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May 12

The Grudge Match Article

I hope I'm not too late for this.

A while ago there was a website known as grudge match that was really cool (and still is). There used to be a wikipedia article on it but now there isn't. Apparently there is a teenage mutant ninja turtles episode also known as grudge match and somehow that replaced the article on the website (the website itself is still up by the way). I've tried all I can to recover the old article on the website but nothing's worked, can anyone help me out? There is/was some information on that article I need.Father Time89 (talk) 02:16, 12 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The page was deleted: [1] and later, another page was moved to that name. Since it was deleted via WP:PROD rather than a full deletion discussion, normally an admin will restore the page if you ask them. I'm not an admin. You can ask at WP:DRV to get the attention of an admin – or maybe one will reply here. Even if the page is not suitable for Wikipedia, in most cases an admin can send you a copy of the deleted article. ☺ Coppertwig (talk) 03:00, 12 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Infoboxes going across section headings

Resolved

Is there a way to stop infoboxes and the like from going across level 3 section headers (see Palo Alto Unified School District)? The only way I can think up of is to put a lot of <br /> tags at the end of each section, lengthening each section until the infobox no longer breaks across the next header (and the number required is proportional to screen width, which is different for everyone, and therefore prone to disputes). Is there an easier way of doing this? Calvin 1998 ^(t-c) 04:38, 12 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, just use one tag, <br clear="all"/>. Dismas|^(talk) 05:46, 12 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. :) Calvin 1998 ^(t-c) 05:51, 12 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Also see WP:BUNCHED. --Teratornis (talk) 08:12, 12 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

person

who is the most wanted person in the world? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 121.1.53.33 (talk) 08:16, 12 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

This question belongs on the Reference desk, but I'll take shot. First, the phrase: "Most Wanted" is ambiguous, because you did not specify by whom. (For example, the person I want most is probably not the person you want most; if she is, then we can sort things out with pistols at 40 paces.) Since the phrase is ambiguous, we have a disambiguation page for it. For example, one possibility is to look on the list of FBI Most Wanted Terrorists, but note that entries on this list are not in any particular order. One way to rank such folks is to compare the rewards offered for their capture (or sometimes for their killing). The article on Osama bin Laden lists rewards totaling $52 million. Also, you can try a Google search: most wanted person in the world, which finds lots of promising hits. --Teratornis (talk) 08:32, 12 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

This page is for questions about using Wikipedia. Please consider asking this question at the Wikipedia:Reference desk. They specialize in knowledge questions and will try to answer any question in the universe (except how to use Wikipedia, since that is what this Help Desk is for). Just follow the link, select the relevant section, and ask away. You could always try searching Wikipedia for an article related to the topic you want to know more about. I hope this helps.

Please sign your post by typing four tildes (~~~~) or clicking the signature button above the edit box (as shown to the left ←). Do NOT sign in articles....... Dendodge .. Talk^Help 11:38, 12 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

copyright tag

You messaged me recently with the following:

This image or media does not have information on its copyright status. Unless the copyright status is provided, the image will be deleted after Monday, 19 May 2008. Please remove this template if a copyright tag has been added.

However, rather unhelpfully you have no explination of how to add a copywright tag. Or if it is there is bogged down with all the other crap thats on the page. If you had a decent interface you would put a copyright dropdown menu which you could choose the status but no. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ashleybaker75 (talk • contribs) 09:02, 12 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Information on how to add a copyright tag to an image can found at Wikipedia:Image copyright tags, a link which was included in the original notice to you. A list of the most commonly used copyright tags can be found at Wikipedia:Image copyright tags/Displayed and ranked. Once you have decided which tag is appropriate for your image, simply go to the image page (Image:D courtney.jpg‎ in this case), click the edit this page link at the top of the page, and put the code for the copyright tag on the page, making sure to remove the notice about a lack of a copyright tag at the same time.

