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May 21

IP address

I received a note saying I committed vandalism on a toads section or something. I had never even seen that page before. It must have merely been someone using the same IP address. How can I prevent such happenings? — Preceding unsigned comment added by BillyOsiris (talk • contribs) 00:05, 21 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Where was the note? There's nothing on your talk page. If you were not logged in, then yes, it might have applied to someone else that had that IP address at a different time. You can avoid that problem by always logging into your account to edit. RudolfRed (talk) 00:15, 21 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

You can only be sure to prevent it by being logged in or having a static IP address with no other users. I see your account was created two minutes before posting here. If you check the "Remember me (up to 180 days)" field at login then you should automatically be logged in when you revisit Wikipedia from that computer and browser. PrimeHunter (talk) 02:19, 21 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I guess that it was in fact because I was not logged in. Sorry about that, I actually created the account because of that message. — Preceding unsigned comment added by BillyOsiris (talk • contribs) 04:10, 21 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

recognizable logo used in Wikipedia:WikiProject Furry and Portal:Furry

hello. File:Furry blue paw logo.png is derived from the WikiFur logo, yet is used as the furry WikiProject template logo, and the logo for the furry portal portal. this logo is widely seen on wikipedia, and its use as a logo for this wikiproject and portal seems to me like advertising for WikiFur. we have other free images, like this one, for instance, that are not connected to any website. why use an image "derived from the paw in WikiFur's logo"? it seems to me that since these logos are widely seen, they should not promote any site. i looked for an answer at WP:SPAM, but was unable to find one there. thanks for looking into this.

"wikiproject furry" and "furry portal" logo

the WikiFur logo

neutral image unconnected with any site

~~-badmachine 08:29, 21 May 2012 (UTC)~~[reply]

Is there really a community of people who will recognise the logo and say "ah, this is something to do with WikiFur?" Since I have never heard of WikiFur before, it certainly isn't advertising to me. --ColinFine (talk) 08:39, 21 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

yes, it is immediately recognizable within the furry fandom as the WikiFur logo, but there are other furry sites that could be promoted instead. why WikiFur in particular, or for that matter, any site? -badmachine 08:52, 21 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Taken to ANI (not by me). Thread. Doniago (talk) 16:48, 21 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Question

How do I use #titleparts? I want to use it to transclude the title of one page into one specific place on the page, but I only want the second word of it to be used. Any ideas? --Thine Antique Pen (talk • contributions) 09:35, 21 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

mw:Help:Extension:ParserFunctions##titleparts is for subpages so it is based on slashes as separators. For spaces you can use string templates but it's not elegant. For example {{First word|{{Remove first word|{{PAGENAME}}}}}}, or {{First word|{{Remove first word/any|{{PAGENAME}}}}}} to work for a larger set of characters in the page name. PrimeHunter (talk) 11:51, 21 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Before I "go live"

Dear Wikipedia, I have reedited my article and want to go live again, but have a few questions; 1) When I last went live, my name appeared online before the subject name, which of course was very embarrassing. Why did this happen, and how can I avoid it happening again? 2) When I press “Show preview”, the box on the top right that shows my subjects name, birth place and website, is missing other bits of information that I intended it to contain (ie “medium”, “active” and “instruments”. Why is this? 3) Also when I press “Show preview”, the “Categories” do not appear at the bottom. Will they appear when I go live with the article, or have I made an error? Thank you very much for your kind help. Maya Frida Barr (talk) 10:25, 21 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

It helps a lot when you supply us a link to the draft that you're talking about so that we can look at it and give accurate answers. I believe that you're referring to User:Maya Frida Barr/sandbox and I'll base my answers on that assumption. 1) When you last put an article up, you must have put it on your user page and not in the main article space of Wikipedia. 2) Not all infoboxes have the fields that you want. The template for Infobox Person has different fields from, for example, Infobox Corporation. You can't just add fields and expect them to show up. Those fields have to be present in the infobox template that you're using. For example, the infobox that you're trying to use Template:Infobox actor (which is actually just a redirect to Template:Infobox person) doesn't have a "medium" field. Therefore, it doesn't show up. 3) The categories are commented out. I did that about 10 days ago since your sandbox draft was showing up in the "live" categories. This shouldn't be done. If you move the article to the main Wikipedia article space, you can remove the comments that are now preventing the categories from showing up. Dismas|^(talk) 10:33, 21 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

One of the statements, the second sentence in the "Career" section has six references! It might be possible to use material in those sources to rather expand the section with more information about his career. Roger (talk) 10:41, 21 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I fixed your two redlinks; note that capitalization and punctuation may be important in hyperlinks if redirects for likely errors haven't been created. Clicking the redlinks and then 'search' found the intended targets. If something is unlikely to be a redlink, it probably isn't. Dru of Id (talk) 10:49, 21 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Looks like you use a forum as at least one source, and IMDb. Both aren't valid sources. You can have a look at WP:RS for documentation on which sources are valid. I fixed some stuff, like the infobox issues and converted the references to a standard format. Equazcion ^(talk) 12:52, 21 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

How many solar systems does it take to evolve the heavier atoms enough to emerge life and brains?

