Wikipedia:Help desk/Archives/2007 July 14

= July 14 =

Question
I am a registered member of Wikipedia, However I have forgotten my password and got a new one mailed to me but it isnt working what do I do next?63.215.26.215 01:00, 14 July 2007 (UTC)
 * If the email hasn't come yet, try sending another one. If that doesn't work, then, I guess you will just have to register a new account. Sebi  &#91; talk &#93; 08:12, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

silver quaters
what is a 1960 silver quater worth 01:04, 14 July 2007 (UTC)01:04, 14 July 2007 (UTC)
 * E-bay puts them at about a buck a piece, less if you're buying bulk . --YbborTalk 02:42, 14 July 2007

(UTC)
 * Have you tried Wikipedia's Reference Desk? They specialize in knowledge questions, and will try to answer any question in the universe (except how to use Wikipedia, since that's what this Help Desk is for). Just follow the link, select the relevant section, and ask away. I hope this helps. Kevinwong913  Speak out loud! 18:51, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

how do i write an artical?
how do i write an artical?
 * To write an article first search for it using the search box. If it exists, start from there, if it dosen't, click the create this page link and start editing. If you do create a new article, make sure the subject meets notability guidelines and is well sourced. --Hdt83 Chat 04:33, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

You'll also find Your first article useful. Harryboyles 04:39, 14 July 2007 (UTC)
 * See also Help:Starting a new page :) Peacent 14:20, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

Australasia or Oceania
While browsing Legal drinking age I noticed a category for part of the world entitled "Australasia (formerly Oceania)". Does Wpedia have a policy on naming the region consisting of Australia, NZ and the Pacific islands? Mhicaoidh 06:27, 14 July 2007 (UTC)
 * This gets discussed at Talk:Oceania. I think most people see a difference between Australasia and Oceania, although both are rather fuzzy terms.- gadfium 08:57, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

Written permission
If a website requests "written permission" to use their material, does that mean I have to write a handwritten letter to them for a request or would an e-mail suffice? NorthernThunder 07:17, 14 July 2007 (UTC)
 * See: Requesting copyright permission which does seem to say an e-mail response would suffice, but according to that document we need permission from the copyright holder to publish under the GFDL or similar license which allows unlimited copying by others. --Teratornis 10:41, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

Suspected sockpuppetry
A new user with no previous edit history had placed a deletion tag in the article Prashant Tamang (the article had been featured in DYK part of Main Page). Can this be a case of sock puppetry? Thank you.--Eukesh 10:28, 14 July 2007 (UTC)


 * Seem like a new editor acting in good faith. In any case, it's best not to make assumptions, please try discussing the issue with them. Peacent 14:16, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

Project reports in marketing
I am looking for project report (copies) in marketing for my MBA course.

Please can you help me out in getting it
 * This question is too vague for me to understand. It sounds like a homework question. On the Help desk, we answer questions about using Wikipedia. Marketing is a very broad field. If you could be more specific about the course you are taking, someone might be able to guess what sort of project report you mean, and tell you whether Wikipedia has any articles that might help you. --Teratornis 17:19, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

I created my first entry but...
when I go there the text shows up as a single, long horizontal line.

The entry is "Fred Weintraub"

(It also shows his last name as weintraub, not Weintraub)

Where did I go wrong?

Thanks, StanFlouride 14:34, 14 July 2007 (UTC)
 * I've corrected the name, I don't see any problem with the text. --ST47 Talk 14:41, 14 July 2007 (UTC)


 * The problem was that a line in Fred Weintraub started with a space. This causes special formatting. It was fixed a few minutes before ST47 got there. PrimeHunter 15:57, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

User contributions disappearing
I've noticed that if someone edits an article that is subsequently deleted, all records of their edits disappear from their list of user contributions. Is that desirable or necessary? (Why not just turn all the diffs red or something?) What is to stop an admin PRODding an article and then deleting it themselves five days later? In fact what is to stop them just saying that they PRODded it, since there remains no record (AFAICS) of their edits?--Shantavira|feed me 14:42, 14 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Admins recently gained the ability to review a user's deleted contributions, and it was always possible for an admin to review the history and content of a deleted article. --ST47 Talk 14:50, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

baggage
Is there any storage facilities, lockers, or anywhere to leave luggage at the airport for a few days? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Special:Contributions/ (talk)
 * You can probably phone the airport to find out. Sancho 16:40, 14 July 2007 (UTC)
 * This is the help desk for the encyclopedia Wikipedia. We are not associated with any airline or airport. PrimeHunter 17:03, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

