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February 3

Featured articles

What article is a featured article in the most languages? Albacore (talk) 00:42, 3 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

This actually came up a while back. The long and short of it is that it appears to be Julius Caesar with 13, though no one was able to be sure.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 01:41, 3 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

And we aren't even one of them :( CTJF83 01:51, 3 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

If this question was multiple times asked, why doesn't anybody write a bot that checks every weeks (or so) for identical articles? Can't be so hard since every (interwiki-)article is connected... mabdul 15:24, 3 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Anon whistleblowing

Is there anyway to whistleblow on Wikipedia policy breakers anonymously? My experience today (see diff) is that anonymous whistleblowers are not taken seriously and their edits are erased, but I'm afraid to speak out under a username for fear of retaliation/harassment by potentially offended editors. 128.253.26.82 (talk) 01:40, 3 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

That's not the case. I'd assume from the edit summary, your post was disruptive somehow? Clarification with User:SarekOfVulcan would be warranted to see why s/he removed your post. CTJF83 01:46, 3 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The issue as I read it is clearly explained at WP:SOCK. Longtime users should not mask their identity (either by logging out or by creating new accounts) when they are working outside of the article space, especially in regards to discussing policies and behavior of editors. If you want to be taken seriously, you need to stand by your accusations with your user name. --Jayron32 04:36, 3 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Whistleblowing is where someone within an organisation knows of abuse or bad practice of which the authorities are unaware, and reports it even at the risk of real-life repercussions. Wikipedia routinely seeks community consensus on everything from content to policy to user conduct, so raising the issue of another user's behaviour here is hardly "whistleblowing". The user you report can't try to get you fired or threaten your family (well, in theory they could if you chose to disclose your real-life identity, but the likelihood is very low and we have police for that sort of nonsense) so why should you be allowed to report anonymously? If someone accused you of misbehaving here, wouldn't it be fairer to know who they were and what your history, if any, was with them? Ka renjc 11:03, 3 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Copyright violation question

Can anyone explain to me how List of assassinations and acts of terrorism against Americans (USA) can be a copyright violation of List of assassinations and acts of terrorism against Americans, of which it is an identical copy, when the latter is another article on the same Wikipedia and not itself a copyright violation? And why is it not even allowed to replace the former with a redirect to the latter? JIP | Talk 06:52, 3 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Uhhhh, you're the one that deleted it, you tell us. CTJF83 07:05, 3 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I only deleted it because I was told it was a copyright violation, I'm not the one who decided it was one. JIP | Talk 07:35, 3 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Ok, so basically it's because it doesn't give credit to everyone who's edited the article. Wikipedia's licensing specifies that you can use, modify and redistribute any article at will as long as you credit where it came from. Ideally, this should be a link to the history, which lists all the contributors. I hope this helps! --- c y m r u . l a s s ^{(talk me, stalk me)} 07:40, 3 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Who told you to delete it? Why would you as an admin, do something you didn't agree with? I see no reason why a redirect wouldn't be ok. CTJF83 07:43, 3 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

User:Seb az86556 placed a copyvio tag on the article, and after I replaced the article with a redirect, he undid the change and restored the copyvio tag. I thought that I'd just delete the article, because it was redundant with List of assassinations and acts of terrorism against Americans anyway, being an exact copy of it, and no one would search for the title with "(USA)" in it anyway. JIP | Talk 08:06, 3 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Redirects are cheap...but either way is fine I guess...CTJF83 08:10, 3 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

