Wikipedia:Village pump (assistance)/Archive P

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Page seems strange

Hello. I was wondering if you could help me with somethign that another user asked me. The page Warped Tour 2007 appears to ignore any text that is added to the bottom of the page. This includes references and any additional that may be added in the future. Hope this seems clear enough. GDon4t0 (talk to me...) 13:44, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

Fixed. One of the ref tags was not closed. -SpuriousQ (talk) 13:53, 23 March 2007 (UTC)
Thanks a lot. GDon4t0 (talk to me...)

Badly Written Article (Thelma Houston)

I came to Wikipedia looking for information on Thelma Houston; I found the article to be poorly written and not "wikified". It sounds like it was written hastily by someone who knows her personally or is a big fan, and it has a lot of opinionated statements. I was wondering if someone with better knowledge of Wikipedia could re-write it. I'm sorry if this comment is in the wrong place, but I'm not familiar with the Wiki community and posted it where it seemed most appropriate. Thank you and Sorry in advance. --152.9.102.200 01:59, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

Anyone can edit Wikipedia, including yourself. That said, the article looks quite good already, perhaps you have found a vandalised version that has been reverted now? x42bn6 Talk 16:58, 29 March 2007 (UTC)
Actually, I agree with User:152.9.102.200... The first few lines of the "Career" section in the Thelma Houston article needed to be edited/omitted for NPOV. I've gone ahead and done so--also, I'm removing the "booking" link at the bottom of the page. I'm fairly sure commercial promotion of the artist is inconsistent with Wikipedia standards--and the link is a 404, besides. Wysdom 18:22, 29 March 2007 (UTC)
I should add, I think, that the article isn't "poorly written", per se (it could use some tweaking for punctuation, et al, but it's fairly good). But it needed the some help to be in standards, and it doesn't cite any sources (that's a big one). I'll see if I have time to clean up the punctuation a bit, but I don't know enough about the subject to retroactively research and source the piece--anyone familiar enough with this subject to help out? --Wysdom 18:26, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

Page move dispute?

A user moved Sealand to Sealand (HM Fort Roughs) and several people have agreed with me that this was not needed. What do I do? Thanks. -Indolences 06:27, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

What's the tag for an image that has a copyright tag you believe to be invalid?

I'm pretty sure there is one and I saw it somewhere, but now I can't find it. Could someone point me in the right direction? -- Robert See Hear Speak 00:23, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

This link might help [1].--Paloma Walker 00:35, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

Working Man Barnstar

Hi there. :-) There's a vote going on at Wikiproject Awards about the possibility of changing the name of the Working Man barnstar. Your input would be much appreciated. Cheers! Raystorm 16:13, 25 March 2007 (UTC) PS:I hope this is the right place in the VP to post this!

Problem with fixing a page

Katie Melua was recently blanked (for no reason). When I try to revert it: I get a note saying MySpace is banned. I even removed the MySpace link: it gave me the same message. Anyone know how to fix this? RobJ1981 06:54, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

This has been fixed by User:Exairetos. It looks like he/she edited out the blog.myspace.com link that was preventing a revert; it's not clear from your description why your attempt to do so wasn't successful.

Spread sheet - entry of data

Is it possible to create a spread sheet and allow people around the world to enter text information into the various columns?

I want to be able to create a spread sheet with about 150 words and phrases in English and allow people around the world to translate the words and phrases into their native languages of Arabic, Bengali, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Hebrew, Hindi, Italian, Japanese, Mandarin, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, Swedish.

If you have an additional language that you would like to have added to the spread sheet, please e-mail to me the name of the language and the translated words. A sample of the spread sheet can be viewed at the following URL: Translation of Philatelic Words and Phrases Spread Sheet. -- Larry from Los Angeles, California, United States 20:34, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

This isn't the right place to ask such a question, since it doesn't appear to involve Wikipedia. (Per WP:NOT, we're not a dictionary, and certainly not a translating dictionary.) Please consider reposting the question at Wikipedia:Reference desk, which helps with questions not directly related to editing Wikipedia. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 13:12, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

Reference at Matthew Sanchez

Can somebody help me? If you look at the References section of the Matthew Sanchez article, one of them is linked to Matt Sanchez, which is just a redirect here on Wikipedia to Matthew Sanchez. But when I go to edit the reference links, they look okay. What am I missing? Corvus cornix 22:26, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

In the cite (which no longer exists in the article), one of the items is "authorlink". That was set equal to "Matt Sanchez". "Authorlink" is used to point to a Wikipedia article on the author of a citation (and so the double-brackets are added when the template is "read" by the software); it just isn't a particularly useful item when it appears in a Wikipedia article about the author of the citation. (It still would be useful, I'd guess, if someone copied the article, since I think the wiki software is essentially suppressing the URL.) -- John Broughton (♫♫) 16:30, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

Siemens AG NPOV (i don't have the time)

Article has recently been heavily assaulted with negative information from an anonymous editor (coupla different IP's). I reverted once, but I don't have the time to adequately address WP:ATT/WP:RS and WP:NPOV problems. It appears that someone with an axe to grind is trying to commandeer the article; I just don't have the time to fight the halfdozen or more edits per day. Anyone want to take an outside look at the past few days' edits and try to keep things in perspective regarding WP:NPOV? Thanks. /Blaxthos 05:59, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

Esperanza rewrite

I recently proposed a change to the essay on WP:EA, but the opposing party in a recent edit war has not responded. In order to avoid additional problems, would someone take a look at my rewrite on User:Ed/Sandbox and consider whether the new version would be appropriate for maintaining the essay?--Ed ¿Cómo estás? 03:32, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

Discussion on Wikipedia about threaded messages vs. wiki on talk pages

I recently came across a discussion on a talk page somewhere where an editor voiced a preference for a threaded, more traditional "message board" format for talk pages rather than the current wiki-driven format used in all other namespaces. For the life of me, I can't find it anymore, and I am looking to use it in a paper I am writing about trade-offs in varying forms of electronic communication. For what it's worth, I'm pretty certain it wasn't on any of the village pump pages as I don't frequent them as often as I'd like. I know it's a long shot but if anyone has a clue where this conversation may have taken place (or even a specific link), I'd be eternally grateful! — PSUMark2006 talk | contribs 19:06, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

Have you responded to that particular comment? Did you actually make an edit to the talk page you're looking for?--Ed ¿Cómo estás? 03:30, 27 March 2007 (UTC)
No, but I was able to determine which page I was looking for by posting at the reference desk (it was a thread on the perennial proposals article). Thanks though! — PSUMark2006 talk | contribs 03:56, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

How to handle two conflicting viewpoints?

Relatively new to all this and I am considering a rewrite of an article (audiophile) that is a bit of mess because the viewpoint of the subject is in conflict with the scientific viewpoint. This is leading to relevant material about the subject's beliefs being deleted because they have no reputable source (based on marketing), are inconsistent and scientifcally wrong. There is also a fair amount of points scoring rather than describing the subject and the inevitable to-and-froing.

I assume this is a fairly common problem and would be grateful for pointers to previous discussions or suggestions on how to handle it. HonestGuv 22:14, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

You might want to check out our third opinion request forum. If it's two editors involved in an amicable disagreement, that's a good place to get an objective opinion. /Blaxthos 21:07, 26 March 2007 (UTC)
Thanks for the information but there is no problem with individuals as such, it is a problem with two groups of people having conflicting viewpoints and this being compounded by the group with the "wrong" viewpoint being the subject of the article. It is more of a structural issue with the way Wikipedia works and I am looking for some pointers. If I am to put in the effort I would like to see some mechanism to prevent the article steadily reverting back to the state it is in now. HonestGuv 21:59, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

Page ressurection

I am wondering where to go to get a deleted page resurrected (at least temporarily). Specifically, the page Turn-based tactics was deleted when a merger took place between it and the page Tactical role-playing game. Several issues have arisen since the merger took place: 1) I believe the merger should have been done in the other direction (i.e., the TRPG article should have been merged into the TBT article), since the TBT genre has greater scope. 2) the merged article does not properly deal with cases where games in one genre do not fit into the other 3) there may be salvagable information left for when and if a new article is created to replace the one that was deleted. I would like to look at this. Thanks! SharkD 00:19, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

It wasn't deleted, the redirect was just placed over the top. THe previous version is still in the history. ViridaeTalk 00:46, 3 April 2007 (UTC)
OK, thanks. I just resurrected the page. SharkD 03:06, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

Have a minute? Assistance Requested on Wikipedia:Request an account

We're currently experiencing a fairly substantial backlog on Wikipedia:Request an account. The issue stems primarily from the 6 account creation limit per day currently imposed on all users. Until this limit is lifted, we need users to create accounts.

There's a new template, and it's extremely easy to use. For each appropriate account, click "create", type the CAPTCHA, and click "by email". That's it. A new bot will handle archiving the request. Thanks! alphachimp 15:54, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

Is this request for help directed to admins only?--Ed ¿Cómo estás? 00:47, 28 March 2007 (UTC)
No, but some requests need an admin. You will know if you find one of them. Prodego talk 01:02, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

Image license

What do I do when I suspect that an unfree image is tagged as in the public domain? Where can I list the image? - Ilse@ 20:25, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

Head on over to Wikipedia:Possibly unfree images and follow the instructions listed there. --MECUtalk 20:56, 27 March 2007 (UTC)
Thank you. There are so many pages about copyright on Wikipedia. - Ilse@ 21:13, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

I am being stalked!

I have attracted the attention of a Wikipedia stalker, so I have decided that I am finished with this. Wikipedia needs a policy on stalking, which is where some person obsessively follows you around, trying to disrupt your activities.

I have e-mail enabled, which allows you to contact me through sending me an email.

I can't be active on Wikipedia when I am being followed by a stalker. My stalker has an amazing knowledge of wikipedia policies and procedures for someone who, according to edit logs, has been active for just over a month. He has been here before, with other identities, and he has other identities. He is likely an administrator, perhaps under some other identity.

I have asked for an administrator to lock and close my user page and hide my contributions log. I naively had such information as my real identity available on my user page. I don't want to be stalked.

I am asking Wikipedia to take these measures to protect my identity. I must warn that, while I hate the idea of this, Wikipedia could be sued by someone in the future who suffers from harassment by another member. It won't be me, because I don't file lawsuits, but I now realize that this community is susceptible to such tampering. So I am recommending that Wikipedia look carefully at its policies, and also at its own administrators.

Would a high level administrator please lock my user page and hide my contributions log.

Thank you! and goodbye. --Metzenberg 17:53, 21 March 2007 (UTC)




We don't really have 'levels' of administrators, in fact any experienced user can be considered competent to answer this. Wikipedia:Harassment is relevant here, so take a look at it. It will give you some helpful information. About your request to "lock and close my user page and hide my contributions log". We can delete and protect your user page (but not your talk page), if you would like; but it is not possible to hide your contributions log. There is no provision for doing so in the software, and only developers have direct access to the database contains that information. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Prodego (talkcontribs) 19:55, 21 March 2007 (UTC).



Metzenberg, I don't mean to imply any insensitivity to your concerns, but it seems to me that the sensible thing to do would be to remove your email address from your preferences, thus disabling the ability of other Wiki users to email you directly. You haven;'t done this, nor have you removed the list of articles you've contributed to that you posted on your user page. In fact, it appears that you added this list of links to your contributions on 26 March 2007--which, by the 21 March date of the above post--would be after you requested that your contributions log be hidden by admins.
Forgive me if I'm confused, but why would you ask that your contributions be hidden (to prevent harassment) and then make said contributions all the easier to find?
You seem to be a prolific contributor on some great subjects, so I certainly don't mean to come across as confrontational, but it seems--to me--unreasonable to criticize the community policies for not "protecting" you when you seem to refuse to protect yourself. You also said you provided your real identity on your user page--what policy is supposed to be able to protect you from yourself? If you wrote your phone number on the wall of a public restroom, would you then critique the phone company when strangers started ringing your line?
I understand you're upset by what you're experiencing, but Wikipedia, its community and policies are not to blame. I'm not saying you are, either--anyone can make a mistake and no one asks to be harassed--but try to be more constructive: become familiar with the policies and the way the community functions, then suggest reform from an informed POV.
And, frankly, this: "I frankly don't want to know all the Wikipedia policies and procedures.. I want to write" isn't going to get you much of anywhere. This isn't a personal blog site--this is a community. If you don't want to know the policies, you deprive yourself of the knowledge of how to write for Wikipedia and you will, likely, be constantly edited to your dissatisfaction. Simply refusing to seek arbitration or other assistance ("If your answer is that I'm supposed to file wiki-dot-colon-xxxcite-procedure and wait for a wiki-xxxxarb-med-committee to volunteer to handle the case, my answer is no.") doesn't seem to be a sensible solution, either. Why not let someone help you?
Anyhow, my two-cents seems to have turned into a buck fifty--best of luck you.
Wysdom 21:01, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

Admin Recall?

Is there a way to nominate an admin to be stripped of their status? Blueaster 05:49, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

BTDT. Chris cheese whine 06:18, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

How do I nominate an article for deletion for the third time?

There's a template for the first and the second.... I tried replacing the "X" in the second one with a 3, but no go. Blueaster 00:05, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

If it has survived two AFDs, perhaps it should live? - DavidWBrooks 00:49, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

i'm actually amazed that it has... considering two different admins closed the discussions, and the arguments for keeping were weak Blueaster 00:59, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

If it really s delete-worthy, you will need to manually edit the results of substing the second-time templates after adding them. Chris cheese whine 01:01, 29 March 2007 (UTC)
See the documentation at Template talk:Afdx. But as others have said you should have a very compelling reason for nominating it a third time. -SpuriousQ (talk) 02:24, 29 March 2007 (UTC)


Thanks, and to whether I have a compelling reason for a threepeat- I do, and have actually prepared the OP for the nom... It's somewhat longer than most... User:Blueaster/delo Blueaster 03:38, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

posting commercial links in an article is this allowed

First, I am not computer saavy. The article "dd form 214" describe a particular military document important for veterans. A new competitor of mine keeps adding links to his page at the bottom. "dd214.us" is a site that appears to be a consumer advocacy page but really is just a way to forward business to another webiste. Is this allowed? I have removed it and added that you can find private companies to obtain your record by searching the internet. He removed that and put back his link? Are private links allowed?

Thanks

Steveljones 14:43, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

No. This is not allowed and the links have been removed and the user warned. You were correct to remove the links in this situation. GDon4t0 (talk to me...) 19:54, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

Number of times a page is viewed

I am not sure if I am asking this is the correct place, so any assistance would be greatly appreciated.

I am wanting to look at how many changes are made to the average page compared to how many times it is viewed. Does anybody know how I can find out how many time a page has been viewed?

