Wikipedia:Help desk/Archives/2008 September 9

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How do I view the history for deleted pages?

I want to look at the history for chatango but it says the page was deleted back in December, 2006.

September 9

Evading a community remedy with a new account

Call it morbid curiosity... people often evade community remedies all the time by creating new Wikipedia accounts. What if someone creates a new Wikipedia account at an opportune time, as they are switching ISPs? I suppose at this point, there is nothing you can do except judge the actions of the new account with a clean slate? Randomran (talk) 20:21, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

Why was my page deleted?

Why did my page that I created get deleted? WHY!!!??? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 1997htat (talk • contribs) 00:39, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

Take a look at Wikipedia:Why was my page deleted? Xenon54 00:51, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

See your talk page and Wikipedia:Copyright violations. Louis Pasteur Middle School 67 was a copyright violation of [1]. PrimeHunter (talk) 01:01, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

It didn't get deleted. It was turned into a redirect]. — Twas Now ( talk • contribs • e-mail ) 01:03, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

But Louis Pasteur Middle School 67 did get deleted. See [2] for the editor and reason. Anything that starts with "In District 26, where high performing schools are the norm, MS 67 is a notch above most." is going to get looked at. It does not take much searching to find it was copied from http://insideschools.org/index12.php?fso=750. --—— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk - 01:07, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

And this was explained to you on your Talk page at User talk:1997htat. Corvus cornix_talk

How to fix AfC review that I messed up?

Hi all, [sheepish grin]! I have screwed up an WP:AfC review I was doing (my first). I, ahh, read the instructions wrong and have moved into main space, but not the right way (I moved it). The article is here. Could anyone give a suggestion, or could a kind and forgiving admin please undo. Thanks all, in advance! :-) _∞Fr33kman^{talk APW} 00:57, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

He seems fine for an article. As a registered user you are entitled to create it. I will put a note on the AFC page. Gtstricky^{Talk or C} 02:49, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

You might want to dig a little deeper into the AFC instructions, there are specific templates you can use to approve, or reject proposals, and there is no need to move pages, you can just create the page at the appropriate title. Hope that helps! Ariel♥Gold 02:57, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, I've printed them all out and am going to review over a cup of coffee, then write them out in my language :-) Oh well, only screw up occasionally :-) Thanks! _∞Fr33kman^{talk APW} 03:05, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

Thanks! :-) _∞Fr33kman^{talk APW} 03:05, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

Some problems with an infobox

(moved to Village Pump (technical) by original poster)

04:21, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

PRINTING

Is there a reason why I can only print our the first 2 pages of an article. I needed to print out the article on Panama City for my son to use for his research. AnitafLibrarian (talk) 03:20, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

Try the printable version by clicking on the "Printable version" link on the left side of the article page. Gary King (talk) 04:21, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

Autobiography

Hello. I'm Bill Perkins. But I'm a different Bill Perkins than the one listed on your site. I'm an author of 17 published books and an international speaker. I'd like to add my bio to the site. How do I do that when another Bill Perkins has his bio listed. Thanks, Bill —Preceding unsigned comment added by Bonairebill (talk • contribs) 04:51, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

Your question touches on several complex topics in the stupefying world of Wikipedia's internal workings. See: Wikipedia:Autobiography, Wikipedia:Conflict of interest, Wikipedia:Notability (people), Wikipedia:Your first article, and Wikipedia:Disambiguation, in that order. In the meantime, anyone can create a bio page at Wikipopuli, without Wikipedia's notability requirements or discouragements against autobiographies. --Teratornis (talk) 04:57, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

At Bill Perkins you will see four people, each named "Bill Perkins", but their articles are named "Bill Perkins (profession)" (for example, Bill Perkins (saxophonist) and Bill Perkins (politician)). Likewise, an article about you should probably be called Bill Perkins (author). — Twas Now ( talk • contribs • e-mail ) 05:05, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

Yes, Bill Perkins (author) should probably be where your biography is created. The primary thing to worry about is whether or not you would be considered notable by Wikipedia's standards; see WP:N for more information on this. It is also a huge conflict of interest to create an article about yourself on Wikipedia for obvious reasons, so usually it is suggested to wait until someone else has created an article on you. Gary King (talk) 05:09, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

WP:COI does not prohibit somebody from writing abut themself, though it does recommend declaring an interest. Andy Mabbett (User:Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 09:36, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

Indeed so, but it is very hard for an individual to write a neutral POV article about himself, so it would be subject to more intense scrutiny by other editors. – ukexpat (talk) 16:26, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