For reference, I believe that where all versions of a page are copyright infringements, it's preferable to delete the page entirely than simply to remove the latest version of the infringing content (which is what the conversion to redirect effectively did). However, in this particular case, perhaps the creator was trying to split the list at List_of_assassinations_and_acts_of_terrorism_against_Americans and create a new list limited to acts that took place in the USA? (Caveat: I haven't actually looked at the deleted page.) If that was so, firstly I don't think the original list is long enough to warrant splitting, but secondly (assuming it had been) there's a procedure for repairing inadequate attribution of material copied within Wikipedia at WP:Copying within Wikipedia. Gonzonoir (talk) 09:29, 3 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The page started out as an exact copy of the already existing page List of assassinations and acts of terrorism against Americans, which should mean that its edit history didn't credit the contributors of the earlier page, whose material it copied. I presume the author was trying to move the page under a different title, but was doing it incorrectly by copy-pasting the content to a new page and then converting the old page to a redirect. I would undelete only the version of List of assassinations and acts of terrorism against Americans (USA) that contains my redirect to List of assassinations and acts of terrorism against Americans, but I don't think the title with "(USA)" added is a plausible search target. JIP | Talk 19:48, 3 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Oh, and another link: Wikipedia:Copying within Wikipedia. --- c y m r u . l a s s ^{(talk me, stalk me)} 07:46, 3 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

In my opinion, unless the editing histories are also identical, JIP should have reverted Seb az86556's revert of his redirect and explained in a nice admin-like way that even though the "(USA)" version was an unlikely redirect, it was necessary to do that due to the need to preserve the editing history as required by the licensing conditions. Perhaps now, the best action would be to restore List of assassinations and acts of terrorism against Americans (USA), immediately redo his redirect to List of assassinations and acts of terrorism against Americans and then drop a note on User talk:Seb az86556 explaining what's happened. Astronaut (talk) 15:10, 3 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Alexandra Powers

Hi! I was wondering if someone could edit the Alexandra Powers page. I found this article online that talk about her personal life: http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,,308844,00.html Would it be ok to use this article as a reference? Thanks! Neptunekh2 (talk) 06:55, 3 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I don't see why not, EW is a reliable source. CTJF83 07:02, 3 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I should remind Neptunekh2 that it's not really proper (or necessary) to post this question on several users' talk pages, as well as the help desk. – Kerαunoςcopia^◁_galaxies 07:20, 3 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Format display

I use my smartphone about 90% of the time for browsing and research. I'm using an HTC-HD2 Cell phone with TMobile as my carrier. the OLD Wiki page layout style that would display on my phone say about 6 months ago and earlier LOOKED better, UPLOADED FASTER, and EASIER TO READ WITHOUT having to SCROLL ALL OVER THE PLACE like the "NEWER" FORMAT LAYOUT of say 2 months ago.

Am I missing something? In other words, is there a page layout similar to the "old" one that's specifically designed for the approx. 3" x 6" smartphone screen? I understand the "new" layout provides a great deal of info that, perhaps the "old" style did not. Personally, I liked the OLD one BETTER.

Please advise. Joel —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.174.5.147 (talk) 11:38, 3 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Just a thought: Did you perhaps switch from en.m.wikipedia.org to en.wikipedia.org? —teb728 t c 12:06, 3 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

alternatively create a account and change the design as long as you are logged in! mabdul 13:48, 3 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

(edit conflict) The last time there was a site-wide style change was last June when we switched from the monobook skin to the vector skin (what you are using now). You can still access monobook by either registering an account and setting it in your preferences, or appending ?useskin=monobook to the URL (like so). As for the mobile gateway there are 2 that I am aware of: en.mobile.wikipedia.org and en.m.wikipedia.org. The first (.mobile.) is the old one, which is designed for the pre-iPhone era. Other than that as Teb suggested you may be viewing the full (non-mobile) version of the site. At the bottom of the page there is a link to "permanently disable mobile site", which likely sets a cookie to do so. Additionally there are quite a few third party applications available to view wikipedia. Android for instance has a few dozen. While Windows Mobile 6.5 isn't the greatest platform for third party applications I would try checking the windows marketplace and seeing what you find. It is possible to put another mobile OS on the HD 2, so if it's that important to you could always consider doing that. Note that doing so will typically void any warranty or insurance you may have on the phone if it is discovered that you had anything other than stock settings on there. --nn123645 (talk) 14:04, 3 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Would like to usurp German and maybe Finnish user account for unified account

