Wikipedia:Help desk/Archives/2007 March 23

Help desk
< March 22	<< Feb | March | Apr >>	March 24 >

Welcome to the Wikipedia Help Desk Archives
The page you are currently viewing is an archive page. While you can leave answers for any questions shown below, please ask new questions on one of the current Help Desk pages.

March 23

Consolidation of Articles? HELP REQUEST!

I've noticed a lot of combining(unifying) of information into one Page of a Subject... for example P-frame.

For me, and I believe for any other user, it is easier to find the wanted information if not such a huge page has to be "scanned"...

It also is more Suitable for finding considered the bad search facilities provided by Wikipedia... and it encourages people to write their few knowledge on a very thin part of a Subject(ppl. tend to be overwhelmed by a large Text)

Also keep in mind there are disabled persons out there who may have dyslexia ... huge articles makes it almost impossible for them to comprehend.

btw. I'm not an ELCH so please don't Troll on that ... only consider this thought on your next "unification raid" 84.183.253.152 09:55, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

The guidelines about the size of articles can be found at Wikipedia:Article size and Wikipedia:Summary style. If you disagree with those policies, you should raise your objections at the respective talk pages. If the guidelines are okay but aren't being followed, you should point that out on the talk page of the article that is a problem - for example, at Talk:Video compression picture types, and see what other editors think.

And the English Wikipedia does not have any such thing as a Wikipedia-wide "unification raid". -- John Broughton (♫♫) 01:17, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

Image permission

I had the following text in an email from the United Nations Photo Librarian:

You have our permission to use UN photos in Wikipedia. Please make sure each one is credited as follows: UN Photo/photographer's name (if available). Thank you.

Does this mean that I have permission to use all UN photos on Wikipedia? Can I just grab any UN photo and make sure that it's properly credited? Also, what licensing should I use?--Ed ^{¿Cómo estás?} 00:36, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

We'd need licensing for all pictures; Wikipedia-only use is incompatible with the GFDL. Veinor ^{(talk to me)} 00:37, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

comment removed

Does this mean that I have to immediately get all my UN pictures deleted? Or could we wait while I get a clarification from the UN?--Ed ^{¿Cómo estás?} 00:49, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

• You can wait until you get clarification. If they are okay with anyone else using them (if credited) you can tag it accordingly. Otherwise, yes, you'd have to delete them. - Mgm|^(talk) 08:50, 23 March 2007 (UTC)
  • A little more info: anyone agreeing their pictures can go in Wikipedia must be prepared that their pictures are used anywhere, for any purpose, by anyone, subject only to retaining information on the license and credit. Notinasnaid 09:47, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

Changed Image?

Should the bloke be displayed on the "Ginger" page? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ginger —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 82.11.163.252 (talk) 00:46, 23 March 2007 (UTC).

Nope, it shouldn't be. It was added by Kangaroopoo (talk · contribs) (merely trying to be funny, I hope). Kangaroopoo registered for the account less than a day ago. You can see that he (or she) changed the source of the image from Image:ARS_ginger.jpg to Image:Jonnolep.jpg (the latter may be deleted soon) here. The change was reverted two hours later -- about two minutes before you posted here. This isn't ideal, but it's important that it gets done by someone. Gracenotes^T § 00:53, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

68.230.99.206 00:50, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

Radon, sort of

The article on radon mentions around 20,000 deaths per year owing to domestic radon exposure with the note <citation needed>. I've got a good one from the Journal of Epidemiology but I can't figure out how to tell Wikipedia. All I can find is info on how a citation should be formatted, which I don't need. Dfrishman 01:11, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

Have you read Wikipedia:Citing sources? It explains pretty well how to add references. If you still need help, reply again, and I'll give more detailed instructions. -- Chairman S. Talk ^Contribs 01:30, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

• There's Wikipedia:Citation templates. One of them is to reference journals. - Mgm|^(talk) 08:48, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

If you need help about making changes in Wikipedia generally, see the Introduction. (By the way, we'd prefer to have even incorrectly entered sources than no sources at all; don't worry about making a mistake.) --ais523 09:58, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

• Agreed; even if you enter it improperly another Wikipedian can easily fix it. Once we know what the source is it shouldn't be too hard to get it properly formatted. If all else fails post the necessary information on the talk page. —Dark•Shikari^[T] 18:06, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

Vandalism from Edgerton High School

I am a student at Edgerton High School, and I'd like to personally apologize for the streak of vandalism that you've been recieving from my fellow students. I don't know who is doing it, but please understand that this is most likely an isolated number. The IP address for the school is 216.56.3.195

I have used school computers to make my own changes, but none of them are of a malicious/mischievous nature. What follows is a list of changes I have personally made to wikipedia articles under school computers.

