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This page contains discussions that have been archived from Village pump (assistance). Please do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to revive any of these discussions, either start a new thread or use the talk page associated with that topic.

< Older discussions · Archives: A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, S · 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12

Spam or not Spam?

User:Npgallery has been systematically adding external links to [[1]]nationalparksgallery.com to every article about a national park on wikipedia. The site is suspicious, it has no links to actual national park sites, just a large amount of links to adverstising and seems to be run by a sporting goods group. The pictures are low resolution, and there is no clear identifier of the owner of the page. The user name even makes me suspicious. Additionally, whenever the link it removed, the user cries Revert Vandalism! and has made some false claims about another user questioning him. His talk page is beginning to be a discussion about this as more than one wikiperson is suspicious of this activity. Can anyone with more experience weigh in on this one? The link is nominally valuable, but it may be a site designed specifically to link to online stores and if someone else has some super secret high tech snooping ideas to figure out the true nature of the page and the owner, or if these should be included it would be appreciated. Oh and now my questioning of the link has prompted some personal attacks on me too. Please help. Pschemp | Talk 07:40, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

Update: User:Gadfium has weighed in on this being spam. Thank you! Pschemp | Talk 08:20, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

Definitely spam. Revert viciously. Deco 19:30, 6 February 2006 (UTC)
Note: User:Deco does NOT appear to be a Wikipedia admin. He has no authority to give policy to others. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Npgallery (talk • contribs)
As of 2004, Deco is an admin User_talk:Dcoetzee#Sysop. Nationalparks 21:22, 6 February 2006 (UTC)
Has been? That's NOT a current admin. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Npgallery (talk • contribs)
And even if he wasn't, Wikipedia is based on consensus. Nationalparks 21:24, 6 February 2006 (UTC)
I was just giving my opinion and interpretation. An admin's word is not binding - or necessary - to take any action on Wikipedia. And I am definitely an admin and have been for over a year. Your username makes it clear that this activity is promotion of your own website. Deco 21:30, 6 February 2006 (UTC)
So, by the same logic, I can also say "definitely NOT spam, revert the reverters viciously." This guilty until proven innocent mob mentality of Wikipedia is appalling. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Npgallery (talk • contribs)
You can certainly say that. Nobody is required to listen to either you or me. Only thing is, they agree with me. And we don't need to cite specific policy to remove anything. Deco 07:21, 7 February 2006 (UTC)
So you're saying you have no regard for policy? Npgallery 19:58, 8 February 2006 (UTC)
Based on what critieria? Npgallery 21:18, 6 February 2006 (UTC)
I think most, if not all, has been reverted. Nationalparks 19:41, 6 February 2006 (UTC)
You're NOT an admin either. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Npgallery (talk • contribs)
That's true, but again, consensus. Nationalparks 21:32, 6 February 2006 (UTC)
Hey, I'm an admin. Guess what? It's spam. Shimgray | talk | 21:34, 6 February 2006 (UTC)
Quote some policy, verbatim. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Npgallery (talk • contribs)

Please also see this discussion. Nationalparks 21:42, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

I have blocked User:Npgallery for 24 hours not only for spamming after giving multiple warnings, but for disruption by wasting the time of Wikipedians by trying to argue that his spam is justifiable. Jdavidb (talk • contribs) 21:44, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

Jdavidb is clearly abusing his admin rights. I received ONE ban warning, after which I did not add any links. It's really sad that he considers my trying to argue my case as a "waste of time" and that he considers it as justification of censorship via banning. You'll also see from Jdavidb page that he is on an "anti-spam" campaign and that he erroneously considers just about anything that is the slightest bit commercial to be spam.
Look at Wikipedia:Mediation Cabal/Cases/2006-02-06 Pschemp. Nationalparks 21:51, 6 February 2006 (UTC)
It's spam. -Will Beback 19:53, 7 February 2006 (UTC)
Is not. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Npgallery (talk • contribs)

Lauren Seowon Hwang

An email to the Help Desk mailing list claims that this article is a hoax. There are discussions at http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessplayer?pid=83963 and http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1330547 indicating that the person who made up Lauren Seowon Hwang is doing the same thing there. Can someone verify? User:Zoe|(talk) 16:13, 9 February 2006 (UTC)


User:Greg_Tingle

I was just going through some random articles today and came across a "userpage" called User:Greg Tingle. The reason why I put userpage in quotes is because I don't think it is one. The page itself sounds really fishy, and the toolbox on the left (below the menu) doesn't look like one on a typical userpage. Am I onto something or is this guy a legitimate user? Thanks. --Buchanan-Hermit™..CONTRIBS..SPEAK! 00:35, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

So strange, I just noticed that myself too. I checked "What Links Here", because the article looked fishy to me as well, which brought me to this page. jareha 00:57, 9 February 2006 (UTC)
Good job noticing that. User:Greg Tingle does not exist, that page was created by an anon when the article Greg Tingle was deleted. I have deleted the false user page. Canderson7 (talk) 01:40, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

Proper way to format a 2nd Article for Deletion nomination?

Hi everyone. I'm a bit confused about something: If I want to nominate for deletion an article that has been nominated in the past but survived, how should I go about that? Specifically, what am I supposed to do with the original AfD discussion? If, for example, I wanted to renominate Henry Farrell (political scientist) (note: this isn't the article I'm thinking of renominating; I just picked it at random to use as an example), where should I move the archive of Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Henry Farrell (political_scientist)? I've seen some cases where people have used the usual AfD method but just hardcoded a phrase along the lines of "(second nomination)" into the Wikilinks, and I've seen other cases that involved some rather odd uses of the "move" button. Is there a policy or guideline on this? Thanks, --Aaron 23:45, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

Link the archive. Explicitly say that it's a renomination. And make it clear why you think this time, things will go differently (what's changed?) Also make sure an adequate amount of time has passed - I'd say at least a month. Deco 00:31, 9 February 2006 (UTC)
Oh, it's been over a year. Thanks... --Aaron 04:56, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

Actions for Spam on talk pages

User 85.105.69.189 (Contribs) had edited several articles adding links attached to random words to the same website (in turkish), which looks like link spam to me (all edits from user create that link, as far as I can see). Also vandalised 18, replacing it with a a turkish article. Have reverted 18, and articles with the added links. However, several of the links are added on article talk pages. I have speedied a few, as they were orphan talk pages (i.e. no matching article) but I am unsure what to do with the talk pages attached to correct articles. In most cases, the user in question made the only contribution to the talk page, and all look similar. I don't want to blank these talk pages, but if this is regarded as link spamming, leaving the links on the pages (even talk pages) would mean the spammer obtains an advantage. So, what is the best thing to do in this case? MartinRe 16:01, 11 February 2006 (UTC)


bullet points

I've been told that the use of bullet points in articles is "unwiki" and unencyclopedic. I think I agree, but I would like a reference and can't find it mentioned in the manual of style.

A more general question. A search on "bullet points" tells me all about them. But suppose I want to search for the Wikipedia policy on bullet points. Is there a way to limit my search to pages about Wikipedia? Rick Norwood 14:59, 11 February 2006 (UTC)

Check your Special:Preferences to make sure you're searching in the Wikipedia Namespace. If you need more help on that, go to Wikipedia:Searching#Namespaces searched by default Lee S. Svoboda tɑk 15:13, 11 February 2006 (UTC)

Much editing of a large article

I'm looking to cleanup Omega-3 fatty acid, which has had a NPOV or Cleanup requests on it for > 8 months. There are many little things wrong with it. Rather than change them one at a time, (leaving a long string of changes in the History and occaisionally saving half-finished edits) I'd like to work on this in a separate workspace and save it when I'm satisfied. Is the normal way to do this to create something in my User pages, edit it there, and then paste it back? Alternatively, if I've pressed Show Preview and then I shut down my computer, is there any way to get back to the edited-but-unsaved state when I restart?

I realize that either approach leaves me open to problems if somebody else edits it in the meantime, but I'm willing to deal with that if/when it happens. David.Throop 01:02, 11 February 2006 (UTC)

Usually people do rewrites on either their user page or a subpage, like Omega-3 fatty acid/Rewrite, which encourages others to participate. If you'd rather keep it to yourself, the easiest thing to do is edit it in a text editor, save that text file frequently, and paste-and-preview when you want to check out what it looks like. Deco 01:08, 11 February 2006 (UTC)
What I do is cut the article and paste it into a Microsoft word document. (Word needs to be open when I make the cut, for some reason.) I edit it there, with spellcheck available, and when it is ready, I paste it onto the edit page of the article. Rick Norwood 01:10, 11 February 2006 (UTC)
If you do this, please make sure smart-quotes are off. We no longer have a policy against smart quotes, but they are inconsistent with pretty much all existing articles. Word is great for spelling/grammar checking though, providing it isn't driven crazy by the wiki syntax. Deco 02:08, 11 February 2006 (UTC)
I retype quotes separately after the article is pasted in. Rick Norwood 02:57, 11 February 2006 (UTC)

stubs

I wrote an article on the comic strip Akwas, which is now listed as a comis strip stub. That got me thinking -- what if a short article says everything that needs to be said about a given subject. Should a knowledgable person remove the "stub" listing? Or are all short articles by definition stubs? Rick Norwood 22:39, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

Generally, if a short article says everything there is to say, it should probably be merged into something else. Short articles are not automatically stubs, but most anything of sufficient notability for inclusion is also complex enough to expand. Deco 00:47, 11 February 2006 (UTC)

articles with variant capitalization

I have been working through the math7 list, writing articles for Wikipedia and then deleting the requested article from the math7 list. My question: if, for example, Joe's theorem is an existing article, but the math 7 list requests an article for Joe's Theorem, do I need to create "Joe's Theorem" and redirect to "Joe's theorem" or can I just delete "Joe's Theorem" from the math7 list and move on?

Rick Norwood 22:14, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

If it's a common capitalisation people use, go ahead and create a redirect. Otherwise, just remove it from the list. A Google check can be helpful. That it's in the list in the first place seems to demonstrate that at least someone capitalises it that way. Deco 00:46, 11 February 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the advice. Mathworld has the convention of capitalizing all words in a title. I've done a couple of dozen redirects but there are hundreds more to go. Rick Norwood 01:11, 11 February 2006 (UTC)

edits to Merle Haggard and others

This edit and all of the others of User:PeterTores are ringing some alarm bells with me. They do seem very Gram Parsons-centric, and introduce some material that I'm suspicious of, such as Haggard having a feud with Willie Nelson. An anon at Talk:Merle Haggard has expressed some concerns also. The edits seem to have a certain....exuberance that suggests a copyvio, although I can't find a source. Any opinions? Joyous | Talk 18:01, 11 February 2006 (UTC)

I've reverted the article to the version before PeterTores edited it. Enough of the content was suspect that I don't trust any of it. If PeterTores wants to put it back, he can cite some sources. Joyous | Talk 17:14, 12 February 2006 (UTC)


Found Vandalism

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Jean_Grey&diff=39447164&oldid=39438034

Thanks,

C.

Fixed--Rjstott 05:07, 13 February 2006 (UTC)
Vandalism should be reported at Wikipedia:Vandalism in progress. Angela. 10:14, 13 February 2006 (UTC)


Rastafarianism vandalism

I need help on the rastafarianism page. 64.81.244.128 04:22, 11 February 2006 (UTC)

Moving a page with links

Had a look at Wikipedia:Merging_and_moving_pages but it doesn't seem to cover this. When you move a page, the old page is replaced with a redirect so that links to the page still work. Is there anyway of getting all the linking pages updated with the new page name automatically, or do I have to update them all by hand. Hope someone can help :) SilentC 21:21, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

Nope, I'm afraid they must be updated by hand. Note that because of the redirect it's not critical to do this; in fact I'm told that it uses more server resouces to edit an article solely to fix a redirect than it does to simply forward a user through the redirect. It's only important to fix every link if the page was moved because of an error or misspelling (rather than simply an alternate name) -- in that case, the error should be corrected on all pages that use it.
The only thing that must be fixed is double-redirects: when you move ArticleOne to ArticleTwo, a page which previously linked to ArticleOne via a redirect would now be trying to jump to ArticleTwo through two redirects, which the software will not resolve (in order to avoid infinite loops). Therefore this link will be broken for a user.
When you have moved a page, click "What Links Here" in the toolbox. All normal links are bullet points. All redirects will have "(redirect)" after the title, and any pages that link through that redirect indented beneath it, which you can fix or not according to your best judgement. What you must look for is any indented title with "(redirect)" after it, and fix these double-redirects so that the redirect points to ArticleTwo, not ArticleOne. Hope that helps! Catherine — Catherine\talk
Thanks for the info. The situation I'm looking at is where I'd like to move an article from it's current title to a new title and then replace the original title with a disambiguation page, so I think it would be better form if I went and updated all the existing links so that they point to the correct article instead of the disambig page. I got onto a semi-automated editor that someone has developed which might help. Thanks again for the reply. SilentC 22:11, 13 February 2006 (UTC)

Reference patrol

Are there currently any projects centered around improving reference formatting and locatability (perhaps verifiablity) checking? If anyone knows of something, let me know. I'm interested in perhaps starting a project (and perhaps a "references need formatting/additional finding info" template as well). Respond on my talk page if possible, but here is fine too. --DanielCD 04:24, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

I've replied on his talk. Superm401 - Talk 04:32, 13 February 2006 (UTC)

"Foobarian" versus "Foobarian people(s)"

I recall seeing a recommendation (or discussion thereof) for splitting articles like Tahitian into Tahitian language and Tahitian people. However I cannot find it by searching nor in Wikipedia:Naming conventions. Have I been dreaming? Thanks, Jorge Stolfi 11:34, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

It might be covered by Wikipedia:Naming_conventions#Do_not_use_an_article_name_that_suggests_a_hierarchy_of_articles or Wikipedia:Naming_conventions_(adjectives). As it stands Tahitian can cover two separate (although related) topics, so would be in line for a disambig page. with the two subjects being split (allowing proper categorisation of the articles too) MartinRe 11:48, 14 February 2006 (UTC)
See English or Irish for examples of this. MartinRe 11:49, 14 February 2006 (UTC)


Wiki Toolbar?

Hi, just wondering if Wikipedia has or is considering a Wiki tool bar or something similar? Like the Google bar where you can type into a box at the top of the browser. I use Wikipedia a lot and I think this would be a very useful tool. Signed by ScottMacAus at 7:08pm Aus EDST

If you use Firefox you can download one to use on that. Brookie :) - a will o' the wisp ! (Talk!) 08:12, 14 February 2006 (UTC)
The Firefox toolbar can be found at wikipedia.mozdev.org--Coro 19:47, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

Special:Contributions

I understand that Special:Contributions isn't listed on Special:Special pages because that would create a link without a target, but wouldn't it make sense to include it in the list, even as just a link to the contributions of the users that clicks it? As it is now you can't really say it's a full list.  freshgavinΓΛĿЌ  06:42, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

Problems

Why am I getting this error message every time I try to edit Fatal error: Call to undefined function: dba_open() in /usr/local/apache/common-local/php-1.5/includes/Title.php on line 436. I tryed to rv vandalism on an article (popups) and got this message every time I tryed it. Also the system is logging me out frequently and I keep having to log back in (I do have preferences set to stay logged in). Are we having an overhaul? Thanks.--Dakota 18:03, 13 February 2006 (UTC)

Try Wikipedia:Village pump (technical) or Mediawiki Bugzilla. Deco 02:22, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

comic book art

Most of the comic book articles are illustrated with covers from comic books. These are obviously copyrighted by their respective publishers. Is this fair use, or has Wikipedia a blanket permission from DC, Marvel, Dark Horse, etc. to reproduce a limited number of covers? Rick Norwood 22:16, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

Linked from Template:Comiccover is Wikipedia:Fair Use#images: There are a few blanket categories of copyrighted images whose use on Wikipedia has been generally approved as likely being fair use when done in good faith. These include: Cover art. Cover art from various items, for identification and critical commentary (not for identification without critical commentary).
That help explain? (I'm no expert on fair use, which is why I'm just copying what it says.) 65.33.156.96 15:27, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

Unable to post new info on the "Comma Johanneum"

Dear Wikis,

I've tried twice in the past 48 hours to post some historical factoids on the Bible Verse 1 John 5:7
(the article is at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1_John_5:7):

1) I'm clicking the 'edit' in the main section of the article, inserting, formatting, then previewing and saving the data, but my new information appears below in the 'See Also' section and then get's removed in a few hours.

