Wikipedia:Help desk/Archive 19

When Stubs Grow Up

I've recently turned two food stubs into articles, and I would like to get their titles listed on the page "Category:Food and Drink" under "Articles in category "Food and drink"", but I have not a clue what the process might be. The list does not allow for ordinary editing as far as I can tell. --Mothperson 14:08, 25 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Simply add [[Category:Food and Drink]] at the end of the article. It will be automatically added to the list. --cesarb 15:39, 25 Apr 2005 (UTC)

In the new line, please. --Eleassar777 17:19, 25 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Well, that was easy! Plus I learned categories are case sensitive. Thanks. --Mothperson 21:01, 25 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Problems with login?

I had no problem getting my password reset emailed to me from wikiquote, but I'm still not getting it from wikipedia. Can someone help? Or am I missing something obvious? Twice I've used "Mail me my password" from the login screen.

Thanks. Username = CatEllen

Nevermind. The "mail me my password" finally worked.

--CatEllen 23:43, 25 Apr 2005 (UTC)

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I have the same problem. I can't log in, and mail my password doesn't seem to work. Are there people who can manually reset passwords? username = gcanyon.

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Same here. Only my thought was that, improbable as it seems, the email I registered may be one that I've since discarded. Al-khowarizmi.

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I'm confident there are only two email addresses that I might have used within the last few years, and both are active. In any case, is there a procedure where an admin can manually reset my password? gcanyon. Peter posted contact info, so I will as well: gcanyon@inspiredlogic.com. I don't think it will do any good, though, as this plea for assistance has gone unanswered for weeks. I see gcanyon2 in my future <sigh>

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I am also having the same problem. I have requested a new password several times but no e-mails have shown up. My username is Peter McGinley. A Wikipedia admin or sysop or whoever can reset passwords may e-mail me at peter@petermcginley.com. This is the e-mail address I have on my account (or at least I think so). It is annoying not being able to log in. - Peter McGinley (202.173.180.85 12:02, 23 May 2005 (UTC))

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Last week I accidentally hit "reset password" instead of "login". The porblem here is when creating the account I did not enter an email adress, because that was optional. Now I have no idea where the new password is. It got sent to limbo I guess. Any idea how I can successfully log back in? Skeeter08865

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I have finally regained access to my account again. It turned out to be an issue with the e-mail going to my blog (TypePad - which I had CNAME'd my domain to) instead of to my Gmail inbox. I remove the CNAME record and the e-mail showed up. Peter McGinley 10:15, 10 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Template

How do you make a template? Do you just create an article called template:title? Howabout1 19:40, 25 Apr 2005 (UTC)

• See Wikipedia:Template messages. But first please read the associated talk page to make sure you're going about it the correct way and for the "correct" purposes. Creating templates is sort-of-kind-of viewed as "creating semi-policy" around here and some editors will get really worked up about useless and inappropriate templates (especially ones that essentially duplicate templates already in common use) and will put them up for deletion right speedily. Soundguy99 20:06, 25 Apr 2005 (UTC)

• Also see Wikipedia:Template namespace and Wikipedia:Templates for deletion. Soundguy99 06:12, 26 Apr 2005 (UTC)

• If you're just going to use the template on about 10 or 20 articles, then there's no point to creating the template. -- Tony Jin | (talk) 03:06, Apr 27, 2005 (UTC)

• You can also use {{x1}}, {{x2}} and {{x3}}. Alphax ^τεχ 14:51, 22 May 2005 (UTC)

Private Educational Wikipedia

I am a professor at a community college. I would like to create a "Private" educational wikipedia for use only by students in my classes. My idea is to post a topic, and let them develop the topic, exactly the way Wikipedia does. The general public would not have access to the students' contributions. Is this possible?

You may be interested in Mediawiki, the web-based software that runs Wikipedia, you can download it of free at mediawiki.org. It runs on PHP and MySQL. The documentation is on http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/MediaWiki -- Zzyzx11 | Talk 23:51, 25 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Uploading

I go to Help:Contents, and it has a link to "How to upload a file"; all that has is a piped link to Special:Upload, which doesn't really tell me how to upload. How do you specify what name you want for your upload? -- Tony Jin | (talk) 02:19, Apr 26, 2005 (UTC)

You need to change the name of the file on your computer to the name you want before uploading it, as there is currently no way of specifying a "target" filename. — Trilobite (Talk) 03:39, 26 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Underlined links

Why does the English Wikipedia have underlined links, while no other language Wikipedia, Wikimedia project, or any Wiki site has them? -- Tony Jin | (talk) 04:50, Apr 26, 2005 (UTC)

No particular reason, but I've heard the argument put forward that plenty of people are still sufficiently unfamiliar with web browsing that they need a link to be underlined in order to recognise it as a link. If you prefer not to have it, you can add something along the lines of " a { text-decoration: none; } " to your monobook.css. Help:User style explains a bit about what this means. — Trilobite (Talk) 05:23, 26 Apr 2005 (UTC)

There were votes on this at meta:Link style vote and discussion at MediaWiki talk:Monobook.css which is why MediaWiki:Monobook.css, on the English Wikipedia, has a { text-decoration: underline } in it. Angela. 08:16, Apr 26, 2005 (UTC)

You can turn underlines off in your Preferences. — Catherine\^talk 19:22, 26 Apr 2005 (UTC)

That doesn't work in the default monobook skin though. Angela. 09:45, Apr 30, 2005 (UTC)

Underlining of links is a throwback to the days when not everyone had a color monitor. Bear in mind there may still be viewers with such a limitation.

This argument is, however, bunk, with the possibility of user stylesheets. smoddy 20:21, 14 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Why is the category redlinked only for me?

I just created a category Category:Tournament systems, and put four articles in it.

Now, when I use my usual browser I see that for instance Swiss system tournament is redlinked to that category, and clicking that link brings me to the editing page. however, when I used an alternate browser I saw the category bluelinked like it should be, so I hope that is what everyone else is seeing.

What's going on? Sjakkalle 13:43, 26 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Yes, it's blue. Clearly your first browser is seeing a cached version. Clear your cache and all will be well. -- John Fader (talk | contribs) 14:09, 26 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Thanks, I have tried purging my disk cache. Still, that category link is red when I'm logged in and blue when I'm logged out. But I can live with that, as long as the link is blue for all others there is not much of a problem. Sjakkalle 14:29, 26 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Well, purging your disk cache isn't quite enough. Cached versions may still exist at intermedia proxies, not least the frontline Squid proxies that mediate all traffic to wikipedia. To clear their caches too, you need to have your browser send them a special message in the HTTP request header. Details of how to do this are given at Wikipedia:Bypass your cache. -- John Fader (talk | contribs) 14:49, 26 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Thanks. I finally found a solution, I removed the category from the article, then immediately restored it. It was blue then. Sjakkalle 06:37, 27 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Advanced template problem: Unwanted page breaks

Sometimes, a line break is inserted in front of a template. It seems to depend on some weird, distant context. See Help talk:Template for details.

Could someone please take a look? I posted my problem there a couple of days ago, but nobody noticed. Thanks! — Sebastian (T) 17:36, 2005 Apr 26 (UTC)

Yep, it looks like a bug. Looking at (a slightly simpler version) with the DOMinspector, the signature template gets its own P tag after the DL tag that contains the conversation. You should raise a bug on this. But please don't use a template for your signature - all that transclusion really slows the webserver down unduly. -- John Fader (talk | contribs) 18:25, 26 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Thank you for your reply. Too bad about the performace issue. I really like the way templates assure consistency and how they keep the edit view compact – and people told me they like it. If I use "subst:" instead, it will become illegible. Do we know how much templates contribute to slowing down the server? Does it make a difference how often the same template is used on one page? — Sebastian (T) 17:36, 2005 Apr 26 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Signature#Transclusion.2Ftemplate explains. -- John Fader (talk | contribs) 19:27, 26 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Oh, incidentally i found a workaround for the line break problem. I added "subst:" in order to avoid the inclusion, but forgot that this only unwraps the first level. Now if i only could continue using the spectrum sig ... — Sebastian (talk) 19:23, 2005 Apr 26 (UTC)

Personal css and js pages

Wikipedia:Protection policy states "There is no need to protect personal css and js pages like user/monobook.css or user/cologneblue.js. Only the account associated with these pages is able to edit them." However, I was able to edit another user's monobook.js (with her permission, of course). Is this because I am an administrator? — Knowledge Seeker দ 19:33, 26 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Yes, administrators can edit other users' .css and .js files. -- John Fader (talk | contribs) 19:59, 26 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Thanks! — Knowledge Seeker দ 05:22, 27 Apr 2005 (UTC)

No intention of altering a photo

I want to make a cover page for a report. To make it more dramatic I want to place a picture on it. I do not want to change it nor spread it to other sites. After my report the picture is going to be destroyed. Do I need permission?

Is this a technical question about Wikipedia or rather a general question about copyright? In the latter case you want to post your question at Wikipedia:Reference desk. Sebastian (talk) 19:54, 2005 Apr 26 (UTC)

HTML "Section" character

What is the HTML character code for the "section" marker (the one that looks like two interlocked capital S characters)? -- John Fader (talk | contribs) 22:43, 26 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Never mind, I found it. (§) -- John Fader (talk | contribs) 22:46, 26 Apr 2005 (UTC)

How to self-reference

After spending quite a bit of time as a Wikipedia lurker, I've finally registered and begun to do some editing in my areas of expertise. I notice that there are articles for quite a few authors here, and I'm a writer myself. Would it be appropriate to list my books on my user page or create a regular article, or are those just for the famous "big name" authors? I'm not a famous author by any means, but I do have over 20,000 books in print through mainstream publishers. I'm not looking to create a vanity page (I already have my own site), but if authors are going to have Wikipedia entries, I'd just as soon write mine myself. -- Gary D Robson 01:28, 27 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I'd suggest reading Wikipedia:Autobiography. -- Rick Block 02:15, 27 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Thank you, Rick. That's exactly what I wanted to know. I'll steer clear! Gary D Robson 02:47, 27 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Oh, and you're perfectly free to list your books on your user page--it might even give your edits some additional weight in your field of expertise, if people knew you were a published author on the topic. Best, Meelar (talk) 02:54, Apr 27, 2005 (UTC)

20,000? How did you manage that? Mgm|^(talk) 05:15, Apr 27, 2005 (UTC)

I assumed he meant 20,000 copies... Shimgray 19:04, 27 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Presidents table

Could whoever is in charge of this:

{{Uspresidents}}

Please fix it so that it directs to Franklin D. Roosevelt and not Franklin Delano Roosevelt, as the article has now been moved? Adam 03:57, 28 Apr 2005 (UTC)

This is done now. It can be edited at Template:USpresidents. Angela. 05:35, Apr 28, 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for that. I see that the template has changed, but when I go to here, I see all the Presidents still redirecting from Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Do you know why this is? Adam 08:28, 28 Apr 2005 (UTC)

The whatlinkhere page is built from a database record that is updated when an article (or template) is saved. Since the president articles have not changed (only the template) the database record will be out of date until the next change to each of the president articles. If this bothers you, you can do a null edit (click edit, and save the current version of the page with no edit summary) on each article to force the update. -- Rick Block 13:57, 28 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Thanks. I was hoping to avoid having to do that. :( Adam 00:09, 29 Apr 2005 (UTC)

$ in template?

I seem to have remembered someone using a dollar sign ($) in a template to supress an unused parameter from showing a red link. Naturally, I can't find it now I want to document it for later use. Can anyone help? Mgm|^(talk) 09:45, Apr 28, 2005 (UTC)

Page that looks like advert

Just came across this page Dremel, it looks like a blatant POV adverterising to me. But I can't say I know much about the Dremel drill myself. Were would I bring this to the attention of other wikipedians? I know I could put it on Wikipedia:Votes for deletion but I'm not sure it shopuld be deleted I just want to know what other people think.--JK the unwise 13:29, 28 Apr 2005 (UTC)

• You could ask put it on VFD regardless and tell people outright how you feel about it. Alternatively, you could enlist the cleanup taskforce or look on the list of wikipedians and find someone with DIY knowledge. Mgm|^(talk) 20:52, Apr 28, 2005 (UTC)

Uploading my photos

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Upload

I want to add 4 photos of mine of a location to a page here about that location

I put the filename in the "Filename:" box

What goes in the "Summary:" box?

I added info about the photos

How long does this take to upload a photo?

Do I get notification when it's done? Thank you

- - - - - - - -

UPDATE : May 2 Tried again (several times) Waited 10 minutes - nothing happens (using DSL)

- - - - - - - -

Images upload (one at a time, I'm afraid) as fast as your internet connection will transfer them. The upload page will stick while the upload is going on, and (once it's done) will ask you to enter some details about the picture. It's quick, easy, and fun. -- John Fader (talk | contribs) 20:49, 28 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Text in the summary box is automatically added to the image description page of the image and should contain info on its source and copyright status. Mgm|^(talk) 20:55, Apr 28, 2005 (UTC)

Plain text in multiple languages

I'm doing a project to calculate character frequencies/probabilities in different languages, so I need loads of source text. So what's the best place to get plain text from Wikipedia, Wikibooks or Wikisource ans what's the best way to extract the text and remove all the html formating?

• You might have a better change at using the wikiformatted text. It's a lot easier to strip of it's coding. But you'll have to get a technical wikipedian for a further answer. 131.211.210.12 07:59, 29 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Sound articles

Where can I find the articles which have been spoken verbally? I remember seeing a page where it says an audio version of this article is available (or something similar).

• Thorpe • 20:36, 28 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Category:Spoken articles -- John Fader (talk | contribs) 20:40, 28 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Thanks mate! • Thorpe • 16:18, 29 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Court Affidavit Usage

I copied several paragraphs from a court affidavit to post an article. (The article solely consisted of these paragraphs, plus a few links to other wikopedia articles. When I came back to the article a few minutes later the words Wikipedia:Copyright problems#April 28 appeared.

Looking through "The Public domain by Stephan Fishman" page 14/19 I found a section "Is Court Testimony in the Public Domain". His answer "there is no clear answer to this question." He says some copyright experts believe these should be PD, but no ones ever tested it in court. He also says court testimony is often copied and distributed in many different including websites. And that the fair use doctrine almost certantily applies in these uses.

so my question is how to deal with this? (see article Joyce Wiley)

• As per our copyright policy, please make a note about this PD/fair use issue on the page's talk page and under the article's listing on Wikipedia:Copyright problems. Zzyzx11 | Talk 00:14, 29 Apr 2005 (UTC)
  • In the meantime, you may write a new article on the subject at its temporary subpage: Joyce Wiley/Temp. However, until the issues on the copyright problems are settled, I advise you not to paste and save the paragraphs from the court affidavit again. Thanks. Zzyzx11 | Talk 00:20, 29 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I made a note under the articles discussion/talk Joyce Wiley but I then went to Wikipedia:Copyright problems and could not find the article name there.

Template list

Hey folks. Is there a list anywhere of all the templates that are used as article tags (cleanup, npov, factual dispute, stub, etc)? A friend was asking, and I don't know offhand. Isomorphic 15:47, 29 Apr 2005 (UTC)

• Wikipedia:Template messages. Zzyzx11 | Talk 15:49, 29 Apr 2005 (UTC)
  • Also, all of the template messages are posted at one single very, very long page at Wikipedia:Template messages/All. Zzyzx11 | Talk 15:52, 29 Apr 2005 (UTC)

    Thanks! Isomorphic 22:01, 29 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Download format

What's the character encoding of the database downloads? Is it UTF-8?

Help with wikifying an article

I have written an article and it says I must wikify it. I thought I had done that, but apparently not, and I must admit to being totally lost. I really have no idea what I'm supposed to do at this point, and I'm lost in the help section. Is there someone who can help? Thank you. I can be reached by email at rebmor at gmail dot com.

I assume this is in reference to the article Lipedema, which User:zzyzx11 tagged as needing "wikification". Another user has removed this notice (as I've been typing this). All articles within wikipedia are collaborations. All the tag meant was that some user thought the article could use some work. You don't have to personally do the work. Thanks for starting the article! If you'd like, you can create a wikipedia login (see Wikipedia:How to log in) and have a chat with zzyzx11 about the article on your respective talk pages. -- Rick Block 00:48, 30 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Sorry, if the "Wikify" tag startled you. As Rick Block said, Wikipedia is a collaborate effort. When I saw your article, I thought it needed work so it would follow our guide to layout. That is why I attached the "wikification" tag. The problems I saw in your version included:

1. The first paragraph was never short and to the point, with a clear explanation of what the subject of the page is. Instead, it began with a question and a brief history about it being discovered in the United States.
2. The article should be broken into sections.
3. References were not under its own separate section.

But as Rick said, another user made modifications to your article, and I will do some as well. Hope this helps. Zzyzx11 | Talk 04:23, 30 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Viet Cong

Why does your article titled "Viet Cong" say the National Football League had something to do with opposing the South Vietnamese government?

thanks.

• Because someone decided to vandalise the page. I just reverted it back again. Thanks for the notice. Zzyzx11 | Talk 04:26, 30 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Starting a new page...

I want to start a new page which I don't think has been mentioned on any other article and I don't really know how. Just so you know the article will be on the Nintendo Offcicial Magazine.

Please can you help me?

• First you should search for Nintendo Official Magazine. Then, if there isn't already an article with that name, click on the red link that says create an article with this title. Then just type your information in. By the way I've welcomed you on your page and I recomend reading some of those pages first so you can write the perfect article. Howabout1

Linking to a Commons picture

I want to link to a picture listed on Wikipedia Commons. What tag do I use? Also, the image and its description are in French, so I don't know the restrictions on linking to it. http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Palmyre_Vue_Generale.jpgYuber 15:00, 30 Apr 2005 (UTC)

• Just link to it as if it was on Wikipedia itself. The wiki software will make sure the image will show. Mgm|^(talk) 21:25, Apr 30, 2005 (UTC)

Problem with image overlapping table of contents

In the slide rule article, we're having a problem with the photo near the top overlapping with the table of contents. It's kind of complicated, because the problem appears to occur inconsistently, perhaps depending on the browser and/or size of the user's screen (or browser window). Currently, we have the image formatted as: "Image:pocket_slide_rule.jpg|frame|none|A slide rule being used to multiply by 2. Each number on the D scale is double the number above it on the C scale." This works for me in Firefox on my own size of browser window. However, another user (see the article's talk page) has reported that this formatting causes the image to overlap with the toc. When he changes the formatting to "...|frame|right|A slide rule ...," it looks right on his machine, but it overlaps with the TOC on *my* machine! Does anyone have any suggestions on how to handle this? TIA! --Bcrowell 17:10, 30 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Upload the image with the slide rule vertical, rather than horizontal. Then right align it. The two shouldn't clash until the page is unreasonably small. -- John Fader (talk | contribs) 17:27, 30 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Or, add a <br clear=all/> after the image but before the header. -- Rick Block 18:19, 30 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Thanks! I've added the fix, and queried on the article's talk page to see if it solved the problem for the people who had the affected browsers. If the problem was occurring in your browser, do you think you could take a peek and see if it's fixed for you?--Bcrowell 15:08, 1 May 2005 (UTC)

I made a mistake and don't know how to correct it!

I was setting up my new account and inadvertantly hit the wrong key so that only my name was registered...not my password or my email. Now I'm unsure about how to correct it! Please help! Thank you!

It doesn't matter about the email (you can change that later) but no-one can help you with your password. If you can't reproduce what you might have typed in, I'm afraid you'll need to register for a new account. -- John Fader (talk | contribs) 18:45, 30 Apr 2005 (UTC)

If you typed nothing for the password, I believe you might be lucky and it set you up with no password. Try logging on with a blank password. DJ Clayworth 04:23, 9 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Adding javascript.

Is theer any way I could add javascript to a wikipage.

No, there are too many abusive things vandals could do with javascript, so we filter it out. You can edit javascript that only you can see - it's useful in your own navigation bar etc. But no-one else can see it, so that's almost certainly not what you want. -- John Fader (talk | contribs) 21:41, 30 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Adding Counter

I wanted to add a counter on of my wikipages. Is there any way I can do that.

No, I'm afraid not. The software does contain support for page counters, but they were turned off long ago because of the extra burden they place on the server. -- John Fader (talk | contribs) 22:14, 30 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Affiliation?

I have seen websites, such as www.mysic.org, that are affiliated with wikipedia where you can search for a topic and the wikipedia result comes up. How can you sign up to affiliate?

They aren't affiliates; there's no such thing. IMHO mysic's use of wikipedia's logo in that way is misleading, and may violate wikipedia's trademark (I'll email the appropriate list). They're mirrors, which means they reproduce wikipedia's content (quite legally, providing they credit wikipedia and its authors). A full list of these guys, who range from the good to the bad and ugly, can be found at Wikipedia:Mirrors and forks. If you want to host the content yourself, you need only install Mediawiki and download the wikipedia database from Wikipedia:Database download. -- John Fader (talk | contribs) 22:21, 30 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Can I use the articles?

I was wondering if I could have permission to post some of the articles from wikipedia on my website.

All of wikipedia's articles are licenced under the GFDL. So you can mirror them anywhere, as long as you comply with the restrictions imposed by that licence (which, frankly, are rather nontrivial). -- John Fader (talk | contribs) 23:34, 30 Apr 2005 (UTC)

SUN CITY

THERE IS A SUN CITY IN SOUTH CAROLINA NEAR HILTON HEAD ABOUT 10 MILES EAST OF INTERSATE 95 IN SC. SAVANNAH GEORGA IS ABOUT 30 MILES SOUTH OF IT.

Are you suggesting the Sun City article should also link to an article about Sun City, South Carolina? There isn't currently an article about this Sun City, although please feel free to create one. If you're looking for help on creating this article, you might want to start at Wikipedia:Tutorial. -- Rick Block 16:21, 1 May 2005 (UTC)

Time varying Mediawiki variables

If you look at the varibables listed in Help:Variable#Varying_with_time you'll see that {{CURRENTMONTH}} produces 04, a 2-digit number, but {{CURRENTDAY}} produces 29, a 1-digit number. Is there a 2-digit alternative? Will there be in Mediawiki 1.5? Thanks, Alphax ^τεχ 06:17, 1 May 2005 (UTC)

No, as far as I know (but I think such things are site configurable).

By the way in the question (wich I edited to solve the problem) it was written [[Help:Variable#Varying_with_time|]]. Why was not it automatically expanded? AnyFile

Wikipedia on my toolbar?

Is there any download to have wikipedia on my toolbar so it's present at all times on my browser?

You could add the Wikipedia web site to your links folder in Favorites. That way you'll see the button (if the Links toolbar is enabled). Is this what you meant?

File:IE Toolbar showing Links.PNG

Or, if you're using Firefox, you can add a Wikipedia search option (to the search window that you probably have in the top-right of the browser window). You can download it from here: [1] -- John Fader (talk | contribs) 17:09, 1 May 2005 (UTC)

---

Or. if you're using a Mac OS your "Bookmark Bar" might look like this: File:Wikipedia Bookmark.jpg hydnjo talk 19:07, 1 May 2005 (UTC)

---

[2]

"Purging the Main Page cache"

What does it mean to "purge the Main Page cache"? How is that related to the featured article? -- Tony Jin | (talk) 21:21, May 1, 2005 (UTC)

All Wikipedia pages are cached in a number of places on the Wikimedia servers. When you change a template, all these caches are supposed to be invalidated. However, sometimes that fails to happen. Purging the cache for a page forces the invalidation to be done.

The relationship it has with the Featured Article is that the FA on the Main Page is included from a template. If the template is edited and the cache fails to purge completely, sometimes it might not change in the Main Page.

--cesarb 21:43, 1 May 2005 (UTC)

• Your browser loads pages stored on your computer (the cache) for quick viewing. When the featured article is updated at midnight, people need to see the new article so clearing the cache pretty much tells your browser to load the fresh info. Mgm|^(talk) 21:48, May 1, 2005 (UTC)

Statistics

Does the number of "true" articles stated in the special page "statistics" contain also redirects? If not, can someone state this there? Thanks. --Eleassar777 22:36, 1 May 2005 (UTC)

No, it doesn't. It also doesn't include pages that have no internal links. See Wikipedia:What is an article. Angela. 05:20, May 2, 2005 (UTC)

Created account, want credit from history...

i just created an account, but i have a few edits from before i was a person of account indexed under my ip (all during the past few weeks) - can i get these attached to my new account?

