Wikipedia:Help desk/Archives/2013 March 20

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March 20

External links to digitized regimental histories

I've been adding external links to digitized regimental histories that are in the public domain, digitized at Emory University and uploaded to the Internet Archive. The links are being added to the relevant wikipedia articles for the civil war regiment in question. Is this acceptable?

Example: 1st Virginia Infantry#External Links — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jkylefenton (talk • contribs) 02:13, 20 March 2013 (UTC)

It looks like a worthwhile addition to me. You might want to check with the folks at Portal:American Civil War. And, there might be a template to make things easier - i.e: internet archive template. ~:74.60.29.141 (talk) 02:47, 20 March 2013 (UTC):~

P.s.: see Template:Internet Archive

item correction

Your article on the Anthony Quinn page has an error. Under filmography, it shows that he played Eufemio Zapata in the Viva Zapata movie of 1952. He actually played the brother Emiliano Zapata.

George Norfolk,Va. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 209.86.226.11 (talk) 03:06, 20 March 2013 (UTC)

Do you have a source for that? IMDB also says he played Eufemio. RudolfRed (talk) 04:55, 20 March 2013 (UTC)

Deletion of article

Hello,

Can you please assist me in why my article was deleted for the 2nd time. This is what we have been trying to upload below. There is nothing inflammatory or incorrect. Could you help us upload the below or advise us what the issue is?

Thanks for your assistance!

User0300 (talk) 03:08, 20 March 2013 (UTC)

The note on your talk page says that you did not show why the subject is notable. You can read the guidance on this at WP:N and WP:BIO. Also, I deleted the draft you posted in your question. There is already a copy on your talk page. RudolfRed (talk) 03:39, 20 March 2013 (UTC)

... and following a link from WP:BIO you will find more specific guidance at WP:MUSICBIO. - David Biddulph (talk) 03:46, 20 March 2013 (UTC)

New Entry in Wikipedia

I had made a new entry in Wikipedia in People column in Bhagalpur District /India page. The same has been removed without any reason. Kindly advise right steps to make new entries in Wikipedia pages. Thanks Qaisar N.K.Jani — Preceding unsigned comment added by 122.177.218.152 (talk) 05:59, 20 March 2013 (UTC)

I can't see any edits made by your IP address to Bhagalpur district. Did you use an edit summary WP:EDITSUMMARY to explain the purpose of the change you were making to the page? Did you use an inline citation WP:REFB to a reliable independent source WP:RS? --Demiurge1000 (talk) 10:10, 20 March 2013 (UTC)

And I can't see a recent change to that article which added a person, only one that added an external link. Are you sure you picked "Save" and not "Preview". But if you want to try again to add a name, please take note of the links that Demiurge gave you. --ColinFine (talk) 10:18, 20 March 2013 (UTC)

references

I have been trying to publish a page and keep getting rejected for references, but I keep finding more and more pages like this that have no references. Stranger (band)#References

what am I doing wrong to keep getting rejected. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Microv (talk • contribs) 06:04, 20 March 2013 (UTC)

The article Stranger_(band) was created in 2006, when the criteria for accepting new articles were much less stringent. Nowadays, new articles generally need to meet the requirements listed in WP:42. If you're having trouble adding references, you could look at WP:REFB which gives a fairly good simple guide to it. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 10:05, 20 March 2013 (UTC)

Why was the work I created in a sandbox page published as an article wikipedia without my approval?

Hi, at least 5 years ago I created Sandbox content under my username. I never completed nor requested that the content be approved. My understanding of the Sandbox is that: It serves as a testing spot and page development space for t he user and is not an encyclopedia article."

Hence, I am surprised that the content I wrote in Sandbox is now the subject of live wikipedia page and has been edited by another user.

The information in this article is out of date and inaccurate. The image uploaded by another user is over 10 years old. Can I simply delete it and start over . . . or must it be edited? Please explain to me why sandbox data was approved for publishing and how I can prevent this from happening again.

