Help Page Patrollers are a group of Wikipedians who patrol the help desk and help users who have placed the {{helpme}} template on their talk pages. The patrol is an optional service. Patrollers can come and go, and there is no official sign up process.

Regular patrollers may add {{User HPP}} or {{user help desk}} to their user page:

This user is a help page patroller

This user volunteers at the
Wikipedia Help Desk.

What helpers can do

Make sure all messages are formatted correctly,
Answer questions,
Check the Help Me Category and answer questions from users,
Check archives

Patrollers

Add yourself with

#~~~ (Joined ~~~~~)

and if you are not using the userbox, add yourself to the Help Desk Patrol Category.

List

Levonscott User talk:Levonscott User:Levonscott (Joined 07:38, 21 August 2011 (UTC))[reply]
StewieGriffin! • Talk 07:04, 4 June 2008 (UTC) I'm Back Founder of the HPP[reply]
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Hersfold ^(t/a/c) (Joined 21:41, 19 April 2008 (UTC))[reply]
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...... Dendodge.Talk^Help (Joined 09:34, 20 April 2008 (UTC))[reply]
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Active earlier this year, hope to regain that. Rudget (Help?) 13:23, 1 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
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:-) Stwalkerster [ talk ] (Joined 16:12, 15 June 2008 (UTC), but have been doing this for ages)[reply]
–thedemonhog talk • edits (Joined 18:13, 15 June 2008 (UTC); made twenty-three edits to the help desk page prior to joining the patrol)[reply]
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November 9

Can I get an opinion on a few edits

This edit as well as some of the other recent edits to the Cindy Margolis article seem rather out of place. I don't recall any other article being quite so up front about who the subject's agent is. Am I the only one who thinks that this is a bit odd/out of place/unusual/etc? Or maybe a bit too much like advertising? The user even includes Margolis' agent's web site in the external links. Dismas|^(talk) 02:51, 9 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

You're correct, the edits are a clear conflict of interest. I've restored the previous revision of the article and warned the user.

A few things give it away; check out User:Sparkato48's contributions. The account was solely created to edit this article. Also, this diff showing before and after the edits shows that there are several attempts to put the subject in a more positive light, eg "divorced" is changed to "separated". And yes, you noticed — the external link in the end. The user added Margolis' agent's name three times in their edits. Well done! Pretzels^Talk! 03:02, 9 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

MY question is incorporated with the space

As we know that when we leave earth the volume of air tend to decrease and we cant adhere to one particular position as we keep on floating in the space , so my question is when once the rocket is launched ,when it leaves the earth and enter the space orbit , why does it not float in air , can you reveal the scientific reason behind it —Preceding unsigned comment added by 117.192.104.81 (talk) 04:10, 9 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I have no idea what you're asking but I'm pretty sure it belongs at the Science Reference Desk and not here. Dismas|^(talk) 05:08, 9 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Page Format Missing

I recently came across this problem: Whenever I go to wikipedia I am missing all of the formating at the left and top of the page. All I get is the type going straight down the page. Can anyone help me with this issue? I currently use Firefox version 3.0.3. this does not happen with IE.

Thanks,

Dave Clark —Preceding unsigned comment added by Rmeguy1 (talk • contribs) 04:28, 9 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Do you have the MonoBook skin at Special:Preferences in Firefox? Have you tried to completely clear the cache in Firefox? PrimeHunter (talk) 16:32, 9 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Degraded image

Hi, I wonder if someone who understands these things could take a look at the image Image:Pole-south.gif as it appears at the top of South Pole. For me, it's badly degraded, as if it's been through a very poor scaling algorithm (compare a similar image at North Pole, which is fine) The strange thing is that I'm sure this image was perfectly OK until quite recently, and I don't see what's changed. Any ideas? 86.133.214.217 (talk) 05:20, 9 November 2008 (UTC).[reply]

The image looks fine from my computer, The problem could be with your browser. Have you changed any settings recently? and what browser are you using?.--intraining ^{Jack In} 07:14, 9 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

They look fine to me, too (if anything I'd say the South Pole image looks better than the North Pole image, but my eyesight is less than stellar...) however, there is a discussion on WP:AN right now about problems with GIFs - apparently the server-side scaling of GIFs has had to be switched off to reduce server load. I wonder if this could be the cause of the problem? I'm fairly sure I've looked at both the North and South Pole articles fairly recently, so it's quite possible I'm seeing "good" images because they're cached on my computer.

Cheers, This flag once was red^propaganda_deeds 09:36, 9 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The Sourth Pole image is a GIF, the North Pole is a PNG. GIFs do not rezise well. Click on the image: it the original size is good, then resizing is the problem. --—— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk - 15:36, 9 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I'm using IE7, with no recent setting changes that I'm aware of. "The server-side scaling of GIFs has had to be switched off to reduce server load" sounds to me very likely to be the problem that I'm seeing. The unscaled image is just fine. I don't really see why PNGs should be any less computationally intensive to scale than GIFs (or maybe they're scaled by the browser?), but if PNGs are still scaled OK (as they seem to be for me) then perhaps in an ideal world someone who has the time and the tools could convert the GIF to PNG. Pending that I've just changed the article to display the GIF actual size, which is not too bad. Thanks everyone... 00:21, 10 November 2008 (UTC). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.134.30.51 (talk)

Several GIF images have appeared severely degraded this week.

You mention "The server-side scaling of GIFs has had to be switched off to reduce server load". Do we know if that is to be switched on again? Otherwise there will be a lot of GIF files to be redone and put on Commons, which might be the way we have to do it.

Howard Alexander (talk) 14:30, 12 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Interwiki account

Firstly, let me tell you the account that I actually registered myself: English, Indonesian, French, and Latin. I never registered for another Wiki account besides that. However this morning, I received a message (notified by e-mail) from Malaysian wiki welcoming me to their wikipedia. I am really curious, so I checked my Global account status. Surprise, surprise: I got account in Japanese and Javanese, all of the languages that I speak/understand (though I only have intermediate understanding in Japanese) - see my userpage babel. I intend to keep those account. but what makes me curious is the fact that I am not registering to use those. Is my account being used by someone else (I am using my own laptop). w_tanoto (talk) 09:41, 9 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Can you access those new accounts with the password you use in the other accounts? - Mgm|^(talk) 10:22, 9 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Yes. I use unified login. The first time I use unified login, there was 4 accounts that I created myself. Now, a total of 7 accounts are listed. Is this automatic things, because all of those are actually the language that is listed in my babel, though not all of them? May I know the IP, so I can compare it with my own IP. w_tanoto (talk) 10:28, 9 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

UPDATES: I know the problem is. Once I visited wikipedia in other languages, I automatically became registered because of the use of unified login. Thanks for attempting to help me. Problem solved. w_tanoto (talk) 10:59, 9 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

help me

why buying an existing business is a better option and compared to starting up one? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 60.50.147.51 (talk) 14:00, 9 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I suspect, based on your question, that you found one of our over 6 million articles and thought we were affiliated in some way with that subject. Please note that you are at Wikipedia, the free online encyclopedia that anyone can edit, and this page is for asking questions related to using or contributing to Wikipedia itself. Thus, we have no special knowledge about the subject of your question. You can, however, search our vast catalogue of articles by typing a subject into the search field on the upper right side of your screen. If you cannot find what you are looking for, we have a reference desk, divided into various subject areas, where asking knowledge questions is welcome. Best of luck. TN‑X-Man 14:07, 9 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I have a question

Which car should i buy? What's better a Toyota Avensis or VW Polo, cheers - matt. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.75.145.90 (talk) 14:35, 9 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

