Wikipedia:Help desk/Archives/2010 January 9

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January 9

What might be considered, partially, an "attack page"

The talk page for editor LTSally under the subject of Jehovah's Witnesses, I feel is partially an attack page, even though he is explaining his feelings. I don't feel that an encyclopedia setting is the correct place to air personal views, anger, or what can be considered to be hatred towards a religious group of which you are an editor. I've asked a few times for Mr. Sally please to remove this type of language from his page, but he doesn't have an interest presently. These are some of the adjectives used, which are designed to "attack" living persons, although not naming them specifically, or the organization of Jehovah's Witnesses:

"I became increasingly disenchanted with the regimentation of Witnesses and the imposition of rules, the denial of personal choice in many areas, the senseless parroting of stock phrases and ideas and the smugness of Witnesses about their own religion and their arrogant, derisive dismissal of the lifestyles and life choices of non-Witnesses.

I became sickened by the mindless acceptance and sometimes ecstatic reception of empty and repetitive talks given at Witness conventions and assemblies."

(Though this might not be legal slander, that would stand up in court, it does damage the reputation of Jehovah's Witnesses, using the availability of the Wikipedia webpages as an opportunity to air personal grievances against Jehovah's Witnesses, as individuals and as a congregation.)

"...pretending to "go witnessing" as well — to avoid the judgmental comments of other Witnesses.

I realised after some time that within their closed community — a claustrophobic, sycophantic, incestuous community".

(This damages the reputation of Jehovah's Witnesses at large, and his own former congregation, the members of which who are still living.)

"But such is the power — an intrusive, insidious, malevolent power — of the Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society."

The Watchtower Bible and Tract Society are Jehovah's Witnesses. This sentence, I feel is akin to hate speech as is this:

"show why the Watch Tower organization is the manipulative, controlling, tyrannical and unforgiving beast it is today."

"The best course, Witnesses are told, is to feed their minds on "what is true and righteous, and holding appreciatively and loyally to the channel from which we first learned Bible truth". That quote, from the May 1, 1984 Watchtower, tells Witnesses, effectively, to listen only to what the organization tells them. In Watch Tower World, loyalty to the organization comes before truth and conscience.

I'm no expert on mind control techniques, but it sounds like the Witnesses employ a whole system of them. Close off access to outside criticism. Quash curiosity. Punish internal criticism. Establish an emotional dependence. Expel, isolate and silence malcontents and dissidents. And badger members to relentlessly preach, preach, preach the message — a process that will force members to defend and explain the doctrines so often that any vague doubts will simply evaporate."

"If you happen to be facing that sort of pressure, remember those words. Quote them back to those who place pressure on you to remain in the grip of the Watch Tower Society.

So that’s my attitude, and those are my motives. I love to read and I love to accumulate information and share it, particularly information to which the Watch Tower Society would prefer Witnesses not be exposed."

Would this page be a candidte for speedy deletion or should some other approach be used.

I've asked several times for LTSally to modify his page, but he has no interest in that at the present. In my opinion some of the comments here by LTSally are in the form of slander.

Thanks. Please do let me know how to proceed.--Natural (talk) 00:24, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

To be honest, this is a bit of tl;dr. But if you think it violates WP:UP#NOT, you could take it to WP:MFD. -- Bfigura ^(talk) 00:53, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

Delete/Update company history and description

Hello I am in the marketing department of a large corporation and we want to update the history and description of our organization. It would be easiest and quickest for us to delete the current copy and just start over. The reason we want to update is the old copy is poorly written. Is this okay?Kennedie101 (talk) 00:34, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

Sounds like you might have a conflict of interest, so this is somewhat discouraged. ArcAngel (talk) (review) 00:42, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

You might also want to take a look at our FAQ for Businesses. Bfigura ^(talk) 00:51, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

I would suggest that you discuss your proposed changes on the talk page of the article - explain your connection with the corporation, and what you think should be changed . Also, try to find independent, reliable sources which show the information that you want added or changed -- PhantomSteve/talk|contribs\ 15:25, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

How...

I just submitted a User Page on myself. I got the idea from looking at the page on a friend and at the bottom were links to other pages, namely "Other people from Gary, Indiana"....which I am from and want my name to be included in there so people who look can see my profile....How do I get my name listed on that page? When will my profile be listed so people who are searching for me in Google will be made aware of the Wiki page?

