Wikipedia:Help desk/Archives/2010 December 10

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December 10

Editing a page

How can I edit a page? For example, I would like to submit some interesting information to the page about Duncan Arizona. Duncan is my hometown, and has a fascinating history. I am certain I could submit some info far more revealing to investigators then which channels we get on the television. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.182.73.19 (talk) 04:01, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

You edit it in a similar way to how you edited this page! However, before adding any information to an article, make you that you have reliable sources which verify the information. Your personal knowledge is not sufficient, it needs to be information available at independent sources - newspapers, books, etc -- PhantomSteve.alt/talk\^{[alternate account of Phantomsteve]} 04:25, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

But if you can find such sources, you are very welcome to improve the article in any way you can. --ColinFine (talk) 08:13, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:How to edit a page. PrimeHunter (talk) 13:40, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

Hawaii Bowl 2010

Aloha, I am now living in Chiang Mai Thailand and wish to watch the Hawaii Tulsa game on my Mac. How do I go about it? Does ESPN air in this country, and Chiang Mai specifically? thank you. 110.164.31.110 (talk) 04:34, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

Hello. I suspect, based on your question, that you found one of our over three million articles, and thought that we were directly affiliated in some way with that subject. Please note that you are at Wikipedia, the free online encyclopedia that anyone can edit, and this page is a help desk for asking questions related to using the encyclopedia. Thus, we have no inside track on the subject of your question. You can, however, search our vast catalogue of articles by typing a subject into the search field on the upper right side of your screen. If you cannot find what you are looking for, we have a reference desk, divided into various subject areas, where asking knowledge questions is welcome. Best of luck. – ukexpat (talk) 05:05, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

Provide an Option for donation in Indian Currency

Hey

Am a regular user of wikipedia and I wish to contribute a little amount. Since I am an Indian, I wish to pay in Indian Rupee. Do you have any option for this. Or can you add INR as an option for donation? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 192.100.112.203 (talk) 06:10, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

Unfortunately, PayPal don't accept rupees. However, does this page help? -- PhantomSteve.alt/talk\^{[alternate account of Phantomsteve]} 07:00, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

How do I remove the banner from the top from the founder and, currently, Wikimedia Executive Director Sue Gardner?

I find Wikipedia to be a great resource. But there are better ways to get your message across.

You need money? Add advertisements. Plaster your pages with them. It won't bother me in the least. I'd rather you funded your organization with legitimate advertisements rather than sit on the internet street corner pan handling for a handout. By the way, not for profit is just a tax filing status -- they all make money, hand over fist. So consider this a simple suggestion and fair warning. I'd like to see this site continue and so would you, so do your best to avoid the decline of this web site and it will become better in the future. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Tethyss (talk • contribs) 06:48, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

There is an option, as your are a registered user, in 'my preferences' to suppress the banners. With regards to advertising on Wikipedia, this has been discussed on many occasions, but the consensus has always been against the idea. There is always the possibility of appearing to being influenced by the advertisers. Instead, we have an annual fundraiser, where this won't happen. If Coke had adverts on here, in theory they could say "remove negative comment xyz from the article about our company - even though it is sourced at a reliable source - or we will take our advertising away". Ok, that may not happen - but it would always be perceived as a potential problem. There are ways to hide fund raising banners, but those can't have any catches... -- PhantomSteve.alt/talk\^{[alternate account of Phantomsteve]} 07:10, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

And see WP:PERENNIAL#Advertising. The death of Wikipedia has been predicted many times in the past. Nothing lasts forever, so eventually such a prediction will come true. But Wikipedia seems robust enough for now to survive the current fundraising campaign which has drawn a handful of complaints on the Help desk, out of the several hundred million unique visitors to Wikipedia per month. The annual fundraising campaigns don't last that long anyway. --Teratornis (talk) 04:09, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

crossbow mote works problem

hi

Did anybody used TOSSIM through crossbow moteworks in cygwin.

while I using TOSSIM for the following two application I got error like

for blink application error like this

python2.5-config: not found finally ends with make: ***[sim-exe] Error

for RadioCountLeds application error like this

javac not found

but i checked python -V it shows that python2.3.4

help me to fix this error please

(email redacted) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.193.155.67 (talk) 07:18, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

