Wikipedia:Help desk/Archives/2011 January 12

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January 12

Usage of slang terms in editing articles

Just to check whether the usage of slang term in editing wiki article is allowed or not? I tried searching in wikipedia, there is an article for the term but was redirected to the proper term for it. In specific example, Tying the knot, it was redirected to marriage.

So can I write, for example, They tied the knot at certain location, or should I just re-write to They married at certain location? Do drop me a notification at my talkpage as I may not check back here so frequently. Thanks. Xaiver0510 (talk) 01:06, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

It gets some search hits in Wikipedia articles but "tied the knot" doesn't sound good to me for an encyclopedia. And slang terms may be relatively unknown in some places. Although it's just an essay, see Wikipedia:Writing better articles#Tone. PrimeHunter (talk) 01:46, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

Thanks! Will take note. Xaiver0510 (talk) 05:16, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

And see Wikipedia:Manual of Style (words to watch)#Clichés and idioms (WP:IDIOM). --Teratornis (talk) 03:23, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

Unsure whether article suits wikipedia

Hi,

I would like to submit an article about an accounting company in Australia called Hall Chadwick. They have been ranked the fastest growing accounting firm in 2010 by "Business Review Weekly" (BRW) magazine. The company also has a number of high profile partners and staff who have been actively involved in the Austalian and Chinese media in the last year as Hall Chadwick partnered with the largest CPA firm in China: Shine Wing. These facts can be verified by BRW and numerous media articles online.

Does this type of information meet the criteria for article submission? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 220.244.227.50 (talk) 01:13, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

Sounds like a good choice for an article to me, based on what you've stated; just make sure you understand our policies on neutrality and the use of reliable sources to verify information. I'd suggest having a look over those policies and then either creating an account, which will make it easier to create a draft in userspace until the article is ready for mainspace, or submit the article to our articles for creation process. GiftigerWunsch [TALK] 01:21, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

Another policy to read up on, if you have any association with Hall Chadwick yourself, is our conflict of interest policy. In a nutshell it advises great caution while editing on subjects to which you have a close connection. Gonzonoir (talk) 08:25, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

Note also that the firm itself must be notable; high-profile "partners" don't help, since notability is not "contagious" and cannot be derived from working with a notable entity. --Orange Mike | Talk 14:56, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

Whoops, I misread the comment from the IP slightly and thought they'd said the firm itself had appeared in the media. I suspect they may have meant the partnership was featured in the media, but time sources will tell I suppose. GiftigerWunsch [TALK] 14:59, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

translation from English to Burmese language

Hello,

Suppose we like to translate some English articles to Burmese language, what is the procedure and requirement?

Thanks —Preceding unsigned comment added by 61.125.137.142 (talk) 04:27, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

You would place the new articles at our sister Wikipedia in burmese, located at http://my.wikipedia.org. If it is a faithful translation of an article from the English wikipedia, you would want to make sure to note in the edit summary, when you create the article, what the source text was, and likely also on the article talk page as well. Finally, you would want to make sure to put an interlanguage link in each article, so they can become linked together between wikipedias. See Wikipedia:Translation and Help:Interlanguage links for more info. --Jayron32 05:39, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

Table formatting

I just created this article USA Masters Hall of Fame. I am now officially baffled. It should be a simple two column list. But its gone berserk and I don't know where my error is. With this long of a list, I'd like to divide it into multiple columns of the table, but I haven't even tried to do that yet. Even the basics are misplaced. Please explain where I went wrong. Trackinfo (talk) 04:55, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

Fixed in [1]. I copied your wikisource to an external text editor which revealed a bad non-displayed initial character in a lot of the table lines. A search-and-replace (with nothing) in the text eitor removed the characters, and the only remaining table problem was a missing newline. PrimeHunter (talk) 05:12, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

The characters were apparently "U+2028 LINE SEPARATOR". Maybe you copied the table code from incompatible external software. Whether the characters display as a dot, a newline, nothing, or something else may depend on the used software. PrimeHunter (talk) 05:24, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

Google translation

Hello,

I figure out that we can translate Englsih articles from Wiki to Burmese using Google translation toolkit. How both are related?

