Wikipedia:Help desk/Archives/2009 March 17

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March 17

Univesity creates false information

My main concern: Some universities created false informaion about their campuses, fames, recognitions, awards. I researched universities in Malaysia. I found out that one of the universities in Malaysia - Limkokwing University. The univerisity has false information. I believe people who wrote the article about the university is the university's people or president. Because the article sounds like president or publist wrote wonderful thing about the university. The article says that the university opens new campuses in Bali, Beijing and New York. But I researched and found out that Limkokwing University never open campus in Bali, Beijing, or New York as the university said they will open in December 2008.

I suggest the article is written by some people who work for the university that is vandalism or power abuse or communication abuse. The article should be closed and find evidences for the university's new campuses in Bali, Beijing and New York.

I suspected that Lim Kok Wing, a president of the university requested someone to create new article and write a remarkable and egotistic story about the university.

I would like to request the editors from Wikipedia to correct the information in the article. We should avoid false information they created. We should contact the writers of creating the pages for getting evidence. Otherwise, the article should be closed due to the inapprotiate facts or wrong use.

Or I can do volunteer if you don't have staff enough to do this case. I researched and found out that there is no informatiProxy-Connection: keep-alive Cache-Control: max-age=0

or database on the internet to support the facts the university created such as Bali, New York, and Beijing. The article can be considered as 'power abuse' or 'vandalism.'

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Limkokwing_University_Of_Creative_Technology —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.173.80.12 (talk) 06:57, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

If the is your own original research, we can't use it. We only use information that has been published in reliable sources. If you have reliable sources, provide citations on the talk page of the article. —teb728 t c 07:11, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

categories

I would like to have a page have certain categories appear at the bottom (as usual), but not have the page appear in the category listing - is there a way to do this?

(There is a good reason for this to do with redirects (different thing redirecting to the same article - with the redirect pages being categorised)FengRail (talk) 00:56, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

You can make a category not appear on pages by adding {{hiddencat}} to the category page... but that doesn't do what you want it to... Vivio Testarossa^{Talk Who} 01:03, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

Add a colon immediately after the first pair of brackets: [[:Category:1960 births]] gives Category:1960 births but does not add to the category. – ukexpat (talk) 02:24, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

If you want the category to appear exactly as usual, in the categories box at the bottom of the page, then I don't think that's possible. Algebraist 13:28, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

Can you say more specifically which category you want to place where? It doesn't sound like something the English Wikipedia does. PrimeHunter (talk) 14:28, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

Yes. For example the article DB Class V 160 (which was a Deutsche Bundesbahn locomotive)

This page should be in the category Category:DB locomotives

However the thing was renamed DB Class 216 (or DBAG Class 216)

The name DBAG Class 216 should appear in the Category:DBAG locomotives

The problem is that for "DB Class V 160" to appear in the category DBAG locomotives is wrong (or at the least confusing - and makes for a category that is not very good as a tool for 'browsing')

As I understand it transclusion of a 'main' page to both DB Class 216 and DBAG Class 216 might be a solution - but I fear it difficult and confusing for other editors.

Basically I want the 'right' name to appear in the category listings.FengRail (talk) 00:02, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

The issue seems to be dealt with at Wikipedia:Categorizing redirects, but what I want is a magic button that does this [[Category:Category name||article name to appear in category listing]]

If it doesn't exist - can I request this somewhere?FengRail (talk) 00:11, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Requests might give some clue about where to request a new feature, but I would guess the probability of getting some new feature is very low (unless it is already in the development pipeline). Rather than beat your head against the wall, why not use what works right now? Categories are not as flexible for navigating as navigation templates are. With a navigation template, you can group article links any way you like, with selectivity and annotations. See Wikipedia:Categories, lists, and navigation templates. Instead of fighting the limitations of Wikipedia's category feature, you can make a navigation template that presents links any way you want. Plus it is more visible than category links at the bottom of the article. For example, compare the Category:Peak oil to the {{Peak oil}} navigation template. The category is just an undifferentiated collection of links, giving little clue to the reader about what is important or the best order to read articles. The navigation template, in contrast, is a compact introduction to the topic of peak oil - it tells you what to read and in what order if you want to understand the subject or some particular aspect of it. --Teratornis (talk) 00:49, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

Do not transclude an article to another article with an alternative title. Yes, Wikipedia:Categorizing redirects is the way Wikipedia deals with this. You can place Category:DBAG locomotives on the redirect at DBAG Class 216. It would mean that the title DB Class V 160 only appears in Category:DB locomotives, and the title DBAG Class 216 (in italics to signal a redirect) only appears in Category:DBAG locomotives. Is that not what you want? The real title of a page or redirect is always shown in categories it belongs to. The only thing you can change is the sort order in the category. See Wikipedia:Bug reports and feature requests, and see bugzilla:491 about this particular request. PrimeHunter (talk) 00:42, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

Thanks.I din't think of adding the categories to the navbox - that will be helpful.

