Wikipedia:Help desk/Archives/2015 January 18

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January 18

Bio box info display of the following sentence in two fragments:

Oscar Howard Frazier Jr. (O. H. Frazier) ...... Profession

Surgeon, specialty: Cardiovascular surgery, heart transp

lantation,mechanical assist device including total artificial heart

Can someone explain to me why in this style it is better than having the sentence fragments joined? Thank you66.74.176.59 (talk) 02:19, 18 January 2015 (UTC)

 Fixed - Extraneous line break. ―Mandruss ☎ 02:25, 18 January 2015 (UTC)

Let us see how long this correction stands as when I put it through before asking the question at hand, I received: "Hello, and thank you for your recent contribution. I appreciate the effort you made for our project, but unfortunately I had to undo your edit because I believe the article was better before you made that change. Feel free to contact me directly if you have any questions. Thank you! pcfan500 (talk) 00:11, 18 January 2015". How it could be better fragmented is beyond me but it appears on occasion that when one is challenged the protester backsdown and lets stand a correction or two.66.74.176.59 (talk) 11:32, 18 January 2015 (UTC)

@66.74.176.59: You have a valid complaint, which I didn't notice before. If you haven't already, please check out the page history, via the "View history" link at the top of the article page. For reasons I can't explain, the system incorrectly tagged your edit as "possible BLP issue or vandalism". As far as I can tell, Pcfan500 came along, saw that tag, and took the system's word for it without looking closely at the diff of your edit. Due to the way diffs are generated, the removal of a line break can appear at first glance as if you changed a lot more than that. Look at the diff of your edit to see what I mean. I'm sure it was a good faith error on Pcfan500's part. In this situation you could have simply communicated with Pcfan500 to clear up their misunderstanding. If you want to know why someone did something, it's generally best to try asking them first. I see that you commented on your talk page in reply to Pcfan500's message, but there are two problems with your comment. First, Pcfan500 may not have been watching your talk page for a response; if not, they wouldn't have seen it. To make sure they see it, you could begin your comment with {{u|Pcfan500}} to send them a notification. Secondly, your response is somewhat angry/contentious in tone, which would tend to reinforce the vandalism misconception. It could have read, "Hi, all I did was remove a line break and insert some spaces for readability. May I ask why you reverted?". ―Mandruss ☎ 12:15, 18 January 2015 (UTC)

Comments like these will get you absolutely nowhere at Wikipedia, except perhaps blocked from Wikipedia. ―Mandruss ☎ 13:04, 18 January 2015 (UTC)

Ok, User:Mandruss and 66.74.176.59, I'm sorry for reverting it. Today was my first day using STiki, so I blindly reverted this by accident. If I was a bit suspicious about if it was vandalism, even if tagged, I'll open up in a browser and check. I promise I will avoid this mistake. pcfan500 (talk) 13:50, 18 January 2015 (UTC)

Yes, I would strongly suggest that regardless as to how something may become aware that proper due diligence be performed otherwise these things happen especially to those that make haste and make waste.66.74.176.59 (talk) 13:58, 18 January 2015 (UTC)

Plural article title

Pentax cameras violates the guideline about article titles not being plural. But Pentax camera doesn't seem good. Should it be renamed to something like Pentax line of cameras? Bubba73 ^{You talkin' to me?} 02:38, 18 January 2015 (UTC)

Considering Category:Pentax cameras, none of those seems appropriate. Based on that and how we treat other camera brands, some major restructuring might be in order. Suggest article talk, possibly RfC. ―Mandruss ☎ 02:45, 18 January 2015 (UTC)

I thought about the article's talk page, but it isn't very active. Bubba73 ^{You talkin' to me?} 02:47, 18 January 2015 (UTC)

I know. Hence RfC. ―Mandruss ☎ 02:51, 18 January 2015 (UTC)

If there aren't enough responses here, then a RfC. Bubba73 ^{You talkin' to me?} 02:53, 18 January 2015 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Naming conventions (plurals) says that we may make an exception for "Articles on groups or classes of specific things". Could it be argued that 'Pentax cameras' are a class of things? I'm not sure. Possibly more relevant is another exception: "Articles that actually distinguish among multiple distinct instances of related items can be sensibly given a plural title when the alternative would be to create an inappropriately large number of short articles, one on each instance." Though some of the cameras included have individual articles, many don't. Personally, I'd apply WP:IAR here anyway, and say that the existing title is fine - it describes the subject clearly enough. AndyTheGrump (talk) 03:08, 18 January 2015 (UTC)

What about "Pentax camera products line" — Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.74.176.59 (talk) 11:35, 18 January 2015 (UTC)

That will work. However, I thought about it and someone searching for this would enter "Pentax", "Pentax camera", or "Pentax cameras", so I'm leaning toward leaving it as it is. Bubba73 ^{You talkin' to me?} 17:09, 18 January 2015 (UTC)

Leave as is - titles should be as short as possible while still being descriptive enough. Pentax line of cameras is too wordy and unnecessarily long.--ukexpat (talk) 13:48, 19 January 2015 (UTC)

Info from preferences available to templates?

