Wikipedia:Help desk/Archives/2009 April 10

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April 10

Help

I was look for a title called "old Man Logan" I found it while ago but not I can;t find it. And the one that shwoing up dose not match what I saw... Do u have any idea why or if I can see it? I didn't make it I was readiing it tho. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.68.56.27 (talk) 00:20, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

I was look for something I was reading called "old Man Logan" And the page that show up now is not the page I was reading. Is their anyway u can help? I didn't make the page.... A fan —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.68.56.27 (talk) 00:24, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

The article formerly at Old Man Logan was merged into Alternate versions of Wolverine#Old Man Logan. The last version of the article can be seen here. PrimeHunter (talk) 01:05, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

RFC: Notability of free open source software

Wikipedia is currently missing a standard of notability for free open source software. I wrote a proposal at Wikipedia:Notability/RFC:Notability of free open source software and would welcome your comments. Thank you, Dandv (talk) 04:48, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the invitation. ZooFari 05:35, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

hOW TO SELECT SOLID STATE RELAYS

Resolved

hOW TO SELECT SOLID STATE RELAYS —Preceding unsigned comment added by 121.246.215.5 (talk) 06:16, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

You might want to try at the reference desk, since this page is only for help on using wikipedia. And btw, you might want to make your question a little more clearer there. Cheers. Chamal ^talk 06:34, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

To make the question clearer you need to state your project requirements, such as what type of circuit you are building, and where you are going to install it. Our Solid state relay article lists some advantages and disadvantages that you can compare to your project requirements. If this is a homework question and you are earning a degree to equip yourself for professional work, then it would probably be a good idea to learn some search skills along the way. For example, if you are studying to be an engineer, an engineer should know how to look up answers to questions like this. Often you can type questions straight into Google and get useful answers. --Teratornis (talk) 06:38, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

web technology

Resolved

hi..... i need an answer for this qeston pls help me out. What is meant by ditributed database?mention the advantages and disadvantages of it. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 115.241.141.31 (talk) 06:51, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

This forum is for questions about using Wikipedia. You might find some information in the distributed database article. Otherwise they may point you to an answer at the Wikipedia:Reference desk/Computing. They answer general knowledge questions there, but they will not do your homework for you. —teb728 t c 07:20, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

Our article about a Distributed database may also be of use. TNXMan 13:14, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

Image upload

Resolved

 – ZenerV (talk) 17:15, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

Could someone please upload [1] (taken from http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2009/apr/10/darwin-egg-cambridge) to Tinamou egg of Darwin's collection ? Thank You.

-ZenerV —Preceding unsigned comment added by ZenerV (talk • contribs) 09:00, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

Certainly not! That's a copyrighted image. --Orange Mike | Talk 13:12, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

This post is great because I learned a new word by visiting the link. "Cackhandedly". Cool word. (Admitted word nerd→) Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 15:39, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

We Brits have plenty of colourful words like that. As a word nerd, this link comparing US and British usages may make you chuckle! – ukexpat (talk) 17:48, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

Thank you for the response..the page can live without the image then.

-ZenerV

Actually, you can upload copyrighted images under some circumstances, for example if the copyright owner agrees to release the photograph under a suitably Free license, you can follow the procedure in Commons:COM:OTRS to verify and archive the copyright holder's written permission, and upload the image to Commons. But first, you might search on Commons to see if someone else has already uploaded that image, or another photograph of the same egg. See Commons:Category:University of Cambridge. If the egg is going on public display in a museum, someone might photograph it and upload the image to Commons. You can search for Commons users who self-report as living in the general area, who might take requests for photographs. The University Museum of Zoology Cambridge Web site displays a copyright notice; it is unfortunate that institutions which historically existed to discover and disseminate knowledge have often not yet embraced Copyleft. --Teratornis (talk) 20:48, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

dots in pagenames

Resolved

I am setting up a new MediaWiki site and would like to allow people to create a page for their business domain, the trouble I'm having is I can not create a page with the "." in it, for example "pagename" works fine but "pagename.com" does not, obviously your site has overcome this obstacle with MediaWiki, Do you know how this was solved? if not you who else would be the best person to ask, thanks for your help with this Njec1979 (talk) 15:45, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

I think setting up a new project in the MediaWiki is up to the founders. ZooFari 16:53, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

Actually, I think the poster is asking how he can create page names that include a dot (like Pets.com) on his own Wiki. I'm not sure how it's done, however, the village pump would probably have the answer. TNXMan 17:40, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

Questions about running your own MediaWiki wiki belong on mw:Project:Support desk, although unfortunately that page is not always as responsive as this one. Many answers are in mw:Manual:FAQ, but I don't see an answer to this particular question there. The {{Help desk searches}} template includes some {{Google custom}} searches that are useful for MediaWiki administrators, namely:

• Meta-Wiki
• MediaWiki.org

The above two sites have lots of information about MediaWiki, and the MediaWiki site administrator must become adept at searching them. Also see the links under WP:EIW#MediaWiki. The second search leads to mw:Manual:$wgLegalTitleChars which does not list the period character as being one of the illegal characters for a page title. Thus I do not understand why you cannot create a page with a period character in the title. Check your LocalSettings.php to see if you have set this restriction somehow. --Teratornis (talk) 19:54, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

Note: if any of the above answers seem confusing or do not apply to your situation, that's because this Help desk is for questions about using Wikipedia (namely, the English Wikipedia). The Wikimedia Foundation gives away the MediaWiki software that powers Wikipedia, so anyone can set up their own wiki. The similarity between such wikis and Wikipedia can create confusion when someone asks questions about them here, because our Help desk volunteers are thinking first about Wikipedia specifically, and then secondarily about other Wikimedia Foundation wikis. If your wiki is completely outside the WF project family, then you are largely on your own - but there is a lot of documentation online, see my reply above. --Teratornis (talk) 20:10, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

The solution to having a ShortURL and allowing pages with dots in them (example: http://yourwiki.com/pagename.com)

Hopefully this will help someone out there with the same problem, simply do the following

Create a .htaccess file and upload it to the root of your mediawiki:

 RewriteEngine On
 RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
 RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
 RewriteRule ^(.*)$ /index.php?title=$1 [L,QSA]

Add these few lines to the localsettings.php file:

 $wgScriptPath           = ""; 
 $wgScript               = "$wgScriptPath/index.php";
 $wgRedirectScript       = "$wgScriptPath/redirect.php";
 $wgArticlePath          = "$wgScriptPath/$1";
 $wgUsePathInfo = false;

Thank you to the people that tried to help me, it was greatly appreciated :D Njec1979 (talk) 04:37, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

Font family?

Resolved

 – ZooFari 16:55, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

"font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif" is one of the codings I use to construct my talk page. But I hate the Trebuchet MS, and would prefer something else. Is there actually a list for this? -- A ^talk/_contribs 15:48, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

Web-safe fonts has a list. You can theoretically use any font but not all will show up on everyone's PC.  GARDEN  16:14, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

Thank you, very much. -- A ^talk/_contribs 16:18, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

My Wiki is not found on the internet!

Resolved

 – ZooFari 16:57, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

I am a Wiki Noob, and i know nothing about how to navagate Wikipedia or how t works! I created a new Wiki for Bow Ever Down by trial and error and it is under the talk page and in the project page too, I cant see my results when i search fir "Bow Ever Down"

what did i do wrong? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Bow Ever Down (talk • contribs) 15:56, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

This was a spamusername; the only edits were to create an advertising for this "dark electronic [music] project" on the user and talk pages. Blocked; notified; ads deleted. --Orange Mike | Talk 16:12, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

To the original poster: you may want to check the Alternative outlets or look on the Music category of WikiIndex for other wikis which may accept your work. --Teratornis (talk) 20:26, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

Update main information - need help

I'm looking for help on updating my company's listing on Wikipedia. For example, in the main section, it has wrong information for our CEO and such. When I click the "edit" button, it only let's me start editing in the "recent awards" section. Does anyone have a tip for me on how to administer company fact changes / updates? Your help would be appreciated! TrailerParkContent2009 (talk)Kim —Preceding undated comment added 16:57, 10 April 2009 (UTC). -

You are clicking "edit" in the section. To edit the whole page, you must click the "edit" tab located at the top of the page. ZooFari 17:00, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

Cannot connect to En Wikipedia

My home computer will connect to the non-English versions, but not to English. This started happening a few months ago; attempts to connect since then are NEVER successful. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 129.186.35.11 (talk) 17:35, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

How curious. What did you do to connect in order to post this question? TNXMan 17:39, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

Hehe :) ZooFari 17:49, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

Do you mean that you have an account but cannot log in? Did you forget your password? – ukexpat (talk) 17:52, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

Since the questioner posted the question from a computer at Iowa State University, it is very likely that the computer the questioner is using is not the questioner's "home computer". Problems like this are usually the result of settings in the hosts file (lhosts on Windows, I believe) or a firewall program. Neither are easy to troubleshoot without physical access to the computer. -- kainaw™ 17:58, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

An editing icon

One of the editing icons above is Embedded file. I would expect that to be an internal link to a text file, presumably another Wikipedia page, one which I wish to construct. Please advise on the purpose and use of this icon.Doctorbas (talk) 17:51, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

This button is normally used to embed an image into a page. For example, [[File:Face-smile.svg]] will produce this image:

If you want to make a hyperlink to another Wikipedia page, use [[Example|link text]] which will produce link text. Tra (Talk) 18:01, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. You have resolved my query. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Doctorbas (talk • contribs) 08:43, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