It would also require sourcing to reliable sources independent of the subject of the article. Corvus cornix_talk 20:11, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

Marking General text-based references to validate page content

If I understand correctly, the citation format functions like footnotes. The article at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assay#Fire_assay.2Fcupellation has text (not web based) references listed, but they are general - not specific detail citations. Should these be formatted somehow to address lack of citation complaint at the top of the article page? Perhaps I misunderstood; please point to explanation location that I missed. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.34.113.168 (talk) 05:23, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

WP:FN should help regarding how to properly insert citations. Gary King (talk) 05:26, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

(ec)Firstly, "further reading" sections are generally at the end of an article, and not within a section. Anyway, footnotes are not the only form of referencing, but they are the best practice. Instead of creating a footnote, you could instead add a the reference directly into the reference section, and if applicable, create seperate "notes" and "references" sections containing footnotes and general references, respectively. Now, I can't say anything about this specific example, as I can't personally verify that those "further reading" resources can actually reference any content in the section containing them. Someguy1221 (talk) 05:30, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

Moved "further reading" to end. — Twas Now ( talk • contribs • e-mail ) 05:48, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

forcythia

I have a forcythia bush and it bloomed this spring... It is blooming again, so what does that mean?

Thank you

nativemisty —Preceding unsigned comment added by Nativemisty (talk • contribs) 15:34, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

Hi! This help desk is for asking questions related to using Wikipedia. You may want to try the WP:Reference desk/Science instead, as they answer knowledge questions. Cheers! TN‑X-Man 15:37, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

not like the others?

I work at Horace Mann Insurance. There is no Wikipedia page about the company, although there are pages about Allstate, State Farm, etc. I looked at other companies and follwed their format. I have a document about what our activities we're involved in and and the history of the company. There is no sales attached to the article. It has been reviewed by our legal department. How can I make sure it will be posted?

Sandramccollum (talk) 16:09, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

I guess you are also User:Sandymccollum who posted The Horace Mann Companies. See Wikipedia:FAQ/Business. It's possible the company satisfies Wikipedia:Notability (organizations and companies) but the posted article has no sources to demonstrate it. If it gets deleted then you could try to make a new sourced page at User:Sandramccollum/Sandbox and ask for feedback. PrimeHunter (talk) 16:39, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

The Horace Mann Companies has now been deleted. Allstate and State Farm Insurance have multiple references to verify content, and independent sources to show notability. If you could write a similar article then it would have much better chances of staying. Note that both articles also have a critiscism section. Articles can be edited by all users and an article about your company would also be likely to later include published critiscism if it exists. A good way to reduce concerns about conflict of interest would be to include critiscism yourself. PrimeHunter (talk) 16:52, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

(e/c)Also take a look at WP:NOT, WP:YFA and WP:SPAM for further guidance. Even though you may not intend to be advertising, there is a big difference between a properly sourced, encyclopedia article and a PR piece or directory entry. That's is why it is advisable not to write articles about subjects with which you have a personal or professional connection, for conflict of interest reasons. If the subject is notable, someone will write an article about it sooner or later. – ukexpat (talk) 16:58, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

Creating an Article

How do I create a new article? I looked on your FAQ and found it very confusing and while detalied, still vague on the step by step process of creating a new article. please help? martin Skibs101 (talk) 17:21, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

See the links I've just put on your talk page. Good luck! Andy Mabbett (User:Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 17:26, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

Wikilinking from a table

Some of us recently added a table to Original English-language manga. The question came up of wikilinking some titles from the table. I remember reading somewhere (I have no recollection where) that we should not wikilink from a table. This is a list of top 50 OEL manga, so that the blue wikilink seems to single out certain titles as special or significant (even though the blue means only that they're wikilinked) -- which is not a good idea in this table. What are the guidelines or recommendations about wikilinking from a table?

