Help desk
< May 24	<< Apr \| May \| Jun >>	May 26 >

Welcome to the Wikipedia Help Desk Archives
The page you are currently viewing is an archive page. While you can leave answers for any questions shown below, please ask new questions on one of the current Help Desk pages.

May 25[edit]

Changing Interfaces[edit]

I am constantly falling between interfaces (the new one and old one) - I have the new one selected, but for no apparent reason, I keep going into monobook for a few pages and then going back to the new skin for few hours. Is there someway to fix this? ~QwerpQwertus |_Talk_| |_Contribs_| 01:51, 25 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

You could try to clear your entire cache. PrimeHunter (talk) 02:16, 25 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Actually, I tried that - it just keeps happening

Grr! Just as I was signing that response, it happened again and I was sent back to the help desk (not edit mode) and I'm stuck in the old version right now. - Plus, I checked my preferences and it says that I have the new version\skin\interface chosen? ~QwerpQwertus |_Talk_| |_Contribs_| 02:27, 25 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

There are users reporting similar things at Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)#Skin bug and the section after that. PrimeHunter (talk) 02:35, 25 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, I'll take a look. PS: It's gone back.* *(for now)~QwerpQwertus |_Talk_| |_Contribs_| 02:39, 25 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Bad link in Eric Clapton discography[edit]

Resolved

– – ukexpat (talk) 17:52, 25 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

First, thanks for your very interesting and precise site.

Path : Eric Clapton discography

Albums
 Collaborations and guest appearances
  With other artists
   2006 Live at Montreux 1986 (live) ---> Talk Talk band ?????????????????????
                                          which also was at Montreux.

But there's no correlation, since Clapton was with Otis Rush and not Talk Talk.

If you can change. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Cedalz (talk • contribs) 02:29, 25 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

You can change it. This is the encyclopedia anyone can edit. You are part of the group of people known as "anyone". --Jayron32 02:31, 25 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

If you want, I can do it for you. ~QwerpQwertus |_Talk_| |_Contribs_| 02:33, 25 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I can't find what you're talking about. —Preceding unsigned comment added by QwerpQwertus (talk • contribs)

I found the problem and fixed it.[1] We have no article about the Eric Clapton release. PrimeHunter (talk) 11:51, 25 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I did not know very well how to do. Thank you very much. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Cedalz (talk • contribs) 17:28, 25 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

not receiving emailj[edit]

have been trying to reset password, not receiving email from facebook. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.41.10.78 (talk) 02:49, 25 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

This isn't Facebook. This is Wikipedia. You'll need to contact Facebook about problems with their service. --Jayron32 02:51, 25 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Uploading final file[edit]

How do I upload my final article to Wikipedia? I just can't figure it out. Thank you.

Heidi Crane 03:01, 25 May 2010 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Htcrane (talk • contribs)

Try using the Article wizard. --The High Fin Sperm Whale 03:35, 25 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Since the user has created a page in their userspace, I suspect the question is about moving the page from there to the mainspace. In order to do this, Htcrane, you will need to be autoconfirmed, which means your account must be at least four days old and you have to have at least ten edits to your credit. Your account is mature enough but you have only made seven edits so three more and you can move the page yourself. However, what I suggest you do is ask for review of your article at Wikipedia:Requests for feedback. Cheers.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 03:54, 25 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Linking images[edit]

How do you link an image to an article? I know how to do this, but how would you link a thumbnail to an article when you click on it? Thanks, --The High Fin Sperm Whale 03:32, 25 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

(does not work with the thumb parameter)--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 03:43, 25 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

An admin is accusing me of vandalism and blocked my access to edit articles even though what I was doing does not constitute vandalism[edit]

