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Wikipedia:Help desk/Archives/2008 April 18

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April 18, 2008

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Delete a category

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Can someone delete the Category 'Mountaineering clubs' [1] please? I created it today before finding there was already a category for Climbing organizations. It is therefore redundant but I can't see how to uncreate it. Ta. Ericoides (talk) 11:55, 18 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I have tagged it for speedy deletion "per author's request". – ukexpat (talk) 15:05, 18 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks ukexpat. Ericoides (talk) 15:55, 18 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Squadrons aboard U.S. Aircraft Carriers

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Please if possible on the pages that you have on the individual Aircraft Carriers could you put a box that lists all the Air Squadrons in order that served aboard. It would help greatly in tracking the squadrons as they moved from ship to ship. Now you list Airwings and that is ok but a list of the squadrons and the dates they were assigned to the ships would be of great importance to all the old sailors such as myself that served. I truly would appreciate anything you could do.

Thank-you

Frank Butler email removed Served 1972 to 1975 with VF-103 aboard USS Saratoga to USS Kennedy to USS America and back to USS Saratoga in just 3 years with detachments all over including "Hot Pad Duty" on Boca Chica Island north of Key West. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.72.122.146 (talk) 00:52, 18 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

It would require verifiable sources for us to put that information onto a page. -- Kesh (talk) 00:56, 18 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
We have articles about some squadrons such as VF-103; does that help? If you want to help improve these types of articles, see Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history. --Teratornis (talk) 04:36, 18 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Artistic

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want to no more about artistic adults —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.171.197.66 (talk) 01:43, 18 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Watchlist problem

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Hi, i suddenly have random articles included in my watchlist. How did this happen? I assume somewhere someone is using my account and adding pages to my watchlist. If this is true, how do i fix this problem? ќמшמφטтгמtorque 03:30, 18 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Are you using a semi-automated tool like Twinkle or Friendly? These, by default, will add articles you tag/revert/whatever to your watchlist. Calvin 1998 (t-c) 03:33, 18 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
(edit conflict) If you have twinkle installed, it automatically adds pages you revert onto your watchlist. Soxred93 | talk bot 03:34, 18 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
(another edit conflict) If in your preferences, you might have "add pages that i edit to my watchlist" selected. If you think someone has gained access to your account, you should change your password. LegoKontribsTalkM 03:37, 18 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
No, i dont use any of those, and i didnt select that preference. Ya, i'll change my password and see if the problem persists. Thanks all. ќמшמφטтгמtorque 03:45, 18 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Do you recognize any of the "random" articles that appeared in your watchlist? E.g., do you recall having browsed to those articles in the past? Or are they completely unrelated to any articles you have edited or viewed? Just for fun, I tried searching the Help desk archive for: random article watchlist and that found a previous question that mentions one possibility:
It looks like if you are watching an article, and a vandal maliciously moves the article to silly names, you can end up with the weird names on your watchlist as deleted articles. If you could tell us the names of some of the random articles you are seeing, we could check their histories and see if anyone has been messing with them. --Teratornis (talk) 04:04, 18 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
If a page on your watchlist is moved then the new name is added to the watchlist, and it stays if the page is moved back. Could this be the cause? Some vandals move articles to strange names. PrimeHunter (talk) 04:00, 18 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Ah, the articles added i have never even viewed them (as far as i remember), and some are weird names. Heres some of it: Jean Nouvel, Birmingham campaign (never viewed these), HERMY?, HERMY??, H.A.G.G.E.R.???, etc. ќמшמφטтгמtorque
All of them have indeed been involved in move vandalism. Maybe you have or had one or more of Lord Voldemort, Hermione Granger, Ann Coulter, Resolution on your watchlist when they were moved as vandalism and the new name added to your watchlist. PrimeHunter (talk) 04:33, 18 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I noticed this today myself. It's just a combination of an old feature (if a watchlisted article is moved, you end up watching both the orignal title and the new title, so in move vandalism you'll autowatchlist the malicious title) and a very new feature (logs now show up in the watchlist). Someguy1221 (talk) 04:49, 18 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Ya that must be it. Thanks again. ќמшמφטтгמtorque 03:19, 19 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

inappropriate statements made on our school wikipage

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on the page http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pleasant_High_School_%28Marion%2C_Ohio%29 someone has made several false statements and it is locked and we can't fix it

currently the only thing left is:

"The High School is small and contains about 300 students. A recent unfortunate event caused 299 to be dead, leaving one student known as Leonidas." Other slanderous statements that have been made have already been removed after the local authorities were involved.

The Staff of Pleasant local Schools would like for this page to be either fixed (which we can't do because the person that caused the trouble seems to have played a part in locking it after they made the false statements ), or the page deleted. We also would like users Dreadstar and Masvolta to receive some sort of punishment for the wiki vandalism


Thanks

Brad Pettit Assistant Technology Coordinator Pleasant Local Schools —Preceding unsigned comment added by Bapettit (talk • contribs) 03:53, 18 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

If you could specify what's true on that page and what's not, we can change it for you. And Dreadstar only protected it, Masvolta vandalized. Calvin 1998 (t-c) 03:57, 18 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Hello Brad, school articles are frequent targets for vandalism, due the common occurrence of disaffected adolescent males in many schools. Because vandalism is such a large problem on Wikipedia, we have a lot of tools and documentation for dealing with it; see WP:EIW#Vandal for a pretty complete list. You can help Wikipedia by reading WP:VAN and WP:CUV, and adding Pleasant High School (Marion, Ohio) to your watchlist. --Teratornis (talk) 04:15, 18 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Brad, you were not able to edit the Pleasant High School (Marion, Ohio) article because it is currently semi-protected against vandalism. Your account appears to be new, so you will have to wait until it is four days old before you can edit a semi-protected page. When a user such as User:Masvolta vandalizes something, someone should place a warning template on the user's talk page; User talk:Masvolta does not have a warning just yet as I write this. Special:Contributions/Masvolta shows only one small edit; it looks like most of the vandalism to the article has been by non-logged-in users, who show up in the history as IP addresses. As long as the article remains semi-protected, non-logged-in users will not be able to edit it. --Teratornis (talk) 04:31, 18 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Actually, for the benefit of the newcomers here, I'd like to point out that planting one of Wikipedia's myriad and obscure boilerplate warning messages on a vandalizing user's talk page is certainly not a mandatory obligation. However, our blocking policy does require us to assume good faith and generally refrain from blocking users (which is our usual response to vandalism, there being only a very limited number of other things we can do) until they have been somehow clearly notified of the fact that that behavior they have engaged in is indeed not acceptable. It should also be pointed out that even this rule is not absolute, and common sense may be applied; I have personally been known to apply immediate 3 hour "penalty" blocks, combined with a suitable explanatory note (e.g. {{uw-block1}}), for vandals whose behavior indicates that they clearly already know they're up to no good. —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 11:16, 19 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Incorrect label from google on Neptune article

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When I searched for "Neptune" on Google the title that came up was "HAGGER?" - could someone fix this? I have no idea how to.

131.215.167.115 (talk) 07:39, 18 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Google cached a version of the article that was "page move" vandalized. It will update to the correct version shortly.¤~Persian Poet Gal (talk) 07:41, 18 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

short sale on my house?

