Wikipedia:Help desk/Archives/2008 March 10

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March 10

Adding a Picture to Wikipedia

Hi.....

I'm adding to my mother's reference in Wikipedia (Jane Belk Moncure) which you already have listed. I have a great picture of her I'm trying to include but when I try to insert it I get the text but don't have a way to copy the .jpg file into the text. Can you advise me on how to accomplish this?

Jim Moncure <e-mail removed> Thank you! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.74.131.206 (talk) 00:19, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

Go to WP:UPLOAD - Milk's Favorite Cookie 00:23, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

From now on, for your sake, please do not add e-mails. This is done to prevent you from getting spammed. Thank you! Paragon12321 (talk) 00:47, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

"Surfboard"

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

Greetings!

This information page is so highly slanted towards a totally specialized sector of the industry, is extremely innacurate, and also a portal to websites of surfboard shapers that wrote the wiki article.

It is understood that it would take an extreme effort in the name of research to define and personify "surfboard" in its entirety, however this article has so many flaws, misinformation, and abuse of advertising that I would like to request that it is modified or taken down. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.173.216.2 (talk) 00:38, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

Do you have specific issues you can point to as problematic? If so, you can correct them yourself, or discuss them at the article's Talk page. The article is not going to be deleted simply because you ask, but if you have specific problems that need fixed, people can take a look at them. -- Kesh (talk) 01:37, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

Link unfailry removed

I tried to insert a link to a facebook group about Jeonju. This was removed by your bot. I understand your rules about links. So please tell me why you have allowed this link: The Jeonju Hub - a community site for English speaking residents (mostly ESL teachers) That is a website controlled by a private individual showing information about Jeonju, with ads etc etc. My link is a simple facebook group allowing people in Jeonju and Jeollabuk-do to communicate with each other. If you remove my link, then logically that must also be removed.

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Jeonju" —Preceding unsigned comment added by Bwjkr (talk • contribs) 01:59, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

Facebook is not a reliable source, which is why the bot removed it. We've experienced a lot of Facebook spam on Wikipedia. I'll leave it to other editors to determine if the other link in the article is valid or not, but Facebook is not a valid link here. -- Kesh (talk) 02:23, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

That may be so, but what you are saying is tht all facbook users are spammers. I have made a facebook group to get all of the expat residents in Jeonju together, to communicate together. And now, because you are categorizing all facebook users as 'spammers' you are depriving people from knowing. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Bwjkr (talk • contribs) 04:14, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

Question about tables.

I'm making a table for an article I'm writing, but there is some information in the table that needs clarification, so I've placed an asterisk by the items in the table (the table in question is the second one in my sandbox, linked to from my user page). I want to place a final row in the table that has an asterisk before it that gives the additional information. How would I do that? scetoaux ^{(talk) (My contributions.)} 03:04, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

Add colspan="number of columns" ---CWY2190^TC 03:22, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

Thanks! scetoaux ^{(talk) (My contributions.)} 19:06, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

Kashmir Observer english language daily newspaper from Indian administered Kashmir

The link and introduction of www.kashmirobserver.com, the online edition of Kashmir's oldest English language dailies, which we uploaded in Indian newspapers category was deleted for no convincing reason. Pl undelete it.

Kashmir Observer was deleted on March 7 under Criteria for Speedy Deletion G11, meaning that it appeared to be blatant advertising for the paper. Please see WP:NPOV for more information. If you still would like to contest the deletion, you may want to contact the admin who deleted the page (who you can find by viewing the page's deletion log) or go to deletion review. Hersfold ^(t/a/c) 04:11, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

(ec) It was deleted as "blatant advertising". Wikipedia articles must be written with a Neutral Point of View, which is one of the reasons that we recommend persons with a conflict of interest not write articles. We also recommend that you read WP:FAQ/Business. Sbowers3 (talk) 04:13, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

Where to change my name?

