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Wikipedia:Help desk/Archives/2009 April 17

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April 17

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Question

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Just a quick question here, Resurr Section (talk · contribs) has been going to articles about current events and removing the current event tag an he states "rate of edits does not justify current event tag" is that true or not because he has removed tags from several pages?--Cheers Kyle1278 00:53, 17 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not sure what he means by "rate of edits does not justify current event tag"; however most of his edits seem to be okay, as he has been removing the {{currentevent}} tags where the event mentioned was over a week past, and no longer recent. You might want to tell him on his talk page that there's a discussion over here involving him, and invite him to give a response. tempodivalse [☎] 01:34, 17 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Don't worry about it. "current event" tags are only needed when the edit frequency is really high (one edit oper minute or more.) I tagged the Intel Core i7 article when the press embargo was realeased, but nobody cared, and normal editing sufficed. -Arch dude (talk) 03:09, 17 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Free/Fair use?

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  Resolved
 – user directed to Wikipedia:Media copyright questions for a more nuanced answer

Alright, so I'm basically an idiot when it comes to using images. I'm currently working on GRB 970228. I would like to use this graph in the article. Should I email the authors of the article? Should I just call it fair use? Or free use? Should I try to recreate the graph myself? Yipe! Thanks. --Cryptic C62 · Talk 01:47, 17 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Copyright law is strange. It protects "creative elements," but not "facts." You cannot directly copy those images. You can ask the authors to contribute them to Commons under the appropriate licence. Alternatively, you can request their permision and then add the images to Commons on their behalf, but the "paperwork" involved is horrendous. You can also extract the factual information from the graphs into a table, and then create your own graph from the textual information: the resulting graph will not violate copyright, since facts cannot be copyrighted. If you choose to do this, you MUST carefully attribute your work to the orignal authors. Failure to attibute constitutes Plagiarism. Plagiarism is not a crime, but it is not tolerated on Wikipedia or in most academic and professional settings. It's clear from your question that you have not inention to commit plagiarim or to violate copyright law: my response an attempt to explain the situation, not to cast aspersions. If you would like help with this, pleae respond on my talk page-Arch dude (talk) 02:46, 17 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
As long as you don't do it too much, limited use of external links such as this are OK. Policy expressly states that such links, which link to copyrighted information which is germaine to an article but which could not be directly included in the article, may be included as an external link in the "External Links" section of the article. See WP:ELYES, number 3. One hundred such links may be excessive, but one or two seems like a good idea. Just link to the actual graph in the External Links section, give a clear description of the link, and that should work for your purposes. --Jayron32.talk.contribs 03:15, 17 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
The problem is that the image originally appeared in Nature. I believe that I am only able to access the image (and the article it appears in) because I have a subscription to the database through my university. Readers without such a subscription would not be able to view the graph unless it was uploaded directly. --Cryptic C62 · Talk 03:21, 17 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
In that case you may have a problem. You may be able to create your own graph from Nature's raw data, and cite the Nature article as your original source; but that may be still considered a "derivative work" under copyright policy, and may not work. I am no expert in these matters, but the people who patrol Wikipedia:Media copyright questions usually are. If you ask this question there, and explain all of the details as you did above, they may be able to walk you through the finer points of copyright as it applies to this situation. --Jayron32.talk.contribs 03:51, 17 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Awesome, thanks mates. --Cryptic C62 · Talk 04:07, 17 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Glad to be of service! I'll be marking this as resolved then! --Jayron32.talk.contribs 04:30, 17 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Editing my mother's article.