- SFWarlock

I'm afraid not – see above [now moved to archive 18] — Sebastian (talk) 00:49, 2005 May 2 (UTC)

meh. well, thanks for your answer. 67.169.151.167 02:06, 2 May 2005 (UTC)

oops, wasn't logged in. SFWarlock 02:07, 2 May 2005 (UTC)

Image:Waitcursor.gif

If anyone knows how to make this spin as in real life, please replace this static beachball with a spinning version. I give up. Thanks to whoever comes to the rescue. hydnjo talk 02:41, 2 May 2005 (UTC)

(I am not sure of what I am saying, please confirm) You can not. Image uploaded as gif are converted in another format (I suppose png). By the way Please be informed about the copyright status of that image. AnyFile 11:54, 2 May 2005 (UTC)

Images uploaded as gifs stay as gifs, and it is possible for them to be animated (see Image:UK Roundabout 8 Cars.gif or Image:Vortex-street-animation.gif for example). However, this one isn't, and the original one on the Apple website isn't either, so someone would need to make it animated if they have a software program which can do that. Angela. 14:45, May 2, 2005 (UTC)

How do I post comments/queries on the discussion pages for a specific article?

How do I post comments/queries on the discussion pages for a specific article?

Ta,

Malangthon malangthon@xtra.co.nz

There will be a link visible that says "Discuss this page" or "talk" or something of that sort; just click it and edit the way you would a normal page. You can sign by adding four tildes after your name, like this: ~~~~. Best, Meelar (talk) 07:27, May 2, 2005 (UTC)

defense against abuse

Hello, I have a question about abuse/defense. My older brother has abused me off and on my whole life but most of the time we are actually friends. But now that I work with him he is constantly risking my safety by pointing a nail gun at me while the safety gaurd is off. Throws rocks off of the roof and near my head. A couple of months ago he "accidentally" hit me in the mouth with a role of duck tape. when I was 15 he kicked me as hard as he could in my face. Now I am emotionally and physically able to stand up for myself. Now I know tirst thing you might say is stay away from him and to that I say that he is always around myhe f family and life long friends (not to mention I don't want to giveup my job ) and he'll just find a different time to threaten my life. Second thing people will say is call the cops but, if I do that he'll find another way for me to have an "accident" he's very intelligent and will find a way not to be liable for what ever happens to me. I tried to talk to him and some times I dont think he even understands or laughs at me. If I defend myself physically will it be considered self defense? it sure ought to be. Any and all advice will be greatly appreciated

Thanks Ted

Hi, I'm sure you have a problem, but wikipedia is an encyclopedia. The help desk is for questions about wikipedia, not your personal life. If you have a question or want to join wikipedia, this is the place to do it. Howabout1 02:32, 3 May 2005 (UTC)

This might make a (slightly unusual, but still) question for the reference desk. What can ted (legally or otherwise) do? Where can he start looking find more information, preferably canonical as opposed to on wikipedia? I really need to go to bed now (4 AM!) , so I'll have leave it to someone else to sort out, sorry! Kim Bruning 02:39, 3 May 2005 (UTC)

Ya, refrence desk would be good, but a little odd. Howabout1 03:10, 3 May 2005 (UTC)

Self defense only applies if all the following are true:

1. the danger you're defending against is immediate
2. a "reasonable person" would recognise the danger
3. you've no other means of avoiding injury (particularly, it's impossible or unsafe for you to run away)
4. your response is proportionate (so if he's going to punch you, it's not proportionate to shoot him)

So the law of self defense is intended for immediate, unavoidable danger only. If you rely on it in other circumstances (particularly in he-says-I-say circumstances) it's very hard to prove. If the prosecutor can convince a jury that you could have run away and you didn't, you're toast. The person you describe is either a bully or a sociopath, and you should avoid him either way. Do not rely on the law containing a doctrine of "he got what he deserves", because the law contains no such reasoning. -- John Fader (talk | contribs) 00:29, 4 May 2005 (UTC)

This is really the wrong place to be asking, because you have no idea who is answering. You need to find someone you can trust and tell about this. A family member would be ideal. Failing that a close friend, one older than you. If you belong to a church, someone there. As a last resort someone at work, a counselling service or a telephone helpline. Get help from a real person. As for fighting back, don't do more than you need to to keep yourself safe. DJ Clayworth 04:30, 9 Jun 2005 (UTC)

US political families

I had the following message "This article needs a complete rewrite for the reasons listed on the talk page. Please remove this notice once this has been done,"that was left on the Baldwin, Hoar & Sherman family page of the US political families pages at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baldwin%2C_Hoar_%26_Sherman_family

When I went to the Talk Page I was met with this message, "Do we really need all of this detail here? That's what the main articles are for. RickK 00:34, May 3, 2005 (UTC)" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Baldwin%2C_Hoar_%26_Sherman_family

Which seem to contradict other messages that I have received. Could you please let me know the Wikipedia position?

Aaron Baldwin

Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not#Wikipedia is not a general knowledge base (item 6: Genealogical entries). --cesarb 01:40, 4 May 2005 (UTC)

You have new messages.

No, I don't. I checked my talk and the message keeps coming. I never had any previous problems with the message on this machine. Can anyone remind me how to get rid of it? Mgm|^(talk) 11:47, May 3, 2005 (UTC)

My guess (and its only a guess) it that you need to clear your browser's cache. Zzyzx11 (Talk) 18:27, 3 May 2005 (UTC)

This happens when the servers are struggling, it seems. Sometimes the following works: 1) edit your own talk page 2) save 3) hit the "you have new messages" link. Sometimes it doesn't work, however, and you just have to sit it out. It's not the cache, as the message appears on pages you've never visited. -- John Fader (talk | contribs) 00:15, 4 May 2005 (UTC)

Do you have firefox? I have the same problem. Seems to be from using multiple tabs. BrokenSegue 01:08, 4 May 2005 (UTC)

I also use Firefox, but I do not have that problem. The only time I had that problem was when the server was acting up (the solution was to edit my talk page, and use the opportunity to tidy it a bit). And if the message keeps showing in a page which is on your cache, the way to making it go away is to (after you checked your talk page) use the Shift-Reload trick. --cesarb 01:29, 4 May 2005 (UTC)

I have firefox, and the system seems a bit slow. I just got that problem. I wasn't using multiple tabs though, but it only stayed for one page. Howabout1 02:44, 4 May 2005 (UTC)

It just happened again.Howabout1 00:00, 5 May 2005 (UTC) What has worked for me is just pressing Ctrl+F5 to clear the cache.--Fito 03:36, May 6, 2005 (UTC)

Templates

How can I create a template? Do I need to be an admin or obtain someone's permission in order to do so? I am referring to a template that links a few articles together, not something like {{cleanup}}. Thanks for your help in advance. Ultimate Star Wars Freak 17:41, 3 May 2005 (UTC)

Templates are pretty much simply pages created in the template namespace, and can be created by anyone just like any other page. If you want to do anything remotely fancy (like use parameters), I'd recommend reading m:Help:Template first. -- Rick Block 18:18, 3 May 2005 (UTC)

However, you should also read Wikipedia:Categories, lists, and series boxes because it explains when it is appropriate to use a template as a navigation box of links. Hope this helps. Zzyzx11 (Talk) 18:20, 3 May 2005 (UTC)

These replies, while neutral, may be unkind to the novice user. So, here's my warning -- YMMV: There is a review page for templates (pages in Template space): Wikipedia:Templates for deletion. Do not be surprised if your template ends up there. You may want to be prepared to defend your creation; and again, do not be surprised if your defense is ignored. However, there is no process to follow before creating templates, so go right ahead and give it a try. — Xiong熊talk* 08:28, 2005 May 9 (UTC)

Paragraph spacing -- view

Can someone remind me how I set the monobook style of my logged-in view to see the paragraphs with proper spacing? I was told how long ago by an admin, but I cannot remember the information they gave me. If it's in the style guides, I'd like to bookmark the page explaining this as well. I would like to know this so I can tell others new to wikipedia among people I know how to view these pages with proper spacing between paragraphs even though they'll have to get an account to see it. — Emerman

What is it exactly you want to do? You can edit User:Emerman/monobook.css using CSS to make your stylesheet customised; if you tell me what you want, I'll see if I can sort it for you. Smoddy (Rabbit and pork) 20:53, 3 May 2005 (UTC)

As it appears you have. It is this file that makes the difference. Incidentally, only you can edit your user stylesheet, if that's important. Smoddy (Rabbit and pork) 20:55, 3 May 2005 (UTC)

Oh, thank you. I had just forgotten how I did it. I will try to save this information so I can tell others in the future. Having the CSS stylesheet customised makes all the difference in the world, and I wish it were not such a difference for those who visit without having accounts. I kept trying to find where this file was and couldn't seem to find it by using What links here, etc. I wonder if this information is in a wikipedia info page I could bookmark in case I forget this again and want to point others to it. Anyway, thanks! Emerman 03:06, 6 May 2005 (UTC)

XHTML

Can I use XHTML for editing Wikipages. If yes could anyone please tell me where I could find a tutorial for doing the same.

Yes and no. Yes, in that you can do pretty much anything you can do in XHTML in wiki coding. No in that most tags are either unsupported (e.g. <img> and <span>) or deprecated (e.g. <b> and <i>). Strictly speaking, it is certainly not XHTML. Most Wikipedians' coding does not conform to the XML standards, e.g. having a trailing / in <img> tags. It is more a mangled form of HTML 4.01T or perhaps even 3.2. In short, yes you can use HTML syntax, but only sometimes. Perhaps you might like to read Wikipedia:How to edit a page. If you have any queries, please drop me a line. Smoddy (Rabbit and pork) 21:09, 3 May 2005 (UTC)

BTW, span was turned on recently (mediawiki 1.4.2, I think). -- John Fader (talk | contribs) 00:12, 4 May 2005 (UTC)

Article about ?

I want to start an article about what has variously been called rising inflection/intonation, Antipodean (rising) inflection/intonation and, on one page, Antipodean posterior rising intonation syndrome (probably someone not being funny). Basically, people sounding like they're asking a question when they're actually making a statement. My problem is I don't know the proper name for this, shall we say, phenomenon. For all I know there's already an article about it, though I've done some searching and come up with nothing. Can anybody help me? I'm sure there's an 'official' term in linguistics to describe this. ZephyrAnycon 21:20, 3 May 2005 (UTC)

I suspect you're looking for High_rising_terminal? -- Rick Block 23:50, 3 May 2005 (UTC)

Yeah thanks for that I'll make some redirects for the terms I came across.

Ecce my loving Wikipediation (all redirects):
17:07, 4 May 2005 (hist) (New) Antipodean rising intonation (top) 17:06, 4 May 2005 (hist) (New) Antipodean rising inflection (top) 17:05, 4 May 2005 (hist) (New) Antipodean inflection (top) 17:04, 4 May 2005 (hist) (New) Antipodean intonation (top) 17:04, 4 May 2005 (hist) (New) Antipodean posterior rising intonation syndrome (top) 17:03, 4 May 2005 (hist) (New) APRIS (top) 17:02, 4 May 2005 (hist) (New) Rising intonation (top) 17:01, 4 May 2005 (hist) (New) Rising inflection (top) 16:47, 4 May 2005 (hist) (New) Australian Questioning Intonation (top) 16:47, 4 May 2005 (hist) (New) Upspeak (top) 16:46, 4 May 2005 (hist) (New) Australian questioning intonation (top) 16:45, 4 May 2005 (hist) (New) AQI (top)
ZephyrAnycon 17:11, 4 May 2005 (UTC)

What I generally do is I make a link on my userpage - just to see if the specific title Im looking for is there: Antipodean posterior rising intonation syndrome, Antipodean posterior rising intonation syndrome etc, and if not, to make valid redirects to existing articles (someone else may be looking), or WP:STUB it. Instead of just making orphan articles, find the root article (where something should be) and see if that has mentions it. If not add a small section about the new topic (with link) and then youre there. Really specialized articles that only result in stubs should instead redirect to the topical article, and given a subsection. -SV|t 04:01, 4 May 2005 (UTC)

Have you tried using WikiWax? Throw in the start of a title, see what it has that is reasonably close... Shimgray 10:52, 4 May 2005 (UTC)

Creation of Category

I could not figure out to create a category called Rivers in Nature Page for uploading images

arvindps70@yahoo.com

• And why would you need a category to upload images? Also, Wikipedia discourages image galleries, so it would be best to link such images to articles anyway. See Wikipedia:Image tutorial. 131.211.210.12 07:58, 4 May 2005 (UTC)

Re:

dear sir,

my requesst might sound very strange and non automobile related. but i am try to trace a person who migrated to Canada in the year 1970 from india. he was in touch with us till 1975 but we lost contact after that.

i would be grateful if you let mi know how to trace the person. is there any website for the immigration office in canada. if so wat is it.

pl help.

regards ashwin

I have to admit, I'm puzzled by your question. Especially, you say "non automobile related". Can I ask you why you say that? Notinasnaid 11:58, 4 May 2005 (UTC)

I'm shocked! Don't you know that Wikipedia is about automobiles? ;) --Eleassar777 17:05, 4 May 2005 (UTC) P.S.: Anyway, Mr/Mrs ashwin: I suggest that you post your question here.

The website for Citizenship and Immigration Canada is here, but I don't expect they'll give you someone else's immigration information. DJ Clayworth 04:35, 9 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Placing "Bari" article on its own.

I wrote the article on "Bari" currently in discussion section. I would like to place it as an article on its own, so that it can be expanded. How do I do that?

Thanks --Loro LoLaja Kujjo 17:01, 4 May 2005 (UTC)

Is this a repeat of this question? If so, and you've read the relevant helps and still need help, please let me know on my talk page. I'll be glad to help. -- Rick Block 18:12, 4 May 2005 (UTC)

Management Quantative Analysis

Could anyone please explain why it is better for society to have the market, and not governments, determine prices of the goods we buy. If the government was running the market, how would you see marketing of goods and services differ than if society has the market?

Thanks, ``Sugar1 2May.05

I see you've posted this question in a number of places. If this question is about a statement in a specific article, the best place to post it is on the talk page of the article itself (when looking at the article, this is the link labeled something like discuss this page). If you're really asking a general philosophical question, posting it at the wikipedia:reference desk (which you've already done) is probably the best place within wikipedia. -- Rick Block 18:28, 4 May 2005 (UTC)

Username?

Is there any way to change my username? --Carolaman 02:29, 5 May 2005 (UTC)

• No. You have to create a new one. Howabout1 02:31, 5 May 2005 (UTC)
  • To clarify, there use to be a service where users could request to change their usernames. But since only developers have access to make the changes, and the load got so backed up it was discontinued. Therefore, as of now, you have to create a new one. What I suggest you do is when you create your new user name, log back on using your old one and attach redirects on your old user page and old user talk page to your new user page and new user talk page, respectively. Zzyzx11 (Talk) 05:42, 5 May 2005 (UTC)

how do past edits of vandals get checked?

The other day i found some sneaky vandalism by a user who has a page full of contributions. Since i wasn't sure if any of the older ones contained undetected vandalism i went backwards through his latest contributions and created a list on his homepage User:205.188.117.130 to keep track of which edits have been checked. But this was more effort than i would want to put in in similar cases in the future. What's the best way to deal with this? Do we just leave the edits and hope that some day someone might spot them in the text? This might take a long time, since they may be well disguised. I added him to the hall of shame, but i'm not sure if anyone cared.

Now my dream would be that all his changes got marked (e.g. with a slightly colored background) until someone checks it, so this information does not get lost in the big heap of history. But back to reality: What do we do to to mitigate such possible damage? — Sebastian (talk) 05:30, 2005 May 5 (UTC)

Well, assuming good faith, I can't see that his edits are necessary vandalism. Telling him so on his user page and listing his edits as vandalism may thus not be the proper solution. --Fred-Chess 09:10, 5 May 2005 (UTC)

• However, if his edits can be proven to be incorrect, you could ask someone to check his edits further. But discussing it with the anon first is the best option. Mgm|^(talk) 13:50, May 5, 2005 (UTC)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:205.188.117.130 User:205.188.117.130

If there are a lot of edits, you should be suspicious of a proxy server. In that case, it is unlikely that all those edits are vandalism, only the last couple. --Will2k 14:16, May 5, 2005 (UTC)

It's worth noting that 205.188.117.130 resolves as cache-dtc-ag01.proxy.aol.com, so it's very unlikely they'll all have been the same user. (That said, it's often worth looking at the ones immediately before and after...) Shimgray 20:46, 7 May 2005 (UTC)

Thanks, everybody, for your replies! It was actually not about this specific user. (Your replies were valid and valuable, though. I now agree with Fred that in this case there were good reasons for good faith; if this is just a general cache for an AOL proxy then it's possible that there were just a number of independent clumsy new users. To Mgm: I have reverted many obvious cases of vandalism without asking the user first. If this were required policy i would stop watching out for vandalism. (To be honest, i have become bored of it and i'm doing much less watch duty now than earlier this year.) I am also not convinced that it helps in all cases: People who want attention won't stop their behaviour once they see it earns them attention.)

But back to my question about how to handle (real) sneaky vandals. I hope the dogma "assume good faith" doesn't blind us to the fact that there are malicious editors out there.

At Wikipedia, we love to cite the experiment of a newspaper according to which bad edits were reverted after 5 minutes. This may be the average of all acts of vandalism, given that most take place on a few closely monitored pages. However, from my experience i'd expect utterly different times once you look at the average of pages. I have seen vandalism remain for weeks, including cases where such misedits passed the scrutiny of several registered editors in a row. I am very concerned about this: We get a lot of flak for unreliability in the outside world, and justly so.

Wouldn't it be valuable to provide some way to make it easier for editors to identify and communicate malicious edits so that, once we found a bad apple, we can (and will) rapidly purge the others? My table may have been overkill for the case at hand, but i think it's at least an idea for a solution. Do we have any other solution or does Wikipedia just not care about this problem? Sebastian (talk) 04:16, 2005 May 9 (UTC)

I would suspect there are quite a few people within Wikipedia who do care about it. I'm not personally aware of tools that are available to handle this sort of thing though. I've often wondered if there are additional tools to aid this process. For my own part, when I detect a vandal I do as suggested above, and check their edits. If it's an open IP that is in a pool, then I don't go back very far. In my experience, the vandals that cause the most problems are not the same IP or the same username over and over and over again across months and even years. Wikipedia does a good job of catching up with those types. The problem types are the ones who stumble across Wikipedia and think "Hey, wouldn't it be cool to put 'Shakespeare took a dump in the River Thames' on the article on Shakespeare?". Then when they figure out they really and truly can edit everything, they go on a rampage and try to toss trash everywhere. Those types are easy to correct. They also tend to give up after 15-30 minutes when they realize they can't get away with it. Wikipedia:Vandalism in progress is also helpful in this arena. --Durin 05:55, 11 May 2005 (UTC)

Thank you for your reply and your encouragement. But unfortunately, i can't share your optimism. The childish vandalism you describe is not the problem. It is indeed easily reverted. But it is only the tip of the iceberg. The very reason why it is so easy to deal with - its high visibility - also leads us to gravely overestimate its importance relative to other forms of bad edits.

My concern is the bulk of the iceberg. Bad edits that go unnoticed. They come in various flavours from dumb edits over idiosyncratic crusades to sneaky vandalism (and a few honest mistakes). Here's an example: I just came across blatant falsifications by an unregistered user in two articles which remained unnoticed for 5 days. (140.247.237.130 changed the articles Swing Kids Swing (genre) to express the absurd notion that Nazi Germany was the same as the Weimar Republic.) This IP address has done a ton of edits since. How likely is it that they are any better? I checked one or two, and they were fine. But where in the world should i take the time to check all his/her edits? It takes more time than adding new information, and it's a lot less fun. I don't know what to do about this anymore - i am really sick and tired of this. — Sebastian (talk) 04:55, 2005 May 14 (UTC)

First, have faith in humanity. For some, that might be quite a leap, I know :) Seriously though, there are far more people here who are interested in Wikipedia progressing towards truth than there are people who want to tear Wikipedia apart. The very fact that Wikipedia continues to grow in scope, breadth and depth is proof of that. More proof lies in Wikipedia becoming one of the top 100 sites in the world; a LOT of people are using it. It must be good; humans don't tend to keep using something that sucks.

Even more substantiative as proof is a study that was done last year. The study I refer to is not the very small one done by a journalist with...what was it, 13 intentionally malicious edits? That's anecdotal. The study I refer to looked at Wikipedia with a much broader microscope. What they found was interesting. Yes, Wikipedia has inaccuracies. But, by and large it stumbles its way forward towards the truth. I'm trying to find the URL for that study. If I find it, I'll post it here.

YOU personally might not be able to know if a given edit contains accurate information or not. For the topics on which you are knowledgeable, you can make corrections and if so inclined keep an eye on those pages. For pages that you think a malicious user may have committed vandalism, but you can't be certain because you're not knowledgeable in that field, you can post a vandalism in progress notice and let others know that there might be inaccuracies on other pages edited by the individual in question. Again, there are far more people able to make these corrections than there are people who will willfully or unintentionally make bad edits.

Defend the entries you know something about from bad edits. Don't get into edit wars on opinion based commentary in an entry. On pages outside of your knowledge areas, trust that others will (almost always sooner than later) correct the bad edits.

Also, remember that Wikipedia should not be used as a primary resource. It's only a tool. For anyone doing any real research into something, they should be relying on other sources. Wikipedia might help to point someone in the right direction, but it should not be used as a primary resource and definitely should not be cited for a professional work.

An interesting page to review to help clarify some of these issues for you may be the Wikipedia page itself. Note that on the page they refer to another study done comparing the quality of Brockhaus Premium, Microsoft Encarta and Wikipedia, Wikipedia outscored them both. Would you trust MS Encarta for casual study? If so, you should trust Wikipedia (based on that study). The references on that page make for interesting reading. --Durin 20:57, 17 May 2005 (UTC)

How to ask for wiki dispensation? And splitting lists.

I'm working on List of foods named after people, which is - um - kind of large, and getting larger. I recently had it brought to my attention that vast quantities of stuff are not wikified, but to do so would be to result in a near-solid mass of underlining. Is there a way I can get dispensation for not underlining everything, or perhaps a simplified rule for lists? Also, when do lists get so large they need to be split into two pages? --Mothperson 16:27, 5 May 2005 (UTC)

• I'm afraid that even though some people consider it ugly, lists need to be wikified as they are kind of a navigational aid to find specific articles. You could try creating different sections to make it easier to read. Personally, I don't think lists should be split if their topic is the same. Just my 2 cents... Mgm|^(talk) 21:06, May 5, 2005 (UTC)

Maybe you could cut down the list by saving the explanations for the articles on the foods themselves? Mgm|^(talk) 21:07, May 5, 2005 (UTC)

First Wikipedia entry?

Hi there... I'm a journalist writing about Wikipedia. Does someone out there know what the first Wikipedia entry was?

Many thanks... j

The answer is rather complex. Take a gander at the Wikipedia and Nupedia articles. -- John Fader (talk | contribs) 18:26, 5 May 2005 (UTC)

• Don't forget to let us know the result of your work. :) Mgm|^(talk) 21:08, May 5, 2005 (UTC)

• Nothing very exciting... some results listed at Wikipedia:Wikipedia's oldest articles. Pcb21| Pete 09:56, 6 May 2005 (UTC)

Sure thing... the article will appear on www.continental.com/magazine in July (and beyond). Thanks for the help, j

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

- Re: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iwo_Jima - NOTE: The coordinates listed in the article at the time of this posting,( 24.78°N, 141.32°E ), are not correct ones. (example: 78 minutes, versus a max of 60 minutes available) - Would somebody with the correct cordinates, data please correct the error(s) - Thanks -

A quick search throws up co-ordinates for Motoyama, one of the towns on the island, as 24.8°N, 141.3°W. So they look correct enough...

What seems to be confusing you is that the numbers are expressed as a decimal - ie, twenty-four point seven eight degrees - not as degrees/minutes/seconds - if it was that, it'd read 24°78'. But, yes, you certainly couldn't have 78 minutes. Shimgray 20:31, 5 May 2005 (UTC)

Just created an account, and...

I just created an account for myself, since I finally realized that was the only way to flag edits as minor. Anyway, I have lots of edits that I did from an anonymous account. Is there a means whereby I can get those to be tagged as being against my new account.

An example would be http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Four_horsemen_of_the_Apocalypse&action=history I'm 47.248.0.43.

Thanks, jeffr

Theoretically, yes. In practice, it is very unlikely that you will be able to, as the process is (I believe) suspended. The relevant page would be Wikipedia:Changing attribution for an edit. Smoddy (Rabbit and pork) 20:30, 5 May 2005 (UTC)

I suggest you just copy the list of edits you did as an anonymous user to a user subpage or put a link on your userpage to claim them. That should solve your problem until this process gets back on track (if it ever does). Mgm|^(talk) 21:12, May 5, 2005 (UTC)

Email to User

I have rewritten an article which I want copyedited by another user. How to send the same to the other user or where to find his email address?

• VMO 03:25, 6 May 2005 (UTC)

This is one of the uses for user talk pages, see Wikipedia:Talk_page#User talk page (just leave a note on the user's talk page). Also note Wikipedia:Emailing users, but wikipedia does not require users to provide email addresses (and does not disclose them if they are provided). -- Rick Block 03:45, 6 May 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for your guidance!

