User:Shell Kinney/Boiler

Unblock requests

Username block corporate

Your user name is a violation of our [[WP:U|user name policy]] because it contains the name of an organization. You, however, are not banned and are not prohibited from editing. If you log out, you should immediately be able to create a new account. Please create a username for YOU PERSONALLY, not for your organization - shared or corporate accounts are not permitted. Please also see our [[WP:COI|conflict of interest]] policy concerning editing articles about yourself or your own organization. If you log out and are unable to immediately create an account, please post another {{tl|unblock}} request here so that we can try to figure out why. Thank you.

Username block corporate (advertising)

The account name you have chosen cannot be unblocked because it is named after a corporation or other organization. Such names are prohibited by our username policy <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:CORPNAME>. Please also be advised that account sharing is likewise prohibited under Wikipedia policy; accounts must be used by only one person <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:NOSHARE>.

Writing about, or editing articles about your own employer or company on Wikipedia is very strongly discouraged per our Conflict of Interest guideline <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:COI>. You are free, however, to suggest changes on article talk pages.

You might also want to read our FAQ for organizations, which answers some common questions that arise when an organization attempts to promote, write about, or edit articles about itself on Wikipedia <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:BFAQ>.

If you would still like to edit, bearing this information in mind, please select a more appropriate account name.

Not enough information

In order for us to help you out, we'll need a little more information. This includes

- your Wikipedia account name, if you have one,
- your IP address,
- your blocking administrator, and
- the reason you were blocked.

The above should be available to you when you try to edit a page and load the 'you have been blocked' page. I suggest you copy-paste this (to avoid spelling errors) along with an explanation of why you think your block is unfair, and resend it to unblock-en-llists.wikimedia.org. Hopefully someone will then be able to assist you.

Rangeblocks (go to tool)

Looking at our logs, it seems your IP address is part of a large range that has been blocked to prevent an abusive user from vandalizing our site. Unfortunately, while this adequately protects our site, it does affect a large number of innocent users.

You can, however, still edit while logged in with an account. I'm assuming you don't have one already, so we can create one for you if you'd like. Just fill out the form at <http://toolserver.org/~acc/> with a username you'd like to use and someone will create it for you so you can get online and edit. To speed this up, it's a good idea to check http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:ListUsers to make sure that the username you want is not already taken. You may also want to include information about the block in the Comments field.

Sorry for the inconvenience this causes, but I assure you rangeblocks like this are a last resort.

Conflict of interest note

As you apparently intend to edit articles about an organization which you are involved with, please review Wikipedia:FAQ/Organizations and Wikipedia:Conflict of interest

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:FAQ/Organizations

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Conflict_of_interest

Account created

An account with the username you requested has been created, and the random password for your account should be emailed to you shortly. Please change it as soon as you log in.

Pick username

To request the creation of an account, just pick the account name you would like and check at <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Listusers> to verify that the account name is available. Then respond to this email from an ISP, school, university, or workplace issued email address with that information and the account will be created for you.

Tor/Proxy block

Looking at our logs, it appears the IP address you're editing from belongs to a proxy service. Open or anonymising proxies, including Tor, are blocked from editing Wikipedia. While this may affect legitimate users, they are not the intended targets. No restrictions are placed on reading Wikipedia through an open or anonymous proxy.

Although Wikipedia encourages anyone in the world to contribute, open proxies are often used abusively. MediaWiki, the wiki software that powers Wikipedia, depends on IP addresses for administrator intervention against abuse, especially by anonymous users. Open proxies allow malicious users to rapidly change IP addresses, causing continuous disruption that cannot be stopped by administrators. Several such attacks have occurred on Wikimedia projects, causing disruption and occupying administrators who would otherwise deal with other concerns.

Unfortunately, you won't be able to edit while using this open proxy.

Thank you for emailing the unblock list.

Account creation requests

Account created

Many thanks for your interest in joining Wikipedia. I've gone ahead and created the account for you. You will receive an automated e-mail from wikiwikimedia.org with your login credentials. You can use these to log in for the first time, when you will be prompted to create a new password.

