Wikipedia:Help desk/Archives/2010 February 6

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February 6

New feature rquest

Where do I request new features to Wikipedia? -NerdyScienceDude :) (✉ click to talk • my edits) 01:36, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

The village pump is your best bet. TNXMan 01:46, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

If you say what the feature is then maybe we can give more specific advice or determine whether it already exists or has been requested. PrimeHunter (talk) 10:42, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

can this be copied?

http://www.sss.gov/RomoBIO.htm

Public domain, biography of the director? JB50000 (talk) 06:54, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

I see -->©2009 Selective Service System...© =copyright.........Buzzzsherman (talk) 06:58, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

Works by the United States government are in the public domain and can be copied and reused. Please see Wikipedia:Public domain#Works ineligible for copyright protection and Copyright status of work by the U.S. government on this matter. --Mysdaao ^talk 14:01, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

Sir/Mam, please update your database..........

Sir/Mam,

Please update your database along with the heights of celebrities.............. For some purpose, we require the statistical data for heights which is not available in a very well known Wiki-encyclopedia............ kindly act for it........... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 220.227.15.131 (talk) 09:36, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

You are addressing thousands of people, some of whom may have an interest in heights of celebrities, but most of whom do not. We are all volunteers, and working towards (our individual views of) what improves Wikipedia. Doing your research for you probably does not come into that goal. --ColinFine (talk) 09:57, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

See WP:Notability, WP:Verifiability and WP:NOR. Kayau Odyssey HUCK FINN to the lighthouse 14:25, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

My text formatting problem

Apologies if this is the wrong place - please advise. I've been editing here for years with no technical problem, but one has now arisen in editing my sandbox at User:Ghmyrtle/sandbox6 and the article I was working on - Big Dee Irwin. Hard for me (no technical background, but I use Firefox) to describe... but basically when I copy and paste material into my sandbox, and from there into article space itself, I suddenly have lost the ability to format automatically. That is, text copied across from other sites into my sandbox retains its original formatting, which I then have to change - and the WP formatting that I add, for example to add Wikilinks, often seems not to work. For example, at Big Dee Irwin, the parentheses that I've used in the references seem not to work. Don't know if I've explained this adequately, but any advice to rectify the problem would be welcome. Is it a problem with Firefox, or something else? Ghmyrtle (talk) 09:48, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

I think it's to do with line-breaks. Your paragraphs are not separated because there are not blank lines between them. Your link isn't working because there is a line-break before the "pipe" (I think - I didn't know this was a restriction, but I've just tried and it seems to fix it). Why the behaviour of copy/paste has changed for you I don't know: are you using a new version of whatever you edit in or something? --ColinFine (talk) 10:05, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

This sounds like the problem at Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)#Edit box & monospace style changes. Until Wikipedia fixes it you can disable Experimental features under Editing at Special:Preferences. PrimeHunter (talk) 10:37, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for the advice. It does seem to be the same problem referred to by PrimeHunter. I had tried to insert line breaks, but they didn't work. I've now disabled the experimental features and re-edited the refs at Big Dee Irwin, but no changes visible there so far - I will play around with the sandbox version to see if it changes now. and that seems to work now, thanks. I haven't been using any new version of Firefox. Ghmyrtle (talk) 11:26, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

Urdu text in wikipedia articles

Hi, I apologise if this question is quite irrelevant but was hoping someone could be of help. I've noticed that the Urdu text that is written in many wikipedia articles displays in the Nastaleeq style and is still copyable to unicode programs (e.g. microsoft word, etc.) e.g.: the article on Allaamah Iqbal [1] Whereas, usually websites display Urdu in the simple Arabic style or are uploaded as images. I was wondering how that was done and what the requirements are. For example, I have some unicode Nastaleeq fons installed on my computer but is that the reason why the text displays correctly or will it display on any computer etc? Do you need any special programs or fonts to make the website in such a way? Thank you in anticipation of your response. 81.98.252.181 (talk) 14:30, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

creating Wikipedia ID:

I have an article to contribute. to do that I have to log on with Wiki's ID to do that - I have problem, I do not understand why. I contribute elsewhere under "es:". I tried to use the same for Wiki - but it tells me that this is inapropriate - why? It doesn, contravene anything I could read about user IDs on Wiki. 193.122.239.20 (talk) 14:31, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

You may be trying to edit a semi-protected article, which only registered users can edit. -NerdyScienceDude :) (✉ click to talk • my edits) 14:44, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

Unfortunately your question is a bit too vague, thus we can only guess at what you are referring to. Please be more specific. If you want to use the same username on all Wikimedia projects, visit Wikipedia:Single user login here, or es:Ayuda:Login unificado on es.wp. Xenon54 / talk / 14:55, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

What article are you attempting to edit? If it is semi-protected, not only will you have to create an account, you will also have to make at least 10 edits and be at least four days old. See this link for more information. Immunize (talk) 15:20, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

Autoconfirmation requires both: at least 4 days old and 10 edits. – ukexpat (talk) 17:50, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

Victimisation

I am being consistently attacked by two other editors who conspire to persecute me. They have a particular view point on historical interpretation (revisionist) which is no more valid than any other. Every single edit I make they revert and just say something like "they have had problems with me before" which then invalidates anything I try to say in my defence. The fact I reference my work and often use primary sources should be taken into account. Some historians which I favour may not present views that these two editors personally support, but all views should be aired. They revert and delete edits I make without process or consideration. I feel victimised and this is totally unfair. I write good wikis and have been using this site for years. I have more to give but I am on the verge of quitting. What can be done. I am at the end of my tether. Please help. The editors in question are Cúchullain and Doug Weller. James Frankcom (talk) 17:26, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

