Wikipedia:Help desk/Archives/2009 March 15

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March 15

Wiki taskforce

Help needed here.It is casuing problems with editing.[1].Redirects to task force page insteado the project.yousaf465'

It appears to be working now. I think you just need to change the text that says its a taskforce if it is no longer a taskforce but its own project. --Kraftlos (Talk | Contrib) 01:48, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

You might want to put a more structured section to explain what Wikiprojects its related to (for example).--Kraftlos (Talk | Contrib) 01:52, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

You have to substitute {{Task force}}. I have reverted your accidental edits to the template. PrimeHunter (talk) 01:50, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for reverting them,can you edit on my behalf,as I'm having problems with it.yousaf465'

All you have to do is replace {{Task force with {{subst:Task force at the start of Wikipedia:WikiProject Pakistani Aviation, and save the page. After that you can edit the page normally and it will not edit the template. Be sure all parameters are as you want before using subst: PrimeHunter (talk) 02:08, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

Thanks everbody for the help.It is working now .yousaf465'

If I write it - will you load it up.

Hi - I would like to know if I wrote an article / resume would you be able to upload it for me.Regards Scott J Strachan —Preceding unsigned comment added by Strider442 (talk • contribs) 02:12, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia has biographies of notable people, but it does not publish resumes. Biographies have to cite substantial coverage in independent reliable sources, showing the notability. See Wikipedia:Your first article. —teb728 t c 02:32, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

And please also read WP:COI and WP:Spam. – ukexpat (talk) 14:29, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

Is the stanford university recognized/accredited with the ministry/government ofTCIsland, America?

Please provide information about the following university:

The Stanford University Rue du Rhone 14 - 1204 Gèneva (CH) http://www.stanforduniversity.eu <blanked>

Is this university recognized/accredited with the ministry/government ofTCIsland, America?

TCIsland refers to Taurks and Caicos Island

Quotes:

In the URL:http://www.stanforduniversity.eu/garanzie.php, the following information are shown:

Stanford University owns every legally registered academic licence awarded from the ministry and the public authorities of TCIsland, America.

In the URL: http://www.stanforduniversity.eu/chi-siamo.php, the following information are shown:

Stanford University is recognized as one of the world’s leading research and teaching institutions dedicated to awarding people applying for them on the basis of the personal, business or school experiences they collected academic certificates.

Established with an historic university name but separated from the famous American institution, Stanford University’s headquarters is based in Geneva, Switzerland, the homeland of strictness and academic prestige.

Answer please? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.110.243.21 (talk) 03:07, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

Have you tried Wikipedia's Reference Desk? They specialize in knowledge questions and will try to answer just about any question in the universe (except how to use Wikipedia, since that is what this Help Desk is for). Just follow the link, select the relevant section, and ask away. I hope this helps. TNXMan 03:08, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

forum as a source ?

I can't find any ref to this at Wp:RS.yousaf465'

It does say sources should have a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy. I doubt that many forums fit that description. —teb728 t c 03:40, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

WP:RS#Self-published sources links to Wikipedia:Verifiability#Self-published sources (online and paper) which mentions forum postings. PrimeHunter (talk) 03:46, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

So,what should we do with this user usertalk:Fulcrum 29.yousaf465'

Sorry, you'll have to explain further. Do you mean Fulcrum 29 has been using forums as references? If so, could you link to specific edits in which he has done so? To link to a specific edit, go to the page he edited, click on the "history" tab, click on "prev" to see the differences between edits, and then copy the url of the edit you want to show us, like this. --Fullobeans (talk) 04:37, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

These are just two example he also has other such.[2] and [3].His history is here [4].yousaf465'

how should I place sand box link on my user page

Here is the link to my sand box but how do I place it on my userpage. [5]yousaf465'

Edit your user page and add a link like this: Here is my wonderful glorious sandbox. Changing the words after the vertical bar will not affect the link itself. --Fullobeans (talk) 04:31, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

Thanks what about a userbox.yousaf465'

What do you want to do with a userbox? —teb728 t c 05:27, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

