Wikipedia:Help desk/Archive 25

Image: Flag of Creek Nation

Do you know if this is the official flag of the Creek Nation??? For I have seen another some-what similar flag. Or, is it neither, I am sooooo confused. I am a Creek decedent and trying to research my background. I would also like to purchase “The Official” Flag of the Creek Nation. If you have any answers or info that would prove useful PLEASE e-mail me at memereed02@sbcglobal.net Thank you, Teresa Reed

Please refer all factual questions to the reference desk. Thanks! Flcelloguy | A note? | Desk 20:36, 30 July 2005 (UTC)

(Copied to Wikipedia:Reference desk#Image: Flag of Creek Nation, look there for the answer. DES 05:26, 31 July 2005 (UTC))

Article with Dubious, Uncited Claims

I've already addressed my concerns with the Virgin Cola article on the talk page. I'm curious if I should tag this article, or add it to a list of articles to check.

Is there any other action you would recommend? Thanks. -- Skylark 20:22, 30 July 2005 (UTC)

I would tag it with a "this article's factual accuracy is disputed tag", and if you wish to, take it to RfC to find community consensus. Flcelloguy | A note? | Desk 20:34, 30 July 2005 (UTC)

P.S. The tag is either {{dubious}} or {{disputed}} . You may also wish to list the article at Wikipedia:Accuracy dispute. Flcelloguy | A note? | Desk 20:39, 30 July 2005 (UTC)

Much of it (a recent, one-day user's submission) is unsourced and sounds like marketing blab. The last paragraph, however,(stuff about dirty tricks) borders on libelous, and I think having it there without citations reflects badly on Wikipedia. So I removed it to the talk page, but left the other stuff. -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 20:44, July 30, 2005 (UTC)

Username Deletion

How can I cancel my name from the log in and return to being an anonymous helper? Thank you Michael

Currently, there is no way to delete or remove user accounts. I would just not log in when editing Wikipedia. However, I highly encourage you to stay logged in. See Wikipedia:Why create an account? Flcelloguy | A note? | Desk 20:35, 30 July 2005 (UTC)

If you don't like your user name you can create a different one at any time. DES 23:06, 30 July 2005 (UTC)

However you'll lose your previous edit counts XDDD Deryck C. 07:52, 9 August 2005 (UTC)

stub and navigational templates

Which should go first, a navigational template or a stub template? Thanks -- Mwalcoff 04:39, 31 July 2005 (UTC)

I imagine it might depend on context and the particular content of the navigational template (some can be ridiculously large), but as a reader, I would be much more interested in navigating than in knowing that the article isn't as complete as it could be. ∴ I would put the nav template first. —HorsePunchKid→龜 05:07, 31 July 2005 (UTC)

SOA

I did a search for Service Oreinted Architecture and your site provided a detailed explanation of SOA without one key component - IBM Message Oriented Middleware named Websphere rated number one by Gartner. Every other company's SOA product seems to be listed, but not IBM's , curious. Thank you.

dambrosj@us.ibm.com

We Wikipedians have sworth an oath to defy the Evil Blue Empire...no, no, I'm sorry, just kidding. There could be several reasons. You might want to look at the article's Talk page here to see if the contributors have discussed the product you mentioned. Keep in mind that you are free, in fact are encouraged, to add information; that's how articles get better. If you think you'll be making a radical change, it's good form to mention it on the Talk page first. DavidH 21:51, August 1, 2005 (UTC)

Holy Roman Empire templates

I think the two templates at Holy Roman Empire would look better one on top of the other, rather than side-by-side as they are now. What is the best way to achieve this? Commander Keane 07:35, July 31, 2005 (UTC)

Just move the second one further down until it is below where the bottom of the first one ends in the text. I did it myself, is that how you want it? --Dmcdevit·t 07:46, July 31, 2005 (UTC)

This is a nice and simple solution, thanks. However, the Austrian template tends to jump around in different resolutions, and there is text between the templates. --Commander Keane 08:07, July 31, 2005 (UTC)

One way to do this that usually works with both templates and images is to enclose them in a <div> ... </div> block, as explained at Wikipedia:Picture_tutorial#Co-aligning_like_images. Note that the pixel width of the div block must be specified for this to work with some browsers. Unfortunately, this technique does not work in this case because the templates specify relative widths (20%), which is interpreted as relative to the div, not to the page. Without changing the width specification in the templates, I can't think of a way to do exactly what you want. -- Rick Block (talk) 15:17, July 31, 2005 (UTC)

I sorted it with a <div style="clear:right">, which pushes the contents of the div down the page until the right-hand side is clear. [[smoddy]] 15:32, 31 July 2005 (UTC)

Deletion

Is there any way for me to request the immediate deletion of articles I created myself? Document Number Two 12:55, 31 July 2005 (UTC)

Put {{db|reason}} on the top of the page. Howabout1 ^{Talk to me!} 14:42, July 31, 2005 (UTC)

Thanks. Should I also place it under "Candidates for Speedy Deletion"? Document Number Two 15:36, 31 July 2005 (UTC)

No. That is automatic. Howabout1 ^{Talk to me!} 15:44, July 31, 2005 (UTC)

Sorry, I don't quite understand. Do I just put a note requesting deletion at the top, with a reason, and wait for an administrator to find it? Thanks for the help so far. Document Number Two 15:49, 31 July 2005 (UTC)

Yes. It is automaticly added to a page that administrators often look at when the notice is added. See WP:CSD. Howabout1 ^{Talk to me!} 16:17, July 31, 2005 (UTC)

I understand now. Thank you for your help (and patience!) Document Number Two 16:51, 31 July 2005 (UTC)

No problem. Howabout1 ^{Talk to me!} 17:00, July 31, 2005 (UTC)

Sorry to keep at this, but how frequently are the Candidates for Speedy Deletion generally reviewed? What is the average lag time for Speedy Deletion requests? Document Number Two 21:30, July 31, 2005 (UTC)

During peak hours (hours where most people are using Wikipedia), CSD generally only take 10-15 minutes to be deleted. However, I have seen instances where backlogs have occured. At the most, it should take 1 or 2 days to be deleted. Flcelloguy | A note? | Desk 21:33, 31 July 2005 (UTC)

• Compared to regular deletion which takes 5 days, this is relatively fast still. - Mgm|^(talk) 09:09, August 1, 2005 (UTC)

Image Identification Page?

I could swear that a few weeks ago I ran across a page where people posted images and other people helped identify what their subjects were? Of course, now that I need it I can't seem to find it. Can someone please point me in the right direction?

Thanks! -- Avocado 16:44, July 31, 2005 (UTC)

I believe what you remember was at the reference desk; there, someone posted multiple images of an unknown bug/insect, and people tried to identify it. Flcelloguy | A note? | Desk 18:43, 31 July 2005 (UTC)

Yes, looks like you're right. Thanks! -- Avocado 11:45, August 1, 2005 (UTC)

Diablo II Prime & Lesser Evils - A Structural Dilemma

Hi. I have enjoyed Wikipedia for some time, and only mustered the bravado to start editing articles only recently. A few days later, I signed up for Wikipedia so I would be credited properly for the work I put into articles.

I am a fan of the computer game Diablo_II and its expansion Diablo_II:_Lord_of_Destruction.

As such, I started looking for articles on information from the game, and found that there was a distinct lack of it, such as an article on Diablospeak (an article I started and am still adding to), a special form of slang, abbreviations, acronyms, and terms used within Diablo II.

{{spoiler}}

While doing research for the article within Wikipedia, a conflict seems to have arisen in my mind. There are three "Prime Evils" in the game: Diablo, Mephisto, and Baal. There are also four "Lesser Evils": Andariel, Duriel, Azmodan, and Belial (only Andariel and Duriel are actually seen in the game, though, as the end bosses of Acts I and II respectively).

Now, there is an article for the The_Prime_Evils, which mentions both the prime evils and the lesser evils. However, there are also articles emerging for each of the respective evils, such as the one on Mephisto (Mephisto_(Diablo) that I created.

Wikipedia suggests that an ideal Wikipedia article would be no longer than 5,000 words unless an article requires a lot of explanation. Well, there is a lot of history and backstory to the game, much of which I have memorized. For instance, one of the Prime Evils, Baal, looks very similar to the historical demon.

I did my best to make a comparison of sorts between the two images; please excuse the rigidity of my coding, as I am very new to Wikipedia. The image on the left is Baal from the computer game, and the image on the right is Baal (also, Bael), the mythological demon.

File:Baal (diablo).jpg

As you can see, the computer game and mythological Baals look very similar. Obviously, the Diablo II Baal was inspired by the mythological Baal, with some elements removed (such as the cat and frog heads on either side), probably for aesthetical reasons.

I used this example to establish the three Prime Evils (and likely the four lesser evils) have their own unique, complex histories, since they are based on mythological demons (in part or whole). Herein lies my dilemma: for the Prime and Lesser Evils, there are three possible options for writing the articles:

• An article that covers the three Prime Evils and four Lesser Evils (which already exists, but must be expanded upon).
• An article covering the three Prime Evils, and an article covering the four Lesser Evils.
• An article apiece for each of the Prime and Lesser Evils.

Now, as I said, conflicts are already appearing, as an article for Mephisto (Mephisto_(Diablo) already exists along with the article for the Prime and Lesser Evils (The_Prime_Evils).

If any of the three options I listed are chosen, then a few things will have to be edited and moved around. Either way, I need a lot of help with this, and any help whatsoever would be greatly appreciated.

I should note, Blizzard announced on July 29, 2005 that the 1.11 patch is coming out soon, which means that there will likely be a surge of people looking at Diablo II-related items. Blizzard is shutting down their online playing service, Battle.net, for a few hours on Monday, August 1, and rumors are abound that this is when they are going to implement the new patch. I know time is short, but if possible, I would like to make a decision and start making changes and have everything neat and sorted out by tomorrow. I have the rest of today (Sunday, July 31) to work on this if I must.

Thank you.

--Ihmhi 18:32, 31 July 2005 (UTC)

• You should probably talk about that on the article's talk page. Elfguy 21:27, 31 July 2005 (UTC)

• I think I might have put this in the wrong place... but I digress, that is not the point. This covers many articles, and it would be served best if I put it in one centralized place, would it not? Besides, even if you are not a fan of the game, I think I explained the structural issue well enough, so this is an issue of the way the articles are organized; very little knowledge on the game itself is necessary. --Ihmhi 16:38, 1 August 2005 (UTC)

Finalize VfD for JAXASS

Can someone please finalize the vote for deletion on JAXASS. The creator (Sleepnomore - contributitions) of the article is basically a troll adding numerous comments in the talk page and trying to persuade other by adding his comments at the top of the page and not at the bottom. The overall vote consensus is obviously in strong favor of deleting the article as it is only an attempt to gain acceptance for a newly coined term. All of the keep votes are from unknown users - some who also edited the JAXASS article. I believe it is Sleepnomore who have added these votes.

If this is not the correct place to address this issue please let me know.

Thanks --Sleepyhead81 18:56, 31 July 2005 (UTC)

Its unfortunate that Sleepyhead81 feels this way. I'm sure he is a great individual in person, but his online personality somehow disagrees with mine. I think you will find that I am doing my best to address the issues on the vote for deletion discussion in an attempt to keep the article alive. Since I am new to wikipedia, I did in fact add the word "keep" at the beginning of my comments (I was following Sleepyhead81's lead since I didn't know what to do). I've rewritten the article and removed several of the offending comments. As far as the other votes to keep go, they are not mine. I do in fact have a few others that have voted keep. I've even had one edit my page praising the technology (I removed the praise as it wasn't encyclopedic). Wikipedia is not a democracy. Sleepyhead81 has called on several people to help him get this technology removed. He's even wiped the page once. He's done everything in his power to get this technology removed despite its obvious existence. I'm sure he means well, but its become harrasment at this point. I ask that you please keep the JAXASS article so I can work with these folks to help make the article better rather than simply deleting it. Sleepnomore 22:29, July 31, 2005 (UTC)

• I don't think it is time to close this discussion yet. The debate to date has not been focused on whether the article should exist in furtherance of establishing Wikipedia as an on-line, publicly edited encyclopedia, and it is difficult to determine what the actual vote is because too many people have "spoiled their ballots" by using voting terms instead of comment on their commentary posts. Also, there is not a broad-enough base of comments on the merits of the article. Too few people have spoken. I personally don't like the article and would edit it for improvement if I could, but I don't know enough about the field to do so. Important note it is not that I don't know enough about JAXASS itself. The actual workings of the software are only one portion of what should be covered in the article. As I said on the issue-specific page, the article needs a lot of work. --Mddake 00:06, 1 August 2005 (UTC)

2004 Presidential Election

I added a new paragraph summarzing the result of the 2004 Presidential Election by Congressional District...i add this just the other day...under my username polidata...it is now totally gone...and i have received no email about it...did i do something wrong here?

I believe the paragraph is still there, changed somewhat by a subsequent editor (via this edit). If you would like to discuss this with the other editor feel free to leave a message on his/her talk page, or you can bring it up on the talk page associated with the article (the "discuss this page" tab). In general, anything anyone contributes may be subsequently edited by other users (so, no, you didn't do anything wrong). -- Rick Block (talk) 20:12, July 31, 2005 (UTC)

to delete or ignore???

Without (and I will) trying to sound stupid, how do I know what I shoudl ignore, delete or quarantine???? Should I go by what the program suggests (under details)? Is it possible to delete any necessary files while deleting spyware????

• Please direct this question to the reference desk and be a bit more specific about the program and system you are using. It's very hard to answer your question without this information. - Mgm|^(talk) 09:12, August 1, 2005 (UTC)

Copyright issue, formating check needed.

I suck at gramarical errors. I did a large edit on a niche article. It also needs a format check as I don't know exactly how to deal with the external references from the old paper, wether they are external linkes here or are references, and now what the original paper that was an external link is.

It was an import from another author with permission to move to the GFDL, which I fully explained the implications of. I couldn't find out what was fully needed, I am hoping this email exchange which I have archived on and offline will do.

where can we see what you have so far? can you put it on a user page for someone to look at and work with? or has it been posted as an article? If so, what is the title? DES 22:38, 31 July 2005 (UTC)

Ahh, i'm dumb, it's GOMS. Indo

Change article name or redirect?

Hello, I recently posted a new article on The Doane Stuart School. However I find the only way I can access the article using the Wikipedia search function is by typing out the full article name, shorthand like "Doane Stuart" doesn't return results that link to my article. I've also since learned that Wikipedia naming conventions avoid the pronoun "The" in article names. My 3 questions are: 1) How do I change the name of my article (say, to "Doane Stuart School") 2) Instead of renaming, should I just add a redirect page with that name? 3) Why doesn't the Wikipedia search return full results?

Thank you, -SONORAMA

I would approach it this way:

1) click on the tab at the top of the article that says "move", fill out the form that comes up to move it to "Doane Stuart School" and it'll be done.

2) add a redirect at "Doane Stuart".

3) Search seems to be acting wonky lately, I don't know why.

Dismas 02:53, 1 August 2005 (UTC)

Wikipedia's search mechanism uses an index that is currently not rebuilt very often (in particular, it is not updated with every edit). Content added since the last time the index was rebuilt doesn't show up. -- Rick Block (talk) 03:27, August 1, 2005 (UTC)

What is the copyright status of John Garang.jpeg?

I would like to use this photo (found at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:John_garang.jpeg) in a posting on my blog,and I need to know if I have to jump through any hoops. Is this image public domain or not?

As the description page says, the uploader did not include the quite necessary information about the image's source and license. You can try contacting User:Jgatkuoth, but I wouldn't expect a response. -- Cyrius|✎ 06:35, 1 August 2005 (UTC)

Problem with copyright template?

The template "Promophoto" doesn't seem to work on this image: Ingram_marshall_250x250.jpg on the page Ingram Marshall

Non-free promotional photographs are not allowed on the Wikimedia Commons. I have tagged the image for deletion by a Commons admin. -- Cyrius|✎ 06:33, 1 August 2005 (UTC)

• Are you sure you spelled the template name correctly with the proper capitalization? - Mgm|^(talk) 09:15, August 1, 2005 (UTC)

  There is no template under any spelling for promotional images on Commons. -- Cyrius|✎ 06:04, 8 August 2005 (UTC)

Wrong Article Posted

Hello,

My name is Jlinderman. On 1 Aug 05, I was to post an assignment for school on Wikipedia. However, I posted the wrong article. When I realized that it was the wrong article I went to go back and replace it with the correct article. However the first article (my working copy) was flagged for copyright. The Article is Bentgrasses, I posted the correct article on the talk board for it. This first article needs to be deleted and how do I do that and repost the correct article.

I have been searching this site for 2 hours trying to get assistance.

Thanks

John

Well, the instructions in the copyright violation notice would have been a good place to start, but for now I suggest that you concentrate on contributing to the article on Agrostis. Note that it is not generally appropriate simply to copy into Wikipedia text created for a different purpose, as it will likely not have the right encyclopedic nature, and it will surely not be wikified. I strongly caution you against simply replacing the existing article with your own, or just appending it. Careful integration of important but unrepresented facts is what you want to do.

By the way, when you say "was to post", does that mean that your teacher encouraged you to post it here? Is using Wikipedia part of a class project? Has your teacher read Wikipedia:Schools' FAQ and Wikipedia:School and university projects?

Regarding your original article, it will be deleted after a few days, and replaced with the temp version which is current a redirect to Agrostis. I must say that I'm a little curious how you managed to post "the wrong article", and insert the contents of a webpage instead of your paper.

Cheers, Bovlb 07:28:54, 2005-08-01 (UTC)

Just out of curiosity, what was the assignment that you were given? Dismas 08:16, 1 August 2005 (UTC)

contributing new entries

hi

i love wikipedia. i'd like to know please if one can make suggestions about new entries for the encyclopedia.

thank u

surendran reddy (composer)

• Welcome! The beautiful thing about wikipedia is that you can do more than suggest a new entry - you can create it yourself. See Wikipedia:How to edit a page and Help:Starting a new page. You may want to play around in the Sandbox first to get the hang of it, or to visit one of the following pages:
• The Five Pillars of Wikipedia
• Editing, policy, conduct, and structure tutorial
• Picture tutorial
• How to write a great article
• Naming conventions
• Manual of Style
• Merging, redirecting, and renaming pages
• If you're ready for the complete list of Wikipedia documentation, there's also Wikipedia:Topical index.

Anyway, enjoy! --Blu Aardvark | ^{(talk) | (contribs)} 11:27, 1 August 2005 (UTC)

Maybe you are looking for Requested articles? I have added Surendran Reddy to the composers list here. Hope that helps! --Commander Keane 12:42, August 1, 2005 (UTC)

ticks

I was wondering if there was a nother way to get tiks out besides a match.I don't want to hurt my dogs ear.

• Please refer questions like this to the reference desk in the future. I think your vet may have more ideas on how to solve your problem. - Mgm|^(talk) 14:44, August 1, 2005 (UTC)

Supposedly you can turn the tick a quarter turn and then remove, but I would still use a match. Better a slight burn that'll get better (it doesn't hurt that bad on people) than a tick you can't get out. I also recommend you use a flea preventative in the future so your dog doesn't get ticks and fleas, which can spread all sorts of nasty diseases and parasites like heartworms. --Laura Scudder | Talk 06:47, 6 August 2005 (UTC)

breton vs new brazilian site

i'm not quite sure who to write to so i've sent this mail to a few places. the problem is ther's a guy called cyperpoeta who wants to set up a brazilian wikipedia as distinvct from a portuguese one (why, i'm not sure). but all things being equal, good luck to him. the hitch is her's occupying the br site which is already assigned to breton (where i contribute). he's already changed the welcome page several times. what can be done?? 81.60.240.99 14:46, 1 August 2005 (UTC)

Hijacking a site as Cyberpoeta is trying to do by walking over a formatted main page could be regarded as vandalism, which is generally regarded as a blockable offence. You should probably send Cyberpoeta to meta:Requests for new languages. If you need a Portuguese speaking interpreter to communicate, you could try the Portuguese Wikipedia Embassy at pt:Wikipedia:Embaixada Susvolans (pigs can fly) 15:45, 1 August 2005 (UTC)

wrong number of pages on watchlist

My watchlist page is saying "You have 52.5 pages on your watchlist" but I actually have twice that many, 105. What is wrong? Bubba73 15:11, August 1, 2005 (UTC)

• Maybe talk pages? Elfguy 15:20, 1 August 2005 (UTC)

I have the same problem. It says I have 22.5 and I really have 45. Howabout1 ^{Talk to me!} 15:33, August 1, 2005 (UTC)

PS and if I click on "display and edit the complete list", it shows the correct number. But "My watchlist" shows half of the correct number, even a 0.5 page. Bubba73 15:36, August 1, 2005 (UTC)

Again, me too. Must be a bug. Howabout1 ^{Talk to me!} 16:07, August 1, 2005 (UTC)

Dude, I'd like to find that half a page I'm watching. 21.5, indeed. Any clues on what to do? Hermione1980 16:37, 1 August 2005 (UTC)

This is a bug that has been brought up before, see here. You might want to report what's happening to you at Wikipedia:MW_1.5_bugs, and then make a bug report. --Dmcdevit·t 18:16, August 1, 2005 (UTC)

OK, I just tried that. I created an account, but when I tried to enter it, it wouldn't take it (the bug report). Bubba73 19:02, August 1, 2005 (UTC)

Happening to me too, but on a larger scale. 1635 when I'm supposed to have about 3500. Tim Rhymeless (Er...let's shimmy) 23:22, 1 August 2005 (UTC)

Massive spam/astroturfing effort

I stumbled on the article MentaNet News, and from that Richard Menta & MP3 Newswire. If you look through the contributions of the not-signed-in people who contributed them, it looks like they're making an on-going effort to hijack WikiPedia to garner extra Google links, and to spam themselves in as many wikipedia articles as possible. There are >lots< of one-man internet news services, about mp3 and other things, and this some seems to have given itself undue promenance by underhand means. I just thought I should let WikiPedia know, in-case you hadn't noticed it yet.

