Wikipedia:Help desk/Archives/2007 June 25

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June 25

Barnstars

Where can i find the different types of barnstars?  Atrocity1313  (Contact me)

I think Wikipedia:Barnstars is the page you are after. Raven4x4x 00:45, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

Problem uploading "The Rings of Reality", R. Stewart Hall, 2000. I am Everett Allie

I have tried to upload a manuscript with its permit and description, using the uploader. When submitted, I god an error message that the file was empty. This is a large file. Would that be the problem?

Everett E Allie (email removed) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Speciesup (talk • contribs)

If you are trying to create a new article by uploading a manuscript file in some other format, that's not how Wikipedia works. On Wikipedia, articles consist of wikitext that we edit ourselves. Wikitext is a markup language that is unique to the MediaWiki software and unlikely to be the same as whatever file format your manuscript uses currently. In general, MediaWiki is incompatible with almost every other form of word processing software, but there are some tools that can convert from some formats to wikitext. See User:John Broughton/Editor's Index to Wikipedia#Imp for a few. Another problem is that articles on Wikipedia cannot be verbatim copies of copyrighted works. If The Rings of Reality is a notable work, you may write an article about it, but the full text of the article does not belong here. If the work is in the public domain, you might be able to upload it to WikiSource. --Teratornis 02:43, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

Broken bulleted list

At Alewife (MBTA station), there is an "Attractions" section. If I edit it, I see each item beginning with an asterisk. If I press {Preview}, I see bullets by the items. But going back to the actual article itself, I see no bullets. Any ideas why, or what can be done about it? Matchups 01:43, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

I see bullets for items beginning at the left edge, and no bullets for items beginning to the right of the image of the red line. This appears to be how the browser renders the page. If I change window width then each bullet comes and goes depending on whether the item starts at the left edge or not. I don't know whether this a HTML specification but I would just ignore it if this is what you see. PrimeHunter 02:24, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

(edit conflict) :Yeah, the problem is that the "MBTA Red Line" template to the left of the text you're trying to edit conflicts with where the bullets belong. As a result, the bullets are hidden and do not appear on the page. (I didn't see them in the preview either.) If you remove the template, the bullets reappear, but I think it's fine the way it is. Another possibility is to devise a workaround by adding something similar to bullets using unicode or nowiki tags. Please ask me on my talk page if you want to do that and don't know how. YechielMan 02:26, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

Matchups probably meant that the bullets were displayed when only the Attractions section was edited. This section does not contain the Red line, so there are no problems. PrimeHunter 02:30, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

Deleted bio of Joey Jett

Hi,

I tried to put up a biographical page today for Joey Jett, an upcoming skateboarder who has gained local fame and is gaining national attention. It was automatically deleted and I have no idea why. I tried to restore it with no luck.

More info on Joey is at his official site at www.joeyjett.com and I am authorized to post information about him.

Why was this deleted twice? —Preceding unsigned comment added by SiriusCreative (talk • contribs)

Welcome! We receive similar questions more often than you might think. Please read Wikipedia:Why was my page deleted? Most likely, Joey Jett failed Wikipedia's guideline of notability, and was deleted according to the speedy deletion policy for unremarkable people. Wikipedia's definition of importance tries to be more strict than what you are expecting (although you'd be surprised at some of the articles that sneak in somehow). I'd be willing to review a copy of the article if you have one with you, or if you can ask the administrator who deleted it to undelete it temporarily. You will probably need to accept that Wikipedia chooses not to have an article on every subject. YechielMan 02:30, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

Joey Jett was manually deleted [1] with summary "CSD A7(Bio): Biographical article that does not assert significance". See also Wikipedia:Notability (people). Biographies should have Wikipedia:Reliable sources showing they satisfy the guidelines. PrimeHunter 02:38, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

The short summary is that Joey Jett needs to be written about by reputable publications, and you need to cite them as reliable sources in his article to establish his notability. The subject's official Web site is not, by itself, sufficient to establish notability. So start building a file of all the press clippings about Joey Jett; if there aren't any yet, start contacting reporters who cover skateboarding and see if they will write about him. Click all the links in the responses to your question and read all those pages carefully. On Wikipedia, the rules are complicated, but they are all spelled out, just as in skateboarding competitions. Joey has to follow the rules when he competes, and writing on Wikipedia works the same way. Except that we have something like 10,000 officials looking for infractions. --Teratornis 02:50, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

Picture upload

How do I add information for uploading an image (picture) after the upload. I do not know how to get back to image loading page. —Preceding unsigned comment added by CharlotteHyde (talk • contribs)

Just add the necessary templates; see Wikipedia:Template messages. I can help you more if you provide a link to the image. --Haemo 02:54, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

Check your contributions (see Help:User contributions). It appears you uploaded an image: Image:TAH head shot.JPG. --Teratornis 02:56, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

B-17

In reference to the Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress. The info regarding the bomb load is ironeous and incompetent. The B-17 carried a maximum of 2000 lbs (907kg). THe bomb bay was not large enough for more than two 1000 Lb or four 500 lb or eight 250 lb bombs. I don't know where the writers got their info but they should check out www.aviationhistory.com/boeing b-17 to be properly informed. I have over 60 years of historical and modeling experience with aircraft plus over 6000 hours as the pilot in command in over 30 different aircraft including 1 hour in an actual B-17. Please correct your artical. You are supposed to be a historical info site but not with bad info like the b-17 bomb load. Ricahrd J Strode

You can be bold and fix this information yourself! You can also post on the talk page to get informed editors involved. --Haemo 02:54, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

Also see Maximum reported B-17 & B-24 bomb loads. --Teratornis 03:04, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

..............Mr.Strode is wrong. The B-17G carried 8 x 500 =4000 lbs at 23-25000 feet for 8-10 hours. R.K.Hoddinott,Jr. Pilot 487thBG 8thAF 1942-1945

An old proposed deletion for Gordon B. Hinckley Alumni and Visitors Center

Recently I ran across an article at The Gordon B. Hinckley Alumni and Visitors Center which needed work. I got to work on it, moved it to Gordon B. Hinckley Alumni and Visitors Center (removed "the" from the title), removed POV content, added references, an infobox and a picture. As I'm looking at the "What Links Here" I do some browsing and notice that the article was proposed for deletion and deleted because a notice expired back in January. (See this link).

The bottom line is this article was deleted, recreated somewhere else with a different name, then moved (by me) to the location of the original deleted article. My concern was that I didn't contest the deletion or didn't follow protocol on restoring the article, primarly because I didn't notice it was deleted.

What should I do now? Do we just leave the article as is? I do feel that the article is notable enough (the 10 references should show that). If so, can I get an admin to throw up the Template:Oldprod tag to the talk page? Chupper 03:26, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

I wouldn't worry about it. Likely, the old article was not properly sourced or did not assert notability. Looking over what you've written, you've solved both of those problems. Good work! -- Kesh 16:44, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

Is anyone creating short-cuts to check if one's contributions have been edited?

