Wikipedia:Help desk/Archive 36

=December 11=

Splitting pages, edit history and GFDL compliance
When a page is split into several subarticles, the new articles don't show the edit history of that section. Since cut-and-past moves are a Bad Thing (tm) by the GFDL requirements, what is the correct way to do splits (that are always cut-and-paste)? In the splits I did, I just linked the source article in the edit comment box of the new articles, and the target article in the source article's edit box. Is this enough for the GFDL requirement? I'm asking because I don't really see a very big difference between this technique and doing a cut-and-paste move that is done with a decent edit summary&mdash;both things make it harder but not impossible to find the original authors. (And if the original page is deleted, the history is lost).

A related question is what to do if I find a cut-and-paste split without a decent edit summary that tells me where the content came from. I came across this situation yesterday: Kurukshetra was split up into Kurukshetra war and Kurukshetra District without an acknowledgment in these articles, and turned into a redirect to Kurukshetra:disambiguation, which I have since moved to the standard title Kurukshetra (disambiguation). I left notes about the edit histories at Talk:Kurukshetra war and Talk:Kurukshetra District. Is this enough to satisfy the GFDL or should there be an edit history comment? And is there a policy about splitting somewhere that I didn't find? Kusma (討論) 00:43, 11 December 2005 (UTC)


 * I'm sorry; I asked this question on a few mailing lists, and I haven't been able to add the answer to the documentation yet. "Standard" practice is currently what you describe, putting a note in the History section.  One poster on the secret closed "juriwiki" legal mailing list recommended putting "material originally copied from Foo" in the References section of the new article, with a link to the specific page revision you copied the material from.  -- Creidieki 00:54, 11 December 2005 (UTC)

Dab cat problem
The template disambig-cleanup automatically adds pages it's on to Category:Disambiguation pages in need of cleanup. If you take a look at the category, you will see that User:Docu/mentation/2LC/from category, Template messages/Cleanup and Template messages/All are all added, but they shouldn't be.

Is there a way to stop these pages from being added to the category? Any solution ideas would be welcome.--Commander Keane 02:56, 11 December 2005 (UTC)
 * I just made a null edit on the user page, which seems to have fixed that problem (unless you did something else that did so). I guess you fixed a 2-letter disambig transcluded from that user page, and the cat didn't update because of the transclusion? The Wikipedia pages are in *all* the categories of their templates; I don't know if there's a solution for that (it would need a "transclude without categories" command or something). Kusma (討論) 03:52, 11 December 2005 (UTC)


 * See db-reason which uses "includeonly"-tags to keep the template itself out of the category. - Mgm|(talk) 10:50, 11 December 2005 (UTC)
 * The Wikipedia:Template messages pages are in the category though as the template is transcluded onto that page. Thryduulf 11:45, 11 December 2005 (UTC)

No link to user page
I'm wondering why in my postings here and in similar places there is no link to my user page. That's been the case for a week or so. I notice other users who seem to have the same problem. Halcatalyst 03:53, 11 December 2005 (UTC)


 * It could be a problem with your preferences. For example, if you've set your nickname to "Halcatalyst" and have enabled the "Raw signature" setting, then your username won't be linked. --David Iberri (talk) 05:26, 11 December 2005 (UTC)

Yup, it was the "Raw signature" setting. Merci bien! Halcatalyst 02:20, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

Q) How to know my edit count?
Using a template? I don't know about it. help me!! Jimy 11:37, 11 December 2005 (UTC)
 * Use Kate's tool which you can find here. Dismas|(talk) 11:45, 11 December 2005 (UTC)
 * sorry, I don't know to install .js...:( Jimy 13:04, 11 December 2005 (UTC)
 * You don't need to install js, but there is currently no way to show your edit count with a template. You can view it, though, by going to Kate's tool, typing in your username and clicking "go". jnothman talk 13:10, 11 December 2005 (UTC)
 * Just a note: if and when Kate's Tool is down, you may wish to try the two alternate edit-counting tools listed at the bottom of WP:KT. Thanks! Flcelloguy (A note? ) 16:50, 11 December 2005 (UTC)
 * Thanks much!! WonYong 23:46, 11 December 2005 (UTC)

Spell checker
Is there a way to spell check edits? Thanks.
 * Please see Tools/Editing_Tools. A manual mechanism is to keep two windows open, one with a word processor and yank text between the two windows. -- Rick Block (talk) 16:31, 11 December 2005 (UTC)

How to create new bio page?
Can someone please advise me on how to create a new biography page (like this, for example: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russel_Grant ) There appears to be lots of information here about how to edit and add to existing pages, but I can't find any instructions on how to add *new* pages. Any help would be very much appreciated. K. Saunders
 * Easiest way is to make yourself an account (providing a user name and password), then type in the article title in the search box, and it will let you create it. If you don't want to get an account, go to articles for creation and maybe someone will make the page for you. Kappa 18:33, 11 December 2005 (UTC)
 * Are you sure you don't mean Russell_Grant (with the 2nd 'l')? That page already exists. P.S. – The reason you can't create a new article is because of a new rule only allowing registered users to create new pages. Feel free to register and enjoy the benefits. :) Gflores Talk 21:07, 11 December 2005 (UTC)

This doesn't work. I already have an account. You said: "type in the article title in the search box, and it will let you create it." I did this, but there was no option to create a new article, only additional search options. I don't want to create an article titled "Russel Grant", that was just an example. So again - Can someone please tell me how to create a new article (biography)? Thanks. Kate.
 * Hmm it works for me, you might need to click on the article title again. Another way is to go to any article, and in your browser's address bar change the page name to what you want. Or make a link to the title you want from any other page, and click on that. Kappa 09:34, 17 December 2005 (UTC)

Still doesn't work

"you might need to click on the article title again"

Click on *what* article title?? I'm trying to *create* an article. Since I haven't been able to create an article yet, there obviously is no article title.

Your other suggestion ("change the page name to what you want") doesn't work. It just gives "Article not found" and goes on to say "you can create it if you log in or create an account" (I *have* an account, and I¡ve logged in with it).

Surely there must be simple instructions somewhere on how to create a new article? This is very frustrating.


 * Check that you are in fact logged in (when you wrote to this help desk you were not; look in the top right hand corner of the screen: if it offers you to sign in, you are not logged in). If you are not logged in, it may not be your fault: others have had the same problem, but just in case, check that you have cookies enabled in your browser. If you are logged in, that is strange because the default page for a logged in user when an article isn't found begins: "Wikipedia does not have an article with this exact name. Start the SOME ARTICLE NAME article or put up a request for it." In the search page, it should give "No page with that title exists. You can create an article with this title or put up a request for it." before additional search options. I hope this is helping you, but while there are simple instructions, there are also exceptional cases. Let's hope you are not one and this has merely been some miscommunication. jnothman talk 14:38, 17 December 2005 (UTC)

garhwali films
In Garhwal section there is no link of any reference about uttranchali film —Preceding unsigned comment added by 155.57.192.1 (talk • contribs)
 * If you know of a verifiable and credible source for this information, simply add it to the article, and cite the source in the References section (which is unfotunately missing at the moment). Otherwise (i.e. you don't have the information, or you only have it on hearsay) add a request to the corresponding talk page.  --David Woolley 21:03, 11 December 2005 (UTC)

Sts. Chrysanthus and Daria
I added a page on Sts Chrysanthus and Daria, as it was listed as one that was missing, and yet when i put it in the search function, it doesn't appear. What have i done wrong?--964267sr 21:11, 11 December 2005 (UTC)
 * If you type "Sts. Chrysanthus and Daria" into the search, it will come up. Your page is at the title Sts. Chrysanthus and Daria.

WAvegetarian (talk) (email)   (contribs) 21:21, 11 December 2005 (UTC)

Thanks. It was a spacing thing. I was having a typing lapse.--964267sr 23:56, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

Wikipedians with LexisNexus access
A while ago I remember our having a page that listed Wikipedians who had access to the Lexis Nexus system, and who could consequently look up US legal cases. Does that still exist? -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 22:18, 11 December 2005 (UTC)


 * Talk:LexisNexis seems to imply there never was one and that there may be problems in having one. With a non-extensive search, I found that Alterego has access, but it is likely that most university students do. I have discovered that indeed I do too. jnothman talk 01:05, 12 December 2005 (UTC)


 * Thanks. The reason I ask is a query over at Talk:Tera Patrick, which I was hoping was within the search capabilities of LN's query engine. -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 01:09, 12 December 2005 (UTC)


 * Well I'm not really familiar enough with the system to look anything up without more guidance... jnothman talk 01:21, 12 December 2005 (UTC)


 * Now is the best time to learn :-) Your university library website should have a brief guide; if not, google around and somewhere will. It's surprisingly simple, in my experience. Shimgray | talk | 15:33, 13 December 2005 (UTC)


 * Sorry, atm I'm running a little low on time to do this. =( jnothman talk 14:41, 17 December 2005 (UTC)


 * Hard to tell what it is that you want to look up (and no, I don't have Lexis/Nexis access that I can use for personal projects like Wikipedia) but I don't think Lexis is going to help you. Typically, Lexis access of the type used by univerity students only has "published" cases (I'm not going to get into the rules for unpublished cases, or the many different subscription types and databases Lexis/Nexis offers, including some rather esoteric ones sold to law enforcement agencies)-- you typically don't get court documents for a trial court level case like the one you describe.  And it looks like this is a case in state court, not federal court, so a service like PACER won't help you.  You could try calling the office of the Clerk of the Court to see if they have a service that will get you a copy of the court filings without going there yourself.  Otherwise you might be reduced to trying to get a copy of the filings from the attorneys on the case or perhaps the reporter who wrote the article you linked on your Tera Patrick discussion page.  BTW, depending on the way the order was written, the court order for the preliminary injunction might not include Ms. Patrick's former name.  As a side note, Lexis has a service called "LexisOne" or something like that to provide FREE access to a limited universe of recent cases.  But that won't help you here.  Hope this is useful. Crypticfirefly 16:42, 17 December 2005 (UTC)

Publisher of Wikipedia?
Who is the publisher of wikipedia? Also, what is the copyright year?


 * You probably want to read WP:CITE. -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 23:39, 11 December 2005 (UTC)


 * The article on Wikipedia will probably tell you a little more about the project in general. jnothman talk 00:03, 12 December 2005 (UTC)
 * Actually, they probably dont want WP:CITE (that links to Cite sources). For info on how to cite Wikipedia itself as a reference, see WP:CW. -Kwekubo 01:05, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

=December 12=

calvin and hobbes syndication
I have question and I'm not sure where to direct it. From what I understand, Calvin and Hobbes and Peanuts are no longer original comic strips. Watterson retired and Schultz has passed on. Yet, the los angeles times carries both strips and the date in the panel is the current date. I was hoping that the wikipeda article on Calvin and Hobbes would clarify whether other artists are now doing the strip or whether these are re-runs. Where should i direct this question?
 * The Reference desk or the talk pages for the articles on Calvin and Hobbes and Peanuts would be the best places for this question. Dismas|(talk) 01:43, 12 December 2005 (UTC)
 * They are re-runs. Peanuts with the word 'classics', Calvin and Hobbes still under the original name. - Mailer Diablo 03:22, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

Why do these footnotes autonumber starting with 2 instead of 1?
I wikified the footnotes in the Rick Warren article using the ref and note templates. For some reason, the footnotes are auto numbered beginning with 2 instead of 1. I have tried changing the first note to include |1, but that didn't change anything. Why are they starting with 2 and how can I change the page to start with 1? Here are the changes I made. ApolloCreed 01:49, 12 December 2005 (UTC)


 * [1] is referenced in the image caption, which precedes the article's start. I am not sure if the reference there is necessary, though, as such information can be determined by clicking on the picture. jnothman talk 02:07, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

why wikipedia cannot be visited in China
I worked in Dongguan, Guangdong Province during the week and return to Hong Kong in weekends. About two months ago, I noticed that wiki cannot be opend in China but all returns to normal when I come back to Hong Kong. Can someone tell me how to log on the wiki in China please?

Hong Kong Kenneth
 * I'm afraid you just can't edit from there. Tito xd (?!? - did you read this?) 02:57, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

Do not want to lose test user pages I am writing
I'm sorry, I'm very confused.

If I make a page like ".../User:Nepomuk/Fruit"

That will be saved if I save it.

Now, in that page, should I make my links like User:Nepomuk/Fruits/Oranges to make a page that *doesn't* show up in the normal wikipedia (yet)?

Or (hopefully) can I just write oranges as my link and this test page will be created in my user space only?

Sorry, there seems to be so much user help info I'm a little lost...

Thanks, Nepomuk
 * The links in your user subspace should be like User:Nepomuk/Fruits/Oranges. That said, they will show up in Wikipedia (but not in the article namespace, which is what I imagine what you meant by "normal". A link like oranges will link to our article about oranges, respectively.


 * A little dirty trick is that once you are in your subspace (let's say, User:Nepomuk/Fruits), you can type /Oranges and that will link to the sub-subpage you wanted to link to (in this case, User:Nepomuk/Fruits/Oranges). I hope that helps, and if not, you can always ask again here! :) Tito xd (?!? - did you read this?) 04:10, 12 December 2005 (UTC)


 * Hi, thanks Titoxd
 * So I create User:Nepomuk/Oranges on my main user page originally, click that link and go to that page and put in something like "abc", save it, then go back to the original page and edit the link to be /Oranges ? That's what I did and it seems to be working :)


 * I'm a little confused about all that. You don't need to make your link User:Nepomuk/Oranges at all. Just /Oranges and Wikipedia'll add the User:Nepomuk itself. You don't even need the page to exist, so you don't need to click and write abc and save. Currently the links on your homepage are all full (absolute) paths, including the User:Nepomuk bit. They don't need to be and can just be /Card Sleight of Hand, /Trick Cards, etc. jnothman talk 05:30, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

Hi, I clicked on the link "Gambler's Palm" on my page, and on the page that came up typed in a brief description of the Gambler's palm. In my web browser the URL is http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gambler%27s_Palm, that is, it seems anyone can now look at it. When I search on Gambler's palm, the page I just entered comes up. My question is, is there an easy way to have the link Gambler's Palm on the general page I am creating on sleight of hand, and be able to edit the Gambler's Palm page, but to *not* have this page available (yet) to wikipedia users (except me). IE, I want to be able to make a rough draft of my sleight of hand pages in some sort of sandbox environment and not have general users be able to see it.


 * There is no way of creating content which is stored on Wikipedia's servers but not available to anyone else - that would be open to abuse, and not exactly conducive to collaborative editting. Pages which are sub-pages of your user page (i.e. of the form User:XXX/YYY) are however broadly considered "yours" - other users won't generally try to edit them unless you ask them to; people also won't come across them while browsing the rest of the encyclopedia, so they will be fairly hidden, even though not invisible.
 * In general, though, I would recommend just "being bold" and putting your draft in place as soon as possible [e.g. if you finish for the day, but are coming back tomorrow] - that way, other people can help you improve it as you write it, which is the whole idea of a wiki. If you're worried people will complain about the standard of your articles a) experienced editors know that most pages start off that way; and b) you can always place a comment on each article's Talk page explaining that you're actively improving it. - IMSoP 23:53, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

When I create a numbered list, all the numbers show up as 1s
When I create a numbered list, all the numbers show up as 1s. The page is below:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bj%C3%B8rn_Lynne

and I created all the list items in the standard format, that is


 * a


 * b


 * c

—Preceding unsigned comment added by Last avenue (talk • contribs)


 * Well, no, that's not the standard format. Try not leaving a space between each line. Ie:
 * a
 * b
 * c
 * will be produced by

#a
 * b
 * c
 * But:
 * a


 * b


 * c
 * will be produced by

#a


 * b


 * c
 * jnothman talk 04:41, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

help
LOL, can't find my way back to the page where someone has hopefully posted an answer to my question -- so I'm posting a fake question to bring me back to that page...

As a newbie I have to say this is the most complicated help section on any website I have been to.

Yes, once I learn more about Wikipedia I will help streamline this help process! (ie., I'm not just a complainer...:))

--Nepomuk

Here I am -- I find my own message :)


 * Yes, it does seem a little complicated, doesn't it? In the end it's just because it works by using the wikipedia editing system. And often if you want to ask a question, you don't know how. But that's why we also have an email-based version (see Contact us). The advantage here is that lots of people can help answer your question, rather than just getting replies from a few people who happen to be checking the HelpDesk mail. I already tried to simplify the long header up the top, but obviously things have been put there for a reason. Still, suggestions (or action) on how to improve it would be great. jnothman talk 05:12, 12 December 2005 (UTC)


 * The link that you clicked to add your question is at the top of the page. The questions get added to the bottom of the same page.  So you could have found your question by scrolling all the way to the bottom and your original question would have been found near the bottom.  Dismas|(talk) 05:18, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

Cookies allowed but user keeps getting kicked off
User Barry has sent the following e-mail to the Wikipedia Help Desk. I am unable to help him so I am posting my question here. Capitalistroadster 05:31, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

"My browser is set to allow cookies, and I even added wikipedia.org to my "Always Allow" list. Still, everytime I log in, even when I check the "Remember Me" box, I stay logged in until after I run a search or click a link, at which point it logs me out.  When I click the "My Preferences" link, for example, I get an error message saying "Not Logged In" and "You need to be logged in to do that." What's the problem?"

If you could help Barry, it would be greatly appreciated. Capitalistroadster 05:31, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

I have several questions about getting a username.
I have several questions about getting a username:

1) If a hacker hacked into my account, would they see any vital things in my computer?

2)Would Wikipedia send me letters or viruses?

3)Are there any dangers about getting a username at all? (Besides hackers)

4)Has anyone ever gotten solicited over Wikipedia discussion rooms?

