Wikipedia:Help desk/Archives/2008 October 17

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October 17

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Article Name Change

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"You can edit a section at Wikipedia:Requested moves by clicking "edit" to the right of the section. The best place depends on the move you want, and maybe we can fix it right here. What is it? PrimeHunter (talk) 02:18, 15 October 2008 (UTC)"



It's http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patlabor:_The_Movie_2


The name of the movie is not Patlabor: The Movie 2. It's Patlabor 2: The Movie —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.86.103.169 (talk) 23:18, 16 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I see what you mean from the poster of the film, but this particular article looks like it shouldn't be moved without discussion. Why don't you post your thoughts at Talk:Patlabor: The Movie 2? Darkspots (talk) 23:47, 16 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, both names have 5-digit Google hits so a discussion first seems in order. PrimeHunter (talk) 23:59, 16 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Okay, I've posted my thoughts. --Stepusual (talk) 00:49, 17 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

FAQ section in some articles like CD, DVD etc...

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Hi,


Is it okay to add a FAQ section to some articles. eg: why an audio CD tracks are found as 1kb files in PC?

depending on the relavance, some of them can be added to main article as an explanation and remove that specific question. This helps people who knows what is not covered to answer their question. Experts can answer that question either "as an answer" or "as explanation in main article and remove the question".

etc...


-RadhaKrishna —Preceding unsigned comment added by Arkrishna (talkcontribs) 05:05, 17 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Sadly, WP:NOT#FAQ. Wikipedia itself has a FAQ, but we don't edit articles in the typical FAQ format. Not even our FAQ article has a FAQ. --Teratornis (talk) 05:41, 17 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Naming of an article

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Okay, so here's the deal. I merged Calvine High School to Calvine High School, Sacramento California because I found that the articles were duplicated and somebody else had proposed the merge in April. But the title "Calvine High School, Sacramento California" is an eye sore. It should be "Sacramento, California" with the apostrophe in type of writing. Furthermore, per WP:NC(S) it should either be titled "Calvine High School" or in the case that that title is already taken, it should be named "Calvine High School (Sacramento, California)". So I was wondering whether this page should be moved to "Calvine High School" (VERY confusing now that the article that was there previously was merged INTO this one) or should it be moved to "Calvine High School (Sacramento, California)" (less confusing... but I don't know how well that'd work given the situation)? I strongly believe the article needs to be renamed, but I don't know what to rename it, or what would work best on wikipedia. I'm still relatively new. Killiondude (talk) 05:39, 17 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

If you take a look at WP:WikiProject Schools, they try and describe how articles concerning schools should be formatted for consistency. The link concerning Wikipedia:Naming_conventions_(U.S._schools) goes even further in the naming convention for U.S. schools. This is the convention most often used by members of the project. From reading their recommendation, it appears that naming the article "Calvine High School" is preferred, unless there is another or multiple schools on WP with the same name, then "Calvine High School (Sacramento, California)" would be appropriate and a disambiguous page need be created and the other schools add to the disamb page. Hope this helps in your decision.--JavierMC 22:33, 17 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Biographies & First-Hand Knowledge

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I have tried in vain to find an answer to this question in the FAQs and using the Google search thing, and found nothing...

If you have first-hand knowledge of a living person, and you notice information missing from their biography, can you add the missing information without a source? I cannot find a legitimate source that meets Wikipedia's standards, and I've read multiple times that "original research" is not acceptable, but this isn't really research.

Denis Leary is my godfather, my mom grew up with him, we're very close with their family, and so on. His article doesn't mention his sister Ann, or the grammar schools he went to, or a few other random things I'm not thinking of right now. Can I just add them? Or do I have to find an acceptable source to cite, even though I know for a fact it's true because I know him? Would if help if I called him and asked him to verify it? WordBounce (talk) 09:29, 17 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

You should back it up with reliable sources, no matter how much you know about it. As Wikipedia:Verifiability says, The threshold for inclusion in Wikipedia is verifiability, not truth. Cheers. Chamal talk work 11:39, 17 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Yep, you must cite reliable sources, that's the policy of Wikipedia. AdjustShift (talk) 14:46, 17 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Standardization