I irregularly edit on other language wikis (usually adding photos, bibliographic citations, etc. nothing heavy requiring linguistic skills). I have a unified account under my user name "Quartermaster" that covers almost all of the wiki universe. The exceptions are for the German and Finnish wikipedias. I.e., there were pre-existing users named "Quartermaster" on both of those. My question is specific to the German wikipedia - it appears that there is no one inhabiting the "Quartermaster" user name on that wiki and I don't know how to usurp it. What's odd also is that all of the edits by that user name were ones that I did while originally logged in as "Quartermaster" on the English language wikipedia. It appears that the German "Quartermaster" has never made an edit (but appears to get credit for my English wikipedia edits). Is there any way you can point me in the direction or assist me in usurping the German "Quartermaster" name so I can include it in my unified ID? The Finnish one is more problematic since there appears to be a real user "Quartermaster" but their last edit was in 2008, and they only did 84 total edits over a period of a couple of weeks. Nothing earth shattering or time sensitive here, I'm just anal retentive enough to want to have a REAL unified account. --Quartermaster (talk) 13:49, 3 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I don't know about the details of unified login, but the German wiki anomaly is likely caused by importing revisions from English wiki in order to write a translated article. This causes a known bug where the edits of the user on the home wiki get attributed to the foreign-wiki user of the same name. I'm not sure if anything is being done to fix this or not.... Calliopejen1 (talk) 17:42, 3 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

This is a common practice at de:wp — they like to import English-language pages and then translate them; it's the simplest way to attribute a translation. See Bedford Village Archeological Site for an example: all of my edits to it are made in English, and Heironymous Rowe and Piledhigheranddeeper have edited it, even though they don't exist on de:wp. In fact, Piledhigheranddeeper has 94 edits at de:wp without having ever registered. Nyttend (talk) 01:40, 5 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Disambiguation for Kazuhiko

Kazuhiko currently redirects to an astoroid, but there are several people with that name. Shoudn't a disambiguation point to them (and the astoroid)? --88.130.134.32 (talk) 15:27, 3 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Be bold! mabdul 15:34, 3 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

intitle:Kazuhiko does indeed show many people. Kazuhiko to 26170 Kazuhiko is one of around ten thousand redirects to numbered asteroids created by User:PotatoBot in April 2010. Here is a link to the last 500. Many of them look questionable but creating huge amounts of disambiguation pages would be very time consuming. I'm considering to examine a few hundred of the redirects and as a test case make a mass deletion nomination of the inappropriately looking at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion. I think many of these asteroids will rarely be the wanted article in searches, and a search results page will serve users better than a redirect. Now I'm just wondering how to examine the rest of 10,000 redirects if there is consensus to delete the test cases... PrimeHunter (talk) 18:04, 3 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I do think anybody will start then a pool ;) mabdul 18:22, 3 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I've change Kazuhiko to a disambig, and made a start on it. (Please, of course, feel free to improve it). Chzz ► 10:41, 4 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Ownership Transfer

Dear Wikipedia,

We would like to ask more information about the process to transfer ownership of some pages on Wikipedia.These pages originally belong to our company and have been created by our former employee. However, this employee is not with our company anymore and we do not have username and password to log in to these pages for editing and updating. So we need to ask you the process to transfer the current ownership(username, password and all other related information) to one else'name

We really appreciate your help. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.6.14.2 (talk) 18:27, 3 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