This page is for questions about using Wikipedia. You might want to ask this at the reference desk. Not sure if they'll be able to help you though. If I were you, I'd try to find info on these vehicles from someone you can trust and really knows about them, since it is something important. Chamal ^talk 14:41, 9 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

getting logged out while editing

I recently edited an article, taking over half an hour to do so. I started out logged in, and frequently used "show preview", but didn't save for a long time. When I eventually did so, I discovered I'd been logged out, so the edit appears under my IP address, not my username. How can I stop this happening? I never want to edit when logged out, but have done so accidentally several times now. SamuelTheGhost (talk) 14:37, 9 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Did you check the "remember me" box when logging in?.--intraining ^{Jack In} 14:48, 9 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Are you sure that the "remember me" is related to automatically logging out, Theoneintraining? I'm not sure, but sounds to me like it might be something with his browser settings. Chamal ^talk 15:11, 9 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Same thing happened to me some time ago; turned out I hit Ctrl+O (= "log out") by accident sometimes while I just wanted to preview my edits with Ctrl+P, because "O" is next to "P" on my keyboard. The solution was in adding the following code to the end of my Special:Mypage/monobook.js:

// Disable Alt+O ("log out")
ta['pt-logout'] = new Array(,'Log out');

HTH. - Erik Baas (talk) 15:16, 9 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I haven't been using "remember me". I'd not been doing that because I didn't want to be left logged in when I wasn't using my computer at all. But that's why explicit logging out is provided, isn't it. I have to admit I've never been logging out, since I relied on the system doing it for me. So I think that's the answer. I'll change my habits forthwith. Thanks, theoneintraining, we'll see if that works out better. SamuelTheGhost (talk) 15:21, 9 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Hopefully that works for you, please come back if you continue to have trouble.--intraining ^{Jack In} 15:47, 9 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Contacting non-English Wikipedians

The entry Boogeyman has a comprehensive list of versions of the creature in other cultures, but none of them are cited. Since tracking down citations in English will be well-nigh impossible, I was wondering if any native speakers of those languages could help me track down some sources. Serendi ^pod ous 14:53, 9 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Most questions on the Help desk get some sort of answer a lot quicker than this one, suggesting that not many of the people who have been monitoring the Help desk over the past several hours know what to make of this. Maybe the following ideas will be better than no answer:

Follow the interlanguage links from the article, for example de:Butzemann cites a source (in German, naturally).
Examine the history of the Boogeyman article, see who added all that unsourced material, and ask them on their user talk pages where they got it.
Wikipedia:Multilingual coordination might provide some clues.
Go down the list in Boogeyman#Analogues in other cultures and see if we have corresponding WikiProjects. For example, the first entry is for Argentina, and we have a Wikipedia:WikiProject Argentina. Some member of that WikiProject may know a source for hombre de la bolsa or be able to find one.

--Teratornis (talk) 01:37, 10 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Fuck me boots

Why does Fuck me boots redirect to Kinky boots? FMB's are not always 'extreme' or 'kinky' they are just normal boots which girls wear, normally brown or black, which when worn with a skirt in particular send the signal to men that they are up for some fun, and when men see them they want to fuck the female in question even more than normal. nothing to do with kinky fetish boots i think u will find.

Kinky boots says: "A related term is fuck-me boots, which is, however, often used in a more tongue-in-cheek, humorous way. It is a term more common to the US."

If a subject isn't notable enough for its own article (or no editor has yet made an article), then it's common to redirect the term to a related article which may include mention of the term. I have added {{R from related word}} to the redirect. If you have a reliable source explaining the term then you can edit the quoted sentence and cite your source. PrimeHunter (talk) 16:15, 9 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Help using same reference twice

Hi,

I am trying to use the same reference at multiple places in a paragraph. The way I am able to do it creates a new reference every time I add the reference again. I am trying to edit the "Vagus nerve stimulatiors and sleep apnea" section of the article Vagus_nerve_stimulation. If you look at the footnotes for that section, you will see what my problem is. I want to be able to use the same reference in multiple places without creating a new entry in the "references" or "footnotes" section. Thanks for your help.--Rishi Raj, MD, FCCP, DABSM (talk) 17:40, 9 November 2008 (UTC)—Preceding unsigned comment added by Rishirajmd (talk • contribs) 17:37, 9 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

You use the same reference multiple times by putting a name="" attribute on one of the <ref>s (putting the name between the quotes), and then using it again by inserting <ref name="[name of the reference to reuse]" /> where you want to reuse it. This way, there are two links that point to the same footnote. Calvin 1998 ^(t·c) 17:43, 9 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

For the first occurrence do <ref name="source">rest of the reference as usual</ref>. for additional links to the same reference, use <ref name="source" />. Where source is a single word (I think only one word is supported) to name the source. --GraemeL ^(talk) 17:46, 9 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

See WP:FOOT#Naming a ref tag so it can be used more than once for details. If you put quotes around the name attribute value, the value may contain embedded spaces (i.e., more than one word). --Teratornis (talk) 19:58, 9 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

error in Wind power

Hi! I noticed an error yesterday when reading the "wind power" page here:

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

The first sentence of the second paragraph on that page reads "The principle application of wind power today is to generate electricity." and obviously it should use the word "principal" not "principle." I registered an account, assuming that I could then make an edit to correct the word, but I can't seem to figure out how to do so, or perhaps I have to wait a few more days after registering to be allowed to make changes; I can't quite figure out all the rules here : )

Thank you, Julie Mandell (user name: juliemandell) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Juliemandell (talk • contribs) 18:32, 9 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Welcome to Wikipedia!. The article is semi protected against vandalism. Thanks for pointing it out. I've corrected it. --GraemeL ^(talk) 18:37, 9 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Reccomendations?

Hello. I just started an article, Patellar Subluxation Syndrome, and would like your suggestiions. Is there anything that should be fixed? Does it have a chance of staying? Thanks.--Archeopteryx (talk) 20:07, 9 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Try WP:PR --GPPande talk! 20:25, 9 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Keyboard short cuts.

Just like we have keyboard shortcut (not Wikipedia shortcut) to take the cursor to search box (alt+shift+f) do we have any for jumping to Usertalk page, user watchlist or contributions? I know of Wikipedia shortcuts which can save typing efforts in search box but want to know of any navigational shortcut keys that can be used for userspace pages. --GPPande talk! 20:24, 9 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

See Wikipedia:Keyboard shortcuts. PrimeHunter (talk) 20:30, 9 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Perfect. Thanks. --GPPande talk! 20:35, 9 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

There are tooltips when you hover over the navigation links in wikipedia. Theses tooltips also contain hits for the hotkeys. --TheDJ (talk • contribs) 23:20, 9 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

am i qualified to edit wikipedia?

i know most ppl on here are like univeseity educated and all that so i was wondering if i is educated enough to edit also? i mean i only got 4 gcses and they were pretty bad, 2 c, 2 d, 1 u ,lol i know! and then after that i quit school so i dunno now if i can edit this or not. and u can tell me written english isnt really well good. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.75.191.55 (talk) 22:19, 9 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

If you're not a star in writing, perhaps you can contribute in some other way. There's plenty of articles that need free (non-copyrighted) pictures. And sometimes higher-educated people simply get stuck in what they know, making what they write hard to understand for regular people. You could drop by featured article candidates and peer review to share your view on such articles. In other words: I'm sure there's something you can do for Wikipedia even if it's not writing.- Mgm|^(talk) 22:45, 9 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Your English isn't amazing, but formatting and images are easy, and involve very little writing. Once you get used to being around here, you can contribute to discussions and !votes. It will probably help you learn as well. Dendodge Talk^Contribs 22:59, 9 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Can you draw pictures? Can you take photographs? Wikipedia always needs more illustrations. Look up articles that are about things in the area where you live (bridges, parks, landmarks, etc.). You can photograph them and upload the photos to Commons. Anybody can point a camera, even people who can't spell. If you cannot write or aim a camera, you could give money. If you don't have money, you can't write, and you can't aim a camera, you could answer questions on the Help desk. I'm actually serious - to answer questions here, all you have to do is look up the answers and copy and paste the links to them, like this answer to your question:

See Wikipedia:Contributing to Wikipedia.