2) I've posted to Wikipedia once before (see 'Occurrence in Eastern Relgions' section at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_of_david) however I did not have this type of problem.

Can anyone help me here?

Thanks,

- Jeff C. in Austin

What's your WP identifier? Have you checked the history link on that page to see if your changes are showing up? — RJH 19:58, 15 February 2006 (UTC)


leap year

is 1996 a leap year?

Yes, it was. 11:54, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

Third opinion needed on odd edit

George M. Cohan is the article; this is the edit in question. I've deleted the phrase three times, but the author (User:Wahkeenah) has re-inserted it without providing a source or an explanation of its relevance. It looks to me like it's just an attempt at a witticism, and that's why I deleted it (assuming it was vandalism of the nonsense variety). Bostwick has no connection to Sherman, nor any connection to Cohan other than the use of the one song, so I don't see why the remark on his name belongs. If anyone else can look at this and find some relevance to Cohan, I'd appreciate it. | Klaw ¡digame! 00:45, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

Perhaps checking in with him on his talk page would be a good idea. I don't immediately see the relevance of the parenthetical note, so (if I may use myself as a judge), it should be clartified if it is indeed relevant. --Hansnesse 00:53, 15 February 2006 (UTC)
<smacks head> oops, I see now that you did. I didn't make the connection "Keith Law" to "Klaw." My apologies. I see in fact there is a relevant conversaion here and here. To me, the addition of the phrase "yes, that's the baby's name" is not sufficiently well explained. I reverted it and opened a discussion on the talk page. Perhaps we can settle it there. --Hansnesse 01:36, 15 February 2006 (UTC)
Thanks, that's just the help I was looking for. If the text can be explained, then I have no objection. I honestly thought at first glance that it was an old bit of vandalism that hadn't been cleaned up. | Klaw ¡digame! 01:44, 15 February 2006 (UTC)
Regardless of the factuality of the content, the way it is written is completely un-encyclopedaeic and thus serves no purpose. You are right to delete it and if he continues not responding to any pleads you should report it as a dispute.  freshgavinΓΛĿЌ  03:49, 15 February 2006 (UTC)
I concur with everyone's critique of Wahkeenah's bizarre unexplained edit. What the hell is he or she doing? --Coolcaesar 05:15, 15 February 2006 (UTC)
Looks like Wahkeenah has acknowledged it was his (or her) little joke: [2]. It includes a little more of the attitude that several other users (myself included) have asked Wahkeenah to drop. No matter - the Cohan issue appears to be resolved. Thanks for everyone's help! | Klaw ¡digame! 15:01, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

Harassment by a poster that is stalking me

Hi. My name is Suzy Sachs. There is a listing about me on this site. There is a person I unfortunately did film business with in the past. He has been harassing me and my family, threatening us, slandering and perhaps what you would even call stalking me. He is on the discussions page under my name on this site and was repeatedly posting hateful speech and accusations of fraud under my name as well as my husbands who is Hunington Sachs. You can see it under history. I was hoping you could help me figure out what to do to keep him from posting slander on my page. anything??? i'm new here so am just learning. i hope you can help me.

he has also done this on imdb. his posts have all been deleted by imdb immediately. thank you. Suzy Sachs — Preceding unsigned comment added by SuzySachs (talk • contribs)

Take a look at Wikipedia:Civility. Lee S. Svoboda tɑk 15:54, 12 February 2006 (UTC)
Thanks for bringing the situation to our attention, but I really think this is something that can be handled at the level of that indiviudal article. Drop a note of your own on Talk:Suzy Sachs about what's going on and then everyone concerned will know - even if they delete your comments I'm sure someone else will restore them. If it brings you any comfort, I don't believe many people take talk page comments seriously. Deco 03:56, 13 February 2006 (UTC)
I'm not seeing the vandalism you are reporting. Have you tried Wikipedia:Vandalism in progress? — RJH 20:03, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

Iyer

The Iyer article is a hideous mess of POV, (mostly anti-Iyer bigotry because equally strong POV from the other side has mostly been removed by the same parties who inserted the current content). If someone can take this on, it would be greatly appreciated, I don't have time to wade into it right now. - Jmabel | Talk 07:05, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

I am going to resist the temptation to work on this article because, while I can tell POV when I see it, I know nothing at all about the Iyer, and someone more knowledgable will do a better job. Rick Norwood 22:19, 10 February 2006 (UTC)
If you are serious then I'd suggest inserting a {{POV}} template or some similiar dispute template at the top of the page, then write about your particular issues on the talk page. Thanks. — RJH 20:14, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

Spurious AfDs (re Geno Petralli)

The anon user at 204.65.209.72 has initiated at least seven AfDs of pages I created: [3]. They're clearly spurious; should I let the process run its course (it's just a waste of time), or is there someplace to report that sort of silliness? It violates WP:POINT, clearly, but I'm not sure if this qualifies as vandalism. | Klaw ¡digame! 21:33, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

User confirms that these are "spite" AfDs on my talk page: [4]. | Klaw ¡digame! 21:37, 16 February 2006 (UTC)
Based on the message he left on your talk page I'd say it qualfies as vandalism. No Guru 21:41, 16 February 2006 (UTC)
I think all those afd edits from 204.65.209.72 should be rolled back (but maybe an admin should do it). No Guru 21:47, 16 February 2006 (UTC)
I blocked him/her/it for 48 hours. Feel free to undo the AFDs on your pages, Keithlaw. They're obviously vandalism. I have deleted the "talk" pages created for those fake AFDs.
Got 'em all, except one you snagged already. Thanks for the help. | Klaw ¡digame! 22:33, 16 February 2006 (UTC)
I'm afraid they'll be back in a couple days. Boring ...


Hidden Agenda

I am looking for people who have played the 1988 game "Hidden Agenda" and are well familiar with it to help discuss the article and the game. If you're interested, email me to soleprovider123@yahoo.com

Page renaming/general editing help

Hi - I'm a longtime reader but not too adept in editing, so I don't want to mess anything up. I was wondering if someone could rename the Eternal Fire to Eternal Fire of Baba Gurgur. It's linked in several articles, so I don't want to risk a broken link or anything. The full points are on the discussion section there. Any other editing help would be appreciated, as well.141.161.31.47 18:52, 16 February 2006 (UTC) Matt

Geno Petralli

Any help on this page about an obscure baseball player would be appreciated. It has been taken over by several anons who have turned it into a fan page, allegedly written by an 8-year-old cancer victim. I'm tempted to just protect the thing and block them all, but I hate to go that far within a couple hours of getting involved at the request of another editor. The more editors/admins helping out, the better. - DavidWBrooks 22:52, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

I suggest you post this on Wikipedia:Cleanup or Wikipedia:Requests for expansion instead. Also, most of those images are probably copyvios. Deco 23:08, 15 February 2006 (UTC)
I just took a whack at cleaning it up. When the material is clearly nonsense, just take it out. If the anons keep re-inserting it (or other nonsense), then you might block them (after warnings) on an individual basis. | Klaw ¡digame! 23:28, 15 February 2006 (UTC)
Thanks. The anons went so far as to vandalize the wiki page of my employer! My Net naivete finally succumbed, and I removed references from my user page ... the tragedy of the commons strikes again. - DavidWBrooks 23:52, 15 February 2006 (UTC)
They're at it again. These are all almost certainly the same user or, at most, a small group of friends, since they all sign their posts with the names of former Rangers and the writing style is always the same. I'd say block them one by one as they continue to vandalize the page (I'm equating nonsense to vandalism). | Klaw ¡digame! 00:35, 16 February 2006 (UTC)
Clarifying: They are the same person. User:66.90.154.194 posted on User_talk:John_Reid that he wrote the "vast portion" of the article, but that honor goes to User:204.65.209.254. So if you block one, block both. | Klaw ¡digame! 00:42, 16 February 2006 (UTC)
Put a 48-hour block on three IDs - see if that does anything, or if 48 1/2 hours from now things fall to pieces again. - DavidWBrooks 01:10, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

I think vanity much. He was a marginally notable player albeit obscure very low Alexa traffic. Was going to help but couldn't find much on him sorry. --71.28.250.210 16:20, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

Regarding pages for each date

Does anybody know what Wikipedia's policy is regarding linking to dates (or can you point in a direction to find it)? Wikipedia's help sections are suffering from a bad case of TMI. In particular people often link the date and year seperately. This is quite pointless. It is much more useful to link to a page with events *from that day* (a la February 28, 2003 instead of February 28, 2003. However very few specific date pages exist. Seems to me that a robot should just create them from... say... 1000 BCE to 2500 CE. This could be very very helpful for instance, older dates could show the dates of both the Georian and Julian calanders (or whatever calender). Not only that, but the "what links here" thing would be like instantly creating a newspaper from that day!!! Jason Quinn 20:28, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

I'm not sure this is exactely what you're looking for, but Wikipedia:Manual of Style (dates and numbers) has some information about linking dates. I'd think that the total date format (day, month, and year) would perhaps be problematic given the number of such articles which would have to exist (of the same order of magnitude as the number of articles already created - about 730,000 - for Common Era dates). There may be some feature I am unaware of, however, which does what you suggest. It seems like it would be pretty cool. --Hansnesse 21:16, 15 February 2006 (UTC)
Thanks. That's what I wanted. I still think my idea is a good one. I also think at some time in the future it will be done. There's a gigantic benefit to be had. Regarding the large number of dates, perhaps the Wikipedia could auto create the page once a link is made to it. Only dates that are used would then take up space. Jason Quinn 01:47, 16 February 2006 (UTC)
I really like your idea, having seen so many February 28, 2003 that are really of little contextual use. If you ever write or find a formal proposal for this, let me know, i'll vote for it! =) --A/B 'Shipper 女 (talk) 15:10, 16 February 2006 (UTC)
I disagree with the suggestion with linking date and year separately is pointless. For one thing it allows date preferences to display correctly, and you don't always want to restrict yourself to one year, or one date in that year. Linking separatly allows the user to a) see what happened in that day through history, b) see what else happened in that month/year at a glance without flicking though multiple pages. Creating a standalone page for each day has several possible disadvantages. Repetition, for example, events that happened over a timescale (or have have approximate dates) would appear multiple times, or be forever moved around. context would be lost, something revavent that happened the previous day/week wouldn't be mentioned without creating even more repetition. The creating of 300 odd stubs/year would be a nightmare to monitor, and even if not created automatically, I think dates would be a vandal honeypot "vandal X was born" on their birthday, etc. I think the current situation where there is a article per year (per month for 2000-) works well, as it gives you the context of what happened around that time in history, which is one of the points of linking the dates in the first place. Having an article per day would basically be a subsection of the existing pages, but without the context, and a little too finegrained, in my opinion. MartinRe 15:51, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

Definition of terms

Moved from Talk:Neutral point of view by jareha.

I am currently involved in a dispute over a definition with a Pole(a person from Poland, not a metal construct) on Wikipedia. The word in question is Kulturkampf(comes from German). I contend that the word in English refers to the struggle between the German Empire under Bismark and the Catholic Church. This is backed up by dictionaries that include the term eg. http://www.dictionary.com and other book dictionaries that I have consulted.

It seems that the polonized term Kulturkampf has a slightly different meaning (in english your could translate it as germanization). My Polish friend argues that because Wikipedia is international, it should include the meanings of the word in Polish.

Although the English Wikipedia is an international project, the terms should be resticted to mean what it is understood to mean in English. That's my point of view anyway. What I'm asking is are we meant to accomodate the foreign meanings of the words? Or should they have their own pages? Or are they relevant at all? I realize that the English Wikipedia is in a way international, but it is useless when you don't know what definition of a word is being used. Disambiguation is, in my view, not appropriate in this case because the terms are far too similar in actual meaning, and the articles would merely repeate each other for the most part, or worse contradict each other.

Bobby1011 17:17, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

The English Wikipedia is intended primarily for English-speaking people. It's fine to mention the meaning of a term in its original language as a matter of interest, but disambiguation is not appropriate. Also, do not create an interwiki link to an article with the same name on the Polish Wikipedia which is not on the same topic. Try to match meanings. Deco 22:38, 11 February 2006 (UTC)


Another issue is that the original term isn't polish. It's german. Bobby1011 22:31, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

I really see no need for an English-language article about a term from German history to address the meaning of that term in the Polish language. That said, it would be appropriate to mention briefly the effects of the Kulturkampf on the Polish territories of Prussia. Marco polo 17:11, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

So what is wrong with a sentence saying, "In Poland the term kulturkampf has come to mean..."? alteripse 12:49, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

Request for ID of ancient Chinese astronomy equipment

If you think you might know anything about it, please take a look at commons:北京古观象台 and add any information you can to the gallery page and/or the individual image description pages. Thank you! pfctdayelise (translate?) 13:52, 17 February 2006 (UTC)


With apologies. Maybe you can point me to the correct help article. On the 'Hamas' entry, there is an image of the 'Hamas logo'. Now, I don't know if the image description has to give a source, but there is one, a link. I have looked at that site, no logo, it is an advertising site - Jewish Girls, Ringtones, and so on. There is a 'Hamas' link there but that is just more of the same, also with links to search sites.

I have found the logo on another site, and could, if I knew how, replace tha existing image, giving that site as the source.

Guidance please.

--Dumarest 21:04, 16 February 2006 (UTC)Dumarest [Bruce Cameron] 21:04 February 16

Well spotted! I suspect that the site originally contained the logo, and has since become defunct (older versions of the site are available on the wayback machine. There is no desperate need to update the whole picture; in general things on the web are expected to be transitory. Here there is no question of the authenticity of the logo (I think), just that particular source is no longer available. As such, it is probably safe (in my view) to let it stand, even if the original source is off the web.
For general interest, however, general information on uploading pitcures can be found at Wikipedia:Uploading images. Does this help? Thanks, --Hansnesse 08:48, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

Flag

Could someone add a border to Image:Flag of Japan.svg so that it looks more like a flag instead of a dot. See the border on Image:Czechoslovakia flag.png. So this File:Czechoslovakia flag.png instead of Rmhermen 16:24, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

I can change the svg to add a border easily but I don't know to update the image on the commons. On the commons, there is no option for "uploading a new version" that I can see. If you can edit/upload on the commons, all you have to to to the svg is add the following polyline after the existing circle one.

<circle cx="225" cy="150" r="90" fill="#df0029"/>
<polyline fill="none" stroke="black" stroke-width="2"
points="0,0 450,0, 450,300, 0,300, 0, 0" />

</svg>

Aside: Anyone know how to upload updated versions on the commons? MartinRe 17:38, 18 February 2006 (UTC)
In the meantime, I've uploaded the edit file as Flag_of_Japan_(Border).svg, so it now appears like: File:Flag of Japan (Border).svg. Hope that helps. MartinRe 17:57, 18 February 2006 (UTC)
Please don't do this. If I recall correctly, there was a decision on Commons to not place borders around flags or any other image, and instead to use a suitable template to place a border around it (like {{border}}, demonstrated below). This allows it to be used on other background colours, avoids redundant effort drawing borders, etc. I encourage you to ask more about this at Commons:Commons_talk:WikiProject_Flags. Deco 00:06, 19 February 2006 (UTC)


Harlan Ellison discussion

I put this question on the site discussion, and no reply. Really a matter sortof of ethics, and correctness. This is a copy of my post there.

Before I add certain data to the article, considering the controversy about HE, I thought it pertinent to put a query in this part of the data. Cordwainer Bird is given as a pseudonym of HE in the Controversy section, but that pseudonym was used by him for a few soft porn stories early in his career; only later as a protest for items that he wrote but disowned for one reason or another. This fact is given by himself in the book Strange Dreams. I would add it to the publications area if it seems reasonable. --Dumarest 12:25, 18 February 2006 (UTC)--

If it's accurate information with a source (and it sounds like it is), feel free to add it. Superm401 - Talk 22:59, 18 February 2006 (UTC)

Robot wanted

Does anyone have a robot that they could run which could change all occurences of "id=toc" into "class=toccolours"? They both look the same to most folk, but id=toc hides the division from folk who have preferences for "contents turned off". And 99% of these are not tables of contents but are related items link boxes. Editing the 1% by hand would be easier than the 99%.

