Help desk/Archive 11 |
=What s wrong with this code=
I tried inserting an image in my talk page, it doesn t want to work. Here s the code, I can t find anything wrong with it:
= Is there an RSS feed for the main page =
I have looked for one and can t find it.
Every day I get news, history and general knowledge from the wp main page. Would love to have all the factual articles (not meta content) available in an RSS feed.
Apologies if it already exists and I ve missed it.
:Try http://jeays.net/rss.htm for some screen-scraping prototypes. I also worked up a My Watchlist RSS script, but ultimately I decided this wasn t all that useful. -- 06:48, 25 Nov 2004 (UTC)
Thanks very much for the response, Chinasaur. Anything official afoot in this area
:It s not RSS, but you might be interested in [http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/daily-article-l Today s featured article by email]. — 15:15, 4 Dec 2004 (UTC)
= Votes For Deletion =
God. EVERY time I try to nominate something for deletion I manage to screw it up, and I DONT understand why because I follow the instructions to a t. I have no idea how to fix my recent nominations (all Spongebob related.) Could someone go there and fix the, and then leave me a message to tell me what I did wrong 18:55, 6 Nov 2004 (UTC)
=Actor photographs=
Can a case for fair use be made for the use of portfolio mugshots of an actor Could I simply use a still from a movie that s spread amongst the press Or should I simply wait for a reply from the actor in question I d like the pic to be added fairly quickly, but I don t want to break copyright laws. Any comments welcome. 22:42, Nov 6, 2004 (UTC) :If you have a publicity shot that is typically given to the press, it should be fine. They are meant to be circulated and are not copyrighted because if they were, every publication that wanted to use them would have to call the publicist. Incidentally, I would think your best bet would be to get in touch with the actor s publicist. They typically send out autographed photos to anyone who writes in. 20:47, Nov 8, 2004 (UTC) ::No case for fair use could be made if the picture is under copyright. 20:47, Nov 8, 2004 (UTC) :::Being under copyright is a necessary precondition for 05:03, Nov 9, 2004 (UTC) All photographs are under copyright, yes even publicity stills. The copyright holder should be contacted and his permission obtained before submitting to Wikipedia. -- 21:59, 24 Nov 2004 (UTC)
= Hyperlinks =
How do you not show links within articles The whole page is filled with links and they are distracting. :There is an option in your user 02:15, 7 Nov 2004 (UTC) :What article is it you aree talking about Maybe it needs some de-wikifying.... 11:44, Nov 7, 2004 (UTC) :You can also add this to your user CSS. a {text-decoration: none; color: inherit;} ::— ) 04:12, Nov 18, 2004 (UTC) :::But, do be aware that if the number of links is not excessive, different coloured links will help with readability. ) 04:13, Nov 18, 2004 (UTC)
= How do I add a page to a category =
I created an article last night: Toasty. I d like to add this page to Category:Computer and video game terminology, because that is a term that has been used since the 1990 s. But I don t know where to start or request such a thing.
What should I do
*Place a link to 18:07, 7 Nov 2004 (UTC)
**Thanks! --
= I am getting a message to stop adding nonsense, but I have not done anything! =
Why do I occasionally get this message (look between lines of dashes):
User talk:198.81.26.46 From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Thanks for experimenting with Wikipedia. Your test worked, and has now been removed. Please use Wikipedia:Sandbox for any other tests you want to do, since testing material in articles will normally be removed quickly. Please see the welcome page if you would like to learn more about contributing to our encyclopedia. Thanks. Hadal 03:20, 5 Apr 2004 (UTC)
Please stop adding nonsense to Wikipedia. It is considered vandalism. If you want to experiment, please use the sandbox. Thank you.
Please stop. If you continue to vandalize pages, you will be blocked from editing Wikipedia.
I have done nothing on this site, except to find myself constantly browsing around on it with admiration! Some weeks ago, I did start one of the learn to edit pages, but did nothing with it.
At one point in my session today, all the characters on each page started displaying as small squares. I reloaded the site, and the problem stopped.
I am not trying to hurt the site, really. I can only be accused of spending too much time while I should be doing laundry!! :Thanks for your note -- the comments you re talking about almost certainly aren t aimed at you. If you look again at that talk page, you ll notice a note in italics that many Internet users share IP addresses (i.e., when you dial up to the Internet, you re accessing through a server that others also use for access). Unless you sign up for a 20:26, 7 Nov 2004 (UTC)
= Fix redundant capilisation in a title =
I created 01:20, 8 Nov 2004 (UTC)
:I don t know what the problem was, but I tried moving it and it worked. It s now at 05:10, Nov 8, 2004 (UTC) :Thanks Matt (for the record, it kept teling me the page already existed) 09:55, 8 Nov 2004 (UTC)
= Prejudicial report on current court-case =
Hi. I m a new user and haven t yet mastered all the policies but found this new page 13:26, 9 Nov 2004 (UTC) :In my opinion that page is a news article, not an encyclopedia article. I have listed it for deletion; its entry is 15:41, 9 Nov 2004 (UTC)
= Copyright question =
I don t usually do images, but I have a drawing I want to upload. The drawing is originally from a book published in Austria in 1918. The copyright should have expired by now, right 15:43, 9 Nov 2004 (UTC) :Under U.S. federal law, which I believe is extended to other friendly countries by a number of treaties, a copyright does not expire until 70 years following the author s death. If the publisher is still around, I would contact them for permission. If not, I would say it s pretty safe as being pretty darn close to public domain , but it s not clear-cut. I m finding more and more that copyright law is really never clear-cut, so err on the side of caution. Personally, though, I would say you are pretty safe. 16:50, Nov 9, 2004 (UTC) *I thought anything published in the U.S. before 17:22, Nov 9, 2004 (UTC) :You re right. Works published prior to 1923 outside of the U.S. are now public domain. Thanks, PS. Isomorphic, you are good to go. 17:45, Nov 9, 2004 (UTC) ::Thanks. Image uploaded and added to 22:45, 9 Nov 2004 (UTC)
= Indirectly related categories =
What, if any, is the one true way to link to categories that do not properly fall within the scope of a category, but I consider it rather likely that people will want (ie. wrong from the database POV, right from the navigational concenience POV)
Example: In [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Proof_theory Category:Proof_theory], I d quite like something along the lines of:
Possibly you wish to find material from one of the indirectly related categories : [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtmltitle=Special:Categories&article=Category%3AProofs Category] : [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Heuristic Heuristic] | [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Proofs Proofs]
to appear just between the catmore template and the main listing of category contents ---- 09:24, 10 Nov 2004 (UTC)
:To refer to a category, all you need to do is put a colon in from of the name in the wikilink, for instance 14:45, 10 Nov 2004 (UTC)
::Thanks, this solves the technical part of my question. As to the other part, is this idea of a template for indirectly related categories something that sounds reasonable stylewise ---- 16:04, 10 Nov 2004 (UTC) ::Why not - go ahead and make one, and we ll see if people use it. You should probably mention it on Wikipedia:Catagorization, the Village Pump and other places when you do, so people will know to use it.
= editing issue =
I ve managed to screw up http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reflexology_chart The links to Sciatic and Appendix both reference the edit page, not the actual Wiki entry. Is this some bug related to the use of tables, or is there something else I m missing
Found the problem - The actual wiki entry didn t exist.
= category question =
I tried to create a category 11:59, 10 Nov 2004 (UTC)
Sorry, that link won t work. I m more confused than ever now. But you can get there via 12:09, 10 Nov 2004 (UTC) :(I ve corrected the link. Add :Category to go to the category itelf. 14:42, 10 Nov 2004 (UTC))
:I don t think you ve done anything wrong. The Category exists, but hasn t got a page to go with it. The page is really just to explain what the category is, and to link to other categories that this Category is a sub-category of. You don t neccesarily need an explanation, but in any case put the Category in at least one other category, as you would articles. You can edit the page as you would any other article. 14:24, 10 Nov 2004 (UTC)
::There: that s looking a bit more healthy. You now need to see if there are any other similar articles that can become subcategories of 14:42, 10 Nov 2004 (UTC)
= Making a contribution marked with my IP to be marked with my username =
I started an Article about my project New Millennium Orchestra, but I forgot to log in. Can I make it to my username instead of showing my IP
Thanks!
:(Question moved from top of page, notice left on .)
:See 16:44, 10 Nov 2004 (UTC)
= Resolving NPOV disputes =
Take a look at 17:28, 2004 Nov 10 (UTC)
:See 17:47, 10 Nov 2004 (UTC) ::That s exactly the link I was looking for. Thanks. 17:52, 2004 Nov 10 (UTC)
= Wikipedia reverts to old format when I login =
Hi, sometime in the last few months, Wikipedia got a wonderful new look/format, with a nice modern sans-serif font, and with the very useful tabs along the top edge of the article, etc. (was this the upgrade to MediaWiki 1.3) Anyway, Wikipedia stays modern only while I m anonymous; when I login, Wikipedia reverts to the old/less-attractive format, with the Times/NewRoman font () etc. - ugh! I have searched around the helpdesk, FAQ, etc., to no avail. Oh yeah, this may be significant: I use the Opera browser. Help 19:44, 10 Nov 2004 (UTC)
:Could it be that your skin is set to something other than the default Try going to 20:19, 10 Nov 2004 (UTC)
::Bingo! My skin preference was not set to anything; setting it to MonoBook did the trick. Thanks Triskaideka!!! 20:43, 10 Nov 2004 (UTC)
= Chemical Notation =
I see there is a section in the help desk already on creating a chemical structural formula using ASCII art, but in a lot of the articles on various chemical groups people have used pictures, which look as if they have been created by a program. Is there a program somewhere that does this, or are these just pictures that have been nabbed from elsewhere
04:47, 11 Nov 2004 (UTC)
:Well, there is ChemDraw, but that program is by no means free...I mostly nab them from other places, too little creativity in the pictures to be copyrighted. I doubt you can copyright a picture of a chemical structure. 09:15, Nov 11, 2004 (UTC) ::OK, thanks. Looks like I ll stick to using ACII art then. 03:43, 12 Nov 2004 (UTC)
::: I m happy to create pictures for people. Try putting the ascii art (or a really clear description of what you want)on a page 22:19, 24 Nov 2004 (UTC)
= red links in featured articles =
I was considering suggesting an article for featured status, and wondered if the presence of links to as yet non-existent articles is considered a no-no in featured articles. Apologies if this is not the right place for this question, but the Featured article candidates didn t seem the place for a question about general principles.