You seem to be laboring under a severe misapprehension. Nobody "owns" any article in Wikipedia.. --Orange Mike | Talk 18:34, 3 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Additionally, I will point out that "role" accounts, those belonging to more than one person or to some form of collective entity, are not permitted here; and that we have a very stern policy militating against editing by persons with a conflict of interest. --Orange Mike | Talk 18:39, 3 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Your request is fundamentally flawed. First, all Wikipedia user accounts must belong to private individuals, not to companies, organisations, or other collective entities. Second, all Wikipedia material is licensed under the GFDL, which is non-refutable. If the author of the pages had the right to create them in the first place, they are now under GFDL, and cannot be transferred to new ownership. If the original author did not have the right to create them (because of copyright or disclosure reasons) they should never have been created. Anyway, what you ask simply cannot be done, it goes against Wikipedia's fundamental policies. There is nothing stopping another employee of your company from creating a new account and editing these pages however, provided that he/she does this as him/herself and not as a representative of your company. JIP | Talk 20:22, 3 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Hi, It is not our point. we all that our previous employee had already set these pages semi protected. SO now we want to know how to update, change information on these pages. Thanks —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.6.14.2 (talk) 20:22, 3 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Oh, you are asking how to be able to edit semi-protected pages rather than about ownership issues? In that case, it would depend on what pages they are. Please point them out. JIP | Talk 20:24, 3 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

You didn't read the policy WP:COI: you have a conflict of interest and aren't allowed to edit the article about your company. semi-protection means that users that have autocomfirmed (a few edit and a few days old) accounts are allowed to edit these pages. mabdul 20:30, 3 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

That's not quite correct - editors with a COI are strongly encouraged not to edit where they have a conflict, but rather they should use the article's talk page to discuss requested changes, supported by references to reliable sources. – ukexpat (talk) 20:51, 3 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Your ex-employee did not set the protection. Protection is set by administrators.

Please tell us which pages you want to edit. Chzz ► 10:25, 4 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

These pages are Tarique Mustafa,nexTier Networks, and 4th Generation Data Leak Prevention. Can you tell me more detail about the process to set up protected pages?My Wiki Username is nextiernetworks. Thanks a lot for your help —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.6.14.2 (talk) 16:52, 4 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

A page will be protected by administrators if it is being subjected to repeated vandalism. Your user name nextiernetworks sounds like a corporate identity, and therefore a breach of WP:CORPNAME. You have also been told, more than once, about WP:COI. - David Biddulph (talk) 17:04, 4 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

None of the articles appears ever to have been protected. So there is no protection reason why you could not edit them, but because of your conflict of interest you are strongly discouraged from doing so. The pages' creator is User:Subn4u; that account still belongs to your ex-employee and cannot be assigned to you. —teb728 t c 04:46, 5 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

In direct answer to your question: For Wikipedia’s protection policy see Wikipedia:Protection policy. Your talk about protection makes me suspect that you think that Wikipedia is like some other sites (e.g. Google) where a company is allowed to control the page about them. Wikipedia is not like that: Unless there is a problem with vandalism, anybody can edit any page. For example anyone can edit General Motors or DuPont. At Wikipedia the subject companies have if anything less control than other people. —teb728 t c 05:07, 5 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Permian extinction

I have prepared a paper on the cause of the Permian extinction. This occured 240 milion years ago when most of the marine live was killed. I have exhibits that explain my position and are included as figures in the paper. I am a retired geologist and currentlly do not belong to any to any geological society, consequently I thought of publishing it on Wikipedia. Please advise.19:40, 3 February 2011 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Eyenstone (talk • contribs)

I'm sorry, but Wikipedia is not a place of first publication. Your research would need to be published in a reliable source before it could have an article here. TN X Man 19:46, 3 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Looking for a specific Wikipedia policy

Hello. I asked a question about featured topics, and a user kindly replied mentioning a certain consensus on treating featured topics and their subtopics as a tree. I am looking for the specific page on which said consensus was reached, can anyone help me out? Thank you very much. Leptictidium (mt) 20:15, 3 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I don't know the discussion history but Wikipedia:Featured topics says "A featured topic represents Wikipedia's best work by thoroughly covering all parts of that topic", and Wikipedia:Featured topic criteria point 1 (d) says "There is no obvious gap (missing or stub article) in the topic. A topic must not cherry pick only the best articles to become featured together". PrimeHunter (talk) 01:38, 4 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Transliteration of Cyryllic text

hello,

which transliteration system should I use to romanize the Russian cyryllic alphabet; is it ISO 9?-- ♫Greatorangepumpkin♫ T 20:55, 3 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

