Wikipedia:Help desk/Archives/2006 November 29

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[edit] November 29

[edit] Should this article be edited because it contains a directory of links and street addresses?

Hoxton#Cultural Attractions in Hoxton .26 around just seems to be a directory of links for (mostly commercial) art studios. I've seen other people say that there shouldn't be directories of links in articles, and I think I read that street addresses for premises shouldn't be listed like this, but I'm not sure exactly. I don't want to delete stuff that I shouldn't. 172.200.76.94 00:16, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

I have removed the section as Wikipedia is not a directory.—WAvegetarian•(talk) 00:21, 29 November 2006 (UTC)
OK thanks, I couldn't find the exact guidelines about this before. What happens if the guy who made the list just adds it back into the article though?172.200.76.94 01:54, 29 November 2006 (UTC)
Then you revert it, and leave a message on his talk page. If he adds it again, you leave another message and leave it up. If he doesn't take it down, post on Admin Noticeboard or RFC or Mediation Cabal. --Wooty Woot? contribs 02:30, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] How to view annotation of an article?

Is there a way to view an annotation of a Wikipedia article and see which revision introduced each line of its source code, like one can do in most version control systems? Hashproduct 02:19, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

I think what you're looking for is the history tab at the top of every article. You can view different versions of the article and the changes between different versions. Dismas|(talk) 02:35, 29 November 2006 (UTC)
No, I think the request is for a listing of the article with the equivalent of a version number on each line. To find the edit that added a line in an article is cumbersome. The best approach I know of (for a line that didn't exist at some point in the past and does exist now) is to do a binary search in the edit history. -- Rick Block (talk) 02:46, 29 November 2006 (UTC)
Yeah, I wish there was a non-computer science explanation of "binary search" out there. That's the only way I do it for now.
I know quite a few people are interested in more thorough history analysis, but I don't know if there's an easy to do this yet. If the toolserver starts replicating again (yeah right) and starts replicating article text again (yeah right), I'm sure you'll see a lot of efforts towards this. But I don't know of a current implementation of this. (the IBM images are tantalizing though).
Rick Block left a message on my talk page asking about a Javascript way to do this... I haven't heard of one, though it would probably take a lot of work. I know just getting the diff algorithm to work the way you want it to can be difficult. (and per Tool2, there isn't necessarily a lot of RAM available) --Interiot 04:45, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Mindrap

Dear Wikipedia,

I have been working on the MindRap article and have yet to satisfy your requirements. MindRap is an educational project that has been used from the University of Alberta in Vancouver to the Bronx in New York city. There has also been an article written on the project in IEEE's Signal processing magazine in July of 2006. MindRap has a website and is referenced from other sites. One of the founders, Jim West is in the national inventor's hall of fame. I would love to have some help with this. If the editor who keeps rejecting the article is willing to help, or anyone is willing to help, please let me know.

Thank you

Melanie West [email removed to prevent spamming]

Dear — Dismas| Thank you for your help. I am very confused right now....need time to understand this 'talk' and other aspects of the Wikipedia world. Thanks again. Take care, mellow_warrior

No problem, all I did was format the article a bit. You still need to look into whether MindRap is notable enough. Adding references and sources would help. Also, it should read less like an advertisement, see WP:NPOV. Dismas|(talk) 04:34, 29 November 2006 (UTC)


