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February 18

How to delete slanderous information and update with correct information

I am requesting suppression and the ability to further edit comments and information about our company that are inaccurate and slanderous. I have made attempts to edit the information and have noticed that it appears to be automatically undone by an unknown IP address (see log below).

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

The offensive statement is:

Known to travelers for a "ripe, tangy odor",[4] the ranch is nicknamed "Cowschwitz".[3][5][6][7][8]

We need this permanently removed and for us to have the ability to remove it should it appear again as well as the ability to change inaccurate and referenced information as they are outdated.

• (cur) (prev) 01:35, 10 February 2010 Wikidemon (talk | contribs) (6,281 bytes) (→Description and products: 3 more cites for this...) (undo) • (cur) (prev) 00:55, 10 February 2010 76.102.12.35 (talk) (5,581 bytes) (Undid revision 343052976 by Mbaust (talk)) (undo) • (cur) (prev) 00:54, 10 February 2010 Mbaust (talk | contribs) (4,936 bytes) (removed references that are offensive and slanderous.) (undo) (Tag: references removed) • (cur) (prev) 00:35, 10 February 2010 76.102.12.35 (talk) (5,581 bytes) (Undid revision 343049322 by Mbaust (talk)) (undo) • (cur) (prev) 00:35, 10 February 2010 Mbaust (talk | contribs) (5,530 bytes) (undo) • (cur) (prev) 00:27, 10 February 2010 76.102.12.35 (talk) (5,581 bytes) (Undid revision 343046201 by Mbaust (talk)) (undo)

Mbaust (talk) 18:44, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

• If you are concerned, you need to take the issue up with the Los Angeles Times, which has used the phrases "[ripe, tangy odor" and "Cowschwitz". Wikipedia is merely using reliable sources to report on what they say. If the Los Angeles Times has printed a retraction of these statements, then could you indicate where it has done so, so that we can update the Wikipedia article? Otherwise, I don't see where Wikipedia should be found at fault for using an otherwise reliable source such as the Los Angeles Times. --Jayron32 18:49, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

It might be best to bring this up on the articles Talk:Harris Ranch ..however Jayron32 i see no problem removing "Known to travelers for a "ripe, tangy odor" as this is a POV statement (maybe i think in smells like mint etc.. not allowed) ..The references for this does come form a major news paper however..its a review from one person and not a news article!!...I take it you work there or something ..do people not call it "Cowschwitz" because there are a few references for that that are fine!!!...Buzzzsherman (talk) 18:52, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

Those statements are sourced to reliable sources so comply with Wikipedia's verifiability policy. You may not like them, but they are sourced. No one owns the article, and you cannot "demand" to have anything changed, or to have exclusive editing rights to the article. If you have issues with the article, please discuss them on the article's talk page as you have a conflict of interest. – ukexpat (talk) 18:53, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

See i read this and understand things a little different..I see that even if the source is verifiability does not mean its appropriate for the encyclopedia ...but i take it this is why there is always debate on this type of things...Wiki "how to articles" over lap alot!!...anyways best this is done on the article talk page.. Buzzzsherman (talk) 19:03, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

Most relevant here would be WP:UNDUE, I'm thinking. I've given the original querent the usual WP:OWN and COI warnings. --Orange Mike | Talk 20:54, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

The original poster could study the methods used by a group of editors to successfully censor all mention of Nadine Gordimer's robbery from her article. See Talk:Nadine Gordimer/Archive 2 and the following archive pages. On Wikipedia, if enough determined editors don't want some well-sourced but problematic information to appear in an article about someone, they can outlast the people who want to include it. But this type of censorship generally has to be a group effort, and there needs to be an ideology of some sort behind it. Wikipedia probably has less sympathy for businesses that want to censor unflattering facts about their business. --Teratornis (talk) 02:50, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

Do even half of the bands here belong in this category?

Category:2010s music groups
205.189.194.250 (talk) 00:59, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

Would you be worried about the fact that these bands were not created in 2010; or that these bands are not notable enough for being included on Wikipedia? ▒ Wirεłεşş ▒ Fidεłitұ ▒ Ćłâşş ▒ Θnε ▒ _―Œ ^{♣Łεâvε Ξ мεşşâgε♣} 08:48, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

Somewhat my question. Just what is the criteria to be included in the category? I presume it's for when they were formed.70.54.181.70 (talk) 16:07, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

I agree with your presumption, compare the similar categories used where the exact year of birth is unknown - Category:1960s births for example. – ukexpat (talk) 17:25, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

Generation X's in there? Wasn't Billy Idol born in the 50's.  :-D
70.54.181.70 (talk) 18:56, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

FWIW, the category page itself says it is for "Musical ensembles active (touring and/or recording) during the 2010s", and has since its creation. — Bility (talk) 19:12, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

Silly Me. This is the category I was thinking more of:
Category:Musical groups established in 2010
:D
70.54.181.70 (talk) 19:40, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

Anonymous user at 70.29.210.242, problems with...

I have a problem with an Anonymous user at 70.29.210.242 who is inserting flags into at least one article. Please see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Mission_of_Honor#Dear_70.29.210.242_: for a discussion on it.
Am I not correct that if you're going to insert a flag, then you should at least log in with an ID? This seems to me as totally inappropriate behavior.

BTW, where do I go to see an these published guidelines I keep hearing about, and is there an abridged version of them?
I just re-found this link http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Policies_and_guidelines.

LP-mn (talk) 01:02, 18 February 2010 (UTC)
LP-mn (talk) 01:08, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

No one is required to log in to add tags or for most other tasks. There is a short list of things that you must log in for, some of them are:

1. Create a new article
2. !vote in a request for adminship and other elections
3. Edit semi-protected articles

There may be others but those are the main one where you must be logged in. ~~ GB fan ~~ ^talk 01:13, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

Hmmmmm... OK, but I still find anonymous edits bothersome.
LP-mn (talk) 01:28, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

Your comments above appear to be an attack on another editor, I would recommend striking your comment. Comments should be about content not the person. ~~ GB fan ~~ ^talk 01:34, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

The IP is completely correct, and calling them "sleazy" only further hurts your case. Wikipedia is not a plot guide - I have to say this is one of the longest plot sections I've ever seen. Plot sections that long can run into copyright issues. Plot sections should be short and should not be the focal point of the article; instead, the article should focus on covering real-world aspects of the work, such as reception. Xenon54 / talk / 01:39, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

Fair enough. I've modified it. BTW, I do agree about the length of the summary. I've even _partially_ agreed about the accuracy. It's the anonymity of some critiques that bothers me.
LP-mn (talk) 03:53, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

FA nominations

Resolved

 –  – ukexpat (talk) 02:27, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

I have an article in my sites that I want to nominate for FA status. I've never edited it or added on it, so can I still nominate it? I remember reading somewhere that to nominate an FA article you need to be a major contributor. Renaissancee (talk) 02:10, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

Please take a look at WP:FAC - I think it's all explained there. – ukexpat (talk) 02:14, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

Alright, thanks! Renaissancee (talk) 02:17, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

No problem. – ukexpat (talk) 02:27, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

Blinking text

Is blinking text permitted on article talk pages? Gerardw (talk) 02:21, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

Based on WP:MOSCOLOR, no. – ukexpat (talk) 02:26, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

Malicious user

I could find help files on reporting problematic entries, but not on problematic users. One user, who perhaps made no other contributions to any page, vandalized M1895 Colt-Browning machine gun. Is there a procedure or anything I should do to report the user, perhaps for banning? --Thatnewguy (talk) 04:13, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

WP:AIV is the place to report vandals, once appropriate user talk page warnings have been given. – ukexpat (talk) 04:23, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

You can report obvious and persistent vandals at Wikipedia:Administrator intervention against vandalism. Before posting there, a final warning in an escalating series should have been posted to the user's talk page (for example {{Uw-vandal4}}, {{Uw-spam4}} or {{Uw-speedy4}}), and the user must have vandalized within the last few hours, including after the final warning was given. Various warning templates can be found at Wikipedia:Template messages/User talk namespace. Your block request is unlikely to be acted upon unless you follow these steps. Cases that are not simple vandalism can be reported at WP:AN/I. Of course, in conjunction with warning against and reporting vandalism, you have the ability, mandate and are encouraged to revert all instances of vandalism you find yourself.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 04:30, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

