Wikipedia:Help desk/Archives/2007 December 23

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December 23

Removal of speedy deletion tags

Hello, I've nominated Yung Boss Records for speedy deletion, and it was speedy deleted. However, the creator of the page removed the tag himself. In response, I've placed a made-by-myself warning on his talk page, but I don't know if that's the exact thing to do when such thing happens, so please, instruct me. Also, when he removed the tag, I placed it again, which I'm not sure is right, so if it's not, please, forgive me. And sorry for any grammar/spelling mistake. Victao lopes (talk) 01:02, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

If the article definitely needed to be deleted, then you can keep the speedy tag there. Well, the article is deleted now, so it doesn't really matter.   jj137 ^♠ 01:03, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

There are already warning templates for removing speedy tags. See {{Uw-speedy1}}, and see Wikipedia:Template messages/User talk namespace for these and many other warnings. PrimeHunter (talk) 01:25, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

(edit conflict) The note that you left is fine. :) There is a hierarchy of template warnings that can be used in such circumstances, beginning with {{uw-speedy1}}. The first time, we assume good faith as many people don't understand the deletion process. If it continues after proper notice, we're probably dealing with avoidant vandalism, and beyond a certain point such a user should probably be reported to WP:AIV. Restoring the notices is definitely the right thing to do when the creator removes them. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 01:28, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

Thank you! I'm gonna use those tags from now on. Goodbye and Merry Christmas.Victao lopes (talk) 01:37, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

Template help

I've just added a new template to List of spaceports and it's had the effect of collapsing the template that was already in place. I want to make the original template come up expanded. There is some stuff in the docs about a "state" parameter which is supposed to allow you to do this, but I can't figure it out. I've tried this before too, and it never seems work. Can anyone help and tell me what syntax I need to use? Matt 03:32, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

I have fixed this. If {{Navbox}} is used more than once with the default state parameter then all navboxes on that page are collapsed by default. List of spaceports has the template {{Spaceport}} which uses {{Navbox}}. The state parameter in Navbox cannot be directly accessed by List of spaceports which only calls it indirectly through {{Spaceport}}. However, Template:Navbox#Other describes how to add a state parameter to a template which uses Navbox. I did that to {{Spaceport}} in [1] and then used the new state parameter [2] in List of spaceports. PrimeHunter (talk) 04:17, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

Great, thanks! Matt 12:10, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

Copyvio misbehavior

What is the proper avenue to report a user who repeatedly and purposefully uploads the same copyrighted image after it's deleted? —Preceding unsigned comment added by TheBilly (talk • contribs) 04:08, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

See WP:EIW#Copy for all the mind-numbing details. A quick skim shows WP:COPYVIO which says:

• Contributors who repeatedly post copyrighted material after appropriate warnings will be blocked from editing to protect the project.

Unfortunately, that page lacks a link on the phrase "appropriate warnings" to a page that explains exactly how to issue said warnings. When we figure out where that phrase should link, we should edit WP:COPYVIO to display that link. --Teratornis (talk) 05:31, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

Ah, well, what I was dealing with specifically is a user who is uploading an image which is obviously the same and editing it back into the same article, repeatedly. It's apparent that his action is deliberate, based on the large number of warnings (by bot) on his talk page, and the edit history of the article (where it is frequently deleted, edited out, and he restores it). The image would probably qualify if he provides a valid fair-use rationale for this non-free image (a screenshot), but despite numerous apparent warnings he's been simply ignoring this advice and doing as he pleases. Since he's had 5 or 6 warnings I put a "last warning" template on his talk page already, and for the moment he seems to have ceased, but if he were to continue in the future I'd like to know how to handle this (I only want to stop his disruption by making sure a strong message is sent, not vindictively get a user "punished"). Does this sort of thing go in AIV too, with vandalism and spam? Or is there a different avenue to handle users repeatedly uploading copyrighted content? TheBilly (talk) 19:39, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

"Repeated uploading of copyrighted material" is most definitely a type of Vandalism. So, yes, you can report it on AIV if the vandal is a repeat offender and the vandalism is current. —Noah 20:03, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