Peter.

• I removed the links where they seemed inapropriate. Elfguy 16:55, 1 August 2005 (UTC)

You're right Peter - I'll look into all three and perhaps but them on VfD - it appears MP3 Newswire is the most notable of the three, yet has an Alexa of 127,000. -JJLeahy 16:59, 1 August 2005 (UTC) (Update - I've put MentaNet News and MP3 Newswire on VfD, but I think Richard Menta appears to be notable. I will wait to see how these do on VfD before nominating Richard Menta. -JJLeahy 18:52, 1 August 2005 (UTC))

How do I see all articles or edits by a particular user?

Sorry if this is covered somewhere, but I have been on the site looking around for a couple of days and can't find out how to do it. Trickyt 20:57, 1 August 2005 (UTC)

Go to a User's page by clicking on their name, their contributions can be found by clicking the link on the left side of the page where it says "user contributions". Dismas 21:10, 1 August 2005 (UTC)

Thanks Dismas, That's solved it. Trickyt 21:42, 1 August 2005 (UTC)

Orphan links on Recent Changes template?

What are these non-working links at the top of the Recent Changes page (following all the working links?

Major Incident Plan - Sangmélima - Dearing Report - Ţirād Khurr - Para-functional habit

Never noticed it before. Doesn't seem like a good idea to have five broken links here. Vandalism? DavidH 00:10, August 2, 2005 (UTC)

Those are pages people want. They don't exist yet. They are there so you can see them. Howabout1 ^{Talk to me!} 00:15, August 2, 2005 (UTC)

I thought they would have something to do with Recent Changes -- are they the most recent links without targets? I assumed there was a long, long list of those somewhere. Everything else at the top of recent changes seems to be a list or tool, so if this is a few random needed articles, there should be a label to that effect. DavidH 00:47, August 2, 2005 (UTC)

It says Requests right next to it. See Wikipedia:Requested articles. Most of that stuff has little to do with RC. They are just helpful things. Howabout1 ^{<;span style="color:red">Talk to me!} 00:51, August 2, 2005 (UTC)

Yep, just open tasks lying around where hopefully lots of good Wikipedians frequent. It's actually located at Wikipedia:Recentchanges. --Dmcdevit·t 01:01, August 2, 2005 (UTC)

Now I see it. In that font the colon was invisible to me. As a suggestion, a label should not also be a link. It could instead be followed by "Show all" as a link (or some other wording). I guess it's bold but at that size it's really hard to see (on my screen at least). DavidH 02:56, August 2, 2005 (UTC)

This could be solved by making it normal size and not small. I've thought about doing that before. If others want to, I'll be bold. Dmcdevit·t 04:11, August 2, 2005 (UTC)

Anything to make it clearer as a label (assuming making the label not a link is not possible). Making just the labels larger would certainly help. Thanks for considering my concern. DavidH 04:31, August 2, 2005 (UTC)

This is an example of very bad interaction design. When I click "Recent changes", guess what I want to see? Recent changes! Instead, I have to read or skip over half a page of other crap, some of it "excise" (as Alan Cooper calls it), and some of it completely unrelated, such as the Projects and Requests. This is one reason why I, for one, hardly use this page anymore. — Sebastian (talk) 05:21, August 2, 2005 (UTC)

Thunderdome article, time for disambiguation?

I am going to write an article about the Thunderdome, an on-campus basketball arena at the University of California, Santa Barbara. When you look at the Thunderdome article, it references a "famous" commune in Champaign, Illinois. I looked up "Thunderdome" on Google, and the UCSB page came up 15th, ahead of the communal society. Note how there are several Thunderdomes listed, including the communal, the music festival, the arena, and the movie.

My question is: Isn't it time for a disambiguation page? I sure think so.

Thank you, fpo 01:43, August 2, 2005 (UTC)

Sounds like a disambiguation to me, too. When you've got four or five articles that would all like to occupy the same space, it's time. Isomorphic 03:32, 2 August 2005 (UTC)

I made it into a disambiguation page, and will write the Thunderdome (arena) article soon. Thanks --fpo 05:21, August 2, 2005 (UTC)

Search

I am looking for the misspelled word "phenomenom", to change them to "phenomenon". On the left side of the screen it says "search", with a field under it, and "Go" and "Search" buttons below that. If I enter phenomenom and click Search, it can't find any. But if I click Go instead, it shows 93 examples! So I must be misunderstanding what Search is supposed to do. Most of the unfound "phenomenom"'s are in regular articles, so it should be enough to have the (main) namespace checked. What am I missing? Art LaPella 04:39, August 2, 2005 (UTC)

Search searches 0he whol) text, end Go goes to the article of that title if it can find it. Otherwise, it should work just as Search, if I understand it correctly. — Sebastian (talk) 04:55, August 2, 2005 (UTC)

Yes, that was my understanding also. So it seems likely that I found a bug. Go lists all the phenomenom's, and Search doesn't. Art LaPella 04:59, August 2, 2005 (UTC)

Funny edit conflict. I changed my reply while you added yours. It seems neither of us saw the other's text. I got the unfortunately common error message that it couldn't display the page after I clicked Save. — Sebastian (talk) 04:58, August 2, 2005 (UTC)

Yes, I got that error message also after I clicked Save. Art LaPella 05:02, August 2, 2005 (UTC)

Wikipedia's search tool is notoriously unreliable. Sometimes it's better to just use Google to search Wikipedia. --Dmcdevit·t 05:05, August 2, 2005 (UTC)

Removing a comment on an image?

Hi,

I recently added my first article and image but unfortuntely I made a mistake re the comment attached to the image. I tried to update the comment by uploading the image again and while I can see that the change was listed, the original incorrect entry remains.

As only an experienced editor may delete the first entry, I was wondering to whom I should approach in respect to having the original entry removed.

The reason I would like to have the original comment deleted is because I do not wish to create any confusion regarding the copyright notice.

The entry to be deleted was uploaded 10:48, 2 August 2005 at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Jfhhobler1764-1844.jpg

The image and comment uploaded at 10:50, 2 August 2005 is the correct version which I would like to retain.

Thanking you in advance for your assistance,

Nywor

You're actually making it harder than it is :). Just go to the image, Image:Jfhhobler1764-1844.jpg and click on the edit button there. You don't need to reupload or anything that extensive. The image description can always be edited like any other page. --Dmcdevit·t 05:11, August 2, 2005 (UTC)

When are contributions spam?

Jasondmath (talk • contribs • block) seems to post only external links to business pages in which he is involved. Example: [http://wserver0.prepaidlegal.com/Multisite/Multisite?site=idt&assoc=jasonmathison Protect your identity video_"PLEASE WATCH"] in Identity theft.

Is this OK or considered spam? — Sebastian (talk) 04:47, August 2, 2005 (UTC)

Definitely spam. I've reverted all of his edits and warned the user. --Dmcdevit·t 05:18, August 2, 2005 (UTC)

longhorn with windows 98.how?

respected sir my question is very minor i want to know how can i install windows 98 on a pc having windows longhorn as it's o/s b'coz whenever i try to install win 98 i get a message that u r already running a higher version of windows and cant install win 98.

A) I didn't think Longhorn was due out till next year...?

B) The Wikipedia:Reference desk is the place for this question. Please take your question there. The Help Desk is for questions about the Wiki itself. Dismas 09:28, 2 August 2005 (UTC)

Category: Cities in ...

I just added the Category:Cities in Kenya to some localities in Kenya. I hesitated somewhat when I got to towns, but now I came across a village of mere 200 people: El Molo. Should there be a different category or is it OK to add all of these into the Cities of ... category? — Sebastian (talk) 08:44, August 2, 2005 (UTC)

Slag (slang)

I know that Wikipedia is not a dictionary, so is Slag (slang) a candidate for deletion? --Commander Keane 10:31, August 2, 2005 (UTC)

I dare say it is. Wiktionary already has an entry, so ours doesn't need to be transwikied, either. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 11:41, 2 August 2005 (UTC)

Locating old VFD log or Where has that article gone?

The search function is about worthless. I'm trying to locate a (presumably) deleted article's VFD entry. Specifically, I'm trying to figure out when, where, and why the article "Ideomotor effect" disappeared before I start a new article under the same title. -- Krash 14:29, 2 August 2005 (UTC)

• The reason you couldn't find it under VfD was that it wasn't VfDed. (Otherwise, you can just type in "Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/ARTICLE NAME") If you go to Special:Log, click on "Deletion log" and then type in the article name, you can see that it was deleted because of a copyvio. Here's the log:

05:55, 28 July 2005 Sasquatch deleted "Ideomotor effect" (content was: '{{copyvio|url="The Mischief Making of the Ideomotor Effect"}}de:Carpenter-Effekt')

Hope this helps! Flcelloguy | A note? | Desk 15:43, 2 August 2005 (UTC)

• <glares at Flcelloguy> that's what I was going to say. Additionally, you can contact User:Sasquatch for more details. - Mgm|^(talk) 15:45, August 2, 2005 (UTC)

• I have suggested a rewording at MediaWiki talk:Nogomatch that includes an appropriate link to the deletion log, and to the potential VfD page. Bovlb 05:35:51, 2005-08-03 (UTC)

(top) next to entries on the my contributions page.

Hi

Can anyone tell me what the (top) label means next to the edit descriptions on the my contributions page means please?

Thanks in advance.

--KrisW6 15:53, 2 August 2005 (UTC)

It isn't a value judgement... it just means that this contribution is the current live one – nobody has edited since your contribution. Notinasnaid 15:59, 2 August 2005 (UTC)

Yep, it means that your edit is the most recent edit for that page. Win777 16:19, 2 August 2005 (UTC)

See bug #2727. Bovlb 05:37:19, 2005-08-03 (UTC)

WHAT IS THE MILITARY OCCUPATIONAL STATUS OF AN ARMY RANGER?

homelessness in Africa

We are a faith-based organisation that cares for homeless people.We excited to discover the Wikipedia site.It's a rich soucrce of information. We appreciate your great work.

Interestingly,we are working in a similar field. Apart from providing practical support for homeless people,we operate a website, http://www.passion4thehomeless.com, which provides significant information about homelessness and related matters in Nigeria.

We would like to know if Wikipedia's program covers Africa,particularly Nigeria.we would also like to know if you are interested in partnering with parallel organisation outside the US.

Thanks

Alex Awunor

I think you should read the FAQ linked at the top of the page and the article on Wikipedia. This is only an encyclopedia, so I'm not sure what kind of organizaton you are talking about. I think the best thing you could do is simply contribute. If you want to know how to use Wikipedia content on your own website, take a look at Wikipedia:Copyrights. --Dmcdevit·t 05:07, August 3, 2005 (UTC)

Can I receive daily articles in my mail?

I was wondering if there was the option of getting a daily link (like, or possibly a copy of, the front page display) to peruse. I have a feeling I should be intellectually bettering myself before entering University. Is there this option?

Thanks in advance, -Phillip

There is an RSS feed of "Today's featured article"--see Wikipedia:Syndication. That might be helpful. Meelar (talk) 20:01, August 2, 2005 (UTC)

Changing the spelling of the Title-block

My name is Brian Clark. I just updated an entry about me titled "Brian Clarke". My surname does not have the letter "e" at the end and the title-block should be changed accordingly. How do I do that? Thanks. BC

I did it for you. If you wanted to do it yourself, you'd need to create an account. Howabout1 ^{Talk to me!} 17:40, August 2, 2005 (UTC)

Question about edits before account created

I did periodic updates on things over a couple of months without registering an account, and now that I've created an account, those edits are still under an the IP instead of my new account name. Is there a way to incorporate those edits into my new accounts contribution page? --Mercury1 19:56, 2 August 2005 (UTC)

There used to be, but it's currenly not being done--it's a huge burden for the developers. Sorry about that. Best wishes, Meelar (talk) 19:57, August 2, 2005 (UTC)

External Links - COBOL

Hello,

How do I go about getting the COBOL User Groups (COBUG) added to the External links page as shown below?

External links

   * COBOL.com - The COBOL Community
   * COBOL-Standard Committee
   * COBOL grammar and COBOL research
   * COBOLPortal
   * CobolReport.com
   * The COBOL Center
   * COBOL Tutorial
   * COBOL-FAQ by William M. Klein
   * "All Things COBOL" webring

Listing Information:

    COBUG: COBOL User Groups [1]

Thanks for your attention and kind regards,

Thomas Perry COBUG: COBOL User Groups www.cobug.com

Edit the external links and add

"* [" followed by the address (http://www.cobug.com/) followed by a space and description, such as "COBOL User Groups", ending with "]". It is easier to do it than to describe it. Bubba73 22:43, August 2, 2005 (UTC)

To amplify—for a link to http://en.wikipedia.org with the text "Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia", you would write

[http://en.wikipedia.org Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia]

which would look like this:

Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia

See also Wikipedia:External links. Happy linking. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 23:45, 2 August 2005 (UTC)

rv comentary

Please, how can I write a "rv - ..." commentary like Dreamguy did in his recent edition of Skepticism article? I would like to justify my next edition like he did. His comment also apears in his line at my watchlist and I also would like him to see mine.

If a link to the page would be useful, here it is: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Skepticism&diff=prev&oldid=20135060

Thanks

Lacerda 03:57, August 3, 2005 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Edit summary. "rv" is a shorthand for revert. Alphax ^τεχ 04:03, 3 August 2005 (UTC)

Ok, Alphax, thank you very much. Know that any time, anywhere, anything you may see I'm not doing in the best way, I will welcome your help on it. So long. --Lacerda

How do you use HTML tags in Wikipedia?

It would be nice if I could insert some advanced HTML tags into the pages. Is there a way to set a block of code as HTML and have Wikipedia interpret it as such?

Thanks --Max 04:01, 3 August 2005 (UTC)

Some HTML is allowed but most is not, see m:Help:HTML_in_wikitext. Is there something in particular you're trying to do? -- Rick Block (talk) 04:16, August 3, 2005 (UTC)

In particular I wanted to add a Google search to my user page, so I could use Google to search Wikipedia instead of Wikipedia's default engine. Google's website has free code to add to a webpage that adds a search box, but it is in HTML. However, it displayed the text as plain text instead of rendering it.--Max 04:41, 4 August 2005 (UTC)

As far as I know, there's no way (there's certainly no easy way) to create a page on wikipedia that includes a search box that will go to a different site (google or anywhere else). You can include a simple link to google, either bare like this http://www.google.com/ or slightly prettier like this google. I'm pretty sure at least some browsers also let you add custom search boxes on the toolbar. You might also be able to do this with a custom css file defining your own "skin", see m:Help:User_style. -- Rick Block (talk) 14:14, August 5, 2005 (UTC)

Editing your user js and css is the solution. You should be able to make up some code to put in your personal monobook.js that replaces an element on your user page with a search box. — Sverdrup 15:51, 8 August 2005 (UTC)

(Works: User:Sverdrup/test1 and User:Sverdrup/monobook.js. my js file includes some extra code for live preview too, though.) — Sverdrup 16:52, 8 August 2005 (UTC))

I stumbled across problem articles

• Zimmer Massacre
• Murder of Levi Jones
• Copus Massacre

I found three articles all created by the same user. From looking at archived discussions from the Copyright Violation (June 23) it seems the articles were copied from a book published in 1880. However these orginal entries were nothing like encyclopedia entries and very POV.

• Transwiki to Wikisource

• • Problem 1: I can't find where the user actually said he copied it from a book only someone else repeating it. Is that kosher to move to Wikisoure?

• • Problem 2: The original text in the articles' creation had rough spots. It seems to me in places something in missing/out of place, but the majority of the text seems copied word for word. Can we put it in wiki source with these flaws?

• • Problem 3: I have never used Wikisource and know very little about it. Is there some notice board where I should put this? I could only find instuctions on how to do it.

• • Problem 4: With Wikitionary articles are Vfd after being transwikied but some of these have been worked on until they seem more up to standards. However still POV.

As far as the POV goes they just need to be tagged, but if I tag them I'm worried that they get changed so completely that no one will understand about Wikisource.--BirgitteSB 04:11, August 3, 2005 (UTC)

Drop-down menus in top tabs

I got sick of having too many top tabs for the screen, so I thought: why not convert them into something like this? Well, I'm having troubles with the javascript to do it. Any ideas? Alphax ^τεχ 04:21, 3 August 2005 (UTC)

So I did :) See User:Alphax/monobook.js (look for "addlimenu") and User:Alphax/monobook.css. Now you can have (almost) infinite tabs! Alphax ^τεχ 14:13, 3 August 2005 (UTC)

Is this a problem?

I've got a important question, and I MEAN important. I was looking at the official Playstation site (Playstation.com) and its terms of use when I read something that stopped me in my tracks. I copied this from the terms of use... I'm not sure but it sounds like it could be a BIG problem when it comes to video game images.

• 6. This may sound familiar, but it's important, so we're going to rephrase it. Anything on this site--pictures, drawings, text, games, anything--is either our property or the property of someone who gave us the permission to use it. IT'S NOT PUBLIC DOMAIN, AND IT'S DEFINITELY NOT YOURS. Don't use any of it for anything other than personal entertainment, unless we say you can (and we probably won't). If you do, you're probably violating at least one law, and since we told you here, we won't feel bad about coming after you.

Does this mean that anything from the website can't be used legally on Wikipedia? If so, it could be something out of Wikipedia's worst nightmares... Who knows how many images could be covered by that statement? --Chanting Fox 04:32, 3 August 2005 (UTC)

• Here's one from Nintendo's site...

• • All content on this website, including articles, artwork, screenshots, graphics, logos, digital downloads and other files, may not be used on any other web site, in any publications, in public performances, in connection with any product or service that is not Nintendo's, in any manner that is likely to cause confusion among customers, in any manner that disparages or discredits Nintendo, or in any manner that is otherwise exploitative for any commercial purpose or that otherwise infringes Nintendo's intellectual property rights.

Ok...there are two problems with this one... the first is the question of legal issues this could pose and the second is exactly what that means in plain English. --Chanting Fox 04:43, 3 August 2005 (UTC)

My sense is that they're overstating it in the strictest possible terms because it is their website and they can. It's like when you go to the amusement park and the back of your ticket tries to sign away your rights to everything, even the park's own gross negligence, which is impossible. Most of the images are probably either game covers or screenshots, which, as far as I know, are covered as fair use ({{game-screenshot}}, {{gamecover}} etc.) for any company. Remember, we are not a commercial website, and in most cases are probably helping to publicize these people's products. Why should they want to go after us? I don't think we have to be worried, although any one that's that gung-ho about these things is still a little frightening. --Dmcdevit·t 04:50, August 3, 2005 (UTC)

• If our publishing of such material is really to their advantage then I strongly oppose publishing any of it. Why promote their products if they state they don't want us to? Why reward companies with such ridiculously restrictive legal claims? Many of these products are very ephemeral and hyped and in the long term not very encyclopedic anyway. — Sebastian (talk) 05:17, August 3, 2005 (UTC)

Surely that statement on Sony's site says nothing that copyright law doesn't already say. You should visit every site in the understanding that this applies. Notinasnaid 09:10, 3 August 2005 (UTC)

• Just wanted to make sure... sometimes you think the world can't get any crazier, and somebody proves you wrong. The fact is that I did have second thoughts about whether or not I should have bothered to post what I did above in the first place... but better safe than sorry. There are enough headaches to deal with around here (like vandals) without having to also worry about powerful corporations coming after you and everybody else that contributes to Wikipedia for copyright/trademark/anything else infringement. I mean, these are the kind of people who could get Wikipedia shut down...Thanks for clarifying! --Chanting Fox 01:53, 4 August 2005 (UTC)

I think {IANAL) the useful phrase in the Nintendo disclaimer is in any manner that is likely to cause confusion among customers. I don't think TOO many users are going to confuse Wikipedia for an official Nintendo site. Zoe 22:06, August 9, 2005 (UTC)

Briannitca Micropaedia Publisher

Hi. I am preparing my term paper and am required to list the publishers of all the books used in my citations. Could anyone tell me who the publisher of Britannica Micropaedia in 2001 was, and in which city it was published? Thank you.