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Is there generally a standard (compromise or even a solution if possible) people apply on WP (or even the web) as a middle way between different browsers and different monitor sizes? It seems to be a great problem - you can never customize a page the way you want it to look because it will always look differently on other browsers and monitors. -- Mentisock 12:01, 17 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

As to the web, you have to make your own choices. As to Wikipedia: there is no need to customize a page the way you want it to look, because the next thirteen edits could leave that look in ruins. This is a project about information; most of what belongs here is text, and the rest is conveyed in graphic formats that should be designed to convey the information regardless of the trivialities of layout. If you want to do custom webpage design, this is probably the worst place on the Interwebz to try it! --Orange Mike | Talk 12:58, 17 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
But still there could be media that look perfect on one browser or monitor size but horrible on others because of differences (personally they all look horrible on an EeePC's 7" screen but, yeah, that is hopeless). So I was just wondering whether WP adopted some standard catering mainly for the majority of screen sizes or for the most popular browser (do they all look good in IE? I wouldn't have thought so since most editors use Firefox or such). -- Mentisock 13:12, 17 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

User page signature

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Why aren't ~~~~ producing a signature on my userpage?--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTM) 14:35, 17 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I also want to ask the same question – when I signed with ~~~~ on Tony's user page, it didn't produced my signature. AdjustShift (talk) 14:43, 17 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I'm seeing signatures (if you're referring to the section at the bottom). Can you see them now? TNX-Man 14:45, 17 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I'm referring to "Tigers on my userpage (feel free to add "free use" tiger)" section. I don't see my signature. AdjustShift (talk) 14:52, 17 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Four tildes worked fine for me: [1]. I can also see all your signatures. Darkspots (talk) 14:48, 17 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
(e/c)Worked fine for me just now; are you still having the problem? Does ~~~~ work for you on other pages? Are you sure you weren't inserting them inside a set of "nowiki" tags? --barneca (talk) 14:49, 17 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Very funny, barneca. Darkspots (talk) 14:51, 17 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
???? Darkspots, I wasn't trying to be funny; what are you talking about? --barneca (talk) 14:59, 17 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Oh, wait, I see. No, I wasn't trying to be funny, I meant maybe there was already a set of nowiki tags somewhere on his talk page, and he was trying to insert a signature line between them without knowing it. --barneca (talk) 15:01, 17 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
He's referring to the tildes inside the gallery. They're most probably not working because it's a gallery. Did they work before, I wonder? -- Mentisock 14:50, 17 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The tildes inside the gallery are working for other users, but they are not working for me! What's going on? AdjustShift (talk) 14:56, 17 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
That's freaky; the don't work inside the gallery for me either. Removing some of the pictures doesn't fix it. Unless people have been hardcoding their signatures in the gallery up to now, this is extremely puzzling. --barneca (talk) 14:59, 17 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Yep, this is extremely puzzling! This is the first time I've encountered such a situation on Wikipedia. AdjustShift (talk) 15:07, 17 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I can't sign with tildes inside a gallery in my sandbox either. Having never tried before, I'm not sure if this is new or not. Perhaps a recent software upgrade? --barneca (talk) 15:13, 17 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
It's not a bug, its a feature! --Jayron32.talk.contribs 16:22, 17 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Can the feature be disabled on my page.--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTM) 18:44, 17 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

wrong information

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the link below lists the basic dates of birth and death of the subject as being born after he dies!

all i want to do is bring this to SOMEONE's attention.

i do not have that information myself.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean_Painlev%C3%A9 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.176.196.198 (talk) 15:02, 17 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not sure what you mean. The birth date is listed as 1902 and the death date is listed as 1989. Could you clarify your question? TNX-Man 15:04, 17 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I don't see anything wrong in the bio. AdjustShift (talk) 15:11, 17 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Incumbent parameter value

