Wikipedia:Help desk/Archives/2013 December 22

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December 22[edit]

How to require authors a further check?[edit]

In this very helpful article there is a great and very detailed step-by-step example on how money supply work. At the top of this 14 step example there is a warning: "Note: The examples apply when read in sequential order".

Well, at step #10 M0 money is said to be "M0 = 0" But at step #12 M0 is reported as follows: "M0 still has the $900". And nothing at step #11 has occurred to increase M0.


I think that the author of step #12 is referring to a previous step or to a former version of the step.

In any case: I would like to require to the authors a correction of it (I am not into correcting it myself as it a very detailed example and I don't want to spoil it).

What tag shall I use? citation required seems unfit for this purpose. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Euforbio (talkcontribs) 10:50, 22 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

The place to raise the point is on the article talk page. - David Biddulph (talk) 11:11, 22 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Euforbio is enquiring as to the appropriate tag to use for this situation. Perhaps: {{verify credibility}} (?) ~E:71.20.250.51 (talk) 16:40, 22 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]
the section is essentially WP:Original research and the {{original research}} banner could be added. or the {{huh}} template could be added to confusing phrases. Or you could look back through the history and find out who the initial editor(s) was and contact them asking for clarification. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 17:44, 25 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Enlarge font size[edit]

Hi, Is here a way to enlarge he Wikipedia font size? Every other site/page I open on my computer is remarkably larger (legible). The font here is ridiculously small and seems o just keep getting smaller!!! Can you help? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.135.132.81 (talk) 02:21, 22 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

You may have accidentally made it smaller in your browser. In most browsers you can hold down Ctrl and press '-' for smaller, '+' for larger and '0' for normal size. Ctrl and mousewheel may also change size. PrimeHunter (talk) 02:33, 22 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]
If using Firefox, be sure to check "Zoom Text Only" under the View menu first. Or don't, if you think everything else is also too small. InedibleHulk (talk) 03:17, 22 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Vandalism reversion warnings.[edit]

Does anyone know when to use the "Only Warning" tag when you're reverting vandalism? WP:Vandalism#Warnings. Would an edit like this be a candidate? How heinous would the edit have to be for the user to be warned once? Bluefist talk 04:42, 22 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

jumping right to level four would generally be for something libelous or harmful or intended to be hurtful and not a teenager hyping his latest crush. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 06:43, 22 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Huge NPOV-problems in Swedish Wiki[edit]

There is a surge of leftists in Swedish Wikipedia. Users that should be mentioned are Dnm and Yger who continuously delete other users contributions/censors debate on the Discussion page of certain articles, against Wikipedia guidelines. They like to "poison the well" i.e. "you are trolls, you are racists" etc instead of facing any arguments presented.

There is a newly created Wikipedia article named "Kulturell rasism" (in English "Cultural racism"). The material presented in this article is presented as facts. In other words, instead of phrasing "Cultural racism is a theory in critical analysis…" it reads "cultural racism is new form of racism".

There is simply no quality behind their sources.

  • There is for instance no wikipedia article in any other language named "cultural racism".
  • Other quite reliable sources straight out deny some of the article's claims, for instance according to Encyclopedia of Race and Racism, Cultural racism not a standard term even in studies about racism, but in the Swedish wiki article, it is being presented as a term often used by scholars and governments, indeed even the UN! The evidence used to support the claim that the UN uses the term "cultural racism" is ONE document published in 2001. In other words an insular event, but criticism is simply met with silence.
  • The article uses a government report that was hugely criticized as pseudoscience but criticism is simply met with silence.
  • Another source used is Karen Wren, who claims that nationalism - and indeed even the view that "my culture is different than yours" is a form of cultural racism! This is not consensus among sociologists. Indeed Wrens article has only produced 70 citations in 12 years.
  • A third source is a (according to English wiki) marxist professor of film, Martin Barker. Who according to documents on Google, belonged to a fringe leftist group in British academia somehow connected to the earlier Birmingham school. He apparently coined the term cultural racism in the 80's. So a marxist professor of film is a reliable source according to users such as Dnm and Yger. Well we might as well let good old Karl Marx explain history, economics etc as well then.

