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Wikipedia:Help desk/Archives/2009 May 7

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May 7

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How to undo a move

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I was moving my subpage article in to the main arena and I think I messed up the redirect. Is there any way to revert back to the page the way it was before I did the move?


Automatic protection

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  Resolved
 – ukexpat (talk) 03:07, 7 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Is there an ongoing discussion on semiprotection of articles on the recently deceased? The Maurice Jarre debacle brought this idea to mind.Ordinary Person (talk) 00:35, 7 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The debacle you mention might be yet another argument in favor of Flagged revisions. If you don't find a discussion specific to biographies of recently no longer living people, you might look at the discussions about flagged revisions. --Teratornis (talk) 01:13, 7 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Ta. Ordinary Person (talk) 01:20, 7 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

How to Save?

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how to save articles to account? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Prasun v (talk • contribs) 03:18, 7 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not sure to what you are referring. Are you trying to create an article or are you trying to save an already written article to your computer? TNXMan 11:53, 7 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
First get a named account, it's free. Then you can create a subpage for your account. You can save anything acceptable on it. This is a recommended way to make your own sandboxfor experiments with editing.Cuddlyable3 (talk) 13:59, 7 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
And please format Wikilinks correctly! – ukexpat (talk) 15:24, 7 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Userboxes and transclusion

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I can't figure out why this works here, but after transclusion, gets screwed up. Can anyone figure this one out? ~ ωαdεstεr16«talkstalk» 03:56, 7 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

If nobody happens to identify the problem just by looking at your template, you can apply the standard debugging technique of reducing your template to the simplest case that exhibits the problem. That is, remove chunks of template code one at a time until you figure out which chunk causes the problem. If you can't figure out what that chunk is doing, come back and ask us again.
If the chunk that is causing the problem turns out to be someone else's template you are transcluding, try substituting the template into your template, to expose the code. Then delete chunks of the substituted code until the problem goes away. You should be able to isolate the smallest problematic chunk this way. --Teratornis (talk) 20:07, 7 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Quality of article

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I've studied about attribute that promove quality of article. So, I have the following questions: In an article there is a structure, then, I would of analyse about the grammar use, style, structure and other. For exemple I know that in grammar there are attribute as: prepositions, conjunction, article and others. But I would like know, how could I do for analyse sentence that start with prepositions, conjunction or article are important for quality of article?

Is important there is a high number of grammar attributes in article?


Thank you. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Adriaoliveira (talk • contribs) 04:45, 7 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The use of proper grammar is probably not something which could be added up by any sort of point system. Analysis of proper usage is a qualitative exercise, not a quantitative one. You could not count up the number of prepositions in an article to decide if it is a good article or not! Usage and not numbers is the key to proper writing! It would be like judging the quality of a painting by counting the brushstrokes or the quality of a statue by weighing it. It makes no sense to judge the quality of writing by counting the numbers of "grammar attributes" as you put it. --Jayron32.talk.contribs 04:51, 7 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
The OP's question may have far-sighted implications. English may develop towards a more uniformly machine processable form than we see today. That would allow everyone to rely on machine translation and could hypothetically have exciting consequences. Wikipedia article material gives an ideal test object because of its large mass and broad ranges of vocabulary and languages. Cuddlyable3 (talk) 13:46, 7 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, Wikipedia is becoming a nice large Text corpus, unencumbered by silly copyright restrictions. This could stimulate all sorts of interesting research. I don't know whether Wikipedia is ideal in every sense, but it certainly is conveniently available.
There are some rudimentary Grammar checker programs. They can be useful for writers who make errors of grammar that the programs can recognize, just as Spell checker programs can be useful for writers who make errors of spelling that those programs can recognize. Obviously, these programs cannot (yet) by themselves turn average writers into excellent writers, any more than Cosmetics can turn average women into Heidi Klum, but in the case of cosmetics most consumers agree the small improvement is worth the bother. To get best results from any sort of grammar checker or spell checker, the aspiring writer should read books such as The Elements of Style, Errors in English, or my favorite: Clear Technical Writing by John Brogan (sadly, long out of print, and not online in equivalent form anywhere I have yet found). --Teratornis (talk) 20:27, 7 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

References in Tyrone McKenzie Article

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In the article about Tyrone Mckenzie I added that he was injured and will be out for the 09-10 season. I have a reference, I made the table and everything and it is not working what am I doing wrong? Here is the text from the section professional career: CLICK EDIT TO VIEW TEXT!!!


The closing references tag is </ref> not <references/>. If you fix that tag, it should be fine. Wait, I'll do it... OK. I fixed it in the article. It should be fine now. --Jayron32.talk.contribs 06:14, 7 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

how can i know if the changes are right or not?

