Wikipedia:Help desk/Archives/2007 August 10

= August 10 =

Rosicrucians
You are asking for contribution to Alchemy. I have 66 large pages of manuscript from 1777 Goldnen Rosen Kreuz convention and reformation held in Prague, which includes pages on alchemy. BUT! When I tried to register as your member this failed when giving my password. Can we communicate by e-mail info@greenglobe.com.au? Your instruction and lessons how to write are to complicated for old farth like me. I have written a book Masonic Enigma, one chapter deals with Rosicrucians. I could send you this, or whole book on CD; if you co-operate with me to find a publisher or an agent. In such case I would even try to translate those 66 pages (it is in old German). It was hidden from Hitler and smuggled out before communists could get it in Prague and now I have it in Sydney. Historians around the world are looking for this information; two conventions were held in 1994 and 1996 in Bohemia, this year in Edinburgh. Your information on Rosicrucians and Freemasonry are right and agree with my finding: Sufi (I learned from them in Fez when working in Casablanca)220.233.222.110 00:12, 10 August 2007 (UTC), then Templars, Scotland, Royal Society; but important is that time of Emperor Rudolf II and European Renaisance. There we come to miracles like when I found on a footpath in Sydney two shopping bags with books, half of them in Czech language including two volumes of chronicle from that era describing clan of Rozmbergs and my mother's birthplace, ancestors and even colection of picture which includes two houses with my mother's family name. But I need co-operation with profesional historian to publish it. Vladimir Vicourek


 * If it's not published, it would be classed as original research and therefore unsuitable for inclusion in a wikipedia article - sorry. --Fredrick day 13:17, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

How to
How to find information on external environment for E-Bay in the US and AsiaFreddiep59 01:36, 10 August 2007 (UTC)
 * The help desk is for questions regarding how to use Wikipedia. The reference desk may be able to help you with this. Lara ♥Love 02:01, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

Is there a place where all the current anti-vandal tools in use can be discussed?
...Instead of going through the talk page for each tool. I still do RCP the old school way and have thought about picking up one of the tools for my own use but am not yet sure which one to use and which would be good across both Firefox and IE. Thanks. Broken Sphere 01:45, 10 August 2007 (UTC)


 * Hi you might look at this page. It has links to the most popular tools (among other helpful information). The talk page there might be the place to get some good advice on tool selection. Dust Filter 02:17, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

i have been listing to your show in the moring
i would like to take my husband to see zz top but i cant rember where in eugene oregon they our playiing or did i hear wrong? my husband listens to you when he can. if you can please tell me if you can if they our playing in eugene or not thanks very much lynn and cathy
 * The help desk is for questions regarding how to use Wikipedia. The reference desk may be able to help you with this. Lara ♥Love 02:02, 10 August 2007 (UTC)
 * And I'm fairly sure Wikipedia is not a radio station, although there may be a related podcast or something (definitely not one that would talk about ZZ Top tours, though). Confusing Manifestation 02:12, 10 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Ah, I didn't even notice the title, I just read the question. Morning show... what's up with that? This is an online encyclopedia. Not a radio station. Lara ♥Love 02:15, 10 August 2007 (UTC)
 * My guess is that Lynn and Cathy googled their local radio station, landed at our article about it, and thought they'd found the station's official website. AndyJones 07:58, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

Problems with picture format on the Maccabees page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maccabees#The_revolt
Hi. On the Wikipedia page about the Maccabees, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maccabees#The_revolt, there are two problems:

1. the edit is buried in the middle of the text instead of appearing at the top of the section

2. there is an 1844 painting by Wojciech Stattler entitled, "Machabeusze" (Maccabees) that is partially covering/blocking one line of the Wikipedia text.

I don't know how to fix these format problems so perhaps you can.