13:34, 11 Nov 2004 (UTC) :Generally, the best place to start a discussion on something is wherever it will be seen by the people who would be interested in the discussion. In this case that would be either 18:48, 11 Nov 2004 (UTC)
::Thanks for your reply, but I wasn t aiming to start a discussion. I imagined this would be very much in the simply a question with a single response category. Perhaps there s no hard and fast rule about this which is why I haven t found one. 11:38, 12 Nov 2004 (UTC)
::: I would think that if the red-linked article is to an article that Wikipedia should have (at some point in the future) then this is completely fine. 11:46, 12 Nov 2004 (UTC)
::::Red links aren t a bar to a featured article, but you sometimes see people complaining about. They can be an indication that an article isn t sufficiently developed - anyone with the knowledge and background to write a featured article can usually at least write appropriate stubs for most of the related red links. 11:56, 12 Nov 2004 (UTC)
= Formatting tables =
In wikicode tables (the whole thing), is there any way to (1) control the width of the columns and (2) to specify the horizontal alignment of the contents of certain data cells 18:02, 11 Nov 2004 (UTC)
:Yes. See 22:28, 11 Nov 2004 (UTC)
= help with sorting out kinnaur copyvio =
I d like some advice about sorting out the Kinnaur copyvio. I ve checked and sufficient amounts of the article are copied word for word that I believe that it s a coypvio. At the same time, those who wrote it are not being cooperative (they delete requests for clarification from their talk pages e.g.[http://en.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtmltitle=Talk%3AKinnaur&diff=7267097&oldid=7252922]) , so I can t expect their help.
The biggest problem is that there is a reasonable amount of original material, but that the edit which introduced the first copyright violation is quite old [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtmltitle=Kinnaur&diff=6978538&oldid=6978533]. I m a bit unhappy to revert to the previous version to that. I may try going through the article and editing out apparently copyright material, but without cooperation it is very difficult to tell what is what.
Any suggestions 20:27, 2004 Nov 11 (UTC)
= no instructions, no clue =
This is about the most confusing site I ve been on. I simply want to vote against deleting the Election 2004 discrepancies article but there is absolutely no clue as to how to do that, as invited at the top of the page. It is a valuable collection of links and information and should be retained. I guess one must be a computer programmer to post on this site. :There are a lot of instructions. (See 01:19, 12 Nov 2004 (UTC) :If you want to add your vote to the debate, simply follow the link at the top of the article to 13:15, Nov 12, 2004 (UTC)
= Dundas Square =
I ve run across an article in Wikipedia that reads like it was written by a marketing hack for a Toronto landmark called Dundas Square. Is there a protocol for vetting this kind of information...this is beyond a rewrite. It really does need to be examined and done away with, IMHO.
:I ve given the article 13:03, Nov 12, 2004 (UTC)
= Diebold Message =
Is anyone else seeing the message Breaking news: Walden o Dell, CIO of Diebold arrested for rigging the Ohio election results! Kerry recognized as the rightful Present Of the United States! It was at the top of 16:03, Nov 12, 2004 (UTC)
:By being in the wikisource to a template the page included. The vandalism was to 18:36, 12 Nov 2004 (UTC)
= How to encourage someone to check a fact =
Twice yesterday, this newbie noticed facts in articles that may or may not be correct. I can t find out the correct version myself, but someone should. What s the correct way of dealing with things like that
Specifically, the article on Camille Pissarro claims both that he died on 12th November and 13th November. And the article on Ellis Island used to say that it closed on 12th November but now says that it closed on 29th November. In both cases, I tried to find out the correct date from other web pages, but I found both versions were stated about equally commonly.
I tried posting on the articles talk pages, but I m not sure if anyone reads those. Is that the correct place, or is there another location where I could usefully post such questions
Thanks for any guidance. 14:38, 13 Nov 2004 (UTC)
*The talk page is indeed the first place to start as anyone who has the underlying article on his watch list will be alerted to the presence of additions to the talk page. Be sure that you give it an edit summary that will prompt someone to read your query, something like: Two Contradictory Death Dates in Article or some such thing. Another good place for this is our reference desk at 15:10, Nov 13, 2004 (UTC)
= How do I handle transient information =
What do I do with information that is likely to change in the future For example, in the Chartered financial analyst article, I wanted to mention how many there were, and wrote as of 2004... . For another example, the article on Barak Obama starts: Barack Obama (born August 4, 1961) is an American politician, and U.S. Senator-elect from Illinois. which is clearly only applicable for the moment (as he will soon be a senator, not a senator-elect.
Is there some convention for this sort of thing I did not see anything on point in the style guide page.
: 15:43, Nov 13, 2004 (UTC)
= Hide the blue question mark =
I am very new to Wikipedia. I am trying to post some literal code. Parts of it, for example the text:
textureMap :SubFolder1:SubFolder2:MyTexture.jpg
Keep getting a blue inserted in the text (treated as a WikiWord). Is there any way to supress this
Also does Wikipedia have an equivalent to the HTML pre (pre-formated) tag, or is there a way to force the use of raw HTML
The site I am trying to post to is not the main Wikipedia site, but seems to be some sort of sub branch, and does not use the formating bar. the site is:
http://www.poserpros.com/wiki/PublicWiki/PublicWiki
: That site isn t a sub-branch of Wikipedia — rather, it s an unrelated website running similar Wiki software, so things will work differently in both places, especially since Wikipedia differs from the programming-wiki standard in a few important respects. In this case, the two important differences are that on conventional wikis, links to other articles appear in CamelCase, and links to articles that don t exist get the blue question mark you re seeing.
: As for the how to avoid , the help links at the bottom of the pages on that wiki are the best place to start. Their [http://www.poserpros.com/wiki/PmWiki/TextFormattingRules TextFormattingRules] suggest that [= this syntax =] is what you re after (under the Escape sequence heading there).
: Of course, since it s an unrelated website running different software, you ll probably find more help on that wiki should you encounter further problems there. 05:27, Nov 14, 2004 (UTC)
= 2 vandals on my IP. Help! =
(Mirrored on ) 23:59, 13 Nov 2004 (UTC) :As far as I know, registered users can have their name banned so other people with the same IP still have access. Maybe an admin on the vandalism in progress page can help you with that. 19:09, Nov 14, 2004 (UTC)
= Creating a User Page - description about onesself =
As a newly registered user, how should I create a user page If I just click on edit, whilst at my account it says on the edit page:
Please do not create an article to promote yourself, a website, a product, or a business (see Wikipedia:Policy).
So this cannot be right, becasue I am not allowed to create an article about myself on that page. So is there some special way of setting up these user pages And when it is set up, how do I get it to appear upon the structured lists (i.e. alphabetical, country) - is this a separate edit of some kind, or are they linked in some way )
: The user page isn t an article — articles are in the main namespace, and user pages are in the User: namespace. So you can happily create 01:17, Nov 15, 2004 (UTC) :To create your user page, click on your user name in the top right corner of the screen, next to the human head icon. That will take you to a new page where you can edit and add a description of yourself. To add yourself to the various lists, just go to list pages; find the proper part(i.e. what country you re from) and type ~~~(while logged in); this will create a link back to your User page(which you just created by following my instructions above). 02:04, 15 Nov 2004 (UTC)
= Text of language on interlanguage links =
Per 00:44, 15 Nov 2004 (UTC)
= Handling of Dates in Articles =
What is the protcol for handling years mentioned in articles. For example, if I write in a biographical article that someone ... did something in 1965 and did something else in 1966... is it supposed to be [1965] and [1966] I ask only because I notice other contributors putting in the [1965] syntax and I wonder if I am missing something.
Personally, I don t see much value to linking to the 1965 page, but does the link serve any other useful purpose
02:33, Nov 15, 2004 (UTC) ::Well, for dates it allows users to pick a date format. Check the help on Preferences for more info(I think). And, it should be 02:48, 15 Nov 2004 (UTC)
:::Linking a date like April 12, 2003 like this: 10:20, Nov 15, 2004 (UTC)
= How does the size of wikipedia compares with other encyclopedias =
I know that it would not measure quality, but I was wondering if anyone had any rough measure in terms of either number of articles, or number of megabytes, etc. 02:33, Nov 15, 2004 (UTC)
:See 02:38, 15 Nov 2004 (UTC)
=Cache problem on main page=
I ve updated Did you know and formatted some Main Page sections to wrap text around pictures and make sure the selected anniversaries stay within the table. After I purge the cache it looks fine, but when I went to look at another site and came back, I got the old version. All my changes are still intact when I look at the separate templates, what happened 10:17, Nov 15, 2004 (UTC) *Edit: I never had cache problems with this machine before. Now cleared my cache, no problems so far. 12:01, Nov 15, 2004 (UTC)
= Against Deletion =
An article I wrote is on the votes for deletion and I want to challenge the call for deletion. How do I effectively do that Please provide specifics, thank you. ::The best way to do this, is providing others with reasons why it is not against wikipedia policy to include it. If it s a small article, maybe you could incorporate the info in a larger article. What article are you talking about I might be able to be more specific if I know. 10:45, Nov 15, 2004 (UTC) ::If you happen to be talking about 10:50, Nov 15, 2004 (UTC)
=Main Page Tables=
The left table on the main page is pushing the right one away. Can someone fix it I can t find the problem. 12:42, Nov 15, 2004 (UTC) :That s easy enough: the left table is set at width 55%, the right one at 45%, hence the difference. (I m assuming you re referring to that, I can t find any other problem in either Firefox or IE). AFAIK, only an admin can fix that, if indeed it s something that should be fixed. 12:58, 2004 Nov 15 (UTC) I guess it s a problem combining 800x600 screen size with an odd Internet Explorer on a Mac. The right table is no more than 30% of the screen in what I saw. 13:16, Nov 15, 2004 (UTC)
= Timestamps =
How do people generate the nice, neat 00:29, 14 Nov 2004 (UTC) style dates Is there a tag you can use to automate timestamps to discussion entries
If there isn t, it d kick ass if there could be one. If there is, I d have been better able to find it if wikipedia:time, date, and/or timestamp had redirected to mention of it. [User:MrZaius]
( test: Hmm... that s weird. the DATE template exists, but not one for the whole unix time Surely I m missing something. )
23:48:56, Venezuala/Houston/Chicago/Evansville-time
:Use ~~~~ to generate the timestamp and name for discussions. - 05:56, Nov 16, 2004 (UTC) ::Try 07:41, 16 Nov 2004 (UTC)
= Category errors & NPOV =
There is an article under the category Ethnic Groups: African labeled Bantu . However, there is no such ethnic group as Bantu . Bantu is a term created by convention among European linguists, and dozens or hundreds of different ethnic groups speak languages categorized as Bantu linguistically. The Bantu-speaking peoples collectively share none of the features one might use to define an ethnic group; the ethnic groups who speak Bantu-languages vary widely along all of those features.