Incidentally, you ask why there is no drop down menu on the page. A drop down menu with common license options can be found on the page you use as you upload the image. If you would like further information on uploading images in the future, see Wikipedia:Uploading images. Redfarmer (talk) 10:38, 12 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Please sign your post by typing four tildes (~~~~) or clicking the signature button above the edit box (as shown to the left ←). Do NOT sign in articles....... Dendodge .. Talk^Help 11:36, 12 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I asked a few question on your talk page that will help determine this. --— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk - 11:41, 12 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Linking to an article

Resolved

This is a problem I find crops quite often. Here is a current example: I've recently upgraded an article called research vessel. Now I want to find the articles in Wikipedia that mention "research vessel" but do not wikilink it (so I can wikilink it). The problem is that over 300 articles already wikilink it (from What links here), and over 400 mention it (from a search). I don't want to look at 400 articles in order to find only about 100 that don't wikilink. How can I list directly only the articles that mention "research vessel" but do not wikilink it? --Geronimo20 (talk) 09:07, 12 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think there's an easy way to do that at the moment; comparing the output of a what-links-here query and a search sounds like the sort of thing a bot or script would be good at doing, though. You might want to ask at WikiProject User scripts' script request page to see if anyone there can help. You might also want to ask at the technical village pump in case there's a way to do that that I don't know. --ais523 09:21, 12 May 2008 (U T C)

Thank you. --Geronimo20 (talk) 09:57, 12 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

If you use Linux or a Unix-like compatibility layer such as Cygwin on Windows, there might be a way to do this with a command pipeline using Wget or cURL, (maybe) sed, sort, and uniq. --Teratornis (talk) 16:41, 12 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Or maybe one of the query tools under WP:EIW#Query could do this. --Teratornis (talk) 16:45, 12 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Book citation

Resolved

This sounds like a rookie question, so don't laugh. I'm trying to use more books as sources and for some article I'm working on, that's all I can find anyway as far as RS go. I know how to use the "a,b,c," citation when sourcing a website multiple times. (ex: Ref #2) My question is what's the shortcut for citing a book several times instead of listing the entire book ref over and over? I looked under WP:CITE, but maybe it's front of my face and I'm just missing it. (I blame my blonde highlights) Thanks. APK ^{yada yada} 09:35, 12 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Well, there's two ways you can go about this depending on how many times you plan to reference said book. One way many people do is to simply put the full citation for the book in a "References" section and then use short footnotes to refer to the citation in the references section (an example of this can be found at Last of the Summer Wine).

The other way, and the one I think you're referring to, is pretty much the same as how you have been doing it with citing web sites. You need to first use a <ref> tag, giving the reference a name, before you use the citation template.

So, say this was your initial citation:

<ref name="Red Book">{{Citation| first = David | last = Mumford| author-link = David Mumford| title = The Red Book of Varieties and Schemes| place = Berlin | publisher = Springer-Verlag | year = 1999 | doi = 10.1007/b62130 | isbn = 354063293X }}</ref>

Your next citation would be simply:

<ref name="Red Book"/>

More information on this can be found at Wikipedia:Footnotes. Hope this helps you! Redfarmer (talk) 10:28, 12 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Doh!. I've been using a different template for book citations, one without the "ref name" option. Geez, that was a simple remedy. Thank you. APK ^{yada yada} 10:54, 12 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Anybody on Wikipedia who laughs at a rookie question should take a good look at the Editor's index to Wikipedia. I would be very surprised if there is any one single human being who could claim to understand all that stuff. By the time a person could learn it, there would be at least as much new or changed stuff to learn. --Teratornis (talk) 17:45, 12 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Also, the whole idea of ergonomics and user interface design is to design tools for people, not the other way around. This is of necessity, since we can design tools, but we cannot design people yet. Therefore, if Wikipedia confuses someone, it only makes sense to consider that the fault of Wikipedia, and we might look for ways to improve Wikipedia to make it more understandable (not that this would be easy to do). Of course, one could take the view that the Help desk and the community of users who answer questions on the Help desk are a part of Wikipedia, so if the Help desk makes something understandable, then Wikipedia made itself understood. While it's great to have the Help desk, the Help desk cannot really be a solution for all 48,283,704 registered users (along with a similar number of unregistereds), so we must keep thinking about how to build automated tools to answer these kinds of questions as they come up. For example, we have the Editor's index, the FAQ, and search tools such as {{Help desk searches}}. Someday, when computers can pass the Turing test consistently, we will be able to build conversational interfaces to Wikipedia knowledge bases, so you will be able to ask your computer what to do as you would ask an expert human who was sitting right there. Or just tell the expert human to do it for you, while you go ride a bike or something. --Teratornis (talk) 17:55, 12 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Searching History of articles

Resolved

I am trying to track down a version of an article from a long time ago. I know that a user edited the Russia article between September 2006 and May 2007, and I know exactly what the edit they made was (they changed the capital city to 'Stockport'). I think that they removed their edit immediately afterwards - either by reverting it or by reediting it. Is there a quicker way of finding the edit version rather than searching through the entire history of the Russia article? This is something of a monolith task, and not one which I would like to commit to unless there was no alternative.