Thank you, 200.107.49.97 02:07, 10 August 2007 (UTC)
 * I don't see the problems you noted. Perhaps it's just a glitch in your browser. Lara ♥Love 02:17, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

Help
'''Hello my account username name is Ccjjccj69222 and I was wondering how do you cancel your account. Thanks'''Ccjjccj69222 02:23, 10 August 2007 (UTC)


 * You can't, just stop using it. You can also have it renamed if you would like. Prodego  talk  02:51, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

Due to the fact that Wikipedia content is licensed under the GFDL, all edits must be kept for attribution purposes, and so your account cannot be deleted. You do, however, have the right to vanish, which you can exercise by (1) requesting your user page (found at Special:Mypage) and/or user talk page (found at Special:Mytalk) be deleted, by adding the template to them; (2) requesting to change your username to something that is unconnected with you (possibly a random collection of letters and numbers); (3) never logging in to your account again. If you do this, you are still free to register a new username if you wish to continue editing Wikipedia. Confusing Manifestation 03:40, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

Login Problems
I am not able to login using Login and password sometimes but later able to login.But I can access Wikipedia without login.I need your advice it is only occurs rarely normally able to login.I use a public network normally.Normally my login and password work properly. Harlowraman 02:47, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

Image copyright/derivative works
I was wondering whether the uniforms/helmets in as well as  would be considered derivative works. Either way, what kind of copyright tag should they carry? Thanks in advance.  Blue Ag09  (Talk) 04:27, 10 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Probably not; the photos are of people playing football, and those people just happen to be wearing uniforms. If the photos were close-ups of the uniform tacked up on the wall, or some other situation which made it clear that the uniform was the subject of the photo, that might be a problem. But in cases where the inclusion is incidental, not a big worry. – Luna Santin  (talk) 04:32, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

How credible is wikipedia?
How can wikipedia source be applied to my university work?
 * If you're asking how to cite wikipedia, see: Citing Wikipedia. If you're asking if you can use material found in a Wikipedia article in work that you are submitting for credit at university, see General disclaimer. It's really at your own risk. The best articles on Wikipedia will have a bunch of references to reliable sources that you can follow. Those (the reliable source, that is) would probably be better sources for work that you're submitting in university. Sancho 06:26, 10 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Many universities impose a blanket ban on citing Wikipedia in your work and will mark you down/fail you if you do so. Wikipedia should NEVER be used as an academic resource (and for good reason since there is no editorial control over the information that gets added). What you should do is look at the "References" and "External links" sections and use the information from those sources directly.  Zun aid  ©  ®  06:47, 10 August 2007 (UTC)
 * I'd have to disagree! There is no reason as to why Wikipedia cannot be used as a reference, but be aware of articles not having any/few sources. No matter what you use as a reference, it's always a good idea to find multiple sources for anything, just to be safe. Bjelleklang -  talk Bug Me 09:58, 10 August 2007 (UTC)
 * I disagree also with a point made by Zunaid above. Wikipedia SHOULD by all means be used as an academic resource, and it is good to see that it is, and widely. This is not to say that you should not exercise caution, though because yes, anybody can put whatever they like on here. What people don't seem to be able to grasp, is that usually this gets spotted and removed, thanks to people working hard in various Wikiprojects. A well-cited article is what I would encourage anybody to use providing they've checked the history of that article first.  Lra drama 10:59, 10 August 2007 (UTC)
 * What a terrible idea - Wikipedia should NOT be used as an academic source, while I would not fail a student who used it, I'd have to wonder about their research skills and why they were unable to find peer-reviewed academic sources to back their findings/conclusions. This is what Jimbo has to say about the matter Mr. Wales said that he gets about 10 e-mail messages a week from students who complain that Wikipedia has gotten them into academic hot water. “They say, ‘Please help me. I got an F on my paper because I cited Wikipedia’” and the information turned out to be wrong, he says. But he said he has no sympathy for their plight, noting that he thinks to himself: “For God sake, you’re in college; don’t cite the encyclopedia.” --Fredrick day 13:12, 10 August 2007 (UTC)
 * The recommendation not to use Wikipedia really applies to all encyclopedias. Citing encyclopedias (let alone unreliable online encyclopedias) in scholastic research shows poor form. Leebo  T / C 13:19, 10 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Exactly - if university students want to cite wrong information, they should use Nature. Wily D 14:02, 10 August 2007 (UTC)
 * I wish schools would teach students how to edit their papers on a wiki. Then those students would enter productive employment already knowing something about how to use the most productive technology for collaboration yet invented (and they could get right to work on corporate wikis). It's inefficient for employers to have to train new hires to do something that schools should be teaching all the kids who aren't smart enough to figure it out via RTFM on their own. Flunking students for using Wikipedia as a source misses the whole point. Value in the real world doesn't come merely from reciting information that is already on a wiki, but from knowing how to contribute to a structure of knowledge. The real value of Wikipedia for students is not just the content in the articles, but the procedural knowledge in the project space. Learning how Wikipedia organizes itself would teach students how to organize anything. And unlike most examples of human organization, the workings of Wikipedia are almost entirely accessible to students or anyone else who wants to see how it all operates. --Teratornis 01:34, 11 August 2007 (UTC)
 * I should clarify one of my comments above: value can come from reciting information that has been pre-packaged by someone else, but the mere use of pre-existing information is something we typically associate with low-level employment, or employment in industries where the pace of change is extremely slow. People who work in new areas of technology or in companies that are finding new markets must collect lots of unfamiliar information and somehow shape it into the procedural knowledge that they themselves (or lower-level hires) can just use. Obviously, there are many more people who can use existing information in established procedures than there are people who can create usable structures of information where none exist yet. Wikipedia provides a remarkably accessible example of how masses of people can collaborate to create order out of chaos, without the need for wasteful physical travel and meetings, and any educator who lets students graduate without learning from this example is seriously shortchanging them. --Teratornis 01:47, 11 August 2007 (UTC)