Thank you all. uw-vandal4 and uw-vandal3 both seemed appropriate; I placed #4 in the user talk page. An interesting note, though: A different vandal from a few days earlier had some of the same odd style of vandalism, and at least one of the same changes; that earlier vandal has been blocked. I don't know if it's possible to see if the two users are really the same, or to put additional attention onto the page, or if any of those steps is even necessary. I confess I don't have as much time these days to watch pages. --Thatnewguy (talk) 04:41, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

If you suspect that editor #2 is the blocked user editing with a new account to evade the block, ie a sockpuppet, you can file a report at WP:SPI where users with check user rights will investigate. – ukexpat (talk) 04:46, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

ISP history

how do I get my isp removed from history. I did some editing before I created an account. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Asorls2 (talk • contribs) 04:52, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

Except in very limited circumstances (see WP:OVERSIGHT), that is not possible. – ukexpat (talk) 04:59, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

This link would help in understanding how to contact the oversight team. Wikipedia:Requests_for_oversight ▒ Wirεłεşş ▒ Fidεłitұ ▒ Ćłâşş ▒ Θnε ▒ _―Œ ^{♣Łεâvε Ξ мεşşâgε♣} 08:42, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

Unless you make it very obvious that you are the same editor, no one will know! Just continue editing with your current account, and ignore the other edits. Although very rare, there have been occasions in the past few years (I'd guess a handful - and not for over a year or so!) but even if it was an article which I also edited when I signed in, I doubt that anyone would know which ones were the IP edits that I did. -- PhantomSteve/talk|contribs\ 08:51, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

See WP:LOGGEDOUT. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 12:41, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

Fake template "transcluding" categories on pages

Please help Bill Paxton, Frailty, and The Greatest Game Ever Played all have the following in them: {{Navbox |name = Bill Paxton |title = Films directed by [[Bill Paxton]] |state = {{{state|autocollapse}}} |list1 = ''[[Frailty]]'' (2001){{·w}} ''[[The Greatest Game Ever Played]]'' (2005) [[Category:American film director templates|Paxton, Bill]] [[Category:Film writer templates|Paxton, Bill]] [[Category:Films directed by Bill Paxton| ]]}} Can someone please fix this (I would, but I can't)? Thanks. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 06:20, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

What exactly is wrong with them? --Redrose64 (talk) 11:52, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

There are no categories added by {{Bill Paxton}}. The template is in Category:American film director templates but does not add that category to any articles. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 12:40, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

What happened here was that 216.211.126.22 (talk · contribs · WHOIS) in good faith added {{Bill Paxton}} to the three articles it was intended for, but substituted it. I replaced it with the transcluded template. The categories are no longer propagating through to the articles.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 12:38, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

There was gadget. Before I replace the substituted with the transcluded, the template categories were propagating into all three articles.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 12:54, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

Changing the colour of links to footnotes

Resolved

 – Discussion ongoing on article talk page. – ukexpat (talk) 01:42, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

At Talk:M25 motorway#Proposal re km and miles we are discussing ways of presenting clarifying information. I would like to introduce a link to a footnote in a couple of table cells that have white text on a black background. I cannot find any way to make the colour of the link to the footnote anything other than the standard blue, which does not show up very well. Is there a way to do this? Thryduulf (talk) 11:06, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

Have replied there. --Redrose64 (talk) 12:38, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

Paragraph in article deletes remainder

Resolved

 –  – ukexpat (talk) 17:28, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

Hi there. I'm trying to add a paragraph to the Moscow Monorail article that I translated from ru.wiki. When I add it, it appears, but the text about the stations, the see also and the references tag disappear from the page, even though they are still in wikitext when I click edit. Any Help?

Buggie111 (talk) 13:03, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

Hi Buggie111: It's a broken set of ref tags, as the "cite error" message at the end of the page suggests: you are using </ ref> instead of the correct </ref> to close your reference. Substitute the latter in the two places where the former occurs and the problem will be solved. Gonzonoir (talk) 13:09, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

Looks like someone has already done so. I was too lazy to check my watchlist

Buggie111 (talk) 13:12, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

Lists of heads of state

Should a list of heads of state of a country be splited in many sections by national periods, or should it be an uninterrupted line and notice such things at an "observations" field? MBelgrano (talk) 13:11, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

My gut reaction is it should be split into sections by national periods, assuming those periods are of significance. Sections usually make things much more legible.--212.183.140.51 (talk) 14:12, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

I agree, see List of Presidents of the French Republic for example. – ukexpat (talk) 17:29, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

Monobook full?

I am using the Monobook skin and lately when I add a userscript to the Custom JS subpage (?) it does not work as it should. After adding the script and saving that edit my entire screen fills up with code—covering even the Wikipedia logo—I then either reload that page or purge the cache and that code is not longer there on my screen as it was, but it is also no longer in my Monobook page hwere I cut and pasted it. What to do?--Supertouch (talk) 15:34, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

I don't see any edits from you to any .js files in your userspace - which page, exactly, were you working on? UltraExactZZ ^Said ~ Did 16:02, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

This would be on my Monobook.JS subpage, I just checked the history and it showed no new edits even though I have edited since Feb 8?!?--Supertouch (talk) 16:06, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

Pretty sure it's the document.write part. Try replacing

document.write('<script type="text/javascript" src="' + 'http://en.wikipedia.org/enwiki/w/index.php?title=User:Dschwen/highlightredirects.js' + '&action=raw&ctype=text/javascript&dontcountme=s"></script>');

with

importScript('User:Dschwen/highlightredirects.js');

— Bility (talk) 16:13, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

On further inspection, I see there are two more instances of document.write near the bottom, which, if added more recently, might be the problems. I had the same situation one time with the JavaScript writing to the body of the document instead of the head. — Bility (talk) 16:20, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

I removed the scripts having write in them and everything else works fine. Thanks for the tip. Regarding other scripts, I suppose will work and others won't, especially considering that I use a Mac.--Supertouch (talk) 19:26, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

I tested your monobook.js on my (Windows) computer, and changing all the document.write stuff to importScript() worked for me as well. — Bility (talk) 22:58, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

I did so as well, and it resolved my problems but now I can't find the scripts I was trying to install...--Supertouch (talk) 23:48, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

Replacing a non free image with a free image

Resolved

 –  – ukexpat (talk) 01:41, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

Hi, I have a problem: I think that this non free image can be replaced with this free image in this page, but I don't know which is the right template to request its deletion, after replacing it. (since the image in question is used only in the aforementioned page)--SuperSecret 21:55, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

I think {{di-orphaned fair use}} would be the right one - don't forget to subst it! – ukexpat (talk) 22:00, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

Perfect, Thank you.--SuperSecret 23:20, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

Redirects on watchlist

I've looked high and low through the FAQ but I haven't found an answer for my question. Does anyone know how I can tell whether a page on my watchlist is a redirect or not? For instance, having the redirects show up in italics or anything like that. The reason is, some of the changes I track are page moves themselves. Many thanks! Please post a note on my talk page if you supply and answer so I know when to come back :-) Seven Letters 22:10, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

Redirects in the watchlist don't have any special markup in their tags, so there's no way to tell them apart for the purposes of adding a special style to them in your user CSS page. It could probably be done with JavaScript, but it would take a while to execute, especially if you have your watchlist set to show a lot of changes. — Bility (talk) 23:16, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

Wikipedia search list

Resolved

 –  – ukexpat (talk) 03:02, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

When I type a letter in the search box, it gives a list of results.
But why I am limited ONLY to wikipedia articles (I mean, those that start with 'Wikipedia') when I am signed in?
I have been using wikipedia since well before I became a member and have always been able to find things (to some extent).
If I am NOT signed in, I can find the items for which I am searching.

For example, if I search for Altamont and type in the letters alta, I only get the result 'Wikipedia:ALTACC' while signed in.
I do not even get Dinosaur as a possibility when I type in dino, yet this page exists.
If I search for Altamont and type in the letters alta, I come up with many possibilities, including Altamont, New York while NOT signed in.

This is NOT about the search results; this is about the search possibilities before actually clicking 'go' or 'search'.

