Wikipedia:Help desk/Archives/2007 December 30

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December 30

adding images

okay, i used to be wikiwizzard, and now i cant remember how to add images i find on ggogle image search. will someone please explain to me how i add images from google image search??? i would appreciate the help. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Randy6767 (talk • contribs) 01:46, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

Generally, adding images from Google Image Search isn't a good idea because the copyright status isn't usually known. You can check the website for some sort of terms of use and tag it according to those terms, but if there isn't any sort of terms, you *may* be out of luck - I don't know if fair use applies to images of unknown copyright status. I'll leave that to an admin or an experienced user who knows more about the image policies. NF24^{(welcome, 2008!)} 01:52, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

font/typeface

The font or typeface in which Wikipedia appears on all three of my computers is almost unreadable when in bold. Is there a way for a reader to change it to Times New Roman or other font that is clearer?70.178.162.67 (talk) 02:15, 30 December 2007 (UTC)cafgol

Hello there! Well, Wikipedia doesn't have any built-in methods. However, some browsers allow you to change the fonts that appear on a page. Mind if I ask which one you're using? If it is Firefox, you can just enter the Tools menu, go to Options, and click on the Content tab. There should be a section that allows you to force webpages to render in a font of your choice. Hope that helps, Master of Puppets ^{Care to share?} 02:24, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

The simplest solution may be to simply make the fonts bigger in your browser. On most browsers, use Ctrl + the mouse wheel or look on the View menu. Additionally, if you create an account and log in you can use the preferences page to adjust the skin that Wikipedia uses. For example here is this page in a different skin. Generally though I don't think the other skins are as nice or as readable as the normal one (called Monobook). There is another way to customize every aspect of Wikipedia's appearance selectively (you will need an account to do this) by creating a user sub-page with a custom stylesheet. There is a complete help page on it; see Help:User style, but it still looks very complicated, unfortunately. But if you try that method I'm sure there will be editors ready to help if you need it. • Anakin ^{(contribs • complaints)} 03:19, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

(E/C) If you create an account you can then place a font choice in your account's css code at Special:Mypage/monobook.css. See Wikipedia:Customisation. You can also change the skin your account uses by going to preferences. Skins other than the default (MonoBook skin) use different fonts to display.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 03:21, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

WP:GA

There seems to be a broken template at WP:GA. It seems to be transcluded from elsewhere and I don't want to take the time to figure out what is going on.--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTD) 03:50, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

The problem was [1]. I have reverted it. PrimeHunter (talk) 04:13, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

creating an article

how do i create an article —Preceding unsigned comment added by CAP414991 (talk • contribs) 03:51, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

Before creating an article, please search Wikipedia first to make sure that an article does not already exist on the subject. Please also review a few of our relevant policies and guidelines which all articles should comport with. As Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, articles must not contain original research, must be written from a neutral point of view, should cite to reliable sources which verify their content and must not contain unsourced, negative content about living people.

Articles must also demonstrate the notability of the subject. Please see our subject specific guidelines for people, bands and musicians, companies and organizations and web content and note that if you are closely associated with the subject, our conflict of interest guideline strongly recommends against you creating the article.

If you still think an article is appropriate, see Wikipedia:Your first article and Wikipedia:How to write a great article for guidance, and please consider taking a tour through the Wikipedia:Tutorial so that you know how to properly format the article before creation. PrimeHunter (talk) 04:09, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

Turning off SVG support

How do I turn off SVG support, even when the browser claims it supports it, and just go back to PNG rendering? —Preceding unsigned comment added by GregChant (talk • contribs) 06:11, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

Not being at all technically inclined, I can't help, but I wanted to note that if none of the other volunteers at the help desk today are able to help either you might want to ask the question at Wikipedia:Village pump (technical). Good luck. :) --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 13:46, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

Searching the Help desk archive for: SVG finds some results, but I don't see an exact match to your question in the first couple of pages of results, and I don't know the answer off the top of my head. But one previous answer leads to:

• Scalable Vector Graphics#Support for SVG in web browsers
• Content negotiation

Those links suggest that you need to (somehow) tell your browser to turn on its content negotiation with various servers that serve SVG files, since they should (hopefully) also be able to automatically provide a PNG alternative if your browser requests it. Exactly how to tell your browser to do this would depend on which browser you have, so if you can't figure it out on your own, be sure to mention your browser name and version number when you ask for more help. You might find the answer with a Google search of the Web; for example, if your browser is Mozilla Firefox, you could try this search: Firefox SVG PNG content negotiation. However, I don't know whether or to what extent Wikipedia's servers implement content negotiation on their end. --Teratornis (talk) 17:20, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

how do I create a page for wikipedia and where exactly do I start?

how do I create a page for wikipedia and where exactly do I start?Bridalguy (talk) 06:12, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

Before creating an article, please search Wikipedia first to make sure that an article does not already exist on the subject. Please also review a few of our relevant policies and guidelines which all articles should comport with. As Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, articles must not contain original research, must be written from a neutral point of view, should cite to reliable sources which verify their content and must not contain unsourced, negative content about living people.

Articles must also demonstrate the notability of the subject. Please see our subject specific guidelines for people, bands and musicians, companies and organizations and web content and note that if you are closely associated with the subject, our conflict of interest guideline strongly recommends against you creating the article.

If you still think an article is appropriate, see Wikipedia:Your first article and Wikipedia:How to write a great article for guidance, and please consider taking a tour through the Wikipedia:Tutorial so that you know how to properly format the article before creation. --teb728 t c 06:38, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

Collapsing info on user talk page?

On my user talk page, I have a box called "Information". The code is as follows:

{{Userboxtop|Information}}
{{User Wikimedia Commons}}
{{user email}}
{{Template:user engineer}}
{{User:UBX/architecture}}
{{User uottawa}}
{{User:UBX/facebook}}
{{Userboxbottom}}

Are there tags which I can place around it which would show the title ("Information") that would collapse it by default and show a little "show" link? Thanks! Charles 07:31, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

See: WP:EIW#Collapsing. --Teratornis (talk) 08:03, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

For userboxes (I don't know if the other one would work on both, or just navboxes) there's [2]. Cheers- CattleGirl ^talk 08:10, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

Thank you, Teratornis and CattleGirl! I've done it now thanks to your help. I will copy this section over to my user talk page for reference if needed later. Charles 08:46, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

Thank you for letting us know it worked. As you can see from other questions on the Help desk, most people who ask a question never post a reply (not that this Help desk makes it easy for wiki-editing novices to figure out how to do that), so we rarely know if questioners got what they needed and are happy, or if they just got fed up and decided to end it all. --Teratornis (talk) 19:04, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

Removing unneccesary references

Hello. I have been a member of Wikipedia for nearly two years, but still have one problem. On the article How to Grow a Woman from the Ground, there are unneccasary references in the lead, but if I try to remove them, it messes up the whole reference section. Please help! Thamusemeantfan (talk) 07:45, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

The problem is that the lead section defines some named references, which later sections refer to only by name (you can see in the references section that the first two references have multiple links back to the article). To fix that problem, find another instance of the same reference later in the article, and copy the full version of it from the lead section. If you don't understand what I'm talking about, read WP:FOOT carefully, especially the information about reusing named references. --Teratornis (talk) 08:51, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

Please explain to me why my add-on are removed

Hi

I am new to your great wikipedia I am a 56 years old 100% no-money founder of Allah.com and I contributed with our free subtited copy in the proper place but it was removed, I even arranged the year order of the collections ... etc

Here are some examples: the edited link: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=List_of_translations_of_the_Qur%27an&action=edit&section=11

My insertion:

• 2007, English, "Koran: a Sub-titled Accurate Translation - Free download" "The Koran" by Anne Stephens and Shaykh Ahmad Darwish of Allah.com

Thank you, God bless you

Ahmad Darwish Hadithman (talk) 13:06, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

