Wikipedia:Help desk/Archives/2008 February 23

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February 23

login problem

while I did create an account, and perhaps cannot remember my password or even loginname, your help site for resolving such issues is incomprehensible and unusable. Short of attempting to create a new account, how can you help me resolve this? ALSO, you should not make it so easy to create an account without telling people how difficult it will be to login later! Randy Bedore, Shorewood (Milwaukee) Wisconsin <email removed> EDIT: even the submission of this help page in incomprehensible!!!—Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.210.142.59 (talk) 00:55, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

We already have 48,354,103 accounts. Another one is no problem. Just create it and write down username and password. PrimeHunter (talk) 01:36, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

Really its not hard to log in, just remember your Username and password, and set your enter in your email address, so if you forget your password you have it reset. Also this help desk is run by volunteers, unlike most other helpdesks, and I think the service that we provide here goes above and beyond what is required.--Kerotan^{Leave Me a Message} Have a nice day :) 01:41, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

Well, the Help desk does require a new user to do something he or she might never have done before: edit a wiki page. A person must have some understanding of wiki editing before being able to ask a question. That is a little bit of a barrier to someone who is brand new, and already confused about whatever problem motivated the trip to the Help desk in the first place. A new user has to process this whole complex page using only short term memory, and that can be a strain. A word of advice to Randy: if you haven't already, try working through the tutorial. --Teratornis (talk) 07:38, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

Signature

Is there any offical place where I can get people to help code a new signature for me? I'm kinda bored of this one. BonesBrigade 03:48, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

Here you go:

[[User:BonesBrigade|]]([[User talk:BonesBrigade|Talk]])

Enjoy. Now you can get back to working on the encyclopedia! Cheers, TenOfAllTrades(talk) 04:43, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

Article That Needs a Lot of Clean-Up

I found a Wikipedia article that needs a lot of clean-up, and the only editing I’d done before was correcting grammar and spelling, so I’m not exactly sure what to do. I don’t know how to place clean-up messages and if all the relevant ones should be placed in it. The article is "Inventive Spelling". It is biased nearly throughout in favor of inventive spelling, for instance, “[Traditional spelling] instruction does not tend to improve students' spelling on any words except those on the test,” is unsubstantiated and absurd. (My classmates and I learned it this way and developed excellent spelling skills in general.) I did add one item to the list of costs, though. It has two weasel-word phrases, “some research has shown”and “many educators argue.”Several sentences require citation. The references given are bare URLs, one of which is a broken link. I don’t have enough experience yet or good enough writing skills to overhaul an article. So, what should I do?

I would suggest do some research and then start from there. Read a couple other articles like that to get a basic feel for how the formating should be and other stuff. Btw i already added a buuuuunch of tags as that will give you some ideas on what to work on. BonesBrigade 04:26, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

Inappropriate use of templates

What should we do when we see (assumedly unintentional) inappropriate use of templates? I'm thinking of situations like Talk:Andrew Harris (musician)#Continual Reverts of Off-topic & unencyclopedic entries. Talk pages should not be categorized as guidelines, right? Libcub (talk) 04:37, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

What about User pages, such as User:Cuyler91093/The Abridged Guide to Wikipedia. Is that an appropriate use of the Template:Guideline? Libcub (talk) 04:40, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

I've removed the guideline templates from the talk page - The editor there was apparently trying to link to those guidelines, but did it in a really odd way. As for the user page, I think that should be tagged as an {{essay}}, but I'll leave it to the user to fix. You can ask them about it on their talk page if you like. Hersfold ^(t/a/c) 07:11, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

Height/Weight conversions in infoboxes

There is some dispute over whether to use height/weight coversion templates in wrestlers articles. The template does not use them, but some people insist on using them because some other infoboxes on Wikipedia use them. One of the problems I have with weight coversion template is that it adds their weight in Stones. Stones is a weight measurement that is no longer officially used. There are some people in Commonwealth countries who unofficially still use it, but using it would be like using other abandoned measurements like Koku. Any comments or suggestions? TJ Spyke 05:53, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

