Wikipedia:New contributors' help page/Archive 4

Archive Dec 13 2005. Please do not edit this page; it is an archive.

Self-nominations

User:-Demosthenes-

I made a few small changes on the Macbeth article, we studied it intensively in two of my classes so I thought I could have something that would be useful. Then I figured out that I didn't have an account so I made one. I'm still really new, and figuring things out. Well I tried to start an article "Mofoses." This was probably really stupid, but we made up the word and there are a lot of people who use it, but the article was deleted. What are the criteria for creating a new article, do a certain amount of people have to know the word before it can be added to Wikipedia? Again this is probably really stupid, sorry.

I added a welcome message and a link to Wikipedia:Verifiability on Demosthenes's talk page. --GraemeL ^(talk) 18:20, 1 November 2005 (UTC)

Thanks, I think that I will be familiar Wikipedia very quickly. Sorry for the stupid question :P

User:CKA3KA

I'm trying to cut my wikiteeth by making minor edits when I see the need for them. I'm mostly doing things like adding commas and fixing typographical errors. I know that, in most cases, I should be marking these as minor edits, but (pity me) I just haven't been able to figure out how. At first, I thought there might be a radio button or check box, but I never found one. I tried looking at the history page, and though I saw the little, bold ms, I didn't see any place to put them in. Is this a code or switch I should be putting into the edit summary?

skazka 08:00, 31 October 2005 (UTC)

Edit: I just answered my own question when I discovered that I had, at some point, ceased to be logged in. I have no idea how, or at what point in my session, this happened. Did I cause this somehow? Is there something I should be careful not to do in the future to keep this from happening? I now see the little check box for minor edits. Skazka 08:04, 31 October 2005 (UTC)

This has happened to me, as well. However, are you on a public or school computer? It happens to me most often there. Anyway, welcome, and good luck! Trevdna 07:48, 11 November 2005 (UTC)

User:Peloman

Hello again! I look briefly in the FAQ but didn't found what I was looking for. Maybe you folks could direct me to the right section. I'm looking for a list of "famous" wikipedians (established writers, scientists and so on). Maybe there is an article outside the encyclopedia talking about it? In any cases, thanks in advance!

Since most Wikipedians contribute anonymously, it's hard to say how accurate or comprehensive this list might be, but maybe Wikipedia:Wikipedians with articles can offer you a start? — MC MasterChef :: Leave a tip — 08:06, 30 October 2005 (UTC)

Thanks MC! :-) ===User:Peloman===

User:Watasenia

Perhaps I should post this to the Help Desk, but since I'm really new here it probably doesn't do any harm to put it here: I want to create a table for the article about Optimality Theory and I've already made a nice table in my Sandbox(the example is not the one I want to put into the article...), but I still have two problems with it:

First, when I leave a cell without content, its black borders disappear, and

second, I need to insert a certain symbol which can be found in Wingdings fonts in Word but does not have any Unicode number.

Thanks for help in advance,Watasenia 02:10, 15 October 2005 (UTC)

You seem to have set styles correctly; I'll leave it to someone else to figure out why your borders are disappearing. What is the wingding you want utf for? Put on my talk page, I'll provide help there. KillerChihuahua 12:22, 19 October 2005 (UTC)

User:ANewNewbieofNewness

I don't know where else to post this. I found the Ebola page vandalized, but when I tried to edit it, the graffiti wasn't there anymore. So I cleaned my cache and reloaded it. It was still there. What is the up in mein herr?

If you take a look at the Ebola page edit history, you can see that User:Stephenb swiftly reverted a series of vandalisms inserted by User:206.110.189.50; so your eyes and computer cache weren't decieving you, Wikipedia's editors just proved as fast as the vandals in this case.

If you notice problems with vandalism from a particular user or on a particular page and aren't sure how to respond, Wikipedia:Vandalism in progress has procedures for reporting and dealing with it. Hope this helps! — MC MasterChef :: Leave a tip — 04:51, 13 October 2005 (UTC)

User:Peloman

Hi! I am an occasionnal lurker on Wikipedia and I am currently working on a term paper which is in part about this website. I have been looking for articles with some sort of "seal of approval". I remember coming across some in the past but I cannot seem to find one tonight.

Is there a special page linking to these? What is the proper formulation to find one? Most of all, do you have any examples?

Thanks in advance!

Answered on user's talk page. --GraemeL ^(talk) 12:55, 5 October 2005 (UTC)

User:Peloman

Hello again!

First of all, thanks GraemeL for the quick and helpful reply! It seems that what I was looking for were "Featured Articles". But I seem to recall that some article I was talking about earlier had some kind of graphic - hence the "seal of approval" - on top (or at the bottom)and a short notice saying how this article was rather complete and son on. Anyone knows what I'm talking about?

Once again, thanks in advance!

Answered on user's talk page (tentatively). Deltabeignet 23:14, 22 November 2005 (UTC)

User:Joker7

Can some one take a look at Kursaal http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kursaal as it's been marked up as a POSSIBLE COPYRIGHT VIOLATION I feel this is very wrong and would like to know how to add it back to WiKi.

