I'm having a problem with User: Antaeus Feldspar on Space opera in Scientology doctrine and Supernatural abilities in Scientology doctrine, where any changes made are instantly reverted by this user and his talk-page/edit summary explanations aren't explanatory at all, but extremely rude and uncivil. Can some independent, impartial editors and admins please take a look and suggest what to do next? Is the mediation thing the next step? Highfructosecornsyrup 02:32, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

You're a suspected sockpuppet. I suggest contacting the editors who suspect you and volunteering to agree to a checkuser. It would probably get accepted because the other account is banned. That wouldn't solve the other content/policy issues regarding your editing but at least it could restore some good faith. Suggest Wikipedia:Adopt-a-user regarding your other problems. DurovaCharge! 03:46, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

Speedy deleting too speedy?

I recently saw that an article on AfD had been speedy deleted after only a few hours of discussion and a small handful of posts. The admin didn't cite any criteria, but a couple people had made arguments on the page that, in my opinion, were simply incorrect references to the speedy deletion policy. I went to the admin's talk page to ask him about it and I saw about 15 comments there from other users complaining of this admin's apparent itchy speedy-delete trigger finger, going back quite a while. I guess my question is, is there a way to propose some kind of small review for admins? Like, can I go somewhere and say "admin X blocks people too quickly" or "admin Y is always closing AfDs too early" and have someone take a look? What's the procedure there? Thanks--Dmz5 17:38, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

WP:Admin#Dealing_with_grievancesRJH (talk) 18:41, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

Portal:Current events/Canada

Would anyone like to redesign this page in accordance with the other newspages? I tried but I have no idea where to start. Thank you! - Morgan695 03:56, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

Hi, I'm having problems seeing the images on wikipedia. they just load for half a seccond and then disappear. I'm using mozilla firefox version 1.5.0.8 as a browswer. I already read the 'Firefox doesn't display images' article in wikipedia troubleshouting but it doesn't do anything for me. i still can't see the images. Does anybody know a way to fix this ? Thanks ! 87.162.114.20 10:18, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

I redirected a disambiguation page but it was reverted - who is correct?

I recently changed Bill and Ben from redirecting to Bill and Ben (disambiguation) into a redirect to Flower Pot Men (which already has a dab link at the top of the page), based on my understanding about what WP:Disambiguation says regarding the primary topic being a well known primary meaning for a term or phrase. I believe the majority of people would associate the term "Bill and Ben" more with "Bill and Ben the Flower Pot Men" (the British puppet show) than anything else. Googling "Bill and Ben" confirms this, around 46 of the first 50 hits are about that series. EdJogg reverted my edit and claimed it was incorrect, but I was just trying to go for the most logical route. I'd appreciate any advice about this. Psychonaut3000 01:40, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

I'll prejudice myself from the outset by saying that I tend not to agree with the notion that hits-in-Google is an indicator of notability or prevalence; Google is very biased compared to the intended scope of Wikipedia. On to the matter at hand ... the thing that the WP:DAB guideline does not address is the scope of the primacy that is the crux of your argument. I think the key point of contention is over whether the well known primary meaning need be across a wide swath of cultures the contribute to and consume Wikipedia or within a particular subset of those cultures. For the majority of cultures, the test would not work in this case; people would be equally clueless as to the topic of either article in question. Such is not the case for some other examples, such as Rome or Bread. So, rather than hashing this out here, I would suggest taking it to WP:DAB with the intent of getting the matter of scope clarified and incorporated into the guideline. Not a terribly satisfactory answer, I'm afraid. --User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 02:16, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

Persian Speakers Wanted

In the Mahmoud Ahmadinejad page, there are many (like 15) citations to articles written in Persian. An editor has asked that these citations be verified to make sure that the content matches the text in the article. Would anyone mind doing this? I would be more than happy to trade my own time in doing some equally boring task on an English article. Otherwise, if anyone knows a more appropriate place to ask, please let me know and I will ask there. I have already tried many places, including WikiProject Iran, and the Persian version of the same page. Thanks! Vir4030 22:21, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

There are three people listed at Wikipedia:Translators_available#Persian-to-English who are willing to translate, and then a bunch of Persian speakers in Category:User_fa who might be willing to help. I don't know a word.--Kchase T 22:25, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

removal of image nomination from IfD page

I am asking someone to please review the following, [1], as I do not want to be in violation of WP:3RR. An anon user deleted and then continued to revert the deletion of a nomination on the IfD page. Any thoughts? Would this be considered vandalism? Thanks.--Gay Cdn (talk) (Contr.) 21:06, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

I reverted and left a note at the IP's discussion page. My experience is with AfD, where this can be considered vandalism, especially after someone's been told not to do it. I think future removals of IfDs by the same IP wold be considered vandalism as well.--Kchase T 22:12, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

Assistance with external links policy requested

I would be very glad of input on two discussions I am having with different users about their external links, which I removed, and which they are now proposing to reinstate.

1. See Talk:SWOT_analysis#About the 3 2 1 Books link which discusses my actions so far, and its spin off Talk:PEST analysis. Many links remain to this site.

2. See Talk:The Fat Duck#Independent restaurant reviews. I removed links to restaurant reviews; the poster argues their site adds to the restaurant articles.

If there is a better place, please let me know. Notinasnaid 17:33, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

Humanzee Help

Well, currently on the Humanzee page, there is a section which deals with possible candidates for the creation of humanzees. The section goes over the attributes of apes and speculates on what the resulting humanzee would act like/what it's temperement would be like/social problems it may have. Now, I might not be the most knowledgable editor, the best with words, ect but it seems to me like this doesn't belong.

Since it's original research (not even, since it's pure speculation), I was looking for an outside opinion on that section.

If the general consensus is that the section should stay, I will be happy to leave it and walk away, but it strikes me as not belonging.

P.S I really do apologize if this isn't the appropriate place to have brought this up. Sorry! Kokiri kid 10:27, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

Clearing my watchlist

I wish to clear my watchlist but http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Watchlist/edit returns an empty page. It probably has to do with my watchlist having 10,483 entries. Help please. :) Cburnett 04:47, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

Try Special:Watchlist/clear, though that may give you the same problems.--Kchase T 04:53, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
That did it. It would be nice if Special:Watchlist had a link to Special:Watchlist/clear on it... :) Cburnett 05:29, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
How many!! I felt bad when mine went past 60!! doktorb wordsdeeds 10:13, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

HElp with template

I am not very skilled with templates. Can someones fix the {{WPAVATAR}} template to include Collaboraton links and updates that were just made? Cnriaczoy42 03:02, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

i've never been more confused in my life....

i love wikipedia for getting info. i wrote an article last week and it's not coming up in the search. i browsed around questions as to why and still got no answer. it even took me a half hour to get to this page. am i crazy? i just want a simple answer on how to get my article to come up in a search? it's [2] but no luck finding it in wikipedia! i don't even know how i'll find any answers to this post. helllppp!!!

The article was apparently created in userspace. I created a new page with the name VideoReDo and transfered the content there. I believe this was what you wanted, and I hope you can find it now. Good luck. Doc Tropics 17:34, 6 December 2006 (UTC)
It might be appropriate to create a redirect from the original page User:VideoReDo, or possibly delete it. I'm not clear on the proper procedure in this case. Any suggestions? Doc Tropics 18:28, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

What links to a page?

How do I see what pages link to a page I'm editing? For example, the new Mass Destruction page would make more sense as Mass Destruction (album), since there's a bit of ambiguation to the term. How can I see what pages link to Mass Destruction? Then when I do the move I can also update the links. Thanks! Jonemerson 10:03, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

There's a 'what links here' link below the searchbox, over the left of the screen (assuming your preferences are set to their defaults; changing the skin can change its location). --ais523 11:48, 5 December 2006 (UTC)
And if you can't find it, the URL http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Whatlinkshere/Mass_Destruction will do the same thing (replace "Mass_Destruction" in the URL with the page you're interested in, of course, if different). Tonywalton  | Talk 09:45, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Using Wikipedia as a reference

Im writing an essay, how can I use wikipedia as a reference? Can someone give me an example please?

The example would depend on the citation style used in the rest of your paper. Examples of the common styles can be found at Wikipedia:Citing Wikipedia. --TeaDrinker 02:07, 5 December 2006 (UTC)
And, if you might try the cite this article link (in the toolbox, on the left). -- Rick Block (talk) 02:51, 5 December 2006 (UTC)
It's probably a bad idea to use Wikipedia as a reference for an essay, unless the essay is about Wikipedia itself. You should instead use Wikipedia to find primary sources and things to search for, and then cite those primary sources or newspaper articles. Jonemerson 10:05, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

I don't know where to report something like this to, but a user called User:A Pregenant Girl is repeatedly inserting personal nonsense into the Forgiveness article. Thanks. Highfructosecornsyrup 22:13, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

The normal method for dealing with something like this is to give a series of warning messages to the user, escalating with each warning. For example {{test}} then {{test2}} and so on. If the user vandalizes after a final warning is given, meaning after a {{test4}} or similar level warning such as {{verror4}} (see the grid of warning templates here), and the offending edit was within the past hour or so, you can then report the user at WP:AIAV.--Fuhghettaboutit 00:59, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Problems with a post

I made a contribution to Wikipedia about 4 weeks ago - I provided the explanation of a cultural term - a term used to describe a well-to-do group of individuals in todays society. Since I have edited and posted the contribution, I have yet to see it come up on any searches that I perform.

Can you help me understand what I am doing wrong or why my wiki post isn't coming up on searches? Was my contribution blocked? Edited? How would I know? Can I dispute if it was???

Please help!!!!!

Regards,

-JCRogers21-

It would help if you gave the article's title. That sort of page might have been deleted or transwikied to Wikitionary. DurovaCharge! 21:41, 4 December 2006 (UTC)
It appears that you made the entry on your userpage, not in an actual article. Userpages are not an "active" part of WP like article pages are. Doc Tropics 21:46, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

Currently featured article is being Vandalized

I'm not sure if this is the place to report this. If not, I ask apologize.
Currently featured article "Weird Al" Yankovic is being vandalized by anonymous edits. Shouldn't it be protected? Jcpetruzza 15:47, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

We normally try to leave the front page article unprotected as much as possible, despite high levels of vandalism. For many editors, the front page is their introduction to wiki, and we do invite everyone to edit ...Doc Tropics 15:57, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

It miss cat all pages to Category:Uruguayan people and other cat. Matthew_hk tc 11:40, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

Image query

Can someone take a look at Image:PayPal.png (again) please? Uploader has repeatedly dodged the question about where this has come from - it clearly hasn't come from the front page of paypal.com, which is the source they have provided. Chris cheese whine 10:56, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

It's a logo; can't it just be recreated? (The fact that it's pretty poorly traced is secondary to this.) Consider Canon logo.png, or M&S logo.png, or anything in Company logos. grendel|khan 16:05, 4 December 2006 (UTC)
It looks like a giant resize of the actual logo that they use. --tjstrf talk 16:07, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

Organisation armée secrète

At Organisation armée secrète: I've been having something of a slow edit war with an anonymous editior who, among other things, wants to describe this group, which tried to use violent means to perpetuate the French colonial role in Algeria, as a "liberation group". I'd appreciate if a few more people get involved in discussion there: it's been a bit fruitless with so few people involved. - Jmabel | Talk 07:48, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

Oooh, a slow-burning edit war. Not quite my thing. I'm more a quick-fire watchlist-refreshing AK47-revert type myself :o) On a more serious note, to describe them as "freedom fighters" or "terrorists" would be a clear violation of NPOV, so perhaps work it into the article so it says that some perceive them to be "freedom fighters", and others as "terrorists". That usually appeases most POV-pushers apart from the most persistent of trolls. Chris cheese whine 07:57, 4 December 2006 (UTC)
Sounds weasel-wordy--it's technically NPOV, and so it's an improvement, but it would be even better to say that, for instance, they were denounced by x as terrorists and appeared on such-and-such a list for such-and-such an action, while so-and-so declared them freedom fighters, and they enjoy support from y. grendel|khan 15:42, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

I think this image is nicked. What do I do?

Maggiegyllenhaal.jpg appears to be [3], with the "scanned by celebrity-exchange.com" cropped off the bottom. It's marked as PD by the uploader, but this seems pretty unlikely. What do I do? grendel|khan 05:46, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

It looks like copyvio from what I can see, and should probably be dremoved accordingly. Doc Tropics 05:50, 4 December 2006 (UTC)
I've tagged it {{no copyright holder}} (which poses three simple questions). If there's a speedy way to kill it in less than 7 days, go ahead. Chris cheese whine 06:02, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

Community Wiki

I would like to use Wikipedia as a way of carrying on a conversation within a single community, regarding important issues in their lives-- education, health, employment, the environment, etc. The idea is to draft a narrative that people can hack into the way they hack into Wikipedia. I could start such a draft on Wikipedia itself, but would not be able to restrict access to members of a single community or organization.

Is it possible to do this through Wikipedia, or perhaps some companion software? Thanks: usman23, 5:38PM 3 December 2006

You might try the Campaigns Wikia. What you're talking about isn't really intended for wikipedia.--Kchase T 22:37, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

Good advice, I'll follow up. Thanks!Usman23 22:50, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

If you're interested in restricting access to a certain organisation, you might want to install your own copy of MediaWiki. Tra (Talk) 22:48, 3 December 2006 (UTC)


I looked at the Wikipedia article on MediaWiki and a link to a news article on Campaigns Wikia. http://news.com.com/2100-1028_3-6091151.html as well as its website http://campaigns.wikia.com/wiki/Campaigns_Wikia

Campaigns Wikia looks like an open issues forum, which is part of what I want to do. In real-time, these are called "open meetings" and involve people in a meeting all going from kiosk to kiosk in a large hall, and posting their ideas on a flip chart, to be synthesized by a facilitator and fed back to the group as a whole for 2nd and third rounds which involve voting with stickers or some such.

Media Wiki provides the added feature of a smaller meeting, restricted to a single community. I’ll have to figure out how to do this. Thanks!Usman23 23:05, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

Juan Romero

Hi there. So I was thinking about starting an article on Juan Romero, the busboy who was famously pictured cradling the head of Bobby Kennedy right after he was shot, but I was unsure about two things: 1) Notability. The only thing Juan is notable for is the famous picture...does this meet WP's notability guidelines? I read WP:BIO, and I think he is notable (see here), but I'm not 100% sure. 2) What would I call the article? He's no longer a busboy so Juan Romero (busboy) isn't exactly the most accurate. Many thanks. Gzkn 11:35, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

Download static Wikipedia

Hi :-)
I'm trying to download the static dump of Wikipedia, so I can use it offline. But, looking in the download section on static.wikipedia.org (http://static.wikipedia.org/downloads/November_2006/en/) there are just some .lst files. I'm guessing that I need to put those through some sort of program - or something - to download the all the files listed (unless I sit down and download the several thousand files manually, which I'm obviously not prepared to do). I'm running Ubuntu linux, Dapper Drake. What do I need to do? --saxsux 11:17, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

Fair use

Anyone else think this is just a little too big to qualify as "fair use"? Particularly as it looks like someone has tried to trace out the logo. Chris cheese whine 11:16, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

It's User:Ansett again, trying to assert his own personal interpretation of the MoS. I have reverted. User:Zoe|(talk) 23:16, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

Fujifilm versus FUJIFILM, etc.