Thanks. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Sparkyparker (talk • contribs) 06:17, 20 March 2013 (UTC)

The article that you created in your sandbox is still there... in your sandbox. Nobody has moved it to the main article space. I see one edit was made to add an infobox. Normally sandbox articles are not edited by anyone else but I've never seen a rule against it. You can certainly ask the editor that did it. They have made edits today, so they are still active on Wikipedia. Dismas|^(talk) 06:30, 20 March 2013 (UTC)

You can do whatever you want with the contents, you can update it or clear, or you can even request for deletion (so that the history will disappear along with the contents). However cou can't request exclusive rights for the page. A sandbox indeed is a user's page and we usually don't edit one another's sandbox pages, however sandbox pages still are part of Wikipedia, and as such they are subject to CC-BY-SA 3.0 License and GFDL (see the note below the textbox then you edit the sandbox page). Anyone can decide to copy, publish or improve (or vandalize) your sandbox, and IMHO the recent change is an improvement. I think you might rather appreciate someone's help in improving the (future) article. But if you feel uncomfortable with that, then just undo the change. If you think the text is too bad and will never meet Wikipedia standards, so it can't be published then just remove it. But usually it's much better to ask for help in updating and improving your work and then publish it than revert everyting and start from scratch.
Good luck, and take it easy. --CiaPan (talk) 07:51, 20 March 2013 (UTC)

Thanks CiaPan. I appreciate your thoughtful response. It is not that I want exclusive rights for the page or don't want anyone else to edit . . . but rather that I hadn't finished researching and editing what I had written so never published it. Now it is badly out of date and should be fixed. I am happy to do that when I find time, but that may be a few months. And there are plenty of newer sources if someone else wants to do that. What I don't understand is why a sandbox article is able to come up as a top ten google search for this individual if it is considered a testing and development space? It appears as if it is an approved wikipedia article, even if it is not. I am obviously still learning how to use and edit wikipedia so it is really helpful for me to understand the rules for working in sandbox and publishing. Thanks again. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Sparkyparker (talk • contribs) 16:48, 20 March 2013‎

If you don't want Google to index your sandbox page, add __NOINDEX__ to the page. - David Biddulph (talk) 17:32, 20 March 2013 (UTC)

Well, I'm afraid it is Google's secret how they rank pages. As far as I can see, Google puts Wikipedia pages quite high in their results, especially when the search phrase fits both the article contents and the article title ("file name"). Additionally they do not reduce the rank of Wikipedia sub-spaces pages (eg. user: space), so we can do little to reduce your page ranking. The best solution is telling the Google bot to exclude your page from their index, just as David Biddulph said above. --CiaPan (talk) 07:38, 21 March 2013 (UTC)

...or you can add a warning in big letters in the page's head that it is under construction and should not be considered a valuable source until it is moved to the main space. You might also want to use {{Under construction}} or {{Userspace draft}} template for the same purpose. --CiaPan (talk) 07:52, 21 March 2013 (UTC)

adding citations to articles with existing ones

When adding a citation to an article with four citations already, the new one shows up as labeled footnote 1, while there already are notes 1 to 4. The added citation also does not appear in the publication list at the bottom showing the four footnotes; the article has a reference section listing publications noted with list code different from shown in the instructions, a "<references/>" instead of "{{references}}". The new citation is in a different section than the existing references, present in multiple article sections, all listed together at the end. What am I missing to perform this addition properly? Leaving it out for now.98.69.128.216 (talk) 07:27, 20 March 2013 (UTC)

Are you talking about this edit? If so, it looks like you did it right. Dismas|^(talk) 07:30, 20 March 2013 (UTC)

That's the one. Will try it again. I re-edited to take out the reference. Can't see the whole thing with the bottom list without saving it, difficult. Thankyou. There is an article for the latest March announcement, in Gizmag I have the ref. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.69.128.216 (talk) 07:35, 20 March 2013 (UTC)

Your latest edit looks fine to me. Perhaps something at Help:Section#Editing a footnote might help you? -- John of Reading (talk) 07:50, 20 March 2013 (UTC)

• Tip: when adding references, edit using the 'Edit' tab on the top of the page instead of the [edit] link for the section. That way, you can use Show preview and see the changes for the Reference section. ~:74.60.29.141 (talk) 22:17, 20 March 2013 (UTC):~

