Wikipedia:Help desk

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December 23

Removal of speedy deletion tags

Hello, I've nominated Yung Boss Records for speedy deletion, and it was speedy deleted. However, the creator of the page removed the tag himself. In response, I've placed a made-by-myself warning on his talk page, but I don't know if that's the exact thing to do when such thing happens, so please, instruct me. Also, when he removed the tag, I placed it again, which I'm not sure is right, so if it's not, please, forgive me. And sorry for any grammar/spelling mistake. Victao lopes (talk) 01:02, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

If the article definitely needed to be deleted, then you can keep the speedy tag there. Well, the article is deleted now, so it doesn't really matter.   jj137 ^♠ 01:03, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

There are already warning templates for removing speedy tags. See {{Uw-speedy1}}, and see Wikipedia:Template messages/User talk namespace for these and many other warnings. PrimeHunter (talk) 01:25, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

(edit conflict) The note that you left is fine. :) There is a hierarchy of template warnings that can be used in such circumstances, beginning with {{uw-speedy1}}. The first time, we assume good faith as many people don't understand the deletion process. If it continues after proper notice, we're probably dealing with avoidant vandalism, and beyond a certain point such a user should probably be reported to WP:AIV. Restoring the notices is definitely the right thing to do when the creator removes them. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 01:28, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

Thank you! I'm gonna use those tags from now on. Goodbye and Merry Christmas.Victao lopes (talk) 01:37, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

Template help

I've just added a new template to List of spaceports and it's had the effect of collapsing the template that was already in place. I want to make the original template come up expanded. There is some stuff in the docs about a "state" parameter which is supposed to allow you to do this, but I can't figure it out. I've tried this before too, and it never seems work. Can anyone help and tell me what syntax I need to use? Matt 03:32, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

I have fixed this. If {{Navbox}} is used more than once with the default state parameter then all navboxes on that page are collapsed by default. List of spaceports has the template {{Spaceport}} which uses {{Navbox}}. The state parameter in Navbox cannot be directly accessed by List of spaceports which only calls it indirectly through {{Spaceport}}. However, Template:Navbox#Other describes how to add a state parameter to a template which uses Navbox. I did that to {{Spaceport}} in [1] and then used the new state parameter [2] in List of spaceports. PrimeHunter (talk) 04:17, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

Great, thanks! Matt 12:10, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

Copyvio misbehavior

What is the proper avenue to report a user who repeatedly and purposefully uploads the same copyrighted image after it's deleted? —Preceding unsigned comment added by TheBilly (talk • contribs) 04:08, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

See WP:EIW#Copy for all the mind-numbing details. A quick skim shows WP:COPYVIO which says:

• Contributors who repeatedly post copyrighted material after appropriate warnings will be blocked from editing to protect the project.

Unfortunately, that page lacks a link on the phrase "appropriate warnings" to a page that explains exactly how to issue said warnings. When we figure out where that phrase should link, we should edit WP:COPYVIO to display that link. --Teratornis (talk) 05:31, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

Ah, well, what I was dealing with specifically is a user who is uploading an image which is obviously the same and editing it back into the same article, repeatedly. It's apparent that his action is deliberate, based on the large number of warnings (by bot) on his talk page, and the edit history of the article (where it is frequently deleted, edited out, and he restores it). The image would probably qualify if he provides a valid fair-use rationale for this non-free image (a screenshot), but despite numerous apparent warnings he's been simply ignoring this advice and doing as he pleases. Since he's had 5 or 6 warnings I put a "last warning" template on his talk page already, and for the moment he seems to have ceased, but if he were to continue in the future I'd like to know how to handle this (I only want to stop his disruption by making sure a strong message is sent, not vindictively get a user "punished"). Does this sort of thing go in AIV too, with vandalism and spam? Or is there a different avenue to handle users repeatedly uploading copyrighted content? TheBilly (talk) 19:39, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

"Repeated uploading of copyrighted material" is most definitely a type of Vandalism. So, yes, you can report it on AIV if the vandal is a repeat offender and the vandalism is current. —Noah 20:03, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

Display of ‐

User:Leandrod has changed hyphens to ‐ (this displays as a square on my computer) in a number of edits such as http://en.wikipedia.org/enwiki/w/index.php?title=Robert_Dudley%2C_1st_Earl_of_Leicester&diff=prev&oldid=130526028 (his edits include other changes too). He tells me that my computer is at fault in displaying ‐ as a square. Is my computer at fault? Does everyone else see a dash or something else other than a square? If so, how do I fix my computer? I'm using IE6 and encoding is set to Unicode (UTF-8). (After I get my display sorted out, I will look at why Leandrod has even replaced the hyphens with "dashes". Seems wrong to me.) For my correspondence with Leandrod, see User_talk:Leandrod#Hyphens_changed_to_.E2.80.90 and User_talk:Nurg#Dashes. Nurg (talk) 04:27, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

It displays correctly on my IE7. I don't know how to fix it for you and only have time to give a link to Wikipedia:Manual of Style#Dashes. PrimeHunter (talk) 04:33, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

It's a square on my computer, too. This is a very common problem and usually arises because the character is in a font that your computer and mine don't have installed. Generally, it's better to use normal typographic symbols than something alegedly "better" but which a proportion of readers won't be able to read. AndyJones (talk) 13:44, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

The "‐" character displays correctly in my IE7 (except in that yellow hint text that pops-up now and again, where it displays as a square), but it is not the regular "-" (hyphen or minus) character found on UK & US keyboards. The problem is I can think of no good reason for User:Leandrod to have made those particular edits. The same user has also made similar edits previously, and the matter is mentioned on their talk page several times here, here, here, here, here and here. Looks to me like that user has a real thing for changing hyphens/dashes etc. to the ones they consider correct.

The manual of Style is somewhat ambiguous on the subject, but, I think we should stick to one kind of dash/hyphen/minus/endash/emdash and that's the one you get by typing the key immediately to the left of the "=" on US & UK keyboards.

Astronaut (talk) 19:41, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

Thanks folks. I haven't found the MoS too ambiguous on the subject and I have no problem with endashes and emdashes – I just create them using the insert function below the edit box. And I'm sure that in some cases Leandrod is correctly changing hyphens to endashes or emdashes. But when a hyphen is required, it surely should be the one used at WP:HYPHEN (which does not display as a square on my, or probably any, computer). Nurg (talk) 11:00, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

Creating a template

Moved to WP:VPP.

Syntax problem

Moved to WP:VPT.

pls help!

Hi,

I would like to know whether i can add a few extra information on another new page about an existing article by another user? Plovinda (talk) 07:16, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

Hmmm... I'm not quite sure what you mean, but you may be looking for Article Talk Pages. If you're looking to edit an article, all users are welcome to make constructive edits to Wikipedia.

Hope this helps,

Perfect Proposal ^{Speak out loud!} 16:59, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

Archive vandalism

I have just discovered that an act of vandalism or re-engineering of one of my edits to a talk page occured prior to archiving of that section. As I cannot now correct this and it gives a completely false impression of my edit and is an attack on my character, (the correct edit should be easily confirmed on the historical page for that date), How do I get this Corrected, before more damage is done Jagra (talk) 08:28, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

Tis true that archives should not generally be edited but there is no electric fence and your desire to correct a vandalistic change to your edits is perfectly understandable. I would go ahead and edit the archive page; change the text back to exactly what it said when you originally wrote it, including the original timestamp and below make a bulleted or indented note saying something like "the above edit was changed to say something I never wrote, please see this [http://URLofDiff this diff].--~~~~" If you don't know what a diff is, please see WP:DIFF. Cheers.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 15:05, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

If you post the relevant links here then I or somebody else could look at it. PrimeHunter (talk) 20:14, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for comments I would prefer though if some-one independent could investigate and carry out the correction as I have no access to the past history. The vandalised item is herein Talk Herpes Zoster under item Complementary Therapies originally added by me on 25 June 2007 but another post by another one time only User:65.11.249.253.(possibly a sock puppet!) on 31st July 2007 interposed under the same heading above mine. Howevever much of his apparent text appears now below his signing and therefore runs into my text on line 32 giving any reader the impression that I posted that portion and therefore support the fringe science content there in. Whether the merging of the texts occurred at the time of posting the second edit or subsequently should be evident from the page history. As well as correcting the vandalism I would like to know how it occurred and who was responsible but the history of the Archive is no longer accessable to me. Jagra (talk) 22:36, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

If you click on a username or IP address then you either get to their contributions or (as in this case) a page where you can click "User contributions" in the toolbox to the left. It shows the IP made this badly formatted edit before the talk page was archived, so it's in the page history of Talk:Herpes zoster and not in the history of the archive. I will fix the archive. PrimeHunter (talk) 23:14, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

I made the fix: [3]. By the way, previewing that fix told me I had a new message: [4]. I'm an administrator!!! And 24 minutes into December 24 in my time zone and country (where Christmas gifts are given December 24). Warm thanks to everybody who supported me! Now, which of these new buttons don't permanently delete the help desk... PrimeHunter (talk) 23:40, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

Hey congrats. I rarely monitor RFA but I would have supported of course. We need more help desk regulars who are admins!--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 23:54, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

Congratulations PrimeHunter I'm sure it was well deserved and Merry Christmas to you and others on the Desk, and also thank you for sorting out the vandalism so promptly Jagra (talk) 02:58, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

islamic nations

How many muslim nations/ muslim majority nations are there in the world ?

This is a general question not about wikipedia, please redirect your question to the Wikipedia:Reference desk. SKYNET X7000 (talk) 10:36, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

The World Factbook lists the percentage of citizens in each nation who labor under the major superstitions. --Teratornis (talk) 18:14, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

See Majority Muslim countries. PrimeHunter (talk) 20:10, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

Finding arbcom investigation/decission

I am trying to find any info about what arbcom did/ruled over this situation and what the outcome was: [[5]] --58.111.143.164 (talk) 10:36, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

If the outcome is somewhere in the Wikipedia: namespace, you can search for it. --Teratornis (talk) 18:22, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

I don't know whether arbcom has published about this. The final version of your linked section is [6]. PrimeHunter (talk) 20:04, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

Translation

I WANT ESSAYS IN ENGLISH. THEN I HOW TO USE THIS WEB SITE.

CAN YOU TRASLATE FORM ENGLISH TO SPANISH AND VICE VERSA?

There's translation templates on this Wikipedia:Template messages/Talk namespace section, scroll down and you'll find the translation template. SKYNET X7000 (talk) 12:57, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

The question does not seem to be related to articles needing translation, which is what those templates are for. If the editor is asking if Wikipedia automatically translates articles into other languages, then the answer is no. However, there are multiple other language Wikipedias, and each article may have versions on a number of them. When you visit an article, on the left side will be a box that has alternate language version links, that you can click on to take you directly to the article in that language. Hope that helps. Ariel♥Gold 16:42, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

The {{Google translation}} template can automatically translate between some languages, with somewhat readable results. For earlier examples from the Help desk archive, see:

• Wikipedia:Help desk/Archives/2007 November 21#translations
• Wikipedia:Help desk/Archives/2007 October 19#Translate article
• Wikipedia:Help desk/Archives/2007 October 13#Wikipedia translations

For example, this template code:

• {{Google translation|en|es|http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portada|The Googlefied Spanish Wikipedia}}
• produces this link: The Googlefied Spanish Wikipedia

From the translated page, one can browse around the Spanish Wikipedia, with Google dynamically translating each new page into somewhat readable English. --Teratornis (talk) 18:34, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

does wikipedia provide web services?

hello, i want to ask about wikipedia, does wikipedia provide web services like google, amazon, and msn? so it could be used by another web application.

regards'

serj husen.