You could just use the {{convert}} template which will show just kg and pounds. —Noah 06:00, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

What has official got to do with communicating information? We don't add Fahrenheit, for example, because it is used officially somewhere, but because a lot of sources and editors use it. Of course, SI units should always be used in an article even if other units are used too; these are the only ones that are used on the basis of being 'official', but really because they are internationally known. 79.74.27.178 (talk) 01:00, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

Indenting

How do i align sentences? See here: Template:Malaysian general election, 2008. If u see under "National Front" there are a number of parties under this banner which have been indented. Then comes "United Pasok Momogun Kadazandusun Sabah", which is too long, and takes up two lines. The second line is not indented. How do i indent this? I tried reading {{indent}}, but its impossible to understand. kawaputra^torque 07:20, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

That's a good question. The long entry will wrap if your browser window is not wide enough. The line does not wrap when I view it at a screen width of 1200 pixels. Since we cannot predict how wide the viewer's window will be, we cannot predict where the line will break. It might be possible to manually force the line to break within the table cell, but I'm not sure. The indented lines use non-breaking spaces to create the indents:    , which is not the best method, since it only indents the first line in a table cell if the cell contents end up wrapping. I can't think of a good answer immediately. --Teratornis (talk) 07:45, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

I looked at {{Indent}}; the documentation is not exactly a masterpiece of clear technical writing. I suggest making a user sandbox page like: User:Kawaputra/Sandbox, copy {{Malaysian general election, 2008}} to your Sandbox page, and then you can safely experiment there, without possibly messing up whatever pages transclude the actual template. --Teratornis (talk) 07:53, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

Thanks again for answering. Oh, so i must be using a narrow screen monitor. Ya, i might try some of the templates found in {{indent}}. I have tried some but it didnt work. I'll c what else i can do. kawaputra^torque 09:58, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

dispute

Why is an article protected when there is a dispute involving its subject? 124.181.45.149 (talk) 07:39, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

See WP:PROT. --Teratornis (talk) 07:46, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

Even though you've been directed to the above link, let's just say that protection for a short period of time prevents inflammatory edit warring and allows consensus to be reached via mediation and discussion between the editors involved. It's also a means of stability during an instable time. Wisdom89 _{(T / ^C)} 07:53, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

Problem article Pancreas--not sure what to do

So I looked up the article on Pancreas and got the following: This. Not sure what to do with it, so I thought I'd start here :). --Silvaran (talk) 08:11, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

Looks as though someone vandalized the page, I have reverted it back to its regular previous state and warned the anonymous user. Wisdom89 _{(T / ^C)} 08:16, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

If you come across something like that again, just use the history section to compare an older version to the most recent. This gives you the option of rolling back to a previous version. Wisdom89 _{(T / ^C)} 08:17, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

OK thanks very much, I'll do a more thorough check on the history next time.--Silvaran (talk) 08:21, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

Filtering recent change

Is it possible to filtre recent changes? For example, I can view only the recent changes on terrorism related articles? Or only the recent changes on United States related articles? Is it possible? Otolemur crassicaudatus (talk) 08:27, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

Special:Recentchangeslinked will give you edits to pages in a certain category or to pages that are linked from on the target page; for example: Special:Recentchangeslinked/Category:Terrorism and Special:Recentchangeslinked/United States. Hope this helps. WODUP 10:05, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

You can use this trick to create a sort of customised watchlist - make a subpage of your userpage (e.g. User:Otolemur crassicaudatus/Watch1), and fill it with links that you want to watch. Then click on "Related changes" in the sidebar when you're on that page, and voila! Confusing Manifestation(Say hi!) 11:50, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

Update Required "Democracy"

Address: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democracy

The status of Pakistan is shown as "not free" which is ridiculous. Recently democratic elections took place and a new government is ruling so please update. Pakistan is a democratic country and is FREE. I am a borned citizen as to confirm this. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.188.240.67 (talk) 10:25, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