Thanks. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Aung45 (talk • contribs) 06:02, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

It's generally a bad idea to use internet translators to help you write Wikipedia articles in other languages. Internet translation is notoriously bad; its often good enough to give someone the general gist, but it often produces something that no native speaker would ever say. Translation is hard to do, so if you aren't comfortable communicating in both languages, or don't think you can produce accurate translations on your own, don't use Google Translate as a shortcut, it just doesn't do a good enough job. --Jayron32 06:23, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

Are you the same user as asked about Burmese translation just above? Whether you are or not, please read the links in the answer just above. --ColinFine (talk) 08:40, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

News articles that list WikiLeaks as being a Wikimedia Foundation project

Is there a place for 'reporting' news articles that seem to believe that　WikiLeaks is a WMF project? this one, according to google translate, seems to do this. (I'm asking here because the meta help desk is very inactive.) Kayau Voting IS evil 06:26, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

I guess it depends who you want to report them to - do you mean you want to advise the article's authors that they've made a mistake, or are you talking about creating some kind of listing of such erroneous articles? If the former, I'd guess a Korean-speaker at WP:Wikiproject Korea could help you draft a letter to the editors (perhaps referring them to WP:NOTLEAKS). Or did I misunderstand the question? Gonzonoir (talk) 08:23, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

The latter. I was thinking there must be somewhere that lists them... Kayau Voting IS evil 13:16, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

Draft articles & unconstructive edits

Hi, I'm new here and a bit confused.

I work at a non-profit group called The European Library. They already have a page here on Wikipedia but it's very out of date. I want to help amend that (and left a message on the talk page to say so).

I'm aware of COI guidelines and want to do this correctly, with the community. Because there are so many changes, I decided I'd create a subset of my talk page, where I could draft some changes before presenting them to the community (see #2 under tips: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Starting_an_article).

This was deleted overnight by an administrator because he said it duplicated the live page. I tried to leave a message on his talk page to clarify what I did wrong, but I got a message saying an "automated filter" had judged my reply to be unconstructive. So, now I have no article and I can't contact the person who deleted it to find out where I went wrong.

Please, any help appreciated. I do want to make this page better but it's very frustrating.

Friedel (EL) (talk) 07:04, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

I believe the deleting administrator made a mistake. This does not look like a A10 violation; if anything, it's WP:FAKEARTICLE, which should go through MfD. Try contacting the administrator again. If his talk page doesn't work, try email or wP:IRC. Kayau Voting IS evil 07:08, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

Can you suggest how I would find his email?

Is it not possible to just (somehow) be given permission to post on his talk page? I tried to post exactly the same message to him on his talk page that I put here (I wasn't rude or swearing - honest!!) but this "automated filter" said I was unconstructive and blocked me from contacting him.

I don't really know anything about IRC and I am very limited on what software I can install at work. Would he necessarily be in the chat room anyway?

Did I do the wrong thing by putting a draft on my talk page? I thought I was following tip #2 here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Starting_an_article

If nothing else, I'd just like the text of my page back because I've now lost a lot of work. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Friedel (EL) (talk • contribs) 07:21, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

...Wait, sorry, I was wrong. You made a mistake in the title; you should have copied the article to User:Friedel (EL)/European Library. By the way, automatic filters being automatic filters, they make mistakes, so try typing in another message if abusefilter accidentally blocks your edits again. Kayau Voting IS evil 07:23, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

Update: I've read your comment. There's nothing wrong with it; AbuseFilter must have made a mistake. Kayau Voting IS evil 07:26, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

Okay, so if i understand correctly, then whenever I want to draft some changes on a subset of my talk page I should give the draft the same title as the actual page? Is that where I went wrong? (Just trying to figure out what the problem was).

As for the Abuse Filter, I did try to repost my message a few times, varying the message to try and figure out why it was "unconstructive" but the problem persisted.

Thanks for your help. I will try to recreate the article. Any tips on retrieving my previous work greatly appreciated! — Preceding unsigned comment added by Friedel (EL) (talk • contribs) 07:32, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

About the title: nope, but you should have added the 'User:' prefix so that the page ends up in your userspace. Kayau Voting IS evil 07:43, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

I've put it there, but shouldn't it actually be a subpage of the article's talk page? Or at least linked to the talk page? Dougweller (talk) 08:10, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

I've never used a temp subpage before, so instead of telling Friedel about it, I told him how to do what he tried to do originally. If this is against common practice you could move to the talk. Kayau Voting IS evil 08:16, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

I'm not sure I'm any clearer on what I should be doing or should have done, but I notice that someone has put my previous work and a helpful notice on the new draft page so thanks! — Preceding unsigned comment added by Friedel (EL) (talk • contribs) 08:28, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