• VMO 05:53, 6 May 2005 (UTC)

Using Wikipedia in an essay

My instructor requested that my citations of a wikipedia article (publicly funded medicine) cite the original author rather than just the page itself. How do I find the author of a page or even a specific section ("parallel public/private systems" and "role of the free market")?

Given that in many (most?) cases an article's current revision bears hardly any resemblance to its first draft, I question the value of citing the article's original author. Besides, doing so would be unfair to others who contributed later on. I suggest you impress upon your instructor the collaborative nature of Wikipedia. That said, if you must have this information you can find it (often painstakingly) by perusing the article's page history. --David Iberri | Talk 06:47, May 6, 2005 (UTC)

Or you could write "Wikipedia editors". That's what I do. WB 06:55, May 6, 2005 (UTC)

• Alternatively, this tool may give you a better idea on who worked on the article and who did the most work on it. Because of the collaborative nature of Wikipedia, it's pretty hard to determine the author of a single section. If there even is one. Mgm|^(talk) 09:18, May 6, 2005 (UTC)

Picture of the day

How can I include "Picture of the Day" featured on "Commons" in a user page on "Wikipedia"? How can I include the English version of it and how the Slovenian one? Thanks. --Eleassar777 16:08, 6 May 2005 (UTC)

For the English Wikipedia, you can use two: {{pic of the day}} gives you the full version with explanatory text, while {{POTD}} gives you a smaller version with only a small caption. I'm not sure what you mean by "Slovenian one": do you mean how to include the picture of the day from the Slovenian Wikipedia in your english user page, or include the picture of the day from the Slovenian Wikipedia in your Slovenian user page? --Deathphoenix 18:16, 6 May 2005 (UTC)

I didn't mean how to include the pic of the day from Wikipedia in my user page, but the pic of the day from Commons. That's a different thing. --Eleassar777 21:32, 6 May 2005 (UTC)

As far as I know, there's no way of dynamically including content from one site onto another - I know the ability to reference pictures on Commons by name seems to contradict me there, but that's a specific feature that only applies to uploaded files, not actual wiki content. My guess is therefore that you can't do what you're trying to, I'm afraid. - IMSoP 14:51, 7 May 2005 (UTC)

Translations between languages on Wikipedia

under the GFDL is it permissible to translate a (say) german wikipedia entry for use also in the english wikipedia without crediting the source?

• I guess it's allowed technically, but I'd drop a note on the talk page of the translated English entry that it's a translation, so people can still see the original source. Concencus seems to be not to include other language Wikipedias in the reference section. Mgm|^(talk) 19:53, May 6, 2005 (UTC)

2 languages in 1 article

Hi May you please tell me how to put writing from 2 languages in the one article. My user name is 220.233.64.218 thanks Wikipedia

• Your question isn't clear enough to give a fitting answer. First I'd like to know why you'd want to do it. English is preferred since this is the English Wikipedia. Also, normally, using another language shouldn't be any problem if you can write it. Why can't you put those 2 languages into the article now? Mgm|^(talk) 14:17, May 7, 2005 (UTC)

.avi Video upload?

Greetings - I have two videos from a USN site that I believe are worth including in Wikipedia. One is of a NATO Sea Sparrow launching, and the other is of a Phalanx CIWS mount firing. I tried to find references indicating acceptance/non-acceptance of videos on Wikipedia, but only found references to sound files, not video files. Going with the "be bold" philosophy, I figured I'd try to upload them and include them in the appropriate articles. Both files are .avi, and wikipedia told me that .avi files are not a recommended format.

So, Question 1: Are video files allowed? Question 2: If so, what format should they be in? Question 3: Does anyone know of a free, decent converter of .avi files to the format in Q2 above? --Durin 02:57, 7 May 2005 (UTC)

I don't think video files are allowed. My suggestion would be to upload a frame of the video to wikipedia, add it to the article, and then link to the video filme on the image description page. — Kieff | Talk 05:27, May 7, 2005 (UTC)

Yes, video files are allowed, as long as they are uploaded in a free format. It is highly recommended that you use Ogg Theora format. For more information on converting etc., see Wikipedia:Media and Wikipedia:Media help. --Eleassar777 07:58, 7 May 2005 (UTC)

Template

I've just created the template Template:Infobox Monarch - sorely needed in my opinion - but I'm not a programmer. How do I make the infobox more flexible? For instance, the word 'queen', will sometimes have to be substituted with 'queens', or 'prince consort'. Can anybody help me with this? Eixo 08:48, 7 May 2005 (UTC)

• Maybe using more arguments will help? (see the template and infobox help pages). Mgm|^(talk) 14:20, May 7, 2005 (UTC)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snail#Physical_Characteristics

This is a great site for information but please be more careful in who you allow to edit pages. The following link was edited by someone obvious immature and thus we need some kind of check to make sure thses type of people no longer have access.

Thank you.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snail#Physical_Characteristics

I made the correct changes to this page.

Someone had changed the word snail to poop and crap all through the page. It is really disheartening to see access abused like this.

If I did not get them all, I apologize.

• Unfortunately, that's the disadvantage of being an freely editable encyclopedia. Still, we count on the goodwill of the majority to fix stuff and so far it worked fine. You may be interested in reading Wikipedia:How to revert a page to an earlier version. Mgm|^(talk) 14:23, May 7, 2005 (UTC)
  • Objection, your honour! This is not just some unfortunate fate. This is our responsibility. While we can not completely avoid vandalism, we could do a lot better at fighting it. This vandal has done 7 edits. They all could be vandalism. Did anyone check them? Maybe. We just leave it up to chance.
    This "vandalism, with incomplete cleanup" is exactly what i addressed at how do past edits of vandals get checked? above. Instead of seeing the obvious problem in front of our nose, people digressed to discussing how best to talk with a vandal, blithely relying on the dogma "assume good faith!" — Sebastian (talk) 16:56, 2005 May 9 (UTC)

Using a wiki in a class

Hi,

I'm planning to use a wiki in a class. I have a couple of concerns.

1. There seem to be too many help pages. I would like to be able to refer students to a single page which will tell them how to do the basic wiki things, including basic formatting.

2. I'd like a reference to some of the more sophisticated things, but without having to know the jargon before I find my answers. For example, How can I change the contents of the left side bars? I don't know how to find out how to do that.

Thanks

Russ.Abbott@GMail.com

1. Try Wikipedia:Tutorial.
2. You cannot; the interface is too important to leave open to editing by anyone, so editing interface elements is restricted to administrators. Some elements of articles do end up in the left side bar, most notably interlanguage links, but these are added through editing the article itself.

You may also want to take a look at Wikipedia:School and university projects, which was set up to answer exactly this kind of question, and to coordinate your efforts with the Wikipedia. JRM · Talk 20:44, 2005 May 7 (UTC)

I started a topic for the musician Vedran (his first name) Smailovic, and then realized that I had it listed last name first -- against the wikipedia convention!

I don't know how to change it. Does the article have to be deleted and a new one started?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smailovic%2C_Vedran

changing from "last name first"

I started a topic for the musician Vedran (his first name) Smailovic, and then realized that I had it listed last name first -- against the wikipedia convention!

I don't know how to change it. Does the article have to be deleted and a new one started?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smailovic%2C_Vedran

The article's moved, now, to Vedran Smailovic. Shimgray 21:39, 7 May 2005 (UTC)

Even though Shimgray did the work (Thank you Shimgray) You might want to read Wikipedia:How to rename (move) a page just in case you need to move or rename a page again. Zzyzx11 (Talk) 21:41, 7 May 2005 (UTC)

i need to find my friend and i lost her e-mail when i swiched my screen name how do i get her e-mail back?

Blocking users that copy usernames?

I just noticed that EricI234 ("Erici234") has been created, with a user name that appears on most/all wikipedia pages to be identical to my username ("Ericl234" -> "EricL234"). This user's contribution history ([3]) consists of two recent edits ([4], [5]) to the Stanford University page, which is one of the pages I frequently edit myself. Both of these edits were vandalism (changing "Stanford" to "Stanfurd" repeatedly), and one had the change summary "revert vandalism" (which it clearly wasn't), and so I posted a message to this user's talk page ([6]) basically requesting that they cease and desist (although in kinder words). My question is that if this user continues to make similar edits (or even if not...), how do I go about getting that username blocked? I looked through all of the relevant help pages that I could find, and found nothing on how non-admin users, like myself, go about getting a vandal's username blocked, assuming no mediation or the like is necessary. Any thoughts? Thanks. -- ericl234 ^talk 05:14, May 8, 2005 (UTC)

• Generally, you should report vandalism on WP:VIP. Zzyzx11 (Talk) 05:22, 8 May 2005 (UTC)

• Or, in this case, a blatant case of impersonation, the impostor should be blocked (for an example, see User:Jim BeIl, User:Jim BelI, and User:Jim Bel, all of which are now-permanently-blocked vandals. Report it to any admin (myself and User:ClockworkSoul have been particularly active in this regard) and they should block them in line with Wikipedia:Blocking policy. Smoddy (Rabbit and pork) 13:35, 8 May 2005 (UTC)

Hotkeys

How does Wikipedia assign hotkeys to tabs, and more importantly, how do I change them or turn them off? They're conflicting with my browser's interface. JRM · Talk 13:01, 2005 May 8 (UTC)

Do you mean the various keys defined as "accesskey-something" in Special:Allmessages? If so, I don't know of a way a user can change or disable them. Most browsers have a means of disabling accesskeys (for all sites, generally). I'll ask on the mailing list incase there is some means of user customisation. -- John Fader (talk | contribs) 14:06, 8 May 2005 (UTC)

I honestly don't know what feature or set of features makes it work the way it does; all I know is that when I press Alt+T, the talk page pops up (this is not so bad) and when I press Alt+D, the "delete" dialog pops up (which is terrible, since Alt+D I normally use to go the Address Bar). I'm using Firefox; if I try this in IE, the Alt+Key combinations will select the relevant tab, but not automatically open it (which is worse than useless, because the regular assignments are still overridden and the new ones don't do enough—but then, I don't use IE). JRM · Talk 14:25, 2005 May 8 (UTC)

Yeah, that's them. I can't find any way to disable them in mediawiki (and only a hack for firefox). But the classic skin doesn't use them, so try it. -- John Fader (talk | contribs) 15:29, 8 May 2005 (UTC)

Solved. Firefox allows Alt+D only as a courtesy to IE users, it seems; the regular shortcut is Ctrl+L (open location) which does not clash; I'll un-learn Alt+D. (I will not switch from Monobook easily since Monobook is what most registered users and all anonymous visitors see; I want to make sure pages look good in it. Besides, I like Monobook, and Classic looks absolutely horrid. :-) JRM · Talk 15:38, 2005 May 8 (UTC)

Here's a different solution. Open about:config and find the entry for ui.key.generalAccessKey (which should be set to 18, which corresponds with the ALT key) and set it to 0. Restart firefox, and the ALT key will no longer activate accesskeys, but should work fine for all the alt based shortcut you're used to. -- John Fader (talk | contribs) 16:04, 8 May 2005 (UTC)

Procedure to withdraw an article

I have recently put up a Draft article. What is the safe procedure to withdraw/erase it?

• VMO 16:39, 8 May 2005 (UTC)

If you made the article yourself, and no-one else has (materially) changed it, it is a candidate for speedy deletion, and you can put the appropriate tag on it (as described on that page) which will schedule it for deletion. If, however, others have had a hand in getting the article to its current state, you must nominate it for deletion using the process described on WP:VFD. -- John Fader (talk | contribs) 16:45, 8 May 2005 (UTC)

I first made copy of an already existing article and gave Draft name. Then I edited the Draft article in some places leaving the rest. The rest have been contributed by many earlier in the original one. Of course the whole original article is still present. I want only to delete the Draft one which I created. Am I clear?

• VMO 17:23, 8 May 2005 (UTC)

Hmm, which article is it? -- John Fader (talk | contribs) 20:23, 8 May 2005 (UTC)

The article is Draft/Sri Ramakrishna.

• VMO 01:19, 9 May 2005 (UTC)

How can I alter or delete an entry on myself that I did not create?

Hi, my name is Lorna Nogueira and someone recently told me that I was included in Wikkipedia. I checked the entry and there are some minor errors - I directed 'the Innocents' and the short story 'Turn of the Screw' was written by Henry James not James Joyce. Also, if the editors of this site would like to delete this article that would be okay with me. I didn't post it and while I appreciate the mention I don't feel I belong in Wikkipedia. Thanks.

I've looked at the article, and corrected some errors (I quite like the idea of James Joyce having been responsible for The Turn of the Screw — imagine what it would have been like...). You seem more than sufficiently notable for an encyclopædia article to me (and besides, if you don't mind me saying so, it would be a pity to lose the excuse to have your photo in Wikipedia). Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 19:15, 8 May 2005 (UTC)

• To answer your question, you could've corrected the errors yourself by clicking the edit link of the article. An explanation in the edit summary, that you didn't create it while it was about you should explain your edits to others. Mgm|^(talk) 21:44, May 8, 2005 (UTC)

messages threatening to delete my account

Why come everytime I go to this site I get these messages threatening to delete my account? It is not just here, when I am at school I look up articles for my homework and I get some error message saying that I am violating rules. I think that you should only let users edit a page and have people log in to do so. Your filters suck! You do not know whose IP Adress us whose.

Those messages are primarily for users who have vandalized pages. They are showing up on your school's computer most likely because the previous user on that public machine was vandalizing pages. They may be also showing up on your home computer because your Internet Service Provider may be using dynamic IP addresses. Each time you go online, your ISP randomly assigns you a different IP address from a pool of ones it owns, and the address you are using now was previously used by a vandal.

You would solve all of these problems if you create your own account. Zzyzx11 (Talk) 04:26, 9 May 2005 (UTC)

Create a new page with name og existing one

I want to create an article about Plan B operating system. But now article with name "Plan B" redirects me to some other article (unrelated with operating systems). What should I do?

Click on the "redirected from" link immediately under the title, then edit the resulting page. You may want to add a note to the top of the page to show where the old page is. Smoddy (Rabbit and pork) 16:59, 9 May 2005 (UTC)

e.g. Plan B can also refer to the Morning-after pill. Alternatively you might want to make your article at Plan B (operating system) and make Plan B into a disambiguation page. Thryduulf 17:07, 9 May 2005 (UTC)

Logging off and edit box problems

I've told Wikipedia to remember my password across sessions, but sometimes when I go to refresh my watchlist, it shows me a screen with my IP address saying I have no pages on my watchlist and I have to sign in again. What's up with that?

And for some reason, I can't click inside the edit box. Whenever I do, it won't let me type. I've tried turning off my ZoneAlarm program, and that didn't help. I'm running IE 5.5, if that's helpful. Anybody know what's going on with that? Hermione1980 23:53, 9 May 2005 (UTC)

As for the edit box, I'm clueless. However wikipedia sometimes makes you log in every once in a while. It happens to me every 2 to 3 weeks. Howabout1 00:47, 10 May 2005 (UTC)

For the edit box problem, I suggest getting a real browser. I don't know what's causing your problem, but whatever it is probably won't affect two different browsers, so switching should fix it. And Firefox is a better browser anyway. Isomorphic 04:47, 10 May 2005 (UTC)

POV alert!! POV alert!! Actually, I just tried Firefox and it solved my edit box problem. It's just I'm running on the original Windows 98, so it's got some issues. I'm going to see if I can fix that. Thanks! Hermione1980 14:58, 10 May 2005 (UTC)

Someone should fix this....

On the mainpage, today's feature article is about Samantha Smith. When I clicked on the Samantha Smith link...well, it doesn't seem quite right.

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

I assume this is a mistake?

I don't know quite what you saw, but I'm assuming it was just some random vandalism. That happens sometimes, and it's usually quickly undone. Isomorphic 04:43, 10 May 2005 (UTC)

Further login problems

I can login fine but my account stays logged in for no more than 2 links, and always logs out if I try to edit a page. I've adjusted the settings on my browser (Opera) to allow all cookies, and I see that the ones in place don't expire till, say, 2009 or some such. I have the same problem using Internet Explorer. Any ideas why the cookies aren't sticking? (Signed, Mashford)

I've had similar problems before, but I don't know what causes them. If you're editing from a computer you own and that only you edit from, I suggest clicking "remember me" on the login screen. That should fix the problem, as well as saving you the trouble of logging in every time you start an editing session. Isomorphic 04:41, 10 May 2005 (UTC)

Thanks much.. I've tried that and I still get logged out every time I try to edit a page. So I am not "remembered". Any other ideas?... (Mashford)

Sorry, wish I did. That's what worked for me in the past, but I'm not tech-savvy enough to come up with a better idea. Isomorphic 05:16, 11 May 2005 (UTC)

Same problem here. There is a bug logged on Bugzilla that I'm keeping an eye on. Let's hope they fix it fast...GuidoS 20:35, 26 May 2005 (UTC)

bulk disambiguation

Metadata is an disambiguation page. Many articles link there. All that i checked actually refer to metadata (computing). Is there any way to change them that's faster than going into each article, finding the line, changing and saving it? Ideally, i'm dreaming of a list with checkmarks like this:

change	article	from	to
□	Foo	text before [[old link]] text after	text before [[new link]] text after
□	Bar	yada yada [[old link]] yada yada	yada yada [[new link]] yada yada

If there is a way to do something like this with admin privilege, could i ask someone to do this, please? Thanks! — Sebastian (talk) 07:21, 2005 May 10 (UTC)

• There's probably a bot owner who'd be willing to do this. But you'd have to find a way to see which articles need changing first. Mgm|^(talk) 12:15, May 10, 2005 (UTC)
  • I've redirected it to Metadata (computing) and added a disambiguation link to the top of that page; I don't honestly think it's worth disambiguating on the "root" page, since the concept is vastly more common than the trademark. Of course, the concept also extends beyond computing, and I really must write something about that when I have time... Shimgray 12:50, 10 May 2005 (UTC)

Copy Pages

I have found two pages with similar names, similar (but not identical) content about the same subject. What should be done?

• Merge them and redirect one of the pages to the other while keeping naming conventions in mind. Mgm|^(talk) 12:26, May 10, 2005 (UTC)

How do we deal with capricious wholesale editing?

Hi,

I looked around but could not find anyone with a section on how to deal with someone who deletes contributions. The Norman Conquest page was shy on a lot of stuff so I went to a lot of highly regarded works in Medieval history and began adding synoptic overviews. Lots of this stuff is on the booksheves now and some are out of print classics. I came back later and someone had torn it all out with the rationale that theories other than their own were the only allowable viewpoints. What is the solution? Put the text back in and hope that person gets the message. Please see my comments under Malangthon in the discussion page for that section.

Ta,

• Without seeing the page in question: Try to come to an agreement by discussion. If they refuse to talk, feel free to put it back in. Are your edits sourced, NPOV and written in your own words? Mgm|^(talk) 12:33, May 10, 2005 (UTC)

what's the best way to do equations for your pages?

presumably latex is no good and they have to be done in .html?

Use the maths syntax Help:Formula Smoddy (Rabbit and pork) 16:58, 10 May 2005 (UTC)

How to create subcategories?

I am extremely new to Wikipedia, and am having trouble with the language in explanantions of how to post a new subcategory, and how to add another example to an already existant subcategory? i.e. I am interested in creating a subcategory under Songs: listed by Album: Death Certificate, as well as adding another Album: listed by Artist: Ice Cube albums. I have written the content, it is sitting in my contributions file, but I can't list it under any sort of categorization. What am I missing?

• Creating an Category can be done by editing a page called "Category:Category name" (without the quotes). Add [[Category:Category name]] to the end of the article or category you want to put in the category. You might want check with the people at Wikipedia:Categorization before creating them though. It may go against some established system. Good luck! 82.172.23.66 17:26, 10 May 2005 (UTC)

Wikidea

I think Wikidea is a great idea and was wondering what I can do to help implement it.

What is Wikidea?

Wikidea is a future extension to Wikipedia that uses Wiki technology to allow individuals to share their own ideas and theories regarding how the world works. Until now, unique insights like those found at hedweb.com were spread out over the internet with little reader input or collaboration between individuals. Like Wikipedia, Wikidea will serve as a large free repository of ideas, theories and works of fiction collaborated on by people from around the world.

What kind of articles will visitors be able to post, revise and edit on Wikidea?

The articles found on Wikidea can deal with a wide range of topic and can be written for a wide number of purposes. Because users aren’t limited to posting only well accepted theories and facts as in Wikipedia, Wikidea serves to encourage creative thinking and will serve in part to compile insights into how the world works, how people think, and why people do the things they do, based on anecdotal observations and personal insights. Wikidea will also serve as a repository of statistics and data that may give credence to certain viewpoints or point out key areas of injustice, waste and abuse of the current system. Wikidea may even be used by political campaigns to get collective input and suggestions from their constituents.

Insights can simply serve to expand upon well accepted ideas, they may attempt to explain current events, or they may offer a distinctly unique or even a humorous new perspective with which to approach a topic. Users are free to post ideas for everything from new devices and innovative ways to use current technology, to ideas for television shows and other works of fiction that users can collaborate on to produce a detailed coherent plot with interesting scenarios, characters and dialogue. Users are free to post a compilation of free resources online regarding specific issues and policies that readers may add to or revise. Users are also free to post observed trends in politics and economics that offer insight into future trends, or users can share their unique life experiences, perspectives, philosophies, thought processes or insights on a political issue and can even propose their own compromise to an area of concern that other users can either expand on, or post a critique of. For example, individuals can post their specific concerns about the current drug policy or post suggestions to improve the current antidrug campaign that other readers can elaborate on or offer up criticisms of.

Why Wikidea?

While Wikidea will be used for a wide range of purposes including some that probably haven’t yet been conceived, it was primarily created to serve as a giant public policy think tank to which all individuals can contribute for the betterment of humanity. A significant portion of what drives our private sector economy is fresh new ideas. By giving private citizens and statisticians a venue through which to share their data and insights, as well as a venue to share fresh new ideas for political policies, Wikidea serves as a means through which the public sector can achieve the same increases in productivity and efficiency that the private sector continuously experiences. By giving all individuals the ability to edit and contribute to these ideas, readers are free to bring up challenges a policy may face as well as offer up suggestions in which a policy can be improved upon or made easier to implement.

Currently, there are numerous lobbies that serve to represent specific interest groups and put forth legislative reforms that help their specific constituents. There are also various media organizations that are at least in part motivated by a desire for more ratings. Yet there are very few organizations to which policy makers can turn that serve to accommodate and accumulate the collected knowledge and concerns of all individuals. Thus Wikidea like Wikipedia, serves to empower individuals not just in public policy but in all aspects of life.

Will there be any type of copyright protection offered to individual who submit ideas that could be used for commercial purposes?

That is an aspect of Wikidea that is still largely unexplored. Separating out the fiction aspect of Wikidea into a separate entity called Wikifiction where individuals can collaborate to create large, detailed, works of fiction and be credited for their contributions, is being considered. However, that still wouldn’t address articles dealing with ways to improve upon or new ways to utilize current technologies, products and services however.

