Wikipedia:Help desk/Archives/2008 November 4

= November 4 =

Script display
I using explorer 7. Two days ago wikipedia started displaying in script. How do I change it back? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.115.109.149 (talk) 00:08, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

--Space Channel 5: Macy Vs. Purge (talk) 00:56, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

Searching Reference desk archives
Is there something like the HD archive search, for the RDs? Louis Waweru  Talk  04:11, 4 November 2008 (UTC)
 * See Reference desk/Archives "Searching the archives".  Grsz  11   →Review!  04:15, 4 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Thank you, the answer is there.  Louis Waweru   Talk  04:19, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

wrong Indian flag. today featured article
today featured article. in this article of barrack obama on home page, links to attack on sydney harbour in BELLIGERENTS indian flag displayed is wrong while other countries flags are right ones like JAPAN,U.S.A. please rectify.seen today 4 NOVEMBER 2008 10:15 am in maldives 123.176.5.68 (talk) 05:15, 4 November 2008 (UTC)


 * The flag shown for India in Attack on Sydney Harbour is that of the British Raj; at the time of the attacks, India was under British rule, and so the flag used (while clearly not India's current flag) is correct. --saxsux (talk) 20:23, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

mw-textarea-protected
Anyone know how to get the edit box on a fully-protected page to appear white again? didn't work. Thanks, WODUP  05:30, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

This is now defined at MediaWiki:Sysop.css (took a bit of searching to figure out where it got moved to). It is now. --—— Gadget850 (Ed)  talk  -  14:18, 4 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Thanks for your answer. Unfortunately, I can get other styles (such as a thick lime green border) to work, but I can't change the text box's background color. WODUP  00:16, 5 November 2008 (UTC)

Please remove the picture.
Hi there.

Please remove the picture of Prophet Muhammed (SAW) from the following link as it is against the religion of Islam. The link is as follows :http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaaba —Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.148.217.126 (talk) 06:12, 4 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Please read Wikipedia is not censored. Wikipedia does not remove pictures which are relevent to an article merely because some people may find them offensive.  If viewing such pictures is offensive to you, please see Options to not see an image.  Cheers!  --Jayron32. talk . contribs  06:19, 4 November 2008 (UTC)
 * This comes up frequently on the Help desk:
 * Please read Talk:Muhammad/FAQ. --Teratornis (talk) 06:38, 4 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Please read Talk:Muhammad/FAQ. --Teratornis (talk) 06:38, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

Hi, this is regarding Telugu language..
Hi, When I browse I am getting "Telugu" language option only for few pages. Even this is not that much clear like Telugu web links..can you check and update..

Regards, Nethaji Reddy P. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Nethajireddy (talk • contribs) 06:36, 4 November 2008 (UTC)
 * If you are asking about Interlanguage links, only some articles on the English Wikipedia have Interlanguage links to the Telugu Wikipedia. This is partly because the English Wikipedia has many more articles ( in English now compared to 38,125 in Telugu in 2007), and partly because editors who read both English and Telugu must add the interlanguage links to English Wikipedia articles by hand. --Teratornis (talk) 06:45, 4 November 2008 (UTC)
 * If you find some interlanguage links from the English Wikipedia to the Telugu Wikipedia that are incorrect, then someone may have added incorrect links here originally, or the links may have been correct at first but later someone moved or deleted the article on the Telugu Wikipedia. The Wikimedia Foundation has no automatic method to validate the interlanguage links as far as I know. If you find one that is incorrect now, you can fix it, by locating the correct article on the Telugu Wikipedia and editing the link to point to it. If you don't understand this answer, you should find an experienced multilingual Wikipedia user to help you. One way to find such users is to check the history of articles such as: Telugu. For example, User:Bsskchaitanya claims fluency in an impressive number of languages. --Teratornis (talk) 06:58, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

Shortcuts for user space pages.
Hi, can I create shortcuts for my user space pages? I mean can I create a shortcut like WP:GP/S for User:Gppande/Sandbox? -- GP Pande  talk!  08:06, 4 November 2008 (UTC)


 * That probably wouldn't be a good idea simply because there are a limited number of possible WP namespace shortcuts and they are meant to redirect to policies, process pages, or essays about wikipedia or wikipedia process or policies. As such, having your own personal WP namespace redirect for your sandbox would probably just end up deleted.  After all, if every user could have such a thing, we'd need shortcuts as long as their usernames are to fit them all.  You could make a shortcut such as User:Gppande/S which points to User:Gppande/Sandbox, though.  &hArr; &int;Æ S   dt  @ 08:42, 4 November 2008 (UTC)


 * See Shortcut. It would be best to add a link to your user page like Special:PrefixIndex/User:Gppande to show all of your user subpages. --—— Gadget850 (Ed)  talk  -  08:51, 4 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Gadget850's solution Special:PrefixIndex/User:Gppande seems quite good. Is there any skin or monobook in which I can put this page link just besides existing WP links for my user page, talkpage, watchlist and contribution and logout? -- GP Pande  talk!  09:50, 4 November 2008 (UTC)
 * I took the liberty of adding it to User:Gppande/Navigation Bar. Revert or modify as desired. --—— Gadget850 (Ed)  talk  -  11:40, 4 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Thanks. :-D -- GP Pande  talk!  11:47, 4 November 2008 (UTC)
 * You can also display the links directly with which produces the below.  would omit the user page itself. PrimeHunter (talk) 16:38, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

