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March 16

Apparently Incorrect Birth/Death Dates

I’ve come across two cases in the past two days where, in the lead paragraph of their respective articles, we give the “official” version of the subject’s date of birth or death, but later down it appears we have good reason to believe this date is wrong. That is, we know the true date, but we still prefer to show the “official” incorrect date.

• Lucia Santos is shown as being born on 22 March 1907, as per her birth certificate, yet we quickly discover that, according to Lucia herself, she was really born on 28 March. I’m not sure that we could accept that as independent evidence. I’m not saying she was telling a lie, but she could only have heard this from her parents, who were the very people who were happy to have her shown on the official record as being born on the wrong date. Is her own published statement sufficient to displace the official record?

• Edith Piaf is shown in the lead para as dying on 11 October 1963, yet in "Death and legacy" we say this was the “official” date, and she really died on 10 October. There is no cited evidence for this, just a bald assertion. I’ve asked a question on her talk page to discover how we know this is true.

I'm concerned that we seem to be saying contradictory things about people. Much better to be consistently wrong than have a foot in both camps. If we really are satisfied that an event occurred on a particular date, maybe we should say so - and then explain why a different date appears in other publications. OTOH, if we are are bound by WP policy to show only dates that have been published, can we have a footnote or whatever to explain that there is evidence for an alternative date?

What is Wikipedia’s policy in such cases? JackofOz 00:45, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

I don't believe there is an established policy on this. However, why do you think it is necessarily better to be consistently wrong, rather than to have a foot in both camps? -- Chairman S. Talk ^Contribs 00:56, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

In the Edith Piaf article, at "Death and legacy", it says:

"At the early age of forty-seven, Piaf died of cancer at Plascassier, on the French Riviera, on 10 October 1963, one day before her friend Jean Cocteau died. Her body was returned to Paris where her death was not announced until 11 October, and it was given as the official date of her death."

However, in the lead para, we say she died on 11 October (with a footnote saying this is wrong).

So, in one place, we prefer the 10 October version, but in another we prefer the 11 October version (but then immediately deny its veracity). This is confusing. We seem to be speaking with 2 voices. Better to choose one date and give it in both places - then explain why the other date appears in the literature and why we prefer ours. If our chosen date later turns out to be the wrong one, we can fix it. JackofOz 01:04, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

• I'd say it's better to mention the inconsistencies to avoid edit warring over such dates. - Mgm|^(talk) 06:01, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

We shouldn't be including dates which are not sourced. Corvus cornix 17:57, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

WWI

how long of a time do you have to be registered to be able to edit World War One?

Immediately. Make sure you're logged in. Xiner (talk, email) 01:31, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

Actually, wasn't it like 4 days or so before they are allowed (if newly registered)? --- Hdt83 | Talk/Chat 02:15, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

I'm getting stupid. I'm staying away from this board for a week. Xiner (talk, email) 02:29, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

Restricting edits

How do I request that a block be put on an article to limit vandalism by non-registered users? Pamela Anderson has been vandalised several times today and that is not unusual.--Vbd (talk) 02:46, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

You're looking for WP:RFPP. -SpuriousQ (talk) 02:48, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

Thanks! It has now been blocked, but I am curious as to why the admin has not (yet) put a notice tag on the page. Is that not usually done? Or am I being impatient?--Vbd (talk) 05:02, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

The admin used the {{sprotect2}} which only puts up a little padlock icon on the upper right. Actually, {{sprotect2}} is only used for long-term protection. Short term protection should use the {{sprotect}} without the 2; this shows the "article locked" box. You could talk to the admin about it but the page is still protected. --- Hdt83 | Talk/Chat 05:30, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

I changed it for you. Prodego ^talk 19:38, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

finding cleanup pages in certain categories

Is there a simple way to find all pages that are tagged both with a certain category and with a certain template? For example, I'd like to find all articles tagged {{wikify}} in Category:fashion. Thanks for your help! Calliopejen 03:17, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

The only way I know of is to use AutoWikiBrowser (WP:AWB): load up your category, and then look for those articles that contain the string "wikify". Though if there's a better solution, I'd be very interested in using it... tiZom_(2¢) 04:30, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

Talk:Travis McCoy

The article appears to appeal to vandals. The talk page is becoming littered with comments that feed the trolls. Is it appropriate to clear out the page, especially starting with "Is he half White and Black?" ? I think so, but I thought that I should ask for a second opinion. If you agree, then please clear it. Thanks! Royalbroil ^T : C 03:58, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

I thought that you should never clear talk pages, but may archive them. Canadianshoper 05:11, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

• (edit conflict) The vandalism guideline has a section that specifically addresses talk page vandalism. Removing other users comments or blanking the page might be considered an act of vandalism on your part. One option would be to archive the existing comments and start fresh that way. Or if things are really getting offensive, you may need to start putting vandalism warnings (like {{subst:Uw-chat1|Article}}) on users' talk pages.--Vbd (talk) 05:24, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the replies. I was concerned about the {{WPBiography}} statement: "Controversial material of any kind that is unsourced or poorly sourced must be removed immediately, especially if potentially libelous." Archiving seems like a reasonable solution, so I archive the problematic troll-feeding text. It adds no value to the talk page. I have already handed out quite a few warnings for contributions to the main page on this article. Thanks for you suggestions! Royalbroil ^T : C 12:21, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia Editing

Is there a ranking system for contributors to the website?

Indianballer111 04:31, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia:List of Wikipedians by number of edits. Royalbroil ^T : C 04:33, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

Note, however, that a user's edit count should be taken with a grain of salt - and is no indication of whether or not that editor is a valuable contributor. -- Chairman S. Talk ^Contribs 08:23, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

Please avoid catching editcountitis - Adrian M. H. 18:26, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

Broome Visitor Centre

Hi,

The Broome Visitor Centre has moved, could you please update the address and email details to reflect those available at www.broomevisitorcentre.com.au

Many thanks.

Hello, if you could tell us what article this is in then we can change it for you. Also, you can change it yourself. Just click the 'edit' button and change the section. Thanks. --- Hdt83 | Talk/Chat 04:55, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

The article on Broome, Western Australia does not seem to mention the Visitor Center. Even if it did, listing its address and e-mail details might violate the policy that Wikipedia is not a directory or the "Yellow Pages."--Vbd (talk) 05:34, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

NSW election candidates

Hi How are you. I have tried to link a page about myself to my name on the Candidates list in 'Candidates of the New South Wales legislative election, 2007' from Chris Ryan (Labor candidate for Albury) and do not seam to have been successful what do I do. it linked when I did it but the link had disappeared when I reopened it.

Best Regards

Chris Ryan —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Kerry1949 (talk • contribs).

The link appears fine for me. Have you tried refreshing the page in your browser? -- Chairman S. Talk ^Contribs 08:20, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

india tourism day

sir, I want to know that why india observe 25th january as india tourism day? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Bcdsasasasaa (talk • contribs).

Try asking this at the Reference Desk. This page is for questions about the editing of Wikipedia. -SpuriousQ (talk) 11:47, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

HEADERS

If I want to change a headr, or have a suggestion for a better one, is there any avenue by which I may achieve this? My suggestion, if you can help, is the match the Sima (geology) article with the Sial article, to create Sial (geology).

WikieWikieWikie 14:02, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

I think you're suggesting a merge or a move. If you think an article should be merged with an existing article (combined into one single text), follow these steps:

1. Add the template {{merge|OTHER PAGE}} to the pages you want to merge.
2. Post a discussion on the article's talk pages about why you think they should be combined. Don't forget to sign your comments.

If you think it would be better to simply rename a single article, click the "move" link at the top of the page. Follow the steps on that page, and submit the form. The page will be renamed to the new article.

I hope this helps. Please let us know if this wasn't quite what you were asking. Hersfold ^(talk/work) 20:16, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

Who should I alert about {{Uncategorized}} and stub types?

Currently, it appears that {{Uncategorized}} is automatically added to stubs which have a specific stub category anyway, like Ottoman Empire stubs or whatever. Where should the proposal be made to change this feature of the bot repsonsible? -- Lenoxus 14:14, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

Ahhhh. Automated Bots often add uncategorized to uncategorized articles, reguardless of them being stubs or not. Adding them as a stub adds them to a stub category; but this is not a proper category. You should categorize the articles yourself. Which is simple enough. Retiono Virginian 15:02, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

Why are stub categories not "proper"? -- Lenoxus 15:41, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

Because as soon as the article is expanded, the stub template will be removed and the stub category will disappear with it. Every article needs permanent categories that aren't dependent on stub (or any other) status. --Tkynerd 16:15, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

So it's not considered a "bad" redundancy for a given article to have both the categories Basketball and Basketball stubs, for example? — Lenoxus 18:38, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

Why have my images been deleted?

I made a new article for Funny Girls, a showbar in Blackpool. I uploaded personal images, and mentioned in the details the correct copywrite details, and permissions, but user 'Jimfbleak' has deleted all of my images, claiming they are not released under GFDL licence whatever that means, but I know these images have no problems, and that they CAN be used! They havent simply been disabled, this user has DELETED them!!

I dont understand why! Is there some way to get my files back and my article reverted to before this malicious delete?!

Many thanks, TR_Wolf TR 18:47, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

Images must be suitably licensed, otherwise they will be deleted ASAP. And with very good reason; copyright law is a serious matter. That they were "your" images is irrelevant if you do not release and license them in the correct way. Such information can be found in Wikipedia's policy guidelines. Adrian M. H. 18:51, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

Incidentally, your article is unsourced, so I have tagged it accordingly. Adrian M. H. 18:53, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

Please don't accuse other users of being malicious. To keep everything nice we have policies Wikipedia:Be civil and Wikipedia:No personal attacks. I hope we can help you learn what you need about image licensing, on which there are very strict rules to keep Wikiedpa from being sued. If you don't know what GFDL is, that's something we may have to help you learn. What licensing (and conditions) did you put for the images? Notinasnaid 18:55, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

You asked here 14 minutes after you already asked User:Jimfbleak the same question. Why not wait for his reply since he would know why he did anything? Dismas|^(talk) 18:56, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

Berkeley Springs article

I just edited out false information about gang violence in Berkeley Springs and more particularly drive bys in front of my movie theater, the Star, which was specifically named. There has NEVER been a drive by in Berkeley Springs let alone in front of my theater. I have owned it since 1977 and work there every night the theater is open. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 4.248.250.3 (talk • contribs).

Good catch, the content you removed was vandalism that slipped by for a couple of weeks. This unfortunately occurs once in a while. There's no real need to report it here. -SpuriousQ (talk) 20:04, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

Possible commercial link spam

Are all of 70.127.191.142's contributions commercial spam links? Should these be reverted? Thanks for your help. BazookaJoe 20:13, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

I think that this definitely falls under 'objectionable amounts of advertising', and the information isn't exactly amazing revelations: "Milk allergy diets. You need to eliminate milk and dairy products containing milk.". I'm going to roll them all back. Veinor ^{(talk to me)} 20:18, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

Checking now... Hersfold ^(talk/work) 20:17, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

It's hard to tell. It appears the link existed under "External Links" on the Food Allergy article beforehand, and I think the IP may have been trying to add it as an additional resource in good faith to other pages. However, the edits have been reverted. I didn't look at the site myself, so it's possible it was linkspam being spread by the IP, even if it wasn't originally introduced by them. Hersfold ^(talk/work) 20:22, 16 March 2007 (UTC) (P.S. - I'll go with Venior's judgement. Makes sense.)

