Wikipedia:Help desk/Archives/2008 May 26

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May 26

Starting a translation of an existing article

Resolved

Hi - I'm keen to provide a Japanese translation for an existing article in English, but I'm not sure how to get started. Should I just start a new page and then somehow merge them, or is there a specific way to do translations? I'm sorry to ask - I would swear its in the FAQ, but searches on "translate" and the like don't bring it up, and its not a topic in "editing pages" or the like. Losersaystim (talk) 00:42, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

[1] That is the link to the Japanese Wikipedia. The English Wikipedia does not host articles that are not in some type of English (I.e. British English, American English, New Zealand English, etc). Out of curiousity, which article would you like to translate? « Gonzo fan2007 (talk ♦ contribs) @ 00:46, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

I want to translate the short article about Dan Piraro and his Bizarro comics. They're just starting to get a market in Japan so I thought it would be helpful for people who wondered who he was (well, Japanese people). If it works I'd be keen to do more.

So, I should just start a new page in the Japanese wikipedia and then somehow link it over?Losersaystim (talk) 00:56, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

Yep, just create the page on the Japanese Wikipedia under the proper Japanese translation. Then when you finish the article on the Japanese Wikipedia, add [[ja:JAPANESE TITLE]] to the bottom of the English article, replacing JAPANESE TITLE with the Japanese title of the page. « Gonzo fan2007 (talk ♦ contribs) @ 01:00, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

Gotcha. Cheers mate!Losersaystim (talk) 01:11, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

Verifying Content

A note has been left at the top of the page stating that the content, much of which I have added, needs to be verified by a third party. I have read about the verification process but am unable to make an entry that looks right. My first and second attempts at making an in-article link to third party internet site has failed. Please give me the code, or whatever you call it, that I need to type in order to make a satisfactory third party reference? I am somewhat technically challenged, so please Keep It Simple for me.

I can't imagine that this question has not been asked before, but I cannot find where it has been asked and did not understand how to do it from what I read about the process.

Thx ... Dan —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.112.121.58 (talk) 01:05, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

Right. First, Please sign your post by typing four tildes (~~~~) or clicking the signature button above the edit box which looks like this: . Do NOT sign in articles. The code for referencing is <ref>Reference goes here, preferably with an external link, which is like [URL what you want to show up].</ref> The "Third party" part simply means the reference must be to a 3rd-party source (un-affiliated with the subject). Hope this helps! Calvin 1998 ^(t-c) 01:12, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

For instructions on making proper citations, see: WP:V, WP:CITE, WP:FOOT, WP:CITET, and WP:LAYOUT. Also see Help:Edit summary for some additional important instructions you don't seem to be following yet. You should study some of our featured articles about music to see where you want the Roy Head article to go. (Most people find it easier to learn by studying examples along with reading the friendly manuals, rather than just reading the instructions and then trying to put it all together by editing an article from scratch.) --Teratornis (talk) 04:51, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

Also, you'll want to take a look over at WP:COI since you acknowledge your close relationship to the article. Tiggerjay (talk) 05:02, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

I have formatted the two links in the article to use our standard referencing format as an example for future references. You can see exactly what I did by viewing this diff. I hope that will help you.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 05:16, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

I feel like adding a general lament about the difficulty of doing citations on Wikipedia. Citations are one of the most complex and unintuitive aspects of Wikipedia for many new users. Citations (at the moment) are both difficult and important, making them one of the reasons why such a small fraction of articles on Wikipedia have attained featured quality. It seems unlikely that Wikipedia will achieve its goal of bringing every article up to featured quality, within the next decade anyway, as long as citations remain so difficult to do properly that only a tiny fraction of Wikipedia users have mastered the necessary incantations. It might be necessary for Wikipedia to make proper citations simple enough even for casual users to do correctly, but to do that would probably require vertically integrating a comprehensive library of sources directly into Wikipedia, on something like the scale that Google is attempting (with Google Books, Google Scholar, and so on). Or, possibly, Google will do the heavy lifting, and Wikipedia can build off it. I've been thinking about citations a lot lately, because several of the articles I have been working on (Peak oil, Oil price increases since 2003, Panicum virgatum, etc.) get a lot of edits from users who understand the articles' subjects, but haven't slogged through and mastered our WP:FOOT and WP:CITET pages. Thus I am cleaning up other people's broken citations, and that is heavy going. It seems we have much room for improvement with citation technology on Wikipedia, since the current system needs a perhaps unrealistically high percentage of Wikipedia editors who have committed the necessary hours to learn how to do citations the hard way. I've tried some citation tools such as Zotero and Google Scholar enhanced with the Wikipedia citation assistant, but these tools are very hit and miss - they work well when they work, but often they don't work as in they don't find or recognize a given reference, from which to generate a citation. The underlying problem is that source material has no standard format, so there is always some source that defies automation with a given tool. --Teratornis (talk) 05:27, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

