Wikipedia:Help desk

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December 5

Dealing with a dead link

I have encountered a dead link at the references section of the article named Volume Shadow Copy Service. What should I do when I encounter a dead link? Just delete the dead link or report it. (If I should report it, can you inform me how to do it.)

Mkartan 00:18, 5 December 2006 (UTC)mkartan

Please see Wikipedia:External links#What can be done with a dead external link. -- Rick Block (talk) 01:35, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

3RR in regards to speedies

If a user reverts a speedy deletion tag, and I have reverted it twice, can I revert it again without violating WP:3RR? --Wooty Woot? contribs 01:38, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Yes. Reverts of simple vandalism are not amenable to 3RR. You can revert a vandalizing edit 100 times and never transgress 3RR. See the entry for Avoidant vandalism at Wikipedia:Vandalism#Types of vandalism. Note that removing speedy tags is often the province of new users. Give them the benefit of the doubt, and don't forget to warn them with {{drmspeedy}} and subsequent warnings in that series. Of course, if the tag is improper in the first place, i.e., the article meets no criteria for speedy deletion, in that case the removal (especially with an explanatory edit summary) would not be vandalism (but that's just common sense).--Fuhghettaboutit 01:56, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

though generally in such cases use of the {{hangon}} template is more appropriate, with a note on the talk page about the dispute. GeeJo ^(t)⁄_(c) • 20:16, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

font size

I m not able to incresase the font size of the text on the wikipedia results page and the font size which apears to me is too small

Click View -> Text Size -> Larger. --Wooty Woot? contribs 02:22, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

In most Windows browsers, you can also hold down "Control" and roll back the scroll wheel to increase text size. GeeJo ^(t)⁄_(c) • 20:16, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

References/Page Numbers

I'm doing a lot of edits to the Gordon Ramsay article using his biography. Adding quotes and other information. Would like to cite page numbers, but using the ref tag, don't know how to put numbers in with each instance. Do I need to change over to Harvard style? There are already quite a few references using the ref tag. Jmdustin 02:41, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

I'm not sure if you've already tried it, but you might like to look at Wikipedia:Citing Sources. It's a bit weighty, but it probably has what you're lokoing for. Patstuart^{(talk)(contribs)} 06:58, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Deleting My Account

How do I delete my user account? Yayacaca 03:03, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

impossible because of legal reasons with the GFDL. Cbrown1023 03:05, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

see WP:USERNAME#Deleting_your_user_account for more info... Cbrown1023 03:06, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Merging History

It appears that the old "copy/paste" manuver was used to fix the redirected page Batou, with all history up to and including the first such move still located on the redirected page Buttetsu Bateau. Could someone please merge these two histories togather on the Batou page? 129.108.96.190 05:13, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Done. See Wikipedia:How to fix cut and paste moves. -Patstuart^{(talk)(contribs)} 06:48, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

hi I'm <3 == KTM SCHEDULE TO KLUANG ==

WHAT IS THE KTM SCHEDULE TO KLUANG?

I'm sorry, I've done a search on both Wikipedia and Google, and I can't say I know what you're referring to. Please, it would help if you could be more specific. -Patstuart^{(talk)(contribs)} 06:46, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

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

If you are looking for information about Keretapi Tanah Melayu trains to Kluang, then try http://www.ktmb.com.my/ PrimeHunter 15:47, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

How'd you find that Hunter? I couldn't find a thing! Patstuart^{(talk)(contribs)} 15:53, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

I tried http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=ktm+kluang and found out what KTM and Kluang was. PrimeHunter 15:58, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Proper format?

I think I saw *somewhere* a listing of the proper format for listing songs, records, books, etc in an article, ie, what gets italics vs what gets underlines, etc. However, I've looked in every place I can think of, but I can't find it! Does such a thing actually exist? (I'm trying to wikify Carlos Salzedo.) Thanks!--Mpwrmnt 07:27, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

WP:MOS would be a good starting point. Viridae^Talk 07:28, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Ah, yes! That's good. I must have skipped over it in my frustration. It IS possible to get lost around here when you're new, so I appreciate your help! Thank you! --Mpwrmnt 08:55, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Moving a Subpage

I recently was able to get my username changed. I succeeded in moving my user and talk pages over to my new username, but I had a subpage on my old user page which didn't come with it. Is it just gone, or it there a way to retrieve it? I can't figure out how to get TO it to move it, since my old user page is just a redirect now. Thanks! --Mpwrmnt 09:04, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

It's not gone; probably the easiest way to find it is to go to your contributions (click the 'my contributions' link in the top-right of the screen) and filter them to User space. When you find the subpage, click on its name, and you'll be taken to the page; you can then move it to your new userspace (by using the 'move' tab and changing the username in its name). --ais523 09:41, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Or go to Special:Prefixindex, select the "User" namespace, type in your old user name, and click go: there you are. Lupo 09:50, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Wow! Thank you both! That was easy! I *like* the Help Desk! You kids are great! Thanks, --Mpwrmnt 10:05, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

You're welcome. It's been quite a while since the last time anyone called me "kid". :-) Lupo 11:12, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Special:Filepath

What exactly is this for? My guess is something to do with files; so I type in Garment.jpg and all i get is the saeme page.

It's meant to discover the filename on the image servers for an image based on its name within Wikipedia, but I was trying to get it to work a while ago and couldn't. --ais523 09:38, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Type Special:Filepath/Garment.jpg. It doesn't link you to the image description page (which is the default behavior of MediaWiki) but rather to the image itself. Titoxd^(?!?) 19:30, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

chlorination

procedure of chlorination of fruits and vegetables before processing?

Have you tried Wikipedia's Reference Desk? They specialize in knowledge questions, and will try to answer any question in the universe (except how to use Wikipedia, since that's what this Help Desk is for). Just follow the link, select the relevant section, and ask away. I hope this helps. — Lost^(talk) 10:14, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

ARTICLES

Where do I get to a new page to start my article?

Just type the name of the article in the search bar. If it already exists, the article will appear. If it does not exist, you will be given an option to create the article. — Lost^(talk) 10:14, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

• Try reading WP:VFAQ. - Mgm|^(talk) 10:49, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Also see Help:Starting a new page- 24.20.69.240 03:57, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

edits to since deleted articles

Say I add a db-bio tag or something similar to an article, and it gets deleted after (because of the tag). I notice that my edit disappears from my contributions list, but is that edit still counted in my "edit count"? Thanks.

--wj32 ^{talk | contribs} 10:36, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

• Most, if not all, edit counter tools are based on your contributions list. If your edit gets deleted, it won't be counted. - Mgm|^(talk) 10:50, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Doubt it. As I understand it the scripts get your edit count from your contributions list, so theres is no way they could count anything from deleted articles. Viridae^Talk 10:51, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

I will be quick to say that is true, if it is an article that you have edited and it gets deleted the edit counter doesn't pick up the edit. Also you will notice in your contribs you will see that the contrib to the deleted article is gone. Also don't let this stop you from patrolling new pages as we need many people to do this task! — Seadog (Talk) 18:35, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

It is impossible to figure out directly the number of deleted edits; they are not listed in Special:Contributions because they are listed in the Archive table instead of the Text table. As a result, the SQL query that the contributions list uses does not reach them. Be warned, though, that this behavior is expected to change very soon in the future. Currently, the only way to see them is to make an SQL query directly via the Toolserver, but that is not available in the English Wikipedia, as the copy of the enwiki database is completely b0rked. Titoxd^(?!?) 19:28, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Titoxd is hinting at the plans for a new Special:Deletedcontribs that are being cooked up at the moment, but it would be visible to admins only. --ais523 09:35, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

I wasn't going to stop new page patrolling just because it doesn't count in my edit counts! :D --wj32 ^{talk | contribs} 09:33, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

It used to be that Kate's (and maybe interiot's Kate wannabe?) edit counter tools picked up the number of deleted edits, but the feature was removed from the tool after a discussion on the mailing list (or IRC?). GeeJo ^(t)⁄_(c) • 20:19, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

VFD (I think thats what its called)

How do you set a page up for deletion?

That depends on what sort of page. Eeverything: WP:CSD. Articles only: WP:AFD, WP:PROD. Templates: WP:TFD. Categories: WP:CFD. Redirects: WP:RFD. Misc. pages: WP:MFD. All the instructions are on those pages, please read them first - paticuarly the speedy ones, as they are the most stringent. Viridae^Talk 11:20, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

• VFD is the old name for AFD. It was renamed to discourage a voting mentality. -Mgm|^(talk) 11:37, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

If you're interested in the AfD process, AfD in 3 steps is a useful guide to help you get started. --ais523 11:44, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

creating my userpage

i am a new user . how do i create my userpage?

Click on your username in the top-right of the screen (just to the left of 'my talk'). You can also use this link: Special:Mypage. --ais523 13:32, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

edit external links

I would like to add a link to Malerie Marder's entry: www.gvdgallery.com (Greenberg Van Doren Gallery); how do I go about this? I got confused when I hit edit...

Thanks!

Wikipedia:Introduction will teach you the basics about how to edit pages; just copying the style of the other links there should produce a reasonable appearance for the external-link entry. You may want to read Wikipedia:External links to make sure the link is appropriate for the article. --ais523 16:05, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Question About Removing Links on other programs

hi

when i am copying and pasteing information from example the queen page and when i put it on my school coursework on microsoft publisher i cant get away the link colours that show the information is from the internet how do i fix this please reply thanks 86.12.238.124 18:14, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

I've encountered the same problem. Just backspace and retype it, I found it best. Also, bear in mind that direct copies, though allowed by the licensing of Wikipedia, may be frowned upon by your teacher/professor. DoomsDay349 18:20, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Yeah that would be definitely frowned upon your teacher (don't do it!). Cheers. — Seadog (Talk) 18:23, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

(ack, stop edit conflicting!)Go to edit->paste special->unformatted text. And he's right, don't plagiarize your paper by copying from Wikipedia. It's not only dishonest, it's just a bad idea. -Patstuart^{(talk)(contribs)} 18:24, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Another way to avoid having the formatting copied by MS Word is to paste the text into notepad, then select it in notepad and copy it. This is a workaround to remove the formatting, insofar as you believe the formatting being there in the first place is a bad thing. BigNate37_(T) 18:50, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Though I believe it's legal. Still, don't. DoomsDay349 18:48, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Wait a minute if I am not mistaken plagiarism of any kind is illegal isn't it? — Seadog (Talk) 19:32, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Depends on the licensing - plagurising public domain stuff isn't illegal (although it can get you cited for academic dishonesty) - and plagerising Wikipedia is the easiest way to get caught. In an astronomy 101 course we caught about 40 students plagerising Wikipedia because they all copied a fairly nonsensical sentence - since everyone said the same thing that didn't make sense, we applied google directly, and busted the whole lot. WilyD 19:46, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Heh. Nice. Some students don't believe that professors do read and edit Wikipedia... and if you end up copying their words, they are quite likely to catch you in the act. But yes, it is academic dishonesty of the first caliber. If you're caught doing that in college, prepare for your F, a "Failed for cheating" grade, or expulsion. So, one sentence summary: Don't do it. If you're going to use Wikipedia material, cite it instead. Titoxd^(?!?) 19:52, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

He's not necessarily plagiarizing, it may actually be part of the assignment to find something from the internet. It might still break copyright law, but the education fair use exemption (or its equivalent in the country he/she is from) may cover it, and besides that no one is going to sue a kid for printing out a web article and pasting it on poster board or whatnot. -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 19:59, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Copying Wikipedia material directly for academic work is normally copyright infringement because universities generally don't allow such work to be licenced under the GFDL, which is a requirement for work based on Wikipedia. Of course, this assumes that you can't claim fair use (which might be possible in some countries, but IANAL). --ais523 09:13, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

For most professors, who are also mostly not lawyers, it comes down to misrepresentation. What work did the student do, how much of the work was authoring the paper and how much of the work was quoting someone else? For my school, at least, academic integrity as it relates to academic misconduct is explained such as thus:

"Assignments, tests, and examinations are designed for students to show the instructor how well they have mastered the course material. When the instructor evaluates the student’s work, it must therefore be clear which ideas and words are the student’s own. The general principles of academic integrity for students doing course work are that they are to do their own original, individual work, unless told otherwise by the course instructor, and are to give credit for other people’s ideas or words[1]."

Anyways, I'm not sure this has any bearing on the original question. BigNate37_(T) 15:13, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Enfamil

1. REDIRECT Infant Formula

What is your question. IF you want to read about how to do redirects please do so here. — Seadog (Talk) 18:37, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Statitistics on paticular pages or search terms

I would like to gather statistics on particular pages or search terms. In particular, I would like to know how often a particular term is searched on, or the hit rate on a particular page. I am gathering this information for a professional society. We would like to know how often Wikipedia is used to gather information about our specialty. Are there any tools to do this? Thank you

I'm afraid that Wikipedia's hit counters were switched off for performance reasons, so the information you want isn't available; only the 100 most popular pages are listed. If you go to Special:Statistics, there's links to most of the information that is available. --ais523 09:10, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Where'd that box come from?

Can someone please look at the formatting for my user page http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Mpwrmnt and tell me what I did that caused a dotted-line box to appear around "Thanks for being patient with the Newbies!" I like it, but I didn't intentionally do anything to create it, so I don't know how it got there! Thanks! --Mpwrmnt 19:22, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

It's due to [[Image:WikiThanks.png]] '''Thanks for being patient with the Newbies!'''. Since it has whitespace at the beginning of the line, before the link to the image is made, it shows it as pre-formatted text

like this.

