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December 15

How do I redirect?

Resolved

 –  – ukexpat (talk) 16:31, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

I see the directions for redirecting pages within wiki, but what about directing similar search terms for pages? I.e. for the Optimer Pharmaceuticals page, if someone searched for "Optimer", they should be able to go directly to the Optimer Pharmaceuticals page. Thanks for your help. KDR 21:07, 14 December 2009 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Kdrichards (talk • contribs)

There are several companies named Optimer. Unless one and only one brand is famous, the proper thing to do is either create a disambiguation page, or if only one of the companies even qualifies for an article, either don't create a redirect i.e. leave the page red or, if the dominant company goes simply by "Optimer," create a redirect or move the page. For technical help, read Wikipedia:Redirect. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail) 21:18, 14 December 2009 (UTC)

But at the moment there is only one company named Optimer that has an article on Wikipedia so Optimer could be a redirect to Optimer Pharmaceuticals. When and if there are other Optimer articles, the redirect can be converted into a disambiguation page. – ukexpat (talk) 21:23, 14 December 2009 (UTC)

This is where good judgment comes in. If more people think of something else than the Pharmaceutical company when you say "Optimer" then redirecting it is worse than leaving it red. Of course, if more people think of something else that should be your next article :). davidwr/(talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail) 22:18, 14 December 2009 (UTC)

Asking for arbitration/moderation in an article.

Resolved

 –  – ukexpat (talk) 16:31, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

Hi,

What can I do when editors in an article behave in a callous and inconsiderate way, constantly promoting their view points and forcefully editing out other people? This happens A LOT here.

Case in point the David Letterman article. Based on the opinions of 2-3 individuals I am unable to classify Letterman in the Sex Scandal figures category as he rightly deserves to be for his concealed sexual relations with his subordinates, as widely reported and verified in the news all over the world.

This seems to be racially motivated as in similar (and arguably less severe) situation Tiger Woods has gone without question in the said category.

Can you advice me as to how to open this up for a vote or arbitration?

Thanks.

And please consider hiring professional editors.

94.71.212.239 (talk) 22:29, 14 December 2009 (UTC)

Unfortunately, we don't hire editors... it's a volunteer-based community here. However, many editors are professionals in certain areas.  fetchcomms☛ 22:49, 14 December 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. But this was not my query. You answered to an aside at the end.

Any way here again my edit in the talk pages has been deleted in the Letterman article, someone please intervene.

94.71.212.239 (talk) 23:13, 14 December 2009 (UTC)

• Note: this IPs edits to the article talk page consists of calling other editors dishonest racists, rantings against Wales, declaring an intent to edit war and continue to add these vile comments, and calling the removal of such talk page invective "censorship". All of these lovely things can be seen in the revert I just performed here. Tarc (talk) 23:20, 14 December 2009 (UTC)

I dare you to quote my "rant" against Wales, come one quote it here. Because again, as per your policy you are being dishonest. The vile things is racism in practice at Wikipedia and censorship. But don't worry you are not going to get your way in whitewashing this article. 94.71.212.239 (talk) 00:04, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

The passage in question was "And Wales has the guts to ask for funds on top of every article. What a parody" as seen in the linked diff above. Granted it isn't as egregious as your blasting of other editors as racists and such, but it was still a piece in your overall soapbox-ish tirade. Tarc (talk) 00:16, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

I hope you post/file a complaint. I saw an interesting page about Administrators and the rules that they must live by, such as fairness, not using their power in abusive ways, etc. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:ADMIN Maybe this page will help you? I'm honestly shocked by the rude, grumpy, and infuriating admins who rule the roost here on Wikipedia. Where do they find them? Why can't they find volunteers who are helpful and reasonable people, and are not so adversarial and grumpy? Good luck, Wikipedia, trying to get donations. If you're asking for our money, you must institute a policy of quick accountability for admins who are grumpy, rude and adversarial and who abuse their power. Eric Scubeesnax (talk) 07:18, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

In answer to your question "Where do they find them?" - admins are chosen by the community (see Requests for adminship) - by which I mean all of the community: editors, admins, bureaucrats, stewards (if we had any on Wikipedia, which we don't) - the only exceptions is that blocked users and IP users can't vote. If the original poster has a complaint about a specific admin (or admins), then the first place to discuss this would be on their talk pages. Further complaints can be taken to the Admin's Noticeboard Incidents Board.

For what it's worth, many of the admins that I have come across are helpful and reasonable people - just like most editors that I have come across. Yes, some of them can be adversarial at times, and grumpy (hell, they are humans you know) - but I have also come across a lot of editors who are like that! I think if we banned all users who are adversarial or grumpy at times, we would have very few users left! -- PhantomSteve/talk|contribs\ 09:54, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

(undent) To the original poster: the pages linked under WP:EIW#Dispute detail Wikipedia's procedures for handling content disputes. Note that in most disputes, the side which spends the most time reading and following the friendly manuals tends to win. In particular, the rules are heavily stacked against people who believe they do not need to read the rules. So, on Wikipedia you have the power to select your fate. If you don't like Wikipedia's rules or don't want to read them, you can start your own wiki. Thousands of people have done this. Wikipedia cannot be all things to all people. --Teratornis (talk) 21:47, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

(undent) To Scubeesnax: the best way to avoid making the admins grumpy is to read and follow Wikipedia's instructions. Wikipedia's user interface is very permissive - it lets you do almost anything you want - and this encourages some people to hastily conclude that if something is possible, it is therefore allowed. Unfortunately, wikis like Wikipedia don't work that way. The software is very permissive, but then hours or days later, other users will see what you did, and quite possibly change it. Thus the key to successful editing on Wikipedia or any wiki is learning to predict how other users will react to whatever we want to do. That's just the reality here. I'm not saying everybody will want to work this way. Only a small percentage of Wikipedia's 48,524,375 registered user accounts have a lot of edits. Most people seem to poke around a little and then leave. Only a few will put in the effort it takes to learn the rules and work in harmony with the other people who learned the rules. But it is possible. Even people who strongly disagree with each other on various issues are able to edit harmoniously together on Wikipedia. --Teratornis (talk) 21:58, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

Um, are you actually reading the links provided above, or looked into the matter at all? We have an editing decision reached by consensus that a single IP editor refuses to abide by. Said IP user had edit-warred to insert is/her preferred version of text and then edit warred on the talk page to retain a passage that calls other editors racist. Tarc (talk) 13:41, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the information (and extra thanks to Scubeesnax for saying it like it is, and being supportive, and not patronizing as per the usual treatment here), I will prepare by digging my teeth in some of the material to see how I should respond and proceed. 94.71.133.172 (talk) 23:12, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

Getting Rid of Accounts and Changing Their Usernames

I have two questions to ask you:

1. Is it possible to get rid of, destroy, or remove your user account in Wikipedia after once you've created it? If so, then how can you do it?

2. Is it possible to change the username of your user account in Wikipedia after once you've created it? If so, then how can you do it? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 60.242.166.182 (talk • contribs) 00:50, 15 December 2009

A1: If the account has any edits, including deleted edits, no. But if the only edits are to the account's user page and user-talk page, and there are no other substantial edits to the talk page, the pages can be deleted. If it has no edits then deleting it is moot, but it can be renamed to another name if someone else wants to use this name.

A2:Yes, see Wikipedia:Usernames#Changing your username.

If you have major privacy issues, you can email Special:EmailUser/Oversight for assistance. Sometimes they can help, sometimes they can't. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail) 01:03, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

For the sake of clarity, once an account is created, it cannot be deleted, but it can be renamed. User pages and user talk pages can be deleted (and thereby turned into red links) by an admin and users can blank their own user pages and user talk pages as they see fit (in which case they will remain blue links and their history visible unless oversighted). Users can also exercise their right to vanish. – ukexpat (talk) 02:36, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

Note: User talk pages are sometimes preserved due to special circumstances. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail) 14:37, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

Due to the fact that Wikipedia content is licensed under the GFDL, all edits must be kept for attribution purposes, and so your account cannot be deleted. You do, however, have the right to vanish, which you can exercise by (1) requesting your user page (found at Special:Mypage) and/or user talk page (found at Special:Mytalk) be deleted, by adding the {{db-userreq}} template to them; (2) requesting to change your username to something that is unconnected with you (possibly a random collection of letters and numbers); (3) never logging in to your account again. The "right to vanish" does not mean anyone has the right to a fresh start under a new identity. Anyone who wants to continue editing should request a change of username instead so edits can be reattributed. --Mysdaao ^talk 02:42, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

• User talk pages ARE NOT eligible for speedy deletion, and even in "right to vanish" will not normally be deleted. See Wikipedia:Right to vanish#How to leave. DuncanHill (talk) 14:42, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

Donating

Resolved

 –  – ukexpat (talk) 16:31, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

If I donate to the foundation, will they send me tons of junk mail or share my contact with a mailing list for other orgs to send me tons of junk mail? Also, is the system set up so that CheckFree online bill payment would send donations directly into their bank account electronically, or would they have to mail a check? PCHS-NJROTC ^(Messages) 02:51, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

The place to start is this page, where there are links to FAQ etc. – ukexpat (talk) 03:03, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

How to post a video/movie?

How can I find out how to post a video/movie? There are zillions of them on Wiki, for example on Barack Obama's page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barack_obama (near the bottom, just above the references) where he posts a weekly address. Also, I'd like to upload an audio file and make it playable. But I have no idea how to do it properly. Who can I ask? My best for the Holidays! Eric Scubeesnax (talk) 07:04, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

• Videos are posted the same way images are. Through the uploading page linked on the left and using the same formatting as images to put them in a page (using File: instead of Image: in the link). Like images, the copyright rules also apply to videos: they need to be free or have a particular good fair use rationale. The file needs to be in an OggVorbis format. - Mgm|^(talk) 09:27, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

And this is Wikipedia. Please don't call it 'Wiki', as it is one of many thousands of those. --ColinFine (talk) 23:26, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

Passport for my son

Respected Sir,

My name is Manish Indian National, I married to a Yemeni national girl while I was working in yemen I had one son from her, now I need to bring my wife & son to India what should I so, as Indian Embassy refused to give Visa to my wife & passport to my son, I have submitted my marriage certificate, birth certificate of my son, even after all this they are delaying the matter and my family is in problem without me.

Kindly suggest me the way out from this problem.

my email id is <email redacted>

With Best Regards

MANISH —Preceding unsigned comment added by 116.73.172.245 (talk) 08:05, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

Sorry, this looks like you would require legal advice which we cannot give. Pedro :  Chat  08:35, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

Consider http://answers.yahoo.com for general advice which is sometimes accurate but sometimes not accurate. Also consider contacting the Embassy of India in Sanaa. Maybe consider contacting an Indian lawyer familiar with immigration matters. Wikipedia is not a good place for this kind of advice. Suomi Finland 2009 (talk) 22:51, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

Other possible places for help is the the Wikipedia Reference desk, the Hindi Wikipedia Reference desk विकिपीडिया:रेफ़रन्स डेस्क, Answerbag, and Fluther. Yahoo! Answers has a travel section to India and an immigration section.Civic Cat (talk) 19:31, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

Linking to another page

Resolved

 –  – ukexpat (talk) 16:31, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

I created a link to 'computer telephony integration' on a page by using the double [] notation, but the link doesn't work; when clicked an error messages suggests the page doesn't exist. However, if I put 'computer telephony integration' into the search box I find the 'computer telephony integration page' (albeit it has a note stating redirected from 'computer telephony'). If I use 'computer telephony' for the link, I get a similar result. I can also search on 'computer telephony' and get the same page I get when I search on 'computer telephony integration'. How can I fix this? —Preceding unsigned comment added by WIKIPICT (talk • contribs) 09:28, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

The link to computer telephony that you put in Aculab works, so I assume you mean the category Category:Computer telephony integration which is redlinked? Redlinked categories are not a problem if they are left (it just means that there's currently no category page created). I will try to sort out the category page though. -- PhantomSteve/talk|contribs\ 09:39, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

I have created the category page, and added a few other articles to it as a starting point. -- PhantomSteve/talk|contribs\ 10:31, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

image and heading help

I was recently looking at the Noumea article, I am using beta and realised it needs a cleanup in the placement of images and sections. It is not something I am familiar with and am sure there is a tag I can put there that will direct an experienced editor to the page Matt (talk) 10:53, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

• I've put the ones that weren't in the infobox in a gallery format near the bottom. It's not a permanent solution, but it should work until the article is expanded and has more space for images. - Mgm|^(talk) 12:08, 15 December 2009 (UTC)
• I think the word I was looking for yesterday was layout, I will have a hunt around and see what guides there are, and thanks for the help Mgm Matt (talk) 02:05, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

WP:LAYOUT? – ukexpat (talk) 16:31, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

Why auto-reload?