You can add a lot of value to Wikipedia just by telling people where to look in the online help for answers to their questions on the Help desk. Learning how to look up answers in this way will make you an expert on Wikipedia. --Teratornis (talk) 00:18, 10 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I really like the kinds of answers this guy got ! DOR (HK) (talk) 03:12, 10 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Lots of people who are not university educated can also press the correct buttons on their keyboard in a way that produces standard English. I know many Wikipedia users who are prolific article writers who never attended a day of university in their lives... --Jayron32.talk.contribs 18:49, 10 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Does it count if they attend Wikiversity? Actually, I would like everyone who attends university (or not) to learn how to edit on Wikipedia at some point. If everyone understood Wikipedia's methods for collaborating effectively with distant strangers, the world could perhaps become far less annoying. --Teratornis (talk) 00:59, 11 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

If by less annoying, you mean that someone every few days spraypaints the words "on wheels" across random street signs for no good reason, then someone else has to come along and wash it off, well, I might beg to differ. ;) --Jayron32.talk.contribs 01:28, 11 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The real world is much worse than that. Try dropping your wallet on the sidewalk, and come back tomorrow and see if it is still there, or if someone has returned it to you. At least on Wikipedia we have relatively efficient tools for reverting the vandals that Wikipedia's permissive editing policies encourage. Wikipedia could easily reduce vandalism to negligible levels if it wanted to, for example by only allowing registered users to edit, and requiring new accounts to present some sort of credential, such as a recommendation from another user in good standing. The downside might be slower growth of Wikipedia, but that would have to be balanced against the enormous time savings from virtually eliminating vandalism, and possibly greater retention of users who now leave because they get sick of dealing with vandalism. However, even with all the vandalism, Wikipedia still works better than the vast majority of real-world organizations, because in most of the latter, the rules and know-how tend to be largely implicit, existing only in an oral tradition, and this gives rise to Brooks' law. On Wikipedia, we are unable to talk to each other, so the only way to accomplish anything is to write. Thus we work out all our rules and know-how in writing, which then enables Wikipedia to become the world's largest do it yourself system. Any reasonably intelligent person can come here, read the instructions, and begin contributing productively with a minimum of wasting other people's time. In real-world organizations where the rules are not in writing, each newcomer requires extensive mentoring from the old hands, and thus the experienced people have to burn up their time saying the same things over and over. Not having all the rules in writing creates an additional problem of credibility - the newcomer doesn't know whether to believe a particular old-timer until hearing all the other ones confirming the message. On Wikipedia we settle that issue by collaboratively editing internal instruction documents which then become authoritative. Thus we don't have to waste time re-arguing for the policies and guidelines - we merely point newcomers to them. Having canonical instructions in writing eliminates the telephone game of individuals' imperfect recall - every time someone recites a purely oral tradition, they give a slightly different version. When we point to a written instruction, every newcomer sees the same one. --Teratornis (talk) 05:57, 11 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Teflon: What happened to the original article? (pre: January 2008)

I just visited the page on Teflon. This is a page I have visited more than 10 months ago. Now I find that the current page was created in January 2008 and has precious little content. What happened to the original page?!? That page contained a great deal of information about invention of Teflon, its use on the NASA Shuttle as well as many other uses, including as a non-stick coating on frying pans. What happened to that original content? Was it deleted? Was it moved to a new heading. certainly, this page had a history prior to January 2008. Enquire (talk) 22:53, 9 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

That's about the brand name 'Teflon' - there's a long word in the first paragraph that links to what you're looking for. Dendodge Talk^Contribs 22:56, 9 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Teflon is a DuPont registered trademark for a number of products so the Teflon disambiguation page is correct. The most common Teflon products that you describe are made from polytetrafluoroethylene, usually referred to as PTFE. – ukexpat (talk) 02:33, 10 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Text copying issue

I just ran into a problem in copying text from one article or external source to another Wikipedia article, or cutting a part of an article and pasting it into another part of the same Wikipedia article. Every time I try to paste an article, it shows the message "Text copying disabled". It is with my computer, your servers, or a combonation thereof. Please advise. Chris (talk) 23:10, 9 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Did you try copying images? Sometimes it screws up if you do that.... Cheers. Imperat§ r^(Talk) 23:25, 9 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

November 10

Archive box issues

Can someone please take a look at my talk page tell me what I'm doing wrong for all of my discussions to be archived in only one place? Archives 2&3 remain completely empty and Archive 1 only holds the first batch of archives, which means many more have been archived, well, nowhere. --Crackthewhip775 (talk) 02:26, 10 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

mobile skin

is there a skin for mobile phones (like the iPhone)?Portable101 (talk) 03:55, 10 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

See WP:EIW#Mobile. --—— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk - 04:22, 10 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Made mistake by accident now need help to fix the error

While working on Chiang Kai-shek I made some mistakes at Chiang Kai-shek#Names. Could someone fix the problem for me?Arilang1234 (talk) 08:42, 10 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

It had a bunch of empty lines, which were screwing up the spacing. Perhaps the intent was to prevent the images from flowing into the next section. I removed the empty lines and added a {{clear}} at the bottom of the section. Is that what you wanted? —teb728 t c 09:16, 10 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

registration confirmation problem

Hello

I registered with Wikipedia yesterday. I had to do so via 'Create an account', rather than the straightforward click-click-click process, because when I typed the confirmation text and clicked 'Submit', the next page said the confirmation text was incorrect. I'm writing this from memory, so the exact phrase 'confirmation text' may be wrong. What I mean is the wavy, fuzzy phrase in a box that I had to type out in a box below.

The fuzzy text was clearer than it often is in such boxes, and the phrases were plain English, such as 'trialrun', 'cleartext', and such. They were all lower case, with no spaces between the 2 words. I typed them that way. I tried 3 times, and was presented with 3 different phrases, and each time I failed. I also tried putting a space between the 2 words; that didn't work either.

So I'm wondering whether you've got a problem with the bit of code that interprets what a user types in this box; or whether it's a browser problem (I use Opera in WinXPPro). The one thing I'm pretty sure of is that I didn't mistype what I saw, and that what I typed was the exact string in the fuzzy-characters box.

Best wishes

Mary —Preceding unsigned comment added by Mlordbernard (talk • contribs) 10:51, 10 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I don't know what the error message calls it but such fuzzy words are named a CAPTCHA. They are also required when unregistered users add external links. Can you add an external link like http://www.google.com/ to this section when you are logged out? Warning: This will reveal your IP address if you are succesful. PrimeHunter (talk) 13:57, 10 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Generating a list of most popular articles in a project

Hello. I seem to remember someone posting a link to generate a list of the most-browsed articles in the Theatre wikiproject a while back, but I can't find it now. How can I generate such a list? DionysosProteus (talk) 11:23, 10 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The tool is probably listed at WP:TOOLS.- 131.211.151.245 (talk) 13:01, 10 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Raibin

I am trying to resubmit this for review and addition to Wikipedia having now re-written and ammended it according to the Reviewer's instructions but can't see how to re-submit it for inclusion.

This is all factual and can be verified if you go to google so don't understand why it cannot be included.