Perhaps even worse, is that the term kuturell rasism has also been introduced in the article about racism, which is one of the most visited articles in Swedish wiki used by for instance pupils to help with their schoolworks, and in that article, the term is also presented "as the truth". Several users have asked on the discussion page that Dnm rephrase or perhaps not use this term at all, but the left simply ignores them, so no changes are made. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.219.200.11 (talk) 11:42, 22 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Hello 77.219.200.11. There was a recent post here claiming something similar. I don't know if that was you, or that this just flags there really is a problem because more than one person is noting the same issue, but as was said there, "The English Wikipedia has absolutely no governance over the Swedish Wikipedia. Bring this to w:sv:Wikipedia:Begäran om åtgärder, or to [Meta-Wiki]", that last being the global community site for the Wikimedia projects and the Wikimedia movement in general. There's also the Swedish Wikipedia's equivalent of what we call the "Village Pump", and the Swedish Wikipedia help desk. Best regards--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 14:13, 22 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Foratting glitch on Main Page article[edit]

Wikipedia is drawing a big blue box around the 1st sentence of the Criticism section of Jesus. This happened after I made an edit, but I can't fix it. Howunusual (talk) 15:51, 22 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Your edit included a leading space, which breaks the format, and which I have removed. I'm not sure why you have changed the section from its previous historical order, to put Nietzsche first, but IMHO the historical order should be reinstated.Arjayay (talk) 16:07, 22 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks!. Personally, I would delete the text I moved, since it doesn't say what the criticism was. It just says some dudes thousands of years ago criticized Christianity. The other criticisms gave actual criticism. For the sake of compromise, I moved the text rather than deleting it. Howunusual (talk) 16:19, 22 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

The "dudes" mentioned are hyperlinked, so one can easily jump to their own articles to find out more, though I agree a brief summary of their criticisms would be appropriate in the Section in question. Said "dudes" can hardly have been writing "thousands" of years ago because Christianity has not yet existed for as many as 2 thousand years. Your overall argument (with which I also disagree) will not be helped by flippancy and inaccuracy. {The poster formerly known as 83.81.230.195} 94.5.30.4 (talk) 19:50, 22 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Should I be removing red links in taxonomic articles?[edit]

I've noticed in quite a few articles that deal with taxonomy, there are red links all over the place. No one seems to be doing anything about them, and it makes me wonder. Should I be removing these, or should I let them be or create articles based on them? Saígúrun (talk) 19:29, 22 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

That depends on the link, please see Wikipedia:Red link Mlpearc (open channel) 19:39, 22 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]
While I haven't read the articles to which the original poster is referring, these are likely to be red links about subordinate taxa within a taxon, such as species within a genus or genera within a family. If so, they are probably legitimate red links identifying articles that would be appropriate. Any editor is welcome and encouraged to write the articles with reliable sources. Otherwise they should be left alone if they appear to be taxa. Robert McClenon (talk) 01:49, 23 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I agree that redlinks to taxa should not be deleted. The ultimate aim is to have an article about every single living thing so the redlinks are performing a useful function by encouraging readers to change them to blue links. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 08:56, 24 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Question[edit]

Is it possible to delete an article that I created on AFC? I want to create it to be published online directly and I got confused and used AFC which said that my submission needs up to three weeks to be reviewed. I don't want to create a duplicate but I need my article to be available asap since it is related to a project I am working on. I preferred to check on this before I create the page again. Thanks in advance NisreenNasser (talk) 19:31, 22 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

There is, but you shouldn't for this article. Articles must contain multiple reliable sources, yours has only two sources, one of which is a primary source. Please improve the article with reliable secondary sources before publishing it. On that basis, it's probably best to go through the AfC process as other editors can guide you on how to write the article. It's a shame that it takes a long time, there's just a large backlog. Samwalton9 (talk) 19:46, 22 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]
It is, effectively, unreferenced, as the other reference is to a blog, which is not a Reliable source and should not be used at all. Arjayay (talk) 19:57, 22 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you Samwalton9 and Arjayay for your prompt reply. I will improve my references. — Preceding unsigned comment added by NisreenNasser (talkcontribs) 20:06, 22 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]
For ease of reference the draft is at: Wikipedia talk:Articles for creation/Asya Alashaikh.--ukexpat (talk) 16:40, 23 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Multiple Links to Presummably Copyright Material Crown jewels[edit]

I'm working on cleaning up the link rot on this page and have found that there are multiple occurrences of dead links and links to possibly copyrighted material and multiple links to unreliable sources.

