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NOTE: This is not a page about specific factual questions (e.g., Who was the first Pope?). For that type of question, see Wikipedia:Reference desk.

Welcome to the Help desk! This is a place to ask questions about Wikipedia and get help with editing problems. It's mainly for newcomers and users who don't yet have an account, but anyone is welcome to ask a question. Remember to check this page again (how about a bookmark?) to see if there have been any replies.

If your question has already been covered in one of the help pages, you could get the answer you're looking for more quickly by checking the topical index.

If your question is not specifically about the Wikipedia, you'll probably find the Reference desk a better place to ask; if you want to start a more detailed and inclusive discussion, try the Village pump.

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Archive 1 Prior to June 2, 2004
Archive 2 June 2, 2004 - June 18, 2004
Archive 3 June 18, 2004 - July 2, 2004
Archive 4 July 2, 2004 - July 18, 2004
Archive 5 July 19, 2004 - July 31, 2004
Archive 6 August 1, 2004 - August 18, 2004
Archive 7 August 18, 2004 - September 5, 2004
Archive 8 September 5, 2004 - September 25th, 2004
Archive 9 September 26, 2004 - October 15th, 2004
Archive 10 October 16, 2004 - November 6th, 2004
Archive 11 November 6th - December 13th, 2004
Archive 12 December 14th - January 8th, 2004

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A message from an anonymous lurker

(Moved question to bottom of page.)

Browser statistic

What about the browser statistic at Wikipedia, which browser is most used among us,Wkipedians? --ThomasK 08:42, Jan 8, 2005 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Browsers, unfortunately the statistics are from February 2004 - an update would indeed be nice :) -- Ferkelparade π 20:27, 8 Jan 2005 (UTC)

OWU; Feeling very frustrated

I'm feeling very frustrated and I hope someone can help me. Let me say that I admit that I have found myself in the midst of a revert war that I should have never entered into; I should have figured out a better tact, but I didn’t and I now I’m stuck.

The entry is question is for Ohio Wesleyan University and the problem is happening with one individual, using one Wiki-user name and various IP addresses to include information that is robbing the entry of its NPOV. By making edits signed in and not signed in, the contributor is attempting to make it appear that more then one person is involved. One I.P. address is an OWU based I.P. address and I’m assuming that the other I.P. is the one that this person uses while at home on break.

Problems with the listed began in July of this year -- before I became involved with the article, which was in September under my user name of “Stude62”. Prior to that time, there have been requests, and attempts to return the document to a NPOV state, however the edits are quickly reverted.

These edits, have resulted in an article that isn’t reliable, isn’t objective and isn’t documented; references are made to publications and outside companies, but date, issue, vol. and page numbers are not included and it makes it very hard to proof the material. In place of properly documented references, superlatives were used ad nauseam.

My goal when I began working on the article was to remove its subjectivity and return the article to a NPOV state that was reliable and informative. I’m not a great writer, but I could see how sentences could be rearranged to place like topics together, and how restructuring that rewording sentences and paragraphs could reduce the wordiness of the article. In a strictly word to word comparison, this article out strips articles for other like school lists with its peer colleges by about 3to1 and that’s even without addressing the issue of content, which the OWU article is seriously lacking.

Along the lines of factual content, the article is lacking in good solid factual content. It’s my contention that the “protector” of the article is more concerned with the school at looking impressive in a way that makes the “protector” look impressive. The school’s credentials are meritorious, and should be recognized in manner in which the credentials speak for themselves, not in such a way that they appear "affected" as they do within the article.

In addition to my attempts to steer the article in the right direction, others have tried, however when suggestions are made, the “protector” immediately questions them, even when suggestions are outlined in the wiki style manual.

The “protector” is also attempting to rewrite the history of OWU without knowing anything about the history that they are trying to rewrite. In its place, the protector is basing his/her history on their perception, not fact.

Yesterday, I contacted the University and have begun to work with the archives and media relations department on formulating a factual rewrite on the article. But I am concerned about the “protector’s” continued ability to vandalize this article based on his/her perceptions trumping reality.

Can anyone help or recommend another user who is expirienced in deal with this type of "protector"?

[[User:Stude62|"user: stude62"]] 16:33, 8 Jan 2005 (UTC)

It looks as if you could safely add an {{NPOV}} at the head of the article, and list it on Wikipedia:Requests for comment. These would be the first two steps to getting other people involved. Noisy | Talk 18:43, Jan 8, 2005 (UTC)

Re: OWU; Feeling very frustrated

I am the user he is referring to. I do not appreciate the way Stude62 is working on this, but I will not discuss this as the objective is to come up with a solution. Could you be specific when you talk about "affected language" on the Wesleyan page? Did you discuss any specific words or facts that bothered you in the discussion page? If you did, I will work with you and change them if they are not NPOV. Absolutely. Instead, you keep complaining on various sites in a very general language lacking ANY specific examples. You didn't even bother discussing it on the Wesleyan's page.

Like an hour ago you made a complete overhaul of the article. I liked. Kept it. What's the problem? I only made a few changes that made the facts consistent with the school's facts. (e.g. Methodist Episc. Church). In fact, that's what you told us you heard from the President's Office. I pointed you to a link as well. I don't know what else to say or how to convince you.