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I tried to edit the entry on my mother, Dorothy Uhnak; tried to delete the word "reportedly" in re: her death. I am her daughter; I was there. Do I need to produce a copy of the coroners' report? —Preceding unsigned comment added by TracyElizaabeth (talk • contribs) 02:33, 17 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

You need to cite a reliable source of some sort if you wish to include substantial information to the article. However, if you are a close relative of the person in question, I would advise not to edit that article at all, as our conflict of interest policy discourages that. tempodivalse [☎] 02:35, 17 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
We are sorry for your loss. Our policies may seem a bit strange, but please bear with us. You are free to edit the article to correct or remove any unattributed assertion, without regard to your "conflict of interest." (WP:COI). However, if an assertion in the article has a reference to a "reliable source" (WP:RS,) then you must not change that assertion yourself. Instead, you should discuss the problem on the talk page of the article. If that does not work, Please come back here for help -Arch dude (talk) 02:57, 17 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Actually, if you cite a newspaper obituary, that should be reliable enough of a source. Per WP:WEASELWORDS, you may have stylistic reasons for not including such terms. Try rewording the sentance into more neutral terms, such as "According to their Anytown News obituary, they died from XXXX" and cite the actual obituary as described at WP:CITE. If you are having trouble with the technical aspects of doing so, leave as much information as you can at the article talk page, and a more experienced editor can help you out. Heck, if you contact me at my talk page, I'll see what I can do to straigten it all out. --Jayron32.talk.contribs 03:19, 17 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you all very much for your help. I'm brand new to Wikipedia. I just felt that since my mother was a stickler for honesty, I'd try to set the record straight, but will respect the "conflict of interest" clause.TracyElizaabeth (talk) 13:50, 17 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Likewise very sorry for your loss. I gather you want to change the sentence "Uhnak died in Greenport, New York, reportedly of a deliberate drug overdose" to read "Uhnak died in Greenport, New York, of a deliberate drug overdose"? I think that, since the claim is cited, there would be no problem with this. A problem might emerge if you disputed the claim, in which case it would be best to say reportedly so that readers understand that the claim comes from a newspaper reporter and not from the family or a coroner. However, in this case it sounds as if you're the source of the newspaper report so you're unlikely to dispute what they're saying - does that sound correct? I'd suggest that you could go ahead and remove "reportedly", unless someone else objects? In fact, if no one objects I'll go ahead and remove it.
Cheers, This flag once was redpropagandadeeds 14:10, 17 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I do not think editing an article of a relative in regard to publicly verifiable information is in violation of the Conflict of Interest Policies - just my view. If we followed a rule about verifying dates of death all the time, there'd be a lot of missing dates or citation needed tags, as most people don't bother to link to obituaries (etc.) to verify a death that is known to them to have happened. Anyway, since there is already a citation for her death, adding a word or taking out a word (as an editor) shouldn't be a problem, but do click on that "discussion" button up at the top of the page (next to "article") and leave your reasons there.Levalley (talk) 22:36, 19 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

squamous interaepithelial lesion

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  Resolved
 – Wrong venue, consider asking your question at the Science reference desk. However, please be aware that Wikipedia cannot offer medical advice. Thanks, tempodivalse [☎] 03:03, 17 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

How can a pap smear show squamous interaepithelial lesion is a low or high grade?Nadialittle (talk) 02:43, 17 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

  This page is for questions about using Wikipedia. Please consider asking this question at the Science reference desk. They specialize in knowledge questions and will try to answer any question in the universe (except how to use Wikipedia, since that is what this Help Desk is for). Just follow the link and ask away. You could always try searching Wikipedia for an article related to the topic you want to know more about. I hope this helps. Additionally   We cannot offer medical advice. Please see the medical disclaimer. Contact your General Practitioner. --Jayron32.talk.contribs 02:51, 17 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

ip talk page

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My friend http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:173.79.58.33 needs help. 173 has been blocked for deleting their own user & disc pages. Ive dealt with jayron32 so I know how much of an ass he is; & jay32 continues to show it in his post on 173's page ( this is my personal opiinion though so I wont elaborate, but do read what jay wrote ). Anyways 173 want to communicate strictly thru wiki,(very strongly emphasized this 2 me, 173 doesnt want 2 be personally emailling any1) & since jay has overreacted & blocked ip isnt able to post on the arbitration page nor edit their own disc page. 173 wants the block reviewed & reverted so that 173 may still contact arbitration; as well as for jay to be talked to. 173 says how is editing their own page a disruption 2 wiki when wiki rules say that editing 1's own page is allowed. 70.108.62.201 (talk) 02:47, 17 April 2009 (UTC) — 70.108.62.201 (talk) has made few or no other edits outside this topic. [reply]