When you have successfully logged in, you may find the "getting started" section of our help pages useful (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Help:Contents/Getting_started). Of particular interest may be the introduction to Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Introduction) which has some information to help you get up to speed with the way things work on the encyclopedia.

I wish you all the best and hope you enjoy your time on Wikipedia.

I want to make an account

If you wish to create an account, you can do so at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Userlogin If you are unable to create an account because your IP address is blocked, please fill out the form at <http://toolserver.org/~acc/>. Check back at your e-mail inbox for any possible updates or problems that may occur with your request. If you already have an account and are having difficulty logging in, please make sure you are logging in at <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Userlogin> or if you are receiving an error, please send the text of the error in reply to this message.

I can't remember my password

If you are unable to remember the password for your account and you associated a email address with the account, you can retrieve the password by clicking the "E-mail new password" button when trying to login in at <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:UserLogin>. If you did not associate an email address with the account or no longer have access to the email, we are unable to retrieve your password.

If you can't to access your account, you are welcome to create a new one and continue editing. You may be able to usurp your old account, please see the instructions at <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Changing_username/Usurpations>.

Opera Mini

Unfortunately it doesn't look like you'll be able to use your new account to edit from your phone. The Opera Mini browser sends all of it's users through a proxy, meaning that every person who uses the browser looks like the same person to Wikipedia. Since this allows people with bad intentions to hide their true location, the IP addresses used by the Opera Mini browser are blocked from editing Wikipedia. You can still log in to your account with your phone and set any preferences you would like and you can use your account from other internet connections (like home or school for example) to edit normally.

Too similar

Many thanks for your interest in joining Wikipedia. Unfortunately the username that you have requested is too similar to an active account, which may make it difficult for other contributors to distinguish you from the other user. We can only create similar accounts if the account it is similar to has not edited in over a year AND has been created over a year ago. The conflicting account, "Danielle" was created not too long ago.

Please take a look at our username policy (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Username_policy) and choose a different username. You may be able to create the account yourself at http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Userlogin&type=signup. If so, I wish you all the best and hope you enjoy your time on Wikipedia.

If you are still unable to create the name yourself, we will gladly process your new request here, and I look forward to hearing from you again with your new choice of username.

Helpdesk-l templates

AOL problems creating account

I see you're writing from an America Online address. Users of America Online have an IP address that is shared by many other subscribers; that is, it looks like a large group of people all coming from the same computer. You've run into one of the problems with these shared IP addresses - several people may create an account in a short period of time using the same IP address. You can try again later, or sometimes if you disconnect and reconnect you'll receive a different IP that may not have signed up for so many accounts recently. Please be aware it may take several tries to find an IP address that hasn't reigstered 10 accounts recently.

I'm sorry that you were inconvenienced by this problem, and hope you continue using Wikipedia. You can learn more about our site and how it works at the Introduction page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Introduction

You may also find the tutorial useful: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Tutorial

AOL account seeing warnings

I see you're writing from an America Online address. Users of America Online have an IP address that is shared by many other subscribers; that is, it looks like a large group of people all coming from the same computer. Since Wikipedia is a site that anyone can edit, sometimes people make inappropriate edits, and in that case other editors need to leave messages for them. Unfortunately, because you share that IP address, you will also see that comment, as we cannot single out that one user to receive the message.

Because of this problem, we put a notice on the talk page to explain that messages may refer to other users. If the message does not apply to you, then you can simply ignore the comment.

If you do not wish to see these misdirected messages you may wish to make an account, even if you never use it for editing. This will give you a personal talk page and will prevent such misdirected messages. You can create an account at: <http://en.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Special:Userlogin&type=signup>.

You don't need to log in to edit, but creating an account gives you more options and helps you keep track of your contributions.

You do not need to enter any personal information to make an account, although you do have to have cookies enabled. If you select the "Remember me" option on logging in, you will be logged in automatically each time you visit the site.

