Wikipedia:Help desk/Archives/2008 February 15

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February 15

USING PROMOTIONAL/ENTERTAINMENT PHOTOS FROM 1940'S

I have several photos from the 1940's (a couple are from the early 1950's, prior to 1953) for illustrating my wikipedia entry, "Dixie Roberts", which i am currently working on. This is my first entry, i am VERY new at this.

The photos I have are all promotional photos that belong to Miss Roberts, she gave them to me to use for this purpose. Most of the images are just of her. However, one image is a promotional photo for the 1943 Ziegfeld Follies and shows 4 dancers: Miss Roberts, Penny Edwards, Mary Ganley and Pat Hall. The front of the photo has a logo on it, "Murray Korman, NY", but no copyright insignia. I would love to be able to post this one, especially, because of its historical value!

Some of the other photos are stamped on the back, such as"AL. HAUSER PHOTOS, HOTEL ABBEY - 149 W.51 ST., N.Y. CIrcle 6-9400"; or "Bruno's of Hollywood, Thanks for credit" including addresses in NYC and Boston. One of the Bruno's photos has a charming stamp on the back, it says "PLEASE CREDIT BRUNO OF HOLLYWOOD, WE MAY BE ABLE TO RETURN THE COURTESY SOMETIME."

One photo i would like to use has the following stamp on the back: FOTO FERNANDEZ, ARZ. MERINA No. 51, CIUDAD TRUJILLO."

I am reasonably sure that I can use these photos, I am just not sure how to catagorize them.

Thank you for any help you can give me! —Preceding unsigned comment added by MimiBelle (talk • contribs) 01:02, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

You are entering a nightmare. This is NOT a situation caused by Wikipedia. Current copyright law in the US (where the Wikipedia servers reside) is consistent with the Berne convention on copyright: copyrights belong to the photographer and the copyright exists automatically, with no need for formal registration. For works published in the US prior to about 1987 and never formally registered, the work may have fallen into the public domain, but I have not a clue as to how you can prove that. Works published in the US prior to 1923 are clearly in the public domain. The situation is an evil nasty mess that we must live with. Good luck. -Arch dude (talk) 02:40, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

Click Template

In addition to what I'm doing on Wikipedia, I am working on another Wiki using the Media Wiki platform. I use the Template:Click here but would also like to use it there. Is there a way to export this template to the other Wiki? —Preceding unsigned comment added by CarverM (talk • contribs) 03:48, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

Sure, just copy the template source. Make sure you have the m:ParserFunctions extension installed, though. Good luck! Soxred93 | talk count bot 03:54, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

mw:Extension:ImageMap is better. Prodego ^talk 03:59, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

In case you didn't know, Prodego, {{Click}} uses Imagemap now. That reminds me, CarverM. You need Imagemap installed as well as Parserfunctions. Soxred93 | talk count bot 04:08, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

Ah, I did not, thanks for telling me. Prodego ^talk 21:26, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

Wikicharts

Any word on when it will be working or why it has not been working since late January? –thedemonhog talk • edits 03:50, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

The error message I get (Couldn't select DB: Unknown database 'u_leon_wikistats_p') seems that the database for the tool is down. Master of Puppets _{Call me MoP!☺} 03:52, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

Everything that uses the toolserver is down. :-( I hope they get it fixed soon. • Anakin ^(talk) 01:27, 16 February 2008 (UTC)

Log in / 'remember me' problems

I've just today begun experiencing problems being kept 'logged in' to wikipedia. It seems that whenever I close my browser now, and then open it again and navigate to wikipedia, I've been logged out, and I have never encountered this before. I keep the 'remember me' box checked at log-in, and although I have my browser (Firefox) clear my browsing history and cache upon exit, it retains my cookies, which has kept me logged in to wikipedia previously. Does anyone know what is happening with my account being logged out? Any help is appreciated. Thanks. -albrozdude (talk) 05:55, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

In firefox under tools, options, security, do you have remember passwords checked off? Wisdom89 _{(T / ^C)} 06:08, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

No, I have that checked as well. The strange thing is that this started happening suddenly although I haven't changed any settings on my end. -albrozdude (talk) 13:38, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