For an example, see Elisa Oyj and Template:Finnishmobileoperators which has had this chnage done. -- SGBailey 07:39, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

You might get more of a response if you ask at Wikipedia:Bot requests. Angela. 10:24, 18 February 2006 (UTC)
Thanks. Didn't know that existed. -- SGBailey 21:13, 18 February 2006 (UTC)

WP:NOR, WP:V, WP:CITE, WP:RS, WP:NOT, and Pillars I-III

Can someone explain to me why an article which fails no fewer than five content policies, and smashes through three of the Five Pillars has only one person advocating its deletion? Currently, it has only attracted the attentions of a half-dozen editors who evidently don't know original research when it is biting at what they perceive to be their elbows. A quick glance at the offending article shows that each entry is clearly new data measured by the users involved. (I've looked, and hard. Trust me when I say that this data just is not available anywhere else). 11:47, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

Out of curiosity, could you explain how you think the article contradicts pillar III? And did you really mean to link to WP:CS (rather than WP:CITE)? In general, I'd suggest not getting so worked up about this. Even if the article survives AfD, you can still take your time to discuss what is wrong with it and then renominate it later if necessary. Having it stay up for a few days (or months, or even years) will not destroy Wikipedia. —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 12:06, 15 February 2006 (UTC)
Pillar III: because of the way map data is licensed in the UK, it's not entirely clear whether (1) the resultant distances have been calculated legally, (2) whether we'd be allowed to distribute the results. Of course, these are questions we don't normally have to deal with, because Wikipedia does not do WP:OR, which that article is (check the article itself, and the talk page, and you'll see it's inviting contributors to measure the lengths of named streets - clearly OR since no such list already exists, contrast with List of rivers by length, where the lengths have already been measured and published before inclusion.). As for whether this will "destroy" Wikipedia, that's an awfully strong term, but if this stays, the terms "gaping loophole" and "dangerous precedent" come to mind. Concerns were raised over this article back in November, and they have still not been addressed. 3 months is more than enough time to try and find an alternative source for this. 12:27, 15 February 2006 (UTC)
I don't think street lengths are copyrightable. Even a list of them, as a whole, would not be copyrightable, since no creativity is involved in compiling such a list. Whether the numbers originally came from an external list, from digital map data, from a paper map or from physically measuring the actual streets is irrelevant to the copyright status. I would say the whole copyright issue, in fact, is a red herring.
As for verifiability, which is the real issue here (WP:NOR being essentially a corollary to WP:V), I'd say this is a bit of a borderline case. While there have been precedents for allowing some rather difficult-to-verify sources (a brass plaque on a wall comes to mind), I'd say citing a physical street as a source is a bit of a stretch to say the least. On the other hand, it might well be possible to write a program that reads a set of digital map data and outputs a list of street lengths. Such a program would require no subjective interpretation, and would, in principle, have little qualitative difference from any other deterministic data transformation, such as, say, adding the figures for male and female populations together to yield a total population count. Thus, one might very well consider a digital map to be a verifiable source of street lengths.
The remaining issue, of course, is whether such a list is encyclopedic at all. My personal opinion is that, as a non-authoritative work in progress, it is not. If we had a single authoritative source, the list might be worth keeping on the grounds that it would cost us very little effort, since its maintenance would then involve nothing more than copying the list once and keeping an eye on it for possible vandalism. But we don't. —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 13:20, 15 February 2006 (UTC)
I don't think street lengths are copyrightable. Even a list of them, as a whole, would not be copyrightable, since no creativity is involved in compiling such a list. This is correct, at least in the U.S. The Feist v. Rural ruling says that "sweat of the brow" efforts do not provide copyright protection to compiled factual information. | Klaw ¡digame! 14:52, 15 February 2006 (UTC)
Point missed in spectacular fashion. There is no list anywhere of the street lengths, or of the lengths of individual segments, from which this could be compiled (OSGB goes to great pains to ensure they have total control of such data), so Feist v. Rural does not appear to be comparable. It would have to be done from maps or mapping data, which works roughly like this: OSGB goes out and does the surveying. From this, it gets mapping data, covered by Crown copyright, over which OSGB maintains a strict policy. From this, it generates maps at various scales, also Crown copyright, also under strict conditions. Folks like the publishers of A-Z pay OSGB vast sums of money to license the raw data for publication, which comes with strings attached, such as that there are to be no other works derived from the licensee's work. Similar "no derived works" conditions are attached to OSGB's own publications. When our users go buy this data in the form of printed maps, or make use of facilities such as Multimap, they are bound by these strict conditions, which include that a certain proportion of the maps may be reproduced (libraries have maps for certain subdivisions of the grid tiles, and you are permitted to reproduce 5% of a full tile) for personal research only. Particularly, [5] notes The [Copyright Act 1988] deems that the creators of the original should have control by copyright over the data derived from the original. Since the source for these lengths has clearly been to measure these out on maps, the resulting list is a derived work. Whether or not the final result can be subject to copyright has no bearing on whether or not the sources actually allow this to happen in the first place. While some of the acts deemed to be illegal involve automated processing, I wouldn't expect that the defence that this was measured manually is likely to stand up in court. Taking these measurements for personal use might be fine, but "creating reference material on Wikipedia" is not "personal use". Of course, this discussion can be avoided entirely bearing in mind that the page is undisputably original research, since it is creating new primary source data. 00:57, 16 February 2006 (UTC)
As I said above, I feel the copyright issue is indeed a red herring. Nonetheless, to continue on this tangent a bit further, I continue to maintain that, at least under U.S. copyright law, measurements of street lengths are not covered by copyright regardless of how they were obtained and what works were used as a source. While lengths measured on a map are certainly, in a sense, derivative works of the map, this makes no difference if the resulting data does not retain enough creative input to fall under copyright.
As an analogy, listing the number of words in each of the Harry Potter books would not infringe Rowling's copyright, even though the word counts would obviously be derived from her books, since reducing a novel to a single number effectively eliminates all of the original creative content of the novel, leaving only an uncopyrightable residue. Similarly, while a telephone directory may be copyrightable in some jurisdictions, a single telephone number is not, regardless of whether it came from the directory or not.
The preceding analysis, of course, only takes account of copyright issues. You seem to be saying above that, in addition to copyright protection, digital map data in the U.K. comes with "strings attached" in the form of an implied contract. Such "shrink-wrap licenses" may indeed impose additional restrictions beyond those provided by copyright law. However, the important thing to note about such contracts is that they exist only between the buyer and the seller of the map. They do not bind third parties such as Wikipedia in any way, no matter what the companies enforcing such contracts might try to claim. —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 13:34, 16 February 2006 (UTC)
Indeed, the U.S. won't recognize the U.K.'s copyright protection on a list of facts, regardless of how they were compiled. Besides, I'm not sure how seriously we should take the objections of an anonymous user who starts his/her comments with a personal attack.
As for the point that compiling facts is "original research," that's dubious. For example, plot summaries for books, movies, etc. on Wikipedia are nearly always written by someone who read the book/saw the movie and then wrote the plot summary; that's not original research. If someone counted the words in the Harry Potter books, that's not original research either. The original research prohibition only goes so far. | Klaw ¡digame! 15:53, 16 February 2006 (UTC)
Actually, that would be OR, unless someone else has published word counts elsewhere. Why? Because it's introducing new data. 09:30, 18 February 2006 (UTC)
My goodness, why is this so important to you? I just voted keep because I don't think this meets the spirit of original research, but I'll certainly accept things and move on if the verdict is a delete. Even if it were kept (and it looks like the AfD is heading towards delete), it's hardly going to set a precendent and lead to the the smashing of three Pillars. Turnstep 04:58, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

Goa Institute of Management

Goa Institute of Management seems to be largely maintained by the Goa Institute of Management PR department. Is it notable enough to stay, and if so, how can we make it NPOV? — ciphergoth 13:12, 19 February 2006 (UTC)

I would not vote for deletion, but would like to see an NPOV rewrite. Rick Norwood 14:41, 19 February 2006 (UTC)
Where would we find impartial, verifiable information? I cut it down to a substub since that was all the verifiable information I could find; the GIMbots just restored their version. — ciphergoth 21:45, 19 February 2006 (UTC)
The current version does not seem to be a simple revert. Rick Norwood 23:42, 19 February 2006 (UTC)


HTML quotes

Could someone review my edits as Pwnd? Another editor reverted my stating he was replacing the typographic quotes, but from what I can see, he added HTML quotes like this: & l d q u o ; .

Now, is (& l d q u o ;) preferred to """ ? If I am leaving HTML traces for some odd reason, please let me know so I can correct the problem and avoid having to be reverted again. I'm not sure what the problem is so any clarification would help. --Shadow Puppet 21:27, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

I'm sad to say that current policy in the Manual of Style takes the middle ground on this issue and has been the subject of numerous discussions. At one time, straight quotes were required universally, and generally they're still used in most articles because they're easier to type. I say no more at the risk of incriminating myself. Deco 06:37, 21 February 2006 (UTC)


Some Sanity Needed

This is a Request for Sanity. We need some more editors to come and check out the disputes on Talk:FOX News. — Ilyanep (Talk) 21:12, 20 February 2006 (UTC)


Translation of Aramaic Lord's Prayer

Hi, I'm not very active here, I'm mostly active on the Dutch wikipedia so I don't really know how things work around here, so please tell me if I'm in the right place ;)... but anyway I'm looking for the translation of the Aramaic Lord's prayer, there are various translations, some say it's a gnostic version and yet other say it's not so I have no idea, is there anyone here with knowledge of Aramaic or Hebrew (which I've been told looks quite similar). You can answer here in the village pump or on my talk page. Thanks in advance!! - Sεrvιεи | T@lk page 10:42, 18 February 2006 (UTC)

Abwoon d'bwashmaya
Nethqadash shmakh
Teytey malkuthakh
Nehwey tzevyanach aykanna d'bwashmaya aph b'arha
Hawvlan lachma d'sunqanan yaomana
Washboqlan khaubayn (wakhtahayn) aykana daph khnan shbwoqan l'khayyabayn
Wela tahlan l'nesyuna. Ela patzan min bisha
Metol dilakhie malkutha wahayla wateshbukhta l'ahlam almin.
Ameyn

You may have better luck posting this on the language reference desk. There are people that come through there that know some varieties of Aramaic. - Taxman Talk 12:39, 19 February 2006 (UTC)

Thanks :) Sεrvιεи | T@lk page 09:41, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

Linking to Wikipedia Articles from External Websites

I am currently working on a website which includes a pretty lengthy biography. I would like to link various words in the biography to Wikipedia articles, in much the same way that one does with articles in Wikipedia. I know that I can link each word using standard html, but feel that this would be rather time consuming. Does anyone know of a script that would do the links for me? For example, a script called something like wikipedia.php which, when I put in a linkon my site to wikipedia.php?London would take me to the London article. Any help greatly appreciated; even a pointer towards a page which would help me write my own script in whatever language. --James Kemp 17:48, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

I have an idea. Write your text normally with a text editor and put [[]] around your links to wikipedia. When you're finished, use the "replace" function (on the edit menu) to replace every [[ with "<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/" and every ]] with "</a>". For example, you could write [[London>London]] to link to London. I hope that helps. Fetofs Hello! 22:53, 22 February 2006 (UTC)


Vice squad or Vice Unit?

Vice unit was just created and I found an older Vice squad stub. Just wondering which one should be merged with which? Or if Vice Unit should be renamed to Vice unit. - RoyBoy 800 04:32, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

If it is any help, vice squad gets many more hits in google. That's probably the more familiar term of the two. But to me at least, "Vice Unit" sounds more formal. — RJH 23:36, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

Wide pages

Why are some pages widened out [6]? It's difficult navigate them when trying to check the diff for vandalism.--Dakota ~ ° 03:16, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

It's because of long URLs. Take a look at Wikipedia:WikiProject User scripts/Scripts/Fix diff width, which I use and which avoids that problem at the cost of slightly more CPU when loading a diff. --cesarb 04:03, 22 February 2006 (UTC)
Thanks. Lately diffs are loading slower at least on some pages even without the widening. i may try that and thanks again.--Dakota ~ ° 05:26, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

Editing Images

Hi,

Im new to wikipedia, and have just uploaded an image. I noticed that I made a small mistake in the image and have fixed this, however I'm having problems uploading my new, edited image.

From reading the help, I think I should just re-upload the image, using the same name - however when I do this I get the following message: A file with this name exists already, and cannot be overwritten. Please go back and upload this file under a new name.

What should I do? Any help on this matter would be great - thanks!

Peter Kirkland 16:14, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

I recall overwriting images has been disabled. Simply ask for deletion of the image (using {{db-self}}), wait for an admin to delete it, and upload again. --cesarb 16:27, 23 February 2006 (UTC)
Ok, I'll try that - thanks for your help. Peter Kirkland 16:33, 23 February 2006 (UTC)


Y-12 National Security Complex

Greetings. If you have the time and inspiration, would you please throw in your two cents regarding my NPOV dispute on the Y-12 National Security Complex article? Thank you. --Takeel 02:38, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

Takeel is correct, the "article" is pure propaganda. Rick Norwood 16:21, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

I have been having a discussion with Midas touch (talk · contribs) about appropriate links in articles, and wanted to see if anyone here had some feedback. In particular, Midas touch would like to add links to a site, Top Synergy, to various articles of Hollywood stars. The site analyzes, based on astrological information, the star's personality (for example, the link Brat Pitt would be added to the Brad Pitt article). My own feeling is that these articles do not provide enough in the way of specifics about the individual, and such links on the web are to numerous in general, to warrant inclusion. Midas touch and I have had a good discussion on our various talk pages (see My talk page and Midas touch's talk page), but I fear we may be at an impasse, and input from other people would be useful. I think we both would like to hear any thoughts, suggestions, or feedback other users might have. Many thanks, --Hansnesse 01:49, 13 February 2006 (UTC)


Midas touch (talk · contribs) says on his behalf:

  • 127 Million Internet users are said to be associated with Astrology one way or the other.
  • Brad Pitt researchers among them may view the article about Brad’s characteristics in handling relationships a refreshing, articulate, and interesting resource.
  • Wikipedia, for obvious reasons cannot take side on Astrology, but doesn’t it have an obligation to help make such additional resources, even if untraditional, accessible to Brad Pitt’s researcher?
  • The answer would be positive had we not been fighting link spamming so vigorously. I suggest adding a “nofollow” attribute to the link template on the wiki platform. It will kill at large most websites’ motivation to post links for search engine ranking purposes, and will leave room for resources with original and pertinent content to be showcased.
  • Top Synergy doesn’t deal with Hollywood Stars. It deals with relationships, and famous people who feature on the site include politicians, scientists, philosophers, minority leaders and other individuals who left their mark on society and humanity.
  • Please, when you voice your opinion, add a few words of reasoning that led to your Hey or Ney.

Thank you, Midas touch.


The link looks inappropriate to me, as placed on the article pages like Brad Pitt. Joyous | Talk 02:59, 13 February 2006 (UTC)
I definitely think the link is inappropriate; looking for a while at the content of topsynergy.com, I definitely agree that it is entertaining, but not informative (especially not in the sense of reference and source material for an encyclopedia). Rycanada 03:57, 18 February 2006 (UTC)
They should all be removed. Its simply link spam. JoshuaZ 07:08, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

Project Poetry

Hi, anyone interested in poetry? The project has slowed down a bit recently, and needs a little boost. You don't have to be an expert, proofreading an article or just getting your feedback on how to make it better is one of the many ways you can make the project grow. Choose from your list of your favorite poets from any country, make or propose new great entries. For more info just visit Wikipedia:WikiProject_Poetry. Thanks :-) --Wikipedius 21:16, 24 February 2006 (UTC)


Deleting pages?

