Wikipedia:Help desk/Archives/2014 September 26

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September 26

Name of page wrong

is it possible to change mazenod old collegians to mazenod old collegians football club

thanks — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jcowan9 (talk • contribs) 02:18, 26 September 2014 (UTC)

Yes. ‑‑Mandruss (talk) 11:25, 26 September 2014 (UTC)

Changing the article title is known as a "page move" and is accomplished by selecting the "Move" tab at the top of the screen and filling in the boxes that appear as appropriate. (Please use a capital letter at the beginning of each word in the title, as it is a proper name). There is nothing wrong with the proposed change, but the article as a whole stands to be deleted unless the sourcing issue is tackled: Noyster (talk), 07:45, 27 September 2014 (UTC)

I have tagged it for A7 speedy deletion - no hint of importance or significance.--ukexpat (talk) 12:48, 29 September 2014 (UTC)

It has now been deleted. --David Biddulph (talk) 17:50, 29 September 2014 (UTC)

Edit War at Yoshukai Karate

Could I get an administrator to check in on this, please? Thanks. Pkeets (talk) 02:34, 26 September 2014 (UTC)

Reverting has stopped. Not an admin but I will comment on the talkpage anyway. Sincerely, Taketa (talk) 05:26, 26 September 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for your comments, but I need an admin to have a look at it. Pkeets (talk) 07:14, 26 September 2014 (UTC)

Kanaka Durga temple

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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The Kanaka Durga temple is dedicated to Goddess Mahishamardini and located in Hinjiicut village . It consists of Swapneswar Temple,Ganesh tenple,Kartik temple,Parvati temple. Durga Puja is celebrated with pomp and joy here From Mulastami to Mahastami. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Maakanakadurgahinjili (talk • contribs) 04:54, 26 September 2014 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

having trouble with Football Kit Arms

I'm Having Trouble with the arms of the Football kits on the following pages, they've come out distorted and I'm not sure why. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bath_Rugby (right arm on both kits) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_national_rugby_union_team (left arm on both kits) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scotland_national_rugby_union_team (right arm on 2nd kit) If anyone could help that would be great — Preceding unsigned comment added by Grickles (talk • contribs) 05:26, 26 September 2014 (UTC)

@Grickles: I think all these "arm" images have to be 31 pixels wide and 59 pixels high. You have uploaded some that are 38 x 59. I suggest you crop seven pixels of white space from the left side of File:Kit left arm usaleft.png and see if that improves things. -- John of Reading (talk) 15:29, 26 September 2014 (UTC)

How does WP:Conflict of Interest work on English Wikipedia?

User:Hanteng on zhwiki has recently asked two other editors to disclose whether they have received compensation from Chinese Communist Party, because those two editors looks like they are Pro-communist(As Hanteng claimed, the major issue is they started nominating Deletion for some redirections to 2008 Tibetan unrest that may be Wikipedia:Gaming the system and may be in favor of Communist POV. BTW, There is also a long history of conflict between Hanteng and some others, including VfD on List of Dictatorships on both zhwiki and enwiki).

Since this is the first time an editor asks another to disclose conflict of interest, and on zhwiki WP:Conflict_of_Interest is not a guideline with any concensus now, I started a discussion on zhwiki. Still, I am curious about how WP:COI actually works on English Wikipedia, as an experience to learn from. I have these questions:

• Is there any need to actually prioritize COI over other applicable policies/guidelines, like WP:NPOV, WP:RS, WP:NPA, and so on? Because I think problems can usually be solved under scopes of those non-COI policies.
• On English WP, do we often accuse somebody who has strong POV or has violated some rules for having a COI and ask them to disclose COI? If so, how often is it done? Do we have clear standards on what kinds of people should be reasonably suspected?
• Do we have almost no means to determine whether people are supporting an opinion due to paid editing (more precisely, quid pro quo for editing) or not, if they choose not to disclose and don't make silly mistakes in concealing conflict of interest (For example, using computers with IPs affiliated with some corporation to edit)? And I know we respect the right of free speech and privacy as well.
• Is paid POV pushing prominent in English Wikipedia? I see some cases in the Conflict-of-interest editing on Wikipedia, but are there also a large amount of cases not known to us due to the difficulty stated in the previous quesion?
• Did we make rules to make paid POV editings ineffective? For example, protecting an article and allowing only the most well-grounded editings to be done would make POV editings much more difficult.

