Wikipedia:Help desk/Archives/2008 August 29

= August 29 =

Userboxs
How do I create a Userbox. --VitasV (talk) 08:13, 1 September 2008 (UTC)


 * This is a pretty broad question. What kind of userbox are you looking to make? &mdash; $PЯINGεrαgђ  03:39 2 September, 2008 (UTC)

Picture won't show
I tried to upload a picture to the Commons for use in the Bethmann family article but it won't show, please help.--Goodmorningworld (talk) 01:28, 29 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Are you commons:User:Goodmorningworld on Commons? You appear to have not uploaded an image there: See commons:Special:Contributions/Goodmorningworld.  x42bn6 Talk Mess  01:31, 29 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Thank you for the reply. Upload worked this time, but pic still won't show...--Goodmorningworld (talk) 01:41, 29 August 2008 (UTC)
 * I've WP:PURGEd the page which made the image show up. x42bn6 Talk Mess  01:46, 29 August 2008 (UTC)
 * It worked, thank you very much! (I put back the Translated Page message on the article because that is where I want it to be.)--Goodmorningworld (talk) 01:55, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

PHD degree
Do you have to have a PHD degree to be a professor in a university?

”””°………≈≈≈ —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.43.234.70 (talk) 01:59, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

Have you tried Wikipedia's Reference Desk? They specialize in knowledge questions and will try to answer just about any question in the universe (except how to use Wikipedia, since that is what this Help Desk is for). Just follow the link, select the relevant section, and ask away. I hope this helps.  Gtstricky Talk or C 02:05, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

Does there exist a list of previously deleted articles anywhere?
Hello.

Does there exist a list of deleted articles anywhere?

I ask out of interest in finding out whether a specific article has already been deleted before for whatever reason. That way, without accessing any article content, I can review any discussion around the deletion, and then based on that decide whether I should just not bother re-creating it in the first place. That would be my preference if I don't have more information to offer than whatever warranted prior deletion[s] and would save unnecessarily repeating prior discussions.

-thanks, Onceler (talk) 02:49, 29 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Yes, there is the Deletion Log. Also, if you go to create a new article, it should have a note at the top of the initial editing screen saying "This article has previously been deleted, blah blah blah". Is that what you're looking for? --Alinnisawest,Dalek Empress ( extermination requests here ) 02:54, 29 August 2008 (UTC)
 * (edit conflict) Well, there's a couple of options of which I know. There's the deletion log, which logs all of the deleted pages. Or, if you think the article in question has been deleted before by an articles for deletion discussion, you can type WP:Articles for deletion/PAGENAME in the searchbar on the left hand side of the page to see if brings up any results. I hope this helps!  TN ‑ X - Man  02:55, 29 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Try searching using WP:Articles for deletion/Name of Article For example, go to WP:Articles for deletion/Laurence Clancy.  (This is an article I wrote, but it was eventually deleted.)  Cheers. Dolphin51 (talk) 02:56, 29 August 2008 (UTC)
 * More information is under WP:EIW, including:
 * Deletionpedia – An automated bot uploads pages to this website as they are deleted from Wikipedia.
 * You can search Deletionpedia with Google custom:


 * --Teratornis (talk) 05:29, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

Many thanks to all for this information. It looks like there are more options than I expected. -regards, Onceler (talk) 05:57, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

Advanced Editing
Is there someone I can talk to or a website or page that deals with help on more advanced wikia editing? e.g. internal scroll boxes, tabbed pages, more expert font techniques  Lovemuffin  333  02:59, 29 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Try Help:Wikitext examples and other pages in the box on the right of that page. --Alinnisawest,Dalek Empress ( extermination requests here ) 03:12, 29 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Is there a site that has guides about advanced wikia editing? I have been eager to find one for some time.  Lovemuffin  333  03:53, 29 August 2008 (UTC)
 * This is the Help desk for Wikipedia. Wikia is a separate of project Jimbo Wales. I'm surprised that Wikia itself would not have the manuals you need. Did you try Googleing?
 * etc.
 * Nothing jumps right out, so maybe this isn't easy to find. Did you look on the Wikia Help wiki? We can search it with Google custom:
 * Nothing jumps right out, so maybe this isn't easy to find. Did you look on the Wikia Help wiki? We can search it with Google custom:


 * --Teratornis (talk) 05:42, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