Need I mention now that the above IP has been blocked for block evasion, or is that obvious at this point. If the above user wishes to have their block reviewed, there is a list of email addresses listed at WP:ARBCOM. He may choose any arbitrator he wishes, type the email address into his favorite email program, and ask for a review of his block. --Jayron32.talk.contribs 02:58, 17 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Additionally, if he is concerned about email security, free throw-away email accounts are availible at http://mail.yahoo.com . --Jayron32.talk.contribs 03:08, 17 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Additionally the user is mistaken in thinking he is allowed to delete messages at User talk:173.79.58.33. That page does not belong to any one user; rather it is shared by several people in the Verizon Internet Services, Washington DC pool. The messages on the page are addressed potentially to all the anonymous users who use the IP. If he deleted the messages, they would not be available to the other users.
If the user is not a blocked user, he should create an account and login. That way he would not be bothered by messages intended for someone else. —teb728 t c 05:22, 17 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Jayron: 173 says : I dont want email communication. I want all done through wiki. You have incorrectly taken this ability away. When did I edit war?
Now I am speaking: 1)I told 173 they need 2 report u jim wales, as jw is in charge not you. Also, what about civility? Reread your rude comment and edit summary. You really this 1 should create a whole new email account just for arbitration, that is crazy. 2)U r mistaken. 173 does own his page. Read this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_page#Ownership_and_editing_of_pages_in_the_user_space . It says quote :

Repeatedly restoring warnings does nothing but antagonize users, and can encourage further disruption; removal of template warnings is rarely an urgent or important matter, and it is often best to simply let the matter rest if other disruption stops.

U need 2 undo your wrong block, apologise, & step back.
Teb: wiki doesnt require having an account to participate. 173 was blocked wrongly again by jayron. If u look u'll c there was no edit war. 173 blanked then it was reverted by my stalker then j32 blocked 4 1 month. 173 wanted all their comments deleted & all comments posted to 173 deleted. j32 has a problem with that, but j ill just have 2 deal bc it is allowed. 70.108.88.137 (talk) 05:33, 18 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Since you continue to evade your block User:lilkunta, anytime your 70.108.0.0/16 IP's come back, they will be blocked on sight by administrators. Momusufan (talk) 22:58, 18 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Adding ISBNs

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  Resolved
 – Manuel-aa5 (talk) 15:49, 18 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Hello community,

every scientific text starts with ISBN-searching. In most cases the author is so stupid, that his text is a summary of the ISBNs. That was traditional scientific work; but what's about Wikipedia? Its the same! Step 1 means to search ISBNs for {{unreferenced}} articles. This work is very cool, but these ISBN will never be deleted in future. Even if a very controversal author wants to start an edit war -- he will be using the given ISBNs to make his work much better.

