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Wikipedia:Help desk/Archives/2009 June 14

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June 14

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Messed up talk page template

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  Resolved
 –  – ukexpat (talk) 14:57, 15 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The Talk:Wi-Fi template is messed up, but I don't know what is wrong with the syntax. I am sure someone else knows how to deal with this problem. --DThomsen8 (talk) 00:25, 14 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I just reverted the latest edit which was by an IP. PrimeHunter (talk) 00:38, 14 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

FAQ template

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{{FAQ page}} just appeared on an FAQ page I monitor, but after looking at the template I am unsure if its supposed to be in the FAQ space or on the FAQ talk page. Can someone shed some light on the mystery for me? Is there an instruction page for its use or something of that nature, or is the template to new for that? TomStar81 (Talk) 03:46, 14 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

See Special:WhatLinksHere/Template:FAQ page. As you can see all pages that transclude the template are subpages of the article talk pages the use the FAQ. Is that what you wanted? —teb728 t c 04:58, 14 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
No. What I was looking for was a page similar to this one, with guidelines on how the template should be used. I am of the opinion that for the article I have the template is misleading because it falsely claims that the FAQs points were addressed in talk page archives when about half of the material I have in the FAQ comes from policy and guideline pages. Additionally, the template makes no mention of where questions on the FAQ can be asked. I almost reverted its addition to the FAQ pages I watch but elected instead to see if there was some sort guideline page or something for the template - previous creation discussions, an arbcom ruling, something of that nature- that would explain why we are now using this template and why it does not appear on the talk pages of FAQ pages like template's wording seems to suggest it should. TomStar81 (Talk) 07:14, 14 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Oh, I understand. I see the template is something that was created just in the past day; so it wouldn’t have an instruction page. Apparently it is the work of one editor, who thinks it is an improvement. You might try discussing your concerns with him—or boldly adapting the template yourself. (BTW, where should questions on the FAQ be asked? If the FAQs weren’t already in talk space, I suppose the answer would be on the related talk page.) —teb728 t c 08:04, 14 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I suggested asking in one of three places: on the talk pages of the articles since I maintain them, on the milhist talk page since they are warships, or on the wp:ships talk page since they were sea going ships. We all have a stake in maintaining the articles at FA level, after all :) As to the first part of your statement, I appreciate the clarification. As one who is attending summer school I find that I miss a number of important discussions on matters of this nature and wanted to know if one had taken place for this template before deciding on a course of action. We are to assume good faith after all. I will ask on the creators talk page tomorrow. Thanks you for your assistance on this matter. TomStar81 (Talk) 09:36, 14 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
There are several FAQ templates— see {{FAQ templates see also}} for a list. The use of any particular one is a personal choice; although I will plug {{FAQ2}} since it is one template v. the three used to make the USS New Jersey FAQ, the header text is a bit more polite and the questions actually show on the article talk page (and yes, I created it). As to where questions about the article FAQ page should be directed, this could be a question on the FAQ. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) talk 13:27, 14 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Speedy Deletion

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I have made a page, Karmakanic It is not my first page (Though some editors are treating me as if though I am new), though it is the first time I've made a new page in many years. Wikipedia being the way it is, it was about 15 seconds before it was nominated for speedy deletion by one of the many people who believe that this site should be a white page unless good reason is given for it being otherwise.

I have since had the article undeleted. The speedy deletion is invalid now, and furthermore both the nominator and the admin who deleted it failed to read this article on notability from wikipedia which makes it quite clear that an article should be deleted when there is no information on the band (Thus it is not notable), but that otherwise the person nominating it or deleting it should see if there is information and sources for the subject matter. If there is, the article should not be deleted, but needs significant improvements.


So, my rant aside, the question I wish to ask is how can I remove the speedy deletion nomination when I can't myself, even though I know the band meets the requirements of numbers 1, 4, 5 and 6 in the list Wikipedia:BAND#Criteria_for_musicians_and_ensembles?

