Wikipedia:Help desk/Archives/2008 May 21

Help desk
< May 20	<< Apr | May | Jun >>	May 22 >

Welcome to the Wikipedia Help Desk Archives
The page you are currently viewing is an archive page. While you can leave answers for any questions shown below, please ask new questions on one of the current Help Desk pages.

May 21

Registered name not appearing after edition

Hi! I had registered my name on wikipedia.For two days my name did appear after editions,but now only I P No. appears.How to get my regd. name again.My registered name was sudhirbhargava

--117.198.128.108 (talk) 01:43, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

Are you logging in? Wisdom89 _{(T / ^C)} 01:46, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

You're not stating quite enough for us to tell what's going on so here's a bunch of answers to possible scenarios your post suggests to me. First, as Wisdom suggests, have you logged in? If you're having trouble doing that because you forgot your password, then you can request Wikipedia email you it (there's a button for this on the page I just linked). However, this will only work if you supplied your email address when you signed up. If you didn't, and can't remember your password, then you pretty much have to sign up for a new account; you password is unretrievable. If you're successfully logging in, but then soon afterwards it switches back to your ip address, make sure your have your computer set to allow cookies. If none of this addresses your issue, please add some detail about exactly what is going on.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 03:27, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

A small note: by "editions," I assume you mean "additions"? (Remember to always sign on talkpages and other discussions, but not on articles.) $\sim$ Lenoxus " * " 00:54, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

conflict of interest: neutral editor sought to make correction

Resolved

An article about a different company wrongly attributes one of my company's features to them. To avoid conflict of interest I don't want to correct things myself, and no one took notice of a notice I posted on their discussion page a year ago.

In the article "Annals of Improbable Research", the third paragraph, "AIR received attention ..." actually refers to the magazine I now own, The Journal of Irreproducible Results, which also has a Wikipedia article. The article that paragraph is about was published in JIR's volume 25, #4, 1979. That was years before AIR even existed.

If you took that paragraph whole, and changed AIR to JIR, and transplanted it into the article about JIR, everything would be factually correct.

The owner-editor of AIR used to be editor of JIR. He had a big disagreement with the then-owner, and went off and set up his own magazine, AIR. He also had a big disagreement with the next owner of JIR. Then I bought JIR in 2004. Now, AIR and JIR are at peace, and no one is saying or doing anything bad to or about the other. I don't want to violate any conflict-of-interest principles, nor cause a hassle. I just want to correct a long-standing error that misleads readers about which famous articles appeared in which magazines.

I will be happy to supply whatever supplementary information you wish.

—Preceding unsigned comment added by StarryEye (talk • contribs) 01:51, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

Please do not add personal info in your message. Thank you. --RyRy5 (talk ♠ copy-edit) 01:53, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

You may want to post this on the article's talk page to bring this to the attention of other editors who are involved with that article. You can reach this page by clicking the "discussion" tab that appears at the top of the page when viewing the article. Hersfold ^(t/a/c) 02:28, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

I've looked into the issue, and agree that the paragraph was in the wrong article, so I've moved the paragraph over and added a rationale on the discussion page. Hopefully I haven't been too bold. - Bilby (talk) 02:57, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

How to allow only Wikipedia editors to edit an article

Resolved

Hi. How do you allow only wikipedia editors to edit an article and block non-editors with I.P. addresses from editing an article? Sonic99 (talk) 03:09, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

Well, you would have to be an administrator or request at WP:RFPP. Hope that helps. :) --RyRy5 (talk ♠ copy-edit) 03:14, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

But note that there has to be a good reason for it, like recent heavy vandalism. Calvin 1998 ^(t-c) 03:21, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

Oh, and it's called protection, and the relevant policy page is here. Calvin 1998 ^(t-c) 03:23, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

Also, what you are talking about "preventing IPs from editing articles", that is called semi-protection. Admins can actually block wikipedia users also from editing fully protected pages so that IPs and users can't edit them and only admins can.--RyRy5 (talk ♠ copy-edit) 03:28, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