admin??
If I put admin tag, I am admin, is it that simple?
 * unfortunaly no, i have not heard about the admin tag but see, WP:RFA Blacksmith2talkEditor Review 09:08, 10 August 2007 (UTC)
 * So that userbox saying u are an admin dosen't really work... WHy can users even put it there?
 * Wikipedia is a wiki... if you see a fake admin userbox/icon on another user's page, you can just remove it from that page. There are several other ways to check if a user really is an admin (Special:Listusers/sysop being the definitive list). ais523 09:29, 10 August 2007 (UTC)
 * As for the box, it's a simple way of letting other users know that you're an admin, and it also puts you i the admin category. Bjelleklang -  talk Bug Me 09:49, 10 August 2007 (UTC)
 * You must put up a request for adminship (RfA) if you wish to become an admin. It isn't easy, believe me!  Lra drama 11:01, 10 August 2007 (UTC)
 * No way! Mine bombed. Turned out only supporters were SPAs My RFA is located at Requests for adminship/SLSB <font face="Verdana" color="Red">SLSB <font color="White">talk  • <font color="White">contrib   13:42, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

Wiki-wide suggestion needing (where?) discussion and consensus
Hello, and thanks in advance for your time. I'd been a bit discouraged with the varied and often user-unfriendly aspects of many Wikipedia articles, and after a lot of thought and research, came up with a proposition to divide naming methods into a simple three "method categories": "people', "places" and "things". The idea so far seems well-recieved, but attention to the subject is little, in spite of its prominent place on WP:NAME (with added "Wider attention" tag), it is getting little attention. I would really like to give this a chance to become policy, but as it concerns all Wiki, I see little where or how best to do this.

You can find the proposition [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Naming_conventions#Proposition:_three_.22base.22_Wiki-wide_article-naming_methods_-_People.2C_Places_and_Things. here].

While I'm here: I'm curious to know what naming methods the printed version of Wiki uses. The same? How is it organised? Thanks.

