Wikipedia:Help desk/Archives/2010 December 23

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December 23

Donation suggestion

Instead of trying to cram as many donations as you can in December, Wikipedia staff should take donations year round because you would earn more money.

After seeing Jimmy Wale's urgent messages all over Wikipedia, I finally buckled down and donated $20. If you had donation messages year round, I wouldn't mind giving away $5 to $10 a month. You would earn $60 to $120 a year from me instead of a pitiful $20.

Visitors previously donated $8,000,000 last year. If they donated $5 to $10 a month, then you would have earned $18,000,000 to $36,000,000.

If you want to reach your goal and more, I recommend you take donations year round. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.200.114.235 (talk) 00:53, 23 December 2010 (UTC)

And what leads you to think that Wikipedia takes donations only during the time when the fundraising message is present? --ColinFine (talk) 01:08, 23 December 2010 (UTC)

Excellent idea! --Monterey Bay (talk) 02:16, 23 December 2010 (UTC)

The Wikimedia Foundation that runs Wikipedia does indeed accept donations year round. There is a link on the left side of every page (right below the random article button) to donate. The fundraising banners, however, are only displayed during the fundraiser at the end of the year. Many (myself included) view the donation banners as overly intrusive, and would object to having them displayed on every article all of the time. But if you do wish to donate, the link to donate is always there, year round, on the left side of every page. Prodego ^talk 02:22, 23 December 2010 (UTC)

Well said; I agree w/ Prodego, completely. One thought though - would it be worth considering making an option for people to donate on a regular basis - a small amount per month? Or has this already been thought of?  Chzz  ►  02:52, 23 December 2010 (UTC)

Recurring monthly donations are already an option on the donation form. :) Prodego ^talk 05:35, 23 December 2010 (UTC)

Verifying data on Wikipedia

Hello,

How is the information that is added to Wikipedia verified to be true?

I know that every single person in the general public can edit Wikipedia as they see fit, and I have heard of many people tampering with Wikipedia and entering in false information to deliberately detriment others who use Wikipedia for studying purposes.

Can someone give me some peace of mind because I don't want to develop a mentality that Wikipedia cannot be trusted.

Thank you. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.114.131.178 (talk) 02:47, 23 December 2010 (UTC)

Wikipedia does not state things are 'true'. Instead, we rely on verifiable facts from appropriate reliable sources - such as books, or newspapers.

Facts should have a reference. Any fact that lacks an appropriate reference can be challenged, or removed, by any editor.

Of course, the system is not perfect; there are many articles with unreferenced information. But Wikipedia continues to improve all the time, so please help us with it.

For peace-of-mind, you should always check the references for yourself. The same is true of all encyclopaedias.

See Wikipedia:About#Using_Wikipedia_as_a_research_tool.  Chzz  ►  02:56, 23 December 2010 (UTC)

Our article Reliability of Wikipedia and the links therein may be of interest. Adrian J. Hunter^{(talk•contribs)} 12:49, 23 December 2010 (UTC)

State Library of Queensland

Curious to know how the State Library of Queensland has made it onto the main page banner. Hack or sponsor? Could this be explained pls? Thx. Lisbeth —Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.202.144.223 (talk) 03:54, 23 December 2010 (UTC)

People see different banners. I found mention at meta:Fundraising 2010/Updates#December 18: Chapter Update & Recap of this Week which says:

Wikimedia Australia

The Australian Chapter is currently running thank you banners for the State Library of Queensland, who recently donated 50,000 images from their collection to WMAu. They are using some of the donated public domain images on these banners, they look really great!

You must have seen a banner like http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page?banner=20101216_SLQ1 (may have been with another image) because your IP address is registered in Australia. The text on the image links to [1]. PrimeHunter (talk) 04:29, 23 December 2010 (UTC)

Jimmy Wales

Could you PLEASE tell the guy that he bears a striking resemblance to Billy Bob Thorton?

