Wikipedia:Help desk/Archives/2011 December 30

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December 30

VPR discussion was archived without a clear consensus

I proposed Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)/Archive 82#Bot to maintain and auto update a list. Unfortunately it didn't lead to a consensus for this task, but I and another user agreed this task should have a consensus before being requested at botreq. That's also the reason why I put Wikipedia:Bot requests/Archive 44#Bot to maintain and auto update a list on hold. So what can I do? Should I just repost this proposal at VPR or should I post it at WP:VPI instead? Toshio Yamaguchi (talk) 00:27, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

WWI gas attack entry adolph Hitler

I made the correction but it was taken down. The statement is made in the article that about WWI gas attacks that Hitler was blinded by mustard gas. This has been proven to be factually inaccurate. I made the edit correction but did not know how to cite the source. I first found this in the web site nizkor project. It is also in an article by Tom Kelly mail online news: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2051829/Mental-illness-Hitler-blind-British-mustard-gas-attack.html One can just google 'Hitler hysterical blindness mustard gas" and find source info. The original source document is a letter by Foster Kennedy md April 8 1943 Please make the appropriate corrections as the myth of Hitler's heroic service that resulted in temporary blindness has now been proven false-the only source material for this is Mein Kamf. He went to great lengths to perpetuate this lie and it is still bandied about as truth. Thank You, Pete — Preceding unsigned comment added by Petelh (talk • contribs) 00:29, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

I see you got the text in eventually. But I have edited your addition to Chemical weapons in World War I it to make it more neutral. You are not entitled to write "This claim was proven false" because of one new piece of research, however much store you set by that conclusion: that is WP:SYNTHESIS. I have changed it to say that new research has challenged the claim. --ColinFine (talk) 14:39, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

West Covina, California has five City Councilmembers

Councilmember/Mayor Michael Touhey, Mayor Pro Tem Sherri Lane, Councilmembers Shelley Sanderson, Steve Herfert and Fredrick Sykes.

Each City Councilmember serves as Mayor for one year at the discretion of the City Council (via quorum vote). Please see www.westcovina.org — Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.30.199.7 (talk) 01:05, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

Which page is this statement relating to? fredgandt 01:13, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

Pleadge Drive Redirect

Why, when I am trying to access a page and expand my knowledge, does it redirect to a donation page? I have already donated, and this is probably the most annoying and unethical thing I have ever seen on a non-commercial website. THIS IS FUCKING RIDICULOUS. I am utterly appalled by this BULLSHIT. FUCK YOU for doing this. It has made me decide to NEVER donate to you again, regardless of whether you change it in the future. It is completely unacceptable, and from this point forward I will do whatever I can to work towards this website's destruction because of it. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.244.158.241 (talk)

it does it because you are not logged in. If you log in with a username you can turn this feature off. Nasnema  Chat  08:12, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

It is entirely possible there is a technical error. There should be no automatic redirection happening. If you click the banner, your browser will go to another page, but not without clicking to go there. So, lets see if we can get to the bottom of what is causing your technical issues. First off, please don't shout at us. I am a nice chap and as a reader, find your statements directly abusive. Any complaints you wish to direct to the Wikimedia foundation, should be done by email. This is an Encyclopedia. fredgandt 08:14, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

And please don't swear at me. I'm another volunteer like you, and have done nothing to deserve your offensive abuse. --ColinFine (talk) 17:06, 1 January 2012 (UTC)

List of Governors-General of New Zealand

Can someone help me here?--46.246.152.170 (talk) 09:14, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

Please! Someone!--46.246.230.229 (talk) 12:45, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

If you want it restoring to the state that it was in before your edits, we can do that. - David Biddulph (talk) 12:54, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

I actually want the point of my edits (removing the acting ones) to be kept but the thechnical faults to be solved.--46.246.230.229 (talk) 13:03, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

IUST logo on enwiki

I made IUST logo using Inkscape and my work is far better than File:Iust.svg. Since Iran and the US have no copyright relations, this logo is probably in public domain in the US, but not in Iran. Recently, a discussion was taken place about this issue that can be found here. Can I upload my work here under a new name or should I overwrite it over the existing one? What license should I use? PD or fair use? AMERICOPHILE 09:29, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

Really thanks for your help! :-) Anyway I uploaded mu work under a new name. AMERICOPHILE 03:39, 31 December 2011 (UTC)

I removed this page from my watchlist. If you came up with a solution or idea, please post it on my talk page. Thanks again. AMERICOPHILE 04:09, 31 December 2011 (UTC)

How to redirect to James Law to James Law (Cybertecture)

Perhaps a common issue, but having a hard time finding the workaround solution.

