Wikipedia:Help desk/Archives/2009 April 23

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April 23

User template code

Resolved

 – ZooFari 01:33, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

I would like to see the source code for the language tags that are included in userboxes, e.g. such as might be brought up by {{user es-4}}. I went to Template:User, but couldn't find what I was after. How do I view this code? Ordinary Person (talk) 00:29, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

I believe the code is based on {{Babel}}. However, I'm not much good at templates, so I don't know if the info there is what you need. Best of luck! TNXMan 00:35, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

Why did you go to Template:User? To find the code for {{user es-4}}, just go to the template page and click 'edit'. You'll discover that all it does is call {{userbox}} with certain parameters. The Userbox template page contains the important code. Algebraist 00:40, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

Thanks.Ordinary Person (talk) 00:44, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

Category "Rating Systems"

following the lead of CAMEL rating system I put a couple of articles (European Union energy label and Traffic light rating system) into this category. I then realised it comes as a subcategory of "Entertainment".

Sure, I can remove the categories from these three articles, but it seems the category hierarchy is inverted here (all ratings systems are ratings systems, but not all rating systems are entertainment rating systems). Any advice? It doesn't seem very busy and the talk page is redlink so I doubt I will get much joy asking there. I might just leave them to see what happens-- or invent a somewhat spurious category ("Non-entertainment rating systems" or something?) SimonTrew (talk) 00:39, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

The category name is actually Category:Rating systems (note that names are case-sensitive). I agree that Category:Rating systems should not be a subcategory of Category:Entertainment, because "Rating systems" is far too general. Instead, Category:Rating systems could have subcategories for different types of ratings, such as Category:Game rating systems and Category:Credit union rating systems, and each of those could also be subcategories of other categories (Category:Game rating systems could be a subcategory of Category:Entertainment). Of course whenever someone tries to reorganize categories, the potential exists for disputes with other editors. I suggest you create a user subpage which details exactly what you want to do to the category scheme, and then discuss it somewhere, such as perhaps Wikipedia:WikiProject Categories. See WP:EIW#Cat for more information. --Teratornis (talk) 19:44, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

Posting a question or comment

Sir,

please de activate this data on google search. ex: given below this data on my old user name but now i changed my username . i dont add this data on envs.net but how to display this information on google. please de activate this data on google search..

Ex:

User_talk:Mvsrao resources and information... DP 194 9985085975 10 Dashmanth Saggala CT <email redacted>.in 189 ... Ravi Prakash Darivemula DP <personal information>Rekha Reddy Gangichetti AIP ... envs.net/1/index.php?k=User_talk:Mvsrao - Similar pages

above given data unfortunately added my wikipedia account but it display in google search please remove that old user name please update my new username...

How do I start a discussion about proposed changes to certain (i.e. hundreds of) U.S. law articles?

A few days ago I put these proposals (regarding a more productive way to format articles on U.S. caselaw) on the talk page of WikiProject Law, but it's gotten buried & nobody's responded. I'm wondering if someone knows of a more appropriate place to put it (or person to email it to?), in order to get good feedback & start a discussion. Thanks. Agradman (talk) 06:21, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

I'd say post a talk page notice on the pages of other people who have posted on the talk page or edited the article a lot recently... ask if they can give their opinions on the talk page. hmwithτ 17:12, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

Ideas on Wikipedia are like movie scripts in Hollywood - everybody's got at least one. The odds are against any particular idea getting implemented, because it's easy and fun to think of ideas, and difficult and tedious to do actual work. To get other people interested in working on your idea, you must convince them to postpone working on their own ideas. Thus it's not enough for an idea to be merely good, it must be better than everything else people want to do. (See: Opportunity cost.) As with every volunteer organization, Wikipedia always has a surplus of "thinkers" and a shortage of "doers". Therefore, the surest way to get things done on Wikipedia is to do them yourself - but the only way for things to stay done is if no other editor sees a need to change what you do. If you need to get other people involved, be aware that a working prototype beats any vague description. I read your proposals and I said "Huh?" I'm not a law student, so maybe I'm not supposed to understand what you are trying to do, but you don't help your case by requiring other people to think hard to picture what you have in mind. Try to make it as easy as possible for other people to grasp your ideas. You might do this by creating some user subpages that illustrate the benefits of your idea, and show the contrast with whatever existing things you want to improve. Give people something they can look at and say, "Wow, I want that!" --Teratornis (talk) 17:39, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

Any easy way to edit a Wikitable?