Why does this happen? Is this a temporary and/or recent problem? Is there something that I need to do when signed in to get to the pages easily? (It is not easy to get to a page if you do not know the exact page name and it does not come up in the list.) hello (talk) 22:17, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

In your "my preferences", in the "search options" tab, do you have the correct namespaces checked? --Floquenbeam (talk) 22:21, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

Thanks, I think. I did not see that page. However, when I made changes there, I made it even worse. I find zero possibilities when I type in a. I have marked (put an X) to article, talk, wikipedia, template, and template talk. If the above links to Altamont and Dinosaur are articles, then why do they not show up in results? hello (talk) 22:30, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

Hmmmmm. This may not be the problem after all. But at least for now, put an X in all namespaces, including the "search all namespaces" box, so you're back to only one problem. Have you recently added anything to your Special:MyPage/monobook.js page? (you don't have one). Did you install WP:Beta? --Floquenbeam (talk) 22:37, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

I figured out the problem. It is the 'disable AJAX suggestions'. I did not know what AJAX was so it was disabled. I enabled it, with only the five marked areas as shown above. I now get all the suggestions that I expect to get. I find several Altamont possibilities and Dinosaur is there as well. hello (talk) 22:54, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

What is AJAX? It seems to be an acronym. For what? Also, when I had AJAX disbled (until minutes ago), I was able to find some suggestions, particularly the wikipedia stuff? If suggestions is disabled then I should get nothing, right? hello (talk) 22:54, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

All I can do is give you a link: Wikipedia:WikiProject User scripts/Guide/Ajax. Now you know as much as me. Glad it worked out. --Floquenbeam (talk) 22:57, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

Thanks! hello (talk) 23:27, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

Alphabetized lists

In a table in which you can alphabetize the columns, how do you get it to ignore the words "the" or "a" at the beginning of table text? 2J Bäkkvire Maestro ^{Test UR Skill!} _{What I've Done} 22:52, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

You could put an invisible sort key before the text like:

<span style="display:none">table item, the<span>the table item

Wikipedia may even have a template for that type of thing, as I imagine it could be used in lots of sortable tables. — Bility (talk) 22:58, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

See Help:Sorting and Category:Sorting templates. You might want {{sort}}. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 02:20, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

AJAX in wikipedia searches

Resolved

 –  – ukexpat (talk) 02:39, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

Does anyone know what AJAX really is? The link provided for me under the heading "Wikipedia search list" above seems NOT at all like what I wanted to know. It talks about programming (of which I know NOTHING); it does not mention anything about searching. Wikipedia allows users to disable AJAX suggestions. What is being disabled? Or maybe it would be easier for someone literate to paraphrase this sentence "AJAX (asynchronous JavaScript and XML) is a popular name for a web programming technique that queries the server or fetches content without reloading the entire page." The 'fetches content' part seems interesting. What is that? hello (talk) 23:27, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

In short, it simply means your browser can request and receive information from a server without navigating away from the page you're currently on. In this case, as you type into the search box, an AJAX request asks Wikipedia which results what you're typing matches, and displays them as the suggested terms list. That's a non-technical explanation, and might not be 100% accurate, but it sounded like you were asking for. — Bility (talk) 23:46, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

Yes! Thanks! That sounds right. Your explanation is easy-to-understand. The AJAX suggestions was turned off in my account until today simply because I did not know what it was. Now, I know and understand. It seems that other web sites use AJAX. I have seen the same kind of thing elsewhere. hello (talk) 01:02, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

Ajax interactions are one of the defining characteristics of Web 2.0, so you see them all over the place. People who didn't program web pages before the advent of Ajax probably don't realise how earth-shattering an advance it was to be able to go and get some more information without loading a new page. --ColinFine (talk) 16:29, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

Unreliable Sources

What can I do, when a page has informations based on a blatantly biased source, which in turn does not cite it's own sources? I am specifically talking about Beneš Decrees and Expulsion of Germans from Czechoslovakia pages, which abundantly cite Zentrum gegen Vertreibungen, which however is absolutely not a neutral source, uses weasel words in it's explanation of history, and does not cite where does it get informations from. What can I do about this situation?

There are absolutely unsourced claims being thrown around, and it seems to me that "citation needed" does not cut it, and a complete re-write is in order. On both pages the talk section has grown terribly quiet, however, and so it seems the interest of the community is minimal, and therefore it's unlikely I may ever get community's consent. --147.228.209.170 (talk) 23:51, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

You might try posting at Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard which is a centralized discussion areas dedicated to discussing such issues.--SPhilbrickT 01:01, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

New word coined

Hi All,

I have coined a new word; Povernment - A government that taxes people into poverty.

I was wondering how I would go about publishing that in your Dictionary section.

Thank you for your consideration in this matter.

sincerely,

Hope Eternal Reigns —Preceding unsigned comment added by Hope Eternal Reigns (talk • contribs) 23:55, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

To be included in Wikipedia there must be discussion of the word in reliable sources If you just coined the word it probably is not notable enough for inclusion. ~~ GB fan ~~ ^talk 00:04, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

(edit conflict)Sorry, but Wikipedia is neither a dictionary nor a place for things made up one day. Typically, for a word to merit a Wikipedia article the word must already be widely used and documented by reliable, third-party sources. The article may then discuss the emergence, popularity, and meaning of the word. Thus, "povernment" is not yet ready for Wikipedia. If, in the future, the word becomes a common term, it may merit an article then.

If you are thinking about creating a page on the Wikitionary, read their criteria for inclusion first. Thanks, Liquidluck✽talk 00:09, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

And see Wikipedia:Avoid neologisms. Although we might need to coin one for people who take a brief glance at Wikipedia and misunderstand what Wikipedia is for. --Teratornis (talk) 02:28, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

I might add that the suggested neologism isn't likely to get much support from reliable sources, as the more poverty a nation has, the less effective its tax-collecting agencies usually are. I heard from an economics professor once that one of the major challenges facing developing nations is that many of them cannot reliably collect taxes. This suggests that one way to get tax relief is to move to a poor country. A failed state like Somalia might be even better, although you'd probably have to pay bribes to the local warlord. TANSTAAFL. --Teratornis (talk) 02:38, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

February 19

Can only administrators close deletion debates at Possibly unfree files?

NerdyScienceDude :) (✉ click to talk • my edits • sign) 00:39, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

The text of WP:PUF implies, though does not state directly, that only administrators should, saying "Listings should be processed by an administrator after being listed for 14 days...." However, Wikipedia does not have hard and fast rules about most things. If you look at precedent, you can see that non-admins are expressly given the go ahead to close many discussions, though they are asked to limit themselves to certain types of closures. See, for example, Wikipedia:Non-admin closure, Wikipedia:Articles for deletion#How an AfD discussion is closed, requested moves closing instructions (caveat, I wrote most of it, including the part about who should close debates, but there was discussion); Wikipedia:Deletion process#Non-administrators closing discussions; Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Administrator instructions. The upshot is that yes, I think you can close these using the pages I've cited as precedent, but you should follow the spirit of these instructive pages, which I would summarize as 1) only close discussions where the result of the close doesn't require administration tools (I know, duh, but I've seen people attempt to do just this, and more than once [though even for some of these a non-admin can close and then ask an admin to take the action needed]) 2) Restrict your closes to the uncontroversial; avoid closing contentious debates 3) Don't close any process debate before the full listing period has run; and 4) Never close any discussion in which you have participated.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 05:41, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

To clarify Fughettaboutit's second point: as a general rule, avoid closing any discussions which have a mixture of !votes. If all of them say "keep", no worries. If there is a mixture of "keep" and "delete", then leave it (obviously, if there were 10 !votes saying to keep, and just the nominator and one other editor saying to delete, the concensus will probably be to keep - but even then it depends on the arguments used.) -- PhantomSteve/talk|contribs\ 09:54, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

Discussion cleanup - template help and/or advice needed.

Hi. I'd like to clean up closed discussions at Wikipedia:Public domain status of official government works, but I'm not sure how best do do it. I'm thinking of using one of the Collapse or Hidden templates, but I can't figure out which one is best/appropriate. (And wonder if having so many is good; deprecate some?) Moving and hiding/collapsing the dormant discussions is what I want to do. I suppose I could also use an auto-archive tool + search tool instead, but I don't think they're a good fit. All the discussions save the PR one are closed, IMO. --Elvey (talk) 03:13, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

{{Archive top}} and {{Archive bottom}} may work. – ukexpat (talk) 03:35, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

Help me to compute this problem.

