Wikipedia:Help desk/Archives/2007 March 24

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[edit] March 24

[edit] Reenactor Entertainment

The official Reenactor Entertainment Wiki suddenly disapeared. As CEO and founder of Reenactor Entertainment, I issue a concern over this. As I was updating the Wiki, it suddenly disapeared. This is much to me and my colleagues suprise, since it has been up for several years, and in 5 minutes the entire Wiki dissapears. It seems as though the most likely thing that happened was that your database was having issues and Wikipedia temporarily glitched and all or most of its pages were temporarily (or with a very slim chance) permenantly deleted. Reenactor Entertainment will be willing to work with Wikipedia in fixing this problem.

Ah, no. That was definitely deleted by me, because the article failed to assert any notability. Also, you should not edit pages that you have a conflict of interest with, since you will almost always be biased. And I see the page as only being there for about five months (since 11 November 2006), not several years. Veinor (talk to me) 21:37, 23 March 2007 (UTC)
(edit conflict) According to the log, it was deleted as it did not give any assertion of notability (see here for more details on the policy). If you disagree, you can nominate it for undeletion at WP:DRV. As you say you work for the company, I would not suggest that you rewrite the article yourself, per WP:COI. Mr.Z-mantalk¢Review! 21:38, 23 March 2007 (UTC)
That article was deleted at 21:26, 23 March 2007, by administrator Veinor. He supplied the reason as "A7; no claims of notability". Take a look at Wikipedia:Notability, as well as WP:CSD (what the A7 refers to). Prodego talk 21:40, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

Reenactor Entertainment would be glad to aid Wikipedia in getting thier database back. If you do not have a backup of a previous time in Wikipedia, you may try This Way Back Machine.

There was no sort of database loss. The page was intentionally deleted because it failed to assert that Reenactor Entertainment satisfied the notability guidelines. Veinor (talk to me) 21:42, 23 March 2007 (UTC)
  • Side note: you should probably read the definition of the word wiki. If you want an official Reenactor Entertainment wiki, you can read up on how to start your own site using wiki software. There's nothing official about the page otherwise, because articles aren't owned by any particular editor, others would be allowed to edit it too here on Wikipeda. - Mgm|(talk) 21:45, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

User:xgmx As CEO and founder of Reenactor Entertainment, I must have been wrong as to the exact date that the Wiki was created, I assumed it was several years old since, I founded Reenactor in 2005. However it appears we didn't get noticed by Wikipedia until late 2006. <spam removed - Corvus cornix 22:25, 23 March 2007 (UTC)>

As Mgm's side note above indicates, "Wiki" refers to a whole wiki site, not just one particular page on a wiki site. Please read the wiki article carefully. Wikipedia is an example of a wiki (a very large and popular one); there are thousands of wikis. If you want to start your own wiki, which you can control completely, see MediaWiki and b:Wiki Science/How to start a wiki. If you merely want to get your now-deleted Wikipedia article back up on some other wiki, you can search WikiIndex for a wiki which would welcome your content. There are wikis for almost every sort of content anyone would want to write, so you can probably find a wiki which will accept your article even if Wikipedia does not. --Teratornis 00:30, 24 March 2007 (UTC)
You could also look at Wikipedia:Alternative outlets for places where an article on your company would be acceptable. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 01:06, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] wikpedia programing code?

I would like to create some type of code that could be pasted into any category and cause the articles to be rearranged by distance from a particular location. Any suggestions about how I might go about this? Irate velociraptor 22:05, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

Simply put, not possible. There's no way to do that in the underlying MediaWiki software. Veinor (talk to me) 22:06, 23 March 2007 (UTC)
Not exactly what you asked for, but there seem to be ways to link the geographical coordinates in (some) Wikipedia articles to maps:
--Teratornis 00:41, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] HOW DO I DELET MY WIKIPEDIA ACCOUNT?