By typing "James Law" on wikipedia, it goes to an archbishop of Glasgow.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Law

But the person I am looking for is actually "James Law (Cybertecture)"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Law_(Cybertecture)

How do I find James Law (Cybertecture) more conveniently? Is there a 'disambiguation' tool available? Thanks. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Cybertect (talk • contribs) 09:59, 30 December 2011 (UTC) — Cybertect (talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.

The archbishop is overwhelmingly the best-known person of that name, with dozens of other articles referring to the article about him; and therefore the article under simply James Law goes to the article on the archbishop. Even if the (rather spammy) article on you (or is it your boss?) is retained, there is no way that the article on the architect will be supercede that on the archbishop. If there are additional articles on genuinely notable persons named James Law, there would eventually be created an article called James Law (disambiguation) directing readers to the various James Laws of note. In the meantime, there is a "hatnote" at the archbishop's article, directing people to the architect article if that's what they are looking for. --Orange Mike | Talk 14:11, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

Photo Bomb on Jean Carmet

I've searched for a template to mark an image as a "| photo bomb", but couldn't find one. The image is the same on the French wikipedia page. Julien (talk) 11:02, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

What do you mean by photo bomb?--Shantavira|^{feed me} 13:00, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

See photobomb. The question is about the woman in the background of this image though I imagine this is just someone who was there and not an intentional "photobombing".--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 14:10, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

No reason somebody couldn't Photoshop her out and upload the derivative work. --Orange Mike | Talk 14:18, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

(e/c) The image is used here and at the French Wikipedia but is not hosted at either but it at the Wikimedia Commons so it can be used by all projects. I really don't know much about this but you might take a look at Commons:Media for cleanup.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 14:21, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

What about that extra finger at the bottom? I think this image has already been photoshopped. The subject's hands are at the top and right of the card so where does that extra finger at the bottom come from?--v/r - TP 14:22, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

• - cropped add added - Jean Carmet - Youreallycan (talk) 14:28, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

I put my photoshopping skillz (or lack thereof) to work.--v/r - TP 14:47, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

Why is it this way

I took this right off the wikipedia entry on wikipedia. "Almost all of its articles can be edited by anyone with access to the site"

Well I accessed the site, and have knowledge of the history of certain things I would like to edit on wikipedia, but when I do so, my information I added doesnt show up. Why is this, when you claim articles can be edited by anyone with access to the site. It must not be true then.

Also why cant regular everyday heroes post our own biographies on here. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 198.36.95.12 (talk) 13:43, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

Which article are you trying to edit? Also, see our policy on conflicts of interest in reference to your autobiography.--v/r - TP 13:49, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

History of fire fighting — Preceding unsigned comment added by 198.36.95.12 (talk) 13:58, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

I don't see an article on the History of Fire Fighting. Can you give me a link to the article? Are you trying to create an article?--v/r - TP 14:15, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

It is possible you are not seeing the results of your labours due to page caching. Users who have registered an account name and are logged in, see the most up to date version of all pages. However, users who are not logged in are served a cached version of the page, which may not show the most recent changes. It is strongly suggested that users create an account for editing Wikipedia for this and other reasons.

