Wikipedia:Help desk/Archives/2010 February 13

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February 13

When you can't tell whether the subject of a bio is living or not...

I'm writing an article on a woman who was quite famous in the 1950s and disappeared off the face of the earth as far as sources are concerned after the early 1970s. She was born in 1914 so if she's alive, she would be 96. I can't find any mention of her anywhere after the 1970s. There's no obit for her, nothing found through the social security death index, nothing through Find A Grave, or Ancestry.com. All conventional sources I know of have been exhausted (Old Fulton Postcards has been squeezed dry, Newspaperarchives is tapped out, Chronicling America was searched, Google in all its incarnations has been done). For this particular subject it's also quite possible she went back to Japan 40 years ago and slipped into obscurity. So, how would you treat this? Would you tag it as a BLP and just assume she's alive until she would be 110 or so (and not include "year of death missing" as a category?) What about tense in the article? Just write it as if she's alive. "Jane doe is..." rather than "Jane Doe was..."--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 00:52, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

Don't we have Category:Possibly living people? Or was that a figment of my imagination? DuncanHill (talk) 01:21, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

You should write the article assuming that she is alive, unless there is definite evidence to the contrary. As it says in WP:BLP, Persons are assumed living unless there is a good reason to believe otherwise; for example, persons born prior to 1887 can be safely assumed dead.

Treat her as any other living person. Smappy (talk) 02:19, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

Thanks I was leaning that way (I don't really see an alternative), but wanted to test the waters and see if anyone had dealt with this before.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 03:15, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

MiszaBot

Is there a way to configure MiszaBot to archive sections with no replies? NerdyScienceDude :) (✉ click to talk • my edits • sign) 01:27, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

MiszaBot will archive sections with no replies. It will look for the newest timestamp, even if there's only one. {{auto archiving notice}} says that by default regardless of the behavior of the bot you're using. You can add |dounreplied=yes to {{auto archiving notice}} to change the text of the notice. --Mysdaao ^talk 02:31, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

What about unsigned {{talkback}} templates? Will they be archived? NerdyScienceDude :) (✉ click to talk • my edits • sign) 02:37, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

If the unsigned talkback template is the only comment in a section, then MiszaBot won't know how old it is without a timestamp, so it will ignore it. You can reply to it and sign your comment so there will be a timestamp. Another option is to add the timestamp of the comment inside an HTML comment (e.g. <!--02:59, 13 February 2010 (UTC)-->) so it won't display on the page, but MiszaBot will be able to see it and archive it correctly. --Mysdaao ^talk 02:59, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

Copyviol

I think all the pages of this site are copied from Wikipedia without authorization:

• http://www.digitalphlame.com/

Can you verify it?
Thanks. --Aushulz (talk) 01:34, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

Yes, definitely. If you don't know already, see here for how to deal with it. Calvin 1998 ^(t·c) 01:38, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

Can you do all necessary actions? I don't know en.wikipedia rules... Thank you! ;) --Aushulz (talk) 17:27, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

Copyright of Picture

Hi Wikipedia,

I have recently uploaded a promotional poster of the upcoming 'Hubble 3D' movie on its Wikipedia page at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hubble_3D

Please can you just check the licensing, size and summary of the image are ok and that everything meets all copyright guidelines as a second opinion would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

Corgi5623 (talk) 01:40, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

My opinion does not count because I don't think Wikipedia should have any fair use images, to be like Wikipedia Commons. (I believe that if people want to copyright their content, their content does not deserve free publicity on Wikipedia. We should instead showcase the work of people who produce free content.) However, it looks like you filled out the template well enough. If you really want to be sure, you could contact the copyright holder and ask if they agree with Wikipedia's fair use rationale. Ultimately the defense of copyright rests with the copyright holder, from what I understand. --Teratornis (talk) 03:24, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

Well yes, because who else would have locus standi to sue for breach of copyright but the copyright owner? – ukexpat (talk) 04:13, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

Image font

When I view File:NIT Locations.svg on Wikipedia, either the image itself (including .png renderings of it), or in the articles in which it appears, the text is not spaced correctly. For example, the first text item should read "1 Hamirpur", but it looks more like "1 H am i r pur". If instead I view the 1000px .png rendering, the same text is uncomfortably squashed together. The other text is similarly broken up or squashed with uneven spacing. Twice now I have attempted to fix this - initially the text was so badly spaced that it clashed with other text or the red marker dots - and have yet to find a way to make the text appear correctly. Obviously, the same problem is not evident in Inkscap which I use to edit .svg files.