If you mean the second map in the History section, then it looks like it was based on a study that took place before the recent election. If you can find a reliable source which declares that Pakistan is now democratic, then you can go to the article's talk page (Talk:Democracy) and discuss making the change there. Confusing Manifestation(Say hi!) 11:48, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

Regarding Chennai Tamil portal

Dear sir/madam

I found so many vulgar words in Chennai Tamil portal. Kindly delete that kind of words. Because it will affect our Tamil Language. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 59.145.125.100 (talk) 11:01, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

I'm not entirely sure what you mean. I looked at the article on Chennai, and the Tamil Nadu portal, and didn't see any vulgarity. Wherever you saw it, it's likely that the page was vandalised recently. When you see that, you can revert it to a previous, hopefully clean version, yourself. Confusing Manifestation(Say hi!) 11:46, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

Sir What i am saying is, You just enter the wikipedia search box as "Chennai Tamil", and the chennai tamil portal will open and you can see the chennai tamil language in table. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 59.145.125.100 (talk) 03:46, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

Chennai Tamil redirects to Madras Tamil which is an article and not a Wikipedia:Portal. But I can see that Madras Tamil does have many vulgar alleged English translations. I don't know the language but I guess vandals had fun with the article by either picking vulgar Madras Tamil expressions or making fake English translations. Sorry but I don't have time to deal with this now. Hopefully somebody else does. PrimeHunter (talk) 04:03, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

Dear Moderator

Reg. vulgarism in the article "Chennai Tamil"

Vulgar in the sense that the article uses more derogatory and vulgar terms referring to sexual intercourse and genitalia. Not all people in Chennai speaks like this only the slums and fishermen do...Please refer to the word "thevdia paya"'s example...Tamil is a divine language and as Tamilians we strongly object this article. Contact any Tamil moderator and delete the vulgarism in this article —Preceding unsigned comment added by 59.145.125.100 (talk) 12:44, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

Dear Moderator

or else pls change the title as "Vulgar words in Tamil"! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 59.145.125.100 (talk) 12:57, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

I don't know the language. Are the Tamil words real and correctly translated to English, and the problem is only the selection of Tamil words? PrimeHunter (talk) 13:49, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

Inapporiate Images

The following images should be removed due to racist nature. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Maome.jpg#file

Pictures of Prophets are not ALLOWED and are RACIST!

Islam does not allow images of Holy people to be recreated in any matter form or way. These images and possibly others should be removed immidiantly. —Preceding unsigned comment added by -N34 (talk • contribs) 11:10, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

Your concern is appreciated. However, Wikipedia is not censored for sexual, violent, racial or religious material. See Talk:Muhammad/FAQ for some frequently asked questions relating to images of Muslim prophets. Confusing Manifestation(Say hi!) 11:42, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

Also see Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)#Muhammad image controversy, a proposal to revisit. • Anakin ^(talk) 12:24, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

Bad selection of colours in <source> rendering

Maybe it's just me, but some of the text colours used in <source> listings are almost invisible against the grey background. Here's an example:

void foo()
{
  s.cyan = 0;
  s.text = 0;
  s.is = 0;
  s.almost = 0;
  s.impossible = 0;
  s.to = 0;
  s.see = 0;
}

If the cyan text looks OK to you, then perhaps this rendering might illustrate the problem a bit better.

Would it be possible to change these colours so that they stand out from the background a bit more reliably? Or is there any way I can set up a custom stylesheet to change the settings in my own browser? -- Sakurambo 桜ん坊 13:39, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

Never mind — I added this to my monobook.css file and things look a lot better now.