This is an issue of definition. It is comparable to writing Ethnic Groups: European: Indo-European. Indo-European isn t an ethnic group, and neither is Bantu.
Yet obviously someone has thought otherwise. I understand the basic idea of NPOV and don t have a problem about working with it within an article.
However, to have something that seems to me to be a factual, definitional error built into the very organizing structure of the information seems to pose a different sort of problem.
Is there a convention for dealing with this sort of difference of perception How much leeway is there I assume an article Animals: Fishes: Whales would not be permitted to remain, except perhaps to point out that this is a somewhat common error. Is that assumption correct
Ndlovu :I looked at the entry in question. It looks like the article itself makes it clear that Bantu is a linguistic and (to a lesser extent) cultural term, not an ethnicity. I suspect that it was categorized that way because even though Bantu is not an ethnicity, the ethnic groups who speak Bantu are not represented in individual articles yet. It s a way to make what information we do have on those peoples easier to find. :However, if you feel that having the ethnic group label is misleading readers, it s easy to recategorize it. You simply edit the article and add or remove category tags. In this case, you would remove the tag 16:03, 16 Nov 2004 (UTC)
= Moving Page Help =
Help! Someone moved 18:19, 16 Nov 2004 (UTC) :Your move would have worked if you had left the redirect in place, because if a redirect created by a previous move is left alone, then a move back will work. As it is, you will have to get the 20:00, 16 Nov 2004 (UTC)
= Numerous questions =
I have put a number of questions in my User page because they seem too long to foul up your Help desk with. The questions are listed in a part of the user page with a header shown as November 16, 2004 -- questions to all. I m really starting to become concerned I should remove my edits and stubs because I m not sure I m conforming to some of the standards listed in the citation citing discussion, verifiability, and perfect page discussions, though I m giving accurate info. Also concerned about the original research and neologisms discussions I just read. I wonder if someone could answer in my user talk page or if I need to write a long list of questions here I d have uploaded a photo or two by now also but I found the copyright discussion too hard to understand. For instance, if I am directly given a photo image by the photographer, who only asks that I put copyright and his name on it but approves it to be used, is that not good enough I don t really understand how to upload images. I don t understand how to make a new page for a historical figure with the same name as a currently existing page also. That issue has slowed me up some. Then if my information is directly from inquiring about birth/date/fact info from the person or their survivors, that might be thought original research. I m totally stymied at this point and fear I should remove my entries and edits. I have only been editing and writing about music figures in an area of my specialty in every case, except for a phrase or two related to an entry. Also, should I find a way to put my contributions list links into my user page so someone can go and tell review what I ve done and tell me what I need to work on, my flaws 20:23, 16 Nov 2004 (UTC) :I think most of my questions above are being answered at my user page, thanks. 16:31, 17 Nov 2004 (UTC)
= Spacing between paragraphs =
I have discovered today with the Stax entry that someone felt the spacing I added between paragraphs to make them readable was superfluous and removed them. I find it very hard to read articles from a design standpoint if you don t properly space between paragraphs. The only way to do this is to hit Enter three times between paragraphs instead of twice. However, no entries besides the ones I ve worked on do this. Therefore, regardless of what I think about the readability issue, I should go back and remove the spacing I added from all entries I ve edited, correct This is also a question in my user page. thanks, 20:25, 16 Nov 2004 (UTC)
:Yes, the same standard formatting should be used on all pages. Putting a single blank line between paragraphs makes the ... HTML tags that surround paragraphs work correctly. Putting an additional blank line adds an extra tag, which is superfluous, at least from an HTML perspective.
:If you don t like the amount of space between paragraphs, you can try editing your personal stylesheet ( , Monobook) to your liking. Try adding this line:
p { margin: 1.5em 0em }
:Make the number 1.5 smaller for less space between paragraphs, or larger for more. In order to see the results of your change, you ll need to follow the instructions on that page to clear your cache after you save the change.
:Part of the reason you want to be consistent about style issues like the number of blank lines between paragraphs is so everybody can tweak their stylesheet as they prefer and achieve uniform results. If you insert those extra spaces manually, you re forcing a certain style on everyone. HTH 21:00, 16 Nov 2004 (UTC) ::Thanks, I have edited my stylesheet according to the above and am now going to renew the spacing on all entries I edited that way to be the one line space. At least I didn t edit anything only to do spacing and nothing else though. 21:35, 16 Nov 2004 (UTC)
= edits =
Is there a way to transfer only certain information from one article to another
: By hand, usually -- copy it out of one, paste it into the other, then remove it from the first. Unless I misunderstand what you mean 03:47, Nov 17, 2004 (UTC)
= Contents tab =
I did a large bibliography section for 18:11, 17 Nov 2004 (UTC)
:Yes. See . You can put the text string __NOTOC__ anywhere in the body of an article to suppress display of its table of contents.
:Another option is to put a section heading close to the top of the article, so that the TOC shows up in a more sensible place. For example, in 18:28, 17 Nov 2004 (UTC)
::Thanks a lot!! I used the NOTOC option, since I m planning on expanding the article and don t want to edit its header structure right now :) -- 18:38, 17 Nov 2004 (UTC)
:::Personally, I think having a proper header structure is far better: only a short introduction should be outside all headers in anything but the smallest article. And then, of course, people can actually make use of the ToC to access the other parts of the article. I m going to do that now - you can, of course, revert, tweak, edit or whatever if you disagree with how I ve done it, or because you re expanding and rearranging it in general. - 18:50, 17 Nov 2004 (UTC)
::::Actually, yes, this looks better.. I think I ll leave it like that for a while, until I have a good cohesive text ready for the article. Thanks for your help! :) -- 21:35, 17 Nov 2004 (UTC)
= Adding images to article =
Help! I have this image of 21:38, 17 Nov 2004 (UTC)
:Take a look at 22:04, 17 Nov 2004 (UTC)
:That image is copyright either ESPN or the guy whose name is on the image itself. Please don t upload it, we have enough images claiming to be fair use already. -- 05:18, 18 Nov 2004 (UTC)
= Inappropriate links =
What is Wikipedia s official policy on inappropriate links
Specifically, there is a page about an actor with an external link leading to his nude pictures. Is this allowed
:Whether a link to nude pictures of an actor is appropriate depends on the particular actor. You re going to have to actually tell us what article you re talking about if you want a specific response on whether the link belongs. -- 05:23, 18 Nov 2004 (UTC)
::And if you re going to keep the link, at least put in a warning. 08:21, Nov 18, 2004 (UTC)
= Templates and Categories =
Is anyone here really good with Wikimedia templates We re trying to think of a way to set up the template so that the template can contain the category tag but be sorted in the category list so that it is separate from all of the actual CSDs. I feel like there must be a way to manipulate the pipe trick and template parameters for this effect, but I don t have a lot of experience with templates. Look at my suggestion at 16:59, Nov 18, 2004 (UTC) ::You could use to include the text from a template on the pages in question and manually delete the category. 08:18, Nov 19, 2004 (UTC)
= Search Question =
I created a page, the Battle of Watling Street. In the search engine, it will only come up when I type in the exact pharse Battle of Watling Street . Is there anyway to allow another search item to be linking to it (e.g. by typing battle of watling street will bring the page up)
: I m not sure why the full text search isn t picking the article up under Article title matches when you search for battle of watling street . I suppose it s possible that it was not indexed properly, but only a developer can know for sure. One workaround would be to create a 22:56, Nov 18, 2004 (UTC)
::This is the same problem I posted about here a couple of weeks ago. Your search isn t finding the article because it would appear that the wikipedia search index is only getting updated on an occasional basis. Last time I was looking it took a month for my pages to show up in search. The reason the full article name is working is because you are using the Go funtion not the Search button. I would appreciate a comment from the developers as to whether this is the normal state of affairs. 23:03, 18 Nov 2004 (UTC)
:::Are you perhaps thinking of the external search (choice of Google or Yahoo!) which is used when the real site search is disabled for performance reasons [which is all too often] Being external search engines, those will only update when they periodically trawl this site along with billions of others; I can t imagine any reason for the internal search not to index pages as they are created/edited - unless, I suppose, the indexing is also disabled during busy periods... - 18:53, 21 Nov 2004 (UTC)
= disambiguating =
I have just put up an entry for 23:23, 18 Nov 2004 (UTC)
:Like everything else in Wikipedia, disambiguating is done according to what each editor considers to be best practice -- and different editors write different guidelines, I m afraid. We do TRY to be consistent and come to consensus on these things, but disambiguation is one of those things that really must be judged on each individual case. For the most part I support using a disambiguation block of one sentence or so at the top of the most famous person, but that s always subjective. I don t think the Al Green page was strictly necessary, but the creator was probably thinking ahead, since both Al and Green are very common names and there may be more Al Greens out there becoming notable as we speak. (Still, I prefer to deal with present realities -- it s very easy to change something to a disambiguation page in the future when it becomes necessary.) That said, I m also the one who created disambiguation pages for John Taylor (disambiguation) (33 entries!) and a few other common names...
:In your case (and as one of the contributors to the current Robert Palmer page), I d have no objection to moving it to Robert Palmer (British singer) and leaving a disamb page there -- although I m not as familiar with the other Robert, he certainly seems equally notable to me. In my personal opinion, you might consider moving him to Robert Franklin Palmer, though; with such a multitude of talents, it seems cleaner to me, and it s easy enough to use a piped link such as Robert Franklin Palmer so that the middle name does not display in the linked text.
:Already existing links are not an obstacle to moving or renaming a page, though they do create some work for the editor. (Accuracy is more important than ease!) Each page has a What links here link in the sidebar. If you move the existing RP, it would be your responsibility to use that link and go to each article that mentions RP, and fix the link in that article text so it pointed to Robert Palmer (British singer) instead of the new disambiguation page. You might even find a few more that should link to RFP as well!