See WP:USERBOX. And read H:TMM which will answer the next 50 questions every new user tends to have. --Teratornis (talk) 07:11, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

I want to know any userbox about sandbox.yousaf465'

A question about notability

Someone is creating articles like Malaysia Federal Route 1283 as I'm writing this. I'm hesitant to mark this for deletion but there must be thousands of federal routes. The information provided in these articles are no more than stubs, so why should we keep them? Is it encyclopedic to create articles about every highway in the world? Antivenin 08:43, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

• The jury is still out on that. If I were you I'd judge them on potential. Is there anything that can be said about the route apart from the fact it exists? It doesn't have to be included yet, but if it isn't, a stub should have the potential to grow. - Mgm|^(talk) 10:33, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

  Well there's not much you can talk about. As stated in the article it's a road that connects two places. Wikipedia is not a map. It should be deleted. Should I put it up for AfD? Antivenin 11:44, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

You can look at Wikipedia:WikiProject Highways and Wikipedia:WikiProject U.S. Roads/Precedents if you consider AfD. I haven't followed road discussions and don't have an AfD opinion on the article. PrimeHunter (talk) 12:41, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

This is something that has been debated quite a bit. I know there was a debate (which I cannot find now) when an article about a road became a Featured Article. Someone wanted to know how a road became a featured article. I think Mgm has the correct idea here. Are there reliable sources that support the article? Has anything notable happened on this stretch of road? I'm also reminded of our articles on towns. We have many, many articles that don't go beyond "Town X is a town in the United States, according to the 2004 census". TNXMan 13:40, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

Nothing of any significance has taken place on this route. While I can still stretch my 'tolerance' with towns, making articles about roads is really stretching it. I know there are some roads which have good articles, but that's because they're well known, and notable. So, should I begin an AfD? Antivenin 13:56, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

Significant to whom? Presumably everyone who uses a particular road finds it significant enough. You may consider yourself superior to Malay people, but I'd guess they would differ with your assessment. Stub articles don't hurt anything. You can easily ignore them. Why waste your time destroying information when you could be adding information? Destroying information makes Wikipedia useful to fewer people, thereby driving contributors away from the project and shrinking our pool of potential donors. Jimbo Wales wants to provide "the sum of human knowledge" to every person in the world, not just people who share your tastes. Which parts of human knowledge are people in Malaysia likely to find interesting? Presumably they will want to know about things in their immediate vicinity. Roads are verifiably a component of human knowledge, thus they are encyclopedic. Articles about roads provide a handy way to organize our information geographically. Most roads of nontrivial length will have subjects of our present or future articles strung along them. The subjects of these articles might not relate to each other in any way other than by their location along the same road, and that is precisely the relationship a traveler is likely to find most relevant. Such articles will naturally tend to mention the road; they might as well have an article to link to. Since Malaysia is not an English-speaking country, one must guard against English-centric bias against it. We can expect our coverage of Malaysia topics to develop more slowly than our coverage of topics in, say, the United States, where every article about a U.S. highway can easily link to many other articles about subjects located along the highway. Naturally the often-spurious and cruft-crufty guideline of "notability" will tend to be even more divisive and spurious than usual when applied to non-English-speaking countries. It's already hard enough for Malay speakers to edit on the English Wikipedia with the language barrier in the way. Let's not make it artificially even more difficult by biting them with some cranky nonsense about notability. --Teratornis (talk) 23:13, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

Antivenin didn't say anything about finding Malays inferior... —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jabberwockgee (talk • contribs) 04:48, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

I suggest we ask some Malays how they feel about having their highways declared "non-notable" by someone who probably doesn't speak their language and probably has not lived in their country. I don't see why topics about Malaysia are less important than topics about, say, Ohio where most inhabitants speak a form of English. Wikipedia has articles about lots of roads in Ohio and I have found some of them useful. Why wouldn't Malays deserve to have similarly useful information about their country? --Teratornis (talk) 04:57, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

Dear me. Did I say I'd like it deleted because it was an article about Malaysian roads? I didn't. Stop assuming that I did, and stop making this an issue about regions. I have absolutely NOTHING against Malays. Read that sentence again. And again. I would have wanted this article deleted if it was about my country too. But let's face it, Wikipedia is not a map, as much as you might want it to be. And I know notability is relative. An article about some random person X might not be notable, but I bet he'd consider it notable enough. Do we keep that article? No. We don't. Is it because we are carrying out some personal vendetta against that person? No. It's because we prefer following Wikipedia policies, guidelines, and rules.

