Wikipedia:Help desk/Archives/2008 March 9

Help desk
< March 8	<< Feb | March | Apr >>	March 10 >

Welcome to the Wikipedia Help Desk Archives
The page you are currently viewing is an archive page. While you can leave answers for any questions shown below, please ask new questions on one of the current Help Desk pages.

March 12

Linking Infoboxes

Is it possible to link two or more infoboxes so that they appear as one? It occurred to me that one infobox may not have the parameters that another one does — and vice versa.

Example: The Wikipedia entry on Bing Crosby. The infobox at the top of the page is for a "musical performer." However, Crosby was also a highly popular movie actor, and this infobox does not contain information parameters that pertain to his film career. As a result, "Infobox actor" could be used, but this doesn't contain information parameters that pertain to his career as a recording artist. Why not blend both infoboxes into one? Currently an "infobox actor" can be found further down in the Crosby article, but I think it would be aesthetically better if we could blend it together with the top one, thereby eliminating repeated information (such as his birth and death dates).

I realize that you can just make a basic infobox — similar to a wikitable — but then how does one add in the "hide/show" feature that exist for the various award parameters in the "infobox actor"? Jimknut (talk) 21:47, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

March 9

Is there a way to find out how many hits/visits a particular item has received?

Basically, the question is written above: is there a hit tracker option on Wiki? 121.44.186.158 (talk) 00:09, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

I think that function has been disabled on Wikipedia for performance reasons. You might want to ask at the tech village pump, the people there might have a better idea. Hersfold ^(t/a/c) 00:30, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

There is a third party site that purports to. It is at http://stats.grok.se/ .--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 00:34, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

turkey

all this place are Turks.we wıll back short tıme. ne mutlu turkum diyene —Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.230.24.164 (talk) 00:21, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

Oookay... I think you might be looking for our article on Turkey, or the Turkish Wikipedia, but I'm not really sure. Could you rephrase your question? Hersfold ^(t/a/c) 00:29, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

Also, if you want the Help desk on the Turkish Wikipedia, I think it is: tr:Vikipedi:Danışma masası. --Teratornis (talk) 04:42, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

Redirects

How do I arrange for another name to redirect to a similar Article? I am not talking about another existing Article redirecting, but rather an alternative enquiry. Say I want a 'Vehicle chassis' enquiry to redirect to an existing Article called say 'Vehicle body', how do I arrange this Jagra (talk) 00:37, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

Please see Wikipedia:Redirect. The short answer is that you create a page under the name you want to redirect, and in the body of the page created, use the text #REDIRECT [[name of article you want to redirect to]]. This code can be added automatically to the page created using the editing button which looks like this: . Cheers.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 00:43, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

How do you make an article?

I`m new on this website and I want to know how to make an article that hasn`t been made yet. Can you please tell me how? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Kiana327 (talk • contribs) 03:07, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

Before creating an article, 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) 03:15, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

Information from a single source

With posting on pages, are you allowed to get all your information from a single source, or must you write it in your own words?

I ask this because with the Tanabata festival page, all the information and pictures have come from www.yaiza-hotel-lanzarote.info/w/Tanabata.html. Is this ok? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 121.45.117.151 (talk) 03:43, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

It would not be okay if the information was copied from the external website. That would be a copyright violation unless the material was in the public domain or released under a free license such as the GFDL. However, in this case the external website is showing the content of the Wikipedia page, not the other way around. If you take a look at the very bottom of the external site you'll see this. Cheers.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 03:51, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

problem with a page?

Hi. How do I report a problem with a page? There appears to be a problem with this one... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albanian_language 206.74.36.80 (talk) 04:45, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

It depends on the type of problem. See Wikipedia:Contact us/Article problem. Albanian language was recently vandalized and that has been fixed. PrimeHunter (talk) 04:49, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

Uploading image

I am still not well-versed in uploading image manually outside of Flickr. I want to use this image [1] for the article Animal rights in Nazi Germany. Can anyone upload this image. Otolemur crassicaudatus (talk) 06:38, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

Hi, follow the steps here after saving the image on your computer. _{WEBURIEDOURSECRETSINTHEGARDEN} ^{aka john lennon} 10:09, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

Red links to an existing userpage

After registering and editing without a userpage for a while, I created one. Glitch: my username in the revision histories of the articles I edited before creating my userpage still appears in red (see, e.g., the revision-history page at Adolf Burger). Issue: clicking on my still-red username on a revision-history page sends the person who's clicked on it to the open window Editing User: ... &action=edit&redlink=1 of my existing userpage. — Is this a software glitch in Wikipedia's recognition of usernames on revision-history pages that cannot be resolved, is there a workaround, or...? ilmari (talk) 08:23, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

It works fine for me. try clearing your cache (i think the command is shift-control-f5 on most browsers) --Evan ¤ Seeds 08:46, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for responding. I did a number of times before I posted this query and the issue remained, but it seems to have taken care of itself by now. Perhaps it got fixed, or userpages need time to "take," like redirect pages sometimes. Thanks again. ilmari (talk) 15:50, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

