Wikipedia:Help desk/Archives/2010 December 24

Welcome to the Wikipedia Help Desk Archives
The page you are currently viewing is an archive page. While you can leave answers for any questions shown below, please ask new questions on one of the current Help Desk pages.

December 24

Anything recourse for abusive user comments in Discussion?

Like users who violate every one of these precepts?

Be polite Assume good faith Avoid personal attacks Be welcoming

Thanks,

A —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.126.123.101 (talk) 03:04, 24 December 2010 (UTC)

Are you referring to Talk:Julian Assange#Julian_Assange_as_a_Journalist? if so then I don't see very much to complain about, actually. I certainly didn't see any personal attacks, nor any accusation of bad faith. --AndrewHowse (talk) 03:13, 24 December 2010 (UTC)

Citing a source

Where the heck is (are) the page(s) on how to cite sources? It's entirely unclear how to access them. I wanted to know, because I wanted to cite a source that doesn't have a individual author; it's a record book from a sport organization, so a little more complicated than if it was a book written by John Doe. Damned if I can find the wiki page that explains how to do that 'properly.' VERY ANNOYING. I mean you all want people to cite sources for the info in wiki articles, so make it easier to find the info for doing so. Trb333 (talk) 06:07, 24 December 2010 (UTC)

I assume you read through WP:CITE? To add multiple authors, you use a variation on last/first: {{cite book|title=Sporting stuff|last1=Surname1|first1=Firstname1|last2=Surname2|first2=Firstname2|...}}. Alternatively, you can use author=Organisation-name. I hope that helps, but if I've misunderstood what you meant, please reply here! -- PhantomSteve.alt/talk\^{[alternative account of Phantomsteve]} 06:44, 24 December 2010 (UTC)

That - WP:CITE - was what I was looking for and could not find. It should be easier to find. That said, I still didn't come out much more ahead. I give up. I've just done a simple reference and if someone wants to make it fancier, feel free. The article in question is on Robbie Ftorek. Trb333 (talk) 07:51, 24 December 2010 (UTC)

I've reformatted your reference using {{cite book}}; I found the ISBN with a search at a second-hand book website. Don't lose heart - thank you for adding sources to these articles. -- John of Reading (talk) 08:14, 24 December 2010 (UTC)

Can I download the query log of wikipedia?

Hi, I wanna to get the query log of wikipedia for academic research, where can I find it from? I only find the article dump from download.wikipedia.org. thanks a lot. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Badboyk (talk • contribs) 09:03, 24 December 2010 (UTC)

Do you mean a log of all the "Search" queries, or a log of all pages served to clients? I don't know if either of these is available. If you don't get a good reply here, try asking at Village pump (technical). -- John of Reading (talk) 12:43, 24 December 2010 (UTC)

New user query re article creation & talk page

how do i make an artical? and how do i do a talk page? p.s: HI! Summer12345678 (talk) 10:35, 24 December 2010 (UTC)

Hi Summer, I've left a welcome message on your talk page that should help guide you through Wikipedia, article creation, editing etc. Your talk page- Welcome to Wikipedia, Darigan (talk) 10:54, 24 December 2010 (UTC)

WHAT!!!!!!!

How can you justify asking for money to keep a website going. Are you kidding ??????????? What I am going to give to you before cancer charities, Diabetes Charities, and all the other WORTHWHILE causes in the world. Look if you can't afford to run the site anymore take it off, simple as that, but asking for money !!!!!!!!! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.106.194.244 (talk) 10:59, 24 December 2010 (UTC)

How is a website supposed to run without money? Wikipedia is used by millions around the world everyday - you included - so to take it off the web would be insane. If you don't consider the primary resource website on the internet to be "worthwhile" then of course don't donate. Merry Christmas. —Half Price 11:15, 24 December 2010 (UTC)

What problems do you have? If you won't donate then let it.-- ♫Greatorangepumpkin♫ T 14:08, 24 December 2010 (UTC)

Alexa traffic ranks say Wikipedia is the 7th most visited website on the Internet and has around 0.5% of all page views.[1] It has a far smaller percentage of the operating costs but serving billions of monthly page views still requires resources. The non-profit Wikimedia Foundation which runs Wikipedia has chosen not to allow advertisements, and Wikipedia doesn't sell stuff. PrimeHunter (talk) 14:25, 24 December 2010 (UTC)