FYI, I sign my contributions. :)

Rananim 21:48, 8 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Rananim-

If you want to talk about this, please do so through an email. I am seeking help from the Wiki Community - let the system work.[[User:Stude62|"user: stude62"]] 01:59, 9 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Helpdesk most commonly deals with technical problems, not editorial disputes. There is a comprehensive process for dispute resolution discussed at Wikipedia:Dispute resolution - you guys are probably best advised to go with mediation if you can't work things out yourselves. -- John Fader 02:20, 9 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Counting contributions

Is there any automatic way within WP to count the contributions I have made, or do I just have to open my contribution history and count them all myself? --Cynical 20:14, 8 Jan 2005 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:List of Wikipedians by number of edits. The list will only show your number of edits when you're in the top 1000 list, but there's also a link to a CSV file on that page that contains all users and their editcounts. Note that both the list and the csv are usually quite out of date; there used to be a tool provided by Kate here that gave you your up-to-date edit count, but Kate's tools seem to be gone for good -- Ferkelparade π 20:22, 8 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Kate's still with us I'm happy to say, but the tools are gone for good. Luckily, there's an old version of the edit counter[1]. --fvw* 08:11, 2005 Jan 9 (UTC)
Thanks all :)--Cynical 22:22, 9 Jan 2005 (UTC)

How to write the perfect Revert Edit Summary?

Hi all!

When reverting a page to an earlier version, I'm adding an edit summary like: "Reverted edits by X to last version by Y". I must be blind, lacking sleep, or both, but I can't seem to do figure out how to make "X" appear as a link to X's contribution page.

I've looked at Wikipedia:Editing FAQ, Wikipedia:How to revert a page to an earlier version, Wikipedia:Edit summary, m:Help:Edit summary and Wikipedia:Edit summary legend, but found no answers.

(Yes, I am a semi-clueless Wikinewbie)

Thanks!--Plek 03:27, 9 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Just use [[Special:Contributions/Username|Username]]. The format you mentioned is generally used by admins using the automated rollback function, in most cases there's no need to be so verbose. For simple single-edit vandalisms, just putting "rv" or "rv vandalism" will do. If you're reverting non-vandalism, you'll want to explain why you're reverting in your edit summary (or put "rv: see talk" and explain things there). --fvw* 03:41, 2005 Jan 9 (UTC)
I geddit now. Thanks again en bedankt! ;-) --Plek 04:05, 9 Jan 2005 (UTC)

PDA Access

Is there an easy way to access Wikipedia via WML or in a low graphics version?

I spend a lot of time sitting and waiting!

IIRC there is a text only version that used to be linked to on the front page. Unfortunately, the address escapes my mind at the moment. Maybe a search for "text only" will get you a link the a text only main page? Mgm|(talk) 12:37, Jan 9, 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for that, but I'm afraid I couldn't get anything. This is a strange omission if it has been withdrawn. I use a P900 and I can get a great many sites on it, especially news ones.

If anyone has an idea about this, or a method of contacting the powers that be I would be very greatful.

Thanks again

Get an account, then go to Special:Preferences and experiment with Skins—try "MySkin" or "Nostalgia". Then log in to your account from your portable device. Does that help? —Triskaideka 16:35, 10 Jan 2005 (UTC)

That is a FINE idea, thanks very much.

Does editing destroy the original information on a page

  1. If a less knowledgable person replaces an excellent page does the original page disappear? If true this seems a serious problem.
  2. Are there backups to pages so the original, especially if better than the replacement, does not disappear.
  3. Does a sysopp check changes in articles - I think this would be a sensible thing.
  4. I realize that information on subjects can be checked by following up on the usual internet search engines. But, how can one count on the information if it is so easy to edit it?
  5. So far the information I find is excellant. What proceedures based on 1-4 protect existing articles?

I can be contacted at iatc-ourtown(at)earthlink.net

  1. No, the information remains. See the "history" link on every page - it's possible to see and restore older versions
  2. see 1
  3. Lots of people check changes. Most new changes are checked as they're made, and generally all the previous authors of a page have it on their watchlist (which means they periodically review changes)
  4. That's answered at Wikipedia:Replies_to_common_objections
  5. Again, see Wikipedia:Replies_to_common_objections
Hope this helps. -- John Fader 20:01, 9 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Is there a limit to the number of completed links you can have one one page? I've been trying to add some new pages to "List of craters on the Moon", but every time I do so now it gives me a database error. However I am able to edit other pages just fine, so perhaps I hit some internal limit? The errors generally look like this: 


 A database query syntax error has occurred. This may indicate a
 bug in the software. The last attempted database query was: 
 
 INSERT IGNORE INTO `links` (l_from,l_to) VALUES ('1378918','6416'),
 ('1378918','222867'),('1378918','50283'),('1378918','1187827'),
 ('1378918','497846'),('1378918','702219')
 
 from within function "LinksUpdate::doUpdate". MySQL returned
 error "1213: Deadlock found when trying to get lock; Try
 restarting transaction (10.0.0.1)".

I tried multiple times and with more than one page, but keep getting an error. Thanks. — RJH 20:32, 9 Jan 2005 (UTC)

  • I was able to edit those pages today, so perhaps it was just an interim problem with the database... — RJH 16:10, 10 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Should there be an alphabetic index?