First of all, let me give some background information. For a couple of years now, there has been excesive editing of wikipedia articles by iranian, afghan, or tajik people where they edit the history of many modern countries. This results in incorrect and historically false articles written by persians who blatantly are excercising chauvenism and are not citing the articles with credible sources. Either their sources are dead links, or they are citing a book which is in another language and cann't be read, or they are citing encyclopedia Iranica. A simple example is the article "Uzbekistan". Central Asia, has a very diverse history and culture and linguistic background, it was not always persian as these peopple are claiming. Turkic empires were not "persianate" empires, and the excesive use of the words Aryan and Persian in these articles is what I believe is giving wikipedia a bad name since nobody is really doing anything about this nonsense that some persian users are writing. The few times I did edit wikipedia, And I'm sorry if I'm not a professional and I have a hard time editing" my changes were immediately undone. Last couple of weeks I've changed the article "Uzbekistan" to a version of history which is the most neutral and does not contain any exaggerated use of the word persian, or does not falsley claim certain parts of history to persians, or does not claim certain historical figures to be persian even though they were not (here is the text I used http://www.allempires.com/article/index.php?q=history_central_asia ). I've removed the excessive use of the word persian when inappropriate and that was it. Certain users kept changing my version back and then a user, who happens to be an admin (Ckatz) kept accusing me of vandalism and changing it back and restricting me from editing the page. I think this is unfair since I was correcting the history section of my own country which is abused by persians and their supporters. How can I get back to editing properly (and what can I do to stop some people from accusing me of vandalism). I have all my sources and picture links ready I just need to figure out how I can edit, add pictures, put sources, and stop vandals who accuse me of vandalism from engaging in edit wars with me. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Halq So'zi (talk • contribs) 04:36, 25 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry, Wikipedia. - I was not aware of this - disregard what I said. ~QwerpQwertus |_Talk_| |_Contribs_| 01:07, 27 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry, but the above advice is absolutely 100% wrong. Firstly, you should most certainly not "just create a new account" in order to evade a block - this is strictly against Wikipedia's rules, and can lead to permanent blocking. You appear to have created this account in order to evade the 2-week block placed on your IP address here for the content dispute you describe above. That is unacceptable - see WP:SOCK. Your new account has also been blocked for returning to the edit war, but it should have been blocked anyway for block evasion. You now have two options.

(1) Appeal to have your IP address block lifted. You do this by putting the wording {{unblock|1=Insert your reason to be unblocked here}} on your user talk page. ReadWikipedia:Guide to appealing blocks to find out how to do this effectively. Communicate with the blocking admin and explain your position calmly.
(2) Wait until your block expires, then start editing within the rules. Do not get involved in edit wars and handle content disputes appropriately. Use article talk pages to reach consensus with other editors over wording. If you cannot reach consensus, use the guidance at WP:Dispute resolution to proceed further.

You should not continue editing under an account and an IP address, unless you clearly indicate on your user page that the two are being operated by the same person. You should not create any further accounts and use them to evade the block. Finally, edit summaries like this one [2] are totally unacceptable on Wikipedia, no matter how frustrated you are getting. See Wikipedia: No personal attacks. Ka renjc 09:31, 25 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

blackberry compatibility[edit]

I used to be able to read wikipedia on my blackberry. Now a java error pops up and the site can't be viewed on blackberry. How can I fix this? Thanks —Preceding unsigned comment added by Mmath4 (talk • contribs) 04:37, 25 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Many people have been having problems with this.

I think I found a soultion to the problem below!

From your phone, use http://en.m.wikipedia.org - its the mobile version - it worked for me!
~QwerpQwertus |_Talk_| |_Contribs_| 21:09, 21 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

at the moment, a template in a DYK article looks haywire[edit]