14:32, 16 October 2006 (hist) (diff) List of My Life as a Teenage Robot episodes (→Season 3: 2006-2007)

17:17, 13 November 2006 (hist) (diff) Toy Story (→Toy Story in pop culture)

16:20, 15 January 2007 (hist) (diff) Xenu (→Xenu in popular culture)

19:56, 13 February 2007 (hist) (diff) The Shawshank Redemption (→Plot)

17:27, 13 February 2007 (hist) (diff) The Shawshank Redemption

15:47, 13 February 2007 (hist) (diff) The Shawshank Redemption (→Plot)

20:54, 12 February 2007 (hist) (diff) The Shawshank Redemption (→Plot)

15:21, 12 February 2007 (hist) (diff) The Shawshank Redemption (→Plot)

19:39, 9 March 2007 (hist) (diff) Springfield's state (→Kentucky)

18:52, 22 March 2007 (hist) (diff) Chad Doreck (→Television) (top)

Again, I have no knowledge of the perpetrators, but I apologize to you for them, and ask you to understand that this is a school system and it may take us a while to get things sorted out.

Sincerely, Aaron Foster 71.13.159.204 01:31, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

You should think about registering a username. This means that you won't be associated with the other edits from your school's network. -- Chairman S. Talk ^Contribs 01:38, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

Registered or not, you're very welcome here. Nice attitude. It's pity about the minority who think that vandalism is fun, but I guess they'll always exist. For the most part, their "work" gets reverted quickly. Adrian M. H. 16:52, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

Changing article's name

The article 'Derawar fort' should be at 'Derawar Fort.' How do I change the page name? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ardour (talk • contribs) 13:06, 23 March 2007

See Help:Moving a page. -- Chairman S. Talk ^Contribs 02:12, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

My account isn't old enough to move pages. Could you please move Derawar fort to the correct page title? Thank you. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Ardour (talk • contribs) 02:32, 23 March 2007 (UTC).

I've listed it here. An admin will take care of it soon, either one who frequents WP:RM, or who happens to be strolling by this page. Gracenotes^T § 02:43, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

Page Width

What is considered the standard resolution for a wikipedia viewer? For example if you make a table on a page, generally they are made to fit 1024x768 or above resolution (I know there is dynamic resizing anyway, but it makes the cells two lines instead of one). Is there a standard screen size that should be considered when making templates/tables and pages in general?

Basically I want to update a template that is basically a 3 coloumn table by making it 6 coloumn so that it doesnt go down the page as far, this way you can see more enteries on one screen and the article is smaller, however for lower resolution it would just make the cells twice as big and make it awkward to read. What is the standard?--155.144.251.120 02:35, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

• Ai, this has bedeviled developers since time immemorial. Maybe someone has a metric on this, but I don't think that there is one right answer. My own personal practice is to base on 1024 x 768, based on a guess that 800 x 600 resolution is becoming less common as systems are replaced. Herostratus 02:49, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

• 155.144.251.120: From what I've gathered, most Wikipedians use 1024x768. I can't say that most viewers use that, however. It's important that pages are accessible for everyone, with minimal scrolling. I've spent a fair amount of time checking back and forth between screen resolutions, to make sure that text looks fine regardless of resolution. See Template:World War II—it extends the 800x600 viewing screen by a bit, but not by much. Same with Template:USCongressTerms. 155, it really depends on the case. Perhaps setting style="font-size:80%" might decrease the font size somewhat. It should probably be an objective to keep it in the screen. Gracenotes^T § 02:51, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