Fujifilm has recently been moved to FUJIFILM, and the user who did this has gone on to replace most incidences of "Fujifilm" within the article with "FUJIFILM". This strikes me as entirely unfortunate, as I pointed out in a rather testy exchange on his/her talk page (q.v.). I'm entirely unconvinced by his/her argument; he/she seems utterly uninterested in mine (based primarily on MoS (trademarks). Sure that I'm right, I'd have no qualms about reversing the move, but I'd rather a third party did this, or at least voiced support. (I want to avoid an edit war, for the usual reasons.) And conceivably, I'm wrong. Well, what do you think? -- Hoary 08:16, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

You are correct here. WP:MOSTM states clearly: "Follow standard English text formatting and capitalization rules even if the trademark owner encourages special treatment". I've reverted most of his changes, but can't move the main one because I'm a non-admin. Would an admin please move the FUJIFILM page back? --tjstrf talk 08:42, 3 December 2006 (UTC)
Would that have anything to do with sneakily moving the page to Fujifilm and back such that (pending admin intervention) only that user can perform the move? Maybe I'm missing something, but I can't seem to get the "undo" feature to work as its name suggests. I find the diff where they capitalised all uses in the text, hit "undo", and I'm presented with the edit box populated by capitalised names (evidently not having actually undone the edit). Chris cheese whine 09:02, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

List of all subpages

Is there any way to get a list of all the subpages-- for example, all the subpages in my userspace? I can search for them if I remember what they are, but is there any quick and easy way to get an exhaustive list? --Alecmconroy 02:18, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

There may be a better way, but one thing you can do is go to Special:Allpages, type your username into the search field, set the search criterion (either user or user talk, depending on where your subpages where created from) which should generate a list showing all pages starting with your username in the chosen space.--Fuhghettaboutit 02:27, 3 December 2006 (UTC)
A list of subpages for a particular page is located at Special:Prefixindex/pagename/ which in your case would be Special:Prefixindex/User:Alecmconroy/. Tra (Talk) 02:37, 3 December 2006 (UTC)
Glad I put in the quailifier:-)--Fuhghettaboutit 03:11, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

Scientology template

Hello all... is there something I'm missing here regarding the "Template:ScientologySeries"? Antaeus Feldspar is running around undoing my every move, most importantly including my removal of Lisa McPherson from the template's "People" section. McPherson was a woman who died while at Scientology's Fort Harrison Hotel almost twelve years ago. I don't see why this should be represented as an important part of Scientology on the template. I'm not even sure an article about her is necessary, since she fails WP:BIO aside from posthumous controversy about whether she was mistreated by Scientologists in Florida or not. I can't see anything similar going on with any other religion's template. Am I wrong here? Antaeus Feldspar said I'm pushing a POV here, but all I want is for the template to be fair and for him to use the talk page instead of blindly reverting me. I use the talk page and explain why I do everything I do. Highfructosecornsyrup 01:47, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

AMA request not answered after 8 days

I initiated an AMA Request for Assistance more than eight days ago, but still no one has taken my case on. Advocates have accepted other cases begun about the same time. Do I have an option here, such as clarifying my case in some way to make it more likely to be taken on? How long a wait would be considered unusually long? 0-0-0-Destruct-0 17:35, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

If you haven't noticed, WP:AMARQ is currently backlogged at 8 new cases, so yours isn't the only one. We short on available advocates currently (and most of the time), so you just need to wait patiently. -Royalguard11(Talk·Desk·Review Me!) 20:59, 2 December 2006 (UTC)
Unfortunately, there isn't much we can do about backlogs. Your best bet is to use WP:30 to get an informal third opinion. We've had a case waiting for nearly a month now, so your 8 days is still a short wait - I'd have to adivse you to be patient if you're still waiting for the services of the AMA. Martinp23 21:07, 2 December 2006 (UTC)
Thanks for the info. I just needed a realistic estimate of how long to wait. The form I filled out said 5-7 days, but I assumed that was overly optimistic. I believe my situation needs an AMA so I'd rather wait and refrain from editing the page in question in the meantime. 0-0-0-Destruct-0 00:50, 3 December 2006 (UTC)
OK - I've updated the wait time to be slightly more realistic, and we've cleared off some cases which are solved anyway, or which have died down. It shouldn't be long now :) Martinp23 11:39, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

photograph has darkened lately

 

I have been editing two articles that use the same photograph shown above. Display of the photograph used to be okay in both articles. At first I noticed that it darkened in the article, Man Ray, and now it has darkened in the article, Salvador Dali. The ability to see the antics made by the two subjects, clowning for the photoghapher, has been diminished by the darkening.

I have no experince with Wikipedia images other than to copy one from one article to another occassionally -- please advise me how to tackle this problem that has begun lately. --83d40m 15:50, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

In this case, it appears that the image is the same as it has always been. In fact, I even looked up its record in the Library of Congress prints division. There are two versions of the image shown there, from what can assumed to be two different scans. The first one is lower resolution, and a little overexposed, "blown out" if you will. The second one is from the film negative, and is identical to the one shown in the articles. It does look darker, in comparison, but it has more detail, and is a better reproduction.
For future reference, you can usually tell if someone has uploaded a new version of a file by checking the "File History" at the bottom of the image's page, either here or on the Wikimedia Commons. You can actually view the different 'revisions' of the file, in the same way that you can view different revisions of articles. In some cases, people do edit images, sometimes in a non-helpful way, but in this case, you can see that the image has not been changed since uploaded. Phidauex 16:23, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

Thanks -- but when I first began to edit the pages, one could see their eyes clearly, including their pupils -- now that is not possible. Is there a way to return it to the way it was when I began editing? 83d40m 01:35, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

P.S. I laughed out loud reading your user page! 83d40m 01:53, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Here is the photograph of Salvador Dali and Man Ray that used to be on the page, http://lcweb2.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/I?van:1:./temp/~pp_sb2J::displayType=1:m856sd=van:m856sf=5a52567:@@@va I am sure you can see why I would prefer it in the two articles. How can I get it back into the articles? 83d40m 23:26, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

What does a spill of the leadership of the Federal Australian Labor Party mean? Is this some sort of vandalism, or is this an Australian term a poor benighted American doesn't understand? User:Zoe|(talk) 04:36, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

Since nobody has answered me here, I've changed the wording. User:Zoe|(talk) 23:12, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

Residential buildings in NYC

I was editing an article about a residential building in New York (there are many, many such articles) and I deleted a short section that consisted entirely of the phrase "This building is zoned to New York City public schools. It is zoned to PS 101." I thought this was irrelevant information concerning a building that is a tourist attraction and primarily offices anyway. I then saw that most of the other buildings in NYC that have any residential population whatsoever have this same section, always featuring the exact same text with just the specific school name changed. I am of the opinion that this is not relevant information (despite the fact that it is factual, and verifiable.) It is particularly odd in the case of articles that are relatively short. Why not have a section on what police precinct they're in, or what community board region, what council district, and every other possible category that could be used? I want to get a sense of where I might go to find more opinions on this question, if this is not the right venue. Each article's talk page does not seem to be the place to do it. See Time Warner Center for an example. --Dmz5 03:05, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

Poor Bislama

Somebody's been spamming the Bislama Wikipedia talk pages with nonsense. Actually, this seems to have been going on for quite some time. It's weird that the messages are so uniform though, what would be the point? Could we get these deleted? Tankyu yufala evriwan. Mithridates 23:49, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

OK, this is a strange one. Someone has edited the article about the fictional Elk Cove, Oregon, which is featured in the Goldie Hawn/Kurt Russell film Overboard, to include a redundant plot summary, an assertion that Elk Cove is in fact real and a bit about the actors' real-life love story. I reverted once, and left a note on the anon's talk page to which s/he responded with this. Having no desire to "control" this item, can someone else please consider reverting and talking to this anon? Here is a search on the USGS database for "Elk Cove" in Oregon. Please note that there is an Elk Cove Vineyards in Oregon, a name that has no bearing on the local geography. Thanks! Katr67 14:11, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

P.S. Hawn and Russell got together on the set of Swing Shift, not Overboard. Katr67 14:22, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

Hi, I don't mean to butt in here, but don't you think your note was . . . a little rude?--Dmz5 03:09, 2 December 2006 (UTC)
Not particularly. Blunt perhaps. It's just a variation on the {{test2}} vandal warning about adding nonsense to articles. All my other statements are truthful: 1) the plot summary belongs in the article about the film 2) Elk Cove is indeed fictional 3) Perhaps s/he was mistaken about the location 4) Articles need sources 5) Unsourced nonsense gets deleted. What would you suggest instead? Katr67 04:56, 2 December 2006 (UTC)
I think "nonsense" is a confrontational word, particularly for an anon who might well be new. Your points are totally correct, but rather than saying "please stop adding nonsense" it might have been more civil to say "thanks for your interest in the article, but please note the following issues." Maybe that's too wishy-washy and nice, but are you surprised the user responded in the manner s/he did?--Dmz5 05:32, 2 December 2006 (UTC)
We need to fix that vandal template then--the word "nonsense" gets used around here a lot. I'm not surprised the anon responded that way because I suspect s/he is a vandal trying to make those edits legitimate. I suppose I am not assuming good faith, but I revert enough vandalism to have become jaded. But I pretty much stick to the one revert rule in cases like this and ask for assistance. Usually someone else will come help me out, but not so this time. I don't suppose you'd like to talk to the anon yourself? Katr67 17:35, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

Steward translation into hebrew

This is a specific question, I hope I'm asking in the right Forum. I'm an editor in w:he, and have come across what seems to me a misleading translation. The specific meaning of the word used to translate the meta:Steward concept is the same one used for and only for the Servicepeople in an airplane, and sometimes more broadly for general service people. Is the wikimedia meta:Steward a steward like in an airplane or a steward like the w:en:Stewards of Gondor or somthing different altogether? Many thanks for answering or if anyone could point me in the right direction. w:he:משתמש:קומולוס.

Steward of Gondor is the correct concept, though the real-world counterpart is the historical position of a wikt:steward to a noble in general. In context, a steward is a caretaker on behalf of a higher authority. To steward a resource is to use it wisely and protect it. If you could find a word that expressed that concept it would be ideal. --tjstrf talk 05:36, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

UBX help

I'd like to ask an admin to go the undelete page for User:Llama man/Userboxes/HTML-2, and copy its content to Template:User html-2. I moved the HTML userboxes back to template form from my userspace, but I forgot to do so for html-2. I then put a speedy deletion tag on the page in my userspace, forgetting that I forgot to copy and paste the content to the template. —The Great Llamamoo? 22:03, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

As this needs an admin, try taking it to WP:AN. --ais523 09:42, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

Blocks Don't Really Work

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:209.215.171.12 is a school's IP. A truely endless barrage of vandalism kept coming from that address so after a dozen warnings they were finally blocked "indefinitely". Well checking their history page its clear that the block doesn't really block anything and they are tearing up and vandalizing article after article again.
1) Why does "blocked indefinitely" apparently mean "does nothing at all"?
2) Can some higer-up important Wikipedian please do something about this?

You aren't an admin, so placing an indef-blocked notice on the talk page will have no effect. To request the blocking of a user, go to WP:AIV. Although much vandalism does come from school IPs, there are often legitimate contributors using the same IP too, so they are never blocked permanently (they can sometimes be blocked anon-only for long periods of time, though). --ais523 16:28, 29 November 2006 (UTC)
It's a school. Has anyone tried contacting the school administration? Those folks are usually friendly and cooperative. The perfect "punishment" for the vandals, when caught, is to have them assigned under teacher supervision to improve an article for Wikipedia. DurovaCharge! 05:22, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

table

Can someone have a look at the Template:Netherlands general election, 2006 table? Colours for the political parties show up in Firefox, but not in IE. Is it also possible to remove the line breaks in the text when watching the table with a lower resolution screen (maybe change the font size automatically then?). Intangible 16:08, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

The blocks of colour at the start of each line show up on the version of IE6 I'm using. I don't think changing the font size automatically is possible, unless there's something in CSS which shrinks text to fit. --ais523 16:09, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

My watchlist is not showing pages under watch.

My watch-list is not showing pages kept under watch. I have kept Swadhyay Parivar and Hinduism on my watch-list and they never reflected any edits made in these two articles on 28/11/06. I have also kept "paria" in watch but that too does not reflect. I am not sure about my other pages but today, I removed Indian admin board and village pump from my list as they were loading a lot and I thought they may be the cause of problem.

Could I get some help. Reply on my talk page will be appreciated.

swadhyayee 03:40, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

Are you sure that it's not a time zone issue ? - all the dates are UTC, which be offset from the time zone you are in. Swadhyay Parivar appears not to have had any edits on 28 Nov and the logs don't show any admin type actions [4]. Check the pages are showing "unwatch" rather than "watch" at the top. Megapixie 05:30, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

I have checked that watch-unwatch. It's not the date, the content I go by. Hinduism had edits yesterday and I never found it on my watch page. Even in Swadhyay Parivar, some anonymous IP, posted comments in my name and I had not come to know from my watch list. Even at this moment, if I try to see my watchlist for last 3 or 7 days, I am not getting beyond today. Who could restore this? swadhyayee 11:59, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

It seems like you have some kind of technical issue - try forcing a full refresh on your browser (ctrl+click on refresh) and see if that pulls back more. It seems unlikely a watchlist issue would just be affecting you. Alternatively you could try the following.
The watchlist only shows the most recent edits to the article not the complete history i.e. if an article was edited on Monday and Tuesday, the watchlist would only show Tuesday edit. If you are interested in a more comprehensive list of edits to a set of articles - it might be worth building a user page i.e. User:Swadhyayee/mywatchlist with just links to the articles you are interested in watching on. Then when you want to see the edits go to the page and click on "related changed" in the toolbox on the left hand panel. Megapixie 12:52, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

My Name

This is an odd situation that I knew would arise sooner or later. I'm not a newbie at all but I chose to log out because I don't want to seem like a pompas jerk. I am a television writer and producer. I have many awards including Emmys and other national and international awards, and my work is included in the National Archives. Again, I don't want to seem like a pompas jerk but I'm just establishing that I have NOT put myself on Wikipedia but perhaps somebody could have.

There is a different person that shares the exact same name as me and he too is a television writer and producer. The problem is that although I don't know of him having any major awards, he has many many fans because the program he is involved with has a huge cult following. I have received emails from him fans accidentally (until he finally got a website of his own). So it was inevitable that a fan (I presume) would start a Wikipedia article on him. I don't question whether or not the NPOV article is appropriate. I do however have my own concerns with my name being further confused with his. Should there be a disambig page created? If that sounds like a good solution, would that solution be less valid if I didn't necessarily want my own Wikipedia page? My goal isn't to be listed, only to not be confused with another person with the same name, in the same industry, with the same titles. Could there be a disambig page where one or more items aren't links to articles on that subject? And then there's the tricky wording of how you would disambiguate the two subjects since adding "(television writer/producer)" obviously wouldn't be enough. Of course doing nothing is another option and it certainly wouldn't hurt Wikipedia but it could

I'm just curious about my options and possibilities. Feedback would be appreciated. If some experienced Wikipedian(s) would like more details please post as such below and I'll contact you 'less publicly'. Thanks.

— Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.6.147.12 (talkcontribs)

I see no problem with a disambiguation page. For example, have a [[John Smith (disambiguation)]] page, and in that, list:
  • [[John Smith (Lost writer)]]
  • [[John Smith (Sex in the City writer)]]

Just as examples.

User:Zoe|(talk) 20:06, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

Hi, mystery TV writer. If you'd like to contact me through my talk page or email, I'd be happy to set up the disambiguation page for your name and the name of the other writer. If there is no article about you, I'll also create a reasonable bio-stub for your name so that each fork of the disambiguation will have a real article. And don't worry, I don't watch much TV, and I wouldn't consider myself a huge fan of any particular show, so the article will be NPOV. I can understand the confusion you and your fans probably experience, and am happy to help. Phidauex 22:10, 28 November 2006 (UTC)
IMDB does it simply with Roman numbers -- John Smith(I), John Smith(II). Our way is probably a little bit better. --jpgordon∇∆∇∆ 19:03, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

HELP!

Special:Listusers has a HUGE backlog of inappropriate usernames. Please, for the sake of my sanity help fix this. Samuel 23:47, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

The trouble is that even once they are blocked, the offensive usernames still remain in the list. Having the accounts renamed by a beauracrat to something inconspicuous is one way to remove them, but current policy only permits this with the permission of the user concerned. Tra (Talk) 00:21, 28 November 2006 (UTC)
we knocked them off the front page. Not much else we can do.Geni 17:12, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

Chess openings

I've recently reviewed the Category:Chess openings and it seems a little large, and full of articles that may not have much in the way of encyclopedic content. All many of them amount to is listing of the openings, with only a brief mention of anything else. Often, it's just a description of how to use that opening. I've brought this up on the Chess WikiProject talk page, but I'm not sure they're getting my concerns understood. I'm wondering if anybody has any suggestions on how to broaden the discussion. I don't want to just put up articles for deletion, because I'm afraid that might upset folks too much, but I would like some wider establishment of consensus. Mister.Manticore 19:03, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

I hadn't seen these links (or any Chess articles) on Wikipedia prior to seeing your comment here. Nevertheless I found the Category:Chess openings to be an excellent resource for an encyclopedia ! This is not to say that individual articles should not be expanded, better referenced, generally improved and better interlinked, but I do feel that merging them simply to get fewer entries in the list will be counter-productive. Considering that ECO lists 500 openings, I think the category needs plenty of work in order to make it truly encyclopedic.
I am not expressing this view with the aim of being contrarian, but rather with the hope that an independent opinion from someone uninvolved with the Chess WikiProject will be useful addition to the discussion. Abecedare 04:58, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

Kh liew doing a lot of work on TVants

Can someone take a look at TVants and the editing of it by Kh liew (talk · contribs)? I'm leaving for work, and it looks like this article is getting further and further from encyclopedic. It would be best if someone could get involved sooner rather than later, I think. BigNate37(T) 17:35, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

I reverted all their edits to the article and talk page and made a few more changes. I also left a message on Kh liew's talk page explaining things. Hopefully that will resolve the situation.--Kchase T 19:15, 27 November 2006 (UTC)
Thanks. I went ahead and left him/her a note about the images s/he used as well, on the article's talk page. BigNate37(T) 01:46, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

AfD:LinuxDC++

I just want to give the AfD some attention as it has been heavily influenced by fanboys of the software. Didn't know where to post this, so here I am: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/LinuxDC++ - go share your view/recommendation! Memmke 10:53, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

I've placed the standard disclaimer on it. Wikipedia's deletion policy considers arguments, not weight of numbers, so don't be too worried about a mass flood of identical arguments (the closing admin should only count them once). --ais523 12:32, 27 November 2006 (UTC)
Thank you. I wasn't aware of that disclaimer, although it would be useful to have a category along with it. Memmke 08:17, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

Anwers.com, reliable as a source?