.source-cpp .me1 { color:#499; }
.source-cpp .me2 { color:#499; }

(Although I still think it would be a good idea to change the default colours) -- Sakurambo 桜ん坊 14:10, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

Infobox is messed up

Kanzi
File:Kanzibonobbbbo.jpg Kanzi of the Bonobos
Born	(1980-10-28) October 28, 1980 Georgia State University

Why are some parameters not showing up, and why are we getting all those extra curly brackets at the end? I've been scratching my head about this all morning.....--The Fat Man Who Never Came Back (talk) 15:13, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

WP:PURGE fixed the problem, no thanks to any of you :-P.--The Fat Man Who Never Came Back (talk) 16:36, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

You never know, slightly more civility might get you a faster response next time - anyway, it can't hurt. SpinningSpark 18:56, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

I wasn't uncivil until after no one answered my question--and even then I was only kidding. So I doubt extra "civility" would have impelled users to my aid in this case.--The Fat Man Who Never Came Back (talk) 19:58, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

So the section name was civil? Thanks, George D. Watson (Dendodge).Talk^{Help and assistance} 20:03, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

It was maybe a tad vulgar. But my question was perfectly polite. I didn't insult anyone. Until later.--The Fat Man Who Never Came Back (talk) 20:06, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

OK, just be more careful next time. Thanks, George D. Watson (Dendodge).Talk^{Help and assistance} 20:18, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

I'll be way more fucking careful next time. Thank you for your understanding.--The Fat Man Who Never Came Back (talk) 20:24, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

A more likely explanation of why no one replied is that he waited only a little over an hour—during which time the only post was the question in the next section. Obviously no one was monitoring the page during that time. His problem is more patience than civility. —teb728 t c 20:28, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

I think so too. When I decided I couldn't wait longer, I tried WP:PURGE (because that seems to be a generic solution for every sort of display problem), and it worked.--The Fat Man Who Never Came Back (talk) 20:38, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

Trying to add references

Hello,

We are trying to add references/footnotes to an article. We hit the <ref/ref> button which did add the reference number (ie. [1]) but when we added the link url within the designated area (something like add footnote text here) and then saved the page, the footnote numbers appear but not the actual links below the Wikipedia text. Nor are the footnote numbers clickable. How do we get the reference/footnote numbers to link to the actual footnote/reference below? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Mass Animal Rights Coalition (talk • contribs) 16:07, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

What article are you working on? Not being able to see the article, I can't exactly answer your question. Is there a Reference section towards the bottom? Does it have "reflist" inside a pair of brackets? I place the reference website and then one space and then a plain text description of the website. Rocketmaniac ^RT 17:02, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

To make that a bit clearer, I think Rocketmaniac is saying write

==References==

{{reflist}}

at the bottom of the page, but before any categories, templates or language links. SpinningSpark 18:52, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

Yea, that is what I was trying to say. I just now learned how to type "code" without it actually taking affect. If you tell us what article you are working on, we might be able to help you more. Rocketmaniac ^RT 01:19, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

See WP:FOOT. --Teratornis (talk) 19:03, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

Can I get an electronic copy of a Wikipedia database?

Does wikipedia provide access to an electronic database? More specifically, I am looking for a database, preferably in Excel, of a database of colleges and universities in every country except the USA. I require only limited field - Country/collegeor university name/ city or town. If I could also get the province, that would be ideal but not necessary.

Thanks for any help/advice you can provide.

Peter PfdBoston (talk) 16:50, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

I presume not, and databases would usually be access files anyway. Thanks, George D. Watson (Dendodge).Talk^{Help and assistance} 17:28, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

I believe you can do this. See WP:DUMP. SpinningSpark 18:36, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

A lot of the information you want is probably available via a WP:DUMP, but because Wikipedia is not a structured wiki nor a semantic wiki, the information you want may not be conveniently available in Wikipedia's database. See mw:Manual:Database layout for details. The information you want may have some structure, in the form of infobox templates, category links, and so on, but extracting it and turning it into an Excel database would require some heavy-duty programming, since lots of different people edit Wikipedia's articles and they may present the same types of data in various ways. --Teratornis (talk) 01:37, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

See the links under WP:EIW#Querie. You might get lucky with something there. Such as maybe:

• Online version of dbpedia.org - structured information extracted from Wikipedia

