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Wikipedia:Help desk/Archives/2010 July 17

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July 17

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-Spaces

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I've come across a lot of Wikipedia: space and Help: space, but I never really questioned the fundamental difference between them. Can you explain to me what it is that separates them? :| TelCoNaSpVe :| 01:00, 17 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

There's not a huge difference, as they are both directly related to Wikipedia. Pages in the "Wikipedia" space (more formally referred to as the project namespace) contains things such as policy, guidelines, essays, and discussions related to the project, while pages in the help namespace are there to explicitly help in using Wikipedia and its software. For example, take Wikipedia:Reverting: It's an essay that outlines what reverting is, along with providing some guidelines and policy regarding it. Help:Reverting, on the other hand, goes into more technical detail and explains how to revert pages. Some can argue that some pages belong in either mainspace; in my view, I also don't see that much of a difference, but it's there. Check out Wikipedia:Namespace for a description of each namespace. Hope this helps. ~SuperHamster Talk Contribs 01:18, 17 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
The Wikipedia namespace is for things like policies, guidelines, and other Wiki-related things. The Help namespace is for ONLY help topics. Also, the Wikipedia namespace is much more widely used, as opposed to the Help namespace.  A p3rson ‽ 01:21, 17 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Personally, I've always wanted to write Help:Edit warring. --erachima talk 06:19, 17 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Originally, pages in the Help space were copies of the Help from Meta, with some local content using a series of templates. Those pages on Meta were never updated, a lot of local changes were made, and much of the content was duplicated in Wikipedia pages. See Help:Footnotes and WP:Footnotes for an example. This got so disjointed that the Meta stuff was tossed on most of the Help pages about two years ago and most were rewritten. It is still rather messy. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) talk 12:40, 17 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
The difference to me is: If I want to know how to do something, I go to Help; if I want to know when or why to do something, I go to project space. I find project space pages that have to do with a specific process often are needlessly complex, covering every single topic that could possibly be related to the page title, when a Help page is much better at providing a simple explanation so I can get back to work quickly. For example, Help:Table tells me how to make a simple table in the first subheading, and goes on to cover more complex tables if I need to know how to use color or do a rowspan. WP:TABLE goes to the Manual of Style entry which does not even cover how to actually create the damned thing, and someone who is just scanning the page may miss the italicised Main page: Help:Table. Xenon54 (talk) 14:10, 17 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I agree. Help should be a how to do something, Wikipedia should be why. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) talk 14:34, 17 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Routemaster RMA

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My Mum was a clippy for over 25 years at Seven Kings and I am trying to find out that when she passes away our family would like to celebrate her time on the buses by using one for her funeral.

Do you know how we can loan or hire one for the service

Thank you for your help Sharon Jones —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.147.115.161 (talk) 08:15, 17 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Hello. I suspect, based on your question, that you found one of our over three million articles, and thought that we were directly 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 a help desk for asking questions related to using the encyclopedia. However, I suggest you begin with a Google search for "hire a routemaster bus". -- John of Reading (talk) 08:29, 17 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
A quick Google search reveals several hits, the first two of which are this and this. Karenjc 10:42, 18 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Need help with a WikiProject

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I'm developing a WikiProject (WikiProject American Old West to be exact). I created an assessment page and I also created categories where articles in a certain class and importance would go. I tried assessing an article, but the assessment didn't show up. What did I do wrong? The Raptor Let's talk/My mistakes; I mean, er, contributions 15:21, 17 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Which article have you tried to assess and which category do you want it in? PrimeHunter (talk) 15:30, 17 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
The article is American Old West (how the WikiProject got its name), and I want it to be in the Top-importance American Old West articles and B-Class American Old West articles categories. The Raptor Let's talk/My mistakes; I mean, er, contributions 15:36, 17 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Done: [1][2]. I see you manually added Category:WikiProject American Old West articles to Talk:American Old West and you don't request all tagged talk pages to automatically be added so I haven't done that. PrimeHunter (talk) 17:46, 17 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks! The Raptor Let's talk/My mistakes; I mean, er, contributions 19:59, 17 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Done: [3]. PrimeHunter (talk) 21:07, 17 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Much appreciated, thank you. The Raptor Let's talk/My mistakes; I mean, er, contributions 21:19, 17 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

