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Wikipedia:Help desk/Archives/2011 March 23

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March 23

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DELETE MY PROFILE PLEASE!

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I am on the marketing team for Trinity Entertainment Company. I made the mistake of creating an account with Wikipedia. I work for a nightclub. We have no interest in posting anything on this site. Please remove my user name and password. Please delete my account.

Username: advancedwarning.

I tried everything, and somehow I cannot manage to understand this website.

Thank you for your help. Trinity Entertainment Complex Marketing Team — Preceding unsigned comment added by Advancedwarning (talk • contribs) 04:06, 23 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Foreign Internal Links?

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Is it best practice to use a foreign internal link if there is no page created in my native language? For example is it best to link a French Wikipedia page to an English article or Link it to a non-existent English article to point out that it is missing? Or is there a grey area for notability? Keith (talk) 06:42, 23 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Make it a redlink. When en-wiki readers follow a wikilink in an article they expect to be taken to an article in English. Suddenly dumping them into an article they cannot read helps nobody and defeats the entire purpose of redlinks. Use interlanguage links to link English articles to their equivalents in other languages. Roger (talk) 06:56, 23 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I had reformed Help:Interlanguage links to say something to this effect a while back and was reverted by an IP on the sole ground that the prior text had persisted for some time on that little edited page. I have reverted now.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 12:08, 23 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Racist Caption on Wiki Page

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So I was browsing Wikipedia and I came across a RACIST caption to a picture of Macon Bolling Allen, the first African-American to earn a law degree in the United States. Underneath his picture, someone HATEFULLY posted that he and his wife had "a nigga child." I take issue with this comment for two real reasons. First, it is evil, ignorant, and rude to refer to any African-American in such terms, let alone the offspring of an important person in American history. And second, it is inaccurate. As the article itself states, Mr. Allen and his wife produced five sons together. Here is the link to the page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macon_Bolling_Allen

Please correct this irresponsible oversight immediately.— Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.136.234.106 (talk • contribs)

Done. SeaphotoTalk 06:32, 23 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
The tenor of your post is as if to convince us that this should be removed. This was vandalism, plain and simple, that legitimate editors would remove on sight. In fact, you could have and and can help revert such filth yourself. By the way, the IP address that added this is now blocked from editing for one month. If this was a registered user account we could block it indefinitely, but IP addresses cannot because they get reassigned to new people over time.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 11:37, 23 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with Fuhghettaboutit - the time, energy and indignation you expended on this "issue" could have been far better spent on simply reverting it and others of the thousands of similar vandalism edits that occur every single day. Short answer - just fix it yourself instead of kicking up a huge fuss about it. Roger (talk) 11:51, 23 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Perhaps you could bite a bit less? CTJF83 12:02, 23 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Point taken - I apologise for biting. Roger (talk) 14:40, 23 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
To the original poster of this request: thank you for bringing this to our attention.  Chzz  ►  14:03, 23 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

the number of the contributors on English WP

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When looking at stats.wikimedia.org, I can see only how many users had edited once within a month and how many users had edited at least ten times since English Wikipedia launched. I would like to know how many users have edited or contributed once since English Wikipedia launched. Let me know how I can get the informationcooldenny (talk) 13:39, 23 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I think it'd have to come from a database query - which you could request on tswiki:Query service. (Others might have other ideas though; so maybe wait a bit for more responses here, first).  Chzz  ►  13:58, 23 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Conrad Hilton

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I read that Conrad Hilton was married to Elizabeth Taylor in Paris May 31, 1950 and I did not see it on his profile. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.175.137.182 (talk) 14:03, 23 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

That would be Conrad Hilton, Jr., who is the son of Conrad Hilton - and his marriage to Elizabeth Taylor is indeed mentioned.  Chzz  ►  14:07, 23 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Interestingly....

