Wikipedia:Help desk/Archives/2006 December 21

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December 21

Mobile Wikipedia

I have seen in my searches that Wikipedia offers a mobile version. Is this true? If so, how can I access it from my Windows Mobile 5 phone?

I think this page is what your looking for: Wikipedia:WAP access ---J.S ^(T/C) 00:22, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

math rendering in Firefox

Finlay,

In ref to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Help_desk/Archives/2006_December_10#math_rendering_in_Firefox

png images did not show because the option "load images from the originating site only" was chequed. Do wikipedia images originate from elsewhere?

Alejandro

They do, they are loaded from upload.wikimedia.org. Nice job figuring that out, Prodego ^talk 02:13, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

Distributing Text

What steps should I take to make sure my distribution of Wikipedia text is completely legal? My confusion in what I should really do stems from two parts of the GNU license: the text is "'free' in the sense of freedom: to assure everyone the effective freedom to copy and redistribute it, with or without modifying it, either commercially or noncommercially", "provided that this License, the copyright notices, and the license notice saying this License applies to the Document are reproduced in all copies, and that you add no other conditions whatsoever to those of this License. You may not use technical measures to obstruct or control the reading or further copying of the copies you make or distribute." What if I need to convert the text to a special file format? Could I still distribute the text then? Technically, could I charge for file format conversion of free text? Also, what should I include with each text? Is it necessary to indicate presence of the GNU license on each Document? Would it be good enough to include a link to the Wikipedia page the text was taken from at the end of the text? Lots of questions here, I know, but maybe there's a simple answer somewhere out there. Thanks in advance. ~~~~

Wikipedia:Copyrights#Reusers'_rights_and_obligations discusses this.--Commander Keane 05:16, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

dogs name

Who was the lead dog in "Snow Dogs"?

Phil Landsberg

I think it was "Demon" according to the Snow Dogs article. However you really should've asked this at the Reference desk, which specialises in these types of questions. The help desk (this page) is for questions regarding Wikipedia itself. For a better explanation, see the top of the page. Harryboyles 03:36, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

How do I correct spelling mistakes on Head Title of aritcles?

I am trying to correct a spelling mistake on a page, but i cant find any options to edit the title of the page. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Trilinguist (talk • contribs).

You have to move the page to the new title. Click the "move" tab, at the top. If your account is not old enough (several days), you won't see this tab. Wait a bit and you will. -- Rick Block (talk) 05:17, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

Article submitted Nov. 16 still not showing up

I submitted an article on The International Listening Association on November 16, 2006:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_creation/2006-11-17#The_International_Listening_Association_.28ILA.29

The article still doesn't come up on a search. Has it been reviewed? (There is a decline notice that seems to be for a deleted article just below mine. It refers to copied material, which definitely does not refer to mine.) Is there something more I need to do?

Since you have an account, there's no need to request it there, you can just create it. And no, it probably hasn't been reviewed, because AfC is chronically backlogged. -Amarkov ^blah_edits 05:22, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for replying. I'm not sure what that means, though. I tried to just create it, but it automatically went there. Doesn't it have to go through that process? Or is there a way to bypass that since I have an account? Sorry for all the questions, but I'm new here! --Thanks!

Protection

how do we protect our articles if we don't want people editing our page? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Lavender Potter (talk • contribs)

That's the point of the Wikipedia, that anyone can add information. To protect a page that has been the target of vandalism, see Wikipedia:Semi-protection policy. Or did you mean your User page when you said "our page"? If so, people generally don't edit other people's user pages. Dismas|^(talk) 06:44, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

(edit conflictx2) You can't, Wikipedia is a wiki which means anyone can edit any page. You also don't actually own any page on wikipedia. If you look just below the edit box when editing a page, you will see this notice "If you don't want your writing to be edited mercilessly or redistributed by others, do not submit it.". You agreed by submitting your writing, so it can and will most likely be edited. Chris M. 06:46, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

I see that you tried to protect your own Talk page. The Talk page is specifically so that other users can leave messages for you, including the tags talking about the text you added to articles being non-notable. Generally these pages will not be protected unless you're subjected to continuous vandalism. -- Kesh 17:58, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

Images

Is there a way to change a picture on a page in Wikipedia, and if so how?

Yes, see Help:Contents/Images and media for starters. Dismas|^(talk) 08:53, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

Unexpected change?

