Wikipedia:Help desk/Archives/2008 October 13

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October 13

DRAGNET

There was an actual movie named DRAGNET starring Jack Webb made in 1954 or 1955. In the filmography for Jack Webb the movie is listed, but when clicked on, what is written is about the television series, not the movie.

The movie begins with three men driving out into the countryside (I can't remember the actual location). One of the men carries a double barrelled shotgun and shoots one of the other men. He then re-loads and shoots the dead man again. From there on I don't remember much of the movie other than Joe Friday and his partner spend the rest of the movie solving the mystery.

I have watched for the movie to be shown on TV for years. Even though it may have been shown, I have never seen it.

I hope some of this information will help other readers. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jwalbin (talk • contribs) 02:22, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

When you find a problem with Wikipedia, you can make your description easier for others to understand if you link to what you are describing. You seem to be describing Jack Webb#Filmography, which has the following link:

• Dragnet (1954)

where Dragnet links to Dragnet (series). That indeed looks like a problem, and furthermore, Dragnet (series) also mentions the same film, but does not link it. These sorts of problems can occur on Wikipedia, because lots of different people write Wikipedia at different times, and they aren't all aware of what the other ones are doing, or will do in the future. Fortunately, {{Google}} is aware of almost everything, so let's ask it:

• Search Wikipedia with Google for: dragnet film

and one of the search results is:

• Highway Dragnet

That film was made in 1954, but does not list Jack Webb. Neither does the plot synopsis sound like the film you describe. So let's try searching the whole Web:

• dragnet film jack webb 1954

That finds more links. Here's a clip on YouTube:

• Dragnet Jack Webb 1954 Movie "Fist-Fight" Scene - Fantastic! on YouTube

Does that scene look familiar? You can wait years for something to appear on your TV...or maybe you can search on YouTube. --Teratornis (talk) 05:27, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

This appears to be the film you describe. Now I want to watch it. --Teratornis (talk) 05:43, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

there's a wikipedia article on the 1987 Dragnet film. maybe an article on the 1954 film needs to be requested. Sssoul (talk) 05:44, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

Dragnet has a red link to Dragnet (1954 film) where there once was a one-line page with only content: "Dragnet is a 1954 film based on the TV series." It's also linked from Malcolm Atterbury. I'm not sure whether it deserves its own article or should be redirected to Dragnet (TV series) which currently only has a short mention but nevertheless is placed in Category:1954 films. PrimeHunter (talk) 14:01, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

Trees and global warming

Considering that over 95% of the world's trees have been depleted by fires , agriculture, lumber industries, fungi, and population growth, I am looking for articles addressing the depletion of the world's trees as contributing to global warming, floods, erosion and storm intensities. I am also asking if there are articles that address the need for reforestation and and replanting trees in strategic areas to reduce wind and water erosion and water runoff. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.158.219.249 (talk) 04:06, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

Well, you could see Deforestation. However, before deciding to add anything, you may want to see Wikipedia:Neutral point of view (not that deforestation follows that policy very well, however). Calvin 1998 ^(t·c) 04:37, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

Category moves

There's currently a lot of stuff in Category:WikiProject Commonwealth realms that should probably be moved to Category:WikiProject Commonwealth. What is the best way to go about doing this? Prince of Canada ^{t | c} 05:04, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

Check the links under WP:EIW#Cat and scroll down a few lines to the Bots subheading. Some of the listed bots can automate category moves. Moving a category by hand would be extremely tedious if lots of pages link to the category. I will give that subheading a shortcut: WP:EIW#Catbot which may work by the time you read this, unless you are watching this page like a hawk. --Teratornis (talk) 05:34, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

A hawk, you say? ;) Thank you for the help! Prince of Canada ^{t | c} 05:37, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

(The WP:EIW#Catbot shortcut link works now.) If one of those category bots does the job for you, before this question moves to the Help desk archive, you might post a followup with some brief details of the solution, because future Wikipedia victims users will search the Help desk archives for answers to their burning "How do I ...?" conundrums. --Teratornis (talk) 05:48, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

Can I create a page without publishing it?

I want to create a page but I don't want to publish it until I have approval... Can I save it somewhere (the work I've done so far) and THEN publish it at another time? --Orangeisgreen (talk) 05:26, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

Yep. You can create it in your userspace and then move it to mainspace when you think it's ready to be in the mainspace. Just create it in User:Orangeisgreen/Sandbox (it doesn't have to be "Sandbox" at the end though). When you're ready, click the "move" tab at the top and follow the directions there. Does that help? – RyanCross (talk) 05:29, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

TO SUPLY TIRES MARSHAL TO SYRIA

WE ARE A COMPANY IN SYRIA DEAL WITH TIRES AND TUBES MORE THAN TWENTY FIVE YEARS ,WE ARE4 SOLD AGENT FROM INDIA RE CEAT LIMITED AND FROM TAIWAN RE NANKANG TIRE COP.