I would hope nobody designs so things only work on screens as large as 1024x768. Although I have a screen that large, and others larger, I don't use browsers at full screen size. So I would recommend a width of 800 at the very limit; web designers tend to the assumption that nothing is as important as their page, so of course the viewer will willingly give up all of their screen, but I don't agree. Notinasnaid 09:45, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

I've seen a link floating around asking people to join this project which aims to make all pages 800x600 compliant. It's an implicit HTML thing that says that everyone with sensible standards for today can see a webpage with no obvious breaks. In this case, 800x600. I believe today's lowest standards are something like 800x600x16-bit, running Internet Explorer 5.0 or its Gecko equivalent, and I think that's sensible to aim for. x42bn6 Talk 11:13, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

download

i want to download Swami vivekananda books .how i can do it? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 202.65.134.34 (talk) 09:06, 23 March 2007 (UTC).

Are these books something in Wikipedia? Notinasnaid 10:26, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

Marathi version

KINDLY ADVISE ME HOW SHOULD CHANGE THIS ENGLISH VERSION TO MARATHI VERSION

• When you visit Wikipedia, look at the web address you have in your browser. It will start http://en ... The en is the English version. If you go to http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/List_of_Wikipedias, you will get a full list of available languages, and if you go to the one you want, you will see what web address it has. Notinasnaid 10:25, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

In this case, mr:मुखपृष्ठ. x42bn6 Talk 11:08, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

Saving edits

I have made an edit to the article on Tipitapa but can't figure out how to save the changes. Please advise. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by DosPueblos (talk • contribs) 10:18, 23 March 2007 (UTC).

• Below the box where you are editing text, you'll see an "edit summary" box. Fill that in with a summary which will help other editors understand the reason for the edit. Then click the Save page button below that. Done! Notinasnaid 10:23, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

Infoboxes

How do you put infoboxes inro articles? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Supermiggelo (talk • contribs) 10:56, 23 March 2007 (UTC).

Take your pick at Wikipedia:Infobox templates. Then you can go to the discussion page and it will tell you how to use it, although some list it on the template itself. For example, see Template:Infobox actor. x42bn6 Talk 11:06, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

If looking at the documentation on the infobox page itself does not tell you exactly what to do, you can also look at examples of an infobox in use. Browse to the infobox page (such as Template:Infobox actor), and click toolbox | What links here (for example: Special:Whatlinkshere/Template:Infobox actor). Every link on the resulting page with a "(transclusion)" after it is a page that has a filled-in example of the infobox. Browse to some of those pages and click the edit tab to see examples of how to use the infobox. You could then copy one instance to your article, and edit the input values accordingly.

If you can't find a suitable infobox template by browsing through Wikipedia:Infobox templates, try looking through other articles similar to your article, and see if any of them have infoboxes. You may find similar articles by clicking on the category links at the bottom of your article, by searching, or by browsing the contents. If you still can't find a suitable infobox, tell us the name of your article and someone will find one for you, or help you design a new one if there isn't a suitable one already. --Teratornis 16:22, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

Software articles

I'm currently in a bit of a dispute on an article about a piece of software. Without seeking anyone to jump in at this stage, I'd welcome views on the general principles of product comparison. Suppose the product is the direct rival of another product.

• Should this be mentioned?
• Should comparisons (of features, performance etc.) be mentioned if they can be sourced?
• Should an effort be made to balance positives with negatives, if positive sourced compatisons are a good idea? What if they can't be found?
• If a source has both negative and positive points, does fairness require quoting them both, even if the negative ones aren't in an area currently under discussion?
• Should praise or criticism be removed if it applies to an older version of the software than is current?
• Does it make any difference if the two companies are wildly different in scale?
• If these are leading questions, please advise how I could make them less so.