How do I delete my Wikipedia account? I want to delete my user name and password. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Rampa Zinuru (talk • contribs) 13:09, 24 March 2007

It isn't possible. Sorry. PTO 02:10, 24 March 2007 (UTC)
Read Right to Vanish and also know that you can scramble your password (don't know how it's done but I know users who have done it). Anchoress 02:12, 24 March 2007 (UTC)
You can put {{db-author}} on your userpage and talk page to request that they be deleted. Scottydude 15:54, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] hello

i have a qusestion, installed pictures on araden , but now i want to delete them and they are keep turning up. whey is that/... please delete them for ever. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Bhirmiz (talk • contribs) 14:21, 24 March 2007

See Wikipedia:Images_for_deletion to request for their deletion. --Spebi 03:44, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] My Story disappeared

And I was wondering where it went, there is no log of it! And it was available on wiki search. What is going on with this system?

thanks, -Rodger Nugent —Preceding unsigned comment added by Rodger.nugent (talk • contribs) 17:23, 24 March 2007

Perhaps it was deleted--$UIT 06:32, 24 March 2007 (UTC)
What was the article name? --Spebi 06:38, 24 March 2007 (UTC)
It most likely was deleted - have a read of Why was my page deleted? to find out more. -- Chairman S. Talk Contribs 06:51, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] photos

The photos in Wikipedia articles do not appear in my browser. Only a blank space with a tiny square with a red X appears. Is there something wrong with my browser? I don't have this problem with other websites.

Did you try refreshing?--$UIT 07:26, 24 March 2007 (UTC)
Some advert-blockers are a little overzealous and end up blocking Wikipedia's image servers by mistake. If you're using an ad-blocker, look through its list of blocked sites and remove anything thing containing wikipedia.org or wikimedia.org. --ais523 17:11, 24 March 2007 (UTC)
And some block third-party sites for a webpage - i.e. if I put a Google image on my forum, it would be blocked - so you might want to add upload.wikimedia.org and commons.wikimedia.org to the whitelist. x42bn6 Talk 18:49, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Question about WikiTables...

Well, I decided to make myself in charge of the Comparison of portable media players article, and I always wanted to find ways to enhance it. Then, I came across another article with tables, Road to the 79th Academy Awards. I wanted to use that article's table format (List section). Can someone teach me to make that kind of table? (Ascending/Descending switches) --Jw21 (PenaltyKillah) 07:32, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

It's pretty easy to change to format. All you do is swap the line class="wikitable" with class="wikitable sortable". -- Chairman S. Talk Contribs 08:11, 24 March 2007 (UTC)
Thanks! Is there also a way to make those tables, which have columns and sub-columns, sortable too?--Jw21 (PenaltyKillah) 09:46, 24 March 2007 (UTC)
I don't think so, sorry. -- Chairman S. Talk Contribs 11:57, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Links

I'm confused about something:

  • Is it really necessary to add external link in an article? What if, that notable article didn't have weblink? For example: Organization (University, School, Company), Place and other notable topic that doesn't have weblink. I found some University and school article that don't have website, but it's notable.
  • Are organizations, place and other notable topics (except biography) website considered to be self-published website? Can I take information from its own website and write it in my own words?
  • And also Can I use notable topics website as reference? For example: Using University/school/organization website as a reference in its own article? THANKS in advance.--203.202.246.133 08:45, 24 March 2007 (UTC)
  • Here's what I consider to be the answers: 1) No, external links aren't required as long as you have sources (web or paper ones) to verify the information in the article. Entries don't have to have external links. 2) Any website a person or organization writes about themself is technically self-published. It's okay to take information from such places, but you have to have other sources to determine their notability, because no one is qualified or neutral enough to determine that about themselves. 3) I think this was already covered in question 2. - Mgm|(talk) 13:08, 24 March 2007 (UTC)
In general, it has been decided that accredited universities and schools are notable. This is because there are usually quite a lot of published sources describing them. If you can find no other source than the organization's website then it may not be notable. I would say that the organization's website couldn't be used to establish notability as it is self-published, but could be used a source for claims in the article and probably should be listed in the external links section. The relevant guidelines are Wikipedia:External links and Wikipedia:Notability.—WAvegetarian (talk) 13:09, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Vandal Removing Speedy Deletes

There is a situation where a guy is removing my speedy delete from a page he created. But he is using two IPs and a user account. It's only happened once so far, but what do you do if a guy is removing Speedy Deletes off of articles he created? And I'm 100% certain the article qualifies for speedy delete, if you want proof it is this junk Roy Kelly article. Twipie 08:53, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

Revert, report user to AIV. -Wooty Woot? contribs 09:02, 24 March 2007 (UTC)
  • Reporting them as a vandal seems a bit WP:BITEY. You should probably make them aware you can't remove speedy tags. If that fails, you can tell them which rules it violates or put it on AFD. Mgm|(talk) 13:03, 24 March 2007 (UTC)
Use the Template:uw-speedy user warning series (uw-speedy1.....to uw-speedy4) on their talk page. --TeckWiz ParlateContribs@ 13:54, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for that guys. And I called the person a vandal because the whole page was just a page filled with a whole bunch of swearing in CAPS. --Twipie 19:00, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Templates for Characters of Books

On an arcticle about a book character, how do I get a profile, like Template:Inheritance Character Box? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Crazymagic (talk • contribs) 22:16, 24 March 2007

Template:Inheritance Character box has lower case b. Click edit at Durza for an example of how to use it. If the character is from another book which has no template (make sure of that first), then you can create one, e.g. by copying and modifying Template:Inheritance Character box. It's probably only worth making a template if it's likely to be used several times. You can ask for help at Wikipedia:Requested templates. PrimeHunter 12:03, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] How do I keep my entry from getting deleted?

