Wikipedia:Help desk

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December 31

article on not-for-profit organization

I am interested in writing a Wikipedia article on a not-for-profit orgaization that sponsors a self transformative event every year - for the past 17 years. There is an existing community of those who have attended this event, which is loosely connected with various other alternative communities. I would have clear copyright on all materiels. Would this be something that will be appropriate for this venue? Please advise.

Thank you,

Kenn Day. --Kenndeigh (talk) 00:00, 31 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. --teb728 t c 02:16, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

Hi Kenn. I see you've also added a mention of "Kenn Deigh" to an article, and that in the past you edited the Kenn Deigh and Lumensgate articles (both now deleted via the Articles for Deletion process. Due to the source and content of that text, and your screen name, I'd also make sure you read up on the Autobiography and Conflict of Interest guidelines. Writing about yourself or events you run is strongly discouraged. Thanks. - Kathryn NicDhàna ♫♦♫ 07:26, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

Show/hide

I cannot view any "show" or "hide" buttons. I run Internet Explorer 6 on Windows XP Professional. Thanks, –thedemonhog talk • edits 00:14, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

Do you mean you don't see the links, or that they don't work, or that you cannot make your own? What do you see here:

Click show or hide to the right

This text can be hidden

You should have seen a box with a clickable hide or show to the right.

PrimeHunter (talk) 01:15, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

I cannot even see the "hide" or "show." For all I know, it is not even there. –thedemonhog talk • edits 01:21, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

It requires JavaScript which exists but can be disabled in IE6 for security reasons. See Wikipedia:NavFrame#Accessibility and try [1]. PrimeHunter (talk) 01:47, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

Yay, it worked! Thanks for the help. –thedemonhog talk • edits 02:48, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

Four tildes

FOUR TIDES After logging on you told me to enter FOUR TIDES to display my user name ................... I do not have any TIDE(s) on my Laptop. I suggest that this TIDES thing is the figment of someone's imagination and should be done away with - it makes a bad beginning to introduce a new user with FOUR TIDES - it is an aberration. Please substitute Four Elephants or Four Monkeys!! —Preceding unsigned comment added by Leistina (talk • contribs) 00:51, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

When you edit, look at the edit buttons. One button will have a signature on it. Click that to sign a post. JetLover (talk) (Report a mistake) 00:56, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

I first assume you are referring to "Four tildes" as opposed to "Four tides". There is no other name for it, other than "squiggle" (used by some of my former teachers). The tildes (not tides) are located left of the 1 on a US keyboard layout or to the right of the apostrophe or quotation on a UK keyboard layout. The US keyboard requires a shift first. x42bn6 Talk Mess 00:58, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

The message at User talk:Leistina says: "Please sign your name on talk pages using four tildes (~~~~)". The tilde symbol ~ is probably on your keyboard but the position can vary. See tilde#How to type a tilde. As JetLover said, you can also make all 4 with a click on the signature button. You can also click at "Sign your username: ~~~~" below the edit box. PrimeHunter (talk) 01:05, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

Hopefully Liquid Threads will make it simpler for users new to Wikipedia (and other MediaWiki wikis) to get started. Currently we have our rather novice-hostile talk pages, which are pretty good for experienced users, but they burden the novice user with the need to learn a bunch of wiki editing concepts just to be able to ask that first question. The majority of people who pose questions on the Help desk, and have few or no previous edits, do not sign their questions - this is another chunk of cognitive burden our current system imposes on the probably-already-confused newcomer. Liquid Threads takes care of signatures automatically. --Teratornis (talk) 02:54, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

Merlin's beard, real threads would be a welcome improvement! Well hopefully it will not spoil the flat code simplicity of the talk page format, but it would certainly improve the simplicity of use. • Anakin ^{(contribs • complaints)} 03:07, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

WP:EIW#Talk_p has a sub-entry with some links relating to Liquid Threads:

• Demonstration site
• In use on a site using MediaWiki software

It looks like Liquid Threads provides real threading of replies, but you can still use wikitext markup. Maybe it's the Holy Grail: as easy for novices as every "normal" online discussion forum, but powerful enough to keep wiki editors happy. I don't know because I haven't played with it yet. --Teratornis (talk) 03:30, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

content I add to a page is constantly taken off

3 times now I have added content to the page <XL Airways> and each time it is taken off. Just a few succint lines in the History and Incidents section. The current version of the page suggests that XL Airways stopped flying deportation charter flights out of 'sympathy' for asylum seekers. There is no mention in the History section of deportation flights that were carried out under Home Office contracts, without 'sympathy', and the subsequent protests against the airline that led to them withdrawing from the deportation charter business completely. These are minor, but essential, facts to give a balanced view of the companies activities. How do I stop my additions being constantly removed? Underbelly12 (talk) 01:40, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

You were reverted by User:SempreVolando (see [2]), with edit summary "Revert: Not an incident / accidnet [sic]." Perhaps you would do best to follow the steps at dispute resolution, of which the two I suggest you take are: Take your concerns to the talk page of the article, Talk:XL Airways or ask the user himself, at User talk:SempreVolando. x42bn6 Talk Mess 01:47, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

Or instead of getting into dispute resolution, you could try posting in the History section rather than the Accidents section. Be sure to cite your sources. If it is still removed, then WP:DR is the way to go. NF24^{(welcome, 2008!)} 01:52, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

Yes, please include references to reliable sources, especially when you add quotes and controversial information. And note Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons which applies to all articles. Your edits could also easily have been reverted as unsourced. PrimeHunter (talk) 02:01, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

In the aviation industry, the terms "accident" and "incident" have specific technical meanings involving flight operations. Your facts may very well be relevant to the airline article, but they are not aviaton accidents (chrashes, etc.) nor aviation incidents (near-misses, loss-of engines, etc.) As is says above, put you information into the "history" section of the article, but as with any othre importatn fact, please cite your sources. -Arch dude (talk) 02:36, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

How do I change the Title of my article?

How do I change the Title of my article? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Casanovafisher (talk • contribs) 04:48, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

To change the title of an article, you move it to the new title. Only users with accounts over four days old can move pages, but you can also place a request at Wikipedia:Requested moves. Confusing Manifestation(Say hi!) 05:01, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

Additionally, if moving to a new title could be considered in any way controversial, you should discuss any page moves on the article's relavant talk page to establish a consensus first. Mr Senseless (talk) 21:29, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia "accuses" me of spamming - NOT resolved

Dear PrimeHunter

Your reply to the query by the same subject (above) was not helpful at all - everybody is here naturally to give of their time and to contribute to this project. So please take into account that MOST people have only a superficial understanding of how some of the features work.

So if there is a link to a YouTube page that I cannot see, I am presume it is concealed, why would this be so? If if it concealed, what is the purpose, seeing that noone will see it to be able to click on it. I've looked for this link in all modes, including "View Page Source", where I see all other links, but I don't see one to a YouTube page.

--Rui ''Gabriel'' Correia (talk) 08:13, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

I don’t know why you can’t see them. They are in the second and third list items here. They are no more concealed than the pt.wikipedia.org is concealed behind the link “here” --teb728 t c 08:49, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

I see the youtube link as well. Maybe there is a problem with your internet browser? --Hdt83 ^Chat 08:56, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

hindi wikipedia

59.96.101.217 (talk) 09:10, 31 December 2007 (UTC)how do i get info in hindi

Here is the link to the Hindi Wikipedia: [3]. You can also look up something in English and then check the lower left language box to see if the Hindi Wikipedia has the corresponding article. --Hdt83 ^Chat 09:14, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

• • By the way, if while wondering around the Hindi Wikipedia you find an article about the same thing as an English Wikipedia article, and the English article doesn't have a link to it, we would greatly appreciate if you could add the code [[hi:ARTICLE NAME IN HINDI]], and vice-versa. Thank you. Jake the Editor Man _(talk) 22:36, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

hi frnd any body over there help

dear sir, my orkut account always happen that it accept scrap but can't rply frm my scrap book so iwill be help ful to u i u would help me in this matter as its creacting a lot of problem —Preceding unsigned comment added by 122.50.218.29 (talk) 09:35, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

I don't know what your talking about, this area is for help with using Wikipedia, maybe the Wikipedia:Reference desk might help? VivioFateFan ^{(Talk, Sandbox)} 10:09, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

Just for quick reference, this user is talking about Orkut, a social networking site run by Google. GlassCobra 10:26, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

adding a page

how do i add a page

11:43, 31 December 2007 (UTC)~

sam moss

If you want to add a page follow Help:Starting a new page however if you want to add a new article proceed to Wikipedia:Your first article for further details it'll include instructions on what to do. →Yun-Yuuzhan→ 12:01, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

Confused about the replies to postings

Hi

The posts on "Wikipedia 'accuses' me of spamming refer.

The people who reply to the queries pos(t)ed here, are they some kind of uber-users with special privileges, knowledge etc, or are they NORMAL users trying to help but not always knowing what to do? If the latter, I could understand and forgive. If not, your attitude and working ethics are a great disservice to the project and I will take this up with Jimmy.

Whether I can see the links or not is immaterial,* the point is that if you are there to help, then you should be telling me how to work around the spam filter. The first person suggested that I remove the links. Someone put them there for good reason, so having to remove them to be able to edit a page is not a solution. Imagine every link having to be removed each time you have to make a small edit.

Smart-ass answers to the effect that "the links are there, I can see them" are at best puerile, at worst a great disservice and a disappointment. All that this kind of behaviour accomplishes is to annoy the contributor (unnecessarily) and make them vent out their frustration of this page for all to see - including a substantial phalange of Wikipedia detractors.

• Ok, why I couldn’t see the links:

looking for text in links cannot be done on the display page, as the URL is embedded; looking for the text in edit mode with Mozilla, it does NOT search the edit template, only around it - I managed to see it them using Opera; looking for it with your eyes, I did not think of looking all the way down the page, believing that if each 'block' has an edit button, the top edit button would apply to the top block - and in the top block there aren't any links to any YouTube videos.

So, fine, I can see the links, but no-one has deigned to contribute a worthy solution.

Have a nice day

--Rui ''Gabriel'' Correia (talk) 12:44, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

Everyone trying to help out here at the Help Desk is a volunteer. We have no special privileges, knowledge etc. However, perhaps we are a little more experienced with some knowledge of Wikipedia's policies. Astronaut (talk) 13:20, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

Looking at the page history, I see the External Links to the two youtube videos were added on 31 jan 2007 by user AdriAg. Maybe the check for such external links is only done when trying to save an edit; and I don't know for sure, but is it possible that the policy to block such external links was introduced after that date? If so, it is unfortunate but removing the links is the correct solution. Astronaut (talk) 13:33, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

As mentioned, those who reply here are just ordinary people. While they may be more knowledgeable than average, they are not mindreaders. If they ask clarifying questions or make suggestions, the correct reaction is not to assume they "do not know what to do" (though, naturally, this also happens), but rather to clarify your situation and explain why the suggestions are uneffective. Threatening to "take this up with Jimmy" is not welcome, and I'm not sure he is even aware of the existence of this desk, or cares one way or the other.

There is a limit to what people in the English help desk can do to help you. Each language of Wikipedia has its own policies and technical measures, so the problems you are describing might be unfamiliar here. They are also generally incapable of looking at the pages in question and figuring out what's wrong. You really should consider seeking a Portugese Wikipedia help desk and take the issue there.

The "edit" links for sections relate to the section below, not the section above. The same works here in the help desk - if you want to reply, do not start a new section, but rather click on the "edit" link at the top of the section and add your reply. -- Meni Rosenfeld (talk) 13:52, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

Thanks to all who have helped or tried to. Perhaps I do/ did have the wrong idea of the people who reply here, as to the extent of their functions. I was not threatening when I said I would take this up with Jimmy, it is just that other than posting it here, and not knowing what other avenue to follow (I've seen posts about decalring disputes etc, which I feel is not necessary, nor is it the case), all I wanted was to get the feeling that someone would acknowledge that there is a problem here and resolve it, task someone with its resolution or alert the person responsible to look into it. If there is a more adequate forum to report this, then please be so kind as to enlighten me.

Also, perhaps I did not express myself clearly about the edit buttons - yes, I do know that the button refers to the section immediately below it - what I was trying to say is that I was not aware that the TOPMOST button applies to the whole page. In effect this means that unlike all other sections, the top section does not have its own dedicated edit bitton.

As for the YouTube link, I've just tested editing page http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gorilla_%28Cadbury%29 which contains various external links - including a link to a YouTube video - and I had no problem saving the edits. It would not have occurred to me that such a fundamental issue such as blocking possible spam would differ from language to language in terms of policy to handle it. I'll post the issue on the Portuuese Wikipedia and see if it gets resolved.

I've until now never responded below responses to my posting in the belief (obviously wrong) that only the editors use this space to answer queries.

Best regards and have a happy, fun-filled, rewarding 2008 full of personal and professonal accomplishments.

--Rui ''Gabriel'' Correia (talk) 14:26, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

The previous posts are at #Wikipedia "accuses" me of spamming!!! ;-) and #Wikipedia "accuses" me of spamming - NOT resolved. You described this as a technical issue with disappeared links and you were told where the links were and that your browser might be unable to search text in the edit window. Whether and how to keep the links is a content issue for the Portuguese Wikipedia and this is the help desk for the English Wikipedia. I don't know Portuguese and cannot say whether the links are worth keeping or how the Portuguese Wikipedia policies are. The link is not blocked on the English Wikipedia or meta which is why it can be saved here. It was blocked by this addition on 20 July 2007 to the local Portuguese blacklist at pt:MediaWiki:Spam-blacklist (on 4 December it was removed for 1 minute [4]). I don't know whether the Portuguese Wikipedia permits to display useful blacklisted links in an "external links" section without linking them. This could be done with <nowiki>http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wp2HMX2T72k</nowiki> or www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wp2HMX2T72k. The Portuguese Wikipedia has a short message when a link is blacklisted. To see the longer English message, try saving a link that is blacklisted here, for example http://automotiveoilchange.net. PrimeHunter (talk) 14:34, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

The Wikipedia project is extremely complex, with lots of detail to befuddle newcomers. Even using this Help desk is arcane and unobvious, since the Help desk doesn't work like any other (non-wiki) discussion site. Although Wikipedia poses as "the Encyclopedia that anyone can edit," in practice, not everyone looks at Wikipedia and immediately gets all the correct ideas about how to approach it. You had the disadvantage of trying to edit a page that happened to contain a fairly serious problem that a new user would be unlikely to understand. Wikipedia isn't really designed for beginners; it's designed for the kind of people who design Wikipedia. Those are generally people with thousands of edits, who communicate with each other by reading and writing hundreds of pages of complex manuals. Many of the more experienced editors have high IQs, enabling them to be comfortable with complexity. Complexity is essential to a project of Wikipedia's size and popularity. The English Wikipedia, for example, ranks somewhere in the top 10 or 20 Web sites in the world. Most of those other sites are run by large corporations who employ hundreds (or thousands) of skilled professionals to build them. Many things get more capable and thus more valuable by becoming more complex; for example, a Boeing 747 is vastly more complex than a Wright Flyer; modern medicine is vastly more complex than folk medicine; a Pentium microprocessor is more complex than an abacus; and in each of those examples, there is a large educational infrastructure for training all the people who build the complex things. All of the world's most popular Web sites are extremely complex too, but only Wikipedia invites everyone to wander in and try editing stuff. Many people who accept the invitation will have problems, and their enjoyment of Wikipedia will then depend on their ability to diagnose and solve problems. The first thing to understand is that almost everything a person could need to know about editing on Wikipedia is already written down somewhere. Learning how to search for answers is therefore essential for enjoying Wikipedia. When you can't find an answer on your own, then you need to learn how to ask questions the smart way. Wikipedia is an Open Source project, and therefore it works like other open source projects - the primary motive for people to get involved is fun. When you aren't paying money to get other people to help you, you have to make it fun for them to help you. --Teratornis (talk) 17:49, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

