Wikipedia:Help desk/Archives/2006 November 7

= November 7 =

deal with threatning edit
I am wondering what the best way to handle the following edits made to my user page. I am really not that worried about the actual threat made against me, but it is un-nerving. I am unsure of what caused this reaction from this anon.

The first edit,, was changed three minutes later to.

In investigating, I have found that the first type of message was also left on User:Lol's page,.

I have deleted the comment from both mine and Lol's page and reversed the vandalism done as well.

Thanks for any assistance and actions.--Gay Cdn (talk) (Contr.) 12:18, 7 November 2006 (UTC)
 * This can be very distressing, and is absolutely unacceptable under Wikipedia's policies. I think the place to go to get action is Personal attack intervention noticeboard. Notinasnaid 12:24, 7 November 2006 (UTC)


 * Thanks, I will copy the post there and follow up there. Thanks again.--Gay Cdn  (talk) (Contr.) 12:26, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

strange search behaviour
I'm finding some strange behaviour on the search page.

When searching for "Communism" the first match is "Communications"!

"Communism" itself is way down the list.

Why?

Will 132.185.240.121 12:49, 7 November 2006 (UTC)
 * I'm not sure, but if you post the question on the technical Village Pump, you're more likely to find someone who knows the answer. --ais523 12:53, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

View pages I have created
This is actually a problem I have with other wikis, but it would be handy to be able to use it on Wikipedia as well. How can I see a list of pages I have created, or that any given user has created? "my contributions" shows the most recent edits I have made; instead, I want to see all pages I have created in the time I've been on a given wiki.
 * On newer versions of MediaWiki, Special:Newpages can be filtered by username, but it doesn't do all pages ever (it goes back about a month); otherwise, you could use a script to look for the N marks in a contribs page. --ais523 13:53, 7 November 2006 (UTC)
 * The "N" is only there as long as no one else has made any edits to the newly created article (so is not a general solution). user:interiot has a tool to create "page created" reports, which he runs on request.  -- Rick Block (talk) 14:15, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

Article names containing special characters (foreign non-english letters) and article name very short.
I would like to know what are your suggestions towards creating an article with letters for example: é,ë,ç etc. will people look for articles that contain these characters by just substituting them with a simple english letter for instance "déçrë" with "decre" in the english wikipedia, will the search engine also take into consideration the word that has these special characters. And what if I would like to creat an article with a very short name like "Té". should I add (japanese post-rock band) to it, so that when people will look for "Te band" they will get the article in the search results.
 * Create the article as it should be spelled with the special characters. Then create redirects for the simple letter versions as in your example with "déçrë" and "decre".  For example, Rade Serbedzija redirects to Rade Šerbedžija. -- Dismas|(talk) 15:38, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

deleted article
I submitted an entire article on Velikovsky/Ackerman catastrophism and a few days later it was completely gone. I thought Wikipedia detected such vandalism and corrected it. Or does someone in your organization act as a moderator and delete articles with impunity. At the time I did not have a login, but now I do. What does 'verifiable' mean? Am I allowed to give the website on which more information can be found? Have I violated some WIKI rule? Please explain how this can happen. By the way, I just logged in but the help desk page says I am not currently logged in? John Ackerman (email removed to prevent spam)
 * Do you remember the exact name of the article that you wrote? There are three methods for deletion. Please go through our deletion policy to understand them. If you can recall the article's name, I can tell you the reason for its deletion as the deletion log is visible to anyone. For verifiability, please go through WP:V, one of our core policies -- Lost (talk) 16:23, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

A Question on SIgnatures Part II
I came to a revelation when i was editing some AfD articles, i noticed that you can have as many signatures as possible but still link to the main user page. So, here's my question, can i get in trouble by using pretty much any signature that's possible? I know that there is no official policy on signatures only (WP:SIG) but there is a rule against confusing yourself with others through signatures. So, is it allowed? (example of what i mean) -ECH3LON 15:54, 7 November 2006 (UTC) (real one) -Don'tVoteIt'sYourConstitutionalRight, Mr.wiki, HλLF_LIFE, Link. ( They all link to my page)
 * Just ensure they dont break any polcies. Basically spamming, leaving political messages etc through the signature are not allowed. I'd say, this should hold good here. -- Lost (talk) 16:14, 7 November 2006 (UTC)
 * I think common sense applies. Don't try to imitate someone else by having their signature, and make your signature link to your userpage (one time, I got very confused by someone's signature linking to a different user account). You can check who added which comments using the history, so you're not going to achieve anything. I don't think there's a policy - just be sensible. Trebor 16:37, 7 November 2006 (UTC)
 * One's signature should preferably be under 200 charachters, and preferably not that confusing. X [' Mac Davis '] ( SUPERDESK | Help me improve ) 17:52, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