You may want to ask at either Wikipedia:Reference desk/Language or Wikipedia talk:Translation or Wikipedia:WikiProject Russia. --Jayron32 21:35, 3 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

For romanization of Russian for Wikipedia see Wikipedia:Romanization of Russian. —teb728 t c 01:33, 4 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I don't like this romanization... Can I use ISO 9?-- ♫Greatorangepumpkin♫ T 11:20, 4 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I think not on Wikipedia. See also WP:CYR, which says, “Generally, Cyrillic is provided only where transliteration alone cannot convey the original spelling. Since many of the conventional systems are non-deterministic, this means that very often both the Cyrillic and transliteration are provided in a word's first occurrence in an article.” Does that resolve your concern about the modified BGN/PCGN? About Belarusian, CYR says explicitly that ISO 9 is not to be used. —teb728 t c 00:24, 5 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

That means I must overwrite all titles in the column "Transliterated title (per ISO 9 standard)" in the article Golden Eagle Award for Best Motion Picture in "Transliterated title (per BGN/PCGN standard)", is this correct?-- ♫Greatorangepumpkin♫ T 09:58, 5 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

No, you should read Wikipedia:Naming conventions (use English) and then delete the columns giving the Russian titles (both Cyrillic and romanized) and romanize the directors’ and producers′ names (without mentioning BGN/PCGN). —teb728 t c 11:37, 5 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Still more about SUL usurpation

I originally started to use SUL on 30 December last year, and found out that my username was already taken on two WikiMedia projects: the Danish Wikipedia and the Russian Wikipedia. So I left a SUL usurpation request at both. The Russian Wikipedia soon accepted the usurpation, but the Danish Wikipedia has so far done exactly diddly-squat. I have left a message both at the SUL usurpation page (in Swedish, as I was told Danes understand it) and on the Danish user's talk page (in Danish, from a ready-made template), but nothing has ever become of it. The Danish Wikipedia is the only WikiMedia project where the account "JIP" belongs to someone else than me. And the user there doesn't even have any edits ever. What can I do to usurp this account? JIP | Talk 21:01, 3 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Did you post any request at Wikipedia:Changing username/Usurpations? I can't find anything in the archives... mabdul 21:11, 3 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

That is for the English WP only. He did post at the Danish WP but there has been no action on that request. Interestingly enough, the user who handles the Danish usurps has done some since your request. Perhaps a note to him on his user page to inquire about any reservations or questions he may have regarding your request. His page is at: [1]. I don't see any edits from JIP or the IP he used for the usurp request on the Bureaucrat's talk page or in the archives. Arakunem^Talk 21:33, 3 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Well, what do you know? I was just about to contact Kaare on the Danish Wikipedia asking him to finally usurp the account JIP on the Danish Wikipedia, when I found out that he had already done so, about four hours ago. Now, at last, I have the account with the username JIP on every WikiMedia project there is. (Of course, that doesn't mean I have that username on every wiki project using MediaWiki there is, but that is not WikiMedia's problem.) JIP | Talk 20:57, 4 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

My pages aren't visible?