Thanks

C8755 15:21, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

For Wikipedia, that feature is disabled for server performance reasons. MECUtalk 16:55, 29 March 2007 (UTC)
You can look at Special:Statistics for some statistics though. MECUtalk 16:56, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

Badly Written Article (Thelma Houston)

I came to Wikipedia looking for information on Thelma Houston; I found the article to be poorly written and not "wikified". It sounds like it was written hastily by someone who knows her personally or is a big fan, and it has a lot of opinionated statements. I was wondering if someone with better knowledge of Wikipedia could re-write it. I'm sorry if this comment is in the wrong place, but I'm not familiar with the Wiki community and posted it where it seemed most appropriate. Thank you and Sorry in advance. --152.9.102.200 01:59, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

Anyone can edit Wikipedia, including yourself. That said, the article looks quite good already, perhaps you have found a vandalised version that has been reverted now? x42bn6 Talk 16:58, 29 March 2007 (UTC)
Actually, I agree with User:152.9.102.200... The first few lines of the "Career" section in the Thelma Houston article needed to be edited/omitted for NPOV. I've gone ahead and done so--also, I'm removing the "booking" link at the bottom of the page. I'm fairly sure commercial promotion of the artist is inconsistent with Wikipedia standards--and the link is a 404, besides. Wysdom 18:22, 29 March 2007 (UTC)
I should add, I think, that the article isn't "poorly written", per se (it could use some tweaking for punctuation, et al, but it's fairly good). But it needed the some help to be in standards, and it doesn't cite any sources (that's a big one). I'll see if I have time to clean up the punctuation a bit, but I don't know enough about the subject to retroactively research and source the piece--anyone familiar enough with this subject to help out? --Wysdom 18:26, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

Antrim Coast and Glens Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty

Any chance someone could get rid of this, I created the page and on reflection decided that the title was, by some orders of magnitude, too large. I've now blanked it, moved the contents to here and fixed the broken links. Sorry if I've gone about it the wrong way. The Boy that time forgot 19:25, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

Done, with a minimum of fuss by Prodego, more power to his elbow. The Boy that time forgot 20:11, 29 March 2007 (UTC)
No problem, in the future you should move pages rather then cut and pasting them, to preserve page history. Prodego talk 20:13, 29 March 2007 (UTC)
Understood. The Boy that time forgot 20:38, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

Bob Essery - Bibliography

The article Bob Essery has a short biographical summary, along with a massive list of books he has (co-)authored. Correct me if I'm wrong, but that's not the right format. Would somebody who knows the format of author articles please check it? kthx, Mazin07CT 20:27, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

Dateless References

Often people add references to an article but don't put a "retrieved" or "accessed" date with it. I need to know what to do about these because for some odd reason, some people consider the access dates to be extremely important. --Wasted Sapience 17:18, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

For online references, check them out "now", and mark them as accessed "today". Chris cheese whine 17:26, 31 March 2007 (UTC)
If the reference is (say) to a Washington Post article, it doesn't matter when the article was accessed; that should be omitted. On the other hand, if the reference is to (say) a page of a website of an organization, then the access date does matter (for example, if subsequently checking the information via archive.org), and should be there.
As to what to do if you see a reference that should have an access date but does not, you have two choices (other than to ignore the problem): (a) you can follow the link yourself, and if it does (still) support the text in the article, add "Accessed on (today's date). [This is what Chris was suggesting.]; or (b) you can probe the article history to figure out which edit added the reference, assume that the access date was the same as the edit date, and add "Accessed on (date of edit)".
If the link is now bad and the reference seems important, (b) is the better approach; in most cases, however, (a) is preferable (a second set of eyes to verify the validity of the reference) and probably faster as well. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 20:23, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

Bank Fishing Assistance

Hi, I was wondering if anyone would mind taking a look at my article entitled Bank Fishing. Feedback and suggestions would be greatly appreceated. Thank you. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Sheilbrown46 (talkcontribs) 17:29, 29 March 2007 (UTC).

To start with, the article seems to have a lot of advice (instructions), in violation of WP:NOT. There are also problems with the last three sections. I've changed the first to "See also" (note the wikilinks); the second and third should be combined into "External links" (note that "links" is not capitalized). And the picture is way too large - see Wikipedia:Manual of Style#Images in general and Wikipedia:Extended image syntax for specifics on fixing.
Finally, this page isn't the right forum to get advice on articles; please see Wikipedia:Peer review and Wikipedia:Requests for feedback instead. You might want to look at Wikipedia:Guide to improving articles and Wikipedia:The perfect article before doing so. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 20:37, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

Is there a doctor in the house?

Hi, 'Pedians :) I was perusing the article on Colorectal cancer and one of the words (at least) seems to be a bit "off". I need someone who has some knowledge of medical terminology to confirm. Under "Symptoms", the usage is as follows:

change in frequency (constipation and/or (spurious) diarrhoea), [emphasis mine]

I'm fairly certain the editor who added this meant "sporadic"? The common definition of spurious, at least, is:

not genuine, authentic, or true; not from the claimed, pretended, or proper source; counterfeit.

There's a definition in biology that means:

(of two or more parts, plants, etc.) having a similar appearance but a different structure.

But I'm not sure that makes sense, either--or perhaps it needs to be better explained for the layperson?

Anyhow, I'm going to be bold and make my edit, (i.e. spurious->sporadic)--but could someone with more knowledge on the subject please check out the article, revert me if necessary, and (in that case) better define/express "spurious" in the context of the article?

Many thanks! Wysdom 17:01, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

You really want to post things like this on the Talk:Colorectal cancer page, not here; there is probably a much better chance that an interested editor will notice it there rather than here. May I suggest you copy the above to the talk page and then delete this section from this page? -- John Broughton (♫♫) 20:43, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

Mini Stub Template

Is there an actual template for this User:Flubeca/stub or that whould do the same thing. There is one for FA, A-class, GA, B-Class, Start, but I didn't find one for stub. Please answer on my talk page.

Flubeca 15:53, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

Citing Google

What is Wikipedia's stance on citing Google search results? For instance, when making a statement regarding the popularity of an opinion, it is very handy to cite the number of hits returned by a Google search. SharkD 19:21, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

It is original research (see WP:OR) to cite Google's search results as a reference for the popularity of an opinion. A reliable source as described at Wikipedia:Attribution#Reliable_sources that says something like "opinion X is popular" is what would be needed to include a statement like the one you describe. Using only Google as a reference, the most that we could claim in an article is that "Google returns _____ results when queried with the term _____". To say anything stronger would be original research. Sancho (talk) 22:30, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

This person is constantly making completely unwikified lists with no sources. What should I do? Salad Days 01:40, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

If you don't get a response from him after messaging him about it, I would request the assistance of an admin to help mediate the problem. From there, the admin is able to take the necessary measures to resolve the situation. I'm not sure what the precedent for punishment is for users that throw up long unverifiable lists and don't respond to requests to provide sources. JHMM13 02:18, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

Page ressurection

I am wondering where to go to get a deleted page resurrected (at least temporarily). Specifically, the page Turn-based tactics was deleted when a merger took place between it and the page Tactical role-playing game. Several issues have arisen since the merger took place: 1) I believe the merger should have been done in the other direction (i.e., the TRPG article should have been merged into the TBT article), since the TBT genre has greater scope. 2) the merged article does not properly deal with cases where games in one genre do not fit into the other 3) there may be salvagable information left for when and if a new article is created to replace the one that was deleted. I would like to look at this. Thanks! SharkD 00:19, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

It wasn't deleted, the redirect was just placed over the top. THe previous version is still in the history. ViridaeTalk 00:46, 3 April 2007 (UTC)
OK, thanks. I just resurrected the page. SharkD 03:06, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

question

(moved from WP:CN) Hi,

I apologize in advance for not putting this in the right place: I'm not sure _where_ I report people who copy from Wikipedia (as opposed to the other way around)...

The following article: http://www.playfuls.com/news_006054_You_Have_Just_Become_a_Universal_Blood_Donor.html

contains striking similarities to the Wikipedia article "Blood Types" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blood_type). Seeing as the article was published today, it seems the Wikipedia entry predates the article, which would lead me to suggest the author violated the Wikipedia GNU Freetext license (in addition to plagiarizing the article).

For what it's worth...

(Where should one post issues like this anyways?)

Regards, —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Durova (talkcontribs) 14:17, 2 April 2007 (UTC).

The process to follow is described at Wikipedia:Mirrors and forks. As far as I know, there is no specific place to report individual instances (like this) of suspected inappropriate reuse, although the talk page of the copied article or Wikipedia talk:Mirrors and forks might be a reasonable place to start. -- Rick Block (talk) 18:44, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

Requesting assistance to form guidelines on editing how-to articles

There are currently over a hundred articles in Category:Articles containing how-to sections, and some work is slowly being done to edit the articles to the appropriate style and tone expected of encyclopedia articles. There's just some big questions unanswered, even tho the category has been in place for almost a year. Some magnificient articles have detailed, useful descriptions on procedures, to the point that the said descriptions are for all practical purposes equivalent with a how-to guide. Yet they have the style and tone fitting to the encyclopedia. There hasn't been a thorough discussion on how to handle such how-to material that have some features of an encyclopedia article, and some features of an instruction guide.

I invite any interested persons to share their thoughts on the talk page of the how-to category. Santtus 15:37, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

I wish to use Wikipedia content for a profit making book.

Is this possible? I wish to use multiple pages of Wikipedia content to write a reference book and I wish to know if it is legal and how to go about doing it. Thanks. Gamedragon11290. An answer by email would be perferable if possible at [e-mail address deleted] Also Sry for the fact that this is not in the right section as I have no idea where to put a question like this. Gamedragon11290 13:33, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

Yes you can do this, according to the conditions carefully explained here. That text is fairly long and you should read it slowly and carefully. -- Hoary 13:38, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

I am new to book publshing (First book and in High School) and before I went to get a copyright, publishers, ect. I just needed to know if I could use Wikipedia Information as it really is the best source of information. I will print that page and have someone who understands it give me a laymans version. Thanks for your help.Gamedragon11290 13:46, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

You'd be better off citing the original sources that Wikipedia cites. Also talk to a reference librarian about your field of interest. That person can probably direct you to some leading references and help you obtain interlibrary loans of those books. By the way, it isn't a good idea to post your e-mail address on the Internet - especially since you're probably underage. Best wishes on your project. DurovaCharge! 14:35, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

Advice for Proper Reference Citation

I am actively updating information on two sites, Moscow-City and Imperia Tower. As I am still new to editing Wikipedia I am in need of a bit of expert advice.

I work with the developer of the Imperia Tower project. Hence, as the entries would not be classified as "independent ideas" I really do not need any specific sources. I simply write accurate updates as a direct result of my knowledge of the project. Not to sound arrogant, but there really are no sources (English speaking) that are more reliable than I am on the subject. How should this referenced? After I get this cleared up I can attribute it to the main article.

Also, my photos keep getting deleted for improper source citing. The developer holds the rights to anything I upload and have no problem with them being disseminated as public domain. I tried to indicate this, but they still get deleted. Any advice here?

Thanks much.

Noelwycliffe 12:15, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

If I understand your question and policy correctly, you can't make edits of the kind that you describe.
You write in a literate, reasonable and polite way, a pleasant contrast to many people who claim to have direct knowledge of the subjects whereof they write. I'm inclined to believe that you're telling the truth. The problem, though, is that anybody can claim to be in the position you claim you are in, and there's a massive opportunity for hoaxes, etc.
When you say that there are no sources in English that are more reliable than yourself, you suggest that there may be reliable, informative and (whether on the web or in print) published Russian-language sources. You're welcome to write stuff that you can cite from Russian.
Another warning: try to go easy on all of this. It can very easily look as if you are engaged in a publicity exercise. If these development sites are really notable, disinterested people are sure to write them up eventually (whereupon you can certainly correct any mistakes).
Now for the photos. I don't know what the precise problem was. However: The developer holds the rights to anything I upload and have no problem with them being disseminated as public domain. That looks dangerously close to a contradiction: By putting something into the public domain, the copyright holder loses all rights. (Yes, all. The photographs can then be recycled, completely legally, in for example material that satirizes or ridicules the sites and their developer, possibly after photoshoplifting.) Read up on "Creative Commons"; it's more likely to be what you're after. -- Hoary 14:00, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

Rename category

Could someone please rename the Category:Turn-based tactics games to Category:Turn-based tactics video games? Thanks! SharkD 04:24, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

The Wikipedia:Categories for discussion page is the place to propose this. It seems pretty uncontroversial. The instructions are there, but the really short version is that you go to Category:Turn-based tactics games and add a {{cfr}} template and follow the instructions on the template.
In this case, the exact syntax would be {{subst:cfr|Turn-based tactics video games}}. Then copy the bold text next to the "add entry" link, click the "add entry" link, and paste in the text, adding your reasons. Hope this helps! Angus McLellan (Talk) 10:00, 10 April 2007 (UTC)
OK, thanks. SharkD 20:04, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

User conduct question

Hello. I recently noticed that an anonymous user had made a sneaky change to an article, and I am confident they knew the information was incorrect. I went to their user talk page and posted a vandalism warning, which was their second. They have now removed my warning from their talk page, claiming in the edit summary that it was not vandalism. What do I do? Joeldl 00:25, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

what type of information? What article? The Placebo Effect 01:49, 10 April 2007 (UTC)
I've deliberately omitted these details. Joeldl 02:07, 10 April 2007 (UTC)
OK, here's some general advice. (1) Make sure that the other user's comment fits the definition at Wikipedia:Vandalism. Many users assume that obviously stupid, clueless or unhelpful edits are vandalism, which is not the case. See What vandalism is not. (2) Ask the anon why his last edit was not vandalism - be sure to include links to both the vandalism and to his reversion of the warning. You've now created a clear record on the page so visitors know there is a hidden history of blanked warnings. If he engages in discussion, he may have just been pissed off at having tags on his page and you can determine if he is clueless, ignorant of site policies, grinding an axe or malicious. If he's clueless or ignorant, just point him towards relevant policies. If he blanks your attempt to communicate, I would take that as a sign that his motivation is to hide his edits. In this case, do a manual merge of the pre-blanking warning revision and the recent discussion and add Template:Blankown. (3) If the anon continues blanking his talk page or appears to be unwilling to abide by site policies, you have two options: (3a) Try to get an admin at WP:ANI to wag his finger at the anon OR (3b) stalk the anon - watchlist the page and check his contribs every once in a while. At the next vandalism, revert to blankown and add test3. If he reverts again, try WP:AIAV. I recommend the latter as being more likely to succeed; test1+test2+blankown would be a very weak basis for a block or a temporary semiprotection of the user talk page. - BanyanTree 08:49, 10 April 2007 (UTC)
Thanks a lot. Very sensible advice. Joeldl 22:20, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

Vandalism Cry For Help

Please pardon my posting this here...I (and other users) have posted requests for help on Wikipedia:Administrator intervention against vandalism, as well as admin talk pages and received no response.

This user has reverted TechCrunch#Criticism 17 times. In fact, that is his entire contribution to Wikipedia.

He has been repeatedly warned on his talkpage, and refused to participate in the Mediation that Wikidemo tried to offer him. He is now openly violating the Mediation Cabal Resolution.

How do we get an admin's attention? Please review the TechCrunch article history and the user's revert history to determine if you agree this user is an aggressive vandal. Please use your sysop powers to help us protect TechCrunch from this user. This has gone on since January 23, and we are exhausted!

Very grateful to anyone who can spare the time to help us, Jonathan Stokes 04:58, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

The mediation is closed so I don't know really - I do think this user is being disruptive, but he has not reverted 17 times. In either case, this does look like a single-purpose account and this could imply conflict of interest. Perhaps you should ask why he is so intent on having that criticism part in the article. If he fails to respond even on his talk page, then I guess it can be counted as disruption and WP:AN/I will help you. I don't think it's a cause for WP:AIV. x42bn6 Talk 14:53, 28 March 2007 (UTC)
17 of the user's edits are rewrites to the criticism section, all of which are either unsourced, sourced to opinion blogs, or in violation of the Mediation Cabal. Maybe "revert" is not quite the perfect word for this. The user will, for instance, retitle the "criticism section" to "advertising" so it appears he is editing different sections in the edit history. However, for those who have been dealing with this for 3 months, I can assure you this user is not interested in building a useful encyclopedia.
What is most exasperating is we already went through the trouble of having mediation cabal, agreed on the exact wording of the criticism section, and this user continues to aggressively delete that section, with no consequence. Thank you for considering this case. Jonathan Stokes 17:12, 28 March 2007 (UTC)
I'd take this to WP:AN/I in this case because the user is not responding to his/her userpage. I think we can let sysops deal with this better. x42bn6 Talk 22:32, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

Okay, I put it back on WP:AN/I. A user put it on WP:AN/I earlier this week and no one responded and then it was deleted. So I don't really understand the process. But maybe this time it will get a response. Jonathan Stokes 23:15, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

I'm the one who instituted a mediation cabal case, hoping to get this resolved constructively. I have no personal stake in the issue other than to try to get a Wikipedia dispute constructively resolved. People on both sides were using the vandalism incident and subsequent edit war as a way to bash Wikipedia as being unreliable, and I wanted to point out that Wikipedia does have procedures and is not a complete free-for-all.
The user in question has been hostile and flat-out said that he (we assume -- his gender is unstated) does not respect the mediation resolution. I spent considerable time and effort compiling links to the dispute resolution procedure and explaining to him that if he doesn't like the mediation results he can take it to arbitration, but he ignored me and simply kept reverting.
We have asked him several times on his talk page and the article talk page to stop reverting the article and take it to arbitration if he doesn't agree with the mediation results. His single-minded insistence on continuing an edit war plus the hostile comments in his edit summaries that we are all biased and the mediation procedure is a sham convince me he is a problem user. He's already rejected procedure. We can't get him to comply voluntarily so somebody with moderator authority needs to step in and do something. Wikidemo 03:58, 29 March 2007 (UTC)
I think we should block this user to get his attention, at least. A user who refuses to discuss with other editors tends to lead to... Problems. x42bn6 Talk 22:44, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

how do you purge a history?

