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Wikipedia:Help desk/Archives/2007 January 24

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January 24

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why a business communication is a "lifeblood"of an organization?

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why a business communication is a "lifeblood"of an organization? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 203.130.26.2 (talk • contribs).

If you have a question about businesses, you might want to ask it at the Humanities reference desk located at Wikipedia:Reference desk/Humanities. If you're looking for opinions about answers to the question, note that Wikipedia isn't a discussion forum; while we're glad to answer any questions you might have a factual things, there are other places to ask. Please see point number five of WP:NOT#OR. Thanks! GracenotesT § 00:13, 24 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Well, just to take a stab at that question, if there is no communication between members of a business, they are less capable of acting as a group, thus being less efficacious. People can coordinate various aspects of a business by communicating well. Over all, harmony seems to be an effective tool in running any organization, so that individuals in that organization don't waste time doing contrary things. For example, in Wikipedia, it is much more effective to talk to someone with whom you disagree than have an edit war. Communication within a business enables it to be a business, and to accomplish things more easily, even over long distances. There is an article about this: business communication. Hope I answered your question, anyway. GracenotesT § 00:22, 24 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

spam research...

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Hello, I'm a researcher from the University of Arizona and I'm doing some research into different methods for attracting SPAM email.


I was wondering if I can post three email addresses somewhere on a wikipedia page (it can be an out of the way page without incoming links from other articles) where they will not be removed by moderators, etc. We've tried creating a page called spam_research but it was removed by a moderator.


I know that the whole idea behind wikipedia is to allow the community to edit the pages but I'd prefer if that didn't happen in this case. Of course if that's not viable, I'm happy just to get the addresses posted somewhere.


I appreciate any assistance you can give us to make this research a success.


Thanks,

Justin Cappos

Computer Science Department

University of Arizona

Hello and welcome to Wikipedia! That sounds like very interesting research and I hope it succeeds. However, being an encyclopedia, you shouldn't add email adresses to articles here. If you wished, you could add them to the Sandbox, but remember that those emails could also be abused by malicious vandals. Cheers. Yuser31415 (Editor review two!) 00:58, 24 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Why not put them on your user page? --Wooty Woot? contribs 01:00, 24 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
You might want to look somewhere else for your research. Throwing email address in articles (or articles created for this express purpose of research) will most likely be viewed, ironically, as spam by most editors and will most likely be removed. Email addresses on this page are frequently removed for the sake those people unware of the spam bots out there that crawl over wikipedia. Perhaps you could ask some users out there to place email addresses in their user space. I don't know if those pages are crawled over as much as the (main) namespace, but placing email address, for the sake of research, in our main namespace articles comes in conflict with wikipedia's goal of making high quality articles. —Mitaphane talk 01:06, 24 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

(This is Justin again despite the IP change) Thank you for the suggestions!


We are planning on posting email addresses on some personal user pages, but ideally we'd also like to measure the difference between addresses posted there vs. addresses on articles. I can understand not wanting us to clutter wikipedia. Would another solution be possible (such as creating a page with a string of random letters so that users would not reach it but crawlers would)? If this isn't the case, would it be possible for us to add a page about our research project and put the email addresses there?


Thanks,

Justin

I'm afraid none of those would work, as they would clutter Wikipedia. Further, creating a page about your research project is problematic as it's original research, which is against policy and would get the page deleted. -- Kesh 03:00, 24 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Even though I'm rather hesitant to say so, I don't think letting one of these sort of things happen is bad - just stick a prod on them, or speedydelete them once the "experiment" is over. We let this happen at AfD a couple times, where people would do it for a project and we'd let it stand until it was finished. --Wooty Woot? contribs 03:13, 24 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
To suggest of variant of what Wooty suggested (if I read him right) - create a new article, and put a prod template on it immediately. I'd also suggest posting a comment on that article talk page about what you're doing. The "prod" label will (hopefully) protect the article from a speedy delete (no guarantees, of course), while giving it a limited life (five days). -- John Broughton | (♫♫) 16:14, 24 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]


Thanks Wooty and John. This has been very helpful. I'll give this a shot!


Justin

I'm sorry, but I've to disagree. Shouldn't this kind of thing have to go through a stricter screening process? Xiner (talk, email) 23:07, 24 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I really screwed up. Please help!

