Wikipedia:Help desk/Archives/2010 May 31

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May 31

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Please delete

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  Resolved

Hello, can anyone delete the pages User:Sp33dyphil/monobook.css and User:Sp33dyphil/monobook.js for me please. I've created them under the intention of vandal-fighting but I don't know how to use them. Sorry for unintentionally wasting your time Thanks. Sp33dyphil (Talk) (Contributions) 06:06, 31 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

No problem. Done. BencherliteTalk 06:49, 31 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks. Sp33dyphil (Talk) (Contributions) 08:38, 31 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Infobox on geographical articles.

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Hi,

I wonder can you help please.

The infobox I have used for several (geographical) articles has a little green spot which can be moved about (I've discovered how to do this OK) to highlight the exact area under discussion.

What I would like to know is how to make the little green spot into a little box instead? I remember seeing an article with a box instead of a spot so it must be able to be done but despite many attempts to find it again or to replicate it, I still don't know how to do it. It must be to do with putting something else in place of pin-coordinates but what?

If you can, please send me something I can copy and paste and then manipulate into what I want it to show. I'm not very clever at doing HTML from scratch as its not something I ever studied in detail. Or direct me to an article which has a box and I can copy it from there.

Thanks. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Comhar (talkcontribs) 10:27, 31 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

There are many geographical infoboxes. Different infobox templates can use different images. I guess from your contributions that your interest is in Template:Infobox Place Ireland. It appears to have Image:Locationinireland.gif coded into the template source and cannot replace it. PrimeHunter (talk) 12:09, 31 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Company Information profit/loss up/down arrows in red and green

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Dear helpdesk,

I tried to edit the "Hannover Re" entry and changed net income / profit from (127) to 731. However, the arrow shown is red and goes down, I guess that indicates a down in figures while there should be an up. What mistake did I make? Can somebody fix this? Sorry, I am not a regular user.

Thank you for helping. Akmathr (talk) 12:58, 31 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

article link Hannover Re
Since the information you want to change is sourced, you will need to change the source out when you change the information. Then to change the   to   you will need to change the {{loss}} to {{profit}}. Hope this helps, if you need anything else let us know. ~~ GB fan ~~ talk 13:13, 31 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
(ec)The negative 127 is for 2008. Are you trying to update with 2009 values? That would be a good update, but you should add a link to the 2009 Annual Report. As a very new user, you might not yet know how to do that. In addition, you may have edited the number, but you didn't save your edit, as there have been no edits to the article since November. My guess is you tried to change the 127 to 731, previewed the result and saw it was still a down arrow, so did not actually save the change? If so, good call. If you look just to the left of the 127, you will see {{loss}}) which indicates it was a loss and adds the arrow. That is a template and should be replaced by a "gain" template. However, one needs to add a reference to the 2009 results, and update the other values (assets, employees) as well. As an aside, I note that the link to the 2008 annual report is bad. If you can find a link to the 2009 annual report, I can update it, or walk you though the changes, if you'd like to learn how to do it.--SPhilbrickT 13:14, 31 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you I tried again and hope everything is fine now. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Akmathr (talkcontribs) 15:03, 1 June 2010 (UTC) Forgot to sign, still very green Akmathr (talk) 15:04, 1 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

contributing photo to bio page

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Would like to contribute a personal photo to the Kiki Carter page. The photo was taken of me by me, and I am willing to release it to the public domain. I created an account to do this, but I do not have upload privileges as I am new to Wikipedia. Is there someone more established here that I should send the photo to? -kiki —Preceding unsigned comment added by Sunblossomrecords (talkcontribs) 13:28, 31 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Sunblossomrecords. You should not upload it here at all but to the the Wikimedia Commons instead, so that all projects have access to the image. The best part is that there is no autoconfirmation threshold at the Commons; you can sign up there and upload immediately. Once uploaded, the image can be used immediately here, just add to the article syntax such as [[File:File name.jpg|thumb|Caption text.]] to the area of the article where you want the image to appear – replacing File name.jpg with the actual file name of the image, and Caption text with a short description of the image. See our picture tutorial for more information. By the way, I'd like to prophylactically tell you to have a look at our policy on conflicts of interest in editing, as well as our Username policy, the result of which is that your current username is prohibited and it's better to change it voluntarily before being surprised by a username block. Cheers.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 13:56, 31 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Request that an article be deleted

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For reasons unknown, someone decided to create a wikipedia page for my old high school newspaper (The Torch). Looking at this page, it is subject to repeated vandalism. I request that it should be deleted because it has no relevance at all, and a small high school paper has no relevance at all to the wikipedia community. Clearly, this article was created to inflate the egoes of current writers on staff. Again, I request this article for speedy deletion.