I can't be the only one who finds it too time-consuming to see if my contributions have been changed or deleted. Or is there an easier way? I have over 100 on my watchlist, I think. To check each one I must click on it in my watchlist, then search through the history to find my last contribution (which is often 3 or 4 pages earlier!), then compare that edit of mine with the current version, which I can't figure how to do when the versions are on different pages in the history. All that takes over 10 minutes per article, or over 1000 minutes to check them all--over 16 hours. So I check 2 or 3 articles and then give up. Thanks! Can you answer on my talk page? That's because I'm unlikely to be able to find this question again with your answer. 70.67.80.91 03:34, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

Wait, what? IP editors have watchlists now? --tjstrf talk 03:37, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

Thanks!! Sorry, I thought I was logged in. That's my question above. Often I log in but after a while I'm automatically logged out but I'm not notified. I think I signed with 4 ~. Korky Day 05:04, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

Assuming that this is actually someone with an account who is just not logged in right now (in which case posting on the IP's talk page wouldn't work since there's no way to tell if the editor will see it), here's something you can try: go to your Special:Contributions page, and look for an edit you made. If it has (top) after it, no-one's edited the article since then. If it doesn't, then it's not too hard to compare the page as you left it and as it is now by going to the history of the page, locating your edit in the list, and clicking the (cur) link next to it. (Incidentally, the (last) link will compare the chosen edit to the previous version of the page.) Confusing Manifestation 03:51, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

Thanks!! You're right, (cur) does sometimes work, but I'd still have to go to the history page each time and look for each contribution of mine--one by one. That's what takes so long. I can't click on (cur) on my contributions page to see if it's been changed. Even if (cur) in the history saved a couple of minutes per article, it would still take 8 minutes per article, or over 13 hours altogether. It would help a little if I could find a list of articles on my watchlist (listed only once each), but I don't know how to find that. All I can find is a huge huge list of changes made to articles on my watchlist.Korky Day 05:04, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

The list of all the pages on your watchlist is linked up the top, where it says "You have 98 pages on your watchlist (excluding talk pages); you can display and edit the complete list." <- the link in "display and edit the complete list" is to Special:Watchlist/edit, where you can find links to the articles, their talk pages, and their history pages. Still not the 100% perfect solution for what you want, but perhaps a start. Confusing Manifestation 06:48, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

Thanks! I'm continuing this on my help page because otherwise I'll lose track of it. Korky Day (talk) 02:48, 28 December 2007 (UTC)

John Kim

{{helpme}} my page is being deleted

Responded on your talk page. Miranda 04:28, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

Edit facts

Under the heading subject "Rodeo Drive" there should be a reference to "David Orgell" - an existing store on Rodeo Drive, and the man, now deceased, who was a founding member of the original "Rodeo Drive Committee" which included David Orgell, Gucci, and Fred Hayman of Giorgio among others. They made Rodeo Drive what it is. See also, www.davidorgell.com (history), as well as contact the Beverly Hills Chamber of Commerce (David Orgell is a former President of the Chamber) for more information.

Thank you, Michele Orgell

Be bold and add the information yourself. Please be sure to provide reliable sources (not his web site, independent sources) that show he is notable and relevant to the article. -- Kesh 16:46, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

Change of Authorship?

A couple of months back, I contributed an image to the Wikimedia Commons, and added it on a relevant article on Wikipedia (a photograph of a bird). I used the copyleft tri-license option, as I want people to be able to use my work however they want, so long as I'm credited. The problem is that I just recently took a look back at the article in question, only to find that the attributes of my photograph itself had been changed, with someone else claiming authorship and defacing the description. As near as I could tell, no record of the change had been made, although my original addition was still visible at the bottom of the page. Why is a change to the Author field of an image allowed (it's not something that can very well change, is it?), and is there any way I can prevent this from happening? I look forward to future contributions (bird photography is a hobby of mine, and I like to think that I'm pretty decent at it), but I can't feel entirely comfortable if I can't somehow permanently attach my name to the image. I don't care how the photograph itself is used, but that Author credit needs to stay intact.

I apologize in advance if I come across as rude, or ignorant of the system. I do fully support Wikipedia and its goal, I'm just afraid I'm a little bit un-informed as to its specifics; hopefully the community can educate me.

Robertbieber 04:21, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

I would suggest changing it back -- and adding the page to your watchlist. Then, if it happens again, you can report the person who did it to the admins. --Haemo 04:49, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

The record of change is in the history ([2]). You can also see there who made the change, but they were unregistered so there is only an IP adress. If you add the images you upload to your watchlist (there should be checkbox in the upload form) you can check if people made any changes to them in your watchlist. I think this kind of thing is quite rare though...it probably won't happen again. ssepp^(talk) 07:08, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

articles in different languages

I just created an article in English Wikipedia that already exists in Hebrew Wikipedia. how do i link them to each other in the "other languages" box?--Rukiddingme? 04:46, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

At the end of the English article, add

[[he:רחל ולדן]]

At the end of the Hebrew article, add

[[en:Rachel Walden]]

I'll do it for you. Shalom ^Hello 04:58, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

periodic table of elements(reduced down to one page)

How do I reduce the size of your periodic table of elements to fit on one page, still with the name,weight, ect...

Wikipedia's format of the Periodic table is located at Periodic table (standard). You can transclude that onto another wiki-page by adding the following parameter:

{{:periodic table (standard)|width:50%|height:25%}}

This should produce a much smaller version, like this: {{:periodic table (standard)|width:50%|height:25%}} That probably won't solve all your problems, but I hope it helps. Shalom ^Hello 05:06, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

Xavier Rudd interview added twice

Hello; Whilst I am very very happy for someone to add an article from our magazine, I have noticed that the same Xavier Rudd interview's been added twice in your external links...

For the record is it possible to let me know that the interview has been added with your consent - as we don't add things on here (after being told to ask the editors of each section before adding articles)

Kindest Regards Richard —Preceding unsigned comment added by Lancashire Fusileer (talk • contribs)

Hmm... could you show me to which article you are referring? Charlie-talk to me-what I've done 11:02, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

Could be: Xavier Rudd#External links. The problem is that two un-named <ref> tags in the lead section cited the same interview, and instead they needed to share a name attribute per WP:FOOT#Citing a footnote more than once. So I fixed it. --Teratornis 16:30, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

Registering in Wikipedia

An E-mail I got from Wikipedia said:

"If you did not recently register for Wikipedia (or if you registered with a different e-mail address)..."

I don't whether I have registered for Wikipedia because I don't know what it means to register for Wikipedia (or to register for it with a particular E-mail address). What does it mean to register for Wikipedia (to register for it with a particular E-mail address)?

Bowei Huang 06:38, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

You registered for Wikipedia when you got your username, and presumably the email address you used in the sign-up form is the one you received that email at. Confusing Manifestation 06:44, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

Registering with Wikipedia means to create an account with Wikipedia through which all your edits and contributions are made. If you did not create an account for Wikipedia, than the e-mail may be a phishing site and should be ignored. --_Hdt83 ^Chat 07:16, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

User's last edit date

Is there any way to display user's last activity date based on their usernamename/ip? A template of sorts that will display the last time the user changed anything in Wikipedia will make it easier for me to track potential vandals. Maurog 07:20, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

Only way I know is to use Special:Contributions. E ^talk 07:52, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

Oh, I use the contributions page all the time, that's not the problem. You see, I have a list of pet vandals with links to their contribution pages, but right now the only way to check if they were active is checking the contribution page of each and every one. That takes a lot of time to check and usually there are very few new contributions. If there was a way to query the last time a user has been active and display it, that would save a lot of work. Anyone knows if it's possible? Maurog 09:35, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

Not within Wikipedia, unless the code gets changed to support it. However, some web browsers (or other programs) can be given a URL to "watch" and report to you when its content changes. I know IE used to do that, but I haven't used that browser in forever. You set a "subscription" and tell it how often to check the page, and it'll alert you whenever the page content changes. -- Kesh 16:54, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

confirmation code

When I try to register I keep getting told that I have a missing or incorrect confirmation code. I do believe I read the fuzzy words correctly. What and where is the confirmation code? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.85.191.54 (talk • contribs) 07:43, 25 June 2007

You can get your account created by an administrator at WP:ACC if you're having trouble yourself. E ^talk 07:54, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

Changing my Account Name

Dear Admin,

Please help me change my account name to Schmoovy Schmoov from how it currently exist as Schmoovyschmoov with not break or capitalization on the second name.

Thank you, Schmoovy Schmoov

Schmoovyschmoov 08:05, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

You might want to have a look at Wikipedia:Changing username, which is where you will have a better chance. Stwalkerster talk 08:15, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

No point going to Wikipedia:Changing username, you only have one edit so I doubt they'd do it for you. Just log out and create a new account. - Zeibura ^(Talk) 08:16, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

If the software doesn't allow you to create the new username because it's too similar to the old one and it thinks you're trying to impersonate yourself, you can put in a request at Wikipedia:Request an account instead. --ais523 08:41, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

Or you can go the slightly easier way, if you don't mind keeping Schmoovyschmoov as your username - change your signature so that it displays as Schmoovy Schmoov by changing it to [[User:Schmoovyschmoov|Schmoovy Schmoov]] - like how I'm User:ConMan, but sign as ... Confusing Manifestation 10:26, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

"Redirection" of an article

Greetings,

I recently visited an article called "Economic Democracy" on Wikipedia. It was interesting, but I felt it should be updated with more recent input from a couple of authors, one of whom is David Schweickart. So I tried my had at editing on Wikipedia for the first time, and left a fairly meek suggestion.

