Help desk
< November 19	<< Oct \| November \| Dec >>	November 21 >

Welcome to the Wikipedia Help Desk Archives
The page you are currently viewing is an archive page. While you can leave answers for any questions shown below, please ask new questions on one of the current Help Desk pages.

November 20

acceptable usage of profanity

What dictates acceptable usage of profanity on Wikipedia? As an example, would the word "motherf---ing" be acceptable as a 13-letter word on the list of isograms? It is indeed a legitimate inflection of a word defined by Merriam-webster. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.36.86.15 (talk) 00:53, 20 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Might be wise to wait for a second or third opinion here, but I would think that it would be legitimate. Wikipedia is not censored. :) CharlieEchoTango (talk) 01:02, 20 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

My opinion is that we shouldn't avoid profanity where it is needed, but to litter it into articles where it isn't obviously needed starts to look like we're being intentionally provocative. So, I wouldn't censor a direct quote where someone uses the word motherfucking. It would be perfectly OK in the article Seven dirty words, or other applications where it is needed. However, if we have a choice between otherwise identical word choices, and there is literally no advantage to use the profanity (for example, if using another word doesn't substantially change the meaning in any real way) then I would make the editorial decision not to use it. --Jayron32 01:21, 20 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I guess the question is : is the isogram list intended to be exhaustive, as its number of entries suggests, or to only provide some examples, as its header title suggest? If the former, I would think that it should be included for the sake of having a complete and comprehensive list. If the latter, then I would agree that we should not use it where can be avoided. Cheers, CharlieEchoTango (talk) 01:33, 20 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I am fairly certain, per WP:INDISCRIMINATE, that a list of that nature is not meant to be exhaustive; the English language likely contains thousands of such words (even of 10 letters or more) and, as such, I can't see where yet another example helps an article which has too many as it is. If we have to limit ourselves to a representative list, there's no need to include "motherfucking" when any of the other dozen or so examples there demonstrates the phenomenon just fine. --Jayron32 01:53, 20 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Looking at this, I would have to agree that an an exhaustive list for 10 letter isograms is not possible, however all 13-letter ones could be listed (I count 14 entries, including motherfudging). But yes, if the list is kept non-exhaustive, I agree with you there is no need to add the word. Best regards, CharlieEchoTango (talk) 02:05, 20 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Yup, seems like if the section is just supposed to be examples, then I guess it's not really needed. That does bring up the point of why the section is so long, or why there even need to be examples that are longer than 3 or 4 letters, since that is enough to get the point across. Longer words might be considered noteworthy or as interesting pieces of trivia, but that same logic might justify the inclusion of curses. But, whatever. I just saw that word wasn't there, and wondered what the reason would be for not having it. Thanks for the help. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.36.86.15 (talk) 23:02, 20 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Lincoln High Brooklyn NY. Sing

There is a limited reference to A Lincoln High School participation in SING! I have a 1960 program from one of the 2 I participated in. How can I upload it to document the entry? Dennisnovak (talk) 04:11, 20 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

You may not upload a copyright document to Wikipedia. And an unpublished program is probably not a reliable source anyway. (I have doubts as to whether some of the other schools listed in SING! are adequately referenced). --ColinFine (talk) 15:45, 20 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Finding top-importance stubs?

A few days ago I asked about finding a list of articles that are rated both "Stub" and "High Importance". Wikipedia:Version_1.0_Editorial_Team/Index uses a bot that tracks the count of such pages. I was pointed towards Cat Scan as a tool that could do the job for me. However, I haven't been able to make it work. Although the table I referenced shows there are such articles, Cat Scan returns no results. Any advice?

Drkarger (talk) 05:18, 20 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I've managed to get a few of them. I used this page, depth = 3, Categories = Stub categories and High-importance articles (they need to be on separate lines), checked the box labelled "Talk" below "(Article)", and otherwise used default settings. That took 564 seconds. You could probably get more results by increasing the depth, but the query may take much, much longer.