Resolved

There is huge red bold error text in the first paragraph of Abyssal_plain which I think is caused by the {{convert}} template. I'm hoping someone can take a look, try to fix it, and mark this thread as {{resolved}} if the problem has been fixed already. Thanks. 75.4.18.242 (talk) 05:14, 25 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I don't see anything, so I'll assume it was fixed. ~QwerpQwertus |_Talk_| |_Contribs_| 05:25, 25 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I see it too. It's not fixed. And no it's not a cache issue since I've never seen that article before. Dismas|^(talk) 05:31, 25 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Really, I must've missed it - Sorry! ~QwerpQwertus |_Talk_| |_Contribs_| 05:33, 25 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Someone came along and fixed it in this edit. Thanks. 75.4.18.242 (talk) 05:52, 25 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I still see a number of errors in the second section (first after the lead). Dismas|^(talk) 06:13, 25 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

milton keynes parish/coulcil[edit]

Hi, Could you please tell me an email address for me to contact the Milton Keynes Council or Parish or whatever yhey are called? I have a photo taken probably in the early 1800's which mentions the village of Milton on it and wanted to send on a copy to see if anyone can tell me anything about it. I live in Adelaide, South Australia. Hoping you can help Regards Len Brown —Preceding unsigned comment added by 123.200.244.99 (talk) 07:10, 25 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Reformatted question to remove spaces at start of line

Their website is http://www.miltonkeynes.gov.uk/ I guess you'll find some contact information there. --ColinFine (talk) 07:53, 25 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Or you might need http://www.broughtonandmkv-pc.gov.uk/ for the historical Milton Keynes village as opposed to the modern "new town" city, which wouldn't have featured in any c19th photographs. Gonzonoir (talk) 08:04, 25 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

There is a specifically historical and archive society here, with an email address. Ghmyrtle (talk) 10:11, 25 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Do you know it is the right village? There are many places called 'Milton' in England. --ColinFine (talk) 16:59, 25 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

And the Reference Desk is here. – ukexpat (talk) 17:03, 25 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Mysterious vandalism[edit]

A look at the article Luther College (Victoria) shows the word "dick" at the very beginning of the text. However, when looked at in Edit mode, that word is not there.

The article History shows this word being present right from the article's creation.

Has somebody done something particularly tricky here? HiLo48 (talk) 10:48, 25 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The infobox created by the template {{Infobox Aust school}} was vandalized with this edit. So you would see nothing in the article's history. Dismas|^(talk) 10:55, 25 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Ah. Thanks. I seem to learn something new quite often on Wikipedia. Glad that's sorted. HiLo48 (talk) 11:29, 25 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

This is where the "Related changes" link in the toolbox comes in handy. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 12:20, 25 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Very problematic page[edit]

Hi!

The page about Belle Plaine, Iowa is highly problematic. Can someone remove all these horrible things about people from Belle Prairie? Thanks in advance. - CheepnisAroma (talk) 11:13, 25 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The article was vandalized yesterday. I see you removed some of the vandalism. I have reverted to a version in the page history before the vandalism. It's a good idea to check the page history of clearly vandalized pages. PrimeHunter (talk) 11:21, 25 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

That's what I should have done. Thanks, good riddance! I mean, poor people from Belle Prairie! - CheepnisAroma (talk) 11:56, 25 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Well, the Vandal was pretty local, the IP address is for an ISP out of Cedar Rapids, about an hour away. (Click on IP of Vandal, then the WHOIS in the bottom box, and then GeoIP up near the top of the page at the toolserver). Maybe there are only two people in the town. :)Naraht (talk) 14:58, 25 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

A local conflict I'm sure! - CheepnisAroma (talk) 16:43, 25 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Translations[edit]

I observed for a long time that Japanese and Korean editors like use just romanizations of there own languages (e.g. Chosun Ilbo, Asahi Shimbun), while Chinese editors try to translate every single character to English(In the previous cases, Chinese 99% may translated them as, e.g, Korean Daily, Morning Sun News).--刻意(Kèyì) 14:42, 25 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Have you a question? --ColinFine (talk) 17:01, 25 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Alphabetical "What links here"?[edit]