Dougweller did that. You can view page histories by clicking on thet history tab above or adding '?action=history' at the end of the URL. Kayau Voting IS evil 08:51, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

free wifi

hi i am a novice with a new laptop i am going on holiday to thailand the hotel has free wifi do i incur any charges with my broadband provider? 178.96.253.216 (talk) 10:04, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

No, since you'll not be using the service provided by your broadband provider; if the hotel has free wifi, you're using the hotel's internet connection. GiftigerWunsch [TALK] 10:20, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

article for review

This is a very difficult site to navigate. I have (I think but maybe not) put up an article for review titled 'Simon Jenner' I put it in the 'submit new article for review at AfC' It simply vanishes into the ether. How do I upload an article so that it actually goes somewhere and I can track it? Many thanks.

(I feel I will never be able to trace the answer to this question - I found it asked on a help page, clicked on the blue answer words and couldn't find the answer! As I say - a very difficult site to navigate.

Davpol8112 (talk) 10:47, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

Your submission was difficult to track down because (1) you were not logged on when you made it, so it was not linked to your user name (2) you made a spelling error in the page title. However, I searched and found it here. Your proposed article was declined because it did not include any sources to show where the information is coming from. You may be able to fix this by editing that page, and then re-submitting by following the instructions in the red box. -- John of Reading (talk) 11:27, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

When you are logged in there is a link saying "My contributions" in the top-right. Click it to see links to the pages you have edited while logged in, for example this help desk. Special:Mycontributions (not an easily accessible link from other pages) also works when you are logged out and will in that case show the edits made by your current IP address (which may have changed since earlier edits). See more at Help:User contributions. PrimeHunter (talk) 13:33, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

Help needed with MfD process

Hello! I am trying to nominate the page User:Abstract8585 for MfD, but I keep screwing it up. Can someone please help me get this MfD put forward correctly? Thanks! Regent of the Seatopians (talk) 13:22, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

Skip it. I just deleted the page under WP:CSD#G11. It was doing nothing but advertising a website, so it is eligible for speedy deletion. Many pages do not qualify for speedy deletion, but if you find one that does, you can tag it with {{db-XXX}} where XXX is the code for the CSD reason listed at WP:CSD. --Jayron32 13:45, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

I've received a strange e-mail from "WikiAdmin"

Resolved

It is addressed to me by my username and appears to have come from "wiki@wikimedia.org". The content of the email consists of a number of paragraphs in what looks to my untrained eye like a South or Southeast Asian script (could be anywhere from India to Thailand). Also included are hyperlinks that contain "wikipedia.org", my username and long strings like "%A5%B6%8D%A0%E6". Where can I send this e-mail for investigation as I would like to know if my privacy or security has been violated? Roger (talk) 14:30, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

Roger, if you'd like to send it to me, I'll be happy to take a look at it. I'm an employee of the Wikimedia Foundation (Head of Reader Relations). My email address is philippewikimedia.org. - Philippe 14:32, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

Thanks Philippe - you've got mail. Roger (talk) 14:35, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

If you've recently visted another language's Wikipedia for the first time while logged in, this may be an automatic welcome message generated and sent to the address you have registered with your unified login. I had that happen with the Malayalam and Navajo Wikipedias and took a while to figure them out :) If there's a language code before the instances of "wikipedia.org" (e.g. if it's "ml.wikipedia.org"), that may be what's going on, and running the text through Google Translate may clarify. Gonzonoir (talk) 14:37, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

Roger, I've responded to you privately by email. :) - Philippe 14:43, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

YResolved, thanks. Roger (talk) 15:37, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

I've received a similar e-mail from bn.wikipedia.org, sent at 12.58 today
Perhaps you could share your response, so we all know what is going on, rather than doing it privately?
Arjayay (talk) 15:45, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

It was as Gonzonoir suspected, just a welcome message from the Bengali WP. I looked at a photo there a day or two ago. Personally I think it's a confusing practice, one shouldn't "automagically" become a "member" of a <lang>.wikipedia.org just by looking at something on it. Roger (talk) 16:04, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