Why does the first page which I browser every day always auto-reload? Only this Wikipedia has such a problem. --百楽兎 (talk) 11:22, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

I have never experienced this or seen it reported. I guess it is something on your end. PrimeHunter (talk) 12:18, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

Maybe, but only occurred in English Wikipedia. I am using Google Chrome. I guess there can be something unsuitable in Mediawiki:common.js.--百楽兎 (talk) 13:02, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

lanjauge

where is urdu lanjaue n vikipedia —Preceding unsigned comment added by 119.154.24.163 (talk) 13:30, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

The URL of the main page of the Urdu Wikipedia is http://ur.wikipedia.org/wiki/ ≈ Chamal ^talk ¤ 13:34, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

Need an article changed asap if possible! Thanks.

Resolved

 – Conflicting line removed and other edits made. Article still needs improvement. If you are not associated with the school you can edit it yourself. If you are, please suggest changes on Talk:Howe Military School. Even if you are associated with the school you can remove incorrect information. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail) 15:24, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

Hello, my name is Michael Reed. I am a teacher/webmaster for Howe Military School in Howe, IN. I noticed that when bringing up information about our school on wikipedia, it says that that school was founded by Elias Howe, inventor of the sewing machine. This information is incorrect. The correct information has already been added below the article by someone else. However, can the first paragraph at the top be removed that references Elias Howe, since he had nothing to do with Howe Military School?

Thanks,

Michael Reed

Link to article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Howe_Military_School —Preceding unsigned comment added by Wmubronco81 (talk • contribs) 14:18, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

Better (internal) link Howe Military School. --ColinFine (talk) 23:29, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

How do I search for articles starting with the word "List", but exclude redirects?

I've been using the prefix search but many of the results are redirects. Is there a way to search for lists, or any other article with a prefix, without having to see all the redirects? 90.219.50.135 (talk) 17:02, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

I don't get redirects in prefix searches, for example http://en.wikipedia.org/enwiki/w/index.php?title=Special%3ASearch&search=prefix%3AList&go=Go. Are you referring to Special:PrefixIndex? That includes redirects but they are easy to identify because they are in italics. PrimeHunter (talk) 18:43, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

How to cite references?

Resolved

 –  – ukexpat (talk) 16:31, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Calmer_Waters#stupid where he writes "However, I prefer using the tool in the edit screen for setup when possible"

Question 1: How does one do this? Where is the clickable "button"?

Question 2: Can you fix reference 25 and 29 so that I can see how you do it. 25 and 29 are the same reference. One shouldn't repeat it twice but use 25 twice.

Thank you. Suomi Finland 2009 (talk) 21:36, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

A1: One uses the named reference approach. See the tag <ref name="Idestam"> before the {{cite}} in the first example at Calmer Waters' talk. The clickable button is the {{ CITE }} button in the WikiEd plug-in, enabled (or not) in your preferences. Click that, click the button for the type of source, and then see the "Name" field.

A2: I'd be glad to try if you'll identify the page in question! --AndrewHowse (talk) 21:51, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

I found and fixed it.[1] The reference was used three times. PrimeHunter (talk) 22:02, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

Thank you. That's why I asked that it be fixed twice and I was going to do it to fixed the 3rd time. See, I'm not lazy! Suomi Finland 2009 (talk) 22:40, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

Missing revisions

Can anyone see the following revisions? [2] [3] [4] If not, what happened to them ? --Drogonov 22:15, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

I cannot see the revisions, either. I am on Firefox 3.5.5 under Ubuntu 9.10. I would hazard a guess at it being some sort of weird database error, as the revisions do not appear to be oversighted. You could ask over at the technical village pump. Xenon54 / talk / 22:51, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

Odd, something is broken in the wiki. It looks like all edits between http://en.wikipedia.org/enwiki/w/index.php?title=The_Elephant_Man_%28film%29&oldid=9292943 (21:01, 11 January 2005) and http://en.wikipedia.org/enwiki/w/index.php?title=The_Elephant_Man_%28film%29&direction=next&oldid=12776317 (02:37, 25 April 2005) got fubared. They show up as blank versions, which isn't logical. They should either be there, be missing entirely and not in the edit history if they were deleted but not restored, or have strike-throughs if they've been rev-deleted or oversighted. Well, probably not worth fixing. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail) 22:49, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

How to find editors who will email authors

Hello. Can someone direct me to a page or area that lists Wikipedia editors who are willing to email authors with questions. Thanks! Manyhats (talk) 22:27, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

I doubt such a page exists. Why would special people be needed to send emails? Algebraist 22:37, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

If you are a registered user, go to Special:Preferences and fill in your email address, then go to the user or talk page of the person you want to talk to, and click "Email this user" in the toolbox on the left side of your screen. If you don't see the "Email this user" link then the user has not enabled incoming emails, and nobody can mail him unless they know his email address. You can, however, leave a note on his talk page asking him to mail you. He'll have to set up his preferences, and he may choose not to for privacy or other reasons. When you email a user, they get your email address so they can reply off-wiki. Some editors don't like using email for that very reason. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail) 22:44, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

Remember that anyone can edit any article. If you are talking about the author of an article, this can be thousands of people. If you have a question or comment about the article itself (not the article's subject), then go to the article's talk page by clicking the "discussion" tab at the top of the page and leave a note. If you have a general question about how Wikipedia works, then this is the page to do it. Xenon54 / talk / 22:48, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

There is such a page or place because I used it earlier this year. There was a long list of editors who are available by email. I'm actually trying to find the page here so I can then know where to look for a similar page on a few foreign language versions of Wikipedia. Thanks.Manyhats (talk) 23:01, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

This list may have been part of some coordination or other (i.e., OTRS, sysops, etc.). Do you recall the purpose of this list? Intelligentsium 23:08, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

I believe it may have been a list of part-time or former editors willing to volunteer their time/help, but am not sure about this. I think I may still have contact info for one of them, will email him and see if that's where I came into contact with him. Manyhats (talk) 01:28, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

Are there any experienced editors here who can help me with a WP:CABAL?

Me and several other editors are trying to edit our article on the Climategate controversy to follow WP:NPOV and we're encountering stiff resistence from other editors. The dispute was brought up at the WP:NPOVN. An uninvolved editor examined the issues and confirmed that the article is isn't following WP:NPOV just as we were saying. You can read his/her post here[5] But there's a group of 5 or 6 editors who still refuse to follow WP:NPOV. Are there any experienced users who are willing to help me deal with this WP:CABAL? Basically, I'm looking for a mentor. Someone who's already dealt with a WP:CABAL before (hopefully about a different topic) and can give me advice on how to go about resolving the issues. Thanks! A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 22:49, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

Repeat after me: There is no cabal. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail) 22:51, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

The "uninvolved editor" who you say examined the issue is an anon IP who has only made that one edit to date. That is far too fishy to be reliable or trustworthy. Tarc (talk) 13:38, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

Given the depth of their analysis, I think that they're an experienced editor who decided to log out of their account so that they could give a neutral analysis without retribution. In any case, I'm still looking for a mentor who's dealt with WP:CABAL issues before. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 14:23, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

If talk page discussions are not taking you anywhere, follow dispute resolution. You're unlikely to fine a "mentor" here at the help desk. ≈ Chamal ^talk ¤ 14:36, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

Linking to a version not explained, bad anchor link, confusion

I wanted to link to a particular version of a page on someone's talk page. I found Help:Page history#Linking to a specific version of a page, but that doesn't actually tell you how to do it! It has a link to a non-existent section Help:URL#Old_versions_of_pages, but that page doesn't quite tell you how to do it either. It only says "However if you want to link to ... certain specially generated Wikimedia pages (such as a past version of an article), it is necessary to provide the full URL. This is done using external link syntax." Both pages are confusing because it's not clear if they're talking about links within wikipedia pages (where several syntaxes are possible) or linking to them from outside wikipedia (where you must use a full external URL). On a Wikipedia page, is there a template or trick to link to a particular version? If not, that first section should simply say something like

You must use a full external URL, e.g. http://en.wikipedia.org/enwiki/w/index.php?title=Carbon_footprint&oldid=331849271 to refer to a specific page version from a Wikipedia page (you can't use a [[Page title]]-style link).

Thanks for all you do. -- Skierpage (talk) 22:43, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

Look a little further down the page Help:URL#URLs_of_Wikipedia_pages and see the 4th bullet after "Extended URLs are used:"

I'll look at that anchor link too. --AndrewHowse (talk) 23:21, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

I've corrected the anchor link. The pages are referring to using the full URL, which can be used from within Wikipedia or on other websites. There is a template, {{oldid}}, which can be used on Wikipedia to create a link to an old version of a page. However, it's not necessary, and it creates a regular external link to the full URL anyway, so it's just a little shortcut if you want to use it. --Mysdaao ^talk 23:25, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

Jamestown

WHYDIDENGLANDFOUNDJAMESTOWN —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.21.193.67 (talk) 23:15, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

You might find what you are looking for in the article about History of the Jamestown Settlement (1607–1699). If you cannot find the answer there, you can try asking your question at Wikipedia's Reference Desk. They specialize in knowledge questions and will try to answer just about any question in the universe (except about how to use Wikipedia, which is what this help desk is for). I hope this helps. --Mysdaao ^talk 23:34, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

In addition, please refrain from shouting or typing without spaces. This is considered impolite, because it may be difficult for some people to understand. Intelligentsium 00:00, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

Indeed, I didn't recognise the question as a real question, and was considering deleting it as vandalism. --ColinFine (talk) 00:52, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

Redirects

Resolved

 –  – ukexpat (talk) 16:31, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

If I'm being dim I apologise, but I am having no success in finding out how to create a redirect - in this instance from Preciosity to Préciosité, or even better, move the existing article to Preciosity, and redirect from Préciosité. Thanks, Awien (talk) 23:18, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

Instructions for creating a redirect are at WP:R#How to make a redirect (redirect command). Instructions for moving a page are at WP:MOVE, and doing so will automatically create a redirect from the old name to the new. However Préciosité is already a redirect, to Précieuses, so if you move it you will create a double redirect. This works, but is not recommended, so you should then go into the redirect page (you can get there by picking the 'redirected from' link on the destination page) and edit it to a single redirect. --ColinFine (talk) 23:39, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

Thank you! Awien (talk) 23:56, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia main site in Russian?