This question belongs on the Wikipedia:Reference desk/Computing. As Cygwin is a somewhat specialized compatibility layer, you may or may not find any help there. --Teratornis (talk) 07:48, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

Incidentally, the first error is because the version of blink that you are using requires Python 2.5 and you are using Python 2.3. The other error would appear to indicate that you need lavac installed, but you don't have it on the system. I'm afraid I can't help more, as Teratornis says, you'll have to go to the Computing Reference Desk for more help -- PhantomSteve.alt/talk\^{[alternate account of Phantomsteve]} 08:20, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

Homework question

Define electronics in own words without using standard definition And what are the successful devices of electronics,who are the persons behind it??? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 14.194.200.132 (talk) 09:20, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

I'm sorry, but we're not here to do your homework for you. Using Wikipedia searches you'll be able to find plenty of useful information, but it's up to you to put into an appropriate form for the answer to your assignment. - David Biddulph (talk) 10:56, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

Creative Commons

These's an image licensed under CC-by or CC-by-sa, with the author's name, e-mail, website, signature or other infomation visibly in the image itself. if I modify the image, removing these infomation in the image, but keeping them in the image metadata or image description page, is that still possibly a violation of the CC-by license, which states in its human-readable summary that "you must attribute the work in the manner specified by the author or licensor"? --Tomchen1989 (talk) 11:14, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

It's a good question, but you may get a faster and more informed response if you ask it at WP:MCQ. --Jayron32 13:39, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

Conflict question.

Hello, I have a question relating to discussion taking place in planeshift (video game) article. There appears to have been an editing war going on for some time and one of the users has said that the article should be ignored and that people should instead use the wiki hosted by the dev team ofthe game in question to make the article, said user is also advertising the alternative wiki in his userpage my question is what is wiki policy on situations like this? It would appear the user has clear conflicts of interest but I am new to being a wiki editor and I would rather operate on the side of caution. — Preceding unsigned comment added by RadStyles (talk • contribs) 12:35, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

The editor in question has just returned from a 48 hour block, and I guess that a longer block will follow soon if his behaviour continues. - David Biddulph (talk) 12:42, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

Technical/Editorial problem in a page

Hi

in page http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MVC I tried to edit the last part i.e. "Other" and add this information:"MVC in medicine also may refer to Motor Vehicle Crash". but unfortunately there ino edit option in this part. Regards Behnam Behroozi — Preceding unsigned comment added by Behnambehroozi (talk • contribs) 12:39, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

There is an edit button for the "Other" section, but there is already any entry for Motor vehicle collision, which is close to what you planned to enter. - David Biddulph (talk) 12:45, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

The section edit link is to the right of the section heading. I'm just guessing here but maybe you thought it should have been below the section text. See also Wikipedia:Manual of Style (lead section)#Editing the lead section. PrimeHunter (talk) 12:59, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

link between an english wiki page and another in french.

trying to put a link between one page in english and another one in french ? it is not the same from french page to english. Can you help? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ildiko Dao (talk • contribs) 15:05, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

If you mean how to add interwiki links from this English Wikipedia to the French one, well, very simply by adding this kind of text:

[[fr:Example]]

to an article in English Wikipedia. DARTH SIDIOUS 2 ^(Contact) 15:20, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

Pronunciation

More of a suggestion than a question. Why doesn't Wikipedia include pronunciation guide. My students use it a lot and it would be so helpful when they look up a name, for instance if the English pronunciation was included. How hard would that be? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.48.7.13 (talk) 16:06, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

Wikipedia is not a dictionary. That's more a dictionary component than an encyclopedia. --Orange Mike | Talk 16:13, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

Well, Orangemike, Wikipedia DOES provide pronunciation guides for many of its articles, especially where the pronunciation is nonintuitive for native English speakers. Many articles use the International Phonetic Alphabet to help users pronounce words. For Mr. 68.48.7.13, if you need help with IPA, there is a helpful guide located at Wikipedia:IPA, including a handy pronunciation guide with English analogues to show sounds that IPA letters represent. That some of the articles do not have pronunciation guides doesn't say anything more than no-one has bothered to add them; Wikipedia is an all-volunteer project and when something isn't done, it just means that no one has been bold enough to do it. --Jayron32 16:20, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