I've read some of the help pages but I can't seem to find a "delete" function. I'm guessing that to delete something, we simply edit it? The problem is that I've found a good page that is blatantly against Wiki standards and the author of the page even features a warning for anyone that wants to fix it saying that he knows Wiki very well. It is apparent that the entire page needs to be deleted so that it is not referenced rather than just edited. How can I do this? -- Whane 02:48, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

All users can edit a page to remove all the content (this is called blanking a page), but only Wikipedia administrators can actually delete a page. For more information on getting a page deletd, check out Wikipedia:Deletion process. What is the page that you think should be deleted? Canderson7 (talk) 02:56, 24 February 2006 (UTC)
I was wrong about the entry needing deletion, it is a valid entry but needs to be reverted, I guess I'll read up on how to revert, assuming it too is not an admin only feature. This is for Mechz by the way and it seems that it has already been edited since yesterday. -- Whane 20:44, 24 February 2006 (UTC)
You're right that the article was vandalized, but has been since been reverted to a good version. Anyone can revert an article, you can learn more about this at Wikipedia:Revert and Help:Reverting. Canderson7 (talk) 23:46, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

Rollback

I accidentally made a change to the previously blank userpage of Folajimi. I need someone with admin priveleges to do a rollback so that the page is once more empty and free of history. Please help.17:30, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

I have deleted the page so that it is now a redlink without a page history. Canderson7 (talk) 02:59, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

Show changes

Whenever I make more than a few basic changes to a page( I think), the “Show changes” button gets me a “technical difficulties” page. This only started yesterday, and “Show preview” works fine.
Is it a known issue, being worked on? Is there a place to find out more about such things? -- WikidSmaht (talk) 14:16, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

Try Wikipedia Status. pfctdayelise (translate?) 03:01, 18 February 2006 (UTC)
That doesn’t really mention specific issues or whether they're being addressed. -- WikidSmaht (talk) 01:03, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

How do I create a new article?

I am new to this and I am a bit slow so I was wondering if anyone could tell me how to craete a new article? Like about a new film etc. Thanks a lot! — Preceding unsigned comment added by Pikay234 (talk • contribs)

Simply type the title into the search box. The screen that comes up will have an option there for you to click to start the new article. Then you just type it in and save.
It should say something like You can create this article or request it. (italics indicating links). Click the create link. --SpencerTC 20:24, 25 February 2006 (UTC)


Portal:Arts

Something's wrong with Portal:Arts.--Fito 18:18, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

Portal:Arts was recently moved to that title from Portal:Art, but its subpages were not moved with it. It's fixed now. Thanks for noticing that. Canderson7 (talk) 18:59, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

Restoring Deleted Pages

If you know the correct procedure to have deleted pages restored I'd be obliged if you would please share that information with me. Talk - The Invisible Anon

Procedure is outlined at Wikipedia:Undeletion_policy#To_request_that_a_page_.28or_image.29_be_restored Regards, MartinRe 17:12, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

FTFF

Could someone help me figure out if the first sentence and other F**k word-related material is legitimate in this article or vandalism? It doesn't look right somehow. --SpencerTC 13:59, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

  • A quick Google test shows only about 16 references for the first sentence. On the other hand, the Ars Technica article linked explains why they're using the acronym FTFF. I'd say that the etymology in the first sentence is doubtful and could just be removed. --Elkman 20:32, 25 February 2006 (UTC)
Thank you. I'll have to make a note to use that Google search. It can be handy. --SpencerTC 20:36, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

Can I ban a user from my talk page?

An anoymous user User:69.27.2.186 has started harrassing me on my talk page after I weighed into a dispute on the USAA page. It's just annoying, but given his verbosity on the Talk:USAA page, I suspect it's not likely to stop anytime soon.

Can I protect my talk page from anonymous edits (like the [USAA] page is - due to the actions of the same user)?

--Mmx1 03:33, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Requests for page protectionSemi probably. They decide. Submit proof.--71.28.250.210 11:26, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

Linkspam in progress, someone stop Cbarnes

Hello everyone:

Some user named CBarnes is posting links to barnesreport.com into numerous articles, including Supermarket and Car dealerships in the USA. This appears to be linkspam to promote some expensive reports sold by Barnes Reports, a tiny research firm. Some admin please block this clown so that we can start cleaning up the mess he or she has made! --Coolcaesar 22:01, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

I started to roll them back, but they actually seem to have content assuming the numbers are accurate. Yes, it's linkspam, but it's good linkspam. Or, at least, so it appears to me. - DavidWBrooks 22:23, 24 February 2006 (UTC)
I'm assuming you mean Cbarnes12. If so, you should have brought this up on their talk before complaining elsewhere. Discussion goes a long way. Superm401 - Talk 00:26, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

Hwo to request for content to be placed in PD or under GFDL

I left a comment at someon's flickr page requesting s/he place thier picture in Public Domain or under GFDL. So that the photo can be used on a certain Wikipedia article. But I was not sure where to redirect him/her? Does wikipedia have a page where people can be directed, to read how great it is for someone to relase the image under copyleft and what are the implications of it? Will check back here. Thanks. --156.34.76.122 21:12, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

If their image is cc-by or cc-by-sa, we can use it already! No need to relicense. And if it's cc-by-nc, I don't think they'll be very likely to relicense. (Also, direct them to the commons:! :D) pfctdayelise (translate?) 03:00, 18 February 2006 (UTC)
There's persuasive text you can use at Wikipedia:Boilerplate requests for permission, if they have not released the images under any free lienses. CC-by is an acceptable license. Superm401 - Talk 22:58, 18 February 2006 (UTC)

Well, those boilerplate texts are too long and formal, even the informal ones. I am writing now to persuade wikipedians to come up with something short and nice, that can be left at forums etcetera. Not more than 5 lines maybe, including links. This is one message I left at flickr -

>>> Nice picture, Ponting is one of my favourites. BTW, do you mind releasing this image in Public Domain or GFDL. Why I ask is because at wikipedia, they need something like this. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Cricket for this article en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cricket You can read about GFDL here en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GFDL <<<

PS: next time will direct them to commons too

Feel free to add an abbreviated version yourself. Just make sure it's clear. Superm401 - Talk 04:27, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

Category:Wikipedians by alma mater:Catholic education:Christian Brother

I need help at Category:Wikipedians by alma mater:Catholic education:Christian Brother A vandal is trying to prevent the deletion of this otherwise empty category by adding inappropriate items to it. CG janitor 19:27, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

I have now used up my 3 edits by replacing the deletion tag that the same vandal keeps removing. CG janitor 19:29, 26 February 2006 (UTC)
A big thank you to User:Shimgray for helping. CG janitor 20:33, 26 February 2006 (UTC)


Rampant Plagiarism

How do I report plagiarism?

I was reading an article on the sex pistols, and became suspicious of plagiarism. A quick Google search confirmed my suspicions, as that section of the article was copied verbatim from a USA Today story, so I deleted it. Sex Pistols

A cursory check of the user's (Petadeo) other edits revealed two other instances of plagiarism: Audioslave James Blunt

Doubtless, there are many more.

--JianLi 05:03, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Copyright problems for the instructions. --cesarb 16:21, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

Serious Problem at Wikibooks

I'm making an appeal here because of a recent serious (IMHO only) development at Wikibooks which I think Wikipedians may want to investigate further. I somehow got involved on the wrong side of a small gang of users that regard themselves as the policing sysops for Wikibooks. The single incident was that I did not appreciate placement of banners on the content and other pages of a book I was working on, banners that declared the book out of compliance with a Wikibook page naming policy (being developed but has not yet been voted upon, and one which I actually agree with). My removal of one of the banners brought down on me a personal attack by one of these self-appointed policemen (see Wikibooks:User talk:Marshman#Basic Ecology Contents). I then voted "opposed" on a vote on this sysop's bid for extended policing powers. Now I have now been listed by him and a cohort for removal of sysop rights (see Wikibooks:Requests_for_adminship#Requests for de-adminship). Curiously, this process is being discussed and pushed forward by a very limited number of participants (see discussion at Wikibooks:Staff_lounge#Removing_Sysop_Status concerning removal of admin rights from sysops that do not use them). While this may be well-meaning with regard to Wikipedians that have left the scene, in my case it appears to be a way to punish me for opposing a small group of self-appointed rule-makers at Wikibooks. I am a steady and long-term contributor to a number of textbooks there (for example Wikibooks:Botany and Wikibooks:Ecology), and regularly (daily) utilize my sysop powers for administration duties (although, mostly I do that here at Wikipedia where I devote about 85-90% of my limited time). Therefore, I find it dangerous that I or anyone wanting to be a serious contributor and positive member of the community would be subject to what appears to be a personal attack under the guise of yet another non-existent policy. I am even being faulted for using my admin powers "only on my personal projects", by which is meant just those books I contribute to, as if those were now personal projects instead of Wikibooks. Is it really now the desire at Wikipedia/Wikibooks that sysops are to be administrators and policemen, and serious contributors should not have admin powers if they mostly only contribute and edit text? As it certainly is the case that some syspos regularly abuse their powers, is it not a good idea to have all kinds of good contributors available for voting and responding to appeals of those non-sysop users that feel they have been abused? It has always been my sense of admin rights that they are NOT police powers; I have tried to respect that and fault me where I've abused them; but not living up to someone else's idea that I do not contribute enough time to administration duties seems far-fetched at the very least. If I am wrong, then please someone clarify for me; otherwise you might want to take a look at what is developing at Wikibooks. Presently, this whole issue is being discussed and decided by surprisingly few users and seems very un-Wikipedian to me. I would really appreciate your attention to this matter as it has potential to alter the community in some unpleasaant ways. - Marshman 19:44, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

This is not a Wikipedia issue. Perhaps you should bring this up at meta. Superm401 - Talk 00:21, 25 February 2006 (UTC)
You may be right. But hope it does not become a problem at Wikipedia. If the attitude at Wikipedia is, as it seems, the same as at Wikibooks, this place is no longer for me - Marshman 17:47, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

Marshman: I hear you. from what I've seen, I have to say that the "official" (i.e., what can be derived from established policies) Wiki conception of politics suffers horribly from naïveté. it's essentially inevitable that cliques will come to dominate the more politically sensitive articles and topics, and restructure them according to particular points of view. they may not even know that they are doing it—it might just be back-channels 'buddy can you help me out' kinds of things—but the end result will be broad-spectrum bias. heck, I've experienced it already in at least two different cases, and I've only been here a couple of months.

all I can say is: enjoy it while it lasts, and make sure to keep personal backups of any article that's important to you.  ;-)

Difficulty staying logged into user account

When I log into my user account, it sometimes automatically logs out when I choose to view a new page. When I then try to log back in, a message sometimes appears that says that Wikipedia cookies are not enabled, even though they are. This has been a recurring problem, and I am hoping that someone familiar with it can help me. I use Mircosoft Internet Explorer 6.0. - Conrad Devonshire 18:31, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

Try logging out manually, then deleting any cookies you have from en.wikipedia.org and logging in again. This seems to fix the problem for most people.-gadfium 01:37, 28 February 2006 (UTC)


Too big

Please, I need something saying that the infobox on California State Route 1 is too big. The WikiProject guys aren't listening to common sense. --SPUI (talk - don't use sorted stub templates!) 22:33, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

That infobox, by its size, fails to be able to convey information. It becomes completely useless to the article, and looks atrocious. Better no infobox than that monstrosity. Sam Korn (smoddy) 22:35, 2 March 2006 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Templates for deletion/Log/2006 March 2#Template:Routeboxca is waiting. --SPUI (talk - don't use sorted stub templates!) 22:36, 2 March 2006 (UTC)
I disagree.JohnnyBGood 23:19, 2 March 2006 (UTC)


Image Licensing

I was working on Crystal Field Theory and I noticed that the orginial splitting diagrams were in error. As such I took the time to correct them by modifying the original diagrams created by SWpens11. Was that an acceptable action as since he/she used:

--YanA 21:28, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, public domain means "do whatever the fuck you want with it". --SPUI (talk - don't use sorted stub templates!) 22:33, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

Request for bot status

I am the admin of Czech Wikipedia and my main activity here on English is doing interwiki links. I run the pywikipedia robot on cs.wiki and the bot status would afford me the opportubity to work more effectively.

So I am asking you for support to granting the bot status to my user account here on en.wiki. --Zirland 22:01, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Bots. Superm401 - Talk 08:17, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

I read the page, but I didn't find, how to ask for support there. --Zirland 10:18, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

Flu Wiki is using an altered version of Wikipedia's logo: [7]. Do they have permission, or is it just that they think the logo applies to any wiki? 207.245.124.66 17:25, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia is a free encyclopedia, I think the photo is public domain. --Masssiveego 08:02, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

The image is copyrighted by the Wikimedia Foundation and not in the public domain. For that matter, neither is the text. It is under the GNU Free Documentation License, decidedly not the same thing. See Wikipedia:Copyrights. Superm401 - Talk 08:14, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

Correcting the Block Log

Greatly appreciate knowing how to apply to have a User Talk page block log corrected - where the log shows a block which was incorrectly applied.

Talk - The Invisible Anon 18:34, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

  • The block log is automatically generated. If you believe it to be done in error, contact an admin by email. Or, if it's not you but someone else being blocked, contact WP:AN. - Mgm|(talk) 11:37, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

Mysticism header

Would someone (or several of you, whichever) come help resolve a difference regarding the header at mysticism? A "new" user (his account is about a month old, and he claims to be new, but doesn't act new at all) is insisting on there being an odd, messy header on the article. Is my disaproval of these headers just me being wrong, or can you see how ugly it is and lend a hand? Either way, please come help.

Sam Spade 21:12, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

Actually, the header is a rather pretty shade of red. I suggest find out where the person who applied the header is coming from. Is he a skeptic, who objects to mystics on principle, or is he a mystic, who thinks his particular brand of mysticism hasn't gotten sufficient play? Rick Norwood 23:12, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

Its probably better that I not conjecture as to where they are coming from here, but please feel free to have a look @ Talk:Mysticism. Sam Spade 23:54, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

That template is redundant and I've nominated it for deletion. I've replaced it with {{disputed}} in case there's really an accuracy problem. Superm401 - Talk 00:24, 1 March 2006 (UTC)
If I can throw in my two cents worth, I'll have to agree with Rick: it is a pretty shade of red. aside from that, though...  ;-)
look, first: the majorRevision header was intended for the readers of the article, not the editors. I have been going about adding content, but I have other responsibilities in life so it's been a bit slow. I wanted some notification to the casual reader that the page was under construction, so that they can (a) read with caution and (b) not carry away a bad impression of Wikipedia as a whole. I do not think that the page content is under any great dispute (though Sam and I do have our points of contention), and I am not particularly asking for help in adding content from other editors (though that is of course welcome). the new header seems appropriate to the task. I don't think the header is redundant, and I have already modified it to try and satisfy both my and Sam's preferences. however, he seems dead set on having it removed, and has avoided discussing the pros and cons of its presence or absence. I would like it (in some incarnation) to remain in place until the bulk of the content has been entered into the article. that seems only appropriate.
as to the template:spirituality portal header: that was there before I arrived on the scene, and it's also designed with the reader in mind—it is an unobtrusive way to point readers to similar content in wikipedia. For some reason Sam has suddenly decided it too is objectionable, but he hasn't yet given me any reason for that. maybe you can get him to explain his reasons here? I happen to like it, and I'd like to hear some substantive reason for removing it.
lastly: would someone with admin powers please reassure Sam that I am not a sockpuppet, role troll, wiki-wonker, or any other bizarre thing than what I represent myself as, a relatively new, but technically apt, user? I'd appreciate it... thanks, Ted 02:04, 1 March 2006 (UTC)  :-)

All wikipedia pages are under construction. Also, I was careful not to accuse you of anything in the wikipedia namespace. Sam Spade 15:35, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

Some pages are under more construction than others.  ;-) and this still doesn't explain your sudden aversion to the spirituality portal tag...
as far as not making accusations in Wikipedia namespace... honestly, this is a little opaque to me. I don't understand back-channel communications when it comes to public venues. I have personal communications with people, of course, that are inherently confidential, but anything I have to say on a public matter I'll say in public, where it can be accepted or condemned, as the case may be. I do understand (fuzzily) that other people don't work that way, but I have a difficult time, sometimes, figuring out the rules of those games. my apologies if it makes your life in any way unpleasant.
...though you shouldn't get the idea that I see this as a personal failing; far from it. Ted 16:39, 1 March 2006 (UTC)
yeesh... well, Sam decided to revert the headers once more, again without discussion. can someone please tell me the proper approach here? do I report him for vandalism? send something this silly to arbitration? is there another option? what is with this guy? Ted 17:36, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

The discussion is here (this very thread), and here: Talk:Mysticism#Headers. The spirituality portal link is ment for the talk page, not the header of the article. I wouldn't mind some outside intervention either, thats why I initiated this thread. The conflict seems to be confused, and far from substantive or beneficial to the article content. Frankly I fear I'm wasting my time. Sam Spade


Help needed for Indo-Aryan transliteration characters

To any admin, I request you to please insert some additional characters in the Insertbox in the edit page: r, h, t, d, m, n: each with a dot immediately below it. These are used for IAST transliteration of retroflex vowels & consonants in all Indo-Aryan (and Dravidian) languages like Sanskrit and Hindi. Its too inconvenient to search for these characters in another page and copy and paste them again. After all, you have a flood of god-knows-what characters in the insert-box, you can easily afford to bring in a few more. All articles related to India require them desparately. I dont know why you people reverted the earlier scheme which classified the inserbox characters as french, german, mathematics, IPA, etc. This kind of system still exists in French and German Wiki; I dont know why such step-motherly treatment to the Indo-Aryan languages.Cygnus_hansa 17:27, 3 March 2006 (UTC)


Talk:Current events currently redirected

Talk:Current events is currently redirected to Talk:February 2006. Is this a problem or status quo? TransUtopian 17:59, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

Ah, Joturner took care of it. :) And not status quo, apparently. TransUtopian 02:00, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

Why can't I find my entry using search

I created an entry for Robertson Stromberg Pedersen LLP on February 17 and after sorting out some copyright issues and some edits, all seems okay. I also added the firm's name to the List of Law Firms. List of Law Firms - Canada on February 17.