High-importance stubs
Title Horse mill Jockey The Arts Centre (Melbourne) National Opera and Ballet Sofia Virgilijus Noreika Paris Opera Ballet Polo at the Summer Olympics Opera Cleveland Violeta Urmana Jan Kiepura Maria Sokil National Opera and Ballet Lithuanian National Opera and Ballet Theatre Horseracing in New Zealand

Post script: based on the title of this thread (as opposed to your first sentence), I think you actually wanted Top-importance articles, not High-importance articles. Adrian J. Hunter^{(talk•contribs)} 08:23, 20 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Hmmm, I just ran it for Top-importance articles at depth 5, and only got four results: Serer language, Fandène, Somb, and Rémi Jegaan Dioh. That only took 520 seconds. Adrian J. Hunter^{(talk•contribs)} 09:07, 20 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks; this gives me a starting point. Drkarger (talk) 05:17, 21 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

optic nerve damged

PEOBLEM: OPTIC NERVE DAMAGED IN LEFT EYE AND VISION LOST 3 YEARS BACK .. OPTIC NERVE IN RIGHT EYE WEAKENED AND VISION IS ONLY 5 PERCENT..DIABITIC PATIENT SINCE 15 YEARS AND ON INSULIN DAILY

40 UNITS NAME ;MANTHA SURYA PRAHA AGE:60 YEARS PLACE HYDERABAD/ INDIA MOBILE NO. <removed>

IN TH YEAR 2008 WHILE CROSSING THE ROAD FELL ON FACE RESULT IN INJURY TO LEFT EYE AND LOST TOTAL VISION IN LEFT EYE DUE TO HIGH PRESSURE IN THE EYE IN THE YEAR 2010 UNDERWENT OPERATION IN LVPRASAD EYE INSTITUTE HYDERABAD DUE TO WATER IN RETINA OF RIFHT EYE AND AFTER OPEARATION OF CATARACT ETC. IT WASINFORMED THATTHE OPTIC NERVE OF RIGHT EYE ALSO WEAKENED AND AT PRESENT THE VISION IS NEARLY 5 TO 10 PECRENT — Preceding unsigned comment added by Nakrekanti (talk • contribs) 07:15, 20 November 2011‎ (UTC)[reply]

You are at Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Wikipedia cannot offer medical advice. Please see the medical disclaimer, and contact an appropriate medical professional. Adrian J. Hunter^{(talk•contribs)} 07:27, 20 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

İnserting HTML code as part of a page edit

I tried to insert a piece of HTML code (a script to display a google docs created chart) into a page I was editing but it does not work. The script displays as simple text, rather than function properly to display the chart I created in google docs.

Any ideas as to how to insert this script and make it display properly?

See Help:HTML in wikitext for the HTML elements that are permitted in wikicode. <script> is not one of them; so it can't be done. Sorry —teb728 t c 11:07, 20 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

You could take a screenshot of the chart and put that in the article... Dismas|^(talk) 14:04, 20 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not sure I can think if a legitimate reason to post a Google spreadsheet in an article, would seem to violate any number of policies and guidelines, WP:SPS, WP:NOR, WP:RS among them... Яehevkor ✉ 14:13, 20 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I suspect that would rather depend on the subject of a chart. What's in the chart? Perhaps we have a template that will serve a similar purpose? --Philosopher ^{Let us reason together.} 06:53, 22 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

What to do with this article?

I stumbled across the article Fermat's Last Theorem in fiction. It appears this is simply a collection of information that could perhaps be included in Fermat's Last Theorem. I admit I don't have a good idea about what to do with it and I am not sure whether it really should be merged into Fermat's Last Theorem. It could be made a section of FLT, but I don't think it should, because of its length. So what to do? I do not want to outright AfD it. Toshio Yamaguchi (talk) 14:36, 20 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Oh dear, an article consisting solely of unsourced trivia and original research unless looks deceive me. AfD would be the best option in my mind, but the article was AfD'd in 2008 and kept. You could merge but since it's unsourced there's technically no verifiable information to salvage. Яehevkor ✉ 15:22, 20 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, it is a page that is there mainly due to WP:ILIKEIT. Wikipedia really needs to come up with a guideline regarding stuff that fails WP:NOTE but might be ~~useful for~~ considered to be useful by a large number of people. Toshio Yamaguchi (talk) 15:34, 20 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I would re-nominate it on AFD, as it was nominated back then in 2008.--♫GoP♫_T ^C _N 17:22, 20 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I'll nominate it when I get the chance, unless someone gets there before me. Яehevkor ✉ 21:37, 20 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