Specifically regarding the insertion of controversial or negative material in a BLP, is Answers.com a "reliable" source for the purpose that its being used for here? I wouldn't question its use in articles on other topics, especially pop-culture, but BLPs are held to a much higher standard of proof. Is this source alone enough to justify the material being inserted? Doc Tropics 21:57, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

Answers.com takes Wikipedia content and republishes it (it also has other content too). That link is identical to Gracenote, so no... Thanks/wangi 22:00, 26 November 2006 (UTC)
As the popularity of Wikipedia increases, reuse of its content also increases, sometimes without proper attribution. I've run into this problem before myself (I couldn't cite the specific instance at this point, though) and its equally pride-making for Wikipedia and annoying. One thing that we need to watch for is multiple circular information reutilization without attribution; i.e. an editor pulls some facts from about.com (for instance) into Wikipedia, rewording them but not citing the source and that information gets recycled into about.com (for instance) and is again recycled into Wikipedia by another editor.... --User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 05:48, 1 December 2006 (UTC)
Haha, that is just.. hilarious. Memmke 08:33, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

VH1s Top 100 songs of the 80's

Would it be copyright infringement if I made a "VH1s Top 100 songs of the 80's" page?

yes.Geni 18:41, 23 November 2006 (UTC)
To clarify: it would if you intended to include the list. Other lists, like Rolling Stone's greatest guitarists list, have been removed. Also note that TV channels and magazines are churning out new "best XXX of the XXX" lists daily, they no longer appear to be notable or have value. Notinasnaid 19:28, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

Well, what about on their pages making a comment like, for example, on the "Livin' on a Prayer" page saying something like 'This song was voted as VH1s Top song of the 1980s'? (true, you know)--WTRiker 20:35, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

In an article about X, there is no copyright concern in saying that X occupied position Y on list Z. However, one should consider whether that information is notable and interesing enough to the reader to be appropriate in an encyclopedia article. A high position on a well known list often would be, but a low position on a poorly known list generally would not be. In other words use some common sense on whether it is worth mentioning. Dragons flight 20:48, 24 November 2006 (UTC)
Also, be sure that if you use the word "voted" that you do know that a voting process took place. Many lists are just made up in the office, or are based on other criteria (e.g. number of requests, or sales). I think a source would be necessary. Notinasnaid 10:18, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

Deleting User Subpages

I know on HRWiki there is a template that you can place on user subpages to let admins know you want them deleted. Is there an equivalent template for wikipedia? -AtionSong 15:38, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

Yes! Have a look at WP:SP "How to delete a user subpage". --saxsux 11:09, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

Keren Woodward

Someone has to look at this page Keren Woodward. I dont know how I report it, but there is obviouse false information on the site.

I have removed it. Thankyou for letting us know. Did you know that you can edit the article yourself to remove the incorrect information? Just click on the edit link at the top of the page. ViridaeTalk 22:04, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

Image request

In the name of $100CAD for Wikimedia, does anybody have some ideas for appropriate pictures for the Cro-Magnon article? Xaxafrad 23:58, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

how about this one?
BJAODNed Dylan Lake (t·c·ε) 23:20, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia with two languages : French and English

Hi and congratulation about your site


I'd like to use, in IE 7.0 the Search tools with two sites of Wibipedia : this one in English and this one in French

But ... if I select "Wikipedia" (tick front of) the result is ... always in English Note that there is an yellow asterix front of "Wikipedia (Englich)"

And if I select "Wikipedia (English)" (that I added from your tool "Find more Providers" the result is in English.

Thank you for any inform let me to select, in the search tool, Wikipedia in French or Wikipedia in English.


Sorry for my poor English Thank you in advance for anyanswer/link

Regards

José RELLAND jose.relland@free.fr

I've made one for you that should do this. Go to http://www.1site1moment.com/toby/searchenglishfrenchwikipedia.asp then click 'Add' then click 'Add Provider' and it will appear in your list of search providers under 'Wikipedia'. Tra (Talk) 14:33, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

Vandalism by 204.244.150.7

204.244.150.7 seems to have fun by subtly modifying tens of pages, chaging words into similar words etc... see contributions on: [5]

Nicolas1981 22:56, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the notification. I have warned the IP. See WP:VAN for more information about reverting and reporting vandalism. In the future, you may want to consider consider leaving the user a message yourself, or adding a template. Dar-Ape 04:51, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

Fixing a malformed AfD nomination

I messed up in submitting Rumourdely to AfD (I misspelled the name on the afd2 and afd3 pages) and in trying to fix the problem, just made a bigger mess. It's happened a few times before, and it's time I learned how to correct an error when I make one. Can someone direct me to the WP: page(s) which provide info on fixing a submission problem (and maybe fix the messy submission too)? Denni talk 22:17, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

Help me with Portal:Internet

I don't find myself with much time for the Wikipedia at the moment, so I would appreciate it if another member could start maintaining Portal:Internet. Thanks. Computerjoe's talk 20:52, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

Need help moving page

Hi, I am a very wet behind the ears Nubi. Yesterday, I posted an article "Mary Beth Mckenzie" which needs to be moved to "Mary Beth McKenzie" due to spelling error ("K" needs to be capitalized). My account is only 1 or 2 days old, so I don't have a "move" button yet.

I would appreciate it if someone with proper authority could do this move for me.

TIA, Dave 16:08, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

Done -- Lost(talk) 16:14, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

Newbie help

I'm not familiar with all the templates, nor terribly well at being diplomatic, so I was wondering if someone could welcome User:Jjrizo to Wikipedia. At the same time, some words about WP:COI could help; he's not just spamming his links around like some people, but he is the seller of the book and the articles he's linking to.--Prosfilaes 18:02, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

Done and done -- Lost(talk) 16:17, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

Could I have a neutral opinon on this spate of reversions?

I just added a bunch of citations to the Landmark Education page which were reverted Wholesale again by user:Smeelgova.

(see the History, 23 Nov 10:31 to 13:11)

There has been extensive discussion of the issues on the article's talk page.

The whole thing is an edit war soup. I am at the point that I don't know what to think.

Could someone not involved with this take a look and advise me on how we can move to a reasonably stable article which is in conformance with wikipedia's NPOV, verifiability and reliable sources policies? Thanks. DaveApter 14:24, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

Indeed, one of the main problems with this article is its reliance on citations from the for-profit company's own main Corporate Website. As per Wikipedia Policy, especially with regard to articles with controversial subjects, we should not allow the usage of citations from a Corporate Website, especially to the degree in which they are in use in the article at present. Yours, Smeelgova 11:54, 25 November 2006 (UTC).

Unknown Bands Lover

That's what I call him.

Topic of this little discussion is a number of articles about bands that do not seem to be very well known (Nick Dastardly, Straw Dogs (Band), Gee Davey, Brandon Patton, Brainpool (band)). I think these articles are of low quality and most of them ar POV, so I tagged them. At least some of the articles are candidates for AfD according to the criteria set up in WP:MUSIC.

However, these tags are repeatedly removed without notable improvements on quality or NPOV. The Users removing them are each editing the articles in question, but little else (User:Blaklotus, User:Nofuel, User:Smoke23, User:PickledHambone, User:SlideSolo, User:63.166.148.155).

Now I see three problems:

  • Is the untagging vandalism?
  • Are these sockpuppets?
  • Is trying to AfD the lot against a bunch of sockpuppets worth it?

Please, can any senior editor offer any advice?

tia --217.235.246.103

I'm passingly familiar with the Nick Dastardly article, having made a small attempt to clean it up. I was seriously tempted to nom it for AfD because it is such a borderline case of notability. If you want to try an AfD, I have two suggestions:
  1. Register and get an account first; IP editors get little respect in AfD's.
  2. Nom the articles singly. Mass AfD noms rarely work out well; one article being judged notable is enough to result in all of them being kept.

I hope this helps. --Doc Tropics Message in a bottle 19:42, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

Thanks, but I'd rather stay IP. I'll give it a shot anyway.
Thanks for the hints! --217.235.246.103
I made a page for this long ago: User:John Reid/Obscure bands. This is open to public editing. John Reid ° 20:31, 23 November 2006 (UTC)
I don't quite understand what your page is supposed to do. Care to elaborate? --217.235.246.103
Nope, IPs can't do the AfD. So, does anybody feel inclined to lend a hand? --217.235.246.103

IP217 - I have nom'd Nick Dastardly for AfD. Your are welcome to participate in the discussion, but as I mentioned, IP editors often get short shrift in these debates. Is it possible for you to register and establish an account? If so, I would strongly encourage you to do so. If nothing else, I'd like to call you something a little more personal than "IP217" : ) Doc Tropics Message in a bottle 21:24, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

Expert request sorting

Hey there folks. WikiProject Expert Request Sorting is in need of assistance. We have several thousand articles that are requesting expert assistance and a way to get them to the eyes of those who might be able to provide it. If you have a couple spare minutes here and there, could you take a look at WP:WERS#Open tasks? It would be much appreciated. Thanks! --Brad Beattie (talk) 12:00, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

Needy monobook

My monobook needs more cowbell. Can anybody point me in the right direction?--Shella * 19:30, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

Maybe that was just too flippant a question. I need help finding some scripts for work in afd if anyone would point me to them I would appreciate it.
Google search found them thanx.—Shella * 22:30, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

This page is increasingly becoming a review and a place for an ex-staff member to air personal grievances. I am relavivtly new and would appreciate some help in tidying up the article from experianced editors. Also what is the policy in terms of this type of issue?

Many thanksGazMan7 09:04, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

Perhaps someone can take a look this article. I tagged it as POV and original research, but I am not sure it needs to be nominated for deletion or to be improved until it meets the Wikipedia standards. I do not know too much about the islam in Pakistan, but also do not want to leave things as they are right now. Thanks and regards, gidonb 06:11, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

In the meantime I undertook some more action. gidonb 15:27, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

Harrasment Issue

I am asking that anyone who wants to and has the time to visit this link with regards to a user who, I feel, is harrasing me with edit stalking. I wish to make it clear to this user that he has gone too far and his actions of posting my personal information on Wikipedia and creating a project page devoted to covertly calling me a copyright law breaker, will not be tolerated. -Husnock 19:51, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

  • I have not stalked you, as I have repeatedly stated to you and proven to you with quotes from Wikipedia:Harassment. Furthermore, a member of ArbCom told you it was not stalking and what I was doing was natural and proper. I firmly believe and understand that you think I have gone to far. This is why I have agreed to mediation in the dispute to bring a third party to the table to rectify the issue rather than having me continue the needed work. I'll also make it clear for the 4th or 5th time, that I did not post personal information about you anywhere period. You did. I tried to help you not reveal this information, and as a result you accuse me of posting the information. If you are truly concerned about your privacy, then remove the image, and possibly replace it with the one I provided to you that does not have the personal information...which I did as a favor to you to assist you. An olive branch was handed to you and you put a lighter to it. Lastly, there is nothing covert about my edits. I informed you of what I was doing and fully expected you to see the page. This is why I put the "Nature of this page" section on it from the beginning. If I wanted to do something covertly, I would not post it here on Wikipedia for all to see. Enough of the rhetoric, please. --Durin 20:33, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

I invite any who see this to visit: Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/User:Durin/Husnock images as I am trying to have this insulting page removed from Wikipedia. -Husnock 11:16, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

Copyright question

I ran across the article William S. Powell. At the bottom of this version it had a little thing that said, "(text used with permission from The University of North Carolina Press)". I asked about it on the creator's talk page and got this response:

I'm the webmaster and IT Manager for the University of North Carolina Press. All text for the Powell article was either written originally by me or was taken from UNC Press media/press release information, all of which is available for use by any media outlet.

Should the bottom line simply be removed to avoid confusion? And/or is any further release information required?

They have since removed the bottom line. Can anyone help me determine if there are any copyright problems with this now or not? ~ ONUnicorn(Talk|Contribs) 19:47, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

I'm working on it. -- kenb215 talk 07:07, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

ref. labor rights , abuse and woeking condition and emplyee relationship

I live in Orlando , Florida, work for large retail fortune 500 company, who does business in all 50 states, I have some concern, grivences about working condition and feel that some labor rights are violated and abused, we dont have a labor union so , I like to talk to any private or public labor rights group or federal or state goverment official or any other reosurce. (E-mail address removed) thanks

Kumar

Sorry, but this isn't the right place for that sort of request. Posting your e-mail address here will get you lots of junk mail. ~ ONUnicorn(Talk|Contribs) 21:55, 21 November 2006 (UTC)
I would recommend trying the Reference Desk for this sort of thing. Good luck. --Tkynerd 12:53, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

Request for interlanguage link English Main Page --> Simple English Main Page (and others)

Hi! This is a request. I guess I can't edit the Main Page (Welcome Page) -- there's no edit tab at the top. But surely somebody can. I would like to ask that somebody to please post an interlanguage link (at the left) from the English Main Page to the Simple English Main Page. The reason is that I think if that is done, then more people will notice that there is a Simple English Wikipedia, and write articles for it, which I think will help with exchange of ideas among languages. If you click on Francais at the left on the Main Page, you see that the French Wikipedia has links to about 50 languages, while the English Wikipedia has links to only about 33. I'm particularly requesting a link to the Simple English one, but I think the others should be added too. Also, one more thing -- the page you get when you type www.wikipedia.org gives the impression that there are only 8 languages. It would be nice to add "... and more!" to it or something -- maybe show a row of languages going off into the distance so it looks like an infinite number of them. By the way the Village Pump page has a huge number of language links. Maybe some of those languages also have Main Pages that can be added as links from the English Main Page. Thanks for listening! --Coppertwig 02:42, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

Only Wikipedias with 20000+ articles are added, however there's some more debate whether it will be lowered to 10000+ at Talk:Main Page. MER-C 12:20, 21 November 2006 (UTC)
For www.wikipedia.org, in addition to the 10 languages around the logo, just look down and you can see dozens more below the bookshelves. At the bottom is a list of links, in several languages) to all Wikipedia languages.
Also, this is the English Wikipedia (en.wikipedia.org). www. isn't a part of it. For any changes to that page, you would need to go to meta.wikimedia.org. -- kenb215 talk 06:41, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

I think the article is POV and generally not up to Wikipedia standards. Therefore I marked the article {{pov}} and {{cleanup}}. Please take a look and let us know on the discussion page what you think. TIA! --217.235.248.15

I attempted a very brief clean up, but this article probably deserves an AfD. :( Doc Tropics Message in a bottle 05:50, 21 November 2006 (UTC)
Thanks anyway. --217.235.253.66
And 24 hours later, several "improvements" have restored its status as an eyesore. --Doc Tropics Message in a bottle 09:08, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

The State of the Dab

I just finished some cleanup after moving The State, an article about a South Carolina newspaper, to The State (newspaper). The State is a political concept -- an abstraction. No offense is intended to the great state of South Carolina or its journalists but the political concept is universal.

The article on the political concept is at State, as it should be. All other uses of the word are derivative of the concept. I've redirected The State to this after disambiguating all references to the newspaper -- as well as quite a few to The State (TV series) and even The State (album).

What remains is an enormous number of links to State -- over 500, anyway. Most of these should be links to State (country subdivision); many of these are in templates. I don't have a deskbot or the time available to fix all of these bad links, nor is this a situation I created. So for the time being, readers who want to know what a state is are going to hit the political concept, get bounced to State (disambiguation), and finally, perhaps, get to their destination.

I'm not here to beg anyone to disambiguate these hundreds of links (be nice of somebody did). I'm here to plead with people to get a global view when linking in the first place. This project covers the entire range of human knowledge. Articles need to be disambiguated or we run the reader through a thicket. Before linking any word, ask: How general is this term? If there's any doubt, follow the link -- you can follow directly from preview, just special-click the link to open a new window or tab. See where you are pointing people before you point them there.