I'm trying to find out how to use the value of the in time offset (or the local time calculated from it) in a template. (I'd like the template to do one thing if it occurs after 6PM local time and something else if it is before.) I'd like any help and/or direction to other appropriate places for help either on enwiki or mediawiki.org. Naraht (talk) 02:45, 18 January 2015 (UTC)

@Naraht: I am sure this isn't possible at present, as the documentation at Help:Magic words and mw:Help:Magic words covers all the available magic words. Currently the only one that queries the preferences is "GENDER". I think you should post at WP:VPT, since the regulars there will be technical enough to comment on how difficult it might be to add another magic word. Are you hoping to query the time zone preference of the person placing the template, the person whose user page the template is placed on, or the person who is currently reading the page?

One difficulty will be that some editors leave their time zone preference as "Use wiki default" in order to get a consistent view of all dates and times in signatures and in software-generated pages. There is also a privacy issue; over at Special:Preferences there is an explicit warning that the "gender" preference is public, but there is no such warning for the "time offset" preference. -- John of Reading (talk) 12:44, 18 January 2015 (UTC)

It appears that the issue here is the fact that Wikipedia extensively uses caches for articles and having something that uses the individual offset would fragment the cache...Naraht (talk) 18:09, 19 January 2015 (UTC)

Institute Of Engineering & Science IPS Academy Indore

heading added ―Mandruss ☎ 05:06, 18 January 2015 (UTC)

mam/sir please help me i was created a page namely Institute Of Engineering & Science IPS Academy Indore and that is deleted by u.I dont know what is my mistake because i won't copying any article and that page was fully based on true datas and documents. if u ask then i will verify that. please help me mam i dont want that the page will deleted — Preceding unsigned comment added by Iesipsacademy0808 (talk • contribs) 04:51, 18 January 2015 (UTC)

Not only does the article fail to cite any sources whatsoever, but it is entirely unencyclopaedic, and reads like a badly-written advertisement. I say 'badly-written' because the standard of English is frankly appalling, and would surely serve to discourage rather than encourage prospective students. I suggest you read the notes posted at the top of your talk page, and then find someone actually capable of writing coherently in the language of this encyclopaedia to create a replacement - assuming they are capable of doing so in a manner compliant with our policies. Because if they cannot, the next version will be deleted too. AndyTheGrump (talk) 05:20, 18 January 2015 (UTC)

Research question re specialized expertise (Law in this case, but medicine, engineering and so on have equivalents.)

While speaking to the author of a work cited in an article I am working on, he (strongly) suggested that part of the record in question be looked at by a lawyer, with the implication that some of the language might mean more to someone better versed in the law than your average layman. (I suspect that it might not be so in this case; I got the feeling that we were talking at slightly cross purposes, that the facts he was trying to emphasize were ones I agreed were true, and that it was late where I am, later where he was, and having some damfool come outa nowhere to ask questions about something you wrote 40-something years ago was not too high on his personal priorities. I could be wrong, though.)

Does Wiki have any editors or other sorts of volunteers who specialize, so to speak, in being specialists, consulting on their particular areas of expertise on articles that, by there nature, attract a different sort of editor otherwise? (And should this question be better asked somewhere else?) (And why is it so damned wide?) Anmccaff (talk) 05:11, 18 January 2015 (UTC)

We do have Wikipedia:WikiProject Law which has participants who are interested in law, though may not actually be lawyers. Dismas|^(talk) 05:16, 18 January 2015 (UTC)

Thanks. (Although in this, and some other cases, "interested..[but] not actually...lawyers" - could be out of the frying pan and into the fire.)Anmccaff (talk) 05:25, 18 January 2015 (UTC)

Wikipedia article count

Does the current number of articles on the Wikipedia main page (Welcome to Wikipedia the encyclopedia that anyone can edit) include redirects? And when an article is deleted due to AfD or PROD is that number subtracted? Valoem ^{talk contrib} 07:47, 18 January 2015 (UTC)

@Valoem: The number is generated by the "magic word" {{NUMBEROFARTICLES}}. According to the technical documentation at mw:Help:Magic words#Statistics, the number excludes both redirects and disambiguation pages [scroll down to "PAGESINNS" to see this mentioned]. The number does decrease when an article is deleted or is converted into a redirect or disambiguation page. -- John of Reading (talk) 08:06, 18 January 2015 (UTC)

deactivate account

have discovered that I have created more than one account by accident and I cant figure out how to deactivate 2 of them. please advise. thank you — Preceding unsigned comment added by DOEKNA (talk • contribs) 12:14, 18 January 2015 (UTC)