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I wince whenever I see "interestingly" in Wikipedia articles, and it occurs a lot (37,680 hits). Is this acceptable or am I just very sensitive? I'd appreciate examples of where it might be justifiable.--Shantavira|feed me 14:20, 23 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Should it not be used? I've not heard of a case where it would not be acceptable. TNXMan 14:24, 23 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
In short, no. See WP:EDITORIAL. Rehevkor ✉ 14:29, 23 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

(edit conflict)

I don't think it is acceptable. I can't think of much; if it was in a quotation, or a book title, or something, it'd be OK. But I just skimmed through the first hundred hits, and couldn't see any that were valid - I'd remove them all as NPOV. I wonder if a bot could handle it, or are there chances for too many false-positives? It will be interesting to see what others think.  Chzz  ►  14:35, 23 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Oh, I see what you mean. I thought you were referring to incorrect grammatical usage. My mistake. I agree that it shouldn't be used a descriptor in articles. TNXMan 14:38, 23 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
(edit conflict)Also WP:PEACOCK. We shouldn't be telling people what they should be finding interesting. If something bears mentioning in a Wikipedia article, we write about it. But interestingness is a subjective quality, and it isn't all that important what the writers of an article found interesting. Be aware, however, that I wouldn't say that every use of the term should be disallowed, nor should anyone go on a crusade to erase the word from Wikipedia. If you come across an inappropriate use of it in a specific article, feel free to rewrite to a more appropriate tone. But don't make it a single-minded effort to eradicate the word; such behavior is likely to run into opposition... (@Chzz post EC) Yeah, I wouldn't do this by bot or make it a "thing". If you find an inappropriate use, fix it; however mindless and repetitive style changes like this always cause social troubles at Wikipedia (i.e. once someone sees one person making hundreds of repetitive, and mindless, changes like this to articles, they freak out). So, no it doesn't belong, but from a pragmatic concern expect (perhaps irrational) resistance if you try to correct it en masse and all at once. Work it out slowly, make the changes as part of a larger rewrite of an article (i.e. make the entire article better, don't just excise that one word), and that will go over much better. --Jayron32 14:39, 23 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
In the past, several editors have tried to say that certain words are "banned" or should always be removed, but Wikipedia:Manual of Style (words to watch) opens with the statement:
"There are no forbidden words or expressions on Wikipedia, but certain expressions should be used with care" (my emphasis)
Sometimes, some editors will think that "Interestingly", or any other word, is appropriate. You cannot eradicate a word. Arjayay (talk) 14:58, 23 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I cannot think of any instance (other than quotations and titles) where this word would not contravene our core policy of neutrality.  Chzz  ►  17:50, 23 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Exactly. "Interestingly" is a purely subjective judgement and at complete odds with WP:NPOV. – ukexpat (talk) 19:13, 23 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Weak/limited agree, in the cases where it's an uncited editorial statement (and I see it a lot). However, sources might describe something as "interesting" or "of particular interest to X", so if article cites the source, it's certainly appropriate to summarize a reliable-source analysis (WP:NPOV isn't "no opinions", it's "say and attribute the sources' opinions"). For example, a chemical might have unique properties that make it citedly of interest for that reason. Could (and maybe should) word it as "of interest to XX because of YY" rather than "interestingly, it is YY". Definitely a poor word, but not mechanically/bot-replaceable for "forbidden to use". DMacks (talk) 19:21, 23 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Could a bot search for it and put the articles into a CAT like "NPOV suspects"? In my experience, auto-replace bots are usually a bad thing. They tend to generate false positives and/or get defeated by "clever" writers. Auto-detect and report bots are often better because they don't have to pass the Turing test to do reliably what they're supposed to do. - (User.0.0.0.1) 09:51, 24 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Who or what would ever use the category? -- John of Reading (talk) 10:00, 24 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Oops.... Some one have the File mover or Admin tools

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I accidently uploaded File:4348-1.JPG in a pretty non desrcript file name. Could some one rename it to something like Inheritance2011 or something similar? The Resident Anthropologist (Talk / contribs) 14:43, 23 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Now at File:Inheritance2011.JPG. TNXMan 14:45, 23 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Thanx The Resident Anthropologist (Talk / contribs) 14:47, 23 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Article name pronunciations

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I just thought it would be cool for someone to upload a sound file that could be played next to the name of the Fukushima I nuclear power plant to show how the pronunciation is. I'm interested in doing this. Can I get any suggestions as to where to look for this? I'm tired of news people slaughtering the word "daiichi". Like, what format should I use and are they any helpful templates for this? I can use Audacity to record my own voice. -Theanphibian (talk • contribs)

Hello. This might help: Wikipedia:Creation_and_usage_of_media_files#Audio. The file needs to be in Ogg format and uploaded at Wikimeda Commons. To use it next to the name in the lead, you will use the {{audio-IPA}} template.--Obsidi♠nSoul 15:51, 23 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I'm almost there and I've uploaded the file. Can you give me an example? -Theanphibian (talk • contribs) 17:02, 23 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I think this is OK? I used {{Audio}}, rather than {{audio-IPA}}, because that line is already getting a bit crowded. I'm sure if it is not quite right, someone will fix it. Thank you very much for doing that - it's great. ありがとうございます。 Chzz  ►  17:17, 23 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Theanphibian: I would take it as a great favor if you would do the same for Masako Katsura with your native pronunciation. This is a featured article I spent just gobs of time on, and I try to improve it any way I can.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 17:28, 23 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Can I reuse an old account?