RE: Mountain of Fire and Miracles
SIRS, I AM PASTOR SAMUEL (PERSONAL SECRETARY TO THE GENERAL OVERSEER OF MOUNTAIN OF FIRE AND MIRACLES MINISTRIES, WORLDWIDE, DR. D. K. OLUKOYA). I WRITE ON THE INSTRUCTIONS OF THE GENERAL OVERSEER TO ASK THE FOLLOWING QUESTIONS:

1. WHO IS IN CHARG OF MFM ACCOUNT WITH YOU (IF THERE IS ANY)?

2. WHO GAVE YOU THE ARTICLE YOU WROTE ABOUT MOUNTAIN OF FIRE AND MIRACLES MINISTRIES (http:en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mountain_of_Fire_and_Miracles)?

3. OR WHERE DID YOU SEE OR GET THE INFORMATION YOU POSTED THERE? (IF YOU MUST KNOW, WE ARE NOT HAPPY WITH SOME OF WHAT YOU WROTE ABOUT US AND THAT IS WHY WE ARE SENDING YOU THESE QUESTIONS)

4. WHAT DO WE DO TO CORRECT THE ARTICLE AND MAINTAIN OUR PORTION ON YOUR SITE?

QUICK RESPONSE TO THESE QUESTIONS WILL BE HIGHLY APPRECIATED.

THANKS.

--196.220.24.150 17:03, 7 November 2006 (UTC)
 * No one person is responsible for the article Mountain of Fire and Miracles.
 * The article was created by User:Ud terrorist. He's made most of the contributions.
 * I don't know, but if you are not happy with what is there, you are free to edit it to your satisfaction, assuming your information is both accurate and written from a neutral point of view.
 * Go to the page in question and click the "edit this page" link in the tab at the top.
 * Regards, Nihiltres 17:25, 7 November 2006 (UTC)
 * And don't forget the cornerstone of Wikipedian editing: Verifiability. freshofftheufo  ΓΛĿЌ  06:46, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

getting wikipedia "blue/purple" text to print underlined (B&W)
Neely H Bostick <  > wrote:

> I use MS explorer 6.0 for Wikipedia and I am printing many of your "help" > 'how-to" sections with the intention of contributing properly.   I have > set (probably default) internet options to underline links always, and the > screen "blues" do show underline when under the cursor.  It would be a > help when printing B&W if I could get all the "blue" to underline from > Wikipedia as happens from most other sources.    Does anyone know how? Or > does that feature have to be built into the Wikipedia "blue"  text? > > Thank you in advance, > Neely  Bostick       > October 20, 2006 >

Thank you for contacting us for assistance. However, we are unable to assist you with this matter via email.

Instead, we suggest that you direct your inquiry to our Help Desk, which is staffed by a larger group of volunteers who are experts on issues such as searching, printing, how to edit, and problems with particular web browsers.

136.177.48.144 17:44, 7 November 2006 (UTC)


 * To do this, you must create an account on Wikipedia, then you will see a "my preferences" link at the top of your screen. Click that, then go to the "MISC" tab on the right, and you will see a setting called "underline links".  Change that to your desired setting.  Neil916 (Talk) 23:23, 7 November 2006 (UTC)


 * How do I show links when printing? may be useful. You will need an account to get it working.--Commander Keane 06:22, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

Searching article titles
Is there a way of searching for an article with a title that contains a certain text, but does not necessarily start with it? Or to restrict searches to article titles only? 148.177.1.219 17:52, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

Yes, it is possible, but accurate results are not very likely. You can also use search engines, like Google to search through Wikipedia. ↔ A NAS  -   Talk   18:46, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

Booted out of Account by HughesNet
I just upgraded from dialup to HughesNet satellite broadband. Suddenly I can't stay signed in to my account. I think it's because the IP is shifting almost all the d--n time. Every time I check, I have a new IP. I don't think it's a cookie problem? My browser is the same (Firefox 2.0) and settings for it haven't changed that I'm aware of. Drop a line at my talk page. Hopefully I'll be able to read it. --Paul Pigman talk
 * Responded on talk page--Werdan7T @ 19:31, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

when was wikipedia last updated

 * See Special:Recentchanges for an continually updated list of the pages last updated. For specific articles, scroll down to the bottom of the page and it will say, even complete with the time. X [' Mac Davis '] ( DESK | How's my driving? ) 05:52, 8 November 2006 (UTC)


