Wikipedia:Help desk/Archive 6

Flagging a page for deletion
In wandering wikipedia and its sitter sites I have found several pages that are completely nonsensical. I believe that I saw a way to flag a page so that an admin could check it and delete it if it was truly irrelevant, but I can not find it again. Could someone tell me the flag (I think it was something like { { delete } } ) so when I find them in the future I can help a bit with house cleaning.


 * If the page is true garbage, you should tag it with . Candidates for speedy deletion has descriptions of when this is appropriate. If it's not outright garbage but you think it should be deleted for some other reason, then the article needs to be listed on Votes for deletion. -- Cyrius|&#9998; 17:43, 1 Aug 2004 (UTC)


 * Deletion policy has a table explaining what to do with problem articles. Gdr 10:59, 2004 Aug 2 (UTC)

"Heart of Oak" song lyrics
As a follow-up to the question about song lyrics from 16 July 2004-- the entry for the Royal Navy song "Heart of Oak" includes lyrics. Do they appear because the song is known to be firmly in the public domain? I have done my own background check on this song (it was written in 1759 or thereabouts), but copyright law being what it is, I thought the brains at Wikipedia might have a definitive answer. Thank you.


 * Copyright law was somewhat different in the 18th century; see history of copyright. In the current copyright law of the United Kingdom, "Copyright in literary, dramatic, musical and artistic works expires 70 years after the death of the author". So I think it's safe to say that a song written in 1759 is now in the public domain. Gdr 11:10, 2004 Aug 2 (UTC) (P.S. is it "hearts" or "heart"?)


 * That's not entirely correct. Published works expire in that way. Unpublished works not expire in that way. Unpublished works do not expire in the UK until end of 2039. However, Heart of Oak is a published work, so its lyrics will be out of copyright if its that old. David Newton 18:02, 10 Jun 2005 (UTC)

How to revert only the diffs made by an old change
On the G page (for the letter G) a past edit appears to have accidentially deleted a lot of content. Many edits to that page have happened since (including a Mediawiki bot), so a simple revert is not appropriate. What is the best way to regain all that content? See Talk:G for details.


 * The simplest way is to copy-and-paste the missing content from an old revision into the current revision. If the merge is too complicated to do by hand, you can do it off-line using a three-way merge tool like the Unix merge program or the Emacs emerge program.


 * For example, suppose that we have a history looking like this:


 * 1) (cur) (last)  13:36, 2004 Jul 27 user3 (add material)
 * 2) (cur) (last)  13:36, 2004 Jul 27 user2 (oops, accidentally deleted stuff)
 * 3) (cur) (last)  10:41, 2004 Jul 20 user1 (add stuff)
 * 1) (cur) (last)  10:41, 2004 Jul 20 user1 (add stuff)


 * Save the sources for revisions 1, 3, and 4 to the files rev1, rev3, and rev4 respectively, then merge the changes from revision 3 &rarr; 1 into revision 4. For example, using the Unix merge tool, run: merge rev4 rev3 rev1. Sort out merge conflicts (indicated by lines beginning &lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;) and tidy up other problems. Submit the result back to Wikipedia. Gdr 10:54, 2004 Aug 2 (UTC)


 * Items excluded from G have been re-included. Noisy 13:18, 2 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Citizenship
My dad, John Slavish was born in Yugoslavia in 12/19/19. He came to the United States when he was a small child. He served in WWll in the Army and at Normandy. He now has moved to live with his daughter because he has alzheimer's disease. He has lost all his papers, such as birth certificate, baptismal certificate, marriage license and so on because he doesn't remember what he did with them when he took them out of a safety deposit box 3 years ago. I am a square one. I have had to put John in the Madison Valley Manor because of his disease and would like to put him on medicaid but I can not do that without his citizenship papers. Where would I look to find these? I have his social security number, date of birth, and also his power of attorney. Please help as I cannot leave John in the Manor and pay for his care myself and Medicaid will not help me without his paperwork. Thanks Shirley Badura


 * I've moved your question to Reference desk, where you might find more luck (for those who want to reply, please go there). I personally don't have any suggestions, really--maybe the Immigration and Naturalization Service could help you . Good luck. [[User:Meelar|Meelar (talk)]] 15:03, 2004 Aug 2 (UTC)

How to subscribe for AWAKE magazine?
Dear Sir/Madam, I would like to subscribe for AWAKE magazine. How can I do this? Can you please let me know. My email id is polanki@hotmail.com

Thanks & Regards, Polanki


 * Follow the external link on the Awake! article. They have details of how to obtain it. Angela. 22:52, Aug 2, 2004 (UTC)

Color for certain sentences
I am about to do a timeline for the Weimar Republic. I would type the normal general events in Black color. I would like to do the Nazi party events in "Brown" or "Blue" and personal events of AH in "Red". The purpose is to highlight specifically different stages of growth that many people have a misconception of. I really think that having different colors would help bring to mind and put in context certain events in a timeline. For Example, The Austrian Workers Party put the name of National Socialism in their title when Adolf Hitler was still a corporal. This contradicts the current preception that AH invented everything. I really think that using different color in this timeline would be very beneficial and dispel easily misconceptions.

The question is how to do I make color happen and is it allowed or can I have special permission for this specific article?WHEELER 16:11, 3 Aug 2004 (UTC)


 * To answer the technical question: you can write
 * Here's a word in <font style="color: purple">purple.
 * to get
 * Here's a word in <font style="color: purple">purple.
 * I don't know if this is the most correct way to do this. In HTML 4.0 you'd use "span" instead of "font" but "span" isn't allowed in Wikipedia.


 * In mediawiki table markup you can write
 * |- style="color: red"
 * to get a colored table row; or
 * |style="color: green"|...
 * to get a colored table cell.


 * I see no reason why it shouldn't be OK to put text in different colors, for example the color articles do something similar with borders of tables. However, before you do it, consider the following points: not everyone uses the same style sheet as you: will the page look OK to someone who's chosen a different background color? will it be readable by color-blind people? will the information be available to blind people? It might be better to make your point in words instead of colors. Gdr 16:48, 2004 Aug 3 (UTC)
 * I think WHEELER's idea is fine. If someone's using a style sheet that screws with the colors, they can switch it off temporarily.  The text/background color combinations that are unreadable for colorblind people are also annoying and difficult-to-read for the rest of us, and should be avoided on general principle.  And lastly, if you color-code, you make the timeline easier to follow for everyone except the blind, for whom it would be the same as if you chose not to use color.  So by adding color you make it easier for some and change nothing for others.  Where's the problem there? Isomorphic 05:00, 4 Aug 2004 (UTC)


 * Thanks for your contributions and your help. I appreciate it greatly.  I will start on it now.WHEELER 16:22, 5 Aug 2004 (UTC)

If colour is conveying important information, consider using a meaningful HTML element, so that the information is visible in text-only browsers, or when it is re-purposed in a different context (remember, Wikipedia is open source). This will also be meaningful to search-engines. E.g. instead of:
 * This word appears meaningful in a visual browser.

