Wikipedia:Help desk/Archives/2008 April 27

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April 27

Obtaining An "Account" here. Wondered if I am too anonymous to create an account here... What range of errors might I be making?

Regards, Nicolo

NFL Draft Template

I am trying to augment Template:BillsFirstPick with a Template:NFL First Round Draft Pick template list, but it won't show. What is going on? —Preceding unsigned comment added by TonyTheTiger (talk • contribs)

Well, the template you tried to add doesn't exist, which is probably the problem. -mattbuck (Talk) 07:49, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

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.

That template was deleted by Gonzo fan2007 today (deletion log entry) on the basis of housekeeping (CSD G6), with the rationale that it was a "redudant template, not used or needed". I have no idea whether it is in fact redundant. Is there a similar or identical template extant? If not, as you created that template just today, I'd drop a note on his talk page explaining that it was just created so its deletion as unused was premature, and ask for reinstatement. Cheers.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 13:34, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

Gonzo fan2007 removed it from a lot of other templates [1] before deleting it.[2] PrimeHunter (talk) 13:53, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

Ah, yes. Following primehunter's links shows that your talk page has lots of detail related to the deletion already.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 14:04, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

Yes it is somewhat redundant.--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTM) 20:51, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

My page keeps getting deleted

Hi,

I created a page twice on Wikipedia titled "Stink Records".

I initially created the page to mark the beginning of the worlds first internet only record label, and the significance of this is that this is the first time it has been done.

The details were added to the Wiki website and approximately 30 seconds after intial insert, they had been deleted. The reasons citied were that Wiki couldnt see why the page was significant, the page contained advertisement and the username I signed up with constitued advertising.

So, I edited the information to remove all advertisement, I explained clearly why Stink Records was significant and I even changed my username, and once again my page has been deleted.

Wiki is supposed to be an information sharing website. I cant see how that is the case when my page keeps being deleted. I appreciate the first time I was in breach of the rules, but your own rules also state you can rework the page and resubmit it, so I did, and you have deleted it again.

Please could you give me an idea why my page was deleted.

Thanks

—Preceding unsigned comment added by Smithster1001 (talk • contribs) 06:47, 27 April 2008 (UTC) 

You are discouraged from editing pages to which you have a connection (WP:COI) and please take the time to read over WP:V and WP:N then WP:YFA. The Dominator^Talk_Edits 06:58, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

Please see Why was my page deleted? The most common reasons are:

• The subject was not notable enough to have their own article
• It was a test page
• It was vandalism

To find the specific reason a particular page was deleted:

1. Go to the Deletion Log
2. Type the page title in the case-sensitive search field
3. The date, time and reason for deletion will be displayed...... Dendodge.Talk^Help 07:56, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

How to clear past searches on Wikipedia?

Dear Sirs,

How do I clear past searches on Wikipedia from my computer?

Thank you for your time and explanation. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Sylv9di (talk • contribs) 07:35, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

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. They are not your search history, but AJAX search suggestions. You can disable them in the searching section of your preferences...... Dendodge.Talk^Help 07:46, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

Dendodge, I assume the OP means autocomplete forms rather then AJAX (which is very annoying tbh).

Sylv9di - depends on your browser. You may just be able to bring up the autocomplete suggestions and go through deleting them. Otherwise, I'm not sure there's a way to do it for an individual form without wiping every other form (passwords excluded). In IE7, that's tools > options > general > browsing history > delete > delete forms. -mattbuck (Talk) 07:48, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

If you're using a recent build of Firefox you can simply press Ctrl-Shift-Del and it will bring up your Clear Private Data dialog box, then you uncheck everything other than Browsing History. --172.134.226.73 (talk) 15:55, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Naming conventions

Resolved

 – Unless someone finds a link ;-)

Does someone know where in our naming conventions it says that the name of a person whose first name is like A. J. Hawk or O. J. Simpson should have a space in between the two letters? Personally, and this goes along with all the sources I found, A. J. Hawk should be titled as A.J. Hawk, but a fellow Wikipedian pointed out that their was a policy that says the first name should have a space. Now I know I probably read right past it, but does anyone know where it says this in our Naming conventions? Thanks, « Gonzo fan2007 (talk ♦ contribs) @ 08:20, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