I agree very strongly. The problem is figuring out how to make them easier or more intuitive. That is why I added the references here. Most people are much better at working from an example, and I've seen many times users who figure out the basics except for that they must add {{Reflist}} so they are tearing their hair out trying to get the references to work without the code.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 05:50, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, your comment describes a problem very similar to the energy-related articles I mentioned. Since energy problems are in the news now, some of these articles are attracting lots of edits. And just as with the Adrienne Shelly article, the presence of existing properly-cited references does not seem to clue up new editors who just add their new references any which way. Of course, when I was brand new at editing on Wikipedia, editors with more experience had to clean up my first fumbling attempts. The difficulty I had when trying to understand why they revised my work motivated me to add links to my edit summaries whenever possible. It stands to reason, when we edit someone else's noncompliant work, they probably have never heard of whatever policy or guideline we are following, so it helps to add an easily clickable link to the edit summary, such as: "added citation template per WP:FOOT" or something. I remember having to figure out how to interpret unlinked shortcut abbreviations from edit summaries, and I vowed never to subject another editor to such rudeness (it can be prodigiously difficult for a new user to figure out what an unlinked shortcut abbreviation could possibly mean, because the new user hasn't yet learned all the tricks of how to search for things like that on Wikipedia). I've also added section-specific shortcuts to things like the Editor's index to make it easier for myself and others to provide clickable links to them. --Teratornis (talk) 06:17, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

I think I might try my hand at working up an annotated example of how to do standard <ref></ref> citing in a template, for here and elsewhere. Regarding shortcuts, I rarely use them for new users. I try to spell out the page and link it.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 06:34, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

I'd be interested to see what others think of the refTools gadget you can now enable in My Preferences/Gadgets, which adds Ref and Cite buttons to the edit toolbar. For me it's been a good way of producing better quality citations quickly, even though it is a bit clunkier than some of the external tools I used before. It's particularly handy for repeat citations of named references in the same article, which is done all kinds of ways here and leads to no end of snarlups in complex articles when done manually. I'd recommend it as a real boon to new users learning the art of properly formatted citations - it's not perfect but it's handy, easy to use and a good confidence builder. -- Karenjc 21:49, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

Merger/unmerger at Piha

Resolved

 – I performed the unmerge myself and changed the outcome of the AfD. PeterSymonds (talk) 02:14, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

I'm a little embarrassed coming here after years of working on WP, but this one has me stumped. I recently took part in an AfD - Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Piha Surf Life Saving Club. The article, as initially nominated, was 600 bytes in length and gave no evidence of notability other than that the club was featured in a television series. As such, quite rightly, the first few comments were to merge the article into the equally small article on the series.

I became aware of the AfD towards the end of its nomination period, and - realising that this was a pioneering and former national champion club - started to enlarge the article to show its notability. Unfortunately, before I had a chance to contact the earlier commenters to indicate the changes to the article and ask whether they are willing to reconsider their comments, the AfD was closed and the article was merged.

What this means is that there is now severely unbalanced article on a television series which has 600 bytes on the programme followed by nearly 3 kilobytes on the club involved - a club which should, by rights and by notability, have its own article. Ideally, I'd like to "unmerge" it, but realise that by doing so I'm going against the decision of the AfD. As such, I'm at a loss, other than perhaps to ask here for some third-party, uninvolved editors to see whether they think a stand-alone article on the club is now worthwhile. Grutness...wha? 01:18, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

I closed it. I've replied on your talk page. Best, PeterSymonds (talk) 02:00, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

Status of a requested translation - again

Resolved

I asked this on May 22 but got not answer - so tryign again:

How long does one normally have to wait to get a response to a translation request, in this case Wikipedia:Translation/Evidence ?

Or, did I not set the request up correctly ?

If there is no one to do it, should I just get the request speedy deleted ?

