Wikipedia:Help desk/Archives/2008 July 4

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July 4

WP:AIV report

Is it ok for a user to remove a report made by another user, that is not about the person who removed it? For example there [1] there is currently a report for an IP that hasn't edited in 2-3 days. So what I am asking is it ok to remove it? If so, should I leave a note on the person who made the report's talk page? Thanks, Vivio Testarossa^{Talk Who} 00:42, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

One can add various forms of {{AIV}} to the report, I'm pretty sure removing it is OK if you say why in the edit summary. Calvin 1998 ^(t-c) 00:49, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

Some reporters may be annoyed if the report is not handled by an administrator, and if you apply for admin then some users may view it negatively when voting. I suggest you wait for an administrator to deal with it. PrimeHunter (talk) 13:03, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

If the IP has not edited for 2 or 3 days, then it's fine to remove it. Make sure you explain why, carefully, in the edit summary. If a reporter does get annoyed, then don't cause a fuss, simply allow them to resubmit the report - the reviewing admin will remove it as "stale" if there's been no activity for 2-3 days anyway. Neıl 龱 13:06, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

Foreign links

I am about to redirect Prima ballerina and Prima ballerina assoluta to Ballerina (after discussing it with their main editor), but what should I do with the French and Russian(?) links? Clarityfiend (talk) 01:56, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

If you mean links in the French and Russian Wikipedia to the English Wikipedia then just ignore them. A bot or editor in that language will deal with them at some time and linking to a redirecting English page until then is OK. PrimeHunter (talk) 12:55, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

My Problem

Hey guys,

I'm trying to create an article on the up and coming band Plushgun and I ran into a problem when I used a link to Myspace blog in a reference for the band's first album. When I try to create the page I get a Spam filter notice due to the myspace link. Does anyone know a way around this? I have the rest of the article on my user page. Thanks and Happy 4th of July! Noneforall (talk) 05:22, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

Myspace and pretty much the rest of Web 2.0 fails to meet WP:SOURCES criteria for a reliable source. Just browsing the web, I've come across at least one [other article], so it meets the #1 killer of band pages on Wikipedia, WP:BAND. Most of the other bands that want to cite Myspace as a reference don't. SDY (talk) 06:06, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

Uhh.... that article's a press release, SDY, just for the record, so doesn't actually meet the guidelines. Tony Fox (arf!) 18:28, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

The phrase "up and coming" might sound to some deletionists like a prediction of the future, which we don't do on Wikipedia. Since Plushgun already attracted a {{db-band}}, you might want to read WP:WWMPD for some advice on how to prepare for the worst. --Teratornis (talk) 04:24, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

Photo captions again

Hi, I'm still having problems with pics/captions. I want to make a couple of pics smaller than "thumb", with a caption at the bottom, and placed to the right of the page. However, when I try this: Image:Echoprint.jpg|150px|The Echo press in the 1960s|right it makes the pic smaller, but removes the caption.

Also, does anyone know how to make this 20-mile (32.1 km) into a squared figure? When I put a 2 after the mile or km, it remains a large 2 rather than the sign for squared...

If anyone could help, I'd be over the moon! Thanks.--seahamlass 10:14, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

For the image, use the thumb parameter:

[[Image:Echoprint.jpg|thumb|150px|The Echo press in the 1960s]]

For the measurement, use the {{convert}} template:

{{convert|20|mi|km}}

20 miles (32 km)

You mention square, so if you mean to measure area:

{{convert|20|sqmi|km2}}

20 square miles (52 km²)

--—— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk - 10:42, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

Fantastic! They both work great. Many, many thanks.--seahamlass 10:50, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Extended_image_syntax for a full explanation on the paramaters for images. --TheDJ (talk • contribs) 18:02, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

Japanese

how to write/read in japanese langauage? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 122.2.208.237 (talk) 10:16, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