I've read some guides to Wikipedia:Bots and found out, that searching for good ISBNs can't be done by robots. The maximum of machine intelligence is, to find articles without book-references or format a given ISBN into {{citation}} template. Consequence is, that ISBN adding for existing wikipedia-articles is a work for real man. Isn't it? --Manuel-aa5 (talk) 04:21, 17 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I am confused. If you are asking if it is OK to add ISBN information to articles where it is needed in book references, but is not currently there, Be our guest. I see this as rather uncontroverial wiki-gnomeish behavior, and could be rather useful. Have you been trying to do this and get constantly reverted? Are you asking something different? --Jayron32.talk.contribs 04:29, 17 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Ok, let me to be more explicit: I think that Wiki-articles without any ISBNs are anti-scientific. I think that in general, Wikipedia needs a system to motivate people to add good ISBNs to existing articles. One possible is to count all added Books and for every 50. ISBN the author gets an surprise: e.g. a photo of lesbian wikipedians or a sunflower logo or whatever. The main idea is to channellize the working hours of article authors into ISBN searching. Not into writing more or longer texts. That's the same what Jimmy Wales said with: "Quality first".--Manuel-aa5 (talk) 09:52, 17 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I don't understand what you mean by "anti-scientific". If the reference is a book with an ISBN, then the ISBN should certainly be part of the citation. Older books may not have an ISBN and news articles and scientific papers do not. I certainly don't need any more surprises in Wikipedia. --Gadget850 (talk) 11:00, 17 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Your idea to motivate users to perform many small tasks that are currently difficult to automate sounds similar to the Amazon Mechanical Turk. Wikipedia also has a great need for tools that can simplify citation formatting to a mouse click (that is, if I'm looking at a document in one browser tab, and I want to cite it on Wikipedia, I should only have to click once to get the filled-out citation template). We have some Citation tools that help to some degree, but I haven't seen one that works reliably on every type of reference. Like the other two responders, I don't understand your emphasis on ISBN number, as only a fraction of Wikipedia citations are to books. Digital object identifiers and other schemes cover many other types of references. You might find {{Google scholar cite}} to be useful - sometimes it finds useful references, and sometimes it can generate filled-out citation templates for some of them. Perhaps as Wikipedia becomes more and more important, maybe all the world's content publishers will try to make their content easy for us to cite, by embedding metadata that our citation tools can parse. --Teratornis (talk) 05:42, 18 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Page layout

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Discussion moved to village pump technical noticeboard.

Articles for deletion

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Normally I'd ask this on Wikipedia talk:Articles for deletion, but because I'm so desperate to get the hell out of here right now and I would like a faster reply, I'll ask here instead. When you nominate an article for deletion and the contributors have each not made more than 2 edits to the article, how do you know who to notify? Especially if the contributors who have made "major contributions" made them three years ago? --Whip it! Now whip it good! 04:58, 17 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Is it just me or are some pages broken

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For example I try to open Hypomania and my browser (IE 6.0.2900 behind a corporate firewall) reads it as a binary file to download. On downloading, the page is clearly not HTML. --203.202.43.54 (talk) 05:06, 17 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

And now it's working again. Oh well, I suspect it's an artifact of the corporate interwebs filterizer. --203.202.43.54 (talk) 05:14, 17 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I would still suggest downloading IE7 or IE8 (I strongly recommend the latter), as sticking to the version of the browser you're using not only causes problems viewing webpages, it is potentially dangerous for your computer. Or alternately, you could switch to Firefox. Of course, it all depends if your boss allows you to. --Whip it! Now whip it good! 05:19, 17 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • I have no problems reading WP in IE6.0 You should probably create an account and make sure you have your settings set correctly so that it opens such pages for editing, rather than download them. - Mgm|(talk) 09:50, 17 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

how can I help a user whose edits are almost always incorrect?

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This user is not a vandal, appears to be very sincere and enthusiastic, but has no grasp of grammar or sentence structure.