This is as close as you're going to get. -Wooty [Woot?] [Spam! Spam! Wonderful spam!] 13:46, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

VISHNUSAHASRANAM

Translation from Sanskrit to Kannada language

Seshadri

There are translation templates you can use via this link Wikipedia:Template messages/Talk namespace, it may be useful to you. SKYNET X7000 (talk) 15:37, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

The question may not be asking for articles needing translation into English, which is what those templates are for. If the editor is asking if Wikipedia automatically translates articles into other languages, then the answer is no. However, there are multiple other language Wikipedias, and each article may have versions on a number of them. When you visit an article, on the left side will be a box that has alternate language version links, that you can click on to take you directly to the article in that language. Hope that helps. Ariel♥Gold 16:43, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

How to embed select wiki content on websites

Would you please provide me information or link to ducoments of "How to embed Wiki custom content in a web site".

Thanks —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.19.232.98 (talk • contribs)

Your question is ambiguous because:

• You do not define what you mean by "wiki content." Many people who are new to wikis use the word incorrectly, often to refer to a particular wiki such as Wikipedia. You might mean you want to re-use content from an existing wiki, or perhaps you want to start your own wiki.
• The phrase "a web site" covers an extremely broad range of possibilities. There are millions of different Web sites, and webmasters use hundreds if not thousands of different types of software to create them. How you would add content from some wiki to some web site would depend on the respective technologies, file formats, etc., that each of them use.

If you want to re-use content from Wikipedia, start with WP:DUMP and WP:MIRROR. Exactly how you would go about this on whatever web site you have in mind is too complicated to explain on the Help desk. The easiest (but not cheapest) solution would be to hire a competent system administrator, who should either already know, or be able to figure out, what to do. If you want to do it yourself, you'll need to read: How to ask questions the smart way. The simplest way to "use" content from, say, Wikipedia on another web site would be to simply link to it. --Teratornis (talk) 18:08, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

My Page

Hi I created a page for Scottish Singer/Songwriter Nikitta Angus at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikitta_Angus ! On other arists articles such as Leona Lewis their is a box on the top right hand side with a picture and backround information. I was wondering if it was possible to put that on Nikittas page. Thanks.

Yeah just copy and paste the box from another singers page, and modify the information to the singer in question. Hope this helps, Rt. 15:52, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

Template:Infobox Musical artist is the template page your looking for, with all of the options. AndrewJDTALK -- 16:16, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

I put my request right at the top of the page and no-one saw it

Resolved

 – The correct title is the oddly spelled "The Compleat Al". The errors by 72.197.3.55 have been reverted. PrimeHunter (talk) 19:54, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

Need help changing page title of The Compleat Al to the Complete Al -fixed the typo other than this, both here and on the wikilink at capsule hotel - but not sure how to fix the title. Also need red wikilink at capsule hotel fixed. Thanks! :) 72.197.3.55 (talk) 09:53, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

Generally, you may create an account, wait for four days, then use the move button to change the title of an article. In this case, however, we should be more careful. This link comes from the article, and it uses The Compleat Al. Could you please provide a source that confirms the title is Compleat Al (without "the")? PeaceNT (talk) 16:48, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

Giving support

Question, am i able to give support to users in the Request to adminship or other request, like clerk or others. SKYNET X7000 (talk) 16:25, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

Nomatter who you are, beit first edit IP or otherwise, you can support, oppose and comment on RFAs (and pretty much anything else). AndrewJDTALK -- 16:28, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

If you have a reasonable amount of knowledge about Wikipedia, yes.

Are you asking if you can offer an opinion on a candidate's abilities in WP:RFA? Then yes, you can. Keep in mind these are not "votes", they are opinions, and your opinions should be based on your own research into the candidate's abilities, and diffs, examples, and such are helpful when formulating a comment. If you're not familiar with RfA, it would be a good idea to read through some to see how others comment, and to see the type of research done. What "clerk" items are you referring to? There are no clerks in RfA. Take a look at the Wikipedia:Guide to requests for adminship, as well as the main RfA page to learn about the process. Hope that helped. However, AndreweJD is not quite correct, IPs are not allowed to offer opinions on RfAs, and new editors are not always counted, either. See the "Expressing opinions" section on the main RfA page. Ariel♥Gold 16:33, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

AG says it best, try to make sure that all your supports, opposes or neutral are constructive. Rt. 16:35, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

Since you've said it's alright for me to give my opinion, i've given support to PrimeHunter in the request for adminship. SKYNET X7000 (talk) 16:48, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

MLA Format Citation

How do I cite Wikipedia in MLA format? 24.10.103.200 (talk) 19:18, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

Click "Cite this article" in the toolbox to the left on a given article, or see Wikipedia:Citing Wikipedia#MLA style. PrimeHunter (talk) 19:47, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

Use of References

I recently wrote an article that was criticized for lack of references. My wikipedia article derived from a series of articles in the Cutter IT Journal and in Performance Improvement Journal. I tried to put these references in the text and external links, but obviously did not do this correctly. I don't know how to show that there is a third party basis for my wikipedia entry.

Also, some of these references are only now available through commercial on-line services. When I went to put in the references, I didn't want to refer to something that would cost $$ for someone to verify. How do I do that? WiseDoc (talk) 19:44, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

For-pay references are allowed. Also old printed references. See Wikipedia:Citing sources for how to cite. External links are not for references but for additional information. PrimeHunter (talk) 20:00, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

I respectfully disagree. WP:EL guidelines lists references that require paid subscriptions to access are "links normally to be avoided." Therefore, I would try to avoid it. The fact that you are trying to find references rather than cite solely your own personal knowledge is a good trait! Archtransit (talk) 19:46, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

I think we are talking about different things. My reply was about references used to cite information in an article. For-pay references are acceptable (although free Internet references would be better if they are reliable). WP:EL says "The subject of this guideline is external links that are not citations of article sources." WP:EL is not about references but about links in an external links section. Such links are not intended for references to the article content. They are intended for sites which provide relevant information not found in the article, so interested readers can find additional information about the subject. It's right that for-pay external links not used for references should normally be avoided. PrimeHunter (talk) 23:12, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

Editing Wikipedia is painful : Wikipeida should provide a WYSIWYG editor asap, like Google does

Wrote to Wikipedia: Dear Wikipedia, Can you please have a WYSIWYG editor, like Google Docs/Pages provides ? Editing using your current editor and results in all kinds of funny-language coming up in the text, it is VERY tedious and with Google Knol, it will be very easy to do such changes and will lead to its success too. Please take this up at HIGH priority.

I haven't tried it but maybe something at mw:WYSIWYG editor is helpful. And see Wikipedia:Tools. PrimeHunter (talk) 21:16, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

Editing in a markup language such as MediaWiki's wikitext requires a bit of learning. Almost anything is initially painful when it requires skills one has not learned yet (if you aren't a trained musician, try picking up a guitar and playing a song; depending on your innate musical ability, you may be anywhere from hours to months away from making even a simple song sound good). However, learning enough wikitext to do simple editing on existing articles is not difficult; see WP:CHEAT for the basic markup codes to learn first, and practice by taking the tutorial. Learning new skills throughout life may promote better brain health, actually reducing one's chance of contracting Alzheimer's disease. While lots of people have requested a WYSIWYG editor for the MediaWiki software (which Wikipedia uses, along with several thousand other wikis), there are some arguments that it may not advance Wikipedia's goal of building a free encyclopedia of the highest possible quality. For example, most people who browse into Wikipedia at random and try to edit something have no inkling of Wikipedia's staggeringly complex policies, guidelines, and procedures. The result is that many of these naive edits create more work for the more skilled and experienced users who must correct them. Currently Wikipedia has a vast number of articles that need improvement, and for the most part, only the relatively few users who have spent many hours studying Wikipedia's internal documents are able to make many of the necessary improvements. Making Wikipedia easier for people who don't want to read any manuals might only increase the chaos on Wikipedia. And in the meantime, Wikipedia hardly lacks for users who have been willing to learn some wikitext markup. From a practical standpoint, it seems MediaWiki's markup language has never been rigorously specified. According to Brion Vibber in his Google TechTalks lecture (available here on YouTube), MediaWiki's parser consists of a "mess of regular expressions" and in some instances its behavior is not well-defined. This impedes writing a reliable WYSIWYG editor. A WYSIWYG editor might actually be more useful for corporate wikis that run on the MediaWiki software, because the main problem for a corporate wiki is convincing a large percentage of employees at a single company to use it. Compliance with guidelines is less of a problem in a corporate context, because for the most part employees will have the necessary shared vision already. On Wikipedia, the situation is different. We don't have to get everybody in the world to join our project; we only need users who will agree to share our vision, and that means users who will spend some time learning what our vision is. --Teratornis (talk) 18:29, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

While I disagree with some of Teratornis's reasoning, I do not at all want a WYSIWYG editor. First, to teratornis, I would remind you that WP:IAR states that we welcome all contributors, and do not require them to understand, or even read, the rules prior to editing. I wish there wasn't so much of a learning curve, because new good faith contributors are always welcome, no matter their familiarity with Wikipedia policies. As to a WYSIWYG editor, I wholeheartedly disagree. First, the learning curve isn't all that steep. Want to add a sentence? Click "edit," find the paragraph, start typing. Granted referencing is a little tricky to get the hang of, especially for newcomers, but that'll come soon enough. With the exception of tables, references, complicated templates, and a few other technical areas, the syntax is fairly easy, and just one or two glances through the documentation should be enough for most activities. But more importantly, the advantage of using text-based editing is enormous. It is much quicker to type [[text]] than it is to type "text", move your hand off the keyboard, look for the right button on the monitor, click that, then return to the keyboard to start typing. The advantages grow even more when typing [[piped link|text]], and I can't even imagine as efficient a template structure using WYSIWYG. Furthermore, WYSIWYG editors can behave unpredictably. Highlighting a certain piece of text and changing things around can produce weird results. Text-markup allows me to see instantly what's going on when I edit a page, exactly where links are going, allow me to quickly identify the source of a syntax error etc. Also, Wikipedia's diff system, which highlights in bold red, is much easier with text markup than WYSIWYG. The current method is just faster. --Ybbor^Talk 19:34, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