Your help is greatly appreciated. TheMoridian 11:54, 12 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Do you know the username of the editor who made the edit? What exactly are you looking for? Redfarmer (talk) 12:18, 12 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

If you know the text and want to see when and who added it, you can try WikiBlame. --— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk - 13:53, 12 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

What I'm loooking for is the name of the user - I already know exactly what the edit consisted of, and a rough timespan of about 1 year. I can guess that the edit (because it is vandalism) was removed immediately afterwards - so it won't still be in the article for me to use Wikiblame. Thanks TheMoridian 19:11, 12 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Wikiblame searches all versions, starting at a certain date and working backwards. I believe this is what you're looking for: [2]. I just set the date to 31-5-07 (oldest date in your range), number of version = 1000, and let it run in the background until it found one. If this happened more than once, you could do a wikiblame search yourself starting at 9 March 2007 and working further backwards. --barneca (talk) 19:51, 12 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, that's exactly what I was looking for. However, this user hasn't been active on wikipedia for over 6 months - just my luck! TheMoridian 13:40, 13 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Attacked on Meta

Resolved

– Accusation retracted; request processed.

Hi, where can I go for help when I get harassed by another user on meta.wikipedia? Meta does not seem to have any form of noticeboard, nor a help desk. Regards, Guido den Broeder (talk) 12:35, 12 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Guido, given your request and the information given on your user page, I guess it was assumed that the original addition of these links was a case of COI spamming, especially given the volume of links added — this spam report is fairly unequivocal in its findings.. The decision of any meta administrator is binding in this case. I would suggest that this is not harassment, but a legitimate spam case. If you wish to contest this, then get in touch with the administrator who turned down your original case. haz (talk) 13:05, 12 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The harassment relates to insinuations that I am the same person as the anon user, and all that is derived thereof. Since I am not, I also have no 'original case'. Guido den Broeder (talk) 13:10, 12 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

That accusation was later retracted: Morover, this, and the other links, were added to several wikipedia, ~~and at least for usbig.net, it seems that was also you~~ (the IP is in Scandinavia, probably NOT you). In any case, the sites have now been removed from the blacklist. Sorry you got caught in the middle of the dispute. I'm sure that Dirk Beetstra will be happy to assist you with any further queries. haz (talk) 15:24, 12 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Grr.

So I'm using Internet Explorer on computers with *insane* restrictions on user privileges. Anyway, I log on and see some vandalism, so I go to revert it, but my Twinkle isn't enabled. I go to my Monobook.js and remove the part which disabled TW on IE, clear my cache, and... ta-da. Nothing. Apparently all my scripts don't work. I reverted my edit, changing it back to the way it was when I logged in (most of the scripts worked, i.e. the specialized sidebar etc). What the hell's going on here? These scripts worked 5 minutes ago, I've cleared my cache numerous times. Someone fix it plz... Ziggy Saw dust 13:53, 12 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Twinkle does not work with IE. See Wikipedia:WikiProject User scripts/Scripts/Twinkle#Browser support.. --— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk - 14:00, 12 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The word "terd"

Terd, I feel should be defined in your "pedia" as a slang term used as an endearment or to show affection of some sort. Your site immediately redirects to "feces". How can I add this use of the word? 72.49.98.137 (talk) 15:12, 12 May 2008 (UTC)72.49.98.137 (talk) 15:12, 12 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia is not a dictionary, so I doubt that would happen. Also, the proper spelling is "turd" with a U. Ten Pound Hammer and his otters • ^{(Broken clamshells•Otter chirps)} 15:18, 12 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Also see WP:NOT#DICTIONARY, WP:DICTIONARY, and WP:MADEUP. --Teratornis (talk) 16:33, 12 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

To see if anybody else knows about these words, try: wikt:terd, wikt:turd, define:terd, and define:turd. --Teratornis (talk) 18:10, 12 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Recent Changes/Watchlist

I took this from recent changes.