You can reach me at centroles@yahoo.com. Thank you very much.

revert

OK, I'm not here to ask how to revert, but rather a method of. I've seen many reverts, but I seem to see a lot of "(Reverted edits by <someone> to last version by <other guy>)" I usually put revert on my comment, but are people really writing this or is there a way to make the system automatically write this for you? WB 00:47, May 11, 2005 (UTC)

Since I use MediaWiki, the message "Reverted edits by <someone> to last version by <other guy>" is automatically generated by the admin rollback tool. For more information, see m:Help:Reverting#Admin-only "rollback" link. 10qwerty 01:15, 11 May 2005 (UTC)

Apparently, it seems that some users who are not admins are writing this message manually since templates will not work in the edit summaries. 10qwerty 01:28, 11 May 2005 (UTC)

Does that mean that I have to be an admin to use this function? WB 01:26, May 11, 2005 (UTC)

Yes, you have to be an admin to have access to the admin rollback tool. But if you want to manually enter Reverted edits by [[Special:Contributions/<User X>|<User X>]] to last version by <User Y> into the edit summaries, be my guest. 10qwerty 01:34, 11 May 2005 (UTC)

I've wondered the same thing. I was going to post another revert question, so I think I will do it here. Is there a system to revert one edit without reverting edits after it? Does the admin's rollback function do this? Howabout1 01:05, 11 May 2005 (UTC)

Howabout1, I am not sure if I understand your question. I know that the admin rollback fails when the article has only been edited by one editor. The rollback tool also cannot be used when the last two edits were by the same user, and you only want to revert the last one. 10qwerty 01:19, 11 May 2005 (UTC)

Looking at your question again, Howabout1, I believe the answer is no and you have to do the reverts manually. Primarily, the rollback tool only is designed to revert to the last edit not authored by the user concerned. 10qwerty 01:24, 11 May 2005 (UTC)

Are you asking how to fix bad edits that have been overlooked, Howabout1? I'm afraid Wikipedia is quite helpless in such cases. Search e.g. for "vandalism, with incomplete cleanup" above. — Sebastian (talk) 05:24, 2005 May 11 (UTC)

Mineirão page history is incorrect

I've copied this from the Reference Desk, as I think this might have been a better place to put it, and its getting worse. Another eidt has appeared on the article with an incorrect time, and I don't know what to do about it. There are now 2 edits listed as occurring before the article was created! The Page History lists them wrongly, but stepping through old versions gives them in the correct order, but still with wrong times-it appears not to be stepping through them in order, but it is, it is the times on them that are wrong. --John 09:44, 11 May 2005 (UTC)

Mineirão page history is incorrect

Mineirão page history is wrong. I am not sure how it happened, but somehow when an edit conflict occurred Wikipedia put my edit about 6 hours earlier than I did it (and before the article was created), so now it says I created it and I didn't. Can you just get rid of my edit, or move it to a more appropriate place (although I am not quite sure where it should be)? --John 21:12, 9 May 2005 (UTC)

• Maybe the edits before yours got deleted? What time zone are you in? Mgm|^(talk) 07:11, May 10, 2005 (UTC)
• The edits before mine are in the list, at the right time. Mine was not done at the time it says, and is in the worng place in the list. I am in BST. --John 15:59, 10 May 2005 (UTC)

The Amazing Time-Traveling Edit Histories™

Okay, this is bizarre. Yesterday, I clicked on Recent Changes, and three links at the top of the list were purportedly made on May 10, 2025. They were: an edit made by Maustrauser to his user page, an edit made by Heimdal to Talk:Germany, and an edit made by Hoary to Cam Jackson. Apparently, I am the only one that sees these edits as being made 20 years in the future; this was revealed by a conversation with Hoary at his talk page. Something is odd, and Recent Changes is effectively broken for me; it's "frozen" in time at 9:25 CST May 10, with the additional time-traveling edits at the top. Fortunately, a link also appears near the top that says: Show new changes starting from 09:25, May 10, 2005 and I can click on this link (and others like it with different times) to get the "current" Recent Changes page, although I just did that now and only got a list of a dozen or so edits... Help! android↔talk 17:15, May 11, 2005 (UTC)

Fascinating. It's at times like these I wish I was a developer with database access.

Alright, try all of this, in the order given:

1. Log out.
2. Delete the login cookie:
   • Under Internet Explorer, choose Tools -> Internet Options -> Settings under Temporary Internet Files -> View Files. Search for the cookie named "Cookie:<user>@en.wikipedia.org/" and delete it. Alternatively, choose "Delete Cookies" under Internet Options, but this wipes them all.
   • Under Firefox, choose Tools -> Options -> Privacy -> View Cookies and remove all the cookies from en.wikipedia.org.
   • Under other browsers, I have no idea.
3. Clear your browser cache. This option is easy to find in all browsers.
4. Come back to Wikipedia. You should be asked for your login. If not, re-check the steps above. Otherwise, log in.
5. Go to your Preferences and choose Save. You don't have to change anything.

See if this fixes anything. JRM · Talk 17:26, 2005 May 11 (UTC)

Well, that fixed it. It was so bizarre I didn't even think to clear cookies, cache, etc. Thanks! android↔talk 18:08, May 11, 2005 (UTC)

I'm fairly sure the problem was either in a corrupt cookie or a corrupt time field in the user table (logging in and out would have fixed that). But it's anyone's guess, of course... JRM · Talk 18:17, 2005 May 11 (UTC)

• There is something odd about Maustrauser, because the most recent edit was made at 08:25 on 10/5/05, but the page wasn't created until 12:00 on 10/5/05, according to the history! There is also a similar problem at Talk:Germany, but not obviously at Cam Jackson, although this page isn't edited as much. I note that all of the odd edits are reckoned (at least when I view it) to have happened at 12:00 on 10/5/05. Suspect this is the same thing as my problem above. --John 18:20, 11 May 2005 (UTC)

Bible chronology needs to be fixed or deleted

In Bible chronology the dates are based on doubling etc. and are a unique dating to the year of things that may not ever have even occured. Dates that go literally according to the text would not be unique and have a place in an encyc. Dates here are just made up 4.250.201.157 17:36, 11 May 2005 (UTC)

Picture at Ferndown

I have uploaded a picture. I am sure I followed the instructions correctly. I could see it ok when I uploaded it, but now I come abck to re-visit the article, I can see the thumbnail, but clicking on the link to the picutre page itself gives me the page WITHOUT the picture. I ahve tried re-uploading it again, but to no avail.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:P7110224a.jpg

is the page concerned.

Hi. I hope you don't mind, but I added your question under a separate heading (actually someone else beat me to it, but I added the link to the page), so it can be more easily seen by others. Have you tried having a look at the page/picture again? It works for me. Also, it would be helpful if you signed your posts with ~~~~, which will automagically add your username and a current timestamp when you save your edit. android↔talk 13:27, May 12, 2005 (UTC)

It would be very useful if you could upload the picture under a different, more logical name, e.g. Ferndown-shopping-precinct.jpg otherwise it is likely that someone will nominate it for deletion. Unfortunately there is no way to do this other than rename the picture on your computer and upload it again. Thryduulf 13:53, 12 May 2005 (UTC)

do I need to register seperately for each Wikipedia site

Hi,

I'm new to Wikipedia. I speak English, Irish and German and would like to contribute to articles in those languages. I've signed up to the en.wikipedia but cannot seem to log into the Irish or German language versions with the same username/password. I'd like to be able to make contributions to the three using the one account. Is this possible?

Damac

No, sorry. However, if nobody has taken your username in those languages, you can create an account using the same username and password, which is close to what you're looking for. HTH, Meelar (talk) 13:11, May 12, 2005 (UTC)

Duplicate Categories

We have two categories that need to be merged but I'm not sure how to go about it. There is a category called [[Category:United States Department of Defense agencies]] and another one called [[Category:U.S. Dept. of Defense agencies]]. -Etoile 15:39, 12 May 2005 (UTC)

I suggest requesting the deletion of one of them (whichever of the two doesn't fit the standard of other Department's agencies or whatever) at WP:CFD, noting that it duplicates the one you don't want deleted. Thryduulf 15:50, 12 May 2005 (UTC)

How to make a table

It's my first time posting here, so if there is a more appropriate forum for such things, please let me know. I am currently working on the article heim theory, and recently we added some data to the middle article with information about particle masses. However, it's not in a nice table format; only ASCII. Two things:

1. Could someone direct me to a place where I can learn how to make a table?
2. In the meantime, would there be a nice Wikipedian who could volunteer to make the table?

Thanks for your help! It's greatly appreciated! HappyCamper 15:53, 12 May 2005 (UTC)

You can learn about tables at Help:Table. Unfortunately I don't have time at the moment to sort the table on the article, but I'll do it later if nobody else has done. Thryduulf 16:03, 12 May 2005 (UTC)

I've sorted the table on that page. Smoddy (Rabbit and pork) 16:13, 12 May 2005 (UTC)

To these two Wikipedians in particular: thank you! You have just given me a feeling of even greater appreciation for this project and all its participants as a whole. This is awesome! Thanks again!! :-) HappyCamper 16:24, 12 May 2005 (UTC)

User Page - Guidelines?

Hi, I am a new user and was just creating my userpage.

One of my passions is my business (which has a webpage.)

Is it appropriate to place a link to this in my userpage? It wasn't clear to me if that is allowed or not. So, for now, I'm holding off until I hear back from you.

Thanks!

John

The short answer is yes. For more information, see Wikipedia:User page. 10qwerty 20:25, 12 May 2005 (UTC)

• Yes, as long as you're not overly promotional about it and mainy use the page to talk about your wikipedia efforts and you as an editor, I don't see a problem with linking the page of your business. 82.172.23.66 21:46, 12 May 2005 (UTC)

incorrect link

I have discovered an incorrect link. On the recent deaths list the link takes you to a footballer pesons information but he definitly was not! How can i remove the link? thankyou

• You probably need to disambiguate (see Wikipedia:Disambiguation) and link it to the person who actually died. This is probably the effect of someone linking to this footballer because they share their name. 82.172.23.66 21:48, 12 May 2005 (UTC)

Chronoogical listing style

I've been steadily adding to the Velma Springstead Trophy page, and I have a sudden thought: should the years be listed ascending or descending? For instance, ascending would be:

1950

1951

1952

Whereas descending would be more like:

1952

1951

1950

The way I've done the page so far is ascending order, but I've seen at least one page where the dates were done in descending order, and I was wondering what the Wiki prefernce is.

• From what I've seen used on the wikipedia most of the time, ascending is indeed the best choice. Articles usually start with a history section, so I guess having what happened in the past first is the best thing to do. Mgm|^(talk) 05:13, May 13, 2005 (UTC)

Adding an Image

How do I add an JPEG image to a page? I have already uploaded the image but I don't know how to add it to an existing page.

• The information can be found at Wikipedia:Picture tutorial. Basically you place [[Image:<name of your image>]] into the article. 10qwerty 02:35, 13 May 2005 (UTC)
  • And if you cannot remember the exact name of the image you uploaded, you'll have to click on "My contributions" at the top of the page to look it up. 10qwerty 02:38, 13 May 2005 (UTC)

Trouble Verifying My Email Address

I would like to post a new event, and perhaps add a comment, but I can't, because every time I try to add an event, I am told I must verify my email address. I click on "Verify Now", and enter my email address and password, and basically, I am logged in again, in a new window, but cannot post a new event. Please fix this. Thank you.

• Can you tell us what the name is of the page you're talking about? I really doubt Wikipedia would ask for verification. Mgm|^(talk) 05:14, May 13, 2005 (UTC)

Half Space

Is there a way to create a half space between characters? Wayward 06:18, May 13, 2005 (UTC)

HTML 4.0 includes character entities for this:

• em&emsp;space displays as "em space"
• en&ensp;space displays as "en space"
• thin&thinsp;space displays as "thin space"

Interpretation of these codes is a browser feature - wikipedia is involved only to the extent that users are allowed to enter such codes in article content. Note that using these entities affects searches for your content, see Help:Searching#Words with special characters. In general, I'd recommend not using these unless there's some specialized need. -- Rick Block 14:42, 13 May 2005 (UTC)

Help I really messed up Constantine

All sorts of things are missing. I haven't the faintest idea how to fix it or go back to an earlier form. Help! Kazuba I'm lost in space! Need some guidance!

I've reverted Constantine I (emperor) to the version of 12th May (ie, a couple of edits back), which I think is what you wanted... Shimgray 15:49, 13 May 2005 (UTC)

By the way, information on how to revert a page to an earlier version can be found at WP:RV. 10qwerty | (Talk) 17:35, 13 May 2005 (UTC)

Rfc on Rfc

Okay, I know this is going to sound pretty silly, but how does one make a request for comment on the fact that one's request for comment hasn't been commented upon, and therefore the matter remains in limbo? Or double limbo. I mean, I'd rather just have the first request answered, but if that isn't going to happen...it's not like the world is not going to end over the matter, but I'd still like some comment from external parties --Mothperson 22:10, 13 May 2005 (UTC)

• Which RfC are you referring to? android↔talk 22:12, May 13, 2005 (UTC)
  • Title dispute: Antoine Carême --Mothperson 22:24, 13 May 2005 (UTC) is something odd going on with servers or such? I may be posting this twice.
    • It might help if you summarize the dispute on the talk page, as the RfC page suggests. You're not going to get much attention by simply linking to a talk page with a long, drawn-out discussion about French naming conventions without explaining to outside parties what the dispute is all about. android↔talk 23:21, May 13, 2005 (UTC)
      • Ah. The talk page seemed so full of extremely serious disputes and outrage, I did not realize I should post my relatively trivial whining there. Thank you. Another wiki mystery exposed. Mothperson 23:34, 13 May 2005 (UTC)
        • Just so we're clear here: the RfC page suggests placing a summary of the dispute on the disputed article's talk page, not the RfC talk page itself (although adding a note there might not be a bad idea, either). android↔talk 23:41, May 13, 2005 (UTC)
          • I just came back to say - yes, the Rfc page does not look like the place to enter anything, but the dispute is already fully detailed on the talk page. How is a summary there going to get anyone to comment? Mothperson 23:51, 13 May 2005 (UTC)
            • If I may reference an earlier comment: You're not going to get much attention by simply linking to a talk page with a long, drawn-out discussion about French naming conventions without explaining to outside parties what the dispute is all about. It's a long discussion about a very detailed subject. I know nothing about French history or French language. Provide context. Summarize the main points of the dispute and lazy editors (e.g., me) will be more apt to comment on the dispute. android↔talk 23:57, May 13, 2005 (UTC)
              • Ooo-kay. If I can count up to eight asterisks, I guess I can do that, too. It's not like I'm that popular there anyway. Mothperson 00:13, 14 May 2005 (UTC)
                • Did it. Now go and read, please. And this took 9 (nine) asterisks. --Mothperson 00:51, 14 May 2005 (UTC)

CamelCase

I was looking at the "oldest" articles of Wikipedia. What's with all the CamelCasing in the articles? I just couln't figure out why. Maybe a trend then? Hotmail was CamelCased like HoTmAiL sometime I ago I think (irrelevant). Anyway, WB 06:20, May 14, 2005 (UTC)

• Hmm, from the sound of your comment, it seems that the "oldest" articles on Wikipedia are way, way, way overdue for a tune-up. 10qwerty | (Talk) 07:23, 14 May 2005 (UTC)
• There's an article about this, see Wikipedia:CamelCase and Wikipedia. The bottom line is these are anachronisms that should be edited out. -- Rick Block 16:11, 14 May 2005 (UTC)

Making ones own images

I looked through the site and still could not figure ot how to create an image of my own.

Which bit of it is a problem for you? Is it

• What you would do on your computer to create an image, either by drawing or from a photograph?
• What you would do to the image to prepare it for use on Wikipedia?
• How you would get the image onto Wikipedia?
• How you would make the image appear as part of a Wikipedia article?
• What you would do about copyright and stuff?

Let us know where you are up to. If you are still uncertain, let us know the article you are thinking about, and what kind of image you mean. Notinasnaid 13:32, 14 May 2005 (UTC)

You could start by visiting Wikipedia:Image tutorial. 131.211.210.14 10:33, 17 May 2005 (UTC)

[edit] link edits previous section

On Wikipedia:Templates_for_deletion, if you click e.g. on the edit link next to "Template:For" it'll edit "Template:Rotten" instead. This didn't happen a moment ago. Could it be because i inserted a <h5> headline further up? — Sebastian (talk) 18:27, 2005 May 14 (UTC)

The simple answer is yes: the header before your <h5> works, the one after doesn't (and it starts at the header you added rather than at the previous === header). You could replace it with <span style="font-size: 110%; font-weight: bold">, which AFAIK doesn't have this side effect. Daniel 18:39, 14 May 2005 (UTC)

See also comments in the source of Help:Editing#Sections.2C_paragraphs.2C_lists_and_lines. Daniel

OK, i will change it then. Thanks! — Sebastian (talk) 18:42, 2005 May 14 (UTC)

Book cover

I've scanned the cover of Cry, the Beloved Country for that article. I know I would use the {{bookcover}} tag to the summary when I upload it. But I don't understand the fair-use rules and such. Do I still have to get permission from the publisher before uploading? =\ --User:Jenmoa 20:09, 14 May 2005 (UTC)

No; use of the book's cover on its article is considered fair use. You don't have to get permission. Have a look at Wikipedia:Fair use. Hermione1980 20:41, 14 May 2005 (UTC)

Thanks. So I just check off the copyright box on the upload form? --User:Jenmoa 20:54, 14 May 2005 (UTC)

Yes. Just pretend it says "I affirm this article is covered under the fair use policy." Hermione1980 21:04, 14 May 2005 (UTC)

Login problems

Where is the "mail me my password" button?

• It's on the login page; it says "E-mail new password". If you can't get to that page or see the button, maybe try deleting Wiki-related cookies? android↔talk 03:46, May 15, 2005 (UTC)

Deleting Accounts

Okay, so I messed us my account by naming it something I didn't like and now I need to get rid of it and possibly start over. How am I supposed to get rid of my account?

• The quick short answer is to just forget that account and just basically create a new one. There use to be a service at Wikipedia:Changing username where you could request to change your username. But because only developers have access to make the changes, and a huge backload appeared, it was discontinued and there are no indications that it will be provided in the future. For more options in what you can do in the meantime, please see the top of Wikipedia:Changing username. 10qwerty 06:28, 15 May 2005 (UTC)

Marking edits as patrolled

I have some trouble with marking links as patrolled in the Low Saxon wikipedia (nds:. When I click on "diff" in the recent changes list, I get a diff with a link "mark as patrolled". However when an article is new, there is no diff available and hence no link to mark the new article as patrolled. How do I mark new articles as patrolled?

Kind regards, Heiko Evermann 07:56, 15 May 2005 (UTC)

View the article. There should be a "Mark this article as patrolled" link near the bottom. --Daniel 09:05, 15 May 2005 (UTC)

undeletion

An anonymous user has recreated the article Zezima when it had been previously taken through VfD: Wikipedia:Votes_for_deletion/Zezima. There's policy to undelete, but there doesn't seem to be policy on how to handle this situation. What happens if I nominate it for deletion again? Samw 11:08, 15 May 2005 (UTC)

If it's the same (or essentially the same) content he's recreating, it's a candidate for speedy deletion ("Reposted content that was deleted according to Wikipedia deletion policy.") So you can mark it for speedy delete, as described on that page. -- John Fader (talk | contribs) 11:18, 15 May 2005 (UTC)

I speedied it. Smoddy (Rabbit and pork) 11:34, 15 May 2005 (UTC)

If it's a different text about the same subject, consider requesting a new VFD. Otherwise, just speedy it. 131.211.210.14 10:36, 17 May 2005 (UTC)

Big pictures

When I upload album covers, I upload biggest and highest quality covers I could find. Could uploading gigantic pictures {eg. Renegades) potentially go out of the fair use policy? Album covers will not damage them, rather it will advertise them, but it doesn't seem to fit the size policy. WB 21:03, May 15, 2005 (UTC)

Signatures

I've noticed that some users have a signature that doesn't just list their username (like the ~~~~ does) but also puts things like their talk page (sometimes it might display something like this - Hermione1980). Is there some way to do that automatically, or do you just have to enter that manually every time you want it to display that way? Hermione1980 21:12, 15 May 2005 (UTC)

• Go to preferences, type in the wanted signature and then check the "Raw signatures (without automatic link; please don't use templates for this)" option. Then the inputted signature will appear with the time anytime you enter ~~~~. For example, by entering <tt>

I will get WB.

--WB 21:31, May 15, 2005 (UTC)

Thanks! Hermione1980 21:59, 15 May 2005 (UTC)

Table CSS

I have ported from[Memory-Alpha] (a sister-wiki) and they have sigificant support for table classes (wiki-sidebar) for example, such as the picture table one puts to the right to show an example of the topic. Can that be done here?

Thanks JTMogh

Um, what is it you want to do? I guess that, as memory alpha used MediaWiki, like Wikipedia, it would be possible. Can you show us an example? Smoddy (Rabbit and pork) 22:23, 15 May 2005 (UTC)

Changed template displays differently for different users

Some well meaning editor just changed Template:history but inadvertently broke it. (The template ignored {{{1}}} and only displayed "history", and a link to its own history). I reverted the change, and after forced refresh it now displays correctly again. Now i just happened to visit a friend, whom i introduced to Wikipedia, and much to my surprise, when i showed him my homepage (which uses this template), it displayed broken again. I'm baffled. The content of the template is

[{{SERVER}}{{localurl:{{{1}}}|action=history&limit=500&offset=0}} {{{1}}}]

If i enter e.g. "{{subst:history|Patty Murray}}", how can it insert anything but "Patty Murray"? — Sebastian (talk) 02:04, 2005 May 16 (UTC)

Sounds like another caching problem, see Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)#caching problem?. Perhaps adding "?action=purge" to the URL might help in this case. -- Rick Block 02:14, 16 May 2005 (UTC)

Not in his cache. He never visited Wikipedia before. Or is there an intermediate cache in a proxy? I forget if we tried forced refresh on his box. — Sebastian (talk) 03:05, 2005 May 16 (UTC)

Wikipedia has internal caches, specifically the squid caches (see Wikipedia#Software and hardware). A change to a page is supposed to invalidate any copies in the squid caches, but this has sometimes not been happening. Appending "?action=purge" to a URL that fetches a page from wikipedia (apparently) instructs the squid proxy server to not use a cached version of the page. -- Rick Block 04:14, 16 May 2005 (UTC)

Thanks a lot, that's probably it, then! — Sebastian (talk) 05:06, 2005 May 16 (UTC)

when did Koran change to Quran?

As a child, we were taught that those of the Islamic Faith were Moslems. Are they Moslems? Are they Muslims? Which is correct and what brought about the spelling change?

As a child, we were taught that the Holy Book of Islam was called the Koran. Suddenly, it seems "popular" to spell it Quran. WHEN did this change? How did it change from one spelling to another?

It a different transliteration (not really a different spelling). Unlike other languages (such as chinese, there isn't an agreed upon transliteration scheme from arabic into the english alphabet. So there are any number of possible ways of transliterating arabic characters into english (or other latin-based alphabets) - see for example the many names of Osama bin Laden. None are "right", they're all just approximate attempts. The latter attempts you cite are just rather more accurate ones (when spoken by the "average" english speaker) than the others. -- John Fader (talk | contribs) 19:49, 16 May 2005 (UTC)

That said, you'd think Wikipedia would still have an article on transliteration from arabic, but I can't find an anything like that. -- John Fader (talk | contribs) 19:51, 16 May 2005 (UTC)

You might find an interesting comparison in the way that people switched wholesale from using "Peking" to "Beijing" sometime in the last few decades; the name didn't change, but the conventions did. Shimgray 23:25, 16 May 2005 (UTC)

• Consider this, spelling the QURAN as KORAN is like spelling Quanitity AS Kuanitity! would that make sense? In Arabic language K is K and Q is Q, spelling Quran as Koran is no different then changing the meaning of the word - Koran is wrong, Quran is right NEWUSER --67.68.41.185 23:13, 18 May 2005 (UTC)

Use of email on wikipedia

• I have my account set up so people can send me emails, without see my email address. Is there anything else that I need to do, like place a linke on my user page or something? Also, is there a way I can get email when I have messages on my talkpage? Thank you. whicky1978 03:01, Jun 15, 2005 (UTC)

What to do about plagiarism?

While doing some research on Pasteur Bizimungu, I noticed that almost the entire Wikipedia page is ripped right from this BBC article: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/3728807.stm What's the correct way to deal with plagiarism on Wikipedia? I don't have the time or the desire to rework the whole thing myself.

See Wikipedia:Copyright problems. Daniel 21:04, 16 May 2005 (UTC)

Random Page based on categories?

Special:Uncategorizedpages has thousands of articles (displaying 500 doesn't even exhaust the letter A). I would like to help categorizing them. It don't want to start from letter A – crawling through the alphabet is biased and feels daunting. Is there a way to display a random page that has no category?

Variations:

• Any article that has either no cat or only {{stub}} or {{sci-stub}}
• Any article that is not assigned to some given categories. (Useful e.g. when you just want to enjoy browsing without all the trivia noise.)

Thanks, Sebastian (talk) 00:00, 2005 May 17 (UTC)

User templates

Is it possible to create user templates (looking kind of like the template for BJAODN), and how? Dralwik 01:21, 17 May 2005 (UTC)

Not sure what you mean by "template for BJAODN". Yes, you can create them. Just enter e.g. "User:Dralwik/mytemplate" as a page name and then reference it as "User:Dralwik/mytemplate". But please use it sparingly, as we are currently experiencing server shortages. See also Wikipedia:Transclusion. — Sebastian (talk) 05:32, 2005 May 17 (UTC)

a new entry

I have a new word in English which has entered common use. How do I enter in into your website??

Regards,

Mark Nuckols nuckols@dartmouth.edu

• If anywhere, probably the English version of Wiktionary. Neologisms are not well tolerated in Wikipedia, and this project is not a dictionary anyways. Wiktionary is such a project. --Durin 03:32, 17 May 2005 (UTC)

two versions of the same article

While trying to link a new article I am writing to the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art (MassMoCA), I came across two different articles for this museum. They are MassMoca, which is incorrectly capitalized (it should be MassMoCA) and Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art. Both articles are very short stubs and both names are essentially correct. Obviously, these two need to be merged. However, I am not sure which title should be kept and I have no idea how to accomplish this edit anyway. Any help? --Sophitus 16:10, May 17, 2005 (UTC)

Done. The MassMoca article had no information not also in the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art article, so I just made the former redirect to the latter. I also created MassMoCa and had it redirect. Hth. —msh210 17:32, 17 May 2005 (UTC)

Thank you. --Sophitus 17:59, May 17, 2005 (UTC)

How do I remove an article from a catagory.