If there are policies or guidelines beyond general WP:NPOV I can refer to and/or quote that would be particularly useful. Notinasnaid 11:05, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

• I'd keep product comparison to a minimum in an article about a specific product. Of course, good and bad things about a specific piece of software can be named as long as it is kept balanced. "Should praise or criticism be removed if it applies to an older version of the software than is current?" --> No, just mention it was about an older version and include info on how the latest version was received. If companies are largely different in scale, it matters. You shouldn't compare Microsoft Word with yWriter to name an example. - Mgm|^(talk) 11:11, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

Thanks. But in the article for yWriter, is it proper to compare it with Microsoft Word, to say that people prefer it because...? Notinasnaid 11:20, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

• You could perhaps say why some people prefer a freeware program over a big commercial one, but even if it puts the small one in a good light I would refrain from using names. Don't praise software at the expense of something that is totally in another league. - Mgm|^(talk) 11:59, 23 March 2007 (UTC)
  • How about why some people prefer one no-cost commercial program over another no-cost commercial product from a much bigger company? (Sorry to be pendantic, but the difference may be important). And what if this would be implicit even if names were not used? Notinasnaid 12:14, 23 March 2007 (UTC)
• What is a no-cost commercial program? - Mgm|^(talk) 13:11, 23 March 2007 (UTC)
  • I long-ago found that Wikipedia had subsumed the term "free software" to apply to a particular status of intellectual property rather than the more common English meaning of "software you don't have to pay for", so I can't use the term "free but commercial software". In this case I mean proprietary or, closed-source, software, that is available without paying a fee. Notinasnaid 13:17, 23 March 2007 (UTC)
  • (Ah, I find the approved term is indeed "freeware"). Notinasnaid 13:19, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

Some general notes on software comparisons:

• As you undoubtedly know, articles exist respectively to list and compare programs having similar functions. It would seem that the place to compare similar programs is in a comparison article, and the way to compare them is to list their respective features, and perhaps usage statistics if available. For example:
  • List of text editors / Comparison of text editors
  • List of wiki software / Comparison of wiki software
  • Category:Lists of software / Category:Software comparisons
• I don't understand what you mean by "the product is the direct rival of another product." What does this mean? That both products, acting autonomously, vie for control of all the world's computers? To say that a product is the direct rival of another product seems to reify the products, as if they are two humans who actively compete with each other. The more likely situation is that one or both vendors attempt to position their product against the other, in the course of their marketing schemes, with the goal of evoking rivalry between the products in the minds of potential customers. The users may view the products in any number of ways:
  • Some users may be well aware of both products, and experienced enough in the use of both to make an actually informed comparison. Some of these users may well view the products as direct rivals. Others may not view the products as rivals at all, because they rely on special features of one program, and they can't use the other one.
  • I suspect very users have detailed knowledge of both products, because learning new software is so laborious that most people tend to stick with whatever package they happen to learn first. (For example, I am much more familiar with vi than with emacs, because once I learned vi, I had no incentive to spend many hours becoming equally familiar with emacs. For me, the two programs are not rivals, because I cannot compare them on an equal basis. The fact that I am so much more capable with vi makes it an overwhelmingly "better" program for me.)
  • Some users may not have heard of the "rival" product.
  • Some users may not even be immediately aware of which product they are using, for example corporate users who just use whatever software their IT departments install for them. These users, who may be numerous, may be pretty much immune to the vendors' efforts to manufacture a perception of rivalry with their marketing schemes.

Therefore, I would say if you are going to mention this "rivalry" in the article about one or the other package, that you should explain exactly what that means. Are you talking about an advertising rivalry, or an actual rivalry between computer programs in which they seek out instances of each other on users' computers and try to delete them? --Teratornis 14:44, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

• • Actually, it doesn't use the word rival, that's just me abstracting. Here is a highly stylised version of part of the article (actually, about half of it). "It is notable for its short small download size and fast loading, which are sometimes favorably compared to name of rival. The previous version was, however, criticised for excessive memory usage(sourced). It runs on older versions of Windows, which recent versions of rival do not. It is favoured by some system administrators of Windows servers, since unlike rival it does not require reboots after updates." I'm trying to avoid discussing the actual products here, because I have found in the past that getting too definite means we don't get policy discussions, which to me is more useful than fixing up one article. So, any more thoughts? Notinasnaid 19:58, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

My brain has yet to experience a thought shortage, and I think the world is entitled to them, although valuable thoughts may be a different story. Personally, I'm not a big fan of the "some say..." style of packaging POV claims. I like to see those claims attributed to someone definite; or, if not to a person, then to some fraction of users as determined in some sort of statistically valid survey of users.