Page listed for deletion

Someone has listed my page for deletion. I've already left a comment in their talk page (slightly angry unfortunately), but if they don't take the proposal off it I was wondering how to appeal to you guys at Wiki for the non-deletion of it. The page is Tyrian Weapons if you want to take a look at it. Alxnotorious 20:15, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

For a proposed deletion, you just remove the template. Note that whoever nominated it will probably then put it up for Articles for Deletion. Veinor ^{(talk to me)} 20:16, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

The tag clearly states that you can improve the article and remove the tag. But as stated, the person who put the prod tag there will likely nominate it at WP:AFD for deletion. Dismas|^(talk) 20:18, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

It would be wise to correct its shortcomings before removing the tag. Then your argument will be more valid. Though, to be frank, I would seriously question the article's notability and validity. If such information has any value, it belongs in an article about the game itself. I will not do so in this case, but I would normally nominate an article such as this for deletion at WP:AFD. Adrian M. H. 21:11, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

Actually, that makes sense to move the article to the game's article. I'll do that right away. Thanks for the idea. Alxnotorious 02:34, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

How the 113H do I get this to show changes?

document.editform.submit();
I changed it to:
document.editform.showchanges();,
document.editform.ShowChanges();,
document.editform.Show Changes();,
document.editform.show changes();,
document.editform.show_changes();,
document.editform.Show_Changes();,
document.editform.Show_changes();,
document.editform.show_Changes();,
document.editform.Showchanges,(); and
document.editform.showChanges();.
How come it will not work?????????? -- Darkest Hour 20:21, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

Uh... could you explain what you're trying to do? I don't understand. Hersfold ^(talk/work) 20:23, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

I'm trying to get the autoclick to choose "show changes". I got the save part down and I want the show changes to work but it will not. Whatsoever.... Darkest Hour 21:20, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

You want "wpDiff". -Amarkov moo! 22:34, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

search on user page

how do i get [1]

search boxes on my user page?--The Negotiator 20:53, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

I don't think you can. Do you see anyone else's pages with search bars? If so, point them out and I'll help you put them on your page. But as far as I know you can't do this. — coelacan — 00:02, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

No I don't..--The Negotiator 11:02, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

Upload file

I cannot upload this. It says file is M-T (empty). What am I doing wrong? -- Darkest Hour 21:24, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

Hi, I don't think Wikipedia supports the ICO file format. Please see Wikipedia:Image_use_policy#Format. --KFP (talk | contribs) 21:28, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

Why isn't my page editing permanent?

Last night I was online editing http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Willing_Well_IV:_The_Final_Cut#Music_Video. When I signed back on today, the page had returned to the previous night's original text, word for word. Why?

Because someone reverted your changes. I reccommend discussing with them. -Amarkov moo! 22:33, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

Thanks!

Links

What if I add a link that doesn't work the way it's supposed to? I added a link to the archenemy page labeled Spike that's supposed to lead to the page about the fictional character on the tv series Buffy The Vampire Slayer, but instead leads to a disambiguation page. The same is true of the Buffy link I added, and the Angelus link leads to something that has nothing to do with the tv character.

Try this: Wikipedia:Piped link. — coelacan — 00:01, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

(edit conflict)Spike is a common name and has many other uses. You need to redo the link. I assume you want to link to Spike (Buffyverse). To have the link show up as Spike, write it as [[Spike (Buffyverse)|Spike]]. Again with Buffy, to go straight to the character, [[Buffy Summers|Buffy]]. For Angelus, use [[Angel (Buffyverse)|Angelus]]. Mr.Z-mantalk¢Review! 00:03, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

Thank you!

Basically, instead of using Spike, use [[Spike (Buffyverse)|Spike]]. -- Chairman S. Talk ^Contribs 00:03, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

March 17

why article's history page doesn't show the changes I made but my contribution pages show them?

Article history pages doesn't show I made any changes: [2]

but my contribution page shows them: [3]

The changes I made to Ghaem Magham Farahani remianed in the article but its history page doesn't show them. what happened?Farmanesh 00:17, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

I see the changes that you're made, if that helps :) Perhaps you should bypass your cache? It doesn't appear to be a server-side problem, but who knows, it's probably just a quirk. The problem happened to a lot of people a couple of days ago. Gracenotes^T § 00:20, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

Probably because the server might be a bit slow in updating. Wait a few seconds and it'll show the changes. --KZ ^{Talk • Vandal • Contrib} 00:25, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

Minor Edits

Is stub sorting considered a minor edit? Its not really adding much content, but it does change categoriztion and appearance. Mr.Z-mantalk¢Review! 01:22, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

Yup, it's only superficial, and it doesn't really add content. But some editors see it differently. It's up to you to make the pick, but I'd strongly suggest marking as minor. The Evil Clown _{Please review me!} 01:33, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

are there any proffesional historians who post here?

are there any proffesional historians who post here?

Wikipedia:Wikipedians with articles might be a helpful page, and lists several notable historians. If you have a question about history, please ask it here. In addition, if you want to contact any historian, I would suggest not doing it on Wikipedia, but there's not a rule against it. Gracenotes^T § 01:55, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

Linking to Wikimedia commons

I have put a photograph in Wikimedia Commons. I would like to create a link from a Wikipedia article to this photo. Can you point me to where I'll find the necessary help.Bebofpenge 03:28, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

Hello, there. If you want to link to the file, type [[:Image:name.ext]]. If you want to display the image, you can type [[Image:name.ext|thumb|right|200px|Caption text.]]. WODUP 03:53, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

Warrior Librarian

Hi there,

I was going to try to create an entry for Warrior Librarian, but reading your guidelines I'm not allowed to 'publicise' my own material (?)

Google produces over 400,000 hits for "warrior librarian", and most of them relate either to my website, myself, or other references to either.

I couldn't quite work out how to 'request' an entry ... and I'm out of time now. Sigh.

If someone else can 'do' the base entry, maybe I can add to it?

Warrior Librarian is:

• A cartoon charactor created by Australian library humorist and author Amanda Credaro; also occassionally used as a psuedonym by same.
• A registered (in Australia) business name
• The host website for Warrior Librarian Weekly, a satirical online library journal (ISSN 1445-9124)

Thanks in advance for any advice or information. WarriorLibrarian

Thank you for reading some policy pages before starting. Lots more are here. Since you seem to be a published author, not to mention a librarian, you are worlds ahead of most new Wikipedia users; you won't have any trouble becoming a productive contributor here. In fact, Wikipedia has a screaming need for people like you, to fill in some of the millions of missing references. Some tips on starting your article:

• You could request an article at: Wikipedia:Requested articles.
• You could request editing assistance on one or more WikiProjects relating to your topic. For example, perhaps:
  • Wikipedia:WikiProject Australia
  • Wikipedia:WikiProject_Council/Directory/Culture#Comics - maybe: Wikipedia:WikiProject Webcomics
  • Look for articles related to your topic, and check their talk pages for WikiProject banners.
  • I was suprised to see no library project banners on Talk:Library or Talk:Librarian. Is there no WikiProject for library-related articles? I would think librarians would be the first to organize their articles here under a WikiProject. If there really isn't such a project, perhaps you should start one (see: WP:PROJGUIDE if you get that ambitious).
• You could help the process along by starting a user sub-page such as: User:WarriorLibrarian/Warrior Librarian (just click that red link to get going), and start writing. See WP:LAYOUT. When you have something that looks like an article, come back here and ask for some experienced editors to review it. Then when it's in shape, someone can copy the content to the real Warrior Librarian article.
  • Quality references are the most important missing items for many new articles. You can help other editors who work on the article by listing definitive references on User:WarriorLibrarian/Warrior Librarian. Since we're lazy, it helps if copies of the references are readable online. The most useful kind of references for establish a subject's notability are reputable publications that write about it, other than the subject's official site itself.
  • Even though WP:COI says not to write about yourself or any organization you are personally involved with, WP:IAR says to ignore all rules when they get in the way of improving or maintaining Wikipedia. However, brand-new users typically don't have the level of editing experience on Wikipedia to know how to break (I prefer: creatively interpret) the rules the right way; that kind of know-how might take a year and a thousand edits to accumulate (probably less for a librarian). It's perfectly fine to write about yourself or your own organization or invention or whatever as long as (and this is very heavy emphasis) you write as if you are not personally involved. Wikipedia does not formally keep track of who is writing about what; we just want it to look as if everyone is writing impartially (i.e., neutrally). For example, I strongly suspect topics such as MediaWiki and Microsoft receive significant input from people with personal involvement in those topics. However, those articles don't suffer from the kind of peacock language which is the dead giveaway for naive attempts at promotion here. If you can write about your topic in neutral style, then have at it. The best way to learn is by studying some featured articles; those illustrate what you're aiming for.
    • However, given that you chose a user name which obviously identifies you as having an interest in this topic, an overzealous deletionist might apply the letter of the WP:COI law, and tag your article for speedy deletion regardless of quality, if you start it yourself.
• Be aware there are many wikis. Wikipedia has perhaps the most elaborate and exacting rules of any wiki on Earth (this is the most complicated wiki I have yet seen). There are probably other wikis which don't have a problem with you writing about your own creation. Search WikiIndex for some appropriate wiki. Having another outlet for your writing makes edit wars on Wikipedia seem less threatening.
• When you mention a Google search in discussion pages like this one, you can link to it like this: google:Warrior Librarian. (You have to use   to represent the space between search terms for the link to work. That's an example of an interwiki link being somewhat misused to link to a site that isn't a wiki.) However, as you probably gather, Google searches do not constitute adequate references for article pages themselves, because their results continuously change.

Good luck, and welcome to Wikipedia. --Teratornis 15:58, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

ES builder

Can anybody tell me what ES builder does, please? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Dudforreal (talk • contribs) 06:06, 17 March 2007 (UTC).

ES builder?--SUIT^양복 06:33, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

Yes, ES builder, do you know what it does?Dudforreal 06:37, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

Can you give us a clue about where in Wikipedia ES Builder is used, or the Wikipedia connection? I just searched the whole of the English Wikipedia for the phrase [4] and didn't find it. Notinasnaid 10:05, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

• You probably want to ask at the reference desk. - Mgm|^(talk) 14:47, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

ThankyouDudforreal 05:52, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

Changing a category name

Someone has changed the name of a category that an article I frequently edit is part of. How do I change the category name back? Thank you. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Caleb Murdock (talk • contribs) 09:31, 17 March 2007 (UTC).