01:30, 9 January 2010 (UTC)01:30, 9 January 2010 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Dick Wylie (talk • contribs)

Sorry, but that user page is a too much like a resume or biographical article and probably does not comply with the user page guidelines which allow only a brief description. – ukexpat (talk) 01:42, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

Categories meant for articles aren't supposed to be included on userpages, as per this policy section. ArcAngel (talk) (review) 02:24, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

Please don't think of it as a profile. This is an encyclopaedia, not a social networking site. User pages are allowed to contain information about the user, but are intended to be relevant to them as editors of Wikipedia only. --ColinFine (talk) 09:28, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

JIM LEAVITT

01/08/10 He has just been FIRED as the head coach from the University of South Florida football team because its been confirmed he took a player by the throat and slapped him in the head (FANHOUSE/NCAA FOOTBALL). Please update your information on this individual. Thank you —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.25.236.214 (talk) 01:37, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

Thank you for your suggestion regarding Jim Leavitt. When you feel an article needs improvement, please feel free to make those changes. Wikipedia is a wiki, so anyone can edit almost any article by simply following the edit this page link at the top. The Wikipedia community encourages you to be bold in updating pages. Don't worry too much about making honest mistakes — they're likely to be found and corrected quickly. If you're not sure how editing works, check out how to edit a page, or use the sandbox to try out your editing skills. New contributors are always welcome. You don't even need to log in (although there are many reasons why you might want to). --Mysdaao ^talk 03:13, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

But if you cannot find a reliable source for the information, please don't add it. In that case add a section to the article's Talk page explaining what you want to change and asking if anybody can help you find a reliable source. --ColinFine (talk) 09:31, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

WP accessibility

I edit Wikipedia from China (Beijing, to be precise). On 6 January, Wikimedia sites suddenly all became much slower, and images now do not show up at all. This is the case both at home and at work (different connections, and even different computers). This has actually hampered my ability to explain new vocabulary to my students at the school where I teach, as I can now no longer quickly show them a picture of, say, a meerkat or a lathe.

Is this a general problem with Wikimedia sites at the moment, perhaps due to the server resource problems I've come across references to, or is the problem at this end? If the former, can I expect things to get back to normal soon? If the latter, then I guess there's nothing you can do. All other sites seem to work at their usual speed, and with images. One other wiki that I've tried – Uncyclopedia – works normally (I realize that this is not connected with Wikimedia).

I would appreciate an answer, even if it turns out you can do nothing but tell me what is going on. Thanks.Kelisi (talk) 05:56, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

I wouldn't be suprised if it was a government conspiracy. Seriously, it sounds like the problem is in-country, from your point-of-view. ArcAngel (talk) (review) 07:14, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

How can I add sibling names?

For an article on a soap opera character, how can I list the sibling and parent names on the chart with them being shown? I do list them with the proper symbols, but they don't appear on the article, only on the editing version of it. Can someone please help me

UniversityoffelicityUniversityoffelicity (talk) 05:59, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

It would help if you provided a link to the article, so we can see what the problem is your are encountering. --ColinFine (talk) 09:32, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

Yes, articles use different systems to display information and can make different errors so we really need to know more to help with your specific situation. I looked at your recent contributions but didn't find what you refer to. PrimeHunter (talk) 14:50, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

I was referring to the articles, Gan Wing Ho, Gan Wing Chung, and Gan Wing Ka. These are my most recent articles.

UniversityoffelicityUniversityoffelicity (talk) 18:43, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

I went through each of your 96 edits to the 3 mentioned articles. Please be more specific another time and post a diff. The only attempt I found to add family members to an infobox was 8 days ago in Gan Wing Chung in the 15th of the 96 edits. You got it right in [1]. The parents are displayed when the "show" link next to "Relationships" in the infobox is clicked. You removed the parents the next minute. Is the problem that you didn't click "show"? This is required in the design of {{Infobox soap character}} but not in {{Infobox character}}. PrimeHunter (talk) 20:46, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

user.gif is having a bad hair day

I use the monobook skin. The little icon (link) of a man in a green shirt to the left of my username at the very top of English Wikipedia (en.wp) pages is different to the user icon I have in Wikimedia Commons. On en.wp the user icon has couple of extra pixels in the hair region, at the top of right of the head. What causes this? Is it a user rights difference (I am an admin on en.wp but not Commons)? I can provide a screenshot if there is no easy answer.--Commander Keane (talk) 06:10, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