Sorry, I doubt anyone here at the helpdesk has the time or the skill to teach Japanese. Go to the library and take out a book on the subject, or get lessons from a tutor or Rosetta Stone. Xenon54 12:45, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

Are you referring to writing Japanese characters in the English Wikipedia and displaying them in your browser? PrimeHunter (talk) 12:50, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

User discussion page won't archive

Can someone take a look at my talk page and see if there's anything obviously wrong with the archiver settings? It doesn't seem to be working, again. Maury (talk) 11:39, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

Can you explain your problem in more detail, please? –thedemonhog talk • edits 19:02, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

You have a lot of unsigned posts. I think the bot goes by the dates in signatures. Without dated signatures it doesn't know when to archive. —teb728 t c 20:23, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, unsigned posts get ignored by the bot, so you'll have to manually archive those. — The Hand That Feeds You:^Bite 11:07, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

Low importance articles

I just ran across this page and it is the first time I have seen something like this: [2]. All the pages are talk pages for articles that may or may not be "important", depending on subjective preference. (As a pretty strict inclusionist I am not one to talk!) So I am just curious...what is this about? Why is this a category? Thanks. Saudade7 11:54, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

Many WikiProjects use assessment— see Wikipedia:Assessment. Clicking on the link at the top of that category takes you to Wikipedia:WikiProject Philosophy/Assessment, which explains the assessment system for both quality and importance. If you open one of those talk pages, you will see that the article is rated by use of the project banner template. --—— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk - 12:05, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

Articles in Category:Low-importance Philosophy articles and others in Category:Low-importance articles are part of an importance classification scheme. It can be used to select articles for smaller versions of Wikipedia in other media like CD, DVD, print. See Category:Articles by importance and Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team. Editors can choose which articles to work on based on their importance rating (and I guess readers can use it to choose what to read). The rating is not an "official" part of the Wikipedia encyclopedia which is why it's placed on the talk page. PrimeHunter (talk) 12:11, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

Thanks everyone. Saudade7 19:18, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

Connection

How can I stop my internet connection from disconnecting itself? Last time, I had an IP that I used for nearly two months; now, my connection keeps disconnecting itself, changing my IP. How can I counter this? 124.181.227.96 (talk) 11:59, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

Your IP address is determined by your Internet service provider. Some are static and some are dynamic. If you want your Wikipedia edits to be connected then the best way is to create an account. That hides your IP address and shows all your contributions in one place like Special:Contributions/PrimeHunter. See also Wikipedia:Why create an account? for other benefits. PrimeHunter (talk) 12:47, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

Link to User page

How do I create a link which will link to the user's User page? --Redaktor (talk) 12:57, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

Write [[User:Redaktor]] to make User:Redaktor, or [[User:Redaktor|Redaktor]] to make Redaktor without User: displayed in front. If you mean something else then please be specific. PrimeHunter (talk) 13:07, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

(Edit conflict. Haha.) The above information is correct. However, if this is for signing purposes, just add the four tildes which form your signature (and by default, this will link to your userpage). --Sky Harbor ^(talk) 13:09, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

Hi Redaktor. You can see the name of any page on Wikipedia at the top of the page. For example, this one is Wikipedia:Help desk, which you would link to with: [[Wikipedia:Help desk]]. If I want to make a link to my image page, which is User:Neil/images, I would write [[User:Neil/images]]. You can either type the name, or go to the page, copy the name, and paste the name to where you want it and put wikilinks ([[ ]]) around it.