Lots of people spend more of their money on things like alcoholic beverages, vacation travel, fashion, cosmetics, etc. than they give to all charities combined. If you want to see what someone truly believes is important, examine their checkbook. If you don't think Wikipedia is important, send your money elsewhere. However, the competition for the limited supply of charitable giving is not entirely zero-sum. It's possible, for example, that someone will use Wikipedia to actually solve a problem that today sucks down endless amounts of charitable giving year after year. Wikipedia tends to limit its own usefulness by excluding some whole classes of useful information, but the Wikimedia Foundation operates other projects that publish more kinds of free information, and by giving away the MediaWiki software the Foundation potentially enables lots of other individuals and organizations to multiply their problem-solving capacity. Back when Antonie van Leeuwenhoek spent his time looking through early microscopes, there were surely lots of sick people he could have cared for instead. But today the time he spent on an activity that might have seemed pointless at the time has led to the germ theory of disease which helps millions of people every year. At Wikipedia we are building a structure of knowledge that makes it more available and more useful, possibly contributing to future useful breakthroughs that might have taken longer or maybe failed to occur without Wikipedia. --Teratornis (talk) 23:58, 25 December 2010 (UTC)

Alonzo Elliot: Composer

I'm very unfamiliar with the proper procedure for amending this biographical sketch for Alonzo Elliot.

This article makes no mention of his having pursued courses in Russian at The University of Texas in the late 1950s or early 1960s. At that time he was actively involved in a composition entitled жди меня (Wait for Me). I also found it most interesting that he had given his car the name: Sir John Rabbit.

This knowledge comes from having been a classmate of his at this time.

I had entered some of this information earlier, but I find that it has been expunged.

Any advice? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Nkh8305 (talk • contribs) 14:05, 24 December 2010 (UTC)

Hello NKH, I've left a welcome message on your talk page that has helpful links about contributing to Wikipedia. On the issue of your edit being removed, there appear to have been a number of issues:

• The language was not encyclopedic
• Your contribution appars to have been original research
• Being original research, you did not provide any reference for it, I'm afraid that that's a bit no-no on Biographies of Living Persons

You will find some useful information in the links that I've dropped in, and we really would like you to join the Wikipedia community. Darigan (talk) 14:31, 24 December 2010 (UTC)

copyright or not?

Is it allowed to copy & paste the reviewer text from Allmusic and attach some sentences? -- ♫Greatorangepumpkin♫ T 14:07, 24 December 2010 (UTC)

Well, you can quote from a review at all music by placing it in actual quotation marks and using a limited portion, possibly prefaced by a statement of where the quote comes from, e.g., According to Foo's review at Allmusic..., though I don't know that an Allmusic's review would be considered a notable source (see here). But since it is copyrighted, you cannot use the text here without showing it is a quote, and you can't use a large portion of the text even with quotes. See generally Wikipedia:Copyrights. If the material was under a free license or in the public domain (which is not true of Allmusic), you could then use it more freely but you will still need to provide careful attribution to the original author (see Wikipedia:Plagiarism).--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 14:46, 24 December 2010 (UTC)

going live with an entry

I have created a new entry, worked on it, edited it many times, and am ready to go live with it. i 'moved' the page from my personal area to having no prefix, have waited for days and its not appearing on wikipedia when you search the entry. what to do? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Orna guralnik (talk • contribs) 15:49, 24 December 2010 (UTC)

Nigel C. Dawes (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

You moved the article correctly. The indexes used by the Wikipedia 'Search' box are supposed to be updated once a day, so it looks as if something went wrong with the most recent re-indexing. Please wait another 24 hours and post again here if it still hasn't come right. -- John of Reading (talk) 16:00, 24 December 2010 (UTC)

I have removed about half of the content of the article which were copied from various sources. I also suspect the remainder to be mere rewording of existing content elsewhere on the web. I have tagged the article with multiple issues, but it may end up being deleted (PROD template). [CharlieEchoTango] 16:24, 24 December 2010 (UTC)