I read Wikipedia:Purge but am unclear on how to super-reload (purge) a history. How would I do so? 69.140.164.142 04:35, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

Go to the pages history in your browser. Then add ?action=purge to the end of its address in the address bar. Then click go.--Dacium 05:09, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

Unknown Copyright

Please take a look at the images on the page Philosopher All-Stars. There are 2 images there that have the copyright tag promophoto labelled. I'm not sure if this is correct or not. Could someone please check it out and have it corrected if necessary?

Also, the page is being built with 1 new person being added every day. So I think it would be stub for now, unless it contains sufficient useful information (which doesn't in my opinion). FirefoxRocks 21:52, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

How to cite wikipedia in a Turabian (Chicago) document?

I have used Wikipedia for a major paper. Now I need to cite it. I however have no author name or publication place. Where would I find this info or how do I correctly attribute it? -Roger McQ —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 67.53.77.141 (talk) 19:24, 5 April 2007 (UTC).

You could treat the Wikipedia source as a webpage and site to the web address, for example: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main-Page (last visited April 5, 2007).

Portrait wanted

Where can I source a portrait of Roberto Ridolfi? Is there a specific place all these images of Tudor nobility are coming from, or are people just looking in the normal way? Dev920 (Have a nice day!) 10:12, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

Adding an example to a Lesson Plan article; request for your comments

I am seeking your comments. Please, check the question here. Sdudah 21:22, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

Inquiry About A Page Designated For Me

Hi Wikipedia,

I just now noticed that there is a page designated for me here:

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

and I have read many of your guidelines and would like to include a short stub article about "Rob Pongi" on the above page. Maybe something like this:

"Rob Pongi is a bilingual Japanese/English American citizen living in Tokyo, Japan. He is a well-known video producer, actor, editor, 3D animation artist, translator, and writer who previously worked in the Japanese TV industry in various roles. Now he produces and broadcasts a wide variety of online videos via Asia Entertainment Online Videos and other online video websites."

However, I am not sure if the above stub proposal is in compliance with Wikipedia policy or not. And, of course, there is much more to my background and career in Japanese TV and web video. In fact, I am one of the original video bloggers on the internet who started out posting quicktime videos on singlereel.com and radicazoo.com back in 2000. Then another American friend and I started TokyoDV.com of which you can see an archived front page of that site from early 2001 here:

http://web.archive.org/web/20010203204600/http://tokyodv.com/

More information, press reviews, viewer blogs, fan art, and other news about myself and my Asia Entertainment Online Videoswebsite can be read about on my review blogs below:

http://robpongireviews.blogspot.com/

http://robpongireviews2b.blogspot.com/

http://robpongireviews2.blogspot.com/

http://robpongireviews3.blogspot.com/

And I am aware of the discouragement of writing autobiographical articles and stubs on Wikipedia. Therefore, if some other editor or admin could either approve or edit my above stub proposal or, if possible, write a longer, more detailed, article for "Rob Pongi" I would greatly appreciate it.

Thank you and best regards,

Rob Pongi

Tokyo, Japan Robpongi 12:16, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

contributions not showing

None of my edits for the last hour are showing in my contribution list. Is something wrong?--Paloma Walker 00:04, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

One explanation, for what it's worth, is that your edits were to one or more articles that were subsequently deleted. Such edits don't show after article deletion.
Another is that you weren't logged in; if you were not, the edits will show in the article history, but not as being done by your registered username.
Do either of those explanations seem possible? -- John Broughton (♫♫) 01:09, 8 April 2007 (UTC)
No edits were deleted, I was logged in. I reverted some vandalisms and commented one an AFD I believe . It seems to have been mentioned elsewhere so I am not the only one having the problem.--Paloma Walker 15:56, 8 April 2007 (UTC)
I was having that problem last night, though not for as long a period of time. When I went to my contributions, the most recent edits were not there. But eventually they showed up. Corvus cornix 18:08, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

copyright on a glyph.

I have a question about a glyph. Suppose I plunk a single Character (鄺 if you are curious) into Inkscape. If I use the font Sazanami Mincho which is as far as I know a free font, am I in the clear to upload the single glyph as an SVG file to replace kwong.png, as per Category:Alphabet images which should be in SVG format? Or should I use another font? Thanks Duomillia 01:56, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

Mini Stub Template

Is there an actual template for this User:Flubeca/stub or that whould do the same thing. There is one for FA, A-class, GA, B-Class, Start, but I didn't find one for stub. Please answer on my talk page.

Flubeca 15:53, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

What's up with the spam filter?

I attempted to remove a dead link from Delhi Public School Society. When I clicked save, a page came up that said I had attempted to add a blacklisted link and when I clicked on that link it brought me to Spam blacklist. Perhaps it needs a a bit of tweaking.--Dakota 04:52, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

Persistent Reverter

On the Samsung Electronics article. Youngjoon Shin has been inserting claims that, upon closer inspection, I am convinced are bogus. He says one thing and cites articles that says another as support, and I suspect this has happened on other pages as well, although not under the same user name. I typed up my case in the discussion page and so far his only response is deleting what I wrote, as well as reinserting said claims back into the article. What should I do? --Rmdsc 09:38, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

Firstly try discussing th issue on the articles talk page. The article is now fully protected for a short amount of time so neither of you can edit it. Try and work any disagreements oout before either of you try and edit again when the protection expires. If that doesn't work try WP:DR. ViridaeTalk 09:45, 7 April 2007 (UTC)
I tried, and all the response I've been getting is deletion. I didn't even know we're allowed to delete others' comments on the article talk pages. What can I do when I can't even get the other side to talk to me? --Rmdsc 05:43, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

Need help editing a navigation template

I am working on a right-justified, narrow "bookmark" navigation template. I would like to know how to make there be less space between the lines of text (in order to make the entire template shorter.) Thank you! Joie de Vivre 18:55, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

Joseph Sears School: Where do I start?

What are some other editors' suggestions? How can I improve this article? Should I be bold and start removing material? I've had requests on this page for improved sourcing since March 25, and there have been numerous editors work on the page since, without the requested improvements being made. Sancho 17:03, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

Should this threat be take seriously?

I noticed the link to this page "How to destroy Wikipedia" reverted on the Bill White (neo-Nazi) page, so I went to check it out. It's a claim of a concept to build a mass vandalization system. I'm not enough of a hacker to know how easy it is to do this. But apparently a lot of individuals read this guy's postings, so hopefully someone with some technical know-how can examine the situation. Citicat 03:22, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

Moving to WP:ANI, please continue discussion there. ViridaeTalk 22:49, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

Login assistance

How can I have the email address in my Wikipedia account profile changed without loggin into the account myself to do so?

I am an old user who has forgotten his password and whose email address has changed since setting up a Wikipedia user account. As a result, I can not login into my account. The only automated option presented is to have a new password emailed in place of my old one. But that is of no help, since the email address in my record is no longer active and accessible. I do not want to give up my user name and create a new account.

Is there a designated person I can contact to assist me with this?

Thanks, —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 67.112.196.4 (talk) 22:27, 6 April 2007 (UTC).

Unless there is a compelling need to preserve the same login ID (like you are an administrator, or you have made thousands of edits under your old ID, or you are very well known under your old ID), the best option is to simply create a new one. -- Rick Block (talk) 16:08, 7 April 2007 (UTC)
And to answer your question about a designated person, the answer is no. The downside of not requiring paid registration, which would gather info like your real name and address, and would provide funds for the Foundation, is that there is neither a way to verify that the user account was yours nor funding for a person to talk to about the problem. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 01:13, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

Coordinates

How do you format the coordinates as in location-related articles?  ~Steptrip 21:42, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

Copyright lisence choice

Saskatoon Population
Land Annexation by Decade

Source Populace Spring 2006 Quotation "NOT COPYRIGHT and may be used freely"

Can these two above images be used at wikicommons as the web page states "NOT COPYRIGHT and may be used freely"

I have emailed as well. If it is OK, have I chosen the appropriate license tag?

Kind Regards and thank you. Julia 04:37, 1 April 2007 (UTC)SriMesh

That seems fine, since the language seems to imply that it has been put into the public domain. The template to use there, then, would be commons:Template:PD-author, and you would add the author to the end of that, so it would look like (you can just copy and paste this, both lines): {{Template:PD-author|City of Saskatoon Community Services Department, City Planning Branch ([http://www.saskatoon.ca/org/city_planning/resources/populace_newsletter/Populace_Spring_2006.pdf])}} .

That would produce the below:

-- Robert See Hear Speak 22:31, 7 April 2007 (UTC)


user in mainspace

This user has his userpage redirecting to KingCobra which is in mainspace. 70.104.16.217 00:28, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

Good catch. I dropped User:Risteard B a note and put a {{prod}} on KingCobra. HausTalk 02:17, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

This person is constantly making completely unwikified lists with no sources. What should I do? Salad Days 01:40, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

If you don't get a response from him after messaging him about it, I would request the assistance of an admin to help mediate the problem. From there, the admin is able to take the necessary measures to resolve the situation. I'm not sure what the precedent for punishment is for users that throw up long unverifiable lists and don't respond to requests to provide sources. JHMM13 02:18, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

Who has a stub I may work on?

I dont want to start a new one.

Do you like airplanes? (remember to sign your posts with four tildes: ~~~~ Sancho 23:55, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

Yes, I would like to write about airplanes. May someone direct me to a page about Wikipedia page formatt? Posey 00:48, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

Certainly. See Wikipedia:Manual of style. Also, I always find examples are very good to learn from. You should check out the Wikipedia:Featured_articles. Here's a stub that I'm pretty sure can be quickly improved to something a bit more informative: Glasair_I. There are a bunch more here: Category:Aircraft_stubs. Happy editing and feel free to ask for help. Sancho 01:03, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

Sanchom, Sorry, I have found the orphaned article site ,and I will work on those instead.Posey 00:59, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

Oh, okay, that's a good place too! See you around. Sancho 01:03, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

So, I translated this FA...

Hi, I need some advice from people who routinely work at and above the GA-level.

With assistance from the original author, I've spent two days translating the French featured article fr:Vraquier and merging the material into Bulk carrier. The prose is by no means Hemmingway-esque yet, and maybe a third of the citations still need to be re-sourced from English-language materials. Other than that, I'd say the article has some potential.

Now, as I understand it, at 46 kilobytes of text, the article would never fit the profile of a potential Good Article. So, I guess I'm wondering what someone who has worked at and above the GA-level would do with this article. Spend a few weeks perfecting it? Immediately submit it for peer review? Tie a brick to it and throw it in the ocean? It seems that moving on to another project and just letting it sit there is not the right thing to do.

So, in my position, what would you do? Thanks in advance for your advice. HausTalk 19:34, 9 April 2007 (UTC) (Oh, p.s. this whole project is kind of a dry run prior to translating fr:Bateau into Ship.)

Well, that's a great article. Peer review and then take it to FAC, you may as well take it all the way. Dev920 (Have a nice day!) 19:38, 9 April 2007 (UTC)
Thanks very much! As soon as I remember how to write in English, I will take it to peer-review. :) HausTalk 20:03, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

On the whole, it looks pretty good. However, I can predict a few of the criticisms you're going to get on the FAC:

  • The article is very list heavy. You might want to turn into prose the ones that can be prosified.
  • Reference 21 was both broken (in that the link didn't work) and messed up. I tried to fix but the link is still broken.
  • I'm not sure about the use of the gallery.
  • Someone might say that with "only" 21 citations there aren't enough. Raul654 21:34, 9 April 2007 (UTC)
Thanks very much for the feedback! As someone who spends his time toiling in the sub-GA salt-mines, this is exactly the sort of feedback I need. I'll fix the link, beef up the citations, and look into prosification before sending it to peer-review. I'm hesitant about removing the galleries at this point, although I suspect they do fall somewhere between overused and inappropriate. Thanks again! HausTalk 22:00, 9 April 2007 (UTC)
To expand on Raul's last point, check out any recently-created FA or any of the FACs currently up there for adequate criticism. The most typical no-no is to not have any citations in a paragraph at the end of that paragraph to verify the information therein. However, most articles will require many more than just one citation per paragraph as you can see in just about any FAC that is passing through right now. This does not count for the lead where there should typically only be notes as it is a regurgitation of information already sourced in the body of the article. You can have citations in your lead, of course, but it might look better not to have them. Make sure the sources you find are reliable and noteworthy. Something I just made up like theamateurboatguy.com might not be the most reliable source of information out there. Better to use mostly reputable books and supplement that information with stuff you find on reliable websites. JHMM13 22:34, 9 April 2007 (UTC)
Try running it through Wikipedia:Peer review. Also don't let the article size scare you away from WP:GA. It might not be in the official language, but plenty of editors (myself included) have promoted longish GAs as encouragement to editors who've been laboring toward FA if the page meets all other GA requirements. DurovaCharge! 23:07, 9 April 2007 (UTC)
Thank you both for your input. I was actually on the verge of asking this question directly on JHMM13's talk page, but it looked like he had his hands full. :) These responses have given me a laundry list which I should be able to complete in a day or two, then I'll try peer review with an eye towards the GA process. I've put {{fact}} templates in where I think inline citations will be needed and the number is more like 75 than 21 now. Thanks again! HausTalk 00:11, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

How do we "Assume Good Faith" with an editor apparently pursuing a vendetta?

A new Wikipedia account started appearing on Wikipedia on December 30, 2006. After a few minor edits on other articles - the editor settled as a single-issue editor on the Pete Townshend article.

The editor gave him/her-self the name Wiki-is-truth.

The calm that had prevailed for 12 months on the article was over. An edit war erupted. Eventually it was resolved with a compromise and a straw poll set up by an administrator. The editor Wiki-is-truth signed off on the compromise:

Support the version above Wiki-is-truth 22:33, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

After that - the editor disappeared and did not make a single appearance on Wikipedia till today (April 9, 2007). And then just to involve him/her-self in the same Pete Townshend matter. So far - just on the Talk Page.

On the surface there is absolutely nothing wrong with any of that. If a person chooses to be a single-issue editor - contributing to only one article or Talk Page - that is totally ok. If a person wishes to take a break from Wikipedia for a few weeks - that is totally ok.

The issue is this. Several editors believe (and have stated on the Pete Townshend Talk Page) that this person is present on Wikipedia for one primary purpose. To pursue a vendetta against Pete Townshend.

The evidence for this is in the multiple posts by the person on the Talk Page for the article on Pete Townshend. And in the history of his/her edits on the article.

Here is just the latest example fron the Talk Page - posted today:

"as a quick aside, I would rather call Townshend a promoter of child porn than a "blaggard" - Wiki-is-truth 14:32, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

As editors - we are supposed to "Assume Good Faith".