 . UEFA Euro 2008‎; 16:57 . . (''+4'') . . Cornelinho (Talk | contribs) 
(diff) (hist) . . Greyfriars Bobby: The True Story of a Dog‎; 16:57 . . (''+35'') . . Andrew22k (Talk | contribs) 
(diff) (hist) . . Construction site safety‎; 16:57 . . (''+37'') . . Rsazevedo (Talk | contribs) (adj.) 
(diff) (hist) . . Rio de Janeiro (state)‎; 16:57 . . (''-49'') . . 189.13.139.69 (Talk) (→Racial and ancestral makeup) 
(diff) (hist) . . User talk:Sow42 81‎; 16:57 . . (''+628'') . . Cenarium (Talk | contribs) (Caution: Vandalism on Say Eh-Oh!.) 
(diff) (hist) . . Bishop of Truro‎; 16:57 . . (''+95'') . . Dodgerjammy (Talk | contribs)

I know something like this appears in your watchlist. What do the +0 -0 etc. mean (i have put these in italics). SimsFan^{Talk to Me • Commons} 16:00, 12 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

They are how many bytes were added/subtracted from the article in that edit. Thingg ^⊕^⊗ 16:01, 12 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

How many characters, not bytes...... Dendodge .. Talk^Help 16:02, 12 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Actually, and not that it really matters, but it is bytes. This added three characters and 10 bytes. Thingg ^⊕^⊗ 16:06, 12 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

It is bytes as far as I am aware. I have updated Help:Recent changes to reflect this. Woody (talk) 16:11, 12 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I added a <pre> tag to your example so it would format the way you probably intended. --Teratornis (talk) 16:31, 12 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Namespace trouble

Wikipedia: The Missing Manual is an article about a book. Due to the title, it's in the project namespace where it doesn't belong. For example, there's no whitespace after the colon. Is there some workaround to get it into the correct namespace? It could be moved to some other title, but I don't see a likely target not starting with "Wikipedia:". Huon (talk) 17:22, 12 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Generally speaking, the colon is replaced with some other character (e.g. -) and {{wrongtitle}} is used, with a redirect from projectspace. That isn't a very satisfactory solution, though; maybe someone here will know a better one. --ais523 17:36, 12 May 2008 (U T C)

Done. I moved it to Wikipedia-The Missing Manual, at least it's in the right namespace now...... Dendodge .. Talk^Help 17:40, 12 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Now at Wikipedia - The Missing Manual (note the spaces), which is more eye-friendly and more likely to be searched...... Dendodge .. Talk^Help 20:41, 12 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Citations necessary within infoboxes?

Is it necessary to cite facts within the infobox of an article if the information is also present in the article and properly cited?

Thanks. Eclectek ^C ^T 17:37, 12 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Generally, common knowledge facts that are often found in infoboxes do not need to be cited. However, anything which may be considered controversial or is not common knowledge must be cited, even in an infobox. There are some general guidelines available at Wikipedia:When to cite. However, if we knew what it is you want to know whether to cite or not, perhaps we could provide some more specific direction for you. What specific information are you wondering if you should cite and for what article? Redfarmer (talk) 18:11, 12 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Personally, I don't like citations within infoboxes, because this can mean jamming a big template like {{Cite web}} or {{Cite book}} through the infobox template. Since some of these templates use "intricate features of template syntax", that is asking for trouble. Even if it works today, a future upgrade to MediaWiki might break it, or a change to one of the templates that interact with each other might break them in combination. It's safer to keep the citations in the body text of an article, where we don't have templates passing through other templates. MediaWiki's parser is not bulletproof; quite a number of templates only work because they implicity depend on HTML Tidy to correct bugs (?) in MediaWiki's parser. This makes content harder to port to other wikis that aren't set up exactly the same way as Wikipedia. Piling up templates is not the same as building a house out of bricks. It might be more like trying to stack up a bunch of sleeping cats. --Teratornis (talk) 18:25, 12 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Hmm that is an interesting point...perhaps a discussion to reach consensus should be conducted to possibly add a paragraph to WP:When to cite? Redfarmer (talk) 18:42, 12 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Username/Password