@DOEKNA: Just stop using the other account, accounts don't technically have a deactivate option. Lor^Talk 12:21, 18 January 2015 (UTC)

Two questions

Hi there. A few weeks ago I suggested here that a timeline be created for the Rogers Centre in Toronto. It would be similar to the "list of concerts" template found at Cricket Wireless Amphitheater (Bonner Springs, Kansas). First, I've never created a "template" before. Are there instructions? Also, is there a way to create a "sub-page" to my own page, which would be like a sandbox? I've seen these created before. This would be a place to store the draft template and allow other editors to contribute to the creation of the template, before it goes live. Thanks for your help! Magnolia677 (talk) 14:03, 18 January 2015 (UTC)

Please don't try to reproduce that list format - it is contrary to multiple Wikipedia policies. I am going to remove it. As for creating a sandbox, see WP:USERSUBPAGE. AndyTheGrump (talk) 17:35, 18 January 2015 (UTC)

Electric Egyptology

There is a new decipherment of the hieroglyphs available revealing that the hieroglyphs are ideograms, revealing an electric cosmos. It is called Electric Egyptology and is not Phonetic, it is not based on the decipherment by Thomas Young or Jean-François Champollion. Instead it is based on a discovery made by Civil Engineer by the name of Timothy Williams, you can find some of his work on the internet at the following address www.godelectric.org

As this is such a major discovery with profound consequences for the sciences, history, philosophy and mythology could someone at Wikipedia review how they would like to disseminate and present this information.

References

Wikipedia is not for the dissemination of new information, whatever that information may be. Once the idea has been written about in reliable published sources (which does not include blogs, personal websites, or self-published books), then Wikipedia may have an article on it, based entirely on reliably published information. But WP:FRINGE will apply in this case. --ColinFine (talk) 17:42, 18 January 2015 (UTC)

Lost login info

Back in December, I created an account under awb2014 (I think). Unfortunately, I've forgotten the password and apparently did not associate an email address with the account, because when I request a password change, I never receive any emails at that address. I was working on an article about a group called Astronomers Without Borders. I was hoping you could help me with a password reset, or, alternatively, if you could see my article in progress, could you email me the text, and then I could start over and copy/paste?

Thanks! Amy Bernheisel

23.125.180.240 (talk) 14:18, 18 January 2015 (UTC)

If you can't get access to User:Awb2014, you can simply create a new account, and continue with your edits on Draft:Astronomers Without Borders. Obviously you will need to include references to published reliable sources independent of the subject to satisfy Wikipedia's requirements on verifiability and notability. --David Biddulph (talk) 14:27, 18 January 2015 (UTC)

Yes... thank you so much! That's what I was working on when I got sidelined by the holidays. Cheers!

23.125.180.240 (talk) 14:31, 18 January 2015 (UTC)

I am The Original [Trademarked] PANDAMAN! How do I enter PANDAMAN into Wikipedia?

I am Copyrighted & Trademarked & have "PROVEN LEGAL DOCUMENTs - Stating I am The Original! Q: If I was PANDAMAN "MANY YEARS" before another Pandaman started using my Mark and Listed himself as PANDAMAN here in Wikipedia... How Do I Get My Own OFFICIAL PANDAMAN WIKIPEDIA? I created The First PANDAMAN Super Hero & PANDAMAN Entertainer/Entertainment in "1985"! I have only recently learned about Wikipedia. So, it would not be fair that I can't have an "Official PANDAMAN Wikipedia Page" just b/c someone else listed PANDAMAN here first.

I was able to list PANDAMAN as PANDAMAN The Super Hero and get a "USER" Page - But is that an OFFICIAL Page? B/c I see the "other PANDAMAN listed here, using "MY" PANDAMAN name... And he does Not Have "USER" listed before the name PANDAMAN. How do I get "MY COPYRIGHTED & TRADEMARKED PANDAMAN NAME"... Listed on Wikipedia & Internet without USER: listed before my "PANDAMAN" name? would like folks to know that "PANDAMAN" is NOT a "JOKE CHARACTER and/or WRESTLER!" He is The One & Only True "PANDAMAN!" - An Entertainer/Storybook Super Hero; Who was Created in the 1980s! I have too many years invested, to have someone take my idea and turn it into something that it is NOT!