Maybe you didn't understand me when I first said it. That's absolutely fine. I'll repeat it here. There must be BILLIONS of roads all over the world. Should we sit down and create stub articles for all of them? The road outside my house is not notable by Wiki standards. It's notable enough for me however. Should I create an article about it? Please, just for ONE second look at it from a neutral point of view, and you might see what I'm talking about. I am not here on a mission to delete articles about Malaysia. I'm here to make Wikipedia a better place. So next time you accuse me of being biased or prejudiced, you might want to think about what I just said.

Still awaiting opinion about whether these articles should be AfD'ed. Antivenin 12:54, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

Oh, and BTW, you don't create articles first and add information later. Bad policy. Those who come to that article expect to see information, and not a request asking them to add information. Antivenin 13:09, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

Can we not have deletion discussions on the helpdesk? If you think it should be deleted, take it to AfD. Otherwise, do not. There's no point having the whole discussion here first and then rerunning it at AfD. Algebraist 13:18, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

I would prefer to continue it here, and then refer the AfD to this discussion. And I want to get my understanding of policy straightened out, so I posted here. Antivenin 13:28, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

Windows mobile

Is Wikipedia prepared for WAP or other type of page that is suitable for mobile/cell phone users? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.166.28.19 (talk) 12:00, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Mobile access. PrimeHunter (talk) 12:33, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

You can access it through wap or use opera which already searches through wikipedia .yousaf465'

Problems with bots

As one of the main editors for the Slipknot WikiProject I am constantly monitoring our articles and making sure they don't have unnecessary and bad edits. However on the article; List of Slipknot band members‎ bots keep adding links to different language Wikipedias on articles like; Donnie Steele, Josh Brainard, Greg Welts and Anders Colsefini which are all articles which we made redirect to List of Slipknot band members‎ due to notability and source issues. Is there a way to prevent these bots from adding these links as it's becoming tedious to have to revert their edits all the time. REZTER ^TALK ø 12:16, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

See Help:Interlanguage links#Bots and links to and from a section. You can try removing interlanguage links to List of Slipknot band members‎ from foreign language articles about individual band members. PrimeHunter (talk) 12:32, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

History link

I am not sure if code has changed or if i have changed a setting or not but for some reason on all article pages i can not get a the history link to appear although i can get ti through watchlist this is not great if i am trying to go to article i do not have on my watchlist. In fact even the watch button link seems to have disappeared as well.--Andrewcrawford (talk) 13:19, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

Try to clear your entire cache. There are also Wikipedia:Keyboard shortcuts. PrimeHunter (talk) 13:27, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

Nope that aint wokring th elinks just aint there--Andrewcrawford (talk) 17:12, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

Which skin are you using in Special:Preferences? Does it help to change skin? Do you see the history tab when you log out? You mention article pages. Is it limited to articles or is it the same for other pages, for example this help desk? Which browser are you using? PrimeHunter (talk) 17:25, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

I have found the fault its one of the gadgets in preferences the one for drop down menus, once enabled it remove all history and watch links, but when you log out its fine but you cant access them in login mode until you disable that gadget. Thanks for all the help--Andrewcrawford (talk) 22:18, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

I didn't know that gadget. I see it adds a "page" tab with a drop-down menu which includes history and watch/unwatch. The documentation says at User:Haza-w/Drop-down menus#Configuration that there is an option to keep them as tabs. PrimeHunter (talk) 02:32, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

I suspect that if it works like other gadget tools, the options only work if it is directly installed in the user's monobook.js file rather than as a gadget via Preferences. – ukexpat (talk) 02:47, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