Did you mean History of firefighting? fredgandt 14:24, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

(e/c) I've created a redirect from the form of name used above to History of firefighting which is what this is apparently about. 198.36.95.12, if you familiarize with how page histories work, you should then be able to see where, when by whom and often why from the edit summary an edit was reverted.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 14:29, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

The simplest answer is that even if anyone can edit Wikipedia, not every edit is desirable (especially obvious vandalism or hoaxes), and all of us (experienced and inexperienced users alike) have to follow policies and guidelines in editing Wikipedia. The most important policies are:

• WP:Notability - subjects must be notable in order to write about it. You can not, for example, write about your favorite aunt if she has never been written about anywhere else, for the same reasons that you can not write biographies of every living person on the planet in Wikipedia. Subjects must comply with the criteria for inclusion first. In general, if you expect to find it in a paper encyclopedia, then it can safely be included in Wikipedia.
• WP:Verifiability - information about subjects must be verifiable from other sources. This means including references in your edit so readers can easily verify if the information you added exists or is correct. This excludes "personal knowledge", blogs, Wikipedia itself, and other primary sources and sites with user-generated content. The references used must be reasonably reliable and widely accessible (for example: books, academic journals, newspapers, specialist websites, etc.)
• WP:Neutral point-of-view - Wikipedia must not be used for any promotional purposes (notice that it does not have advertisements) or as a platform for soapboxing. It must not be used as a PR site to promote websites, products, companies, etc. You can still write about them, but the text must be neutral and give due weight to both positive and negative points, and they must adhere to all other policies. It is for this very reason that you are strongly discouraged from writing about yourself or someone or something close to you as it will almost invariably have some form of bias (including the bias in which you might consider something to be notable that others do not - e.g. your pet dog is important to you, not so much for other people).
• WP:Biographies of living persons - information about living persons must strictly adhere to all the above policies, as well as privacy laws of the United States where the Wikipedia servers are located (including protection from libel, etc.)

Failure to adhere to those policies will get your article deleted or your edit reverted on sight by other users who are also exercising their right to edit. You might not realize it, but Wikipedia is maintained by thousands of relatively anonymous volunteers like you (including the users here in the Help Desk who answer questions) who cull out such undesirable additions.-- Obsidi♠n Soul 15:48, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

History of firefighting has had no edits since Nov 21, has never been protected and has no entries in its deletion log. Perhaps you hit the "Show preview" button and didn't hit the "Save page" one. I've done that before myself. Rmhermen (talk) 16:08, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

Edit does not show

I have added content and references to existing article "Standard Operating Procedure". New content is verifyable. Edited article showed correctly after 'save' and 'view' but does not show anyone one day later. Is there anything I did wrong? Thank you. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jmuenzing (talk • contribs) 14:34, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

You have been spamming Wikipedia with references to your book; other editors have been removing them. --Orange Mike | Talk 14:40, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Your edit was reverted because: stop promoting your book on Wikipedia. Regards.--♫GoP♫_T^C_N 14:41, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

Actually, Wikipedia does not allow spamming or advertising. You should stop promoting on Wikipedia. --Katarighe (Talk · Contributions · E-mail) 14:53, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

The template (Portal box) is being considered for merging.

how fix The template (Portal box) is being considered for merging. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Lrtaher (talk • contribs) 14:48, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

I'm not sure what are you saying. Are you reporting that it needs merging the portal box. --Katarighe (Talk · Contributions · E-mail) 14:52, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

yes. its showing "The template (Portal box) is being considered for merging. ", but i dont know what to do for merging? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Lrtaher (talk • contribs) 14:54, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

The notice has a link to Wikipedia:Templates for discussion#Template:Portal box; that's the place to discuss the merger proposal. - David Biddulph (talk) 15:09, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

thanks--lrtaher (talk) 15:16, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

Help

I am a new user and know little about editing in Wikipedia, but have been tried to several articles, I contributed to the article 'Radha Krishna' but an user named ArounTheGlobe, is continuously, reverting my edits unnecessiarily, i added a picture to the same article , but he reverted it without any reason, I have seen many others writing to his talk page with the same complain.Please do the needful. --Jagadhatri 16:16, 30 December 2011 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jagadhatri (talk • contribs)

I took the frowned upon liberty of wikilinking the page reference in your comment. Hope you don't mind. fredgandt 16:38, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

I must say, I don't see the point of those reverts, and Aroun is not adequately explaining them in edit summaries. Both of you should be discussing this on the talk page of the article, Jagadhatri. --Orange Mike | Talk 16:41, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

AroundTheGlobe has said on Jagadhatri's talk page that the image is clogging up the article. I don't agree on that point but have no opinion otherwise. Dismas|^(talk) 16:43, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