:Have I rambled on enough.... 00:23, 19 Nov 2004 (UTC)
::He was never known by anyone but his mother by his full name, I hope no one tries to change it to Robert Franklin Palmer. He was always known as Robert Palmer, as that was his byline and his production/musician/author name. I don t see anyone wishing to call the British singer by his full name which is also written on his 02:21, 19 Nov 2004 (UTC)
:::If by that you mean the list of pages that link to 02:37, 19 Nov 2004 (UTC)
::::It seemed that I lost a number of the What links here items that I saw, which was a very long list, including numerous Talk pages, when I made the switch. I don t know why. They do not appear in the What links here area for that page ever since I moved the page, and I feel I should have changed all the links before I made the switch. Anyway, I have made a good faith effort to find and change links intended to link to the British singer s page and will continue to change more if I find them. Everything seems fine now, thanks. 05:29, 19 Nov 2004 (UTC)
:::::Not to worry, Bebop -- it s likely that since this was a public discussion other editors helped to fix the What links here links. 03:02, 24 Nov 2004 (UTC)
= How should I handle Martin Luther King and his son with the same name =
The most well known of the Martin Luther King clan is Martin Luther King Jr., (the one who delivered the I have a dream speach, etc.)
I am thinking of writing a short article on his eldest son, who I believe went by the name Martin Luther King, III . Should that be the title of the article (with the comma and the roman numeral 3)
Is there another way to handle this Some use the custom of dropping the jr. etc. when only one is alive, but that is probably not wise in this case, as he is so well known.
:Also to add to this person s question, I m curious about what house style is on Jr. and III because some style manuals prefer people to not include a comma before Jr. The only times I ve left them that way so far is when I saw someone spelled a name that way already. P.S. Mpearl asked the above question, not I. 05:31, 19 Nov 2004 (UTC)
:::I d use Martin Luther King, Jr. for the the son and Martin Luther King, Sr. for his father. Those are the names most people will know them by, so that s the name wikipedia should use. His son Martin Luther King III should be without a comma, I believe. 08:13, Nov 19, 2004 (UTC)
::::Hi again. I m going to focus my reply here about the comma issue, whereas of course Mpearl (who didn t use a signature) brought the MLK topic at hand up. I am still interested in the comma issue after reading the above answer. For consistency, one would normally punctuate both III and Jr. the same way. Modern styles I ve seen, such as A.P. style (and I also think Chicago Manual of Style) usually don t include a comma for either one. I didn t use one in 15:31, 19 Nov 2004 (UTC)
:::::A quick glance around the style and naming pages suggests to me that this has been raised a couple of times, but has never taken off into a proper discussion and consensus. E.g. 00:50, 22 Nov 2004 (UTC)
= Dificulty navigating community portal links =
Hello, i am very new here, actualy just arrived for the first time... Long story short, My first action here was to put a defenition on a link that lead to nowhere (no description or article on the subject) Since i am very new i was wondering how i did and how i could make my article better; so i went to peer reveiw. However, i got hoplessly lost because i cant tell where im supposed to put up a question there (i tried to start a topic but instead i kept being brought e to a editing page of someone else s request) so i left. And i came here and i want to know: how do i navigate the community areas i can barely tell where the questions stop and the responses begin. Thanks
:Above is from .) :You are probably looking for 16:03, 20 Nov 2004 (UTC)
::Also, the lack of distinction between where a question ends and the answer begins is something of a feature of 19:04, 21 Nov 2004 (UTC)
= failed edit - lost the page completely! =
Tried to edit an entery: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tanganyika_sardine
with my somewhat expanded text (below):
The Tanganyika sardine is really two species ( Limnothrissa miodon and Stolothrissa tanganicae ) both of which are small planktivorous pelagic freshwater clupeid originating from Lake Tanganyika in East Africa. They form the major biomass of pelagic fish in Lake Tanganyika, swimming in large schools in the open lake, feeding on copepods and potentially jellyfish. Their major predators are four species of Lates which are also endemic to Lake Tanganyika, and are related to (but not the same as) the Nile Perch in Lake Victoria. All of these pelagic fish have suffered from overfishing in the last 2 decades.
The local names are Kapenta in Zambia or Dagaaor Ndgaaelsewhere. Limnothrissa miodon has been successfully introduced in both natural and artificial African lakes. Large kapenta fisheries now take place in the Kariba Dam and Cahora Bassa in Zambia.
******* But it said it lost the page and the old ID no longer exists. What now
: To the person above who wrote about their problem without signing their user name, I am not an admin, I m a newbie, but I just now have gone in and fixed it by the following procedure: I clicked in the History file on the time and date of an older version, clicked on the Edit tab and added into it your edits above, then hit Enter and it worked. There is helpful information in the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:How_to_revert_a_page_to_an_earlier_version Revert faq]. There seems to be a bit of a confusing editing duel going on in the page at issue, by the way. - user Bebop
=Red linked contributors=
How come I can see new pages being added by people with red-linked IDs
:The red-linked user name means they have not created a user page yet. This is the default state for all new user accounts. -- 18:22, 21 Nov 2004 (UTC)
=Clarification on copywright rules- verification=
I really.. um... anyway.
I have been told by some people (my writing teacher, parents) that putting up someone else s ideas or information that you learned from that book/person/website is OK, as long as you correctly cite your references/sorces. I have been working by this premice (specificly, leaf leinghts and species distribution- i cannot find species distribution by going by myself out and surveying an extensive area alone- not copyinf and pasting whole articles, just peices of information that i could not obtain elsewhere) Recently i have been told by others that THIS IS NOT THE CASE! Since the site articles on copywright information did not answer my question, i wish to verify trough a third party if either side is correct, because i am getting coflicting reports. Who s correct
,
: , doesn t mean you mustn t write E=mc2 ever again.
:In general, putting someone else s conclusions in your own words, backed up with referenced quotations, is just good practice; but if it s a truly new and ground-breaking idea, then going too much further than a summary, so that you re paraphrasing almost the entire paper, might attract raised eyebrows. But as long as you re not passing the ideas off as your own , and distinguish between direct and indirect 00:33, 22 Nov 2004 (UTC)
:: The amoung pages i have done so far that i am wondering about is Fraser magnolia - specificly the scentence((Magnolia fraseri) is a small, fragrant, basal-branching deciduous tree of the southern Appalachians with narrow, auriculate-lobed leaves.)- i found that out in a book i listed in references. If thats ok then i havent been copywrigting, but it is a direct quote, so im not shure. Mostly, besides one other scentance, its from my own knowlege and not taken from anywhere. One scentence is the same as on the internet reference (It grows best on moist, well-drained soil) but i already knew that because of its habitat (almost all plants found exlusively in that area require their soil to be like that) and because Magnolias virtually as a whole require that same requierment, so i assumed it was common knowledge section it should be noted that its also commonly called Mountain Ash
:::You should only use the exact words you read if you are using them as a direct quotation - that is, one with quote-marks round it, and a clear label of who actually said it, e.g.: :::: According to person X, the Fraser magnolia is a small, fragrant, basal-branching deciduous tree... :::To clarify, an indirect quotation would be more like: :::: Person X describes the Fraser magnolia as small and fragrant, and notes that it is deciduous and basal-branching... :::[hmm; this should be covered in quotation or somewhere, really] :::Whereas what we want here is those facts, but in your words (or, I guess, mine); so, something like: :::: The Fraser magnolia is a small deciduous tree native to the Southern Appalachians; it is basal-branching and has... :::It s not a big deal with individual sentences like that, but rewording everything you read is a good habit to get into, and it also helps you structure things into decent paragraphs when you re joining up information from multiple sources. - 01:11, 22 Nov 2004 (UTC)
:There might be two different issues in question. When your professors say that using someone else s information is okay, as long as you have proper attribution (meaning citing your sources) they could be talking about meeting academic standards for research, and avoiding plagarism.
:It is possible that something could be acceptable in a paper you submit for a course, and not acceptable in a commercial publication. For example, if I am doing a biography of someone, and I take a picture from his wedding album, and attached the picture to a paper, I should (for an academic paper) make clear that I did not take the picture myself. For a commercial publication (like a book being offered for sale) I would probably have to get permission of the person who took the picture (which would probably involve paying a fee if the person is a commercial photographer).
:In my experience, people get made in two occasions, when they don t get credit for their work, and when someone is using their own work to compete with them. Even if you re technically in the right, having people get mad at you is not a good thing (in my opinion). : 01:55, Nov 22, 2004 (UTC)
Most of the facts i am stating would be obvious to an attentive observer, and i cannot go to, say, china, and back to comment on the leingh of the fruit myself. I doubt writers of text encyclopedias would have as well, because they cant go and do everything and be everywhere to the places and things that they list in their books; its simply not feasable. ,
:Nobody is saying you have to experience it all firsthand. And as mentioned above, the facts are not copyrightable. But the presentation is. Copyright is all about who gets paid for the work. Someone (author, publisher, journal, encyclopedia) gets paid to do the research to write {Magnolia fraseri) is a small, fragrant, basal-branching deciduous tree of the southern Appalachians with narrow, auriculate-lobed leaves. Copyright says that (in theory at least) if they find that exact sentence, with those exact words and commas, in Wikipedia or any other work, they have the right to take legal action to punish us, because we stole the fruits of work that someone else has a legal right to be paid for. Now, if you rephrase the sentence, using the descriptive words necessary to convey the facts, but in a different order so that it is clearly a different work than the source where you found the facts (as Imsop did a nice job with, above), then the owners of the copyright have no basis for suing us.
:Now, on the one hand, most of us here think it s a silly way to try to manage information -- saying a corporation owns a particular sentence is really frustrating if all you want is the information that sentence contains. (Otherwise we wouldn t be building a volunteer, open source, copylefted encyclopedia. On the other hand, much of the knowledge available to us so freely in books and on the Internet would never have been researched or written if there weren t a profit motive for the authors and publishers. Regardless of how you feel about it, the fact is that it is imperative that Wikipedia obey copyright laws -- otherwise the Wikimedia Foundation could find itself under petty legal attack that we really don t want to bother with.
:We re really glad you re trying to understand the distinctions between 06:09, 22 Nov 2004 (UTC) ::Fledgeling, you re mixing up two things. One is the need to cite sources for information. That has nothing to do with copyright; it s to help readers verify your facts. Copyrights protect creativity, which in this case would be the words themselves. It is not a good idea to copy an exact sentence from anywhere without using quotation marks and attributing your source. There s nothing wrong with stating the same fact in different words. 20:13, 22 Nov 2004 (UTC) :::Okay, i think i understand now. Thanks everyone. 22:35, 22 Nov 2004 (UTC),
= Missing link, version problem =
I ve just posted another link on my page 08:47, Nov 22, 2004 (UTC)
:Do you mean the link to 19:05, 22 Nov 2004 (UTC)
::Yeah, and I got a message saying that User:MacGyverMagic/Articles&action=purge didn t exist, maybe it only works of title= is part of the link 21:30, Nov 22, 2004 (UTC)
:::Yes, it does. Or, more precisely, a web page can have parameters added like a=b&c=d; that question mark has to be there, so [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:MacGyverMagic/Articlesaction=purge en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:MacGyverMagic/Articles action=purge], I now realise, does work.