1939 WORLDS FAIR-PERISPHERE

My dad Walter Skyinkus was born 1922 he lived in New Rochelle NY and attended New Rochelle H.S. I was told growing up that my dad was involved in a contest in school to draw a symbol for the 1939 Worlds Fair. To my knowlede he won a certificate for the design and it was lost over the years. I'm in my fifities now and this story has always interested me. Information regarding this would be greatly appreciated. June Adorno —Preceding unsigned comment added by 96.56.35.226 (talk) 14:13, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

Hello. I suspect, based on your question, that you found one of our over 2.7 million articles, and thought that we were directly affiliated in some way with that subject. Please note that you are at Wikipedia, the online free encyclopedia that anyone can edit, and this page is a help desk for asking questions related to using the encyclopedia. Thus, we have no inside track on the subject of your question. You can, however, search our vast catalogue of articles by typing a subject into the search field on the left hand side of your screen. If that is not fruitful, we have a reference desk, divided into various subjects areas, where asking knowledge questions is welcome. Best of luck. – ukexpat (talk) 14:27, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

Inserting Pictures

When you are creating an articl, how do you insert an image/picture —Preceding unsigned comment added by Seraph189 (talk • contribs) 14:21, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

Please take a look at WP:IMAGES. – ukexpat (talk) 14:26, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

Generally, you use this format:

[[File:<Image>|thumb|<size>px|image caption]]

Cheers. Imperat§ r^(Talk) 14:52, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

abreviations

within the Wickipedia info about catapults there is an abreviation "fl." used. What does this mean ?Marcorair (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 15:12, 15 March 2009 (UTC).

Probably "flourished" i.e. is known to have been around during that period, but may also have been before and/or after (because exact dates remain unknown). - Jarry1250 ^{(t, c)} 15:17, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

Yes, it's flourished (or floruit in Latin). PrimeHunter (talk) 16:55, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

Copyright on specific artwork 1923 and before

I want to use these first four pieces of the "Teenie Weenies" artwork done William Donahey to add to his article. If the link does not come up correct, then just type in "Teenie Weenie" in the Wisconsin Historical Images search box of the Wisconsin Historical Society website. Is that alright on these particular artpieces, even though at the bottom is a general "copyright" notice that a person can not use without written permission. The four pieces were done by him in 1915, 1916, 1919, and 1923. I thought anything on or before 1923 was automatically public domain. --Doug Coldwell ^talk 15:12, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

It depends whether the version Wisconsin History are giving you (i.e. a digital copy of the artwork) is an exact reproduction of the earlier work. It gets rather complicated if it isn't (see also Bridgeman Art Library v. Corel Corp.). - Jarry1250 ^{(t, c)} 15:21, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

Image problems

I'm trying to clear the backlog at Category:Images which should be in PNG format , but I'm having trouble re-uploading the images. For some reason, all the image file names have hyphens in front of them, (I'm not allowed to change the destination file name when re-uploading, even for a .png change) so when I reupload them I get a corrupt file error from the Wiki software. Can anyone please help me?

Cheers

cf38^talk 15:51, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

Guidlines for use of aerial photographs as external links

Hello again. Multimap (microsoft) allows external links but limits 'hits' to 50,000 per year - which seems problematic.

Googlemaps allows external links, and doesn't seem to have any restrictions on linking..

You can probably imagine that sometimes these aerial images can be extremely good external links for geography related articles. Question - are there any guidlines on their use, and are there any aerial photography resources that allow 'public domain' use as well - as an image in wikicommons for use in an article itself would be even better. Thanks. FengRail (talk) 16:20, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

?

Another way of saying "In the light of" —Preceding unsigned comment added by 210.5.121.190 (talk) 16:45, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

This looks like a question for Wikipedia:Reference desk/Language - you almost certainly will get an answer if you post it there.FengRail (talk) 17:43, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

When you ask there, please try to type a meaningful heading for your question. Every entry on the page is a question, so "?" by itself doesn't provide any useful information. --Teratornis (talk) 21:56, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

Finding interwiki links

So, I know that I can use Special:LinkSearch to look for outgoing external links.

I know that I can use Special:WhatLinksHere to find internal links pointing to a particular page.