Post this at Wikipedia:Reference desk. Superm401 | Talk 09:57, August 7, 2005 (UTC)

138.5 pages?

At the top of my watchlist is says:

You have 138.5 pages on your watchlist

How is this possible? (I actually have 252 I think) --Jawr256 08:43, August 3, 2005 (UTC)

See here - Wikipedia:Help desk#wrong number of pages on watchlist --Dismas 10:01, 3 August 2005 (UTC)

how can i find the types of chemical and balancing equation

Please head over to the reference desk and be a little more specific about your question. Mgm|^(talk) 09:16, August 3, 2005 (UTC)

books

I just want to ask if you are publishing it? I also want to ask if want book is it? The title of the book?

• Note, we're an online encyclopedia, not a publisher. No, we're not publishing any books, although some people plan on publishing collections of our articles. If you want to know how to get your hands on a certain book, you might have better luck at your local book store. - Mgm|^(talk) 13:18, August 3, 2005 (UTC)

• Wikipedia would be a very big book indeed. I don't know if you've seen a copy of the Encyclopædia Britannica: it is 32 volumes, has 44 million words, and costs $1400. Wikipedia is growing constantly, but I think it is now over 200 million words in 2 million articles. That means it would be around five times bigger than Britannica - say, 150 big volumes. And long out of date by the time it was printed. As well as questions about using up that many trees, I don't think that printing the whole thing as a paper book would ever make commercial sense. Notinasnaid 13:28, 3 August 2005 (UTC)

Mind you, there have been paper books published at that scale - it's doable, though generally I doubt they expected to profit. (If you're in a sufficiently large library, see if they have any of the old printed catalogues for the LoC, or the BL, or the BNF - these can run to 200+ volumes, and are huge) Shimgray 15:07, 5 August 2005 (UTC)

What if a user loses his password ?

Hi. I just registered and i'm wondering what if i lose my password. Can't it be sent to my email or reset ? If so, how do i do that ?

Thanks. And remember: I love you :)

Go to the login screen, put your details in and then click on the "Email new password" button. --Studiosonic 12:40, 3 August 2005 (UTC)

Laying claim to anonymous contributions after creating an account. Possible?

I have made a number of minor additions to Wikipedia under one and the same IP address, all of which were accepted. I just created a user account. Is it possible to lay claim to those additions under my new account? (unsigned post at 10:51, 3 August 2005 by K.Nevelsteen)

There is a page Wikipedia:Changing attribution for an edit, but nothing’s been attended to there for months. Susvolans (pigs can fly) 12:01, 3 August 2005 (UTC)

It's no longer possible. Elfguy 12:09, 3 August 2005 (UTC)

While that's certainly the case in practice, it needn't be. Almost all the requests were for trivial numbers of edits (like 20 or something), making it more work for someone to prepare the info for the devs than seems worthwhile. So the process ground to a halt. If someone had a worthwhile number (say 400) all on one IP to assign then I'll gladly write up the record, and I'm pretty confident the devs will action it. I'll leave some notes on the talk page about "return to flight", and if no-one objects I'll clean house there and see if we can get worthwhile cases moving again. -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 12:45, August 3, 2005 (UTC)

• Is it a static IP? - Mgm|^(talk) 13:20, August 3, 2005 (UTC)

Image Copyright clarification

Ok, trying to get my head round the copyright issues for images. To clarify - how should an image be tagged if it is taken off, for example, a band's official website. Is it possible to use this file? Does permissions need to be sought? Another example, if I was wanting to use images from a website such as http://www.imagesofdorset.org.uk/ can someone tell me the procedure here? I haven't found the documentation on image copyright tagging too clear!! Many thanks! --Studiosonic 12:22, 3 August 2005 (UTC)

Your starting point should probably be an "expectation adjustment"; I suspect you are looking for a way to get particular photos; that isn't how it is. All images (with a few special exceptions) are copyright, and in general cannot be reproduced without permission. No copyright notice is needed; copyright is automatic on almost everything. Permission may be refused, or may require a payment, which isn't practical. Wikipedia doesn't just require permission to reproduce (which may be willingly given by some) but one of a number of specific releases, such as public domain. People are much less willing to grant that because their image can then legally go from place to place without their control. A band might give this permission. People who understand the legal provisions of "fair use", a U.S. concept, might also have more views or details on that. The Images Of Dorset web site is set up by people who have the rights to photographs in order to make money by licensing them. Reproducing commercial photography on any other web site is likely to be not allowed, and the people who sell photographs are particularly likely to pursue their rights; there's no obvious fair use either. This is a serious business: I recently chose a photo for use on my company's web site: it cost over 100 US dollars for the right to use just one small photo on our own web site. Most Wikipedia articles will probably never be illustrated, though there is no shortage of "chancers" to put up images that later get taken down because they haven't got the necessary permissions, and hopefully before wikipedia attracts legal attention it can ill afford. Of course, if you have photos, we would be delighted if you are generous enough to release them for unrestricted use; but don't expect businesses to be as generous. Notinasnaid 13:16, 3 August 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for the reply - I'm starting to understand now...an "expectation adjustment" has been in order! Ok, so for the images of Dorset website, I see how it is a commerical photography site and is therefore best avoided for Wikipedia uses...I'll just take a photo myself for my entry as I happen to be going to the place in question at the weekend. I'm still not 100% clear on an image from a band's website. If I emailed them and they said "Sure, use the photo", what then? I now have permission, but you say that it also needs "one of a number of specific releases, such as public domain" - so what would the next step be after getting permission from the copyright holder to use the image? How does the copyright holder declare the photo is in the public domain? What other releases can be used, and how? --Studiosonic 13:49, 3 August 2005 (UTC)

The key point is that the copyright holder has to understand–and agree to–licensing the image in a Wikipedia-appropriate manner. You might find the information at Wikipedia:Copyrights useful. The whole list of acceptable image tags (and licenses) is available at Wikipedia:Image copyright tags; our life here is simplest if the images are released under the GFDL (like the rest of Wikipedia) or released to the public domain (no restrictions on use or distribution, essentially). To formally request permission to use an image or text source, there are some useful pre-written requests at Wikipedia:Boilerplate request for permission. Commercial sites are often very reluctant to release material under an open license. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 17:08, 3 August 2005 (UTC)

the GNU Free Documentation License: what does it allow?

sorry, this has probably been asked a zillion times: I tried searching but the amount of content here is rather overwhelming. My question is: can I use images with this GNU-symbol for free? Or do you need to put in a reference to the creator of the image? Or something else? I tried reading the GNU document but for a dutchman, it's not quite that easy to understand what you may or may not do with images found in here... Some background, if needed: I'm working for a company in the Netherlands that creates educational material and they need images for a web-based test.

Thanks in advance - wouter te witt, the netherlands

I think you can use images as you wish, so long as you keep them under the same license (ie make it clear where ever you use them that they are GNU licensed images) and don't put any additional restrictions on other people using them MyNameIsClare talk 14:31, 3 August 2005 (UTC)

You might find the Nederlands Wikipedia article on the GFDL and the unofficial Dutch translation of the GFDL help you to understand it better. Thryduulf 14:44, 3 August 2005 (UTC)

Setting up a "private" wikipedia for an organization

We like the idea of wikipedia and would like to consider using it to collect information (views, facts, opinions, etc) about policies relative to the state we live in. Can we setup a wikipedia that is essentially for our organization to use and allow public participation? Or is wikipedia intended to be a single place for the whole world to deposit views and information?

Is there a way we can establish a version of wikipedia for our own use or is the whole intent to have only a single information repository?

Jwpearson

• Wikipedia is an encyclopedia and not exactly the best place to deposit views. You can, however, start your own wiki by downloading the MediaWiki wiki software. - Mgm|^(talk) 15:04, August 3, 2005 (UTC)
  • If you set up your own Wiki, then you may license the content however you wish, but if you choose to release it under the GFDL, then the material can readily be transferred into Wikipedia if appropriate. Bovlb 18:41:22, 2005-08-03 (UTC)

Questions about criteria for inclusion

Hello everyone, here's my question: is there a comprehensive list of criteria that will automatically warrant a Wikipedia article? For example, I am curious as to whether any member of the US Congress, no matter how obscure, warrants an article. The answer appears to be yes based on the criteria section that I saw (but now I cannot find for whatever reason.) I ask this because I am considering writing an article on a head of state of the Republic of San Marino, one of the world's smallest--therefore, its heads of state are little known and may not even get many Google hits. However, it seems as if being a head of state of a recognized country automatically warrants inclusion. Is this the case?

Also, is there a list dealing with my question? For example, "the following are always article-worthy:...."? Thank you very much. Paul 17:08, 3 August 2005 (UTC)

Attempts have been made (see for example Wikipedia:What's in, what's out), but Wikipedia's inclusion criteria have always been a little bit fuzzy. Stuff that clearly falls under the criteria at What Wikipedia Is Not usually gets deleted. (If it gets noticed at all.) For biographical articles, I would also check the guidelines at Wikipedia:Criteria for inclusion of biographies. Though those criteria aren't official policy, most editors take it to be a reasonable approximation of one. Detailed, thorough, wikilinked, well-written, interesting articles are often allowed to stay even if they are about borderline notable subjects, just because we like interesting and well-written articles.

To answer your specific question, I would say that heads of state are just about automatically worthy of inclusion. (That's heads of real states, not invented micronations—though a few of those are also noteworthy and included.) As long as you start to write a solid article that clearly identifies the individual as a (past or present) head of state, you should be okay. Historical members of the U.S. Congress are probably mostly going to have very boring articles, but probably do qualify nonetheless. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 17:25, 3 August 2005 (UTC)

You might also take a look at WP:CSD and pages it links to. Not that anything not covered by the CSD will stay in, but if it is covered then it clearly belongs out. On the specific question, I agree that a head of state of any real nation belongs in. DES ^(talk) 17:30, 3 August 2005 (UTC)

We have articles on the head of state of Andorra (and their parliament - I wrote it, surprisingly interesting work), which suggests San Marino is good to go. There seems to be an accepted consensus that national-level politicians are worthy of inclusion, mostly via the US precedent, so heads of state are easily in. San Marino's Under-Secretary for Transportation, now, that might get a little more debatable... Shimgray 15:04, 5 August 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for your help...I think a universal Wikipedia "whitelist" for inclusion might be useful, so if I can create one, I'll do so and run it up the flagpole to see who salutes it. Paul 16:29, 4 August 2005 (UTC)

loading a water treatment filtration tank using sand and activated carbon

Please sir, I am faced with the problem of what quantity of various sizes of sand to use in the filtration tank together with activated carbon.Ialso need to know the method of layer formations.

Thank you.

Chuks

You should ask at the reference desk for questions on factual topics. hydnjo talk 18:42, 3 August 2005 (UTC)

"Search of a matter,which may absorb the water rapidly"

• Do you need to absorb water for a chemical experiment or do you need to remove wet spots from your home? Please tell us a little more about the context of your question and ask any future such questions at the reference desk. - Mgm|^(talk) 20:14, August 3, 2005 (UTC)

Full-width, but not full-size image?

Please see the image at Accordion#Stradella bass system. The original is 1500 pixels wide, but I would like it to be rendered at a reasonable width on the page. I am strongly averse to adding pixel counts, since one never knows what the user's screen resolution and window size are. Using percentages doesn't seem to work (Ideally it should be as wide as the containing element, less padding & margins). Can this be done? Right now I've just thumbnailed it. --Theodore Kloba 18:51, August 3, 2005 (UTC)

I'm not sure what the problem is. -- Cyrius|✎ 19:14, 3 August 2005 (UTC)

The problem is that I want an inline image that is the width of the text. If this big image is inserted as inline, it spills out past the right margin. --Theodore Kloba 19:17, August 3, 2005 (UTC)

Can't be done. -- Cyrius|✎ 21:32, 3 August 2005 (UTC)

I've tried a couple of things (like inserting the image into a table of fixed percentage width) to no avail. I'm pretty sure that it just isn't possible to do what you want with the current MediaWiki software. On the other hand, it doesn't have to be a major crisis—clicking on the image still brings up the full-sized original. If you want to try making it legible in the body of the article, perhaps set its width to 600px? I imagine that there are very few readers left out there working at a resolution below 640x480...(now waiting for flames from editors with very tiny monitors...)TenOfAllTrades(talk) 20:37, 3 August 2005 (UTC)

Voltes V

Hi everyone. Where can I request people to improve an article? Voltes V is a mess: it has vandalism and copyright and formatting issues. Please let me know. Thanks in advance! --Perfecto 20:29, 3 August 2005 (UTC)

• You can tag it for cleanup and leave a listing at Wikipedia:Cleanup. But if it's got copyright issues you might want to tag it as a copyright violation and write a replacement on the temp page. If you go into the history of the article you can retrieve an earlier version without vandalism and restore it. Can you give a bit more details? I couldn't find copyright problems or vandalism. - Mgm|^(talk) 21:23, August 3, 2005 (UTC)
  • Thanks for having a look! RE: copyright issues; It seems BuddyParaiso pasted his blog contents [2] and [3]. Isn't this a copyright issue? --Perfecto 18:15, 4 August 2005 (UTC)

Interwiki user name?

I might have contributions to make to several language Wikipedias: English, French, Portuguese, Spanish, German, and Italian. In fact, I already have made them in English, French, and Portuguese. I got a username right away for my contributions in English. In the other languages, any contributions will be very sporadic. By trial and error, I've found that my English username doesn't work in the other Wikis. I don't feel that it's worth my while to sign up for five more usernames. Besides, with multiple usernames, I might have to login several times per session. So that brings me (finally) to my question. Is it technically possible to issue usernames that will be accepted in multiple languages? Gwil 01:14, 4 August 2005 (UTC)

• Your username is probably accepted in other wikis, but at the moment we've got no universal login feature to make this easier. So if you want to have edits credited to you on other wikipedias, I'm afraid you'll have to register your name multiple times. Personally, I only register for wikis I know I'll contribute a lot to. - Mgm|^(talk) 01:22, August 4, 2005 (UTC)
• See meta:Single login for a lot of slightly muddled discussion about if/how/when this might/might not be possible :| - IMSoP 22:16, 9 August 2005 (UTC)

Columbia Studios not MGM Studios

To Whom it may concern,

I was reading an article on your site today about Culver City. It was very informative, however you did make one error. The Sony Pictures Studio is not on the old MGM Studio which by the way is in Century City not Culver City, the Sony Studios is on the old Columbia Studios lot. Everything you said is accurit.

Just thought you should correct that.

Well, according to Culver City's offical web site, the MGM studio was in the area now owned by Sony, which, when they bought it, put Columbia Studios(which they then owned) in it. I don't know anything about the MGM Studios being in Century City at one time. But thanks for your comments. (In the future, it is better to put things like this on the article's Talk page, rather than here.) JesseW 05:28, 4 August 2005 (UTC)

don't know password or email address

A long time ago I registered the username "FangAili". Today I tried logging in but could not because I couldn't remember the password. I tried emailing myself a reminder, but none of my addresses (I have several) worked. Someone on the Livejournal Wiki community said there was an email address associated with the name, but of course could not tell me what it is. Is there any way I can 'retrieve' this username? I can provide *some* proof that I am who I say I am, though probably not much more than what a determined imposter could produce. Thanks for all your help.

Someone might be able to let you know what email address is registered for the account (this is actually against policy, and likely takes a developer), but other than that I think you're out of luck (sorry). I don't know if anyone who watches this page has access to email addresses registered to users, if no one responds in a few days please let me know on my talk page and I'm sure we'll be able to find someone. -- Rick Block (talk) 04:41, August 4, 2005 (UTC)

If it's not a big deal, why not just register a new one, it takes like two and a half seconds. You can easily make a nearly identical name by altering the capitalization (Fangaili) or putting a space (Fang Aili), etc. Especially since the old account has no edits, no history to lose. --Dmcdevit·t 07:13, August 4, 2005 (UTC)

Because FangAili is my name and I'd rather not create a new username if I can get my old one back.

Editing spelling of title

How do you edit the spelling of a title? If someone could change the title of Jordi Magrener to Jordi Magraner I would be thankful.

Done. Dismas 03:22, 4 August 2005 (UTC)

In order to edit the title, what really needs to be done is to move the location of the aticle to the desired location, since that is what automatically produced the title at the top. You have to be a logged-in user to have move abilities, but once you are logged in, you can just click the "move" button at the top. --Dmcdevit·t 05:51, August 4, 2005 (UTC)

Can't replace images with new ones

I'm having a heck of a time trying to upload new images to replace old ones. For example, I found a better version of Image:Krqe_logo.png, but when I try to upload it, the page doesn't show the new logo. (The good one has a slightly higher quality and has less yellow-orange gradient on the top.) I've made sure I'm not just trying to upload a copy of the old image, but it's still not working. If it helps, I'm using a Mac with Mac OS X 10.4.2 and Safari 2.0. (I did something to get Image:KASA_logo.png to update, but I have no idea what.) -Oddtoddnm 06:10, August 4, 2005 (UTC)

You seem to have uploaded the same image to Image:Krqe_logo.png three times. I think your belief that you aren't trying to upload the old image is in error. -- Cyrius|✎ 07:15, 4 August 2005 (UTC)

I triple-checked the file on my computer, and it was different. Perhaps I hit a hiccup on the system - it worked just fine this time. Thanks for the help. -Oddtoddnm 07:26, August 6, 2005 (UTC)

I can't figure out how to report a problem with this article.

The article is:2003 Invasion of Iraq “Weapons of Mass Destruction.” It reads: As of May 2005, small quantities of chemically degraded mustard gas had been found in old munitions. However, these are generally regarded as left-overs from the pre-sanction era before the 1991 Gulf War, and in November 2005 David Kay... Okay, obviously Nov 2005 is in the future. I've attempted to collaborate Mr. Kay's statement but cannot find any such statement as is quoted in the paragraph. It is 1:45 in the morning, my paper is due at 9:00 am and I've only had three hours sleep in the past 36... I tried to figure out how to use your site but either I am too tired to comprehend anything or it just doesn't make any sense; I suspect the former. I apologise if this is not the correct place to report this obvious mistake. I simply do not have the mental wherewithall or the time to spend reading all of your help pages. Mea culpa. 24.182.173.238 06:51, 4 August 2005 (UTC) kathi the exhausted.

thanks for pointing it out at all - many people come by, notice something wrong, and don't say anything... JesseW 06:59, 4 August 2005 (UTC)

This is one of the "rightest" places to report such things. -- Cyrius|✎ 07:17, 4 August 2005 (UTC)

For articles which receive a lot of traffic and attention–like 2003 invasion of Iraq–it is often sufficient to make a note on the Talk page of the article. (You can get to the talk page by clicking on the 'Discussion' tab at the top of the article or by going directly to Talk:2003 invasion of Iraq.) Regular contributors to the article will see the message and (hopefully) be able to correct the problem. For articles that are not as widely watched it may also help to place a note at Wikipedia:Requests for comment.

If you have specific questions that are unanswered by an article, there are lots of helpful editors at the Wikipedia:Reference desk. If you note that the information isn't in our article, often someone will take the hint and update it. ;)

Hope that helps. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 16:15, 4 August 2005 (UTC)

How to write a foreign language in an english article

If I didn't explain myself clearly, what I mean is, I will use an example where it is used. Eg. In the Hinduism article, there is Sanskrit script for the word Hinduism. I want to write just one word in a different language. Please tell me Thanks. DaGizza

Many modern operating systems come with an application to compose text in non-Roman scripts or symbol characters. If you’re using Windows, it is called “Character Map"; on XP at least, you can get to it from the “Accesories | System Tools" submenu. Once you’ve done that, you can just copy the text and paste it into the edit window. Susvolans (pigs can fly) 07:56, 4 August 2005 (UTC)

language

i can change the contents of these site in urde whaat i do

Do you mean the language Urdu? If you can speak/write Urdu, then your help would be most welcome at Urdu Wikipedia, the sister of this Wikipedia. --Commander Keane 10:45, August 4, 2005 (UTC)

Statistics

I have seen some users awarded with little honorary graphics for things like doing mundane tasks and creating new articles. How exactly do you compare the output of one wikipedia user to another? is there any built in method or do they ahve to use a crawler. I am asking cause I really love statistics and am curious about a few things, such as the ratios of minor to regular edits and which areas of the wiki are most active. etc. --Darkfred 09:44, 4 August 2005 (UTC)

You can determine anyone's edit count with Kate's tool. You could also check out the top busers by edit count at WP:1000. But you should know that in general, we Wikipedians award honors, like barnstars and such, when we notice someone doing something good. Few if any are determined by someone's "statistics," which are generally viewed as a poor way of making out someone's quality as an editor. I can't think how to answer the other questions. --Dmcdevit·t 09:52, August 4, 2005 (UTC)

• Yes, those awards are hardly ever based on edit count. You can award anyone a barnstar or other award if you want to show them your appreciation of their work. It's more of an incentive thing to show they are appreciated. - Mgm|^(talk) 10:05, August 4, 2005 (UTC)

earth science

pictures of how does water reach our house

People with the same names

How can you add an alternate page for a name.

eg i do a search for my name and it comes up with Jason Walker the singer, how would i enter a page about jason walker the me? surely the wikipedia can handle more then 1 person with the same name :)

First, see Wikipedia:Autobiographys. It is likely to be deleted if you're not important. If you are writing an article about someone other than youreself, and an article is already in place, you need to create an account to do this. So once you've done all that, and if you're not writing about yourself, come back and I'll tell you. Howabout1 ^{Talk to me!} 15:39, August 4, 2005 (UTC)

• I have only been here a short time but I have noticed that it doesn't even matter if you are someone important. If you write an article on yourself it will be put up for deletion quickly. If you are very important it may not be deleted. The correct place to put information about yourself. (until you become famous) is on your User Page. You will get a User Page which you can edit to your heart's content when you create an account.
• As for your question; When more than one person has the same name a Disambiguation page is created. It has a link to each one of the possible people for that name or uses for that word. Look at Canon for an example of this type of page.

