Wikipedia:Help desk/Archives/2011 April 27

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April 27

Vlan

How many vlans can be configured in a switch — Preceding unsigned comment added by Kvmexports (talk • contribs) 00:47, 27 April 2011 (UTC)

As many as will fit - no, that's not the right answer. This forum is for asking questions about how to use Wikipedia. You might try asking your question at the reference desk.--Bbb23 (talk) 00:53, 27 April 2011 (UTC)

Actually, 'as many as will fit' is as good an answer as any; it depends on the hardware, of course; it's like "how long is a piece of string" - if this is posted on RD, we'll need specific details in order to answer.  Chzz  ►  09:56, 27 April 2011 (UTC)

Definately agree with Chzz - it really is a limitation of the switch itself, and you can find more information at Reference Desk, but also simply looking up the spec sheet for your specific model would work as well. Tiggerjay (talk) 20:19, 27 April 2011 (UTC)

Varian Associates

The Wikl article re Varian Associates states that Varian was acquired by Agilent Technogies in May 2010. This is not true.

Previously the article states that April 2 1999 Varian divided into three separate companies, Varian Medical Systems, Varian Semiconductor and Varian Instruments, VARI.

VARI was acquired by Agilent. The other entities remain independent.

Jennifer Andrews Hewlett Packard 1981-1988 Varian 1989 to 2010 Agilent Technologies at present Denver CO —Preceding unsigned comment added by 192.25.240.225 (talk) 00:58, 27 April 2011 (UTC)

The best place to point this out is on the article's talk page, preferable with a reference to an independent reliable source that reported this information. --ColinFine (talk) 07:02, 27 April 2011 (UTC)

I copied your comments over to the talk page, however if you have verifiable refernece material, feel free to boldy edit the article itself. Tiggerjay (talk) 20:17, 27 April 2011 (UTC)

Creating new page

I am trying to publish a new article from User:Rohitbal21. I am using the following syntax to make an uncontroversial request

• (Discuss) – User:Rohitbal21/Call of the Dead → Call of the Dead – I would like to publish the article Call of the Dead from my user page. Call of the Dead is the latest Zombie map in Activision's Call of Duty: Black Ops - Escalation. I have included multiple sources as reference.

But 5 minutes after it goes up, it gets removed from the Current Request section. Any suggestions?

Please read the instructions at Wikipedia:Requested moves: the request goes on the article talk page. Frankly, this article will be deleted if you move it to articelspace in its current state. There are no sources (IMDB is not a reliable source) and I'm not sure if this is a movie or a game. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 03:33, 27 April 2011 (UTC)

See WP:GAMEGUIDE and WP:VGSCOPE; read the whole page: Wikipedia:WikiProject Video games/Article guidelines. If you want to write detailed game related articles you may be better off editing on an alternative outlet such as StrategyWiki that specializes in such material. I agree with Gadget850 that the article is unclear as to whether the "movie" it describes exists independently of the game. If you are using the word "movie" in some specialized gaming sense, the article should define that. Please review the Five W's and make sure your article answers them, preferably in the lead section if possible. --Teratornis (talk) 04:04, 27 April 2011 (UTC)

On saving topics within Wikipedia

Is there a way to save or bookmark favorite places inside of Wikipedia? I don't mean on my browser I mean inside Wikipedia about Wikipedia so that I can swiftly go to sites I am interested in.Pdos123 (talk) 02:56, 27 April 2011 (UTC)

Also-- Why is this question blueboxed? And it does not fit the question box, I have tried to correct this but I do not know how. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Pdos123 (talk • contribs) 03:13, 27 April 2011 (UTC)

You can "bookmark" a page by editing your user page to include a link to the article(s), that you want to for example if you wanted to link Article, you would put [[Article]]. You can also you the Wikipedia:Watchlist feature to "bookmark" a page too. The blue box appears because you put two spaces before your comments. If you want to indent, use : or *. Feinoha ^{Talk, My master} 03:18, 27 April 2011 (UTC)

I've removed the spaces for you. Dismas|^(talk) 03:25, 27 April 2011 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Tip of the day/July 28, 2008 which also suggests editing your user page to save links to articles. See Help:Wiki markup#Limiting formatting/escaping wiki markup which explains why you got a box when you indented with space characters. --Teratornis (talk) 03:51, 27 April 2011 (UTC)

You might also be interested in the watchlist feature in case you didn't know about it already. It's not exactly a way to 'bookmark' articles, but it allows you to keep track of the latest changes made to articles you are interested in.--Obsidi♠n^Soul 03:58, 27 April 2011 (UTC)

Please don't post the same question at multiple desks. You question on the New Users' desk would have been seen and answered. --ColinFine (talk) 07:13, 27 April 2011 (UTC)