It's almost certainly a caching issue. Either locally with your browser, or an issue in Wikipedias Squids. Eitherway, it's fixed now. Martijn Hoekstra (talk) 16:21, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

BC vs BCE

Which is better to use for dates? _{WEBURIEDOURSECRETSINTHEGARDEN} ^{aka john lennon} 10:07, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Manual of Style (dates and numbers)#Longer periods. Both can be used, but not in the same article, and not together with the "opposite" of AD and CE. PrimeHunter (talk) 13:21, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

Also, you should note that it is not a good idea to change the date format in an existing article. As long as the article is self consistent editors should stick to the form established in that article. SpinningSpark 17:34, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

Question: Articles 1530 BC xxxxBC etc. Hello! Would you please explain me why the wikipedia has nearly only christian reminiscents according to the article series 1530 BC. Why are there are no 1530 BCE - articles, respectively? I would like to mention, that BC means Before Christ - which is a christian confession of faith and never a neutral appointment. Whereas BCE can be rendered Before Common Era or Before Christian Era alike, which is was more strong neutral appointment. Would you please help me on this - or guide me where I may get help? Sincerely --87.160.202.82 (talk) 14:42, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

Bossons

Why doesn't my article appear in the search engine when I type Bossons? It has been over 30 hours since writing the original article. It does appear at the top of my own computer when I log into the Wikipedia main page, but NOT in the search engine, Please help. Dr. Donald M. Hardisty www.bossons.us —Preceding unsigned comment added by Bossons (talk • contribs) 15:40, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

Your page is at User:Bossons which is in the User namespace. The search engine does not search this namespace by default, but you can configure your preferences so that it does if you want. Algebraist 16:08, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Hi Dr. Hardisty. Do you mean the text shown on User:Bossons? That page is your own user page, and isn't in the main "article space". To make it into an article, the easiest way is to search on Bossons, and the resulting page will have at the top "You searched for Bossons". Click on the red Bossons link and you'll now be in an article creation page. Then just copy your own text into the appropriate space there.

Some words of warning, though. I can see from the deletion log that an article named Bossons had existed a year ago before being deleted (see this page), so perhaps it was felt at the time that the subject matter wasn't sufficiently notable, and hence you might experience a similar objection. Also, the content as currently shown on your User:Bossons page would need a certain amount of "wikifying" and references/sources. Hope this helps.--86.146.241.92 (talk) 16:18, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

About Algebraist's response: strictly speaking he/she is correct, but it's not necessary to "configure your preferences" if all you're trying to do is create an article.--86.146.241.92 (talk) 16:23, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

Also, do read Wikipedia's conflict of interest guideline and the guideline on autobiographies. --Tkynerd (talk) 16:42, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

About Tkynerd's response: he/she is possibly thinking that, because your user name is Bossons, you are in some way related to the Bossons family and/or business, rather than being an enthusiast which is all you appear to be.--86.146.241.92 (talk) 17:09, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

I didn't just think that -- I assumed it. Thanks for pointing out that my assumption may not be correct; good reminder for me. :-) --Tkynerd (talk) 03:44, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

I think that you will be able to turn your user page into an article with just a bit of work. One of Wikipedia's core policies is verifiability which means that the content of any article should be referenced to a reliable source. There are books about bossons and they can be your source. Realize that it's not enough that you from your own personal knowledge know that your article is true. What matters is that it be verifiable by other editors. So if you supply the full title, publisher, date, and ideally ISBN number those books will be useful references. Then make sure that each section of the article is verifiable from a page of the book, not just from your own knowledge. If you would like help to format your article appropriately, just ask me on my talk page, or ask on this page. Sbowers3 (talk) 17:39, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

Endowment (Latter Day Saints)

To whom it may concern:

I am a member of the Latter Day Saint church and I feel that some of the information in this article is inappropriate. The historical information provided is fine, but the actual details of the endowment procedure are not. The endowment is sacred not secret. I know that there are many other websites on the internet with more information about the endowment but I feel that Wikipedia should be one that only provides the historical information. I love to use wikipedia for research projects for my classes and for anything I am interested in and I will continue to use the site. But i'm just asking that the article "Endowment (Latter Day Saints)" be edited to not include the details about the endowment because this is something that is sacred to Latter Day Saints and shouldn't be made available to the public on Wikipedia because Wikipedia is a trusted resource.

Thank you for your time.

Then edit it yourself. There's a link called "Edit this page" above the article. --grawity ^{talk / PGP} 18:26, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

But be aware that Wikipedia is not censored, and we do not remove material because members of a particular faith or movement find it objectionable. --Orange Mike | Talk 19:25, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

name change

I am registered as Charles timbrell. I wish to change it so that my last name is capitalized, thus: Charles Timbrell

So far I have been unsuccessful in making the change. Thanks for any help!

[email removed] —Preceding unsigned comment added by Charles timbrell (talk • contribs) 17:45, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

See WP:UNC. --Silver Edge (talk) 17:49, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

However, I would recommend that you instead create a new account, as a bureaucrat is unlikely to rename an account that only has one edit. Regards, EJF (talk) 17:53, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

It would not be possible to create a new account in this case, and practice has generally been to accept such rename requests even from people with few or no edits. —Random832 15:20, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

I've added the request at WP:CHU. —Random832 18:35, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

Heparin recall - please supply more information!!!