Does anyone know if there is any way to change the "What links here" to be Alphabetical? (Assume for simplicity no redirects). As best as I can tell, the output of the "What links here" is in the order that the pages were created (so that both pages A and B link to page C, and you ask for "What links here" on page C, page A will be before page B in the list if page A was created before page B). Also it seems like a fairly easy tool to create. The reason that I want to use this is to make it easier to check templates to see if every place that the template links to contains the template.Naraht (talk) 14:47, 25 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

No, it cannot be sorted alphabetically. There is a request at bugzilla:2306. PrimeHunter (talk) 20:58, 25 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

And apparently I'm not even the first person to suggest this. Has someone done this as an exterior tool then?Naraht (talk) 13:35, 27 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

How can text blocks be numbered automatically?[edit]

I spent hours trying to find an answer to this question.

I wrote over 1,100 blocks in one wikipedia page. Up until now I have hand-inserted blocks enabling automated numbering in a TOC with header lines

("=== First line of a block ===")

I wrote a simple template to display blocks. It will become a lot more rich than this in the end with centering and other prettifying characteristics as well as optimized ways to navigate through when they are being reviewed on an iPhone.

Here is the template I wrote so far named {{Template:NumberedTextBlock}}:

'''{{{1}}}'''<br />
{{{2}}}<br />
{{{3}}}<br />
{{{4}}}<br />

I would prefer that a block begin with a cardinal number and that the number increments with each block. I envision something like the following:

'''{{NumberedTextBlockCardinality}}. {{{1}}}'''<br />
{{{2}}}<br />
{{{3}}}<br />
{{{4}}}<br />

How do I establish a page global variable and increment it for each use of the template within the page?

Also, how can the first lines be gathered into some kind of array that can be accessed by something like: {{NumberedTextBlock[297]}}?

Thank you for your help in advance. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Iapx86 (talk • contribs)

I don't understand what you are trying to do, and your contributions don't show that you have made any edits here recently. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 20:10, 25 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I am also confused. Your account has no other edits at the English Wikipedia since 2007 and there is no Template:NumberedTextBlock. Are you referring to something here at http://en.wikipedia.org? PrimeHunter (talk) 20:53, 25 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

You are correct. I wrote the page on Jerome Lettvin with occasional more recent edits. I am soon to do more edits.

I have a half dozen mediawiki installations, some private, others public, for which I develop material. I am trying to learn how to develop mediawiki programming (as opposed to page editing) skills. The question was generic to mediawiki, and not specific to wikipedia. If there is a better forum to ask this question, please redirect me there. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.60.117.179 (talk) 22:26, 25 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The top of the page says "This page is only for questions about how to use Wikipedia". mw:Project:Help includes a link to mw:Project:Support desk for questions about the MediaWiki software. I'm still unsure what you are trying to do but if you seek help then note that "block" usually refers to blocking users from editing. Your question appears to involve what MediaWiki calls sections. Or maybe Wikipedia:Lists#Numbered lists can help you. I don't think Wikipedia has a way to make a "global variable" for a page. There are many MediaWiki extensions that are not enabled on Wikipedia. I don't know whether one of those can help. PrimeHunter (talk) 22:50, 25 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Maybe mw:Extension:VariablesExtension? Note that MediaWiki's wikitext is not nearly as programmable as any of the common scripting languages such as PHP, Perl, Python (programming language), etc. However, the many MediaWiki extensions provide some of these features. If you find the wikitext syntax too restrictive, you should probably learn to write your own MediaWiki extensions, which involves writing your own code with PHP. See mw:How to become a MediaWiki hacker. --Teratornis (talk) 05:16, 27 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for your patience. I will seek out the resources you have offered and avoid confusing mediawiki with wikipedia as I have done. I appreciate the generosity you showed. I hope to repay it by contributing more content to wikipedia. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.60.117.179 (talk) 06:16, 27 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

One last comment: Extension:Variables and Extension:ParserFunctions did exactly what I wanted. I will share if there is interest. But it is very simple and probably only useful to authors like Nostradamus to number his quatrains. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.60.117.179 (talk) 12:50, 27 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Special:Version shows that mw:Extension:Variables and mw:Extension:VariablesExtension are not enabled here. PrimeHunter (talk) 13:01, 27 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Masks (1998 film)[edit]

collapsing draft article (?)

