Wikipedia:Help desk/Archives/2009 March 29

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March 29

Wikipedia doesn't display on IE7

Wikipedia is having trouble displaying in Internet Explorer 7, though it works fine in Firefox. The fonts dont display at all, but the photos and formatting do. I deleted the font cache, but it didn't make any difference. Thanks in advance to all those who say Internet Explorer sucks and not to use it, I get it, but I'm looking for a real solution. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ramsgate98 (talk • contribs) 01:41, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

Try going to the settings and making sure the fonts are set correctly. I think there's a button labelled "Fonts..." on the main settings page. Wikipedia uses the sans-serif font listed in the settings (Arial by default), so make sure it is set to a font that exists. Xenon54 (talk) 01:50, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

• I worked on IE7 yesterday, it's most likely a problem with your own system and not IE or WP in general. - Mgm|^(talk) 09:10, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

• But the problem is only with wikipedia. I know it may be system related, but what makes wikipedia different from everything else?I checked the ie font settings, everything looks fine. The system has Arial and all normal sanserifs--Ramsgate98 (talk) 01:26, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

Moved Sandbox

Resolved

 – Per request, I've split the page history to put the older sandbox stuff back at User:Genius101/Sandbox. — TKD::{talk} 14:32, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

Per my earlier question about Alvin Powell, I moved the page into the main namespace. However, I am now kicking myself, because it still has its history as my sandbox. Other than getting an admin to remove those revisions (which is most likely impossible, since there isn't really a reason to other than embarrassment), there is no other way to remove them, right? Next time, I'll write the article in a seperate sandbox. Oh well! Thanks, Genius101^Guestbook 02:21, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

I had a similar problem when I screwed up my attempt to revert another user's move of the Editor's index to Commons. I wrote some notes about the resulting mess and they are funny in a geek way. The solution to your problem is not actually too tough:

1. Move the Alvin Powell article back to a (new) user sandbox page.
2. The move will leave a redirect at Alvin Powell. Mark it with a {{db-redirect}} or whatever the most appropriate template is (I'll let you look that up since I'm just giving a quick description of the method).
3. While you wait for the unwanted redirect to go poof, copy the text out of your user sandbox page to a fresh sandbox page. This obliterates the history, but that doesn't matter as long as only you edited it. The purpose of the page history is to verify that you, the copyright holder, contributed it to Wikipedia under the GFDL. So if only you have edits to the history, it's the same as if you lump them all into one edit.
4. Once the Alvin Powell redirect goes poof, move your new sandbox page over it.

--Teratornis (talk) 04:00, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

If more than one person edited your sandbox, or the article after you moved it to article space, then you need an administrator to help with the far nastier procedures in Wikipedia:How to fix cut-and-paste moves. --Teratornis (talk) 04:02, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

In step 2, leave edit summaries with enough detail for the administrator who responds to the {{db-redirect}} (or whatever template you use) to quickly understand what you are doing. --Teratornis (talk) 04:23, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

And finally, if you want to get rid of any leftover user sandbox pages, mark them with {{db-user}} and they'll get deleted shortly. I think I have this right but be prepared to deviate from my procedure if I'm wrong about something. --Teratornis (talk) 04:25, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

• You did it completely right. You used the move-button to put the page in the right place along with its history. If you want the remainder of the sandbox history removed, use the tag as described above. - Mgm|^(talk) 09:15, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

Importing image from foreign Wikipedia article

I'm close to finishing an article about a deceased Romanian musician. I do not have a photo of him, but one appears in the corresponding article in the Romanian Wikipedia. As far as I can tell (my Romanian is--ahem!--a bit rusty), the photo is billed there as being in the public domain, but without further elaboration. Would its "public domain" notation there suffice to support importing it into my article for the English Wikipedia? Thank you for your assistance. Drhoehl (talk) 03:12, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

The preferred solution is to move the image to Commons for example with the CommonsHelper tool. See Wikipedia:Moving images to the Commons. I've moved a few dozen images from the English Wikipedia to Commons, but I haven't had the guts to try it from a Wikipedia in a language I don't speak. You might ask on the Romanian Wikipedia's Help desk if someone over there can move the image to Commons for you. That would be easier than slogging through the setup procedure for CommonsHelper, which is not too terrible, but may be more than you want to do for just one image. And search on Commons to see if they already have images of this musician. --Teratornis (talk) 03:31, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