--chaoxiandelunzi (talk) 06:13, 26 September 2014 (UTC)

Judging from what I see on WP:COIN, I think the potential COI matter can be discussed rationally but there is chance such discussion go heated or scare away newcomers.--chaoxiandelunzi (talk) 06:55, 26 September 2014 (UTC)

Well I cannot guide you through a full understanding of all of these things you list, but I can say, here on en.wikipedia, it is not the method to give one policy a preferential status. If an article or part of an article fails any policy requirements, then it is policy to remove the information. We could talk about which is more important, but there are tiers of importance on en.wiki of which policies are almost at the top, and are equal with each other. The word policy on en.wikipedia is a category of importance. Next down are guidelines. These words are how you can determine the importance of instructions in relation to other instructions. In fact, it could be a good subject for an essay if you are interested in that sort of thing, and writing an essay could help you understand as well as documenting your impressions as a newcomer to the policies. ~ R.T.G 13:59, 28 September 2014 (UTC)

• But it is safe to say, you should not underprioritise any policy in favour for another. All of the policies do, or should, go together. You cannot need to ignore one policy when supporting another. If you find you must do that, you should post a message at the WP:Village pump, ~ R.T.G 14:02, 28 September 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for responding.--chaoxiandelunzi (talk) 02:02, 29 September 2014 (UTC)

My apologies if answering such questions may encourage undisclosed paid POV editing, but I still want to ask: is undisclosed POV editing difficult to find out? Did we often accuse someone who has a political standing and sometimes do things over edge as "paid editing"? Will that kind of blame often be on the edge of WP:Assume bad faith?--chaoxiandelunzi (talk) 05:01, 29 September 2014 (UTC)

Horrible little box on this page

There's a horrible little box that floats around at the bottom left hand corner of the screen on this page. It has links to such hard-to-find things as the top of the page and the bottom of the page. It also likes to hide behind the interwiki-links, but being wider than them peeks out around the side. How can I kill it? DuncanHill (talk) 08:29, 26 September 2014 (UTC)

Put this in your CSS:

.pageNavBox {display: none !important;}

PrimeHunter (talk) 08:46, 26 September 2014 (UTC)

To editor PrimeHunter: Thank you. DuncanHill (talk) 10:30, 26 September 2014 (UTC)

M-dashes and N-dashes

I have always understood that in wikitext the code "& mdash;” and “& ndash;” had to be used for M-dashes and N-dashes. (I had to put a gap after the &s here as "nowiki" for some reason does not preven the properly typed code without the gap coming up as an M-dash or an N-dash.)

Recently in a diff on one page, I noticed that an editor had changed the code to what they call "script" dashes in the wikitext, here in lines 228 and 386. Which is correct, or can either be used? How are "script" dashes formed? --P123ct1 (talk) 08:31, 26 September 2014 (UTC)

They are not "script" dashes. The edit summary just means a script was used to make the edit. See WP:DASH and Wikipedia:How to make dashes. You can write — to display — when discussing code. Writing the html entity — or the character — is optional. The latter is preferred but if the former is easier for you then just do that and a script or editor may change it at some later time. PrimeHunter (talk) 09:40, 26 September 2014 (UTC)

And if you want to use – and — instead of the HTML code, there is a menu just below every edit window (the drop-down should be on "Insert" by default), in which the first two characters are an en dash and an em dash. Just place the cursor in the edit window where you want the dash to go and click on the appropriate character. Deor (talk) 11:39, 26 September 2014 (UTC)

Or use Alt+0150 or Alt+0151, respectively, as described in "How to make dashes" above. Oops, there I go again, assuming all computers are like mine. The method differs by OS, as described on the aforementioned page. ‑‑Mandruss (talk) 11:52, 26 September 2014 (UTC)