Hello. I know it's frustrating to try to improve an article only to have your efforts removed. :( Since the editor who removed the material did not leave an edit summary, I can't be sure, but I suspect that it was removed in consideration of the external links policy. External links that seem specifically promotional are discouraged, even if the material they are promoting is non-commercial. The EL guideline suggests that you propose their usage on the talk page of the article and reach consensus with uninvolved parties as to whether or not they are appropriate for inclusion. Meanwhile, if you would like specific clarification since I can only hazard a guess, you can civilly ask the editor who removed the material at the article talk page or (as in this case it seems the editor is not a regular contributor to the article) at his or her talk page. Please remember to sign your notes on talk pages by typing four tildes (~~~~) at the end. You may also click on the signature button located above the edit window. This will automatically insert a signature with your username and the time you posted the comment. This information is useful because other editors will be able to tell who said what, and when. I hope this helps. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 14:00, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

Question by 82.26.79.190

There is no right of reply. So I will use this medium and if it is wrong pass it to who should see it. My IP address has been mine since I brought it from the apple mac shop. I have never edited or added to this site although I do use it for information. It feels like a violation to be warned and blocked or made to open an account and not given the right to find out how this has happened.

The subject I was supposed to have falsely edited and vandalised is something I have never heard of. I will not be using this site again, and will warn others against using it for you are named and falsely accused without being given the right to investigate and get your ip address cleared.

Miss Richards

You seem to have the ip address should anyone of the volunteers be bothered the email to reply to is (E-Mail removed for security purposes) I will happily carry this conversation I am extremely annoyed at this audacity. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.26.79.190 (talk) 13:42, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

Continued at User Talk:82.26.79.190. -- Meni Rosenfeld (talk) 13:53, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

This is, of course, one of the costs of allowing unregistered users to edit on Wikipedia - we end up confusing and distressing lots of people who did not commit the vandalism we accuse their IP addresses of making. Evidently Jimbo Wales is willing to accept the kind of collateral damage Miss Richards reports here (not that he ever experiences it firsthand). Bear in mind that probably only a fraction of people in Miss Richards' situation manage to find their way to the Help desk and ask for clarification. A major challenge for experts in every field is to imagine what it is like to be a nonexpert, and tailor their communication accordingly. --Teratornis (talk) 18:42, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

Unapproved bots everywhere!

According to WP:BOT, users should not run bots without approval. Well, on Wikipedia:Bots/Requests_for_approval, there are a list of approved bots. This list is considerably shorter than Category:Wikipedia bots. So, did they not require approval in the past and allow bots to exist de facto? Did they archive the previous lists of approved bots? Or are there just unapproved bots everywhere that need to be taken care of by WP:ANI? 69.138.16.202 (talk) 13:56, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

I don't know the history of bot approval, but they have archived the list of approved bots. (Here's a few more recent requests). --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 14:06, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

Edit Page Waste

I have tons of edit pages that I don't care about cloging up your system. How can I get rid of them?

dmelliott 15:03, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

Hi, if you're referring to the sub-pages of your user page, there is a simple way to request deletion. Simply put the text {{db-userreq}} at the top of the page. This adds a speedy deletion tag and adds it to Category:Candidates for speedy deletion. Then the next time an administrator checks the category they can delete the pages. There's also a guide on it here. For other types of speedy deletion template have a look at WP:CSD. • Anakin ^{(contribs • complaints)} 15:32, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

However, even "deleted" pages will still be in Wikipedia's database "forever" (i.e., as long as Wikipedia continues to exist, and maintain its present policies, which seems likely to be for years to come), so they will still be "clogging up (our) system." Fortunately, Moore's law (or Kryder's Law) continues to push down the cost of disk storage, so it keeps getting easier to store copies of the pages you don't care about. Deleting pages from (the visible portion of) Wikipedia will, however, allow the various search engines to stop indexing them, so you'll be helping someone out by some tiny amount, just not Wikipedia so much. --Teratornis (talk) 18:49, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

• Technically, deleting a page takes more diskspace. If you want to delete because you want to save disc space, don't do it. - 87.211.75.45 (talk) 11:52, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

Uploaded images

How can I see what images have been uploaded by User:Whatever? - CarbonLifeForm (talk) 15:33, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

See Special:Contributions/Whatever. Currently this user has no contributions what so ever. For specifically images, see here

Hope this helps :) Happy New Year! The Helpful One ^{(Talk) (Contributions)} 15:43, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

For image upload logs, go to Special:Log and enter the username there, and select "Upload log" from the dropdown list. Alternatively you can check edits to image description pages from Special:Contributions by setting the Namespace to "Image". This won't show image uploads if the description page wasn't edited though; similarly, it will show edits to image description pages even if the image itself wasn't touched. • Anakin ^{(contribs • complaints)} 15:52, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

Clerk?