The only problem with the current method (as you describe above) is that the linking is uni-directional for certain article names (nobody ever looks at the redirect page)

ie A link to "Category DBAG locomotives" (in the expected place) in the article DB Class.. along with the 'proper' cat link of "Category:DB locom..." - I'm assuming that the fresh and new reader would look at the categories, only see one listed, and assume the other doesn't exist.

At the same time can I request snow at christmas and world peace etc :)

I'll add (another) request for this feature at the village pump. Just in case.

Thanks very much.FengRail (talk) 13:02, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

Why does search for "wiki:<anything>" goes to a site of Ward Cunningham?

When I use the search function in my browser for example search at wikipedia for "wiki:WikiIsNotWikipedia", it goes to http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Search&search=wiki:WikiIsNotWikipedia This automatically redirects to a different site then wikipedia, why..?87.212.16.222 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 01:22, 17 March 2009 (UTC).

"wiki:" is an interwiki link to http://c2.com/cgi/wiki in meta:Interwiki map. It's discussed at meta:Talk:Interwiki map#wiki:. Don't write "wiki:" unless you want a link to http://c2.com. PrimeHunter (talk) 01:57, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

Logo usage

Hi, I just wanted to ask, is the use of a school logo acceptable for the purposes of this list? 79.67.164.133 (talk) 02:00, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

There's the Wikipedia:Non-free content policy which allows the use of copyrighted images for educational purposes. --Whip it! ^{Now whip it good!} 04:14, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

If you read that non-free content policy page, it says that fair use on Wikipedia is highly restricted; an educational purpose is not enough. In particular thesignificance criterion says, “Non-free content is used only if its presence would significantly increase readers' understanding of the topic, and its omission would be detrimental to that understanding.” It is generally accepted that a non-free logo can be used for “identification” of the subject of an article; so for example the logo could be used for identification on the Rugby School article. But I would say that it does not identify the subject of List of Old Rugbeians; so its use would fail the significance criterion there. —teb728 t c 04:44, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

So it should be removed? I have noticed a lot of alumni lists which use such logos, does that mean they should all be removed? 79.67.164.133 (talk) 04:58, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

The constructive solution would be to obtain permission from the copyright holders, and document it properly according to the procedure in Commons:COM:OTRS. For example, see the images in Commons:Special:WhatLinksHere/Template:OTRS. Unfortunately, the constructive solution requires more work than the destructive solution. --Teratornis (talk) 21:23, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

Is it at all likely that schools will wish to release their logos under free licenses? I had thought that rights to logos are normally quite fiercely defended. For example, the Wikimedia Foundation retains full rights to Wikipedia's logos, despite the foundation's love of free licenses in general. Algebraist 23:32, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

I have no idea. It doesn't matter what schools "generally" do, it only matters what a particular school does. I did say the constructive solution is more difficult - the constructive problem-solver might have to convince someone to embrace the idea of free content. It is true that most people in the world are information-hoarding idiots who don't understand the value of free content, not to mention the value of free publicity on Wikipedia. I expect that will change as the current generation of youngsters grows up. Young people are saturating themselves with shared content on the Internet. The idea that some organization would stand in the way of the free exchange of information will (hopefully) seem increasingly stupid as old people die off. --Teratornis (talk) 00:56, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

Why are my additions constantly deleted.

Resolved

 – User blocked for linkspamming  – ukexpat (talk) 19:27, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

Despite being a registered contributor, all of the following additions were deleted. Who is doing this, and why?

04:39, 17 March 2009 (hist) (diff) Michael J. Fox ‎ (→External links) (top)
04:38, 17 March 2009 (hist) (diff) Michael J. Fox ‎ (→External links)
04:35, 17 March 2009 (hist) (diff) Janaya Stephens ‎ (→External links) (top)
04:34, 17 March 2009 (hist) (diff) Janaya Stephens ‎ (→External links)
14:17, 16 March 2009 (hist) (diff) Michael J. Fox ‎ (→External links)
02:41, 16 March 2009 (hist) (diff) Dan Aykroyd ‎ (→External links)
02:40, 16 March 2009 (hist) (diff) Kate Nelligan ‎ (→External links)
01:56, 16 March 2009 (hist) (diff) Victor Garber ‎ (→External links)
14:01, 14 March 2009 (hist) (diff) Louise Robey ‎ (→External links)
14:00, 14 March 2009 (hist) (diff) Daniel Gillies ‎ (→External links)
13:59, 14 March 2009 (hist) (diff) Megan Follows ‎ (→External links)
00:56, 13 March 2009 (hist) (diff) Jean Duceppe ‎  —Preceding unsigned comment added by Nstarseditor (talk • contribs)  

See WP:LINKSPAM —teb728 t c 05:10, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

By the way, if you are connected with www.northernstars.ca, your username is inappropriate. If you want to do something on Wikipedia other than posting forbidden link-spam, you should change your username to something more personal. —teb728 t c 05:17, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