IF POSIBEL TO SUPLY US TIRES MARSHAL TO SYRIA WE ARE READY TO DEAL PLEASE CHECK THIS MATTER AND ANSER BACK BEST RGDS OMAR HAFEZ —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.198.41.15 (talk) 07:55, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

I suspect, based on your question, that you found one of our over 6 million articles and thought we were affiliated in some way with that subject. Please note that you are at Wikipedia, the free online encyclopedia that anyone can edit, and this page is for asking questions related to using or contributing to Wikipedia itself. Thus, we have no special knowledge about the subject of your question. You can, however, search our vast catalogue of articles by typing a subject into the search field on the upper right side of your screen. If you cannot find what you are looking for, we have a reference desk, divided into various subject areas, where asking knowledge questions is welcome. Best of luck. Zain Ebrahim (talk) 08:48, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

Help change article Title

I helped creating the CV for a norweigan director but i accidently didnt spell his last name with a cpaital F. Can somone please help med change from Tor fuglevik --> to Tor Fuglevik

thanks
Erik —Preceding unsigned comment added by Mtgnorgetrainee (talk • contribs) 08:13, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

I moved it for you. It's now at Tor Fuglevik. But please have a look at WP:YFA and WP:BLP and especially WP:BIO. That article doesn't assert notability and is therefore a candidate for speedy deletion. Zain Ebrahim (talk) 08:54, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

Editing a Football Strip Caption

Hi,

There is a perticular page of which I visit often (EFFC) and I noticed a few days ago that the football strips for this team were wrong. I tried to edit them myself and was doing pretty well until something went horribly wrong. I've spent days trying to fix it and Ive come so far that they are presentable but have the wrong colours, patterns etc. How do I fix them? Or is there a useful site to help me understand how to use the editor? Or will someone be kind enough as to do it for me?

Thanks. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.195.248.209 (talk) 08:42, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

Would Template:Football kit/doc be what you're looking for? — QuantumEleven 12:13, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

Contents Box

I was editing a page and previewing it and saving it a couple of times. Then suddenly the Contents Box disappeared. I don't know how, I don't know why, it was just suddenly gone. I have no idea what I did. Do any of you guys know how to get it back or fix it? Thanks —Preceding unsigned comment added by Princessprobelmatic (talk • contribs) 12:16, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

The Table of Contents automatically appears when there are four section headers in an article. There were exactly four headers in the article, and you removed one, causing the contents to disappear. To get it back, add another header or type __TOC__ (two underscores, TOC, two underscores) somewhere in the article. Xenon54 12:19, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

(ec) The contents box will only appear when the article has four or more section headings. If you removed these headings while editing the contents will disappear. You can use __TOC__ to generate a contents box. Garden. 12:21, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

how can one spread spam?

hey respected administartor n all other wikipedia users !!! i request you to kindly pay attention to your "chindi" called atricle..when it is searched from google then it shows some crap like chindi...kind of orkut...DAVIET...roll no 442/06...is not that a spam?..kindly emend it in order 2 make wikipedia the best search centre n also take some appropriate action against that fellow who did dat?

here is the link..check 3rd result:-

Rajatjainraj (talk) 14:02, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

That vandalism was added on October 1 and removed from Wikipedia on October 11 in this edit. Google's latest indexing of the page was on October 7 so the vandalism currently shows in their search results. It will automatically be removed next time Google indexes the page. Wikipedia has no control over when that will be. PrimeHunter (talk) 14:10, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

It's clearly that User:Rajatjainraj did that, as supported by this link. And as for the appropriate action, somebody already did that. E Wing (talk) 14:15, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

The mentioned "orkut" nonsense was added by 121.243.17.75 on October 1 in [1] and is currently cached by Google. Rajatjainraj added similar nonsense without "orkut" today but I don't have evidence that Rajatjainraj is 121.243.17.75. PrimeHunter (talk) 14:27, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

i thank mr administrator for your kindly attention. hope you will keep wikipedia clean n spam free as it was . —Preceding unsigned comment added by Rajatjainraj (talk • contribs) 14:40, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

remove a picture

what if i uploaded the wrong picture by mistake and i want to remove it. The picture i uploaded was kind of personal, and i want to remove it. How?--Dlo2012 (talk) 14:11, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

