Wikipedia:Help desk/Archives/2008 August 13

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August 13

Added Verifiable Citation... Now what??

I added verfiable citations to the following wikipedia article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Certified_IRB_Professional

Why won't the statement saying "This article does not cite any references or sources" go away? —Preceding unsigned comment added by PRIMR SP (talk • contribs) 14:21, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

You have to manually remove it. Corvus cornix_talk 18:54, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

Talk page warnings

Am I allowed to remove talk page warnings? My page currently has two notability notices which aren't really helpful. Magog the Ogre (talk) 00:25, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

Not that you have any (all I see is a couple of notifications), but yes, you are free to remove warnings from your talk page. Algebraist 00:30, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

It's generally looked down upon in favor of archiving, though. Note: if you archive your talk page, you might want to consider having an archive bot do it for you (the two are User:MiszaBot III and User:ClueBot III). Calvin 1998 ^(t-c) 00:32, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

For more on archiving, see WP:EIW#Archive. --Teratornis (talk) 02:58, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

Spanish Wikipedia

Does anybody know the proposed deletion policy on the Spanish Wikipedia? I hate to ask here; I'm not even sure if the rules are different on different Wikipedias. But I am currently not being helped at all on Spanish (despite inquiries to administrators, the help desk, and the café), just being slapped with warnings for continuing to remove a propb template (conversation is here). Magog the Ogre (talk) 00:27, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

Isn't the policy shown at es:Wikipedia:Propuestas de borrado? — Twas Now ( talk • contribs • e-mail ) 05:35, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

{{propb}} is the equivalent of {{afd}} here, not of {{prod}}, by the way. Titoxd^{(?!? - cool stuff)} 18:49, 14 August 2008 (UTC)

User toolbar

Hi! I wish to apply a user toolbar, similar to that on User:Cory Malik's page. How do I do it though? Thanks for considering my question. Sυρєrıor ^{(Reply!,Contribs)} 02:19, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

You can find the code to his toolbar here. Simply copy this code to your userpage or to a user subpage like this: User:Sup3rior/toolbar. Then change the links in the code to link to subpages of your userspace. Finally, if you put the code on a subpage, transclude the subpage on your userpage by placing {{User:Sup3rior/toolbar}} (or whatever the subpage was) on it. Hope this was sufficient! Scottydude _review 02:56, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

Permanent link help

Resolved

I am trying to get a permanent link for the reference entitled "Ed Martin Revealed: His long and infamous road into Michigan basketball history" from the The Michigan Daily on 2003-05-12 in the WP article University of Michigan basketball scandal. The link I am using (http://www.michigandaily.com/content/ed-martin-revealed-his-long-and-infamous-road-michigan-basketball-history) is not permanent.--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTM) 03:03, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

http://209.85.141.104/search?q=cache%3Ahttp%3A%2F%2Fwww.michigandaily.com%2Fcontent%2Fed-martin-revealed-his-long-and-infamous-road-michigan-basketball-history - google cache to the page. Google's cache of the page will always exist, even when the page itself is taken off. Calvin 1998 ^(t-c) 03:09, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

Actually, if I'm not mistaken, google cache links are also temporary. Calliopejen1 (talk) 03:14, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

I'm not sure... usually they still have cache-pages for non-existent pages. Calvin 1998 ^(t-c) 03:17, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

Thanks

I think Google eventually clears its cached pages. See the links under WP:EIW#LinkRot such as Wikipedia:Using the Wayback Machine for some things to try. --Teratornis (talk) 06:47, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

Unsure which email address is associated with my Wikipedia account

Hello,

It has been quite a while since I edited an article, and I had to have my password resent to me. However, I do not recall which of my email addresses my account is associated with, and have tried all of them, but have not received an email with my password. My account is "alacran", but as I said, I do not recall which of my email addresses the new password went to. Is there anything I can do about this? Thank you for any assistance. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.192.161.192 (talk) 04:29, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

Check again in a couple hours. It could take a while to get the email, I'm not sure. — Twas Now ( talk • contribs • e-mail ) 05:05, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

And don't forget to check your spam folders (Wikipedia messages often end up there). Algebraist 10:52, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

Do IP users get messages

Resolved

Over the past few days I've had reason to leave messages on the talkpages of two IP contributors regarding their edits; 72.146.44.227 (talk · contribs · WHOIS) and 58.168.100.170 (talk · contribs · WHOIS). The IPs have not replied to any of the messages left by myself, (and in the former case other editors) and have continued to make the same edits and errors I am trying to bring to their attention.