Happening to me too, on IE6, starting this morning. Must be a bug. --barneca (talk) 13:46, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

I noticed that it happened to me at work just now after upgrading Firefox to the latest version. Did you recently do this? Wisdom89 _{(T / ^C)} 19:21, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

Happening to me for Firefox and IE7. Only if I type "en.wikipedia.org" into the address bar though. If I click on a link in my history, it shows I'm logged in. The only exception to this so far I've found is if I click on the Main Page in my history. -- Matthew | talk | Contribs 19:23, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

This is happening to me also. I'm using Firefox 2.0.0.12 and Windows XP. I haven't upgraded the browser lately and I haven't changed any settings. — Mudwater 21:09, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, I've changed nothing (no browser upgrades, setting changes). It just started yesterday for me, completely out of the blue. -albrozdude (talk) 21:31, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

Same here, Firefox 2.0.0.12 also, tried a number of things such as clearing history and deleting cookies. Glad I'm not the only one getting this. --Zikar (talk) 16:57, 16 February 2008 (UTC)

Has anyone figured out the problem yet? It happens to me using XP and any browser. Fyunck(click) (talk) 08:22, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

Me too... Vista/IE7, other wiki sites I've been using haven't had this issue, either. --Resplendent (talk) 21:34, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

My firefox and vista don't log me in automatically but if I click log in/create account it logs me in before I have to do anything. Thanks, George D. Watson (Dendodge).Talk^{Help and assistance} 13:03, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

Regarding my website

I notice that my research (non commercial) website has been blacklisted. I am totally confounded by this and request an explanation. I am considered an expert in the field of Proprioceptive Stimulation (Researcher for 37 years, Research Fellow at the prestigious facility associated with the Italian Ministry of Health)- See Feedback from Other Experts http://www.rothbartsite.com/Feedback.html

Waiting your reply.

Prof/Dr Brian A Rothbart —Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.14.11.72 (talk) 06:52, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

Please see the external links guidelines for more information; generally, sources should be reliable. Also, please see the conflict of interest policy to avoid having a conflict of interest. Cheers, Master of Puppets _{Call me MoP!☺} 07:06, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

I think the main issue here might be WP:COI since you are the author of the external site, which if you read WP:EL are links to be avoided. However, it seems the user's work has been published in peer reviewed journals, so this is a tough one to field. MoP, is there a way that you can request white listing so it could be used as a cite? Wisdom89 _{(T / ^C)} 07:35, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

I found my research website - www.rothbartsfoot.info placed on the blacklist. How can I request that it be removed from this list?

I don't understand: which site has been blacklisted? Obviously not the one you link to above. --teb728 t c 08:19, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

I'm confused, too. Professor Rothbart, can you tell us why you think your site has been blacklisted? It seems possible that someone has misinformed you. AndyJones (talk) 08:44, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

Maybe you don't know what blacklisting means. See m:Spam blacklist/About and Wikipedia:Spam blacklist. A blacklisted url cannot be saved so http://www.rothbartsite.com is clearly not blacklisted. Is your complaint merely that links to the site have been removed after they were added? PrimeHunter (talk) 12:03, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

I found it on a revertlist for a new bot at User:XLinkBot/RevertList. It's sort of a limited blacklist which doesn't prevent saving like the real blacklist. I don't know how it got there. Maybe somebody added many inappropriate links to the site. You can request removal at User talk:XLinkBot/RevertList. Note that a listing only causes a revert in some circumstances. PrimeHunter (talk) 23:31, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

Undo while editting

I used to be able to undo some changes I was making while editting, but the last couple of days it stopped working for me. Is there something I should enable in my preferences? Thanks, Crzycheetah 07:28, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

Some edits cannot be undone--namely those in the same place where the text has been changed by a subsequent edit. I wonder if that may be your problem. What happens when you try to undo? —teb728 t c 08:25, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

No, I am not trying to undo an already made edit. I am trying to edit a page and while my edit box is open I add new information, then at that time, let's say, I accidentally delete some information in the edit box and I want to right-click and click "undo" or just press "ctrl+Z" to get back the information I accidentally deleted. I used to do that, but now whenever I press "Ctrl+Z", nothing happens. My problem is that I have to start over my editting because of that.--Crzycheetah 08:52, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