Thanks. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.230.181.22 (talk) 04:25, 23 December 2010 (UTC)

Sorry, but no. Jimbo is a busy man, and if I were one of the few people who could communicate directly with him, I could think of a few more important things I'd rather discuss. Such as could we think about reducing the size of WP:NOT. --Teratornis (talk) 05:53, 23 December 2010 (UTC)

But you can communicate directly with him at his user page. Dismas|^(talk) 06:29, 23 December 2010 (UTC)

how to determine URL from image name

I'm writing an app in which I'd like to be able to display the images that show up in the info box area on many wikipedia pages. I'm able to use api.php to get the data for a page, parse markup and extract the fields out of the infobox section and find the image file name, but once I have the file name it seems that there are several different possible locations where the image might be located. Some have "commons" as part of the path, others have "en" rather than commons. For some I am able to access a "thumb" version, others seemingly not. For instance, Leonhard Euler's pic is at:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/6/60/Leonhard_Euler_2.jpg/200px-Leonhard_Euler_2.jpg

and Willard Libby's is at:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/6/66/Willard_Libby.jpg

I can view source on a given HTML version of a person's wikipedia page and find the link that way, but I really want to be able to calculate the link just from the image key in the infobox data. Is that possible? Is there some documentation somewhere on how to do this? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.10.134.83 (talk) 05:54, 23 December 2010 (UTC)

That portion of the link is determined by whether the image is hosted locally on Wikipedia, or on the Wikimedia Commons. There is no way to get that information from the page, unfortunately. You can however, get it from the api - http://en.wikipedia.org/w/api.php?action=query&titles=File:Leonhard%20Euler%202-2.jpg&prop=imageinfo&iiprop=url. For more info on the api, see http://en.wikipedia.org/w/api.php. Using the api to find the images on a particular article (which can also be done) may be a better option for you, depending what exactly it is you are trying to do. What do you need the information for? Prodego ^talk 06:03, 23 December 2010 (UTC)

The pictures in many infoboxes aren't free, but are used under the policy on non-free content. This may have implications for whatever you want to do with your app. Images that Wikipedia displays under the Fair Use doctrine should never appear in an image gallery on Wikipedia, for example. Adrian J. Hunter^{(talk•contribs)} 07:46, 23 December 2010 (UTC)

The “/6/60/” in the file path represent the two digits of the md5 hash (6047650b848fd922bb262c3ff7b0e561) of the file-name as spelt with underscores in place of spaces (Leonhard_Euler_2.jpg). Hope that helps.

The File:Willard_Libby.jpg description page uses the “actual size” url, because the original image is smaller than the default thumbnail size. Attempting to thumbnail it larger than that will fail: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/6/66/Willard_Libby.jpg/455px-Willard_Libby.jpg

As stated above there’s no easy way to tell whether it is local or part of a shared repository. The enwiki “File:” description page will display content from the commons page of the same title if only the latter exists, but this is potentially confusing as the actual file-path urls aren’t interchangeable.

―cobaltcigs 11:31, 23 December 2010 (UTC)

Removal of photo from wikipedia

I am the owner of an image and I am trying to get it privately removed as it contains metadata relating to location. I can prove I am the original owner of said file. I was trying to find an administrator to help but kept having problems logging in after I had previously logged in "There is no user by the name" error. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 166.205.138.213 (talk) 07:59, 23 December 2010 (UTC)

If you just tell us the name of the image I think someone would remove the metadata without you having to be logged in though deletion entirely is another matter. In any case, if the username is not identical in all particulars, including spacing and capitalization, your log in will fail. Navigate to the image file. Click on the history tab at the top of the page. There you will find the exact name of the account you used for the upload. Now, if you remember your password, you should be able to log in using it ans then deal with this issue. One other possibility: Did you upload the image here or at the Wikimedia Commons? If the latter, log in there and make your request there. Cheers.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 12:22, 23 December 2010 (UTC)