Recently, I noticed that when I go to the main Wikipedia page (www.wikipedia.org) my browser (Firefox 3.5.3) indicates via a Google dropdown below the tabs that 'This page is in Russian. Translate it using Google Toolbar?' This never happened before, and I wondered if this was an indication that my computer has been infected with a virus or trojan horse of some kind, or if it's a quirk with Wikipedia and the Google Toolbar? By the way, the page displays just as it always has: primarily in English, with the Wikipedia 'globe' logo and the various languages arrayed around it. Anyone else notice this? Thanks.PVarjak (talk) 23:53, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

It's probably because the www.wikipedia.org page contains many different languages in about equal proportions, which probably causes the Google toolbar's autotranslator function to shit itself. I would pay it no mind. --Jayron32 06:34, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

:But it's a new phenomenon, and Wikipedia.org has been one of my main tabs for a long time. Does anyone else's Firefox with Google Toolbar indicate something like this? 98.109.81.242 (talk) 23:11, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

December 16

Delete a page

How do I delete a page? —Preceding unsigned comment added by JimMike (talk • contribs) 02:32, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

You don't. Administrators do; you can request deletion via the deletion process. Intelligentsium 02:33, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

If you were referring to Adam Last, I've deleted it. TNXMan 02:35, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

linking to wikipedia in other languages

The subject of my entry, Paul Splingaerd, (http://en.wikipedia.org/enwiki/w/index.php?title=User:76.90.11.94/Paul_Splingaerd&action=edit&section=2) is mentioned in a couple of wikipedia entries in Dutch. Is it possible to get those references to link to the one I created in English? Conversely, I refer to Ottenburg in my article on Splingaerd, but it is a red link, indicating there is no reference in Wikipedia, yet Ottenburg has its own article in the Nederlands Wikipedia that happens to feature a picture of a statue of Paul Splingaerd: http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ottenburg) http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Congregatie_van_het_Onbevlekt_Hart_van_Maria

Also, an associate in Belgium is creating an entry in French, which he intends to call Paul Splingaerd, as well. Would it be possible for us to refer to each other's articles?

Lin An-ni (talk) 06:22, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

You would do so via an "interwiki link". See Help:Interwiki linking for the technical aspect of doing so. If this is confusing, just ask here and someone can walk you through it. --Jayron32 06:32, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

I've just looked at the Help page linked to above, and I find it confusing and unhelpful for this purpose. The simple answer is that links to 'the same' article in other-language Wikipedias (whatever 'the same' might be in context) are normal and encouraged - and are all displayed in the 'language' box at the side of the page, but it is not recommended to make links within the text to articles in another-language Wikipedia. You create the first type of link by putting something like [[fr:Paul Splingaerd]] in your 'Paul Splingaerd' article. It can go anywhere, but they are conventionally collected at the end. --ColinFine (talk) 08:18, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

That help page is written rather cryptically, isn't it. The section you want is Help:Interwiki linking#Interlanguage links. Essentially, you would just add [[fr:Paul Splingaerd]] at the end of your article to build the interlanguage link. Bots will then build the reciprocal link from his back to yours. I'll do it for you, you can see the result.LeadSongDog come howl 15:06, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

Oops. You've still got the article in userspace. The above won't work until you move it to articlespace. I'll watch for when you make the move.LeadSongDog come howl 15:12, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

Project search question

Does anyone know of a way to search for articles that belong to two projects of my specification?

Somehow generating a list of all articles that belong to both "WikiProject Books" and "WikiProject Philosophy" would be an example of what I'm looking for.

Thank you Pollinosisss (talk) 06:33, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

Try Catscan. Bencherlite^Talk 10:26, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

contributing an article

How do I contribute an article? —Preceding unsigned comment added by JoyceWN (talk • contribs) 06:49, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

Please read Wikipedia:Your first article for some general tips, or Wikipedia:Article wizard 2.0 for a step-by-step walkthrough on creating an article. May I also recommend that you create the article as a userspace draft, since this will grant you time to work on it and will give you the opportunity to get it reviewed before "going live" The article wizard will walk you through that as well. --Jayron32 06:52, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

A Wizard is available to walk you through these steps. See the Article Wizard.

Thank you.

Before creating an article, please search Wikipedia first to make sure that an article does not already exist on the subject. Please also review a few of our relevant policies and guidelines with which all articles should comply. As Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, articles must not contain original research, must be written from a neutral point of view, should cite reliable sources which verify their content and must not contain unsourced, negative content about living people.

Articles must also demonstrate the notability of the subject. Please see our subject specific guidelines for people, bands and musicians, companies and organizations and web content and note that if you are closely associated with the subject, our conflict of interest guideline strongly recommends against you creating the article.

If you still think an article is appropriate, see Wikipedia:Your first article. You might also look at Wikipedia:How to write a great article for guidance, and please consider taking a tour through the Wikipedia:Tutorial so that you know how to properly format the article before creation. An Article Wizard is available to walk you through creating an article. – ukexpat (talk) 16:12, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

Creating a new page

I have been looking for information on Ramona Lutheran School in Ramona, California on Wikipedia and I can't find it. How can I find a page or create one? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jeknig4989 (talk • contribs) 08:04, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

• The easiest way to search is by using Google and searching for the school name and wikipedia. If that turns up dry, it's unlikely we have an article. Before you write an article to fill up the gap, please read WP:YFA, WP:RS and WP:N. Those are links to the most relevant rules pages. - 131.211.211.243 (talk) 10:48, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

A Wizard is available to walk you through these steps. See the Article Wizard.

Thank you.

Before creating an article, please search Wikipedia first to make sure that an article does not already exist on the subject. Please also review a few of our relevant policies and guidelines with which all articles should comply. As Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, articles must not contain original research, must be written from a neutral point of view, should cite reliable sources which verify their content and must not contain unsourced, negative content about living people.

Articles must also demonstrate the notability of the subject. Please see our subject specific guidelines for people, bands and musicians, companies and organizations and web content and note that if you are closely associated with the subject, our conflict of interest guideline strongly recommends against you creating the article.

If you still think an article is appropriate, see Wikipedia:Your first article. You might also look at Wikipedia:How to write a great article for guidance, and please consider taking a tour through the Wikipedia:Tutorial so that you know how to properly format the article before creation. An Article Wizard is available to walk you through creating an article. – ukexpat (talk) 16:13, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

Can't login

I am unable to login, when i login it says i am logged in but when i click any link the computer thinks i am not logged in. I have tested on 2 browsers so far. Please help me with this, HiddenKnowledge - (talk) (87.212.139.149 (talk) 08:11, 16 December 2009 (UTC))

• Do you have cookies and javascript enabled? Also have you tried clicking the remember me box? - 131.211.211.243 (talk) 10:46, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

• Is Help:Logging in#Login issues and problems of help? PrimeHunter (talk) 13:31, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

Problem fixed after logging in on a different computer. Thanks, HiddenKnowledge (talk) 20:56, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

held article

I recently re-submitted an article on HADAS ( Hendon and District Archaeological Society) which is now being held for still being similar in some places to the Society's web page. If I can find out which bits I'm happy to redo it. How do I find out which bits the reviewer had concerns about? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Timhadas (talk • contribs) 10:00, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

Hi Timhadas: I'd suggest contacting Abductive, the user who wrote the review, on his/her user talk page to ask your question. See WP:TALK for general advice about talk pages. Gonzonoir (talk) 10:05, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

As an aside, I suspect the concerns are that both the prose and structure are very similar to the site at http://www.hadas.org.uk/about-hadas. The best thing you could do would be to find other sources that refer to HADAS, and try to incorporate material on topics that they cover too, so the article isn't just a rehashing of a single source elsewhere. That will also help with establishing the topic's notability. Gonzonoir (talk) 10:13, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. Can I get back to the article I submitted to edit it? or should I re-do it and re-submit it afresh?

Timhadas (talk) 16:11, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

debate over the correct usage of bylaw

My association is updating their bylaws and there is a debate on the correct spelling of "bylaw." what is the most common spelling for "bylaw"? Is it "bylaw" or "by-law"? JLCODY (talk) 10:41, 16 December 2009 (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. - 131.211.211.243 (talk) 10:45, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

• The Bylaw article seems to imply that bylaw is the most common spelling (it says that it is sometimes also spelled by-law or byelaw). However, as it comes from the Middle English bilawe (thank you, Answers.com!) then I would suggest that "bylaw" is the most suitable spelling! -- PhantomSteve/talk|contribs\ 10:58, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

• OTOH, and I hope not to derail this board too badly, the Oxford English Dictionary lists by-law as the main entry. Wiktionary disagrees. Gonzonoir (talk) 11:08, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

It looks like an evolving BrE/AmE difference. American Heritage Dictionary and Collins English Dictionary both give bylaw as the main entry. Webster's 1828 and 1911 both gave by-law but not bylaw, suggesting the AmE usage has evolved to omit the hyphen. Webster's New World Dictionary has entries for both, but whereas bylaw has just a simple definition, by-law says "(also bylaw)". The Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary has no entry for bylaw, just one for by-law. LeadSongDog come howl 16:50, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

On the Western side of the Atlantic, "by-law"'s considered increasingly archaic. I thought the UK was moving in that direction too, but I'll defer to the OED on that. Steve Smith (talk) 16:53, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

Untitled question

hallo

I created a page almost 1 month ago, and it has not been moved to "article space" yet. everytime I enter with my login, if I go in "my talk" I see a box with "A user will respond to your request to move this draft into article space as soon as possible. Note that the request may not be fulfilled if the article meets criteria for speedy deletion."

What does it mean as soon as possible? it is now 20 days that I see this message and I am still waiting for developments. Cipresso (talk) 11:05, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

• The template the IP user put on the page puts the page in an invisible category so people who have the ability to move it can look through them and make a decision. At the moment the category has 84 entries which can take quite a while to handle. Also, since everything on Wikipedia is done on a voluntary basis, there's no certainty as to when someone will get around to it. In its current state, I wouldn't move it to the article space. The article has one single reference, which is generally a bad idea. To meet the criteria for inclusion the article needs to show notability, either by meeting one of the specific notability guidelines for people, organizations, etc or meet WP:GNG by a large and varied amount of coverage in reliable sources. The single source you cited only makes the information verifiable. If you dig up some more references, I'd be happy to take another look. - Mgm|^(talk) 12:26, 16 December 2009 (UTC)
  • Also they'd already been advised by an IP to create a sub-page. I've added a welcome template and some other bits about notability (and copyvio) to their talk page. Franamax (talk) 12:35, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

football

I am an avid reader of Wikipedia for any facts I want to know about football. I would like to ask if the football League called the Conference is now called the Blue Square Premier etc, because I have looked some clubs up and they are still all quoted as the Conference National, conference South, etc. If its possible can you et me know through my email address, which is:

<e-mail removed>

Regards, Dave. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.99.184.47 (talk) 13:57, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

You might find what you are looking for in the article about Conference National. If you cannot find the answer there, you can try asking your question at Wikipedia's Reference Desk. They specialize in knowledge questions and will try to answer just about any question in the universe (except about how to use Wikipedia, which is what this help desk is for). I hope this helps.

Please do not include contact details in your questions. We are unable to provide answers by any off-wiki medium and this page is highly visible across the internet. The details have been removed, but if you wish for them to be permanently removed from the page history, email this address. --Mysdaao ^talk 14:08, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

The conference is currently called the Blue Square Premier, but only for sponsorship purposes. We don't use the sponsored name in the article title - but it's there in the article itself. This is to keep all the articles past, present and future about the league similar and when the name changes again we won't have to retrospectively update all the old articles. The same is true of the FA (currently the Football Association Cup sponsored by e.on) and League Cup (or Carling Cup) articles. Nanonic (talk) 17:45, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

editing while 'waiting' for my article to be published

Resolved

 – Draft moved to mainspace but now being discussed at Afd – ukexpat (talk) 16:31, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Skincaretruth/Dr._Sheldon_Pinnell

That is my article so far, but I'm not even sure what stage it's at. Am I waiting for something to happen? To be notified about something?