Someone may speedy delete it under WP:I10. E Wing (talk) 14:15, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

You can place {{Db-author}} on it if it was uploaded to the English Wikipedia, but I don't see any image uploads from your account. PrimeHunter (talk) 14:18, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

well, the thing is that i had uploaded it to uncyclopedia.org, and they don't have a very good help desk there, so i come here for advice.--Dlo2012 (talk) 03:05, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

This help desk is for the English Wikipedia. I don't know the procedures of Uncyclopedia but it's probably only administrators there who can delete images so you have to find a way to get their attention. You could try asking one listed at [2]. PrimeHunter (talk) 11:45, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

MBS

Please change the sub heading of this article which lists MBS as a trojan. This is incorrect. The software never downloaded itself. Please see the links for Michael Pollitt's articles of the OFT's press release. Although AV companies may have inaccurately labelled the software as a virus, they had to amend this because it was factual incorrect. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Platte International (talk • contribs) 15:45, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

You can safely feel free to fix the article youself. That's the idea behind the encyclopedia anyone can edit! --Jayron32.talk.contribs 18:20, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

Actually, MBS (Micro Bill Systems) was aquired by Platte International in early 2008 so there may be a conflict of interest based on the user name. PrimeHunter (talk) 19:26, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

Sources disagree on whether to call it virus, spyware, trojan horse, malware, or something else, but they pretty much agree it's nasty. I have removed "trojan horse" from MBS but kept the less specific "malware". PrimeHunter (talk) 22:46, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

Forgot to log in before editing

Good day. I forgot to log in before editing, and 3(?) changes are recorded in the relevant Histories against my IP address 89.168.255.186. I cannot find out how to change IP addresses to my user name, or who to ask. Please help. And add a page or redirection in WP for this as there are many other queries about this. GilesW (talk) 15:47, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

Unfortunately, there is no way to change the IP address to your user name. Once an edit is in the page history, it stays there as is until the page is deleted or the edits are removed via oversight. I hope this helps. TN‑X-Man 15:51, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

VF substitutes

Is there any other software (possibly portable) that's similar to VF that doesn't use IRC as the source? (Ideally in-browser, but that's not a necessity since VF was also really good as an external program.) Or else... VF doesn't have an option to use a proxy, does it? (Still, no idea whether IRC as a source will be allowed here, but I noticed that browne.wikimedia.org etc. or even freenode aren't blocked, so I might be able to connect...) -- Mentisock 16:20, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

WP:HUGGLE but it uses IRC. Old versions let you choose IRC or non IRC feeds. You can check with the developer for the old version code if you want. Gtstricky^{Talk or C} 19:18, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

Thanks a lot for what you are doing but regarding Farsi you did not put any beautiful pictures from Iran , ( Northren part of Iran , Isfahan, Shiraz or Teharan ..)

Hello there,

Sorry If we could not find the right place to put our comment but you are doing a very nice job and please put few pictures regarding Farsi ( Persian language ) from Iran on your web site , pictures from North of Iran or Shiraz or Isfahan or Tehran )

Best regards,

Arash

70.193.52.251 (talk) 19:17, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

If you have images of Iran that you would like to share, please feel free to create an account (which has a lot of benefits) and upload them. Wikipedia can always use more good images. Cheers! TN‑X-Man 19:24, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

Commons:Iran has photographs from Iran, including the places you mention: commons:Iran#Isfahan, commons:Iran#Shiraz, and commons:Iran#Tehran. If you find some that are suitable to add to articles relating to Iran, you can add them by following the instructions in Help:Images and other uploaded files. --Teratornis (talk) 20:14, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

Names in different languages

Ragarding naming conventions as per WP:NAME,

Does prevalence of a name have higher priority than the official correct version of the name?

Example: Arkansas's state assembly has officially stated that "arkensaw" is the correct pronunciation, and specifically that the pronounciation "ar-kanzas" is incorrect. Now if someone made an article for Arkansas in some foreign wiki langauage, and literally named the article with the spelling that would give the pronunciation arkanzas (instead of the correct spelling that would give the pronunciation Arkensaw), citing prevalence as their reason, wouldnt they be incorrect? Does not being correct over-ride the prevalence criterion for naming convention?