Content Error

hey, in the country information most of the driving side mentioned here is wrong... for e.g. India, the driving direction mentioned in the page is left and actually it is right. For UAE, the driving direction mentioned is right and actually it is left. For Senegal, driving direction mentioned is right, but actally it is Left. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 41.82.174.177 (talk) 11:20, 20 March 2013 (UTC)

If you find an error in Wikipedia, you are welcome to fix it, preferably with a reference to a reliable source that backs up the information you insert. --ColinFine (talk) 11:41, 20 March 2013 (UTC)

My searches support Wikipedia in all your three examples. Do not change the side for any country. You can post your sources here for evaluation if you think Wikipedia is wrong. PrimeHunter (talk) 12:18, 20 March 2013 (UTC)

Ah. I wonder if the OP is misinterpreting the information as relating to which side of the car the driver sits, as opposed to which side of the road the car is on. --ColinFine (talk) 16:05, 20 March 2013 (UTC)

Google earth should be able to verify. Just see which side of the road the stop signs are on. I have never heard of a country that has driver's seats the same as the driving direction. UK drives on the left with seats on the right. USA drives on the right with seats on the left. Many countries may have both types of seats depending on imports.--Canoe1967 (talk) 18:42, 20 March 2013 (UTC)

Historical record of deleted articles. History of edits of deleted articles.

a) Historical record of deleted articles.

Suggestion... save articles being deleted somewhere as a historical record of articles as they were deleted. a) Where are there mechanisms already setup to save as a historical record articles being deleted?...

b) How to look for deleted articles.

What places are there to check for deleted articles?... c) for example where can be found the article http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recovery_Is_Possible as it was at the time it got deleted November 2012 ?

d) How to look for the history of edits of deleted articles.

What places are there to check for the history of edits to a deleted article?... e) For example, ? Where can be found the history of the edits to the deleted article Recovery Is Possible — Preceding unsigned comment added by Don warner saklad (talk • contribs) 12:48, 20 March 2013 (UTC)

Only those with Admins rights are able to access deleted pages. You can email an admin, and request for them to retrieve the information for you. There is no way a non-admin can access these pages. Mdann52 (talk) 14:05, 20 March 2013 (UTC)

Main page not updating (again)

20th March 2013. I am still looking at 18th March Main Page as I was all day yesterday 19th. You have a problem with this a couple of months ago but it has obviously recurred. Please fix it if you can. (I am in England, Great Britain.) Thanks. Roger Barnes. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.229.153.225 (talk) 12:49, 20 March 2013 (UTC)

This has been reported numrous times before to WP:VPT. We are aware that these is an issue, and I am sure the devs are working to resolve it. Thanks for reporting it though! Mdann52 (talk) 14:00, 20 March 2013 (UTC)

JASENIK=Јасеник

Hi Dears JASENIK=Јасеник The correct location on border between crna gore and Serb republic not as mentioned on page :Jasenik (Gacko So pls. make sure if your data on map is correct , because as Microsoft Encarta 2006 Thanks Best regards Bachar Rifai — Preceding unsigned comment added by 217.165.82.106 (talk) 14:28, 20 March 2013 (UTC)

If this is about Jasenik (Gacko), there is certainly something wrong. The map in that article shows Jasenik as towards the south of Bosnia-Herzegovina, and Google Maps shows it as towards the north of Bosnia-Herzegovina, but neither shows it as on the Serbian border. Maybe there are several villages of that name. But the article says "This article about a location in the municipality of Gacko, Republika Srpska ...", while the map shows a village in Bosnia-Herzegovina. Maproom (talk) 15:44, 20 March 2013 (UTC)

Republika Srpska is part of Bosnia-Herzegovina. --Jayron32 20:40, 20 March 2013 (UTC)

need help citing website as reference

on List of city nicnames in Texas I attemped to add Jasper, Butterfly Capital of Texas I wanted to use the county website http://jasper.agrilife.org/ but I get an error message I don't know how to correct -- even after reading how to do it — Preceding unsigned comment added by JasperMG (talk • contribs) 14:40, 20 March 2013 (UTC)

 Fixed. <ref name=website, jasperagrilife.org/> just isn't valid: you always have to terminate the reference with a separate </ref>. Please see Wikipedia:Referencing for beginners. I added an example of your problem to the help page. --— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 14:52, 20 March 2013 (UTC)