Use, , <i>, <b> or some other element with CSS. The following will be italicized or underlined in plain-text browsers, but red in a visual browser:
 * This word is <em style="color:red;font-style:normal">meaningful, in all browsers.

Consider setting background-color at the same time as the color, so that it will be readable in a style sheet that uses a different background-color. Even if the background-color will be invisible on the page backgrond. in E.g.:
 * <em style="color:red;background-color:white">Blah!

If you don't do this, then at least review the text in each of Wikipedia's five standard skins.

—Michael Z. 21:18, 2004 Aug 27 (UTC)

July 31,2004 copy
How may I get a copy of the newspaper dated July 31,2004 which has a story about my daughter who is a new employee of Rogers State University?
 * Sir or Madam, this is an encyclopedia called Wikipedia. There may be people here who can help you track down a newspaper -- if you want that kind of help, please go to Reference desk and inform them there what the name of the paper is, what the issue is, and whether you want a printed copy or an online one.  Someone may be able to help.  Expect that an answer will be posted on that page within a few days.  Good luck. Jwrosenzweig 21:36, 3 Aug 2004 (UTC)

You can call Rogers State University at 1-800-256-7511 and ask them. Salasks 19:21, Aug 4, 2004 (UTC)

Adding time date stamp
How does one add the time/date stamp (21:36, 3 Aug 2004 (UTC)) to a comment?


 * You can sign your name with three tildes, like this: . Adding a fourth tilde (like this: ~ ) will add a timestamp. Best wishes, [[User:Meelar|Meelar (talk)]] 23:22, 2004 Aug 3 (UTC)


 * And adding a fifth tilde (like this: ) just gives the timestamp without the username. --Diberri | Talk 23:05, Aug 4, 2004 (UTC)

Table margins
Is there any more wiki way of making a margin around a table than this:
 * style="margin:10px;"

I feel guilty whenever I use "style" on a wiki &mdash;<font color=#627562>siro <font color=#627562>&chi; <font color=#627562>o  08:44, Aug 4, 2004 (UTC)

Neamt
Why does the name not always appear correctly (toward the bottom of the page). Is this part of that five-use limit on the same template problem? Rmhermen 23:55, Aug 4, 2004 (UTC)


 * There was no semi-colon after the &#355 . Angela. 00:22, Aug 5, 2004 (UTC)

Using Public Domain Information
Hopefully this is the correct location to ask this...When taking information off of a public domain source (like a US government website or book) is it acceptable to copy the entire article? I have noticed many direct copies of certain government sources and I was unsure if this was considered "couth." Is it any different then taking a government image and using that? ~ScottyBoy900Q 05:24 5 Aug. 2004 (UTC)
 * Public domain means that there are no copyright controls at all. That means that the text can be copied exactly, without even a legal requirement to attribute.  For Wikipedia we prefer that the source be attributed, but other than that, there's nothing wrong with putting the material directly into a Wikipedia article.  I remember doing this myself on NOAA Corps. Isomorphic 05:45, 5 Aug 2004 (UTC)

trouble with a new town page
Tried to create Spalding, Idaho, but ended up creating Spalding Idaho, it won't let me move or change it to the same comma format that the other town pages that are in wiki...any help? Rhymeless 07:37, 6 Aug 2004 (UTC)


 * Most weird i created is just fine: Spalding,_Idaho you can edit it from that.--Ryan B. (Talk, contributions)  08:02, 6 Aug 2004 (UTC)

section creation link
on my userpage i have a link to add a comment, it creates a new section and all but it puts it at the bottom of tha page, any way to modify the link code so it adds it just above the top most section?--Ryan B. (Talk, contributions)  07:59, 6 Aug 2004 (UTC)


 * You could use <tt>&section=0</tt> instead of <tt>&section=new</tt> to have messages be left in the first section but that doesn't provide the same edit screen as <tt>&section=new</tt> does. I don't think there is a way to get that screen but not edit the last section. Angela. 00:46, Aug 9, 2004 (UTC)

Adding an external link to a list of Wiki pages.
I want to add an external link to the Lists of songs, but I'm not sure if that page is just for compiling Wiki-internal lists. I poked around the FAQ and the Manual of Style, but couldn't find an answer.
 * Depending on the nature of your external link, it might be appropriate on Lists of songs, which does in fact just link to a number of wikipedia articles containing lists. If it is a link to, for example, a collection of song lists, then you could just stick it in at the bottom under the heading == External link == . If it is a link to a single list of songs with a common theme, you might try to find a wikipedia list with the same theme and put it there. &ETH;&aring;&ntilde;&eta;&yuml;&szlig;&ocirc;&yacute; | Talk 19:05, 24 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Deleting Categories/Reverting Edits
First I would like to know how to delete categories/articles after they have been voted for deletion. Second, I want to know how to revert the edits made by vandals to the last correct version. Does it have to be done manually? Thanks, -Erolos 13:03, 6 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Only admins can delete articles from VfD - that's why they're known as the custodians, they take out the trash.

Anyone can revert vandalism. To revert, click the old version of the article you want to revert back to. Click edit this page and save. It'll warn you that you're overlaying the existing article, but if you're reverting vandalism, that's what you want to do.

If someone vandalized the article, but then other people made positive changes to the article, you have to revert it by hand. Salasks 15:52, Aug 6, 2004 (UTC)

Indented text within list
First look at Star_Trek_cultural_references. You will see that there is some quoted dialogue in the list, but that (HTML-wise) that text is between two lists. I would like that text to be inside the list item, so that it is all one list. Is there a way to have line breaks and indents within a list item? If not, what are my other options?

Do you mean like this? (see the source) - 23:46, 6 Aug 2004 (UTC) Lee (talk)
 * Item 1
 * Item 2
 * Some text
 * Item 3

Yes, thanks! -- Foolip 00:36, 7 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Help on editing an external link
Newbie question..... On page http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Industrial_robot#External_links

I added an external link...... http://www.intelligentactuator.com/products/SCARA/Default.asp

In the "External Links" space however the link is viewed as ...... [1]....... I intended the link to read [Intelligent Actuator]. Now I can find no way to edit the appearance of this link. Help please?


 * Use Intelligent Actuator for an external link. It will show up like this: Intelligent Actuator.  For more help see How to edit a page  &mdash;<font color=#627562>siro <font color=#627562>&chi; <font color=#627562>o  15:19, Aug 7, 2004 (UTC)

weirdness
Neither nor  make any changes when inserted in an article. Does anyone know what could be wrong? --Eequor 01:54, 8 Aug 2004 (UTC)


 * After some experimenting, it appears that the wiki only pays attention to if there is not a #REDIRECT preceding it, and completely ignores it otherwise.  So, valid locations for  are:
 * anywhere inside normal (non-redirect) pages
 * at the top of a redirect page
 * but not at the bottom of a redirect page
 * Very strange! --Eequor 02:03, 8 Aug 2004 (UTC)

I would imagine that this is parsed like any other kind of code, and that the #REDIRECT prevents things below it from being parsed because the 'attention' has been redirected. It would be like '10 END; 20 GOTO 10' in BASIC.