Also, as an added question, why do you need cookies to have a username? And what exactly are cookies? (I already looked at the cookie link at the "create account" place, so I don't want to read it, again)

Also, if I get a pseudynom username, how long can I keep it? --anon


 * You shouldn't worry about registering a username. It's fast, easy, and secure. Wikipedia won't send you any spam or anything like that. An email address is optional, but even if you do provide an email address, it will be kept confidentially. There are no dangers in getting a username, no soliciting or hacking. You won't be hacked using Wikipedia, trust me. Cookies are used to remember who you are, so you don't have to keep manually signing in all the time. You can keep your username for as long as you want. If you have any more questions, just post here again. :) Gflores Talk 05:57, 12 December 2005 (UTC)


 * All usernames are pseudonym usernames. You can call yourself anything you want.
 * The essential answers to your questions are no. Wikipedia doesn't require you to provide any details about yourself at all. The only piece of information that could identify you unwillingly is your IP address, and that is made available to a very small number of top-level Wikipedia administrators and developers. If a hacker hacks into your account (and it's not likely), just about the only private information they can see is your watchlist (the pages you are interested in watching for changes); but they would be able to post in your name. Still, I don't know of this happening - use a good password. Users have been blocked on the basis of bad behaviour, but I don't think anything has come to solicitation at all. If you write defamatory or racist material, some may argue there should be a process of solicitation, but at this stage there is no such thing in Wikipedia.
 * As to cookies: they are small pieces of information web sites put on your computer to help make using their site easier, or just to know that the same computer is there talking to the web site. They are also used, though, by market research / advertising companies to track users of various web sites; they've also been the source of web browser security vulnerabilities, although this threat has generally been removed in all web browsers today. Wikipedia doesn't track your access; it uses cookies to allow you to sign in and stay signed in by creating a code when you sign in and putting it on your computer. It then can later ask your computer for the code, and on that basis identify that it is indeed the same person that logged in. I hope that helps. jnothman talk 05:58, 12 December 2005 (UTC)


 * And a note about including an email address when you register: one reason to do this is so that you can request a new password if you forget yours. If you don't register an email address and you forget your password, you basically lose access to your login.  Also note that if someone sends an email to you from wikipedia and you respond in email, they will see your email address (because of the email you sent).  Similarly, if you send someone an email from within wikipedia (there'a an "email this user" link on user pages) the email address you've provided will be visible to the person you send the email to. -- Rick Block (talk) 14:34, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

Okay, thank you! --anon

links: blue or red?
this isn't all that important. but i've been curious to know why some links are in blue while others are in red? is it random or does it actually mean anything? thanks.


 * Links in blue means an article exists. Links in red means there isn't an article for that topic. You can create articles by registering a username. If I haven't been clear, let me know. :) Gflores Talk 06:37, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

Problem with computer messages
An editor has left this on my page. Someone with the expertsise may please reply to him directly. User_talk:Gurubrahma --Gurubrahma 07:00, 12 December 2005 (UTC)


 * I tried to reply on avnp*'s talk page. jnothman talk 07:24, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

Am I encouraged to correct spelling mistakes on talk pages?
There seems to be an awful lot of spelling errors on most talk pages, making me think that perhaps people aren't encouraged to correct them. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Flea110 (talk • contribs)
 * That's correct, most people don't bother correcting spelling on talk pages (some do, however). More effort is made into correcting spelling errors on that article itself. See Typo for more information. Gflores Talk 07:09, 12 December 2005 (UTC)
 * Just so that I'm clear on this, is it ok for me to correct other peoples spelling on talk pages?


 * Yes, it's friendly and helpful. &#8227;&#5339;&#5505;  [[Image:Venus symbol (blue).gif|&#9792;]] [ &#5200; ] 07:35, 12 December 2005 (UTC)


 * Hmm, not everyone might see it that way. Keep in mind not everyone speaks English as a first language. And hey, let's hope what they've got to say is more important than minor typo errors. pfctdayelise 15:32, 12 December 2005 (UTC)


 * However, do remember that people can use a variety of types of English ranging from American to British to Canadian to Australian and more. Don't "correct" words which are correct in another type of English. - Mgm|(talk) 08:27, 12 December 2005 (UTC)


 * The risks and costs of correcting others' spelling errors are many:
 * You may be seen as being pedantic or condescending,
 * You may be unfamiliar with foreign style or usage (US versus UK versus Canadian versus Australian, etc.),
 * Each time a page is edited on Wikipedia–even to change a single letter–an entire new copy of the page is stored in our databases. Fixing typos on talk pages may not be the best use of our resources.
 * You may be wrong. :D Your spelling might be in error, or you may inadvertently change the sense or meaning of a phrase.
 * Many editors are touchy about others making changes–well-intended or not–to their signed talk page comments.
 * In other words, it's probably best to leave well enough alone. If someone's remarks are so badly garbled as to be unclear as to their meaning, you can always ask for a clarification.  If you want to correct spelling errors, limit yourself to articles; there are lots of them there. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 15:56, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

I agree with TenofAllTrades. It may offend people. Also, since the talk pages are only for the editors, and not for those who look up things in the encyclopaedia, it's a bit of a waste of server space IMHO, since every version is stored in the page history. With an article, we do have to correct little typos, since they undermine the credibility of the encyclopaedia. With talk pages, I'd say leave well enough alone. AnnH (talk) 16:04, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

Australian Flag icon
Hi, i thought i would be crafty and make my own Australian userbox. The image i want to use is Icons-flag-au. I can successfully make the userbox as i want but the flag picture comes up blurry. I have tried with other flags and it looks normal, i think it has to do with the quality of the picture. Is there anyway i can get a good Australian Flag picture? Thanks for any help, --Ali K 07:26, 12 December 2005 (UTC)
 * This one? Gflores Talk 08:01, 12 December 2005 (UTC)
 * Yeah, Thanks!--Ali K 09:52, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

What is bluetooth ?from where can i get the material ?

 * Try reading Bluetooth. jnothman talk 10:38, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

Template editing
I want to add the article Stapedius to the template "Muscles of the head" (shown on this page: Tensor tympani.) How do I do that, or who do I contact? Thanks. Kerowyn 10:36, 12 December 2005 (UTC)


 * Edit Template:Muscles of head. Basically, when something is enclosed in 🇦🇩, it means it is a template, and can be found at Template:NAME if is used. jnothman talk 10:41, 12 December 2005 (UTC)


 * Oh, and then add &#123;{Muscles of head}} to the Stapedius article. jnothman talk 10:42, 12 December 2005 (UTC)


 * Thanks! Kerowyn 19:35, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

Looking for pictures
I am looking for icons/pictures that can be used in userboxes. I am looking for a laptop/notebook and a picture representing Perth, Western Australia. Any ideas?--Ali K 13:21, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

How protect article from editing? Can I limit access to my Wikipedia?
Your wikipedia? I'm sorry, this help desk is about this website (English Wikipedia). Perhaps you should try asking the guys at MediaWiki. &mdash; Sverdrup 15:19, 12 December 2005 (UTC)
 * You have to be an admin to protect pages. If you are running your own local installation of Wikipedia, just poke around in the database to give yourself admin rights. If you mean this Wikipedia here, you have to register to an account and apply for adminship at WP:RFA. &mdash; J I P | Talk 20:12, 12 December 2005 (UTC)


 * Although applying for adminship here in order to protect particular pages would be frowned upon. ;) Mark1 20:20, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

Can't edit the encyclopedia
''I can get the editing form but it won’t save or even preview. I have tried using Safari and Internet Explorer; the result is the same.'' --User:Michael Glass This was sent to the mailing list. He says he has encountered IP blocks and that isn't the problem. His account isn't blocked either. I'm not sure what to tell him. I will forward any responses to him via email as he can't edit even talk pages. He has requested that we not send email using the "Email this user" function as that email address is "used as a spam-trap." WAvegetarian (talk) (email)   (contribs) 15:52, 12 December 2005 (UTC)


 * It could be possible that his choice of page to edit is protected...? Then clicking edit/view source SHOULDN'T let you save. jnothman talk 22:15, 12 December 2005 (UTC)


 * I've been having exactly the same problem from my home computer for the past week. Can't save edits, can't preview them either.  No probs editing from work computer.  Assumed it was just something with my home system. JackofOz 22:20, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

Can't view entire watchlist
Something changed a few months ago (I think there was a major update around then) and now I can't see my entire watchlist. When I click on "all" in the watchlist page the returned page only shows that last month's worth of changes. I have tried editing the URL but numbers of days greater than 30 don't seem to make any difference.

Is there some way for me to see the entire list as I used to? Cjrother 18:30, 12 December 2005 (UTC)


 * I suspect that viewing changes older than 30 days has been disabled on watchlists as a way to ease the load on the Wikimedia servers. Short of coming back at least once per month to check your watchlisted articles, I'm afraid there isn't really anything I can suggest.  TenOfAllTrades(talk) 21:28, 12 December 2005 (UTC)


 * I had suspected that myself. Any idea where else I can ask about this or find out what has happened?  I don't really see that this would be that big a load on the servers (not that that is really my area) but if this is the case then perhaps some sort of paging scheme, like when you do a search, would work.  In any case they should get rid of the all button if they don't want people to do that. Cjrother 19:18, 14 December 2005 (UTC)


 * Anyone?? Cjrother 04:07, 17 December 2005 (UTC)

Marking questionable material
If I find information who's factuality I think is questionable, how can I mark it for review?


 * Add the Disputed tag to the page, and explain (in as much detail as you possibly can) what you feel is wrong and how you suggest a fix can be made. -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 20:42, 12 December 2005 (UTC)


 * For the full list of cleanup tags see Cleanup resources. RJFJR 21:31, 12 December 2005 (UTC)


 * You may also want to use fact where appropriate, which appears like this and indicates that it may not be a verifiable fact and either needs to be sourced or removed. jnothman talk 22:13, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

Blink tag
Have the blink and marquee tags been disabled in Wikipedia? I wouldn't blame whoever banned them (they are very annoying), but I was considering putting a simple "This is an example of blink. Note: Your browser may not display this properly" to the blink tag, but the tags simply appear in the text instead of becoming hidden. I have FireFox and creating a test HTML with blink worked fine.  smurray  in  chester (User), (Ho Ho Ho!) 20:43, 12 December 2005 (UTC)


 * Yes, the blink tag has been disabled in Wiki markup. I'm afraid there's no way around it. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 21:25, 12 December 2005 (UTC)
 * You could use a gif animation capture a case where this tag is used or simulate it. - Mgm|(talk) 22:03, 12 December 2005 (UTC)


 * It's not that it's been disabled, it's that only a few things have been enabled. Blink is generally not useful, and moreso on a Wiki. Marquee is not standard (although most visual browsers implement it) and also not useful on a Wiki. See Help:HTML in wikitext. But to exemplify, yes, use an animated GIF. jnothman talk 22:11, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

how to find users/talk page threads
(1) I've heard from two other users with very nice notes. One was on the talk page of the article I edited. When I came back, it was gone. I remember her name but don't know how to find her.

(2) When I looked at the other user's talk page, it seems there is only half a conversation going on. It seems like someone asked a question or made a comment, and the talk page has only the response. Where do you find the other part of the conversation?

Thank you.


 * 1. If you remember her name, go to the search box and type in User:Username. 2. The other part of the conversation is usually on the other user's talk page, for example if User:Foo and User:Bar are having a conversation, Foo will ask a question on Bar's talk page and Bar will respond on Foo's talk page. Hope that helps. H e rmione1980 21:30, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

Copyrighted Images
If an image has been taken before 1923 but never published, is it public domain? Or do I have to post it as "Fair Use"? --Nick Catalano (Talk) 22:21, 12 December 2005 (UTC)


 * Fair use isn't an escape or excemption from copyright, as many uploaders seem to think: it's a particular justification (from quite a small set) for that particular use of that picture. If you put "fair use" without the justification, then the picture will get deleted. Don't know about the date thing, sorry. Notinasnaid 22:28, 12 December 2005 (UTC)


 * How do you have it if it was never published? The only way I can think of is f you possess the original. If you physically stole it, then perhaps it would be copyright violation to pst it here as well. If you inherited it, then any copyright it has probably belongs to you. If it was a personal gift of some sort, and the creator does not have a copy of it, then I'm guessing that you still have the rights to it. If copies were distributed among a small group prior to 1923, then the date that happened might count as the copyright date. --Chris 22:47, 12 December 2005 (UTC)


 * The answer depends on where you reside, where the picture was taken, whether the copyright belonged to the photographer or to a corporation and when the photographer died. You can only use "fair use" where it is fair use; that tends to be only where it is essential to the purose to use the specific material and the copyright owner loses little as a result. I suspect that the only fair use of an image of that age would be in an article about the photographer's techniques or the technical processes used at the time --David Woolley 23:06, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

The pictures are stored in the Loyola University Chicago archives and would be digitized for $5 apiece plus $10 for a CD (a small contribution to Wikipedia for some historical pictures.) BUT the University says that since the pictures were never officially published then even if they give me a digitized picture that I paid for, while I may own that digital representation of the picture I will have to ask for their permission to publish it (which they would consider doing for Wikipedia, but if say Answers.com or some other service wanted to use it I would have to request permission as well. --Nick Catalano (Talk) 05:13, 13 December 2005 (UTC)


 * Wikipedia wouldn't accept the pictures under those conditions. I'm not a lawyer, but I think that you are dangerously close here to forming a contract with the University that would include terms limiting your use of the pictures, even if the copyright weren't valid.  Unless you are prepared to fight a test case, you had probably better assume that the work really is unpublished and therefore covered by the copyright rules for such works, not the 1923 rule.  --David Woolley 10:40, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

How do I make a Wikipdia image point to a Commons image?
There are a bunch of images that were originally on Wikipedia, but were copied (manually, it appears) to the Commons, and the originals on Wikipedia are marked with Template:nowCommonsThis. I made an improvement to all of them on the Commons, but since they originally resided on Wikipedia, the images I edited were simply copies, and the Wikipedia versions were not updated. I want them to update the way any image that is first posted to the Commons (and then automatically appears on Wikipedia) does. I have a feeling that maybe if I put all of them on WP:IFD and they are deleted from Wikipedia, then they will just point to their Commons counterparts. Is this so? Is there some other way I should achieve this? Is this even possible? Thanks. --Chris 22:35, 12 December 2005 (UTC)


 * Deleting is probably the most correct way to do it (or just find an admin friend to do it for you much quicker). We don't really need duplicates everywhere. jnothman talk 23:02, 12 December 2005 (UTC)


 * An admin can't do this any quicker, because having a duplicte on comons is explicitly NOT a reson for a speedy delete. The best method is to lsit these on WP:IFD if thy are in fact duipes, there is likley to be no opposition and little comment. DES (talk) 23:15, 12 December 2005 (UTC)
 * I don't have any admin friends, so I must go the WP:IFD way. (Unless you're an admin and you want to do it.) Do you think it's necessary that I put notices on each and post notices for each on the uploader's talk page? After all, they're not all really being deleted, there's no need to debate it like there would be with actual deletions. --Chris 23:18, 12 December 2005 (UTC)


 * Although they cannot be speedy deleted because there are numerous license issues that have been discussed on Wikipedia talk:Moving images to the Commons, we can delete images listed on IFD if they are now at the Commons. However, as listed on Images and media for deletion/Instructions for administrators, the images must meet the following requirements:
 * All relevant revisions of the image have been moved to the Commons, not just the most recent one.
 * The Commons version is as good as or better than the local one.
 * The Commons version is under a free license, and properly tagged and attributed.
 * Zzyzx11 (Talk) 23:20, 12 December 2005 (UTC)


 * Chris, I sometimes notify the uploader as a courtesy that it has been moved, especially if it is a different file name on Commons. Zzyzx11 (Talk) 23:24, 12 December 2005 (UTC)


 * It's the same name, but since most of them are from just two uploaders, this shouldn't be a problem.
 * As far as those three guidelines, the second and thrid are already done, but the first is not.
 * For most of the images I'm talking about, there are two revisions on both the Commons and on Wikipedia. There is a first version on Wikipedia that is not on the Commons. Then there is a second version on Wikipedia, which does NOT appear to be based at all on the first. The first revision on the Commons is the same as the second on Wikipedia. (I was not the one who originally copied them to the Commons.) The second on the Commons is mine, based largely on the first. That is the one I want to appear on Wikipedia.
 * So here's the problem: Should I upload the 1st Wikipedia revision to the Commons as the 3rd Commons revision, and then revert back to the 2nd revision (which would make a 4th revision)? I'm wondering if it's necessary to preserve the 1st Wikipedia revision if all of the others are not derived from it.
 * Thank you all for your help. I'm in a tricky and unusual situation here. --Chris 00:12, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

You know what, I think this would be easier if you all actually saw this: Image:Interstate75.png Commons:Image:Interstate75.png (This is an example of the situation that I said applies to most in the group; also note that this is completely seperate from my WP:IFD for Image:Interstate4.PNG.) --Chris 00:18, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

hi
Please, I want to know wich is the diameter of earth between the poles. Thanks —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.154.122.22 (talk • contribs) 23:41, December 12, 2005


 * Try the article on the Earth. In the future, lpease take factual questions to the Reference desk.

WAvegetarian (talk) (email)   (contribs) 00:52, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

=December 13=

Adding categories to templates so all pages with the template will be in the category
Well, the title says it all. I've tryed to use templates that do this, copy the markup code, but it still doesn't work. Can someone guide me through this; I can't find documentation anywhere. Thanks. --HereToHelp (talk) 01:13, 13 December 2005 (UTC)
 * Uhh...is it also possible to add associated (read:talk) pages to the category even if the template isn't on the exact page?