List of countries and dependencies by population density is missing Hong Kong and Macau and apparently has been for some time, despite consensus on the talk page that they should be included, and despite the fact that the articles of Hong Kong and Macau both play heavily on their population density. I hit edit, intending to rectify this, and was utterly dismayed to find that apparently this all has to be done by hand. Why so dismayed? Because properly, Macau ought to be number one, and Hong Kong number 3, meaning I would have to change every other country on the list's number by hand.

Is there any other easier way to do this? I searched the FAQ but found no answer. joye (talk) 09:06, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

• Create your table in Excel or Calc
• Convert it to wikimarkup using the Copy & Paste Excel-to-Wiki Converter
• Copy and paste into the article
• Manually add desired formatting, such as class="wikitable"
• Profit

---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 10:54, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

• Yeah but the problem is the table already exists and I just want to change two things. I'm looking to avoid doing all this work by hand to modify it. Creating the table from scratch in Excel would definitely constitute "a lot of tedious work by hand". Unless there's a "Copy and Paste Wiki-to-Excel Converter". joye (talk) 17:29, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

Simply copy and paste the table into Excel. You may need to use Edit Paste Special to get it formatted properly. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 18:00, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

It is kind of hard to believe that we have all these high-powered computers with staggeringly advanced technology, and yet we are still numbering lengthy table rows by hand. (Talk about an instance of the proverb: "The shoemaker's children are often shoeless".) You might read everything under WP:EIW#Table to get a feel for the state of the art in table editing technology, such as it is. The tragedy here is that computer programmers have been repeatedly solving this problem of generating automatically numbered lists of things with database technology for longer than most Wikipedia users have been alive. Yet none of that work does us any good in this instance. Incidentally, the usability project aims to improve table editing, but I don't know what specific improvements the project has in mind. --Teratornis (talk) 17:53, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

You might ask the editor who made this edit if he or she renumbered all those table entries by hand. Maybe someone knows a smarter way to do this type of thing. --Teratornis (talk) 18:01, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

I think Joye is pointing to a problem that a lot of users are having (for a laugh, sort the table by "Density (Pop per km²)": I spy nine misplaced rankings.) This could be solved if there were a way to force "Density (Pop per km²)" to be the default sorting column. (Then an editor could add rows with data ANYWHERE, and then subsequently fit the ranking numbers to what she sees on the article page.) Better yet -- with another technical change -- it would be a "self-ranking table" that can produce a "rank" column based on numbers in the default column, and we can omit the trouble of writing in rankings by hand. Agradman (talk) 22:49, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

Should this be deleted

Should this article be deleted do you guys think? It seems pretty pointless & there are no sources? Cotton House, Marlborough College Thanks dottydotdot (talk) 10:56, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

I don't know about deleted. The house has been around a long time and I'm sure there are some reliable sources that can be found. The best idea may be what is suggested at the top of the article page- merging the info to the parent article. TNXMan 11:57, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

Body Parts (1991 Film)

I had a question regarding the 1991 film Body Parts. I noticed that at the bottom it mentions that John Walsh played as the character, Charlie Fletcher. When I clicked on the John Walsh actor it linked me to John Walsh (Host of America's Most Wanted). However, I think this is inaccurate. It might be a person with the same name, but different person. I went to the Internet Movie Data Base & researched the same movie. It also had John Walsh listed, but with no picture. When you check the list of movies he's played in, there's no way he could have been in all of those movies & hosted AMW.