:::http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:MacGyverMagic/Articles is really a kind of shorthand for http://en.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtmltitle=User:MacGyverMagic/Articles, and since that s already got the question mark in it, you need an & instead, to seperate further sets of parameters. Hence http://en.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtmltitle=User:MacGyverMagic/Articles&action=purge
:::Meanwhile, does the link show up for you now Because it was visible for me as soon as I visited the article. - 22:12, 22 Nov 2004 (UTC)
::::Yep, shows up fine now. Thanks for clearing up how the parameters on a link work. 
08:43, Nov 23, 2004 (UTC)
=Viktor Yanukovych=
Guys,
I tried to find a better forum for this but couldn t.
When you open the following link in IE (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viktor_Yanukovych)
it comes up with
[CLIP START]
Viktor Yanukovych From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. MY NECK, MY BACK, LICK MY PUSSY AND MY CRACK. Khia
MY NECK, MY BACK, LICK MY PUSSY AND MY CRACK. Khia
MY NECK, MY BACK, LICK MY PUSSY AND MY CRACK. Khia
MY NECK, MY BACK, LICK MY PUSSY AND MY CRACK. Khia
MY NECK, MY BACK, LICK MY PUSSY AND MY CRACK. Khia
MY NECK, MY BACK, LICK MY PUSSY AND MY CRACK. Khia
[CLIP END]
where Khia links to (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khia)
But when you open it up in Mozilla it comes up just fine. :It s a caching issue. There was a vandal who vandalized the page earlier today. In IE, trying hitting control+R to force a clean reload. 07:57, Nov 23, 2004 (UTC)
= problems with the wikipedia service =
what is going on with wikipedia!! lately every time i search something i get an error page. the service is not working properly.
please fix!!! *Could you give a specific example 21:23, Nov 23, 2004 (UTC)
= probably forgotten password =
Hello every sysops at English Wikipedia,
I tried already to ask help from User:Meelar;
please help me to retrieve my password to login to English Wikipedia. I am User:JanJosef, and I am not sure, If I mentioned my e-mail jpospisil at cpoj dot cz
Now I am as User:194.228.18.42 (at my work) and you can check another wikis: Czech - http://cs.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedista:Jan Esperanto - http://eo.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vikipediisto:Jan Simple - http://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:JanJosef
(I think, the IP should be the same)
May I receive a new password
Thank you very much. Jan Pospisil *If you provided the wiki with your email adress when you signed up, you can go to the login page and ask for the system to send you a new password on that address to gain access to your personal pages. 21:27, Nov 23, 2004 (UTC) :I m afraid I can t help you. I don t have any special rights here and I can t check such things. I suggest you try to see if a developer can help you. Otherwise, set up a new account, using a password similar to one of the other accounts you have so you don t forget, and have your old edits attributed to you. Good luck! 08:59, Nov 24, 2004 (UTC)
:Yes, I will do a new account, and I will note on the User:JanJiri, that I am now JosefJan, identical with JanJosef. Tanks many, and see you
-- 16:05, 24 Nov 2004 (UTC)
= Sorry =
The occupying force on April 9 allowed more than 70,000 women, children and elderly residents to leave the besieged city, reportedly also allowing males of military age to leave. On April 10, the U.S. military declared a unilateral truce to allow for humanitarian supplies to enter Fallujah. U.S. troops pulled back to the outskirts of the city; local leaders reciprocated the ceasefire, although lower-level intense fighting on both sides continued. An Iraqi mediation team entered the city in an attempt to set up negotiations between the U.S. and local leaders, but as of April 12 had not been successful. The resistance forces capitalized on this ceasefire to conduct the most aggressive counter-offensive of the cordon. Additionally, numerous weapons were found hidden in the humanitarian supply trucks that were attempting to enter the city. [2] (http://www.boston.com/news/world/middleeast/articles/2004/04/12/rebels_smuggle_supplies_into_iraqi_city/)
the above is from the fallujah article.
The link is broken(the last line) and I did not know how else to tell anyone
:In general, the best way to comment about an issue with a particular article is by clicking the discussion tab at the top of the screen; in the case of the article . In this particular case, I realised that the problem was that the ) at the end of the link was being treated as part of the link. I ve fixed this by using special numbered external links: if you type [http://www.boston.com/news/world/middleeast/articles/2004/04/12/rebels_smuggle_supplies_into_iraqi_city/] , it appears as [http://www.boston.com/news/world/middleeast/articles/2004/04/12/rebels_smuggle_supplies_into_iraqi_city/] . The old links look oddly like they were copied and pasted from the display of another page on the site, rather than the underlying code you see when you click edit this page .
:See 20:18, 23 Nov 2004 (UTC)
= I m trying to understand all that a wiki is capable of... =
I m putting together a technology plan for an social benefit organization I m working on starting, and I m trying to figure out how the wiki tool can best be incorporated into the overall plan. Here are some of my goals and questions:
1. I want to have a series of webpages written by authors representing either their own ideas or those of an organization or group they represent. These authors will be identified, chosen, and recruited by members of the organization. Membership will be open to anyone who lives in the identified community and agrees to uphold certain core values and principles (as outlined by the members themselves) and to strive to behave according to a set of guidelines (also outlined by the members). What defines and unifies the group is that they all live within a defined community (with geographic boundaries) and share an intent to bring about a more just, peaceful and sustainable world in which the desires of the individual are not met at the expense of the needs of others throughout the world. This may not be the best description of the group, but I think you ll get the point.
So my question is this, can a wiki be set-up so that a section of the page which expresses the information and perspective presented by the author (membership elected individual or group of representatives), is protected from edits by others Then the greater membership could have access to a comment section of the page for continual edits, encouraging the author to continually re-evaluate his/her perspective and integrate their feedback into an ever-evolving article.
The goal here is to take academics and others who ve developed a trusted reputation and give them a more public platform upon which to communicate, while also removing them from the echo chamber where they only hear from others with the same perspectives. A sort of virtual dialogue amongst those who are either members of the community which is impacted by policies and practices of which they speak or respected experts selected by the community to help formulate solutions which work for the greater good.
2. I don t know how the underlying wiki engine works, as I m not all that technical, but I m wondering if the engine could be further developed so that there are tags to represent certain kinds of data. I m hoping for the ability to have a reference database of books, articles, lectures, videos, etc. that anyone could select from in displaying a list of references or suggested educational materials for a particular purpose. Kind of like a shopping cart of references. Say I m writing an article about statements made by our president which relate to global warming. I could search the reference database and select those which apply to my article and at the end, I will have an automatically generated list of references. Or perhaps in the body of my article I want to list recommended educational materials grouped by category. I could simply select from the available reference database (adding those not yet there) and have the list sorted according to my specifications (by author, keyword, date, etc). Does this seem possible
3. How does a non-technical person go about finding someone to help set-up and administer a wiki when there is currently no budget (it s my hope that once the community begins growing, member donations will support some paid staff)
Thank you so much for taking the time to answer my questions. I apologize if this isn t the right place to post these questions; if that s the case, perhaps you can redirect me to the correct place.
Thank you, Jennifer *If you re having trouble finding technical people to set up a wiki, you might want to start a free hosted on. Starting your own would require a server and some bandwith which can be quite costly. Anyway, I think you might like to visit [http://wikibooks.org/wiki/Wiki_Science:How_to_start_a_Wiki this link] on how to start a 21:38, Nov 23, 2004 (UTC)
= Neutrality =
In the article ) took sides by protecting page immediately after revert by Biased editor. Rather than protecting a pre-edit war version (the edit war goes back about 100 or so edits, by the way).
Is this allowed 22:33, 23 Nov 2004 (UTC)
:Without looking into the specifics of the situations, my gut feeling is that the answer is yes , this is allowed . Although the complaint that the version protected is the wrong one is a common one, it is an impossible complaint to uphold - even if you go back to before the edit war began, you are still supporting a particular version, which presumably somebody felt needed editing. Choosing which version to protect would, obviously, be taking sides; protecting whichever version happens to be current when the protection is carried out is in fact the only way to maintain neutrality.
:This is why the message added when a page is protected includes the text Protection is not an endorsement of the current version. To see other versions, use the page history. Queries and complaints regarding this point are frequently much less civil than yours [thank you], and are the subject of a 22:48, 23 Nov 2004 (UTC)
=Wikipedia mirror=
Where would one report a Wikipedia mirror which was not citing Wikipedia http://djpronto.com/ doesn t have any reference to Wikipedia that I can find, but uses Wikipedia content. - 08:16, Nov 24, 2004 (UTC) : 08:18, Nov 24, 2004 (UTC)
= Starting a category for chicken breeds. =
I m looking at starting a new category (or finding an existing one!) for is correct. Here s what I m planning to do — I d appreciate any feedback (positive or negative) that anyone would like to offer.
Would s.
Currently there s . Is there a better subcategory instead
Many thanks,
-- 08:36, 24 Nov 2004 (UTC)
:In line with Wikipedia s policy on being bold, I ve created the category with a few articles and placed it as a subcategory in 08:43, 24 Nov 2004 (UTC)
Looks good to me. 13:35, 24 Nov 2004 (UTC)
:Thanks! I appreciate the check. -- 08:00, 25 Nov 2004 (UTC)
= Wikipedia crashes Netscape =
The Wikipedia homepage seems to reliably crash Netscape 4.79. This seems to be due to its use of Javascript on the homepage.
(If I turn off Javascript in Netscape it doesn t crash).
Javascript is *not* a standardized language and I should have a perfect right to use an old browser on an old computer because Netscape 4.79 is faster than modern browsers. Wikipedia should be able to accept and work with that -- they should not be overengineering their web pages to an extent that they crash browsers. Wikipedia is distributing *information*. The distribution of information does *not* require the execution of code on machines visiting a site. I do *not* friggen care about pull down menus or pop-up windows -- I care that the site works reliably in the browser and on the machines that I choose to use.
If anyone could inform me of *who* is responsible for the Wikipedia home page I would appreciate it. Because I want to give them a piece of my mind.