move images to commons

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I'm trying to get set up to move images to the Commons easily. I followed the directions at Wikipedia:Moving images to the Commons (got a TUSC account). I added the script at User:Fran Rogers/CommonsHelper Helper to my monoblock.js file and reloaded. I have the preference to preview on first edit checked. But when I edit the page of an image file, the "move image to the Commons" button isn't there. (At least I don't see it and a search doesn't find it.) What could be wrong and how can I fix it? Bubba73 (You talkin' to me?), 15:35, 17 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I don't know about CommonsHelper Helper. Instead I made a template in my userspace that creates a link to CommonsHelper with most of the critical fields pre-filled the way I like. See User:Teratornis/Notes#Improving the efficiency of using CommonsHelper. My method still requires too much clicking and editing, but it is self-documenting so I can easily remember what to do when I haven't used it for months. It would be nice to have a totally simple one-click method to move an image to Commons, but the process is difficult to automate due to the large number of images on Wikipedia with questionable copyright and ad hoc formatting of the description and licensing text. --Teratornis (talk) 18:55, 17 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I was just trying to use CommonsHelper and CommonsHelper 2, but I can't get them to work. There is a red message about Commons not accepting bot uploads. Bubba73 (You talkin' to me?), 19:16, 17 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Does the message link to an explanation? Sometimes you can get answers about technical problems on Commons on Commons:Commons:Village pump. If there are server problems, sometimes the Wikimedia technical blog explains them. The most important thing to determine about such problems is whether and when they might get fixed. I.e., has anyone else reported it to whoever can fix it, and is that person working on a solution. --Teratornis (talk) 22:50, 17 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Need an explanation? Well, I tried to follow it but it didn't work. Either it is wrong or not clear enough, or I made an error, or something else is wrong. Bubba73 (You talkin' to me?), 02:03, 18 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Changing an article name

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How do I change the name of the article on my grandfather (currently Gerhard Jack Zunz) to "Jack (Gerhard Jacob) Zunz"? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Toomuch2young (talk • contribs) 15:58, 17 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

See Help:Move. Also please read the notability standard for people and add additional references to that page, as the article you've referred to appears not to meet it at present. --erachima talk 16:01, 17 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
If he's most commonly known as Jack Zunz, the article should almost certainly be moved over the redirect at Jack Zunz. The article title "Jack (Gerhard Jacob) Zunz" is nonstandard. See WP:TITLE and WP:NCP. Deor (talk) 16:04, 17 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Edit summary help

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Reduction in numbar of slept admins

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I am a Bureaucrat at Hindi wiki. There are a large number of admins, of which maximum number is of slept ones. A few ones visit at rare occasions, & 2-4 are active ones. This is unnecessary creating a mess. I therefore request that large number of sleeping admins may please be intimated & warned that there admin right may & will be seized if this continues for one more month. Some guidelines may please be framed like:

  • One month of inactivity (0 contribution) aur 3 months of (<100 contr.) may lead to a final warning. After that one month of <100 contr, straight seizure of the admin rights.

Please help us out, I can even arrange for a vote from 3-4 active admins if required. Request a Talkback template at hindi discussion page. Thanks.--आशीष भटनागर (talk) 17:28, 17 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

You don't make it easy to understand you, by hiding your link to the Hindi wikipedia under the name 'wiki'. But this is the English Wikipedia, and has no standing whatever at the Hindi one. It is not clear what you are asking. --ColinFine (talk) 19:41, 17 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
It's fairly clear that he's asking help in getting more "sleeping" admins active. But as you say, we don't manage the Hindi wikipedia. I'm guessing he's posting everywhere, trying to get some help. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 19:45, 17 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
An apology for missing the word Hindi before wiki, which I have corrected here. Now the second thing is that I have not posted it anywhere, but at Jimmy Wales Talk page, where it was suggested to write at this page. Now off course this is eng wiki help desk, but people here have much more experiences than our, further here might be some strategy existing to solve the abovesaid issue. This was what I expected. Either we can get sleeping admins active (which is next to impossible), or can we sieze adminship rights, firstly for a definite period, & then on no response, permanently? as they are even contacted on mails, wherever possible but to no response. Also most of them have no mail-contacts listed here. So they just addup to Hindi wiki admin list, but never reverted back. I think I am clear now.--आशीष भटनागर (talk) 03:17, 19 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Uploading PDFs for use as references