My question is, are these in fact the same people? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.248.9.108 (talk) 12:21, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0909696/ and http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0909698/ say they are different. PrimeHunter (talk) 12:53, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

finding an existing page which is hiding; and how to edit that page to add my name, once its found.

Despite the fact that W has a page of Brandeis University Alumni - which I looked at earlier this morning, I can't get back to it and when I put the BRANDEIS UNIVERSITY ALUMNI in the W browser window, it returns a page which says there is no such page! I've tried evey formulation of the 3 words and others, but it seems that the only page I can't see is the one I saw earlier. Can you point me to it? Please? I am about to go to my 50th reunion and want to be included on that page and be able to tell classmates who can still hear and understand me, that there is a page for us to have our names in the world's greatest source of information which would outlive us all.

Second, when I tried to edit the page to add my namer under "H" I was instructed that to do so I had to ““edit″ and it directed me to the edit page. I went there and was told I had to log in before I could edit. Since I did not have an account, I followed the instructions for opening one and a pop up in pink said it did not recognize me! HUH? If Ididn;t have an account, of course it would not. So I tried to create it again, but with the same result. Can you please help this aging, computer-baby? Your help would be much appreciated.

P.S.: Just above this box, as I was about to send this message, I saw a green box which says exactly what I am complaining about.

== “You are not currently logged in. Editing this way will cause your IP address to be recorded publicly in this page's edit history. If you create an account, you can conceal your IP naddress and be provided with many other benefits. Messages sent to your IP can be viewed on your talk page. Please do not save test edits. If you want to experiment, please use the sandbox. ==”

So I sent to the sandbox and followed the instructions, without success.Please help me. --24.34.196.179 (talk) 12:47, 23 April 2009 (UTC)Ed Hamada--24.34.196.179 (talk) 12:47, 23 April 2009 (UTC)8:45 am 4-22-09 Ed Hamada

Here is the page you are looking for List of Brandeis University people however it is NOT a good idea to add your own name..the list is intended for notable alumni and is already stacked out with everyone who ever attended! Teapotgeorge^Talk 12:55, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

• (e/c) List of Brandeis University people
• Your name should not be added to that page unless there is an article on you or an article should be created because you are notable in the way we use that word on Wikipedia, i.e., being the subject of substantive discussion in reliable sources that are independent of you.
• The warning you received didn't mean you couldn't edit, just that your IP address was what would be shown in the edit history. You could still have clicked "save page" and your edit would have taken. The sandbox is as instructed; it's for test edits--experiments--nothing you save there is permanent and will not become part of any existing article.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 12:57, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

local wiki groups for legal professionals

Do you offer a platform for setting up a local group with restricted access for a small professional group? Example: We have a medical malpractice defense attorney group that needs a central internet based platform so that members can contribute to a treatise on medical malpractice defense subjects such as experts, legal precedence and also to upload and store content such as depositions and legal briefs that can be accessed via hyper-link. 13:11, 23 April 2009 (UTC)~~ —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.218.238.142 (talk)

That sounds like something handled much easier by a social networking site, like Facebook. Which wikipedia is not. Livewireo (talk) 13:27, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

It sounds quite appropriate for a private wiki, but Wikipedia is not in the business of providing people with private wikis. The software Wikipedia runs on is freely available, though, if you want to set up your own. Algebraist 13:31, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

The name for what you need: Enterprise wiki. --Teratornis (talk) 16:37, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

after Rfc .