Thank you, Robert Bradbury () :I too have problem with home page. I am using Mozilla 1.0.2. To e the main page does cause crash but the browser (and hence the whole computer) seat down for 1 or 2 minutes. I am experiencing the same problem also with very long and complex page (like this one). In particular the presence of not very standard character (like chinese) seems to give troubles to my computer. 14:54, 24 Nov 2004 (UTC)
:: . A bug which causes the entire browser to crash will no doubt be treated with very high priority.
::As someone who has spent a little time on the development side of things, I can assure you that the software is designed to conform as closely as possible to standards, and work with as many browsers as possible. Despite what you seem to be suggesting, this site uses very little JavaScript, and in fact one of its uses, I believe, is to make the site behave correctly in more browsers. There is certainly no use of JavaScript for pull-down menus or pop-up windows; the most complex pieces of script are probably those for showing and hiding certain information, so that the server can cache one copy of the page to serve to people with several combinations of preferences (this is necessary for the distribution of information, since without it the site would slow down to a crawl).
::I am sure the developers will be much more receptive of your comments if, rather than giving them a piece of your mind , you politely explain the exact circumstances of the problem. One thing I m not clear on is whether this is an issue with the .
::Once again, I m sorry you have had such a severe problem with the site, and hope it is successfully resolved soon; thank you for pointing it out to us. - 18:41, 24 Nov 2004 (UTC)
: Hello Robert, I have just changed the Main Page to mostly use 22:18, 25 Nov 2004 (UTC)
= History: current and last =
What is the meangin of the last link on the history pages 15:46, 24 Nov 2004 (UTC)
:It compares the selected version to the version immediately preceeding it. It essentially shows you the changes made in individual edits. -- 16:35, 24 Nov 2004 (UTC)
= Whatlinkshere not updating =
I switched ). But [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtmltitle=Special:Whatlinkshere&target=Capitol_District Whatlinkshere:Capitol_District] still lists all the pages that include 18:06, 24 Nov 2004 (UTC)
:It is most likely to be a caching issue -- to see if it s on your machine, try holding Control/Command down when clicking your refresh button, or using Control-F5, or following the instructions at 19:37, 24 Nov 2004 (UTC)
No, it s still doing it (from a different machine). Would you mind checking it out, someone, and see if you see it too, please 14:47, 26 Nov 2004 (UTC)
:It s wrong from my computer as well. I m not sure what s going on, but it might have something to do with the dates of last change compared to what is being cached. I think I m going to try testing a bit. 20:49, 26 Nov 2004 (UTC)
::My small tests weren t successfull. But I have an idea what it could be. I assume all articles have an internal id in the database. If the caching of the What links here and/or the templates only happens once in a while, and the id of the article remained the same when you renamed it, changing the template to point to the new name means it still points to the same id internally. Hence the software might think nothing has changed and therefore nothing to update. I didn t have the patience to test this theory though. It would probably take two of the cycles mentioned by Catherine, one for updating the link to something else, and then another for changing it back. 21:42, 26 Nov 2004 (UTC)
:Heh, just saw the post a bit further down on the page, about changes to templates not being properly propagated to pages using the templates. That would explain it. But it certainly defeats the point of templates, doesn t it 21:50, 26 Nov 2004 (UTC)
::Firstly: yes, this does seem to be a problem with the template code, similar to that with categories - ordinary links being stored in the database in a similar way, for purposes of Special:Whatlinkshere etc. ::But secondly: no, this does not defeat the point of templates - the point is surely to include the same text in multiple places, and allow it to be updated at source , as it were; this is working fine , as you can check by looking at the bottom of those pages which include the template, and seeing that the link has changed. The only problem is that until you make another edit to each page, the software doesn t notice that the link has changed, and so the part of the database which Special:Whatlinkshere uses remains out of date; annoying, but minor compared to actually getting the content right. ::Thirdly, the way to solve this (not a quick one, I m afraid) is to make a trivial edit to each page containing the template . For instance, I have edited 14:52, 28 Nov 2004 (UTC) :::You are of course right about this not defeating the point of templates. Not sure what I was thinking when I wrote that. Probably a bit hung up on the what links here thing. 16:48, 28 Nov 2004 (UTC)
::::Well, that s fair enough: like I say, it is a pretty irritating bug; unfortunately, it s not a trivial one to fix, as far as I can see - the obvious solution of automatically parsing all the pages that include a template (as though you d edited them all) would put an untenable strain on the server. Meanwhile, I ve updated 19:47, 28 Nov 2004 (UTC) Thanks, all. 20:59, 29 Nov 2004 (UTC)
= Boilerplate Templates =
Is there a special page that lists all template pages I don t want to create new templates that duplicate the function of an existing one. Are there guidelines for what belongs in a template and what does not *Yes, there is a list, maybe not of all templates, but at least of the templates people cared enough about to list. I ll track it down...Found them. There s a complete list at: 19:10, Nov 24, 2004 (UTC)
=Access=
Hello dear Jim, is the only way for me to get into Wikepedia some mention of 42nd Baltic Fraternities` Convention [ which Corps Concordia Rigensis/Hamburg will organize] to become a contributer/editor Greetings from Germany Jürgen :Everyone can contribute to Wikipedia. Just use the edit link on top of the page, or better yet, sign up for a free account so you can get your own user page. 09:40, Nov 25, 2004 (UTC)
:See also 20:01, 25 Nov 2004 (UTC)
= Reversing images - Can it be done with regular markup =
I ve recently uploaded a page. Unfortunately, the chicken in question is looking to the right, and I d much rather mirror the image so that it s looking to the left.
Why do I care which way the chicken is facing It s got to do with psychology. People naturally want to see what others are looking at. If images of people or animals look interested in the article text, there s a better chance that the reader will be interested as well. If the picture is looking away from the text, then the article overall appears less interesting. Therefore, I want the chicken looking at the text to its left.
I could move the image itself to the left of the page, but then, depending upon the article text and browser settings, one can end up with orphaned words under the image. That can be a little jarring to readers, and something I d like to avoid.
So, is it possible to automatically mirror or flip an image using regular image mark-up, or will I need to upload a second image (or replace the existing one) with a mirrored copy to suit my purpose
Many thanks,
-- 07:59, 25 Nov 2004 (UTC) :As far as I know, there s no mark up to mirror or flip a picture. You ll have to do another upload. 09:46, Nov 25, 2004 (UTC)
::Thanks. In which case, I ve flipped my image. -- 20:46, 25 Nov 2004 (UTC)
=Templates and caching=
In the interests of sanity on my user page, I ve borrowed an idea I found on site, and included my picture and list of useful links in a side-bar as a template.
However I notice that any changes to this template don t update immediately, and I cannot find how to make this happen; presumably the template code is cached on the server, because refreshing my browser cache (Ctrl and reload in 22:14, 25 Nov 2004 (UTC)
:You ve diagnosed the problem absolutely correctly. There is currently that means that changing a template which is anywhere other than the Template: namespace doesn t cause pages containing that template to be regenerated in the server s cache. There are two ways of working around this problem: :# make a trivial edit to the target page (in this case, ) :# use the special action=purge URL: either add action=purge to the normal URL ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Minority_Reportaction=purge like this]) or hit edit or history or something, and change the action= bit to say action=purge ([http://en.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtmltitle=User:Minority_Report&action=purge like this]). (The two are equivalent; if you want to know why they look like that, see #Missing link, version problem. : We apologise for any inconvenience caused. - 23:01, 25 Nov 2004 (UTC)
::Oh, I know what else I was going to say: not sure why that template isn t showing up with a pink background when included, very mysterious; for a while, I thought the cache still wasn t purging even when I told it to, hence the test-vandalism you may have noticed on the template. Sorry about that. - 23:05, 25 Nov 2004 (UTC)
::: Thanks for the help. Yes it was mainly the background color that I was interested in propagating. This would make the divisions in the page more visible to the reader. I even tried putting the background color information in a table outside the template, but it still doesn t work. Oh well.. -- 23:21, 25 Nov 2004 (UTC)
::: Added: For now I m putting the style stuff in front of each table item, which is tedious but has much the same effect as I intended. -- 23:42, 25 Nov 2004 (UTC)
= adding to a votes for deletion page =
hi,
how do i vote for/against the deletion of a page
*On every page that has been placed on VfD, you will find a link that reads please see this page s entry etc . Clicking on that link will bring you to a subpage of the main VfD page where you can add your vote for that specific page. (You can also browse the main VfD page and click on edit next to the page you want to vote for) -- 02:59, 26 Nov 2004 (UTC)
= Categorization in Arts and Visual arts =
I d like to do a lot of cleanup in .
There doesn t seem to be a wiki project about Arts. Is there a place with Arts discussions some place What would be a good way to proceed 21:51, Nov 26, 2004 (UTC) :I m not really an art type of person, but it seems arts pretty much covered in Wikipedia, but not very organized. If you want Arts discussion to get centered in one place I suggest you start a 22:16, Nov 26, 2004 (UTC) :::Thanks. It seems really odd that there isn t an arts project already. There seems to have been an arts wikiproject at some point in the past - a few other wikiprojects still link to it. hmm. 23:15, Nov 26, 2004 (UTC)
= Silkie (chicken) and Silkie — rename or redirect =
G day lovely wikipedians,
At this time Wikipedia does not currently have a page for Silkie, however it does have Silkie (chicken). Unfortunately this means that editors must type an extra (chicken) every time they wish to create a link. I m eager to see this avoided.
I can easily add a redirection page, but what I d really like to do is rename Silkie (chicken) to Silkie, and have the redirect work the other way around. Are there any conventions that I would be breaking in doing this Must a chicken breed end in (chicken) even if it s not ambiguous
Note that the only ambiguity I can find is with Selkie, where Silkie is mentioned as an alternate spelling. I ve added this to the Silkie (chicken) page, although I d love someone to check my placement and wording.
Many thanks,
-- 01:25, 27 Nov 2004 (UTC)
:What you want is the move command. It renames the page and creates a redirect at the old title in a single operation. I ve already done this for you. -- 02:23, 27 Nov 2004 (UTC)
= Changing uploaded image name =
I uploaded after spending a long time making sure the photographer understood the copyright issues. But I m still new to this and it s my first upload.
Big problem -- one is that I forgot to put his name in the jpg title. I certainly don t want to be confused with the person the photo was taken of. How can I move it to say 01:55, 27 Nov 2004 (UTC)
:There s no way to change it once it s been uploaded; just upload a new copy of the image with a new name, and I or another admin can and discussed, since images cannot be undeleted.) Just let me know when you ve copied over the information you want from the old image.