That type of undo is a function in your browser or operating system. Wikipedia does not control how you write text in the edit box. Which browser are you using? Have you changed anything around when the problem started? Does undo never work at all? Does undo work in other programs? PrimeHunter (talk) 11:54, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

Urine drinking

I won't want to drink my own urine,instead I drink my wife's, is the therapy effect same? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 165.21.155.92 (talk) 08:54, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

I suspect, based on your question, that you found one of our over 6 million articles and thought we were affiliated in some way with that subject. Please note that you are at Wikipedia, the free online encyclopedia that anyone can edit, and this page is for asking questions related to using or contributing to Wikipedia itself. Thus, we have no special knowledge about the subject of your question. You can, however, search our vast catalogue of articles by typing a subject into the search field on the upper right side of your screen. If you cannot find what you are looking for, we have a reference desk, divided into various subject areas, where asking knowledge questions is welcome. Best of luck. —teb728 t c 09:20, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

Viewing images on Wikipedia

Hi,

I can't view certain images that people post on Wikipedia, mainly flags. Such as the Northern Irish flag Ulster banner. I've cleared my cache and even changed from Internet Explorer to Mozilla Firefox and I still can't see it... Help??? Speedboy Salesman (talk) 08:57, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

It's possible that you have anti-virus software turned on that blocks those images for you.--Crzycheetah 09:03, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

Some images on upload.wikimedia.org actually contain /ad/ in the URL of the file name, which commonly causes them to be blocked by ad-blocking software (or did they fix this?), although the examples you gave don't. I can't imagine what could block them across browsers. Here's something to try though: If in Internet Explorer, right-click on an image that won't load and click "Properties". Copy the URL of the image and paste it into the address bar directly. Or in Firefox, right-click on the image and click "View image". This will give you the actual file displayed directly. If it's being blocked by anything, it will display the message there. • Anakin ^(talk) 01:36, 16 February 2008 (UTC)

Re: Article "Departments of France"

I would be interested to know why the above mentioned page takes an inordinate amount of time to load. I am running on a new PC with a 2.3 ghz processor, 2 gb ram, Windows XP, IE version 6. Mike —Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.202.45.160 (talk) 09:44, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

Probably because it has a ton of images - each one takes time to download separately from the article text. Sbowers3 (talk) 09:58, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

CPA

What are the different matrices of CPA? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.200.33.226 (talk) 10:29, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

Ask such questions at the Wikipedia:Reference desk. This page is for questions about using Wikipedia. —teb728 t c 10:39, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

Public domain?

Is it allowable to use an image when there is a resonable belief that is in the public domain? The image in question is [1], which is an advertisement from a magazine from 1926. The company being advertised has not existed since 1936. According to our article on the subject, a work from that era would have passed into the public domain before 1978 if the copyright had not been renewed. It seems resonable to believe that this copyright was not renewed considering that the company had long since ceased to exist. I can imagine some counter-arguments to this logic.

I think the key question is, can the image be used if the public domain rationale is reasonable but not certain? ike9898 (talk) 10:45, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

You might want to try Wikipedia:Image copyright help desk. Algebraist 12:42, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

OK, moving question there. ike9898 (talk) 14:36, 16 February 2008 (UTC)

problem

Hi,

I was trying to submit an article about Thermilate products and the admin deleted it straight after. I am an employee of Thermilate and I have a permission to use the information about our products.

I have had another account, called Thermilate, but was said that there is a a problem and I cannot use that name.

Can you tell me why I can't submite the information and how are we going to solve it?

Thank you for your co-operation.

Kind Regards,

Harshy —Preceding unsigned comment added by Harshy (talk • contribs) 10:58, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

Hi Harshy, the problem with your account, User:Thermilate, is that we don't usually allow the names of companies in usernames as it can be seen as promotional. See WP:USERNAME.

Another problem is that you've admitted to being an employee of the said company which is a conflict of interest. It's not recommended that any user who is directly or indirectly involved in a company make an article about their company (And/or make major changes to an existing article about the company). Wikipedia is not an advertising service.

The reason why the article was deleted was because it was a copyright violation of the company's site. We cannot use copy righted material here at Wikipedia.