How are we supposed to do so in the face of someone who asserts that Pete Townshend (who the UK police thoroughly investigated for four months and then decided NOT to charge with any criminal offense) is "a promoter of child porn"? Davidpatrick 15:25, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

The policy is to assume good faith. That means that, in the absence of solid evidence to the contrary, you should act as though someone is indeed a good faith editor. This is solid evidence to the contrary, so you don't still have to act as though he really is acting in good faith. -Amarkov moo! 15:29, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

Well, I agree with you, but I don't know what to do about it. Posey 01:02, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

Wrong Image in Joseph Stalin

In Joseph Stalin is a wrong image Image:Thumbsup.jpg! Please delete or change this. -- sk 17:14, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

That vandalism was immediately removed. Anyone can revert vandalism using the history tab. JHMM13 23:48, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

Rename category

Could someone please rename the Category:Turn-based tactics games to Category:Turn-based tactics video games? Thanks! SharkD 04:24, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

The Wikipedia:Categories for discussion page is the place to propose this. It seems pretty uncontroversial. The instructions are there, but the really short version is that you go to Category:Turn-based tactics games and add a {{cfr}} template and follow the instructions on the template.
In this case, the exact syntax would be {{subst:cfr|Turn-based tactics video games}}. Then copy the bold text next to the "add entry" link, click the "add entry" link, and paste in the text, adding your reasons. Hope this helps! Angus McLellan (Talk) 10:00, 10 April 2007 (UTC)
OK, thanks. SharkD 20:04, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

User conduct question

Hello. I recently noticed that an anonymous user had made a sneaky change to an article, and I am confident they knew the information was incorrect. I went to their user talk page and posted a vandalism warning, which was their second. They have now removed my warning from their talk page, claiming in the edit summary that it was not vandalism. What do I do? Joeldl 00:25, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

what type of information? What article? The Placebo Effect 01:49, 10 April 2007 (UTC)
I've deliberately omitted these details. Joeldl 02:07, 10 April 2007 (UTC)
OK, here's some general advice. (1) Make sure that the other user's comment fits the definition at Wikipedia:Vandalism. Many users assume that obviously stupid, clueless or unhelpful edits are vandalism, which is not the case. See What vandalism is not. (2) Ask the anon why his last edit was not vandalism - be sure to include links to both the vandalism and to his reversion of the warning. You've now created a clear record on the page so visitors know there is a hidden history of blanked warnings. If he engages in discussion, he may have just been pissed off at having tags on his page and you can determine if he is clueless, ignorant of site policies, grinding an axe or malicious. If he's clueless or ignorant, just point him towards relevant policies. If he blanks your attempt to communicate, I would take that as a sign that his motivation is to hide his edits. In this case, do a manual merge of the pre-blanking warning revision and the recent discussion and add Template:Blankown. (3) If the anon continues blanking his talk page or appears to be unwilling to abide by site policies, you have two options: (3a) Try to get an admin at WP:ANI to wag his finger at the anon OR (3b) stalk the anon - watchlist the page and check his contribs every once in a while. At the next vandalism, revert to blankown and add test3. If he reverts again, try WP:AIAV. I recommend the latter as being more likely to succeed; test1+test2+blankown would be a very weak basis for a block or a temporary semiprotection of the user talk page. - BanyanTree 08:49, 10 April 2007 (UTC)
Thanks a lot. Very sensible advice. Joeldl 22:20, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

67.98.154.56 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) - I would appreciate it if someone could check out the contribs of this editor. I removed a large chunk of the article Dannielynn Stern paternity case here which was a copyvio from here. (It had been there for a while BTW) As the editor appears to have made a number of other contribs, it would be good if someone can check and make sure there are no more copyvios. The copyright infrigments page doesn't appear to have any place for reporting users so this appeared to be the best place. I am too busy in real life to do it myself. I think it is one editor because the user page has 'busy in real life' and 'proud to be an American' userboxes. Nil Einne 12:46, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

I took out a bit more then I had intended to and have readded it here. Also, the editor appears to have taken it from a different source. However the editor's source still claims copyright. The actual text is all over the web but no evidence it is public domain or GFDL. For further info, see Talk:Dannielynn Stern paternity case#Large chuck which was copyvio Nil Einne 13:18, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

Unknown Copyright

Please take a look at the images on the page Philosopher All-Stars. There are 2 images there that have the copyright tag promophoto labelled. I'm not sure if this is correct or not. Could someone please check it out and have it corrected if necessary?

Also, the page is being built with 1 new person being added every day. So I think it would be stub for now, unless it contains sufficient useful information (which doesn't in my opinion). FirefoxRocks 21:52, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

Can I add this to wikipedia or will it be viewed as biased?

My teacher has asked me to post a critical appriciation on a bronte poem. I just wondered if something like this would be too biased to include in the wikipedia page of the poem?



‘Will the day be bright or cloudy?’ – a critical appreciation


‘Will the day be bright or cloudy?’ is a poem written by Emily Jane Bronte on the 12th of July 1836, whilst at Haworth. Its themes include mythology, omens and nature, and each of these are interlinked using nature imagery. The poem tells how the weather at the time of a newborn girl’s birth will tell their future.

Within this poem, Emily uses both structural and linguistic techniques to convey her message, though with this poem the emphasis comes more from the language used. Again nature is used to metaphorically describe the future – the quotation ‘Will the day be bright or cloudy?’ being the perfect example of this.

Natural language is used throughout the poem however, with each ‘flower’, ‘rain’ and ‘cloudless blue’ (skies) lending the poem an air of ambiguity that allows it to be read on several different semantic levels. For example, the aforementioned ‘cloudless blue’ skies can be interpreted both literally as clear and nice weather, and then metaphorically, as a happy and unmarked life.

Indeed, this second forms the basis of the content of this poem, with Emily extending the idea of pathetic fallacy with phrases such as ‘If a shadow Quench his rays’ and linking it with the mythical ideas of ‘Apollo’, proclaiming that the future can be told through the weather.

Emily repeats her prophesies at the end of each of the last three stanzas. Each of these build up to her climatic ending with a religious reference to ‘Glory’s light’ – an insight to how she has faith in god, yet believes in fate, and luck. The joining theme within this poem, and the only thing Emily really trusts seems to be the nature around her.



If so, could someone suggest what I can do to overcome this, such as link to a page containing the critical appriciation (perhaps on wikibooks?) or state clearly at the begining of the section that this is 'an opinionated analysis of the text that is subject to bias and should not be cited as fact'.

Thanks very much

KaizenNk 09:57, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

Thank you for posting your question here. Although it looks like you've written a good critical appreciation, that particular piece wouldn't fit into Wikipedia without extensive revision. We're an encyclopedia and the approach here is somewhat different. If your teacher instructed you to post that onsite then please ask your teacher to contact Wikipedia. I happen to be an administrator and I have proposed a formal WikiProject to help teachers coordinate classroom assignments that tell students to edit Wikipedia so your teacher may contact me. I'm available through User talk:Durova and via the e-mail link at my user talk page. DurovaCharge! 15:33, 10 April 2007 (UTC)


Thank you very much! I'll ask my teacher to get back to you soon as I'm back at school (next week). In the meantime I should probably tell you that there was an entire class that was asked to do this - some of whom have already posted. I'm not sure of exactly where they have put their work, but I believe they are all under pages regarding specific Brontë poems (We were asked to create an entire page for our poem, with a critical appreciation at the end)

I'll try and tell my other classmates to remove the opinionated stuff ASAP and present them separately in class.

Many thanks,


KaizenNk 08:42, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

You're welcome. One of our site policies is Wikipedia:No original research which means you're supposed to summarize published expert opinions rather than post your own opinions, no matter how smart you may be. You deserve bonus points for asking the site's editors how to incorporate your material appropriately and if I get the chance to interact with your instructor I'll be sure to let him or her know that. Best wishes, DurovaCharge! 14:36, 11 April 2007 (UTC)
By the way, Wikipedia:WikiProject Classroom coordination is up and running now. Your teacher could also go there. DurovaCharge! 01:15, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

Should this article even stay? I mean, I don't get what the creator is trying to deliver in this article, except that Virtual kennel is something that "happens only in the Interenet" information about... dogs that are "not real".

IF it's a valid article, then it requires major cleanup and wikify. — Yurei-eggtarttalk 08:06, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

This definitely looks like a candidate for speedy deletion, and I've tagged it as such. The article's author is, it seems, the owner/operator of the website which is the only cited "source" for the content. I've tagged it as db-web, but really it's almost spam--only falling short of "blatant advertising" in that the site doesn't appear to be commercial. Wysdom 01:41, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

hindu judges in former east pakistan 1947-1970

Can someone provide any source of information about the Hindu judges at various levels in East Pakistan? Is it possible to know about them and their careers and about their rulings? Are these records available anywhere. I am working on a research project. Thanks for any help. Please e-mail: —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 76.18.110.32 (talk) 00:14, 13 April 2007 (UTC).

You might get a better response at Wikipedia:WikiProject Bangladesh. I have removed your email address as anything posted on Wikipedia becomes very very public. - BanyanTree 09:06, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

I do not know how to fix it, but there is some kind of problem with Template:Infobox_Egyptian_Political_Party. Examples of this problem can be seen at New_Wafd_Party, Liberal_Party_(Egypt), Tomorrow_Party, or National_Progressive_Unionist_Party (Although for some reason National_Democratic_Party_(Egypt) seems unaffected). I have no idea how to create or fix the templates, so could someone give me a hand? Crito2161 23:40, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

This template probably uses very bad template syntax. Basically you have to fill in Template:New Wafd Party/meta/color with content similar to Template:National Democratic Party (Egypt)/meta/color. I think the template should be redesigned, in that case. But there's your problem. x42bn6 Talk 23:46, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

Adding an example to a Lesson Plan article; request for your comments

I am seeking your comments. Please, check the question here. Sdudah 21:22, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

The Scott Mills page is a mess!

Scott Mills... I've tried fixing it by multiple means, and browsed through reams of its increasingly confused history, but just cannot understand why sections such as the "Radio 1 career" only show up on the edit page and not the actual article. In fact, despite my good intentions, I think I'm just making it worse, cos I made another section disappear trying to get it into its proper place. I'm not even gonna start on that bloody References section...! What on Wiki-earth is going on with this page?! Somebody help please!

Sebcastle 19:03, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

I looked at it and made a minor edit to the reference template. Other than that, it's fine. I'm not sure what exactly happened for you. YechielMan 20:32, 13 April 2007 (UTC)
There was a faulty </ref> tag, and that was gumming up the works. I fixed it. Cheers. HausTalk 21:04, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

Something went wrong here (see at the bottom). Is anyone able to fix that? Thanks. --217.11.34.119 16:14, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

It's a botched template cut-and-paste - but I can't fix it fully - hopefully it's good enough. x42bn6 Talk 22:51, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

Archie Comics Portal

I am looking for anyone who is interested in helping me get the Archie Comics Portal out of the "Under Construction" category. There are a lot of articles in the Archie Comics category, but I haven't found one yet that's good enough to be used as a featured article (lots of stubs and messy articles). I am most interested in using the main Archie Comics article as a featured article. There's a ton of work to be done to get all the Archie stuff cleaned up, but I'd like to finish the portal before I get busy with the rest of the cleanup. If interested, post a note on my talk page. Thanks! Oldiesmann 01:15, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

user in mainspace

This user has his userpage redirecting to KingCobra which is in mainspace. 70.104.16.217 00:28, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

Good catch. I dropped User:Risteard B a note and put a {{prod}} on KingCobra. HausTalk 02:17, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

Main Function

Does the main function enable linkages to Wikitravel pages as well? If so, can you please let me know the syntax Kalyan 21:57, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

The syntax is [[Wikitravel:page]]. E.g. [[Wikitravel:Yosemite National Park]] produces WikiTravel:Yosemite National Park. A full list of interwiki syntax can be found at m:Interwiki map. --Sam Blanning(talk) 22:39, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

Unfair image of Canadian legal system

The many serious injustices that have existed and that still do exist in the canadian legal system are not even hinted at. For example up until a few years ago the jury selection legislation was so biased in favour of the government (52 vs 12 stand asides of potential jurors). This potential to abuse power and deny the fairness of trials was exercised in one case to impose an all female jury on a man accused of physical assault on a female and the supreme court of canada had not the probity to rule against this travesty of justice. See Biddle, Eric R. in internet 35 pages of sophistry. The canadian government was years later to decide that the jury selection process was unconstitutional but this was of not help to the man who was wrongly imprisoned many years or to others who were denied the right of a fair trial. Some years ago the jury selection process was changed to 12 stand asides each for the government and the defense. A serious continuing injustice is that the government prosecuutor can still arbitrarily restrict an accused´s election of trial by judge alone or by judge and jury. One specific case is that of a man who was forced to endure a jury trial in an eye witness identification case. In legal circles but not in the general public it is common knowledge that the special training of a judge is needed to deal with the inherent frailties of eye witness identification and a jury is to be avoided at all costs. This injustice was forced on me in 1987 by Eugene McDermott and this abiltiy to abuse power remains in the hands of the government prosecutors at least in the province of Ontario. Another power to abuse that remains in the hands of the Ontario, Canada prosecution is the right to arbitrarily impose fitness to stand trial hearings on an accused. The accused need not display signs of serious mental illness or be acting strangely in Court. This is especially dangerous to the accused because the prosecution can fabricate evidence of eye witness identification where there was not by having the victim or victims present at the hearings and be negatively influenced by the common prejudice against anyone who has ever had a mental illness. The Canadian system of reviewing possible wrongful convictions is scandalous in that anyone who has an outstanding charge, no matter how minor, is deemed ineligible for the benefit of the legislation. Eric Biddle <email address removed> 16 April 2007

Then edit the relevant articles to provide a better balance. Please be sure to include citations to reliable sources so that any opnions are not merely your own, but are properly attributed to a reliable source, and any statemetns of fact ar properly verifiable. DES (talk) 16:54, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

How many disambig "articles" exist?

Could someone please tell me exactly how many disambig "articles" are there? Does anyone know a way to find out? Perhaps an automated service states it? — Jack · talk · 02:38, Monday, 16 April 2007

Based on results returned by "what links here" there are between 80,000 and 85,000 pages that transclude {{Disambig}}. Not all disambiguation pages use that template, but they are supposed to. DES (talk) 17:01, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

Please take a look, add a fresh mind and set of eyes

There is a heated discussion going on at the Apple Inc. Talk page over the use of reliable sources. I personally am involved in the discussion, but have decided to step out for a few days to keep things civil. What is really needed are more voices, and not the same three or four people talking about the issue. So, I ask that anyone with a bit of free time take a look at the talk page and give their two cents on the discussion. Thanks. -steventity 15:13, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

You should seek out the mediation cabal. YechielMan 04:37, 20 April 2007 (UTC)
Argh. I was hoping to avoid that. Thanks. -steventity 04:55, 20 April 2007 (UTC)
Actually, I hadn't even heard of the mediation cabal. Thanks bunches. -steventity 04:58, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

Photograph Dispute on the B-36 Article Page

This particular issue goes awhile back. I've done the suggested advice and let the situation cool down before I attempt to resolve this situation.

This is the problem, the user Rogerd has been trying to put his personal photograph on the B-36 article. He does not hide the fact that he took it since it is featured on his personal photograph gallery http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Rogerd/photo_gallery

I feel very strongly that he is bias towards his photograph versus the official U.S. Air Force photograph taken of the same aircraft, which in my opinion, is of better quality and is not crooked. In addition, this photograph does not show any museum spectators and does not obsecure the aircraft from view and shows more of the aircraft http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:060315-F-1234P-001.jpg

I feel that I was unfairly overwhelmed by his inner circle of users on Wiki and the dispute is still unresolved in my opinion.

-Signaleer 18:41, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

As someone who's never seen that article or the images before, I have to agree with the general consensus on the article talk page, where most folks discussing it felt his image was stronger. As noted there, the USAF image you provided does show more of the aircraft, but it's got sharpness issues, and the angle of rogerd's image shows more of the fuselage and markings. Having the person in the foreground also provides some scale to the overall image, IMO. (Oops - must learn how to link to images without them popping up...) Tony Fox (arf!) 18:59, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

Somantics

A question of somantics of WP:NC really I guese ... but should a Article be NAMED as (disambiguation) if it does not contain a {{disambig}} template in it? see Aerial perspective (disambiguation)
Exit2DOS2000TC 05:40, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

whoops, bv template

not exactly sure how to fix it (a mop might have it better w/delete power), but i'm guessing you can see what i was trying to do here. i was trying to redirect a template just like bv goes to blatantvandal, etc. anyone? JoeSmack Talk 19:12, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

I fixed it. The problem was that you had a double redirect. Tra (Talk) 19:32, 17 April 2007 (UTC)
The dreaded! ack! My mistake, thanks for helping with it. JoeSmack Talk 20:29, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

Excel table - WIKI table

How do I simply put an excel table into an article as a Wiki table?

  • You'd need to reformat in the wiki-markup language, so it'd be readable to everyone. See WP:TABLE WilyD 15:07, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

Question about Original Research

On Talk:Ancient_Egypt_and_race#remove_OR there is a disagreement over whether a certain paragraph is Original Research. Urthogie 19:36, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

My page is "missing"

I created a page last Friday and am unable to find it (Caritas Holy Family Hospital) Can someone help and tell me what I did wrong? I'd hate to recreate the entire thing. Kurman 22:27, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

No article has ever existed at Caritas Holy Family Hospital. Are you sure that was the name of the article? Wikipedia is case-sensitive (so caritas holy family hospital is a different article from Caritas Holy Family Hospital - there wasn't ever an article at the former either, for the record). In any case, many such articles are deleted under our speedy criteria, usually for being grossly promotional (General-11), not asserting notability (Articles-7), or both. Articles need independent reliable sources to meet our notability criteria. It's impossible to say for certain if that was why the article was deleted (or if it was at all) without knowing where it was, though. --Sam Blanning(talk) 22:32, 15 April 2007 (UTC)
I think you mean Caritas Holy Family Hospital and Medical Center.S Sepp 22:03, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

Social structure of China

Social_structure_of_China
Can someone revert the vandalism in this article?? Sitethief 13:04, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

Done, user warned as well. You can revert the page yourself but I guess your browser crashed too?  :( x42bn6 Talk 17:01, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

Editing my profile; specific request

Hey,

I'm trying to edit my profile and I've done quite a bit to it. But I can't find a user template to display one as a socialist (is there even such a template?). As these beliefs are quite important to me I'd like it if someone could please edit my profile to include such a template. (The spot where I want it has "{{User Socialism}}" from my last attempt.