One of the other problems, Melanie, is that at least the first paragraph is taken word for word from your website on MindRap, and that is a copyvio. This is a big huge no-no on WP, and it needs to be fixed post haste. I second Dismas' point about the references; even if you don't know how to do WP referencing, at least provide links or the reference information, and someone can help with turning them into proper references. Also, you say several things in this thread about the project that aren't in the article yet; I suggest you include that info asap, because the line at the top (second paragraph) saying it's been done in Chicago makes it sound very regional. It also needs more specific information; how many students have participated, what was the growth curve from the first unit until now, how many schools are involved, what is the method by which the videos are disseminated, etc. Also, how is it funded? Is it a non-profit? Do schools have to pay for the service? Is it self-supporting by the students? This is important. And please be sure to include references in addition to the site's home page, the originator company's home page, and your MindRap page.
It looks interesting to me, but I agree right now that it doesn't seem notable (note though, that notability is a guideline, not a policy). I'm not trying to discourage you, rather I'm trying to help you establish what's necessary in order to keep the article. Of particular concern is that, while google turns up a lot of hits, there are none for google news. Has the media taken an interest in this project? If so, please include that in your references, and/or external links. Good luck, and if you need help navigating WP, doing references, or anything else, drop a line on my talk page. Anchoress 08:09, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Images from other Wikipedias

I'd like to add an image from a German wikipedia article to the English article on the same subject. When I enter the image name with the appropiate tag, all I get is the text. How do I do this? --Michael Johnson 04:35, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

Each language wikipedia is separate, except media uploaded to commons:main are shared by all. So, either download the image and upload it to commons (note that commons cannot accept fair use images) or download the image and upload it to en. -- Rick Block (talk) 04:50, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

Thanks --Michael Johnson 07:59, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Secure Wikipedia

Does Wikipedia has a secure version? I found by accidence a web page whose url is https://www.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Main_Page. Why is this present?

--196.202.90.134 07:32, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

Hmmm... The link doesn't work for me. What did it show for you? –- kungming·2 (Talk) 07:39, 29 November 2006 (UTC)
Well, I know there is a secure Wikipedia, located at secure.wikimedia.org, not www.wikimedia.org. It's considerable slower, but can be useful to users who for some reason cannot use an unencrypted connection. Michael Billington (talk • contribs) 07:46, 29 November 2006 (UTC)
Here's the link [1] Michael Billington (talk • contribs) 07:48, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

This link is the correct link. Sorry for mistake. I would like to ask why Wikipedia has a secure version? Also, is this the case in other languages and versions?

--196.202.90.134 07:52, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

Not sure exactly why, but I know people living in China can get past the govt block on WP by using it. --Wooty Woot? contribs 08:29, 29 November 2006 (UTC)
The secure version (which doesn't actually offer any extra security) is useful because some Internet connections (particularly some satellite ISPs) seem to be incapable of remembering logon data when a non-secure connection is used. I have a weird bug in my browser that often prevents me from saving pages that the secure connection works around as well. --ais523 09:12, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Undo feature

Just today I've noticed a new link when going back in page histories to perform reverts. The link says "Undo". I did a quick scan of Wikipedia:Revert but there isn't anything there about it. What does this "Undo" do? Dismas|(talk) 10:40, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

(edit conflict) It reverts the diff on the page your on without reverting any diffs that come later, so that if someone edits a page after it's been vandalised you don't have to try to merge the edits yourself. The undo has to be checked manually and you need to enter an edit summary yourself. --ais523 10:49, 29 November 2006 (UTC)
I see. Thanks! Dismas|(talk) 11:22, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

I've just nipped over to Meta and added a bit of documentation to m:Help:Reverting, so we should have documentation for this on Wikipedia in a bit. --ais523 11:33, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Incorrect information - making changes

I am trying to correct (update)an incorrect piece of information about the University of Essex(number of departments is 19 not 17). It makes the change, which is also readable by other users, and then a few minutes later reverts back to the incorrect version. Other changes I have made, including another factual correction, have been accepted.