Masks (Polish: Maski) is a 1998 computer animated short film by Piotr Karwas. The film won numerous awards, including the Golden Bear at the Berlin International Film Festival and the Silver Dragon at the Cracow Film Festival.

Plot.

In a workshop late one night, a skeletal, faceless creature is seens chiseling away at a mask. It tries the mask on, but is unhappy with it and discards of it into pile of other masks on the floor. The creature continues to make more masks for itself, but is always unsatisfied with the end results. While trying on yet another mask, the creature accidently makes a tear in its own faceless head. As the creature peels back its leafy, green "skin", it discovers a human face underneath. During the film's end credits, the creature can be heard tearing away at its leafy flesh.

References IMDB title. Full film at Hideout Films

—Preceding unsigned comment added by Avantgardeguy (talk • contribs) 15:08, 25 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Do you have a question about using or editing Wikipedia? – ukexpat (talk) 15:58, 25 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Image corrupted?[edit]

File:Khastegi (Sex My Life) poster.jpg will not display for me at any resolution, even if I purge it; the same is true for the identical image at Commons. Could someone please check and either confirm that it's corrupted or explain that something's odd with my computer? Nyttend (talk) 15:17, 25 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Not sure what the issue is, put I'm not having any problem with it. It both comes up fine in the hover over that I have turned on as well as on the page. I see two legs from the calf down on a sort of rose colored background with words in both English and what appears to be a Southwest Asian language (Probably Arabic or Farsi).Naraht (talk) 15:36, 25 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

It may be a browser issue; or your system may have some kind of [employer or institution] filtering on that blocks the file because of its naughty name. --Orange Mike | Talk 18:17, 25 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Well, I can't see it either (IE on Windows 7), so Nyttend isn't wholly alone. Deor (talk) 19:05, 25 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Are you at work or in an environment where there's likely to be some kind of filter? I'm at home, using Firefox on Ubuntu 10.04 and see it fine (as Naraht described, much better than I could ;-)

TFOWR^propaganda 19:08, 25 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Nope, I'm at home; no filters are involved. Deor (talk) 19:09, 25 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Weird. I've just tried in Chrome, too, and can see it fine. Would an alternative browser be an option? Not sure it would necessarily be the answer, but could be worth a try? I suppose next step might be the village pump to see if any of the techy regulars there have any idea? TFOWR^propaganda 19:14, 25 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Looking in IE8, I can't see it either (I only see an X), but it shows up in Chrome, Safari, Firefox, and Opera. Interestingly, in all browsers except for Safari, it shows brightly coloured with a rose background, whereas in Safari the background is black and looks more natural. Side note: the image's licence statement is obviously incorrect~~, and a fair use rationale needs to be added~~. Intelligentsium 22:59, 26 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I've just seen the image is hosted on Commons. It probably needs to be deleted, optionally with a local re-upload with a valid Fair Use Rationale and image tags. Intelligentsium 23:05, 26 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Ad-block? PleaseStand ^(talk) 23:35, 26 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, there is something wrong with the image. It appears with a pink background in Firefox, but with a black background in Safari. As mentioned earlier, I suspect the black background version is the correct one. Also, I see that the file was put up for deletion; I have no comment on the image's license, but I suspect that the file existed for so long because the user who uploaded the file shares the same name as the director of the film. I have no comment on whether they are really the same person, though, of course, but I wouldn't be surprised. Gary King (talk) 00:03, 27 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

(←) It appears to have been saved and uploaded as an Adobe four-component CMYK JPEG, which is not decodable with older web browsers. The thumbnailers simply rescale too accurately, down to the odd format. I was able to reproduce this with an old copy of Photoshop, simply selecting "CMYK" mode and exporting a copy as jpeg, and it was broken in an older browser. I wasn't able to upload this to Wikimedia though (gave me a MIME/extension match error). --Splarka (rant) 07:38, 27 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Editing of "Boom (Containment)"[edit]

I signed in as Energy Tzar and edited "Boom (Containment)". I saved; however, I cannot see the changes as an outsider when I use another computer to check on the update.