I've not been able to find much at WP:MOS#Acronyms and abbreviations or WP:MOSPN, however it does seem to be the norm to use a period and space after initials in names. In the absence of anything firm at the overall MoS, it may be an idea to ask for guidance from a project relating to the article, or to develop consensus on the article's talk page. Hope this helps Gazimoff ^Write_Read 08:30, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

Hehe, I'm the coordinator of the project relating to the article :-) I'll go with the norm, nothing big to argue over on a talk page. Thanks a lot for looking though, I'm glad that I wasn't blind ;-) « Gonzo fan2007 (talk ♦ contribs) @ 08:58, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

Naming conventions for people would be covered by Wikipedia:Manual of Style (biographies), but I don't see anything specific there— you could ask on the talk page. --— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk - 11:19, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

Is it worth suggesting an update to the MoS to include this? Gazimoff ^Write_Read 13:52, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

Yes. Recently I saw an {{editprotected}} on a fully protected page requesting to change the initials in the lead, but it was refused. I've seen this raised a few times so I think there needs to be some clarity. I've asked on the MoS talk page just in case there is a link, so it'll go from there. PeterSymonds | talk 13:58, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

• • WP:COMMONNAMES#Exceptions: "H. G. Wells (not H.G. Wells or HG Wells)". Both the last are redirects, as of course they ought to be; common sense would make an exception for unanimous usage of something else, but I can't think of an example; E. E. Cummings should be capitalized, as the article makes clear. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 18:42, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

medical

Resolved

Moved question to WP:RD/S#medical PeterSymonds | talk 09:21, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

I've added "#medical" in order to direct them to the specific section of the page where their question had been moved to--172.134.226.73 (talk) 15:51, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

Diffs/watchlist preference?

Resolved

About three or four days ago a brilliant feature was added to diffs which was a thin red box around changes so they could be easily seen. This was great when the changes were miniscule like an extra space or a comma or full stop. Then, as miraculous as they appeared, they've gone! I've searched through preferences in the hope that I'd find it again but without any joy. Does anyone know anything about this and whether I can turn it back on? Thanks PageantUpdater talk • contribs 09:29, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

There was a lot of back and forth on this at Wikipedia:Gadget/proposals#Diff underlining or borders and some more discussion below that. That section also shows how you can add it to your monobook.css. --— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk - 11:04, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

Thanks a ton :) Very happy to have it back :) PageantUpdater talk • contribs 13:28, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

Risk assessment

Resolved

risk assessment is consired to be an extremely difficult exercise —Preceding unsigned comment added by 196.2.64.46 (talk) 09:37, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

Sorry, this is for asking questions about using Wikipedia. If you're querying an article, it's best to bring it up on its talk page. Thanks, PeterSymonds | talk 10:11, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

Twinkle help

Hello, I recently installed twinkle into my monobook.js page. It doesn't seem to be working. Could someone fix it for me?--Digging (talk) 14:51, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

Try reseting your cache, Ctrl-F5. Thedjatclubrock :-) ^(T/C) 14:54, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

Which browser are you using? It's only supported on Mozilla Firefox, Camino and Safari. PeterSymonds | talk 14:57, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

I'm using the latest version of firefox, 2.0.0.14 I think it is, and I refreshed my browsers cache a few times with Ctrl-Shift-R--Digging (talk) 15:00, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

Clear Twinkle out of Special:Mypage/monobook.css monobook.js and purge. Then enable Twinkle at Special:Gadgets and purge. --— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk - 15:03, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

Okay did that, and now neither twinkle nor lupin's anti vandal tool will work...--Digging (talk) 15:15, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

Restarted firefox, not working...--Digging (talk) 15:21, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

I meant monobook.js. --— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk - 15:33, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