A good place to read up would be at Wikipedia:Introduction. I hope this helps. If you have any questions please do not hesitate to contact me. Scarian^{Call me Pat} 11:17, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

deleted page

A page about Davy King was recently deleted. He is a published & broadcast writer & performer. His work is in the legal deposit libraries.

I wish to get the page back so it can be added to & re-edited. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Curiousexplorer (talk • contribs) 11:15, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

Please send me the code or contents of the page. If Wikipedia doesn't want it, someone else might be interested in the information.

Yours truly,

curiousexplorer —Preceding unsigned comment added by Curiousexplorer (talk • contribs) 11:18, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

Hello Curiousexplorer, after looking at the deleted page quickly it seems as though it was originally prodded for being a non-notable subject and thus deleted. User:Rudget deleted the article a second time for being a WP:TEST article. Try reading Wikipedia:Introduction to get a better idea on how to write articles. If you have any questions please do not hesitate to contact me. Scarian^{Call me Pat} 11:20, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

I see you have now created Davy King. The former version with content was deleted by User:Tone who can be contacted at User talk:Tone. It appears from [2] that you are Davy King. Writing a Wikipedia:Autobiography is strongly discouraged. PrimeHunter (talk) 11:44, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

Untitled

hi, i was just wondering if when you edit a page will it become visibal to everyone who seeks the infomation?

and will you be able to check if my 'Shes Britney Bitch' article is visible yet. you can locate my article if you search for Britney Spears and my article is the first.

Many thanks, --Jordan Hale 12:39, 15 February 2008 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 95jordan95 (talk • contribs) 07:39, 15 February 2008

Yes, as soon as you make an edit it's visible to everyone instantly. Your "article", judging by the title, would've been deleted almost immediately. Please read Wikipedia:Introduction for a guide on how to use Wikipedia. If you have any questions please do not hesitate to contact me. Scarian^{Call me Pat} 12:59, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

(ec)Yes, it does become visible immediately. And thanks for asking because it let me remove your edit quickly. The encyclopedia is not a place for personal opinion; it is a collection of facts from verifiable reliable sources. Before you edit another word of the encyclopedia please read WP:NPOV and perhaps WP:Introduction and WP:Tutorial. We welcome new editors but we do have our way of doing things and we expect editors to abide by our policies and guidelines. Sbowers3 (talk) 13:01, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

nation rural emloyment gaurantee scheme by indian govt

knowledge about nation rural emloment gaurantee scheme by indian govt —Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.134.216.83 (talk) 13:03, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

See National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA) or a Google search on "National Rural Employment Gurantee Act". Have you tried Wikipedia's Reference Desk? They specialize in knowledge questions and will try to answer any question in the universe (except how to use Wikipedia, since that is what this Help Desk is for). Just follow the link, select the relevant section, and ask away. I hope this helps. PrimeHunter (talk) 13:16, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

Great Depression

I was unable to EDIT the first part of - Great Depression.

(GOP or R) should follow Herbert Hoover's name. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Lvken7 (talk • contribs) 14:09, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

Great Depression is semi protected so if you were editing from an IP then you couldn't edit it, but your account is old old enough to edit it. So try again making sure that you are logged in. Harland1 (^t/_c) 14:27, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

If the problem is that you don't know how to edit the top section, click "edit this page" on the top of the screen. All the other sections have [edit] next to the heading, but the top section doesn't so you have to edit the entire page. Sbowers3 (talk) 15:15, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

You can get an edit link for the introduction of a page at Gadgets in Special:Preferences. PrimeHunter (talk) 15:55, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

And see: Help:Section#Section editing. --Teratornis (talk) 20:25, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

Login Swelter

Hello! I tried to login (User: Swelter) but I forgot the pass. The problem is I haven't left an email there. So I can't get a new pass. Can you please delete my user-profile so that I can create a new one? Or can you send me a new pass to <email removed>? Thanks a lot! Mirko Krimmel —Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.199.188.45 (talk) 14:18, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

Unfortunately, there is no way to delete your account, nor is there a way for anyone to reset your password. You will need to create a new account for yourself, however you may edit your old user page at User:Swelter to redirect to your new one. Hersfold ^(t/a/c) 14:27, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