When reading old fashioned paper encyclopedias, I could browse by starting at a letter of the alphabet and going through articles in alphabetical order. I could be introduced to many topics I had never considered before. Is there something equivalent for Wikipedia besides the Random page?

You want Special:Allpages. Be warned, it's large. -- Cyrius|✎ 23:05, 9 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Redirect-only text?

Is it possible to make text appear only after a redirect but not in the main article?

Example:
Rockman redirects to Mega Man series, as it should. But Rockman is also the name of a line of guitar amps. Currently the disambiguation text for this problem is at the top of the Mega Man series page, but it's only useful if the user was redirected from Rockman.

This is not yet possible, but updates to this effect are considered. For now, you should add boilerplate to pages that could be redirected to, like this:
Rockman redirects here. Rockman is also a line of guitar amplifiers.
I don't know if there are templates for this; if there are, these should preferrably be used, because they can be automagically changed if/when the hiding solution is implemented. JRM 23:26, 2005 Jan 9 (UTC)
Then Rockman should be a disambig page, linking to Mega Man series and Rockman (guitar amp manufacturer), even if the latter doesn't exist. — PhilHibbs | talk 11:37, 10 Jan 2005 (UTC)
That depends wholly on which use of "Rockman" is the most prominent, which I don't know and didn't take into account — I assumed the OP was more knowledgeable than me in stating "as it should". See Wikipedia:Disambiguation; if this is primary-topic disambiguation, then adding a header is appropriate. See New York, New York, for example. Some googling turns up that "Rockman" is a trademark, and "Rockman Ace" is the name of a line of headphone amplifiers (not just guitar) from Dunlop Manufacturing, Inc., not a manufacturer in itself. So unless this line is so notable that it warrants its own article, which is doubtful, I propose
Rockman redirects here. Rockman Ace is the name of a line of instrument amplifiers made by Dunlop Manufacturing, Inc.
Or wording to that effect. A separate redirect from Rockman Ace to Dunlop Manufacturing, Inc. seems useful, too. And of course a note could be added to the Dunlop article itself. JRM 12:20, 2005 Jan 10 (UTC)
Rockman should absolutely not be a disambig page (and I've reverted edits to the article making it such). A 93-game franchise with a very large and active English-speaking community that uses the Japanese names mean someone is much more likely to want to know about the games vs an obscure line of musical equipment that stopped being produced 5 years ago (which is already mentioned at the top of the Mega Man series page). The only disambiguation that would make sense is differentiating between the different uses of "Rockman" within the metaseries itself. --Boco XLVII 14:05, 10 Jan 2005 (UTC)

ISBN Problems

WHAT on earth am I doing wrong in entering my ISBN's? I simply cannot figure it out. Here is exactly what I enter, and they never link up: ISBN 0300055366. Yes: I am positive that I am not dyslexing the numbers. Many thanks, allie 23:14, 9 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Simple: don't link. Parser magic does this for you: ISBN 0-30-005536-6. JRM 23:21, 2005 Jan 9 (UTC)

URI and Relations of Articles.

We are the GNU project from TIFR. We downloaded the categorieslink table as you had directed us.We are not going to keep the articles with us but only the metadata.The metadata includes the keywords and the words that can identify the articles.For that we need the URIs of the various articles.Can you help on the same.Also we aim in creating varios relations between articles.Does WIKIPEDIA already have any such relations between the articles,if it has please give us some information on that too.

Thanking you, Sakecwiki Team(TIFR)

I'm not sure what you're asking for. Your questions suggest that you have an unfamiliarity with the overal design of the database. I suggest that you read the schema before trying to work with it. -- Cyrius|✎ 18:25, 10 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Beyond the (rather basic, relational) database schema to which Cyrius refers, there really isn't any explicit metadata. Links are held in wikitext, and are only checked when an article is rendered into html (well, technically there is the "link table", but really it only serves to make "what links here" work, and a mediawiki system works perfectly well if you don't build the linktable). Equally there are categories, but a category is just a special kind of link in an article (and one creates a category by linking to it). There's no system of keywords, and there's not (really) a meaningful index. So really there isn't any more metadata to translate. Bar a few weird things like redirects there is a 1:1 mapping between URIs and articles (technically that's not quite true: as spaces are turned into underscores, and some characters are resolved in the usual http way, the mapping is really surjective, but trivially so). So, to conclude, I think that if you need more detailed information about how articles link and are categorised then the only way is some brute-force spider/digester thing; and if you're going to run such a thing, please do it on a local copy of the wikipedia articlespace, not the (congested) real site. Information about downloading the database is at Wikipedia:Database download. -- John Fader 01:32, 11 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Error messages

I have been having a devil of a time. I can preview edits and new articles just fine, but when attempting to save page, it goes absymally slowly and (now) usually dosn't work. I sit there waiting ages for the page to load, only to get an error message. I haven't changed my computer and this is a recent problem. The messages are (sorry, it's a bit long):

Database error From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. A database query syntax error has occurred. This may indicate a bug in the software. The last attempted database query was: INSERT IGNORE INTO `links` (l_from,l_to) VALUES ('1383433','279684'),('1383433','5355'),('1383433','10646'),('1383433','1380897'),('1383433','49404'),('1383433','555643'),('1383433','26437'),('1383433','50283'),('1383433','1187827'),('1383433','497846'),('1383433','702219') from within function "LinksUpdate::doUpdate". MySQL returned error "1213: Deadlock found when trying to get lock; Try restarting transaction (10.0.0.1)". Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cook_%28profession%29"

OR:

Sorry- we have a problem... The wikimedia web server didn't return any response to your request. To get information on what's going on you can visit #wikipedia. An "offsite" status page is hosted on OpenFacts.