--Darkfred 15:58, 4 August 2005 (UTC)

It is also possible if there is only a short article about each such person to put them all on the same page, separated with horizontal lines (which you insert with four hyphens at the start of a line and nothing else on the line) or with sections. See Gerberge for an example with sections, and Negative Return for an exaple with a horizontal division. DES ^(talk) 16:54, 4 August 2005 (UTC)

bibliography of wikipedia

If i use wikipedia as one of my sources in a research paper how do I reference it in my bibliography?

See Wikipedia:Citing Wikipedia for full instructions. Meelar (talk) 16:10, August 4, 2005 (UTC)

Is there a batch upload for images?

I am working on adding information about Texas highways and would like to upload small graphics for each highway number. I have successfully uploaded other highway graphics one at a time, but I have about 300 or so to add. Is there a method to batch uploads? Thanks Bellhalla 17:06, 4 August 2005 (UTC)

Not here, but WikiMedia Commons has a program and a file upload service. Images uploaded to commons can be used without further ado on all wikimedia projects, including wikipedia. Note that commons insists images be GFDL or PD. -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 17:12, August 4, 2005 (UTC)

Thanks. And they'll all be PD. Bellhalla 17:18, 4 August 2005 (UTC)

Editing my user page

When editing my own user page, how should I type it? In third person? Is there a guide to writing it up?

See Wikipedia:User page. In general, there are no strict requirements as to what to put up there. People have used it for biographical information, philosophical statements, terse rejections of the user page concept, or almost anything else. Best wishes, Meelar (talk) 17:36, August 4, 2005 (UTC)

Do whatever you want, as long as it's not illegal, obscene, or a blatant abuse of Wikimedia's resources. -- Cyrius|✎ 20:10, 4 August 2005 (UTC)

Help with images

Hi, Recently I have been redflaged because I posted an image of mine and didn't put copyright. The situation is that the image IS mine. how can I solve it, and whre can I see examples on how to quote and/or use images for my projects from others correctly

thanks --CharlesWiki 20:01, 4 August 2005 (UTC)

• For every image you upload, please place an image copyright tag on its image description page. Please see our image use policy for more information. Zzyzx11 (Talk) 20:04, 4 August 2005 (UTC)

What is the it: prefix?

I saw in a page:

it:smaug

What does that do?

That adds a link to an article in another language (in this case, Italian) to the page's "In other languages" box (in the default skin, to the left after all the other boxes). The text after the : is the article's name in that language. --Andy Janata 20:29, 4 August 2005 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Interlanguage links for the full story. JRM · Talk 20:33, 4 August 2005 (UTC)

wrong posting name

hello! i posted a bunch of articles in the past couple of weeks from the ip address: 164.107.211.171 is it possible to transfer credit for these entries to my account? or something of the like? mxdxcxnx 20:50, 4 August 2005 (UTC)

No, not really. We had a process for doing that, but it fell into disuse. The best thing is to put a note on your user page to the effect that those edits were by you. Frankly, unless an edit is vandalism, pretty soon no-one really cares who did what ;( -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 20:55, August 4, 2005 (UTC)

) Well, thanks for your help. I fully understand. I just kind of wanted it for myself. mxdxcxnx 21:06, 4 August 2005 (UTC)

Pictures?

I'm really having trouble understanding how to put an image on a wikipedia article, and where to find an image's copyright and everything. Please someone simplify it. Thank you.

• Me too! I havn't figured out the process yet, but I'm still new. By the way, if you sign your posts with four tildes (~) it will sign your name and time and date stamp the post. If You do sign and I find out anything on the subject I'd be happy to get back to you. See ya! Hamster Sandwich 03:20, 5 August 2005 (UTC)
• Hi, I'm no admin (I'm asking a question myself below) but I'll answer your question here and on your talk pages. First, take the image name (including the extension.. eg. jpg). Next, use [[Image: IMAGENAME ]] to put an image in. There's all sorts of variables you can use. Wikipedia:Extended image syntax will be able to better explain this than I can here. Good luck, and User:Cuahl/leavemessage if there's anything I can help with! — CuaHL 04:31, 5 August 2005 (UTC)
• As for the copyright, it would be a good idea to look at the page on which you found the image. If it has a copyright notice, it's usually not a good idea to post it. If it's a screenshot of a program, a tv show, etc. it could be considered fair use. Government images are in the open domain. See Wikipedia:Image copyright tags for more tags and things you can try to fit your image into. — Ilγαηερ (Tαlκ) 04:54, 5 August 2005 (UTC)

If you want to upload an image but don't know the copyright status, then you shouldn't be uploading it. -- Cyrius|✎ 06:18, 5 August 2005 (UTC)

Just to clarify about the government copyright, most United States governement works are in the public domain. Most works of the United Kingdom governement are protected by Crown copyright, which is incompatible with the GNU Free Documentation Lisence and therefore must not be uploaded without specific permission (which should be cited in the image description page. I do not know the status of works produced by the governmenets of other countries, but assume they are copyright unless you know otherwise. Thryduulf 07:04, 5 August 2005 (UTC)

Final Fantasy bestiary

Hey, and thanks in advance to anyone who can answer. Recently a few members have been making Final Fantasy bestiary but the article is becoming too large in size, and still needs to be expanded. As this article is an alphabetised list, should we split it to

• Final Fantasy bestiary and Final Fantasy bestiary (continued)
• or Final Fantasy bestiary (A-M) and Final Fantasy bestiary (N-Z)
• or subpages Final Fantasy bestiary/A-M and Final Fantasy bestiary/N-Z

or something else? I can't find any reference to base this on, so I don't know what the policy for splitting articles like this are. Thanks — CuaHL 04:26, 5 August 2005 (UTC)

I don't know if there is a reference or precedent, but I believe that subpages are discouraged and the second one in your list just makes more sense. — Ilγαηερ (Tαlκ) 04:51, 5 August 2005 (UTC)

USS Tennessee (BB-43) is split into five pages, as USS Tennessee (BB-43) Part 2 &c., for an example of precedent. Apollo 15 is an example of the (much more common) approach of putting subsections into their own pages, which isn't that appropriate here. Shimgray 15:14, 5 August 2005 (UTC)

Using parts of wikipedias help section.

I am making a small wiki project that will probably never go beyond the scope of my friends, but writing up a entire help page by hand would be tiresome. Is there any way I could take parts of wikipedias help page and modify it slightly? I would modify it by taking out references that its from wikipedia, yet still mention somewhere in the article that it was taken from wikipedia. --DucoNihilum 04:49, 5 August 2005 (UTC)

Then congratulations, my friend, you are fully compliant with the GFDL, the liscense which all the content on wikipedia [aside from the logo] is liscensed with. — Ilγαηερ (Tαlκ) 04:49, 5 August 2005 (UTC)

about Porsche 930 engine useb by Skyship 600B

Dear sir, We are a chinese airship company. We will buy a skyship 600B airship. We got news that your company stopped manufacturing Porsche 930. We want to know whether you can have enough spare parts for it. If you have no problem to supply spare parts or overhaul the engine, we don't need to ask the factory to change the engine now. By the way, could you tell us the price about the engine and main engine parts? can we order them from you directly? We hope to get your reply soon. Many thanks.

                             Wang Yuzhang

                        Beijing In-Sky Airship Co. Ltd.

• This is Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, read Wikipedia if you are confused. (And I removed your email for privacy reasons) --Dmcdevit·t 07:15, August 5, 2005 (UTC)

Where to put recognition?

Recently, a local radio station, KINY, chose Wikipedia as it "Bonus Website of the Week" [4]. Where should I list this as a "'Pedia in the Media" event? --Merovingian (t) (c) 08:16, August 5, 2005 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Wikipedia on TV and radio? -- Cyrius|✎ 08:22, 5 August 2005 (UTC)

Yep, beat me to it. You could also report it on Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/Newsroom/Suggestions if you deem it important enough for a mention in the Signpost (usually only for wider audience than this I presume). --Dmcdevit·t 08:35, August 5, 2005 (UTC)

• Thanks all! --Merovingian (t) (c) 09:08, August 5, 2005 (UTC)

yesterday radio slot

i have heard someone on radio devon yesterday at the honiton show, around 2.35pm. how can you listen back to it? and is that possible?

Try [5], the BBC do have listen again features for some of their local radio sations (at least Radio Bristol do) and if the show you heard is one of them then it will be there. If it isn't, then I'd try getting in contact with BBC Radio Devon via a contact on that page and ask them. Thryduulf 09:54, 5 August 2005 (UTC)

Fair use vs GFDL for screenshots

We in WP:cricket|wikiproject cricket]] are debating the use of TV screenshots for players' photos. Since screenshots are copyrighted cannot be put up here in wikipedia, I have an alternate suggestion:

• Take a photo of your television while a match is in progress. Since its your photo is of your television, and a player's face happens to be on the screen can you licence the image under GFDL; as it is a photograph of your television, not a person.
• Once released under GFDL, another person can crop the image and obtain the player's photo.

I would like to know the legal standing on this, and if it's permissible. =Nichalp «Talk»= 08:49, August 5, 2005 (UTC)

I always thought that fair use can be used for any TV screenshot, and so there wouldnt really be a need for your suggestion. {{Film-screenshot}} is a common tag for these. Is there some reason this wouldn't work for yours? --Dmcdevit·t 09:14, August 5, 2005 (UTC)

Yeah but a fairuse image is not a free image. =Nichalp «Talk»= 09:25, August 5, 2005 (UTC)

Ah, never mind, should have figured that was what you meant. In that case (but please note that this user finds copyright stuff incomprehensible), I'm afraid to say I don't see much difference between the two, and afraid your idea may still be fair use. Otherwise it could be applied to anything ("Oh look, let me just take a GFDL picture of this billboard, and then crop it to the logo, and now I have a GFDL logo and not a fair use one," etc., etc.). But have you considered asking permission from the sources of screenshots or other photos? I'd say it's worth a try, there's a boilerplate request text lying around somewhere... See if I can find it. --Dmcdevit·t 09:38, August 5, 2005 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Boilerplate request for permission. We've emailed a couple of sites but they are not willing to part with the images. The least that they can allow is non commercial use or used with permission. =Nichalp «Talk»= 10:11, August 5, 2005 (UTC)

A frame grab of a television program is a derivative work of the program, no matter how you obtained it. It cannot truly be made free. -- Cyrius|✎ 22:24, 5 August 2005 (UTC)

what is another name of country Japan

Nippon? --Merovingian (t) (c) 09:09, August 5, 2005 (UTC)

Just read Names of Japan. There's a whole article about 'em. --Dmcdevit·t 09:28, August 5, 2005 (UTC)

Disambiguation where the main meaning is a redirect

Headmaster was previously a redirect to Head teacher. It is now a disambiguation page between Head teacher and Headmaster (Transformers). I think the Transformers meaning is very minor but not so much so as to need deleting.

If there were a specific Headmaster article. I'd go for having something on the lines This article is about the job of Headmaster. For the Transformers characters, please see Headmaster (Transformers) but, as there isn't, it is more difficult to word and hardly seems worth cluttering up the Head teacher article to achieve the same effect. Any suggestions, please? --Cavrdg 09:16, 5 August 2005 (UTC)

You can leave the redirect in place to the common article, then have a little note at the top like "Headmaster redirects here. For the Transformers character, please see Headmaster (Transformers)." I'm pretty sure I've seen that before. --Dmcdevit·t 09:18, August 5, 2005 (UTC)

Blasted edit conflicts. I was going to say the same, look at Baptism where a similar note is used in reference to Christen. -- Essjay · Talk 09:22, August 5, 2005 (UTC)

Wow, really? I'm always on the wrong side of edit conflicts. Yes! --Dmcdevit·t 09:41, August 5, 2005 (UTC)

Thanks. Done! --Cavrdg 09:37, 5 August 2005 (UTC)

Torrent links allowed?

Are we allowed to provide links to torrents for say, TV shows?

To be on the safe side, I would say no. --Merovingian (t) (c) 09:37, August 5, 2005 (UTC)

If the content that is linked to is released under a free liscence or is public domain, then I don't think there would be a problem. If the torrent is a copyright violation then I would say definately no. If you don't know then I would err on the safe side and say don't link to it. Thryduulf 09:49, 5 August 2005 (UTC)

TV shows are usually copyright, therefore a torrent link would be a copyright violation. Not only incompatable with GFDL, but illegal in most countries. — Ilγαηερ (Tαlκ) 16:24, 5 August 2005 (UTC)

What's a torrent link? Dismas 18:05, 5 August 2005 (UTC)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopdia :), see Torrent. -- Rick Block (talk) 18:20, August 5, 2005 (UTC)

Also, the very nature of bitTorrent makes it short-term, and as such not useful for an encyclopedia. You can only download a bitTorrent anything while lots of other people are downloading it too. When interest in any download dies down, it becomes impossible to complete. If there were many torrent links here, they'd always be out of date. The only time this isn't true is when the copyright owner itself decides to release something by torrent, and provides a long-term seed. In that case, go ahead and post it. An example would be the NASA World Wind program, which it encourages people to download by bitTorrent from its own torrent tracker. If any of the terms in this reply are unfamiliar, the definitions are at torrent ~ Veledan | Talk | c. 19:23, 5 August 2005 (UTC)

• Thanks for the replies guys, I think i'll stay away form posting torrent links. Wouldn't want Wikipedia to get in trouble. :-)

Kubrick template

Could someone help me to find the TfD voting for Template:Stanley Kubrick Film? --Commander Keane 10:05, August 5, 2005 (UTC)

• Here's the edit in which Radiant! delists the nomination. - Mgm|^(talk) 10:32, August 5, 2005 (UTC)

Sorry, MGM, I have clicked on the link provided, but it's dead. --Commander Keane 12:30, August 5, 2005 (UTC)

It's at this URL. -- Rick Block (talk) 13:55, August 5, 2005 (UTC)

User name in sister projects

Why aren't the user accounts shared in the sister projects and the different language Wikipedias? I would very much like to have a single watchlist for en:wikipedia, es:wikipedia and ja:wikipedia, and why not Wikibooks.--Lacrymology 10:50:51, 2005-08-05 (UTC)

• At the moment they are all different projects managed by different databases and as such you need to register to be included in the database of the other projects. Still, this is a much requested feature and developers are looking into it. - Mgm|^(talk) 11:36, August 5, 2005 (UTC)
  • see also Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)#User name in sister projects. Thryduulf 12:44, 5 August 2005 (UTC)
    • I just thought I'd mention, that there is lots of discussion about this over on meta:, spread around various pages. meta:Single login links to them all, but it's all rather higgledy-piggledy to be honest. (It seems we need to first unify the discussion about unifying logins ;)) - IMSoP 01:32, 6 August 2005 (UTC)

Should profanity be displayed in an article, where it is unrelated to the article's subject?

Is it wikipedia's policy to censor unecessary profanity (eg. the "f" word) or should it be left verbatim?

Please see Wikipedia:Profanity. -- Rick Block (talk) 14:44, August 5, 2005 (UTC)

Year articles

Articles like 1997, 1999, 2000 usually beign with soemthing like: "199? is a...". Shouldn't it be in past tense, ie "199? was a..."? I couldn't find a project page. --Commander Keane 15:19, August 5, 2005 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Wikiproject Years. Meelar (talk) 22:26, August 5, 2005 (UTC)

Copy Right Infringements

A Company by the name of American Graffiti uses the name/photo's and posters to market and sell car parts, they are currently marketing an American Graffiti website with all of the movies and characters. This company operates outside the law and their actions may reflect back to you guys, they do not follow labor laws, defraud consumers. They are currently trying to market the American Graffiti AC Delete box and put a patent on it using the name of this Great American Movie, they are currently under investigation by the IRS, EPA, Variuos Labor Boards etc. You may want to check up on this company to see if they are following your guidelines for use.

The website address is www.americangraffiti.biz, check it out, I thought it was one of your authorized websites.

Wikipedia does not try to control the use people may make of its content much. In any case, what makes you think that this company got the text or images about the movie it is using from wikipedia? there are many places on the net and elsewhjere to get such info. This is a matter for the owner of the relevant copyrights and trademarks to persue, or posibly law enforecement officials. DES ^(talk) 17:10, 5 August 2005 (UTC)

By the way, when you start a paragrpah with a blank space as you did above, it creates a fix-ed font unwrapped dispaly which is not usually what you want. I have removed the blank for readability here. DES ^(talk) 17:10, 5 August 2005 (UTC)

email addresses

dear sir,

hi all u are all at wiki doing a very good job, please if possible can u email me the email addresses of all the leading news papers of the world so that if we want to send some message accross the globe we can do through emails to all the news papers accross the globe.

i have written a poem on peace and anti terror i want all the leading news papers to publish the same.

so please do email me

name: prakash N bhatia nationality: indian job profile: bank employee email address: luvuinfiniti@gmail.com,luvuinfiniti@hotmail.com,luvuinfiniti@rediffmail.com,luvuinfiniti@yahoo.com.

h3 HTML headers

I know why it's a good idea to use h3 headers in the Did you know template. When it changes for the weekend you can change the header in the same edit, but now it's included in the template all the talk pages it is used on have problems with section editing because h3 headers are apparently counted as sections. Is it possible for the developers to make h3 headers play friendly with section editing, in other words, is it wort filing a bug at bugzilla? - Mgm|^(talk) 18:23, August 5, 2005 (UTC)

Sigh. If you want a level 3 header, use "==="; if you don't want a level 3 header, don't have one - seriously, is there any reason why not to use normal wiki-markup there? Is it because it used to let you skip it in the TOC (which no longer works)? Anyway, this seems to be an obscure regression of Bugzilla:2128 - when an <h*> tag is used in a template, it gets assigned to the containing page not the template, and confuses everything wonderfully. - IMSoP 01:25, 6 August 2005 (UTC)

• Then why of all pages is the main page using them? - Mgm|^(talk) 08:33, August 6, 2005 (UTC)

Hell alone knows ;) Actually, one of them is <h3 id="sister"> to make an extra anchor, but that could easily be put in the <div> just above it. I'll post to Talk:Main Page suggesting that this is silly... - IMSoP 13:24, 6 August 2005 (UTC)

Request for guidance on a long list

I'm making a big expansion to Utricularia (a genus of carnivorous plants), whose article currently consists of an introduction and a list of 200+ species. In the finished article, the list will seem very long and in my opinion it isn't needed for an encyclopedia article. Wikipedia:Lists and Wikipedia:Embedded list seem to support not having it, but other articles on plant genera do often include a (shorter) list of species. I can't help this genus being large, but should I leave the huge list in the middle, or is it a done thing to move it to a /subpage? The new version of the page I'm currrently writing is at User:Veledan/Sandbox/Utricularia ~ Veledan | Talk | c. 19:36, 5 August 2005 (UTC)

Perhaps have a Species section which includes a small number of the more significant species and a link to a page like List of Utricularia species where you can dump the list? I assume that at least some of the species will end up having individual articles - you've at least one redlink in the draft article, though it goes to U. inflata rather than Utricularia inflata - so this would seem a good compromise, and a long list of species might be useful to someone... but IIRC subpages are generally discouraged, so try a seperate page. Shimgray 22:16, 5 August 2005 (UTC) [forgot to sign, sorry...]

• I'm not sure who wrote that last comment, but I'd tend to agree. Make a selection of the most important species and link to full list of them on a prominent spot in the article. - Mgm|^(talk) 22:09, August 5, 2005 (UTC)

Where to list Black France?

The article Black France describes itself as "This article will be about the very large impact that black culture has in France. This will be an extremely large database, eventually having thousands of black French personalties in the politics, military, music, cinema, fashion, sports and arts of France." This is not how such things are done on Wikipedia, but I'm not sure how to explain what's wrong with it. It is the , as of now, single work by an annon(or maybe more than one). If anyone knows a place to list this, please do so, or if you can explain what's wrong with the page, that would also be appreciated. Thanks! JesseW 23:08, 5 August 2005 (UTC)

Help on Ali Khamenei please!

