Wikipedia:Help desk/Archives/2013 August 10

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August 10

TFD notice not displaying

Pigsonthewing has nominated {{Infobox magazine}} at TFD, and because it's fully protected, he had to supply the code on the template's talk page and request an admin to copy it over. I noticed the request and performed it, but to my surprise there's no "This infobox has been nominated at TFD" message on pages that transclude the infobox. I even edited one of them, Scientific American, so that we wouldn't have to wait for the job queue, but it's had no effect. It's not a caching issue, since I can't remember ever viewing the page before (not to mention the fact that I edited it), and Pigsonthewing says that he doesn't see the message either. What's wrong? If you know how to fix it but you're not an admin, drop a note at my talk page with the correct code, and I'll put it into the template. Nyttend (talk) 00:28, 10 August 2013 (UTC)

The page history [1] of the used template explains it. The removal of the message on articles appears to have been made without discussion. PrimeHunter (talk) 00:45, 10 August 2013 (UTC)

Hmm, interesting. Since that's a critical component of the template, I've restored it, and it appears (although weirdly) in Scientific American. Thanks! Nyttend (talk) 01:01, 10 August 2013 (UTC)

What do you mean by weirdly? PrimeHunter (talk) 01:22, 10 August 2013 (UTC)

For me, it is very tiny and would be easy to overlook if I didn't already know it was supposed to be there. RudolfRed (talk) 01:24, 10 August 2013 (UTC)

[ec] It's just in the far right column in that article and at Newsweek — the whole notice is squeezed into the width of the infobox. The page history shows that it was copied from the regular TFD deletion notice, which is the whole width of the page. Compare the merge notice at the top of Newsweek or Scientific American with the TFD deletion notice for {{Infobox Province of China (PRC)}} at the top of Shanxi to see what I mean. Nyttend (talk) 01:27, 10 August 2013 (UTC)

Even when not in the last column, the font is much smaller than the rest of the article. Compare to the notice at 920th_Air_Refueling_Squadron, which is a more normal size. RudolfRed (talk) 01:48, 10 August 2013 (UTC)

It's small on purpose. The source of Template:Tfm/dated says font-size: xx-small;. That seems suitable to me. It shouldn't be too distracting on articles. Deletion messages made by Template:Template for discussion/dated have the same text size. The merger message is much shorter than the deletion message so it seems OK to me that the merger message isn't page-wide. PrimeHunter (talk) 01:57, 10 August 2013 (UTC)

I am talking about the template merge message. RudolfRed (talk) 01:59, 10 August 2013 (UTC)

[another ec] Size isn't the primary "weird" issue. The problem is its width, which renders it easy to overlook; the deletion notice is much easier to notice than the merger notice. But let's ignore for a moment the issue of whether this is a good thing: I see absolutely no differences between the code for the notices on the two template, except for wording such as "deletion" versus "merging". What causes them to be different? Nyttend (talk) 02:00, 10 August 2013 (UTC)

@RudolfRed: 920th Air Refueling Squadron has an article merger message, not a template merger. An article merger affects the article much more directly and isn't advertised on a lot of articles like template mergers often are.

@Nyttend: Proposed mergers are less important than deletions so it seems OK to me if mergers are advertised less prominently. However, the reason in the examples we are comparing is that the deletion tag on {{Infobox Province of China (PRC)}} is missing type=sidebar. Template:Template for discussion#Sidebar says an infobox should have it. PrimeHunter (talk) 02:54, 10 August 2013 (UTC)

Thanks. I got a little turned around there. Also, I didn't realize "discussion" template was "deletion". RudolfRed (talk) 04:46, 10 August 2013 (UTC)

I've restored the original version. The user who altered it - W. P. Uzer (talk · contribs) - was created less than a month ago, so is probably not aware of procedure. --Redrose64 (talk) 07:46, 10 August 2013 (UTC)

I don't know what "procedure" I am supposed to be unaware of, but I still think it's detrimental to Wikipedia to have these notices popping up on articles. Readers are not interested in such behind-the-scenes technical matters, and will just be distracted by these notices or waste time trying to work out what they mean and why they're important. And if the notices are too small to be distracting, then they're also too small to be noticed, so serve no purpose. I can understand (just) that you might want to make a noise about the fact that a template is proposed for deletion, since that might make quite a big difference to the appearance of the final page, but merging?? Who cares? It might make no difference at all (or only minor cosmetic differences) to the appearance of the article. Are we also going to advertise every proposed edit to a template in this way, since any template edit can have just as great a potential effect on the articles as a template merge can. Honestly, I think the people who spend their time dealing with this sort of thing have a greatly exaggerated sense of how much it matters. (Yes, I agree it's beneficial to keep the number of different templates down to a sensible minimum, but you don't need to wave a flag around to tell the whole world it's happening.) W. P. Uzer (talk) 12:13, 10 August 2013 (UTC)

The procedure is that you shouldn't make a wide-ranging change like this without consensus; or if you do, and somebody reverts you, you should then discuss it rather than revert again.