You may want to check your talk page, because you have been blocked from editing. Livewireo (talk) 13:53, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

Deletion of image

Resolved

 – Image deleted by administrator WilyD

Please delete Clash_of_Civilizations_mapn.png because I have uploaded an updated version of this image with another filename. Thanks. Qrfqr (talk) 04:59, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

I nominated it for speedy deletion based on the fact that you requested it to be deleted. You can do this yourself in the future by placing {{db-g7}} on it. Killiondude (talk) 05:11, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

history on coal camps

i am trying to find some history on the coalcamps in wv looking for kingston coal camp phots or some history on it it was located in fayette county wv can use some help —Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.80.37.86 (talk) 05:13, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

Have you tried Wikipedia's Reference Desk? They specialize in knowledge questions and will try to answer just about any question in the universe (except how to use Wikipedia, since that is what this Help Desk is for). Just follow the link, select the relevant section, and ask away. I hope this helps. —teb728 t c 05:50, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

some fear regarding location of tree in house

hi this is anant from bangalore i wanted to know if there is any tree or plants long or small exists in front of my house or my campus .will it harmful for me .i am talking about like my luck is affected from these things . or it just the my unrealistic fear. because in my point of view tree or planet is essencial for human life —Preceding unsigned comment added by 115.108.8.5 (talk) 11:43, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

Have you tried the Science section of Wikipedia's Reference Desk? They specialize in answering knowledge questions there; this help desk is only for questions about using Wikipedia. For your convenience, here is the link to post a question there: click here. I hope this helps. TNXMan 11:54, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

problem with Professor Calculus page

On the Professor Calculus page, there is supposed to be a link to the Serbian version of the article. How can you fix this? DandyDan2007 (talk) 13:14, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

You need to use the correct language prefix for Serbian, which is sr:. You also need to link to the actual title of the Serbian article (if one exists). See Help:Interwiki linking for more information. Algebraist 13:23, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

Help!!!!!

I wrote an article for someone else to the best of my ability. I wrote it in sandbox. how do i post the article.--Elvis "BlacElvis" Williams (talk) 14:08, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

See Help:Moving a page for details. But also see WP:N and WP:COI. A link to myspace as the only reference will guarantee that article's deletion. Zain Ebrahim (talk) 14:21, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

As per Zain Ebrahim111, I don't think it would be acceptable as an article... however you can keep a personal description of yourself in your own user page (where it currently is). Read WP:UP for more information. NanohaA'sYuri^{Talk, My master} 21:28, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

Honestly i don't think that page would last to long there is not enough source and references also is seems that it would fall under Wikipedia:Criteria_for_speedy_deletion A7 A unimportant or remarkable person of course if that did happen you would have to prove that that is a important person.I hope that helps a bit

Staffwaterboy ^{Critique Me Guestbook Hate Comments} 23:24, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

Citing audio commentary

Resolved

 – ukexpat (talk) 19:26, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

If I wanted to cite the audio commentary of a film in an article, what would I use? would I use {{Cite video}}, {{Cite audio}} or would I just use a normal ref? Queenie 14:47, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

{{Cite audio}} redirects to {{Cite video}} anyway - they're identical. Generally I'd say that's the template to use; you're citing the video recording even though it happens to just be the audio you're using. ~ mazca ^t|c 18:06, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

Good point. Thanks. Queenie 19:04, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

photo's

Resolved

 – TNXMan 15:53, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

how do I find out the status of a photo..IS IT FAIR USE OR ..? I found on the internet?(Off2riorob (talk) 15:05, 17 March 2009 (UTC))

You could try asking at Media copyright questions. Be sure to link to the photo and the website you found it on, to say what article you intend to use it in, and give whatever information you have on who took the photo and who holds the copyright. Algebraist 15:09, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

thank you(Off2riorob (talk) 15:43, 17 March 2009 (UTC))

Redirect editing deleted the legal article

This concerns the legal article Office of the Court Administrator v. Floro, Jr. which was proposed by User:TheCoffee for deletion, but there was objection, hence, the template was removed. But User:TheCoffee instead of putting the issue to the RFD, edited the article by Redirecting it to they BLP of Florentino Floro which in effect DELETED the entire legal article. Here is the version that was deleted: [1] This is an old revision of this page, as edited by User:Bar 2009 (talk | contribs) at 10:41, 7 March 2009. So, now, as the legal article stands, it was 100% deleted and the reader is now at a loss, the 92 kilobytes legal article was voided, blanked and only the short BLP of Florentino Floro remains. [2]This is the current revision of Office of the Court Administrator v. Floro, Jr. as edited by TheCoffee (talk | contribs) at 08:42, 17 March 2009.