I don't know much about editing pictures in Wikipedia, and I'm helpless in the face of pictorial vandalism at Ali Khamenei. The inserted picture seems to vary between an ENORMOUS full-page photo and a satirical cartoon whenever I try to make any changes. I can't seem to reduce the full-size photo without throwing it into the cartoon mode. What is going on? HELP please! Should I be asking for help at the Vandalism in progress page? Zora 23:57, 5 August 2005 (UTC)

Maybe I misunderstood your request. I went to the page and reduced the size of the image, then realised that image must have been the cartoon you were talking about after I'd already saved it. I went back through the history and couldn't find an edit with the proper picture on it, which means probably someone uploaded that picture over the original one, and I have no idea how to fix that. Sorry, and I hope someone less clueless than I comes along. Hermione1980 00:37, 6 August 2005 (UTC)

Yeah, I admit it, I'm a dunce. I went to the image page and tried to revert to an earlier version, which wasn't vandalised, and it said it was successful, but now it's just a scaled-down version of the cartoon! What did I do wrong? Hermione1980 00:42, 6 August 2005 (UTC)

I have fixed the problem. →Raul654 00:47, August 6, 2005 (UTC)

(via 2 edit conflict screens: no, I fixed the problem ;)) Looks like somebody overwrote Image:Khameini.jpg and then uploaded it as Image:Khameini2.jpg and switched the markup. Image and page have both been reverted to the correct version now, so caching notwithstanding, all should be fixed. - IMSoP 00:49, 6 August 2005 (UTC)

What the... now you've deleted part of the file history from Image:Khameini.jpg. What's that about? Ah well, I guess it's not a problem. It was fixed already though. shrug - IMSoP 00:52, 6 August 2005 (UTC)

Coincidence or something I don't know about?

Over the last couple of weeks I've been having an idea of what I want to start an article on. I'll go through the process of searching to see if the article is already here and if not, I'll decide that when the weekend comes and I have time, I'll write it. But then when the day comes that I've set aside time, I'll look and see that someone else has just created the article that I was going to write. It's happened several times over the last few weeks, so what I'm wondering is if this is just coincidence or is there a list/database somewhere of "This is what people searched for this week/day/etc." from which other people are "stealing" my ideas? Does this happen to anyone else? Dismas 03:58, 6 August 2005 (UTC)

I don't think there is (or can be) such a list. But even if there were, there is no project in place to create them. Sorry, you're just too slow :) --Dmcdevit·t 05:12, August 6, 2005 (UTC)

There is Special:Wantedpages which shows which non-existing pages are most linked to. However, that list is junked up with pages that shouldn't exist but are linked to regardless. You probably already know this, but Wikipedia:Requested articles always has article ideas, though they may not interest you. Superm401 | Talk 07:35, August 6, 2005 (UTC)

Yeah, I knew about the Wanted Pages and Requested Articles already. I guess it's just coincidence then. Annoying as it may be... Dismas 13:49, 6 August 2005 (UTC)

Hey, you're looking at this all backwards... I can't believe that the newly created articles you were meaning to write are complete, well-written, fully-sourced and otherwise examples of Wikipedia:The perfect article; if the've already been started, great, you can improve them rather than just writing a stub. The fact that two or more people want to write on some topic is in no way a problem - more like a solution. Go out and expand some topics! JesseW 16:09, 6 August 2005 (UTC)

Unless your ideas for new articles come from current events? That would explain it. Btw, if you want more ideas for articles, please come to Wikipedia:WikiProject Missing encyclopedia articles. We have thousands of topics ready for an article. Pcb21| Pete 16:22, 6 August 2005 (UTC)

Was the redlink there deliberate? ;-) Wikipedia:WikiProject Missing encyclopedic articles is what you're after, I assume. Shimgray 16:36, 6 August 2005 (UTC)

No, not current events. Off the top of my head they were The Flying Karamazov Brothers (created two days earlier but under a non-capitalized name so I never found it), Benihana (restaurant) (which was just copy/pasted from Benihana's website), and Sam Huntington (which was written just a couple hours before I sat down to do it myself, by a 12 year old girl. I know that because she signed the article).

Now that Pcb21| pointed out the missing articles link though, I think I'm all set for a while... :) Dismas 01:31, 7 August 2005 (UTC)

Stable contents

according to a [[http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20050805/wl_nm/media_wikipedia_dc Yahoo newsline dated (20050805)]] J. Wales said "There may soon be so-called stable contents. In this case, we'd freeze the pages whose quality is undisputed"

a pertinent motion follows but I don't know what to do with it. who can please help me?

our objectives are:

• avoid annoying anyone who likes the way Wikipedia works now
• give to anyone who prefers reviewed articles to obtain it

in order to do so each Wikipedia article may have more than one status:

• 'raw', meaning 'last standard content' (any existing article has this 'raw' status)
• 'unpolluted', meaning 'free from any vandalism'
• 'validated', meaning that 'a Wikipedia commission of people knowing the field validated it'
• 'expertised', meaning that 'a world-known expert of the field checked it ok'

any Wikimedia visitor will be able to state in his profile that, upon reading, [s]he wants to obtain the last version of any article which reached a given status. if there is no such checked version the immediate 'lower' status will be published (this is recursive)

this will not in any way annoy the reader who does not care about all those darn article status :-) because the personal profile (preferences) of each registered user will state 'raw' by default and (for registered and anonymous visitors) upon each article display a new tab will offer access to the various other 'statused' version when such versions exists

those various articles status will be expressed by cryptographic seals. it is not mandatory as most functions proposed here can be implemented using standard version-tracking tricks (taging, branching...) but some people may want to have their screwed articles published with a forged status and try to tamper the servers or network connection. let's integrate security concerns as soon as possible

the [WebDSign protocol] may be the technical foundation of such seals.

Usage

all the processes (requestiin-delivering-managing certificates, sealing, obtaining information about a seal...) will be done using a Web navigator.

in order to produce a seal one needs a digital certificate (X.509 or OpenPGP (PGP-GPG)), delivered (X.509) or signed (PGP) by a Certification_Authority (CA), which will be Wikipedia organization. anyone can check that a given certificate (and all informations it stores) was issued by a given CA.

any Wikipedia contributor will carry only one Wikipedia certificate, which will store many attributes stating various useful parameters

Giving the 'unpolluted' status

any administrator will obtain a certificate in order to let him/her give the status 'unpolluted' to any article.

Giving the 'validated' status

using the existing set of articles an automagic analysis of the volume of informations produced and its relative stability ('unpolluted' status, age and amount of readers) can establish a 'confidence score' for each author. the administrators will use those scores and deliver certificates to the best authors. those certificates will be qualified by an attribute (named 'wpexpert') listing the name of the categories of expertise of their carrier (themes, for example 'mathematics' or 'geography').

Giving the 'expertised' status

in each category this first college of 'wpexperts' will be enabled to form a college in order to elect world-known 'experts' of the field. the CA will produce certificates for them, with an 'expert' attribute storing the pertinent categories names. at first they may be not very interested in participatinf but as more and more will somewhat do emulation will raise their involvement

Future version

as each article contains segments (chunks) of informations further developments may enable the underlying software (Mediawiki) to dynamically build every article by using the last version of every segment corresponding to the visitor's preferred status. this will prolly imply some way to state segments interdependancies

This is the Help desk. I'm not sure what kind of help you're asking for. -- Cyrius|✎ 18:33, 6 August 2005 (UTC)

thx for the reply. I don't know what to do with this proposal. who (prolly a WP/Mediawiki developper) may be interested, i.e. who collects all requests and ideas for future software development? Natmaka 23:22, 6 August 2005 (UTC)

If you are talking about a proposal that certian articles be marked as "stable" or "validated" or "accurate" and thereafter changes will not be made as esaily, or there will be a special link to the "stable" version - such an idea has been suggested several times. It has always, as far as I know, been overwhelmingly rejected, as a matter of policy, not as a mettre of teshnical feasibility. I think version 1.5 of the software doea llow stabel links to particular versions from the history of an article, which may be what the source your linked to was discussing. DES ^(talk) 23:45, 6 August 2005 (UTC)

thx for replying: I'm trying to devise a practical way to maintain the existing Wikipedia approach (anyone can edit) while indeed offering special links to somewhat 'validated' versions. I understand that various somewhat similar proposals were rejected but as far as I know they were somewhat disruptive (mine is not). thank you for very useful information about this new feature (tags) of Mediawiki 1.5, I will explore this Natmaka 12:52, 7 August 2005 (UTC)

This proposal should be posted at Wikipedia:Village_pump_(proposals). Also check this guy´s idea. -- Subramanian ^talk 04:36, 9 August 2005 (UTC)

About full names

I think we still have no standard of, for example, Russian full names (e.g. some titles include patronymic, some not, so for the present here and there redirects are necessary). Brandmeister

What does ru.wiki use? Shimgray 12:16, 6 August 2005 (UTC)

It includes patronymic in titles (articles without patronymic are to be renamed) and inside. May be we can use patronymic only inside the article, so title will be as in other cases to avoid search mistakes and lots of redirects. Brandmeister

Two people with the same name - what should I do?

I would like to add an entry about somebody who has the same name as somebody who already has an entry. One is a comedian and one is a political activist. How should I do this?

I tried typing their name into the box and clicking the "create page" button, but from there I can only edit the existing person's entry, not add the new person.

Should I add my new entry with a keyword next after the name? It might still be confusing because people will search for the name and get the other guy, and they won't know to search with the keyword added too.

I have read through the help pages but couldn't find an answer that gave me a concrete way forward. What should I do?

• You should make two pages like Mr. Foo (activist) and Mr. Foo (comedian). Move the existing article to the correct location and then change it into a page listing both the people. This is called disambiguation. I could help, but I'd need to have the name of the person to do so. - Mgm|^(talk) 13:13, August 6, 2005 (UTC)

Great. Thank you! I will finish writing the article and create the entries you suggest. Can I message you when I am ready to move the original article? I don't think I have authorisation to do that as I'm a new user.

• Yes, just click the link to my talk page and leave a message when you're ready. Also, if you sign your entries on talk pages with 4 tildes (~~~~) it makes it easier for someone to help you as this leaves your signature or IP. - Mgm|^(talk) 14:35, August 6, 2005 (UTC)

I'll try that now, and message you after that. Gaysimon 17:00, 6 August 2005 (UTC)

Croatian

Hi, there! I have a question concerning languages. I do not understand, why Bosnian would be separated as a single language and Croatian and Serbian left together.These languages are almost the same but still there are differences. Why is that? THERE IS NO SERBO-CROATIAN ANYMORE. We separated 15 years ago. Please, do something about it. Thank you in advance.

Since we have separate articles for Bosnian language, Serbian language, Croatian language, and Serbo-Croatian language, I assume you mean the existence of versions of Wikipedia in those languages (although again, as far as I can make out, there are actually versions for all four). As I understand it, this is a highly controversial topic, subject of much heated debate - but, ultimately, not a matter for the English Wikipedia (to which this page belongs) to decide; I would therefore suggest you visit some of the Wikipedias in question, and read and politely join in with some of the discussion going on there. - IMSoP 13:43, 6 August 2005 (UTC)

List of Friends episodes

Apparently each of the Friends (the tv show) episodes has its own article (see List of Friends episodes, eg The One With All the Haste). I have no problem with this info in Wikipedia, but what is the accepted method of archiving all of this information?--Commander Keane 14:57, August 6, 2005 (UTC)

There isn't one, people just do what makes sense to them. Given the lack of collisions between Friends episode titles and the rest of the database, having separate articles isn't a terrible burden. -- Cyrius|✎ 18:31, 6 August 2005 (UTC)

Could you explain what you mean by "archiving"? Are you proposing that we shouldn't have these articles? Bovlb 21:38:43, 2005-08-06 (UTC)

I took it to mean that Wikipedia is an archive of information, and he was wondering how it should be organized. -- Cyrius|✎ 22:03, 6 August 2005 (UTC)

Yes, I meant 'archiving' in the way Cyrius interpretted. Maybe 'organised' would have been clearer? --Commander Keane 06:09, August 7, 2005 (UTC)

What happened to Wayne Madsen article?

I've tried searching VfD and Deleted Pages, but haven't found when or why Wayne Madsen was deleted. Help? -- Harris7 15:03, 6 August 2005 (UTC)

My only thought is it might have been speedy deleted. Howabout1 ^{Talk to me!} 15:16, August 6, 2005 (UTC)

If the article has been deleted, it should be in the deletion log- and I can't find it there. Are you sure that this article was ever created in the first place? Flcelloguy | A note? | Desk 15:18, 6 August 2005 (UTC)

Yes, it definitely existed. Several months ago, I used it to "seed" the Demopedia article of the same name at Wayne Madsen. If an admin deleted it and didn't log the delete, I assume there is no trace of the article or its previous existence? If I re-create the article, I'd like to know whether it's just going to be deleted again. -- Harris7 16:07, 6 August 2005 (UTC)

Logs are generated automatically; you can't avoid having a log, it's simply not possible. Perhaps the title was misspelled, because I've checked the page, and there are no deleted edits. Admins can see all edits that have been deleted, so if it was there, I'd be able to see it. -- Essjay · Talk 16:33, August 6, 2005 (UTC)

There is no trace of it. And if you really used that article to seed yours, you are in violation of the terms of the GFDL by not crediting the authors. -- Cyrius|✎ 18:28, 6 August 2005 (UTC)

IRC

This might not be the right place to ask this, but I can't seem to get on the IRC channel. When I click pn a link to the IRC channel, a window pops up saying IRC is not a registered protocol. I can get on the wikicities IRC channel, if that helps. Howabout1 ^{Talk to me!} 18:38, August 6, 2005 (UTC)

This seems to be a contradiction, but it anway seems like you have to download an IRC client, and use it to connect to irc.freenode.org and then join the channel #wikipedia, or #en.wikipedia, #wikimedia, #mediawiki etc. — Sverdrup 19:04, 8 August 2005 (UTC)

Well, if you can get on the Wikicities IRC channel, then you have a client already. In which case you just need to tell that client to /connect to irc.freenode.net and /join #wikipedia (or whatever). The message about "not a registered protocol" is your web browser saying it doesn't know what to do with a link that begins "irc://" - clearly, it doesn't know about your IRC client. There may be a way of integrating your browser with your IRC client, but there's really no need - those links are just a shortcut for going to the channel yourself anyway. - IMSoP 22:26, 9 August 2005 (UTC)

Citing

How exactly do I cite this website in a reference paper? Thank you so much

Wikipedia:Citing Wikipedia. We have really got to do something to make that more obvious. -- Cyrius|✎ 18:42, 6 August 2005 (UTC)

• To the person who posted the question: Can you tell us how you didn't notice the massive pink notice on top of this page? - Mgm|^(talk) 20:45, August 6, 2005 (UTC)

To be fair to the anon. poster of this question, the "massive pink notice" doesn't include the "If you want to know how to cite Wikipedia..." line. It does in the Wikipedia:Reference desk notice but not the one here at the Help desk. Rather it wasn't in the pink notice, it was farther down, but it is in the pink notice now. Dismas 21:06, 6 August 2005 (UTC)

NUMERAL LETTERS U.S.A

WHAT IS THE NUERAL VALUE FOR LETTER M AND ALL OUTHER LETTERS IN THE US

See SI prefix. This convention is actually international. But see also binary prefix, and you might possibly be talking Roman numerals too. JRM · Talk 19:04, 6 August 2005 (UTC)

New Testament Greek

Hi, With the many argumments about which greek translation is correct in regard to the bible's new testament, how do we arrive at any solid conclusion as to which bible we should stick to for word for word translation? There seems to be many possibilities in translating Greek, so how do we truly know which is the right one as opposed to guessing and inserting a word because the writer felt it was correct? Please reply to m23246@yahoo.com Thank you, Mike

I think this is the wrong place for this question - but if you leave a message on my talk page - I'll try to anser. --Doc (?) 19:59, 6 August 2005 (UTC)

Creating over a page

There is a page on a TV Series Called 'The Tube,' however, in the past 3 years another TV series (now in its 3rd series) has also been broadcast on TV, called 'The Tube.' I would like to make a page about this series, but I am not sure what to put as the page title, bearing in mind that The_Tube_(TV_series) already exists. Joe

If I were you I'd create a page called The Tube (2002 TV Series) (considering it's in it's third year as you say) then create a page entitled simply The Tube as a disambiguation page for the two of them and anything else that goes by that name. Or put "For the 2002-present series also named The Tube, see The Tube (2002 TV Series)" at the top of the page that's up now instead of having a disambig page for just two items. Dismas 22:04, 6 August 2005 (UTC)

P.S. I see The Tube redirects to the London Underground subway system. In that case, I'd change the redirect to a disambig page. Dismas

As disambiguation pages differing by an article can be confusing, it might be better to add everything to the existing Tube disambiguation page, and redirect The Tube to Tube. Susvolans (pigs can fly) 12:45, 9 August 2005 (UTC)

Lost Password

Some time ago I created the account WayneC, but neglected to write down my password (or I've misplaced it), and I accidentally logged out today. I've tried "email new password" on the login page, but so far I've gotten no emails from Wikipedia. Does anyone know whether I can somehow get my new password, or do I have to create a new account? Thanks, 12.65.78.116 01:02, 7 August 2005 (UTC)

You should get the password by email. Is it possible that you've changed emails? If so, can you access the old one? Superm401 | Talk 02:38, August 7, 2005 (UTC)

No, I have the same email. I know that putting in an email address is optional, though. If I didn't put one in when I signed up, is there any way to get my new password? Thanks for the help. 12.65.66.109 03:48, 7 August 2005 (UTC)

You have less than 100 edits at that user name. I recommend you just make a new account and redirect User:WayneC and User_talk:WayneC to your new user and talk pages. See Wikipedia:Changing username for more info. Does that work for you? Superm401 | Talk 04:51, August 7, 2005 (UTC)

It should, thanks very much. 12.65.18.78 18:20, 7 August 2005 (UTC)

Citation Question

What is the Authors surname it is for a bibliography

Wikipedia is written by much more than one author and most of them (including me) haven't revealed their surnames. See Wikipedia:Citing Wikipedia for help putting Wikipedia in your bibliography. Superm401 | Talk 04:41, August 7, 2005 (UTC)

Since we get this question so often, do you mind telling us how you didn't see the answer to your question in the big pink box up at the top of the page? Is there someway we could point this out better? Dismas 04:55, 7 August 2005 (UTC)

Note that this isn't a sarcastic comment about your eyesight (at least I hope). We really do want to figure out where we should be telling people this so they'll see it. People don't see it, and they never tell us where they looked and didn't find it (except the bottom of the page, we need to get that one). -- Cyrius|✎ 06:07, 7 August 2005 (UTC)

Nope. Didn't mean it sarcastically, I'd really like to know. Dismas 06:48, 7 August 2005 (UTC)

MySkin

How do I customize MySkin on the Preferences/Skins page?

--Flarn 06:17, August 7, 2005 (UTC)

• See m:User styles and m:Gallery of user styles. Try editing User:Flarn2005/myskin.css. - Mgm|^(talk) 07:36, August 7, 2005 (UTC)

What's a Backlog

Could someone tell me what is a Backlog in Wikipedia? Thank You. CG 06:27, August 7, 2005 (UTC)

It's something, usually a cleanup process that has a lot of work piled up that has been around for a while without going away. There's a Category:Wikipedia backlog that has a list of these if you are interested in helping. Dmcdevit·t 06:44, August 7, 2005 (UTC)

One of the biggest backlogs at Wikipedia is VfD closure. I would suspect that most of the time, when the word "backlog" is mentioned, it refers to VfD. That particular backlog occurs because most VfD's end in a "delete" consensus, and only administrators are allowed to close "delete" debates. (See Deletion process) Many administrators don't want to close debates because it is extremely time consuming (it took me several hours to close the July 30th archive yesterday) and becasue closing contentious debates often results in the closing admin being attacked for thier decision. This causes a huge backlog in unclosed VfD's. -- Essjay · Talk 19:13, August 7, 2005 (UTC)

IRC External links in IMG+Caption

but it doesnt work with pic with caption

how come irc external links work but (look right >>>)

Because there's a bug, for which I've just uploaded a fix. Will therefore hopefully be fixed soon. :) - IMSoP 23:53, 9 August 2005 (UTC)

printed version?

Hi i found some of ur articles useful for my essay but unfortunately, i am only allowed to use a limited amount of internet sources in my essay.i would like to know if wikipedia is a online version of a printed encyclopedia or not.thank u.please reply asap.

evangeline

There are no printed copies of the English Wikipedia. It would just be cost prohibitive and with over 600,000 articles, it would require more than 50 volumes of text (But that last part is just a guess). Dismas 09:35, 7 August 2005 (UTC)

I have heard speculation that a limited scope print version could be created, but as of now, that is only a distant possibility. Superm401 | Talk 09:40, August 7, 2005 (UTC)

Actually see Wikipedia:WikiReader. We group articles and print them together as a cohesive pack. So far only one's in print (on Frankfurt), although the German Wikipedia's ahead of and already has a few out. But to answer the original question: no, not really, and any print version would merely be a copy of one instant of Wikipedia, originating online. If it originated in print, then Wikipedia would not be the collaborative encyclopedia it is. Dmcdevit·t 09:42, August 7, 2005 (UTC)

Even if the whole of Wikipedia was printed, that would mean we had created a printed version of an online encyclopedia, not the other way around. Wikipedia couldn't be what it is if it were an offline publication. Superm401 | Talk 09:59, August 7, 2005 (UTC)

Javascript Link

Is it possible to link to a javascript? If this were an HTML document, I would write <A HREF="javascript:alert('Hello')">hello</A>. Is there any way to convert that to wiki syntax.