I want to change my name, but keep the same login? Please direct me to the right place? Thanks Niyant (talk) 04:01, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

See WP:UNC. --Silver Edge (talk) 04:06, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

Action Asia magazine worthy of a nod?

Straight off I'm announcing a conflict of interest.

I am the editor of Action Asia, an adventure travel magazine based in HK and covering the whole Asian region. We are the only mag of our kind out here and have been since we started out in 1992. We are run by a VERY small staff but I believe we produce something that is of value to people who live in / come to this part of the world to get more out of it than just a beach holiday, shopping trip or poke around the ruins of Angkor Wat.

Anyone agree with me? Check us out at www.actionasia.com. To be honest the site is a pale shadow of the mag itself so I am hoping there's a reader or two out there who can vouch for what I say.

Steve White —Preceding unsigned comment added by SMWhite (talk • contribs) 05:22, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Notability (serial works) for guidelines on what makes a magazine "notable" enough for an article according to Wikipedia's definition. Conflicts of interest are not necessarily fatal, but they trip up lots of people who are new to Wikipedia, because the tendency is for interested persons to use promotional language. We have a Wikipedia:Requested articles page with many subpages; the appropriate place to request an article about your magazine appears to be: Wikipedia:Requested articles/Culture and fine arts#Magazines. However, judging from the number of red links on that page, it could be a while before you'd see any action on an Action Asia article. If you want to try throwing some money at the problem, see: Wikipedia:Bounty board and Wikipedia:Reward board, but I don't know whether that would help (Action Asia would have to meet the notability requirements for serial works, for starters). I hope this helps, and thanks for asking before charging ahead. Also be aware that many other wikis exist; see for example wikiindex:Category:Travel; you might find a less persnickety wiki where you can write about your magazine and kind of practice up for Wikipedia. --Teratornis (talk) 06:30, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

Putting blank articles into category listings

Is it possible (and then, is it desirable) to include links to articles that don't exist (yet) in a category?

Specifically, the category 100 Longest-Running Broadway shows, in order to be complete, should include 100 articles. Trouble is, some of the shows in the list of 100 don't yet have articles.

Thanks!

MichaelCaricofe (talk) 05:30, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

A red link cannot be added to a category. There must be a page. But that page may be a redirect. See Wikipedia:Categorizing redirects. So if there is a sensible redirect target then a redirect can be created and added to the category. PrimeHunter (talk) 05:42, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:There is no deadline. Wikipedia is incomplete in more ways than we can count. I wouldn't worry about a category that purports to list a set of 100 things but has fewer than 100 items. It would be clearer but more awkward if the category name began with: "Eventually, this will contain the 100 longest-running Broadway shows". That's sort of the implication for everything on Wikipedia. We'll finish when we finish. In the meantime, everybody can pick something that isn't done and work on it. You could think about creating stub articles for the shows that don't have articles yet, but some editors don't like stubs and tend to delete them. --Teratornis (talk) 06:41, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

What the...?

What's going on when a user's signature appears on a talk page, but it's not linked and the bot doesn't come along either. How is that done, please? Julia Rossi (talk) 08:13, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

Which talk page are you referring to? --Silver Edge (talk) 08:41, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

Hi, I've lost the refdesk ref but the latest example is user Lots_of_issues. There have been others – all in black type with date etc. It seems deliberate and I was wondering how they do this. Also some don't sign and don't get botted by sinebot. Puzzled about that too. Julia Rossi (talk) 10:03, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

You can opt out from Sinebot by adding your userpage to Category:Wikipedians who have opted out of automatic signing or, for a single edit, by adding !nosine! to the edit summary. See User:SineBot for details. -- Ferkelparade π 13:42, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

Ah, didn't know that and thought it was a fault or a ploy. Thanks so much for clarifying, cheers Julia Rossi (talk) 22:06, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

How can I modify a date in infobox?