Thankyou Amy Moosah

AFC SUBMISION P Nadia Raibin'is recognised as the manager and brains behind the worlds first opera band Amici forever which she formed in collaboration with Geoff Sewell- tenor of this multi platinum selling artist. Nadia Raibin signed the group which was originally known as Tenors & Divas before changing its name to Amici forever - in one of the largest recording deals for a classical artist to the USA - RCA Victor (SONYBMG). They went on to sell 2 million albums worldwide, had a No.1 on the US Billboard Chart with their debut CD "The Opera Band" and reached Gold disc status in the UK as well as charting at No.2 in the Classical Charts. They were recognised with platinum sales for their 2nd album DEFINED in New Zealand and Australia. The original Amici forever group comprised of Geoff Sewell, David Habbin, Joanne Appleby, Tsakane Valentine and Nick Garrett. After the release of their 2nd album Nadia Raibin was removed as manager and Nick Garrett then departed the group. Their recording contract was not renewed by Sony/BMG . Nadia Raibin was also the originator of the classical dueo Operababes, two sopranos Rebecca Knight and Karen England who were found busking in Covent Garden and who Nadia Raibin signed to Sony. Operbabes attained a Gold Disc for their debut album in the UK selling 60,000 units. Nadia Raibin most recently formed and signed a unique childrens choir to EMI Records called Kindred Spirits - which she formed alongside the New London Childrens Choir director Ronald Corp and who released their debut album in December 08..

Sources General news items from www.kindredspiritschoir.com; www.amiciforever.com; www.massmovement.uk.com; google for "Nadia Raibin", album credits on Opera Band, Defined, Kindred Spirits, Operababes, Russell Watson, Classical X website and other reputable press articles —Preceding unsigned comment added by Amymoosah (talk • contribs) 12:36, 10 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

You only gave global domain names for your sources and saying there are press releases on google is not enough. You actually have to point to them directly. If you can't find a direct link for a press release, just provide enough information so someone else can find it. (Title, author, date, publication, etc) - 131.211.151.245 (talk) 12:58, 10 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

You made a misspelling and omitted formatting characters in [1]. When you have added precise verifiable sources, copy the exact text displayed here to the page:

{{AFC submission|P}}

The text is processed by software which alerts editors by tagging the page and placing it in Category:Pending Afc requests, so the text has to be exact. PrimeHunter (talk) 13:42, 10 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Press releases are not reliable sources, anyway. Little Red Riding Hoodtalk 19:51, 11 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Sockpuppets

How do you add somebodys name to the suspected sock puppeteers list...and it has been proven. Hairy Perry 14:31, 10 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

If it has been proven, then the user should have been blocked. The template {{sockpuppetproven}} should be on their user page. If it is suspected, then place the template {{sockpuppet}} on their user page and open a request at checkuser. Cheers! TN‑X-Man 14:36, 10 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Well Apawk has confessed on Talk:Relapse (album) that he is indeed UnrealSpiritX. So is that still suspected or is that confirmed? Considering it was a blatant confession and on Apawk's talk page before somebody deleted it he said he was going to use multiple sock puppets to get back on here at Wikipedia. Hairy Perry 14:41, 10 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Ah. Then the page you want is WP:SSP. That's the place to report sockpuppetry. Once an admin reviews the case, the user will be blocked as is deemed appropriate. Cheers! TN‑X-Man 14:43, 10 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The user has already been blocked, but it was not for sock puppetry, but for vandalism only...but he is continuing to use sock puppets as a way around the block (block-evading sock puppets), so my real question is...is he confirmed or suspected? Hairy Perry 14:55, 10 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

If s/he has admitted to it, I guess it would be (mostly) confirmed. The only way to be honest-to-goodness positive is to request a checkuser. But if s/he admitted to it, well, that's almost as good.

As a side note, the original user may have been blocked for vandalism, but the other accounts may eligible for blocking as socks. I hope this helps and that I haven't confused you more than I answered your question! TN‑X-Man 15:01, 10 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

[2] Now he is back on Talk:Relapse (album) with the new name ApawkA. Hairy Perry 15:03, 10 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Well, from the looks of it, I would just report him to WP:AIV. He's not making any positive contributions and appears to be a vandalism-only account. Cheers! TN‑X-Man 15:10, 10 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Hmm..if he keeps on using a sockpuppet to ban evade, I would recommend perusing account-creation. However, as ApawkaA said, checkuser on the different accounts to be certain. Imperat§ r^(Talk) 15:01, 11 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Grr...I meant Tnxman307. :> Imperat§ r^(Talk) 15:14, 11 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Please move page

to be consistent with other Russian submarines from Russian submarine K-141 Kursk to K-141 Kursk. Kittybrewster ☎ 14:59, 10 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

It got the current title after a discussion at Talk:Russian submarine K-141 Kursk#Move to Russian submarine K-141 Kursk and listing at Wikipedia:Requested moves, so I don't think it should be moved without prior discussion. There are currently also articles like Russian submarine Kursk explosion, Russian submarine AS-34, Russian battlecruiser Pyotr Velikiy. PrimeHunter (talk) 15:13, 10 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I see you ignored my discussion advice and moved it to a third title RFS Kursk K-141 which has 3 Google hits, all of them from Wikipedia mirrors. PrimeHunter (talk) 15:44, 10 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Makes sense: SS New York, RMS Titanic, etc... - 131.211.151.245 (talk) 15:49, 10 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

That discussion wasn't particularly highly visited... Was mainly the idea of just one person (based on the talkpage). The whole thing should be in line with other submarine articles. (MacGyverMagic) - 131.211.151.245 (talk) 15:45, 10 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Where is the requested moves discussion? - 131.211.151.245 (talk) 15:52, 10 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The discussion itself was not at requested moves. The discussion at Talk:Russian submarine K-141 Kursk#Move to Russian submarine K-141 Kursk was just linked from there for 5 days where nobody opposed.[3][4]. Kittybrewster has now started a section at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Ships#Category:Russian Navy submarines. "SS New York" has 25000 Google hits and "RMS Titanic" has 375000 so I don't think that is a fair comparison to 3 hits in Wikipedia mirrors for "RFS Kursk K-141". PrimeHunter (talk) 16:10, 10 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The K-141 bit is probably skewing the results. Why are you relying on Google so much? Most relevant results would be in Cyrillic - Mgm|^(talk) 18:15, 10 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
A discussion at the WikiProject ships is, in my opinion, the best results. No one opposing the move on the article talk page doesn't necessarily mean consent, as it's quite possible for someone to miss the suggestion between the 2.6 + million articles we have around here. Russian submarine K-152 Nerpa on the main page is named differently. Seems to be part of the whole thing too. - Mgm|^(talk) 18:19, 10 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The English Wikipedia generally uses common English names. It is one of the most notable submarines in the world and has a huge number of mentions in English sources. kursk (submarine OR uboat) gets 69500 Google hits and 10100 Google News hits for all dates.[5] The city Kursk is far from oceans so I guess a large part of the hits are on the submarine. It seems significant to me that out of tens of thousands of mentions, nobody else has apparently called it "RFS Kursk K-141". PrimeHunter (talk) 18:58, 10 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

This conversation should be happening elsewhere. There are MANY related Wikiprojects where one could ask for help in determining consensus, and there is also the options of WP:RFC and WP:3O. The help desk is unlikely to generate any more opinion on the matter than the article's own talk page, since the Help Desk isn't really designed for this sort of question. The purpose of the help desk is really about helping people navagate and work with the techinical aspects of using Wikipedia, not for carrying on content disputes... --Jayron32.talk.contribs 20:46, 10 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Per naming conventions, the article should be at Russian submarine K-141 Kursk. Problem solved? —Ed 17 ^{(Talk / Contribs)} 22:00, 10 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

FYI: An additional discussion on this has been started at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Ships#Category:Russian Navy submarines. --- Barek (talk • contribs) - 22:26, 10 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I am Unable to upload a personal photograph.