50g of sugar dissolved to 450g of water.How many percentage of sugar in the solution?Agnesdelatorre (talk) 03:40, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

Welcome to the Wikipedia Help Desk. Your question appears to be a homework question. I apologize if this is a misevaluation, but it is our policy here to not do people's homework for them, but to merely aid them in doing it themselves. Letting someone else do your homework does not help you learn how to solve such problems. Please attempt to solve the problem yourself first. If you need help with a specific part of your homework, feel free to tell us where you are stuck and ask for help. If you need help grasping the concept of a problem, by all means let us know. Intelligentsium 03:44, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

Native Instrument fm8

Does anyone know how to get the program back to its default settings? I messed up the settings and now it sounds like hell knows what, problem is, I am yet very new to the interface and can't quite figure out what exactly it is I changed that effected the sound. And I can't find any reset button or any thing like this to default everything - uninstalling doesnt help, this thing keeps all the settings somewhere else than only in its work directory, so whenever I install back as new it loads all the present settings back. hope someone knows how to clean install it. thnks —Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.83.238.8 (talk) 04:33, 19 February 2010 (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. – ukexpat (talk) 04:37, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

How to clear saved Templates

In the edit box the templates are not there but on the page they are ? at this page User:Mlpearc/Sandbox. How do I clear the templates between "hope" and " 1.1 My Sandbox" ? Mlpearc (talk) 04:59, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

There is only one template producing the text, User:Mlpearc/Status. If you remove that from the page, it will clear all that content.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 05:10, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

Thank you, now if I could only get my status indicator to work, I've had 5 people try to help me but I think I'm following thier instructions but I'm still "LOST" as my "indicator" will tell you. Mlpearc (talk) 15:21, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

Wikipedia Mobile

Hello all,

I use Wikipedia on my BlackBerry (mobile.wikipedia.org) almost every day. Recently the following message appears after every search is attempted: wikipedia export error. I am not computer savvy at all, I have no idea (nor do I want to)know what this means. But if you could kindly fix the issue, that would be most appreciated.

Thanks, Random Wiki user from Australia —Preceding unsigned comment added by 58.172.202.66 (talk) 05:12, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

I get this error to now...if you pick (select) the Mobil version this will not happen..hopefully someone can help more but i asked this question 2 weeks ago and did not really get the answer that helped ...Buzzzsherman (talk) 05:14, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

Userboxes in Template: namespace

Please assist I believe that all userboxes are to be moved to the user namespace, but I have found the following (deprecated) templates that are still in the template namespace:

• {{User cobol}}
• {{User css}}
• {{User haskell}}
• {{User html}}
• {{User prog}}
• {{User xhtml}}
• {{User xml}}

Can someone please "adopt" them? Thanks. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 07:40, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

Isn't this the purpose of User:UBX? --Redrose64 (talk) 11:45, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

Probably All I know is that I nominated them for deletion, as they were deprecated and the outcome was to move them to userspace. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 16:55, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

200 blogs

I heve more then 200 countries blogs.i want past my blogs link in External links in relevant Countries blogger pages at Wikipedia. How can i do it? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Sajad0335 (talk • contribs) 07:46, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

You don't. Wikipedia is not the place to advertise your blogs, and are discouraged in Wikipedia:External links. 203.115.29.234 (talk) 07:53, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

user page does not exist

I just noticed an entry on this page (previous entry) where the user page is redlinked, yet the user's talk page is bluelinked. Can someone explain to me how a user's talk page can exist without the user page? What causes this to happen? hello (talk) 11:43, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

This is actually quite common, especially for users who were recently created. User pages are normally only created when the user concerned decides to do do. There are many users who have not created a user page, either by choice or simply not knowing that they may do so. User talk pages on the other hand, are often initiated by users other than their "owner", perhaps by the use of the {{welcome}} template. There is no requirement for one to exist before the other. Your own page hello was created by yourself on 29 November 2008 (and in response to the questions which you posed there, see WP:USERPAGE), whilst your own talk page hello was created on 29 November 2008 by User:E Wing. --Redrose64 (talk) 11:57, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

Thanks! Shouldn't there be a highly visible spot on a regularly visited page for new users? A paragraph that lets the user know their options? Highly visible, meaning some place that cannot be overlooked. Is that even possible? Users that have been here for many years probably know the best page(s) to put this information, and putting it on the top of the page seems logical to me. NewYorkeruser (talk) 12:03, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

Can anyone answer questions in my previous post? NewYorkeruser (talk) 01:37, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Highly visible spot? Such as? Kayau Voting IS evil 04:06, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Photos

I would like to use this image from Google Earth in an article. Do we have a sharing protocol with Panoramio? I have used imaged from geography.org.uk in the past, e.g. this picture. Is there a similar set up with Panoramio? •• Fly by Night (talk) 11:52, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

Hi Fly by Night. The image is being used by Google Earth but it is from Panoramio and we have to look there for its license; that is the key issue, is the license of any particular image you want to use compatible with the free license we require. Note that all images copyrighted by Google Earth itself are unfree (see their terms of use). There is no sharing protocol, rather we can use Geography.org photographs because they are are freely licensed under the GNU Public Licence and the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike license (see here which is compatible with the free license Wikimedia sites use for their content. Such images can be uploaded to the Wikimedia Commons and used on all Wikimedia projects and should not be uploaded here (the image you identified as an example is tagged to be moved there).

Unlike that site, Panoramio allows its users to choose an images license, from keeping all rights to various creative commons licenses, some of which are not compatible with ours, so each panoramio photograph has to be checked for its license. The particular image your question is about is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivative Works 3.0 Unported license, which is not compatible with our free license. See Acceptable licenses ("Publication of derivative work must be allowed"). So the image cannot be used here unless you can claim fair use, which I don't think is possible here.

To clarify, we also allow use of unfree images to be uploaded locally (on Wikipedia; not to the Commons) under certain circumstances where we can claim fair use, but fair use requires a laundry list of criteria to apply, and images of landscapes such as this are usually said to be reproducible (a free equivalent could be created) and so do not qualify for fair use.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 13:18, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

Vandalism

Resolved

 –  – ukexpat (talk) 02:04, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

This section is not about any specific vandalism.

I have noticed lots of reverts of vandalism that had been reported.

1. Why does the vandalism occur?
2. How many (or what percentage of) vandalized articles are marked as having been vandalized?
3. What can be done to eliminate the vandalism?
4. Could there be some kind of Bot that reverted vandalism as soon as it appeared, and reported it to administrators?

I am not really expecting much of a response. But I have noticed way too much vandalism. Wikipedia should be a safe site for everyone. No one has vandalized me (or anything I wrote, to my knowledge), but still it makes me feel less safe.
(would you continue to go to a local store if you heard that it was constantly vandalized, even if this never happened to you?) This last sentence is rhetorical. hello (talk) 12:06, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

OK, I'll try to answer you non-rhetorical questions:

1. Why does vandalism occur? Because this is the encyclopedia which anyone can edit. This fact is both Wikipedia's greatest strength and its greatest weakness. There will always be people who will vandalise pages. Sometimes this is because they are experimenting, and don't realise that what they edit will be visible immediately (I often see instances where the same editor quickly removes their vandalism, as they realise this). Sometimes it is the work of blocked or banned users, who just want to "get back" at Wikipedia. Sometimes it is for the same reason that people vandalise in the real world - it can be done, and they want to feel that they've done something.
2. I have no idea, but I would guess that a large %age are marked as vandalism pretty quickly. It would be hard to be sure, because if its not been marked, how would we know?
3. Well, there are various possibilities (such as [WP:FLR|Flagged Revisions]]) but at the moment, it is mainly a case of a combination of New Page Patrol/Recent Changes patrol and editors who look at an article, see vandalism, and remove it.
4. Some vandalism is automatically reverted by bots - but a lot of vandalism can be hard for a bot to recognise. For example, if I changed the entry for Michael Caine to say that he was born in Jamaica, then that would be vandalism - but saying that Bob Marley was born in Jamaica would not be vandalism - how would a bot know the difference? Obvious vandalism (like removing references, random characters being added, etc) can be identified by a bot, but most cannot.

Although I understand your concerns, the rate of vandalism is not as great as you seem to think. The vast majority of Wikipedia's 3 million+ articles do not contain vandalism.