Can I use my Wikipedia account username and password on other Wikimedia projects. (such as commons, MediaWiki, Wikinews, etc. Please reply ASAPCssiitcic (talk) 17:38, 12 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Not currently. However, the developers are actively looking into this possibility in the future. -- ShinmaWa^(talk) 17:39, 12 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Also keep in mind as well that the Mediawiki developers have created a Global Account feature which is currently undergoing trial by admins only and maybe released to us in a few months if all goes well. Terra 17:42, 12 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Exactly, please see this page on Unified Login for more information -- ShinmaWa^(talk) 17:50, 12 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Hi. However, if you wish to manually make an account on the other wikis with your Wikipedia username and password and it hasn't been taken, then you're welcome to do so. Thanks. ~A H 1^(TCU) 01:14, 13 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

IP block exemption

How do I get Autoblock-exempt status? I edit from school a lot and most of my classmates are committed vandals...... Dendodge .. Talk^Help 18:18, 12 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

See Wikipedia:IP block exemption. If you are logged in, there should be no issue. --— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk - 18:22, 12 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I can't request it that way as I'm not currently autoblocked. I'll bear that in mind for if I ever get blocked again though...... Dendodge .. Talk^Help 19:14, 12 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

As this is a new process, the current implementation is to grant exemptions on a case-by-case basis, only when the user is actually blocked, and the exemption will expire when the block expires. So at the moment, there is no "permanent" autoblock. However, feel free to comment on the talk page. Tiggerjay (talk) 01:45, 13 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

If you find yourself autoblocked frequently, you may wish to request the exemption by sending an email to unblock-en-llists.wikimedia.org.com. Mr.Z-man 02:14, 13 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Valentine O'Hara

Resolved

I have just authored a page on Valentine O'Hara. I linked it to several categories by using the correct linking process. However the entry has appeared in the categories under "V" for Valentine (his first name) and not "O" for O'Hara - his surname. Is there any way of telling the system to put the entries in the categories under "O" - in other words to tell the software what his surname is? GoScoutUK (talk) 18:28, 12 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

If you place a | inside the category link, you can change the sorting key used by the categories, in the same manner that you change the appearance of a link (i.e. [[Category:Living people|O'Hara]]). You can also used the template {{Default sort|SORT KEY}} which forces the sort key into all categories on the page that don't have a sort key specified. Basically, just place {{Default sort|O'Hara}} above the cats ;-) Someguy1221 (talk) 18:39, 12 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

In your case, I've added {{DEFAULTSORT:O'Hara, Valentine}} for you already. Please note that it preferred that you use {{DEFAULTSORT}} (with a colon) over {{Default sort}} as it is a little nicer to the Wiki processor. -- ShinmaWa^(talk) 18:40, 12 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Right, I forgot the last name...Someguy1221 (talk) 18:44, 12 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Many thanks GoScoutUK (talk) 18:43, 12 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

{{Lifetime}} automatically generates all category tags related to birth and death years and can add DEFAULTSORT. --— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk - 19:38, 12 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Hey, that's pretty cool. Didn't know about that one :) -- ShinmaWa^(talk) 20:00, 12 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

ICO Global Communications/ICO Satellite Management

Dear Help Desk,

I represent ICO Global Communications, a satellite company based in Reston, Virginia. Several weeks ago, it was brought to our attention that there was dated and incorrect information on our company in Wikipedia. Having not been active on wikipedia (other than using Wikipedia as an indispensible resesarch tool), I went to the page and did, in fact, find several errors and omissions. For example, the name of our company is not "ICO Satellite Management", and there were some older, incomplete descriptions of the company given the firm's complicated history.

When I made the changes to reflect more accurate descriptions of the company, they were immediately deleted. Following Wikipedia's guidelines, I posted in the discussion page an inquiry as to why this was happening and asking to discuss. I got a lecture on conflict of interest and copyrighted information from our company's description of itself on our own website. Therefore, I edited again, making sure that the information was not copyrighted text, and, to avoid conflict of interest, I took extra care not to insert "marketing" or "hype" -- just a factual account of what the organization is and what it is doing. The person who keeps deleting the information and reverting to the old, incorrect text, undid the changes again, citing COI.