I'm sorry that you were inconvenienced by this problem, and hope you continue using Wikipedia. You can learn more about our site and how it works at the Introduction page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Introduction

You may also find the tutorial useful: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Tutorial

Accuracy of Wikipedia

Wikipedia relies on the good will and hard work of our thousands of volunteer editors. Although we always have some visitors who insert faulty information we find that the balance is positive and that more people fix problems than introduce them.

We have various tools to help contributors check new edits: we have a "recent changes" page that lists new contributions, and "watch lists" which allow editors to closely monitor pages they are interested in. The editing and verification of the text works on the same open-source principle as other aspects of the site with thousands of contributors visiting the site and checking each other's edits. One of our most important policies is that articles should be written from a "neutral point of view", which reduces the problem of people adding their opinion rather than facts. This policy is explained at: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Neutral_point_of_view>

Another important policy is verifiability, which states that all contributions should be well-researched from credible sources; information which is not may be removed. We do not allow original research, and we strongly encourage our contributors to cite references for all material added. One of the most important discussions on Wikipedia at the moment is how we can take the project to the next level. We are considering various strategies including intensive fact checking of particular versions of articles, labelling verified versions as "stable", highlighting the best of our articles, and software changes to enable selection between "verified" and "live" versions. Some of this work is already underway; other aspects are still under discussion. We hope that this ongoing work will lead to the eventual publication of a print version or CD/DVD.

However, there is no official editorial team verifying the information in Wikipedia. Our general disclaimer (<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:General_disclaimer>) states that we cannot guarantee the accuracy of any information contained in Wikipedia and you use it at your own risk. It is worth noting that similar disclaimers are found on the websites of britannica.com and bartleby.com as well, which are professionally reviewed.

You can read more discussion of some of these issues at: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Replies_to_common_objections>

Add an image

You should first keep in mind that pictures must be justifiable under American fair use guidelines (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_use http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Image_copyright_tags#Fair_use) or a free content license of some kind (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_content). Free content licenses are vastly preferred; pictures with weak fair use justifications and pictures without source information or clear license status will be deleted.

To upload a picture:

1. Login (or create a username if you don't have one)
2. Click on "upload file" in the sidebar (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Upload)
3. Select the file from your computer that you want to upload
4. Select a descriptive name for the image
5. Select the appropriate license for the file
6. Edit the page you want the image to appear on, and include in the place you want the image to appear:

[[Image:(Filename you chose in step 4).(extension of file, case sensitive)|thumb|Caption text]]

7. Save the page with an edit summary that describes what you did (eg. "added image")

Advice for subjects of BLPs or their agents

Wikipedia is a collaborative encyclopedia written by its readers. The project is a "wiki", which means that anyone visiting the site can edit or add to pages. There is a general introduction to Wikipedia here: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:About>. This means that the material you submit may be edited or changed as part of the usual process of editing Wikipedia. However, one of our most important policies is that on biographies of living individuals: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Biographies_of_living_persons> which is designed to protect them from malicious editing. We also require that all articles adhere to what we call "neutral point of view" <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Neutral_point_of_view> - this means that the articles fairly describe the topic without advocating any particular position. Articles on Wikipedia can't be written in a way that sounds like a press release but on the other hand, cannot demonize the subject either. Articles may contain negative information about a subject if that information is reported by reliable, trusted media sources.

Each article has an associated "discussion page" or "talk page"; you can access this by clicking the "discussion" link at the top of the article. You can then ask a question or discuss the text in the article by selecting the "new section" link in the tabs at the top of the page. You will see two text boxes for you to write in: one for a title for your section and one for the question or comment itself. You can use this area to communicate with other editors interested in the page in case there is a disagreement over article content.

We would encourage you (or your representatives) to use the article's talk page rather than edit the article directly. This is to protect your own reputation against possible adverse publicity caused by editing a Wikipedia biography for hire, something that has caused adverse comment in the past and we've formulated a guideline here: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Autobiography>. The community's views on edits by subjects and those working for them can be seen at: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Conflict_of_interest>. Wikipedia does make an exception for fixing obvious vandalism.

It is very important to avoid the use of legal language and threats. We have an absolute prohibition on this: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:No_legal_threats>. In order to maintain an orderly atmosphere we also prohibit personal attacks: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:No_personal_attacks>, <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Civility>. If you feel attacked or threatened then please ask for help.