Our legal group helped created this article but our leader User:Bar 2009 is so busy on legal thesis hence, we asked this help desk to kindly help us recover the legal article. We desire to edit it by deleting the Redirect, since User:TheCoffee did not submit the reason therefore, and the fact is, the REDIRECT is not applicable, it being a legal article and not a Biography of Florentino Floro. Please help us on this point. Thanks.--119.95.18.162 (talk) 16:01, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

I restored the article to the version pre-redirect. It has a lot of problems though - not the least of which are non-neutral point of view and undue weight issues. – ukexpat (talk) 17:12, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

Adding to listings

How can I add a Nature Center to the list of Nature Centers in Wikipedia? 206.168.44.245 (talk) 18:02, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

Which list are you referring to - there are a couple of lists of nature centers: List of nature centers in the United States and List of nature centres in Canada? Or do you mean the Category:Nature centers or one of its subcategories? – ukexpat (talk) 19:20, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

Also remember that many times, the nature center must have an article before it is included on those lists. If you want to create such an article, you'll need to submit it to articles for creation or create an account and write your first article. TNXMan 19:22, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

See WP:LIST for general guidelines about lists on Wikipedia. Since you did not ask a specific question, you will have to read the (long) guideline page and find the guidance for the specific type of list you have in mind. You should also read H:TMM. --Teratornis (talk) 20:20, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

Reflist

How can i edit the references in a article without this "reflist" here, I can't edit the article's references because it does not display them to edit, instead, a "reflist" is there and I can not edit the references! Please help me!--BubbleDude22 (talk) 19:37, 17 March 2009 (UTC) (moved from Wikipedia:Reference desk/Miscellaneous DJ Clayworth (talk) 20:28, 17 March 2009 (UTC))

Go to the article and find the ref you want to edit [don't go to the edit window, stay at the article itself]. It will say something like ^5: John Doe, p. 124. Click the ^ and it will take you up to the ref in the main text. Edit the section the ref is in and there it is! Queenie 20:30, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

can't recieve aol.com emails from my aunt

my aunt is <blanked>. she gets my emils but she has been unable to send me an email. what could i do to help her?i don't know how to help her.Do i need to get a new email or what? thank you <blanked> —Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.16.17.239 (talk) 20:43, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

Have you tried the Computing section of Wikipedia's Reference Desk? They specialize in answering knowledge questions there; this help desk is only for questions about using Wikipedia. For your convenience, here is the link to post a question there: click here. I hope this helps. TNXMan 20:47, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

After a final warning?

Resolved

 – NanohaA'sYuri^{Talk, My master} 21:30, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

If a vandal has already received a final warning but I see they are still doing it, how can I call for them to be blocked? Nerfari (talk) 21:04, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

You can report them to AIV. Someguy1221 (talk) 21:05, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. Nerfari (talk) 21:15, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

Significant lag in updating Special:WhatLinksHere

Hi,

I've been slowly fixing links to the disambiguation page Equality, finding links using Special:WhatLinksHere. Recently, there was a sudden jump in the number of pages linking to that page, which I eventually traced to a recent edit to Template:Socialism sidebar; all of the pages transcluding this template suddenly showed up on the WhatLinksHere page, which I suppose makes sense. After I fixed the template yesterday, the template itself was no longer listed, but the articles transcluding it still show up. Clearing my cache didn't fix it, so I figured there was some kind of server lag thing. However, a full day later, WhatLinksHere still shows articles that shouldn't be on it anymore.

I verified this by making a dummy edit to Libertarian socialism. It was on the WhatLinksHere list immediately before I made that edit, and wasn't on the list immediately after I made it.

So do I understand that all pages will stay on the WhatLinksHere page until they are edited? Or was my first instinct right, that there is there some kind of process that updates the list if a page was on there due to a transclusion, but with a much longer than I expected delay of some kind? I seem to recall seeing mention of a "job list" or "task list" or "job stack" or something, which got delayed whenever the servers got busy, but I'm not sure if this task is one of the things it does, or if 24+ hour delays are common, or what it's actually called, or anything.

Thanks. --Floquenbeam (talk) 21:36, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

I think I remember reading somewhere that this is because when a change is made to a template it is put into a queue to update all pages that use the template to avoid a Denial-of-service attack. Someone correct me if I'm wrong. NanohaA'sYuri^{Talk, My master} 21:46, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

Ah, thank you NanohaA'sYuri, "queue" was the word on the tip of my tongue that I couldn't remember, and which was screwing up my ability to look it up somewhere. Help:Job queue#Updating links tables when a template changes shows that you are correct.