Please Show Me How I Can List PANDAMAN "OFFICIALLY" as "PANDAMAN" Here On Wikipedia! As THIS PANDAMAN... Is The One & Only "ORIGINAL" PANDAMAN ENTERTAINER & PANDAMAN SUPER HERO CHARACTER, WHOM "OWNS ALL RIGHTS TO PANDAMAN ENTERTAINMENT Which, is Either; Performed Live and Or, Recorded & Broadcasted on Radio & TV Or, Shared On Film Or, "The Internet!" Thank You ~PANDAMAN — Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.70.186.146 (talk) 19:18, 18 January 2015 (UTC)

Your trademark/copyright dispute is of no concern to Wikipedia. As for our articles, they are on notable subjects as demonstrated in third-party published reliable sources. Not that we have any article on 'pandaman' anyway. We have a redirect to an article called List of One Piece characters which mentions a 'pandaman' once. If it could be demonstrate through independent sources that your 'pandaman' character met our notability criteria, it might be possible to create an article (and change the redirect) - though per our Wikipedia:Conflict of interest guideline, you are advised not to create one yourself. You could try asking at Wikipedia:Requested articles - though the backlog is long, and we make no promises. AndyTheGrump (talk) 19:32, 18 January 2015 (UTC)

It looks like the IP editor might be referencing this article on Wikia. Wikia is not a part of Wikipedia, and we have no control over them. You would need to complain to whomever is responsible for that page. Another thing for the IP to keep in mind is that Wikipedia is not a platform for promotion. NinjaRobotPirate (talk) 11:11, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

Joe Boyer

The page on Joe Boyer the race car diver millionaire that won the 1924 Andy 500 is incorrect. He was my grandfathers brother. I was named after Joe Boyer. His father was Benjamin Boyer not Joe Boyer Sr. Benjamin was best friends with Henry Ford. They had farms next to each other and both worked a Detroit Edison. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.74.241.189 (talk) 19:44, 18 January 2015 (UTC)

As the father's name in the article Joe Boyer isn't sourced at all, I've removed it completely. If it's to be re-added, please provide a source. CaptRik (talk) 22:39, 18 January 2015 (UTC)

John Johnson reporter

Could a photo please be added of John Johnson? Thank you. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.105.66.5 (talk) 20:27, 18 January 2015 (UTC)

Hello. Photos may in most cases be added to Wikipedia only if they are free for use (either in the public domain, or released by their copyright holder under a suitable licence). Most photos available on the internet do not meet this criterion. If you have a photo of him which you are willing to release you are welcome to upload it to Wikimedia commons (see donating copyright materials and Upload); but otherwise it is hard to meet your request. --ColinFine (talk) 21:10, 18 January 2015 (UTC)

Referencing errors on GM Futurliner

Reference help requested.

how do I edit/ add in images on the GM Futurliner page?

Thanks, Jbschev (talk) 20:51, 18 January 2015 (UTC)

Hi, Jbschev. Images and references are entirely different things, treated in different ways at every point. You have used the <ref>...</ref> mechanism, which is for citing a reference, and what you have got wrong is that there is no '=' after the 'url'. However, the page you are citing does not, as far as I can see, support the claim in the text, and so is an invalid reference. If the article is going to say "Of the remaining nine Futurliners, one was wrecked (considered totaled) during the 1956 parade year and was not replaced", then it should cite a reliable published source that explicitly says that there were nine remaining Futurliners, and that one was totalled during that year and not replaced.

If you are trying to add an image, that is a different process: the image must be uploaded to Wikipedia, or preferably to Wikimedia commons, and may then be Wikilinked from the article. However, http://www.bortzautocollection.com/futurliner/index.htm says prominently "© Copyright 2013, Bortz Auto Collection, All Rights Reserved ", so none of the photos may be used anywhere on Wikipedia (except in the very likelyunlikely event that such use meets all the criteria in non-free content criteria). --ColinFine (talk) 21:24, 18 January 2015 (UTC)

ColinFine - Very likely event, or unlikely? ―Mandruss ☎ 21:52, 18 January 2015 (UTC)

Oops! Corrected --ColinFine (talk) 22:02, 18 January 2015 (UTC)

Best vandalism tool?

I find myself spending a lot of time dealing with vandalism: warning, reverting, reporting. I'm currently doing most of it "manually"; i.e., without the use of a tool. I'm seeking suggestions as to the easiest way to save myself time with these activities. I have Twinkle installed, but I haven't found the time to read its doc (too much time dealing with vandalism ;) and I'm not using any of the items in its dropdown menu (I think it's Twinkle's presence that gives me the ability to revert multiple edits in one shot, which was my motivation for installing it). ―Mandruss ☎ 22:04, 18 January 2015 (UTC)

Hey! I'm on mobile so excuse me for not checking but if you're a rollbacker definitely check out Huggle! It's so amazing and you can do so much stuff with it automatically.-A Wild Abigail Appears! _{Capture me. Moves.} 18:20, 19 January 2015 (UTC)

There seems to be a fairly comprehensive list of anti-vandalism tools at Wikipedia:Cleaning up vandalism/Tools. — SamX‧☎‧✎‧S 01:17, 20 January 2015 (UTC)