Wikipedia:Template messages/All and Wikipedia:Template messages/Links need to come out of Category:Companies_traded_on_NASDAQ. How do I do this? --Michael180 17:48, 17 May 2005 (UTC)

Normally you can just remove the [[Category:...]] lines from (usually the bottom of) an article, but in this case, the category was coming from a template transclusion. I can't load Wikipedia:Template messages/All, but Wikipedia:Template messages/Links was categorized because it transcluded Template:Nasdaq, which (as of a couple seconds ago) automatically categorized pages that used it under Category:Companies traded on NASDAQ. I've removed the auto-categorization (it really shouldn't have been there in the first place) with a note on the template's talk page. --David Iberri | Talk 18:57, May 17, 2005 (UTC)

Thank You --Michael180 00:00, 19 May 2005 (UTC)

employment history

I am trying to get my employment history so that i may create an accurate résumé

That sounds a good thing to do, but I don't think Wikipedia is likely to be able to help you very much. In general, you'd have to use your own records, and your own memory, to do this. Notinasnaid 07:58, 18 May 2005 (UTC)

• You can contact your previous empolyers if you need to know exact dates, however this is not necessary. You can estimate (e.g. Summer 2005- Fall 2006), when you worked. Also, on a résumé, you do not need to list every employer you have ever had, but maybe just the last 5 or so. Perhaps there are résumé tips in a résumé article. If not, then I will create one. --whicky1978 21:32, Jun 15, 2005 (UTC)

What's the best way to distribute the Wikipedia without a webserver, a database or scripting?

I've tried wiki2static and I see that there is work in progress to create a DVD based Wikipedia along with a discussion of publishing a print version. I've discovered that wiki2static no longer works with the database dumps and and that further development of the perl script has stopped.

Is anyones else creating static copies of the Wikipedia? What are you using?

Background: We deliver content we collect on 250GB hard drives to schools that have no Internet access or very limited access. Most of the hard drives we've delivered are in Nigeria, Kenya, and Tanzania. Some are used in Haiti and Bangladesh as well. All of the content is served as static pages - sometimes through a web server, sometimes through a share. You can read more about our project at http://www.egranary.org/.

Thanks,

Peter

Peter, one of our developers Tim Starling was working on a more fully featured means of building static images of wikipedia. I'll drop him a note to enquire what progress he has made. The project you describe (or in general providing a free encyclopedia to third-world schools) is one close to many wikipedians' hearts (I believe it's one of Jimbo's goals for the project), so building static images is something important to us (and something we've hitherto rather neglected). -- John Fader (talk | contribs) 23:20, 17 May 2005 (UTC)

Lost Password, no e-mail on account

I never included an email in my 'first signup' so I cant use the Email me my Password option, and I cant remember my password! Is there an admin that could add my e-mail to my account so i can get old password resent? or a new password? my user id NEWUSER, you can email me infoATislamicarchitecture.org (THANK YOU!)

• You'd need a developer for that. But since you can't really proof you were the one who started that account, I doubt they'd reset the password. The best thing you can do is start over with another username and include your email adress when you sign up this new account and link to your old account with a note you lost its password. Mgm|^(talk) 07:46, May 18, 2005 (UTC)

• Not sure if this helps, but i have contact with other Wikipedia Editors which can be found on my Talk page, also i have email corsp. with them; would that help? (Im posting from my office PC, so my IP will be different) then the above post made yesterday which is the one I've always used - Thank you -- NEWUSER --66.241.130.114 18:06, 18 May 2005 (UTC)

• If you're still editing from the same IP and if you've got email correspondence with some established wikipedians, I guess that's enough proof, but I think you'd best talk to a developer about this to be sure and get someone to act on it. 82.172.23.66 21:09, 18 May 2005 (UTC)

• How do i find a developer? Anyone can help? This post is made from HOME, the IP will match all prev. additions made - Thank you -- --NEWUSER --67.68.41.185 23:18, 18 May 2005 (UTC)
• m:Developer would be a great place to start. Or you could just ask User:David Gerard. Mgm|^(talk) 15:51, Jun 8, 2005 (UTC)

Note numbers

From Talk:Michael Cardinal von Faulhaber

I'm not sure why the note numbers don't show up properly--they're all 1s. Can anyone help?

Fixed. It was the blank lines. Lupo 10:11, 18 May 2005 (UTC)

Sicilian School article cleanup

Hi, this (see title) is the first article I have written from scratch on the 'pedia. Since I am not a native speaker, I welcome all input about style (do you find it incorrect? obscure? Have comments about content?). Please let me know here or on the discussionpage. Thanks for your help! ;-) --Wikipedius 10:09, 18 May 2005 (UTC)

Article formatting

When it comes to statements like:

See article xx for more details the other type of article - or even for see main article article xx

as in, for example: Biology of the Sierra Nevada, is there a fixed formatting for this? I've seen indented (as in the Bahá'í Faith for the see main article) etc. Is there a fixed way of doin this (or even a template for it?) -- Tomhab 12:31, 18 May 2005 (UTC)

The templates for disambiguation and other uses are listed at Wikipedia:Template messages/General. There is also Template:Main. However, I do not know if there is a specific template for the situation in Biology of the Sierra Nevada.

Generally, the format is like this in the wiki code:

:''For X, see Y''

Which displays:

For X, see Y

Zzyzx11 (Talk) 12:39, 18 May 2005 (UTC)

So they should all be indented...? -- Tomhab 13:18, 18 May 2005 (UTC)

Yes. -- Cyrius|✎ 16:48, 18 May 2005 (UTC)

Note the most general template for this, template:dablink, curiously isn't in the list at Wikipedia:Template messages/General. I'll add it. -- Rick Block 20:43, 18 May 2005 (UTC)

Search article or talk history

Is there a way to search an article or talk page history? For example, I want to see what happened when "Foo" was mentioned in an article - Did people edit "Foo" out? Was there an edit war over "Foo"? commonbrick 17:36, 18 May 2005 (UTC)

• No, not currently. Sorry. Zzyzx11 (Talk) 19:24, 18 May 2005 (UTC)
  • Does that mean it might be a feature added in the future? commonbrick 21:19, 18 May 2005 (UTC)
    • I would doubt it in the near future since such a database query would take a lot of resources on the web server. The database and web server already tends to slow to a crawl when there is a ton of traffic on this site. Zzyzx11 (Talk) 11:08, 19 May 2005 (UTC)

• Yes, you can use export and search the XML file.--Patrick 00:00, 30 May 2005 (UTC)

• You can also use use the keys "crtl and "F" to search for words that are on the current page. Also, you can search on google, but this will only provide results from when googled last crawled wikipedia. IOW, you can't do a current search on google. Simply go to www.google.com, and type "Foo" and "site:wikipedia.com". --whicky1978 21:37, Jun 15, 2005 (UTC)

Issues with user 128.54.213.52

I'm having problems with user user:128.54.213.52 posting information that is either simply not factual or very biased.

The article where he/she appears to be most active is the Carlsbad, California article. The article looks more like a real estate advertisment then an encyclopedia entry.

I have attempted numerous times to correct the article, but the user repeatedly reverts back to his/her own writing. At one point I attempted to provide focus on topics the user is so biased on while attempting to keep the article from being overly POV, but even then he/she edits the biased language back into the article. Even my most recent edit, into which I added lots of additional material, was either reverted or rewritten.

Reverting to past versions of the article will not solve anything (as the user will just revert/edit back his/her original statements), and neither will a continuing edit war.

I personally do not think it is likely that she will respond to any attempt for me contact him/her, but if anyone thinks it would be best to do so, I will.

I need input on what to do next. Any help is appreciated.

Many thanks, Short Verses 18:09, 18 May 2005 (UTC)

Try Wikipedia:Requests for comment. And if the editor has reverted more than three times in 24 hours, try Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/3RR. Hermione1980 18:29, 18 May 2005 (UTC)

Have you left a message on the article's talk page? Try that first, then try leaving a message on the user's talk page, then go to RfC and 3RR. Hermione1980 18:33, 18 May 2005 (UTC)

Thank you for your help! Short Verses 22:40, 18 May 2005 (UTC)

Creating a Wiki index (not table of contents!)

Hello!

I'm writing a technical manual in Wiki and know how to create a so-called "index" of section and sub-sections. (I usually call this a "table of contents.") But what I would really like to do is create the kind of index you find in the back of a book, which shows links to key words and phrases.

Is there any kind of program available to mark index links of this type?

Thank you so much!

--B. Scott

commons & wikipedia picture double upload

hi.

i uploaded 3 maps into both wikipedia and wikimedia commons. at this time i did not know that a file in wikimedia commons could be linked to directly. so, it seems that i have added an unnecessary duplicate of each map in wikipedia.

if this is so, i think it would be good to delete the maps in wikipedia & just link to wikimedia commons.

i am correct? do you agree? if yes, then i request that this action be taken.

the images in question are

1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Algic_langs.png & http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Algic_langs.png
2. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Na-Dene_langs.png & http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Na-Dene_langs.png
3. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Langs_N.Amer.png & http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Langs_N.Amer.png

thank you very much — ishwar  (SPEAK) 22:04, 2005 May 18 (UTC)

You uploaded the local (en.wikipedia) versions in error. So that makes them candidates for speedy deletion. Mark them accordingly, saying something like "created in error in both commons and en.wikipedia". -- John Fader (talk | contribs) 22:49, 18 May 2005 (UTC)

Songs and singles

There is different categories for songs and singles. Can you place the same song in both songs and singles?

I'll Be Missing You is placed in both Category:1997 singles and Category:1997 songs. Is this allowed? • Thorpe • 16:27, 19 May 2005 (UTC)

Yes, this is allowed--a Single (music) is not the same thing as a song. Hope that helps and happy editing. Meelar (talk) 16:33, May 19, 2005 (UTC)

Partial articles

I was wondering if it remains a verbatim copying, if a Wikipedia article is split up into sections as several articles. No editing would be done other than cutting the article into sections. Article titles would be the section headings. Also, do all links need to remain in the article.

Thanks.

Paulette Gibson donzacat@comcast.net

• As articles are all licenced under the GFDL they can be cut up in pretty much any way possible. The only 2 things you have to take into account is that you should seek concensus with others before cutting up articles and you should adhere to the manual of style and naming conventions. Of course, there should be a need to split the article in the first place. Mgm|^(talk) 07:04, May 22, 2005 (UTC)

How can I help with image enhancement?

Hello;

I'm a newbie to Wikipedia.

Many of the images on your pages can benefit from simple colour and gradient correction which would take a minute or so from download to upload.

How can I help?

Regards; Chris

Simple:

1. Set up an account for yourself if you haven't already - it only takes a few seconds.
2. Click on an image which you think you can improve; this should take you to an image description page.
3. Click the most recent date in the "file history" to make sure you're downloading the full file, not a thumbnail.
4. Edit away.
5. Make sure the editted file has the same name as the original, and upload it using the "Upload file" link in the "toolbox" on every page. It will then replace the older image, and cause all the pages using that image to show the newer version.

You may also be interested in the Wikimedia Commons, a media repository from which files can be served to all Wikimedia projects, and also made available for other around the Internet.

Good luck, enjoy, and above all Welcome to Wikipedia! - IMSoP 20:18, 20 May 2005 (UTC)

Also be aware that there are some image caches in opperation. So when you upload the adjusted file, you might still see the old version for a little while - which can be confusing. If necessary wait a few seconds and reload the page. -- Solipsist 20:30, 20 May 2005 (UTC)

Ah yes - if you do have difficulties with this kind of thing, see Wikipedia:Bypass your cache - IMSoP 20:35, 20 May 2005 (UTC)

Hello;

It's Chris the Newbie again. I don't know; something is wonky.

For the entry on Thomas Alva Edison, I edited and uploaded three grayscale images several days ago. One updated image sometimes appears, sometimes not. One shows the notation of my update on the File History but still has the old image. One shows no record of my upload.

I reloaded several times, over several days, using different browsers (Safari, IE, Firefox).

Is this hit and miss scenario to be expected? Shall I try uploading again?

Regards; Chris

Hello; It's Chris again with an update. Now it seems to work. Thanks for your help. Now, all I need to do is figure out how to use the Signature and Date stamp. Regards; Chris

Hi Chris. Creating a datestamp is actually very easy: just type ~~~ to render your name, ~~~~~ to render the full UTC date and time, or ~~~~ to render both together. Usually, people sign with four tildes, to give both name and time. It's great to see you doing image work – I always have trouble with that stuff. Smoddy (Rabbit and pork) 16:23, 25 May 2005 (UTC)

Hello (it's Chris again); I've been meerily uploading improved images and It's been working fine when I use the same image name. Now, one image has a different file extension (jpg in lieu of the original gif). I can't figure out how to delete the original image.

TTFN, it's suppertime. Chris

Wikipedia vs. specific topical Wikis

I'm curious what sort of policy or cultural norm governs cases where Wikipedia contains reference information on a topic, but a more specific wiki also contains the same reference info on the same topic. Continuing to maintain both sources seems wasteful and contrary to the spirit of Wiki (from what I've observed during my short time here).

Perhaps an example will make my point clearer. dKosopedia is a decidedly non-NPOV wiki focusing on US politics. It happened to contain some reference information that I was seeking, specifically the names of incumbents in the Massachusetts Legislature. I pasted this info back into the Massachusetts General Court article here -- I infer despite being "current events" that this is appropriate to Wikipedia's scope? -- but I also wondered if there's any way to keep the two pages in synch.

I can envision both a technical solution and an administrative one. The former would be to synch up the pages periodically; the latter would be to agree to develop one site only for this reference material, but link it from the other. At any rate, this situation must be fairly common so I'm curious how the community treats it.

Thanks in advance! -- PhilipR 17:53, 19 May 2005 (UTC)

As far as I know, the most closely "linked" wikis are the various language wikipedias, see Wikipedia:Multilingual_coordination, which are not automatically synchronized. Since wikipedia content is licensed under GFDL, anyone is free to copy its content (under the terms of the license) and there are are a variety of wikipedia mirrors, see Wikipedia:Mirrors and forks. Synchronization for these mirrors and forks is generally (perhaps exclusively) one-way, with wikipedia as the source. -- Rick Block 23:52, 19 May 2005 (UTC)

• Also, make sure that the copyright of dKosopedia is compatible with the GFDL. Mgm|^(talk) 07:07, May 22, 2005 (UTC)

Problem with Login

When I log in and get the "Login Successful" page and click a link to go somewhere else, it is as if I had never logged in. The only way to maintain my login is to wait to be automatically redirected (which happens in about 10 seconds). - Why does this happen?

P.A.

Do you click on the Remember me box? Smoddy (Rabbit and pork) 20:23, 19 May 2005 (UTC)

No, I didn't. I thought that box was to auto-fill in my username or something. I will try that. Thanks Phillipedison1891

Another Joseph Kennedy coverup

Hello, I am searching for information on the JFK child that was disposed of in 1953. Raised as the son of JFK at the Kennedy home, and later disposed of through an orchestrated coverup by Joseph Kennedy. If anyone is able to contact Seymour Hersh, please forward the following Email to him. Indepenrn@yahoo.com. Thank you

Dixie County, Florida

There are only two towns listed for Dixie County, Florida - they are shown as Cross City and Horseshoe Beach

Old Town is also a town in Dixie County and Dixie County goes all the way to the Gulf of Mexico, so I am fairly certain that Suwannee (or Suwannee Key) is also part of Dixie County.

I tried to add those two places to the Wikipedia with "edit this page" and it gave me a whole bunch of other stuff instead of that particular page.

Thanks Rob Bowers Old Town, Florida

I can't reproduce your problem, but try editing the relevant section instead of the whole page (in this case [7]). (Have you looked at other articles such as Suwannee County, Florida, by the way?)

When asking questions, by the way, wikify relevant links (such as Dixie County, Florida) so that other editors can find pages easily, and always 'sign' with four tildes (~~~~) so that we can see when and by whom the message was left.

I hope that all this helps. Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 13:29, 20 May 2005 (UTC)

Wikified for future helpers. hydnjo talk 21:15, 20 May 2005 (UTC)

Genovese Crime Family

I noticed the Genovese Crime Family article is redirected to Vincent Gigante and I was wondering if shouldn't it be redirected to the Genovese Family article (or vice versa ?). Not wanting to make any sudden changes I left a message to the author(s) on the article's discussion page on April 7 haven't recieved a responce. 209.213.71.78 19:48, 20 May 2005 (UTC)

I think that's a good call - probably either the Genovese Family article didn't exist when the redirect was made, or the person doing the redirecting didn't find it (it should probably be at Genovese family, actually, according to our naming conventions). I'll do some shifting around now, but in future - just Be bold! - IMSoP 19:59, 20 May 2005 (UTC)

Question about featured articles

After a article has been featured on the Main Page, can it be featured again later? --♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 21:16, 20 May 2005 (UTC)

• You should post your question on Wikipedia talk:Tomorrow's featured article for a faster, more detailed response. Zzyzx11 (Talk) 22:05, 20 May 2005 (UTC)
  • Or, you may want to post your question directly on user Raul654's talk page since he is the primary person who selects the daily featured article. Zzyzx11 (Talk) 22:09, 20 May 2005 (UTC)

meditation

Need to be retrained in meditaion, meditative states , can you help. Email address: rrunner@si.rr.com

---

css/templates question

Hi. I can't seem to find how the css works for image thumbnails. It generally looks something like:

<div class="thumb tright">
  <div style="width:###px;"><a href="URL" class="internal" title="CAPTION">
    <img src="IMAGE URL" alt="CAPTION" width="###" height="###" longdesc="URL" /></a>
    <div class="thumbcaption">
      CAPTION
    </div>
  </div>
</div>

Now my question is, what exactly are the CSS definitions for the classes "thumb tright", "internal", and "thumbcaption"? I ask because many chess-related articles have begun to use the template:chess position, instead of images (see template talk:chess position). Ideally, however, it would be possible to set up a template so that the chess position tables could appear the same way as image thumbnails with captions. So if someone could figure out what the padding, text size, border width/color, etc., or explain how to find them, that would be awesome. You can see what I'm talking about on the page The Game of the Century, for example. Also, would it be better to set up such thumbnail lookalikes using html <div> elements, or using wiki-syntax tables? Thanks. --jacobolus (t) 00:49, 21 May 2005 (UTC)

puzzle page vs category : puzzles page

The page on Puzzle shows many categories of puzzles. Clicking one such category takes you to a sub-category, where you might find further sub-sub-categories and so on. Each sub-category or sub-sub-category has examples or associated real games or computer games. So far, so good.

However, totally independent of this structure and without proper structuring someone has created pages on Category:Puzzle games and Category:Puzzle computer and video games. I suggest these two pages should be deleted and the games which are quoted in them moved to the proper sub-categories and sub-sub-categories associated with the "Puzzle" page.

I cannot do this because the pages Category:Puzzle games and Category:Puzzle computer and video games cannot be edited, since the subcategories do not show up when the 'edit this page button' has been clicked.

Cheers, Karl Scherer

The category:puzzles page is not logically structured. I have done my best in the puzzle page to order the subject in proper subcategories, but the category:puzzles seems to be independent of that. Can someone please properly reconsicle the two in a professional way? Why are examples and articles quated in the category:puzzles page when these articles belong only to sub-categories?

Thanks, Karl

Wikipedia supports multiple kinds of categorizations. One consists of articles containing links to other articles, like the link from Puzzle to Boardgame puzzle. These are both articles about their respective topics. Another categorization mechanism is the wikipedia categorization feature, that allows articles to be added to special pages called categories. When one of these categories is displayed (these are pages with names starting with "category:", like category:Puzzle games) every article and (sub)category that someone has added to the category is displayed. Editing a category article edits the description of the category but not the list of articles or subcategories displayed (the list is automatically generated, based on [[category:xxx]] lines added to the articles). If you think articles should be in categories that they aren't or are in categories they shouldn't be, the fix is to edit the articles not the categories. The categories an article (or category) is in are listed at the bottom of the article page. For more details on categories, please see How to use categories from the main Help page linked from every page. Hope this helps. -- Rick Block 03:14, 21 May 2005 (UTC)

The weird miz of examples with sub-categories make these pages quite unreadable. I suggest to use my clearly structured pages instead. Please let us care for a better structure. Cheers, Karl Scherer

Your clearly structured pages are great: keep up the good work! Basically, the category pages are automatically generated by the mediawiki software. No human intervention is really required: add [[category:blah]] to a page, and it will show up in that category. This can be really useful, for example when someone wants to see all of the category:puzzle computer and video games in wikipedia. Keeping that list up to date by hand would be tedious, and no one would really want to do it. That said, if someone were to make a list of all the puzzle computer games, with summaries, it would be helpful too. So basically, there's no problem having both. The category pages (unless they are incorrect, in which case you should remove the links to the category from the wrongly categorized pages), aren't really hurting anything. --jacobolus (t) 07:07, 21 May 2005 (UTC)

One more thing. You can add your dated signature to discussion pages like this by typing four tildes, like this: ~~~~. --jacobolus (t) 07:14, 21 May 2005 (UTC)

Thousand thanks! The misunderstanding was clearly on my side; I didi not really know what categories in Wikipedia are. I have read the info pages on it, and you writing helped a lot, too. Thanks for all the very clear answers! ....still on a learning curve here after two years... ;-)) Karlscherer3 22:33, 21 May 2005 (UTC)

One final thing. If you want your signature to read "Karl Scherer" instead of "Karlscherer3" (you may not, your sig is wholly up to you), you can click preferences at the top of any wikipedia page, and then type the name you want to have appear in the "your nickname" box. --jacobolus (t) 06:03, 22 May 2005 (UTC)

Listing Or Filtering Stubs

I'm new to editing Wikipedia (spurred by TiddlyWiki, yay!), and I'm somehow missing something that must be obvious.

I've been reading WP for some time and I've read most everything on guidelines and standards, but I'm just this random geek with no particular expertise. My intent was to alternate between (1) general grammatical/spelling/editorial cleanup work and (2) expanding stubs - I can't do much harm to something that's not there. However, I haven't found any method for viewing a list of stubs or searching only stubs. I have seen users talking about sorting and converting them, so I'm sure there must be a way.

If anyone can point me to the method for viewing all stubs or searching only stubs, I can be on my way!

Well, the first place to look is Category:Stub. I'm not sure about sorting and converting, but the category should have a good deal of the stubs. Unfortunately, some stubs aren't marked with the stub template, but that's a good place to start. You could also just hit "Random Page" a few times :-)

Btw, sign your posts. You can do that by using 3 tildes for just your username (or, in your case, an IP address) (~~~) or 4 tildes to add a timestamp (~~~~). 4 tildes is preferred, as it helps the page archivers archive the page by date. (If you want to appear as more than a number, you can create a new Wikipedia account by clicking the link on the top right-hand corner of this page.) Hermione1980 15:24, 21 May 2005 (UTC)

• I think you'll also be interested in Wikipedia:WikiProject Stub sorting. Mgm|^(talk) 07:13, May 22, 2005 (UTC)

Accidental overwrite of editing history

I was reviewing the Skinhead article History page and clicked a "last" compare link for the most recent change. After examining the comparison, I scrolled down to the Current Revision. Deciding to edit the same section, I noticed an [edit] link beside it and believed this to be an alternative to returning to the article page before editing, so I clicked it.

To my surprise, my edit replaced the most recent change on the History page, rather than being recorded as an additional edit. While it was my intention to replace the changed text anyway, I did not mean to destroy its edit history. As far as I can see, there is now no evidence that the previous most recent change was ever made at all.

This function of the Wikimedia software seems to me to be a serious problem. I don't want to speculate on the resulting state of the History page if I had been reviewing an early revision, rather than the latest one.

Unfortunately, I can't give much help on recovering the lost edit history. It was made around May 20th by a user with no account, but I don't remember the IP address. The inserted text was something close to "also used by traditional skinheads because the laces look good." Nevertheless, nothing substantive has been lost from the article itself, only the history. Unconventional 17:30, 22 May 2005 (UTC)

--Never mind!-- When I went back to the Skinhead history, all was well. There is a bug of some kind in the history page generation after taking my route to editing. I clearly remember seeing a history page that omitted the edit by user 69.138.58.230, and the [last] link for my edit compared it to the revision from edits by user Cmdrjameson (which is currently third on the page), but the inaccuracy seems to go away if one comes in "from the top".

