Wikipedia:Help desk/Archives/2010 January 24

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January 24

How to suppress interwiki links?

Resolved

 –  – ukexpat (talk) 18:18, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

Q: The Musical Biography of Quincy Jones should not be a link to Wikiquote, but to a Wikipedia page starting with "Q:". How to do this?--Oneiros (talk) 18:42, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

You'll have to use a different title, according to Wikipedia:Naming conventions (technical restrictions)#Colons. Algebraist 19:07, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

Thanks.--Oneiros (talk) 19:18, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

How do I use IRC?

Hi. When I tried to log into IRC, I could only see my own posts and not those of other users, and my IP address was still unhidden. What can I do to fix this, and actually communicate with other users? Do I have to request an account in order to have my IP hidden? Thanks. ~AH1^(TCU) 00:59, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

You haven't said what client you're using to access IRC, or what commands you're giving that client, so I can't give any specific advice. The tutorial may be of use. If nothing else, it explains how, once you have IRC working, you can get a cloak to hide your IP address. Algebraist 01:13, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

I am using Internet Explorer and typing in a nickname to access IRC. ~AH1^(TCU) 01:23, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

Typing in a nickname where? Algebraist 01:31, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

In the nickname bar, of course. ~AH1^(TCU) 01:39, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

What nickname bar? Algebraist 01:40, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

AstroHurricane001, Internet Explorer doesn't support IRC natively, this is why Algebraist and myself and no doubt others have no idea what you're talking about. IRC is usually accessed using a standalone program or via an applet in a webpage and there are many many many different programs and methods for accessing the chat, some of the more popular ones are linked in the handy 'How to get into Wikipedia IRC' tutorial that Algebraist linked. Nanonic (talk) 01:59, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

I went onto IRC here, for example. On my browser, a window simply pops up with no restrictions asking for a nickname. That's where I entered it. ~AH1^(TCU) 02:21, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

Right. That link takes you to the #wikipedia-en channel, which nonregistered IRC users aren't allowed in at the moment. Go there and type "/join #wikipedia-en-help" to go to the wikipedia help channel. Then we can see if your setup's working and answer any other IRC questions you have. Algebraist 02:42, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

Stirrups

Discussion moved

 – to Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Equine#Stirrups – ukexpat (talk) 17:35, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

Stirrups.

English riding stirrups have generic and specific names. These names are recognized, not by their commercial value, but by the recognition of the general public, retail and wholesale tack outlets, and equestrian writers past and present.

My invention is of an English riding stirrup that allows the stirrup to be set at a traditional angle as well as a 45 and 90 degree position. As this type of stirrup is patented in the United States, Europe and Australia, no one can copy or duplicate this design. The name of this unique stirrup is the MDC Intelligent Stirrup.

This name is as accepted as a Peacock Stirrup, an Icelandic Stirrup or another other historically named stirrup, some of which are included in the Stirrup article on Wikipedia.

The editor of the stirrup page considers the name as commercial, while I contest that the stirrup he / she describes can only be called by its name, which is MDC Intelligent Stirrup. I edit, they delete my edit continually.

Can someone assist in resolving this debate so that my invention's name can remain on the stirrup page?

We are a part of invention, part of change and a part of history. We have a specific and unique name and want that name to be addressed.

My background includes over 36 years as an equine professional, two time Olympic Games judge and college lecturer on horses, bits and stirrups.

Thank you. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Mdcohen (talk • contribs) 00:59, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

Question was posted to WikiProject Equine, and the discussion continues there. Montanabw^(talk) 03:08, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

Could someone link this for the OP as well as for other readers? Thanks Bielle (talk) 17:23, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Equine#Stirrups. – ukexpat (talk) 17:35, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

Thanks, ukexpat. I have taken note of the syntax so that I can do it myself next time. Bielle (talk) 17:41, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

Referencing an article on es.wikipedia from en.wikipedia

I am writing an article on en.wikipedia and want to reference an article on es.wikipedia, but when I put the article name in double brackets, it shows up red as being not found. The es.wikipedia article is marked as orphaned, because no articles link to it. I'm trying to! How do I do it?

