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Wikipedia:Help desk/Archives/2008 July 19

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July 19

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How old is my account?

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OK dumb question but I will darned if I can find the answer. Where do I go to see exactly when I created my WP account? Thanks. – ukexpat (talk) 00:29, 19 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Your first edit was on 13th September 2005, according to [1]. DuncanHill (talk) 00:57, 19 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Your account creation is not in your user creation log [2] which hints it's before some split date I don't remember - or it could mean that somebody else created the account on a request. My creation on 4th November 2005 is recorded. PrimeHunter (talk) 01:05, 19 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I could also read my own link which says "This log contains accounts created from September 2005 onward." PrimeHunter (talk) 01:07, 19 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks folks - I had already found my first edit date, but I am pretty sure I created the account before that, I guess before September 2005. So what happened to records from before that date? – ukexpat (talk) 02:12, 19 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think they ever existed. Algebraist 18:25, 19 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Vandal threatening suicide

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Someone should check this out [3]. Remember (talk) 00:51, 19 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I posted this information to WP:AN/I, and I suggest that any further discussion of this incident take place there. Coppertwig (talk) 01:25, 19 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The IP has been blocked, and any thing further is being handled on WP:ANI. Thanks for bringing this up. Hersfold (t/a/c) 01:23, 19 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Hacker/spammer attack on a page

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There has been a hacker/spammer on the page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Jews_in_Hungary What can be done about it? Can someone please help?! 01:13, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

It has been fixed. The transcluded template {{Iso2country}} was vandalized. The template has been protected and the IP vandal blocked. PrimeHunter (talk) 01:20, 19 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Zodiac?

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On the Wikipedia page for "Trinity", there is a strange message at the top of the screen. Is this an ad or something of the sort? 72.9.6.17 (talk) 01:27, 19 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Do you mean "This article is about the Christian Trinity. For other uses, see Trinity (disambiguation)."? − Twas Now ( talk • contribs • e-mail ) 01:29, 19 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
No. There is some form of message that says "This is the Zodiac speaking. I am rather angry at some little boys for cracking my code. However, I do not care, for this is in my blood." –LAX 01:31, 19 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Recent template vandalism - doing a server cache-purge should clear it up. Calvin 1998 (t-c) 01:33, 19 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Ah, I see. I should have known better. –LAX 01:34, 19 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

This is also present at en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_W._Bush

i loled 69.124.15.46 (talk) 21:15, 19 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Template:Ft to m still somewhat broken

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The Template:Ft to m is broken. I discovered it at Portal:Chicago/Selected article/70. However, as was discovered last week adding the precision=1 parameter. However, when this is removed the template is not working for multi-dimensional conversions such as {{Ft to m|33|66|42|wiki=yes}} It works in other spaces. What is going on? I imagine this may be causing problems in many places. I have contacted User:Jimp who has been editing {{rnd/b}}. He has not been able to get it cleaned up.--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTM) 02:50, 19 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

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Note: the external link to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Association_of_Exorcists that is entitled "Mexicans Confront Satanism with Meeting of Exorcists" is a link to a porn site. Please remove this deceptive link. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Buhl7filer (talk • contribs) 08:21, 19 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Umm... no it's not. Trolling>? − Twas Now ( talk • contribs • e-mail ) 08:41, 19 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Searching titles?

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Is it possible to search for articles by title? For example, I'd like to find all articles with feminism in the title. I've tried Googling allinurl: en.wikipedia.org/wiki feminism but it misses some articles such as Feminism in modern Japan. Thanks. JCDenton2052 (talk) 08:43, 19 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I typed allintitle: feminism site:en.wikipedia.org and got 130 results. Not sure if Feminism in modern Japan is in there though. Zain Ebrahim (talk) 10:15, 19 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
But I guess it would be because allintitle:feminism in modern japan site:en.wikipedia.org turns just that one result. Zain Ebrahim (talk) 10:24, 19 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
It is. Thank you. Your google-fu is strong. JCDenton2052 (talk) 11:44, 19 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Need to site a reference for this????

