Wikipedia:Help desk/Archives/2009 November 28

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November 28

Pictures

Let's say there is an article for a music album that still needs a picture of the album cover, but you need permission from the band and all such to use a copy of the cover, that I might have found on Google. With my copy of the album, if I was to take a picture of me holding the album or something, would I still need permission to use that picture?? But, it would be considered my work, because I took it. Right? Moptopstyle1 02:11, 28 November 2009 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Moptopstyle1 (talk • contribs)

It would most certainly not be considered your work. It would be considered a derivative work, and is just as subject to copyright. However, you can license it under fair use, provided you give a valid fair use rationale. Intelligentsium 02:45, 28 November 2009 (UTC)

There almost certainly would be no valid fair use rationale for a picture of you holding the album because it would have no encyclopedic value. But a faithful scan of the cover could probably be used under fair use as a lead image to identify an article on the album. —teb728 t c 05:27, 28 November 2009 (UTC)

So, what can I do then for something to be considered my work? Explain in simpler terms. I really don't know the Wiki-language. Moptopstyle1 05:54, 28 November 2009 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Moptopstyle1 (talk • contribs)

We would need to know more about for what purpose you are creating it. If you just want to upload a scan of an album cover, for use in an article about that album, you may do so; that usage is covered under fair use restrictions, so there is no need to jump through any hoops to dodge copyright here. You just need to tag the image description page correctly, and the upload wizard walks you though that rather well. There are LOTS of applications for uploading your own work to Wikipedia, but unless we know for what purpose you wish to create your own work, it would be hard to judge its use around here. --Jayron32 06:03, 28 November 2009 (UTC)

For something to be considered your own work it can't include anything (like an album cover) that is somebody else's copyrighted work; there is no way to get around that. If you just want something/anything that is your own work, you could for example take a picture of the band at a personal appearance; that would be your own work. —teb728 t c 07:53, 28 November 2009 (UTC)

User Box

Resolved

 –  – ukexpat (talk) 04:19, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

Can someone please make me a user box that says this: "I live in The Valley of The Dying Sun" and "I adore House of Heroes." thanks. I don't know how to make them. Moptopstyle1 06:32, 28 November 2009 (UTC)

No, a user can not create a userbox for another user. To create a user box, see Wikipedia: Userbox Maker. It will be self-explanatory from that point. Mr. Prez (talk) 16:19, 28 November 2009 (UTC)

Wow, thank you so much! I've made so many already! Thanks for the info! (feel free to check out the ones I made) Moptopstyle1 21:20, 29 November 2009 (UTC)

Problem with a template?

Resolved

 –  – ukexpat (talk) 04:18, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

Maybe there is a problem with the template {{Steinway & Sons}}. The template is used in the end of the article Steinway & Sons. I have written [[Steinway & Sons|state=uncollapsed]] but the template is collapsed. Fanoftheworld (talk) 02:32, 28 November 2009 (UTC)

Not anymore. I have fixed it. Intelligentsium 02:43, 28 November 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. Fanoftheworld (talk) 02:44, 28 November 2009 (UTC)

A clarification on Primary Sources

Hi, I want to modify an already existing article called: Shell Account, and add a table to it comparing various free shell providers. The table looks something like this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Vivek.m1234/Shell_Account

Now according to: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:No_original_research

It says: "Without a secondary source, a primary source may be used only to make descriptive claims, the accuracy of which is verifiable by a reasonable, educated person without specialist knowledge. For example, an article about a novel may cite passages from the novel to describe the plot, but any interpretation of those passages needs a secondary source. Do not make analytic, synthetic, interpretive, explanatory, or evaluative claims about information found in a primary source."

It says accuracy of which is verifiable by a reasonably educated... so, if I go to a shell providers web-site and they say 20MB disk space.. can I then take that value and tabulate it?? Or do I HAVE to find a secondary source who says.. "Widget ISP provides 20 MB disk space"?????? The way I see it, anybody (in that field: someone who uses UNIX, and is reasonably educated about UNIX), who goes to a shell provider, can easily verify if he's getting 20MB or not.

There are similar tabulations: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_Linux_distributions and they have taken data from the Distro web-site. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Vivek.m1234 (talk • contribs) 04:56, 28 November 2009 (UTC)

You may want to ask at WP:RSN, which specializes in questions of this nature, but from my point of view, citing the manufacturers own literature for such claims is probably OK. The bigger problem with Primary vs. Secondary sources comes twofold:

• Primary sources can be used to provide information about a subject whose notability has been confirmed by secondary sources but may not be used to establish notability itself, per WP:N
• Primary sources can only be used for information they actually contain, not analysis of that information. So, if a person was CEO of company X from 1999-2000, we could cite their CV or the official company history to confirm the fact that they were the CEO, however, we could not provide any analysis of their performance as CEO merely from those primary sources.

For something as simple as raw data, I think that primary sources are fine; however I would still ask at WP:RSN to see what they think. --Jayron32 05:05, 28 November 2009 (UTC)

Hi, Thanks. I've made a post in WP:RSN. --User:Vivek.m1234 —Preceding undated comment added 10:06, 28 November 2009 (UTC).