A good idea (I hope) and no clue where to put it

Hi! I just wanted to propose making a central hub for tasks needed to be done. There could be a first page with a list of categories of tasks each of which then links out to its own thing. This first page could be accessible through a link on the main page a la "How can I help?" or "I want to help!".
I think it's no longer as easy as it used to be to find something interesting and fun to do on wikipedia as it used to be. If my experiance is any indication there is a mood you get into when you want to contribute to wikipedia and if you can't find something enjoyable to do in a given amount of time you just give up and move on untill you get into that mood again. Let's make it easy for people who feel like helping out to do so.
U5K0'sTalk_{Make WikiLove not WikiWar} 16:05, 20 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I'd post this at WP:VPR CTJF83 16:08, 20 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Under "Interaction" in the left pane is a link to Community portal. PrimeHunter (talk) 16:22, 20 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you both for the help. Really appreciate it. --U5K0'sTalk_{Make WikiLove not WikiWar} 17:05, 20 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Application for Fund for Foster Child

Please could you help me with applying for this benefit for my fosyter child? For the past five years, since my brother died I have the child in foster care with me, the mother still receives the benefit which I feel should be for the child himself. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 93.186.30.246 (talk) 16:59, 20 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I'm sorry Wikipedia cannot give legal advice. -- Q Chris (talk) 17:04, 20 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Capitalizing article title: Infinity walk or Infinity Walk

I've started a short article on Infinity walk. I've now learned that the term is actually a trademark, and that both words are routinely capitalized when the walk is referred to in the medical and other literature. I'm wondering if the article should be moved to Infinity Walk. It seems like it SHOULD, but I don't want to violate any Wikipedia conventions. Lou Sander (talk) 17:12, 20 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Has been moved. - David Biddulph (talk) 17:16, 20 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

(edit conflict) I moved it, as you said it was a trademark, so it is a proper noun. On WP:TITLE you can read about how articles should be named. Regards.--♫GoP♫_T ^C _N 17:18, 20 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

difference between standard and redirected articles

Why would there be differences between pages that are reached directly and through a redirect. For example, the page reached by searching "Matt & Kim" is different than the page reached by searching "Matt and Kim" even though it redirects to the former.

Thanks, Bill — Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.44.92.43 (talk) 17:54, 20 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Similar page names redirect to official page, like USA and US redirect to United States for ease of searchability. CTJF83 18:14, 20 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Logged out users sometimes see an old cached page version when they view a redirect, but it can vary depending on which server you hit. I see the current version at Matt and Kim where the bottom of the page says "This page was last modified on 20 November 2011 at 08:14." If you purge a redirect then it should update to display the current version. PrimeHunter (talk) 18:17, 20 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Someone using Wikipedia content without attribution

I recently came across a page that apparently copies an entire Wikipedia article, word for word, with only some of the formatting omitted. As far as I can see, no attribution is given, as you require.

I have tried to find a place to report this, but could not.

Here is the URL of the content: http://www.technologyparagon.com/muhammad-ali/

As I said, this is a word for word copy of the Wikipedia article on Muhammad Ali. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 96.224.176.68 (talk) 18:31, 20 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I see this all over the internet, inclusing versions of articles that no longer exist on Wikipedia. A problem that this can cause is that if a website replicates Wikipedia content and a Wiki user cites that content as a reference, articles can essentially reference past versions of themselves. Morganfitzp (talk) 19:01, 21 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Adding family details- editing a wikipedia entry and want to add that the person is the great-grandson

Where can I add family details - editing a wikipedia entry and want to add that the person is the great-grandson Copywrite2012 (talk) 18:39, 20 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

What page? CTJF83 18:46, 20 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Whatever the article, you should only add this information if 1) you have a reliable published source that says so, and 2) both the great grandfather and the great grandson are notable according to Wikipedia's criteria. --ColinFine (talk) 00:02, 21 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I need help with from "The Help Desk" please

We were robbed going thru the airport security on our way to Africa, we had cash in our backpacks, it was taken, we have tried to contact Airport security, but so far they refuse to anser us. Please help us let other folks know to watch their bags in the security ^{[details removed]} Thanks Kathy Stone — Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.44.198.99 (talk) 18:59, 20 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I am not sure who you are trying to reach, but this is a help page for Wikipedia. We can not help you with anything else. GB fan 19:10, 20 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