The Holy HAJJ

Assalamu Alaikum. Dear Brother I performed the Holy HAJJ last year (2010) by the grace of the Almighty ALLAH under the guidance of a Bangladeshi Hajj Agency. I knew and also it was informed by our Team Leader of 67 Pilgrims that the QURBANI must be done after stoning the Jamarah, other wise DOM must be given. One of our Pilgrims was assigned the responsibility to complete the Quarbani which would be done after the stoning at Jamarah that would be informed by each Pilgrim over mobile phone. It was decided in the tent of MEENA that we would go for stoning the Jamarah, inform the person assigned with the QUARBANI after completion of stoning and then he will complete the QUARBANI and we will then cut our hairs. We informed the Team Leader accordingly our completion of stoning. But we came to know later on that QUARBANI was completed before our Stoning. We asked the Owner of the Agency about his wrong deeds; but he replied that "there is no problem. The HAJJ has been completed successfully and in orderly." Now, I would request your honor whether our HAJJ has been performed perfectly in order to be accepted by the Almighty ALLAH; if not what we are to do now? We will be waiting for your early reply. Bear regards, M. Rahman —Preceding unsigned comment added by 180.234.86.174 (talk) 09:41, 27 April 2011 (UTC)

Hi. This page is only for questions about using Wikipedia, so we cannot advise about this here; your question would be appropriate on the reference desk - although I am not sure if they'd be able to give specific advice about Hajj; you'd probably have more success consulting an Imam, I would think. Best of luck,  Chzz  ►  09:51, 27 April 2011 (UTC)

I suspect, based on your question, that you found one of our over 6 million articles and thought we were 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 for asking questions related to using or contributing to Wikipedia itself. Thus, we have no special knowledge about the subject of your question. You can, however, search our vast catalogue of articles by typing a subject into the search field on the upper right side of your screen. If you cannot find what you are looking for, we have a reference desk, divided into various subject areas, where asking knowledge questions is welcome. Best of luck. —teb728 t c 10:00, 27 April 2011 (UTC)

Persondata Box

Why is it that the Persondata Box information shows up on some computers and NOT on some others. Is there a setting that should be set to allow the Persondata Box to show?--Doug Coldwell ^talk 11:29, 27 April 2011 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Persondata#Viewing persondata. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 11:38, 27 April 2011 (UTC)

AFD help

I nom'd an article for deletion a while ago and it was never deleted. [1] Can someone take care of this for me? Thanks.--Endlessdan (talk) 12:47, 27 April 2011 (UTC)

It was deleted, and recreated. It has been tagged WP:G4 CTJF83 12:58, 27 April 2011 (UTC)

(e/c) It seems it was deleted per the AFD but was recreated shortly after that. The tags copied into the article at creation suggest it was a simple copy/paste of the deleted article. I have tagged it per WP:G4 which allows it to be deleted if it is similar to version deleted per the AFD discussion. I don't have access to the original article, so it's up to an admin to decide whether is falls into that criteria. Rehevkor ✉ 13:00, 27 April 2011 (UTC)

Thank you both for your help. I will add it to my watch list and keep an eye on recreation from here forth.--Endlessdan (talk) 13:02, 27 April 2011 (UTC)

I've deleted the article, and will watchlist it as well. UltraExactZZ ^Said ~ Did 14:54, 27 April 2011 (UTC)

Pronunciation

Why is there not some button you can click that gives you and audio clip that provides the correct pronunciation for the subject title. For instance I looked up the term "tisane" and although now I know what it is I have no idea how to pronouce it. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.184.147.251 (talk) 13:09, 27 April 2011 (UTC)

There is Template:IPA which can be added to the first occurrence of the subject title in the article's introduction. This template has the possibility to include an audio sample of the pronunciation. An editor has to add it, however, it will not be generated automatically and the audio file also needs to be uploaded first. Toshio Yamaguchi (talk) 13:41, 27 April 2011 (UTC)

One reason is that though the facility exists (see {{Audio}} and various links from that template [note also Wikipedia:WikiProject Spoken Wikipedia for audio of entire articles]), we are a volunteer project, so when something is missing or would be a good addition a person needs to step up and act boldly themselves to make the edits required. This also requires that the person have the technical know-how and equipment to do it, which leaves out a large number of editors.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 15:22, 27 April 2011 (UTC)

Why is the font size soo large on my Wiki view ?

When I launch Wiki the font is soo big that it makes viewing the page a pain ! Is this something I can adjust ? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 204.99.118.9 (talk) 13:22, 27 April 2011 (UTC)

Wikipedia derives its font size from your browser settings. Try pressing Ctrl and 0 at the same time- it should reset your font size. TNXMan 13:30, 27 April 2011 (UTC)

credits

I want to use information from wikipedia and want to know how to state the credit to wikipedia. Info I am goint to use is in the public domain.13:50, 27 April 2011 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 8095fredvan (talk • contribs)

Article pages have a link in the left toolbox for "Cite this page." ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 14:16, 27 April 2011 (UTC)

On the left side of any article there's a toolbox. One of the links in there is Cite this page which gives you a number of options to use. See also WP:CITEWIKI for further information. CaptRik (talk) 14:24, 27 April 2011 (UTC)

Note that most information on Wikipedia is not in the public domain: it is licensed under a licence which allows it to be used for any purpose, but there are certain conditions imposed. See WP:CC-BY-SA. --ColinFine (talk) 23:05, 27 April 2011 (UTC)