So that explains everything except: is a 28+ hour delay normal? Which I assume the answer to is "Yes, it's normal, and stop bitching about it". --Floquenbeam (talk) 22:02, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

It has been much worse so I wouldn't bitch about it. PrimeHunter (talk) 00:17, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

If the servers are slow the only real solution is to donate more money. Probably lots more. --Teratornis (talk) 07:36, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

Ip as sockpuppet

Should we consider Ip as sockpuppet.What is policy on that.yousaf465

It depends on whether the IP in question is being used for disruption or not (see Wikipedia:Sock_puppetry for more details... otherwise yes they can be reported just like user accounts can. Vivio Testarossa^{Talk Who} 03:22, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

O.k but I did read the policy before reporting here,found nothing there.yousaf465

I'm pretty sure you should just treat them like it was done by a user account (this may help elaborate.) If you want to know where to report the suspected sock puppets it is here. Vivio Testarossa^{Talk Who} 03:57, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

assignment

how ipl and t20 match influence thr international as well as indian cricket —Preceding unsigned comment added by Vedantt1 (talk • contribs) 04:47, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

You'll probably need to ask on Wikipedia:Reference desk/Entertainment. --Teratornis (talk) 07:12, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

Category

Is there a category for articles with poorly formatted references? --Whip it! ^{Now whip it good!} 05:35, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Template messages/Cleanup. Most if not all of the cleanup templates automatically categorize articles into corresponding categories. For example, the catch-all {{Wikify}} template categorizes articles into Category:Articles that need to be wikified. The section: Wikipedia:Template messages/Cleanup#Message boxes 2 has a number of templates relating to references; they should have corresponding categories, which you can see on the template pages (for example look at {{Citation style}}). Message templates may have a many-to-one mapping to categories, though. --Teratornis (talk) 07:20, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

The Citation style template specifically includes articles at Category:Wikipedia references cleanup. You might find what you're lioking for there. Gonzonoir (talk) 10:13, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

importance of epidemiology to public heath

importance of epidemiology to public health —Preceding unsigned comment added by 41.204.168.3 (talk) 06:23, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

Have you tried Wikipedia's Reference Desk? They specialize in knowledge questions and will try to answer just about any question in the universe (except how to use Wikipedia, since that is what this Help Desk is for). Just follow the link, select the relevant section, and ask away. I hope this helps. However they will not do your homework for you. —teb728 t c 07:16, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

I was going to answer "Yes, it is." The questioner should read Epidemiology and Public health. The public's ability to look up information might be more important for public health than epidemiology (known by a handful of experts) is. Experts have known for decades that people would be healthier if they would quit smoking, stop getting drunk, control their gluttony, refrain from promiscuous unsafe sex, and get some exercise, but getting millions of people to change their behavior can be extremely difficult when it cuts against our sociobiology. Millions of years of evolution do not stop affecting us just because it would be to our benefit. Most people choose their behavior based mostly on primitive urges rather than on scientific reasoning from the most accurate data. --Teratornis (talk) 07:26, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

Information Deleted...Why and where is it?

I typed in my information but I'm unable to find it. I hope that it isn't gone. Can I retrieve it. Help! Thanks.

Mademoiselle De Paris. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Mademoiselle De Paris (talk • contribs) 07:17, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

You can see what you have edited by checking your contributions. It appears you have mistakenly typed some (auto?)biographical information in Help:Preferences, which is one of our help pages. I'm going to bed so I will let one of our other volunteers userfy your edits to unscramble them out of the help page. In the meantime we have a free book for new users at H:TMM. I urge you to read it, so you can avoid falling into the many pitfalls that await new users on Wikipedia who try to guess what to do. Wikipedia's design is meant for expert users. It is not at all beginner-friendly - there is almost nothing in the software to prevent you from violating our huge list of policies and guidelines and having your work deleted later when humans look at it. Wikipedia assumes you are an expert, so read H:TMM and you will then make sense of this place. --Teratornis (talk) 07:33, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

It looks like you typed your information into what we call a redirect. I've removed it from there, put a welcome message on your talk page, and re-created your information at User:Mademoiselle De Paris/Greta Pope. If you need anymore help, or just want to ask a question, feel free to contact any one of us, or post another question here on the Help Desk. — Ched ~ ^(yes?)/_© 07:44, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

Pet Peeve - log outs

I've raised this issue before but is there a way to have the site warn you if you're about to save an edit when you're not logged in? I've tried the "Remember my login on this computer" option but that expires after a period of time. So I end up having to check whether it's expired in every time I save an edit, except of course forgetting to do so when it actually has expired. To me it's not really an improvement over just remembering to log in when I turn on my computer. One idea is to keep "Remember my login" set and log out and then log in again every week or so, this seems rather inconvenient. Just saying it would be nice if, in addition to reminding you if you're about to save an edit without a summary, the site would also remind you if you're about to save an edit without logging in.--RDBury (talk) 10:00, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

You can tell if you are logged in by looking at the top of any page. If logged in, you will see <your user name>, my talk, my preferences, my watchlist, my contributions and log out. Just check before you hit "save". --Thomprod (talk) 10:53, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

I don't now of any on-Wikipedia solution but you could try downloading a freeware computer alarm clock that you can set to give you a weekly reminder, such as Alarm Clock 1.0. Cheers.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 12:07, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