Are there only two programs of this type which system administrators would normally choose between? If there are more than two, then why compare only two of them? In any case, I would try to downplay the rivalry and stick to measurable facts as much as possible. A partial stab in that direction, which probably needs adjusting depending on what data is available:

• "It has a download size of X MB (translating to N min:sec on a typical broadband link of Y b/s) and loading time of N sec on (some well-defined benchmarking computer). (If people want to see how big and fast another product is, they can look at its article.) It runs on Windows 98, ME, 2000, XP, and Vista (or whatever; that list should be in the article's infobox anyway). It does not require reboots after updates, a feature valued by X% of system administrators surveyed (source; or if no source is available, then say nothing about what system administrators like, since we don't really know; just point out that no reboots are required, since that's all we know for sure).

If you have published sources that compare the two products, you could summarize their claims in a separate section and cite them. If one vendor specifically built its product to compete with the other product, you could describe the history of the vendor rivalry in another section. I wouldn't mix the comparison into what appears to be a description of one of the products (not that my preference carries any weight around here, of course). Is there already a comparison article for programs of this type? --Teratornis 21:29, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

headline

how do i change the headline in an artcicle.

I have contributed to Sentinel Records but the headline has a small r for records and seraches are not picking this up —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Doctorscobes (talk • contribs) 11:46, 23 March 2007 (UTC).

• That's not a headline, that's the article's title. It can be changed by moving the page which you can do when your account is 4 days old.

Unfortunately, the article looks a lot like advertising at the moment. You should provide some reliable sources to show notability - other people who wrote about the label that are not related to it. Why is it important? Has it got any major artists signed? - Mgm|^(talk) 11:56, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

Multi-disambiguation raccomanded?

What is the thing to do with multiple disambiguation pages? I read on WP:D this can be done without issues but what would be the ideal method?

I am currently consider: A) Embedding the whole thing in the actual disambiguation. This will be some sort of structured tree, I don't really know the details for now.
B) Point the current disambiguation to a new more specific one, pointing to the articles.

MaxDZ8 talk 13:14, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

Disambiguation can be a tricky business, and both of those options are more or less valid. For this multiple-level disambiguation, you should be trying to point to a specific article unless there's definitely a multiple-level ambiguity in the terms. What page in particular are you talking about? Maybe I can take a look... Nihiltres 13:21, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

Thank you for your help! There's really nothing you can check for now since the actual page became a stub. The page I am working on (offline) is shader. Initially, the page was a stub. Back in 2005 I updated an in-depth description of the inner workings. Many people however complained it was actually too technical and pointed out a few (less authorative) references, usually clearly with a poor understanding of the topic.
This problem has been tackled a few times. In the recent months, the article is no more actively developed by me. As suggested by a few users, a whole set of articles shall be written. Unluckly, only few pointed out what those articles should be. Recently an user pointed out an use case i didn't know it clearly deserves a page of its own. It is clear that there should be a disambiguation page, an introduction page (redlink, no one seemed to be interested in writing this), this third page (which is film-industry related I guess, i would expect this to be a redlink as well) and a page on offline page (likely a redlink/stub as well).
Other pages that may become used:

• Example - many, many user requests. Unluckly, there's no hint on what they want to see so this would be a redlink. Would be a redlink/stub.
• Applications - regularly spawns on anything that's remotly technical. Would fill in by sure.
• ?Hardware? - some user requests. Unluckly, there are no autoritative sources I know of defining this. It is not even sure this shall be the correct name. There's a high probability this would spawn inaccurate, badly referenced information.
• Other?

Also, some users pointed out the current page name should be deprecated. It seems a good idea to turn it in the second-level disambiguation page but aggregating the information in the current page would also be a good idea.
Anyway, the real issue is that all those needs cannot really be addressed in a single page, so the need for the disambiguation.
Bottm line: since WP is a collaborative environment, both disambiguation pages i know (Shade (disambiguation) and especially Shading) have changed since last time I've checked them.

MaxDZ8 talk 09:05, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

AXA

I read the article about AXA. I work for AXA and I know the company quite well.

The article mentions Andrew Bull and Gordon Lacey headed AXA IM. This appears to be some form of joke or vandalism. Note:

1) AXA IM is just one division - why mention who heads up that division 2) These guys seem to be in the property division of AXA IM - again just one part of AXA IM. 3) I've worked quite a bit with AXA IM - and I never heard of them

Thanks.