I've heard of these, it's categories that have been proposed name changes since a certain date, and changing the name back would not help in any way and probabally would be reverted back again, or something like that. I'm not sure on that part, but to me, it sounds right.....an admin could explain it better anyway..... Captain Drake Van Hellsing 10:21, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

• If you told us what category it is, we could find out why it was renamed in the first place. - Mgm|^(talk) 14:46, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

Contact Information

Hi, I'm wondering what WP policy is in regards to provision of Contact info at the end of articles. See, for example, Durbar Mahila Samanwaya Committee, Grihshobha. Is this something that is encouraged? Doesn't it make the article look a bit like an advertisement? Johnfos 09:42, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

You're right. I've removed it. --Cherry blossom tree 12:29, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

• I've only ever seen contact information in articles about ongoing disasters. Removing them from any other type of article is indeed the correct thing to do. - Mgm|^(talk) 14:44, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

It's all very well to say that the Contact info should be deleted, but wouldn't you consider writing to the user concerned to ask for it not to be included in the first place. Thanks. Johnfos 23:20, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

reporting Copyvios of wikipedia

I know we have many places for reporting copyvios on wikipedia, and there's wikipedia:Mirrors and forks for verbatim copiers, but where do I post about someone who's reused some content and violated the GFDL, but not actually forked the encyclopedia? I posted on wikipedia talk:copyrights, but that's obviously less than ideal.Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 10:01, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

Report them on the Administrator's Noticeboard. Real96 10:06, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

how do i...

how do i create a new article and put in on wikipedia? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Heathbear1989 (talk • contribs) 13:52, 17 March 2007 (UTC).

• Basically the same way you asked this question. Try Wikipedia:Tutorial and Wikipedia:Your first article to get started. - Mgm|^(talk) 14:24, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

And you also want WP:VFAQ especially Wikipedia:How to start a page. - Mgm|^(talk) 14:25, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

And watch the MediaWiki training videos. --Teratornis 14:36, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

Learning the ropes

The current lesson at the Virtual classroom is Learning the ropes.

The Transhumanist   15:09, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

Reliable website

Is http://www.ex.ac.uk/~watupman/undergrad/aac/index.htm considered reliable source? S. Miyano 15:26, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

Hmmmm. It depends on the website. It's best to use only published sources for wikipedia. As some website sources are not always going to be true. Examine the website, its quality, its language and its text. If it's consisting of nonsense, don't put anything it says on wikipedia; thanks. Retiono Virginian 15:37, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

The introduction page to the site states "Finally, there is a Links Page. Where possible I have used online sources to research the arguments and information displayed in this website. There are links throughout the pages: as authors or documents are mentioned, a hyperlink is provided to the source in question. In addition to these links, a country-by-country guide to organisations lobbying for sex worker rights, opposing prostitution or providing debate or information is included, totalling well over two hundred external links." If their sources are reliable, it would seem that they would be reliable as well. Dismas|^(talk) 15:43, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

I guess I'll have to examine this source more carefully before taking information from it. Thank you for the replies S. Miyano 16:09, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

If possible, you should follow relevant external links in the article to their source, and cite that, rather than citing a source that cites a source. In other words, don't cite XYZ website, which gets cites info from ABC newspaper, if you can follow the link to ABC newspaper and add info from a newspaper article. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 22:36, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

OR policy: deletation or putting {{fact}}/OR/Unreferenced

I am puzzeled. If an article has OR problem what should be done, should we just delete the OR part and blank that section of article or should we place one of these signs there :{{fact}}/{{OR}}/{{Unreferenced}}

I appricite if you give me the answer in a refrenced way to established wikipedia policies (just to avoid OR problem here).Farmanesh 16:12, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

It depends. If the OR is about a living person, then it must be removed immediately, and you are allowed to revert war to keep it out until it gets a citation. If it's not, though, then there's no policy that covers what to do, but the best thing is to slap a tag on it, list your problems on the talk page, and then delete whatever remains OR after two weeks or so. -Amarkov moo! 16:17, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the answer. I undrestand the living person part but my question is about other things. So as you say there is no policy regarding what to do with other ORs? Then why you are proposing to delete OR section after few weeks of being tagged? If there is no established policy one might say having OR-tagged section is better than a blank page... any answer for that based on established policy? If not doesn't that just allow for edit-war?Farmanesh 16:21, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

Not everything must be based on established policy. Having said that, you are deleting it after a few weeks because it is prohibited by WP:OR, but you wanted to give the information a chance in case it wasn't what it looked like. And one might indeed disagree with you, so you'll then have to discuss it with that one. And if you can't come to an agreement, you'll have to go through dispute resolution. -Amarkov moo! 16:28, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

If you're looking for exact rules for each and every sentence in Wikipedia articles, you're going to be frustrated. Editing requires judgment. If some text is unreferenced, is it "original research" or is it simply lacking a cited source? My personal approach is to separate text into one of three categories:

• If it seems unreasonable (for example, text saying that Abraham Lincoln invested a large amount of money in a company that proposed to build a bridge between Alaska and Russia), then remove the text (saying in the edit summary that it's original research) and shift the burden of proof to someone who steps forward to defend the text (if anyone does, which often doesn't happen - the vandal/joker has moved on).
• If the text is plausible (for example, that a group of leading oil company executives gathered in Scotland in August 1928 to discuss cooperative marketing and pricing, worldwide), then the best thing is to put a "fact" tag on it if it might be questioned (for example, if it might be controversial).
• If the text is clearly uncontroversial but uncited (for example, in Nobel prize, the sentence The prizes were instituted by the Swedish scientist Alfred Nobel through his will in 1895; they were first awarded in 1901), don't put a "fact" tag on such text: the tag doesn't add anything useful at all, since there are tens of thousands of articles with such tags that no one has gotten to, months after being tagged. Save the "fact" tags for things that really are important. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 22:33, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

Title category

I need to channge category title name how do I do it?

Order of corups christi should be The Order of Corpus Christi

thanks

Brother Rock —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Brotherrock (talk • contribs) 17:06, 17 March 2007 (UTC).

You have to move it the appropriate title. There is something at the top called move, and you can go on from there. The Evil Clown _{Please review me!} 17:26, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

Creating columns on a page

Hi. I have a list (including subheadings) that i want to display as two columns, rather than one long list.
How do I achieve this? Thanks --Sparklism 18:40, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

1. There are currently two ways to do this: CSS divs, or tables. For this list:

• Foo
• Bar
• Baz
• Etc
• Content
• Stuff
• OMG

You could use CSS as follows:

• Foo
• Bar
• Baz
• Etc

• Content
• Stuff
• OMG

Or you could use tables:

Foo Bar Baz Etc

Content Stuff OMG

CSS3 will have the column-count attribute, which will do this automatically, but until the awesome day comes when it will get released, there's nothing we can do. (You could do -moz-column-count, but that would only work for Firefox or Seamonkey.) Check out the source code for how I did it, by the way. Gracenotes^T § 18:46, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

Brilliant! Thanks--Sparklism 19:14, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

No problem! Gracenotes^T § 19:19, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

• There's another way using templates. User:MacGyverMagic has a nice example in the recent edits section. - Mgm|^(talk) 19:52, 17 March 2007 (UTC)
  • Hm, a scintillating solution, if not an icky CSS hack. Oh CSS3, hasten the day of thy arrival! Amen. Gracenotes^T § 20:08, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

adding an article

if i wanted to add an article on anything could i and how would i do that—Preceding unsigned comment added by Hippiequeen1124 (talk • contribs)

See Wikipedia:Your first article. The article you create does have to follow certain guidelines such as notibility, citing sources, etc.--SUIT^양복 19:08, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

If you meant an article about anything, you'll see we already have that article. Dismas|^(talk) 20:03, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

Show/hide script

Hello to the wizzkids,

I'm trying to get this show/hide script to work, which I copied and altered from the Dutch Wikipedia. However, for some reason it standard shows instead of hides the extra content. Does anyone know how to fix this, or have another show/hide script?

Cheers and thanks

JackSparrow Ninja 19:12, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

I used to use a show/hide script on one of my sub-pages, and it worked as you describe. Here's the old diff - feel free to open it up and copy it. It's the Navframe bit that you need. Hope that works for you. Adrian M. H. 21:29, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

Template:Hidden can make this easy and is customizable. See the Awards section on my userpage for an example. Mr.Z-mantalk¢Review! 21:46, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

Thank you both =) JackSparrow Ninja 05:54, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

phenotying study in medical student at libya-medical college

Dear sir, I am given the above subject for writting my Ph.D. thesis. can you guide me the method how i should proceed and how to collect the data in a suitable tabulated form and the relevent litureature from your side Hope you will guide me Thanks Dr. N.K.Sen —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 64.86.24.99 (talk) 19:24, 17 March 2007 (UTC).

• If you want to do a PHd thesis on phenotyping (can you be more specific?) I suggest you start looking for literature in Pubmed. - Mgm|^(talk) 19:51, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

You might want to ask that at the reference desk. While Wikipedia can help you get information and stuff, it doesn't exist merely to help people get good grades, or even a PhD. I wish you the best of luck in writing it; there are people here that have written PhD theses, and you could include something similar to above in a query at the reference desk. But who knows, you may find something interesting. For example, see our article about phenotypes, which may point you in a beneficial direction. Gracenotes^T § 19:57, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

Reinstating Timeline

There seemed to have been confusion re Timeline of fictional future events. There was a two-member support (discussion 23 October 2006) for splitting the article due to inconsistancies in the ' tense ' of the submissions.

HOWEVER, List of fictional timelines, along with Category:Fictional timelines, make no reference to any similar OVERALL general-fiction timeline.

Since the original timeline is pretty rich & involved in interesting references, why not go beyond the ' tense ' problem & just label it as General Fictional Events Timeline or something similar ?

WHENever they are listed to occur, as a group in one place, it is still an interesting & fascinating compilation of fictional events in media & literature.

Look it over & I hope you see what I mean . . .

PFSfuture 19:27, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

• I don't fully understand your question. Aren't List of fictional timelines and "General fictional events timeline" close enough? Is there a difference? Once again, I'm sorry, but I'd appreciate it if you clarified on what exactly you want to change/add. Gracenotes^T § 19:43, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

TAKE A LOOK and you'll notice that the first one you mention is a LIST of timeLINES, while the second is a SINGLE timeline of GENERAL fictional EVENTS (and is my suggested title change from the original title, the defunct page Timeline of fictional future events, which, with it's involved introduction, causes concern over the ' future tense ' of the submissions).

I'm suggesting that the original page's content is still rich in detail, with a general overall review. It's content could be re-activated with a different title and a non-confusing introduction (WHENever proclaimed fictional events/predictions are made, for whatever period, they're still fictional).

I'm thinking this would alleviate the ' tense ' confusion.

PFSfuture 17:54, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

pedophillia user box wars

what was the pedophillia user box wars about? was it really about user boxes and or pedophillia?--Fang 23 22:03, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

• Yes, if you go through the archives of the Wikipedia Signpost you can probably find all the background you need about this. - Mgm|^(talk) 22:14, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

  You could also read Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Pedophilia userbox wheel war to get some more information if you're interested. PTO 22:33, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

Citation coding

How does one enter endnotes citing sources? Specifically, how does one enter the "ref" tag, with its peculiar-looking bracket?

Please see Wikipedia:Footnotes#How_to_use. Xiner (talk, email) 18:15, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

When to list schools?