Was posted by User:Henners91
Sitethief 13:06, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

Why won't this image display?

Image:MTA Metro-North Railroad logo.png exists, but shows up as a red link when placed in an infobox. It's not a problem with the infobox coding, since other articles like Pennsylvania Railroad work fine. What's going on? --NE2 19:59, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

Never mind; it was a problem with template:infobox rail when no logo_size is specified. Apprently some of the coding that was used no longer works. --NE2 20:26, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

Transwiki'ing content

Hi, a new wiki for George R. R. Martin's book series A Song of Ice and Fire has been set up at [4] and I was just wondering if anybody had any suggestions on how to transwiki some of the files here to there. The wiki is already licensed appropriately, so I don't imagine that'll be a problem, but I'm hesitant to play around with the software myself. Mister.Manticore 17:24, 22 April 2007 (UTC)

  • I have tools that can transwikify content between any two GFDL MediaWiki wikis. I was going to fix up the non-GFDL-compliant copy of A Song of Ice and Fire on your wiki, transwikifying it properly, as an example. However, I was unable to create any accounts because of the hoops that account creation on that wiki requires people to jump through. So I gave up attempting to help you. When you ask for help from passing volunteers from the world at large, make it easy for those people to give it to you. Uncle G 23:53, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

Assistance with Archiving

Can anyone tell me how do I archive everything on my user talk page, as it is getting quite long, and have it done automatically every couple of weeks? Thanks. ThePointblank 17:34, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

Take a look at WP:ARCHIVE. You should find everything you need there. --Wayne Miller 19:04, 25 April 2007 (UTC)
Cheers, thanks! ThePointblank 20:57, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

Please take a look, add a fresh mind and set of eyes

There is a heated discussion going on at the Apple Inc. Talk page over the use of reliable sources. I personally am involved in the discussion, but have decided to step out for a few days to keep things civil. What is really needed are more voices, and not the same three or four people talking about the issue. So, I ask that anyone with a bit of free time take a look at the talk page and give their two cents on the discussion. Thanks. -steventity 15:13, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

You should seek out the mediation cabal. YechielMan 04:37, 20 April 2007 (UTC)
Argh. I was hoping to avoid that. Thanks. -steventity 04:55, 20 April 2007 (UTC)
Actually, I hadn't even heard of the mediation cabal. Thanks bunches. -steventity 04:58, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

Conjugal Visits

I don't even know if I'm posting this in the right spot, so if I'm not, I'm truely sorry. I have a question about Conjugal visits. Why is it that only 6 states allow them? I would think they would work well in a lot more states. Just curious and if anyone has the answer please let me know.

MommaRyan 21:38, 19 April 2007 (UTC)MommaRyanMommaRyan 21:38, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

Hey there. I've just copied your question over from here to the Reference Desk; they may be able to come up with a reply for you. Cheers! Tony Fox (arf!) 22:27, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

Dave Moore links

Just found an entry about musician Jeffrey Foucault, which mentions toward the end that DAVE MOORE played on his most recent record. The hyper link for DAVE MOORE is incorrect and leads to a page for a Minnesota television personality of the same name, and not the musician DAVE MOORE, who is from Iowa, has released a number of albums with Red House Records, is an accordion and mouth harp player, blues singer, etc.

It looks like it was linked in error... There is a disambibuation page for the name Dave Moore and it contains a red link (no article written yet) for the musician. I will correct the link at the Jeffrey Foucault article if no one else has done so. However, to get rid of the redlink, you will have to start an article on Dave Moore (song writer). Blueboar 13:27, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

Email forwarding

Hi,

I was writing a guideline for users of a local community site (http://www.lenzie.org.uk - if its relevant) and I wanted to say: "don't use your own email address when providing a link for clubs etc. because you'll get spam .... use an email forwarding service.

I thought I'd find a useful list of email forwarding services such as Yahoo, etc. on Wikipedia, but instead found nothing listed under Email forwarding.

I've started writing an article, but I'm bushifying all the terminology and it really needs someone who knows what they are talking about to give me a hand before it is all Iraqified.

Mike 10:32, 20 April 2007 (UTC)


Actually - let's be honest, I really want to know whether Email forwarding is going to stay around long enough for me to suggest people visit it to find a list of email forwarding services or whether I should provide another link!Mike 10:35, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

It looks like a needed article. Thanks for starting it... please remember though that Wikipedia is not an instruction manual. You've avoided this spin on the article so far. One section reads a little like a how-to rather than an encyclopedia right now. I like that you've included a history and abuses section and you've set up the article to be nicely broad in its coverage. I already found a red link to a page that would have been called E-mail forwarding and created a redirect, as well as a link on a disambiguation page that needed creation. Sancho 14:59, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

Locate admin appointments lagging new users graph?

A while back I read an admin's page that had a chart with such a graph. Does anyone know where to find it, or the master copy if he didn't create it? Milo 03:53, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

User:NoSeptember/The NoSeptember Admin Project. Prodego talk 03:54, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

The north pole I have charted, but I can't get started with wikipedia

I don't get it! How, for instance, do I submit a question to the Help Desk?

Bellyboy.

Can't find tildes on my keyboard. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Bellyboy (talkcontribs) 07:41, 21 April 2007 (UTC).

Hi there! To submit a question at the Help Desk, do just the same thing that you did here. Best way to go is to click the + at the top of the page to add a new section and type away merrily. For general ideas on how to get started, visit Help:Contents/Getting started - there's a wealth of information there for new users. And if you can't find the tildes (that ~ thing that should be on the very top left of your keyboard, probably next to the 1 key), then in the bar of buttons right above the edit window, the tenth button from the left (as I count it) will insert four tildes for you. Hope that helps! Tony Fox (arf!) 07:54, 21 April 2007 (UTC)\

Request for editors for the DeVry article

Hi all, I apologize if this is the wrong place to post this, but I'm kinda new to Wikipedia. I'm affiliated with DeVry and don't feel it would be appropriate for me to edit their entry in Wikipedia, but I do take a look at it from time to time (along with the entries on Transformers, video games, etc... a geek at a technical university, go figure.) Over the last year or so it's gone back and forth between sounding a bit like advertising to being a venting post for people's concerns, but overall it's been pretty neutral. Recently, however, there have been a lot of vitriolic edits to the article, mostly by one user; I've held back on editing it and have instead noted some of my concerns in the talk page. The user has there branded me a "wikipredator" and a "wikiimpostor" even though I haven't edited the page nor made my relationship to the organization unclear. One or two other users have stepped in to make some fixes, but some of the changes are getting reverted -- in particular, there is a really bizarre screed on the talk page that was archived, and the user copied and pasted it back into the main talk page (with the same date even!) I don't feel as though this is at the point where mediation is necessary, but is there somewhere I can request that other people jump in and edit the entry in a neutral manner? Thanks! 208.0.29.250 21:29, 20 April 2007 (UTC)Otterzero

There are already editors working on it and I'll see if I have time to do something. I've warned the user who called you a "WikiImposter" or similar words as a personal attack and told him not to harass you by putting the details of your IP address down, and removed that information while I was at it, too. Note: You can make edits to that page (though see WP:COI on what is encouraged and what is not). And you can certainly (and are encouraged to) make requests on the talk page. x42bn6 Talk 23:43, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

Whew! Thank you, I'm really glad to hear that others are looking into this. This is like my first experience on Wikipedia and I was getting kinda scared! As an update, while I was on my way home (where I'm at now), he completely reverted the Talk page, and added a heading above my last post calling me a vandal. Thanks for the link to the editing guidelines -- I still feel weird editing the page in any major way though. Thanks! :) 68.38.214.28 23:53, 20 April 2007 (UTC)Otterzero

I'm not actually sure which part you are talking about. But I have removed something that was duplicated and things that could well be a problem (unsubstantiated comments, some harsh ones). If this editor has this article's sake at heart, he should be working on the article and not the talk page. You may want to register, so that you don't have your IP address revealed to the public, too. x42bn6 Talk 23:59, 20 April 2007 (UTC)
I think he actually removed a lot of my comments from the Talk page. Also, on one of my posts on the Talk page, he added the heading, "Vandal Expressing & POVing into himself". I'll set up an account later this weekend so I can avoid the IP address stalking in future, and I'll try to fix the genuine errors in the article later on as well. Honestly, as I wrote in my post, I'm okay with his comments about DeVry (as I wrote in my Talk comments) and don't want to see him banned, but I'm concerned that he's actually edited my comments on the Talk page. 68.38.214.28 00:10, 21 April 2007 (UTC)Otterzero
No problem. Perhaps he did - it's quite hard to track what he did do because there is a lot of text in the talk page and I don't feel like nitpicking any further. Either way, happy editing. x42bn6 Talk 00:18, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

As per the suggestions of a lot of helpful folks here, I created and account and made edits to the article, and gave a full and detailed explanation of my changes on the Talk page, including suggestions for how we could fill in some of the gaps. Admitted I mostly removed material, but I gave explanations for everything I removed and asked for feedback. In less than an hour, all of my edits were reverted, poorly, with no discussion on the Talk page. Yikes! What do I do now? OtterZero 13:59, 21 April 2007 (UTC)OtterZero

I think it was an OK edit but you removed sources:
DeVry Inc. does not meet the standards and licensing requirements in [[Alberta]] and [[New York State]] to function or advertise as a[[University]]. In these regions DeVry Inc. continues to operate as the its former name DeVry Institute of Technology. After an arduous legal battle, facing a class action from many dissatisfied students who wanted Devry Institute of Technology to be closed in their city (Alberta, Canada), DeVry Inc. appears to have obtained, in 2001, permission from the Alberta government to grant degrees. <ref name="Pannu wants DeVry's degree status revoked">{{citeweb|url=http://www.cbc.ca/news/story/2001/02/09/pann090201.html|title=Pannu wants DeVry's degree status revoked|accessdate=2007-04-07}}</ref>
I think you could try talking to the anon at User talk:24.90.244.160 and try and find a compromise. I'll also pitch in a bit later if I can. x42bn6 Talk 14:07, 21 April 2007 (UTC)
Cool, thanks again for the help. I'd happily re-add the section on the Alberta case if the other user had just asked. Even if he had just re-added that part in his revision, I'd be happy. But he also added back a lot of stuff that was there for no reason, and ignored my comments. I did make an overture to contact the user, via the talk page, but he responded "I analyzed that the so-self-called Devry student/employee has tried to persuade, privately communicate by extending an IM invitation and then even intimidate and discourage Codeplowed from contributing in the way that he/she thinks it fits the subject and the content." Regarding my request to work with the user and compromise, he wrote, "this IP-user has made some assumptions and even has told Codeplowed how and what to do." (Hm... well, technically that was "someone else" posting to the Talk page other than Codeplowed...) I think I'm gonna step away from this Wikipedia article for a while :) OtterZero 14:29, 21 April 2007 (UTC)OtterZero

Page deletion help

Need help - I consider the page at Lil Beats to be a candidate for deletion as it is manifestly written (poorly) by the subject themselves, and fails to assert their importance. However, in trying to list the page for deletion, I've quite frankly buggered it up. Please can someone who knows how to do this undo my mess and if needs be leave stern instructions on my page about how properly to go about this. thanks very much. Bennyh113 19:17, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

Very odd. It looks like you did some of the edits with an anonymous IP address, and some when logged in. And I'm not sure why another user reverted your speedy deletion nomination; no reason was given in the edit summary. (For what it's worth, the article was previously nominated for a speedy deletion; that tag was removed by an anonymous IP address looking suspiciously like the SPA user who created the article.)
In any case, I agree that this article should be deleted; it seems to essentially be an advertisement for a sixteen-year-old who wants to sell songs, just like tens of thousands of other people. I've nominated it for deletion per Wikipedia:Articles for deletion. (The anon user - you? - did two of the three needed steps specified on that page - posting the template on the article, and posting a link to a deletion discussion page in the log; what he/she didn't do was actually create the page Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Lil Beats.) -- John Broughton (♫♫) 01:35, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

Should we have an infobox for TV syndication?

Lots of articles about TV shows have a long list at the beginning of which networks air them in different countries. Shouldn't we have an infobox to arrange them into a table? Squidfryerchef 02:37, 22 April 2007 (UTC)

Not sure, but you can also ask WP:TV for additional input. -- Ned Scott 06:31, 22 April 2007 (UTC)
OK. Asked at WP:TVS. Squidfryerchef 21:37, 22 April 2007 (UTC)

inflated bio

What do you do when you know that someone has deliberately inflated their Bio, presumably to enhance their job prospects?

The article in question has not quite been written by the subject, but instead has been written from information supplied almost entirely by the article's subject by a very well-meaning but naive peer who only recently has become acquainted (via internet) with the subject of the article.

The article obviously seems plausible and perhaps even "notable" to someone not in the particular field, especially because it uses a few well-placed quotes found in community newspapers. But these papers are not anything "of record" and, without meaning in any way to disparage them, are more special-interest journals that may on occasion use the equivalent of a press release or a letter to the editor as "news".

We work with the articles subject, who is quite ambitious and would cause trouble for anyone who might be perceived to stand in their way so we cannot come out and flat-out say on the record that they are lying. Thank you —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 209.244.187.203 (talk) 21:21, 24 April 2007 (UTC).

Just provide a link to the article and I can check to see if it's from a neutral point of view. Pyrospirit Shiny! 03:16, 25 April 2007 (UTC)
trusting that the matter will be treated discretely, put on your talk page —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 209.244.187.203 (talk) 04:30, 25 April 2007 (UTC).

National debt/Soc. Sec. clock

What exactly would the script that I would type into my User page to get the clock from http://zfacts.com/p/793.html onto the page? Alphabetagamma 00:57, 22 April 2007 (UTC)

I don't think that's possible, but I could be wrong. ~ ONUnicorn(Talk|Contribs)problem solving 20:28, 23 April 2007 (UTC)
I'm pretty sure that is not possible S Sepp 22:38, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

help us in our project of Wikipedia in ancient greek

Moved from Talk:Main Page --13:01, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

Dears editors of Wikipedia: We are the promoters of the Wikipedia in Ancient Greek. The project is now in the stage of incubation. We need editors and articles for our project succeed. Every one who knows sufficiently the Ancient Greek language can help.

Another form of help is promoting this project in each forum of classic languages, and inside universities and institutes where Ancient Greek is taught

The page of project is:

http://incubator.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wp/grc

Thanks a lot for your help. Ἡ Οὐικιπαιδεία needs you! —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 201.240.201.91 (talk)

Why won't this image display?

Image:MTA Metro-North Railroad logo.png exists, but shows up as a red link when placed in an infobox. It's not a problem with the infobox coding, since other articles like Pennsylvania Railroad work fine. What's going on? --NE2 19:59, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

Never mind; it was a problem with template:infobox rail when no logo_size is specified. Apprently some of the coding that was used no longer works. --NE2 20:26, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

Need a Source for a Story Bump

I'm working on my final project for my Multimedia Reporting class at KU. It's over Wikipedia editing and how much it re-establishes the site's credibility. I'm looking for editors who would be interested in being interviewed for my story. I need both involved volunteer editors and hired staff. If interested, please message me back. My username is Luke J-School. "Luke J-School 15:39, 25 April 2007 (UTC)"

No need to re-post this every day ... let it be for a week (or at least until your request falls into archives). People will see it. If no one responds during the time your request is in the active page, it probably means no one is interested in participating. Repeated requests won't change that. Blueboar 16:56, 25 April 2007 (UTC)
Add some specifics to your userpage too, if editors know what the report is all about (in detail I mean), it might help lure 'em in. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Ferdiaob (talkcontribs) 22:05, 25 April 2007 (UTC).