:The same text is used for captions and the alt text. However, a caption will not display unless you use the keyword thumb or frame between pipe symbols in your 04:01, 27 Nov 2004 (UTC)
::Thanks, I ve made the change and put a delete tag on the older image. I don t know if that automates some process to have it show up on a page where admins look and delete things, but I think it does. I m putting the rest of this reply in my talk page; thanks again! 14:12, 27 Nov 2004 (UTC) :Yes, that tag lists the article in Category:Candidates for speedy deletion, which is regularly patrolled by admins. I am always appreciative of people who use the deletebecause tag and mention the reason that they think it needs deletion so that I don t have to guess why. 17:16, Nov 27, 2004 (UTC)
= Changing format of username =
Is it possible to change my username from Randyjohnston to Randy Johnston Thanks a lot. -- 04:53, 27 Nov 2004 (UTC)
:You can create a new account, and ask the developers to -- this might take several weeks or more, though, as our volunteer developers are severely overworked! Or, if you don t care about attribution, just redirect the user and talk pages from the old account to the new one.
:If you just want your signature to display differently, you can customize your signature by going to 07:20, 27 Nov 2004 (UTC)
::Okay, thankyou. I have posted my request on 17:57, 27 Nov 2004 (UTC)
= How to make a tag. =
How do I make a double brace tag such as and is there a list of already existing ones :That s called a template. If you wanted to make , then you would go to 21:38, Nov 27, 2004 (UTC) :Oh, and yes, there is a BIIIIIG list somewhere but I can t remember where it is off the top of my head. 21:39, Nov 27, 2004 (UTC)
:: You re probably thinking either of 22:04, Nov 27, 2004 (UTC)
: Check out 22:04, Nov 27, 2004 (UTC)
= Personal workplace (sandbox) =
Is it OK to set up a personal workplace page (User:Name/Workplace) or something like that as a temporary place to work on an article 01:58, 28 Nov 2004 (UTC)
:It s perfectly okay. You can use subpages of your user page for pretty much anything short of attacking other users, violating copyright, or hosting your own wiki. -- 02:15, 28 Nov 2004 (UTC)
:It s much preferred! By working on articles in temporary workspaces on a user subpage you keep the main article namespace clean. 11:26, Nov 28, 2004 (UTC)
= Linking Images =
How do I link images to an external location 21:19, 28 Nov 2004 (UTC)
*You can t. Every picture in Wikipedia needs to be uploaded to a wikipedia server or to the Commons. This is simply to guard wikipedia from copyright issues. All pictures on wikipedia need to have notices regarding the copyright status of the image in question. More help is available in our 21:15, Nov 28, 2004 (UTC)
= Downloading the Encyclopedia =
Hi,
perhaps this question was here 1000 times but i didnt found an answer or i am to studpid. But if i want the content of the english encyclopedia on our school server because we dont ve access to the internet what do i ve to do MYSQl and PHP and Apache2 is installed. How big is the full english version with pictures
Greets and thx max
:I doubt you have the server space to download the entire wikipedia. The information is spread across several severs, and it took the Wikimedia Foundation quite some time to get the equipment together. Trying to gain internet access is the cheaper solution here. 12:50, Nov 29, 2004 (UTC)
::The database dump is not that big in terms of disk space (currently about 45gig for the whole thing with edit histories, 11 gig for only the current revision), but you ll need a lot of bandwith to download it. Latest database dumps are available [http://download.wikimedia.org/ here]. Oh, and of course you will also need an internet connection to download a database dump in the first place :p -- 13:44, 29 Nov 2004 (UTC)
= How to edit a protected article =
Hi,
I would like to edit the description for Capitol College, but the only edit link available lets me change the external link to the college website and nothing else. How can I change the typo in the description Right now it says that Capitol conifers degrees, which makes me think of pine cones!
: 18:08, Nov 29, 2004 (UTC)
= Infobox on parks pages =
06:19, Nov 30, 2004 (UTC) :It s working fine now, so I wonder if it was a problem with Wikipedia. Thanks anyway. -- 10:13, 30 Nov 2004 (UTC)
= Album covers =
Would it be okay if I uploaded several album covers and used them in articles about bands The reason I m asking is because I ve seen people complaining there s a ton of images on Wikipedia that claim to be fair use , and a lot of notices about copyright problems etc. And I wouldn t want to add to the problem. The upload dialog has a box that goes I affirm that the copyright holder of this file agrees to license it under the terms of the Wikipedia copyright. While uploading an album cover that was downloaded a long time ago from some website, I can t really grant that the copyright holder of this file agrees to license it, can I Does that mean I have to find out where I downloaded the image, then contact the webmaster of that particular site, then ask him/her for permission and only upload when the permission is granted -- 10:09, 30 Nov 2004 (UTC) :See 10:26, 30 Nov 2004 (UTC) ::UGH this is all very confusing actually.. Oh well, I ll try to figure it out. Thanks. -- 21:01, 2 Dec 2004 (UTC) :Bear in mind that the copyright of these album covers won t belong to the sites you found it, but to the original copyright holder: one or more of the artist, designer, lyricist, band, copy writer, publisher, distributor, photo library, etc. It is complex indeed. I am not convinced use of album covers is fair use, because it may be all of the work by a particular artist, even though it may be considered incidental to the music. But I m not a lawyer, just careful. 12:23, 3 Dec 2004 (UTC)
= Login/Logout =
Several times this week I have been automatically logged out while trying to edit. Why NB:- If I get logged out while I m editing this, I m 17:07, 30 Nov 2004 (UTC)
:Further on this topic ... :this is a real problem on another cookie‐based site I often use, LiveJournal, and there s a FAQ there about how to handle it. So I tried the techniques suggested there, since it’s been happening to me here far more often than it ever happened to me on LJ. (For example, clearing cache, clearing Wiki‐related cookies, re‐logging in etc. Probably need to reset some preferences actually, at least any that are locally stored, though from my experience using this site on different machines I seem to find few of those. Erm, anyway. Yes. Right, then!!! :So, I applied those suggested‐there techniques, but they were of little if any help today. (The problem does come, and go, and is especially... virulent, well, that is strong very strong, but — the problem is nasty today. I fully expect this to be signed 24.58.12.141 today.) Hrm. I welcome any other suggestions for future use. (Ah, preview shows that I m very very logged out now, so it’s a good thing I used it.) :Probably not helping that it is a slow, p’haps heavily‐used day ::Many thanks in advance from 03:45, 14 Dec 2004 (UTC) (with no clue how to generate that by code, entering it manually) ::And as I should have mentioned in the just‐above, I’m using Mozilla Firefox 1.0(1) on a Macintosh G3 with OS 10.2.8. Using Safari (v125 I think) doesn’t seem to help, nor does the occasional switch to IE on Windows machines at work, if I remember correctly but I’m not as sure of that part. 16:06, Dec 13, 2004 (UTC)
=Edit Search History=
I d like to delete some items from the drop-down search history (empty pages,missspelings, etc) that show up when I start to type into the search box. Can this (editing) be done 20:45, 30 Nov 2004 (UTC)
:*Thanks 23:27, 30 Nov 2004 (UTC)
= GPS Articles =
This is more a suggestion for a global feature than a question.
Add a WIKI element for latitude/longitude and range that is searchable, so articles that have a proper location to reference can be found by location.
In other words, historical things have a time and a place. Many articles about things in the world also have a place in the world where those things can be found.
A query based on a GPS receiver could then type in a location and specify a range for the search and find articles about things of interest near that place on the Earth, and conversely when reading an article that contains such a GPS location, could pull up a map with that place/thing centered on it.
So when planning a trip, you could find points of interest on the way, and when doing a school report about something in history or of interest near your school or community, a lot of candidates can be trivially found from a map.
Some additional notation might be added to the location, such as the type of reference (local history, regional history, national history, global history, wildlife habitat, etc.)
It could be something like [gps:N30.24.66:W97.54.19:R1K], and an article might make more than one such reference to cover one or more regions with what are essentially circles on a map. A search engine (such as google) could then spot those references as they re finally formatted.
A java applet with a world map could allow trivial poking in of locations to some sloppy accuracy, while people who are more precise can go out and take a GPS reading and type the data in to the nearest few feet.
::Please remember to sign your comments (use four tildes ~~~~ to add your name and date). I could be wrong, but I believe you should post feature requests on [http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/MediaWiki_feature_requests_and_bug_reports#Feature_requests MediaWiki]. I have linked to the section where you can add your request. -- 00:32, 1 Dec 2004 (UTC)
:::I believe there has been some discussion of this; see 15:58, 2 Dec 2004 (UTC)
= Mailing list =
Tim Starling is saying he will remove me from the Wikipedia mailing list, but I don t understand on what grounds the basis for this is. Is there anything I can do to get an explaination for his actions please Thanks, -- 21:37, 30 Nov 2004 (UTC) :I would head over to 22:05, Nov 30, 2004 (UTC)
= Question regarding Pesach =
I have been commissioned to write an article about the Passover Seder. My question is based on some beliefs, how is Jesus the fulfillment of the Jewish festivals Thank you.
: Take a look at: 09:08, Dec 2, 2004 (UTC)
= Wikipedia in Vietnamese page =
I visited Wikipedia in Vietnamese page, it does not display in proper Vietnamese, it has a lots of squares in places of letters . Q: How do I set my PC to view this page in correct Vietnamese
:You need to install some 17:02, 2 Dec 2004 (UTC)
= Simpsons character starting with the letter Y =
A friend of mine was asked in a crossword puzzle Simpsons character starting with Y this had me stumped, could anyone help me with this problem, please email me at , i am unsure if i can get back to this site, my bookmarking deletes sites on me 
:A quick search of Wikipedia would have turned up 16:07, 2 Dec 2004 (UTC)
= Placing a search field elsewhere =
I edit a library web page and want to put a search field that will link directly to Wikipedia s search. Is there a way to do this
If this is the incorrect place to ask this, could someone please direct me to the right window
Thanks in advance.
:Try this code, which is based on the code used on this site. Edit the attributes of each form control as desired—the important things are that there s at least one text field named search , at least one submit button, and that the form action is the same URL (although you could replace en with the abbreviation for any other language s Wikipedia if you want).