Display of ‐

User:Leandrod has changed hyphens to ‐ (this displays as a square on my computer) in a number of edits such as http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Robert_Dudley%2C_1st_Earl_of_Leicester&diff=prev&oldid=130526028 (his edits include other changes too). He tells me that my computer is at fault in displaying ‐ as a square. Is my computer at fault? Does everyone else see a dash or something else other than a square? If so, how do I fix my computer? I'm using IE6 and encoding is set to Unicode (UTF-8). (After I get my display sorted out, I will look at why Leandrod has even replaced the hyphens with "dashes". Seems wrong to me.) For my correspondence with Leandrod, see User_talk:Leandrod#Hyphens_changed_to_.E2.80.90 and User_talk:Nurg#Dashes. Nurg (talk) 04:27, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

It displays correctly on my IE7. I don't know how to fix it for you and only have time to give a link to Wikipedia:Manual of Style#Dashes. PrimeHunter (talk) 04:33, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

It's a square on my computer, too. This is a very common problem and usually arises because the character is in a font that your computer and mine don't have installed. Generally, it's better to use normal typographic symbols than something alegedly "better" but which a proportion of readers won't be able to read. AndyJones (talk) 13:44, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

The "‐" character displays correctly in my IE7 (except in that yellow hint text that pops-up now and again, where it displays as a square), but it is not the regular "-" (hyphen or minus) character found on UK & US keyboards. The problem is I can think of no good reason for User:Leandrod to have made those particular edits. The same user has also made similar edits previously, and the matter is mentioned on their talk page several times here, here, here, here, here and here. Looks to me like that user has a real thing for changing hyphens/dashes etc. to the ones they consider correct.

The manual of Style is somewhat ambiguous on the subject, but, I think we should stick to one kind of dash/hyphen/minus/endash/emdash and that's the one you get by typing the key immediately to the left of the "=" on US & UK keyboards.

Astronaut (talk) 19:41, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

Thanks folks. I haven't found the MoS too ambiguous on the subject and I have no problem with endashes and emdashes – I just create them using the insert function below the edit box. And I'm sure that in some cases Leandrod is correctly changing hyphens to endashes or emdashes. But when a hyphen is required, it surely should be the one used at WP:HYPHEN (which does not display as a square on my, or probably any, computer). Nurg (talk) 11:00, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

Creating a template

Moved to WP:VPP.

Syntax problem

Moved to WP:VPT.

pls help!

Hi,

I would like to know whether i can add a few extra information on another new page about an existing article by another user? Plovinda (talk) 07:16, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

Hmmm... I'm not quite sure what you mean, but you may be looking for Article Talk Pages. If you're looking to edit an article, all users are welcome to make constructive edits to Wikipedia.

Hope this helps,

Perfect Proposal ^{Speak out loud!} 16:59, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

Archive vandalism

I have just discovered that an act of vandalism or re-engineering of one of my edits to a talk page occured prior to archiving of that section. As I cannot now correct this and it gives a completely false impression of my edit and is an attack on my character, (the correct edit should be easily confirmed on the historical page for that date), How do I get this Corrected, before more damage is done Jagra (talk) 08:28, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

Tis true that archives should not generally be edited but there is no electric fence and your desire to correct a vandalistic change to your edits is perfectly understandable. I would go ahead and edit the archive page; change the text back to exactly what it said when you originally wrote it, including the original timestamp and below make a bulleted or indented note saying something like "the above edit was changed to say something I never wrote, please see this [http://URLofDiff this diff].--~~~~" If you don't know what a diff is, please see WP:DIFF. Cheers.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 15:05, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

If you post the relevant links here then I or somebody else could look at it. PrimeHunter (talk) 20:14, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for comments I would prefer though if some-one independent could investigate and carry out the correction as I have no access to the past history. The vandalised item is herein Talk Herpes Zoster under item Complementary Therapies originally added by me on 25 June 2007 but another post by another one time only User:65.11.249.253.(possibly a sock puppet!) on 31st July 2007 interposed under the same heading above mine. Howevever much of his apparent text appears now below his signing and therefore runs into my text on line 32 giving any reader the impression that I posted that portion and therefore support the fringe science content there in. Whether the merging of the texts occurred at the time of posting the second edit or subsequently should be evident from the page history. As well as correcting the vandalism I would like to know how it occurred and who was responsible but the history of the Archive is no longer accessable to me. Jagra (talk) 22:36, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

If you click on a username or IP address then you either get to their contributions or (as in this case) a page where you can click "User contributions" in the toolbox to the left. It shows the IP made this badly formatted edit before the talk page was archived, so it's in the page history of Talk:Herpes zoster and not in the history of the archive. I will fix the archive. PrimeHunter (talk) 23:14, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

I made the fix: [3]. By the way, previewing that fix told me I had a new message: [4]. I'm an administrator!!! And 24 minutes into December 24 in my time zone and country (where Christmas gifts are given December 24). Warm thanks to everybody who supported me! Now, which of these new buttons don't permanently delete the help desk... PrimeHunter (talk) 23:40, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

Hey congrats. I rarely monitor RFA but I would have supported of course. We need more help desk regulars who are admins!--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 23:54, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

Congratulations PrimeHunter I'm sure it was well deserved and Merry Christmas to you and others on the Desk, and also thank you for sorting out the vandalism so promptly Jagra (talk) 02:58, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

islamic nations

How many muslim nations/ muslim majority nations are there in the world ?