Also, it seems I can only edit references or external links. I keep going in circles and can't understand what I'm missing. Skincaretruth (talk) 14:48, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

Hi SCT, There should be a tab at the very top of the page that will allow you to edit the entire article - there are seperate tabs for subsection, but in order to edit the article content (in the current format that the article is in) you will need to use the 'edit' tab at the very top of the page. Best, Darigan (talk) 14:52, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

Having had a quick look at the article - there may some issues around Conflict of Interest, and sourcing. The sources with those exceedingly positive quotes come from the website of the company that Dr. P works for - not necessarily a reliable source (sorry). best, Darigan (talk) 14:56, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

I've moved it into article space at your request, under the name Sheldon Pinnell (we don't put honorifics in article titles, and avoid them in the bodies of the articles as well). --Orange Mike | Talk 14:58, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

Wafaa (name)

The creator of this page lifted the text from another Wikipedia article, Wafaa (party); it was added to that article by two IPs well over two years ago. Isn't this a GFDL attribution problem? And how should it be dealt with? A Stop at Willoughby (talk) 15:33, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

WikiProject suggestions wanted

The article Swimming pool sanitation needs a great deal of work and, to date, has been adopted by no WikiProjects. Unfortunately, the ideal WikiProject, Water and sanitation, fell into inacivity some time ago. I'm now thinking that Chemistry, Health and fitness and possibly Swimming (though it seems to be primarily focused on competitive swimming) may be good fits. Any advice? NMS Bill (talk) 16:01, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

I think any of those would work. The best would probably be either the Health and fitness one or the Swimming one. The chemistry one does not sound terribly applicable, except in the most round about way. Furthermore, you could work on it yourself should you have the expertise and resources and time. --Jayron32 16:08, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

I have worked on it a bit, but I also have a potential conflict of interest (from the chemistry side, actually) as I've posted on the Talk page. I just want to make certain I am proceeding cautiously. NMS Bill (talk) 16:22, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

• You can put an article is several projects at the same time. Health and fitness and possibly Swimming seem good fits - Mgm|^(talk) 11:20, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

How to find recent featured article

Hi,

Within the last couple months I saw in Wikipedia a daily featured article with a Jane's military specification sheet that I would like to look at again. I can't seem to find it through searching. Could you give me any leads on how to find this featured article?

Doubleknitter 17:14, 16 December 2009 (UTC)Doubleknitter (talk) 17:14, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

This list of featured articles may be able to help you out. TNXMan 17:17, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

Or click through the date links here until you find it. Deor (talk) 22:55, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

I'm not sure exactly what you mean by "a Jane's military specification sheet", but would Helgoland class battleship be it? It was on the main page on 25 October. Deor (talk) 01:08, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

Should I start 10-20 Wikipedia accounts?

I luvs my privacy.

Should I either:
(1) start 10-20 Wikipeda multiple accounts,
(2) start 10-20 accounts on other wikis or sites,
(3) start 10-20 sites of my own (most of them cheap, most with fewer than 10 pages each),

What would cause the least grief for all concerned?

(1) if I started 10-20 accounts on Wikipeda.
None would interact, much less vote on each other; three would account for 90-95% of the contributions and one for at least 50%. All would use alternate account templates—though not refer to each other—again privacy; but the main one would indicate the approximate number of accounts I’d have. Also I’d be using several IP’s.

(2) largely forgo Wikipedia for others,
as currently have an active account here, a dormant one, one even more dormant, and one never used—we were all beginners once—and I also occasionally use IP address accounts such as this one; and try other wikis and sites; forking contents from Wikipedia and other sources; and maybe argue and/or discuss issues of contributions with them.

(3) set up 10-20 (likely more) sites of my own,
copy and paste from Wikipedia and other sources, and create my own articles: however significant or trivial, long or short, neutral or biased, inoffensive or where so-called “martyrs” would be after me—and spare myself the fussin', feudin', and fightin'.

In any of these cases, I’d still have warm regards for Wikipedia, critically defend it, and even contribute, as per my poor capabilities allow, to the Wikimedia foundation—while again availing of content. However, other Wikipedians would have to deal with the maintenance, cleanups, and dealing with the hurt feelings of the (mostly) newbies (Wikipedians have feelings too : - ) without my help, however miniscule it may be.

Answers, input, and comments appreciated.192.30.202.13 (talk) 17:56, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

I have only one thing to say: "Huh ???". —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 20:43, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

Choice A would be in violation of WP:SOCK and the accounts would be blocked. No comment otherwise. Spitfire^Tally-ho! 20:46, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

Spitfire, I've read the article—a number of times—including this section "Legitimate uses of alternate accounts". Besides, how would you know which is which, if I don't refer to them—I refer to the existence of alternate accounts, not specific alternate accounts ones—and I use different IP's?192.30.202.15 (talk) 21:49, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

We would get a checkuser to run on your IP, which would reveal all account attached to it, but hey, why not do us a favour and just not make the accounts?

As far as Legitimate uses of alternate accounts goes, you could probably justify creation of one additional account under "Privacy". Regards, Spitfire^Tally-ho! 21:53, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

Yes, and if I was dumb enough to use the several accounts on one IP, I could get caught (I will have to give that checkuser article a decent reading). It goes to the discussion of the WP:SOCK article talk page: if we really wanted to cheat Wikipedia, we could; but that's not the point. It's to maintain privacy, while informing the community of such. Perhaps a bit extreme, but I wonder how burdensome it would be if a number of Wikipedians did this: and again, one account will do most of the edits. If I don't make the acccounts, I can't contribute as fully. If I can't contribute as fully on Wikipedia, then I might somewhere else. Thank you for your regards though.192.30.202.21 (talk) 23:15, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

As long as there's no interaction (vote-stacking, etc.), I don't see any problem with #1. The user Spitfirm above seems misinformed on this matter. --William S. Saturn (talk) 02:48, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

There are potentially about a billion Chinese people who might wish to remain anonymous if they were to edit on Wikipedia. See:

• Wikipedia:Advice to users using Tor to bypass the Great Firewall

By "privacy" which of the following do you mean:

• Preventing other people from determining your real identity.
• Preventing other users from determining that all your edits on Wikipedia are by the same person.

You might mean both, but they are not the same. --Teratornis (talk) 04:41, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the link William S. Saturn. Teratornis, mostly the first, though the later is related to the first. The idea is that by denying others knowing that edits of all my possible future accounts are related—while nonetheless informing people in (pretty well at least) each account, that the account they go to, is not the sum of I, the person's, contributions—I can deny, to an (at least a decent) extent, the ability of those who wish to create a profile about me the person. I suppose in time I might have the accounts refer to each other and perhaps even integrate them to my real life name. This is the option, though the reverse isn't.192.30.202.15 (talk) 18:48, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

• I fail to see why one would need multiple accounts to maintain privacy. The name you use here is attached to your edits so you can build trust and a reputation, but you'll still be anonymous. I can't think of any other reason to get added privacy that doesn't violate the rules. - Mgm|^(talk) 11:24, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

The IP address I'm using here is not mine, but belongs to a government agency (I am however—reasonably—anonymous). Even without a name, one can build a profile that others can exploit for bad purposes. As for the benefits of a good reputation, even one where one's name is disclosed, are issues I've considered. Check out these articles Wikipedia:Wikipedia is anonymous and Wikipedia:How to not get outed on Wikipedia.:-)192.30.202.15 (talk) 15:15, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

question regarding an notice I received from Wikipedia (Jimmy Wales)

Where can you ask a question that is not answered in the help desk or FAQ?

The disclaimer on here says, if you don't want it edited, used, and redistributed at will, then do not submit it here.

So where can someone get real help and/or answers if they've received a 'warning' note from Wikipedia?

IndianapolisCVA (talk) 19:03, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

As you've discovered, you can ask questions here.

The edits you made to Indianapolis and Downtown Indianapolis were rather promotional, and not suitable for an encyclopaedia. They were undone, and a message to that effect was put on your talk page by another editor.

As for the message from Jimmy Wales, I think that's one of the fund-raising banners. It's separate from the first message, and we all get them. --AndrewHowse (talk) 19:12, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

Image with no copyright but the contact person from website says "go ahead !"

Hi,

I'd like to import a logo from the website Decrypthon (http://www.decrypthon.fr/english/ewb_pages/l/logos.php) I contacted the website and I had a "Ok go ahead" answer, I musn't hesitate to use their logo according to the contact person.

However, i don't know the copyright and I'd like to avoid to use their source code which includes Xiti stuffs.

Thanks in advance for your advice ! —Preceding unsigned comment added by Serval2412 (talk • contribs) 19:25, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

What is the image going to be used for? That makes a big difference. If the image is a logo of Decrypthon that will be used in an article about Decrypthon, then it qualifies under fair use as part of the policy at Wikipedia:Non-free content. In that case, you don't need the owner's permission to use it, but the image can only be used for very specific purposes.

Otherwise, you need to obtain permission from the owner in writing, and what you have may not be enough. The full information on this is at Wikipedia:Requesting copyright permission. Basically, you have to request permission and make sure the owner understands that he or she is allowing the image to be modified and redistributed for any purpose, including commercial use, by Wikipedia and anyone who redistributes Wikipedia content. Once you have that permission, you have to send an e-mail with the information to the addressed listed on the page I linked to and follow the instructions there. Examples of how to request permission are at Wikipedia:Example requests for permission.

I don't know exactly what Xiti is, but the source code that created it isn't necessary. All that's necessary is the image file that you want to upload and use on Wikipedia. --Mysdaao ^talk 20:23, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

I just want to use for an article about Decrypthon.

Ok for the other things about permission, it could be an idea.

Xiti is about tracking for web traffic. I know how to retrieve the image and so how to avoid to use the special source code, I just wondered if i had the right to do this. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Serval2412 (talk • contribs) 18:47, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

If you upload the image, you can and should upload it without the code that tracks the web traffic, and I don't think the code would work on Wikipedia anyway. If you are only going to use the logo of Decrypthon for an article on Decrypthon, then you don't need the owner's permission for that. However, it would benefit Wikipedia to get permission from the owner by the instructions I provided, so that it could be modified and reused in other places. It's up to you if you want to spend the extra time doing that when you don't need it for the future article. --Mysdaao ^talk 19:16, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

Conflict of interest

I work at a university and have been asked to add to the university's wikipedia entry. I've been going through to add information about our degrees, departments, etc. All factual info - all referenced back to the university site, and to outside sources when possible. However, much of the time it's not possible to reference that data outside of the university's site. Today I logged on to continue edits and there was a message waiting for me asking me to stop updating because I have a conflict of interest as a university employee. How do universities update their information? Our page is seriously lacking in information about the pgorams we offer, and this is all legitimate, factual data. Not PR-speak. I'd appreciate help. It's tempting to just create a secondary account under another name just to do the updates! —Preceding unsigned comment added by Lisacatto (talk • contribs) 19:36, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

First off, if you were to create a secondary account, that would be considered sock puppetry and both accounts would be blocked, one of them indefinitely, with subsequent creation disabled.

But moving on from such unpleasant matters, our guidelines on conflicts of interest do not prohibit editing were a conflict exists, but discourages it strongly. I suggest that you read the relevant guideline; WP:COI (if you have not already), and then decide whether or not you should continue to be involved in editing the article in light of Wikipedia's policies. Be aware that were a conflict of interest exists you should always make that very clear in your editing, (i.e. mentioning it in edit summaries).

Finally please remember to sign your comments on pages such as this or other talk pages with four tildes; ~~~~

Please ask if you want any more information. Regards, Spitfire^Tally-ho! 19:51, 16 December 2009 (UTC) (< that is what is produced when I type ~~~~)

FWIW, I'm not sure that lists of departments, courses offered and so forth are particularly encyclopaedic. A link to the university's official site would be an appropriate external link, and that might have to suffice for such details. --AndrewHowse (talk) 20:02, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

If there is material which you think should be added to the article (and which is reliably sourced, your recommended course is to discuss this on the article's talk page, and see if you can enrol somebody unconnected with the institution to add the material.

