Wikipedia:Help desk/Archives/2008 October 14

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October 14

Image policy

Am I able to use the images on this page here? Grsz^X 00:52, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

Those images are probably copyrighted. Do you have any information to suggest they aren't, by any chance? NuclearWarfare ^{contact me}_{My work} 01:58, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

I do not. What is the best way to go about obtaining historical photos? Grsz^X 02:02, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

Emailing the picture-taker or organization owning the copyright "on behalf of Wikipedia" kindly asking if we can use it here on Wikipedia. For example, see Image talk:WW2 Iwo Jima flag raising.jpg#Permission Obtained from AP (that's a reply from the Associated Press in response to a fax asking for permission to use that image). Calvin 1998 ^(t·c) 02:34, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

Third-party references

I'm having trouble finding third-party references for a fraternity article that I'm working on. The article is a list of chapters and all of the chapter information (i.e. founding dates, etc.) for the entire list seems to be found only in fraternity sources. As references, I currently have one book (that lacks an ISBN and is published by the fraternity), and two websites that are both tied to the fraternity. Does anyone have any advice to make this article verifiable? — ŁittleÄlien¹⁸² (_talk\^contribs) 01:03, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

You could try looking on [www.rottentomatoes.com], and look up the movie. They might provide characters. You can also try googlein' it, and place the term "Pi Kappa Phi movie characters". Javascap (talk) 02:28, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

Are you trying to be funny? — ŁittleÄlien¹⁸² (_talk\^contribs) 02:35, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

Oh crud, my apologies, I thought you were talking about a movie. My sincere apologies. With that mistake a bit in the past, you can try looking on their main page, and use the search feature on the website to find the information you need. You can also look up the title of the book and see if you can get the ISBN from another page. I hope this response helps more than my prior one o_O Javascap (talk) 02:43, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

Thank you for your efforts to help. I already used their website and looked for an ISBN in the library of congress. What I need, though, is a reliable third-party source that contains pertinent information. I have sources --but what I want is a third-party source (or two, or three). Any suggestions?

Let me see what I can cook up on "Teh google" Stand by, please... Javascap (talk) 03:42, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

Privacy Concerns Regarding Someone's E-mail Address in an AfD

I was reading through the AfDs and noticed that the author of the targeted article posted the text of a personal e-mail he'd received as a way to argue against the article's deletion. I was concerned to note that the article author had included the headers in the e-mail (including the e-mail address of the author of the e-mail). I've searched policies and read instructions on the Administrator's Noticeboard and Requests for Oversight to see if posting e-mails written by others and/or e-mail addresses of other people like this is permitted, but I couldn't find clear guidance. I suspect it is not, especially since it seems likely that the content of the e-mail and the e-mail address were posted without the permission or knowledge of the e-mailer. Am I totally off base here, or is there someone I should notify to redact this info? The AfD is here: <link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="http://wiki.riteme.site/w/index.php?title=User:MarkS/XEB/live.css&action=raw&ctype=text/css&dontcountme=s">7s_problem_1 The place where the e-mail occurs is obvious as a major formatting break if you scroll down. By the way, this email was also copied to two users' talk pages (I can give the details if needed). Thank you very much! --Silverneko (talk) 02:52, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

The general answer to that would be no, this is not a good thing. Firstly, the publishing of an email address on a website such as Wikipedia makes it liable to be harvested by spambots (among others), and as you say raises privacy issues (which are not specifically covered by the privacy policy, but in general terms would be considered a poor thing to do without permission and especially without knowledge). Even in cases where someone posts their own email address on a Wikipedia page, such as here or on the Reference desk, the address is usually removed as a courtesy. The other problem is that posting the content of the email, as well as again being something of a privacy issue, is potentially a copyright violation. So I would personally say that the best course of action would be to remove the posting of the email, leave a politely worded message on the poster's talk page, and possibly put a note at the admin noticeboard in case they think the revisions should be deleted and/or oversighted. Confusing Manifestation(Say hi!) 03:46, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

Thanks so much for your reply. I'm not entirely comfortable removing the e-mail myself for fear of totally hosing formatting and content. My proficiency with Wikipedia tools is nonexistent; you can see from my contributions history that my grand plans for helping out at Wikipedia are as yet unrealized :) I came across this just because I think AfDs are interesting to read once in a while. Do you think it is appropriate to just post on the Administrator's Noticeboard to have somebody more proficient help me out? I don't want to shirk, but...--silverneko (talk) 03:56, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

Actually, I'm going to give it a try... wish me luck! Thanks for your help.silverneko (talk) 04:04, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

capital

could uyou please tell us capitals of the all countries in the world? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 195.229.241.173 (talk) 05:47, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