Timothy Perper (talk) 17:27, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

I guess no one knows. Oh well. We'll leave the table entries unlinked. Timothy Perper (talk) 13:52, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

Wikilinking is encouraged, also in tables. See for example Wikipedia:Manual of Style (links)#Internal links. I don't remember ever reading something against wikilinking from a table and would like to hear if you remember where you saw it. On the contrary, Wikipedia:Only make links that are relevant to the context#What generally should not be linked says a table may contain more (repeated) links than other text. PrimeHunter (talk) 00:52, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

Hmmm... thanks. But -- and there is a but, in this case a large one. I gather from your answer that you didn't look at the table in question or, if you did, you didn't see the context I'm asking about. Yes, I know that wikilinking is encouraged. But, in the table I'm discussing, the entries are titles of publications that have achieved a certain popularity measured by sales rank. Thus one title might be #22 out of the top 50, another might be #35, and so on. Now, when you wikilink, some -- but not all! -- titles are displayed in blue, that is, they stand out in relation to the others. This brings them to the forefront of the reader's attention, even if their rank is very low (say #45 out of the top 50). In brief, wkilinking gives these titles an importance they do not have from their sales rank. This, IMO, is a kind of editorializing on our part, which we need to avoid. It violates the sense of "Only make links that are relevant to the context" (taken from the MoS on linking). By wiklinking those titles in blue, those links then violate the context of the table by setting up a more visible color marking for titles that don't have the importance the stand-out color gives them. Hence, in this case, it's better, IMO, not to llink the titles. I suggest that you take a good look at the table and context in Original English-language manga because it's needed to explain what I'm talking about.Timothy Perper (talk) 11:55, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

I did look at the table before and again now. I have never heard your concerns against wikilinking before (and I'm an administrator with around 9000 edits). The purpose of wikilinks is to give easy access to relevant articles, and any article about one of the entries in that table is relevant. Making a wikilink for a table entry isn't a way to emphasize that entry or claim the entry is more important than the others. Have you seen anybody express this concern? It's fine to wikilink any entry you can find an article for. If you want to signal that other entries also seem notable and deserving of an article then you can add a red link for them. PrimeHunter (talk) 14:46, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

Just for another opinion, I also took a look at the article. Personally, I see no problem with linking from within the table - it's common practice to link such entries from within tables, and I can't recall ever hearing before the claim that it added undue weight to any entry - personally, I don't see that.

However, two concerns that I do have: the use of bold text in the "History and nomenclature" section does add undue weight to certain words and phrases, and I believe that also goes against WP:MOS. Also, I seem to recall reading (but can't recall where) that there's a preference to use wiki markup language for tables instead of using <table>, <td>, <tr>, etc - but as I can't locate the source, perhaps it's not an official guideline - an admin may be able to clarify that point. --- Barek (talk • contribs) - 15:23, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

Wiki Bullying

A Wiki user called Deor keeps deleting all the work I do

Who can I contact about this?

What can I do —Preceding unsigned comment added by Coffeewhite (talk • contribs) 17:54, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

You should respond to that editor's reasonable comments on your talk page, in a similarly calm and reasoned manner, after reading AGF; and refrain from making edits like [3] per WP:NPA. Andy Mabbett (User:Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 18:25, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

I agree with Andy. In addition, the edit summary should explain what and why you made a change; it is not used to complain about changes.[4] Please use edit summaries, and leave the side comments out. --—— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk - 18:36, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

Images not displaying in articles

Maybe I'm just missing some notice on this, but is anyone else noticing that images are not displaying correctly in articles? Not sure if something is off with my browser, or if this is on the servers. Hiberniantears (talk) 18:28, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

I noticed it as well. This seems to have been an intermittent problem for the past few days. --—— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk - 18:31, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

It looks like the servers at commons are acting up or something. —Travis^talk 18:32, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

There have been some server issues relating to images lately. Also, about 500 images were accidentally deleted from the database recently, so those won't display at all until either a developer manages to recover them or someone reuploads them. Pyrospirit (talk · contribs) 21:44, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

Just checked the discussion at Commons about that, and it seems they've recovered all but around 40, so it was likely the server issues rather than this. Pyrospirit (talk · contribs) 21:58, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

Authoring an Article for Wikipedia

I would like to put an article in on our new medical center in Playa Vista near Marina del Rey California. What format is accepted how many words and where do I submit it to? what is a GFDL license?

Thanks

Marty Karpiel, FACHE, FHFMA —Preceding unsigned comment added by Marty Karpiel (talk • contribs) 21:53, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia does not have a formal submissions process. Anyone may contribute, though we do have policies and guidelines on who should and what sort of information we accept.

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. Please read over that guideline carefully if you do decide to create the article, as you will want to pay particular attention to neutrality and impeccable sourcing.

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.

GFDL is a license by which copyrighted material is freed for modification and reuse, commercially or otherwise. Anything you put on Wikipedia may be published in any other format, and the only right you retain to it is the right to credit. Because our content is licensed under GFDL, we cannot accept text copied from other sources, even if permission is given to Wikipedia to publish it. All material that is submitted here must be freely available under those terms.