We "welcome" many new users by deleting their articles - rather than declare that we welcome them, perhaps we might ask them how welcome we made them feel when they ignored some rules and experienced the inevitable consequences. The way to really welcome new users would be to make sure they have all the knowledge they need for productive editing on Wikipedia, exactly when they need it, i.e. before they make mistakes that get deleted or reverted. At the moment that seems to be technologically impossible without putting a trained human expert in the same room to determine the new user's goals, and explain how to accomplish them in Wikipedia, or even if Wikipedia is the appropriate venue. Instead we expect new users to self-educate by a taxing process of RTFM and trial-and-error editing; some of us are comfortable learning that way, enough in fact to build a great free encyclopedia, but probably most of the world's population needs formal schooling to learn something really new. People are certainly free to ignore all rules here, but that's like saying people are free to walk through a minefield and get their feet blown off - there is no freedom from the consequences of ignoring all rules. The proper meaning of the hyperbole "ignore all rules" is to recognize that no single rule set is ever completely sufficient, and the rules continuously evolve. (This is analogous to law: no matter how detailed a legal code is, attorneys and courts will be necessary to interpret the law, and to supplement legislation with case law. But by no means does the insufficiency of the legal code to determine every case excuse anyone from obeying the law in the majority of crystal-clear situations.) There will always be edge cases where a sufficiently knowledgeable person must go beyond the existing rules, build new rules, and convince everybody else to adopt them (with the result that the rules become even more complicated!); not many beginning users can do that. It's like coming up with new discoveries in physics; only a person with deep knowledge of existing physics is likely to do that; a naive person who ignores the existing physics is likely to be a crank. The less a person knows about a subject, the more that person should "go by the book." To really carry on from the start as if there are no rules will almost certainly lead to an undesirable outcome. After all, the people who truly ignore all rules are vandals. As far as the difficulty of learning Wikipedia goes, it's the (relatively) easiest tool for creating Web pages of professional quality that I have ever used, and I've used a few. However, power always comes at the cost of complexity (as Robert Moog said, "What you can control, you must control"). There are some user-editable sites that are easier to get started with, but they don't let you do as much. A WYSIWYG editor for Wikipedia would be pretty tough to do, since it would have to cram in so many possibilities (templates, magic words, etc.). And would it fit in a Web browser? As far as whether a markup language is actually easier than a GUI tool, that depends entirely on the user. A person who has only used GUI applications and has never seen a command line may go into a state of shock upon first clicking the "edit this page" tab on a complex Wikipedia article and seeing all those bizarre markup codes. Esperanto is also easier than English, but not to people who have spoken only English since childhood. The native English speaker might be months of hard work away from getting the benefits of Esperanto. --Teratornis (talk) 21:25, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

My Roommate Would Like Some Help

He has no clue how to go about this. Is there something a little clearer that WP:Tutoral?I just showed him how to create an account. Yes, he is standing over my shoulder.--Heelp Meeeee!! (talk) 20:34, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

Hello! And give our welcome to your friend, as well. Since I'm not sure what specifically you're wondering about, I will instead give some general information about Wikipedia, with links. I realize Wikipedia might seem confusing at first, (please click on the blue words to read the policy/guide they refer to). Wikipedia is not like other sites you may have come across. First, it is an encyclopedia. What this means, is that it is not MySpace, or FaceBook, or a place to host personal webspace, or a place where editors can make articles about anything they wish. Wikipedia has Core policies, such as neutrality, notability, verifiability, etc. What does all of this mean? Well, it means that any article on Wikipedia must demonstrate notability (meaning it must be note worthy, covered by the media, etc.), and have reliable, third-party sources (such as news media articles, magazine/trade journal articles) written about the subject, and the information given in the article must cite those sources to verify it is true. From those sources, information is summarized, paraphrased, condensed, and worded neutrally to make an encyclopedic entry (information cannot be copied from other sites). See Wikipedia's manual of style, layout guide, your first article, article development, and how to edit for assistance. I hope that helps! Ariel♥Gold 21:09, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

Also see Wikipedia:Instructional material, for example the training videos (screencasts). There are some more training videos on YouTube; you can search for them. ("Heelp Meeeee!!" may not have been the most judicious choice for a user name, because hopefully you will soon outgrow it.) --Teratornis (talk) 22:05, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

templates

Is there a template to say you like man u the football team Zanramon (talk) 22:21, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

Yes. 172.212.113.38 (talk) 22:59, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

Hurt (Self-titled)

Hi, i have a picture of the album cover for Hurt's album which is self-titled, but the system keeps automatically linking the image to Christina Aguilera's album, Hurt. How can i make the system link the image to the right album? —Preceding unsigned comment added by NightwingVyse (talk • contribs)

You overwrote Image:Hurt.jpg, which is displayed in Hurt (Christina Aguilera song), with an unrelated image. I have reverted this so the right image is in Hurt (Christina Aguilera song) again. I see you figured out to upload your image with an unused name and add it to Hurt (Self-Titled). The Cover parameter in {{Infobox Album}} only requires the image name so I modified [7] your edit. PrimeHunter (talk) 01:11, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

Cannot open account

The site is not allowing me to open an account. Create a account I tried it just will not set up my account?Thanks gina —Preceding unsigned comment added by 12.77.199.76 (talk)

Are you receiving an error message? If you are unable to create an account, an administrator can create one for you. Instructions are available here.--Kateshortforbob 00:58, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

December 24

robin williams

Resolved

the information on his bio has obviously been tampered with —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.128.88.139 (talk)

Thanks, someone has taken care of it. Thank you for letting editors here know! Ariel♥Gold 00:30, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

Robin Williams was vandalized 30 minutes ago. I have reverted the vandalism. You are welcome to revert vandalism on your own. See Help:Reverting. PrimeHunter (talk) 00:33, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

Wiktionary

Some of Wiktionary needs to be updated.Kitty53 (talk) 01:09, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

Do you mean the Wiktionary article in Wikipedia? I don't edit Wiktionary but maybe somebody more familiar with it will take a look. PrimeHunter (talk) 01:15, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

Musical Symbols

Hi

What kind of files do I need to make musical symbols show up? They showed up before but since i reformatted they don't appear (coming up as ?). Where can I get these files from? Thanks please leave the answer on my talk page. Arc88 (talk) 02:09, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

Maybe Help:Special characters is of help. It may help others to know that your user page says you use Mozilla Firefox. Knowing your operating system could also be helpful. PrimeHunter (talk) 02:56, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

Oh sorry about that. Yes I use Firefox and I'm running Windows XP SP2. I checked that help page but it doesn't mention anything about music fonts. Arc88 (talk) 04:58, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

Article is causing a redirect

For whatever reason, I noticed that all links to the movie Species: The Awakening are automatically going to a page on Wikispecies. I thought it was a bad redirect, but I can't fix it myself--what's going on? Blueboy96 07:06, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

Wow, and I thought the issue with Help: A Day in the Life was bad. Unfortunately I have no solution other than to make a post on Village pump (technical). Confusing Manifestation(Say hi!) 07:19, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

An nbsp in front works: Species: The Awakening.--Patrick (talk) 08:41, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

This remark I made referred to a possible new name, not to recovering the existing page. See also Wikipedia:Village_pump_(technical)#Namespace_issues_wrecking_an_article.--Patrick (talk) 08:14, 25 December 2007 (UTC)

"Species:" is an interwiki link to http://species.wikimedia.org. I guess the problem started when this edit was registered by the relevant software. I don't know whether there is a way for non-developers to access the article. I see you made a recreation at Species--The Awakening but this can give GFDL problems if the article history is not accessible. I don't know where you got the source (maybe you had an old offline copy?). An archived copy of the old page can currently be found in Google's cache (click "Cached" at [8]). Google's cache says "retrieved on 23 Dec 2007 05:41:08 GMT." The cached Wikipedia page says "last modified 19:39, 8 December 2007". PrimeHunter (talk) 02:04, 25 December 2007 (UTC)

e-mail

How do I e-mail an article I liked to a friend's e-mail id?

As attachment a downloaded page can be used. Since someone who can receive email probably can also access the web you can also just send a link. In email through Wikipedia an attachment is not possible. You can send an article in plain text. If you send it in HTML the email program of the receiver may not interpret that, for security.--Patrick (talk) 10:22, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

Purpose?

What is the purpose of {{-}} in Gregory Peck#Later work? Also, what is the difference (if any) between <br> and <br />? Clarityfiend (talk) 10:05, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

Start new section below image.

Nothing. <br> is correct wikitext. In XML <br /> is the standard, some people think that makes it better as wikitext code too. However, MediaWiki automatically converts the wikitext <br> into the XML code <br />--Patrick (talk) 10:33, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

olive oil

advantage in using olive oil cooking food and also disadvantage using olive oil

This is for questions about using WIKIPEDIA. This page is for questions about editing Wikipedia. Please consider asking this question at the 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. You could always try searching Wikipedia for an article related to the topic you want to know more about. I hope this helps.

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! The Helpful One ^{(Talk) (Contributions)} 14:25, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

Want to display Fortune 1000 list on my computer

Hey my boss wants me to rank customers by the "fortune 1000" list and gave me the link en.wikkipedia.org/wiki/Fortune_1000. Clicking on this gives the reference but not list.

Simple question: I just want to display the list. 66.170.46.130 (talk) 14:18, 24 December 2007 (UTC)How do I do this?

Try going on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fortune_1000 Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! The Helpful One ^{(Talk) (Contributions)} 14:27, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

The link your boss gave you was to Wikipedia's article on Fortune 1000, which does not contain the list itself, apparently due to copyright concerns (also, it was massive). However, there are 3 links providing more information at the bottom of that article. The list for 2007 is available here, although it's only viewable 100 entries per page.--Kateshortforbob 17:01, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

Idea for wikipedia

Where can I post an idea I have for wikipedia? Juliancolton (talk) 14:21, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Village pump. -- Meni Rosenfeld (talk) 15:17, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

But first see Wikipedia:Perennial proposals to make sure you are not rehashing an old proposal. Some rejected proposals are so obvious that new users keep suggesting them (such as to require all editors to create accounts and log in before editing). Other proposals may have already been accepted, but take a long time to implement (such as fixing our deplorable talk pages, and this bloated Help desk page, with Liquid Threads). --Teratornis (talk) 18:38, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

Long lost friend

86.136.123.137 (talk) 14:52, 24 December 2007 (UTC)is it possible to use Wikipedia to find a long lost pal in the USA? I have her married name and her maiden name. Thankyou Annie Perkins.. U K user name annie.perkins@btinternet.com

Dear Anna, this is not possible. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia not a people-index. Try a google search and social networks. Good luck, Poeloq (talk) 14:54, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

In the unlikely event that your pal is famous, see if she has a Wikipedia article written about her. Archtransit (talk) 19:40, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

templatesf

is there a list of football templates to say which teams you like—Preceding unsigned comment added by Zanramon (talk • contribs)

Hi Zanramon. Please see Wikipedia:Userboxes/Sports#Supporting sports teams. I would provide the link to a specific subcategory there, but I'm not sure if your question is about American Football or football (soccer). Please note that posts to pages such as this and to talk pages (but not to articles) should be signed, which you can do by adding four tildes after your post (~~~~) which automatically formats to your signature and a timestamp when you save. You can also add the tildes using the editing button which looks like this: . Cheers.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 18:17, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

New user help

I am new to Wiki and really a nivice.