Changing Article title
Ive just created a new article but ive mispelt it. How do i change the title of the article? Pattav2 (talk) 08:59, 4 November 2008 (UTC)
 * I've moved it to Blake Shinn, hope that's OK (I had a quick Google first).
 * To answer your question... there's (normally) a tab marked "move" alongside the "edit this page" tab and others. It isn't always available, though, if I remember correctly - it may be disabled for editors who only recently registered.
 * Cheers, This flag once was red propagandadeeds 09:05, 4 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Yes, users who are not yet autoconfirmed, (10 edits + 4 day old account), but that was not at issue here.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 10:37, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

about an new article.
I started writing an article, I had to go out so I thought to complete the article the next day. Suddenly I had a doubt Can I countinue the incomplete article? --Krishnapriya kamalakshan


 * It would help if you gave us the article name; your contributions do not show that you have edited anything by this Help Desk. Normally you can save incomplete work and come back to it. --—— Gadget850 (Ed)  talk  -  11:27, 4 November 2008 (UTC)


 * Incompleted articles often have issues and it's a good thing not to drop them with the other articles immediately. Instead make a subpage on your userpage like User:Krishnapriya kamalakshan/Sandbox where you can work on your article until it is finished. That way it doesn't get accidentally deleted. I found no contributions under your username. Feel free to continue your work, but I can't help you retrieve what you started. (There are also no deleted contributions on your name) - Mgm|(talk) 11:29, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

IMAGES
Can I add new images in wikipedia articles? how can I do it? Then, can Iadd images in my account

--Krishnapriya kamalakshan (talk) 11:53, 4 November 2008 (UTC)


 * See Help:Images and other uploaded files; also in order to be allowed by the software to upload, you need to achieve autoconfirmed status (see this page), which requires 4 days and 10 total edits. --Jayron32. talk . contribs  12:04, 4 November 2008 (UTC)


 * To add an image to an article all you have to do is type [[Image:Example.jpg|50px]] which will produce


 * [[Image:Example.jpg|50px]]


 * (You have to replace example.jpg with the name of the image you want to insert) To add captions and resizing the image, you have to add values, as shown. See WP:IMAGE and WP:Picture tutorial for more information. You can add images to your userspace if they are not fair use images. Cheers.  C h a m a l  talk 12:05, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

Adding a web link to one of your pages
Hello and Good day,

My name is Matthew Rothwell, I am contacting you on behalf of the CDT (Comité Départemental du Tourisme), for the Ardèche Department, south of France. I would like to enquire about adding a link to your tourist information website for our official regional website www.ardeche-guide.com. It is currently under construction in both English and German versions, in addition to its current French base. I have found a potential location for this addition ……….. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ardeche Please have a look and let me know what you think. Thankyou for your time, yours gratefully

Matthew

Matthew Rothwell

Comité Départemental du Tourisme de l'Ardèche

English Promotions —Preceding unsigned comment added by 194.2.96.146 (talk) 14:38, 4 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Hi and thanks for posting your question! First of all, Wikipedia is an online encyclopedia, not a "tourist information website" as you mentioned. However, if you have a link that qualifies as an appropriate link, please feel to add it! Simply click on the "edit this page" tab at the top of article. Make sure, however, that it is not advertising, or it may be removed.  TN ‑  X   - Man  14:42, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

new question
How do you add that skip to bottom, back to the top buttons to a page. Like the one on this page. Thanks--Adrian 1001 (talk) 15:21, 4 November 2008 (UTC)
 * To add "skip to the bottom", include this code : Skip to the bottom . I'm not sure about a "return to the top". Cheers!  TN ‑  X   - Man  15:29, 4 November 2008 (UTC)


 * See the source of Help desk/Header for how the links were given the special placement on the Help desk. PrimeHunter (talk) 16:15, 4 November 2008 (UTC)


 * I use them on my User and User talk pages too. – ukexpat (talk) 16:43, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