I will add (as a former university employee and husband of another) that if some information is "not possible to reference that data outside of the university's site", that may in and of itself be prima facie evidence that the data is not notable. I will also add that there is no such thing as "our page" or "the university's wikipedia entry". Nobody owns a Wikipedia entry, least of all the subject thereof. --Orange Mike | Talk 20:50, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

At first sight it may look as if adding purely factual information to an article is neutral and so COI doesn't come into it; but that is not necessarily so. As somebody associated with the institution you may feel that information belongs there which other editors feel is superfluous or irrelevant to an encyclopaedia article. --ColinFine (talk) 20:17, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

As a university employee you have two or three attributes that the average editor does not have:

1. A conflict of interest
2. Access to more information about the university and/or knowledge about relevant information sources
3. A burning interest in ensuring that the university entries are factual

One way to take advantage of the two positives, while eliminating the problem of the first is to propose changes, along with relevant references, to the talk page. Then an editor, who does not have the COI problem, can evaluate the proposal, review the references, and add the material either as suggested or possibly in an improved way. Then everyone is satisfied – the entry doesn’t suffer from a COI problem, nor does it suffer from a lack of information simply because no one bothered to track down the information.SPhilbrickT 20:27, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

(←) Some more points:

• The biggest problem in writing articles on Wikipedia is finding reliable sources. You can help by contacting journalists who work for reputable publications and convincing them to write about your university.
• Wikipedia does not want original research - in this case, your unpublished personal knowledge - but that applies to information in written form. Images work differently - Wikipedia wants your original photos. You could take original photos around your campus and upload them to Wikimedia Commons. You can make a gallery page there of your photos. See Commons:COM:EIC#Gallery.
• Western Oregon University has a Western Oregon University#Computer Science Division. Have they set up a school wiki yet? See for example: UMassWiki. If you set up your own wiki, you can make up any rules you like. Tell your computer people to download MediaWiki and install it on a school server, if they haven't already.
• Read Wikipedia:FAQ/Organizations.
• To understand Wikipedia in detail, read WP:TMM.

--Teratornis (talk) 22:55, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

dummy accounts

are they allowed or is it sockpuppetry? a user I had a problem with (i asked the helpdesk about, that he had problems with others editing pages he works on) removed something from his talk page using what he admits to being a 'dummy account' when answering someone elses question over it, i was also referred to as 'new' but thats a moot point lol. as i said, this guy does not like other editors, he refuses to accept fair bold edits, even referenced edits, unless they're pro-subject etc, but i thought anyone having two accounts was classed as sockpuppetry? chocobogamer mine 20:48, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

There are certain limited legitimate uses of multiple accounts; I'd advise that you read WP:SOCK for further explanation. --Orange Mike | Talk 20:53, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

cheers mate, right.. upon looking at the 'dummy' account, the user page is blank, the talk page has something about image rationale, the user name is similar, but not enough (it says Project then a 3 letter initialisation of his 15 letter 3 word username (I won't say the name unless he is indeed breaking the rules), there seems to be no need for a 'project' account and his sig links to the 'project' account. it appears from its history to be there mainly for removing images (unsurprisingly not on the pages he's working on) and serving said notices, and sandboxing.. stuff that surely can be done on a main account? If its a bot, should it not say its a bot, and i see that a maintenance account should be clearly linked to the other, which with blank and essentially blank pages, and a fairly amiguous name, is not. chocobogamer mine 21:07, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

There are perfectly legitimate uses of multiple accounts. As long as all accounts are obviously tied together, so everyone knows that Account B is run by the same person as Account A, then there is usually no problem. Some people segregate their accounts, so they can use one at home and one on a public computer, for example. Many people maintain seperate accounts to run automated tasks with (so-called "bot" accounts) and other people have various good reasons to run multiple accounts. There are also "Doppelganger" accounts, whereby you create a bunch of accounts with a similar spelling to your own username, to block others from creating those accounts. That is also a perfectly valid use of multiple accounts. Generally, the only time multiple accounts become an issue is where they are being used in secret; so that no one knows that you are running multiple accounts, and especially where you are using secret secondary accounts to violate policy. --Jayron32 02:41, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

"As long as all accounts are obviously tied together, so everyone knows that Account B is run by the same person as Account A, then there is usually no problem." Jayron32, how about the Chinese and the Iranian who want to contribute to articles about their neighbourhoods and politics, or the person who wants to elaborate on a particular church or mosque, and alternative sex?Civic Cat (talk) 19:41, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

Template

I've created a filmography template but am having trouble with the parameters.

{{User:Jeffrey Mall/SB
| year1     = null
| film1     = null
| role1     = null
| notes1    = null
}}

The above produces almost everything correctly, but why is there so much grey space?

Filmography
Year	Film	Role	Notes
null	null	null	null

Any help would be appreciated. Jeffrey Mall (talk • contribs) - 21:09, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

for each row? thats whats in your page @ User:Jeffrey Mall/SB. you need to edit it to not show if the cell is empty, you havent got ifs for all cells so some will probably show up regardless chocobogamer mine 21:24, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

You could copy and modify some code from the Infoboxes templates e.g {{Infobox actor}} uses {{infobox}} which in turn uses {{infobox/row}}. Now {{infobox/row}} is the one that does the display, so that needs to be changed to display 4 columns (and add extra fields), then {{infobox}} needs changing to pass 4 parameters to {{infobox/row}}, then the main template based on {{Infobox actor}}, needs the fields you have in your original one. (Of course when I said "change" - I meant change a copy, not the original infobox template!) Hope that makes some sense...  Ronhjones  ^(Talk) 21:49, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

Damn... was hoping it'd be simpler than that lol, are you saying that if I adjusted (a copy of) {{Infobox/row}} and incorporated it into the template it would stop the grey space showing up? Jeffrey Mall (talk • contribs) - 22:08, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

Is anything easy to code? :-) Well it works for Infoboxes - if there is no data then the label and data does not show. As for changing the "row" template - that might be easy - change the number of columns to 4 and the final data to data|data1|data2 (I think). If you want a hand drop a message on my talk page, and I'll have a go (at least I can delete anything that doesn't work!)  Ronhjones  ^(Talk) 22:19, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

Hello

What is the difference between Wikipedia and New World Encyclopedia? How come the new world encyclopedia website is close now?

Joy —Preceding unsigned comment added by Joyful12 (talk • contribs) 21:50, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

Hi Joy. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia that is free to use, and free to edit. According to our article on the List of Unification Church affiliated organizations, New World Encyclopedia -- an online encyclopedia that, in part, selects and rewrites certain Wikipedia articles through a focus on Unification values. It "aims to organize and present human knowledge in ways consistent with our natural purposes." As to why their website is offline, I can't say (they've paid their domain bill, as it's registered until next August) - I'd guess it's a problem with their hosting company. Try again later, or just use Wikipedia which does not rewrite articles so that they have a non-neutral point of view. -- PhantomSteve/talk|contribs\ 22:18, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

Incomplete article history

Some articles seem to have an incomplete history. For example the earliest version of September 11 attacks is from 21 nov 2001 and marked as a minor edit [6] and the edit summary of the earliest version of the 2001 anthrax attacks is "revert due to vandalism" [7], so what happened to the earlier versions of these articles? Entheta (talk) 22:13, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

• I can't find a reference to it, but I seem to recall reading somewhere ages ago that histories prior to the end of 2001 are not available, as a software upgrade meant that the old histories couldn't be used. However, I will keep looking for it, and if I find the reference, I'll post it here. -- PhantomSteve/talk|contribs\ 22:28, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

Some very early history of the 9/11 article is at World Trade Center/Plane crash (now a redirect). Apparently, back in those days page moves and history merges and such were handled quite differently from how they're handled now. If you feel like trawling through the histories of the many redirects to our current article, you may be able to find more swaths of early edits. Deor (talk) 22:36, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

I found the article I was thinking of at Wikipedia:Usemod_article_histories. From there: Article edit histories from the UseModWiki era of Wikipedia (through late January 2002) have now been restored to the database. (They were not originally imported at the time since the conversion script didn't yet know how to crack open the usemod history files.)...Also note that the UseMod wiki originally deleted old histories after a couple weeks, so very early versions of some pages may still be gone; they were not saved and cannot be restored.. Hope this answers your question! -- PhantomSteve/talk|contribs\ 22:41, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

Incidently, the WTC/Plane Crash article's was created 15:02, 11 September 2001 -- PhantomSteve/talk|contribs\ 22:46, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

Further, the 2001 Anthrax attacks appear to originate from Timeline of the 2001 anthrax attacks in Florida, which has a start of 19:19, 18 October 2001 and an edit summary of (*Initial entry), which was merged with the main article at 19:17, 25 June 2009 - although there is also Cases of anthrax which has a start of 02:09, 26 October 2001 and an edit summary of (the three fatalities in separate category) which was merged with the main article at 02:30, 3 September 2003. None of the other redirects appear to be earlier than 2002 for their creation. This means either that the pre-14:28, 13 November 2001 version of 2001 anthrax attacks is one of the casualties of the UseModWiki era as detailed above, or the original article (which would be a redirect) has been deleted - but I would be very surprised if this was what happened, I'd go with the UseModWiki problems. -- PhantomSteve/talk|contribs\ 23:01, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

Could this cause any problems with CC-BY-SA's attribution requirement, if the contributors aren't all listed?----occono (talk) 19:02, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

Main Page

Whenever the Main Page got deleted, what other effects did that have? jc iindyysgvxc (my contributions) 22:49, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

Not a lot, as it was quickly undone. There was plenty of humility and understanding, as well as the creation of the Village stocks. Mind you, someone else once moved the main page... -- PhantomSteve/talk|contribs\ 23:11, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

And it's never happened since -- PhantomSteve/talk|contribs\ 23:17, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

But remember, never, ever attempt to divide by zero or that will be the end. – ukexpat (talk) 16:01, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

December 17

my home page has been hijacked by a wikipedia page

hi, for about 10 days, my home page has been stuck on the wikipedia page for curtis lemay. i've removed my cookies, and i've tried to reset my home page endless times. have you set something in my software?Oathlaw (talk) 00:26, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

What browser are you using? Intelligentsium 00:27, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

Helpme question at User talk:Scubeesnax

Resolved

 – Intelligentsium 03:34, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

I need wider input on a question pertaining to media files (particularly video), as neither I no one in IRC seems to know much about them. Thanks, Ks0stm ^(T•C•G) 00:44, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

As I said on that page, the file is in "MIME type: video/mp2t". According to Wikipedia:Creation_and_usage_of_media_files#Video, all video files must be in Theora. Intelligentsium 00:46, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

You might like to ask this question at Wikipedia talk:Creation and usage of media files. -- PhantomSteve/talk|contribs\ 01:29, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

RESOLVED! Thanks to your help, I was able to download the free ffmpeg2theora-0.25.exe software and convert my mpeg4 and flv files to ogv. This link, provided by Intelligentsium, also was invaluable Commons:Help:Converting video. The videos played perfectly first try! THANKS FOLKS!!! Eric. -- Scubeesnax (talk) 03:33, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

How do Videos/Movies work?