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  Resolved

I would like incumbent to appear in Richard Cordray's infobox like it does at Jennifer Brunner. How do I do this? It does not seem to be working at Toni Preckwinkle or Sandi Jackson either.--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTM) 15:24, 17 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Richard Cordray and Jennifer Brunner use different infoboxes. Brunner's article uses Officeholder and Corday's uses FutureElectionCandidate. Correcting the infobox should give you the parameter you want. Cheers! TNX-Man 15:28, 17 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Cordray's infobox uses {{Infobox State_Senator}}, which is suppose to work the same as {{Infobox Officeholder}}--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTM)
Jeez, do I feel dense. Futureelectioncandidate is a template, not an infobox. I'll look into it a little more. Cheers! TNX-Man 16:17, 17 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Got it! The infobox should be fixed. I removed the term_end parameter, which caused the Incumbent line to be hidden. Let me know if this was what you were looking for. Cheers! TNX-Man 16:37, 17 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I also fixed the other two articles you mentioned. TNX-Man 16:39, 17 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks.--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTM) 18:45, 17 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Google Earth

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How do you go about getting a wikipedia box which has been displayed in Google Earth moved to the correct location —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.40.122.104 (talk) 15:46, 17 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Google Earth images are copyright, republishing them here at Wikipedia is probably against the rules. See WP:COPYVIO, WP:IMAGE and WP:IUP for more info on this. --Jayron32.talk.contribs 16:08, 17 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Your reply misunderstand the question. All that the original poster has to do to fix the problem of WP overlays in Google Earth being in the wrong location is to fix the coordinates on the relevant article (if they're still wrong - there is a delay between us fixing them and Google updating their data). See WP:GEO. Andy Mabbett (User:Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 18:47, 17 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Wikiprojects/guilds

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I am very proud of my Nottinghamshire heratige and am very dissapointed that the Newstead Abbey page is very small. I am willing to help but I cannot do it all on my own. I would like to set up a "Nottinghamshire Wikiproject" to solve this; how? Wikisaver62 (talk) 15:53, 17 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

You may want to look at Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Directory/Geographical/Europe#United Kingdom which contains some Wikiprojects already in existance covering the UK. Also, you may be to look through some of the existing Wikiprojects, finding an active one, and directly approaching them. The people at Wikipedia:WikiProject England could help you set up a Nottinghamshire Wikiproject, or may be able to help you directly with your problem. The problem with Wikiprojects is that MANY of them (certainly more than half, maybe MUCH more) are entirely defunct. They get started, and nothing much comes of them. You may want to work within an existing Wikiproject like Wikiproject England to first see if there is enough interest in starting a Notinghamshire subproject. Good luck! --Jayron32.talk.contribs 16:07, 17 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Don't worry if you can't do it all; even small, incremental improvements help - and may inspire other editors to contribute in a similar manner. Thank you for helping! Andy Mabbett (User:Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 18:49, 17 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

editing and search results

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Hi, I'd like to know if I am able to edit. Also, the company 'BGC Partners' should come up when simply typing in BGC in search as we are known as BGC. How can someone change this? Thanks, Timo —Preceding unsigned comment added by Redtongue (talkcontribs) 16:11, 17 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

You certainly can edit, since you posted this here, you are free to edit any article you wish. There are some minor restrictions on editing (such as the ability to create new pages, or the ability to move existing pages to a new title) which you need to wait until you are autoconfirmed, however that comes automatically once you make 10 edits and have been a member for 4 days. The article title BGC is a disambiguation page that is used to direct users to multiple articles that use that acronym, it would appear that adding BGC Partners to that page as an additional article would be worthwhile. However, before you do any of that, I notice you use the "we" pronoun in regards to this business. You should also read Wikipedia's Conflict of Interest policy, as it contains some vital information about editing articles you are closesly associated with (it's a bad idea). However, welcome to Wikipedia, good luck, and if you have any more questions, feel free to ask! --Jayron32.talk.contribs 16:17, 17 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Articles

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Hi, is there any way to find all the articles created by a user? The new articles page shows only artcles created within 30 days. So, is there any other way? Thanks. --Abhishek Jacob (talk) 17:56, 17 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

This link does it. Woody (talk) 21:33, 17 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, but the wiki i want is not included in that :( —Preceding unsigned comment added by Abhishek Jacob (talkcontribs) 11:13, 18 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Advertising in an image