The only way to make totally sure that no vandalism is ever present in articles is to either restrict editing to certain people, or to not allow edits to be instantly seen.

The former would mean that Wikipedia is no longer the encyclopedia which anyone can edit. The latter would mean that people who notice something wrong or missing in an article will not bother to make changes, as they will not see the change appear. As everyone here is a volunteer, it may be a while before verified changes are added to an article - this would prevent vandalism being seen, but it would also mean that articles would not be up-to-date (for example, if someone dies, their article can reflect this fact within seconds of the press reporting it - if that change had to be held until approved, this fact may not be seen for a few days).

Using your analogy: you can prevent vandalism to a shop if you only allow people near a shop if they can prove that they will not cause damage - which means that a lot of your customers won't bother, as they won't want to be strip-searched or scanned just to buy a bag of sugar!

Regards, -- PhantomSteve/talk|contribs\ 12:42, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

Incidently, I notice that most of the article that you work on are about places. These have a higher-than-average vandalism, as people will think "this place I live in is shit" and then vandalise the article about that place. The other main target for vandalism is high-profile people, where people think "oh, lots of people will look at this article, let's do something that they will notice." If you look at articles about (chosen at random) 2007 Legg Mason Tennis Classic, which many people would not have heard about, or Woolly Dormouse or Ferdinando Castagnoli or George Edmondstone, then you will not see vandalism. The highest targets for vandalism are articles about well-known people, articles about places, and articles about schools/colleges. Most other subjects have relatively little vandalism - for example, of the 27 articles about the Gliridae (Dormice) family, hardly any of them have had any vandalism, despite having been on Wikipedia for more than 2-1/2 years. Why? Because it's not a subject which a vandal would think about, and so any vandalism which they would do would not be seen by many people - the exception here is the 'edible dormouse', which has been vandalised a couple of times. -- PhantomSteve/talk|contribs\ 13:01, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

Id just like to add to steves response; The best way to cut down vandalsim is for editors like you, myself and as many as possible to be familliar with what is vandalsim (see Wikipedia:Vandalism ) and to particiapte in reverting it. One approach I use is I 'watch' the pages that i think are targets of persistant vandals. When i start editing on wp i check 'my watchlist' at the start of each editing session. If I see any vandalism i revert it. Its a small contribution, but at least some pages which would be trageted for vandalism alot are more safe for viewing for the average user. Anyway if your interested in learning more about how to help with fighting vanadalism feel free to post here. Ottawa4ever (talk) 13:11, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

As you can see below, I was, and to an extent still am, at my wits end about it. For the time and effort I put into this, I might as well set up my own site and make my own articles, with no one editting them--save perhaps some hacker, though I suppose that's far rarer (I'm guessing). You might try another wiki--the less they are used, the less likely you are vanadalized. One thing that can be said about Wikipedia is the feedback you get when your stuff is editted, though that happens rarely--save for some points about notability. Btw, I don't think it's a safety issue as much as an annoyance, time-killing, one. Have a nice weekend.;-)70.54.181.70 (talk) 20:49, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

Thank you all for your explanations. I have already helped out a little. I make (have made) changes to pages that have inaccurate or missing information, mostly to the pages pertaining to New York state. Also, I notified other users about a certain vandalism that had occurred to The Most Extreme by posting at the talk page. I undid an obvious bit of vandalism on the page List of towns in New York where Hudson Falls was said to be a town. That is all that I have seen for myself. I would have difficulty recognizing vandalism, simply because I visit so few pages, and do not know the facts to any of them, except certain pages local to my area of New York. hello (talk) 23:03, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

The nice thing about crowd-sourcing vandalism removal is that there is someone sitting at their computer screen now, three thousand miles away from you, who only feels comfortable reverting vandalism to articles about Western Oregon. And another one who knows all about Eastern Queensland. And another who edits and patrols plumbing-related articles. It's not perfect, by any means, but it isn't as hopeless as it sometimes feels either. Thanks for doing "your share" here, it's appreciated. --Floquenbeam (talk) 23:21, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

This topic can be marked as 'Resolved'. I am happy with the resolution. NewYorkeruser (talk) 01:41, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Listing in Search

Hi there -

I'm editing the page for "Oedipus (DJ)." We (Oedipus and I) were wondering why his page doesn't show up as a dropdown when you type "Oedipus" in the search box. There are a LOT of "Oedipus" listings, just not his.

Alternately - what designates which entries show up there?

Thanks for any help!

--Scott —Preceding unsigned comment added by Berkleeboy (talk • contribs) 15:23, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

It only shows 10 listings at a time, so that is why it Oedipus (DJ) doesn't show up if you only type "Oedipus". If you type "Oedipus (D", then it will show up. I believe it sorts pages based on how many other Wikipedia pages are linked to it, in order from highest to lowest. --Mysdaao ^talk 15:38, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

On another topic, the subject of the article should not be editing it. That is a conflict of interest, and this is strongly discouraged. For non-minor changes, he should instead make recommendations on the article's talk page and let other users decide whether to make the edits or not. --Mysdaao ^talk 15:41, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

... and the hagiography needs to be dialled right down. Phrases such as "countless awards" (bet I could count them), "acclaimed" (by whom ??), and "most provocative" do not belong in Wikipedia articles - see Wikipedia:Avoid peacock terms. Gandalf61 (talk) 17:10, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

Major Unexplained Deletions in Flash Animation Article

I keep tabs on the article for Flash Animation and today I noticed that on 2/12/10 the bulk of the article was deleted without explanation by an unidentified user. The bottom of the article now has what looks like un-parsed HTML code, so perhaps this is some kind of mistake. I left a note in the Talk section as well.

Xtasia (talk) 17:07, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

Looked like test edits to me. I have reverted them. Feel free to do so yourself next time - see the guidance here. Thanks for letting us know. Karenjc 17:15, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

Hmm, on closer inspection the test edits were only part of it. From the edit summary I think the mass deletions were done in order to remove external links embedded in the article. The words "baby" and "bathwater" spring to mind, and I'll have a good look at the deleted text and try to restore it. Karenjc 17:26, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

How do I deal with this edit fight?

Resolved

 –  – ukexpat (talk) 19:27, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

A few weeks ago, I added to the Richard Manitoba article. It was edited out. I edited it back in. It was edited out again. I edited back in then asked for help here. How do I prevent an edit fight?. This lead to me being told that I had to find better sources. I did. The editing out continued. This person seems to do little more than editing out my content. Here’s his/her IP User talk:66.65.94.122. A few other Wikipedians, to their credit—God bless them, have warned him—last warning even; yet within 18 hours another account starts at the Dick Manitoba article. In less than 30 hours, this account, User talk:Richeye has done vandal edits—5 for Dick Manitoba, one for Caribou (musician). Now, if he wants an edit war—with lots of vandalism, I can give him one. I have about 10 IP addresses I can avail of. I live in Toronto, and for a few dollars, I can use an IP 30 km away. I’m already forking the content to both to other wikis (not related to WM). However, this could be averted, assuming my patience fails, with some consideration of blocking, SP tags, a protection (with my sourced edits—from CBC—included). What’s the process for getting the latter three started? Thank you.70.54.181.70 (talk) 17:08, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

HE DID IT AGAIN!!! NEXT EDITTING OUT HE DOES, THERE WILL BE SOME MAJOR VANDALISM!!!70.54.181.70 (talk) 17:14, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

OK first of all I understand your frustration but this comment by you is unacceptable. On the reverts, I have reported the IP user to WP:AIV. – ukexpat (talk) 18:01, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

Thank you!! Now I suppose I'll have to tolerate this bullshit until he gets another sockpuppet. You haven't seem to report his current sockpuppet.

Understand my frustration? Conservapedia has the 90%/10% rule. I suppose this is the Wikipedia version. I have to source it, and then source again (so the Dickhead fans can salve their fragile egos) and fight, for something I heard a number of times on the CBC, 10x more than when I did originally sourced it, for some asshole--possibly Dickhead Manitoba himself--can remove with no explaination?

Unacceptable?!? Whattaya gonna do, block me? I'll be on another computer in a few hours.