Here's the article in question: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Torch_%28newspaper%29 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.254.58.96 (talk) 14:14, 31 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

It is not a candidate for speedy deletion. I have proposed it for deletion using WP:PROD. CosmicJake (talk) 14:22, 31 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
And I have {{prod-2}}'d it, though another option is to merge it with and redirect it to the school article. – ukexpat (talk) 16:28, 1 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Clement Attlee and Herbert Morrison

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Biographies of Herbert Morrison and Clement Attlee. You should note that co-incidentally, they share a birthday (not a birthdate) January 3rd —Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.4.217.204 (talk) 14:25, 31 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia is not a collection of trivia. Xenon54 (talk) 15:19, 31 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
See January 3#Births which is where we would list this sort of thing (Attlee is there, but not Morrison yet), but probably not in the articles about the two persons. There are so many people born on any particular day that the biographical articles would become cluttered if each one had to list everybody else who shared a birthday. Only if a shared birthday was somehow notable for a pair of people, then we might list it in their articles. One example that comes to mind is the similar case of several US Presidents dying on July 4 - it might be notable that they would have died on the US Independence Day. See List of Presidents of the United States by date of death. Wikipedia is not organized as a list of trivia, but we have an awful lot of information that could go in trivia lists organized in various ways. In the future, when we have semantic wiki features, it should be possible to use software to synthesize all manner of trivia lists. You could do strange queries such as give me all the politicians with a Q in their names who were vegetarians and were known to juggle. We don't manually construct those sorts of oddball lists, even though that type of information might be harvested from Wikipedia. --Teratornis (talk) 02:10, 1 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Strange location for an article

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I stumbled upon Talk:VILLAGE DATA (HISAR), which was created by an IP. I assume it should be moved to article space, but I wasn't sure if there were any special procedures for cross-namespace moves. Dabomb87 (talk) 14:57, 31 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Well, at the moment, it's actually speedyable under G8. But it could always be moved to Articles for creation I suppose, however, in it's current state, the page is lacking sources and is in dire need of a copyedit. Jeffrey Mall (talkcontribs) - 15:11, 31 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I would just speedy it. It's hardly appropriate for an article in its current state, and if the user wants to contribute they need to learn for themselves how to do it correctly. I think this is a situation where the Help Desk has a potential to be too helpful. Xenon54 (talk) 15:19, 31 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I agree. Jeffrey Mall (talkcontribs) - 15:41, 31 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

RfA tool

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Why does it state that did not comment on two RfA's I recently participated in in this RfA tool? Immunize (talk) 15:55, 31 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I supported one of the candidates and opposed another? This makes little sense. Immunize (talk) 15:56, 31 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I presume you meant the two candidates at the bottom? It looks like the tool was unable to "parse" the RfAs. I'd imagine this was nothing to do with you - someone who !voted before you probably had a wacky signature and the tool got confused. Best thing to do, though, would be to check with Soxred93, the tool's creator. TFOWRidle vapourings of a mind diseased 15:59, 31 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
For what it's worth, I'm gettign the same thing: I know I supported Ameliorate! - they were the first time I !voted in an RfA, and I supported them because "Wikipedia needs more admins in UTC+9 - UTC+12" ;-) TFOWRidle vapourings of a mind diseased 16:01, 31 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
However, my !vote will still be counted? Immunize (talk) 16:02, 31 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I'm fairly sure it will, yes - !votes are considered by bureaucrats (strictly: RfAs aren't votes at all - the 'crat closing the RfA will consider the reasons given for supporting or opposing). Soxred93's tool simply tallies the !votes. Incidentally, if you click onto the RfA itself in Soxred93's tool, it'll open the original RfA page - it looks to me like your !vote was valid, though to be honest it wouldn't have affected the outcome (you !voted with the majority, and the closing 'crat closed in your favour). TFOWRidle vapourings of a mind diseased 16:10, 31 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Actually, in this case the RfA was closed by an admin, citing WP:NOTNOW. TFOWRidle vapourings of a mind diseased 16:13, 31 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
However, the same error has occurred with the RfA counter and Xenos RfB, which I supported. Could someone please fix this error? Immunize (talk) 14:08, 1 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