You are quite right - I was immediately struck by those high IQs. They knocked me completely off-balance, such was the impact like an unexpected wave when you are standing on the rocks admiring the view!. And I knew at once they could be nothing else but High IQs because I happen to have one myself! lucky for me! --Rui ''Gabriel'' Correia (talk) 18:36, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

I boldly removed the youtube links from the Portuguese page. So now you should be able to make your edit. --teb728 t c 23:28, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

metric conversion

does 40 milligrams=20 milliliters? 13:39, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

Grams is weight (or more specific:mass) and liters is volume, so they can not be compared like that in general. However, you can compare it for a specific material if you know its density. In the future, please use the WP:Reference Desk for general knowledge questions, the Help Desk is for question about using Wikipedia. Arthena^(talk) 13:42, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

Have you tried Wikipedia's Reference Desk? They specialize in knowledge questions and will try to answer just about 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. Happy New Year! The Helpful One ^{(Talk) (Contributions)} 13:44, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

the diference between static and changing menu

i just want the diference and that is all. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 41.210.19.83 (talk) 14:51, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

What do you mean by the "menu"? NF24^{(welcome, 2008!)} 14:54, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

Well... static means stationary, inactive, unchanging, and changing means..... changing, with the change presumably referring to the content (text) of the menu items. Slightly out of context sort of question, is there any more to it? • Anakin ^{(contribs • complaints)} 15:11, 31 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) 16:44, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

Infobox Fashion Designer template & photo

I have uploaded a photo of Ralph Lauren to which I own the rights to Creative Commons. I've placed that image name and caption into the template, but neither appear on saving the page. What am I doing wrong? Thanks Doc ♬ talk 15:30, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

I have fixed it for you. =) Take at look at the edit I made. Even though it says image= in the template, you still have to use the full image syntax after it. This allows for more flexibility (e.g., customizing the image size). • Anakin ^{(contribs • complaints)} 15:39, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

Thanks so much. I had looked at other template examples and they had inserted just the image name, as in Eleanor Roosevelt so that was what I followed. I'll know next time. Doc ♬ talk 16:41, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

Opps...now how do I get the caption to show? Again, I followed the above example of Eleanor Roosevelt. Thanks again. Doc ♬ talk 16:43, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

The templates are not always consistent in the way they work you see. If you check Special:Whatlinkshere/Template:Infobox Fashion Designer you can see other uses of that exact template. However it says on the template page at Template:Infobox Fashion Designer that the caption parameter should work.... yet it doesn't seem to be actually used in the template source. Actually it's possible that other pages are using it without the caption appearing too. I think it needs someone who's good with MediaWiki template syntax figure out how to make the captions work. • Anakin ^{(contribs • complaints)} 16:51, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

I've had a read up on template syntax and fixed the infobox so that the caption parameter now works as it ought too. I'll check all the other pages that use the template to make sure I didn't break something, but hopefully that's it now. Phew! • Anakin ^{(contribs • complaints)} 17:30, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

Thanks once again, ever so much Doc ♬ talk 17:49, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

Citing a PDF document

How do i cite a PDF document? Thanks.  Sunderland06  17:22, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

Assuming it's a reliable source, you'd just cite it the same way you'd site any other URL. WP:CITE#Inline_citations may shed some light on this if you're unfamiliar with wikipedia's inline citation markup.--69.118.143.107 (talk) 17:43, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

(edit conflict) You can use {{PDFlink}}, or just cite it like any other online source (I assume it's online). PrimeHunter (talk) 17:45, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

Twinkle

How do i gain access to twinkle, it says my account is too new, although that's true but i'm not new to wikipedia, this account is my secondary account which i want to use for finding vandalism and then fix it. My first account which i tend to use for editing is Yun-Yuuzhan could someone please grant me access. →Yun-Shuno→

The account that you are using is less that a day old. It needs to be at least 4 days old so that it is autoconfirmed. Please wait 4 days before trying to install Twinkle. Hope this helps! Happy New Year! The Helpful One ^{(Talk) (Contributions)} 17:45, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

I'll use this account then for the moment and wait until the secondary account is four day's old to start hunting for vandals. →Yun-Yuuzhan→ 17:48, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

Good for you, Yun-Yuuzhan! Jake the Editor Man _(talk) 22:38, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

I've had Yun-Shuno closed down, i'm using this one instead for doing editing or reverting vandalism. there's no-point in having two user accounts on wiki, and it'll be easier on user's who try and post a message on my talkpage. →Yun-Yuuzhan→ 12:10, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

Good choice, it would be too confusing! The Helpful One ^{(Talk) (Contributions)} 19:31, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

Interpreting the different colors associated with an authors works

What do the various colors mean when viewing the works of an author? Please see the works of James Michner as an example. 216.201.210.204 (talk) 17:43, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

Also, where and what is the sandbox?

A Wikipedia search on James Michner found nothing and I don't know which page or colors you refer to. "The sandbox" refers to Wikipedia:Sandbox. The term is not made by Wikipedia as Sandbox (software development) shows. PrimeHunter (talk) 17:51, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

The question probably refers to noted American author James A. Michener. --Teratornis (talk) 17:54, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

I'm guessing the "colors" are the red links for many of Michener's book titles. --Teratornis (talk) 17:57, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

(Some people amuse themselves by solving crossword puzzles; a few of us like to decode questions on the Help desk.) To the questioner: the red links on many of Michener's book titles mean that nobody has written articles about them yet. If you would like to write about one or more of Michener's books, you will need to create an account, and then read a bunch of instruction pages about how to edit on Wikipedia. You should also join Wikipedia:WikiProject Books to see how other Wikipedia users have written articles about books. --Teratornis (talk) 18:02, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

Thanks. Blue text has a link to an existing article. The blue may turn purple if you have viewed the article. Normal black text means there is no link (but in some cases there may exist an article which hasn't been linked yet). PrimeHunter (talk) 18:10, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

Editing References

On "Mario Strikers Charged" page, I wanted to add a review from a gaming website. I added the review under external links. I was then going to put the link under references as well. When I went to add the reference, for some reason or another, the other references got erased. It was unintentional. Is there anyway to reboot the references that were there? And how do you add a reference without having to enter all the references that were previously there? When I clicked "edit refrences," it left me a blank page and I thought I just needed to add the reference I used and all of a sudden when I saved it, everyone elses was erased.Deasterday1 (talk) 18:59, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

You accidentally deleted {{reflist}} in [5]. {{reflist}} tells the software where to display previously written references. See more at Wikipedia:Footnotes. Another editor has restored reflist. PrimeHunter (talk) 19:18, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

I want to make an edit to the opening sentence on a page.

This is the sentence that I want to edit: 'Kinetic art are sculptures that contains moving parts.' At this url: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kinetic_art

Hitting the edit button at the bottom of the Kinetic art section where that sentence appears takes me instead to the editing page for the section on Kinetic sculpture. Usercode9623 (talk) 19:04, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

The edit links to the right are for the following section. The lead has no edit link to the right. Click "Edit this page" at top instead. PrimeHunter (talk) 19:11, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

Another way to edit the lead section is to select My preferences > Gadgets > Add an [edit] link for the introduction section of a page. It is unfortunate this is not the default. --teb728 t c 21:08, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

Yet a third way (a bit esoteric) is to copy the url of one of the side edit links on a page, change the last digit to zero, i.e., "http://www....edit&section=8"--->"http://www....edit&section=0" and then go to that address.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 21:21, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

Having trouble with citing info on Bob Eubanks page.

I added some info that I thought was sorely missing from the Bob Eubanks page. It had to do with his famous antisemitic quote that he gave in the documentary Roger & Me. I cited the quote from IMDB, but it doesn't seem to list correctly in the references section. There is no hyperlink, and the page keeps telling me that the citations need work. Any solutions? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.250.207.9 (talk) 19:47, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

Fixed. The url needed the initial http://. If you think the article is now sufficiently sourced, you can be bold and remove the tag yourself. Algebraist 19:53, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

Thank You!! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.250.207.9 (talk) 03:39, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

Template for canvass-prone xFD discussions

I though there was a template with a name like {{Notapoll}} to place atop deletion discussions prone to new and single-purpose accounts. Can't find it, and {{spa}} doesn't really explain enough. / edg ☺ ☭ 19:59, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

Are you thinking of {{Not a ballot}}, perhaps? (Alternatively, {{!vote}} or {{rally}} might serve.) --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 20:08, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

Moonriddengirl has hit it on the head I think with {{Not a ballot}}, because {{Not a Vote}}, which you've probably seen in the past, is a redirect to that template.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 20:15, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

{{Not a ballot}} is what I was thinking of, but {{rally}} looks useful as well. Thank you much! / edg ☺ ☭ 20:53, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

Revised Peer Review

O.K. where do I go to see currently on-going peer reviews. WP:PR seems to bbe revamped and I am at a loss.--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTD) 20:45, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

A list is present at User:VeblenBot/C/Requests for peer review. Where are the discussions are transcluded is beyond me. Sephiroth BCR ^(Converse) 20:47, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

Username Usurpation question

The first instruction for the Username usurpation is: "Be sure the account you wish to usurp has no edits or log entries (except in the account creation log)." I wish to Usurp User:Spencer, who has only made one edit, to his userpage. That was ~5 years ago, and has not made an edit since. Before I waste my time trying to change my username, I was wondering if it would work, based on that one critea. S♦s♦e♦b♦a♦l♦l♦o♦s ^{(Talk to Me)} 21:31, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

I'm assuming you mean changing usernames by username usurpation? If your proposed new username has been previously created I don't beleive that you can change your username to it, regardless of whether edits have been made or not by that account. If you want to change your username, find a name that isn't in use and do not create it yourself, request the change and a beauracrat will create it for you. Mr Senseless (talk) 21:36, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

You could also ask a developer, though I'm not sure they would do it, even if the only edit made by User:Spencer was five years ago. Mr Senseless (talk) 21:38, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

You can usurp usernames. See Wikipedia:Changing username/Usurpations. S♦s♦e♦b♦a♦l♦l♦o♦s ^{(Talk to Me)} 21:38, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

Okay, I didn't realize that adopting a dormant username was even possible! (I'm fairly new!) It says users with GFDL contributions can not be usurped, userpage contributions I don't believe are considered GFDL unless specifically said so. You could give it a try, it may be possible, make it clear that the only edit by your proposed account was a userpage edit. Mr Senseless (talk) 21:43, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

Thanks dude! S♦s♦e♦b♦a♦l♦l♦o♦s ^{(Talk to Me)} 21:46, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

Is there a limit to the number of ((citation )) entries per page?

Hi, and Happy New Year,

My "thing" with Wikipedia is appending lists of source materials to articles on New Zealand place names.

Yesterday I created a fairly large list for the article "Hawera": more than 100 entries. The last section of the bibliography is headed "schools" and has from a dozen to twenty entries in it. However, instead of displaying these citations, it gives "Template:Citation" in place of each entry.

Given that these citations are formatted in the same way throughout the list - I'm stumped as to why this is happening. Is there perhaps a limit to the number of (( citation ...)) permitted per page??

TIA,

Boethius65 (talk) 21:44, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

Yes, there is limit problem with many {{Citation}}. See Template talk:Citation#COinS. Hawera#Further reading also seems far too long for a Wikipedia article. I suggest to shorten it a lot (not just enough to get below the template limit). PrimeHunter (talk) 22:18, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

Can somebody good with tables help me?

Tables and divs are very difficult to use. I have a simple task I'm trying to do. If someone could help me, I'd appreciate it.

On my talk page, someone please make it so that my table of "guidelines" is on the top right, while the table of contents is on the top left. If you don't want to do it, please refer to me to someone who can. Zenwhat (talk) 22:04, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

Help:Tables has tons of information and tutorials on table syntax. That might have the information you need. Mr Senseless (talk) 22:10, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia: External Links in need of policy revisement?

Recently, there were varying opinions on whether Opeth should get links to both their MySpace and Facebook pages. I realized that number 11 of Links normally to be avoided at WP:EL states that MySpace pages should be avoided, yet several bands with featured articles (such as Slayer, Godsmack and Megadeth) all have Myspace links in their EL sections. I was just wondering what to do in this scenario; the Facebook page for Opeth is linked to on their official site, so authenticity isn't an issue. Any help would be appreciated. Master of Puppets ^{Care to share?} 23:25, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

January 1

First edit of the year

Hello, does anyone know what the first edit of 2008 was? Thanks. JetLover (talk) (Report a mistake) 00:21, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

In what timezone? Arthena^(talk) 00:24, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

Probably UTC. --Silver Edge (talk) 00:35, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

Yes, Wikipedia time is UTC and would be the natural choice.

According to recent changes this edit is right. PrimeHunter (talk) 00:37, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

Is there any way to check Recent Changes beyond the past 5000 edits? Whenever I try only the last 50 get returned. I made an edit at 0000; I want to see where I stand. -- RattleMan 00:42, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

I don't know a way. I hit recent pages after seeing the question and 5000 was enough then. I kept the window. You were number 63. PrimeHunter (talk) 00:53, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for finding that out for me. -- RattleMan 01:54, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

Another way to find out is to do a narrowing search with the oldid parameter. For example, this way I can find out that the first edit of 2007 was [6]. —Random832 21:31, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

What atonement means

WHAT It MEENS the WERD ATONEMENT —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.5.119.173 (talk) 00:45, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

See Atonement (disambiguation). --teb728 t c 00:57, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

Typo on email

When I registered I made a typo on my email address. How do I correct it? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Mleebarnes (talk • contribs) 00:54, 1 January 2008

Go to Special:Preferences and make it right. --teb728 t c 01:03, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

Project Deletion?

