Wikipedia:Help desk/Archives/2008 April 9

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[edit] April 9

[edit] Template for Welcoming Users, and suggesting creation of an account?

Resolved.

Hey there,

I'm looking for that template to welcome a user, and suggest the creation of an account, but I can't seem to find it. Help? Cheers, Perfect Proposal Speak Out! 00:27, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

{{anon-welcome}}. See Wikipedia:Welcoming committee/Welcome templates/Table for more. Martijn Hoekstra (talk) 00:30, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

Thanks. Perfect Proposal Speak Out! 00:34, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] hilp

i live in uae since 1983 <request for money removed> Email: <email removed for privacy> —Preceding unsigned comment added by 195.229.236.214 (talk) 06:04, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

Hello. I suspect, based on your question, that you found one of our over two 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. —teb728 t c 06:21, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] How to rename article page

I want to change the name of article can anybody please let me know how to do that KuwarOnline (talk) 07:26, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

Click on the move tab at the top of the page, and see WP:MOVE. Harland1 (t/c) 08:15, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Hide bars/navboxes on subpages

I've been trying to use hide bars and navboxes to manage large text blocks on a user sub page but they won't work; the bar appears, but without the tag to show/hide, so the contents are unreachable. Is this because they just won't work on a subpage, or is a piece of wikicode needed to work around? Retarius | Talk 07:48, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

Show/hide works for me on [1] in IE 7.0, but only after the whole long page has loaded. PrimeHunter (talk) 11:53, 9 April 2008 (UTC)
Yeah it works now too for me. I gave it plenty of time before and it had loaded before I tried to operate the bars. Must have been just a transient. Thanks for your help, PrimeHunter. Retarius | Talk 09:01, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Changing the title of an article

Please can you tell me the procedure for changing the title of an article. tomorrow the name of the organisation where I work will change, officially, and the organisation would like to change the title of the wikipedia article to reflect the fact.Juliahmadrid (talk) 08:50, 9 April 2008 (UTC) Thank you.

Click on the Move tab at the top of the article, see WP:MOVE Harland1 (t/c) 09:36, 9 April 2008 (UTC)
Only at least 4 days old accounts can move pages. The move tab will automatically appear then. PrimeHunter (talk) 11:45, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] how to edit the main heading

im not ablle to correct the name of 'bellampalle' to 'bellampalli' as it is entered wrongly by other user...plz help me —Preceding unsigned comment added by Hari4frens (talk • contribs) 09:30, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

It's been done. Harland1 (t/c) 09:37, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Offensive Image

Call me old fashioned but i found the this image: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Autofellatio_2.jpg rather offensive. Is such content allowed on WP? P.S. DONT LOOK IF YOU'ER UNDER 21 OR EASILY OFFENDED. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.69.175.62 (talk) 11:15, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia is not censored, there is a bad image list and you can set something to not show you images on that list though. --George D. Watson (Dendodge).TalkHelp 11:24, 9 April 2008 (UTC)
How did you "find" this image? Searching for Autofellatio perhaps? Astronaut (talk) 14:25, 9 April 2008 (UTC)
Im sorry, I thought this was a helpdesk, not a trial and persecution desk. If you really want to know what I was doing on that page then ask me on my talk page please. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.69.175.62 (talk) 14:56, 9 April 2008 (UTC)
Perhaps what Astronaut is saying is that you'd have to be looking for the subject to find the picture. And since Wikipedia is not censored, there's no reason under Wikipedia policy to remove it from the relevant article. Leebo T/C 15:01, 9 April 2008 (UTC)
Have you got any info about disabling such content dendodge? I have heard of such an option before but never found it. Thanks --Cameron (t|p|c) 20:27, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Loughborough Echo

The Loughborough Echo page contained a link to a competitor, inloughborough.com, which I deleted. I also added a link to the official blog of one of the reporters (myself). However each time I make these edits it is reverted back to the one containing a link to the competitor. The link to my blog is not the important part of this, but rather that people should be directed away from our business to a rival from wikipedia. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 217.196.231.33 (talk) 12:01, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

Since you are a reporter for this paper, you have a blatant conflict of interest, and should not generally be editing that article at all. --Orange Mike | Talk 12:58, 9 April 2008 (UTC)
And Wikipedia is not your personal advertising space. In the interests of neutrality it is common to have a "competitors" link on the wikipedia page. Woody (talk) 16:22, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Gallery tag