Did you not copy that article from various online websites? If you did then this a copyright violation and was handeled correctly. Some paragraphs from this article are directly copied. Anyways, you can't just paraphrase content from other articles to get around the copyright laws. Also, I fixed your nomination as you had removed the heading from the section below this. Please sign your comments with 4 tildes like this ~~~~. Thanks. This link is Broken 19:59, 9 September 2005 (UTC)

User:Redvers

Please could someone peer-review Noah Blake for me? The existing article was a literal cut-and-paste job from his agent's website, so I re-wrote it with no knowledge of who the guy is or what he as done, by researching online. I'm claiming to have Wikified it, but even that's a bit strong!

• Oh, and the image on the page: can it be checked to see if it's PD etc? Redvers

On a completely separate matter, at Talk:Granada Television there's an interesting, if strange, excursion into the alledged activities of the alledged son of the late Sidney Bernstein, a famous United Kingdom cinema and television impresario. Whilst I'm glad the contributor put this there rather than on the Granada Television live page, I'm wondering if it is actually potentially libellous; but wouldn't know what to do about it if it was.

Much thanks in advance for potential helpers. Redvers 20:09, 8 September 2005 (UTC)

What you did was rewrite the article. That is quite fine. I will remove the copyright violation from the page history. The picture is probably not PD but I claim fairuse under publicityphoto. I deleted the comment on Talk:Granada Television since it didn't seem important or really relevant to the article's content. This link is Broken 21:02, 8 September 2005 (UTC)

If you want peer review, see Wikipedia:Peer review. Thanks! Flcelloguy | A note? | Desk 21:43, 8 September 2005 (UTC)

Many thanks to both BrokenSegue and Flcelloguy for your quick and helpful responses. People here are very nice, even to the clueless like myself, and that certainly makes one want to do more and help others too! Redvers 09:47, 9 September 2005 (UTC)

User:Thelb4

How do you start a new subcategory? Thelb4 15:42, 6 September 2005 (UTC)

Responded on user talk page. Flcelloguy | A note? | Desk 14:14, 17 September 2005 (UTC)

User:KillerChihuahua

I'm not so much clueless here, I think, as desperately seeking input and clueless about where else to ask an opinion: Would someone please check out Proximity Effect and tell me what the heck can be done? Its a well known theory, but that's not what the page is about. Its also several (nn) bands, but that isn't what the page is about either. This is about a comic series of two, or possibly three, comics, with a claim that Universal has picked it up for a movie, which I cannot confirm - but I'd prefer to change to noteable content rather than afd, cause the theory is n. I don't want to stub it, because I'm not sure its noteable, and I'm fairly sure if this goes in, we will want a disambiguation page. KillerChihuahua 01:54, 17 September 2005 (UTC)

Note left. Flcelloguy | A note? | Desk 14:28, 17 September 2005 (UTC)

User:Wikipeditor

I speak German. I have recently registered at the English Wikipedia. Must I separately register a username at the German Wikipedia to be able to contribute to it? And again for every other language? It would be annoying to have to sign in twice to fix spelling or romanization in pages in different languages you are comparing. I was not able to log in to the German Wp with my English Wp account. A small statement to the point that either it is expected to create a separate account for each Wp, or users are disencouraged from doing so on Wikipedia:Username and/or Wikipedia:Sock_puppet would be greatly appreciated, as I have been looking for guidance in vain in various places. Hope this is the right place to ask. Thank you! Wikipeditor 20:56, 18 September 2005 (UTC)

Alf informed me that a user must indeed have an account with each wiki. Thanks for your quick reply, Alf!

P. S. Why is my time stamp different from what I told it to be like in my preferences? – Wikipeditor 21:35, 18 September 2005 (UTC)

Setting your preferences only changes the display of times on the page history tab and such: Your signature is stored in the page text as plain text and is the same for everyone, so making it UTC is the only way for it to be even remotely non-confusing. This isn't ideal, but until someone thinks of (and codes up) a good way to fix it, we're stuck with it. --fvw* 21:43, 18 September 2005 (UTC)

User:Delldot

I'm in the process of creating the chronic wound page, and I'd like to add a couple pictures. Problem is, these can be pretty, uh, gross, and some people might not want to have to look at them just to read the article. What I'd like to do is create a sub page with some kind of box on the chronic wound page with a warning that it could be disturbing and a link to the subpage. Is there any precedent for doing that? Or is there a better way? I don't want the subpage deleted because it's obviously not an article. I also wanted to do that for a stupidly long references section on the wound healing page.