Anomaly
I have never edited the Simple English Wikipedia. I was just exploring the new user navigation links that pop up on the bottom of a user's contribution page, checked my global contributions, and found a single edit by "me" to the Simple English Wikipedia with a bizarre edit summary. I assure you I did not make this edit, never used (or would use) an incomprehensible edit summary such as that, don't know what it means, have never seen this template before, and have a super strong, 16 digit password. I understand that sometimes when pages are transwikied an edit made on another project can migrate but I have never touched this template on any project. So, how is this possible?--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 04:22, 29 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Hmmm. It occurs to me that this was prior to unified login. I thought if another user had an identical account, I could not have automatically usurped it; maybe I'm wrong about that and therein lies the answer?--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 04:29, 29 August 2008 (UTC)
 * I think it was because of this edit you made here, which was probably dumped and merged somehow. --Kjoonlee 05:34, 29 August 2008 (UTC)
 * The following edit to simple:Template:Uw-lang was with edit summary "1 revision from en:Template:Uw-lang", and at the time the latest edit to en:Template:Uw-lang was by Fuhghettaboutit according to the page history. The edit summary there makes sense in the context. PrimeHunter (talk) 12:03, 29 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Fuhghettaboutit was working on templates at the time. I see how this edit could easily be forgotten 8 months later when it was viewed without the diff at the simple Wikipedia. PrimeHunter (talk) 12:09, 29 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Okay, thanks everyone. So it was a GFDL violating transwiki (full edit history not imported) which implied I created the template with that edit summary. I would have remembered creating the template, but not the language tweak at the end, which now demistifies the edit summary.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 12:20, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

EXE Sandbox
I am interested in developing while offline and being able to see things. However I'm using a laptop and wish to do so offline, is there any downloadable version of MediaWiki/Wikipedia that I can use to test realtime(or page by page) changes I make on an offline version? I figure it just needs to be able to parse the pages, but I'd simply like to know if it exists, since finding stuff about Wikipedia ON Wikipedia is hard to do, especially with so many Wikis out there, and with information about other things out here. Pyrofyr (talk) 04:54, 29 August 2008 (UTC)


 * You may find something helpful at, in particular mw:Manual:Wiki on a stick, a specific installation for removable USB media. There are also Wikipedia database dumps located somewhere around here, if you're interested in particular in working with Wikipedia content, although you will probably also need to install most of the extensions listed at Special:Version for things to work properly (and there may be other things not listed there, I'm not 100% sure). Confusing Manifestation (Say hi!) 05:24, 29 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Fixed link. --Kjoonlee 05:39, 29 August 2008 (UTC)
 * If you want to actually mirror all of, say, the English Wikipedia, you would have to download quite a bit. But if you just want your own MediaWiki wiki to try fairly simple edits, you can easily install MediaWiki as your own personal wiki via the wiki on a stick method. Installing MediaWiki gives you a very bare-bones wiki, compared to what you probably take for granted on Wikipedia. Wikipedia has extensions, lots of templates, some customized CSS (see MediaWiki:Common.css), and at least one extra program running on the server (HTML Tidy) which actually changes the behavior of the parser (which means some types of complex template markup won't run the same without HTML Tidy). Finding stuff about Wikipedia on Wikipedia is actually easy to do; you need two tools:
 * The Editor's index
 * The Help desk searches template on your user page
 * --Teratornis (talk) 05:53, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

Why thank you, the wiki on a stick seems like what I want. I'm planning on eventually starting up some projects on a wiki that's not made yet, so I want to get some practice and learn most of the more advanced things like toolboxes and setting up complicated templates, but I want to be able to do it in the car on my laptop and stuff, so I'll definitely try it out. Also thanks for the link to HTML Tidy, I'll try and check out extensions that would be worthwhile as well for sure. 72.1.81.226 (talk) 15:10, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

Article on Robert Marsden
I initiated an article on the British actor Robert Marsden, entering into correspondence over editing and providing references, and attempting to improve my use of Wikipedia. I subsequently supplied a photograph, which appeared in the article this week. Today the article is missing when I searched for it. I am curious to know what has happened.

Regards Rogersansom (talk) 07:08, 29 August 2008 (UTC)


 * I have not trouble finding it; it is at Robert Marsden. The log does not show any deletion of the article. —teb728 t c 08:10, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

Thank you, I'm happy to hear that. If it's not my computer, then, it must be something to do with search engines I suppose. Obliged to you.

