Wikipedia:Help desk/Archives/2010 December 5

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December 5

Maps on Wikipedia

A problem I encounter regularly with Wikipedia is that it is very difficult to find maps of whatever region I want to look at that include surrounding countries, states, provinces, cities, or whatever the case may be. I can't be the only one curious, for example, about where East Berlin was in relations to the rest of East Germany, or where China is in relations to its neighbors. 66.108.223.179 (talk) 00:04, 5 December 2010 (UTC)

If I'm not mistaken, the problem is finding free maps. That is, maps released under a suitable license such as GFDL or public domain. Any map released by Rand McNally or DeLorme would be copyrighted and unable to be used here. I'm like you though, I'd like to see more maps. And I'm sure we're not alone in this. Dismas|^(talk) 00:13, 5 December 2010 (UTC)

There are Wikipedia cartographers who make maps on demand; I have one I used and he was excellent. If you buzz me on my talk page, I can give you his details. There are also map services availible online which are compatible with Wikipedia's image use policy. You could also see Wikipedia:WikiProject Maps where you can find people to help with making maps. --Jayron32 18:08, 5 December 2010 (UTC)

My Page Was Redirected & Maybe Deleted...Help!

Hello, I just got online after a couple of weeks away and noticed that my MigreLief page has been redirected to a Feverfew page. I worked very hard on the MigreLief page and linked to many notable references as this is indeed a notable subject. I understand why they feel my page should be deleted and can address and correct immediately if it is not too late. Is this possible? If not what are my options? Rewriting and resubmitting? That would take a lot of time...I prefer to fix the one I already made. I had to learn how to make the page myself as an editor who promised to help me backed out after a couple of months and I could find no other help from Wikipedia. I can start from scratch but would prefer not to. I can simply take out the "promotional" wording and add a couple references that they are looking for. Please advise the steps to remedy my situation. MigreLief is a very notable subject. Thank you for any assistance you may provide. ~ ~ ~ ~ —Preceding unsigned comment added by Sallybass (talk • contribs) 00:14, 5 December 2010 (UTC)

It was deleted per the discussion at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/MigreLief. You can ask an admin to put the text of the article in your userspace where you can work on the issues with the article but they cannot put back any text that is a copyright violation. Dismas|^(talk) 00:49, 5 December 2010 (UTC)

Thank you for your reply. I fully understand. I read the discussion and believe I can rewrite with a clear understanding of the concerns...how do I "ask an admin" to put it back into my user-space for reworking it? Your assitance is truly appreciated. ~ ~ ~ ~ —Preceding unsigned comment added by Sallybass (talk • contribs) 16:48, 5 December 2010 (UTC)

I see Sallybass has already asked the AfD-nom, who is an admin and can perform the restore/userfy if appropriate. Wikipedia:Requests for undeletion would be the general place for that sort of request if she needs a different set of admin eyes. DMacks (talk) 09:18, 6 December 2010 (UTC)

changes made to a "see also" section of a page on wikipedia.

I made changes to the "see also" section of "DAY OF PRAYER FOR THE PEACE OF JERUSALEM" (DPPJ) because it contained INCORRECT information that did NOT relate to the DPPJ at all. My corrections were deleted and the original INCORRECT information was reposted. WHY? If the content of my (video) submission (which was created by the organizers of DPPJ) was unacceptable because it was deemed controversial (by whoever) then go ahead and remove it - but why repost a video from the same source as mine (youtube)that is completely unrelated to the main article and why repost the web address to a site that has nothing to do with DPPJ either? My web address was the official website for the Day of Prayer for the Peace of Jerusalem - please explain to me how that could be unacceptable. I give you correct information and it is deleted so you could repost incorrect information - now I'm beginning to understand why so many people tell me not to trust the information provided here! Luvyalord (talk) 00:36, 5 December 2010 (UTC)

I've removed the links in the See Also section. That section is for links to other related articles here on Wikipedia and not for external links to organization web sites or YouTube. And generally, links to YouTube should be avoided anyway. See WP:LINKSTOAVOID and WP:YOUTUBE for more on that. Dismas|^(talk) 00:53, 5 December 2010 (UTC)

Like Dismas said, it's a matter of page "standards". The See also section is generally for internal links to other article of this encyclopedia. The removals have therefore nothing to do with information to trust or not, but have to do with guidelines and policy. Now if you deem that some content is "false", then you could bring the matter up on the talk page of the article. Cheers - «CharlieEchoTango» 01:06, 5 December 2010 (UTC)

disappeared?