Hello. I have posted an article relating to an ecommerce site that I have and for whatever reason it has been deleted! Why did this happen and how can I help from getting my future articles erased? Sevonne 11:59, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Why was my page deleted? for some helpful information. -SpuriousQ (talk) 12:05, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

Also see Wikipedia:deletion policy and Wikipedia:criteria for speedy deletion thanks. Retiono Virginian 17:06, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Adding a URL link to a page

I'm the Editor and Publisher of the Website Digital Cinema Report and would like to add a link to my site to you section on digital cinema. How can I do that? Thanks. 68.193.92.186 13:49, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Issues re. "No original research"

A recent biography about a living person (from a first-time publisher) widely makes considerable use of highly biased web-based material from dubious sources.

It is acceptable to use such a source to inform a Wikipedia article? Revera 13:59, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia has a policy of NPOV. If the article is neutral, that it's acceptable, but the NPOV links should be decreased or even removed. The Evil Clown Please review me! 14:08, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

  • Of course, you mean POV links. If they were NPOV there wouldn't be a problem to begin with. (The N in NPOV stands for neutral.). - Mgm|(talk) 16:35, 24 March 2007 (UTC)
Perhaps more relevant policies are WP:BLP and WP:ATT, particularly the section about reliable sources. A bio on a living person should not be using dubious sources and any poorly sourced contentious content must be removed. -SpuriousQ (talk) 16:51, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Why doesn't the MediaWIki software...

... allow for redirects to Special pages? Is there a rationale (like the rationale for not allow double or triple redirects), or is it simply a technical limitation that might eventually be overcome? \sim Lenoxus " * " 15:42, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

I know some wikis that run off this software that do. I'm puzzled about this one, too. -- Casmith_789 (talk) 16:15, 24 March 2007 (UTC)
I'm fairly sure that special pages, at least here, are coded such that the messages like "redirected from X" don't show up. Problem with that is, it would be a big pain to have to clean up vandalous redirects to special pages, because there's no way to get to the redirected pages without handcoding the URL to stop redirection. -Amarkov moo! 16:20, 24 March 2007 (UTC)
Special pages don't display the 'redirected from' message, so on Wikipedia they can't be redirect targets to prevent hard-to-revert vandalism. (Some other wikis allow such redirects.) --ais523 17:10, 24 March 2007 (UTC)
The mediawiki can do redirects to special pages. I've done it myself with a mediawiki installation I host for friends. However, as Ais523 brought up, Wikipedia has to deal with a lot more vandalism. I bet Wikimedia turns off this option for the Wikipedia. —Mitaphane ?|! 19:03, 24 March 2007 (UTC)
Thanks for the responses? So I guess correcting the redirects, if Wikipedia allowed them would for some reason take more trouble than other redirect correction? That's what I'm not getting. \sim Lenoxus " * " 17:29, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Preferences

How do I change my preferences for skin back to default. I am stuck in a skin I do not like. BullardJournal 16:58, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

You logon (if you haven't), and their is a link (my preferences, 3rd left on default). You click skin (2nd left) and you have a few choices, one of them Monobook, is the default. The Evil Clown Please review me! 17:01, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

Use this link to open your preferences in the default skin, and select Monobook for your skin and save your preferences (it's the default). --ais523 17:08, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Copied article

Hi - I have a question about an existing article. I happened to notice that the "history" section of the article 102d Fighter Wing is a word-for word copy of the homepage of the same group. Is that ok? Is it bad? Should I delete it and rewrite it as a paraphrasing of the history? Not sure what to do. Thanks, --Bmk 18:39, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

You could tag it as a copy violation, but if you are able to rewrite it, then that is the most effective action. It could use some improvement anyway, particularly the sub-headings towards the end of the article. Adrian M. H. 18:48, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] ebu tribe

i am tring to find some information on tis tribe who reside in nigera —Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.5.218.57 (talk) 06:07, 25 March 2007