[javascript:alert('Hello') hello]

doesn't work. I suspect the answer is "No, because we hate you." I'm just checking. Superm401 | Talk 10:17, August 7, 2005 (UTC)

No, it would be a security flaw if it did. You can put that sort of thing in your monobook.js though... Alphax ^τεχ 10:21, 7 August 2005 (UTC)

And yes, we do hate you. j/k :P Dismas 10:29, 7 August 2005 (UTC)

Thought so. :) Superm401 | Talk 10:37, August 7, 2005 (UTC)

For those curious, I solved the problem the way I solve all my problems. I used an unauthorized open proxy (it even looks secure). Sneak a pick at my contribs if you must know the secret. Superm401 | Talk 11:27, August 7, 2005 (UTC)

New password

If I were to click the e-mail new password button even though I didn't provide my e-mail address would my password still change?

When someone clicks "email new password" a secondary password is generated and emailed. Only one secondary password exists at a time, so only the last password generated in this way will be valid. However, it doesn't reset your password. Don't forget to sign you posts! Alphax ^τεχ 10:24, 7 August 2005 (UTC)

Let me see if I understood that. If I ask for a new password, it will still accept the original password unless the new password is entered? Is that what you said? --68.228.190.177 10:29, 7 August 2005 (UTC)

• Yes, I presume that that's the case to avoid trolls and spammers from requesting new passwords for other people's accounts, which would be very annoying for the user in question. - Mgm|^(talk) 11:22, August 7, 2005 (UTC)
• I looked through some old e-mails of mine and I discovered an e-mail from last month that contains a new password for Wikipedia. Clearly this means that I forgot that I did give them my address so how come the new password e-mails aren't coming through now? --68.228.190.177 12:14, 7 August 2005 (UTC)
• Do you use hotmail as your email client? I've seen important emails fall through numerous times, because the filter settings were set to strict. Make sure you check all emails before they are deleted. - Mgm|^(talk) 13:21, August 7, 2005 (UTC)

No, I use AT&T for my e-mail. I do have their spam filter enabled but there aren't any e-mails from Wikipedia in the spam folder. --68.228.190.177 16:48, 7 August 2005 (UTC)

The e-mail finally came through. Thanks everyone. AlexMW 02:09, 8 August 2005 (UTC)

Can't extract Wikipedia HTML Help me Please!!!!

Perhaps this question should go out to an experience VB6 programmer but I think my problem has to do with the way Wikipedia pages are set up.

I am using a Visual Basic program to open a webpage and extract the text to be used in a text to speech reader.

I can do it fine with any web site but Wikipedia.

I can manually view the complete html source of the Wikipedia page from Internet Explorer and copy the html to save as text just fine but it’s when I try to read the page from my Visual basic program.....

(Example of program following)

• txtURL.Text = "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toys"
• sData = Inet1.OpenURL(txtURL.Text)

the "sData" should contian the Raw html but instead I get this:

>Wikimedia Error

>Sorry- we have a problem...

>We may be having an intermittent server problem; please wait a few minutes >and reload.

>Another possibility is that your User-Agent is blocked, which is done to block >e-mail harvesting bots used by spammers and some abusive download >spiders.

I just want to be able to copy a Wikipedia page and save as text from my Vb6 program.

Please help me with this problem

Looks like you should forge the user-agent. Try "Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.1)". That's very popular these days. I don't know how to do that in VB, but someone else here probably does. Superm401 | Talk 11:35, August 7, 2005 (UTC)

I'm afraid I don't know how to alter the User-Agent within VB6 - I imagine there's a property you have to set on that Inet1 object - but I thought I'd say: firstly, that this is indeed very likely to be the problem - blocking the user agents of common spidering libraries helps keep out programmers who don't really know what they're doing (which can lead to problems for the server). Secondly, I would suggest not spoofing a real browser, as Superm401 suggested, but simply making up a descriptive user-agent string of your own, preferably with a contact web or e-mail address in case any webmasters want to discuss the conduct of your bot; something like "VBtxt2Spch/0.8 (contact me at foo@example.com)". I know you're not going to be going far with this bot, but it's good practice to identify yourself in this way - it's what the user agent string was made for! - IMSoP 00:26, 10 August 2005 (UTC)

Clarification of contribution policies

I have added links to non-bias articles on several wikipedia drug related pages. Almost immediately, user Jfdwolff has removed all my links which is very frustrating. I would like to have a clarification on the policy of posting links or as to why the links have been censored and removed. One of the links in particiular was to rxlist.com, which has clinical pharmacology on said compounds and is essentially just the PDR for the drug. Why was this removed? It is very annoying to have contributions removed with no discussion on reason why added in the Talk page of the articles. If someone could please clarify this policy, I would appreciate it. Thank you. Pogue 11:50, August 7, 2005 (UTC)

• Have you asked USer:Jfdwolff? He knows best why he removed them and I'm sure he'll share his reasoning with you if you ask nicely. - Mgm|^(talk) 13:24, August 7, 2005 (UTC)
• I posted it in his/her talk page. However, this individual has not posted in any of the talk pages as to why they have been removed. I was under the impression that it was Wikipedia policy to do so, and according to their talk page, he/she is an administrator. Pogue 13:35, August 7, 2005 (UTC)
  • There's now a reply on User talk:Jfdwolff, FYI. Shimgray 13:58, 7 August 2005 (UTC)

electro magnetism

how can i get a image of an electro magnetic product??

You're looking at one. The real image produced by your computer monitor is an electromagnetic product. If you don't like my answer, post in the right place. Superm401 | Talk 12:15, August 7, 2005 (UTC)

I think that blatantly asking homework questions on wikipedia is ... well... I don't like it — Ilγαηερ (Tαlκ) 13:10, 7 August 2005 (UTC)

Tables and charts

Hello everyone--I have a question about creating tables similar to, for example, the one found on the pages of Star Alliance members, which lists the members of that organization. I thought this kind of table/chart thingy would be useful for the CompTIA certifications and I wanted to make one however I do not know how. Is there any how-to page for this? I couldn't find any relevant info under "templates" or "tables." Thanks! Paul 16:22, 7 August 2005 (UTC)

This is an example of a Wikipedia:Infobox. Not exactly a how-to page, but Wikipedia:Infobox_templates has some information on designing one. There are scores of examples you could use as a starting point. -- Rick Block (talk) 16:25, August 7, 2005 (UTC)

See also Help:Table and Wikipedia:How to use tables. Bovlb 19:30:31, 2005-08-07 (UTC)

Thanks for your help--I created This, which I think is pretty good for a first attempt. I'm going to take the liberty of putting it on the bottom of the relevant articles--feedback on this, technical aspects and otherwise, is greatly appreciated. Thanks again! Paul 23:07, 7 August 2005 (UTC)

Changing Editor Name

I edited/created a new page today before creating an account. So the page I edited (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soobak) it credited to my ip address. Can I change this to reflect my new user status?

• Reattribuating such edits can only be done by developers and they probably won't do it for just one edit. Why don't you put a link to that edit on your userpage and make a note of the fact you made one edit under an anon IP account? - Mgm|^(talk) 20:39, August 7, 2005 (UTC)
• Two things, firstly, you should really sign your posts with four tildes (~) so that it's easier to see who's saying what. Secondly, this question is posted every couple days and I've been wondering why it's so important. Why is it necessary to you to have your user name on each and every one of your edits? I'm not trying to be sarcastic or anything, I'm really just curious what's behind the need in a psychological sense. Thanks. Dismas 20:48, 7 August 2005 (UTC)

Vandalism

Hiya, I just caught a crass vandalism at the top of the Islam page, and didn't know where to report it. The page itself is "protected", however, the image in the prtoect-banner, has been switched out for a pic of a penis.

Fixed within one minute. If it's still there, you may want to try clearing your cache. Dmcdevit·t 22:50, August 7, 2005 (UTC)

In the future, you may wish to report it at Wikipedia:Vandalism in Progress. If a persistant vandal needs blocking, or a protected page needs immediate revision, you may use WP:AIV. Thanks for calling it to our attention. Hope this helps! Flcelloguy | A note? | Desk 23:34, 7 August 2005 (UTC)

Does the bookmarking link really work at the top of the page?

Hello! I noticed there is a link to this site above...Does it really work? Or is it something else? It goes to some site which is external to Wikipedia...: https : //home.comcast.net/~superm40/favProxy.html Where is the header for the help desk stored? --HappyCamper 23:57, 7 August 2005 (UTC)

See #Javascript_Link, on this page. JesseW 00:04, 8 August 2005 (UTC)

Autism

On Thursday August 4th we accessed a personal story of autism under external links that we thought we saved, but can no longer find. There was some advice for teachers that we were specifically interested in. Any advice for us?

Shirley Esquivel sesq@bellsouth.net

• You could revisit the autism article and click "history" to find an earlier version of the page that still contained the link. - Mgm|^(talk) 09:33, August 8, 2005 (UTC)

"My Watchlist"  ??

What is the "My Watchlist" feature on the toolbar and how do i set my own?

Click on the "watch" tab at the top of any page. Poof! It appears on your watchlist (see the article for the full explanation). JRM · Talk 00:38, 8 August 2005 (UTC)

When you edit an article there will be a Watch this page checkbox, already checked, right below the edit summary. By clicking on your watchlist you can see what article's you're watching have been changed by other people. Also, please sign your posts to this page with four tilde's like so: ~~~~ Dismas 00:41, 8 August 2005 (UTC)

Note that the "Watch this Page" box is checked by default--unless you uncheck "Add pages you edit to your watchlist" under Editing options on your Preferences page. You can also remove items from your Watchlist by going to the Watchlist page and clicking "display and edit the complete list." DavidH 07:03, August 8, 2005 (UTC)

MediaWiki Namespaces

Comic Genesis (which used to be Keenspace) is starting a wiki at http://cgwiki.comicgenesis.com/index.php/Main_Page

I'm worried about their namespace guidelines. I quote:

• Use proper namespaces. A namespace should be like this:
  • Comic Name:Episode Guide:Episode 1 or Comic Name:Characters:Character Name, this will help prevent namespace collisions caused when people use the same names of characters. As long as you do this, when you search for something in the search box, it will still be found.

My question is will this approach work? [[Talk:Wikipedia:Namespace]] seems to indicate that a future version of MediaWiki might break everything. I know this isn't how Wikipedia lays out its pages, but I'm curious if it's technically possible and safe to do it this way.

Any alternative suggestions? Skylark 01:04, 8 August 2005 (UTC)

They're doing it wrong, but those conversations on [[Talk:Wikipedia:Namespace]] are very very old. They should be using Mediawiki's subpages feature if they want such a structure (link to "Foo/Bar" from "Foo" by just typing "/Bar", "Foo/Bar" contains a backlink to "Foo"). Subpages are disabled in Wikipedia's main namespace, so I'm betting they don't even know that they're there. I'd leave a comment for them on their site, but they've disabled both anonymous editing and account creation. Shot themselves in the foot there. -- Cyrius|✎ 01:48, 8 August 2005 (UTC)

• I don't see any evidence of disabled subpages. If I wanted I could create a Foo/Temp article, which I should be able to do in case of Copyright problems anyway. Wonder why the hack they disabled account creation. Fast chance of the wiki growing if they keep it like that. - Mgm|^(talk) 11:01, August 8, 2005 (UTC)

Personal Statistics on Number of Contributions

I have lost track of the number of articles that I have contributed or edited. I did see a help page that teaches us how to track this statistics. Can anyone direct me to that page? PM Poon 03:36, 8 August 2005 (UTC)

The edit counter's called Kate's Tool, and it's at [6]. See WP:KATE for the description. Dmcdevit·t 03:42, August 8, 2005 (UTC)

How to get statistics, hourly hits, referers for an entry.

When someone puts an entry up for deletion, how do you get statistics for the entry such as hourly hits, referers, and so forth?...

You can't, that information isn't available. -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 10:06, August 8, 2005 (UTC)

You can find a list of available statistics on Wikipedia:Statistics.--Fenice 10:08, 8 August 2005 (UTC)

Maybe there's a way to get statistics for a particular entry using some mechanism independent of the wiki if it's not available to the public through the wiki already. Probably the principal people of the wiki do have more robust mechanisms to get particular statistics, hourly hits, referers and so forth. Maybe there's a way to insert independent statistical mechanisms into your entry when it's initiated.

No, there isn't a way to do that. -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 10:33, August 8, 2005 (UTC)

The sheer size of Wikipedia - one of the world's most popular websites - mean that trying to manage log data is pretty much impossible. There have been figures gathered for a small number of "major" articles, but that was for a very limited number of them and quite a while in the past. Whilst it probably could be done, it'd be a major undertaking, and not something a developer is likely to want to do without a pressing need. Shimgray 11:46, 8 August 2005 (UTC)

Maybe it could be done for a single entry, for example by a person with robust computer software expertise inserting a statistical mechanism in their wikipedia entry. It certainly can not be ruled out as completely impossible. A person with particular expertise might have very little difficulty figuring out how it's done for a particular entry.

There's two angles here. One is to have the page itself count - presumably by calling an external resource - the number of accesses. I can't see how this can be done; javascript and the like are suppressed, and you can't get around it with image-bugs or the like since you can't insert externally-hosted images.

The other would be to extract details for the one page from the overall wikipedia logs, and those logs are not available. So... Shimgray 12:27, 8 August 2005 (UTC)

..so would it be a matter of the principal people of the wikipedia using their more robust statistical mechanisms to give you some statistical information about your entry such as hourly hits for the last 24 hours, referers or whatever? Who are the principal people for the wikipedia?

Whilst this data probably could be acquired, were there a pressing reason, it's very difficult and time-consuming to process. Wikipedia was getting thirteen million page requests per day in the last month I have details for - and that was October 2004! [7] I also don't know how long we retain logs - as opposed to overall statistical information such as [8] - for. Whilst I don't want to rule it out as impossible, since I believe it has been done, I very much doubt that a developer would be willing to undertake this work for you without a pressing reason. "I want the stats for a VfD argument" is not likely to be it, either...

Bottom line - these statistics could potentially be created, perhaps, in a limited form, but only with a lot of time and effort for very little return. I would frankly be astonished if most VfDed pages, being new creations, had any significant traffic other than that via the VfD process. Shimgray 12:55, 8 August 2005 (UTC)

How to make a record of your entry when it will be deleted. How to make a record of the edits.

Your entry is being deleted. What's another wiki that might be good to try for making a record of your entry, make a record of the edits before it's deleted?... especially a web based wiki that doesn't need any installation on the computer at your end, a wiki that has minimal or no advertisements.

There are many wiki softwares available - see Comparison of wiki software. To get your to-be-deleted page to its new home, just cut-and-paste. You can choose to cut-and-paste either the wikitext or the html, depending on the requirements of your article's new home. -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 10:37, August 8, 2005 (UTC)

What free web based wikis are around the web that do not need be installed on the computer at your end, that have minimal or no advertisements?...
emphasis on
a. free
b. web based
c. no ads

Problem with hindi wikipedia

All the hindi articles seem to have messed up with the small "e" matra(ि )which is supposed to come before the letter to which the sound is to be applied. I updated some pages but it is a widespread problem. It is not at all meaningful if it'll be left like that.Though it is a small change(all the small "e" matras have to precede the letter which they are succeeding now) it cant be done manually. Please reply with an action/suggestion. Also the hindi editor is not at all intuitive .. it should be easy & keyboard based.

Are these articles in the Hindi-language Wikipedia or articles in English with names in Hindi? Susvolans (pigs can fly) 11:11, 8 August 2005 (UTC)

Yes , these are articles in the hindi language wikipedia.

Have you tried asking at the Hindi village pump at hi:विकिपीडिया:गाँव का पम्प? Susvolans (pigs can fly) 17:24, 10 August 2005 (UTC)

Can I use content from WIKIPEDIA as part of my document sold for money?

As I see WIKIPEDIA content is published under GFDL licence. Can this licence give me a right to build information found on WIKIPEDIA into my document that is to be sold comercially?

• Yes, if you give Wikipedia credit for the material and provide a link to our site somewhere in in the book, this should be quite possible. Just make doubly sure that any images you use are indeed tagged with the correct information. - Mgm|^(talk) 13:55, August 8, 2005 (UTC)
• Note also that your document derived from GFDL works must also be licensed under the GFDL. You can sell it for whatever the market will bear, but note that others are free to duplicate and redistribute the content. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 15:23, 8 August 2005 (UTC)

How to insert my own photo in my article ?

1.Please explain in layman's terms how to insert my photo (Savanna Portage SP.jpg)in my article (Savanna Portage State Park)? I need step by step help. 2.Can I change the picture title to "Voyageur Exhibit at Savanna Portage State Park.jpg"? This is a more complete description. RGS31 the above unsigned comment posted by User:66.173.124.82. Multiple identical copies removed DES ^(talk) 14:41, 8 August 2005 (UTC)

• You can put a more complete description of the image at its description page Image:Savanna Portage SP.jpg where you should also let us know if you want to release it into the public domain or under the conditions of the [{GFDL]]. For inserting pictures you can read a detailed tutorial: Wikipedia:Image tutorial. You could for example at the following to the code of the article you want to put the picture in: [[Image:Savanna Portage SP.jpg|thumb|right|Savanna Portage State Park.]]. If you want to lay it out differently you can put a more detailed question on my talk page, just click the link behind my name in my signature. - Mgm|^(talk) 14:47, August 8, 2005 (UTC)

• After you upload File:Savanna Portage SP.jpg you include an image tag like [[Image:Savanna Portage SP.jpg]] in the article text, wherever you want the image to appear. Uncle Ed 14:44, August 8, 2005 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Picture tutorial for full instructions. For a basic image you simply insert [[Image:Savanna Portage SP.jpg|frame|Voyageur Exhibit at Savanna Portage State Park]] . There are lots of other options described in the picture tutorial. Note that in general, it is considered poor form to describe a wikipedia article as "my article". Once content is added to wikipedia, anyone is free to edit, add to, or change it in any way. DES ^(talk) 14:47, 8 August 2005 (UTC)

I don't quite understand your question. Have you already uploaded the image to the site? If you have not, go to Special:Upload and fill out the form there. In particular, in answer to your second question, you can put a different file name in lower down the page so that Wikipedia's copy of the image is differently named to yours. As to inserting the image, once it is uploaded, place this text in the article: [[Image:(whatever the image name is).jpg|(right or left)|thumb|caption]]. If you have any more questions, feel free to ask here again. [[smoddy]] 14:49, 8 August 2005 (UTC)

Imposter

I was alerted of someone registering as my identity on Wikipedia - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Rajanr. See here: http://rajanr.com/2005/08/08/imposter/

Contact me at rajanr[at]gmail[dot]com.

I would like to know the IP address of the imposter address, and if possible, of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Menj at the same time frame - that is, if it the same.

Hello! I am deeply sorry that someone seems to be impostering you- please rest assured that this is against Wikipedia policy. However, for security reasons, no one but developers can access a registered user's IP address. In any case, if you wish to file a request, please log in and sign your name here, as this question was posted by 219.95.209.9 (talk · contribs). Thus, for security reasons again, please sign here while logged in. Then we can proceed- if there is an imposter, we (the admins) can block the imposter indefinitely. Hope this helps! Flcelloguy | A note? | Desk 15:04, 8 August 2005 (UTC)

The Real Rajan: I have no idea what you meant. I'll be using that IP for the next few days, so... 219.95.209.9 15:22, 8 August 2005 (UTC)

P.S. I'm kind of confused- you say you are the person Rajan R., and that someone with the account Rajanr is impersonating you to attack Menj. Is that correct? If that is that case, for security reasons again, is there anyway you can prove that you are the true Rajan R? Flcelloguy | A note? | Desk 15:10, 8 August 2005 (UTC)

The Real Rajan: Because I can spell my name (it's Rishyakaran)? That I have a blog that jerk link to? What begs the question: why would I go to the trouble of registring just to add two words that, according to Menj's page history, reverted within minutes by another Malaysian blogger (http://www.wittysquirrel.blogspot.com/)? Makes absolutely no sense, right? 219.95.209.9 15:22, 8 August 2005 (UTC)

P.P.S. Note left at blog site; no email fired off. Flcelloguy | A note? | Desk 15:12, 8 August 2005 (UTC)

Email sent to 219.95.209.9 using the "contact me" link on the blog site. I have included a "code word" - if the IP posts here using the "code", I can verify that the IP address is indeed Rajan R. Right now, I will leave a message at User:Rajanr. Flcelloguy | A note? | Desk 15:35, 8 August 2005 (UTC)

This is irritating. DU PRE 219.95.209.9 15:50, 8 August 2005 (UTC)

Confirmed. Sorry, but those steps were necessary to ensure that someone else wasn't impersonating you, claiming that another person was impersonating the real person. I will have the user blocked for 48 hours, to give him a chance to respond (blocked users can edit their talk pages). After that, then an indefinite ban will go on. Thank you for your understanding. Flcelloguy | A note? | Desk 16:14, 8 August 2005 (UTC)

Presumably this block is because the username is "deliberately confusing", and not because it is "designed to impersonate legitimate users". See Wikipedia:Blocking policy#Impersonation. Bovlb 16:58:20, 2005-08-08 (UTC)

User has been blocked for 48 hours. After that, an indefinite block will be applied if there are no objections. Flcelloguy | A note? | Desk 17:27, 8 August 2005 (UTC)

If the real Rajan wants the name and someone is impersonating him, wouldn't it be better to rename the current User:Rajanr to something else and register this name for the real user? Any bureaucrat can now rename users with less than 5000 edits. This can be requested at Wikipedia:Changing username. Angela. 20:31, August 8, 2005 (UTC)

Since there were no objections, I've renamed the account to User:Rajanr imposter, blocked it, unblocked Rajanr and created the Rajanr account via email to the person claiming to be the real Rajanr. Angela. 00:49, August 11, 2005 (UTC)

Raising Cane's

One of the Founder of Cane's worked as an employee for Guthrie's Chicken Fingers in Alabama. Guthries was founded in 1965 by Hal Guthrie, and his wife Melissa. It is now owned and operated by Hal and Melissa and their children, Chris, Hud, Joe, & Anna Margret. The Guthrie's were the original inventors of the "one item menu", 1n 1982. Therefore, Guthrie's is the inventor of the original chicken finger and Cane's is a knock off. As for the Cane's sauce, it was invented by Hud Guthrie when he was 6 years old. Cane's tried to copy the sauce but has never been able to duplicate it. Many who have tasted both, pick Guthrie's dipping sauce hands down.

