Wikipedia:Help desk/Archives/2010 April 8

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April 8

Copy-Editing temp. removal

Resolved

I've just started copy editing, and am getting the hang of it, but I need a quick clarification. If I feel it is up to snuff to remove the copy edit template on the page, can I, or do I need somebody else to do that? Renaissancee (talk) 02:19, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

That's fine, as long as you genuinely believe you addressed the issue raised by the tag(s) in question. --Orange Mike | Talk 02:22, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

Alrighty. Renaissancee (talk) 02:27, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

But Renaissancee, if you delete lines and contents without explanation like you did here, it might create an issue to other editors, especially if you leave a cryptic edit summary "Copy edit?" Do try leaving explanations for unexplained removal of content. ♪ ♫ Wifione ♫ ♪ _―Œ ^{♣Łeave Ξ мessage♣} 08:36, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

From what I can tell, the only parts which were removed were a building address (trivia) and a comment about one particular product (unsourced). Nevertheless, the article is still a stub and still requires significant work, although at least it can be parsed now. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 11:46, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

Transclusion

Hello, just wondering, but what exactly is transclusion on an WP:RfA? Is it when you accept a nom? --The High Fin Sperm Whale 02:48, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

That's where you transclude your RfA subpage to the RfA main page. For example, I could start editing WP:Requests for adminship/Example User, but it would not be considered a live nomination until I placed {{WP:Requests for adminship/Example User}} on WP:RFA. TNXMan 02:52, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

For a further example, look at the current RfA page. Even though Elockid's nomination is currently live, the only thing that shows on the page is {{Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Elockid}}. Hmm. I feel like I've not really explained this well. Does all that make sense? TNXMan 02:55, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

Here, some more dope on transclusion >> Wikipedia:Transclusion (thanks, thanks) :) ♪ ♫ Wifione ♫ ♪ _―Œ ^{♣Łeave Ξ мessage♣} 08:28, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

Possible CC-noncompliance

Resolved

 – Attribution and CC licensing added. Thanks! Calvin 1998 ^(t·c) 21:30, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

This press release seems to include File:LorentzianWormhole.jpg without citing anything. It would appear to be a case of CC-BY-SA noncompliance. No idea what to do, so I thought I'd just put a note here. Calvin 1998 ^(t·c) 03:43, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

I have marked the illegal usage on the file page using the Commons template {{Published}}, which can be used for this purpose if it is given the parameter, |legal=no. I have no idea what follow-up, if any, Commons gives to such non-compliance. There is actually a link on the bottom of the Indiana University page for "Copyright Complaints". I am emailing them now.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 04:09, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

Detailed email sent.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 04:34, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

Well, now the press release cites Commons as the source. All well and good, but CC-BY-SA requires relicensing under CC-BY-SA. It also appears that none of the sites that used the press release have bothered to update their citations, all of them still cite the university [1] [2]. Calvin 1998 ^(t·c) 22:10, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

I got back an email from the University stating they had added attribution. Well they tried at least. "Photo courtesy of the Wikimedia Commons". I guess it is difficult to understand how to comply with these licenses (even by a "copyright compliance officer"), so I have just sent this follow-up email, which I think explains it clearly enough.

Hello Mr. <redacted>.

Thank you for the change. I'm glad the University is trying. However, that is not in compliance with the license. Please see the link I already provided which describes how to comply. To wit:

"When re-using the work or distributing it, you must attribute the work to the author(s) and you must mention the license terms or a link to them. You must make your version available under CC-BY-SA."

"Photo courtesy of the Wikimedia Commons" does not meet either license requirement. Wikimedia Commons is the host, not the author, and you did not mention the license or link to it. The author and copyright holder is Allen McCloud, who is expressly listed as author on the image page under the shortened name, AllenMcC., which links to his Commons user page.

For a real world example of compliant usage, see http://images.businessweek.com/ss/08/10/1017_financial_crisis/6.htm The licensing is directly underneath the image at the top of the page.