The articles (or talk pages) will appear in the category the next time they're edited. You can go and just "edit" them and save them with no changes, that will make them appear in the category. (I just added Talk:Mac OS using this procedure). Kusma (討論) 01:32, 13 December 2005 (UTC)


 * Well you add things to a category by going, so you can simply stick one of these in the template. Nonetheless, because it requires a lot of work on the database side, this does not automatically update the categories associated with a page using that template. To do that, you may need to edit the articles (just insert a space or something) to refresh the cache. But creating a template with an associated category before putting that template in articles is the ideal way to do it. Your second question I don't quite understand: do you want to add talk pages to a category? Usually it's not appropriate to add talk pages to a category with articles, but if you are sure, simply include  as appropriate on the talk page. jnothman talk 01:40, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

No, perhaps I should rephrase that: the templates go on the talk page; is there any way for the article to be in the category without adding it manualy? --HereToHelp (talk) 01:42, 13 December 2005 (UTC)


 * Oh... Not really... But there are ways (read: Javascript) to make adding templates to something you already have a list of much faster. To semi-automate this, essentially what I would do is:
 * Get a list in HTML of all talk pages using that template, by going to its Whatlinkshere page and saving.
 * Change all the links of form http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Article to http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Article&action=edit&addcat=MyCat using a regular expression search/replace.
 * Write a javascript which, given that the loaded page address is of the form http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Article&action=edit&addcat=MyCat, checks whether the article source already contains, and if it doesn't, adds the category to the source and saves the article (see my automod script for similar functions).
 * Save this javascript in your monobook.js to run on page load.
 * Open your page with links to http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Article&action=edit&addcat=MyCat and open all links from it (easy using, for instance, the Opera links panel).
 * If you get this, well done. If you can do it, very well done. I'm sorry it's so technically involved. jnothman talk 01:54, 13 December 2005 (UTC)


 * Know what? No thanks. But the main thing is the adding spaces technique—that solved the issue. Thanks.--HereToHelp (talk) 02:07, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

Can i be taught
Hi my name is Mike. I am new to Wikipedia and i would like to learn how to create good articles and also how to edit pages. There are many other things about Wikipedia that i would like to learn so if there is anyone who is a Wikipedia Administrator who would like to dedicate some of their time to teaching me what there is to know about wikipedia i would really appriciate that. My account name is Studentmrb

Thank you MikeB 01:35, 13 December 2005 (UTC)


 * Well either you can teach yourself by going through the Tutorial, WP:WELCOME and associated pages. Otherwise, if you want more mentoring, add your name to Clueless newbies, or ask help from one of the welcoming committee. Good luck and welcome aboard! jnothman talk 01:45, 13 December 2005 (UTC)
 * Yeah, welcome...you have no idea what your getting into. Good luck! --HereToHelp (talk) 01:53, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

question about POV and original research
Hello, I wrote almost all of Endgame. At the end of the data for each book I put a comment. Some of them are "good", "great", "not as good as others", "difficult reading", "elementry", "classic", etc. These are all my evaluations of the book. Is this too POV/original research? If it is too much POV, is there a way I can keep those comments without violating NPOV? (I'm trying to give some guidance to the reader.) Bubba73 (talk), 03:12, 13 December 2005 (UTC)


 * I think it's too POV, but it can easily fixed. What about each book made you think it was "great" or "good" or "useless"? What differentiates it from other books in the same field? Mention these type of things instead, and let the reader draw their own conclusion. Difficult reading/elementary/classic you could keep. A statement like "the most popular book of this genre in the 1990s" (that is, sold the most copies) is ok, also "received excellent critical reviews"/"well-received critically""received poor reviews". Statements like not as useful or instructive as the others in this section. are too POV. Useful for who? Just say the things that made you draw the conclusions, but don't say the conclusions themselves. Does that make sense?


 * And of course, you should probably WP:CITE sources (eg link to review - maybe on Amazon?, sales figures, etc). Good job so far, BTW! pfctdayelise 03:54, 13 December 2005 (UTC)


 * I agree, it's a good bibliography but even in something like your Mostly elementary - a good place to start but not comprehensive enough., this could be made less POV by removing "enough" or even better just writing descriptively, rather than subjectively, as pfctdayelise says: Elementary background to endgames (this is implied by the title of the book anyway). jnothman talk 04:05, 13 December 2005 (UTC)


 * Or perhaps Covers some elementry material but isn't comprehensive. I get the idea. Thanks to both of you. Bubba73 (talk), 04:28, 13 December 2005 (UTC)


 * I plan to clean out my POV from the article and I will probably expand it on my personal website, and link to that. Bubba73 (talk), 20:59, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

#wikipedia
I have Trillian and I can't connect connect to the #wikipedia irc channel. Please help! --Member 04:45, 13 December 2005 (UTC)


 * That doesn't really say much about your problem. It could be any number of things. So let's see: can you connect with another IRC program? (See List of IRC clients) Do you use a proxy server that is not properly configured in Trillian? Which freenode server are you using? irc.freenode.net should work fine... Sorry, you haven't given enough info to work it out yet. Or have you not used Trillian for IRC before and don't know how to join a channel? jnothman talk 05:06, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

Adding file information to an image
Hi there:

Just uploaded my first picture:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Mauthausen-barracks.jpg

And I've added a slight summary. I was wondering how to add picture information such as camera used, iso etc. in a table format. I'm very new but very interested in this, I'm sure there is a page somewhere, all I need is a prod in the right direction! Thanks. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Matt c j486 (talk • contribs) 05:37, 13 December 2005 (UTC)
 * Well, if the file contains EXIF information embedded in it, then the information should be added by the software automatically. Otherwise, you have to go to the image description page (the link you just gave us), click on "edit this page", and then create a table, whether in HTML or in Wiki-syntax. Thanks for adding it, though, and welcome to Wikipedia! Feel free to ask here if you have any more questions. Tito xd (?!? - did you read this?) 05:37, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for the response, you're very quick here! I've been lurking for over a year and decided to contribute some images. It turns out that file I uploaded doesn't have EXIF b/c I edited it with photoshop (I'm not sure why PS would remove that info?) anyways all the other photos I upload will be originals.

Perhaps I can just type in the camera info, I doubt anyone will read it/care about it anyways. Thanks for the kind words and see you around! Matt c j486 05:48, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

Claiming an anonymous edit
Hi there,

I made a (very minor) edit to a page last week, and enjoyed it so much I've now come back and created an account. Is there any way to claim my edit as a contribution? I'm rather proud that I've now gotten involved with Wikipedia (finally!) and would like my contributions to start from the beginning...

Many thanks, CrystalSinger 06:09, 13 December 2005 (UTC)


 * Hi CrystalSinger, glad you've joined Wikipedia! :) As far as I know, you cannot claim your edit. However, you may create a link to your contribution on your user page for future reference. Gflores Talk 06:21, 13 December 2005 (UTC)


 * You used to be able to, but the service has been suspended indefinitely. See Changing attribution for an edit. pfctdayelise 11:27, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

Flash content
Mika, a reader, has asked the Wikimedia Help Desk:

"Is it possible to add Flash content to an article? to add a .swf media file like [[Media:File.swf]]?"

I am not aware of how to do that so if you could provide advice, it would be greatly appreciated. Capitalistroadster 06:48, 13 December 2005 (UTC)


 * Fortunately using Flash would be a violation of the GFDL as it would not be possible to provide a transparent form for the content.


 * As well as the openness requirements, Wikipedia needs to be printable and to be usable on as many platforms as possible (it is currently usable on text only browsers). Flash requires a reasonably high spec machine, running one of a rather limited set of GUI environments --David Woolley 07:50, 13 December 2005 (UTC)


 * In my personal opinion, Flash should be kept well away from Wikipedia, and from most other web pages, for that matter. I've seen too many web sites whose entire functionality depends on Flash. &mdash; J I P | Talk 08:50, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

uploading photos wont work
HELP, I CANT UPLOAD PHOTOS! I TYPE IN ALL THE INFO and select the right file location but when I click submit button it goes page cannot be displayed! I've uploaded b4. Hamedog 06:59, 13 December 2005 (UTC) Why is it like this? Hamedog 07:06, 13 December 2005 (UTC) Thanks, yeah I finally got it to work. There was a problem with the image coming through our home server.
 * The server is having a hard time keeping up, so it may look like your upload failed, when it actually worked. You seem to have added a nice amount of images before posting this. - Mgm|(talk) 09:21, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

Monobook style sheet
Hello. I'm using the Monobook skin. It looks like yesterday its stylesheet was changed, and now hyperlinks are not underlined unless the mouse cursor is over them. Please tell me if there's a place where changes like this are discussed. (I really hate that look, the hyperlinks are not contrast with other text.) Conscious 08:31, 13 December 2005 (UTC)


 * I've tried refreshing all the stylesheets and still do not see this change. Is it with all the links in the articles? You should probably check your preferences setting: go to Preferences, look under Misc, and check the drop-down list is set to "always". Anyway, you can make your own changes to the stylesheet if you don't like it, by editing your monobook.css. jnothman talk 10:28, 13 December 2005 (UTC)


 * Thank you! That drop-down box was set to "always", but clicking the "Save" button helped. Must be a kind of bug, as I didn't change the preferences yesterday. Conscious 12:03, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

NPOV and judicial verdicts
are verdicts and findings of courts treated any differently than statements from "non-official" sources. in particular, if a judge's findings are contrary to a media report, what is wiki policy - report both? or report only the court's "version"? this relates to a dispute in Jayendra Saraswathi. Doldrums 10:19, 13 December 2005 (UTC)
 * That depends. The media reporting it would have to be a reliable source like a national newspaper or news television program. - Mgm|(talk) 11:48, 13 December 2005 (UTC)
 * Things the media said and things the judge said are both interesting, and probably both merit reporting. This article seems well adrift from a neutral point of view. If an article has a neutral point of view, then in my opinion, you should not be able to tell anything about the views of the writer. That certainly doesn't apply to a quote like The Police also tried to foist another attempt to murder case on him, but the Madras High Court nipped it in the bud . This language is way too excited, and the opinions of the writer are evident. Notinasnaid 15:20, 13 December 2005 (UTC)
 * thanks. does anyone remember a policy/guideline or a similar prior dispute and how it was resolved. the subject matter is a pretty controversial one and i'm trying to npov the article but another editor takes the position that the media reports (mainstream sources - BBC, Frontline newsmagazine and Rediff news portal) should be removed because s/he alleges that thier reports are incorrect/biased. see Talk:Jayendra Saraswathi. Doldrums 07:28, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

Text flow around tables
I've been prettifying articles and created a series of templates, which can be found in. They work nicely, except that I can't find out the nice way to get the text flow around the tables right all the time.

See for example the most important template:BridgeHand. I set up the align="left" as the default alignment, but as result, when editing long texts with several template tables, one has to insert a lot of newlines or &lt;br&gt;'s to get the text flow correctly. See e.g. Simultaneous double squeeze or Simple squeeze. I'm not even sure if the text will turn out correctly on all browsers, screen resolutions and font sizes.

So, the problem is that one would like to "terminate" explanation on the diagram and go on to the next paragraph or diagram, which should be located below the diagram, without inserting newlines. I'm looking for a suggestion, how to do it properly, either in template or in text.

As a side question, is it possible to get rid of the borders and white background in corner-squares of the table in template:BridgeHand?

TIA, Duja 11:12, 13 December 2005 (UTC)


 * Align="left" means that it floats to the left and thus behaves as you dislike. I offer two solutions:
 * Change to align="center": IMO this looks nice, the caption can be below or above just in the body text.
 * Use after the caption, which will leave the image floated left of the caption, and marks that the next text should appear below all floated objects.
 * jnothman talk 11:41, 13 December 2005 (UTC)
 * Thanks; solution 2) looks more attractive. The point is, it's usually better when it's aligned left, as it takes less space and the explanation text ("caption") is closer to the diagram. The problem emerges when the explanation text is short and one wants to skip to the next paragraph. I've already created "usage notes" on templates' talk pages so I'll explain it there.
 * How do I parametrize align= tag? I don't need it immediately, but just in case (I'd like to use something like } to align it right explicitly and have it default aligned (left) when } is used. Duja 13:03, 13 December 2005 (UTC)
 * As to your side question: You have the table marked to be of class "wikitable", which has the borders and decorative colour not necessarily wanted in your table. As long as you want to keep this coloured background, you have two options:
 * Retain the table as a wikitable, but remove the border around the entire table and particularly the white squares. In particular, add "border:none" to the styles of the table and of the corner cells. This will still leave the corners white on a non-white background.
 * Remove the class="wikitable" attribute and style all cells yourself. In particular, remove the white background for corner cells and they will be transparent by default. Then add borders to other cells (colour #aaaaaa) and the background colour #f9f9f9. Also include "border-collapse: co that illapse;" in the table's style. This means, though, that for the few users not using monobook, it will use the fixed colours you set, rather than those of the wikitable in their preferred stylesheet.
 * OK, I'll try the solution 2). Are you sure you spelled "border-collapse: co that illapse;" right? Should it be "collapse"? Duja 13:03, 13 December 2005 (UTC)
 * Yes, I did mean that. Must have pasted something in the middle by accident. It seems you haven't fixed up the CSS yet. Do you need a hand? jnothman talk 22:54, 13 December 2005 (UTC)
 * If you don't get how to do the CSS, tell me what you want and I'll have a go (I'll even let you look at the diff in the page history!).
 * jnothman talk 11:55, 13 December 2005 (UTC)
 * Which CSS? I do know what CSS are, and to make basic ones, but I don't see how it's related with my issues? Duja 13:03, 13 December 2005 (UTC)


 * An alternate option for the articles in question is to use a table. In the case of Simultaneous double squeeze, for example, the layout of the hands makes up the first column of the table and their captions occupy the second column.  Using the   trick is kind of kludgy. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 15:26, 13 December 2005 (UTC)


 * The isn't altogether a trick. That's its purpose: to clear floats.
 * As to parametrising alignment, do you just mean having align="" ? This means that when you include the template you need to have, but otherwise it will default to left, etc. You could also use a similar method for adding a caption beneath, for cases when you want text to flow around a captioned table. jnothman talk 22:54, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

Compatible with GFDL?
Hi,

On Tanga, someone recently added a large section that was obviously copy-pasted from a website. When queried about whether this was copyvio or not, the contributor indicated that the source website contains the statement that, "Permission to reproduce articles from this publication is granted for the express interest of public information dissemination and promotion of Tanga’s heritage, provided the source is acknowledged". I presume this is compatible with the GFDL? &mdash; Matt Crypto 12:05, 13 December 2005 (UTC)
 * I don't see why not, but it would probably need extensive editing to be considered encyclopedic material.
 * Someone pointed out on Talk:Tanga that the GFDL is more than just permission for reproduction. It's also permission to create derivative works, so it turns out that we can't use this text under the permissions currently granted. &mdash; Matt Crypto 12:35, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

User page erroneously going on watch list
It seems that almost every time I edit my own talk page, my user page goes on my watch list against my wish. This has happened three times now. Is this some kind of bug in MediaWiki? Should I file a bug report? &mdash; J I <font color="#0000CC">P | Talk 13:18, 13 December 2005 (UTC)


 * Have you got the "watch pages I edit by default" switched on in preferences? Have you been ticking the "Watch this page" box when you edit? Remember that watching and unwatching pages goes in pairs, so watching your talk will watch your user page too. - IMSoP 13:37, 13 December 2005 (UTC)


 * No, I don't have "watch pages I edit by default" switched on. No other page I edit ever goes automatically to my watch list, only my user page. I don't think I've been clicking "watch this page". Clicking it accidentally three times seems rather unlikely. &mdash; <font color="#CC0000">J <font color="#00CC00">I <font color="#0000CC">P | Talk 14:01, 13 December 2005 (UTC)


 * Out of curiosity, is there a reason why you wouldn't want to watch your own User and Talk pages? TenOfAllTrades(talk) 15:29, 13 December 2005 (UTC)


 * No real reason, it's just a matter of principle that I don't the software to do what I don't ask it to do. &mdash; <font color="#CC0000">J <font color="#00CC00">I <font color="#0000CC">P | Talk 15:38, 13 December 2005 (UTC)


 * Fair enough. Maybe it's Wikipedia's equivalent of a yard-maintenance ordinance. If you want to have a lawn on the wiki, you have to keep an eye on it: pull weeds, mow occasionally. :D TenOfAllTrades(talk) 15:51, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

Templates again
Ok, I'm in the middle of the creating Templates learning curve, and the documentation is failing me. I have successfully created 2 page templates, and used them, and now I want to know:


 * How can I include a parameter so that it will NOT be included if it's left blank? (Instead of the default  display )?


 * How can I include a parameter that is one of a short list of choices (e.g. red or white background)

The only examples I can see that do these things are, like the Template:Language, far too complex for me to find my simple answers.

Thanks for your patience,

--Steve Rapaport 14:11, 13 December 2005 (UTC)


 * 1) If you write, it will display "Default value" if the parameter is not defined (different to being left blank), so if you put  it'll display nothing.
 * 2) Not sure exactly what you mean, but if you used Switch in your template you could do something like


 * then the only values of your parameter that would work would be red and white, anything else would produce white (as default). - Lee  (talk)  14:47, 13 December 2005 (UTC)


 * Thanks for answers! Followup questions:

vi:Tiêu bản:Switchca:Template:Depenentru:Шаблон:Switch
 * 1) Those default values use the pipe character, but my template is (like most), organized as a table.  So when I tried it, the mediawiki parser mixed up the table pipes and the template pipes and gave nonsense.   Any ideas how I can fix this?
 * 2) Switch seems to be a wikipedia template, added recently.  If I want to use it on wikicities, which doesn't include the Wikipedia template space, can I just copy its source over? Some of it?  Source is
 * It seems that Wikicities uses MediaWiki 1.4.10 whereas Wikipedia uses 1.6devel (Special:Version).  I know for a fact the switch template doesn't work in older versions because I had to download the most up to date version from CVS to get it to work on my local wiki.  I don't think the default value stuff works in older versions either.  Sorry. - Lee   (talk)  19:30, 13 December 2005 (UTC)


 * Thanks very much for the clear answer anyway, Lee! At least I won't waste more time trying until the software's updated!  Kudos to you!  --Steve Rapaport 19:48, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

Capasity of Twisted Pair & Coaxial cable
My Question is.... 1.How much data can be tranferred at a same time in a Twisted pair cable & Coaxial cable or what is the total capasity of those cable?


 * Please read the instructions on the top of this page. The Help desk is for questions about Wikipedia itself. The right place to ask other computer-related questions is the Science Reference desk. 130.243.135.145 16:02, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

How many daily page views?
How many daily page views does the english language version of wikipedia get on average?

