhilove —Preceding unsigned comment added by Gandhilove (talk • contribs) 16:05, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

You created a user page, rather than an article. A user page's purpose is to describe a user, and is linked to their signature; however, they do not show up in the search unless the User: prefix is used. See Wikipedia:What is an article? for more information. You can move the page into the article namespace by clicking on 'move' on the top of the page to remove the User: prefix from it, as long as your account is at least 4 days old; however, check that the page meets verifiability and notability guidelines before doing so. Hope that helps! --ais523 16:07, 15 January 2008 (UTC)
Your user page User:Gandhilove has not been indexed by Wikipedia search yet so it doesn't show up in user space searches either. PrimeHunter (talk) 16:42, 15 January 2008 (UTC)
Notability seems to be established, so I have gone ahead and moved the article for you to Glenn Harrold. It still needs quite a bit of work to be a bit more neutral though.--Oni Ookami AlfadorTalk|@ 16:49, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] same name

We need help on a name question. Currently, under the listing for "The Voltaires" you have a U.K.-based band listed that formed in 2004. We would like to list our U.S. band, also "The Voltaires" in that listing, or in a different listing of its own. Our band formed in 2001; we have a CD ["all about her"] that came out in 2003, and we can be found on the website www.thevoltaires.com. What do you suggest we do? We don't really have a problem with the existing listing, but we certainly want to be included in Wikipedia. Thanks for your help!

17:43, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

Please read WP:BAND and WP:COI before creating an article on your band. If you decide to create one, I guess the obvious thing to do is to create it at The Voltaires (US band) and put a 'see also' link (created by {{otheruses4}} for example) at the top of The Voltaires. Perhaps The Voltaires should be moved to The Voltaires (UK band) as well, but that can wait until we see if you article avoids immediate deletion (the fate of so many new articles). Good luck! Algebraist 18:06, 15 January 2008 (UTC)
(EDIT CONFLICT)You could list the band at The Voltaires (US band) or something to that extent and put a disambig on the current page. However, I urge you to consider these things first. Please read over WP:COI as it is generally not acceptable to have someone write about a person/organization/band/company/etc if it is them, or if they are directly associated with it. If the band meets wikipedia's music notability criteria (and at first glance it looks like it does) you could request that someone else make the article at Requested Articles or Articles for Creation. Each one of these pages has its own policies and practices noted at the top so make sure to read each one and decide which one fits your situation best. --Oni Ookami AlfadorTalk|@ 18:11, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Is this vandalism?

A user, not participating in any content discussion, notices a dispute bordering on editwarring and performs a massive revert, part of which cannot be undone because of WP:3RR, but for a large part destroying perfectly good edits that are not in dispute. Can/should this be considered some form of vandalism? He refuses to replace this massive edit with separate edits and leaves. How should we proceed? Regards, Guido den Broeder (talk) 19:12, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

While it may be in bad form, and be extremely lazy, it is not vandalism, though there are other ways to deal with the problem. I would strongly suggest an RfC on the article right NOW before the problem gets any worse.--Oni Ookami AlfadorTalk|@ 19:17, 15 January 2008 (UTC)
Does RfC not require that both sides first try to solve the issues themselves? What if one side does not wish to attempt this? Guido den Broeder (talk) 19:35, 15 January 2008 (UTC)
You are aware that 3RR only applies to 3 reverts within a 24 hour period? Arthena(talk) 19:47, 15 January 2008 (UTC)
RfC requires that an outreach has been attempted. If you try to get the other party to listen to your side of things and they don't bother, oh well. An RfC will still bring people to the page to develop consensus one way or the other and that article looks like it needs it bad.--Oni Ookami AlfadorTalk|@ 19:49, 15 January 2008 (UTC)
There used to be more editors on this article, but they have given up. If the RfC does not help, I'll probably resign as well and let the pov-pushers have their way. Guido den Broeder (talk) 10:12, 16 January 2008 (UTC)
I don't understand how WP:3RR prevents changes from being undone. If it's the right thing to do, then someone else will do it. Wikipedia has no deadline. Bovlb (talk) 20:04, 15 January 2008 (UTC)
It does because a someone else does not show up. Nobody has responded to the RfC either so far. The point, however, is that since this massive revert other edits have been made, so technically a revert is simply no longer possible.
@Arthena: 3RR is not a free pass to make three reverts every 24 hours. Guido den Broeder (talk) 10:05, 16 January 2008 (UTC)
I did not suggest making three reverts every 24 hours. Since you wrote that he left (i.e. not coming back), it sounded like only one revert might be needed. But it seems I don't really understand the situation. Arthena(talk) 11:58, 16 January 2008 (UTC)
A revert now would destroy numerous later edits. Guido den Broeder (talk) 14:13, 16 January 2008 (UTC)
Just copy down those edits, revert, and re-insert those edits yourself. Problem solved. -- 68.156.149.62 (talk) 21:16, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Help on Userpage?