<span style="font-family:Futura, Helvetica, _sans;color:#ddd7a3;font-size:95%;">THE PROMENADER  09:31, 10 August 2007 (UTC)


 * Most questions on the Help desk get some sort of response pretty quickly, even questions that have nothing to do with Wikipedia. To pose a question here that gets ignored as long as yours did might amount to something of an accomplishment (although I suppose I'm spoiling it a bit by responding). I don't know if I can understand your proposal, but I can suggest how you might sell it better. For starters, try to avoid these stereotypical nube tells:
 * You seem to be confusing the word Wiki with Wikipedia. In particular, capitalizing the word Wiki as if it is a proper noun refers to the original wiki, WikiWikiWeb.
 * You used an external link rather than an internal link to your talk page discussion (although to your credit, you did sign your question, so you are not an übernoob at least).
 * These tells do not reflect on the merits of your proposal, in a strictly logical sense, but they do indicate to experienced metapedians (the people you are trying to engage in discussion) that you might not be very experienced here yet - or if you are, you somehow missed a couple of pretty basic lessons. That is not a problem in itself; every Wikipedia user either was or is new, and no single person knows everything there is to know about Wikipedia. But when you suggest sweeping proposals to change vast numbers of articles on Wikipedia, you had better make sure you are running a tight ship. At a very minimum, you need to show you have a deep enough understanding of Wikipedia to know why things are the way they are currently, and to give people confidence that implementing your suggestion won't trigger off massive side effects you overlooked (which might happen anyway, regardless of how deep your knowledge is - even the most expert humans get things wrong occasionally, especially when trying anything new).
 * As far as the proposal itself, from my brief skim I'm not sure I see the point. I haven't found Wikipedia's naming conventions to be much of a problem thus far. What do people do with article titles anyway? When I want to find something on Wikipedia, I search for it, or follow links. Both methods provide some robustness against Wikipedia's inconsistent article titles - as long as I can think of a keyword or two, I can usually get to the article I want, or some related articles which lead me to it. Then there is the matter of implementation. It would be difficult just to rename, say, all the South Park episode articles (not that I am suggesting this illustrates what you want to do, I'm just picking a random group of articles), let alone all of Wikipedia. The English Wikipedia has registered users and probably a similar number of unregistereds, and the number you might rile up through some mass article renaming scheme could be substantial. I suggest reading through a few debates on WP:AFD to see how much energy gets released with just one article deletion - not that you plan to delete anything, but even just moving stuff around can upset lots of people.
 * This is not to discourage you or anyone else from thinking big, but first you would do well to contribute to Wikipedia in small ways, at least long enough so you figure out how to look up stuff like the printed version of Wikipedia on your own (hint: get to know the Editor's index). There are enough well-documented screaming needs on Wikipedia already; if you champion other people's causes first, you might motivate them to return the favor someday. --Teratornis 22:43, 10 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Actually, not so new, as one of the articles I have spent fighting tooth and nail to improve since over a year has been earmarked for inclusion in the aforementioned printed edition. Lord knows why. All the same, points taken, thanks for the advice. Cheers! <span style="font-family:Futura, Helvetica, _sans;color:#ddd7a3;font-size:95%;">THE PROMENADER  21:48, 11 August 2007 (UTC)

Image errors
On some images I try to view, such as, they only appear as a red square. Can anyone help? Prototype 01talk 11:56, 10 August 2007 (UTC)
 * That one renders fine for me. Perhaps you mean some of the "gate addresses" on Planets in Stargate.  A number of these render as a red question mark in a red square (Image:StargateGlyphUnknown.svg), but that's on purpose - I think it means that those components of the "address" weren't disclosed in the TV show(s). -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 12:01, 10 August 2007 (UTC)
 * I can tell the difference between solid squares and red question marks. It's not just the Glyphs, others appear as squares as well. It could be an error in my browser, but I want to eliminate all possibilities. Prototype 01 12:24, 10 August 2007 (UTC)
 * You might try the technical section of the village pump; it's likely that if this is an issue anyone else has had, one of the editors who frequent that page will be aware of it, and someone there may be able to offer more precise advice in any case. Joe 05:39, 11 August 2007 (UTC)
 * It seems likely that your problem is an overzealous adblocker: the URL of that thumbnail image is http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/a/ad/StargateGlyph14.svg/48px-StargateGlyph14.svg.png (note the "/ad/"). Disabling the adblocker, or adding an exception for upload.wikimedia.org, ought to fix the problem.  —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 22:18, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

Multi-Language Wiki
I am on a English language Wikipedia page. How can I change/navigate to German/French or any other language? I see no button to do so and I found no answer in the FAQ. 82.174.247.54 12:34, 10 August 2007 (UTC)