Reverting edits
Is there a quick way to revert an edit, or do you have to re-type? Thanks. Arcturus 15:28, 8 Aug 2004 (UTC)


 * Retype? Please tell me you haven't been retyping things!


 * See How to revert a page to an earlier version for instructions on how to revert edits. -- Cyrius|&#9998; 18:11, 8 Aug 2004 (UTC)

No - I haven't done any re-typing. I assumed reverting could be done but it wasn't clear how. Guess I didn't look hard enough! Anyway, off to 19 May where a load of errors have been added and I want to revert them. Thanks for your help. Arcturus 18:25, 8 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Can a published book be converted into a wikibook?
Can a published book (with copyright owner's permission) be converted into a wikibook? If so, how? JD

Well you could scan it, use character recognition software, then upload it. My experience of OCR is that it's quicker to retype as the software makes a lot of errors. Having said that I haven't used it in at least two years so things may have got better. Anyway it'll be a lot of work. If the copright owner gives permission presumably they have the text on computer themselves, so that would be a better way to go. Even then the formatting, adding of diagrams, contents pages etc all still have to be done by hand. theresa knott 18:20, 8 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Thank you for your prompt and helpful reply -- JD

Automated way to show User name and User talk?
(By the way, I moved the section on frames to the Village pump if you didn't see it in the page history)

I didn't see any automated way to use tildes to get one's user page and user talk links to automatically show up (along with the timestamp). Is there some way to do so; if so, it should be added somewhere in the help sections, and if not, could this be added by someone? Brettz9 15:57, 9 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Another automated idea would be to add a simple prefix (like a few tildes) for Wikipedia: prefixed items to show up without the "Wikipedia:".


 * Yes, there is. Go to "preferences", and you should see an option called "User data". Within that, there will be an option called "Your nickname (for signatures)". In that box, enter what you'd like your sig to be (for example, mine is Meelar (talk) . HTH, [[User:Meelar|Meelar (talk)]] 16:01, 2004 Aug 9 (UTC)


 * Excellent. Thanks.  [[User:Brettz9|Brettz9 (talk)]] 07:07, 10 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Weird redirect problem
So, I've done a ton of redirects using the format specified in the help, but for some bizarre reason, all of them work except this one:

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

any ideas why?

Luvcraft 16:29, 9 Aug 2004 (UTC)


 * I got it to work by actually copy/pasting the "×" into the page. This is generally considered bad practice in Wikipedia, but maybe there's no other way to get this one to work.  &mdash;<font color=#627562>siro <font color=#627562>&chi; <font color=#627562>o  17:02, Aug 9, 2004 (UTC)


 * Thanks! Luvcraft 19:38, 9 Aug 2004 (UTC)

ToC in "Out of the Silent Planet"
Recently I added headings to Out of the Silent Planet. Why don't I see a Table of Contents in that article? I do in other articles, and this appears to be independent of computer and browser (at least between MSIE and Mozilla).

It would even be kind of nice to have the ToC there, since I moved the old articles Hrossa, Seroni, and Pfifltriggi to the OotSP page. In the unlikely event that someone searches for "Hrossa" etc., that person might like to see "Hrossa" in the ToC of Out of the Silent Planet and be able to jump there directly.

I hope this is the right place to ask what is undoubtedly a newbie question.

--JerryFriedman 16:48, 9 Aug 2004 (UTC)


 * Fine place to ask, the reason there is no TOC is because you generally need 4 or more sections for a TOC, you can also add " " to any page to force one to be added.  &mdash;<font color=#627562>siro <font color=#627562>&chi; <font color=#627562>o  16:58, Aug 9, 2004 (UTC)


 * Thank you! --JerryFriedman 16:23, 10 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Citing Wikipedia and using its information
I have just discovered the Wikipedia as a source of information. Need to tangibly understand how I can use it's information at my website. I have read articles of Wikipedia Copyrights but still need to get a better feeling of what can and can't be done.


 * 1) Can you point me to some live examples of valid references, citing, quoting and excerpts at different websites using Wikipedia materials?
 * 2) If web site will include a group of excerpts or atricles from Wikipedia, can we provide one reference on the home page level or it has to be reference with every and each bit of borrowed information?
 * 3) If we take a piece of information and then modify it on our site, do we still need to provide some reference?

Thank you very much for expediting my learning curve. Boris Lifschutz


 * For a list of websites using Wikipedia content, see Mirrors and forks. We do ask that you follow the example of those in the 'high compliance' category. That should answer question 1; the remaining two I'll leave to those who know better. Best, [[User:Meelar|Meelar (talk)]] 00:45, 2004 Aug 10 (UTC)


 * There's also Citing Wikipedia, which may be of some help. Also, I believe the GFDL requires that you provide some attribution to Wikipedia if you take and modify its content. This allows the article's edit history to be preserved. --Diberri | Talk 01:00, Aug 10, 2004 (UTC)

time limit on relisting vfd
Is there an established time limit on re-listing articles for deletion? I am asking in reference to an article that has been listed for deletion 3 times in less than 7 months - in February, May and August. --Gene_poole 14:08, 10 Aug 2004 (UTC)


 * Gene, the best place to discuss this is the VfD talk page, where the policy is set out and changed. I don't think there's a set period, but repeated nominations (when an article, the circumstances surrounding it, and related wikipedia policies) haven't changed significantly in the interim seems (IMHO) to be something of a waste of people's time. -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 11:28, 11 Aug 2004 (UTC)

weird happenings
Is anyone else getting a "Retrieved from "(full URL of the page being viewed)"" line at the bottom of all Wikipedia pages? I am and I have no idea why. It's kinda creeping me out. Lachatdelarue 14:20, 10 Aug 2004 (UTC)


 * Press reload in your browser. It shouldn't be there anymore. It was just a temporary glitch that got into the cache. Angela. 21:00, Aug 10, 2004 (UTC)

Question on an image.
I did a search on your site for the Tower of Babel and found an image that I want to use for a job that I am working on for a not for profit organization. The painting is called the Tower of Babel by Pieter Bruegel. When I clicked on the image, I got a new page with a larger image. Under that image it says: This image has been released into the public domain by the copyright holder, or its copyright has expired. This applies worldwide. In an unrelated search, I found this same image at Getty Images under Rights Managed. What's the deal? Who's right? Will I get in trouble for using this image?

Matt Hannon


 * According to the source, it was scanned in by a theological seminary, and they made sure the book they scanned it from was public domain. So you should be in the clear using our image. IANAL, HTH. [[User:Meelar|Meelar (talk)]] 15:14, 2004 Aug 10 (UTC)


 * This information really needs to be on the image description page. -- Cyrius|&#9998; 15:18, 10 Aug 2004 (UTC)
 * One more piece of advice, Matt -- be sure to credit Pieter Brueghel the Elder with that painting, to differentiate him from the other painter of that name. :-) Jwrosenzweig 20:02, 10 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Sukhomlinsky article
Some time back I submitted an article to Wikipedia on V.A. Sukhomlinsky, using text from my own posted web pages at <members.optusnet.com.au/~achcockerill/>. To my knowledge I am the only English language writer to have published a study of Sukhomlinsky, and it is based on the thesis for which I was awarded my Ph.D.. My book has been well reviewed but not widely circulated (hence my web pages and my attempt to contribute to Wikipedia).