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Over at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/K. A. Malle Pharmaceuticals Limited, someone suggested they could upload company PDFs to "Wikimedia" then use these as references for the K. A. Malle Pharmaceuticals Limited article. TBH, I doubt this is permitted, but I thought I would ask anyway. If it is permitted, which Wikipedia policy/guideline permits this. If it is not permitted, which Wikipedia policy/guideline prohibits this? Astronaut (talk) 18:34, 17 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Hmm... PDFs have to follow the same rules as other files (images), so that would pretty much be out of the question. In addition, references have to be to a reliable source that has already been published -- no original research. Calvin 1998 (t·c) 18:52, 17 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
As Calvin says, PDFs based on non-published files mean nothing. If they are copies of published, verifiable sources, then what we need are citations to the published sources, not to PDFs of copies thereof. We get that occasionally: links to photocopies of clippings, which may (for all we know) have been altered in some way, instead of citations of the original published articles. --Orange Mike | Talk 15:30, 19 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Vandalism?

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Is the most recent edit on the page Bugsy Malone vandalism so i know if i can revert it?,Gobbleswoggler (talk) 19:33, 17 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Yes. I've already reverted it.TMCk (talk) 19:42, 17 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Or maybe not? Checking...TMCk (talk)
I've removed the link. He's another Michael Jackson.TMCk (talk) 19:51, 17 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Wrong again. It really was him.TMCk (talk) 19:54, 17 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

dr who

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the number of dr who,s are wrong there have been ten dr,sin the tv series if you innclude movie dr,s also there have been twelve as paul mcgann [1986] and peter cushing[1965]92.25.199.57 (talk) 19:58, 17 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Which article are you referring to? David Tennant is The Tenth Doctor at the official BBC site: http://www.bbc.co.uk/doctorwho/s4/characters/doctor10. PrimeHunter (talk) 20:03, 17 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Peter Cushing is not regarded as a canonical Doctor (neither are Richard E. Grant who played the Shalka Doctor, nor any of the actors who portrayed the character in Doctor Who and the Curse of Fatal Death). Paul McGann was the eighth Doctor and is already included. Our article on the Doctor has some more info. AJCham 21:15, 17 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Vandalism?

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Is the most recent edit on the page The Walking Dead (TV series) vandalism?,Gobbleswoggler (talk) 20:00, 17 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I think so. Clicking through to the cited source I find Michelle Maxwell MacLaran mentioned, not Dan O'Connor. -- John of Reading (talk) 20:40, 17 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

How to insert a TAB character when editing an article ?

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Well, the title says it all. For years I was able to insert a TAB character in all text zones just by pressing the TAB key on my keyboard, but now for some reason it will not happen and instead move to the next control field (damn all these automatic software updates...). Would anyone please have an easy way to do that ? (my actual concern is not to insert in a Wikipedia article but in a Wikibooks article, but I will recklessly assume the answer would be the same). SyG (talk) 21:30, 17 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Copy and paste :) If you're using Windows you can type 09 on the number pad while holding down the ALT key (see Alt code). -- zzuuzz (talk) 21:55, 17 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks, I am using Windows indeed, but your proposal does not seem to work: when I type 09 it just goes to the next field as if I had entered the TAB key, instead of inserting a TAB character (i.e. an indent) in the text zone where I was. SyG (talk) 09:00, 18 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I can only suggest you ensure the numlock is turned on, that you use the number pad instead of the top keys, and that you hold down the ALT key until after the 9 is lifted. You might want to practice in a text editor. If that doesn't work, here's a tab character for you to copy and paste. -- zzuuzz (talk) 09:31, 18 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks. Actually the method you propose works great in usual text editors (Notepad, Word, ...) but not in the text zones of Wikipedia or Wikibooks, so it is related either to the Wikimedia software either to the way my computer handles browsers (I have tested both IE and Firefox, so it is not a Mozilla bug). It seems I will have to use the copy/paste method after all. Thanks again for your help ! SyG (talk) 09:44, 18 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
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