Estiveo (talk) 05:54, 17 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

You have following options: (1) Let him doing what's he want. (2) What's about sighted versions? (3) Put a grammar-style on his usertalk. (4) Write a Bot to recognize the wrong edits (Like the grammar correction in M$-Word). (4) Post a link to some well written literature storys. (e.g. Nabokov "The chess player",The wizard of oz) to his user talk page. --Manuel-aa5 (talk) 08:38, 17 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
patiently correcting the grammar/style of his/her edits is certainly one way; and/or if you feel up to "adopting" the user you could propose collaborating in his/her sandbox to get his/her contributions properly worded before he/she puts them in articles. or if you're running out of patience yourself, maybe the WP:Adopt-a-user program can help. Sssoul (talk) 08:51, 17 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
You may want to read the essay WP:COMPETENCE. I haven't figured out what to do about such editors myself, but it's my belief that—after the problems have been thoroughly discussed with the user, perhaps with a suggestion that he/she stops editing until he/she develops a better grasp of English—blocking is an option if the problems persist. Continuing to make edits that require cleanup by other users can rise to the level of disruption. Without more information about this case, I can't give a specific opinion on it, of course. Deor (talk) 12:58, 17 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
For some insight into what you might be up against, see: Dunning-Kruger effect - if the theory applies to a particular person, that is if a person cannot recognize his or her own incompetence, then persuasion alone may be a very weak tool. Wikipedia tends to screen out many if not most incompetent people by virtue of its daunting user interface. (Incidentally, this is why I view the user-friendliness initiative with some trepidation - useful improvements might result from the initiative, but if it succeeds in lowering the technical barrier to entry, it might have the unintended consequence of unleashing upon Wikipedia a larger sample of the general population's incompetence. Once upon a time, e-mail was also difficult to use, and as a consequence most of it was reasonably well-formatted and grammatical. Eventually e-mail became accessible to the masses, and the result is in your inbox every day.) Another way that Wikipedia defends itself against incompetence is via the emotional impact of reverting someone's contributions. Most people probably find it vexing to say the least when they contribute something to Wikipedia, and someone else clobbers it. A person whose every edit quickly gets reverted will probably soon lose interest and leave. If this isn't working for the incompetent editor you have in mind, one option might be to get him or her interested in taking photographs instead. However, a certain amount of competence is necessary for that as well. Someone who is irredeemably clueless might end up being one of those "negatively productive people" that Fred Brooks wrote about. (A negatively productive person is someone whose every hour of labor requires other workers to spend at least an hour cleaning it up.) --Teratornis (talk) 17:57, 17 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I back SSSoul's suggestion on this. Provided that the content is good (encyclopaedic, worth keeping) except for the use of language, the person need not be hounded out by being "clobbered" all the time. Approach them through their Talk to offer some help with the language use, and if they need more help than you can offer, send them to the adoption program.

Manuel-aa5 has made a few small errors, and nobody's seen fit to pull him up on them. He can ask me, if he wants to know what they were.KoolerStill (talk) 07:10, 19 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Neutrality of Believer's baptism

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who does one object to. If they question the neutrality of the article "believers baptism" ? Every time i add valid arguments against it. in the places meant for that that other have .

mine must be to powerful more than just a straw man because they delite them.

And leave only the ones by reformed protestants which they themselves also are. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.127.141.196 (talk) 06:16, 17 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Your arguments have been removed because you're not allowed to use an article to argue your position. This is an encyclopedia, and not a debate. If content is not supported by reliable sources, it is removed. If you post your personal opinions on a Wikipedia article, it will be removed. See Wikipedia:No original research, Wikipedia:Neutral point of view, and Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not. Someguy1221 (talk) 06:36, 17 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
since that article exhibits a dire shortage of in-line references, it's not very clear whether/how much is based on reliable sources - so it's no surprise if the person asking the question is baffled by his/her edits being removed for being unsourced. meanwhile, just to answer the original question of how to challenge the neutrality of an article: if talk-page discussions aren't fruitful, Template:POV_check would be one possible route. i've never tried it myself, but ... well, it exists. Sssoul (talk) 07:00, 17 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Religion articles in general are prone to conflicts of interest, because someone who truly believes in a particular religion would have to act against his or her beliefs to be neutral about it. You might find some help in these WikiProjects:
--Teratornis (talk) 18:34, 17 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Template to fix

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  Resolved
 – Problem was resolved at User talk:Equendil#Re:Your Help Desk request regarding Template:Country data Chechnya. tempodivalse [☎] 20:33, 18 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

There is a problem in Template:Country data Chechnya. --Aushulz (talk) 12:48, 17 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