I am writing about makoa Combatives--i notice that there dont seem to be easy options to add the kewl borders i see on other articles---i began writing and just see one area of text--

question: can you help me to be more familiar with the editing of my article in making it like the others i see here?— Preceding unsigned comment added by Makoa67 (talk • contribs)

Start with WP:CHEAT and WP:TUTORIAL. For lesson number two, read everything in the Editor's index to Wikipedia. If you prefer to read dead tree editions, a book about Wikipedia should be available Real Soon Now. --Teratornis (talk) 18:59, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

It looks as though you have fallen into the common trap for new users of creating new articles before learning about Wikipedia's incredibly complicated policies and guidelines. See WP:WWMPD for advice on what to do. New articles by new users have a low probability of surviving on Wikipedia, because Wikipedia's policies and guidelines are extremely unintuitive for most people. That is, a new user's first impressions of what Wikipedia is all about are often greatly in error. The best strategy is to read the friendly manuals (start by clicking the Help link on the left side of any page), and make small edits to existing articles rather than trying to create new articles from scratch right away. The more editing experience you accumulate on Wikipedia, the better-able you should be to make edits that "stick." Also, if your subject is not appropriate for Wikipedia, be aware there are thousands of other wikis specializing in many different subjects. I guess Makoa Combatives is a form of martial arts; if so, you should join Wikipedia:WikiProject Martial arts or one of its subprojects. There you can find Wikipedia users with more editing experience who share your subject interest, and they can help you create an article that sticks. --Teratornis (talk) 20:19, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

This question is not about using Wikipedia, but I'm not sure where else to ask

I've found this image. Web site claims that I'm the creator of the image. I'm not. As a matter of fact I've never posted any single image at this web site and I found the image, when I Google for my name. The image provides the link to Wikipedia to my image, but once again the image from yhis web site was not taken by me. This error should be corrected, but I could not find whom to contact about this. What should I do? Thanks.--Mbz1 (talk) 18:24, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

You could try and contact the website. You have to keep in mind the page may just be a duplicated version. Rt. 19:07, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

• Thank you, Rt. This page is not duplicated version. The image is not mine. I'd like to contact web site, but I cannot find "contact us" there.--Mbz1 (talk) 19:13, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

• The matter is resolved. I found the web site e-mail thanks to the help from User:andrewjd--Mbz1 (talk) 19:54, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

Erroneous entry on The Brights' Net page (December 24, 2007)

By: Paul Geisert, Co-director of The Brights' Net

Re: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brights_movement

Subject: The addition to the long-standing description of the Brights' Net. A party has added a template at the bottom of the page which is erroneous.

The title of the Template is "irreligion". This title is totally counter to one of the main purposes of The Brights' Net. A Bright is an individual with a naturalistic worldview. Brights do not (should not) refer to themselves or the organization using religious terminology. Thus words like irreligious, non-religious, etc. are totally inappropriate.

The left-hand column of the template is also inappropriate for use on The Brights' page. Again, all groups are referred to in terms of a negative: A - theism (without gods), A - gnosticism (without knowledge), and Non-theism (without religion).

I strongly suggest the template be removed since it has no direct connection to the Brights' movement and has direct connection to terms which are eschewed by the Brights' movement.

Note: (I did not delete it myself since I have limited abilities in using Wikipedia and did not wish to change something in an erroneous manner.)

Contact: Please contact me directly and let me know how the situation stands. Email: Paul @ the-brights@the-brights.net

Thanks much for Wikipedia -- it is my first stop whenever I have a question that needs a quick and accurate (in general) answer.

Be bold! and edit the page. I'd just remove it if it was misplaced, but if not first try to reach consensus on the talk page. Best regards, Rt. 19:06, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

Your caution is well-advised. Before being bold, I'd suggest first talking to the person who added the template you consider inappropriate. Obviously whoever put it there thought it belonged, and just removing it without discussion first could trigger an edit war. Wikipedia is an incredibly complicated place, and for many questions there is no one correct answer, or the correct answer may continuously evolve. Often, getting to an answer requires engaging lots of diverse people in a tedious process to find consensus. That Wikipedia works at all is somewhat amazing. To your question: before getting too excited, rest assured that Wikipedia has a disproportionately large number of well-educated users, many of whom share your world view to varying degrees (for example, me). My personal view is not to worry much about pejorative labeling; see Euphemism#The "Euphemism Treadmill". Many advocacy groups attempt to replace what they consider to be stigmatized labels with innocuous euphemisms, but history shows that in due course, euphemisms tend to take on such underlying stigma as continues to attach to the subject. See the Euphemism article for familiar examples. The religious majority who (somehow) managed to stigmatize a rejection of faith (i.e., they essentially stigmatized reason and critical thinking) will still be around to continue stigmatizing the subject under any new label you might manage to force into general use. I suggest rather than running endlessly on the euphemism treadmill, a better strategy is to stop running and fight the ideological battle in the current semantic location. Not all negative labels are necessarily bad, for example: debt-free, disease-free, unafraid, undeluded, uncorrupted, etc. Also see Dysphemism#The “Dysphemism Treadmill” - a label you regard as stigmatized today can easily become innocuous, even complimentary over time. The gay rights movement, for example, has managed to de-stigmatize a number of formerly scary words. As far as negative labels go, what's the big deal? I don't use any recreational drugs, and this has caused some people to label me a teetotaler. That's a negative label, and from my point of view it is absurd, but from the point of view of a drunk, my lack of alcohol use might seem to be a characterizing feature. Much as a fish, if it could speak, might refer to land animals as non-aquatic. (The language used by the fish would say as much about the fish as it would say about the subject.) The simple fact is that the majority of the world's people believe in some sort of magic space man, and they were indoctrinated from childhood to regard their locally popular brand of unreason as a virtue. If 95% of the world's population were drunks, then they would label the other 5% as "non-drinkers," and in many contexts this classification could actually be useful. Remember that on Wikipedia we are trying to organize all the world's knowledge, so we need to classify everything, which means coming up with compact ways to distinguish everything from everything else. Given the vast number of religious world views, it's hard to classify the other kinds of world views as something other than non-religious. Or how about a less hypothetical example: in automobile-dominated societies, an adult who chooses to live car free will almost certainly be labeled negatively, as a "non-driver," a "person without a car," perhaps even an "a-car-ist" if gaswasters were clever enough to think that one up. How would you classify a person who chooses to live without a car? Can you think of a non-negative label for that? Humans are slavish conformists first and foremost, as well as instinctive enforcers of social norms, and anyone who cuts against the local cultural norm will experience social pressure. The most straightforward way to remove the social pressure is to make one's behavior the norm; or, failing that, show people that one's behavior is not bad, perhaps even superior, and raise people's consciousness about its benefits, namely the benefits for them. --Teratornis (talk) 19:58, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

The word "search" in many languages

You show the word search in many different languages. search... ...haku, suk. What language is "suk"?

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. Rt. 19:04, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

I guess you saw it at http://wikipedia.org/. That is the common entry for Wikipedia versions in hundreds of languages. The "search" translations appear to be sorted in reverse order of how many articles that Wikipedia language has, for languages with 100000+ articles. m:List of Wikipedias then indicates that "suk" is volapük (I'm surprised how many articles it has). The same 15 languages in alphabetical order can be selected in the search box below the word list at http://wikipedia.org/. PrimeHunter (talk) 00:18, 25 December 2007 (UTC)

I looked at the Volapuek dictionary. Search was not tranlated like that. So where is this comming from? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 205.56.129.195 (talk) 22:42, 25 December 2007 (UTC)

I don't know Volapük but I guess "search" can be translated in different ways depending on the context. That's often the case for translation between any two languages. The search box in the Volapük Wikipedia at http://vo.wikipedia.org/ says "suk". It makes sense that this is the word used at http://wikipedia.org. PrimeHunter (talk) 23:09, 25 December 2007 (UTC)

Automatic WP to Commons image transfer

Why haven't all the appropriate images on Wikipedia been automatically moved to Commons? --Seans Potato Business 20:03, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

You know, that's a good question. I guess its because its ultimately up to the indivdual user whether they want to submit their freely licensed images to the commons. If a user tagged an image they created as released into the public domain, any user could move it to the Commons, as the creator has given up rights to it, but its usually a good idea to ask the original uploader. I submit anything that I created myself to the commons so that other projects can use it, but there are some exceptions, for example my photo on my userpage. That I didn't submit to the commons. Hope this helps. Mr Senseless (talk) 23:53, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

Because the process to do it is, well, crap. Download the image from Wikipedia, open up the CommonsHelper, plug in the details, wait for a reply, fiddle with the result (must have a category!), upload the image onto Commons, tag the Wikipedia image with {{ncd}}. One down, only a hundred thousand more to go. User:Betacommand has a bot to simplify it (but not to automate it). Angus McLellan (Talk) 01:00, 25 December 2007 (UTC)

You can have the program automatically upload the image... it's pretty simple, I just did a few pictures a few minutes ago. --Rschen7754 (T C) 01:05, 25 December 2007 (UTC)

User style

What's the page to look at different styles for the userpage, I'm new and haven't received a welcoming like other users have. Shapers (talk) 20:15, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

Hi Shapers. Please see WP:USERPAGE, Wikipedia:WikiProject User Page Help, User:The Transhumanist/User page design, User:Danieltiger45/Userpage design andWikipedia:Userboxes. Cheers.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 20:49, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

Infobox

How do I create an Infobox? I want one for the office of Pope, as you can see the current monarchy one doesn't quite work with the article...any help? Dunfermline Scholar (talk) 20:38, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

Howdy! There are a lot of infobox templates (see Category:Infobox templates), but they all work in a similar way. Once you find the infobox appropriate to the article, click on it's discussion page, for instance for the generic infobox, Template talk:Infobox. You will get some code and often some instructions. To place the infobox in the article, copy the code into the article and fill out the fields. The generic infobox code looks like

{{Infobox |name= |image= |caption= |data1= |data2= |data3= |footnotes= }}

If you fill it out as

{{Infobox |name= J. P. Patches |image= Refueling, 1923.jpg |caption= A daring clown-maneuver of the post-modern era. |data1= Clown issues |data2= |footnotes= See attached bibliography. }}

Refueling, 1923.jpg A daring clown-maneuver of the post-modern era.

Clown issues

The resulting infobox is displayed at right. If you indicate what the article is, perhaps I or someone can help find the correct box for the article. Hope this helps! --TeaDrinker (talk) 22:27, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

There already is an {{Infobox Pope}} --teb728 t c 23:15, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

Do you mean you want an infobox only for the article pope? PrimeHunter (talk) 00:21, 25 December 2007 (UTC)

Yes not one for the office holder but for the office. Like, George Bush has an infobox for a politician but the President of the United States has an infobox for the office. I'll see what I can do though, thanks very much. Dunfermline Scholar (talk) 13:33, 25 December 2007 (UTC)

Template:Infobox papacy

This is what ive come up with, i'll try to spruce it up a little though. You might notice that there is a small infobox papcy line that appears on the left hand of the page when the template is used...i don't see what line of code is doing it though and im not sure how to get rid of it...(talk) 13:50, 25 December 2007 (UTC)

Right, I've got it. Thanks for all the help! Dunfermline Scholar (talk) 16:59, 25 December 2007 (UTC)

What is bread?

what is bread? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.166.182.185 (talk) 23:53, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

See bread. PrimeHunter (talk) 23:57, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

The helpdesk is for questions on actually using Wikipedia, not for questions on content. Next time you can ask at the reference desk. Mr Senseless (talk) 20:50, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

December 25

noinclude style tags for cross-project use

Is there a tag (like the <noinclude> tags) that can be used to not pass certain information over to another project. Ie, can you put something between some tags on an image: page on commons which won't be shown on the other projects that use that image? Chris_huh^talk 01:05, 25 December 2007 (UTC)

I have not heard of such a tag, which does not necessarily mean there is no way to do whatever you are trying to do. However, your question is ambiguous. In particular, these terms are vague:

• "certain information" - does this mean graphic information, or text information?
• "shown" - do you mean when [[image:...]] appears on "the other projects"?