 * It appears you misunderstand the workings of Wikipedia. Please read the article we have on Wikipedia. If you need this information to cite us as a source please use Citing Wikipedia, but consider using the sources used to create the article instead. - Mgm|(talk) 10:45, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

Main Article
I seem to remember seeing a section of a page somewhere that described how to make a link that says something like "The main article is located here for topic x". Do I have to just spell it out or is there a special command. E.G., Daniel Burnham has sections for World's Columbian Exposition and The Plan of Chicago. I was thinking each of these section should have some sort of main article notice on them. Is this the case or should a text link in the paragraph sufficient? TonyTheTiger 21:39, 7 November 2006 (UTC)
 * Use the MAIN template in the following format:, replacing ARTICLE with the name of the official article.   Using  produces:
 * Hope that helps. Neil916 (Talk) 23:20, 7 November 2006 (UTC)
 * If you have this problem in the future, you can find a page which contains a line similar to what you are looking for, and click 'edit this page' and see how that page doesn't - then you can copy the same code to the page you are editing, just replace the details of the page to link to, etc. -- Chuq 00:48, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

multiples languages - multiple accounts?
How do I change my user account, so that I can edit articles in other languages than english? Do I need to create seperate accounts for each language?Ottersquad 21:51, 7 November 2006 (UTC)


 * I believe you will need new accounts for each language you edit in, as they are really seperate Wikipedias. Skittle 22:57, 7 November 2006 (UTC)
 * That's right, every Wikipedia and all the sister projects each have unique account systems. It's advisable to reserve your name on most, if not all of them, so that you are recognizable as the same user if you decide to edit that language/project. Nihiltres 16:57, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

Why do you have the option to "edit" pages??
Concerned Wikipedia User- I recently did a little test on this site.... Using your edit option, I changed some information on a page or two. Coming back to the site severaly days later, the information was the way I left it. This could be dangerouse to users of this site. Strangers on the internet may be changing information on the pages without you realizing. I justed wanted to bring this to your attention. You may choose to respond to it as you wish; reply to my email, ignore my comments, or take the edit option off of your pages. I would personally do the later of them all.

Thank you for your time, —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 64.255.109.142 (talk • contribs).


 * Well, the whole point of Wikipedia is that anyone can edit pages. Every single article here was created by thousands of volunteers.  The articles grow and change.  Yes, sometimes people insert wrong or silly information into pages, but it is usually found and reverted quickly (by other volunteers.)  By the way, if you want to test Wikipedia in the future, please use the sandbox and not the main article space.  And if you put false information into an article, please remove it. Dina 22:37, 7 November 2006 (UTC)


 * By the way I noticed that in your edit here you removed a lot of content from this page and generally screwed around with it. While experimentation is encouraged on the Wikipedia, editors need to be careful to not just make changes for the hell of it.  Some people would call what you did vandalism and people who continue to do it after being asked to stop are often blocked from editing, or sometimes, in extreme cases banned altogether.  So please don't do anything like that again.  I have restored the page to the way it was, and re-added the info that was added after you changed it.  I'm also going to post this message on your talk page.  Cheers. Dina 22:55, 7 November 2006 (UTC)


 * Thank you for your comment, but I think you are missing the point in a major way. Perhaps you imagine there was a big, accurate encyclopedia, and then Wikipedia added the chance to edit. No: there was nothing at all. There was an empty encyclopedia, and Wikipedia gave the chance for people to create and edit it. The model is not without its problems, but Wikipedia without editing would be nothing at all. I hope this has also taught a valuable lesson never to trust anything you find on the internet without doing some further checking. Notinasnaid 23:51, 7 November 2006 (UTC)
 * Don't trust anything period. Just because it's on Wikipedia or the internet doesn't make it "untrustable." Credibility is lost by people like the "Concerned Wikipedia User" who destroys pieces of Wikipedia by committing vandalism. Again, the whole idea of Wikipedia is the good vs. evil approach to people amassing and organizing information of the world into a single easily-usable website, created soley by volunteering hours. X [' Mac Davis '] ( DESK | How's my driving? ) 05:49, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

I'm trying to help a user on the spanish wikipedia
I reverted him when he blanked a section of an article on Mexico as an IP without an edit summary, and he has turned out to be very sweet, though his english is imperfect. He posted the following on my talk page:

''Dera Dina, i didn't know who was the indicated person to contact in this case, when i removed alitle part of an article you contacted me, so i realize you were the one i suposed to let know about this. Somebody removed totally an article about the second most importanta cities in the world, the article was named: "Second Cities" I had a very important work to do for school, and Surprisingly and unfortunately the article was not here anymore, it was there 1 week ago and that was a very important and informative article. By any chance do you know something about this? Cuase there's not even a discussion section be cause the aticle is totally erased. Thank you very much Dina ''