Rogersansom (talk) 09:10, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

Linking to Conception dream
Hi, I've just started a stub, conception dream. However, I'm having a bit of trouble generating backlinks for the article. Any ideas, please? --Kjoonlee 07:44, 29 August 2008 (UTC)
 * I'm assuming that by "backlinks" you mean "What links here"-type links. Is the topic addressed in any of the articles you list under "see also"? If so, go to those articles and wikilink the term (or whatever term those articles use for conception dreams, properly piped). -- Orange Mike  &#x007C;   Talk  13:03, 29 August 2008 (UTC)


 * By any chance, is the issue here that "Conception dream" is not itself an article but a redirect to "Conception dreams"? Wanderer57 (talk) 13:09, 29 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Nope; the redirect was done after the discussion started. -- Orange Mike  &#x007C;   Talk  23:28, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

ppast version of copyright infingement in Japanese Wikipedia
Why the past version of copyright infingement articles will be specific version delete in Japanese Wikipedia. RushdimIDlike (talk) 08:42, 29 August 2008 (UTC)


 * I guess that's their copyright policy? Each Wiki in the Wikimedia system can set its own copyright enforcement policy, seeing as the official policy on this doesn't specify how to enforce it. In root, you can look at it as a legal issue. Under American law, a copyright violation is generally only penalized where it may undercut the copyright holder's profits. A copy of a copyrighted work in an obscure and non Google-able revision history, a work that is freely available online anyway, is unlikely to yield a viable lawsuit, and is unlikely to produce any lawsuit, in fact. So there is little point being paranoid and deleting every single CV revision. On the other hand, the complete works of some author, never published in digital form, can threaten his profits merely by existing in the history as someone might be linking to it. So certainly some CV revisions are worth deleting, but all is simply excessive. But if the Japanese Wikipedians want to follow that policy, that's their choice. Someguy1221 (talk) 09:17, 29 August 2008 (UTC)
 * I don't disagree with the above reply, but in the future, Google says it intends to make the Deep web searchable, and presumably that would include things such as Wikipedia's revision histories. That's probably years away, if it ever happens. --Teratornis (talk) 16:35, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

Fonts
Hi. I'm trying to write an article on a mathematics theorem but can't find the right font. I want a sort of curly D. Where to find a list of fonts that I can use in  mode? Thanks, Robinh (talk) 11:06, 29 August 2008 (UTC)
 * The mode uses LaTeX to display math notation, a guide to using it can be found  here. The code to display a curly D seems to be $$\partial$$ to get $$\partial$$ 193.194.132.78 (talk) 12:10, 29 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Or possibly $$\mathcal D$$ ($$\mathcal D$$) or $$\mathfrak D$$ ($$\mathfrak D$$). Algebraist 12:13, 29 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Thanks guys. mathfrak D was what I was looking for.  I didn't know about Help:Displaying a formula; how would I have discovered this from the Main page if I didn't know about it? Robinh (talk) 13:25, 29 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Well, from the Main Page I guess the easiest way would be to click on help and then use this search which reveals the page Help:Displaying a formula. The Main Page and main Help Page are general considered tools for the reader not the editor. This means us editors learn things by doing exactly what you just did, asking around and experimenting. Happy editing! Scottydude review 13:52, 29 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Thanks Scottydude; I've never noticed the clickable help link on the main page. Check out the totally stubby Helly metric and the devastatingly erudite use of mathfrak.  Best wishes, Robinh (talk) 14:01, 29 August 2008 (UTC)
 * The Help link is on all pages. You could also have tried your luck with an upper case WP: shortcut like WP:MATH or WP:FORMULA. Both work and are probably the easiest way to get there next time. PrimeHunter (talk) 14:04, 29 August 2008 (UTC)
 * It appears from that WP:TEX is the shortest. Just enter that in the search box on any page. PrimeHunter (talk) 14:12, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

history
How do I use this site to find out history about Mcleansville Nc, or is this site not used for history. We need to know who Mcleansville Nc was named after. If I'm at the wrong site will you please help me with were I need to be.66.233.162.12 (talk) 12:54, 29 August 2008 (UTC)
 * There is an article for McLeansville at McLeansville, North Carolina, but it does not include any history of the town's name. You may want to try Googling McLeansville. Cheers!  TN ‑ X - Man  13:00, 29 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Here is a standardized reply:
 * Have you tried the Humanities 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 is the link to post a question there: click here. I hope this helps. PrimeHunter (talk) 14:08, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