1 - I intend to prove through sourcing 4 - Has toured extensively in all of Europe 5 - One album with The End and one album with Inside Out. The latter is certainly notable, the former less so, but still meets the listed requirements 6 - Jonas Reingold (The Flower Kings), Zoltan Csörsz (Also The Flower Kings) and Göran Edman (Yngwie Malmsteen vocalist)

Sorry if this is too much, in the wrong category, or something else I didn't foresee. I was looking to have a second person investigate to see if it meets the criteria to remove the nomination for speedy deletion. - Floydian (talk) 04:43, 14 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I recommend developing draft articles in user space. Why not move it to User:Floydian/Karmakanic? That way people will usually leave them alone. —teb728 t c 05:11, 14 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I concur. As the article currently stands, it "does not indicate why its subject is important or significant", which is a reason for speedy deletion. hmwithτ 05:46, 14 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I suggest adding {{Underconstruction}} at the top of the page.174.3.103.39 (talk) 07:20, 14 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
An {{Underconstruction}} tag doesn't prevent an article from being deleted any more than a {{hangon}} tag. When an article first goes in Article space, it must as a minimum indicate why its subject is notable. —teb728 t c 08:33, 14 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Need an administrator's help with an article name

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  Resolved
 –  – ukexpat (talk) 14:57, 15 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I moved Si Siman to its current page, reflecting this person's most common or notable name. I accidentally left a period after his name, however, in the article title. Could that please be removed? Thanks, RadioBroadcast (talk) 05:16, 14 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

  Done I moved Si Siman. to Si Siman, and I redirected Ely E. "Si" Siman, Jr. directly to the new page. In the future, you can request these moves at WP:RM. hmwithτ 05:41, 14 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
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How can I make <gallery> so it doesn't just show 4 to a row? Say if I wanted to make it unlimited, or just 3 to a row?174.3.103.39 (talk) 05:09, 14 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

See Gallery tag help and below for full list of parameters. —teb728 t c 05:18, 14 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Bugzilla

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Column 1 Column 2 Column 3
A B
C D
E F
G
H

Is it possible to make the table so that the Cell F has it's lower right quadrant divided into F1 (let's say (or for those of you linguistically challenged, F Prime (yes I know what Prime looks like)))?

If not, can someone submit this to bugzilla so we can do so?174.3.103.39 (talk) 07:14, 14 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]


If it can be done in HTML (which I doubt), then you could use that HTML on a Wikipedia page instead of using wikimarkup. If (as I suspect) it cannot be done in HTML, then bugzilla would be of no help, for wikimarkup ultimately has to translate to HTML. —teb728 t c 08:16, 14 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not sure what you are trying to do. You can place a new table within the "F" cell of your table:

Column 1 Column 2 Column 3
A B
C D
E
F
F1
G
H

But I'm not clear on exactly how you wish to subdivide after that. -Arch dude (talk) 17:47, 14 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

chnges saved twise?

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  Resolved
 –  – ukexpat (talk) 14:57, 15 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

How to edit my own changes? is there any option? My changes are saved twise.. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Sreevatsamr (talk • contribs) 11:08, 14 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Replying on user talk page. Nyttend (talk) 12:53, 14 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Edit war

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A user by the name Norw73 is constantly re-writing a section on the siberian tiger article by placing claims which run contrary to the provided references. I have warned him that this is basically vandalism. Who are the aproppriate authorities to consult?Mariomassone (talk) 11:24, 14 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

There are no "authorities" per se, however, you could report them to the edit war noticeboard where other volunteer editors will review the case for you. TNXMan 13:09, 14 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

"Fit"

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To Whom it May Concern,

The non-medical term "fit" is a lay-mans term used for a seizure that should not be used nor published.

1. As a child my be throwing a "fit", or tantrum as he or she is able to control their behaviors.

2. A person who is physically "fit" due to their behaviors became this way with proper excercise.

3. A person having a "fit" as stated with a seizure has no control over his/her behaviors.

These old lay-mans terms should be corrected in your encyclapedia as a seizure "fit" is not a controlled behavior.

Please contact me regarding this as I am a world known Epilepsy/Seizure Advocate and am trying to help educate those who want to be educated.

Dr's do not use this terminology regarding their patients and I think it would be excellent if Wikipedia would be the first on-line based web-site other than proffessional medical web-sites to educate others on this matter.

A definition you may like to keep if you choose to -

Fit - A term used years ago for seizures.

You could expand on the fact that it is no longer used because drs have learned that there is more than 1 type of seizure.

Thank you so much, Amy Kemp

Are you referring to the page Fit? That is a disambiguation page and the purpose of such pages is not to provide information but to guide readers to the article they are looking for. Most Wikipedia readers are lay people and may search for "fit" when they want the seizure article. Or are you suggesting that seizure adds something about old/lay use of the word "fit" which is currently not mentioned in that article? PrimeHunter (talk) 13:07, 14 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Also see Euphemism#The "euphemism treadmill" and WP:NOTCENSORED. Wikipedia does not refrain from using words solely because they offend someone or are politically incorrect. However, if you find an instance of the word "fit" which is technically misleading in the context of one of our articles, feel free to correct it. Your request would make more sense if you linked to the article(s) where you saw the word "fit" in a usage you disagree with. Wikipedia is very large (6,929,995 articles and growing) and probably uses a common word like "fit" thousands of times. --Teratornis (talk) 19:40, 14 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Can't edit a template