Next day, I tried to revisit the page and finish reading it, but the whole thing was gone. I was redirected to a new article, entitled "David Schweickart", with just a brief section about his views on "Economic Democracy".

Is this appropriate? What happened to the original page? Is Schweickart the only person entitled to have a view on "Economic Democracy"? Was this whole thing just a mistake? Do whole articles routinely disappear from Wikipedia with no notice at all? That doesn't seem very stable or reliable, does it?

Thanks for whatever light you can shed.

Thanks.

Capitalization is important; Economic democracy is different (in terms of Wikipedia) from Economic Democracy); the latter is a redirect (why? I'm not exactly sure); the former is the page you were looking at and edited. Veinor ^{(talk to me)} 08:43, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Have a look at the discussion page Talk:Economic Democracy to see what happened. The problem seems to be at least partly between the difference between Economic Democracy (capital D) and Economic democracy (lowercase d). User:David Oberst was the person who made the suggestion and asked the question; contacting them by editing User talk:David Oberst is probably the best way to ask for more details. (This seems to be a pretty unusual case; redirects are formed routinely, but not normally in this situation.) --ais523 08:46, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

And fixed. Both capitalizations now point to the idea article. Schweickart's article is metioned there as a reference anyway. Maurog 15:16, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

XPress page deletion

Dear Sir,

Each time I invest my efforts in creating my company page and few days later I discover suddenly that my page has been deleted and I am the only one who is authorized to edit my company page since I am resposible for the digital marketing issues on bahalf of my company. Kindly find below link for our company page

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

please I need to solve this deletion problem and replace the content back

I would appreciate it a lot if you can contact me at my direct email for any more clarifications *removed email address*

WP:N, WP:V, WP:NPOV, WP:COI, etc etc. -- Phoeba Wright^OBJECTION! 09:35, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

Oh, forgot: WP:ADS -- Phoeba Wright^OBJECTION! 09:36, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

I sent an email with an explanation since he is probably not reading this. ssepp^(talk) 10:59, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

can you?

can you help me, my car broke down onHIghway 80, please help me!g2g please my number is ***-***-****, plesse, I have THREE children with me!serious I am not kidding, I happened to have my laptop in my trunk. help me!!!!

I'm sorry, this is the place for help with using Wikipedia, not a breakdown service. Please try visiting the website of a breakdown company, or contact them via VoIP. Stwalkerster talk 09:00, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

IPC OF INDIA

pLEASE PROVIDE ME ALL SECTION OF IPC ( CRIME )OF INDIA LIKE, SECTION 1,2,3-----.−

See [3]. The first result works. ssepp^(talk) 11:01, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

change in website address for Israel Exploration Society

Dear Wikipedia, The address of the website of the Israel Exploration Society, to which you refer in your article about the society, has changed.

The old website address was: www.hum.huji.ac.il/ies

and is no longer operational.

The new website address is:

http://israelexplorationsociety.huji.ac.il/

We hope that you will be able to change this link in all of the Wikipedia articles referring to the Israel Exploration Society as soon as possible.

Thank you for your attention to this matter.

Alan Paris, editor Israel Exploration Society

You can make uncontroversial changes like this yourself, rather than having to ask here; Wikipedia is a wiki, which anyone can edit. Make sure you get the right address, though; the 'new website address' you gave was actually an email address, not a website address. --ais523 11:37, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

I believe it was a typo. Maurog 11:39, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

Viewing site wide changes made in the past (not so recent changes).

I want to check site wide changes made after 04:00 GMT on 2007-06-05, but the link [4] only shows the current changes. Help:Recent changes doesn't help. -- Jeandré, 2007-06-25t11:51z

Special:Recentchanges can't be paged backwards, apparently (the 'from' specifies a time to show changes since, not to show changes before, and the most recent changes are always shown), so although the information exists there isn't an obvious way to get at it (assuming that the information is still in the recentchanges table; if it isn't, it makes the problem even harder, although analysing a database dump would still give a solution). You might try asking at the technical village pump, which is a common place for this sort of question; someone there may be able to tell you how to find out the answer or to run the check themselves and give you the results. --ais523 11:58, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

Thanks, I'll ask at VPT. -- Jeandré, 2007-06-25t12:23z

Saving .svg files

I've redrawn a few png images that should be SVG files. Unfortunately, I cannot find an option in Adobe Flash to save the image as an SVG. I have to save it as a PNG first and then find another program to save it as SVG. What should I do in order to save SVG in Flash directly instead of converting it a million times.

(I tried editing the images in some SVG editors like sketsa and Inkscape but I don't believe there is a bucket tool there. Flash handles filling colors much better unless I have overseen this option in sketsa and Inkscape)

Sorry for the long explanation and thank you in advance Akiramenai 12:31, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

PNG is a raster graphics format, SVG is a vector graphics format; converting from PNG to SVG doesn't make any sense. If an image does make sense as an SVG, it has to be edited in a vector format throughout. (A vector format contains information about where all the lines, curves, fills, etc. that make up the image are; a raster format merely contains the colour of each pixel, and therefore loses information needed to scale a vector image correctly. Fill-bucket doesn't make a whole lot of sense on a vector image (although there are some ways it might be possible to code it). Any SVGs that you might produce by automatic conversion from PNG won't contain the vector information, and so will have no advantage over the original PNG and may as well just be saved as PNG files. See Image:VectorBitmapExample.png for an example of why raster formats contain less information than vector formats. --ais523 12:35, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

Yes that's why I was wondering how I could save the images I made from scratch based on the png images in Flash to SVG.( I hope there is some kind of plugin of some sort) The bucket tool works good in Flash so I suppose that's no problem ( just try to enlarge a piece of an image filled with the bucket tool, the quality remains as expected) Thanks for your fast reply Akiramenai 12:49, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

Is Flash a vector graphics editor? (I don't know). If not, I suspect that creating a proper vector SVG using it is impossible. Don't use PNG as an intermediate format, though; use a different vector graphics format (WMF and EMF are common on Windows, for instance). --ais523 12:52, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

Yes, Flash is a vector graphics editor. The official vector graphics format for Flash is .swf

However Flash also allows vector images made in the program to be saved in WMF or EMF. Is it wise to do this and then save it in .svg in another program? I am afraid using this method will ruin the quality (on the other hand WMF and EMF are metafile formats and that means it should be lossless or am I wrong?) Anyway, I have tried this method and for some reason the image came out HUGE in the program I used to convert it to .svg It worked out eventually, though. All I need to know now is if using this method (saving the image in EMF and then converting it in svg) is wise?The converted file can be found here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Krasnik_herb.svg Akiramenai 13:17, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

Whatever method you used to create that file is fine; I've looked at its source, and it's definitely in vector format. EMF is a lossless format that's fine as an intermediary for converting to SVG. --ais523 13:23, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

Ok, thanks again for your 'real-time' support Akiramenai 13:27, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

"Contact us" ????

Should there not be an actual email address to just contact Wikipedia staff about a problem? I am not illiterate in any way, and am not an idiot, but after about 15 minutes of searching for an actual 'contact' email address, I must wonder what the logic is in this. Hey wiki - I would like an email for contact! Make it easy to find and use! Does this not make sense?

