Wikipedia:Help desk/Archives/2007 February 4

=February 4=

help with table
Why does the table in Chess Engines rating lists show down at the bottom of the article instead of where it is intended to go? It is that way in both IE and Firefox. How can it be told to go where we want it to go? Bubba73 (talk), 01:03, 4 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Fixed. The problem was that you have  at the bottom of the table instead of   which probably caused it to do something weird. └ Jared ┘┌ talk ┐&ensp; 01:10, 4 February 2007 (UTC)


 * Thanks. The other editor did that, and I didn't catch it.  Thanks for the fix.  Bubba73 (talk), 01:11, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

Where to report a possible spammer?
It may be that user User:Bill_Clark is engaging in spamming on behalf of "Northland Communications." Where would I go to report this to an admin, and have that admin see his Bill Clark's contribs for the past several days to investigate? Spamreporter1 02:15, 4 February 2007 (UTC)


 * WP:COI can help deal with this. − Twas Now ( talk • contribs • e-mail ) 02:45, 4 February 2007 (UTC)


 * There's Wikipedia talk:WikiProject_Spam if you want assistance from other editors who put some effort into fighting spam. -- Siobhan Hansa 03:42, 4 February 2007 (UTC)


 * Ack! This is like the third or fourth place I've had to reply to this. :) Anyway, I've stopped editing city pages for now and am focusing on creating wanted/missing articles for US cable companies, instead.  As discussed here, here, here, and here, my focus is on US cable companies in general, and Northland was just first on my list.  I'm trying to build some consensus in some of those discussions as to how best to proceed with future edits.  --Bill Clark 18:39, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

AOL DISK
If i put my aol disk in my computer and install aol and than take it out will aol be uninstalled?will i be able to change the logo on my main page on my computer computer for aol. will the logo be hidden?will i have to put it back in to make it run?Crocadog 02:40, 4 February 2007 (UTC)


 * No, it won't be uninstalled after removing the disk. And this is not the place to discuss AOL. Please contact AOL for those questions. − Twas Now ( talk • contribs • e-mail ) 02:43, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

"Abandoning" an AfD
It has been suggested that I abandon [|my current AfD proposal] and resubmit the websites individually. How do I go about stopping the process and resubmitting the new AfD? Nposs 02:48, 4 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Easiest is to use Strikethrough tags on your nom, comment directly under it that you are withdrawing the nom to resubmit articles individually. An admin will close it for you. Or, if you're comforable, you can close it yourself (since you're withdrawing your own nom). Then go do the submissions. -- Kesh 05:00, 4 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Strikethrough - put at the beginning of the text and at the end. -- John Broughton  (☎☎) 02:25, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

Citing a Wikipedia article as a reliable source
I believe that I've seen a guideline stating that a Wikipedia article cannot cite another Wikipedia article as a reliable source. Is this correct? If it is, which guideline says this? I can't find it in WP:RS. Thanks. Tanaats 03:11, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

I am unaware of policy on this but that is true as the pages can so easily be changed incorret infromation may be added to pages unknowingly. This is why schools and university generally do not accept wikipedia as a source that is reliable.--Lucy-marie 03:32, 4 February 2007 (UTC)


 * I could only find this. In general, I'd argue against citing any encyclopedia as a source. Xiner (talk, email) 04:02, 4 February 2007 (UTC)


 * It shouldn't be done. Wikipedia articles should cite reliable sources. If one article makes a claim then it should be backed up with a citation. If a second article needs to make the same claim then it can cite the original source, not the Wikipedia article. Otherwise we could end up with loops of articles all citing each other which is obviously not reliable at all. --Cherry blossom tree 12:08, 4 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Right. It's called a Walled garden, and can be the source of major problems. Plus, Wikis are tertiary sources, and Wikipedai wants secondary sources for citations. So, citing Wikipedia itself doesn't help prove any claims in a verifiable manner. -- Kesh 20:31, 4 February 2007 (UTC)


 * See Avoid self-references. -- John Broughton  (☎☎) 02:23, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

Partial IP hiding?
Did we use to hide part of anon's IP addresses before? Take a look at Sri Lanka's early history. Note all the IPs of the format 123.456.xxx. Prodego talk  04:07, 4 February 2007 (UTC)


 * I suspect it's a registered account made to look like an IP. Xiner (talk, email) 04:14, 4 February 2007 (UTC)


 * I don't think so, because I noticed it on the early history of some other pages (United States for example) as well. Also, they aren't in the userlist. Prodego  talk  04:21, 4 February 2007 (UTC)


 * Well, the person was reverted 13 times on that page. If someone had warned/reported the vandalism, we might not have to wonder today. Xiner (talk, email) 04:38, 4 February 2007 (UTC)