Why then, when I search for any of the words, "robertson" "stromberg" "pedersen" or even for them as a string, in Wikipedia, my entry doesn't come up at all?

Can anyone tell me what I need to do to resolve this?

Thanks!

The Wikipedia search engine is insanely case sensitive. Rick Norwood 20:43, 2 March 2006 (UTC)
It's linking now. It needs at be in at least one category though.--Dakota ~ ° 01:37, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Useful styles

I'm looking for input and cross-linking ideas for this colelction of useful CSS tidbits. Circeus

Viewing contributions from IP ranges

I recently reverted POV edits that the anonymous editor 65.194.118.11 made to the article on Marilyn Musgrave, who is a Republican member of the United States House of Representatives. An ARIN lookup ([8]) showed that this IP address was from a range belonging to the National Republican Congressional Committee, an organization that works to elect Republicans to the House. In light of the recent problematic edits by Congressional staffers, I want to make sure that other IP addresses from this range haven't been making POV edits to the articles on other members of Congress from both parties. Is it possible to find out whether IP addresses from a given range have edited Wikipedia without manually finding out for all 256 of them whether Special:Contributions exists? For example, is there a page that has the IP addresses that have edited Wikipedia listed in numerical order? Thanks. NatusRoma 21:28, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

I knew it.. should have looked further back in the edit history. Congress still hasn't learned from its previous attempts to astroturf here. That user apparently went on to edit from their AOL account and their Comcast cable modem. As for looking at an IP range's contributions, I don't think it is possible but I would love to hear about it if it is. Rhobite 21:39, 5 March 2006 (UTC)


PDF file

Is there any easy way to extract one column of data from a table in a PDF? I am trying to get just the names from the list on [[9]]. I tried grabbing the whole thing and filtering it in Works Database but could not find a way to remove the numeric entries. Is there a way to select the file as comma delimited? Rmhermen 19:51, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

Extracting text from a PDF file is not easy. Since it's a format oriented mostly for printing, not for editing, the text can be in a strange order, if it hasn't been turned into an image. You could try extracting the plain text using the tool which comes with Xpdf and postprocessing that. --cesarb 23:23, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

Acrobat Reader supports this. Next to the text-selection tool button (the one with the big "T" on it) there is a little triangle. Click on that and you can choose the "Column Select Tool". With the mouse you can then drag out a rectangle covering your column, do a copy, then paste into another document. This will only do one page at a time, so you'd have to repeat the process 14 times. -R. S. Shaw 06:21, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

Liberals

List of notable American liberals

Is this a clear enough definition to make an article with nothing but a list? --SpencerTC 22:19, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

Personally, I don't think so. Clearly defined or not, it's still just a list, which seems to be covered explicitly by WP:NOT#Wikipedia_is_not_an_indiscriminate_collection_of_information, item 2. MartinRe 23:35, 25 February 2006 (UTC)
It could use some organization, qualification, and citations, but I think it's a potentially useful topic. Deco 23:55, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

There are a large number of "lists" on Wikipedia, for one example among many, see List of mathematicians. Rick Norwood 00:12, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

I'll just put an attention tag or something on it; but it definitely is quite cr@ppy in its present state. Thanks for the responses. --SpencerTC 00:14, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

Could you explain what an article is needed for that is not be already encompassed by the appropiate categories? Eg Category:Mathematicians vs List of mathematicians. To me, the latter seems redundant. MartinRe 19:50, 26 February 2006 (UTC)
I agree; I'd like to see this article deleted. But I'm not about to start a fight over it. --DanielCD 00:59, 27 February 2006 (UTC)
To me a list only makes sense if it presents multi-variate data. I.e. the list presents additional information besides a name. It could be, for example, organized by profession, or birth date, or notable contribution. That gives the page something of interest. A vanilla list is usually pretty dull and not very encyclopedic. :) My $.02 worth. — RJH 21:36, 27 February 2006 (UTC)
My guess is that some people just like lists. Rick Norwood 01:33, 27 February 2006 (UTC)
Bad lists might as well be categories, but good lists can convey a great deal more than any category. Here's one of my favorites: List of Oz books. Re: the OP, my suggestion is to describe the inclusion standards in an opening statement. Durova 08:45, 2 March 2006 (UTC)
  • Lists and indiscriminate collections of facts are two different things as above list from Durova should show. There's also technical limits that stop categories from being annotated, sorted in any other order than alphabetical or from containing redlinked articles. In those cases lists can do a much better job than categories. They're not mutually exclusive. I don't see why we can't have both. - Mgm|(talk) 11:34, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

Alright, I will nominate this page for deletion myself (if I can figure out how - lol). it sufferes from the following problems

  • many people on this list have explicitly stated that they are not liberals: that lacks verifiability
  • among the remainder, there is a vast confusion between political liberals, people who follow classical liberalalism, people who promote economic liberalism, and radicals who have been labelled as liberals because (assumedly) the author of the list can't tell the difference.

the whole page is a sad exercise in midlessness. Ted 17:27, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

Local Wikipedia

Is there any way to access a copy of the wikipedia database download under linux. I would really like something reasonably simple like wikifilter for windows. I am using ubuntu linux. I have tried to use the full mediawiki software to do this, but it was a little too complicated. Is there another way, or should I just keep trying with MediaWiki. Licensedlunacy 04:09, 4 March 2006 (UTC)


Joan of Arc

Quick fix needed on a Wiki markup issue that isn't covered on the Wiki markup page: I'm trying to create two internal links to prior subsections within the article. Nonworking links are in italics at Joan of Arc#Clothing. FAC in progress, so speedy help is welcome. Thanks, Durova 01:56, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

Fixed. —Kirill Lokshin 02:08, 4 March 2006 (UTC)
Much obliged! Durova 02:54, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

Grand Prince of Tver

I'm creating a list of princes of Tver in Chinese Wikipedia(see here Grand Prince of Tver),but I can't define many princes'names or their reign.And there is not such a list in any version of wikipedia now.Where can I find the information and marterials that I need to acomplish the list?Either in English or Russian is Ok.Thanks for your help.--User:Douglasfrankfort

Try asking at Wikipedia:Help desk. Deco 08:00, 27 February 2006 (UTC)
Actually, Wikipedia:Reference desk would be better. --Cherry blossom tree 11:18, 28 February 2006 (UTC)
Thanks.I have finished it.--Douglasfrankfort 07:58, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

A little help please

User:Haizum keeps posting messages on my talk page despite the fact I’m not interested, and have asked him to stop. What should I do? Can someone intervene? Thanks, Gerard Foley 23:12, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

Ignore him. Eventually he will get tired and go away. Rick Norwood 23:51, 6 March 2006 (UTC)
User:Johntex has put a note on his talk page anyway. It's very annoying to get the "You have messages" banner every 5 minutes. Where should such disputes be taken in future? All I wanted was to be left in peace. Gerard Foley 23:59, 6 March 2006 (UTC)


Some help needed

Hello. Can someone please help me to change the Template:Slovenia-municipalities into a pop-up version since the present frm is rather big and unpractical. I would like it to hide the municipalities and have only city municipalities before clicked. Thanks. --Tone 15:29, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

I'm not a fan of popups, but (assuming wiki-pages accept javascript) I can make a make a button or link that shows/hides the big table. would that work for you? I'll try a trial version - if it doesn't work, or you don't like it, revert it the template and we'll talk. Ted 18:11, 5 March 2006 (UTC)
oops, aparently javascript use is not as transparent as I'd hoped. let me look into it a bit. I'm happy to take advice, if someone has it to offer...  :-)
Yes, I ment a show and hide button. I saw the format at the ice skater's articles but couldnt really find how it is done. I would like to learn the trick also. --Tone 19:52, 5 March 2006 (UTC)
You have to use some magic classes. One of the JavaScript scripts loaded on every Wikipedia page will look for these classes and do the trick. See for instance {{afd}} which uses it. --cesarb 20:00, 5 March 2006 (UTC)
I had a look at it but I am not really familiar with JavaScript. I was experimenting a little in my sandbox, if you have a minute, I would be glad if you check what I did wrong. --Tone 20:23, 5 March 2006 (UTC)
I made it a bit better; unfortunately, something is moving the expanding part to above the table, instead of within it. And by the way, never use id="toc"; always use class="toccolors" instead. --cesarb 20:54, 5 March 2006 (UTC)
Thanks a lot. That's much better. We will fixs the remaining program sooner or later. --Tone 21:17, 5 March 2006 (UTC)
fixed the problem—table now unfolds properly (thought the show/hide link is on the bottom edge, not the top) see User:Tone/Sandbox. Ted 01:31, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

SVG

Does anyone with good SVG tracing skills want to trace Image:CarolStreamLogo.jpg? It is currently marked with {{BadJPEG}} — Ilyanep (Talk) 04:26, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

I'm not sure what the issue is - can't you just save your original file as PNG rather than JPEG? I'm not up on vector graphics, personally, but it would seems odd to me if an application didn't support multiple formats. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Twrigley (talk • contribs)
Well I could save it as PNG, but I think the original file was a JPEG which has artifacts and I think it'd look nice in SVG. — Ilyanep (Talk) 20:34, 5 March 2006 (UTC)
What's wrong with the image as-is? It's a fair use license anyway, so it's supposed to look a little low-res. :) — RJH 04:29, 6 March 2006 (UTC)
Actually, that isn't a JPEG image: it's a GIF uploaded with a ".jpg" suffix. I didn't know MediaWiki allowed that, but apparently it does. In any case, I've rescaled the original 300px version down to 150px and uploaded it in optimized PNG format as Image:CarolStreamLogo.png. I also orphaned the original and tagged it as redundant.
As for the original request, I'm not really comfortable with tracing someone elses fair use logo as SVG. I feel that logos, and fair use content in general, should aim primarily for accurate reproduction and only secondarily for visual quality. Any form of image reconstruction, whether vectorization or just removing JPEG noise, always involves some amount of subjective interpretation, especially when starting from a low-quality source. While I'm happy to touch up logos, with permission, for non-encyclopedic uses, I always stress that the result will never be a perfectly accurate reproduction of the original. Would we really want the Carol Stream article to display "a Wikipedian's reconstruction, based on a low-quality source, of what the official Carol Stream logo might look like"? —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 11:31, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

Collating problem at WP:RFC

If you follow the "see all of these on one page" link from Wikipedia:Requests for comment to Wikipedia:Requests for comment/All, the "comprehensive" list you get there is missing at least two sections: Wikipedia policies, guidelines and proposals and Current Surveys. This caused me to miss an RFC I was looking for, since it wasn't visible on /All, but it actually was hiding down under /Policies. I'd try fixing this myself, but I have no idea how that composite "All" page is generated. —Steve Summit (talk) 04:02, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

Never mind; figured out the change and requested it at Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard. —Steve Summit (talk) 02:15, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

Starting a Request for Comments process - step-by-step guide?

Recently I noticed a pair of articles, Witch trial and Witch trials, that cover duplicate subject matter. However, Witch trials is highly POV, cites no references, is apparently the work of a single user, and is a duplicate of an outside web site. I placed a comment on the articles talk pages recommending merging the articles. The Witch trials author then accused me of attempted censorship - see the comment. Therefore, I'd like to submit the page for Requests of Comments.

Unfortunately, the process is confusing me a bit. Can someone give me a step-by-step to the Request for Comments process? Or is a Request for Comments even the correct method of handling this matter? - CNichols 02:25, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

If you can find a copyvio then it could be speedily deleted. I pasted several paragraphs into Google and nothing hit, but a savvy plagiarizer could dodge that by changing punctuation. The edit history suggests that this is original writing. You could try nominating it for deletion as a POV fork, which will probably get a vote to merge/redirect. Wikipedia:Articles for deletion I suggest communicating with the editor first. This person may be new and unfamiliar with Wikipedia policies. I deleted one section on factual grounds. Regards, Durova 10:18, 4 March 2006 (UTC)
Page is also hosted here: [[10]] Main editor removed this link, which was previously on this page, after people began attempting to edit the page. Whether this page existed before the Wikipedia article is an open question. Just thought I'd mention. - CNichols 03:35, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

What's the policy on linking to user pages in picture captions?

I regularly go through the Special:CrossNamespaceLinks list to take out links to user pages where possible. (The bulk are either copyvios that get taken care of when the article is deleted, or people signing their edits in violation of Rule #14.)

However, there are a lot of cases where captions in articles link to the user page of the person who created them. (Alba Fucens is an example). While I suspect this would be treated similarly (after all, credit for pictures can clearly be seen by going to the page for that image) I haven't found a policy that directly addresses "credit to user pages" in photo captions.

Does such a policy exist, or is this simply taken care of by Rule #14? Thanks in advance for any answers.--BinaryTed 15:27, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

I don't know of an official policy, but I personally don't approve of that. It's only one step away from signing the parts of an article that you've written. Joyous | Talk 23:25, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

Jamaat-e-Islami is blocked because of an edit war

The page was Protected by admin RoyBoy due to "Revert war between User:Siddiqui and User:Yahya01". Obviously the edit war was getting silly, but I'm a contibutor to that page too. I had attemped a reasonable discussion with both Siddiqui & Yahya01. I tried harder with Siddiqui as it was he that was reverting my contributions without discussion. I tried Siddiqui again & he did respond, sort of. I became involved in the most bizarre exchange I've ever experienced. You can see it here. I've never had a 'discussion' quite like that before. He made rash judgements about me that are totally incorrect & he is impossible to communicate with. Siddiqui was the last to edit it, so the page is currently locked onto his non-NPOV version. I initially contacted RoyBoy about it but unfortunately he's ill, so he asked me to come here. Without a sensible discussion, how can we get a consensus and get the page unprotected? How do I deal with this situation? All I want to do is contribute to the article but it's getting so complicated. Veej 05:44, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

I agree, that's definitely an... unusual interaction. (Especially the insistence that you be interested in something that happened "in your state" when last I checked what he's referring to didn't happen in London. Have you gone to WP:AN/I yet? I'm sure if you went there you could probably get another admin to participate in the discussion. --BinaryTed 15:36, 3 March 2006 (UTC)
I haven't been to WP:AN/I. I came here because RoyBoy asked me to & he's an admin. I don't want to pester the admins more than I need to, so I'll give this a shot before trying anything else.Veej 18:00, 4 March 2006 (UTC)
  • sorry to break it to you but "siddiqui" makes valid points. the level of anti-islamism being spread by neo-nazi agenda pushers throughout even indirectly relevant pages (e.g. Moustapha Akkad, a horror film producer!) would be alarming, if it wasn't representative of general western systematic bias. so its understandable your motives are questioned. WP:POV. Zzzzz 16:33, 5 March 2006 (UTC)
  • Moustapha Akkad? neo-nazis? What are you talking about? None of these issues have anything to do with me or the article in question. just as the 2002 Gujarat violence has nothing to do with me. who exactly are the "agenda pushers" again? what are his valid points? did he make any or just rant? So you think it's ok to bully & interrogate other editors rather than discuss differences of opinions sensibly, aim for consensus & write an encyclopedia? Veej 01:08, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia : Collaboration of the Week needs you

WP:COTW is on its death bed. Please don't allow this institution to fade away. Your votes and your help are still needed. Juppiter 06:56, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

I'm not sure what you mean. I followed the link, and WP:COTW didn't even look sick. Rick Norwood 14:23, 28 February 2006 (UTC)
It's been getting far less participation of late (vote-wise) compared to WP:AIP. Perhaps that's an indication that more people want to focus on refining articles now than building them up? Or perhaps the collaboration sub-sections are now drawing more of the attention? — RJH 22:22, 6 March 2006 (UTC)
That's why I don't go there much. The articles that succeed in the voting seem to be very very broad topics, often beginning with "History of....." I prefer working on more tightly focused topics. Joyous | Talk 23:22, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

assassination vs murder

Here is a question posed by my 8th grade class. How important do you have to be before you are assassinated vs murdered?