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Hi. I tried to contribute some info to the Resident Evil Apocalypse article and I really screwed up one of the tables. I tried to fix it, but I just made it worse. I'm really sorry about this; I shouldn't have tried to edit without knowing the proper knowledge. I hope this can be fixed; I'm sorry if this inconveniences you. I would really appreciate your help. Thank you for your time. I'm not really sure how to sign this but please.

164.111.197.78 00:43, 24 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

No problems, I reverted. Thanks for requesting help. If you want to experiment, I'll copy the article into one of my user subpages and you can play around with it there :). Yuser31415 (Editor review two!) 00:49, 24 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

NPatrol? NPPatrol?

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I remember there was a tool called NPPatrol or NPatrol or something, and I've been interested in getting it, not only for my own sake, but for the RC people that have to read my garbled edit summaries. I've searched for it and haven't come up with anything. It was like VandalProof, but for New Pages patrol. Anyone have a link? --Wooty Woot? contribs 01:01, 24 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

You're probably looking for User:Martinp23/NPWatcher. --Sopoforic 01:04, 24 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Ah, that's it! Thanks for the help. --Wooty Woot? contribs 01:05, 24 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
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What is the date of publishing?

There is no date of publishing. Wikipedia is not published. Click the "Cite article" link on the sidebar for citing information. --Wooty Woot? contribs 01:22, 24 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Delay on recentness

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On the main page, it is too outdated, as the date saying January 20. Please fix this problem.

ctrl-f5 --Wooty Woot? contribs 02:10, 24 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
... In less technical terms, refresh the cache on your browser. The key combination is normally Shift-F5 or Control-F5. Cheers! Yuser31415 (Editor review two!) 02:30, 24 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

wikismile

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how do you wikismile? <font color=burgundy>The Updat</font><font color="green">e</font>r discussion 02:27, 24 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

 

User:Patstuart has smiled at you! Smiles promote WikiLove and hopefully this one has made your day better. Spread the WikiLove by smiling to someone else, whether it be someone you have had disagreements with in the past or a good friend. Happy editing!
Smile at others by adding {{subst:smile}}, {{subst:smile2}} or {{subst:smile3}} to their talk page with a friendly message.

interwiki sort

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I've noticed that the interwiki ordering on en is by the language's name in the language's spelling (Romanized if necessary). For example, Japanese (日本語) is usually between Dutch (Nederlands) and Bokmål Norwegian (Norsk (bokmål)) because Japanese in Japanese is nihongo. I have two questionss:

1. Is there an official guideline on this? I can't seem to find it. 2. What about zh-classical (classical Chinese, 古文 / 文言文)? On Netherlands, it's probably sorted as "gu" because 古 (ancient or classical) is pronounced as "gu". But on United States, it's sorted as "zh-classical". Many bots and AWB are still unaware of this "language", perhaps due to its low number of articles.

Thanks. --ChoChoPK (球球PK) (talk | contrib) 03:22, 24 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Never mind. Found it at meta:Interwiki sorting order. --ChoChoPK (球球PK) (talk | contrib) 03:33, 24 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Colored Text

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Hi everyone, can anybody tell me if colored text / titles can be used, i've seen it sporadically

Technically it's possible, but not recommended by the Manual of Style. Yuser31415 (Editor review two!) 04:38, 24 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]


Can't fix article

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I was reading the page on Thomas Merton, and noticed a small bit of extra text. The very last line in the section entitled Writer is "hello world i said to the people.... joey l. was here". I clicked the edit button at the start of that section, but the unwanted line didn't appear. Same thing with the Edit This Page button, according to the edit page the paragraph ends the sentence before. Anyone know how to get rid that line? 68.253.188.4 05:19, 24 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

It is most likely that while you were viewing the page, the vandalism was reverted. So, when you edited it, it was already gone. --Kainaw (talk) 05:42, 24 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

mtv countdown

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please can you write in your wikipedia site the mtv top 100 video countdown of 1990 at 1992 and 1995!