What is it that you're looking to do? Because this is a collaborative encyclopedia, most communication is done through the talk pages of various articles. There are, however, certain instances that require Wikipedia personnel (i.e. a specialized group of trusted Wikipedians) to step in. You can find a list of e-mail addresses at Wikipedia:Contact us. tiZom_(2¢) 13:13, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

Actually it does make some sense for Wikipedia to be somewhat difficult to figure out. The initial complexity of Wikipedia acts as a kind of IQ test which has the effect of favoring smart people who are motivated to read and follow instructions. The quality and success of Wikipedia are directly the products of the kinds of people who find themselves drawn to contribute to Wikipedia in its current form. This is, after all, an encyclopedia, and as I recall from childhood, anyone who took much interest in encyclopedias came to be characterized (perhaps even ostracized) by his peers as being "a brain." Wikipedia's staggering complexity makes it comfortable for contributors from the Cognitive elite and intolerably perplexing for much of hoi polloi (because IQ test scores correlate with a person's ability to learn the complex and unfamiliar - high-scoring people tend to learn new things quickly without much direct assistance, and actually enjoy it). In any case, there is a clear payoff from having to learn wikitext editing before one can converse on talk pages: wikitext is a vastly more expressive language than plain text. Notice, for example, that I sprinkled links throughout my response, which a reader can click to understand what I am babbling about. Providing all the same background information in e-mail is more difficult for the sender to type (as bare URLs) and more difficult for the recipient to read. Other advantages of communicating with talk pages:

• Discussions remain attached to their associated articles.
• One can go back and correct one's errors after the fact (although etiquette suggests using the <strike> tag so as not to make any followup replies that depend on the original erroneous text appear to become errors themselves).
• Formatting markup is available (such as this list).
• E-mail has been severely degraded by spam, whereas Wikipedia is much better defended against spam, so far.

--Teratornis 17:00, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

Kleinhans Music Hall, Buffalo, N.Y.

Who owns the property where Kleinhans Music Hall is located in Buffalo, NY 72.88.82.169 12:58, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

Most questions not directly related to editing Wikipedia can be answered at the Reference desk, but I doubt anyone there will be able to answer this. Perhaps you can try city hall? tiZom_(2¢) 13:57, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

Google:Kleinhans Music Hall finds this link which says: "Kleinhans Music Hall is the extraordinary gift of clothier Edward L. Kleinhans and his wife Mary Seaton Kleinhans to the city of Buffalo as provided for in their respective wills." Clicking on a few more links gives some of the history of how the Hall came to be, but I didn't find a clear statement about who owns it now. You could probably contact these folks and ask: Kleinhans Community Association. --Teratornis 15:21, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

Hi i am from ennovations.

I have added a page named Ennovation, But i am unable to know that why this page is protected, and how i should make a page which should not count as a spam. i have given the referrence, but still this page is deleted.

Plz suggest me how to add a page.

Plz mail me.

Thnx

Vikas Yadav

(E-Mail removed for security purposes)

See Wikipedia:Why was my page deleted?. --Teratornis 15:36, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

Possible Vandalism/Censorship

In the article on Ebay, I placed a small addition about feedback abuse. It does not mention any particular person, and I don't think my addition even actually mentions the word "Ebay", nor does it contain any factual or other errors, and I think it is quite fair and up-fropnt, yet "someone" keeps deleting it. (should we make a guess at who?) There is not much sense in the very existence of something like Wikipedia if fair and factual additions can be vandalised; -and destroying something (Deleting) IS vandalism.

WP:OR, WP:V, WP:N, etc. etc. -- Phoeba Wright^OBJECTION! 13:12, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

you talk about feedback fraud and say it's a growing trend (what sources says it's a growning trend?). It might well be but you need a 3rd party indepedent source to back that claim, you try and use yourself as a source - that's why it keeps getting removed. --Fredrick day 13:29, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

OK.... This may be the first day Using Wikipedia, but does anyone doubt that there are people out there that will abuse just about anything? Nothing is untouchable, and there is always someone out there who doen't like what someone else is doing, or what they have, or who cannot stand honest criticism. Hey, I don't like criticism myself, but do you really think I have to lie about something like this? JUST ASK EBAY if you have any doubt that feedback is abused. - Crimony!!! P.S. I did not say "Feedback fraud" I said "Feedback abuse", for all those anal retentives out there who like to argue about the smallest details...

you don't seem to understand what you are being told. This is an encyclopedia, we are not interested in what people 'know to be true', we are interested in what people can provide good quality third party sources to attest to. If you can find good quality third party sources that say "yes this is a problem" and "this is why this is a problem", then it can be added to the article. Otherwise people will continue to remove it. It is nothing to do with "honest criticism" it is a matter of sources. --Fredrick day 13:38, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

Well, hey, I understand just fine. Gee, I'd love to make a part-time job out of proving the obvious to those who will not bother to check it out for themselves, and who would doubt the color of the sky without confirmations from a legion of leading scientists, but then again, I just made a useful addition of important information for people, and gee I wish I knew such things long ago; but as with the populous world today, if I said the sky was blue, some "person" would likely have a problem with that too. - Why don't one of you check it out for yourselves and become a 3rd prty verification and do something useful, eh?

Well.. no.. because them we would be the source and that would not be independent third party verification. Anything we write ourselves is not acceptable. In addition, can you please sign your posts as outlined in the message, I left on your talkpage - it helps people know who said what. --Fredrick day 13:49, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

If something is 'obvious', it should be easy to find a source; for instance, the sky is blue [5]. If something doesn't have a source, it isn't verifiable. --ais523 13:52, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

Being rude to other editors will get you nowhere. If you do not like the rules, guidelines, and foundations of wikipedia, you are perfectly welcome to leave. -- Phoeba Wright^OBJECTION! 14:37, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia is probably different from anything you have experienced before, because it is different than anything that ever existed before. A number of things here probably won't make much sense until you have invested hundreds of hours studying the incredibly complex policies, procedures, and guidelines. I didn't like everything I saw on Wikipedia either when I was new here. But then I gradually learned a basic truism of wikis: "We are smarter than me." Almost everything you see on Wikipedia is the result of an ongoing evolutionary process, in which thousands of very smart people are empirically learning what does and doesn't work in the world's largest collaborative volunteer project. Imagine a barn raising, but instead of a two-day project involving mere hundreds of people, all of whom are neighbors in the same culture, it's a multi-year project involving millions of people, most of whom will never have any face-to-face contact and come from wildly diverse backgrounds. The only way to keep the project from spinning into total chaos is to have a very detailed list of rules that cover almost every situation that comes up, and we work out these rules through a collaborative search for consensus. One such rule is the requirement for reliable sources. On Wikipedia, we do not merely write what is true, or useful, or interesting to someone; we write what can be reliably sourced. Agreeing to so limit ourselves goes a long way toward helping millions of contributors avoid endless edit warring over differences of opinion. Of course people are still people, we all like to form strong opinions that go far beyond any conclusive evidence, so we have our disagreements, but in the end the rules trump every individual opinion, and on the rare occasion when that doesn't work, the Great Leader trumps everything.

Editing on Wikipedia is different than most editing you have probably done before. It can be very difficult to get used to the idea that anything we contribute here can and probably will be hacked, slashed, mutated, and/or deleted by others. I suggest viewing it as a game in which one tries to determine what one can write which will survive the Darwinian struggle the longest. If you cannot handle the frustration that often results from editing here (that is, if you cannot cultivate a sufficiently tranquil mindset to deal with seeing your work repeatedly clobbered), you might be happier on a smaller wiki, where one's contributions may be likely to persist longer. See List of wikis and search WikiIndex for wikis in your areas of interest. Most other wikis have very different policies from Wikipedia's, so if you don't like what's here, look around for alternatives.

I should point out that all the other Help desk volunteers have (almost certainly) had many of their contributions clobbered too. It's just part of learning to function here. --Teratornis 20:54, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

100% free documantry down loadings

Please give me the 100% free links

What? Please expand... tiZom_(2¢) 13:55, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

Documentary#External links might get you started. --Teratornis 21:00, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

moving property

I own a restaurant and the owner from a fast food establishment keeps moving my bin from its usual spot allocated to me to a place round the corner. I have explained that he shouldnt move the bin and asked him not too, this is causing friction so I would like to show him in writing that its illegal for him to move my property. 80.176.156.71 13:27, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

Unfortunately, you'll need to contact a lawyer, as Wikipedia does not engage in the practice of law. tiZom_(2¢) 13:53, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

Vandalism

How come obvious vandals, such as the 212.159.98.189 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log) only get a 2 day block after numerous warnings and vandals. Its obvious that this IP is not going to change their ways, why not give them a perma ban? All this account is doing is keeping us busy reverting their numerous offences.