The article, Carmel Valley, San Diego, California has all the schools listed under separate sections, eventhough they are not that many schools. I was wondering, if Wikipedia guidelines say for it to stay a list, or for it to be in a sentence or paragraph form? Thanks a lot -ChristopherMannMcKay 23:43, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

There's nothing stating that it has to be a list - although I can't really see a problem with it staying as one. -- Chairman S. Talk ^Contribs 00:02, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

March 18

WNCN (now WAXQ)

This is in reference to the article about WNCN (104.3 FM) in New York City. The station was owned by Starr Broadcasting and changed from classical music to rock and roll in 1974. I was an employee during that period, totaling almost 15 years.

The factual error is that William F. Buckley, Jr. did NOT lead the fight to return the station to classical music. He was Chairman of the Board of the owner, Starr Broadcasting, and although he personally preferred classical music, he was acting on behalf of shareholders to improve station financials. But the station lost money as a classical broadcaster.

The fight to restore classical music to 104.3 was centered at the WNCN Listener's Guild, of which I was one of three original founders. The group raised $600,000 and fought Starr Broadcasting at the FCC and in the courts.

As a settlement, Starr sold the station (at no profit) to GAF Broacasting in 1975. At that time I was rehired, as was most of the classical music staff.

Sincerely,

Matt Edwards <email removed> —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 24.189.127.111 (talk) 00:05, 18 March 2007 (UTC).

odd category

Can someone help me figure out why Büyük Menderes River is in Category:Dinar? The category is for currencies related to the dinar, so it does not belong. I want to remove it, but there's no direct category reference ([[Category:dinar]]). None of the templates used on the page add it to the category either. I realize this is not exactly a newbie question, but hope someone can help me anyway. Thanks, Ingrid 01:11, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

The article is in the category, not because of the currency, but because of the river's location in Dinar. Per: It has its sources not far from Celaenae in Phrygia (now Dinar), where it gushed forth in a park of Cyrus. The category should stay as in place. Real96 01:15, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

(edit conflict)The problem is the infobox. It adds the page to Category:{{{Origin}}}, and the origin is Dinar. If you change the origin in the infobox (make it more specific), it should fix it. Mr.Z-mantalk¢Review! 01:17, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

Alphabetization help?

Is there a tool or bot or whatever available to alphabetize a bulleted list on an article page? I'm thinking particularly of lists of people, such as a teacher's students or a school's alumni, which can get long and hard to follow as editors add names to the bottom of the list. I've encountered a couple of examples, and fixing them manually seems rather daunting, and likely to end up in a pyrrhic victory as later edits defeat the purpose.

I don't know if this is even technically possible, but if it is possible, and no tool exists yet, who can I ask to tackle it?

Thanks. Mjplant 01:13, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

Relisting?

Hi. I've been hanging around at AFD and TFD discussions lately, and I notice a tag that looks like this:

 Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so that consensus may be reached
 Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, ~~~~

Could someone please explain where and why this would be used? I've seen it used on discussions where only two people have voted. Thanks in advance- CattleGirl ^{talk | sign! | review me} 02:00, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

It means that the AfD was unable to gain consensus because there were too few comments, and thus, it has been listed again, so that more editors can add their points-of-view. -- Chairman S. Talk ^Contribs 02:20, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

English styles

Is there a template to warn users that English styles shouldn't be changed? Mr.Z-mantalk¢Review! 02:02, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

I don't believe so. Instead, just put a comment like <!-- Note to editors: This article is written in American English, please do not change it. --> at the top of the page. -- Chairman S. Talk ^Contribs 02:18, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

I mean a user warning template. Its not listed on WP:UTM, but I think I've seen them before. Mr.Z-mantalk¢Review! 02:36, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

There are actually templates for this: {{Lang0}}, {{Lang1}}, {{Lang2}}, {{Lang3}}, {{Lang4}}, {{Lang5}}. -- Chairman S. Talk ^Contribs 03:04, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

access to article introductions, problems with statistical articles

For some articles on statistical methods, there are problems in the introductions (see below), but the introductions are not accessible to editing. Can access be provided, to article introductions?

To edit an introductory paragraph of an article, click on the "edit this page" tab at the top of the page.--Vbd (talk) 04:22, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

Common problems relate to a failure to a place a method in context. The practical significance of a method is not stated. The conceptual relationships of a method may not be correctly stated.Dfarrar 02:35, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

Internet Explorer Menus

Can you make it possible to use the Internet Explorer pull-down menus just with keystrokes (Alt+E for the edit menu)? For somre reason, Wikipedia is the only website I have ever seen that does not allow this. Many people do not like to use the mouse and used keystrokes to access the menus. Thanks! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.112.139.224 (talk • contribs)

Unfortunately, the shortcut keys are coded into the Wiki software. You'll need to disable them using the instructions found here. It is possible you will have to create an account in order to implement the code. Hersfold ^(talk/work) 03:39, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

P.S. - Please remember to sign your posts with four tildes (~~~~) so we know who we're talking to. Thanks! Hersfold ^(talk/work) 03:42, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

I couldn't find this stuff in the 'About Wikipedia' section.

How many volunteers total are there? And is there anybody with Wikipedia (volunteer or otherwise) who actively goes through the pages and looks for vandalism, errors, etc.? Or is it entirely done by the users/people? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 69.227.137.126 (talk) 03:47, 18 March 2007 (UTC).

All the work concerning articles is done by the users. See Special:Statistics for current user numbers. Mr.Z-mantalk¢Review! 04:17, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

How to avoid the orange bar "you have new message"

Are there any types of script I can use to prevent the "you have new message" bar? Given that I can check my talk page once in a while to see if there's anything new, the notice is both annoying and unnecessary. Please help, thank you S. Miyano 03:58, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

Yes, or you could change what it looks like. What do you want to do? Prodego ^talk 04:07, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

I don't think it is a good idea, but you can add this to your personal CSS:

.usermessage {
    display: none;
}

If you still want to see it when you're on your own user page or talk page, you can do:

.usermessage {
    display: none;
}

.page-User_S_Miyano .usermessage,
.page-User_talk_S_Miyano .usermessage {
    display: block;
}

These should be added to User:S. Miyano/monobook.css. Mike Dillon 04:11, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

Thank you for the replies. Could you please check if I did it right [5]? S. Miyano 04:23, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

Looks good, best way to tell if it works is to test it--VectorPotential^Talk 04:26, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

Becoming A Member

How Do You Become A Member of A Project.Bernstein2291 04:21, 18 March 2007 (UTC)Bernstein2291

If you've got an account, you already are one! Now, just edit pages you fee like editing, and contribute constructively in any way you can. DoomsDay349 04:25, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

If you mean a WikiProject, all you normally have to do is add your name to the list of members and then start helping the project. The various projects will normally have lists of to-do items that you can help with. Dismas|^(talk) 05:33, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

Copied text

I noticed that the plot for At Sachem Farm is copied word-for-word from IMDb. What should I do? Clarityfiend 05:02, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

Replace it with a copyvio tag, making sure the URL of the page it's copied from is specified by using |url=sitehere. -Wooty Woot? contribs 05:04, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

I don't want to delete the article; there's some legitimate info there. I think I'll just delete the offending material. Clarityfiend 06:46, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, just remove it. Copyvio tags are best used if the entire article is a violation. - Mgm|^(talk) 07:55, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

I Can't Login - Account Name CognitIt -

This says I didn't enter an email address, but I have a confirmation in my box. This is a copy of it.

Someone from the IP address xxxxxxxxxxx has registered the account "CognitIt" with this e-mail address on the English Wikipedia.

To confirm that this user account really does belong to you and to activate e-mail features on Wikipedia, please open this URL in your browser:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Confirmemail/db2eef76e07ad5364e9a2c2eb6c92ebb

If you did not recently register for Wikipedia (or if you registered with a different e-mail address), please do *not* click on the link.

This confirmation e-mail will automatically expire at 15:50, 13 March 2007 (UTC).

~Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia http://en.wikipedia.org

Please make sure it is in my account. I am 92% sure that I validated this; my hyperlink showed previous use. I really want to keep my login name. The email account is the same as the name I submitted, as you can see. I need to request a new password and am stumped. [email protected]. 68.89.170.143 06:17, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

Thanks.

• Where does it say you didn't enter an email address? - Mgm|^(talk) 07:54, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

uploaded article missing

Dear Sir/Madam,

i have uploaded a new article about our church several weeks ago.. but i could not find it in wikipedia... The title is... "Tortugas United Methodist Church" When will you make the article public?

Thank you very much! —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Prayerofjabez (talk • contribs) 07:13, 18 March 2007 (UTC).

From this edit [6] it seems like you only saved the page to the Introduction page. The area below the introduction page is only for test edits. All information there is deleted periodically. You could copy the text and create a new article for it but the other problem is that your church might not be notable enough to be on Wikipedia. There are thousands of churches around the world and unless your church is especially famous, the church might not be notable. See WP:NOTABLE for guidelines. -- Hdt83 | Talk 07:27, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

The article was probably deleted Never mind--SUIT^양복 07:27, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

Why is Don(REd )Goldstein All America for LOuisville 1959,not listed under Jewish basketball players?

High-res fair use images?

When you have a high-res copyrighted (by someone other than you) image that you'd like to use under the Fair Use principle, what's the maximum size that it should be uploaded as? I've been hearing things like 400px wide or high, and I'd like to know what the rule of thumb is. Thanks. -Malkinann 08:14, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

The principle underlying this would be "not adequate to make a good reproduction of the original on paper", I think. Notinasnaid 08:20, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

That's right. The image doesn't need to be particularly small, just not large enough that it can be used for anything but identification on screen. -- Chairman S. Talk ^Contribs 08:26, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

New page

How do I create a new page in Wikipedia? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jaberwock (talk • contribs)

Before you do, I'd recommend you spend some time learning the ropes, and editing existing articles. It's a sad fact that almost all the pages people make are deleted right away because they don't fit the way Wikipedia works, and you can only learn that with practice, perhaps a few hundred useful edits. When you are ready, see Wikipedia:Your first article. Happy editing! Notinasnaid 09:57, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

Another useful page is Help:Starting a new page. -- Chairman S. Talk ^Contribs 11:08, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia has a peculiar characteristic, we might even consider it an ergonomic design flaw, in that it has a tendency to encourage (or at least not to discourage) new-article creation as a new editor's first attempt at editing. This is unfortunate because creating new articles has a much lower probability of success than editing existing articles. An unfortunate but all-too-common scenario is: a user has been using Wikipedia to look things up, but hasn't done any editing yet; then, upon trying to look up some topic of interest and finding no article in Wikipedia about it, decides to create the article. Because the new user has no prior experience editing existing articles, the article is likely to violate any number of Wikipedia's complex rules and get deleted. The problem seems to be that anyone can see when the article they want is missing, but only a comparatively small number of experienced editors can recognize the vast number of improvements that most existing articles need. And so the deletionists stay busy.