When creating a new article, consider the generality of your subject's name. You can't do anything directly about stupid or self-aggrandizing entrepreneurs but you can resist the urge to create, say, an article titled Crab House whose subject is one restaurant in downtown Chicago. Don't even call it Crab House (Chicago); there are many crab houses in Chicago and most of them have been around longer than "the" new, awful, touristy one with no name. All kinds of fools want to be not merely a special case but the -- the only -- crab house, chicken shack, state, news, times, album, show, game, toy, car, suit, party, or city department store. Don't play into this, please. Okay? John Reid ° 18:18, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

I would be happy to disambiguate State for you, but unfortunately it's not a dab page and I don't think the tool I have will work unless the subject page is itself a dab page. I'll try it, though, and if it works, I'll plow through all the links when I have time (probably this weekend or next week). Meanwhile, I recommend that you add a link to The State (newspaper) at State (disambiguation). :-) If you're American (or what the hell, even if you're not), Happy Thanksgiving! --Tkynerd 19:50, 22 November 2006 (UTC)
I went ahead and added that link for you. --Tkynerd 21:39, 22 November 2006 (UTC)
I'm sorry to report that a test shows that the tool I use will not disambiguate State. It would be perfectly happy to disambiguate State (disambiguation), but there were only 5 inbound links to that page, and only one of them actually needed disambiguation (Baltic countries, which I just took care of). --Tkynerd 23:47, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

Well, State is a particular case and not my primary concern; I worry more about the general case. We don't pre-disambiguate for no obvious reason but we do need to dab rationally as we go along. When we create a new article, we need to check to see what other plausible topics are going to home in on the same article title; when we link, we need to check to see where we're linking.

You don't really need any sort of deskbot to dab; it just make the work go faster. It helps to have some general knowledge of all of the subject areas involved. Perhaps I should put State on watch and whittle away at it. John Reid ° 20:29, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

I quite agree with the general principle here. When linking, always follow the link you have created, and check you have linked correctly. This should be in the guidelines somewhere (and probably is), but even so, it seems that people need to be reminded of this quite frequently. Adjectives (especially of countries) are another case of poor linking. People link to English, Malagasy, Ptolemaic, European, without thinking which case they should be linking to (the language, the people, the country, etc). Carcharoth 01:05, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

What's the tag for inactive projects?

I recently came across Wikipedia:WikiProject Baywatch. There is one member, and that's certainly not very active. Wikipedia isn't a place for 1 member projects. The project has been around for a little over a month, so I see no reason why it should exist. Aren't projects supposed to be put in your user space, until it gets enough support? This project seems like it was created with no support, except for the one user. RobJ1981 22:58, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

You're looking for {{Inactive}}. - BanyanTree 16:40, 20 November 2006 (UTC)
I have one more question about projects. Is just making a project with the Wikipedia name space in it, allowed? I recently came along: Wikipedia:WikiProject Trivia. I see no proof that it has any support except the person that created it. I looked at the history, and the user has no other edits. RobJ1981 16:54, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

Public domain image for two articles needs moire clean up

I think Hélène Dutrieu would be improved by the addition of an image of her as a professional cyclist and there is a public domain image of her here which could also be used to illustrate Simpson Chain but it has moire patterns from scanning. I know these can be removed using Photoshop or Paintshop because I've seen tutorials but I don't have access to the software. Any volunteers? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Random Passer-by (talkcontribs) 17:45, 15 January 2007

Is there a guideline for how to classify a person according to nationality?

Take the following scenario:

Person A was born in Sweden and is of Greek ancestry (her parents are both Greeks who were born in Greece and migrated to Sweden). Person A now lives and works in Greece and has said that she is not a Swedish but a Greek who was born and raised in Sweden.

Is there a guideline or precedent for whether person A is Greek or Greek-Swedish?

Fred-Chess 15:36, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

  • Hi Fred - To address your question, you may want to review nationality. Nationality affords the state jurisdiction over the person, and affords the person the protection of the state. In otherwords, it is the state that determines who its nationals are, not the person. As for how to use nationality in a biography article, see Template:Biography. Hope this helps. -- Jreferee 18:39, 16 January 2007 (UTC)
I don't think there is a guideline for resolving the conflict at Elena Paparizou easily or quickly. The fundamental problem is that the contested description is at the beginning of the article and could not be clearly said to refer to nationality or ethnicity, were it not for this guideline: Wikipedia:Manual of Style (biographies)#Opening paragraph, as pointed out on the article's talk page. That guideline says that nationality should be specified in the opening paragraph, and that ethnicity should not be referred to there unless it is relevant to the subject's notability. If that guideline were followed, she would be referred to as "Swedish" because she does not hold Greek nationality AFAIK (see the link posted by Jreferee above). But it could be argued that her Greek origin is related to her notability, as she basically became notable by competing in Eurovision for Greece. In that case, "Greek-Swedish" would be the correct term. Her self-concept has no effect on her nationality, so IMO it needs to be noted in the opening paragraph that she, at least in some sense, is Swedish. So the real choices are "Swedish" and "Greek-Swedish." Just "Greek" is not an option unless you want to ignore that section of the MoS, which admittedly is not policy, but I think guidelines like that, which have community consensus, should be respected. --Tkynerd 18:50, 16 January 2007 (UTC)
On further reflection, a compromise might be to say something like, "...a Swedish-born singer of Greek descent..." (Note that "Swedish" links to Sweden, while "Greek" links to Greek people.) In any case, it must be kept in mind that the function of that opening paragraph is to give the reader some idea of the person's background as well as why he or she is notable. To obliterate all mention of her Swedish birth, as some editors wish to do there, seems dishonest to me. --Tkynerd 19:10, 16 January 2007 (UTC)
Thank you, Jreferee and Tkynern. You have given me exactly the answers I needed. / Fred-Chess 15:13, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

Racist language

I'm new to Wikipedia and can't solve an editing problem. Someone has inserted offensive language in the entry on African Americans, but when I select "Edit this page," the racist terms don't appear and I can't delete them.

I hope someone with more expertise will take care of this. Thanks.

There has been some vandalism to the African American article, but it was recently reverted. Try clearing your cache and refreshing the page to see if it goes away. If it's still there, please give details of where exactly in the article the vandalism is. Tra (Talk) 22:56, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

Are they public domain for Wiklpedia

I have found various photos on site http://www.flickr.com/photos. Most of them, if not all, have a note indicating that "This photo is public"

1. I interpret this that the photos are public domain and therefore can be used without problems for Wikipedia and for Wikicommons. If so, what tag should be selected? Is any special explanation required when uploading such pictures to make sure that they are not deleted?

2. As there may be other Wikipedists who could be interested in these pictures, would it be appropriate to list this site in the list provided at Wikipedia:Public domain image resources where sites with public domain pictures are presented?

Afil 15:56, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

No. The "This image is public" refers to who can view it on Flickr. Each image has its own license statement. Many are compatibly licensed and Commons has a system to find and import these already. Rmhermen 18:44, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

When would the next database dump be out?

Hi, may I know when the next enwiki db dump would be released? As for previous dumps, can someone point me to a historical timeline, if available? Thank you --WikiInquirer 11:16, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

The dumps are supposed to be generated once a week but recently, they seem to be generated less often so there's no guarantees on when the next one will come out. If you go to http://download.wikimedia.org/enwiki/ you'll see a list of dumps generated in the past few months for the English Wikipedia, but if you need dumps from before then, you might be able to get one of the existing dumps and run an SQL query on it to remove all revisions and log entries for pages that are dated after a certain date in order to 'simulate' how the wiki looked historically. Tra (Talk) 15:57, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

Thanks, Tra! =) --WikiInquirer 11:21, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

Photo needs retouching

I need help retouching a photo for the Jack Fitzgerald article. I have two copies of a photo of Fitzgerald. One of them is cropped, and both of them are damaged in different places. I would like a composite image taking the best parts of both images (and including the uncropped area). This one is a bit tricky because one photo is a bit lighter than the other. If anyone has experience in retouching photos and would like to tackle this, please go ahead. The original photos are in the public domain because of their age (pre-1920s), but obviously by retouching it you'd be able to claim copyright. It would be nice if you left it as PD, but of course it's your call. —Psychonaut 14:01, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

User:Mark has kindly fulfilled this request: Image:Jack Fitzgerald bicycle.jpgPsychonaut 15:09, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

Semitone Article: Vandalism not fully resolved - HELP NEEDED

Hello,

Several months ago, Keenan Pepper, Rainwarrior, Mark and myself did a complete re-write on the Semitone (Music). Considerable research, discussion and scrutiny were involved, until we were all satisfied with the completeness and accuracy of the Article.

On Nov. 28/06, the article was vandalized. While an attempt to revert the work of the vandal was made the same day, it was not entirely successful. Looking at Semitone - History, it will be seen that as of Nov. 22/06, in the "Contents", item 1 was "The Minor Second". It has completely vanished! (The entire reason for re-opening a Semitone article was to give "equal justice" to both the Augmented Unison and the Minor Second.)

The now-missing SECTION, with it's excellent excerpts, is CRITICAL to the Article.

I would correct the problem myself, if I knew how to do so without risking other, unwanted changes. Also, I am not sure if I have the authority to do so.

CAN SOMEONE PLEASE HELP? This article is of outstanding importance to students of music.

Thank you, Prof.rick 08:29, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

You seem to have gotten it back. BTW nice work on the articel. 68.39.174.238 13:59, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

Text of a legal appeal doesn't seem to me to be a valid Wikipedia entry. It was db-copyvio'ed already once, but the author claims it is not infringement. I'm not sure what the proper action is. SUBWAYguy 04:45, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

You have new messages!

I looked at and read my new messages. Now, how do I get the annoying big orange banner to go away? 68.76.222.11 03:06, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

The best way is to get an account and use it. You're probably still seeing the big orange banner because you're viewing the site anonymously (i.e., as an IP). I don't mean to sound dismissive, but that's really what it amounts to. --Tkynerd 03:08, 16 January 2007 (UTC)
Normally it goes away properly when you click on your talk page. But if that fails, try clicking on the link in parentheses within the banner. --tjstrf talk 03:10, 16 January 2007 (UTC)
I've clicked on both the links in the banner several times. So, if you're an IP that means once you get a message it always and forever says you have new messages after that? 68.76.222.11 03:12, 16 January 2007 (UTC)
Well, it shouldn't, but it's rather glitchy. Have you tried purging your cache? --tjstrf talk 03:13, 16 January 2007 (UTC)
No, how do I do that? 68.76.222.11 03:17, 16 January 2007 (UTC)
There are two ways: (1) With most browsers and operating systems, pressing Shift+F5 (or holding down Shift and clicking on the Reload button in the browser's toolbar) will force a reload from the server, bypassing your cache. (2) Wikipedia:Purge. --Tkynerd 03:23, 16 January 2007 (UTC)
That took care of it. Thanks! 68.76.222.11 03:59, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

Doesn't this belong on Wikiquote/Wikisource?

I just found out Template:Shakespearesonnets and all that it links to. Personally, I would expect them to be hosted on WS or WQ, especially as the pages seem to be just the sonnet and nothing else. Is this the case, or...? 68.39.174.238 16:50, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

My monobook

User:The Placebo Effect/monobook.js I am having trouble getting the new script to work. Could someone please tell me how to get it to work? The Placebo Effect 21:13, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

What problem exactly? In my computer it works. Do you refer the highlighting?

If you do refer that, you should ask the developers (i'm not sure if that's a Firefox bug). I think the solution is unfocus, change text of textarea, then refocus in the same place every character you put or remove.

Nethac DIU, would never stop to talk here
18:53, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

Request help in cleaning up this page, in particular removing sites that are (1) defunct or (2) inappropriate external links. >Radiant< 12:24, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

Spider-Man 3 Discussion Page Problem

I don't know where to go otherwise, but, on the Spider-Man 3 talk page someone not only vandalized it (hence, by changing the "This is not a forum... exc." tag to include a link to the FX article) but somehow managed to make it protected so that this said vandalism cannot be changed back. Plus, with the discussion page locked there's (obviously) no where to discuss changes on the Spider-Man 3 Page itself. Is there any way to advert this mess? --208.127.64.22 05:48, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

For the semi-protection, get an account and wait a few days. I've changed the banner, though I'm not sure if that was vandalism or what. Thank you. --tjstrf talk 06:07, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
The reason for the FX mention was to quell general discussion about Spider-Man 3 clips being shown during an airing of Spider-Man 2. We don't want to encourage statements like, "Whoa, did you see this part? That was so cool!" —Erik (talkcontrib) - 06:10, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

I'm not sure what the next appropriate step is, maybe db-author? Please see the comments on Talk:Dan the Music Man. SUBWAYguy 02:03, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

Inserting entry into a table

How do I insert an internal link to the Nadelhorn into the table of mountains on the Pennine Alps page? It looks to me as if one would have to rearrange every single entry below it, since the entries are formatted in pairs. Is there something I am missing? Ericoides 22:48, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

Merely copy:

|-
| [[Dufourspitze]] ([[Monte Rosa]])
| 4,638
| 15,217
|
| Tête Blanche
| 3,750
| 12,304

Into the table in the right place, click show preview, and it should be there, I've just previewed it and it works fine for me. Regards SGGH 20:30, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the advice, but I'm not sure that helps. If you look at the text, the peaks are listed in pairs (I've slightly modified it for this example: eg

| Dent Blanche | 4,364 | 14,318 | | Mont Gelé | 3,517 | 11,539

| Grand Combin | 4,314 | 14,164 | | Becca di Luseney | 3,506 | 11,503

| Castor | 4,230 | 13,879 | | Château des Dames | 3,489 | 11,447

If I insert Nadelhorn where it belongs (at 4,327 m just where Grand Combin is at present), I would then have to move Grand Combin to where Castor is, and then move Castor down and so on ad infinitum. Is this indeed the case? Thanks. Ericoides 21:30, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

Anyone? Ericoides 09:16, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

Member Royal Irish Academy

My problem: I noticed this page (MRIA) had recently been created. It's an abbreviation that members of the Royal Irish Academy add to the end of their names. I thought it would be good to add the info to the Royal Irish Academy page where it should also logically go, and possibly try to get MRIA changed to a redirect. The problem is there are also redirects for Mria and mria to Antonov An-225, a Russian plane. I'd like to set up some kind of disambiguation page but I've gotten myself a little lost. Can someone help walk me through this? Static Universe 04:24, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

Can an admin throw the deleted/protected page template on this article for me? There is currently just a cryptic line of unwikified text there. Salad Days 15:34, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

Done. -- Rick Block (talk) 18:16, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

Looking for input on the Breast article

I was looking at the top 100 viewed articles and I stumbled across the article a few weeks ago. I made some changes without knowing it was a controversial article and was then accused of censorship. I feel it has since fallen upon dire straights and may be controlled by trolls so I'm looking for editors who are not pro or anti censorship that can look at the article for its quality and help make changes and provide sources to improve it from that stand point. I think the regulars have become jaded as well as myself so some fresh minds may help out the article. If any of you have time, please stop in and make a couple edits to this top 100 article. Thanks. --I already forgot 02:05, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

I am a signed-up-today newbie. I looked at the page and my first question is: what is the purpose of the Breast article? Is it to be primarily a scientific explanation? or is it intended to cover all aspects, shapes, sizes, and styles of breasts in modern and ancient society? Is there somewhere I can look to find the overall concept for this article? Are there Widipedia guidelines for scope for this kind of broad (no pun intended) article? Without knowing the purpose, and knowing from you that there is some controversy, it will be difficult to improve the article's quality. I thought the content of the tagged area about size and shape was somewhat excessive (and could be responsible for the popularity of the article). Maybe I'll look for a Penis article and see how that was done. JustJC 17:09, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

Help wanted please (from Princeton Art students?)

In the Dutch Language Wikipedia is an article about St. Encratia aka St. Engracia. I know there's a splendid painting in the Princeton University Art Museum of Saint Engracia in a vivid red dress and a big golden nail in her forehead. I would greatly appreciate a picture of this painting on Commons with a GNU license (due to a strict copy right policy on the Dutch language Wikipedia). Any help possible on this? I like to hear from you! The quickest way to contact me is my Dutch talkpage --Haarajot 13:00, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

Have you tried Wikipedia:Requested pictures and Wikipedia:Photo Matching Service? — RJH (talk) 19:07, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
Thanx Bob, I will do as you suggested. --Haarajot 20:13, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

Bot request

Can someone advise me on getting a bot to... go to Category:The Westfield Group

for all articles under W, go to the article and do a find "Category:The Westfield Group" and replace it with "Category:The Westfield Group|Placename", where Placename is some reasonable part of the malls name.