In other news, where do I find a standard wikipedia references section style guideline? Like, do I put the date after the names, or at the end of the reference? Do I put the name of the article in quotes, Do I capitalize every word in the article name or just the first letter? Thanks, Delldot 17:45, 9 November 2005 (UTC)

Nominations of others

User:Intelligences

Intelligences (talk · contribs)
203.26.206.129 (talk · contribs)

• Keeps posting alien visitation nonsense about Ted Owens to Space Intelligences, Intelligences, and Materialisations, the last against AfD consensus. I asked him to keep it in Ted Owens (who is arguably notable as the subject of a biography) but he didn't seem to notice. Please help me monitor this user. Gazpacho 17:21, 7 September 2005 (UTC)

Message left on User talk:Intelligences. I didn't post at the IP address because it seems to be a shared one. Flcelloguy | A note? | Desk 21:55, 8 September 2005 (UTC)

User:24.17.74.176

24.17.74.176 (talk · contribs)

• This user's sole contribution to Wikipedia has been putting an unreliable link on the Emma Watson page, and has done several times even after it's been deleted. Left note on their talk page a few days ago warning them that this isn't a smart move and recommended they at least post why they think it should be on there, have heard nothing. --D-Day 15:34, 6 September 2005 (UTC)

Message left. Flcelloguy | A note? | Desk 00:02, 8 September 2005 (UTC)

User:Miketherailfan

Miketherailfan (talk · contribs)

• This new user is busily adding a raft of new articles for every single station on the SEPTA (Southeastern Pennsylvania) mass-transit system. Is this a good thing to do? These are his only contributions so far. -- IslandGyrl 16:50, 5 November 2005 (UTC)

  I can't see why not. He's not being abusive, nor vandalising. Let him continue. His name says "Mike the rail fan", if you hadn't noticed =) --Hymyly^TC 20:15, 5 November 2005 (UTC)

That's certainly true, and I don't object—I was just asking myself what if everyone did that with their local transit system. Wouldn't it become a maintenance headache if the route map were to change, and the original author was no longer around to update it? Perhaps he is a SEPTA employee who is currently idled by the strike, and his services will cease to be available as soon as the strike is over. -- IslandGyrl 13:50, 6 November 2005 (UTC)

User:208.54.15.129

208.54.15.129 (talk · contribs)

• This little lost soul is busy adding poorly phrased and punctuated lines into articles on his favourite subjects and adding unformatted external links, usually to the same 2 sites. The lines and links are generally relevant, so it's not vandalism, despite the need to clean them up afterward, although I see he's been reverted in some places. Just sorta needs someone to keep a genial eye on him, IMHO. Redvers 20:50, 6 October 2005 (UTC)

User:Vulturell

Vulturell (talk · contribs)

• Over the last two days or so this user has been busily recategorizing articles in questionable ways -- generally articles about authors and actors. I noticed an edit on Robert A. Heinlein, and when I checked Vulurell's talk page I found a number of previous comments in the same vein, to which the typical response was, "I read it in a book somewhere." Brandon39 17:14, 4 October 2005 (UTC)

User:Nboggs

Nboggs (talk · contribs)

• Destroyed hours of work by serveral users that have been working on WV Highways. Removed templates form each page that gave easy access to other WV Highways. Removed the template from the main entry, and replaced it with a list that was hard to navigate. Maybe a troll --71Demon 02:37, 2 October 2005 (UTC)

User:Alexie

Alexie (talk · contribs)

• Keeps reverting Hurricane Rita to older versions.

First comment was: "AHHH".

Second comment (same revert) was: "You know what, keep it like this for good!"

67.171.74.109 22:58, 21 September 2005 (UTC)

Because user seems to not be acting in bad faith, I've just added the standard welcome message. Flcelloguy | A note? | Desk | W_S 21:10, 23 September 2005 (UTC)

User:152.163.100.13

152.163.100.13 (talk · contribs)

• This one's out of control. Has vandalized the 2008 U.S. Presidential Election Article several times now with POV commments, and after I put a note on the discussion section of that page asking whether he should be put on the CN page, he vandalized my comment to reflect his POV, and called me a liar in response to my follow-up comment. I have warned him a couple of ties now that Wikipedia is NOT a soapbox, yet he seems to think he's above the rules. I've given up trying to straighten him out. He's gonna need more tutoring and a maybe a few manners lessons. Thanks in advance to anyone who can help. --D-Day 22:08, September 9, 2005 (UTC)

Note left. Flcelloguy | A note? | Desk 20:02, 10 September 2005 (UTC)

Thank you for helping out. Hopefully he'll start paying attention. --D-Day 20:23, September 10, 2005 (UTC)

User:216.220.231.226

216.220.231.226 (talk · contribs)

• Not sure what's happenening, but take a look at the contribs, think he could prob use a few words from a more experienced Wikipedian than myself. PubLife 16:00, 8 September 2005 (UTC)

Hasn't really done anything wrong; created several sub-stubs (which isn't wrong in itself). Lucky 6.9 has already left a message regarding this. Flcelloguy | A note? | Desk 22:00, 8 September 2005 (UTC)

User:Fullmetal Alchemist

Fullmetal Alchemist (talk · contribs)

• I don't know what to do anymore. I originally welcomed this user at the beginning of August. Everything was fine for a while until he started asking me how to put images into articles. I helped him do that, only to learn that he has been committing copyright infringement by uploading images without permission and copying articles word for word. He doesn't seem to understand that these things are illegal. Acetic'^Acid 09:00, September 1, 2005 (UTC)

Note left. Flcelloguy | A note? | Desk 22:47, 1 September 2005 (UTC)

Thank you so much. Acetic'^Acid 17:30, September 3, 2005 (UTC)