I suspect the article has been deleted and I've asked him if the title wasn't something else ("List of second-most important cities" sounds like something that might get the axe). Haven't heard back yet. My question is, can I search the deletion log for a fragment (ie. "second cities") or something? It appears that I need to know the exact title, which is potentially difficult (I've tried several variants). Is the title field in the deletion log case sensitive? Is there a different method for finding deleted articles? Alternatively, does anyone remember a recent Afd of an article like this? Any input would be great, I'm a little touched by his plea for help and I'm hoping if I could figure out who deleted it, I could at least get him a copy. Cheers Dina 22:34, 7 November 2006 (UTC)
 * Perhaps he means Second city? There isn't a way to search through deleted pages (that's the point of us deleting them), although you could probably make a search for "Second Cities" through the Wikipedia namespace (or Google) to try to catch any AFD that might have dealt with the article. Tito xd (?!?) 23:01, 7 November 2006 (UTC)


 * Oh hey, maybe this is easier than I thought. Maybe he just got the search wrong (duh! <-- directed at myself)  Thanks! Dina 23:17, 7 November 2006 (UTC)


 * Administrators can see deleted articles; I cannot find any deletion revisions of Second city, Second City, Second cities or Second Cities.  I suspect the original poster simply cannot find the article again due to spelling or capitalisation issues. -- Chuq 00:10, 8 November 2006 (UTC)


 * Thanks, I think I immediately assumed it was deleted and not a searching problem. I posted Tito's suggested article on his talk page and I hope it helps.  Thanks for checking though...that was kind of what I was after, although I realize its a relatively small matter. Dina 00:28, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

nobr in tutorial header?
I'm trying to stop the words "wrap-up" from line-wrapping in the Tutorial's /header.

Its fine in firefox, but linewraps once in opera 6 and 9 (after the hyphen), and linewraps twice in IE5.5 (what does it do in IE6 and IE7?)

I've experimented with nobr and its plain code, but can't hack it into working right. Thanks for any help :) --Quiddity 22:44, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

It's also triple-lined in IE6. An earlier version just nixed the hyphen (a low-tech solution! ;-) Rfrisbietalk 22:51, 7 November 2006 (UTC)


 * There's a unicode "non-breaking hyphen" character, &amp;#8209;, but I suspect it won't display on all browsers (looks like this "&#8209;"). Enclosing the words in a span specifying a CSS style with "white-space: nowrap;" may work for some browsers, i.e. "wrap-up" would be , but I can't get this to work with the templates you're using. -- Rick Block (talk) 02:08, 8 November 2006 (UTC)


 * It looks good to me in the browsers I have installed.. Tutorial/Header. Any problems for anyone?
 * From what I've just been reading it's only a problem in 'older' browsers (but how old?). Anyway, if no complaints, I'll update the rest tonight :) --Quiddity 19:56, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

Nominating two articles at AfD
I nominated Sara & Kara for deletion, then found a very similar sort of article, Brad Morton, by the same user. Both are copy/paste jobs from List of secondary characters in American Dragon: Jake Long. Is it protocol to nominate both seperately, or merge the nomination somehow? I mentioned this at the AfD page for Sara & Kara, but I'd like to get doing as soon as possible! Skittle 22:56, 7 November 2006 (UTC)
 * If the reasons for deletion are the same, then you can combine the two. Create the AfD normally for the first article, then when adding the template to the second page, change the link to the discussion so that it links to the AfD you've already set up. Mention both articles in your nom. Trebor 23:14, 7 November 2006 (UTC)
 * Thanks. Done and done. Skittle 23:39, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

MLA
if i would like to use one of your articles what is the MLA format i would use —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 205.188.116.71 (talk • contribs).
 * Use the "cite this article" link in the toolbar on the left when you are viewing the article, for example see this. -- zzuuzz (talk) 23:52, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

project
Hey, if I wanted to propose an idea for a project here on WP, where should i go? And would it be possible to get an answer about the project from the people i go to right away instead of waiting a long time? Thanks. Temp 23:51, 7 November 2006 (UTC)
 * I think it depends on what kind of project. Can you be more specific? Dina 00:29, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

OK, its like a page where people can give non-medical advice and help to people with psychological-like problems, and where people can ask for non-medical advice. It'd be completely anonymous. Can't i just do it in my sandbox or something if i created one, and, by the way, how would i create my own sb? Temp 19:30, 9 November 2006 (UTC)