No access to archive picture

I just saw I couldn't access the old pictures on File:Kandinsky_WWI.jpg. ([2] & [3]). Perhaps accessrights aren't set well for the english picture-archive? Note: I came from nl-wp; It could take a very long time for me to come back here... Sumurai8 (talk) 19:10, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

Mistake

Resolved

 – ZooFari 19:31, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

I made a mistake on Icredibad, please don't kick me it was a mistake, thank you. :D —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.248.81.10 (talk) 19:21, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

I've reverted it so you should be able to try again (don't forget to use the "preview" button). Cheers :) - Kingpin13 (talk) 19:23, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

In the future, if you want to undo you an edit you just made, i.e. if it was a mistake, you can simply go to the "history" tab at the top of the article you edited and then hit the "undo" button that should be at the top line in the list of recent edits. Then, save the article. Everything should be back to the way it was before. Hope this helped, tempodivalse [☎] 03:09, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

Mahjong Titans

I want to purchase this game...is that possible? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Sublettbf (talk • contribs) 19:23, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

Yes it is possible, but only if you aren't broke. But it is impossible to purchase here at the help desk. It is only for questions on Wikipedia. ZooFari 19:32, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

The Mahjong Titans article says the game comes with Windows Vista, for example the Home Edition. Therefore, one way to purchase this game would be to buy a copy of Windows Vista. That's easy enough to do at any computer store of the bricks and mortar or online shopping variety. Assuming you have enough money. --Teratornis (talk) 03:32, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

Unable to create an Acrobat copy of any Wikipedia article

There are many times when I would like to be able to download an article from Wikipedia into Adobe Acrobat. When I attempt this action on the Wikipedia website, I receive a "General Error" message and my attempts are therefore unsuccessful. I suppose I could print the article, but that seems like a waste of resources. What do you suggest? Noatakkobuk (talk) 21:58, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

• If the PDF version in the sidebar fails, you could try PrimoPDF, cutePDF or pdf995 as a sort of fake printer drivers to "print" a PDF file to your harddrive. I use the first of the programs I've listed. - Mgm|^(talk) 22:32, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

Request copies of file: File:Outline map metro and rail Brussels.svg and file:Metro Brussels.svg but with the new metro lines

Hello, Now that the file: File:Outline map metro and rail Brussels.svg has been modified, it remains only to change the file: File:Metro Brussels.svg by changing the lines as an example of the file: File:Outline map metro and rail Brussels.svg. TravauxSTIB —Preceding undated comment added 22:21, 10 April 2009 (UTC).

You can make your request easier for other people to understand by linking the images you refer to:

• File:Outline map metro and rail Brussels.svg
• file:Metro Brussels.svg

You should be able to make these changes yourself by editing the second image with an SVG editor such as Inkscape and uploading a new revision. If you don't know how to do that, you might find some help by seeing the links under Commons:COM:EIC#Inkscape. You could also leave a request on the talk page of one of the Wikimedia Commons users in the File history section of Commons:File:Metro Brussels.svg who have uploaded revisions of the image. Clearly, at least one of those users is editing the SVG file. --Teratornis (talk) 03:47, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

Improvement of a just created article

Hello. I have just created the article UCC-1 financing statement minutes ago. it is still on the requested business/finance articles page. As you will note, it still has the underconstruction template on the page. Is there any way to improve this article? And while you're viewing it, please add the necessary invesment stub templates and other signs. Oh and by the way: I am getting off the internet in a couple minutes, so don't expect an answer till tommarrow. Thanks a bunch. --Under22Entreprenuer (talk) 23:20, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

chicken chops

MY STEP DAUGHTER,RECENTLY PURCHASED, CHICKEN CHOPS. SHE ASKED ME HOW TO COOK THEM ,I SAID I NEVER HEARD OF OF SUCH A THING. COULD PLEASE ADVISE. THANK YOU . —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.20.145.250 (talk) 23:32, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

If you type chicken chops into Google, you'll get several different recipes that may be useful. Also, please don't type in block capitals as it comes across as shouting on the internet. Tra (Talk) 23:39, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

Are there actually Internet users who get upset when they see someone who is obviously new to computers typing in all caps? If someone is not aware that someone else might think they are "shouting," then most likely they weren't shouting. On Wikipedia we assume good faith, which in the case of CAPSLOCK would be to read it as if it were proper case. --Teratornis (talk) 03:24, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

I'd think the person typing in lower case was NOT upset, while the person typing in ALL CAPS WAS UPSET. That's just the way most of us read, on teh internets. Anyway, I think it's nice to let new people know how they come across, especially here on the HALP page. But, to me, Tra came across only as instructive, not upset.Levalley (talk) 16:57, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

• What is proper case? The whole point of capital letters is that they should be used only sparingly. I can't imagine any sort of situation in regular conversation where it would be appropriate. If the person doesn't know about the shouting thing, they're still using bad spelling and grammar. - Mgm|^(talk) 07:48, 11 April 2009 (UTC)