I am trying to upload a photograph that I took for the entry "Mamani Mamani." I already licensed it through the Creative Commons Attribution website. But when I click on the link to upload, it sends me to a page that says that I cannot upload because I am not an administrator. I've read a bit about how to become an administrator but the process is not exactly clear to me. I am not so interested in becoming an administrator, I mainly just want to upload this picture. Abraham —Preceding unsigned comment added by Abrahamdwise (talk • contribs) 17:47, 10 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

You should not have received such a message. You should have received a message saying you cannot upload because you are not autoconfirmed. You can become autoconfirmed by making 8 more edits to Wikipedia (or 98 if you're editing through TOR). Algebraist 17:50, 10 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

As you created the image, you should consider uploading it to Commons where it will be available for use in all WP projects. Commons does not have any autoconfirmation requirements. – ukexpat (talk) 19:46, 10 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Citation templates and archived/cached web sources

(moved post from earlier)

I've just come across an article I created a couple of years ago that now points to dead links because the cached google version I linked to is no longer valid. I want to solve this by using WebCite. To avoid this happening again, I would like to include a cache version of any references I make in new articles (so any editor coming across the article can fix deadlinks to sources). I thought there was a field for that in citation templates but I can no longer find that. Should I use HTML comment tags or did I miss something? - Mgm|^(talk) 00:26, 9 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Nice tidbit: One of the suggestions they make to a student/programmer looking for a project with them is to: "develop a wikipedia bot which scans new wikipedia articles for cited URLs, submits an archiving request to WebCite®, and then adds a link to the archived URL behind the cited URL." If such an effort was made (and expanded to older pages), we would suffer a lot less linkrot. Only people removing their content from the archive could then interfere with link stability. - Mgm|^(talk) 00:32, 9 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Hiya. The |archiveurl= attribute is probably what you're looking for. I know it works with {{cite web}}, not sure about the other templates. [roux » x] 20:13, 10 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

You can't really archive anything else than a website, so I doubt it would work with another template. Why does Wikipedia:Citation templates not show the attribute? - Mgm|^(talk) 22:14, 10 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

College Textbooks?

Are the informative parts of these alright as authoritative secondary sources? I assume they would be. WP:NOT#TEXTBOOK says the instructional parts are not to be emulated, but doesn't address the issue of sourcing. Thanks. Trickrick1985 (talk) 22:56, 10 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

WP:RS#Primary, secondary, and tertiary sources says:

Tertiary sources such as compendia, encyclopedias, textbooks, and other summarizing sources may be used to give overviews or summaries, but should not be used in place of secondary sources for detailed discussion.

However, note that WP:RS is a guideline, not a policy. Which means you can bend it in some situations. We can't tell what situation you refer to because you posed a general question rather than a specific question. Wikipedia does not consist of ironclad general rules that we can blindly apply in every situation. Instead Wikipedia is much like real life, a complex series of judgment calls. The bottom line on Wikipedia is we are always trying to guess what we can write that other users won't clobber. Therefore, someone like me trying to advise you on what you can do won't predict how other Wikipedia users will react to what you do in a specific situation that I know nothing about. Another way to look at it is to ask when the reliability of a source matters. If you are backing up a non-controversial claim, such as "The Amazon River discharges more water into the ocean than any other river on Earth", you could probably cite my cat and get away with it, but if you wanted to make some extraordinary claim that other users are likely to challenge, then you must take care to defend your claim against all the easy objections, the most obvious one being the reliability of the sources you cite. --Teratornis (talk) 00:48, 11 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the thoughtful response. I was considering going through a textbook on Integrative medicine and citing (not reciting) the information found there which is not yet in the article. I'm not sure if the book has received attention from secondary sources, but it has been adopted at several universities. Would I have to prove that in order to use it as a basis for a large amount of material? Trickrick1985 (talk) 02:38, 11 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Integrative medicine is a redirect to Alternative medicine which appears to be a controversial topic. Please read the big warning at the top of Talk:Alternative medicine before you do anything. You should also read all the talk page archives there, and the arbitration committee discussion. This is a perfect example of why a general question about what constitutes a reliable source is so impossible to answer - certain topics by their nature are highly controversial (for example: religion, politics, pseudoscience) and editing on these topics is completely unlike editing on topics where no significant controversy exists. If an article has had big edit wars in the past, you could be walking into a minefield if you just start editing them without first studying the past disputes. --Teratornis (talk) 04:44, 11 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I was going to do something similar about Industrial sociology which is an extremely important sociology topic that has shockingly gone very neglected on Wikipedia. Trickrick1985 (talk) 02:53, 11 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I don't see any warnings on Talk:Industrial sociology. It might be safer to start there first. Don't be "shocked" that Wikipedia has thus far neglected particular topics. Wikipedia has systemic bias due to the kinds of people who are attracted to Wikipedia. A contributor has to be fairly good with computers, and has to be able to learn by reading instructions. People like that are not evenly distributed across all fields. There are lots of fields where not many people are computer-oriented, so it takes a while for Wikipedia's coverage of those fields to develop. Even in areas with significant coverage, very few articles have attained featured status. Just about everywhere you look on Wikipedia you will find articles that need work. For example, I've found a seemingly endless number of gaping needs in Energy-related articles. Every WikiProject you look at has a big to-do list. Click on Special:Random a few times and see how many articles appear to be in finished form. It would make more sense to be shocked when you find an article that you can't see any way to improve. --Teratornis (talk) 04:44, 11 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

November 11

AfD

I'm trying to AfD Coffin Joe (The Horrors) for non-notability and unsourced one paragraph article but not familiar with the process, can someone help? Mjpresson (talk) 00:27, 11 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Fixed. There was a previous AfD in April 2008 that you were linking to instead of a new one. Tan | 39 00:42, 11 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

You also need to add your rationale here. Tan | 39 00:50, 11 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Blocked

Can a user relay a vote of a blocked user for a discussion, particularly at a page the user was blocked for? Grsz ¹¹ ^→Review! 03:29, 11 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

If nobody else knows a general rule that applies in all cases regardless of the specifics of a situation, then you will have to study the links under WP:EIW#Enforce, which explain how blocks work and what blocked users can do. I know of no such general rule, which isn't to say there isn't one. My first guess is that this question might be difficult to answer without knowing the page, the user, the offense that led to the block, and which administrator did the blocking. For example, the situation might be such that you are really asking for a prediction of how the blocking administrator will react to your relay of the !vote. Obviously that would depend on the administrator and the situation. I recommend asking the blocking administrator, since he or she might be the first person to take exception to what you are proposing. Asking hypothetical questions on the Help desk is risky, because Help desk volunteers might subconsciously fill in the details you omit and end up addressing a completely different situation than the one you actually face. In some cases, and I'm not suggesting you are doing this, people deliberately omit details when asking hypothetical questions, in an attempt to game or weasel - i.e., to frame a question in a way that elicits the answer they want. It's better just to lay all the facts out there and try to get a correct answer, which in this case would be: who might object to what you propose, and how might they respond? I.e., what sort of politics are we talking about here? --Teratornis (talk) 05:12, 11 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Grsz11, generally speaking, no. If the user was blocked for involvement with the page in question, then almost certainly not. PhilKnight (talk) 15:43, 11 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

help others

help others in the family —Preceding unsigned comment added by 59.184.47.175 (talk) 04:58, 11 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Do you have a question? Did you read the screaming red notice that appeared above the edit window when you edited your sentence fragment? --Teratornis (talk) 05:13, 11 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

After thorough consideration I believe this question was contributed by Bob Dylan. ♠♥ Trickrick1985 ♦♣^{+2¢ :: wasted-time log} 05:30, 11 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

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

greetings,

there are things better left unsaid, esp coords for a sensitive place- please leave out any coords that can be applied to google earth. thank you.— Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.144.1.120 (talk • contribs)

As the information is not vital to the article and the IP does have a point I have gone ahead and removed the coordinate template. Icewedge (talk) 06:44, 11 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

And I have restored them, as Wikipedia is not censored. Andy Mabbett (User:Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 14:41, 11 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Support - and quite right too. – ukexpat (talk) 15:18, 11 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Publicly availible information should not be removed from the Wikipedia article. If it can be verified somewhere else, and is relevent, I see no reason why it should be removed from this article... --Jayron32.talk.contribs 18:54, 11 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

What happens when you xfd an article with Twinkle that meets WP:CSD?