Discussion moved from sections added by same user

I am only wanting to use the division shoulder patch, no text.8095fredvan (talk) 16:34, 27 April 2011 (UTC)

I'm not sure what you mean. Are you referring to an article you read? TNXMan 16:37, 27 April 2011 (UTC)

(This continues the thread two up from here). The rules vary from image to image; see Wikipedia:Reuse#Images_and_other_media. Can you tell us the name of the article and/or image that you are referring to? -- John of Reading (talk) 16:40, 27 April 2011 (UTC)

I am looking at us army and marine division sleve insignia- patches located on wikipedia.Marine 1st division in particular. This is all new to me .I don't know how the talk pages work to get on one.8095fredvan (talk) 21:01, 27 April 2011 (UTC)

If you mean File:1st MARDIV 2 insignia.png (which I found by going to 1st Marine Division (United States)), its copyright information says: "This image or file is in the public domain because it contains materials that originally came from the United States Marine Corps. As a work of the U.S. federal government, the image is in the public domain.", which means that you can reproduce it freely without needing to credit anybody.

Every article has an associated Talk page: you go to it by picking the tab labelled "Discussion" or "Talk" at the top, and then you can edit it just the way you edited this page. --ColinFine (talk) 23:13, 27 April 2011 (UTC)

Susana Medina

Susana Medina (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

To whom it may concern,

Please note I´m trying to edit and update the entry ´Susana Medina´. All the information I am providing is bona fide and it comes from Susana Medina herself. Could you please tell me how I can make Wikipedia accept my edits?

Susana Medina has resided in London since 1987. The original article said 1989. This is something I have corrected but it doesn't allow me to introduce this correction.

I have also tried to add links and I was told the pages were blacklisted but found no evidence when I searched in the blacklisting service you offer.

My warmest wishes, Hotel Chelsea

This is the information I am trying to add: — Preceding unsigned comment added by Hotel chelsea (talk • contribs) 15:06, 27 April 2011

removed copy and paste of article GB fan (talk) 15:11, 27 April 2011 (UTC)

The edits you are doing to the article are being reverted because you are removing sourced information and replacing it with unsourced information. You will need to provide references for the information you are adding. These should come from reliable sources, your personal knowledge of the subject is not enough. GB fan (talk) 15:19, 27 April 2011 (UTC)

And information you receive from Susana Medina herself is not enough; for most purposes a subject is not an independent reliable source of information about the subject. —teb728 t c 21:12, 27 April 2011 (UTC)

This is because the criterion for inclusion in Wikipedia is not truth, but verifiability. --ColinFine (talk) 23:08, 27 April 2011 (UTC)

Deleted article

An article was deleted a few weeks - title: Michael W. Allen. I would like to re-write/edit this entry and am wondering if there is a way to get it back - to not start from scratch. Also, if I must start over will it work to make a new entry under that same name? The title is referenced in other entries currently and I want to make sure those work once I re-write the piece.

Ajpahl (talk) 18:12, 27 April 2011 (UTC)Thank you! Amy Pahl

If you are talking about Michael W. Allen from Macromedia Authorware, the article was not deleted it was redirected so that it goes to Macromedia Authorware. It was redirected because it was "mostly uncited promotional". This is the latest version of the article. If you believe you can address the problems you can restore the article. It might be best to copy the code from the article to a sandbox in your userspace and work on it there. Then when you think you have addressed the problems you could ask for feedback from experienced editors to see if it is ready. If it is it could be restored with your edits. GB fan (talk) 18:23, 27 April 2011 (UTC)

Yes, that is the person. I have re-written his article and am working on getting it back on Wikipedia. Can I start over or do I have to use the one that was re-directed? Thank you so much for your help! Ajpahl (talk) 19:45, 27 April 2011 (UTC)Amy

I would suggest you post your updated/re-written article into your own sandbox, and ask for it to be reviewed before reposting the article. Once there is some consesnus that it is now approriate for the article space, it would seem to make sense to replace the redirect with this article.Tiggerjay (talk) 20:05, 27 April 2011 (UTC)

Yes, it definitely needs some work. At the moment it reads like a resume/CV rather then an encyclopedia article. Astronaut (talk) 14:14, 28 April 2011 (UTC)

Best way to delete a user space/sandbox type page

Hello, I have a few sandbox type pages tied to my user space that need to be deleted (for example User:Quinn1/leftover. What's the best way to do this without unnecessarily bothering anyone? It may be helpful to note that I have no special "tools" other that Twinkle. Quinn ^{✩ STARRY NIGHT} 22:09, 27 April 2011 (UTC)

You can put {{db-userreq}} on the top of the page and an admin will stop by and delete it. GB fan (talk) 22:13, 27 April 2011 (UTC)

While you're at it, I would suggest blanking the page content, except for the {{db-userreq}} part, and be sure to leave an edit summary about your intentions. Tiggerjay (talk) 01:24, 28 April 2011 (UTC)