Wikipedia:Help desk/Archives/2009 October 31

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October 31

Plots Behind Songs

Hi, I would like to add the plots behind a few songs that are in an article of my interest. Is this appropriate to do on the artist's article? It'd be under the album the songs are off of, and I'd write the plot of the songs. So, should I go ahead and write what the song is about, or just leave it out? I want to do this, cause the sections of this certain album isn't very long, and I was wondering what else I could add. Thanks.. Moptopstyle1 00:22, 1 November 2009 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Moptopstyle1 (talk • contribs)

Do you have reliable sources for the plots? If so, then I see no reason why a short plot should be present under the song's album. If you do not have sources, then I would say not. -- PhantomSteve (Contact Me, My Contribs) 11:39, 1 November 2009 (UTC)

Incorrect date

The date stated on the main page states that it is currently October 31, when it is October 30. Is there a reason for this? Can it be reverted? Mr. Prez (talk) 00:28, 31 October 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia uses UTC time like in your signature above. PrimeHunter (talk) 00:46, 31 October 2009 (UTC)

Thanks Mr. Prez (talk) 00:53, 31 October 2009 (UTC)

But wait, on all other days it states that the day is the day in my time zone. Mr. Prez (talk) 14:15, 1 November 2009 (UTC)

Whether there is a difference in the date depends on the time of day. Your user page says you reside in Vermont. That is UTC-5 so from 19:00 to 0:00 your local time I would expect you to see the next day where the main page uses UTC time. PrimeHunter (talk) 00:55, 2 November 2009 (UTC)

Thanks again. Mr. Prez (talk) 17:48, 2 November 2009 (UTC)

edit a section of a page which seems to be an imbedded image/text from somewhere else?

I am providing fact and updates to the page : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rspca

The section called 'Rank Insignia' seems to be an embedded section .... it is factually wrong and out of date ... how do I edit it? Thanks. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Zimo90 (talk • contribs) 02:25, 31 October 2009 (UTC)

You would need to edit the {{RSPCA rank table}} template, but first read Help:Template so you understand how this works. Special:Whatlinkshere/Template:RSPCA rank table shows that the template only appears in the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals article, so you don't have to worry about messing up any other articles. You might want to test your edits by copying the template's wikitext to a user sandbox page first, like: User:Zimo90/Sandbox. --Teratornis (talk) 02:43, 31 October 2009 (UTC)

Many thanks, much appreciated and glad to be adding accurate content to Wiki. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Zimo90 (talk • contribs) 02:58, 31 October 2009 (UTC)

Use of a Photo

Would I be allowed to use a photo I screen captured from a video? BlueJaysFan32 (talk) 04:23, 31 October 2009 (UTC)

The copyright on such a photo would be the same as the copyright on the video itself. If this is a TV broadcast or a movie, it would fall under the non-free content policy. Someguy1221 (talk) 06:10, 31 October 2009 (UTC)

Need someone to fix a complex template used in >400 articles

Resolved

 – Thanks Gadget850

I noticed Template:Infobox Dotcom company was not working correctly at Tagged: a bunch of parameters that were included in the wikitext were not visible in the article itself, and the word "Headquarters" was showing in the infobox in the article but had not been included in the infobox's wikitext. So I went to Template:Infobox Dotcom company and noticed the word "Headquarters" floating mysteriously near the top of the page, as should be visible in this older version of that page. In a crude attempt to fix the problem, I deleted the text associated with the Headquarters parameter ([1]). This removed the floating "Headquarters" both on the template page and at Tagged, but the parameters that weren't showing in the article before are still not showing. Adrian J. Hunter^{(talk•contribs)} 05:30, 31 October 2009 (UTC)

The problem is not browser-specific as it occurs with Firefox or Internet Explorer. I'll cross-post to Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Templates. Adrian J. Hunter^{(talk•contribs)} 06:22, 31 October 2009 (UTC)

Replied at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Templates ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 11:21, 31 October 2009 (UTC)

adding a page.

how do i add a page ? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Lochnez (talk • contribs) 07:32, 31 October 2009 (UTC)

A Wizard is available to walk you through these steps. See the Article Wizard.