Over time, I expect this problem to work itself out, as Wikipedia's article count increases, reducing the perceived need to create so many new articles, and Wikipedia's search capability improves to include transwikied articles (so users find articles on other wikis instead of only seeing them as missing on Wikipedia). Eventually Wikipedia may develop something like an outplacement service for topics that belong on other wikis. Currently, Wikipedia too often behaves as if it is the only wiki that exists, merely deleting unsuitable articles without doing enough to find other wikis that want them. Since Wikipedia is the largest wiki target for search engines, it acts like a honeypot or red herring for new wiki users who aren't aware of other wikis more suitable for the kind of editing they want to do. Instead the software allows new users to go ahead and create articles, many of which later get summarily deleted by laborious human intervention. It would be better to somehow integrate outplacement recommendations with the new-article-creation process, especially for users with few edits. --Teratornis 16:49, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

pregnancy

I AM 43 YEARS OLD.I HAVE ONE SON 19 YEARS OLD . I HAD AMISSCARRIAGE LAST MONTH. I WANT TO HAVE A SECOND BABY. HOW TO TELL ABOUT MY PREGNANCY TO MY SON? HOW HE WILL REACT? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 122.167.190.42 (talk) 10:10, 18 March 2007 (UTC).

This is ridiclous, this is an encyclopedia. Not a doctors, or any kind of social care. Often when people come here saying things like that; we tend to think that they are making a joke of us. If this is a real problem. Please see Jerry Springer, Trisha, or Jeremy Kyle, or something to that extent. Reguards. Retiono Virginian 11:00, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

Whether or not the anonymous questioner is joking, Sibling rivalry may be a place to start, although it says nothing about the case of 20-year age differences between siblings. Perhaps the anonymous questioner can help expand that article by looking up some reputable sources. Of course no encyclopedia article can definitively predict how one person will react to a given situation, because everyone is different. However, the encyclopedia might report how many other people have reacted in similar situations. Finally, in keeping with the instructions in Wikipedia:Help desk/How to answer, here's the boilerplate Help desk response for any question not about how to edit on Wikipedia: Have you tried Wikipedia's Reference Desk? They specialize in knowledge questions, and will try to answer any question in the universe (except how to use Wikipedia, since that's what this Help Desk is for). Just follow the link, select the relevant section, and ask away. I hope this helps. --Teratornis 15:32, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

I do not see sibling rivalry in this non-Wikipedia-Help-desk question. One fact at hand is that of a 19 year old son being an adult. Another serious fact is that of a 43 year old mother being likely to have pregnancy complications. Should the pregnancy and birth be healthy, at the least the 43 year old mother "should" have an immediate, readily available babysister. The more pressing question should be that of - why not have this discussion / conversation with family or close individuals prior to conception? Marycontrary

I'm sorry for your miscarriage. You should see a doctor, both to check you out after the loss of your fetus, for advice v/v your son and possibly for a counselling referral for yourself. If you don't have a GP (general practitioner) or gynecologist, or if money is an issue, many communities have free women's health treatment and counselling. Free emergency helplines may help too. I was left wondering whether your question was about telling your son about your miscarriage or your planned pregnancy? Not that it matters, this isn't the venue. And to other respondents, please remember WP:CIVIL and WP:AGF. If we can't answer a question civilly, let's leave it for someone else to deal with. Anchoress 21:37, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

Facts are facts and Wikipedia is about facts. Just as discussion pages on wikipedia are helpful for Wikipedians, so it is appropriate for me to have recommended to have the necessary discussion and conversations with family or close individuals PRIOR to trying to conceive. Anchoress, what was it about my response that upset you? Luckily for the woman with the question, her 19 year old son is old enough to deal with it and that she wants to to become pregnant. I pointed to some wikipedia articles particularly about having the discussion with her son and others. The 19 year old could become very helpful and assist the mother (like babysitting), but first talk about the plans, talk openingly and regularly. Marycontrary

Your response didn't upset me. I did not suggest that it was inappropriate. Anchoress 16:44, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

Need help

I need help getting started. BigMacintosh. thanks — Preceding unsigned comment added by BigMacintosh (talk • contribs) 22:13, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

Hi BigMacintosh, where are you stuck? What are you trying to do? Notinasnaid 11:27, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

If you want some basic information about contributing to Wikipedia, some good links include: Wikipedia:Introduction, Wikipedia:Contributing to Wikipedia, and Wikipedia:Tutorial. -- Chairman S. Talk ^Contribs 12:16, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

godsgirls.com

hi,

my name is annaliese nielsen and i am the founder of the company seen at godsgirls.com. godsgirls.com is owned by godsgirls LLC not by offworld media group. ownership of godsgirls can be verified with a simple who is lookup.

the article about godsgirls can be found here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godsgirls

it cites www.suicidegirlx.com as the source for it's claim that godsgirls is owned by offworld media group. suicidegirlx is hardly a reputable source. that website is full of gossip mongering and slander.

we appreciate wikipedia's efforts in providing factual material in it's articles and appreciate the corrections that should be made to this article.

thank you! -annaliese

Response is posted at Talk:GodsGirls#Ownership. I've made changes to the article. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 16:24, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

Finding Pages Over One Week Old

I am entirely new to Wikipedia and a little puzzled. Some time before 14th March I posted a question about a song (about a king who ate somebody). I received a reply that did not answer the question. I then mistakenly breached etiquette by posting a new page and using upper-case letters (I was advised that this is 'shouting'). I posted an apology and explanation and invited anyone who knew how to delete the page (I meant the new page, not the original, though I may have been unclear about that). I have tried searching for my original page (with the original question), but I am unable to find it. I do not know how to find a page earlier than 14th March, since the list which comes up starts at 14th March and I can find no route to earlier pages. I am sure I must be missing something, but, as I said, I am totally new to all this and therefore somewhat at sea.

Perhaps somebody could confirm having seen the original page and let me know whether it still exists and, if so, how I can get to it, as I am still anxious to find the answer to my original question.

I am perfectly happy to start all over again if I need to but, as we are told not to post the same question twice, I am trying to be meticulous in my observation of the rules/etiquette, etc.

As nearly as I can recall, the heading to my original question was:

        "Song About A King Who Ate Somebody??"

Any help will be greatly appreciated, please.12:27, 18 March 2007 (UTC)Barrinald

• Ah, I think you lost track of what page you were on. Your original question was on Wikipedia:Reference desk/Entertainment, and that's probably where you need to go to find old questions. (A tip, to help you find where you asked: click the "My contributions" link). Good luck, Notinasnaid

Suggested article

James Vaughn, Carterville Illinois Patriot

Why haven't you added this great man to Wikpedia? Just asking? www.jamesvaughn.org -- 12:38, 18 March 2007 — Preceding unsigned comment added by 12.214.180.219 (talk • contribs)

That would be the person about whom a "radio and internet news magazine" said James Vaughn is another example of average Americans doing above average things to avert a fascist state and stop the push towards World War III.? [7]

WP:ATT and WP:BIO discuss Wikipedia's policies about who is notable enough to have an article in Wikipedia. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 15:19, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

Please sign your posts with four tildes (~~~~) so we know who we're talking to.

There could be a few reasons why we don't have an article on him.

1. Nobody has requested an article be made about him at Wikipedia:Requested articles.
2. Nobody has thought to create the article of their own initiative.
3. He is not considered notable under Wikipedia's guidelines for inclusion. See WP:NOTE.
4. By looking at the website you showed me, it might be difficult to have an article about this person written from a neutral point of view.

If you would like to create the article, then please create an account and do so. Please carefully review all of Wikipedia's policies beforehand. Thanks! Hersfold ^(talk/work) 15:22, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

Image links ...

I am trying to perfect my Signature with a nice speech balloon, but I can't get the image NOT to jump line. (The image is a link to my talk!)
Besides remaking the template I use for this (Click) in a "<span>" in stead of a "<div>", do I have any options ?
See also My sandbox, but here it is:

[[User:R U Bn|R U Bn]] ({{Click | image = Speech_balloon.svg| link = User talk:R U Bn
| width = 10px| height= 10px}})

Result:
R U Bn () Thank you :-) R U Bn (Talk • contrib) 14:22, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

It's better not to use any image in your signature. See also Wikipedia:Signatures#Images. Garion96 (talk) 14:47, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

You also shouldn't use templates either as the transclusion can slow down page loading. Mr.Z-mantalk¢Review! 17:47, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

Image name

Simply, how do you change the name of an image? Simply south 17:03, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

As you have probably seen, there is no Move tab. If there is no established policy, I would suggest re-uploading it with a new name; placing {{db-author}} on your old image (it is yours, I assume?); and changing any links as required. Adrian M. H. 17:45, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

• There's policy about renaming images, as there is with articles, but there's no move functionality because you can't redirect image links to display the proper image if it moves. If it's not yours, remember to include all the information from the previous uploader before adding a deletion tag to the old image. - Mgm|^(talk) 20:09, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

Adding Infoboxes

I'm attempting to add infoboxes to a wiki page on a whole other site -- but the "how to" pages are completely baffling to me. I get incomplete boxes and stuff that looks nothing like what an infobox is supposed to look like.

18:34, 18 March 2007 (UTC)Kate

• What kind of infobox are you trying to add? Try thinking of a similar subject and try using how that is coded as an example for the one you want to make. - Mgm|^(talk) 19:58, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

By "whole other site" do you mean a MediaWiki wiki other than Wikipedia? If so, is the infobox template that you are trying to use actually on the other wiki? Wikipedia has tons of stuff that people have added to the basic MediaWiki software; other MediaWiki wikis may be missing things you use on Wikipedia. If something you need is missing on the other wiki, you may need help from a more advanced user to help you copy all the pieces from Wikipedia, or you may need help from the wiki's system administrator to install missing extensions (such as the m:ParserFunctions extension that some of the fancy infoboxes use).

If the infobox template you are trying to use is on your other wiki, browse to its page. It will have a name something like: Template:Infobox whatever, and click "What links here" in the toolbox. That will show you a list of pages on the wiki that use that infobox. To illustrate this on Wikipedia, Special:Whatlinkshere/Template:Infobox Software shows all the pages that use the Infobox Software template (their entries say "transclusion" after the page name). Find a page that uses your infobox properly, and then copy the wikitext from that page and edit it with your infobox values. --Teratornis 04:22, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

Messages

Yes, I'm new. How do I delete messages? By the way, I'm NOT registered user...

75.68.132.121 18:48, 18 March 2007 (UTC)Thanks, M75.68.132.121 18:48, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

Do you mean delete messages off your talk page? If you do then do not do this unless they are offensive, if a user talk page gets to full then archive it so they are viewable at later dates. Cheers!! Tellyaddict 19:01, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

I suppose this refers to the bug where the new message bar does not disappear for anons, even after the message is viewed. You have to create an account right now, though it should be fixed soon. It is listed as bug 9213. Prodego ^talk 19:12, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

See WP:ARCHIVE Scottydude 16:23, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

It's a ornage-brown bar across the near-top of every page of Wikipedia I go on, and it says "You have a new message (last change)"

ned zelic

now playing football for dinamo tbilisi in georgia since january 2007 —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 212.72.139.230 (talk) 19:15, 18 March 2007 (UTC).

I've copied the above to Talk:Ned Zelic; hopefully editors who follow that article will update it. If not, feel free to edit Ned Zelic yourself. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 20:38, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

grand theft auto(series)

what ever happened to the timeline of grand theft auto? was it removed? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 68.198.212.219 (talk) 19:33, 18 March 2007 (UTC).