Creating a new account is the easiest for both you and Wikipedia. If you really want to keep the user name then you can try requesting usurpation. I don't know what the response would be when there are 3 unused edits from 2006 [3] to a later redirected page. PrimeHunter (talk) 15:53, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia talk:Sandbox

Why is this page always being blanked? :| I thought that only WP:SAND was the sandbox. D: ö 163.153.198.236 (talk) 15:10, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

The talk page is also considered the sandbox, so people can test with talk pages too. If you want to bring up a concern about the Sandbox, bring it up at Wikipedia talk:About the Sandbox. Good luck! Soxred93 | talk count bot 15:45, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

Many new users are going to use the Sandbox talk page for testing whether or not it's intended for it. Accepting this seems a lot easier than trying to use it as a real talk page where tests would have to be manually identified and reverted, and the page history would become a mess. You can use Wikipedia talk:About the Sandbox instead to discuss the Sandbox. PrimeHunter (talk) 15:45, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

Commercial DVD as reference

I would like to add information (filmography and additional facts)to an article about Darby Lloyd Rains that are from a commercial DVD. How do I cite the reference for that since the DVD is not "published" in the conventional way?

Citclab —Preceding unsigned comment added by Citclab (talk • contribs) 15:26, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

There is a way to do it, actually. Check out the video section on the citation template page. —Noah 15:52, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

The link direct is {{cite video}}, but as Noah says, every citation template you could possibly need is in the link he provided. -- Matthew | talk | Contribs 19:29, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

editing and then printing an article

I am doing some research on the Book of Job and would like to print out your page to help me get started, but when I just hit Print, it prints the entire website picture, which contains only part of the edited article.

How do I make a printer friendly copy of an article?

o/o Carol —Preceding unsigned comment added by Carol251 (talk • contribs) 16:33, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

Try the "Printable version" link that is in the left hand column (in the Toolbox section). —Noah 16:35, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

Logging in

I hope this is the right place to ask...

Every time I close IE or Firefox and then reopen one of them to come back to Wikipedia I have to retype my password, even though "remember my password" is checked. It started happening yesterday when I had Verizon put in. Before then I never had to log back in. From searching the internet I'm assuming it's something to do with cookies or a firewall, but I don't know how to fix it. It's a problem with Wikipedia only. With all other websites I'm logged back in fine. - Can anyone help please? -- Matthew | talk | Contribs 17:46, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

See this section a little bit up the page. I'm guessing it's a bug. Oddly enough, doesn't appear to be a problem when I use IE7 on a different computer; either it's fixed, or it's browser-dependant. --barneca (talk) 18:32, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

It's doing it in IE7 for me. The funny thing is, if I type "en.wikipedia.org" into the address bar, I have to log in. If I click on a Wikipedia page in the history (except for Main Page), it shows me already logged in. -- Matthew | talk | Contribs 19:19, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

I replied with this message above as well. I noticed that this happened to me at work just now after upgrading Firefox to the latest version. Did any of you recently do this? This might be the problem - kinda of a cache dump. Wisdom89 _{(T / ^C)} 19:22, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

No. But I did install software from Verizon yesterday as I just got a new broadband provider. -- Matthew | talk | Contribs 19:25, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

That been happening to me too. I also just upgraded to the new firefox and its been only happening since then. BonesBrigade 03:31, 16 February 2008 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)#Being logged out. --hydnjo talk 13:42, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

Creation

Maybe I missed it but I have a few topics I would like to Add to wiki. How do I create a new subject definition? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Edemardil (talk • contribs) 18:13, 15 February 2008 (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 Help:Starting a new page. You might also look at 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 18:36, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

Don't forget either, that Wikipedia is a wiki, but Wiki is not necessarily Wikipedia. Soxred93 | talk count bot 22:02, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

Image links

How do I create a link to an image without actually causing the image to appear? There are a few explicit images that I want to report to WP:AN asking that they be added to MediaWiki:Bad image list, but I don't know how to add the links to the page without causing the images to appear.--Urban Rose 19:21, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

Add a colon to the start of the link, thus: Image:Example.jpg. This also works with category and interwiki links. Algebraist 19:24, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