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s it too late to do a short sale and talk to my morgage bank? if the bank allrady put a notice to vacate my property? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.43.194.208 (talk) 09:09, 18 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I think you've come to the wrong place for help. This area of Wikipedia is for people having problems using the site. You should also note that Wikipedia is not the place to come for financial advice (or legal, health, etc). Please read this disclaimer for full details. StephenBuxton (talk) 09:29, 18 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

URL blocked

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I moderate a Dungeon Keeper (a computer game by EA/Bullfrog) forum, and have traditionally had links on Wikipedia on both Dungeon Keeper and Dungeon Keeper 2 articles. In the past 6 months or so these links have been routinely deleted or edited slightly (so that the URL is incorrect and doesn't link to the site). I know who is doing this, because I had the unfortunate task of banning some members on the forum I moderate - they created their own forum and replace our link with theirs. I have childishly resorted to doing that in response, but I can't keep it up and realise how petty it is.

When adding the URL to the forum today, on the DK page, I was told it had been "blacklisted". Now, I don't know how one goes about blacklisting a site, but I'm sure the process was started by the aforementioned people. Who did it is rather unimportant, what is important is when the link will be unblacklisted. The forum is almost certainly the largest and most active DK community, and has a lot of useful resources and related projects, tournaments and exclusive interviews. I think it would be a shame if DK fans could not access this useful information. Our forum has prospered with the link to Wikipedia (and hopefully vice versa), and I hope this doesn't end because of sour grapes from a select minority of wiki users.

In the mean time i'm using the temporary dot.tk URL to avoid the block. I can't even post the blocked URL here because it won't let me.

What should I do to get my site link unblocked? Is there anyone I can contact? Thanks in advance, BonnieDonny (talk) 11:55, 18 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

First, read Wikipedia:Spam. If you still feel the site should not be blacklisted, then you can file a request at MediaWiki talk:Spam-blacklist#Proposed removals. --— Gadget850 (Ed) talk - 17:43, 18 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for the heads up. I'll pursue this further. BonnieDonny (talk) 17:46, 18 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
More information is at WP:EIW#Spam. I might also mention that an encyclopedia project such as this naturally attracts sticklers and pedants, including at least one (me) who experiences anguish at the modern misuse of sour grapes to mean spite rather than the historically proper "the false denial of desire for something sought but not acquired; to denigrate and feign disdain for that which one could not attain." --Teratornis (talk) 18:23, 18 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Such as unbanned status on my forum? I apologise for not fully explaining my use of the expression "sour grapes". However, in the future I'd advise you to think more carefully about what other people mean before jumping on their use of a word or phrase! BonnieDonny (talk) 19:07, 18 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

what happened to acount : joseph031164 ?

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I cannot login to joseph031164, and all the revison history of this account has disappeared. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 220.240.130.179 (talk) 12:30, 18 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

adrenoleucodistrofia

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I need information in English on an article you have documented on your Spanish encyclopedia. It is titled "La Adrenoleucodistrofia (ALD) (A GENETIC DESEASE). I will be greatly appreciate your help. Thanks. Grace —Preceding unsigned comment added by Albagracia (talk • contribs) 14:01, 18 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I believe you are looking for Adrenoleukodystrophy. If you look on the spanish article, on the left hand side of the screen , you should see a box marked "Otros idiomas". This displays links to the articles held by the various other languaged Wikipedias. Please note that the information contained within the articles may not be the same, as they are not necessarily direct translations. StephenBuxton (talk) 14:14, 18 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The {{Google translation}} template can machine-translate articles from the Spanish Wikipedia to English, although not as well as a skilled human translator. You may find this useful for comparing the machine-translated results of the es:Adrenoleucodistrofia article to the Adrenoleukodystrophy article.
--Teratornis (talk) 17:20, 18 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Also see Help:Interlanguage links and WP:EIW#Translate. --Teratornis (talk) 17:22, 18 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

image description pages

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I cannot find the copyright information for the images in the portal.tropical_cyclone imagess. I have spent about two hours trying to figure out how to determine what the copyrights are. How do I find the "image description page" for an image. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.153.162.113 (talk) 15:01, 18 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Clicking on an image will usually take you to an image page with license information. If that doesn't work then where is the image? PrimeHunter (talk) 15:19, 18 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Unknown file type when loading the page "Circuit complexity"