Your question is then better placed in Wikipedia:Reference Desk, the place to ask question about factual information. This page is for question about how to use Wikipedia. -- Ynhockey (Talk) 19:23, 24 March 2007 (UTC)
Do you mean the Igbo people? Clarityfiend 21:25, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Image placement

How can I position two images so that they're side by side. Archway has them badly placed. Clarityfiend 20:44, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

Where would you like them to be? (I ask in case it's not possible.) Adrian M. H. 22:05, 24 March 2007 (UTC)
I've tidied their position a little bit, but you may want to have a go at floating one of them so that they are side by side. It is possible, with a bit of tweaking, by placing one image in its own div. Adrian M. H. 22:09, 24 March 2007 (UTC)
It looks okay as it is now, but I was wondering if it was possible to have the list on the left, with one image in the center and one to its right, so the images wouldn't run on past the text. Clarityfiend 23:44, 24 March 2007 (UTC)
That would be too wide for smaller screens, unless you set the images considerably smaller, so the formatting would be thrown off. Smaller screens have to be catered for. Adrian M. H. 16:52, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Adding photos to a page

How do I add a photo to a page? Kyle Thomas 22:21, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

[[Image:nameofimage.jpg|thumb|250px|This is an image|left]] - The pixel size is both flexible and optional: you can use a smaller/larger size or not at all (though the default is a bit too small, I think). The "left" bit sets the image to the left and should only be used when appropriate, such as with multiple images throughout a body of text. Include a suitable caption. Adrian M. H. 22:29, 24 March 2007 (UTC)
Oh, and I forgot to add that most images can be found on Wiki Commons, though some get uploaded only to this Wiki. Adrian M. H. 22:31, 24 March 2007 (UTC)
See Help:Images for some more basic instruction on inserting images in Wikipedia articles. -- Chairman S. Talk Contribs 01:53, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Lost Password

Hello - let me provide some constructive feedback - the UI for contacting someone to seek help on a lost password is very confusing and I could not figure out where to go so my apologies in advance if this is not the right place.

Some time ago - years - I created the login name of Qwiki but cannot recall the password. How may I retrieve it?

Many thanks,

Karl —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.56.197.60 (talk) 10:06, 25 March 2007

You can only do so using the 'Email new password' feature on the login screen, and this means that you need to have set an email address when you had access to the account. If not, then there's nothing you can do and you'll have to create a new account. If you made no edits or log actions with the original account, you may want to fill out a usurpation request to rename the original account so that you can adopt the name, but requests are usually only granted to 'reasonably well-established users'. mattbr 23:28, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Archiving

How do I archive my talk page? I just want to archive my 2006 entries on my talk page. Thanks. --ASDFGHJKL=Greatest Person Ever+Coolest Person Ever 23:10, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

See WP:ARCHIVE and the cut-and-paste method. mattbr 23:31, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] .png to .svg help

I'm having a tougher time than I thought converting from .png to .svg! I downloaded like 4 programs, and none of them seem to work. Could someone who knows what they're doing either talk me through a quick conversion, or if you have a program, say so so that I can upload the images and you could do it for me. Thanks. └Jared┘┌talk┐  23:56, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

Another problem I am having is getting the images in the first place. There are 5 candidate logos in this pdf that I want to take out. They are in SVG now, so anything I do to them (like put them into photoshop) un-svg's them. Could someone help me get these extracted from the PDF? └Jared┘┌talk┐  00:14, 25 March 2007 (UTC)
I don't know about SVG programs, but you should note that using SVG images of logos is discouraged (as described at Wikipedia:Logos) as this can infringe on fair use as the images are not at a low resolution. mattbr 01:12, 25 March 2007 (UTC)
It is very hard (almost impossible) to convert PNGs to SVGs because png is a raster graphics type while svg is a vector type. Converting between these (especially from raster to vector) causes severe distortion that is noticeable when magnifying the image. See Vector_graphics & Raster_graphics for more info. - Hdt83 | Talk 01:27, 25 March 2007 (UTC)
Conversion is very difficult to achieve. You'd have to redraw them completely. 59.183.57.203 05:51, 25 March 2007 (UTC)
Raster to vector conversion requires complex pattern recognition skills that humans are still able to do better than computers. The inability of computers to recognize arbitrary objects in a bitmap image is the basis for CAPTCHA technology. Which means if there was an automatic, robust PNG to SVG converter, we would need some trickier way to determine whether a remote user is a human. --Teratornis 11:31, 25 March 2007 (UTC)