Resolved

 – tempodivalse [☎] 23:31, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

After requesting Requesting a Rfc and recieving no sattisfaction where is the next step towards dispute resolution? (Off2riorob (talk) 15:31, 23 April 2009 (UTC))

Could you provide a link to the RfC? hmwithτ 15:49, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

here. (Off2riorob (talk) 15:59, 23 April 2009 (UTC))

I can get no satisfaction from this rfc and the editor in conflict has attacked me and has stated his personal point of view and is editing the article to reflect his stated opinion. (Off2riorob (talk) 16:29, 23 April 2009 (UTC))

Please also see Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/IncidentArchive521#Disruptive_behavior_and_incivility_by_User:Off2riorob, Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/IncidentArchive530#Disruption_from_two_users_at_a_GA-rated_article, and [1]. Thanks, Cirt (talk) 17:05, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the links, Cirt. Off2riorob, without reading through the talk page much, I'd say check out Wikipedia:Wikiquette alerts. That would be your next step, if you'd choose to take it. hmwithτ 17:09, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

ta for the comment. (Off2riorob (talk) 22:44, 23 April 2009 (UTC))

Suggestions

Resolved

 – tempodivalse [☎] 23:30, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

Where should I go if I want to post a suggestion (specifically about the Main Page policies?) a little insignificant (talk) 16:58, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

Talk:Main page is probably the most suitable. Or maybe the village pump. Zain Ebrahim (talk) 17:03, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

We have several village pump sections, I think the most appropriate venue would be the proposals section. tempodivalse [☎] 17:12, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

Yes, but you linked to the policy section. :) Zain Ebrahim (talk) 17:31, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

Oops. Thanks for pointing that out! tempodivalse [☎] 17:57, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

United Kingdom national holidays

WHEN IS THE WHIT SUNDAY WEEKEND NATIONAL HOLIDAY IN THE UNITED KINGDOM —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.199.35.54 (talk) 17:16, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

Perhaps our article about Whit Sunday would tell you what you want to find out. tempodivalse [☎] 17:18, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

editing problems

why is it when i edit a page that has errors, the changes i made will not save and in a half hour the changes go back?—Preceding unsigned comment added by Gary.farrar (talk • contribs)

Unfortunately, you'll have to be a little more specific. To which page were you referring? TNXMan 17:49, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

Are you talking about your edits to Naugatuck River Valley? If so, your edits were reverted by another user. The following diff (difference between two versions of a page) shows the reversion: [2]. If you familiarize yourself with how page histories work you can track exactly what happened with any edit you make to a page. Note that while the user who reverted your edits may have had a good reason for doing so, he should not have done it in the manner he did, using the rollback tool. I will inform him of this. Unfortunately, without a transparent edit summary accompanying the revert, we can only guess at his rationale.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 23:13, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

making a page

how do i make my own wikipedia page? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Gary.farrar (talk • contribs) 17:48, 23 April 2009 (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. TNXMan 17:51, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

If you are intending to create an autobiography about yourself, please read Wikipedia:Autobiography first, it discourages autobios. tempodivalse [☎] 17:55, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

editing problems

I was trying to edit information on the page "naugatuck river valley" every time i would add facts i would be deleted. i also was trying to upload a picture and i cannot figure out how to do that? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Gary.farrar (talk • contribs) 17:59, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

Your edits are being undone by User talk:Polaron - you can discuss there or on the article's talk page. Generally it is frowned upon to undo good faith edits such as yours. For details on uploading images, have a look at WP:UL. Best, Zain Ebrahim (talk) 18:27, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

editing problems

how would i be able to have my corrections not be deleted?—Preceding unsigned comment added by Gary.farrar (talk • contribs)

Back them up with reliable sources. See also WP:V, WP:NOR and WP:NPOV. Zain Ebrahim (talk) 18:46, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

Revised name for Museum

Wiki editors:

I need some help making a revision.

Please be advised that we have changed the name of our museum from the Callahan Museum of the American Printing House for the Blind (see entry Callahan Museum of the American Printing House for the Blind) to just plain "Museum of the American Printing House for the Blind". While I can edit the text, I could not figure out how to edit the title.