Please advise. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 129.171.57.45 (talk) 15:29, 25 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

It was reverted as advertising in this edit. – ukexpat (talk) 15:59, 25 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Need to upload a picture...[edit]

But I do not have a "confirmed" status. I am trying to upload this picture: http://twitpic.com/1qxu0f

to this wikipedia page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zelda_%28turkey%29. A friend and I are the ones that took this picture today, and I added the following line to the Wikipedia page: "Zelda was again seen on May 25, 2010 outside of 55 Water Street, only a few blocks away from Battery Park."

Please let me know what to do, thanks! Shawn —Preceding unsigned comment added by Djshawnee (talk • contribs) 19:26, 25 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

You've made three edits, so you only need another seven (you registered your account ages ago, so you don't need to wait for four days, as a newly registered user would).

You can make edits to your userpage and edit most articles in the meantime. Once you've made another seven edits you'll probbaly need to wait a short while - I think there may be a slight delay before you'll get to be able to upload your picture.

Cheers, TFOWR^propaganda 19:30, 25 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Vandalism[edit]

When i want to warn users on their pages about them vandalising wikipedia,i know that users write something on their pages.Is there a code they put in to save them from writing it all out? Gobbleswoggler (talk) 19:45, 25 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Use {{subst:test}}, like so:

Thank you for experimenting with Wikipedia. Your test worked, and it has been reverted or removed. Please use the sandbox for any other tests you may want to do. Take a look at the welcome page to learn more about contributing to our encyclopedia.

If you have a specific case of vandalism in mind, you can use {{subst:test|veeblefetzer}}, like so:

Thank you for experimenting with the page veeblefetzer on Wikipedia. Your test worked, and it has been reverted or removed. Please use the sandbox for any other tests you may want to do. Take a look at the welcome page to learn more about contributing to our encyclopedia.

For repeated offenses, use "test2" or "test3" instead of "test". "Test4" is intended for administrators only, because it is intended as a final warning before blocking the vandal users. Non-administrator users cannot actually block anyone. JIP | Talk 19:58, 25 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

That's just one set of the available templates. Many more are described here, covering many kinds of vandalism/mistakes/policy infringements/etc and many levels of warnings. -- John of Reading (talk) 20:20, 25 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Is the image infobox on Wikipedia broken?[edit]

Look at, for example, this picture, which I both took and uploaded to Wikipedia myself. The infobox has this content:

== Summary ==
{{Information
 |Description    = A group of men and women participating in the [[Länsiväyläjuoksu]] event in [[Otaniemi]], [[Espoo]], [[Finland]].
 |Source         = I ([[User:JIP|<font color="#CC0000">J</font><font color="#00CC00">I</font><font color="#0000CC">P</font>]] | [[User talk:JIP|Talk]]) created this work entirely by myself.
 |Date           = 19:30, 26 April 2010 (UTC)
 |Author         = [[User:JIP|<font color="#CC0000">J</font><font color="#00CC00">I</font><font color="#0000CC">P</font>]] | [[User talk:JIP|Talk]]
 |other_versions = 
}}

The "Source" bit is intended to render as follows:

I (JIP | Talk) created this work entirely by myself.