The site already warns you when you edit while not logged in: there's a warning message above the edit box. Presumably it's not obvious enough though. It could be mad more obtrusive (say another screen you have to click through) but then that'd be another hoop all IP users would have to jump through to be allowed to edit. Your preferences can't, of course, affect how the site works when you're logged out, but you could change the display when you're logged in (by changing the colour of the 'save' button, for example) in the hope that you'll be able to tell more easily that you're logged out. Algebraist 12:50, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

I use a snippet of code to turn my Save button green if I am logged in. Once you get used to it being green, it becomes very apparent when you're not logged in. Just add the following to your monobook.css file. (If you're using another skin, then I'm not sure....):

/* Turn the "Save page" button green if I'm logged in */
INPUT#wpSave {
   background-color:#88ff88;
}

Give that a shot and see how it works for you! Arakunem^Talk 17:35, 19 March 2009 (UTC)

I've tried changing skins etc. to make it more obvious that I'm not logged in. Firefox tends to keep those things in your session unless you hit the refresh button. I understand what Algebraist is saying, probably the only practical way of wiki doing it would be to set a cookie users' computers, but I'm assuming that would a lot of effort for a 'nice to have'. Thank for the ideas, I'll check them out. It's nice to know I'm not the only one who's thought about this.--RDBury (talk) 03:31, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

Following up on templates in article?

If an article has the template {{Advert|date=March 2009}} and the template {{Peacock|date=March 2009}} is there automatically an administrator who looks at the article to see if there is a problem? Fanoftheworld (talk) 11:10, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

There is no administrator that looks at the problem. Rather, the templates are there to serve as notices to anyone (readers or editors) that someone else thinks there are issues with the article. Of course, if you can correct the issue, you remove the templates at that time. See our info on advertising and peacock terms for more information. TNXMan 11:49, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

I believe the questioner is asking whether admins continually monitor lists of all articles that have those templates to see what the problem actually is. Zain Ebrahim (talk) 15:39, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

Is it possible to get an administrator to look at an article wich has templates? Fanoftheworld (talk) 23:46, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

Insert an image from Wikimedia Commons

I have uploaded a particular image to Wikimedia Commons, but I am uncertain how to go about displaying it in an article. Is there a specific template I should use? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Dorigod (talk • contribs) 13:42, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

Use exactly the same syntax you would use for an image uploaded to Wikipedia. The details are at Help:Images and other uploaded files. Algebraist 13:45, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

Unavailable on the mainland

The secure server has been unavailable in mainland China for several weeks now, as are all the English pages on the non-secure server that relate to this problem. Someone who can access them should check whether those pages have been updated with this news. If they were feeling kind, they might see whether a different secure server URL could be provided. English non-secure pages on other topics are unaffected. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 123.122.100.27 (talk) 15:05, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

How Many?

How many vandalising edits constitute protection? Because I have made some IPs very angry because I keep rollbacking their edits and warning them, to repay me they keep vandalising my userpage. I do not want full protection etc. but just something to deter them.
Examples:

1 2 3

Limideen 15:00, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

Generally, if the vandalism is from one IP, it's better to block the IP for a short time. If it's from multiple IP's, protection is the better option. You can report vandalism here or request page protection here. TNXMan 15:19, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

Quotation templates

There are a lot of quotation templates at Category:Quotation templates, but can anyone provide guidance on which ones to use? The closest to advice that I could find was Wikipedia:Manual of Style#Quotations (which I've linked to) but it's still unclear which ones are "better". Also, is there a template that preserves line-breaks, for verse? Thanks, Shreevatsa (talk) 16:46, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

It is a bit of a mess, and some of these are specialized. For a simple quote within the body of the article, use <blockquote>...</blockquote>. If you want to adda source, use {{quote}}. If you want to put the quote in a box, you can use {{quote box}} or {{quote box2}} which has more features. You can maintain spaces and break by placing the content within the <poem>...</poem> tags. --—— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk - 17:23, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

When the friendly manuals don't reduce some aspect of Wikipedia editing to an algorithm (yet), a reasonable fallback is to peruse the featured articles to find one you can follow as an example. Featured articles have passed Wikipedia's highest level of scrutiny and thus should be fairly safe to follow. Note that you can't always get an answer to your current question immediately. Consider writing a user subpage of notes about all your unresolved questions. Then as you continue to read Wikipedia and learn more about it, you might later stumble across a solution to something you got stuck on earlier. I myself have a load of notes about things I may or may not ever figure out; from time to time I run across something that makes me say "Aha!". Sometimes the best way to find an answer is not to be looking for anything in particular - just look at lots of things. Read a few dozen featured articles, or Signpost entries, or the Help desk archives, with no particular aim in mind, and you will probably find things you can apply to needs you noticed earlier in other articles. --Teratornis (talk) 19:01, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

Missing for cargo plane crash in victoria lake on 09.03.2009

Respected Sir/Madam,

We are relatives of one the victims of the above subject. we want to know addresses and phone numbers of nearby clinics, hospitals and nursning homes near victoria lake. if possible the numbers of the local authorities involved in rescue operation, as after 9 days some of the bodies are still not found.