Peet Ern (talk) 05:19, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

I recall trying to look up the answer to your question when you previously asked, and it stumped me. I looked at a few of the other translations and it was somewhat difficult to determine the actual amount of time that they required. The pages that listed milestones did not give dates for completion of the individual milestones. So I looked at a few article histories, but that was not enough to establish a "normal" time requirement. In general, Wikipedia has terrifyingly huge backlogs in many places where editors ask other editors to do things (see: WP:CLEANUP). We seem to have a lot more askers than doers. Anyway, to get an idea how long a translation "normally" takes, you would probably have to ask some people who are active in that area, who would have enough experience to give a meaningful estimate. It seems none of them are answering questions on the Help desk just now. --Teratornis (talk) 05:41, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

I should add that if it was my request, I would just leave it out there until someone does it, or someone else decides to get rid of it. A request that hangs out there unfilled probably isn't hurting anything. You had to do some work to make the request, so why throw your work away? When I was new on Wikipedia, I requested the GPSBabel article, and I think it took several months before someone made the article. I don't know whether the person who started the article was even aware of my request. On Wikipedia there is no deadline. The only reliable way to speed things up is often to do them yourself. --Teratornis (talk) 06:02, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

Thanks again Teratornis. I will leave it for a while longer.

Suggestion: you can try asking people using this list - Category:Wikipedians_by_language. Worked for me when I needed a short translation from Turkish. Jaakobou^{Chalk Talk} 09:56, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

Thanks Jaakobou. I had not thought of that. Will give it a go. Peet Ern (talk) 07:15, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

I now have someone looking at the translation. Thanks. Peet Ern (talk) 00:19, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

Infobox background colour

Resolved

What is the default background colour #xxxxxx for the class="Infobox" ? Peet Ern (talk) 05:21, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

For general information about colors, see: Web colors and Wikipedia:Colours. For specific information on how Wikipedia defines its class values, see MediaWiki:Common.css which contains this excerpt:

/* Infobox template style */
.infobox {
    border: 1px solid #aaa;
    background-color: #f9f9f9;
    color: black;
    margin: 0.5em 0 0.5em 1em;
    padding: 0.2em;
    float: right;
    clear: right;

which might be what you're looking for. --Teratornis (talk) 05:34, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

Thanks Teratornis. I had found the first two. The WikiMedia stuff was exactly what I needed. Peet Ern (talk) 05:50, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for letting us know the answer was what you needed. I was thinking I might have sounded sarcastic by "which might be what you're looking for." Actually I was not 100% certain this was what you needed, since on Wikipedia there are so many gotchas and exceptions that things aren't always as obvious as they might seem. There is always one more thing I haven't heard of which overrides what I thought I knew. And then shortly after I learn about that one more thing, somebody goes and changes it. --Teratornis (talk) 05:57, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

You are welcome (and I meant MediaWiki - it's hard sometimes - your right). Peet Ern (talk) 07:32, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

Image Copyright Question

Resolved

If I were to go to McDonalds one day, and order a Big n' Tasty, and take a picture of it to use on Wikipedia, is the image I took my own image that could be used on Wikipedia or is it the property of McDonalds? I admit images and copyright are a little over my head, but I can always learn. :) <3 Tinkleheimer TALK!! 07:08, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

PS:Another Minor Problem. Help Desk isn't showing up on my watchlist, even though I watch it? Any suggestions to why it isn't? Thanks :) <3 Tinkleheimer TALK!! 07:17, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

Of the sandwich? Yes that can't fall under copyright (see the picture on the Whopper article). I certainly foresee no lawsuits over a picture of a sandwich, so that should be fine. Also, with the watchlist, try purging the cache of the watchlist. It should show up instantly so it's odd that it doesn't. PeterSymonds (talk) 08:38, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

Ooohhh, this is interesting. What about the packaging? If you take a photo of a copyrighted item, do you own copyright to the entire photo? --saxsux (talk) 14:27, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

No, like the WikiWorld part of the Signpost, if you include a copyrighted logo or something you don't own that portion of the picture. weburiedoursecretsinthegarden 20:54, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

As for the watchlist: Visit the 'watchlist' tap in your preferences and change the number in the box to 250. That sorts most watchlist problems!