Generated Mon, 10 Jan 2005 21:54:57 GMT by wikipedia.org (squid/2.5.STABLE4-20040219)

Thanks Quill 22:46, 10 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Commons image with duplicate Wikipedia name

I have uploaded an image to the Wikimedia Commons that has the same name as an image on the Wikipedia. What is the preferred method of adding this image to an article? I could see changing the name of one or the other but I'm guessing there is a better way.

Thanks - Trick 22:48, 10 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I think images that have been moved to Commons should be deleted, that way the commons version will be used. I'm not sure if they're speedy deleteable or if they need to be IfDed though, I seem to recall there being an attempt to get them speediable anyway. --fvw* 23:12, 2005 Jan 10 (UTC)
This isn't the same image but just an image with a different name. - Trick 23:25, 10 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Ah, in that case why don't you upload it using a different name? I think local images will always mask commons images and that's non-overridable. Even if it was, it would be rather confusing I think, changing the name would seem wise. --fvw* 23:29, 2005 Jan 10 (UTC)
That was my first thought but I thought maybe there was a preferred method. I'll go ahead and do that. Thanks! - Trick 23:40, 10 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Not an encyclopedia!!!

How can you say you are an on-line encyclopedia? An encyclopedia is based on fact-not liberal opinions such as stated on the tsunami article. My daughter is doing a research paper on the tsunami and pulled up your site. Thank God she asked me about it before she put in her report that the earthquake that caused the tsunami was caused by a hydrogen bomb being tested in the Indian Ocean-by the Busch administration!!! Her teachers would have that she was a complete idiot!! If you want to post crap like that in your on-line site ,call it something else besides an encyclopedia. I have instructed my daughter never to go to your site again. Your site is nothing more than a glorified chat-room.

Your daughter viewed a vandalized version of the article which was in existence for six minutes before being repaired by one of our more productive contributors. This is, unfortunately, the major flaw in Wikipedia's policy of allowing any and all comers to edit.
While I thank you for the reminder of the danger of vandals (which some of us seem to have forgotten), perhaps you should consider taking a more productive approach to voicing your concerns in the future. -- Cyrius|✎ 01:12, 11 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Flagging POV articles

Really not sure where to ask/mention this...

I ran across Henry Morgenthau, Sr. today (whilst looking for his son). Almost all of the article deals heavily with the contentious issue of the Armenian Genocide and was written by an anonymous IP whose other edits were to pages about that same topic.

I don't know anything in particular about the topic ("many died, was messy, popular with revisionists"), but I do know that what's there is contentious, looks fairly one-sided and vituperative (...tendency toward fabrication...nonsensical tales of brutality...), and therefore doesn't seem entirely trustworthy; it reads as heavily PoV. So, I would edit it, neutralise it a bit. Unfortunately, for all I know he was as bad as the article portrays him, and I have very little in the way of reference material here to work from. What's the best way to flag this for the attention of people with some knowledge of the topic?

Thanks, and apologies for a stupid question. Shimgray 00:56, 11 Jan 2005 (UTC)

(This is my opinion) I would add some more information about what he did before and after that episode, and certainly put in a reference to his more famous son (who was the secretary of the treasury under FDR). Basicly what is there now is a long paragraph, making the points that the guy was (a) racist against the Turks (BTW: was the word "Turk" used back then?), and (b) for that reason fabricated information, and helped push America into the war on the British side. I agree with you that some of the article could be worded differently, in a more neutral manner, but the more interesting question (to me) is: Were the reports of genocide accurate? I believe that people currently believe that things (in general) were more or less as bad as Morgenthau said. Therefore, I agree with you (User:Shimgray). I would write a neutral article and say Morgenthau did this, did that, and not get into whethor the dispatches were true or false or if he believed them or not. My impression is that he may have been racist, his reports were based on what other people saw, and may not have been 100% correct, but that the gist of what he said, and the tone did accurately reflect what was happening. Morris 05:30, Jan 11, 2005 (UTC)
Well, I've given him an actual biography section and crossreferenced Morgenthau Jr. (did you know he was second-in-line to the Presidency for a week? Random trivia of the day...) - but this big contentious section is still there. If it was like this I don't want to rip it out and put in a few mild comments, but I really don't want to use internet sources alone to figure out if it was, for obvious reasons... well, I'll have a go at rephrasing some of it. It is pretty screedish as-is, even if accurate. Shimgray 01:51, 12 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Merging edits by same user?

Is it possible to merge all back-to-back edits to an article by the same user into a single edit for the purposes of the history and diffs? If not, why not, and if so, why is this process not automated? --Boco XLVII 04:50, 11 Jan 2005 (UTC)

It isn't, and I don't think I've heard anyone express an interest in doing so. What would you do with the edit summaries? -- Cyrius|✎ 05:52, 11 Jan 2005 (UTC)
That was the only problem I could forsee that isn't easily solved. The other problem I thought of would be a single user contributing an entire article over multiple days, etc., in which case the merging would only happen on edits made within a certain time of each other (such as a 2-hour span). Of course a workaround for the first (that would greatly undermine its usefulness) would be to only merge edits with no summaries into edits with summaries... whatever. It was just an idea to decrease history versions on server-side and increase the usefulness of diffs. --Boco XLVII 14:57, 11 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Multiple-person edit war - where to report/request mediation?