I don't get the same problem with this other image which I have also worked on, so that suggests to me that perhaps it isn't a browser problem (I use Internet Explorer 8), but I would be interested to find out if other browsers do have this problem. So, is it just me who is seeing this, is there something odd about the image file, or a known bug within the Wiki software, or a totally baffling "feature" of some/all browsers? Astronaut (talk) 02:30, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

I see the problem in Firefox 3.0.17, Windows XP - several words (not just "Hamirpur") show odd spacing every two or three letters. Viewing the file sources, I see that File:NIT Locations.svg uses font-family:Bitstream Vera Sans whereas File:BurjKhalifaHeight.svg uses font-family:DejaVu Sans. I also notice that when I view File:NIT Locations.svg at "ordinary" sizes, the font is sans-serif (as you might expect from a name like "Bitstream Vera Sans"); but when I go to the file's page and view the file at large resolution, it becomes a serif font. It might be that Bitstream Vera Sans will not scale correctly, or perhaps it's just not recognised at all, so another font is substituted - a different font at different resolutions. Try using DejaVu Sans for File:NIT Locations.svg. --Redrose64 (talk) 11:05, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for the suggestion. I think you are right, it is to do with font substitution. I changed the font but still get the same problem. One thing I did notice is that File:NIT Locations.svg is quite a large image (1500px x 1750px) and therefore needs a large font for it to be readable. Perhaps large fonts like the 40pt DejaVu Sans is not not well supported. Since the image is not really dependant on high resolution detail, could I reduce its size and use a smaller font - File:BurjKhalifaHeight.svg is quite a bit smaller, uses 14pt DejaVu Sans font and is easily read? Astronaut (talk) 16:31, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

Have discovered an apparently unrelated discussion at File talk:Vector Video Standards2.svg#File size. Your svg files use the <text> tag for text, which apparently may have browser compatibility issues. Is it possible to get your painting software to use paths instead? If so, does that sort the issues we observed? --Redrose64 (talk) 10:12, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

I can convert text to paths in Inkscape by selecting the text object and then switching to the path tool and clicking on the "convert object to paths" button; and I can see how that might solve a problem with the <text> tag not being supported in some browsers. It has a big disadvantage of destroying the text object and making future updates (eg. spelling corrections, new data, etc.) very difficult to do, as well as making the file much larger. Might give it a go - I can always revert if it doesn't work. Astronaut (talk) 14:11, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

Placing wikitables side by side with space between them

How can I place two wikitables side-by-side with about 50px space between them? mbeychok (talk) 05:50, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

You can put two wikitables inside another table. This code:

{|
|

{| class="wikitable"
|-
!  header 1
!  header 2
!  header 3
|-
|  row 1, cell 1
|  row 1, cell 2
|  row 1, cell 3
|-
|  row 2, cell 1
|  row 2, cell 2
|  row 2, cell 3
|}

|

{| class="wikitable"
|-
!  header 1
!  header 2
!  header 3
|-
|  row 1, cell 1
|  row 1, cell 2
|  row 1, cell 3
|-
|  row 2, cell 1
|  row 2, cell 2
|  row 2, cell 3
|}

|}

produces:

header 1 header 2 header 3 row 1, cell 1 row 1, cell 2 row 1, cell 3 row 2, cell 1 row 2, cell 2 row 2, cell 3

header 1 header 2 header 3 row 1, cell 1 row 1, cell 2 row 1, cell 3 row 2, cell 1 row 2, cell 2 row 2, cell 3

Prime gap#Numerical results has an example of this. --Mysdaao ^talk 06:18, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

Not true neautograph fake there authentic and truly awesome

There awesome and truly auhentic , there beautiful in person there cool —Preceding unsigned comment added by Himonb (talk • contribs) 06:02, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

I'm afraid this isn't the place for comments such as these - the help desk is generally intended more for questions about using Wikipedia. If you have any concerns regarding Wikipedia and its usage, don't hesitate to ask. =) Master&Expert (Talk) 07:18, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

Search tool not working?