Perhaps I am wrong or doing something wrong way. The article 'Zdenek Hanka'. Czech author, was successfully published and now it seems to be gone. Is it published? Thank you, user 'heleho' —Preceding unsigned comment added by Heleho (talk • contribs) 03:38, 5 December 2010 (UTC)

Please see Why was my page deleted? The most common reasons are:

• The subject was not notable enough to have their own article
• It was a test page
• It was vandalism

To find the specific reason a particular page was deleted:

1. Go to the Deletion Log
2. Type the page title in the case-sensitive search field
3. The date, time and reason for deletion will be displayed  A p3rson ‽ 03:41, 5 December 2010 (UTC)

Ah, no it was not. Here is the page, you posted it to your userpage. Plus, this page doesn't look all that good for a xFer into article space.  A p3rson ‽ 03:44, 5 December 2010 (UTC)

(edit conflict)It was never deleted and it was never "published". The article is on your user page and was never in the main space of the encyclopedia. Dismas|^(talk) 03:44, 5 December 2010 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:So you made a userspace draft. It's currently unsourced and sounds like personal opinion. It would risk being deleted in mainspace. See Wikipedia:Notability (people), Wikipedia:Verifiability and Wikipedia:Neutral point of view. And see Wikipedia:Conflict of interest if you are associated with the subject. PrimeHunter (talk) 04:11, 5 December 2010 (UTC)

Time stamp

Is there a way to customize the time stamp in ~~~~ and ~~~~~? Thanks - [CharlieEchoTango] 03:52, 5 December 2010 (UTC)

Not the one you save. It should be standardized so it can be read by archiving bots and other software. It would also annoy many people (such as me) if it wasn't standardized. Wikipedia:Comments in Local Time can change the way you see timestamps when you are logged in. PrimeHunter (talk) 04:04, 5 December 2010 (UTC)

Thanks - [CharlieEchoTango] 04:10, 5 December 2010 (UTC)

text deleted but did not save a copy.

Although I would usuallyhave saved a copy, I did not expect my contribution to be quite so speedily deleted, and wondered whether my text was still accessible somewhere on my account. It's a bit unfortunate as I was rather pleased with the wording Scribd24 (talk) 04:28, 5 December 2010 (UTC)

I moved it to User:Scribd24/Ed Mirza--SPhilbrickT 04:45, 5 December 2010 (UTC)

When you think it is ready, please ask at Requests for feedback. That won't guarantee it won't be deleted, but some volunteers can point out potential problems.--SPhilbrickT 04:47, 5 December 2010 (UTC)

A quick glance does not reveal how he meets Wikipedia's notability guidelines for people. You also need some references from sources which are reliable (see here for guidelines about reliable sources) which are independent of the subject (i.e. Not his website, press releases etc) - see here for guidelines about independent sources -- PhantomSteve.alt/talk\^{[alternate account of Phantomsteve]} 06:38, 5 December 2010 (UTC)

Donations from India

Dear Mr Wales I would like to donate. Please include INDIA in your list of countries for me to pay through my credit card colonel Subramanyam PV —Preceding unsigned comment added by Pvsubrp (talk • contribs) 08:15, 5 December 2010 (UTC)

added a header to the question. Dismas|^(talk) 09:05, 5 December 2010 (UTC)

infoboxes show up as half the width long for some people but not others!

Even people using the same version of the same browser can see different things when viewing any article with an infobox in it. Some of us see an infobox that stretches out to half the width of the article. Others see it loading up normally. The newest version of Firefox is version 3.6.12, which I'm now using, and I have this problem, while someone else posted in the infobox template talk page that they use the same version and browser and don't have this problem at all. This didn't happen until recently. Was something updated on Wikipedia that affected some people but not others? Dream Focus 08:54, 5 December 2010 (UTC)

The discussion is at Template talk:Infobox video game#When did the infobox get this wide? How to change that. I don't have the problem in Firefox 3.6.8, or any of IE, Opera, Chrome. Various things are often updated in Wikipedia. Does it happen for other infoboxes? Does it happen when you log out? Is the infobox wider than the longest line or element in it? Do you literally mean half the article width regardless of the window size? PrimeHunter (talk) 13:44, 5 December 2010 (UTC)

Every single infobox. Half of the article's width, not the window's size. Even if there is no picture, it still does this. Is there a setting in "my preferences" which would cause this? I took a screenshot.[1] Dream Focus 14:46, 5 December 2010 (UTC)

Problem solved! In Firefox I click the View tab, then Zoom, then Reset, and its all better now. I had the text larger than it should be, and this now causes that problem. Dream Focus 21:36, 5 December 2010 (UTC)

Draft article

Some time ago I started an article on Aireville School Skipton North Yorkshire. It has never appeared and I cannot access it for further editing. What am I doing wrong? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Retiredlancslad (talk • contribs) 10:25, 5 December 2010 (UTC)

It's stil sitting where you created it, in your userspace at User:Retiredlancslad/Aireville School. At the top of the article is a link to Wikipedia:So you made a userspace draft telling you what to do next. Please read what it says there, particularly about sources. - David Biddulph (talk) 10:48, 5 December 2010 (UTC)