This is a general question not about wikipedia, please redirect your question to the Wikipedia:Reference desk. SKYNET X7000 (talk) 10:36, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

The World Factbook lists the percentage of citizens in each nation who labor under the major superstitions. --Teratornis (talk) 18:14, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

See Majority Muslim countries. PrimeHunter (talk) 20:10, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

Finding arbcom investigation/decission

I am trying to find any info about what arbcom did/ruled over this situation and what the outcome was: [[5]] --58.111.143.164 (talk) 10:36, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

If the outcome is somewhere in the Wikipedia: namespace, you can search for it. --Teratornis (talk) 18:22, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

I don't know whether arbcom has published about this. The final version of your linked section is [6]. PrimeHunter (talk) 20:04, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

Translation

I WANT ESSAYS IN ENGLISH. THEN I HOW TO USE THIS WEB SITE.

CAN YOU TRASLATE FORM ENGLISH TO SPANISH AND VICE VERSA?

There's translation templates on this Wikipedia:Template messages/Talk namespace section, scroll down and you'll find the translation template. SKYNET X7000 (talk) 12:57, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

The question does not seem to be related to articles needing translation, which is what those templates are for. If the editor is asking if Wikipedia automatically translates articles into other languages, then the answer is no. However, there are multiple other language Wikipedias, and each article may have versions on a number of them. When you visit an article, on the left side will be a box that has alternate language version links, that you can click on to take you directly to the article in that language. Hope that helps. Ariel♥Gold 16:42, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

The {{Google translation}} template can automatically translate between some languages, with somewhat readable results. For earlier examples from the Help desk archive, see:

• Wikipedia:Help desk/Archives/2007 November 21#translations
• Wikipedia:Help desk/Archives/2007 October 19#Translate article
• Wikipedia:Help desk/Archives/2007 October 13#Wikipedia translations

For example, this template code:

• {{Google translation|en|es|http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portada|The Googlefied Spanish Wikipedia}}
• produces this link: The Googlefied Spanish Wikipedia

From the translated page, one can browse around the Spanish Wikipedia, with Google dynamically translating each new page into somewhat readable English. --Teratornis (talk) 18:34, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

does wikipedia provide web services?

hello, i want to ask about wikipedia, does wikipedia provide web services like google, amazon, and msn? so it could be used by another web application.

regards'

serj husen.

This is as close as you're going to get. -Wooty [Woot?] [Spam! Spam! Wonderful spam!] 13:46, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

VISHNUSAHASRANAM

Translation from Sanskrit to Kannada language

Seshadri

There are translation templates you can use via this link Wikipedia:Template messages/Talk namespace, it may be useful to you. SKYNET X7000 (talk) 15:37, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

The question may not be asking for articles needing translation into English, which is what those templates are for. If the editor is asking if Wikipedia automatically translates articles into other languages, then the answer is no. However, there are multiple other language Wikipedias, and each article may have versions on a number of them. When you visit an article, on the left side will be a box that has alternate language version links, that you can click on to take you directly to the article in that language. Hope that helps. Ariel♥Gold 16:43, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

How to embed select wiki content on websites

Would you please provide me information or link to ducoments of "How to embed Wiki custom content in a web site".

Thanks —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.19.232.98 (talk • contribs)

Your question is ambiguous because:

• You do not define what you mean by "wiki content." Many people who are new to wikis use the word incorrectly, often to refer to a particular wiki such as Wikipedia. You might mean you want to re-use content from an existing wiki, or perhaps you want to start your own wiki.
• The phrase "a web site" covers an extremely broad range of possibilities. There are millions of different Web sites, and webmasters use hundreds if not thousands of different types of software to create them. How you would add content from some wiki to some web site would depend on the respective technologies, file formats, etc., that each of them use.