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I have edited a number of Wikipedia pages but do not understand why I get the message "Unknown file type" when loading the page "Circuit complexity". —Preceding unsigned comment added by Hmonroe (talk • contribs) 15:26, 18 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Does Circuit complexity work? What about http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circuit_complexity? with '?' at the end? Some browsers or other installed programs with bad settings have problems with certain endings that they try to interpret as a special file type even though there is no '.' in the name. Maybe your software thinks it's a .ty file. If that's the case then try to fix those settings somewhere, or manually add ? to the url. PrimeHunter (talk) 15:35, 18 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
By "loading the page" do you refer to editing the page? Do you only have this problem when you are logged in? If so, check your preferences and click the Editing tab. Maybe you have a check mark at "Use external editor by default". If so, does it help to remove it? This problem comes up occasionally on the Help desk, for example:
--Teratornis (talk) 17:28, 18 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

How do I make a new article all together?

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How do I make a new article all together? Thanks.64.203.192.70 (talk) 16:48, 18 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

You will need to first register an account, which has many benefits, including the ability to create articles. Once you have registered, please search Wikipedia first to make sure that an article does not already exist on the subject. Please also review a few of our relevant policies and guidelines which all articles should comport with. As Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, articles must not contain original research, must be written from a neutral point of view, should cite to reliable sources which verify their content and must not contain unsourced, negative content about living people.
Articles must also demonstrate the notability of the subject. Please see our subject specific guidelines for people, bands and musicians, companies and organizations and web content and note that if you are closely associated with the subject, our conflict of interest guideline strongly recommends against you creating the article.
If you still think an article is appropriate, see Help:Starting a new page. You might also look at Wikipedia:Your first article and Wikipedia:How to write a great article for guidance, and please consider taking a tour through the Wikipedia:Tutorial so that you know how to properly format the article before creation. PrimeHunter (talk) 16:49, 18 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
If you tell us the subject of the article you wish to make, we can advise you more specifically on what to do, as well as what not to do. Be aware that Wikipedia deletes thousands of new articles, and new articles by new users are at especially high risk, because we have a lot of unobvious policies and guidelines most new users will not be aware of. --Teratornis (talk) 17:32, 18 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Detecting hex code

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How do I detect the hex colour code for this template: 2008 in tennis? 88.104.225.179 (talk) 18:54, 18 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

You have to click the "edit" button to see the source code. In this case, you had to follow that code to the template for that template (oy) which is {{Navbox}}, and the code is #ddddff Someguy1221 (talk) 19:00, 18 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Meta-templates? Those poor kitties! Pyrospirit (talk · contribs) 22:06, 18 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

A quick question

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When using WP:AWB, how do you convert a list into their accompanying talk pages? Thanks! « Gonzo fan2007 (talk ♦ contribs) 20:24, 18 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

In the "List" menu, there is a button that says "Convert to talk pages". Good luck! Soxred93 | talk bot 20:26, 18 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks a lot! « Gonzo fan2007 (talk ♦ contribs) 20:29, 18 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

My article was deleted but I can't find it in the deletion log

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I had created an article back in November re Terry Anderson (Politician) When I search for it now I get redirected to a very brief description under Conservative party candidates. I tried using the deletion log to find out why but I can't find it in the log. Any help is greatly appreciated.

If it's a redirect, it hasn't been deleted. When you see the notice that you have been redirected (it's up top, the part under the title that says "Redirected from..."), click the link to go to the redirect page. You will see that the page has not been deleted, but made to redirect to the page about candidates. Hope this helps! Calvin 1998 (t-c) 22:51, 18 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
(edit conflict) A redirection is not considered a deletion so there is no deletion log. When you click the redirecting Terry Anderson (politician), you get to the target page with the text "Redirected from Terry Anderson (politician)" at the top. Click on the name there to get to the redirecting page where you can click the history tab to find you version. PrimeHunter (talk) 22:52, 18 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
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