User sandbox

Hi there, I want to create a user sandbox but am having trouble doing so please help meeeee !! Rocketrod1960 (talk) 11:24, 5 December 2010 (UTC)

Sure, just click here: User:Rocketrod1960/sandbox and start editing. Dismas|^(talk) 11:29, 5 December 2010 (UTC)

I think you missed placing: {{usersandbox}} --Extra 999 (Contact ^me + _contribs) 13:46, 5 December 2010 (UTC)

Reviewer

I am a reviewer who is able to find the list of PC-protected articles, but unable to find the list of pages with revisions currently pending. Will you please help me? Us441(talk)(contribs) 14:07, 5 December 2010 (UTC)

Special:PendingChanges. —Half Price 14:12, 5 December 2010 (UTC)

Format

I have added to an article at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiliqua_rugosa#Hearing The layout looks bad. What have I done wrong? —Preceding unsigned comment added by RayJohnstone (talk • contribs) 14:36, 5 December 2010 (UTC)

Article text should not be indented, nor should your contributions be signed. Indenting with : and signing with ~~~~ should only be done on discussion pages such as this one. I believe I have fixed your contribution. I suggest you read the tutorial. Xenon54 (talk) 14:41, 5 December 2010 (UTC)

Thank you, it now looks fine.RayJohnstone (talk) 15:20, 5 December 2010 (UTC)

Remove Intrusive Jimmy Wales Banner

Is there something I can add to the monobook.css to have the banner switched off by default? I searched the archives but didn't find anything. --Drogonov 14:48, 5 December 2010 (UTC)

in your preferences on the gadgets tab, last entry under browsing gadgets. ~~ GB fan ~~ 14:55, 5 December 2010 (UTC)

Like GB Fan said, the easiest way is to enable the Suppress display of the fundraiser banner gadget. Or, you could somehow import MediaWiki:Gadget-HideFundraisingNotice.css into your personal CSS file, but I think the first way is much easier. — Waterfox ^~talk~ 18:25, 5 December 2010 (UTC)

info box Netherlands

Something seems to be wrong with the infobox to the right of the article Netherlands. The notes in superscript do not correspond to the explanations below. No-one there seems to be able to solve it so I am asking for help here... L.tak (talk) 15:10, 5 December 2010 (UTC)

I've improved it, though without knowing quite how it all works. Note that {{Infobox country}} only supports footnote1 to footnote7, so footnote 8 is still missing. This would need an {{editprotected}} request since that template can only be edited by administrators.

Alternatively, I think you could move those notes out of the infobox into a new "Notes" section of the article, and then you could have as many as you liked. I haven't tried that. -- John of Reading (talk) 15:54, 5 December 2010 (UTC)

I am a bit confused about one thing. You seem to be agreeing with an IP on the talk page that note 6 saying the American dollar will replace the Guilder is nonsense, and this is what I thought you were referring to as the problem here (I actually didn't find any problem with the numbered notes corresponding the the text, though John of Reading apaprently did). This issue of the dollar does sound like nonsense and so I figured it wasn't that the display of the notes was not working, but that there was unreverted vandalism. So, using the tool WikiBlame, I tracked down the addition of this text and it was by you in this edit. Note that in order to find the text of a note and change it to something better, copy the text you want to find, click edit, then search for it using your computer's find function (on many browsers this can be done using ctrl+f).--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 16:05, 5 December 2010 (UTC)

An hour ago there was a problem with the infobox footnotes - the note labelled "2" jumped you to the footnote text labelled "1", and so on; and I believe I've fixed this.

Footnote eight is still missing, but this version of my Sandbox has all eight footnotes visible, moved down to a new section near the bottom of the article. The formatting of the new section could be better, but at least all eight notes work. -- John of Reading (talk) 16:13, 5 December 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for clearing that all up and solving it within the hour....; I will request a footnote 8 at the infobox. Indeed my question could have been a bit clearer; as it was not content related and I only agreed with the IP that it would be non-sense that the EUR would be changed for the USD. However the Netherlands Antillean Guilder will be replaced by the US Dollar; I'll see how I can source that without breaking the infobox links (again?)... L.tak (talk) 16:49, 5 December 2010 (UTC)

resolved now, thanks for the input. (furthermore, I learnt about Wikiblame, which is certainly one of the best-named tools on wikipedia ;-) ) L.tak (talk) 14:38, 7 December 2010 (UTC)

Fixing Horribly Malformed Talk Pages

There are some talk pages I've seen where comments somehow end up floating between the header and the contents box, and have no title; I guess they have no section is the best way to put it. Then there was one talk page where the header was buried somewhere in the comments section. Unfortunately I lost the links to those articles, but how the heck do you fix those types of problems? --WikiDonn (talk) 19:45, 5 December 2010 (UTC)