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hello,i have changed 2 articles.eg.hudong and 1997. but,i don't know if the changes are correct. i need you help,i want to know the way. thanks. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Gelria515 (talk • contribs) 09:06, 7 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

They look alright to me.  æron phone home  09:23, 7 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
What do you mean by 'correct'? The previous figures had a reference which is no reflected in your edit. You need to find a reliable ref and include it at the article , as more up-to-date,to reflect your change. RashersTierney (talk) 09:37, 7 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Need someone with rollback privilages to revert an accidental article change

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  Resolved
 – ukexpat (talk) 15:20, 7 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

List of Wii games is an article I'm working to overhaul and accidentally posted half-finished changes to the live article. Because of its size my browser keeps timing out trying to undo my change. Can someone who's awake please roll it back since it wasn't supposed to be posted in the first place?  æron phone home  09:21, 7 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I've reverted my edit, would still like a rollback if anyone with the ability wouldn't mind.  æron phone home  10:28, 7 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

  • Since you already undid your last edit, the article is the same as it was on Bagdad's last edit (before the anon vandal). I have rollback permissions, but there's nothing to use them on since you already fixed it yourself. - Mgm|(talk) 10:50, 7 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I thought it applied to accidental edits so the history won't reflect the obvious mistake if requested by the person who made the mistake.  æron phone home  12:01, 7 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Rollback can only be used for vandlism however you could use the revert tool which is avaiable ot all editor i believe--Andrewcrawford (talk) 11:52, 7 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
If revert is what I think it is it'll still have the two edits I made, so it's no different from an undo unless I'm mistaken.  æron phone home  12:01, 7 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, that is in fact the case - rollback and revert are nothing different than a manual undo, rollback just makes it easier to undo an edit with a single mouse click (everythig still appears in the edit history, if you use rollback or do a manual revert). If an edit needs to be completely removed from the edit history, it has to be oversighted, but that's reserved for really serious policy violations (someone outing another editor by posting their address or phonenumber, for example). Simple editing mistakes and the usual run-of-the-mill vandalism don't have to be oversighted. -- Ferkelparade π 13:45, 7 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I see. Thanks for the info.  æron phone home  14:46, 7 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Info box

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How would I create an info box for the Tommy Meier page? Assistance or if you can do it for me would be helpful. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Sblake927 (talk • contribs) 12:29, 7 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I think the best one to use would be {{Infobox NASCAR driver}}. Give that a shot and let us know if that's what you're looking for. TNXMan 13:03, 7 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Mistake: File:Crystal Palace.svg

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I have made a mistake while uploading File:Crystal Palace.svg, try to look at the "File History" section of the file, I've wrongly written "Ipswich Town F.C.", it should be "Crystal Palace F.C." instead, on the Comment column. Is there any possible way to change it ? Thanks Arteyu ? Blame it on me ! 12:44, 7 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

It looks like you fixed it in the main details of the page; I wouldn't worry about the note in the file history section. --Jayron32.talk.contribs 13:18, 7 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

AWB

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Is it possible to not have to keep clicking save when you're doing a large job (>100) in AWB??? From,
Limideen 14:46, 7 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I doubt it, because that would be tantamount to a bot account. Clicking Save is required as a reminder that you're still responsible for the validity of each edit. --AndrewHowse (talk) 15:12, 7 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Note that your signature colors violate the WP:SIG guidelines. Not that I care, but someone might complain. --Teratornis (talk) 20:31, 7 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Yes, it is possible. But I recommend against it unless you're absolutely sure the change is uncontroversial and that the chance of mistakes is zilch. Remember, you are responsible for all the changes you make. Abuse of AWB will result in retraction of editing priviliges, sooner than abuse of regular editing priviliges. I used it to change the name of 3000+ templates. Try making a bot request to make sure what you're trying is an approved action. WP:BOT - Mgm|(talk) 11:30, 8 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Complaint

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  Resolved
 – Blocked sock, nothing to see here. ukexpat (talk) 01:22, 9 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I'd like to register a complaint against various admins and other users who belong to the linguistics community on Wikipedia. Please tell me where I can do this. I believe that this page is for questions on how to use Wikipedia, and not for complaints. Likewise, if I should have to express it here, please let me know and I shall do the same. Thanks. Tsupre (talk) 15:01, 7 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Complaints against admins need to be reported to the admin's noticeboard. Please be sure to support your claims with diffs. TNXMan 15:15, 7 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
And generally see WP:Complaint. If this is a content dispute, WP:Dispute resolution is the place to start. – ukexpat (talk) 15:17, 7 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Could you mention some specific articles as examples?--DThomsen8 (talk) 17:30, 7 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
This is a sockpuppet of indef-blocked Supriyya (talk · contribs), who's upset that his original research hasn't gained any traction at Linguistics. I don't think any response will be very useful in this case. Deor (talk) 23:12, 7 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Price Mechanism

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Define:place utility,time utility,form utility,possession utility,total and marginal utility 82.206.166.238 (talk) 15:40, 7 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

You may better served by looking up those terms on Wiktionary, the online dictionary. TNXMan 15:44, 7 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Lost images