why ban users not fair
why ban users cause then you cant make a account —Preceding unsigned comment added by Cyberdemon4 (talk • contribs) 15:27, 29 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Cyberdemon4, please stop asking such questions here. A bunch of us assumed good faith earlier, but you are quickly wearing out your welcome. A look at your contribs shows that you aren't interested in contributing to the project so much as constantly wondering inane questions about blocks, bans, and "getting an IP". Please stop wasting our time. Tan      39  15:31, 29 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Cyberdemon4 has been blocked indefinitely.Laenir (talk) 17:53, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

byebye, the wikipedia adaction.
I will put the wikibreak to prevent addcition on Wikipedia. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 219.68.144.2 (talk) 16:33, 29 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Enjoy your wikibreak. Barring some unforeseen catastrophe, Wikipedia should be here when you want to resume editing. Imagine how great it would be if every business used corporate wikis and figured out how to make gainful employment as enjoyable as Wikipedia. Then everyone could get addicted to their job. While you're away, you might want to read some books by Clay Shirky and Yochai Benkler to get some insight into why you find Wikipedia so addicting. --Teratornis (talk) 18:43, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

I can't seem to be able to Edit or Add any comments in the Questions pages?
As above, I have not experienced this problem before, and have even created a new account name and password, but the problem persists, and I cannot see any bold announcement on the Main Page or elsewhere to explain why not. Can you advise what I might be doing wrong please? Thanks Lacamisanegra (talk) 16:39, 29 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Which pages can you not edit? --Alinnisawest,Dalek Empress ( extermination requests here ) 16:49, 29 August 2008 (UTC)


 * This is confusing. Clearly, I was able to answer your question here by clicking on the Edit and typing this. But I can't see the EDIT as I used to on any of the responses to Questions on the Reference Desks. So I can't add any responses myself or even ask any new questions. Confused? So am I. Lacamisanegra (talk) 16:52, 29 August 2008 (UTC)


 * More confusing yet - it only seems to be a problem in the Miscellaneous section of the Reference Desk. Any suggestions? Lacamisanegra (talk) 16:55, 29 August 2008 (UTC)


 * A little confused. But let's see, why could that be... Have you changed any of your preferences lately? There is an option to get rid of the edit button... but that would affect all pages, not just the Miscellaneous Reference Desk. Also, if you go to the history and look at an older version of the page, the "edit" option will not show up. --Alinnisawest,Dalek Empress ( extermination requests here ) 16:56, 29 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Thanks but no, I have not changed any preferences recently. But I did just try to "Ask a new question here" in the Miscellaneous section and the attached text jumped up - does this help you to see my problem better/ Thanks. This page is currently semi-protected, and can be edited only by established registered usersItalic text —Preceding unsigned comment added by Lacamisanegra (talk • contribs) 17:01, 29 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Very odd. Has some admin semi-protected the page? An "established user" is someone who's had the account for... I forget how long, but they have to have made several edits. Let me check and see if it's semi-protected. --Alinnisawest,Dalek Empress ( extermination requests here ) 17:04, 29 August 2008 (UTC)
 * You have to be autoconfirmed before you can edit semi-protected pages. Your account has to be active for four days and you have to make at least ten edits. Why that page is semi-protected, I don't know though. Cheers!  TN ‑ X - Man  17:11, 29 August 2008 (UTC)


 * The protection level of the Misc. Desk has been changing over the last couple weeks due to vandalism. Just thought I'd throw that out there...  Dismas |(talk) 17:10, 29 August 2008 (UTC)