Dear Sirs:

I have found similarities among this page and [5]. The last one has a copyright license at bottom. I wonder whether there might exist a copyvio. My own interest about is that Constantinian_shift has been translated to [6] on es:. Thanks in advance.--Egaida 15:26, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

I check for copyvios by taking a string of six or seven words and searching Google with quotes. Try that. YechielMan 17:55, 23 April 2007 (UTC)
It seems the implied question has not been responded to: what to do about a page with copyright violations. -- Yellowdesk 13:20, 24 April 2007 (UTC)
There is a violation, but it is the other wise way around. Journical is mirroring original wikipedia content without giving any credit. Prove is here: [7]. The image link at the top shows it is copied from the wikipedia article traditors. S Sepp 22:19, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

The place that you want to be is Wikipedia:Mirrors and forks. Uncle G 23:39, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

Transwiki'ing content

Hi, a new wiki for George R. R. Martin's book series A Song of Ice and Fire has been set up at [8] and I was just wondering if anybody had any suggestions on how to transwiki some of the files here to there. The wiki is already licensed appropriately, so I don't imagine that'll be a problem, but I'm hesitant to play around with the software myself. Mister.Manticore 17:24, 22 April 2007 (UTC)

  • I have tools that can transwikify content between any two GFDL MediaWiki wikis. I was going to fix up the non-GFDL-compliant copy of A Song of Ice and Fire on your wiki, transwikifying it properly, as an example. However, I was unable to create any accounts because of the hoops that account creation on that wiki requires people to jump through. So I gave up attempting to help you. When you ask for help from passing volunteers from the world at large, make it easy for those people to give it to you. Uncle G 23:53, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

AdventureQuest article degrading due to anonymous vandalism and addition of fancruft.

From 1 September 2006 to 6 December 2006, I rewrote the AdventureQuest article, replacing the fancruft-filled mess with useful, encyclopediac content (of course, there is much room for improvement on my version). Once I stopped working on the article, constant anonymous vandalism and insertion of fancruft caused the article to degrade into a fancruft-filled mess again.

John Reaves semi-protected the article for two weeks, and I reverted the article to my version dated 6 December 2006. After the semi-protection expired, anonymous vandalism and insertion of fancruft continued to degrade the article.

The last few months have proven that as long as the article is not semi-protected, anonymous vandalism and insertion of fancruft will continue to degrade the article. Unfortunately, according to the protection policy, "semi-protection should not be used...to prohibit anonymous editing in general". Could we ignore the protection policy and semi-protect the article for a extended period of time to prevent it from degrading, or is there a better way to maintain the quality of the article?

I used to constantly revert to my version, but was accused of trying to own the article (this is not the case - I welcome beneficial edits to the article). I no longer try to maintain the article, because I don't have the time, I wish to work on other articles and I don't wish to fight a losing battle which causes me considerable stress.

--J.L.W.S. The Special One 10:58, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

Give up and move on - life it too short to develop ulcers over something like this. After all, it's an article about a computer game; there's no massive damage if it's fancrufty - people aren't going to be using it to make important life decisions. Remove it from your watchlist. Find other articles to work on. Return to it in a year if you want; perhaps the vandals will have grown up by then. - DavidWBrooks 12:40, 14 April 2007 (UTC)
Many a solid article on wikipedia suffers from the same entropy-atrophy. The semi-protection stuff does help, but only while it remains up. Immediately afterwards the article inevitably starts to decay again. It looks like you can either (1) add it to your watch list and continually check it for unreverted rubbish, (2) move it a site such as Citizendium that supposedly has more robust protections, or (3) copy the information to a site you control. I'm tempted by (2), but I'm waiting to see how they work out. Right now they just appear to be copying older wikipedia content. — RJH (talk) 17:19, 15 April 2007 (UTC)
DavidWBrooks, since, as RJHall mentioned, "many a solid article on Wikipedia suffers from the same entrophy-atrophy", if I followed your advice to "give up and move on", I might as well leave Wikipedia.
I previously tried (1), but it drains me of the energy I need to write articles. I can't keep up with all the vandalism and fancruft, and in the process of doing so, I have been accused of trying to own the article (as I said, this is not the case. as I welcome beneficial edits to the article). To keep up with all the vandalism and fancruft, I would need 3-5 people to help me with (1).
(2) is not an option. I value my privacy and anonymity on the Internet. Furthermore, they wouldn't want me - I'm a 15-year-old, not an expert in some field of science.
As for (3), although all versions of an article are stored in the edit history, having a copy on another site only benefits me. I'm thinking of the millions who read Wikipedia daily.
--J.L.W.S. The Special One 02:42, 16 April 2007 (UTC)
I think if you look at the article history you'll see that others (including bots) have been helping to revert a lot of the vandalism. So the cause isn't entirely hopeless. You could also just to choose a check every few months by doing a compare in the article history. (For some articles I list the last 500 changes and then do a compare between the latest revert and a much older version.) — RJH (talk) 19:21, 18 April 2007 (UTC)
JLWS, the article looks good for starters! Consider filing for a Wikipedia:Peer review, where uninvolved editors might be able to offer suggestions about the prose, cruftiness, undue weight, etc. Also, if you are involved in Wikipedia:WikiProject Video games, see if any editors may want to help out on the article. For starters I've posted a semi-automated peer review (thanks to User:AndyZ/peerreviewer.js) to the article's talk page. --Iamunknown 19:19, 25 April 2007 (UTC)
If you don't have the time to have it constantly watchlisted, here's something you might try doing. Every week or two, look at the "cur" diff since your last edit. That way you can remove any crufty or unhelpful edits from the past week or two. I've tried it with Gwen Stefani since people have a habit of adding everything she ever does to that article, which ends up leaving it a mess. ShadowHalo 01:06, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

Assistance with Archiving

Can anyone tell me how do I archive everything on my user talk page, as it is getting quite long, and have it done automatically every couple of weeks? Thanks. ThePointblank 17:34, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

Take a look at WP:ARCHIVE. You should find everything you need there. --Wayne Miller 19:04, 25 April 2007 (UTC)
Cheers, thanks! ThePointblank 20:57, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

Picture screw-up?

Some images do not show in an article even though they exist? What's the problem with that? For example, in the Air21 Express, Image:Air21 Express.gif doesn't show up even though it exists. --Howard the Duck 09:53, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

(I've noticed we have the same problem with the one above, hehehe ^^) --Howard the Duck 09:54, 26 April 2007 (UTC)
I fixed it already, everything's back to normal. --Howard the Duck 09:59, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

International trade by product : Oil ,drugs & Weapons?

I am sorry if this is inappropriate to ask here. I am looking for numbers to rank the highest ranking world trade products. I think the three top products are oil, drugs and weapons, but that is what I am trying to verify. I was expecting some article listing this. DanielDemaret 14:47, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

Ask at the Reference Desk. Adrian M. H. 16:55, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

Upload form redesign

Please see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MediaWiki_talk:Uploadtext#Proposal_for_mass_overhaul.2C_matching_Commons and help redesign the upload form to help out confused uploaders and reduce the levels of free images that should just be on Commons and reduce the un-needed images here at Wikipedia (replaceable, etc). Any and all help is appreciated. MECUtalk 00:54, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

Is this image properly licensed?

Image:Math lecture at TKK.JPG

The uploader says they release it into the public domain, but the image contains writing on a blackboard and, if I understand copyright law, is owned by the lecturer not the person that took the photograph. Should it be put up for deletion? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 139.222.232.75 (talk) 10:45, 25 April 2007 (UTC).

No, don't worry about it. You can't read the text on the blackboard clearly enough to copy it, much less to reformulate it in a way that violate's the professor's rights to it. YechielMan 05:01, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

Page deletion help

Need help - I consider the page at Lil Beats to be a candidate for deletion as it is manifestly written (poorly) by the subject themselves, and fails to assert their importance. However, in trying to list the page for deletion, I've quite frankly buggered it up. Please can someone who knows how to do this undo my mess and if needs be leave stern instructions on my page about how properly to go about this. thanks very much. Bennyh113 19:17, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

Very odd. It looks like you did some of the edits with an anonymous IP address, and some when logged in. And I'm not sure why another user reverted your speedy deletion nomination; no reason was given in the edit summary. (For what it's worth, the article was previously nominated for a speedy deletion; that tag was removed by an anonymous IP address looking suspiciously like the SPA user who created the article.)
In any case, I agree that this article should be deleted; it seems to essentially be an advertisement for a sixteen-year-old who wants to sell songs, just like tens of thousands of other people. I've nominated it for deletion per Wikipedia:Articles for deletion. (The anon user - you? - did two of the three needed steps specified on that page - posting the template on the article, and posting a link to a deletion discussion page in the log; what he/she didn't do was actually create the page Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Lil Beats.) -- John Broughton (♫♫) 01:35, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

Deleted image history request

Image:Blackarrow.jpg was speedily deleted under CSD-I4 (no source), but I am sure I saw a fair use (crown copyright) template on this image when I was looking at it recently. Could an administrator look at the page history to see if one existed, and if so, why it was removed. If no explanation for the removal is provided, can the image be undeleted and tagged for fair use in Black Arrow. Thanks --GW_SimulationsUser Page | Talk 13:51, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

Please could the result be posted on my talk page. --GW_SimulationsUser Page | Talk 13:52, 28 April 2007 (UTC)
Responded on GW Simulations talk page. Garion96 (talk) 14:11, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

edit summaries

How do I add an edit summary to a revision that I have already submitted? 69.140.164.142 03:05, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

You can't, really. If I really want an edit summary and I forgot to enter one, I do a "null entry" (open the edit screen without making any changes), and add the edit summary to that one, indicating it should have been on the previous edit, then save. For example, "removed most of the text on the previous edit because it was all in Pig Latin.") Joyous! | Talk 03:31, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

contradicting info in an article

I have come across an article that seems to contradict itself in a few areas... I know there is a tag for this but I can't remember what it is. Thanks. Blueboar 14:17, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

From WP:CR page is this {{contradict}} is what your looking for Gnangarra 14:43, 30 April 2007 (UTC)
That's it exactly... thanks Blueboar 17:08, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

Some sections not displaying.

I am working on a new article in a sub-page of my user page User:Baby ifritah/Robbery Under Arms and for some reason the final sections are not displaying when I save although the coding is there when I return to edit. Does anyone know why this would be happening and how I can fix it? Thanks, baby_ifritah 12:50, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

 Done fix and explained on editors talk page, basically the editor didnt close a citation. Gnangarra 14:32, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

Article

My article Colombian comedy, has been subjected to deletion. I don't understand what is wrong with my article, i am providing sources references and an extensive translation of text and history. Could anyone help me? Why is it being considered to deletion? user:camilosanchez

Your article has not been deleted. One person has said that it should be. That is an opinion. So far the other comments have supported keeping it. The person who suggested deletion has given reasons, as have those who did not agree. You should give your reasons on the page Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Colombian comedy. And by the way, speaking of it as "your" article will not go over well, see WP:OWN. DES (talk) 02:53, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

Length

Somebody has said the article I'm working on is too long but I can't find any guidelines on length. Can somebody point me in the right direction please. Fainites 20:23, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

See WP:SIZE, which is part of the MoS. Adrian M. H. 21:30, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

Thanks. Fainites 22:00, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

Pastel Green

According to Penubag, the is a color called pastel green, hex triplet #77DD77. Shouldn't they be added to Template Shades of Green? Sean gorter 12:47, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

Only if it can be proven that this is not Penubag's Original Research. Corvus cornix 20:54, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

International trade by product : Oil ,drugs & Weapons?

I am sorry if this is inappropriate to ask here. I am looking for numbers to rank the highest ranking world trade products. I think the three top products are oil, drugs and weapons, but that is what I am trying to verify. I was expecting some article listing this. DanielDemaret 14:47, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

Ask at the Reference Desk. Adrian M. H. 16:55, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

Major revisions to WP:NOTE

Is there a user list I should be on to get these memos? I think I missed a meeting somewhere. I was sort of under the impression that revisions to the guidelines for the community required consensus from... well... the community. Like I said, I might have missed something, but... I'm a little tweaked.

Best regards,

Wysdom 19:41, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

Maybe you should keep {{cent}} on your user page? That's usually The List. GracenotesT § 17:11, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

Could someone please fix the table as I don't know how? I added the class "wikitable sortable" but it doesn't work properly. Thanks a lot. --Eleassar my talk

  • Hmmmm... I don't know how either. I'll try to get someone. --Pupster21 Talk To Me 21:20, 6 May 2007 (UTC)
I have requested assistance from a Wikifyer. Please wait for help. --Pupster21 Talk To Me 21:26, 6 May 2007 (UTC)
The "|rowspan=" parameter screws up sortable tables. Maybe someday that will be fixed, but for now I just removed all instances of "rowspan". jwillburtalk 19:51, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

Could I get some extra input over at this article? We've got a dispute about some content which is being sourced from blogs. As far as I am concerned they're unreliable and unusable for citation in the context they're being used, and the other individual feels that because there is very little press on the subject the article shouldn't be subjected to the same level of verifiability and OR that other articles are. To me that sounds like a reason for deletion/merging.--Crossmr 20:03, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

More input would be appreciated. The debate has been taken in the direction of "if we believe what the source says, regardless of where it comes from, its okay".--Crossmr 02:42, 2 May 2007 (UTC)
Oh joy, internet meme articles: often notable, rarely sourceable, and usually with a subject matter so fluid that anything left stable on Wikipedia regarding them will swiftly become the truth whether it originally was or not. --tjstrf talk 03:32, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

AACS Process Key and damage to Wikipedia tradeoff

There is much debate happening on whether the AACS process key should be appear in Wikipedia articles (Talk:HD_DVD and Talk:Advanced Access Content System).

The debate centres on the tradeoff between the possibility of legal action, whether such threats would have any basis and damage to Wikipedia's reputation due to censorship. Wired is running a story with the censorship angle. Digg has picked up on it too. There's a chance the main stream media might pick it up. In my opinion the admins who are involved are in over their heads and risk damage to Wikipedia's reputation.

Someone in the upper echelons of Wikipedia, with the power to make a binding decision and to wear its consequences, needs to get involved. Is such a person on this forum please, or a least someone who can bring the discussion to such a person's attention? John Dalton 07:25, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

I think we should allow 09 f9 11 02 9d 74 e3 5b d8 41 56 c5 63 56 88 *WTF SPAM FILTER* (c1 - 1) until a complaint to the Wikimedia Foundation is sent. --WikiSlasher 08:12, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Building Bots

I am very interested in building clean-up bots and was just wondering if I could get some assistance in building one.AdmiralCustard 02:12, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Go to the Proposals Section of the Village Pump. NS Zakerga 02:14, 3 May 2007 (UTC)
You might try Wikipedia:Creating a bot. Cheers, BanyanTree 13:22, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

Plagerism Problem

I was just researching a art project on the internet, so I came here. There was no article about the specific kind of art that I wanted, so I googled it and made one. I am planning to use what I wrote in my art project. Is this plagerism even though I am the one one who made the artice? NS Zakerga 01:54, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

If one were to go by the definition in "plagiarism is the unauthorized use..." then all you need to do is to authorize yourself to use it :) DanielDemaret 11:26, 3 May 2007 (UTC)
It would be a good idea to tell the teacher what you're doing before you turn in the project, though. If you wait until she discovers that you've turned in a Wikipedia article, it'll be more difficult to get her to believe that you wrote it. -FisherQueen (Talk) 22:32, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

Operating system screenshot

This is [9] screenshot of BKUNIX, a GPLed operating system. But it also contains some output by computer's ROM including bootup messages, indicator string at the top of the screen and the font of the letters is also ebeeded in ROM. How should I proprly provide the license information?--Dojarca 07:39, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

You might want to ask at Wikipedia:Media copyright questions, a page that specializes in such questions. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 01:40, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

L2F,L2TP

iT IS stated that these two are covered by patent #5918019.

Reading that I do miss L2TP, PATENT ONLY COVERS L2F.

bestregards

rOGER —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 194.237.142.6 (talk) 21:19, 1 May 2007 (UTC).

If you're suggesting that a Wikipedia article is incorrect, please either change it yourself (and explain in your edit summary), or post information on the talk page of that article, where a lot more interested people are likely to read it. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 01:44, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

The Wiki Professional Wrestling Project Needs Your Help!

Recently, a website used in virtually every Professional Wrestling, Obsessedwithwrestling.com changed its name to www.OnlineWorldofWrestling.com. All of us will be working on this, but if anybody feels so incline to help us change references and links in these articles, it would be greatly appreciated.