Wikipedia policy is that all articles should remain open for editing by our users as a process of continuous improvement. Though in extreme cases we may "lock" pages from receiving edits for a short time, pages are then reopened for editing, as most edits we receive improve our articles. Because of this, we do not lock articles on request. However, we strive to keep articles free of vandalism and inaccurate material. There is a noticeboard specifically for biographical issues at: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Biographies_of_living_persons/Noticeboard>, this is widely watched and is a good place to ask for help. For more general assistance you can use the help desk, <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Helpdesk>, or add the text {{helpme}} (including the curly braces) on your talk page.

In some cases an article may be deleted, either due to unfixable problems or because of lack of reliable independent sources, as noted in our guideline on inclusion of biographies: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Criteria_for_Inclusion_of_Biographies> and <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Importance>. This is absolutely not a judgment on the individual themselves, only on whether there are sufficient sources of a quality that allows us to compile a biography which meets objective standards of fairness and accuracy.

Author claims copyright

In order to accept into Wikipedia content which is published on another website, we require a clear statement from the author of the content that they are releasing it under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike license, which may be viewed at <http://www.creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0>. This statement must come from an email address that we can clearly recognize as being from the operator of the website, or be in reply to a message sent to the operator of the website. This email should be sent to <mailto:permissionswikimedia.org>.

In addition, we need to know exactly which article or articles contain the copyrighted material in question; the English Wikipedia has over 6,922,951 articles and finding the one you're referring to knowing only the topic of the article can be quite difficult.

Thank you for your understanding. We do this in order to protect the copyrights of authors who do not wish their work submitted to Wikipedia, and we apologize for any inconvenience this may cause you.

There's a few other Wikipedia policies you might want to review: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Editing_policy http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:What_Wikipedia_is_not

Also, you will need to be aware that per the nature of a wiki, the article you create will be editable by all other editors and may be nominated for deletion under other criteria if it does not meet our guidelines for inclusion.

Citing Wikipedia

Wikipedia is a collaborative encyclopaedia written by its readers. The project is a "wiki", which means that anyone visiting the site can edit or add to pages. At the top of each page is an "edit" tab, clicking this allows the page to be edited.

There is a general introduction to the site at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia

To find the specific authors of a page, you can click on the "history" link at the top of the article. For the "Wikipedia" article this is at: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Wikipedia&action=history

You may also find http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Citing_Wikipedia helpful.

Dispute over content

Thank you for contacting us regarding the dispute you encountered while editing.

Wikipedia is a collaborative encyclopedia (as explained at <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Introduction>), and so anyone may edit its articles. Its policy, nonetheless, is that articles must be written from a Neutral Point of View, representing all majority and significant-minority views fairly and without bias, as is discussed extensively at <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WP:NPOV>.

However, since article content is not controlled by a central authority, we do not resolve editing disputes via email. Instead, please follow the steps outlined at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Dispute_resolution

These steps are designed to help you work with other editors and to draw upon the help of the wider community.

Thank you for your contributions to Wikipedia.

Dispute over sourced information

Wikipedia does not publish original research or original thought, but instead relies on reliable, published sources as discussed at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WP:OR . It is also important to note that the threshold for inclusion in Wikipedia is verifiability, not truth. "Verifiable" in this context means that readers should be able to check that material added to Wikipedia has already been published by a reliable source. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WP:V In addition, articles must be written from a Neutral Point of View, representing all majority and significant-minority views fairly and without bias, as is discussed extensively at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WP:NPOV .

Since Wikipedia simply repeats information already published elsewhere, you may wish to address your concerns with the sources who originally published the information. These sources are listed in the References section of the article; footnotes also indicate which portion of the article is based on a particular source.

Thank you for your interest in Wikipedia and feel free to get back in touch with us with any further comments or questions.