If possible, please give a specific example of an image, a project, and what "information" you don't want to be "shown" on the project. Normally when we "show" an image on a project, only the image appears, not any of the text on the image page. If I'm guessing correctly about what you mean, I think when someone clicks on the image to view it, they browse to the image page on Commons, at which point they are no longer viewing the other project. It might be difficult to prevent the user from seeing some of the text based on the project they browsed from. An obvious but rather grotesque hack would be to upload multiple copies of the same image under different filenames, and type in different text for each image. Then you can more or less control what text a user could see, by linking to particular copies of the image from different projects. --Teratornis (talk) 17:49, 25 December 2007 (UTC)

The question probably refers to the rendering on a local image page of the editable content on the image page on Commons, and it seems the answer is no, this applies even for content in noinclude tags, see m:Image:Tst.png.--Patrick (talk) 23:56, 25 December 2007 (UTC)

Ok, maybe it is not possible. What i was thinking of doing was have a Featured Picture star in the corner on commons (like the featured picture star on wikipedia). But i wouldnt want the star to show on other projects (ie wikipedia), as it could mess up page layouts. Chris_huh^talk 16:45, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

You can put the star but avoid an absolute position.--Patrick (talk) 17:18, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

But that would still mean the star would be shown in Wikipedia (wouldn't it?), which may be confusing since there is a star there for featured pictures on wikipedia. Maybe its just not possible. Chris_huh^talk 17:42, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

A different star, e.g. with the text "Commons" could be used. Anyway the different position is also a clear distinction.--Patrick (talk) 18:05, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

Hmm, that's an option. Will mention it on Commons, but what do you mean by different position, are you still thinking of having it top right. Wouldn't the position only change if it was featured on both wikipedia and commons (ie the star would be pushed to one side)? Chris_huh^talk 00:15, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

I was thinking of the simple case of an image vertically positioned according to the position of the code (one only specifies left or right); in that case it appears in the area of the local page where all editable content of the image page on Commons appears, like one of the images on m:Image:Tst.png. Perhaps what you say it also possible, I don't know. It seems that for putting a star in the corner you need an absolute position, and that in the case of two items with an absolute position, in the case of a conflict one hides the other. Different positions can be used, but that may be difficult to coordinate if many wikis are involved.--Patrick (talk) 03:08, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

Therefore I think Commons should avoid absolute positioning on image pages.--Patrick (talk) 10:08, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

Editing a Title

Hello

I spelled the title of my artice wrong

My article is: Highland Creek Subdivsion Charlotte North Carolina

I spelled subdivision incorrectly.

How do I fix it?

Thanks

Marshall600 (talk) 01:45, 25 December 2007 (UTC)

I've corrected the redirect you made from Highland Creek Subdivsion Charlotte North Carolina to Highland Creek Charlotte North Carolina, assuming this is the preferred article. For future reference, anyone with an account older than 4 days can move a page from one title to another using the "move" tab which appears at the top of the page. This is the preferred way to change article names because it preserves the page history. --Kateshortforbob 02:10, 25 December 2007 (UTC)

Is there a template...

that we use to identify the language of an external link? I thought there were language-specific templates that would provide a tip to the reader that a link was in Japanese or French... E_dog95' ^{Hi '} 02:57, 25 December 2007 (UTC)

Put something like {{ja}} or {{fr}} before the link. Mr.Z-man 03:01, 25 December 2007 (UTC)

Thanks much! E_dog95' ^{Hi '} 03:09, 25 December 2007 (UTC)

Blocked IP address

My IP address was blocked sometime in the year 2006. I have not even used Wikipedia until this month and I was trying to edit a typo on a page (Age of Empires 3). When I looked closer, I was told that I could email and administrator about my problem. When I tried, it said that I needed to have an account in order to send an email. I tried to create an account and it sent me right back to the page about my blocked IP address. Please give advice if you can. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 172.131.87.129 (talk) 04:12, 25 December 2007 (UTC)

The IP address you are editing from currently is not blocked (if it was you wouldn't be able to edit this page), and it never has been blocked according to the block log. Perhaps you have a dynamic IP address. Try creating an account again and see what happens. Raven4x4x (talk) 04:22, 25 December 2007 (UTC)

That’s an AOL IP. If I recall correctly, at least in the past, creating an account from AOL caused problems. Might that be the problem here? --teb728 t c 06:54, 25 December 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia:AOL is inactive and says a specific AOL problem was solved in 2006. PrimeHunter (talk) 07:09, 25 December 2007 (UTC)

aerofoil

what is aerofoil? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 121.247.14.184 (talk) 06:35, 25 December 2007 (UTC)

See aerofoil. --teb728 t c 06:43, 25 December 2007 (UTC)

Please remember this desk is for using Wikipedia. Any other questions should be directed to the reference desk. Thank you. Rt. 12:43, 25 December 2007 (UTC)

Question about WP:EL

A user keeps adding news links to the EL section of the page Malaysian Indian. There are 5 links to the same issue but different news, and all links are from BBC. I removed 4 links because i thought 1 links is enough. He put it back in again today. I dont want to contra the WP:3RR. I told him that wikipedia is not a soapbox, and told him to read WP:EL. He said those guidelines doesnt apply here. I also told him to put the links at the page HINDRAF to which those news links are more relevant. Please advice. kawaputra^torque 09:13, 25 December 2007 (UTC)

I'll warn the user now. It seems they have a serious POV matter. Rt. 12:41, 25 December 2007 (UTC)

Ok. Thanks. kawaputra^torque 13:02, 25 December 2007 (UTC)

New Article for already used name

I am looking to write an article about an artist that has minimal exposure, (one article written about them). The name is already in the Wikipedia database, but none of the titles that come up are for this particular person, how do i make a new article for a title that is already on wikipedia? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Fluffysadness (talk • contribs) 09:35, 25 December 2007 (UTC)

The way to get around the naming is to add a qualifier in the title like “John Doe (artist)”. But if this artist is as unknown as you seem to imply, he may not be notable enough to have a Wikipedia article. Dozens of articles are deleted every day because the subject is not notable enough. Here is general advice on creating an article:

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. --teb728 t c 09:46, 25 December 2007 (UTC)

Assuming that the person is notable enough for an article, then you'll want to read up on disambiguation pages, which is how you distinguish between different people (and other things) with the same name. Confusing Manifestation(Say hi!) 11:10, 25 December 2007 (UTC)

Editing an article

I was emailed "Girl Orchestra in Auschwitz" which was an article about the woman's orchestra in Auschwitz. IN your factual information, none of which I dispute, was omitted any reference to my mother, who was a survivor of the women's orchestra. I just wanted to edit this for correctness, using my mothers maiden name so as not to currently identify her. Do I just edit the record? or do I need to send documentation to someone? Thank you. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.27.221.5 (talk) 14:33, 25 December 2007 (UTC)

The article is Girl orchestra of Auschwitz. Wikipedia content should be verifiable, based on published reliable sources. Editors are not allowed to add their private knowledge and should also observe Wikipedia:Conflict of interest. A Google search on the name gave no results but I haven't examined any printed sources. Has her membership been published by that name? The information that she was alive as of 2005 also requires a published source. You can make suggestions at Talk:Girl orchestra of Auschwitz. Maybe it will be seen by editors with access to good printed sources. PrimeHunter (talk) 15:03, 25 December 2007 (UTC)

Indian wedding card Invitation quotation sample

Please send me sosome sample Indian wedding card Invitation quotation sample —Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.197.96.50 (talk) 15:40, 25 December 2007 (UTC)

Hello. I suspect, based on your question, that you found one of our over two million articles, and thought that we were directly affiliated in some way with that subject. Please note that you are at Wikipedia, the online free encyclopedia that anyone can edit, and this page is a help desk for asking questions related to using the encyclopedia. Thus, we have no inside track on the subject of your question. You can, however, search our vast catalogue of articles by typing a subject into the search field on the left hand side of your screen. If that is not fruitful, we have a reference desk, divided into various subjects areas, where asking knowledge questions is welcome. Best of luck. PrimeHunter (talk) 17:03, 25 December 2007 (UTC)

You won't let me sign in. Why?

I have tried and tried to create an account with you. I tried months ago, and you would not let me create an account. You still will not let me sign in, you keep saying "error" "error". What can I do about this? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.54.119.252 (talk) 17:47, 25 December 2007 (UTC)

Doesn't the message say more than "error"? Different things can prevent account creation and there should be a more specific message. Some IP addresses are blocked from account creation. Which username are you trying to create? See also Wikipedia:Request an account. PrimeHunter (talk) 18:02, 25 December 2007 (UTC)

how to add a new article?

Hi i would like to start a new article....how do i go about doing that? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Rumroom (talk • contribs) 18:56, 25 December 2007 (UTC)

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.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 19:08, 25 December 2007 (UTC)

And this is very good advice. You may want to do it twice and practice in the sandbox. Although I have created some articles and do ok with structure and formatting, I still managed to create a duplicate article yesterday because another author did not follow category convention. Search several times just like in a search engine before you start a new one.--Mrg3105 (talk) 20:24, 25 December 2007 (UTC)

Something is spelled wrong and I can't find the "edit" link!

Image:Lifecycle_moss_svg_diagram.svg has "mose" instead of "moss"... and I can't find the "edit" link! Please help!!! 68.101.123.219 (talk) 22:38, 25 December 2007 (UTC)

Okay, unlike pages, the image can't be edited in situ. It needs to be downloaded, edited and re-uploaded. I'll give it a go, if nobody else gets there first. --Kateshortforbob 22:52, 25 December 2007 (UTC)

Done! Image:Lifecycle moss svg diagram.svg. --Kateshortforbob 23:12, 25 December 2007 (UTC)

How To Make An Artice

I know that I might sound like a complete idiot, but I navigated the page many times and couldn't find out how to make an artice. Please help. —Preceding unsigned comment added by LoopDeeLoop (talk • contribs) 22:57, 25 December 2007 (UTC)

What page?   jj137 ^♠ 22:58, 25 December 2007 (UTC)

I don't know what "the page" refers to (the Wikipedia website?), but maybe this general advice is helpful:

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. PrimeHunter (talk) 23:12, 25 December 2007 (UTC)

December 26

Why have I been bloccked indefinitely?

Dear Sir/madam,

I am a new user to Wikipedia and wanted to edit a page on a subject I know about. However, when I clicked 'edit' a message informed me that I have been banned indefinitely for unacceptable behaviour.

But I have only just arrived - how can I have committed the unspecified offences that have led me to being banned indefinitely even before i have done any activity whatsoever?

Whom do I need to contact to have this unfair block lifted?

Thank you.

KGH —Preceding unsigned comment added by Gat0wer (talk • contribs) 00:17, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

You should be able to contact the Admin who blocked you and ask him/her why you were blocked and request the ban be lifted. Dunfermline Scholar (talk) 00:21, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

It is likely that your IP address is shared, and was blocked, taking you with it. To check this, sign out of your account, and go to your talk page (type Special:Mytalk in the search bar on the left hand side of your screen). Your IP address should be prominently displayed under the Talk page header. Then, make a note of your IP, go to [9], and search for just your IP, without the 'User:' prefix. Master of Puppets ^{Care to share?} 00:28, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

However, since you were able to edit this page that means you are not blocked; it is possible that you are on a dynamic IP, or one that changes every time your router connects. It is possible that you were connected to a banned IP, and that was remedied because you were able to post here. Master of Puppets ^{Care to share?} 00:38, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

Articles by age

Is there a special page or category that lists articles by the date of their creation? -- Mentifisto 03:59, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

You could try Recent Changes and look through there to find the article. What exactly are you looking for? ~ Bella Swan 04:33, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

Check out Special:New pages ( Special:New pages )- all the new pages are listed in this log. Cheers- CattleGirl ^talk 06:32, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

RC is rather impractical since edits are made constantly... I'm looking for something (could have been manually edited too) that has a list of all articles beginning with the first one made etc...