--Teratornis (talk) 01:40, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

Use of Information

Resolved

I have written some text that could be added to the Ottowa page on wikipedia on my website:

• The Future of Ottowa <link disabled>

Could I use it on Wikipedia? Regards, --PUuoYeviGannoGreveN (talk) 17:24, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

Only if you're willing to give up any copyrights on the text and release it into the public domain. Thanks, George D. Watson (Dendodge).Talk^{Help and assistance} 17:29, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

But is the acutual text on my website appropiate for wikipedia? --PUuoYeviGannoGreveN (talk) 18:53, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

What text? I will issue an official warning on your talk page. Thanks, George D. Watson (Dendodge).Talk^{Help and assistance} 19:24, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

I SERIOUSLY ADVISE USERS not TO CLICK THE ABOVE LINK! Thanks, George D. Watson (Dendodge).Talk^{Help and assistance} 19:28, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

Controlling the colours of links

Resolved

I would appreciate it if someone could tell me where to find a userscript or something that would let me control the colours of different kinds of links, specifially to make links I've previously visited show up in a bolder colour. When doing disambiguation link repair, I need to find the previously-visited link which is the disambiguation page, and I find it hard to spot because it's a purple which looks to me a lot like either the plain black text or like ordinary blue links. I'd like to be able to set it to red or something just while doing disambiguation. I'm using the browser Mozilla Firefox 2.0.0.12. Thanks. --Coppertwig (talk) 18:03, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

Edit User:Coppertwig/monobook.css (or change monobook to whatever skin you use) and add: a:visited { color: #777;}. This will make all visited links gray. You can adjust the #777 to whatever color you like. - SigmaEpsilon → ΣΕ 18:17, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

It works! Thanks! I now see that that help page Help:User style sort-of explains that, though not really. --Coppertwig (talk) 20:39, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

Duty Counsel - error/ommission

Family duty counsel exists in Canada as well as criminal. We assist unrepresented parties in the courts with legal informations, forms and advice on family law matters for free if the clent is low-income. We can appear in court on uncontested or consent matters. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.70.237.13 (talk) 19:40, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

What does that have to do with Wikipedia? It is blatant advertising, which has no place on Wikipedia and is against wiki guidelines. Thanks, George D. Watson (Dendodge).Talk^{Help and assistance} 19:44, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

I'm pretty sure the OP is referring to our brief article on Duty counsels, which seem to be similar to a duty solicitor or public defender - I think this is a good faith attempt (perhaps imperfectly expressed) to correct the article which does only currently mention their responsibility in criminal justice cases. I'll see if I can find a reference to add it to the article. --Kateshortforbob 20:52, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

OK, I'm sorry about the misunderstanding. I didn't mean to bite. Next time, please post on the article's discussion page to avoid confusion. Thanks, George D. Watson (Dendodge).Talk^{Help and assistance} 20:58, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

Just wanted to let you know I added a little bit. 24.70.237.13, if there's more information you think should be there, you can do as Dendodge suggested and mention it on the article's discussion page or even add it yourself; in case you didn't know, Wikipedia is the encyclopedia that everyone can edit, and we love it when editors add new information - with sources, of course! Feel free to ask if you need any help --Kateshortforbob 21:15, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

Seventh-Day Adventist Church

What is the best thing to do when the majority of editors of a wikipedia page are in a conflict of interest over their power to control the content of the page?

In this case the editors in control of the Seventh-Day Adventist Church page are:

1. Blatantly removing content on the page which they see as embarrassing about their organization, and reorganizing the page to exclude topics that they don't like.
2. Adding content which merely promotes their organization.
3. Refusing to allow others to add information to the page that they do not like, regardless whether it can be backed up with fact and citations.
4. Refusing to make their page consistent with information on other related pages. (for instance, although the page on Restorationist church clearly states that Seventh-Day Adventism is a restorationist church, and as do many online ans offline sources, they refuse to articulate this on the page because they disagree with this.)