We discussed that it seemed you had to in a public office. Any assistance concerning this matter would be greatly appreciated.

207.70.141.45 19:31, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

I think you merely need to be influential. For instance, Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X are often spoken of as assassination victims. Rmhermen 20:42, 9 March 2006 (UTC)
My two cents is, motivation. If the President is shot by his wife in a jealeous fit, that's a murder, not an assasination, even if he is the president. But if even a local town commissioner is shot by someone because of his political position, that's an assasination, not a murder, even if he is just just a non-notable local official. Herostratus 22:11, 9 March 2006 (UTC)


PD world physical map

Does anyone know of a good editable PD world map showing physical features (and hopefullly rivers)? I am hoping to create a map showing trading routes in late Roman times (I have the information) and possible other maps to improve the scanty History of international trade 82.24.208.109 14:28, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

The world article has some maps. Or were you looking for outline maps, like Image:BlankMap-World.png? See Wikipedia:Blank maps for more. Rmhermen 17:24, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

slow revert war over Reading Lolita in Tehran

The article on this book (which I reached via that on Lolita) essentially flip-flops between two states, according to who has made the most recent move in a reversion war that's too slow paced to invoke 3RR. (Outsiders such as myself sometimes attempt small changes, typically lost in the next reversion.) Simply, one party appears to take as the truth every assertion and description in the book, occasionally corroborating (?) this with material published elsewhere that quickly turns out to be uncritical summaries of what's in the book or synopses of what the author has said (thus not corroboration at all). The other party accuses the book and the article about it of specific inaccuracies, anachronisms, etc.; he's happy for a summary to appear, but only if it is clear that this is a summary of what the author has written, distinguished from a statement of fact. When asked to provide sources for his assertions, the former party replies curtly and offers irrelevant "sources", the latter replies amiably but doesn't supply them. Each party appears to view the other as a deliberate PoV-pusher; perhaps at least one of them is a deliberate PoV-pusher. There's little evidence of any willingness to discuss with the other.

My guess is that the assertions made in and about the book can be investigated and that their veracity can be usefully commented on. Perhaps a lot of relevant material, not all of it mere partisan dross of one flavor or another, is available in Farsi, a language that I can't read. Somebody who is familiar with the incidents and conditions discussed in the book could usefully state some simple facts on the article's talk page. -- Hoary 04:06, 8 March 2006 (UTC) (slightly revised 14:56, 8 March 2006 (UTC))

Help needed

I've registered in last January under the name User:Archipelago but did'nt use it since. This account is now blocked and I cant register under another name. If I do, my page and talk pages are in red. Thank you for your help. Archipel is my name on the french speaking Wikipedia. Archipel 12:02, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

The logs [11] don't show that you have been blocked. Are you sure you didn't forget your password? Gerard Foley 16:23, 7 March 2006 (UTC)
It it OK now. Thank you for answering. Archipelago 17:54, 7 March 2006 (UTC)


Castilleja School - deleted, restored, missing

"Castilleja School" is linked from "Palo Alto". It has a history from 2004 to 2006, was deleted on 19 August 2005, restored on 20 August 2005, was last changed on 26 February 2006, and is currently missing as if deleted, but the deletion log doesn't show a second deletion.

What's going on?

(I don't have any particular involvement in this, except that the school is near where I live.) User:Nagle

It is here still Brookie :) - a will o' the wisp ! (Whisper...) 07:36, 10 March 2006 (UTC)
When I follow that link, it goes to "Castilleja School -- Wikipedia does not have an article with this exact name." --Nagle 16:35, 10 March 2006 (UTC)
try hitting the reload button on your browser - it is probably a intermittant Wikipedia problem. Rmhermen 16:46, 10 March 2006 (UTC)
It is a bug, which is probably solved by doing a null edit (go to the edit page, and hit "save page"). This does not create a new version of the page, but it does clear the cache. The page is now back; at least: for me. Eugene van der Pijll 16:54, 10 March 2006 (UTC)
OK. Did a "Purge" operation, which seemed to fix the problem. Thanks. --Nagle 17:32, 10 March 2006 (UTC)


Survey on intelligent design

Talk:Intelligent_design/Poll1 Please participate in a short (3 question yes/no) survey about intelligent design. This will help the article immensely! It is about your pre-conceived notions, so if you have not visited the article on Wikipedia yet, please take the survey first! --Ben 08:22, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

AUDIO UPLOAD

In visiting F-105, Wild Weasel, Rolling thunder, and other military aviation-war articles I see that you have great written and photo data but no Combat Audio.

I possess several hours of authentic-historical (1966) audio, and am asking:

1. Will you accept up-load to your servers of Ogg Audio? 2. Can you accept & play back 30 minutes? Perhaps six links of 30 minutes each. 3. Can we post links in the various articles to this audio? 4. Since I have no facility with your pages, will you talk with me about this on e-mail 5. I will need considerably more "help" than Web wise teenagers. --spoongap--

email address removed


Recreates

I would like to propose protection of a 7 times deleted article but being a recently created admin am not sure if I can do it without concensus. Any knowledgeable input welcome.--Dakota ~ ° 05:07, 13 March 2006 (UTC)

{{Deletedpage}} and protection are acceptable in this case, though Category:Protected deleted pages seems to imply that you should come back at some point and permanently delete. If there is one user that is recreating the article, I would go through the test series and block the user, if necessary, rather than implement protection of a page. In cases of recreation of a speedy-able page by multiple IPs/accounts, deletion, placement of {{Deletedpage}} and protection is alright. Successful RFAs are evidence that you are sane and prone towards reasonable decisions, so I would be bold unless you actually think there would be resistance. Cheers, BanyanTree 16:47, 13 March 2006 (UTC)


USAA, requesting block

User User:Interlocutor 1 is continuing to push his attempts to turn USAA into a soapbox for his perceived wrongings. I feel his recent behavior in continuing to revert the page without consensus despite several editors disagreeing, and his hounding of users with ridiculous claims (he claims his Civil Rights are being violated), warrants a permaban. Examine his contributions for details. The USAA page and his POV push is the only thing he edits. He contributes nothing valuable to wikipedia and is wasting editor's time. The USAA history also indicates several likely sockpuppets responsible for similar behavior in reverting to a POV version. I don't know the proper avenue, but request that an admin look into this and resolve it. -Mmx1 03:03, 13 March 2006 (UTC)

Update, user is skirting 3RR with his sockpupper User:Outofthenoondaysun. He's not even trying to be subtle about it.

--Mmx1 03:08, 13 March 2006 (UTC)

I agree with you, checked his contributions and the discussions on the page as well. Lets see if we can get one of the admins to look at it, as he and all his sock puppets should be permanently banned. Amina 03:30, 13 March 2006 (UTC)

While we're at it, we need to go through the USAA edit history and catch his other sockpuppets as well. User:Kwai is another one (judging by recent behavior; an admin needs to check the IP's) --Mmx1 03:38, 13 March 2006 (UTC)

Based on edit content (such as references to the rather obscure case "True v. USAA"), I think this traces back to blocked user Robertjkoenig (talk • contribs • page moves • block user • block log). An anon IP also seems to have left a legal threat on Mmx1's talk page. Given the similarity to a post by Interlocutor 1 (talk • contribs), I'd guess that the anon IP and Interlocutor 1 are the same person. --TeaDrinker 04:14, 13 March 2006 (UTC)

It seems that this is the proposed text (below) that the author seeks to substitute for the USAA PR-department text which is presently on the main article page for USAA. This text aged, without comment, for two weeks. The second it was posted, swarms of rent-a-shills arose and reverted the main article page. These are the actors who continually revert and harass the aspiring writer:

Pd_THOR
Mmx1
Amcbride
Sampir
Clip06
Movementarian
Me&action
Looper5920
Mrmiscellanious
Sycthos
Jasonm
Gwernol
Can
LeyteWolfer

Wikipedia central-control is aked to note that not one of these reverters has offered a sentient comment or edit on the proposed text. And now LeyteWolfer has started saying the writer is child-molesting pervert.

Anyway - here is the proposed text for the main article which has aged for two weeks on the discussion page without comment. The record of the debate is here.

Tuck v. United Services Automobile Ass'n, 859 F.2d 842 (10th Cir. 1988) [12] lls us that:

USAA is an unincorporated association; and the sum of the ~2.2 million contemporaneous subscribers.

USAA's 2004 Statutory Report to the Texas Department of Insurance [13] reads as follows:

USAA is a reciprocal interinsurance exchange domiciled in Texas. USAA's membership is limited to commissioned, warrant and non-commissioned officers in the United States Military Services, cadets and midshipmen and other candidates for commission; employees of USAA and widows of the aforementioned categories.

Two complete histories of USAA can be had here [14] and [15].

Everything (and more) that you ever wanted to know about Reciprocal Inter-insurance Exchanges can be had here [16].

Most of the questions which are not answered in either USAA's statutory reports to the Texas Department of Insurance, the 2 histories of USAA, or Reinmuth's book on reciprocals, can be found in this interesting document [17]

The sturm und drang which it has taken to bring the reader these elemental core documents, including 7 days in solitary confinement for Robert J. Koenig, will boggle the reader's mind. The reader is cautioned to pretty much disregard any of the 4-color gutter-bleed annual reports which are sent out by USAA - as they are for the most part pure rubbish. Read USAA's statutory annual report for the facts.

Discussion:

The only members of the unincorporated membership association at any given moment are those persons who have in force an executed ["subscriber agreement"] which must be read in conjunction with the ["by-laws"]

Additionally, the unincorporated association also offers all comers (without regard to membership in the unincorporated reciprocal inter-insurance exchange) the chance to purchase banking services through the USAA Federal Savings Bank; life insurance through a captive subsidiary; financial planning; and discount brokerage and investment services including a line of mutual funds. Other ventures include a real estate investment company, a mail-order retail catalog operation, and travel services.

When acting as an insurer, USAA operates as an unincorporated reciprocal inter-insurance exchange URIE under the Texas Insurance Code [18].

USAA simultaneously possesses the characteristics of an "association", a "club", a "corporation", a "sole proprietorship", a "partnership", a "financial services company", an "insurance holding company", an "LLC", a "limited partnership", and finally, simply and perhaps most properly an "unincorporated reciprocal inter-insurance exchange"

Although USAA extends membership primarily to current and former U.S. military personnel and their families, anyone can become a member by either opening a bank account/investment account, purchasing life insurance, or becoming a limited partner in one of USAA Real Estate Company's tax advantaged limited partnerships. Only military service members and (curiously) FBI agents and their families can obtain automobile and homeowner's insurance from USAA.

As of 2004 USAA had over $81 billion in assets under management for approximately 5 million customers: this claim remains completely and absolutely unsubstantiated.

USAA's predecessor, the U. S. Army Automobile Association, was founded in 1922 by a group of Army officers who were seconded to San Antonio, Texas. The reason why USAA was founded was because local insurance companies would not offer insurance to the officers - for reasons best known to the insurance companies themselves. Some believe that Army officers reputation for erratic driving habits may have been a factor in discouraging local San Antonio insurance companies from offering policies to San Antonio Army officers.

Formatting request

Could somebody who knows how <div>s work do a quick edit on my talk page. If possible I'd like the "psi" award and the "anti-vandalism barnstar" side-by-side (it doesn't matter which order). I've tried it with tables but it just looks horrible, and I don't know how to code divs (yet). Thanks, Thryduulf 23:21, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

User:Rattlerbrat

I don't know where this is supposed to go so feel free to move it.

This user (User:Rattlerbrat) has been making personal attacks on other contributors on Wikipedia talk:Censorship. The latest is here and here. I have removed to comments from the page and contacted the user here, to which I got this reply. Can a third party please give their view on the matter please. Gerard Foley 01:10, 13 March 2006 (UTC)

I suggest you open a request for comment and then move to arbitration if she doesn't quit it. Preferably check out her contributions and collect as much nastiness as possible to present as evidence. See also WP:NPA, WP:CIVIL. —Simetrical (talk • contribs) 03:10, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

Thanks Simetrical, this is the first bit of help I have gotten in the matter. RfC says "before requesting community comment, at least two people should have contacted the user on their talk page". I am the only person to contact this user about this, so from what I read I can't file for RfC and her abuse is still continuing. Gerard Foley 05:00, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

I've contacted her. Yeltensic42 don't panic 15:04, 14 March 2006 (UTC)
I should note that I've made more than one request for this cat to leave me the hell alone. S/he refuses to. Why? I'm not too sure. I will not enter an arbitration with him because this could all be solved if he would just LEAVE...ME...THE...HELL...ALONE. An arbitration is usually needed when two people are having an argument, and we aren't. This is more like stalking. I've even asked this kid up front to drop it, but s/he's too busy in full blown victim mode, and s/he's angry because I refuse to play his/her game anymore. I don't need the village rushing to protect me. If that puts me in violation, so be it. I won't be harassed.
So! Summary. Whatever steps after RfA need to be taken, feel free to take them, and skip right past RfA, because I'm not doing arbitration. In fact, feel free to do whatever needs to be done, as long as I don't have to be bothered with it. Jennifer 19:24, 14 March 2006 (UTC)
All that I have done is to politely inform you that your behavior was in violation of Wikipedia policy, and that you must stop. You must drop it. Yeltensic42 don't panic 20:09, 14 March 2006 (UTC)
Blah blah blah. Like I said, admins, do whatever. Jennifer 20:19, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

I agree with all that's been said. If you're unwilling to cooperate using arbitration, then we will contact an admin. Personal attacks, as said before, are against Wikipedia's policy, and you've already done several despite being asked to stop. Amina 22:54, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

Your participation in arbitration, if the case is at some point in the future accepted by the Arbitration Committee, is not necessary. It merely means your trial will be conducted in absentia and you'll be dealt with as appropriate without your foreknowledge. There are no steps after RFAr, either; it's the final step, and often results in things such as personal attack parole or outright bans from editing. And finally, it's not just when two people have an argument, but when any user has an issue with another that proves to be unresolvable by other means.

If you would like not to be bothered with this kind of stuff, you can always leave the site. Otherwise, if you continue to behave objectionably, you will be dealt with with or without your participation. —Simetrical (talk • contribs) 02:31, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

This user was blocked for 24 hours (finally), however the attacks still continue! 24 hours will probably not be enough. Gerard Foley 02:36, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

Docosahexaenoic acid is missing

something's wrong with Docosahexaenoic acid. Istvan made an edit, as shown by the history page. But the article has disappeared. can somebody take a look? David.Throop 04:48, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

It is there now.[19]When that happens you can refresh or reload your browser so that the system keeps up. Same thing last week happened to a page and a reload brought it back.--Dakota ~ ° 05:11, 16 March 2006 (UTC)


Bug. Village Pump (all) page has its edit links off by one section.

Repeat by:

1. Load Wikipedia:Village pump_(all) page.
2. Scroll down to "Advertisment board" discussion.
3. Click on "edit" tag for that section.