Because IPs tend to change hand from user to user. If a long block is placed on an IP, the problematic person who's using it will soon end up on a different (unblocked) IP and vandalise from there, while a harmless good-faith user may end up on that IP and wonder why it's been blocked. --ais523 13:35, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

User Page questions: How do you get table of contents and picture?

I have two questions:

• How do you get the Table of Contents Box to appear?
• How do I upload a picture, so that I can use it on my user page as as someone like User:Jayjg does?

Dragon Smaug 13:39, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

A table of contents appears automatically once there are enough ==sections== on the page. If you want to control the table of contents manually, use __TOC__ at the point that the table of contents should go or __NOTOC__ if you don't want one at all. As for uploading a picture, see the file upload wizard; for use on a userpage, you'll have to licence the image under a licence that allows reuse and modification by anyone, so make sure that you agree to such copyright terms (there is more information on the upload wizard). See also Help:Image for how to include the image on your userpage once it's been uploaded. --ais523 13:44, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

A table of contents automatically appears if there are four or more headings on the page, and you can write (two underscores either side) or use a template such as {{TOCright}} to force one to appear. Hope that helps, mattbr 13:51, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

See Help:Section#Table of contents (TOC) which tells you what you need to know, and displays this nice table of TOC variables:

Word	Explanation
__NOTOC__	Hides ToC on the current page.
__FORCETOC__	Forces the table of contents to appear.
__TOC__	Places a ToC here (overriding any __NOTOC__). Multiple ToCs are no longer supported. If __TOC__ is used multiple times, only the first occurrence causes a ToC to appear.

--Teratornis 14:08, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

Impotchomon

Can I have my page back? The page is just about a video-game and that's it! I just want my article back... Oh, yeah. It ain't spam. Still, it may not be a threat, but I'm still asking "can i have my page back?"?

--Cherniy X 13:46, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

It was deleted (twice) for being an article about "unremarkable people, groups, companies and web content" (Wikipedia:Criteria for speedy deletion#A7). Please see Wikipedia:Why was my page deleted?. -- Rick Block (talk) 13:59, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia deletes many articles about video games. However, the gaming community contains many people with system administrator skills who figured out how to start their own wikis. While you are trying to figure out how to edit your article to comply with Wikipedia policies, do yourself a favor and put your article on a wiki specializing in games. Usually the specialized wikis are looking to add content in their topic area, rather than delete several articles per minute like Wikipedia does. See for example the answer to this previous Help desk question:

• Wikipedia:Help desk/Archives/2007 May 23#Can I use my wikipedia user space to write guides (read more in text)?

You can develop your article on a game-oriented wiki, and once you think you have it in encyclopedic shape, you can try putting it on Wikipedia again and see if it "sticks." See WP:WWMPD#If all else fails, try another wiki. --Teratornis 14:25, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

Line Breaks

I can't find instructions on forcing a line-break anywhere in the editing help. I don't want extra (blank) lines between lines, just each 2-3 word line on a separate line.Tfleming 13:58, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

There are various possibilities, depending on what you're using the line breaks for; you can use the <br/> tag to insert a line-break anywhere in a line, form the lines into a list by writing a colon at the start of each of them, or place <poem> at the start and </poem> at the end of the sequence of lines. You can start a new paragraph by leaving a blank line in the source, which leaves a slightly bigger gap on the page. --ais523 14:01, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

But first see Wikipedia:Don't use line breaks to make sure you are using them where you should. Also, if you have trouble finding instructions, open this page in a browser tab: User:John Broughton/Editor's Index to Wikipedia, press Ctrl-f in your Web browser, and type your search word or phrase (in this case "line break" does the job). --Teratornis 14:12, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

Teratornis, that guideline's about single line breaks in the source of a page, which normally have no effect on the output (they're hardly ever used nowadays); one ancient browser I occasionally have to use inserts them liberally throughout the page I edit, normally annoying other people on that page (which is why I no longer normally use it to edit, only to read). The guideline isn't about causing single line-breaks to come up in the rendered version of an article. --ais523 14:18, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

My bad. --Teratornis 20:16, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

rotisserie speed

What is the rotaion speed of a standard rotisserie? Like for roasting a chicken ---Also How long does it take for 1 complete rotaion74.92.50.173 14:21, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

You should try asking this question at the reference desk, as this is a help desk, for help using Wikipedia. Charlie-talk to me-what I've done 14:24, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

misclassification

A Biography tag has been placed on the Peter Nordin discussion page. The article provides a 'profile' of Peter Nordin rather than a biography. The distinction is made at Biography, which is a page listed by the Biography project page in defining the scope of their project. The biography project page does not seem to provide any review procedure and the tags are not signed. How do I request removal of the tags? Rogerfgay 14:48, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

Biography is our encyclopedic article about biographies. The content is unrelated to our category names and internal procedures where the term "profile" is not used. The article Peter Nordin falls under Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons and its talk page should be in Category:Biography articles of living people as it is. The categories in Peter Nordin are also considered biography categories by Wikipedia. PrimeHunter 14:59, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

OKey Dokey then. I don't see it as a problem in the sense of following the general rules related to biographies of living persons (i.e. avoid liable, etc.) - (unless I just haven't read enough) - but noticed that the Biography project rates biographies on a defined scale. A profile, which is what the article contains - would likely get a very poor rating as a biography, because it's only a profile and no attempt has been made to make a biography out of it (in view of rating biographies). I don't want the article to run into the problem of being a poorly rated biography scheduled for demolition one day. Rogerfgay 15:04, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

The project's rating system isn't "official" in the sense you seem to be worried about. A poor rating would merely encourage editors to improve the article, not to delete it outright. Charlie-talk to me-what I've done 15:07, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

Thanks. No worries then. Rogerfgay 15:09, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

DJREJECTED needs to stop adding links to web sites with copyrights

DJREJECTED needs to stop adding links to articles. Especially links to copy righted sites!!!!!!!!!

I don't see the problem. Please collect a few diffs indicating the problem, and report it at WP:ANI. Shalom ^Hello 15:13, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

Choosing the correct image tag

I am always baffled when it comes to choosing the correct image tag for copyright status. If I was to scan an image from a book depicting an old subject (for instance an image of an engraving, etching, artwork etc) could I use the {{PD-old}} / {{PD-art}} tags (needless to say, ensuring that the image scanned is over 100 years old)? If not, what do you suggest I use? Chris Buttigieg^talk 14:53, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Media copyright questions is probably a better place to ask this sort of question, as you're more likely to find editors specialised in this specific field there. --ais523 14:54, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

Ok, I'll ask the question there. Thanks anyway. Chris Buttigieg^talk 14:57, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

Talk page clean-up

The Talk:Peter_Nordin page includes extensive arguing that is no longer relevant. I would like to see the page cleaned up by deletion of most material on it. Is that possible? Rogerfgay 14:59, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

Yes. Article history keeps everything, so if it's real nasty you can just delete the section. If there's substantive value to the discussion, you're better off archiving it. Shalom ^Hello 15:11, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

In this case, I would strongly suggest you leave it be. The "argument" is over content of the article, and no serious civility breaches are apparent. There's no reason to delete its content. Just leave it be and eventually, when the page gets larger, it will be archived. -- Kesh 17:05, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

How does this "ThePPN:" link works?