Don't use refname for cites that occur only once. Roger (talk) 15:51, 20 March 2013 (UTC)

You can name single-use references with no problem. The issue here is in trying to stuff the reference inside <ref />. This sort of thing works with HTML tags, but although <ref> looks like an HTML tag, it is actually an extension tag created by the Cite software extension. The singular tag form of <ref /> is not supported at all. The beginners page will help. --— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 17:44, 20 March 2013 (UTC)

Missing info

I read your article on the histroy of voice mail. It leaves out a very important person and contributor, Paul Finnegan who founded Voice Mail International and whose product was integrated with Digital Equipment Corporation's email product ALL-IN-1. VMI's product competed with VMX over who had the first introduction. lacking good olegal advice VMI allowed a patent to be applioed for before doing so themselves and ended up having to buy a license. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 174.17.40.164 (talk) 15:34, 20 March 2013 (UTC)

Do you have a reliable source for that? Roger (talk) 15:53, 20 March 2013 (UTC)

The The Museum of Email & Digital Communications has some info on ALL-IN-1: http://email-museum.com/2011/12/13/memories-of-all-in-1-tony-redmond-recalls/

Our article at Voice-mail#Global service introduction discusses Paul Finnigan and Voice-mail International. --Guy Macon (talk) 17:30, 20 March 2013 (UTC)

Reference List

I'm having trouble on Churches of Göreme, Turkey this page. I added the sections titled Fresco Decoration of the New Church and the same title for the Old Church. I have my reference list posted but i cant figure out how to get it to go into the reference section on the bottom of the page. I tried to put it in the "reference" section at the bottom of the page but nothing happens. C.gartner88 (talk) 18:10, 20 March 2013 (UTC)

I have moved the Refs section that has the {{Reflist}} to the correct place in the article, per WP:LAYOUT. Does it look OK now? You probably don't need the Further reading section as those books are already listed as references. I also moved the position of the first image - left aligned thumbnails distort the lead section.--ukexpat (talk) 18:20, 20 March 2013 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Referencing for beginners --— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 18:26, 20 March 2013 (UTC)

Merging accounts

Resolved

 – Dorhi (talk) 02:57, 27 March 2013 (UTC)

Hi! I have two accounts in Wikimedia Commons and in en.Wikipedia which their names are different from the one in my "home" Wikipedia (the he.Wikipedia), so i can't merge them. How can i do it? Sorry if my English wrong. – Dorhi (talk) 19:49, 20 March 2013 (UTC)

Unfortunately, it is currently impossible to merge accounts with different usernames; however, if you rename your account on any of the wikis (en: here, commons here) to the same as your he.Wikipedia account, you can then unify your accounts. Thanks, FrigidNinja 19:58, 20 March 2013 (UTC)

annotate/blame tool

Is there any feature (or 3rd party toolserver) that provides an annotate/blame feature? IE, Walk through the current revision and the history that lead up to that revision, and tell you who is the last person to add/edit each block of text? The information is obviously available via the revision history, but is there any tool to to the markup for you? Wikipedia:WikiBlame is close, but forces you to enter each block of text manually.Gaijin42 (talk) 20:00, 20 March 2013 (UTC)

Try WP:WikiTrust. It is not installed as an extension, but you can install it for your account by adding this to Special:MyPage/skin.js:

$.holdReady(true);
mediaWiki.loader.load("https://toolserver.org/~netaction/wikitrust.js");

--— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 20:40, 20 March 2013 (UTC)

Excellent! Thank you! Gaijin42 (talk) 16:03, 22 March 2013 (UTC)

External Website link not working properly Article Barqueiros

How come reference # 4 does not work properly. I know that the page exists but when I click the link from the wikipedia page it says that the page does not exist but if I copy and paste into my web browser the site shows up. http://missixty2005.blogspot.ca/2007/11/sem-caulinos-vivemos-se.html PersonZ777 (talk) 20:00, 20 March 2013 (UTC)

There is spurious a /? at the end of the link. --— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 20:19, 20 March 2013 (UTC)

Please ask your questions here, not on the talk page. FrigidNinja 20:23, 20 March 2013 (UTC)

Chattakpur, sonada, Darjeeling

Chattakpur is small village situated eastern part of Himalayan region . This small scenic beautiful village located very near to Darjeeling. This small village situated in altitude of 7888ft surrounded by pine forest. This village located in senchel wildlife Sanctuary for that you may get a opportunity to see Himalayan leopard, Himalayan black beer, Barking deer etc.The great Mt.Kanchenjunga is clearly visible from this village, Kanchejunga is worlds 3rd highest peak .