If you want the link to your own user page at the end of something you write on a talk page, ie your "signature", it's four tildes, which looks like this: ~~~~. Hope that helps! Neıl 龱 13:11, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

Sorry, but none of these answers my questions. Let me be more explicit. I want to write some text/code so that whoever reads it will be able to link from it to their own User page. Something like [[User:{{USERPAGE}}]] (which does not work). Thanks! --Redaktor (talk) 13:50, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

That would be Special:MyPage. — The Hand That Feeds You:^Bite 14:07, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

Many thanks—that's what I wanted to know. --Redaktor (talk) 15:35, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

Special templates

Where can I find a list of all of the special templates that don't have a template page, such as {{CURRENTMONTH}} and {{NUMBEROFARTICLES}}? I've been looking around and can't find any place where they are listed. --Arctic Gnome (talk • contribs) 15:05, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

They are not actually templates. See Help:Magic words. PrimeHunter (talk) 15:09, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

Institute of Sport and Recreation Management

The organisation named above is not listed on wikipedia, it has been in existence since 1921, I would like to list it as an employee, how do I go about doing this? —Preceding unsigned comment added by ISRM (talk • contribs) 15:36, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

Many things have existed a long time but do not meet wikipedia notability criteria for inclusion. Before creating an article about it, check you have sufficient sources, and that you can write it with neutral point of view. Also, look at guidelines on conflict of interest. -mattbuck (Talk) 15:50, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

And also take a look at WP:CORP and WP:SPAM. I would also strongly advise you to change your user name. If you create an article about the Institute using that name, it will be considered promotional and you will almost certainly be blocked. – ukexpat (talk) 21:36, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

Forbidden

'What I'm going to do when I get the message below :

" Forbidden You don't have permission to access /coursewares/khoahoc/sinhhocdc_a1/phan1/ch4.htm on this server.

Apache/2.0.49 (Unix) PHP/4.3.9 Server at www.ctu.edu.vn Port 80]] "

Appreciated for yor feedback. email removed —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.95.9.170 (talk) 17:02, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

I've removed your email address, as this page is often read by spammers. For your question, this is the help desk for Wikipedia. You'd be more likely to get an answer on our Computing reference desk. — The Hand That Feeds You:^Bite 17:34, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

This page is for questions about using Wikipedia. Please consider asking this question at the Computing reference desk. They specialize in answering computer 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. Please do not include contact details in your questions. We are unable to provide answers by any off-wiki medium and this page is highly visible across the internet. The details have been removed, but if you wish for them to be permanently removed from the page history, email this address....... Dendodge .. Talk^Contribs 17:40, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

That's what I said! ;) — The Hand That Feeds You:^Bite 18:02, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

Definitely an echo in here...in here... – ukexpat (talk) 18:20, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

Delete my account.

Please delete my account, or show me how to. Thanks, thebestkiano.

Due to the fact that Wikipedia content is licensed under the GFDL, all edits must be kept for attribution purposes, and so your account cannot be deleted. You do, however, have the right to vanish, which you can exercise by (1) requesting your user page (found at Special:Mypage) and/or user talk page (found at Special:Mytalk) be deleted, by adding the {{db-userreq}} template to them; (2) requesting to change your username to something that is unconnected with you (possibly a random collection of letters and numbers); (3) never logging in to your account again. If you do this, you are still free to register a new username if you wish to continue editing Wikipedia....... Dendodge .. Talk^Contribs 18:58, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

A question on sourcing

Hey, help desk. I'm a little confused on how to do this myself, as I've seen it done differently in different articles, and am not sure which method is the best.

So I'm working on this article — black cat bone — in my sandbox, and have found a bunch of books that I can use as reliable sources. A couple of these books are so informative that I'd like to use them as sources for several different statements. For example, when citing Folk Beliefs of the Southern Negro with regards to two separate statements, I was thinking of using something like this:

Magical traditions involving black cat bones, specifically, have been found in German-Canadian practice as well as in hoodoo; these German-Canadian magic-makers were not previously in contact with hoodooists, suggesting a European origin to the charm.

... insert other information here, citing different sources, and most of it unrelated to the first sentence ...

On the Sea Islands, a slightly different method is used: the bone that doesn't reflect in the mirror is believed to be the the magical one.

Basically, what I'm doing here is citing one book for several different, unconnected statements. Repeating the exact same <ref> tag just looks and feels really silly, though, and I'm wondering if I should be more specific. Should I add the different page numbers? Even briefly write down the quote from which I derived the information? Or is the stuff in my <blockquote> (above) the right way to go about it?