Hi

The section about the recall in the article on Heparin, "Major pharmaceutical Heparin recall due to contamination", http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heparin, needs to be a bit more precise - there are all kinds of methods of heparin adminsitration, including topical creams. I can hardly imagine "difficulties breathing" etc, from - for example - rubbing heparin on your varicose veins - but who knows. It would be good to know for certtain.

Regards, --Rui ''Gabriel'' Correia (talk) 18:20, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

The best place to discuss that kind of things would be the articles talkpage. Thank you for helping improve wikipedia! Martijn Hoekstra (talk) 19:46, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

Kosovo and the death penalty.

In Use of capital punishment by nation, in Europe, Kosovo is missing, i wanted to put Kosovo on there saying doesn't have capital punishment but i don't know how to edit that page and i'm afraid of committing a terrible mistake, ruinning the page. What would i do, will you put Kosovo there? or.. what would i do to put Kosovo there. Thanks-a good boy. 201.254.71.235 (talk) 18:59, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

Go ahead and give it a try. The worst thing that could happen is that someone reverts your edits if you mess things up. I would do it for you, but doing it yourself is more fun. Martijn Hoekstra (talk) 19:43, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

Yes, I see that i can! but please, what's Kosovo's code. For Example Italy is Italy, etc. 201.254.71.235 (talk) 20:03, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

Oh.. I have seen that Kosovo's code doesn't exist. What do I do? :(.Thanks everyone. 201.254.71.235 (talk) 20:09, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

You can use {{flag|Kosovo}} instead, which produces this: Kosovo. We don't yet have an abbreviated version, as there isn't yet an agreed-upon acronym for Kosovo since the country is so new. Hersfold ^(t/a/c) 21:15, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

There is no entry for "Post-consumer society" - is there a reason that entry is excluded?

→Insert non-formatted text here There is no entry for "Post-consumer society" - is there a reason that entry is excluded?

email removed for you own safety —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.227.84.101 (talk) 19:24, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

maybe nobody has written an article on it yet. --Fredrick day (talk) 19:28, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

Indeed, it is most likely that no-one has written the article yet. Carom (talk) 19:38, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

Does Simple living cover the same idea? If so, you could create Post-consumer society as a redirect to Simple living. Often a given topic will have several names, and we use redirect pages to widen the search target. --Teratornis (talk) 21:38, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

heroin

I am trying to find out how long the drug stays in your system can you give me a web page for it i have looked at all the other searches for it and no page gives me a answer. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Blackrose102277 (talk • contribs) 21:00, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

You might want to check our article on Heroin or ask at the Science Reference Desk. The Help Desk is here to help you use Wikipedia. Hersfold ^(t/a/c) 21:09, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

Also see pharmacokinetics and drug test. --Teratornis (talk) 21:40, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

And of course see our Medical disclaimer. --Teratornis (talk) 21:42, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

Plano Senior High School

Hi, I am worried about this [2] edit related to the above mentioned school. Obviously, it's vandalism. however, somebody announces that he will be "with a pipe bomb outside it ready to blow at 9.30am". Does vandalism like this, making a real threat, happen always here? If not, maybe we should do something about it? --Abrech (talk) 22:16, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

Asked for info on this one at ANI. The IP (66.197.237.117) is in the US. --h2g2bob (talk) 23:02, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

By the way, that would be considered making a terrorist threat, and is a felony offense in the US. ---CWY2190^TC 23:30, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

I'm going to call the police on this. What happens if it does happend, it might be Columbine High School. Do we want this to be on the news on CNN tomrrow. We should call the police now. For god sakes, we dont want people to get hurt. Please call the cops.--Rio de oro (talk) 23:36, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

left a message to Jimbo on this matter. --Rio de oro (talk) 23:45, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

I sent an email to the abuse center for which that IP is in. ---CWY2190^TC 23:52, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

Dude, you should contact WP USER: MIKE GODWIN. Legal guy for Wikipedia. He is an expert on legal things for wikipedia —Preceding unsigned comment added by Rio de oro (talk • contribs) 23:54, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

I believe it is User: Mike Godwin. 00:48, 10 March 2008 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Paragon12321 (talk • contribs)

I have called and made a report to their local police dept. Bstone (talk) 00:49, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

I just got a call back from the Plano Police Dept in which I spoke to an officer. I sent him the diff with the offending post and a screenshot. I walked him through how to read it and he took down all the information and said they will investigate. The officer gave me a reference number, which is 08-43705. In case this ever needs to be brought up again this reference number can be used. Bstone (talk) 01:11, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

Did anything happend or "was there a mention" of "this bs" at the school. Was the school staff well aware of it. I hope the police locate the idoit that posted the threat. People, have to learn it aint cool to post threats , in a POST 9/11 world.--Rio de oro (talk) 21:14, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

It never was. Skittle (talk) 19:06, 12 March 2008 (UTC)