Your link http://commons.wikimedia.org/skins-1.5/monobook/user.gif should be displayed at Commons while http://en.wikipedia.org/skins-1.5/monobook/user.gif should be here at the English Wikipedia. A binary comparison shows identical 325-byte files for me and no bad hair days. You can try to clear your entire cache or to move the browser window if your screen has bad pixels. PrimeHunter (talk) 14:10, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for checking. It turned out to be the page scaling in Firefox.--Commander Keane (talk) 10:38, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

Mutual Organizations

Dear Wikis:

At the end of your article on "Mutual Organizations" you list the most well known "mutual" companies. In the US you list NY Life and Northwestern Mutual but you omit MassMutual which was founded in 1851 (6 years before Northwestern) and often ranks higher than them in the Fortune 500. It would be great if you could add MassMutual into your list of stalwart Mutual Companies.

Thank you,

Bob Jeffers forcopy<email redacted> —Preceding unsigned comment added by Forcopy (talk • contribs) 06:14, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

Feel free to add the information to the article yourself — just click "edit this page" at the top of the page — if you have located a reference that you can cite in the article. Comet Tuttle (talk) 06:45, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

New Page

I have a band and we are wanting to put ourselves on wikipedia. How do we go about that. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.48.251.208 (talk) 06:37, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

First off, do you meet our notability requirements as outlined in WP:BAND? --NeilN ^{talk to me} 06:39, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

And second off, you aren't supposed to write articles about yourself.Kelisi (talk) 08:03, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

Indeed. Please read WP:COI. --ColinFine (talk) 09:34, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

And perhaps WP:GARAGE. – ukexpat (talk) 16:10, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

1957 oscars

for the year 1957 the oscars listed are incorrect and are perhaps from another year. as far as i can ascertain eg. the winner for 1957 was "the bridge on the river kwai" I don't want to change anything in case I am mistaken. thanks —Preceding unsigned comment added by 95.226.115.11 (talk) 08:41, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

30th Academy Awards lists The Bridge on the River Kwai as the best picture. The ceremony was held on March 26, 1958, awarding for pictures released in 1957. I wonder if you are looking at 29th Academy Awards, which lists the awards given in 1957. --ColinFine (talk) 09:38, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

Nidheesh

nidheesh is normal person,lived in palakkad district(kerala state).... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 59.90.102.17 (talk) 09:33, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

Do you have a question? If you think there should be an article on this person, you need to be aware of Wikipedia's criteria for inclusion. Articles are accepted only on notable people.

If you have the reliable sources which establish that this person is notable, you can create an article (see WP:YFA) or request one at articles for creation. --ColinFine (talk) 09:42, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

nidhi is the nick name of nidheesh..... he has completed his diploma in mechanical engineering.....

See previous answer. --ColinFine (talk) 09:43, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

how can non-resident person provide the legal documents from high court without money to submit to the Abbey bank to transfer in my account?

Abbey national plc Do not like to loan me $6000 to prepare needed documents to release my fund and transfer to my account there , I told them several times I do not have money now and need your help , But they told me there is no policy in our country to give money or subtract of your fund

What shall I do , meanwhile I do not have somebody to loan me so that I can pay to high court —Preceding unsigned comment added by Tech-ali (talk • contribs) 10:07, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

Try posting this on the reference desk. This is for help in using or editing wikipedia. Kittybrewster ☎ 10:41, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

We cannot offer legal advice. Please see the legal disclaimer. Contact your lawyer.--Unionhawk ^{Talk E-mail} 21:29, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

weather

I hope you can help, on tuesday are wednesday you reported on the travel news not to go through Powburn as the roads were bad. Is there any chance you could send me an e-mail of this as my work don't belive me that this area was bad. As a result of this they have sacked me. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.147.22.73 (talk) 11:14, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

Hello. I suspect, based on your question, that you found one of our roughly three million articles, and thought that we were directly affiliated in some way with that subject. Please note that you are at Wikipedia, the free online encyclopedia that anyone can edit, and this page is a help desk for asking questions related to using the encyclopedia. Thus, we have no inside track on the subject of your question. You can, however, search our vast catalogue of articles by typing a subject into the search field on the left hand side of your screen. If you cannot find what you are looking for, we have a reference desk, divided into various subject areas, where asking knowledge questions is welcome. Best of luck. PrimeHunter (talk) 11:19, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