thanks

Can you please write it? We're all pretty busy. ;-) WP:BE BOLD. — coelacan talk — 06:00, 24 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Actually, no, now that I think about it, don't do that. Those lists are copyrighted information of MTV, and it would be a violation of copyright law for us to host the whole lists here. The most we can do is pick out one or two entries from such a list and comment on them, under our WP:FAIRUSE policy. Sorry. You'll have to go somewhere else for that information; Wikipedia can't hold it. — coelacan talk — 06:02, 24 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

need input

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Do we have anything like WP:RFC, except not for dispute resolution? I need input on what to do with Category:Peanuts people (rename, refactor, resomething), and the discussion at Talk:Peanuts is way too slow. So I need to get some eyes on this question. RFC is great at what it does, but I don't want to hassle them with something that I'm the only person working on. There's simply no one else for me to have a dispute with on this. =P So, any suggestions on where to take this question? — coelacan talk — 06:06, 24 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia:Categories for discussion?   Yuser31415 (Editor review two!) 06:25, 24 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Yarr, I don't even know what proposal to make though. I'd just be like: "Okay, everyone, let's go around the room and introduce ourselves. [much uncomfortable forced introduction ensues] Now, Category:Peanuts people. Discuss." — coelacan talk — 06:39, 24 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Perhaps, but I believe that's the place to discuss categories :). Yuser31415 (Editor review two!) 06:42, 24 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
It's a euphemism. It's "Categories for deletion" under a gentler name. One still has to have something like "let's move this to that" or "let's get rid of this" and I haven't even the glimmer of such a suggestion. I don't feel like getting flamed for putting something up for XFD that I haven't even discussed yet by other routes. — coelacan talk — 06:44, 24 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Okay, I just had an idea. I'll bring it up at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Comics and ask them to help. I'm still surprised that we don't have some sort of general Wikipedia:What the heck do I do with this page, though. — coelacan talk — 06:47, 24 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Wikipedia:Requests for feedback? - 131.211.210.17 09:05, 24 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
    • The problem, I think, is that the vast majority of articles (and a lot of categories) need some sort of change or improvement, so a general "can you help out here" page would, presumably, be overwhelmed with requests if it was available. Finding a relevant wikiproject is an excellent idea. Another would be to look at the category edit history and drop some notes on user talk pages for those who haven't edited recently but showed some interest in the topic a while ago. Or those who have added the category to some articles. And, finally, the best way (in my opinion) to move a discussion forward is to make a specific proposal for a change, even if it's labeled "tentative" or "draft". Or to say that you see there being two or three options (or whatever), and what do editors think. (And, finally, you don't necessarily need to wrap this up in a day or a week or even a month - there are a lot of other categories and articles in Wikipedia that could benefit from your time and effort while you wait for a discussion to conclude.) -- John Broughton | (♫♫) 15:27, 24 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Page link to online retail source

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Today, in the course of surfing, I came across the yosegi article (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yosegi) describing the veneer marquetry used on Japanese puzzle boxes. Looking at the article's picture was the first time I had seen (or heard of) this type of box since I was a teenager (over 50 years ago). I love puzzles and finding the article almost brought tears to my eyes.

I launched into a search for more information and found a Japanese web site of a company that crafts the boxes. People who engage in this craft are apparently in the minority and work mainly in the Hakone area of Japan, near Tokyo.

I thought that others may share my excitement so I added the URL of their web site.

A little alarm went off, and, being a relatively new Wikipedian, I wondered if adding the URL was OK to do under Wikipedia guidelines. I did some searching but didn't run across anything about adding things like this (other than perhaps overstepping the line of neutrality). Obviously, I have no connection to this Japanese business, but I would like some guidance on this.

Dick107 06:11, 24 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

It's not a settled topic. Some Wikipedians want no commercial links. I looked at that page and it has a lot of good pictures, so it's something I might add. As long as there's no conflic of interest, there's no problem with you adding the single link to a single Wikipedia page. You might want to make a note on Talk:Yosegi for other editors, to help them assume good faith that you aren't spamming. Also, if you can find any good non-commercial links, try to add those too, to balance it. — coelacan talk — 06:19, 24 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
And I know what you mean. I'm pretty keen on these puzzle boxes too. =) — coelacan talk — 06:24, 24 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

How to sign up for translation

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I have been trying to find out how to enter my name in the list of translators and editors, for more than an hour, for no use. I don't find any place that will say: list yourself in our lists or something of the kind. The pages that are supposed the give the answer, don't have it. Nothing says how to be listed, or how to be found as transaltor, or anything else. You just have the list but that's it. Or if it is there, well, it is designed in a way that it is invisible to me. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Wildinstincts (talk • contribs).