please names and phone numbers are arrange to sent on my email id <blanked>

thanking you,

regard Deepak Motwani —Preceding unsigned comment added by 122.161.18.72 (talk) 17:34, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

Hello. I suspect, based on your question, that you found one of our over 2.7 million articles, and thought that we were directly affiliated in some way with that subject. Please note that you are at Wikipedia, the online free encyclopedia that anyone can edit, and this page is a help desk for asking questions related to using the encyclopedia. Thus, we have no inside track on the subject of your question. You can, however, search our vast catalogue of articles by typing a subject into the search field on the left hand side of your screen. If that is not fruitful, we have a reference desk, divided into various subjects areas, where asking knowledge questions is welcome. Best of luck. TNXMan 17:42, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

Can I create a spoken wikipedia?

I'm thinking about reading an article out aloud and posting it on wikipedia. (list of spoken wikipedia's http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Spoken_Wikipedia ). I know how to pronounce the words and such but I have a deep Dutch accent... On top of that I'm just 14 years old. So am I allowed to do this?--Megaman en m (talk) 17:55, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

I'm not sure that your age would be any barrier - hopefully someone will shout if I'm wrong. As regards your accent, I'd personally take the view that an article read by someone with a deep Dutch accent is better than an article that isn't read! The relevant guideline is here; it doesn't seem to mention accents at all. To be honest, what's a proper English accent? My partner comes from the UK and Australians have said that they find her accent difficult. I'm a New Zealander and I find her accent perfectly understandable. Recording yourself tends to change the way you speak during recordings - give it a go and you'll probably find that your accent becomes clearer the more practice you have. Cheers, This flag once was red^propaganda_deeds 18:38, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

If you narrate some articles about topics relating to The Netherlands, then your accent would be authentic. I think we should have members of the "home team" narrating articles where possible, to give a local flavor, but anything you narrate is better than having no narration for an article. So narrate anything you want. The worst that can happen is that someone else might upload another narration of the same article, in a different accent. I see no problem with that. I don't think your age is a problem either, but you probably should avoid narrating articles about some of our "unsafe for children" topics. If only to avoid giving your family a shock. --Teratornis (talk) 19:06, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, as described above, different accent narration is better than none. Age wouldn't matter, as there are some below-18-editors who contribute to Wikipedia. However, since this involves personal voices, I would advise you to speak to your family authority. You wouldn't want to give your parents a shock as Teratornis mentioned. ZooFari 23:49, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

How do I create an article if when I search the title, it redirects me to an already existing article?

I'm trying to create a page for Quinn Allman, a guitarist. I followed the directions on the page that explains how to create an article: "In the search box near the top left of a page, type the title of the new article, then click Go. If the Search page reports "No page with that title exists" then you can click the red "Create the page" link to start editing your article." However, whenever i type in "Quinn Allman", wikipedia redirects me to the article for The Used, the band Quinn belongs to, and there is no "create the page" link. I want to create a new page for Quinn. How do I do this?

thanks

Udntbelieve (talk) 18:15, 18 March 2009 (UTC)G

At the top of the page for The Used there should be a line that says "(Redirected from Quinn Allman)" - click on that and you'll end up at the real Quinn Allman page. Normally you'd edit that, removing the redirect, but the page is protected. I believe the admin who protected the page is no longer actively editing, but you could try posting a message on their talk page asking why the page is protected. Failing that, try requesting unprotection. Cheers, This flag once was red^propaganda_deeds 18:32, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

Based on various searches such as this and this, I believe this person is notable and thus is a good subject for an article (you can use some of those sources found for purposes of citation in the prospective article, thus verifying any facts you write about him). For that reason I have unprotected the article and reverted the redirect to a suitable version from its existing page history. I urge you to read our policy on biographies of living persons before you add any content. The reason this was redirected and protected was because it made all sorts of claims about him, including controversial ones, without citing any sources and thus violated that policy. Please edit with this in mind. Cheers.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 22:27, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

Proposal

Who do I go to to propose a Wiki Project?--God'sGirl94 (talk) 18:46, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

Assuming that God has not already revealed the answer (probably a safe assumption, judging by God's track record at technical support), you could start by reading WP:PROJGUIDE. Be aware that we have lots of inactive WikiProjects. As with most of my home improvement projects, they are much easier to start than to see through. Unless you can do the lion's share of the work for a project yourself, you might want to wait until you find at least three other interested, committed Wikipedians who agree to help out. Don't expect that just by creating a new WikiProject the world will beat a path to its door. --Teratornis (talk) 19:15, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

Streamlining certain types of pages

I know and appreciate all the work you folks do. Something, today though drove me a little batty. I was researching some information about the history of some states. While doing this research, I noticed that the pages were all different. What I am getting at is there doesnt seem to be a particular structure for how those pages were written. Ideally I would think that some other editor should reorganize and remake some of those pages so that they are all laid out the same. I used to do this at my job and no how frustrating it is to have 20 or 30 people contributing to something and having 20 or 30 ways to say the same thing. I just thought a better infrastructure may make your amazing site more accesible and more consistent.