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I have been asked by musician Gian Pyres to expand his article on Wiki. I recently added his equipment used and wonder what is the proper way to site how this info is fact and not original research? The info is available in the inlay booklets of the various bands he's been in (and also from Gian himself).

Shawn Crapo (talk) 14:11, 19 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Please see WP:OR and WP:COI. All claims must be backed up by reliable sources, otherwise it is considered original research (because it can't be verified). Furthermore, you shouldn't really write about people you know, as you can (perhaps accidentally) introduce bias in your writing. Best, PeterSymonds (talk) 14:17, 19 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Also, are you referring to the inlay booklets on CDs? I don't think they would qualify as reliable sources. Sorry, Zain Ebrahim (talk) 14:24, 19 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The issues Peter raised to the side, you might find WP:CITE helpful. It contains all manner of templates for citing different types of sources. Also, there is no reason to consider an inlay book an unreliable source, it is a great source for the equipment used by the artist in question. Cheers. L0b0t (talk) 14:27, 19 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
See WP:RS and WP:INDY. The former is a guideline and thus is subject to interpretation depending on the context. Ideally, we like to have reliable, published, third-party sources that are independent of the subject of an article, so album liner notes might be somewhat questionable. However, in practice this would only matter if the sourced statements were controversial enough for someone to challenge. (On Wikipedia, the working definition of "permissible" is "whatever all the other 48,347,743 editors will accept." So when in doubt, one can always be bold and wait for someone else to smack it down, although that can be a somewhat wasteful approach if the answer is already in a guideline page somewhere.) To ask about the suitability of particular sources, see Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard, which we can search with {{Google custom}}:
Wikipedia:WikiProject Albums mentions using album liner notes as a source, so I guess this practice might be fairly common on Wikipedia. However, I have not edited these types of articles much (if at all), so I could not be sure. You might want to study some featured articles about music to see the standard for best practice here. --Teratornis (talk) 16:59, 19 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I also disagree with Zian: CD inlays should be reliable in the context of providing basic information like this. They're written by the record company, who should know. Information direct from Gian to you shouldn't be used; but if he's given a statement to a newspaper or written a blog, you can use that. This is because we can read the newspaper article to check this, but we can't be absolutely certain that you've spoken to him. --h2g2bob (talk) 16:59, 19 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Perhaps you could add your 2-cents (at Talk:The Rotted) to whether the The Rotted and Gorerotted pages should be combined into one page. --h2g2bob (talk) 17:13, 19 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for the advice everyone. I've also added his tuning style (with reference), and a "see also" for a list of other bands who tune to D as he does. I hope to make it a nice looking article, befitting for such a talented person. I assure you, we are not personal friends, though. Merely professional. But I wanted to know if a picture that is public domain is acceptable to add to the page. --Shawn Crapo (talk) 18:48, 19 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Copyright on Wikipedia can be a mind-numbingly complex topic. See the links under WP:EIW#Copy. For the basics of how to upload and link to an image, see Help:Images and other uploaded files. --Teratornis (talk) 03:22, 20 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Zodiac bomb

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I am getting some crazy message that covers the whole page from Zodiac when I attempt to visit certain pages. So far both Jon Corzine and WP:AN are affected. This page is not. What is going on?--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTM) 15:04, 19 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Uhm, could you give us some idea of what the message is? -mattbuck (Talk) 15:05, 19 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
It's been corrected. Minor template vandalism that has since been reverted. All should be fixed now. Gazimoff WriteRead 15:08, 19 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks.--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTM) 15:09, 19 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I've found another vandalized article, this time on Rabindranath Tagore. I'm not sure how to fix it without screwing something else up, so I'll leave it to you guys. Thuathail (talk) 21:54, 19 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I purged the cache on the page, which fixed the problem. —teb728 t c 22:07, 19 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Still finding them, I ran searches for "Chicago" and "Berlin" in the search field and ran across them again.Altlusa (talk) 17:23, 21 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Whale tail

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Hi there, I was the creator of the term "whale tail" as in an exposed thong shot, I'm sick of website fans of mine (www.whale-tail.com) writing complaining there is no mention of the site or my name as the creator on your http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whale_tail page.