Hi! I updated the population figure in an infobox (Heidenheim an der Brenz), according to the German official census, but I did not manage to indicate the correct date there. I first simply wrote “Sept 30, 2007”, but the box became a mess and I could not find anywhere round here how to change this date… Thanks forward for any help. ✓ Kanġi Oĥanko (talk) 10:28, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

You need to type it in the format yyyy-mm-dd. Xenon⁵⁴ 10:41, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

Erroneous Category for tobacco plant

Nicotiana tabacum is categorised as a domesticated animal. Clearly, it being a plant, this is wrong. I tried to change it but can't find anything in the page source to remove. What's going on? AlmostReadytoFly (talk) 12:14, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

Don't have time to study why this is happening here, but domesticated animals is a category transcluded inside {{Taxobox}} which is, I think, only supposed to show up if a certain if parameter is invoked.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 13:05, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

The same is true of Opuntia ficus-indica! Both of these use the same template (Taxobox); so I'm wondering whether that template puts species tagged "DOM" into the "Domesticated Animals" cat? --Orange Mike | Talk 13:06, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

Okay, the problem was status=DOM in the taxobox.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 13:49, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

Filtering out articles I started (First edits)

Is there a way of filtering out articles I started, or first edits of articles with my name. I just wanna know how many articles I started and what they were?

Thanks —IncidentFlux (talk) 13:24, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

Special:Newpages should help. Visit me at Ftbhrygvn (Talk|Contribs|Log|Userboxes) 14:19, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

This tool lists articles created (it's rather slow, though). Algebraist 15:35, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

Thanks, good tools, one more doubt, does the German tool Distinct pages edited count include talk pages too, or just main pages? I'd just like to see distinct main pages edited count. — IncidentFlux [ TalkBack | Contributions ] 20:52, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

How to display the page based on setting of flag in the"text" table of wiki database

I want to add a flag in the "text" table of mediawiki's database(Mediawiki-1.11.1). The value of the flag shall be 0 or 1. I want to display the page text when the flag is set, otherwise it should display the previous data in the page whose corresponding flag was set. Until I set the flag to true for any other updation, it should not appear in the page. Kindly help me out by telling in which .php page shall I make the modifications so as to carry out the desired functionality. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 59.145.141.18 (talk) 13:57, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

This Help desk is for questions about using Wikipedia. You are asking about how to modify the MediaWiki software. The proper place for that is: mw:Project:Support desk. --Teratornis (talk) 16:07, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

Working on newly added article

Hi there,

I just created a new article and would like to keep adding to it. I seem to have already posted it without its bibliography or without creating sections (how do I do that ?) and without categorizing it (and how to do that?. Also, I could not find the article on your site without typing in the complete name of the person (article's title). HOw do I make it searchable using just the subject's last name?

Thank you for your help Brastedian (talk) 14:08, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

Here are the friendly manuals in roughly the order of your questions: Help:Editing, WP:FOOT, WP:CITE, WP:CITET, Help:Section, WP:LAYOUT, Help:Category, and Help:Redirect. You may need some time to absorb all that material. I hope your head does not explode. --Teratornis (talk) 16:10, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

Watchlist reformat?

I can't begin to explain how useless it is to organise the Watchlist by edit date. If you're like me and you have a large Watchlist, how are you supposed to find the page you're looking for if you don't know when it was last edited? You can see the list in alphabetical order if you navigate to the "Edit" page, but that's also frustrating. I'd done some research last night on the Roanoke disappearances and I had added at least ten related pages to my Watchlist. When I went to look for them today, I didn't remember which random pages I had bookmarked, since I had done it very quickly to try to wrap things up before I went to bed, and was hoping that it would be a little easier to find, but I now have to search through 356 links for the obscure, vaguely related pages that I just added to my list last night. Is it at all possible to set up my Watchlist to display pages by the date that I added them to my list so that I can actually find the page that I'm looking for? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Azmiam (talk • contribs) 14:35, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

The watchlist really isn't meant to be a list of bookmarks. Maybe you can try just using your browser's bookmark feature. —Bkell (talk) 15:05, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