As for the picture: It's fine. An image of a burger in a bag bearing a logo would be in violation of copyright...... Dendodge .. Talk^Help 20:48, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

model and methodology

Resolved

<content blanked>

Sorry, but this is for asking questions about how to use Wikipedia only. I've moved this to the reference desk for humanities. Best, PeterSymonds (talk) 08:33, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

Exporting file of User contributions

I want to export my User contributions, including my edit summaries, so I can play with the data. Is this possible? -- Alan Liefting (talk) - 08:02, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

You can export a file using the API. You can export it as an XML file which can be used in MS Excel. [2] will give you your last 500 edits. You can see more info on constructing API queries here and on the API documentation page (list=usercontribs). The most that non-bots or non-admins can get is 500. If you want all your contribs, send me an email and I can send you the files from queries of 5000. You can also get it in other data formats depending on what you plan to do with it. Mr.Z-man 08:31, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

I'm not a good person in this subject. However, I don't think you will be able to import. I can't say this will work but try Special:Export and type in Special:Contributions/Alan Liefting . You could check out the ref desk. Hope this Helps. SimpsonsFan08 ^{talk Sign Here Please and get Award} 08:38, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

Get added to Wikipedia.com

Resolved

Done by other users

How can I get background about my website added to Wikipedia.com?

Thanks,

<Personal info removed> —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.180.107.191 (talk) 10:14, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

Well, you can create an account and then post it on your user page. If so, then just don't advertise so much about it. Do you want to make an account?--RyRy5 (talk) 10:19, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

I would recommend not to do that, even on a user page, it can be speedy deleted as spam. See user page policy for guidance in what can be written on a user page. A link to your website on a user page is acceptable, but excessive promotional material is prohibited. It is also recommended that you do not write articles about yourself or any group you are involved with; see our guidelines on conflict of interest. EJF (talk) 11:19, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

See also Wikipedia:FAQ/Business. Much of it also applies to your website, even if it should be non-commercial. Wikipedia is non-commercial and Wikipedia.com redirects to wikipedia.org. PrimeHunter (talk) 11:22, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

I'm resolving this now. Plus, this website is en.wikipedia.org . SimpsonsFan08 ^{talk Sign Here Please and get Award} 11:50, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

You can add an entry about your site to AboutUs.org, and if it's a company site, you can add an entry to Wikicompany. --Teratornis (talk) 16:44, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

I'd think people would be more interested in getting their site into wikipedia.org, the popular reference site that is in the top ten Alexa rankings, rather than into wikipedia.com, a domain name that merely redirects to the .org site. *Dan T.* (talk) 16:49, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

Userpage help?

Resolved

Can someone help me with my userpage? :/ I cant get my userboxes to align center [3]. Please, I'd appreciate help here ;) Mellie 11:13, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

Is that the sort of thing you were after? Or did you want the centre of the page? PeterSymonds (talk) 11:17, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

Well, I'd like it centered here, and possibly without the heading. Sorry, but im a bit of a newbie with this stuff :/ Mellie 11:24, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

WBOSITG (talk · contribs) has fixed it for you. :) PeterSymonds (talk) 11:27, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

I did indeed, hope that's what you wanted. weburiedoursecretsinthegarden 12:03, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

Hello User:Mellie. Your problem is solved so I'm resolving this post. Thank you. --RyRy5 (talk) 11:39, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

IRC vs Windows Live

I know there are many Wikipedia IRC channels. However, I don't really know what IRC is. If I was to set up a Wikipedia Windows Live account (like en-wikipediahotmail.co.uk), give it out to people who need help, and volunteers could be given password to answer on Windows Live Messenger, would I have to obtain Wikimedia permission or can I just go and do it? SimpsonsFan08 ^{talk Sign Here Please and get Award} 14:16, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

It wouldn't work. Firstly, there's nothing stopping people from changing the password the moment they sign in, destroying the system. Secondly, I don't think Windows Live lets users log in in different places with the same username, so chatting within one username (which I think is what you're suggesting) wouldn't work. There are lots of IRC clients to choose from; the one I use is built into Opera and it's very user-friendly. Daniel (‽) 15:23, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

One of the key benefits of an IRC channel is that multiple people can use it, whereas you can only have one person logged in to an WLM account; IRC is intended more for many-to-many chat, while WLM is more one-to-one. I think there's a bit of an ethical side to it too; IRC is an open system, whereas WLM is closed, proprietary and operated by a convicted monopolist. This is just what I think, though - I might be wrong... --saxsux (talk) 15:28, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

IRC is more fun anyway. It's multiplayer notepad! -mattbuck (Talk) 15:29, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

Mental help

Resolved

I need mental halp —Preceding unsigned comment added by RandyMandy (talk • contribs) 16:40, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