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Tax forms in the United States has a chart of 1099 forms. The chart list a web site and company name. It has been removed once before by user Barek but is back. Should I revert to an earlier version or is this an administrator's decision? Rsmcphail (talk) 18:29, 17 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I went to Commons and edited the credit out of the image. Someone had removed the image from Tax forms in the United States because of the credit; I put the modified image back in the article. —teb728 t c 22:17, 17 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

ImageRemovalBot

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ImageRemovalBot recently removed an image I had uploaded to the page Walter Inglis Anderson. Walter Anderson is an artist. I uploaded an example of his artwork. I made a good faith effort to satisfy ImageRemovalBot that it complied with fair use, but ImageRemovalBot was not convinced. Is their any appeal from ImageRemovalBot? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Rick Norwood (talkcontribs) 19:39, 17 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

ImageRemovalBot does not delete images, but merely removes already deleted images from articles. Stifle (talk · contribs) is the one who deleted the image, so you should start off talking to him. Someguy1221 (talk) 19:43, 17 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
You were notified on your talk page on 2 October the the image lacked a non-free use rationale. Though perhaps the warning could have made it clearer that the image would be deleted for lack of a rationale. —teb728 t c 21:30, 17 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I'm a primary source to verify a basic statement of fact

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Having actually worked on the item in question, I can personally attest to the truth of a factual claim marked "citation needed." How do I write a citation of myself? Should I place an article on my professional blog and then refer Wikipedia to it? I looked on the FAQ and Help desk for "primary source" and nothing obvious jumped out at me. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Squeedle (talkcontribs)

If you have published it in a reliable source, you cite the source the same as if it had been written by someone else. If no one has published it, it is WP:original research and we can’t include the fact. A blog is not a reliable source; so it can't be used in a citation. —teb728 t c 21:53, 17 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Actually, blogs are sometimes appropriate to cite. See WP:USENET for more info. Copana2002 (talk) 22:12, 17 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

An excerpt from WP:SUMMARY#References, citations and external links:
  • The policy on sources, Wikipedia:Verifiability, says that sources must be provided for any material that is challenged or likely to be challenged, and for all quotations.
If the factual claim you have in mind is not likely to be controversial, citing your blog would be unlikely to draw a challenge. However, if the factual claim is potentially controversial, then a blog citation would be more vulnerable to challenge than, say, a published work from a reputable news organization, or a peer-reviewed academic paper. In general, when asking questions on the Help desk, it helps if you provide enough details to allow Help desk volunteers to resolve some of the conditional branches. When asking about something you are looking at, tell us what it is so we can look at it too. Wikipedia is too complicated to reduce to a short list of clear rules that invariably apply to every situation. It's like asking "What weapon should I use for personal defense?" or "What dress should I wear to the prom?" Such questions are hard to answer without knowing a bit more about the asker's situation. --Teratornis (talk) 03:52, 18 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Based on the edit summary, the OP is probably referring to Typography of Apple Inc. The only “citation needed” tag there is in the “Fonts used in other products” section. —teb728 t c 07:12, 18 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

References question

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In a case where a Wikipedia article has a related sub-article, is it acceptable to say in the main article (either in the text or in a <ref>) that references can be found in the sub-article? I.e., instead of including all the references in the main article. Thanks. Wanderer57 (talk) 21:49, 17 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

A reference should be in the article or subarticle where the fact it verifies is asserted. If a fact is asserted in both, there should be a reference on both. (There should be links between the facts and the references, and as a practical matter that would be unmanageable if the facts and references were on separate pages.) —teb728 t c 22:44, 17 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Agree. Articles should stand on their own. --—— Gadget850 (Ed) talk - 01:29, 18 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
See WP:SUMMARY#References, citations and external links. Excerpt:
  • There is no need to repeat all the references for the subtopics in the main "Summary style" article, unless they are required to support a specific point. The policy on sources, Wikipedia:Verifiability, says that sources must be provided for any material that is challenged or likely to be challenged, and for all quotations.
See WP:FOOT, WP:CITE, and WP:CITET for instructions on how to cite sources. --Teratornis (talk) 03:36, 18 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]