If you don't speak enough Romanian to phrase your request on the Help desk over there, you could try asking in English on the Commons Help desk and maybe one of the helpers there can move the image. It is possible to do it yourself with CommonsHelper, but I'd recommend practicing on some images from the English Wikipedia first so you can be sure you are seeing how it should work. Note that we wouldn't have this problem if all the Wikipedias would move all their freely licensed media files to Commons. But that's going to take a long time at the current pace, since it requires human judgment for every individual file. --Teratornis (talk) 03:35, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

Taking my life in my hands, I tried moving the thing to commons myself using CommonsHelper, eventually figuring out how to get it to locate the image, but it told me that it couldn't move the image for want of a verifyable license. I guess that means that it's a no go for the English Wikipedia. Thanks for your advice! Drhoehl (talk) 05:54, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

How do I add a template to dispute neutrality?

I think I know what templates are (although if someone would tell me how to find a listing of all of them I'd appreciate it), and I would like to add the neutrality dispute template (I think that's what it's called) to a page that has only one person cited, and the person claims to have bested both Kant and Russell in his philosophical articles. I know that this person's claim is disputed, and that since the person wrote the article themselves, it is not a stellar example of neutrality. How do I do it, and if anyone could tell me - what happens next, once the template is place?Levalley (talk) 03:16, 29 March 2009 (UTC)--LeValley

You can find some links to useful templates here (in the tables). I think the one you're looking for can be found here. This may be a COI rather than NPOV, but you'll have to decide that. Cheers. Chamal ^talk 03:52, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

• A statement like that is unlikely to be supportable by reliable references. Instead of tagging, I'd just remove it (with a explanatory edit summary) - Mgm|^(talk) 09:18, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, I'm going to try. It's an article rated low in importance by the project of which it is a part, and only one anonymous user has left any comments (unintelligible to me). Let's see how it goes.--Levalley (talk) 00:01, 1 April 2009 (UTC)LeValley

Engineers Without Borders Wikipedia Page

Hey there, I previously asked a question about creating an Engineers Without Borders (EWB) page for a specific chapter. It seemed like it was up to me to decide whether or not it would be within the guidelines of Wikipedia. I believe that it does. However, I don't want to start working on the site without confirmation that it indeed conforms to the established protocols.

Essentially, each chapter conducts operations in its own way; we are not copies of each other. Everything, from weekly events to executive positions to chapter retreats are decided individually as a chapter. Two junior fellows and a working partner are assigned to the University of Alberta chapter in particular. The interaction between chapters occurs at national retreats, regional retreats (e.g. Western Canada), a website discussion forum (myewb.ca), and submission of reports to the national EWB office. Each chapter, through their junior fellows, working partners, and whatever programs they come up with makes unique contributions.

Currently, there exists a Wikipedia entry for the EWB Canada, but no entries for specific chapters. Would it be allowed within Wikipedia guidelines for me to create a specific page for the University of Alberta chapter? The chapter, and EWB as a whole, is a non-profit charity. There are no products that would be promoted so I do not view it as spam. The reason for the page would be to record the specific impacts that the University of Alberta chapter by itself. The only potential link I could foresee being used would be a link to the chapter site, but if that doesn't conform to the rules, then it would be perfectly fine to have no links at all.

Anyways, thanks for your time!

HY7 (talk) 03:46, 29 March 2009 (UTC)HY7

Thanks for asking before going ahead. If everybody did this, fewer articles would end up getting deleted. Since we already have Engineers Without Borders (Canada), and that article is nowhere near to pushing our maximum article size guidelines, I suggest you add a section for your chapter. Adding a section to an existing article is easier than creating a whole new article from scratch, and much less likely to result in deletion. While your question states the problem more completely than most questions on the Help desk, you did not mention the most important item: the sources for the information you want to add. On Wikipedia, we do not just write what we know, we must always support it by citing reliable sources. For noncontroversial claims, you can probably get away with citing the official Web site of the Alberta chapter, but your edits are more likely to "stick" (i.e., not be reverted by other Wikipedia editors) if you also cite some sources about the chapter that are independent of the chapter (e.g., news media articles, scholarly articles, etc.). See: WP:V, WP:RS, WP:FOOT, WP:CITE, WP:CITET, and WP:BFAQ. (The last one explains how even nonprofit organizations can be considered "spam" on Wikipedia unless you edit the material correctly.) If that stuff looks too complicated to figure out, just click on this link: User:HY7/Sandbox, type whatever you have in mind, save it, and come back here to tell us to look at it. Someone will then tell you how to get it into encyclopedic shape. Welcome to Wikipedia! --Teratornis (talk) 03:49, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