I also do not agree with the reverts, the article has plenty of space and the picture does complement the text it is placed next to.-- Obsidi♠n Soul 16:58, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

updated info - blog action day

For some reason the blog action day website was suspended and I'm wondering why. Maybe you should find out why and update the info on that page:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blog_Action_Day — Preceding unsigned comment added by Cleacarchia (talk • contribs) 16:54, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

You should make the suggestion on the talk page of that article, rather than here, for maximum utility. --Orange Mike | Talk 17:04, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

Uploading Images

Hello, I have been trying for a few days to update some of the stub articles that fall under the Smith and Wesson pistols category. The problem I am facing is that my images never seem to be up to standard and are always removed. I could really use some help from an expert on how to make sure that these images are correctly filled out. Thanks. --Zackmann08 (talk) 17:08, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

It has nothing to do with image quality. It's about copyrights. Notice that pictures you took yourself and released under a free license are retained. In Wikipedia, donated pictures are highly appreciated and used wherever they can be used even if the quality is not the same as with professional photographs.

However, pictures you do not own the rights to or are not released under a free license compatible with Wikipedia are another matter. Please see Wikipedia:Non-free content and Wikipedia:Image use policy. While fair use images are accepted in the English Wikipedia due to US laws, they are undesirable and must be used only in very special circumstances.-- Obsidi♠n Soul 17:20, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

I do get that it doesn't have to do with the quality of the image. What about images that come from the manufacturer for the sake of advertisement. Surely these images are acceptable for use. Zackmann08 (talk) 18:38, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

Again, no, it's not as simple as that. These images are still copyrighted, and by using them you are essentially introducing non-free images into Wikipedia which ideally should only contain files that are completely free. This is necessary since Wikipedia content are often copied, printed, and sold as alternative offline means of distribution by private individuals or groups. This is something Wikipedia encourages (especially for regions without internet access) as part of its mission ("to empower and engage people around the world to collect and develop educational content under a free license or in the public domain, and to disseminate it effectively and globally."), though Wikipedia itself does not sell or profit from these copies. Add to that the problem that the authors may not agree to its use at all, which is basically copyright infringement. See Wikipedia:Non-free content#Explanation of policy and guidelines and WP:NFCI.

The problem is that the images you are using are replaceable which disqualifies it somewhat for fair use. You are better off taking pictures of the guns yourself if you have access to someone who owns one, or searching for freely licensed images through Google or in flickr and similar image databases. Personally, I try looking for suitable images online and then contact the author to persuade them to donate the images to Wikipedia and the public. I've been reasonably successful at this with pictures taken by users from flickr (people are generally willing to donate pictures they were not planning to sell in the first place).

To ensure that the images you want to use are acceptable, you might try asking at Wikipedia:Media copyright questions first.-- Obsidi♠n Soul 19:02, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

First off, Obsidian Soul, I want to thank you for taking the time to help me out! If I were to get in touch with Smith & Wesson to get permission to use their images, how would I go about showing this fact in the images that I upload. I.E. how do I prove that I have permission? --Zackmann08 (talk) 23:05, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

You're welcome of course. As for the procedures involved in proving that you have been given permission, you can follow the instructions outlined for the Open-source Ticket Request System in the English Wikipedia's sister site, Wikimedia Commons. The template given for Declaration of consent for all enquiries is highly recommended to avoid confusion in the permissions.

Once you have acquired permissions (i.e. the author has filled in the permissions template), simply send an email to permissions-commons@wikimedia.org (with the email exchange between you and the author and the filled in permissions template) and another volunteer will be in contact with you for clarification/further instructions.-- Obsidi♠n Soul 00:23, 31 December 2011 (UTC)