Same question
Where do i go to request two articles' histories to be merged as one was altered and then redirected to the other instead of a simple page move...? Simply south 18:21, 14 July 2007 (UTC)
 * WP:SPLICE.--Fuhghettaboutit 18:25, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

World Trade Organization
What did the WTO Uruguay Round of 1994 accomplish? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 209.247.5.43 (talk • contribs)
 * Have you tried the Miscellaneous section of Wikipedia's Reference Desk? They specialize in answering knowledge questions there; this help desk is only for questions about using Wikipedia. For your convenience, here's the link to post a question there: click here. I hope this helps.--Fuhghettaboutit 19:50, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

Greatest baseball play
–What is considered the Greatest Play ever made in baseball? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.246.15.57 (talk • contribs)
 * Have you tried the Miscellaneous section of Wikipedia's Reference Desk? They specialize in answering knowledge questions there; this help desk is only for questions about using Wikipedia. For your convenience, here's the link to post a question there: click here. I hope this helps.--Fuhghettaboutit 19:52, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

Correcting Title
I've created a page, and inadvertantly used a lower case in the title unstead of an uppper. I've checked the help pages, but can't find anything on correcting a title... all I need to do is change one letter from lower to upper case, can you help me?

Thanks, Jazzzzy
 * It must be moved to the correct title. New/Unregistered users can't do this, but if you post the article title here and what you want it to be, I'm sure someone will do it for you.—WAvegetarian (talk) 20:50, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

Thank you! Jazzzzy

Editing Wikipedia
I am new to wikipedia and i joined today. I edited girls aloud and spice girls and mcfly pages. I added some external links to spice girls page for example and they werent to my sites they were to a forum about spice girls and to their myspace and they were deleted as spam?? why? I also added lyrics to a new girls aloud song page and they were deleted. I was wondering why if i am allowed to edit then when i do why does the changes get removed. The main problem is that you assumed i was spamming when i wasnt —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Cjbiom (talk • contribs).
 * Wikipedia has many policies and guidelines. It can take some time to learn them and you will always risk being reverted by other editors. Others may for example have considered your edits to be against External links, Reliable sources, Lyrics and poetry. Some editors use the word "spam" about many forms of inappropriate content no matter what was the intention behind adding it. PrimeHunter 22:38, 14 July 2007 (UTC)
 * It is possible for other editors to be wrong in their interpretation of policies and guidelines, especially when their edit summaries do not link to specific sections in the Wikipedia manuals. However, as the policies and guidelines tend to be non-intuitive for most new users, new users tend to get them wrong more than experienced users. On Wikipedia the manuals are very extensive, so it should usually be possible to find a clear ruling to handle almost every conceivable editing situation that comes up, and when two editors have a dispute, the one with the best knowledge of the manuals tends to "win." The vast majority of Wikipedia's productive editors seem to agree that the only way registered users (and millions more unregistereds) can work together is to have clearly-written rules to govern every case that comes up (and if a dispute comes up with no rule to cover it, we work out more rules for it). --Teratornis 08:00, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

Adding Links
If a page is about a specific artist can you add links to the external links part at the bottom to sites that are about them without them then being deleted? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Cjbiom (talk • contribs).
 * Make sure that they don't break the guidelines at WP:EL, then feel free to add them. --ST47 Talk 22:57, 14 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Generally, fansites are not good sites to add, especially discussion forums. --ST47 Talk 22:58, 14 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Please sign your messages here with ~ at the end. I see you also posted in the above section. PrimeHunter 23:13, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

Greatest Play ever made in baseball with the American Flag involved
–What is considered the Greatest Play ever made in baseball with the American Flag involved. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 69.246.15.57 (talk • contribs).