 * Usually underneath the 'toolbox' is a section called "In other languages", which would show the translated article in the available languages. Prototype 01 12:43, 10 August 2007 (UTC)


 * Note Prototype said "available". The different language versions of Wikipedia are written independently. Often they don't have articles on the same topics, and if they do then they are not always linked to each other. The English Wikipedia has many more articles than any other language. PrimeHunter 15:46, 10 August 2007 (UTC)
 * See also: Wikipedia and List of Wikipedias. --Teratornis 16:25, 10 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Also note that even though the English Wikipedia is currently the largest (with articles, and growing by a few thousand per day), sometimes another language edition of Wikipedia has a larger and more complete article on a given topic. For example, articles about people or places in a non-English-speaking country may receive better coverage in the appropriate language Wikipedia. The German Wikipedia is also large and well-developed, so some articles about people and places in Germany and other German-speaking areas (such as Switzerland and Austria) may have more extensive coverage there. --Teratornis 16:41, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

a false site pretending to be wiki
hey ..i stumbled on this site ..its set out like wiki but i think its a way for people to scam people into giving them there msn email and password detals ..they have even made a flase site with a layout thta looks like wiki to fool people

i just think you ashould be aware of that incase it comes back to you

this is the site

http://www.aboutus.org/MsnBlockerList.com

anyways ..love the site ..i mainly use it for film an game info .. but its good all round stuff .. keep up the good work

dave


 * They're not pretending to be be Wikipedia - they're just running the same open-source Mediawiki software as Wikipedia. The default look and feel of Mediawiki is largely the same as what the Wikipedia.org website(s) run.  But they don't use the Wikipedia logo in the top left corner and they don't appear to call themselves Wikipedia. So I can't see how any deception is intended. -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 14:03, 10 August 2007 (UTC)


 * And as to whether they are doing something untoward by asking for MSN info - that's a matter you should take up with them, their hosting provider, MSN, or law enforcement. -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 14:05, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

expert forums
how can i get experts views on solutions for SAP Sales and Distribution?
 * The help desk is for questions relating to how to use Wikipedia. The reference desk may be able to better help you. <font color="6A5ACD">Lara <font color="FF1493">♥Love 14:07, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

Articles about companies
I've read the guidelines that say no articles about companies and yet I see several within my own industry. They are press release-type desctiptions of the companies and their services. Why are they allowed to stay up on your website? example: Grainger  or Fisher Scientific


 * There's no guideline that says we don't have articles about companies - we'd be a pretty poor encyclopedia without an article about Standard Oil or Microsoft. What we do require is that all articles about companies (and similar organisations) meet the standards of notability specified at WP:CORP. -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 14:19, 10 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Also see Business' FAQ. Not only does Wikipedia have a Microsoft article, but that is a featured article. However, the vast majority of articles on Wikipedia about corporations are of lower quality. If you find any articles that appear to be nothing more than press releases, you can call attention to that by placing an advert template on them. However, the articles you mention (W. W. Grainger (presumably), and Fisher Scientific), while far from featured article quality, also do not rival the most egregious examples of peacock language I have seen (which is to say, they don't strike me as blatant advertising, but mine is only one opinion out of ).
 * I am curious about why you believe Wikipedia has guidelines that say "no articles about companies." On Wikipedia, we refer to guideline pages by linking to them, so anyone who reads our summary of a guideline can follow our links and see what the guidelines actually say. Casual conversation is full of sloppy references and vague allusions, but wiki technology lets us do far better. Please give us the link to whatever you saw that led you to the idea that Wikipedia allows no articles about companies - we may need to review whatever page that was and make sure it isn't worded misleadingly. --Teratornis 16:19, 10 August 2007 (UTC)


 * The questioner may have been concerned about Thermo Fisher Scientific (the parent of Fisher Scientific) had some obvious spammy language. I've removed that, leaving a (rather unsatisfactory) stub about what is clearly a notable, CORP-compliant company. -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 16:39, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