Reporting a personal attack?
What is the correct way to report an editor who is making personal attacks? Thanks. --Captain Planet (talk) 17:19, 4 November 2008 (UTC)
 * See No personal attacks. PrimeHunter (talk) 17:23, 4 November 2008 (UTC)
 * If you're referring to your talk page, I invoke God.  TN ‑  X   - Man  17:26, 4 November 2008 (UTC)
 * I'd say Godwin is a bit of a reach. The comment in User talk:Captain Infinity does not compare an individual to the Nazis, or even an individual's views to the views of the Nazis, but mentions the Nazis' hard work to prove that one's having worked hard on something is irrelevant to whether one should have worked on it at all. The fact that the Nazis worked on what they did has no bearing on whether we like what they did (and, incidentally, lots of people like some of what the Nazis did, such as develop superhighways and jet engines which remain widely popular today). Similarly, on Wikipedia, thousands of people pour thousands of hours of hard work into creating articles, only to have other users mercilessly delete those articles for failing to comply with Wikipedia's policies and guidelines, which clearly seem convoluted and unintuitive to many people who are encountering them for the first time (usually after they violate something unwittingly). The fact that people worked hard and meant well is just completely irrelevant in a deletion discussion. The idea that one's hard work automatically has value to other people is a common fallacy; it's a form of self-serving bias. It is true that often hard work is a necessary condition for creating value, for people who weren't just born with special talents that make life easy for them, but hard work is by no means a sufficient condition. 206.213.170.10 (talk) 22:51, 6 November 2008 (UTC)One could just as well make an analogy with someone who works hard to get ready for a date with someone who doesn't find him attractive. The jilted suitor might feel, in his own mind, that his hard work means something, but it means nothing to the woman who LJBFs him. Similarly, an athlete could work hard to get ready for a big event, but if he breaks the rules, his hard work turns from an asset to a liability. In highly competitive environments like dating, sports, or editing on Wikipedia, working hard is far less important than working smart, and working smart begins by studying what the "customer" wants. In the case of Wikipedia, the "customer" is the subset of the user community which understands and enforces the policies and guidelines. The point is that when we argue about whether something belongs on Wikipedia, "we worked hard on it" is not an argument one should mention at all. Working hard does not cause the rules to bend. Not even slightly. One should only discuss whether the content in question complies with the rules. If one did work hard on something that one doesn't want to see disappear, see Alternative outlets. --Teratornis (talk) 18:39, 4 November 2008 (UTC)
 * I might add that everyone who has worked hard on Wikipedia has watched some of their work go poof. Wikipedia is a MMORPG where the objective is to figure out what you can write that other editors will not delete. You win some, and you lose some. Even if you win a content dispute, the fact that a dispute arose at all means you did not anticipate it and edit preemptively to avoid it. --Teratornis (talk) 19:03, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

Everything of mine has been deleted??
I created this account a couple of months ago, spent massive amounts of time trying to figure out how to set all options and preferences available with this strange and annoying software system, etc., and added everything I edited to my watch page, then I lost access to a computer for a month and a half. When I logged in today, my contributions were "0", nothing was on my watch page or about page (in which I had saved some drafts under the hidden command), and no preferences had been set - I just had to re-enter the "display name" of my signature which is the only setting I remember specifically that I had set and what I had set it to. Uh...   what happened? Rayvn (talk) 20:38, 4 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Are you sure you are on the same account? It looks like you are editing from Rayvn7, and that account has no contribs OR deleted contribs.  Perhaps you made the contributions you remember from a different account?  --Jayron32. talk . contribs  21:07, 4 November 2008 (UTC)
 * I never said anything about deleted contributions. I said "my contributions were listed as '0'".  Since the watch page had been deleted, I have know way to know what pages I had edited, and therefore no way to check whether the edits I made were still there or not, not to mention you can't really do that anyway since others will edit it again.Rayvn (talk) 02:59, 8 November 2008 (UTC)
 * See for other user names starting with Rayvn. Note that each Wikipedia language and Wikimedia wiki has its own accounts (but see m:Help:Unified login). This is only the English Wikipedia. Maybe your account was elsewhere? PrimeHunter (talk) 23:20, 4 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Your right, it was the "wrong" account, but I don't really see how this is possible since I only remember creating one account and I only use one e-mail address to create accounts on websites. I have already left a message for a user with this account; is it possible to have that edit moved over to my "real" account?Rayvn (talk) 02:59, 8 November 2008 (UTC)

Signatures
I've seen some signatures with different fonts than the "automatic" font. How do I do this? QuackOfaThousandSuns (talk) 22:20, 4 November 2008 (UTC)
 * If you want to know how something on Wikipedia is done, just edit the relevant page and look at the wikicode used. Algebraist 22:27, 4 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Or, in more detail, have a look at some other people's signatures, for example, mine in code is Foxy Loxy  Pounce! then goto Special:Preferences and in the Signature: section, tick the box that says Raw signature and then paste your signature into that box. Then your default sig will be replaced with what you put in that box. This sig should include a link to your userpage and user talk page.  Foxy Loxy  Pounce! 22:35, 4 November 2008 (UTC)
 * WP:SIG and WP:SIGHELP have tips to you get started as well. Cheers!  TN ‑  X   - Man  22:50, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

mobile wikipedia
Pardon me if wikipedia already has a mobile download, I at least don't see it. I have trouble using wikipedia on my mobile phone, I have a Palm Centro and it would really be nice if you guys could set up a format for mobile web access. On my phone the requested page becomes super huge and the writing is vertical instead of horizontal and almost impossible to read fluently. Please let me know, my email is (removed for privacy). Thanks!

Veronica D. Figueroa —Preceding unsigned comment added by 206.248.113.3 (talk) 23:04, 4 November 2008 (UTC)


 * See Mobile access. PrimeHunter (talk) 23:21, 4 November 2008 (UTC)