This is probably a problem at my end, but.

I can't use the search bar properly, it shows up with no results. I have to do a Google search (with site: en.wikipedia.org) in order to search Wikipedia. It started an hour ago and is getting really annoying. I use Firefox 3.6 on Windows XP.

On a completely unrelated note: Huggle isn't working properly for me on the Simple English Wikipedia.

Can anyone help with either? Thanks :) SS✞^(Kay) 07:38, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

does this work for you ???-->search...Buzzzsherman (talk) 08:06, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

Hey, it does! Thanks! (So it is at my end, huh?) SS✞^(Kay) 08:13, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

Altering a title

An article I am working on is titled by you as an orphan - to avoid this I have decided to move the article to read " technical alliances" ( which exists) but in so doing the title has to be expanded to "Technical, Strategic and Technolgical Alliances"; the original orphan article is "Strategic and Technolocal Alliances"- in other words, how do I come to know of an article's parent article?Ipsofacto (talk) 11:43, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

Have I got this right? You created Technological alliance which seems to have had some name changes. You then copied this into the article Technical Alliance which you didn't create and in fact is about a specific organisation, not 'technnological alliances' in general. That really should be removed. Both of these articles still exist. One of your edits says "'moved Strategic and Technological Alliances' here as was marked an "orpan"" -- but I can't find an article with that name. I think you have inadvertently made a bit of a mess. In any case, there are no 'parent articles', although some articles may at times have short summaries of other articles as part of their text.

I've also taken a quick look at the other articles you've created, Royalty rate assessment, Knowhow and Technology Life Cycle, and I'm afraid none of those come very close to matching our guidelines and policies for articles. Basically they read like unreferenced essays. The next time you create an article, you might want to use our Article Wizard. Meanwhile, WP:Create may be of help with the articles you've already created. Dougweller (talk) 12:32, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

Taking another look at Technological alliance, I find that the lead says "There are a various patterns of technological alliances [1] from R&D enterprises to associations formed with the main purpose of sub-contracted manufacture or supply-chain management. The purpose here is to consider those forms of association devoted to the core of technology and to expand upon concepts touched upon in royalties.". Again, this reads like an essay, not an article in an encyclopedia. Articles should be based on what reliable sources have to say about a subject (which is very different from writing an essay and referencing it, but this is often hard to grasp). Dougweller (talk) 12:35, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

Article - reg.

I would like to present an article about a famous doctor(Dr. Shanmugam M.) who had saved thousands of lives. Some even lost lives owing to improper medical attention after His death. There are many events worth mentioning linked to his life. The article is under preparation. I just made an empty draft entitled with his name. I just can't find a reason why Wikipedia would delete the artitle that was not yet posted. By the way, I had read to some extent Wikipedis's Terms of Use regarding the article preparation. I strongly feel that the article is worth mentioning than films though it might not end up with considerable data traffic. FYI, there are statues of him established after his death - just to make you understand of his popularity in his region. The article would have been perfectly compiled by the end of march. Also we are going to provide wikipedia with Tamil translation of that article. This article work is being done by many people who were close to him during his life. I am merely a person posting the article upon their request. For sure we are going to present the article whatever it takes. If there is anything that Wikipedia wants us to consider before finally posting the article, I would be happy to hear and convey your query to them to make necessary changes in it. Thanks in advance for such fast processing 12:06, 13 February 2010 (UTC)12:06, 13 February 2010 (UTC)12:06, 13 February 2010(UTC)12:06, 13 February 2010 (UTC)12:06, 13 February 2010 (UTC)12:06, 13 February 2010 (UTC)12:06, 13 February 2010 (UTC)~~ —Preceding unsigned comment added by Dragonninjadragon (talk • contribs)

It looks like you created the article with your draft text. There is not draft function on Wikipedia; usually people make draft articles as a subpage in their userspace. If you don't have a lot of experience with creating new articles, I would suggest Wikipedia Articles for Creation. We can help you work with the article so it can be created smoothly by making sure it meets Wikipedia's inclusion guidelines and other policies. --Kraftlos (Talk | Contrib) 12:31, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