 * No need to worry. Those were edits done on Phase 1 of the software, which was actually UseModWiki. Back then, the full IP addresses were not recorded; I'm not sure if they began being recorded in Phase 3 (MediaWiki) or earlier (Magnus Manske's script). Either way, it is perfectly normal. Tito xd (?!?) 04:42, 4 February 2007 (UTC)


 * So UseMod didn't record full IPs. I knew that UseMod was used before the wonder that is Mediawiki ;-) (goodbye CamelCase), but I didn't know it didn't record. That's the answer. Prodego  talk  05:16, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

No new password received
Tried to log in and told password not valid. Clicked on send new password and advised it would be sent by e-mail to me. No sign of it within 24 hours. Tried this several times and still no e-mailed password. Please help..........Gerard222.152.200.231 04:18, 4 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Copied from Reference Desk/Miscellaneous. V-Man737 04:36, 4 February 2007 (UTC)


 * I suspect your spamfilter or your email provider is blocking the emails. What email service are you using? - Mgm|(talk) 11:18, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia Bots
Dear Wikipedia community, Could anyone here tell me how can an ordinary Wikipedian make a bot? I mean by an ordinary Wikipedia someone who doesn't know any programming language and does not know HTML. I know that in this case you should download Python from here then download the files from here then what are the following steps? I would really appreciate it if someone here can help me. Thank you very much. --196.202.92.134 05:17, 4 February 2007 (UTC)
 * It really depends on the purpose of the bot. Can you detail the purpose a bit? My bot runs on WP:AWB for which there is no programming knowledge required at all. &mdash; Lost (talk) 05:22, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

IE 7 problem
all wikipedia pages in work offline status are not working under Internet explorer 7 What is the soultion to this problem —Preceding unsigned comment added by Eyas Hajeh (talk • contribs)
 * The "work offline" option is meant for viewing previously cached pages (copies of pages temporarily stored on your computer) without actually having to be online (i.e., having an active connection to the Internet) at that time. I believe this should work fine for most Wikipedia pages, but only if they are currently cached. Whether they've been cached or not will depend on a few things such as how long ago you viewed the page; how large your cache size is set to; whether the page could be cached in the first place; etc. As such, you'll probably end up with some pages cached (and thus viewable in offline mode), and others not. I hope this is what you meant. If not, in Internet Explorer, click on File, and then on "Work offline" to remove the tick mark next to it. Then press Ctrl+F5 and the page should display again. Hope this helps. —Xhantar Talk 07:22, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

selena
it's not so much a question as a statement. In your article about selena it says that people did a hwole issue on her, but what you don't note is that due to the popularity of that issue, people magazine started people en esponol. please add that in. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Rosekath (talk • contribs)
 * Wikipedia is a collaboratively edited online encyclopedia. Many different people contribute towards its content and articles can be changed by anyone. As such, the Selena article is actually "yours" as much as it is "ours"—you are welcome to edit the article and make any changes (or add any content) you deem fit—be bold! Note: Please remember to sign your posts by typing four tildes, like this:  —Xhantar Talk 07:36, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

Article Heading Not Properly Capitalized
I created a biographical article for Jesse Ceci. The heading that currently appears is "Jesse ceci", not "Jesse Ceci" as it should appear. Why isn't the last name not appropriately capitalized and how do I get it corrected? --Tamburellom 07:28, 4 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Because you didn't type it that way when you created it, see Help:Moving pages. --WikiSlasher 07:30, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

How Do I Start A New Catagory?
A reply on my talk page would be greatly appreciated, thanks.100110100 10:09, 4 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Replying on user's talk. Luna Santin 10:13, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

Is it okay to stalk users?
I mean if theres a user and you like what he writes on talk pages too,  is it alright to regularly check thru the contributions and basically keep reading up on him? Totally as a lurker without ever contributing anything. Or is this somehow wrong?Gantpupo 11:32, 4 February 2007 (UTC)
 * That's not stalking. If you like a user and want to see what else he edits, you can look at his contributions and talkpage as much as you want. Most wikifriends do. Dev920 (Have a nice day!) 11:37, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

Looking at other ppl's contributes is perfectly fine. That's why they (and all those logs) are publically visible. "stalking" people's edits only becomes bad if you start harrassing them (i.e. say if you have a grudge against another editor or sth). You may want to take a read at Harassment and see the section on wikistalking. -- `/aksha 11:44, 4 February 2007 (UTC)
 * It also might prove useful to "track" vandals, as they sometimes have a "ongoing history" of vandalism.-- science4sail talk con  03:02, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

I read the policys and i guess im safe. ive been following around an interesting one and he's so not a "vandal". It just feels weird is all. Like a voyer or something. Gantpupo 04:44, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

accessing articles
1. I am trying to get an overview of Wikipedia by reading sytematically through the various entries about it.