What would the problem be ? That's not immediately obvious to me. Equendil Talk 12:57, 17 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, could you please be a bit more specific: what is the problem, exactly? Then perhaps we may be able to help you. I currently don't see anything wrong with the template. tempodivalse [☎] 18:02, 17 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Tankman Picture

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The famous Tankman picture has recently been removed from the People's Republic of China article and the Human rights in the People's Republic of China article citing article 2 of the fair use in images, which says not to use "An image to illustrate an article passage about the image, if the image has its own article (in which case the image may be described and a link provided to the article about the image)". Does that rule apply here, for a picture as historically important as this one? Should it be limited to use in articles about the man himself or the protests, despite it describing political implications that went well beyond those two articles? TastyCakes (talk) 13:52, 17 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Here are the changes made in the file's fair use description: [1] TastyCakes (talk) 14:03, 17 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
You'll get better feedback at WP:MCQ. The question is whether the Tiananmen Square protests illustrate the human rights situation in China. Or ask the user who made those changes. x42bn6 Talk Mess 14:18, 17 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks, I'll ask at MCQ. The user has discussed it at Talk:People's Republic of China, I think he's pretty set in his opinion. TastyCakes (talk) 15:33, 17 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Duplicate Names

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I am looking to start a new Wikipedia page on a specific person. There is already a page on a person with the same name. My person is different from this person. How do I start a page on someone with the same names as someone with a current page.

Ex. I want to start one on Bob Smith. There is already a Bob Smith, but mine's different. Where do I begin?

Lepo21 (talk) 14:06, 17 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

WP:DISAMBIG should give you some answers. Basically, if a new Bob Smith is an actor but the old Bob Smith is a baseball player, you might consider putting the new Bob Smith at Bob Smith (actor). If there's already a Bob Smith who's an actor, you might disambiguate this at Bob Smith (actor born 1888), for example. And as always, be sure to take a look at Wikipedia:Your first article. x42bn6 Talk Mess 14:14, 17 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
(ec)You need to disambiguate the name, and create the article as "Bob Smith (activity)" , see the many John Smith's for instance. Make sure your article adheres to our policy regarding biographies of living people before you do that and if the case applies, and otherwise our guideline regarding biographies. Equendil Talk 14:19, 17 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Citation Issue

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I've checked the FAQs extenisively and can't seem to figure out my citation issues. I've been editing the Blackbird (online journal) page. I've tried to clarify the sources by adding more precise citations; however, I still seem to be getting the message "This article includes a list of references or external links, but its sources remain unclear because it lacks inline citations. Please improve this article by introducing more precise citations where appropriate." Is it because I'm only providing a link to the source and not detailed information about the source within the citation? I would assume this is the case, but I've checked some other literary journal pages (for example, Shenandoah (magazine)) on wikipedia and their citations seem to be in line with what I've been doing and their page doesn't have the unclear sources message. I'm trying to update the Blackbird page so that it will be in compliance with the featured content requirements. Thank you for your time and assistance.

Here are links to Blackbird and Shenandoah's wikipedia pages:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blackbird_(journal)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shenandoah_(magazine) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ctcahill (talk • contribs) 16:06, 17 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The tag is a template that another editor added to the article. However, it appears that the issue has been addressed, so you can remove the tag by removing the {{nofootnotes}} from the top of the page. It also appears that you are citing webpages, you may want to look at {{cite web}} as a better way to format your references. TNXMan 16:09, 17 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
The tags do not appear and disappear automatically; as Tnxman said, an editor places them manually on an article if he feels they have issues/problems. You have to remove them manually after you think you have addressed the issues. Looking over your article, I'd say that you've referenced it well enough, so you can remove the tag. However, you might want to take a look at {{Cite web}} for a tidier way to cite sources. tempodivalse [☎] 16:13, 17 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I started a discussion recently to add a link to those templates to discuss how to remove them, but I seem to have lost it. --Gadget850 (talk) 18:20, 17 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I am afraid I have added back a couple of tags - see the article's talk page for discussion.  – ukexpat (talk) 19:02, 17 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Fresh start