Is there any criteria (criterion) for becoming a clerk at any of Wikipedia's numerous pages? EG. WP:CHU?

VIVID (talk) 15:50, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

This specific case has been discussed at Wikipedia talk:Changing username#How do you become a clerk?. Algebraist 15:53, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

Most pages and processes don't use the clerk title. For two others that do, see Wikipedia:Requests for checkuser/Clerks and Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee/Clerks. PrimeHunter (talk) 16:08, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

Translator

My friends told me that there is a translator on Wikipedia. Where can I find it? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.208.248.29 (talk) 15:57, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

There's no automatic machine translator on Wikipedia, although there are Wikipedias being developed in over 200 languages and you'll notice that many articles have interwiki links to the same article in another language, in the list on the left-hand side of the page just below the navigation menus. E.g., History. For a general translator you could try Google Translate (http://www.google.com/language_tools) or AltaVista's Babelfish (http://babelfish.altavista.com/). Hope that helps. :) • Anakin ^{(contribs • complaints)} 16:31, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

As an addition to the above, if you're looking specifically to translate an article from a foreign language Wikipedia into English, you might request assistance at Wikipedia:Translation. If you stumble upon a foreign language article in the English Wikipedia, you may request its translation here. The procedure is described on that page. :) --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 16:54, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

See WP:EIW#Transl for information about translation, although much of that is for people who edit Wikipedia (as opposed to people who only read Wikipedia). --Teratornis (talk) 18:23, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

Also, the {{Google translation}} template may be useful. For an example of using this template, see Wikipedia:Help desk/Archives/2007 October 19#Translate article. You can effectively use Google's translator to create an automatic machine translator for Wikipedia to or from any of the languages Google recognizes. The quality of machine translation is still a bit rough, but for topics you know something about, you should be able to understand at least half the sentences. Hopefully Google will continue to improve its translation software; Douglas Lenat has lectured in the Google TechTalks series, so presumably Google intends to use Lenat's knowledge-based technology as exemplified in Cyc, which might lead to smarter translation (in particular, more accurately disambiguating words with multiple meanings). --Teratornis (talk) 18:30, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

I remember your mentioning that before. I'm going to snag it this time for my personal use. :) --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 18:35, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

A general way to snag anything from the Help desk is to use the {{Google help desk}} template I created. For example, Search Help desk for: translation, which leads to, among other replies, the half-dozen times I have repeated the answer I gave above (humm, sounds like time for another standard response template). A very large fraction of questions on the Help desk tend to be partial or total repeats of earlier questions. Which suggests there are groups of users out there with similar goals and background knowledge, and Wikipedia's design leads them to have similar questions. --Teratornis (talk) 18:55, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

That's awesome. You people who can Do Stuff amaze me. :) (I can halfway program my TiVo.) --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 22:07, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

Well, {{Google help desk}} wasn't exactly a great leap for mankind. It's a cut-down of {{Google custom}} which I wrote by looking at the {{Google}} template that someone else had written, and adding in the "Google custom" style of searching on a particular site that we use on the Help desk routinely. I had to read a few things on Help:Template and Help:Magic words to figure out and/or remember the things that {{Google}} uses. In any case, don't sell yourself short. You mastered the English language; by comparison, MediaWiki's template syntax is trivially simple. Watch some Tony Robbins videos on YouTube to fill yourself with unstoppable confidence, RTFM a bit, then whip open an edit window and start breaking stuff. Never say something is impossible until you've tried it 700 times (assuming the tries are survivable, of course). --Teratornis (talk) 16:46, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

lyopholize & lyopholizer

Could someone please create these redirect pages so that they have the same targets as lyophilize and lyophilizer? Both are plausible typos, and should probably be created with "Freeze drying#Technological_industry" as a target. Thank you. --69.118.143.107 (talk) 18:43, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

Y Done NF24^{(welcome, 2008!)} 20:19, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