Okay, let's see. Wikipedia:Translation says that to sign up all you need to do is add a userbox to your user page. Since you're totally new, this is all greek to you. I'll try to walk through it with you. First, which language(s) to you want to translate to, and which from? — coelacan talk — 06:36, 24 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
And here's a page with info on userboxes: Wikipedia:Userboxes. -- John Broughton | (♫♫) 15:19, 24 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

unwanted warning

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This is nonsense. I have been employed by the York Regional Police (Canada) for over 5 years, and in an attempt to "edit" the page and provide some information, I receive a notification that my changes are "vandalism" and I should go to the "sandbox". What kind of place is this ?

I will be happy to allow you to provide false and outdated information to the public. I tried to make some simple corrections and my work was deleted.

How my changes were "vandalism" is beyond me. So, go ahead and tell people the wrong thing.

Celticc1969 06:46, 24 January 2007 (UTC)J. Gray[reply]

Okay, first, do not edit articles about the place you work. That is a violation of our conflict of interest policy (see WP:COI for details). Now, if someone thought you were vandalizing, then don't continue trying to make the edit. Go to the talk page of the article you were working on, Talk:York Regional Police, and discuss what you think needs to be changed there. Other editors will read it soon and discuss with you. — coelacan talk — 06:52, 24 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
(edit conflict) If you look at the bot's message: "If this revert was in error, please contact the bot operator. ". Bots mess up sometimes, they're machines, not people. The reason your changes were reverted is that you replaced the logo of the station with a series of example images here. --Wooty Woot? contribs 06:55, 24 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
We have automated processes called "bots" which are programmed to perform certain tasks. However, sometimes they can make a mistake (even though they do a rather essential job!) which can result in your case. Feel free to make the edit again. Yuser31415 (Editor review two!) 07:21, 24 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Numbers on Profile????

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I noticed that I have a (-27) in read where it says my name and the date when I edit something....is that bad? What do the numbers mean? Should I strive to make the number higher? I tried to look for help on it but could not find any. Also where do I put the Cali567 07:28, 24 January 2007 (UTC)? I'm not sure where to place them in order to sign my edit. Please help. Thank You.[reply]

It's just a way for other editors, at a glance, to get an idea of what you did. Red means you removed some text, green means a net addition of text. See Help:Watching pages#What do the colored numbers mean? — coelacan talk — 07:32, 24 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
(edit conflict) No, it just means that for whatever edit you made, you removed 27 bytes from the page. Try adding a reply to this thread and you'll see you have a +### to the right. :) As for where to sign, it is usually recommended to put it at the end of your comment, like I did here. Titoxd(?!?) 07:33, 24 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
And there's nothing inherently good or bad about either; sometimes removing text is what needs to be done, and sometimes adding is unhelpful. So, no worries. — coelacan talk — 07:34, 24 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
WOW, fast answers..I like that, thank you I thought I was being rated for what I've done...lol I think I'll be needing alot of quick tips on how to do things.and the tilde thing in my question...it worked this time I put four tildes...lol...it never worked for me before, Thank You Cali567 07:42, 24 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Sure, no problem. Feel free to ask here any time. Titoxd(?!?) 07:47, 24 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Broken Images

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Hi. I have an article and the image doesn't show up -- i.e. it is dead. What is the appropriate template to put up? Or how do I go about fixing it? Rfwoolf 08:23, 24 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Can you tell us the article? Notinasnaid 09:00, 24 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
The image is File:Ballet feet.jpg and the article are Ballet shoes and Glossary of ballet
Please Note that I would like to know how to solve this problem, because I have tried and the image doesn't have any logs -- so please don't just solve it for me without explaining, if you can. Like, where do I find logs for the image, who deleted it? Thanks :) Rfwoolf 11:12, 24 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Looking in the logs is a good start, but Special:Log doesn't show it. There is a trick for images: they might be in the English Wikipedia, but if not there, they are in Wikimedia commons. Sure enough, there is a log entry there: [1]. It would seem it was deleted because the person who uploaded it did not include information on the source and a free license for using it. To fix this you could do one of the following: (a) try and identify the original image; determine if there is a suitable license; and upload with full information. (b) find a different suitable image, with a free license. (c) delete the image from the article. Notinasnaid 11:22, 24 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Special:Log doesn't turn anything up. commons:Special:Log, however, shows that the image was deleted for 'unknown source' (which is slightly unusual, as a source is given in the upload on the same log; presumably, the authenticity of the source or of the copyright information was doubted). You could try contacting commons:User:Ranveig, the uploader, or commons:User:Rüdiger Wölk, the deleter, for more information (note that Wikipedia and Commons have separate login systems, so you may have to create an account at Commons if you haven't already). --ais523 11:27, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