If you want to re-use content from Wikipedia, start with WP:DUMP and WP:MIRROR. Exactly how you would go about this on whatever web site you have in mind is too complicated to explain on the Help desk. The easiest (but not cheapest) solution would be to hire a competent system administrator, who should either already know, or be able to figure out, what to do. If you want to do it yourself, you'll need to read: How to ask questions the smart way. The simplest way to "use" content from, say, Wikipedia on another web site would be to simply link to it. --Teratornis (talk) 18:08, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

My Page

Hi I created a page for Scottish Singer/Songwriter Nikitta Angus at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikitta_Angus ! On other arists articles such as Leona Lewis their is a box on the top right hand side with a picture and backround information. I was wondering if it was possible to put that on Nikittas page. Thanks.

Yeah just copy and paste the box from another singers page, and modify the information to the singer in question. Hope this helps, Rt. 15:52, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

Template:Infobox Musical artist is the template page your looking for, with all of the options. AndrewJDTALK -- 16:16, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

I put my request right at the top of the page and no-one saw it

Resolved

 – The correct title is the oddly spelled "The Compleat Al". The errors by 72.197.3.55 have been reverted. PrimeHunter (talk) 19:54, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

Need help changing page title of The Compleat Al to the Complete Al -fixed the typo other than this, both here and on the wikilink at capsule hotel - but not sure how to fix the title. Also need red wikilink at capsule hotel fixed. Thanks! :) 72.197.3.55 (talk) 09:53, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

Generally, you may create an account, wait for four days, then use the move button to change the title of an article. In this case, however, we should be more careful. This link comes from the article, and it uses The Compleat Al. Could you please provide a source that confirms the title is Compleat Al (without "the")? PeaceNT (talk) 16:48, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

Giving support

Question, am i able to give support to users in the Request to adminship or other request, like clerk or others. SKYNET X7000 (talk) 16:25, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

Nomatter who you are, beit first edit IP or otherwise, you can support, oppose and comment on RFAs (and pretty much anything else). AndrewJDTALK -- 16:28, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

If you have a reasonable amount of knowledge about Wikipedia, yes.

Are you asking if you can offer an opinion on a candidate's abilities in WP:RFA? Then yes, you can. Keep in mind these are not "votes", they are opinions, and your opinions should be based on your own research into the candidate's abilities, and diffs, examples, and such are helpful when formulating a comment. If you're not familiar with RfA, it would be a good idea to read through some to see how others comment, and to see the type of research done. What "clerk" items are you referring to? There are no clerks in RfA. Take a look at the Wikipedia:Guide to requests for adminship, as well as the main RfA page to learn about the process. Hope that helped. However, AndreweJD is not quite correct, IPs are not allowed to offer opinions on RfAs, and new editors are not always counted, either. See the "Expressing opinions" section on the main RfA page. Ariel♥Gold 16:33, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

AG says it best, try to make sure that all your supports, opposes or neutral are constructive. Rt. 16:35, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

Since you've said it's alright for me to give my opinion, i've given support to PrimeHunter in the request for adminship. SKYNET X7000 (talk) 16:48, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

MLA Format Citation

How do I cite Wikipedia in MLA format? 24.10.103.200 (talk) 19:18, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

Click "Cite this article" in the toolbox to the left on a given article, or see Wikipedia:Citing Wikipedia#MLA style. PrimeHunter (talk) 19:47, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

Use of References

I recently wrote an article that was criticized for lack of references. My wikipedia article derived from a series of articles in the Cutter IT Journal and in Performance Improvement Journal. I tried to put these references in the text and external links, but obviously did not do this correctly. I don't know how to show that there is a third party basis for my wikipedia entry.

Also, some of these references are only now available through commercial on-line services. When I went to put in the references, I didn't want to refer to something that would cost $$ for someone to verify. How do I do that? WiseDoc (talk) 19:44, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

For-pay references are allowed. Also old printed references. See Wikipedia:Citing sources for how to cite. External links are not for references but for additional information. PrimeHunter (talk) 20:00, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

I respectfully disagree. WP:EL guidelines lists references that require paid subscriptions to access are "links normally to be avoided." Therefore, I would try to avoid it. The fact that you are trying to find references rather than cite solely your own personal knowledge is a good trait! Archtransit (talk) 19:46, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

I think we are talking about different things. My reply was about references used to cite information in an article. For-pay references are acceptable (although free Internet references would be better if they are reliable). WP:EL says "The subject of this guideline is external links that are not citations of article sources." WP:EL is not about references but about links in an external links section. Such links are not intended for references to the article content. They are intended for sites which provide relevant information not found in the article, so interested readers can find additional information about the subject. It's right that for-pay external links not used for references should normally be avoided. PrimeHunter (talk) 23:12, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

Editing Wikipedia is painful : Wikipeida should provide a WYSIWYG editor asap, like Google does

Wrote to Wikipedia: Dear Wikipedia, Can you please have a WYSIWYG editor, like Google Docs/Pages provides ? Editing using your current editor and results in all kinds of funny-language coming up in the text, it is VERY tedious and with Google Knol, it will be very easy to do such changes and will lead to its success too. Please take this up at HIGH priority.