Should this not be done to begin with (by manually nominating for CSD)? Or is this okay? Louis Waweru Talk 07:18, 11 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Someone will probably nominate it for CSD anyway, but it causes a lot of extra work (closing the nomination and all that), it's better not to AFD it, but send to CSD instead. - 131.211.151.245 (talk) 09:44, 11 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, that's what I was afraid of. Louis Waweru Talk 15:15, 11 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Oops, there is a CSD Twinkle function...didn't see that. Louis Waweru Talk 15:21, 11 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Just a quick note about Twinkle. It usually handles CSD nominations, no problem. However, XfDs are a little trickier. I would recommend manually verifying that everything processed correctly. I've seen Twinkly mishandle one or more of the nomination steps, resulting in a malformed XfD. Cheers! TN‑X-Man 15:26, 11 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Heheh, yep...I've learned to check on Twinkly. Louis Waweru Talk 16:06, 11 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Twinkly… Twinkle…, same thing right? TN‑X-Man 16:10, 11 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

How do I "bookmark" an article that I'd like to read later?

Hi! I was yet unable to find a bookmark function in Wikipedia, ie: to "mark" an article that is interesting to me, but that I'm not interested in keeping updated on each and every change to it (ie: the watch list).
Up to this moment I'm using the watch list as if it were a bookmark; however this is very inconvenient because I'm (conciously!) mixing articles which I'm really interested in tracking changes, with those that I just want to remember for reading/consulting later.
I guess a "bookmark" functionality would be a very useful addition to Wikipedia (if it's not already there). After all, it does exist in "paper" encyclopedias! ;-))
Many Thanks & Kind Regards for your advice, DPdH (talk) 07:38, 11 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia has no bookmark functionality itself, but you can always use your browsers bookmark tool. Icewedge (talk) 07:40, 11 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the fast response. That's not the tool I was looking for, as I do not always browse using the same machine (I guess I'm not the only one!). Regards, DPdH (talk) 07:49, 11 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

You could just keep a list of links on your userpage. Algebraist 09:49, 11 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

There are sites that allow for keeping your bookmarks online. - 131.211.151.245 (talk) 09:45, 11 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
You could sign up for a bookmarking website, like google bookmarks or del.icio.us --George100 (talk) 10:39, 11 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Why not just add a link to the article, from your user page? Andy Mabbett (User:Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 14:43, 11 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Might be able to have someone do this for you. Meaning make a javascript that adds a bookmark tab where the other tabs are on the tops of pages, and clicking it adds it to a page like User:DPdH/Bookmarks. Louis Waweru Talk 15:59, 11 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Did you mean the Watch feature? Or, if you have Firefox, you can simply go to the "Bookmarks" tab, and press "Bookmark this Page". Imperat§ r^(Talk) 15:59, 11 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

i need to remove an image from one article

Dear Sir/Miss,

I need to remove a picture from one of wikipedia's article,should I just go ahead and remove it according to the procedures explained or should I contact an administrator to do that.I am a huge fan of wikipedia and I have been using it for a long time now,also I am planning to collect some money for you and make a donation soon.

Keep up the good work.

ascendam —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ascendam (talk • contribs) 09:13, 11 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

There's multiple rules at work here. Wikipedia is not censored, but copyright rules need to apply. If you're wondering what the best course of action is, I would recommend discussing it with other people. What image are you talking about? - 131.211.151.245 (talk) 09:47, 11 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Archive editing

I came across an IP who had moved a large list of articles for creation to a subpage in our WikiProject. When I looked at the other edits of the IP, I discovered that he had gone through an archived AfC page and was correcting redlinks in the archive. I reverted it and left a note explaining that we don't edit archives. He reverted me, citing WP:RED. When I reiterated that archives are archives and left alone, he asked for the policy that says not to do this. ANYWAY - my question is, where would I find a guideline or policy that would more clearly explain what archived pages already say, which is Do not edit the contents of this page? Thanks. Wildhartlivie (talk) 11:48, 11 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

WP:RED applies to articles, not archives. - 131.211.151.245 (talk) 13:30, 11 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Well, yes, but still, is there a policy or guideline that I've not found that will specifically say to this person "Do not edit archives" besides the actual archive box?? Wildhartlivie (talk) 23:12, 11 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Multi-Sport Stadium Dimensions

How do you specify that the dimensions of a field in a sports stadium are for "baseball" or "football"? The only tag I've found is "dimensions", but that doesn't specify that it's for baseball which is obviously different from the field configuration in the same stadium for playing football —Preceding unsigned comment added by 38.101.104.20 (talk) 13:45, 11 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

You appear to be asking about how to fill out the {{Infobox Stadium}} template (which appears in Veterans Stadium) to make it work for a Multi-purpose stadium. ({{Infobox Baseball Stadium}} is a redirect to {{Infobox Stadium}}.) Look at the documentation on the template page for {{Infobox Stadium}}. The dimensions field just takes a string value, which means the calling code supplies the formatting. Just format it any way you want, for example with both baseball and football dimensions. The easiest way to figure this out is to look at the other Multi-purpose stadiums and find one that has the template formatting you like. That article lists these stadiums (or would that be stadia): RFK Stadium, Shea Stadium, Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium, the Astrodome, Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum, Riverfront Stadium, Busch Memorial Stadium, Three Rivers Stadium, Veterans Stadium, the Kingdome, and the Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome. On Wikipedia, often the easiest way to figure something out is to find another article that does what you want. --Teratornis (talk) 20:31, 11 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

OK, I looked at all of those stadiums, and none of them list football dimensions in their {{Infobox Stadium}} calls. So if I were you, I wouldn't worry about it. (Hundreds of other editors worked on all these articles and they didn't see the need to list football dimensions. If you wanted to change that precedent, it might mean persuading lots of people, and that is usually a dubious prospect on Wikipedia.) Just give the baseball dimensions. The football field dimension will always be the standard size anyway. The only dimensions you might meaningfully list for the football layouts would be the distances from the sidelines or end zones to the seats, I guess. But the playing field dimensions are the same for every football stadium for a given variety of football (American, Canadian, Association, Australian, etc.). --Teratornis (talk) 20:56, 11 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Not true of Association Football or Aussie rules: see football pitch and Laws of Australian football#Players, ground and equipment. Algebraist 20:59, 11 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I learn something new every day, but still you're talking about standards, which is unlike baseball stadiums, which are all individually different in terms of outfield dimensions. It looks like American football-only stadiums do not list dimensions (e.g., Paul Brown Stadium). --Teratornis (talk) 23:07, 11 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I get undesired gzipped pages

For my website I want to use content from some Wikipedia pages. To do this I read them from PHP with either fopen or as a HTTP request. However, some pages I cannot use because I get them GZIPped. There is no way to turn this of. I even tried "Accept-Encoding: identity" but it does not work.