 * Earlier today you got the reply:
 * Have you tried the Miscellaneous section of Wikipedia's Reference Desk? They specialize in answering knowledge questions there; this help desk is only for questions about using Wikipedia. For your convenience, here's the link to post a question there: click here. I hope this helps. PrimeHunter 00:19, 15 July 2007 (UTC)


 * Sounds like the answer to a trivia question, although the wording of the question is pretty POV. The answer they're looking for is probably April 25, 1976: Cubs outfielder and future Dodger Rick Monday rescues a flag from two fans who are attempting to burn it in the outfield at Dodger Stadium., though I, personally, disagree with the POV of the question.  Corvus cornix 22:17, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

Looking for a Magic word or Variable.
Is there a magic word or variable that gives you the amount of days before a certain date? Tcrow777 talk  23:40, 14 July 2007 (UTC)


 * age in days gives the number of days between two dates or from a date until today. It gives a negative result for future days, but you can take the absolute value with Abs to get the positive number of days from today until a given date. For example, $|8945 days|$ evaluates to . PrimeHunter 00:14, 15 July 2007 (UTC)


 * Thank you! You can see what I did with it here. Tcrow777  talk  01:02, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

Getting strange E-mails from Wikipedia...
Hi, I don't know if this is the correct place to ask this, but here goes. I've recently got two e-mails apparently from Wikipedia (the sending address was wiki@wikimedia.org), they both stated that "someone" form an IP address has requested that a new password be sent to me. Now I didn't request any new password or anything like that, so I'm somewhat confused and suspicious of where this has come from. I got the first message on the 25th of June, and it stated the request came from the IP address 68.4.248.235. I got a second message on the 12th of July saying exactly the same thing, except it was from IP address 195.142.234.66. Now I've just tried to see if these are users on Wiki, and it turns out they are, User: 68.4.248.235 is a one-time editor who was editing on the 25th of June, and User: 195.142.234.66 seems also to be a one-time (and apparently vandalistic) editor, though he only edited on the 20th of March. It seems that these two people have requested that my account password be changed, but how they did this and for what purpose, I don't know. Can anyone offer an explanation? Is this something that's known to happen? Thanks. BTW my account doesn't seem to have been affected, as I can log on fine with my standard password. --Hibernian 00:23, 15 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Don't worry. A similar question was asked above at ; read the replies and your question should be answered. &mdash; Malcolm talk 00:27, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

Ok. So I guess it's nothing to worry about then, thanks. --Hibernian 03:10, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

What are "Notable Natives"
I have seen the subtopic "Notable Natives" in articles about cities. What are the criteria for being a "Native?" Specifically, does this mean the person was born in this city or could they have been born somewhere else and lived in the city their whole life, or a substantial portion of their life? Reservoirhill 00:45, 15 July 2007 (UTC)
 * The word "natives" literally means "born there", but if the person spent much of his or her childhood there (before becoming famous), that counts as a native for our purposes, too. Shalom Hello 02:42, 15 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Which is why "notable residents" is usually a better choice. Just my $0.02. Ingolfson 13:34, 15 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Thanks, I've decided to retitle the section "Notable Natives and Residents" to cover all the bases. Reservoirhill 14:01, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

adding yourself to wikipedia
dear wikipedia i was wandering if it would be possible of adding myself to wikipedia thanks.


 * Once you become a notable person, it shouldn't take long before someone creates an article on you. Otherwise, no, go to WikiBios instead. &mdash; Kieff | Talk 01:00, 15 July 2007 (UTC)


 * Please see also WP:BIO, and be aware of WP:COI. Peacent 01:04, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

CSS issue
How come #p-cactions li, #p-cactions li.selected { min-height: 30px !important; } in my monobook.css doesn't work? I'm using Firefox, so there should be no lack of client support, and I don't see any other tags that would override the min-height. Neon Merlin  01:29, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

Updating A Photo
I have a photo of the new boys playing Spike Lavery(I'm there mom!) I was curious as to how I can get the photo on the page for Spike Lavery? I don't have a copyright but I took the picture myself AND they are also on the cover of Soap Opera weekly in the bottom right corner of the July 24th edition. Thank you for your help. Sincerely, Bonnie EcksteinSunflwrr629 02:41, 15 July 2007 (UTC)


 * Hi Bonnie, and welcome to Wikipedia! :) In order to add a picture here, you need to, first, upload it (see also Upload), then make sure you provide the appropriate copyright tag (like whether you want to put your image to public domain, etc). Finally, add the link of the image to the article in question, more detailed instructions at Help:Image. I hope this helps. Peacent 03:24, 15 July 2007 (UTC)