I am more than willing to have a third party review the information I've tried to edit to the site, and to tell me if they believe what we have posted is COI. Following Wiki's instructions to "stay cool", I don't know what more to do after being very transparent about who we are, how to reach us, and why we think we should be allowed to update the page with accurate and factual information about ICO.

Please advise. Thank you ICO Corporate (talk) 18:41, 12 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for wanting to make Wikipedia a better place and "keeping cool"! As you already noted, your changes are probably being reverted back because of a perceived conflict of interest. This is not an insurmountable problem. My recommendation (to start) would be to place your proposed changes into the talk page, indicting why the information you want to add is correct or why the information you want to remove is incorrect. Be sure to use verifiable reliable sources for any additions you want to add. Alternatively, if things you want to remove are not well-cited, be sure to bring that up on the talk page as well! That will definitely help. Once consensus is built upon your changes, an editor will be happy to make the changes on your behalf. -- ShinmaWa^(talk) 18:50, 12 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Conflict of interest is a guideline rather than a policy, which means there is no iron law against editing articles whose subjects you are associated with - it just means that you have to be extra careful not to run into problems that are typical in that situation. The first big problem is that if you are associated with a company (or school, military unit, institution, etc.), then you probably know lots of information about the subject off the top of your head. The tendency is to start writing what you know - but we don't want any original research. That means on Wikipedia we don't care so much about what people know, we care about what they can source. We don't have any simple way to verify that anybody is who they say they are, so rather than try to solve that identification problem, we delegate the reliability issue to other organizations which are already set up to deal with it - namely, reputable publishers. Therefore, the big contribution you could make to Wikipedia would be to use your knowledge of your company (and its activities, jargon, people, products, etc.) to search the Web or print sources for reliable, published information about the company. In other words, you need to be an expert in what other people have written about your company. See WP:CITE, WP:FOOT, WP:CITET, and WP:EIW#Citetools for more information about how to cite sources on Wikipedia. The whole area of sources and citing them is very complicated, but it is fundamental to what Wikipedia is trying to be - a reliable encyclopedia. Also see WP:BFAQ. --Teratornis (talk) 00:42, 13 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Finding relevant info in other articles to create inbound links

Dear Sirs,

When I create a new article, say William Willis, I would like to scan the whole Wikipedia for other articles using this name to establish inbound links to my new page. 'What links here' gives me already established inbound links. What about articles where the name is used but not linked? How to make sure that I have identified all the articles using the name?

My goal is to create articles that are organically incorporated into Wikipedia via a number of inbound and outbound links.

Thanks a lot, Lamro (talk) 19:05, 12 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Best way is to do a google search, such as this. After doing a search like this, you can work through them manually, or use a semi-automated program like AWB to automatically generate a link in each article, but asking you each time for permission to save the edit or skip to the next article. Someguy1221 (talk) 19:12, 12 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I could do that for you!

Doing... I will with AWB now...... Dendodge .. Talk^Help 20:00, 12 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Not done It's a disambiguation page. There's no point linking straight to them so I haven't. If you have a non-disambig to link to, I'll be more than happy to do it...... Dendodge .. Talk^Help 20:07, 12 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Lamro created half the articles on that page, actually. Speaking of this, seeing as you also use AWB...do you know how to do a text replacement that gives a list of replacements to choose from, just like the disambig function? Someguy1221 (talk) 21:47, 12 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

No. There's probably a way, but I don't know it. Sorry...... Dendodge .. Talk^Help 22:06, 12 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

images

How do I add an image? Travislangley (talk) 20:16, 12 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

If it exists, put [[Image:Example.jpg|thumb|caption]], if it doesn't, click 'Upload file' in the toolbox to the left...... Dendodge .. Talk^Help 20:19, 12 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

To be more specific, replace Example.jpg with the image name and caption with a caption...... Dendodge .. Talk^Help 20:21, 12 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

For more info, you can take a look at this page: Wikipedia:Images. If you still have any issues, feel free to ask for help. :) --JamieS93 20:24, 12 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

By the way, Wikipedia:Images is for uploading, adding, images. -- RyRy5 (talk ♠ Review) 01:37, 13 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

For more info, you can read Help:Images and other uploaded files. -- RyRy5 (talk ♠ Review) 01:39, 13 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