I did use the search box and found one other person who had a similar gzip problem with an old browser and who was advised to use a https version of the page. However, as I use a few hundred pages that is for me no option. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Roffel (talk • contribs) 14:34, 11 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Retrieving Wikipedia articles with a web crawler is not allowed. It's preferable to get your content from your own copy of the database that you can download. All the information about this is available at Wikipedia:Database_download. Pretzels^Talk! 17:49, 11 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Transcluded Template

I created a template that lists several variables on the page -- article name, date, source. My template lists information about an article, including the source of the article. In my template I have a variable "Source". This is created from a property which is a type of Page. I used the show function as follows: {{#show: {{PAGENAME}} | ?Property:Has a Source= }} How do I take the results of that query and make it a transcluded page? I am seeking to transclude the page from one of the variables into another page. I used {{: {{PAGENAME}} }} to transclude other pages but I can't seem to do it with this show function and the variable on the page. Plus, I need to slightly change the name of the page for it to work. For example, the Source is Department of Agriculture but the page that contains the data to be transcluded is Department of Agriculture Office. So how is the data from the Source Page Office transcluded onto the Article Information page. I'm putting this into a boilerplate so that it can be repeated. Thanks for your help. Jacksondor (talk) 16:18, 11 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I suggest carefully reading How To Ask Questions The Smart Way and trying again. I would be very surprised if anyone reading the Help desk just now could answer the question as you phrased it without seeing an example template, as well as links to all the articles you mention. Special:Contributions/Jacksondor shows that you have only four edits on Wikipedia under your username, all on this Help desk question. Are you asking about a template you are writing on Wikipedia, or on some other MediaWiki wiki? This Help desk is for questions about using Wikipedia, as the screaming red message banner above the edit window proclaims. If you have a question about another MediaWiki wiki, ask on mw:Project:Support desk, but first read how to ask questions the smart way, because you aren't including nearly enough information to make your question as easy to answer as possible. When you ask for free help, don't ask people to work harder than necessary on your behalf. That is, don't expect other people to spend much time just trying to figure out what you are asking. When you are asking about code, show the whole sample of code, not just isolated fragments. But don't paste it into the question, give a link to your template page so people can play with it. Few people can just look at a complex example of code and execute it in their heads like a computer. Most people have to run the code on a computer and see what it does. --Teratornis (talk) 20:44, 11 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I might add that if you are trying to run MediaWiki like a structured wiki, you may be in for difficulty. You might need to install or write one or more extensions to get extra database features in your wiki (assuming you are talking about your own wiki, and not Wikipedia where ordinary users aren't allowed to install extensions). If you learn to write your own extensions, you can customize your wiki any way you want, limited only by your skill. Or you could look at TWiki which claims to provide structured wiki features. --Teratornis (talk) 20:48, 11 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Long URLs in cite

I would like to use the citation,

Walton, Stephanie (October 24, 2000). "ASK%20US%20Q:%20Green%20waste%20recycling")&xcal_numdocs=20&p_perpage=10&p_sort=YMD_date:D&xcal_useweights=no "ASK US Q: Green waste recycling". Daily Breeze. pp. B2. Retrieved 10 November 2008. {{cite news}}: |section= ignored (help)

However, as you can see, the url string is so long that part of it is shown in the citation string. How can I create the Wikipedia cite so that it does not show any part of the URL. Thanks. -- Suntag ☼ 17:39, 11 November 2008 (UTC) [reply]

Is this webpage a link to the same place? If so, it may be easier to use it. I'm not sure about the template though. TN‑X-Man 18:18, 11 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Tnxman307. The article actually is at

http://nl.newsbank.com/nl-search/we/Archives?p_product=BRZB&p_theme=brzb&p_action=search&p_maxdocs=200&s_dispstring=headline(Green%20waste%20recycling)%20AND%20date(10/24/2000%20to%2010/24/2000)&p_field_date-0=YMD_date&p_params_date-0=date:B,E&p_text_date-0=10/24/2000%20to%2010/24/2000)&p_field_advanced-0=title&p_text_advanced-0=("Green%20waste%20recycling")&xcal_numdocs=20&p_perpage=10&p_sort=YMD_date:D&xcal_useweights=no

-- Suntag ☼ 19:17, 11 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I think Tnxman has the best idea, as it is the full article and does not require registration. For future reference, we can reduce the original URL. In the URL, you will find "action=search"; this indicates a query and the different query parameters start with "&". Usually there are a number of redundant query fields. We can remove those chunks one at a time until it breaks or works. The final reduction:

http://nl.newsbank.com/nl-search/we/Archives?&p_action=search&s_dispstring=headline(ASK%20US%20Q:%20Green%20waste%20recycling)

--—— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk - 19:31, 11 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Tnxman's link is to a May 16, 2008 article rather than the October 24, 2000 in the cite. As for the original URL, I culdn't figure out which parameters were needed. Thanks for reducing the original URL. Also,

http://nl.newsbank.com/nl-search/we/Archives?&ArticleID=0000803576

seems to work as well.-- Suntag ☼ 19:42, 11 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Additionally, you might want to take a look at WebCite as a means of handling the long URL. —Travis ^talk 18:19, 11 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The original url doesn't break because it's long but because it contains quotation marks. If each " is replaced by %22 (see Help:URL) then it works:

Walton, Stephanie (October 24, 2000). "ASK US Q: Green waste recycling". Daily Breeze. pp. B2. Retrieved 10 November 2008. {{cite news}}: |section= ignored (help)

But a shorter url is preferable for other reasons. PrimeHunter (talk) 21:53, 11 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Can I do Offline Editing of an Ariticle (to make it appropriate for Children)?

Is there a way to edit an article offline then print it? Specifically, my grade school child is doing a State report on the State of Nevada and I the information in the Wikipedia is good... except I don't want to have to explain brothels and prostitution. I would like to be able to clean up the article offline then print it out (with all the charts/illustrations, etc) for a child to use as a resource. Is there a way I can do this? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 15.195.201.86 (talk) 17:40, 11 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Copy and paste it to a word file , cleanup and the do the report. Also there is now cleanup tage on the article. You may also have your child edit it here which would help wikipedia and make it a GA. It is not illegal for children to edit or even become an administrator. Leave Message ,Yellow Evan home ,Sandbox Happy Verdirins day 17:51, 11 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I would also like to make a suggestion that you create a Wikipedia account using the link at the top of the page. You could then copy the entire article to a user sub page under your username, e.g. User:TravisTX/Nevada and edit it as you please. —Travis ^talk 17:56, 11 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

As an IP you can not create a subpage but if you login it would be good too. Cheers. Leave Message ,Yellow Evan home ,Sandbox Happy Verdirins day 18:01, 11 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

TravisTX's suggestion is a good one. For another approach, you may also be interested in http://schools-wikipedia.org/. --barneca (talk) 18:05, 11 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Also, if for some reason you don't want to create an account, let me know and I'll put a copy in my own user space for you to edit. --barneca (talk) 18:07, 11 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

TravisTX's idea is looking better; the schools-wikipedia.org site doesn't actually have an article on Nevada... --barneca (talk) 18:10, 11 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

As long as you don't intend to copy the edited version back, it's not a problem. Make sure there's also a mention of the GFDL and/or Wikipedia somewhere. The kids probably won't care about copyright, but if any of the parents see it... - Mgm|^(talk) 18:24, 11 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

(edit conflict)Mabey put {{underconstruction}} or {{insue}} or{{Major edit}} on Nevada or Reno or Las Vegas or Henderson or Home Means Nevada or whatever page you want to edit. Leave Message ,Yellow Evan home ,Sandbox Happy Veterans day