Thanks, oneroomschool

Oneroomschool (talk) 04:11, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

not sure that would be considers a good references..but -->

i.e [[:es:wikipedia:Portada]]= es:wikipedia:Portada
Buzzzsherman (talk) 04:18, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

Links to articles in projects in other languajes must be included only as interwikis. You can't make inside an article a link to an article from another project, nor try to include here redirects to there. If there's an article here, link, if there isn't, leave a red link; but if you manage well with boths languajes, it would be better if you translate the article (or at least create a stub) and give it the needed interwikis (you can copy & paste them, and add the one to spanish, interwikis to third projects are written the same way) MBelgrano (talk) 04:26, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

Links to articles in projects in other languajes [sic] must be included only as interwikis - where is the policy/guideline that says that? Sure, you cannot use Wikipedia articles in other languages as references, but I have seen plenty of inline "coloned" interlanguage links. – ukexpat (talk) 16:09, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

I agree with Ukexpat — while they're rare, you'll run across inline links to other Wikipedias (if we didn't have an article on Indian God Rock, it wouldn't be altogether unusual for a related article to reference the German article with words such as "Western Pennsylvania is the location of Indian God Rock.") that look exactly like links to articles at en:wp except for their slightly different color. I know that I've never seen any policy against that. However, be careful about referencing: Wikipedia doesn't qualify under the reliable source standards, so don't use the Spanish Wikipedia for a citation. Nyttend (talk) 00:38, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

reverse colors in table

The black and white colors in the table at World Chess Championship 1987 are reversed. I changed all blacks to white and vice versa, but it didn't work. It made everything black on white. I don't see why it didn't work. Why didn't that work? Bubba73 ^{(You talking to me?)}, 05:10, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

Resolved

Bubba73 ^{(You talking to me?)}, 05:22, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

Request for page moved to incubator

I've just created the page http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MULTICUBE. It is telling me that there is a problem since I have copied sentences from a website, but this is the official website of the product and then I'm not violating any copyright policy. If I've to change then I'm going to re-adapt the content soon. Right now I'm going to ask an administrator to move the page under the wikipedia incubator.

Best Stefano Magnonis (talk) 10:58, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

I think you should read up about what copyright is. You are DEFINITELY violating copyright, you should just write the article in your own words. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 14:12, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

Ok, I'm working for them, I'm not stealing contents. Rather than have it deleted can I've it moved to the Article incubator where together with the project owner we will improve it? I've already sent an email at permissions-en‐at‐wikimedia.org to specify that I have permission from the author.

Magnonis (talk) 19:06, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

It's not a question of whether you have permission. It is a question of whether the copyright holder (who may be the author, but might be somebody else, especially in a corporate context) explicitly grants one of the specific kinds of license which Wikipedia requires. --19:52, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

Pics

Resolved

 – Thanks for the explanations. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 15:33, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

Fenway Park

Wrigley Field

Busch Stadium

Other than using the "gallery" feature, is there any way to post 3 pictures in a straight line across the page? I specify "left" and "right" for the outer ones, and that works fine. But if I put one in between, specifying "center", the 3 pictures "stairstep" rather than lining up left-to-right, no matter how small I make them (see above). ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 09:57, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

You could use the templates {{Gallery}}, {{Multiple image}} and {{Triple image}}, but I'm not sure if that's what you're looking for. ≈ Chamal ^talk ¤ 09:59, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

Revised question and example, above. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 10:02, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

No this is not possible with any of the default wikicode. It CAN be done with pure HTML and CSS (though not all browsers will support it). But most importantly; Why would you ever want to do that ? —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 14:15, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

So I can put 3 pictures in a straight line on my userpage. Evidently I would have to use some variant of the gallery feature to make it work. If that's the case, then so be it. I just don't understand why 2 pictures will work and 3 won't.