Someone has found that my article shares text with my web pages and has suspected a breach of copyright. I can assure you that both the text of the article and the text of the web pages are my own, and also that they are substantially different from the text of my book, (which is subject to copyright). The publishers of my book (which appeared in 1999) were very happy to see it promoted through my web site, and I am sure they would have no objection to my contributing an article to Wikipedia.

Yours sincerely,

Alan Cockerill e-mail: acockeri@bigpond.net.au


 * Thanks for bringing this up, Alan (and thanks also for your original submission). I assume you mean Sukhomlinsky.  I hope you'll understand that the person who tagged your submission was merely being cautious, as we have rather a lot of cases of some teenager or other grabbing someone else's copyright material and dumping it in wikipedia (causing legal woes for all concerned).  I recommend you do the following:
 * create an account (it takes about 10 seconds, it's free, and it makes it easier for folks to talk with you on an ongoing basis)
 * pop over to Copyright problems where you'll see an entry for Sukhomlinsky. If you reply to that entry, giving the info you've added above, I'm sure everything will be sorted out.
 * Thanks again, and I do hope you stay around. -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 10:57, 11 Aug 2004 (UTC)


 * Hmm, on looking further, it's no longer on the Copyright problems page. I've restored your original text.  I will shortly list the article for "cleanup", which means someone will come along and impose wikipedia's house formatting style, add wikilinks etc. (so don't be offended). -- Finlay McWalter |  Talk 11:04, 11 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Thanks for your quick and helpful response, Finlay. I have created an account. I think Wikipedia is a great initiative. - Alan Cockerill

Extracting article from Wikipedia
I would like to use some Wikipedia article as a resource in my Web Site. However, the Wikipedia format is two columns. Left column is standard, and right column is the article itself. Everything is the one piece of HTML module. I need just the article (second column).

What is the direct and efficient technique to extract the material needed without disturbing all HTML setting of the original.

Thank you very much. Boris Lifschutz


 * Why not just mention the article in your references section? See Citing Wikipedia for more information. If you really must have the full content of the article, then you should download a database dump and run the data mining bot on your own server. Be sure to use the article in accordance with the GFDL. Some sites have already done this successfully; see Mirrors and forks for some examples and more information. --Diberri | Talk 17:41, Aug 11, 2004 (UTC)

Other Language Versions of Existing Article
How can I create other language versions of an article that already exists in English?


 * Start by checking that the language you want exists at the complete list of language Wikipedias available. Then make sure the article doesn't exist on that language's Wikipedia. At that point, you can either write a completely new article, or translate the English one. -- Cyrius|&#9998; 20:45, 11 Aug 2004 (UTC)


 * Also, Translation has some good information on translating articles. Basically, just hop over to the desired Wikipedia (e.g. de.wikipedia.org for German) and create the translated article there. Then add interlanguage links from both the original page and translated page. --Diberri | Talk 20:55, Aug 11, 2004 (UTC)


 * And also, I think that user accounts are independent on each language wiki, so you will probably also want to sign up with a similar username on the other language version. -- Solipsist 19:49, 12 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Redirect a redirect?
Why can't you redirect from a redirect? Or can you? I tried to do it from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Why_Aren%27t_These_Pages_Copyedited where it says wikified to wikify, but that nullified the redirect some how, and the actual text appeared. Thanks


 * Double redirects are intentionally non-functional, largely to prevent the possibility of circular redirects. -- Cyrius|&#9998; 06:27, 12 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Numbering
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Serif_or_sans-serif This page lists Erich as number one when that is obviously not so, can or how is this remedied?


 * The indentation on the comments above Erich's vote was such that MediaWiki considered it a break between two numbered lists. I've fixed it, check the history to see how. -- Cyrius|&#9998; 06:28, 12 Aug 2004 (UTC)

how do I browse through entries by letter of the alphabet?
If I want to browse through the entries, for example, that begin with the letter 'c' - how do I do this? Thank you.


 * There's a (periodically updated) complete list at Special:Allpages. To start from the letter "C", use http://en.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Special:Allpages&from=C. --Diberri | Talk 21:07, Aug 12, 2004 (UTC)

Redirect between categories?
Is it possible to set one category to redirect to another category? I tried to get Category:U.S. state constitutions to redirect to Category:U.S. State constitutions by adding #REDIRECT Category:U.S. State constitutions, but when I go to Category:U.S. state constitutions it shows that page rather than redirecting to Category:U.S. State constitutions. Thanks. Mateo SA 19:08, 12 Aug 2004 (UTC)


 * No, you can't redirect categories. If you change the title of a category, you have to have the old one deleted. Angela. 20:16, Aug 12, 2004 (UTC)

Changing an improper redirect
I've noticed that the entry for "African American Vernacular English" -- the accepted term among linguists -- is headed "Ebonics," which is essentially a pop culture term, and sometimes a controversial one. The AAVE entry gets redirected to Ebonics, even though the actual entry starts out with the accepted term: "African-American Vernacular English (AAVE), also called Ebonics..." (emphasis added).

To redirect AAVE to Ebonics is like redirecting "Great Britain" to "England" or "photograph" to "picture." These pairs are understood synonymously in casual usage, but at the expense of obscuring their differing connotations or definitions.

So can I request that "African American Vernacular English" be the "official" heading for this entry?


 * For issues regarding specific articles, such as the one you raise here, it's generally best to leave your message on the corresponding "talk" page (usually reached via the "discussion" tab attached to a particular article). In this case that talk page would be Talk:Ebonics.  From reviewing the discussions there, it appears that others share your opinion (in fact, I believe the page has had, at various times, one title or the other).  Might I suggest you add your opinion there? -- Finlay McWalter |  Talk 22:32, 12 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Oddity with order of subcategories within categories
I don't recall this being mentioned before, but I'm sure it has. Surf on over to Category:Albums by artist, and you'll see that it contains 444 subcategories. But the alphabetical ordering is all strange: first you have the As and Bs which have had a particular sort imposed on them (i.e. Category:The Animals albums sorted as "Animals, The") .. then you have all the ones with unspecified sorting (i.e. most of them) .. and then you have C-Z of those which have been explicitly sorted. Why is it so? Is it because all the "unspecified" ones are being sorted into Ca.. due to the fact that they have "Category:" at the start? Does this imply that either ALL or NONE must have explicit sort keys? Ouch! &mdash;Stormie 00:05, Aug 13, 2004 (UTC)


 * This must be a bug. I just gave a couple more "The " bands specified keys, and they popped to the beginning.  This can't be what was intended.  Afer a couple tests, it seems it doesn't happen everywhere, either, perhaps just really long lists of subcatagories. Nevermind, I've confirmed this behaivior for other subcatagories now via tests i had to revert.   &mdash;<font color=#627562>siro <font color=#627562>&chi; <font color=#627562>o  01:03, Aug 13, 2004 (UTC)