Is there currently any system in place for suggesting/nominating Projects for disbandment/removal, like a "Projects for Deletion" or something or to recommend a project be changed to a task force under a larger project? Collectonian (talk) 01:26, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion. What are you nominating? –thedemonhog talk • edits 01:32, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

The MfD page recommends marking the Project as {{Inactive}} or demoting it to a task force if possible (an example is Wikipedia:WikiProject South Carolina Highways) before deletion. NF24^{(welcome, 2008!)} 01:38, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

Ah. That's more what I'm thinking. There are several projects for TV shows that I feel need to be demoted to task forces under the Television project rather and was curious as to whether there was some method for attempting such a change. Collectonian (talk) 03:14, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

reuse of wikipedia content?

there is a magazine (Scientific American) that has reused an image from wikipedia without proper attribution. i have written them two letters asking for a correction to be printed, but they have not responded. (it has been two months.) i was hoping to enlist the aid of wikipedia in getting a correction printed, but i don't know where to ask. any ideas where i can start? tia, 70.116.27.249 (talk) 02:01, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia is GFDL, meaning it is free. However, depending on what the copyright of the image was, it might not have been legal. Do you know which image it is? Soxred93 has a boring sig 02:04, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

thanks, but i already know the reuse was improper. i know wikipedia content is "free" to be reused; however, it must be correctly attributed. that is the issue.

i appreciate your eagerness, but i'm not too keen on debating copyright law here. i'm just looking for the appropriate forum to ask about the image's reuse. 70.116.27.249 (talk) 02:14, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

i would add that the same question (what to do about improperly attributed, reused content) has been asked several times at Wikipedia_talk:Reusing_Wikipedia_content by several different users -- but without any response. 70.116.27.249 (talk) 02:15, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

I wonder if you might find an editor at Wikipedia:Media copyright questions who has experience with this issue. Otherwise, you might want to mail the Wikimedia foundation to inquire about it. This would seem to suggest to me that the burden of handling the situation may fall upon the contributors, but I don't know. I've never encountered this situation before. Good luck. :/ --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 02:59, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

The image might also have been used under the doctrine of fair use, the legal restrictions of which are far less than Wikipedia's restrictions. Mr.Z-man 03:03, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

This sounds like a question that only Jimbo Wales can answer, since nobody but him likely has the authority to hire a lawyer to investigate the matter or send a cease & desist. Follow Moonriddengirl's advice and also, try contacting Jimbo Wales. His contact information is on his userpage. Zenwhat (talk) 03:34, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

Issues like this have been discussed on the Commons-l mailing list, for instance in this recent thread: [7]. Arthena^(talk) 12:14, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

raice strow pluping

i want to know every thing about the best way of raice strow plulping in manifactsur and ways of tretment of raise strow black liquor —Preceding unsigned comment added by 41.232.27.39 (talk) 02:12, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

Have you tried Wikipedia's Reference Desk? They specialize in knowledge questions and will try to answer any question in the universe (except how to use Wikipedia, since that is what this Help Desk is for). Just follow the link, select the relevant section, and ask away. I hope this helps. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 02:49, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

(edit conflict) I appreciate that English might not be your first language, but I am having problems understanding your question. If I was to guess, I think your question might be about using rice straw as an animal feed. However, this page is the English Wikipedia help desk for questions about using Wikipedia. You might do better asking your question at the reference desk. Astronaut (talk) 02:51, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

You can also try a Google search, for example on "rice straw" "black liquor" pulp. PrimeHunter (talk) 03:09, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

How can I request help for an article? (Nightmare)

I've been trying to improve the nightmare article, but there's one individual making it difficult. The page, for example, contains a list of the word Nightmare translated into 21 languages. This list has been removed by me and other editors, only to be replaced by this editor. Also, an expert tag was put up, only to be removed (by the same editor). Now I don't consider myself an expert, but I'd like to get as many editors to see the page as possible, because it seems neglected. How do I request experts, as well as just regular Wikipedians, to take a look at the article and try and clean it up? I don't think it's getting enough traffic to keep it up to par. Also, I find it hard to find wiki-policy; does anyone know if there's a specific policy against lists of translations? All I could find was the 'Wikipedia:Wikipedia is not a dictonary,' which kind of covers it, but I don't think this editor will be convinced. Any help appreciated. Chris b shanks (talk) 02:29, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

You can file a request for comment. Though I would think that it would be best to invite both you and this other editor to the talk page of nightmare to discuss its appropriateness before this. I for one think that there is no real reason to include a list of translations - as you say, Wikipedia is not a dictionary. x42bn6 Talk Mess 02:40, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

A couple of places to look. :) You may want to read the dispute resolution policy to get an idea of how to handle this. Requests for Comment is one avenue. As x42bn6 says (and that policy emphasizes), the best place to start is by discussing the matter civilly on the article's talk page. As far as finding an expert is concerned, I usually head over to the list of WikiProjects. Once you've found one that seems relevant, you can make your request at the talk page of the project. Do pay attention to how much activity the talk page has. Some WikiProjects are not particularly active, and you may not find much assistance at one of those. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 02:48, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

usernames

(This may not be the right place to ask this so sorry if i'm being a pain...)

Why do the usernames get changed to start with a capital letter, and is there a way to request that a username be changed?

My actual username is vIQleS. Its the same name I use everywhere and, being a bit of a pedant, i'd really like it to be standard...

Cheers

vIQleS VIQleSthe2nd (talk) 02:52, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

It's within the MediaWiki software, I believe. You can put {{Lowercase}} on your user page and talk page and it will force the capitalisation on that page to be lowercase (see my userpage for an example), and note that User:VIQleSthe2nd and User:vIQleSthe2nd both point to the same page, so you can put that in your signature too. So you will just encounter the capitalisation occasionally. x42bn6 Talk Mess 02:56, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

Neglected articles

Is there a way to find out which of our 2 million articles have been untouched for the longest time? It occurred to me that maybe they need some care and attention. Astronaut (talk) 02:55, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

You can try Special:Ancientpages, though it hasn't been updated for over a year. NF24^{(welcome, 2008!)} 03:02, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

You can help at Wikipedia:WikiProject Abandoned Articles. Mr.Z-man 03:05, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

Which, ironically, is starting to become abandoned.Darn. Beat me to the save page button. NF24^{(welcome, 2008!)} 03:07, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

durple

I want to login in under my name (durple) but when I ask for a new password I do not get a response? No new password is emailed to me? Doug Gerrard

What's a durple?

A durple is any physical device of any size or material used to temporarily join two things together. The word can be used as a noun or verb. Some examples; a paper clip, clothespin, trailer hitch, safetypin, snaphook, harness, velcro. There is no one word in the English language that rhymes with purple so I made this one up in 1963 so poets have a whole new area to explore. Doug<email address removed> —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.158.103.60 (talk) 04:26, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

A few questions:

1. Are you sure that you set an email address in Special:Preferences?
2. Do you still have access to that Email?
3. Does your email use a spam filter? VivioFateFan ^{(Talk, Sandbox)} 08:51, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

Not so it doesn't rhyme

• There is disperple
• Also bepurple and empurple but really related words

The emperor's purple to the crowd did disperple did'st them all empurple

See - didn't have to use durple even once.

Spinningspark (talk) 12:47, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

You are confused with orange which only rhymes with Halib-orange.

Spinningspark (talk) 12:49, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

Hm? Orange rhymes with mange, range, arrange, derange... -- Meni Rosenfeld (talk) 12:58, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

Not really, same spelling of ending but different pronounciation. Orange is pronounced "orənj". See schwa for the correct pronounciation of ə.

It makes me cringe

Like a squeaky hinge

That there's nowt in the world

That rhymes with orange

Spinningspark (talk) 13:34, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

Shouldn't the third line be "That there's nought in the world"? Anyway, back to the original question. If you do have a spam filter, there's a way to turn it off. (Some ISP's, like mine, have a way to mark messages as "spam" and still deliver them to your inbox. Try that if you don't want to disable your filter.) In the event that you mistyped your e-mail address, you can usurp your username by creating a new account and going to WP:CHU/U. NF24^{(radio me!)} 14:42, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

Nought might well make a better poem, but I did mean nowt. It is a word from an english dialect spoken in Yorkshire, England. Spinningspark (talk) 00:25, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

Though generally accounts such as durple (talk · contribs) who already have edits can't be usurped. There's somewhat of a gray area though, as it's usually left up to the discretion of the bureaucrat who reviews the request. Two minor edits may be well bellow the threshold for which problems with the GFDL emerge.--69.118.143.107 (talk) 14:44, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

Under what conditions should politics be included in an article?

Someone suggested that I work on Private highway. At the the bottom, the "Supporters" and "Opponents" sections just seem kind of silly to me. I'd like to remove them, but I don't know what specific policy they're violating. Does anyone have any suggestions? The important fact is that there is no mainstream debate over whether to privatize roads. Zenwhat (talk) 04:27, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

I'd remove both. They violate the neutrality police and are border line original research as they are mostly using sources to push a specific point and seem to be using sources out of context, both no-nos. Collectonian (talk) 12:25, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

Deleted Pages

Hi, I was just wondering if anyone knows of a way to view pages or the history of pages which have been deleted? Because a few pages which I was interested in have been deleted and if I knew they were going to be deleted off wikipedia, I would have saved them into a word document so I was still able to view them. TeePee-20.7 (talk) 05:13, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

Administrators can view the deleted history of pages. Leave me a note on my talk page about which pages you want and I may be able to provide the content. Mr.Z-man 08:29, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

Sweet thanks! Will do. TeePee-20.7 (talk) 13:05, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

As some additional information (always beneficial in the event that Mr. Z-man should suddenly win an all-expense paid cruise to Antarctica and be unavailable when you need it ;)) you may also find other admins willing to provide copies of pages at Category:Wikipedia administrators who will provide copies of deleted articles or by going through the process at Wikipedia:Deletion_review#Temporary_review. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 13:29, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

LOL well even if that doesn't happen, thanks heaps! :D TeePee-20.7 (talk) 13:05, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

Unblock

Why use "Requests for unblock" to find users asking to be unblocked? You can also find such users by clicking that question mark image. After all, not every page with that template is in the "Requests for unblock" category. 58.168.147.119 (talk) 08:24, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

Wherever it is, it's important to have some fairly reliable means of quickly locating and isolating active unblock requests; people have been looking to that category for some time, while the image may not be shared between all unblock templates, may be present on other pages, or may even be changed in favor of another. Is there some specific example where an {{unblock}} (or sibling) template has failed to add a user talk page into CAT:RFU? – Luna Santin (talk) 11:55, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

identity

Can I hide my identity?08:52, 1 January 2008 (UTC)08:52, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

If, by identity, you mean your IP address, all you need to do is register for a free account. See Wikipedia:Why create an account? –thedemonhog talk • edits 09:15, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

Question re page deletion

Why is that page called "Wikipedia:Why was my page deleted?" when it is clearly stated that no one owns any articles? 58.168.147.119 (talk) 10:02, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

As the person who originally proposed the page title, the idea at the time was to try and be "familiar" with the person, with the idea that a more friendly, personal approach might succeed where several others over the years have quite clearly failed. Certainly no single person does own pages, but many people feel that way, at least at first; we can't expect people to become instantly accustomed to Wikipedia's attitudes and norms all at once, realisitically. Something like that, anyway. :) – Luna Santin (talk) 11:33, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

The word "my" allows for several meanings, in keeping with the general ambiguity of natural language. For example, a married person might refer to "my husband" or "my wife," but in most nations a married person does not own his or her spouse. Similarly, one might say "my college" to refer to the college one merely attended, rather than the college one owns. If we wanted to be technically correct, the page title should be "Why was the article that I created deleted?" Even though that is awkward, you could create a redirect from that title to the existing page. Interestingly, even this lolcat caption is more technically correct, although not grammatically correct. --Teratornis (talk) 20:39, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

Search

how do i find a search option? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.150.102.205 (talk) 13:09, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

There's a search box in the upper-left-hand side of any page. You can not only search Wikipedia but several search engines as well. (Clicking "Go" will take you directly to a title you typed in if it exists, while clicking "Search" will search Wikipedia, whether the title exists or not.) NF24^{(radio me!)} 13:15, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

(edit conflict) I'm not sure what you want but see Wikipedia:Search. It's often better to search Wikipedia with an external search engine like Google. PrimeHunter (talk) 13:18, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

β barrel --> Beta barrel

Could someone create a redirect page at β barrel with a target pointing to Beta barrel? There is a similar precedent with Beta sheet and β sheet. Thank you.--69.118.143.107 (talk) 14:42, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

Y Done It unfortunately had to be created as B barrel due to technical limitations. However, B sheet is the same so there shouldn't be a problem. NF24^{(radio me!)} 14:44, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

It really is a capital beta (Β = Β barrel) rather than a Latin B (B = B barrel). They look very similar. --h2g2bob (talk) 15:02, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

Username trouble

Is there any way I can edit my username?If there is,do inform me.I would be more than glad.And also can you tell me how to delete my account incase i cannot edit my user name,i will have to make another account by deleting this one. Thankyou. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Nolabel17 (talk • contribs) 14:59, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

Admins can change your username - ask at Wikipedia:Changing username --h2g2bob (talk) 15:07, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

{edit conflict) You can ask an administrator to change your username for you, see Wikipedia:Changing_username for more information. I hope this helps! Happy New Year! The Helpful One ^{(Talk) (Contributions)} 15:09, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

To be exact, it requires a bureaucrat (and they respond at Wikipedia:Changing username). PrimeHunter (talk) 15:27, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

Note though that if you've only just registered, they tend to suggest you just create a new account with the correct name, because it's normally much easier than going through the fussy change username procedure. It isn't possible to delete an old account, but unused accounts are harmless and can be left on the system. • Anakin ^{(contribs • complaints)} 17:27, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

mayo v/s salad dressing

I am looking for info on the handling of these products in a salad dressing. Would the dressing have to be refrigerated after rebotlling--Yiannispano (talk) 15:00, 1 January 2008 (UTC)JOHN SPANOUDAKIS--15:00, 1 January 2008 (UTC)Yiannispano (talk)

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)} 15:06, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

How do I find MY wikipedia page?

I just went on wikipedia and signed up and created about a paragraph titled Spencer and Carrie Storer. However when I search that exact thread nothings found. Can you tell me where I screwed up? I want to be able to tell my wife to search her name on Google and have our Wikipedia page pop up. Thanks!

I know they said no emails to but I am not sure where you'll respond to when answering this or how I'll find it. So if you want, you email me at <e-mail removed>

Thanks a lot Spencer —Preceding unsigned comment added by Storers1 (talk • contribs) 16:48, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

On the top of the page while signed in, look at contributions and it should be there somewhere.  Sunderland06  16:52, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

It's on your userpage. Each Wikipedian gets their own page in the User: namespace. Your userpage can be found at User:Storers1 or Special:Mypage. NF24^{(radio me!)} 16:54, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

An article written about yourself or your relatives will have been considered non-notable and will have been deleted by an administrator. That is the most likely possibility if you can't find it now. Lradrama 16:56, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

OK, it appears that NASCAR Fan24 has found the solution. ^ It is on your userpage. See his comment (2nd reply down). Lradrama 16:57, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

I don't think that they were expecting a response here. Continued on user talk page. NF24^{(radio me!)} 17:08, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

back pain

does anxiety & sress cause back pain

Unfortunately, Wikipedia does not give medical advice. You may be interested in our Back pain article, however. NF24^{(radio me!)} 18:44, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

Editing of protected page Cold fusion

Cold fusion was protected yesterday, yet today User:JzG has made two edits for which he hasn't sought consensus (and would be unlikely to get it). This seems to be against policy. Also, I don't see the page mentioned in the Requests for protection so I can't see how it came to be fully protected. How should I take these questions up? Itsmejudith (talk) 18:36, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

The Administrator's noticeboard? Though JzG (or Guy, as he calls himself) is an admin, and the edits were probably in good faith. The first was correcting factual errors and the second was removing unnecessary information. Also, page protection does not need to go to RFPP; that's only a place where normal users can request protection. Admins can prudently protect pages at will, AFAIK. (e.g. several admins have fully protected their userpages so only they can edit). NF24^{(radio me!)} 18:51, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Wikipedia:Protection policy does specify that "Administrators should not edit pages that are protected due to a content dispute, unless there is consensus for the change, or the change is unrelated to the dispute." If the change is not unrelated to the dispute or is against consensus, you might start by civilly approaching the admin at User talk:JzG or Talk:Cold fusion as recommended at Wikipedia:Administrator#Dealing with grievances. It is always possible (and should be presumed until demonstrated otherwise) that the change was well-intentioned if (in fact it is) misguided. That failing, I suppose you might next want to consider WP:ANI or Wikipedia talk:Protection policy for additional feedback. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 18:56, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

Thank you. I see that other editors have taken the case to the ANI. I also asked him to revert on his talk page and User:Uncle Ed independently asked him on the article talk page. Please note that the statements that he was correcting factual errors and removing unnecessary information are just his opinion. The result was to put a slightly different spin in the summary of a crucial source, so hardly uncontroversial. Itsmejudith (talk) 20:11, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