This appears to be a probable false positive by User:VoABot II, a bot that tries to prevent vandalism. Try adding a source for your edit at the same time to prove to the bot that it isn't vandalism. --ais523 11:49, 29 November 2006 (UTC)
No offense, but that doesn't seem like a very good solution. An editor shouldn't have to provide a reference for a tiny change in order to avoid getting reverted by a bot. I think the owner of the bot needs to know about this (I'm gonna report it to the page now), because an editor should be able to just make that change without having to learn how to do citations etc too. That's what 'the encyclopedia anyone can edit' is all about. Anchoress 12:43, 29 November 2006 (UTC)
The problem is that sensing number-change vandalism isn't something that bots can reasonably do easily, due to the high risk of false positives. I agree that it's probably worth taking it up with the operator; I was suggesting an interim solution to make the edit in the first place (and anyway, if the edit's just to change a number it's probably a good idea to have a source so that future human readers know it's correct). --ais523 13:05, 29 November 2006 (UTC)
It was not a number change revert (those are only used on watched pages that are on lock down from sockpuppets). This was do to a repeated consanant false positive ("nonsense" word detection) due to "y" missing from the regexp; its been reverted and fixed. Sorry for the inconvenience.Voice-of-All 16:29, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Can I get some kind of renumeration for editing.

Hello: I have a spent a fair amount of ttme editing certain Chemistry/Physics pages. I feel that I am very qualified to do this: I have a Ph D in Chemistry, and taught at the high school level for five years. So I feel I understand how an article should be presented to audience you are tring to each. Anyway, can I get paid to edit and watch over articles? Im spending a lot of time editing. Pez2 —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Pez2 (talk • contribs) 14:39, November 29, 2006 (UTC).

You want a Wikipedia sugar daddy you're welcome to go looking. But you won't get any remuneration from Wikipedia. This is a free, not for profit, volunteer edited encyclopedia. However, you are free to engage in renumeration if you find articles with incorrect numbering.--Fuhghettaboutit 12:55, 29 November 2006 (UTC)
(after edit conflict) Hi there! No, I'm afraid not, Wikipedia is edited solely by volunteers who donate their time to the greater cause of building an encyclopedia. We do it for a variety of reasons (to each their own), but hopefully all to derive some sense of enjoyment or accomplishment from editing. I hope you feel the same way, and stay with the project to share your expertise! :) — QuantumEleven 12:59, 29 November 2006 (UTC)
I agree. Wikipedia is non-profit, run by donations. But I commend your hard work. ~ Flameviper 17:41, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Searching for Vladimir

I wrote a brief Wikipedia article on Vladimir Vasiliev, one of ballet's greatest stars. When I do a search on the term Vladimir Vasiliev, the only thing that comes up is an article on a martial arts instructor,although the Vasiliev article on the ballet star (who I can only surmise is the most prominent Vasiliev) does exist in the list of my contributions. Why isn't it appearing?

Hi there! This is a very common question (see the Wikipedia Very Frequently Asked Questions) - the Wikipedia search index is only updated very slowly, so it may be some times before a newly created article shows up in the search. I hope that helps! — QuantumEleven 15:30, 29 November 2006 (UTC)
The search index is now rebuilt about every 30 hours, so the ballet dancer should (and does) turn up if you use the "search" button (as opposed to "go"). Since there are 3 articles with this name (there's a writer, too) it seems like a disambiguation page should be created with links to the various different articles. For an example of such a page, see Barry Smith. If you need help with this please don't hesitate to ask either here or directly on my talk page. -- Rick Block (talk) 21:50, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Special font

I want to post an article about Ediê (a conlang) and I' triying to write with Ediê font, but I didn't get it. is it possible???152.92.4.133 18:40, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

Since other people visiting Wikipedia won't have the Ediê font, and may not have any other particular one, you don't write articles with a particular font. However, if the characters used by the written language are in Unicode, you can use any Unicode character. Not all visitors can display all Unicode, but it is the best we can do for now.
Rather more important, though, would be adding some citations to show that this language project is notable enough for Wikipedia, or the article may not last the week. Notinasnaid 19:29, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Trademark

Does anyone know if there's a forum to discuss copyright status on WP images? I'm having a little trouble finding a place to ask my question. In particular, I'm concerned that WP doesn't use the Commons template (Commons:Template:Trademarked) for trademarked pictures such as pictures of products, etc. Does anyone know about this, or know where else I can ask this question? tiZom(2¢) 19:07, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