The article was deleted under section A3 of the criteria for speedy deletion as an article with insufficient content (deletion log entry). The deletion was technically proper in my view, in that articles may be deleted as soon as posted if they don't meet our inclusion standards, and it had no specific content but just example formatting, but the manner is frowned upon, in that there is strong consensus that article should not be tagged for speedy deletion as lacking content or context moments after creation and this was tagged (by a different user than who deleted it) within one minute of creation. In any event, follow Kraftlos' advice above, or create it manually as a subpage of your user or user talk space, or go through the article wizard. Cheers.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 14:48, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

Delete article Beastly (Care Bears)

Hi, Can something be done about the article Beastly (Care Bears)? It was made by a user a couple of days ago, and so far there is no information put there, and this character has very little information on List of Care Bears in the villains section. I don't know what to add to the article or how to start it, and I know it's not necessarily my responsibility, but given that the article was made two days ago and nothing has been added yet, could it be deleted given that there is not much information on the character in the List of Care Bears section anyway? Thanks. Abby 96 (talk) 16:00, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

Deleted per this criteria. The creator has had plenty of time to add something to the article. Thanks! TNXMan 16:04, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

Templates

I'm trying to create groups in a section of a "Navbox with collapsible boxes", but its not working, could you help? Take a look User:Mr. Prez/Sandbox. Also, is there any way I can make each section a different color? Mr. Prez (talk) 16:44, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

• I've added an example! The different sections' header bar always have the same colour, but there is a way to change the colour of the text. -- PhantomSteve/talk|contribs\ 17:16, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

Eukarya/Eukaryota

Hello. I'm seeing infoboxes with "Domain: Eukarya" (or Eukaryota) in them. I've been removing them, but then some vandals come along and revert my edits for no reason, or because it's "required" or some other piffle. Here's my argument: Just remove them. They clutter up the infoboxes and aren't required. Hopefully you'll agree with me. 78.148.77.248 (talk) 17:06, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

Which pages are these? What makes you think that the Eukarya (or Eukaryota) is not required? --Redrose64 (talk) 17:11, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

This has been brought on numerous other pages. Please remember that forum shopping is not appropriate. TNXMan 20:15, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

How do I edit the content referred to by reflist but not found in the article itself?

I would like to edit the content of one of the references in an article. However when I click "edit" in the references section of the article page, all I see is "{{reflist}}" (without the quotes). I do not see the contents of the reference anywhere. Where do I find that content so that I can edit it? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Johnjgold (talk • contribs) 17:09, 13 February 2010

Where the reference is shown, just after the number there may be a blue or black caret ( ^{^} ). If it's blue, click that; if black, there will be letters ( ^{a b c} ) etc. in blue; click one of those. This will take you to the section where the reference is defined. In the second case, you may need to try each letter in turn. --Redrose64 (talk) 17:16, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

See also WP:FOOTNOTES for lots of detail on how inline citations work and {{Refref}} for a visual explanation. In short, the citation text is inline—in the text of the article where the footnote symbol appears—and Redrose has described the method to find them in the text.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 19:32, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

References are confusing to newcomers, and the above advice is correct. However, references no longer have to be inline, see WP:LDR for a relatively new citation style that improves (IMO) the visual experience of editors, and may closer match your expectations (that details of the reference belong in the reference section). Apologies if this just adds to the confusion.--SPhilbrickT 19:43, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

Just a personal note. LDR may be easier for a non-hands on reader to follow in edit mode, but they are hell for writers of articles who aren't using shortened citations. You write your text, with your source open, place your named reference directly after the sentence, write three more sentences placing the name, move on to the next reference, etc. With LDR you have to be in full article edit mode, and when you write that first sentence you have to go to the bottom of the article, place your reference, find your spot again, lose your train of thought...--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 21:52, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

Actually, it is very easy if you use a browser that supports tabs. Just open the reference section in another tab and add references as needed. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 02:45, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

I think recent posters have missed the point. The original poster has a page where the references section already exists, and contains only {{reflist}}, so the actual references are inline in the wikicode. --Redrose64 (talk) 08:15, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