Aha! I just did another test (not shown here), and it seems as if left and right will work together, and center will only work as a standalone. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 15:33, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

New username does not allow me to upload photos or see my previous contributions

Since my username was changed, I cannot see the photo I uploaded with my previous username or upload a new photo. What should I do? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Mjh134 (talk • contribs) 13:21, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

It seems you simply registered a new account. As far as I can see your useraccount was not actually 'changed'. What was your old account ? —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 14:18, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

I don't know why you are having trouble seeing photographs, but the reason you cannot upload one is because your account in not yet autoconfirmed. Make seven more edits and that problem goes away.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 14:46, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

Are you referring to commons:File:French ePassport.JPG? That was uploaded to Wikimedia Commons and not to the English Wikipedia although it can be displayed here. Commons allows upload right away and has separate logs from the English Wikipedia. PrimeHunter (talk) 16:42, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

adam lambert

How often do you update music sales. Adam's has been the same for over a month. I know the numbers are incorrect. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.80.186.42 (talk) 13:45, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

If you have a reliable source why don't you update them? Teapotgeorge^Talk 14:20, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

An article is updated when one of the millions of volunteers who edit Wikipedia decides that it can usefully be updated, and does so. If any information they add is referenced from a reliable source, their edit stands a good chance of being retained rather than reversed. --ColinFine (talk) 19:55, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

I clairfied the statement on the intro section for the main article. the article for the Album has the most recent sales. andyzweb (talk) 23:19, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

Wikipedia query information

Hello, my name is Nigel and I am a game design student. I am currently working on a research paper and one of the points I wanted to bring up was the percentage of searches in your site were related to finding information regarding video games. Is there any way to accomplish this? Thank you for your time. <<redacted>> —Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.244.191.42 (talk) 13:59, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

It does not seem feasible to me to identify those search queries that relate to video games, from all the others. And even if it is. I believe search behavior is not something that Wikipedia keeps statistics on. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 14:22, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

Please do not add contact information here. We are not able to respond directly to you. All responses will be made on this page. ~~ GB fan ~~ ^talk 14:24, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

Each page has a link under the history tab that gives the number of views like http://stats.grok.se/en/201001/Wikipedia:Help_desk MilborneOne (talk) 15:30, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

Be aware that Wikipedia has transwikied a lot of game-related content to alternative outlets such as StrategyWiki. See WP:NOTGUIDE. People who search for video game information on Wikipedia will only find a tiny subset of the game-related collaboratively-edited content on the Web. Many of those searchers could be looking in the wrong place, especially if they are looking for cheats, guides, or other detailed information Wikipedia excludes. And just to endorse TheDJ's observation above, even if you had a complete record of all the search keywords Wikipedia visitors have typed, how could you determine the intent of every searcher from mere keywords? There are many possible search keywords that could indicate a search for a game, or just as plausibly a search for something else that uses the same terms. There is no box for the user to check which says "I am searching for a game." --Teratornis (talk) 19:17, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

Suspicious edit

Receiver operating characteristic article - I found suspicious edits by user Biostusa (who did no other contributions). What should I do? To whom can i report my suspitions in the future? (links to particular guidelines would be helpful..) Thanks! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 2aprilboy (talk • contribs) 17:26, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

All the edits seem to have done is exchanged a reference to a website by a reference to a book: the title of the book is not obviously related to the subject matter, but one of its authors is cited elsewhere in the article. (I have edited to correct the template formatting only).

Your first step should be to engage with Biostusa either on the article's talk page or own their user talk page. If you have reason to believe that the book they have cited is inappropriate, you can revert their edit, but in any case you should open a discussion with them (since this is not simply obvious vandalism). If they do not reply, or if they simply reapply your edit without engaging in discussion, then you should read WP:dispute resolution. --ColinFine (talk) 20:06, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

Link to viamontenapoleone.org - Via Montenapoleone site

Hello,

I added the link to the site of the street and this has been removed. It seems to me that if a street has its own site it is natural and useful to display the link. Let's consider also that viamontenapoleone.org is an informationional site and institutional one. It is also a nonsense to delete this link that is about a community since, for example, in Weekepedia we find the links to the site of commercial companies that have their store in Via Montenapoleone such as Giorgio Armani, Ralph Lauren...or not?

Kind Regards Erodoto —Preceding unsigned comment added by Erodoto (talk • contribs) 18:13, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

Who the proprietor of the site is, is irrelevant. As soon as you go to it it is obvious that the link was linkspam. --ColinFine (talk) 20:13, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

submitting an article

I can not find where I to submit an article. Will you please inform me where and how to submit my article. I have searched through all our topics and have asked the question on the help site but can not find the instructions. Chen Xiaohui1967 (talk) 18:15, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

A Wizard is available to walk you through these steps. See the Article Wizard.

Thank you.