It is important for users to be aware of proposed template merges, since these can be controversial; here is one that people certainly did care about enough to reject the proposal. Here is a current TfM proposal which is also controversial; it is the one where Nyttend (talk · contribs), Pigsonthewing (talk · contribs) and myself first became aware that there was a problem with TfM. By showing no message at all in a TfM proposal, you're keeping people in the dark, and since there is no link to the discussion, you may be denying people the right to comment on merge proposals. --Redrose64 (talk) 13:37, 10 August 2013 (UTC)

There's no such procedure. Anyone can make whatever changes they like to an unprotected template. — Lfdder (talk) 14:02, 10 August 2013 (UTC)

There's no such procedure as WP:CON? Or maybe you mean WP:BRD? Or WP:TFM? --Redrose64 (talk) 14:29, 10 August 2013 (UTC)

"The procedure is that you shouldn't make a wide-ranging change like this without consensus" You don't need to seek consensus before making a change. — Lfdder (talk) 14:45, 10 August 2013 (UTC)

Umm, it's substantially different for basic procedural notices such as this. Imagine if I edited {{afd}} so that it wasn't easily visible — it would be absurd, because I would be hiding the deletion discussion from everyone and getting rid of the basic purpose of the template. I'd definitely need consensus first! It's the same here. Nyttend (talk) 14:59, 10 August 2013 (UTC)

When I proposed renaming an article recently (using the procedure at RM) no notice came up on the article. Surely a change of title is a far more significant change than a technical change regarding which template is used to achieve a substantially identical effect? Yet we don't tell everyone reading the article when such a significant change is proposed. Why should we do it with the insignificant one? People who are really interested in template merges, or in the particular templates themselves, will find out about the discussion anyway through other routes. Was there even any consensus to start with, to make these template merge notices come up on articles? W. P. Uzer (talk) 16:21, 10 August 2013 (UTC)

No, this is a much more significant change — your edits removed the majority of the template, which is meant primarily for the purpose of providing a link to the discussion! Moreover, when an article's up for moving, only one page will be affected, but a change to a template affects many pages. If you're keeping track of an article but don't keep track of TFD, you may have substantial input into a merger discussion. Nyttend (talk) 17:57, 10 August 2013 (UTC)

You may have substantial input into all sorts of discussion, some of which might even be important (yet we don't advertise most of them within the article). Most likely, though, you're one of the millions of people who want to read up on a subject without being distracted by peculiar and incomprehensible bits of text on your screen, not one of the dozen or so who might have the technical expertise to assess whether it's more efficient to achieve a set of effects using one template or several. You all seem to forget that 99.99%+ of people reading these messages have no idea, and shouldn't need to have any idea, what a "template" is and what it means to "merge" them. Where was it properly decided that this particular class of discussion needs to be advertised on potentially thousands of pages? If it was never decided so, then my edit restored the status quo simply. The template still provides a link to the discussion (from the template pages themselves, I mean the templates that this template is placed on), which to me seems exactly the right amount of publicity such discussions deserve (in case of particularly contentious discussions, further notification can be done manually). W. P. Uzer (talk) 06:21, 11 August 2013 (UTC)

By the way, is it possible to move this discussion to the template talk page itself (where I did already start a discussion thread on the subject)? W. P. Uzer (talk) 16:29, 10 August 2013 (UTC)

If it's moved anywhere (which I support, since this thread will be archived to Wikipedia:Help_desk/Archives/2013 August 10 on 13 August) it should be to WT:TFD since it's an integral part of that process group. --Redrose64 (talk) 16:41, 10 August 2013 (UTC)

Or maybe one of the village pumps? TFD is likely to be pre-populated with people who think that template organization issues are Very Important. W. P. Uzer (talk) 06:28, 11 August 2013 (UTC)

list of reliable sources in Chinese media?