Clear your browser's cache by following the instructions found by following the link to the left....... Dendodge.Talk^Help 15:35, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

Yeah I did the .js, not .css, and purged. Still not working...what the hell...--Digging (talk) 15:40, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

Restore your monobook to its condition prior to your attempt to install twinkle. Once you've done this, go into Special:Preferences, then click on the Gadgets tab, select twinkle, then clear your cache. Should work like a charm.--172.134.226.73 (talk) 15:49, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

(outdent) Actually, the problem is that you're not allowed to use it yet. Twinkle has some built-in code (that a lot of people don't know about), added for security reasons, that prevents accounts less than four days old (those that are not "autoconfirmed") from using the script. Go ahead and install the script as instructed above, either through monobook or Gadgets, and wait a few days. The code is in place to prevent abuse by vandals. Twinkle has a large capability to cause a lot of damage and disruption, and misuse of it can lead to its removal or a block. The age restriction helps reduce the need for either of those actions. (I found all this out the hard way trying to install it on my non-admin account.) Hersfold ^(t/a/c) 19:13, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

Hi. I thought you needed to install it on the computer (or was that VandalProof/VandalSniper)? Thanks. ~AH1^(TCU) 21:16, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

Twinkle has now been removed from gadgets. DuncanHill (talk) 11:56, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

betel leaves

I have the habit of chewing 6 to 8 betel leaves a day. I am 43 year old lady. I sometimes finish one small packet of betel nut a day. I am worried as I have become a addict and I can't resist from chewing. I a terribly worried whether it will leas to any kind of problem. Kindly help me out with your general answers.

Thank you, —Preceding unsigned comment added by 117.192.96.114 (talk) 18:05, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

This borders on medical advice - please see our WP:Medical disclaimer. However, if you have a general question about betel leaves, I suggest taking it to the reference desk. Wisdom89 _{(T / ^C)} 18:08, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

Hmm, indeed. Please consult your doctor for his/her advice. Thanks, PeterSymonds | talk 18:34, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

Our Betel article talks about the widespread use of this recreational drug throughout tropical Asia but does not mention any harmful effects. Which is not to say there are none - tobacco smoking was widespread for centuries before people figured out it was harmful. Depending on where the lady lives, maybe her doctor chews betel as well. Just as my personal opinion, I think it is more useful to get addicted to answering questions on the Help desk. If one is going to get addicted to something, it might as well be something that helps other people, instead of something as self-centered as a recreational drug. --Teratornis (talk) 18:56, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

We cannot offer medical advice. Please see the medical disclaimer. Contact your General Practitioner....... Dendodge.Talk^Help 20:07, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

Sockpuppets

Resolved

Is a user sockpuppeteering if they are close to violating the 3RR as an IP, then log in and do the same again?...... Dendodge.Talk^Help 19:03, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

I'd say so. They're deliberately using alternate accounts to get around violating the rules ("gaming the system"). Report them at WP:SSP or contact an administrator. Hersfold ^(t/a/c) 19:08, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

OK, thanks...... Dendodge.Talk^Help 19:10, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

Yes. From 3RR: "The use of multiple accounts is not a legitimate way to avoid this limit, and reverts by multiple accounts are counted as reverts made by one editor." PeterSymonds | talk 19:12, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, I thought that would be using an alternative account deceptively but decided to check just in case...... Dendodge.Talk^Help 20:05, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

Ahem.. the history of {{HD}} speaks for itself. --VectorPotential Talk 21:22, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

New Articles and IPs

Hi, I'm from the German Wikipedia and we're discussing the "should IPs be able to create new articles"-topic again. IPs can still create new articles on de while it's not possible anymore on en. I tried to find some reliable data or discussions about the results of your policy. But I couldn't find anything. --Davidlud (talk) 20:00, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

There have been many discussions on this on many talk pages. This is just one of many listed at Wikipedia:Perennial proposals. See Wikipedia:Editors should be logged in users --— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk - 20:06, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