Hello. How come these links works: ThePPN:Main page, ThePPN:Category:Pop, etc.? Where is Wikipedia configured to point the "ThePPN:" namaspece to the external url http://wiki.theppn.org/ ? --Abu badali ^(talk) 15:41, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

It's all in the table 'interwiki' in the database. What you have is a list of prefixes such as ThePPN: and others in one column, and a list of corresponding URLs in the other.
For example: the 'google:' prefix corresponds to the following url: http://www.google.com/search?q=$1, so when you type [[google:wikipedia]], it is interpreted as http://www.google.com/search?q=wikipedia. the $1 is replaced with the target. This is called an interwiki link. Stwalkerster talk 15:50, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for that. I suppose these interwiki links aren't user created, right? Or no? What's the process for creating one, and where can I read the policy governing it? I mean, I understand why we want to be able to use interwiki to other Wikimedia's sites (like other languages Wikipedias, Wikitionary, Commons, etc.), and I see the value of being able to use interwikis for some sites like google or imdb. But where is the line drawn? (Specifically, what's the policy that draws the line? Thanks! --Abu badali ^(talk) 16:10, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

As far as I know, the only way to edit the interwiki links is direct to the database, which requires database access. Those in the group Developers [6] should be able to help you out in adding or changing interwiki link prefixes, as they are the only ones who can do it. Stwalkerster talk 16:14, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

Thanks! I guess I found it out: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Interwiki_map. (or more appropriately: meta:Interwiki map ;) ). --Abu badali ^(talk) 16:17, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

Correct. Also see: User:John Broughton/Editor's Index to Wikipedia#Int. If you install your own wiki that runs on the MediaWiki software, you will probably set up your own interwiki links to modify the default m:Interwiki map. It does require access to the MySQL database that MediaWiki uses. However, using some kinds of interwiki links from Wikipedia itself violates the Avoid self-references guideline. You may have to read that guideline a few times to digest the arcane reasoning. --Teratornis 23:38, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

Table background

Is there any way of making a table background 'transparent' so that it fits in with Wikipedia's own background, or will I have to manually change it to the same colour? If so, what is the colour? EvilRedEye 16:12, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

Oh, sorry, found the answer to my own question! EvilRedEye 16:16, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

For anyone else who wants to know and comes across this question, you put style="background:transparent" after the {| at the start of the table. --ais523 17:17, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

Correcting False Accusations

I've been accused of Sock Puppetry Wikipedia:Suspected_sock_puppets/Rogerfgay by opponents in a debate on content. As a new user, I did invite someone into Wikipedia who was supportive of my position. (Meat Puppetry) As soon as I was informed that this violated rules, I admitted the mistake, and the new Wikipedian dropped out of the discussion to avoid disruption. The accusers however, continued to case on Sockpuppetry Wikipedia:Requests_for_checkuser/Case/Rogerfgay, falsely claiming that both users operate from the same IP address. The new Wikipedian has been indefinitely blocked. How can the blocked user have this situation reviewed by independent administrators? Rogerfgay 16:52, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

The block was implemented by Akhilleus, so talking to him would be your starting point. You don't start by asking independent administrators, you start by talking to the blocking Admin. If you can convince him it won't happen again, good. If not, he can provide you with the next steps. -- Kesh 17:17, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

Peace Touch

My friend and I invented the "Peace Touch." It is when two people make peace signs with their fingers and then touch their peace signs together. It is a gesture of peace and friendship. We are trying to make this known to the public by adding it to wikipedia and spreading the idea of peace, love and friendship to the world.

Can we please make this page to explain what a peace touch is? It keeps getting deleted!

Much love & peace,

A&A

Angela & Annie—Preceding unsigned comment added by Ange71979 (talk • contribs) 17:16, June 25, 2007

Shortly: no. See WP:MADEUP. -- Kesh 17:18, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

Jim Bailey - Actor/Entertainer..........Ii cant find

Dears Sir/Madam,

Please Help

I tried creating a page on Jim Bailey Actor/Entertainer and its not appearing can you tell me what i did wrong?

This can all be verified on www.jimbaileyweb.com or IMDB

Ive redone it a no. of times...is there a service that can do it for me?

Thanks Steve Campbell

It seems it was deleted in December of '06 due to "Unremarkable people, groups, companies and web content. An article about a real person, group of people, band, club, company, or web content that does not assert the importance or significance of its subject. If controversial, or if there has been a previous deletion discussion that resulted in the article being kept, the article should be listed at Articles for deletion instead." Dismas|^(talk) 19:24, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Why was my article deleted?. --Teratornis 20:04, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

Internet Crashed, Megaresort

My internet crashed two minutes ago, and I was editing the Megaresort Wikpedia page. The page lost half of its content because of my internet. I am terribly sorry about that!!! What can I do to get it back?

I've reverted your edit, and the article is back the way it was before again now (you can make the edit again if you like). All previous versions of a page are recorded (click on the 'history' tab for a list of versions and then on the date of a version to view it); I saved the version immediately before the one you blanked by mistake, to restore the article. See Help:Reverting for more information about restoring an article after vandalism or (in this case) accidental edits that degrade its quality. --ais523 18:30, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

Are commercial sites acceptable refs?

Is using the product page for a company selling something, e.g. a Japanese video game, an acceptable reference if I can't find any other websites that have the same information on this game in English? --BrokenSphere 18:22, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

Possibly it would be on a game-oriented wiki such as StrategyWiki, but for Wikipedia see WP:NOTE and WP:WEB. Also see Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Directory/Culture/Games#Video games to find a relevant WikiProject which may further interpret Wikipedia policies for the case of specific kinds of video games. --Teratornis 20:12, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

T That depends. If you're using the company's website as foundation for Critcal/Reception sections, that would be a conflict of interests, but if you're just using it to support the official name over a popular name (like The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princesss, and not Zelda: Twilight Princess, or just Twilight Princess), or add details about a character, that's fine. Basically, act like the company is a used car salesman trying to sell you a car. If you think the statement is trying to get you to buy it, ignore it. Oh, and don't forget- you get facts from sources, not sentences. There's nothing more annoying to me than a description ripped straight from the company's pages -- Phoeba Wright^OBJECTION! 05:50, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

This isn't even the page for the co. selling the product, which is wholly in Japanese, but a 3rd party distributor so yes they are trying to push it. I would basically cite the page to reference where I got the plot description and features. --BrokenSphere 15:52, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

How do you add stuff or a word to wikipedia?

How do you add stuff to wikipedia? 81.109.179.169 19:14, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

Have a look at the top any article: You can see a button labeled 'edit this page'. Click it. Edit in the big box. For more info, visit the Tutorial. :) Stwalkerster talk 19:16, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

I invented a word and i dont know how to add stuff...

At school, i got bored and invented a word BUT, (there is always a BUT) i do not know how to add stuff to wikipedia. The word I (me and my friend) invented is "SHINDIGRI" but i need help adding it to wikipedia. SOMEONE HELP ME!!!!!!!

Wikipedia isn't intended for original research or neologisms. Dismas|^(talk) 19:26, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

The subject of the article needs to be notable, ie not something you made up one day and want to tell the world. Wikipedia is for notable subjects. Besides, words belong in Wikipedia's sister project, Wiktionary. :) -- Stwalkerster talk 19:27, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

Sorry to be the buzzkill but Wikipedia is not for things made up in school one day. --Teratornis 20:02, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

Image:Color circle (hue-sat).png

I just made an extremely minor change to Image:Color circle (hue-sat).png (changing the background from white to transparent), do I need to update the licensing information?--VectorPotential^Talk 19:36, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

I don't think so. Obviously if it was public domain, it still is, and if it's copyright, it probably still is copyright because the essential features are maintained. Image editing is a fairly common (and well-appreciated!) practice on Wikipedia. Shalom ^Hello 06:37, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

Making a box floating to the right

I'm trying to make a key for a sports statistics table to float to the right of the table. Can anyone help me with this? --Yarnalgo _{talk to me} 19:38, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

School age

what is the outcomes of school ages?positive or negative?

Please clarify the question and ask at the reference desk. Shalom ^Hello 21:13, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

Font

Hello.

All of a sudden, after many years of using your service, I find your typeface (font) is unclear and difficult to read. Other Web sites are fine.

Any help?

Please explain what's wrong: is the font too large or too small? Is it blurry or odd-shaped?

There might be a way of adjusting your computer settings. It would make the font on your other websites larger than usual, but it's a trade-off to consider if the font is too small. I don't know if I can give any further advice. Shalom ^Hello 21:13, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

You could use Cascading Style Sheets to change the font. --Leon Byford 22:05, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

CosmoGIRL! entry - name spelled wrong

Hi,

I'm the senior online editor for CosmoGIRL! magazine. I got an email from one of our users regarding a wikipedia entry page and an argument regarding what is the correct spelling of our magazine.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CosmoGIRL!