GFDL

how do i apply or get license asap Henslee57 (talk) 19:35, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

It’s not what you are asking, but I suspect that what you want is advice on how to avoid deletion of your article on the Guerilla Marketing Talk Radio radio program. Your article needs to demonstrate the notability of the subject with references in reliable sources that are independent of the subject. —teb728 t c 20:08, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

If that was not it then please be more specific about what you want. Maybe GFDL, WP:GFDL or something at Wikipedia:Copyrights is of help. PrimeHunter (talk) 22:51, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

Template

Would i be fine adding this userbox {{User:Terra/Section 56/Userbox}} template, on Wikipedia:Userboxes/Wikipedia in section 10 where it includes user's own made userboxes, i was going to add it, without asking but thought it may be best to ask first. Terra ^{Terra's talkpage} 20:07, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

It's hard for me to think of any objection, but the only way to be sure is to ask on User talk:Terra. You might as well, out of courtesy. I can't see any harm in asking. --Teratornis (talk) 20:21, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

Why ask on my own talkpage when i would be the only one seeing it. Terra ^{Terra's talkpage} 20:25, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

I've just added it to section 10 on Wikipedia:Userboxes/Wikipedia. Terra ^{Terra's talkpage} 20:35, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

Oops, I misread the question. The phrase "this userbox" had me thinking it was someone else's userbox (ordinarily people use "my" somewhere to refer to something they themselves made or possess), and "to ask" (without the "where") had me thinking you were going to ask on that user's talk page. My last chance to catch my error would have been to pay attention to your signature, but I find I have a harder time reading customized signatures. All the different fonts and color tend to throw me off. Yeah, that's my excuse. Stupidity on my part may have also been an issue. --Teratornis (talk) 20:53, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

putting a picture into my draft article

I want to upload my own pictures into an atricle i am drafting. These pictures are in my own computer, taken by myself, and I have no problem in putting them in the public domain. How do I get these pictures from my computer file into my draft user subpage?Adrian142 (talk) 20:40, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

• If you want to add an existing image to an article, type [[Image:File name.jpg|right|Optional caption.]] to the article – replacing File name.jpg with the actual file name of the image, right with the alignment of the image on the page and Optional caption with the caption, which of course, is optional. See our picture tutorial for more information.
• If you want to upload an image from your computer, to put in an article, you must find out what license the image is licensed under. If you know your image is licensed under a free-license, upload it to the Wikimedia Commons, where all projects have access to the image. If you are unsure what license your image is licensed under, see the file upload wizard for more information. Also, please read Wikipedia's image use policy, because if you upload the image under a false license, you may be blocked.

Hope this has helped. Xenon⁵⁴ 20:43, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

The above (canned?) answer might be confusing to someone who created his or her own images. In that case, the user is the person who gets to choose a suitable license. (As an aside, this is another reason why I would like to modify the standard response templates so they clearly look like messageboxes, rather than looking like they are spontaneous replies.) --Teratornis (talk) 20:59, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

we use "cammed" answers because we are volunteers: There are only a few of us. To the original questioner: If you own it, then you may upload it under the appropriate license. After you upload it, you may it to any article.-Arch dude (talk) 05:04, 16 February 2008 (UTC)

I understand why we use canned answers, and I don't use the term as a pejorative; I was one of the people who suggested organizing and expanding our early collection of these templates. I think these templates would be more effective if they clearly identified themselves as templates, for these reasons:

• The Help desk must continuously recruit new volunteers to replace experienced volunteers who move on to other work. Since we have no formal training program for Help desk volunteers, they must educate themselves. We have a page of instructions, but I suspect the main training resource for new volunteers is the Help desk itself - they learn to answer questions by reading other users' answers. If standard response templates display themselves like ordinary human-written text, new volunteers may take longer to realize we have standard response templates.
• People who ask questions on the Help desk are themselves potential users of templates. They may become Help desk volunteers eventually, or they may recognize a use for standard response templates in some other part of Wikipedia. If they don't recognize a standard response template for what it is when they see one here, we may delay their recognition of this useful technique.
• Templates that look like messageboxes can use some helping templates that add links to make them easy to edit.
• Wikipedia is for the most part a transparent system. Not only is it possible to see how almost everything on Wikipedia works, Wikipedia facilitates this by providing visible clues that encourage exploration. We are not being as transparent as possible if we substitute a template that looks like a human-edited reply. I don't see any benefit from trying to fool people. Showing people that we use standard response templates conveys important meta-information about Wikipedia:
  • Some questions come up so often that we have canned answers for them. We know this, but brand-new users might not. New users should realize they are on a well-trodden path, and a big part of learning Wikipedia is learning how to look up answers to questions.
  • We have an efficient mechanism for handling repetitive work. A new user might later run into some different repetitive problem amenable to similar methods.
  • Canned replies have to be general, and thus might contain some information not relevant to a user's situation. If the canned reply clearly identifies itself as such, the potential for misunderstanding decreases - we would be telling the user to use some judgment when reading the reply.

Again, I don't see anything wrong with telling people we are giving them canned replies. Everyone who uses Wikipedia should realize they're not paying $100/hour for commercial support, we're doing it all for free, so we have to use every possible method to reduce our labor. And we have some pretty clever methods. I'm proud of our methods and I think we should promote them. Anyway, the least disruptive way for me to illustrate my point would be to make alternate versions of some of our standard response templates that look like messageboxes. Then our volunteers can use whichever style of template they prefer, possibly leading to an eventual consensus when we might choose to standardize our collection on style or another. Since we need all the volunteers we can get, the last thing I want to do is alienate anyone. --Teratornis (talk) 21:40, 16 February 2008 (UTC)

Reporting bugs?

With regards to the problems mentioned earlier here and here, is there a technical help desk to report Wikipedia bugs? -- Matthew | talk | Contribs 21:27, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

The process for bug reports and feature requests for Wikimedia is described on this page. —Noah 21:49, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

I've got a question...

I came across this (01:50, 5 February 2008 (hist) (diff) m Wikipedia:Non-administrator rollback‎ (Remove random line) (top)) and removed the phrase strike through text, but I don't know what stuff like this is about. Can someone tell me please? Andrew Kanode (talk) 21:28, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

It was added by User:Random832 here, probably as a result of accidentally clicking the 13th button above the edit window. Algebraist 21:58, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

Maybe you are asking about the markup: If you add "<s>strike through text</s>" in the edit window, you get "strike-through text" in the article. —teb728 t c 22:33, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

Thanks! Andrew Kanode (talk) 01:33, 16 February 2008 (UTC)

Image link is broken now

I had uploaded our U's logo. It is named University_of_Northwestern_Ohio_logo.jpg earlier today and it seemed to work. I went ahead and put it into the article and all seemed well there too. Now it is later and I wanted to add some more content. I noticed that the logo image was "X"ed out in IE. When I went back to the logo page, it was "X"ed out there too, the link was now broken, like the file wasn't there anymore. I'm not sure now how to fix it. I would like to upload a couple more pictures but I want to make sure that I'm doing it correctly. Can someone look at what I've done to see if I did something wrong so that I upload the other pictures correctly? Or, do I just need to upload and replace again?

Thanks for any help you can provide.  :-) —Preceding unsigned comment added by LeBlancJ (talk • contribs) 21:52, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

It would appear Firefox does not like displaying the image or the server doesn't like serving it. I get this error when clicking on the link in the image page: The image “http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/5/5e/University_of_Northwestern_Ohio_logo.jpg” cannot be displayed, because it contains errors." You might try re-uploading it. —Noah 22:03, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

It doesn't look like it's uploaded properly. Image:University of Northwestern Ohio logo.jpg is a red "x". You probably saw it when you first uploaded because it was still in your computer's cache memory. Corvus cornix_talk 22:05, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

There is definitely something goofy with the version you uploaded. I was able to download it by right-clicking and doing Save As. I then opened the jpeg and resaved it (using Gimp), it went from 500kb to 8kb. I would recommend doing the same thing. —Noah 22:10, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

The second version you uploaded was somehow broken. I reverted to the first. —teb728 t c 22:14, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for you all's help! After looking at the image again, there was definately something wrong with it as it was given to me. I opened it in GIMP and resaved it. Now the file size looks correct. Maybe there was some artifact left in it from when the marketing guys were constructing it. Just uploaded it again. Hopefully all is well now. —Preceding unsigned comment added by LeBlancJ (talk • contribs) 15:00, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

Permanently block my IP address

I am the tech administrator for a private school in California, and none of the edits from our shared IP addresses have been useful. To discourage these sorts of edits while still allowing access to wikipedia, I was wondering if there is any way to permanently block our IP address from anonymous edits. That way if someone wants to make a useful edit, they can do so using an account. Thanks!