Letter to Jim Wales, founder of Wikipedia

Dear mr. Jim Wales, My name is Baicus Iulian, aka Mayuma I am a Asssistant Professor at Bucharest University, Faculty of Letter, I have been a professor for 15 years by now, I work at the Department of Literature and I had already published 8 books in Romanian language concerning important Romanian Writers, Classics or Contemporary. I have been a user and I contributed to Romanian Wikipedia for over 8 years, so I can say I a person that started the project my aim being to make Romanian Literature globalized, so I have made asking all my colleagues from Cluj and Iasi Universities and all Romanian writers I know, to contribute or to ask Romanian Writers to send their CV-s or to write articles on Wikipedia. I also contributed as a reviewer of Literature articles till last week when a group of users started a war against my data-base, their goal being to erase it on the bias there are to many Romanian writers in it, in fact the numbers are not so high because we talk about 500 years of Romanian literature. They are arguing with me and four of them, sysop or administrators started a vote against my personal page claiming I am not quite such a famous literary critic and Assistant Professor, even if I hold a PH.D. in Romanian Interbellum Literature, which I defended in 2002 in Bucharest University, I am a very well knowkn assistant professor, I attended one conference in Paris organized by professor Manolescu, who conducted my PH.D. thesis and at the moment is the ambassador of Romania at UNESCO in Paris. I suspect these 4 or five guys want to ruin all my work, I started to protest so they block me out and they manage to organize a sort coup de etat against me, it could be on an external influence, they don t have real names but pseudonymes. My initial belief that Wikipedia s goal was to globalize and transcend cultural borders is still here but I am very sorry this policy of notability is used now against old contributors. Because of this I am forced tu sue the four persons if they continue to harrass me and to bring them in front of a Romanian Court of Justice where they must bring a solid proof I have no notability, if there is no amiable solution to this conflict. I will not imply Wikipedia in this trial, but it depends on a judge opinion if they commited or not an act of calomny, I can t stand four unknown persons adress me such vulgar and irresponsible words. My hope is, dear mr. Wales, we can find a peaceful solution to this conflict and I adress to you this matter in order to find in you the person that can mediate this conflict, I have a high opinion on your idea to offer the whole world knowledge without any pay and I regret very much I have to quit the team that has created Romanian Wikipedia. =A Happy New Year! Sincerely yours, Iulian Baicus — Preceding unsigned comment added by 109.99.104.59 (talk) 18:29, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

In the first place you must retract your legal threat; Wikipedia does not tolerate legal threats. Secondly, Jimmy Wales is not likely to see your plea here. Also Romanian Wikipedia is a separate project; English Wikipedia does not control what they do there. —teb728 t c 18:59, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

Let me add: I don’t know what the policies and guidelines on Romanian Wikipedia are or what the details of your conflict there are, but let me tell you some things about English Wikipedia: We don’t welcome CVs, and we strongly discourage autobiographies, but we do accept neutral biographies of people who meet our notability guideline, particularly if they are written by another person. Your status as an academic would not give you any special authority here. —teb728 t c 19:17, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

If your conflict is over your autobiography, ro:Iulian Băicuș (Google translation), then by the standards of English Wikipedia:

The article lacks the references to reliable sources that English Wikipedia requires. You seem to be involved in an edit war over the article, which is not allowed on English Wikipedia even if you are right. If you think you can own the article, that would not be the case on English Wikipedia; on the contrary because of your conflict of interest you would be strongly discouraged here from editing the article directly. —teb728 t c 20:06, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

Have you tried Romanian Wikipedia’s Dispute resolution, ro:Wikipedia:Rezolvarea disputelor? —teb728 t c 21:57, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

Archive missing for June 2011

The daily news archive for June 2011 is missing all the other months are there but JUNE is blank 18:49, 30 December 2011 (UTC)~~ — Preceding unsigned comment added by 62.56.101.83 (talk)

I'm not sure what you mean. Can you provide a link to the blank page? TNXMan 18:59, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

Closet I could come up with is In The News, but the archive in question is present (although the latter half of 2011 is not, someone would probably appreciate help working through the backlog there). Яehevkor ✉ 19:41, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

Forcing a new line in an #if function

How do I start a new line at the beginning of an #if function? For example, in this case I want to start a new row of a table whenever example=yes:

{{#if:{{{example|}}}|
{{!-}}
{{!}} Example is yes.|}}

This won't work because the #if function does not recognize that the result has started until the first character. So, instead of the !- starting a new row, it adds a pipe in the same line and thereby creates a one cell with a lone hyphen and a second cell with "Example is yes.". I need to let it know to include the line break, but every solution that I have tried at Wikipedia:Help desk/Archives/2011 December 18#Tables with multiple consecutive conditional rows disturbs neighbouring rows. Thank you. —Arctic Gnome (talk • contribs) 20:19, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

I'm not certain, but I think this is an instance of Wikimedia bug 529, which was fixed in 2004; but it was found in 2008 that the fix broke rather more cases (bug 12974) and it was reverted. I can't follow the details of the discussion, but a fix was applied in January 2011 and then reverted a few days later. --ColinFine (talk) 20:49, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

I'm somewhat flimsy minded today, but is this a case where using html style comments could be useful? Something like...

{{#if:{{{example|}}}|<!-- -->
{{!-}}
{{!}} Example is yes.|}}

 fredgandt 21:21, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

It may even be possible to use HTML proper, similar to the solution at Wikipedia:Help desk/Archives/2011 December 18#Tables with multiple consecutive conditional rows. — Sebastian 21:27, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

Tables embedded in templates can drive you crazy with encoding the markup. I usually have the table chunks as subtemplates and invoke them as needed, that way I don't need templates such as {{!-}}. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 21:35, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

See m:Help:Table#Producing table syntax using templates and/or parser functions.--Patrick (talk) 01:01, 31 December 2011 (UTC)

Article Review

Hello,

I recently created an article on artificial cells and I would like to get some feedback on it. Where can I go for this?

Cheers,

Côtedesneiges (talk) 20:23, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

It looks very good on cursory inspection. However it's best if you ask the opinion of Wikipedians who are most familiar with the subject. In this case it would be the members of the WikiProjects the article falls under - Wikipedia:WikiProject Molecular and Cellular Biology, Wikipedia:WikiProject Microbiology, and perhaps Wikipedia:WikiProject Biology for an even wider audience.-- Obsidi♠n Soul 20:35, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

Please delete

I had made a Wikipedia article on the development page here and I want to delete it but I don't know how. I know that the people running Wikipedia can delete articles, so I was wondering if you could tag that page for deletion. I'd be very happy. Thanks, Nifiser (talk) 20:29, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

 Doing... TNXMan 20:30, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

 Done. If you wish to mark your own pages for deletion, simply place {{db-u1}} at the top of the page. TNXMan 20:31, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

Donation to Wikipedia

Twice in the past 10 minutes I've tried to heed your plea and make a small donation. Both time it got stuck while loading causing me to uninstall/reinstall Wikipedia both times. Help!

Dee Earl — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.72.153.120 (talk) 20:32, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

That problem is not at the Wikipedia end: it is with your browser or system. We probably cannot help, but to have any chance of doing so we need to know what operating system and Web browser you are using. --ColinFine (talk) 20:51, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

Database on company info

I'd like to build a database of companies, their subsidiaries, and the products they offer. Wikipedia seems to have good data on this in some cases, but not in a machine-readable format. The data offered in the info boxes at the top right (type, traded as, industry, etc.) and bottom (Products, Business Entities) would be most of what I'm looking for. Does this data exist in any format other than the standard Wikipedia text? I can download the database and try to parse the text but that's a huge pain, I'd like to avoid it if possible.

Jsilterra (talk) 21:13, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

Many articles about companies use Template:Infobox company. I don't know the technical details but see Template:Infobox company#Microformat and Template:UF-hcard-org. PrimeHunter (talk) 02:49, 31 December 2011 (UTC)

Defamation!

Dear Wikipedia Team

I am really angry about one article one of your "journalists" posted! When I graduated in 2004 (real and not paid as in your article) I was a proud student with optimistic eye to the future.

I graduated at Buxton University London - in distance education. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buxton_University That was a plus to me as at this time not so many organisations offered distance education in Europe. Still I visited the Campus

several times a year to come together with my tutor.

Well your article is a rumour and a defamation to all the students

that real and with hard learning made their degree.See at Facebook!!

Also all this students becomes more and more difficult to find a

job . Not only this one organisation sold degrees. When I was at

College in Zürich the Newspapers and the Radio showed that students

from the famous ETH Zürich and University Zürich bought their degree!