2. But I found it difficult to do this: Is there any list of the articles about Wikipedia that I could access - for that matter, is there any kind of accessible classified list of the articles?

3. Maybe that is asking for too much but a nice systematic and available list of the articles about Wikipedia would be nice.

4. And could I also comment that I found it difficult to know how to post or send this comment - the latter seems to be impossible.

Alan Bill —Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.108.95.89 (talk • contribs)


 * Well, the article Wikipedia has a lot about the history and operations of Wikipedia. We also recommend that new users read these pages to get an idea of how things work here:

These pages will give you more information on how to use and edit Wikipedia. If you are looking for some specific articles to get a sense of how articles are written, Featured articles lists some of the best articles on Wikipedia. If you have any more questions, feel free to leave a comment on my talk page. GhostPirate 14:34, 4 February 2007 (UTC)
 * The five pillars of Wikipedia
 * How to edit a page
 * Help pages
 * Tutorial
 * How to write a great article
 * Manual of Style
 * I thought of something else. Here is the page of Wikipedia's Policies and Guidelines, the "rules" of Wikipedia, and you may also be interested in Essays, a group of unofficial essays some users have written to try to establish certain guidelines and general ideas about editing.. Some of them have strange names, such as No angry mastodons and How many legs does a horse have?. --GhostPirate 14:42, 4 February 2007 (UTC)


 * To address question 2: is there any kind of accessible classified list of the articles?, Wikipedia has at least two mechanisms to classify articles (about all subjects, not just Wikipedia itself): portals and categories (see: Categorical index). There are also many list articles which cover individual topic areas. To address question 4, on MediaWiki wikis (Wikipedia is the largest example), the primary method of communication between users is the talk page. Alan Bill, if you are reading this, perhaps you could tell us more about your goals for Wikipedia: for example, do you want to edit articles within a certain topic area? If so, there may be a WikiProject you could join. If you merely want to read articles within a certain topic area, the corresponding WikiProject may have enthusiasts who could guide you. Above all, you can see that Wikipedia is extremely complex. This is the largest wiki in the world, with more than one million articles, and more than three million registered users, of whom several tens of thousands are serious editors. Getting a solid idea of what's going on here is a big job, like trying to comprehend any other large organization---and you're doing it solely through your computer. If you want to find some actual humans in your locale who know about Wikipedia, you could try Category:Wikipedians by location. Before Wikipedia, there had probably never been any system of remote, voluntary collaboration on Wikipedia's scale. Therefore, Wikipedians have had to invent new methods of management and coordination. Depending on how busy you are otherwise, you may need weeks or months of calendar time to poke around, read lots of articles, dabble with editing, and so on, to get a handle on the subset of Wikipedia relevant to your interests. --Teratornis 17:15, 4 February 2007 (UTC)


 * One more thing: to learn something interesting about Wikipedia every day, bookmark this: Tip of the day. --Teratornis 20:13, 4 February 2007 (UTC)


 * Another one more thing: The Wikipedia Department Directory has a nicely laid-out page with lots and lots of links to information about using Wikipedia. —Xhantar Talk 20:32, 4 February 2007 (UTC)


 * I've been working for the last couple of months on an index - you'll find it here. -- John Broughton  (☎☎) 02:17, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

how to read different books
iam unable to read the different books or a disclosure of swami vivakananda
 * Wikisource hosts books. Xiner (talk, email) 18:46, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

Deleting an Article and Recreating It
I just created a page in the last 24 hours and a redirect message was erroneously created due to a misspelling. Is there a way to delete the entire article and recreate it as a new one to eliminate the redirect message at top? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Tamburellom (talk • contribs).
 * If you've just created the article, just copy the contents from the wrong location and paste it into the correct one, then set up a WP:REDIRECT from the wrong location. Xiner (talk, email) 18:16, 4 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Please don't copy and paste. Any issue of this kind can be cleanly fixed by moves and deletes (if necessary).  Looking at your contributions I assume you're talking about Jesse Ceci, but what's the problem?  -- Rick Block (talk) 18:32, 4 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Yes, of course. That's quite an amateurish answer. WP:MOVE specifically discourages it. Xiner (talk, email) 18:44, 4 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Looking at your history, and seeing that you had already (and correctly) moved the article before asking this question, I think what you were concerned about is the message at the top of the page "redirected from Jesse Ceci/Violinist" and there is no issue at all here about copying and pasting or moving. If that's the case, note that a person will only see the redirection note at the top of an article when the article is attempted to be accessed by typing the name of the redirect into the search field. Anyone just typing the name of the article will never see that note. So, for example if you click on artistic or searched for that article, which is a redirect to art, you will see at the top of the article art: "redirected from artistic". But if you click on or search for art directly, you don't see that note. So the existence of the redirect makes no appearance change in the article except when it's accessed and serving its intended function.--Fuhghettaboutit 18:59, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