New pages are impractical too... they could be useful though if only they had that 'earliest' link articles have. -- Mentifisto 13:47, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

Special:Ancientpages starts in 2004, but it has some links you might follow. --Teratornis (talk) 23:51, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

Text alignment

How can I make the text at List of United States business school rankings align left for the first three columns?--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTD) 06:48, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

Got it. You can have a look at the diff for what I did :) Cheers- CattleGirl ^talk 06:57, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

Unless you knew that and wanted the numbers to remain aligned right?

I have absolutely no idea :S. CattleGirl ^talk 06:58, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

I don't know a way to align a whole column in one place, but cells can be aligned one at a time: [10]. PrimeHunter (talk) 13:48, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

Highlights

Hi, I have seen some users highlight text with a coloured background before and I would like to know how to do this. Thank you! --WPholic (talk) 07:43, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

The code is <*font*style="BACKGROUND-COLOR:yellow*">YOUR TEXT HERE<*/font> (take out the asterisks). However, I recommend that you don't use this on Wikipedia- or if you do, only use it in a template or a table, or perhaps your userpage (see more at Wikipedia:Colours). Cheers- CattleGirl ^talk 08:13, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

Yellow highlightihng: <font style="BACKGROUND-COLOR:yellow">YOUR TEXT HERE</font> produces YOUR TEXT HERE.

Black border: <font style="BORDER:2px solid black">YOUR TEXT HERE</font> produces YOUR TEXT HERE. (Don't use the nowiki tags.) --Coppertwig (talk) 15:42, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

Plagiarism

This article section strikes me as something plagiarized. I have asked this question in the past and the Orange fellow has helped me and told me what to tag it with, but I don't remember what it was. Can someone give this a once-over? It looks like something taken from a UNICEF site.--EndlessDan 14:28, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

I took a look on WP:TM, the index for template messages, which took me to WP:TMAIN#Copyright violations, yielding {{copypaste}}. Hope that helps. Confusing Manifestation(Say hi!) 14:35, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

The section was started in [11] and appears to have been written by the editor Asilwal (probably for another purpose originally). It may be OR but doesn't look like a copyvio. PrimeHunter (talk) 14:42, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

how to remove images used for spam

hi, i just saw this image http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Ichigopanda.gif.gif being used in this article here to spam http://en.wikipedia.org/enwiki/w/index.php?title=Ichigo_Kurosaki&diff=180191431&oldid=180171680. that action has been reverted, but now i was wondering how one could delete an image like that (which is only used to spam). i thought of the orfud tag/template, but since it's not a nonfree image i don't think i'm allowed to use that.. any suggestions please? i tried to do a little research myself but couldn't figure it out. thanks :) -Twsl (talk) 14:55, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

Apparently the image is at Wikimedia Commons, as most images displayed here on Wikipedia are. You can register and log in to Commons, and see commons:Commons:Deletion guidelines for instructions how to ask to have images deleted if they fit various deletion criteria. --Coppertwig (talk) 15:28, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

Removing Subpages and userpage, talkpage.

Could all reference of SKYNET X7000 be erased, the account will no-longer be in use as i'm closing the account down, all scripts from SKYNET's monobook has been removed, due to closer further responses to this message or to the talk page will not be made, thank you. SKYNET X7000 (talk) 15:28, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

I understand you won't be replying here, but just in case you are watching:

• you can request subpages be deleted by adding {{db-author}} to them if you have created them and are the only author. Your userpage may come under this heading as well; however, it is less likely that your talkpage will be deleted under these criteria.
• If you are leaving the project permanently, you may be able to exercise the right to vanish, depending on circumstances; more information is available at the page.
• If you are just moving to a new username, as long as you don't reference the old name from the new one, and don't do anything that would bring you under unusual scrutiny (eg. vandalism), there wouldn't be any way to connect the two. As far as I know, there is no way to technically close an account.

Have a nice day, whatever you decide to do! --Kateshortforbob 17:49, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

Userpages and pages in your userspace can almost always be deleted by adding {{db-author}} to the very top of the page in question. Talk pages typically cannot be deleted, unless you are leaving the project permanently or are blocked indefinitely and your talk page is tagged as such. Mr Senseless (talk) 20:41, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

Uno Spin card game rules

We bought Uno Spin for Christmas, and there were no directions. The box said to go to service.mattel.com to "View and print instruction manuals." However, none are available for Uno Spin. A search showed others have had the same experience. One person posted some instructions in a review they did of the game.

Since Uno has directions, as does Uno Attack, directions for Uno Spin seems appropriate. However, that article has been deleted, and I cannot find the reference in the log to understand why it was deleted. Please help me find that entry, or just explain it to me so I do not feel obliged to share this seemingly relevant information to others who are searching for it as I was.

Larrydkuch (talk) 16:17, 26 December 2007 (UTC)larrydkuch

The entire content of UNO Spin was:

"UNO Spin is a card game similar to the original UNO card game but it incorporates a spin wheel. When a spin card is played someone must spin the wheel, forcing themselves or opponents to pick up, discard or exchange cards."

It was nominated for speedy deletion as no context: Wikipedia:CSD#A1. The deleting administrator did not explicitly say whether that was the reason for actually deleting it. Note also that Wikipedia is not a game guide.PrimeHunter (talk) 16:34, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

download link in article

I've never edited an article before so It seemed best to ask about it here.

The Problem: In the article ISO_image ISO image there is a link to a utility program. "Virtual CD-ROM panel ". When I clicked this link it downloaded the file without the normal questions about where to put it. Eventhough this link seems to be correct as put on Microsoft it is too easy to change the link to a trojen.

The Questions:

How should I fix it?

1. Just remove the link because it is an opening for trojen dissemination. 2. Place a reference to a download site that explains what this file is (the majorgeek article is better than microsoft page) 3. Discuss the issue using the discussion page. (Would this be best done in addition to the fix, prior to the fix or not even helpfull since it is a fix of a security issue?)

Other Questions:

The discussion of this article reveals that it isn't up to wikipedia standards in other ways. Which leads me to some other questions, as I think about editing articles for the benifit of all.

What is the process to remove an article that is a clear breach of security. (I think that this one can be fixed so this question isn't specific to this article but rather a general question about what to do when I see problems on wiki articles.) Where should I look to find the policys for linking to files? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.10.48.118 (talk) 16:37, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

Based on your comment, I edited the article to remove the link. Some guidance on links is here: Wikipedia:Manual of Style (links). You're welcome to edit the article to improve it. For deleting articles, see Wikipedia:Deletion policy. --Coppertwig (talk) 17:31, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

I was asked normally whether I wanted to download the file in Internet Explorer 7.0 on Windows Vista. If you were not asked (are you sure?) then it sounds like a browser issue. As far as Wikipedia goes, it was a normally formatted named external link with the code [http://download.microsoft.com/download/7/b/6/7b6abd84-7841-4978-96f5-bd58df02efa2/winxpvirtualcdcontrolpanel_21.exe Microsoft Virtual CD-ROM panel]. I don't know whether some Microsoft browsers will skip asking the user when downloading from download.microsoft.com. PrimeHunter (talk) 18:44, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

I don't think a link with the function of downloading a file is appropriate as a Wikipedia external link. Instead, it should at most link to a page at the other website which then links to the download link. Even that doesn't sound to me like the kind of link encouraged by WP:EL. Besides, WP:EL says typically you don't have external links in the body of the article. And if it is somehow justified to have a link to a download, then the Wikipedia article should make it clear that that's what the link is. --Coppertwig (talk) 19:28, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

I agree the link was inappropriate, especially in the article body and with no information that it was the actual program file. I was just wondering why the poster said it downloaded without warning and apparently thought it could be changed to a trojan that automatically downloaded. I see no reason for this. PrimeHunter (talk) 20:12, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

University of Nalanda

Hi thank to every body how play a vital role to grow up this site. I give best regards to all of the members, readers, writers and the promation boday who gives their donate to support this site.

i am PAMAL ARYA, student of Nalanda university and i see most of Indians wants to suffer the Hindi site , which offers article in Hindi.

I introduce my self that i am the cheif of biolabs, That are reserching in the field of Biology( gene theraphy, enviroment and Bio-Medicine), so have a support in the form of donation we wants to give you article / content in Hindi version. Say me How can we send ?

wish you happy new years —Preceding unsigned comment added by 117.99.21.75 (talk) 16:45, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

Check out the Hindi Wikipedia. Thanks! Jonathan (talk • contribs • complain?) 17:23, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

What's the point of this box?

Look, I've typed in a box, but for some reason, it's presented in such a way that line-wrapping is disabled and you have to scroll to see what I wrote. Why?! --Seans Potato Business 17:27, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

I believe the box (created by a leading space at the start of a line) is used to display computer code, for one thing. According to this, it is used to preserve whatever formatting the editor adds. (It took me months to figure this out!) --Kateshortforbob 17:31, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

If you want to know how to make text in a box with normal line-wrapping then you can place the text in a table. Click "edit" to see how this example text box was made with a table. See Help:Table for more ways to design tables. PrimeHunter (talk) 18:28, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

Military bases in US States

Under what part of the table of contents should these be placed? Also, are there any templates for creating an article on a State or country? ThxSmarkflea (talk) 17:52, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

Which article(s) are you referring to? In an article about a US state, for example Florida, I see no reason to have a separate section name for military bases. Or do you mean which other sections to mention military bases in? That depends on the circumstances, for example which layout the article has and how important the base is to the state. Often a detail like a military base shouldn't be mentioned at all in a state article but only in other pages, for example List of United States military bases, or an article about the city the base is in. Templates don't create articles but different templates can be used to display information in an article about a state or country, for example {{Infobox U.S. state}} and {{Infobox Country}}. PrimeHunter (talk) 18:19, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

Or do you mean which other sections to mention military bases in?