Resolved

 – Intelligentsium 03:34, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

Extended content

Here's the Wikipedia page onto which I am trying to put a video... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Lozano Here's the code for the video on this page... File:Pathfinders_to_Peace.ogg|right|thumb|The Shinnyo-en Foundation presents Maria Shriver with its 2009 "Pathfinders to Peace" Award. (NOTE: It's in the "[[ ]]" brackets) -- EXAMPLE: File:Pathfinders to Peace.ogg The Shinnyo-en Foundation presents Maria Shriver with its 2009 "Pathfinders to Peace" Award. (NOTE: it does not play, unless you download it) -- Here's the code for a video from Barack Obama's page... (it has a play button and plays perfectly!) -- File:20090124 WeeklyAddress.ogv|left|thumb|Obama presents his first weekly address as President of the United States, discussing the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. (NOTE: It's in the "[[ ]]" brackets) -- EXAMPLE: Obama presents his first weekly address as President of the United States, discussing the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. See how his video has a play button and a screen capture shot and mine is just a simple listing of the filename? Mine is in the right format, and it will actually play if you download it, but it's missing the play button and the screen shot image. It almost looks like the play button is part of the art that's uploaded at the time the movie is uploaded. Here's the master of Obama's movie... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:20090124_WeeklyAddress.ogv I'm very confused. Many, many videos are uploaded to Wikipedia everyday. They seem to work great. I thought ogg was just the updated standard of ogv format. Both are Theora. Do you know how I can find expert advice on this topic, ie. how to convert a file to the correct format for Wikipedia use? For your advice, I just want to say Thank You! and I appreciate your help. Eric. -- Scubeesnax (talk) 00:58, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

This question is a duplicate of the one directly above. Intelligentsium 01:01, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

RESOLVED! Thanks to your help, I was able to download the free ffmpeg2theora-0.25.exe software and convert my mpeg4 and flv files to ogv. This link, provided by Intelligentsium, also was invaluable Commons:Help:Converting video. The videos played perfectly first try! THANKS FOLKS!!! Eric. -- Scubeesnax (talk) 03:32, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

Where do I go to start this discussion?

Answered

 – discussion continuing at WP:ANI and WP:MCQ. – ukexpat (talk) 19:11, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

As I look through the various discussion pages that might deal with this I am just not sure where I should start so your help will be appreciated.

Today I noticed that User:Rama has begun downloading his own line drawings like this one File:Nigel Hawthorne.jpg of various actors into the infoboxes on their wikipages. Now I have been away from wikipedia editing for awhile and, even when I was here, I know that images are a tough item to understand as to what is okay and what is not.

I have the following concerns regarding these.

1. I know that the rules for what picture of an actor is okay for an infobox are specific (and sometimes contentious) and I don't know whether these meet those criteria.
2. They only look marginally like the actors that they are meant to portray (I know that this is in the eye of the beholder and others may disagree.) But this may cause confusion for other readers.
3. They seem to be promoting this editors work as an artist. I know that they are not signed but why would we use this artists drawings over anyone elses. So I fear that there may be a COI involved.

I don't know how much things may have changed or stayed the same since I have been away so I am only trying to find the right place to discuss my concerns. If these drawings are okay I will be happy to let them remain in the articles and apologize to Rama for causing any worry. Also, I am waiting until I know the proper venue to bring this discussion to before I inform Rama of it. In this I am trying to avoid any confusion for the editor about where they need to go to add their input. However, if you think I should inform them of this thread also just let me know and I will be happy to add a link to thei talk page to this thread. MarnetteD | Talk 02:32, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

Are the images being uploaded to en.wiki or to commons? that might influence the locus, as it were. You might also wish to refer to Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive585#Admin:Rama ignoring previous consensus, refusing to gain new consensus, where the same admin's interpretation of similar issues was discussed.

Besides the above (now archived) discussion (where, I should note, there was near unanimous consensus that there may have been problems with copying a photograph by drawing it; i.e. it isn't an original artwork, but a derivative one, but I digress), the appropriate noticeboards would either be WP:ANI, which is where that original discussion was, or perhaps Wikipedia:Media copyright questions, which is more specifically geared towards these problems. --Jayron32 02:53, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the input. I appreciate your help. MarnetteD | Talk 03:00, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

testicular torsion

what happen if the dead testicle is not removed post testicular torsion? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Reolmadrid (talk • contribs) 03:06, 17 December 2009 (UTC)
We cannot offer medical advice. Please see the medical disclaimer. Contact your General Practitioner. -- PhantomSteve/talk|contribs\ 03:08, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

I don't think this is necessarily a request for medical advice as much as simply a question about a medical condition. In any case, the point is moot; have you tried the Science section of Wikipedia's Reference Desk? They specialize in answering knowledge questions there; this help desk is only for questions about using Wikipedia. For your convenience, here is the link to post a question there: click here. I hope this helps. Intelligentsium 03:11, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

There is an article about Testicular torsion, have you checked that? -- PhantomSteve/talk|contribs\ 09:55, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

Image insertion in infobox Tabqa Dam

Resolved

Hi, I am working on the article on the Tabqa Dam. I want to insert a location map in the infobox, in much the same way as was done in this article: Berg River Dam. However, when I copy the lines to insert the image from that article into the Tabqa Dam article and change all variables to the map for Syria, I only get a blank space. This also happens when I leave the copied info as it is, i.e. with the South Africa image. Can someone help me with this? Zoeperkoe (talk) 03:57, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

It worked for me. That's a handy trick I will have to use with other power station articles. Thanks for calling my attention to it. --Teratornis (talk) 04:32, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

I tried exactly what you did, and it didn't show when I hit preview. That's one of the mysteries of computers and the internet, I assume. Anyway, thanks! Zoeperkoe (talk) 04:42, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

Are you sure you typed exactly what I did? You could be off by one or two characters and it might break. Templates are brittle. Consider testing templates in a user sandbox page (such as User:Zoeperkoe/Sandbox), so you can save your tests to allow Help desk helpers to see exactly what you are doing. Testing in articles proper is undesirable because you don't want to save something when it previews incorrectly, but this prevents anyone else from helping you find your mistake. There aren't as many mysteries with computers as one might initially think. --Teratornis (talk) 20:24, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

I'm pretty sure I did, and the map still blanks in preview (but not in normal view), and it seems to do that sometimes in other articles I edit as well. Somewhere, there must be something wrong structurally. I think I'll try the sandbox feature sometime in the future; have so far not yet worked with it but it may be helpful, as you say. Zoeperkoe (talk) 20:48, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

It might be a browser problem. See WP:BROWSER. The first step in solving a computer mystery is determining whether the problem is on our end or the server's end. This can be hard to tell if one edits Wikipedia alone, on one computer, with nobody else's computer as a frame of reference. --Teratornis (talk) 23:47, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

Permission to use information on Wikipedia

This is not a specific question about the use of this site. I have a webpage called ihaveic.com. I have been citing your webpage and others as well, and it occured to me that I should get information. I have used your website for definitions of certain things pertaining to Interstitial Cystitis. I have paraphrased all of the definitions, but have also made a link to have people click on it to come to your page for the exact definition and other information within the definition I may not have included. I realize I should have asked you first for permission and for that I apologize. So I am asking for permission now. If you do not grant it to me I will start over and get new definitions from another webpage. But you can visit my site, and go to my glossary, surgeries, medications and About pages and see that I state that all definitions come from wikipedia.com and if they don't I will say what website they are from. You can also check the link I have for the first word and make sure it goes directly to your website. I am very sorry for not asking before. This is the first blog website I have had. I've had over 3,000 visitors and now have 95 users. I am sorry I did not think of this sooner, I was worried about getting correct information out there. I do love your website and I am able to find so many definitions that are easy to read that it's the main one I use. So I would like to have an answer back. If I have done anything wrong I do apologize, as I said I'm new to this, and I just want to make sure I'm doing things right, again I do apologize for not asking permission in the first place. I hope it's ok that I used your page. I look forward to hearing from you. Thank you Cathy Belair —Preceding unsigned comment added by Catwoman100780 (talk • contribs) 05:07, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

All contributions of text used to create articles on Wikipedia is released under the CC-BY-SA 3.0 License and the GFDL, meaning you do not have to ask for permission from Wikipedia to use it; however, the copyrighted sources used are still owned by their respected owners. The terms of use from the Wikimedia Foundation state "You can re-use content from Wikimedia projects freely, with the exception of content that is used under "fair use" exemptions, or similar exemptions of copyright law." I would recommend that you verify the information that you are using from this site from your webpage is sourced and verifiable. After all, it is the encyclopedia anyone can edit.

Pease read http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Terms_of_Use under "Information for re-users" for further information. Kindly Calmer Waters 05:48, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

Deleting an article

How do I delete an article I have written? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Egyptiancotton (talk • contribs) 05:58, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

Deletion must be carried out by administrators, but if you want to request deletion on an article to which you have been the only substantial contributor, you can place this tag: {{db-author}} at the top of the page, and an admin will come and delete it. Gonzonoir (talk) 10:01, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

Automatic link creation policy

Is there any part of Wikipedia's link structure that is automatically created? Are there bots running to detect and link dates, people, locations, etc? Or is everything done manually?

This is an important question for me, because I use Wikipedia for computer science research. I've tried looking through the documentation on bots, but this is pretty messy.

Thanks, Dave —Preceding unsigned comment added by 130.217.240.32 (talk) 07:07, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

• There are bots delinking dates following a discussion, but I'm one of the many people not happy about that one. In general links are made manually because whether something is linked depends on context. - Mgm|^(talk) 13:29, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

we want to purchase flags reprasenting each country

N/z. Fahnen - Gartner Ges.m.b.H

Fax: <removed> Tel: <removed>

Dear Sir,

We believe this above mentioned company is specialized in making flags for representing countries.

If you have local representative in Sri Lanka may we have the contact to order some flags or any other convenient method of dealing with your company.

Thank you and looking forward to hear from you.

yours faithfully,

GALADARI HOTEL COLOMBO SRI LANKA.

e-mail: <removed> website: <removed> Tele. <removed> —Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.115.14.114 (talk) 07:16, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

Hello. I suspect, based on your question, that you found one of our roughly three million articles, and thought that we were directly 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 a help desk for asking questions related to using the encyclopedia. Thus, we have no inside track on the subject of your question. You can, however, search our vast catalogue of articles by typing a subject into the search field on the left hand side of your screen. If 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. Bencherlite^Talk 09:47, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

I didn't find information about a town here in WV = Ronceverte ? Help?

I am looking for information about a town here in WV = Ronceverte all I found was << ==R==

• Rainelle
• Ravenswood
• Reedsville
• Reedy
• Rhodell
• Ridgeley
• Ripley
• Rivesville
• Rowlesburg
• Rupert>>

>>

WHAT ABOUT The Town Of Ronceverte? It's near the Big WV State Fairgrounds in Fairlea? It's in Greenbrier County beside the Greenbrier River a few miles from Lewisburg, WV. From it not being here, I was worried that it had become a Ghost Town, LOL Seriously, what do I do yo get you to add it? I just Spoke to the WV Convention & Visitors' Bureau to confirm the Spelling above. FYI: —Preceding unsigned comment added by 209.234.26.162 (talk) 15:26, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

The article is at Ronceverte, West Virginia - were you browsing a list? Do you remember what the list title was? A link to the Ronceverte article may need to be added there. Gonzonoir (talk) 15:29, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

List of towns in West Virginia perhaps? --AndrewHowse (talk) 15:37, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

How obscure :) Have added Ronceverte, West Virginia, to that list. Gonzonoir (talk) 15:39, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

Hold on, it's a city. See ... wait for it ... List of cities in West Virginia ! --AndrewHowse (talk) 15:41, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

Please do not include contact details in your questions. We are unable to provide answers by any off-wiki medium and this page is highly visible across the internet. The details have been removed, but if you wish for them to be permanently removed from the page history, email this address. Gonzonoir (talk) 15:32, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

In all seriousness, does anyone happen to know of a better way to provide the "See also" functionality on pages such as these? The {{CompactTOC}} series doesn't appear to include any "See also" sections. {{distinguish}} doesn't quite do it either. --AndrewHowse (talk) 16:30, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

Not clear what you are looking for, perhaps {{further}} or {{details}}? LeadSongDog come howl 16:59, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

Thanks; those led me to {{See also}} which I think might work. --AndrewHowse (talk) 17:18, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

Searching within an article

Dear Wikipedia Reference Desk: Please be so kind as to tell me how to search within an article for a specific term or word. Thank you.17:11, 17 December 2009 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.238.22.5 (talk)

Most browsers have a search function, often found at Ctrl-F. If you specify which browser you use, we could be more specific, or you could try the Reference Desk at WP:RD. --AndrewHowse (talk) 17:18, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

Dumb Licensing Question

It's a mistake that File:Evolution_of_Homer.jpg is listed as both Fair Use and CC-BY-SA, right?----occono (talk) 18:52, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

Yes, that's a mistake. It was changed by 190.31.52.226 with this edit without any explanation. I have reverted the page to the original license tag. --Mysdaao ^talk 18:59, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

Wiki Foretold?

