Wikipedia:Help desk/Archives/2014 August 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.

August 21

reference citation

I am told there is an error in the following, Can any give me the needed correction? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Djlebeau (talk • contribs) 01:19, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

[1] - you used <ref> instead of </ref>. - Sincerely, Taketa (talk) 03:35, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

References

Hey, How Do I Get More Involved?

Wondering. Still fairly new here. Busy Moose (talk) 02:45, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

Hi Busy Moose, see Wikipedia:How to help -- Sincerely, Taketa (talk) 03:38, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

Citations and copyright

Where in the WP Help pages does it say that when writing articles the wording in citations must not be copied word for word or closely paraphrased because of copyright problems? I have seen it but cannot remember where. --P123ct1 (talk) 10:03, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

You may be looking for Wikipedia:Close paraphrasing. -- John of Reading (talk) 10:52, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

Also of potential help, Wikipedia:Copy-paste. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 10:56, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

But if you mean you are quoting a source, the quote should, of course, be the exact words used in the source. See MOS:QUOTE. SpinningSpark 11:55, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

Sorry, forgot to mention that important exception! --P123ct1 (talk) 13:33, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

Which Awards and nominations tables are better?

Hello, so usually the main work I do on Wikiepedia is to edit the Awards and nominations section on biographies of people. It really fascinates me, however they are so many different kind of tables used for that particular section, therefore which ones based on RULES and POLICIES of Wikipedia are the best to use? To be more specific, should the ones that have the awards/organizations and categories together like Eileen Davidson's and Rebecca Herbst's or the ones that have IMO occupy less clutter and have each specific award/organization receive their own tables as in Michelle Stafford's page? If neither are good based on Wikipedia routines, then which tables should I used? Please give a link to the table. Thank you and I hope my question can be answered very soon.  — SoapFan12 (talk, contribs) 16:20, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

I think you'll be out of luck finding a guideline on something as specific as that. If it exists, I would expect to find it at Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Biographies, or at least a link to a page were it might be. There might also be project specific guidelines at Wikipedia:WikiProject Actors and Filmmakers, but at all those places I'm not seeing anything. The best I can advise is to look how it is done in Featured Articles or Featured lists, which are supposed to be out best content. There is an example at List of awards and honors received by Judy Garland. SpinningSpark 18:36, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

@SoapFan12: Per the Manual of Style, the best table format is probably none. "[Tables] should be used only when appropriate; sometimes the information in a table may be better presented as prose paragraphs or as an embedded list." Most times there is no obvious benefit to having the content in rows and columns and awards can be clearly and appropriately presented in a simple list. There however seems to be this unnatural fetish for table format and the actual MOS is rarely followed. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 00:45, 22 August 2014 (UTC)

College MUN page deleted

Hi, I created an article for Haarlem United Nations, see www.hmun.nl. This is an organization run by college students therefore the level of our article isn´t that high. It´s highly important to us to have a Wikipedia page: participating students can read about it. Sadly, one of your workers deleted the page. Please try to understand our problem and help us. Here is our page:

it is unnecessary to copy the entire page here, and doing so messes up page formatting. AndyTheGrump (talk) 16:24, 21 August 2014 (UTC)
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
Haarlem Model United Nations Abbreviation HMUN Type NGO Purpose Education Location Haarlem, NL Official language English Main organ Board of Directors Affiliations United Nations Department of Public Information The Haarlem Model United Nations (HMUN) is a non-profit organization that promotes awareness of International Relations. It is composed as several semi-independent but centrally funded programs, which each promote awareness of international relations in different ways. Those programs are [2]. HIRC is the largest student organization at [3]. It is that is run entirely by college students, and it is an affiliated Non-Governmental Organization with [4] Haarlem Model United Nations [5] (HMUN) is one of the biggestModel United Nations simulations in Europe. Every year, students from around the world attend the conference, which is currently held at the stedelijk gymnasium haarlem in Haarlem. The next session of HMUN will be held from the 27th until the 29th of March 2015. Like many Model United Nations simulations, HMUN offers committees in four main categories: The General Assembly The Economic and Social Council Regional Bodies, like the African Union Specialized Agencies, which include unique standing committees like the Security Council and also include crisis committees, centered around a developing crisis. Delegates represent countries or NGOs, and must work to solve problems through debate and compromise while still promoting the interests and policies of the nation or person they represent. Staff HMUN 2014 has a staff of 18 students. These staff members all have different positions: the SG, DSGI, DSGO, FM, CM, IM, ITM, SM, HoH, HoA, LM and PRM. Secretariat The Secretariat consists of the top-level officers of Harvard Model United Nations who oversee all branches and activities of the conference. The Secretary-General is elected annually in June by the Board of Directors. He or she is traditionally a member of the past year's Secretariat. The remaining Secretariat members are appointed by the Secretary-General in coordination with the BODs, DSGI and DSGO. (http://web.hmun.nl/conference-staff) Related Model United Nations External links [6] [7] [8] [9] References [10] [11] [12] [13] [14]