Self promotion

Allegheny County Library Association contains a lot of bragging about accomplishments, most of it from their own web site. How can I post something there to discourage this? Good Cop (talk) 18:48, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

A relevant guideline is WP:PEACOCK. I will look for the messagebox template you can apply. (Must edit fast to avoid edit conflict.) --Teratornis (talk) 18:56, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

Another guideline is WP:ADVERT. --Teratornis (talk) 18:57, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

WP:TEMPLATES lists a large number of template messages; something in there will apply. --Teratornis (talk) 18:58, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

It's a copyvio, I've tagged it as such. NF24^{(welcome, 2008!)} 20:20, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

Image templates on Wikimedia

Just out of interest where is the link to wikimedia pictures so you could change the images for the Navigation bars on the userpage. I've been searching but can't find a link. →Yun-Yuuzhan→ 19:58, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

Assuming you are talking about Wikimedia Commons, you can access it by typing Commons:Main Page in the search box (and click the resulting link at the top of the page, it should be coloured light blue in Monobook) or by going directly to http://commons.wikimedia.org. Any image in Commons is also usable in Wikipedia, just type the image filename like you normally would. NF24^{(welcome, 2008!)} 20:16, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

Perfect, thanks for the reply. →Yun-Yuuzhan→ 21:47, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia "accuses" me of spamming!!! ;-)

Hi

I wanted to make a small edit to a page on the Portuguese wikipedia but was told that the page I was trying to save was blocked by the spam filter.

It said further that the blocking was likely due to a link to an external website and cited the text that triggered off the anti-spam measure as being "http://www.youtube.com/watch?v".

However, a text-search for the text in question drew a blank. I then deliberately looked for things to change on other pages - to rule out the possibility that the reason for being blocked was some malicious ware on my machine - and was able to do so without any problem. The page in question is "http://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patu%C3%A1_macaense".

[seeing that it is NOT a language-related issue, rather a technical one, I am bringing it up HERE, as I have made the English Wikipedia my home]

--Rui ''Gabriel'' Correia (talk) 21:10, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

There's a link to a YouTube video in the External links section. You will have to remove it to save your edit. NF24^{(welcome, 2008!)} 21:21, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

There are two links starting with http://www.youtube.com/watch?v. Many links are displayed differently on the rendered page so you have to search the edit window. I don't know whether all browsers can search the edit box correctly. PrimeHunter (talk) 22:52, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

• There are plenty of valid uses for YouTube videos. That URL doesn't belong in the spamlist. - 87.211.75.45 (talk) 11:55, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

My addition to "alternative theories" in "Gravitation" and to the "Pioneer Anomaly appear to have been deleted.

Today, Sunday, Dec 30, 2007 at about noon California time, I added reference to an alternative theory of gravitation to the alternative theories section of the "Gravitation" paper. The addition cited a paper on the "arXiv". I believe that I correctly processed the editing, but it now does not appear in the article.

The same as above is the case for an added reference to alternative explanation of the "Pioneer Anomaly"

I searched the Deletion Log and found nothing about them.

Is there a time delay before they appear ? Or, were they deleted and if so why ?

209.204.186.8 (talk) 21:10, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

(This) is the diff that shows your content being removed, assuming that it's a published paper in a reputable peer reviewed journal you should probably re-add it using a proper citation. Assuming that it's self published, or not formally published then it shouldn't be re-added, per WP:SOURCE.--69.118.143.107 (talk) 21:16, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

For future reference, there's a tab in the corner marked history that allows you to see what edits have been made to a given article.--69.118.143.107 (talk) 22:11, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

If a paper is only in arXiv then it's selfpublished with no peer review and unsuitable as reference for Wikipedia, except maybe if the author is regarded as an expert in the field. PrimeHunter (talk) 22:44, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

power of attorney

what is the process of filing for power of attorney.. also was the the purpose of it? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 97.96.235.255 (talk) 21:12, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

You might be interested in our article on power of attorney. If that doesn't help, you can always try the reference desk.--69.118.143.107 (talk) 21:17, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

Note that Wikipedia does not give legal opinions. If you ask again then say which country it's about, and which state if there are states with their own rules. PrimeHunter (talk) 22:40, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