Cheers

Jim 194.128.126.2 15:16, 13 December 2005 (UTC)
 * Please see Statistics. As of October of 2004, the internal statistics  say it was 6M or roughly half of the 13M of the wikipedia.org total.  http://www.alexa.com/ claims wikipedia.org had about 200M page views per day in October of 2004 and is now at about 1000M page views per day . Assuming the same scaling, the internal statistics for en should be about 30M per day.  Note that if Alexa's statistics are correct and roughly half of the wikipedia.org views are en (Alexa says 63%), the number would be more like 500M per day. -- Rick Block (talk) 16:12, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

More on copyright issues ...
I would like to use Wikipedia software to create a wiki-style site. However, I want the content of the site not to be in the public domain. So, for example, I would use the wikipedia sofware to create an encyclopedia dedicated to a randomly chosen example of e.g. business cards. The wikipedia software would obviously belong to Wikipedia, but would the content I create, e.g. long scholarly entries on business cards, be in the public domain under the various wikipedia licences?

Cheers

Jim 194.128.126.2 15:21, 13 December 2005 (UTC)


 * There's a distinction between MediaWiki - the wiki software used to operate Wikipedia - and Wikipedia itself, the site run through MediaWiki. MediaWiki is itself free software, but the content can (I believe) be licensed as you choose, and doesn't have to have anything to do with Wikipedia. (A large, large number of wikis are run using MediaWiki, with a variety of licenses) Shimgray | talk | 15:30, 13 December 2005 (UTC)


 * You will probably want to visit MediaWiki.org to download or read up the software, which is written using PHP and MySQL. jnothman talk 23:03, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

How old some one is?
(No question)
 * If you mean, should someone's age be included in a Wikipedia article? The answer is, I think, no – because it will soon be out of date. However, including their date of birth, so anyone can work it out, is standard practice. Notinasnaid 15:48, 13 December 2005 (UTC)


 * I agree. Age shouldn't be written within an article as it would have to be updated every year. Chances that the age is not right because nobody updated it. --torusturtle 15:07, 21 December 2005 (UTC)


 * ...though it is OK to say the age of someone at a certain event, like a wedding. Thelb <sup style="color:#FF8247;">4  17:38, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

How old is Gabrielle Christian and Mandy M of the tv show South of nowhere?

 * Please see the instructions at the very top of this page. Notinasnaid 15:50, 13 December 2005 (UTC)
 * Meaning to say, this sort of question is more appropriate at the Reference Desk. jnothman talk 23:04, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

Wikimedia Commons
Do I need a separate login to upload images to Wikimedia Commons? If so, why?

What's the advantage of Commons over uploading images to Wikipedia?

Thanks. JJ 16:51, 13 December 2005 (UTC)


 * Yes you do. Each wikimedia project has separate logins -- wiktionary, wikisource, and the wikipedias for different languages all have seperate login databases. The advantage of commons is that images in it can be used without re-uploadign in all of those projects. One aspect that may or may not be a disadvantage is that commons is striter about licensing -- fair use images are not allowed there. DES (talk) 18:02, 13 December 2005 (UTC)


 * Nearly any image that is not being used under the fair use rationale should be uploaded to commons, not en. (Possible exceptions include language-specific images, eg with English writing all over them, but there are plenty of maps on commons, so I doubt even this.) See commons:Commons:First steps for a quick guide to commons. It's very similar to here, except that on commons it's very important that images are put into categories and/or on gallery pages. If you want a hand feel free to ask me any questions, either here or on commons. Cheers, pfctdayelise 00:54, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

Pornography is posted under Anal sex
user:KJVTRUTH removing my request for censorship, by resolution of KJV Psalm 1
 * "Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful." (Psalm 1:1) -- Dystopos 21:41, 14 December 2005 (UTC)


 * Wikipedia is not censored for the protection of minors. The images in that article are appropriate to illustrate the subject, and are in general accord with wikipedia policy. I should add that ther is nothing in any way illegal about publishing or posting to the internet the images involved, nor IMO should there be.DES (talk) 19:08, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

You might want to try looking at the previous discussions on this topic, such as Image censorship - unsurprisingly, you are not the first to suggest such a move but there has not been a consensus that this would be the right thing to do. You are, of course, free to not use or contribute to Wikipedia if you do not agree with its policies; you are also free to discuss those policies with other users, but I'm afraid you will not find consensus easy to reach on this contentious an issue. - IMSoP 21:05, 13 December 2005 (UTC)


 * "Given the LAWS of this country"? What country? No, wait, let me guess. You speak of "this country" as though you think everyone else is also from that country, so it must be Merka. What do I win? &mdash; <font color="#CC0000">J <font color="#00CC00">I <font color="#0000CC">P | Talk 21:38, 13 December 2005 (UTC)


 * KJVTRUTH, I'm sure you would find such images in paper encyclopedias as well. Maybe not so often in the KJV. Pornography is quite a different thing. If users were looking for pornographic images, they wouldn't need to look as far as Wikipedia. jnothman talk 23:13, 13 December 2005 (UTC)


 * Why? Do you want to buy some? &mdash; <font color="#CC0000">J <font color="#00CC00">I <font color="#0000CC">P | Talk 20:16, 14 December 2005 (UTC)


 * Personally, I believe however that a template should be made and be placed on the top mentioning that there are images unsuitable for people under the age of 18, or at least pre-teens.  Da Gizza  <i style="color:orange;">Chat</i> <b style="color:gold;">(c)</b> 22:07, 14 December 2005 (UTC)


 * Such templates have been proposed on several occasions, and have always been promptly deleted, or have failed to be approved if proposed before creation. I oppose the use of any such templte anywhere on wikipedia unless we have an agreed and uniformly applied policy on when and where to use such warnings. see No disclaimer templates. DES (talk) 22:11, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

How to delete User pages
What is the best way to delete User pages that I no longer need or use?
 * From User page - Just add to the page: . - Lee  (talk)  20:09, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

ciating
How do I cited Wikipedia webpage
 * click the cite this article link on the toolbox (left side of the screen). Broken S 21:55, 13 December 2005 (UTC)
 * Or see Citing Wikipedia. User:Zoe|(talk) 21:56, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

How to extend the edition toolbar?
In the Hebrew Wikipedia, for example, the toolbar contains more functions. How can I add more functions to the English toolbar? JasonG 21:30, 13 December 2005 (UTC)


 * I have a feeling that's on the server side, since it allows for things that we can't usually put in pages. Nonetheless, you could build a javascript (a user script, more precisely) for your own uses, or share it with others. jnothman talk 23:17, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

Using an image as a link to an article
Hello again. This time, I ask if it is possible to use an image (specifically, Image:Striped apple logo.png, which is rendered as ) to link to a page besides the image (i. e., WikiProject Macintosh). My plan is to use in in my signature to easily link to the Project, so I can get there easily and also to advertise for it. If it involves Javascript, advanced HTML, or anything complicated, it's not worth it. Thanks. --HereToHelp (talk) 21:50, 13 December 2005 (UTC)
 * I don't think that's possible (it requires some special fiddling) and anyways I think it's a violation of Apple's copyright on the image (you can't claim fairuse for that use). Broken S 21:53, 13 December 2005 (UTC)
 * It is possible. See Village_pump_%28technical%29. WAvegetarian (talk) (email)   (contribs) 22:00, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

It is Wikipedia policy to link to Image pages when clicking on the images themselves. That is where the edit history and copyright information are stored. User:Zoe|(talk) 21:58, 13 December 2005 (UTC)
 * Forget free use. Everyone knows what the sybol is and that it's not mine. Once again, you've been very helpful. Unfortunatly, you can't use templates in signatures, so there goes that idea.


 * Either way, that click template seems to be a little faulty, and generally very dodgy. jnothman talk 23:24, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

Direct link to User talk: page in signature
I like the version of a signature with both a link to the User: page and a link to the User talk: page. There was a method to add a link to my User talk: page to the signature.<BR> On the 'User profiles' tab of the preferences page, there is room to add a nickname to the user name. Instead of adding a nickname, I had added <BR> ]]|[[User talk:Cleon_Teunissen|Talk <BR> That did the trick, my signature would have both a link to my User: page and to my User Talk page.<BR> However, there seems to be a glitch in some character conversion. You have to check out the source, I tried an escape with the nowiki /nowiki tags, but to no avail.<BR> Since the characters are not properly there, the string is not parsed as a link.<BR> Is there another way to include a link to my User talk: page in my signature?<BR> --Cleon Teunissen &#124; &#91;&#91;User talk:Cleon_Teunissen&#124;Talk]] 22:30, 13 December 2005 (UTC)
 * Check out Fix your signature. WAvegetarian (talk) (email)   (contribs) 22:52, 13 December 2005 (UTC)
 * Thanks, that was the information I needed.--Cleon Teunissen | Talk 22:56, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

=December 14=

Edit summary question: how to insert a wiki link in the following form...
I have seen it used here and there... Example:

Revert edits by 193.0.252.16 (talk) to last version by someone

where "193.0.252.16" is a wikilink to the user contributions list, and "talk" is a wikilink to the user's talk page.

How do I easily create these wikilinks in the Edit summary?

Thanks.


 * Those are created by an admin using the vandalism rollback button, and are only suppsoed to be used for "simple vandalism". there is a script to do soemthign simialr for non-admins, see user scripts. DES (talk) 02:10, 14 December 2005 (UTC)
 * Script is called god-mode lite available WikiProject_User_scripts/Scripts. Gflores Talk 02:28, 14 December 2005 (UTC)


 * What I do personally is I do is do the normal Wiki-formatting only by doing it User:193.0.252.16|193.0.252.16, and that works just as well. Croat Canuck 04:03, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

In the specific case you were talking about, this is formed in this way: " Reverted edits by 193.0.252.16 (talk) to last version by someone " becomes: Reverted edits by 193.0.252.16 (talk) to last version by someone

Hope that helps. JesseW, the juggling janitor 22:22, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

food adultration
How to identify adultration in milk ?

Please take your question to the reference desk. This page is for questions about wikipedia, and someone is probably more likely to answer it there.--Ali K 07:56, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

Dynamic data content
Is it possible to have data in one page such as images or contents of a table and have a dynamic link to it in another page. Such that changes in one place are reflected in the other page having the linked content ? Like MS Excel formulas - more or less.... Shyamal 07:37, 14 December 2005 (UTC)


 * Sounds like something that is either impossible or that can be done with templates. But I think you'll have to be more specific to get more detailed and certain replies. jnothman talk 12:33, 14 December 2005 (UTC)


 * Essentially what i am looking for is a system to substitute text from one source page into a destination page using somekind of marker. When text is changed in the source page it should reflect in the destination page. Same for images. I would like for instances to have a page where the source is taxoimage from a taxobox for a species entry is shown without specific reference to the image file. So if the taxoimage changed it would automatically reflect in the destination page. Shyamal 03:44, 15 December 2005 (UTC)


 * I'm not sure if I quite understand yet, but can't you just put the dynamic content in a template and use that? jnothman talk 03:48, 15 December 2005 (UTC)


 * I havent explored templates, but my understanding based on using taxobox templates is that all the data that goes into the template are defined in the same page. Can there be data that goes into a template that comes from some other page. To give a concrete example I can think of a single page which summarizes the populations of all countries. The population data themselves should be drawn from the populations mentioned in the Infobox Country of the individual country pages. The idea is that like in a database, the data is not duplicated and consistency is maintained. Shyamal 07:02, 15 December 2005 (UTC)


 * Right. Well then, but you can't grab this data off the middle of another page, but theoretically one could make templates for each country's population, . But that is heavy computationally and a big hassle to manage. One could also make a single template that stores all countries' populations, which would then be accessed by something like . We could define such a template using the switch template:

You could use further nested switches to select between calculated years of population:
 * But this is:
 * A mess to build
 * Nearly as much of a mess to maintain as the current alternative
 * Very heavy in server costs if you're populating an entire infobox with things like these.
 * jnothman talk 08:51, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

incorporating latitude and longitude coordinates?
I've seen some pages (notably pages on cities) include markup which specifies the latitude and longitude. I have a collection of GPS coordinates that I think would enhance some existing articles. Is there a standard format to use for this? Standard markup text? Standard significant figures or number of decimal places? I searched around the help and FAQ and couldn't find anything specific.
 * Well, I prefer to use the coor dm and coor dms templates. To use them, write 12.56667°N, 12.56667°W or 12.58222°N, 12.58222°W, where the first set of numbers is the latitude and the second set is the longitude. &mdash; <font color="#CC0000">J <font color="#00CC00">I <font color="#0000CC">P | Talk 07:41, 14 December 2005 (UTC)


 * To clarify, they turn out like this: 12.56667°N, 12.56667°W and 12.58222°N, 12.58222°W. See Template talk:Coor dms. jnothman talk 12:41, 14 December 2005 (UTC)


 * For the curious, those coordinates turn out to be somewhere in Nigeria. &mdash; <font color="#CC0000">J <font color="#00CC00">I <font color="#0000CC">P | Talk 20:13, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

In re: article on John Henry Faulk
I am the oldest child (from his first wife) of JHF. I notice some inaccuracies and omissions in the article. How do I set them straight? In the interest of truth, justice, and the American Way, Cynthia Tannehill Faulk Ryland.


 * Hi and welcome, Cynthia. Thanks for your interest in improving Wikipedia: although we're not all here interested in the American Way, truth and justice are pretty important.
 * The simplest way to "set them straight" would be just to edit the article yourself (click "edit this page" at the top of John Henry Faulk). Preferably, and if you have them apart from your own knowledge, please cite sources. If you feel the need to justify your changes, please do so on the article's talk page. See the tutorial for more about editing Wikipedia, or just ask further here if you need anything specific. jnothman talk 12:39, 14 December 2005 (UTC)
 * This one is complicated, because, at one stage, a large part of it was a copyright violation that had to be removed. I think you need to click the history tab, and then the compare versions button, and work backwards using the previous version links to really see how the article got how it was.
 * Like most articles, sources haven't been provided properly, but some of the additonal reading has probably been used as sources. All of those look reputable, so you should not remove content that is explicitly supported by these sources.  If you disgree with sourced material and can provide alternative sources, you should make the conflict explicit.  If you can't provide alternative sources, your only real option is to place your version on the talk page.  The thing to remember is that Wikipedia truth is that which can be verified from reputable sources, even if those sources are wrong.  If the sources are wrong, you need to address those.  --David Woolley 12:54, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

Slope side
An article I created, Slope side, has been tagged for cleanup. I'm trying to see what is so awfull. Can anyone shed some insight? Thanks, CanadianGuy 15:36, 14 December 2005 (UTC)


 * When an article is tagged in this way, it can mean that the content is OK but the presentation isn't Wikipedia standard, or that spelling/grammar needs improving. For instance, have you noticed that Wikipedia articles generally start with the defined term in bold (not italic). I'm not convinced that accomodations, the plural, is correctly used here, though it may be in current US usage. I'd expect accomodation. Notinasnaid 15:50, 14 December 2005 (UTC)


 * I've seen it used on various commercial websites here in Canada, although if they were Quebec websites they could be a "lost in translation" kind of deal. I'll make some changes.  Shouldn't the page be listed in Wikipedia:Cleanup? CanadianGuy 15:57, 14 December 2005 (UTC)


 * A quick google confirms that accomodations is OK, although using it 3 times in the first paragraph probably wasn't.. CanadianGuy 15:59, 14 December 2005 (UTC)
 * Yes, it should be listed at Cleanup or at the very least contain info on the talk page from the person who tagged it as to their reasons. Listing it at Wikipedia:Cleanup may attract exactly the type of people to have the article improved to a state the tag is no longer needed. Also, see [Wikipedia:Cleanup Taskforce]]. - Mgm|(talk) 16:53, 14 December 2005 (UTC)


 * Actually, my spelling is not up to much. Instead of accomodations (one m), I'd expect accommodation (m twice). Google can't really be used as much of a guide of correct usage, only popular usage: it finds the first form over 12 million times, but the second form 170 million times. A popular error. I'm still not convinced about accommodations, even though it has 120 million hits. Some meanings might take a plural (e.g. the meaning of an adjustment), but http://elc.polyu.edu.hk/ErrorCorrection/nounsEx.htm suggests it is an uncountable noun like equipment or health. My dictionary (UK English) does say that the plural form was used 'formerly or sometimes in America'; still, the singular should please everyone. Sorry to go on, but if you can't be pedantic in an encyclopedia, where can you? Notinasnaid 17:51, 14 December 2005 (UTC)


 * Yeah, I wouldn't use google to check a spelling. Dictionaries are the best source here. - Mgm|(talk) 20:11, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

Missing image
Hi,

I created and uploaded the image Image:Tournamentbracket.png over a year ago for the Tournament article, and the image now seems to have been deleted. It's possible that I didn't have a GFDL tag on it, but I don't remember. Is there a way to undelete the image? Tempshill 17:06, 14 December 2005 (UTC)


 * From the deletion log: 11:36, 10 December 2005 JesseW deleted "Image:Tournamentbracket.png" (WP:CSD Image #4 - "Images in category "Images with unknown source" or "Images with unknown copyright status"which have been on the site for more than 7 days, regardless of when uploaded.")


 * It looks like you failed to include source or copyright info. i agree it would be nicve no notifyu uploadeers in such cases, adn i try to, but policy does not currently require it. Images cannot be undelted in the same way that other content can, see Lost images for more on this. DES (talk) 17:22, 14 December 2005 (UTC)


 * The image is still avaialble at answers.com if you want to grab it and re-uplaod it, with proper source and copyright info. DES (talk) 17:37, 14 December 2005 (UTC)


 * I'll do that, thanks for the info. Finally a use for the mirrors!  Tempshill 18:33, 14 December 2005 (UTC)
 * I'm sorry about the deletion of your image. Sadly, errors like this will unavoidably come up when doing as large a job as clearing out the backlog at no source. I'm delighted that you were able to find and reupload it, with proper source and license info. The process is working; thanks for your help. JesseW, the juggling janitor 22:04, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

Chemical Formula
What is the easiest to insert a chemical formula into an article? E.g. H20--> 1/2 O2+ H+ so that it is pretty?