Thanks.

--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 23:14, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

Wikipedia Article-User Data Dump

Hi I want the list of all the users(editors) who have contributed to each wikipedia article. I want this information as data dump to use it for my research. I have checked all the available wiki data dump but could got get this information. I do not want to parse a mammoth XML file to extract this information. Is there any preprocessed data dump that has (Article,editor list) information?

Thanks in advance MC —Preceding unsigned comment added by 35.11.51.92 (talk) 04:51, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

Any "data dump" would be in XML-format anyway... in any case, http://en.wikipedia.org/w/api.php?action=query&prop=revisions&rvprop=user&rvlimit=500&titles=Main%20Page , for example, returns the last 500 editors of Main Page. That's really the easiest way to do it. Calvin 1998 ^(t·c) 04:57, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

It is quite possible to get what you want. You'll have to use a filtering software on the dump and look at the 'user_editcount' registry in the 'user' tables (I don't know if I'm making sense to you). You could leave a message at Wikipedia:Village pump (technical) for more support. Before that, check WP:DUMP and Wikimedia download centre to understand some dumps we have. ♪ ♫ Wifione ♫ ♪ _―Œ ^{♣Łeave Ξ мessage♣} 08:21, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

Check the article history. Near the top of the history page, you will see External tools and a link to Revision history statistics. This will give you a list of editors by number of edits. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 10:08, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

Communicating with user talk & how do I learn about my submission

I have two questions about communication. Sorry, I am new to this.

1. Someone leaves a comment in my user talk. It includes a blue name xxxx (talk). I wish to respond, but I dont know how. I click on the blue name and learn about the user, but I can not figure out where to write words that will get to the user.

2. I submit an article. It goes off somewhere. How do I learn what is happening with it? Is it now being reviewed? Is it lost in cyberspace? Is someone now patently waiting for me to do something else? Will an answer be directed to my talk section?

Elkmilok (talk) 09:10, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

1. When you are looking at a user's userpage, click on the "discussion" tab at the top. Then click "new section" to start a new thread (it will appear on the bottom of his talk page). To add a new comment to the same section, click the "edit" button next to the header for that section. Some users specify on their talk page that they will watch your own talk page for a response. In this case, you can simply continue the conversation on your own talk page.

1. Your submission was approved, and can be found at Gustavus Sidenberg. In the future, after creating your submission, you can click the "watch" tab at the top of the page. From then on, you can click on the "my watchlist" link at the top of every Wikipedia page. This will take you to a list of watched articles, which will include your submission. You can see from there the summary of the latest edit, and can click on a link to the article to see the status of your submission. Someguy1221 (talk) 09:17, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

Further, those name in blue left on your talk page: it's actually a two-part (sometimes more, depending how the user has configured his or her signature). If you click on the first part of the signature - the name - it will take you to the user page. It sounds like that's where you've been ending up. But if you click on the "(talk)" part of the name, it will take you to the user talk page instead. There, you should see a tab labelled with a + sign at the very top of the page. You can use that to add a new section, where you can write to the user. Or you can click one of the blue "edit" links already on the page to add to an existing section. Gonzonoir (talk) 09:20, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

The tab will be titled "new section". You only see a "+", Gonzonoir, because you set it that way in your preferences. Someguy1221 (talk) 05:43, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

wikiproject banner fixing

Hi, {{WikiProject Central Asia}} isn't putting the Kazakhstan subproject into the WP1.0 assessment categories properly. Kazakhstan is classed as B quality, but Category:B-Class Kazakhstan articles is empty. Can anyone fix this please? Rd232 ^talk 11:50, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

Additionally, the sub-project Wikipedia:WikiProject Kyrgyzstan, Wikipedia:WikiProject Turkmenistan, Wikipedia:WikiProject Uzbekistan aren't even listed in that Central Asia banner, and Wikipedia:WikiProject Central Asia/Mongolia work group doesn't seem to have any assessment bits at all. Also needs fixing by someone familiar with this. Thanks! Rd232 ^talk 11:53, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