That would go in the Bibbilorgrigy. Leave Message ,Yellow Evan home ,Sandbox Happy Veterans day 18:38, 11 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

??? --barneca (talk) 18:42, 11 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

No, that's the one thing they should not do; don't mess with the main space article. A temporary copy in user space is fine. --barneca (talk) 18:42, 11 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Christopher Wren

I just typed chris wren in the search box because i was too lazy to write cristopher and was expecting to be redirected however i wasnt. Should chris wren redirect to Christopher Wren ? i know he was never really went by that name but still... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.75.133.0 (talk) 18:35, 11 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

No, not really. Alternate names as redirects should probably only be used when the name was one that can be verifiably shown to be used to have been a real alternate or nickname of the person... --Jayron32.talk.contribs 18:52, 11 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

So what about Bill Shakespeare ?? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.75.133.0 (talk) 18:56, 11 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Redirects are a judgment call. Do a google search for "Christopher Wren", all the top hits are the famous architect. But the first page for "Chris Wren" are a bunch of different individuals, the plurality being for a house music DJ whom we may have an article about in the future, and none of those results are for the architect. Everyone searches in a different way, and redirects are cheap, but I think it's pretty unlikely that someone will put "Chris Wren" in the box and expect to get to Christopher Wren, compared to the likelihood that someone will put "Chris Wren" in and expect to get the DJ, or the NYT journalist, or whomever. But like I said it's a judgment call, so opinions may vary. Darkspots (talk) 19:11, 11 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

If you like to do sloppy searches, you might prefer to {{Google wikipedia}} because Google tolerates more slop. For example:

Search Wikipedia with Google for: chris wren

which finds Christopher Wren as the top result. --Teratornis (talk) 20:16, 11 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Kelowna Pictures

Have watched your night time news reports, and there have been times that local viewers have sent in pictures they have taken of the Kelowna area, I have a few that I would like to share, but have searched your web site, and I cannot find anything indication how this is done. PLEASE HELP> would love to share my pictures. Beverlee Williams —Preceding unsigned comment added by Spike710 (talk • contribs) 21:02, 11 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I suspect, based on your question, that you found one of our over 6.9 million articles and thought we were affiliated in some way with that subject. Please note that you are at Wikipedia, the free online encyclopedia that anyone can edit, and this page is for asking questions related to using or contributing to Wikipedia itself. Thus, we have no special knowledge about the subject of your question. You can, however, search our vast catalogue of articles by typing a subject into the search field on the upper right side of your screen. If you cannot find what you are looking for, we have a reference desk, divided into various subject areas, where asking knowledge questions is welcome. Best of luck. Algebraist 21:04, 11 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

November 12

what are the affiliates of wikipedia?

we will be reporting about the wikipedia. I would like to know what are those organization that help this web site to navigate? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 119.94.51.165 (talk) 02:43, 12 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Funnily enough, much of the information you seek can be found on Wikipedia's article on itself: Wikipedia. You may also want to take a look at Wikimedia Foundation. Confusing Manifestation(Say hi!) 02:56, 12 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

If you need more information, see the links under WP:EIW#Foundation, WP:EIW#Community, and WP:EIW#Basic_Info. I found this article helpful when I was new to Wikipedia:

Poe, Marshall (2006). "The Hive". The Atlantic Monthly. Retrieved 2008-10-14. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)

--Teratornis (talk) 04:49, 12 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Help

Can anyone help me with Image:BRoy.jpg? According to WP:FUC, it might not meet its criteria. Can anyone help? Thanks in advance, A _talk 02:25, 12 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Is it plausible that you, or someone else, could go and take a photograph of Roy, then upload it to Wikimedia Commons under a CC-BY-SA-3.0 or similar license? If so, then you're right, it doesn't meet the exemption criteria, and hasn't got a leg to stand on. Given that he's still alive, and still playing, my understanding is that the answer to my question is yes. Confusing Manifestation(Say hi!) 03:00, 12 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Meaning of "(top)"

Hi

On user contributions pages (such as my recent contributions here), some of the entries have the word (top) against them. I've often wondered what this means. Does anyone know? 86.134.10.50 (talk) 03:12, 12 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

It means that that edit is still the most recent edit to the page. Icewedge (talk) 03:13, 12 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

New users

Hi, i'm trying to find the Special page for new users, i've looked for ages but I can't find it, it's not in the special pages list and i'm sure I saw it a 2 days ago... Can anyone help? – Jerry^teps 03:18, 12 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not sure what you're asking for. The User creation log? If not, please clarify. --barneca (talk) 03:30, 12 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Alternately, perhaps you mean Special:Contributions/newbies? --barneca (talk) 03:32, 12 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Ah, yes, it was the first one, thank you. – Jerry^teps 03:34, 12 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I made a mistake

About a half hour ago, I made a mistake when adding some information to a page. My intent was to edit (add info to) one section of the page (Awards) but, somehow everything beyond that point on the page seems to have bee deleted. I don't know how to fix this. Please help. —Preceding unsigned comment added by BChurchRNC (talk • contribs) 05:23, 12 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

No worries. It was a missing </ref> tag; references should be bracketed like so: <ref>insert reference here</ref>. All fixed. For an exhaustive (exhausting?) treatment, you can see WP:References. --barneca (talk) 05:28, 12 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Whew. Thanks so much. —Preceding unsigned comment added by BChurchRNC (talk • contribs) 05:37, 12 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Biographic info on a living person. There are very few existing references

I will be writing (or editing on Wikipedia) some biographical info an a living person. There are no publushed books about him. There is very little info on the internet, save for his own companies website and his personal, very short website. Wikipedia has only 2 lines about him. I may be one of the first to write a lot if history about him. I am getting all the info from the person in question, sort of an "authorized biography". How can I reference this when I may be the the first to publish all this info?

Thanks,

lunacricketLunacricket (talk) 06:55, 12 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Please read WP:Notability. If there is no published information about him, then chances are that the subject will fail Wikipedia's notability guidelines. Also see Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons for more on this which might help you. Please note that if the subject of an article fails to meet the notability guidelines, that article will be deleted. Cheers. Chamal ^talk 07:03, 12 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

financial loan

how can i apply for financial loan —Preceding unsigned comment added by 202.125.156.122 (talk) 07:48, 12 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

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. =- 131.211.151.245 (talk) 07:53, 12 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

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November 9

Archives

Can I get an opinion on a few edits

MY question is incorporated with the space

Page Format Missing

Degraded image

Interwiki account

help me

I have a question

getting logged out while editing

Contacting non-English Wikipedians

Fuck me boots

Help using same reference twice

error in Wind power

Reccomendations?

Keyboard short cuts.

am i qualified to edit wikipedia?

Teflon: What happened to the original article? (pre: January 2008)

Text copying issue

November 10

Archive box issues

mobile skin

Made mistake by accident now need help to fix the error

registration confirmation problem

Generating a list of most popular articles in a project

Raibin

Sockpuppets

Please move page

I am Unable to upload a personal photograph.

Citation templates and archived/cached web sources

College Textbooks?

November 11

AfD

Blocked

help others

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

What happens when you xfd an article with Twinkle that meets WP:CSD?

How do I "bookmark" an article that I'd like to read later?

i need to remove an image from one article

Archive editing

Multi-Sport Stadium Dimensions

I get undesired gzipped pages

Transcluded Template

Long URLs in cite

Can I do Offline Editing of an Ariticle (to make it appropriate for Children)?

Christopher Wren

Kelowna Pictures

November 12

what are the affiliates of wikipedia?

Help

Meaning of "(top)"

New users

I made a mistake

Biographic info on a living person. There are very few existing references

financial loan