Article for deletion

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An article that I wrote has a big statement at the top that it is being considered for deletion. I have responded to it on the "deletion page", but how do I get that big statement at the top of the article off? I would like to respond to the comments and have that removed from the article. When is a decision made regarding what articles are deleted?

Thanks, Gary Bramlett —Preceding unsigned comment added by Garybr (talk • contribs)

Please do not attempt to remove the "article for deletion" information. This is a formal process, which invites all users to contribute to the discussion, a process which can take a few weeks. After the discussion is over, an administrator will review the discussion, looking at how Wikipedia's policies apply. (It isn't a vote). After that, either the article is deleted, or it is kept and the message is removed. You may be able to improve the chances of keeping the article by providing properly formatted references to reliable sources that can be used to verify all the information in the article. See Wikipedia:Verifiability. Good luck, Notinasnaid 10:27, 24 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Punctuation

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How come you can type into the search box a ! and you go to the page for ! but if you type in a . then you don't go to the page for a .? Is it similar to the technical limitations that prevent articles from having a lower case first character? Dismas|(talk) 10:38, 24 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

! is dealt with by means of a redirect, but this treatment can't be extended to [[.]] for technical reasons (in this case, the wiki engine didn't even parse my link). I think it's because the URL for [[.]] would be http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/. (and the . at the end is interpreted, in the same way as in Unix or MS-DOS, as meaning 'the same directory'); therefore, this URL means exactly the same thing as http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ (the Main Page; if you click on either of these links, the Main Page will load). Hope that helps. --ais523 11:17, 24 January 2007 (UTC)
Got it, thanks! Dismas|(talk) 11:31, 24 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Custom sort order in wikitables

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The "sortable" parameter in wikitables is a nice feature; but is there a way of applying a custom alphabetical sort order? The specific problem I'm having is with accented Chinese Pinyin: all accented vowels seem to be sorted after Z (eg Ānhuī comes after Xīzàng). Any solutions—or do I need to write some script?

Another quick question on a different topic: what's the quickest way of getting to your own user monospace.js and monospace.css? NigelG (or Ndsg) | Talk 10:39, 24 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The 'sortable' feature isn't very good at handling unusual sort orders; asking on the technical village pump may point you to any known workarounds for this (I don't know any in this case). As for user js/css, typing the name out in the search box is the fastest method I know of without preparation (Special:Mypage/monobook.css is an alternative link, but as you have a short username the User: link will be shorter); bookmarking the pages in your browser, adding links to them on your userpage (so you can reach them with two clicks), or even adding them to the sidebar using JavaScript are methods that you could try using. --ais523 10:46, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the prompt replies.

  1. I can live with the imperfect "sortable".
  2. Bookmarks—of course! The simplest option. NigelG (or Ndsg) | Talk 11:07, 24 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Company Profile

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We would like to register as a SaaS provider. We would like to set-up a company profile, similar to 'Backbone Systems'. How do I do this?

You should become important and well-known enough that someone else writes an article about you (see why it's a bad idea to write about yourself). An entry in Wikipedia will be deleted if there is no evidence to show that the subject is notable (specific guidelines for companies), and the article written must provide sources. If you still want to write an article, see Wikipedia:Your first article. (Note that Backbone Systems doesn't seem to meet notability or verifiability criteria based on the current article, so I've proposed it for deletion.) --ais523 12:40, 24 January 2007 (UTC)
If you're asking about how to become an SaaS provider, you'd be better off asking on the Reference desk. This page is for questions about Wikipedia itself. -- Kesh 23:19, 24 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Stylized name?