I have a question about the use of the <gallery> tag. I have noticed on wikipedia, that by default the gallery tag is 4 pictures wide, and that you can change the width by using perrow. However, on the commons, the gallery default changes by how wide your browser window is. Is there any reason wikipedia has this set as 4, and not by page width? Thanks. -mattbuck (Talk) 13:35, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

No idea, you might try over at WP:VPT, someone there might know. Woody (talk) 16:23, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Uncyclopedia copyright

There are a few images on uncyclopedia.org that I want to use on my userpage. I am unsure of the copyright status, though. There is a link to uncyclopedias copyright status at the bottom of each page, which states that the content of the page (I think it's the content of the page) must be used for noncommercial uses, and therefore can't be used on wikipedia. However, some image pages have a different copyright, such as [2], [3], and [4]. Can or can't I use these images?

Youre dreaming eh? (talk) 15:13, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

Well, it looks like Help desk volunteers are not exactly jumping all over this one. User pages on Wikipedia have lower priority than articles, so this might not be the type of question that elicits lots of help. We collaborate on articles (i.e., help each other write them), but when it comes to user pages, a little more self-reliance is in order. Plus, copyright questions are often hard. Peruse the links in WP:EIW#Copy. If an answer exists, it should be somewhere in there. If you can't find an answer, and nobody else steps up, then I would assume you can't use them. In general we err on the side of caution with copyrights. "If you have to ask...then don't use it" would be my advice. --Teratornis (talk) 04:21, 10 April 2008 (UTC)
Thanks for replying. For the sake of anyone else with the same question, I didn't find anything on WP:EIW#Copy, but I did find a fairly serously page on uncyclopedia that stated that everything on uncyclopedia is licensed under the same license, and therefore can't be used on wikipedia. Cheers! Youre dreaming eh? (talk) 05:20, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Wikipedia math notations don't print correctly anymore. How to fix that?

Wikipedia is my main source for acquiring math knowledge. But, I noticed a while back that math notations do not print correctly anymore. Do you know a way to fix that. Sympa (talk) 15:46, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

By "print" do you mean on paper? --Teratornis (talk) 04:22, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Justin Tuck

I am in the process of trying to get the Justin Tuck article to either GA or FA status, but would like more feedback - or just someone to give me the nod. How do I do this? Is there anyone I can approach to help me edit or critque the article? --Endless Dan 16:18, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

Yep, people listed at the volunteers page would be happy to help (including me). Woody (talk) 16:20, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] How can I sign my name properly

OK, i've been here for a while, but, i'm ashamed to admit, I havn't learned to sign my name properly yet. I just click sign your username, but i'm aware that it doesn't hyperlink my userpage/talkpage that way, so can someone tell me the proper way to sign off. Many thanks in advance - you all do sterling work on this talk page and are true unsung assets to this community. Jamesmh2006 16:44, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

To sign you just type ~~~~ at the end of your post. The ~ (which is called a tilde) is got by typing "shift#" on a British keyboard (it's next to the carriage return). DuncanHill (talk) 16:47, 9 April 2008 (UTC)
For un-British keyboards, this link explains where to find it. Tilde#Tilde_with_keyboards. DuncanHill (talk) 16:50, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

Thanks, but I already do that and for some reason it never 'hyperlinks' my userpage/talk page. Jamesmh2006 17:20, 9 April 2008 (UTC) <---- see

That's weird - I don't know why that should be. Hopefully, someone with more technical knowledge will be along soon! DuncanHill (talk) 17:23, 9 April 2008 (UTC)
Have you edited your signature in your preferences? If you did, I would recommend removing anything in the custom signature field. Leebo T/C 17:29, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

Nope, I havn't edited any preferences, they are all default. Hopefully someone will know what's up, it's been bugging me since i signed up 18 months ago, and i'm often getting in trouble because I usually leave it up to the bots to sign my name for me given that they do it correctly :(. --Jamesmh2006 17:50, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

In that case, have you tried adding a custom signature that would read correctly? I know it's not the simplest fix, but it's a viable work-around. Leebo T/C 17:52, 9 April 2008 (UTC)
Ok here goes.... Jamesmh2006 (talk) 18:09, 9 April 2008 (UTC) wooo it works! thank you!
I'm glad it worked. We may not solve the mystery, but at least you don't have to worry about it now. Leebo T/C 18:11, 9 April 2008 (UTC)
The problem was almost certainly that "Raw signature" was checked in preferences. That gives an unlinked signature when the signature field is empty. Unchecking it would have given the default signature. PrimeHunter (talk) 21:53, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] FRUSTRATED AND NEEDING ANSWERS! :-(

HOW THE F*** DO I GET INVOLVED WITH A PROJECT???? THIS IS GETTING me SO FRUSTRATED!!