My questions are: Does the orange message bar apply to IP users? Is their attention attracted to the talk page? Am I wasting my breath because (A) they are unaware that I am attempting to contact them, or (B) because they are ignoring me? -- saberwyn 05:51, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

There was a problem last year about the new messages bar not working properly, but it should be working now (see bugzilla:9213). If they're continuing to edit, they're seeing the new messages bar and either ignoring it or ignoring the message. WODUP 06:00, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

Thanks. -- saberwyn 06:02, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

Pittsburg, Walker County, Georgia was a post office

The article Pittsburg, Walker County, Georgia says the location was a settlement. However, the only reference provided was to Pittsburg, Georgia description at PlaceNames.com, which says it was a post office, not a settlement. The Latitude and Longitude listed in the article are for the post office as indicated at PlaceNames.com. I could not find any info on the Pittsburg Post Office in Walker County, Georgia. Can all this be fixed? Thanks. Suntag (talk) 06:31, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

If there was a post office there, then wouldn't there be a settlement? — Twas Now ( talk • contribs • e-mail ) 06:41, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

Sartain's History of Walker County mentions Pittsburg in passing only to note the origin of the name and to name the two teachers in the local school in 1931-32. From inference, it is very unlikely that a settlement didn't exist. Further research may be able to expand upon this. Nanonic (talk) 07:01, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

If there was a school, and a post office, it is indeed likely there was a settlement, but it would be preferable to have a reference that states that (per WP:V). - DigitalC (talk) 04:31, 14 August 2008 (UTC)

VIRUS

According to an AVG scan, my computer has a virus called "User_Sardaka(1).html". Any idea how this could have come about, and have you seen this kind of thing before?

Sardaka (talk) 08:46, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

Have you tried the Computing section of Wikipedia's Reference Desk? They specialize in answering knowledge questions there; this help desk is only for questions about using Wikipedia. For your convenience, here is the link to post a question there: click here. I hope this helps. The Helpful One ^(Review) 13:30, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

What Was The 2,500,000th Article?

--Let Us Update Special:Ancientpages. 08:47, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

Joseph Francis "Joe" Connor. 218.111.71.82 (talk) 15:32, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

Nothing on the talkpage shows any fanfare indicating that. --Let Us Update Special:Ancientpages. 13:40, 14 August 2008 (UTC)

That's because it's not officially the 2.5m^th article, it was just someone's best guess. Establishing which article actually takes us past a given milestone is quite difficult - just monitoring new articles won't work because deletions make the article count go down again. It's not clear that anyone is going to put in the work to establish an official 2.5m^th article - there is some discussion of this at Talk:Main Page. Gandalf61 (talk) 14:01, 14 August 2008 (UTC)

Ken Joseph Jr.

How do I put this up for afd ? - Kittybrewster ☎ 09:57, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Afd#How_to_list_pages_for_deletion. Alternatively, install Twinkle and use the xfd tab. Tombomp (talk/contribs) 10:32, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

Template:PGP top

That template doesn't seem to work properly with IE... if it's fixable, can an admin (because it's protected) fix it, please? -- Mentisock 10:16, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

What doesn't work? The documentation could be laid out better to show that you need to add more code after this template. --—— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk - 13:16, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

This is what doesn't work... it's like that on every userpage that has it. -- Mentisock 09:52, 14 August 2008 (UTC)

Copy from another website

We are a museum that would like to add a few non-represented American artists to Wikipedia. Information on these artists is already posted on our website. We would like to cut and paste from our website to Wikipedia. How do we do that without getting into copyright problems? We own the copyright for the text on our website and are willing to share with Wikipedia. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Miss Florence (talk • contribs) 14:17, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

Material posted to Wikipedia has to be licensed under the GFDL. If the material has already been published elsewhere, we need to be sure that the person posting it here is indeed the copyright holder. You can confirm this by posting to permissions-en@wikimedia.org from an email associated with the website, stating explicitly that you own the relevant copyrights and are releasing the material under the GFDL. Algebraist 14:34, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

It also needs to be noted on the article discussion page. Few editors have access to those emails; if they notice the content was copied, it may be removed as a copyright violation. --—— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk - 16:19, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

If you are new to Wikipedia, you may not be familiar with all our jargon yet. For almost everything we do on Wikipedia, someone has written instructions for it in our internal help pages; perhaps the most complete overview of all that stuff is the Editor's index. These pages are relevant to your question: Wikipedia:Donating copyrighted materials and Help:Talk page. --Teratornis (talk) 18:17, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

Your talk page already has some potential copyright warnings from CorenSearchBot. --Teratornis (talk) 18:23, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

Citing Sources ?