Hey there,

Can someone help me on the bottom of my userpage? It's mainly cut and paste, and I'm not too great of a coder. I just want my userboxes spread out into the large, blank space at the bottom right of the page along with where they currently are.


Thanks,

Perfect Proposal Speak Out! 19:41, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

I think that part of the problem is < div > tags not being closed properly. For the userboxes, you can just remove the userbox top/bottom that surrounds them, and then put several on a line together (maybe 3 to a line). Then there needs to be some fiddling with tags and table markup to stop it going off the end of the page. Hang on, I'll have another look...--Kateshortforbob 22:37, 15 January 2008 (UTC)
On second thoughts, it may be easier to put the userboxes into a table, which is how I display my own. I've created a temp copy of your userpage here (hope you don't mind). All the code is the same, except I've removed some of what I think is table markup, which was making a few things sit funny, and put the userboxes into a table, which seems to be spreading them out a bit. Did you want them just on the right hand side of the page or all across? If it's not what you were looking for, let me know or ask here - I'm by no means an expert, and I'm sure lots of people here could sort you out! --Kateshortforbob 00:16, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Searching for an Article

I created an article 5 days ago and its still not showing up in the search.

Thanks

Motocross14906 (talk) 20:08, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

Perhaps you could tell us the article, and the search string you're using. Bovlb (talk) 20:17, 15 January 2008 (UTC)
Probably the Honda CRF150R and Honda CRF150F. It usually takes at least a week Motocross, and sometimes as much as 2 or 4 weeks. --TheDJ (talk • contribs) 21:04, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] How long does it normally take...

When you write an article on Wikipedia, notwithstanding notability and verification processes, ow long does it normally take to start seeing that article appear when you type in the name on engines like Yahoo Search or Google? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.186.177.108 (talk) 20:43, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

As long as those search engines need to re-index Wikipedia. It could be anything from a few minutes to a few months. Stwalkerster [ talk ] 20:45, 15 January 2008 (UTC)
I do know that deleted articles generally exit the Google cache after a bit over a week, so the same timeframe would probably be reasonable for new articles as well. --tjstrf talk 20:49, 15 January 2008 (UTC)
This question comes up from time to time, and it generally takes a couple of days to show up on the internal search engine but probably about six or seven days to appear on Google. NF24(radio me!) 20:52, 15 January 2008 (UTC)
One way to test Google's indexing delay empirically is to scroll back through your Special:Contributions and search Wikipedia with Google for phrases you added. Your most recent addition that Google currently finds would indicate an upper bound on Google's indexing delay at that moment. --Teratornis (talk) 17:15, 16 January 2008 (UTC)
I tried this and found one of my edits from January 11, but the Google search does not find one of my edits from January 12 yet. Thus the Google indexing delay appears to be around 5 days right now. --Teratornis (talk) 17:24, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] new article

How do I begin writing an article about a new subject that is not on wikipedia?

Thank You Very Much

Holmesj3 (talk) 22:22, 15 January 2008 (UTC)JMH

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 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. NF24(radio me!) 22:24, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] putting stuff onto ipod using wikipedia

how do you put all the stuff wikipedia talks aboout onto your ipod? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.2.182.90 (talk) 22:24, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

Well, you can't put the text on the iPod (unless you intend to view it on another computer and are using your iPod as an external hard drive) but some articles have spoken versions (see Wikipedia:Audio) but you will have to convert the ogg file into an AAC or another iPod-friendly file. (See the Computing reference desk if you need help with that). Good luck! NF24(radio me!) 23:03, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Strange Page with Ampersand in Title

I did some work on the article for the band Jason & the Scorchers.