Donating Content

One simple way to grant permission to copy material already on line is to put that permission explicitly on the site where that material is posted. This is commonly known as a "copyleft" notice. This notice must state that your site (or portions of your site) are licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Sharealike 3.0 Unported License (CC-BY-SA) and the GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) (unversioned, with no invariant sections, front-cover texts, or back-cover texts) or that it is in the public domain. For text, a good statement of release might read:

The text of this website [or page, if you are specifically releasing one section] is available for modification and reuse under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-Sharealike 3.0 Unported License and the GNU Free Documentation License (unversioned, with no invariant sections, front-cover texts, or back-cover texts).

If you would like to allow Wikipedia or another English Wikimedia site to use your content, be it text or images, but don't want to put a license statement on the website, you still must release it under the free licenses noted above and can do so in the following ways:

For text, you can send an email, ideally using the language from the template at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:CONSENT:

1. From an address associated with the original publication to permissions-enwikimedia.org;
2. After sending the email, place {{OTRS pending}} on the article's discussion page.

Someone will reply to your email, indicating whether the content and your license is acceptable and update the page to indicate that the confirmation of the license has been received.

For images, you can send an email, ideally using the language from the template at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:CONSENT:

1. From an address associated with the original publication to permissions-commonswikimedia.org;
2. Then upload the file to Wikimedia Commons and place {{OTRS pending}} on the image page.

Someone will reply to your email, indicating whether the content and your license is acceptable and update the page to indicate that the confirmation of the license has been received.

Further details for content donation can be found at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Donating_copyrighted_materials

Thank you for your interest in Wikipedia.

Error in article

Thank you, I've fixed the error in <the article>.

Wikipedia is a "wiki", which means that everyone can edit pages. Our articles are written by volunteers, and many started writing for Wikipedia by fixing errors they found. At the top of each page is an "edit" label. Try it for example at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Sandbox

You can read about wikis at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wiki

You don't even need to log in to edit, although creating an account gives you more options and helps you keep track of your contributions. You can create an account at: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Special:Userlogin

Please see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Welcome%2C_newcomers for more information.

You may also find the tutorial useful: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Tutorial

For use on Wikipedia

I apologize but we are unable to accept images licensed only for use on Wikipedia. While it might seem reasonable to assume that such files can be freely used on Wikipedia, this is in fact not the case. Images and other media are allowed if they are under a free license (such as the above and certain other Creative Commons licenses). You can see the allowable licenses at <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Image_copyright_tags/Free_licenses>, which allow anyone to use it for any purpose, commercial or non-commercial.

If you wish for text from another website to be included in Wikimedia projects, it must be released by the copyright holder under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike license, which may be viewed at <http://www.creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0>.

If you provide us with a clear statement from the copyright holder that they are releasing this content for redistribution under an allowable license, then the content may be used on Wikimedia projects.

Thank you for your understanding! Please see <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Copyrights> for more information.

How do I make an article on my (xyz) or stop my article from being deleted?

I believe you may have misunderstood the general purpose of Wikipedia; its goal is to be an encylopedia, not a business directory. So unfortunately, the short answer is that you should not create or recreate the article.

The long answer:

Wikipedia is not a place for you to post advertisements about your company or your product. Our policy on neutral point of view makes this impossible and any such edits will be removed. Advertising may be in addition considered spam and will likely lead to penalties such as blocking or even banning.

Many people see that a competitor (or at least, another company that sells a similar product or service) has an article and naturally, they assume their company is due an article as well. You are strongly discouraged from writing an article about yourself or a company you are involved with, because of the difficulty in writing neutrally when you are closely involved with a subject (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:COI).

Its also important to note that any information you submit to Wikipedia is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License. This means that other people may reuse the information, even for commercial purposes. It also means that others may edit or add to the article and this information may not always be flattering to your company.

Wikipedia is not a directory of all companies, but other wikis do aim for comprehensiveness in their subject specialities. For example, Wikicompany <http://wikicompany.org/> intends to build a wiki which lists every legally incorporated business in the world. The first step in successful wiki editing is to make sure you start with the appropriate wiki for the article you want to write.