Replacing an image - how?
I tried to replace the image of Olaus Rudbeckius Sr - - which I assume was a scan from a c. 1900 encyclopedia (1911 perhaps?). The Swedish pedia has a much better portrait, an oil painting from 1696. I tried uploading that image to the same filename but... I can't figure out how to make the newly updated image appear in the article, I had assumed it would just appear once the cache was cleared but it seems I was wrong. What else do I have to do? // OlofE 11:22, 13 Aug 2004 (UTC)


 * Looks like you have replaced the image just fine. The bit that doesn't get mentioned so often, is that the older image is probably still in your browser's cache. To see the new image, try pressing -F5 to force a cache reload (some browser may use a different command). -- Solipsist 11:36, 13 Aug 2004 (UTC)


 * I checked in another browser just to make sure that wasn't what happened... must have had the image in that cache too then. But if it looks ok to you I guess it should be fine - thanks! // OlofE 13:59, 13 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Move page
It appears that the formatting of the Special Page "Move Page" is stuffed up. Does an admin want to fix it? - Ta bu shi da yu 11:46, 13 Aug 2004 (UTC)


 * It looks alright to me? What exactly is wrong with it and which browser are you using? Angela. 13:46, Aug 13, 2004 (UTC)

Watchlist Not Working
I don't know if anyone else is having this problem, but I can't remove any pages from my watchlist from the watchlist page itself. Also, none of the buttons changing the "time elapsed" variable actually work, it is forever stuck at 3 days. StellarFury 14:53, 13 Aug 2004 (UTC)


 * This has already been reported as a bug at sourceforge. Angela. 15:16, Aug 13, 2004 (UTC)


 * Yeah. But what about the indirect page removal thing? StellarFury 16:05, 13 Aug 2004 (UTC)


 * That was related to the same bug and is now fixed. Angela. 16:00, Aug 14, 2004 (UTC)

Vertical Bar
Is there a way to type the vertical bar (|)? I know in DOS and BASICA you could hit "alternate" and type the ASCII code in, but I tried that here and it hasn't worked. I've been cutting and pasting it so far, a laborious method. PedanticallySpeaking 17:12, Aug 13, 2004 (UTC)


 * On my qwerty keyboard, you just hit "shift" and backslash (?--anyway, the key right above "enter). HTH, [[User:Meelar|Meelar (talk)]] 17:14, 2004 Aug 13 (UTC)


 * There's a few keymaps that don't have pipe, or put them in some silly place. PedanticallySpeaking: the behaviour you describe is implemented in the PC BIOS, and is emulated in the "Command Prompt" program of later versions of windows (I just checked, and windows XP still does it).  But normal windows programs (I'm assuming you're using a windows browser like IE or firewhateveritscalledthisweek) don't support this.  Instead, they want you to use the "Character Map" application (it's in "accessories" somewhere). Or (if you have later version of windows) you can use the "on screen keyboard" function too. All of which is just about as complex as the cut'n'paste you're doing now.  (trivial: oh, I just checked, and the x86 linux console also supports it too, and unsurprisingly it doesn't seem to work in any X-based terminal emulator). -- Finlay McWalter |  Talk 17:32, 13 Aug 2004 (UTC)


 * Alt codes ought to work even in Windows programs. Make sure num lock is on, in IE alt-arrows are used for navigation. Goplat 04:10, 14 Aug 2004 (UTC)


 * See Extended ASCII for details. See http://www.cotse.com/altcodes.html for a list of common ALT codes (or search for "Alt Codes" online for more). Catherine | talk

How to defends wikipedia against vandals/hackers ?
Hi,

a basic question:

Wikipedia is open. Open for all, open for evil people, too. How to secures wiki our work from these people? "Undo" is not any solution, when a hacker defaces all the time, day after day our articles on the wiki :(

Thanks In Advance WikiNewbie
 * Actually, "undo"ing (which we call reverting) is a lot more effective than you'd think. After all, there are a lot more of us than there are vandals.  So we just revert what they do, and eventually most of them get bored.  We are also able to block IPs if necessary. See Vandalism,Bans and blocks, and How to revert a page to an earlier version for more info.  Isomorphic 02:16, 14 Aug 2004 (UTC)


 * If you want to help stop vandals, check the Recent Changes page periodically. You can use the "hist" links to go straight to the page's history and compare edits to check for vandalism.
 * --Slowking Man 06:58, Aug 14, 2004 (UTC)


 * Pages can also be protected if they suffer continued vandalism, and we have other methods for dealing with vandalbots. Angela. 18:44, Aug 14, 2004 (UTC)


 * Can I ask if there are patterns that make it obvious if a page has been vandalised? While I'm on wiki in my persona of a person with a hobby of music, during work hours I work as a lecturer in a computer science department, with research interests in machine learning and text classification among other things. It might be an interesting research project (i.e. I could do this during work hours) to see if it's possible to train a program to recognise changes in pages that are due to vandalism, rather than proper edits. This would not be a simple thing to do, but the first probing question that I'd ask is, it is blindingly obvious when you view a page modification that it's a vandalism? If so, is this due to the content of the page, or other extra-page features, such as the pattern of usage by the ip address that did the vandalism? Ross-c 09:58, 19 Aug 2004 (UTC)


 * Maybe you could use that Bayesian probability trick that is used in some spam filters. This would pick up warning signs such as:
 * excessive use of capital letters
 * unusual use of exclamation marks and question marks
 * use of leet-like misspellings and buzzwords (like "lamer", "sux" etc.)
 * partial or total blanking of articles
 * out-of-context references to bodily wastes or sexual practices
 * Somehow your filter would need feedback to adjust its parameters. Maybe it could monitor the Recent Changes data to see which types of edit get quickly reverted, and which get successfully incorporated into subsequent edits. -- Heron 10:18, 19 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Mailing to Regional Wikipedians
The Meetup page suggests contacting Wikipedians by location when you establish a meetup. I found the Bay Area Wikipedians, but I haven't found a way to collectively send them a message. Is there a way to do this automatically; that is, without manually sending each one a message? Thanks, Peter Hendrickson 05:53, 14 Aug 2004 (UTC)
 * No, this is not possible, unless you can find all their emails/ICQs/MSNs at Instant Messaging Wikipedians and send them a mass message. User:Sverdrup 13:29, 16 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Neanderthals
Hi there,

I found this website via Google http://www.rdos.net/eng/asperger.htm whilst researching whether Neanderthals made a genetic contribution to us. Your site seems to think not

The following is an extract from Almas section on the above site.

--- The Neanderthal DNA evidence that was reported in the July 1997 Edition of Cell

Subsequent investigation of a second source of Neanderthal DNA confirmed these findings.³

---

What do you think?