The incoming link Google returns is: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jason_&_the_Scorchers (I got it with http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=jason+%26+the+scorchers&btnG=Search)

But the page that gets edited when I work on it is: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jason_%26_The_Scorchers

I am never able to edit the page that the link from Google takes me to, and it doesn't seem to pull up the info on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jason_%26_The_Scorchers.

Any ideas? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 12.171.197.29 (talk) 22:40, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

Hello there and welcome to the Help Desk! Now, about this issue; if you look closely, you'll notice that the difference between the two articles is that the 't' in 'the' is capitalized. Now, you'll always end up at Jason & The Scorchers because Jason & the Scorchers (note the capitalization) is a redirect page; you can view it here. Essentially, redirect pages try to remedy common spelling mistakes (for example, Barak Obama is a redirect to Barack Obama). Hope that helps, Master of Puppets Call me MoP!☺ 22:47, 15 January 2008 (UTC)
There are two issues. One is the redirect Master of Puppets just explained. The other is that the ampersand is represented by the string %26 in the actual web page address. If you click the "edit" button directly from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jason_&_the_Scorchers, it takes you to http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Jason_%26_The_Scorchers&action=edit, but when you save the edit, it shows up in the correct article (I know, I just tried it). If you go to that article from the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jason_&_the_Scorchers link again, you'll see the change. I'm not sure why you aren't getting your edits to work; from your contributions, it looks like you haven't edited an article since August 2007. Please try again, and let us know here if your edits are still not showing up. --barneca (talk) 22:54, 15 January 2008 (UTC)
I understand what you are saying but it still seems like something is a bit off. If you copy and paste the url: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jason_&_the_Scorchers into the address bar of your browser, you get something different than if you browse to: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jason_%26_the_Scorchers. This is also what happens if you browse from the link on the results page in Google here: http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=jason+and+the+scorchers&btnG=Google+Search The page that comes up from using the link from the google results is the page that can't be changed via the edit button. That is the one with the old info that I'm trying to get to go away in lieu of the updated version. --68.63.20.124 (talk) 05:09, 17 January 2008 (UTC)
It's the same page with the URL written in two different ways. One of them has converted & to %26 per Help:URL#URLs in external links. They look the same to me and clicking the "history" tab at the top shows they have the same edit history. Maybe your browser has cached an older copy of the page for one of the url's. This will probably result in different times at the bottom of the window where it says "This page was last modified ...". Try bypassing your cache on both url's and say whether the same content is displayed. PrimeHunter (talk) 05:28, 17 January 2008 (UTC)
I don't think it is a cache issue. I have cleared them and tried on two different computers in both IE and Firefox. Did you follow the link from the google search results? If so did it display the page with the infobox and contents box? If it did then that is the correct page that I made edits to. The one I get when browsing from the google search results does not contain these items, it is still the old pre-changed page. If you search and go the page from within wikipedia you get the correct updated page. Something very strange due to that ampersand I believe. --68.63.20.124 (talk) 05:37, 17 January 2008 (UTC)
I see the infobox in both cases. There are some ISPs which sometimes cache pages before the page gets to the customer. If you have such an ISP then you cannot bypass the cache and will get an old version until the ISP updates it. Can you try another ISP? Did you try clicking history on the two pages? The latest edit currently has edit summary "(Undid revision 184589954 by Barneca (talk) test done)" and is from January 15 or 16 depending on your time zone. PrimeHunter (talk) 05:58, 17 January 2008 (UTC)
Ah, well maybe it is just me then. If you are seeing the correct page both ways then maybe it is some kind of ISP caching on my end. The history tab on both pages takes me to the same place (showing the Barneca revision last). But I figured that was because the ampersand gets URL encoded when clicking that link. As long as people are able to arrive at the updated content that is what matters most. I'll check back in a couple of days and see if the pages display correctly for me. --68.63.20.124 (talk) 06:10, 17 January 2008 (UTC)
I too see the page correctly at both addresses, and have an edit button at both, and did yesterday too. I didn't know the problem PrimeHunter describes even existed, but it seems a reasonable explanation to me. --barneca (talk) 13:05, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Is there a place I can turn to when another editor accuse me of violating wiki policies?