IP talk
As a counter-vandalism user, I put warning messages on the talk pages of IP users, but I was wondering, do IP's get the same "You have new talk" messages as logged in users, or are we all just wasting our time with unnesessary warnings that won't get read? Mr.Z-man  talk  18:49, 4 February 2007 (UTC)


 * Yes, they do, and no, there's no way to avoid it. Otherwise vandals would have loads of excuses for why they shouldn't be blocked. Xiner (talk, email) 18:52, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

Semiprotection
How do I go about requesting that an article be semiprotected? WP:SEMI makes no mention of how to do this, and Joe E. Newsome High School DESPERATELY needs to be semiprotected (see history). Thanks. Steevven1 (Talk) (Contribs) (Gallery) 19:11, 4 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Try Requests for page protection. Garion96 (talk) 19:14, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

error in article
i messed up the article when i created it. Does anyone know how to fix it? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graphics_Synthesizer --Falcon866 22:28, 4 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Do you mean the dotted box around the text and image? That's created whenever you start a line with a space,

like this.
 * I've fixed the page... if that's what you meant... Dismas|(talk) 22:33, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

Domination Page
In the Domination Page.. there is the statement which dosen't seem to belong.

"Domination

—Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.218.220.17 (talk • contribs)
 * when a creature called Ralphjoice decided to sit right next to you you in turn become frieghtend, but there is no hope of escape. You become in time... owned...dominated "

That was just vandalism, if it hasn't been reverted, I'll fix it. | A ndonic O Talk · Sign Here 23:08, 4 February 2007 (UTC)


 * This looks like vandalism. I've reverted the page to its previous version. In future, be bold and edit the page yourself! See the Tutorial for an introduction on how to edit pages on Wikipedia. Let me know if you need any help. I've posted a warning to the user's talk page. —Xhantar Talk 23:14, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

How do I...
How do I create a Wiki? I didn't see it in the VFAQs.

Thanks. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Binaryaudio (talk • contribs)
 * Please see How can I build a Wiki of my own. Note: Please remember to sign your posts by typing four tildes, like this: . Thanks! —Xhantar Talk 23:19, 4 February 2007 (UTC)
 * edit this provides a free wiki creation sevice. ~  Flame vip  e  r  Who's a Peach? 01:19, 5 February 2007 (UTC)


 * I suggest reading: Wiki Science/How to start a Wiki for some useful introduction. If you just want to make a personal wiki to experiment with, it's pretty easy to install MediaWiki under XAMPP or one of the other WAMPs (similar packages are available for all major operating systems, e.g., LAMP (software bundle)), assuming you have some system administrator skills. Otherwise you'll need to use one of the pre-packaged hosted wiki options. Of course there are many wiki software packages to choose from. If you start your own public wiki, you're a long way from making it as impressive as Wikipedia. The biggest problem is attracting enough users who will make quality edits. You have to compete with thousands of existing wikis for the capable and willing wiki editors, or recruit and educate a group of your own. Expect to sink many hours into development and editing, or find others who will, if you want to end up with decent wiki. You might want to spend a few months editing on Wikipedia or another established wiki before striking out on your own. Wikipedia is analogous to a developed country, with all the services, infrastructure, and civilization you need to be productive and comfortable. Starting your own wiki is like getting dropped onto an uninhabited island with lots of raw materials, and you must make them into something. And not to be too harsh about it, but if you have to ask how to start your own wiki, that may mean you aren't quite ready to make a good show of it yet. After a few months of editing on Wikipedia, reading the help pages, seeing how things work, and learning things such as the importance of signing your talk page comments, then you are in a better position to consider starting your own wiki---and you will know where to find the instructions. --Teratornis 05:24, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

Superscript text== Redirect Question ==

I discovered that Ileana, a fairly common given name redirects to a specific actress which doesn't make sense. How do I go about rectifying this or even discussing its rectification as the talk page redirects to the actress' talk page. Thanks Goodnightmush 23:28, 4 February 2007 (UTC)


 * If you click on Ileana, you'll be redirected to Ileana D'Cruz. At the top of that page, you'll see a link: (Redirected from Ileana). Click on that to go to the redirect page, which you can then edit normally. See also: Redirect. Cheers. --Plek 23:53, 4 February 2007 (UTC)


 * Also, please see Redirects for discussion. Another way to visit (and edit) the actual redirect page itself, is to append  to the end of the page's URL—in this case,  . The correct talk page for discussing the redirect would still be Talk:Ileana D'Cruz. When a page is redirected, its talk page is redirected as well. Hope this helps. —Xhantar Talk 23:59, 4 February 2007 (UTC)


 * This issue has been resolved. Thank you.  --Eric Teltschik 05:54, 4 July 2007 (UTC)