Thanks for your comments. I agree and have removed mention of Bull and Lacey from AXA. PrimeHunter 15:44, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

(help-Me)

When was wikipedia posted online? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 209.146.90.157 (talk) 14:08, 23 March 2007 (UTC).

Wikipedia has been around since 15 January 2001, and was online from the very start. In contrast to most enyclopedias, Wikipedia started empty and was created by being edited by the general public (and you could add to or improve it right now if you wanted, by clicking on 'edit this page' on any page). See Wikipedia:About for more information. --ais523 14:50, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

See Wikipedia and especially Wikipedia#History. --Teratornis 14:49, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

And also see Bomis for information about Wikipedia's early source of funding, until the project became self-supporting. --Teratornis 14:54, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

• People asking this question are usually looking for info on how to cite Wikipedia. See Wikipedia:Citing Wikipedia. - Mgm|^(talk) 17:39, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

Printing "Web colors" article IN COLOR

I feel like a nitwit, because there is probably something really obvious that I am overlooking, BUT ....

Why can't I print this great article that gives the values for the web colors in color? Why am I only able to get a black-and-white copy, which is really useless?

Is there someplace I can find information on printing problems? I can't find it.

Thanks very much to anyone who can help.

Barbcapp 14:42, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

Mhh, Well it could be your printer (I'm not saying anything about it), maybe you don't have any colour ink in, If not then you could try taking an automatic picture of your screen when they are being viewed by you by pressing Prt Scr (on Microsoft Windows) and then although it does not print it, you could then paste it into a word document and print it, that should work - please follow up if this continues. Thanks! Tellyaddict 15:57, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

Your browser will have printing options, one of which may dictate the use of colour. I often print web pages in B+W as they're not usually colour-critical. Also, your printer's utility will have a greyscale/colour option. I have accidentally left mine on greyscale a few times! Hope that helps some. Adrian M. H. 17:04, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

Thanks very much for the suggestions. The paste to Word method works. I still don't understand why I can't print in color directly from the article, but I can get a color copy by printing the Word doc. Barbcapp 12:58, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

Addendum: TellyAddict's solution is the best one to try. Take a screenshot of the page and dump it into Word as a picture. See my explanation below to know why it won't print right directly from Wikipedia. Guroadrunner 13:44, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

A possible reason is because of the coding of that Wikipedia article.

The article uses "table background colors" - so what you see as colors is not what a printer mechanically sees. The colors in the article are not images that the printer will print, but instead something else that utilizes a handy form of code.

Try printing this page: http://www.htmlcodetutorial.com/tables/index_famsupp_183.html. If you do not get the green/blue box in your printed page, then the Wikipedia thing won't work either. You may want to try VisiBone's website at http://html-color-codes.com/ and see what happens.

Guroadrunner 13:42, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

I can't speak for other browsers, but if you have Internet Explorer, you can change your settings so that background colors do print. (Of course, doing this will print the color background on the whole page, too.) Click on Tools, then Internet Options and Advanced. Scroll down to the Printing section and check "Print background colors and images." — Michael J 23:45, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

total number of edits

how can i see my total number of edits?--Falcon866 16:19, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

See here for an edit counter. Regards - Tellyaddict 16:51, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

There is a list of edit counters available at Wikipedia:WikiProject edit counters. --ais523 17:23, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

just make sure that you don't catch Editcountitis. -- Chairman S. Talk ^Contribs 22:11, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

If you do, you might find yourself adding useless comments like this one to Help desk questions just to see your count increase. A better measure of Wikipedia attainment might be how many articles you have helped raise to featured status. Sadly, by that measure, I still have no points on the board. --Teratornis 16:31, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

colors

where can I find a list of colors corresponding to their numbers (as used in templates/infoboxes, etc)? 68.149.135.29 17:30, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

I tend to refer to Wikipedia:Colours and List of colors - a bit of visual comparison and experimentation is sometimes required. Adrian M. H. 17:36, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

Bear in mind a full list would have 24 million entries, so knowing something about what the numbers mean is a help. Notinasnaid 19:21, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

This is a nice source. Prodego ^talk 21:34, 23 March 2007 (UTC)