"Mental help" can mean lots of things, since mental activity is very broad. If you mean psychiatric help, see: Wikipedia:Medical disclaimer. If you mean you need help with trying to understand a problem you are having with Wikipedia, then please give more details. --Teratornis (talk) 16:50, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

Your brief but checkered contributions history suggests your question is not serious. I suggest that you should learn to take Wikipedia seriously, because we can expect the supply of liquid fuels for transportation to grow increasingly scarce over the next decade or two, and knowing how to contribute to collaborative sites like Wikipedia will be increasingly advantageous as the traditional method of moving information by dragging bodies around becomes steadily less viable. --Teratornis (talk) 17:01, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

Wiki-audiofiles

Godday! > > I have problem with wikis-audiofiles. I have tried to locate where to download > and get it downloaded, but just cant get it right. Iam kind of jerk with > computers. Can you help me ex mail the files necessary to me? I have a Compaq > and the media player RealPlayer. Thanks for your time and help. > >

> Best regards Stefan —Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.65.77.51 (talk) 16:59, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia is a do it yourself system, perhaps the largest one in the world, and therefore to use Wikipedia, one has to read and follow instructions. The instructions you need are all under this link: WP:EIW#Media. Unfortunately, our instructions are not understandable to everyone - the instructions have to assume a certain amount of technical background. If you are unable to follow the instructions in these pages:

• Wikipedia:Media
• Wikipedia:Media help
• Wikipedia:Media help (MIDI)
• Wikipedia:Media help (Ogg)

then you may need to meet someone in your locality who understands that information and can help you directly. It is very difficult for us to give you detailed help from far away because we cannot see your computer. You can meet other Wikipedia users in your area by reading:

• Wikipedia:Meetup
• Category:Wikipedians by location

When you are very new to all of this, it can help a lot if you meet some more-experienced users in person. Only after you have gained enough knowledge of computers can you take full advantage of our written instructions and become more self-sufficient. --Teratornis (talk) 17:11, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

Silesian language code

Resolved

Someone tried to add the Silesian language version of English language. The article exists, but the language code was not recognized. How does the language code get added? —teb728 t c 18:17, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

There is no Silesian Wikipedia. See List of Wikipedias. Are you sure it's a Wikimedia project? Best, PeterSymonds (talk) 18:27, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

According to its main page it is a Wikimedia project. Maybe it is brand new. —teb728 t c 18:42, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

The main page's history shows it appeared on the 31st of march. Fribbler (talk) 18:52, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

Hmm. I'll take it up with Meta; maybe they can do something. PeterSymonds (talk) 18:54, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

Here's the thread. PeterSymonds (talk) 18:59, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

It is working now. —teb728 t c 02:46, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

Edit wars between IP address users

Resolved

The article Cashmere is currently undergoing an edit war between two IP address users, who are being very nasty to each other on their respective talk pages. Actually, they are edit warring on multiple pages, I think, though I haven't investigated thoroughly. What is the protocol here? Loggie (talk) 18:58, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

I've warned them about Cashmere. If they break the three-revert rule within 24 hours, then they can be blocked for 24 hours. If you notice a violation, notify me directly or go to Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/3RR where you can report a violation. Best, PeterSymonds (talk) 19:05, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

SVG rendering

I'm having a problem getting arrowheads to render properly. All the lines on the bottom of the page have arrowheads on the original artwork. The ones on the bottom left are a straight copy and paste from the top diagram. None of them are visible to me once uploaded to Wikipedia. I thought I saw a post here once saying there was an image rendering help page but I cannot find it, so sorry in advance for posting on the wrong page. SpinningSpark 19:47, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

It appears that the problems are when the image is scaled down in size. When it is viewed in full size, the arrows appear properly. This would seem to be a computer related problem, not necessarily a wiki problem. Tiggerjay (talk) 21:02, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

I see no arrows, either when scaled or not when the image is on wiki. If I download it and view it in the editor then it is ok. How are you viewing it full size? by going the image page or what? SpinningSpark 21:13, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

Just to be clear, I can always see the arrows on the top diagram. But if I copy an arrow, then I can no longer see it (when uploaded). The scale has no effect on this either way. SpinningSpark 21:21, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

Click on the image when viewing it on the page page. Tiggerjay (talk) 21:23, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

Doing that takes me to the image page. I see no arrows on any of the lines in the bottom half. Do you? SpinningSpark 22:12, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