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On May 4, 2009, I uploaded a number of images from HiRISE. Most went OK,but some seemed to be uploaded then disappeared from "my contributions" a few hours later. I used 3 different computers at the college where I teach because they have better photo editing abilities then my home computer. Two of the image titles were Iberus vallis and elysium fossae. Any idea about what happened? Thanks. Jim Jimmarsmars (talk) 16:58, 7 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Are you placing these images on Wikipedia, or on Wikmedia Commons? I suggest Wikimedia Commons as the best place to add images, whether you plan to use them here, elsewhere, or wait for others to use them.--DThomsen8 (talk) 17:25, 7 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
The elysium fossae image is on Wikimedia Commons. Go look for the rest of your uploads there.--DThomsen8 (talk) 17:28, 7 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
All your uploads should be listed here: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Log&user=Jimmarsmars including those that have since be moved to Commons. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 17:33, 7 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

how can I improve my article which was deleted

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Hi I searched for a product I bought, the Three Minute Egg and saw there was no article on it so I created one and it was deleted. how can I improve my article? do I need to add a history and more information. please help thank you Wippetwippet (talk) 17:41, 7 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Please read the pages linked in the welcome message on your talk page. In particular see WP:YFA, WP:N, WP:BIO, WP:RS and WP:SPAM. – ukexpat (talk) 18:23, 7 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

A Question re. changing my name.

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  Resolved
 – TNXMan 18:46, 7 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Does anyone out there know how i can change my wiki profile name? And will it then successfully register on all my past articles? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Penti (talk • contribs) 17:48, 7 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

WP:CHU. Algebraist 18:16, 7 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you! You are very helpful.--Damien 18:38, 7 May 2009 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Penti (talk • contribs)

Translating a non-english wiki page into english

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How can I request to have this page translated into English? http://ms.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ulam

Thanks!

Biotropics (talk) 19:16, 7 May 2009 (UTC)Biotropics[reply]

See WP:Translation. – ukexpat (talk) 19:30, 7 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Or I've done the first part for you (ulam (salad)), although I suspect that most of it is actually covered in Centella asiatica (ulam appears to refer to the salad, while the Malay Wikipedia refers to it as the plant, dish and medicine as a whole). x42bn6 Talk Mess 19:58, 7 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
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I ran into an external link that not only has copyright violation material, but tried to place a virus on my computer. I removed it, but where do I report the site itself? Isn't there a way to "list" such places? Piano non troppo (talk) 19:29, 7 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

MediaWiki:Spam-blacklist. x42bn6 Talk Mess 19:30, 7 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
That said, if the links are bluepanjeet.com or realpinoy.net, I can't see any viruses on them. x42bn6 Talk Mess 19:34, 7 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Style suggestions for complex academic topic

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I am looking into Causes of World War I. It is an interesting topic, but it is also fairly strongly debated with many different authors weighing in with different opinions. When presenting the topic should I generally try to attach names to the different positions in the text, or should I simple say "some authors say" and then put in a footnote? Will saying "X, Y, and Z say x" (with footnote of course) make the text too cumbersome? Should we present the topic as a debate between authors, or simply outline the arguments, and let readers figure out who says what? NOt sure if Wikipedia has an official position on this type of debate. Thanks.Peregrine981 (talk) 22:17, 7 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

See the links under WP:EIW#Contro. --Teratornis (talk) 01:01, 8 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

how do i copy an article from simple wikipedia to wikipedia?

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how do i copy an article from simple wikipedia to wikipedia? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Abovo12345 (talk • contribs) 22:12, 7 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Since the Simple English Wikipedia uses a subset of standard English, I don't see any reason why you couldn't copy an article from the there to here verbatim. An article which is valid on the Simple English Wikipedia should be valid here, but as other editors edit it, the article would probably tend to evolve away from simple English here. I don't see anything about copying articles from there to here; the descriptive page says:
  • "In general, Simple English articles are simplifications of the most important points in existing articles (on the English Wikipedia), rather than being new."
What article do you have in mind? It would seem strange for an article to exist there and not here. Also note that the English Wikipedia may have more enthusiastic deletionists (I have no idea). If that is true, an article which doesn't get deleted from the Simple English Wikipedia might get deleted when you copy it here. --Teratornis (talk) 01:21, 8 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Misuse of a personal name

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I opened my own account a few years back to post one article. I recently discovered that someone I know has opened an account with username here which is a variant of my real name. (He claims he doesn't see how serious this is since during the election we often shared posting names on political sites.) In discussion he said he posted an article about me, which "support" I surely didn't need, and which I assume violated something since I can't find it, and also made controversial remarks on another article that I wish to distance myself from - there is a difference between controversy in politics and controversy in community information. I discussed this with him at length and he is going to try to undo some of this, but what else can be done? should I post a disclaimer on the article's discussion page or is this just pushing too far? and, more generally, what can be done to protect oneselef from such misuse either by those who know us or those who know of us (real names they wish to misuse intentionally)? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ewnnrj (talk • contribs) 22:59, 7 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

See Wikipedia:Username policy#Dealing with inappropriate usernames. --Teratornis (talk) 01:23, 8 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
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