Wikipedia pictures don't show up in web browser

Recently, I can't see pictures in Wikipedia any more. They just don't show up. I tried several web browsers. But none worked. Any help? Eminslw (talk) 11:26, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

Which browsers? Is it the same if you log out? Do you see images at unrelated websites? Do you see http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/a/a9/Example.jpg or http://en.wikipedia.org/images/wikimedia-button.png? Maybe http://upload.wikimedia.org is blocked. PrimeHunter (talk) 13:50, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

I tried Internet Explorer and Firefox. There are no pictures showing up either I login or logout. I have no problems viewing pictures on other website except Wikipedia. For http://en.wikipedia.org/images/wikimedia-button.png, I see a Wikipedia project button. For the other two links, nothing. I used to be able to view all pictures in Wikipedia. But all of sudden, they all disappear a few days ago. Eminslw (talk) 04:42, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

Blocking Edit page / Change option in Wikipedia page

Dear Wikipedia Helpdesk,

We use Wiki extensively in our office for references, but edit option is not allowed for users as per our IT policy. I would like to know how can we block users from clicking on "edit this page" or "Change" or "edit" option in every section.

Regards, Ganesh —Preceding unsigned comment added by 115.184.87.57 (talk) 11:26, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

Technically, this could be achieved by blocking the IP address range (if it is exclusively yours), but as far as I know there is no policy that permits blocking by request like this. You could ask at the administrators' notice board. --ColinFine (talk) 11:44, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

We don't block editing for that reason. See Wikipedia:Blocking policy#Self-requested blocks (the mentioned "wikibreak enforcer" is only for users with accounts). Editing uses a url containing &action=edit. Maybe your software could be set up to disallow such url's but the edit links would still be displayed and it would prevent people from seeing the source code of pages. PrimeHunter (talk) 13:38, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

If you use FireFox, you could probably add a Greasemonkey script per user to hide the edit tab and section edit links. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 13:59, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

Stub

If a stub article cannot have anything more to add to it, should it remain a stub? jc iindyysgvxc (my contributions) 12:06, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

I'm not sure whether you think of removing the stub template or deleting/merging the article. If it's the former then Wikipedia:Stub says: "There is no set size at which an article stops being a stub. While very short articles are likely to be stubs, there are some subjects about which there is very little that can be written." If you think about deletion then maybe the subject fails Wikipedia:Notability or maybe the content should be merged to another article. PrimeHunter (talk) 13:21, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

Finding uploaded picture

I have uploaded a picture and when trying to move it to my article, it seems not to exist. Before uploading the image, I found a page where you can view all recently uploaded images (to English Wikipedia), but after exhaustive search, cannot find this page again. Could someone direct me to this (and if image has been deleted from this archive, would reason be given?). Thanks! Sputtnik (talk) 12:20, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

Click "My contributions" at top of any page to see your edits. Only administrators can see deleted edits but you have not uploaded any deleted files to the English Wikipedia. You uploaded File:John Biddle.jpg.jpg today. I have moved it to File:John Biddle.jpg to avoid the double ".jpg". PrimeHunter (talk) 12:58, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

Files uploaded to the English Wikipedia can be found at Special:ListFiles. Your file is currently there a few pages back. Perhaps you were looking at Special:NewPages with namespace set to File. Uploads are not shown there. The entries are usually creation of a page at the English Wikipedia for a file earlier uploaded to Wikimedia Commons. PrimeHunter (talk) 13:11, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

Where's the page that lists categories?

I discovered once before, after some searching, a very useful page that simply listed categories so you could find the most appropriate categories for a new article. I've been trying to find that page again, but after 15 minutes I have given up in frustration. Anyone else know what the page is? And can anyone suggest why it is SO F#&*ING HARD to find??????--212.183.140.0 (talk) 15:20, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

There are a lot of categories so a list may be hard to use. Maybe you saw Special:Categories, Portal:Contents/Categorical index or Category:Fundamental. But I usually prefer to see which categories similar pages are in or to search for categories at [2]. PrimeHunter (talk) 15:37, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

Portal:Contents/Categorical index looks the more useful, so I can at least find something. (There was another page though that listed categories in a much more flat and accessible way.) Many thanks.--212.183.140.0 (talk) 15:49, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

On second thought, Portal:Contents/Categorical index looks even more useful than that other page I once found. Many thanks.--212.183.140.0 (talk) 16:01, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

Maybe it was Special:CategoryTree. PrimeHunter (talk) 16:18, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

No, that's not it. I'm beginning to wonder if I imagined it!--212.183.140.51 (talk) 07:05, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

Finding references within articles

I am a webmaster/content developer (http://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/) who would be happy to add "Reference" and "External Resources" links from Wikipedia articles to the historical documents on my site. However, FINDING all the articles which site these works is not an obvious task. Is there a way, within Wikipedia, to search for all references to a particular title?