Trouble with translations of articles

Up to a couple of weeks ago when I was on Wikipedia in other languages each article could be automatically or manually translated ... for some reason I am not given this option now. Have you made changes?? So many articles are not available in English ... so I like to check French, Spanish, Italian, German, etc. and work from the auto-translation into English. Grannykratz (talk) 15:45, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

As far as I know, autotranslation has never been part of the Wikipedia software - it is provided by others, such as Google via Google toolbar. Do you use Google toolbar and, if so, have you changed its settings recently? Or are you referring the the interlanguage links that appear in the bottom left hand corner when you view an article that also exists on other language Wikipedias? – ukexpat (talk) 15:53, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

Google Translate at http://translate.google.com can make machine translations of web pages. It is not associated with Wikipedia but it works if you enter the url and language of a Wikipedia article in a supported language. Perhaps your browser had software like Google Toolbar to easily use Google Translate. Many but not all Wikipedia articles have interlanguage links to Wikipedia articles on the same subject in some other languages. The different language versions in Wikipedia are somethimes made by translation and sometimes written independently of each other. I am not aware of any interface changes in Wikipedia affecting translations or other languages. PrimeHunter (talk) 18:55, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

m:Wikipedia Machine Translation Project has this sentence in its lead section:

• "The translation templates have links to machine translations built in automatically, so all readers should be able to access machine translations easily."

but there is no link on "translation templates" and I don't know what templates the page refers to. I see a {{Rough translation}} template, but it does not have an obvious link to a machine translation. There is a {{Translate wikipedia}} template but I doubt the page on Meta refers to that. --Teratornis (talk) 20:09, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

Meta has multiple versions of a page in different languages, but we don't have that here. We're the English Wikipedia, not the multilingual Wikipedia. There are interwikis on the left side of (almost) every page. —MC10 (T•C•GB•L) 20:27, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

Review Page

Resolved

 – Answered at Wikipedia:Requests for feedback/Archive/25#Feedback - European Educational Exchanges-Youth for Understanding. – ukexpat (talk) 17:00, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

Hi,

A few weeks ago I created a new page on Wikipedia for the organisation that I work for. It still has not been reviewd and as such still has the tag at the top of the page. Please can someone review it so that the tag can be removed. The name of the page is: European Educational Exchanges-Youth for Understanding (EEE-YFU).

Many thanks,

EEE-YFU —Preceding unsigned comment added by 217.136.253.131 (talk) 16:32, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

I am just about to answer your identical request at WP:Requests for feedback. – ukexpat (talk) 16:50, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

two user account

trunks8719 and trunks719 are the same people 208.29.67.53 (talk) 18:52, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

Are they using one account to dodge a block on the other? Are they otherwise using the accounts abusively? Maintaining multiple accounts is allowed at Wikipedia; it is only against the rules to use to accounts deceptively or to use them to break other rules. Additionally, besides explaining why you think this is a problem, you should take your concerns to WP:ANI which is better equiped to deal with Wikipedia rules violations. --Jayron32 19:46, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

RfA error

Resolved

 –  – ukexpat (talk) 01:36, 10 April 2010 (UTC)

I have nominated User:Excirial for administratorship, but the RfA is displaying as if User:USERNAME was nomninated for adminstratorship. Please help. Immunize (talk) 19:04, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

I've moved the page to Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Excirial 2 and tweaked the page some. Is this what you needed? TNXMan 19:09, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

Yes, thank you. Immunize (talk) 19:11, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

Before you add very much more to the page, I would suggest waiting for Excirial to accept your nomination. TNXMan 19:15, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

Has Excirial been nominated previously? Immunize (talk) 19:22, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