Actually, I just noticed that we do have Template:Trademarked, but it is not nearly as widespread as it should be. I guess I'm just curious as to why... tiZom(2¢) 19:27, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

It's pretty hard for me to figure out a use on Wikipedia that would violate the trademark (other, perhaps, than things like a "this user Hoover(tm)s up vandalism" userbox or something equally cretinous, all of which would violate the copyright anyway). If the template is intended to warn users about the non-wikipedia use (its wording is rather wooly) then it doesn't belong, as we're not here to offer legal advice. -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 19:49, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

So if someone takes a picture of a trademarked product (let's say for argument's sake Image:Pepsicup.jpg), and licenses it under GNU free doc license, then anyone can use this picture for any use (which may even involve commercial use), so long as they simply credit the photographer (User:Appraiser) Something about this just doesn't seem right... unless I'm missing something - which is often the case :o) tiZom(2¢) 20:08, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

Aha! I just found Wikipedia:General disclaimer#Trademarks. Case closed. tiZom(2¢) 20:38, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Entry date order, forwards or backwards?

Is there a rule? Here, for example, it is latest at bottom. But I notice that, for example, on the founder's talk page, it has latest on top. JohnClarknew 20:17, 29 November 2006 (UTC) —The preceding unsigned comment was added by JohnClarknew (talk • contribs) .

Comments on talk pages should always be left at the bottom (in fact, that's how the little plus sign at the top next to "edit this page" works). Where exactly are you seeing new comments on top? tiZom(2¢) 20:35, 29 November 2006 (UTC)
It would seem that JohnClarknew is referring to User talk:Jimbo Wales or Talk: Jimmy Wales.—WAvegetarian•(talk) 20:48, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

I am referring to User talk:Jimbo Wales/Edits JohnClarknew 21:02, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Am I being Stalked, Warned or what????

While reading about Wii I recieved these messages. Also why can I not leave him/her a message? --Darkest Hour 21:27, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

Missingo's page is protected. (so only admins can post)
He talked to you because he noticed that you do not contribute to anything but the talk/user talk namespace. Cbrown1023 21:33, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Possum

The article i read about the possum and it said that they don't eat meat. I se them rat fucking eating a stunk. How is that possible if they don't eat meat.

Probably because you are confusing possums with opossums. --Kainaw (talk) 21:45, 29 November 2006 (UTC)
Indeed. It came as a shock to me to find out there were two entirely different creatures pronounced the same way but spelled differently, that live on different sides of the world. Opossums, I believe, eat meat, but possums are herbivorous. Also, please refrain from the language, it's generally considered uncivil. DoomsDay349 22:10, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] ncaa division1 basketball teams schools who school title has college in it

ncaa division 1 basketball teams schools who school title has college in it

Wikipedia is an encyclopedia. Type NCAA into the search box and click "Go". --Kainaw (talk) 21:47, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] picture

i think i screwed up , i didn't mean to upload a copyrighted pic but i did, the pics name is Image:Ddpre.jpg. , if i can i wish to have deleted —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Batfanatic77 (talk • contribs) .

You can just tag them with {{db-author}}, which I've done. An admin will get to it shortly. Cheers!--Kchase T 22:36, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] splitting text into columns

Hi, can someone please tell me if it's possible to split lists into columns?

I know this can be done with references with

and so on - but it'd be really useful to do for things other than references, e.g. some of the longer see also lists at the bottom of pages, with the normal text. I can't seem to find anything about it in the help sections.

User:Wikidea

If I'm understanding you correctly, you can do it using {{col-begin}}, {{col-break}}, and {{col-end}}. I saw this done just the other day on the page for the Gap. See here to see how they did it. Hope this helps! tiZom(2¢) 23:09, 29 November 2006 (UTC)