May I suggest that you weigh in at the ANI conversation to explain your perspective, in that case? I've read it over, but I lack background in cold fusion. (That's a bit of an understatement, actually, along the lines of "I have yet to master breathing water.") If you want to talk about Oscar Wilde or Sutton Hoo, I'm your (wo)man. :) --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 20:23, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

Thanks, I'll do that. I'm also completely out of my depth with the science, but I can see that this is a question of how to present an official report, dealing with science policy rather than science itself. I have only been involved with the article because there was a posting at the Fringe theories noticeboard and I thought I could help get it back towards NPOV. Itsmejudith (talk) 20:31, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

Triple H

I am interested in adding a section to his page entitled "Controversy". I was wondering why I can't add it? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.228.208.107 (talk) 19:21, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

Hi. The article was protected in October of 2007 following a rash of vandalism. Only users with accounts at least four days old are able to edit it. You may register for an account or, if you'd prefer, request unprotection. Hope that helps. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 19:28, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

2023

there is pornography on 2023 can you take this off, thanks —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.200.110.207 (talk) 19:55, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

I don't see any pornography on 2023. Wikipedia is not censored; however, that would be an unlikely place to legitimately find material that might be deemed pornographic. Quite often, such material results from simple vandalism and can be reverted by any editor, so long as the page is not protected. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 20:03, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

Looking back through the diffs it is clear to see there was never any pornography in the article. _{WEBURIEDOURSECRETSINTHEGARDEN}^{we need to talk.}• 20:56, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

But looking at the templates used on that page, I find that Template:C21YearInTopic was indeed vandalised, and has since been semi-protected as a result. Confusing Manifestation(Say hi!) 21:52, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

Which would make sense, if it wasn't for the fact that the vandalism is now being continued by an autoconfirmed user.--69.118.143.107 (talk) 22:30, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

Although it does seem to provide a nifty way to uncover the sock farm. Confusing Manifestation(Say hi!) 22:55, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

Preventing line break

Is there a way to prevent a segment of text to be broken into different lines. For example, if I write "1 + 1 = 2" this segment can be broken into "1" at the end of a line and "+ 1 = 2" at the beginning of the following line. In this case, I would prefer if the browser can treat the entire segment as one entity and put it at the beginning of a line if it cannot fit it at the end of the previous one. Can I do this? --KYN (talk) 20:16, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

An ugly workaround is <div>1 + 1 = 2</div>. Or you can simply use <math> tags, i.e. <math>1+1=2</math>. x42bn6 Talk Mess 20:43, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

Yes, there is a way. There is a tag called nbsp which prevents "wrapping". You use it like this:

1 + 2 = 2

You'll have to go into the code to see it, though. _{WEBURIEDOURSECRETSINTHEGARDEN}^{we need to talk.}• 20:53, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

See also nbsp. The code used above looks like this:

1 + 2 = 2

You'll have to go into the code to see how I displayed it, though. ;-) PrimeHunter (talk) 22:35, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

Thanks, --KYN (talk) 23:20, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

There is also a template called {{nowrap}}. —Random832 21:38, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia links in Multimap

Multimap now optionally displays Wikipedia links. Are these inserted by Multimap or by WP editors, and if so, how? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Dhyandeva (talk • contribs) 23:06, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

I believe that Multimap inserts the links. NF24^{(radio me!)} 23:28, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

January 2

An article with serious issues I can't address

Nedley_Mandingo: I came across this article while browsing the category Obscenity Controversies. I'm fairly certain this article has been vandalized, from bits such as this:

"Manson's Father in law is the oldest of the show's crew with an estimated age of over 60. (He plays Ned at Live appearance, when Ned and Manson have to appear together, to continue to steal money from you, weird how this "Ned" never has anything to say)"

and the first sentence under "Neds Interest" (sic), which I won't dignify by pasting it here.

Unfortunately (well, unfortunately for the ARTICLE, anyway) I have absolutely ZERO knowledge of the mechanics and characters of the "Bubba the Love Sponge" show, and I'm thus unable to do anything with this article other than report it here. (I did consider putting it up for AfD, but I couldn't find a valid criterion...)Gladys J Cortez 00:20, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

I've removed most of the content per WP:BLP. In the case of biographies of living persons, all content should be reliably sourced. Thank you for reporting this here. Mr.Z-man 00:34, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

Ooh! WP:BLP...of course!!! Why didn't I think of that??? (foreheadslap) Thanks!!!Gladys J Cortez 00:43, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

need to reverse a page move

I am looking for some assistance on reversing a page move I did. The page is Hamilton Centre (provincial electoral district). I was looking at the undo feature on the history listing, but when i tried it said it was unable to do, so I did not want to mess it up any further. I came across what I thought was a missed move in the listing of Ontario provicial electoral districts, but it seems someone stopped converting them at Hamilton Centre's page. Thanks in advance for the help. --Jordan 1972 (talk) 00:28, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

I believe I've fixed it. Take a look. ~ Bella Swan 00:37, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

No, you did a copy and paste move, which breaks the page history. You should always use the "Move" tab to rename a page and if that doesn't work, ask on WP:Requested moves for an admin to do it. I've fixed this one. Mr.Z-man 00:41, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

Just as an additional note, on those rare occasions when a copy & paste is appropriate, as when one article is being merged into another, you must note the source of the material in order to comply with GFDL. This is done with a wikilink to the original article in the edit summary. Then the redirect includes the template {{R from merge}}. This makes sure that the redirected article is not deleted. All things considered, it's much better when we can simply move the article as Mr. Z-man did. :) --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 00:46, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

FACTS ABOUT "GUIt AM" ON WIKIPEDIA

To Whom it may Concern:

Your current opening paragraph about Guam reads as follows:

'Guam (Chamorro: Guåhan), officially the Territory of Guam, is an island in the Western Pacific Ocean and is an organized unincorporated territory of the United States. It is one of five U.S. territories with established civilian government.[1] The island's capital is Hagåtña (formerly Agana). Guam is the largest and southernmost of the Mariana Islands.

The Chamorros, Guam's indigenous inhabitants, first populated the island approximately 6,000 years ago.[citation needed] The island has a long history of European colonialism beginning in 1668 with the arrival of Padre San Vitores, a Spanish missionary. The island was captured from Spain by the United States during the Spanish American War in 1898. As the largest island in Micronesia and the only American-held island in the region before World War II, Guam was occupied by the Japanese between December 1941 and July 1944. Today, Guam's economy is mainly supported by tourism (primarily from Japan) and U.S. military bases.[2]

It should read as follows:

'Guam (Chamorro: Guåhan), officially the Territory of Guam, is an island in the Western Pacific Ocean and is an organized unincorporated territory of the United States. It is one of five U.S. territories with an established civilian government.[1] The island's capital is Hagåtña (formerly Agana). Guam is the largest and southernmost of the [Mariana Islands Archipelago].

The Chamorros, Guam's indigenous inhabitants, first populated the island approximately 6,000 years ago.[citation needed] The island has a long history of European colonialism beginning in 1668 with the arrival of Padre Diego Luis de San Vitores, a Spanish Jesuit missionary who founded the first Catholic church on Guam. The island was ceded from Spain to the United States following the Spanish American War in 1898. As the largest island in Micronesia and the only U.S. Navy administered island in the region before World War II, Guam was occupied by the Japanese Imperial Army between December 8, 1941 and July 21, 1944. Today, Guam's economy is mainly supported by tourism (primarily from Japan and other Asian countries), U.S. Department of Defense installations and locally owned businesses.[2] —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.98.163.2 (talk) 01:13, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

Thank you for your suggestion. When you feel an article needs improvement, please feel free to make those changes. Wikipedia is a wiki, so anyone can edit almost any article by simply following the Edit this page link at the top. The Wikipedia community encourages you to be bold in updating pages. Don't worry too much about making honest mistakes — they're likely to be found and corrected quickly. If you're not sure how editing works, check out how to edit a page, or use the sandbox to try out your editing skills. New contributors are always welcome. You don't even need to log in (although there are many reasons why you might want to). Mr.Z-man 07:59, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

Edit help: How to put paragraphs within a single bulleted item?

This is an editing-style question. Some editors like bulleted lists for long lists with short descriptions. However, when the material for a bullet gets to be lengthy the bullet text becomes a huge tedious run-on, and the text can be hard to follow without paragraph breaks:

• Item 1
• Item 2
• Item 3 with a really long boring block of text that really should be broken into two or more paragraphs but there's no apparant way to do it. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur. Excepteur sint occaecat cupidatat non proident, sunt in culpa qui officia deserunt mollit anim id est laborum. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur. Excepteur sint occaecat cupidatat non proident, sunt in culpa qui officia deserunt mollit anim id est laborum.
• Item 4

I want it to break that into two or more paragraphs, except with the second paragraph indented to be part of the paragraph above it:

• Item 1
• Item 2
• Item 3 with a really long boring block of text that really should be broken into two or more paragraphs but there's no apparant way to do it. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur.

Excepteur sint occaecat cupidatat non proident, sunt in culpa qui officia deserunt mollit anim id est laborum. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur. Excepteur sint occaecat cupidatat non proident, sunt in culpa qui officia deserunt mollit anim id est laborum.

• Item 4

Embedding text within single-cell tables can be a workaround to formatting problems. But a wikitable is incompatible with a wiki-bullet list. This attempt fails miserably:

• Item 1
• Item 2
• {|width="100%"

|- |Item 3 with a really long boring block of text that really should be broken into two or more paragraphs but there's no apparant way to do it. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur.

Excepteur sint occaecat cupidatat non proident, sunt in culpa qui officia deserunt mollit anim id est laborum. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur. Excepteur sint occaecat cupidatat non proident, sunt in culpa qui officia deserunt mollit anim id est laborum. |}

• Item 4

I can FORCE this into working by using raw HTML markup like this: <ul> <li> <table width="100%"> <tr> <td> . . </td> </tr> </table> </li> </ul> and it does work correctly, but now I've contravened wiki conventions by not using the wiki's markup language and is not likely to sit well with other editors..

• Item 1
• Item 2

• Item 3 with a really long boring block of text that really should be broken into two or more paragraphs but there's no apparant way to do it. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur. Excepteur sint occaecat cupidatat non proident, sunt in culpa qui officia deserunt mollit anim id est laborum. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur. Excepteur sint occaecat cupidatat non proident, sunt in culpa qui officia deserunt mollit anim id est laborum. Raw HTML works! This is all part of one giant cell within a table. But alas the bullet doesn't align with the first paragraph. Oh well.

• Item 4

What can be done to do this "properly" using wiki markup? Or is it not possible to do what I want here with pure wiki markup? DMahalko (talk) 02:04, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

You could probably put a colon : to indent the text.   jj137 ^♠ 02:07, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

• Testing 1

Testing 2

• Testing 3

Testing 4

Alas this does not work under FireFox 2.0.0.11 and Internet Explorer 7 -- the indent for a colon is different from the bullet-item ident. :-/ DMahalko (talk) 02:14, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

I'd say the best option to use is partial HTML. Have a standard bulleted list, but use <p> tags on the long item. Example:

• Item 1
• Item 2

• Item 3 with a really long boring block of text that really should be broken into two or more paragraphs but there's no apparant way to do it. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur.

  Excepteur sint occaecat cupidatat non proident, sunt in culpa qui officia deserunt mollit anim id est laborum. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur. Excepteur sint occaecat cupidatat non proident, sunt in culpa qui officia deserunt mollit anim id est laborum.

• Item 4

This method keeps the bulleted list while allowing for paragraph breaks. Pyrospirit (talk · contribs) 02:40, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

Another method: You can just add a <br> in the text, and just keep writing on the same line. The paragraph will still be long in wikimarkup, but will look fine on the screen (at least it does in IE6):

• Lorum ipsum whatever whatever (I can't remember how it goes). Here comes the break.
  Next line, aligned with the first.
  
  If you add two breaks, it aligns correctly, but adds a blank line.

See? --barneca (talk) 12:12, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

If you can't remember "how it goes," we actually have (incredibly) a Lorem ipsum article. --Teratornis (talk) 16:43, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

A article with muttiple page design?

I have an article with large contents and I prefer to have it in multiple pages where a user can move from one page to another and back rather than one very long page.

It is possible to create such mutliple pages in Wikipedia? If it possible, does anyone has guiding instructions or sample example as to how this can be done?

--Jamesccs (talk) 02:32, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

See these entries under WP:EIW#Article:

• Wikipedia:Article size (Manual of Style)
• Wikipedia:Summary style (guideline) - when articles get too long
• Special:Longpages - top 1000 articles, sizewise

--Teratornis (talk) 03:30, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

Spacing

Is there a way how i can make get these tables to be even and for the references to be right in this article? Thanks Hatmatbbat10 (talk) 04:51, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

I don't know, but you might find something useful in Wikipedia:How to fix bunched-up edit links. Another possibility might be to put those three "loose" tables into cells within a larger containing table. --Teratornis (talk) 07:03, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

CANT ACCESS

UNABLE TO LOG IN WITH MY PASSWORD. HAVE CONFIRMED MY ACCOUNT. PLEASE ADVISE. THANK YOU.

---

—Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.162.67.59 (talk) 05:04, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

I hope that some of the suggestions at Help: Logging in will be able to give you assistance. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 12:56, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

I think the answer is simple, you have CAPS LOCK on, and passwords are case sensitive. Turn it off and try again. --69.118.143.107 (talk) 12:59, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

I botched myf irst attempt at editing.

I tried to edit the article about Ernie Vandeweghe. I noticed that some of my attempted edits seemed to be "bracketed" by the name "Nowicki" (What does that mean?) Those edits never went through, but others did. Therefore, some of the article seems a bit garbled, and while some of the punctuation has been improved, much has not. What did I do wrong? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Pepecoco (talk • contribs) 05:09, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

I reverted your edit; try it again. What were you trying to do when you got the nowiki tags? If you wanted to delete text, just delete it; don't click on the that tool bar button. --teb728 t c 07:02, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

See Help:Magic words#Default for explanation of <nowiki>...</nowiki>. --Teratornis (talk) 07:06, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

Using Wikipedia

Can I use Wikipedia as a reference source for my school projects without violating its copyrights? Cyberina 11 07:27, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

Yes you can, see Wikipedia:Citing Wikipedia. --Silver Edge (talk) 07:34, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

But it's not really a good idea, most teachers won't accept their students using Wikipedia as a source, like my old English teacher. Jake the Editor Man _(talk) 22:49, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

how do i post a picture

how do i post a picture?

See Help:Images and other uploaded files. PrimeHunter (talk) 11:52, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

group discussion related

should there be job resrvation in private sector? please answer pointwise. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 59.91.178.247 (talk) 09:28, 2 January 2008 (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)} 11:03, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

group discussion

is america a rogue superpower? please answer pointwise . —Preceding unsigned comment added by 59.91.178.247 (talk) 09:30, 2 January 2008 (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)} 11:02, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

The Reference Desk is not an appropriate place for this question, as this is a polemical question and not one properly addressed at the Reference Desk, which is for factual information, not opinion. Corvus cornix_talk 18:24, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

What would be appropriate? The Helpful One ^{(Talk) (Contributions)} 19:32, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

Ummm...