The image can be edited to remove all or some of the metadata (you could do that if you have an image editor), re-uploaded (you can do that), then the old version deleted by request. See Wikipedia:Oversight. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 15:54, 23 December 2010 (UTC)

I am able to log in and make edits, however once I go to upload the file it says I am not logged in and I am unable to log in with the exact credentials I had previously used. Happens 100% of the time. Even navigating to a different user page seems to log me out and I can only log back in from wikipedia home. Anyway, file name is Cring.jpg —Preceding unsigned comment added by 166.205.138.213 (talk) 16:05, 23 December 2010 (UTC)

Cring.jpg was originally uploaded to the English Wikipedia but later moved to Wikimedia Commons by another editor. The original uploader has not registered the username at Commons. You can create a unified login at Special:MergeAccount. Then your username and password should work at all Wikimedia wikis. PrimeHunter (talk) 22:06, 23 December 2010 (UTC)

PrimeHunter, thank you for explaining the error. Didn't realize the file had been moved over to wikimedia. Didn't even notice the base url change to be honest. I was able to unify my account and I removed the exif data and was going to reupload as a new version, however: "A file with this name exists already. You can't upload a new version because your account is too new. Please go back and upload the file under a new name." Is there a possibility of someone who has passed the autoconfirm stage of unified accounts to remove the exif data. Or remove the image entirely? The image was of low quality and I modified the article to be without it using its already bountiful number of images to replace the one I had uploaded. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.196.157.157 (talk) 05:15, 24 December 2010 (UTC)

If you wait four days from the time you created the account on the Commons you will then be autoconfirmed (a threshold for making certain types of edits by new users) and can upload it yourself. If you don't want to wait, you can email me the photo (fuhghettaboutit at yahoo dot com) and I will upload it for you later today. (It is also possible for a Commons admin to add you to the 'confirmed group' early; requests are made at Commons:Requests for rights). Cheers.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 13:41, 24 December 2010 (UTC)

Fuhgettaboutit, I wasn't sure if I was going to have to wait the 30 days for some. Ill take care of it after christmas. Thanks for the help everyone. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 108.13.29.16 (talk) 18:15, 24 December 2010 (UTC)

linking accounts

I registered with the Romanian wikipedia a long time ago, as “cristixav”. Shortly after that, I moved to a webmail address, because of a virus issue with my ISP. I registered with the Engish wp under the same username, which was then linked to the other wikimedia projects &anguages. I ost my password with ro.wikipedia and it refused “cristixav” so I registered under “cristixav1”. Can I link this “cristixav1” acount to the “cristixav” accounts?Cristixav (talk) 10:17, 23 December 2010 (UTC)

I don't know of any formal way to link the two accounts, but you could add an interwiki link to the Romanian user page from your user page here, and vice versa. The links would be ro:Utilizator:Cristixav1 and en:User:Cristixav. -- John of Reading (talk) 16:38, 23 December 2010 (UTC)

Permanent text size change for logged in?

I am constantly bumping up the text size one notch from the default. It goes back every time I navigate to a new page. Is there a way once I log in to make a change in my preferences or my personal .css or .js pages to make it permanent?--141.155.143.65 (talk) 12:48, 23 December 2010 (UTC)

You can create a user account and put something like this on your Monobook.css:

#bodyContent { font-size:larger; }

Or you can replace “larger” by “125%” or some appropriate multiplier. ―cobaltcigs 14:12, 23 December 2010 (UTC)

Unless you've gone retro, I think you want vector.css, not monobook.css :-) Adrian J. Hunter^{(talk•contribs)} 14:45, 23 December 2010 (UTC)

You can always just point people to [[Special:Mypage/skin.css]], and that will go to the CSS of whatever theme they're using.—Chowbok ☠ 14:58, 23 December 2010 (UTC)