Regards,

Perry
 * Perry: I have moved your question to the Talk page of Human evolution, where I think you will get a more focused response. For specific questions like this, the Help Desk is not the appropriate venue - perhaps the Reference desk might have been better?  As to whether you are qualified to change the page, that is not something that Wikipedia worries about! You can be pretty well assured that any edits that you make will be subject to a critical review, and (most) Wikipedians don't bite the newbies! The usual injunctions are create yourself a logon id and BE BOLD! Noisy 12:34, 14 Aug 2004 (UTC)

inconsistency?
I'm wondering why some simple expressions like $$10^{88}$$ is translated to straight HTML, and while others like $$10^{-32}\,s$$ are rendered as graphics (see Horizon problem). The result of this is very ugly. -- Pjacobi 09:23, 15 Aug 2004 (UTC)


 * math expressions are always translated to HTML if possible, to reduce load. The \, introduced is a common trick to force the tex parser to display it as png. Simplest solution is to remove the \,, since this is a math-bloc inside a text bloc. (Note: There is a preference regarding math rendering at Special:Preferences)User:Sverdrup 13:20, 16 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Where to report non-compliant mirrors?
I did look at Copies_of_Wikipedia_content_(low_degree_of_compliance) and Mirrors and forks but found those pages confusing. Not even clear whether new entries go topr bottom. Perhaps I just haven't look good enough? And BTW, my entry is TutorGig, returning this page for this Google Search. No mentioning of Wikipedia, GFDL or GNU, but own copyright. -- Pjacobi 14:01, 16 Aug 2004 (UTC)
 * You could post it at the preliminary investigations section on the Mirrors and forks although I haven't found that to be a functioning procedure. Rmhermen 14:45, Aug 16, 2004 (UTC)

On TutorGig, the index page reproduces some Wikipedia text without attribution but the actual article page has the backlink and GFDL. Rmhermen 14:56, Aug 16, 2004 (UTC)
 * Stupid me. I thought they only ever display these index pages, no actual content. -- Pjacobi 15:34, 16 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Efficient way to deal with someone who, while they mean well, is not helping Wikipedia?
Recently, I ran across an article that, while the author thinks he is doing a good thing by maintaining it, is garbage. He absolutely cannot be reasoned with. Is there a speedy way of dealing with this? The article in question is Holomovement. –Floorsheim 15:01, 16 Aug 2004 (UTC)


 * I see what you mean about the article. I don't know of an "efficient" way to deal with it, if by "efficient" you mean "rapid".  These things take time.  Usually on Wikipedia, the nuttier contributors turn out to have the shortest attention spans, while those who really care tend to hang around for longer.  If this contributor causes problems on a wider scale, then someone will block him.  Unless the Holomovement article is vitally important to you, you could try turning your attention to another article, and come back later to see if the problem is still there.  -- Heron 15:18, 16 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Are you telling me that the official Wikipedia policy on dealing with issues such as these is to ignore them and hope they go away? –Floorsheim 16:21, 16 Aug 2004 (UTC)


 * No. ;-) --Heron 19:07, 16 Aug 2004 (UTC)


 * First off, from what I can tell from google, this topic deserves to be in Wikipedia, although this is admittedly my first exposure to it. So  it should be improved.  The best way I can think of dealing with it is to improve it as best you can by being bold.  Don't kill yourself over researching a topic you care little for, but move unqualified statements in the articles over to talk, and ask that they be fixed before reinsertion.  Remove non-neutral prose, and if there is no way to NPOV it without citing sources, just move it to talk.  I've made a few edits, but will be gone for a few days.  I'll check on it again when I get back to see if I can help improve it more.  Worst comes to worst, check out Dispute resolution.  &mdash;<font color=#627562>siro <font color=#627562>&chi; <font color=#627562>o  16:52, Aug 16, 2004 (UTC)


 * He was also very belligerent in the editing of the Ensenada article, going so far as to revert changes using a misleading edit summary . I'm also not a fan of this guy's editing style.  - DropDeadGorgias (talk) 17:04, Aug 16, 2004 (UTC)

e+tilde on Wikipedia
Many languages have phonemic nasalized vowels, and the standard orthography for writing these is adding a tilde above the vowel. No problem for 'ã' and 'õ' (these are also used in Portuguese), but I can't find the e+tilde in Wikipedia:Special Characters.

A workaround or solution might be the one already used at, for example, Fon: that is, indicate nasalization on the vowel by writing a nasal after the vowel. But I don't like that one very much, since it causes inconsistency.

So my question comes down to: where can I find e+tilde?

strangeloop 18:24, 16 Aug 2004 (UTC)


 * Try e&#771; (stolen from IPA in Unicode) :) - 18:39, 16 Aug 2004 (UTC) Lee (talk)


 * Cool, why didn't I find that? Thanks also for the fast answer. By the way, I like the talk from your sig, is it possible to automate that or do you add it manually? strangeloop 18:43, 16 Aug 2004 (UTC)


 * In your preferences, your "nickname" is inserted between   (for you) and , so I've set my nickname to be "Lee]] ''' (talk) " (with extra closing and opening brackets).  Take a look at [[Wikipedia:Village Pump#Sig Escalation for a few more extravagant variations. - 19:01, 16 Aug 2004 (UTC) Lee  (talk)


 * Ah, neat! Sorry for just ripping your idea for now (I always thought the 'Talk' was too big behind the username). I'm inspired to try some other things. Strangeloop (talk)  23:44, 16 Aug 2004 (UTC)


 * Don't worry, I also "borrowed" it from someone else, not so long ago. - 23:53, 16 Aug 2004 (UTC) Lee (talk)


 * No&#771;w&#771; y&#771;o&#771;u&#771; s&#771;e&#771;e&#771;, ho&#771;w&#771; the&#771; Sp&#771;a&#771;m&#771;m&#771;e&#771;r&#771;s&#771; do&#771; i&#771;t!. -- Pjacobi 20:26, 16 Aug 2004 (UTC)
 * LOL!

Two recently submitted items of mine (B. Roy Frieden)
Dear Sirs,

Would you please delete the item B.R. Frieden? It has been hanging in a limbo state (rejected by not completely removed) for sometime now.

Also, would you please fully list the item B. Roy Frieden? It doesn't pop up directly when requested, but is in the list that follows the blurb.

Thank you, B. Roy Frieden


 * Hello. Wikipedia is not the appropriate place to create self-titled articles about yourself. However, you could create a user account and use your user page to discuss yourself and your accomplishments. -  T&#949;x  &#964;  ur&#949;  20:30, 16 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Character "&#263;"
Trying to put the character "&#263;" into an article. (A small "c" with an accute accent over it.)

There's an existing article about Ivo Robić, the Croatian singer, that I've been editing. Throughout the article the ć is shown by a square box and some numbers that are probably the ASCII terminology for this character. When I type ć into the edited text area it shows up correctly. When I save the page, the dumb box is displayed. What can I do to fix this? I've been going through the Windows Character sets but can't find anything useful there.

Yup, the same thing happens here with this text.... Hayford Peirce 20:28, 16 Aug 2004 (UTC)


 * It is showing up fine for me, perhaps it is the font your browser is using? porge 00:03, 25 Aug 2004 (UTC)

My article was removed for copyright
I tried to post information from my website on "Kukla, Fran and Ollie," but it was removed due to fear of copyright violations.

None of the material on my website is copyrighted - I wrote it myself. How do I post it on Wikipedia without having it removed? Did anyone save what I posted earlier?