Even though there are instructions to that effect on the category talk page nobody seems to be doing it. TIA!Garrie 02:56, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

Done. What I did was I used query.php to get a list of the articles in the category, find the ones that were correctly sorted and generated a list of links to fix each of them, then I clicked on each of the links, which fixed each of the pages using popups and some other javascript. Tra (Talk) 15:08, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

Help of administrator needed for small problem

On the article on John Gorenfeld an editor has placed a possible copyright infringement tag which has created a huge black text box which is crushing the poor little article. The person who put it there insists that only an administrator can remove it and puts it back whenever someone deletes it. Could someone check this out and if there is no copyright violation remove the tag, or if there is one delete the article? Thanks. Steve Dufour 05:43, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

I'm from the Spanish Wikipedia

Hi! I'm from the Spanish Wikipedia, but I've noticed that the ways you work here is very different. I just want to know what templates are used for mark pages, as you do in Spanish Wikipedia (for example es:Plantilla:Destruir). I want to collaborate here too. Please answer in my talk page; I don't watch this page. Thanks =P, --Diego · (talk· =P) · (cont · =P) I'm "en-3", remember 02:38, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

Revert failed

Hello. Three attempts, one a few hours later than the first, to revert the last two changes on Computer-aided_design failed, see the history. Thank you in advance if you could make that edit. -Susanlesch 23:30, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

There's nothing to revert - the IP's second edit was a revert of their first edit. Thanks/wangi 23:34, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
  • Thanks wangi and sorry I was confused. What a great trend. -Susanlesch 23:52, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

See the discussion at WP:HD#Mdash in article names?. Apparently, according to Wikipedia:Manual of Style (dashes), we should not have m-dashes in article titles. But just about all of the Canadian constituency article titles use m-dashes. Should we get a bot to move all of the titles, or change the Manual of Style? User:Zoe|(talk) 22:41, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

Featured article

How do I have The Links, Incorporated as a featured article? Bearly541 10:07, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

I'd recommend trying for good article status first, which is a little less demanding. See Wikipedia:Good articles. Once that hurdle is reached, you can aim for Wikipedia:Featured articles, with requirements like prose that is "compelling, even brilliant". There is likely to be concern that so few editors contributed to the article. Notinasnaid 10:15, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
I also suggest Wikipedia:Peer review to get some feedback. — RJH (talk) 19:05, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

Adding a Wikipedia search box to an external website

Is it possible to add a search box for Wikipedia to an external website? The site in question would be a high school student newspaper's webpage that we hope to make the homepage of many students. Of course, Wikipedia is our primary research tool, and it would be convenient to have a search box right there.

Thanks,

Thomas Smyth gmyths at gmail dot com 10 January 2006 22:17 EDT —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Mythrandir (talkcontribs) 03:17, 11 January 2007 (UTC).

Putting in this code will give you a basic search box, that works the same way as the one in the sidebar:
<form action="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Search">
<input name="search" type="text" value="" />
<input type='submit' name="go" value="Go" /> 
<input type='submit' name="fulltext" value="Search" />
</form>
You could then add images, a logo or change the size to fit your site. Tra (Talk) 13:47, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
But don't use the Wikipedia logo, as, of all items in Wikipedia, the logo is copyrighted. User:Zoe|(talk) 17:23, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

Help a pitiful coder!

I've been working for a while trying to make a module for myself in JS but it hasn't been working. Could a coder who is better than me make a small amount of code that adds a "test" tab that calls on warn.js when clicked on? Thanks, PTO 00:12, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

I have a function that does quite a few things like that, and I could give it to you. (Written by Topaz, OwenX, and partially stolen from Celestianpower). It adds a 'warn' tab to diffs which links to the editors talk page, adds a warning drop-down tab while editing talk pages that automatically enter a warning level (from test1-5). Prodego talk 00:37, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
That would be great. (Why re-invent the wheel? :D) Thank you! PTO 01:15, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

Reverse copyvio?

This webpage appears to be a copy without attribution of the page Colorado Buffaloes#Football. I know that Wikipedia came first because I wrote this. Is it actually a copyvio on their part? Is there anything we can do? Is there a place here at WP to handle such things? Thanks for any information. --MECUtalk 22:18, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

See WP:MIRROR#Non-compliance_process. Dragons flight 22:21, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

This article is factually inaccurate, according to a letter to the editor. We need quick, quick action now. See the talk page for details. -- Zanimum 19:49, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

Getting thumbnail version of picture to show up

Hi. I'm having problems with Image:Browning Mountain from Elkinsville & Combs Roads.jpg. I took it and uploaded it to Commons for the infobox on an article I've been working on in my userspace. It works fine in the infobox, but any time I try to put it anywhere as a thumbnail it won't show up. I've read suggestions to clear the cach, etc. but nothing I've tried seems to work. Can anyone help me with it? ~ ONUnicorn(Talk|Contribs)problem solving 18:04, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

 
Ok, that's odd... it's working as a thumbnail on the villiage pump; and it works in the infobox... but look at my userpage under "My images" where it still doesn't work. ~ ONUnicorn(Talk|Contribs)problem solving 18:05, 10 January 2007 (UTC)
Looks fine to me. <3Clamster 18:05, 10 January 2007 (UTC)
On my userpage it looks fine? Or here? ~ ONUnicorn(Talk|Contribs)problem solving 18:08, 10 January 2007 (UTC)
And now, miraculously, it's working everywhere... very odd.

Having trouble finding my error in a conditional template

A few days back I tried adding the DEFAULTSORT magic word to the {{Lifetime}} template so that biographical articles would be automatically sorted in more than just the birth/death categories. I did some testing in a sandbox but it turns out I missed a bug that occurred when the sort key parameter is missing; this was supposed to result in the DEFAULTSORT being omitted but it was still being left in with a broken sort key that put the article under "{". I've since done a bunch of fiddling with parser functions (User:Bryan Derksen/Template sandbox if you want to see the embarrassing wreckage of my experimentation) and can't figure out what I'm overlooking. Why does

{{ #if: {{{3|}}} | {{DEFAULTSORT:{{{3}}}}} }}

not work? Or does it actually work, and I'm just screwing up testing it somehow? Bryan 10:16, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

I can't help you with this, unfortunately, but I'd like to suggest that you also try WP:VPT. I think you're more likely to find technically adept help over there. Good luck. --Tkynerd 13:25, 10 January 2007 (UTC)
Okay, thanks. I've copied my question here. Bryan 21:01, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

Perry Smith (murderer) - Fake image

Does anybody can confirm the following issue: The alleged criminal mugshot photo available in old Perry Smith (murderer) article's version is fake? If so, somebody (who's identity is unknow) had his image associated to a murderer for more than 10 months on Wikipedia (see first first post [6] and the last [7] wich I did as anonymous). This is a serious issue imho (including legal ones) to Wikipedia. If that image is really fake, I suggest some sysop to delete the article's history for the sake of that man image. Thanks! --Alexhubner 22:43, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

Well spotted! The issue you raise is quite important and needs more discussion. In this case, I think the image you removed was uploaded recently. The original image, which was in the article for months, was found on [8], and has been deleted from both Wikipedia and Commons (where it was originally) for lack of source. The image you removed from the page is also slated to be deleted for lack of source and copyright information, and was only uploaded on Jan 6, 2007. Nevertheless, the issue remains a concern, even if it was not up for long in this case. --TeaDrinker 23:32, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

Question about merging

On December 14 I proposed to merge 3 fair use templates. I announced it on the village pump, on the main page and talk page of all three templates, at Wikipedia talk:Image copyright tags, Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Fair use, and on TFD where one of the templates I wanted to merge was up for deletion. Between then and now I've only gotten one response to the proposed merge. That person seemed to be somewhat opposed to the merge, if only because they didn't see what the advantage was. I responded to their comment explaining what I percieved the advantage to be, and have had no response from them or anyone else since.

I'm tempted at this point to think no one cares and merge the templates; but I'm sort of afraid that if I do that there will suddenly be an onslaught of angry people yelling that I should have gotten consenus first. I'm also afraid I'll screw something up and there'll be a lot of images with broken fair use templates.

Should I go ahead and boldly attempt the merge? Should I seek out someone experienced with templates to help me so I don't screw up the whole fair-use-tagging system and sic OrphanBot on a lot of innocent users? Should I forget about it? Should I wait longer? What do others reccomend? ~ ONUnicorn(Talk|Contribs)problem solving 20:47, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

IP address question

Could someone take a look at this? Does "addresses in this block are non-portable" mean that the IP address is static? Is Pinnatech the organization that the address is assigned to? Is that an IP provider, or the name of the person/company who has been given the address? User:Zoe|(talk) 19:11, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

Non-Portable means the IP can't be transfered away if the customer switches. Pinnatech is the organization to which the IP is registered, and those are usually an ISP. Prodego talk 01:05, 9 January 2007 (UTC)
Does that mean I can indef. block the address, or could it be used by more than one person? User:Zoe|(talk) 16:59, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

Wikiprojects

I'm trying to get more members for A Series of Unfortunate Events Wikiproject. Where is an appropriate place to "advertise" per se? All relevant talk page of pages about A Series of Unfortunate Events are marked with a template saying its part of the project and the few members of the project place invites on the talk pages of virtually everyone who makes a substantial edit, but the wikiproject is fairly desolate and small. <3Clamster 00:22, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

Huarizo Expansion

Hello, could you please, whoever you are out there, try to expand on the miniscule huarizo article. Thank you. Good night, and good luck.

Interlaker 18:33, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

Anonymous vandal blocked, filed insulting unblock request.

212.219.142.86 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log) was blocked by Doc glasgow for vandalism. The anonymous vandal filed an unblock request with reason "COS YOU'RE A FAT BITCH".

Since I am not an administrator, am I allowed to decline this unblock request?

Where should I ask an admin to extend their block (if appropriate)? In addition, should I request their talk page be semi-protected? (I know RFP's the place for that.)

What other action should be taken?

I need to sleep now. Good night.

--J.L.W.S. The Special One 15:05, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

I suggest you ask User:Doc glasgow himself? I don't think non-admins can handle block/unblock issues, though they can give warnings up to final warning prior to being blocked. SGGH 16:08, 8 January 2007 (UTC)
In the future, this type of thing should go on Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents. I've extended the block by 10 days. Superm401 - Talk 05:26, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

How to edit page title?

I corrected the spelling of the name "Kauffman" it was misspelled "Kauffmann". How do you change the name in the title which still reads "Leon Kauffmann" ? Colalto 01/07/07

You can change the title of an article by using the 'move' tab at the top, by moving it to the new name. I've renamed it for you. Tra (Talk) 22:09, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

Thank you. I can't find a 'move' tab. Do you mean the 'redirect' tab? --Colalto 03:04, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

No, this tab appears when viewing the page, not when editing it. Assuming you use the default skin, it is up at the top by the history button. Prodego talk 03:18, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, I am still lost. How do you change to the default skin? --Colalto 14:48, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

To change the default skin, go to 'my preferences' at the top right then click on the tab that says 'skin'. Then pick Monobook, then you should find the move tab between 'history' and 'watch'. SGGH 16:10, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

I am still not there! What am I missing? If I am not mistaken "Monobook" is the default skin and was the skin I had and still no 'move' tab. The problem seems to be with the quickbar which I assume is not on. So far I have not found a way to turn it on. Is it possible that new users don't have that option? --Colalto 00:58, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

Newly created accounts (three days, I believe) don't see the "move" tab on pages. You can request moves at Wikipedia:Requested moves. - BanyanTree 01:36, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

The article on Bombing of Guernica or Bombing of Gernika has been moved 16 times since November 16, 2006. (See logs for Bombing of Guernica and logs for Bombing of Gernika.) I tried requesting a page move protection at WP:PP with no success (diff). There seems to be no consensus, but what is worrisome is that the article is being moved back and forth. --Oden 18:09, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

WP:PP is a bot-update list of pages that are protected - not a place to request that a page should be protected. You could try the Wikipedia:Administrator's noticeboard. Rmhermen 03:07, 8 January 2007 (UTC)
Actually, you should list it at WP:RFPP. User:Zoe|(talk) 17:21, 8 January 2007 (UTC)
Thanks! --Oden 15:11, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

I'm a new user/contributor

As a new user/contributor, I would like to know if I'm doing things right with the edits that I've done so far. And if this is the wrong place to ask, where should i do so? Bachur 11:15, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

You're doing okay. However, I put Simeon ben Tzemah Duran up for deletion because it was a copyright infringement. You must be careful not to take text from other sites, unless they specifically give you permission. Also, I recommend you read Wikipedia:Guide_to_layout and Help:Editing, as your edits still have some formatting issues.
Also, spellings like "summarising" ('s' instead of 'z') are not incorrect. They are British spellings, and should be used in Europe-related articles. It's generally a bad idea to change an article from British to American spelling, or vice-versa.
If you want a guide to Wikipedia, see Wikipedia:Adoption. Superm401 - Talk 00:03, 8 January 2007 (UTC)
As for the deletion, I don't know how to fix it. / As for the British English - I understand - my mistake.
Unfortunately, there's nothing to fix. It has to be deleted it because you copied it from a website without their permission. Superm401 - Talk 05:41, 9 January 2007 (UTC)
I have a question in general about the Jewish topics when they are interspersed with non-Jewish information, what can be done about it?
It'd be good if you gave an example. I'm not quite sure what you mean. In any event, you must keep the neutral point of view. Always cite your sources and try to represent all viewpoints. Superm401 - Talk 05:42, 9 January 2007 (UTC)
I forgot the example. I'll try to post in the future with exactly what I mean.Bachur 09:48, 9 January 2007 (UTC)
And how does one create at the top of the list a numbered and linked subsection, I noticed in some pages it has the list and in other pages it doesn't have a list. Shevat is a link to a page with the numbered list at the top; while Tishrei does not have the list on top, how does one go about fixing so that all pages have a numbered listing? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Bachur (talkcontribs) 03:14, 8 January 2007 (UTC).
See the help on Tables of Contents. Usually you shouldn't force this. The TOC will be added automatically when the article has enough sections. Superm401 - Talk 05:41, 9 January 2007 (UTC)
I noticed that one page will have the listing and another won't with the same amount of "sub-groups"(correct word?) that's why I'm asking how does one create one?. Bachur 09:48, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

Bachur, if you would like, you can leave questions on my talk page and I can help you out now and in future by 'adopting' you as mentioned above? Just go here and add a message. SGGH 16:12, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

I responded on your User Talk with a "hello". Bachur 09:48, 9 January 2007 (UTC)
Though even if you don't take me up on my offer, I would suggest that you don't 'clean up' your talk page. Even if it is completly innocent, it does look like something is being hidden, trust me, I did it once too! :). If you run out of space, you can archive it. SGGH 16:14, 8 January 2007 (UTC)
I reverted it back to what it was, thanks for the heads up.Bachur 09:48, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

Requesting assistance from someone with an Email address.

See this history, in particular the edits by Trkaiser (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log). I would love to explain to him about copyrights, etc, but I can't Email him, as he requests. Also, I suspect he isn't watching his talk page give that it's still red. 68.39.174.238 06:33, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

I have emailed him for you asking for him to look at this notice. SGGH 16:05, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

Reverting bad edits

Hi, I'm quite new here and just wondeing how people revert bad edits so quickly, I have searched the recent changes for a while and I never really see vandalism etc... Is there another function to check changes that I have missed?

Also, Do you revert a edit by going onto the page, clicking history, then selecting the page you want, click edit again and then save. It seems quite a long process but is there a quicker way? Thanks!Ad0500 11:54, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

The usual method is about like you describe. Usually, whenever I go on an RC Patrol, I use the diff links on Special:Recentchanges. Then click edit on the good page, type in a useful edit summary, and hit save. For more information, see the help page or ask me. W. Flake ( talk | contribs ) 23:20, 8 January 2007 (UTC)
Also, patterns tend to emerge when looking for vandals. For instance, anonymous users tend to vandalize more often than registered users. It takes some time to learn the trends. You may want to consider a tool such as popups to help out. Good luck! W. Flake ( talk | contribs ) 23:24, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

Pseudoscience in Flowform article

Could other editors please check the Flowform article. As I commented on the talk page (under my previous username, Singkong2005), the article currently contains a significant amount of psuedoscience. However, much as I'd like to delete such material, it is probably notable that such claims are made about flowforms, and I couldn't find a good debunking. --Chriswaterguy talk 04:26, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

Find redirects?

How do I find a list of redirects that point to a page? Wikipedia:Redirect doesn't seem to address this, & they don't show up on "What links here".

TIA-- Pete Tillman 02:07, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

Go to the article and click the "What links here" link in the toolbox. Grika 02:43, 6 January 2007 (UTC)
If you give a specific article and the redirects that seem not to be listed, I'll look into it. Grika 03:35, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

3 Questions about Families, Towns, and High Schools

A sizable portion of the pages I've recently edited {found mostly through Dead-end Pages) have included a number of articles where I'm uncertain whether I should put them up for deletion. Perhaps I've missed the guidelines on these but I'd like some input and/or pointers to relevant guidelines.

  1. Articles on a particular family, particularly in India or the Middle East. The Middle East is a very familial and tribal society in many ways. Very extended family connections often form power/governmental structures. Indian society shares in this aspect as well. (This is my understanding but I am not an expert.) So my thought is that some families, not well known in the West, might deserve inclusion. (Already I'm answering my own question: WP:V applies.) Thoughts?
  2. Articles on small villages/towns, particularly in India, crop up regularly. If a village or town (under 5,000 residents) in India (or any country) has an article but doesn't obviously assert its notability, should it be put up for deletion? If yes, which form? AfD, Speedy, or Prod?
  3. Ah, last but no means least, schools. American High School articles proliferate without any obvious claim to notability. I also note these are also quite prone to vandalism and usually with no easy way to check the validity of student/teacher names or events (particularly endless sporting event details). Small colleges around the world are also difficult to evaluate as to accuracy of the information. Often, the college entries are also written in a promotional tone, probably lifted from (what else?) their promotional literature. Without clear indications of notability and verifications, I lean towards deleting them but I'd really like some WP community guidance on this matter.