I haven't tried it but maybe something at mw:WYSIWYG editor is helpful. And see Wikipedia:Tools. PrimeHunter (talk) 21:16, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

Editing in a markup language such as MediaWiki's wikitext requires a bit of learning. Almost anything is initially painful when it requires skills one has not learned yet (if you aren't a trained musician, try picking up a guitar and playing a song; depending on your innate musical ability, you may be anywhere from hours to months away from making even a simple song sound good). However, learning enough wikitext to do simple editing on existing articles is not difficult; see WP:CHEAT for the basic markup codes to learn first, and practice by taking the tutorial. Learning new skills throughout life may promote better brain health, actually reducing one's chance of contracting Alzheimer's disease. While lots of people have requested a WYSIWYG editor for the MediaWiki software (which Wikipedia uses, along with several thousand other wikis), there are some arguments that it may not advance Wikipedia's goal of building a free encyclopedia of the highest possible quality. For example, most people who browse into Wikipedia at random and try to edit something have no inkling of Wikipedia's staggeringly complex policies, guidelines, and procedures. The result is that many of these naive edits create more work for the more skilled and experienced users who must correct them. Currently Wikipedia has a vast number of articles that need improvement, and for the most part, only the relatively few users who have spent many hours studying Wikipedia's internal documents are able to make many of the necessary improvements. Making Wikipedia easier for people who don't want to read any manuals might only increase the chaos on Wikipedia. And in the meantime, Wikipedia hardly lacks for users who have been willing to learn some wikitext markup. From a practical standpoint, it seems MediaWiki's markup language has never been rigorously specified. According to Brion Vibber in his Google TechTalks lecture (available here on YouTube), MediaWiki's parser consists of a "mess of regular expressions" and in some instances its behavior is not well-defined. This impedes writing a reliable WYSIWYG editor. A WYSIWYG editor might actually be more useful for corporate wikis that run on the MediaWiki software, because the main problem for a corporate wiki is convincing a large percentage of employees at a single company to use it. Compliance with guidelines is less of a problem in a corporate context, because for the most part employees will have the necessary shared vision already. On Wikipedia, the situation is different. We don't have to get everybody in the world to join our project; we only need users who will agree to share our vision, and that means users who will spend some time learning what our vision is. --Teratornis (talk) 18:29, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

While I disagree with some of Teratornis's reasoning, I do not at all want a WYSIWYG editor. First, to teratornis, I would remind you that WP:IAR states that we welcome all contributors, and do not require them to understand, or even read, the rules prior to editing. I wish there wasn't so much of a learning curve, because new good faith contributors are always welcome, no matter their familiarity with Wikipedia policies. As to a WYSIWYG editor, I wholeheartedly disagree. First, the learning curve isn't all that steep. Want to add a sentence? Click "edit," find the paragraph, start typing. Granted referencing is a little tricky to get the hang of, especially for newcomers, but that'll come soon enough. With the exception of tables, references, complicated templates, and a few other technical areas, the syntax is fairly easy, and just one or two glances through the documentation should be enough for most activities. But more importantly, the advantage of using text-based editing is enormous. It is much quicker to type [[text]] than it is to type "text", move your hand off the keyboard, look for the right button on the monitor, click that, then return to the keyboard to start typing. The advantages grow even more when typing [[piped link|text]], and I can't even imagine as efficient a template structure using WYSIWYG. Furthermore, WYSIWYG editors can behave unpredictably. Highlighting a certain piece of text and changing things around can produce weird results. Text-markup allows me to see instantly what's going on when I edit a page, exactly where links are going, allow me to quickly identify the source of a syntax error etc. Also, Wikipedia's diff system, which highlights in bold red, is much easier with text markup than WYSIWYG. The current method is just faster. --Ybbor^Talk 19:34, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