archive bot settings

Hi, is there some miss setting with this archive bot stopping it acting? Off2riorob (talk) 19:50, 20 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Have you tried asking the botop directly? --Jayron32 20:58, 20 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Misza13 has not edited for over six months - There is no desperate hurry. I am sure someone who is good with archive bots will come along soon enough. Off2riorob (talk) 21:05, 20 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The {{User:MiszaBot/config}} is misplaced; it is currently inside the call to the {{WikiProjectBannerShell}} template. But looking at the page history I'm not sure that there is consensus for archiving? -- John of Reading (talk) 22:45, 20 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks - I have moved it back outside the wikiprojectbannershell and lets see if that actions - I was wanting not to unnecessarily have an archive box but attach it inside the templates on the talkkheader template. Archiving is a usual process - I think its only the amount of time to wait that is disputed and once a bot is working we can discuss that to get agreement. Off2riorob (talk) 23:01, 20 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Pharaoh's Curse

In regards to this question, should I write a Wikipedia article about this other "Pharaoh's Curse" game and provide screenshots? JIP | Talk 20:52, 20 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Can you find and provide reliable sources about the game which contain enough good information to meet the minimum standards at WP:GNG? --Jayron32 20:57, 20 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

A quick Google search returned no information of this game's existence. All hits for "Pharaoh's Curse" were either about the original C64 game or Bignonia's Amiga conversion, but this is an altogether different game. I don't even remember which magazine coverdisk I got it from. All I can supply about the game's existence is the actual game, which is still on my Amiga's hard disk, and thanks to the affs kernel module, now also on my Linux PC's hard disk. I only have the executable binary distribution - the author promised he'd supply the source code for £5, but I never asked for it, and I don't know if he supplies it any more. JIP | Talk 21:09, 20 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

In that case, no you should not write such an article. --ColinFine (talk) 00:08, 21 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Infobox width

I copied the structure from another article but how do I make it narrower? See here Marj (talk) 22:02, 20 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I guess you mean User:Mdk572/K Dub. Where did you copy the infobox code from? It's usually better to use an existing infobox template from Category:People infobox templates or a subcategory, such as Template:Infobox Motocross rider from Category:Motorcycle racer infobox templates. PrimeHunter (talk) 22:23, 20 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I copied it from a Motocross Rider page, the MX rider template you linked to is not particularly useful with headings for GPs etc (and it's way too complicated for me to fill in). I think the info used on this one is better, but the box is too wide. Marj (talk) 22:37, 20 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

BTW what else would I mean? Marj (talk) 22:45, 20 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

No worries, I found a workaround. Marj (talk) 23:38, 20 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I see you have chosen Template: Infobox motorcycle rider. Your manually made infobox was missing colspan="2" in the cell with the image, and thumb doesn't look good in an infobox. It's intended for stand-alone images. Earlier I read "See here Marj" as your signature because there was no period between the two links. I then looked at your contributions and guessed the page. PrimeHunter (talk) 00:59, 21 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Wikisource image

I've created a stub article; Cautionary Tales for Children, and have found an image of the original front cover on the Wikisource page[1]. Is there a way of linking this file to the infobox of my Wikipedia article? Alansplodge (talk) 22:43, 20 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The image is, according to the tags, in the public domain. So it could be transferred to Commons and then used from there. Dismas|^(talk) 23:52, 20 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The tag indicates it is PD in the US, but wasn't the book first published in the UK. If so, it would have to be PD (or free-licensed) there to be on Commons. —teb728 t c 03:10, 21 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Ah, but the illustrator was Basil Temple Blackwood (1870-1917); so it would have entered PD in the UK in 1988. —teb728 t c 07:10, 21 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you both. Alansplodge (talk) 09:22, 21 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Now on Commons as File:Cautionary Tales for Children 1907 edition.jpg. – ukexpat (talk) 13:49, 21 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Why, thank you kind sir! Alansplodge (talk) 18:13, 21 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Info box template for School Districts?

I know there is an infobox template for schools. But is there an infobox template for school districts? If not, would it be appropriate to use the school infobox (see example below)?

{{Infobox school | name = Pine Tree Independent School District | motto = A Tradition of Excellence | image = | imagesize = | caption = | type = [[Public school (government funded)|Public]] | location = [[Longview, Texas|Longview]], [[Texas]], [[United States|USA]] | free_label = Superintendent | free_text = | enrollment = | website = [http://www.ptisd.org/ Pine Tree ISD] }}

--Fife Club (talk) 23:08, 20 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

{{Infobox school district}}. Cheers! CharlieEchoTango (talk) 23:15, 20 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia:Help desk/Archives/2011 November 20

Contents