Example: "The Machine Gun: History, Evolution, and Development of Manual, Automatic, and Airborne Repeating Weapons"(http://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/USN/ref/MG/index.html) is cited in some machine-gun related articles; but is there an efficient way to find ALL the articles--and add the links?

Patrick Clancey [email redacted] http://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/ —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.25.148.240 (talk) 15:28, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

You can search existing links at Special:Linksearch. Wikipedia's search function cannot distinguish between search terms inside or outside references. See Wikipedia:Searching, but Google is often better: [3]. See also Wikipedia:Citing sources, Wikipedia:External links (especially Wikipedia:External links#Advertising and conflicts of interest) and Wikipedia:Conflict of interest. PrimeHunter (talk) 16:06, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

URGENT, URGENT, URGENT !!!! MY IP ADDRESS WAS REVEALED - PLEASE CORRECT IMMEDIATELY!!!!!

9th January, 2010

Dear Editor,

I registered after reading the etiquette and other info about editing and posting to discussion under an article. I then registered as Clement St. John and then posted to the discussion under the Radio Caroline article relating to the subheading: "MV Imagine": U.S. Radio Caroline criminal case.

I only posted after reading on your website that I could be assured that my IP Address would NOT be revealed if I first registered. I followed those instructions by first registering and then posting to the discussion at the Radio Caroline article.

After I logged out, I then went back to the article and the discussion tab only to find that MY IP ADDRESS WAS DISPLAYED. PLEASE ARRANGE TO DELETE MY IP ADDRESS from the post I made to the disCussion under the Radio Caroline article relating to the subheading "MV Imagine": U.S. Radio Caroline criminal case.

Please also confirm to me that my IP ADDRESS has been deleted from the post to the discussion under the Radio Caroline article.

I CONSIDER THIS A MATTER OF URGENCY, as the representation that my IP Address would not be revealed has proven to be incorrect and I am concerned about the potential harm that may result from such an undesired invasion of my privacy.

Sincerely,

Clement St. John —Preceding unsigned comment added by Clement St. John (talk • contribs) 15:55, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

• If you do not sign in, and you make an edit, your IP is used log the edit. Gtstricky^{Talk or C} 15:59, 9 January 2010 (UTC)
• There are several IP's in the history of the Radio Caroline page, so they wouldn't know which one to delete, assuming they would even do that. If you hadn't called attention to it, it's unlikely anybody would know. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 16:02, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

• It's been removed from publication. If you would like it removed from the history for security concerns, please see Wikipedia:Requests for oversight. This request should be made via e-mail. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 16:04, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

The edit was logged with your IP address because your account was not logged in at the time. See Help:Logging in for tips on staying logged in. PrimeHunter (talk) 16:12, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

A request please...

Respected Sir/Madam I'm a fourteen year student.... I use wikipedia a lot but I face a serious and irritating problem.... when I copy & paste the information, I deliberately have to delete all the number hyperlinks that makes me lose my time and energy. I, therefore please request you to give a solution for my problem. Thank You —Preceding unsigned comment added by 122.177.141.132 (talk) 16:06, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

I'm afraid I don't understand what you mean. Could you explain your problem a bit more clearly - perhaps giving an example. --ColinFine (talk) 16:16, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

I guess the question refers to numbered links to external sites or reference sections looking like [1] or ^[1]. I don't know an automatic way to remove them. If you use Wikipedia in school work then see Wikipedia:Citing Wikipedia. Saying you copied from Wikipedia and including the references which says where Wikipedia got the information may be a good idea. PrimeHunter (talk) 16:25, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