I like using the template Cquote for quoting long passages and sentimental stuff because of the really neat looking supersized quotes. Today I arrive to continue my ongoing effort to improve the article USS Missouri (BB-63) and the quotes aint there. What gives? did someone mess with the picture quotes, or what? TomStar81 (Talk) 06:54, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

There are several problems with this template, but the most immediate reason why it was changed is that it creates problems for blind users, or any users, using screen readers. A stylistic preference for cartoon quotes does not over-ride making an accessible, educational encyclopedia. Template:Cquotetxt is another possibility, but one of the problems with this sort of quoting in general is that it sets aside a quote as being more important than the rest of the text, and is widely abused. —Centrx→talk • 06:59, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

(I edit too slow) There is some discussion on Template talk:Cquote about it. I didn't see consensus, but it appears blind users can't read (/hear) articles with cquote in it because of the neat looking supersized quote, I think that's a pretty valid reason to not have them. Chris M. 07:04, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the info. I was unaware that blind people could not read it/hear it. I guess thats a good reason to change the layout. TomStar81 (Talk) 08:11, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

• Is there any technical reason with template parameters or such that prevents us from replacing one with the other? - Mgm|^(talk) 11:43, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

Benjamin Netanyahu article, artistic picture, but not a fiting one.

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

I believe the picture of Benjamin Netanyahu to be distasteful in that it is an altered picture of him. It should be changed.

It was vandalism, image removed. Viridae^Talk 08:29, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

Editing a page

I would like to add an anti spyware product to the following page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Spyware_removal. How may I do it please? Thx

If the software that you're thinking of has an article already, just go to that article and add [[Category:Spyware removal]] to the bottom. Dismas|^(talk) 09:36, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

An Analytical Study on Assessing Human Competencies Based on Tests

An Analytical Study on Assessing Human Competencies Based on Tests Krishnamurthy Prabhakar, KSR College of Technology ..... (Removed 10,000 word article).

• Hello, thank you for your post. We have removed it because this is a page for asking questions about Wikipedia. Wikipedia does not provide any place for publishing your own papers, or reprinting other people's, sorry. Instead it summarises already existing work in the form of articles. Notinasnaid 10:02, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

Copyright vio--deleted from website?

I'm pretty sure I added the {{copyvio}} tag to the Junaid Jamshed article, but it doesn't even show up in the article's history. Could it be that some administrator would delete such tag and delete it completely, or should I rather assume that something went wrong with saving it and set the tag again? (I also reported the article on the page for copyright violations, but from what I understand the reporting won't be "answered" no matter what becomes out of it...) --Ibn Battuta 11:56, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

There are no deleted edits in the article. That means you probably forgot to save after adding the tag. The article however is very old (created in 2004) so its extremely likely that the other site is mirroring us — Lost^(talk) 12:22, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

It is very unlikely that it would be deleted like that. Admins don't have that power. To permanently delete something (not just admin delete because really that just hides it from everyone non-admin, also they can't remove individual edits) you need oversight. The tool is rarely used and is almost always for removing personal or dangerous information from an article's history (like if someone was posting your personal details to harass you). They wouldn't delete a tag. I think as Lost suggested you simply forgot to save, or possibly your browser made an error? James086^{Talk | Contribs} 12:57, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

Category:Broken_redirects_for_speedy_deletion

Moved to WP:AN. - Mgm|^(talk) 12:54, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia Page Layout

Hello, I would like to change the layout of my Wikipiedia page. I would like to change it to the original scheme, similar to the one and induvidual will get when they visit wikipedia for the first time. ]

Thanks—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 86.128.183.139 (talk • contribs).

I'm not 100% sure I understand your question. But my best guess is that you are looking for the default skin for your userpage when you are logged in under a username (which you were not when you asked this question). If this is correct, log in and click "my preferences". In some skins it is a link at the top of the page. Now go to skin tab, and change it to "MonoBook (default)." Hope this helps.--Fuhghettaboutit 13:28, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

---> REPLY

Thank you for the prompt reply. When I choose the MonoBook (default)option, I still don't get the proper skin I want. Please have a look at this screenshot picture for a further understanding:

http://img183.imageshack.us/img183/2678/wikibb8.png

The layout in the FRENCH version is the layout I want for the ENGLISH version. But how...?