Hey, thanks a lot for the reply. I hadn't really thought much about the sources. I'll work on a creating a section of the page. That brings up another question though: For completeness, would I have to make sections for all of the other EWB chapters? I am quite unaware as to what the other chapters specifically do in their respective locations. Would creating a list of all chapters under the EWB Canada page ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Engineers_Without_Borders_(Canada) ) and then linking a specific chapter page for the U of A chapter be suitable? I could contact the other chapters and get them to complete pages in a similar fashion. ----HY7

There is no hard requirement to create entries for all the other chapters, but that would be tidier if you can do it. Having one lone chapter entry in the article would be rather misleading. I would advise against creating a totally empty outline consisting only of section headings for the various chapters, but opinions might differ on that. (On Wikipedia, there is ongoing struggle between editors who want every article to be presentably encyclopedic at all stages in its development, and other editors who favor building content-less outlines to guide other editors to fill in the content. Thus you should be cautious about creating an article that looks egregiously "under construction" and stays that way longer than a few days.) Maybe you could start by trying to complete the entries for one province, which could become its own section with individual chapter subsections, and then other editors could follow your style to fill in the other provinces and chapters. See also WP:LISTS. Note that a bare listing of chapter names might provoke the deletionists if there are no individual chapter articles to link to, and no content in the Engineers Without Borders (Canada) article about each chapter entry. Also see WP:SUMMARY and WP:SPLIT for what to do if the material about individual chapters begins to bloat (probably not a concern any time soon). If you want to create separate articles for each chapter, see WP:LAYOUT and be aware this exposes your work to a higher risk of deletion. I can't estimate the actual risk of deletion until I see your content and sources for the chapter(s). Generally speaking, the fewer reliable sources you cite, the more likely is deletion. --Teratornis (talk) 04:38, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

Again, note that you can experiment (almost) any way you like in User:HY7/Sandbox with much less risk of having other editors revert it or delete it before you get it the way you want. In your user sandbox(es), you can experiment with your layout etc. to see how it is going to work. However, if you want to invite other users to edit with you, it is better if you all edit in the article space rather than your user space, for copyright reasons that are a little more complicated than is worth going into here. --Teratornis (talk) 04:41, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

I would be willing to post info about chapters about Queens and Ottawa if you post something about Alberta in the main article (though it may be laxed on references and size initially but i think i can put together enough stuff to make a few sentances (message me on my talk on how youd like to proced) Ottawa4ever (talk) 15:59, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

It looks like an image you had in User:HY7/Sandbox got deleted from Commons. Uploading images to Commons can be tricky, due to the complexities of copyright and licensing. For some not-so-light reading on this topic, see Commons:COM:EIC#Copy. Also, when you make a list with wikitext, do not indent the list items:

* that causes them to
* show up in a box like this

• rather than as proper list items
• like this.

See Help:Wikitext examples#Just show what I typed. --Teratornis (talk) 00:19, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

Printing articles

Why do some articles print blank pages? I use prints for my file of articles and am frustrated that so many pages are blank. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Drjimmoore89 (talk • contribs) 07:57, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

Is Wikipedia:Help desk/Archives/2009 March 16#Continued printing problem with Dovey Johnson Roundtree article of help? PrimeHunter (talk) 11:16, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

Which is now documented at Help:Printable. --—— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk - 13:43, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

Logged in users with the default MonoBook skin can get to their .CSS at Special:Mypage/monobook.css. Maybe that link should be added to Help:Printable#Blank pages in Internet Explorer. Just writing "your .CSS" may be unclear to many. PrimeHunter (talk) 15:23, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

Favorite articles

I'm new to Wikipedia and I'm not sure how to "save" a list of my favorite articles so that I may refer back to them whenever I wish to. Can I do this and how? Apollosgarden (talk) 11:03, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

If you want quick links to the pages you want, you can add the links as a list to your userpage or a subpage. If you want to keep track of some articles, you can add them to your watchlist, which will show the latest changes to those articles. If you want help with this, please ask me or any other editor here. Cheers. Chamal ^talk 11:12, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

Copyright tag for a Logo...