Copyright laws
If a page doesn't have a copyright on the page, it is still implied? I ask because I'm looking for an image of Candice Michelle which I found here. My intent is to contact the copyright holders of various images with the hope that at least one will relicense, but I notice that this site doesn't have a copyright on it, so does that allow one to use the image freely? I'm guessing not, but I figured I'd ask. <font color="6A5ACD">Lara <font color="FF1493">♥Love 14:32, 10 August 2007 (UTC)


 * Yes, it's copyright. Things people write and say and works they create are automatically copyright, even if they don't mark them as such or register the copyright. For something to be included in Wikipedia we have to have proof positive that something either definitely isn't copyrighted or that the real copyright owner definitely does release the work under a free licence. -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 14:38, 10 August 2007 (UTC)


 * Alright. That what I figured, but it was worth a shot. I'll work on getting them to change the license then. Thanks. <font color="6A5ACD">Lara <font color="FF1493">♥Love 14:39, 10 August 2007 (UTC)


 * See if they've got one without Bigears while you're at it :) -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 14:41, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

Base Curves
My prescription is Approx O D; -5.75 +4.25 180 Add 2.50 O S; -5.00 +5.75 001 with a Base Curve requirement of 6.25. So traditionally, my glasses are thin on the inside,(near the nose) but thick on the outside. However my new glasses are polycarbonite and thin across the entire surface. My old optician insist that I need the Base Curve, but the new one says I don't with Poly. The new glasses are difficult to focus through, but seem to work. What is the truth about Base Curves on glasses? I read in your artical that this is applied to contact lens, but made no mention to glasses.

patntedh
 * The science reference desk may be able to explain the physics of prescription lens better, this page is for help with using Wikipedia. <font color="#3D59AB">Leebo  <font color="#2A8E82">T /<font color="#2A8E82"> C 17:10, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

Can someone help me with the Function. Thanks,Thedjatclubrock :) (talk) 17:53, 10 August 2007 (UTC).


 * Sure, I'll reply on your talk page. <em style="font-family:Bradley Hand ITC;color:blue">Hers <em style="font-family:Bradley Hand ITC;color:gold">fold  (t/a/c) 18:02, 10 August 2007 (UTC)
 * For anyone else with the same question, check on his talk page or go to m:Help:ParserFunctions <em style="font-family:Bradley Hand ITC;color:blue">Hers <em style="font-family:Bradley Hand ITC;color:gold">fold  (t/a/c) 18:37, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

Links
I would like to exchange links with your site. I am a marketing manager for an online marketing agency specializing in law firm marketing. I feel that your site provides excellent complementary content to our site and that a link exchange would be mutually beneficial to both of us. Thank you. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.92.231.203 (talk • contribs)
 * Wikipedia does not advertise and most likely is not interested in exchanging links to promote itself. Wikipedia is a neutral encyclopedia, so your intention is slightly misguided. <font color="#3D59AB">Leebo  <font color="#2A8E82">T /<font color="#2A8E82"> C 18:03, 10 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Wikipedia is not an advertising provider.  <font color="#084C9E">Mi <font color="#4682b4">r <font color="#6495ED">a <font color="#4682b4">n <font color="#084C9E">da  05:22, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

Automatically generated BibTeX entries?
Does Wikipedia plan on/have automatically generated BibTex entries? I'm generating a lot of citations to Wikipedia articles, but if Wikipedia generates these on its own in some manner, I'd rather use the official ones. 158.12.88.100 18:02, 10 August 2007 (UTC)


 * Yes, we do. It doesn't make much sense to me, but I assume you know what to do with it. Click here, and happy editing. <em style="font-family:Bradley Hand ITC;color:blue">Hers <em style="font-family:Bradley Hand ITC;color:gold">fold  (t/a/c) 18:40, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

Custom Signature
I have just now created a custom signature. I rather like it, but is the color distractingly bright? I want to be sure that other users won't be bothered by it before I start using it all over the site. <font color="#0080FF">Plasticup  <font color="#2A8E82">T /<font color="#2A8E82"> C 18:11, 10 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Trust me I have seen far worse signatures than that. Bright isn't a problem, the big problem is when people use light colours, particularly light greys that don't show up. But no, yours looks fine.  AndrewJD  TALK  -- 18:15, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