These essays are also helpful: Wikipedia:The benefits of not requiring account creation on Wikipedia and Wikipedia:The benefits of requiring account creation on Wikipedia. Accountability and vandalism are the main reasons we block IP article creation, but the rest are detailed in the essays. PeterSymonds | talk 20:09, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

Thank you, this is very helpful. It's interesting to see the arguments presented on Wikipedia:The benefits of not requiring account creation on Wikipedia and Wikipedia:The benefits of requiring account creation on Wikipedia. But, of course, we discuss very similar arguments on de. So, I was also wondering if you have any data about the effects of your new policy. E.g.:

1. Did the quality of your new articles improve?
2. Did the number of new articles decline?
3. Is it easier to deal with vandalism now?
4. Did the number of new account increase?
5. How many new accounts are vandalism accounts?
6. ...

--Davidlud (talk) 20:24, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

Well, they did a study you might find useful, which is located at Wikipedia:WikiProject Vandalism studies/Study1. Hope this helps, weburiedoursecretsinthegarden 20:50, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

(ec):The impetus for the change was the Seigenthaler incident. When an attempt was made in December 2007 to go back to letting IP editors create new articles, for a trial length of time (30 days?), the attempt included a proposal to gather statistics to see the impact of the change. But there was no agreement on what kind of statistics to gather, nor how they would be interpreted; that was one factor in why the attempt failed.

To be more helpful: you'll find historical data on the number of new user accounts, number of articles created, and number of articles deleted, at User:Dragons flight/Log analysis. There are of course other factors at work in the past couple of years - at some point, a captcha was added as a requirement for new user accounts, and vandal-fighting bots are now in operation, for example, which may make it difficult to draw conclusions.

I doubt that anyone here has actually measured the "quality of new articles"; I suppose that could be done by looking at the last version edited by the article's creator before another editor did an edit ( looking at the number of characters of text, number of internal wikilinks, number of footnotes, number of external URLs, possibly, as useful things for evaluations), and evaluating articles that were created in the past couple of years, but it hasn't been done as far as I know - we haven't even measured the quality of all existing articles (there are more than a million articles, out of the total of 2.3+ million here, that are unassessed). One reason why these things don't get measured, I'd guess, is because it's not clear that the results would lead to any changes in processes; and if not, why bother measuring?

As for whether it's easier to deal with vandalism, I recently concluded that concluded the statistics that are available show steadily increasing vandalism, year by year. But I don't think new articles are the target of, or an important factor, in vandalism; my sense is that it's much more common with popular articles. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 21:05, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

Cool, thank you! I think I agree with everything you said: Of course it's hard to measure "article quality" and you never know if other Wikipedians care about your data. Most Wikipedians on de think that IPs should be able to create new articles. The main argument is that it seems to be the wrong method to fight a real problem (vandalism). You already mentioned that vandalism in new articles is not a huge problem - vandalism in existing articles is worse. And I'm not sure if the hoax argument / Seigenthaler incident is convincing: If you really want to create a hoax, you will create an account as well. It might even get harder to discover a hoax, because people are more suspicious when they read a new article which was created by an IP. So I'm not sure about the benefits of blocking IP article creation. But, of course, there might exist benefits ;). --Davidlud (talk) 22:08, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

There may be other factors that need to be considered. Measuring the results achived here and applying them to the German Wikipedia may be comparing apples to oranges. From what I understand of the German Wikipedia's operations (which is all from others' descriptions so may not be accurate) you have a much more stringent article acceptance policy, deleted far more new entries with less bureaucracy and less repercussions than we do here, so it's much easier to control the flow of new articles. Again, this is from third hand reports, but that's the impression I have been given. If this is true, you are better situated to deal with ip article creation than we are, warts and all and so you balancing act is quite different than ours.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 02:00, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