Possibly deleted--SUIT^양복 19:36, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

It was deleted; see Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Timeline of Grand Theft Auto III canon Dave6 ^talk 22:13, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

If you're looking for it, the above-referenced deletion discussion says someone transwikied it to GTA Wiki. In general, computer-game enthusiasts seem far along on setting up their own wikis to store content deemed unencyclopedic by Wikipedia. So when will Google give us a search on all public wikis while excluding all non-user-editable sites? That would make it easier to track down all the transwikied articles. That might also cut down on the number of articles for deletion on Wikipedia, as people who want to make unencyclopedic articles here might find those articles already under construction elsewhere, and go help to edit them there. --Teratornis 04:01, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

Choose what OS to boot from

Hi there! When I bought Vista a month ago I also got a new harddrive to install it on. When the new HDD was plugged in I just put in the Vista DVD and the installation went perfect. Since many drivers won't do well in Vista I was clever enough to keep XP on the other drive, the problem is just that I can't get my PC to boot it without opening the case and switching the SATA wires. I just want to be able to choose what OS to boot from, every time I start the PC. I know it will make me choose if there are two on the same HDD, but how should I do if they are on different drives? Help... :/ 213.64.150.116 20:26, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

Please ask this question at the Reference desk - you'll find a link at the top of this page to the computer section, where someone will be happy to help you. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 20:39, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

Usage

When should this dotted box be used? Clarityfiend 21:26, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

I believe the only time you generally use that box is when demonstrating Wikimarkup. -- Chairman S. Talk ^Contribs 21:38, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

It's also handy for demonstrating source code and command line examples. Many Unix program articles have examples which use the space indent style. A good one is in: Pipeline (Unix)#Example. A system administrator who wants to document system adminstration procedures on a corporate wiki will use lots and lots of those dotted boxes (speaking from personal experience there). Articles on Wikipedia which aren't about MediaWiki markup or computer programming or DOS or Unix or markup languages in general (such as HTML, XML, XSL, DocBook, etc.) or configuration files or some other computer science-y topic probably won't have much use for the dotted box. --Teratornis 03:49, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

Crop image, public domain?

I want to crop this image's vertical sides. It is released as public domian by the City of San Diego. Do I have the legal right to edit the picture by cropping off part of the picture? Thanks -ChristopherMannMcKay 23:19, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

Yes you do, as long as you still credit the creators of the image. -- Chairman S. Talk ^Contribs 23:23, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

The disclaimer page seems to contradict itself:

"Unless a copyright is indicated, information on the City of San Diego Web site is in the public domain and may be reproduced, published or otherwise used with the City of San Diego's permission."

But:

"Using or modifying this site's materials and information for commercial or profit making purposes is prohibited and may violate the copyrights and/or other proprietary rights of the City of San Diego or third parties."

You should probably email them for clarification. --NE2 23:36, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for clarifying. As for the public domain, it says "commercial or profit making purposes" and Wikipedia is a non-profit -ChristopherMannMcKay 23:40, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

"Public domain" means unrestricted use. The text on the San Diego website was not written by a lawyer, because they would know that "public domain" means that you explicitly don't need permission. You're going to need to ask them. Mike Dillon 23:44, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

Also, Wikipedia cannot use photos with non-commercial restrictions, non-profit only, etc. It must be released for all usages, without fee (but with credit is OK). Notinasnaid 23:51, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

Sadly, this is not quite the case. "Public domain" means multiple things - whilst it is a term of art with regards to copyright law, it is used to mean other things in different contexts, and some of those may crop up in "reuse permission" situations. It may, and in many contexts does, mean that it is simply comprised of public information - it is not secret information, it is not information that is a trade secret, it is something that is "public knowledge". (Detailed CIA intel reports are, for example, public domain in that they cannot assert copyright, but they are certainly not "public domain" in that the information is not publicly known or able to be publicly disseminated). As such, it's a bad idea to jump to the conclusion that "public domain" is always and invariably a Magic No Copyright Incantation, regardless of the apparent intention of the author - and, to me, the apparent intention of the author is clearly not "copyright-PD" here, as they give usage restrictions in the same page. Shimgray | talk | 23:59, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

Sure it means different stuff in other contexts, but in copyright statements, it generally means "public domain" in the copyright sense, not the public knowledge sense. That being said, it looks like we're in agreement that the licensing statement is ambiguous as worded and likely does not amount to actually releasing the image into the public domain in the sense that is needed for it to be usable on WP. The original image is probably not usable either, not just modified versions. Mike Dillon 00:05, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

Can you delete questions

Can you delete questions that you have typed???????? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.4.101.237 (talk • contribs)

You should not delete questions. Other people may have similar questions, and seeing your answers, may learn what they need. In time, questions on this page will be archived, and removed from here, but still kept. Notinasnaid 23:32, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

Making Recommendations to Wikipedia for Site Changes, & A Few Actual Recommendations Due to Not Having Another Place to Propose Them

I've searched all over the "contact us" & "questions" pages for a place to merely make suggestions, and was at a loss.

1) I really think such a place and easy means to find it should exist.

That is, there should be a forum for users to recommend improvements to Wikipedia.

And here are 3 of these recommendations, for a lack of a more appropriate place to post them:

2) Wikipedia should offer its users the option to mark certain articles as a 'favorite,' so while logged in, users can easily return to - via a list - any number of articles they personally value.

3) Wikipedia should have a "did you mean" feature when users search for a misspelled term, such as the one dictionary.com offers. If one looks up a word in dictionary.com and it is misspelled, the site offers several suggestions of words that the user may have meant to write. This will not only help people find the articles they are seeking, in an age where spelling is worsening due to computer spell checks, but will also help people find articles they seek that may be worded just a little differently than how they wrote their search term.

For example, 'Pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis' is a word in the english language. But if one replaces the last vowel with an 'o' to yield: 'Pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosos', then Wikipedia falls short of suggesting any similar terms.

4) Finally, Wikipedia should have an FAQ which allows a user to literally ask a question, and the site will direct the user to possible FAQ's that may answer their inquiry, based upon keywords in their question. Friendster.com has such an FAQ (when contacting customer service, any inquiry will be filtered through such a system).

Thank you Sincerely,

Danfogel 23:52, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

Actually, you can list proposals at the Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals) page. In response to your ideas though:

1. The page I listed above
2. You can add a page to your watchlist. There is a check box when editing or you can click the watch tab on the top of a page. Then just click on my watchlist at the top of the screen to see all changes to watched pages. To see the full list, while looking at the Watchlist page, click "View and edit the complete list"
3. I believe we did have something like this, but it took up too much server power. You can search Wikipedia through Google though.
4. This could be a good idea. Mr.Z-mantalk¢Review! 23:58, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

• (^{Edit conflict})We actually have a number of those things, for instance, if you'll go to Special:Preferences, and click on the Watchlist tab, you'll see a number of options, there should also be a tab in the top right corner of you page that says watch, clicking that will add the page you're viewing to your Special:Watchlist--VectorPotential^Talk 00:00, 19 March 2007 (UTC)
• There is a searchable FAQ called Nubio. Can't remember who created it. - Mgm|^(talk) 05:46, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

March 19

todays position of sun

does today sun esclspe will occure? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 61.2.190.6 (talk) 01:00, 19 March 2007 (UTC).

• Probably better to ask on the reference desk, this desk is for asking questions about wikipeida, the reference desk is better suited to answer general knowledge questions--VectorPotential^Talk 01:02, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

This question is easy to answer by browsing to the obvious Wikipedia article, and following some links. According to Solar eclipse: The last solar eclipse happened on March 19, 2007, while the next total solar eclipse will occur on August 1, 2008. The March 19 eclipse has a small entry in List of solar eclipses#21st century. The next eclipse promises to be more spectacular, and it has a nice article: Solar eclipse of 2008 August 1. --Teratornis 18:39, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

Articles vs Talk/Discussion -

1. Why are there two terms for the same thing : Talk and Discussion ?

2. It is said that Articles are to be "encyclopedic" in content. Fine, seems OK.

However, what is the intended content for Talk/Discussion ?

Some users criticize certain Talk/Discussion postings, saying that "This is an encyclopedia not a forum for putting forth one's beliefs or opinions ..... ".

How could Talk/Discussion be "encyclopedic" in nature ? What would be left for the Article ? It seems to me that ANY discussion has to start with opinions or beliefs and be worked with an open mind toward consensus.

Am I confused or are they ? Allenwoll 01:51, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

In general, the overarching rule for discussion on talk pages is that it should relate to how to make the encyclopedia article better, or how to maintain it. Wikipedia is not a discussion forum, which means two things:

1. Discussing the subject of the article, rather than the article, is discouraged. For example, asking "Does anyone think that Bush is neo-conservative?" on Talk:George W. Bush is not as appropriate as asking "Should the article include the assertion that Bush is neo-conservative?"
2. Arguing about the subject of the article, rather than discussing the article. For example, stating "I think that communism is better than capitalism" on Talk:Communism is not a good idea, and such comments will generally be removed.

There's often a fine line between the two. Some related reading, if you're interesting in this, is WP:NOT#FORUM, WP:NPOV, WP:FRINGE. and WP:OR. Gracenotes^T § 01:59, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

• (edit conflict) Talk/discussion pages (there really is no difference) are for discussing the article, project, policy, proposal, etc. that the page is a talk page of. For example, Talk:God is for discussing the article God, resolving content disputes, suggestions for improvement, etc. It would not be for discussing opinions of God. It isn't really designed to be encyclopedic in its own right but to make the article more encyclopedic. Also, the talk page for a band is for discussing the article, not for gossipping about members of the band. See WP:TALK for more info. Mr.Z-mantalk¢Review! 02:00, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

Referring to item 1 in the original question, "talk" vs. "discussion": using two or more terms to refer to one feature in a system is an ergonomic design flaw I call synonym disease. Synonym disease makes learning the system more difficult for new users, whose first challenge is to learn the meanings of all the terms displayed by the system itself, used in its documentation, or mentioned by experienced users when they discuss the system. Technical writing handbooks stress the need to identify and define all the terms which have specific meaning with regard to a system. The converse of synonym disease is overloading, when a single term refers to more than one unrelated feature or action in a system. In a well-designed system, there is a one-to-one correspondence between terms and features. Every feature of the system has a distinct name, and each name refers to one feature. A third type of problem is the unnamed feature, a feature which is just there but has no name at all whereby people may refer to it. A skilled documenter will attempt to name all unnamed features, and negotiate with developers to introduce the names into the system. Since most developers are not documenters, the terminology they invent or accumulate as they develop systems may be to some extent accidental (that is, not guided by knowledge of ergonomic design principles), and as a result is not optimally learnable by new users. If documenters are regarded as equal members of the development team, they may be able to clean up instances of synonym disease, term overloading, and missing terms which almost invariably plague new system designs. The fact that the "talk"/"discussion" instance of synonym disease persists this late into MediaWiki's development (and, as far as I can tell, it persists unnecessarily) suggests that the MediaWiki development team has no member who understands what synonym disease is and why it is a problem, or the team has such a member whose advice is ignored. --Teratornis 19:05, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uranium

You should check this page. At least on my computer the graphics looked to be in the wrong category. Emphasis on the GORY.

Regards,

<email removed>—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 69.30.168.121 (talk) 02:08, 19 March 2007 (UTC).