See: WP:EIW#Monitor for a list of links to various watchlist tools. I don't know if anything there does what you want, but some of those items look interesting. In general, when something bothers you about Wikipedia, it has probably bothered lots of other people, too, and some of them may have done something about it. --Teratornis (talk) 15:50, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

If I did that, my Bookmark list would go on for hours. I had hoped that, by Watching articles, I could easily find them and go back to them later, but the way that the Watchlist is set up is almost intimidating. Fortunately I'm doing this research for pleasure and not for school, so I can afford to spend three hours searching through every article on the list for the one I need. I guess I'm going to have to create a folder on my Bookmarks list for Wiki articles. I don't understand the point, then, in using the Watchlist, since I don't really need to know when articles are updated and simply need them to be easily accessible. I suppose that I'm just one of those people that has no use for the Watchlist, then. It just seems that the Watchlist would be more useful to more people if there were more ways to arrange the list to your convenience. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Azmiam (talk • contribs) 16:19, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

You can use the View and edit watchlist link. But watchlist is really meant for seeing the latest updates to pages. For example, in my watchlist I have WP:RD/C and this WP:HD. --grawity ^{talk / PGP} 20:56, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

It's not as quick as using the Watchlist, but you can make a user subpage to keep handy links - e.g. User:Azmiam/Bookmarks. The main point of the watchlist is to keep an eye on recent edits for various reasons - for example, some of the pages on my watchlist are low-level vandalism targets (so by watching them I can quickly revert it), some are talk pages of people I've left a message on (so by watching them I can see when they reply to me), and some I've put some effort into editing (so I can check whether I agree with any new edits or if I feel a need to discuss them with the person who made them). Confusing Manifestation(Say hi!) 22:34, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

Habeas corpus article

When I print this piece, the font size is too small, i.e., much smaller than the normal size with which I print other pieces from this site. I looked in the "edit" bar, and didn't see any way to increase the font size. Looks to me to be about an 8 or maybe a 7. Not too comfortble for reading or skimming.

Thanks very much. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.17.119.61 (talk) 15:15, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

I looked at the printable version of Habeas corpus and the font looks the same to me as in the printable version of other articles. When did you last try printing another article? --Teratornis (talk) 15:52, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

Redirecting

I recently created a page under the name of "Music for Large & Small Ensembles". How can I make it so that if you search for "Music for Large and Small Ensembles" (notice the use of 'and' instead of &) the same article will appear? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Mattroberts66 (talk • contribs) 15:50, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

See Help:Redirect. But I don't see the article: Music for Large & Small Ensembles. You may need to see: WP:WWMPD too. --Teratornis (talk) 15:56, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

Music For Large & Small Ensembles is the correct name of the article you created. Note the "For" rather than "for". (Titles are case-sensitive in Wikipedia except for the first character.) So you might make two redirects to it. --Teratornis (talk) 16:04, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

How to achieve consensus

How do admins always know when to delete/keep a certain page on XFD? Is there a certain page for this, or is it just based on plain common sense?

And for that matter, how does a deletion qualify as controversial? Two One Six Five Five ^τ _ʃ 18:29, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

The best advice would be to simply watch deletion discussions, requests for adminship and so on for the next few days and weeks, watching what others call consensus - that should give you some idea of what we regard as consensus. Nick (talk) 18:35, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

Mostly, it's a way of examining the quality, integrity and power of the arguments/comments provided. I've participated plenty of AfDs and RfAs to understand that the term "consensus" includes both a numerical aspect ("votes") marriaged with the discussion, the latter being much more important. WP:CONSENSUS, WP:VOTE, and WP:SNOW might help. Wisdom89 _{(T / ^C)} 18:46, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

The most important thing to understand is that "consensus" is not "majority". In an AfD with 10 people participating, if seven of them !vote for deletion, but all share the same fairly weak or invalid argument, the closing administrator could still close the discussion with "no consensus" if the keep opinions are particularly convincing. This is especially noticeable in other debates such as RfA's and RfB's, where the passing consensus rate hovers above 75% on average (much higher for bureaucrats, although they are trying to work to bring that down some, I think). Hersfold ^(t/a/c) 19:04, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

GTA Poster

I have a copy of the promotional poster from the inside cover of Grand Theft Auto (video game). I have scanned it and want to upload it to add it to the article, what license shall I put it under?