One problem with providing pronunciations is that of which English you provide them for. For me, "court" and "caught" sound the same, but "cot" sounds different. For others "cot" and "caught" sound the same. There is some value in giving pronuncations of non-English names (as is quite often done), but not much beyond that. --ColinFine (talk) 17:42, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

Given that few people are familiar with IPA, one can also upload sound files of pronunciation(s) and add them to articles along with the IPA pronunciation(s). Covering multiple varieties of English is also useful, given the sometimes sharp differences. Also we have a {{Wiktionary}} template which generates a link to a Wiktionary article when one exists for the subject of a Wikipedia article. By adding the template to a Wikipedia article, you enable readers to get Wiktionary's pronunciation information "for free". Pronunciation information is helpful, not only because some words on Wikipedia are obscure, but also because the English Wikipedia is one of the most widely read sites on the Web, and not all readers are fluent in English (of any variety). --Teratornis (talk) 00:55, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

As another example of regional differences, American speakers prounounce the words circuitry and secretary quite differently (with three and four syllables respectively), but I've heard English speakers pronounce the latter much as I would pronounce the former. Much to my confusion as an undergraduate student, an alarmingly long time ago. --Teratornis (talk) 01:02, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

Need someone with a NYT online subscription to check out a reference for me

I have recently created an article on V. Everit Macy, and the New York Times did an extensive obit on him in 1930 when he died. Since I don't have an NYT subscription, it is behind a paywall here I am using the article abstract right now in the article, but the information there is minimal. I am looking for one of two things. If someone is feeling bold, they could update the V. Everit Macy with whatever information is in the obit regarding his life, and the manner and specifics of his death. Otherwise, if someone could possibly email me the text of the article, I could do it myself. Either way is fine by me, I just need the article updated. --Jayron32 16:31, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

WP:REX may be the place to ask. Bencherlite^Talk 16:39, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

You might also want to check if your local library has either a copy of the newspaper or a subscription to a database that would have the article in question. -- Bk314159 (Talk to me and find out what I've done) 16:43, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

Thanks, I'll ask at WP:REX. --Jayron32 16:46, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

Email me.--Wehwalt (talk) 16:48, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

Just did. --Jayron32 17:20, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

Lost page

I have created a page for Lawrence Holofcener. I saved it many times so my IP address was recorded. I accidently exited the page and cannot find it anymore. Is there some place I can insert my IP address and find what I worked on. I didn't open an account until after (stupidly)I had created the page. It kept saying it was saved, howver. Help!!! Thanks!```` — Preceding unsigned comment added by Holofcener (talk • contribs) 17:25, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

I'm sorry, but I don't see where Lawrence Holofcener as ever existed as an article. I also looked at the space where anonymous users can submit articles, WP:AFC, and did not see anything there by that name either. Did you click "save page" or "show preview"? TNXMan 17:29, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

(edit conflict) If you go to the "My contributions" tab, it will bring up a list of contributions under your username. If you replace the username in the URL of your browser with the IP address, it will bring up a list of contributions made by that address. --Jayron32 17:30, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

You might also want to read the policy on conflicts of interest because it looks like you have one. -- Bk314159 (Talk to me and find out what I've done) 17:35, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

I don't understand what that means. My husband is a well-known artist and many things are written about him, but Wikipedia should have the facts from the source it seems to me. Also I have tried to put in the IP address and nothing comes. I saved the page many times. Thanks for trying to help, however. I'll just have to start over I guess. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Holofcener (talk • contribs) 17:59, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

We understand your feeling that you should be the source. However, we can't just have people call you on the phone to confirm the facts in the article every time they have a question! Wikipedia articles are required to be verifiable, which means we need reliable sources to double-check any fact in the article. Also, Wikipedia articles are required to be presented from a neutral point of view. Being married to the subject of an article means that you may lack the objective perspective to present a neutral point of view. These are core Wikipedia policies, and non-negotiable. --Jayron32 18:03, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