Sorry to lump so much into this post. I just feel indecisive when I edit these kinds of articles. However, the more I look at these questions, the more I feel verifiability is the root issue. But I'd still like input. Thanks. --Pigmantalk • contribs 18:49, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

Villages/towns and schools are probably all relevant. If you could include some examples of family articles, I'll be able to give you my opinion. Grika 02:51, 6 January 2007 (UTC)
There are towns of all sizes in wikipedia - tons of them infact. Ormsby, Minnesota has 65 households, Craig, Iowa has 102 people... and I picked these at random. So you'll probably have to put up at a few thousand articles for deletion if you decide that a town under 5000 people has to be put up for deletion! Shushruth \talk page \ contribs 08:56, 6 January 2007 (UTC)
Well, I guess my point is basically: Is there any practicably applied standard for including (or excluding) towns and/or high schools? Ormsby, Minnesota seems like a good example. Lots of very specific census details but no sources for the information, plus what is probably some vanity information on a band and its members. That there are thousands of articles on such small and, not to be insulting, unnotable towns doesn't impress me much. I guess I'm thinking Wikipedia is not an indescriminate collection of information applies in my mind. Perhaps I'm just swimming against the tide here and I'm certainly not going to spend my time looking for such articles but I just feel there should be some standard for inclusion other than its mere existence.
Ramahi is one family name I edited. I felt it was impossible to evaluate the importance of the family itself from the information so I put a notability tag on it. This might not be the best example but I had to dig through my contribs to find one. I guess I'll just keep playing it by ear. Thank you both for the feedback. --Pigmantalk • contribs 06:15, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

Page move trouble

We moved our page and now we lost the history and have just an ancient history. Where are all our recent edits? At Hinduism and Creationism--Filll 00:57, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

False Alarm

I thought something was wrong with our moved article. The history disappeared and we had an ancient version of the article instead. But it seems to be ok now. Thanks.--Filll 00:59, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

Found a spammer, what do I do?

The following user http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/Jennylynn50 is posting the following into external links for the following pages:

Mortgage Consumer protection Predatory lending

I happened to be editing Mortgage at the time, so it caught my eye. I have gone through the help pages, but do not see how to handle a spammer. I do not think this falls under an editing dispute, and the FAQ has no info that I can see on this issue.

I could try deleting these three instances, but I figure a more experienced wikipedian would know a better solution than starting an edit war. CodeCarpenter 21:21, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

Plus, after reading about SummerThunder and the 3 revert rule, I would not want to do three reverts of these changes and get into trouble. CodeCarpenter 22:10, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

see WP:SPAM#Warning_spammers and Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Spam. User:Zoe|(talk) 00:30, 6 January 2007 (UTC)
Thanks Zoe. CodeCarpenter 02:55, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

Verb Object Subject

The self-referential merge template and talk page redirect at Verb Object Subject are a mess, but I don't know how to fix this. --Homunq 19:37, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

It seems the merge has already taken place, but not tidied up. I've removed the merge template and moved the talk page to the correct location. Tra (Talk) 20:25, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

Close template

Template:FA Cup Finals needs to be "closed", please. --Madnessinshorts 14:06, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

I fixed it. Tables can be closed by adding a |} on its own line. Tra (Talk) 17:09, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

Physics Book

I have purchased two books by the name "Physics - Principles with applications" - Sixth Edition - by Douglas C. Giancoli with ISBN Numbers 013-060620-0 and 013-184661-2. I would like to know what is the difference between these two books. Whether they are identical or some new facts have been added. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 125.23.53.98 (talk) 10:12, 5 January 2007 (UTC).

I suggest asking that on the WP:RD/S — Science Reference Desk 68.39.174.238 11:55, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

Anyone know anything about this?

I removed this: "اننا للة وانا لة راجعون....لا حول ولا قوة الا باللة...رحمك اللة وادخلك فسيح جنانة" from Iraqi Revolutionary Command Council as it was out of place and unexplained (It looked like it was added as a meta-comment). Does anyone know what this actually is? Does it belong there (Is there a better place to ask)? Thanx. 68.39.174.238 04:01, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

I get We have God and I are going ... Not to be powerless only God ... Rakhmk God Adkhalk open Jnanh from this site.[9] DurovaCharge 04:36, 5 January 2007 (UTC)
Alright, that definitely sounds like it was removeworthy. Thanx. 68.39.174.238 11:46, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

Part of the article does not show

I am working on the article about Quintus Tullius Cicero, ( brother of the famous Cicero). Another editor after me reorganized the material into nice subgroups. But after that last editing, the end part of the article does not show, nor do the references. But on the "edit article" page all is O.K. What to do? -- Tellervo 11:51, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

I fixed one problem (a </ref> was typed as <ref/>). I think all has been fixed. Blueboar 13:46, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

Minor help, please...

Someone mind expiring the prod on the noxious and hilariously named hoax The Sharpeners? Thanx, 68.39.174.238 03:22, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

Need help applying "Stub" to artical

Sorry about the spelling. I don't know how to give articles the thing saying its a stub, so could someone make http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lookism a stub? Thanks!

No problem, I went ahead and added this one (a Sociology Stub, the nearest I could find to the topic). If you want to add a stub yourself, you can add {{stub}} or better yet, find one at Wikipedia:WikiProject Stub sorting/Stub types which is closest to the topic and add that one. Thanks, --TeaDrinker 23:34, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

Help--Part of Article Hidden

I was editing Coconino National Forest to add a new History section. When I saved it, the stuff following vanished! -- but it's still there, on the edit page.


HELP! TIA, Pete Tillman 18:41, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

I fixed it. the reference you added did not have a closing <ref> tag, which made the rest of the article disappear. Tra (Talk) 19:00, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

Oh, drat. Thanks! Pete Tillman 19:52, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

How can I import data from a SQL DB into my wiki as articles?

How can I import data from a SQL DB into my wiki as articles?

I have been unable to find any information on how to extract data from a CRM SQL DB and import it into my wiki. This would allow me to quickly add content to our wiki rather than trying to recreate the wheel. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 208.25.217.22 (talk) 15:56, 4 January 2007 (UTC).

If you're using MediaWiki, a better place to look/ask would be http://mediawiki.org/ 68.39.174.238 03:23, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

Italicizing English words that come directly from foreign languages

Today, I have come across "vice versa," "et al." and "cul de sac" all typed in italics. My understanding is if words are in the English dictionary, they're now English words and don't need italicizing. What's the Wikipedia policy and did anyone else learn this italicizing rule? --DBlomgren 05:30, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

That's about right. Words should only be italicized if they are still "foreign". That's a judgement call, but all those words have been adopted completely into English. Superm401 - Talk 06:17, 4 January 2007 (UTC)
Well the first 2 (not sure about the third) are latin and latin words are always italiscised eveywhere I use them. However, check the WP:MOS. ViridaeTalk 06:42, 4 January 2007 (UTC)
Well, about half of English is based on Latin. What you consider to be Latin is kind of subjective. On second thought, I think you're right about italicizing et al., but I wouldn't do it for vice versa. Superm401 - Talk 09:23, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the link, Viridae. Here's what the Manual of Style says, among other things:

If looking for a good rule of thumb, do not italicize words that appear in an English language dictionary.

So I won't be italicizing any of the above words, and I will spell cul-de-sac with hyphens. --DBlomgren 19:54, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

Transwikiing images to commons..

I can't seem to find the proper procedure to transwiki free images to commons. Could someone point me in the right direction? Thanks. Shushruth \talk page \ contribs 00:44, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

I think just upload it to commons, making sure to keep licensing and source info intact. Then, tag the Wikipedia copy with {{NowCommons}} and it will be deleted under Wikipedia:Criteria for speedy deletion Images#8. See Wikipedia:Wikimedia_Commons#Wikimedia_Commons. Superm401 - Talk 09:27, 4 January 2007 (UTC)
There's a commons assistant program you can use. Let me try to track it down. ~ ONUnicorn(Talk|Contribs)problem solving 16:06, 4 January 2007 (UTC)
There is list of tools is at commons:Commons:Tools. I think you are thinking of the Commons Helper.--Nilfanion (talk) 16:09, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

Thanks everyone. The commonshelper is really helpful. Thanks again. Shushruth \talk page \ contribs 18:51, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

Where can I find a list of all of the template box things

Is there a list of all of the things such as these that I see on other peoples pages? {{user en}} Subatomicguy 10:12, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:UserboxesLost(talk) 09:57, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

Is there an actual list you can link me to please? Subatomicguy 10:12, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

Its a huge list so not all entries will be found on a single page. However the index is located near the bottom of the page. See Wikipedia:Userboxes#Gallery and follow the various links — Lost(talk) 10:18, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

Private tables in the db dump

Hi there,
I am an IS undergrad doing some social research on the Wikipedian community -- What motivates people to contribute their knowledge to Wikipedia, in the absence of pecuniary compensation.
I am currently swimming through the archival data from the English Wikipedia database dump and I wish to find out how I can possibly get my hands on isolated fields in the private tables that should not violate Wikipedia's privacy policy?
Example being: In the user table (which is private), can I take a harmless peek at only the following three fields: user_id, user_name and user_registration? --with the intention of mapping the user's registration timestamp. Or are there any points of contact whom I can approach to make research-related inquiries?
Your help in this matter is very much appreciated. --WikiInquirer 09:03, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

You could probably download the log dump to get the dates of registration for the newer users. For the older users this data won't be available but you could make a reasonable estimate on when they signed up by looking at the date of their first edit. For the very oldest users, i.e. as old as Jimbo Wales not even this data would be available but you could probably find out their dates of signup elsewhere, e.g. in the archives of Wikipedia:List of Wikipedians in order of arrival. You won't be able to get the users' id this way but the user names are all unique (although bear in mind that usernames have changed for some people, you can find details of these name changes in the user rename log). Tra (Talk) 12:37, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

Edit Counts

How do you find out how many edits you've made?

User:Interiot/Tool2/code.js. --tjstrf talk 06:07, 2 January 2007 (UTC)
See Wikipedia:WikiProject_edit_counters. Superm401 - Talk 21:04, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

Proposed deletions

Could someone that understands the deletion process nominate the following articles to be deleted: Kitty Cat Dance and The Llama Song? It would be much appreciated. They have no worthwhile content. please leave me a message on my talk page if you help me out. many thanks b_cubed 04:53, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

Somone (not me) has nominated these at WP:AFD. - BanyanTree 15:59, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

Removing 'former featured article' status

A joker nominated Execution of Saddam Hussein for featured article status. A chorus of 'oppose' votes followed. Now the talk page has the banner saying this page had been nominated and turned down for feature article status.

Can someone remove this status from the article? The nom was obviously in bad faith. I'd much prefer to not see that 'former featured article candidate' banner (or category) there at all. Let us pretend this bad joke never occurred. Thanks - Tempshill 18:01, 1 January 2007 (UTC)

I don't see a good reason to remove articles from the list as they can serve as an example of what not to nominate. Do you believe that a page with this status is lent some type of credence? If so I'm unclear as to why. The topic itself seems mildly notable and just as suitable as many other topics to get converted into a FA. — RJH (talk) 21:14, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

gunslinger47 is giving me false warnings.

according to the list, [10], he is not listed as an adminstrator, but here is the false warning that he sent to me. --SummerThunder 03:45, 31 December 2006 (UTC)


 

This is your second warning. If you continue to make personal attacks on User:Tjstrf, you will be blocked for disruption.
(first warning second offense) –Gunslinger47 03:22, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

Non-admins can still give warnings. --tjstrf talk 03:49, 31 December 2006 (UTC)
Note: User blocked for personal attacks. Yuser31415 04:05, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

I have confirmed that the warning was issued appropriately. The complaint to this noticeboard, however, was inappropriate and disruptive. DurovaCharge! 21:21, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

It is certainly true that everyone can give warnings. However, saying that someone is "giving me false warnings" is not a personal attack either. Superm401 - Talk 21:03, 3 January 2007 (UTC)
You're right that it isn't a personal attack, but I don't see the need to make a point of that distinction. I don't think anyone was calling it a personal attack. The account that raised the complaint was banned for disruption soon after starting this thread. DurovaCharge! 04:28, 4 January 2007 (UTC)
My mistake. I thought Gunslinger47 was saying it was. Superm401 - Talk 06:15, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Mirrors and forks

Wikipedia:Mirrors and forks is quite bogged down. We'd really appreciate help over there. For example, I've been organizing Wikipedia:GFDL_Compliance. Now that's done, so we can go through the Low compliance ones and send them letters. There are boilerplates available for this. Also, please convert entries to Template:Mirror along the way. Thanks for any help you can give. Superm401 - Talk 09:33, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

Can we use CC 2.0 pics from Flickr?

Are pictures from Flickr, licensed Creative Commons 2.0, OK to upload and add to WP? Zora 08:36, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

This depends on what Creative Commons license it is under on Flicr. If it is available as {{cc-by-2.0}} or {{cc-by-sa-2.0}}, then they can be used (and preferably uploaded to Commons:). If the Flickr license contains NC or ND; then they are non-free and cannot be used here.--Nilfanion (talk) 08:46, 3 January 2007 (UTC)
The version doesn't matter. As long as there are no ND or NC restrictions, it can be used. Superm401 - Talk 09:33, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

Anyone feel like helping me with a template?

I made User:ONUnicorn/Welcome based on the standard welcome template because there were several links that weren't in the main welcome template that I almost always find myself adding to the talk pages of users that I welcome. I've been using it for a couple days and today I realized that, for some reason, every page I've used it on has been added to Category:Welcome templates, which is obviously not a desireable result. I made sure to copy the noinclude tags when I copied the original; so I'm not sure why it's doing that. Does anyone care to take a look and help me fix it? ~ ONUnicorn(Talk|Contribs)problem solving 20:39, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

Never mind; I think I've fixed it. In not copying the interlanguage links I missed the closing noinclude thingie. ~ ONUnicorn(Talk|Contribs)problem solving 20:48, 2 January 2007 (UTC)
BTW:Anyone else who wants to borrow it is (of course) more than welcome. ~ ONUnicorn(Talk|Contribs)problem solving 20:49, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

Problem showing image

At Portal:Language, I added a picture for January 2007, and it's not showing up. What gives? I've refreshed my internet page, exited out of the browser and reentered, cleared all data and refreshed the page, and the image still isn't showing. Is it just me? What's going on? The ikiroid (talk·desk·Advise me) 03:39, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

This image? It shows up for me. Have you tried a forced reload, per Wikipedia:Bypass your cache? -- Rick Block (talk) 04:34, 2 January 2007 (UTC)
Never mind, it fixed itself somehow. The ikiroid (talk·desk·Advise me) 02:38, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

I don't even know (about infoboxes)

If this is in the wrong place, feel free to delete it, but I've gotten to the point where it seems like a last resort. I've been trying to figure out how infoboxes work(I'm new to Wikipedia), and NONE of it is making sense. I've been playing around with the code given (it says copy and paste this code), but to no avail. This is the code:

{{{name}}}
[[Image:{{{image}}}|300px| ]]
{{{caption}}}
Data 1: {{{data1}}}
Data 2: this text displayed if data2 not defined
Data 3 (data hidden if data3 empty or not defined):

I guess that's the example, and while because I know a small amount of html some of it makes sense, pretty much anything beyond the first line doesn't (with the plusses and minuses and !es). There's also a page on what colours your supposed to use, and I don't see whre to put that in (I assume style, but I don't know what the selector is if it is style).

I'd really appreciate if someone could explain this to me.

Sources:

Where I got the code: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Infobox

The Colours: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Infobox_colours

Have you tried looking at Template talk:Infobox? They have the documentation there (true of many templates). Template coding is nearly its own language, but it doesn't take too long to get used to once you've figured out the basics. --tjstrf talk 02:50, 2 January 2007 (UTC)
Oh thanks, ahh I feel like such an idiot for not even thinking of that! I'll go check it out Danielfolsom 02:59, 2 January 2007 (UTC)
Uhmm, is there any place good to start to learn about editing, I mean, I remember going through a lot of the stuff, but it seems like I've seen so much that I can't remember where it was! It feels like I'm going in circles, I'll see one thing and in order to understand it I have to look up another thing, and in order to understand that I have to look up another thing .... and so on

Danielfolsom 02:59, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

I left a "Welcome" message on your talk page, it has alot of links that should help. --Wildnox(talk) 03:04, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

Could an admin or a very experienced user keep tabs on the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation article? I've been working to keep NPOV but I don't think I can be objective for a while, so I'm sitting this out. Some recent edits have been quite sketchy. Please take a look. Eclectek C T 20:10, 1 January 2007 (UTC)

Gallery of User's Pictures

Can some one remind me where the gallery of Users' pictures (mug shots) is kept - I think it is on another Wikiproject but can't remember for the life of me! Thanks Brookie :) - a will o' the wisp ! (Whisper...) 20:02, 1 January 2007 (UTC)

Is this it? Tra (Talk) 21:34, 1 January 2007 (UTC)
That's the the one - thanks Brookie :) - a will o' the wisp ! (Whisper...) 09:10, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

template small parameter

I stumbled across Talk:Australia and noticed that an awesome small=yes parameter had been added to the templates that normally take up several page clicks at the top to make them condense to the right. I tried to add the parameter to {{WPNZ}} but am hopeless with template coding, and the templates at my newly created article Talk:The Pleazers continue to overlap. Could someone help with the addition of the parameter at {{WPNZ}}? - BanyanTree 17:32, 1 January 2007 (UTC)

Done. Tra (Talk) 17:51, 1 January 2007 (UTC)
Thanks! I've already copied your markup to some other templates. Cheers, BanyanTree 19:09, 1 January 2007 (UTC)

user_groups table in database dump

Hi, I'm a relatively new user who is conducting some research on the English Wikipedia.