Do we have any comparable tool for finding crosswiki or interwiki links? Suppose, for example, I wanted to find all of the pages on enwiki which link to my userpage on commons. Is there a way to do that? TenOfAllTrades(talk) 17:25, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

If we have a way, I haven't found it yet. Help:Interwiki linking#Interwiki links to the same wiki versus internal links says:

• "What links here" works for internal links only

but doesn't mention any way to do anything similar with interwiki links. Help:What links here#Finding external links to a page says:

• There is no such feature for interwiki links. This may be a reason to prefer external link style.

Since there are two help pages that specifically say there is no feature to do what you want, I would guess other people have asked for this feature often enough for the help pages to mention that we don't have it. Therefore, this would be a candidate feature for someone to implement in a third-party search tool. Good luck with trying to figure out whether anyone has tried. You could start looking at WP:EIW#Search. Or consider asking again on Wikipedia:Village pump (technical) where there are probably more users bent in a technical direction. --Teratornis (talk) 03:29, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

Easy questions (I think)

Hello I have two questions. First how do you put template onto a page, but not have the categories that they normally add, added? Basically I want to build a cheat sheet of templates that I think that I will use, and what they do, without having one of my sub-pages tagged for cleanup or deletion.

Second question. What is the policy for leaving tags like fact, cleanup, who, or any other tags like that. Should I just put them where ever I think something needs backed up, or cleaned or whatever, or should I ask about it on the article talk page first?

Thanks ahead of time. ZachInOhio^{(talk)(edits)} 17:27, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

templates - can you use the "nowiki" tag eg

{{afd}}

ie <nowiki>{{afd}}</nowiki>

Not sure if that removes what you call "what they do."??

tags - if you add them if possible leave a message on the talk page explaining. Also avoid Wikipedia:Tag bombing.

Don't ask first, if the article has issues you don't need to ask permission.

If the article is really bad - my advice is consider walking away from it..FengRail (talk) 17:41, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

1st question, you can also do a {{tl|cleanup}}, which yields: {{cleanup}}. Jauerback^dude?/_dude. 17:51, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

Okay that answers some of it. The other part of building the cheat sheet was that I wanted to see the wording that was used and any graphics, like they have on the pages that explain the tag use. ZachInOhio (talk) 17:56, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

There are many options with regard to the first part of your quesiton. As above, you can use nowiki tags, as well as prefixing tl| inside the template (tl=template link), but there's also:

• {{tlp}} – Template link, with single parameter (ex. {{afd|articles for deletion}}.
• {{tlx}} – Template link, up to three parameters and interwiki links.
• {{tlsp}} – Template link, ditto subst'ed.
• {{lts}} – See template documentation for more variants
• {{tn}} – Same as tl, but shows the braces as part of the link.
• {{evd}} – Show live example
• {{tlc}}, {{tld}} and {{tlf}} – Template names without links.
  • Tooltip templates (lets you see additonal text when you hover over them):
• {{tltt}}
• {{tltts}}
• {{tltts3}}

--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 18:11, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

To ZachInOhio: when you write "put a template on a page" do you mean to transclude the template? There are several distinct ways in which one might "put" a template on a page. Wikipedia has several verbs with distinct technical meanings that could replace the word "put" in your question. If you want to transclude a template onto a page, without categorizing the page into whatever categories the template ordinarily categorizes a page into, the template must provide an option to not add the category links. See for example {{R from brand name}} which has a category parameter you can specify with a blank value to suppress the categories. Another (tedious) option would be to substitute a template into your table of examples, save your page, and then edit it again to manually remove the category links that the template created. However, substituting the template would cause your example to go out of date if someone later edits the template to change what it does. --Teratornis (talk) 21:39, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

My goal is to create a cheat sheet that I can print out that has examples of what the templates look like. (for an example of what I'm trying to do, look here) Basically I'm trying to get a page that looks like this, but does not get tagged normally, since you are not supposed to catagoize user pages, and I don't want it deleted. ZachInOhio (talk) 18:08, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

two questions:

Hello, I have got two questions, and I would be happy if you would answer them. First, how can I can I have access to a user's email address? ( most users do not mention their email address in their user page), and my second question is that how can I recognize an administer from the "recent changes" list? Thanks in advance--Oldmountains (talk) 17:39, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

1. If the user has enabled e-mail from other users in their preferences, then go to "Special:Emailuser/username" or click the "E-mail this user" link under "toolbox" on the left side.