I had completely forgotten that I used to use the edit menu for the dashes! It was so tricky to get them in the right place (moving away from the cursor to click on the dash without the cursor losing its place was very difficult on my computer) that I turned to the code, which I thought was preferred anyway. I had already tried the Alt+ method, in numerical and ordinary mode, but neither worked on my computer. I suppose the best answer is to create a dash at the bottom of the edit window close to the edit menu, then copy, delete and paste it to the right place. Whatever happened to macros? Is there no way of creating macros for wikitext? --P123ct1 (talk) 14:24, 26 September 2014 (UTC)

Now when I try to leave the cursor in the place I want the dash to go (same computer), it won't stay there at all when I move to the edit menu. Is there any way of making the cursor "stick" when movingaway from it? --P123ct1 (talk) 14:29, 26 September 2014 (UTC)

Which browser are you using? This (and putting all new references at the top of the page) was a common problem with old versions of IE. - Arjayay (talk) 14:32, 26 September 2014 (UTC)

Do you click at the position in the edit box before moving the mouse? PrimeHunter (talk) 14:42, 26 September 2014 (UTC)

I have IE11. As for clicking the position in the edit box before moving the mouse, I have a touchpad, which I believe is sometimes called the "mouse", not a movable mouse. It is a long time since I used this method, and I now realise that what I used to do is leave the cursor in place and with the touchpad move down the scroll bar on the far right, then click the dash in the edit menu. It is very fiddly. Even worse, if editing dense text a long way above the edit menu at the bottom, after clicking the dash, it can be very hard to find it (to check it went in) as the page "jumps" to a new position. However, after reading the long Wikipedia:How to make dashes, I see now that using the numeric keypad and Alt+ may only work if using the numbers on the right of the keyboard, not the numbers at the top (which is how I tried that method before). I tried this and it works, so problem over. I still think there should be a simpler way of making dashes in wikitext, and I saw in the WP ref that there is discussion about this. That and bringing back Reflinks - and mending the two Search History tools (broken for a long time, have reported it to the VPTHD) - would make editing so much easier. --P123ct1 (talk) 15:35, 26 September 2014 (UTC)

I'm using IE11 with a traditional mouse, and can't replicate your problem, although jumping screens were a problem in IE8.
Have you got any Wikipedia "adverts" (Meet-ups, stub campaigns etc) at the top? These can cause jumping as can some add-ons - I had to remove the one reverting titles and section titles to the old sans-serif fonts. - Arjayay (talk) 16:04, 26 September 2014 (UTC)

I think it must have something to do with using the touchpad as a mouse, then. I have no adverts, etc, so don't know why the screen jumps. But as I said, I have now found how to create the dashes with the numeric keypad, so they are no longer a problem. --P123ct1 (talk) 11:15, 27 September 2014 (UTC)

Adding info about a business

I have noticed that several of our competitor companies have Wikipedia pages, but our company does not despite being referenced several times throughout Wikipedia. Can we create a page about our own business or is this a conflict of interest? Thanks for your help. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 212.140.243.70 (talk) 09:38, 26 September 2014 (UTC)

Your competitor companies do not have Wikipedia pages: nobody has a Wikipedia page. Wikipedia has pages about them, which they should not have written themselves, and which they have no control over. Yes, for you to create a page about your own business would be a conflict of interest: it is discouraged but not forbidden, if you can write in an appropriate non-promotional, neutral point of view (which would mean including any adverse or information or criticism which had been reliably reported). But the first question is, does your company meet the criteria of notability? If it does, (which basically means that reliable sources, independent of the company, have written at length about it) then there may be an article. I would advise you to find these sources, and post a request at requested articles, with the sources, for somebody else to write. If you do decide to try and write it yourself, I strongly recommend that you use the articles for creation process, disclose your conflict of interest, and prepare for reviewers to be merciless in rooting out anything with even a whiff of self-promotion in what you write. --ColinFine (talk) 10:04, 26 September 2014 (UTC)

Relisting a section of a talk page

Hello,

I have added a section to talk:India containing a proposal to add a subsection on the situation of women into the article. This was archived, but I would like to open this subject again. (now archived at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:India/Archive_38#Subsection_on_the_situation_of_women.3F). What can I do now? Sarcelles (talk) 14:58, 26 September 2014 (UTC)