Yakiea 17:27, 14 December 2005 (UTC)
 * You might ask at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Chemicals. Seems like there should be something at WikiProject Chemicals/Style guidelines. -- Rick Block (talk) 18:33, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

$$H_2O \rightarrow \begin{matrix}\frac{1}{2}\end{matrix} O_2 + H^+$$
 * You can insert the numbers and + on the right spot using sup and sub tags. 1/2 has a code which can probably be found at Special characters. You can also use math tags as explained in meta:Help:Formula:

How can I ask for someone to be blocked?
The user from the IP : 130.39.139.247 has repeadetly posted racist comments and vandalism on this page, Jew on December 14, and I and other users cleaned it up, who shouls I ask to ban this user. Thanks

And also how can I ask for a article to be deleted? such as Nightclub shit, which I find has no real reason to exist.
 * Please see Administrator intervention against vandalism for help with vandals. You can request articles that are obvious nonsense be deleted by following the procedure described at Speedy deletions (note that there are specific criteria involved, see Criteria for speedy deletion).  Requests to delete articles not meeting the criteria for speedy deletion are handled by the process described at Articles for deletion.  -- Rick Block (talk) 23:46, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

=December 15=

Esperanza
I don't know if this question is for the Help desk, but how do I become a memeber of the Wikipedia groups such as Esperanza?


 * You simply add your name to the list of members! It might also be good to watch relevant pages. In the case of Esperanza, there are criteria before someone adds their name to the members list, but most groups do not have such charters. jnothman talk 03:55, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

Genealogy reports
is there a section of wiki that can be used for geneology reports. it seems like a perfect use for this software.--Ergosum 03:52, 15 December 2005 (UTC)


 * Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, so genealogies do not quite belong here (although some are given for monarchial families). Nonetheless, there are other web sites running wiki software, some even running MediaWiki which powers this site, such as those at Wikicities. So other people have thought the same as you and I have at least found: <http://genealogy.wikicities.com>, <http://www.genealogywiki.org/>. Additionally, one Wikipedian has a short say on the idea of a Genealogy Wiki. You can, of course, also set up your own. jnothman talk 04:05, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

what is the capital of Guam?

 * The big bold text at the top of this page declares that it is intended for questions on How to use Wikipedia. Your answer will very quickly be found at Guam, but if it wasn't, this is a factual question that should be asked at the Reference Desk, not here. jnothman talk 12:11, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

Ice fishing
I have just discovered Wikipedia and found "Ice Fiahing". I did not see any reference to "stunning" fish through the ice. I'm sure this is rare, but as a young boy, when the conditions permitted, (no snow on the ice) used an axe to give a heavy blow on the ice above fish in shallow water. The blow would temporairly stun the fish. I would then chop through an retrieve the fish. I must not be the only one in the world who has done this. Would this be appropriate to include in "Ice Fishing"?
 * If you can find a reference to cite, sure. If you can't find a reference it sounds like it would be prohibited under No original research, unless you can make a case that "every ice fisherman knows this" (but if this is true, the chances that there is no reference to find should be pretty close to 0). -- Rick Block (talk) 14:46, 15 December 2005 (UTC)


 * But a good place to bring this up would be the article's talk page: if you post your comment there, then people who have helped to write the article will probably pick it up, and they're more likely to know about it than the average Help Desk person. jnothman talk 21:53, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

Best Userpage?
On Wikipedia i am wishing to find what i think is the best userpage. How would i go about telling people about this. I already have a point about it on my userpage but how can i let a lot of people know? --Ali K 15:07, 15 December 2005 (UTC)
 * The Department of Fun might be a starting point. Stevage 15:18, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

How to reply to users on talk pages?
What's the standard etiquette when someone leaves a message on your talk page:
 * 1) Reply directly on the talk page, and hope they come back to read it
 * 2) Move their question to their talk page, and reply beneath it
 * 3) Leave their question on your talk page, but reply on their talk page

All of these seem pretty awkward - is there a better way? Ta. Stevage 15:14, 15 December 2005 (UTC)
 * The default is probably #3, although some users use #2 to avoid the disconnected conversations that result (and some reply in both places!). Many users indicate on their talk page their preference for #1.  I don't know of a better way. -- Rick Block (talk) 16:08, 15 December 2005 (UTC)


 * I usually do #3, and sometimes I use #2 if I'm responding to a particular old or complicated question. I don't recommend #1 unless the people asking the question explicitly stated they'll keep an eye on your talk page. Basically there's no standard way to do it. But if you want to keep most people happy, I'd recommend using #2. - Mgm|(talk) 17:30, 15 December 2005 (UTC)


 * Most often, I leave a question at someone's talk page, and then have a look at the talk page every now and then, if they don't reply on my own talk page before it. For questions by others, I reply on my own talk page. If they want to copy the discussion to their own talk pages, that's fine. I never copy discussions from other talk pages to mine. &mdash; <font color="#CC0000">J <font color="#00CC00">I <font color="#0000CC">P | Talk 18:54, 15 December 2005 (UTC)


 * When I am asked for help, I usaully respond on my own page and copy the entire thread to the talk page of the person who asked me, or esle i copy their question and simply respond on their page. When someone is advisign me or raising questions about my actions I soemtimes do the same and soemtimes simply respond on my tal;k page.  And if the issue is relevant largely to a particualr articel i soemtiems copy the question to that articel's talk page and resond there, with a brief comment on the talk page of the other user that indicates where I responded, includign a link. DES (talk) 19:38, 15 December 2005 (UTC)


 * I usually do #3, but if I have written to a newbie, I am more likely to expect them to follow #1, so I check up. I also often contextualise my responses, so that it's not #2 in the sense that it's not verbatim, but it helps to remind what you're responding to. jnothman talk 22:00, 15 December 2005 (UTC)


 * Interesting responses, thanks heaps. I'm having a conversation with someone atm where the model seems to be that each person replies on the other person's page, creating a nested tree of responses - but you never see the qusetions because they're on the *other* person's page. Gee it would be nice if there was a proper messaging system, or at least a hacked "reply" button or something that made this work properly. Like you select the text, press "reply" and it automatically removes it, pastes it at the user's talk page, and edits the page for you. I dream. Stevage 23:12, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

Search Relevance
How does one edit a page show that it shows up in a "search" with the proper relevance. For example I want the article "Jamestown Bridge (Old)" to show up under a search for "Jamestown Bridge". Any suggestions? Thank you
 * You sure you don't just want to create a disambiguation page at "Jamestown Bridge" pointing to the Jamestown Bridge (Old) and [[Jamestown-Verrazano Bridge pages?  As for the search results - sorry, no idea why itdoesn't turn up higher. Incidentally, you should probably rename the page to "Jamestown Bridge (old)" - that seems to be the convention. Um...I've done a couple of tweaks on the various pages, and it still doesn't show up - it's a bit mysterious. Maybe it takes a while to make it to the search results?
 * The searche works off cached data which is not updated every day -- more like every week or two i think, but I don't know the precise schedule. A redirect would take a user directly to the page without messign with the search feature, however. Using google to search wikipedia as done via this link is often better anyway -- google has lots of paid people working on a search engine, and wqe don't, search is not our strongest feature. DES (talk) 17:33, 15 December 2005 (UTC)
 * "google has lots of paid people working on a search engine" - including me. :) Stevage 23:08, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

Indents
I want to add this:

Alone aloft I alight to live among louts, lovers; all troubled, older than my nighted soul: life is fire-like— it flutters and gutters and is quenched by cold.

but why does 'among louts' turn into a table? I just want it indented!

By the way, using : to indent doesn't look right. ZephyrAnycon 17:10, 15 December 2005 (UTC) I want it to look like this: http://img410.imageshack.us/img410/9894/peom4ii.jpg. But it ends up looking like this:
 * That's automatic. The box appears because the line starts with a space. Using : is the standard way to indent. What doesn't look right about it? - Mgm|(talk) 17:27, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

Alone aloft I alight to live
 * among louts,

lovers; all troubled, older than my nighted soul: life is fire-like— it flutters and gutters and is quenched by cold.

See the difference?

Try the following. DES (talk) 19:40, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

Alone aloft I alight to live
 * among louts,

lovers; all troubled, older than my nighted soul: life is fire-like— it flutters and gutters and is quenched by cold.

Oh dear it really looks like Wikipedia's capability is limited here. It's important in any encyclopedia that you're able to exactly transcribe anything you want to quote. Here I can't indent a line without it looking like a stanza break, which it isn't. ZephyrAnycon 20:15, 15 December 2005 (UTC)


 * Okay, try this one (view the source):

Alone aloft I alight to live among louts, lovers; all troubled, older than my nighted soul: life is fire-like— it flutters and gutters and is quenched by cold.
 * You don't actually need to use the  around the whole thing, but the idea is to use a   to give a specific margin of indent, and so that there is no gap before and after as there was when using : to indent. jnothman talk 22:06, 15 December 2005 (UTC)


 * Or you could just start each line with a space, then it will all be in the box:

Alone aloft I alight to live among louts, lovers; all troubled, older than my nighted soul: life is fire-like— it flutters and gutters and is quenched by cold.


 * ~<font size="+1" color="f87217" face="system" class="title" title="Kaimbridge M. GoldChild">Kaimbridge ~22:20, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

Thanks jnothman, I'll adopt your suggestion. Though I'd still criticise Wikipedia for not being easily capable of the exact transcription of poetry. Perhaps someone should put something about this on one of the tutorial pages (if it isn't already there)? ZephyrAnycon 23:57, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

Messy Pages
Here's my question: How do I scratch the inaccessible part of my back?

Just joking of course! :-)

Actually: If I encounter a page that I think is mess from a standpoint of redundancy, relevancy of information and as such *not really an encyclopedic article*, how should I proceed? (I mean apart from mentioning my wish on the talk page and being shredded for it:) The article in question is Ronald Reagan and as you can imagine people there tend to be quite sensitive to changes to their additions. That, IMO, leads to this article being continually added to but hardly ever cleaned up (I'm probably exaggerating here:)

Maybe someone wants to have a look at the article and give me feedback. Am I completely wrong or do others too think this article needs work cleaning? Your opinions would be highly appreciated! --Boo 17:14, 15 December 2005 (UTC)


 * Can you give an example of what you think needs changing in the article. - Mgm|(talk) 17:24, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

I was afraid of that:) That article mostly feels like a mess... Anyway:

- Under Cabinet there's a table of people appointed in Reagan's administration. I think this and similar stuff should be in Reagan_Administration to lighten the article.

- The last section 'Miscellanous' should be merged into an existing section.

- Lots of other stuff I don't remember right now.

To be honest, I hoped that an experienced Wikipedian could tell me wether I rightfully perceive the article as being in need of cleaning, or wether it adheres to the standards closely enough. --Boo 17:48, 15 December 2005 (UTC)


 * I quite agree that stuff on his administration is not about him and shouldn't be found in this article. Yes, I think the article should be more to the point: Feel free to do it (or enlist it at Cleanup, citing your reasons and ideas). jnothman talk 22:11, 15 December 2005 (UTC)


 * My answer: Proceed slowly and cautiously. Start with changes that people can't argue with. If a fact is repeated twice, remove one of them, and explain on the talk page what you're doing. If a fact in the "miscellaneous" section would be better off in another paragraph, move it there, and explain it. Once you gain editors' trust that you're not malicious, you can proceed to bigger changes like restructuring and cutting down wordy passages, but try and give people warning on the talk pages. It's all about not stepping on toes, much more so than you might think. No page ever "adheres to the standards closely enough" - every page can be improved. Stevage 22:53, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

Help with
I'm trying to convert Schizophrenia to using for references instead of  , as it does now. I created a little script to do this, but I'm not happy with the results. Under the "History" heading, you'll find the very first reference ("However, a recent study..."). However, it is assigned number 2, not 1! What's going on here?

My first theory was that there was an external link (like ) somewhere earlier in the text, because these use the same numbering sequence (right?), but this seems not to be the case. /Skagedal 17:34, 15 December 2005 (UTC)


 * There is considerable controversy over conversion to this format. You might want to look at Wikipedia talk:Verifiability and Requests for comment/SEWilco before you continue with this project.
 * That said, no there is not normally a URL link in the text area -- in fact an article that uses this format must not user inline URLs without link text, because they screw up the numbering system. ref inserts a link, which goes to the corresponding use of note -- coresponding according to the note name/lable. The calls to note are normally all in the Notes section, and they include the actual citation info, which may or may not include a URL. If this dean't help, reread Footnotes which expalins the method in some detail, and/or find a page that uses the system. I used it on Thomas Shipp, perhaps that page will help. DES (talk) 19:51, 15 December 2005 (UTC)


 * And yet, for whatever reason, your footnote number [1] is marked within the picture caption, just before "Role of dopamine". This seems like a MediaWiki bug... Correct me if I'm wrong! jnothman talk 22:16, 15 December 2005 (UTC)


 * jnothman - thanks for helping me find the [1], I didn't even think so far as to look after the ref! It seems weird, buglike, but I would have had to remove that inline URL anyway so it's cool.
 * DES - the page I'm working on (schizophrenia) already uses footnote style references, not inline URLs (except for this one we just found, then), so the difference is in using ref instead of fn. The problem with using fn is that every time a new reference is inserted somewhere, the footnotes need to be renumbered.  I wrote a renumbering tool to do this, but using ref would be more convenient.  I don't think it will be controversial. /Skagedal 15:14, 16 December 2005 (UTC)


 * Ah, wait, this was more confusing than I thought! :) The [1] in the picture caption was no inline URL, it was one of my ref. That's what you meant by buggy, jnothman? Indeed. I'll ask about this on Template talk:Ref. /Skagedal 16:11, 16 December 2005 (UTC)

Deleting pointless text from Talk pages?
Is it acceptable to delete pointless comments from talk pages? I mean pointless in the sense of lines like "I like rice" or "haha I got me a computer" or something similarly stupid and unrelated to the page. --Xyzzyplugh 21:46, 15 December 2005 (UTC)


 * Usually these are just tests, I think, so yeah, as long as it's not going to offend anyone in a discussion, it would be fine IMO. jnothman talk 22:17, 15 December 2005 (UTC)
 * Yes, removing comments of the type you described it fine. However, if deleting those would leave an empty page, be sure to use db to tag it for deletion (and make sure there's not a better version in the edit history). - Mgm|(talk) 09:49, 16 December 2005 (UTC)
 * It's OK to delete obvious vandalism. Please try to do so according to revert, so that it is completely removed, and try to follow the vandalism procedures, so that the offender is warned, and, if necessary, eventually blocked.  Never delete something that is vaguely on topic, however outrageous, unless, possibly, it is libellous or a copyright violation. --David Woolley 10:56, 16 December 2005 (UTC)

Amethyst version
I set my skin or version, whatever it is, to amethyst in my user preferences. There is some problems with this version. 22:33, 15 December 2005 (UTC)


 * I use that skin too, and one thing I notice is that there is no search box! P=)   ~<font size="+1" color="f87217" face="system" class="title" title="Kaimbridge M. GoldChild">Kaimbridge ~22:52, 15 December 2005 (UTC)


 * It might be worth posting a bug report at "MediaZilla", the bug-tracking system used by the MediaWiki developers. In general, though, I think skins other than the default are often under-supported, and tend to lag behind changes to the software. It's unfortunate, but maintaining them takes someone to care enough... - IMSoP 00:14, 17 December 2005 (UTC)
 * Okay, I posted it: Amethyst bug. ~<font size="+1" color="f87217" face="system" class="title" title="Kaimbridge M. GoldChild">Kaimbridge ~[[Image:Kaimbridge.jpg|23px]]14:35, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

Column width
I'm editing the occupational therapy page, and down at the bottom, under occupational therapy associations by state, I was able to list all the states in three columns. Is there a way of changing the column widths so that the columns are closer together? I think it looks a little silly the way it is now spread out so far out. The reason I'm doing columns in the first place is because I don't want the list to go so far down. --aishel 23:03, 15 December 2005 (UTC)


 * If you take a look at the code of col-begin there is an optional argument for width. Annoyingly, the previous revision of this template specified that width in the HTML declaration of the table rather than in CSS. This meant that widths could only be specified in pixels or as a percentage of the horizontal space available, neither of which are appropriate. Hence I modified the template to specify the width in CSS, and set it correctly (to 35em: em is a unit based on the width of the letter m in the particular font, and so as long as the font isn't vastly different, this should be screen independent) in the occupational therapy article. I also changed the section heading from "Occupational Therapy Associations by State" to "Occupational Therapy Associations by US State": Wikipedia is an international project. jnothman talk 23:56, 15 December 2005 (UTC)


 * Thanks jnothman! It looks great!--aishel 00:27, 16 December 2005 (UTC)

Editing Help
Hi I'm writing information about my town Orangeville, Ontario. If you look at it now it's a bit of a mess. Can someone tell me how to put my text into columns?

Oliver D. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 205.209.16.15 (talk • contribs) 23:34, 15 December 2005 (UTC)


 * Wikipedia put its articles in columns; sometimes particular lists may be put in columns but in general columns aren't supported well online. They're also more difficult to read than on paper, as you may have to scroll down to read the bottom of the column, then scroll up to read the start of the next. Please see Wikipedia's Manual of Style for all guides on how to make an article look like others in Wikipedia. jnothman talk 23:59, 15 December 2005 (UTC)


 * It looks fine to me, I mean it would do with some padding out... but what exactly do you think is in a "mess"? My tip would be: find a similar article at the same level (eg a decent article about another town in Ontario), and then copy their format. pfctdayelise 00:02, 16 December 2005 (UTC)

The population demographics part. Thanks for the advice though.


 * Ah yes, we didn't look too carefully, did we. That's meant to be a table. I'll format it properly. jnothman talk 02:35, 16 December 2005 (UTC)

Two Suggestions
Hi,

I am a frequent user of Wikipedia. I think that adding the following two features in Wikipedia will make it more comfortable -

1. Add a Wikipedia search facility from the Internet Explorer taskbar (similar to Google's, but just the search facility, nothing else). You might be able to add this to one of the existing task bars as well since it's just a box.