Thank you for this information. Is the Orlando Sentinel a reliable source or yourselves as you have many references to my husband's work over the years. Please explain why you wouldn't want his bio to complete and accurate. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Holofcener (talk • contribs) 18:17, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

I agree that Lawrence Holofcener is notable. COI doesn't prevent you writing an article; it just requires reliable sources. Kittybrewster ☎ 18:31, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

That, and the ability to write from a neutral point of view -- that's the most common failure of COI editors. – ukexpat (talk) 19:17, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

Once notability by Wikipedia standards is established,,such as by multiple reliable and independent sources having significant coverage of him, or for an artist by such additional factors as winning important awards, his works being in the permanent collections of major galleries, the article is justified. At that point, additional biographical details which do not show up in reviews or his work might be fleshed out by bio details from his personal website, which would count for little in establishing notability, but which make a more complete article once notability is established. In bio articles I have written or expanded, interviews with local newspapers have often provided many interesting details of the person's early life, education, or opinions. The latter information may be well known to his spouse, but such personal knowledge on the part of a friend or relative just is unsuitable as an encyclopedia reference. Details of education and family might be referenced to "Who's Who" or a simiilar published source, which again provides verification but does not establish notability. Edison (talk) 20:19, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

The various Who's Who volumes are seldom reliable sources. --Orange Mike | Talk 20:28, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

Sez Who? They do not generally establish notability, but they are a good source or information on parents, education, and family. They are certainly as good as an autobiography, since the information is often user submitted. Edison (talk) 20:40, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

That's exactly my point. The listings are usually sourced to the subject, and thus cannot be relied upon in any substantive matter(s). --Orange Mike | Talk 17:48, 13 December 2010 (UTC) used to have a listing himself

Some new users get confused by the interface and get the false impression their edit was saved. If you edited a page that was later deleted then only administrators like me can see the edits at Special:Contributions. If you post your IP address, or mail it to me at Special:EmailUser/PrimeHunter in case you don't want to publish it, then I can see whether it has saved edits. Note that many Internet connections do not have a static IP address. PrimeHunter (talk) 21:00, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

XXXCupid.com

I wrote about this site and how it is a scam to help others not become prey to it. The attack is from the site, not from me. The truth of what I wrote can be verified if you google XXXCupid.com. My article was almost instantly deleted. I do not understand this as my article was spawned to help people. The site is a scam, why are you protecting these frauds??????????

I am inclined to think that if I wrote truthfully about Hitler, you would not allow that either?

Please explain why protecting the proven guilty is your top priority. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Thetruthhelps (talk • contribs) 17:38, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

Nobody is protecting anybody. We only accepted information which has been written about by reputable sources - that is our purpose. What you find in Google may or may not include some reputable sources about the site; I haven't looked. But unless you reference reliable sources - not for example forums, which anybody could put anything into - the article won't stick. --ColinFine (talk) 17:46, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

We are not a consumer advocacy website, nor a newspaper. We are not here to publish your would-be expose. We are a reference project. Your "article" was deleted because it was a totally unsourced attack page. Additionally, it would probably have been deleted anyway, under our category for speedy deletion A7, because it was about a non-notable website. Please discuss the substance of these matters, rather than throwing around melodramatic assertions that are blatantly contrary to the facts. --Orange Mike | Talk 17:48, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

And note that truth, per se is not what Wikipedia is about, but rather verifiability. If you want to publicize your original experiences with something, there are many social networking sites you can use. For example, Facebook has groups for and against almost every imaginable cause. --Teratornis (talk) 03:17, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

How to insert infobox, images?

I cannot figure out how to insert an infobox into my article. (I've located an appropriate template.) Also, how does one insert images into that template? Help would be appreciated!Wrstewart (talk) 19:33, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

For the infobox, I've added one to Thornton Friends School. Just go in and fill in the information you have. TNXMan 19:37, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

You are referring to Thornton Friends School (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)? (It always helps to link to the article in question). First I have reverted the edits that you made to Template:Infobox school/doc - you do not add add your edits to the template itself or to the documentation page, you add the "Empty syntax" as set out on the doc page to the text of the article and complete the relevant fields/parameters therein. – ukexpat (talk) 19:41, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

sandbox(?) article has been completely reproduced on a non wikipedia site. any options for removal?