 * OK, I've solved the problem- the page was vandalized several times by both IP users and some "unestablished" accounts, so it was semi-protected to head off the vandals. Not the best choice, I don't think, but that's the reason. What was the question? I can post it on the Desk for you, if you'd like. --Alinnisawest,Dalek Empress ( extermination requests here ) 17:11, 29 August 2008 (UTC)
 * It has now been unprotected- feel free to add your question! --Alinnisawest,Dalek Empress ( extermination requests here ) 17:20, 29 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Thanks folks - and you especially Alinnisawest - I really do appreciate your efforts in this regard. Again, many thanks. Lacamisanegra (talk) 20:11, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

citing pages within books
Dear all, try as I might I cannot find out how... do you reference different pages from one book at different sections of the same article. The obvious is to repeat the Citebook template and add in title etc every time. Is there a better, easier, tidier way. Thanks Edmund Patrick – confer 17:08, 29 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Hey Edmund; check out Landing at Kip's Bay for a good example of this. It's the "Chicago" citation style you're looking for. Tan      39  17:11, 29 August 2008 (UTC)
 * many thanks, I get the idea, why didn't I think of looking at other articles. I will sandbox play first, as all references move to notes including web etc, looks a bit of a mess. Thanks for the assistance. Edmund Patrick – confer 18:03, 29 August 2008 (UTC)
 * WP:CITE describes some options, and see Citing sources/Example edits for different methods. It's a good idea on Wikipedia to look at featured articles now and then, to avoid getting led astray by looking at the vast majority of articles which are of less than featured quality. Our goal is, ostensibly, to get every article up to featured quality, but most people learn about Wikipedia mostly by looking at the relatively few articles they find interesting, and if few or none of those are featured articles, people may build up an incomplete impression of where our articles should be going. --Teratornis (talk) 19:00, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

Show/hide section?
I'm working on improving Razed in Black (not really a fan, just happened to stumble on it and noticed it needed some love) (here is the page as it appeared when I posed this question. Marvose (talk) 22:31, 29 August 2008 (UTC)). I've made the Compilations and Remixes sections hidden, because they're both very long lists that ugly up the article. I'm really not happy with the way they looks or the way they function, because they're not proper categories (like Albums), but merely titles in the template, thus, they don't appear in the TOC. Is there any way to make them proper sections, but also make them collapsible? I've done a good deal of searching and haven't found an answer.Marvose (talk) 18:00, 29 August 2008 (UTC)
 * I think I did what you wanted. Take a look.  Gtstricky Talk or C 18:49, 29 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Hey Gtstricky, thanks! I had actually tried a layout similar to that while experimenting to get my desired effect. I wasn't really happy with it because of all the extra whitespace. What I was really hoping for was for the show/hide button to appear next to the [edit] button for that section--like, making the category heading itself the title of the show/hide box. I don't know if I'm making any sense and I'm probably just being overly picky and it probably isn't possible anyway! ;). Again, thanks very much for your help and input. Marvose (talk) 18:56, 29 August 2008 (UTC)
 * I think I know what you mean. I tried a couple of other things. See what you think.  Gtstricky Talk or C 19:27, 29 August 2008 (UTC)
 * It's still not technically what I had in mind, but it's certainly better looking than anything I'd come up with. I'll play around with it a bit. Thanks again for the help! Marvose (talk)  —Preceding undated comment was added at 22:28, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

Letting someone know their page is being deleted
It was several months ago that a source I was using for the WDYT article mentioned Curly Howard (not the Stooge), and from what I discovered about him, he seemed notable enough to someday have a Wikipedia article, so I gave him a red link and also created a disambiguation page, since one of the Three Stooges is also Curly Howard. Amazingly, I saw another reference to Curly while adding to the WTQR article the day before the disambiguation page was to be deleted. I don't even know why I went to the disambiguation page. The notice was put on the article less than a week ago. How was I supposed to know about this?

I had no choice but to create the Curly Howard (DJ) article so there would be no red link on the disambiguation page. Vchimpanzee ·  talk  ·  contributions  · 18:09, 29 August 2008 (UTC)


 * If the page is important to you, add it to your watch list (click watch at the top of the page) and then check your watch list once in a while (click my watchlist at the top of the page). -- k a i n a w &trade; 18:19, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

Where is my article?
About 1 month ago I began a new article, I was trying to find the article today, but can't seem to find it anywhere. I search the name of the article, I also, logged in checked "my contributions" and found nothing. How do I find it? Name of the article is Rose, Klein & Marias LLP. Thanks —Preceding unsigned comment added by Rkmlaw (talk • contribs) 18:46, 29 August 2008 (UTC)
 * What was the name of the article? Algebraist 18:47, 29 August 2008 (UTC)
 * (edit conflict) Do you remember the name of the article? There's a chance it could have been deleted. If you remember the name, we can check and let you know. Cheers!  TN ‑ X - Man  18:49, 29 August 2008 (UTC)
 * The article was in fact called Rose, Klein & Marias (and Rose, Klein & Marias, LLP for a while) and it was deleted by Lectonar under criterion for speedy deletion A7 as an article about a group/company/etc. that failed to indicate why its subject was important. Algebraist 19:02, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