Thanks

Mike Hudson Director Museum of the American Printing House for the Blind Louisville, KY —Preceding unsigned comment added by Mhudson56 (talk • contribs) 19:13, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

I have moved it to the new title as per your request. Please make sure when editing you adhere to a neutral point of view & it would seem there is a conflict of interest with you editing that article, so just exercise caution! Hope that's OK. dottydotdot (talk) 19:21, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

There are also no references in your article-which means it could face deletion. Try & get some third party, reliable sources to back up much of the article. I'm sure people here will help you. dottydotdot (talk) 19:23, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

Two references sections

Could someone take a look at the Ida Ljungqvist article and tell me why there are two references sections? Thanks, Dismas|^(talk) 19:23, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

{{PMOYs}}} has references. It is placed after the {{reflist}}, so there are unshown references, causing the error. Let me look at this a bit. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 19:33, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

I removed the refs from the template. Maybe add them directly into the article. Zain Ebrahim (talk) 19:39, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

Which is why I got an edit conflict when I tried to remove them. :-) For future reference, this type of issue is documented at Help:Cite error. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 19:45, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

pictures

i just made my first page and i want to put a picture on, how do i do this? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Gary.farrar (talk • contribs) 19:35, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Images#Using images should tell you what you want to know. tempodivalse [☎] 19:37, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

But before you upload any images, particularly those that you may have found on the internet, please read WP:NFC. – ukexpat (talk) 20:10, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

page deleted

i just made a page and it was just deleted five minutes after bing made. i tried editing another page which was wrong in alot of its information and every time i changed stuff it changed it back. so because of that i made a page that corrected the information. why does my stuff keep getting deleted? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Gary.farrar (talk • contribs) 19:44, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

From what I can tell, the article you created was deleted because it was a duplicate of another article (see our relevant guideline, Wikipedia:Content forking, for more info on this). tempodivalse [☎] 19:53, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

editing problems

since my page was deleted, how can i edit things on the other page without having everything i wrote get deleted. i am woring off of accurate knowledge and everything i write is true? im trying to fix all these mistakes this page has and the changes wont stay. how do i get them to stay? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Gary.farrar (talk • contribs) 19:59, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

I suggest that you read some of the pages linked in the welcome message on your talk page, particularly WP:N, WP:V, WP:RS and WP:YFA. When you have more time take a look at WP:TMM. – ukexpat (talk) 20:05, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

article talk

how do i get to an articles talk page? i have a problem with an article and thats what i was told to go to? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Gary.farrar (talk • contribs) 20:11, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

Click on the discussion tab at the top of the page. —teb728 t c 20:32, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

See Help:Talk page and Wikipedia:Talk page guidelines. --Teratornis (talk) 01:24, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

Revert or not

Hoping this is the right place. http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Andrew_Mitchell&diff=prev&oldid=285738016 in question has a link added to it which seems to be a paid biography service? The only thing I am noticing is that I am seeing this link added a lot by Mabelina (talk). Want to know if I should leave it as is, or if this link should not be added to a bunch of pages? » skraz ^{talk,contribs} 22:28, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

David Mundell is another article, Owen Paterson Eric Pickles Vincent Nichols Patrick McLoughlin Grant Shapps Caroline Spelman, just keep finding them » skraz ^{talk,contribs} 22:42, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

It looks like linkspam to me. I think all the links have been reverted now. And I left Mebelina a spam message on their user page. —teb728 t c 23:32, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

How to submit an article?

I wrote an analysis on Frankenstein by Shelley, Chapter 2, in my user page and I want to submit it so everybody can have access. I already saved the article, so what's the next step to publish it?Bertrandkre (talk) 23:16, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

From a quick read that looks like original research and unsuitable for a Wikipedia article. I left you a welcome message on your talk page - it has a lot of links to follow to get you started.  – ukexpat (talk) 23:20, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

Yes, I am afraid that your material is unsuitable for Wikipedia. I suggest you take a look at our no original research policy for more information on why this is not acceptable material for Wikipedia. Take a look at the message on your talk page and check out some of the links, they will help you start out. tempodivalse [☎] 23:29, 23 April 2009 (UTC)