• Actually, it is due to delays in updating all the databases. The more busy this web site gets, the slower it is for the system to finish updating all of the new data in the database. Thus, a previous edit may not appear on the history list until several minutes after the current edit appears there. Zzyzx11 (Talk) 00:55, 24 May 2005 (UTC)

Using my own images

I have uploaded some images, but I'm not sure what copyright tags were used. All the images are my original works. Do I need to add the appropriate tags, or by rule they must be GNU? Also, I have uploaded a photo of myself for my userpage, and I don't mind if people use the image, but I don't want anybody to use it to insult me in anyway. Lastly, how does one know if an image is vandelized, verses simply being "altered". Does vandelism only apply to pacific pages like articles? You can see one of my images in Empathy. In that article, I tried to shrink the picture, but it would not work, so I made it a thumbnail. Was I doing someting wrong? Thank you. --Joseph Wayne Hicks 02:20, May 23, 2005 (UTC)

You probably want to license your images under the GFDL. To do so, simply add {{GFDL}} to the bottom of the image pages. If you want to put them under a different license, you could do that as well. What do you mean about images being "vandalized"? To shrink images, you can insert them into articles as [[Image:PICTURE NAME.jpg|thumb|###px|right|CAPTION]]. If you don't want a frame around the image, use [[Image:PIC NAME.jpg|###px|CAPTION]]. --jacobolus (t) 02:47, 23 May 2005 (UTC)

works cited

i think it would be nice if at the bottom of each page you had the MLA format of citing it for a bibliography, since citing web pages is always rather confusing. thanks!

If you feel like fixing up the links on a page to conform to MLA standards, that would in most cases be great! In some cases, care is required. If the link is already well cited, then arbitrarily changing it to MLA style could needlessly anger an editor using a different style standard. But feel free to make the info about the links on any page more complete. --jacobolus (t) 02:50, 23 May 2005 (UTC)

I'm pretty sure that he's making the common request that Wikipedia pages contain an MLA-formatted citation for that page. -- Cyrius|✎ 04:32, 23 May 2005 (UTC)

If this is going to be done, shouldn't we cover all common forms of citation? 131.211.210.13 09:39, 23 May 2005 (UTC)

I agree. I believe that the next version of the software will allow a permanaent url to be generated for the current reversion of the page. When that happens, I think that a very useful link to have at the top or bottom of the page would be cite this page, which would present a reference in all the major forms of citation, and any others people have been bothered to set up. Imho preferring one form over another would be POV. Thryduulf 11:35, 23 May 2005 (UTC)

Why would POV matter? It's not about article content. But the original suggestion is a good one. ✏ Sverdrup 12:36, 23 May 2005 (UTC)

Using my own images Part 2

By "vandelized", I worry that somebody might put devil horns or something on my picture. Also, I used typed the right text [[Image:pic name.jpg|200px]], for example, but nothing changed, and this image is much larger than 200 pixels wide. --Joseph Wayne Hicks 03:00, May 23, 2005 (UTC)

• You can compare two images. Old versions are kept in the history just like with articles. I imagine vandalism would be pretty obvious. 131.211.210.13 09:40, 23 May 2005 (UTC)

Eenadu Archives

Hi,

Please do respond immdtly this is urgent and of utmost need, i need to have some information from this telugu newspaper dated august 14th 2002, please if u could help me in this....will be very greatful.the page im looking out for is our landlord hd published an add regarding the property papers being lost i wnt tht page pls.............

thnks jennie My mail id jennie.joseph@gmail.com

New question

My question is about anon talk pages. If an IP #'s talk page has several warnings over a period of months, but is not marked with a tag that says "AOL uses this IP" or something of that sort, am I safe in assuming that one individual was responsible for getting all the messages on that talk page? Thanks, Meelar (talk) 20:42, May 23, 2005 (UTC)

• You cannot automatically assume that because many ISPs use dynamic IP addresses. Everytime a user using such an ISP logs on to the Internet, it assigns that user a new IP address from a pool of IP addresses it owns. Zzyzx11 (Talk) 00:49, 24 May 2005 (UTC)
  • Another scenario is either a household or a group of people who regularly use the same computer and IP address. Zzyzx11 (Talk) 00:51, 24 May 2005 (UTC)

What is allowed and not allowed to be posted?

I've looked for the rules but can't seem to find them. Maybe I overlooked them. What is allowed to be posted and what isn't? Is information about websites allowed here? Are you allowed to post about local area music bands? What about "small time" playwrights, stuff like that? Please, all info is appreciated. Thanks

There are few hard and fast rules about what can be written about on Wikipedia.

However, posting articles about not popular websites, local bands, and other such things is likely to set off many people's alarms, and probably get them listed for possible deletion. There is quite a history of people who run, are members of, or are otherwise associated with such subjects writing the articles themselves for promotional or vanity purposes, and we don't allow that.

Ways to avoid this problem include providing independent sources of information, and explaining why the article's subject isn't just an example of a million such things. -- Cyrius|✎ 07:46, 24 May 2005 (UTC)

Also see Wikipedia:What_Wikipedia_is_not, which is the official guideline relating to acceptable content. -- Rick Block 13:31, 24 May 2005 (UTC)

Page forwarding

Hi, I need to know the syntax for getting a page to forward to another page - I need "Ima Sokoni Iru Boku" (japanese title) to forward to "Now and then, here and there" (english title). I'd rather someone posts how to do it here rather than simply doing it -I need to learn sometime, you see.

• Make sure the info in Ima Sokoni Iru Boku is included in Now and then, here and there and leave the following on Ima Sokoni Iru Boku:

#REDIRECT [[Now and then, here and there]]

More info is available at Wikipedia:Redirect. Mgm|^(talk) 15:10, May 24, 2005 (UTC)

Also, it's helpful to know that you can see the non-redirected page by clicking on its title in the Redirected from message. So for example, if you click a link that says U. S., you'll get the header that says

United States

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

(Redirected from U. S.)

Click the U. S. again and you'll be taken to here, and you can edit it (abortively!) and see the redirect syntax. -- PhilipR 16:31, 24 May 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for your help!

questionery form

I want to build a questioneries form in my website. Would you please advise me how I can build such questionerie form to be able to do this? I am using Frontpage. Thank you

Try asking at Wikipedia:Reference desk. Hermione1980 17:28, 24 May 2005 (UTC)

plainlinks etc

I noticed class="plainlinks" and class="plainlinksneverexpand" in some Templates. What do those do and/or where are such things documented? Haven't had any luck with searches nor have I found which nook of the Wikis to traverse. (SEWilco 04:11, 25 May 2005 (UTC))

class="plainlinks" avoids adding the external link icon to an external link, compare this link and this link. I don't know what class="plainlinksneverexpand" does. -- Rick Block 04:29, 25 May 2005 (UTC)

On "plainlinksneverexpand", see MediaWiki talk:Monobook.css and Template talk:Ref. The short breakdown: within an HTML element of class "plainlinks", external links do not get the arrow icon. I have added "plainlinksneverexpand" yesterday, it also suppresses the arrow icon, but additionally also URL expansion when printing. (URL expansion is the process that makes external links print like "[link text as shown on screen] (http://actual URL of that ext link here)".) Lupo 07:41, 25 May 2005 (UTC)

Critical Reviews

Are critical reviews of artistic material, like movies and books, appropriate on wikipedia? I've seen people post stuff like "I liked this movie" on talk pages, and I was wondering whether there is or should be a more appropriate, more "official" mechanism for reviewing material. Not sure if it belongs on the wikipedia of course, so I'm just asking. Wouter Lievens 08:53, 25 May 2005 (UTC)

• Basically as critical reviews are all about one person's POV they are not considered apropriate for Wikipedia. I don't know whether reviews are allowed at Wikibooks, but a reviews wiki might be a natural extention of that wiki rather if they aren't. Thryduulf 11:39, 25 May 2005 (UTC)
• Thryduulf is right, but I don't think people expressing their opinion on a movie on a talk page is really a problem. Mgm|^(talk) 12:54, May 25, 2005 (UTC)

Translating contribution

There are many articles with no Spanish version (often, the most complete and interesting ones). Everytime I find one of them, I want to translate it and add a link in the left language-list. How can I do it?

Write the Spanish article and place an interwiki link on the english article: [[es:Wikipedia:Olé Olé]]. Wouter Lievens 10:00, 25 May 2005 (UTC)

The Spanish language article should be written at the Spanish Wikipedia: http://es.wikipedia.org. Then you add the interlanguage link by putting [[es:articlename]] at the bottom of the English article (replace "articlename" with the title of the Spanish page.) Isomorphic 03:34, 27 May 2005 (UTC)

Sea Warrior

I recently inserted some information about Sea Warrior, the U.S. Navy's newest total force approach to human resources. I happen to be in the Navy and work at Task Force Warrior, West as the Informatio Manager. My post was edited and the information that replaced my information was severly outdated. How can I fix that? How can I prevent that?

Thank you, IT2(AW) Patricia Stowell

In short, revert it back to your version (assuming no one added anything of value; otherwise merge the new material in) and cite your sources or your own authority on the topic. More experienced Wikipedians will likely have better answers but as far as I can tell, that's the gist of how consensus is reached here. -- PhilipR 20:51, 25 May 2005 (UTC)

I'd redo your edits, and cite any sources in a Refernces section at the end of the document (if one doesn't already exist). I would also note what you've noted above, particularly your credentials, on the talk page. I'd set the edit summary to be something along the lines of reinserting updated information - see talk. Thryduulf 22:00, 25 May 2005 (UTC)

Can you provide a link to the article you're discussing? This piqued my interest. Thanks - Tempshill2 17:11, 3 Jun 2005 (UTC)

name change of page needed

The page boardgame puzzle needs to have its name corrected to board game puzzle. Can someone please do that? When I tried to create a new page with the correct name board game puzzle, the system flagged a list of errors. Karlscherer3 22:41, 25 May 2005 (UTC)

• I think because you are a recently new user, you are currently unable to use the move tool for security reasons. Please make such requests at Wikipedia:Requested moves. Zzyzx11 (Talk) 23:54, 25 May 2005 (UTC)
  • I see that you created board game puzzle with the same information, so I will merge and redirect the boardgame puzzle article to it. Zzyzx11 (Talk) 23:54, 25 May 2005 (UTC)
    • I've repaired the separated history created by the copy/paste move. -- Cyrius|✎ 02:34, 26 May 2005 (UTC)

• Alternatively, you could have copied the material to the correct page, and redirected the old (orginal) page. I think that would have been better--and you can still do it --Joseph Wayne Hicks 04:53, May 26, 2005 (UTC)
  • Actually, one should not copy-and-paste articles to new locations, as this loses the edit history. One should use the "move" function or list the move on Wikipedia:Requested moves. — Knowledge Seeker দ 05:27, 26 May 2005 (UTC)
    • In this specific case, it might be moot because Karlscherer3 was the only contributor to both articles. However, in general, users should either use the "move" function or list the move on Wikipedia:Requested moves. Zzyzx11 (Talk) 15:48, 26 May 2005 (UTC)

Can't find uploaded images, used wikiware

I used the wikimedia software to upload some images, but I never figured out where they went, or if they really uploaded. Can anybody help me find out? --Joseph Wayne Hicks 04:50, May 26, 2005 (UTC)

Did you upload them to Wikipedia or to Commons? Here's what you've uploaded to Wikipedia. — Knowledge Seeker দ 05:23, 26 May 2005 (UTC)

Help with identical articles

I just found two copies of an article for the baseball player Jose Reyes (Jose Reyes and José Reyes). I merged the content in both articles so that they are the same. I request that someone delete Jose Reyes and keep the other one because it has diacritics in the article title. And for future reference, besides merging content, what process should I take when finding identical articles such as these?--Sophitus 11:49, May 26, 2005 (UTC)

We don't delete in these cases, but keep Jose Reyes as a redirect to José Reyes in order to preserve the edit history, which is needed for full GFDL-compliance. Lupo 12:24, 26 May 2005 (UTC)

• • BTW, great job on that merge! :) Mgm|^(talk) 18:47, May 26, 2005 (UTC)

A beginner's guide to uploading images?

One of the things, IMHO, that most helps to contribute to the attractiveness of the Wikipedia is the inclusion in articles, whenever possible, of one or two apt and well-chosen images.

One of the most frustrating things to me about the Wikipedia, however, is that every time I think, when reading an article, "Oh, I took a picture of just that the other week", I am stirred once again to try and find out how on earth one gets to attempt to donate a pertinent image from one's photographic efforts to the Wikipaedic community -- and every time I get lost once again in a maze of, to me, uncomprehensive, not to say uncomprehensible, cross-references.

The impression given is that "those who can, do" (the advice proffered seems to be along the lines of "when you're doing X, which of course you're quite capable of, just remember detail Y"), while those of us who can't... well, we really ought to just bugger off.

I was wondering if some kind soul might contribute a step-by-step guide for techno-ignoramuses like me, because what always ends up driving me to despair is stuf like the following:

Wikipedia:Picture tutorial

This is a tutorial on how to insert pictures in Wikipedia articles using Wikiformat. There is also a shorter technical document describing the syntax.

What is "Wikiformat"? I can't find any article on that in Wikipedia.

The "shorter technical document" -- not that much shorter actually! -- is about layout, really, which is not what I'm looking for.

If you need help uploading an image, or selecting a suitable image for an article, you should also read our image use policy.

Oh, I see, though that "also" is a bit cheeky since the present article has so far said nothing at all about uploading... Hang on a minute, though:

Note that before you add an image to an article, you should edit the image description page to explain the source of the image and make sure the copyright status of the image is clearly stated. It is preferred that you use one of the Wikipedia:Image copyright tags, as appropriate.

Hmm: "image description page". What's that then? Better have a look. Just before I do, though: something wrong here, surely? I've added images to articles before now without doing any of those things -- just added it from another article... If we're talking about a new image how can anyone edit an image description page that doesn't yet exist. My brain is already beginning to hurt.

Go to

Wikipedia:Image description page

Each uploaded file has an associated image description page.

Plough through all of that. No, nothing here about how to upload an image.

Try following the link uploaded file. Oops, now we've been redirected to Wikipedia:Multimedia and everything's getting more technical by the second... and it's not long before we're back at Wikipedia:Image description page, very little the wiser (sigh!)

Would some kind soul consider contributing a step-by-step guide on how to upload images for use in the Wikipedia. Please... -- Picapica 21:21, 26 May 2005 (UTC)

Well, the first thing is to identify the picture you want to upload. A good place to have it is in the "My Documents" folder. Next, if your browser works any better than mine, you go here and click "Browse". (If that doesn't work, you'll have to enter the file path (such as C:/My Documents/Image.jpg) manually in the box provided.) Enter a short description of the image in the "Summary" box. This should include any copyright tags (eg {{fairuse}}). A full list of copyright tags are listed at Wikipedia:Image copyright tags. Then, check the box next to "I affirm that the copyright holder…" and click "Upload file". (If that doesn't work I have no clue why.) I think that's everything.

Don't feel alone about not knowing how to upload pictures. It took me an hour and a half of downright banging my head against the keyboard to figure it out :-) Hermione1980 21:48, 26 May 2005 (UTC)

A million thanks, Hermione. Someone should now put those easy-to-follow instructions somewhere prominent! Key was your reference to the special upload page (btw, in my version "browse" sems to have been replaced by "choose", but the effect is the same) -- now why couldn't I find that page before (none of the other "uploading images" pages seemed to mention it)? Many thanks, once again. -- Picapica 11:40, 27 May 2005 (UTC)

IP addresses

Why does Wikipedia post the IP addresses of anonymous users? Isn't it possible that a hacker could use this information to try to hack into someone's computer?

• A major reason has to do with accountability. We need to track who is making edits so we can raise any comments or concerns with them -- especially to those who vandalise pages or post spam. The only way to track them effectively is publicly associating them with their IP address. Some people believe that complete anonymity is synonymous with a lack of accountability, or may facilitate unproductive behaviour, or that contributing without a fixed identity is disempowering and unpleasant. Thus, many are encouraged to create an account to they can be tracked with a user name instead of an IP address. I hope this helps. Zzyzx11 (Talk) 00:21, 27 May 2005 (UTC)

IP addresses are not secret, and any computer you establish a connection to will receive your address, and quite probably log it somewhere visible to more than a few people. -- Cyrius|✎ 01:52, 27 May 2005 (UTC)

• Hackers already know which IPs exist. They could try hacking them even without us displaying them. 131.211.210.10 10:05, 27 May 2005 (UTC)

Lost login information

I am 99% sure that I registered as a user with Wikipedia, probably over a year ago, but I can neither remember my login info -- since I have not used it for a very long time -- nor can I find it on my computer.

I have a guess as to what username I chose, but since I can't supply any other info for that username (which exists, but whosever it is -- mine or someone else's -- did not supply an e-mail address).

Since I'd prefer to recover my original username, etc., I would like to know how this might be possible.

(Note: If I did register and include an e-mail address, it would've been dazatwelldotcom, or asimovatmsridotorg, or dasimovatarthlinkdotnet, or the now-defunct address asimovdataoldotcom. The only username I can guess I may have used is Daz -- who apparently did not supply and e-mail address . . . much as I might have done.)

Thanks for your help.

Please respond to dasimovatearthlinkdotnet if possible.

While I sympathize, I don't see how we can help you. If you have an account but didn't enter you email and don't remember your password, it's a problem. We recommend people enter their email, largely because that's the only way to retrieve a forgotten password. We can't give out the password to an account just because somebody says it's theirs.

If you don't remember your username, we haven't even got a place to start. I think you'll have to make a new account. Sorry. Isomorphic 03:24, 27 May 2005 (UTC)

If you can remember an article you might have edited (and the date), you might be able to find an edit you made in the history and figure out the username you must have been using that way. But even if you're absolutely sure the username is yours, I don't know how you might be able to gain access to it if there wasn't an email address registered. -- Rick Block 03:41, 27 May 2005 (UTC)

Buddhism

I added a photo of some novice monks to the Buddhism page, which is really long, and now when I look at the page, the article has become cut off. Have I deleted the article? Can something be done? Sputnik

I've restored the missing sections of the article. From the history, it looks like only the section after the picture was cut off. It should be okay now, I think. --HappyCamper 02:49, 27 May 2005 (UTC)

Vandalism

I've just noticed that this User:Chantin' Fox has vandalised many pages. What should I do? --Ghakko

That account already been blocked forever. When necessary, list vandals on Wikipedia:Vandalism in progress. -- Cyrius|✎ 06:06, 27 May 2005 (UTC)

• Anyone who impersonates another user (User:Chanting Fox in this case) can be banned on sight by an admin. Either go to VIP as suggested or leave a note on the admin noticeboard. 131.211.210.10 09:21, 27 May 2005 (UTC)

BTW, you are actually User:Ghakko and not User:ghakko as the code in this section suggests. All usernames have to be capitalized and are by the software automatically redirected if the page is requested. 131.211.210.10 09:23, 27 May 2005 (UTC)

Changing what 4 tildes do

How does one change the effect of writing 4 tildes down? I've noticed that some users have customized it so that it is not the default - it seems pretty neat too. Where can I read up on this? --HappyCamper 16:16, 27 May 2005 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Sign your posts on talk pages. Thryduulf 16:24, 27 May 2005 (UTC)

Go to Special:Preferences. You can enter in your customized signature in the box and click Use Raw Signatures. For example, my signature is [[User:Hermione1980|Hermione]]'''[[User talk:Hermione1980|1980]]''', which gives me Hermione1980. Hope that helps. Also view this, asked above :-) Hermione1980 16:27, 27 May 2005 (UTC)

Ah, I see. Thanks a lot :) --HappyCamper 16:41, 27 May 2005 (UTC)

Uploading fair use images

I want to upload some book covers under fair use, but when I go to the upload page I have to tick a box marked "I affirm that the copyright holder of this file agrees to license it under the terms of the Wikipedia copyright."

But the copyright holder hasn't actually agreed, as such...so what do I do? Orange Goblin 10:28, 28 May 2005 (UTC)

• You should check the box anyway. I would rather not go into the legal details here. But if we only use the images under fair use, then the copyright holder essentially is forced by the United States copyright laws to agree to license it to Wikipedia. Zzyzx11 (Talk) 14:20, 28 May 2005 (UTC)
  • Ok, cheers for the clarification. Orange Goblin 14:22, 28 May 2005 (UTC)
• Of course, you can't claim fair use on anything, but book or cd covers shouldn't be a problem. Mgm|^(talk) 14:48, May 28, 2005 (UTC)

Suggestion: Columnar text as in Magazines/Newspapers

I wish the text in Wikipedia was in small-width columns as is found in newspapers. Columns are easier to read IMHO.

I think you should be able to do this with a custom CSS stylesheet. However, I am not the person to ask how you would be able to do that as I've not progressed beyond plain HTML myself. Thryduulf 19:08, 28 May 2005 (UTC)

Yep, ask someone how to do it in CSS and you can have columns while others can still read stuff like it is now. It keeps open our choices. Mgm|^(talk) 19:12, May 28, 2005 (UTC)

If you do set it up, consider making a record of it somewhere on wikipedia so that anyone else who wants to read it that way can do so. Thryduulf 23:54, 28 May 2005 (UTC)

Copy this text to your monobook.css file (original poster, yours would be at User:64.169.92.168/monobook.css, although we'd prefer that you create an account before customizing your user styles):

/*Display content in a narrower column for easier reading*/
div#bodyContent {
    	width: 50%;
	line-height: 105%;
}

After saving, you have to bypass your browser's cache to see the changes applied to other pages. For Mozilla/Safari/Konqueror: hold down Shift while clicking Reload (or press Ctrl-Shift-R), for Internet Explorer: press Ctrl-F5, and for Opera: press F5.

Check the result, and adjust the "width" and "line-height" percentages as desired to make the page most readable for you.

Note that this formats the content into a single long, narrow column -- it's probably possible, but horrendously complicated to format it into multiple side-by-side newspaper-style columns. Also, this may have unpredictable and ugly effects on images and tables included in articles; that's just the price to be paid for using this option.

As suggested, Thryduulf, I've added this snippet to meta:Help:User style. Hope that helps! — Catherine\^talk 01:04, 29 May 2005 (UTC)

Images not working in Firefox

I can't see the images for WIkimania, Admiral Piett, etc. or any other images. There is a box but no image inside or in the case of the Imperial Stormtroopers I can't see the image in between the header and the info box. I can't see the images in Firefox but I can in IE (which I would rather not use). Anyone know how to fix this? I think it's my settings somewhere. It's just Wikipedia, not anywhere else.

Firefox has a habit of doing this. It's not just on Wikipedia, its on many other webpages that I've used too. You'll have to mess with your settings a little bit.

When you right-click on an image in Firefox, there's an option, "Block images from en.wikipedia.or...". Perhaps you have selected this option by mistake. Teklund 20:26, 2 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Thanks I fixed it, to do this you go to options > web features > exceptions

Losing Edits

In the last couple of days, I've been losing stuff annoyingly frequently when I try to save. I get this message:

Database error From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. A database query syntax error has occurred. This may indicate a bug in the software. The last attempted database query was: (SQL query hidden) from within function "Parser::replaceLinkHolders". MySQL returned error "1053: Server shutdown in progress (10.0.0.2)". Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Candy_bar" (or whatever article title I'm at)

Is this a problem on my end? I have no idea what it's telling me. --Mothperson 22:47, 29 May 2005 (UTC)

It's telling you that the Wikipedia database server has had a problem. The problem in question is due to there being too many accesses for it to allow you to make your change. Unfortunately, the error message is rather uninformative. -- Cyrius|✎ 02:19, 30 May 2005 (UTC)

• Yes, it happens, but often your edit get's saved anyway and it's just loading the article itself again that's the problem. You can help lighten the load on the servers by checking the history, before trying the same edit again. (BTW, I really hope this gets fixed.) Mgm|^(talk) 06:51, May 30, 2005 (UTC)
  • Thanks, both. That's sort of a relief. But how does one "check the history" (I assume of what condition the server is in?) before editing? --Mothperson 15:05, 30 May 2005 (UTC)
    • Mgm means "check the article's history. If you get an error but the edit went through, it will show up in the article's revision history. -- Cyrius|✎ 16:59, 30 May 2005 (UTC)

Reporting Users

There has been an administrator making controversial edits to a "controversial" article. These sort of edits include things that they should know better than to do (and may have even demonstrated or lectured on in the past). Though some of this may seem like hearsay, these include:

• Masking large edits as smaller ones so that they are not as easily noticed.
• Masking edits as a particular type and then conducting edits in a completely different manner (and even mixing in edits of a different type).
• Making substantial edits resulting in the manipulation of context and loss of content without discussion on the talk-page.
• Blatantly producing or removing content without researching or reading references.