I feel like this question is super-confusing in its wording, so if you don't know what I mean, ask ... I'm not terribly sure on my phrasing in this case, unfortunately. Help is appreciated. —Switchercat ^talk_cont 19:16, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

Hi Switchercat. Your question made perfect sense to me. What you can do for two identical references is give the reference a name and then refer to it later, like this:

Here's a statement<ref name=list>The big list of statements</ref>

And here's another one I got from the same place!<ref name=list/>

<p><references /></p>

Which gives:

Here's a statement

And here's another one I got from the same place!

Note that you need the / at the end of the second instance of the ref, otherwise it'll expect a closing ref tag. Hope that helps. Olaf Davis | Talk 21:37, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

Oh, or if you want to use page numbers you can create a manual reference list that just includes titles of books, then use the footnotes for page numbers, giving something like:

Facts one, two and three are my favourite facts.

Notes

References

• Facts, by Olaf Davis, 2008
• The Communist Manifesto, by Karl Marx, 1848

Good luck! Olaf Davis | Talk 21:49, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

Yes! Thank you, that's exactly what I needed to hear. Glad you could help! —Switchercat ^talk_cont 21:50, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

Comment: Personally I find {{reflist}} with its column switches more flexible than <references />, but I guess it's matter of taste. – ukexpat (talk) 00:27, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

Forward slash in article title

Hello. A week or so ago I created the article Real Fake Princess under that name, thinking that its actual name ,Real/Fake Princess, couldn't be used due to technical restrictions. Today I was visiting WP:NCTR, saw the wrongtitle template, and thought I could somehow make use of that in the article. Not being able to find any instructions, I created the page Real/Fake Princess as a redirect, thinking it would apply the wrongtitle template...or something. This clearly was not right b/c Real/Fake Princess seems to be working just fine as a redirect to Real Fake Princess. But WP:NCTR indicates the forward slash can cause problems, so, er, what should I do? --hamu♥hamu (TALK) 20:03, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

Um, User:Dendodge took action on this article 30 minutes ago but my question here hasn't been answered. I'm asking not just to get it fixed but so I can learn. (Maybe user found it independently and not through here but I also received nothing on my talk page, etc.) --hamu♥hamu (TALK) 21:21, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

Hi, I don't mean to be a pest, but it's been a few hours now and I really don't want a nasty note from someone on my talk page or in an edit summary because I created a page with an non-allowed title. Can anyone maybe answer my question. (Sorry, I've just been jumped on way too often lately and am paranoid.) --hamu♥hamu (TALK) 01:36, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

Changing the title of a page can be done by using the "move" tab at the top of the page. Moving automatically makes the old name into a redirect. More at Help:Move.

On the article namespace the slash does nothing. In other namespaces (Talk, Wikipedia, User, etc) it makes a subpage. {{wrongtitle}} is generally used where Wikipedia's software can't cope - for example using a pipe character or square brackets, which are used in the wikilinks. In those cases you'll be stopped by the software with an error message. Wikipedia has some guideline naming conventions which can be followed - basically don't use capital letters except for proper names. You can ignore these :) - changing the title is easy, so anything reasonable will do. --h2g2bob (talk) 02:29, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

Oh okay, I was alarmed by the statement that a forward slash can create problems and was just sort of waiting to get yelled at, LOL. Seems someone came along and moved the article to the redirect I'd created; they probably wondered what the heck I was doing. :) Thanks for the info about what happens when you try to make a technically impossible article name -- I didn't know if anything would happen or not. --hamu♥hamu (TALK) 02:34, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