There is probably a lot of passion for this site since it attempts to display images of crown jewels from many different countries so I am reluctant to whack sections with no valid content (copyrighted, dead, or unreliable).

Is there a recommended approach for this scenario?

Softtest123 (talk) 19:55, 22 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]
given your criteria, the best option would seem to be do hit books.google.com and scholar.google.com and fix the bad referencing issues by replacing poorly referenced content with well referenced content. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 20:10, 22 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Sometimes the material is so badly referenced it is difficult to tell what it is, such as a link to an unidentified image; a picture of a crown, for instance. I guess I can tag it for deletion with an entry in Talk. Or maybe I can track down the authors of the material and try to find out what they were trying to say.
Softtest123 (talk) 01:50, 24 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]
yowser - that is an article in major need of a makeover! angelfire is a blog site and so not acceptable as a source or an external link, so I removed that from the Ethiopia section. If there is any other sections that you want reviewed, I will be willing to be the machete wielding clean up crew so that any hostile reactions can be directed to me, just ping me on my talk page. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 03:52, 24 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Orphan page[edit]

An article is marked as orphan page. I made an internal wiki link to that article on another article which mentioned the article in the references of the refering article. However the article still shows that it is an orphan. What I'm doing wrong. no idea. Read the text on this subject several times. Cannot deduct from that whether I'm following the right procedure. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Mersebas (talkcontribs) 20:25, 22 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

We also won't be able to tell what you have done wrong, unless you tell us what article you are referring to, and where you have created a link to it. In any case, an article being an orphan is not really a problem that needs fixing. Maproom (talk) 21:45, 22 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]
The template marking the article as an orphan needs to be removed manually. RJFJR (talk) 00:21, 23 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]
But Wikipedia:Orphan#Criteria says: "Although a single, relevant incoming link is sufficient to remove the tag, three or more is ideal and will help ensure the article is reachable by readers". A link from a reference is of low value. Most readers will not see it. And many new users don't know what a wiki link is or which pages are articles. You really should post the article so we can evaluate it. The top of the edit window here also says: "Please give the exact title or URL of any page you want help with". It costs the help desk volunteers an enourmous amount of time that so many posters fail to do that, and the posters also suffer because the helpers cannot give accurate advice without knowing the page. PrimeHunter (talk) 00:37, 23 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Rossington Hall[edit]

Hi I have just been looking at your information on the village of Rossington. There are two areas where the information is wrong. 1. Rossington Hall is no longer a special education school. It closed in 2008 and was bought privately. It is currently under renovation, though parts of it is in use for events. Rossington Hall information can be found on its website.

2. The Royal Hotel was knocked down and the building which was rebuilt has become known as the Royal and is currently a Residential Home. It opened in 2008. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.18.235.105 (talk) 22:14, 22 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

If you can provide a reliable source for each change, you may edit the article. Otherwise you may post your comments to the article talk page.
I added information to the Rossington article about Rossington Hall. I did not find information about the Royal Hotel. -- Jreferee (talk) 14:43, 23 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Non-free images[edit]

Hello, I'm trying to update the description page and nonfree use rationale for a particular file, but the source that the file indicates no longer hosts the original image. Do I pull from another website and upload their image at lower resolution, or do I leave the dead source as is? TeleComNasSprVen (talkcontribs) 22:31, 22 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

What file/link is it? A lot of webpages are archived by the Wayback Machine or WebCite, so an archived version would be preferable. ~HueSatLum 23:09, 22 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]
File:CivIVboxshot.jpg, but I figure leaving the auto-generated description of "owned by Firaxis Games" is fine for now. Originally the source was indicated to be here which no longer exists. TeleComNasSprVen (talkcontribs) 23:15, 22 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I agree that should be fine; using an archived version doesn't work because of the site's robots.txt; besides, there is no shortage of identical images: [1]. ~HueSatLum 23:48, 22 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]