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January 21[edit]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laura_Spinney - commercial?[edit]

Hello, sorry to use this way of contacting you - writing a review about her book "The pale rider" for a German radio-station, I wanted to know a bit more about Laura Spinney and found this link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laura_Spinney

It reads as if it would have been written to promote the book - is this possible?

Cheers and all the best

Dagmar — Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.237.81.71 (talk) 11:15, 21 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Hello Dagmar, I have removed 'positively' from the mention of newspaper reviews as it was unsourced. The article was begun in mid-2017 so the publication of the book may have 'sparked' its creation. However, it was written by an editor with several years experience and a large edit history. IMO It is reasonably factual and neutral. Eagleash (talk) 17:01, 21 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I have to ask, is Dagmar your real name? Apart from the pub in EastEnders (famously torched by Dirty Den in the late '80s) and other real-world hotels and bars, the only time I've heard the name applied to a person is in Frank Zappa's "Broken Hearts Are For Assholes" from Sheik Yerbouti (one of the best albums ever made). I can't help picturing you with whiskers sticking out from underneath of your pancake make-up.

nagualdesign 02:10, 22 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Language translate.[edit]

Hello, I'm a french user and I want to translate some page which have not been translate in my language. For exemple: " Hopeless Fountain Kingdom " an album by Halsey is only in english and a few other languages. I want to translate this page in french but I can't. Can I have help? Thanks. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Unwayy (talk • contribs) 13:52, 21 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Hello, Unwayy. You are welcome to translate Wikipedia articles into other languages for other Wikipedias: WP:translate us is a guide to how to do it. I can't help beyond that, because you have not said what kind of problems you are having. --ColinFine (talk) 14:44, 21 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@ColinFine: As far as I can understand, Unwayy wants to translate enwiki article Hopeless Fountain Kingdom to frwiki. Alas I can't help in translation (I don't speak French). What concerns technical aspects of translation and publishing a translated article at frwiki, I think fr:Projet:Traduction/Traduire des articles du Wikipédia anglais (in French: Project:Translation/Translating articles of English Wikipedia) could be useful. --CiaPan (talk) 15:31, 21 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

American or British spelling[edit]

I saw an article that had the word "realise" in it, and I changed it to "realize," before I remembered that the spelling in British English is different than that of Americans. Most articles, I've noticed, use American spelling. Does this mean that American English spelling should be used rather than British English spelling?--SkyGazer 512 ^{talk / contributions / subpages} 16:39, 21 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

The policy is at WP:ENGVAR. Spelling should be consistent within any one article, and articles on American topics will normally have American spelling (and similar fro British), but otherwise it is best to leave the spelling as it is. In cases of disagreement, the first use of a variety of spelling should be retained. In the case of your last edit, American spelling was appropriate for consistency within the article. Dbfirs 16:47, 21 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, that's helpful.--SkyGazer 512 ^{talk / contributions / subpages} 16:57, 21 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@SkyGazer 512: I'd like to add that in British English that word can actually be spelled (or spelt) realise or realize, with the latter being much more prevalent. I personally prefer using -ize, known as Oxford spelling. Most Brits who shun such things, in my experience, do so only because they assume -ize is an Americanism (and it's fashionable to think we're somehow better than "the yanks" when it comes to language, notwithstanding the fact that most of us have never heard of Oxford spelling). nagualdesign 18:23, 21 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I'm a Brit, I've heard of Oxford spelling and I still prefer ise, as do the setters of my daily crosswords... Jimfbleak - talk to me? 19:24, 21 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I suppose zeds aren't very helpful when you're trying to set a crossword. nagualdesign 19:33, 21 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I learnt the rules of Oxford spellings many years ago, but they are falling out of fashion. Most schools now teach the "ise" endings in the UK (though I expect someone will know of exceptions). Dbfirs 23:05, 21 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I'm surprized that our schools would be so prescriptive. nagualdesign 23:19, 21 January 2018 (UTC) (That was a joke. I know how to spell surprised, nor am I really surprised.)[reply]

Where is the list of words used on WP not defined in Wiktionary[edit]

At one point, there was a project on this wiki to find words that were used in Wikipedia articles but that did not exist as Wiktionary entries, on the theory that such words were likely to be either misspellings to be changed here, or valid words that Wiktionary would want to add. Is this project still ongoing, and where is/was it? (Apologies if I should have asked this in a different forum.) -sche (talk) 18:42, 21 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I'm anaspeptic, frasmotic, even compunctuous to have caused you such pericombobulation. nagualdesign 18:53, 21 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Note to the humourless: In case you think I'm being unhelpful here, I've spent the last 10 minutes searching for this list of words. Unfortunately I've failed to find it, but not for lack of trying. nagualdesign 19:21, 21 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I don't have time to punch you. Here´s my fist, kindly run into it. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 22:21, 21 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I have to say in my 10 years here I have never heard of such a project. Is it possible it was hosted at Wiktionary and not here? Beeblebrox (talk) 19:25, 21 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you both for trying to help. I hoped someone might just know what/where it was, to save me from doing this, but I just paged through every month of Wiktionary's announcement page until I found the announcement of it: it's Wikipedia:Typo Team/moss. It seems it hasn't been updated in a while, which is a shame, since it seems like the sort of endeavor that benefits both projects, but I'll take that on up the Typo Team talk page. :) Thanks! -sche (talk) 19:57, 21 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Damn, I was so close! I chanced upon Wikipedia:Typo Team/Wiktionary cheat sheet at one point (by searching for WP:words not in Wiktionary). A miss is as good as a mile. nagualdesign 20:22, 21 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