Image links to articles

How do you create an image and link a certain part of the image to an article? Mr. Prez (talk) 18:25, 28 November 2009 (UTC)

You can do that with the ImageMap extension. There are a lot of options, and the full details are at ImageMap. Here's an example. The syntax:

<imagemap>
File:Bad Title Example.png|right|Caption|220px|thumb
rect 100 150 200 250 [[Example]]
</imagemap>

creates:

Caption

with a link to Example in a rectangular area in the center of the image. --Mysdaao ^talk 20:51, 28 November 2009 (UTC)

Okay, but how do you know what numbers to insert? Mr. Prez (talk) 21:26, 28 November 2009 (UTC)

It is almost impossible to do manually; there is, however, a tool which has been designed to do it. Intelligentsium 22:38, 28 November 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. Mr. Prez (talk) 14:03, 29 November 2009 (UTC)

But wait, could you help me on how to use the tool? I am having some trouble. Mr. Prez (talk) 14:13, 29 November 2009 (UTC)

If you read the instructions carefully, it's pretty easy to use. -- PhantomSteve/talk|contribs\ 14:45, 29 November 2009 (UTC)

pictures

How do you pt pictures on your article? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Mdkbjam (talk • contribs) 19:14, 28 November 2009 (UTC)

The syntax is [[File:Bad Title Example.png|thumb|Caption]]. Add that to an article, replacing Example.png with the name of the image you want to use that's been uploaded to Wikipedia or Commons, and replace Caption with the caption to put under the image. There are other parameters you can use, which are at Wikipedia:Images#Using images. --Mysdaao ^talk 19:48, 28 November 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia account

How do I make a wikipedia acount. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.35.215.180 (talk) 20:28, 28 November 2009 (UTC)

Go to Wikipedia:Account and click the link at the top. --Mysdaao ^talk 20:34, 28 November 2009 (UTC)

Placing images the correct way

I edited two pages to add photos I had taken that I thought would improve the article. I cannot find how to format my submissions correctly so they don't flow improperly or show up in another section of the article.

Here are the links:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carole_Lombard

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skidoo,_California

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated! —Preceding unsigned comment added by LV Norm (talk • contribs) 22:18, 28 November 2009 (UTC)

I'm not exactly sure how you want the pictures to appear, so that precludes me from giving you specific advice. I recommend you look at the Picture tutorial. See if that resolves your problem; if not, feel free to come back here. Xenon54 / talk / 22:30, 28 November 2009 (UTC)

DELETION OF INFORMATION ABOUT THE INTERNATIONAL CONCERT ORGANIST RALPH CUPPER

Dear Sir/Madam, I was surprised to find out that the English Information Page http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ralph_Cupper I added on behalf of the International Concert Organist, Ralph Cupper was deleted. The reason given was code A7 and refers to the fact that the Information supplied was of no importance.

This incenses me as Ralph Cupper is well known in several countries as a Concert Organist and Composer. In addition to this there are several articles about him in other languages on the Wikepedia System.

I would be extremely grateful to receive a reply to my written complaint.

Yours faithfully,

Karin S. Smith, [personal information redacted]

PS I must also mention that your CONTACT US details should also be changed immediately because your contact us side just automatically links in to other sides each giving even more superfluous and missleading information. Therefore it took some time to find this HELP DESK. If the HELP DESK could come up as the first link to the CONTACT US side, this would greatly help users of the system! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.89.187.69 (talk) 23:46, 28 November 2009 (UTC)

Just to clarify, the reason A7 does NOT state that the person was not notable - it states that the article which was deleted did not adequately establish the notability of the person. For clarification on how to establish the notability of a person within an article, please review WP:BIO; or, more specifically in this case, WP:MUSICBIO. It may just be a matter of re-writing the article, this time providing reliable sources that help establish that the subject meets the criteria of notability as defined in the links I provided. --- Barek (talk • contribs) - 23:50, 28 November 2009 (UTC)

(edit conflict)x3 Please do not provide personal contact information; answers will only be given on this page, and provide this information makes you a target for spammers and stalkers. As a response to your original comment: Though a person may be notable, without reliable sources we have no way to verify this. While I cannot see the deleted page (as I am not an administrator) lack of claims of notability (as defined by this guideline) and lack of sources to back said claims are the most common reasons for A7 deletion. Intelligentsium 23:53, 28 November 2009 (UTC)

(e/c*4) The article was deleted because the information that was presented did not show how Mr Cupper was notable enough for inclusion in Wikipedia. An article about the person ideally needs to tell what the person did, and, more importantly, show how the person and his accomplishments are important. Simply being "known in several countries" is not enough; the article also needs to cite reliable sources to verify claims made in the article. Other languages have different guidelines for inclusion and are generally independent from this Wikipedia, hence being on another language's Wikipedia does not automatically justify inclusion. Xenon54 / talk / 23:56, 28 November 2009 (UTC)