Yes, I think such things are interesting. Thanks for the other info.. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Smarkflea (talk • contribs) 18:39, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

Editors often have different opinions about what is important enough to mention, and how much space to use on it. If you add details about military bases to state articles then others may choose to remove it. Article content can be discussed on the associated talk page, for example Talk:Kentucky. PrimeHunter (talk) 18:56, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

Reverse a list

Does anyone know a text editor which can easily reverse a list. So that the last entry will be the first and the first entry is the last. I know there are some php scripts and some excel macro's which can do it, but a simple text editor with that option would be more practical. Garion96 (talk) 20:48, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

• I'm not really sure about a text editor that could do that automatically. If you have a spreadsheet application such as Microsoft Excel, you could easily reverse the list. Hope this helps, if you don't have a spreadsheet program, cut and paste the list onto my talk page and I'll do it for you. Mr Senseless (talk) 20:59, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

publishing a new page

I am trying to publish a new page. I have entered all the info into the "sandbox" and saved the page, but its seems to still be in the sandbox. How can i publish my info on a page where is will show up in a search? Can i create a new page without using the sandbox? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Abeuke (talk • contribs) 20:56, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

• No, the sandbox is for editing tests and is automatically cleared every day. You should cut and paste the Wiki-markup (after pressing edit this page on the sandbox page) and paste it into a newly created article. You can create an article by searching for the title of the new page, and when no match is found, click create this page. Before you do that, however, make sure a similar article doesn't exist under a different name, and be certain your contributions meet notability and verifibility guidelines and conforms to a neutral point of view. Hope this helps. Mr Senseless (talk) 21:04, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

Hi Abeuke. The text you tested in the sandbox is currently inappropriate for an article as it reads like a marketing commercial for the topic. Wikipedia is not a forum for advertising. As such it is subject to [and should be if added in that form] speedily deleted under section G11 of our criteria for speedy deletion as it appears to be a "page which exclusively promote some entity and which would need to be fundamentally rewritten to become encyclopedic." Please note a few relevant polices: Articles must be written from a neutral point of view, they must be on notable topics, the information in them must be verifiable through citation to reliable sources and they should not be written by someone involved with the subject as that presents a conflict of interest. Please also see our business faq.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 22:04, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

More importantly than what I just wrote, you must not add this material to Wikipedia as, as I've just discovered, you would be violating the copyright of this website. You may use external websites as a source of information, but not as a source of sentences.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 22:10, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

Wikithoritarianism vs. Wikidemocratism

I saw this on Meta: Wikithoritarianism. I never knew there were two different ways to go about using Wikipedia like that. I came across a "Wikithoritarian" on an article and got into an argument a while ago. What do you think is a more successful way of editing? 69.138.16.202 (talk) 22:25, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

There's a number of philosophies with regards to editing Wikipedia. I guess I'm sort of a "WikiUnitarian" about all this; I think that each philosophy has its uses, and which one is better or more successful all depends on the context. Maybe I should just slap {{context}} on all those Meta pages just for good measure! There are some situations where Wikithoritarianism is good, and some situations where it just causes trouble. Pyrospirit (talk · contribs) 22:41, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

Moderation is key, I think. Too much concentration of power can lead to abuse; too much dispersion of power can lead to paralysis. In general, however, Wikipedia is governed by community consensus, subject to the Wikimedia Foundation's position as site owner. Another key question: is policy prescriptive (tells us what to do) or descriptive (tells others what we already do)? In practice, I think many "community norms" are made via something akin to countless iterations of the bold, revert, discuss cycle. – Luna Santin (talk) 22:44, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

How do you define "successful"? Also, it's not clear from the Wikithoritarianism essay exactly what a particular Wikithoritarian would do in a given situation. It sounds like two editors could both be Wikithoritarians and do different things. Usually, doing different things leads to different levels of "success," although both editors might define "success" self-servingly. --Teratornis (talk) 23:41, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

I might add that I'd prefer Wikipedia to be as algorithmic as possible. That is, we should standardize every procedure, in enough detail, to cover every editing situation that can ever arise. Then every editor could simply follow instructions, with no guesswork, and there would be nothing to argue about. Ultimately, machines could write Wikipedia for us (see Cyc). Of course humans do not know how to write such a complete algorithm, but Wikipedia has gone a long way with the Manual of Style and so on. At the very least, it would be good to minimize the number of times Wikipedians repeat the same dispute. Once an issue has been settled, other people should not have to waste time rehashing it unless someone has come up with new relevant information. --Teratornis (talk) 23:46, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

December 27

Citing a reference's author

When using {{cite-web}}, I was citing News: April Fools: The British own deviantART.com and the author of that news article is a user on deviantART named kronix, who has a page at http://kronix.deviantart.com. He isn't officially employed by deviantART, so I can't put deviantART as the author. So for cases like this, would I simply cite the author as "kronix" if his full name is not known? --Dan Leveille^TALK 02:19, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

Hi Dan. Citation templates are completely optional. If the format of the template doesn't work for a particular thing you are citing, you can just format the reference directly (in fact some editors don't like citation templates because they feel they make the text harder to read in edit mode and therefore harder to edit). See Wikipedia:Citing sources#Full reference templates. To cite an author you can say something like "<ref>Copyright holder (200?). [http://www.URL name of article]. ''John Doe at deviantART''. Retrieved on date"</ref>; whatever makes the citation the most transparent. The problem is that blog posts generally are not reliable sources and shouldn't be cited at all. See Wikipedia:Verifiability#Self-published sources (online and paper). There are some exceptions to this general rule but without knowing the context of the citation (a quick look at your contributions did not reveal it) I can't weigh in on whether any would apply here.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 02:37, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

WTIC-FM Article Update Question

76.118.247.91 (talk) 02:56, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

• I updated the section of the WTIC-FM article to include information on their "Wayback Weekend". To cite proof of the existence of this radio program, I direct to the page on the WTIC-FM website that describes this "Wayback Weekend". These updates are particularly present in the final paragraph of the WTIC-FM article. Unless physically checked by a Wikipedian, the WTIC-FM article might not entirely pass the non-opinionated presentation test. In other words, I got sort of excited about the material and it might be appearing a little like an advertisement. For that reason, a person should read the article and scan for the "Wayback Weekend" and see if it passes the test. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.118.247.91 (talk) 02:55, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

Very good of you to point that out. I edited the page a bit. I removed "widely-recognized and ever-growing" because it does sound rather like an ad, besides not having any reliable third-party source to verify that information. I also removed the links from "Wayback Weekend", because the same link is listed in the External Links section. You only need each link to appear once in an article, and external links are usually only at the end. (See WP:EL). —Preceding unsigned comment added by Coppertwig (talk • contribs) 03:52, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

capitalism

what is capitalism? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 61.95.154.33 (talk) 02:59, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

Click me.--Kerotan^{Leave Me a Message} Have a nice day :) 03:00, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

Remember that this page is for using Wikipedia. Thank you. Rt. 17:23, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

usability from the "secure" wikipedia

First of all, I'd like to say the "secure" wikipedia page is great; I actually wish HTTPS/SLL was used for logins to Wikipedia by default, since people logging in from internet cafes, public libraries, or other public access terminals could be displaying their credentials to other members of their network. But anyways, I was wondering if the Administrators or sysadmin know of the "You have requested an encrypted page that contains some unencrypted information. Information that you see or enter on this page could easily be read by a third party." pop up that occurs when browsing wikipedia with Wikipedia in the "secure" mode with Firefox. Sure, there is a "toggle switch" to turn off those errors, but I'd prefer to leave them on, so I know when I am on a truly secure (or unsecure) page. As a side-note, this is not a Firefox-only error; it's simply displayed differently under IE7. With IE7 a dialog box pops up asking "This page contains both secure and nonsecure items. Do you want to display the nonsecure items?" - upon hitting No (do not display nonsecure items) - the only "change" I notice, is that it appears the images within the MainPage are not linked to a secure SSL (HTTPS) page, so they are deemed "unsecure". Just thought I would bring this to attention. Sorry if this is the wrong place. --adamh 04:27, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

Auto marking as patrolled

I often patrol the new pages special page. If a page is marked CSD, then can the wiki software automatically mark it as patrolled? peterl (talk) 04:45, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

No, often is the case where editors who place speedy deletion tags don't "patrol" the page. It's normal to do it if you wish. Rt. 17:22, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

infobox for "pronunciation" and "also called"

how do i add a little box on the right side where I can put the pronunciation as well as a list of all the "also called", to remove them form the flow of the first sentence to restore the flow? in an article like this Asperger syndrome. if such a box does not exist, we should seiously consider inventing one. It would clean up the article and separate the "name" info and lists form the actual prose.--Sonjaaa (talk) 04:57, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

I don't believe any such boxes exist. You can make suggestions such as this at the proposals section of the village pump or, since this is currently very entrenched, quasi-policy, the policy section might be the right place. Personally, I think pronunciation and alternate names go nowhere else but right up front in the prose. They are exactly what I would expect to find in the first sentence of an encyclopedia and I would oppose making them less integrated but others might have a different take.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 12:33, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

system security scanner

I need a information regarding system security scanner using port numbers,as im doing a project based on this topic i need a keen information the project im doing is based on java so kindly give the information regarding this topic —Preceding unsigned comment added by 221.135.129.13 (talk) 06:07, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

This page is for questions about editing Wikipedia. Please consider asking this question at the 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. You could always try searching Wikipedia for an article related to the topic you want to know more about. I hope this helps. Happy New Year! The Helpful One ^{(Talk) (Contributions)} 11:42, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

I'm confused about where to do the content editing?

Here are the titles and URLS of two related pages:

Wikipedia:WikiProject Metalworking/Main page http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Metalworking/Main_page

Metalworking http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metalworking

I want to fix this page by editing what is present and extending the information. I am uncertain about how these two pages relate to one another. I looked in help and found that blue background pages were ABOUT Wikipedia. So, I suspect that I have been editing the wrong page. Could I get an explanation of these two pages. What is their relationship? function? If I wish to improve the WP content, which do I edit?

Thanks in advance. 24.15.33.131 (talk) 06:45, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

Hi, and welcome :)

The first link you supplied was a wikiproject. Basically a wikiproject exists as a sort of "centre" for organising and improving a group of related articles- in this case, articles to do with metalworking.

Users will use the wikiproject page as a place to organise their edits, suggest changes that can affect many of the metalworking pages, and lists things to do that can be done to protect the page.

It seems to me that the first link you supplied was the beginning of a re-written version of the second link you listed.

The second link you listed was in the wikipedia mainspace, and that is the page you would edit to improve wikipedia content.

You aren't required to join or really take any notice of the wikiproject if you don't want to. It's just there as a sort of editing tool, I suppose.

I hope that answered your question- if not, please feel free to ask. Cheers- CattleGirl ^talk 06:55, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

Archive

Is there an archive with the history of deleted pages? I discovered yesterday that someone had created a page for me over a year ago, which was subsequently deleted. I'd like to know who created it. Dan ad nauseam (talk) 06:48, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

There is a deletion log, found at Special:Log/Delete. However, only admins can view that page.

Do you know what the page is named?

If you do you will be able to find the name of the person who created the page, and provided the page doesn't violate any of our content policies (such as WP:BLP) then I would be happy to email the content to you. CattleGirl ^talk 06:59, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

Based on his user page, the title is probably Daniel Reitman. And he seems to more interested in who the author is than in the content. --teb728 t c 19:38, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

Account appears to be linked to a single language

I've been editing Wikipedia for quite some time, mostly without signing in because most of the times that I tried to sign in, I would be told that there was no such user. I have 'discovered' what is going on: I am fluent in a number of language and - as a translator - I often read the same article in more than one language to see if in the text I find a word that I might be looking for. In the process, I notice small (or not) errors and when I try to log in I am told there is no such (me!) user.

The riddle has been solved - I can sign in on the English version of the article and can move to other pages etc, but the moment I switch to another language, I am no longer a registerd user!

It that deliberate or a small gremlin/ oversight?

Best regards,

Rui Gabriel Correia —Preceding unsigned comment added by Rui Gabriel Correia (talk • contribs) 10:38, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

Each language of Wikipedia is a separate project, with different policies, content, and users. You need to create an account (or edit as an I.P.) for each language (and each project - i.e. Wikipedia, Wikibooks, Wiktionary, etc.). Sarcasticidealist (talk) 10:52, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

There is a proposal to solve this problem: meta:Help:Unified login., but I can't see any indication of when it's likely to be put into operation.--Kateshortforbob 11:03, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

At least registering is very fast! No legal mumbo-jumbo requiring you to agree to take full responsibility if someone else does something wrong, etc. --Coppertwig (talk) 16:18, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

Proofreading

Does Wikipedia not support any proofreading sofware?