What exactly are you attempting to accomplish here. Just a reminder about ownership of all wikipedia content. Tiggerjay (talk) 05:14, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

Effectively it's only technically possible in response to an incident, usually high levels of vandalism. The rest of the criteria for semi-protection is in the protection policy. Your page will not be protected if it doesn't meet those criteria. Thanks, PeterSymonds (talk) 06:47, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

Also note that everyone who edits Wikipedia is an "editor" whether they have created an account or not. The correct terms are "registered editors" and "unregistered editors." A registered editor can also edit as an unregistered editor by not logging in before editing, so one might also speak of "logged-in editors" and "non-logged-in editors." At the moment, the English Wikipedia has 48,340,960 registered editors, not all of whom are active, distinct, or even necessarily alive (may they rest in peace). --Teratornis (talk) 15:35, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

Since unregistered editors account for about 97% of vandalism on Wikipedia, perhaps your question is really a question about your "step" rather than your "goal" (see How to ask questions the smart way for an explanation of "step" and "goal"). If your goal is to fight vandalism, see WP:EIW#Vandal. --Teratornis (talk) 16:06, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

is Kerala land ecsclamated from the sea?

Resolved

There are foklores and stories that God has created Kerala, or the land has ecsclamated from the sea millions ofyears ago when main land of india joined with the northern land. Please give some insight to this. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 59.96.105.117 (talk) 07:46, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

The help desk is only for help needed for USING wikipedia. It seems your question is non-wikipedia related. --RyRy5 (talk ♠ copy-edit) 07:49, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

invisible spans

Resolved

Hi !

I just removed 3 span visibility="hidden" from Elderly Instruments (the current frontpage FA), to me it looked like pure vandalism. I just wanted to make sure I was doing the right thing, since this is a high-visibility article currently.

Is there in general any reason to have sections in articles that are invisible ? Or are these always vandalism, except perhaps when they contain information meant for other editors ? Eivind Kjørstad (talk) 08:27, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

Okay, let me have a look. Give me a minute. Steve Crossin (talk) (review) 08:29, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

Yep, seems to be vandalism to me, no doubt. Generally, I can't see any reason that something should be hidden in an article. Glad I could help out. Steve Crossin (talk) (review) 08:32, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

I thougth so. If something was removed for being somehow inapropriate it'd make more sense to simply delete it -- seeing as we've got version-control and thus the ability to reinstate deleted text if needed anyway. Thank you for your help ! Eivind Kjørstad (talk) 09:06, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

Uploading Images - size and method question

Two questions both quite simple but I cannot find a definitive answer:

1. A 10MP camera will grab a 5MB JPG file, should I downsample the images first or just upload them 'as-is'? I am guessing you want them verbatim but thought I would check
2. Is there an interactive utility for uploading images? On an ADSL line it takes some minutes with the browser doing nothing. If there is a problem it can take five minutes to find out :) I am using Windows.

RobChafer (talk) 09:55, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

1. Depends on what you are doing with the image and the article. Should it be cropped to better illustrate the subject? If the images are not copyrighted, consider uploading them to Wikimedia Commons.
2. The upload file page is it. Even on a faster connection, it can sometimes sit in dumb and happy mode for a bit.

--— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk - 10:14, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

Need help archiving my talk page.

I have been trying for a long time now to archive my talk page using Mizabot. I tried almost all options given by this bot like, limiting size of the talkpage, archiving the threads based on some days, archiving the talk page based on the days, etc...but none seem to work. These are current settings-
{{User:MiszaBot/config |counter = 1 |algo = old(5d) |maxarchivesize = 10K |archive = User talk:gppande/Archive %(counter)d }} {{archivebox|auto=yes}}
Can someone have a look at it and help me. My talkpage is getting too big to handle. --gppande «talk» 10:49, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

I think the archive page needs to be created before the bot will start to archive. Should work now. You can always cut and paste too. -CWY2190(talk • contributions) 15:17, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