Wiki,

I recently read this passage by English author Douglas Adams, in his book The Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy, which clearly foretold Wikipedia.

Maybe it is time to put the words DONT PANIC on your front page? What do you think?

"In many of the more relaxed civilizations ... the Hitchiker's Guide has already supplanted the great Encyclopaedia Galactica as the standard repository of all knowledge and wisdom, for though it has many omissions and contains much that is apocryphal, or at least wildly inaccurate, it scores over the older, more pedestrian work in two important respects. First, it is [slightly] cheaper, and secondly it has the words DONT PANIC inscribed in large friendly letters on its cover."

Douglas Adams, The Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy —Preceding unsigned comment added by 212.183.140.33 (talk) 19:05, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

I don't think the foretelling is clear, since the name is wrong for starters. If you want to change the Main Page, read all the links under WP:EIW#Main - at which point you will probably be hard-pressed not to panic. Discussing this on the Help desk is pointless, it's like some passengers on a great ocean liner discussing a change of course. This isn't where those decisions get made. Incidentally, the Douglas Adams fans on Wikipedia congregate at Wikipedia:WikiProject Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. --Teratornis (talk) 20:18, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

You're far from the first person to point out the connection...----occono (talk) 22:13, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

When is the appropriate time to use strikeout?

Resolved

 – Mysdaao ^talk 19:50, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

Civic Cat (talk) 19:14, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

It could be used on talk pages to revise your comments. Or, if you are on the talk page of an article, policy, or guideline, you could use it to suggest revisions to the article, policy, or guideline. --Jc3s5h (talk) 19:23, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

Is it appropriate to use strikethrough when editing your own comments on talk pages. It is better not to modify your own previous comments at all because it can be confusing. But if you decide to do this, use strikethrough using the guidelines at WP:REDACT. You should never modify others' comments on talk pages, even with this method. --Mysdaao ^talk 19:26, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

Thanks.
:-D
Civic Cat (talk) 19:47, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

You're welcome! --Mysdaao ^talk 19:50, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

In keeping with WP:IAR, I think it's OK to edit the talk page comments of a new user when, for example, they include severe format errors that clearly did not have the result the new user was trying to achieve, and/or when format errors degrade the readability of the comments. But always mention what you did, in your follow-up content. And never change anyone's meaning. That's just my opinion. If a talk page comment is so messed up that it wastes the time of other users, then fixing the format would advance the project. --Teratornis (talk) 20:13, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

Webfetti

I keep getting redirected to a Webfetti when I click links to your site.

Its annoying and intrusive. How can I get rid of this? I have run Spy-Bot Search and Destroy. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.68.248.46 (talk) 19:27, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

If you are using Google or another search engine and find links to Wikipedia that take you to unrelated sites, then you have a virus or other malware. Consult a professional or ask at Wikipedia:Reference desk/Computing. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 19:58, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

And see Pharming. --Teratornis (talk) 20:07, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

Using the "search" function on your home page

re: using your "search" page...under the place where you enter your search terms, there are 2 links. One is labeled "search", and the other is labeled "go". What's the difference if I use one or the other? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.184.31.1 (talk) 19:53, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

If you click "Go" it will go directly to a page with the title you entered, if one exists. If it does not exist, it will load a list of pages with the search term entered. If you press "Search" it will load a list of pages with the search term, whether or not a page with that title exists. More information on this can be read at Wikipedia:Searching. --Mysdaao ^talk 20:02, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

Profile

why was my profile deleted? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.5.11.39 (talk) 20:51, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia doesn't really use the term profile. Could you describe the problem you're seeing in a bit more detail please? --AndrewHowse (talk) 21:10, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

If the question is about a biographical article of which the IP user is the subject, the questioner should read WP:WWMPD, WP:BIO, and the links under WP:EIW#Bio. To expand on the first reply, on Wikipedia we generally do not use the word "profile" to refer to any of the usual suspects:

• Biographical articles.
• User pages.
• Your user preferences.
• Your account.

Please clarify what you mean by "profile". --Teratornis (talk) 23:42, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

Vandalism

What is the longest time a vandalism has lasted on this site? jc iindyysgvxc (my contributions) 21:47, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

The information isn't really tracked and thus the "longest duration" of vandalism is probably unknown. Sorry. TNXMan 21:52, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

Not sure about the longest, but the most famous persistent vandalism was The Upper Peninula War article, which was an elaborate (and well done) long-lived hoax. -- Bfigura ^(talk) 21:53, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

It was proposed for deletion after 5 days with a text [8] making it clear that it was probably made up. It took another 8 days before it was deleted. PrimeHunter (talk) 23:07, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

Was that all? I thought I had read on BJAODN that it was up longer than that. Oh well. -- Bfigura ^(talk) 23:11, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Baldock Beer Disaster is about a hoax which lasted 18 months before being tagged as suspect, and deleted a month later. It was in the main page Did you know section [9] when it was created in November 2005. The article was deleted at the title "Baldock Beer Disaster" without being userfied but copies can still be found in mirrors of Wikipedia. Wikipedia has a tradition of putting authentic but strange sounding articles on the main page on April Fools' Day. Ironically, at Wikipedia:April Fool's Main Page/Featured Article/Archive 2007#Boston molasses disaster the article was mentioned in this connection as an article readers might falsely think was a hoax! PrimeHunter (talk) 00:20, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

See also User:Shii/Hoaxes. PrimeHunter (talk) 00:50, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

The most indepth hoax I can remember was the Estonia history hoax from a few years ago. SOmeone invented a complete hoax history of a nation called "Estland" or something like that; it was very well done, and was hard to track down. The entire mess covered dozens of articles, lasted some many months, and infected much of the legitimate articles on Estonian and Baltic history in general. It was an ugly mess. this search and this AFD cover some of the details. Oddly, Shii's list of notable hoaxes has not covered this one, but in terms of its depth it was quite impressive. The Principality of Estland article lasted at least 11 months before being deleted; there may have been parts of the hoax which lasted longer than that. --Jayron32 04:26, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

Access to the wikitable sortable variable?

I am interested in having access to the wikitable sortable variables. When a sortable table is sorted by the 3rd column, for example, I want to find the variable "3" by asking a question: "if(sorted=3)..."
I put an example here: Help_talk:Sorting#Conditional_formating_based_on_sort_parameter.3F Thanks Jrkenti (talk) 21:57, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

I'm not aware of anything that would allow you to do this - and the Help talk page you put your query on is the best place to do this. My only advice would be to find a way of doing this in HTML (I can't think of a way) - then the Wikipedia table experts might be able to work out a wiki markup equivalent. -- PhantomSteve/talk|contribs\ 22:26, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

This is not possible. you cannot "script" an article. Reasons for this are page load, page complexity and security issues. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 23:57, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

Book won't download

I've created User:Nyttend/Books/Pennsylvania NRHP and tried to download it, but every time I try I get a message of "This file is damaged and cannot be repaired". Clicking the [ PDF ] button works fine — I get the "Rendering finished" page without difficulty — but once I'm at that page and click "Download the file to your computer", it runs for quite a while (without showing anything but a white screen) before giving me the failure message. Would someone else try it and see if the download works? I've created and downloaded a couple of other books today without any problems. Nyttend (talk) 23:15, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

I also get an error, "There was an error when downloading the file: Failed writing body (384 != 1448)". I'm not sure what the issue is, but perhaps try compiling the book again?  fetchcomms☛ 02:47, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

December 18

Who's Dated Who

Is Who's Dated Who considered a reliable source for a WP article? I've poked about but can't find anything that discusses it. (please don't usher me off to some talk page of some WP guideline, I've done that before for copyrights and images questions, only to have my question sit for months before it gets a response.) Thanks, Dismas|^(talk) 00:18, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

Looks to me more like a blog or gossip site, both of which fail RS.  fetchcomms☛ 00:30, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

I agree with Fetchcomms, this is a gossip site (with blog-style comments from users). There is also the fact that they also say Whilst every care has been taken in its preparation, WhosDatedWho.com does not make any warranties nor representations as to its accuracy or reliability.. This is partly a legal thing ("Hey, we *did* say that it may not be accurate or reliable, don't sue us!"), but in any case, the site does not seem to be anything more than a source of gossip. -- PhantomSteve/talk|contribs\ 01:04, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

Thank you! Dismas|^(talk) 01:16, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

Direct links to other Wikipedias

I used to know how to do this simple thing, but have forgotten how. I want to link directly to an article in another Wikipedia, withouth having to go through the http:// stuff. The article in question is here. Who can help? Lou Sander (talk) 00:46, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

Like this: Wikipedia. Dismas|^(talk) 00:54, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

(edit conflict)[[:ru:Метод Анализа Иерархий]] gives ru:Метод Анализа Иерархий. See more at Help:Interlanguage links. PrimeHunter (talk) 00:55, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

Santa Ana River 1938 flood image

This image is a very famous image taken of the Santa Ana River in flood in 1938. I'm not sure where it came from but it appears on multiple websites and publications. I think it would really be of value for users of Wikipedia to be able to see the image and understand the magnitude of the floods. Would it be OK for fair use on Wikipedia? Shannon^talk _contribs 01:40, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

If it doesn't have a source, then probably not. However, if the copyright has expired (I'm not very familiar with copyright laws, unfortunately, so I don't know if the time is 75 years or something different), it would most likely be suitable for use here.  fetchcomms☛ 02:38, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

75 years after the artist's death in the U.S., if the photo is a U.S. source then also in all countries with the rule of the shorter term, can be up to 99 or 100 in countries without the rule of the shorter term (or a non-U.S. source). However, if it is a government work then it is almost always public domain. You say "it appears on multiple websites and publications", which may mean it is under a fairly liberal licence. That may be something worth investigating, if you have the time. Intelligentsium 02:58, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

I think it was taken by a Los Angeles Times reporter sometime in March 1938. Shannon^talk _contribs 03:57, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

If that is the case, it is probably still under copyright. There is a small chance that a valid fair use claim could be made if the photo was used to illustrate an article or section which directly discussed, in some detail, the 1938 flood directly; since no one can go back in time and make a copyright-free photo from said flood, only a non-free picture could be used. However, WP:IUP and WP:NFC and WP:NFCC policies and guidelines probably would not allow its use unless the actual historical event were being discussed alongside its use. --Jayron32 04:14, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

Yes, I'm intending to use it on the Santa Ana River page, where the actual flood is being described. Shannon^talk _contribs 05:28, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

Complete copy-paste in Agriculture in Syria

Hi, The article Agriculture in Syria is almost entirely if not completely copy-pasted (I checked 5-6 paragraphs) from [10]. The article does mention at the end that it incorporates public domain material, but I can't imagine that this is allowed. Is this a speedy deletion, or should it be discussed somewhere? I've not seen this kind of copying before, so I don't know for sure what to do. Zoeperkoe (talk) 03:10, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

While paraphrasing is always preferable, copying public domain material for an article about an appropriate subject is permitted. However, this depends on whether or not the source is actually public domain. If you have doubts as to the validity of the PD-claim, see WP:COPYVIO. Intelligentsium 03:16, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