I downloaded the database dump on 20061130 and I have a few questions about the user_groups table:

Are normal registered users listed in this table because it has only 1,319 records? Only 7 distinct user groups are shown here: boardvote, bot, bureaucrat, checkuser, developer, oversight, steward, sysop?

Does this mean that normal registered users do not belong to any of the above 7 user groups?

Thanks --WikiInquirer 05:42, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

Yes, I believe only users with extra rights are shown, though I haven't looked at the table in a while so I can't be sure. Prodego talk 05:54, 31 December 2006 (UTC)
Ok, I looked. In answer to your question, regular users are defined as having no rights, anons are handled seperatly, but again are considered 'default'. Only users with some non default status set are on that list. There used to be a tool to match those numbers to a name, but I can't find it anymore, and using Special:Listusers is easier anyway. ;-) Prodego talk 06:07, 31 December 2006 (UTC)
Thanks very much Prodego! WikiInquirer 06:20, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

Using Images from Hebrew Wikipedia

I have put images on English Wikipedia from German Wikipedia and by simply changing the word Grafika to Image. This does't seem to work on images of the Hebrew version. Do they need to be uploaded again onto the English version? Chesdovi 11:40, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

You can upload them to Wikimedia Commons and then they can be used anywhere. Tra (Talk) 14:12, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
Hebrew is right-to-left, so you should probably replace what's to the right of the colon with "Image". If the image is a free one, it's best to upload it to Commons, indeed. Conscious 21:14, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
Depending on which Hebrew font is being used (especially 'pointed' fonts), attempting to get the word "image" in the right place can be extremely frustrating! I have taken to simply copying the actual image name, blanking the field, typing in [[Image: and then pasting the image name back in. A bit tedious, but attempting to get the Latin and Hebrew fonts to work together is a bit frustrating. SkierRMH 21:39, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

POV pushers at AfD please help

I've been watching this AfD debate Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/John C. A. Bambenek (3rd nomination) and noticed that very few people who are voting are actually thinking through the issue and instead engaging in rampant POV pushing. For instance, and support for notability is claimed to be "puffery", then deleted, then the very same people claim there is no support for notability. Talk about stacking the deck. I'd appreciate some reasonable people vote on this debate that was overturned at WP:DRV with 5 votes to undelete, 2 to relist, and now is 12-1 for deletion. The whole situation is absurd. -- UIUC.rhh 22:32, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

That an article was sent to AfD for full discussion does not mean the content should be kept. In this case, deletion review is just a bureaucatic layer that means people think there should actually be a discussion about whether to delete or keep the article. People seem to be applying WP:BIO correctly, since the first criterion requires the subject of the article be the "primary subject of...published works", and this person hasn't been.--Kchase T 22:51, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

Help with signature

For several reasons, I was trying to change my signature. I played around in my sandbox until I got it so I liked it, then tried to change it in my prefs. It worked fine in my sandbox, but when I tried to save my prefs it said, "Invalid raw signature; check HTML tags." Could someone help me fix it? Here's what I want it to look like: ~ ONUnicorn(Talk|Contribs)problem solving Thanks. ~ ONUnicorn(Talk|Contribs) 21:44, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

Try this: ~ ONUnicorn(Talk|Contribs)problem solving Conscious 21:57, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

Thanks!~ ONUnicorn(Talk|Contribs)problem solving 22:10, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

AfD procedure did not seem to follow Wikipedia policies

The page Masters in Applied Positive Psychology was recently up for AfD, and though I am not particularly attached to the article, it seems to me that the decision to delete was a gross violation of Wikipedia policy. Even a relatively inexperienced editor such as myself (13 months, 1300 edits) has seen repeated exhortations that discussion and the content and quality of arguments are what matter, not votes. WP:NOT#DEMOCRACY (policy), for example, make this very clear. Three editors recommended deletion of the article based on lack of assertion of notability. I agreed, but since this was a subject with which I was familiar, and I knew that the program was in fact very notable, I rewrote the article. I made a recommendation to keep, and commented at length. The "assertion of notability" issue seemed to have been resolved (the basis for nominating for deletion). Subsequently two editors made comments about NPOV who seemed to be very ill-informed on what Wikipedia's NPOV policy actually is. Their comments had no merit, but I responded anyway, ponting out Wikipedia policy. Then an admin deleted with no discussion. Was my rewrite taken into account? If so, was the gross misstatement of policy regarding NPOV given more weight than my defense of it? I'm having a hard time seeing this any way other than that WP:NOT#DEMOCRACY was simply violated. I would like to see the situation reviewed. -DoctorW 20:27, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

Deletion review is probably the best place for this. Tra (Talk) 20:37, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
Second that... DRV is where you should list this.--Isotope23 20:39, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
But you may contact the deleting administrator first, asking them to expalin their decision. Conscious 21:11, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

Requesting outside editor opinion

On Honda S2000, where an editor has been removing the criticism section without any sort of valid justification (WP:AGF; he's not doing it maliciously but this appears to be a WP:ILIKEIT situation where the editor doesn't approve of the criticism section even though it is sourced). I've restored it twice now, but an edit war is not the answer so if someone else would take a bit of time to look at it and render an opinion on the Talk page that would be great.--Isotope23 20:24, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

Use of old photographs

I have a series of fake spirit photographs taken between 1920 and 1931 by a man who died in 1933, can I use 1 or 2 of them to illustrate the work this specific photographer?

The copyright for the photographs belonged to the photographer at the time of his death.

perfectblue 12:11, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

They are in the public domain, at least in the jurisdictions with which Wikipedia is concerned. The licensing tag you want is {{PD-old-70}}. You are free to upload all of them. Since they are under a free license, please consider uploading them to Commons: so they may be used by all of the sister projects. Wherever you upload, I find the formatting template {{Information |Description= |Source= |Date= |Author= |Permission= |other_versions= }} useful in making sure I get all the relevant info in an easily readable format. Cheers - BanyanTree 14:47, 23 December 2006 (UTC)
Excellent. I have started uploading them under then format Williamhopehoax#.jpg. I take it that I link to them in the same way that I would link to a standard wikiupload picture?
perfectblue 15:45, 23 December 2006 (UTC)
Yes, they can be formatted like any other image. - BanyanTree 14:49, 26 December 2006 (UTC)
BanyanTree, are you sure about that? According to Public_domain the works must be first published before 1923 AND the author must be dead 70 years to automatically qualify as public domain. It's my understanding that works first published in the first few years following 1923 needed their copyrights renewed or they fell into the public domain. Unfortunately, it's difficult to prove a copyright was not renewed. A great many works from the 20s-50s are in this "difficult to track down" category. Davidwr 19:25, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
That's not a problem in my case. Most of the pictures that I have are from the period 1919-1922.
perfectblue 19:51, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

this redirect doest not work?

I redirected Chinese Politics to Politics of China, but go see it for yourself. it doesn't work. how come? SummerThunder 04:56, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

You edited Chinese politics, with a lower case "p". Please look in your your contributions. - BanyanTree 05:03, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

oh, ok, somehow it is working now. i redirected Chinese Politics and Chinese politics. How come wiki can't do it automatically? SummerThunder 05:35, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

Page names are case sensitive, save for the first letter. Compare Black coffee and Black Coffee. Conscious 10:32, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

Please delete superfluous page

The Michael Yates (stage designer)‎ article is obsolete, having been superseded by the Michael Yates (television designer)‎ article, which is the correct title. As all the information has been transfered, kindly delete it. Thank you, Haiduc 02:52, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

I have restored the redirect created when the page was moved. It looks like the mover mistakenly re-edited the page when he meant to edit the moved page. If you believe the redirect should be deleted, please follow the procedures at WP:RFD. Thanks. -- JLaTondre 02:56, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
I'm the person who moved it; I agree that there's no need for the original page title, since it's simply an error. Michael Yates was known as a television designer, and was a television designer; he was a stage designer only as a student and when he was totally unknown. Macspaunday 03:18, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
I added a speedy deletion template to the page. -- kenb215 talk 07:34, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

Template for language articles

Is there a template for language articles, or do I have to cut, paste, and edit? I mean something like the table on this page. Also, is there an effective way I can search for the answer to questions like these? You guys are really helpful, but I think it would be more efficient if there were a way. :) --Dblomgren 02:48, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

It's an infobox; you can find instructions on how to use it at Template talk:Infobox Language/Usage. As for searching for answers, I often find the best way is to guess what the name of the page answering the question might be, type it into the search box and hope for the best, e.g. in your example you could try serching for Wikipedia:Template and see what comes up or follow hyperlinks. Tra (Talk) 03:02, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

Don't be afraid to post

How do you make cool user signatures around here? Any good examples? Help!

--DrZeus 02:20, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Sign your posts on talk pages gives some information on how to do signatures, alternatively, you find a user's signature you like the look of, look at its wikitext and substitute their user name for yours. Tra (Talk) 02:28, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

Cool-looking signatures are kind of cool to look at the first time you see each one, but before long, they seem to be a way for posters to attract attention to their comments, kind of like a neon sign, for when the comments may possibly otherwise be a little lacking in merit. (Silly me, I forgot to sign, quite unusual.) Hu 29 December 2006.

how to?

I am trying to edit this article Golden Shield Project, that little box "contents" is always on top of the page. how can I can write some small intro on top of that box? SummerThunder 01:31, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

Write your text at the very top of the article, above where it says ==History==. The contents box should be positioned in the correct place automatically. Tra (Talk) 01:41, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

Combine two articles under one name.

Two-states theory and Special state-to-state relations means the same thing. I checked on google, they are both commonly being used. So I suggest to combine those two together. In Chinese, it literally means "two states theory", however, the other name also seems to be popular. so I personally don't know which one to use. nevertheless, there is no need to have two articles for the same thing.

I suppose that two-states theory is better because it is the direct translation, but most people probably won't know what it means just by reading it directly. I want to expand the article, but I will wait till someone combined them. SummerThunder 11:52, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

I suggest that you start by placing a Merge tag on both entries. If there is no problem, take all of the content from one that doesn't exist in the other and transfer it across (with some editing for neatness etc), then simply place a redirect code on the empty page. That way, whichever page the reader visits, they will come to the same text.
perfectblue 11:55, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

i don't really know the details as how to do them. and it seems that it might take a lot of time, etc. so can someone just do it? SummerThunder 21:28, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

oh, i didn't know that it was so easy just to redirect. however, it seems that whatever was in the "two states theory" was gone. and i don't know how to find its original content any more. i was going to add that to the new article. how do i find the old article for "two states theory?" SummerThunder 00:36, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

The old text is here. Tra (Talk) 00:59, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

oh, yes, i found the way to do it. thanks. SummerThunder 01:04, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

How do updated photos appear in the articles?

I have uploaded two updated photos. The new photos have the same names as the older versions. The articles still show the old photo thumbnails, but clicking on the thumbnail shows the latest version on the home page of each photo. Was I supposed to have done something to update the thumb on the article page, or is this something that happens automatically after some auto update process? BBODO 01:52, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

The images should update automatically, but sometimes they don't, so I've purged all of the images you uploaded to force them to update. Please clear your cache then check if the images are appearing correctly. If they aren't, please give the name of the article and the images affected to make it easier to solve the problem. Tra (Talk) 02:18, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

Easy fix for an upload file name mistake?

I am brand new to editing. I was uploading an image, and when I browsed to the image source on my local computer, the edit page automatically renamed my upload file name. I didn't catch the error until I clicked upload, and thus had a bad image here on Wikipedia. I immediately realized my mistake and wanted to somehow undo the upload. Is there an easy way to change an image name, undo an upload, or delete a mistake like that? The image deletion nomination process was a bit of a hassle to remedy such a simple mistake. You can see the mistake image at 3988.jpg and the correct image at BlindersOnSeanWatkins.jpg. Chickendud 08:14, 27 December 2006 (UTC).

  • Have a look at the speedy template {{db-author}}, I think it fits your described situation exactly.--Gay Cdn (talk) (Contr.) 12:10, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

Image deletion

Is it possible to determine who deleted an image such as Image:Fiber optic bundle.jpg which I uploaded some time ago? --Deglr6328 20:16, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

According to [11], it was deleted by Shyam Bihari (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA). Tra (Talk) 20:35, 26 December 2006 (UTC)
interesting. thx. --Deglr6328 20:38, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

Robert E. Lee, General CSA

I just wanted to suggest that since January 19, 2007 is the 200th Anniversary of General Robert E. Lee's birthday, that you feature him on the main page on that day.

Thanks,68.84.21.127 20:54, 25 December 2006 (UTC)Karen D. Colson in Florida

The article would need to be featured before it could appear on the main page. Currently Lee's biography is rated B-class. It's a little late to aim for that anniversary. Even if you raised it to featured quality overnight it would need to go through featured article candidacy. But you're welcome to start improving it today. DurovaCharge! 00:42, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

importing from other GDFL wiks

I would like to create this article Md5 (file format) and I found another wiki under the GDFL that has it in 3 pages.

What's the proprer way to import articles from other wiks under the GDFL? Should I write a note at the beginning of the page on wikipedia? Like "imported from http://www.modwiki.net"? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Argento3 (talkcontribs) 02:55, 24 December 2006 (UTC).

Looking at http://www.modwiki.net/wiki/modwiki:About, I don't see anything about its licensing policy so I'd suggest not importing any articles from there. To reuse content that is properly licensed under the GFDL, you should include a link to the source of the text either in the text itself or in the summary of the edit adding the text. -- Rick Block (talk) 17:19, 26 December 2006 (UTC)
Each page of the modwiki says "Content is available under GNU Free Documentation License 1.2.", so I'd say it's safe to import text from there. Conscious 10:38, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

Please help remove JPG artifacts

Hello, I recently uploaded a logo at Image:Lyria logo.gif. Even though the image is a GIF file, its original source is originally a JPEG and as a result suffers from JPEG artifacts. I can't really recreate the image and don't have a better source for it, so if someone has access to those artifact-removing programs/plugins, I would very much appreciate if you could upload a reduced-artifact version of the logo to that same name! Thanks! —lensovettalk – 22:39, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

I tried to clean it up a bit in the GIMP. The usual caveats about silk purses and sow's ears apply, though. In the future, you may wish to post such requests at Wikipedia:Graphic Lab. —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 23:31, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

Vialardi

We appreciate your contributions to the Vialardi article, but for legal reasons, we cannot accept copyrighted text: I am the owner of the Copyrights ! — Preceding unsigned comment added by Nicomo (talkcontribs)

Photo not showing on home computer but visible on another computer.

I had an operator at Wikipedia kindly upload a publicity photo to the Gerald Mohr Wiki site recently. She added an infobox template to do so. Oddly, although the infobox is on screen, the photo is not showing at all on my home computer but is showing on my office computer. I've tried purging, cache cleaning, cache bypassing on my computer and also changing the level of protection from my firewell to medium for a trusted site, but all to no avail. Has anyone any other suggestions as to how I can get the photo to show on my home computer, please?

Have I done my wiki right?

Hi. I just set up WikiMe (http://editthis.info/wikime/Main_Page). Question: I set my self up as the admin, the only one who can view, edit, etc. WikiMe. Have I done it right? If not, what do I need to change on Control Panel?

Also: I want to make sure I back up my wiki. How do you do this? Can you save a wiki to a usb key or something?