It appears fine to me. What do you mean by "category"? Gracenotes^T § 02:29, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

It was vandalized earlier today. See Special:Contributions/Alexneu0. Titoxd^{(?!? - cool stuff)} 02:32, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

Conures

Hi,

I created an article about a month ago on Maroon-bellied conures, but yesterday I was informed that the picture I uploaded is no longer there, nor is the caption. This is a picture I took with my own camera, so I'm curious as to what happened to it, why, and when it will be put back.

74.117.70.17 06:39, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

Did you place an image copyright tag on the image information when you uploaded it? If not, then the image is permanently deleted. Real96 08:45, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

• Actually, image deletion can now be undone I think. I can't find any evidence such an article existed. Are you sure you didn't misspell the article title? If I can find the article, I can figure out what happened to the image (provided you inserted it into the article after you uploaded). - Mgm|^(talk) 08:46, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

flagicon|Brazil

I frequently view pages containing lots of flagicons. Sometimes, all the flagicons display properly except for Brazil. Do you know any reason why that would be? Consider my sandbox - the first (UK) flagicon displays properly, but the second (Brazilian) one dies not. If I hover my mouse over the Brazilian flagicon, I get a popup box saying "imagepage preview failed :( Is the query.php extension installed?". Thanks. DH85868993 06:52, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

That has happened to me as well, but to other images. Are you using popups? It could be something due to that instead, as the picture is still fine when I click on it. –- kungming·2 ^(Talk) 06:57, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

Yes, I'm using popups. DH85868993 07:03, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

Hello, DH. It looks fine to me (I checked a few of my articles where I have used the Brazilian flag and they are okay). I noticed you use Brazil rather than BRA, though that should not make any difference as far as I know. Anyway, since it appears to display correctly for most users, I wouldn't worry about it. Adrian M. H. 18:31, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

Cool. Thanks. DH85868993 23:29, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

OK, I Interned/was a Congressional Aide and Was Wondering

I very briefly (read 1 week) did an unpaid internship for US Senator Mary Landrieu (I have never worked on her article, although I have made a comment on her talk page). I was wondering, is there a list of ISPs and known Wikipedia editors who have been on Congressional staffs, and have changed Congressional articles? Total number of such known editors? Also, did I break policy? Just wondering. Thanks. Zidel333 07:14, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

Per the privacy policy, that information can not be released. Also, wikipedia is not a social network. Cheers! Real96 07:33, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

In reply to your second question: no, you haven't broken any Wikipolicy, because you haven't made any edits that could be considered conflicts of interest. -- Chairman S. Talk ^Contribs 09:26, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

I was just curious about the information. Thanks for your help. Zidel333 15:23, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

By the way, Real96, you pipe external links with a space not a pipe. I've fixed it for you above. --ais523 15:33, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

Is there a way

to access a random article within a given category? Just curious. -- Lenoxus 08:10, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

Unless you are talking about Special:Recent changes, I don't think so. Real96 08:14, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

This feature doesn't exist, but a request has been made to the developers that it be implemented: bugzilla:2170. The developers are generally very busy, so it's unlikely that it will be implemented any time soon. Hope that helps! --ais523 09:27, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

It does; thanks. -- Lenoxus 16:42, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

Did you know Wikipedia has a table of contents?

There is a proposal at the Village pump to add it to Wikipedia's main menu.

The Transhumanist   09:10, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

I'm embarrassed to say that I didn't know Wikipedia has a table of contents. -- Chairman S. Talk ^Contribs 09:27, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

Entrtainment - March 12 & 13

What happened to the archive? These dates are missing. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 71.100.3.92 (talk) 10:12, 19 March 2007 (UTC).

What archive? Entertainment's talk is located here here. Real96 10:38, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

Books

I'm trying to write the page for the book La colmena, is there some sort of template for articles on novels that I could base it around or am I best off basing it on a featured article? L.omahony 11:27, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

The best thing to do would be read the suggestions at Wikipedia:WikiProject Books, and use a featured article as a guide. -- Chairman S. Talk ^Contribs 11:31, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

Saving Articles

To whoever it may concern.

I registered at Wikipedia because I find it the most useful encyclopedia ever. I would like to know if there is the possibilty to save articles and create a list of articles I read.

Thank you for your help.

Sarah Ferracini - Lily13sh Lily13sh 12:11, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

It's not entirely obvious what you mean by 'save articles'; if you want to keep track of which articles you've read and changes to them, you could try using your watchlist. Although designed to track changes to a selection of pages and discussions about them, you can also use it as a list of pages you've read; click on 'watch' at the top of a page to watch it, and 'my watchlist' to see changes to articles on your watchlist. Hope that helps! --ais523 12:15, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

• Since you registered an account, you can use the "watch this page" feature to put an article on your watch list. As for saving articles, your browser undoubtedly has a save option in the file menu. - Mgm|^(talk) 12:16, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

Small Town notability.

I have a question regarding the notability of small towns. Browsing and fixing/speedying new pages, i often notice people creating articles on small towns, often from one specific area, that contain little to almost no content. An example being in progress right now are the articles done by this user. Now, do these article deserve to be on wikipedia? They offer zero information, however, i have heard people saying before that real places are notable enough by default. Could someone give me a heads-up? Thank you. ~ | twsx | ^talk_cont | 13:37, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

Real towns, villages and major city districts and other such communities or places are generally considered inherently notable, see Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Common_outcomes for more. As for those specific articles, I think that even a short definition is better than nothing. Hopefully the articles will be expanded later. --KFP (talk | contribs) 13:44, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

I doubt that. I've seen people create dozens of articles like that a couple of times before, and they were always left like that. However, thanks for the link, my question has been answered, now i know. Thank you. ~ | twsx | ^talk_cont | 13:52, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

• There's a bot that creates town articles for American census data for every city/town/village in the States. This precedent would strongly imply all towns are notable. WilyD 14:03, 19 March 2007 (UTC)
• Yes, I consider towns inherently notable, but I would recommend against writing an article unless you can write one or two paragraphs. - Mgm|^(talk) 19:26, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

Font renderings

Special characters sometimes don't render correctly in my browser. I'm running the most recent version of Firefox on Mac OS X. The most obvious current examples of incorrect characters appear in articles concerning playing cards—I can't see any suits. See Clubs (suit) for a good example. — atchius (msg) 14:08, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

Check to see if you have a font installed with the characters in; it's quite possible that you can't see the characters because your computer doesn't have an appropriate font. --ais523 15:04, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

Thanks, I found out that my chosen typeface (for websites which don't specify one) didn't include the characters—I really quite like Optima though, so I think I'll stick with this. — atchius (msg) 15:19, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

NGWA

I have searched high and low but I am unable to find the answer :( I have attempted to post a page about our orginization under Category:Hydrology_organizations which was successful. The only problem is the "user: in front of the NGWA. How do I list the page under NGWA so that is appears under the "N's" and not "U" Thank you for your help Ngwa 14:09, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

Hello, if the user page User:Ngwa is meant to be an encyclopedia article, it should be moved to the title NGWA in the main namespace. I will do the move now. --KFP (talk | contribs) 14:24, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

You have placed the article on your User page. For help on starting an article in the article space, see Help:Starting a new page. But first, you might want to see if your organization is notable enough. Dismas|^(talk) 14:25, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

Thank you for your help —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Ngwa (talk • contribs).

• Please do not create or edit Wikipedia pages about your own organisation! Please read Wikipedia:Conflict of interest. Thank you. Notinasnaid 16:40, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

Image removal

How do I remove an image I uploaded —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Chevettev6 (talk • contribs).

• Generically you can't - when you upload an image you license it for use under [{GDFL]] or (in your case) you released it into the public domain, so you no longer "own" it. WilyD 15:02, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

If you have a good reason, you can place {{db-author}} on its image description page (you should be able to find the image description page in Special:Contributions/Chevettev6) to request that an administrator deletes the image. (You might want to explain your reasoning in your edit summary.) --ais523 15:03, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

Sunrise Senior Living - "Financial Controversy" Section

March 19, 2007

Dear Wikipedia Editors:

My name is Jamison Gosselin and I am director of Corporate Communications for Sunrise Senior Living. I'd like to express a concern with you about a article addition made to the Sunrise Senior Living entry on February 7, 2007 by an unknown source. Sadly, I believe it violates the founding principles of Wikipedia and many of your rules. It offers biased, innaccurate and unattributed information. We believe this entry is part of a bag of tactics a labor union is using to misinform the public -- far from the purpose of an encyclopedia.

I'd like to take this opportunity to point out issues with the posting and how it violates your rules related to attribution and unbiased sourcing. It also clearly violates your policy related to conflicts of interest related to campaigning and citing oneself.

1) Financial Controversy - I've been here four years and am not aware of any financial controversy. One union organization with 500 shares of stock in Sunrise (we have millions of shares) sent us a letter in November asking us to look into our stock option grants and insider trade practices. We are currently doing that. There is no controversy.

2)The Times and Post do cover Sunrise because we are a publicly trade company -- but I am not aware of any articles that go into the depth of information provided in the next few sections.

3) These paragraphs are not written in an unbiased way and these matters are all evolving. None of the information in this section has been verified and frankly, I'm not sure where the submitting party got the information.

4) Questionable Accounting Practices - The review is being performed by Sunrise and was initiated by us. I'll spare you the many details to this item, but the information provided by the poster is full of generalizations and misleading statements. The consequences when all is said and done are not serious.

5) Stock Option Grants - Again, I'm not sure where they got this information from or where the poster can say "grants appear fortuitously timed." Again, this is biased information and unattributed information.

6) Related Links - www.sunriseshareholders.org. This "organization" is actually operated by the labor union that has launched a broad campaign against Sunrise and only represent the labor union. It is not some vast shareholder organization -- most of our shareholders are institutional banks, mutual funds and the founders of the company.

We ask that Wikipedia consider our information and then remove the portions of the Sunrise article posted on February 7, 2007. I have a lot of respect for the philosophy and structure of Wikipedia. It is a shame people would rather treat it as a campaign blog or salacious tabloid. An encylopedia should provide attributed and unbiased information and not be used as a weapon by groups determined to destroy a others.

I can be found as username QualityLife123 or feel free to contact me at (email removed to protect you from email-harvesting spammers). I look forward to your thoughts on this matter.

Sincerely, Jamison Gosselin Director, Corporate Communications Sunrise Senior Living —The preceding unsigned comment was added by QualityLife123 (talk • contribs) 15:51, 19 March 2007 (UTC).

I've tagged the article {{NPOV-section}} as an immediate response; I suspect people are looking in to it now. The entire section was added by an anonymous user, Special:Contributions/68.72.114.229, which looks suspicious; the section was blanked without a reason and then restored by vandalism patrollers. One big worry here is that the article (and section) isn't sourced; if you know some sources from outside the company (if you have a link to the relevant newspaper articles, for instance), that will help to set the matter straight. As it is, the amount of unsourced information in the article is worrying, and I'm not entirely sure that the article at present contains much useful information at all; you seem to have added most of the text to a section in a way that brings up conflict of interest concerns, and the IP seems to be even more biased the other way. (In fact, I'm wondering at the moment whether the article would be more useful as a stub than it is at the moment.) Do any other Help Desk responders have an idea as to what to do about this? --ais523 16:05, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

I have deleted the whole Financial Controversy section as it has zero references and likely breaks WP:BLP by suggesting directors of financial malpractice. Diff = [8]. Cheers Lethaniol 16:16, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

(edit conflict)

I'm not going to revert the deletion because of the lack of references and the violation of WP:BLP.