Can I upload a picture that is a pdf file page? If so, what am I doing wrong?
I'm trying to upload this picture (Image:WeeklyStandard13August2007issue.pdf) of the cover of The Weekly Standard magazine and put it in the infobox at the Wikipedia article for that magazine, but my efforts haven't been successful. Can someone tell me:


 * (a) whether Wikipedia doesn't allow pdf-file pictures to be used? (Perhaps there's a technical reason)


 * (b) Am I doing something wrong in the way I'm doing it? I've tried inserting it in the infobox in the way I insert other uploaded pictures, but that doesn't work. I can't even put it on the page in the "thumb" format that I normally do ( [ [:Image:ThisKindaFormat|thumb|right|250px|This kind of format doesn't work either] ])

Noroton 18:48, 10 August 2007 (UTC)
 * I'm no file format expert, but PDF files are not exactly image formats. The resulting document is presented in graphic form, but it's not like a JPEG or PNG file. It's more like a collection of texts and graphics that requires Adobe reader software to produce an image. Most browsers wouldn't include such software to display such a file within the window. <font color="#3D59AB">Leebo  <font color="#2A8E82">T /<font color="#2A8E82"> C 19:02, 10 August 2007 (UTC)


 * Leebo is correct. I'm actually quite surprised it let you upload the file in the first place, but you're not going to be able to get a pdf to display in an article simply due to its' nature. If you go to the image page and click on the little pdf icon, you can view it that way, but if you want it to display in the article (which I assume you do), you're going to have to find another format (gif, jpg/jpeg, png, svg, or ogg). See Help:Images for more info. <em style="font-family:Bradley Hand ITC;color:blue">Hers <em style="font-family:Bradley Hand ITC;color:gold">fold  (t/a/c) 20:37, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

Creating a Form on MediaWiki
Is it possible to create a form which can be used as a survey? We are running MediaWiki at out company.

--24.251.93.190 20:07, 10 August 2007 (UTC)


 * No, I don't think so. I think you'd have to write an extension (most obviously in PHP, in which MediaWiki itself is written). -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 22:05, 10 August 2007 (UTC)


 * There are a number of form extensions that could be of use. —Emufarmers(T/C) 22:29, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

Adding Google Analytics to a page?
Is it permissable to add Google Analytics code to a particular wikipedia article page to track how many page views that page receives?


 * No, and it wouldn't work if you did. There is in essence no way to determine how many page views a given Wikipedia article gets. -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 22:03, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

Articles
How do you create an ARTICLE? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 13nov95 (talk • contribs)


 * This should answer all your questions: Help:Starting a new page.<b style="font-family:comic sans ms; color:purple;">¤~Persian Poet Gal</b> <sup style="color:purple;">(talk) 22:56, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

What is considered little or no context.
See Kolonowskie Thedjatclubrock :) (talk) 23:34, 10 August 2007 (UTC)


 * I guess you're asking if that article meets CSD A1. The article could certainly use a heck of a lot of expansion, but I would say it does just meet the requirements for a stub. It tell us what the subject is, and provides a little other information besides. Note that this is only my opinion - others may feel differently. If you believe it's too short to qualify as an article, try expanding it (preferred) or put it up at Articles for Deletion. <em style="font-family:Bradley Hand ITC;color:blue">Hers <em style="font-family:Bradley Hand ITC;color:gold">fold  (t/a/c) 00:11, 11 August 2007 (UTC)

Afd
According to Articles for deletion/Adams Elementary School (Seattle), the decision was to delete it. So why is the article still there? Clarityfiend 23:56, 10 August 2007 (UTC)


 * Uh.... I would ask User:Singularity as the closing admin. There's probably some reason for it which he knows and has forgotten to tell us. :-) <em style="font-family:Bradley Hand ITC;color:blue">Hers <em style="font-family:Bradley Hand ITC;color:gold">fold  (t/a/c) 00:05, 11 August 2007 (UTC)


 * There were two articles and I guess Singularity just forgot to delete the other. I have asked. PrimeHunter 00:28, 11 August 2007 (UTC)