Finally, Wikipedia has inclusion standards for companies: see <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Notability_(organizations_and_companies)>. The basic requirement is that multiple independent sources must have written non-trivial amounts of information about a company before a Wikipedia article on that company is appropriate. This requirement helps ensure there's actually enough neutral and factual information to write a proper article. If these sources do not exist for your company, then unfortunately an article is not appropriate at this time.

If you still believe you would like to try creating an article for your company, you may wish to review the step by step instructions located here: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:BFAQ#I_think_my_company_deserves_an_article_on_Wikipedia_but_none_exists._What_can_I_do.3F> (the rest of this page also contains very good advice)

Job question

Wikimedia's projects are run almost entirely by volunteers, and so unfortunately we have no paid positions to offer you. If you are interested in joining Wikimedia as a volunteer, we would welcome your efforts.

To learn more about writing and editing for Wikipedia, please see our Introduction at: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Introduction>

To learn more about developing the MediaWiki software, please see the MediaWiki project website at: <http://www.mediawiki.org>

Link exchange

Thank you for your interest in Wikipedia.

Unfortunately, Wikipedia does not participate in link exchange or advertising. We prefer to get to the top of Google by having good content, and so far, that seems to be working.

Misdirected

You sent this message to Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia (http://en.wikipedia.org). We provide articles about all kinds of subjects through the internet. It seems your mail was intended for another organisation, company or institution. This might have been one that we have an article on, or one that is advertising through a website that copies our content. We have no connections with this organisation, and are thus unable to help you any further.

More specific statement of permission (using someone else's work)

If you wish for text from another website to be included in Wikimedia projects, it must be released by the copyright holder under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike license, which may be viewed at <http://www.creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0>.

Images and other media are allowed if they are under a free license (such as the above and certain other Creative Commons licenses). You can see the allowable licenses at <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Image_copyright_tags/Free_licenses>.

If you provide us with a clear statement that the copyright holder is releasing this content for redistribution under an allowable license, then the content may be used on Wikimedia projects. The email template at <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:CONSENT> can be used if needed.

Thank you for your understanding! Please see <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Copyrights> for more information.

More specific statement of permission (text)

We can only use your material if you are willing to grant permission for it to be used under terms of Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike license. This means that although you retain the copyright and authorship of your own work, you are granting permission for all others (not just Wikipedia) to use, copy, and share your materials freely—and even potentially use them commercially—as long as they do not try to claim the copyright themselves, or try to prevent others from using or copying them freely. You can read this license in full at: <http://www.creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0>.

Please note that your contributions may not remain intact as submitted; this license, and the collaborative nature of our project, also entitles others to edit, alter, and update them at will, i.e., to keep up with new information, or suit the text to a different purpose. However, the license also expressly protects authors "from being considered responsible for modifications made by others" while ensuring that those authors get credit for their work. There is more information on our copyright policy at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Copyrights

For your convenience, we suggest you word your release similar to the following:

I hereby assert that I am the creator and/or sole owner of the exclusive copyright of (give full legal name of the work or describe the work in detail; provide URL of the work if it has been published on the web).

I agree to publish that work under the (give full name of license you have chosen either the Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike for text or in the case of images one from those available at <http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Licensing>).

I acknowledge that I grant anyone the right to use the work in a commercial product, and to modify it according to their needs.

I am aware that I always retain copyright of my work, and retain the right to be attributed in accordance with the license chosen. Modifications others make to the work will not be attributed to me

I acknowledge that I cannot withdraw this agreement, and that the work may or may not be kept permanently on a Wikimedia project.

(Give your full name and date the release)

Not a

Thanks for your e-mail concerning <topic>.

You sent this message to Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia <http://en.wikipedia.org>. We provide articles about all kinds of subjects through the internet. It seems your mail was intended for another organisation, company or institution. This might have been one that we have an article on, or one that is advertising through a website that copies our content. We have no connections with this organisation, and are thus unable to help you any further.

You may wish to use a search engine or other resource to locate the appropriate contact address.

I apologise for any inconvenience this may have caused you.

Muhammad cartoons

Wikipedia is not censored, and its editors think that the best way to inform people who choose to learn about the nature of the cartoons and how they are causing offence, is to give people the opportunity to see the cartoons themselves.