Error in editing page

Outline of Asia
get this message for last 12 hours: Request: GET http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Outline_of_Asia&action=edit, from 142.239.254.19 via sq65.wikimedia.org (squid/2.7.STABLE7) to 208.80.152.46 (208.80.152.46) Error: ERR_READ_TIMEOUT, errno [No Error] at Thu, 23 Dec 2010 14:08:17 GMT Michael Goodyear 14:15, 23 December 2010 (UTC)

Hmm. When I made a test edit I got the same timeout error. Anyone? -- John of Reading (talk) 16:57, 23 December 2010 (UTC)

Not much help other than to confirm an issue with editing that page :/ Darigan (talk) 17:02, 23 December 2010 (UTC)

This has happened to me many times. I just click on Save page again and it fixes it without any problems. The timeout just means your edit took a long time to make and you ran out of time so you have to re-save the page. Sumsum2010·T·C 17:08, 23 December 2010 (UTC)

No, I don't think that's the same issue. My edit took only a second or two to make - I added one space. When I pressed "Save page" there was a long pause and then the timeout message. My guess is that the software takes much longer than usual to process an edit to this page because the page has so many links. -- John of Reading (talk) 17:31, 23 December 2010 (UTC)

No, I cannot even get in to the page to edit it - and fix the errors in it - one of which is a link in the page back to itself. i have also been geting database errors accessing this page Michael Goodyear 19:01, 23 December 2010 (UTC)

this is what I am getting now:

A database query syntax error has occurred. This may indicate a bug in the software. The last attempted database query was:

   (SQL query hidden)

from within function "require/MediaWiki::performRequestForTitle/MediaWiki::performAction/StubUser::getOption/StubUser::__call/StubObject::_call/call_user_func_array/User::getOption/User::loadOptions/User::load/User::loadFromSession/wfRunHooks/call_user_func_array/CentralAuthHooks::onUserLoadFromSession/CentralAuthHooks::initSession/User::invalidateCache/wfGetAllCallers". Database returned error "1205: Lock wait timeout exceeded; try restarting transaction (10.0.6.46)". Michael Goodyear 19:02, 23 December 2010 (UTC)

• I have the same issue, with the standard "Our servers are currently experiencing a technical problem. This is probably temporary and should be fixed soon. Please try again in a few minutes." message. However, the edit I tried to make did happen, at [2]. I tried again with the secure server, and got a different error:

Proxy Error

The proxy server received an invalid response from an upstream server. The proxy server could not handle the request POST /wikipedia/en/w/index.php.

Reason: Error reading from remote server

Apache/2.2.8 (Ubuntu) mod_fastcgi/2.4.6 PHP/5.2.4-2ubuntu5.12wm1 with Suhosin-Patch mod_ssl/2.2.8 OpenSSL/0.9.8g Server at secure.wikimedia.org Port 443

• This time, the edit did not show up in the history. (I'm not using a proxy myself, so I'm guessing it's a WMF proxy.) WP:VPT would probably be better for figuring this out. /ƒETCHCOMMS/ 23:35, 23 December 2010 (UTC)

I tried making an edit, it went to the history but I also got the server error message. I suspect the sheer complexity of the page is exceeding some time-out limit in the preprocessor/parser when it tries to display the newly-changed page. Looking at the HTML source (which is 650 KB long, that's a pretty big page, 2 minutes to load on a dialup connection) I note the usage reported at "NewPP limit" - this is more than halfway to the cutoff points, which I think were set near the limits of insanity. It's possible there is a template loop in there somewhere, maybe the only solution is going to be to simplify the page (or buy faster servers). Cutting the page apart in a sandbox might isolate the problem, but I'm off to see Santa, so I won't be trying it anytime soon. Franamax (talk) 21:24, 24 December 2010 (UTC)

Since I can't even get into the article - I can't make any changes! This is going to need intervention higher upMichael Goodyear 01:40, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

Diff on page--what am I missing?