I would recommend opening a new section on the article's current talk page, state that you wish to re-open a previous discussion, and include this link - Talk:India/Archive_38#Subsection_on_the_situation_of_women.3F
: Noyster (talk), 20:34, 26 September 2014 (UTC)

Change of User icon

Has the icon near the userpage at the top of pages for logged in users changed?--Skr15081997 (talk) 17:25, 26 September 2014 (UTC)

Yes, it has, Skr15081997. According to the latest Tech News report, the icon was changed to make it gender-neutral. Anon126 (notify me of responses! / talk / contribs) 17:43, 26 September 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for the swift reply.--Skr15081997 (talk) 17:46, 26 September 2014 (UTC)

A NORTH AMERICAN IS FACTUALLY AN AMERICAN.

THERE ARE INTENTIONAL SLIGHTS AGAINST THE UNITED STATES CITIZENRY. LEGALLY, GEOGRAPHICALLY THERE IS NO POSSIBILITY TO DEBATE THE FACT-NORTH AMERICAN AMERICANS although they are not the u.s., ARE AMERICAN. the LEGAL HISTORICAL ACT, NORTH AMERICAN AMERICAN-BRITISH ALLOWED LEGAL SEPERATION AFTER THE U.S.CIVAL WAR IN 1867, CALLING THEMSELVES CANADA, in reality they are the united states extension,. RECENT T.V.DOCUMENTARIES ASCERTAINED THE FACT. IT IS A PROBLEM. THE U.S. GOVERNMENT RECOGNIZES THIS. IT IS A SERIOUS SLIGHT TO CALL A U.S.CITIZEN THE FOLLOWING , dee American people speak dee American.... IT IS A SERIOUS SLIGHT FOR THE U.S. GOVERNMENT TO ALLOW the north American American provincial peoples to do this. THIS REFERS TO THE WIKIPEDIA ARTICLE ON THE WORD AMERICA. THE UNITED STATES IS NOT THE ONLY AMERICAN.

TO REFER TO U.S.A. IN THIS WAY ONLY CREATES SLIGHTS, POLITICAL SLIGHTS WHICH ARE IN MY OPINION CONNECTED TO THE SERIOUS SUBJECT OF propaganda against the united states, and propaganda against the u.s. citizenry. OK ALLOW ME TO SUGGEST ONE WAY TO SOLVE THE PROBLEM.

1. IF THE U.K. PREFERS TO CONTIUE TO DO THIS AGAINST THE U.S.A. AND 2. 2. THERE ARE MANY COUNTRIES LIKE DENMARK, GERMANY, ETC. ALSO ANGLO SAXON COUNTRIES AND 3 they would help the u.s. to solve this. 3. THE ONLY POINT I AM MAKING IS NOT TO GET RACIST. THIS IS NOT A RACE OR ETNIC ISSUE. AGAIN THE ONLY POINT I AM MAKING IS NOT TO GET RACIST. THIS IS NOT A RACE OR ETHNIC ISSUE. 4. THE BENEVOLENT INTENTION- RESPECT FOR ALL CATEGORIES OF PEOPLE IN THE U.S., THE UNITED STATES CITIZENRY. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 109.81.209.32 (talk) 19:06, 26 September 2014 (UTC)

Your comments would more appropriately be made at the article's talk page Talk:America. If you add a comment there, I would offer two pieces of advice: (1) ensure that your comment is focussed on the article itself and try to express briefly and clearly what change you would make to the article, (2) do not type your comment in all capital letters, as on the internet this is regarded as "shouting" and will make your comment less likely to be well received: Noyster (talk), 20:45, 26 September 2014 (UTC)

Since America is a disambiguation page, I suspect that the OP is referring to something else. I can't make much sense of the posting, but American (word) is a possibility. 23:00, 26 September 2014 (UTC)

I suspect that Deor is right. And I think it would help if the db page America also listed American (word). I shall add it, unless someone objects. Maproom (talk) 07:17, 27 September 2014 (UTC)