Muhammad image

I'm sorry you were offended by this article. As stated in our disclaimers, our goal is to provide full and accurate information for the education of all. This means that Wikipedia may contain content that some readers consider objectionable or offensive.

Wikipedia cannot guarantee that articles or images will be tasteful to all users or adhere to specific social or religious norms or requirements. On specific articles such as the one you mention, it would be very difficult to give full and accurate information without including images. I hope that you will understand our desire to give all the information available to our readers.

Refer to RefDesk

I am afraid that the Wikipedia Helpdesk is not able to help you with this request. As an organization that relies entirely on volunteer work, Wikimedia doesn't have the resources to answer questions unrelated to its projects; Helpdesk is focused more on helping users with issues with Wikipedia itself.

However, there is a page on the English Wikipedia where various volunteers try to answer questions such as yours, called the Reference Desk <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Reference_desk>. Try to be as specific as you can to aid them. Remember since they are (over-worked) volunteers that there is no guarantee that they can provide an answer. Good luck!

Request for contact info

Unfortunately, the Wikipedia Helpdesk is unable to help you with your question.

We do not have any personal details, such as email addresses or other contact information, about the people, places or organizations that are included in the encyclopedia. The text you see on the site is the only information we have.

If you would like to ask your question publicly of the Wikipedia community, you may do so at our Reference Desk (<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Reference_desk>).

Good luck in your search for this information and sorry that we could not be of more help.

Permission to use image

In principle all Wikipedia text is subject to the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License and can be used free of charge for any purpose. A specific permission for use is not necessary, as long as the license conditions are observed. Some text is also available under the GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL).

Images, however, are sometimes identified as being subject to other licenses. Therefore it is advisable to check the image information page for the source and/or licensing information. Clicking on the image will lead you to the image information page. Most images are usually free to use as long as you give the proper credits and follow the terms of the license indicated on the image description page.

The license for the particular image you were inquiring about is listed as <license>.

For more information please see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Copyrights

Permission to use text

In principle all contents of Wikipedia are subject to the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License and can be used free of charge for any purpose. A specific permission for use is not necessary, as long as the licence conditions are observed; this is because the license used by Wikipedia is a standing permament permission in and of itself, as long as the requirements are met.

For more information please see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Reusing_Wikipedia_content

Thanks

Thank you for your kind words about Wikipedia. We appreciate you taking the time to make this compliment and hope that you continue to find the site a useful resource. If you are interested in becoming involved in the site yourself, please see our tutorial at <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Tutorial> which contains all the help you need to get started.

Vandalism

By its nature Wikipedia is open to undesirable edits, but most are corrected by other editors within a very short time. We have a "recent changes" page that allows users to check edits as they happen, and "watch lists" that allow logged-in editors to closely monitor pages they are interested in. In extreme cases we can "lock" pages from receiving edits for a while, but generally the page can be reopened for editing after a short time as most edits we receive improve our articles.

While this may explain what happened, it certainly does not excuse the fact that you encountered this on our website. I can only offer you our sincere apologies and assure you that we do all we can to ensure that such malicious edits are repaired quickly.

You can read more about us at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia

You might be interested to know that you are welcome to revert vandalism yourself; in fact, we highly encourage it. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Help:Reverting

If you are still seeing the vandalism when visiting the article, we suggest you try appending ?action=purge to the URL. For instance, instead of viewing http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giant_Panda append ?action=purge and view: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giant_Panda?action=purge

You can edit

Wikipedia is a "wiki", which means that everyone can edit pages. You don't need to apply or to get special permission to join us. At the top of each page is an "edit" label. Try it for example at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Sandbox

You don't even need to log in to edit, although creating an account gives you more options and helps you keep track of your contributions. You can create an account at: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Special:Userlogin

Please see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WP:WELCOME for more information.

You may also find the tutorial useful: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Tutorial

Thanks for your interest and I hope you join us.

See also

• User:Humblefool/Helpdesk boilerplates
• OTRS boilerplates
• OTRS Response Portal Only accesible to members of OTRS