How to ensure other Wikipedians are notified?[edit]

Hi, how can I make sure other Wikipedians get a notification when I reply to a message they have left on my talk page? Or if I want to mention & notify them on a different page like an article's talk page?

I played around using {{ping|paulmarsy}} whilst not being logged in on my sandbox but didn't get any notification? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Paulmarsy (talk • contribs) 18:54, 21 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

You need to sign the comment, or it doesn't work. The format is {{ping|Username}} <optional message text> ~~~~. Thanks, Black Kite (talk) 18:57, 21 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

You can also use the colon in front of your text to notify someone. Ramesty (talk) 23:37, 21 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Colons are used for indentation. The question was about notification, which is when you link to someone's user page in your comment and they subsequently receive a message letting them know about it. nagualdesign 00:09, 22 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, signing the message got it working! – Paul · ✉ 23:08, 30 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Spelling Error[edit]

Link: Abi, Uzo-Uwani

The correct spelling of this Town is Abbi (with two B's) and NOT Abi (with one "B").

Please make necessary corrections. Thank You. — Preceding unsigned comment added by AglowRaph (talk • contribs) 21:16, 21 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

See Wikipedia:Help desk#Wrong Spelling and Location of my Town above. Eagleash (talk) 21:30, 21 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Please remember to sign your posts using four tildes: ~~~~ nagualdesign 21:39, 21 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

"Pedias"[edit]

Why are there so many pedias? I've heard of Wikipedia, Simple English Wikipedia, a Mario Pedia, and some others?Ramesty (talk) 23:36, 21 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

The suffix -pedia means related to learning and is known from encyclopedia. Many online encyclopedias and similar websites have chosen a name with suffix -pedia. But your example "Mario Pedia" is not actually called Mariopedia so I wonder whether your question was serious. PrimeHunter (talk) 00:00, 22 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

(Edit conflict) I think you mean "wikis", as in mariowiki.com. In answer to your question, I suspect it's because the MediaWiki software is free and has become the de facto standard for collaborative web building, and using wiki or -pedia in the title helps people to understand how the website is likely to function. nagualdesign 00:02, 22 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Maybe a better question would be, are all of these affiliated with Wikipedia? Ramesty (talk) 00:57, 22 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

No. Many websites have wiki or pedia in the name without being affiliated with Wikipedia. A wiki is just a type of website, and "pedia" in a name just hints that a site may be an encyclopedia or other learning resource. PrimeHunter (talk) 01:26, 22 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

"Wikipedia" is a registered trademark so a site with Wikipedia in the name is either the official website Wikipedia (or a part of it), or the site is violating the trademark. No notable sites do that. There are around 300 language editions of Wikipedia. The simple English Wikipedia is one of them. The English Wikipedia (this site en.wikipedia.org) is another. When people say "Wikipedia" while speaking English, they often mean the English Wikipedia. PrimeHunter (talk) 01:36, 22 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

300? Wow, I had no idea there were so many! That's more Wikipedias than there are countries in the world, isn't it? I've never really thought about it before but I would have guessed that there are more countries than languages. It's amazing the things I learn around here. nagualdesign 01:49, 22 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

You'll find the list at meta:List of Wikipedias. --David Biddulph (talk) 02:25, 22 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

nagualdesign: in Papua New Guinea, "There are 852 known languages in the country". That's way more than the number of countries in the world. Maproom (talk) 09:11, 22 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Some of those statistics are incredible. The English Wikipedia has over 125k active users and 5.555 million articles. The Cebuano language, which I've never even heard of, has 5.383 million articles, and they managed that with just 1/48th the number of edits we took... Great link. nagualdesign 02:38, 22 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

The Cebuano Wikipedia has few readers and almost no editors. Nearly all articles were made by Lsjbot and have never been edited by a human. PrimeHunter (talk) 02:51, 22 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I would have guessed that many of them were made via machine translation, otherwise the 150 active users must have been incredibly busy. The Lsjbot article is interesting too. Johansson's wife is called Smiley. Trust a computer programmer to marry a woman called Smiley, eh? I wonder if she looks like this →

? nagualdesign 03:03, 22 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Wasn't there a "pedia" that was supposed to be the opposite of Wikipedia or something? I do remember that the symbol wasn't completely circular and that it was brown instead of white. Ramesty (talk) 03:12, 22 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Uncyclopedia? {{3x|p}}ery (talk) 03:45, 22 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]