As you can see from the cover on the entry page, there is no way for us to represent our title in print since the "girl" is handwritten. When it is written out in text format the "girl" is in all capital letters, as is evident on our parent company's page about the site.

http://hearst.com/magazines/property/mag_prop_cosmogirl.html

I don't know why that decision was made, but that's how it is written. Not COSMOgirl! as it is appears in the entry. Please let me know if you need more instances of this printing in order to make the change. Thank you.

All taken care of. Thanks for the cite page and info. Jim Dunning | talk 21:44, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

The Grand Lodge of All England At York

This stub was deleted today. We did not write the original stub and it was relatively fair and accurate. We added to it for the sake of accuracy.

It was vandalised by two people earlier today using offensive falsehoods. I looked because I had received an Email from a third party warning me that this was taking place. We would wish to make a formal complaint and report them to Wikipedia for acts of blatant vandalism. They should be banned from making any future contributions - a disgrace! What can we do?

Peter Clatworthy Grand Secretary Grand Lodge of All England at York.Grandsecretary 21:25, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

Please see Why was my article deleted? and Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Grand Lodge of All England at York for the discussion that led to its deletion. -- Kesh

Attempting to create a new page causes download of index.php

When logged in, any time I attempt to create a new page, it instead just downloads index.php. I am running Windows XP, but I have tried this on three different machines, and 4 different browsers (Firefox, IE, Opera & Safari). It seems to be a persistent issue which I have had for a really long time. I had a hack work around for a while, but I forget what I did now. It seems like this started happening when the policy was changed to require you to login before adding a new page.

So when I go to:

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=New_page&action=edit

It just downloads index.php which contains the following:

[Process]
Type=Edit text
Engine=MediaWiki
Script=http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php
Server=http://en.wikipedia.org
Path=/w
Special namespace=Special

[File]
Extension=wiki
URL=http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=New_page&action=edit&internaledit=true

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

I think what you are trying to do (without intending to) is actually create a new article called "New page", instead of whatever name you intend (and Wikipedia is set up to block creation of a page called "New page"). Try entering the name you want in the search field and if it doesn't exist it will take you to an option that allows you to edit (create) the page name you want. So don't enter "New page". Jim Dunning | talk 22:07, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

--Jim | talk 21:57, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

Try going to Special:Preferences, clicking on 'Editing' and unchecking 'Use external editor by default'. --Leon Byford 22:02, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

That did it. Seems odd to have that setting on by default. Thank you very much! --Jim 22:11, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

The setting is supposed to be off by default. I think the text means that if the setting is on, then an external editor is used by default, but there is a way to avoid that "default" without unchecking the setting. I don't know what the way is but apparently you once knew a way. PrimeHunter 23:06, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

Caps lock, filmscripts, etc.

SORRY, I AM VERY BAD I DON'T KNOW WHAT IS THE KEYBOARD TO SIGN THE ARTICLES, PLEASE HELP ME AND I WILL NEVER STOP WRITING..I HAVE GOT FILMSCRIPTS, IDEAS AND WISH YOU ALL THE BEST MASTERS OLIVIER DORIA D'ANGRI —Preceding unsigned comment added by Olivier doria (talk • contribs)

We don't sign articles, but we do sign our posts to talk pages. Wikipedia may not be the best place for ideas; see WP:NOR. On Wikipedia we don't make original contributions to articles; instead we only write what we can reliably source. If you are interested in writing about films, see WikiMovies and the other wikis here. Choosing the right wiki for the type of writing you want to do will make your life much more pleasant. Wikipedia is only appropriate for people who want to help write an encyclopedia, and most people don't really want to do that. --Teratornis 23:26, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

(edit conflict) You can sign Talk pages by putting four ~ symbols at the end of your message. Edits to articles themselves do not need signatures, you can just explain your edit in the "Edit summary" line. As for film scripts, sorry, we are not a place to submit your original works. -- Kesh 23:27, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

Dispute tag

How many talk page editors are required to declare a content dispute and place a dispute tag? Milo 23:14, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

One. See User:Bibliomaniac15/How many Wikipedians does it take to screw in a lightbulb?

In all seriousness, if you disagree with what the article says, and you explain why you disagree, then it's disputed. We don't have formal rules for such things. Good luck with the dispute resolution process. Shalom ^Hello 23:24, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

Milo is probably referring to the ongoing discussion at Wikipedia talk:Spoiler where Milo disputes [7] the guideline at Wikipedia:Spoiler and discussion has been long. An editor can place a dispute tag at the start of discussion but if there appears to be consensus without unanimity after some discussion then I think the consensus should be respected. Whether that particular discussion has consensus is not a question to decide at the help desk. PrimeHunter 00:14, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

Considering that my watchlist is full of edit after edit of people warring over it on the talk page, I'd call it disputed. Kuronue 01:27, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

I asked a generic question, and got a satisfactory rules research answer from Shalom. Thank you.

But since PrimeHunter brings up the unasked question of who is disputing, let's not make it sound like it's just me. Here's the record of four dispute tag placing editors, and three removers:

• 20:44, 12 June 2007 RockMFR reverted by 21:00, 12 June 2007 Tony Sidaway
• 21:02, 12 June 2007 RockMFR reverted by 21:07, 12 June 2007 David Gerard
• 21:08, 12 June 2007 RockMFR reverted by 22:00, 12 June 2007 Tony Sidaway
• 22:04, 12 June 2007 Sethie reverted by 04:21, 13 June 2007 Ned Scott
• 14:08, 13 June 2007 Milomedes reverted by 19:01, 13 June 2007 Ned Scott
• 14:06, 25 June 2007 Kierano reverted by 21:57, 25 June 2007 Tony Sidaway

I certainly didn't ask Help desk to decide consensus, but since you mention it, how about being helpful in a catch 22 situation? What dispute process should be used to decided on whether there is a dispute, when one side illogically denies there is a dispute?? As Sethie put it: (22:04 12 June 2007): "the fact that there is a dispute about whether there is a dispute kinda proves there [is] ..... *drum roll******* A DISPUTE!" Milo 01:52, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

Most people reading your original question would probably think you referred to an article, and that's apparently what Shalom thought since Shalom wrote "the article". And you didn't say there was a long discussion involving many editors. You then wrote "I got a satisfactory rules research answer from Shalom". The only link in Shalom's answer was a User subpage in Category: Wikipedia humor. I suspect Shalom had no idea what he/she was getting into. Asking a generic question when you are really thinking about an unmentioned specific conflict can easily result in answers that don't fit the situation, so I said what is was about. I only looked briefly at the discussion and I'm not judging it. I'm just saying that I don't think the help desk should judge it, and certainly not without knowing any of the details. Shalom wrote "Good luck with the dispute resolution process". Asking generic help desk questions is not part of Wikipedia:Dispute resolution. PrimeHunter 03:04, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

I notice you didn't answer my complicated follow up question. That provides a hint as to what answer I would have gotten if I had originally asked a non-generic question, so I'm satisfied that I made the correct choice.

"Most people reading your original question would probably think you referred to an article, and that's apparently what Shalom thought since Shalom wrote "the article"." Since there are no dispute tag rules at all, it doesn't make any difference. If it had made any difference, no problem, I would have quickly figured that out and asked a more specific question.

"I don't think the help desk should judge it" Neither do I, and I didn't request that. I wasn't interested in a help desk opinion of the disputed dispute — I was only interested in generic guides or rules on who could place a dispute tag.

"And you didn't say there was a long discussion involving many editors." Correct, and it was properly not said. That is irrelevant to rules research and might have sounded like I wanted Help desk to judge a dispute.

"You then wrote "I got a satisfactory rules research answer from Shalom". The only link in Shalom's answer was a User subpage in Category: Wikipedia humor." The satisfactory answer was there aren't any rules. Logically, there can't be any (serious) links to non-existent rules.

"I suspect Shalom had no idea what he/she was getting into." What did Shalom get into? Shalom said "We don't have formal rules for such things." Surely you aren't claiming that answer would be somehow changed by the details of the situation? I'd guess you're concerned that Shalom might have gotten into something, but didn't.

"Asking a generic question when you are really thinking about an unmentioned specific conflict can easily result in answers that don't fit the situation, so I said what is was about." Ok, that might have happened, but it didn't. Since it didn't happen, there was no reason for you to have commented further.