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I have create peter.lawrey and peter_lawrey in the past but no longer have access to these accounts email address.

Can I update/merge these accounts to my email address of <email removed to prevent spam>? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 95.175.193.34 (talk) 16:09, 23 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I'm sorry, but if you no longer have access to the email accounts, we have no way of proving it was the same "you", and no way to recover the account.
You can, however, mark the old accounts, with {{FormerAccount|<new account name>}} - which will produce a box like this;
You can also put a note on the user page of your new account, saying what your old one/s were. Cheers,  Chzz  ►  16:37, 23 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
The first letter in usernames is automatically capitalized, and underscores are automatically changed to spaces. User:Peter.lawrey has no edits so you can try to request the username with the procedure at Wikipedia:Changing username/Usurpations. User:Peter lawrey has edits so usurpation may be declined. The name similarity between the names User:Peter.lawrey and User:Peter lawrey may also cause concern if you request the former. It is easiest for us if you just create a new account instead of trying to take over one of the old names. We have around 14 million accounts and one more doesn't matter. PrimeHunter (talk) 16:53, 23 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
The former replies all assume you have forgotten the passwords but you didn't explicitly say this. Accounts and passwords never expire so if you remember the password then you can just log in and set a new email address at Special:Preferences. PrimeHunter (talk) 16:59, 23 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • The question is worded a little fuzzily, but one interpretation is he still has access to those accounts, but not the email address associated with the accounts. If that is the case, then yes, you can still use one of them, as long as you remember the password for the account. Once logged in, in Special:Preferences you can update your email address without having access to your old one. If you no longer remember the password for either account, then the advice given above is correct. --Floquenbeam (talk) 17:00, 23 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Good point; thanks, Floquenbeam, I missed that possibility.  Chzz  ►  17:04, 23 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Account vs. No Account

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Hello, I just want to be sure I understand -- if I create an account I can create articles (multiple/different subjects) etc. along with links and images, as long as they pass through WikiScanner. There are no restrictions, such as having to create x amount before they will be live or having to edit x amount of times, etc. ? Or I can select to have an article created for me here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_creation.

There is a lot of info on having an account that is confusing so I want to make sure I understand if there are restrictions or not, etc.

Thanks in advance. Natalie <email removed to prevent spam> —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.38.120.149 (talk) 16:23, 23 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

You are correct in thinking that you can start articles as well as make edits to other articles straight away. To upload images, sound files, etc, you would need to wait until your account was confirmed. Wikipedia:User access levels may be of help here. Dismas|(talk) 16:31, 23 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

(edit conflict)

Welcome to Wikipedia!
There are no such restrictions; any registered user can create live articles. However, I highly recommend that, for your first article, you use Wikipedia:Article wizard and choose "Submit for review" rather than making it live, so that others can check it.
I also suggest reading Wikipedia:Your first article.
Best of luck,  Chzz  ►  16:33, 23 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
(edit conflict) Wikipedia:Why create an account? lists many benefits of accounts. One of them is being able to create articles directly in the mainspace encyclopedia. When the account becomes autoconfirmed (after 4 days and at least 10 edits) you get additional benefits, for example ability to upload images to the English Wikipedia, and not having to enter a CAPTCHA when you add external links. I'm not sure what you mean by WikiScanner but I suspect it is not WikiScanner which is an external tool that records some actions at Wikipedia but has no influence on them. Wikipedia has some automated filters and bots that can prevent or revert certain edits. There are some edits which will only be affected by this if they are made by unregistered users, but there are also many edits which will be affected for most or all users. PrimeHunter (talk) 16:41, 23 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I am a published poet with five volumes of poetry in two languages; how can I list my books in Wikipedia? Please respond to me. Thank you

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Dr.Kahtan Mandwee(Ph.d) Professor of World Literature. Poetry books Shade and Sahdows,Englishp.135 Nights of Wine and Insomnia. Englsih P.159 Country of Tears. Arabic poetry p. 120 The Doves of the Sultan. Arabic Poetry p.137 Songs for the Morning Rose. Arabic poetry p.143 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.241.184.51 (talk) 17:19, 23 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