I'd rather have the wikipedia page completely removed if my site can not be listed. As i'm sick and tired of hearing "why are you not credited?" some even started to do it themselves.

here's the active history of it, http://www.whale-tail.com/index-history.html your page lists many of the actual references that STOLE their definition from my website, or sites I personally posted on to procreate the name around the web.

I understand that under UK copyright law being the creator of the term and the original site I have the right to ask this be sorted.

<Email Removed> —Preceding unsigned comment added by Garvmaxx22 (talk • contribs) 16:46, 19 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Erm, right...well, UK copyright law doesn't extend to protect neologisms, even if you could establish (which would be very difficult - well, impossible, actually) that you were the first person ever to use the term and that there was somehow copyright inherent in it. Copyright exists to protect works of artistic merit, not single words or phrases. So, in answer to your question, since you cannot verify the fact that you created the term using reliable sources (and your own website doesn't count), there's little scope of either (a) you being credited for the creation of the phrase, or (b) the page being deleted. Probably not the answer you wanted to hear, but I'm afraid that's pretty much the way it is. GBT/C 17:18, 19 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
(e/c) There's been an extensive discussion of this very matter on the talk page, where you were informed -- multiple times -- that unless you can provide a reliable, third-party (meaning someone other than you) reference that you invented this term, that it can't be included in Wikipedia. If there is actual copyright infringement by means of text owned by you that was copy-and-pasted verbatim into Wikipedia, please feel free to excise those sections with a notice that you are removing it for copyright violations. However (with all standard legal disclaimers), the term "whale tail" itself is not copyrightable under US law (it may be trademarkable or it may not be) and using the same definition in different words does not generally violate copyright. As you don't own the page, you truly have no right to demand its deletion, but you may nominate it for deletion if you like. -- ShinmaWa(talk) 17:42, 19 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]


don't know what happened to the other part of my letter, once again thanks for the update as stated before, basically all i needed was a place to send people to, to complain about it so it frees up my time explaining that wikipedia have the final say in what they believe is truth. --garvmaxx22(talk) 17:45, 19 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

sorry this is the first time i've used wikipedia as I explained earlier, where is this discussion about it? --garvmaxx22(talk) 17:48, 19 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

You can find it at Talk:Whale tail#www.whale-tail.com. -- ShinmaWa(talk) 17:54, 19 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Actually, Wikipedia is not concerned with determining "truth". It's an abstract that people never agree on. Instead, we rely on verifiable facts reported by third-party reliable sources. If you'd like, you can point people who are upset to those policies. — The Hand That Feeds You:Bite 18:07, 19 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Technically, Wikipedia focuses on a narrow subset of truth: whether some particular reliable source truly did make some claim. If we could not all agree on what claim a particular source makes (whether or not we agree that the claim itself is true), then Wikipedia couldn't work. --Teratornis (talk) 04:09, 20 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Creating/Editing Article Entries with Multiple Names/Titles?

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Can we have more than one primary name and/or title because the article has more than one primary name or the name has more than one spelling and it is important that the article be equally accessible by each name/title? Hkjii (talk) 18:05, 19 July 2008 (UTC).[reply]

That's what redirects are for. Create the article at the name it is most likely known by, and then create redirects from other common spellings/usages. — The Hand That Feeds You:Bite 18:10, 19 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
For example, the title United States of America redirects to United States, since people are more likely to refer to the US by its shorter name rather than its longer official title. Hope this helps. Hersfold non-admin(t/a/c) 21:22, 19 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Questioning an image

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I believe that the license on this image is incorrect. I don't have a web site or physical source to cite though. I've looked through Wikipedia:Copyright problems but I don't see a template for "I think this image is a copyvio" which doesn't include some sort of source. What can I do here? Dismas|(talk) 18:32, 19 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The procedure at Wikipedia:Possibly_unfree_images is probably your best bet. Karenjc 18:40, 19 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
That's the page I was trying to think of! Thanks, Dismas|(talk) 18:44, 19 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The same image shows up a half dozen times on google images if you search by her image. It appears to be a promo photo of some type. ---J.S (T/C/WRE) 03:10, 20 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
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