proposed deletion

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Hi! I put a proposed-deletion tag on a page, put a Old prod full-tag on the talk-page and was about to put a message on the talk page of the main contributor of this article, when I found out there was a speedy deletion warning there for the same page. I checked the history and discovered that a speedy deletion tag was put in by one editor and declined by another. Now, my question is: did I do something wrong? Should I remove the proposed-deletion tag and nominate the article for deletion in another way? Lova Falk talk 16:04, 31 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I'd say "no", in as much as articles change, and your proposed deletion may well be valid now (whereas the previous prod may not have been. If it were me - and I'm very lazy - I'd simply leave the new prod in place and wait and see. If anyone complains, point them here and blame me ;-) TFOWRidle vapourings of a mind diseased 16:07, 31 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
If you're so very lazy, what are you doing here instead of doing nothing at all? ;) Lova Falk talk 16:37, 31 May 2010 (UTC) [reply]
(e/c with above) Prodding is the logical next step if a speedy deletion candidate is declined. You didn't do anything wrong. The CSDs were deliberately constructed so they do not necessarily apply for every article. Xenon54 (talk) 16:46, 31 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Posting info about a new invention at Wikipedia

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I am structural engineer (house builder) who has invented a class of devices I call Body Oars.

They are essentially many different configurations of body attached and powered water paddles.

My primary motivation to develop them to market readiness is that I noticed that all modern fitness devices and exercise methods that are cardio/core mobility strengthening overload knees to work body muscles. This makes these modern methods useless for people who can barely or can't walk, or stand, so their bodies just atrophy, and they become weak and sickly.

In this case LOBOS (a type of lower body oars for mobility disabled) takes the place of useless legs, so the big body muscles that normally run legs have something they can easily run in full range motion, to override core atrophy and keep their hearts strong.

After 24 levels of prototyping in my home garage, I have a device that for 2 years now has been massively strengthening disabled people, but the big press and US education systems won't talk about them, or even verify any of the people using them. My suspicion is because I am independent and do not have a college degree.

However almost every search engine's first page is now dominated by Body Oars, if you search "Disabled fitness device".

My question is about creating a Wikipedia page for Body Oars. I would rather not try this myself as being the inventor many may think I am not being fair and objective. So what do you recommend about posting a page about Body Oars? Do you recommend independent writers to post stories like this? Thank you —Preceding unsigned comment added by Bodyoars (talkcontribs) 18:08, 31 May 2010 (UTC) [reply]

Hi Bodyoars. What you've described is essentially the poster child for an article that would be original research to advance original thought and thus improper to include in Wikipedia. This is not a reflection on the merits of your invention, but on the nature of what Wikipedia is, which is an encyclopedia, a tertiary source, the content of which, by definition, synthesizes already published sources for its content, and should never announce new things that are not verifiable through already published, reliable source. So, in short, I wish you luck on getting your device out there—it seems like a worthy product—but based on your description Wikipedia is uniquely unsuited for discussion of the product.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 18:23, 31 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Benny Hinn

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When I search for Benny Hinn I get bumped to another website —Preceding unsigned comment added by 97.117.230.123 (talk) 19:13, 31 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Where do you make the search and which website do you get bumped to? If you enter Benny Hinn in the search box at top of the page then you should go to the article Benny Hinn. If you refer to a Google search and don' go to the Wikipedia page when you click on it then your browser may have been affected with malware but it's hard to say without knowing more. PrimeHunter (talk) 23:11, 31 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Just an fyi, the general public can make changes to any article...I hope this is a glitch with you running in BETA otherwise I don't think this info is very reliable. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.171.234.26 (talk) 19:40, 31 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

That's intentional and has been how Wikipedia has worked since it was founded, to allow anyone to improve an article. I suggest you read the introduction to Wikipedia. PleaseStand (talk) 19:44, 31 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

OTRS question

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How do I get OTRS to check if Wikipedia talk:Articles for creation/Hooked on Horses magazine has the proper copyright permission? The image has an OTRS ticket number on it, but some of the text was copied from another web site and I am unsure whether the ticket applies to that as well. PleaseStand (talk) 19:46, 31 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

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Hi. Where should I report a possible legal threat made? Nightscream (talk) 20:23, 31 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Report it at WP:ANI CosmicJake (talk) 20:43, 31 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]