How to get Chattakpur: Chattakpur From NJP/BAGDOGRA 72km

Chattakpur from Darjeeling 20km — Preceding unsigned comment added by Arnavdey (talk • contribs) 20:17, 20 March 2013 (UTC)

Did you have a question about editing or navigating Wikipedia? FrigidNinja 20:23, 20 March 2013 (UTC)

If you want an article about Chattakpur, try Wikipedia:Articles for creation (to create it) or Wikipedia:Requested articles (to have someone else do it).— Vchimpanzee · talk · contributions · 19:34, 26 March 2013 (UTC)

My proposed article

This is for Libby Norman, in response to her inquiry about my biographical submission (Richard France).

I used WordPerfect, but converted it to an RTF file, believing that it would be retrievable by just about anyone in that format. Please advise. Thanks!

Leslie — Preceding unsigned comment added by Filmian (talk • contribs) 21:53, 20 March 2013 (UTC)

Hi Filmian. It would be very unlikely that user would see your post for her here, unless alerted. There's a better way. Every user has a talk page where messages intended for them are placed. When you post there the recipient gets the day-glo orange banner telling them they have new messages that I'm sure you've seen when people posted to your talk page. There are various ways you could have found Libby's talk page, including entering "user talk:Libby norman" in the search box or going to your talk page's page history where she has posted and clicking on her linked talk page. Normally a user's signature contains a link to their userpage, talk page or both, making it a bit easier, but hers didn't in this case (which is actually a mild policy no-no but I digress). The direct link is User talk:Libby norman. Speaking about signatures, when you post to a discussion page like this one (but never in articles) please remember to sign your posts by typing four tildes at the end (~~~~) which automatically formats as your signature. You can also place these without typing by clicking on the editing icon that looks like this: . Here, because you didn't sign, a bot (automated program) signed for you. Best regards--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 22:13, 20 March 2013 (UTC)

(edit conflict) The advice regarding Wikipedia talk:Articles for creation/Richard France bio for Wikipedia and Wikipedia talk:Articles for creation/Richard France is available on your talk page. In each case the problem is that there are no reliable sources to satisfy Wikipedia's requirements for verifiability. - David Biddulph (talk) 22:20, 20 March 2013 (UTC)

Verifying quotes from newspaper article in personal possession, but not available online

I have out-of-date newspaper articles (also a game program) that are unavailable on-line and are the only sources available for particular quotes and statements . Is there an acceptable way to make these sources verifiable? I'm concerned that citing newspaper, date, writer, headline, etc, might not be suffidient. Could the newspaper article and game program be photocopied and uploaded somewhere? Is there an acceptable method for verification? I'm sure I'm not alone with this issue. What would you suggest? Thanks. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.69.40.153 (talk) 23:44, 20 March 2013 (UTC)

Nope, there is absolutely no need for a source to be availible online. It merely has to be published, and there's lots of sources which are published the old-fashioned way (on paper), and as long as they have a reputation for reliability you're fine. Just cite exactly as you said (full bibliography, as you note) and that is EXACTLY sufficient. You can use a template like {{cite news}} for this exact purpose; just leave the URL field blank. To restate it: there is no requirement that a source is online for you to cite it. If it is online, you should link it. But if it isn't online, it is perfectly acceptable. See Wikipedia:Offline sources for a bit more, and note that Wikipedia:Identifying reliable sources states "It is convenient, but by no means necessary, for the archived copy to be accessible via the Internet." (bold mine). That is, as long as someone could get it from somewhere (like a library), it doesn't have to be online. --Jayron32 00:04, 21 March 2013 (UTC)

If you use the {{cite news}} template and complete as many of the parameters as possible, it will provide any user who wishes to track down the source and verify it with the information that they need to do so.--ukexpat (talk) 13:31, 21 March 2013 (UTC)