Mark

kfo@ultinet.net


 * First -- create an account, it's quick and easy. The article, Kukla, Fran and Ollie, is now listed at Copyright problems. Go there and explain that you are the author of the website and the copyright holder of the text. All of the page history is saved, so it is easy to restore the article. For future reference, it is good to cite your sources and using the edit summary to explain where the info in each edit comes from. Welcome to Wikipedia! User:Sverdrup 01:39, 17 Aug 2004 (UTC)


 * The listing is at August 13th. You have the capacity to roll the article back yourself - go to the article, hit the history tag, find the version you want and then edit it. But as Sverdrup notes, you'd do well to state on the article's talk page that you run the website, otherwise someone else'll rediscover the alleged copyright violation & blank the page again. Welcome, and thatnks for the contribution. (goes off to find out who or what "Kukla, Fran and Ollie" are..) --Tagishsimon

How can I withdraw?
It seemed like a good idea at the time, about two weeks ago, when I created an account. But now after just one significant experience with Wikipedia, I realize I made a big mistake. It doesn't work for me. I would now like to do all I can to delete my account and everything I've done with Wikipedia, and just leave all of this to wherever it's going, without me. Is there some way I can do this without some colossal hairball of annoying trivia?


 * It's a shame you're leaving. The easy way is just to leave, though if you want, you can get your user and talk pages deleted. You cannot "rescind" your contributions, however. Dysprosia 02:50, 17 Aug 2004 (UTC)
 * He did ask for deletion, and I've done it, FWIW. Niteowlneils 03:54, 17 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Thanks. I believe it would be worthwhile to explain more prominently in the Wikipedia:Why create an account? page the limitations and difficulties in reversing one's decision to create an account in the first place. Had I seen something like that, I'd probably have thought twice and thus perhaps avoided the bad taste left with me regarding Wikipedia. Edson C. Hendricks 03:57, 17 Aug 2004 (UTC)
 * Sorry to hear you've had a bad experience here. I've been fiddling around here for about 2 months now and enjoyed myself greatly.  There's one cranky character who's interfered in one of the articles that I've worked on who's sort of a pain in the neck but that's been the only annoyance I've had and it's a pretty minor one.  Could I ask what the problems are that you've encountered?  It would be useful for other Wikipedians to know so that maybe they can be addressed and alleviated for future users.  All the best, Hayford Peirce 04:11, 17 Aug 2004 (UTC)


 * The problem seems to have been with Marfa light and is discussed on Talk:Marfa light. From what I glean, Mr. Hendricks has considerable knowledge of this phenominon and was unhappy with edits made to work in progress on that page by other (or another) poster(s). In fairness to Wikipedia, the foot of each edit page does say, in bold, If you do not want your writing to be edited mercilessly and redistributed at will, do not submit it, but I grant that in a situation in which you are convinced of the goodness of your words, and deeply unconvinced by the changes effected by some interloping other wikipedian, changes can equate to a "bad experience". And that probably spins out into a couple of issues: 1) collaborative editing is not for everyone and 2) there are issues to do with objectivity/factual accuracy, versus the extent to which you're prepared to argue your corner, versus the issue of the difficulty of achieving consensus when dealing with anything, least of all "paranormal" episodes. My opinion, FWIW, is that the discussion at Talk:Marfa light speaks volumes. --Tagishsimon

OK, here I am again, Edson C. Hendricks, I can be reached at 858-273-1194, but no longer via email because I have cancelled my regristration with Wikipedia. Evidently I need to stress that I am making no overall judgment against Wikipedia, besides that it just isn't for me. I really wanted to work out the disagreements with this so-called "editor," and during the prior editing of the article I did all I could to try to understand his points and accommodate them. When things got to where I could no longer be associated with his enforced views, which are plainly NPOV, I tried to be as polite with him as he could be. I did my best to see if we could work this out quietly via email, which he rejected. Rather than to reply to any of my email, he preferred to attack me with a load of his false NPOV claims, right out there on the discussion page, still there to be seen. I simply could not let that go by without replying harshly, and I can't accept this as any normal way to proceed. Perhaps this was an aberration, or perhaps it's normal for Wikipedia, I don't know. I'd only been trying to work with Wikipedia for about a week or two, but what about that "tolerance for newcomers?" In any case, based on my experience, just for me, this looks like a gigantic asylum run entirely by the lunatics. But again, that's my personal perspective based sadly on my own experiences, not any overall judgment. I will acknowledge that I didn't give Wikipedia any more chances that this one. I am a serious scientific researcher, and I will admit that I tend not to suffer fools gladly. I doubt I will be back here to reply to anything more, so farewell. If anyone wants to reach me via email about anything, with at least some likelihood, they could try random@edh.net.

Using templates next to tables
When using templates with transparent backgrounds next to tables (see Sirius Black), the template overlaps the table. How can I make the template end when the table starts? -Frazzydee 02:52, 17 Aug 2004 (UTC)
 * FWIW I believe this is an IE bug, as there problem doesn't show up using Mozilla or Opera. As a work-around, you could try moving the table below the template. Otherwise maybe someone who really knows HTML knows of some way to tweak the template so that it copes with this IE quirk better. Niteowlneils 20:05, 17 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Which type of deletion request is correct?
I came across the article for List of Presidents of the General Conference of the Seventh-day Adventist Church and I decided to expand it. After doing so, I saw that the name for the article was not appropriate for the new content, so I created a new article, President of the General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists, moved the content from the first article to the second article, and added a redirect line to the first article. This was reversed by an administrator who commented that I should use the move system instead. I had not known about the move system, so the course of action that I took seemed logical at the time.

After learning about the move function, I tried it, but I was unable to do so due to there already being an article located there. So, I marked the page for a speedy deletion, and I was informed that the page did not meet the requirements for speedy deletion. The admin who denied the deletion request said that I should look into requesting a different type of deletion request. What is the best course of action for me to take? Thanks, Rascalb 07:28, 17 Aug 2004 (UTC)
 * I believe the request for speedy deletion was correct. Perhaps the admin didn't see your comment on the talk page or didn't understand that you had created it while trying to move the page. Or perhaps the admin meant to dispute the reasoning behind the move but forgot to explain his concerns. Speedy deletion is to be used for uncontroversial moves only. I did not see a great need to move the page as it is primarily a list. Rmhermen 12:37, Aug 17, 2004 (UTC)
 * The reason that I thought that the article should be moved is that I think the article should be expanded to talk more about the other aspects of the presidency. All I had time to do then was to complete the list of presidents. Rascalb 18:30, 17 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Protecting against dead links?
Hi. Are there any mechanisms used by Wikipedia to protect against link rot? (i.e. external links in the wikipedia where the page they point to no longer exists)?