I am writing a Wikipedia article about an organisation in Bulgaria (a new political party). I have published their logo in the article. The logo is officially registered with authorities in Bulgaria. As their representative in this case, I have the right to publish their logo in Wikipedia and elsewhere. Now Wikipedia asks me to put a copyright tag on the page; All my efforts to find out what tag exactly is appropriate in my case had no result so far. So: What copyright tag do I have to use? (The organisation of course does not want the logo to be used by anyone for anything else then to identify this specific organisation, so, in a sense, the usage is restricted; on the other hand, as I said, I am empowered to publish this in this context in Wikipedia.) - What should I do? - Thanks, Christian —Preceding unsigned comment added by Chgeiselmann (talk • contribs) 11:25, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

Have you seen Wikipedia:Logos? PrimeHunter (talk) 12:15, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

My login name

I have just registered Wikipedia but my login-name and "my talk" links are in red. When I click on them I get a 404 page error. Why is this? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Twisted Knife (talk • contribs) 12:04, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

Red page names mean that the page has not been created. If you want them blue then just save anything on them. PrimeHunter (talk) 12:12, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

But you should not be getting a 404; the page should open for editing. I left a welcome on your talk page, that should now be a blue link. --—— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk - 14:56, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

Obama

Like this article on reliability, I also had heard that Wikipedia was bias and defended them but after reading this below, I can only agree with those saying that it is accused of exhibiting bias, thus it will be unrealiable. I am hoping that someone can tell me that this isnt true.. or if it is what are you scared of.. Gaye from Australia.. _{<removed article - it has a copyright notice on it and therefore cannot be reproduced here > --Cameron Scott (talk) 13:50, 29 March 2009 (UTC)} [http://www.wnd.com/index.php?pageId=91114]

etc etc... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 59.100.64.234 (talk) 12:20, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

No offense, but there is a saying at Wikipedia: Thank you for your suggestion. When you believe an article needs improvement, please feel free to make those changes. Wikipedia is a wiki, so anyone can edit almost any article by simply following the edit this page link at the top. The Wikipedia community encourages you to be bold in updating pages. Don't worry too much about making honest mistakes—they're likely to be found and corrected quickly. If you're not sure how editing works, check out how to edit a page, or use the sandbox to try out your editing skills. New contributors are always welcome. You don't even need to log in (although there are many reasons why you might want to). — Ched ~ ^(yes?)/_© 13:32, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

First: This Help Desk is not a forum to discuss these issues in depth; we are here to help you in editing articles. Second: The Obama articles suffer from recentism, in that everyone wants it up to date right now with every detail and every hypothesis; encyclopedia articles should take the long view: in 100 years, much of this will be trivia. Third: Have you read the FAQ at Talk:Barack Obama? It explains that there is an entire article devoted to Barack Obama citizenship conspiracy theories. There is even a Jeremiah Wright controversy article. We have almost 150 articles in Category:Barack Obama; by comparison, we have one article on the guy who nuked Japan. --—— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk - 14:16, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

Enlarging Maps

There is a map of Roman Europe with the article on Caledonia but is too small to read. How do you enlarge it for reading? I did try to use the 'zoom' feature under 'view' but A)it didn't attain the size that would help and B)it got blurry. Any help would be greatly appreciated; please and thank you. Oh yes, I did spend a half hour searching FAQ before I got here.69.72.100.250 (talk) 15:01, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

Are you talking about this map? This is an SVG, so it can be enlarged or shrank indefinitely, but you have to be on the actual file. If you click on the picture at the link above it'll take you to a page with just that map in it, (this page) and I'm pretty sure it'll be huge for you. If it's not, in Firefox at least you can zoom in and out of SVG pages like that by clicking control and rolling the mouth wheel in and out. TastyCakes (talk) 15:09, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

Swaminarayan

This article has an infobox hindu leader which has place of passing instead of place of death. How do I fix it? Kittybrewster ☎ 16:56, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

That will require an edit to the (proposed) {{Infobox Hindu leader}} template. My guess is that it has some special meaning in Hinduism and you should seek consensus before you make the change. – ukexpat (talk) 18:21, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

Citing for projects

How do you find the author on this website? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.164.185.33 (talk) 18:27, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

Obviously there is no single author. For help citing Wikipedia, see WP:Citing Wikipedia. – ukexpat (talk) 18:33, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

As a side note, if you are interested in which editors have been involved in the development of the article - you can click on the "history" tab at the top of the page to see which editor made what edits and when. — Ched ~ ^(yes?)/_© 19:31, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

As another side note, please keep in mind that authors go by usernames, not their real names.--DocDeel516 ^discuss 21:48, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

<*cough, cough*> — Ched ~ ^(yes?)/_© 22:32, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

Chess grandmaster Igor Miladinović page.