• Your user name needs to be capitalized. User talk:Gppande/Archive That is an easy thing to miss. Gtstricky^{Talk or C} 15:22, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

I tried to capitalize my username completely - GPPANDE and didn't work. So I have modified to below - let's see if this works today. I appreciate your help here. --gppande «talk» 15:47, 22 May 2008 (UTC)
{{User:MiszaBot/config |counter = 1 |algo = old(5d) |maxarchivesize = 10K |archive = User talk:Gppande/Archive %(counter)d }} {{archivebox|auto=yes}}

Infobox_road map size

Is it possible to scale the map size in {{Infobox_road}} to match the width of the main image at Historic Michigan Boulevard District?--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTM) 15:41, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

If you set the infobox parameter map_custom = yes then you can use a standard image link ([[Image:Example.jpg|parameters]]) instead of just entering the image name and having the template set the standard image options. Hope that helps. haz (talk) 15:46, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

And if you haven't memorized the standard image options, see: Help:Images and other uploaded files. Incidentally, Template:Infobox road/doc could do a better job of explaining how to use the map_custom option in conjunction with the map option. At the moment one pretty much has to read the template code to figure out how that works. --Teratornis (talk) 16:13, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

Indeed, that's how I had to work it out... the {{infobox road}} documentation mentions the map_custom field, but doesn't give any tips on how to use it. haz (talk) 16:27, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

I remember this template from a previous question. The parameter map_notes is not documented at all. --—— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk - 17:26, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

Well, if we see an internal document on Wikipedia that is missing some needed information, and the missing information generates questions on the Help desk, that situation is crying out for someone to fix it. There is a tendency for people to figure something out, and then once they know the information they need, they don't think about the next unlucky user who will have to reinvent the same wheel. I'm as guilty of that as anyone, but for Wikipedia to advance at maximum efficiency, we should try to feed back our improvements into the manuals as we find deficiencies. On the Help desk we should not only answer questions, but try to figure out why the answer wasn't obvious to the questioner, and then see if we can make it more obvious to the next user who stumbles into the same situation. So I tried. --Teratornis (talk) 23:20, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

Wikilinks

Resolved

 – Answered elsewhere.--Tikiwont (talk) 16:46, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

I don't know how to link Peter Tork's name to his page. Someone please explain . . . Hmichele (talk) 16:32, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

WikiProject

Resolved

 – User appears to have done what is wanted. x42bn6 Talk Mess 22:28, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

I've worked on other wikis without WikiProjects. How do you join. Do I add my name to a list or something? Could you give me some links. Its the Simpsons WikiProject I want to join, as I did some work on Pray Anything. Doughnuts...Mmm! (talk) 17:17, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

The Simpsons WikiProject has instructions at Wikipedia:WikiProject The Simpsons#Participants. Follow those instructions; if you need help, fire away. x42bn6 Talk Mess 17:22, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

General information about WikiProjects is at WP:PROJ and WP:PROJGUIDE. More technical details: WP:EIW#WikiProject. --Teratornis (talk) 01:01, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

Howto link a definition?

It seems that the only allowed internal link targets are pages, and sections within a page. I would like to link to a definition term (as in a definition list used as a glossary). Is there any way to do this?

If not, might I suggest that the list of internal link targets be expanded to include definition terms, in addition to sections and pages.

jonb (talk) 19:23, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

What exact term are you trying to link to, and in what context? haz (talk) 19:26, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

Any definition term that I or others might define using the definition list formatting convention ";Definition Term: Definition Text". I would like to be able to link to such a definition, whether from within a nother definition, or from within another page.

jonb (talk) 19:29, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

You have to create an anchor and link to it— the template {{anchor}} can do that. --—— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk - 19:37, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

(ec)You can also link to our sister project Wiktionary by using the following format: [[wikt:WORD|WORD]] replacing the 2 instances of WORD with the term you want to define. So say I wanted to define chicken, I could do this: Chicken. We usually only links terms to Wiktionary when the terms are technical, or not easily understood without defining it. This means that every word should not be linked to a definition, just a select few. Hope that helps. « Gonzo fan2007 (talk ♦ contribs) @ 19:42, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

Thanks. I was hoping for something less formal for internal use than having to add our terms to Wiktionary.

jonb (talk) 19:58, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

I tried your suggestion, but the text "Template:Anchor" shows up in the page as a page link. And, linking to anchor does not make the page jump to it. Do I have to enable templates or something? (I've never used them).