  • You are in the wrong place. You need to post your question to MediaWiki-l, a mailing list for people with questions about their own installation of the MediaWiki software (i.e., not Wikimedia projects). Hope that helps. Steve block Talk 12:01, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

Template problem

I'm having trouble with Template:Worldmusicassessed. It worked fine until just recently - could be a browser update on my end (Mac Firefox), but anyway, could someone fix it. I can't figure out the problem. It works fine unless both the quality and importance assessments are filled in, such as at Talk:Music of the Vatican City. There, the importance assessment is off to the right and distorts the whole box. I can't figure out the problem. Can someone may it look like the other similar templates, with the two assessments stacked on top of each other. Thanks, Tuf-Kat 06:35, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

I think the problem was that leading spaces are trimmed off when specifying parameters for ParserFunctions, so I added an &nbsp; which seems to have fixed it. Tra (Talk) 11:57, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

encouragement

Is there any place in wikipedia where one can gather encouragement ?--Smkolins 16:27, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

There used to be Wikipedia:Esperanza/Reach out, take a look through the archives and see if any of the members are still available.

perfectblue 16:52, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

Problematic contributor spamming for an obscure Italian publishing company

If you check [12] and see the User:217.133.106.158 spams for the obscure Italian publishing company "Di Renzo Editore". I have removed these advertisements for the books that they publish on the pages listed, but I'm not sure who to contact about this or what policies are relevant. I imagine that this will become a bigger and bigger problem for Wikipedia as time goes on. Perhaps someone here is more familiar with how to deal with such editors? Also, I think this person may be active over on the Italian Wikipedia, trying to get advertising cruft in there as well. I'm uncomfortable with their actions here, but I don't know what to do about it over there. Help! ---ScienceApologist 14:13, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

WP:NOT covers that. Most of the edits are months old and your warning is recent, so follow up at WP:RFI if the problem resumes. DurovaCharge! 14:37, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

Does your software have Japanese fonts downloaded?

At onsen, we apparently have transliterated and translated the Japanese word "内湯" (usually pronounced "uchiyu") incorrectly. I do not have the right fonts or I would fix this. Can someone look at the comments on the talk page and the corresponding part of the article and try to correct this? Thank you. I will check later if I can.--Filll 16:18, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

I changed it per the comments on the talk page. -- Rick Block (talk) 16:50, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

Place to discuss whether a link is suitable

Where would I go to discuss whether a given website is suitable for linking to? I've come across a user (ALLtheTrue (contribs)) who keeps adding links to dreamingwith.com to various porn star articles. Both myself and Valrith keep pulling the links out on the basis that it violates WP:EL. ALLtheTrue keeps adding them back in and arguing that they belong. I'd like to have some other eyes look at the situation and help sort it out. Tabercil 01:07, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

  • While I do believe that the links Tabercil mentions are inappropriate per WP:EL, I have begun to wonder why we have "institutionalized" certain external sites for purposes of filmographic reference (eg. IMDb). The porn actress infobox even explicitly includes a shortcut for linking to IMDb (as well as AFDB, IAFD and the Eurobabeindex). I've searched for a guideline on appropriate external sites to link to for filmographies, but haven't succeeded in finding anything. Valrith 23:18, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

Incompatible licensing

Plant Design Management System is an unconventionally formatted article that claims a license that is incompatible with GFDL. I haven't run into this type of thing before and am wondering how to proceed. Delete just the license statement and treat it is a valid article? Tag for speedy delete because it was posted with an improper understanding? Note that the history section in the middle was lifted from CADCentre. Suggestions? JonHarder talk 18:13, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

  • Well for starters I'd be checking to see if anything else besides the middle text is lifted from somewhere else. The way the article reads right now it almost smells like a cut'n'paste copyvio. If that's the case then I'd say kill the article on that basis. Otherwise, I'd say strip the license info out as the text that appears when you edit an article explicitly says "You agree to license your contributions under the GFDL", and that (IMO) supercedes the license User:DarrelHoward is trying to put on the article. I'd also warn the user about the license he's trying to use on the article being incompatible with the GFDL which governs Wikipedia, and give him a chance to either agree to the GFDL or delete his material. Tabercil 23:04, 21 December 2006 (UTC)
    I've left a message for the user and removed the license disclaimer. -- Rick Block (talk) 00:21, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

Different sources, Different details

I am currently working on a project Brisbane Ferries and have found two different internet sources that conflict with each other, Reference 4 conflicts with reference 5 regarding where John Williams ferry service ran from, one says Russell St and the other Kangaroo Point, as an amateur historian I know that it was Russell St, however the locality could have been called Kangaroo point at the time alternately he could have ran several services. I also have a published history of Brisbane that states Russell St. How do I reflect this in the article until I can unravel the mystery? --Matt 04:37, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

You could note the discrepancy in your sources, in the article, and then list all of the sources. User:Zoe|(talk) 16:37, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

Was this vandalism?

In my travels, I noticed Yrgh removed any link to latimes.com over several dozen articles on 13 November, sometimes simply deleting the References section. I noticed this because s/he deleted a polite query from a user who mentioned this without replying. I know this was a month ago, but would this be considered vandalism?

I've had no prior contact with this person to my memory. I bring this up here because I don't really want to get involved in a potentially heated dispute. Reverting simple vandalism is easy, though I'm not sure if this qualifies, and checking several dozen articles for a change made a month ago will take time. TransUtopian 02:18, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

Yes, it's vandalism. If you catch something like that while it's fresh then report to WP:ANI. DurovaCharge! 07:38, 19 December 2006 (UTC)
I disagree. latimes.com requires registration to read pages more than a couple of days old. Links to registration-required sites shouldn't be in Wikipedia. User:Zoe|(talk) 18:47, 20 December 2006 (UTC)
It's no different than referencing books not available online or journals you have to subscribe to. If we got the information from a source, we must cite that source for purposes of verifiability. Offline book sources, online soures requiring subscription, and foreign language sources are inconvenient to access, but the fact that we can use information from and cite them is what makes us different than just using Google. --tjstrf talk 18:54, 20 December 2006 (UTC)
WP:EL#Sites_requiring_registration says "sites requiring registration should be avoided". User:Zoe|(talk) 20:53, 20 December 2006 (UTC)
But surely it's better to have references in articles that consist of links to reputable sources that require registration than no references at all. Megapixie 02:30, 21 December 2006 (UTC)
Deleting an entire references section, which was one of the cited diffs, is out-and-out vandalism. If there are newspaper articles as references and there is an objection to the extenal link, the reference should be properly formatted to cite the newspaper article and the external link removed - the solution is not to eliminate the reference altogether. --User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 02:45, 21 December 2006 (UTC)
Zoe: That's for external links, NOT references. --tjstrf talk 02:50, 21 December 2006 (UTC)
Mph. You're right. I'm sorry, I misunderstood this whole discussion, and will now slink away quietly. User:Zoe|(talk) 16:36, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

(arbitrary outdent) If an editor replaces a reference to the Los Angeles Times with an equally appropriate and reliable reference that doesn't require site registration, yes that's preferable because it's more accessible. Preferable is not synonymous with let's remove a bunch of valid references and make the article less verifiable; vandalism is synonymous with that action. DurovaCharge! 03:07, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

Images linking to article names

Is there any way that you can make an image link to an article? For example, I am a part of WP:NYCS, a WikiProject to improve New York City Subway and what I want to do is to create a link that will make Image:NYCS-bull-trans-5.svg ( ) link to 5 (New York City Subway service). Is this possible? --Imdanumber1 ( Talk | contribs) 03:49, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

I don't think it's possible, or desirable, since how would anyone visit the image page to read the copyright info and/or look at the higher resolution image if you change the click behaviour... Notinasnaid 07:28, 18 December 2006 (UTC)
{{click}} will do this, but it's a hack and breaks the page's accessibility so it should only be used when absolutely necessary. Tra (Talk) 17:17, 18 December 2006 (UTC)
Going along with the above, the GFDL requires access to image source and copyright information. (With the exception of public domain images, which can be mishandled at will.) Using click for a non-PD image can range from an "unfortunate but only solution" hack to a blatant violation of the licensing (legal) underpinnings of Wikipedia. BanyanTree 23:43, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

I've created a user subpage describing the various arguments about image links that I've seen. Additions and corrections are welcome. - BanyanTree 02:51, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

The image you see above is public domain. So what's the proper syntax to make the image link to 5 (New York City Subway service)? --Imdanumber1 ( Talk | contribs) 14:04, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

{{Click | image = NYCS-bull-trans-5.svg | link = 5 (New York City Subway service) | width = 20px | height = 20px }}
will give
 . Tra (Talk) 15:49, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

Okay, thanks. --Imdanumber1 ( Talk | contribs) 01:03, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

How do I disambiguate?

I created the article Dungu about a village in central Africa. However, another article, Simon Gjoni, mentions an Albanian composer by the name of Dungu, which now erroneously links to the village article. I've looked at the other uses templates, but I don't know which to use or what to do first. Is there some page with clearer directions? --Dblomgren 03:27, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

If there is only one other meaning, use {{for}} at the top of the page, such as {{for|the Albanian composer|Pjeter Dungu}}. If you there are more uses, or if you plan on creating articles for Dungu River and Dungu Territory, then you may want to use {{otheruses}} and create a disambiguation page. - BanyanTree 03:42, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

Browser rendering problem. Bad wiki markup?

I attempted to add the {{fansite|December 2006}} template to the "Story of Konvicted" section of the Konvicted article, but in the three browsers I tried, it was rendered incorrectly and overlapped with the {{Infobox Album... }} float. I seriously doubt its a Wiki software/style problem, but didn't see the error. Is the infobox wrong, markup-wise? Did I somehow insert the template code incorrectly (I put it on a line by itself just under the section title).—Joel D. Reid 21:18, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

I did a bit of experimentation, and it looks like the problem is that all messagebox class templates are that width. I've found 2 different ways of doing it that partially fix the problem, one where I change the width of the text so that it all displays even though the infobox still overlaps[13], and a second where I {{clear}}ed after the infobox to force a non-overlap.[14] They both cause their own separate problems though. --tjstrf talk 00:19, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

A Magically Disappearing Article!

Hello,

I was looking at the Buck's Rock article - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buck's_Rock - on Monday, December 18th and saw under the Notable Alumni section, that Dave Golden was listed but not linked to an article. So I searched and saw there was no article. So I wrote an article and submitted it. It turned up in the list of articles created that day. So far, so good.

Yesterday, I searched Wikipedia and there was no article for Dave Golden. I checked the deletion log, 'cause I was curious why it would be deleted (I had checked all the criteria and was pretty sure that my article met them), but Dave Golden did not appear in the deletion log for Monday, December 18th. Just to double-check, I searched the deletion pages for the 17th and 19th as well. Today I looked again and this article that I created and saw is neither on Wikipedia nor is it in the deletion logs.

Where did it go?!?

66.65.18.180 17:02, 20 December 2006 (UTC) Thanks, Oakley

There has only been one article called Dave Golden and it was deleted on December 1 because the only content it had was "hei hei! wassup?" User:Zoe|(talk) 18:49, 20 December 2006 (UTC)
Oh, I see what happened you didn't "create" the article, since you are an anonymous user, you can't create new articles. You listed it at [[15]], but nobody has gotten around to actually creating the article from what you posted. User:Zoe|(talk) 18:51, 20 December 2006 (UTC)
I've approved the submission, so it should exist, now. Tra (Talk) 18:56, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

Should these two articles be merged.

Before I go into the details, I'm the only non-bot contributor on the article I'm asking about merging so I don't think you would need one of those merge proposals and discussions. If y'all think these are in fact the same subject then I'll just move the relevant information over myself without bothering anybody (since nobody else worked on it anyway).

Article 1 is SUNY Plattsburgh.
Article 2 which I created is Plattsburgh Normal School. (and I think I did a good job ;) )

From 1889 to 1948 a 2-year school (that fact isn't in the article yet) existed in Plattsburgh, NY called the Plattsburgh Normal and Training School. In 1948 the state of New York formed the State University of New York system and the Plattsburgh Normal School BECAME part of the new system. In doing so, it changed from a 2-year college to a 4-year college and formally changed it's name to SUNY Plattsburgh. In addition the courses offered changed dramatically, although I'm finding it hard to cite that. Obviously these two institutions are tied together historically but for practical purposes, the Normal School ceased to exist when it became the SUNY college. But even though there was no SUNY system in existence prior to 1948, the current college claims that they were founded in 1889 - the founding date of the Normal School. By the way, the SUNY Plattsburgh article never even mentioned the history of the Normal School until I added those facts about a month ago.

I'm looking for more opinions here. Should Plattsburgh Normal School remain a separate article or should it be merged into SUNY Plattsburgh? If they're not the same, would the Normal School be considered a closed college? If they should be merged, do you agree with my instinct to just move the information over myself and redirect since nobody else worked on it anyway? Thanks Fife Club 14:57, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

I think that one can go either way. You know the subject: treat it as you think best. DurovaCharge! 03:00, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

Place to sign in for major edits to articles

Is there a section on the website to track all the articles which are currently undergoing long-term or major edits? Like a list where people write the article name followed by what they are changing. I see that we have Category:Articles actively undergoing a major edit but it is a miniscule category and doesn't at all represent the full amount of overhauls going on at any given time.

There are some pages already that are like this but I think it might be best to consolidate them:

  1. WP:1FAPQ is similar to this but promotion to FA does not need to be the goal.
  2. Editors could post their current projects and hopefully find collaborative help rather than working alone, or editors who are looking for something to do could help out (like WP:JI)
  3. This could possibly be an effective tool to gauge which sections of the Wikipedia are receiving the most (and least) attention.

though it would probably be too much to list articles which are just being watched rather than altered, so this would not replace Template:Maintained.

? Rampart 17:02, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

I'm somewhat curious about why you would want to know this information? — RJH (talk) 23:34, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

Plagiarism

Where can I read about the exact Wikipedia policies on plagiarism?--Filll 18:56, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Copyright problems - BanyanTree 21:28, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

Need direct help with a template

I am working on a certain template. I have researched the help articles on making templates and have found them to be confusing. They seem to be written for an audience that has more knowledge of the formatting than I have. I have tried looking at dozens of various templates, copying and pasting to use them as a pattern, but have been unable to create certain features. I created a template in OpenOffice that approximates what I want, using the Table capability in Writer. If anyone would like to take a look at it, and tell me how to make a template that looks like it on Wikipedia, I would be very grateful. Thank you! Joie de Vivre 03:29, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

I've also found the template help pages to be rather unhelpful. You might find a friendly template coder from Category:User template coder to help you. Good luck.--Kchase T 04:53, 19 December 2006 (UTC)
You might also be interested in Wikipedia:Requested templates. I'm at least moderately adept and could possibly help. Let me know more specifics on my talk page and I'll see what I can do. -- Rick Block (talk) 18:23, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

Wikimedia commons image missing from Arbre_du_Ténéré ?

The second image in the article http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arbre_du_Ténéré seems to be missing. I've edited out the link but could someone please check to see if they can still load the image http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Arbre-neu2.jpg. If it's missing (and is not merely missing for me) then it appears to also have gone missing from wikimedia commons http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Arbre-neu2.jpg. Random Passer-by 01:30, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

Seems fine now. -- Rick Block (talk) 18:25, 19 December 2006 (UTC)
Good. I still can't load the picture on any of the computers here but it's presumably a local issue at this end. Thanks. Random Passer-by 01:29, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

Editing issues

I'm helping edit a new section at Talk:Evolution/FactvsTheory. The problem is that what I see on the page is not what I see in the edit box. Here's what is visible on screen:

In science, a fact[1] is an observation or a piece of data. A "fact" in science is a measurement or some evidence or the result of an experiment. For example, there are many observations of gravity and measurements of gravity. Every time an apple is dropped and it falls, an observation of gravity has been made. Gravity is measured every time something is weighed. So gravity can be described by scientists as a "fact". This is because there is a collection of gravity observations that need to be explained. And observations are "facts" in scientific language.

And here's what I see within the editing:

  • In science, a fact[1] is an observation or a piece of data. A "fact" in science is a measurement or some evidence or the result of an experiment. For example, there are many observations of gravity and measurements of gravity. Every time an apple is dropped and it falls, an observation of gravity has been made. Gravity is measured every time something is weighed. So gravity can be described by scientists as a "fact". This is because there is a collection of gravity observations that need to be explained. And observations are "facts" in scientific language.

I've done everything. Cut and paste. Change words. Nothing seems to work. I'm on a Macintosh, and I've tried it in Safari, Firefox and Opera. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. OrangeMarlin 19:41, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

OK, I just cut and pasted exactly what I saw on the saved page, and what I see in the editing page. And when I see it on this page, both cut and pastes look exactly alike. Yet within this editing box, they're completely different. I'm confused. OrangeMarlin 19:43, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

The section within the ref tags ("fact" is obtained by objective observation or measurement, usually under controlled conditions. However, a "fact" does not mean absolute certainty in science. In science, "facts" can have error bars due to measurement errors.) does not appear unless there is a <references/> section at some point in the article. The <ref> and </ref> tags are part of a footnotes system built into the Wikipedia software. I hope I have interpreted your question correctly and answered it - if not feel free to clarify. Orderinchaos78 10:27, 20 December 2006 (UTC)
  1. ^ "fact" is obtained by objective observation or measurement, usually under controlled conditions. However, a "fact" does not mean absolute certainty in science. In science, "facts" can have error bars due to measurement errors.