Protect his version of Dickhead Manitoba? Through inaction WP already is.  >:-(  70.54.181.70 (talk) 18:24, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

OK enough, if you are not prepared to interact appropriately with other editors, then no one will be inclined to help you. – ukexpat (talk) 18:47, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

Looks like he has another sockpuppet.
User talk:Urbanshocker
70.54.181.70 (talk) 18:45, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

Yeah enough. Actually, User talk:66.65.94.122 has been blocked for 31 hours, by User:LessHeard vanU--bless him; but for only 31 hours. So 1/3 of this guys SP's is out until half the weekend. As for inappropriate, who have I insulted? The vandal and the subject of the article. I've been generally respectful to others.

You know what articles I should read, perhaps take a bit to heart:
Wikipedia:Avoid personal remarks, Wikipedia:Do not insult the vandals, Wikipedia:Don't-give-a-fuckism, Wikipedia:Drama, Wikipedia:Staying cool when the editing gets hot, Wikipedia:The world will not end tomorrow

I suppose bad things can happen when you lose your cool, huh.

I need to relax. I think I'll listen to some Caribou right now. Thanks for your help--all of you.
:)
70.54.181.70 (talk) 19:22, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

Calling someone an "asshole" is a personal attack no matter how you look at it. So, yes, your own advice re personal attacks is good to follow. – ukexpat (talk) 19:26, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

Buddy, the issue ain't resolved.
But you know what? What if I refrained from editting the two articles myself? Let you guys and others deal with it. I've wasted way too much time on this. I'll let the process take care of itself.70.54.181.70 (talk) 19:38, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

The immediate issue is resolved, the IP has been blocked. If the vandalism continues, the admins' noticeboard is here.. – ukexpat (talk) 19:45, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

I wonder if, once this is in the archives, I'll be referring to it at a later date, as I did my earlier question in the first posting here.70.54.181.70 (talk) 20:24, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

people editing my page

I need to be the only person who can edit MY page as people are adding untrue notes to it. Someone please help —Preceding unsigned comment added by Butcherfan (talk • contribs) 17:32, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

See WP:OWN – it's not "your" page. If you have a problem with the content being added, air your concerns on the article's talk page and be ready to discuss them civilly. — Bility (talk) 17:48, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

Ed Butcher is not your page. See WP:OWN. It is an article on Wikipedia, and anyone can edit it. If you have a difference of opinion with another editor over what should be included in the article, the first place to discuss it is the article's talk page. Karenjc 17:46, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

Problem with the aritcle I am adding -- Wiki says its vandalism

I am trying to add an article about myself with references/citations to LinkedIn etc ... but my article was removed and states its vandalsim.

I am totally confused, lost and disgusted by Wiki. I spent the last hour trying to make it work.

Please help

Yves <blanked> —Preceding unsigned comment added by Yveslk (talk • contribs) 17:36, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

Your page has been deleted because it does not indicate why it is notable enough to warrant inclusion and looks like advertising as well. Please see our info on conflict of interest and our guide to writing your first article. TNXMan 17:40, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

Also, your user page looks like a resume fishing for employment, and that's not acceptable either. Tagged for deletion. – ukexpat (talk) 18:04, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

There are other outlets. Take a look at Wikipopuli and Wikibios. – ukexpat (talk) 19:32, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

tag for needing more references, especially inline

Resolved

 –  – ukexpat (talk) 19:43, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

What is the tag for saying that an article needs more references, especially inline citations? (I think Chess tactics needs it.) Bubba73 ^{(You talkin' to me?)}, 19:19, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

It is {{inline}}, which I have added for you. Intelligentsium 19:26, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

Which is a redirect to {{No footnotes}}. – ukexpat (talk) 19:29, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

Ah yes. In fact, as the article already has one footnote, {{more footnotes}} would probably be better; I have changed it, though with a strange edit summary due to an autocomplete malfunction. Intelligentsium 19:31, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

Thanks, I knew I had seen tags like that, but I couldn't remember them. Bubba73 ^{(You talkin' to me?)}, 19:41, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

Kendall County image

Resolved

 –  – ukexpat (talk) 20:09, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

In the Kendall County, Illinois article, there is an image in the demographics section regarding the 2000 census showing an age pyramid. The image in the article looks like someone scribbled all over the ages in the middle of the picture, yet if you click on the actual image, it looks fine. Is something wrong? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.163.246.1 (talk) 19:29, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

Looks like a problem with the svg rendering at small image sizes. – ukexpat (talk) 19:37, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

I uploaded a new version of the file and it appears to be scaling well now. In the future, you can also make a request at the Graphic Lab. — Bility (talk) 19:46, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

Excellent. Some day I'll figure out svgs. – ukexpat (talk) 20:09, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

Posting to Wiki

How do I post a new word with a definition?Protein123 (talk) 19:48, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

See #New word coined above. — Bility (talk) 19:51, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

(edit conflict)It's best that you don't. New words are generally considered neologisms, which are inappropriate for listing on Wikipedia. TNXMan 19:52, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

Erb Institute

Need clean-up. Arteyu ? _{Blame it on me !} 21:13, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

So, er, maybe try to fix it yourself? – ukexpat (talk) 21:20, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

Want to do it but couldn't find the time. Arteyu ? _{Blame it on me !} 21:50, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

Tag it with clean up tags (if you haven't done so already) or perhaps add a request at the Wikipedia:Reward board. The help desk is more for specific problems than for general improvement requests. Liquidluck✽talk 23:30, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

Cluebot an ex-bot?

Anyone know what's up with Cluebot? It hasn't archived WP:RFF for a number of days. Has it shuffled off this digital coil? Thanks. – ukexpat (talk) 22:49, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

Wrong info

there is wrong information in an article —Preceding unsigned comment added by 97.96.235.84 (talk) 23:39, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

What is the article's name? Liquidluck✽talk 23:57, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

February 20

What's the difference?

What is the difference between the Book namespace and WikiBooks? Samwb123^{T (R)-C-E} 00:32, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Wikipedia Books are like volumes of an encyclopaedia – they contain only encyclopaedic content, because they are composed of Wikipedia articles. WikiBooks contains relatively little encyclopaedic content – content there generally illustrates "how" one would do something, which is discouraged at Wikipedia. Intelligentsium 00:58, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Time difference

Resolved

 –  – ukexpat (talk) 03:52, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

I just noticed February 20th already with one topic, yet it is only 7:51 p.m. my local time (eastern US). What is the location of this web site (or what time zone does the web site use)? NewYorkeruser (talk) 00:51, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

The page uses UTC for the timing of the page. ~~ GB fan ~~ ^talk 00:59, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Wikipedia, along with all other Wikimedia projects, use UTC or GMT time (the time in London, England). Samwb123^{T (R)-C-E} 01:02, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Some times use UTC, which is winter time in England. UTC, unlike local English time, does not change in the summer. Near the top of the page there is a "preferences" option, and within that there is a "Date and Time" tab where you can change the format of some dates/times and change the time zone for some dates/times. I've never tried to keep track of which dates and times are influenced by the preferences; I just set it to "use server default" which is UTC. I just find it to display some times in local time and others in UTC, so I display everything in UTC. Jc3s5h (talk) 01:12, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Thanks! I have three clock times on my computer. One for local time (EST); one for London, UK; one for Paris, France. The one for London now says 1:47 am, so that puts me five hours behind. I understand the time zone difference. No need for further comments. NewYorkeruser (talk) 01:47, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Poems?

Should poems be put on Wikipedia, Wikisource, Wikiquote, Wikibooks, another Wikimedia project, or can I propose at the village pump a new Wikimedia wiki for poems? Thanks. Samwb123^{T (R)-C-E} 01:09, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Published, free-content poems can go to Wikisource, though particularly short poems may be included in the article about them (for example, Ozymandias). Intelligentsium 01:14, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Would it classify as a free poem if the author died more than 70 years ago? (except for some countries) Samwb123^{T (R)-C-E} 01:22, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Free editing of Wikipedia

User:Phantomsteve responded to one of my recent queries here. He gave the following quote:

Why does vandalism occur? Because this is the encyclopedia which anyone can edit.

Literally anyone visiting wikipedia can edit articles. One does not even need an account (am I right?).
With so much editing, re-editing, vandalising, deleting, undeleting (restoring), etc., I am surprised that wikipedia bothers to exist at all.
Wikipedia has policies concerning vandalism, edit wars, and other things.

This is not really a problem post. Just a query.

What if wikipedia changed some of its policies?