In any case, it would sure make a lot of sense if definition terms were automatically made link targets -- what is the point of defining a term if you can't link to it?

jonb (talk) 19:55, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

The definition the OP is referring to is using the definition wikimarkup using ";" and ":" that can be used to build a list of terms and definitions. Example: ;Foo:definition

Foo

definition

By using an anchor, a named link can be created. Example: ;Foo:definition {{anchor|foo1}}

Foo

definition

You can then link to this with [[pagename#foo1]] --—— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk - 19:59, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

I tried this and I see "Template:Anchor" where I inserted the anchor in the definition, and I can't link to it. No doubt there is something stupid that I am overlooking.

jonb (talk) 20:04, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

What is the article and what are you doing? --—— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk - 20:08, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

No article in particle. We're using wikimedia for an in house wiki, but such a feature would be good anywhere a definition is used by anyone.

jonb (talk) 20:43, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

Then this is a MediaWiki software question, not a Wikipedia use question. You need to let us know that- WP has a lot of custom stuff that can make it very different from a vanilla MW install. You need to copy {{anchor}} to your wiki before you can use it. Just to make it more fun, anchor in turn uses other templates that you must also copy, and they might just use another template in turn. Another way you can encode the anchor is to use <span id="{{anchorencode:foo" /> instead of {{anchor}}, where foo is the name of the anchor. --—— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk - 21:10, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

See WP:EIW#Naviga for several methods of making anchors. For example, in the Editor's index to Wikipeda itself, we use plain HTML <span id="..."/> tags to create the targets for shortcut links such as WP:EIW#Naviga. --Teratornis (talk) 22:54, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

However, since you are editing on your own wiki, presumably you don't have to follow Wikipedia's Manual of style. That means you can use any page layout you like. Therefore, you could make an ordinary page with a list of definitions. Give each definition its own section, and then you can simply link words to their defining sections. You should not need any tricky methods to put invisible name anchors into text. --Teratornis (talk) 23:01, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

Search For User Contributions On A Specific Talk Page, Article Page, Category Page, Etc. Etc.

Is there any way to search for all the contributions by a the same contributor on a specific talk page, article page, category page, etc. etc.? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.148.164.166 (talk) 20:13, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

Not really, however you can restrict the view of their contributions to a single namespace. For example, this shows all my recent contributions to articles only. Hersfold ^(t/a/c) 20:32, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

You can do this by the use of external tools such as WikiSense Contributors. Have a look at Wikipedia:Tools#Page histories for any others that you might find useful. haz (talk) 20:35, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

External Links for blogs

I understand that the External Links for Wikipedia are discouraging blogs from being posted--But I have looked on another Wikipedia artist page and it clearly shows a blog link for that celebrity. What I am trying to do is display a newly developed blog for Leisha Hailey on her page. What are the exceptions for displaying blogs on Wiki? Here is the link to her blog: leishahaileyfans.blogspot.com

Can anyone assist me with this issue?--Leisha12 (talk) 20:21, 21 May 2008 (UTC)Leisha12

Have a look at Wikipedia:External links (and in particular WP:ELNO) for the policy. I would advise against the linking of a blog site, especially if you have a close link with the site in question. haz (talk) 20:28, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

review new article

Hello,

I was recently advised to create an article at User:N9NE Group/sandbox and then come here to ask an editor to review. I would like to expand on this article, but for now would just like to know if I am on the right track. Thank you N9NE Group (talk) 21:34, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