Hi everyone. I'm a longtime user moving to an editing role. I will focus on China and have been looking without success for a list of Wikipedia-consensus reliable sources in Chinese media. China is replete with media outlets but some are more respectable than others. I'd rather not start working on existing articles until I understand who (generally) is and isn't ok to cite... Thank you for any help you can provide. DrewHeath (talk) 04:19, 10 August 2013 (UTC)

I don't think there's a predefined list. Look for sources that meet the guidelines at WP:RS and if there is a specific one you have questions about, you can ask at WP:RSN. Also, you don't need to use Chinese sources for articles on China. You can use sources from anywhere in the world, so if you are more confortable with english language sources, just use those. RudolfRed (talk) 04:38, 10 August 2013 (UTC)

There is no such thing as "this is a reliable source - for ever and ever amen". The reliability of a source can only be determined within the context of each specific citation. Every source contains errors or biases, even paragons of "The Truth©®™" such as the New York Times are sometimes not reliable. There are however inherently unreliable sources - such as "your brother's girlfriend's sister's ex-husband's cousin's best friend's aunt Jemima". Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 07:07, 10 August 2013 (UTC)

Ok, it seems over time I drew the wrong impression from reading talk pages. I have often seen various news outlets dismissed as unreliable (i.e. Pravda.ru, Daily Mail) and assumed the inverse was true - there were lists out there somewhere of standard media resources. Thank you both for clarifying. I'll tread lightly. DrewHeath (talk) 10:40, 10 August 2013 (UTC)

If you are unsure about a particular source or if you would like suggestions of media to look through, you can try asking at Wikipedia:WikiProject China. If your Chinese is up to it, you might also try asking at zh:Wikipedia:互助客栈/求助 as well, though the Chinese Wikipedia's interpretation of what makes a source "reliable" may be different than that of the English Wikipedia. – Philosopher ^{Let us reason together.} 23:29, 10 August 2013 (UTC)

Yes, I initially visited WPChina but found that they do not broach the topic of reliable sources. Asking on ZH.WP is a good idea. Thank you for the welcome. :-) DrewHeath (talk) 23:50, 10 August 2013 (UTC)

A question

I am block no chatting no comeent and no like please help me — Preceding unsigned comment added by 109.127.81.200 (talk) 05:48, 10 August 2013 (UTC)

What's that? If I should assume that this is about Facebook, well, we can't help you here. This is the Wikipedia help desk, where you can ask questions about how to use Wikipedia. You may want to contact Facebook (if this is a technical problem; the question is very vague) for support. Cheers, Insulam Simia (talk) 06:34, 10 August 2013 (UTC)

Moving Article

I have just finished writing an article in my sandbox and would like to publish. However, my sandbox seems to have become an article on its own accord. Not sure where it all went a bit pear shaped. Do I now just MOVE it? I want to call it St Clare John Byrne. Any advice on the way forward? Ted

Sidpickle (talk) 07:26, 10 August 2013 (UTC)

Yes, you can move it to the title you want. Best, Insulam Simia (talk) 07:38, 10 August 2013 (UTC)

Agreed, moving is what you want to do. You can read more about it at WP:MOVE. Dismas|^(talk) 09:58, 10 August 2013 (UTC)

Sharing a back link with Wikipedia

Have a website which I would like to link back-to-back with Wikipedia, how can I do that? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 41.89.42.2 (talk) 08:08, 10 August 2013 (UTC)

I don't quite understand your question. You are free to put links to Wikipedia from anywhere; in fact you are free to reuse content from Wikipedia anywhere, as long as you comply with WP:REUSE. However external links from Wikipedia to other sites are subject to many restrictions, explained at WP:EL. --ColinFine (talk) 09:49, 10 August 2013 (UTC)

Wikipedia does not offer reciprocal links if that's what you mean. PrimeHunter (talk) 12:48, 10 August 2013 (UTC)

Location of Oakleigh Grammar

Please note on the Map Section there is a photo of our Principal but the name of the School is incorrect.

Please delete Oakleigh Greek Orthodox College and replace with Oakleigh Grammar

Many thanks

The article Oakleigh Grammar doesn't have a map or a photo, so you will need to tell us exactly where you saw this. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 11:03, 10 August 2013 (UTC)

It looks as though the OP is referring to the "Knowledge Graph" box that appears to the right of the results in a Google search for "Oakleigh Grammar". This is something that Wikipedia has no control over; but there is a "Feedback / More info" link below that box, and if the OP clicks on it, then clicks on "Wrong?" preceding the school's name, Google may eventually emend it. Deor (talk) 12:04, 10 August 2013 (UTC)

Right. Here is our standard response:

Are you by any chance referring to a photo or text shown to the right of a Google search? Google's Knowledge Graph uses a wide variety of sources. There may be a text paragraph ending with "Wikipedia" to indicate that particular text was copied from Wikipedia. An image and other text before or after the Wikipedia excerpt may be from sources completely unrelated to Wikipedia. We have no control over how Google presents our information. PrimeHunter (talk) 12:59, 10 August 2013 (UTC)

Key files

You have a project server that has key files that must be accessed from people in multiple sites throughout the country. These files must be accessible 24/7 while keeping performance as high as possible. What solution would you provide?