Jkasper54904 (talk) 19:10, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

We have various WikiProjects that try to do this. We also have the Manual of style. Unfortunately, we also have the avoid instruction creep guideline which deters some people from writing the additional instructions that would be necessary to standardize the format of yet another subset of articles. However, I agree with you, and I note that WP:CREEP fails to distinguish between accidental complexity (i.e., instructions we don't need) and essential complexity (i.e., instructions we not only need but are actually following already in some illiterate ad hoc way). But on the other hand, even if we had complete instructions for the format of the pages you allude to, how would we force everyone to follow them on a site which is foundationally committed to the idea that anyone should be able to edit (almost) any page, with no qualification other than the ability to fog a mirror? The only way to maintain standards is to somehow restrict access, or otherwise sanction or cajole the users who refuse to learn or follow the standards. Welcome to the logically self-contradictory world of Wikipedia, which somehow manages to work. Note that we might already have a WikiProject which is trying to standardize the very articles you have in mind. Some things take a long time on Wikipedia. In a few years maybe things will be better. Maybe you will have improved some things. If you want to learn how, you could start by reading H:TMM. --Teratornis (talk) 19:30, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

Creating a New Page

I signed on to create a new page for a music artist, who currently does not have a page. Do I need to become an Admin to create a page?

Thanks.

Dryve MGMT

—Preceding unsigned comment added by Dryve MGMT (talk • contribs) 19:11, 18 March 2009 (UTC) 

Before creating an article, please search Wikipedia first to make sure that an article does not already exist on the subject. Please also review a few of our relevant policies and guidelines which all articles should comport with. As Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, articles must not contain original research, must be written from a neutral point of view, should cite to reliable sources which verify their content and must not contain unsourced, negative content about living people.

Articles must also demonstrate the notability of the subject. Please see our subject specific guidelines for people, bands and musicians, companies and organizations and web content and note that if you are closely associated with the subject, our conflict of interest guideline strongly recommends against you creating the article.

If you still think an article is appropriate, see Help:Starting a new page. You might also look at Wikipedia:Your first article and Wikipedia:How to write a great article for guidance, and please consider taking a tour through the Wikipedia:Tutorial so that you know how to properly format the article before creation. TNXMan 19:16, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

traveling distance from Singapore to Mauritius Africa

If a off shore drilling rig is leaving Singapore and is traveling to Mauritius at 6 knots how long in days will it take to get there? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.227.194.246 (talk) 19:17, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

Have you tried the Mathematics section of Wikipedia's Reference Desk? They specialize in answering knowledge questions there; this help desk is only for questions about using Wikipedia. For your convenience, here is the link to post a question there: click here. I hope this helps. However, please be aware that the Reference Desk will not do your homework for you. TNXMan 19:22, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

The answer probably depends on how long the Somali pirates hold the rig for ransom. --Teratornis (talk) 19:33, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

I LOL'd. – ukexpat (talk) 21:30, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

Edit the edit page

When I click 'edit this page' on some talk pages, the user has a message above the edit box, like the bullet list above this edit box. How do I add one to my talk page? Wikiert ^{T S C} 19:46, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

Check out Wikipedia:Editnotice. You can use {{editnotice}}. Zain Ebrahim (talk) 19:58, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

WHAT HAPPEN TO MY PAGE

what happened to my page —Preceding unsigned comment added by Charlesoshields (talk • contribs) 20:32, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

Which page? TastyCakes (talk) 20:35, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

The material you posted to Talk:Flickr has been deleted, as 1) it is irrelevant to the purpose of that page: the improvement of the article Flickr; and 2) Wikipedia is not a webhost, and is not an appropriate place to store an article about your family history. --Orange Mike | Talk 20:59, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

Plagiarism

How do I go about reporting someone for plagiarizing Wikipedia content. I understand that it is open to the public, however, I do not feel that it is appropriate for someone (particularly a professor) to use this material word for word without making it noted where the material is coming from. Thank you for your help! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.196.225.124 (talk) 20:51, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

If you're asking if there's somewhere on Wikipedia you could lodge such a complain, no I don't think so: Wikipedia doesn't care and it's not against the rules (unless he uses a picture that has a license requiring author acknowledgment). I suppose you could report it to the university in question, but I doubt they'd really care either. If the professor has used a picture without acknowledging the author as required, you could contact the author and they could act on it (but again, I doubt they would). TastyCakes (talk) 21:01, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

See WP:REUSE. – ukexpat (talk) 21:28, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

Special:LongPages

I have asked a question at Wikipedia talk:Special:LongPages#All namespaces. -- IRP ☎ 22:12, 17 March 2009 (UTC)