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If a business that has an article on Wikipedia stylizes its name with unnecessary diacritics, should the title of the article be spelled with such marks? The case I cite is Sno Mountain (just recently changed from Montage Mountain), a ski area near Scranton, Pennsylvania, USA. In all of the ski area's news releases, on its website, on its signage and anywhere else possible, they stylize the name as Snö Mountain. (The umlaut or diaeresis is supposedly for a faux-European effect.) Is this just an idiosyncracy of the management that we can safely ignore? Or should it be changed? (And if it should be changed, how is this done? I don't know the procedure for that.) — Michael J 13:20, 24 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The case of Motörhead (background: heavy metal umlaut) may be a useful precedent. Notinasnaid 13:22, 24 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
The general principle is Wikipedia:Use English. BTW, there's nothing faux about "snö": it's the word for snow in the Scandinavian languages. --Tkynerd 13:24, 24 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks. I'll fix it and make a redirect later on (when I get home — I can't do it from work). ... By the way, I didn't mean to imply that "Snö" is a faux European word; I meant that it's a European word being used as the name of an American ski area. — Michael J 15:26, 24 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
OK, it's changed to Snö Mountain, and appropriate redirects were made. Thanks for all the help! — Michael J 10:35, 25 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Quick image check

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Is anyone able to see the image I uploaded to illustrate Lezley Zen? I've tried clearing my cache, and have tried viewing it on IE, Firefox, and Safari, but can't seem to get it to show. Anyone else have any more luck, or any advice to offer on how to get it to display? There's an alternative image at Image:Lezley Zen, September 2006, 2.JPG if it's a problem with the file itself. GeeJo (t)⁄(c) • 13:56, 24 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Oh, and a quick warning: the subject of the article is an actress in the pornographic industry. Both the article and the photographs themselves are perfectly SFW, but I guess you might get some odd looks if someone sees you visiting a page on the subject. So don't blame me for it :P. GeeJo (t)⁄(c) • 14:05, 24 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
You put the image link inside a bio template. I don't think it's a valid argument (the image is bigger than the info box), just as the bio template includes a birthdate but that isn't displaying. If you want the image to display, you need to move the link to it outside of that template. (I'd do it for you, but I'd rather not have that it my edit history.) -- John Broughton | (♫♫) 15:15, 24 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Ah, found the error. The pipe (|) was before the image, where it should have been after it. Sincerely though, thanks for trying to help :) GeeJo (t)⁄(c) • 15:44, 24 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Interesting. Thanks for the followup posting; I've learned something new. -- John Broughton | (♫♫) 19:16, 25 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Symbols e.g. ∈

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The Vector space page contains multiple uses of the symbol ∈ which I take is meant to be the "is an element of" symbol. It's entered as a character directly, rather than via TeX, and I assume that this means most people can actually see it. However, I can't; I just get the generic box. I am using IE7 - does anyone have any tips for how I can get this character, and presumably similar ones, to show up properly? Rawling4851 15:47, 24 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

If a character or word is having problems in IE, enclose it with the {{Unicode}} template like this: {{Unicode|∈}}, which produces ∈. This fixes display in IE (hopefully) without affecting other browsers. Can you see the symbol in my comment here? --ais523 16:11, 24 January 2007 (UTC)
Nope, can't see it. The default font in IE is Times New Roman, which apparently doesn't contain a symbol for this character. do other browsers automatically use a different font when they encounter such a symbol? Rawling4851 16:13, 24 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, they do: {{Unicode}} attempts to change to an appropriate font automatically in IE. Strangely enough, I can see the comment using IE6, which means that the IE7 behaviour is a bit confusing. Also, Wikipedia's stylesheet states that a sans-serif font should be used (if you're using the Monobook skin), so I can't understand why it's using Times New Roman... --ais523 16:32, 24 January 2007 (UTC)
No, I'm going crazy; I've successfully discovered Times New Roman is the default font, but didn't notice that Wikipedia doesn't in fact USE TNR, looks like it's using Arial. Which also apparently doesn't have that symbol. I guess I'll just have to live without; taking a look at that Template talk page, I seem to be able to see quite a few symbols that other people have problems with. Just not this one. Grr. Rawling4851 16:35, 24 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
That's odd. I looked at the monobook.css and one of the listed fonts for the Unicode class is "Arial Unicode MS" - which I have installed and which does include that symbol. So why, oh why, isn't it being used? Grr again. Rawling4851 16:45, 24 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Is your character encoding set to Unicode? In IE7, Page -> Encoding -> Unicode. I just tried IE7, and it works; none of the normal Windows sans serifs (i.e. Tahoma, Verdana) seem to lack the symbol either. -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 18:11, 24 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah, it's on Unicode (UTF-8). Annoying. Rawling4851 18:56, 24 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Boldface