As you are new to Wikipedia, please let me note that there are policies and guidelines tucked behind the colored text. I hope that this information will prove helpful to you. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 21:58, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

Also read WP:BFAQ and WP:COI, in case you are associated with the subject you want to write about. See Wikipedia:WikiProject Medicine for specific guidance on writing articles in this subject area. See Category:FA-Class medicine articles for examples of the best articles about medicine on Wikipedia - that's what we're aiming for with every article. See Why was my article deleted?, so you are aware that Wikipedia deletes thousands of new articles for failing to comply with Wikipedia's minefield of policies and guidelines. Many if not most of these deleted articles were started by relatively new users who were unfamiliar with the rules. Even though they edited in good faith, their work got clobbered anyway. Writing new articles from scratch - and making them "stick" - is one of the more technically demanding jobs on Wikipedia. Your contributions show only your Help desk edit. If you have not done any more editing on Wikipedia than that, consider editing existing some articles before you attempt to start a completely new article. For example, we have a Marina Del Rey, California article. You could try making some small edits to that article, then add the article to your watchlist, and check the article's history to see if other editors edit your contributions, and what changes they make. Other articles you might edit are at: Special:WhatLinksHere/Marina del Rey, California. --Teratornis (talk) 22:56, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

When I mention editing existing articles, the point is to get your edits to stick. Wikipedia is like a MMORPG, where the objective is to figure out what we can write that all the other 48,347,739 users will accept. Until you can make contributions to existing articles that other editors don't quickly revert or edit beyond recognition, then it would be risky for you to start a completely new article, which might get deleted outright. It's hard to explain exactly what it takes to edit successfully on Wikipedia - we can point you to the general rules, but learning how to interpret the rules for specific situations requires experience. The least painful way to gain this experience is to start by making small edits to existing articles that are already well-established. That way you only have to learn one thing at a time. If you start by making a new article, then you have to learn dozens of concepts at once, and many of them may be completely unfamiliar (such as learning to write from the neutral point of view, an alien concept to most people who have habitually used promotional language all their lives). --Teratornis (talk) 23:06, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

Redlink that isn't.

Recently, I used Twinkle to tag an article for deletion, at Unknown_Creature,_The(2005_movie). In the header, the AfD discussion page shows as a redlink, even though it exists. Why did this happen? Is it a problem with Twinkle? With the template? With me? gnfnrf (talk) 22:28, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

Looks fine to me. Might have been a slight issue with either the Wikimedia database or cache. Either way, it's not happening anymore. Calvin 1998 ^(t·c) 22:31, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

(ec)Twinkle does that sometimes. It's fine now (if not fine for you, try bypassing your browser cache). IIRC from last time, it fixes itself soon enough, and a purge (or possibly a null edit) fixed it immediately. Algebraist 22:33, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

I've run into that same thing. Purging the page works almost every time I've found. Cheers! TN‑X-Man 23:05, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, a purge, cache bypass, or null edit fixes most technical problems on the wiki... Calvin 1998 ^(t·c) 00:22, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

I see this all the time - it's just a time lag between Twinkle adding the Afd tag to the article and it creating the Afd page itself. As noted above, purging the server fixes it. For easy purging, go to the Gadgets section of your preferences and enable the toolbar clock -- once installed, clicking on the clock will do a purge. – ukexpat (talk) 14:16, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

Contents Navigation links within articles - not working! :s

For some reason the navigation links in the contents of wikipedia articles aren't working for me. I've tried altering every setting in Internet Explorer that I can find which might possibly be prohibiting this behaviour, but to no avail.

To give an example: I'm looking at the United Nations Security Council article, and click on "2.1 Permanent Members" ["http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_Security_Council#Permanent_members"] -and nothing happens. IE thinks for a moment, and then does nothing. The links to and from intext citations, and to other parts of the site work fine as far as I've seen.

I'm using the latest release of Internet Explorer (8 Beta 8.0.6001.18241) running in Windows Vista.

Help? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Toonarmycaptain (talk • contribs) 23:06, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

It appears from a Google search [5] that Internet Explorer 8 has problems with anchors of the type Wikipedia uses in section headings. I don't know a fix. PrimeHunter (talk) 01:16, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

Do you have an "Emulate IE7" button as described at [6]? I have read a claim that it fixes it (and probably causes other changes I don't know). PrimeHunter (talk) 01:33, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

I see the problem in IE8 as well. Emulate IE7 does seem to fix it. --—— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk - 11:31, 10 September 2008 (UTC)