Thank you.

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 with which all articles should comply. As Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, articles must not contain original research, must be written from a neutral point of view, should cite 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 Wikipedia:Your first article. You might also look at 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. An Article Wizard is available to walk you through creating an article. ≈ Chamal ^talk ¤ 07:50, 31 October 2009 (UTC)

Multiple references

Is there a guideline for how many references a statement should have? With | this talk-page edit (beginning with the second sentence of my fourth paragraph) I declared that four references for a single, specific and uncontroversial sentence was overkill and I actually had someone counter with a polite version of "Yeah? Who says? I think the opposite is true."

An example of the sentences receiving four references each are "Scotland Yard received a complaint." (Four refs for one complaint?) The article (Stephen Gately) contains at least ten sentences that unnecessarily receive three or more refs, including three refs attesting to a single Twitter tweet, five refs for the location of a home, and six refs for a statement by the family's solicitor. There are several sentences with two refs where that seems unnecessarily, but I am pointing out the most egregious cases.

I can (and plan to) make a compelling argument on that talk page against redundancy, and I also plan to edit the article further both to reduce the excessive refs and to reduce the degree it unfolds posthumous tabloid elements, but given the question ("Where does it say that?"), it would help if I could point to someplace; if there is no place where excessive linking is dissuaded, I suggest administrators move to add such a guideline. As my post on that talk page shows, I understand there are sentences that require several refs for their broadness or for their controversial nature, but when that is not at issue, the guideline should dissuade from triple- and quadruple-referencing of simple, specific sentences. Thanks in advance for pointing me to a statement or to a discussion where this might proceed in creating one, Abrazame (talk) 09:01, 31 October 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia:CITE#When_to_cite_sources states: "[it is] at the editor's discretion [whether] to include as many proper and correct citations as desired to affirm the statements made. However citation is only required as specified in the following list of circumstances." (follow the link for the list of circumstances). In my personal opinion there is nothing wrong with having lots of refs, and as far as I know there is no policy against it whatsoever. Regarding your suggestion that administrators move to create such a guideline, be aware that guidelines aren't actually created by administrators, but are formed as the result of community consensus. Cheers Spitfire^Tally-ho! 09:29, 31 October 2009 (UTC)

you could try proposing a guideline at Wikipedia talk:Linking and/or WP:VP to get an idea about whether there would be consensus for something like that. Sssoul (talk) 10:44, 31 October 2009 (UTC)

Why do you oppose multiple references? Is it simply a redundancy argument, or do you object to the ugly appearance of an article with many examples of three or more footnotes dangling at the end of a single sentence? If it is the former, I don't see the harm being sufficient to create a policy against it. I agree that an uncontroversial fact requires a single reference for explanation. However, I can easily imagine an editor finding a second reference, perhaps discussing the point in a much better way. Useless arguments might ensue if you remove the first reference, based upon your argument that your reference is "better". Easier to simply allow both.

If your argument is that it makes the appearance ugly, I agree. While there are "only" 124 footnotes, many are used multiple times, so there are almost 200 footnotes in a 4000 word article. It is visually ugly.

What I would really like to see happen is to make all footnotes invisible to the reader, and displayable as an option to the reader who wants to check sources, I don't expect that to happen soon. As a fallback, you can put multiple references in a single footnote. While not desired in scientific articles, perhaps it would be acceptable in a non-scientific article. To see an example, check out this sandbox, and note that footnote 1, 5 and others have more than one citation.--SPhilbrickT 13:21, 31 October 2009 (UTC)

While I agree that the number of references is subject to discretion, listing every reference you can find for a particular fact is overkill and part of discretion is using some discrimination. Some of the sentences in the article in question had 6 reference links after them so you have to ask whether there was anything in the sixth that wasn't in the first five. Perhaps one criterion should be that if a strong reference is given then you don't need add weaker references. So for example if the BBC World Service is cited then you don't need to cite the Somerset Mailer as well. I disagree with the more is better argument. Too much of anything, even references, is a bad idea. Btw, perhaps this discussion should be on the WP:Village Pump instead of the help desk.--RDBury (talk) 17:57, 31 October 2009 (UTC)

Per the advice of two editors here, I have introduced the subject at the Village Pump (policy) [2] and invite consideration of and comment about the proposal there.