Hello, I added some data to the Igor Miladinović stub-page. He moved to Greece around 1995 and plays with Greek nationality in all events since then. On his page there is an expandable template of Serbian grandmasters. Perhaps he has double nationality, so I don't know if it should be removed or not. Perhaps somebody can help in deciding this matter. Thank you, --Gabodon (talk) 19:50, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

He appears to be of Serbian nationality (Serbian name and surname and born in Serbia), but he moved to Greece during his career, so I'd say "Serb playing for Greece" or "Greece-based Serbian player" or something similar. You should not confuse nationality and citizenship. —Admiral Norton ^(talk) 20:27, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

Error in article name

The entry for Rachel Noerdlinger has a lower case "n" in her last name (Rachel noerdlinger) When I try to edit it, the original name does not show and is not editable. How do I move the entire Wikipedia entry from "Rachel noerdlinger" to "Rachel Noerdlinger" please. PollyPollyPeptide (talk) 20:00, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

Looks like Ukexpat beat me to it (again). All fixed. Basically to change the name of an article, you need to "move" it to the new name. The old name has been changed to a "redirect" ;) — Ched ~ ^(yes?)/_© 20:26, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

see: Rachel Noerdlinger - to understand how it was fixed, see: WP:MOVE— Ched ~ ^(yes?)/_© 20:28, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

author

i am looking for the authors of the articles i have used as research for an essay, could you please tell me how i can find out authors for articles i have used from wikipedia? i used the following; hydrogen economy; biofuel; issues relating to biofuels.

thank you.

(Email redacted) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 130.123.128.117 (talk) 21:14, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

Hello. If you want to get the authors, you may want to check the "history" tab on the article. However, I see no point in it because the names are user names, not real names. You may be better off just listing Wikipedia as the erference, if your teacher is okay with this site as a source. (I hear teachers say not to use wikipedia because it is an "uncredible" source.) --DocDeel516 ^discuss 21:29, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

• The right way to cite Wikipedia is to use the "cite this article" link in the bar on the left of your screen (when you're at the article in question) - Mgm|^(talk) 21:32, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Who writes Wikipedia and Wikipedia:Citing Wikipedia. --—— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk - 21:35, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

Uncreated finance articles

Where is the page of articles erquested be created? And do any involve finance? I am interested in creating an article about a financial manner.--Under22Entreprenuer (talk) 00:42, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Requested articles and Wikipedia:Requested articles/Business and economics#Finance. PrimeHunter (talk) 22:21, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

Try Wikipedia:Requested articles/Business and economics? --AndrewHowse (talk) 22:19, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

Thanks to you both!:)--Under22Entreprenuer (talk) 00:42, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

How do I contact a person ?

How do I contact or post a message to a person ? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Pliinq (talk • contribs) 21:51, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

I'm assuming you're talking about a user on Wikipedia? Every Wikipedia user has his own talk page, where he can be contacted. To access a user, simply type User talk:(the user you wish to contact) in the search bar and hit "Go". Then edit that person's talk page, leaving your message. Hope this helped. ♪Tempo di Valse ♪ 21:57, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

Shipping

How Long does a game for Missouri to New Jersey of Standard Flat rate Shipping does it take? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.105.170.240 (talk) 22:07, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

Have you tried Wikipedia's Reference Desk? They specialize in knowledge questions and will try to answer just about any question in the universe (except how to use Wikipedia, since that is what this Help Desk is for). Just follow the link, select the relevant section, and ask away. I hope this helps. NanohaA'sYuri^{Talk, My master} 23:25, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

Just a hunch, but you might be able to find some info at usps.com. Normally if you order (or ship) something, the shipping company will issue a tracking number, and you can follow the package along it's route. A purely "in my previous experience", all original research reply would be 3 - 5 business days. — Ched ~ ^(yes?)/_© 23:59, 29 March 2009 (UTC)