ApsbaMd2 (talk) 17:07, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

Huh? By project, do you mean the encyclopedia? Go ahead and make whatever constructive edits you want- you don't need permission. Or, if you meant a Wikiproject, you might look at Wikipedia:Wikiprojects. Friday (talk) 17:09, 9 April 2008 (UTC)
Even with WikiProjects, you don't need permission. For instance, I'm a "member" of WikiProject Anime and Manga, but all that really means is that I edit articles covered by that project's scope. Leebo T/C 17:31, 9 April 2008 (UTC)
Also, I notice you edited the talk page for Wikipedia:WikiProject Seventh-day Adventist Church. Is that the project you want to be involved in? If so, you could add your name to the list of participants and take a look at the to-do list at the top of the page. There are things they want to work on, and I'm sure other participants would be happy to hear you want to help. Leebo T/C 17:38, 9 April 2008 (UTC)
I'm pretty sure Seventh Day Adventists frown on the word "F***". But maybe the church has a liberal wing now. Also, is your question specifically about Wikipedia? Sometimes the Help desk entertains questions from visitors who mistakenly believe Wikipedia is somehow involved with the subjects of our articles. In almost all cases we are not. --Teratornis (talk) 04:10, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Can I still write the same article after I got deletion?

I just wrote some article about an organization but I got deletion because of the article is too advertising. I was thinking to re-write the company again but I don't know if I still can wirte the same articleFreyachiang (talk) 17:53, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

Based on your deleted contributions, you did not create an article. You created your user page, User:Freyachiang. It was indeed deleted as spam. If you want to create an article (and it wasn't immediately clear to me what the subject was of your user page), you should probably review the guidelines regarding spam to avoid blatant advertising in the future. Leebo T/C 17:56, 9 April 2008 (UTC)
I think I see now. You were trying to write a draft of an article about Optec Displays? If that's the case, I would recommend doing so at User:Freyachiang/Optec Displays and then we can take a look and tell you want needs to be corrected so it can be moved to the encyclopedia. Leebo T/C 17:58, 9 April 2008 (UTC)
If you have a conflict of interest (e.g. this is your employer) then another option is to ask someone else to write an article at Wikipedia:Requested articles or Wikipedia:Bounty board; or as Leebo suggests, you can write the article yourself as a user sub-page, and then ask for help at Wikipedia:Articles for creation or Wikipedia:Conflict of interest/Noticeboard. What you should not do is try to repost the same contents that was deleted before. I hope this helps. Bovlb (talk) 15:55, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Can you help my friend please

Hi my friend just msn'd me and told me to paste the aforementioned onto this help desk because he is blocked from editing and can't do it himself, he is really upset. dont shoot the messenger.

"SOMEBODY PLEASE HELP ME!!! I HAVE BEEN UNFAIRLY BLOCKED FROM WP - SEE User talk:79.69.206.164.

"I would like this block to be repealed because I feel the blocking is wholly unfair. Please see the following examples:

Privyet Kak dilla? What do you mean exactly by trolling? kop koon krap. Sammy.

- this was reverted for vandalism when i was asking a genuine question. I noticed that the editor spoke some russian and thai so I was also trying to be nice.

afterwards i wrote:

OMG what is wrong with this place? I can't even ask a simple question without getting my edits reverted. ARGH!!! The admin who reverted that needs to read up his rule book again I think.

some consider this vandalism too apparently.

then I wrote on the admin in questions page:

Hi Why exactly did you revert my previous comment please? I'm not saying this goes for you, but sometimes I think the power goes to admin's heads a bit sometimes.

and then, as if to prove my point exactly, i was blocked for 24 hours :(

maybe WP should block User:ESkog‎ and User:Barneca‎ for 24hours and see how they like it, perhaps afterwards they might not be so trigger happy with their block bottons.

barneca (talk) then goes on to make false allegations:

For more background, this is the same user here, who received the full 4-level treatment. They then switched to this IP to make this exchange with me: [1]. When they pushed the boundaries to see if I meant it, I blocked. --barneca (talk) 17:54, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

Actually you're wrong, this: here has nothing to do with me. I wrote to you asking about why you blocked my IP 3 days ago. I believe that I was blocked because I didn't speak to you with the respect that you believe if your god given right now that you are an admin. Anyway, I doesn't change my opinion that User:ESkog‎ and User:Barneca‎ are bad admins, and their positions should be seriously questioned IMHO.