The original text seems indeed to be in the public domain, so it should be ok, then. Nevertheless, it's not good practice, I would say. Thanks, anyway. Zoeperkoe (talk) 03:33, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

donating problem urgent

While I was trying to donate to wikimedia, after filling in my credit card information, I got a message saying that said information wasn't processing correctly. I tried two more times and got the same message before giving up. The next day (that is today) I checked my bank statement and found that the charge had actually gone through three times. I stopped payment on two of the transactions, and am continuing to donate the original amount, but I thought I should drop a line to let you know this was happening. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.27.242.7 (talk) 03:35, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

Trying to stop a payment on a credit card is usually impossible, Good luck! South Bay (talk) 04:37, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

If neede, you can contact the Foundation and I'm sure they will be willing to help solve the problem. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 13:17, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

Name & Info Change

Hello, You have me listed as Fred McQueen and I'd like to change that to my legal name, which I use now, and also make changes to other personel info on that page, some of which I want deleted, how can I do that without cluebot(?) changing it back again ? Thanks, Fred Spiker <contact info redacted>—Preceding unsigned comment added by Elwood41 (talk • contribs) 03:46, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

If you have a link to a reliable source which can be used to verify your request, we can make that change. We need to confirm the claims your making, and we would need that confirmation to be availible in a published, reliable source. If you can provide us with a link or direct us to that information in a publicly availible source, we would gladly make the change for you. --Jayron32 04:10, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

Also, be aware that our articles are always under the name by which the subject is most commonly known; so if you are best known as Fred McQueen and have changed to Fred Spiker, but most people still know you as McQueen, that's where the article is going to stay (though we could create a redirect from the Spiker name as well). --Orange Mike | Talk 13:34, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

Present/Past Tense

An article I edited frequently was for a concert tour. The tour wrapped up and so now it reflects it as past tense. However, can the summary of the actual concert stay in present tense? I see not rule stating it can't. --Shadow (talk) 05:31, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

To add on, I mean that I feel that despite the tour being over, the summary of the actual concert should remain present tense. --Shadow (talk) 05:37, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

I can't find any policy or guideline on this, the closest appears to be WP:TENSE which is about fiction, but says Conversely, discussion of history is usually written in the past tense and thus 'fictional history' may be presented in that way as well.. My opinion is that it should be in the past tense, as the tour is finished. If you are talking about The Circus Starring: Britney Spears, the lead section is in the past tense and makes sense - I'm not sure how putting it in the present tense would make sense? However, the best place to discuss this might be on the article's talk page. -- PhantomSteve/talk|contribs\ 08:16, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

Not the lead section, of course that should remain in the past tense. I mean the synopsis of the actual concert. I think it looks kind of bad with the summary of the actual concert in past tense and believe it should be in present tense. --Shadow (talk) 14:05, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

Having read it again, I think it reads ok in the past tense. To be honest, I think if it was written in the present tense it would be confusing - it's something that happened in the past. At the moment, it begins The show was mainly divided into four acts with different themes: The Circus, House of Fun (Anything Goes), Freakshow-Peepshow, Electro Circ and ended with the encore. It began with "Welcome to the Circus", a video introduction featuring Perez Hilton as Queen Elizabeth I, welcoming the audience to the circus...

I think if it was The show is mainly divided into four acts with different themes: The Circus, House of Fun (Anything Goes), Freakshow-Peepshow, Electro Circ and ends with the encore. It begins with "Welcome to the Circus", a video introduction featuring Perez Hilton as Queen Elizabeth I, welcoming the audience to the circus would make it sound like it is happening now, whereas it is a past event. -- PhantomSteve/talk|contribs\ 14:14, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

Persuasive Essay

I have written a five-paragraph persuasive essay of why my school system should unblock Wikipedia. If I censor the name of my school system, am I allowed to post it, and if so, where? --LimitOfCalm (talk) 07:41, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

We don't allow essays in the main namespace (that's we all the normal articles go, such as Reed and Laugh), what you could do is post it here: Wikipedia:Why school's shouldn't block wikipedia, where it will be in the project namespace (like Wikipedia:Wikipedia should be fun or Wikipedia:WikiGoon), from there anyone on the project will then be able to edit it, should they so wish. You should make sure that the essay is in reference to school's in general, not to yours specifically. Please ask below if you have further questions.

Kind regards, Spitfire^Tally-ho! 07:47, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

I would suggest that you start off with it in your user space (for example, User:LimitOfCalm/Why school's shouldn't block wikipedia) so that you can work on it first - when it is ready, come back here and ask us to have a look at it - we can help get it tidied up, etc, so that it is ready for going onto the project namespace as an essay (as per Spitfire's excellent suggestion). -- PhantomSteve/talk|contribs\ 08:20, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

Pedant's corner: it should be User:LimitOfCalm/Why schools shouldn't block wikipedia :) Gonzonoir (talk) 10:09, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

{{facepalm}} I wouldn't normally make such a silly mistake - I blame it on both the lack of coffee at the time, and the fact that I copy-pasted from Spitfire's comment! -- PhantomSteve/talk|contribs\ 11:38, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

I, uh, did it on purpose to catch you out? Spitfire^Tally-ho! 12:29, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

Oh, Spitfire - didn't see you there! No, I didn't try to cast any blame in your direction, honest, Guv'nor! -- PhantomSteve/talk|contribs\ 13:49, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

Some people use terms like unblock about different things and I'm not sure whether the issue is that your school does not allow reading of Wikipedia, or editing of Wikipedia, or use of Wikipedia as a source, or that Wikipedia does not allow editing by computers (IP addresses) on your school, or something else. This may matter for the most appropriate thing to do with your essay, for example how to name it. In some countries a decision may have been made above the school outside their control. PrimeHunter (talk) 14:25, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

Hitler

Why oh Why does the page on Hitler need protecting. The six million Jews and many others he murdered were not protected. DISCUSTING. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Hughey1000 (talk • contribs) 09:31, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

The page needs protecting because of the persistent vandalism that happens to the page. Editors may have opinions on the man, but Wikipedia does not. Any page which has a lot of vandalism will be protected, whether it is about Hitler or about Jesus. -- PhantomSteve/talk|contribs\ 09:51, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

• You're letting your feelings about the person get in the way. What is being protected here is the article, a piece of text, not the person himself, so the comparison in your original statement is like comparing apples and elephants; two totally different things. - Mgm|^(talk) 11:43, 18 December 2009 (UTC)
  • Here are some examples of edits that are clearly unhelpful: [11] [12] [13] [14] [15] [16] [17] [18] [19] The number of these is a problem, since they distract from serious work on the article. Hans Adler 12:11, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

cryptographic hash

how do I use my "secret string" to make a hash? Paperfork ♠ 12:12, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

You can use an online service like this one. Regards SoWhy 12:32, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

Is my article ready?

Hallo everybody,

as suggested I put more references and notes on my article, to make it more "reliable". I also created a sub-page, as suggeted. Could someobne tell me please if now it could be published? Thanks

Cipresso (talk) 12:39, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

You are referring to User:Cipresso/FEM - European Federation of Materials Handling, I presume? I had a quick look, but I notice that all the references appear to be trade-related. Are there any references which come from totally independent sources (like national/international media?) When I did a Google News Search on "European Federation of Materials Handling", all the references I could find were trade magazines. Google Scholar and Google Books didn't really yield much either - basically minor mentions (even Factory Planning Manual By Michael Schenk, Siegfried Wirth, Egon Müller only says FEM recommendations (FEM) in their list of available guidelines for building). I'm really not sure that it meets Wikipedia's criteria for inclusion. -- PhantomSteve/talk|contribs\ 13:22, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

FEM is a trade association so this may explain why some references are trade related. Although this does not mean that these sources are necessarily biased, among the reference are also the European Commission or the European Committee for Standardisation, which are both very much independent sources. FEM is a not-for-profit body such as other European trade associations, such as BusinessEurope or Orgalime, which are referred in Wikipedia as “Business Organizations”. We are unsure of what else we can provide to meet your criteria for inclusion but we are ready to assist in the best way we can. 85.118.209.145 (talk) 15:00, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

Other stuff exists is usually not a helpful argument. In any event, if the organisation is notable, presumably there has been significant coverage in the media? – ukexpat (talk) 15:06, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

Function to either hide the left sidebar or increase textsize on only the content article?

When viewing wikipedia articles, if I need to increase the text size, then as both the text in the left sidebar and the text in the article gets bigger, the left sidebar consumes too much space on the webpage on the cost of the article's space. Therefore I think it would be great if there was either a function to turn the left sidebar's visibility on and off, so the article consumes the full page space, or, a function to only zoom the article's text size.

Fixing something like this will probably help all of the wikipedia visitors who needs to increase the text size in order to be able to read the text.

Does Wikipedia staff/developers think this is a good feature and that they will try to implement it? Or does it allready exist a good sollution to the described problem?

Have a good christmas and a happy new year!

213.89.146.219 (talk) 14:15, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

Logged in users can choose between different skins and many other things. Some skins have no sidebar but show some links at the top or bottom instead, for example looking like http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page?useskin=chick. Without logging in you can manually add ?useskin=chick to url's but having to do that is probably annoying. PrimeHunter (talk) 14:35, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

The Chick, MySkin, and Nostalgia skins don't have a left sidebar. There are also some user scripts that have been written that move the sidebar, like bottomSidebar and hidePane. Both options require an account, and there are other benefits to creating an account too. --Mysdaao ^talk 14:49, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

Weird result from coding

Why does this code: {{ws|[[s:ar:تهذيب التهذيب:مطبوع|''Tahdhib al-Tahdhib'']]|}} which produces: Tahdhib al-Tahdhib. produce a period as part of it when appearing on a page? I tried to debug but... Supertouch (talk) 14:43, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

The period is part of the code in the template {{ws}}. It is intended to be used as a reference, like in the References section at the bottom of Pope Sabinian, and references normally have a period at the end (see Wikipedia:Citing sources/example style). --Mysdaao ^talk 14:57, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

Will I regret creating an account from a non-static IP?

I'm on dial-up. My IP changes each time I connect, and sometimes I get other people's messages when I visit wikipedia. (The current IP I'm posting this from appears to have made an edit to a biography of a Turkish professor.) Suppose I create an account, and do all kinds of great stuff and get really comfortable with it, and then somebody using one of the IPs I was previously assigned goes and does some vandalism? Or suppose I get accused of sockpuppetry, maybe at a future time when I change to cable and a new ISP? I'd like an account, and of course I lose nothing if it goes wrong, but I sense hazards and potential disappointment. 81.131.31.130 (talk) 14:59, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

Creating an account has significant advantages over editing "anonymously", see Wikipedia:Why create an account?. – ukexpat (talk) 15:08, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

(edit conflict) One of the advantages of having an account is that it is no longer publicaly linked to your IP. If one of your old IPs vandalises, it won't be linked to you. Of course, if it was to be you (speaking hyperthetically of course!), although an editor or admin couldn't link it to you, a checkuser could. If it wasn't you, then the checkuser would be able to see that your account wasn't using that IP. If you were to be accused of sockpuppetry, a checkuser would be able to see what IPs you were using around the time, and what IPs the sockpuppet(s) used, and see if they are connected - they wouldn't think "Oh, look, there's an IP they used 5 months ago, it must be them!". The fact that both you and they may have been using a BT OPENWORLD connection (I get that through the above IP) does not mean that you will be accused of being same person - although a checkuser would generally be able to work out if the two are the same person by the usage history! I think it would be a good idea for you to get an account - as I don't think you'll have any of these problems - just remember that if you 'behave' and do nothing wrong, you have nothing to worry about! -- PhantomSteve/talk|contribs\ 15:16, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

Is there a slight risk that a vandal uses an IP I got assigned last week, and like me uses the latest (well OK the 3.0 variety) Firefox on XP, and I get my account banned (or something) for it? Or will it be recognised by the checkuser that the IP range in question is randomly assigned and therefore I can't be held responsible without further evidence? 81.131.31.130 (talk) 15:28, 18 December 2009 (UTC)