I moved it, after seeing this question. It shouldn't cause any problems - especially as a redirect from the old name still stands...... Dendodge .. Talk^Contribs 14:24, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

looking for a name

Hi, I would like to ask for a name that is used when some "non-free" stuff is in some image, but it is so small that it doesn't affect the overall copyright of the image... I think it is similar to "minimal copyright use" (soo minimal it does not matter, not even legally) or something like that... the problem is that some guy at commons wants to delete an image of Xubuntu just because it contains some tiny logos... and I think that some tiny logos fall under that policy, something I once saw it on commons or wikipedia, but that can't remember the name... SF007 (talk) 20:33, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

Sounds like you're talking about fair use. Hope that helps. Olaf Davis | Talk 21:30, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

No, no... I know "fair use" very well, and what I am talking about is very different... but thanks anyway. SF007 (talk) 21:54, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

Actually, Olaf Davis is right. What you are referring to is a subset of 'fair use' called 'incidental use' (legally 'de minimis'). Incidental use, such as what you describe here, is a form of fair use where a copyright work appears "incidentally" inside another work. One commonly cited example of this is a picture of Times Square, where it is nearly impossible to take a photo without a logo, billboard, or some other copyrighted work to appear in it. However, the copyrighted works are not the subject of such a photo (Times Square is) and they only appear are part of the background, so therefore the photo's use of the copyrighted work is considered fair. -- ShinmaWa^(talk) 00:50, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

yeah, I think it was something very similar to that, or even that... but I still can't find the page on commons saying an image that fitted that "description" could be used there... thanks... SF007 (talk) 01:10, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

Hmm. Sorry, I hadn't realised the fair use policy page didn't mention that specifically. Not sure where else to look... Olaf Davis | Talk 10:34, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

Uploading Copyrighted Pictures With No Known Website Available

Hello. I have several Kingdom Hearts pictures that have taken me months to find and I wish to upload them onto Wikipedia so that others may be able to find them easier and use them. These are images that Tetsuya Nomura drew himself and it obviously states on the front that the picture is copyrighted to him as well as Square Enix. Again I would like to upload these images but I am afraid that they might break some law. I also do not have the links to any of the sites that I found them on, nor do I even remember the names of the sites. May I still upload these or not? If I can, how do I do that without a website link? 21:39, 4 July 2008 (UTC) Leggy

Images uploaded to Wikipedia must be either freely licensed/public domain (which those are not) or used under fair use. This is required for Wikipedia to comply with copyright law. For a valid fair use claim, you must state the source, so I don't think you could upload the images unless you can find the source. Pyrospirit (talk · contribs) 02:39, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

Editing a Featured Article

Is it ok to edit a featured article? I edited the Chess article, including adding in a fact request to something that I thought needed one. Another editor came along and reverted all of my edits (there were about 6 I think). I thought most of them were quite reasonable, but they were all blanked. --ZincBelief (talk) 21:52, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

Editing the featured article is encouraged. Have you discussed the reasons for the reverts with the reverting editor? Corvus cornix_talk 21:58, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

No I haven't actually, but I left a small paragraph on the discussion page of the article. Maybe they will discuss it there. It's just that I would expect somebody to discuss why they reverted a change in the edit summary. If there are 6 changes I would expect them to leave a note on the talk page or something. Recently an admin twice reverted a change I made to a page, and then used a friend to revert a third and fourth time and issued me with a warning even though I had discussed it with them and explained all their reasons for reverting were obviously wrong. So I'm a bit paranoid now to be honest. Anyway this editor looks like he's nice--ZincBelief (talk) 22:06, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:BOLD, revert, discuss cycle. --—— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk - 00:08, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

Dispute Resolution

What is the next step in a Wikipedia dispute resolution process when you have reached a complete stalemate over content and have already sought a 3rd opinion, WP:MEDCAB, and request for comment? (This is asked in regards to Wikipedia:Mediation Cabal/Cases/2008-02-11 Parkour.) --S.dedalus (talk) 23:14, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Dispute resolution has details. I'd suggest formal mediation, then Arbitration, but that's for the parties to decide. x42bn6 Talk Mess 23:51, 4 July 2008 (UTC)