Titoxd^(?!?) 19:24, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Thank you! --Mpwrmnt 19:55, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Cannot log on

I have created, successfully and account but cannot log in. I am getting an error message that there is no such user name. When clicking the email confirmation link sent to me, I return to the log in page and then successfully log in! I can look at my account and change things normally: my account does exist! However, when logging out and then trying to log in I cannot. Wiki says I do not have the correct user name. I check the case of the user name, it's correct. I even changed my password several times, but that did not fix the problem. Any suggestions from anyone?

One thing that could be causing your problem is your capitalization. Wikipedia usernames are case-sensitive, so User:TitoXD, User:TitoxD and User:Titoxd are different accounts. Titoxd^(?!?) 20:08, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

TitoXD, thanks for the response, but as I stated above, I check the case of the user name. I wrote down the exact user name including the case, but tried different combinations as well. (UC, LC and UC first letter, etc.) No luck. One thing to note, Wiki sent me a confirmation email with a link back to the log on page. When using this link I can log on and my user name is correct! I think there is a problem with the log on server database. Pixalhead

Yep, they should have sent you an email telling you your IP address, the name of the account, and a link to confirm your email address. If it's possible, what is the exact name from that email? We can check whether an account exists or not by checking Special:Listusers. For example, if your username is Pixalhead, you can see here that we can't find an account under that name. The email should have the name of the account... what is it exactly? (And don't post your IP address, we don't need it.)Titoxd^(?!?) 20:23, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

• Did you create your account on the English Wikipedia? All wikis and all different language Wikipedias require separate accounts. - 131.211.210.14 09:08, 6 December 2006 (UTC)
• Another suggestion: it could be that somehow the username has characters you can't see. I recommend this path. (1) return to the e-mail and follow the link so you are logged on; (2) come back to this discussion. (3) post a reply. (4) sign your reply by typing four tildes, that is, ~~~~. This will show clearly in the message your logged on username, and let the people here investigate more. Notinasnaid 10:49, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

A tracker

Is there a good way for me to track my adventures through the wikipedia universe? Track favorite pages, areas of interest, etc? Maybe this isn't a wiki thing, but something somebody else put together? Asdead.Asleaves 21:19, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

You do have a watchlist. You can look at your own contributions at Special:Contributions/Asdead.Asleaves.--Kchase T 21:23, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

The watchlist and contributions pages are helpful. Personally, use those and I also maintain a follow-up list (simply a user-subpage I created) so I can list articles/images/whatever that I want to keep tabs on. It allows me to use the related changes option as well as remember to edit pages even if they go untouched for a while. BigNate37_(T) 21:37, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

stadium

missing from you list is edgbaston cricket ground , cap 21000, home of warwickshire cricket club and many great england matches Bongboy68 21:36, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

I'm not sure which list you refer to. It's on List of stadiums. Do you mean Edgbaston Cricket Ground is missing from List of cricket grounds in England and Wales? It mentions "County Cricket Ground (Edgbaston)" with a link to Edgbaston Stadium which redirects to Edgbaston Cricket Ground. I know nothing about cricket but put a message for other editors on Talk:List of cricket grounds in England and Wales. PrimeHunter 23:19, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Info has disappeared from page

An entire section of the Stalking article is not showing, even though the text is there (can see it when you click edit). I tried deleting the text and repasting it in, but it still doesn't show after a save. Can anyone tell me what's up with this? (this is not a new section of the article, btw, it's been there for months and months) It's the section on "Types of Stalkers" and gender, underneath "Psychology and Behaviors," that is not showing up. 69.154.163.125 21:47, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

I think I've fixed it. You've got to put a space and a slash at the end of a short tag for a previous reference.--Kchase T 22:00, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Im doing a research paper nad i have to do my bibliogrophy cards, and i cannot find all the copyright, publisher, etc. And i am just wondering if you could give me the info helpme 69.247.37.76 23:01, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Citing Wikipedia; also, click on the "Cite this article" link in the left sidebar on any article. Titoxd^(?!?) 23:04, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Talk pages

Congrats on a terrific service. As a regular user I have created an account. I now wish to make some suggestions re improving your section on pythagorian triples which I think is inadequate and,also, contains a confusing statement. As I am not a professional mathematician I do not wish to actually make the edits,just point out where I think it can be improved. I have been to yr talk/discussion page(also to help & FAQ's)but can't see how to actually enter my comments.I tried pressing alt t and alt e without success. Plse tell me how to do this. (Apologies from a newby).Can I send them to you here instead? ReggieReggieclough 23:23, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your kind words. To bring up a new topic for discussion on any talk page, go to it, and look up top at the tabs. You'll see a "+" on one of them. Click that, enter a title in the "subject/headline" field, then enter your message in the "message" field. There's a "+" sign on one of the tabs on this page, so scroll up and see what it looks like. Thanks, and happy editing! —Pilotguy (push to talk) 23:49, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

(redacted after edit conflict) You would go to the article on Pythagorean triples (<---that's a link), hit "discussion" at the top of the article to access its talk page (every page on Wikipedia has an associated talk page), and enter your message exactly as you did here, i.e., either by <text removed which duplicates the above> or click "edit this page" at the top of the talk page, scroll down to the bottom, make a section header by typing text with two equal signs on either side (==header text==), hitting return, typing your message and then hitting the save button. No need to apologize for being a newbie; we all were, and that's what this page is for.--Fuhghettaboutit 23:57, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

December 6

Editing (spacing) question

Since yesterday, whenever I try to edit, the lines I type are separated (think 1.5 spacing in MS Word) -- the same thing is happening right here. My questions are: does this have any consequences on the appearance of an article and is there any way I can get rid of it? Thanks in advance. Black Falcon 00:14, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

OK, it doesn't look like it affects an article's appearance... And now the text of my initial post looks fine (although this current post is still 1.5-spaced... What's going on??? Black Falcon 00:21, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

The same thing happens to me sometimes, it doesn't really matter. I just ignore it. Cbrown1023 00:42, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

errors on "Knight" entry page

Hello, Someone has put up headings on the page for "Knight" that are inaccurate and childish, and as the headings don't come up when I go to "edit this page" I had to write in, though I'm not sure this is the right e-mail to send this to and I apologize if it's going to the wrong person; please pass it on if you can. The heading that should read Etymology says Shitology, and Origins has been changed to Orgies. I also suspect the word Bastard is out of place. These inaccuracies can also be seen in the Table of Contents. Thanks very much for your attention to this.

Thanks very much for reporting this wikipedia:vandalism. It was fixed by this edit. If you see problems like this, please feel free to fix them yourself using the procedures described at Help:Reverting. -- Rick Block (talk) 02:05, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Importing Maple 10 Workbook

Does anyone know how to convert a Maple 10 workbook / document into a format that i could then post under appropriate subjects. The content is a mix of equations and text on electro magnetics and some Optics.

Icerogue 00:55, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

I don't know of a way to convert it directly; if there's an option to translate it into TeX, that's quite close to Wikipedia's math format, and the text can normally be done easily by hand if you know a reasonable amount of wikimarkup. --ais523 09:14, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Ellipsis

I submitted an edit a few minutes ago regarding the use of 3 and 4 dot ellipses.

I wish to retract that as I made a misread the Chicago Manual of Style on this. The original author was correct in indicating that there is no such thing as a 4 dot ellipsis.

Sorry for the trouble.<e-mail address removed> —Preceding unsigned comment added by 207.62.238.194 (talk • contribs)

Which article?--Kchase T 04:11, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Editors can revert their own edits if they discover a problem. I don't know which edit you refer to. The IP number 207.62.238.194 used to make your comment here has no other edits. Ellipsis says there is no such thing as a "four-dot ellipsis." and has not been edited since November. Maybe you clicked "Show preview" or "Show changes" but not "Save page". Only "Save page" changes the saved article. PrimeHunter 04:13, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

About the programs in the university

Can i Have a Research program in Statistics or related topics kindly send the information to my email id [ e-mail redacted to save you from spam ]

What are you research program? Do you mean Special:Statistics? ---J.S ^(T/C) 06:34, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

We also normally don't like to respond to emails; it would be better if you could check back here on your own. Patstuart^talk|edits 06:40, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

My Watchlist

How do u add articles in your 'My Watchlist?'

There's a nifty little button at the top of the page. If you see "edit this page", keep following the line of buttons to the right until you find "watch". While you're at the page you want watched, click that button.--Kchase T 08:04, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Spot on. You can also check out the Wikipedia:Watchlist article for more detailed info. ---J.S ^(T/C) 08:06, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Statement

how can i rephrase this statement As i became older and the knowledge that i have?

I'm sorry, I'll have to see it in context to be able to help you there.

Also, Have you tried Wikipedia's Reference Desk? They specialize in knowledge questions, and will try to answer any question in the universe (except how to use Wikipedia, since that's what this Help Desk is for). Just follow the link, select the relevant section, and ask away. I hope this helps. Patstuart^talk|edits 09:29, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

The Road Less Travelled

Is it possible to see the number of page hits for two different articles? The reason for the question is that there are two articles with effectively the same name (in this case, Twiki and TWiki) and whenever I type twiki (hoping to get the TWiki web software) I end up with the article on the Buck Rogers robot. I have nothing against Buck Rogers but feel that more people would be searching for the web software and hence would like to change the entries to reflect this. However, before I do anything I just wanted to check out this fact - ie that more people were hitting on the TWiki page. Wikikob 09:52, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Unfortunately, the page-hit counters were turned off for performance reasons (now only the 100 most popular pages can be found). Wikipedia uses capitalisation as a tie-break in cases where there are two articles with the same name but different capitalization; TWiki would go to the article about the software. One possibility in many cases is to use Google on the names and see which gets more results, although this is an imperfect method (especially as the queries would need to be carefully crafted to get the results separately and not combined). --ais523 09:56, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Citing sources previously cited

Hi - I was wondering what is the proper way to cite a source that has already been cited earlier in an article. On the page for the Iran-Contra Affair, the second paragraph of the second section ends with a quote from an speech by Ronald Reagan that was previously cited at citation 4. But its not readily apparent where this direct quote came from. Thus do I duplicate the citation, cite the previous footnote (how?), or...?

Gsnixon 10:00, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

You reference the footnote twice. In the first occurence, instead of using <ref>, use <ref name="some name">, and then where the second occurence would occur just type <ref name="the same name" /> (notice the slash at the end); don't use a </ref> after the second occurence. See also Wikipedia:Footnotes. --ais523 10:04, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Great, thanks. Sorry I missed the page on footnotes... I'm new at this. :) -Gsnixon 11:12, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

AFD discussion template

I nominated an article for deletion and in doing so I found out that the article had already been voted on once before though there wasn't a note on the article's talk page as to the previous vote results. Where can I find the template for the talk page that goes something like "This article was the topic of a vote for deletion, the discussion of which etc etc..."? I'd like to add it to the article's talk page. The article in question is Shoko Goto. Thanks, Dismas|^(talk) 10:44, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

You're thinking of {{oldafd}}. --ais523 10:50, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Thanks! Just one thing though, that one defaults to keep. On this particular afd the consensus was no consensus. Is there a different template for that? Dismas|^(talk) 11:08, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

There's a parameter - use {{subst:oldafd|result='''no consensus'''}}. Personally I prefer {{oldafdfull}}, which allows you to use a date= parameter. --Sam Blanning^(talk) 11:39, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Maurice 1900-2000

I bought a five-packet CD named Maurice 1900-200 when visiting the island. Coming home unfortunately I couldn´t open it. It is produced by:

Talipot productions Ltd. www.talipot.com (remove email)

They seem to use TAL-file system which even Dell buiseness support failed to find for me. Can you help me, please?

Gunnar Birath (remove email)

---

Have you tried Wikipedia's Reference Desk? They specialize in knowledge questions, and will try to answer any question in the universe (except how to use Wikipedia, since that's what this Help Desk is for). Just follow the link, select the relevant section, and ask away. I hope this helps. Patstuart^talk|edits 11:01, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

How do I find out about The History of Jewish Music89.242.251.127 12:44, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

You also probably want to try the Reference Desk, as explained in the question above; the Help Desk is for questions about Wikipedia, so we'll tell you about the Reference Desk which is for questions about anything else. --ais523 13:24, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Removal of vandalism warning and other negative comments from user's talk page

I left a vandalism warning template on a user's talk page after having several comments about the vandalism left ignored. Some of the comments and the warning template have now been removed by the user. Is there a policy against removing the warning templates (it had been on the page less than a week) or is it just considered bad etiquette? Is there anything I can do because if he commits a further vandalism act then someone might not realise he's already had the first warning. Alexj2002 13:45, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

No, there's no policy against it at the moment. Grouse 14:19, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

There is a discussion about this however, Wikipedia:Centralized discussion/Removing warnings. There are many suggestions but currently there is no policy. James086^{Talk | Contribs} 14:21, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

image portrait/landscape problem

Hi.

I'm finally getting round to making a user page. I uploaded a file, Childs drawing of Venus transit.jpg, to my user page, user:Robinh.

But it's in portrait mode and I want it in landscape. I edited the image using photoshop, turning it 90 degrees, and uploaded the new image....which is still in portrait mode!

How do I force the image to appear as a landscape?

Many thanks (please feel free to edit my user page if you can fix the prob!), Robinh 13:46, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

I re-uploaded it after rotating it in MS Paint (eew, Paint, I know). It seems to work OK for me, that is it looks correct. BigNate37_(T) 14:05, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

problem solved! Robinh 14:32, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

How to get our organisation listed?

