Wikipedia:Help desk/Archives/2011 December 17

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December 17

Is human voice contact ever allowed?

A few specific questions follow. Over the years I have made some minor changes to Wikipedia data. You should have my IP address. I have always tried to be thorough and ethical. I need to get some initial guidance. A few minutes conversation with a human would save me hours of confusing data entry. Here are some basic questions:

1. Is human voice contact ever allowed? Can I talk to a mentor on the telephone?

2. Is face-to-face contact ever allowed? Is there a once a month coffee group anywhere in DuPage county, Illinois?

3. Should I open an account? Am I signing my life away, if I do?

4. For just one specific, I wish to add some references to the Junkers G.38 article. Is this allowed? Do you ever provide references to ink and paper books? I think you do. For me, this article is AWESOME! And you have a link to an article on the related Mitsubishi Ki-20. I have a detailed interest in this aircraft. (I don't know why?) I have a list of seven references, with page numbers. Does that type of data belong in Wikipedia?

5. If someone would help me to get started, I think the process would be very easy. In return, a year from now, I could help others.

Is anyone out there?

Terry

I don't know of any policy that would rule out 1 or 2, if you can find somebody who is willing to talk to in that way. I see banners advertising local WP get-togethers from time to time.

As to 3: you don't have to open an account, but there are advantages in doing so.

4: References do not have to be on-line, as long as they are in principle available to anyone who looks for them. So printed books are fine as long as they are published by reputable publishers (and not vanity presses, say, or by a company that is the subject of the article). See Template:cite book for a way to cite a printed book whether or not it is also available online. --ColinFine (talk) 00:58, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

1. If you can find someone who will talk to you there is nothing that says you can't talk to someone about WIkipedia.

2. There are Wikipedia meet-ups where you can meet other editors face to face. I do not know if there are any near you.

3. My thoughts yes, you should open an account. No you won't be signing your life away, you don't even need to tell anyone your real name if you don't want to. Here is some additional information, Wikipedia:Why create an account?.

4. Not only is adding references to articles allowed, it is encouraged. And yes physical books are definitely valid sources for articles. I am not sure what type of data you are wanting to add but if you have reliable sources for the information you can either add it directly or you can discuss it on the talk page.

If you need any help you can come back here and ask or you can ask on my talk page. GB fan 01:12, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

As long as neither person is a minor I can see no problem with willing editors communicating in such ways to aid contribution. Яehevkor ✉ 01:15, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

We've had at least one Chicago-area Wikipicnic that a couple of us Milwaukee Wikipedians came to; and at least one or two of those there preferred to retain their anonymity. --Orange Mike | Talk 04:00, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

Although not voice contact, there is a Web chat forum dedicated to helping Wikipedia editors. -- John of Reading (talk) 08:42, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

I don't know about DuPage County, Illinois, but there seem to be meet-ups in Chicago: Wikipedia:Meetup/Chicago 5 was the most recent of these. I presume there will be a #6 sometime in 2012. Astronaut (talk) 14:42, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

For #5, you may find Wikipedia:Mentorship a good starting point for general information. If you want to jump right in, see WP:AAU. You should be aware that long-term participation in Wikipedia, well after your mentorship is finished, will be expected of you. If you would prefer not to make such a commitment just yet, please be aware that mentor availability is limited, and we're trying to target users who will derive long-term benefits from them, so mentorship may not be for you. In that case, use {{helpme}} or this page as needed, and people will answer your questions. --NYKevin @897, i.e. 20:31, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

Shao Nian Yang Jia Jiang and The Young Warriors (TV series) articles

Dear Help Desk

This user, NNU-11-ZhangLi, have created an article for the Chinese TV series under the pinyin Shao Nian Yang Jia Jiang, when I already made it last year under The Young Warriors (TV series). I already placed a deletion template on Shao Nian Yang Jia Jiang.--NeoBatfreak (talk) 00:23, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

Escaping special characters inside http

Resolved

Trying to wrap group of external links that I added

here at bottom: * wiki triglav national park

into nice border using table:

The | for creating table conflicts with | that I have inside my links. How to fix that ?