AN vs. ANI

I'm having trouble understanding the key differences between ANI and AN and in what circumstances to use one forum or the other. ANI says: "This page is for reporting and discussing incidents on the English Wikipedia that require the intervention of administrators." AN does not have any explanation, even as brief as ANI's. Both have lots of stuff about "are you in the right place" and "what these pages are not", but very little about what they are for. The only other thing I've noticed is ANI is much more active than AN. Can anyone shed any light on this?--Bbb23 (talk) 20:59, 24 December 2010 (UTC)

If there is a problem that requires admin intervention, use ANI. If there is something that admins should know about that goes on AN. In practice this means use ANI for almost everything. The only thing on AN right now that really should be on AN is the "Logging of IP Block Exemptions" section. Prodego ^talk 21:14, 24 December 2010 (UTC)

Let me see if I have this right. If I want to let the admins know the sun is shining, I should use AN, but if I want them to destroy the sun, I should use ANI. :-) --Bbb23 (talk) 22:28, 24 December 2010 (UTC)

Yep, because the former is a message to all admins, whereas you only need one admin to destroy the sun. Adrian J. Hunter^{(talk•contribs)} 01:14, 25 December 2010 (UTC)

Fortunately the Sun has plenty of reliable references. -- John of Reading (talk) 12:03, 25 December 2010 (UTC)

If one admin destroyed the sun, all the other admins would discuss the propriety of the destruction on ANI. Maybe it would be better to slap on a temporary block (like a partial eclipse) instead.--Bbb23 (talk) 00:10, 26 December 2010 (UTC)

But is it notable? The sun is not much different than billions of other stars. If a local restaurant or garage band is not notable, why is a local star notable? It may be notable to earthlings but is that the same as notable? --Teratornis (talk) 00:02, 26 December 2010 (UTC)

Unfortunately, there doesn't seem to be a specific notability guideline for astral bodies. In my view, the closest is for events based on the assumption that most astral bodies were created by some sort of astrophysical (or whatever the right word is) event. With that assumption in mind, and looking more closely at WP:GEOSCOPE, it seems to hinge on how you define the word "world".--Bbb23 (talk) 00:19, 26 December 2010 (UTC)

Another file with one name, but FOUR images

The file File:DSC00360.jpg has four images throughout it's history, and I'd like to split the other versions off, while I'm thinking of new names for all of them. While I'm doing this, there are things I'd like to know;

• Can I still add the other version under new names without claiming that they're mine?
• Do I need to put the free license tags according to the date each version of the file was submitted?

Any info will do. --DanTD (talk) 21:24, 24 December 2010 (UTC)

One of them is already at commons:File:Palazzolasvegas.jpg. PrimeHunter (talk) 00:14, 25 December 2010 (UTC)

Okay, that settles that one. Now there's the issue of the other three. ----DanTD (talk) 15:59, 25 December 2010 (UTC)

If you do this, perhaps all four images should be saved under more descriptive names. Otherwise, the file DSC00360.jpg is likely to be usurped again. Astronaut (talk) 01:20, 26 December 2010 (UTC)

It just so happens I put another one in the commons with it's own name a few minutes ago(File:Vallenbrosa at Butserfest 2008.jpg). I think I may've screwed up the licensing, though. As for the other two, I've tagged the original for renaming, and I've got my own name for the last duplicate. ----DanTD (talk) 02:43, 26 December 2010 (UTC)

Capitalization Issue In New Article Title

I just published my first article, but there are words in the title that are not capitalized that should be. How do I make this sort of change? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Kiahandtarajean (talk • contribs) 21:52, 24 December 2010

Because you are not autoconfirmed you do not have the ability to move the article to a new title. I have moved it to the new title. ~~ GB fan ~~ 22:13, 24 December 2010 (UTC)

Doug Smail Ex Fife Flyers Player

Good evening

Looking for an e-mail address for Doug Smail Ex Fife Flyers Player 1994

Many thanks

Alex Henderson —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.153.197.25 (talk) 21:51, 24 December 2010 (UTC)

Hello. I suspect, based on your question, that you found one of our 3.5 million articles and thought we were 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 for asking questions related to using or contributing to Wikipedia itself. Thus, we have no special knowledge about 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. Intelligentsium 22:14, 24 December 2010 (UTC)