See subject — Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.164.9.167 (talk) 10:51, 21 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

You might find what you are looking for in the article nucleosynthesis. If you cannot find the answer there, you can try asking your question at Wikipedia's Reference Desk. They specialize in knowledge questions and will try to answer just about any question in the universe (except about how to use Wikipedia, which is what this help desk is for). I hope this helps. --ColinFine (talk) 11:14, 21 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Kanyini (film)

There is a not working template on this page. I tried to fix it, but failed. --Dianafl (talk) 12:50, 21 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Fixed by User:ukexpat. Dru of Id (talk) 15:29, 21 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Proxy error

I am getting these messages frequently:

The proxy server received an invalid response from an upstream server. The proxy server could not handle the request POST /wikipedia/en/w/index.php.

Reason: Error reading from remote server

Apache/2.2.14 (Ubuntu) Server at secure.wikimedia.org Port 443

I am assuming this is because some server is overloaded. I use the secure login—does that affect which servers are used? Can I do anything other than keep re-sending edited pages? Would I be better off using the non-secure login? --Greenmaven (talk) 13:49, 21 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Try WP:VPT.— Vchimpanzee · talk · contributions · 19:43, 22 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Pendleton Whisky Page Flags

Could someone please help by reviewing this article and offering feedback for its improvement? Much appreciated. Thank you! Caitlin — Preceding unsigned comment added by Cvargas1129 (talk • contribs) 14:21, 21 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

There is only a single independent source cited. This means that the company is borderline notable, and furthermore that little can be said in the article because so little information is verifiable from independent sources. --ColinFine (talk) 16:20, 21 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Andrew Ballen

My name is Andrew Ballen, subject of the article Andrew Ballen. There is a note above the article in reference to me that says the article may violate Wikipedia's neutral point of view policy. Although I have left a message in the talk page, no one has responded. The page has been referenced closely. Please let me know what changes, additional citations are necessary to remove this note on my page. A response would be appreciated.

Regards,

Andrew Ballen — Preceding unsigned comment added by 114.86.188.160 (talk) 14:27, 21 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The tag on the article is a conflict of interest notice. The policy states that the subject of the article or people close to the subject have to be careful when editing the article, in case they change the point of view, which is where the neutral point of view policy comes in. AndieM (Am I behaving?) 16:25, 21 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Work in Progress Page

Hi -

I am looking for somebody to review a work-in-progress page that I have written for noted lawyer Alan Kaplinsky. Could somebody please review and offer suggestions/feedback? Thanks. --Mcgroth (talk) 15:32, 21 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Located at User:Mcgroth/Alan Kaplinsky. Dru of Id (talk) 15:34, 21 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

looking for shipmates (1958 - 1960)

i was in the us navy, aboard the uss pollux (aks 4) sep 1957 till jun 1958 and the uss pictor (af 54 june 58 till jan 1960) stationed in japan

i was looking for some shipmates (uss blue (dd 744) in the houston, tx area — Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.140.72.217 (talk) 16:18, 21 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I suspect, based on your question, that you found one of our over 6 million articles and thought we were affiliated in some way with that subject. Please note that you are at Wikipedia, the free online encyclopedia that anyone can edit, and this page is for asking questions related to using or contributing to Wikipedia itself. Thus, we have no special knowledge about the subject of your question. You can, however, search our vast catalogue of articles by typing a subject into the search field on the upper right side of your screen. If you cannot find what you are looking for, we have a reference desk, divided into various subject areas, where asking knowledge questions is welcome. Best of luck. AndieM (Am I behaving?) 16:28, 21 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The ship has several "official" sites online with contact people [1], [2], & [3]; with an upcoming reunion in September in South Dakota. Dru of Id (talk) 16:50, 21 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Incorrect employment

Steve Fanara

"Former Head Football Coach at Howard Payne University, not current Head Coach. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 108.12.65.19 (talk) 17:05, 21 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

If you have a reliable source that states this, you can edit the article yourself. Or post on Talk:Steve Fanara.— Vchimpanzee · talk · contributions · 19:45, 22 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

COI in editing Wikipedia:

