Wikipedia:Help desk/Archives/2006 November 12

= November 12 =

Reporting to Police Department
Dear Sir,

I would like to report to the Police Department in Lome-Togo about two person [censored], they cheat me and take the money around US$6,000.00.

I requesting you to please tell me the address, telephone numbers of Police department in Lome-Togo.

I shall be very thankful to your for that.

Regards, Khalid Jawed.


 * Um.. This is the Wikipedia help desk, for help in using Wikipedia. Try finding the phone number in your telephone index. Michael Billington (talk • contribs) 00:43, 12 November 2006 (UTC)

question
FayssalF

Hello and thank you for taking my question. As advised in your various media, I have tried to contact the admin listed at the top to ask why I have been blocked. There seems to be no way to make contact. I have read through eveything on your site. I have been to his page, and there is not contact link.

I am an AOL user. I wish to be unblocked please, and the instructions are a little foggy. I have done all I can to make sense of it. I don't understand why I have been blocked.

This is important to me, as I am hoping to upload articles on dowsing with a pendulum. I am a researcher and a pendulist. I host the largest online dowsing forum on the internet. I have contrinuted an enormous amount of free material on this topic.

It may be that I misunderstood the boundaries here, but I mean no harm. Simply wish to serve. Sheree Rainbolt-Kren 00:49, 12 November 2006 (UTC) Thank you Sheree Rainbolt-Kren

ps: I have no idea how to enter the info below you are asking for.
 * If you are an AOL user, you may have been caught in someone else's block (AOL uses a range of IP addresses). Typically AOL proxies, if blocked, are only done so for about 15 minutes at max. Have you waited? Also note that contributing material that you personally are involved with may constitute original research or be ridden with POV. --Wooty Woot? &#124; contribs 05:25, 12 November 2006 (UTC)

Subpage viewer
How do you find all the subpages of a page? T e ckWizTalk Contribs# of Edits 00:55, 12 November 2006 (UTC)
 * Go to Quick index, type the name of the article in the boxy thingy, and the results will start with that page, then all the subpages of it. &mdash;The Gr e at Llama talk 00:56, 12 November 2006 (UTC)

what is the Bibliography for Wikipedia Amendment one?

Help Me
(moved here from WP:RD/M by hydnjo talk 01:19, 12 November 2006 (UTC))

I'm usinig my neghbors computer because I was blocked. The reason was that my username is Eet Shiit. But that's my real name. Please can somebody unblock me??--216.164.199.84 01:01, 12 November 2006 (UTC)
 * Instructions for how to request an unblock should be presented when you try to edit a page from your blocked account. If you real name does happen to be Eet Shiit, I would suggest you come up with something else.  Since you clearly read and write in english, you must understand why that's true.  Cheers. Dina 01:09, 12 November 2006 (UTC)
 * Of course I understand my name looks like a curse; this happens often in real life! But I think it's racist for me to have to use a false name, while all the people with European names can use their real names. --216.164.199.84 01:11, 12 November 2006 (UTC)
 * It's not racist. If I were editing on the Chinese Wikipedia and discovered that my name was an insult there, I would alter my user name.  It is simply respectful to other users.  And what is the cultural origin of this real name of yours? Dina 01:23, 12 November 2006 (UTC)
 * Note to responders: see this. --hydnjo talk 01:29, 12 November 2006 (UTC)

Userbox templates
I have made a user box but i am not quite sure how to upload it into a template so it can be easily added to user profiles. I checked to whole article on userboxes but I am still confused. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Phoenix741 (talk • contribs) 21:49, 11 November 2006.


 * I would not recommend this yet, a while back there was a mass deletion campaign on all pov and pointless userboxes. Try suggestin it here first. - Tutmosis  03:25, 12 November 2006 (UTC)


 * ok so lets say people think my idea is a good one, and one is made, and everything, how would i up load itPhoenix741 03:44, 12 November 2006 (UTC)


 * You would put into Template:Place name here article, changing 'name' with what you call your userbox. - Tutmosis  03:59, 12 November 2006 (UTC)


 * ok Thank you very muchPhoenix741 04:02, 12 November 2006 (UTC)


 * Actually you'd put it at Template:User place name here. --WikiSlasher 09:02, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