I can't be the only who noticed the edit-war over whether country articles are to use infobox templates or not. Where do I report this time-consuming back-and-forth-editting and request mediation of the differing opinions? As it seems, the different side where not able to come to a compromise or consensus in their discussion of the matter themselves Nightstallion 05:27, 11 Jan 2005 (UTC)

You can start at Wikipedia:Requests for comments to get opinions from a greater group of editors. You can ask for the page to be protected and you can report editors for breaking the Three revert rule. Most of it is unnecessary as most editors are aware of the problem. You may want to try to speak to both parties seperately and try to see if you can come up with a compromise both find acceptable. 131.211.210.157 09:01, 11 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Will transwiki (or crosswiki, whichever they're called) work on any wiki running the Mediawiki software? Also, can crosswiki redirects be made? Thanks, Alphax (t) (c) (e) 07:46, Jan 11, 2005 (UTC)

For example, you can have interlanguage links like en:Main page or meta:Main page. Does this work with any MediaWiki Wiki? Alphax (t) (c) (e) 13:36, Jan 11, 2005 (UTC)
Well, it's part of the software, so it will work on any copy of that software that has been configured to use it; oh, and they're neither "transwiki" nor "crosswiki", but "InterWiki". Have a look at meta:Help:Interwiki links and its linked pages for what may or may not be a helpful description of how this feature works. As for interwiki redirects, you can create them (and they will work as redirects) but it's generally considered a rather Bad Idea because the software currently makes no special considerations about the link, so you end up magically at the target page with no pointer back. Thus in order to edit such a redirect you have to manually work out what the URL would need to be to access it ("...&redirect=no"); which is more than a little awkward, and arguably a bug. - IMSoP 18:39, 11 Jan 2005 (UTC)
So could I redirect my user and talk pages at meta to the ones here? Or would that be bad style? Alphax (t) (c) (e) 09:30, Jan 14, 2005 (UTC)
You can redirect to any page on any wiki listed on the Interwiki map, but it's a bad idea since it's very confusing for users to be thrown onto a different wiki with no idea they're on a different wiki and no idea how to get back. Try a soft redirect instead. Angela. 22:46, Jan 14, 2005 (UTC)

How to add a (foot)note

How do I add a cross-referring, i.e. clickable (foot)note ? Double-parenthesizing notenumbers does not seem to work. David de Cooman 11:32, 11 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Want numbers? Template:Fn Or do you prefer text like this: (Lupo 2005)?
Template:Fnb Clicking the link should bring you back.
(Lupo 2005): Just a random statement made by Lupo 11:40, 11 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Thanks awfully for your pertinent advice! David de Cooman 12:00, 11 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Can I change my User Name?

I have some history with Wikis. I registered with a CamelCase user name. Is there any chance I can change it so I don't lose history etc?

Diz 12:45, 11 Jan 2005 (UTC)

You can sign up with a new user name. For re-attributing your edits, see #Old contributions above. Lupo 12:50, 11 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Thanks very much Lupo, Diz
Even better, there is an approved process: Wikipedia:Changing_username which will achieve exactly what I need. Diz

Do we have a policy guideline on whether links to discussion forums are appropriate? A persistent anon keeps re-adding a links to a couple of hir forums to certain music articles. The forums have less than 100 users each, and most posts are by the forum owner. If there were to be links to discussion forums for these bands at all, there are far more notable ones. I've removed them about half a dozen times, but they're always back within a week or two, usually from a different IP address.

I believe that these sorts of links are discouraged, unless the forum itself is notable enough to be the subject of the article, or are a key source of understanding (certain technology topics, perhaps). However, I have scoured the policy, faq, and help pages for a guideline to which I could refer the anon, and I find nothing about this other than "no advertising or self promotion", and since these are not commercial sites, s/he is not convinced.

Is there a policy page on forum links that I've missed? If not, should this be specifically added? I'd hate to look like I'm "making up" policy in order to remove this person's link, so I would like some input from others on the issue. Catherine\talk 17:56, 11 Jan 2005 (UTC)

What wikipedia is not sort of applies. I generally go by "If it isn't the only or foremost (by a large margin)" site of its kind, we don't want a link, wikipedia is not a web directory. (That's just for forums and the like: I judge sites with "actual content" by whether the site gives useful information for someone who's read the wikipedia articles on the subject matter and wants to know more. And for references of stuff said in the wikipedia article ofcourse). --fvw* 18:11, 2005 Jan 11 (UTC)
It's irrelevant whether the subject of a link is commercial or not. An ad is still an ad, self-promotion is still self-promotion. Ads for non-profits, charities, political groups, religions, open-source software projects or angelfire homepages all still fall squarely under the advertising and self promotion rule, and you were quite right to remove them. Given that you've told him this, and advised him of the rule he's breaking, then (should he return to doing this) he doesn't need any warnings before receiving a mass revert and block. -- John Fader 20:33, 11 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Link on Main Page to Allpages

How can request a link to Special:Allpages on the Main Page? I consider it superior to the Quick index Lee S. Svoboda 18:09, 11 Jan 2005 (UTC) Your best bet is discussing it at Talk:Main Page. Mgm|(talk) 09:33, Jan 12, 2005 (UTC)

How do I VfD for page that is simply a redirect

VfD for page that redirects

I want to nominate Andrew Babcock for deletion. This page was just created today by 216.114.70.163. There is no content on Andrew Babcock, it simply redirects to an unrelated page, which is itself a redirect.