Any takers?--129.111.69.67 (talk) 20:39, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

Unless, in their native language, the state was called "Arkasnsaz" and not "Arkansaw". Case in point: We do not name our article on Germany as "Deutschland" or "Allemagne" or the name for Germany in any other language. We name it Germany, because although the native German name is "Deutschland", we are at the English wikipedia, so we use the English name.--Jayron32.talk.contribs 21:54, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

WP:NAME says: "This page documents an official English Wikipedia policy". Other Wikipedia languages may have other policies and I don't know them. In the English Wikipedia, a common name in English sources is often preferred over a more officially "correct" name, and editors often disagree about what is most correct anyway. See WP:NAME#Use common names of persons and thing and Wikipedia:Naming conventions (common names). PrimeHunter (talk) 23:01, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia tries to download files to my computer?

Sometimes when I input a keyword into the search and click the Go button I get a popup that says wikipedia is trying to download a file to my computer. Is this a virus or computer worm? I always cancel this attemp but then I am back to main page and don't see the page I was looking for. Other times, when typing in the same keyword, I just go right to the wiki-page and get no attempt to download. Why is this? Thanks, 155.104.37.18 (talk) 20:45, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

It's never happened to me, but I presume it is pages with .ogg audio files which are causing the problem. Allow it - it will allow you to see the article and play the file.

Of course, that might not be it, but it's the best I could come up with. Dendodge|Talk^Contribs 21:58, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

It hapend to me to. I have some soltion but it is not good, Naimly, rite in the adress text box " http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=ARTICAL_NAME " (replase "ARTICAL_NAME" by the name of the articale that you looking for, you can find it by clicking the Search button insted of Go). Then you will get the artical you wonted then clik "edit this page" and then save. this will fix the problm.

you can also use "http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=ARTICAL_NAME&action=edit" Aizenr (talk) 22:46, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

It has never happened to me. Do you remember a keyword it happened for? Does it happen each time for the same keyword? There may be some browser settings which respond oddly to page names with certain endings that can be interpreted as special file types. PrimeHunter (talk) 23:06, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

It is jast hapend to me with "Wikipedia:Highly Active Users" Aizenr (talk) 08:45, 15 October 2008 (UTC)

Yes, like how I can't look up Wikipedia articles on many websites from work because it blocks URIs ending in .com (assuming that it's a Windows command program), and so have to do the trick Aizenr mentions. Confusing Manifestation(Say hi!) 03:51, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

It ones hepend to me with the artical "Gelfand pair" but I fixed it using the metod abuve,I think I mentioned this in the help-desk it was cupel of month ago Aizenr (talk) 08:52, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

Larger text

Sorry I'm not exactly sure this is the right place to be asking but... a for a couple of weeks now everything in Wikipedia appears slightly larger than it did previously. I occaisionally open a page and the text is momentarily smaller (like it used to be) before suddenly enlarging. This isn't really a problem - if anything it's an improvement as I can read everything more clearly but it does strike me as a bit odd. I'm using Windows Vista (Ultimate) with the most recent version (I think) of Firefox, no other webpages seem to be affected (or I might just have not noticed as few other sites are as text based and I probably spend more time on Wikipedia than anywhere else) and I haven't adjusted any resolution settings on my laptop screen. Like I said it's not really a problem but any enlightenment on this issue would be appreciated. Guest9999 (talk)

That does sound odd. I think Ctrl+scroll wheel is one of the shortcuts for changing font size in browsers; is it possible you did this accidentally, and does it help if you do it the other way? Confusing Manifestation(Say hi!) 21:55, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

I'm using a laptop with no scroll wheel so I don't think that could be the problem; I wouldn't worry about it though, if anything the change is beneficial, I was just wondering if there was an obvious explanation. Sorry for any trouble and thanks for the tip Guest9999 (talk) 23:03, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

You may have accidentally increased the font size in Firefox. You increase the font size with a "control-plus" and decrease it with a "control-minus." -Arch dude (talk) 00:14, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

help in editing gelfand pairs

I hope it's the rite plase to ask this requst. I'm curently editing the artical gelfand pair and I wont to put ther a section abut its aplications. so I rote it and put it in the discation page. However my english and riting stayl are to poor to put it in the artical, so I'll b grateful if somebody will fix this section and put it in the artical. Aizenr (talk) 22:34, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

This is a joke, right? --Jayron32.talk.contribs 00:55, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

I don't know. I didn't see any edits to that particular page's talk page, but I did see this diff, which was removed by an IP with no explanation. I don't know enough of theory (oh, who am I kidding? I don't know any of it) to know if the Application section belonged. TN‑X-Man 01:09, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

1)this is not a joke

2)the IP that removed this section was me, I jast forot to log in. I removed it after I rialised that the engilsh ther is not good enaf to apper in public.

3)proboly it was not the write place to ask this requst. can some body tel me where I shold ask itAizenr (talk) 08:58, 14 October 2008 (UTC)