The Guthrie's Fried Chicken Finger is legendary in the South. They have 26 locations in 3 or 4 States.

In point of fact, Cane's is a rather poor knock off.

For Information contact:

Wayne Parsons, Dallas, Texas

972-839-0456

• Is there a question in there? I'm not sure what your intention of posting that here was. Elfguy 17:04, 8 August 2005 (UTC)

What you might try if you believe a delete is not appropriate for your entry.

a. What might you try if you believe the speedy delete is not appropriate for your entry?

b. What might you try if you believe a voting for deleting your entry is not appropriate?

c. For example, how do you take your entry to another part of the wikipedia or a part of an existing entry?

d. Please suggest an alternative free web based wiki that you need not install, that has no ads... emphasis on
1. free
2. web based
3. no ads

Listings of alternate wikis are large and it's hard to glean the better choices!

a. Err, it sounds like your article is on VfD, not speedy. You can't remove a VfD tag yourself.

b. There's really nothing you can do. Others are entitled to their opinions. Perhaps rational argument will persuade them. The administrator who closes the vote will reject obvious ballot-stuffing, but votes other than that are valid.

c. You can't. If it's been voted for deletion from wikipedia, it has no home on wikipedia, anywhere. If it's recreated, under any name, it can be summarily (speedily) deleted.

d. I don't believe such a wiki exists. Wikicities is free, but is ad supported.

-- Finlay McWalter | Talk 16:57, August 8, 2005 (UTC)

• If you believe a deleted entry was deleted in error, you can post a well-reasoned entry (possibly citing policy at Wikipedia:Votes for undeletion. BTW, If you named the article you are talking about, it might be easier for us to assess the entry and help you fix it if it's fixable. - Mgm|^(talk) 18:20, August 8, 2005 (UTC)

fear

i have very fear to talk or to do anything please help me how shall i overcome from this deprssion.some times i think to sucide.

Please go see a therapist or psychologist immediately! In any case, seek professional help as soon as possible.

I strongly recommend against using Wikipedia as a substitute for professional medical help. You might consider contacting the Samaritans, or the relevant local organization (see here). Bovlb 18:12:41, 2005-08-08 (UTC)

Copy and translate? + en-3?

Do you encourage users from other language versions of Wikipedia to copy an English article and simply translate it? I also have a question about the Template:User_en-3; how well do you have to understand/be able to write English to classify as "advanced"? --MartinHagberg 17:51, 8 August 2005 (UTC)

Yes! We encourage translation of articles from/into English, to the respective Wikipedia. See Wikipedia:Babel for more information regarding the Eng-tags. However, I think that those tags are your opinion- do you feel that you can contribute with an advanced level of English? Happy-editing! Flcelloguy | A note? | Desk 18:00, 8 August 2005 (UTC)

We do indeed. It's considered helpful to mention on the talk page of the new article on sv.wikipedia (or wherever) that the original came from the English wikipedia article, in case readers want to track down information in it. Also, remember to add interwiki links.

As for the language-xx templates, it's an open question - there's no real standards, so people's ability within a given group will differ, and it's really up to you to guess where you fall. If you can regularly read and write at the level of your question, though, I'd guess that'd be en-3... Shimgray 18:04, 8 August 2005 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Babel suggests that "advanced" means "for advanced or fluent understanding (the ability to write articles in this language without difficulties, minor errors may occur)". Not sure if that helps much... Shimgray 18:08, 8 August 2005 (UTC)

• Yes, translations are encouraged, but put the copy on a user subpage until it's translated, so the other language wikipedia isn't given a text they can't read and possibly delete before you finish the work. - Mgm|^(talk) 18:28, August 8, 2005 (UTC)

Use of Wikipedia Forks

So, I made my first real edit this afternoon to the Bypassing Internet censorship article. Needless to say I screwed up the comment, it was just supposed to read as "a Wikipedia Fork", but that's beside the point.

Question 1: After the fact, I realized that this may not have been the right decision. Should the links to more information on censorship remain as interwiki links... to avoid censorship? Or should we be passing them off to mirrors of the wikipedia database, which has articles that may be weeks or months out of date?

Question 2: How do I revert my edit to the previous version? Maybe I don't see the option because I can't revert my edit.

Thanks in advance. -- Soundstruck 17:57, 8 August 2005 (UTC)

First, I believe you did the right thing. Though I haven't looked at the issue in-depth, remember to be bold. Unless it was demonstrating an example of something, links to Wikipedia articles should always be to... well, the article on Wikipedia. Second, to revert, click on the "history" tab (top of the screen), and click the date and time of the version you want to revert to. Then click "edit"- it'll say something like "This is an outdated version...". Add something in the edit summary, such as "Rv b/c ..." Then save your changes. Admins have the "revert" button for easier reverting, but anyone can revert. Hope this helps! Flcelloguy | A note? | Desk 18:22, 8 August 2005 (UTC)

That's great advice. I've played around with MediaWiki on my own webserver, so that's why I was suddenly confused where the quick "revert" link went. Glad to know I wasn't completely crazy regarding the links leading offsite. Thanks Flcelloguy! Soundstruck 18:31, 8 August 2005 (UTC)

Helen Keller not listed under people from Alabama

Why is Helen Keller not linked from the People from Alabama page? I tried to fix this myself but couldn't figure out how.

• It probably wasn't listed because no one got around to it yet. Adding it to the page was a bit more difficult than normal editing because it was a Category. You could read up on Wikipedia:Categorization. Anyway, I've added [[Category:People from Alabama|Keller, Helen]] to the Helen Keller article to fix it. - Mgm|^(talk) 18:34, August 8, 2005 (UTC)
• Thanks. When I asked "why" I meant what info was missing from the Helen Keller page that would automatically link it to the other. And now you've answered my question as well as fixing the page.

submitting a picture

I just submitted a picture, and I don't know how to tag it or anything. Could you do this for me? It is of 1 Times Square. I want it to be linked to the article of Times Square, and I want the tag {{PD_link}}.

Thanks

user name: xy1990

The picture you submitted is Image:1 Times Square Building.JPG. First, if you took the picture yourself, please tag it with either {{GFDL-self}} or {{PD-self}} . Otherwise, if you got it from someplace else, make sure it fits under the GFDL terms and conditions. Most websites do not fit under the copyleft license. I would type in the source you got the picture from (if it is a website, give the link). Next, I believe the template you are looking for is {{PD}} -just type that in after clicking "edit". Finally, see Wikipedia:Picture tutorial to find out how to add an image to an article. In short, you can just place [[Image:1 Times Square Building.JPG|thumb|CAPTION]]. Hope this helps! Flcelloguy | A note? | Desk 19:32, 8 August 2005 (UTC)

Tag below "External Links" section

While seeing how a page was formatted (Robert Ludlum page), I noticed some tags at the very bottom of the page. However, I have been unable to find out what they do. Examples of the tags from the Robert Ludlum page are as follows:

[[da:Robert Ludlum]]
[[de:Robert Ludlum]]
[[fr:Robert Ludlum]]
[[nl:Robert Ludlum]]
[[pl:Robert Ludlum]]
[[sk:Robert Ludlum]]
[[sv:Robert Ludlum]]

Can someone point me to the page that describes these tags? Tracyt1800 19:46, 8 August 2005 (UTC)

They link the article to the other language Wikipedia projects, i.e. de is German, fr is French, etc. Dismas 20:05, 8 August 2005 (UTC)

• More specifically, they create the links in the navigation bar on the left of the screen which links to other-language wikipedia articles about this person. - Mgm|^(talk) 20:15, August 8, 2005 (UTC)

see Wikipedia:Interlanguage links -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 20:34, August 8, 2005 (UTC)

Where is the explanation of how to write {User:x|y} links in Talk pages?

I have looked all over the Wikipedia help (dozens of pages) and have tried copying the syntax from various people's entries. I cannot find documentation on the exact syntax to use to insert my username and the date and time in a Talk page.

Please tell me how to do that and link me to a page I can bookmark. This needs to be made much easier to find. (I am not a novice user in any respect. It is tough to find.)

You can type in "~~~~" (without the quotes) to insert your signature and time and date. You can customize your signature, like I did with my signature, my going to "preferences". Hope this helps- happy editing! Flcelloguy | A note? | Desk 20:07, 8 August 2005 (UTC)

The instructions are also at the top of this very page. Dismas 20:09, 8 August 2005 (UTC)

• See Wikipedia:Signature. - Mgm|^(talk) 20:18, August 8, 2005 (UTC)

Also see your talk page; it's the first bullet in the welcome message User:Meelar left for you on July 24, 2004. -- Essjay · Talk 07:19, August 9, 2005 (UTC)

Visual arts and free licenses

What is the general likelihood of a visual artist or thier estate to grant the use of their work under a free license or even exclusive permission? How great are the risks of refusal?

Out of the choice between fair use and permission, which is considered freer? Justin Foote 21:27, 8 August 2005 (UTC)

• It's quite unlikely an artist will grant free use of their art, because it's very hard to make money of it afterwards (after all most people won't pay for something that's freely available). To answer your second question: It depends on the specifics with regard to the permission you got, but I would consider permission "more free", although work is pretty much free or not without a middle way. When it comes to wikipedia, you need to make sure people can take and redistribute an image without limit. Fair use should be avoided were possible and only used when no free image is available (see fair use). - Mgm|^(talk) 21:52, August 8, 2005 (UTC)

dna testing

Can use of a drug show up in a dna test?

Please refer all factual questions to the reference desk. Thanks! Flcelloguy | A note? | Desk 00:09, 9 August 2005 (UTC)

• Short answer: If the lab person does the test correctly: No, it won't show up. - Mgm|^(talk) 10:38, August 9, 2005 (UTC)
  • What if the test were performed on hair follicles? Some drug tests use hair samples to determine if the person has used drugs. Would the drugs show up if the dna test were being done on hair? Zoe 06:18, August 10, 2005 (UTC)

Centering a Template - does anyone know?

Hello; please, how do I get to centralize this template? Thanks! Subramanian ^talk 01:15, 9 August 2005 (UTC)

<center>{{Hinduism footer small}}</center> works. -- Essjay · Talk 07:12, August 9, 2005 (UTC)

It's much better to center the template using align=center. I have modifed the table accordingly. This way when you insert a template into an article you only need {{Template: Hinduism_footer_small}}, rather than <center>{{Hinduism footer small}}</center>. I also simplified the other stryle paramaters, and removed the orange border. --Commander Keane 11:50, August 9, 2005 (UTC)

The other side of RuneScape?

Added a link to an article written by someone who has rather extensive knowledge of the state of the community of the MMORPG RuneScape only to find it was removed from the article.

The article in question: http://www.runescapehaven.com/bhe/viewtopic.php?t=2591

Does Wikipedia only wish to present 1 side of the community aspect of RuneScape?

The person who changed this probably won't be reading the help desk, so I'd like to suggest this. FIRST, review the history of the article. Mostly, people explain their changes there. If that doesn't help, review the article's talk page. And if there is no information there, just start a discussion on the talk page. Hopefully, an agreement can be reached. Notinasnaid 09:17, 9 August 2005 (UTC)

bismuth and magnet levitation

If you melted bismuth and poured it in to a round ball like cast. Then lower a magnetdown into the center while it is still liquid. Will the magnet push away the bismuth in the center and make a pocket for it to float in after it dries?

Please refer all factual questions to the reference desk. Subramanian ^talk 03:04, 9 August 2005 (UTC)

Regarding Spelling

Is there an official spelling that is used by Wikipedia? Eg. Colorful or Colourful

See Wikipedia:Manual of style#National varieties of English --Dismas 05:22, 9 August 2005 (UTC)

• In articles about American subjects American English is preferred, in British subject articles British English is preferred. In other articles things should fit whatever spelling was first used. - Mgm|^(talk) 10:42, August 9, 2005 (UTC)

About the topic

Relevance of Human Resource Information system

Yes? What about Human resource management system? Dismas 08:44, 9 August 2005 (UTC)

Transwiki

Quick transwiki policy question: When an article is transwikied, then listed on VfD, may it be automatically speedily deleted?

• CSD A5 says: Any article that has been discussed at Votes for Deletion, where the outcome was to transwiki, and where the transwikification has been properly performed and the author information recorded.
• Meta's page on Transwiki says: The original page may be deleted as soon as it has been moved to the transwiki area.

My question is: Which trumps which? CSD is official policy here, but Meta is the repository for Wikimedia-wide policy; should transwikied articles be listed on VfD to comply with the "discussed on VfD" provision, or may they be deleted outright under the policy on Meta? -- Essjay · Talk 06:52, August 9, 2005 (UTC)

The meta page is outdated in the extreme. We used to speedy all the transwikied articles, especially the massiveamountmoved to Wiktionary in the early days of transwiki in an effort to get all that stuff off Wikipedia. That was discontinued because of the uproarit caused, and now all of those need to be sent to VfD first. That CSD was created so that articles that were closed in VfD for transwiki, and the subsequently transwikied, can be deleted without another VfD. See for example, the template, {{deletetranswikied}}, which has since been TFD'd and deleted. It looked like this [9]. Now, they mustall go to VfD. Dmcdevit·t 07:26, August 9, 2005 (UTC)

Thanks! It's good to know which set of rules to follow. Since I have a meta account, I'm going to clarify on the meta page, so there won't be further confusion. -- Essjay · Talk 07:57, August 9, 2005 (UTC)

Watch talk pages

Is there a way to watch only the talk page of an article not the article itself? CG 09:50, August 9, 2005 (UTC)

No, there isn't. I wish I could expand upon this point, but I can't. Sorry. [[smoddy]] 10:04, 9 August 2005 (UTC)

Remvoing stub?

I have updated a few stubs in the last few days, mainly those related to India for example, Kaal. Am I allowed to remove the {{film-stub}} at the end of the article to mark it as a full article or is an editor supposed to do that?

Thanks

Gaurav Arora ^Talk 10:57, August 9, 2005 (UTC)

• You are an editor, if you think the article has enough information to be a real article then remove the stub. --Darkfred 11:04, 9 August 2005 (UTC)

• • I have gone through almost all sites that carry information about the movie, read the content and re-written it. Don't think there is anything more to add so I'll remove the stub thingie. Thanks for the help Darkfred. :-) Gaurav Arora ^Talk 11:25, August 9, 2005 (UTC)

misuse of freedom - editor's right?

I added one line in Ganesha article Other Names for Ganesha = Pillaiyar. Someone (no user name!) simply deleted that line. Is it not expected of the deleting editor that before removing the particular sentence he should say why he did so in the Talk Page? Is it not misuse of freedom? Apnavana 12:32, 9 August 2005 (UTC)

• There's a number of anon edits in the history. Which one removed your edit? If they didn't explain why, feel free to put the text back and request discussion in your edit summary. - Mgm|^(talk) 14:20, August 9, 2005 (UTC)

Languages offered

Where do I ask the question why Wikipedia is not offered in Latvian? I see it offered in Estonian and Lithuanian.

Thank you

Zigrida Dzenis

We have a Latvian wikipedia at lv.wikipedia.org. It currently has about 1800 articles; I'm sure they'd appreciate your contributions. Shimgray 13:12, 9 August 2005 (UTC)

Freedoms of the air in French

Bonjour!

Where can I find the French version of the articles relating to «Freedoms of the air»?

Please send any clue to TomHarry@servihoo.com

Kind Regards

Tom H.

3G & mobile

To whom it may concern,

I've recently got myself a 3G mobile device (yipeee!). I'd like to use it as a 'Hitchhikers's Guide' to find out stuff about life, the universe & everything else, especially to amaze my mates in the pub, but find the PDA version too cumbersome (search field @ bottom of page); too much distaction/unwanted info @ startup

Is there an existing Wikipedia portal for WAP & 3G, similar to google's i.e. www.google.com/xhtml

If so, where can I find it?

Thanks

Kind Regards

Jaco

freakalad@hotmail.com

http://www.wapedia.org/ isn't a "portal" for Wikipedia - it's someone else using Wikipedia information - but it is WAP-enabled. And it works pretty well, at least when I tried it... Shimgray 14:28, 9 August 2005 (UTC)

• You can use http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Search as a start page, its just the search box at the top of the page. I use the actual wikipedia site on my Nokia 6620. Elfguy 17:13, 9 August 2005 (UTC)

Narcissus

Hi there,

My name is Lisa Cowie, Assistant Editor of MTV Sticky.

Sticky is MTV's internal youth trend monitor, its how we share information and keep up to speed with youth culture all over the world.

Published quarterly we print around 4,000 copies, and also give some of them out to our sponsors. If we get your permission we would love to reproduce one of the images we found on your website in our magazine, and also on our blog site.

The image I need is the picture of Narcisuss found on your website at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Narcissus.jpg

Would you be able to e-mail me the Hi Res images on the above page? Ideally we need it to be at least 300dpi. Or do you know how I can get hold of a high resolution version of this image?

In return we can give you full credits, free access to the trend monitor blogsite, and a copy of the magazine your images appear in.

Please let me know at your earliest convenience.

Warm regards, Lisa Cowie

Lisa Cowie | International Research | MTV International | 180 Oxford Street - London - W1D 1DS - UK | Tel: 020 7478 6603 | E: cowie.lisa@mtvne.com

Hello Lisa Cowie. The original source of the information appears to be this website (I found this out from the Wikipedia page you supplied). I recommend you contact Andrew Wilson (email found at the bottom of the website I have given you) about using the image, as it doesn't belong to Wikiedia, and could be here illegally. Hope that helps and ask again if something is not clear, --Commander Keane 15:46, August 9, 2005 (UTC)

• I suggest you get to know what Wikipedia is first. As to your precise comment, I believe the copyright on that image is wrong, since while the painting is in the public domain it certainly doesn't make every pictures taken of them that way. That picture is probably copyrighted and shouldn't have been uploaded. Elfguy 17:02, 9 August 2005 (UTC)
  • No, the image tag is correct, see the linked article Bridgeman Art Library v. Corel Corp.. There is no possible copyright in the U.S. of a slavish reproduction of a two-dimensional public domain work. Rmhermen 19:19, August 10, 2005 (UTC)

South Asian fonts in Safari (Unicode problem?)

I am using Safari on a Mac to view en.wikipedia.org pages with terms in Hindi and Bengali. These words only show up as squares with a devanagari 'ka' for the Hindi and a Bengali letter (can't identify it) for the Bengali. Unlike Farsi, Arabic, Chinese, or Japanese, the actual South Asian scripts do not show up. Most of my settings are default, but I switched the browser to default to UTF-8, reloaded the page (no change), and then reset that specific page to UTF-8. No change. Likewise on the left sidebar the links to Wikipedia in other languages loads correctly for all but the South Asian languages. I searched Apple and found no help whatsoever. I searched the Wikipedia Village Pump and FAQ and only found mention of a problem with MS IExplorer. So I am not only confused by my own problem, but the apparent lack of evidence that other people are experiencing this problem, or trying to find out how to solve it.

• Have you got the needed fonts installed on the browser in question? - Mgm|^(talk) 17:40, August 9, 2005 (UTC)

• • Try Internet Explorer 5.2 for Mac. It seems OK with Hindi (I didn't try Bengali). Neither Safari nor Firefox seem to support Hindi. hydnjo talk 19:48, 9 August 2005 (UTC)

How long do I have to insure my home after the sale?