Hi. I created three pages in January but don't see them visible. I spent some time on these so am concerned. Can you tell me where they might be? They were for Camp Edmo, Camp EdTech and Edventure More. Thanks.------------ — Preceding unsigned comment added by Mtsegal (talk • contribs) 22:38, 3 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I don't find any in deletion log. Did you create with this user name or an IP? CTJF83 22:51, 3 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

You created them in the sandbox where they were overwritten by other users. Your work is still listed at Special:Contributions/Mtsegal. However, the artiles as written would not be suitable for the encyclopaedia because they don't indicate the notability of the subjects, nor are they supported by reliable sources. You might like to read some of our guides before recreating them, such as WP:YFA. I'll also leave some useful links at your talk page. --AndrewHowse (talk) 22:54, 3 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks Andrew, duh! I should have looked to see what the changes to the sandbox were. CTJF83 23:27, 3 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

My Edits Are Not Being Saved

I have put in for technical help but want to make sure I'm not doing something wrong. I'm a new user. I am working on an article in a sub-page. The initial article was saved. However, over the last two days, when I make edits, preview and hit the save button, all seems well in preview. However, when I try to save and exit, I receive a warning that if I exit the page I will lose all my changes. Saving it doesn't resolve the problem, so in order to exit, I just have to lose all my edits. Saving a page shouldn't be a big deal, but it has become one for me.

Please advise. I can't even leave a message in "My Talk" without the same problem. Cmckibben (talk) 22:39, 3 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

What message comes up when you hit save? CTJF83 22:48, 3 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

It says: "Are you sure you want to leave this page? Leaving the page may cause you to lose changes made. Press OK or Cancel to stay on the page."Cmckibben (talk) 22:54, 3 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

It should only say that if you edit, and don't hit save, and try to close a window. Please open a page, edit, and add something, then hit save and tell me what it says. CTJF83 22:56, 3 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry, you wanted to know what happens when I hit save. It just seems to be saving and then leaves me where I was. If I try to leave the page, I get the message above.Cmckibben (talk) 22:56, 3 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Open up Iowa, hit edit and type something at the very top with an edit summary of "test" and we'll see what happens. Perhaps we can diagnose something. CTJF83 23:00, 3 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I went to my regular file that I'm editing. I three words to it and saved it. It took me back to the preview page which showed the change. Then, THIS TIME, when I went back to talk to you, I didn't get the message. But I wanted to go back in and see if it saved the edit. Is it possible that the file can only take very few edits at one time? Am I trying to edit too much?Cmckibben (talk) 23:05, 3 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I doubt that. Your edit to Iowa worked, please link to the file. CTJF83 23:11, 3 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry, I'm a new user and not very adept at working in Wikipedia. What do you mean "link" to the file? Which file? Iowa? Mine? Not sure what you want me to do.Cmckibben (talk) 23:19, 3 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Adding a link to your reply thus: [[Article name]]. Jarkeld (talk) 23:22, 3 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

(ec) That's ok...you said "I went to my regular file that I'm editing" I assumed by File you meant image. Not sure why it wasn't working, but your last few edits have been saved. Glitch maybe? CTJF83 23:24, 3 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I got to leave for now, so I'll leave it to Jarkeld or any other users, good luck, I'll check back in several hours. CTJF83 23:24, 3 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I think User:Ctjf83 is referring to a link to the page you are referring to, which in this case you do so by this code [[Iowa]] which renders as Iowa (where I have just reverted your test edit). – ukexpat (talk) 23:23, 3 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

File is [[Andrea Michaels]]. I started on the practice page, and then another editor helped me and moved it to a sub-page User Cmckibben:Andrea Michaels. Cmckibben (talk) 23:29, 3 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry, it's User:Cmckibben/Andrea Michaels. Can you find it? It's not live. Cmckibben (talk) 23:31, 3 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Okay, I went back to my contribution page above and tried to edit the paragraph. Same thing happened. I made my edits and then hit the save button. Instead of showing the preview page as it should, I get the message, I described above warning that I will lost my changes if I leave the page. Am I supposed to do something besides hit the save page button? Is it possible the page is corrupted and I need to copy and paste the entire entry into a new page?Cmckibben (talk) 23:40, 3 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