Hmm, yes they do, at the end of each of the lower lines, sounds like a rendering problem on your system. Tiggerjay (talk) 00:47, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

In that case I don't get why I cannot see them when in thumbnail view. I understood that the wiki server converted to PNG for thumbnails, so there should be no way my browser can distinguish between arrow pixels and any other pixels. SpinningSpark 06:32, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

Just to be sure, can you please try to view this image and let me know if it shows up correctly for you. Tiggerjay (talk) 16:33, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

Yes, that opens the picture in my local application (Inkscape) and looks fine. It is only when viewed on Wikipedia that it does not render the arrowheads. you might also notice that the top picture has a second arrowhead superimposed on top of the first. This was my workaround when I posted the first diagram on an article a month or too ago (I had forgotten this workaround by the time I came to construct the current diagram). Sorry for the long delay, I have been away from an internet connection for a few days. SpinningSpark 13:45, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

unlinking two accounts with same IP address

My first account used my real name (I know, stupid idea), and I created a new account so that my Wiki profile would be more anonymous. However, I noticed that when I click on "Contributions" for my new account name, it also lists the contributions made by my original user name, since the listing is for contributions by both the IP address or the user name.

I realize that I can't erase the contribution history of my original user name. But is there any way to change it or something, so that clicking on my new user name won't bring up the history of every contribution made from this IP address? —Preceding unsigned comment added by KelvinCelsius (talk • contribs) 19:58, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

Due to the fact that Wikipedia content is licensed under the GFDL, all edits must be kept for attribution purposes, and so your account cannot be deleted. You do, however, have the right to vanish, which you can exercise by (1) requesting your user page (found at Special:Mypage) and/or user talk page (found at Special:Mytalk) be deleted, by adding the {{db-userreq}} template to them; (2) requesting to change your username to something that is unconnected with you (possibly a random collection of letters and numbers); (3) never logging in to your account again. If you do this, you are still free to register a new username if you wish to continue editing Wikipedia. I think this is resolved after my post on your talkpage. Woody (talk) 20:13, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

Kelvin, I'm not sure what you're talking about because your current contribution history only shows your edits as KelvinCelsius. There is no direct linking taking place. Which is what I believe you are concerned about. Edits to other articles, however, will retain a permanent record of edits by all editors, however there is no intrinsic link between various editors. Tiggerjay (talk) 20:59, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

Did you create a new account, or request a user name change? If you changed username, then all your old contributions will still show up under the new name. If you want a clean break from your previous account, you have to log out and create a completely new account. — The Hand That Feeds You:^Bite 21:13, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

Not sure what to call a new article

I want to start a new article about Stefan Eriksson's Enzo Ferrari crash on Feb 26 2006 on California's Pacific Coast Highway. There's a section about it in the Eriksson article, but I think this event is notable enough to have its own article. yahoo search results and [4], [5] 2 detailed news articles.

Does anyone have any good ideas for an article title? Matthewedwards (talk · contribs · count · email) 21:13, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

Stefan Eriksson car accident? PeterSymonds (talk) 21:14, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

I think there is a split guideline somewhere. And remember, BE BOLD. If it gets deleted, It gets deleted. I recommend 2008 Eriksson Crash or something like thatSimpsonsFan08 ^{talk Sign Here Please and get Award} 21:19, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

The guideline that refers to splitting articles is: Wikipedia:Summary style. It and related pages are under WP:EIW#Long in the Editor's index. --Teratornis (talk) 06:17, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

Seriously? Is there actually enough material for a separate article to include the material that isn't covered sufficiently thoroughly in Stefan Eriksson#Car crash and Stefan Eriksson#Police investigation? Really? Remember, Wikipedia is not a tabloid. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 21:23, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

I've worked with Matthew a few times. If he says there is, I'm inclined to believe. :) PeterSymonds (talk) 21:56, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

Online or Offline

Resolved

Some users have something at the top of their user page that says whether or not they're online Wikipedia. How do I get this on mine? Limetolime ^{talk to me • look what I did!} 23:48, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

Have a look at user:statusBot ! It has instructions for signing up and displaying your online/offline status. Fribbler (talk) 23:52, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

There are a few different kinds of status indicaters. Here are a few examples: User:RyRy5/Status (mine), User:Basketball110/Status, and User talk:VanTucky (which is automatic updated by a bot). If you want any of those, ask them on their talk page. --RyRy5 (talk) 03:56, 27 May 2008 (UTC)