What Does style="width:12em" Do?
Thanks.100110100 05:21, 12 November 2006 (UTC)
 * That's HTML code; do you have a specific example you could show us? -Patstuart(talk)(contribs) 05:50, 12 November 2006 (UTC)
 * That's CSS, it sets the width of an element to 12ems (I'm not sure what em is, all I know is that it works :)) --wj32 talk 08:11, 12 November 2006 (UTC)

From Brenda
I've been trying upload images to my page and now I can't get rid of them. How can I delete images? Thanks, Brenda —Preceding unsigned comment added by Bsherry (talk • contribs)
 * If you want to delete an article or image that you have created, add this exact code to the top of the page: db-g7. Patstuart(talk)(contribs) 05:49, 12 November 2006 (UTC)

Is there a place I can go to ask a few people their opinion on an editing dispute?
I have thought about asking the WP:AMAREQ for assisstance, but I don't want to wait a week, and I'm not sure the dispute has become severe enough yet to warrant bringing them into things. However, I am very curious as to other people's opinions on the dispute I'm currently in. Is there a help desk for asking volunteers to take a look at your dispute and tell you their opinion?

Part of me feels that this dispute is only happening because I've encountered a particularly stubborn editor, not because the nature of my edit is questionable. This is why I feel that seeking the opinions of other people (whom assumably would be more competent) may help resolve the dispute. EvaXephon 06:26, 12 November 2006 (UTC)
 * There is a formal Dispute resolution process. Apart from this, there is also a Mediation Cabal -- Lost (talk) 06:28, 12 November 2006 (UTC)


 * Tjere is also a third party opinion thingo somewhere. Viridae Talk 06:39, 12 November 2006 (UTC)
 * Yes, thats part of the dispute resolution process -- Lost (talk) 06:45, 12 November 2006 (UTC)
 * I would try WP:VPP - the "village pump" for policy issues. -Patstuart(talk)(contribs) 07:24, 12 November 2006 (UTC)

What Does &lt;div class="references-small"&gt; Do?
Thanks.100110100 08:35, 12 November 2006 (UTC)
 * It's mainly for use with the &lt;references/&gt; tag -- see WP:FOOT for some more information about that one. Luna Santin 08:47, 12 November 2006 (UTC)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Contiminated_wetlands_at_Long_Lake.jpg
The following image won't upload on the main article 'Chemetco.'

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Contiminated_wetlands_at_Long_Lake.jpg

I've correctly attributed the picture and chosen appropriate licence for it (I am the author both of this photo and of the accompanying article,) yet it won't upload.

Have I missed something obvious? The pic is highly relevant to the accompanying text, so I'm keen to get it up there as soon as poss.

Many thanks in advance,

Astral

(Alistair Siddons)
 * Took me a couple of minutes to work this out too. You spelt the image title wrong, as "contiminated instead of contaminated. And then tried to link it from the article with the correct spelling. I changed it so it links from the article, but you may want to reupload the image on a page with the correct spelling and ask for the first to be deleted. Trebor 12:15, 12 November 2006 (UTC)

Hi
is anyone there? Sudhirkumarlal 12:51, 12 November 2006 (UTC)
 * Yes. Trebor 14:08, 12 November 2006 (UTC)

As a Reference
I have just come across an article (Henry Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston) with notes. Further down, the article lists one reference (article also contains notes):

* This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition, a publication now in the public domain.

If the article incorporated text from the set of encyclopedias, would it have been proper to have listed the areas used from the reference and placed notes at the particular points within the article? I think notes would have been more appropriate (a full descriptive citation of the source).

Therefore, Notes area could be incorporated into the Reference area. Do you agree with the above?

Regards, LarryBH

Adding a word
I was wanting to add my band on wikipedia. Wasnt sure how to go about it.
 * Please see our notability guidelines for bands. If your band is not notable per our guidelines, the article will likely get deleted. To add a new article, you need to first create an account. Then you can simply create the article. See Help:Starting a new page. You might also look at Your first article and How to write a great article. -- Lost (talk) 15:04, 12 November 2006 (UTC)

Blocking Users
I watch several pages for content and once in a while I get people that change the data to mess around or plainly valdalize the articles, how can I report them or block them from making further edits?
 * Wikipedia has an official policy for dealing with vandalism at WP:Vandalism. Steps for handling problems are mentioned there. If the problem becomes too overwhelming with several IPs in vandalism, you can request the page be protected at Requests for Page Protection.-Patstuart(talk)(contribs) 18:51, 12 November 2006 (UTC)

Family Tree
Hello I am doing my family tree and looking for my G Grandad Isaac Harris. I want to know if I am on the right track for his Army Regiment, all I have on him is he was in the Royal Southern Reserves Regiment1890/1900 and I cannot find anything about that Regiment.