I have been editing the page for the Missionaries Of Africa and have been trying to cite references but am apperently doing it incorrectly. I have tried to use other pages as references but I still can't get the "cite does not site any references" message off the screen. Please tell me what I am doing incorrectly or not doing, tanks you. —Preceding unsigned comment added by MIssionA (talk • contribs) 14:27, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

That message is not automated, and has to be removed manually. DuncanHill has done so. Algebraist 14:30, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

The article has other problems, as indicated by the article issues tags, not the least of which is that the references are all to the org's own website, and that is not a reliable source. – ukexpat (talk) 20:48, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

I have now moved the article to White Fathers which is an existing, less spammy, and overall better, article on the same subject matter. – ukexpat (talk) 15:39, 14 August 2008 (UTC)

Problem with an Image Caption

Help. Despite checking the syntax of an Image character for character, I cannot seem to get a caption to show up under the image where it should. Could somebody look at the image I just added to Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline#Description of the pipeline and tell me what I am doing wrong. Thanks. N2e (talk) 16:21, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

You need the 'thumb' tag for image captions to work. Otherwise the caption text is set as the image's title attribute (shown as a mouseover tooltip) instead of being displayed. Algebraist 16:30, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

Thanks. And thanks for fixing the image too. N2e (talk) 14:23, 14 August 2008 (UTC)

signing in Problem

Hi
I newly changed my Username from "Vespa64" to "Amirreza"
After changing my UN I made some Contributions, but today when I wanted to sign in with my new UN this eror occured:

A database query syntax error has occurred. This may indicate a bug in the software. The last attempted database query was: (SQL query hidden) from within function "User::saveSettings". MySQL returned error "1062: Duplicate entry 'Vespa64' for key 2 (10.0.0.235)". Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:UserLogin"
What should I do? ThanksVespa64 (talk) 17:25, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

Quick question. Did you change your username just by creating a new account or did you change it at Wikipedia:Changing usernames? --Meldshal42? 18:39, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

It was a usurpation. –xeno (talk) 19:12, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

• Yeah, I renamed by usurpation —Preceding unsigned comment added by Vespa64 (talk • contribs) 20:15, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

Alright, then you should probably consult an OTRS admin... --Meldshal42? 23:30, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

Adding a picture of my home to the Benjamin Adams House page

Good Afternoon,

I've read the instructions on adding an image to an article dozens of times and I'm never going to understand it. I really want to add an image of my home to the Benjamin Adams House page that I took myself. How can I make this happen?

Technically challenged,

Sorry if I deleted my signature; I don't know what I'm doing. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jbouvier69 (talk • contribs) 17:19, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

17:14, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

If it's your own work, you should upload it to Wikimedia Commons. First go here to create a account on the commons, then go here and follow the instructions to upload it. Algebraist 17:18, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

Duplicate pages in different namespaces

Hi,

A quick question, please: I started drafting an article in my userspace (here) and the article was created by another user (see here) before I moved the page into the mainspace. What's the appropriate course of action in this case?

My first instinct was just to add (i.e. copy-paste) the content from the userspace draft into the article, but I'm wondering whether the GFDL (or something else) requires preservation of the edit history (for purposes of attribution or an explanation of individual edits, I don't know...). However, I don't just want to leave the user page lying around as a blanked page or redirect, and I don't use any particular contributions licensing templates (e.g. {{TextLicenseMinorFreeUse}}), just the standard "irrevocably agree to release your contributions under the terms of the GFDL" (appears in the edit window).

What's the proper action? Copy-paste and don't worry about the edit history (I'll delete the userspace page); a quick history merge; something else?