THANK YOU FOR LISTENING" —Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.69.179.248 (talk • contribs)

The unblock request for 79.69.206.164 was denied. The help desk is not the correct forum to address unblock requests or administrator behavior. Leebo T/C 18:40, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Hi

I was wondering, is it possible to go to jail for something you write on WP? Has there ever been such an instance? If there was a trial would WP send a Rep to defend free speech in a court of law? Thanks 79.69.179.248 (talk) 18:47, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

While I'm not aware of any such instance, we cannot provide legal advice, and discussing your potential liability for things you write on Wikipedia could be considered legal advice. Leebo T/C 18:53, 9 April 2008 (UTC)
Interesting question. I think, if it ever got to that point, it would be the Wikipedia Foundation that would be culpable for anything, not individual contributors. However, there are disclaimers such as wikipedia is not censored.WP:LEGAL might be a link that might interest you. Wisdom89 (T / C) 18:53, 9 April 2008 (UTC)
I have to disagree with you, Wisdom. I pretty sure that if the IP used to make any "indictable" edit could be traced, the person who wrote it would get the blame. If a person writes a bomb threat in a bathroom stall, the person who gets arrested is the one who wrote it, not the one who built the stall. Paragon12321 (talk) 22:17, 9 April 2008 (UTC)
In response to the second question, if there had been such an instance, it might have appeared in the Wikipedia:Signpost, and you can search the archives with this link:
I tried searching for a few keywords: criminal, prison, convicted. I didn't find anything relevant. But I didn't search exhaustively. --Teratornis (talk) 03:55, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] would my article about making improck be advertisement?

Ok i had this idea for a while to write about our band. Well the article (which is ready) isn't written by me, it's from a neutral point and it doesn't advertise our band. it tells about the philosophy behind the style of making music. This is kind a hard thing to explain but here it goes...

There are many many many different kind of bands in the world and i do not consider us being anything different from the rest. But our approach is. We are an improck band which means offcourse improvisation. well now you're thinking that there are many improvisation bands in the world. True. But we're not playing jazz, blues or proge rock or anything you're thinking of. We never play the same song twice. we record all our sessions and every session will be made to a record. lyrics and everything are created at the moment we push rec and start to play. and our songs may sound produced and written.. and cut and edited.. but they're not.

well maybe most of people doesn't think this is anything important but i would like to write (or put the written article) if not about us, then about improck.

now days people have forgotten what music can be.. and i'm not trying to be philosofical or anything but i am trying to point out the purity and honesty that Can be present when people play music. it's not allways written or produced and ok there's plenty of garage bands and improvisation bands and major label bands that are jamming in the end of a gig. but that's the thing. you consider them as improvisation band. as we like to f**k with people and make them think we're a regular band which writes the songs etc. and most of the time when we tell people that the vocals were freestyle, the guitar riffs and the drums and everything were improvisation the don't believe us..

so if you can understand these points (my englidh is bad i know) i would love to get some feedback to my question;

how can i write about this style of making music in the monent? where everything about music is forgotten but still being kind of serious and consious about what is happening.

Tomi Forsblom (talk) 18:52, 9 April 2008 (UTC)Tomi "Mr Right from The Monos" Forsblom

You would need to be mindful of the following in order to create such an article: conflict of interest (since you are affiliated with the subject) and notability in music. The latter is arguably more important in this instance, as it would determine whether the article meets our criteria for inclusion. Wisdom89 (T / C) 18:55, 9 April 2008 (UTC)
Also relevant here would be our "no original research" principle. This is not a venue for original work, but for aggregating reports by other, impartial reliable sources. --Orange Mike | Talk 20:29, 9 April 2008 (UTC)
In this regard, you could write about the band’s philosophy only if independent reliable sources have commented on that philosophy. —teb728 t c 22:44, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Is it possible to view WP accounts?

I'm interested in seeing where the money raised from fundraising ends up. thanks. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.69.179.248 (talk) 18:59, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Citeing a forum

Can you site a forum as a source? Because i read that it was counted as original research but i have also seen links to forums to confirm a point. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Willotter (talk • contribs) 19:21, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

No forums are not considered reliable sources as they are not verifiable. Under some exceptional circumstances it may be acceptable, e.g. JK Rowling writing on a forum to make a statement. Woody (talk) 19:49, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

Thank you. Willotter (talk) 20:12, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Cannot delete link on page

Cannot delete the "J. D. Irving" link from "the Pages in category "Newspaper companies of Canada"" section. It is inacurate and should not be there.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Newspaper_companies_of_Canada

How do I go about doing that?