Thanks... :)

Hmm, that's odd. I use the monobook skin and for me wikipedia looks like the french one. Possibly a browser error. I'm not sure what would cause that, try a force refresh (Ctrl + F5) but that is strange, sorry I can't be of more help. James086^{Talk | Contribs} 13:47, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

It's Ok now, Thanks for all your help :D . There was a NT882.xe.2 bug stored which prevented the full breif-up loading of the article. I disabled the bug which was acting on the browser, and now I have got the scheme I wanted. Thanks for the quick replies, thank you very much :)

Bullet Points in Infoboxes

Please see Highway 1 (Israel) infobox - notice how there is a blank line on every box with bullets - this is because if you do not have that line the first bullet does not work just comes out as a * . Can anyone tell me how to sort this while still keeping the bullet points. Cheers Lethaniol 16:06, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

Why do you need bullets there anyway? They seem to be there for every line. If you insist, you could justtype "- " in front everywhere, but I'd suggest just removing the bullets. It's apparent to everyone that it's a list. Xiner (talk, email) 16:38, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

Hey Xiner - thanks for the answer - it is one of my adoptees that wanted to know - I could not work out how to do it. I agree best to get rid of bullets - but I wanted to know the answer anyway - was annoying me :) Lethaniol 16:43, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

I see. Well, if you think about it, a bullet is an indentation with a pretty mark in front. You need something to indent against, and that's what the empty line does, I think. Xiner (talk, email) 19:53, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

auto language select and audio reading of wiki

Help I cant read very well and would love to have the articals read to me !

I'm sorry about that. I think more and more articles have readings. Do you find screen readers useful? Xiner (talk, email) 16:40, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

We have audio versions of many articles. You will find the list at Wikipedia:Spoken articles — Lost^(talk) 17:46, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Requested articles is a bit confusing

I am trying to find somewhere to request an article on the 1356 Basel earthquake. At the moment, there is a French Wikipedia article, a mention in the Basel article, and a mention at List of earthquakes. But I can't work out where to put this at Wikipedia:Requested articles. Is there somewhere you can request translations as well? Carcharoth 16:35, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

Please see Wikipedia:Translation — Lost^(talk) 17:43, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

Thanks. The translation process is impressive. Now I just have to watch Wikipedia:Translation/1356 Basel earthquake and wait and hope! :-) Carcharoth 01:09, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

Adding a link

Hi there,

I had looked up driving simulator and saw the article on it. In the external links section there was a link that led to a page of simulator companies. My company happens to make a driving simulator for training purposes and I was wondering if it would be okay to add an external link to our site? I know the rules say that you can't link to a site for selling purposes but you can link to a site that's appropriate to the article. Our business is definitely appropriate to the article but still may not be suitable for posting. Since there's a link to a whole list of driving simulator companies, of which we're not listed, I wanted to see if we could list ourselves? I have emailed the person who put the list together to see if they'd add us but I have yet to hear back from them. I don't want to violate any rules and am not sure how to proceed so I thought I'd check first before doing anything. Thanks!

What's the link to that page? Sounds like some pruning is in order. Xiner (talk, email) 17:44, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

Do a search for Driving Simulators and you'll see the link listed below under External Links.

Ok, I see the link goes to "a state-financed scientific and technological body", which seems legitimate. The page being in France, however, unfortunately misses out on your company. I'd say write to that website and try to get your company listed there. If you try to insert your link on the Wikipedia page, you'll probably get a warning. Xiner (talk, email) 19:51, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for checking. I did send an email to the email address that's listed on that particular list to see if we could be added but hadn't heard back yet. Hopefully they won't mind adding us. Thanks for your help.

Mearging articles

It was dusciused to merge the more compleat account of the Battle of Hue City to the less compleat Battle of Hue, I read the instruction how to merge the articles but I wanted to ask how to put the redirect order redirect from one article to another? Thank you Top Gun 17:53 December 21, 2006

Try looking at WP:R.--NMajdan•talk 19:28, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

riprap

where id rip rap get its mane.

Try the Ref desk, this is the place where you ask questions dealing with wikipedia. — Seadog_MS 18:54, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

How can I create a new page?

See WP:FIRST.--NMajdan•talk 20:09, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

Way to sync my own MediaWiki site with WIkipedia content?