2. Have a separate address to receive improvement suggestions. Using Helpdesk for such purpose is somewhat confusing.

Thanks, Saranga


 * There is a page other than the help desk for suggestions. It's the Village Pump, particularly the proposals page. As for the tool bar, there are tools that allow you to add any search engine to your toolbar. I don't use Internet Explorer, though, so I don't know what in particular. Yes, maybe a Wikipedia user should invent a toolbar for various web browsers, but I don't know who would be willing/able to do that. jnothman talk 00:20, 16 December 2005 (UTC)

=December 16=

Kate's Edit Counter
What happened to Kate's edit counter? I have a link on my user page to my edit count, but it doesn't work anymore. Was the site removed, or can anyone tell me if the page was moved to another URL? --King of Hearts 00:51, 16 December 2005 (UTC)
 * It's here. H e rmione1980 01:01, 16 December 2005 (UTC)

What links here
Is there any way to force the "What links here" tool to "update" itself? I recently split the List of Formula One World Champions page into more detailed lists List of Formula One World Constructors' Champions and List of Formula One World Drivers' Champions. I wanted to fix up all the links to the original list so they point to the relevant page (drivers or constructors), and found that most of the pages on the "What links here" list were linked through templates such as Template:F1 driver. I fixed this up, but the pages still appeared in the list. Is there any way to force it to adjust itself after changes? Thanks AlbinoMonkey (Talk) 04:03, 16 December 2005 (UTC)


 * This is a difficult bug to do with templates (difficult in the sense that a routine to fix it is sophisticated and expensive on the server). See my first response to [#Adding categories to templates so all pages with the template will be in the category|this post] above. The only way to really do this is to go to each of the pages incorrectly classified and make null edits in them: edit each driver or constructor, insert an enter somewhere where it won't make a difference to the output, and save. This will refresh the linking. jnothman talk 04:26, 16 December 2005 (UTC)
 * Actually, a truly null edit (hit edit, and then save without making any changes at all including no summary) will work as well. This edit won't show up in the history but will update the database references. -- Rick Block (talk) 04:29, 16 December 2005 (UTC)
 * I didn't know that, Rick. Thanks. jnothman talk 04:42, 16 December 2005 (UTC)
 * My bot is currently going through and making null edits to the "Whatlinkshere" for List of Formula One World Champions. When it is finished (in about 65 minutes) there won't be any more of the "false positives" that were bothering you before.--Commander Keane 04:40, 16 December 2005 (UTC)
 * Thanks everyone. AlbinoMonkey (Talk) 04:59, 16 December 2005 (UTC)

what is herenia?

 * Either a fairly uncommon name (including that of a Latin Saint, curiously not in wikipedia's List of saints), or a misspelling of hernia. -- Rick Block (talk) 06:00, 16 December 2005 (UTC)

Style question
I was reading the article joke and noticed, under the "What's the Difference" subcategory there is a joke with half the punchline missing because it is crude. On some article's history pages, I've seen people restore rude parts, and they had a term for it (aking to weasel words, but different of course). I can't find anything in the style guides/help section to clarify. Could someone tell me what the rule is? I have *not* entered the rest of the joke yet. In its place is the original "..." which seems inappropriate.

Liastnir 05:31, 16 December 2005 (UTC)
 * The full policy link is What Wikipedia is not, which folks abbreviate however the hell they see fit. -- Rick Block (talk) 05:49, 16 December 2005 (UTC)


 * I suppose people say the article has been bowdlerised. 130.243.135.145 15:02, 16 December 2005 (UTC)

Adolf Hitler Photo Vandalized!
'''Somebody has replaced Adolf Hitler photograph with some private image. How do I revert it?'''


 * See Revert. Thelb <sup style="color:#FF8247;">4  12:34, 16 December 2005 (UTC)

I'm wondering the Legality of a Patch List
I want to start an article/project of different boy scout patches, in particular the many different patches at the 2005 National Jamboree. I was wondering if it would be legally okay for people to scan the patches and post them on the article with the corresponding patch info. --Beefybot 13:48, 16 December 2005 (UTC)
 * You would need to make a proerp fair-use claim for each such patch, I don't know if the logo fairuse copyright tag would apply. You might want to read Fair use and ask at WikiProject Fair use. DES (talk) 15:51, 16 December 2005 (UTC)


 * I'll do that. Thanks. --Beefybot 21:16, 16 December 2005 (UTC)

What are the main countries producing alumina?
Check at Alumina or ask at the refernce desk, see the instruction at the top of the page. DES (talk) 15:48, 16 December 2005 (UTC)

Invalid raw signature?!?!?
Why is this invalid?

worthawholebean

Worthawholebean 15:42, 16 December 2005 (UTC)


 * I don't see any obvious error there, but that seems like a very complicated sig. Why a table? DES (talk) 15:56, 16 December 2005 (UTC)


 * Look at this post to get a good idea of why I need tables. Worthawholebean 16:07, 16 December 2005 (UTC)

link references to "Rotary Fellow"
Can Wikipedia also link references to "Rotary Fellow" - such as in the entry for Linda Gradstein (http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=2101836)- to our Rotary Foundation Scholarships website, which is: http://www.rotary.org/foundation/educational/amb_scho/index.html

Thanks!

Renée Stephenson Resource Development Supervisor Educational Programs The Rotary Foundation of Rotary International One Rotary Center 1560 Sherman Avenue Evanston, IL 60201 Tel: (847) 866-3314 Fax: (847) 866-0934 E-mail: stephenr@rotaryintl.org


 * It is my opnion that this would not be appropriate, even if you could convince the many editors of such articles to cooperate. What could be done is create a proper article on Rotary fellow (or parhaps Rotary Fellow) which could be linked from most if not all such uses, and which could contian links to appropriate external sites, perhaps including the ones you list. If you want to create or work on such an article, feel free. DES (talk) 18:00, 16 December 2005 (UTC)

Personal attacks
How do I stop somebody from making repeated personal attacks? Thanks.--Mais oui! 17:53, 16 December 2005 (UTC)
 * Categories_for_deletion/Log/2005_December_10 (items 1.2, 1.3 and 1.4)
 * User_talk:Rhollenton


 * I have removed the vote strikeouts, and have cautioned User:Rhollenton on his talk page that it is bvetter to present evidence as neutrally as posisble, and leave to the closer evaluation of which comments/votes to ignore. That said it is generally considered perfectly in line to note, on Afd or CfD discussions, evidence that a user has recently registered, has edited mostly on a particualr subject, or other evidence that the clsoer might wish to consider in determining which comments to discount, if any. But this should be done without making personal attacks. Objectivly describing behavior is not a personal attack. DES (talk) 18:24, 16 December 2005 (UTC)


 * Thanks.--Mais oui! 07:50, 17 December 2005 (UTC)

Re-nominating articles for deletion
What is the proper procedure for re-nominating articles that have survived a deletion debate to AfD again? Specifically, what title for the sub-subpage should I use? The article in question is Talark. -- MegamiX 22:02, 16 December 2005 (UTC)


 * Most often "AFD/X (2nd nomination)" or "AFD/X (second nomination)". Use Afdx in adding the AfD box on the page, to make theings easier for yourself. DES (talk) 22:17, 16 December 2005 (UTC)
 * Thanks! :) -- MegamiX 22:21, 16 December 2005 (UTC)

I have several questions.
I have several questions:

1) I know this isn't very important, but who owns all the Wiki-projects?

2) How do you ask questions on Wiki-Quote? I looked all around, but I couldn't find an 'ask question' place.

3) What happens if you don't have cookies (for signing in)?

4) Is it mandatory to donate money to Wikipedia?

Thank you! --anon


 * In order:


 * 1) No one, really. Wiki-projects are developed by various individual people, then slowly grow in each respective area as new members join them. However, they don't own them; but Lord Jimbo, the head of Wkipedia, could technically be considered to own the projects, since he owns wikipedia.
 * 2) Try using the talkpages, and if that fails try asking users themselves, and if that fails ask around the wikipedian community; many users commune to other sister wiki projects and could help you.
 * 3) Then you must re-sign into your account (although this varies, depending on your IP and respective computer)
 * No, but very much appreciated. One penny allows 12 million space of words on wikipedia, so think how much a dollar or more could bring. :) -MegamanZero|Talk 23:09, 16 December 2005 (UTC)


 * If you don't have cookies enabled, you can't sign in at all. While a separate long-term cookie is used for the "remember me" setting; short-term cookies are used to keep track from page to page of a logged-in user's logged-in status. DES (talk) 23:14, 16 December 2005 (UTC)


 * Correction, all the "Wiki-projects" (by which I assume you mean Sister projects, not WikiProjects) are owned by the non-profit Wikimedia Foundation (not by Jimbo), although everybody that edits retains the copyright to what they contribute, they just agree to license it under the GFDL for use by others.
 * Also, Wikiquote has a "Village pump" (discussion of the project itself) and a "Reference desk" (factual questions about quotations etc). - IMSoP 23:27, 16 December 2005 (UTC)


 * Ah, I assume he/she meant wikipedia projects such as Video/computer games, The Islam project, etc.-MegamanZero|Talk 23:30, 16 December 2005 (UTC)

Actually, I want to know about the sister projects, like Wiki-Quote, Wikitonary, etc. And I actually have a few more questions I forgot to add:

1) How does an article become a featured one?

2) How does an article get in a good article list?

3) Are too many external links bad for an article?

4) I know this is pretty silly, but had the Wikimedia Foundation ever thought about making a Wiki-Lyric?

5) So if I don't have any cookies, I can't make an account?

6) Can I ask some questions about Wiki-quote here?

Thank you, again! --anon
 * 1. See WP:FAC
 * 2. Again, see WP:FAC - while there are certainly many excellent, but not quite FAC-worthy articles out there, our list of featured articles is meant to collect all our best work in one place.
 * 3. Depends on how you define "too many" - there is certainly a threshold at which external links stop becoming useful due to their sheer number, but where exactly that threshold lies is certainly open to debate. Our guitar article used to have an external links section that was almost as long as the article because everyone and their mother thought it would be a good idea to add their own collection of guitar tips and tricks to that section until a couple of weeks ago someone finally decided to trim down the section to about half a dozen external links :)
 * 4. Erm...not that I know of :)
 * 5. You can technically create an account, but you cannot use it because your browser won't know that you just logged in - just enable cookies in your browser, and everything will work fine.
 * 6. You can, but I'd guess you're more likely to get a meaningful answer if you just ask at WIkiquote :P
 * Hope that helped -- Ferkelparade &pi; 00:02, 17 December 2005 (UTC)


 * To add a little:
 * For 3, see External links
 * For 4, see Proposals for new projects
 * IMSoP 00:10, 17 December 2005 (UTC)

Well, there are about 18 external links on that article and as for the proposal page, should I post it directly there or on a discussion page? --anon
 * For question 1: What is a featured article For 2: WP:GA which has good article criteria in the lead. - Mgm|(talk) 06:43, 17 December 2005 (UTC)

Fixing double redirects after a move.
Oh, dear, I'm back here AGAIN after making a move then getting flummoxed by the need to find and fix double redirects.

I just moved Shakespeare characters to List of Shakespearean characters. Then I went here, and I see a huge list of things to check out and maybe fix.

But that's where I get stumped. Take the first sub-sub-headed item, Hamlet. I cannot see a direct link from the Hamlet page to the new page or the old page, except in Template:Shakespeare, and I've already fixed that.

Of course there are links FROM the new page to all of these places, but surely (I think???) a link FROM a moved page ought not to need any fixing.

Can anyone point me in the right direction? AndyJones 23:03, 16 December 2005 (UTC)


 * Allow me to take a quick trip over there and see if I can be of assistance... -MegamanZero|Talk 23:09, 16 December 2005 (UTC)


 * Pages that linked to the old version via a tempalte will still show the old link on "what links here" until those pages are edited and saved again. You can fix this by making a null edit (open for editign and save with no changes). This is becauae of the way the "what links here" data is updated, and the way in which tempaltes are used in building pages for display. If there are many such pages, you can request a script (bot) to assist in makign the null edits. See Bots. DES (talk) 23:11, 16 December 2005 (UTC)
 * OK. That may mean that I've already dealt with the problem and there's nothing more to do. I edited everything marked "(redirect page)". Let me know if you think I'm wrong. AndyJones 23:29, 16 December 2005 (UTC)


 * You seem to have gotten rid of all double redirects, as far as I can tell. However you still have a large number of single redirects. These will not break anything, but it is probably better to convert them or the more prominent ones at least into direct links. For one thing these are double redirs waiting to happen when and if the page is moved again. That is not an urgent task, however. DES (talk) 23:42, 16 December 2005 (UTC)
 * Many of those single redirects seem to be via the tempalte, and so will disappaer when the relevant pages are edited and saved. I just did this for Hamlet.DES (talk) 23:45, 16 December 2005 (UTC)

What topics merit wikipedia articles?
Obviously, not everything merits a Wikipedia article. What are the guidelines to determine if topic, particularly a non-person, non-place topic, merits a Wikipedia article?

I apologize if this issue is discussed elsewhere. I would expect to find it the policy guidelines. However, I did not.
 * Try looking in WP:NOT, WP:NPOV, WP:AFD, and finally, simply ask people on thier talkpages (or discussion pages of the related article(s)) concerning your query. Hope that helps. -MegamanZero|Talk 23:28, 16 December 2005 (UTC)
 * Hello Epl and welcome to Wikipedia! The resource you're looking for is available here, among the other sites listed above. Notability_criteria. P.S. Be sure to sign your comments with ~ . Thanks! Gflores Talk 23:30, 16 December 2005 (UTC)
 * You may wish to read Avoiding common mistakes, as well. --Walter Siegmund (talk) 07:18, 17 December 2005 (UTC)

=December 17=

Block Templates
Hello, I have recently been trying to block persistent vandals with templates such as test5, block, blank5 vblock, test6, and AOL6. However, the block effects do not seem to take action, as the vandal continuously vandalizes the page even after I added the templates. I removed the subst: prefix, but there was still no effect. Can somebody please explain to me what is happening? Also, does the subst: tag cancel out the block effect? Thanks! Sycthos 02:31, 17 December 2005 (UTC)
 * Umm...actually, only administrators can block people. Putting the block template on someone's userpage does nothing - an administrator must still manually block them. If you need help dealing with vandalism, you can try Vandalism in progress, or Administrator intervention against vandalism in extreme cases. By the way, the subst command is used to reduce server load (by substituting the template message with the actual text and wiki markup that makes up the template), and has no effect on blocks. -- MegamiX 03:22, 17 December 2005 (UTC)
 * Oh, thanks. Then why are the block templates accessible by the general public? It's a bit misleading, but can also serve as a threat to vandals. Sycthos 03:45, 17 December 2005 (UTC)
 * The "general public" is welcome to help with vandalism (reverting articles, putting warning messages on talk pages, etc., see Vandalism) - the only thing related to vandalism only admins can do is actually block users. If you are dealing with a vandal and warned them and they continue, please then make a note at Administrator intervention against vandalism and an admin will take it from there. -- Rick Block (talk) 04:52, 17 December 2005 (UTC)
 * That really helps. Thanks. Sycthos 17:54, 17 December 2005 (UTC)

IRC Channel
I can't get on freenode... is there any other Wikipedia channel available? Rampart 04:01, 17 December 2005 (UTC)

Jews?
Are jews allowed to use wikipedia? Because that would be just wrong.
 * People of all races and religions are allowed on Wikipedia. Sycthos 04:32, 17 December 2005 (UTC)
 * As long as they follow the rules and policies we have, everyone is allowed to use Wikipedia. You may want to check out our article on discrimination, though. Mgm|(talk) 06:35, 17 December 2005 (UTC)


 * Jewish Wikipedians. But we've had enough vandals to our userpages already. jnothman talk 12:03, 17 December 2005 (UTC)

Blanked Pages
Hi I just noticed that there were 100s of blanked pages in the special pages-short pages list. I reverted a few. But there is no way I can do them all. Is there any way I can ask for assiatance from the administrators to help me clean this up? Also, is there a way to stop people from blanking pages, or to have a bot automaticaly unblank them? Just curious Tobyk777 07:41, 17 December 2005 (UTC)
 * An unblanking bot would probably be useful. I think you can request one at Bot request or look for a user already experienced in making them. Administrators can be contacted at WP:AN or WP:ANI, but posting at the assistance section of the village pump will probably get some non-admins in the mix to help as well. - 82.172.14.108 11:46, 17 December 2005 (UTC)
 * Oops, just go through WP:BOTS. - 82.172.14.108 11:49, 17 December 2005 (UTC)


 * When I look now, the blanks mean various things:
 * the author blanked their own article (mark for deletion)
 * a user blanked someone else's good article (revert)
 * a user blanked someone else's nonsense article (revert and list for deletion)
 * a user blanked an incorrectly-titled or otherwise moved article (redirect or delete as appropriate)
 * So, IMO, a bot to revert blanking isn't appropriate. But if vandalism-style blanking is done by a small group of users, the edits of a particular user can easily be reverted by any admin. jnothman talk 12:06, 17 December 2005 (UTC)


 * Of the list I found (84 pages) it seems I started from the end, LesleyW from the front and we got through them, even without a bot. jnothman talk 13:32, 17 December 2005 (UTC)

Can't edit
I moved the article on the Suzuki SV650 and SV650S motorcycle from its old title of Suzuki SV650(S) to a better title of SV650. Then I realized that a more appropriate title would be Suzuki SV650 and so I moved the article again. I did the moving by hand because I was unaware of the wikipedia function for moving articles. In between the moves I was editing/creating a bunch of articles and fixing their redirects, but suddenly I can't save my edits any longer. It lets me edit and press the Save button, but then when the article reloads nothing has changed. Did I get banned or something for doing a burst of editing? CMJ 08:24, 17 December 2005 (UTC)
 * I'll forward this to the admin notice board at WP:ANI so they can fix your copy-paste moves and get some insight on your error. Blocked people are clearly warned of their block, not sneakily allowed not to have their edits shown. Did you get any error messages? - 82.172.14.108 11:52, 17 December 2005 (UTC)

Vandal's??
I was just roaming on Wiki and i noticed that, it has all been deleted? is there any thing we can do to restore it some how??

thanks

Toxin 11:06, 17 December 2005 (UTC)


 * What has all been deleted? Things aren't all deleted. If you are talking about all of one page, yes it can easily be restored, but first you'll have to specify which. jnothman talk 11:33, 17 December 2005 (UTC)