Hi, Can you please tell me how to get my organisation listed on wikipedia as our competitors have? 212.53.64.71 15:12, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

If it meets notability criteria , consider making a request at requested articles. BigNate37_(T) 16:35, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Sending and Receiving messages

How do I send and receive messages? Once I saw a notice that I had messages, but I was in the middle of editing something so I didn't click on it. Now I cannot find any place to click to get to "my messages" ......... Please advise.

At the top right corner it says my talk, my preferences, my watchlist, my contributions, log out. Where is "my messages" ???

The notice that you have messages simply links to your talk page. That's it. BigNate37_(T) 16:36, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Final Fantasy XI is somehow listed in Cleanup templates

I was just looking at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Cleanup_templates to figure out if a newly created template is unnecessary and noticed that the page that it had been placed on, Final Fantasy XI, is somehow now listed as a template for cleanup. The template in question is Template:fancruft. I can't figure out how the article page ended up being in the category along with the template used on it - can someone help me out so I can fix this? Thanks! -RaCha'ar 17:41, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Wrap the category in the template with <noinclude> tags. I've done it for you here. Titoxd^(?!?) 17:45, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Thanks a lot, I guess the user who made the template didn't know to do that.  :) -RaCha'ar 17:57, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Effecting a CfR

I have closed debate at Wikipedia:Categories_for_deletion/Log/2006_November_28#Category:S.C._Johnson_brands. I am not an admin. How do I actually get a category renamed once debate has closed. TonyTheTiger 17:58, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Aside from the category page itself, every page in the category must be adjusted to use the new name. AFAIK, this is generally done with bots for large-ish categories. I'm not sure how the category page is moved in a way that is compliant with GFDL. Perhaps admins have the move tab; we do not. BigNate37_(T) 18:14, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

To move the category, you have to copy and paste. As for the pages in the cat, I'm changing them now with my bot. Yuo can request that a bot do a certain category at Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Working ST47Talk 20:48, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

It sounds like the history will be lost. I am not sure what you are directing me to do. See what I did here. TonyTheTiger 18:48, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

exactly - though it is impossible to move a category, so history is lost. ST47Talk 19:46, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

Short Story Analysis

How can I find a short story analysis on "The Necklace" 72.23.85.49 18:11, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Try the reference desk. This is the help desk for issues with Wikipedia, not its content. BigNate37_(T) 18:16, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Huge table

Nearish the top of Special:Longpages is Money creation. It's 176kB! There is a table at the bottom that seems to take up vast quantities of wikicode. Aside from the fact that the table may well not be necessary, is there any easy way to convert the table to a less memory intensive form? Inner Earth 18:25, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Infobox Template Help

All, I created a new infobox meant to display basic information regarding fire departments. It can be found here. I want to include a logo in the top of the infobox but my code seems to be improperly done. I copied it from another infobox so I may not have done it properly. Can someone with experience with infoboxes or related codes take a look at it, maybe fix it or at least let me know what the problem is? Cheers! --Daysleeper47 18:30, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

• Nevermind, I figured it out. Thanks to BigNate37 for the organization help! --Daysleeper47 19:30, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Categories

A subcategory (linguistic anthropologists) is missing from one of the anthropology subcategories (anthropologists). How do you go about adding a subcategory? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Metonym (talk • contribs)

See Wikipedia:Categorization#How_to_create_subcategories and Help:Category#Subcategories. I don't know the field but only create a new Category:Linguistic anthropologists, if it's not enough to have the existing subcategory Category:Anthropological linguists. PrimeHunter 20:44, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Image Tags

I have some photos that I have not uploaded to Wikipedia but could be very beneficial in articles related to these photos. I know there are image tags for works from the United States Government but what about state governments. Two of the photos I have were created by state agencies. I can list creator and source but are there tags for specific states? (Lil Pun)

If you plan on uploading free material (like the US Government photos) then it should be uploaded at Commons and not here. State Agencies don't fall under the "government created it so it is free" license, so you would need to apply a different tag. I don't know of any state tag. Good luck. --MECU≈talk 19:35, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

These will be copyright images, so you generally cannot use them unless you can produce a good fair use argument. If you can suggest a particular photo, tell us where we can see it, and suggest what article you plan to use it in, we may be able to suggest whether Wikipedia can accept the photo, and what tag would apply. Notinasnaid 19:39, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

It will depend on the particular state and other perhaps other details in the state's laws. If there aren't any templates for public domain images created by state employees then there have been deleted because there used to be some for particular states. --ElKevbo 21:48, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

How????

Yea i want to start a page about a band called tough luck what are the steps i need to do to start it?????

1. Find out if the band is notable. If it isn't, don't create the article!
2. Go to Tough Luck. If there is an article there, you may need to move it, depending on which is more notable.
3. Create the article at either Tough Luck or Tough Luck (band) by editing the non-existent page. Click on the link to go to either of those pages.
4. Create see-also links at the other page.

Hope that helps. Since this is a band, be very careful about notability. I recommend a Google search - If you get under 50,000 results, that may be a sign that the band isn't notable. Good luck, Nihiltres 19:04, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Done there are currently 1,130,000 results for the words "Tough luck" + "band", so I would say go for it. — Seadog 19:33, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

I'm not sure that searching for a common phrase and a common word are the best ways to measure noteability... --ElKevbo 21:46, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Hmm...I guess you are right those are very common words and well you know. — Seadog 21:47, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

If you know the name of one or more of the band members, try that in a Google search. Try "Tough Luck" and "(band member's name)." — Michael J 16:06, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

Thanks

Yep you found it. --Missingno 19:14, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Edits not showing

I recently made some new edits to the article Life on Mars about the recent discovery of liquid water. However, when I went back to look at the article (whether I'm logged in or not) the edits don't show. I've cleared my browser cache, but they still won't show unless I select the last version from the history. This has never happened before. Any ideas? Could it just be my computer? GhostPirate 19:29, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

OK, it's working now, so forget about this. GhostPirate 19:34, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

WikiProject banners

The Template:LGBTProject has in its code an apparent automatic assessment system if an article is a stub - however, no stub appears to have been rated without human assistance. How does this system work? Does it need to be kicked into action somehow, or is there something wrong with the code, or what? Dev920 (Have a nice day!) 19:51, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

I'm not sure what you're asking... if you have something similar to {{WPMILHIST}}, then you have to place class=Stub by hand. Everything else is added as "Unassessed". If you have something different, and put some more magic onto the template code, it can do it automatically, but WP:1.0 might not like that... Titoxd^(?!?) 23:42, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Hmm...

About the USB-to-Ethernet adaptor. Would that be under the Nintindo USB adaptor? And would that need to be linked?--Your friend, Darkest Hour 19:54, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Also

How do I start a page like eg. WI?

Revolution may refer to

1. Revolution
2. Nintendo's fifth home video game console Wii, previously codenamed Revolution
3. etc.

Try checking out WP:DISAMBIG. Patstuart^talk|edits 20:45, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Fair Use Image Licence

Could the logo at http://www.f3euroseries.com/images/logo.gif be considered usable for the infobox in the F3 Euroseries article? I have read through the fair use guidelines (not totally clear in this instance, though it looks like it's probably okay). Precedence has been set with The DTM logo but I want to be sure before going ahead and uploading it. Adrian M. H. 20:21, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Yes, I agree with you. There really is no problem as long as you fill out the "Fair use" guidelines properly.Also think about if it has any thing to do with the article. --Your friend, Darkest Hour 20:28, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Yes, the article will benefit from the logo as it will bring it into line with other similar articles about racing series, such as Formula One and the DTM. Thanks for your assistance. Adrian M. H. 20:40, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Infobox

How do you add an infobox to wikipedia? Lamboman 21:02, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

See Help:Infobox --Darkest Hour ^$_$^$_$ 21:26, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Mediocre response to a poll

I recently asked a question at Thanksgiving Proposal. Only 2 people responded (one Support, one Oppose). I'd like to hear from a few more people to help decide whether I should go ahead. I tried listing it at WP:RfC, but there were no further responses. Is there another way to ask more people to comment, and if not, can I go ahead and split the article? What's the protocol/procedure here? —P^urpleRA^IN 21:08, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Well you could put {{helpme}} on your talk page with a comment.As a last resort see Wikipedia:Requests for administrator attention. And then if no one still does not awnser you you can go ahead and split it. --Darkest Hour ^$_$^$_$ 21:26, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Encyclopedia?

Is it proper to use another encyclopedia, say, Encarta, as a source? I think it would be more proper to link to the source they used if it is given or to find another reference.68.191.243.140 21:51, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

I wouldn't see a problem with using another encyclopedia as a source, but if you can get to the original source and use that one instead, all the better. Alternately, you could source it using "original source via sourced source", if that makes any sense. It's best to let your trail be easy to follow. —Keakealani 23:48, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

I seem to recall reading that general encyclopedias are not in themselves acceptable. Specialist encyclopedias are a different story. Notinasnaid 09:38, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

New topics

How do I enter a new topic? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jgilman75 (talk • contribs) 16:20

Try taking a look at Help:Starting a new page. BigNate37_(T) 22:24, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Album and song articles

I notice on a lot of albums that only some of the songs are listed as having songs of their own, while others are just left as standard text. Should the other songs be listed as articles that need creating (red underlined text)? I looked around but couldn't find anywhere that dealt with this. Thanks. Desdinova 22:45, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

You might try asking at Wikipedia:WikiProject Songs, that's about all I know about the topic. BigNate37_(T) 23:07, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Most songs on albums do not merit individual articles - the only thing to say about them is what album they're on (which you know from the album article) and stuff gleaned from listening to the song, which tends to verge on original research. Songs that do have their own articles are generally either singles (about which you can usually say something about their release, video, etc), or notable for some other reason, or someone's just created an article despite the fact that there's nothing much to say (it happens). --Sam Blanning^(talk) 01:46, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

I think the general idea is that songs should only have articles (I assume that's what you mean, not songs) if they're notable enough - for example, if the song was released as a single that has some chart info on it, or if it's a version of a famous song (e.g. on Yusuf Islam's new album An Other Cup, I've linked to existing article Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood).

copyedit tag runs over?

Can someone help here? the copyedit tag runs over into the info box - I have no idea why. --Charlesknight 23:18, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

I looked at the article in question and it looks fine. Maybe you need to refresh the page in your brower? Occasionally tags overlap, but a refresh normally solves that. — QuantumEleven 09:06, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

December 7

Uploading a Picture

I have tried to upload a picture to my wikipedia article "Darren Gilbert" but each time I try to upload it as a file, I end up not seeing it on my page -- even though the upload appears to have been accepted.

What am I doing wrong.

I just want a pic of me on my page.

Thanks.

Darren Gilbert <email removed>

For one, there is no "ownership" of Wikipedia articles (anything you write is relased via GFDL anyway), so it would not be a good idea to refer to "your" article. In this case, anyway, no article with that name exists, so that may be your first problem with your image issue. However, without telling us where your image is located or where you are trying to put it, it's difficult to answer your question. —Keakealani 00:19, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

The page in question is the user's user page User:Darren Gilbert. Darren, to understand how to upload images onto Wikipedia, take a look at Wikipedia:Uploading images, and how to then place them into an article, Wikipedia:Picture tutorial. Hope that helps. — QuantumEleven 09:01, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

Where's the right place to ask about specific articles?

I'm not sure if I should ask here or at the village pump, because the village pump seems to be about more serious issues and policies. For example, Mark Latimer has a press comments section that are just out of context quotes, a bit like something on a movie poster. Even though they're taken fom well-known publications, they seem out of place on Wikipedia because I think it makes the article non-neutral.

I guess I've asked the question now, but in future if I wanted to ask more experienced users opinions on an article, where's the best place? I know the help desk is for editing so it's probably nothere. Thanks 172.189.150.172 00:57, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

Click on the "discussion" or "talk" link at the top of the article's page. Every article has a related talk page to discuss the article. --Kainaw ^(talk) 01:00, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

That's only works with the more popular articles, very few people check the talk pages of obscure articles and even less reply to them (and I have tried asking on talk pages many times in the past). The only person to edit Mark Latimer's article for months is the same person who added the press quotes, so even if they replied their answer would likely be biased. 172.189.150.172 01:28, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

You could try a relevant Wikiproject - the list of them is here. You should be able to find more active editors there. --Sam Blanning^(talk) 01:41, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

Alternatively, you can be bold and remove the section yourself. --Sam Blanning^(talk) 01:42, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

If you're looking for a factual answer, you can always try the Wikipedia Reference desk. Make sure to mention that you're asking in connection with a given article (eg "I read X in article Y and have a question...") — QuantumEleven 08:56, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

revert

how do i revert a page to its last edit?
Steevven1 (Talk) (Contributions) 02:58, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

Please see Help:Reverting. -- Rick Block (talk) 03:27, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

Indirect references

Say I want to use a quote, but I don't have the book it comes from. I have a second book that quotes the first. So, do I reference the second book, use the reference the second book has to the first, or get the first book? Clarityfiend 06:31, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

If you have the choice, always credit the first book. It avoids any errors the second book may have made in quoting the first, and saves the person (and, perhaps at some point, you) the extra step to get to the original source material. — QuantumEleven 08:55, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

If you don't have the first and can't find the neccesary details to cite it, by all means cite the second one, but please make an effort to get your hands on the first one. Perhaps you have a library nearby? - Mgm|^(talk) 09:08, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

If I remember from high school, they told us to quote both if possible. -Patstuart^talk|edits 09:55, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

It depends on the particular style (APA, MLA, etc.) in which you are writing. I am most familiar with APA and there is definitely a particular manner in which one cites material that is itself cited from or in another source. It would not be acceptable in an APA-style paper to simply cite the original source if you can not locate or access it to verify the secondary citation or quote. --ElKevbo 22:10, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

Posting poetry in justified columns

I just posted an article about 19th century poet Amelié Louise Rives that included several poems. They were pasted in justifed left format but came out in a prose/paragraphic form. How would I prevent this? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Stan Flouride (talk • contribs) 06:49, 7 December 2006 (UTC).