Cheers,

Ross-c


 * No more than there are guards against our content going stale. We pretty much rely on users to make sure things are updated, so if you come across a dead link, replace/remove it. For instance, when I write about politicians (e.g. Jack Ryan (Senate candidate) I try to include a Google cached version of their homepage, because it'll be taken down after the campaign. A little sense helps, but aside from that there's nothing. [[User:Meelar|Meelar (talk)]] 14:33, 2004 Aug 17 (UTC)

Hmmmm.... Would there be interest in my writing a 'bot to do these checks? I could write something that would download a random page every once in a while (e.g. once per ten seconds), extract links, and check that the links were accessible. If a link was inaccessable (and remained so for a few days), then the bot could make an entry on a Wiki page somewhere giving the details of the link, so that a human could go and have a look. I've done something similar myself previously, so am aware of the technical requirements. There wouldn't be any necessity for any changes to be made to the main Wiki software, as I could simply use the standard forms to update the wikipedia page with the list of bad links. Or, I could make that page external to Wikipedia. I could host the bot myself on machines here (University of Westminster).

Ross-c 15:10, 17 Aug 2004 (UTC)


 * Sure, that would probably be useful. See Bots, and you might want to mention this on Village pump as well. HTH, and best wishes--I for one would find this useful. Yours, [[User:Meelar|Meelar (talk)]] 15:14, 2004 Aug 17 (UTC)

Is there a PDA friendly link to Wikipedia?
A few months back I could get a appropriately formatted view of Wikipedia on my Tre0600 by going to http://wikipedia.com. It appearted to me that my incoming request was assesed as coming from a PDA and something like a WAP version of the page was served up to my PDA. Now I get the full website which is poorly handled by my little Blazer browser. Is there a different link I should be using now from my PDA to get a "lite" version of Wikipedia? If you have the spot on answer -- the URL to use -- then please email to mailto:harrybrindley@mac.com


 * You can download the database in TomeRaider format for offline browsing on a PDA, but there isn't currently an online version for PDAs. See TomeRaider database. If you speak German, there are more details at de:Wikipedia:Für PDAs. Angela. 20:26, Aug 17, 2004 (UTC)

Keyboard shortcuts question
Hello! Is it possible to deactivate somehow the keyboard shortcuts which take you to specific pages? I tend to use Ctrl-e and Ctrl-t when editing (for end of line and 'twiddle', under OS X), but these have the effect of jumping to another page. I've lost some large-ish edits this way.

I know I could use a separate editor, but that's not so neat. Any thoughts/suggestions/comments appreciated! PMcM 17:03, 17 Aug 2004 (UTC)


 * Yes, you can deactivate them by adding to <tt>ta = false;</tt> to User:Pmcm/monobook.js. See User styles for further instructions. Angela. 20:19, Aug 17, 2004 (UTC)


 * Thanks! That's exactly the sort of thing I'd been looking for. PMcM 22:55, 17 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Taking material from Wikipedia in other languages
Hi. At present my main contribution to Wikipedia is adding entries describing New Zealand, Japanese, and other musicians with whom I am aquainted. I had a look at the Japanese Wikipedia pages for some of the artists I have edited entries for, and there is some information over there that I hadn't put into my own entries.

Since the Japanese Wikipedia is also a Wikipedia, surely there should be no copyright issue in my taking information from the Japanese entries, and including it in my English (language) entries.

no?

Ross-c 20:11, 17 Aug 2004 (UTC)


 * No problems there. Feel free to transwiki.  Also, make sure that you include transwiki links at the bottom of the page (for example, if you're on the english article for Apple, you'll want to put Manzana at the bottom of the page to indicate the presence of a foreign language article on another wiki. -- DropDeadGorgias (talk) 20:49, Aug 17, 2004 (UTC)


 * Text is no problem. With images on other wikipedias you have to keep an eye out for the copyright status, but I usually copy them too, and add a transwiki link. -- Chris 73 | Talk 04:35, 18 Aug 2004 (UTC)


 * Thanks, but I must admit that I don't now how to add a transwiki link when the titles of the pages on the japanese site are not in the roman alphabet. 158.152.71.202 20:15, 18 Aug 2004 (UTC)


 * I believe that when you submit unicode characters in wikipedia's edit box, they are converted to the escaped ASCII characters, but i'm not sure. I think that you can cut and paste the titles from the Japanese wikipedia directly into the edit box. - DropDeadGorgias (talk) 20:57, Aug 18, 2004 (UTC)


 * Hmmm.... I'll give this a go. I haven't used the 'sandbox' before, so might see if I can experiment with this in the sandbox. Ross-c 09:53, 19 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Fix my Federation, please (NOW SOLVED - thanks)
Can someone fix what I've done here: I guess it will be an article move. I needed to do accented Es in the article title but could only find the HTML code for it, not the ALT-xxx code. The article is here. What it should look like can be seen here: Gymnastics - second paragraph. Appreciate it if someone can sort it out, cos I dunno how to fix it. --[[User:Bodnotbod| bodnotbod »  .....TALK Q uietly  )  ]] 21:42, Aug 17, 2004 (UTC)
 * Seems to be fixed now. Angela. 22:57, Aug 17, 2004 (UTC)
 * Marvellous stuff. Thank you. --[[User:Bodnotbod| bodnotbod  »  .....TALK Q uietly  )  ]] 23:06, Aug 17, 2004 (UTC)

Damn. Actually there's more problems. Firstly I made a mistake and need the article to be moved to Fédération Internationale de Gymnastique (there's an 'e' I missed at the end of International (not entirely my fault, I was clicking on someone elses red link)... I know how to move an article but I know I'll meet the same accent(?) problem if I do it with this.

It would also be good to have redirects from Federation Internationale de Gymnastique (no accents) and International Federation of Gymnastics. Again, I know how to do redirects, but presumably I'll suffer if I try it with HTML special characters in all of those.

Alternatively someone could put the alt-??? thing here for the character I need and then i should be able to do it myself... maybe. --[[User:Bodnotbod| bodnotbod »  .....TALK Q uietly  )  ]] 23:13, Aug 17, 2004 (UTC)


 * assuming you aren't using a really crappy browser, you can just cut'n'paste the "é" yourself, as a regular letter. -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 23:19, 17 Aug 2004 (UTC)


 * Actually I do use a really crappy browser, but you can still cut n'paste it. So...oh.  That should work then.  Damn.  I was hoping to have an excuse.  Right, I'll have a go.  Not feeling confident, mind. --[[User:Bodnotbod| bodnotbod  »  .....TALK Q uietly  )  ]] 00:12, Aug 18, 2004 (UTC)


 * OK, think I've sorted all that out now. --[[User:Bodnotbod| bodnotbod »  .....TALK Q uietly  )  ]] 00:22, Aug 18, 2004 (UTC)

subcategory not disappearing
This may well be a bug, but I thought I'd better ask to see if I did something wrong first: Category:Early punk groups still lists Category:Adam & the Ants as a subcategory, even though that doesn't specify the first category anymore (in fact the category is empty now). Rvollmert 11:56, 2004 Aug 18 (UTC)


 * It was probably just a caching problem. It looks ok to me. Sometimes categories just take a while to update. Angela. 12:55, Aug 18, 2004 (UTC)


 * Looks ok now. Thanks! I thought there might be a problem because two other subcategories disappeared right-away yesterday, and this one was still there today. Rvollmert 13:23, 2004 Aug 18 (UTC)