LOC-image Template

I am unable to get the digital ID parameter to function properly for {{LOC-image}}. I have posted about a dozen images from the Chicago Daily News negatives collection, Chicago Historical Society available online from the Library of Congress. I have attempted to add an image to Philip Roosevelt (WWI Capt), but the digital ID is not working.--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTM) 20:17, 12 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

What URL did you get the image from? --— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk - 20:34, 12 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

put Philip Roosevelt in the search bar at http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/index.html and it is the first image.--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTM) 21:25, 12 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

{{LOC-image}}: "This template's HDL lookup only works for images from the Library of Congress's Prints and Photographs Division (the loc.pnp in the URL)." The image you are using has a "cdn" in the URL for Chicago Daily News. Let me take a look at this. --— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk - 22:37, 12 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

This link seems to work:

http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/r?ammem/cdn:@field(NUMBER+@band(ichicdn+n059722))

I found it in the HTML source for the page. Looks like we need a template for CDN. If this is a free image, then it should be moved to Commons. Let me know if you need help there. --— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk - 23:09, 12 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I created {{LOC-cdn}}. You image can be tagged with

{{LOC-cdn|id=ichicdn+n059722}}

--— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk - 02:33, 13 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Two issues:

Image:Pullman Residence.jpg is not from the Chicago Daily News collection. How do I tag it?

I would rephrase the template to say Chicago Daily News negatives collection of the Chicago Historical Society instead of Chicago Daily News division--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTM) 17:11, 15 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Looks like you figured out that these need {{LOC-image}}. I changed the wording on {{LOC-cdn}}. Sorry I did not respond sooner, but I was traveling on business. --— Gadget850 (Ed)talk 09:54, 17 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Secure Wiki page

Is there a way to make a secure wiki article so thaty only those with a login can view and edit? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Mdgwiki (talk • contribs) 20:20, 12 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Protection is only applied in cases of vandalism or severe disputes; and anyone, including blocked users, are able to view articles. You may also want to see our policy on ownership of articles - by editing here, you agree that your work may be mercilessly edited by others (to put it very bluntly). Hersfold ^(t/a/c) 20:24, 12 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

If by "wiki article" you mean on your own wiki that runs on the MediaWiki software, then see mw:Manual:Preventing access. If you mean on Wikipedia, then no, those access prevention features are not available. Wikipedia is very open to public view. There is not even a cabal. --Teratornis (talk) 00:31, 13 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Text bleeds into infobox

Resolved

How do I make sure the text on the left doesn't run into the infobox on the right, which is what it's doing right now? I don't think editing the line lengths is the answer. JohnClarknew (talk) 20:33, 12 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

It shouldn't, what's the page?...... Dendodge .. Talk^Help 20:37, 12 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Don't start paragraphs with a space.

A space puts the text into a box. This preserves formatting and is
normally only used in discussions, but there are better ways to do it.

If you have other questions, please give us the article name so we don't have to look up your contributions. --— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk - 20:38, 12 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The article is Eight Belles. But it's fixed now, and thanks for the explanation. JohnClarknew (talk) 22:20, 12 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Help with Wikimarkup tables

I request help with making tables, which I feel is very cumbersome using pipes and braces of Wikipedia markup. Can't I somehow use a more WYSIWYG type table editor, like we do using MS word and MS Powerpoint? If such an editor or method is possible, please tell me how to get it and use it. Thanks. Cygnus_hansa (talk) 22:03, 12 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Try Wikipedia:WikiEd. This can be enabled from Special:Gadgets. --— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk - 22:20, 12 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Comments on cleanup

Resolved

Where would I go to get constructive criticism on how well I cleanup articles? If anyone could direct me to the right place, that would be excellent. Here is one such example I'd like to be critiqued on. Thanks! Lunar Jesters _(talk) 22:25, 12 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Visit Wikipedia:Requests for feedback and ask editors to take a look for you. Good work! Best, PeterSymonds | talk 22:27, 12 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Just a note, Wikipedia:Requests for feedback is for feedback on a specific article, Wikipedia:Editor review is for having others evaluate yourself as an editor. Calvin 1998 ^(t-c) 22:32, 12 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the quick responses. I'll utilize the first one, because I've only cleaned up one or two articles. Lunar Jesters _(talk) 22:36, 12 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]