This is the Help Desk for Wikipedia. We answer questions about how to edit Wikipedia here. Your question seems better suited to the Computing Reference Desk. Dismas|^(talk) 10:02, 10 August 2013 (UTC)

Sounds like somebody's asking us to do his homework. --Orange Mike | Talk 16:44, 10 August 2013 (UTC)

Edits Required

How many edits require to upload Second live article on the wikipedia ? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Shavaiz Shams (talk • contribs) 10:27, 10 August 2013 (UTC)

There are no restrictions so the reason for your question is unclear but after looking at your contributions I suspect your problem is that your move from User:Shavaiz Shams/sandbox to Carolyn A. Brent (advocate) left a redirect. I have blanked the redirect so you can edit your sandbox again. See Help:Redirect#Creating and editing redirects for how you can do it yourself. PrimeHunter (talk) 12:56, 10 August 2013 (UTC)

Change Username

I would like to make a small change to my username but cannot find where I can edit my information. Can you provide me with instructions on how to complete that task? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Krazytrane (talk • contribs) 12:48, 10 August 2013 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Changing username. PrimeHunter (talk) 12:56, 10 August 2013 (UTC)

Deleted pages

My father's biography was on Wikipedia and now it seems to have disappeared. Is there a way of finding out if, how and why it was deleted? Thank you — Preceding unsigned comment added by 109.148.60.63 (talk) 14:31, 10 August 2013 (UTC)

There might be, if you tell us his name. --Redrose64 (talk) 14:54, 10 August 2013 (UTC)

fund raising

are you currently running a fund raising campaign - a request for donations has come up on one page — Preceding unsigned comment added by 101.160.196.163 (talk) 15:01, 10 August 2013 (UTC)

The Wikimedia Foundation has been doing some testing of its upcoming fundraiser (what messages seem to work, which seem not to). So yes, readers like you have occasionally seen a request for a donation. But it's not consistent across pages, and certainly not seen by most readers, hence your confusion. The regular fundraising period will continue to be near year-end. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 18:01, 10 August 2013 (UTC)

Fundraising should have a link to somewhere at https://donate.wikimedia.org. If you are taken to another page then please post the address. PrimeHunter (talk) 20:06, 10 August 2013 (UTC)

The fundraising team is trying to spread out the announcements rather than having all of them at the end of the calendar year. See meta:Fundraising 2013. In the last batch (which may not be running any longer?), only 5% of readers were supposed to see them, and no user is supposed to see it more than once. If you have seen multiple requests, please click through to that link on Meta and tell them that you are seeing multiple requests. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 04:40, 12 August 2013 (UTC)

wrong data reported in wikipedia by one particular site

Hi team, This is to bring to your notice about the reference in wiki articles. consider this article http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chennai_Express here in the collection for the india: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chennai_Express#India_2 the data reported here has written: The film went on to collect INR29.25 crore (US$4.9 million) on its first day, thus making it the second highest opening day of all time behind Ek Tha Tiger. The above data is totally false & wrong & as it is talking about highest earning ever in india so i consider this as my duty to bring right info to you. please see the references below, in all the below links it clearly mentions that Chennai express has highest 1st day collection in India: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/entertainment/bollywood/box-office/Chennai-Express-beats-Ek-Tha-Tiger-on-day-one-earns-Rs-33-crore/articleshow/21741131.cms? (the foremost & biggest news site in India) http://www.dnaindia.com/entertainment/1872682/report-chennai-express-mints-rs33-12-crore-on-opening-day ( a very reputed site from india) http://www.hindustantimes.com/Entertainment/Bollywood/Shah-Rukh-Khan-starrer-Chennai-Express-mints-Rs-33-crore-on-opening-day/Article1-1106072.aspx (from hindustan times- one of the reputed newspaper from india) http://ibnlive.in.com/news/chennai-express-earns-rs-3312-cr-on-its-first-day/413196-8-66.html (a very big media group from india)

I am pointing this out because with boxofficeindia.com data someone is trying to forge the data. As wiki is based on people collaboration so it is very important for me to bring this issue out of wrong journalism and using wiki to play with the real data. Hope you will change the link (or you can give me authority to do the same) & make people aware of the fraud being done by giving wrong data to our esteemed user community.