I think that you may have misunderstood the purpose of Wikipedia - this is an encyclopaedia intended for a general readership, rather than an information source for your students. To qualify for an article, you would need to demonstrate that the organisation meets our notability criteria, as demonstrated through in-depth coverage in third-party published reliable sources - which your article fails to do. This is the standard applied to all organisations, and we don't make exceptions for NGOs and other worthy causes. AndyTheGrump (talk) 16:34, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

draft

I am trying to find a draft I had built, but the window closed. Where is it so I can get back to it? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Minimer01 (talk • contribs) 16:31, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

I don't see any edits to the draft namespace in your contributions. Did you click the save button before the window closed? If not, that probably means your work was lost. Sorry! Altamel (talk) 17:09, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

Add content in the article

I am trying to add content in following article https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Dr._A._K._Venkatachalam&action=edit&redlink=1

False positive error comes, when I reported this error following message is coming

False positive - being dealt with now. See WP:AN. Black Kite (talk) 11:59, 12 August 2014 (UTC)

Please explain. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Akventachalam (talk • contribs) 16:46, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

There is no article at Dr. A. K. Venkatachalam. There is a draft on your user page at User:Akventachalam. Before you go any further, please read WP:AUTOBIOGRAPHY.--ukexpat (talk) 17:25, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

The user page has been speedily deleted as a misuse of Wikipedia as a web host.--ukexpat (talk) 17:41, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

The issue the user has is he is being prevented from creating a draft by a bug in edit filter 31, see the filter's log. This was discussed at the admistrator's noticeboard. The problem has apparently been fixed, but that is not completely clear. SpinningSpark 17:46, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

Editing Woman page

A consensus has been reached to change the page “Woman” on Wikipedia so that the picture of a bust of Sappho in the grid of pictures to the right is replaced with a picture of famous transgender woman Christine Jorgensen. Problem is, none of us who have been editing that page lately know how to do that. Can somebody please do that for us? Thank you very much. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.175.26.106 (talk) 17:24, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

Please provide a link to such consensus.--ukexpat (talk) 17:26, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

See the talk page - [[15]] 71.175.26.106 (talk) 17:27, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

It seems to have been done. Dismas|^(talk) 08:20, 22 August 2014 (UTC)

Personal lubricant page

I have asked OhNoitsJamie to help us out with posting the correct way in regards to oil-based lubricants on the personal lubricant page. We've left 2 requests for help but no response. The information posted was backed by clinical reviews performed by FDA approved laboratories but removed because it "Sounds like another shitty PR company has started vandalizing for cash." We are reaching out for assistance with posting the clinically backed information the correct way but unable to have the personal editing out our post to respond to our call for help. Is there anyone on this page that would be able to assist with our request? link to talk page: Talk:Personal lubricant and link to wiki page: Personal lubricant. Thank you in advance for any assistance you can provide. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.114.187.67 (talk) 17:59, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

I have replied on the article talk page - we need strong third-party sourcing to include any content regarding the lubricant. AndyTheGrump (talk) 19:39, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

use of images for publishing

I am an author of a book entitled " Fossils, Evolution and my Faith". The book is aimed at the new entrant to the college who might be interested to know more on Fossils and Evolution and how to reconcile with his religious beliefs. I am interested to COPY AND USE SOME IMAGES GIVEN IN WIKIPEDIA. I AM WRITING THIS TO KNOW WHETHER I AM PERMITTED TO DO SO OR I NEED TO OBTAIN SPECIAL PERMISSION FOR WIKIPEDIA FOR DOING SO. KINDLY ADVICE. 117.193.174.204 (talk) 19:08, 21 August 2014 (UTC)DEPJ

See Reusing Wikipedia Content for full details. 151.225.121.9 (talk) 19:32, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

Subject: Mail delivery failed: returning message to sender

I tried e-mailing a fellow editor using the 'Email this user' link under Tools (on the left-hand side of the screen). This used to work, but I'm not sure when I last tried using it. Today, I got an error saying "Message not accepted for policy reasons. See http://postmaster.yahoo.com/errors/postmaster-28.html". I can't be the only Wikipedia editor using a Yahoo e-mail account. Is this a known issue? A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 22:44, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

Yes, it's a known issue. I found this discussion on the Village Pump, which links to bugzilla:64795, which is still open. RudolfRed (talk) 23:31, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

Fake colour phobias?

Hi. Today I browsed to the recently created article "Chromophobia (fear)" and suspect it's somewhat nonsensical. Many supposed phobias only occur in word lists and are never, or almost never, diagnosed. The creator, User:PlanetStar, seems to have gone quite far with this, e.g. changing Erythrophobia (the fear of blushing) to a supposed fear of the colour red (with alleged symptoms, etc.!); I also note that Wikipedia says Xanthophobia is a fear of yellow, whereas if you look at Google Books [16] you only find word lists and no real-world usage; the actual meaning, when it does occur, is the one given by Wiktionary [17], viz. an aversion to yellow light in certain biological organisms, and not a real human fear. Could I suggest that these various colour phobia articles are reviewed to see whether they are accurate, or merely replicating phobia word lists with no basis in medical science? Thank you. 86.159.197.174 (talk) 23:50, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for bringing this up to my attention. It does appear that the fear is real, as shown on Chromophobia- Fear of colors, Fear of Colors, and Chromophobia: Do you have a fear of colors?. However, these sources do not seem very reliable and I cannot find any good sources. In addition, I have tagged the article for not having any references. π♂101 (talk) 01:43, 22 August 2014 (UTC)