"Shalom wrote "Good luck with the dispute resolution process". Asking generic help desk questions is not part of Wikipedia:Dispute resolution." {scratches head} Um, that's literally true only because the ability to ask generic help desk questions is inferred everywhere.

In summary, I asked a simple question, got a simple and correct answer, and that answer fits all situations. You seem to be complaining, this, that, or some other complication might have happened... but didn't. Perhaps a help desk vacation would improve your outlook. Milo 09:08, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

The first dispute tag was placed weeks ago and there had already been a long discussion. The dispute tag was removed by an administrator editor who claimed "There is no significant opposition to the guideline" which some editors disagreed with (and I don't want to judge that disagreement). Shalom did not know any of this, but you still used Shalom's answer as argument for your side in the conflict [8] which is what I mean by Shalom not knowing what he/she was getting into. Your linked edit was made after my comment (which was based on actually knowing the conflict) but you ignored it and said "The Help Desk told me ..." about Shalom's more convenient generic answer. I'm trying to assume good faith but I wonder whether you deliberately asked a very generic question with no reference to the actual conflict in order to improve the chance of getting an answer you could use in that conflict. I have seen that sort of thing before. Maybe we should have a guideline that says something like "If an editor in an ongoing conflict asks somebody else for an opinion without saying where the conflict is (so the person can see what is going on), then the answer should not be used as argument in the conflict". Imagine this hypothetical situation (which I certainly don't claim resembles your situation): A single editor thinks he should be allowed to add his private unpublished alleged knowledge to articles, and that editor wants to forever keep a dispute tag on Wikipedia:Verifiability "because I dispute it". I don't think that should be allowed, and I suspect you and Shalom agree (but we don't have time to consider and describe all hypothetical scenarios at the help desk). So there exist cases where a dispute tag should not be allowed to stay even if somebody wants it. Wikipidea does not accept everything just because there is no specific rule against it. Whether or not it's fair to keep placing a dispute tag in your situation is something I think it's only reasonable to evaluate after reviewing the history and discussion. PrimeHunter 12:04, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

It appears it wasn't an admin. Sorry about that. PrimeHunter 14:16, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

I would also add that omitting details from a question deprives helpers of the chance to see deeper into the real problem. Sometimes people ask questions about how to carry out one specific solution to an (unstated) problem, when some other solution (which the questioner hadn't thought of) is more efficient. The question then becomes a kind of red herring, as helpers don't know what the real problem is, and can only focus on the mechanics of carrying out one type of solution. I'm not saying that was necessarily the case here, just that I haven't seen many questions that got better by being more vague. One might even go so far as to say it's rather maddening to see the number of Help desk questions which allude to articles without stating their names so we can have a look. Wikipedia is like a madhouse of overlapping and sometimes conflicting rules, so it's difficult to make our Solomonic decisions when we can't even see the baby we are being asked to divide. --Teratornis 21:31, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

Ok, I'm starting to understand the unexpected complaints about my simple rules question as a micro conspiracy theory.

Overall, PrimeHunter doesn't like advocacy rules research (or lawyering), and appears to be saying that I should have asked a different question (about consensus) so that Help desk could refuse to answer it. Right.

However, I take PrimeHunter's and Teratornis' point that Help desk has had bad experience with questions relating to ongoing disputes. Talk about biting newbies — how was I to know your problems? It's unfair to criticize my question merely because you lack confidence in the current Help desk question rules. Please take my point that nothing went wrong in this case.

PrimeHunter 12:04 wrote: "Your linked edit was made after my comment (which was based on actually knowing the conflict) but you ignored it and said "The Help Desk told me ..." about Shalom's more convenient generic answer."

Here's my indirect quote of Help desk (edit was not linked) — Milo 00:38: "The Help Desk told me that only one editor with a talk page explanation is needed to place a dispute tag, but that there are no formal rules for such things."

I did indirectly quote only two things that Help desk (Shalom 23:24 & PrimeHunter 00:14) said. Your comment (PrimeHunter 00:14) openly agreed with one thing ("One"/"An" editor is required to place a dispute tag), and presumably agreed with the other thing (the absence of dispute-tag-placing rules). Obviously, that part of your comment was not ignored.

Here's the first part of PrimeHunter's conflict-knowing comment that I did ignore — PrimeHunter 00:14:" ...but if there appears to be consensus without unanimity after some discussion then I think the consensus should be respected."

You claimed to know the conflict, so you should have known that there was no appearance of consensus as to whether there was even a dispute, much less any appearance of consensus as to placing a dispute tag. I apologize for the umbrage you are about to take, but that part of your conflict-knowing comment was useless to the actual conflict on either side, so I ignored it.

Here's my (Milo's) original generic question — Milo 23:14: "How many talk page editors are required to declare a content dispute and place a dispute tag?"

Here's the second part of PrimeHunter's conflict-knowing comment that I also ignored — PrimeHunter 00:14: "Whether that particular discussion has consensus is not a question to decide at the help desk."

Notice the complete disconnect between my question (Milo 23:14) and your comment (PrimeHunter 00:14). I did not ask a question about consensus, I asked a question about rules. Since it did not answer my question, I ignored that part of your comment. Furthermore, if I had asked a question about consensus, you would not have answered it.

PrimeHunter 12:04 wrote: "I'm trying to assume good faith but I wonder whether you deliberately asked a very generic question with no reference to the actual conflict in order to improve the chance of getting an answer you could use in that conflict. I have seen that sort of thing before."

???! Of course you have seen it before -- what you are describing is called rules research in support of an advocacy debate position. It's what lawyers and paralegals do. Again I apologize for the umbrage you are about to take, but your notion that lawyering or its rules research equivalent involves any bad faith is offensively uneducated. Lawyering is the primary basis for enforcing freedoms guaranteed under Western democratic constitutions, and indeed what lesser protections by code law are available in non-democratic states. (See Code of Hamurabi prior to which all laws were unwritten secrets known only to the wealthy, and used to oppress the poor.)

PrimeHunter 12:04 wrote: "Maybe we should have a guideline that says something like "If an editor in an ongoing conflict asks somebody else for an opinion without saying where the conflict is (so the person can see what is going on), then the answer should not be used as argument in the conflict."

Well, no, that would be censorship. But the Help desk guide could state that if the question relates to a current dispute, the questioner should disclose it. After such disclosure I expect I would have had to ask my dispute tag rules question three times to get the simple answer that there no rules, but I could live with that.

Teratornis 21:31 wrote: "omitting details from a question deprives helpers of the chance to see deeper into the real problem"

I agree that's true of the average article editors' food fight situation. But how many details? Where does one draw the line? The details in this unique spoiler tagging situation have so far filled over a half-million bytes of debate. If I had even tried to present the situation, the answer would have been something like 'that situation is too complicated for Help desk.' I already knew that. I just wanted to know what the dispute tag rules were, so that I could present my debate advocacy position based on them, which I did.

Being a skilled reference researcher, as are many Wikipedians, I can assure you that had there been any guide or policy pages to quote on the use of dispute tags, I would not have had any reason to mention Help desk. I guess it's just a down side of your task that I had no choice but to indirectly quote Help desk to prove that certain rules don't exist. Milo 06:08, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

I was unclear when I talked about "very generic question with no reference to the actual conflict in order to improve the chance of getting an answer you could use in that conflict.". By "use in that conflict" I meant something that could be used to indicate support for your side of the conflict, while a more detailed question (for example saying it was a guideline, there was long discussion, a dispute tag had been there for long and then removed), or a question linking to the conflict, might have given a different answer that was less advantageous to your side. We have lots of guidelines about things people shouldn't do. I wouldn't call that censorship. By the time something has escalated into a conflict involving multiple editors, I think it's often too complex to get fitting answers from generic questions to editors who don't know the conflict. We try to avoid instruction creep at the help desk. It's clear that a lot of people don't even read short instructions. We get lots of questions from the FAQ, especially "How do I create a new article?". Few would probably read a long list of rules and suggestions. PrimeHunter 13:30, 27 June 2007 (UTC)