Any help please from David, thank you
 * I suggest posting your question to the Reference Desk, in this case, the one for Humanities. -Patstuart(talk)(contribs) 18:48, 12 November 2006 (UTC)
 * I wouldn't bother with that, instead I'd contact a genealogical service. RefDesk is unlikely to be any help in this sort of situation. --Wooty Woot? &#124; contribs 18:50, 12 November 2006 (UTC)

Help for people with Phobias?
Hello, I was just wondering if it's possible to turn the photos off.

The reason I ask is because I have a phobia off a animal and I would like to no more about it.

A feature that would allow you to turn the photos off would help a lot of people.

Sincerely,

Swa.Swaddicott 18:41, 12 November 2006 (UTC)
 * There should be a way to turn images off in your browser. You could also read the article's source text by clicking Edit this page and doing that, or editing the page and removing the image then clicking Show Preview. --Wooty Woot? &#124; contribs 18:48, 12 November 2006 (UTC)

Category?
How can I put my contribution to a certain category? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Karlhegel (talk • contribs)
 * Simply link to the category as you would to a normal article. See this for further details. Dylan Lake (t·c· ε ) 19:43, 12 November 2006 (UTC)

Need some help with this new user...
This new user, User:Helical Rift, was recently involved in a three-revert dispute. You can find the details on his talk page, but in short a more experienced user stepped in an HR got aggravated at him (as new users with no idea of policy are wont to do) and instead of patching things up civilly, he got angry, made Anti-semitic comments, and has decided to leave. I tried to reason with him but he's stubborn (of course). Does anyone have any ideas to help out, or mind trying to reason with him? Thanks.  Dooms Day34  9  19:40, 12 November 2006 (UTC)

challenging objectivity
I've seen that there are several pages in which the objectivity of the thread has been challenged. How does one go about challenging the objectivity of a page?


 * Perhaps you are refering to one of these templates? If you think an article is not objective, or "violating NPOV", place the corresponding template on the top of the article. After you do that, create a new topic on the article's talk page listing why you think the article is not objective.—Mitaphane talk 22:53, 12 November 2006 (UTC)

Where are the authors from? What are their native languages?
Hello,

I know that there are 1.5 million or so articles in the English Wikipedia, and also the counts in other languages. I have also managed to track down the numbers of authors and admins for the various languages, the ratios of articles to admins, etc. That's all well and good. What I want to know more about is: where do the authors (in English or any language) come from, geographically?

What makes the English version so large? And what makes the Spanish one so, relatively small, or the Chinese one? Why does the the Dutch language Wikipedia have so many articles, given that only about 20 million people speak Dutch?

It seems to me that this would be relatively easy to capture, via IP addresses of authors/editors, and very interesting to know. Is this a cultural issue? Do English speaking cultures (US, Canadian, UK, Australian, etc.) have a more volunteerism oriented flavor? Or is this just a function of the popularity of English as a second language (we're not that huge as a first language, certainly.)

Consider my question about Dutch speakers, above. Virtually all Dutch speakers also speak English. If I were a (first-language) Dutch speaker and Wikipedian, would I prefer to make contributions to the Dutch version, or use my English to add to the bigger project and have a much greater audience? The same goes for speakers of most West European languages, to some extent, certainly the Scandinavian ones, or German, etc., if not the Romance languages.

Of course, this may just be an access issue, closely bound to availability of connections (maybe especially broadband connections) in various countries. But I'm not sure. Korean has many more speakers than Dutch, and just as much or more broadband penetration (at least in the very populous Republic of Korea (South) but not much more than 10% as many articles as the Dutch language version.

Has anyone looked at this before? Could somebody at a higher level than I help me get at data relating to this?

Many thanks

Prairie Dad 20:16, 12 November 2006 (UTC)
 * You might try posting your question at WP:VPT - the technical questions page. -Patstuart(talk)(contribs) 01:47, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

More about location/nationality of authors/editors
One or two other points to my question above.