Before creating an article, please search Wikipedia first to make sure that an article does not already exist on the subject. Please also review a few of our relevant policies and guidelines with which all articles should comply. As Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, articles must not contain original research, must be written from a neutral point of view, should cite reliable sources which verify their content and must not contain unsourced, negative content about living people.

Articles must also demonstrate the notability of the subject. Please see our subject specific guidelines for people, bands and musicians, companies and organizations and web content and note that if you are closely associated with the subject, our conflict of interest guideline strongly recommends against you creating the article.

If you still think an article is appropriate, see Wikipedia:Your first article. You might also look at Wikipedia:How to write a great article for guidance, and please consider taking a tour through the Wikipedia:Tutorial so that you know how to properly format the article before creation. An Article Wizard is available to walk you through creating an article. – ukexpat (talk) 18:20, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

posting new article on wikipedia

Resolved

 –  – ukexpat (talk) 15:43, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

I wrote the article 3 days back. but it still does not show up in wikipedia searches. how do i get the article uploaded? Completeinfo (talk) 18:33, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

I'd suggest you to read Wikipedia:Your first article first - User:Completeinfo/Getit was not created in the main namespace, so it is not an "article", but a "user page"... —2aprilboy (talk) 19:02, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

The draft has been speedily deleted as blatant advertising.  – ukexpat (talk) 15:43, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

Contract document between a seller (merchant) and factor

Where can I find a typical blank contract document that a seller must sign in order to get his invoice(s) handled by a factor. Also, where can I find the language of the stamp that the factors place on the seller's invoice (indicating that this invoice belongs to the factor) before presenting them to the customers ?

Thank you.

KB —Preceding unsigned comment added by 209.247.22.137 (talk) 20:35, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

This page is for questions about using Wikipedia. Please consider asking this question at the Wikipedia:Reference desk. They specialize in knowledge questions and will try to answer any question in the universe (except how to use Wikipedia, since that is what this Help Desk is for). Just follow the link, select the relevant section, and ask away. You could always try searching Wikipedia for an article related to the topic you want to know more about. I hope this helps. --Mysdaao ^talk 22:22, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

If you do post the question at the reference desk, I strongly suggest that you say what country or jurisdiction you are in: this may have a strong bearing on the answer. --ColinFine (talk) 22:18, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

But also note that we cannot give legal advice. – ukexpat (talk) 22:23, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

Tools for browsing article histories

Are there any readily available tools to browse article history(comparing consecutive edits) so that minor edits and those made by bots would be excluded? MarkkuP (talk) 21:29, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

Don't know if this is any help, but if you were interested in a particular article, you could create a sock account (read WP:SOCK first) and put that page on your sock's watchlist. Then, from your sock account, select My preferences --> Watchlist, and check the boxes for hiding minor edits and bot edits. Your sock account's watchlist would then show non-minor, non-bot edits in the history of that article. You'd be limited to the last 7 days, though :-( Adrian J. Hunter^{(talk•contribs)} 15:41, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

See WP:EIW#History. --Teratornis (talk) 19:06, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

WP Admins: Does my contribution have any problem with WP policy?

To WP Administrators: My contribution (already done) is a half sentence added at the end of the first paragraph of the section Customs relating to maiden names in marriages in the WP article "Married and maiden names", namely: ..... "; or for a further, more interesting treatment see this .pdf article on this website." This half sentence is followed by this reference, in single quotes, 'http://www.invisibleinkfreelance.com/articles.html Then, at the bottom of this webpage's righthand column, click on the link "Article: Matriname", in order to receive and read the .pdf file "Matriname".'

The external link above is a private person's business webpage – Does this cause a problem in WP?

I would like to help WP readers by repeating this information in the External Links section of this WP article (already done, of course, so you can see it for yourself). Does this repeating cause a problem in WP?

Naturally I've already checked WP Policy, especially Content Policy, and found no problem. I'll modify or remove my contribution, whatever is recommended to me by you WP experts, hopefully later today. (I would not go to this much trouble except for an article which is truly excellent, in my opinion.) Thank you very much for your kind help in this matter. For7thGen (talk) 23:59, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for asking. It does not appear to comply with the policies regarding externl links. Tiggerjay (talk) 01:32, 25 January 2010 (UTC)