What it ends up rendering as is:

I (JIP

The image infobox used to work all OK, even with my current signature. But it's been broken for several months now. What is the reason? JIP | Talk 19:47, 25 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Your signature contains a "pipe" character, which is not recommended. On the "My Preferences" page it says "Also, if you are going to use a displayed pipe ("|") character (i.e. not part of a piped link), please use | for the pipe character; it can otherwise cause templates to fail." -- John of Reading (talk) 19:57, 25 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

(edit conflict) I'll take a shot and guess that the pipe in your signature: | Talk) is mucking up the boxes code. Though if this was alright with your current sig previously then it's possible that the template was recently modified and now gives a bad reaction to said sig. Jeffrey Mall (talk • contribs) - 20:00, 25 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Hey, wow, it is the pipe character that is breaking the template. I just did a quick preview substituting &124; for |, and it worked. Too bad the template auto-substitutes my signature instead of rendering it on the fly. I've already fixed my signature, but it's not enough, now I have to go through every single image I've uploaded since the new template was taken into use and fix them. I guess the reason the old template worked OK is that it didn't try to include my signature, just a link to my user page. Thanks, John of Reading and Jeffrey Mall. JIP | Talk 20:04, 25 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Please upload images to which you own the copyright to Wikimedia Commons rather than to Wikipedia. On Commons they are available to all Wikiprojects. – ukexpat (talk) 20:18, 25 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The problem with your signature in the source field probably started 17 July 2009 with this edit, assuming you click the "Entirely my own work" link at Wikipedia:Upload. Your signature is also cut off at the pipe character in the author field (which is supposed to show the complete signature) since before the 2009 edit, but it's less noticeable for the author field because no text is supposed to be displayed after the signature there. PrimeHunter (talk) 20:40, 25 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

uploaded images[edit]

I upladed an image but I do not know how to get it into the page I created. I found the logo I uploaded in the wikipeadia commons page. What's my next step to get the image into the company box I created on my page? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Creativity123 (talk • contribs) 21:06, 25 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

You should replace your homemade infobox with one of the standard infobox templates, probably Template:Infobox company. If you paste the image's file name in the "logo" field of that infobox, the image will appear in the infobox. Deor (talk) 21:34, 25 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

logged out while edditing[edit]

I have a problem where I get logged out of wikipedia during some point while staying on the wikipedia site even though I was originally logged in and never pressed the logged out button. Frequently I will navigate to a page I am currently working on by going to my contributions and clicking the page I want to look at/edit. Then after editing a discussion page I will see my comment signed with an IP address rather than my user name. Why is this happening? I am clearly logged in, after all I got to the page by clicking my user contributions. How am I getting logged out while editing? --MATThematical (talk) 21:32, 25 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

See Help:Logging in for tips on staying logged in. PrimeHunter (talk) 22:13, 25 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Occasionally a registered editor will edit while logged out. While not usually an egregious issue, there can be some concerns about attribution and privacy.

If you made an edit without logging in, you cannot go back and directly tie that edit to your account. If your desire to account for the edit overrides your desire for anonymity, you can log in, make a dummy edit, and add a note in the edit summary about the previous edit.

If you make a comment on a talk page without logging in, then your signature will include your IP address. You can log in and edit the comment by replacing the signature. Be aware that the WikiScanner tool will retrieve these actions from the database and record them at the Poor Man's Checkuser, thus connecting your username and IP address.

If you feel that the connection between the IP address and your username is an issue, then you can request that the edit be removed; see Wikipedia:Oversight#Policy and Wikipedia:Requests for oversight.

Wikipedia has no built in safeguards to warn editors that they are logged out.

As a visual reminder, you can make the Save page button green when logged in, by adding this rule to Special:MyPage/skin.css:

/* Turn the "Save page" button green when logged in */
INPUT#wpSave {
    background-color:#88ff88;
}

If you use FireFox, you can disable the Save page button while logged out by installing Greasemonkey and the MediaWiki: Prevent anon editing script. This must be applied to each computer you use and will not be available on public computers.