Can you block an account's account creation and/or e-mail without blocking the account itself? 58.168.147.119 (talk) 11:54, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

There's no easy way to do so, that I'm aware of. – Luna Santin (talk) 11:55, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

No, if an account is blocked, the creation and/or email are extra things to be blocked. The first and main part of blocking is not being able to edit. Happy New Year! The Helpful One ^{(Talk) (Contributions)} 12:00, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

How to help in preventing vandalism

I am a new wikipedian and wish to help in arresting vandalism. but how do I do that?? Maanush (talk) 12:45, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

You cannot prevent vandalism, but you can revert it. Check out How to respond to vandalism for a complete guide. --Yamanbaiia^{(free hugs!)} 12:52, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

Thank you for asking to help tackle vandalism (: the recent changes on the left shows 'recent changes' surprisingly enough, that's a bit slow though, clicking on every link to see whether its vandalism or not, a better way is to use a tool I find this is the best just follow the instructions on that page and you can try this, hope that helps. Harland1 (^t/_c) 13:19, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

If you are really ambitious, perhaps bordering on being gripped by hubris, you could try to persuade Jimbo Wales to require users to log in before editing. Some 97% of vandalism comes from non-logged-in users, and while requiring all users to log in would possibly motivate some vandals to create accounts, it does appear that semi-protecting pages (i.e., requiring users to log in before editing those pages) reduces vandalism to those pages. In other words, semi-protection is like a limited experiment to test the effect of requiring users to log in before editing, but I am not aware of any systematic attempt to analyze the results of this experiment, to see if requiring users to log in before editing the whole encyclopedia might yield a net improvement (that is, to see whether the reduced vandalism might outweigh the loss of constructive non-logged-in contributors who for some reason might strongly resist creating accounts). Having actual data on the impact of requiring users to log in before editing could elevate the currently faith-based debate to a debate about facts. --Teratornis (talk) 16:39, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

And for everything you could want to know about vandalism and more (other than vandals' real names and addresses), see: WP:EIW#Vandal. --Teratornis (talk) 16:45, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

Mistake

Recently in attempt to adding a photo of terry brooks I by mistake uploaded a different image the file is saved in wikipedia commons under the name "Terry Brooks" I dont know how to delete it please delete it.Thank you Maanush (talk) 12:54, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

If you still want to upload an image under that name go here, if not, the image will eventually be deleted because it doesn't show a link to a valid picture in Flickr. --Yamanbaiia^{(free hugs!)} 13:03, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

How to handle conflicting birth date information

A Wiki user claiming to be the step-daughter of Florian ZaBach reported that the birthdate shown in the Florian ZaBach article (1931) was incorrect, it should be 1918, and cites the Social Security death index as confirmation. I checked all of the referenced sources and found that most of them report 1931 and a few report 1921. See Talk:Florian ZaBach. How should we handle this type of discrepancy? Truthanado (talk) 14:49, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

Well, with an approximate date, according to MOS, one would add "c." before the date. I'd probably be inclined to suggest at the talk page going with the most reliably referenced with a footnote reporting on the discrepancy and directing to references that provide other dates. Or you might go with the most likely in the date range, possibly with a "but see" footnote" and report the discrepancy, with proper notes, in the biography section, with a lead along the lines of "ZaBach's year of birth have been variously reported as...." In your position, I'd probably propose one of those at the talk page. :) --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 16:21, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

Style guidelines: lists

Wikipedia:Lists#Title_of_list

It says As a matter of style, list items should start with a capital letter. They should not have a punctuation mark such as a period, a comma or a semi-colon at the end, except if a list item is one or more full sentences, in which case there is a period at the end.

What about if I want to say, for example:

Simple things that people can do to reduce their environmental impact include:

• using energy-efficient light bulbs and switching off lights when they are not required
• using lids on cooking pans to reduce the heat-input required for cooking and not ferociously boil when simmering will achieve the same effect

According to the rule state above, it should read.

Simple things that people can do to reduce their environmental impact include:

• Using energy-efficient light bulbs and switching off lights when they are not required
• Using lids on cooking pans to reduce the heat-input required for cooking and not ferociously boil when simmering will achieve the same effect

but this a problem because each bullet point starts mid-sentence.

Also, where it says that a period at the end is only permitted at the end of a bullet pointed sentence if there is more than one sentence to that bullet point, wont this look inconsistent in contrast to bullet points with only one sentence?

• Blah blah blah blah
• Blah blah blah blah
• Blah blah blah blah. Blah blah blah blah.
• Blah blah blah blah

--Seans Potato Business 16:07, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

Hi. (Almost) everything is contextual. If you feel certain that the article on which you're working would benefit from deviations from standard style, you may wish to implement those deviations, so long as you are prepared to explain your deviation (and perhaps even do so proactively, on the talk page of the article). If the article is actively edited, you might wish to discuss it before implementation on the talk page. If the article is not actively edited, but you aren't particularly bold in deviating from norm (I'm not), you might wish to seek consensus for your idea at a relevant wikiproject or the talk page of a relevant guideline. (On the latter page, you may even wish to raise the question of whether consensus exists to alter the styleguide to account for such deviations.) Good luck, and happy editing. :) --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 16:29, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

citing sources

where can i find the copyright date —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.190.233.236 (talk) 16:33, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

Is it a websource? If so, they don't usually have one. Rt. 16:53, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

If it's Wikipedia you want to cite in another work then see Wikipedia:Citing Wikipedia. PrimeHunter (talk) 21:35, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

Details of currencies

I want details of denominations of currencies of all the countries in the world. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 59.95.71.87 (talk) 16:58, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

There's a page at Currencies. But to see what country uses what, see List of currencies. Please remember though that this desk is for using Wikipedia. Rt. 17:05, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

Go to the the reference desk or do what Rudget said. Just out of interest, why do you want details of every denomination of every currency in the world? Jake the Editor Man _(talk) 22:52, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

Why was my article deleted?

I find using Wikipedia bewildering. I simply want to post an article. I know absolutely noting about codes. I signed up and logged in then I created the following page: Nouveau nous (Nous from the Greek meaning mind, thought or soul) or new mind refers to persons who recently acquired a taste for intellectual or philosophical thought and discussion. The nouveau nous often engage in intellectual one-upsmenship, pedantic discussion, misuse of concepts, and philosophical “name dropping.” Like the Nouveau riche (see Wikipedia entry), the nouveau nous lack the intellectual experience to properly utilize ideas, philosophical concepts and texts which have been newly acquired. Often they are the first in their family to go to college, or at least the first in their family to focus on abstract ideas. They often appear to be intellectually insecure; hence, they make special efforts to make up for this by excessive or incorrect philosophical dialectic. Without a long familial history of experience with philosophical or intellectual abstractions, they often conspicuously utilize abstract ideas, and avail themselves of abstruse quotes, taken out of context.

It was deleted with the explaination that it did not show itself to be important. I think the term is very useful and clever. Anyway, I was unable to contact the person who deleted it. How can I simply add this page? Perhaps Wikipedia is too complicated for a non-geek like me. please advise. -Bullwinkle19 —Preceding unsigned comment added by Bullwinkle19 (talk • contribs) 17:05, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

Is this a term already in use? If so, did you provide references to uses of this term in reputable sources? Wikipedia is not a venue for original research, nor for neologisms. --Orange Mike | Talk 17:18, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

edit conflict Hi. With regards to the article, there are two significant obstacles to overcome. First, you will have to create an article that is more than just a dictionary definition in order for Wikipedia to host it; Wikipedia is not a dictionary. Wiktionary, on the other hand, is, and it may be very interested in an article on the term. The second obstacle is that Wikipedia has a policy against articles on neologisms. Can you demonstrate through reliable secondary sourcing that this term is in widespread usage? If you can demonstrate widespread usage of the term and can write an article that is more than simply a definition of the term, then it may be appropriate for Wikipedia. Otherwise, even if the page is not speedily deleted, it is likely to be brought up for deletion through another process.

Onto your other note: when you check the log of a deleted article, which you can find when you enter the title of the article (for example, here's one that I deleted: http://en.wikipedia.org/enwiki/w/index.php?title=Suresh_vaithianathan&action=edit), you see the name of the deleting administrator, followed immediately by a "talk" link. If you press that link, it will take you to the administrator's personal talk page, where you can ask your questions. (Please remember to sign all notes on talk pages or boards--but not articles--by typing four tildes (~~~~). This will input your name & a time stamp, which is helpful to other editors communicating with you.)

As a final point, if after reading the speedy deletion policies, you feel that the deletion of an article was done outside of policy, you may choose to ask the administrator to review his or her decision. If he or she disagrees with you, you can invite wider community review of the choice at the deletion review board. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 17:21, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

Also see: Wikipedia:Why was my article deleted? Wikipedia is complicated, but not more complicated than the real world we must all deal with every day. The difference is that in the real world, we have our social upbringing to help us navigate the intricate system of do's and don'ts we must follow to stay out of trouble. In contrast, Wikipedia is unlike everything which existed before, so our past experience causes almost everyone who is new to Wikipedia to form some misconceptions about it. It's remarkable that many humans seem to vastly overestimate their expertise when forging into new fields they initially know nothing about. In the early days of Arctic exploration, for example, this led to many fatalities among explorers, as they assumed they knew how to survive in the hostile environment. Fortunately on Wikipedia, we don't have to pay for our mistakes with our lives, but the key to survival is the same as it was for the Arctic: learn from the people already there. After enough Arctic explorers died to demonstrate the value of intellectual humility, the later ones began asking the Inuit how they had managed to live in the Arctic for thousands of years, instead of dismissing them as primitive savages. It turns out the Inuit had a whole array of clever technological innovations to keep themselves alive and relatively comfortable in the harshest environment humans had yet inhabited. Similarly, Wikipedians have come up with an array of innovations to facilitate collaborative editing on the largest scale ever done, i.e. to keep ourselves "alive" in the harsh online environment, and the way to learn about these innovations is to Read The Friendly Manuals. Wikipedia is designed for people who can self-educate by reading manuals and following instructions. Everyone else is likely to have a difficult time participating here. --Teratornis (talk) 18:28, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

Alerting when article contents is changed

How can I track a particular page so that I get an alert when it is updated - i.e. each time the page is saved? Does Wiki either have such a feature or is there some recommended external page content tracking software/webservice?134.24.147.144 (talk) 18:42, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

Hi, and welcome to Wikipedia. I'm not sure if there are external trackers to let you know each time a page is saved, but one of the benefits of registering an account is that you will have access to a "watchlist" which allows you to see the most recent change to an article. This does require you to log in and view your watchlist on occasion, but perhaps this will help? --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 18:45, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

The basic idea of a watchlist is that when you're logged in, an extra watch tab appears at the top of each page. If you click that tab, it'll add the page to your watchlist, which lists all changes to pages on your watchlist. When you're logged in, there's a link to your watchlist in the corner of each page as well. Pyrospirit (talk · contribs) 18:55, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

Question about uploading photos

I own & operate a website devoted to autographs, primarily political. I have many, thousands, of signed photos of various politicians and use your website for information for the various listings. I have noticed that you do not have photos of many of the older politicians and would like to contribute the photos I have. Almost all of these photos have come diretly from the various politicians offices themselves as promos over various years. I do not want to violate any copywright laws but believe I can make a signifigant contribution with these images. Can someone advise me if it's ok to upload these to Wikipedia? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Vidalhoward (talk • contribs) 19:37, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

See WP:FUC (perhaps not the best shortcut abbreviation, but oh well). You can also search the Help desk archive for "fair use" to read previous answers to questions like this. --Teratornis (talk) 20:35, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia editing software

Does there exist, akin to an HTML editor, software to make editing easier through the use of colour-coded tags and hiding/showing of inline citations etc? ----Seans Potato Business 19:57, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

See WP:EIW#Tools for what's available. --Teratornis (talk) 20:31, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia API

Is there an API for Wikipedia? If not, is there a project to create one? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.225.91.110 (talk) 20:14, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

See the entries under WP:EIW#Query. --Teratornis (talk) 20:24, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

Accounts across language sites

Does my account in English transfer to the Wikipedia sites for other languages? Insert name here (talk) 20:40, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

Unfortunately no it doesn't. I am part of the Simple English Wiki and I have accounts on German Wiki and Meta-Wiki, but the same account isn't on all of them. You can register on to each wiki if you want and then add something like [en:User:Tinkleheimer] to that page. That will link to my Userpage on the English Wiki. I hope you understand :). Trevor "Tinkleheimer" Haworth 20:44, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

For background on this issue, and on the work being done to make it so that you can use a single login on all Wikimedia sites, see m:SUL. Confusing Manifestation(Say hi!) 21:20, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

Editors falsely claiming to be "experts." What's the policy?

I've come across this twice now. First, there was a sockpuppet whose main account had been saying things like, "I have a Ph. D in X. You have no idea how many academic awards I have for X." On the other hand, I've come across another user who has some pretty big credentials on his userbox. While he hasn't invoked his credentials in our discussion, I am skeptical based on some pretty silly edits of his.

What's the Wikipedia policy on user credentials? Should they be ignored or not? And should users be blocked for falsifying them? Wikipedia has no way to verify credentials. Therefore, even though WP:Ignore all credentials was rejected as a policy, it seems to be implied by WP:Verifiability. I plan to write an essay on this issue. Zenwhat (talk) 23:01, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

The policy on Wikipedia is that just about anyone can edit it. Therefore it's hard to understand what difference credentials could make. Mentioning one's credentials will probably not, for example, stop many vandals from being bold. A handful of users might be having a discussion on a talk page, thinking they are settling some issue, but anyone else could come along later and clobber everything. --Teratornis (talk) 23:29, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

I've been doing some reading. Mentioning one's credentials can make a difference on Wikipedia, as shown by the Essjay controversy. It doesn't seem clear to me, then, how the Wikipedia community could reject both Credentifial verification and WP:Ignore all credentials. It's such a contentious issue (not to mention it's used by vandals) that it certainly deserves to have some kind of guideline, don't you think? Most people that opposed both of those proposals before seemed to believe Wikipedia needed some kind of guideline. Zenwhat (talk) 23:57, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

The editor doesn't matter. The references matter. If you have a degree in X that may qualify you for having more books and references available to you on that subject, but other than that it's null. - Carbon ^[Nyan?] 23:59, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia has many contradictions, as one would expect from any group of 48,487,356 people. --Teratornis (talk) 18:43, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

Carbon, if what you said were true, then WP:IAC should've been accepted. Also, Teratornis, it's true there may be contradictions. That's the reason for Template:Contradict. But good editors should remove such contradictions, and contradictions in Wikipedia policy seem particularly problematic. If WP:IAC and Credentifial verification were both rejected, that seems to imply that the Wikipedia policy is: "Editors are free to choose whether to consider credentials in their judgments." Right? If so, why isn't there a policy page on this? I started a discussion on this at the Village Pump. [8] Zenwhat (talk) 20:41, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

Category question

In Category: Medical equipment, you will find an interesting item: User:Owain.davies/Defibrillation. This appears to be a userfied version of Defibrillation, which is also listed. I haven't the foggiest notion as to whether WP:BOLD includes messing with whether the list-item lives in article space or user space, esp since the history of the non-user-space article seems to imply some sort of edit conflict involving that user...not wanting to step on toes, I'm bringing it here. (Also, since I couldn't get the link to work, how does one link to a category? I tried putting "Category:Medical_equipment" into double square-brackets, like any other wikilink, but it just gave me a blank, thusly: "In, you will find..."--obviously not what I was trying to convey.) Gladys J Cortez 23:18, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

What you want to do here is link to the category. You probably should consult User:Owain.davies first (to be bold! but courteous as they may not appreciate edits to their userspace). To link to a category, insert a colon before the category name, so it looks like [[:Category:Medical equipment]]. This returns Category:Medical equipment. (The same works with images {Image:Example.svg} and templates {Template:Db} as well.) NF24^{(radio me!)} 23:32, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

1. Thanks for the category tutorial. I'll get all this straight eventually! :) 2. Re: contacting the user--since it's the CATEGORY I want to change, and not the article in his userspace (except to delist it from the category), should I still contact him? He's more than welcome to his article; I just think it's confusing to have 2 versions of Defibrillator in the list. Gladys J Cortez 00:00, 3 January 2008 (UTC) (Oh, and NF24? GREAT username. Go JG!)