How do I place the VfD notice on the Andrew Babcock page without being redirected and prevented from doing so? Johntex 18:51, 11 Jan 2005 (UTC)

There's a separate page for deleting redirects: Wikipedia:Redirects for Deletion (also known as WP:RFD). --fvw* 18:57, 2005 Jan 11 (UTC)

Preferred form: G K Chesterton or G.K.Chesterton

Modern usage tends to style a name like this: G K Chesterton, but traditionally it would be styled like this: G. K. Chesterton.

As G K Chesterton was very much known by his initials, I made a redirect from G K Chesterton to G. K. Chesterton where an article already existed. Conversely, the entry for A E Housman has no periods in its article name. Which style is preferred? Where can I read about this on the site?

Diz 19:13, 11 Jan 2005 (UTC)

The correct style is G. K. Cesterton. See Wikipedia:Naming conventions (common names)

Lee S. Svoboda 22:21, 11 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Acceptable to withdraw a nomination for VfD?

I submitted IPod shuffle to VfD because I feel that this is not a note-worthy device, and that the article is no better than an advertisement. However, the entry has been on VfD for less than a day and it has gotten 11 votes to keep, 1 vote to merge and redirect, and no votes to delete other than my own. It seems there will be a clear consensus to keep this article. Therefore, I would like to withdraw my nomination for VfD and remove the VfD tag from the article. However, other than noting that these tags should not be removed while the issue is "under consideration", the policy on article deletion is silent on this issue. Is it acceptable for me to withdraw my candidate for VfD, given that the consensus opinion seems to be to keep the article? Johntex 00:34, 12 Jan 2005 (UTC)

It used to be acceptable for the submitter to withdraw it so long as there were no delete votes. But now people are being thorough about keeping the VfD votes around afterward, and so removing the vote wholesale will upset their methodical scheme (to the extent that they'll get cross and restore it). There's no reason why you can't strike out your original nomination (just what you wrote, not others' votes) and add a note saying you'd like to retract your nomination. This way it will stay on VfD nominally, but in practice will not receive further consideration. -- John Fader 00:52, 12 Jan 2005 (UTC)

<IFRAME>

Seems as though wikipedia disallows iframe tags. Is this correct? If so, why? I'd like to try and use the tag so I can display external content on my user page. Is there another way one can do this?--Will2k 07:15, Jan 12, 2005 (UTC)

The mediawiki software (the software that powers Wikipedia) disallows all but a tiny handful of html tags. Iframe is particularly dangerous because while it lets you display external content on your user page, there's nothing stopping somsone from doing the same in articles to show external content (this would be *extremely bad*). So, to answer your question, no, there is no way to do it. In fact, if there was a workaround of some sort, the devs would probably shut it down very quickly. You'll just have to make due with the tools you have - variables, templates, images, tables, symbols, 'etc. →Raul654 07:39, Jan 12, 2005 (UTC)

Hi there,

I am a newcomer to the Wikipedia and I am amazed by the contents of the site. I have an existing site on China Arts & Crafts where I wish to include links to Wikipedia, on subjects such as History, Culture, Nationality of China in Chinese and English as reference materials to readers. But the links did not work for Chinese language. I guess it must be problem of the copyright. How can I bypass this since it is a free encyclopia. Please anyone help me and my ID to Wikipedia is 14546 and my name is Larry Chan with email at: [email protected].

Larry Chan

Hi Larry. I'm afraid I don't understand exactly what the problem is. Could you be more specific, or perhaps show us examples? In what way do the links not work—what happens when you try to follow them? Do they fail to work for all users, or just some? What pages are you trying to link to? How are you coding the links? Are you trying to link to the English or Chinese Wikipedia, and were you aware of the differences in URLs between the two? Thanks—Triskaideka 22:05, 12 Jan 2005 (UTC)

STS-61-C (section) edit

"Columbia finally landed at Edwards AFB at 5:59 a.m. PST, on Jan. 18. Mission elapsed time was 6 days, 2 hours, 3 minutes, 51 seconds.

After numerous delays Columbia returned to orbit on January 12, 1986. The primary mission was to deploy a geosynchronous KU-1 communications satellite for RCA Americom. A variety of other experiments were also performed successfully including some using the Materials Science Laboratory-2. This was the first flight utilizing NASA's Get Away Special canisters. Perhaps, the mission is most notable for carrying one of only three sitting congressmen into space, John Glenn and Jake Garn being the others."

Could someone more capable than myself, please tell me if the above should be rewritten. It seems confusing to me. I could understand this last paragraph being placed closer to the beginning of the article, but not at the end.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/STS-61-C

You're probably right. If you look at this diff it seems that someone inserted a new description of the mission in front of the existing description, instead of rewriting/expanding the existing one as they probably should have done. —Triskaideka 19:26, 12 Jan 2005 (UTC)

editing

vertical lines appear often in texts to edit; i cant find a way to do this on my keyboard; how is it done?