Yes, the German article acceptance policy is quite different. A few examples: We don't accept articles about tv episodes. We have a List of The Simpsons episodes but no Category:The Simpsons episodes. We rarely accept articles about fictional characters, so we have a List of Middle-earth characters but no Category:Middle-earth characters. Most articles with 2 or 3 sentences become candidates for speedy deletion. And so on. And, of course, this has many effects. First of all, the German Wikipedia grows slower than many other Wikipedia projects. (I just realized that the Category:Middle-earth characters exists in 14 different languages.) On the other hand, it's easier to deal with vandalism, maintenance, and quality issues. So, you're right: It's comparing apples to oranges ;). Maybe it is useful to block IP article creation on en and it would not be useful on de. But, of course, we might still learn something from your experiences. Davidlud (talk) 04:08, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

(undent) If you are interested in the impact of requiring logins for creating new pages, the English Wikipedia has 6,819,115 articles now, and even before I would try to determine whether pace of new article creation changed as a result of requiring logins, I can tell you that the rate of new article creation on Wikipedia remains high. One might argue that the rate is too high, given the low number of high-quality articles. For every article that reaches good or featured status, we probably gain at least 100 new articles which aren't so good, and we don't have nearly enough skilled editors to fix them all soon. (I'm glad there is no deadline.) The English Wikipedia remains much better at attracting users who want to create new articles than users who want to gain the level of editing experience necessary to improve existing articles up to featured quality. Also, we delete an appalling number of articles, many if not most of which seem to be attempts by relatively inexperienced users. I consider it an ergonomic shortcoming that Wikipedia somehow gives lots of people the idea to create entirely new articles, and that becomes their incentive to create an account and dive straight into what is clearly one of the more difficult editing challenges here: creating new articles that "stick." It would be better if we somehow fired the new users' imaginations to improve our existing articles, but that is hard for a new user to comprehend, whereas anyone can notice that an article is missing when they search for it. --Teratornis (talk) 05:58, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

Hmm, the argument goes like this?: Wikipedia grows so fast that it becomes unstable and it's almost impossible to control and improve the quality of existing articles. Blocking IP article creation is a good idea because it might help to shift attention from new to existing articles. I think this is more convincing than the vandalism argument. And this is also a problem for the German Wikipedia. We had a huge debate about blocking article creation in general for one week to raise awareness about existing articles ;). --Davidlud (talk) 12:32, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia = Facebook?

Resolved

Is it normal to get a article as unimportant local player and former "succesful" U-11 indoor soccer tournament player? see Stiven_Petruševski —Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.49.64.24 (talk) 20:23, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

No, it's not. The subject probably isn't notable, and the article should be taken to AfD. Thanks for pointing this out. weburiedoursecretsinthegarden 20:35, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

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 20:38, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

Running out of patience

Hi, Moebiusuibeom-en here, Wikipedia editor and contributor, am I in the right place?, haven't the vaguest idea but I've been trying to get to find the right place for the last six hours with no luck, I'm not very protocol savvy and have a problem logging in!! I have emptied my Cache and Cookie folder as asked and somehow i can now edit but cannot Log in, among many messages I'm getting; "Log in error: Wikipedia uses cookies to log in users. You have cookies disabled. Please enable them and try again.", but I'm continually getting "cookies" (whoever invented this?) disabled, I do what is asked with no avail, other notices I've gotten; "You logged in with a temporary e-mailed code. To finish logging in, you must set a new password here:" but link seems to be inoperative.

I'm I being blocked?!

My operating system is a magnificent vintage Mac OS 9.2, please, please someone help!!

Kind regards xxxxxxx alias Moebiusuibeom-en 64.237.165.247 (talk) 22:02, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

What browser are you using? (and yes, you are in the right place) Calvin 1998 ^(t-c) 22:04, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

Assuming you're using Safari, click on Safari, Preferences, Security, then click the check the box under Accept Cookies marked Always. Hope that helps.--VectorPotential Talk 22:12, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

He's certainly not running Safari on OS 9.2. It's either IE or an older Netscape-based browser. - Kesh (talk) 04:28, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

Hey, Moebiusuibeom-en here again, I'm running on "commercial free" Internet Explorer 5; any fixes?!, I probably need to update my browser but for the eternal Mac OS 9.2 there isn't much available, if any body knows what would be best please let me know . Kind regards xxxxxxx alias Moebiusuibeom-en 64.237.165.247 (talk) 17:06, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

users versus editors versus ???