P.S: i have no association with any one, i am here to raise my voice against the wrong data :) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Movierdb (talk • contribs) 16:00, 10 August 2013 (UTC)

The best place to raise this issue is on the talk page of the article. Maproom (talk) 16:42, 10 August 2013 (UTC)

tyrone hayes

the article on "tyrone hayes" is posted by a paid industry hack (AcademicReviewer) who is posting fallacious information. the majority of the article makes claims to me (hayes) being a paid expert witness etc. these statements are simply not based in fact. i request that this contributor NOT be allowed to post false information regarding me and my occupation. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Thereisonlyonetyrone (talk • contribs) 17:17, 10 August 2013 (UTC)

Sorry, we do not block users who have different views of things, we use reliable sources. Mlpearc (powwow) 17:21, 10 August 2013 (UTC)

If you have issues with the content of the article, please post to Talk:Tyrone Hayes. If that does not work, you have WP:DRN to request dispute resolution or WP:BLPN for issues about biographies of living persons. As Mlpearc said, we do not block editors based on differing views, unless they persistently violate Wikipedia policy. Robert McClenon (talk) 20:16, 10 August 2013 (UTC)

Cleanup help needed

Could someone give me a hand? I'm on an iPad and trying to fix several edits that Porn69porn69 (talk · contribs) has made by adding the Commons Category template to articles for which the subject has no such category on Commons. It will take me longer than I have time for to fix them all on this simple tablet. Thanks, Dismas|^(talk) 20:12, 10 August 2013 (UTC)

Done. I left one in as there actually was a Commons category (with more than just the picture in it).--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 21:10, 10 August 2013 (UTC)

Thank you! Dismas|^(talk) 21:33, 10 August 2013 (UTC)

Friday pageview stats

According to the dump pages the data is out there for yesterday's page views. Why isn't the pageview statistic page updating?--TonyTheTiger (T/C/WP:FOUR/WP:CHICAGO/WP:WAWARD) 22:03, 10 August 2013 (UTC)

Per [2] you should contact Henrik. Or, try WP:VPT. RudolfRed (talk) 22:49, 10 August 2013 (UTC)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Articles_for_creation/Natalina_Maggio -- seeking approval

Hello,

I submitted this Article below for NATALINA_MAGGIO over a month ago, and it has yet to be approved... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Articles_for_creation/Natalina_Maggio

I'm a fellow artist, and I used the same rules for her as I did for my own (Below), and mine was approved immediately... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lee_Reherman

Have I done something incorrectly?

Thank you in advance for your attention to this matter...

Lee Reherman website-- www.LeeReherman.com

Hawkreherman (talk) 23:30, 10 August 2013 (UTC)

When you removed the decline notice from the top of your page, you also removed your ability to resubmit the page. I'll replace the decline notice for you, which is supposed to remain as a notice to reviewers that the page had issues in the past. To resubmit, just click the blue "resubmit" button in the decline notice. Also, Lee Reherman never went through the Articles for Creation process, so in a sense, it was never reviewed. That page was created before the AfC process became the norm. Howicus (talk) 23:51, 10 August 2013 (UTC)

And I have tagged it for five of the reasons why it would not have passed that process. --ColinFine (talk) 15:00, 11 August 2013 (UTC)

Nice work! This raises a question, and since the conflict of interest noticeboard seems to be in some sort of estivation, this seems to be as good a place to ask it as any. In a case like Lee Reherman, where there has been a long history of overt COI editing, is it an appropriate response to revert to the last version before that editing began, as would be one normal way of dealing with a case of, say, copyright violation? I'm neither suggesting that that is a good version of the article nor specifically recommending restoring it, just asking if that is one of the possible appropriate responses as an alternative to, say, WP:PROD. Any thoughts? Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 19:52, 11 August 2013 (UTC)

@Justlettersandnumbers: COI isn't an absolute ban on editing, so it's problematical to simply revert COI-influenced edits. If, on the other hand, the information added is (for example) (a) highly promotional and (b) unsourced, then a good case could be made for removing it - but the best practice would be to post the removed information on the article talk page (with a note saying what you've done, of course), so that other editors (including those with COI issues) can comment. Ideally that will lead to a productive discussion, with the COI-problem editor bringing sources and suggested text to the talk page, and no longer posting inappropriately to the article page. By contrast, if you just revert a bunch of edits, you're limited to the edit summary for explaining what you did, and anything valuable in what you deleted has to be found via a diff, rather than looking at the talk page. So there's minimal chance of the the editor with COI issues actually learning much from the situation (as in, "All my additions just disappeared; I could try again, or just quit editing"). -- John Broughton (♫♫) 04:26, 12 August 2013 (UTC)