2. You can't. The only place where rights are listed is Special:Listusers. Type in a name and (administrator) will appear next to the user's entry. There is a script, however, that can highlight administrator names on talkpages. Xenon54 (talk) 17:45, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

(edit conflict)If a user has email enabled, you should see a link on the left hand side of their user page that says "Email this user". As for recognizing whether or not a user is a administrator from the recent changes list, it's not that apparent (from that page, anyway). The easiest way to tell whether or not someone is an administrator is to probably go to this page and do a search for the username you're interested in. TNXMan 17:49, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

((e/c) You can only access a user's email address if they have email enabled. To check whether they do, go to their talk or userpage, and then click on the link for "E-mail this user" in the toolbox on the left hand side of the page (the second menu of permanent links below the search box). This will allow you to email them but you won't be able to see what their actual email address is. If they email back, then you will get the email in the normal course and see their email address. One way to recognize administrators immediately is by installing the tool Admin highlighter. I'm not sure if it functions in lists like recent changes however. Cheers.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 17:52, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

Help - Need to translate English into Sanskrit/Hindi Text

I am trying for weeks to find away to accurately translate English words/names into Sanskrit script. Can anyone help me?

The phrase/names I am looking for is written below:

So if I could I'd wish it all away.
If I thought tomorrow would take you away.
You're my peace of mind, my home, my center.
I'm just trying to hold on, one more day.

Julie Christie Ernest Roydon Hart —Preceding unsigned comment added by Brenda22 (talk • contribs) 18:12, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

I put your example into a <poem>...</poem> tag so it would format the way you probably wanted. You might be able to find another Wikipedia user who speaks the language(s) you want by looking on Wikipedia:Babel/List#H and Wikipedia:Babel/List#S. For example, see Category:User sa for our users who have self-identified as having some level of fluency in Sanskrit, and Category:User hi analogously for Hindi. If you don't know how to contact other users, read:

• Help:Wikipedia: The Missing Manual/Collaborating with Other Editors/Communicating with Your Fellow Editors

--Teratornis (talk) 21:51, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

Signature formatting/customization

Resolved

Hi! I'm trying to customize my signature at the moment, but I really have no clue what I am trying to do. :P I'm basically your worst coder of all time. What I need help on is:

How to add dates automatically to customized signatures

How to change signature fonts

How to change colors

How to change links, ect. (talk page, contrib page)

I already looked at the specific page that talks about customizing signatures, but I really didn't get anything out of it. Any suggestions for me? Thanks! Renaissancee (talk) 18:27, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

You must know HTML to be able to insert some of your specifications. The dates are automatically placed after your signature. Designs of your signature may be applied in both Wiki format and HTML format. Wiki format includes bold/italic letters. You may find Wiki format styles at Wikipedia:Cheatsheet. HTML is based on Internet codes. Colors and fonts are applied using HTML codes. The main code that applies font, color, and styles is <font color="COLOR" face="FONT STYLE" size="HOW BIG OR SMALL">TEXT</font>. For example, if you want red letters in Times New Roman at 20px, you use the following: <font color="red" face="Times New Roman" size="10"> THE TEXT </font> which displays:

THE TEXT

But don't use sizes that big though! Here is how my signature is designed:

• '''<font color="navy" size="3" face="comic sans ms">[[User:ZooFari|Zoo]]</font><font size="3" color="darkorange" face="comic sans ms">[[User:ZooFari|Fari]]</font>'''

which displays ZooFari 18:59, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

Alright, I'll make sure I won't be doing some big signatures, now. ;) Thank you! Renaissancee (talk) 19:08, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

I think I got it...Renaissancee (talk) 20:49, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