I have often boldly commented out categories for mainspace articles in userspace, with an edit summary explaining it. Nobody has complained about this. Usually I also leave a note in the comment explaining it. See for example [9] where I also commented out a template which added a category. Wikipedia:User page#What may I not have on my user page? says to not add categories intended for articles to userspace. By the way, [[Template:Db]] without an initial : only gives a link to Template:Db. A common way to display the template syntax while only linking is {{tl|Db}} which produces {{Db}}. PrimeHunter (talk) 00:18, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

Table column widths

I have just created the article Combination puzzles. It contains a number of tables where the second column is labelled 'Data'. In every case I have used;
! width="250px"|Data
to specify 250 pixel column width. However, the column is not the same width in every table. I have a particular problem with this one, where the second column text has been crushed. Deleting, or partially deleting the third column text on the first line seems to fix that particular table. I am completely baffled - help!

Using IE6. Spinningspark (talk) 23:25, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

It looks fine in Firefox 2.0.0.11. That would indicate a problem with IE6. Upgrade to IE7 or Firefox if possible and everything should render correctly. NF24^{(radio me!)} 23:38, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

Looks good in IE7 also. Malinaccier (talk) 23:44, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

Thanks, I was afraid that was going to be the answer. Spinningspark (talk) 00:34, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

January 3

Personal database

How do you create your own personal list of articles you're interested in and want to retrieve quickly? It's like bookmarking a page, but the link isn't saved on a specific computer but on the internet. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Bartvannuffel (talk • contribs) 00:01, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

Help:Watching pages may be of interest. The watchlist also has a link to display all watched pages. PrimeHunter (talk) 00:22, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

You can create a list on your own userpage. You should have a link to it at the top of the page when you are logged on, but if not follow this one: Bartvannuffel.

To edit your page, click the "edit this page" tab. To create a link to an article, write the article name between two square brackets like this: [[Dinosaurs]] which will get you this: Dinosaurs. Voila

When you post to the help desk, or any talk page, you should always sign with four tildes like this ~~~~ by the way. This will create a signature like mine below;

Spinningspark (talk) 00:32, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

"Born in" such and such a place . . .

What is the policy or guideline on the inclusion of a "Born in" section in articles about cities? I refer you Inglewood,_California#Born_in_Inglewood. Sincerely, GeorgeLouis (talk) 00:29, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

There are different opinions. See Wikipedia:WikiProject Cities/Guideline#Notable natives and residents, Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Cities/Archive 6#Proposal to delete "Notable natives", Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Cities/Guideline#Questions about these lists of notable people that live in town X. PrimeHunter (talk) 00:52, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

info needed for the crazy wiki editor

can the crazy wiki editor insert downloadable virus-free audio clips into articles? —Preceding unsigned comment added by The Crazy Wiki Editor (talk • contribs) 00:36, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

Hi there! Downloadable, no, but they can be played inside the article, like the one at Bloop. See Wikipedia:Media help for complete tips on media. Cheers, Master of Puppets ^{Call me MoP!} 00:57, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the politesse

Kudos to the people answering the questions here. Generally the responses are quite respectful to the questioner. Sincerely, GeorgeLouis (talk) 00:53, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

As sometimes one of those people, I thank you. :) --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 03:19, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

Likewise, thank you. I try to assume that even a question that is in the wrong place, with atrocious spelling and grammar, and more full of logical holes than logical Swiss cheese, is written by someone who, if treated courteously, could become a great contributor here. Confusing Manifestation(Say hi!) 05:40, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

Using the IUCN Red List

Hello, I've been struggling for half an hour with the Red List home page[10] trying to decide whether or not Prosthechea cochleata var. triandra is endangered, since it concerns the article I have just created concerning that subject. Could anyone who is familiar with that website (since I understand Wikipedia relies mostly on it for endangered species classification) help me search or search and tell me what they consider it (Least Concern, Vulnerable, etc.)? --♦♦♦Vlmastra♦♦♦ (talk) 00:11, 3 January 2008 (UTC) Edit: Let me be more specific: My message was:

No results were found for the criteria you specified:

• Text search: Prosthechea cochleata var. triandra
• Modifier: Exact phrase
• Search in: Whole database
• Results type: Standard
• Taxa: Species

If these are correct, then the species you are searching for may not be in the database.

I changed the database, taxa, modifier, etc. extensively, to no avail. Taxa should be listed whether or not endangered (and in that case as Least Concern) so I don't think this means it isn't endangered, and since P. cochleata var. triandra has been considered endangered elsewhere I imagine it has been reviewed by the IUCN. I would like to use this source, so any help will be appreciated. I assume that I am not searching correctly because common genera such as Cattleya and Paphiopedilum were similarly unlisted, and I know for a fact that Paphiopedilum rothschildianum is endangered. --♦♦♦Vlmastra♦♦♦ (talk) 00:28, 3 January 2008 (UTC) NOTE: I cross-posted this at the reference desk, since I was unsure which would be better.--♦♦♦Vlmastra♦♦♦ (talk) 00:59, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

Hi. Thanks for asking at the help desk; however, you'd probably have more success at the reference desk, which is for more specific knowledge-related questions. The Help Desk is only for questions on how to use Wikipedia; i.e. how to format articles or do technical things. You can find the reference desk here; Wikipedia:Reference desk. Good luck, and I hope that helps! Master of Puppets ^{Call me MoP!} 01:02, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

Ah, you added your note about the reference desk while I was adding this, it seems. Yes, the reference desk would be a better choice per the reasons in my above response. Cheers, Master of Puppets ^{Call me MoP!} 01:04, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

IAST diacriticals and font display problem

On, for instance, the samsara (Buddhism) page, certain words marked as IAST (like this: Saṃsāra) display in a different font on Firefox. On IE, it seems to display correctly; Opera seems to substitute the ṃ; so does Safari. Why should this happen? What is the need for adding the IAST tag? The word Saṃsāra displays correctly without any such tag. Thanks. Devadaru (talk) 03:14, 3 January 2008 (UTC) correction: IE seems to substitute the ṃ, while Opera and Safari seem to display correctly. Devadaru (talk) 03:20, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

how many people are in the world

how many people in the world —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.125.5.166 (talk) 03:59, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

See World population. Note that this page is the Help desk for learning how to use Wikipedia, and factual questions such as yours should be asked at the appropriate Reference desk. Confusing Manifestation(Say hi!) 05:25, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

Question

What happened to when IP addresses could create pages? 58.168.147.119 (talk) 04:23, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

One of the resolutions from the Seigenthaler controversy in 2005 was to disable anonymous* page creation as an experiment, to see if this would aid in cutting back the number of pages that got created, and hence making it easier to patrol them. It was also hoped that this would cut back on the number of articles that would need to be deleted, since theoretically at least some proportion of people would be discouraged from creating a vandalism article due to the extra step of bureaucracy.

In October 2007, it was proposed that anonymous page creation be re-enabled, which provoked a large number of different reactions (most of the discussion took place in one of three places - the wikipedia-en mailing list, the Village pump, and this RFC). In response, the developers stated that it would be re-enabled only if there were a clear consensus to do so, something which there definitely wasn't, and most likely will not be.

If you want to create an article, there are now two main avenues: (1) Create an account, or (2) Submit your article to WP:Articles for creation. (1) is most certainly the preferred option (and gives you other benefits as well).

* Of course, while by anonymous I mean IP addresses, even though a username technically grants more privacy in many ways. Confusing Manifestation(Say hi!) 05:37, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

Please help me post an addition to missing persons for 2007

Hi I am having dificulty adding my fiance to the persons missing list. Every time I put it up it vannishes.

this is what I have been trying to add...

Jarrett Lee Burton a 58-year-old man was last seen about 7:30 p.m. 04/04/07 when he walked away from his driveway in the 1400 block of Seidersville Road in Salisbury Twp. Jarrett Lee Burton is a black man, who stands about 6 feet tall and weighs about 190 pounds. When last seen, he was wearing beige dress pants, light-colored dress shirt and glasses. He has silvery-gray hair, brown eyes and a freckle on his nose. Anyone who sees Jarrett Lee Burton is asked to call Salisbury police at 610-797-1447

I would like to add links to the national center for missing persons but do not know how but do have the link this is it...

http://www.theyaremissed.org/ncma/gallery/ncmaprofile_all.php?A200705256S

Thank you, Jean-Christine —Preceding unsigned comment added by EstroJean (talk • contribs) 04:32, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

Hi Jean. The reason your addition keeps disappearing is because the Wikipedia article List of people who have disappeared is for notable disappearances, and, sadly, a case like Mr Burton's is far from notable when it comes to disappearances - hundreds of similar disappearances occur every year, all over the world. So when you add the text, someone else is reverting your addition. Confusing Manifestation(Say hi!) 05:23, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

Yes, User:Vidor reverted and added the explanation "(not notable; lacks own Wikipedia article)." If you disagree, you should go to the Discussion Page for that article and explain why. Sincerely (and with great respect for your search), GeorgeLouis (talk) 08:14, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

I'd add that Wikipedia is probably not the best place to alert people to Jarrett's disappearance as the article is not going to be read by the right people at all, certainly not by many people who live in Salisbury. Simply targeting the local area with flyers with a photo will be far more effective. • Anakin ^{(contribs • complaints)} 12:48, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

I thank you for your reply. I am not so sure he is not a notable figure. He is a reasearch scientist and has done much good work. I have been puting up flyers all over the area and even faxed them to local and not so local hospitals I just want to let as many folks know he is missing so that it makes finding him slightly more likely I will research the notability link you mentioned and again THANK YOU for your reply, Jean-Christine —Preceding unsigned comment added by EstroJean (talk • contribs) 19:11, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

I messed up a little while contributing an edit - please help me fix it

I just contributed my first edit -- adding a fact (and citation) to the article on "Dudly Field Malone." Obviously I missed something in the "how to edit" department, since when I inserted my reference, it had the effect of moving the next sentence of previously-existing text into my reference/footnote, followed by the reference for that sentence. My bad. can you help me fix this and restore proper formatting? Thanks. --Peter Goldberger, Ardmore, PA <peter.goldberger>(not yet a registered user) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.110.174.130 (talk) 04:35, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

You forgot to close the reference tag ("</ref>"). I tried to find a case-cite template since the one you chose doesn't exist; I'll keep looking. For now, just use a plain-text cite. -- RattleMan 05:15, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

CHINA;Yunchen, China. Need City Map

Locating the North gate at Yunchen, China, from a map and/or a graphic to show grave sites. On april 14, 1945, Lt.Ernest W Gardner, jr.,A US Army Air Force Pilot was shot down 5 milses south of Taiku, China near the South Highway of Mats'un, six miles North of Yunchen , Lt. Gardner was buried outside the North Gate of Yuncheng City, Shansi, Province, and the grave marked with a wooden plaque. Needed, a city map to define where the North gate is located, and a photograph if possible of the graves in a possible Burial Ground. Thanks for any information from anyone. Barbzz —Preceding unsigned comment added by Barbzz (talk • contribs) 05:27, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

Have you tried the miscellaneous section of Wikipedia's Reference Desk? They specialize in answering knowledge questions there; this help desk is only for questions about using Wikipedia. For your convenience, here is the link to post a question there: click here. I hope this helps.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 11:29, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

FAC

If an article is already good enough for WP:FAC, can it skip WP:GAN? Lex ^T/_C Guest Book 06:38, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

Yes. –thedemonhog talk • edits 06:47, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

Good articles and featured articles are quite separate processes and a listing at good article nominations is not normally a prerequisite before taking an article to WP:FAC. Most articles that go to good article nominations do so because for various reasons they can't or are unlikely to ever achieve featured articles status. What is a good idea is to take an article to peer review review before listing it at WP:FAC.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 11:26, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

Well I am a member of WP:PW, and I believe an article I wrote (New Year's Revolution (2007)) is good enough for WP:FAC. It has already had a peer review, and Ithought I had to nominate it at WP:GAN. But thanks; now I will nominate it directly at FAC. Lex ^T/_C Guest Book 18:19, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

ok to copy website text?

Hi, is it ok to copy web site text if it is in the public domain? just checkin :D Stupid2 (talk) 06:39, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

If it is truly in the public domain, yes. But it should be placed inside of quotation marks and credited as to source; otherwise, it is just plagiarism. Even a paraphrase should be credited. Still, one has to ask: "How do you know it is in the public domain? There's plenty on the Web that is just plain stealing." Sincerely, GeorgeLouis (talk) 08:01, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

monobook.css

Can someone give me a link to my page of this? Ive been looking every wwere for it. P.S pleasae respond on my talk page as ill most likely forget. BonesBrigade 07:50, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

User:BonesBrigade/monobook.css.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 11:16, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

dams

dams are very important can some one tell me name of all pakistan dams —Preceding unsigned comment added by 59.103.11.246 (talk) 08:16, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

Try here - Carbon ^[Nyan?] 09:03, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

Can't create new page

I did a search for "Orbisoft" and it came back with 0 pages that matched that title. However I can't see on the search results pages anywhere with the mentioned link "Create this page" which I am trying to do.

MarkBrownlee (talk) 08:44, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

Its' the red link at the top where it says You searched for Orbisoft [Index]. KTC (talk) 10:20, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

You should also see just below the search box the text "No page with that title exists." followed by a bulleted list. The last bulleted item should say: "• Create the page including your references."--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 11:10, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

You only get that part by clicking "Go" below the search box. This may have been changed recently. PrimeHunter (talk) 12:30, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

Why Deleted, I dont understand

Hi, I spent 2 hours researching links and info, to submit an article on a known uk model and it got deleted within like an hour of me savig it, saying "no relevance etc"

So what does this mean, that this person is not important enough to be submitted? If so, then why is it that various other UK and International models are featured on Wikipedia? I would like to know "what makes someone relevant" ???

Can someone let me know please, also how do I contact the editor that delted it (I have their ID). Can pages be retreived? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Creativeenterprises (talk • contribs) 11:52, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

some articles have photos of the subject to the right of the page, in a kind of table with stats etc, how do I get that on my articles?

The only option we seem to get is imputting text and formatting.