AAAh; I found it. User:Cmckibben/Andrea Michaels. You mean this page. You made successfully two changes on this page yesterday. So where is the problem then? mabdul 23:46, 3 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Mabdul, I made a couple of small changes yesterday, but I also did 5 hours worth of work where none of it would save. Same thing today. I deleted material, edited up a storm for two hours and nothing would save. When I hit the save, it wouldn't go to the preview page to indicate it was saved. When I tried to leave the page, I kept getting a warning that if I chose to leave the page none of my work would be saved. It says: "Are you sure you want to leave this page? Leaving the page may cause you to lose changes made. Press OK or Cancel to stay on the page." I clearly can see that the edits I am making are not being saved. That's the problem. Any ideas?Cmckibben (talk) 23:52, 3 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry. Have to go to appointment. If anyone has ideas, please let me know. I'll check back in later.Thanks for helping!Cmckibben (talk) 23:55, 3 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I suspect something is missing from your description. Do you click the "Save page" button below the edit box? What happens after you click the save button and haven't done anything else yet? If the edit is successfully saved then you should be viewing the saved page with no edit box and a url like http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PAGENAME. If it's not saved then you should be getting an error message explaining the problem and still be in the edit window with the edit box and a url starting with http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=PAGENAME. The message you describe should only be shown if you try to go away from the url in your browser before the page has been successfully saved. PrimeHunter (talk) 00:39, 4 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

PrimeHunter: The problem, I believe, is that the page is not saving when I click the "Save Page" button below the edit box. That's the one I've been clicking. What happens is thatI'm still seeing the edit box, not the saved page with no edit box. I don't get an error message. I'll go back through it all again, but the problem is that I don't get an error message explaining why it isn't saved.Cmckibben (talk) 03:27, 4 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Special:Contributions/Cmckibben shows you have made many successful saves. The "Save page" and "Show preview" buttons are next to eachother. Do you get exactly the same result, including the heading "Preview" near the top, when you click the two buttons and the save button doesn't save? That would hint that the software is registering the preview button. Are you using a mouse with a clearly defined cursor? Does the "Save page" button change color before you click it? PrimeHunter (talk) 03:56, 4 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

One thought: maybe this is cookies related. Possibly, at the top (after clicking save) it says "Your session has expired" - ie, you've been logged out. I wonder if it's that, because you've been editing for a long time before saving? Does the problem seem to happen when you are editing for long periods? If that is the case, the easiest solution might be, to simply save more often. There is no problem with making lots of edits to a page, and it is generally a good idea to save occasionally - because it avoids losing things in a power cut, if the computer crashes, and so on.

If/when you get the problem - the "are you sure you want to leave this page" - to avoid losing edits;

'cancel' ie do not leave the page
Click in the edit box, and "Select all" (highlight the whole thing), and "Copy" it
Open 'Notepad' (or some text editor), paste it. Save that.

At least, this way, you won't actually lose your work, and can paste it back later. Chzz ► 09:54, 4 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Seems to be "fixed". He/She made finally some edits... mabdul 21:38, 4 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Photo

How do I upload a photo to the Wiki entry on me? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Sweetlit (talk • contribs) 22:47, 3 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

On the left column bar, under "toolbox" hit "upload file". Note Wikipedia:Uploading images also. CTJF83 22:48, 3 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Erm, no, actually; that user has only made one edit, and therefore cannot upload images to this wiki yet...

Sweetlit, as long as it is your own picture - if you own the copyright - then you can upload it to Commons.

If it is from elsewhere, it's a bit more complex; see Wikipedia:Finding images tutorial. Chzz ► 00:13, 4 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Hugely confusing for a first time contributor! I can't find a button to 'EDIT' a page I want to adjust!!!