We "welcome" many new users by deleting their articles - rather than declare that we welcome them, perhaps we might ask them how welcome we made them feel when they ignored some rules and experienced the inevitable consequences. The way to really welcome new users would be to make sure they have all the knowledge they need for productive editing on Wikipedia, exactly when they need it, i.e. before they make mistakes that get deleted or reverted. At the moment that seems to be technologically impossible without putting a trained human expert in the same room to determine the new user's goals, and explain how to accomplish them in Wikipedia, or even if Wikipedia is the appropriate venue. Instead we expect new users to self-educate by a taxing process of RTFM and trial-and-error editing; some of us are comfortable learning that way, enough in fact to build a great free encyclopedia, but probably most of the world's population needs formal schooling to learn something really new. People are certainly free to ignore all rules here, but that's like saying people are free to walk through a minefield and get their feet blown off - there is no freedom from the consequences of ignoring all rules. The proper meaning of the hyperbole "ignore all rules" is to recognize that no single rule set is ever completely sufficient, and the rules continuously evolve. (This is analogous to law: no matter how detailed a legal code is, attorneys and courts will be necessary to interpret the law, and to supplement legislation with case law. But by no means does the insufficiency of the legal code to determine every case excuse anyone from obeying the law in the majority of crystal-clear situations.) There will always be edge cases where a sufficiently knowledgeable person must go beyond the existing rules, build new rules, and convince everybody else to adopt them (with the result that the rules become even more complicated!); not many beginning users can do that. It's like coming up with new discoveries in physics; only a person with deep knowledge of existing physics is likely to do that; a naive person who ignores the existing physics is likely to be a crank. The less a person knows about a subject, the more that person should "go by the book." To really carry on from the start as if there are no rules will almost certainly lead to an undesirable outcome. After all, the people who truly ignore all rules are vandals. As far as the difficulty of learning Wikipedia goes, it's the (relatively) easiest tool for creating Web pages of professional quality that I have ever used, and I've used a few. However, power always comes at the cost of complexity (as Robert Moog said, "What you can control, you must control"). There are some user-editable sites that are easier to get started with, but they don't let you do as much. A WYSIWYG editor for Wikipedia would be pretty tough to do, since it would have to cram in so many possibilities (templates, magic words, etc.). And would it fit in a Web browser? As far as whether a markup language is actually easier than a GUI tool, that depends entirely on the user. A person who has only used GUI applications and has never seen a command line may go into a state of shock upon first clicking the "edit this page" tab on a complex Wikipedia article and seeing all those bizarre markup codes. Esperanto is also easier than English, but not to people who have spoken only English since childhood. The native English speaker might be months of hard work away from getting the benefits of Esperanto. --Teratornis (talk) 21:25, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

My Roommate Would Like Some Help

He has no clue how to go about this. Is there something a little clearer that WP:Tutoral?I just showed him how to create an account. Yes, he is standing over my shoulder.--Heelp Meeeee!! (talk) 20:34, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

Hello! And give our welcome to your friend, as well. Since I'm not sure what specifically you're wondering about, I will instead give some general information about Wikipedia, with links. I realize Wikipedia might seem confusing at first, (please click on the blue words to read the policy/guide they refer to). Wikipedia is not like other sites you may have come across. First, it is an encyclopedia. What this means, is that it is not MySpace, or FaceBook, or a place to host personal webspace, or a place where editors can make articles about anything they wish. Wikipedia has Core policies, such as neutrality, notability, verifiability, etc. What does all of this mean? Well, it means that any article on Wikipedia must demonstrate notability (meaning it must be note worthy, covered by the media, etc.), and have reliable, third-party sources (such as news media articles, magazine/trade journal articles) written about the subject, and the information given in the article must cite those sources to verify it is true. From those sources, information is summarized, paraphrased, condensed, and worded neutrally to make an encyclopedic entry (information cannot be copied from other sites). See Wikipedia's manual of style, layout guide, your first article, article development, and how to edit for assistance. I hope that helps! Ariel♥Gold 21:09, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

Also see Wikipedia:Instructional material, for example the training videos (screencasts). There are some more training videos on YouTube; you can search for them. ("Heelp Meeeee!!" may not have been the most judicious choice for a user name, because hopefully you will soon outgrow it.) --Teratornis (talk) 22:05, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

templates

Is there a template to say you like man u the football team Zanramon (talk) 22:21, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

Yes. 172.212.113.38 (talk) 22:59, 23 December 2007 (UTC)