I have put one of the poems in a table as an example.--Fuhghettaboutit 07:27, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

What is the copyright status of the User namespace?

If I create a page under the User namespace, is it copyright (all rights reserved, with the reasonable minimum license that I've agreed to have it displayed at that URL, for the time being) or have I released it under the GFDL? From the other end of this, can a Wikipedia article in the main space use content freely from pages in the User space, or should they first get permission and/or get the user to contribute it under the GFDL? Thank you for your expert advice.--Peter Kirby 08:29, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

Userspace is released under GFDL, just like any other page on Wikipedia. Therefore, you can copy userspace info into articles (at least without violating copyright; it may be a bad idea for other reasons) as long as you credit the original author in the edit summary. --ais523 08:33, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

Can edit history be removed?

The edit history for an article contains some personal information that I consider to be inappropriate (i.e. identification, by name, of a minor child involved in a controversy). Is there a process to request that the information be removed from the edit history? Ronnotel 14:26, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Oversight may be what you are looking for. BigNate37_(T) 14:34, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

Thanks. Ronnotel 14:35, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

Perhaps this information should be more prominently displayed - i.e. I couldn't easily find it in FAQ's. Ronnotel 14:37, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

Usually users visit the administrator's noticeboard when there is sensitive information which needs removing. Many folks there are quick to refer users to WP:OVER. Other than that, if you feel it should appear on the FAQ, try suggesting it there or adding it. BigNate37_(T) 15:40, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

Watch list questions

How do I figure out what the people that edited articles on my watch list did? All I can figure out is that they did something to it. Is there a certain button that I can press that will show me exactly what was done to the text in the past 24 hours or the past few edits? Pyromancer102 10:25, 7 December 2006

The (diff) link at the start of a line on your watchlist links to the difference between their change and the previous version. For instance, this is the diff that I saw on my watchlist that alerted me to your question here. If you view the page history you can select multiple changes at once for viewing in a "diff". Check out Help:Page history for more on that. BigNate37_(T) 15:37, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the help there. I hope to make Wikipedia a safer place for articles with this knowledge. Pyromancer102 15:28, 7 December 2006

Can I record Vocals?

A friend gave me this some years back...I have been looking at PC recording...can I record vocals and other instruments, guitar, keyboard, etc. on the PropellerHead? Gwendolyn Daniels —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 66.15.145.102 (talk) 16:54, 7 December 2006 (UTC).

If ProppellerHead is a software program, I suggest you use google or another search engine and see if you can find a forum! You'd probably find more information there than on Wikipedia :) Bjelleklang - talk 17:24, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

Parental controls on wikipedia

Google and Yahoo! provide a method to limit searches to content which is appropriate for children. Does Wikipedia have a similar facility? Specifically, appending &safe=active to the search URL for google will enable its "Safe Search" feature. Is there something similar I can do for Wikipedia? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 15.235.153.105 (talk) 17:02, 7 December 2006 (UTC).

No. Wikipedia is not censored. --Wooty Woot? contribs 17:07, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

You could try searching wikipedia with Google, which seems like it would exclude certain things. Whether Google would allow an encylopedic article on pornography to appear or not, I don't know. Of course, searching with Google means you'll get hits that are not articles, such as help pages and Wikipedia project pages. BigNate37_(T) 17:13, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

• It's kind of hard to restrict results without knowing what you think is appropriate for kids. Your best bet is using parental control software. - Mgm|^(talk) 20:48, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

How to become a moderator?

What do I have to do to become a moderator? If you somehow look at my contributions, you will see that I make alot of reverts and it would make me proud to become an authority figure on Wikipedia. Vandals are a pain to all that is Wikipedia and all the help possible is needed to remove them. Please tell me if and how to become a moderator. Eiyuu Kou 18:37, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

I think you are talking about Wikipedia:Administrators. The candidates need to go through a Wikipedia:Request for adminship. People then decide through consensus whether a candidate can be made admin or not. I would advise you to look at some current and past requests to get an idea of what people look for in an admin candidate. — Lost^(talk) 18:44, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

Thank you. I guess I will wait for somebody to nominate me, if that would happen. I wouldn't know what to put in for the request because I would mainly focus on reverting and warning/blocking vandals. Eiyuu Kou 18:45, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

How can I get information about Goverment Grants with having a credit card

Please enlighten me about Goverments grants, How Do I go about getting a personal grant to help me out of a jam —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Elliot Mayfield (talk • contribs) 18:52, 7 December 2006 (UTC).

You might find more help at the Reference desk; this page is only for questions about how to use Wikipedia. Essjay (Talk) 20:36, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

When asking on the Reference desk, include which government you are referring to. If you assume everyone knows, the people there will likely "assume" you are referring to something like the government of Tuvalu. --Kainaw ^(talk) 20:39, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

Cannot edit text I added

In the article I just edited (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_Darquier_de_Pellepoix), I added a paragraph at the end of the previously existing article, thus expanding the scope of information presented there. When I reread my contribution, I tried to make a small change in my paragraph. When I clicked the [Edit] link on the right side of the page (far to the right of the text "Notes and references"), I saw only the Notes and references, not including any of the text I added.

Further, I sought (unsuccessfully) another [Edit] link above the text of the article. Is there a way for me to edit the text I added to the article? If so, how? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Ruffwiki (talk • contribs) 18:54, 7 December 2006 (UTC).

Welcome to Wikipedia! To edit that particular portion of the text, just click on the 'edit this page' tab at the top of the page. Looking at that paragraph, however, I would suggest that instead of including the information in the body of the article, it would perhaps be more useful as a reference in the Further Reading section. Generally, including a suggestion that the reader seek out a specific (as-yet-unpublished?) book review in the body of the article is frowned upon. Cheers! Tony Fox (arf!) 19:20, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

Hooge (hallig) vs Hooge, Germany

I have found the two articles above, which appear to have been identical until I edited one. One should probably redirect to the other, but the one I edited so it is now hopefully slightly better (Hooge, Germany) probably has the more poorly chosen name.

What is the wikipedia procedure for resolving issues of this nature? Gnfnrf 19:57, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for pointing this out I redirected to your version as there is no point in having two of the same article. — Seadog 19:59, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

To resolve this sort of thing, you can use {{mergeto}} and {{mergefrom}}. Simply overwriting one with a redirect is okay for non-controversial merges. If the worse of the two titles has the most GFDL history and/or content, you can still make the merge without admin rights, but it is tricky.

1. Move the sub-par article that is at the good title to a new name that has no article (something that will make sense as a redirect to the article later e.g. Hooge (Germany) or Hooge hallig)
2. Move the good article from the not-so-good title to the good title (since the good title is now just a redirect with no history, any user should be able to do this)
3. Merge the sub-par article's content into the good article, which includes making it into a redirect to the article

BigNate37_(T) 20:26, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

Links

I know I'm able to put Wiki links in the "edit summary" field of the edit page (i.e. [[Wikipedia]]. But how do I do it for usernames and IP addresses, when saying something like, "Reverted back to edit made by [[User:xxx.xx.xx.xx]] --Micahbrwn 20:28, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

Play around with piping and the preview (which lets you preview the formatted summary too now). For instance, an edit summary of

Reverted edits by [[User:Micahbrwn|Micahbrwn]] to last version by [[Special:Contributions/127.0.0.1|127.0.0.1]]

would display as

(Reverted edits by Micahbrwn to last version by 127.0.0.1)

and would link to your userpage and the contributions page for the anonymous user. BigNate37_(T) 20:35, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

CatScan, toolserver, argh

I am so hamstrung when I can't use Duesentrieb's CatScan tool, or Stub Sense, and I've been leaving messages all over the place on Meta-Wiki with no success. Wah! Does anyone know anything at all about the prospects of the enwiki database on toolserver? Or will that only be a non-English-database site forever and ever, the end?? *sigh* Thanks for letting me rant. BTW, this is what I get when I try to use CatScan. ****sigh**** Her Pegship 20:50, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

Shiva vandalism

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

Can someone please remove the offense nonsense "poopy doo doo poopy" that was added to the beginning of this article?

Thank you for bringing that to attention. It has already been removed. — Seadog 20:58, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

Protect or Semi-Protect an article

Hey, I've been wondering how you can make an article protected or semi-protected so that only administrators or users can edit it. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Lamboman (talk • contribs) 21:40, 7 December 2006 (UTC).

Never mind. I figured it out. Lamboman 21:42, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

WP:CFDS

What is a normal time lag at WP:CFDS? I have had some things posted there for 2.5 days. TonyTheTiger 21:54, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

Problems seeing locator maps in infobox

I am experiencing a bit of a problem. Whenever I view a page that contains the Template:Infobox Protected area in Mozilla Firefox (v 2.0), the locator map does not appear. Instead there is just a gray line. I can view the map just fine when I access the page using Internet Explorer. I've never had this problem before, it surfaced just a few days ago. Does anyone have any insights on what might be the cause of this issue? Thanks, --Nebular110 22:23, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

Using Academic Sources

I am an engineering student interested in adding engineering information to Wikipedia. However, I have learned most of it from textbooks. Would I be able to cite my textbooks as a source for formulas and such as long as I am not just straight copying the text, or would this still be a violation of copyright and fair use laws? Thanks!

orangehatbrune 22:26, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

No, citing textbooks is encouraged. As long as the text you write is yours it doesn't matter if it is expressing the same facts. --Cherry blossom tree 22:29, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

I've actually got a list of my textbooks on a subpage in my userspace, User:BigNate37/Library, for just that reason. BigNate37_(T) 22:56, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

Login successful, but then "Not logged in"

I have created an account on en.wikipedia.org, and I can log in successfully. But then when I go to any other page (e.g. "Upload file" or "my preferences") I get an error page, "Not logged in".

Yes, I have responded to the activation email. Yes, I have read the FAQ and the "Help:Logging in" page. Yes, I have cookies enabled, including third-party cookies. Yes, I checked the "Remember me" box. Yes, my date and time are set correctly. No, I'm not running any firewall or ad-blocking software. (I have a hardware firewall that knows nothing about cookies.)

I have experienced this problem with both Opera 7.54 and Firefox 1.5 browsers under Linux OS. 67.142.130.28 22:38, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

This can happen with some ISPs. Try connecting through the secure server, and see if that helps. Prodego ^talk 22:41, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

That seems to have solved it! Thank you. (For what it's worth, my ISP is HughesNet.) 67.142.130.28 22:58, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

Does Psychology/rewrite need to be deleted or turned into a redirect?

The page Psychology/rewrite apparently needs to be deleted or turned into a redirect (please see comments on Talk:Psychology/rewrite). The situation is further complicated by the fact that the page used to be named Psychology (rewrite), and that version deleted. I'm not sure what the policies are with regard to this or what action is most preferred in this case. Perhaps the deletion of Psychology (rewrite) and archiving(?) it at Psychology/rewrite was the preferred action. (But if it was, some notice placed on that page and on the Talk page would seem to be prudent.) If an admin could take a look at this and get back to me on Talk:Psychology/rewrite and/or on my Talk page, I'd appreciate it. Thanks. -DoctorW 22:52, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

• The history of who edited the rewrite page needs to be retained, so it's either a history merge or a redirect. Placing a redirect is by far the easiest option. - Mgm|^(talk) 00:08, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

link to image on commons

What is the syntax to link to an image posted on the commons? 71.100.6.152 23:00, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

If there is no local image (i.e. on Wikipedia) of the same name the standard image link [[Image:Example.jpg]] will link to the commons image.—WAvegetarian•(talk) 23:11, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

This syntax does not work! That is with the underscore separator that is used to name the file rather than the image. Thanks. Adaptron 23:20, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

For a good example of using an image from commons here on Wikipedia, check out Image:Citrus fruits.jpg as used in the citrus article. BigNate37_(T) 00:04, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

Can an edit history be transferred to a page that already exists?

The article essayist consists of just a definition (see Wiktionary:essayist) and a "see also" section. I want to turn it into a redirect page toward List of essayists and am wondering if it's possible to transfer the edit history. From what I've been able to gather, "essayist" was merged into "List of essayists", but the edit histories stayed separate. Same for "essayists" (plural) -- the article's content was transferred (not moved) to "essayist" (singular), but the edit history was not. If it is possible, is this something I can do (please direct me toward the appropriate WP instructions page) or is it up to an admin? Thanks in advance. Black Falcon 23:13, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

It's either very difficult for admins, or takes a developer with database access to merge histories or something like that. History tweaking is not done at all except under very special circumstances, and never by standard users. Just make one page redirect to the other, and mention the source of merged content so others can find the edit history—either with your edit summary or on the talk page. That's pretty much standard procedure, check out Wikipedia:Merging and moving pages. BigNate37_(T) 00:03, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

• Merging edit histories is pretty easy for admins if they know how to do it, but it can be laborious. Simply merging and redirecting works fine. - Mgm|^(talk) 00:05, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

Thank you for your help. Black Falcon 04:40, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

December 8

Author?