You'll get the "Criticism" section, one section later.

Reloading the page didn't help. Known bug?

--Nagle 19:28, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

The problem is somewhere between "Policy" and "Where did my discussion go?". "Policy" edit links to the right place, but "Where did my discussion go" does not. Something between those two nearby points, probably associated with "Policy discussion archive" is throwing off the section count.

--Nagle 19:38, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

I screwed up with Template:Villagepumppages(edit talk links history), the archive links didn't work on (all), and the template also didn't work as expected on WT:VP, where I've now simply substituted it. Okay, the archive links work now also on (all), but the edit links on (all) are still off by one... <sigh />.
Omniplex  23:31, 15 March 2006 (UTC)
Some hours later, it should be now better, I stripped all VP section headers from (all). Omniplex  01:11, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

Arabic names

An editor recently moved the article Fatima Zahra to Fatimah Zahra without discussion. We have since been discussing it :)

He argues, and correctly so I believe, that Fatimah better represents how the word is spelled in the Arabic alphabet.

I argue, also correctly, that Fatima is the common English form of the word, that it gets 20 times the Google hits that Fatimah does, and that 99.9% of English-speaking encyclopedia users are going to type Fatima in the search box, not Fatimah.

Of course, we can BOTH have our way using redirects but ... the question is what is to be primary, exact transliteration or English usage. I posed this question to a copyeditors' professional mailing list on which I participate, and they also split right down the middle, on correct transliteration versus commonest English form of the word.

The other editor and I agreed to bring this issue to the Village Pump, to see what the rest of the community thinks. You folks are probably non-Muslims and non-Arabic-speakers, so we'll let you represent the "ordinary encyclopedia user". Zora 02:32, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

Most naming disputes get settled through the Google test with preference given to whatever form predominates in English. It's a good idea to create redirects from all other forms. Durova 04:25, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

We had a similar discussion over Confucius or Kung Fu Tze. The former won. On the other hand, between Lao Tze and Laozi, the latter won. Now that I know that google is the standard, I may revisit this question. Rick Norwood 23:07, 17 March 2006 (UTC)


According to the proposed Wikipedia:Naming conventions (Arabic), you go with the "standard transliteration" only if there is not a primary transliteration, which is defined as 75% or more of references. I would say "20 times" on Google for Fatima makes it the primary transliteration that you should go with. - BanyanTree 19:02, 17 March 2006 (UTC)


Convert an image to SVG format

Could anyone convert the Lebanese flag image in [20], convert it to svg format, and replace Image:Flag of Lebanon.svg with it? The CIA version is less sketchy and uses better colors. Thank you. CG 21:07, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

I uploaded it as .PNG. I'll try to fix the links now. -LambaJan 22:34, 16 March 2006 (UTC)
I've uploaded a new SVG version based on the CIA image as requested. I've retained the colors specified at [21], however. —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 00:23, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

Roxanne Harman

I found out about this user, Roxanne Harman (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log), on the reference desk. She claims to have been involved in the Willy on Wheels debockle and was blocked indefinately solely for making this claim. I looked into it and she hasen't committed any acts of vandalism with this account and claims that she will only use it for genuine edits. This claim was not made by any of the WoW accounts, which were created unabashedly for the purpose for which they were used. Her comments indicate that she was not the only one involved and I think punishing her for telling the truth, which is what I think this amounts to, is not the correct thing to do. I took it upon myself to advocate for her but my comments have thus far fallen on harsh or deaf ears. I don't know who to appeal to for more opinions on the matter, but I think it deserves more than just a casual shrugging off because this is not a sockpuppet or a banned user. Please tell me what to do or who to appeal to. -LambaJan 03:17, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

If she is Willy on Wheels, then she should be banned as a vandal. If she isn't Willy on Wheels she should be banned for impersonating another user. Why can't she just create another account, not make any vandlaism claims, and edit afresh? User:Zoe|(talk) 17:08, 9 March 2006 (UTC)
I would still like an answer for my question, but to answer yours; her willingness to bring a high level of transparency to the matter is very valuable for the community. We already learned that there were multiple people that were doing this. If this truthfulness is encouraged we could have a direct benifit of learning more about the incident, other participants, motivation, etc. and we would have the indirect benifit of having a high level of disclosure and honesty encouraged in this community, which considering that we're making an encyclopedia, I'd say that's a good thing. Right now the incentive seems to be strongly in favor of lying.
Also there is a discrepency between the terms 'block' and 'ban.' A block is for the username and a ban is for the person. A banned person can not rejoin the community under any username. WoW was not banned. Finally, I would suspect that from her point of view, creating an account without disclosing her previous actions would not be starting afresh if she has any guilt about her past actions, which is what her present actions seem to imply. Please tell me where to take this so that my time spent advocating her position can garner some sort of definitive action. -LambaJan 02:26, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

Can someone please tell me where to take this matter?? -LambaJan 17:14, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

The Administrator's noticeboard is where controversial blocks are discussed, if you haven't already found that out. - Taxman Talk 19:52, 16 March 2006 (UTC)
Thank you. -LambaJan 02:14, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

Problem with godmode lite

Somehow, my godmode always identifies the last user as "Contributions", and refuses to revert. Here's the error it gives: 

Please wait, reverting edits by Contributions...
Getting article history (/w/index.php?title=Buddhism&action=history&limit=50)...
Error: Last editor is 139.130.66.38, not Contributions!

What's the problem? Help will be appreciated. deeptrivia (talk) 04:20, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

See [22] Sam Korn (smoddy) 17:47, 19 March 2006 (UTC)


Help -> New registration policy

The new registration requirement brought me in from the cold.

Is it possible, though, that my new login name (TheEditrix) can be attached to my past contributions, filed under 67.168.120.130 ???

Thanks, to whomever responds!

--TheEditrix

I have seen this question before, but some time ago so fact may have changed. It is possible to reassign edits, but it has to be done manually by a developer. Since the developers are quite busy, they generally don't want to make the effort. Thue | talk 17:40, 19 March 2006 (UTC)
There used to be a page to request this at Wikipedia:Changing attribution for an edit, but it doesn't look like any developers are currently doing this. You can just make a list of your contributions on your user page instead, as that page explains. Angela. 12:50, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

The Link to Cape Horn is horrible and you should remove it. it is nasty and digusting and should be removed pronto. The athorities should be called, but i don't know where to go but here so remove it.


Strange

Can anyboby look to Asturian cuisine? Something strange hapens.

I just took a look at it and nothing looked particularly unusual. What strange happenings are you seeing? -BinaryTed 18:54, 21 March 2006 (UTC)


Vanity

User:RubyMowz is creating vanity articles. Can someone take a look at it? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.66.251.27 (talk • contribs)

I took care of it. In general if a new article is obviously a vanity article you can add {{db-a7}} to the top of it. "db-a7" stands for "delete because CSD A7", and CSD A7 stands for Criterion for Speedy Deletion of Articles, #7 (see WP:CSD for a list of these reasons). — flamingspinach | (talk) 07:36, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

Yoga

User:Dandelion1 added a section to the article on Naked Yoga, a variant of Yoga. Yoga has several variants and following Wikipedia:Manual of Style, not all variants are described in the main Yoga page otherwise the page would exceed the size limit. I removed the section and added the conerned material to Naked Yoga and the moved the material which it previously contianed to Naked Yoga (film). User:Dandelion1 reverted my edits on both Yoga and Naked Yoga page giving the following reasons:

  • rv last edit, unjustified, as separate article made by me was on film Naked Yoga, not variant Naked yoga and
  • rv edits of User:Deepak gupta reason: this page is on a specific film not a variant of yoga.

I need some help! --Incman|वार्ता 03:07, 23 March 2006 (UTC)

See also Talk:Yoga Dandelion1 06:13, 23 March 2006 (UTC)


Image usage

I've placed an image on my user page of an album that qualifies for fair use for the article is corresponds to. Recently, a user informed me that WP policy discourages the use of these kinds of images on user pages. Any suggestions on what I could do to either keep this image, or find a similar substitute? Tijuana Brass 01:48, 23 March 2006 (UTC)

You could write to the artist's agent and request permission to use the image on your user page. Durova 19:15, 23 March 2006 (UTC)

Desks in the United States Senate

There is a legend in my family that an ancestor made or helped make the original desks in the United States Senate. I've been unable to determine the truth or lack of truth in this story. Can anyone help?

You don't give your ancestor's name, so we can't help you there. According to the Senate site, Thomas Constantine built the 48 desks in 1819 after the originals were burned by the Brits in the War of 1812. Couldn't find anything about the pre-war desks, though I imagine someone has written it down. Please update Traditions of the United States Senate if you find a source for these earlier desks.
No article for Desks of the United States Senate? Shocking oversight! ;) - BanyanTree 04:36, 23 March 2006 (UTC)

different logins for different languages ?

I have been using my editor's account to contribute in the French speaking section of wikipedia so far. Recently, while trying to edit an English article, I failed to login into the English speaking section with the same account information. Do I need to create a separate account in order to edit English articles ? If not, what am I missing ? (my username is Sphinx)

I'm afraid that there is no single sign on system. You will need to create an account on every project that you want to contribute to. Alternatively, you can forego the sign on and contribute anonymously. --GraemeL (talk) 16:24, 24 March 2006 (UTC)
Thanks for your reply. Strangely enough, I can't create an account with same user name (sphinx) in the English project. So there seems to be a shared users database between all wikipedia projects. Hence, why not sign on with that same account on any project ? sphinx.
No shared database, just that we already have a user with that name, though he was only active for a single day around two years ago. See his contributions. --GraemeL (talk) 18:00, 24 March 2006 (UTC)


Tobaccoism

Tobaccoism Here we have a nicely laid out, well written article. And as far as I can tell, it's completely phony. I placed a "needs attention" tag on the article and a note in the Talk section, and both were deleted by the original poster.

The user's Special:Contributions/Scottdevonport other contributions should also be checked. Many pictures are listed as "user created"; some are obvious copies of old pictures, and others, not linked to articles, seem irrelevant.

This person seems competent, and if they can be redirected in a productive direction, they might be useful to Wikipedia. Would someone like to try? --Nagle 20:05, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

Someone else confirmed that the article is a hoax, marked it as such, and the original author then removed the "hoax" tag. I reverted the article and added the usual warning #1 to the talk page. I hope this author can be reformed; he writes well, even though the content is nonsense. If not, please apply the usual sanctions. --Nagle 20:55, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

Isn't there a place for hoax articles. It's too good to delete. Rick Norwood 21:12, 27 March 2006 (UTC)


Biography

This is a very non-traditional question, but I work for a large Film Development Company in Hollywood that produces bio-pics. I am currently in the process of collecting a small database of people in history whose lives would make compelling films. I love the Wikipedia site because, though not always 100% accurate, it doesn't seem to miss any interesting tidbits about people's lives.

I'm always interested in finding new stories of people in history that I hadn't heard of, and was wondering if anyone knew of some off beat interesting people in history. So if anyone knows of any offbeat interesting people in history, my ears are wide open. Thanks!

A Fan of Wikipedia,


71.109.193.125 07:00, 27 March 2006 (UTC) Frank Roess

  • Ferdinand de Lesseps Suez Canal (successful), Panama Canal (failure). Too much ego led to success, then failure.
  • John von Neumann Figured out how computers ought to work and made it happen. Involved in H-bomb program. Figured out how DNA had to work. Famous mathematician. Not remote, a fun party guy, so not too boring for a movie bio.
  • Isambard Kingdom Brunel One of the first big-name engineers. Big trains. Big ships. Big bridges. Big money. Knighted.
  • Philippe Jean Bunau-Varilla Parisian, politician, lobbyist, diplomat, creator of Panama, and one of the most effective wheeler-dealers of all time. Strong movie potential. Read "The Path between the Seas".

--Nagle 22:33, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

Help needed interpreting a guideline

The following comment was placed on Wikipedia talk:Village pump (assistance); I've moved it here where it belongs. - Jmabel | Talk 05:56, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

The guideline, WP:ASR (avoid self-reference) is being understood differently by several editors. Some help would be appriciated. At Dianetics, the article at the top of the page presently reads: "This article is about the set of practices and ideas about those practices known as Dianetics" as its first line of text. Some editors view that as sort of disambiguation while other editors view it as an unnecessary self-reference. WP:ASR states: "Avoid self-references within Wikipedia articles to the Wikipedia project, such as: This Wikipedia article discusses ...". Dianetics is a single subject and not a commonly used word. Some help please Terryeo 20:24, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

Although I find this "disambiguation" sort of redundant (the article on Dianetics is about Dianetics? really? who'd have thunk it?), it is not a self-reference of the form WP:ASR applies to. The point of ASR is references to Wikipedia itself should be avoided to facilitate Wikipedia:Mirrors and forks. Wikilinks from article space to user or talk space, or text that directly or indirectly makes the reader aware that he/she is reading an article at the Wikipedia web site should be avoided. The text might not be at Wikipedia (it may be forked at another site). The text might not be on the web at all (it might be in a book using Wikipedia originated content). -- Rick Block (talk) 16:08, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

User Talk page Archive

Just tried to archive my talk page. No luck. How is this done properly ? Martial Law 03:02, 24 March 2006 (UTC) :)

Had a glitch in my keypad, corrected same. Martial Law 03:04, 24 March 2006 (UTC) :)

So you are OK now? No outstanding question? - Jmabel | Talk 05:56, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

Just replaced the batts. in it(its one of those wireless units). Now, about the archive situation, as stated, tried to archive my talk page, but failed. Martial Law 17:28, 24 March 2006 (UTC) :)

I'd like to how to do this too. --Masssiveego 06:50, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

Please see Wikipedia:How to archive a talk page. If there's something that's not clear, feel free to ask again. -- Rick Block (talk) 16:57, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

I've done so, and did this:" /Archive" as someone suggested. Got a red link, and it went nowhere fast. Martial Law 21:34, 27 March 2006 (UTC) :)

Credibility of Wikipedia Articles

My school has recently adopted the policy of banning students from using wikipedia to do research and marking down students who have wikipedia in their bibliography. The teachers say this is done because "Wikipedia can be edited by anybody and therefore is not a credible source" Do you think this is justified? What can be done to show that Wikipedia is credible? -Tom

I love Wikipedia, but I agree with your teachers. In general, the web is full of misinformation, and students should turn as much as possible to primary sources or established reference works. Read Wikipedia for fun, but reference the World Almanac or the Encyclopedia Brittanica. Rick Norwood 02:39, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

Please don't use World Almanac or the Encyclopedia Brittanica either. Use real sources. Rmhermen 04:19, 21 March 2006 (UTC)
Obviously, primary sources are best. But not all schools have good libraries, and not all students are savvy enough to tell a good internet reference from a biased one. Also, while the Brittanica has gone downhill in recent years, I still find the World Almanac a good source for current info. I use Wikipedia as a reference all the time -- but that is because I think I have enough experience to know when Wikipedia is wrong. Rick Norwood 13:58, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

Generally speaking, no encyclopedia belongs in a bibliography. If I were a teacher I might make be flexible in a few rare cases. Wikipedia has a lot of obscure articles so you might find something that names book references that aren't in your library about a subject that isn't covered well on the Internet, such as the Battle of Jargeau. If the article is stable and you really can't locate anything better, then talk to your teacher before the deadline and ask them to allow it. Durova 04:43, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

Yes, I once worked with a Polish Wikipedia to write the best English-language article online anywhere about a particular Polish general for Napolean. It was one paragraph long. However I would expect anyone writing a school paper about such an obscure topic to also be advanced enough to use better sources. Rmhermen 14:04, 21 March 2006 (UTC)
Wikipedia is a great place to start research - it'll quickly send you in interesting directions - but a terrible place to end it. Your teachers are right. - DavidWBrooks 16:37, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

You (and your teacher) might want to take a look at Wikipedia:Researching with Wikipedia. - Jmabel | Talk 05:58, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

For most topics, Wikipedia is best for a superficial overview. There are some well-researched in-depth articles (like my own article on Roger J. Traynor) but they are a minority of Wikipedia articles. To do serious academic research, you need to visit a public library. The bigger, the better. K-12 school libraries (at least in the United States) tend to be small and badly underfunded.
At many public libraries you can get access to databases like ProQuest and Infotrac that will enable you to access tens of millions of articles not yet available on the Internet (due to copyright restrictions). If you live near a community college, or a university, try visiting their library (most have public access policies). --Coolcaesar 06:23, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