Okay, maybe it's because I haven't had my coffee yet, but I'm stumped about something. I was trying to track down when a section of an MOS page was added. If you look at the 2009-03-17 revision of this page, you'll see that the "Fractions" section is just one sentence. In the 2009-03-19 revision, it has several added sentences. But the diff between them doesn't seem to reflect this change. What am I missing?—Chowbok ☠ 14:43, 23 December 2010 (UTC)

This was a tough one! Here goes... In the 17 March version, you're looking at Section 3.4, a single line. In the 19 March version, you're looking at Section 5.5, with several extra bullet points. BUT, the 19 March version has a second section titled "Fractions", Section 12.4, which is a single line identical to Section 3.4 of the 17 March version. The diff represents the replacement of a whole lot of text with a template, and the text transcluded in the template includes the more detailed Fractions section. The pre-existing Fractions section wasn't altered, just bumped down. To find the ultimate origin of the more detailed section, you'd need to check the history of Wikipedia:Manual of Style (dates and numbers)/Datestempprotectedsection (click the link at the top of the page to avert redirection). Whew! Adrian J. Hunter^{(talk•contribs)} 15:08, 23 December 2010 (UTC) (edited for accuracy.)

Aha! Thank you very much. I'm glad to hear it was tough, makes me feel less dumb.—Chowbok ☠ 15:46, 23 December 2010 (UTC)

Can't properly add citation

Try as I might and after reading all the help pages, I still can't add a citation correctly. In the topic of Reaganomics, I am trying to correctly add a citation where there was formerly a "citation needed". I am trying to add footnote 37, and have provided the source and the link, but it is so complicated to add it that, that I have given up. Can you please tell me what I have done wrong>DaveinPhilly (talk) 16:42, 23 December 2010 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by DaveinPhilly (talk • contribs) 16:39, 23 December 2010 (UTC)

I have fixed it for you - click on that link to see exactly what I did. I think the simplest description is in this help section. I agree that it can be very confusing for beginners, particularly when working with a long and complicated article. -- John of Reading (talk) 17:07, 23 December 2010 (UTC)

Thank you for your time you have spent helping me. It looks like I have entered an area of advanced level HTML code!DaveinPhilly (talk) 00:09, 24 December 2010 (UTC)

How do I add a picture to an article I created?

I want to add the school's official seal to the article, as a header or whatever. The seal is here: http://www.vcswarriors.com/images/VCS-Seal.png — Preceding unsigned comment added by Blwh51 (talk • contribs) 16:44, 23 December 2010 (UTC)

First, read Wikipedia:Image use policy. Then, if you understand that, read Wikipedia:Uploading images for the technical aspect of uploading images. Then read Wikipedia:Picture tutorial for information on adding pictures. Be aware you need to do it correctly, including correctly tagging the file with the appropriate copyright tag and fair use rationale. Failure to do this correctly will result in the image being deleted, and then much wailing and gnashing of teeth... --Jayron32 17:03, 23 December 2010 (UTC)

When can tags to add references or clean up the page be removed?

I've been working on a Wiki page lately to clean up biased language, add complete information, and cite everything. The page is still tagged as biased and needing references. When can those tags be removed, or am I supposed to do it? If they aren't ready to be removed, how can I find out what the specific problems are? Help is much appreciated.

Fletcherspears (talk) 20:37, 23 December 2010 (UTC)

If you believe that you have fixed the problems, you can remove them yourself. You can also ask for someone to review your work, and see if the problems have been fixed. Finally, if you can locate the person who placed them, using the article history tab, you can ask them directly. --Jayron32 20:39, 23 December 2010 (UTC)

Convert from IP user to registered user

I am a registered user but I updated a few articles while not logged in. I would like to convert the update history stored under the IP user id to those recorded under my registered user id. How can I do this? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Alweiss (talk • contribs) 21:28, 23 December 2010 (UTC)

It used to be possible to re-attribute edits from IP addresses to named accounts, but not since 2005 (see this page). However, as that page says, you can list your contributions made with the IP address(es) on your user page. -- PhantomSteve.alt/talk\^{[alternative account of Phantomsteve]} 21:48, 23 December 2010 (UTC)