Yes, you can view the previous nomination at WP:Requests for adminship/Excirial. I've only skimmed it, but it doesn't look like it went well. TNXMan 19:23, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

Do you feel that this RfA will go better, or not? Immunize (talk) 19:26, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

I honestly couldn't say. A lot depends on what s/he has done in the year since the last RfA. Requests for adminship is one of the most difficult things to predict on Wikipedia. Some tilt due to content work, some due conflicts with other users, some on vandal fighting work. There's no way to be sure. TNXMan 19:47, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

Providing an article importance rating

Resolved

 –  – ukexpat (talk) 20:38, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

I am surprised that windscreen wiper has not yet received an importance rating by WikiProject Automobiles. Is there any way that I can propose or request that a rating be made? Can only administrators do this? Chevymontecarlo. 20:00, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

I have assesed it as mid importance for now - it will show up in the Project's articles of mid importance category and someone can change it if they disagree. – ukexpat (talk) 20:09, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

OK. I was fairly surprised as I thought it was a pretty major auto-related article. Chevymontecarlo. 20:11, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

Wikipedia is a work in progress. There is systemic bias in the kinds of people who are likely to donate their time and effort to Wikipedia - i.e. Wikipedia editors do not constitute a uniform cross-section of global society. Thus you may find articles whose current state of development is below their "real importance" because they didn't happen to be important, so far, to anyone who was motivated to put in the time to learn how to edit on Wikipedia. Another problem is the need to find reliable sources for everything we contribute. The availability of reliable sources is far from uniform across topics, and some sources are hard to find from a computer. Many sources exist only in printed form and are much less convenient for Wikipedia editors to find, cite, and verify. We also have a bias toward recentism. But the great thing about Wikipedia is that you can fix anything you see which needs fixing, and is fixable. --Teratornis (talk) 21:55, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

Userbox list?

Resolved

 –  – ukexpat (talk) 20:37, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

Where can I find all the userboxes available on Wikipedia? I know that some people create their own but is there a category or list for it? Thanks. Chevymontecarlo. 20:03, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

Category:Userboxes? – ukexpat (talk) 20:11, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

There is also this list that links to different pages with userboxes. ~SuperHamster Talk Contribs 20:18, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

Thank you for your help. Chevymontecarlo. 20:34, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

general question

can I create a wikipage for my company? and could anyone modify/change it? thanks! 12.49.65.210 (talk) 20:29, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

Not unless it's notable, and even then you are strongly advised not to because of your obvious conflict of interest. And yes, this is the encyclopedia that anyone can edit. There are other outlets such as WikiCompany. – ukexpat (talk) 20:34, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

And unless your company's page became semi-protected, yes, anyone could modify the page. Chevymontecarlo. 20:36, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

(edit conflict)Simply: No to question 1 and yes to question 2. You cannot create an article for your company since you work for them; see the Conflict of Interest guidelines. In general, we don't write about ourselves, our friends, or the companies or organizations we belong to because our connection to them prevents us from maintaining a neutral point of view towards them. So, you cannot create an article about your company. However, if your company has been written about extensively in sources independent of it (see Wikipedia:Notability, that is if people writing for magazines, newspapers, journals, or in books, have written long articles about your company, discussing it and its history, and the people doing that writing aren't part of your company, then be sure that someone will eventually write about your company at Wikipedia as well... --Jayron32 20:38, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

See also Wikipedia:FAQ/Organizations. Few company articles are protected. PrimeHunter (talk) 20:39, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

Image help

There are three images used on the Goodison Park article that are suspect.

These are:

• File:Goodison-park-1913-royal-visit.jpg - I think copyright may have expired
• File:Gwladys-street-bombing.jpg - Originally taken in September 1940, no alternative image is known, copyright may have expired.
• File:Northern-ireland-england-goodison-park.jpg - originally cited as book cover but it was said I was stretching the usage of 'book cover'

Please could someone help me apply the most appropriate license-types ?