Try looking at Lists of capitals. Zain Ebrahim (talk) 05:49, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

Or List of national capitals.--intraining ^{Jack In} 05:50, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

problem editing the "Pieing" article

I am a new editor. Having edited the intro to the pieing article I attempted to add 2 references, somehow scrambling the references. I apologize. Help from some kind person would be appreciated. --Zanthorp (talk) 07:01, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

Another user has already fixed it. You hadn't added the references correctly, however. WP:REF, Wikipedia:Referencing for beginners and Wikipedia:Citation templates might help you with it. Cheers. Chamal ^talk _work 07:56, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

Alphabetical table

Heya... I'm trying to create an alphabetical table/list - ie sorts itself alpha-automagically ... its for poleconomy page . Is this possible ? Boomshanka (talk) 08:50, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

just found solution, cheers Boomshanka (talk) —Preceding undated comment was added at 08:58, 14 October 2008 (UTC).

Advice needed - slightly spammy editing

Hi, I have noticed that some pages that I have worked on have been modified in a way that looks OK at first, but doesn't quite feel right and the more I dig the more like spam it feels. The pages are related to the Northeast of Scotland and have had text added relating to the prehistory of the area. All these additions seem to end up on the new page Catto_Long_Barrow, which is currently little more than excuse to hold a link to http://letmespeaktothedriver.com/site/11227/catto.html#fieldnotes. This same link has also been added as a reference to all the modified pages.

This may be a genuine good-faith attempt to improve these articles, but it looks like it may also have been an attempt to drive up traffic to that blog-ish site (which also promoted a book) and even to boost its search engine position (which won't work as Wikipedia uses nofollow!). My biggest problem is that the pages edited are not even that close Cairn Catto (the proper name for Catto Long Barrow). My second problem is that this minor local feature has been added to almost all the geographical pages for anywhere near it!

Pages affected include:

• Aberdeenshire
• Bullers of Buchan, 4 miles from Cairn Catto
• Hatton,_Aberdeenshire, 5 miles from Cairn Catto
• New Deer 15 miles from Cairn Catto
• New Pitsligo, 17 miles from Cairn Catto
• Gardenstown, 29 miles from Cairn Catto

The same links are also on pages including:

• Viking Age
• Point d'appui
• Gorse

Matt Beard (talk) 11:43, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

Were the links all added by the same editor or IP? --Orange Mike | Talk 14:12, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

Oops - yes, sorry I forgot to say that they were all added by User:Hadrianheugh, Matt Beard (talk) 14:30, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

Pictures at the Commons?

Resolved

←Signed:→Mr. E. Sánchez ^{Get to know me!} / _{Talk to me!}←at≈:→ 18:55, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

(Maybe I should ask this there, but I'm not too familiar over yonder, so can you help me?) So, I've uploaded three pictures with me and some political figures that I would like to be used in their articles that have no pics. Can someone help me to rename them appropriately? Do I just cut me out the picture with Paint? Thanks!

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:L_0b8bc2b5fdced94f06dd11fda13832a4.jpg Me with Lupe Valdez

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:L_6b34be4e2da0e1de5aeeb6e947186661.jpg Me with Tom Leppert

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:L_7510b24ac30a8504f00c19a42af343e6.jpg Me with Roberto R. Alonzo

←Signed:→Mr. E. Sánchez ^{Get to know me!} / _{Talk to me!}←at≈:→ 14:17, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

I think this probably falls foul of Conflict of Interest on the grounds of "Do not edit Wikipedia to promote your own interests". Unless you can (almost) totally remove yourself. Matt Beard (talk) 14:38, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

Seconded, and I would remove such pictures from any articles if I found them without you cut out because it is not encyclopedic to have a picture of the figure posing next to some unrelated person. See also Wikipedia:Images#Image choice and placement.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 15:16, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

Well, what I'm saying, I guess, is I wanted to provide pictures for those articles. I wouldn't put me in the article. That's just weird. I wanted to know if it'd be okay to just cut myself out of the picture and leave their picture, upload only them, and use that. I hope I'm explaining correctly. ←Signed:→Mr. E. Sánchez ^{Get to know me!} / _{Talk to me!}←at≈:→ 15:29, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

Sure. Cut yourself out and upload them to commons naming them intuitively, i.e., Tom_Leppert.jpg. The only thing I wonder if what they will end up looking like just cut out. For example in the picture of you and Lupe Valdez, she has her arm behind your back. I think you might be better off just doing a cropping showing her head and whatever else fits appropriately. Just cutting your outline out and placing a false background or something will probably result in odd looking pictures.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 18:46, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