198.73.131.132 (talk) 19:21, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

That is a category page - you would need to go to the JD irving page, and remove the [[Category:Newspaper companies of Canada]] link near the bottom of the page. -mattbuck (Talk) 19:22, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] download

can i download songs here without paying any money —Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.188.241.218 (talk) 22:39, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

If they are here, yes, you can download them for free. However, the songs are encoded in the Ogg filetype, which many computers may be unable to play. Calvin 1998 (t-c) 22:55, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Question

If a person signed an arbitrator's agreement and recieved merchidise ex.(entertainment center). The person did'nt return the merchindise. What are the ways they can be punished and how fast? —Preceding unsigned comment added by YJenkins (talk • contribs) 22:49, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

The Help desk is only for questions specifically about using Wikipedia. You may want to re-post this question at the Reference desk, where they accept other questions. Calvin 1998 (t-c) 22:53, 9 April 2008 (UTC)
The reference desk, however, can't provide legal advice any more than the help desk. —teb728 t c 23:09, 9 April 2008 (UTC)
See Wikipedia:Legal disclaimer. --Teratornis (talk) 00:22, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Comparative Distance Links

For one example, the article Castle Rising, about a village in England, contains this sentence (shown as "nowiki"):

The village is situated some [[1 E3 m|8 km]] north-east of the town of [[King's Lynn]] and [[1 E4 m|60 km]] west of the city of [[Norwich]].

The first link leads to an article from which one can learn that the distance between King's Lynn and Castle Rising is greater than the depth of the Cayman Trench, the deepest point in the Caribbean Sea, not as large as the height of Mount Everest, and equal to the diameter of Themisto, one of Jupiter's moons.

My question is, are such links just inserted at the whim of individual editors, or is there a master strategy to provide such links for all distances in Wikipedia? Wanderer57 (talk) 23:44, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

I followed the first link to 1 E3 m to see what you describe. The page looks pretty self-explanatory to me. It's in Category:Orders of magnitude (length), whose {{Main}} article is: Orders of magnitude (length). I checked its talk page, Talk:Orders of magnitude (length) in hopes of finding a WikiProject banner template, but no such luck. It seems some Wikipedia users have created a whole set of orders of magnitude pages, but not under the aegis of a WikiProject. That surprises me, as I would think such a coordinated effort would have been. In any case, it's common in the quantitative fields of physics, chemistry, astronomy, cartography, geography, etc., to have numbers that vary over many orders of magnitude. Since humans generally lack an intuitive understanding of exponential functions, there are books and so on which try to illustrate the enormous quantitative variation in nature, and clearly some Wikipedia users implemented something similar here. Cheers for them. --Teratornis (talk) 00:48, 10 April 2008 (UTC)
It was made by User:Chris j wood in [5] from February 2006. I have not seen this done before and have posted to him. It looks a little odd and unneeded to me. PrimeHunter (talk) 00:47, 10 April 2008 (UTC)
I support orders of magnitude articles and contribute to Orders of magnitude (numbers). The point here is whether it's appropriate to link to them from arbitrary articles which are not about distance but just in passing mention something like "60 km" with a piped link to 1 E4 m. Such a link seems potentially confusing to me and I don't think it helps the typical reader of the article who probably knows what "60 km" is. PrimeHunter (talk) 01:56, 10 April 2008 (UTC)
I find date links such as 2008 even more vexingly irrelevant, most of the time. When a date appears in article context with a link, the resulting article almost never has anything to do with the first article. When I was still new enough to Wikipedia to imagine everything should make sense, I found that troubling. I was hoping to see other events in the given year that related to the article I was just reading. (Which would often be quite useful.) Anyway, I've long wished for links to contain relevance coefficients, so we could filter them with a preferences setting (a user could opt not to see links with low relevance). Another possible measure of relevance would be whether the linked-to article links back to the first article. --Teratornis (talk) 03:41, 10 April 2008 (UTC)
I made the above edit some years ago, before the {{convert}} template existed. I would now use that template in preference. The reason I used to use the order of magnitude links, and now use the convert template, is precisely because you cannot assume that all readers have a good feel for any single distance measurement unit. Eg. US readers may well not understand Kms; other readers may well not understand miles. -- Chris j wood (talk) 10:23, 10 April 2008 (UTC)
Thanks for the explanation. I have changed the article to use {{convert}}. PrimeHunter (talk) 12:44, 10 April 2008 (UTC)