Language
What computer language/programming language does Wikipedia use?-- Anti-Anonymex2 Come to my page! I've gone caliente loco! 13:31, 17 December 2005 (UTC)


 * That depends whether you mean what language we use to mark-up pages, or what language is used to build the software that Wikipedia runs on. Both answers are essentially found in MediaWiki, the software used to run Wikipedia and its sister projects and other wiki sites. MediaWiki is written in PHP and OCaml (for some parts), with a MySQL database backend. I assume this is the answer you wanted. jnothman talk 13:36, 17 December 2005 (UTC)

Help with sourcing
Should the {ref}'s be after the period or before it?--Urthogie 17:15, 17 December 2005 (UTC)
 * I would say after is better. Answers to questions like this are usually found in the Manual of style, but I don't see this particular one. --LesleyW 23:21, 17 December 2005 (UTC)
 * (edit conflict) Hmm. WP:CITE doesn't say anything on this specifically. Harvard referencing: Book titles are cited in the text in parentheses after the sentence, using the surname of the author and the year only, with the parentheses closing before the period, as in (Author 2005). But then Footnotes seem to occur after the period. I suggest that it's not a very important issue, so just whatever you do, be consistent in it. pfctdayelise 23:26, 17 December 2005 (UTC)

link to Wikispecies
Is there a way to link a term like emetazoa (which redirects to animal in Wikipedia) to the Wikispecies article on eumetazoa (which contains more useful information on the specific term) without using a "see also" side bar like this one ? TheLimbicOne 19:08, 17 December 2005 (UTC)
 * The Wikispecies template does it using an interwikimedia link like this: Eumetazoa. -- Rick Block (talk) 21:43, 17 December 2005 (UTC)
 * That's exactly what I wanted; thank you. TheLimbicOne 22:17, 17 December 2005 (UTC)

Article title?
Hi, i created a page few days ago but when i perform a search by all or part of its title, i get no results. However, when i used a link to this page in another article, i was directed to this page. what might be missing? Should i add something to the page title?
 * The above question was asked by User:62.241.130.137. Looking at your contribution list, I cannot see any new pages there. Maybe you were logged in as a different user or a different IP at the time. What page are you talking about? AndyJones 21:36, 17 December 2005 (UTC)


 * Except for the first letter of the article title, Wikipedia is case-sensitive in article titles. That is, John Howard could be different to John howard. It also may have been a matter of punctuation: List of events in Someplace, 1999 is different to List of events in Someplace 1999. It also could have been another few things, but again you'll need to be specific in order for us to help you. jnothman talk 22:33, 17 December 2005 (UTC)


 * It takes a while for pages to show up in the search. You can speed up the process by properly linking and categorizing them. - Mgm|(talk) 09:35, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

Fair-Use or not?
If I draw a Picture of a Chocobo or Black Mage can I licence it as GFDL or is it fair use? --JiFish(Talk/Contrib) 20:24, 17 December 2005 (UTC)
 * I think this will help you. I got it from User:jfdwolff (who uses a little piece of a minesweeper screenshot on his user page).
 * http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:MinesweeperMine.png TheLimbicOne 21:05, 17 December 2005 (UTC)
 * I think what TheLimbicOne is saying is, tag your image as game-screenshot. In general, derived works have the same copyright status as the thing they are derived from. A picture intending to stay true to the original is a derived work, and thus under copyright. Sorry. pfctdayelise 23:08, 17 December 2005 (UTC)
 * I wasn't really very clear was I? Jfdwolff explains the use of the game screenshot under "fair use" on his user page. Specificly the use of little pieces of game screenshots (like minesweeper) to do an article relating to the game or character. TheLimbicOne 22:21, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

=December 18=

When will the ban on anonymous users end?
When will the ban on anonymous users end? I know it's a test, but how long will it take? --anon


 * Anon editors can still edit existing pages, they just can't create new ones. WP:WHY not sign up for an account? It's easy and painless. You don't even have to submit an email address (but it might help if you ever forget your password). pfctdayelise 02:16, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

Perhaps, but I still would like to know when the ban is going to end. --anon


 * No set time established. If the policy on balance benefits WP well then it may not end at all. --hydnjo talk 04:25, 18 December 2005 (UTC)


 * It should be clear that it is not a ban. A ban would be a silly thing and counter the wiki philosophy. It is a way of fixing a problem while not giving any user less power to edit Wikipedia. jnothman talk 05:33, 18 December 2005 (UTC)


 * When they all exhibit good behavior. I don't understand why people think IP addresses are anonymous; it's a lot easier for users and admins to track down a user based on IP than a username. (And might this "anon" be the currently blocked Zachkudrna18@yahoo.com? tregoweth 06:11, 18 December 2005 (UTC)


 * Looking at the large number of copyright violations requested for creation, together with the number of vanity, advertising and polemic pages, pages that ought to be part of existing articles, and the almost total failure to provide sources, and noting that only a small proportion of the original anonymous creation volume is represented there, I find it difficult to believe that anonymous users will ever be permitted to create again.
 * It's certainly the case that this is not a short term defensive measure; it's an initial trial of a proposed indefinite measure. --David Woolley 09:27, 18 December 2005 (UTC)


 * Having a bit of a look at Special:Newpages today, and noting the quality of pages created by people with redlinked user pages, was also depressing. pfctdayelise 14:40, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

Image size
I created an image for an article with my digital camera, and I was wondering what a favorable size is for uploads. The original image size is above 1600X1280 because I wanted it to be high-quality so I'm trying to figure out what would be an agreeable size without wasting too much memory. - Ridge Racer 05:20, 18 December 2005 (UTC)


 * I'm not an images expert, but Finlay McWalter suggested above that a good resize is to a width of 1000px. jnothman talk 05:37, 18 December 2005 (UTC)
 * I would say that you should not resize unless you would exceed the maximum permitted size or you want put more restrictive copyrights on a higher resolution version. Any reisizing destroys information and therefore makes the image less suitable as a source for a derived work.  Derived works are positively encouraged by the GFDL.  (As well as their being some degradation on each manipulation, a dervied image may crop the original to focus on a secondary subject.)  --David Woolley 09:38, 18 December 2005 (UTC)


 * What is the maximum permitted size, though? Help:Images only quotes 6.5 MB. jnothman talk 10:49, 18 December 2005 (UTC)


 * I've heard (that is, read somewhere) 20mb. Basically just go for it, if you've got the pixels. pfctdayelise 14:36, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

Sorry about that, I tried to keyword search the article first before making the question. It would seem not quite hard enough though. Thanks. - Ridge Racer 05:49, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

Uploading Images
Hi, I recently figured out how to use images in the commons on articles on wikipedia. The two things I can't figure out are:
 * How do I take/find images on wikipedia and use them in articles? (Images in wikipedia but not the commons)
 * How do I upload images to either site, and if I can, how do I make sure they are acpetable images to use.

Thanks Tobyk777 07:49, 18 December 2005 (UTC)


 * Picture tutorial may be some help. Thelb <sup style="color:#FF8247;">4  09:35, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

&The bottom of the search results page has selection boxes, you can keep your searches just to image pages. Also, if you want an image, searching related articles may help. - Mgm|(talk) 09:40, 18 December 2005 (UTC)


 * Wikipedia images override Commons images of the same name. They should only really be used for images with second class copyright statues (typically fair use) or which are specifically English language related (e.g. contain important text in English).
 * The basic rule on copyright acceptability is that, if in doubt, you cannot use the image. Unless the images come from the US federal government, or you took them yourself, they are unlikely to be usable in Commons (there are other cases, the copyright could have been assigned to you or their could be an explicit GFDL compatible licence; under US case law, as interpreted by Wikipedia, accurate images of two dimeinsional artwork are acceptable, as long as the artwork was first published a very long time ago (see the details for the exact ages) and the uploader is covered by US law or equivalent rulings)).  Wikipedia slightly relaxes the rules to allow very limited use of, in most case low quality, images under the "fair use" principle.  This is very restrictive, e.g. you can use a book cover image to illustrate an article about the book, but not to illustrate an article about the subject of the book.  IANAL TINLA --David Woolley 09:59, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

new page about person with same name as others
Hi.

I want to create a new page of a person where there already is an entry in wikipedia about another person of the same name. How do I do this correctly?

Best regards, Sven.
 * Generally you create a page titled Person (occupation). For example John Adams is about the 2nd President of the United States, but John Adams (scientist) is about the researcher, and John Adams (mutineer) about the mutineer, etc etc.


 * To be safe, you should make sure the person satisfies Wikipedia's inclusion guidelines for articles about people, or the article may be nominated for deletion. Happy editing! -- MegamiX 16:02, 18 December 2005 (UTC)


 * This method of keeping people apart is called disambiguation. If you create another John Adams article for example it is probably a good idea to list the new name in John Adams (disambiguation) which lists all the people by that name if that list isn't located at the main article about that name. - Mgm|(talk) 17:38, 18 December 2005 (UTC)


 * The link Mgm used above will give you some more information, but you often have to make some careful decisions with Disambiguation, like who is the most well known person by that name? Should they get the main John Adams article with a link to others or a John Adams (disambiguation)? Are all people equally known? Should, then the John Adams article be a disambiguation page itself, with links to all the various other entries? The case usually is that if there's an article already there and you want to add another case, that your addition is less known than the one there and so you can usually just make a link to a disambiguation page (when there are more than two articles of the same name) or just to the alternative article itself. If you choose an option to move any of the pages, it can also get tricky fixing all the links (but a bot could help). jnothman talk 22:44, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

Barnstars
What are barnstars and why do Wikipedians award them? Are they administrator gifts or can novice Wikipedians award them? Is there any Wikipedia project pages that give information about barnstars. Thanks!--XenoNeon 19:16, 18 December 2005 (UTC)


 * More info here. Anyone can give them. Gflores Talk 19:28, 18 December 2005 (UTC)


 * They are to award people for good work and promote a friendly and creative atmosphere on the wiki. - Mgm|(talk) 22:21, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

=December 19=

3rr and Jay-Z's wealth
I've been keeping an eye on the Jay-Z page (I don't know why), and I am wondering what the policy is on dealing with the anonymous revisions of his net worth which keep reoccuring. I have referenced his net worth of 286$ mil in this recent version of his page, but the page is often reverted to saying "between 80$ and 100$ mil" uncited. Can I keep reverting this particular edit until someone brings up a better reference? I guess I'm just asking if I keep reverting, am I going to run against the 3rr or is this sort of thing ok? Smmurphy(Talk) 03:13, 19 December 2005 (UTC)


 * Net worth is something that changes, but you're right in that it's unlikely to change from $286M to $320M in the course of 2005, as implies was cited in Rolling Stone magazine. A change to $80-100M is less likely, though. Nonetheless, the user who made this claim still has a red-link for a talk page. If you really want to clarify someone's sources, you're best off asking them on their talk page. You're much more likely to get a response there than on the article talk page. I agree that a figure with a citation is best, but if someone disputes this, make an active attempt to find out upon what basis.
 * As for 3RR, this is just about the most specific rule we have, and there is no such thing as "going to run against the 3rr" until you do! That is, until you "revert any single page in whole or in part more than three times in 24 hours", no one can hold anything against you. In the sense that this sort of input is presumably not an exception to the 3RR (ie, is not vandalism), yes, you are susceptible to the 3RR if you do it four times in 24 hours.
 * jnothman talk 04:06, 19 December 2005 (UTC)
 * Various anons have made this change, and one signed in user (that I have noticed) VitoCorleone, who is apparantly a big Master P fan (relevant only if his edits to Jay-Z are due to his preference). I mentioned it to Vito, but I am not sure if mentioning it to anons with one or three edits (such as User:24.216.141.56 and User:68.57.162.192) will help anyway.  Otherwise, I don't log in more than three times a day, but constantly making this reversion hardly seems within the spirit of the 3rr, so I am mentioning it here to at least clear my conscious before continuing to police that section of the article. Smmurphy(Talk) 06:29, 19 December 2005 (UTC)


 * The idea behind 3RR is to force you to seek community consensus. If other editors feel that the correct figure is indeed $286m, then they too will revert any changes, thus saving you from reverting more than 3 times a day. enochlau (talk) 08:43, 19 December 2005 (UTC)

A proposal
I don't know where I should go for this, but I think the standard signature created with ~ should include a link for the talkpage by a method such as
 * User (talk) 05:40, 19 December 2005 (UTC)

Please help to create such. <font color="#000000">ε <font color="#000000">γκυκλοπαίδεια <font color="#000000">* <font color="#708090">(talk) 05:40, 19 December 2005 (UTC)
 * If you want to do it, just for yourself, see Signature. If you want it to be done per default for anyone, please file a feature request at Bugzilla. - Mgm|(talk) 05:55, 19 December 2005 (UTC)


 * I'm sure he has done it himself. I don't think it belongs in bugzilla, though. I would start at Village pump (proposals) where you can get better feedback than bugzilla. jnothman talk 05:57, 19 December 2005 (UTC)


 * Thanks for the suggestions. <font color="#000000">ε <font color="#000000">γκυκλο <font color="#808080">παίδεια <font color="#808080">* 16:23, 19 December 2005 (UTC)

Is there anything I can do to stop the policy of not letting anonymous users create articles?
Is there anything I can do to stop the policy of not letting anonymous users create articles? Cause I would like it to end! --anon
 * Go to WP:AFC and submit a lot of articles (while following instructions at the top of the page), which would show Jimmy Wales anonymous users can in fact create more good articles then they appear to can at the moment. Out of curiosity, why don't you just create an account? - Mgm|(talk) 05:52, 19 December 2005 (UTC)
 * Create an account, and then start creating pages to show us what you could have done if you could have created pages when you were an anon. As a first step, maybe look at why to create an account and see if you have any remaining unanswered questions about creating an account. Is it really such a problem? Palmiro | Talk 05:58, 19 December 2005 (UTC)
 * While maybe you can do something, I don't think you should: I am of the opinion that you should create a username as this will violate less of your privacy than not! I am further of the opinion that the current policy has been effective in lightening the load on vandal-fighters and AFD-ers. Many less nonsense/vanity new pages on the recent changes list. So if it were up to me, until a better policy can be determined, this should remain. (I hope that was not all too soapboxy.) jnothman talk 06:03, 19 December 2005 (UTC)
 * In particular, it only took me about 5 minutes to identify anon's ISP and, to a reasonably high degree of confidence, the city in which he lives. There's a good chance that the IP address is actually traceable to a much smaller region. --David Woolley 12:44, 19 December 2005 (UTC)
 * Absolutely. I think my own example is the worst I've ever heard of: my ISP gives out static IPs with accompanying hostnames, and there is a one-to-one correspondance between physical and IP address in my area. So to find out my neighbours' IP, I can just lookup a hostname describing his location... and anyone on the net can find out exactly in wich room in my dorm I live in my reverse-lookup of my IP. &mdash; Sverdrup 22:35, 19 December 2005 (UTC)


 * I've encountered one slightly worse - the in-room networking at one of the Oxford colleges gives machinenames like jsmith.college.oxford.ac.uk. Not even a username, just an actual real name... not much chance for ever having any anonymity with that splashed across logfiles. Okay, so tougher to track you down, but... Shimgray | talk | 00:21, 21 December 2005 (UTC)

Well, I might get a username, but I still don't think it's right that Wikipedia has to force a person to get a usrname just to create articles! I mean, isn't this the free encyclopedia? And if I put many good articles into the WP AFC, does that mean the policy will end (or have a better chance at least)? --anon
 * Even anarchist organisations (which Wikipedia isn't) have to have some rules to allow themselves to function. Wikipedia could no longer function under the old rule. As for "force a person to get a username just to create articles" - well, getting a username is trivially easy. Creating articles is something you really shouldn't need to do very often - there's plenty of work to be done cleaning up existing ones. Anyway you're probably best off arguing on the mailing list, IMHO. Stevage 02:30, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

What's an IMHO? And I know that it's easy, but I have a few reasons for not getting it yet. And I would like to create some articles because I believe they are needed. And if put many good articles into the WP AFC, does that mean the policy will end or have a better chance at least? By the way, I'm sorry if I came off a bit too strongly about the policy! --anon
 * IMHO means "in my humble opinion". Frankly I don't think the policy is at all likely to end, but if there is any chance it would be improved by having more quality articles show up at AFC, there are not very many at the moment. Kappa 03:05, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

How to rename a SECTION of an article?
What is the proper way to change the title of a section?

I would like to rename a section of an article, but it occurs to me that there might be links from other pages to this particular section. I don't want to break those links (but I don't know where they are).

Is there a way to find out what pages link to a section of an article?

(I see the "What links here" link in the left column, but that is for the whole article. I would like something more precise, but I'm beginning to think there is no such thing. I may just have to slog through all the linking pages looking at each link. UGH.)