Wikipedia:WikiProject Professional wrestling

Thanks, Kris 00:12, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

Am I allowed to speedy close this as the nominator? — MalcolmUse the schwartz! 00:02, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

Yes, just place the proper tags around it from WP:DELPRO and give the summary "Withdrawn as nominator". Only works if nobody votes delete in the meantime though. --tjstrf talk 00:16, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

Audio pronunciation versus IPA textual

I've started adding audio files containing the pronunciation of certain words, but in cases such as São Paulo (city) what should be done? I simply added the audio version before the IPA textual version, but as this does not seem to be referenced anywhere, I would like to know whether that's the format that should be used. Thanks! --OneFinalWhisper 20:20, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

I can only suggest that, if you can't find any guideline for a stylistic decision (and I can't find one for this), you could do worse than follow the example of other pages. I have seen plenty of pages that have both audio and IPA, although none spring to mind right now. I don't think it would be a big issue though, so go with what you think works best. Adrian M. H. 21:12, 5 May 2007 (UTC)
Thanks loads, just wanted to make sure. ;) --OneFinalWhisper 03:30, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

Question from User:Koussouros

Hi,

I'm new contributor.

For beginning I published an information about new door device.

My article was deleted.

I understand that I have not to put personal Weblink, or personal information ok, I accept this logic.

But I ask another question.

I suppose that encyclopedia has to give historical as newness facts.

I work as voluntary for making news invention and give a lot of inventions for that

How I can give some of my invention without be considered as proud man or other thing and bring newness informations that come from creation, from an unknown people,.... ?

About door, this new device (that don't use usual bolt) has to contribute to better security and for that I work on it from 12 years.

I want to give information on that.

How I can ? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Koussouros (talkcontribs)

Thanks

I'm the person who removed your links at Door and Door security. Adding links to a product that you have invented, in order to better publicize your invention, is a conflict of interest. If your invention is truly noteworthy, then someone else will certainly add it to appropriate articles. -FisherQueen (Talk) 12:20, 13 May 2007 (UTC)
I can see why you are anxious to spread the word, but that is completely the opposite of Wikipedia is for. If ever we see an article that is "spreading the word" we remove it. Wikipedia only reports what is already well known: that's one of our fundamental principles. I wish you well with your invention. Notinasnaid 13:48, 13 May 2007 (UTC)

Userboxes

could someone help me make userboxes? Thanks! --Kimuchi 12:27, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

What kind of userbox do you want? Aquarius &#149; Talk 22:04, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

Could someone please fix the table as I don't know how? I added the class "wikitable sortable" but it doesn't work properly. Thanks a lot. --Eleassar my talk

  • Hmmmm... I don't know how either. I'll try to get someone. --Pupster21 Talk To Me 21:20, 6 May 2007 (UTC)
I have requested assistance from a Wikifyer. Please wait for help. --Pupster21 Talk To Me 21:26, 6 May 2007 (UTC)
The "|rowspan=" parameter screws up sortable tables. Maybe someday that will be fixed, but for now I just removed all instances of "rowspan". jwillburtalk 19:51, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

Need help regarding notability tag

At the article Faith Freedom International, several users (including myself) have expressed concerns that the subject of the article does not establish notability guidelines. Hence, I have attempted to add {{notability}} to the top of the article. But many users are removing the tag. I have asked many times how a tag which denotes the existence of dispute can be removed without discussion. I would like to know what the criteria for the inclusion of the tag are, if it is not implicitly described within the tag itself. The tag states "An editor has expressed concern..." so wouldn't it mean that if even one editor expresses concern, it justifies the placement of the tag? Thanks.--Kirbytime 03:19, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

Kirbytime, you have raised the notability issue for this article without explaining why the links are trivial coverage. You were blocked yesteday for 3RR, with the blocking admin saying that you are disruptive and revert without discussion and you have been blocked 2 times before for trolling. Bottomline: Unless you explain why the article is not notable, you cannot put the tag in. Admins have also agreed on Talk that the subject is notable. --Matt57 (talkcontribs) 03:27, 8 May 2007 (UTC)
Comment on content, not on the contributor.--Kirbytime 03:32, 8 May 2007 (UTC)
And I asked here because I wanted someone uninvolved to give their opinion.--Kirbytime 03:33, 8 May 2007 (UTC)
People here should know that you have been putting the tag in without discussion and have been blocked before for disruptive editing. --Matt57 (talkcontribs) 03:35, 8 May 2007 (UTC)
The whole talk page is nothing but discussion of notability! Please tell me this is a joke. And also, I don't see how my blocks are relevant here. Please calm down and stop being so obsessed with me. I understand that you have a hard time communicating with people who believe will suffer eternal damnation, but some things are taken too far.--Kirbytime 03:38, 8 May 2007 (UTC)
in fact, anyone who looks at the talk page will know there has been substantial discussion, with uninvolved editors popping up to purge the notability tag (without discussion) in apparent denial of the fact that editors exist who dispute the topic's notability. ITAQALLAH 16:04, 8 May 2007 (UTC)
You forgot to add, that included editors like Kirbytime adding the tag in without discussion. Substantial discussion yes, including an admin who said the topic is definitely notable. Past AfD's resulted in keeping the article too.
Kirbytime commenting above has been blocked again for 1 week this time, for disruptive editing.--Matt57 (talkcontribs) 16:56, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

Quick grammar question

Which is correct "X took place at Kemper Arena", or "X took place at the Kemper Arena"? Now, the former is the one I prefer, and is most prolific across the internet with many more search engine hits and News search hits. However, another user has claimed that the former is grammatically incorrect, in spite of the numbers. I'll be grateful for your time, if you could please head over and post your thoughts at Talk:WWE_New_Year's_Revolution#Please_do_not_give_grammar_lessons_ever. (Don't worry, I don't give a shit about Wrestling either). 64.38.51.106 00:16, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

  • I can only comment from a regional point of view, of course, but the use of the definite article is good grammar and is accepted as the norm in Britain. I am vaguely aware of a U.S. preference for the removal of the definite article, but there are many linguistic characteristics that are in common usage, but are not grammatically correct. They are rife in the British media, for example. You should therefore strike a balance between regional usage (per the MoS) and good quality formal writing. Adrian M. H. 17:32, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

Newuser requests guidance re: minor edits tricks and traps

I am quite a new contributer to Wikipedia, and having been extensively editing Weasel Word, it was reverted in toto to a weaker version. However I myself was presently unhappy with the article (after improving it, I mucked up some humourous links, I didn't get back to fix), so I don't mind the revert at all, nor this helpful user informing me on the talk page. My Q)-estion, please,  :::::::::::::: with minor edits, ( I have done 200?), what protocol do I consult? ::::::::::::::I have looked, and as a resort, posted here, so a reply on the talkpage Newbyguesses/talk would be nice, till then I still do minor edits, but no additions, and keep trying to find the relevent policies, and guidelines. Also, please, :::::::::::::: how does a newuser come to be informed helpfully as to precedents ::::::: about such mundane, but annoying (to me, being new) matters. Tnx,,Newbyguesses 04:14, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

You can find all the important conventions in the welcome box I placed on your talk page. The rest you will learn as you go. There are thousands of helpful wikipedians you can ask for specifics, and who will remind you if you do something questionable. Just dive in and do it. —EncMstr 04:34, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

How can I check that my username is not similar to another?

Hello all - hope this is the appropriate place to post this. I finally created an account, I hope to help out with editing a few things - wikipedia is an amazing resource.

So, I read that usernames should not be similar to others. Makes sense, but I could not figure out how to check that - is there a database or list of users? Sorry, could not find it. Is my current username acceptable (AsFarAsIKnow ?).

TIA AsFarAsIKnow 14:20, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

It's done automatically; if an account name is too similar, the system will not let you create it. It is possible to circumvent that, but to do so, you really have to try. You have nothing to worry about. -Amarkov moo! 14:52, 2 May 2007 (UTC)
There is a list of usernames at Special:Listusers. Polypipe Wrangler 08:46, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

What do I do when others are assuming bad faith of me?

See Wikipedia talk:Non-free content#ISA resolved. I have multiple people claiming I've started this whole mess to make a point rather than to help apply our free content policies. --NE2 06:16, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

You really missed the point there, as Cyde was trying to tell you to not assume we thought that. In other words, do you actually know what is being assumed of you, and by who? -- Ned Scott 06:20, 14 May 2007 (UTC)
Gmaxwell said that he was "increasingly beginning to believe" the copyright issues "were really just trumped up to make a point of this". This statement was not necessary; all it does is cast doubt on my motives for starting this mess and creating the free replacement. --NE2 06:25, 14 May 2007 (UTC)
Seeming that you have a history of being an instigator, I suggest that you try not to fire up a discussion or make certain edits that would accuse you of being the bad guy. The ISA symbol is one of them. This is also going on all over the Public transportation WikiProject scope. I understand it is copyrighted by the ISA, but we are allowed to use it under certain circumstances, like infoboxes and articles that describes a landmark or point of interest that is accessible. I understand that as a wiki, everyone is entitled to contribute, but that doesn't mean we should go into guideline overkill. Sometimes, some things are allowed to slide. The ISA symbol is one of them. --Imdanumber1 (talk contribs) 00:24, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

Plead for help! – harassment by ethnic POV pushers

(I am sorry for posting anonymously, but I feel I am being harassed by a stalker. You will however find all information about me, even my home address, by following the IP.)

I am a regular contributor to Wikipedia with over 18,000 edits. My most visible contributions have been to the DYK section. In the last month I have also been the main contributor to two articles in “In the News ” section. The first one was about a ship that sank in a crater in Greece. The second is about a "pile of stones" in a small country somewhere up north. I have been following this second story for over 15 years, and this particular aspect of it for over a year, starting with the pictures (now in Commons) that I took a year ago.

The main story is about the conflict between the country's citizen majority and the non-citizen minority. It may have the potential to grow into an ethnic conflict and an Abkhazia / North Ossetia / Kosovo type civil war. At worst it may open a new “Cold War” between the emerging Russia and the West. The last I heard, the issue was heading to the United Nations General Assembly.

At the heart of the dispute is the legal and historic justification for denying citizenship from the ethnic minority. We now have two opposing world views with opposing histories. This again is the potential source for endless POV pushing, hate speech and war mongering.

When the story broke, I spent the first 48 hours almost non-stop maintaining the article. Later, another editor from Sweden joined the effort. Our greatest contribution has been that we have so far manged to keep this article an highly controversial topic free of POV tags.

The article has received a barrage of edits from anonymous IP addresses from the small country. For the most part these IPs have concentrated on pushing a nationalistic and inflammatory POV, and removing content that is negative to their propagandistic view. While the country's ethnic majority has been well presented, contributors from the ethnic minority and their far larger mother country have been virtually nonexistent. (It may be, that these people are contributing to the sister Wikipedia on this major language.) Slowly the article is turning into an attack page on the ethnic minority.

Lately these IP contributors have registered and taken an even more aggressive stance. This includes stalking and harassing opposing editors, edit warring, as well as (most likely bad faith) nominations for AfD on articles about certain periods of their country's history.

What is obviously happening is that Wikipedia is becoming a propaganda tool in this internationalized conflict. I have been trying to resist this, but my resources are soon exhausted.

The reason I am complaining here, is that I have not received support from other regular Wikipedians or from administrators. The story has been on the front page for a week, yet very few editors have contributed in removing ethnic POV and hate speech. The situation is as bad on the talk page which now contains harassment, in an effort to intimidate regular Wikipedians. Yet no administrator has taken the lead in guiding the new editors in civilized conduct and wiki-etiquette. I have taken some issues WP:AN/I but have received absolutely no response.

What I would like to see, is two things:

  1. Articles in the news should be followed more closely for abuse by new and anonymous users.
  2. In cases of emerging conflicts, special care should be taken that Wikipedia In the News is not one-sidedly used as a propaganda tool in the dispute.

-- 62.220.237.57 01:51, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

An idea will be to request semi-protection for that article. Or make it so that users with fewer than a certain amount of edits can't edit the article. This can at least stop your first point. As for the second one, it's just up to the sysops' discretion, I guess, and report all the POV pushers.--Kylohk 22:23, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

58.106.158.227 06:37, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

> Hello, > > For several months now I have not been able to view images on your website. > I am able to get the image if I click on it to enlarge it, but otherwise all > that I can see is the text and blank space where the images should be. > > I read your contact page, here is the information regarding my computer and > browser. > > Browser: Mozilla Firefox v 2.0.0.3 > > O/S: Windows XP v 2002 > > I don't think any of the other information applies. I do not have an account > with Wikipedia. Any help ou could give me regarding this would be greatly > appreciated. > > Cheers, > > Scott.

  • That is interesting. Could we have other people with the same browser check? --Pupster21 Talk To Me 21:18, 6 May 2007 (UTC)
    • Works for me, no problem. Exactly the same setup. pietopper 03:55, 10 May 2007 (UTC)
  • Can you see images on other websites? ssepp(talk) 15:27, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

I am the author, can these pages be deleted?

I'm moving over to Conservapedia, and I want my articles to have inclusion there but not here, can someone delete the article, "Dan Yates" and the article "Antoine Silverman"?

No, you are not the sole author of those pages, they have been edited by multiple people besides yourself. Note that by submitting content here you irrevocably released it to the WikiMedia foundation under the GFDL. Prodego talk 21:47, 4 May 2007 (UTC)
Well, you could license those pages under the GFDL at Conservapedia, and provide a complete list of everyone who has edited it... maybe. But I doubt that would fly on Conservapedia's part, and the articles may not be deleted on our part (they are good articles, if not stubs). GracenotesT § 22:22, 4 May 2007 (UTC)
Actually they are both tagged as unreferenced stubs (and need a lot of work). I suppose you could try to have them deleted by AfD (but you would need a very good argument, based on notability and Wikipedia rules). But that unlikely and frankly is besides the point. They are not "your" articles... once you create an article it stops being "your" article and becomes "our" article (even if no one else has editited it yet). I would think it would be easier to simply create completely new articles on these people when you move to Conservapedia. So long and thanks for all the fish. Blueboar 12:57, 5 May 2007 (UTC)
The work that he originally wrote is still "his" in the sense that he owns the copyright and is free to do whatever he likes with it. He does not have to abide by the GFDL license concerning his own words but, obviously, he cannot do this with the words of others. Wikipedia does not own the articles but they have a right to use the articles in accordance with the GFDL license. What he cannot do, but would seem to want to do, is reverse the publishing of his words under the GFDL license. HonestGuv 11:35, 10 May 2007 (UTC)
If he created the article, he can copy over the most recent version which was entirely his own, but if he edited somebody else's material, he can't claim ownership on it to move it over. Corvus cornix 18:22, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

Table help needed

I want to add a row at the bottom of the table in USS Rankin. I want it to have only one cell, that cell to extend across the full width of the table. Can that be done? If so, how? (All help is greatly appreciated.) Lou Sander 02:12, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

I added a blank row for you
| colspan="2" | <!-- Some text here (without the html comment) -->
Just replace the "<!-- Some text here (without the html comment) -->" with the text you want to add. If this wasn't what you were looking for, leave me a note here so I can clean it up.... -- MarcoTolo 02:27, 12 May 2007 (UTC)
  • Actually, it just occurred to me that I could leave the entire code block commented out for you to examine at your leisure. So, I've changed the code block in the USS Rankin article to:
<!-- |-
| colspan="2" | Some text here -->
Remove the "<!--" from the beginning of the first line, the "-->" from the end of the second, and replace the "Some text here" with, well, your text. I hope this helps. -- MarcoTolo 02:44, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

This article is a slow-moving vandalism/POV magnet, and very frustrating to me at present. Additional eyes and opinions would be very welcome. -- nae'blis 00:35, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

Userboxes

could someone help me make userboxes? Thanks! --Kimuchi 12:27, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

What kind of userbox do you want? Aquarius &#149; Talk 22:04, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

Image moves

For various reasons, I sometimes wish/need to move a (fair use) image to a different title than the one it is currently located at, but since there is no move tab for media files this always requires I go through the tedious process of saving the file to my computer, and then reuploading it under the correct title, and then tagging the old copy for deletion as redundant, and then waiting for an admin to delete the old image.

Even after all this, I wonder if I'm doing it right, since the end effect is that of a copy and paste move but to my understand the edit history should technically be merged to the new title for GFDL reasons. (Fortunately images often have no real edit history.) Is there no simpler way of doing this, short of running for adminship so that I can delete and histmerge them myself? --tjstrf talk 05:06, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

no. although you can just credit the previous authors in an edit summery.Geni 23:34, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

List Of Bad Words

Somewhere on wikipedia there is a words list that vandals are most likley to use. I am a idiot and have lost the words list. Please help me as i am trying to build a bot that needs it. Thank You and sorry if this is in the wrong place (p.s if anything doesn't make sense then add an s as the key is broken) Lmc169 17:53, 13 May 2007 (UTC)

Question from User:Koussouros

Hi,

I'm new contributor.