The article Goodison Park has been put up for Good Article status and the image licenses are the only major issue to be resolved. TheBigJagielka (talk) 21:47, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

Hmm... this is quite difficult. The first, if anonymous, is expired. If not, however, the copyright lasts until 70 years after the last author's death. The same with the second. The third is most certainly still copyrighted, fair use should be OK, however. Calvin 1998 ^(t·c) 22:25, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

See also the Commons information about UK copyright + for the US status the hirtle chart. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 00:21, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

translations of articles

Wikipedia is great, the wealth and breadth of information is astounding.

However, when researching various subjects on wikipedia I've found that the same subject in different languages brings up different information. For example, ankylosing spondylitis in English has some very valuable information but the same subject in Spanish (espondilitis anquilosante) has similar but significantly different information. Some critical info on the Spanish board is not available on the English site and vice versa.

Is it not possible to amalgamate all versions, translate the final product and promulgate it in all languages? —Preceding unsigned comment added by LuigiK (talk • contribs) 21:48, 8 April 2010

This is a very hard problem; see the links under WP:EIW#Translate. It is a lot easier for people to notice this type of problem than to fix it. Only a small number of people would have sufficient fluency in the languages and knowledge of the topic to edit out the disparities in different language versions of a given article. This might also open the way to content disputes across the languages. It's hard enough to edit harmoniously on one Wikipedia, let alone two or more. I would guess that most Wikipedians do the bulk of their edits on just one or maybe two language Wikipedias. Thus it is quite likely for the various language versions to diverge. There could also be disparity in the source material available in the various languages. The Wikipedia articles would tend to reflect that disparity, since we could expect the Spanish-speakers to prefer citing Spanish-language sources, and so on. All the Wikipedias are works in progress. Maybe in 20 years the content will be more uniform across languages, or maybe it won't. It will all depend on what people like you decide to do. --Teratornis (talk) 22:09, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

There is the possibility of further progress in machine translation which would make this problem easier to solve. I find the results of Google Translate often usable, when I know something about the subject already. The current state of machine translation is inadequate for generating articles reliable enough for someone who knows very little about a subject. Maybe in 20 or 50 years, machine translation will begin to rival the best human performance. --Teratornis (talk) 22:25, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

wysiwyg wiki editor

I wonder of there is a tool which allows to edit pages in wysiwyg, like MS word? The basic editor in Wiki is so hopeless unpractical. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 192.12.78.250 (talk) 21:48, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

wikEd is good (I use it myself), but it requires having an account. It's not really WYSIWYG, but it is pretty close. I hear the Usability Initiative is working on one, but I'm not sure as to the status of that. Calvin 1998 ^(t·c) 22:13, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

People have tried; see WP:EIW#WYSIWYG. However, your claim that wikitext markup language is impractical is incorrect; if that were true, Wikipedia could not have become one of the top five Web properties. Millions of people have mastered editing on Wikipedia sufficiently to build the world's largest knowledge-sharing collaboration. Actually, learning the markup is the easy part (see the cheatsheet for the basics); the hard part is grasping Wikipedia's complex and unintuitive policies and guidelines which govern the content we can add here. Wikipedia deletes thousands of articles written by people who figured out how to use Wikipedia's markup language, but did not understand the rules for content. --Teratornis (talk) 22:17, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

Hi 192.12.78.250. You might have a point that new users to Wikipedia (as one presumes you are) might not be that conversant with using the basic editing facilities. It gets easier over time. I use various editing tools to help. But still, would recommend that you try out both an editor and the basic wiki editing interface - as that'll give you a hands on idea of the syntax of various commands, especially the basic necessary ones, like adding a citation. Don't worry about making mistakes. There're many editors who'll be ready to help you. Just leave a note out here. ♪ ♫ Wifione ♫ ♪ _―Œ ^{♣Łeave Ξ мessage♣} 05:28, 9 April 2010 (UTC)