Who is the author of this encyclopedia — Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.116.118.10 (talk • contribs)

Anyone who helps by clicking the "Edit this page" button on the top of any page. For more information see Wikipedia:About. Prodego ^talk 00:59, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

If you're looking to cite Wikipedia as a source, go to Special:Cite and type in the article name. --Sam Blanning^(talk) 01:00, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

Lower and Upper Case

How do I make a page universal so that the case of the letters don't matter? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Arrashju (talk • contribs) 01:37, 8 December 2006 (UTC).

I'm not sure what you mean, exactly. In general, create an article at the proper spelling and capitalisation, then create redirects to it from the reasonable mis-capitalisations. Recall that the various search engines will find the page regardless of case, so the only need for wrong-case redirects is in the case of wrong-case links. For instance, an article about Tom Hanks filmography should have redirects from tom hanks filmography, Tom Hanks Filmography, and maybe TOM HANKS FILMOGRAPHY as legitimate {{R from other capitalisation}}s, but ToM hAnKs FilmOgraphY is pretty useless. BigNate37_(T) 02:05, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

It's actually a little easier than this if the goal is to make the article available using the "go" button. Redirects for "go" usage are generally not needed (see Wikipedia:Go button for the details), but when they are needed only one is necessary. In the example above, Tom Hanks Filmography covers all capitalizations including ToM hAnKs FilmOgraphY. If the goal is to be able to wikilink to the article using other capitalizations, each specific form you want to be able to be used as the link target has to exist as a redirect. -- Rick Block (talk) 03:01, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

Cochin estuary

How to get a map of Cochin estuary, India ?

Have you tried Wikipedia's Reference Desk? They specialize in knowledge questions, and will try to answer any question in the universe (except how to use Wikipedia, since that's what this Help Desk is for). Just follow the link, select the relevant section, and ask away. I hope this helps. --Sam Blanning^(talk) 03:32, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

nothing to edit in "edit this page"

I want to edit "Category:Regional mammals lists" because the alphabetical order needs fixing.

But when I open "edit this page" there's nothing in there to edit. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Mollwollfumble (talk • contribs) 03:53, 8 December 2006 (UTC).

The only thing you can edit at the category page is the category description (you can also add the category to categories there). The entries for a category appear because the articles have links in them to the category. For instance, if I put [[Category:Wikipedians in Canada]] on my userpage, the link won't appear on my userpage. The userpage will be listed in the category as User:BigNate37, sorted under 'U'. If I want to be sorted by my username without the User: in front, I pipe a sort key in the category link on my userpage. In other words, I change the link to [[Category:Wikipedians in Canada|BigNate37]], which puts me under 'B'. BigNate37_(T) 04:09, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

DELETING IMAGES

How do you delete an image posted on Wikipeida?

HOW CAN I DELETE AN IMAGE FROM WIKIPEDIA? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Lachiny (talk • contribs) 04:08, 8 December 2006 (UTC).

If the image qualifies for one of the speedy deletion criteria for images and media, place the appropriate speedy delete tag on the image's page in the form {{db-i?}}, where I? corresponds to the criterion. {{db-i3}}, for example, for improper license. If the image does not qualify for speedy deletion, you'll want to list it at Wikipedia:Images for deletion. BigNate37_(T) 04:15, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

Edit the Size of the Edit-Pane

Hello, I am wondering how you change the height of the pane that you type into when you are editing a page. I find that the default height is far to small, especially for editing longer sections. I have searched high and low but have found no information on how to do this! Thank you very much. Pro Grape 04:45, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

Go to My preferences, click on the "Editing" tab, and you'll see that you can adjust the dimensions of the edit box there. Hope that helps, Titoxd^(?!?) 04:47, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

Thank you! That is exactly what I needed. Pro Grape 04:54, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

Editing: Keyboard Shortcuts?

Hello again. Are there shortcuts that can be used when editing which allow speedy saves or previews of page? Pro Grape 04:54, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

Sure, for saving, you can use [alt+s] (or something equivalent in your browser), and for preview, it is [alt+p]. A full list of these shortcuts is available at Wikipedia:Keyboard shortcuts. Titoxd^(?!?) 04:57, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

Excellent. Thanks again! Pro Grape 05:07, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

"I'm busy in real life" template

Hi, Where can I find the template that says "I'm busy in real life, yada yada"? Thanks,NinaEliza 05:52, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

I don't think that's an 'official' template. Try hitting 'edit' and copy it from wherever you saw it.- 131.211.210.17 09:35, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

{{busy}} works ;) -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 09:36, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

Thanks!NinaEliza 04:27, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

Upload

Hello, I attempted to upload the company logo to the following page without success:

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

The following link is to the picture of the official logo for Lamonts, and I would like to add it to the Lamonts page, can someone please do it for me?...as I'm not very computer savvy:

http://i141.photobucket.com/albums/r58/madelineseattle2/ef_1_b-1.jpg

-Sincerely, Madeline Marrero

• You can't show images in articles by linking to another website. That would give too much possibilities to vandals for linking shocking images. Try following the instructions at Special:Upload and Wikipedia:Picture tutorial. - 131.211.210.17 09:34, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

changing my password

how do i change my paassword????????????????????? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Ns2max (talk • contribs) 07:02, 8 December 2006 (UTC).

Question answered on user's talk page.NinaEliza 07:15, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

taking songs from ipod to computor

can you take songs from your ipod and put them on your computor, like you can put songs on your ipod from your computor. and how would you do that ? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 70.68.172.73 (talk) 07:20, 8 December 2006 (UTC).

It's not possible to do so with iTunes, as far as I know. For a more in-depth answer to this question, you might consider posting to the appropriate section of the reference desk. Hope that helps! Luna Santin 07:38, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

Actually, I think in one instance you can (check http://www.itunes.com to be sure): that is when you have authorized another computer with the same account as the computer that is synching with the iPod - I believe it brings the music down to the newly authorized computer. Now, what this has to do with help with Wikipedia, I don't really know. ;o) --Jay 16:13, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

Contractions

Is it true that contractions (such as didn't, hadn't etc) are not permitted in the articles of Wikipedia?

Ordinary Person 08:19, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Manual of Style is silent on this (though vaguely disapproving of "e.g." and "i.e.") but it is likely that visiting editors will change these at some point, perhaps to make the article more formal, encyclopedia style. I know I would tend to rewrite these if I was editing that part of an article for another reason. Notinasnaid 09:24, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

• Abbreviations and contractions are different things. Personally, I don't care about contractions. They sound natural and make an article easy to read. As far as I know such a restriction doesn't exist. - 131.211.210.17 09:37, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

Spell Checker?

Is there any way (& if so, what is it?) to run a Spell Checker on pages we're editing? Thanks! --Mpwrmnt 09:57, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

Firefox 2.0+ has it built-in. There are plugins for other browers. And, of course, you can just copy / paste it into your favorite word processor, then copy it back. -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 10:11, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

Cool! Looks like I need to update my Firefox! (Pasting it into a word processor sounds too much like WORK!) <g> Ahhh, but it's ALL fun - why else would we spend so many HOURS doing this???  :-) New Wikiaholic --Mpwrmnt 10:19, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

The naming of disambiguation pages

Is there some reason why some disambiguation pages are labeled as such (in the page name) (see Wrong (disambiguation)) and some are not? (see Real Life) Thanks! --Mpwrmnt 10:14, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

• When one use of a term is dominant, that article is placed at the title with the disaombiguation at its own page. However, if all are used almost equally, the dab page is placed there to aid people in finding what they are looking for. See Wikipedia:Disambiguation. - Mgm|^(talk) 11:09, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

Figures of Light Entry

Dear Wikipedia:

In the Wikipedia article on the band Figures of Light, the hyperlink for "Figures of Light" doesn't seem to work, although all the other links do.

Could you see what the problem is, and perhaps correct it?

Thanks much! —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 129.93.54.82 (talk) 14:35, 8 December 2006 (UTC).

You can't link an article to itself. The first occurrence of an article's name in the article should be in bold (place three apostrophes either side of its name) and not linked; future occurrences shouldn't be linked either. Links are case-sensitive; the link there at the moment doesn't link to the article because the article's name is incorrect (Figures of light rather than the correct Figures of Light). (You can't fix this without an account, so I'll go and fix it for you now). --ais523 14:41, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

German picture into English lemma

Hello Wikipedia, I have recently enlarged and improved the lemma Gammaspektroskopie in German. Now I am trying to enlarge the stub Gamma spectroscopy in English. I want to insert the first picture from the German version Bild:Spektrogramm.png|300px|right into the English, but I cannot do it. Can you do it for me please? HPaul 14:45, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

The only wiki apart from the English Wikipedia that can be used on the English Wikipedia for images is the Wikimedia Commons. You'll have to copy the picture there or find someone else to copy it there to be able to use it here. --ais523 14:47, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

After several tries, I can't get the email confirmation to work Chris Follows 15:24, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

After several tries, I can't get the email confirmation to work Chris Follows 15:24, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

ORIGINS OF WIKIPEDIA

TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN

I AM VERY INTERESTED IN KNOWING THE "NATIONALITY" OF WIKIPEDIA: WHERE WAS IT BORN?

TANKS A LOT!!!

SARA —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 189.148.16.48 (talk) 16:03, 8 December 2006 (UTC).

Take a look at the article on Wikipedia. It started from Nupedia, if I recall. BigNate37_(T) 16:26, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

Could you do us a favor, please, also, and type in lowercase? Patstuart^talk|edits 17:04, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

(Caps key JAMMED?)martianlostinspace 19:06, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

Adding <a name=> Tag (ANSWERED)

I can't find documentation on how to do it. I'd greatly appreciate your telling me. Thanks! --Jay 16:08, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

Anchors are useful for page-section shortcuts, like WP:CSD#I3. There's no section entitled I3, but there is a <span id="I3" /> tag there, which catches the reference. I think an <a id="I3" /> or <div id="I3" /> would work, too. W3Schools has great tutorials for web development, and they have information here specific to using named anchors. BigNate37_(T) 16:24, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

I'm sorry, BigNate37, I don't think I was specific: what I meant was, how do I add an <a name=> tag in a wiki article without making it a heading so that I can jump to it with a [[#example]] tag? Sorry for the confusion. --Jay 16:43, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

I'd suggest the span tag, which I took from WP:CSD. Here's how you should use it:

<span id="example" />For instance, blah blah blah...
.
.
.

== Some other part of the article ==

As in the [[#example|example]] above, etc...

== Some other article ==

As in the [[The first article#example|example]] from [[the first article]], etc...

I hope that's easy enough to understand—it's hard to tell if it makes sense when you're the one who wrote it. I think you can replace <span id="example" /> with <a name="example" /> and have the same functionality, but you'd have to consult W3Schools or a more knowledgeable editor to be sure. BigNate37_(T) 18:13, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

This may be a bit simple, but why don't you try using <a name=> Patstuart 18:14, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

Aha. That worked perfectly, BigNate37. You gave me the answer the first time, but with your comments about W3Schools it seemed like you thought I was asking about learning HTML, which I know pretty well. :) Thanks for your patience and information.

Pat, I tried that first, but as you can see, the tag gets converted to text: <a name="name"> (&lt;a name="name"&gt;). And I appreciate the suggestions.  
--Jay 18:44, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, it looks like there was an edit conflict: I didn't see your example before I responded. Patstuart^talk|edits 18:45, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

Ah, I was just putting in a plug for the site I like to refer to for web development topics. BigNate37_(T) 19:01, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

Whoops, sorry

I am a general interest editor. I don't have anything against Xlibris except that it has been identified as a vanity press by many reputable sources in and out of the science fiction community (see, for example http://www.answers.com/topic/vanity-press ).

Twice now I have added the vanity press information to its Wikipedia entry, with citation. Both times, not only has the information has been removed but the history has been erased as if it had never been! The first time I thought I had been absent-minded and had not actually changed what I thought I had; but the second time I made sure.

How is this possible? They are keeping important information out of their article and not even allowing a record of its having ever existed. This seems to go against all Wikipedia principles of balance and is suspiciously close to turning their article into nothing more than an advertisement. Please, what is going on?

(Just a minute later): Okay, now I feel like an idiot, because when I just checked again, the history was back. I must have done something wrong. I am sorry.Artemis-Arethusa 16:29, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

Sometimes people make mistakes. And sometimes technical glitches happen. Don't worry about it. Newyorkbrad 16:42, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

Uhh, the reference to Xlibris at the link you gave to answers.com is only there because the content was taken from Wikipedia. That doesn't hold up as a reference here, since this is where that bit of information seems to have started. To put it another way, answers.com is a Wikipedia mirror as far as this case is concerned, so that can't be used as a reference in our articles. BigNate37_(T) 18:52, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

Lang Michener LLP Posting

Good afternoon:

I have a question about a posting I submitted on behalf on Lang Michener LLP. I keep getting a pink box labelling the posting as an advertisement. There is nothing in the posting I submitted that is any different from other any Canadian law firms that are present on Wikipedia.

Please let me know what I can do to rememdy this.

Thank you. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Sswartz (talk • contribs) 19:05, 8 December 2006 (UTC).