Thanks, –Black Falcon ^(Talk) 17:33, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

If you are the only one who has edited your sandbox then a copy paste is fine as you still get full attribution for your work. Histmerges are only required when two or more users have made contributions to the page.- Icewedge (talk) 17:36, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

I'll do that, then. Thanks, –Black Falcon ^(Talk) 17:52, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

Also, if you don't want to leave the user page lying around, you can just place {{db-author}} on the page to request speedy deletion. --Clubjuggle ^T/C 16:39, 15 August 2008 (UTC)

Or delete it yourself, as you're a administrator :P...... Dendodge .. Talk^Contribs 16:43, 15 August 2008 (UTC)

images

Resolved

Are images taken by the associated press able to be placed on wikipedia? I went over the copyright tags page but couldn't find anything on it. tabor-^{drop me a line} 19:10, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

With rare exception... No. They are copyrighted and non-free. -- kainaw™ 19:11, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

Okay. I uploaded an image that was placed with a no-license tag and will be deleted on 8/20. How do I get this image speedly deleted? tabor-^{drop me a line} 19:13, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

Nevermind, i got it. Thanks! tabor-^{drop me a line} 19:44, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

My Fansite Link Blocked/Banned? Why

I am trying to add my site to the links for this page:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bible_Black

my site:

www.black-imari.com

the page is about Bible Black My site is about Bible Black

So why can't i post it there? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.83.235.33 (talk) 19:18, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

Per WP:EL, we don't allow links to fansites. If you want more incoming traffic for your site - links from Wikipedia don't count anyway...... Dendodge .. Talk^Contribs 19:28, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

It was blocked because of this spam report. x42bn6 Talk Mess 22:15, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

Contents list doesn't show :(

Bull (mythology). I made some edits (on a page that didn't even have titles) and no contents appear. I notice that on other pages no {{menu}} tags etc. exist. What should I do? Apotetios (talk) 19:53, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

It had a command in it preventing the table of contents shewing. I fixed it with this edit [1]. DuncanHill (talk) 19:56, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

oh thanks a lot for that. --Apotetios (talk) 19:56, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

For technical details see Help:Magic_words#Table of contents and Help:Section#Table of contents (TOC). --Teratornis (talk) 20:00, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

Downloading or saving Wikipedia information

I recently found information about family members who were christened and married in the Sankt Marien Kirche in Lemgo, Lippe, Germany in 1823 and 1840’s. I found the information and English translation in Wikipedia and wanted to download, or save the translated information about the city and church. Can this be done?

The web site is: [2]

Rs —Preceding unsigned comment added by Rshaw85 (talk • contribs) 22:09, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

That is a function of your browser. Generally, click on file > save and save the entire page as a document. --—— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk - 22:34, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Most browsers let you save the web page you are currently viewing as a .html file. Clicking File -> Save As... or something similar on your browser's toolbar when this page is up will let you save the HTML code so you can locally view it in your browser. Alternately, you can copy and paste the text from the page and save it into Word or Notepad. Is this what you are looking for? —Pie4all88 ^{T C} 22:37, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

If you click "Print" in the toolbar on the left-hand side of the page, it will bring up the page in a simplified format that you can copy and paste very easily into a word processor. Regards. Woody (talk) 22:44, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

How do I upload a file to the list of System Engineers?

I am listed in the best System Engineers list, and I want to upload my bio. How do I do this? do I add my own picture (what format)? What should the file format be (Word, PDF, ? )? how do I get the file to the correct place?

Thanks....... ......Lano --RobertJLano (talk) 22:31, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

Hi Robert, Wikipedia:Your first article contains information for new users who are interested in making an article. Wikipedia discourages people from writing articles about themselves, though, with the idea being that if someone is notable enough for inclusion, another person will create their article (see Wikipedia:Conflict of interest for more information). If you are sure that you can write an unbiased entry with verifiable sources, you are welcome to draft the article on a subpage of your user page (it need not be perfect), ask the community or a respected individual to skim it to make sure it would be suitable as an article (posting another message at this help desk would be fine), and then finally to create it as an article. As for your question about images, Wikipedia:Images should link you to more information. Cheers! —Pie4all88 ^{T C} 22:58, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

If you are talking about adding your biography to List of system engineers, then I would recommend following the steps above and then wikilinking your name in that list as the other entries are. That list should be a brief summary of each individual. Regards. Woody (talk) 23:00, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