Proposing multiple deletions at the same time

I'd like to propose a series of deletions at the same time, but I'm not sure how to do it. There is no policy regarded multiple deletions at WP:Deletion, but my proposal makes sense, I think. Category:Economics_books is bloated with books by the heterodox economists of the Austrian school. Per WP:FRINGE and because none of the books are particularly notable, I'd like to propose that they all be deleted en masse. How would I propose this? Zenwhat (talk) 21:40, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

Create one AfD, preferably for the first article. Then at the beginning of the nomination, put:

Also nominating:

• {{la|Article 2}}
• {{la|Article 3}}

etc. NF24^{(welcome, 2008!)} 21:57, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

See more at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion#How to list multiple related pages for deletion. I don't know the details but if the books are by different authors and the articles were created by different users then a large common AfD would probably be problematic. Any multiple AfD can result in some articles being deleted and others being kept. PrimeHunter (talk) 22:36, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

Primehunter, they are likely by different authors and the pages were created by somewhat different people. However, the articles all espouse fringe theories and are mostly stubs that can be briefly read, before realizing they should be deleted. Example one, Example two. Zenwhat (talk) 01:06, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

The 2 example books were written by different authors more than 100 years apart. The articles were created at different times by different editors. No editor has contributed to both. The article size and number of external links are also very different. They don't look suited for the same AfD to me. PrimeHunter (talk) 01:26, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

Possible uncivilness?

I nominated the article Nintendo GameCube for Lamest edit wars (see WT:Lamest edit wars#Nomination: Nintendo GameCube. The edit war was over two words, but I accidentally put "one word" in my nomination. An IP responded with a one-paragraph post over that mistake. They called it "slanderous" and insinuated that I was manipulating facts to get the war listed. I am deeply offended and would like another user to take a look and see if it is a) a personal attack b) uncivilness or c) just a bad case of overreaction. Thanks. NF24^{(welcome, 2008!)} 22:02, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

A)No NPA. B) Slightly uncivil. C)Yes, an overreaction on your part to bring this up on the help desk. Jeffpw (talk) 22:06, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

Slightly uncivil, yes, unless it was meant tongue-in-cheek, which it might have been, since the over the top reaction ("ashamed of yourself"? "slanderous accusation"?) might be meant to demonstrate lame conflict. Reading tone in text is difficult. :P --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 14:25, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

Actually, reading tone is easy, since the reader is free to read any tone he or she prefers. Worrying about whether someone else is trying to insult us is just a way of submitting our emotional state to them. I recall a televised interview with Ronald Reagan in which the reporter quoted someone who said some bad things about Mr. Reagan, and asked for Reagan's response. Without missing a beat or losing his smile, Reagan sort of chuckled and said something to the effect of, "Now, did (so-and-so) really say that? I've known him for years and that doesn't sound like the sort of thing he would say." Basically, he put the burden on the reporter to prove that he wasn't just quoting the other person out of context, and the reporter ended up backing down when he saw he wasn't rattling his interview subject. One characteristic of highly successful people, especially in rancorous public fields like politics, is that they know how to handle criticism. They have sangfroid. They understand that people say a lot of things in the heat of the moment, and you can't get hung up on every little word. If someone is really out to get you, you'll figure that out eventually. --Teratornis (talk) 17:01, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

How to edit navigation box headings and links

I need to know whether it is possible (and how) to change/edit the headings and links in the navigation, interaction, and toolbox boxes on my own wikipedia site (the lists on the left of the screen). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.146.160.130 (talk) 22:07, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

Your question mixes terminolgy. By "my own wikipedia site", do you mean your own wiki website which is not a part of the Wikipedia encyclopedia but is made with the same MediaWiki software? Or do you mean a page created here at the English Wikipedia website? Or at another language Wikipedia? And do you want everybody to see the chosen names or are you satisfied if you can make yourself see them when you have an account? PrimeHunter (talk) 22:19, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

Yes of course it's possible to edit them on your own wiki. See Special:Allmessages for the system messages, all of which can edited. For example, MediaWiki:Sidebar contains the navigation and interaction boxes. • Anakin ^{(contribs • complaints)} 23:58, 30 December 2007 (UTC)