While Wikipedia is always edited, those edits are limited due to things like copyright violations, and other barriers that make it impossible for Wikipedia to many really in depth detail articles, as this is just an encyclopedia, not a virtual library. There will never be a truely free 100% accurate, avaliable to everyone, high speeds, virtual library ever due to limits of technology, human greed, and scarity of resources. Wikipedia at best will only give a glance about subjects. If you wish for more indepth and more accurate information, it's best to go buy a book. Thus your teacher may be right about disqualifying Wikipedia as a source as the details on Wikipedia are not strong enough with most articles to make a report with. --Masssiveego 06:57, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

Mostly right, except that the rhetoric about greed is slightly overblown. Professional journalists and authors have to eat, you know. As any historian knows, modern science, literature, and arts didn't really get started until the rise of professionals who actually made a living from such things full-time, as opposed to doing them part-time as amateur hobbies. Previously, almost everyone was just raising crops or hunting game and trying not to starve to death.
For example, most scientists were amateurs right up until the late 19th century, when the successes of modern chemistry gave rise to big firms like Bayer and Du Pont that could afford to hire professional chemists.
Also, I should point out that the effective collapse of copyright protection during the French Revolution is often blamed by historians for the almost total lack of any decent novels from late 18th century and early 19th century France. There was simply no economic incentive to create, and so most rational persons dedicated their time to more practical activities like writing political pamphlets instead. --Coolcaesar 07:08, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

GTI Steering Wheel

Hi, Does anyone know if the steering wheel from a mk 1 GTI will fit a Mk 2? Thanks, Claire


Canon of the Mass

I recently created Canon of the Mass, using text from The Catholic Encyclopedia (public domain — copyright 1908). I've done some work wikifying it, but the article is so long. I sure would like some other editors to give it some attention, please. — MSchmahl 20:20, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

You might consider breaking it up into smaller articles, such as History of the Canon, then reference those articles in the main article. User:Zoe|(talk) 23:39, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

Brockton, Massachusetts - sexual harassment

Hope this is the right place for this Q... There has been some back and forth as to whether the Brockton, Massachusetts article (see its talk page) should have a reference to the recent sexual harassment case in which a Brockton 6 year old touched another youth on her waistband and was suspended for sexual harassment. Granted it has received national news coverage, but does this type of material belong on a city's page? Any guidance would be appreciated. Thanks much --AbsolutDan (T a lk) 03:14, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

Per the discussion on the article's talk page, the text has been removed from the article. --AbsolutDan (T a lk) 18:27, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

Help with long page

I'm currently using an antiquated browser and cannot add a comment to the end of Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Encyclopaedia Dramatica because the discussion is too long. Can someone with a newer browser please append the following for me:

*'''Delete''' pending third-party reliable verification. Notability is not a valid reason for deletion, but this is. [[User:Ziggurat|Ziggurat]] 23:31, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

Thanks, Ziggurat 23:33, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

Done. Superm401 - Talk 23:42, 29 March 2006 (UTC)


This photo is public domain?

Yes. It was taken by a Journalist Seaman in the course of his official duties; all such photos are public domain. Also, "released" probably means released into the public domain. Superm401 - Talk 23:38, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

scandal developing -- please review article

please see my changes to Howard Kaloogian, regarding a scandal involving fake photos of Baghdad. Kaloogian is the founder of Move America Forward, a conservative organisation. Markburg 07:02, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

Please check my english!

I made a translation of a page in my userspace on the dutch Wikipedia. Is there someone who wants to check my english?

The page is a little succes on nl:, and maybe you'll like it to?? See: Hotlist

Quichot 20:25, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

I made a few spelling and grammar tweaks. Superm401 - Talk 21:09, 28 March 2006 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Translation into English has a section for this type of request. Well several sections based on language. Rmhermen 21:39, 28 March 2006 (UTC)
@Superm401: Thank you
@Rmhermen: But that is for articles that are'nt translated at all. I Translated the article as good as I can, and yust wanted a check... But thank you, Maybe I find use for this page soon! Quichot 06:52, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

See: The Dutch version to see what happened in two months time.

And please use The English one - Quichot 07:06, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

If you place an entry in the Completed translations section on Wikipedia:Translation_into_English/Dutch it'll usually get proofread and copyedited within a week or so. --MJ(☎|@|C) 18:54, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

How to handle a botched AfD

A user placed an WP:AfD on a wikipedia:redirect, where an WP:RfD should have been used. Being WP:BOLD, I copied the votes over to WP:RfD, labelled the redirect in question with the RfD template, removed the AfD from today's log, and labelled the AfD page in question with a warning to point to the RfD instead.

I thought that'd do it; after all, the AfD voting page was no longer linked, right? But another user must've found it through someone's contributions list, and voted there anyway. I notified the user, but I'd like to know if I should better label the page in question, or is there a better procedure? Any tips?

Ideally an admin should just delete the voting page in question, it is redundant. --MJ(☎|@|C) 18:33, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

I've marked the afd as closed in the usual way, with a closing result of "moved to RfD", which should help reduce confusion. (I just copied the close template from a previous afd) Don't think the page should be deleted, as that's where the history of the votes you copied over is stored. Hope that helps, Regards, MartinRe 23:45, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

Thanks, that does the trick, even though the original nominator still voted on that page after you marked it. I moved the two votes made after the move over to the RfD; I'll keep doing that until the RfD is closed as well. --MJ(☎|@|C) 08:53, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

I notice the extra vote, have just left a note on his talk page a few minutes ago :) Regards, MartinRe 08:54, 30 March 2006 (UTC)


collagen fibrils

hey

i wanted to know exactly what collagen fibrils mean? do they contain mineral platelets embedded in them? i am confused. hope someone clears me in this matter. An exact structure with composition on collagen fibril will be helpful. thanx in advance.

Probably Wikipedia:Reference desk/Science was the place to ask this. Feel free to ask there if you need more information. Collagen fibrils are assemblies made up of individual collagen protein strands: they are self-assemblies of monomeric collagen protein strands, and can be hundreds of micrometres in length. The exact components vary from type to type of collagen, but one of the more common forms is a triple helix made up of three collagen proteins. There are no platelets or mineral constituents. This picture may be of interest. - Nunh-huh 04:06, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

Help wanted to automate navigation template creation for Wikipedia:Root page

I am looking for someone to help implement a concept that could eventually become a powerful tool for general use on Wikipedia. This needs knowledge of parametric templates, and ideally the ability to add to the MediaWiki software, or possibly implement what is required using a software 'Bot' trawling the database. The concept is described at Wikipedia:Root page and Wikipedia talk:Root page. The Root page concept incorporates many ideas to help both users and editors, and works through the use of a special Navigational template placed on the page, which uses 3-level nesting to cover a big topic of say 100 pages, using 10 templates each listing 10 topics. The template is of the form 'Branchlist/Rootpage/Hubpage'. The concept is already implemented on Electronics, and Sound recording and replay for demonstration where it can be seen to allow rapid navigation around all the pages. Now I would like to see the templates generated and updated automatically, so that whenever anyone specifies a Branchlist template the parameters (Root and Hub), and the name of the page are used to build or add to the required template. The templates currently in use can be seen in category 'branchlist' --Lindosland 00:09, 1 April 2006 (UTC)


Buz Sawyer (advertising executive)

Buz Sawyer (advertising executive) is a moderately prominent US advertising executive whose bio was posted by User:Will.sawyer to Wikipedia. I originally marked this for deletion per WP:VAIN. The original poster then simply reposted his original copy with no changes. So I cleaned up the article and found references for almost all the events in his bio. Some of those references aren't flattering, but are verifiable, and the text was adjusted accordingly.

What's the usual procedure with self-promotion by sort-of-notable people? It's easy to deal with the prominent ones (keep and fix) and the unknowns (quick delete), but in between, it's tough. --John Nagle 19:30, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

Help wanted with 'Town and country planning in the United Kingdom'

Hello, I am very new to Wikipedia but have been expanding Town and country planning in the United Kingdom with some zeal over the last few weeks and created a new subcategory of UK law called United Kingdom Planning Law. I have reached a point where some experience would be very useful. How do I get some more people involved? Could someone with experience have a look at what I've written and advise on what articles we might be able to merge and what should stay separated for future expansion etc.etc. Many thanks --Mcginnly 15:13, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

Lee Asher

Lee Asher is a stage magician who has added an article about himself. So far, three different people have tagged the article for deletion, and each time, he's adjusted the copy a bit and removed the deletion tag. His page has few verifiable references. This is his first and only Wikipedia article.

He seems to be a mid-rank stage magician in Las Vegas with a number of self-published videos and pamphlets, but none of his work is in the Library of Congress catalog or Amazon.com, and he isn't in the Genii (magic trade magazine) list of prominent magicians. But he did win some award in 1991-1992 from the International Brotherhood of Magicians.

Need a judgement call on "prominence". If the decision is to delete, it will probably have to be enforced by an admin. Sigh. --Nagle 06:44, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

Finally found some good references. He's won verifiable awards for close-up magic, so no further objections from me. --John Nagle 05:36, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

Appears to be a sockpuppet/puppeteer of Generuffalo (talk · contribs · logs) based on contrib histories. Several apparent-vanity edits to the article come from IP addresses. Checkuser? Phr 08:09, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

Phr proposes starting the AfD process. I have no objections. It's tough dealing with people who are sort of prominent, but don't quite meet the Wikipedia criteria. --John Nagle 19:21, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

Just received a personal E-mail from Mr. Asher, which I have posted. See Talk:Lee Asher. He says someone else posted the original article. I'd like to get out of the loop on this. Can someone else take on resolving this, perhaps a mediation volunteer? Thanks.--John Nagle 20:31, 1 April 2006 (UTC)


Kevin Covais on "Jimmy Kimmel Live"

I've been working on Kevin Covais, and would like to add some details on his Jimmy Kimmel Live appearance, but I didn't see it. Does anyone have a transcript, some quotes, or even just a description of what he said (beyond that he wants to continue singing)? --zenohockey 00:03, 28 March 2006 (UTC) (cross-posted at Talk:Kevin Covais#Jimmy Kimmel Live)

Never mind; it's on YouTube. --zenohockey 17:05, 1 April 2006 (UTC)

RBD vs. R.B.D. - request Spanish-speaking assistance

The (quite notable) band RBD has had an article for some time. Today, User:R.B.D. posted an article R.B.D. about the same band. I changed that to a redirect to RBD. They then reposted the article in Spanish. There's already an article about this band http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/RBD in Wikipedia (Spanish), too. It would helpful if a Spanish-speaker could straighten this out.

They also have some image copyright and attribution problems to deal with. Thanks. --John Nagle 18:29, 2 April 2006 (UTC)

Admin User:DakotaKahn just fixed this. Thanks. Some of the confusion seems to be because changing the page to a redirect didn't propagate to all the servers quickly. As of right now, R.B.D. and its own edit page are inconsistent. Tried a "purge", and it worked once, but on the next read of the page, the old page came back. Is there a server syncronization problem today? --John Nagle 19:22, 2 April 2006 (UTC)
If you do http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=R.B.D.&action=purge you get the correct redirect. If you try R.B.D. you get an old version of the page. Repeatedly. Something's wrong. --John Nagle 19:27, 2 April 2006 (UTC)
OK, it's fixed; looks like server replication was behind and has now caught up. Thanks. --John Nagle 19:29, 2 April 2006 (UTC)

Wendy Curry

User:Wendycurry has just re-created the article Wendy Curry, which was a redirect, with new and more detailed content. I'm bothered by the violation of WP:AUTO and I'm not sure it meets WP:BIO. Because I was responsible for deleting it first time around, I'd like to get a second opinion before I act on it again, at least in part because I don't want her thinking it's some sort of personal vendetta. Please take a look and tell me what you think. — ciphergoth 17:19, 2 April 2006 (UTC)

Spanish Conquest of Mexico

See Talk:Spanish Conquest of Mexico. Assistance from an administrator needed for an uncontroversial capitalization move. The request has been there for a week, is someone watching this list? Or should I do this myself (move content)? Piet 11:19, 2 April 2006 (UTC)

Done (and, no, please don't just move content). -- Rick Block (talk) 16:01, 2 April 2006 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Requested moves is one way to request this. Rmhermen 19:37, 2 April 2006 (UTC)

Thanks. Piet 20:15, 2 April 2006 (UTC)

Need views (Melbourne -> Education)

I'm after a few opinions on what should be done about the Education section of Melbourne. A couple of good options have been proposed, but people seem to be just randomly editing in the end. A consensus of some kind would be very helpful! Discussion on the subject: Talk:Melbourne. Thanks, all! --Evan C (Talk) 04:15, 2 April 2006 (UTC)

looking at earlier Reference Desk questions

Hi - not sure if this is the right venue to ask this question. My problem is that I posed a question to the Language and Science References Desks on March 18, but haven't had a chance to look at the answers until now. I can't seem to find the question on the pages or on the Histories of the pages - are they lost forever? ThanksAdambrowne666 00:58, 2 April 2006 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Reference desk archive/Science/March 2006 and Wikipedia:Reference desk archive/Language/March 2006. Cheers, BanyanTree 02:51, 2 April 2006 (UTC)

thanks!Adambrowne666 04:54, 2 April 2006 (UTC)

POV in the article on Twinkies

Wow, I never thought I'd say this, but I need help NPOVizing the article on Twinkies. Some of the stuff on slang seems to be badly worded, but since I'm not actively involved in Native-American or Asian-American culture, I feel uncomfortable in modifying the section of the article on said topics. If any user who is Asian- or Native-American could help out, that would be good, however, I don't know how to go about finding those users.--The ikiroid (talk/parler/hablar/paroli/说/話) 00:29, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

Some users self-identified as Native-Americans can be found from Category:Native American Wikipedians. Category:Wikipedians by ethnicity doesn't have a subcategory for Asian-Americans. You might ask at Category talk:Asian Americans. -- Rick Block (talk) 02:56, 29 March 2006 (UTC)
OK......seems like a good idea.--The ikiroid (talk/parler/hablar/paroli/说/話) 03:23, 29 March 2006 (UTC)
Are people of these ethnicities really more likely to be NPOV? Superm401 - Talk 23:50, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

Well, they're more likely to be familiar with Native American and Asian American slang. Do you know a better way of going about it?--The ikiroid (talk/parler/hablar/paroli/说/話) 23:54, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

Well, external sources are always good. Superm401 - Talk 23:57, 29 March 2006 (UTC)
I'll try to find a site about it somewhere then.--The ikiroid (talk/parler/hablar/paroli/说/話) 21:12, 2 April 2006 (UTC)

how do I make a disambiguation page

Hi

I do volunteer work for an organization called ICCD. Currently, when I type ICCD into wikipedia, it redirects me into a page introducing the

"Intensified charge-coupled device"

which no doubt is an useful thingamajig. I know the instructions for what I want to change must be somewhere, but I can't find them. I'm a total newbie here please excuse me for being ignorant and implatient - just tell me where to find the instructions, please? *bats eyelashes hopefully* No I'm not blonde. Just not a technical person.

Leanan

I assume your organization has a spelled out name (like "International Christian Centers for the Deaf", or something). Rather than worry about the disambiguation page first, I suggest you create an article on your organization. Then, later, we can worry about making ICCD a disambiguation page. Have you done the Wikipedia:Tutorial yet? -- Rick Block (talk) 13:32, 3 April 2006 (UTC)


These photos is public domain?

Absent a clearer description, I believe we should read it conservatively to mean that these are photos belonging to the Republic of Korea and are provided as a courtesy for publication in those US Air Force news articles. In which case, they would not be public domain, and it is unlikely that Wikipedia can use them. However, I agree it is not entirely clear. You might try contacting the Pacific Air Forces News Service for a clarification. Dragons flight 03:53, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Featured list candidates/Starfleet ranks and insignia

There is a level of disagrement on the copyright status of images on Starfleet ranks and insignia.

The debate currently tries to determine weather or not redrawn rank insignias are releasable with a free licence.

I would like to invite all parties interested to join the debate.

--Cool CatTalk|@ 13:38, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

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