I think it's copyright and it's pretty high resolution (about 2000x1500 px), should I scale it down before I upload it and what size to?

Dippy 247 (talk) 18:45, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

YES. The image MUST be scaled down before it is uploaded, probably to about 300 pixels wide at the most. We can only use copyrighted images under a claim of fair use, meaning there is no way the owner can be harmed by us using it here, we are using it solely for educational purposes, and there is no way the image could be used for anything other than that purpose, basically because it looks so crappy scaled down that far.

Anyway, when you upload it, make sure to tag the image with {{Non-free game cover}} AND make sure that you include all information that is required WP:NFCC here. Failure to do any of this will result in the picture's deletion. Thank you very much for asking about this first. Happy editing! Hersfold ^(t/a/c) 19:08, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

Could you tell me if this is alright [1] If not, could you tell me what to add Thanks Dippy 247 (talk) 19:00, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

Restriction/Limitations

I would like to create a Wiki for my division at work. Can I restrict access or does the system remain an open source? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 143.220.15.2 (talk) 20:24, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

Wikipeida: THe "free encyclopedia. Free can mean

1. Money Free
2. Open source content.

You can't have someone not see your material. Sorry. - Milk's Favorite Cookie 20:27, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

You can, however, set up your own website and install the MediaWiki software on it, which I think may be what you're asking. See the MediaWiki site for instructions on how to do so. Hersfold ^(t/a/c) 21:00, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

By "Wiki" do you mean an article on Wikipedia about your division, or do you want to set up your own corporate wiki for your division to use internally? The word wiki actually refers to a kind of Web site of which Wikipedia is only one example (a really big and famous example, but by no means the only one). Referring to Wikipedia as "Wiki" is like referring to Mount Everest as mountain - there are some other mountains. If you want to set up your own wiki, as in your own Web site that you control completely, see: b:Wiki Science/How to start a wiki. Also you can search for previous replies to similar questions: Search Help desk for: how to start a wiki. --Teratornis (talk) 22:50, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

And yes, you can restrict access to logged-in users only, and you can prevent people from creating accounts, on your own wiki. In fact, you can control every single aspect of it - I just locked myself out of my own local wiki to test this ;) Franamax (talk) 23:08, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

Yes, instructions are here: mw:Manual:Preventing access. --Teratornis (talk) 04:55, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

Wrong font

I edited a discussion page today and the result appears in the Courier font rather than the Wikipedia default font, and with no wrapping at the end of the screen. I do not know how this happened. I would normally expect to find something in the "edit bar" that enables me to change the font or something in the "editing manual." No luck. I also attempted to search the archives, but searching for the word "font" is highly unproductive. How can I fix what I did and how can I avoid this in the future? James W. Overbeck (talk) 23:22, 10 March 2008 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by James W. Overbeck (talk • contribs) 23:21, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

Could you perhaps direct us to the article in question?--Sunny910910 ^{(talk|Contributions|Guest)} 23:33, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

Don't put whitespace at the beginning of lines. Instead, use : to indent. Please see Wikipedia:How to edit a page for the markup details. -- Rick Block (talk) 23:39, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

Hi am the daughter of parents that commited a crime back in 1972 and am looking for an artivcle

The article was published in the readers digest issue of December 1974 called please dont hurt my baby. I have all of it except the last two pages but need help finding it again. the last time someone helped me it was at the benecia library if you could help me please let me know —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.200.130.32 (talk) 23:25, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

I've sent a message to your talk page- you may be in luck:) The special, the random, the lovely Merkinsmum 23:32, 10 March 2008 (UTC)