Sample that does not work:

_____|10000

10000

la

10000|10000|10000

10000|10000

la

en|18| Rastline]

_____|10000

10000

la

10000|10000|10000

10000|10000

la

en|29| Ribe]

_____|10000

10000

la

10000|10000|10000

10000|10000

la

en|30| Dvoživke]

_____|10000

10000

la

10000|10000|10000

10000|10000

la

en|31| Plazilci]

_____|10000

10000

la

10000|10000|10000

10000|10000

la

en|32| Ptice]

EDIT: OK figured that out:

• solution — Preceding unsigned comment added by BubikolRamios (talk • contribs) 01:00, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

More scientist articles created - please help

• William_Z._Hassid
• Paul_D._Foote
• Arthur_D._Hasler
• Josef_Fried
• William_C._Stadie
• Charles_Heidelberger
• Melvin_Lax
• Herman_S._Bloch

Standard2211 (talk) 00:51, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

and

• Thomas_F._Anderson

Standard2211 (talk) 04:11, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

Sorry, but I don't really understand your question. Rcsprinter (lecture) 15:14, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

Check the current version of Wikipedia:Requests for feedback. -- John of Reading (talk) 15:38, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

Good job. Now you can earn several DYKs, see WP:DYK.--♫GoP♫_T^C_N 15:47, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

Requested Article Assistance

I would like to help at Requested_articles but I have some questions about the process. Are there any help pages or FAQs specifically for the Requested articles process? Is there anyone willing to help with my future questions about Requested articles or should I ask questions like the one below here?
My specific questions right now are related to the request at Wikipedia:Requested_articles/Applied_arts_and_sciences#Communications for "LG Chocolate Touch (VX8575)". WP currently has an article for LG Chocolate (VX8575) with a redirect from LG Chocolate Touch. When I use the search function, typing "lg ch" is enough to show the main article in the results list. Typing further to "lg cho" gets the main article to fourth in the results list.
I don't know how the search function works for other readers. Is there something I'm missing here? I could create a redirect to the main article but I don't know if it is needed. Also, if nothing is needed, should the request be removed from the list? If so, is there a need or even an easy way to find and inform the original requester of this result?——UnbelievableError (talk) 04:56, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

Demand of Brass & Copper Sheets

What is scenario of market of Brass Sheets & Copper Sheeys in Gujarat for one year? Please give quickly reply. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Vnparekh (talk • contribs) 10:07, 17 December 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.--SPhilbrick(Talk) 16:39, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

class="wikitable" distorting userboxes?

Hi all, I found something weird while playing with tables: see User:Ocirne94/Sandbox. Using class="wikitable" sends the text on 5 lines instead of four... any ideas about this strange behaviour? If it's normal, the question becomes: how can I create a table WITHOUT using wikitable, but with 1px borders just like wikitable, and without having to repeat code hundreds of times like it's repeated here: http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Help:Tables#Simple_one-pixel_table_border? Thanks Ocirne94 16:02, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

Dunno the answer to the alternative to wikitable question, but I found that adding {{nowrap}} around the link to the userbox fixes the distortion. - Purplewowies (talk) 16:37, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

It's purely the padding that constrains the horizontal space for text. Default padding to wikitable cells is 0.2em. However, you own padding of 4px didn't help either. — Edokter (talk) — 16:42, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

The userbox is inheriting properties from the wikitable class. This also causes the vertical lines to appear in the userboxes. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 10:38, 18 December 2011 (UTC)

Complicated vandalism onSalva Kiir Mayardit

Multiple IPs have messed with the infobox photo, I'm using a mobile browser so I'm having trouble finding the correct version. Please help. Roger (talk) 16:05, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

Mr. Bean as president? =D  Done. --♫GoP♫_T^C_N 16:46, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

MiszaBot not adhering to instructions?

On my talkpage, I set MiszaBot to archive anything older than 1 hour. Somehow it hasn't archived anything yet, although I changed the settings more than an hour ago. What could be the reason for this and how can it be fixed? Toshio Yamaguchi (talk) 16:51, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

Looking at Special:Contributions/MiszaBot III, it looks as if the bot is configured to fire up once a day at 12:35 (UTC) and it then spends about eight hours working its way through the alphabet, processing the letter "T" at about 19:30 (UTC). -- John of Reading (talk) 17:02, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

Okay, I didn't look at the bots contributions, but this does explain it. (Although I wonder how the bot can hit all the diverse archive settings across all pages it archives when working that way, but maybe that's just me). Toshio Yamaguchi (talk) 17:08, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

User:MiszaBot/config#After you have set up archiving says: "The bot runs once a day". Archiving after 1 hour sounds odd anyway. You would often have to check the archive to see posts. PrimeHunter (talk) 18:43, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