Alrighty. Thanks for your answers, Fuhghettaboutit and Matt Beard. I will play around with them and see how it turns out. If it seems just a bad picture, I'll just leave it alone. Rest assured you won't be seein' me in any articles! Cheers. ←Signed:→Mr. E. Sánchez ^{Get to know me!} / _{Talk to me!}←at≈:→ 18:55, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

You could pixelate your face in the photos. If someone later takes a better photo of the subjects, they can upload theirs over yours. In my opinion (which counts for zip) I'd consider almost any legible photo of an article's subject to be a huge improvement over no photo. A perfect photo is better than an imperfect photo, but I think the biggest improvement occurs when an article goes from zero photos to the first (possibly imperfect) photo. This is an instance of the general rule that "something is usually better than nothing." Another example: having bad food is better than having no food, as long as the food is not so bad that it kills you faster than starvation will. --Teratornis (talk) 19:09, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

Awesome! I'll try that, too! Thx! ←Signed:→Mr. E. Sánchez ^{Get to know me!} / _{Talk to me!}←at≈:→ 03:08, 15 October 2008 (UTC)

Princess Margaret, Countess of Snowdon infobox image

Resolved

 – PeterSymonds (talk) 16:35, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

Hi. I'm trying to add commons:Image:Princess_Margaret.jpg to the article, but the image isn't showing in the infobox. I tested another image and it worked fine, so I'm guessing it's not the template. Any help would be appreciated! :) Best, PeterSymonds (talk) 15:20, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)#Uploaded images not appearing in articles. PrimeHunter (talk) 16:11, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

Ah, thanks. :) PeterSymonds (talk) 16:35, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

Monobook

What is the reason that the twinkle in my monobook doesn't work? HairyPerry 15:20, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

Hmm. The first step is to try bypassing your cache to see if that fixes the issue. Go to your monobook page and press Ctrl+Shift+R. That may resolve the issue. TN‑X-Man 15:28, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

Nope. That didn't work. I'm using Internet Explorer if that helps with anything. HairyPerry 15:35, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

If that didn't work, I would suggest installing all of the modules, by removing any Twinkle stuff you currently have in your monobook and pasting importScript('User:AzaToth/twinkle.js'); (and only that) into your monobook. If that works, you can tweak the settings from there. See the install directions at WP:TWINKLE. Cheers! TN‑X-Man 16:11, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Twinkle#Browser support. There is apparently no suppport for Internet Explorer. PrimeHunter (talk) 16:09, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

See also the reply at Wikipedia talk:Twinkle#Problem with IE. PrimeHunter (talk) 16:14, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

Why aren't two images appearing at Stephen Crane?

Image:SCrane2.JPG, which I just uploaded a new version of at the Commons, and Image:Battle of Chancellorsville.png, which is newly added to this particular article, but has been on Wikipedia since 2004, are for some reason not appearing at the Stephen Crane article. Is there some issue with the formatting? Am I just not seeing a typo or something? Any advice would be much appreciated, as I hope to submit this for FAC soon. María (habla conmigo) 15:51, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)#Uploaded images not appearing in articles. PrimeHunter (talk) 16:05, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

New Question

Hey There My name is Jeff, and I am a student at Brock University. A professor has requested a report to be done on Wikipedia. My question is what are the Web 2.0 Technologies (wiki's, blogs) used by Wikipedia?

Thanks —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jeppy88 (talk • contribs) 17:31, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

Well, from what I gather, Web 2.0 isn't really a technology per se. You may want to look at the Web 2.0 article. Wikipedia is an online collaborative effort to build an encyclopedia. It doesn't really use blogs or things of that nature. I hope this helps. TN‑X-Man 17:39, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

As a follow-up, the article on Wikipedia itself may have some useful info. Cheers! TN‑X-Man 17:41, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia is a project of Wikimedia, if that helps. --Alinnisawest,^{Dalek Empress} (extermination requests here) 17:55, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

I like Marshall Poe's essay:

• Poe, Marshall (September 2006). "The Hive". The Atlantic Monthly. Retrieved 2008-10-14.