The practices of this administrator seem shady. I would like to know what the proper way of reporting such behavior is for both administrator and normal users. I wish to keep it anonymous since I am a regular contributor to this particular page. To me, it seems that this administrator is not being a role model for the Wikipedian community. Thank you for any assistance you can offer. =) --Random Wikipedian 04:30, 30 May 2005 (EST)

• You may want to look at Wikipedia:Resolving disputes and Wikipedia:Requests for comment. Zzyzx11 (Talk) 09:19, 30 May 2005 (UTC)
• Of course the admin in question could be unaware of how controversial their edits are. I would talk with them on their talk page first of all. Mgm|^(talk) 13:03, May 30, 2005 (UTC)
  • Thanks a lot, this was a big help =) Random Wikipedian 19:32, 30 May 2005 (UTC)

Web page snapshots

How do you take snapshots of web pages and upload them onto Wikipedia? - ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 19:52, 30 May 2005 (UTC)

You go onto the web page and press the "F11" key on your keyboard which should put your browser in full-screen mode. Next, there should be a "Print Screen" or "Print Scr." on your keyboard. Press that and it will take a screenshot of whatever is on the screen. Now go into an image program (such as Microsoft Paint or Microsoft Photo Editor and paste it in then save it in a format that is suitable for downloading in browsers. Now you can upload the image. • Thorpe • 21:19, 30 May 2005 (UTC)

Wikipedia is slow.

Why is it that most times I come on here it is slow? Sometimes it takes a good three minutes for a page to load or it won't load at all. I thought Wikipedia had been provided with new servers and I am sure the donations have helped to buy new equipment. • Thorpe • 21:15, 30 May 2005 (UTC)

New database servers are on order and are arriving "soon". -- Cyrius|✎ 03:42, 31 May 2005 (UTC)

How to change a page name?

I have edited and corrected a few things in the page on Carib languages. I would like to change its title to Cariban languages (Cariban is technically speaking better than Carib, since the latter is also the name of a specific language in this family), but I don't know how to do it. Is there an easy way to alter the name/title of a page?

Yes, please see Wikipedia:How_to_rename_(move)_a_page. If you cannot move the page yourself (new users are prevented from doing this), you can request a move at Wikipedia:Requested moves. -- Rick Block (talk) 22:22, May 30, 2005 (UTC)

How to make Courier New text all inside an outlined box

I'd like to add some pseudocode to a page, but if I insert a blank line, I get two separate boxes, like this:

public static void main (....)
{
    // Put some stuff here
}

public static void anotherFunction
{
    //See? There are two outlined boxes now.
}

Is there a way to make it so that both code fragments are within the same box? Thanks for your help! HappyCamper 04:23, 31 May 2005 (UTC)

Just put a space at the beginning of the blank line as well, like I just did.... — Catherine\^talk 05:21, 31 May 2005 (UTC)

I'll be the first to say that was probably the most intuitive solution to the problem - what was I thinking?! :) HappyCamper 11:39, 31 May 2005 (UTC)

custom skin

I know that I can change the skin that Wikipedia uses via the preferences link. Can I choose another skin that is not on the list or create a skin of my own? All of the skins on the list have bright, almost white backgrounds which hurt my eyes after staring at the screen long enough. I'd like to invert the colors so that the backgrounds are dark and the fonts are light. –Matt 07:31, 31 May 2005 (UTC)

I hope this reply isn't out of order, but have you considered turning down the brightness of your screen? In my experience, all screens are too bright when they come out of the factory, but after adjustment, I can work in front of them for 12 or more hours without any eye strain. But just walking past someone else's screen is a shock. Black on white is supposed to be the most readable of all combinations, or so I've heard. On the other hand I find white text on black quite a struggle and couldn't work with it all day (perhaps I could if it was brighter). Notinasnaid 07:43, 31 May 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for the suggestion. I turned down the brightness on my monitor for a couple of days and there's definitely an improvement. I can even read articles on the screen when the room is dark without getting too much eyesore. I'll have to leave it this way from now on! –Matt 06:06, 3 Jun 2005 (UTC)

You can change it at User:Matthew Low/monobook.css if you use the default skin (the others are User:Matthew Low/standard.css for classic, User:Matthew Low/cologneblue.css for cologne blue, and (I think) User:Matthew Low/nostalgia.css for nostalgia. Go to whichever skin you use, and put this text in to change the colours from white to black and vice versa:

#ns-0 { background: #000; color: #fff; }

That ought to change it. If you want to create a skin of your own (a big job) you'll have to look at the HTML source etc and use User:Matthew Low/myskin.css. smoddy 13:06, 31 May 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for the info smoddy. Those links point to empty pages, but am I right when I say that any CSS I add to (for example) User:Matthew Low/monobook.css will be appended to the default monobook.css? Or does my monobook.css completely replace the default? –Matt 06:06, 3 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Movie Infoboxes

Greetings all, just wondering what the issue was with the Infobox's used for movies. One minute it's a grey colour, then it's a blue colour. Why does this keep changing?--Matt von Furrie 08:04, 31 May 2005 (UTC)

There are two versions that are being used: Template:Infobox Movie and Template:Infobox Movie (2). According to Wikipedia:WikiProject Movies, the former is the original version. Infobox Movie (2) seemed to be created during a discussion about changing the content and layout, with a different style with both grey and blue colours.

A few hours ago at 06:48, 31 May 2005 (UTC), a user edited Template:Infobox Movie (2) to make it look more like Template:Infobox Movie [8]. So the alternating grey and blue that you were seeing was most likley because the database was slowly updating all the affected pages in the cache. Zzyzx11 (Talk) 09:27, 31 May 2005 (UTC)

How do I???

I know it is possible to link to a section of another page by nameofpage#nameofsection, but is it possible to link to a sub-section of another page?

I have tried nameofpage#nameofsection#nameofsub-section but this failed.

Ianblair23 13:06, 31 May 2005 (UTC)

Try nameofpage#nameofsub-section instead. HTML is not sensitive to wiki levels of headings. smoddy 13:13, 31 May 2005 (UTC)

• Just remember that fixing those links to sections is nearly impossible if the section ever gets renamed. Use it sparingly and preferable not at all in articles. Mgm|^(talk) 18:08, May 31, 2005 (UTC)

Lag

This lag is killing me. For some pages it takes ages for the history to get updated and it makes RC patrolling harder than it should be. Are the developers looking into this? Mgm|^(talk) 18:10, May 31, 2005 (UTC)

• It is especially harder for us who are using Cryptoderk's CVDF software to help with RC patrol because its using data from the IRC channel which never has a database lag. Zzyzx11 (Talk) 21:48, 31 May 2005 (UTC)

To quote myself, on this page, six headings up:

New database servers are on order and are arriving "soon".

-- Cyrius|✎ 00:10, 1 Jun 2005 (UTC)

"Page view" counter statistic

Is there a "page view" counter statistic tucked away somewhere?

It would seem to be a very useful stat to see how many page views an article is receiving.

Is this feature currently available? Is some person/committee working on it?

Not really. If memory serves, the wiki software has the capability to add pageview counters, but it would add quite a significant load to the servers - which are already heavily overburdened. So it isn't enabled. Shimgray 20:11, 31 May 2005 (UTC)

Obscenities

Dear Sirs, Just to inform you that the page on Taiwan has obscenities at the end of the page that makes up about 75% of the "information".

Thank you very much for reporting this vandalism. Actually, like most vandalism, it was spotted and reverted (in this case well before you reported it here). If you'd like, you can revert it yourself rather than simply report it. Please see Wikipedia:Dealing with vandalism. Again, thank you very much for reporting it. -- Rick Block (talk) 03:18, Jun 1, 2005 (UTC)

Problems with my updating om the main page

Dear Help desk,

I have just had my internet installed - Saturday May 28th - and one of the first thing I did was to turn to your page. It was functioning all right for about 24 hours, but since Sunday May 29th I have not been able to update on the main page - that is - I have not been able to see any changes in the Wikipedia as such, but I am still able to go to "recent changes" and watch the latest development.

What is my problem? Can you help me?

Please send me a mail: frankrasmussen@dbnet.dk

Regards Frank Rasmussen Denmark

• You probably need to clear your cache. Mgm|^(talk) 15:29, Jun 1, 2005 (UTC)

Approval of major edit

I have made a major edit of the wiki entry for Judge Roy Bean and would like someone in authority to review the entry. I used as reference a web site http://www.qsl.net/w5www/texas.htm but did not credit the owner of the web site or ask his permission. Should I have? Welcome all comments/criticisms.

Xtrump

• You can use anything as a reference. Just make sure you haven't copied the text. Mgm|^(talk) 15:34, Jun 1, 2005 (UTC)

Deleting Changes before Registration

Is there any way I can simply delete all changes I made to an article today (i.e. restore the entire article text to the point before I started making edits) before I understood exactly how they were supposed to be done? I've got changes to one article without any Edit Summaries that are listed in Recent Changes with my IP address. I've since registered and would like to start from scratch so a) I can explain the changes I have suggested/made and b) do so under a registered name.

[Yea, I know this was an idiot way to start, but I read about this site recently and kind of jumped in precipitously. Believe it or not, I do know quite a bit about the subject of the article I edited -- just am kind of lame-brained in learning techie things.]

Go to the page, click on "history" at the top. This shows a list of edits; the "timestamp" of each of these links to the page as of that revision. Click on the one just before you started editing, and then if you click "edit this page" you'll be able to save a copy of the page as it was before you started. You might want to explain what you're doing in the edit summary.

The changes won't be deleted from the history, but the page will be restored to where it was. Be carefull, though - if anyone else has edited the page in this time, you'll be wiping out their edits as well. Tread carefully... Shimgray 19:26, 1 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Using Images from other language pages

Hey all... I've been trying to write articles about a few towns in France and Italy, and would like to use the images that are used in the articles on the foreign language pages (for example, a French language article about a French town). I'm presuming this is fine copyvio wise, since permission must already have been granted for the image to be used on Wikipedia. I can't seem to find anyway of including those images though. Surely it's not very sensible for me to have to download the image, and upload it again to the English wiki. Is there a better way? UkPaolo 21:01, 1 Jun 2005 (UTC)

See our article on Wikimedia Commons. If they're on the commons, you can use them here directly--otherwise, you'll have to download them and upload them. Best, Meelar (talk) 21:20, Jun 1, 2005 (UTC)

If you do download and then reupload the image, it is very useful to link to the image description page on the project you found it on from the English description page. Make sure that the liscence is the same (note that the image tags make look very different for the same liscence on different languages). Thryduulf 21:27, 1 Jun 2005 (UTC)

MediaWiki configuration

I just installed MediaWiki, and I'd like to change the default picture of the flower in square brackets to another picture. Could someone guide me through this, or provide a link to something that I can read up on? Many thanks! :)

I beleive that you just need to upload your chosen picture with a special name, but I can't remember what that name is! The best place to look is probably The MediaWiki handbook on meta. Thryduulf 21:35, 1 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Actually I've now found the relevant section: meta:Help:Installation#9._Customize_style_sheet. Thryduulf 21:39, 1 Jun 2005 (UTC)

This is not a help forum for MediaWiki users, meaning there aren't a bunch of knowledgable people around here to help. In the future, try the MediaWiki mailing list. -- Cyrius|✎ 22:54, 1 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Should I remove my own Edit?

Wikipedians,

I am relatively new to Wikipedia but I think it is fantastic. I have used it several times to help my daughter with her school projects.

I have just made my first edit, but feel that it may be against the spirt of Wikipedia, and that it should perhaps be removed. If the concensus is that I should then I will.

The logic puzzle Sudoku that has swept Britain this year has just found its way Down-Under. I built my self a little tool to remove the pain of various crossings out, careless errors and restarts on a new piece of paper. Then I thought about sharing my tool with anyone else who might want it, and asking them if they like it, to send me $5-00 (which of course they may all choose not to do). So I built myself a little WebSite, www.sudoku-help.com to do this.

Then I did a bit more research on Sudoku and found the best information available on the Web was right here on Wikipedia. I saw the External Links entries and based on the entries already there, I thought it was reasonable to put a link to my WebSite there.

Although it attempts to add something of value to the discussion on Sudoku, my WebSite essentially encourages visitors to download my tool, and if they like it to send me a nominal payment. Therefore my entry in Wikipedia could be construed as nothing more than a cheap advertisement.

Should I remove it?

Regards Greg

• Yeah. It's probably a good idea to remove it. Thanks for asking. A lot of people just go ahead with such things without asking. (If you want a wider response from people interested in the subject, the Talk:Sudoku page is probably a better place to ask this. 131.211.210.14 08:24, 2 Jun 2005 (UTC)
  • I went to Talk:Sudoku as you suggested and there was already a discussion about the external links on the topic and a feeling that what was there was probably OK but needed better categorization. My entry was edited (but remains) so that my sales-pitchy statement about it was replaced with the single descriptive word "Workpad", so I think the community of Wikipedians has decided for me, that it is OK to stay in that form, so I'm inclined to leave it as is now. OK? Regards Greg
  • If the people on that talk page find it useful enough to keep, I'm not going to argue with them. Thanks anyway for putting this up for discussion. Hopefully you find Wikipedia fun enough to stick around a bit longer. Mgm|^(talk) 14:01, Jun 2, 2005 (UTC)
    • I tend to agree with MacGyverMagic. Wikipdeia allows plenty of links to commercial sites if they are relevant/helpful to the topic being discussed. Johntex 18:00, 2 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Watchlist default setting

Is there any way to change the default settings of the my watchlist page, rather than having to click on the "display last ??? hours" each time? I can't see it in the preferences. MyNameIsClare talk 15:52, 2 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I'm not aware of one, but it would be extremely helpful. Not so much for here, because the default 12 hours is normally fine, but I'd prefer a 7 day default at meta and the commons. Thryduulf 17:32, 2 Jun 2005 (UTC)

12 hours? My default is 3 days! Maybe it depends on how many edits there have been? MyNameIsClare talk 17:55, 2 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Mine defaults to 12 hours as well; I didn't think there was a way to change it. You could always choose the time you want, then place a link to it on your user page or something. — Knowledge Seeker দ 18:56, 2 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I seem to remember that when I started it defaulted to 3 days. I presume it changed after I'd made a certain number of edits in a day or something? Thryduulf 20:11, 2 Jun 2005 (UTC)

The default seems to be three days. So I suggest you do as Knowledge Seeker recommends: put the following link on your user page:

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Watchlist&days=7

Zzyzx11 (Talk) 20:17, 2 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I remember at some point the default was made shorter to test how much watchlists were a drain on servers, but I'm not sure what the default is anymore. However, I found it simplest to go to the time I want (in my case title=Special:Watchlist&days=7), then bookmark the page and place the bookmark on my Bookmarks toolbar in Firefox -- I believe it's called the Links toolbar in Internet Explorer. One-button access to my expanded watchlist...

I also have a Wiki bookmark folder on my Bookmarks toolbar, containing my [somewhat] less-accessed links, which I'll list in case anyone else can use them: Meta, WikiWax search, cross-language WP search, OpenFacts WP Status, Bugzilla, Server admin log, and Alta Vista translation.)— Catherine\^talk 01:06, 3 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for the advice everybody. I shall bookmark the page I want. MyNameIsClare talk 09:11, 3 Jun 2005 (UTC)

need help creating desk subpage

I am a newbie who would like to join the Cleanup Team. I know I need to create a desk by making a subpage of my User Page but I cannot find any instructions on how to do this.

Thanks, Jekoko

An easy way is to create a link to it, and then click the link. In your case, it would be user:Jekoko/Desk. I would suggest you contact one of the existing members and ask them to mentor you for a time. There are a number of advanced features used in the ongoing operation of the Wikipedia:Cleanup Taskforce that might take some explaining. -- Rick Block (talk) 17:10, Jun 2, 2005 (UTC)

Siting

How do I site a Wikipedia article in a research paper bibliography (MLA stile is preferred)? I'm not sure to site it as an encyclopedia or a webpage.

See Wikipedia:Citing Wikipedia. Best, Meelar (talk) 20:03, Jun 2, 2005 (UTC)

Adding Time/Date Stamp to Comments?

Hello, newbie here -- I must've missed it somewhere or I just didn't type in the right search term, but how do I add a date and time stamp to my comments without manually doing it? The tilde thing only adds the username so...thanks! StopTheFiling June 2 2005

Are you using four tildes? IIRC different numbers only add a timestamp, or only a username, or the like... Shimgray 22:20, 2 Jun 2005 (UTC)

It's described at Wikipedia:Sign_your_posts_on_talk_pages (which was a little hard to find, I'll try to fix this). -- Rick Block (talk) 22:22, Jun 2, 2005 (UTC)

Thank you both for your help! Before I checked back I accidently figured it out -- for the record, I was using a mere 3 tildes, not 4...thanks again. :) StopTheFiling 23:34, Jun 2, 2005 (UTC)

Password trouble

When I try to log in with my password as User:Tempshill, I'm told the password I typed was incorrect. (I'm quite sure I'm typing it correctly after my 10,000,000 Wikipedia edits.) I tried clicking "mail me my password", and it claims there's no e-mail address stored on the account, which I believe is also wrong. Help! Tempshill2 00:01, 3 Jun 2005 (UTC)

• Are you sure you've got the right username entered (capitalization and all) and that you don't have the capslock on or something like that? I'll try to send you a test email through the system. Mgm|^(talk) 00:30, Jun 3, 2005 (UTC)
• Nope not working. did you choose to not receive email from other users? Mgm|^(talk) 00:31, Jun 3, 2005 (UTC)
  • Yes, I tested caps lock etc. several times. I didn't think I had marked the not-receive-e-mail-from-other-users checkbox. Tempshill2 01:12, 3 Jun 2005 (UTC)
    • You need to talk with a developer, I suspect. Isomorphic 02:48, 3 Jun 2005 (UTC)
      • OK - please point me to how. Tempshill2 05:59, 3 Jun 2005 (UTC)
    • Unfortunately, I don't know of a place for general requests for assistance from the people who actually run our machines. m:developer lists the people who have this kind of access and knowledge. I wish you luck in getting their attention, though. They're busy people. (Sorry I can't be more helpful than this.) Isomorphic 06:45, 3 Jun 2005 (UTC)

This won't help you, but you're not the only one to have password trouble recently, although the two of us were able to have new passwords e-mailed to us. See User talk:Raul654#Urgent! Help!. Good luck! — Knowledge Seeker দ 06:15, 3 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Yeah, it happened to me on Commons just today. --SPUI (talk) 06:26, 3 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Happened to me - can't log in or email password -- 213.38.213.226 14:56, 3 Jun 2005 (UTC) (Chris Q unable to log in)

Hrm. Brion did something to the passwords during the maintenance downtime. It might be related. -- Cyrius|✎ 18:30, 3 Jun 2005 (UTC)

This seems to have been a problem with people who used the 'mail me a new password' button at some point in the past and never changed the password. The new-password didn't get properly updated the other day. I've run the update on that field for accounts that haven't been used in the last couple days, though it's possible a few got missed. --Brion 23:45, Jun 3, 2005 (UTC)

Mine's working again now -- Chris Q 06:48, 2005 Jun 6 (UTC)

I seem to be having a very similar problem. I am unable to login. -- JamesTeterenko 17:43, 6 Jun 2005 (UTC)

To further make my situation difficult. I just did a test and my email address as noted in my account is one that was disabled a week ago. So, I am not able to get any emails from the "E-mail this user" feature or the "E-mail new password". I do have an accurate email ID for the Commons at my User page. Please help. -- JamesTeterenko 19:15, 6 Jun 2005 (UTC)

FYI, my problem has resolved itself. -- JamesTeterenko 00:28, 7 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Tibetan Wikipedia

I noticed that http://bo.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page has been hacked and I'm not sure how to restore it. Is there someone more familiar with it who could fix this?

I've fixed it. It's not hard - see Wikipedia:How to revert a page to an earlier version. --SPUI (talk) 04:00, 3 Jun 2005 (UTC)

It's been vandalised again, so I've fixed it (for now). MyNameIsClare talk 09:18, 3 Jun 2005 (UTC)

language translation

Deare Wikipedia,

Why don't you translate the Civil War history pages into Korean, as well as the many other languages you do have?

Thanks for your response.

Jean Quinn Adult ESL teacher 4350 South Country Trail Even Start, Charlestown, RI 02813

The whole site is run by volunteers, essentially; there's only one paid employee, and he runs the servers (and does not, I believe, know Korean). If no Korean speaker takes it on out of goodwill, you're out of luck. I'm glad to know that these articles are useful in your work, however. Best wishes, Meelar (talk) 15:59, Jun 3, 2005 (UTC)

And, if you do know Korean...why don't you translate some important articles? I'm sure it would be much appreciated. Notinasnaid 16:10, 3 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Leyton Orient

Details on your history on the above football club are incorrect

As the Historian of the club can I send you corrections

Kind Regards

Neil Kaufman neilkaufman@tiscali.co.za

You can edit the page yourself. Just go the Leyton Orient page and click "edit this page" at the top of the screen. Thryduulf 14:14, 3 Jun 2005 (UTC)

... and if for any reason you'd feel uncomfortable changing the article yourself, you can post corrections that should be made to what we call the article's talk page, talk:Leyton Orient F.C. (which is simply a page for discussion about the page). Thank you very much for letting us know corrections are needed. -- Rick Block (talk) 15:57, Jun 3, 2005 (UTC)

I can't help wondering, though, why Orient's historian lives in South Africa (shouldn't he call them Leyton Occident?). Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 23:44, 3 Jun 2005 (UTC)

TeX page gone!

Earlier this week I found a great page: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TeX, but now it's gone -- I get the infamous "The page cannot be displayed" error in Internet Explorer. It doesn't look to me like it was purposely deleted; anybody know what's up?

TeX is working fine for me; perhaps you could try again? — Knowledge Seeker দ 19:02, 3 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Thanks. Still no go. But it's something crazy on my end -- seems to be happening with multiple wikipedia pages to me -- I look at one, next thing I know I try again and I can't. Just happened with the MainPage. Very strange. Guess I'll try from the wife's computer later on -- thanks for the help...

Have you tried clearing your cache? It probably wont make a jot of difference, but its worth a try. Also, have you tried in different browsers (firefox/opera/ie/etc)? Thryduulf 21:20, 3 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Copyright category question

I should be able to figure this out myself, but I can't. The Science Museum of Minnesota has indicated I can use their images on Wikipedia by the following:

The images on the Name That Candybar site may be used for educational, not-for-profit uses. The attribution should read to the affect of "Copyright 1995 Science Museum of Minnesota". Please let me know if you need anything else. Glad we could help!

   -Morgan L'Argent
    Webmaster
    Science Museum of Minnesota

I have, maybe, narrowed it down to the category of "General non-free non-commercial" but is it "Provided that" or,"Copyrighted not-for-profit use provided that" or something else? I am at a loss. --Mothperson 21:50, 3 Jun 2005 (UTC) Also, just out of curiosity, how did that blue box appear above?

Well, I can't help you on the picture question, but the box is there because there's a space at the beginning of the lines. If you delete the spaces, the box will disappear. Hermione1980 22:17, 3 Jun 2005 (UTC)

As for the copyright, I'd say its "Copytighted not-for-profit use provided that used for educational purposes and attribution given as "Copyright 1995 Science Museum of Minnesota". However, I don't know whether this is allowed since the rule change on non-commercial photos. See Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2005-05-23/Noncommercial images. Thryduulf 22:32, 3 Jun 2005 (UTC)

They aren't allowed. "Not-for-profit" is noncommercial, and such images are now to be speedily deleted, unless a valid fair use claim exists. "I want to use this image" is not a fair use, contrary to the beliefs of many. -- Cyrius|✎ 23:22, 3 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Cookie

I would thank you for clearing this up, except I'm too busy having a temper tantrum. Now I will go sob quietly in a corner. Mothperson 23:37, 3 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Have a cookie. -- Cyrius|✎ 00:19, 4 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Thank you. I will. I've run out of candy bars. Mothperson 01:03, 4 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Features of Wikipedia rarely used --> but very useful

I'm just wondering if Wikipedians could talk briefly here about useful commands on Wikipedia that they use to help make their editing lives easier. For example, I noticed that there was the {{prettytable}} template which could be used to make tables look really nice. Are there neat commands that people are using which they could share? --HappyCamper 15:53, 4 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Good idea. I have no commands to contribute, but I'd like to learn some new ones. Howabout1 Talk to me! 17:08, 4 Jun 2005 (UTC)

• Instead of {{subst:tl|prettytable}} you can put {{tl|prettytable}}, which looks like {{prettytable}} and is easier to type. Kappa 17:13, 4 Jun 2005 (UTC)

What does "tl" stand for? --HappyCamper 22:46, 4 Jun 2005 (UTC)

"Template" I suppose. Kappa 23:17, 4 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I'm guessing "template link". -- Cyrius|✎ 05:24, 5 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Also there is Template:Tic (talk links edit), here applied to itself.--Patrick 12:04, 5 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I have been keeping a list of some of these at User:CesarB/Special effects templates. --cesarb 13:02, 5 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Thank you - that list is most useful! HappyCamper 20:37, 5 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Removing /Temp

I'm new to this and my article has /Temp next to the name. I have finally finished editing it but I don't know how to get the /Temp off? Any help will be appreciated! Thanks :)

Hi, I have made further changes (I must say wiki's copyright laws pertaining to the US are 10 times more stringent than Australia's). Should the page now meet the necessary guidelines? Thanks :)

surely copyright laws around the world prohibit direct lifting of text? i've had a read through the article, what's the copyright status of the images you use? You need to "tag" them accordingly. Unless you hold the copyright, you must have permission that the copyright holder has either released them to the public domain, or licensed them under a free licence, for them to be used. As far as I can work out, all the images are taken from the websites you cite on the image pages, and thus are all copyright and may not be used. UkPaolo 06:56, 6 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Hi, I tried reading through the copyright pages. The last photo I tagged with a promotional copyright tag as directed in the help page. the one above, although listed on the construction sa page is not owned by them as the owners of the property take the photos themselves for the public (being the national trust of sa - which i can add on now that i have found out who they are - once again, promotional). the top photo is a scan of the original from sa archives which has no copyright on it as under australian law the person who took the photo (who would hold the copyright) will be long dead and the subject too is long dead (unless of course the copyright was sold or given to someone still alive and who is still paying for the copyright every ten years).

we do prohibit the copying of text BUT it is only a breach if the ORIGINAL author IF known isnt cited. if the original owner isnt known or cant feasibly be attributed (and the webpage i looked at even though they copyright their text isnt the legal copyright owner of the writen word as it has too been lifted from elsewhere - note the lack of citation on their website) then there is no breach of copyright under australian law. this is why most people in australia will request that if someone knows the copyright holder (current) then acknowledgement will be given or royalties paid in accordance with the copyright laws. copyright in australia does not mean trademark (which has it's own seperate laws). australia also has varying limitations to ownership on the internet with recent high court rulings highlighting the so called inadequacy of australian copyright laws and also the inability for other countries laws to impinge on australians within the internet domain.