1. only let users continue to edit if they have proven themselves to be good editors
2. let users edit (create) articles only if they can prove they are knowledgeable in certain areas
3. maybe appoint certain editors with the job of checking for/reverting vandalism in certain specific topic areas
4. require users to have an account (and a user page) before they can edit articles, and they must be signed in
5. provide a page where users can prove themselves, including their field(s) of expertise

The above is a list of suggestions. Could any of this be possibile at all? NewYorkeruser (talk) 01:34, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Hi, I believe the village pump might be the place to discuss new policies/proposals. This is page is more for editing help and the how of Wikipedia processes. — Bility (talk) 01:48, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

I have no idea what I would say there, as I have never submitted anything like that. I am not even sure my suggestions would even be considered. NewYorkeruser (talk) 01:54, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Well your topics have been debated endlessly, to be honest. It would probably be better to just find the existing discussions. You might be interested in flagged revisions... — Bility (talk) 02:00, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

It is also a founding principle of this project that anyone be able to edit (most) articles without registration. Proposals to change this have been frequently proposed and rejected. Take a look at Wikipedia:Perennial proposals#Prohibit anonymous users from editing. --Mysdaao ^talk 03:44, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Using quote with book reference

Hello, I want to know how to add a quote with a book reference. I am using Template:Harvnb for the draft in User:Defender of torch/Communist antisemitism. Is there any way by which I can add the quote from a book with Template:Harvnb? If not, can I use Template:Google books quote? How to use Template:Google books quote? I have used Template:Google books quote in this way, but it does not follow the manual of style. --Defender of torch (talk) 03:58, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Can you give an example of how it's not working? Why can't you do as you're already doing on your user page? For instance, "quote text"<ref>{{Harvnb|Last name|Year|p=Page #}}</ref>. — Bility (talk) 04:39, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

It is not working see this. Is there any kind quote parameter within <ref>{{Harvnb|Last name|Year|p=Page #}}</ref> e.g. <ref>{{Harvnb|Last name|Year|p=Page #|quote=}}</ref>? --Defender of torch (talk) 04:53, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Oh. You don't need to put the quote in the reference, just reference the source. Interested parties can read the source if they don't believe you. On the other hand, if you want the reader to see the quote, just put it in the main body. — Bility (talk) 04:58, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Well, there is a quote parameter in Template:Cite book. Which is why I was asking if the same can be done with Template:Harvnb. I know the quote is not necessary, but it is good to provide the quote is case of contentious information. Anyway could you please tell me how to use Template:Google books quote or is there any other way by which I can provide the exact quote in the footnote? Thanks. --Defender of torch (talk) 05:03, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

If you add |quote=Blah, blah, blah to {{cite book}} in your Bibliography section, your {{cite book|author=W.R. Iter|title=The great text|year=2010|quote=Blah, blah, blah.|ref=harv}} will create:

• W.R. Iter (2010). The great text. Blah, blah, blah. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)

if that's what you are after. Then to refer to a statement on page 15 of W.R. Iter's great text insert inline: <ref>{{harvnb|Iter|2010|p=15}}</ref> to create: which is hyperlinked to the entry in the bibliography. Clear? I went ahead and tweaked your draft. If you like, switch the citation to cite book, it should work the same way. User:LeadSongDog come howl 06:08, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Extra text while editing

When editing things like T:TDYK, WP:ER, WP:AfD, here, and some user talks, there is some extra text above the edit box while editing. How can I add this to a page? Kayau Voting IS evil 04:02, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

That's an edit notice. Check the link for more details. – ukexpat (talk) 04:05, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Edit Toolbar

In my prefences, I have the check box checked for "Enable Edit Toolbar". I do have JavaScript enabled, but its still not there. I'm using the Monobook skin. How may I serve you? Marshall Williams2 Talk Autographs Contribs 04:02, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

In fact, none of my tools seem to appear at all!!!! How may I serve you? Marshall Williams2 Talk Autographs Contribs 04:09, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Try and clear your cache. For IE that's Control-F5. That should reload all the tools. User:LeadSongDog come howl 06:02, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Special pages - Wanted Categories

Special:WantedCategories has not work for some time now, is there another location for this information? --Traveler100 (talk) 07:14, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Tags suggestion?

Resolved

 – by Bility (talk) 22:13, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Per the page, it shows a tag called "test edits". I assume this tag is still in use, since unlike some of the lower tags in the list, it doesn't say "This tag is inactive." Yet, I can not find any results when I search for it, and I do not have anything hidden. On a hunch that the tag was disabled or broken, I ran a search on all articles with the text "Headline text" and got 3,079 results. This is the default text for the button, adding == Headline text ==. to the page. So:

• If the tag is broke, it should be fixed.
• If the tag is inactive, the tag page should say so.
• If I am doing something wrong which is causing my searches to fail, I would appreciate some education.

--Avicennasis 08:35, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Looks like someone turned it off at the end of December. BTW, when you were "searching" for test edits, you mean you were using the tag filter on RecentChanges or user contribs, right? — Bility (talk) 16:55, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Yep. Should go to the admin's talk page and ask why is was turned off, or is there a better place to take that discussion to? --Avicennasis 21:18, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

The admin may be able to provide a rationale, otherwise someone may discuss turning it back on with you at Wikipedia talk:Tags. — Bility (talk) 21:31, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Ok. I have asked on the admin's talk page, and depending on feedback, will go from there. Thanks for your help! --Avicennasis 22:16, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Citing from software

If you have used a software and then used it to edit a page, how do you refer to it?--Mikespedia (talk) 09:31, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

We don't seem to have a dedicated "cite software" template (or if we have, I can't find it). We do have {{cite video game}}, whose parameters can be applied successfully to other types of software, so that template might be your starting point if you're referencing specific aspects of the software that could be verified by another user. However, do be aware of WP:NOR. Your own experiences using the software are what Wikipedia would term "original research", and you would need a reliable third-party source to support your observations before the information could be included in an article. Karenjc 12:34, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Also, the question is possibly ambiguous. By "page" do you mean an article? Another type of page is the image page, and many Wikipedia (and Wikimedia Commons) users indicate the software they used to edit image files. See for example {{Inkscape}}. But you did say "cite" so if you mean you want to cite the software as a source, Karenjc's comments apply. I would add that you could read WP:CITE, WP:FOOT, and WP:CITET. Also, depending on what statement you want to source from the software, you might be better off citing the user manual for the software. In which case the generic {{cite}} template would probably work. Note that there is no requirement for using citation templates, unless you want an article to be featured in which case you would need to use one of our orderly citation methods. A bare URL is adequate as a source (provided it points to something reliable), although not the nicest way to provide sources. --Teratornis (talk) 00:39, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

Dreadful image

Please could an expert in images sort out the picture at the bottom of Talk:Charles_Arbuthnot. Many thanks. Kittybrewster ☎ 12:24, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

It shows up small because it needs cropping to remove those acres of whitespace. --Redrose64 (talk) 14:01, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Cropped. In the future, you can also make a request at the Graphic Lab. — Bility (talk) 17:02, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

I fixed the license template name; it was {{pd-art-life-70}} on one and {{PD-LIFE-70}} both of which showed as a redlink; it should have been {{PD-art-life-70}} (template names are case-sensitive except for the first letter). --Redrose64 (talk) 17:33, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Notable

As a function of the number of times someone appears in the references of articles now, what is the probability they should have their own article? —Preceding unsigned comment added by IPadophile (talk • contribs) 15:10, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

If you're just wondering, try asking on the misc. village pump. If you want to use the answer as the basis for article creation, refer instead to WP:NOTE, as those are the guidelines to use rather than appearances in reference sections. — Bility (talk) 20:04, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

(e/c) I'm not sure anyone has ever attempted to measure such a correlation although the correlation certainly is valid much of the time; it might not be with, for example, a large walled garden of original research that we do find festering sometimes. So sure, it's an indication that notability might be present, but is not a good method for determining notability or arguing that a topic is notable because the general notability guideline already provides a direct yardstick for that assessment. So if you see lots of mentions of a topic in many articles, it may be a useful indicator, and from there we can say: "hmm, this topic is probably notable, maybe I should write an article, let me check" and then perform a Google books, Google news archive search or many other checks one can do depending on the topic, to see whether this indication of likelihood pans out with actual evidence of notability.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 20:10, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Help

I can't remember what codes to put in to create a background and border for text. Can you help? Mr. Prez (talk) 16:00, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

View in edit mode to see the wikicode: background border. Please use a more descriptive header next time Xenon54 / talk / 16:12, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

See also, {{color box}} if you're okay with a simple black border. — Bility (talk) 17:13, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

ClueBot III

Hello, is User:ClueBot III down? I have ClueBot III automatically archive my talk page after 7 days... I still have a stale thread 12 days old on my talk page. Thanks, Arctic Night 17:15, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

This question is best answered by the bot's owner; you can ask him about the bot on this page. Robert Skyhawk ^{So sue me!} (You'll lose) 17:36, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

That was done several days ago re archiving of WP:RFF - no response. And see above. – ukexpat (talk) 19:05, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

According to Wikipedia:Requests_for_feedback/Archives, "Request threads automatically archived by Werdnabot after 30 days.", not ClueBot. Intelligentsium 19:12, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

According to the archiving template at the top of WP:RFF Cluebot does the archiving. Maybe at one time it was Werdnabot. – ukexpat (talk) 19:29, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

My login/username

Hi!