Assuming you mean the pipe symbol |, its location differs widely between keyboard layouts. What keyboard layout are you using? On US keyboards, it should be located right next to your z key, other languages might differ somewhat (on German keyboards, for example, it's located on the same key but only accessible through the ALT-GR key). If all else fails, you can input special characters via their ASCII code by holding down the left ALT key then typing the ASCII code on the num pad (for the pipe, type 0124). -- Ferkelparade π 11:47, 13 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • My keyboard has it right above the backslash on the same key. Shift+\ should the trick if you have the same keyboard I do. Mgm|(talk) 11:49, Jan 13, 2005 (UTC)
Alternatively, if you see a symbol you want to use (and there are generally at least 100 not on your keyboard but available), just copy and paste it into your own message. Notinasnaid 11:43, 14 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Merge Oldham with Oldham (borough)

My home town Oldham has a second page Oldham_(borough). This appears to be part of a well organised "project" of English boroughs and administrative authorities.

Now... I have previously merged Macclesfield_(borough) into Macclesfield and redirected into Macclesfield, as the only real content on the borough article was a well made infobox. See the previous edits on those articles. Am I going about his the right way? Would it be good practice to merge Oldham_(borough) into Oldham?

Advice sought. Peter Hitchmough

User:Morwen split the articles, realising that in many cases the borough is considered quite distinct from the place it is named for. However, this can be hard to judge, and in some cases such as Sheffield it created confusion and has since been merged back. I know that there is more to the borough of Oldham than the town itself, but on the question of merging the articles, I think it would depend on whether the differentiation is proving useful or confusing. Be bold, but try discussing it on the talk pages first, if the articles are being regularly edited - or discuss it with Morwen. Warofdreams 15:47, 14 Jan 2005 (UTC)
I discussed with Morwen, and then demerged Macclesfield and moved some Macc facts to the town page. The whole thing works better now. Peter Hitchmough 10:47, 15 Jan 2005 (UTC)

http://www.urbanlegends.com/

The old Urban Legends website is now dead and the http://www.urbanlegends.com/ link now goes to a generic search website (associated with oingo.com, which likes to buy up abandoned URLs). I've used the Google site-search to try to find all the references to urbanlegends.com in the Wikipedia, but that search seems to have been incomplete since the original article where I found an external link to urbanlegends.com (Yellow badge) wasn't listed by Google. I went ahead and changed the pages that I found (April Fool's Day and Spontaneous human combustion) that hadn't already been changed by someone else, but a more complete search should be done. I am posting this info here since I couldn't find any better place to do it. gK ¿? 04:47, 14 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Display of Fetch only the content osf the articles.

We are the Gnu priject from Tifr.We need to know how to get only the content of the article and the images if any.We do not want the wikipedia background as in the navigation on the left,the tabs on the top etc.We need this because when we click on the link that directs to the wikipedia article, the page takes up the whole screen and does not fit in the frame that we provide.It will be very efficient if we get only the content of the article in that frame.If suppose the article is not found then we redirect the user to the Wikipedia main page.We will be grateful if you provide us help on the same.

Two ways of doing this are using Special:Export (see meta:XML export) or downloading the database) (see Wikipedia:Database download. Angela. 22:41, Jan 14, 2005 (UTC)
This group has already downloaded the database, as they stated in previous messages (some archived). They seem to have a problem figuring out how to work with it, but never actually states what the problem is. -- Cyrius|✎ 00:14, 15 Jan 2005 (UTC)

MD5

Do youhaveany MD5 file with you.Do you generate any.If so pleaselet know.Thanks.

An MD5 of what? -- Cyrius|✎ 00:15, 15 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Gisele Bundchen

Would someone post the photo of her on the Portuguese edition of Wikipedia to the English article? I'm not very good with technical things such as this and would appreciate someone else's aid. Ave atque vale! PedanticallySpeaking 21:08, Jan 14, 2005 (UTC)

The origin of the Portugese photo has no source info (and indeed a scary looking "there's no source" template). -- John Fader 21:20, 14 Jan 2005 (UTC)
But man, what a picture! Tim Rhymeless (Er...let's shimmy) 04:50, 15 Jan 2005 (UTC)

A message from an anonymous lurker (moved)

(moved from top of page)

I made a contribution to an article, and it was reverted within 5 minutes, which was not nearly enough time to even do the slightest research on whether my edits were factual. I thought I was encouraged to Be bold in editing articles, but there is no point if they are reverted without a thought. They could have at least left a reason on the talk page, you know. I don't want this to devolve into a discussion about a specific article, so I'm not mentioning it here, but why should I contribute if the community does not want me to, you know?