I have a few notes and links at User:Teratornis/Theory of Wikipedia and User:Teratornis/Tips for teachers which may or may not help. See also WP:EIW#Research and Wikipedia:Researching Wikipedia. From what I understand of Web 2.0, it's kind of a catch-all label that encompasses a wide range of collaborative software which includes things like blogs and wikis. (Wikipedia is just one of many thousands of wikis, albeit the most-visited.) Both types of collaborative software appeared several years before (some) people started calling them "Web 2.0". Blogs and wikis are both editable by their users, but they differ broadly in their organizing principles. On a wiki, users take turns editing and re-editing articles (or, more generally, pages), so the organizing principle is by topic. Any user can edit any other user's writing. On a blog, an individual editor writes entries in serial order by date, without restriction as to topic, and other users can merely add comments - they cannot edit the primary editor's entries. Thus a blog functions somewhat similarly to e-mail, whereas a wiki is more similar to publishing software that people use to write formal documents. Perhaps the most critical feature for a wiki's success is its built-in revision control system, which tracks the history of every edit by every user. Without the ability to track what every user is doing, and hold them all accountable for their actions, a wiki would quickly succumb to the Tragedy of the Commons. (A blog avoids the tragedy by privatizing the commons - giving various users exclusive control over their own areas of the blog where they can edit. This is neatly analogous to the two ways to avoid Tragedies of the Commons in the real world: find a way to regulate what people do on the commons, or divide the commons into privately-owned parcels.) However, software alone is not enough for a wiki to succeed; it must also have a community of users who have a shared vision. See User:Jimbo Wales/Statement of principles and Five Things Wikipedia's Founder Has Learned About Online Collaboration. You might also watch TEDTalks: Jimmy Wales (2005) on YouTube. --Teratornis (talk) 19:40, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

add Wade Martin Bio to wikipedia

How do I include the history of Wade Martin's life within wikipedia?

Bio: Wade Martin (Founder and President)

Wade Martin (WM) is an exceptionally prolific, bilingual, driven Renaissance man and founder of JWM Enterprises, the umbrella corporation for JWM Records & WM Studios. WM designs websites for his own companies, takes the photography for his artists’ CD covers and media, writes and orchestrates the successful business and marketing plans for his endeavors. His success over the past fifteen years lies in his innate ability to appeal to a diverse market from Rock, Hip Hop, R&B, AC to Pop, and his musical merits speak for themselves.

Most impressively of all, due to his exceptionally high standards, WM writes, engineers, arranges, edits, performs all instrumentation, produces, mixes, and then masters all of his work single handedly. He’s was one of the first to cracked the US Top 40 with a song he sang, wrote, recorded, and produced. Additionally, WM plays and records over twenty different instruments, and guest judged on American Idol on FOX.

WM builds and designs state-of-the-art recording studios to facilitate his needs from state to state. His newest recording studio, “WM Studios,” is based in Phoenix Arizona, and has developed a reputation as more than just another studio. Built and designed from the ground up by WM himself, WM Studios currently ranks as one of the best studios in the country. The Vocal Booth and Live Room feature wall touch screens so artists may operate Pro Tools remotely or just interface with their lyrics, and also hosts the world’s FIRST ever complete touch screen console designed by WM himself.

WM was born in England; when he was eight, his parents retired to the Canary Islands. It was there that WM learned to speak Spanish fluently. Senor Blass Martinez, a world-renowned South American opera singer, recognized WM's talent as a singer and spent four years putting him through intense vocal training that helped build his powerful yet controlled five octave range

In 1996, WM founded JWM Enterprises as the principal label for his then solo career. WM arrived to the US in 1999 as a singer, producer, and business man, and then retired his career as an artist some years after his arrival. Today, WM’s record label represents extremely talented young artists like JR, Danielle Siren, and Samantha Machado. WM’s role as president of the label is, needless to say, a very active one in which he not only writes and produces music, but also cultivates the talents image, stage productions, and market implementation. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jwmrecords (talk • contribs) 17:57, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

Don't do it yourself, as you have a conflict of interest. Ensure that he is notable, then find reliable sources and ask a registered user to do it for you. Hope I've helped. Dendodge|Talk^Contribs 18:04, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

First of all, you may want to read the following articles: WP:YFA and WP:V. They will discuss how to create an article and, also, go over the verifiability guidelines of Wikipedia. Also, you should take a look at WP:BLP and WP:NPOV. The first article discusses the guidelines that should be followed when writing a biography. And the second discusses Wikpedia's "neutral point of view policy." As it stands, your text seems to violate WP:NPOV. It also reads like an advertisement. — ŁittleÄlien¹⁸² (_talk\^contribs) 18:12, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

To put it more bluntly, the style of this piece, as it stands, is not unacceptable for Wikipedia and would need dozens of "peacock" words removing. Some of these words are "exceptionally", "prolific", "successful", "innate ability", "exceptionally high standards" and "powerful yet controlled" - Adrian Pingstone (talk) 18:37, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