Hi, I created an article in my own space to practice editing. It was never published or submitted for publication to Wikipedia proper. It turns out that entire page (an early draft) has been taken and mirrored on a Japanese site. How do I alert Wikipedia that this is happening - to hopefully prevent future occurrences of this issue? -Dagmar2000 (talk) 19:39, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

You can't. Everything you write at Wikipedia, including drafts, talk page comments, and even this discussion, are licensed under copyleft licenses CC-BY-SA and GFDL. This is written promenently below the edit window, where it says " You irrevocably agree to release your contributions under the CC-BY-SA 3.0 License and the GFDL." If you don't want it republished, don't write it at Wikipedia. --Jayron32 19:52, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

Would this have been avoided by using the noindex template? Dougweller (talk) 19:53, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

Noindex prevents sites like google from placing pages in search results, but it does not, for example, prevent others from having the right to reuse content under the terms of Wikipedia's licenses. It might make it harder to find pages using Google, but mirrors could still, for example, access the "Recent changes" feed at Wikipedia and update itself thatway. --Jayron32 20:09, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

The above replies are correct, but are you referring to the contents of Jasper A. Vrugt which is currently in the mainspace encyclopedia? PrimeHunter (talk) 21:14, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

New Page

To whom this may concern, I was curious on how to start a new page. The Page will be for my boss, writer/director, Stevie Long and his upcoming series on Hulu. Please feel free to email me at <blanked>Catherineopitz (talk) 20:37, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

If the page is about your boss, you should not start it. You may request that someone else create and work on the page, however. See Wikipedia:Conflict of interest to understand why we do not allow people to write articles about their bosses. If you think that your boss meets Wikipedia's minimum inclusion criteria (see Wikipedia:Notability) then you should request that an article be created about him at Wikipedia:Requested articles. If you need help formatting your request, ask and I or someone else can help wherever we can. --Jayron32 20:58, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

Factual error on a locked page.

On the Tosh.0 page, it says Season 3 starts on Jan 12th. It actually starts on Jan 11th. Here is the article, straight from Comedy Central. http://www.comedycentral.com/videos/index.jhtml?videoId=367637&title=new-episodes-of-tosh.0-start

Please update the page. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ronron5477 (talk • contribs) 21:17, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

Updated. Thanks for catching that. TNXMan 21:24, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

And now the reference link works. PrimeHunter (talk) 21:35, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

In the future, to report an error on a protected page, place {{Edit protected}} onto the associated talk page; if the page is only semi-protected and you are not autoconfirmed, place {{Edit semi-protected}} on the talk page. In either case, describe thoroughly the change that you want made. -- Bk314159 (Talk to me and find out what I've done) 06:08, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

search box

search box has disappeared from any page I view.

Can you help restore it as it was a very useful tool to have, or is there a problem I am doing wrong.

Neil < Email adress removed > —Preceding unsigned comment added by 212.140.122.215 (talk) 23:41, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

Not only the search box, but all top bar edit buttons have disappeared. --Jordiferrer (talk) 23:49, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

Same problem here when using Internet Explorer 8. Racklever (talk) 23:59, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

Same on Firefox 3.6.3. 99.184.220.30 (talk) 00:03, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

Everything looks normal to me in both IE 8 and Firefox 3.6.9. PrimeHunter (talk) 00:11, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

Everything is fine for me in Safari 5.0.3. Dismas|^(talk) 00:20, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

Fine with Chrome 7.0.517.41. [CharlieEchoTango] 00:39, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

Fine with Firefox 3.6.13. --Teratornis (talk) 00:42, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

I had a similar problem, it only lasted for about 5 minutes. I also had no watchlist access. Ok now -- PhantomSteve.alt/talk\^{[alternate account of Phantomsteve]} 00:58, 11 December 2010 (UTC)