If by "list my books in Wikipedia" you mean having articles about each of these books you will have to show these books are notable. You can do this by showing these books satisfy one of the criteria in WP:NBOOK. Toshio Yamaguchi (talk) 17:43, 23 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Asking "how can I list my books in Wikipedia" sounds like you have a misconception about what Wikipedia is. Wikipedia is not for promoting anything - commercial or non-commercial, literary, charitable, political, humanitarian ... no matter what it is, if you come to Wikipedia wishing to spread the word about it, you have come to the wrong place. Wikipedia is exclusively for articles about subjects which have already been written about by independent reporters of commentators. --ColinFine (talk) 22:58, 23 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Need help formatting new article

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User:Sbarie/LogicMonitor (edit | [[Talk:User:Sbarie/LogicMonitor|talk]] | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

User:Sbarie/LogicMonitor (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs) Under the References section, I have a list of links.

Problem: They are all showing in one continuous line. I'd like them to be listed one reference link at a time.

Any help would be appreciated. --Sbarie (talk) 17:21, 23 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Maybe a bulletted list? However, you're better off using inline citations rather than just a bibliography-list at the end. DMacks (talk) 17:23, 23 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I went ahead and changed it to a bulletted list. This might help you add the inline citations, Wikipedia:Referencing for beginners. GB fan (talk) 17:30, 23 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I've taken the liberty of correcting the link at the head of the section from using Template:La (which gave a a broken talk field) to using Template:Lu. (The talk link is a redlink, but at least it is the correct one). - David Biddulph (talk) 18:00, 23 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
You should also take a look at WP:CORP and WP:BFAQ for guidance about writing articles about companies and the related notability requirements. – ukexpat (talk) 18:20, 23 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Ur-Hamlet

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I am trying to supply a missing reference to the Wikipedia "Ur-Hamlet" entry, but I'm afraid I have only damaged the original entry. What do I do now? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 132.206.239.102 (talk) 18:44, 23 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I have fixed this for you, the problem was mainly unclosed reference tags (</ref>). Rehevkor ✉ 18:57, 23 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Template coding

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Hi,

I'm working on a collapsible table template based on template:table, it is currently here. I've almost got it except for one issue. Unused column header varibles are rendered as carrige returns on the last column. Most annoying! Help would be much appreciated. --Trappedinburnley (talk) 20:12, 23 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Oh, see here for an example of what I mean--Trappedinburnley (talk) 21:05, 23 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Anybody??? --Trappedinburnley (talk) 08:12, 24 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

See if the coding at User:John of Reading/X1 works for you. I'm hiding all the newlines inside HTML comments, and using !! to separate the headers from each other. -- John of Reading (talk) 09:39, 24 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Firefox 4 and preview windows

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I have installed Firefox 4 and now the preview windows do not come even close to working correctly. Can this be fixed? SMP0328. (talk) 20:23, 23 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Sounds like a Firefox problem, but in any event is best discussed at WP:VPT. – ukexpat (talk) 21:05, 23 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]


Showing as one long line

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In the article i started "insulin transduction pathway and Glucose blood level regulation" the second paragraph of the second section is showing as one long line, why? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Rshadid (talk • contribs) 21:08, 23 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

A leading space causes special formatting. PrimeHunter (talk) 21:13, 23 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I've fixed the space but that article is in need of some serious help and, IMO, is not ready to be a live article. I don't have the time right now, could some more experienced editor take a serious look at it? Thanks, Dismas|(talk) 22:23, 23 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I've boldy moved the article to the creator's userspace, User:Rshadid/Insulin signal transduction pathway and regulation of blood glucose. Rehevkor ✉ 22:30, 23 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Deleting an account I didn't put an email to

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How can I delete or recover http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Fitting the User Fitting. I know for sure it was my account and there is no email attached to it! I want to recover it. It's not an active account. Is there anyway I can get this account back? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.30.186.89 (talk) 23:48, 23 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

RRp0423Rrp0423 (talk) 23:49, 23 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Unfortunately, you can't delete it. However, it can be usurped, or renamed. Since you do not have many edits in either account, this will be possible for you to have done. Sumsum2010·T·C 01:35, 24 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Sumsum2010 can you help me with this? Thanks.Rrp0423 (talk) 02:27, 24 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Nevermind I figured it out Rrp0423 (talk) 02:32, 24 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
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