I would be grateful if someone could explain simply how I can create this? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Creativeenterprises (talk • contribs) 11:56, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

The article was Saffron Taylor. It was deleted with reference to Wikipedia:CSD#A7 but I see you have found and contacted the deleting administrator, so I will just give a couple of standard links for now: Wikipedia:Why was my page deleted?, Wikipedia:Notability (people). PrimeHunter (talk) 12:23, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

uploaded images

how do I delete images that i have uploaded? They have not been added to any pages. user name: Clara Hoskins —Preceding unsigned comment added by Clara Hoskins (talk • contribs) 13:59, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

Only admins can delete pages, but adding the tag {{db-author}} to a page (including images) that only you have edited will cause an admin to delete it. Algebraist 14:19, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

Homepage

Can I make Wikipedia as my desktop homepage? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.12.157.0 (talk) 14:15, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

Yes. You will need to open your browser settings. In there somewhere should be a option to change your home page. If you tell me your browser (Internet Expler/Firefox ect) I can give you more specific instructions. Tiddly-Tom 15:16, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

Start, Control panel, internet options, in the home page box type http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page.  Sunderland06  15:40, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

The above is for Internet Explorer only. For Firefox, go to Tools->Options...->Main. Enter the above address in the box and make sure you click OK. Hersfold ^(t/a/c) 18:57, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

This week's Signpost

Where is this week's Wikipedia Signpost?! Two weeks ago you said that this week's Wikipedia Signpost would be posted on Wednesday because of the holiday. Today is Thursday, and it STILL isn't up yet!4.156.174.46 (talk) 14:40, 3 January 2008 (UTC) It just came out now. Never mind.4.156.174.46 (talk) 14:45, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

Glad you found it. In the future, questions about the signpost would best be posted here. Enjoy the new issue! Hersfold ^(t/a/c) 18:59, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

Music

Hello. If possible, how can I type music like how I can type math in LaTeX? Thanks in advance. --Mayfare (talk) 16:19, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

Not possible at the moment, unfortunately. There's code do to that written somewhere, but it isn't installed on Wikipedia, and it can take developers a long time to check code to verify that it's safe for use on a website this large before installing it. --ais523 18:35, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

See also Wikipedia:Manual of Style (music). For more advanced things, I think you need to create an image with an external program like LilyPond. But this should probably be done rarely. PrimeHunter (talk) 18:46, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

The easiest way would be to create an image with either a music editor program Sibelius Cakewalk etc. You could also use photoshop if you were handy at it. Keep in mind though that when a song is copyrighted, so is any depiction of it in visual form (sheet music), so such an image would NOT be free and would need a fair-use justification.--Oni Ookami Alfador^Talk|@ 22:21, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

Image problem

Image:Dunkerque dot.png seems to have a broken thumbnail, only a small part of the map shows. I tried to purge it but it did not work. Does anyone know how to fix this? Arthena^(talk) 17:00, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

I think the image is damaged; someone will need to upload a new version to fix this. Pyrospirit (talk · contribs) 17:44, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

It seems someone fixed the problem - there was a non-broken version of the image on Commons. Unfortunately its not a general solution, but it will work for this image. Arthena^(talk) 20:20, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

Article Query

Hi,

I was Hi. I go on Wikipedia frequently and I was wondering if it is allowed or considered as spam if I create an Article for Wikipedia about one of the fanfictions I am writing. I know people who would benefit greatly from it, as they find the fanfiction in question far too complicated. I knew instantly that creating an article on Wikipedia would be the easiest and most effective solution, however I was worried whether it was considered as spam.

Thank You. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.195.176.143 (talk) 17:13, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

I'd strongly advise against creating an article on this topic. A fan-fiction, unless it's received significant attention or notice from reliable, independent sources, is almost certainly not notable, and would probably be deleted very quickly. Also, since you're the author of it, you have a clear conflict of interest with regards to the topic, which would result in the article almost certainly having neutrality issues. If the fan-fiction ever becomes notable enough for inclusion in Wikipedia, someone unrelated to its creation will probably create the article; until then, you probably shouldn't write an article for it. Pyrospirit (talk · contribs) 17:43, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

(ec)Thank you for taking the time to find this out first rather than just going ahead and seeing if your article is deleted. The primary criterion for inclusion of topics in Wikipedia is the general notability guideline, which in essence requires that the topic be the subject of significant coverage in secondary sources, such as the print media. If your fanfiction does not fulfill this requirement, then there may be a Wikia wiki which would be an appropriate place for it. Algebraist 17:45, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

redirections

is it possible somehow that i (registered member) can redirect pages by myself? i mean, there are lots and lots of hard to pronounce (or should i say type) names out there. so many that i have forgotten how many of them. like say, kumquats or johan djourou (almost always typoed as johan djorou and many more. if you don't know how to type the thing, shouldn't we help "you" rather than challenging "you" to find the right spellings elsewhere, then search it here? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Damaster-rapper (talk • contribs) 18:10, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

All registered users can create redirects. See Wikipedia:Redirect and Category:Redirects from misspellings. PrimeHunter (talk) 18:22, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

Keep in mind that you don't have to redirect every mispelling of a name you can think of. Generally you should only redirect a name if you think people will attempt that name with some relative frequency. We kindof have a problem with wikipedia search (not as bad as it used to be though) showing 3 or 4 redirects to an article above the article itself, when it is searched for even with the correct spelling because there are so many floating out there.--Oni Ookami Alfador^Talk|@ 22:18, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

how to be in search results

I want to know how I can get my page to come up when entered in search? I'm trying to get an article about Susan Oliver (a different one from the one which currently comes up) Thank you —Preceding unsigned comment added by Saoms (talk • contribs) 18:31, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

Unfortunately, the search function can only provide articles that actually exist on the English Wikipedia. Unless you are referring to your own userpage, on which you have placed information about the singer Susan Oliver, then Wikipedia does not yet have an article on this person. You are of course free to request that such a page be created, or wait a few (4?) days and make it yourself. Algebraist 19:13, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

Newly registered users can create articles right away. The 4 day waiting period is for moving pages and edit semi-protected pages. If she satisfies Wikipedia:Notability (music) (which is uncertain) then an article could be created at Susan Oliver (musician) per Wikipedia:Disambiguation. The user page at User:Saoms is not part of the encyclopedia and is not searched by default. When Wikipedia search indexes it (hasn't happened yet), it can be searched by first clicking "search", and then "User" at the bottom. PrimeHunter (talk) 19:53, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

I'm having issues with an article

Hello there. I've been working on Iowa Democratic caucuses, 2008. There was a picture and a few sections below the "Poll" section that disappeared. Can someone please take a look at it and fix it?

Also, I would appreciate it if some people would come over and help edit the article. The caucus is this evening, and the article is far from ready for presenting the results. Any help would be greatly appreciated.--Dem393 (talk) 18:36, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

I replaced back the image. You can easily find such material yourself by going to the article's page history and clicking on prior dates to find a prior version of the article that contained the image; when you find such a prior version, go into edit mode to find the image's placement markup. Cheers.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 18:46, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

Thank you for fixing that, but there are other sections that don't show up on the article page. Why does that happen? (External links, categories, etc.)--Dem393 (talk) 18:51, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

PS you'll see what I'm talking about if you scroll down to the bottom of the editing page.--Dem393 (talk) 19:03, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

Fixed. It was what I'm coming to believe is the most common way to completely (and almost invisibly) screw up an article: a missing / in a ref tag. Algebraist 19:07, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the help!--Dem393 (talk) 19:26, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

How can I get articles from your site?

How can I get articles from your site? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 204.94.57.34 (talk) 18:38, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

Um, I'm not sure what you mean by "get".

• If you want to browse articles, start with the Main Page or Search.
• If you want them on paper for your own use, you'll have to print them yourself.
• If you want to know how to reproduce articles in another work please see Wikipedia:Copyrights - Reusers' rights and obligations and/or Wikipedia:Mirrors and forks.

Difficult to be more helpful without knowing what you mean. • Anakin ^{(contribs • complaints)} 19:26, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

Other things the question might refer to:

• WP:WAP - how to read Wikipedia on mobile computing devices with tiny displays
• Tome Raider - how to read the text portions of Wikipedia articles while offline

--Teratornis (talk) 23:34, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

Adding a page

I searched for FatWire and it came up with two references but I wnated to add a page about FatWire. Since I didn't get a button that allowed me to start a new page, how do I do that? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Wikiminder (talk • contribs) 19:57, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

Put FatWire in the search box on the right and manually click "Go". It should ask you if you want to create the page. First though, please review WP:NAME WP:V and WP:N to make sure that is the proper naming convention to use and that the article will meet the notability critiera. Is also important. This may save you a lot of effort as if this topic does not meet those criteria it will likely be deleted or moved.--Oni Ookami Alfador^Talk|@ 21:03, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

collapsible boxes

Is there any parameter that can be added or template included to make boxes (similar to the one below) collapsible without having to use the {{navbox}} template?

{|align="left" style="text-align: right; font-size: 95%;background-color: lightblue;" |- |[[Image:Koebel.jpg|50px|right]]'''This page has a fever, and the only prescription, is [[more cowbell]].''' |- |You can help by [{{SERVER}}{{localurl:{{NAMESPACE}}:{{PAGENAME}}|action=edit}} adding more cowbell!]'' |- |}

Thanks! --Oni Ookami Alfador^Talk|@ 20:55, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

Note: What that code shows as is on my user page.--Oni Ookami Alfador^Talk|@ 20:57, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

This page has a fever ...
... and the only prescription, is more cowbell.
You can help by adding more cowbell!

See Wikipedia:NavFrame, Wikipedia:Collapsible tables, {{Hidden}}, {{Hidden begin}} for some possibilities. PrimeHunter (talk) 23:49, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

contribution not suitable, next steps please

Hi

A while ago, I drafted a short piece about an information association i volunteer with. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_creation/2006-11-23#IAALD

The idea was to start from here to build out a series of entries around agricultural information and communications - linking to items from some of our existing members and collaborators already on wikipedia.....

Now I see that "all article submissions on this archive page have been mass moderated, and none of the remaining submissions are suitable for articles on Wikipedia. The page has been mass moderated and can safely be marked as completed."

so, where do i go from here on wikipedia? if at all..

thanks —Preceding unsigned comment added by Iaaldeditor (talk • contribs) 21:49, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

I can suggest one reason why the submission might not have been added (although there may be others) is that it contains no independent and reliable sources. I notice that you went back today, over a year later, and edited the submission, expanding the sources. However even that PDF document source by "Greider, A.P" is still not independent as the document says (and I quote): "Antoinette Greider is Secretary/Treasurer of IAALD". Firstly you would need to resubmit the page as the archived version will not get seen where it is even if you edit it. Additionally you will need to find independently published sources on IAALD, not blogs and documents written by it. Please see Wikipedia:Verifiability for a fuller explanation than I can give. • Anakin ^{(contribs • complaints)} 22:10, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

I think this page could easily be notable if you provide independent sources (as described above) that qould qualify its notability. Once you do that, I recommend just creating the article forthright instead of putting it through articles for creation. I think a lot of submissions that would otherwise be good articles get declined there because no one who patrols wants to go through the effort of cleaning them up or just creating them in the first place.--Oni Ookami Alfador^Talk|@ 22:15, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

The suggested article was not accepted but that doesn't necessarily make the subject unsuitable for an article. I didn't review it and don't know what the reviewers thought since no reply was given, but two problems may have killed it: 1) Lack of independent sources as others point out. Wikipedia really likes independent reliable sources to show notability of a subject. 2) The name in the opening line was wrong (it misssed a final s). If a reviewer made a quick Google search without that s to get a rough idea of how often the organization is mentioned and the chance of finding good sources, then it would give 96 hits today (enough to make many think it's correctly spelled and not speculate about other spellings), instead of 12100 hits. I have no idea whether such a misleading search was actually made, but I can easily imagine it. PrimeHunter (talk) 22:32, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

Vandalism Template

I noticed that when people vandalize here on Wikipedia, that you have a spefici template to subst for that user & they generally get 3 of those before getting banned. Anyways, where could I find those templates? I tried looking for them but had no such luck. § Eloc § 22:06, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Template messages/User talk namespace for these and many other. PrimeHunter (talk) 22:09, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

You may also notice that at the bottom of the when you are editing something, there is a box with clickable markup and languages. You may click on the (templates) link below to get at a page containing templates for a variety of uses and namespaces. Generally every template not on the user namespace will be somewhere on that list.--Oni Ookami Alfador^Talk|@ 22:13, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

Looking for a specific citation template

Another editor added an external citation to an article which links to a webpage which excerpts another person's article. I guess that would be considered a tertiary(?) source. Anyhow, the author's name is given, but there is no information given regarding the original publication. Given that the excerpted author is a reporter for a particular hobbyist publication, I assume that is the source. But, is there a template which says something to the effect of "Please provide a source for the original publication?" I looked at {{refimprove}} and {{citequote}}, but they don't seem to address this specific situation. I've left a note about it on the talk page, but I thought it would be prudent to tag the questionable source in articlespace as well. All suggestions are welcome. Thank you, GentlemanGhost (talk) 22:47, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

I don't see anything fitting in Category:Citation and verifiability maintenance templates. Depending on the circumstances, if the linked external site is unreliable then you might use {{Unreliablesources}} which refers to the talk page. PrimeHunter (talk) 23:05, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

creating new article from a section of an existing article

129.6.203.95 (talk) 23:29, 3 January 2008 (UTC)HRosenberg Hello: I am interested to create a new article. The subject exists as a subsection in another article but I believe that it deserves an independent article. It would contain the contents of the existing article section plus some expansion. Should I just create this new article and leave the old subsection, or create a new article and delete this section from the old article. Is there a Wikipedia policy on this?

Actually, a guideline rather than a policy (policies being fewer in number on Wikipedia, and generally even harder to change than guidelines):

• Wikipedia:Article size (Manual of Style)
• Wikipedia:Summary style (guideline) - when articles get too long

--Teratornis (talk) 23:38, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

Note that to create a new article, you have to create an account and log in first. Be sure to read Wikipedia:Why was my article deleted? before you create your first article. --Teratornis (talk) 23:40, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

It might be a good idea to first dicuss this on the original article's talk page. However, if you are sure that that the change is useful and if you do not get a response on the talk page after a few days, then go ahead a make the change anyway (after reading the guidelines listed above.) -Arch dude (talk) 03:25, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

Initial Capitalization

Headline entry for Jerry Spagnoli currently reads: Jerry spagnoli. How can the "s" of the last name be changed from lower case to upper case? This is not part of the copy body, but rather above the copy body on the edit page, therefore it does not seem to be accessible for revision. Sarahmorthland (talk) 23:35, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

Accounts older than 4 days can move pages using a "move" button which will appear at the top of the page (beside the "history" button). In this case, I have moved the page to correct the capitalisation. More information is available at WP:MOVE--Kateshortforbob 23:45, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

On another note, the article reads as though it might have been written for another purpose; perhaps an interview or an exhibition catalogue? I think the first two paragraphs need some reworking to remove the promotional, for lack of a better word, language (the "peacock terms" mentioned at the top of the article). I've added a couple of references, but more would great, particularly one for the direct quote. Unfortunately, I don't have time to look for more - it's nearly my bedtime! --Kateshortforbob 00:11, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

January 4

Image use question

I'm not longer actively contributing to Wikipedia, and apparently image-use rules and requirements have changed again. From what I understand I'm to provide justification for including this image; which is from the author's press kit.. From somebody who's versed in the current image use standards, what's the best way to show this justification according to the new rulings? -Tim Rhymeless (Er...let's shimmy) 02:16, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

Unfortunately, the simple link to randomhouse.com is no longer sufficient. Please take a look at the guidelines and add the {{Non-free use rationale}} template to image page, filling in all the fields - and in particular stating where the image came from and why that image is used in the article instead of a freely licenced one. Be sure to include in your rationale another link to the main article (ie. something like this: "Used to illustrate Madeleine L'Engle article for the purposes of ..."). Astronaut (talk) 03:37, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

Log-in confusion

Help folks—

Seeing an entry that was embarrassing both in its grammar and in its lack of objectivity, I tried to log-in and edit. Blaaaat! Rejected.

Figuring maybe I had already registered but forgotten, I tried to log-in with my standard username (which I have never, ever seen pre-empted on any site at any time), but I was dissed.

My standard username is "Scarabus," which is also the title of my blog My usual email addresses are these:

(addresses removed to avoid spam)

Is it just a log-in problem? Has a quantum coincidence occurred? Is my on-line identity being stolen?

Hep me, folks!