Rui Gabriel Correia —Preceding unsigned comment added by Rui Gabriel Correia (talk • contribs) 10:40, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

wikEd is an editor designed for use on Wikipedia. It has features that aid in proofreading, like search and replace. Then there's Lupin's Anti-vandal Tool, which checks for spelling errors, swear words, etc. Firefox has a spelling checker built-in. There's no grammar checker that I know of that works in Wikipedia's edit window. But there's a free web-based grammar checker named SpellCheckPlus.com that you can cut and paste up to 3000 words into. Language Tool is a free open source program you can load on your computer - use it on files, then cut & past the files into Wikipedia. I have no idea how they treat wikisyntax. The Transhumanist 11:03, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

The Mozilla Firefox browser has an option "check my spelling as I type" under Tools-->Options-->Advanced. It underlines misspelled words in the edit window. (At least, misspelled words get underlined on one computer I'm using but doesn't seem to work on another one -- maybe it's underlining in the same colour as the background.) --Coppertwig (talk) 16:15, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

Currency standards used by Wikipedia

Hi

I see that country GDPs, per capita incomes etc are expressed in US dollars. It would be easy to create a 'neutral' currency (WiCU - Wikipedia Currency Unit) made up of a combination of global median benchmarks based on inflation, GDP, etc. This master/ neutral currency would then be linked to a conversion engine such as Bloomberg's, Oanda or Wikipedia's own currency conversion software. On hovering over - for example - Spain, GDP = WiCU 785 billion, the cursor would bring up a window with a table: 1 WiCU = 1,2 USD 1 WiCU = 0,9 EUR 1 WiCU = xxx JPY etc etc [WiKU??? 'Kurrency'???]

Alternatively, pages could have a "Change currency for amounts on this page" feature, linked to an existing currency conversion engine.

Rui Gabriel Correia —Preceding unsigned comment added by Rui Gabriel Correia (talk • contribs) 11:06, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

That would violate Wikipedia:No original research. Existing conversion systems use major currencies, such as the US dollar, as a benchmark. Shalom (Hello • Peace) 14:53, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia generally follows what everyone else does. As most economists and researchers use USD, Wikipedia does the same. --h2g2bob (talk) 15:41, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

ministers of pakistan

i want to know the names of all ministers of pakistan —Preceding unsigned comment added by 116.71.146.172 (talk) 11:14, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

See List_of_Chief_Ministers_of_Pakistan for the list of chief ministers. Please remember this desk is for using Wikipedia. Any other questions should be directed to the reference desk. Thank you. Happy New Year! The Helpful One ^{(Talk) (Contributions)} 11:25, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

Marking patrolled

How do you mark something "patroled" (I'm noticing that non-admins can do it too: [http://en.wikipedia.org/enwiki/w/index.php?title=Special:Log&user=Hencetalk). And what does it accomplish? The Evil Spartan (talk) 13:10, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

"[Mark this page as patrolled]" is a clickable link on the bottom righthand corner of new pages when you visit them from Special:Newpages. The link will not be displayed if you find your way to a new page in a different way. If you go to newpages you should see that certain pages are highlighted in yellow while others are not. The yellow articles have not been mark as patrolled thus providing you with information on what has been looked at already by others. For more information, please see Wikipedia:New pages patrol/patrolled pages.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 13:21, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

Thanks a lot! The Evil Spartan (talk) 14:14, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

You're welcome:-)--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 19:25, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

Back to currencies

Hi

So my question was only half-answered: must everything always be denoted in USD, or can other major currencies be used?

--198.54.202.166 (talk) 15:27, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

yes major currencies only, and it is dependant on the article that its used in.--Kerotan^{Leave Me a Message} Have a nice day :) 15:30, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

Please see this related discussion currently taking place: Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)#Dollar versus Euro (permanent link; see bottom of page).--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 17:00, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

Cannot understand if the source is reliable in wikipedia

I want to use this source[12] as a reference for Crime in India article, but I am not sure if it can be regarded as reliable source or not. Please help.Otolemur crassicaudatus (talk) 15:42, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

It seems reliable to me as a quick look over, let me dig deeper. Rt. 17:21, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

Hmm, yeah seems fine. Remember to use inline citations. Rt. 17:26, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

Such questions can also be asked at Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard. PrimeHunter (talk) 18:43, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

Editing log in

After logging in, I click on "edit" and am sent to a page which informs me that I am not logged in. I log in again and the cycle repeats.

What is the solution?

Thanks

Please provide a link to the page. Happy New Year! The Helpful One ^{(Talk) (Contributions)} 19:58, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

Sounds like you have cookies disabled. Wikipedia uses a log-in cookie to keep you logged in. To make sure cookies are enabled in Firefox, go to Tools -> Options -> Privacy tab -> Accept cookies from sites, and make sure the box is checked; for IE7, go to Tools -> Internet Options -> Privacy, and make sure the security level isn't set too high. Pyrospirit (talk · contribs) 21:16, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

citing info/sources

I edited an article about NPfIT and it en got it altered back by Wikipedia. I got a message stating "Welcome to Wikipedia, and thank you for your contributions. One of the core policies of Wikipedia is that articles should always be written from a neutral point of view. A contribution you made to National Programme for IT appears to carry a non-neutral point of view, and your edit may have been changed or reverted to correct the problem. Please remember to observe our core policies. Thank you. --VinceBowdren (talk) 16:03, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

P.S. I believe the points you were trying to make are valid; but they do need to be balanced, and backed up with citations - e.g. a newspaper report of a criticism issued by Liberty. Also, the introductory paragraph of the article is probably not the place for them - there is a paragraph dedicated to criticisms, which would be more appropriate. --VinceBowdren (talk) 16:07, 26 December 2007 (UTC)".

Being new to this sort of thing I was hoping that someone could supply with some basic information.

How do I cite emails? Do I have to put them in the article? How do you point out basic facts without appearing non-neutral? Is it possible to list the uses as a bullet point list? The list might seem controversial, but does that make it non-neutral? If listing them is non neutral, then why is not listing them seen as neutral? How do I cite information from news articles etc? Where do I cite them? Do I put a link in right away, or put it at the end? How do I challenge what is already on the site to ensure it is factually correct and not 'dumbing down' to the point it is basically wrong? As it stands it is factually incorrect to the point is almost a deliberate deception. It seems odd that it is acceptable to say it is OK to say 30,000 GPs will have access in the introduction, whilst the full list is not appropriate. An example of it being wrong is that it is not 30,000 GPs and hospitals, it is 1.2 million staff including ) staff at out of hour services and NHS direct (the BBC updated its news web site after I made a formal complaint about them claiming it was just 30,000 GPs and 300 hospitals). I was going to re-do my edit to take some info out, but I don’t know what to put in it or how to re-write it without being accused of being non-netural.

Who started the article on NPfIT?

If asked to, I can supply the emails from the NHS (including very senior managers) backing up, but I just don’t know where on the site I would need to put these emails. Some links are listed bellow

http://www.e-health-insider.com/news/3216/government_rejects_consent_call_for_sus_use http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2006/nov/01/health.medicineandhealth1 http://www.advisorybodies.doh.gov.uk/piag/piag140306mins.pdf http://www.pulsetoday.co.uk/story.asp?sectioncode=23&storycode=4115863&c=1 http://www.metro.co.uk/news/article.html?in_article_id=35172&in_page_id=34 Medicalprivacy (talk) 19:56, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia content must be verifiable, based on published reliable sources. Unpublished emails cannot be used as sources. In fact, a template to cite emails was deleted at Wikipedia:Templates for deletion/Log/2007 April 19#Template:Cite email because use of it would be against policy. I suggested the deletion and like the final comment by WilyD: "Flagrently unverifiable. Would not be opposed to salting the template, then rolling it up in a carpet, throwing the carpet off a bridge into a river, then launching the river into a star, which could then be chucked into a black hole. Hopefully the information about the template would be destroyed as it was converted into Hawking radiation."

You ask a lot of questions. These links may answer some of them: Wikipedia:Neutral point of view, Wikipedia:Citing sources. article history. Changes to articles can be discussed on their talk page, in this case Talk:National Programme for IT. PrimeHunter (talk) 21:44, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

Changing the skin to default skin

I was exploring the different available skins in Wikipedia and changed to a skin other than the default, but then I changed my mind and wanted to revert back to the default skin, but then I noticed that the SAVE button was responding to my clicks. I even on RESET hoping that this buton to would reset my profile to default settings, but that didn't help either. I looked into your FAQ, but couldn't find a similar problem's resolution. Pls help me to revert back to the default skin view. - Thanks —Preceding unsigned comment added by Sajjanj (talk • contribs) 20:04, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

Go to my preferences and click on skins. You can change it back there -Brian Alexander (talk) 20:14, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

I assume you meant to say that the save button was not responding to your clicks. Use this link to change skin instead. Brian Alexander's link is the normal preferences link which probably doesn't work for you. PrimeHunter (talk) 21:15, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

Dowloading to make a time consuming edit off line

I wish to make a major format change to a table in an article. It would be easiest for everyone if I could download the table, make the changes on my home machine, and then upload as a paste/insert to the existing article.

Can this be done? Is it approved? Any problems to watch out for? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.161.166.20 (talk) 20:39, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

Specify which article please. Happy New Year! The Helpful One ^{(Talk) (Contributions)} 20:58, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

This can certainly be done. I don't know the circumstances but it can be a good idea to first suggest a major format change on the articles talk page and see if there are objections. Especially if it's a controversial table like in List of massacres which your IP address has worked on. There is a risk other editors will dislike your format and revert it. And it's possible somebody will edit the live table while you are working on an old copy. Then you should merge their changes into your revised table. You can reduce the risk of this by placing a template from Category:Under-construction templates when you download the table. Then others will know somebody is working on it. PrimeHunter (talk) 21:07, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

You can use your mouse to copy-and-paste the wikitext (i.e. the contents of the edit box; the stuff you want to edit) into your favourite text editor (or at least into one that allows copy/paste), work on it as much as you like, then when you're ready, copy-and-paste it back ... except that as PrimeHunter said, others might have edited it meanwhile and you shouldn't just discard their edits. --Coppertwig (talk) 21:36, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia Search Log

Hi, I have been using a mobile portal of Wikipedia (wapedia.mobi) and I see they have a log of recent document searches - suffix URL is: /Special:Searchlog

This doesn't appear to be a special page on Wikipedia itself, I wonder if there is one hidden away somewhere?

Anyone know?

Cheers

R —Preceding unsigned comment added by TetsuoTheRob (talk • contribs) 21:19, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

Can't find my own questions; codes in different colour, please.

I've asked questions here before and now I can't find them to know if they've been answered or not. Can I be notified one way or the other--and be given links? Can you notify me in my Talk page and with a New Message notice?

My new question is can you please change the way all the edit boxes are displayed? When I am editing an article it's really hard because the text and the codes are all in the same colour and intensity. Elsewhere in the 1990s I used to see the text in light face and the codes in bold, or something like that. Even better might be a colour difference. Thanks! Korky Day (talk) 21:43, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

This Google search finds two old help desk pages with posts from you: [13] and [14]. In the second you also asked how to find old posts from you. Whenever somebody other than you edits your talk page, you should automatically get a new messages notice. PrimeHunter (talk) 21:57, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

Text protection

HI

Where can I learn about protection for the texts I include in Wikipedia, please?

Thank you