Thanks - Although I don't recall looking at the Bengali WP, I often click the wrong button. Arjayay (talk) 16:19, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

http://toolserver.org/~vvv/sulutil.php?user=Arjayay shows your bnwiki account was autocreated two days ago where you must have visited a page while logged in. There can be a delay between account creation and welcome mails. I think mails are also often associated with welcome messages on your talk page. I don't know Bengali and cannot see when you received your talk page welcome by looking at the page history [2]. PrimeHunter (talk) 17:16, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

Editing a featured article

With each passing day this place becomes a bit less overwhelming. Today I edited a featured article for the first time. However, I quickly reverted my edit for fear I may have broken a protocol, written or implied. Other than what I suppose would be added emphasis on the assurance of accuracy, are there any specific rules or guidelines for editing a featured article that differ from editing a common article? Joefromrandb (talk) 16:13, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

No, be bold and edit, but make sure you explain your edit in the edit summary or on the talk page. – ukexpat (talk) 17:07, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

I did exactly that. The so far only response to my talk page comment is in agreement, so I guess everything is fine. I was likely much more concerned than I needed be over this. In any case, thank you for your time and help. Joefromrandb (talk) 20:16, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

Refs embedded in section headings?

Is it correct to it this way? [3] I think the result is ugly. Roger (talk) 16:13, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

No, it's not correct. I know I have seen it referred to in a guideline somewhere, but I cannot find it at the moment. – ukexpat (talk) 17:05, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

WP:MOSHEAD says "no links", and the rationale would apply to both wikilinks and external URLs. DMacks (talk) 19:51, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

Can someone tell me how to de-bork my formatting?

Resolved

Updating a table at this user subpage of mine, I've managed to break the formatting such that all the new rows are formatted as though they were headers. I'm sure it's very simple, but I can't figure out why the new cells are being interpreted this way and the old ones are not - can anyone tell me how to fix it? (I want rows 144 through 159 to be formatted in the same way (not-bold, left-aligned) as 1 - 143.) Gonzonoir (talk) 16:25, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

Try changing the character at the start of each of your new lines from ! to | - David Biddulph (talk) 16:37, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

(ec) Hi, I edited line 144 with this edit and it appears to have worked. From 1 - 143, each line appeared to start with a pipe "|", but from 144 onwards you appeared to use "!". That seems to have fixed line 144 - you may want to apply it to the remaining lines. Darigan (talk) 16:38, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

Cheers folks. My eyesight's clearly going. Gonzonoir (talk) 08:48, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

Re: non-free promotional images

Publicity photos missing rationale

Have been trying to clear as many files as possible in this large category. While doing that, I noticed an image I'd uploaded not that long ago in the list. Knew I wrote the rationale before finishing the upload. Checked on my others in this category last night and found them all in the list--with rationales written at the time the upload was done; apparently are a lot more like mine uploaded by others.

Is/was there something wrong with the way these files were categorized? My concern is that some of these files with properly submitted rationales might somehow get deleted because they are now classed as having no rationale. Am trying to get the numbers there down, but wouldn't like to see anyone lose a image because of this. We hope (talk) 16:43, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

My guess is that a fair use rationale was added after the tag, but the tag wasn't removed leaving the image in that category. The admin reviewing the image, after seeing it in that category, would see the FUR, remove the tag and move on without deleting. Even if the image is wrongly deleted, it can be easily restored. – ukexpat (talk) 17:12, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

Thanks much! We hope (talk) 17:16, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

Citations in an infobox

When using inline citations, do I put a footnote next to the fact in the body of the article, or do I put it next to the same fact listed in an infobox? Or, do I place the citation next to both body text and infobox? —Untitledmind⁷² (let's talk + contribs) 17:10, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

I think the preference is to add them to the text rather than in the ibox, otherwise the ibox gets cluttered up with the superscript ref numbers. The rationale would be that the ibox shouldn't contain anything not in the main body of the article so a citation in the main body should be sufficient. However, you will see refs in iboxes all over the place. – ukexpat (talk) 17:15, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

I have also noticed that some infoboxes break when they contain reference tags, especially if the reference tags use citation templates. Wikipedia's template code is not perfectly robust. You cannot always use a complex template as input to another complex template. In those cases I have found a workaround is to use a named reference tag, with the citation template in body text, and then the citation template does not need to also go in the infobox. Things could get tricky if there is some infobox field that you cannot conveniently duplicate in the body text. --Teratornis (talk) 03:56, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

Adding link to name entered.