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What's the policy on using boldface in articles? I was under the impression that it was to be avoided, but a lot of articles seem to use it to highlight various terms without linking them. Thanks for your help. Drooling Sheep 18:38, 24 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I don't know if there is a policy on boldface. One thing to note, though. If an article contains a link to itself, like Wikipedia:Help desk, it will show up as boldface instead of as a hyperlink. Wikipedia:Style guide might be able to help you further. —PurpleRAIN 19:25, 24 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

If an article subject has multiple names, those get bolded too. Briefly, boldface should probably only be used when you're making note of the name of the subject of the article, or a pseudonym, for the first time. So over at Whoopi Goldberg, both Whoopi Goldberg and Caryn Elaine Johnson get boldface, once, the first time they appear. Sometimes a paragraph or several paragraphs will go on for a while before a pseudonym appears, and then it will be bolded the first time. — coelacan talk — 20:00, 24 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Minor Change Needed for Page

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Yesterday I entered a new page for Roger Wagner. I have noticed that the last name is in lower case "Roger wagner". Obviously the correct name should be "Roger Wagner" with the last name capitalized. I went to edit it but there didn't seem to be a way of correcting the name of the page. How do I do it?

JB Hiller Account jbhjbh

Just click move on top of the page to move it to the correct location. Xiner (talk, email) 19:19, 24 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The Chicago Sports Review

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Hello,

I'm Mario Scalise from The Chicago Sports Review, a weekly Chicago sports magazine. We recently placed an entry for "The Chicago Sports Review" and I'd like to place cover images within the article, but I'm having trouble doing so. Can someone assist me?

Thanks, Mario Scalise

What specific problem did you encounter? Have you read Help:Images? Xiner (talk, email) 19:26, 24 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Please also take note of Wikipedia:Conflict of interest. If you are an employee of the magazine, it may be better to allow someone else to write/edit the article to avoid the appearance of bias. —PurpleRAIN 19:29, 24 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
With regard to text, yes, please follow WP:COI. With regard to uploading, you might also look at Wikipedia:Picture tutorial, Wikipedia:Image use policy, and Wikipedia:Preparing images for upload. You'll need to release images from copyright if you want them posted on Wikipedia. -- John Broughton | (♫♫) 19:14, 25 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

My website

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Can i link my website to your external links page, originally i included my business directory on your page. However, i appreciate that this may be inappropriate for wikipedia and would like to direct people only to my events page which is listing various events in and around Oxford. I have amended this link appropriately and would value your comments/advice. many thanks Simon

Please read the discussion at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Spam#thebestof.co.uk_spam. Basically the answer is no. If you disagree with the conclusions being drawn about the links you have added please discuss there. --BozMo talk 20:51, 24 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Inline frame

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I remeber that about a year ago there was a way to enter an inline frame (similar to this, except that what's inside is not from a file but from direct text in between the tags) - and I used it myself on a talk page, but I can't remember where. <iframe> is not listed in Help:HTML in wikitext and doesn't seem to work. Any hints? — Sebastian 22:06, 24 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Seeing none, I suggest you repost this at Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)? -- John Broughton | (♫♫) 19:11, 25 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you, that's a good idea! — Sebastian 20:20, 26 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Two column references

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How do you make references part of the article into two or three columns? I've seen it done, but I can't remember how for the life of me. Oskar 22:23, 24 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

For 2 columns use <div style="-moz-column-count:2; column-count:2;"> --Werdan7T @ 22:30, 24 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks! Oskar 22:41, 24 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Wait, this doesn't work in IE. Oskar 22:41, 24 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

About Userboxes

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Just wondering, is there a Politics catagory? Thanks. --ASDFGHJKL=Greatest Person Ever+Coolest Person Ever 23:28, 24 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I didn't see any linked off of WP:UBX but I did find a few here in various user spaces. —Mitaphane talk 00:05, 25 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
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