I have made changes to your sandbox, as requested. Feel free to review and comment on them. Here is probably a good place to make any comments, since your username has been blocked as a violation of username policy. haz (talk) 22:10, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

Well, in my opinion, it looks good to me. I just suggest adding the topic's history. Some expansion would do to. The references look good but remember to use reliable sources. Regards, RyRy5 (talk ♠ copy-edit) 00:08, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

The article is a good start but it has problems. Your first citation (vegas.com) is not a terrible source but it's not great either. It's a commercial site which promotes Vegas. While it is technically a "third party" source it's not wholly independent. I certainly don't think one would describe it as a reliable source with a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy. All other sources cited are better on the reliability and independence fronts, but all suffer from the same problem: the club is just mentioned peripherally in them as a place where this or that famous person appeared. The base of all notability guideline on Wikipedia is that a topic should only have an autonomous article if it has received significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject. That would consist of reliable sources substantively discussing the club. This is not to say that those sources should be removed, not at all. But you are going to need sources that actually cover the club itself in order to write a tertiary source encyclopedia article on it. Cheers.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 01:16, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

Request for new entry?

Is there a place where I can request a new entry? I don't know much about the subject at hand, but would like more information about it from others. --70.167.58.6 (talk) 22:27, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

If you mean making a new page, see Wikipedia:Your first article. If you mean where you can request an article to be made, that's Wikipedia:Requested articles. Hope those pages help. Calvin 1998 ^(t-c) 22:30, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

You will need to first register an account, which has many benefits, including the ability to create articles. Once you have registered, please search Wikipedia first to make sure that an article does not already exist on the subject. Please also review a few of our relevant policies and guidelines which all articles should comport with. As Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, articles must not contain original research, must be written from a neutral point of view, should cite to reliable sources which verify their content and must not contain unsourced, negative content about living people.

Articles must also demonstrate the notability of the subject. Please see our subject specific guidelines for people, bands and musicians, companies and organizations and web content and note that if you are closely associated with the subject, our conflict of interest guideline strongly recommends against you creating the article.

If you still think an article is appropriate, see Help:Starting a new page. You might also look at Wikipedia:Your first article and Wikipedia:How to write a great article for guidance, and please consider taking a tour through the Wikipedia:Tutorial so that you know how to properly format the article before creation. Paragon12321 (talk) 22:32, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

You also might wish to consider requesting an article at Wikipedia:Requested articles, although there is a bit of a backlog. (Sorry - I had missed Calvin 1998's post when I added this). - Bilby (talk) 22:47, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

Actually, I think that IPs are supposed to make requests at Articles for Creation, which I believe is backlog-free. Paragon12321 (talk) 03:26, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

Articles for Creation is for ready-written articles where the user doesn't want to register so that they can put the article into article-space straight away themselves, and as such you'd need to have at least a paragraph of text, including an assertion of notability and at least one source. Requested articles, on the other hand, just needs an article title (but then you have to wait for someone who knows enough about the topic to go there, see that it's been requested, and write the article). Confusing Manifestation(Say hi!) 03:40, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

help

Resolved

Hello i need help on the steps i need to follow in order to remove a peacock term from an article.

Thanks. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ahmed Alhaji (talk • contribs) 22:48, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

Simply click on the "edit this page" tab at top of the article, locate the term you wish to remove in the body of the article (or in the lead) and delete it as you would any text. In the edit summary box provide a rationale as to why, in this case WP:PEACOCK. Then click save. Wisdom89 _{(T / ^C)} 22:52, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

When you think all the peacock terms are removed, remove the peacock term template at the top/section of the article.--RyRy5 (talk ♠ copy-edit) 00:05, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

If you tell us the article, and preferably link to it, then we can show you exactly how to remove the first few peacock terms, and you can learn from our diff to see how to remove more of them. --Teratornis (talk) 00:57, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

You can read WP:PEACOCK for more info. I suggest copy-editing those peacock articles.--RyRy5 (talk ♠ copy-edit) 05:41, 22 May 2008 (UTC)