However, although I don't have time to dig into the details this morning, a quick Google search on the terms "Sunrise Assisted Living insider stock sales" suggests that there is plenty of fire behind the smoke. Someone should follow up on this and provide citations for those facts that can be backed up by reliable sources and remove anything that cannot be verified. --Richard 16:18, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

It would be nice if someone who knew more about the subject area would find a source for anything in the entire article, in fact. The section blanking was needed without sources, though. (This discussion should probably be on the article's talk page Talk:Sunrise Senior Living.) --ais523 16:23, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

(editconfict)I totally agree with this - but the citations are a must otherwise WP:BLP issues are massive (and still). Please note I will cut and paste this discussion to the article's talk page. Cheers Lethaniol 16:24, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

Copyright issue

Hello, because I am new in the world of Wikipedia, I would like to ask you for the copyright issue about the uploaded images. Specifically, I uploaded an image which is mine, I mean that I shooted the image from my digital camera and at the stage of uploading I chose the option Own work, copyleft, multi-lisence e.t.c. I would like to know If I chose the appropriate copyright. A user tried to help me by mentioning the links with the tags but I finally didn't found a way to solve the problem . Thank you. Curunvir 16:43, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

Since you took the image, you choose the copyright; it's alright like that. · AO ^Talk 16:45, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

Unless it was a picture of a copyrighted work (like a painting, poster, book, CD cover, film or software on screen etc.) Notinasnaid 16:47, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

Assuming that you do own the copyright for the picture (likely in most cases), make sure you choose a copyright licence that Wikipedia can use; anything in the section under 'self-made licences' is fine (make sure you're willing to release the image under such a licence before you upload it, though). --ais523 16:49, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

What exactly is the purpose

of the interwiki "links" on pages? They don't seem to show up on the articles themselves (which is why I put "links" in quotes), and if I want to access them, it seems I have to view the article source. Am I not looking hard enough? -- Lenoxus 16:45, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Interlanguage links. Check out the left navbar, at the bottom ;). -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 16:46, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

Problem editing Stefan LeFors

I am trying to edit Stefan LeFors' profile. and the Personal is too long, it stretches outside the box. maybe you can fix that. and also on the Teams list. I tried to put 2007 for Edmonton Eskimos. It put 2007 for Carolina, So i tried again, same thing. perhaps i'm not good at this. — Preceding unsigned comment added by LSUBaseballGod82 (talk • contribs)

• You had a space as the first character of a line which causes the box to appear. I've fixed it. Also, not that comments like "He loves his family very much" are not encyclopedic and violate the WP:NPOV policy. - Mgm|^(talk) 19:30, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

Doubt on linking to other languages

Hope this is the right place to ask this. I just wxpanded an article on Gastroschisis and then translated it and put it in spanish. How can I link the Spanish page in "other languages" in the English page and vice versa? Thank sou! Tibushi 18:53, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

Place a [[en:name of article in English]] at the bottom of the Spanish page, and [[es:name of article in Spanish]] at the bottom of the English page. See Wikipedia:Interlanguage links for more information. --ais523 18:56, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

Dear Wikipedia

Dear Wikipedia,

It's just natural for me to write a complaint to some company or person who has done something terribly wrong. Wikpedia had unaccurate information on Demond Tutu and many other topics. So, thanks to you, Wikipedia, I got a C on my thirty-three page report for "Use of un-accurate text." Thanks a lot. I went from an 97.46% in History, to a 76.89%. I can't get bad grades, I'm in eleventh grade, not first. Grades matter. When I apply for Harvard, or one of my other colleges I want to attend, they can't see a C, they have to see my straight A's that you've ruined.

Sincerely, Person who has no future in careers because of Wikipedia — Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.40.122.40 (talk) 07:30, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

And that is why you don't just use Wikipedia as a source, but get information from other sources as well. Veinor ^{(talk to me)} 20:33, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

Whilst I'm pretty sure this isn't real, see Wikipedia:Researching with Wikipedia for why Wikipedia shouldn't be relied on as an academic reference. -- Chairman S. Talk ^Contribs 20:42, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

If this is genuine, he/she is blaming an openly editable website for a shortcoming that arose largely from their own laziness.... Oh boy. Adrian M. H. 20:56, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

Yes, in fact, the irony is that the fault is entirely his/her own - any intelligent student would know not to rely on only a single source, particularly one off the internet. -- Chairman S. Talk ^Contribs 21:03, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

If you cannot recognize that an encyclopedia is not a source itself, only a summarization of external sources to make it easier to find general information and to start looking for research, then I doubt you would get into Harvard anyway. Don't blame the community for laziness, especially when it is beaten over the head not to use Wikipedia as a source in itself. -Wooty Woot? contribs 22:32, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

Volunteers

Are all of the Wikipedia contributors considered volunteers of the Wikimedia Foundation? Mr.Z-mantalk¢Review! 20:37, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

I believe that they are considered to be unrelated to the Wikimedia Foundation; using Microsoft Windows doesn't mean you're a Microsoft volunteer. But don't quote me on that. Veinor ^{(talk to me)} 20:38, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

Need help copy-editing the next lesson for the Virtual classroom

The next lesson for the Virtual classroom goes live on Wednesday, and we need proofreaders/copy-editors to help get it ready. Time is running out. Please help...

Fighting link spam.

If you are good at grammar, and explaining things so they are easy to understand, then we really need your help. Thank you. The Transhumanist   20:39, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

I was copy-editing it just now, but got an edit conflict. I had made too many changes to redo them, but I'd be happy to contribute to your work in the future. Adrian M. H. 21:11, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

I see a Dangling modifier in User:The Transhumanist/Virtual classroom/Yuser, on fighting link spam#Spambots. I will fix it now. --Teratornis 22:07, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

Creating an article

I just created an account and I am wondering, how do you create an article? Please help me out. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Alien joe (talk • contribs) 20:51, 19 March 2007 (UTC).

First, search for the name to make sure the article doesn't already exist under a different name. If there isn't one, Type the name you want in the search box and click "Go." Then click "create this page." However I strongly suggest you read up on some guidelines and help first like WP:N, Help:Starting a new page, WP:EDIT, and WP:CSD to make sure your article is appropriate for Wikipedia. Most new articles, especailly by new users are quickly deleted. That is why I suggest reading up on guidelines/policy and getting editing experience first, to know what is appropriate and how to write it (because a poorly written article is more likely to be deleted than a well written one). Mr.Z-mantalk¢Review! 21:05, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Your first article and Help:Starting a new page. For more information on contributing to Wikipedia, see Wikipedia:Introduction, Wikipedia:Contributing to Wikipedia, and Wikipedia:Tutorial. -- Chairman S. Talk ^Contribs 21:06, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

It's also good to read: Wikipedia:Why was my article deleted? before creating an article, rather than being shocked when it happens, and then wondering why. For some reason, it's almost a cliché that many new editors create new articles very early in their learning experience (hey, that's what I did too), and that approach has a rather low probability of success, given the complexity of Wikipedia's editing rules and the diligence of Wikipedia's legion of deletionists. Before starting a new article, it's good to try editing some existing articles. Also carefully check the List of wikis and search WikiIndex to see if another wiki is more suitable for the article you have in mind. Wikipedia has stricter editorial policies than many other wikis and is often not the most appropriate or welcoming wiki for a brand-new editor's first attempt to create an article. But when in doubt, just try it, and see what happens. --Teratornis 22:01, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

Underline code in title?

Please see this re [[Xá:ytem]] / Xá:ytem.Skookum1 21:04, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

Try

{{wrongtitle|title=Correct title}}

and see Wikipedia:Naming conventions (technical restrictions). Mr.Z-mantalk¢Review! 21:11, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

Topic: "Socialism"

I have added to external links: www.socialistworker.org The International Socialist Organization (I assure you, they exist). I added my signature to assure it is not a prank yet it keeps being erased. Sincerely, Camilo Rubinos 21:10, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

To which article? - Adrian M. H. 21:12, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

You're not supposed to sign your edits to articles; see WP:OWN. Veinor ^{(talk to me)} 21:13, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

• They might exist, but the link could still be unsuited to the article you added it to, or be considered WP:SPAM. You should discuss its addition on the article talk page. - Mgm|^(talk) 21:14, 19 March 2007 (UTC)
• The URL you gave seems to belong to a newspaper, rather than being the official site of The International Socialist Organization. The link was added under the heading of "organisations". Again, the best thing is to talk about this on the talk page of the article; these sort of decisions should be made by consensus, since clearly the article cannot link to every web page with a socialist connection. It would be as well to familiarise yourself with the guidelines in Wikipedia:External links so you can argue from a position of knowledge. Notinasnaid 22:31, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

Trial Transcripts

Depending on copyright issues and a couple other factors, I'm considering converting the Julie Amero Trial Transcript from the current format (41 PDFs each containing a handful of image scans of individual pages) to a more convenient format (straight text?). If I do so, I'm considering publishing the results on a WikiMedia Foundation project. It's not clear to me where it belongs. Wikipedia? WikiCommons? No WMF project? love, raiph 21:29, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

• Assuming you can iron out copyright issues, I'd say the most suitable place is Wikisource. - Mgm|^(talk) 21:31, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

• • Thanks for the reply and its speed. I'll go to WikiSource. love, raiph 22:53, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

adding my company web page as an external link

Hi there...

Am I allowed to add a company as an external link? E.g., I want to put an URL under the "external links" section for "Uninterruptible Power Supply". You already have links there for some vendors, so I am wondering how they got there, and how I can put our company URL there. Can you please advize. Thanks and have a great day!

Stephen —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Strimac (talk • contribs) 22:07, 19 March 2007 (UTC).

Certainly not one with which you have any association. WP:COI. If your company is notable in this field - at least comparable to existing links - someone else may well choose to add it of their own volition at some point. I would rather not see any commercial links whatsoever... See External Links for info - Adrian M. H. 22:21, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

• I took out most of the external links as they were just links to companies tha sold power supplies. External links should only be added if they contribute to the encyclopedic nature of the article. The ones I left were a site that just gave facts and a manufacturer's page that gave some general information. Mr.Z-mantalk¢Review! 22:29, 19 March 2007 (UTC)
  • And I took all of them out - see next section. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 22:53, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

adding my company web URL to a page

I would like to add a company webpage (as URL) to the "external links" section in you "Uninterruptible Power Supply" page. How do I do this? I noticed that you already have some external links there, so I was hoping to do the same. Please advize.Strimac 22:26, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

Why have you asked this twice?? - Adrian M. H. 22:28, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

I've removed the entire list of manufacturers of UPS systems, per WP:NOT - Wikipedia is not a directory. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 22:51, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

New Hampshire

when was new hampshire founded — Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.45.194.153 (talk) 09:32, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

This is better answered at Wikipedia:Reference desk/Humanities - the Help Desk is for Wikipedia related questions. -- Chairman S. Talk ^Contribs 22:35, 19 March 2007 (UTC)