When using Wikipedia-specific jargon that the questioner is unlikely to be familiar with, always link to the page that defines it, in this case WP:PEACOCK. Often the shortcut to the page closely resembles the jargon term we tend to use. We know this, but the new users probably do not yet. --Teratornis (talk) 20:41, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

Also, the text posted above is a cut-and-paste copy of the text on this page which bears a copyright notice. Copyrighted material cannot be used in Wikipedia articles. Deor (talk) 20:59, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

Well, technically, all text on Wikipedia is copyrighted, but it's been licensed under the GFDL. For copyrighted text from elsewhere to be usable here (assuming it met other Wikipedia policies and guidelines), the copyright holder would have to similarly license it (as per Wikipedia:Donating copyrighted materials). Confusing Manifestation(Say hi!) 22:15, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

Well, yes, but it seemed unnecessary to explain the matter in such detail when the text itself is so manifestly unsuitable as a WP article. If I saw it while new-page patrolling, db-copyvio would simply be the most convenient way of getting rid of it. Deor (talk) 22:58, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

Delete Attachments

I'm using SourceForge 4.4, web-based product to track software bugs, and also a place to archive project documents. It has a built in Wiki page area. I uploaded two images to the wiki page and they were displayed at the bottom of the page as attachments.

I can embed them in the page code but they still display as attachments at the bottom of the page. How can I delete attachments from the page?

M- —Preceding unsigned comment added by 129.55.200.20 (talk) 19:31, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

Have you tried the Computing section of Wikipedia's Reference Desk? They specialize in answering knowledge questions there; this help desk is only for questions about using Wikipedia. For your convenience, here is the link to post a question there: click here. I hope this helps. PrimeHunter (talk) 19:51, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

Is information for which a source, other than what's in my memory, disalllowed?

This question relates to a BBC Children's Hour series of plays, so is not really of huge import. However, if sincere memories are barred because there is no corroboration, this may mean that unless somebody else comes up with the same information and can cite sources, in around 20 years time or so, the knowledge is likely to be be lost forever. Is this right?

Segilla (talk) 21:15, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

Unfortunately, yes. That's what the verifiability policy says. However, while your memories aren't sufficient sourcing for Wikipedia, there may still be an alternative outlet where you could record the information. Confusing Manifestation(Say hi!) 21:59, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

If an alternative outlet isn't satisfying enough, sometime in the next 20 years you might convince a journalist from a reputable publication to turn your memories into a reliable source. Most likely, the journalist would also need to find corroborating information, but that's what journalists get paid to do. Wikipedia itself is more like a digest of already-published knowledge, so the most fruitful way to approach editing on Wikipedia is to start with some reliable sources, and write articles about whatever they say, rather than start with some arbitrary idea in mind and then try to find sources for it. Of course the human brain naturally does the latter, because we tend to remember ideas rather than where we read them, and thus many aspiring editors come to grief on Wikipedia. As far as losing knowledge forever goes, we know that all knowledge will eventually be lost forever. See: Ozymandias. So whether it happens in twenty years or in ten million years, ultimately everything we do will not matter. Thus I'd suggest focusing more on the problems at hand than on what happens after we die. --Teratornis (talk) 23:20, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

Carpe diem. --Teratornis (talk) 23:22, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

Speaking of lost BBC works, we have a featured article about Doctor Who missing episodes. See also Category:Lost BBC episodes and Wiping#BBC. It's sad. PrimeHunter (talk) 00:26, 15 October 2008 (UTC)

When I feel sad, which happens from time to time in my life of unrelenting pain, I read the Grief counseling article, and then I'm happy about all the money I saved by not hiring a grief counselor to tell me the same stuff. --Teratornis (talk) 05:00, 15 October 2008 (UTC)

a different definition of financial intelligence

The current definition of financial intelligence on Wikipedia has to do with the gathering of information about financial affairs. There is another, completely different definition of financial intelligence, which has to do with a person's knowledge of financial concepts and the ability to read and interpret financial information. I would like to add an article this other definition. How do I do that?Businessfinance (talk) 21:45, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

Be bold, edit the article, and cite verifiable sources. Oh, and have a read of the page I've linked in the previous sentence. Confusing Manifestation(Say hi!) 21:57, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

The two things sound too different to me to discuss in the same article. Intelligence and Intelligence (information gathering) are different articles for a reason. I think finding another article title would be better, for example "Financial savvy", or incorporate it in an existing article. Financial literacy exists but is about personal finances and your user name signals interest in business finance. Maybe Financial planning (business) could be expanded. Financial intelligence can get a hatnote to whatever the other article is called. You may find editors knowing more about the subject at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Finance. PrimeHunter (talk) 23:00, 14 October 2008 (UTC)