I'm contemplating creating a Wiki on my website. Most of the content there has no business being in Wikipedia (hence my own wiki) but there will be some articles that are appropriate to be in Wikipedia. Rather than trying to keep a separate version of the same article, is there a simple way for me to "sync" or "mirror" the content in Wikipedia to my own Wiki (probably using MediaWiki although I haven't yet begun the project). I know it can be done as I've seen Wikipedia content show up in searches at places like About.com and others. Is there a simple way to do this? TIA!

Wjarrettc 19:53, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

Sites that mirror Wikipedia content do so by utilizing the database dumps. Based on which dumps you decide to use, you could be looking at anywhere between 10-15 GB and several hundred GB to do a full mirror. You may well be better off just copying the articles you're intereseted in and attributing them per the GFDL. Essjay (Talk) 04:27, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

United States presidential election, 2008

Hi! Does Newt Gingrich is still a potential nominee ? Gridge 20:28, 21 December 2006 (UTC).

Try the ref desk. — Seadog_MS 20:28, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

Thanks anyway. Gridge 21:12, 21 December 2006 (UTC).

Category Help

In the category page 'Characters in The Lord of the Rings' is there a way of, for the names Radagast and Gimli getting rid of the '(Middle Earth)' part of the article name, so it just shows their name on the category page?

I think that makes sense.

le Dan 20:29, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

Unfortunately, no, since those pages are disambiguation pages and not all the articles linked are characters from LOTR. I don't think it matters, though - if people were searching for the LOTR character in that category, they would be able to figure it out (perhaps even more surely) with the disambiguation labels attached. —Keakealani 20:37, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

ok thx just seemed a little bit neater thats all. le Dan 20:42, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

There probably is a sneaky way to do this. It would involve using a character that doesn't display, and creating a redirect and categorising the redirect. Something like GimIi. Probably won't work. Carcharoth 01:12, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

There we go! It worked. Category:Characters in The Lord of the Rings now includes both GimIi (a redirect to the Middle-earth article) and Gimli (Middle-earth). I'm sure there are several reasons why this shouldn't be done, but it gives you an idea of what can be done, if you know what I mean. I used the I (capital i) = l (lowercase l) thing in case it's not clear yet. Unfortunately, Radagast doesn't have an l in his name... Carcharoth 01:19, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

• Because 'piped link' text in a category is used to define the sort order rather than how the page name is displayed there really isn't a way to vary the text which appears on the category page for an article placed in that category. Tricks with redirects like Carcharoth describes above can be used to put other pages in the category instead, but you can't change the way a page name is displayed. Using 'in story disambiguation' might make the most sense... i.e. Radagast the Brown or Gimli son of Gloin. Having those as redirects and putting the category link on them would result in better 'displayed names'. However, it would also cause double listing of these characters or create potential confusion when people see that there is no category entry on the main article itself. The best option might be to change the articles themselves to these more specific names... have the article be titled 'Radagast the Brown' rather than 'Radagast (Middle-earth)'. --CBD 11:52, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

Any advice on how to handle this?

I have a particular concern with a certain group of users (I won't name names) who very flagrantly disobey the guidelines for Reverts on Wikipedia. There are about three to five of them and they seem to hover around the same genre of article. They regularly revert edits without any discussion on the talk page, and in these cases it becomes the original editor's burden to post on the talk page and argue why their edit -is- justified, instead of the reverter posting why it's -not- justified. They arrive at the discussions at usually the same time, and solicit each other for help on their talk pages. It also seems like they avoid the 3RR by getting each other to revert instead of one person doing it over and over. How do you deal with this sort of thing? Is avoiding the Revert policy (specifically, the part that says you shouldn't revert good faith edits and rather discuss them on a talk page) something that has any sort of administrative repercussions (like violating the 3RR), or what? .V. 22:07, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

WP:SOCK#Meatpuppets may be of some help, or if you think the accounts may actually be just one person, WP:SOCK in general has protocol to follow. Your situation is a tough one to be in. BigNate37_(T) 22:12, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

I keep this list handy and have found that consistent and fair use of the templates will keep most people in tow. At the very least, you'll alert others to the problem users. Xiner (talk, email) 22:47, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

pillars of creation lost

I created a stub for the Pillars of Creation, those giant gas clouds, but now if you search for "pillars of creation" it goes straight to that messy stub instead of showing results like The Pillars of Creation, the book. --sleepersix —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Sleepersix (talk • contribs) 22:10, 21 December 2006 (UTC).

Sounds like a disambiguation page or link is in order. BigNate37_(T) 22:13, 21 December 2006 (UTC)