• You want Wikipedia:Reference Desk. Elfguy 17:05, 9 August 2005 (UTC)

Question moved to Wikipedia:Reference Desk#How long do I have to insure my home after the sale?. Look there for the answer. DES ^(talk) 17:01, 10 August 2005 (UTC)

John Bonham Typo in First Paragraph

"His signature licks live on as played BUT the modern drummers of today."

should be "BY" the modern drummers...

Thank you for your suggestion! It looks like this typo has already been corrected; Wikipedia is self-healing. In the future when you feel an article needs changing, please feel free to make whatever changes you feel are needed. Wikipedia is a wiki, so anyone can edit any article by simply following the Edit this page link. You don't even need to log in! (Although there are some reasons why you might like to...) The Wikipedia community encourages you to be bold. Don't worry too much about making honest mistakes—they're likely to be found and corrected quickly. If you're not sure how editing works, check out how to edit a page, or try out the sandbox to try out your editing skills. New contributors are always welcome. Dmcdevit·t 17:54, August 9, 2005 (UTC)

Cannot create a new entry due to redirecting issues....

I attempted to create a page for "Microfinance" but the system does not allow me to do so. I think the issue has to do with the automatic redirect to the "Microcredit" page when one does a search for Microfinance. How can this be fixed?

If you click on a link to Microfinance, you will be redirected to Microcredit, but the very top of that article will carry a notice "redirected from Microfinance". Simply click on that link, and you will be back at the redirect page, but this time, you'll be able to edit it just like a normal article. -- Ferkelparade π 18:49, 9 August 2005 (UTC)

Changing a redirect to a disambiguation.

Just want to know the procedure to change an existing redirection page to a disambiguation page. Can I just go ahead and do it, or does it first go through a process of peer review (like when deleting a page) For more detail on the specific page have a look at Talk:Laingsburg --Wolfling 18:53, 9 August 2005 (UTC)

I'd suggest just being bold and changing the page - in contrast to deletions, all changes to articles can very quickly be reverted by other editors if they disagree with your change, and having a disambig instead of a simple redirect cannot hurt if there's a case to be made that the title should lead to several articles - Ferkelparade π 19:00, 9 August 2005 (UTC)

Emmis communications?

In your general information about Emmis Communications the editor writes that a certain stations format was changed from dance music to "polluted hip hop" This type of opinionated writings does not vibe at all with a service considering itself an Encyclopedia and does damage your creditability. There are enough opinions floating around in guise as facts. One should aspire to employ professionals and take their business seriously. I hope you correct this misstep as I'm sure it was an oversight coupled with an unprofessional employee. Thank-you.

• Just out of curiosity how many employees do you think it takes to edit 600,000 encyclopedia articles? I am just kidding the truth is that anyone can edit wikipedia, if you believe that the article is biased you can change it yourself by clicking the edit button at the top of the page. Or you can wait and someone will correct it. Most of the people who edit wikipedia check for bias of this sort in every article they read so these things are usually corrected quite quickly. --Darkfred ^{Talk to me} 20:05, 9 August 2005 (UTC)
• I've rephrased the sentence in question. - Mgm|^(talk) 20:24, August 9, 2005 (UTC)

Star Spangled Banner versions

I note that when going from the English page on the Star Spangled Banner to the German page, some of the text is different. What caught my eye was the German referral to Jimi Hendrix singing it at Woodstock as part of a protest of the "bloody war in Viet Nam". This is not said in the English version, nor do I think it needs to be said in any version, that's a political statement and a debatable one at that. I'm new to this, and not ready to start correcting German pages, but I wonder if anyone else would be the appropriate person to do that.

RJD

Unless one version was translated from another, the two versions were written separately. (In addition, even if one version was translated, they could have been edited on). You probably want to contact the German Wikipedia help desk, or find English-German speakers (Category:User de, or Template:User de), and ask one of them to help. Flcelloguy | A note? | Desk 21:17, 9 August 2005 (UTC)

capitalization of dates

(Is there a question here?) hydnjo talk 23:23, 9 August 2005 (UTC)

• When a date is written in English the month needs to be capitalized. - Mgm|^(talk) 08:24, August 10, 2005 (UTC)

cows

why do cows wear bells

Please post your question at the Wikipedia: Reference desk. Thank you, hydnjo talk 23:20, 9 August 2005 (UTC)

I can't help myself: It's cow fashion, started by Mrs. O'Leary's cow. -- Essjay · Talk 03:15, August 10, 2005 (UTC)

"Articles which may be biased"

In the list of articles that carry the potential POV bias warning at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Articles_which_may_be_biased , there appears the entry "Template:POV check". Since this isn't an article in itself, I imagined that it was simply included in the list by an algorithm that searches for POV check template boxes in all of Wikipedia. I didn't feel that I had the authority to simply edit such an important page, but I was curious about who to notify about the error.--Boyd Steere 22:55, 9 August 2005 (UTC)

To mark an article for POV check, a user adds that template to the questioned page. That template contains some text saying that the POV is questioned, and also contains the category tag which adds the questioned page to the category. An unavoidable side effect of that is that the template, because it contains the category tag, itself appears in the category. So not really a bug, per se. -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 23:06, August 9, 2005 (UTC)

From what I understand from a discussion I was having with Tim Starling at Wikimania, there is or will very shortly be a new feature that allows portions of templates not to be included in articles, and portions of templates that only take effect when they are placed on an article. The latter would mean the template no longer needs to be in the category. Thryduulf 08:44, 10 August 2005 (UTC)

Julian or Gregorian dates

Are old dates in Wikipedia according to the old Julian calendar or have they been converted to the Gregorian calendar?

For example Izaak Walton was born on August 9, 1593. England at that time was using the Julian calendar, so is this date "O.S." or "N.S."?

You only need to worry about OS vs. NS when referring to dates which occurred between January 1 and March 15; it has to do with the calendar starting on March 15 in the Gregorian calendar. Dates after March 15 correlate. Zoe 23:25, August 9, 2005 (UTC)

Email My Watchlist Change

Is there any way to be e-mailed when my watchlist changes? Morphh 23:56, 9 August 2005 (UTC)

Not on this wiki, but an extension to the software does exist for other wikis... - IMSoP 23:59, 9 August 2005 (UTC)

Use of public domain photos

Hello,

I've written an article for another publication entitled: "The Making of Western Folklore." They want photos. I sent them public domain photos from your site, but they said electronic images cannot be adapted to their magazine. The images I'm referring to specifically are: Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid posing with the Wild Bunch, Wild Bill Hickok, Annie Oakley, Buffalo Bill, and John "Liver-Eating" Johnston. My question is: Can Wikipedia provide me with copies of these photos in photograph or slide format? If so, what is the cost? The other publication said the electronic images I sent them was 72 DPI (whatever that is) and way below the standard they need to publish the image in their magazine.

Please respond to sulmen2001@yahoo.com, and thank you.

No, Wikipedia doesn't provide anything like that. You can check the individual images pages which may contain links to larger versions elsewhere on the web, or you could contact the individual wikipedian who uploaded a given pictures. -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 00:22, August 10, 2005 (UTC)

A little bit of detail for you. They are really concerned with the number of dots in a picture - the picture is a rectangle with a huge number of dots. These affect the detail: more dots, more detail. It is almost NEVER possible to use pictures from the web in professional printing, there just isn't enough detail, by a a large factor. You might be lucky enough to find more detailed versions, but you might also find that you have to pay for their use. Even if a little web picture has been put in the public domain, the rights to its big printing buddy are often reserved and can cost $100 a time or more for the right to reproduce. Such old pictures are of course out of copyright, but a person who has a copy might not choose to share them, or can legally charge what they like. Fortunately, the picture sounds as if there may be many sources; try the public ones. Notinasnaid 21:49, 10 August 2005 (UTC)

How to tag copyright info on an image?

I've placed a couple of images in Wikipedia (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:GreenHeron.jpg#file as an example) and believe I have tagged it correctly. However, the is still a message on this page that it is not tagged with an appropriate copyright. What and I doing wrong?

If you press "Edit this page" on the image page, and insert the copyright tag and other details there, it should show up. Currently, your note of it being GFDL is only in the upload summary - the difference between leaving a note on a page and leaving it in the edit summary, in a way. (In fact, I've added the text for you, since I had the page open). Nice picture... Shimgray 01:45, 10 August 2005 (UTC)

TLA/FLA threshold

Hi, I am working on some observatories pages, and some of them have three letter abbreviations/four letter abbreviations. I was just wondering what the threshold of importance for adding them to the list was and what higher threshold would be needed to be met to bump an existing one into a disambiguity page--Rayc 02:04, 10 August 2005 (UTC)

I think the answer is "it depends"—but I would also say that the threshold for disambiguating an acronym should be pretty low. (Our editors should be linking directly to articles, not through acronym redirects.) With the exception of frequently used acronyms familiar to everyone (like US), disambiguation is almost always a good thing to do. (United States, the target of US' redirect, then has a link to US (disambiguation)). Checking the 'What links here' for an acronym redirect might give you an idea of how widely the term is used.

Where a dab (disambiguation) page already exists for an acronym, there's no reason I can think of not to add the observatory abbreviation.

If there are any borderline cases where you're really not sure what to do, you can always be bold and see if anyone objects. If you want to be less bold, place a note on the talk page of the redirect and its target explaining what you're going to do, and see if it stirs up any opposition. You can also list the question at requests for comment. I think that covers it.... TenOfAllTrades(talk) 03:17, 10 August 2005 (UTC)

Requirements for adding new reference material to your encyclopedia.

Over the last 40 years or so, a few of us in Universities in South Africa and in Canada evolved a new genre of Theatre Acting that was eventually named Heuristic Acting. Research papers on the new genre have been presented at University Conferences in the U.S.A., England, Canada, Africa, and Australia. I am the last survivor of the small gropup of innovators, and I am now retired. If I may, I would like to make the information and techniques available free of charge to teachers, students, and everybody else who is interested. Thank you. Azra Daniel Francis, PhD.

You might try the good people over at WikiSource and WikiBooks. They handle free source information, and free books, respectively. -- Essjay · Talk 03:10, August 10, 2005 (UTC)

Prettytable/bold

I converted list of Vermont county name etymologies from a list to spiffy {{prettytable}} chart. It looks much better, but there's one catch: the table is in bold for no apparent reason. Can someone help me get rid of this? Thanks --Neutrality^talk 04:03, August 10, 2005 (UTC)

• I fixed it for you. You should only use the exclamation mark (!) for cells that you want bold text in, the rest should use a pipe (|). JeremyA (talk) 04:15, 10 August 2005 (UTC)

Articles about dangerous activities?

While writing the Choking game article just now, it got me thinking about if there is a guideline or something stating Wikipedia's policy on articles about dangerous or life threatening practices that have articles written about them. I know there is a sexual fetish involving being choked while climaxing but I can't find the page for it to see how that article handles the implications of writing about a potentially dangerous activity. Maybe I'll have to wait till I get home to look it up in my Encyclopedia of Unusual Sex Practices since I don't like the idea of doing too much searching for info on a sexual fetish at work... So is there a tag that goes on such an article or is there a guideline to follow? I searched a bit but was unable to find anything. Dismas 06:18, 10 August 2005 (UTC)

• Mentioning it's a dangerous activity should be enough. We already have the Wikipedia:General disclaimer linked in every page in the default skin. It's like any article. Just the fact we write about it doesn't mean we encourage it. - Mgm|^(talk) 08:29, August 10, 2005 (UTC)
• I'd say that the article already indicate that the practice can have dangerous (deadly) consequences. We don't add an additional warning to articles discussing dangerous or unhealthy practices, mostly because it would be impossible to ensure that all articles that needed such a warning actually had it. Incidentally, if you're looking for the fetish, it's at erotic asphyxiation. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 12:03, 10 August 2005 (UTC)
• Thanks! I figured I should at least ask. And that is the fetish I was thinking of. Dismas 20:26, 10 August 2005 (UTC)
  • The problem is that having a page with an additional disclaimer implies (by omission) that a page without that disclaimer is "okay", that it doesn't need such a disclaimer. The one we have on all pages is pretty solid, and adding more disclaimers isn't neccessary anyway... but that implication could get messy. Shimgray 00:12, 11 August 2005 (UTC)

Fort a la Corne Diamond Project in Saskatchewan

Saskatchewan has another industry - Diamond Mining. Over the past several years test holes of the kimberlite deposit in central Saskatchewan has proven to be a lucrative mining venture. Try visiting this link link removed). Kensington (krt on the TSE) and Shore Gold (sgf on the TSE) are growing from penny stock a year or so ago, to a viable investment. The kimberlite deposit is located near Prince Albert / Melfort / Nipawin.

And you want help with what, exactly? -- Cyrius|✎ 08:49, 10 August 2005 (UTC)

With successful spamming, apparently. Link removed -- Ferkelparade π 09:53, 10 August 2005 (UTC)

ID number is 341571.

i am not able to upload images. It says not logged in. Not understand Why??

You're not logged in. You need to create an account and be logged in under it in order to upload. -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 09:41, August 10, 2005 (UTC)

--222.153.85.254 09:42, 10 August 2005 (UTC)

Enegy Saving Equipment.

I am writing to u from New Delhi/India. I want more info on the product that u market for energy conservation. I quote the foll that I read on the internet.

Quite The Environment Ministry has decided to provide funding from April for the promotion of an electrical energy-saving mechanism for homes. The junction-box device is about the size of a laptop computer and is equipped to regulate electrical power at 100 volts.

The project is part of Japan's efforts to fight global warming by reducing emissions from homes and offices, according to ministry officials.

Implementation of such mechanisms is targeted for fiscal 2003, beginning April 1.

The ministry's move is in response to the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, which requires industrialized countries to slash greenhouse-gas emissions from 1990 levels by an average of 5.2 percent between 2008 and 2012. Japan, which ratified the international accord on global warming in June 2002, is required to cut 6 percent.

To finance the project, the ministry plans to submit a 300 million yen budget to the 150-day regular Diet session convening Jan. 20, they said.

According to the officials, central and prefectural governments will shoulder two-thirds of the cost -- amounting to some 150,000 yen.

They expect around 6,000 households to have the new system installed in the initial fiscal year.

Electrical power for household use is set at 100 volts, but it varies from 98 to 107 volts depending on supply and demand. The nationwide average is 103 volts.

Some major businesses have already put such a device into use as part of cost-cutting measures. NTT Data Corp. will begin sales of the household devices from spring.

The officials said lowering the voltage by 3 volts will reduce energy consumption by 6 percent. For homes paying about 110,000 yen per year for electricity, the new mechanism is estimated to reduce electricity costs by around 6,600 yen.

A 1 percent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions in the government, civilian and business sectors would be realized, according to the officials, if the new equipment were installed in all homes in Japan.

For the civilian sector alone, they hoping to decrease such emissions by 10 percent compared with 1990 levels.

According to the officials, the role of the civilian sector is vital to achieving the country's targets stipulated in the protocol. But they said there is a limit to relying on the goodwill of individuals to use electricity more economically.

Also, local governments are studying the creation of guidelines for such power-saving equipment amid concerns that some manufacturers might sell inferior products. Unquote

Look forward to hear from you, Pradeep Chandak Marketing Manager GMC pc@indiagmc.com

Dear Pradeep Chandak,

Please can you explain why you say "the product that u market"? Wikipedia does not market this kind of product, but perhaps there is incorrect information somewhere. Notinasnaid 11:23, 10 August 2005 (UTC)

• We get weirder questions every month. Elfguy 12:15, 10 August 2005 (UTC)

Yes, but doesn't that just strengthen the desire to try to figure out the got here. The quoted article comes from The Japan Times, by the way (see [10]). The only company that is mentioned in the article is NTT (Japanese equivalent of AT&T), which leads to me think that somehow the author thinks Wikipedia is related to NTT ... but we don't even have an article on NTT Data (we do on the parent company). And a standard google search for NTT Data takes you straight to the English home page.... perhaps Pradeep you such continue your search at http://www.nttdata.co.jp/en/? Pcb21| Pete 12:29, 10 August 2005 (UTC)

free to use articles

Hello Wikipedia, Hopefully you can answer this question for me. Is it allowed to use articles from you site for an online magazine I own? very kind regards John Ledlie

• You should check the copyright link at the bottom of every page. Basically this text is free, so anyone can use it anywhere, even for profit, provided that any work using text from here is also released freely, under a compatible license. Elfguy 12:10, 10 August 2005 (UTC)

Overlapping bits

On my screen, the vertical table on the right of the Alkali metal article overlaps with the end of the horizontal table, so that you can't read the bit about dotted borders. Unfortunately, I don't know enough about the markup to be able to fix this myself MyNameIsClare talk 12:11, 10 August 2005 (UTC)

It should be fixed now. -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 12:14, August 10, 2005 (UTC)

changing someone else's text?

What do I need to do when someone edits my text with incorrect information? In the meantime I have deleted the incorrect text. See "The Harmonica Gentlemen" Kind regards, Art M. Daane artdaane@yahoo.com

If editing introduces factual inaccuracies into an article, the first step is usually to correct the article. (In this case, The Harmonica Gentlemen). If the same apparent errors are reintroduced, it is a good idea to open a discussion on the article's Talk page (Talk:The Harmonica Gentlemen) to explain your changes or to explain why the changes were inappropriate or inaccurate. Sometimes there are simple misunderstandings that be can be easily clarified. (In this case, perhaps there was more than one group that had the name The Harmonica Gentlemen?) If there is further dispute, the article can be listed at Wikipedia:Requests for comment to bring other editors to examine the situation. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 16:18, 10 August 2005 (UTC)

Using an image from another Wiki

Onager (siege weapon) could do with a picture and there There is a nice picture available in another Wiki. See [11]. I don't know how to add it to the English article, can anybody help? Gaius Cornelius 18:31, 10 August 2005 (UTC)

You'll have to download it and then reupload to the English Wikipedia. Though I don't like this one because it doesn't have copyright info. Ideally, if you could find a public domain of GFDL image, you could upload it to Wikimedia Commons so it can be used on all the Wikis. Dmcdevit·t 19:01, August 10, 2005 (UTC)

I downloaded that and uploaded it to the english wiki. It isn't GFDL, but the translated caption plus a little research shows it is copyright expired, at least in the US. DES ^(talk) 20:33, 10 August 2005 (UTC)

Best way to search for Images

I have not found a very satisfactory way to search the image database. Advise please? Gaius Cornelius 18:31, 10 August 2005 (UTC)

Just a suggestion, I don't know how well this works, but you can go to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Preferences, click on "Search", then turn off all Search options except for Image (and Image talk, if you want), then try the Search again. If this works, could you report back? When you're finished with your image search, you can reset your search preferences. Zoe 19:31, August 10, 2005 (UTC)

You could also use Google. Ojw 20:51, 10 August 2005 (UTC)

Help with template/sequence box

I've been editing for some time already but it's the first time I want to do something exotic (i.e. that I haven" tried before) with templates, so here's my question:

I'm trying to improve the articles on the Mexico City metro stations. Each station would get a sequence box similar to those used for office holders. It worked fine until I came across a station that belongs to two Lines as in Metro Tacuba. For the sake of space I would like to have those two boxes "stuck" together, but I found no way to do that. I tried using the {{box start}} and {{box end}} tags but that only gives something wierd.

Since I'm new to the template world I would like to know how I can get the two boxes to stick together and, if necessary, how could I create a template to achieve that purpose.

Thanks! -- Rune Welsh ταλκ 19:14, August 10, 2005 (UTC)

Pronunciation change

Today I tried changing the pronunciation of Kenya and my correction showed up for a few hours then reverted to what it used to be. I'm not sure if someone else changed it because they use a different pronunciation, or if the change just didn't take. All I did was click on "edit this page" then change the pronunciation (inserting one of the characters on the list at the end of the edit page) and this hit "Save page." Any suggestions?

By looking at the page's edit history (specifically this diff), one can see your change was reverted. Pronunciation is a touchy issue; you can pronounce it one way and I can pronounce it another. The pronouniciation on Wikipedia's pages are (correct me if I'm wrong, I'm just making a highly educated guess) accepted to be the "standard" pronounication for a given term. In the mean time, if you really think this is worth changing, you should start a discussion on Talk:Kenya. I'm going to leave your change as it is for now, but if someone else reverts it that's their call (personally I agree with the other version). --Andy Janata 21:44, 10 August 2005 (UTC)

pass word-forgotten

Can u please help me with

How to get my Password now??

--222.153.85.254 20:53, 10 August 2005 (UTC)

If you supplied an email address when you signed up, you can get it emailed to you--otherwise, you might have to start over with a new account. Sorry. Best wishes, Meelar (talk) 20:59, August 10, 2005 (UTC)

Upload new article(s)?

I am woking on articles about Texas State highways. I am generating text and formating code for these articles offline. Currently, as I finish an article, I copy and paste the text in the box on the edit this page link. Is it possible to upload a page in lieu of the usual method? Or multiple pages? Thanks in advance Bellhalla 21:23, 10 August 2005 (UTC)

• You could ask one of the bot owners. IIRC there is bots that do bulk uploads of articles. See Wikipedia:Bot requests. - Mgm|^(talk) 21:53, August 10, 2005 (UTC)