Without commenting on the merits either way, have you tried to discuss this with the other editors on the talk pages of the relevant articles? That's the place to start in a content dispute. – ukexpat (talk) 17:53, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

See WP:EIW#Dispute for links to pages that describe how to handle disputes on Wikipedia. See WP:ALTOUT for some other places to try editing if you find the going too tough on Wikipedia. If you are editing topics that are highly controversial, and you favor a side, Wikipedia can be an unpleasant place to edit. You might have more fun editing on a wiki that caters to your point of view; see WikiIndex. It is not natural for most people to write neutrally - for many Wikipedia editors, that is a skill we have to cultivate and then work to maintain. Also, Wikipedia has millions of articles about thousands of topics, so try editing something else that isn't controversial - ideally, some topic that you don't have a life or death personal stake in. --Teratornis (talk) 00:15, 7 February 2010 (UTC)

Looking for a template

Resolved

 –  – ukexpat (talk) 01:23, 7 February 2010 (UTC)

I was wondering if we had a template that could produce the month and day as they were 28 days ago. I was unable to locate anything on my first attempt, so I thought I would ask here to see if there was a place I could try. TomStar81 (Talk) 17:49, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

I don't know of one, but I'm a little confused as to why it would be necessary. Are you referring to 28 days ago for one specific date or would it be a rolling date (28 days ago from yesterday, from today, from tomorrow, etc.)? TNXMan 21:08, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

Rolling. I ask because 28 days is the usual length of time for a milhist project A-class review to stay open, and I was looking for a template that could provide the date 28 days ago so my coordinators could more easily determine which ACRs were eligible for closure based on the time stamp for the initial nomination. TomStar81 (Talk) 21:56, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

28 days ago was 5 November, computed with {{Day+x}} using {{day+x|{{CURRENTMONTH}}|{{CURRENTDAY}}|-28|year={{CURRENTYEAR}}}}. Does that work for you? PrimeHunter (talk) 22:01, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

Purrfect :) Thanks for the assistance, PrimeHunter. TomStar81 (Talk) 23:41, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

Offensive stuff

Someone wrote offensive (racist) stuff in the article Demographics of Germany [2]. Can this be removed from the article history?-- Greatgreenwhale (talk) 19:02, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

This is standard vandalism. Removing versions from article history is usually done only if an editor's personal information (name, address, etc.) is revealed. --NeilN ^{talk to me} 20:22, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

The policy is at Wikipedia:Oversight. PrimeHunter (talk) 22:05, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

Counting Views

Hello everyone. Thanks a lot for all of your help so far. I have another question. Is there a way of knowing how many people have looked at an article? Fly by Night (talk) 19:59, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

If you look under the history tab on the article you are interested in at the top section you will find a link to Page view statistics. MilborneOne (talk) 20:04, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

Wikicode converter

Is there any tool online somewhere where I can convert wiki markup (like seen when editing pages or templates) to html and vice versa? Ks0stm ^(T•C•G) 20:11, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

Well, yes there is - it's called the MediaWiki software. There's nothing simpler that I know of, you basically need all the software and extensions (like Cite.php to format references) to see what exactly you're going to get (plus you need to have the template pages if you want to see what a template will look like in use). If you're a little tech-savvy though, it's not all that hard to set up your own wiki. Franamax (talk) 20:18, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

See also Wikipedia:Tools. I don't know how they work. PrimeHunter (talk) 22:07, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

And WP:EIW#Tools and WP:EIW#Table. If you tell us more details about what you are trying to do, someone might give you more specific advice. In general there is no magic data conversion tool that meets every need, so the more precisely you define your desired conversion, the better your chances of realizing it. The hardest part of solving a problem is often defining it clearly enough to admit a solution. Incidentally, you mentioned templates. Do you just want to convert the rendered output of a template to HTML, or do you want to embed the dynamic behavior of the template into the HTML? If the latter, then you might need a programming language like PHP. --Teratornis (talk) 00:07, 7 February 2010 (UTC)

You can run MediaWiki as a Personal wiki. See mw:Manual:Wiki on a stick. --Teratornis (talk) 00:08, 7 February 2010 (UTC)

The robotics team I'm responsible for designing the website of decided against a wikia wiki (due to advertising) and mediawiki (due to school district server space issues) for their website, opting instead for PBWiki...unfortunately, in their infinite wisdom, they disregarded the fact that I am clueless as to html, thus I need a way to convert wikicode from templates, etc, into html. Ks0stm ^(T•C•G) 06:20, 7 February 2010 (UTC)

So you are not even talking about a site which uses Mediawiki software, but some other kind of Wiki? I doubt anybody here can help you. But in any case, I don't understand why you should need to convert anything to HTML: surely the point of using any wiki software is that it does that for you? --ColinFine (talk) 10:56, 7 February 2010 (UTC)

I wouldn't need to, except that this wiki you edit using html...when you hit edit, it takes you to an edit window with html in it. Ks0stm ^(T•C•G) 18:23, 7 February 2010 (UTC)

Right-click on any Wikipedia page, and select "View source". The source code is converted into HTML. Intelligentsium 18:28, 7 February 2010 (UTC)

Mmk, thanks. Ks0stm ^(T•C•G) 18:51, 7 February 2010 (UTC)

(←) A Google finds: New Feature: Document Import but I don't see anything about importing from MediaWiki to PBWorks. Every time another startup company invents its own proprietary markup/formatting scheme, they create more problems for people who need to use data outside the proprietary domain. The assumption always seems to be "We'll just pretend the whole world will start over from scratch with our system." --Teratornis (talk) 06:45, 8 February 2010 (UTC)