For beginning I published an information about new door device.

My article was deleted.

I understand that I have not to put personal Weblink, or personal information ok, I accept this logic.

But I ask another question.

I suppose that encyclopedia has to give historical as newness facts.

I work as voluntary for making news invention and give a lot of inventions for that

How I can give some of my invention without be considered as proud man or other thing and bring newness informations that come from creation, from an unknown people,.... ?

About door, this new device (that don't use usual bolt) has to contribute to better security and for that I work on it from 12 years.

I want to give information on that.

How I can ? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Koussouros (talkcontribs)

Thanks

I'm the person who removed your links at Door and Door security. Adding links to a product that you have invented, in order to better publicize your invention, is a conflict of interest. If your invention is truly noteworthy, then someone else will certainly add it to appropriate articles. -FisherQueen (Talk) 12:20, 13 May 2007 (UTC)
I can see why you are anxious to spread the word, but that is completely the opposite of Wikipedia is for. If ever we see an article that is "spreading the word" we remove it. Wikipedia only reports what is already well known: that's one of our fundamental principles. I wish you well with your invention. Notinasnaid 13:48, 13 May 2007 (UTC)

Help!

Hi,

I've tried to add a few things to my monobook(User:Psdubow/monobook.js), yet none of things I'm adding are working.

Can you please help me?

Thanks for your attention to this matter.

Sincerely,

Psdubow 21:38, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

You forgot to add the tw config thing. --Pupster21 Talk To Me 19:22, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

Copy paste this code into your monobook.js at the bottom. TwinkleConfig = {

       revertMaxRevisions              :       50,
       userTalkPageMode                :       'window',
       showSharedIPNotice              :       true,
       openTalkPage                    :       [ 'agf', 'norm', 'vand' ],
       openTalkPageOnAutoRevert        :       false,
       openAOLAnonTalkPage             :       false,
       summaryAd                       :       " using TW",
       deletionSummaryAd               :       " using TW",
       protectionSummaryAd             :       " using TW",
       watchSpeedyPages                :       [ 'g3', 'g5', 'g10', 'g11', 'g12' ],
       watchProdPages                  :       true,
       openUserTalkPageOnSpeedyDelete  :       [ 'g1', 'g2', 'g10', 'g11', 'g12', 'a1', 'a7', 'i3', 'i4', 'i5', 'i6', 'i7', 'u3', 't1' ],
       watchRevertedPages              :       [ 'agf', 'norm', 'vand', 'torev' ],
       markRevertedPagesAsMinor        :       [ 'agf', 'norm', 'vand', 'torev' ],
       deleteTalkPageOnDelete          :       false,
       markWarningsAsMinor             :       true,
       markAIVReportAsMinor            :       true,
       markSpeedyPagesAsMinor          :       true,
       markProdPagesAsMinor            :       true,
       confirmUsernameToAIV            :       true,
       toolboxButtons                  :       [ ]

}; --Pupster21 Talk To Me 19:24, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

Thanks, I did that. But, it still does not seem to work.

Can you maybe take a look at it?

Thanks!

Psdubow 23:35, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

Revert to this version then add the code (not the text in the page, open the page up to edit and select all the code) at User:x42bn6/Sandbox to the bottom of your monobook.js file). You appear to have botched the JavaScript code with your very first edit to it on the 10th, and you forgot the first line TwinkleConfig={ (which is part of the code). x42bn6 Talk Mess 18:26, 13 May 2007 (UTC)
Resolved

User 60.48.118.67 is vandalising FA Cup and FA Cup 2006-07. I have put a Semi-protection on the articles, but I am not an Admin. This needs an Admin to look into the matter. SilkTork 17:42, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

Alternative way of adding articles to watchlist

Is there an easier way of adding every article in a large category to one's watchlist other than one-by-one? Perturbed Pete 21:59, 13 May 2007 (UTC)

I don't know of a way of doing exactly what you're looking for, however you can monitor all the changes to all the articles in a category or linked to on a page (although it is through a different function than a watchlist). Using the "recentchangeslinked" special page, you can get a list of all the pages which have changed in, for example, the Wikipedia community forums or which are linked on the Mars article:
Unlike your watchlist, the recent changes linked also shows all edits, so it can be a bit frustrating when looking for vandalism. Not exactly what you were looking for, I know... --TeaDrinker 06:26, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

Birthplace of Gregor Mendel

I came across the Gregor Mendel article recently, and I noticed very odd contradictions, apparently he was a Moravian priest born in Silesia, Bohemia. If someone could explain how he stretches out over the territory of three adjacent historical nations, I'd appreciate it. In an attempt to discover where the place is I went to the Hynčice page, which claims, well, I don't know what it claims, but it includes both Silesia and Moravia. Any clarification in the article would be appreciated. +Hexagon1 (t) 11:46, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

Robert Marantz Henig described him as a "Moravian monk" in his book The Monk in the Garden. Perhaps that book can clear that one up. Silesia was under the rule of the Bohemian crown at one point in its history, which probably serves to explain that confusion. It was apparently under Prussian control at the time of Mendel's birth, according to the Silesia article. That is assuming that he was born in Silesia. If you want to change it, leave a rationale on the talk page and note this in your summary. I won't change it myself because there may be some important facts that are not known to me. Adrian M. H. 21:45, 13 May 2007 (UTC)

Biased article about LTTE in news

The article about the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, have been biased for some time and it has not been possible to correct it, as even a POV tag has been removed by contributors party to the conflict. Now this has spilled over to the Defence Ministry in Sri Lanka [10]. It would be good if some admin could at least manage to have a POV tag on the article before it ends up in the BBC and gives Wikipedia yet more bad publicity for articles with badly researched statements. Check out my postings on the article's discussion page as I have written extensively about the use and misuse of various sources. Ulflarsen 10:05, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

Help on my talk page...

I can't find any of the bleeding tags on my talk page. The white text I can't figure out where it comes from, and it affects the whole page, for some reason. Can someone please fix my talk page? ДҖ--Huanghe63talk 00:16, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

Fixed - there was an open font tag in the welcome message signature. -- MarcoTolo 03:10, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

I need assistance with this article. Beat Up a White Kid Day has been AfD'd, closed improperly, listed at DRV, re-opened, then closed correctly if you count only votes and not arguments. But as I have been saying since I first listed this article, the supposed sources do not support anything this article says. Look at the first sentence. It says, "Beat Up a White Kid Day is a May Day event in Cleveland, Ohio" and then uses http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4196/is_20030623/ai_n10887112 as the source for that assertion. But that link doesn't say any such thing. And the link itself is to an opinion piece, not a news article, and there is no explanation from that opinion piece where the columnist is getting his information. The whole article is like this. Third-person commentary about some second-person commentary about somebody's comments about one single incident. Where do I go now? I can't AfD this again. I can't replace the sucky references with good references, because there are no good references. How can we improve an article which has been closed as "keep" when there's no way to improve it? Corvus cornix 17:59, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

It seems there is not much you can do at this point. You should probably just let it be for a while, and do other things. If, after some time has passed, you still think it should be deleted, you could renominate it for deletion. But renomination needs time, otherwise it will just be closed quickly. You should try not to get too worked up about these kind of things, it can lead to wikiburnout. Wikipedia is a work in progress, things that are not fixed now can always be fixed later. ssepp(talk) 21:17, 11 May 2007 (UTC)
And things that aren't corrected promply can become entrenched due to inertia, meanwhile undermining the confidence of good editors in Wikipedia's future, causing them to leave, and leaving the field to bad editors. Hawkestone 21:36, 11 May 2007 (UTC)
The article has lots of high quality references. If you're looking to improve the article, that's the logical place to start. WilyD 21:40, 11 May 2007 (UTC)
You keep claiming that, Wily, but I have yet to see a single high quality reference. Corvus cornix 22:32, 11 May 2007 (UTC)
This is a very vexing statement. You are an apparently experienced editors - I'm certainly not off base, given that almost every other editor who's looked at the article also sees them. There are 20+ citations at the bottom of the article which come from no less than 5 major newspapers (including the largest newspapers in Miami and Cleveland) - these are transparently reliable sources. Apart from that, your whole argument appears to consist of This should probably be renamed which is not really disputed, as far as I can see. Every other argument (not reliably sourced, et cetera) is factually inexact, and hence the perponderance of keep arguments. If you're unhapy with the wway the article is written, why not issue a request for comment or ask for another opinion? WilyD 23:53, 11 May 2007 (UTC)
Nope, my argument is not that it should be renamed, it's that all of the sources are opinion pieces which don't address whether the participants in the so-called annual event ever actually use the term and really participate in any such annual action, or whether this was a one-off thing. Still no sources. Corvus cornix 19:44, 12 May 2007 (UTC)
There are at least two incidents discussed in the newspaper. And whether the participants use Beat up a white kid day or May day isn't a deletion issue - if you want to move the page, why not participate in the page's discussion on a possible move? If there some content that you think think doesn't match the sources, please say which content it is that you take excpetion to. I looked at the article in depth when I noticed it at AfD and found that it was generally faithful to the sources - although it's possible there are exceptions. What are you noticing? WilyD 01:14, 14 May 2007 (UTC)
As I keep telling you, I don't want to move it, I want to delete it as not having any reliable sources. Please point to a newspaper article, not a column, which uses the term "Beat up a white kid day". Corvus cornix 23:11, 14 May 2007 (UTC)
Wait. Why was this speedy closed after one day? -Amarkov moo! 23:20, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

External links to Geocaches. Appropriate?

An external link to a specific geocache site (see geocaching) has been added to Elsbridge. My gut feeling is that the link is not appropriate, and should be deleted, especially since the article is about a fictional location! However, I have had a look at WP:EL and I'm still uncertain.

The main reason for seeking advice here is that the External Link search tool brings up nearly 100 links to www.geocaching.com, and I was wondering whether there was any kind of precedent/guidance/policy/advice for including or removing links to specific geocache locations?

If others feel that such links should be removed en masse then the appropriate Project/Task Force needs to be alerted.

EdJogg 12:30, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

since "current events" articles are merged/edited/redirected constantly for example "iraqi army" how do you find the information that used to be there ?

It used to be possible to find out the names of Iraqi army units at various times but now it seems that anything before 2006 deserves a paragraph at most ! What Iraqi units were involved in the iran-iraq war or the first (1991) gulf war ? What was the army organisation before the 2003 war started ?

keeping things current seems to have meant losing a mass of useful HISTORICAL information !

Why doesn't search show 59th World Science Fiction Convention?

I created the page for the 59th World Science Fiction Convention last November, and it still doesn't show up in the search engine on the main page. The first hit you get is for the 69th instead. If you click on it again, Wikipedia says there is no page of that name. But it's right there! Please, what have I done wrong? Artemis-Arethusa 13:54, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

Actually, if you hit Search Wikipedia doesn't say there is no page, it just doesn't go there immediately. If you hit Go it will. If you hit Search, you'll see at the top of the resulting page a blue link to 59th World Science Fiction Convention, it just doesn't list it top of the Search results. You haven't done anything wrong! The Rambling Man 14:04, 16 May 2007 (UTC)
D'oh! Thank you! I get it now. Artemis-Arethusa 18:00, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

Need help with some tables

I need some help in putting several tables on one page. It is all explained (clearly, I hope) HERE. If somebody does it on that page, I can figure out how it was done. Lou Sander 14:41, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

I dropped a version that may be what you're looking for on your Sandbox2 page. -- MarcoTolo 20:34, 16 May 2007 (UTC)
Also, in terms of setting column widths in tables, you might find this help page useful. -- MarcoTolo 20:36, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

What do I do when others are assuming bad faith of me?

See Wikipedia talk:Non-free content#ISA resolved. I have multiple people claiming I've started this whole mess to make a point rather than to help apply our free content policies. --NE2 06:16, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

You really missed the point there, as Cyde was trying to tell you to not assume we thought that. In other words, do you actually know what is being assumed of you, and by who? -- Ned Scott 06:20, 14 May 2007 (UTC)
Gmaxwell said that he was "increasingly beginning to believe" the copyright issues "were really just trumped up to make a point of this". This statement was not necessary; all it does is cast doubt on my motives for starting this mess and creating the free replacement. --NE2 06:25, 14 May 2007 (UTC)
Seeming that you have a history of being an instigator, I suggest that you try not to fire up a discussion or make certain edits that would accuse you of being the bad guy. The ISA symbol is one of them. This is also going on all over the Public transportation WikiProject scope. I understand it is copyrighted by the ISA, but we are allowed to use it under certain circumstances, like infoboxes and articles that describes a landmark or point of interest that is accessible. I understand that as a wiki, everyone is entitled to contribute, but that doesn't mean we should go into guideline overkill. Sometimes, some things are allowed to slide. The ISA symbol is one of them. --Imdanumber1 (talk contribs) 00:24, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

Inserting sections at top of my talk page

I want to add a link to my talk page to allow new discussions to be inserted at the top of the page. I can do this at the bottom by using

[{{SERVER}}{{localurl:{{NAMESPACE}}:{{PAGENAME}}|action=edit&section=new}} but is there a way to do this? Actually, I’d like to add a new section 2, leaving 1 as it is, and shuffling the rest down. Regards, Lynbarn 15:47, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

Iraq- please add template

I made this request in the Iraq talk page, but it seems pretty quiet so I'll ask here as well. Please could someone add {{Globalize/USA}} to the article. It's locked so I can't do it. I put my reasons on the page (I hope) quite clearly. Thanks :) —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 86.150.128.6 (talk) 06:23, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

article : Ancient Egypt

There's an odd bit of vandalism placed at the end of the "Dynastic" section of the article on Ancient Egypt. I don't see it when I go to edit it out, but it appears when I simply view the article. The vandalism is the line "fucking shit on cow" I don't seem able to remove it. Any ideas how it appears on the page? Xenophon777 04:51, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

If you take a look at the history, you'll see that an editor was mucking around with multiple edits and your revert only caught one reversion. I think I got it with a deeper revert. Tony Fox (arf!) 04:59, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

Dotted rectangle around a sentence of a new article

I've been attempting to insert a new article. When I try to save it, a dotted rectangle is placed around one aprt of a sentence and I don't understand what this is, or how to get rid of it so I can post the article. Can anyone help in this matter. Thank you. Genex1 18:59, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

I suspect you were refering to the Hans Gustav Burkhardt article that you recently worked on. The last sentence appeared with a box around it because the first word was indented one space; I fixed it by deleting the blank space. Good luck and happy editing. Doc Tropics 19:01, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for your help.

odd autoblock behavior

Is anyone else running into multiple autoblocks for different IP addresses? I logged in this afternoon, made a couple edits, then went to edit a page I'd just edited and hit an autoblock. When I went to put an unblock request I was able to edit things other than my talk page, so I moved on, but then two pages later hit another autoblock - differen IP address. I put both on my talk page, but now am able to edit the VP. This doesn't seem normal. ~ ONUnicorn(Talk|Contribs)problem solving 21:48, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

I am - I've been blocked 3 times by the same guy.danielfolsom 21:50, 17 May 2007 (UTC)
Nvm - 2 - but wait, I can edit the mainspace - just not the talk space.danielfolsom 21:52, 17 May 2007 (UTC)
One of the advantages of a fixed IP! Ask your ISP if it provides them. Adrian M. H. 13:44, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

Ignoring Sections in TOC

Is there any way to ignore a series of sections in the table of contents - I'm integrated my archive with my talk page - and so far it's not working.danielfolsom 04:55, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

I'm not sure what you are trying to achieve. Can you clarify? What do you mean by "integrating my archive with my talk page"? Are you trying to un-archive some content? Adrian M. H. 13:42, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

Wrong fonts or incorrect edits?

Please take a look for Special:Contributions/Moyogo, especially edits marked:

  • 11:29, 23 May 2007
  • 10:49, 23 May 2007
  • 20:30, 4 May 2007
  • 20:26, 4 May 2007

I see correct digraphs ("d" or "t" plus some variants of "z", "s", "c") replaced by incorrect (with e-grave instead of "d" and u-grave instead of "t"). Is it a problem of my font settings or just incorrect edits? -- Kcmamu 07:29, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

Resolved

User 60.48.118.67 is vandalising FA Cup and FA Cup 2006-07. I have put a Semi-protection on the articles, but I am not an Admin. This needs an Admin to look into the matter. SilkTork 17:42, 19 May 2007 (UTC)