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Looking at the description of File:Farmer walking in dust storm Cimarron County Oklahoma2.jpg, I wanted to improve the wording on the larger of the two "this is a featured picture" tags, the one with the Wikimedia logo as well as the featured content star — "...picture on the English Wikipedia..." would sound much better than "...picture on English Wikipedia...". However, going to {{FeaturedPicture}}, I discovered that it was only the smaller of the two templates, and I can't find any subpages that include the other tag. What is the template/subpage/whatever else with the tag that I want, and how can it be edited? Nyttend (talk) 13:03, 14 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

File:Farmer walking in dust storm Cimarron County Oklahoma2.jpg has a box saying "This is a file from the Wikimedia Commons. The description on its description page there is shown below." The words "description page there" link to commons:File:Farmer walking in dust storm Cimarron County Oklahoma2.jpg which contains {{Assessments|enwiki=1|enwiki-nom=Wikipedia:Featured picture candidates/Farmer and sons in dust storm, Cimarron County}}. The tag is made by that. Editing the template may be complicated. You can make a suggestion on commons:Template talk:Assessments. PrimeHunter (talk) 13:22, 14 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

login account lost (2)

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I posted the below earlier:

I forgot my password and chose the email password option but I did not get the email. My username is Kifo. I even got a password reminder in november last year. What can I do now? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 220.255.210.207 (talk) 10:07, 9 June 2009 (UTC)


Did you change email accounts in the mean time? If you got a password reminder last year, then why not use it to pull the password and access your account? (P.S. Check your email spam filter and trash can, sometimes email programs mistake password reminders as spam when they previously didn't. - 131.211.211.13 (talk) 10:24, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

The password reminder from Nov last year is no longer working. I am on Google mail and I have checked that there is no password email in my spam mail folder. Can I still get back my account? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 219.74.130.42 (talk) 13:03, 14 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

If the email function is not working (whether you changed email accounts or the password just isn't getting to you), then there is no way to recover your account. We have no way of resetting the password if it has been forgotten. Sorry. TNXMan 13:07, 14 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Image placement

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how do I embed a file (pic) to appear on the right of the Contents table, instead of on top of it (creating all kinds of white space)?

It depends on the article, but you should be able to do this by placing it right at the start of the article and adding a "right" parameter to the template, e.g.:
[[File:Example.jpg|right]]
Gonzonoir (talk) 14:53, 14 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Usually, in almost every situation where you'd add an image to an article, you should use a thumbnail, which is done by typing [[File:Example.jpg|thumb]]. That automatically places images on the right, unless one has set his/her preferences otherwise. You can also add |right after or before |thumb if you want to only have it show on the right. hmwithτ 15:11, 14 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

why my article hasn't been posted yet

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I created an article about the writer Denene Millner. I was told that some of the content too closely resembled the bio information on one of the writer's websites, www.celebrateblacklove.com. I sent an email from that website, granting permission to use that information on wikipedia. I got an acknowledgement from Wikipedia that the email had been received. So now what? The article still hasn't been posted. Nickwrite (talk) 16:03, 14 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Permission can't just be granted to use Wikipedia. It has to be released to be licensed under the GFDL. Do you have an OTRS ticket number? hmwithτ 16:18, 14 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
For more information, see WP:Requesting copyright permission, specifically #When permission is confirmed. hmwithτ 16:21, 14 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
You'd be the one to repost the article once permission was granted. hmwithτ 16:27, 14 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Engineering college rankings in India article

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The articles on the web which have been provided as citations in this article actually list the institutions in an order completely different from that in which they are presented in the article. I wonder whether such an article listing educational institutions by their "ranks" (based on the quality of institutes) should be present on Wikipedia in the first place. Even if the article should be kept, the ranks, as I mentioned, are in an incorrect order. Any solutions? --Leif edling (talk) 16:23, 14 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Hm, if I were you, I would prod it, including the reasons you just mentioned. hmwithτ 16:29, 14 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Italics in article titles

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  Resolved
 –  – ukexpat (talk) 14:57, 15 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I've noticed that for some pages about species the title of the article shows up in italics, e.g. Chlorodesmos. However for articles about books, e.g. Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, the title is not italicized. (I'm referring the the title at the top of the page, right about the horizontal rule and "From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia".)