To SPhilbrick, while I see the elegance of your idea to make footnotes invisible, frankly I think that when several refs are called for, the emphasis given by enumerating those in the body of the text can be a plus. Yes, to use your word, I think an overly-footnoted article is "uglier" than one where footnotes appear where necessary, but no, that's not the basis of my suggestion. I think it's sloppy and irresponsible to have an implicit sky's-the-limit policy regarding multiple references. I have conceded at the article's talk page, here, and at the Village Pump, that there are circumstances under which more than one reference is called for or even required, be it by the broadness of the statement, a claim of universality, the statement's controversial nature, or the inability of the editors involved to reach a consensus about which ref gives the most appropriate tone or context. However, other reasons for multiple refs could be zealotry (LOOK at all the articles about my pet subject!!!!!), laziness (they all came up when I Googled it, I didn't have time to read them all and choose), indecision (I'm just gonna throw it all up there because I expect someone else to come along and decide which of this should be whittled down), spamming, me-tooism, etc.

To your point about useless arguments ensuing, while of course I see the validity of the scenario you depict, its implication is that as the Wikipedia project continues, we should expect to see the average number of references increase ad infinitum? So what does that mean for articles that begin with three, four, five or six refs per sentence? In the specific case of the Gately article, this clotted glut of references seems to have been added the day the section was written. While I am not opposing the practice of editorial discretion in such matters, discretion is not in evidence viz a viz the multiplicity of references in the article in question. I don't propose that a guideline remove editorial discretion, I'm suggesting that one illuminate what such discretion might (and what it should not) be. Rules are made to be broken for good reason. That's the great thing about Wikipedia, any rule we come up with would have the ability to be swiftly re-molded by compelling situations that arise and truly justify additional exemption/inclusion/shading. Abrazame (talk) 12:35, 2 November 2009 (UTC)

How to past an article?DanielZ16 (talk) 10:30, 31 October 2009 (UTC)

How to past an article?DanielZ16 (talk) 10:30, 31 October 2009 (UTC)

See #adding a page. above. +Angr 10:40, 31 October 2009 (UTC)

Citewebbing external links

Well, the header says it all really. I can't believe I don't know this, but when adding external links are you supposed to use {{citeweb}}, etc.? Lord Spongefrog, (I am the Czar of all Russias!) 11:19, 31 October 2009 (UTC)

Those are citation templates, and are used for formatting references in articles. references and external links are two different things, and these are usually used for the former. You're not "supposed" to use them in any article; they are just there to help with the formatting. You can go without them if you want to. ≈ Chamal ^talk ¤ 12:09, 31 October 2009 (UTC)

Maybe I should have said "does it help to use citation templates in external links". It's not because I don't want to, it's because, odd as it may sound, I love typing out the citeweb template. Does it help? Lord Spongefrog, (I am the Czar of all Russias!) 12:28, 31 October 2009 (UTC)

You can use them in external links, but that's not what they are supposed to be used for. External links should be descriptive and show how they are relevant to the article's subject. References (and citation templates) on the other hand give details about the link. So, to make it short, it's not recommended. See Wikipedia:EL#External_links_section about this. ≈ Chamal ^talk ¤ 12:36, 31 October 2009 (UTC)

And BTW, if you use a script like refToolbar, you won't have to type out the whole template manually. ≈ Chamal ^talk ¤ 12:37, 31 October 2009 (UTC)

No, it doesn't really help at all. The cite web template includes things like author and access-date that are only useful when citing the website. Using the template to simply list an external link is definitely overkill. Xenon54 / talk / 12:38, 31 October 2009 (UTC)

Okay, I just thought it might prevent link rot or something too. I actually do use the reftools tool thing, but I always forget about it (the bit I said about typing was sort of a metaphor). I don't really citeweb the external links anyway, Lord Spongefrog, (I am the Czar of all Russias!) 12:56, 31 October 2009 (UTC)