It is being marked for speedy deletion under CSD G11. First thing to do is put a {{hangon}} tag there so it's not deleted while you present your case on the article's talk page. BigNate37_(T) 19:09, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

After you do that, study the G11 criterion and explain on the article's talk page, Talk:Lang Michener LLP, why it shouldn't be deleted under the criterion—then remove the {{hangon}} tag. You may wish to write with a Wikipedia administrator in mind as your audience, since an admin will eventually view the article tagged for speedy deletion (CSD) and decide whether the article warrants speedy deletion. CSD is quite stringent, so pay attention to the letter of the criterion. I've actually got some similar instructions written up here, if those help. BigNate37_(T) 19:14, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

Well, it looks like that didn't happen quite fast enough to avoid deletion. A new article can be written, or you can request an administrator to restore the old one for rewriting, so it's more neutral and doesn't fall afoul of the guidelines discussed above. Lang Michener is a major firm and well worthy of an article, although pursuant to the conflict-of-interest policy it really shouldn't be written by someone "submitt[ing] on behalf of" the firm. Newyorkbrad 01:20, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

What conflict of interest policy? Anchoress 01:38, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

I should have written conflict of interest "guideline": see WP:COI. I'm aware it's not a formally binding policy, which is why I said "really shouldn't" instead of "mustn't be." The important thing, of course, is that the article has to be written in a neutral, encyclopedic manner, and a representative of the subject will often have trouble doing so. By the way, to the law firm's representative, this discussion itself may be seen by anyone who Googles the name of your firm, so you might want to do additional research by other means. Newyorkbrad 01:43, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

Yeah sorry to say it was deleted, if you want to know it was deleted by User:Alex Bakharev. If you have any questions or want it restored you will have to ask him. — Seadog 01:22, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

Hmm

How doi create a template? Because {{help me}} is a little out of date I was thinking of one that said,{{Helpme|My reason here}} Without the,

• use helpme on your talk page and ask yure q below.

A little help please? --Darkest Hour ^$_$^$_$ 19:55, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

I would advise looking at some of the other templates and seeing how they work. But, for reference, there is Help:Template. Patstuart^talk|edits 20:00, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

fix it

Someone needs to go in and clean up the Wike page:

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

—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 152.132.10.196 (talk) 20:43, 8 December 2006 (UTC).

Looks like a Vandal bot already cleaned it up. For the record, you can revert vandal edits youself, when it's noticed. Kesh 21:17, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

Um

Where doi add {{User:_}} to the "magic" words page? --Darkest Hour ^$_$^$_$ 20:47, 8 December 2006 (UTC) See the little red $ sign.

Well that isn't a magic word, or do you mean you want to add that to your signature? Please clarify. Thanks, Prodego ^talk 20:51, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

Article

I would life to type an article and I'm wondering how to do it, so can you tell me where to type stuff so please show me where.

Just search for the subject you want. If it doesn't exist, you'll see a red link for it at the top of the search page. Click on that, and you'll get a new article page under that name. Kesh 00:27, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

geek

the geek page is all geeked up —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 71.154.240.187 (talk) 22:24, 8 December 2006 (UTC).

how will I know my page is approved?

I recently created a public domain page for Wikipedia and to be honest, not sure I did it correctly. How will I know my page is uploaded correctly and will I receive an e-mail confirmation? Please advise. KwameTLaing 22:35, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

You will know the page uploaded correctly by typing the name of the page into the "search" box at the left of the screen and making sure it's there. Note that sometimes the database takes a little while to update so this might not happen instantaneously, but it will be there soon enough. If you provide the name of the page, someone here can take a look at it and tell you if it looks okay.

Please note that pages do not need to be "approved" to be posted on Wikipedia. Although, if they do not meet our guidelines, there is a procedure for them to be deleted ... but that is the exception, not the default. Hope this is helpful. Newyorkbrad 22:38, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

AS said above, you add pages yourself by going to the page you want to add, and inserting content into the edit box. Then you click save, and it is immediately added to Wikipedia, and licenced under the GFDL. Are you talking about the content here? Prodego ^talk 22:39, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

December 9

sign in

I have created an account with Wikepedia last month and responded to the verification email.

When I wish to edit an entry I sign in easily. But, when I go to the entry to edit suddenly I am no longer signed in. This cycle repeats endlessly.

How can I remaind signed in?

66.82.9.49 01:15, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

Hmm...Have you tried checking the "remember me" box. This helps me usually. — Seadog 01:18, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

See this section above. Prodego ^talk 01:48, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

James bond parodies

I made some additions to the "James Bond parodies" article. I added the movies "Deadlier Than the Male" (1966) and "Some Girls Do" (1969)to the list of parodies. I then accessed the entries for both these movies, and tried to make them redirect to the "James Bond parodies" page through the category link. Instead a new page for "James Bond parodies" has opened rather than redirecting to the existing page.

Why does this happen, and what have I done wrong?

--Mrodowicz 01:37, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

There's no actual "James Bond parodies" category. What you probably want is a See Also section instead, and a link to James Bond parodies in there. -- Kesh 02:12, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for your help. I've rectified the problem - much appreciated!

--Mrodowicz 16:30, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

why delete?

I have created a page but it has recently been deleted. Why did one of your administrators do that? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Soraboy280 (talk • contribs) 01:42, 9 December 2006 (UTC).

Can you let us know the page that got deleted. 9/10 there is a a good reason why. If you can't don't let us know there is nothing anybody can do. — Seadog 01:46, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

Well, seadog, i wrote a page, BUT it was about a friend named "Leo Munda" Is it because it would not benefit to Wikipedia or anything like that? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Soraboy280 (talk • contribs) 02:25, 9 December 2006 (UTC).

Thank you for your civility but basically it was probably deleted due to the fact that the person was not notable. Basically what that means is that articles are only allowed to be about notable people. — Seadog 02:28, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

My Upload

I wrote a Wikipedia page, and when I type in the Title in SEARCH, it isn't there. Does it take some amount of time, for I saved it and uploaded it, so shouldn't it be there? When will it be there? When I go back , I see my work, but not when I put the subject into SEARCH. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Leahbeez (talk • contribs) 03:49, 9 December 2006 (UTC).

It takes a wile sometimes. The server is being a little slow today, just be patient. If it doesn't show up for like a while, click on the page where you created yoru article (it doesn't exist but still click on it). You'll get a bunch of stuff written down and a box for you to type in your changes. In the bunch of written stuff, you'll see "deletion log", click on that and see if it was deleted. If it was, then see why it was and if you need to, contact the user (admin) who deleted it. If there is nothing in the log, you must have not created it (probably didn't hit "save"). Cbrown1023 03:53, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

Your article exists, it will be deleted, though, unless you can prove it is notable enough. See the page you created for more information. Cbrown1023 03:54, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

I need help

I need help with my signature. I have been trying to come up with a cool one ever since I had my username changed. I have a really cool one, but the Preferences won't save it right. It says to check the HTML tags, however I am quite sure the HTML tags are right. This is what I want it to look like: CJ King. This is the source code, bolded:[[User:CJ_King|<font color=red face=Tahoma>C</font>]][[User talk:CJ_King|<font color=blue face=Tahoma>J</font>]] [[Martin Luther King, Jr.|<font color=darkgoldenrod face=Tahoma>King</font>]]. Please reply on my talk page, as I will be looking there first. Thank you very much for your help, and please have a nice day.--CJ King 04:40, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

Make sure you have the Raw Signature button clicked. Also, I would advise you to try to cut down some on the length of that sigunature, is it currently spans over 4 lines (see WP:SIG, which hopefully has information on that). Good luck. -Patstuart^talk|edits 05:23, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

Four lines? For me it's barely longer than one line. Remember not everyone has the same screen resolution. Whatever you do, just don't put bold text in your signature—it's sooo tacky. BigNate37_(T) 05:30, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

It's just under one line for me :S but if it is too long, it won't be appreciated on talk pages because it takes up lots of room. James086^{Talk | Contribs} 12:00, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

usa patriot

how do i get to usapatriot act controversy free speech zone —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 74.141.78.164 (talk) 05:17, 9 December 2006 (UTC).

I think you're looking for Free speech zone.--Kchase T 05:26, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

Categories

I know that you can user __NOTOC__ to suppress the table of contents, but is there some handy code to suppress categories from appearing? --Daniel Olsen 05:25, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

I don't think so. That has the potential to be misleading. BigNate37_(T) 05:28, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

Or minimalist, which is the desired effect (it's in userspace). --Daniel Olsen 05:32, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

Ah, I see. Userbox categories, is it? I'm afraid I don't know anything better than substitution and manual removal of categories, if they're coming in from templates, and that doesn't always work. Either way, to my knowledge such a magic word doesn't exist although I wouldn't be very surprised if there was something I didn't know about for it. BigNate37_(T) 05:45, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

The thing is I still want to be included in the categories, not not have the big (somewhat ugly) box at the bottom of the page. --Daniel Olsen 06:52, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

IF you "Really", really dislike them you can make your own userboxes if you know how. That way you won't have any categorys. IF you have questions about that let me know. — Seadog 14:07, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

I already know how to create and edit userboxes and such, but that doesn't solve the problem. When someone browses through Category:Example, I want to be included in that category, but not have all the categories I'm in show up at the bottom of the page. --Daniel Olsen 18:06, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

A Page Full of External Links

I recently expanded an article about the Colton Joint Unified School District. My original intention was just to create a list of schools. I ended up getting ambitious and created external links for all the schools I listed (which I have since edited when I discovered one of the high schools has a Wikipedia article about it). I would like to know if it is considered bad form to create a page with that many external links. Should I leave the list but remove the external links and replace them with a list of links from the school district homepage at the bottom of the article? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by ColTony (talk • contribs) 09:25, 9 December 2006 (UTC).

Normally I would say yes, though in this case it looks like it may be relevant. You could also consider creatinga category called Category:Colton Joint Unified School District. Patstuart^talk|edits 09:49, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

I don't want to sound negative or as though I'm being hostile but it is actually against policy (see Wikipedia is not a repository of links) and it may lead to your article getting deleted. You may also want to move it to List of schools in Colton Joint District or something similar as a list. I think the list has been well made but lists on Wikipedia are usually for listing Wikipedia articles so check if the schools have articles (all of them) and if not you could create articles for them. If you have any questions about this or anything, feel free to contact me on my talk page. James086^{Talk | Contribs} 12:11, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

Getting full (rather than subset) of category contents on single page

Hello. Thanks in advance to all those people who take time to monitor this page and help other users, it must be a fairly thankless task!

My query is that when I visit a category page that contains links to hundreds of articles, such as Category:Cleanup_from_December_2006, the initial page presented only presents a subset of the total articles, with links to the "next 200" etc. This is obviously a useful feature to stop a user's browser having to try and print 10,000 articles if you are viewing a huge category. However, is it possible to override this behaviour and get a list of all articles in a category on a single page, no matter how many there are? (perhaps by sending an argument in the URL such as "&showall=true") The reason I ask is that I have a bot that needs to fetch a list of all articles in a category and it would obviously be a lot easier if it could do this from a single page. Many thanks - PocklingtonDan 10:14, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

My guess is no, but you might ask any of the folks who run CFD cleanup bots, see Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Working. The reason the search result is limited is because unlimited category listings for large categories were causing server performance problems, not because of any client side (browser) issues. If there were a way to defeat the limit, it would provide a denial of service opportunity. -- Rick Block (talk) 16:35, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

darnit, the thing is ironically the bot is going to cause MORE server load if it has to cycle through 200 pages of results than if it could access a single page. Thanks, I will post this query at the page you listed. - PocklingtonDan 16:59, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

Spam, spyware in Wiki Link.

While using wikipedia, I hit on a like to a website www.jt.org that was suppossed to have Saturday Night Live clips. This caused either a virus or spyware to come onto my computer. According to Internic Whois, the owner of this websitre is anonymous and undicosed. In addition to displaying copyrighted content, it appears this web site is placing links on Wiki to promote questionable purposes. I then did a search for other links from this website on Wiki and found several. How should this be dealt with? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 69.153.133.115 (talk) 11:32, 9 December 2006 (UTC).

I suggest that if the site is malicious, you remove any links to that site. But make sure that in your edit summary you make it clear that the website is dangerous otherwise people might undo your edits suspecting you're vandalising or just deleting randomly. I found 190 pages [2] that contain a link to jt.org which means that it might be too overwhelming to remove them all. I couldn't find any discussion of what to do in this situation so I will create a discussion at WP:EL. James086^{Talk | Contribs} 11:47, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

• I've posted to m:Talk:Spam blacklist on Meta. - Mgm|^(talk) 13:12, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

Wiki syntax

I have been studying HTML and understand that Wiki is an abeviated HTML. I have yet to find a section on the actual elements and syntax used. The only thing I found is the Cheatsheet. Isn't there a more extensive Cheatsheet that I can study that I can edit some articles. --Jack 12:20, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

Try the tutorial at Wikipedia:Tutorial - PocklingtonDan 12:41, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

I found I had a similar problem. Usually if you know what you want to do, you can find a page that tells you how to do that, not a big list of code. Try Wikipedia:How to edit a page which has a bit more. I learnt by editing a sandbox and testing things out, copying the code of something interesting and messing with variables and such. If you have questions feel free to ask me. James086^{Talk | Contribs} 12:48, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

info

hi in the steroid skeleton what does the a, b, c, and d rings mean email at [email removed] —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 203.164.117.234 (talk) 12:30, 9 December 2006 (UTC).