Congrats! ZooFari 23:39, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

Section of recently created article does not print out

I just printed out the article on Dovey Johnson Roundtree following my recent additions to it, and I see that a chunk of the text on the screen drops out when the piece is printed. As you will see when you check this yourself, the text cuts off after the words "Georgetown socialite and CIA wife," and the the next printed page is blank. Then the text picks up with the next subhead. I suspect this may have something to do with the large size of the box on the right hand side with photo and ID info, which may be forcing the text downward. Can you assist me in making the photo smaller and somehow shrinking the size of the box? I am not sure how to do this myself. Thanks. Megavoice (talk) 21:36, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

Treament

Can i ask about the possibility to use stem cells for the treatment of any disease --Bakiza al khalili (talk) 21:37, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

You might find what you are looking for in the article Stem cells. If you cannot find the answer there, you can try asking your question at Wikipedia's Reference Desk. They specialize in knowledge questions and will try to answer just about any question in the universe (except about how to use Wikipedia, which is what this help desk is for). I hope this helps. TNXMan 21:44, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

But remember we don't give medical advice. – ukexpat (talk) 00:21, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

Printing problem with Sarah Keys v. Carolina Coach Company

I have the same printing issue of a missing second page as I did when I printed out the article on Dovey Johnson Roundtree. So the issue isn't the box. Please advise. Megavoice (talk) 21:41, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

It might be the issue with your printer which model is it.Remeber to use printable version from right side toolbox.yousaf465'

Any CSS capable browser will automatically use the print stylsheets. If you are using Internet Explorer and are missing printed pages, then add this to your .CSS:

@media print {
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--—— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk - 23:47, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

No, it's not the printer as the problem doesn't occur with the three other randomly selected Wikipedia articles I printed out. There is some issue unique to this article. See my question below. I'm entering the question twice here to make sure somebody picks it up. Thanks! Megavoice (talk) 12:51, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

Don't know the name of what I'm looking for...

...So I drew a picture in Paint. Is there any way/anywhere I can upload it and ask people to comment on what they think it is? It's an old tool I believe was used for star charting. I know that they are commonly used now in decor for offices, desks, and libraries. It consists of metal hoops and an arrow on a base. I saw it in a catalogue a few years back but the company no longer carries it and didn't answer my emails. I didn't find anything in the articles about star charting about it. I'm not really sure what it is. Or is there someone I can email it to who might be able to identify it? Thank you, Phoenix (email removed) —Preceding unsigned comment added by PhoenixHazel (talk • contribs) 22:38, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

• You didn't upload anything yet, but if it's anything I've seen before, I think it could be an octant or sextant. (see http://encarta.msn.com/media_481500701/celestial_navigation_tools.html) Next time, use the upload file link on the left bar and visit the reference desk to ask the question. Hope I was right. Cheers! - Mgm|^(talk) 23:06, 15 March 2009 (UTC)
  • Armillary sphere. --—— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk - 01:27, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

But remember that a user can upload only when their account has been autoconfirmed. – ukexpat (talk) 00:17, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

You could make an account on Flickr and upload your image there. There are a gadzillion other File hosting services you could use to upload your image. Then you would not have to worry about Wikipedia's content rules for images. --Teratornis (talk) 03:36, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

You could also browse the contents of Category:Astronomical instruments and Category:Navigational equipment to see if it might be one of those. Gonzonoir (talk) 11:11, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

Which (US) political party does Wikipedia endorse?

I'm just curious, and I think I know which is, but maybe that's just my impression. A friend of mine says that Wikipedia is serious about its policy of neutral point of view, but that's simply a policy—no-one goes to jail for making biased edits. But my question is: which bias Wikipeda tolerates more, from which side of the isle? --96.232.53.206 (talk) 23:16, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia doesn't tolerate a bias. In fact, it's one of our core principles. See our page on neutrality for more info. TNXMan 23:19, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

I am proud to say that I know of active Wikipedia editors associated with at least seven U.S. political parties, five U.K. parties, etc. We are genuinely determined to watch each other, and ourselves, to avoid biases creeping in. --Orange Mike | Talk 01:11, 16 March 2009 (UTC)--Orange Mike | Talk 01:11, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia is not a monolith. See Blind men and an elephant. What you see on Wikipedia may vary depending on which part you view. One of Wikipedia's m:Community foundation issues is:

• (the) Ability of anyone to edit most articles without registering

"Anyone" means "anyone", not just the small minority of people who might know something about how to write neutrally. Since Wikipedia does not require anyone to demonstrate any sort of neutrality before they edit whatever they want (we don't even ask people to prove they are aware of our policy about neutrality), it's possible for some articles on Wikipedia to reflect the biases of the last people who edited them, at the moment when you happen to view those articles. However, Wikipedia also has internal processes and structure to combat the tendency for articles to spin out of control, so over time we expect Wikipedia as a whole, for the most part, to grope its way toward neutrality. Some articles are closer than others. For example, our featured articles have undergone extensive review and criticism, so those articles probably don't have too much blatant emphasis on one particular point of view. --Teratornis (talk) 03:45, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

When is certain pet article content a "How To"

I hope this is the right place to ask.... I am looking at small animal pet articles such as house rabbit, syrian hamster, fancy mouse, fancy rat and so on... some of these contain information on the care of the species as a pet (caging, feeding, handling, bedding etc). At what point does go from being informative about the article's subject to being How To? If these topics are appropriate, what would be best way to address the somewhat controversial issue of what kind of bedding(s) are safe vs toxic. Currently, the topic is avoided in some articles, and presented one-sided in others. Should each species' article be edited to have the different POV's supported with article references, and then watch every article to make sure that edits are reflected across all of them; or should "pet bedding" be made into an article, and each pet species article then point to that article? (I'm leaning towards this being too much of a How-To that should be deleted, or if it is appropriate to the articles, then I'd rather see "pet bedding" being its own article..., but I don't want to step on any of the many toes of the different small pet article editors!) --6th Happiness (talk) 23:52, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

Might want to read this, even though it is a bit outdated. /me twitches in apparent embarrassment. Cheers. I'^mperator 01:09, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

How to information is an example of procedural knowledge which people ordinarily write in the imperative mood. In Wikipedia articles, we should not write in the imperative mood. For example, compare these two sentences (the example content is meaningless, I just made it up):

• You should take care to avoid adding too many waste metal shavings to your gerbil bedding. (Imperative mood, directly addresses reader, telling reader what to do.)
• Noted gerbil expert Joe Schmoe recommends against adding too many waste metal shavings to gerbil bedding.(footnote goes here) (Describes what someone recommends and cites a reliable source.) In contrast, equally noted expert Jill Schmill explicitly recommends metal shavings. (Describes opposing points of view.)

As to when a passage goes from being informative to being a how-to, there is obviously no way to draw a clear line in the middle of the big gray area. Unless Wikipedia is to be nothing more than a masturbatory intellectual exercise, we are bound to include some information with practical value, from which the reader can infer some procedural knowledge. Instead, there is only the practical reality: a passage in an article becomes a how-to as soon as consensus emerges that it has.

Since Wikipedia allows anyone to edit almost anything, without requiring them first to demonstrate any understanding of Wikipedia's rules, this raises a philosophical question of what, if anything, a rule on Wikipedia actually means. Suppose ten million new users signed up on Wikipedia, determined to write how-tos. Will you spend the rest of your life trying to stop them, and if so, why? You might consider following the low-conflict approach:

• Study and comply with Wikipedia's rules in your own edits.
• When you see someone else violating Wikipedia's rules, let the people who made up the rules take responsibility for enforcing their creations. Wikipedia doesn't require anyone to demonstrate any knowledge of the rules before they edit, so how does it become your job to police the users that Wikipedia specifically refuses to police?
• You can, of course, suggest to people who are violating Wikipedia's rules that they might want to read them. And if you fancy a nice scrap, you can confront them aggressively. But you are under no obligation to do so.

As I pointed out above in my fictitious example, it is possible to reword procedural knowledge so it becomes descriptive rather than prescriptive. Doing so would be a nondestructive way to preserve the edits of less-skilled users while complying with Wikipedia's rules. --Teratornis (talk) 04:52, 16 March 2009 (UTC)