淡路島モンキーセンター

<text removed as copyvio> —Preceding unsigned comment added by Awajikiwi (talk • contribs) 11:51, 31 October 2009 (UTC)

From what I can tell, this is a post about the Awaji Island Monkey Center, and is not a question but text you lifted directly from their website at www.monkey-center.com. This is the English Wikipedia so we aren't well suited to answer questions in Japanese (the Japanese help desk is here), and we can't accept large chunks of copyrighted text lifted directly from existing sources, and this help desk is not the place to post the text of an article in any event.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 12:20, 31 October 2009 (UTC)

I searched "淡路島モンキーセンター" on the Japanese Wikipedia - I couldn't find an article about it. WhisperToMe (talk) 13:07, 31 October 2009 (UTC)

Reviewing Articles

Hey everyone. You know at the top of most articles is the quality of it (B class etc.), I was wondering how this was reviewed and by who. Regarding thw who part of it, do you have to be an admin or a member of an assessing group to do this? If not, could I review the unassessed articles (as long as I am not the creator) myself, as I am very interested in doing this. Regards. AtheWeatherman 16:20, 31 October 2009 (UTC)

Articles are assessed for quality mainly via the Wikiprojects structure. There's a description of how the process works at WP:Assessment, and Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team/Assessment is also useful. A good way to get started is to join a Wikiproject covering an area where you'd like to help, and use their project page to find out how their assessment is organised, and how to get involved. Karenjc 17:14, 31 October 2009 (UTC)

Redirect

I have made a page called Jack E. Foley. I was wondering how to make a redirect. Thank you!.--Martin (talk) 16:46, 31 October 2009 (UTC)

This WP:REDIRECT can help you in redirecting pages--NotedGrant Talk 16:52, 31 October 2009 (UTC)

Just as a matter of interest, has there been some consensus reached that the members of Easy Company are de facto notable in Wikipedia terms? If so, is it just by virtue of them being featured in the TV series? While I don't doubt or devalue their service and sacrifice, are they any more notable than any other servicemen from WWII? (leaving aside those who qualify as VC winners and similar)  – ukexpat (talk) 18:49, 3 November 2009 (UTC)

health capital versus human capital

please tell the differences between the two and also tell how are they corelated —Preceding unsigned comment added by Kapset 69 (talk • contribs) 17:04, 31 October 2009 (UTC)

Please do your own homework.

Welcome to the Wikipedia Help desk. Your question appears to be a homework question. I apologize if this is a misevaluation, but it is our policy here to not do people's homework for them, but to merely aid them in doing it themselves. Letting someone else do your homework does not help you learn how to solve such problems.
Please attempt to solve the problem yourself first. You can search Wikipedia or search the Web.
If you need help with a specific part of your homework, the Reference desk can help you grasp the concept. Do not ask knowledge questions here, just those about using Wikipedia. Intelligentsium 17:08, 31 October 2009 (UTC)

user rights

why are there log entries for sysoppings but not desypposings —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.229.214.62 (talk) 17:57, 31 October 2009 (UTC)

There are, but those actions are made on meta.wikimedia.org and thus the logs for those actions are there as well. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 21:51, 31 October 2009 (UTC)

Ipod app download stuck

hi i just started using your wiki ipod app and iv had to download the 2gb worth of files. My problem is that it says its downloading but the status bar isnt moving and hasnt moved for about 10 hours even thought iv left my ipod in the downloading state..is there a problem with your servers? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 118.100.140.150 (talk) 19:16, 31 October 2009 (UTC)

It's more likely a problem on your end than ours. Try asking at the Computing reference desk, the place for knowledge questions. Intelligentsium 20:11, 31 October 2009 (UTC)

Related Changes

Is there a way for me to use the related changes button on my page User:TonyTheTiger/creations with it excluding changes to articles in User:TonyTheTiger/Header_template?--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTM) 23:22, 31 October 2009 (UTC)

I am going to reformat it so it isn't an issue.--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTM) 06:09, 1 November 2009 (UTC)