Hello,

I just added a name to this list, but don't know how to create a link to the history. The name is Antonio Hart 1968, (alto, Soprano)

Categories: Jazz saxophonists | Lists of jazz musicians | Lists of musicians by instrument

A. Hart — Preceding unsigned comment added by Hartmusic (talk • contribs) 18:46, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

Your addition was reverted, probably because you didn't link to the article properly. I added it back. For future reference, you link to an article by enclosing the title in double square brackets, so [[Antonio Hart]] renders as Antonio Hart. – ukexpat (talk) 18:55, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

Applying to enroll

Hello,

How can I apply to enroll for Wikipedia? How long time does it take to answer the application? 85.112.128.153 (talk) 19:49, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

There is no "enrollment", but you can create an account, which has many benefits. – ukexpat (talk) 20:19, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

To expand on that, you can, if you choose, start to edit right now, by clicking the "edit" tab on any article you see. As Ukexpat noted, by registerring an account, you also gain extra privileges, but that is not required for the basic stuff around here. --Jayron32 02:11, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

Also note that Wikipedia has articles about many schools and other institutions and programs to which you can enroll, but Wikipedia has no connection with the vast majority of them. If you were reading an article about a school, and you want to enroll there, you will have to contact the school rather than Wikipedia. We have articles about schools but we don't handle their enrollments. --Teratornis (talk) 03:50, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

Which tool to use?

Moved from WP:AN

 – GiftigerWunsch [TALK] 21:12, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

Is there a tool that indicates which wiki users are currently inactive by date? - Jack Sebastian (talk) 19:21, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

For admins there's Wikipedia:List of administrators. Hut 8.5 20:14, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

How about for regular users? - Jack Sebastian (talk) 21:10, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

There's This. If you'd need/want different criteria, our Master Data Miner User:MZMcBride could probably dig for any combination of criteria. EDIT: That report doesn't include autoconfirmed users, which will make up the bulk of the userbase. It should be fairly simple to tweak that script though. Suggestions are taken here: Wikipedia talk:Database reports. Arakunem^Talk 21:25, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

Did you mean it doesn't include non-autoconfirmed users, Arakunem? GiftigerWunsch [TALK] 21:31, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

No, that list only has users with extra permissions beyond confirmed/auto-confirmed. -- John of Reading (talk) 21:34, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

Ah, I see. Yes, that's a bit of a limitation. GiftigerWunsch [TALK] 21:35, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

List of brazing alloys

Just split this from Brazing - the problem is that on a 1280pixel wide screen the rightmost column is squashed - causing text bunch up, and a unnacceptable long and unreadable table - is there a work around for this?Sf5xeplus (talk) 21:52, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

• (Note , see this version [4] - I've added a temp fix using many   —Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.100.230.154 (talk) 22:49, 12 January 2011 (UTC) )

Can't help you, but might I suggest that you repeat the top header every so often in the table because otherwise the reader has to scroll up to find out what column he or she is looking at. Sincerely, GeorgeLouis (talk) 22:39, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

It appears the "Toxic !" column is redundant to "alloys that contain Cd". You could scrap that column, put an asterisk in the Cd column-header, and discuss it somewhere other than in the rows of the table itself. Instead of "melting point", you could save a few pixels by just saying "mp". Also, why are there two values in that column? If it's a numerical range, then use en-dash (–) per wikipedia standard number-formatting. Looking more deeply though, aren't *all* the element-columns redundant vs the composition (chemical formula) listed in the first column? DMacks (talk) 00:29, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

Final question - I assume that person who created it assumed that people may want to sort by element... (I didn't create it, and am not going to attempt to fix since I will almost certainly be reverted). Thanks for the other useful suggestions.83.100.230.154 (talk) 18:51, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

Good point about sort-by-element! DMacks (talk) 06:15, 14 January 2011 (UTC)

References

How do you add references? I've tried to add them but when I do them, it still says there aren't any and I'm not sure if I'm doing it right I've got five days left pleaaaase help lol PESP95 (talk) 22:35, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

What page are you working on? You probably need to add a { { Reflist } } tag. Sincerely, GeorgeLouis (talk) 22:41, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Referencing for beginners. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 22:47, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

The page is Roy Paget. The problem is that none of the sources cited are reliable, as in neutral, third-party publications. I've marked it with a Proposed Deletion for that reason. Yours, GeorgeLouis (talk) 23:00, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

Looks like biospam to me, tagged for G11 speedy. – ukexpat (talk) 16:14, 13 January 2011 (UTC)