YOU DONT GET IT, IT IS THE canadians WHO DO NOT LIKE BEING CALLED AMERICAN NOT THE uk WHERE THAT IS NOT REALLY AN ISSUE. CANADIANS ARE LIKE MOST INTERNATIONAL NEIGBOURS BECAUSE THEY SAY our neighbours sucks AND THEY REFUSE TO BE known as them. BUT IT'S IRONIC. Isn't it. HOWEVER, WHY DONT YOU TRY READING THE ARTICLE Canada WHERE IS SAYS "Canada Listeni/ˈkænədə/ is a country in North America" ~ R.T.G 13:34, 28 September 2014 (UTC)

Whatever you are trying to say please stop SHOUTING!--ukexpat (talk) 12:50, 29 September 2014 (UTC)

Reflinks tool

Does anyone have a link to the reflinks tool? Thanks. SW3 5DL (talk) 19:36, 26 September 2014 (UTC)

Found it! http://dispenser.homenet.org/~dispenser/cgi-bin/viewer.py/Reflinks. Thanks. SW3 5DL (talk) 20:03, 26 September 2014 (UTC)

There is a new version of Reflinks. It is intended to replace the one you link to, which is no longer available or not reliably so. Information about the new version is at User:Zhaofeng Li/Reflinks: Noyster (talk), 20:23, 26 September 2014 (UTC)

page about Jesper Vrugt; not sure whether it fits for deletion

Hello Wikipedia community, I've found a page about a certain Jesper Vrugt (here). He is "just" an assistant professor at UC Irvine (USA); although he has a quite long publication record, I don't think that he is a sufficiently notable person to appear in wikipedia (what if all academics with 80 papers would have their own wikipedia page?). On top of this, quite a few points of the page clearly lack of encyclopedic value (e.g. the fact that he has taught an introductory course on Matlab and that "He was enjoyed by his students for his humor, informative course, and engaging lectures" ; a photo of him playing softball at some annual picnic). However, I was not able to understand from the guidelines whether this page fits for deletion. -- If you think it does, I volunteer to start the deletion process (although I am a brand new user so maybe I won't be able to do that and I'll ask again for your help :) ). -- If you think it does not, I may just edit the page, or open a discussion on the non-encyclopedic points.

Cheers Lnz.Rossi (talk) 23:01, 26 September 2014 (UTC)

Hello, Lnz.Rossi. If you think that a page is not appropriate for Wikipedia, then just start the AFD process: the worst that can happen is that people disagree with you and the discussion ends in 'Keep'. If you enable WP:TWINKLE in your preferences, this makes launching a deletion process much easier. By the way, I'm not sure whether you were intending to put the name in italics in the header, but what you managed to do was put the rest of the line in italics, because the '' that you put after the name is the code for italics, while the `` you put before does nothing except look odd. --ColinFine (talk) 09:18, 27 September 2014 (UTC)

Hi ColinFine, thanks. I've fixed the italics as well. Cheers Lnz.Rossi (talk) 21:11, 2 October 2014 (UTC)

Units of measurement

Where can I find guidance for editors on units of measurement?

In the past 48 hours I have had two different experienced editors make changes that were:

• (a) wrong (the editor believed that the "tonne" was the "long ton" (i.e. 2240 pounds) when it is, of course, the "metric ton" or 1,000 kg).
• (b) obscure, in that "psi" for "pounds per square inch" was changed to "lb_f/in²", a valid but much less common abbreviation which will confuse the less mathematically orientated reader and does not follow any of the original sources on the subject.

Is there any guidance that I can point such editors to, or will I have to argue the merits of carefully researched and considered material every time this happens?
(Articles in question: Steamship#Long Distance Commercial Steamships and SS Agamemnon (1865))
ThoughtIdRetired (talk) 23:05, 26 September 2014 (UTC)

The go-to place for questions on units is WP:UNIT. RGloucester — ☎ 23:08, 26 September 2014 (UTC)

I had enormous trouble trying to find simple information on units of measurement. Why WP can't have basic tables - showing WP's preferred style - of the sort that can be found in diaries, backs of calendars, etc I do not know. --P123ct1 (talk) 11:26, 27 September 2014 (UTC)

I agree, that sounds useful.--S Philbrick(Talk) 14:46, 28 September 2014 (UTC)