Assuming that your edits were factually correct, there are a few possible explanations for why someone might have reverted them without researching them. One possibility is that the person who reverted them is a vandal or is pushing their particular POV. Another is that your edits introduced information that, while in fact true, appears unlikely, and so an overzealous editor mistook them for obvious vandalism. A third is that the editor felt that the information was outside of the scope of the article, or mistook it for advertising or POV-pushing. A fourth is that the revert was a simple clerical error, and the editor pressed a button by accident or meant to revert a different article.
I recommend that you take your own advice and post something on the article's talk page, or at the talk page of the editor who reverted you. You may well find that that editor is reasonable and willing to either admit their mistake or explain to you why it wasn't a mistake. If you cannot resolve your disagreement with them, we do have a dispute resolution process you could try.
You should be aware that, since most people who vandalize Wikipedia do so anonymously, editors are unfortunately more likely to scrunitinize and make snap judgements about edits that are attributed to an IP address rather than a user account. This is regrettable, but not entirely unsound. There are a few measures you could take to improve your credibility:
  1. Explain your edits in your edit summary or on the article's talk page.
  2. Whenever possible, include citations of source for information that you add to an article. Create or add to the article's "References" section.
  3. Sign up for an account and make your edits while logged in. It's free, and you can use the account as much or as little as you like. Of course, having an account doesn't change a thing about the quality of your information, but it is a meaningful gesture that shows your fellow editors you are willing to accept accountability for what you write, and thus makes them less likely to suspect you of being a vandal.
I hope this incident doesn't color your opinion of Wikipedia. The community does, in fact, want you to contribute, especially if your information is good and you are capable of improving an article in collaboration with other editors. —Triskaideka 22:57, 14 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Spam filter blocking my site (also, this site is pretty damn hard to navigate, no offense intended.)

First off I have to say that this website is, no offense, IMPOSSIBLE to find your way around.

I just had a simple problem with the spam filter filtering out a website I was trying to link to. It told me to contact an administrator, so I went to the LONG list and picked one at random, but for the life of me I could not find any way to contact the person.

So I thought I'd try to contact the site itself. I went to the help page, and eventually found the Contact us link. The I spent forever trying to find my way around THAT page, before I FINALLY found the link to the Help desk. THEN I couldn't figure out how to post a new question - it took me FOREVER to find the tiny little "post a new question" link.

So anyway, my original problem was that the spam filter was filtering out a website I was trying to add to a page. The page was the Backstreet Boys page, and this is the link I wanted to add: www.bsbunlimited.4t.com.

Performance Reviews

Are reviews appropriate for an article? I came across Renee Robinson#Performance_Reviews and wasn't sure if it was appropriate, and figured it'd be best to ask before deleting it. :) Thanks! -- Zawersh 06:39, 16 Jan 2005 (UTC)

View Problem

Hello, I have a problem with the font in the Wikipedia site. For some reason the browser uses the unconfortable font Gill Sans MT Shadow when browsing this site- and this site only. Why does it do that? How can I fix it?

Thank you, Racheli.

Go into the preferences screen, pick "skin", and chose the "classic" skin. It uses a serif font, and is generally much easier on the eye. -- John Fader 02:27, 17 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Taking Credit for Anon Edits

If I've made edits without logging into my account, is there anyway that these edits could be retroactively accredited to me? Khanartist 10:58, 2005 Jan 16 (UTC)

name and password security !

I have just received an email from

[email protected]

It states a password and username.

These do not refer to me!

Is this a scam or a security bloop from wiki?

how to change User Name

Just created new account and I messed up the letters in my User Name. Is there any way I can Change my User Name? If not, how to I 'unsubscribe' - then I would just create a new account with correct User Name. Thanks in advance.

Problems with tables

I have noticed that there are a number of articles with a table at the start where it appears on top of the text, see Battle of Methven for an example of this, there are others. There are some other articles which get this right. There is probably some fairly simple solution, but what is it? PatGallacher 01:55, 2005 Jan 17 (UTC)

I don't quite know what you mean. Battle of Methven looks okay to me; although it uses an outmoded version of the wikipedia table syntax it should still work properly. When you say "where it appears on top of the text" do you mean that the main article text appears to be overlapping (in a really ugly way) with the text in the table? I don't see that, but different browsers vary, and naturally we want the article to look good for everyone. I've tweaked a few things in the article, but nothing that should make any difference. Do you still see the problem? If so, can you describe it at greater length, tell me which browser you're using, which wikipedia skin you're using (if you've not set it in preferences, then it's still "monobook", I guess), and cite an article that uses a comparable table that does look okay for you? Armed with that, I'll see if I can resolve matters. -- John Fader 02:41, 17 Jan 2005 (UTC)
I have had a look at it again, the problem is still there. What I mean is that the table obscures virtually all of the first paragraph, so you can't read it. I am using Internet Explorer. The linked entry Battle of Bannockburn works OK. I have tried changing my skin preference to Classic and MySkin and Battle of Methven appears OK, but as Monobook is supposed to be the default this is hardly satisfactory. If it is using an outmoded version of table syntax then it ought to be possible to identify the problem. -- Pat Gallacher 02:59, 17 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Weird. Looks okay for me in IE, even in monobook. Nevertheless, I've changed the article to use the new-style markup. Please clear your cache and take another look at it. -- John Fader 03:35, 17 Jan 2005 (UTC)

invisible text in entries

I am using MS internet explorer v. 5.5 for mac and many pages have blank areas in the text where there should definitely be text. I have seen this in a lot of different pages, but the "Linus Pauling" page really had quite a bit of it....

anyone know how to deal with this? thanks a million in advance. Andrew [email protected]

Editing Tables

Please advise how one can edit tables. For example: In the Opal page there is a spelling mistake in the 'Identification: Colour' cell, to whit "iridiscent", which should read "iridescent". How does one correct this? Incidentally, the link for 'iridiscent' does not work. Is this due to the spelling mistake? Duncan France

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