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I would like to make a fresh start here, because I've forgotten the password of account of a puppetmaster which is me. However I'm afraid that I'll get blocked permanentley because of socking. 78.148.102.206 (talk) 19:38, 17 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

You should probably post this at WP:ANI - admins are in control of the block button. – ukexpat (talk) 19:43, 17 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
It should be noted that user accounts only get associated with other user accounts based on two things. 1) The WP:DUCK test and 2) Checkuser. Checkusers only get run if it is believed that there is a reason to check; if you are not misbehaving AND if you do not act in a way that makes it clear who you are, then no checkuser will ever get run which may catch you. They aren't done just to check if someone is maybe socking, only when there is evidence of socking which needs to be confirmed. So, if you intend to only run one account, if you avoid the former areas of conflict, and if you never behave in a way that draws attention to yourself, you should not have a problem. However, most people who claim to want a "clean start" find themselves editing the same articles in the same way with their new accounts, which is a "dead giveaway". I am not endorsing that you violate the WP:BLOCK policy; but it should be noted that not getting caught is really not that hard... --Jayron32.talk.contribs 19:58, 17 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
It should also be noted that showing up at the talk page of one of your blocked accounts with your very first edit is NOT the way to go about not getting noticed. --Jayron32.talk.contribs 19:59, 17 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I think that the majority of editors here are a forgiving group of people within reason. We enjoy seeing people turn bad habits into good habits. I'd think that if you approached the blocking admin, or the community at large as ukexpat said - that there would be a good chance of your being accepted back into the fold. jayron32 mentions some very valuable information here, and most of the editors here are not out to get anyone, or derail any good faith edits. Without knowing your history, I'd also mention that there are some very good mentor-ship programs that may be of some use. see: Wikipedia:Mentorship. Welcome back, and best of luck. — Ched :  ?  20:45, 17 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Questions form Shadow Bloop

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How is rice developed?

Please HELP me out —Preceding unsigned comment added by Freak Show14 (talk • contribs) 20:50, 17 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Our article about rice might tell you what you want to know. Just click the link to go to the article. tempodivalse [☎] 20:54, 17 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
We're glad to point you in the directions to research your questions, unfortunately we're not really supposed to do WP:HOMEWORK. — Ched :  ?  21:33, 17 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Anyone know what Shadow Bloop is? Zain Ebrahim (talk) 22:54, 17 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
No user named Shadow Bloop I could find. I found a YouTube Shadow BLOOP as in a blooper reel, but I have no idea what it has to do with the price of rice in China .... or how rice is developed for that matter. ;) — Ched :  ?  16:05, 18 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks - I also found that and was equally puzzled when it had nothing to do with rice. Cheers, Zain Ebrahim (talk) 18:10, 18 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
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I was wondering, is there any search bar for information in an already selected page? For example, under the page European Union, I am looking for a phrase "was declared to be a first step in the federation of Europe". Can I find it directly without reading the whole page? Is there a search bar?

thank you

21:17, 17 April 2009 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Aaronbluestein (talk • contribs)

This feature is included in most browsers. ctrl-f generally works. Algebraist 21:20, 17 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Ctrl+F --The New Mikemoral ♪♫ 00:05, 18 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Most Rural States in the U.S.

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In the 1990's West Virginia was classified as the 2nd most rural state in the U.S. I believe New Hampshire was # one.

In 2009, what are the most rural states in the U.S. ? What is West Virginia ranked in ruralness ? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.163.162.132 (talk) 23:20, 17 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

  This page is for questions about using Wikipedia. Please consider asking this question at the Miscellaneous reference desk. They specialize in knowledge questions and will try to answer any question in the universe (except how to use Wikipedia, since that is what this Help Desk is for). Just follow the link and ask away. You could always try searching Wikipedia for an article related to the topic you want to know more about. I hope this helps. Someguy1221 (talk) 23:33, 17 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
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