Oh. One could write a little operating system or word processor script to do that, and I'm sure someone has. If you're using Microsoft Word you can use the find / replace feature. After you've pasted all the text you want into the document, pull this up with control-f. When the dialog box opens up click the "replace" tab (it usually opens in "find"), enter the string \[?\] into the find box, click the show more button (the down arrow) and check off the "use wildcards". Finally, click the "replace all" button. All of the citation links will disappear. They are important, though, because those are what Wikipedia uses to "verify" the accuracy of the information. If you write a paper that quotes Wikipedia, without saying where the Wikipedia editors got it from, your paper cannot convince anyone of its accuracy. As a young scholar you should be looking at those links to decide whether you believe what Wikipedia says. There are a lot of mistakes here and information, just like everywhere else. Hope that helps. - Wikidemon (talk) 16:53, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

Try the Printable version link in the left toolbar. This will give you a plain text version that you can copy and paste without getting the links. You will still have the superscripted numbers. And no, you don't need Printable version to actually print unless you have an ancient browser; see Help:Printable for more. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 22:42, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

AUGUST ALVO

I HAVE A CANVAS PAINTING BY AUGUST ALVO OF RUNNING WILD (HORSES) IS IT OF ANY VALUE? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Maypoppy1 (talk • contribs) 19:28, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

I MADE A MISTAKE THE NAME OF THE CANVAS I FREE AS THE WIND IS IT OF ANY VALUE —Preceding unsigned comment added by Maypoppy1 (talk • contribs) 19:30, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

This is a question for someone who does appraisals, not Wikipedia. mheart (talk) 19:33, 9 January 2010 (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. – ukexpat (talk) 19:34, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

Free as the Wind is unfortunately a mass produced print available on canvas and as a lithograph, it's August Albo's most famous work and thus there are many many seemingly original paintings out there that are actually not. Ebay shows they sell for around US$10-20. Nanonic (talk) 19:37, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

Browser crashes -- Wikipedia code change?

A month or two ago my usual browser (Mozilla) started to crash every time it tried to access en.wikipedia.org.

MSIE seems quite happy, but I am seldom on an MS system.

Firefox (I am using Firefox to write this) also works, but it churns out hundreds of warnings about "errors in parsing" and "unknown properties." I don't know whether these are new (I never looked for them on Mozilla when it worked) but perhaps there have been recent changes to the site's Javascripts and/or Style Sheets that haven't been tested and that some browsers are more sensitive to than others? ----—Preceding unsigned comment added by Wyresider (talk • contribs) 19:32, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

What version of Firefox and your OS are you using? Sometimes conflicts can arise with Firefox AddOns as well. mheart (talk) 19:35, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Browser notes and its talk page for some issues other people have reported. --Teratornis (talk) 19:50, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

Mozilla 1.7 is the one I've always used and that has started to crash ("segmentation fault"). I'm writing this in Firefoz 2.0.0.20. Both are running under Slackware 10 Linux. Wyresider (talk) 21:41, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

dialup modems

Does anyone still make computers with built in modems for dial-up internet users? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 12.74.133.235 (talk) 20:15, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

Have you tried the Computing section of Wikipedia's Reference Desk? They specialize in answering knowledge questions there; this help desk is only for questions about using Wikipedia. For your convenience, here is the link to post a question there: click here. I hope this helps.--Unionhawk ^{Talk E-mail} 21:26, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

Caurso record

I have a orginal record by Caruso , its recorded on one side only .It is on a old 78 record. Is it worth anything? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 96.19.35.218 (talk) 20:18, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

This is a question for someone who does appraisals, not Wikipedia.

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. Kittybrewster ☎ 21:18, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

retired user account/sockpuppet and meatpuppet policy

Recently I retired an account I used to use: Rayjameson. I now use the account I'm logged onto. I did not know about using multiple accounts on wikipedia until I looked at the edit log for American Club (eikaiwa) in August 2009 and found three users that seemed to either be the same person or acting in concert with each other (users 222.149.75.88, Simon-in-sagamihara and Vendo Thefastlane). I then started a new account (the one I'm using now, thinking that if this user/these users edited wikipedia this way then it must be alright). However, I later learned about sockpuppetry and found that user 222.149.75.88/Simon-in-sagamihara has been accused of sockpuppetry. I do not plan to use account Rayjameson again. Can I just continue to edit with this username (Uuyy79) even if I edit articles I edited under the Rayjameson name?...Also, I have edited under a few different IP addresses on wikipedia. I notice others do so as well. Is that OK, or should I only edit under Uuyy79? One more thing, as I mentioned (now that I know more about wikipedia sockpuppet/meatpuppet policy) it seems user Vendo Thefastlane may be a sockpuppet/meatpuppet for 222.149.75.88/Simon-in-sagamihara. Should I report my suspicions? These three user names all seem to edit and critique by using personal attacks and Simon-in-sagamihara seems to lean toward profanity in order to make his/her points. I am not out to "get" these users, only trying to know how best to approach editing wikipedia. If I don't hear anything, I will just continue to edit under Uuyy79. I do not plan to use Rayjameson again. Thank you very much for your time and help!Uuyy79 (talk) 21:21, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