(e/c) Hi. You shouldn't do so at all. You have a conflict of interest which makes it extremely difficult for you to write an article in a neutral manner, which is a core content requirement. If you are notable enough to be the subject of an article, meaning that multiple reliable secondary sources have written about you substantively, then you should wait for some neutral third party to write the article. Note that any article on you must not contain any information not already written about in published sources, must not appear to be advertising yourself, must not copy text from a copyrighted source that is not under a free license, and you should be aware that anything you write can and will be edited mercilessly. Many people have posted articles, only to be very dissatisfied after the article is edited to include both good and bad information about them, and once posted, you may not be able to have the content deleted. Please see Wikipedia:Autobiography for more information.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 23:03, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

Sorry I'm so late getting back to this—the days have flown by—but I wanted to comment here before it gathered more dust in the archives. I wasn't familiar with Wikipedia:Autobiography, and I do see that is strongly discourages creating an article about yourself, but it does say the following at the bottom:

::::The proper way to get your own writing about yourself in if you really think you can meet the inclusion criteria and are willing to accept having a neutral, non-promotional article is to make a proposal containing the text you want, instead of just putting it up directly, and seek the consensus of the community through discussion. Not only does this provide independent viewpoints on it that can allow you to discover biases you were not aware of having, it also helps provide an indication of good faith and that you are willing to put the interests of Wikipedia first instead of standing in a position of conflict of interest.

In light of this, I'd say that discouraging the autobiographer but still explaining how it can be done is an appropriate response. —Pie4all88 ^{T C} 06:46, 18 August 2008 (UTC)

Copy/paste link to WP article to email

I use a Mac PBG4. I often send copies of articles to friends by email, by copy/pasting the file from the address line. 1. Is this OK, as I understand it, WP has no copyright problems? 2. Suddenly, I see that the last letter, particularly if it's a close paren or bracket like here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Central_Airport_(Glendale), stays outside the blue hilight, and then says there is no such article. Is this an error, or a method of telling me I cannot copy the file? Or am I doing it wrong? JohnClarknew (talk) 22:52, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Copyrights for what to do when copying Wikipedia content. (to summarize, you must follow the GNU Free Documentation License). Your last question is puzzling: Grand Central Airport (Glendale) certainly exists. Calvin 1998 ^(t-c) 00:05, 14 August 2008 (UTC)

As far as the second part, it sounds like your not highlighting the entire URL when you copy it. This could be why the last letter (or parentheses) isn't copying. Scottydude _review 00:09, 14 August 2008 (UTC)

If what you mean is that you send "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Central_Airport_(Glendale)" to your friends, here's the answer:

1. Everything on Wikipedia is released under the GNU Free Documentation License. This means that, in most cases, you won't have problems with this. If an article has copyright problems, it usually gets caught. Besides, the whole point of Wikipedia is for people to read it.
2. I don't know what you're trying to say. Do you mean that, when you try to copy and paste something like "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Central_Airport_(Glendale)", you get "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Central_Airport_(Glendale"? If that's the problem, you can just type in the last character. Usually, that means that you just didn't select the whole address line. Bart133 ^{t c @ How's my driving?} 00:10, 14 August 2008 (UTC)

I wish it were that simple. I have now checked this out on a Mac and on a desktop PC, and when I pick up a file ending in a parenthesis, and paste it into an email, the last bracket stays outside the file. If I put it inside, it makes no difference, WP won't recognize it. For non users receiving the file, when it doesn't work, they don't experiment to bring the article up. This could be a bug in your software, or the final bracket is somehow being misused (only seems to happen with parenthetic endings). JohnClarknew (talk) 03:56, 14 August 2008 (UTC)

Here's a clue. If you look at another page ending in a bracket, Silver Line (shipping company), its file ends thus: "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silver_Line_%28shipping_company%29". No bracket, and I can copy paste it into an email without a problem. Why the different formatting language in the file? JohnClarknew (talk) 04:15, 14 August 2008 (UTC)

Using an internal link Silver Line (shipping company) I arrive at the page with in the address bar http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silver_Line_(shipping_company). When I copy that to Outlook I get the wrong link http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silver_Line_(shipping_company). When I copy the rendered link itself, and use HTML-format in Outlook, the link works. So it seems I either have to convert manually to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silver_Line_%28shipping_company%29, or, when I am at the page itself, find in another page a link to the page, so that I can copy that. Both is somewhat inconvenient.--Patrick (talk) 09:55, 14 August 2008 (UTC)