—wayne —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.121.44.126 (talk) 03:27, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia has millions of accounts. Are you interested in Turkish football? Special:Contributions/Scarabus shows 4 edits. If it's you but you cannot remember the passsword then just create a new account. The Scarabus account has chosen not to allow email from other users, but if it's you and you did give an email address for other purposes then click "E-mail new password" at the login screen. PrimeHunter (talk) 03:40, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

By the way, we have an article at Scarabus and there are 56100 hits on google:Scarabus (some of them probably you), so the name is not that special. PrimeHunter (talk) 03:44, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

(edit conflict) :A User:Scarabus was created in July and made a small number of edits to Turkish football clubs. If that is not you, then sorry you will have to think of another username. If that was you and you added your email address to the preferences page, your can request a new password.

One other thing. It is a very bad idea to put your email address on this page for all to see - including spammers, identity thieves, etc. Astronaut (talk) 03:49, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

JavaScript and Interactive boxes

I was kinda hoping I could find some way to get one of those countdown clocks in a message box on my userpage...counting down to my graduation on May 17. It that possible? If so, how? (The work-in-progress message box is in my sandbox). -- §HurricaneERICarchive 08:03, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

Some things can be build with Category:Date mathematics templates. For example: There are -6028 days to 1 July 2008, where the day count is made with {{#expr: -{{age in days|2008|7|1}}}}. {{age in days}} returns a negative number for future days so the result is negated. PrimeHunter (talk) 16:25, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

Okay, wow! So this will automatically update? It would be even better if I could get other timeframes in here, like months and days instead of just days. I'll take whatever I can get. If you don't know of a way to do that, that's fine, but if you do I'd love to hear it. -- §HurricaneERICarchive 19:49, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

Question about TABLES

I have a specific question about TABLES in Wikipedia. Both of my following attempts can be seen on my user page. Feel free to copy, paste, and alter them in order to demonstrate the solution(s) to my question(s).

I am trying to create a table for the Sicilian alphabet. The first table I attempted consisted of 1 column (with 5 headers for each letter), and it ended up much too long and skinny. The format was similar to:

letter	pronunciation	example
Aa	/a/	apple
Bb	/b/	boy
Cc	/k/	kite
Dd	/d/	dog

The second table I attempted consisted of 2 columns (with 5 headers for each letter), with an empty cell in between to separate them. The format was similar to:

letter	pronunciation	example		letter	pronunciation	example
Aa	/a/	apple		Cc	/k/	kite
Bb	/b/	boy		Dd	/d/	dog

I am happier with the second attempt, however the problem is in separating the two columns from one another, so that it's clear that it's not merely a long, connected row. As it stands now, I have placed an empty, skinny row in between, but I'm not happy with this.

So my question is, how can I alter the style of just the right border of a cell, or column of cells? I would like to bold, or somehow alter, the right border of the 5th header of the 1st column, so there will be some separation between column 1 (headers 1-5) and column 2 (headers 6-10). How, or can, this be done? And is it possible to make this border thicker as well, for added separation? Is there a website, or tutorial, of which you can inform me?

Thank you much,

Michiluzzu Scalisi (talk) 08:09, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

P.S. I know that this can be done in other codes, or styles of code, like CSS using "border-left=". However, to use this I believe it would require me to rewrite the entire table using this code, or style of code. Is there a way to do what I'm asking in the style of code in which I've already written the table? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Michiluzzu Scalisi (talk • contribs) 08:19, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

Prime gap#Numerical results shows a different approach: Make separate tables in cells of a larger table. PrimeHunter (talk) 12:15, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

You can use two tables and put them in a two-column format. -Arch dude (talk) 13:48, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

how to create same article in different language & show language hyperlink on the page

For Example; For the page = http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maharashtra languages are appearing on left side of the article, so if user wants he can read in other languages for exmample Marathi language.

But I want to have same language option on left side of below article. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shri_Ramakrishna_Kshirsagar_Swamiji

How to do that????

Thank you in advance....

Regards, Rohit —Preceding unsigned comment added by 163.157.254.25 (talk) 11:17, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

You need to put something like [[xx:page name]] in the article, where xx is the language code (ISO 639-1) of the Wikipedia you want to make the link to. For more info see Help:Interlanguage links. Arthena^(talk) 11:26, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

As far as I know, you have to create each article, in each Wikipedia, but I can't be sure. The Helpful One ^{(Talk) (Contributions) (Review Me!)} 11:26, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

Yes, the bar on the left indicates the location of the article in another language Wiki. I checked on the Spanish, French, Hindu and German Wiki, and neither of them has an article on Shri Ramakrishna Kshirsagar Swamiji. If you want to have the article in another language (which means, in another Wiki) you should ask for help at Wikipedia:Translation or try and translate the article yourself. --Yamanbaiia^{(free hugs!)} 11:37, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

Browser problem

As of a few months ago, whenever I access Wikipedia my browser crashes. I use Netscape 7, running in Solaris. I used not to have this problem, and do not have it with any other sites. It seems that a change was made to the site at that time which causes Netscape to crash.

I would be grateful if you could look into this problem for me. 80.128.97.81 (talk) 12:04, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

You're running a rather old version of the web browser (version 9 is current), so there's not much that can be done on Wikipedia's side. I would suggest downloading a newer web browser. Since Netscape is being discontinued, I would suggest Firefox instead. -- Kesh (talk) 13:50, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

Four tildes doesn't work! Assistance needed.

The last few days the 4 tildes signature no longer works for me. Instead of a proper signature, I get what you can see on the Talk:Transnistria page in my last edits. Hopefully, the same error will occur on this page, too (yes, it did, so you can see here what I'm talking about). I have never changed my signature in the preferences, so I don't understand why I have this problem and how to correct it. Dpotop 13:32, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

Despite the fact that you haven't intentionally changed your preferences, go to them and make sure on the User Profile page the "raw signature" box is unchecked.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 13:37, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

I just did that, and everything is now OK. Thanks. But I don't understand how it got checked in the firt place. Dpotop (talk) 13:40, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

You're dealing with electrons and chaos and cosmic rays...computer bugs of all sorts just happen:-)--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 13:58, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

Fear of Notability Factor

Hello:

I'm a collector of a cappella music, and I'm a considering using the multi-platform music manager software, Jajuk (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jajuk) to organize my collection, once I've digitalized it. One of excellent features of Jajuk, is their information perspective, which takes you to the wiki page of the artist or of the album corresponding to the song currently playing.

But, thoughthere are several thousand a cappella groups in the world, most are fairly unknown to mainstream music. I'm afraid that if I go ahead and create wiki pages or stubs for each of the artists in my collection (some of whom are defunct or do not have web sites, thought most do have web sites), some or many of them will get deleted due to failing your notability test.

If Jajuk, ever allowed it (or I used J.River Media Center,which has a plug-in for wiki info), an alternative would be for me to create my own local wiki.

Please either reassure me that I can "safely" use the public wikipedia or discourage me from entering my groups there. Would they likely pass the notability test? I don't want to do a lot of work for nothing.

Thanks

Jim —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.141.169.108 (talk) 16:19, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Notability (music) should hopefully help you to decide whether the artists in question meet our notability guidelines. There's also the possibility that you might wish to write one or two articles, let us review them and give advice on whether you should continue or not. Hope this helps. Nick (talk) 16:29, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

(Edit Conflict)Honestly it will be a lot of work to make the pages for each group good enough not to be deleted. For each page you would have to provide references that show the group's notability per the guidelines in WP:MUSIC. If this weren't done I'm afraid most of the stubs would probabably find their way to deletion. As Wikipedia is not a collection of indiscriminate information, simply creating stubs without illustrating notability is generally not accepted practice.--Oni Ookami Alfador^Talk|@ 16:35, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

(edit conflict) I don't know anything about a cappella groups but many music group articles are deleted for failing Wikipedia:Notability (music). If you want to reduce the risk of deletion then read the guideline carefully, include references from reliable sources to satisfy it, and don't use a promotional tone. But there are not any guarantees against deletion. It's possible but far from certain that other editors will find references to a notable group to prevent deletion of a poorly referenced article. PrimeHunter (talk) 16:41, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

I just wanted to add that there is nothing in Wikipedia requiring that reliable sources must be available online, nor any requirement/expectation that all notable entities will have their own website. Don't let modernist delusions that "everything's on the 'Net" keep you from creating sound articles based on printed references, properly cited. --Orange Mike | Talk 17:35, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia is an encylopedia, rather than a wiki catering to enthusiasts of any particular topic. What Wikipedia concept of "notability" tends to be much narrower than a topic enthusiast's concept. I would expect the authors of Jajuk to understand this - by linking (only?) to music articles on Wikipedia, they will not maximize coverage for music enthusiasts, many of whom are likely to have very specialized tastes. Jajek should provide options to link all the other public wikis about music, which generally aim for comprehensiveness within their declared scope. I suggest you find a wiki specializing in the type of music you want to write about. --Teratornis (talk) 20:07, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

Detecting template-only talk/discussion pages?

Often, after reading an article, I'll look at the blue "discussion" tab and think, "I see there's an active talk page; I should read that too." Most of the time, that talk page is only a set of templates, listing the status of the article in various projects. This wastes over five seconds of my time - possibly six! (insert self-referential irony)

Is there a script/extension/other way that will pre-visit the page and see if it's nothing but templates? Is there talk somewhere of moving categorization and status to a different tab? Am I neurotic? Please answer only the first two. --JayLevitt (talk) 17:14, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

There is a script you can use that shows pop-up previews of pages when you put your mouse over the link. I've seen it, but I do not use it. I believe that will work for you - it is just a matter of tracking down what the script's name is... -- kainaw™ 17:21, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Tools/Navigation popups -- kainaw™ 17:22, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

Northwest Airlines

My Name ia Emily Graves. This is the seventh tie that I have tried to reach someone to help me with a loss I suffered when flying Northwest Airlines. The flight inbformation is as follows: My husband (Dennis Graves) and I flew from Detroit to Springfield, Missouri on December 23, 2007 on flight # Nw5825, At the last minute our gete number was changed only our luggage was routed to Minneapolis. When we finally recieved our luggage there were a number of items missing. All of my meications were misssing, but that isssue has been resolved through my insurance company. E —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.105.128.56 (talk) 17:33, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

You might want to take that up with Northwest Airlines, as this is Wikipedia, an encyclopaedia. Here is the Northwest Airlines web site.

Sorry to here you had a bad journey. All the best. • Anakin ^{(contribs • complaints)} 17:38, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

Create an article

How do I go about creating my own article? I want to add something to wikipedia.XEDx (talk) 19:36, 4 January 2008 (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) 19:37, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

Also, the article you write will not be your own article, please take a look at WP:OWN, too. :) PeaceNT (talk) 19:40, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

"Contributing significantly" before GA review

I was looking through the GAN backlog today and decided that I would like to review an article (Roberto Clemente). I noticed, however, that it needed quite a bit of copyediting. I went through most of the article (adding punctuation, fixing wikilinks, etc.) and plan to finish copyediting it later today, but I just wanted clarification on whether or not that would disqualify me from reviewing it. I didn't change any information and I have no ties to the article, but I just wanted to make sure I would be avoiding a conflict of interest. Thanks, GaryColemanFan (talk) 20:47, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

To be on the safe side, I would let someone else review it. NF24^{(radio me!)} 01:26, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

Creating Pages

I was wondering how to make your own pages. I just became a member of Wikipedia and I wan to make a page, but I don't know how. Can you help me?

Smiley529 (talk) 23:19, 4 January 2008 (UTC)Smiley529

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) 23:37, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

question please help

hello - i accidentally created a Vivek shraya page instead of a Vivek Shraya page...i was hoping to delete the former as I have now moved the content into the Vivek Shraya page... please assist. thank you. SM —Preceding unsigned comment added by Sabrina Miller (talk • contribs) 23:23, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

I have set the Vivek shraya page to redirect to Vivek Shraya. In the future, use the move tab to rename pages. -- Meni Rosenfeld (talk) 23:35, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

Hi

I got into wikipedia thru morfix.co.il a Hebrew English website. How do I search for a word? when I write the word in the search area it takes me back to the English Wikipedia.

the only link that works for me is http://www.morfix.co.il/DETL/detlfs.aspx?q=http%3A//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/pantry

I have to manually delete the last word in this above link and re-enter the other word I'm searching. Is there a better way? thanks

p.s. You can e-mail me back at <e-mail removed> —Preceding unsigned comment added by Vicki123456 (talk • contribs) 00:29, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia is an encyclopaedia and discourages dictionary definitions. A sister project of Wikipedia is Wiktionary, which can be accessed at http://en.wiktionary.org. However, we do have a search box that you can use to find encyclopaedia articles. It's on the left hand side of every page. See Wikipedia:Search for more info. NF24^{(radio me!)} 00:47, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

The website at http://www.morfix.co.il is not operated by Wikipedia or by the Wikimedia Foundation that runs Wikipedia. It is site which can apparently load a page outside the site (not necessarily from Wikipedia) and add something in Hebrew to it. The site does not appear to have a real search function but just makes an English Wikipedia search on terms in the search box of a page originating from the English Wikipedia. Wikipedia has no control over this and I don't know a way to get url's at that site from a search. PrimeHunter (talk) 01:13, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

Missing Photo graphic

I've seen on some pages (though I can't recall any atm) a graphic in a profile box for a person, that says something along the lines of "we don't have a image of this person. Would you like to add one?". I would like to use this in an article I am editing, but cant' seem to find it. Thanks Chopper Dave (talk) 00:55, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

...moments later - Replace this image male.svg , thanks for looking anyway. Chopper Dave (talk) 00:56, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

How can I create a page on Wikipedia?

I'd like to know how to create a page on Wikipedia.

ArwenUndomiel [my username] —Preceding unsigned comment added by ArwenUndomiel (talk • contribs) 01:00, 5 January 2008 (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. NF24^{(radio me!)} 01:09, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

Copyright - attribute to who?

I'm making a picture that I'd like to be used here at the big WP but also on a website about bikes. I would like the picture to be released under Creative Commons Attribution Share Alike license (maybe dual with that other one people seem to like a lot also). I want to know; does the website owner have to attribute it to me or to Wikipedia? And where can they put the attribution? Must it be right by the picture or at the bottom of the page? ----Seans Potato Business 01:55, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

User0663 - Lunar Impact

Hi This is User0663 and i,m wondering if i could create a new article for you wikipedia Admin guys on how a large asteroid could impact on moon and screw up it's orbit resulting in the moon smashing into (IF NOT THROUGH) The Earth! Resulting in... THE END OF ALL THINGS! this theory of a lunar asteroid impact with screwed up orbit and a falling moon is known as a Lunar Impact.

so can i create a article on this?? —Preceding unsigned comment added by User0663 (talk • contribs) 02:31, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

Welcome to the ranks Wikipedia editors! Do you have reliable sources to get your information from? Wikipedia is not the place for wild speculation... see WP:Notability for in-depth advice! Even if it turns out that this is not a suitable topic for an article, I'm sure you'll find tons of other ways to contribute. Good luck! ----Seans Potato Business 03:01, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

Converting PNGs to SVGs for company logos

Is the conversion of a PNG to an SVG compatible with the fair use rationale which says something about low resolution (arguably doesn't exist in the world of SVG)? ----Seans Potato Business 03:36, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

E-mail confirmation

I recently responded to a "Wikipedia e-mail address confirmation" request. I was concerned that the request came from "wiki@wikimedia.org" (rather than wikipedia.org) and the following appeared in the header:

tagged.as.spam.by.relays.prodigy.net.list.66.230.200.216

Thank you,

Asteriskit (talk) 04:04, 5 January 2008 (UTC)