Thanks in advance, --Tiger Marc 06:04, 19 December 2005 (UTC)


 * No, there is no way to find out whether another page links to a particular section of a page, because they rely on the anchor tags inserted for each section, and not by some special formatting that MediaWiki recognises. enochlau (talk) 06:11, 19 December 2005 (UTC)


 * Although it's not like MediaWiki doesn't do anything related to them: it puts in the ID tags and modifies them so that they can be used. The problem is that only the page linked to is recorded in the links table of the database. So there would be no database query that could be run to get a list of links to a section. jnothman talk 06:16, 19 December 2005 (UTC)


 * To my knowledge there is no way to do this. There may well be a bot that can do this, or can be easily modified to do so. Generally, I think links to sections within another article should not be used, except on talk pages, help pages like this, etc. Links to sections within the same article are fine, though. So you shouldn't really find any incoming links to the section. jnothman talk 06:14, 19 December 2005 (UTC)


 * jnothman is correct and let's not forget about pages in the Wikipedia namespace, especially policy related ones. In articles though, you should have no problem with section renaming. Do make sure, though, that you're not breaking a common style for that type of article. - 131.211.210.10 08:24, 19 December 2005 (UTC)

Typo in Title
Hi, I have a typo in the title of my contribution... how can I revise it? (preceding unsigned comment by Rluv16)


 * Once you have been on Wikipedia for a little while and done some editing, you will be able to use the "move" function. This appears at the top of the page alongside the other tags such as "article", "discussion" and "history".
 * I assume you are talking about the Ubiquiti-Networks article which you appear to have created, and you want to replace the hypen with a space - I will do this for you.
 * However, you need bear in mind that Wikipedia policy is to maintain a neutral point of view - see Neutral point of view. The article in its present form could be considered a "vanity article" (Vanity guidelines) so it would be a good idea to rework it a little with these guidelines in mind. --LesleyW 07:21, 19 December 2005 (UTC)
 * Article moved to Ubiquiti Networks and redirect marked for speedy deletion. --LesleyW 07:34, 19 December 2005 (UTC)
 * Redirect deleted. enochlau (talk) 08:10, 19 December 2005 (UTC)

how can I change my pasword,I forgot what it was

 * First things first--have you gone to the login page and asked for your password to be emailed to you? If not, try that. Jwrosenzweig 09:01, 19 December 2005 (UTC)
 * This is of course only an option if you put in your password in the first place. If not, well... I guess just remember your passwords in the future! jnothman talk 22:01, 19 December 2005 (UTC)
 * I have to have passwords at TONS of different places. I not want to have samne one all places because if one cracked, then they all cracked, so I have a SYSTEM that works, most of the time. User:AlMac|(talk) 10:33, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

protecting pages
How do I propose a page for protection if there's a full-scale edit-war on that page? --Dijxtra 09:59, 19 December 2005 (UTC)
 * Requests for page protection. - Mgm|(talk) 10:17, 19 December 2005 (UTC)
 * Thanks! --Dijxtra 10:24, 19 December 2005 (UTC)

Category tree browsing?
Someone told me that there exists a tool for easy browsing of Wikipedia category trees (or "graphs", I realize they're not real trees, but I'd like to browse them as such). That person did not know the URL, and I can't find it, so I'm wondering if anyone has an idea of what s/he might have meant. /Skagedal 12:04, 19 December 2005 (UTC)


 * It exists for de: and commons: but not, AFAIK, en:. The commons one is here: http://tim.alder-digital.de/tree-commons/wcat-search.php pfctdayelise 12:43, 19 December 2005 (UTC)


 * Thanks a lot, pfctdayelise - this helped me find http://tools.wikimedia.de/~daniel/WikiSense/CategoryTree.php, which works with all language wikipedias (although the new one that you mentioned is nicer). /<tt>skagedal</tt>[talk] 17:28, 19 December 2005 (UTC)


 * Nice tool there... Thanks for finding it! Now it's an Opera panel for me! Neat! jnothman talk 22:04, 19 December 2005 (UTC)

Copyright vs Public Domain vs No Original Research vs Plagiarism
Hi, I've just joined Wikipedia and would like to contribute some articles on places in Portugal which I have visited and which have not yet been described. I would also like to add some photographs I have taken myself.

My problem:

1. Most info sources are not Public Domain (i.e. reference books, Portuguese internet sites); books are almost always copyrighted.

2. Most of the internet sites I have checked for data are not copyrighted as far as I can see, but how can one be sure?

3. Original Research is NOT allowed.

4. I have read all of the data on Wikipedia on these subjects and also the one about Verifiable Sources, which strangely enough states, and I quote: >> One of the keys to writing good encyclopedia articles is to understand that they should only refer to facts, assertions ...etc., that have already been published by a reputable publisher<<. Surely, anything which has already been published by a reputable publisher is by definition almost always copyright material?

How on earth is one supposed to obtain the facts about a town/place, such as population, historical dates, etc., when the only available sources are probably all protected by copyright? Or is it OK for me to extract the facts from these sources, write about them in my own words and quote the sources and provide internet links as confirmation of verifiability?

Also, regarding photographs I have taken myself; can I somehow indicate this fact when inserting them to indicate that they are therefore not subject to any copyright?

MacGuiver 17:52, 19 December 2005 (UTC)


 * The key here is that copyright applies to creative works; facts cannot (generally speaking) be copyrighted. So you're able to use these facts as a basis to write something of your own, but you're not able to just copy their text.
 * Assume anything on the web is copyrighted unless explicitly stated otherwise.
 * When you upload photographs, you'll see a drop-down menu. This allows you to select the licensing method of your choice; GFDL is the same license all your text contributions to Wikipedia are released under; you retain the copyright, but allow people to make use of it, attributing you as the source. Shimgray | talk | 18:13, 19 December 2005 (UTC)

New member needs help, first article was marked to be cleaned up
I joined Wikipedia because there is very little here in my field of "quilt history". I thought I'd gradually add information as I have time.

I just wrote my first article and it got a sign saying, "This article needs to be cleaned up to conform to a higher standard of quality."

The article I wrote was http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baltimore_album_quilts

I haven't a clue what I did wrong and am a bit overwhelmed with the long help pages. If it's just something simple I will fix the page. If it's too time consuming to write these articles won't be able to contribute.

Please let me know if the article is easily fixable or if I should just delete it.

Thank You —Preceding unsigned comment added by Quiltpatch (talk • contribs)
 * No, it probably means that the user who tagged it with cleanup thought that it was too dependent on the external links you have. But that's ok, Wikipedia is a work in progress and you don't need to submit finished drafts of your articles for review. You may want to ask Kilo-Lima to find out what exactly made him apply the tag. Welcome to Wikipedia! Tito xd (?!? - help us) 19:57, 19 December 2005 (UTC)


 * Hello, Quiltpatch. In my opinion the article is easily fixable, and it would be a pity to delete it. It has good potential. You say that you "thought I'd gradually add information as I have time". Please do! If people see that the article is expanding in a menaingful way, they will certainly be impressed by the author's seriousness. I do not see why this could not be done step-by-step. Only one piece of advice, if I may: please do work on it regularly. If readers notice that the article remains unchanged during a couple of weeks, say, they might conclude that someone has just posted then abandoned it. Unfortunately, this often happens. But you seem quite interested in your subject, so make a success of it! Lots of luck! Bessel Dekker 21:05, 19 December 2005 (UTC)


 * I am actually very impressed, Quiltpatch. It's quite nicely written.... Not all users' first articles are.
 * The placement of a cleanup tag usually means that the article does not yet conform to the Manual of Style; maybe you should have a browse there. It seems Kilo-Lima did half that cleanup job before adding the cleanup tag, and it's a little strange he didn't finish it and not bother tagging for cleanup, but he may have run out of time. He left a few things not quite clean (some of which still aren't):
 * External links, which should come at the end of the article, and not really be part of the content with cues like "take a look" (as Dismas fixed up)
 * Title inconsistent with name: are they "Baltimore album quilts", "Baltimore Album quilts" or "Baltimore Album Quilts"?
 * Opening sentence lacks context: Dismas helped by adding in Maryland (Wikipedia is an international project), but the first sentence still implies that one knows what a Baltimore album quilt is, and only gives them some background. The opening sentence needs to explain what the thing is, as well as optionally giving some background. It would need to specify that it is a quilt design style / pattern. See Lead section which explains this more clearly.
 * Seeing as it's the only article on Wikipedia that links to Baltimore album quilts is Applique, you might want a link back to it, maybe in a discussion on the style, and maybe in a "See also" section.
 * You may also want to mark the article as a stub as it lacks a lot of detail, illustrations (can you take any photos? get permission from web sites?), etc yet.
 * If you intend to make further articles on quilting (something maybe Wikipedia is short on), you might want to put them all in a category together, or even may your own stub type for them. Or even just use the category embroidery.
 * Try cleaning these up yourself. It will give you help in better and more consistent style for future work on Wikipedia. Besides, you're more of an expert than me in this domain.
 * As to deleting the article because of the cleanup tag: I'm sure we've allayed your fears by now, but you aren't really able to delete anyway. See Deletion and you'll find that this article doesn't pass criteria for speedy deletion, and I am sure it would fail if it were proposed for deletion.
 * So, welcome! I hope you make many more great contributions! jnothman talk 22:33, 19 December 2005 (UTC)
 * Perhaps the lesson here is that particular template was interpreted by this particular user as being "This article sucks. Clean it up or else." Perhaps it should be reworded to indicate the real meaning "Would someone mind cleaning this article up?" Stevage 01:14, 20 December 2005 (UTC)


 * We've seen it a few times actually. You're right. I'll suggest a change on Template_talk:Cleanup. jnothman talk 03:46, 20 December 2005 (UTC)
 * No, the "This article sucks" template is d. ;) Tito xd (?!? - help us) 06:17, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for the help everyone. I understand much better what needs to be done. Quiltpatch 06:11, 20 December 2005 (UTC)
 * Sure, and again, Welcome! Tito xd (?!? - help us) 06:17, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

BTW I didn't start the page. I found it linked from applique and it was empty so I decided to put in some information. It does make more sense to start a page on quilt history then gradually add different quilt history topics there. Quiltpatch 06:27, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

Propagation of Categories
I recently created the Category 'Thelemite Wikipedians' under 'Wikipedians by religion' and the Category 'Hermetic Qabalist Wikipedians' under 'Kabbalist Wikipedians.' I also added both of these Categories to my user page. When I reloaded my page the links were red and when I followed them they opened the Categories I created, but they were on the 'Edit' page not the Category page. After a few minutes the 'Thelemite Wikipedians' link on my user page turned blue and opened on the Category page as I would have expected, but after more than thirty minutesthe 'Hermetic Qabalist Wikipedians' link is still red and it still opens on the 'Edit' page. Are there issues of propagation of which I am unaware? Puck 21:02, 19 December 2005 (UTC)
 * It appears it is simply an issue of time. After about an hour it everything seems to be working as I'd expect.  I have now added a clue to my very sparsely populated clue box. Puck 21:19, 19 December 2005 (UTC)


 * Its not simply a matter of time (or at least it shouldn't have been). It was simply a matter of you putting a description or other content in those categories (having articles in a category are not enough to make a blue link). And if the edit page kept popping up after there was a description, then maybe you weren't refreshing the page with the link? jnothman talk 22:40, 19 December 2005 (UTC)


 * In both of them I added a brief description and content to explain that people should use subst:PAGENAME to avoid ending up in the "U" list. When the edit pages opened the description and content I had entered was there waiting to be edited.  I also logged out and shut my browser down at one point, so I don't think it was a refresh issue.  Around the same time I noticed there were some serious timeout issues all across Wikipedia.  For a while I wasn't able to open any pages, but Google and Yahoo! were working fine, ruling out in my mind network congestion.  My guess is there was Wikpedia wide sludge and it just took time to digest everything.  As I said, eventually everything worked out and I'm not having any issues now. | Puck 01:31, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

stopping redirect
Can I link to a redirect page without activating the redirect? or For the effect I'm looking for: can I link to a redirect page's edit history?


 * Links to edit histories have to be done as external links anyway. That is, the history of my user page has to be linked as my user page history which appears as my user page history. So hopefully from that link you can work it out for any other page. But if it is not history you are interested in but rather the redirect page before it redirects, we don't want "action=historu" but instead "redirect=no". That is (or ) will not follow the redirect to this page. jnothman talk 22:44, 19 December 2005 (UTC)
 * Thank you. Since I'm referencing a page I merged from, I think I'll link to the history directly. Sensible, right? TheLimbicOne 22:47, 19 December 2005 (UTC)
 * This works for me. Is that what you had in mind? AndyJones 00:01, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

Computer Language
What computer language does Wikipedia use? If you are going to move this question, tell me.-- Anti-Anonymex2 Come to my page! I've gone caliente loco! 22:24, 19 December 2005 (UTC)
 * This has already been answered farther up the page. Dismas|(talk) 22:32, 19 December 2005 (UTC)
 * In particular, it is at above. jnothman talk 22:46, 19 December 2005 (UTC)

=December 20=

How do we put up a Disambiguation page?
Dreadfully simple, I know, but how do we put up a disambiguation page?

Guyu needs disambiguation between a Chinese solar period, and the Australian native freshwater fish Guyu wujalwujalensis.

Thanks

Codman 00:29, 20 December 2005 (UTC)
 * You just start a page Guyu (disambiguation), and put the following on it:

Guyu may mean:
 * Guyu, a Chinese solar period
 * Guyu wujalwujalensis, an Australian freshwater fish

At the bottom you add disambig

On Guyu, you add at the top: otheruses

And of course you'll have to write an article about the Australian fish. :-)

Hope that helps, Kusma (討論) 00:56, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

Reference Pages
Do the various reference pages get archived? Where? Halcatalyst 01:07, 20 December 2005 (UTC)


 * Reference desk archive. Simple enough? jnothman talk 03:27, 20 December 2005 (UTC)
 * To coin a (really old, American) phrase, I hope to shout! Thanks, Halcatalyst 04:29, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

Infobox glitch in Parachutes
There's an infobox glitch in Parachutes - the Parr Street Studios, Liverpool,  &c line appears at the top of the article as well as in the infobox. Can't see why & too tired to investigate. --Tagishsimon (talk)


 * Fixed - problem seems to have been line breaks within the infobox content. I'm no expert on infoboxes, but it appears you shouldn't break lines up within infoboxes. At least, not that particular one. --LesleyW 02:36, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

Where do I go if I have a proposal?
Where do I go if I have a proposal? --anon


 * That would depend on what kind of proposal you have in mind. If you want to suggest a new article but can't create it because you're a new user or wish to remain "anonymous", start at Requested articles. If you have a proposal to improve the running of Wikipedia, I guess you could try General complaints, which despite the name seems to be intended as a kind of suggestion box. --LesleyW 02:47, 20 December 2005 (UTC)


 * Or better yet, Village pump (proposals)... pfctdayelise 03:27, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

Well actually, I remembered somebody told me to go somewhere called WikiMedia: Proposals or something like that, but I can't remember where it was! --anon


 * Yes, if it's a proposal about Wikipedia it should go to Village pump (proposals) (but look at the top of the page there, as your proposal may be more appropriate elsewhere). jnothman talk 03:31, 20 December 2005 (UTC)


 * (Yes, pfctdayelise, I don't think it even bothered telling me you'd changed it - and said the same. =P)


 * Edit history never lies... :P pfctdayelise 10:07, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

Actually, I was looking for Proposals for new projects, but I found it nearby at the village pump proposals. Thanks! But actually, I have a question about that place:

At the top of the page, it says "if you are willing to take responsibility for it, post it here. otherwise, post it on the discussion page." But what does that mean by taking responsibilty? I asked the same question on the discussion page there, but nobody has answered! --anon


 * At the top of which page did you find this? Not this help desk as far as I can see... And I don't see your question in the Help Desk's talk page... What exactly are you asking? jnothman talk 01:43, 21 December 2005 (UTC)


 * The poster is talking about the Proposals for new projects page. I removed the heading which you inserted, because it was all written by the same person. (Dear anon, it would be great if you could sign your posts. You don't have to have an account to do this. Just type ~ at the end of your message, and it will print up your IP and timestamp.)


 * As for the question, I think they mean if you are willing to DO the project, implement it, run it, control it, etc. It's the difference between going, "Wouldn't it be great if we had a pig latin wikipedia?" and "I have already translated@ 100 articles into pig latin, I've gathered a group of interested pig latin editors, we've got pig latin policy, let us loose on a pig latin 'pedia." See what I mean?


 * @ (Actually, I think there are several automated pig latin translators, so it probably wouldn't be that hard.)


 * --pfctdayelise 02:38, 21 December 2005 (UTC)

Aligning Babel and Instrument boxes?
Is there any good way to align the Wikipedia:Babel and Wikipedia:Instruments boxes in one's userpage? Right now in mine they are just aligned to the right on top of each other, but it would be nice to get them next to each other and centered. I have seen them nicely organized on other user pages, but have not been able to make sense of how. Thanks! -- Natalya 03:13, 20 December 2005 (UTC)


 * One easy way to put them next to each other is using a table. What you would do is build a table like this:


 * Note that I had to use and not just include your table already there. Nested table markup doesn't work so happily in Wikipedia; the easiest solution is just to include the table from elsewhere. So if you stick that instruments table into a page like User:Natalya/instruments and then include it, you should be fine. I hope that works! jnothman talk 03:36, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

RSS feeds or JavaScript
Are any ways to incorporate RSS feeds or JavaScript within Wikipedia pages?--Natkeeran 06:04, 20 December 2005 (UTC)


 * It is possible for you to incorporate them in your own Wikipedia experience using user scripting, but not in an actual page, no. jnothman talk 06:09, 20 December 2005 (UTC)
 * You may be interested in WP:RSS. Gflores Talk 06:21, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

cancellation of the account
Sir I want to create an account to be able to edit your pages & to contribute to your encyclopedia.But I want to know if I can at anytime unsubscribe or discontinue to use your website.


 * You don't need to give an email address to sign up, and even if you do Wikipedia does not send you mail, so there is nothing from which to unsubscribe! And yes, you are allowed to discontinue contributing to Wikipedia at any point. jnothman talk 11:33, 20 December 2005 (UTC)


 * Membership on Wikipedia is completely free of charge. - Akamad 06:34, 21 December 2005 (UTC)

Music
Who is the composer of Excelsior


 * OK, calm down. You only need to ask once. This page is answered by humans, not computers. Also, at the top of this page you'll notice it says "This page is for questions about how to use Wikipedia. For factual questions, try the Reference Desk." So try it: Reference Desk. Or why not even try using http://www.google.com/ yourself? pfctdayelise 14:12, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

contacting pjm
How do I contact the user PJM via his talk page? I am new to Wikipedia and do not know how to do this. Ianmacm 15:26, 20 December 2005 (UTC)


 * Simply go to his page, you can search in the search field for 'User:PJM' and then go to the Discussion from the top links (next to edit this page). From there, click on the '+' next to edit this page. This will create a new message for PJM, simply type what you want to say to him. I've provided a direct link to his page, just in case. Leave a new message for PJM. Gflores Talk 16:43, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

Publised
when was this site published?


 * Wikipedia was started in January 2001. For more information, see the Wikipedia article. --LesleyW 22:48, 20 December 2005 (UTC)
 * ... and, if you're looking for how to cite an article, please see Citing Wikipedia. -- Rick Block (talk) 22:55, 20 December 2005 (UTC)