Ampersand17 (talk) 22:13, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Blocking policy. I don't know the IP's in question but we don't like blocks to hit innocent people. It can take a lot to block a shared IP address, and such blocks are rarely long. PrimeHunter (talk) 22:58, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

At my school, the IP adress is registered as something which makes people log in before they edit. When I forget to log in and try to edit, a Wikipedia page comes up with a template on it that states I have to log in to make a contribution. I will look on Monday and see if I can help. In the mean time, does anyone know what I'm talking about? Zrs 12 (talk) 00:19, 16 February 2008 (UTC)

Yes, in the event of shared IP addresses or school addresses, a "soft block" can be made that only blocks non-registered users. However, the blocking policy specifically states "IP addresses should rarely, if ever, be blocked indefinitely." Many people prefer to make anonymous contributions for various reasons, but still edit constructively. Those people cannot edit if their IP is indefinitely soft blocked. Admins also do not block on request of the intended blockee. Hersfold ^(t/a/c) 00:42, 16 February 2008 (UTC)

Actually, the best way to do this would be for you, as tech administrator, to block your computers (or network control point) from accessing URLs at wikipedia.org containing "&action=edit". That will stop all editing from your network, but sill allow reading Wikipedia. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Prodego (talk • contribs) 03:36, 16 February 2008 (UTC)

That approach would block logged-in as well as anonymous edits. —teb728 t c 03:44, 16 February 2008 (UTC)

Well yes, but I assume that is the idea here, no? Block Wikipedia editing in general. Prodego ^talk 03:47, 16 February 2008 (UTC)

Read the original post. —teb728 t c 03:53, 16 February 2008 (UTC)

It's certainly technically possible. You'd need proof that you were the administrator (maybe by sending an email from an address associated with the school), and to let us know what the IP address(es) is/are. The correct place for such requests would be the administrator's noticeboard. --ais523 20:04, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

"Reply here" talk page convention?

I prefer not to have conversations split across talk pages. If a user posts to my talk page, then I prefer to respond there; if I post to another user's talk page, I ask them to respond there and I watch the page for a while. Explicitly stating this policy in every new conversation is tedious, and there must be other editors who agree. But I haven't found any standardized etiquette, convention, guideline, user talk page template, etc. that expresses it. Is there one? (Reply here, if you like. ;) Joshua R. Davis (talk) 23:30, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

{{Usertalkback}}, when placed on the top of your talkpage, will alert users to your talkpage procedures. See the template page for details on parameters - it can be modified to suit anyone's preferences.Xenon⁵⁴ 00:21, 16 February 2008 (UTC)

You might also find WP:MULTI helpful. It links to a single point within the talk page guidelines. CounterFX (talk) 12:17, 16 February 2008 (UTC)

Thanks, both of you. Joshua R. Davis (talk) 16:56, 16 February 2008 (UTC)

flyordie was deleted

one of the admins Andronic deleted this article because he said it was not important who <personal attack removed - Corvus cornix_talk 00:07, 16 February 2008 (UTC)—Preceding unsigned comment added by Chip1990 (talk • contribs) 23:54, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

Always WP:AGF. It was deleted under WP:SD I'm assuming. Those are tagged by users, placed in a category and then admins delete them if they meet the criteria for speedy deletion. What was the given violation on your talk page? Wisdom89 _{(T / ^C)} 00:31, 16 February 2008 (UTC)

Actually it was deleted for not asserting / indicating importance, not because it "wasn't important". See Wikipedia:Notability (web) for the criteria for web sites. • Anakin ^(talk) 01:47, 16 February 2008 (UTC)

And see Wikipedia:Conflict of interest if you are associated with the site. PrimeHunter (talk) 01:59, 16 February 2008 (UTC)