I registered the user ID "qorogh," but when the confirmation email came, it was spelled "Qorogh" instead, as was the welcome on the after-login screen. Just for correction, I use this ID on other sites as well. It is a name in the Klingon language, and therefore, "Qorogh" is an incorrect spelling. The q must always be a lowercase letter. Is there a way to send confirmations and list IDs in the system EXACTLY as they're entered? I know it's a minor point, but it's a detail I feel should be shown correctly.

Many thanks!

Pat

aka "qorogh" here on Wikipedia —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.187.219.247 (talk) 17:46, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

All user names automatically have the first letter upper cased, so there's no way to "correct" your user name, short of a developer modifying our configuration of MediaWiki. Perhaps if you can convince the Federation to petition on your behalf you could get such an act enabled. Short of that, try putting {{lowercase}} on your user and user talk pages to change the appearance of your user name in the top page heading and page title. — Bility (talk) 18:24, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

When you created your login, there would have been quite a bit of explanatory text on the screen. The box on the right (headed "Username policy") includes the sentence "The first letter of a username is automatically capitalized." at the bottom. Also, on one of the help pages reached from there (at Help:Logging in#Login issues and problems) it says "the first character of the username ... is capital by default". --Redrose64 (talk) 19:20, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

In addition you can create a signature which controls how your name appears whenever you sign your name on a talk page. See WP:SIGNATURE for information. --SPhilbrickT 01:19, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

We need article that lists countries by "agricultural surplus" and overview of specific agricultural practices of countries.

We need a better overview of agricultural systems and practices with historical figures from all world countries. Especially interesting would be percentage of "agricultural surplus" and state of agriculture in world countries and overview how agricultural practices could be bettered in countries.

This page is for requesting help in using Wikipedia. If you would like to request that an article be written, see Requested articles. You are also welcome to write the article yourself. Robert Skyhawk ^{So sue me!} (You'll lose) 20:36, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

I don't know how to fix this ...

Take a look at the "cleanup-rewrite" box on this page, WP:Template_messages/Cleanup. It contains the following goofy text, which should be fixed, but I don't know how:

"This may need to be rewritten entirely to comply with Wikipedia's quality standards, as article."

Andrew Gradman ^talk/_WP:Hornbook 20:25, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

 Done it was a missing pipe. --Redrose64 (talk) 20:50, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Creating an information chart

How do you create the information chart that is usually at the top of a lot of pages? Evrestsebretawhtoot (talk) 02:26, 21 February 2010 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Evrestsebretawhtoot (talk • contribs) 02:25, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

Are you talking about infoboxes? Do you have an example? — Bility (talk) 02:28, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

Yes. Evrestsebretawhtoot (talk) 02:31, 21 February 2010 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Evrestsebretawhtoot (talk • contribs) 02:29, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

I'll use a template from the link, thanks! Evrestsebretawhtoot (talk) 02:31, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

French Culture broken link

I am old and tired and just couldn't figure out who to talk to about the fact that the link for

"Hofstede's Framework for Assessing Culture"

In the French Culture [1] wiki page does not seem to go to the proper place. It goes to a page with a lot of Peyton names and versions, which just didn't seem useful [2].

Regards

C R Krieger

If anyone cares, crk (at) theworld.com —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.233.7.192 (talk) 02:44, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

Fixed, thanks. --NeilN ^{talk to me} 03:01, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

Minor namespace-related problem

In the article Edward Luttwak, the book title "Strategy: The Logic of War and Peace" is linked. Instead of being a redlink as it should be, this links to Wikimedia's "Strategy" namespace. Does anyone know how to fix this?Prezbo (talk) 04:55, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

Infobox Templates

I just checked out this page Category:Infobox templates. I see nothing specific about real infoboxes. What am I missing? I also checked out this page Help:Infobox (this may be useful later). I have seen infoboxes on pages for:

1. Animals
   1. classes of animals
   2. orders of animals
   3. families of animals
   4. genera of animals
2. Political systems
   1. countries
   2. regions of England and regions of Italy
   3. states
   4. counties
   5. towns
   6. cities
   7. villages
   8. and specifically, nearly all pages of places within the state of New York

I am not asking how to make an infobox. I know very little about what they are. I have seen hundreds of them. But I have no idea from where the general stuff actually comes. Can someone tell me where I would find the templates such as one on animals and one on political systems? Are there different templates for different categories of animals and/or different levels of government? NewYorkeruser (talk) 05:15, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

I'm confused: are you asking about the information in userboxes, or about the coding for producing infoboxes? Nyttend (talk) 06:05, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

Neither, I think. I am asking about infoboxes, specifically where the templates for those on animals and political systems can be found (and NOT just those found on specific pages). I want to see what these infoboxes look like without the specific information. It might be related to coding. I do not know what that is here. Is there a single page that can show me these types of infoboxes? The reason I ask is that I looked for infobox, then list of infoboxes. I saw something about certain places in England, but nothing else such as in the above list. Okay, I may have figured it out. (may be not) I took a closer look at the Geography and place names category on the page at the first link in this help section. Then, I found Countries, opened it. I found United States. Here is a page Template:Infobox U.S. county with what appears to be a blank template such as for what I was asking. It includes the parameters, but no specific information. Just blanks. Is this a template that can be used on any county page of the United States, with ONLY the details to be added? (Remember, I am not asking how to put in the details; only for directions to the right places to find templates.) Please let me know if I am on the right track, or guide me to the correct one. NewYorkeruser (talk) 06:33, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

Yes, you're on the right track. Template:Infobox U.S. county shows the code that can be used on any county page of the United States. The infobox is used by copying the code to an article and then filling in the parameters. All the infoboxes are in Category:Infobox templates or its subcategories. For animals, look in Category:Biology infobox templates or Category:Animal infobox templates. For political systems, look in Category:Politics and government infobox templates. For general information on infoboxes, you might want to read Help:Infobox. --Mysdaao ^talk 06:57, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

February 21

The videogame reception chart has a problem

I just noticed in the video game articles like UmJammer Lammy and Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney Justice for All that the MobyGames score is missing from the videogame reception chart even though it was still here in the edit box. I want to fix the reception chart in order to make the MobyGames score appear, but I don't know how to do it. Please help me! --Angeldeb82 (talk) 05:21, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

MobyGames was removed from Template:VG reviews. See Template talk:VG reviews#MobyGames removal and Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Video games#VG reviews publications. --Mysdaao ^talk 06:43, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

Jimmy Cliff, Reggae singer

I didn't add this but I wish you all would. It's merely an FYI (for your information). Jimmy Cliff performed at Carnegie Hall in NYC in 1975, we all saw him, we had 3 boxseats for all 25 of us, but Carnegie Hall was packed that night. It was the first time Jimmy performed in the USA, I do believe. Reading your article, I couldn't believe he and I are the exact.same.age. We were into Jimmy before we got into Bob Marley.

So nice to read he is going to be honored this year, 2010!!

Thanks, Wikipedia. Your website I love and always go to it, and for the past 15 years that I have been online.

Peace!!

Sincerely,

Ellen Martin Sunny Isles, Florida emar99999@yahoo.com

—Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.144.246.141 (talk) 06:57, 21 February 2010 (UTC)