:The Go button will take you directly to the article with the name you enter, if it exists, so you might want to remove it if you want a true search. The Search button searches all articles for the text you enter. HTH 16:40, 2 Dec 2004 (UTC)
= action=purge =
What does &action=purge do, when appended to the end of a URL E.g.: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtmltitle=Hello,_world&action=purge 20:32, 2 Dec 2004 (UTC)
:It s supposed to manually purge the various Wikipedia-side caches of various things. It s generally only used to ensure the main page is updated when one of its templates is changed. -- 20:48, 2 Dec 2004 (UTC) Thanks. 20:57, 2 Dec 2004 (UTC)
:More generally, off the top of my head, there are 3 situations where a manual purge is necessary, all of which can be considered bugs in the way the template code works: :# a template transcluded by the page transcludes a further template, and that template has been changed ( ) :# a template transcluded by the page has been changed, but is not in the Template: namespace ( ) :# the page uses variables like in certain ways (I m not sure about this one, but I think it s still an issue in some cases) :The main page suffers from #2 (it uses templates stored in the Wikipedia namespace) and possibly #3. - 23:04, 2 Dec 2004 (UTC) :PS: The title of this section seems to have broken the auto-summary feature!
= How to edit signature =
How do you edit your signature that appears with four tildes 00:12, 3 Dec 2004 (UTC)
: You can modify the nickname field in 00:25, Dec 3, 2004 (UTC)
= Odd image change =
A while back I found an image of General 02:14, 3 Dec 2004 (UTC) *The image you submitted is still intact. The link in the article has just been replaced with that of an image on the English wikipedia. 08:07, Dec 3, 2004 (UTC)
= PlanetMath =
I am getting a Proxy Error for PlanetMath. Has it been removed
:Trying to access 00:41, 4 Dec 2004 (UTC)
= Why aren t thumbnails being generated =
I m posting an article on a newly-created wiki. The owner has just turned on image uploading. However, thumbnails are not working. The image box appears, but instead of a thumbnail inside, there is only a link. The link leads to the proper image. This is the code I m using:
What does the owner of the wiki need to enable in order to get thumbnails to display properly
*Can you provide a link to this wiki My guess would be that the feature is partially disabled. Is the picture displayed if you removed the thumb part of the coding 12:29, Dec 4, 2004 (UTC)
= Disputing_vote_exclusion =
Please see 14:23, 4 Dec 2004 (UTC)
= Who has the right to delete text =
Today, 4 December 2004, 14.44 GMT, the article Amnesia on Wikipedia ends with:
: My friend has it and it is sort of scary but i now wwhen the time is right it will be ok i just now it she is getting it back peice by peice but i was so nice to her does that mean she will turn back to the way she was before and if so what will happen to me and her now that shes better will i get upset like today i like her so much i don t now what to do
It seems this should not be in a Wikipedia article. I wrote about it in the discussion side of the page, but should I have deleted the text Should I have put it in a <!-- and --> tag Could the Wikipedia documentation be made more clear about what to do in such a case I did look in the documentation, so if such guidelines are there, they may not be easy enough to find.
Just be bold and delete it! If somebody thinks you were wrong, they will revert it or say so. -- 14:53, 4 Dec 2004 (UTC) : I would also lend my support to deleting that particular text or editing it to make it NPOV. Something like: When a person suffers from amnesia for a long time, the resulting apparent personality change can be disturbing to those who knew them before. If they ever recover, this in turn can have a disturbing effect as they recover memories and adopt old attitudes. But on balance the observation is probably inherently POV and not backed up by reliable observation (it s just one person s feelings) so it s probably best deleted. -- 11:33, 8 Dec 2004 (UTC)
=Help formatting large image caption=
Hi. I added
: Well, I (sort-of) figured it out for myself. Wiki syntax doesn t work properly in image captions, but HTML syntax does. I guess it s probably frowned upon. An example (using templates, although that isn t necessary) is at
=Uploading ZIP archive=
I d like to upload a ZIP archive containing the image files and other stuff necessary to make a diagram (which I ve already uploaded as a normal JPG). I want to do this so it can be altered by others, including translating or correcting. I tried to upload a ZIP file, but the upload program says .zip is not a recommended image file format.. Is there a way to upload a zip, or do I have to do something horrible like rename it to a PNG and tell folks to rename it before use --
: Damn, even that hack doesn t work, as the system notices the intrigue and complains The file is corrupt or has an incorrect extension. Please check the file and upload again. So am I out of luck --
::The upload uses the [http://unixhelp.ed.ac.uk/CGI/man-cgifile unix file command] to determine what kind of file it is (by reading the file s magic number). Changing the extension won t make a bit of difference. If you want to make it more easily editable by others, make it a PNG instead of a jpg. 20:41, Dec 4, 2004 (UTC)
:::I see, thanks Raul. A PNG isn t really a substitute for somone being able to edit the original structured document and the associated collateral resources. In this case all my constituent resources are, I think, uploadable (assuming it will accept SVGs) but doing so with some of the more complex cases (where there might be dozens of components) would be such an onerous task that I would probably not bother. Do you know the reason why archives (either tar or zip and its kith) are excluded --
::::That s an easy one to guess: it s too easy to make Wikipedia a gathering ground for 22:05, 2004 Dec 4 (UTC)
:::::There used to be a 2 megabyte limit to all uploads. (I discovered this by trial and error - it wasn t documented anywhere). I bitched about it on the technical mailing list, and they increased it to 5 as a result. (I m told that on the commons it s 20). But regardless, the low limit doesn t make it terribly attractive either. 22:12, Dec 4, 2004 (UTC)
:::::I guess that makes sense. I can think of at least two (hacky) ways around the current check, but given that the aforementioned d00dz are mostly thirteen and won t have a tool that does it for them, the check seems to be working fine. Thanks both for enlightening me. --
= Need some help editing my user page =
I have no clue how to make a phrase appear directly underneath another, I tried newline, and it didn t work. Also I can t seem to link to the sandbox (or other non encyclopedia articles). 69.138.222.255 decided to use my guetsbook as a test page, so I decided to put a link to the sandbox in there.
For example, this is what might appear: sandbox
I tried this as well , which doesn t work either.
Thanks for the help.
:Try for the line break problem. Try 19:34, Dec 4, 2004 (UTC)
So I need to put wikipedia in front of the page name to link to non encyclopedia articles :The encyclopedic articles are in the main namespace. So if you wanted to link to 20:36, Dec 4, 2004 (UTC)
::You will likely also encounter the Talk: namespace (the discussion tab of each article) quite a lot. For more information, see 00:01, 5 Dec 2004 (UTC)
= Stylesheet =
How can I change my settings so Wikipedia will dispay using my monobook.css stylesheet 22:14, 4 Dec 2004 (UTC)
:Are you using the monobook skin If not, change your preferences. If you are, then do a good solid reload, possibly with a purge of your browser s cache. -- 23:19, 4 Dec 2004 (UTC)
::For how to do that, please see 23:57, 4 Dec 2004 (UTC)
= WikiHiero =
Is there a guide to all the symbols used in [ ᑐ] 04:17, 5 Dec 2004 (UTC) *Meta lists all the hiero s you can use, but if you want to know what they mean you ll have to go outside the wiki. There s a Hieroglyph Library program somewhere on the net that lists numerous symbols and their meanings. I also recommend a book about glyphs from the British Museum, but I d have to look up the authors or the title. Feel free to contact me if you want to know more. 13:31, Dec 5, 2004 (UTC)
= OSI-RM and TCP/IP question =
Hello, I have a question pertaining to the OSI-RM and the TCP/IP. What i intend to know is that how much do these models mirror the real world in terms of applying at least one technology such as email,video conferencing,etc; to these models;how does it fit in to the model-if it does Hope to learn more from Wikipedia, Bol
: Well, both are workmanlike models that have gotten the job done for two or three decades. It s not that they particularly matched the real world, rather that they forced the real world (the hardware and software that people made) to conform to them. By and large things worked out okay, with the phone network and the internet respectively built on them. But as time progresses the cracks start to show more and more. In particular: :* OSI is fine at the lower levels, but the distinction between the uppermost three is fairly cloudy, and most deployments just deploy three lower layers and one upper one that they call the application layer for want of anthing better. TCP/IP just ducks the issue by not having any upper layers. :* The abstraction between the layers was always something of a fairy-story, and it s getting more so with time. Web servers know more about the low control of the underlying socket than the model says they need to, and IP layer firewalls become progressively more stateful, introspecting packets at higher layers to figure out what s going on. :* the architecture is contorted in ways that break the rigid layering: NAT, VPNs, SSH tunnelling etc rewrite packets or magically move them around inside other packets, breaking lots of the model s assumptions :* more and more stuff is done in the application rather than the network stack. P2P programs and voip implement much of what they do in UDP (or just IP) themselves. HTTP has become the new lingua franca (motivated by firewalls that block everything else), with HTTP headers replacing TCP port numbers as service identifiers. :So the models still work, but lots of people spend lots of effort doing an end-run around them, and like all models they re a lot simpler than the real world demands. -
= User Page Shortcuts =
Just out of curiosity, are we allowed to create shortcuts to our Userpage Like how WP:HD brings you here, could I do something like U:OF 16:14, 5 Dec 2004 (UTC) *Good question, my user name is quite a pain to type over and over again. I m note sure, but I d like to know this one as well. 16:21, Dec 5, 2004 (UTC) **I d strongly advise against doing this: non-encyclopedia content in the main namespace (which this would be, since there is no U: namespace) is quite severely frowned upon by some; the WP: and WT: shortcuts have mainly survived because they are 1) very useful (and not just for one person) and 2) long-established (inertia needs a strong consensus to overcome). **Besides which, you don t need to type out the name, you can just use the non-timestamped signature, as in ~~~. Obviously, this doesn t apply to people like Mgm who ve done weird hacks to their signature, but that s the choice one makes, I guess... - 19:42, 5 Dec 2004 (UTC) ***When you re logged in, you should have a link at the top of the page or in your sidebar to your user page anyway -- it s only one click away, or a press of Home on your keyboard and then a click. Much easier than setting up a shortcut I think.... 22:48, 7 Dec 2004 (UTC)
== Enhance My Search nightmare: virus, spyware, help!== I am battling a Enhance My Search nightmare on one of my home computers. It jumps up whenever you open Google or Yahoo searches, and opens a window in front of either. Whether it open in a windows or not, it adds language to your text in any apparent attempt to create links to certain words (IE work ). None of the programs I have used so far have been able to get rid of it. It really screws up Wikipedia work when editing. Its hard enough to find the right text to use for WP without something being inserted in it. I wouldn t wish this on my worst enemy. Any help would be appreciated. 06:36, 6 Dec 2004 (UTC) *[http://getfirefox.com/ www.GetFirefox.com]! =) 22:11, 6 Dec 2004 (UTC)