Once an hour!!? I would have thought once a week would have been more than ample archiving effort judging by the amount of talk page traffic you receive. Astronaut (talk) 10:40, 18 December 2011 (UTC)

Upon his resignation from the CIA Mickolus became a Professor at Harrison Middleton University has two errors

On the page someone was kind enough to write about me, there are two factual errors. I retired from CIA (I didn't resign). And I'm not on the HMU faculty. If you're able to delete the sentence, great. Thanks in advance. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.169.40.214 (talk) 17:40, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

Have clarified your retirement and removed the mention of Harrison Middleton in Edward Mickolus. Deor (talk) 18:14, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

Request for feedback on new article Kalina_Yordanova

Hi: I have created a new article about the Bulgarian athlete Kalina Yordanova and I want feedback about it; this is my first Wikipedia article and it is still on my userspace http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Ijazbof/Kalina_Yordanova

Regards Ijazbof (talk) 19:09, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

Nice start. It reads a little choppy, because there are so many short sentences and short sections, but that's not a major issue - if you can expand some of the shorter sections, it would be great. In some cases, consider combining some single sentences into a paragraph.

Normal usage is to wikilink the first use of a term, but not subsequent uses (except in very long articles, so I removed some wikilinks, not sure If I removed all such instances. It is also usual practice to disambiguate (add a country name) when it isn't clear to the reader what city may be meant. This isn't always clear cut, but there is no need to add the country for Rome and Moscow. I thought there might be a list, but I haven't found it.

We normally do not put a space between the punctuation and footnote, nor between footnotes. I think I cleaned all those up.

Thanks for the contribution. --SPhilbrick(Talk) 20:41, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

Thank you very much for your feedback and suggestions 189.244.49.181 (talk) 01:23, 18 December 2011 (UTC)

New Article Feedback

Hi Wikipedia community,

Can someone please give me an feedback on my new article?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IvanV

Thanks so much. — Preceding Future_Beats comment added by Future_Beats (talk) 21:30, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

You've included a number of references, which is good, but references need to be inline citations. In addition, bare urls are frowned upon, see Referencing for beginners for some help, proper referencing is both important and difficult, at first.

You have a link to Twitter and Myspace. I think those are allowed as external links, but are not considered reliable sources so generally shouldn't be used as references (some rare exceptions, which may not apply here, but hard to tell until I see how you intend to use them.)

You should read Notability While you have several references, a number of them do not qualify as reliable sources, so there may be need to add some.--SPhilbrick(Talk) 22:27, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

I noted all article suggestions as you advised and will try to correct them all. Thank you. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Future Beats (talk • contribs) 09:54, 18 December 2011 (UTC)

told to use reliable sources

Hi, I was just received a message that my post may be deleted because of lack of reliable sources, but I've added several, based on the criteria. Is there any way I can communicate with someone to make sure my post is now acceptable and won't be taken down? There are names attached to the feedback, but I'm not sure if I am supposed to contact them directly. Thanks ˜˜˜˜ — Preceding unsigned comment added by Economistman19 (talk • contribs) 22:41, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

I'm sorry, I edited this when I meant to edit the post above. can someone give me specific feedback about my post: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Max_S._Gordon? It's asking for more sources and I'm not sure what's missing. Thanks. ˜˜˜˜

Although Wikipedia:Primary Secondary and Tertiary Sources is a failed proposal, consult it for the differences between the three levels.I agree, SECONDARY is better. The division is not always clear, and it can depend on the use in some cases, but the stated concern is that you have too many primary sources, and not enough secondary. While one might think primary sources are better, they are not for our purposes.--SPhilbrick(Talk) 23:20, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

You can also see WP:SECONDARY. - Purplewowies (talk) 23:26, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

comments on sources
padding
Your first reference tells us something about "Inside Separate Worlds" but it doesn't support the claim that Max S. Gordon has been published in it. The second reference is a primary reference. Possibly useful for the article, but doesn't help establish notability. We want to see what others say about Max, not what Max is saying. the 3rd, 4th, 5th and 6th references are all articles by Max. Again, they may belong in the article to show what he has written, but they do not qualify as independent, secondary sources The 7th reference is also primary and believe it or not, may be a copyright issue (I haven't looked closely, but I don't see an allowable license) However, it is worth a listen

--SPhilbrick(Talk) 23:29, 17 December 2011 (UTC)