I am not an antagonist of their church. I am just fed up with certain users of wikipedia with a clear conflict of interest taking control over a page to ensure that their organization is promoted, as well as removing and ignoring objective information that they do not like. 24.83.90.35 (talk) 20:14, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

If the state of things is still relatively calm, the standard list of things to do when in an editing conflict are:

• Try and work it out civilly on the talk page for the article
• Try and contact the editors directly via their talk pages and work it out -- flexibility and creative thinking are key here
• Ask an experienced editor for help at Editing Assistance
• Take your case to Incident's Noticeboard

Good luck, —Noah 21:22, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

The Editor's index has lots of links under WP:EIW#Dispute. For example, see: Wikipedia:Controversial articles. As Wikipedia grows in importance and visibility, it's a wonder everyone with an ax to grind isn't trying to grind it here. Note that religious people have a particular challenge, because faith (at least among the Abrahamic religions) is fundamentally opposed to the neutral point of view. I suspect we can thank wikitext, in part, for having fewer disputes than we might be having: Wikipedia is baffling enough to the average person that it probably impedes many groups of religious or political fanatics from organizing quickly to commandeer articles. However, this process has already played out on some topics. For example, some creationists and conservatives slugged it out on Wikipedia before deciding Wikipedia's point of view was a bit too neutral for their tastes, so they left and started CreationWiki and Conservapedia, respectively. It sounds like these Seventh Day Adventists are earlier in this process, which may culminate eventually in a bunch of them leaving to set up a Seventh Day Adventist wiki where they won't have to pretend to be neutral (here's one that uses TikiWiki). If you want to confront them effectively, you'll have a harder time doing it from an IP address. Do you have an account? If not, I suggest creating one, and then start a user sub-page on which you document the behavior which you believe violates Wikipedia policy. Sorting out these disputes takes work, and you can help by documenting the offenses. --Teratornis (talk) 01:21, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for your help guys. Yes I do have an account on my home computer. I will try to work things out with those guys. I think that it is terrible for people to use wikipedia to promote any kind of propoganda. 209.121.155.196 (talk) 11:15, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

You might look at: Wikipedia:WikiProject Atheism which says:

• We will also help prevent religion-based censorship throughout Wikipedia.

You may be able to enlist some unholy warriors to help you there. --Teratornis (talk) 19:14, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

Editing a box in an article

I'm trying to figure out how to edit the contents of the box at the top right of the article on the Nuclear program of Iran. It's a bulleted collection of links, but there does not appear to be any corresponding text in the article when I click "edit this page." I'd like to add some links and delete others. NPguy (talk) 20:24, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

Go to page Template:Nuclear program of Iran. If you edit that, it will change the box on the page you were looking at. It's transcluded into that page with {{Nuclear program of Iran}} which appears near the top of the page within the edit box. However, note that that box is also included in several other pages. Go to the template page I just mentioned, then click "what links here" at the left, and you'll see a list of pages that include it. All those pages will be affected too if you edit the box. Thanks for contributing to Wikipedia! --Coppertwig (talk) 20:28, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

Br

Is there any difference between the tags <br>, <br/>, and <br /> (with a space)? Thanks, Reywas92^Talk 22:33, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

None
that
I know
of. ---CWY2190^TC 22:39, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

No, they are all turned into <br />.--Patrick (talk) 22:41, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

Possibly by HTML Tidy, which would possibly make them different on another MediaWiki wiki where the system administrator did not install HTML Tidy and set up the wiki to use it. I'm not 100% sure about this, but I do know that different wikis running on the MediaWiki software that powers Wikipedia may process HTML tags differently, depending on how their administrators set them up. --Teratornis (talk) 01:27, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

Not on Wikipedia. The first is invalid XHTML while the next two are valid XHTML and essentially the same, although I think the space is neater. All 3 are valid HTML, I think, although I don't think the latter two were used often before XHTML. x42bn6 Talk Mess 20:00, 24 February 2008 (UTC)