Based on my own knowledge I would guess that they are highlighting the alicyclic rings of carbon. I'm not entirely sure however. If you can't find out, I suggest asking the uploader (who made the image), User:Shaddack. Just edit his talk page to give him a message. James086^{Talk | Contribs} 12:38, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

Blocking Malicious Spammers

There is a person (I suspect it's just one unless they are converging on this article) using several IP addresses who has been making frequent malicious edits (and just generally fueling controversy) with little or no explanation. I researched their IP history here and have found a history of these edits, reverts and warnings against them. I place these links here in case the info is deleted.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Mary_Kay#Three_Revert_Rule

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Mary_Kay#Spamming_Wikipedia

I am not an adminstrator, can he/she be blocked? 4.246.207.14 14:06, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

Using Wikipedia/Commons images?

Can images from Commons and Wikipedia be used on other websites providing that there is a link back to Wikipedia? 0L1 Talk Contribs 14:24 9/12/2006 (UTC)

I reccomend asking at Commons help desk. James086^{Talk | Contribs} 14:31, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

nternet connectivity Gprs

I want to know gprs fecility in Tata mIndicom Kindly reply to <e-mail removed> —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 61.2.194.100 (talk) 14:40, 9 December 2006 (UTC).

editing already posted text

Hello,

I have added text to one of the entries and would like to edit it. How do I get back to the text itself? Thank you. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Pf7875 (talk • contribs) 14:42, 9 December 2006 (UTC).

If you are talking about reverting all you have to do is click the history tab and then click the version you would like to edit. — Seadog 15:00, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

Log-in Issues Related to Satellite Modem

I explained the problems I've been having a few months ago and somebody had said they'd heard of others who connect via satellite modems encountering similar difficulties, but had no idea what the cause might be or if there was a solution.

I connect using Firefox on a PC running Windows 2000 Professional. I have cookies enabled and I always check the "Remember Me" box when I sign in. But every time I sign in to WP, I get the "Log-in successful" page, but when I click a link or run a search, it inexplicably signs me out. Occasionally, it'll let me view one or two pages before it boots me, but never more than that. It's impossible to edit a page under my account.

There was a time when, on the same satellite connection, I was able to log-in and stay logged in just fine, but one day, for no apparent reason, this started happening. Since then, there have been occasions when it started working correctly again, but those occasions have always been short-lived.

If anybody has any idea why this is happening and what I can do to fix it, please let me know on my talk page. I would really appreciate any advice anybody can give me. Thanks. 67.142.130.12 14:59, 9 December 2006 (UTC) (My user name is Raoul-Duke)

Log in to the secure server, and it should work fine. There have been several messages from people using your ISP (Hughes Network Systems), and this will fix the problem. Prodego ^talk 15:07, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

Thanks a million. I wish somebody had been able to tell me to do that four months ago. I really appreciate your help. Raoul Duke 04:12, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

author

who is the author of wikipedia —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 69.253.162.78 (talk) 16:00, 9 December 2006 (UTC).

everyone. Cbrown1023 16:02, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

See also this. Jacek Kendysz 16:10, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

And, if you're asking because you want to cite an article, please see Wikipedia:Citing Wikipedia. -- Rick Block (talk) 16:21, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

how do you create pages?

i don't understand how to use wikipedia --cat 16:34, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

See: Help:Starting a new page. You might also look at Wikipedia:Your first article and Wikipedia:How to write a great article. WODUP 16:54, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

Every time i edit a Moderator will change it back

All i am doing is trying to add my knowledge but every time i do, one of you lot change it back :(Stefish23 17:01, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

Hmm it depends on what you were adding. Wikipedia is very strict on the Manual of style guidelines, and Original research will always be deleted. Can you give us some examples. — Seadog 17:04, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

Also there is no such things as "moderators" on wikipedia as this is a collaborative project and every editor can revert others contributions. You may be thinking about Admins however. They have the ability to delete pages if that is what you were thinking. — Seadog 17:17, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

• Can you give a specific example. To ensure your edits aren't deleted, make sure you cite your sources, apply neutral point of view and don't insert too much granular/trivial details. - Mgm|^(talk) 21:54, 9 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Some user is reverting his actions that totally mess up a page. His edit summaries state he needs help but he keeps making changes anyway. He needs some help. Check out his contributions to this post for more information. (Special:Contributions/Stefish23). Cbrown1023 22:15, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

Article contributors/administrators

Hello,

Can anyone please tell me if there is a way to find out which user has contributed and who has edited a particular article a the list of administrators managing that article/category ?

Best Regards, NS

Namesniper 17:34, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

At the top of any article page, click the history tab to see the complete list of all the people who have edited that article. Wikipedia doesn't assign specific administrators to each article or category page, though many admins have very long Watchlists—lists of articles on which they informally monitor changes. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 17:44, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

username

hi i have a wikipedIA ACCOUNT AND CAN remember my password and email but unfortunately can't remember my username! please help me soon 86.136.252.82 17:47, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

I would suggest you think of any articles that you might have contributed to, and then look in the history of contributions for that article and you should surely remember your username when you see it - PocklingtonDan 18:29, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

Yes that would be my suggestion also, also if you have 0 edits it might be easier to just create a new one. — Seadog 18:32, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

who has final oversight over edits?

I have a nagging doubt regarding the structure of Wikipedia that apparently affects many people. There was no answer in the "Very FAQ's" or elsewhere - not that I could find.

I am a fan of Wikipedia and feel it delivers truthiness I can trust - albeit with some reservation. And friends of mine say "anyone can write whatever they want in it so it's meaningless". Common sense tells me this can't really be the case. I've read too many well-researched topics to dismiss Wikipedia's veracity. So how can I respond to my friends or to my own doubts? What kind of oversight is in place to insure that entries are reliable?

Sincerely thank you, Bruce Brashear —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 67.188.124.193 (talk) 18:01, 9 December 2006 (UTC).

Well what your friends said that "anyone can write whatever they want in it so it's meaningless" is not exactly true. See there are many, many people who monitor something called "recent changes" and doing so potentially malicious and unreferenced statements are reverted. — Seadog 18:12, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

The best answer is: check the sources. Wikipedia is editable by anyone, which generally means that bad data gets replaced with better data as people read the articles. But, there's no guarantee. So, if you see something on Wikipedia, follow the sources cited to read for yourself. The articles here are a great place to summarize a subject and learn where to start, but the most important thing is that you can always verify what's written elsewhere. Don't rely on this site as your sole source of information, just like you shouldn't rely on a single book, or TV show as your only source. -- Kesh 18:33, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

• You're probably interested in Wikipedia:Replies to common objections too. Plus: tell your friends that no source at all should be blindly trusted. And you can look up that test Nature did comparing articles of Wikipedia to those in Britannica. That will shut them up. :) - Mgm|^(talk) 21:51, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

Broken bot?

I don't know if this is the right place to mention this, if in fact there is anything to report, or even if I have a right to be as steamed about this as I am. ;-) this edit, which I made on December 1, was immediately reverted as vandalism (attributed to a different user), which no-one noticed or corrected for 9 days. The extent of the problem solving for this issue seems to be apologising for erroneous warning templates; but what about other erroneous edits by the bot? Are they being reverted? I've already posted to the editor's talk page (as you can see), but I wonder if something else needs to be done? Or maybe it already is being done? But if so, why did my edit sit uncorrected for 9 days until I corrected it? Anchoress 18:07, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

VP2 isn't a bot, it's an antivandal program that requires human intervention. Sometimes loading lags and a user will click vandalism, even though the computer thinks it is displaying something else. ST47Talk 18:18, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the explanation, but perhaps you have missed my concern. There is an obvious bug with the program, as you can see from the userpage I linked to. The response to my query has confirmed that, also. My concern is that there are other instances where the program, or person, or whatever has mistakenly reverted good faith edits (as happened to me) that have gone un-noticed. Anchoress 18:21, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

You should report any bugs in detail to the author of the program. Also, if you make an edit to an article, you share as much reponsibility as any other editor for watching that article and ensuring any further edits or reversions of your edit are positive, correct and in good faith - PocklingtonDan 18:27, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

Sorry, but I disagree with you on two points. First, the primary goal of every bot is to first, do no harm. It should not be the responsibility of good faith editors to ensure that their edits are not removed erroneously by a vandal fighting program with a bug. Second, my edit was not to an article, it was to a talk page. And it was reverted with a deceptive edit summary. I'm not saying the deception was purposeful, but it was nothing I could have used from the talk page history to discern that my contribution had been removed. Further, I don't think it's so much every editor's responsibility to ensure their good faith, on topic talk page contributions remain, as much as it is the responsibility of other editors to ensure they don't remove them. And finally, I think you are also missing the point of my post. I am not posting here to castigate the person who reverted my edit; I am posting here because I am concerned that other such mistakes are going uncorrected. I have already posted to the user's page, but the person's response did not reassure me that steps are being taken to check other edits. Anchoress 18:42, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

I'm not sure exactly what you are after if not castigation. If you have found a specific problem with a specific bot, you should advise its author, giving details of the problem, and ask him to take steps to correct if. If he does so, fine. If not, you should perhaps report it at the bot owner's noticeboard. But you seem to be asking for something more general to be done - the fact is, wikipedia is a very open framework and there isn't anything that can be done to prevent all human errors in editing articles (as seems to be the problem in this case) - as I suggest the only real method is to add every edit you make to your watchlist and monitor it yourself, any edit you make on any page on wikipedia has the potential to be edit usefully or worthlessely, purposefully or accidentally - this is funadmental tot he nature of wikipedia and not something that needs to be "corrected". Cheers- PocklingtonDan 19:06, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

I'm sorry if my goals have not been clear up to now. I assure you I am not after castigation, in any way, shape or form. I'm asking for guidance from the community as to whether or not I should be taking any action beyond advising the editor on her/his talk page, because (if you check all the pages I linked to), it does not seem clear that any action is being taken to ensure that other mistakes that have been made besides the one to the page I posted to have been corrected. I'm trying to be as clear as I can be; the mistaken reversion to my edit happened nine days ago, and I myself caught it. The editor who was responsible for the mistaken reversion has been aware of the problem since December 5, and yet had not checked to ensure that the program, which has a bug, had not caused him/her to make erroneous reversions. It seems logical to me that there are more. The editor's response to my original query also did not lead me to believe that any checks were being made. I am asking if there is anything else I should do. Post here? Post to AN? AN/I? Do nothing? I am asking for guidance. Have I been more clear now? Apologies for any confusion. Anchoress 19:18, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

You seem to be asking for the bot creator to go back and undo the changes the bot has made erroneously. Unfortunately, that's not practical. Best thing you can do is work with the bot's creator to help ensure mistakes are less frequent, and let people watching the pages that have been edited fix the erroneous changes. It sounds like the page you were editing doesn't have a lot of traffic, or people simply weren't aware the mistake was made. There's not much that can be done about that aside from correcting such a mistake when you see it. -- Kesh 21:11, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

start medicare

Where do I sign up to start on medicare? William respond to <e-mail removed>—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 24.158.118.98 (talk) 18:17, 9 December 2006 (UTC).

You should probably ask at the reference desk. This page is for questions about Wikipedia itself. -- Kesh 18:35, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

Suggesting a merge

There are two articles that I think should be merged as they deal with almost exactly the same thing. What's the most efficient way to suggest a merger? Thanks. --Mr Beale 19:56, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

Check out WP:MERGE. -Royalguard11(Talk·Desk·Review Me!) 20:12, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

your NSDAP page

You might want to check out your page on the NSDAP. Someone has written an expletive that stands out pretty well in the middle of the text. Just thought I would let you know. I couldn't find any contact or webmaster email addresses.

Thanks. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 204.96.144.232 (talk) 20:11, 9 December 2006 (UTC).

It was just some petty vandalism, which anyone can revert on Wikipedia (and someone already has). -Royalguard11(Talk·Desk·Review Me!) 20:15, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

Two IP edit warriors

I'm having a problem with two IPs warring over content in the Take Along Thomas and Friends. The article survived an AfD, but nothing there is sourced, and both IPs keep adding and removing material in back and forth edit wars. I've tried to resolve this by telling them to source any new additions, but I have been ignored. What do you think I should do? Go to WP:RFC? --Wooty Woot? contribs 20:35, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

It is likely that none of the IPs editing the article are reading the talk page. They are likely unaware that you posted anything. You could try posting a message to each of their talk pages letting them know about your post and requesting comment. An RfC couldn't hurt, either.

My personal advice would be to nominate it again at WP:AfD. The reason for the failure of the last AfD was that people may have been influenced by the "adcruft" on the page. Since that is no longer there, another AfD may be in order. This article as it stands has very little helpful information aside from the introductory paragraph. If all the lists were expanded to actually explain a little about the characters, it would be a better article, but an article consisting of just a list is not helpful.

—P^urpleRA^IN 21:19, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

Mysterious Template for Deletion

On the right hand side of my user page, where the user boxes can be found, there is a green box indicating that this page has been nominated for deletion. I think the box is there in error. The only two people who have edited my user page are myself and my wife (ginkgo100) and I can't find the code that is causing this box to appear. There is no page to discuss keeping the page, so somehow I suspect this warning arrived there in error. Could somebody help me understand what is going on???Balloonman 20:50, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

One of the userboxes that you have on your page (User Republican) has been nominated for deletion. It shows up on all the pages where that user box is. Cbrown1023 21:03, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

Yes it is, if you feel that it should be kept or deleted say so here. — Seadog 21:05, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

You have to be kidding me... somebody is that petty to think identifying oneself with a political party is "partisan politics." Good grief.Balloonman 21:21, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

I added a noinclude tag around the MfD. --Wooty Woot? contribs 22:17, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

Isn't there a special *FD notice for templates/pages used as templates, so that those who use them will be more easily notified of the *FD? (I think it's because most people don't put all the templates they use on thier watchlist, but are certainly interested in the discussion.) Essjay (Talk) 02:34, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

NASA

wiki nasa shows a graphic what appears to be a penis. please fix.