Sockpuppetry refers to using multiple accounts abusively; meatpuppetry refers to recruiting other people to support your point of view or stuff !vote totals in discussions. Having multiple accounts is not a problem in itself. Many users, myself included, keep a "standby" account to use on untrustworthy computers, to ensure the safety of the main account. Other users may choose to edit anonymously, rather than deal with a separate account. It's perfectly alright, so long as you do not use the other account to disrupt Wikipedia. For more information, see Legitimate uses for alternate accounts and Illegal uses for alternate accounts.

Thank you very much. Perhaps I'm a little too overcautious (but better safe than sorry). I appreciate your help!Uuyy79 (talk) 22:29, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

It isn't worth the effort to report the sockpuppets if they are no longer active, as the report will likely be declined because it's stale. Just revert any controversial changes they made to the article; if they come back and continue the behaivour you describe, then you should go to Suspected sockpuppets. Xenon54 / talk / 22:09, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

Thank you for your time and energy in helping me become more proficient at wikipedia editing!Uuyy79 (talk) 22:29, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Sock puppetry. I guess from your post here that you have no privacy reasons to conceal the connection between the accounts so please mark them as both belonging to you. Otherwise you risk trouble later if they have edited the same pages or issues and somebody else connects the accounts. Remove {{Retired}} from User:Rayjameson. The account is apparently retired but the user (you) is not retired. You can replace it with {{FormerAccount|Uuyy79}}. I don't know why you changed account but if you become unhappy with a username then Wikipedia:Changing username is better than creating a new account. It's best to always be logged in when you edit, especially if the same things are edited. See Help:Logging in for tips to stay logged in. You don't have to reveal your IP addresses but if you don't and they support controversial edits by your account then you risk accusations of sock puppetry. PrimeHunter (talk) 22:36, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

Note: I made the above edit after only seeing the original post and didn't get an edit conflict because it was a new paragraph. I have not examined the edits by the two accounts and there may be nothing to worry about. PrimeHunter (talk) 22:40, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

Hey dude. I edit from 222.149.75.88 when my login expires. Vendo Thefastlane is a different guy who lives in a different prefecture to me. I see him on another forum from time to time. Sorry if you get butthurt by having your reference-less edits reverted or edited, but as it says right under this window, "If you do not want your writing to be edited, used, and redistributed at will, then do not submit it here." You'll find that a user called azukimonaka or something like that was accused of sockpuppetry, not me -- some overzealous admin thinks that if two people edit Debito's page then they must be the same person, even if they are obviously native speakers of different languages. Anyway, thanks for playing Wikipedia, and don't forget to look up some verifiable sources for American Club! Simon-in-sagamihara (talk) 09:53, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

smaller thumb image

How do I create a smaller thumb image?Liebgard (talk) 21:46, 9 January 2010 (UTC)liebgardLiebgard (talk) 21:46, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Images. PrimeHunter (talk) 22:05, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

Toolbar Icons

Here is the signature icon. Where do I get the table icon?174.3.101.61 (talk) 22:13, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

[4] See User:MarkS/Extra edit buttons for more. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 22:35, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

In {{Villagepumppages}}, it shows the signature icon and if you click on it, you will go to wikipedia:how to sign your posts. How do I make it that you can not click on it at all?174.3.101.61 (talk) 00:03, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

P.S.: You can click on it, but it doesn't take you anywhere.174.3.101.61 (talk) 00:04, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

Like this: [[File:Signature icon.png|link=|alt=]]. By default, the |link= is the file description page— you can set it to open any page or if blank, disable the link. For |alt=, see Wikipedia:Alternative text for images. You should disable the link and the alt text only for free icons, non-free images need the link for attribution. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 04:00, 10 January 2010 (UTC)