The main page says: Welcome to Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit. Some users, however, say "...our article states..." What do they mean by "our"? Does the Wikipedia "belong" to or is it "possessed" by a certain group of people, since it can be downloaded as if belonging to anyone and everyone and can be edited as if belonging to anyone and everyone and donated to as if belonging to anyone and everyone. So what gives with this "...our article says..." stuff? Also what is the difference between a "user" and an "editor" since all signatures are prefixed by "User:"? 71.100.11.39 (talk) 22:49, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

Those are some very good questions, and here are some of the answers (or some of some of the answers, perhaps). Firstly, there is no real difference between a Wikipedia "editor" and a Wikipedia "user". Technically, everyone in the world (or possibly everyone with internet access, or with internet access that doesn't currently block Wikipedia, depending on how you want to class it) could be called a Wikipedia editor, since that's the "anyone can edit" idea. However, depending on the context, some people use both terms to refer either to someone who has edited Wikipedia, or to someone who has registered an account on Wikipedia (the last is sometimes called a "logged-in user" or a "registered user" to distinguish from an "anonymous user" such as yourself).

As to "our article", you are in fact quite correct - no-one owns an article and no-one can have control over the content of an article. However, that doesn't stop some people from trying, and especially if someone has contributed a large amount of content to an article, or was the one who created it, it is tempting for them to refer to it as "my article". However, it's something that people should avoid (and perhaps made aware of it, if they start behaving like they do have some kind of control over it). However, sometimes people will also refer to any article as "our article", since the articles do belong to Wikipedia, and as an editor we are a part of Wikipedia. In that context, "our article" just means "the Wikipedia article". Confusing Manifestation(Say hi!) 23:19, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

It's easy to see why people think they 'own' an article,, wikipedia implies that. When they go to create an article wiki says to them 'Before creating an article, please read Wikipedia:Your first article. SunCreator (talk) 23:32, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

That's a good point. I remember seeing some discussion about changing the name of WP:YFA in the past, though I can't really remember where. I think Wikipedia:starting an article is fairly neutral and gets the descriptive part done. What say you?.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 01:37, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

How about that! I though that link would be red but it's a redirect to YFA. Maybe a reversal of position is in order.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 01:40, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

There is a name discussion this month at Wikipedia talk:Your first article#Conflicts with WP:OWN. PrimeHunter (talk) 02:37, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

(undent) The English language is ambiguous here. A person might say "my country," "my school," or "my employer" without implying that he or she owns the country, school, or employer, respectively. In those cases, the "possessive" pronoun does not really imply possession, but rather it implies an association with. A person should correctly say something like "the country I inhabit," "the school I attend," "the company which employs me," but few people do and generally the hearer must use his or her life experience to parse the meaning of the misleading possessive pronoun. This linguistic imprecision is of course one of the reasons why computers do not yet consistently pass the Turing test. Programs like Cyc rely on vastly detailed ontologies to describe the many distinct types of relationship that a given word can indicate in different contexts. Trying to write such programs makes it clear just how much detailed knowledge a human has to absorb and internalize while growing up to make sense of everyday natural language. On Wikipedia, our prior knowledge doesn't resolve all the ambiguities of all the everyday words that Wikipedia reuses in some specialized technical sense. --Teratornis (talk) 05:44, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

Indent and number headings

The differences between styles at different heading levels seems very subtle, and I tend to go back and forth from the text and the content window at the top. Is it possible to indent and/or number the headings according to the outline style of the content window? Alternatively, there is a wasted strip on the left that might be used as a frame to keep the outline in view. I usually hate frames but am still interested to offer up this idea because the outline is very useful. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Zaqry (talk • contribs) 23:16, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

I think you are referring to section headings. You can enable numbering from Special:Preferences → Misc → Auto-number headings. --— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk - 00:17, 28 April 2008 (UTC)