You aren't allowed to make alterations (even trivial ones) to the text of what people have written, but you can change the formatting of the text to make it readible. If you need to, you can add headers where people have forgotten to add them, you can remove leading spaces so those annoying unformated boxes

 like this

go away, that sort of thing. --Jayron32 20:00, 5 December 2010 (UTC)

If someone makes a comment that is about the subject, but isn't about the article itself (which the ones that float at the top usually are), aren't we allowed to delete them? Doesn't it say that talk pages are not for general discussion of the topic itself so therefore inappropriate comments can be deleted? Even when they aren't, how should we go about making up a header for a comment that doesn't have one. (I seriously wish I could give you examples, I had a bunch of articles in my browser like a 3 days ago, but they're gone now...) --WikiDonn (talk) 01:00, 6 December 2010 (UTC)

Also, if people leave a comment and do not sign (which is very commonly associated with users who leave mal-formatted messages without section headers), you can sign for them using {{unsigned}}. For example, if I forgot to sign this reply you would add at the end: {{subst:unsigned|Fuhghettaboutit}}. which would format as —Preceding unsigned comment added by Fuhghettaboutit (talk • contribs) . Cheers.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 21:59, 5 December 2010 (UTC)

I don't get it, how can you sign someone else's post for them if you don't know who they are? --WikiDonn (talk) 01:01, 6 December 2010 (UTC)

The record of all edits to every page can be found in the history for that page, and that includes talk pages; you can find their username or IP address if you click on the history tab and find the edit where they added the comment. GiftigerWunsch [TALK] 01:05, 6 December 2010 (UTC)

On other wikis

I've had a look at the global contributions and am surprised to find contributions to other Wikipedias i did not make. Why is this? Simply south (talk) 21:14, 5 December 2010 (UTC)

If they exported articles from this Wikipedia, and imported them elsewhere, then your contributions would be known. It is also possible someone else registered the same name as you. Dream Focus 21:32, 5 December 2010 (UTC)

Sorry, forget that previous comment that i just deleted. So does that mean any article i've contributed to and the article has been exported to another Wikipedia will have my name show up on theirs? AFAIK, i have not contributed to the Azerbaijani and German wikipedias. Simply south (talk) 21:41, 5 December 2010 (UTC)

Yes. For example, you made this edit to Template:Current/doc, and when the page was imported to the Azerbaijan Wikipedia, the doppelgänger diff was included here. Cheers.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 21:52, 5 December 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for clearing that up. Simply south (talk) 21:55, 5 December 2010 (UTC)

You're welcome. I remember asking a very similar question at this help desk years ago, where the edit summary looked like something I would never add, though it turned out to only make sense by context looking at the English article's edit history.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 22:02, 5 December 2010 (UTC)

I also might have got it wrong on it being the Azerbaijani Wikipedia. It is the Egyptian Wikipedia. Thanks again. Simply south (talk) 22:06, 5 December 2010 (UTC)

Template

For Canadian Forces Artist Program which template is useful? Template:infobox national military or template:infobox military unit or...? « CA » (talk) 21:55, 5 December 2010 (UTC)

I think it's better to go with Military unit in this case, but maybe there is something more appropriate that I don't know about. Cheers - [CharlieEchoTango] 23:36, 5 December 2010 (UTC)

Legitemate link removed

In the past, the James May page has had a link to his authorised website and its forum, The Pievy. The site is in hiatus until I can get it going again but the forum continues. I added a note to that effect and a link to the forum. It has been removed and I do not understand the reason for this. I can see nothing in the guidelines about links that is contravened by my entry. The link has been there in the past before the website went into hiatus, so I do not understand why the link to the forum cannot be there now. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Mircalla (talk • contribs) 22:48, 5 December 2010 (UTC)

See WP:FANSITE. One of the links to avoid are forums. Thanks. —Half Price 22:55, 5 December 2010 (UTC)

write the truth

patrick guibaud dublin is not achef and never has been he was a hairdresser in manchester before becoming a restranteur in dublin very good but NOT A CHEF!!!!! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 90.60.43.201 (talk) 23:31, 5 December 2010 (UTC)

If you have references backing your claim, you could edit the article yourself. Cheers - [CharlieEchoTango] 23:33, 5 December 2010 (UTC)

IP has edited Patrick Guilbaud. None of the references in the article show that he is a chef. So the IP may be correct. This is really a matter for the article's talk page though. Sometimes Wikipedia has inaccuracies, but we try not to! —Half Price 23:38, 5 December 2010 (UTC)

Actually, this ref refers to Guilbaud as a chef, so I've reverted the IP's edit. —Half Price 23:41, 5 December 2010 (UTC)