---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 22:37, 25 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Posting Pages to Foreign Languages Versions of Wikipedia[edit]

Hi,

We are an translation company and one of our customers has two English pages posted to Wikipedia. They want us to translated the pages into several Wikipedia supported languages. This is the easy part. The concern is how to post these to the native language versions of Wikipedia as we can not do that for them using their login information do to security issues, rights, etc. Alternatively they can't do it either as they do not speak any of the languages and can not figure out how to do this on the native versions of the sites.

Can you give any guidence on how to accomplish this?

Thanks for your help and guidence.

BJ —Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.123.114.226 (talk) 21:56, 25 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

You can create an account at ANY Wikipedia in ANY language and edit articles there (pursuant to that languages' guidelines and policies). A cornerstone policy of Wikipedia is that anyone can edit, and we mean it. There's no need to log in to anyone elses account, just create your own account, and edit or create any article you wish. Also, please be aware that English Wikipedia does not allow role accounts or corporate accounts, see Wikipedia:USERNAME#Sharing_accounts and Wikipedia:Sock_puppetry#Role_accounts. Accounts are one-person to one-account. Other languages maintain their own policies, so you'll have to ask at those languages help desks to find out more there. --Jayron32 02:08, 26 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

This is not directly germane to your question, but it sounds from your description as if your customer believes that they 'own' pages in Wikipedia, and can employ you to do work on them (in this case, translation): I am presuming that the pages in question are about them or their products. Please make it clear to them that nobody owns pages on English Wikipedia, and that if the pages do indeed relate to them or their products, both they and you would have a conflict of interest, and are strongly discouraged from editing the articles. The rules may be different in other Wikipedias. --ColinFine (talk) 23:10, 26 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I would also bear in mind that the editing standards of the english wikipedia and those of (for example) the spanish or japanese language wikipedias can be vastly different. So while your translation may initially be a mirror of the english article, after a few days or weeks or months, it may be change drasticly. Livewireo (talk) 19:33, 27 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Requesting image updates[edit]

As my knowledge of image copyrights, rules, policies and etc (hence this) is minimal I tend to avoid the whole image area like the plague on Wikimedia sites. I was wondering if there was any specific way to request an image be updated? Not edited but actually updated? For example if we had a screenshot of a website's home page that has since been updated and no one had uploaded a screen of the current up to date home page would there be a process to request an up to date version of the file be uploaded? Jeffrey Mall (talk • contribs) - 22:06, 25 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

You can request on the image talk page, but those are not often watched. Might be better to ask on the talk page of the article where the image is used. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 22:36, 25 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The image in question is File:Button sig.png which is a highly used and fully protected image, but, due to recent skin change requires updating. Jeffrey Mall (talk • contribs) - 22:48, 25 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

File:Button sig.png is at commons:File:Button sig.png and used in many other wikis where the default skin is still MonoBook, so the file should not be updated. Instead a new file could be uploaded with a new name and the English Wikipedia could change to use the new file. PrimeHunter (talk) 22:57, 25 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I see. The primary concern is the {{uw-tilde}} template, at the moment it's telling users to sign their posts by clicking an edit button that isn't there anymore. Jeffrey Mall (talk • contribs) - 23:00, 25 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I uploaded File:Vector_toolbar_signature_button.png

for you. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 23:36, 25 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the replies and thank you TheDJ, I've since updated the tilde template. Jeffrey Mall (talk • contribs) - 23:42, 25 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

{{uw-tilde}} used Image:Signature_icon.png which redirects to File:Button sig.png. I found File:Button sig new.png and changed {{uw-tilde}} to use that. You then changed my change! It would be possible to upload a file to the English Wikipedia at File:Button sig.png. It would override the commons file at the English Wikipedia but not at other wikis. I don't know whether this is a good idea. PrimeHunter (talk) 23:46, 25 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Whoops lol. Sorry about that PrimeHunter, as for updating the local file version I'll leave that to anyone who knows and understands commons and images here on the en 'pedia. Cheers, Jeffrey Mall (talk • contribs) - 23:52, 25 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia:Help desk/Archives/2010 May 25