Referencing error

Trying to start my first article and put in a reference line. When I preview I get this error message. There are <ref> tags on this page, but the references will not show without a <references/> tag . I do not know what that means or how to fix this. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Burtonwikicon (talk • contribs) 19:49, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

<ref></ref> tags are the normal way of adding references to an article. You put the reference to your source in the middle. They won't show up (you get the error message you describe instead) unless the article also has either <references/> or {{reflist}} on a line of its own. This is normally placed somewhere near the end. See Wikipedia:Referencing for beginners. --Redrose64 (talk) 20:05, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

(edit conflict)Add the text {{reflist}} to the bottom of the article, after all references. If you know how, you can also add a section header with "References". If you don't, it's not a problem; just save the page and I or another editor will take a look at it. Intelligentsium 20:07, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

Becoming an administrator

Although I know I am not ready for administratorship yet, I was just wondering what I can do to maxamize my chances of eventully becoming an administrator-any tasks most users who go on to become administrators usually perform? Any help would be much appreciated. Immunize (talk) 21:34, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

Hello great to see you have positive plans to help !! see here for more details on this subject...Buzzzsherman (talk) 21:37, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

(e/c) See above, #Edit Frequency (repost). – ukexpat (talk) 21:39, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

copying Wiki links

I copy and paste a Wikipedia article web address from the box on top of the screen into an Internet forum post. When I click on the hyperlink in that same forum post it sometimes says that Wiki has no such article.

Why?

How do I fix i?

Thanks. 71.178.226.74 (talk) 22:24, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

Are you sure you're copying the entire address including the 'http://'?

Comment Firefox??? ... sometime when you copy and past for the internet browser this happens http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moxy_%28band%29 ..you will notice that in the link it says %29 this should be a ) like this-->http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moxy_(band)..So you just have to make sure that brackets do not turn into code!!..you can simply do this by hand...hope this is the problem and this helps!!Buzzzsherman (talk) 22:32, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

I actually think the problem is more likely to be the opposite but it would have helped if 71.178.226.74 had given an example. The url's http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moxy_%28band%29 and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moxy_(band) both lead to the article Moxy (band), but some programs will omit a ')' at the end of a url when they turn it into a link, because they guess that ')' is not part of the url. Then http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moxy_(band) is interpreted as http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moxy_(band which doesn't work. This can often be fixed by using %29 instead of ')' at the end, so http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moxy_%28band%29 and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moxy_(band%29 may both work in whatever software is powering the forum 71.178.226.74 is posting to. There is also forum software which allows a poster to specify the exact url with some code instead of relying on the software to turn certain text into a link. If you cannot get it to work then you can post the forum address here and we can see which software it uses. PrimeHunter (talk) 22:47, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

How odd for me the %29 links go now were?? you say they work??..I will have to look at my settings..Buzzzsherman (talk) 22:49, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

Maybe there are browsers which cannot handle both types of links. They both work fine for me in all tested browsers: Firefox, Internet Explorer, Opera, Google Chrome. PrimeHunter (talk) 23:28, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

Unified Login

Resolved

 –  – ukexpat (talk) 01:31, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

What would be the best way to repair my unified login if I were to change username? Shannon^talk _contribs 22:55, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

I don't believe there's any automated way to repair it if you were to change your username. Help:Unified login#Can I be renamed after unification? says if you want to change your username and keep a singe unified login, you have to make your request on all wikis separately. --Mysdaao ^talk 23:54, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

Thanks. Shannon^talk _contribs 23:58, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

Tool to find closest shared category for two given articles/categories?

I remember seen sometime ago in Wikipedia, a query form that enabled to type two article names (or perhaps it was two category names) and after pressing submit the service returned all category names that lead from both these two to a shared anchestor category. So for example, you could type in Milk and Cakes. Then the service would return two category chains leading to a shared category: Milk - Dairy products - Foods, and Cakes - Desserts - Foods. So the shared anchestor category was Foods! Please where I can find this service? Uhnedcowr (talk) 23:26, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

I've heard of m:CatScan and Six degrees of Wikipedia but I don't know if you refer to either of those. Six degrees of Wikipedia seems to be not working now. --Teratornis (talk) 01:27, 14 February 2010 (UTC)