I realize that there are potential political issues here. People in repressive societies may be most reluctant (and with good reason!) to contribute. But Spanish is certainly spoken in enough places that they can't all be repressive. Or, the "overseas" Chinese population very large, why might there not be more Chinese language pages from other countries than from China itself?

Also, what might be gleaned from the various translation projects? What are the most commonly translated language pairs, and in which direction is the work going? I assume (perhaps totally ethnocentrically) that more is done into English than from English into other languages (because of the idea of getting a larger audience, which I address in the first part of this question) but this might not be so. And what are the other languages involved? Are the active pairs of languages that don't include English (Spanish-Portuguese, Dutch-German, Scandinavian to Scandinavian?) or does the proximity of the languages in these pairs mean that most, say, Danish speakers just read the Swedish version, and vice versa, without need to translate?

Again, if there are admins or people involved in projects like the translation pages who could help me get at data about this, I'd be thrilled.

thanks,

Prairie Dad 20:27, 12 November 2006 (UTC)

"Translator" code
Hello! I joined on the French site and managed to get the code to show that I'm a translator but can't find the equivalent codes for the English site. Basically I want to have the icons that say I have a really good knowledge of French, can translate from French and German.

In French it looks like this:

So I'd like the English equivalent please!

Thanks! Sylviaroberge 22:13, 12 November 2006 (UTC)
 * What you're probably looking for is Babel - it doesn't necessarily say you're a translator, but it lets you show your knowledge in a particular language and your ability to contribute in those languages. — K e  akealani  22:15, 12 November 2006 (UTC)
 * I think what you are looking for is User fr-3, User fr-4 or User fr-5.--Fuhghettaboutit 22:21, 12 November 2006 (UTC)

RSS
How is RSS used within the Wikipedia site? Is there a way to have a feed of my watchlist, etc.? CoolGuy 22:20, 12 November 2006 (UTC)


 * See WP:RSS for feeds that wikipedia has. Unfortunately there isn't one for personal watchlists (I'm guess it's because of a performance issue). —Mitaphane talk 22:37, 12 November 2006 (UTC)

Fundraiser
I recall seeing fundraisers where the percentage of the goal was listed at the top of every page. I know how to donate regardless of a campaign, but I am just curious how to find out when another one will happen. CoolGuy 22:25, 12 November 2006 (UTC)


 * No idea. But a better place to ask your question would probably be at WikiProject Wikidemia, the project that seems to be handling fundraising ideas and proposals. -- `/aksha 07:56, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

Editing Tab
Dear Wikipedia, Let me first thank all your staff and the creators of Wikipedia in making available, not only a free reference source but a 'surrogate' parent/teacher. To be brief, I have four children and three of them are in High School. As a result of their chosen studies, Wikipedia is their first and last choice. My query... In March of this year (2006) my second eldest son aged 14 years had an assignment and the chosen topic was Napoleon of France. His criteria sheet required him to be information spedific. Having chosen Wikipedia on prior occassions, e.g. The Parthenon, Major Religions of the World, he again chose Wikipedia and after due research then commenced his 'interpretation' in response to the Assignment. He chose EDIT 'tab' from the available tools. This occassion there are only 4 tabs and none of them are EDIT tabs. Have Wikipedia changed focus on providing tools for students and readers alike or are we not using/ or cannot find the EDIT tab. Looking forward to your timely response and thanks in advance. David Chancellor. Brisbane Australia. email...

You are probably not able to see the edit tab because the article may be "locked" due to recent vandalism. What article is he trying to edit? Thank you for your question. // Pilotguy  ( Cleared to land ) 23:47, 12 November 2006 (UTC)

Or your ip adress has been blocked from editing wikipedia. - Tutmosis 23:48, 12 November 2006 (UTC)


 * The Napoleon I of France article has been semi-protected a few times as a temporary measure to deal with excessive vandalism to the page (a unfortunate consequence of allowing anyone to edit). Protection is normally applied to articles as a last resort, and usually for a short time. The Napoleon article was protected for six days in February due to excessive vandalism, and unfortunately had to be protected again in October. The protection will probably be removed again before too long. Out of the 1.5 million articles on Wikipedia, only a few hundred are protected at any one time. We all value the open nature of the wiki. -- zzuuzz (talk) 23:58, 12 November 2006 (UTC)