Seems silly to bring this to arbitration. Is there a resource that review if a section violates any wiki policies? I brought it up in the talk pages but it wasn't resolved. The problem I have is if I am indeed violating WP:SPS, NOR, NOT#PUBLISHER, NOT#FAQ, NOT#CBALL and others all in one short section, then I really need to educate myself better before I do anymore edits. I have read and believe I fully understood those policies. Can you more experienced editors shed some lights on this? Here's the section in Mean Time Between Failures

MTBF is not to be confused with life expectancy. MTBF is an indication of reliability. A device with a MTBF of 100,000 hours is more reliable than one with a MTBF of 50,000. However this does not mean the 100,000 hours MTBF device will last twice as long as the 50,000 MTBF device. How long the device will last is entirely dependent on its life expectancy. An 100,000 MTBF device can have a life expectancy of 2 years while a 50,000 MTBF device can have a life expectancy of 5 years yet the device that's expected to break down after 2 years is still considered more reliable than the 5 years one. Using the 100,000 MTBF device as an example and putting MTBF together with life expectancy, it means the device should on average fail once every 100,000 hours provided it is replaced every 2 years. Another way to look at this is, if there are 100,000 units of this device and all of them are in use at the same time and any failed device is put back in working order immediately after the failure, then 1 unit is expected to fail every hour (due to MTBF factor).

The source I used was from a course reading material from Carnigie Mellon University.

http://www.ece.cmu.edu/~ganger/ece546.spring01/readings.html

http://www.ece.cmu.edu/~ganger/ece546.spring01/papers/mtbf.description

NYCDA (talk) 22:59, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

I can't comment on the subject (well, I could, but not coherently), but I can see why some editors may be concerned with the source, which looks like it was originally from a FAQ newsgroup message, which is, I suppose, technically self-published. I read once that newsgroup postings aren't supposed to be used for verification, but I can't find where. I'm not sure where crystall-ball gazing is, unless it's referring to the discussion of life expectancy. I do think that the passage needs some editing: the sentence beginning "Another way to look at this is" could maybe be re-written.
As for arbitration, as far as I know, that really is the last step. I see that there's already been a request for comment initiated by yourself in December with discussion by 3 or 4 editors, but I'm not sure how many (any?) of them were previously uninvolved in the dispute. I note from a quick skim that several of those editors disagreed with you. Is there a related Wikiproject where you could request outside views? As the disagreement seems to focus on a source, you could try the reliable sources noticeboard for guidance or even mediation. ArbCom seems unnecessarily tortuous for anything but the most serious disputes, and I'm not sure a request would be accepted without going through these steps.
By the way, I assume you're talking about the article Mean time between failures (different capitalisation). Mean Time Between Failures is a redirect pointing, oddly, to Failure rate.--Kateshortforbob 00:42, 16 January 2008 (UTC)
Not any more it isn't (that was a relic of a period when Mean time between failures was a redirect, btw). Algebraist 08:16, 16 January 2008 (UTC)
I know about using Usenet FAQs as reference which is why I have made many attempts to find other sources. But my understanding of NOT#FAQ is the wiki is not to be written as a FAQ, not FAQ can't be used as a source. NOT#PUBLISHER = wiki is not a place for publishing your works which I believe I did not do. WP:SPS, it's pretty obvious I didn't published the Usenet FAQ so I don't see how this is self-published-source and as for WP:NOR, if the wiki is in line with it's reference material, it's can't violate NOR right? This is where my problem is, do I have a wrong understanding of those policies? NYCDA (talk) 16:42, 16 January 2008 (UTC)
Edit: No editors have raised any concern with the source. As far as I know, I'm the only one with any concern with using Usenet FAQ as source. NYCDA (talk) 16:44, 16 January 2008 (UTC)
SeeWP:SOURCE. It explains what a verifiable source is and why a usenet FAQ is not a reliable source. Its a self published source that is not subject to any scrutiny. Anyone could create and publish such a source with little to know factual basis and pass it off as correct. For the specific section I am referring too see WP:SPS--Oni Ookami AlfadorTalk|@ 16:48, 16 January 2008 (UTC)
I already said I know about using Usenet FAQs as a source. There are other sources but the FAQ sums it up best.
PS I found the helpme template. Please reply to my talk page. Thanks. NYCDA (talk) 17:02, 16 January 2008 (UTC)