I am barraged with non-applicable information. It is very discouraging for a first time user. I am looking/can't find a button to re-edit my page of info. Feel like giving up all together....:( Where to even click to enter this????????? Confused for sure!@ I am not stupid! This is NOT user friendly! WHERE DO I ENTER THIS????? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Gopoco (talk • contribs) 22:55, 3 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Well, you managed to edit here, so that's a start. Which page would you like to edit? --AndrewHowse (talk) 22:57, 3 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

(ec) What page are you referring to. Some pages are not editable by certain classes of users. CTJF83 22:57, 3 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I think you probably wanted to edit the page on "Wood Burning Stove - The Reverse Process"? I'm sorry; that page was deleted.

The 'barrage of information' on your talk page does say why–"because it is a very short article providing little or no context to the reader".

It also says, "If this is the first article that you have created, you may want to read the guide to writing your first article.You may want to consider using the Article Wizard to help you create articles.

Good advice. Chzz ► 00:10, 4 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

You created Wood Burning Stove - The Reverse Process in the main encyclopedia where it immediately became one of our articles, but it was deleted. Only administrators can see the contents of deleted pages. The page had no meaningful content for a Wikipedia article. You can work on a draft at User:Gopoco/Sandbox until it seems ready. PrimeHunter (talk) 00:13, 4 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Posting an original but public domain document

My company is producing a document on the effects of pile driving on fish for the Federal Highway Administration, our client. The document will organize and present the current best available science on this topic. The document is to be publicly available once completed. The client also wishes it to be a living document, meaning update-able by experts. We are producing the document for FHWA and they want it globabally available and to evolve as new information is learned. The document would probably be a few hundered printed pages, but organized by chapters. I was wondering is this compatible with Wikipedia and your policies. Is this something we could do, take the document and enter it on to wikipedia.

Thank you for your response. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 199.223.21.100 (talk) 23:33, 3 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Great, yes, no problem; please see Wikipedia:DCM#Granting us permission to copy material already online - email a permission statement (as explained in that link), and away we go. They could host it wherever they liked; we'd only be able to reference it, though, if it passed as a reliable source; that means, if it was published on some website with a "reputation for fact-checking and accuracy", and editorial control. if in doubt about that, ask on Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard. Chzz ► 00:05, 4 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

If an article is written in Wikipedia, it can be edited by anyone, and not necessarily only by those whom you or your client would consider to be experts. If you want it to be controlled to suit your own needs, you probably don't want it on Wikipedia, but you may wish to use the same MediaWiki software. - David Biddulph (talk) 00:14, 4 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

If you mean whether the whole document can be published at Wikipedia then certainly no. The encyclopedia Wikipedia is only one of thousands of wikis using MediaWiki or other wiki software. Maybe your company can set up its own wiki or find an existing wiki which suits your purpose. Also note that almost everything at Wikipedia can be edited by anybody and nothing here is limited to experts. The same applies to a lot of wikis. PrimeHunter (talk) 00:22, 4 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Another possibility might be our sister project Wikisource. But like Wikipedia, I believe that content there is free licensed not public domain, and anyone (not just experts) would be able to edit it. 76.171.96.183 (talk) 00:26, 4 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

One of the main problems with donating text to Wikipedia, or copying a public domain document wholesale into the encylopedia from elsewhere, is that it likely isn't up to the standards of Wikipedia's citation requirements and also is grossly out of line with the Wikipedia:Manual of style. The prohibition against putting original research into Wikipedia articles does not exist outside of Wikipedia, etc. While on some subjects, some text may be better than no text, you can expect just about any donated text to be edited to the point where it isn't recognizable anymore, for a variety of reasons. This is all not to say that doing so isn't allowed; it clearly is, its just that it isn't as simple as copying some document from outside Wikipedia into the encyclopedia and magically you have a decent article. --Jayron32 05:11, 4 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

From your description the article (or article collection) sounds suitable for Appropedia, which accepts original work in the very broad realm of sustainability which could include environmental impact assessments of this type. That is not to say you could not write one or more articles on Wikipedia, but getting your work on Appropedia would very likely be much simpler. On Wikipedia there are a lot more rules and restrictions which make it hard to write articles that stick. --Teratornis (talk) 06:50, 4 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]