Can someone point out if anything is still wrong and how do I fix it (it is rather disconcerting for newbies to be ripped apart for trying to contribute)? these things take time to learn! :) (George Strickland Kingston/Temp)

Wondering if I qualify for speedy deletion

I created an article on Wikipedia about a controversial topic that I regret and I am extremely uncomfortable having it attached to my user account. I know I can request a speedy deletion by placing a tag on the article but I am worried it might draw unwanted attention. Three other users have edited it, but I would consider them all minor edits, so I'm not sure I qualify as the articles "single editor" anymore. What I would like is if a sysop can contact me so I can give them the name of the article, and for the sysop to tell me if it qualifies for speedy deletion. Thanks. Q0 22:07, 4 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Unfortunately, by posting here, you have attracted plenty of attention already. Anyone can go through your contributions list and find out what the article is with little trouble. In fact, I have just done so and I think I know what article is bothering you. Unfortunately for you, the fact that others have edited it and found nothing so grievously wrong with it that it should be deleted immediately shows that speedy deletion is not appropriate. You cannot reasonably claim to be the sole editor of an article created by mistake here, which is the speedy deletion criterion that would apply. If you really want the article removed, you'll have to use Wikipedia:Votes for deletion. I for one will not delete that article if it's tagged, and neither, do I wager, would other admins. JRM · Talk 22:13, 2005 Jun 4 (UTC)

Having done the same as JRM, I fully concur with him. smoddy 22:19, 4 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I've just done the same, and they're both quite right. Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 22:21, 4 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Thanks anyway. Since my question has been answered, would be appropriate if I were to delete my own comments here? (I only intend to delete my comments, not my replies). Q0 22:33, 4 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Why bother they'll still be in the page history? This link is Broken 01:23, 5 Jun 2005 (UTC)

• Since your question has been answered, I think you can feel free to remove this section. Kappa 01:27, 5 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Date/Time/Calendar standards

Hi,

I updated an article on myself (Robert Cailliau' biography) about an hour ago, and I noticed that there seems to be no standard for writing dates, times and displaying calendars. I did spend some time trying to find a FAQ or other notice about this, but admit that I gave up.

My reason for this comment is that <begin of gripe> I personally get very irritated by US-centric date/time/calendars: using the sequence month-day-year is in itself already inconsistent (no order of small-to-large or large-to-small), "10 p.m." can be confusing and uses more characters than 22:00, and finally the Sunday belongs to the week's end, not its start. <end of gripe>

Whatever my own irritations are, and unless I have overlooked something, in which case I apologise, there is a problem with Wikipedia date/time conventions.

There are two ways of dealing with this problem:

(1) adopt ISO standards (and see also the recommendations of the W3C), tell people about them, enforce them, end of story.

(2) allow readers to set a preference which matches their traditions.

Solution (1) is simple and I would of course greatly prefer it, solution (2) requires some programming and you would still have to use (1) as the default.

Once again, sorry if this has been addressed before and I did not find references. If there are, I'd like to know of them.

Best wishes, and keep up the great work! Robert Cailliau

We have a system that allows users to set a preference for how dates are displayed. This is done in 2 parts

1. in the article the date is linked, e.g. [[5 June]] [[2005]]
2. this is then displayed in the format chosen by the user in their preferences. For registered users, there is a link to the preferences in the upper right corner of the screen. I don't think anonymous users can set preferences.

See also Wikipedia:Manual of Style (dates and numbers). Thryduulf 20:35, 5 Jun 2005 (UTC)

With regard to the other worries:

1. I don't really see what's confusing about "10.00 pm";
2. which day is the start and which the end of the week is a matter of convention, and varies between and within countries (here, at the University of Oxford, the week is taken to start on Sunday). Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 10:28, 6 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Yes, the week start is a matter of convention, and is arbitrary. Further, does it matter to Wikipedia or to date styles? — Knowledge Seeker দ 19:27, 7 Jun 2005 (UTC)

spelling error redirects

Does Wiki have a policy on it? I figured it was frowned upon, so the database doesnt get full of crappy redirects. This process makes wikilinks work that shouldnt and can prepetuate incorrect usage. And in the future when partial searches can be done searching through wiki it will bring up so many false possitives from all the spelling error redirects in the database, and we will have to spend weeks sifting through it cleaning up the thousand of entries. - UnlimitedAccess 22:29, 5 Jun 2005 (UTC)

It depends of the spelling error, really. If the error is because of ignorance, that is, the person types what it think it's the correct spelling, then this should be included as a redirect (but it must be a common mistake). But if the error is purely a typo, then no, no redirects. This includes some case sensitive article names, but remember that in these cases (except for obvious exceptions, such as names or titles), a fully lowercase redirect is always a standard and useful redirect. — Kieff | Talk 23:47, Jun 5, 2005 (UTC)

And do remember that for some page moves, redirecting might be required as a final part to a merge. (GFDL requirement]]). Mgm|^(talk) 05:02, Jun 6, 2005 (UTC)

Redirects on common misspellings help readers get where they want to be, and prevent the creation of duplicate articles. Wikipedia:Redirect gives the example of Condoleeza Rice redirecting to Condoleezza Rice. I know that I certainly can't spell her name correctly on the first try. -- Cyrius|✎ 08:22, 6 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Okay now I know the policy, thanks! :) - UnlimitedAccess 14:51, 6 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Could Wikipedia produce a downloadable version?

I mean an encyclopedia of English content.

So everybody can search offline. If he want to edit, he can log on and do that online.

By the way, I think the image and multimedia content don't need to appeared in the downloadable version, making the file size downloadable. -- Anon

Well, we have the Wikimedia database download. Here's the link: http://download.wikimedia.org/ — Kieff | Talk 05:53, Jun 6, 2005 (UTC)

A text-only version of only the current revisions of the English Wikipedia articles would still be around a gigabyte. -- Cyrius|✎ 08:54, 6 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Have a look at WP:1.0 and other things in that category. Kappa 09:13, 6 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Bulleted lists in Wiki markup

Hi there.

How do I wikify these HTML bullets?

• foo
  • bar
  baz

No matter what I do with Wiki markup. I can't get the "baz" to be part of the "foo" bullet!

• foo
  • bar

baz

My thanks in advance. —83.216.199.98 13:21, 6 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I'm not sure wiki markup handles that nicely. Best I can come up with is using an html line break like so:

• foo
  • bar
    baz

--W(t) 13:28, 2005 Jun 6 (UTC)

I see. I guess it might be a better idea to just re-arrange the text to make bullet continuations unnecessary. Thanks for your help!  :)

—83.216.199.98 14:16, 6 Jun 2005 (UTC)

This gives the horizontal spacing, but gets the vertical a bit wonky:

• foo
  • bar

• baz

Any good? Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 14:30, 6 Jun 2005 (UTC)

In that example, my browser (Firefox) paints a bullet to the left of "baz".

—83.216.199.98 14:40, 6 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Maybe I don't understand the question, but is this what you are looking for?

• foo
  • bar
  • baz --HappyCamper 14:54, 6 Jun 2005 (UTC)

HappyCamper, my inference is that baz isn't supposed to be a list item, i.e. isn't supposed to have a bullet in front it. 83.216.199.98, a real example would be helpful to envisioning what you're trying to do.

Okay, here's another example:

Kinds of appendages:

• Kinds of toes:
  • stubby
  • floppy
  Surveys have found 12% of toes to be stubby!

Kinds of fingers:

• stalky
• curly

The existence of appendages is regarded as a healthy sign.

"Surveys ..." is in the same bullet as "kinds of toes", and is indented the same amount. "The existence ..." is outside the bulleted list altogether.

—83.216.199.98 15:44, 6 Jun 2005 (UTC)

It is sometimes possible to mix and match wikimarkup and html, e.g. in this case I think adding a </ul> has the effect you're looking for:

Kinds of appendages:

• Kinds of toes:
  • stubby
  • floppy
  Surveys have found 12% of toes to be stubby!

Kinds of fingers:

• stalky
• curly

The existence of appendages is regarded as a healthy sign.

On the other hand, unless there's some really good reason the HTML must be exactly as you indicate, using as many indents as the bullet list has a very similar appearance, e.g. (I think this is what Mel Etitis was going after, above):

Kinds of appendages:

• Kinds of toes:
  • stubby
  • floppy

Surveys have found 12% of toes to be stubby!

• Kinds of fingers:
  • stalky
  • curly

The existence of appendages is regarded as a healthy sign.

With this approach, the first list actually ends at floppy, which is followed by indented text, and then another (different) list. Except for the extra newline, it's visually indentical and I would think would be fine for nearly all situations where this might come up. -- Rick Block (talk) 01:23, Jun 8, 2005 (UTC)

Redirects

I've put my user page into a redirect to my talk page, and I don't want it anymore. However, I can't edit it because it redirects me! 68.198.20.94 19:14, 6 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Put ?redirect=no on the end of the URL to disable redirection.

For example, http://wikipedia.org/wiki/B-2_Bomber?redirect=no

--Ghakko 19:48, 6 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Exactly like Ghakko says.... but if you click to your userpage, and it redirects you to your talk page you'll note at the top under the title it says (redirected from xxx). If you click the xxx there, then it will take you to an editable version of the page you were redirected from (basically adds the redirect=no flag for you!). UkPaolo 22:09, 6 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Copyright Infringment

I am confused as to how I site a source. Because I didn't know where to put it or anything and I didn't know how, so I waited a day till I found out and that site has a warning on it. I didn't mean to take the info, I was trying to find out how to from a friend.

I presume you're referring to your article on The Summit Country Day School. As a quick answer - it's not acceptable to copy info from another website full stop, regardless of whether or not you cite where you copied it from. Unless you own the copyright to the text on that other website, it's not OK. Copying the text, and acknowledging the fact that you've done so does not solve the copyright issues. On another point - that article is not adhering to Wikipedia's Neutral Point of View (NPOV). The text you copied is not appropriate for use as an encyclopedia article, since it is in no way neutral - it sounds as though you are advertising the school. If you want the article to exist, use it's subpage to create a new article, the wording of which you write yourself.UkPaolo 22:09, 6 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Adding things to sections, lists, etc. simultaneously

I'm currently working on updating Military technology and equipment, but I'm expecting to find (or create) lists of various things in this section that would also be appropriate to put in the section itself (such as a list of assault rifles, the contents of which would also go under the "assault rifle" heading). Is there a way to do this so that there is only a single list, which could then be included in this article?

Or, as another method, would it be appropriate to create a "List of assault rifles", remove all the links from under the assault rifle heading that go to specific assault rifles, and replace them with a single link to "List of assault rifles"?

(update): it seems like the page I'm talking about is, in itself, a list. Right now, I think they should all be added to that list instead of making a new one (and adding a redirect). Thoughts?

Well, perhaps you could just link to the assault rifle category? Category pages are auto-generated.

Do watch out for the leading ":" in the markup. [[:Category:Assault rifles]] will link to the category page, but [[Category:Assault rifles]] will put your article in that category.

If you want guidance on when to use what, see Wikipedia:Categories, lists, and series boxes.

—Ghakko 00:00, 8 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Weird look

Hi there! I've just submitted an article on Lake Taimyr, but it looks kinda weird. There's no "category" written next to the Lakes of Russia category. Is it my browser, or just a post-maintenance issue? KNewman 19:11, Jun 7, 2005 (UTC)

• Ooops, please, disregard. Someone fixed it already. KNewman 19:13, Jun 7, 2005 (UTC)

named wikilinks

When I want to make a wikilink that says something other than the name of the link, using a pipe, I always forget whether to make the name of the link come first, before the pipe, or second, after the pipe. I'm always getting it wrong. I wonder if there is some helpful mnemonic or something to help me remember. I'm sick of looking it up everytime, or previewing my edit. Is it [[disconnected|connected space]] or is it [[connected space|disconnected]]? -Lethe | Talk 00:11, Jun 8, 2005 (UTC)

[[linked article|description of link]]. You might find it useful to have a set of sample bits of wiki-syntax in a text file, and keep this open in another window whilst you edit; if you're stuck over what to use, copy-and-paste the boilerplate from the file. (I've done this before with standard messages, and obscurely-titled templates, and so forth) Shimgray 00:22, 8 Jun 2005 (UTC)

The one I use is: "Never judge a link by its anchor." A bit silly, I know.

—210.49.207.223 02:13, 8 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Assuming that you want to link to connected space, the latter. It follows the pattern of HTML: if you were writing [[connected space|disconnected]] in HTML, it would look like this: <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Connected_space">disconnected</a>. Hope that helps. Or, if you're always getting it wrong, think about what you think it should be, and do the opposite. — Knowledge Seeker দ 03:46, 8 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Pages Display Blank

I had to reinstall Internet Explorer 6.0, and now articles don't display. The browser gives me a blank page, and displays a "Done" message in that status bar. I even added *.wikipedia.org to my list of trusted web sites. Yet, Wikipedia works fine in FireFox. I think there could be a problem with XML support in my IE 6 browser. How can I get Wikipedia to work in IE again? 70.32.82.74 04:23, 8 Jun 2005 (UTC) Drawing a Blank

I think there could be a problem with XML support in my IE 6 browser - yeah, like there isn't any... Firefox will save you a lot of troubles in the long run, and is highly extensible, so I would suggest using Firefox unless you have a really, really good reason for not doing so. Alphax ^τεχ 14:02, 14 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Neoparies.

Dear Sir i need information on this material and how it is fix and also maintain sk tan suankuan.tan@ascendas.com

Try searching Google. This search gives quite a few pertinent results. Then contact one of the makers/resellers of that material. Lupo 13:50, 8 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Article edits not visible

Hello, just a simple question regarding article edits. I have contributed a few edits recently and have been pleased to see the results appear straight away. By contrast, I have noticed on a few occasions that by clicking "history" on an article it is apparent that the most recent edits (not my own) are not visible on the main article page. This remains the case even if I load it and click Refresh or F5. Wait a few days, however, and the edits magically appear! Is this an issue that relates to how Wikipedia works, or it something to do with my ISP's cache or something? Not a big problem either way, but I am curious.

• Sometimes it takes the servers a little longer to catch up with the edits that are done. So it can happen the history is lagging behind. Mgm|^(talk) 16:01, Jun 8, 2005 (UTC)

deleted article?

I remember reading an extensive article about Robert Ryman, but now it's not here (even a stub) and there seems to be no record of it getting deleted. Any way to find out when/why/how it had gone?

Well, there was never an article at Robert Ryman as far as I can tell. (If there had been one once, I—as an admin— would have an "undelete" tab when visiting this page.) Robert Ryman is linked from only two places, Monochrome art (was Meditative art) and Sol LeWitt. Maybe you've been reading The Guggenheim Museum's biography of Robert Ryman?

Here's your chance: click on one of the red links above, and write a good article about this artist yourself! (But don't just copy the Guggenheim's text; that'd be a copyright violation. Rephrase, and do some more research.) Go ahead! Lupo 13:44, 8 Jun 2005 (UTC)

paul of tarsus

I am sorry to say this but your article on Paul of Tarsus is woefully tendentious.THe article finishes about the Christian Saint perhaps the second most important person in the History of Christianity with a completely unfounded allusion to him being a homosexual

• Then head over to Talk:Paul of Tarsus and let your concerns be heard there. - Mgm|^(talk) 16:07, Jun 8, 2005 (UTC)

How to get rid of a redundancy

I am sure this has been answered before, but I want to get rid of an article I just started that is redundant. The topic was red-linked somewhere, I forgot about case-sensitivity of titles, and just blundered on. No one has added to it, as it's only a few minutes old. What's the procedure for deleting?????????????????? --Mothperson 16:14, 8 Jun 2005 (UTC)

If you're the only editor and it's accidental, it's a candidate for speedy deletion. See WP:CSD. Shimgray 16:36, 8 Jun 2005 (UTC)

If the difference in title is only due to differences in case, then it might be apropriate to create a redirect to the location of the article - particularly if there are links to it. e.g. bill clinton redirects to Bill Clinton. Thryduulf 16:49, 8 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Thank you both. There's so little in it, I'd rather get rid of it and add the stuff to the existing article. Yet another entry for my list of things never to do again. --Mothperson 17:07, 8 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Redirecting it can help prevent others from making the same mistake. -- Cyrius|✎ 18:38, 8 Jun 2005 (UTC)

There are two versions of a page

If you search for ADHD, you are redirected to an old and wrong version of the "Attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder" page. It is at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ADHD even though it says at the top that it was redirected from there. If you click on that "redirected from ADHD" and then click on the link next to the "Redirect" hooked arrow, you get the updated version of the page. You can recognise the difference quickly as the new version has an entry in the contents: "3.2 Hunter-versus-farmer and other evolutionary hypotheses"

If you search Wikipedia for "attention deficit" you get the updated version of the page.

The difference persists even when I refresh-page. Surprisingly, both pages have the same revision history.

Do you know how to fix this please?

It looks fine to me. I see that section all the time. ISP cache maybe? smoddy 21:16, 8 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Many thanks, control-refresh fixed it

Disclaimers for articles about dangerous activities

in this case its Whitewater. I put some random if you kill yourself its not our fault thing at the top but is there a specific policy when it comes to topics like this?

See the Wikipedia:General disclaimer, linked from "Disclaimers" at the bottom of every page. The General Disclaimer also links to the Wikipedia:Risk disclaimer, which covers the ground you wish to cover. We decided not to put additional disclaimers on individual articles (even dangerous ones) because we can never be sure that they are uniformly applied to every dangerous article, which could conceivably leave us open to legal liability. It is of course okay to include neutral, factual information within the text of the article which says "this is a dangerous activity which is likely to injure or kill people who attempt it without proper training and preparation." Even better if you have statistics to back it up! — Catherine\^talk 22:15, 8 Jun 2005 (UTC)

See also Wikipedia talk:Risk disclaimer and Wikipedia:Disclaimer templates for other places where this was discussed in the past. --cesarb 02:32, 9 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Copyright question

I tried to figure this out from Wikipedia's various pages about copyrights, etc. but was unable to. Would using a screencap or single frame from a Film be considered a copyright violation? Are images from films Fair Use?

Thank you

Benco0008

In many situations, using a captured frame from a motion picture is fair use. -- Cyrius|✎ 04:16, 9 Jun 2005 (UTC)

vandalism

On your webpage for 'Mumbai' someone has added rude text. I tried to edit the page and try to remove it, but can't identify how to go about it.

Remove a picture

There is a disturbing and OFFENSIVE picture at the bottom of: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Community_Portal

I don't know how to remove it, but PLEASE, can someone take care of it???

Are you referring to this picture? It's the current Picture of the day, and i don't see what's particularly disturbing about it... -- Ferkelparade π 14:25, 9 Jun 2005 (UTC)

No. It was crude, sexually abusive, and very disturbing. Whoever deleted was fast - thank you!!!

Ah, I see. This probably means than someone vandalised either the Community Portal or the image in question, although I did not see any evidence of vandalism in the edit histories. If you spot any further vandalism, you can easily revert it by following the instructions at Wikipedia:How to revert a page to an earlier version. Cheers, Ferkelparade π 14:55, 9 Jun 2005 (UTC)

images

A teacher would like to use an image/photo found on your site on a hotlist they are creating? I can't find any mention of use of images. As long as we give you credit can we use the photos found here?

Each photo has its own copyright status, and you can find that out by clicking on the picture. If it says "public domain" you can do with it as you will, otherwise you need to see what terms the picture is offered under. Notinasnaid 14:28, 9 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Table help

A table was added to International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia but it looks bad because the empty cells are not created leaving a uneven appearance. Is there some invisible character that could be added to each currently empty cell to force the cell border or is the table not correctly formated? Rmhermen 15:21, Jun 9, 2005 (UTC)

I tried putting in a couple of &nbsp; HTML characters, and IMO that helped. That's six typed characters: ampersand (&)-n-b-s-p-semicolon. Judge for yourself whether that's worth doing for the whole table. - PhilipR 15:49, 9 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Sound Files

What do I need to be able to listen to audio files within Wikipedia? I hasten to add, that I'm sort of computer retarded... Thanks!

~bobby

• I use foobar2000. Mgm|^(talk) 21:28, Jun 9, 2005 (UTC)

finding maps

Hello --

When I look up a city name, or a river name, for instance, I would expect to obtain easily, at least one or two simple line maps locating nearest political boundaries, largest neighboring city, etc. I don't seem to be able to find a direct link to that in your geographical entries.

Any pointers? Please answer privately as well as publicly as I may never find this page again.

Thanks, Mark Shulgasser shulgas@bellsouth.net

(I haven't mailed him) Wikipedia is a work in progress and it's entirely possible for an entry not to have a map yet. Still, there are people working on it and you could provide some yourself if you know how to make them. Mgm|^(talk) 21:26, Jun 9, 2005 (UTC)

oxygen

Dear sir,
In the air oxygen and nitrogen are present, how we are taking only oxgen for breating. pls explain.

my e.mail.id nagarajan64@sancharnet.in

check out lungs and diffusion--65.24.68.237 20:24, 9 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Can I link up a contribution made before logging in?

I had added a small, but what I considered important, paragraph to the article under the sub-heading "Debate on unemployment". Subsequently I registered as a user. How can the original contribution now be linked to me as a user?

There was a facility to "re-credit" edits; however, this relied on a developer poking around in the database, and thus was very time-consuming. Last time I checked there were a few months worth of back-logged requests; as such, I believe the service is now suspended. Shimgray 12:31, 10 Jun 2005 (UTC)

• Nevertheless, you can still link to the edit on your userpage if you can find it in the history of the article in question. Mgm|^(talk) 18:32, Jun 10, 2005 (UTC)

Egypt

I am a newcomer to Wikipedia. I am trying to find a history of Egypt. How do I do that?

Welcome to Wikipedia! Try typing in Egypt or Ancient Egypt in the search box to your left. Or you can click on these blue links that I have here. Hope this helps! --HappyCamper 15:15, 10 Jun 2005 (UTC)

• If you've got any specific questions about Ancient Egypt I might be able to help. Just click on "talk" in my signature and click the plus in the tab at the top of the page to add a question. - Mgm|^(talk) 18:14, Jun 10, 2005 (UTC)

How to fight vandalism on Wikipedia?

I used to use this link [9] but now it's not there anymore. What effective alternatives are out there? --HappyCamper 15:11, 10 Jun 2005 (UTC)

There's this, or the IRC channel it gets it's RC feed from. --W(t) 15:31, 2005 Jun 10 (UTC)

Coding a plus sign

How do I go about coding a plus sign in something like Travel + Leisure? Checkout http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oz_Garcia where I spent a couple of edits trying to add T+L and couldn't get it. I tried adding a plus sign then the + format and both came up as Travel + Leisure on the final page (with the brackets and not the link).

Thanks.

Avoid using such signs on article names because they're reserved in our current wiki software. The "+" is replaced by the space (which is replaced by the underline "_" anyway). So, the best thing to do would be to create the article on Travel and Leisure or Travel plus Leisure and add a {{wrongtitle|Travel+Leisure}} at the top of the page. Oh, and use pipe linking for displaying the correct name: [[Travel and Leisure|Travel+Leisure]] — Kieff | Talk 17:16, Jun 10, 2005 (UTC)