The reason for writing to you is that this article shall become deleted

- or to write it another way.

that way - that this Organisation also has real students -is my appreciation.

I am looking forward to hearing from you

Regards

Claudia (Redacted)

PS - I write only my first name not to land on such a defamation and rumor list too! I had enough troubles with this article in my career. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 178.198.133.103 (talk) 21:44, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

....So, what's the issue with the article? CTJF83 21:47, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

Whatever your issue with the article is, you should bring it up at Talk:Buxton University (are you sure you're not thinking of the University of Derby's Buxton campus?) Яehevkor ✉ 21:54, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

The article appears to be well-referenced. If you have reliable sources which give a different view of the institution, then the article should be edited to include this different view, but otherwise the article should stay as it is. --ColinFine (talk) 20:19, 31 December 2011 (UTC)

Lion fish

I recearched information about the Lion fish and did not find any info about what considers the lion fish as it's prey. Could please supply this info to me and update the information on your lion fish page? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.165.168.143 (talk) 22:36, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

Even though this should be in the Science Reference Desk, it's a simple enough question with a simple enough answer. Our lionfish article is at its genus name Pterois, and yes it has a pretty detailed section on its prey (small fish, invertebrates and mollusks).-- Obsidi♠n Soul 22:42, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

Ach, apologies. I misunderstood, you meant what predators prey on lionfish. I'll try to do a bit of research and update the article. Check back later.-- Obsidi♠n Soul 22:45, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

Big game hunter fish? With biological blunderbuss's? Their natural colouring is khaki, and they have a penchant for exaggerating the size of those that got away fredgandt 23:59, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

This one time, I caught one of those and it was about this huge!!! It broke my left collarbone, knocked out two of my front teeth, and ate the dog. It got away and I left the camera at home... honest.-- Obsidi♠n Soul 00:04, 31 December 2011 (UTC)

Finding Nemo 2: Gone fishing! fredgandt

Y Done Expanded the article.-- Obsidi♠n Soul 00:04, 31 December 2011 (UTC)

How to contact and comment on wikipedia policy

I've been going round in circles trying to find how to comment on the donation appeal or any other general matter.......it could not be made more difficult. I am a person of modest means but I would probably pay £10 per annum to access the site if everybody else was obliged to as well. I do use it often. Let's face it...there is virtually noone who pays for the use of a computer who could not afford a small amount of that order. In other words I would far rather pay a small set fee than be made to feel guilty for not donating to a "free" site. I've seen this problem before with other sites...the site is advertised as free but donations are appealed for on a regular basis. Far better to be honest and charge everybody a small amount like £10 or $15 per year. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ggaylmer (talk • contribs) 23:14, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

I think the issue would be that donations are acceptable means to fund a non-profit, whereas charging almost surely isn't. I assume donations are also tax friendly, and a whole plethora of other fiendish gadgetry. Yadder, yadder, yadder.

Policy issues are usually raised at Wikipedia:Village pump (policy). fredgandt 23:53, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

Wikipedia is run by the non-profit charitable organization Wikimedia Foundation. See Wikimedia Foundation#Finances. I'm afraid your suggestion goes completely against Wikipedia's business model and wouldn't work in practice. Apart from the charitable, tax-exempt and tax-deductible issues, all content is written by volunteer editors and most of them would stop editing if readers had to pay. The license of all edits to this point allow other websites to republish Wikipedia articles without charge. Wikipedia:Mirrors and forks shows many sites doing just that. If Wikipedia required pay then most readers would just go to a free mirror. Many mirrors are legal (they only have to attribute the source) and Wikipedia couldn't do anything to close or sue them. If Wikipedia changed the license so future contributions of the volunteer editors were copyrighted by Wikipedia and sold to paying readers then most of the remaining editors would also leave. And I don't see a business model where Wikipedia could afford to pay for editors to write and maintain millions of articles. Also note that Wikipedia has a huge amount of readers around the World including developing countries. Many don't have a private computer and Internet connection, and the equivalent of £10 or $15 per year would be unacceptable to many of them. PrimeHunter (talk) 02:18, 31 December 2011 (UTC)