How does the software determine how to render the title? If there's some tag I'm missing, should this be included for articles about books? Pburka (talk) 18:27, 14 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

See:

---— Gadget850 (Ed) talk 19:26, 14 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the info! Pburka (talk) 20:10, 14 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Name Change

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What is the limit to the number of times someone can change their username? Queenie 18:54, 14 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I have not heard of a written or technical limit but each change must be accepted and performed by a bureaucrat. See Wikipedia:Changing username. I could imagine they would reject it if somebody kept requesting a new name without a good reason. PrimeHunter (talk) 20:36, 14 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

updating search engine for single word search?

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How often does Wikipedia update its search index? I ask because page I created earlier this afternoon about a solar scientist named John I. Yellott, only comes up if I type in his name exactly-- including a pesky period after his middle initial. A reader should be able to get to it just by typing his last name: Yellott.ElijahBosley (talk) 19:13, 14 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I'm sure the spider will get around to it eventually, but why not create a redirect from Yellot to John I. Yellott? Pburka (talk) 19:21, 14 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Don't you mean Yellott to John I. Yellott? IMHO redirects shouldn't be unnecessary, perhaps John I Yellott would be better, seeing as if you leave out the period, it's a plausible misspelling? - Jarry1250 (t, c) 19:25, 14 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Submission on artist to Wikipedia

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Hello, what is your process for adding an artist and definition or bio on that artist to Wikipedia?

Tara —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.69.151.15 (talk) 19:31, 14 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

See WP:ARTIST, WP:LAYOUT, WP:YFA, and WP:WWMPD. --Teratornis (talk) 19:43, 14 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Also see WP:MUSIC, WP:BAND - Floydian (talk) 20:02, 14 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Is citing a book by an article's subject by nature OR?

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An article exists on a certain author. Controversy exists over the accuracy of things this author has published. A section in the article deals with this controversy. As an example, in one of the author's books, he quotes a woman's opinion of an event that occurred long after her death. In an edit, I cited the author's book as a source for this quotation. Another editor deleted the entire issue because I had used the author's own book as a source, and that because I was using the book under discussion to cite the quote, I had committed an act of OR. I am told by this editor that I must find another source mentioning the quotation, since "This is original research because it is making assumptions based on the original text." This reasoning has been used by the other editor as cause for reverting anything that is sourced to the books under discussion. If a hypothetical author writes in one of his books, "Abraham Lincoln said Franklin Roosevelt was an idiot," and in discussing the controversy this and similar statements had created in the community beyond Wikipedia, can I not cite the book itself as evidence that the author made this statement, in order to provide an indication of what the controversy is about? Must I find another book that says "In his book, author Joe Blow quoted Abraham Lincoln as saying...etc."? If this author publishes books of interviews with people now dead in which he claims for them attitudes they never expressed publicly during their lives, is it necessary to find other sources that quote the author quoting the dead people, in order to avoid the edit being OR? I am trying to understand the statement that "This is original research because it is making assumptions based on the original text." Monkeyzpop (talk) 20:06, 14 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

In my opinion, you can cite the book as evidence that he made the statement. That's using a primary source, not original research. However you need to cite a secondary source indicating that the statement is wrong or controversial. Making such an assertion yourself (even if supported by facts) would be WP:SYNTHESIS, a form of WP:OR. Pburka (talk) 20:17, 14 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Template that should be used

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Hi, I'm having difficulties with a user who keeps changing the File:Vfl Wolfsburg.svg templates. Which summary description is appropriate? Is it from this version[1] by me or the current version by the user. The current also leave out this part "The logo is from the Vfl Wolfsburg Official Website website.Converted to AI format by Vflnet.com and then converted to SVG by Arteyu using Adobe Illustrator. Then cropped the SVG by using Inkscape". Please also visit my talkpage and take a look at the "Png -> Svg" section, I cant really understand what the user is trying to explain, but as far as I am concerned SVG is the appropriate format and the template that I use is coomon for SVG files (especially for football logos, you can try to look at other SVG football logo file template). Any of you are welcomed to leave a reply at the bottom of the "Png -> Svg" section. Thanks. Arteyu ? Blame it on me ! 20:28, 14 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The image is a logo, so {{logo fur}} is more appropriate, but {{Non-free media rationale}} (which redirects to {{non-free use rationale}}) is not egregiously wrong, however {{information}} is more often used for free images. The image is being used in two articles, so you must have a rationale for each article. You can also use {{non-free image data}} and multiple {{non-free image rationale}}. BTW: the use of this non-free image is probably not appropriate for Fußball-Bundesliga 2008–09#Champion Squad. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) talk 20:50, 14 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
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