Not seeing any vandalism at NASA. Did you mean a different page? -- Kesh 01:31, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

No it was there, or more specifically Template:Spoken Wikipedia. There has been vandalism to some fairly high use templates recently, and this template was transcluded on to the NASA page. The vandalism has been reverted. Prodego ^talk 01:58, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

Ah, okay. That's why I didn't see it in the edit history on NASA. Thanks for catching that! -- Kesh 02:11, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

Remove Picture

How do I remove a page and Picture I created? the page is http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Copy_of_RM_Logo.jpg

WCJohnston 00:21, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

Simply place {{db-author}} on the page you would like to be deleted. — Seadog 00:24, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

I have deleted it for you. In answer to your original question, only administrators can delete pages (and images), but you can request a page be deleted by adding {{db-author}} to the page as described above. Happy editing! Prodego ^talk 01:03, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

Changing an Article Name

How do I change the Name of an Article from Envision high school to Envision High Schools? MacDude415 03:33, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

You can click on the move button at the top of the page. However, you will need to have been registered for at least 4 days in order to complete this function, and you have only been registered for a day in a half. Someone can complete this for you, if you'd like. You want the article at Envision High Schools? Patstuart^talk|edits 03:34, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

Done. -Patstuart^talk|edits 03:46, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

Parameter values through nested templates

Hi, i'm testing a template A which uses a parameter M to specify a value Z. Inside this template A, I also use a parameter N through which I call a template B. Inside this second template, i specify other parameters but also the same parameter M from the parent template. But i don't know how or if it's possible to "pass" the parameter M's value Z, in the parent template (A), to this child template (B). Have i made myself clear? I hope so... Could anyone help me? Parutakupiu ^{talk || contribs} 03:44, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

I think you are refering to your template experiments in your sandbox. You could try subst: which copies the code across (though you may not want that). I'm going to point you to Category:User template coder which is full of people who can code templates well. Sorry that you're getting told to go all over the place. :S James086^{Talk | Contribs} 04:02, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

Not at all! Thank you for redirecting me. I just want to solve this. Parutakupiu ^{talk || contribs} 04:13, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

Hmm... you forgot to point me to where i could find help, after all, lol. Parutakupiu ^{talk || contribs} 05:04, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

For some reason, it didn't display when he tried to link to "Category:User template coder". Just search for that and see if it helps. -- Kesh 06:07, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

That's because he used [[Category:User template coder]], which added the Help desk to that category (now fixed by making the link [[:Category:User template coder]]). Confusing Manifestation 12:04, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

Oops, I thought I had put the colon in there. Sorry for the inconvenience. James086^{Talk | Contribs} 12:07, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

New article

I'm attempting to write a new article (linked from my userpage), and have found multiple sources concerning the company in question. One is a "local" newspaper article, while two others qualify as a national newspaper. There's also two other references in a pay-for database, which I have identified (but I don't yet have access to their article.)

These articles are unique. However, the primary focus is around a current event involving the company's bankruptcy and it's impending buy-out - there is notability asserted by stating that the company is large and significant (i.e. third largest).

I still think that something is missing from my sources, even though it can survive a speedy or prod - can you think of anything offhand? --Sigma 7 04:15, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

Turning URLs into sources

Hi. I'm working on an article and I need to start sourcing it. I'm crap at links, and the tutorials (which I'm sure are great, it's my problem) make my head swim.

What I need to do specifically is take a URL and have it appear as "PBS article on subject", and so on with three URLS.

Also, I'm still a little confused about citation. Currently there isn't anything in there that I believe would be controversial, but doesn't it lend credibility to the article to through in some citations?

Thanks for your time, NinaEliza 04:22, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

Hi, as for the links part, if I understood well, you want this – PBS article on subject – correct? Then, all you have to do is this:

[http://URL PBS article on subject] 

Don't forget to leave a blank space between the URL and name). Parutakupiu ^{talk || contribs} 04:34, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

But if you are doing these for references, sometimes when you try for an FA or GA the reviewers will get picky and ask them to be made using Template:Cite web. Cbrown1023 04:36, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

Great thanks to you both. This could be an featured article or a good article someday, so I'm going to try the Template:Cite web. Pray for me.

NinaEliza 05:27, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

Success! I did five of them, and the look too cool for school. Thanks again!NinaEliza 06:57, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

This sounds nuts but???

I just checked my contributions and an edit of the John T. Scopes article appears for 16:52, 7 December 2006. that I did not do. This is a problem as this article I'm sure is controversial and I do not wish to associated with this edit. --Droll 05:30, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

Try WP:RFO. Cbrown1023 05:36, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

Oh yeah. HELP!!! --Droll 05:36, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, you managed to revert a year's worth of work too. D'oh! (I've reverted) Patstuart^talk|edits 05:38, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

The point is that I did not do it!!!!!!!!!!!! I think some on spoofed --Droll 05:45, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

Maybe you want to change your password. It's a possibility, I guess. More likely, it was a server hiccup, or you accidentally did it. The fact that it has an accurate edit summary makes it look like you did it. Do you use any software like VandalProof? One of those might have goofed. Patstuart^talk|edits 05:47, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

Thanks a I took it to WP:RFO--Droll 05:55, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

I would have thought this would be for the Check Users so they could see if more than one IP was logging in as him. Of course the people with Oversight often have Check User Priviliges aswell so they would likely help anyway. If you want to try the Check Users go here: Wikipedia:Requests for checkuser. Hope it helps. James086^{Talk | Contribs} 06:07, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

What Does <br/> & <br/> Do?

Danke.100110100 05:32, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

Well you can basically see. It breaks your sentences/edits. — Seadog 05:34, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

It is HTML code that forces a new line. In a wiki it is not usually used but it comes in handy for poetry where you do not want a list or a new paragraph. For example:

This is line one.
This is line two.

Notice that the preferred syntax is <br /> --Droll 05:42, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

div

What exactly does </div> do? I only seem to use it when adding references down the bottom of a page.

†he Bread 06:15, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

To put it bluntly; it ends certain codes. The fact that it contains the "/" means it is closing the tag so there will be a <div> (though it may be <div class> or <div style>) further up the page. You are probable using it to "close" references like this

<div class="references-small"><references/></div>

You can also create boxes and things with <div></div> tags such as the decoration of my user page (edit it and have a look). To create boxes and things you use code like this:

<div style=""></div>

I'm not great with these tags but I'm ok. They are used extensively in templates and for making the references section of an article. If you want to know more feel free to ask. James086^{Talk | Contribs} 06:28, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

Technical answer: it's a block-level element for Cascading Style Sheet declarations.

Non-technical answer: it allows you to make paragraph-wide (or page-wide) changes to whatever is within the div tags. Titoxd^(?!?) 06:48, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

Reverting a Image that has been changed

I found an Image that has been changed to something irrelevant but Everytime I try to use the revision button it seems to work. Now the image page shows the right picture but the article shows a streched out version of the old one. The page is http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newton_OS and the image is http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Newton_logo.gif

I tried to get on the IRC channel but it seems to be blocked from my college, the java app equally fails to connect on both mac and pc. ThanksMicrll 06:17, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

Weird. -Patstuart^talk|edits 06:26, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

Which Part? Micrll 06:33, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

I really wish there was a faster way I could contact an admin or moderator if I have questions.Micrll 06:34, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

In Internet Explorer 7 it appears fine (with a lightbulb), however in Firefox 2 it has the other image stretched. It is indeed strange. I can only suggest force refreshing your browser (press Ctrl + F5) and it will refresh loading the page fully as opposed to a normal refresh. James086^{Talk | Contribs} 06:35, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

On my end, there's a totally different image displayed on Apple Newton OS. When I click the image, i get a light bulb, but what displayed on the page is [3]. Patstuart^talk|edits 06:38, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

The bad image lives here but I don't know how to purge it. --Droll 06:41, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

Also Sorry about all the extra reverts...I was confused...I tried to totally refresh it, didn't work also tired it in IE 7 and safari for the mac, still no luck. The lightbulb is the proper image.Micrll 06:47, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

The First aid image may need to be deleted by an admin. You could try listing it at WP:IFD with a clear message of why you want to have the 2 old versions deleted (maybe a link here) and hope the admin gets it right (asking them to contact you for further explanation if it sounds confusing). Though it runs the risk of it being deleted outright. Still, if it's playing up it might be worth it. James086^{Talk | Contribs} 06:56, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

Got it. I purged the image page and it created a now thumb.--Droll 07:00, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

Cool I see it fixed, Thanks, Now if only I could get onto the IRC channelMicrll 07:03, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

giving credits for information

is giving credits to the information provided allowed? example Mayuko_Aoki#Sources —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Smashwiki (talk • contribs) 06:44, 10 December 2006 (UTC).

It would be better if it were in citation format. -Patstuart^talk|edits 06:49, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

What percentage of users (roughly speaking) register with their real names?

I'm curious about the general consensus on this issue. Although no doubt it's been discussed before, I was unable to find references to previous discussions. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 141.154.220.74 (talk) 06:49, 10 December 2006 (UTC).

I'm looking through the List of administrators, and it looks to be about 50% either way. users that only edit once or twice and then leave probably do it less, but admins are a good gauge for regular users. -Patstuart^talk|edits 07:59, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

Hold on - you've made an assumption there. Charles Knight is my pen name, it's not my real name. With explictly asking people all you can say is that 50% of the administrators use real sounding names not that they use real name --Charlesknight 13:29, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

What Does <tt> & <tt/> Do?

Thanks.100110100 07:17, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

See below. -Patstuart^talk|edits 07:21, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

What Does <br> & <br/> Do?

Danke.100110100 07:19, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

Perhaps you'd like to check out http://www.webmonkey.com/webmonkey/reference/html_cheatsheet/ for HTML related questions. -Patstuart^talk|edits 07:20, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

We also already answered your question above. Please check previous answers before asking the same question twice. -Patstuart^talk|edits 07:20, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

IPA Pronunciation instruction on article pg

How do i go about adding the above to my article? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Mattbray (talk • contribs) 07:32, 10 December 2006 (UTC).

You might like to try the {{IPA}} template, as in {{IPA|['keːɹəˌɭɐ]}} -Patstuart^talk|edits 07:56, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

Image Use

I read the rules about image use, but I'm not quite sure I understand them, so I'll simply ask this here. I have an image on a site that requires permission from an administator to use the image elsewhere, and I got it. Can I use it in Wikipedia, or no? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Narcotics faerie (talk • contribs) 07:39, 10 December 2006 (UTC).

See Wikipedia:Example requests for permission and Wikipedia:Requesting copyright permission particularly the top of Example requests for permission. That will explain the process. You may need them to release the image under GFDL. James086^{Talk | Contribs} 07:48, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

sending

Hi. I'm a first-time user. I tried asking a question but could not find a method of sending it. Pretty basic, but I only need to be told once. Thanks for help and for the great site.— Preceding unsigned comment added by Marg37 (talk • contribs)

Um, what's your question? I'm not understanding.-Patstuart^talk|edits 07:55, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

Well you came to the right place. Just ask your question on this page. Edit this page and someone will reply underneath (like I have). If you want to ask a particular user a question, edit their talk page (it will be called discussion at the top). James086^{Talk | Contribs} 07:58, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

POV and AfD

I remember seeing somewhere recently that POV was not, in and of itself, considered to be a strong reason for AfD, because the article could instead be improved to be more NPOV. Now I can't find this statement again. Can anyone help me track this down? — coelacan talk — 08:19, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

*Cha-king* - Patstuart^talk|edits 08:22, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

Thanks so far. That's in the spirit of it, but it's referring to use of certain texts in an article. What I saw (and what I need to deal with) was about article deletion policy, AfD, and what were considered valid reasons and what weren't. — coelacan talk — 08:54, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

Oh! I found it. It was really obvious too but I overlooked it. Right there on Wikipedia:Articles for deletion where it says "The argument "non-neutral point of view" (violates WP:NPOV) is often used, but often such articles can be salvaged, so this is not a very strong reason for deletion either." And at the top of the page it also says "For problems that do not require deletion, including ... POV problems, be bold and fix the problem or tag the article appropriately." Cool. — coelacan talk — 09:03, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

Maybe this? Or even part of the rest of the page? It says that if the article is biased, it should be tagged with {{npov}} or {{POV check}} and listed on Wikipedia:Pages needing attention. Hope it helps. James086^{Talk | Contribs} 09:04, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

Ahh, good, that too. Now I'm well armed. Thanks! — coelacan talk — 09:06, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

External links to blogs

I encountered a few times that articles were linked to blogs. Personally, I feel that blogs should not be linked to, but is there an official Wikipedia policy regarding this? Thanks. --Joshua Chiew 10:57, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

There is External Links which is the policy on external links, it does say that links to blogs should be avoided, here so yes. James086^{Talk | Contribs} 11:13, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

Thanks again.--Joshua Chiew 11:18, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

Uploading

In trying to upload an article I am told that "." is not a suitable file format. I cannot see the "." to which this error message occurs. Please advise —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Keithredfern (talk • contribs) 13:46, 10 December 2006 (UTC).

Uploading

In trying to upload an article I am told that "." is not a suitable file format. I cannot see the "." to which this error message occurs. Please adviseKeithredfern 13:47, 10 December 2006 (UTC)