Why is any lawfirm "important?" I've compared the content from other firms with similar size and practice and their article hasn't been deleted. Do I have to recreate the article again? Can you add the article back and I'll edit? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Rkmlaw (talk • contribs) 19:34, 29 August 2008 (UTC)
 * A good resource for determining whether or not this law firm is notable or not can be found here. Also, an admin may agree to post the deleted content to your user page so that you can work on it there. I suggest contacting Lectonar, as he/she was the admin who deleted the article. Cheers!  TN ‑ X - Man  19:37, 29 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Oh, and given your username, is it possible you have a conflict of interest...GbT/c 20:17, 29 August 2008 (UTC)
 * See Why was my page deleted? for the general guidelines on what to do, and how to get your article back so you can work on it further. --Teratornis (talk) 20:19, 29 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Also be aware of Alternative outlets for your article. Wikipedia does not want articles about every company, but Wikicompany does. You can put your article on Wikicompany while you grapple with figuring out whether your article can satisfy Wikipedia's notability requirements. You can to read previous answers to other users facing situations similar to yours. --Teratornis (talk) 20:24, 29 August 2008 (UTC)
 * "I've compared the content from other firms with similar size and practice and their article hasn't been deleted" is what we call the WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS argument, and is not considered a valid argument for retention or recreation of an article. -- Orange Mike  &#x007C;   Talk  23:32, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

Forums as references- Exceptional cases?
I know that using forums as references is not encouraged here, but I feel strongly that the circumstances surrounding this person; Kenton Joel Carnegie warrant an exception. My reason is thus;

His mysterious death sparked a memorial site hosted by his parents. http://www.mtechservices.ca/Kenton/index.php/board,4.20.html

His parents offer valuable insight to the case itself which are not present in other news sites; eg. His death became the focus of a Nat Geo documentary, which his father criticises harshly on the forum. http://www.mtechservices.ca/Kenton/index.php/topic,152.0.html I find this to be very significant. Dark hyena (talk) 20:55, 29 August 2008 (UTC)


 * This is a prime example of why we don't allow the use of forums as sources; a posting by a private party is unedited and self-published, and not a reliable source for a reference work. We in fact have no way of knowing whether those posts are actually made by the person alleged to have made them. -- Orange Mike  &#x007C;   Talk  23:38, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

Bronze Star Recipients of Korean War
My Grandfather is a Korean War Vet and a Bronze Star recipient for some battles he was in. I was wondering how to add his name in the list of Bronze Star recipients as well as his image and Bio. Please get back to me as this has been a project I have been working on for some time. We are trying to pay homage to my Grandfather and wish to put his accomplishments out there for the world to see. Thank you.

Respectfully,

Jason Stevens Jstevens82 (talk) 21:50, 29 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Wikipedia is not a place for posting memorials; the only people on that list of Bronze Star recipients are people who are notable for some other reason, notable enough to have articles about them in this encyclopedia, and are also recipients. People like your grandfather and my father, who earned the Bronze or Silver Star, but are not otherwise notable, do not have articles about them here. -- Orange Mike  &#x007C;   Talk  23:42, 29 August 2008 (UTC)


 * To clarify a bit: there is no list of Bronze Star Medal recipients. As a ninth-level award, it has been presented to thousands of soldiers for a variety of reasons, some not very notable. There are 700 articles about people who were awarded the Bronze Star; those articles show in Category:Recipients of the Bronze Star medal. So: if your grandfather meets the Notability requirements, then you can create an article and categorize it. --—— Gadget850 (Ed)  talk  -  15:36, 30 August 2008 (UTC)


 * There may be other websites where your grandfather could become listed, for example http://www.amervets.com/bsmedl.htm. PrimeHunter (talk) 15:57, 30 August 2008 (UTC)

Changing a username
Is it possible to change a username without creating a new account? If so, how? Lucas Brown 42 (talk) 23:55, 29 August 2008 (UTC)
 * A bureaucrat can do it at Changing username. Be sure to read all the directions carefully. Xenon54 23:57, 29 August 2008 (UTC)