I am working on editing a bio, however, one of the main editors cites that I have conflict of interest, and does not allow the changes. All I am trying to do is either add new applicable facts to the bio or change information that is incorrect. Technically, according to your guidelines anyone "affiliated" in anyway with the subject of a BOLP would have a COI. However, why should the subject of a BOLP have to allow incorrect information or lack of information in his/her bio. Or for that matter why should one-sided statements be allowed. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 96.27.144.9 (talk) 18:16, 21 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The issue is not the correcting of incorrect information. The issue is how we know whether or not the information is correct. What is needed is independent verification (see Wikipedia:Verifiability) from a reliable source (see Wikipedia:Reliable sources). Also, the major problem with conflicts of interest is that your relationship to the subject affects how you will tend to write about the subject. You are more likely to use "purple prose" and other flowery language, tend over-emphasize information which casts a positive light on a subject, and tend to discount or ignore information which casts a negative light on a subject. That doesn't mean that your expertise or insight is entirely unwanted, it is just that care must be taken that your expertise and insight can be put to proper use in writing an encyclopedia article from a neutral point of view (see Wikipedia:Neutral point of view. For this reason, the best way to handle a conflict of interest is to use an article's "Talk page" to introduce information, properly backed-up with well-respected, reliable, published sources, for any changes you think need to be made. If you want to see the article correct (and we all want to see the article correct), then what you must do is start a thread at the talk page for the article in question, say what needs to be changed, and cite sources which verify what you think needs changing. That will result in better results than what you are trying to do now. --Jayron32 18:33, 21 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

editing

There is a page I wish to edit because it contains many errors and omissions and really needs a complete re-write. Am I permitted to do this, even if in some cases it means deleting or altering previous references (entered by people with only part-knowledge of the subject.) Thanks95.148.96.72 (talk) 20:01, 21 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

You're permitted to alter anything you want as long as it's an improvement, including editing or deleting references. Make sure to use descriptive edit summaries so people understand your intentions, and make sure you're keeping the article neutral (WP:NPOV) and reliably-sourced (WP:V). Good luck :) Equazcion ^(talk) 20:20, 21 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The answer is "yes", because Wikipedia is the encyclopedia that anyone can edit. However, I would recommend a couple of things. Particularly when removing references, I would carefully explain your rationalle in the talk page. Otherwise your edits are likely to be reverted. Second, unless you have a stable IP adress, I'd recommend you create a use account. It's free, easy, and anonymous. It also allows you to more easily build a level of trust within the community. Hope that helps. 78.26 (talk) 20:23, 21 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

deleted article

Resolved

Can someone restore deleted article Carol Topolski to my userspace ? I asked the deleting administor some months ago but I suspect she is no longer active... Thanks, GrahamHardy (talk) 20:30, 21 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Try Wikipedia:Requests for undeletion?--Canoe1967 (talk) 21:31, 21 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Done Now at User:Canoe1967/Carol Topolski--SPhilbrick (Talk) 00:36, 22 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Shouldn't it go to Graham's space?--Bbb23 (talk) 01:11, 22 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Now at User:GrahamHardy/Carol Topolski. Bencherlite ^Talk 01:20, 22 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Oops, of course, sorry, and thanks to Bencherlite for fixing my error.--SPhilbrick (Talk) 11:34, 22 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

External links

Is there the potential of an issue occuring if I am adding the same external link to multiple pages? The link is to a university map collection concerning state geography/history of Oklahoma. I have identified certain pages that researchers would benefit from using this external link. I am not adding it to random pages. Please let me know what I need to do so that any problems are limited. Can I avoid the issue of these links being considered spam? Thank you. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Athiker99 (talk • contribs) 20:39, 21 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Well, only adding links to one site falls under Wikipedia:Single-purpose accounts (note that that's not necessarily a bad thing). The 5th one threw up a warning tag, and they were all reverted. The link to an educational institution, for historical maps, should probably have been given more consideration, and discussion, but I don't see whether you answered the questions asked at your post here in November: are you affiliated with the university, specifically with the maps? and what value do you think they add to those articles? User:Orangemike's questions to you near the bottom of the page. Dru of Id (talk) 22:12, 21 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Using Flickr photos in userspace

Can I use File:Rooftop protest at 30 Millbank.jpg (and other similarly licensed images) on my userpage? I assume the answer's yes, but I've never been able to get my head around image license stuff so I thought I'd best ask. Thanks in advance. – hysteria18 (talk) 21:48, 21 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

It doesn't matter about the source (i.e. from Flickr) but rather the licence. Any "free" image can be used anywhere on Wikipedia with a few notable exceptions (e.g. Bad Images). The important thing to remember is that you can't use a "fair use" image in userspace, but you can link to it. -=# Amos E Wolfe ^talk #=- 21:58, 21 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the quick reply. Images from Commons are all free and can all be used on userpages, right? – hysteria18 (talk) 22:07, 21 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

In theory, improperly licensed images may get uploaded to commons inappropriately, but you should be able to use any image on commons. (there are a few caveats, but I they rarely come up) Monty ₈₄₅ 22:47, 21 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]