Wikipedia:Help desk/Archives/2010 December 20

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December 20

Danish Jews

Hi! I created a category called American_people_of_Danish-Jewish_descent and I only added 2 names. Could someone add some for names to that list? Also why not create a category called Danish Jews? Thanks! Neptunekh2 (talk) 04:12, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

Creating categories like this is contraindicated. Yes, I know they exist, but there are lots of things at Wikipedia which shouldn't exist, but people (meaning well, but misguided) keep making them. See this guideline which describes why you shouldn't do this. --Jayron32 04:22, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

You created both American people of Danish-Jewish descent and Category:American people of Danish-Jewish descent. The former is not a category but is supposed to be an article. Category:Danish Jews already exists. PrimeHunter (talk) 04:29, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

Help closing a discussion

Is there "a technically-competent, fair-minded administrator who hasn't been previously involved with Ahnentafels or genealogy" who can help close the discussion on Template talk:Ahnentafel top/Requested Comments 1? It's been going on for five months and there is no more new opinion to be made on this issue.--Queen Elizabeth II's Little Spy (talk) 12:09, 19 December 2010 (UTC)

Anybody?--Queen Elizabeth II's Little Spy (talk) 07:05, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

I'm afraid I lack the technical background to be able to help with that. I have looked it over, but I must admit I am no good at that sort of thing. If you want such an admin, you'd do better to ask at WP:AN where admins tend to patrol more than here. --Jayron32 16:11, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

Thanks.--Queen Elizabeth II's Little Spy (talk) 00:45, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

rainfall

can you tell me how many days it rained so far this year 2010 in sylmar ca. 91342 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.105.80.248 (talk) 07:26, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

This page is for asking question on how to use Wikipedia. The reference desk is for answering general knowledge questions such as this. ~~ GB fan ~~ 08:49, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

Same image name on WP and Commons

Resolved

 – Names sorted. – ukexpat (talk) 16:27, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

How do I use the commons image Pram when there is another image locally at WP of the same name? Geschichte (talk) 09:32, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

I have renamed the baby pram image and deleted the redirect. Baby transport had a picture of a boat for a few seconds, but that's fixed now. File:Pram.jpg will be fine to use now. Bencherlite^Talk 09:39, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

new army

In this article, the chinese text template is creating extra space. is there any way to make it so the template does not do this? the template (template:chinesetext) uses template:specialchar. That may be the problem.199.126.224.245 (talk) 10:19, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

The documentation for {{ChineseText}} states it should be at the beginning of the article. Moving it there seems to have fixed the problem. The problem may have been because there were blank lines both before and after the template. Post here again if you still see extra whitespace on your browser after refreshing the page. Adrian J. Hunter^{(talk•contribs)} 12:23, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

Alexandra Powers

In the Alexandra Powers article I created I found a website that says she is in Scientology. Here's the website: http://www.truthaboutscientology.com/stats/by-name/a/alexandra-powers.html Should this be used as a reference in the article? Please let me know. Neptunekh2 (talk) 10:21, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

Maybe I'm missing it but how do you know that you're thinking of the same Alexandra Powers? Dismas|^(talk) 11:32, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

Even if it is the same Alexandra Powers, no, because the source fails Wikipedia's criteria for being a reliable source. See this archived discussion from the Reliable Sources Noticeboard. Remember that upholding a high standard of sourcing is especially important for biographies of living persons. Adrian J. Hunter^{(talk•contribs)} 12:18, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

Tool of article readability

Where is the tool that tells you about an article readability? I seem to recall it gave a Gunning fog index and a Flesch–Kincaid grade and lots more. Regards, SunCreator ^(talk) 13:14, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

There was one here but its author has disabled it. Is that the page you had in mind? -- John of Reading (talk) 16:28, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

Possibily. Is there another way to do a word count of an article? Regards, SunCreator ^(talk) 16:46, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

I occasionally use User:Dr pda/prosesize.js. – ukexpat (talk) 16:54, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

(e/c) The script described here is used by the "Did You Know" reviewers to count "readable prose characters" but it also shows a word count. Or you could copy the text into your favourite word-processor, which probably has a word counter somewhere. -- John of Reading (talk) 16:57, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for trying. Nice tool (javascript:importScript('User:Shubinator/DYKcheck.js'); dykCheck();) unfortunately not effective on Painted turtle. Will cut and paste to word I think but then the references get in the way. Regards, SunCreator ^(talk) 18:23, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

Running a DYKCheck on Painted turtle yields:

• Prose size (text only): 30987 characters (4934 words) "readable prose size"

Running User:Dr pda/prosesize.js, I get:

• File size: 274225 B
• Prose size (including all HTML code): 50148 B
• References (including all HTML code): 97751 B
• Wiki text: 73461 B
• Prose size (text only): 30987 B (4934 words) "readable prose size"
• References (text only): 14808 B

FWIW, YMMV... – ukexpat (talk) 18:33, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

Yeah and both of those tools are incorrect. Prose size is not 30987 B it's about ~40-45Kb. The difference is the bulleted sections are not included. Thanks for helping anyway. Regards, SunCreator ^(talk) 18:57, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

redirection

I have made a page called "Muhammad bin Hani al andalusi al azdi". this is the page about the arabic poet who is mentioned in wikipedia albeit with different spellings. so how should i redirect his references to my page?Tahashoeb (talk) 14:26, 20 December 2010 (UTC)tahashoebTahashoeb (talk) 14:26, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

You do what we call "piping": i.e., if he's referred to as "Al-Andalusi" in an article, then put in the following: [[Muhammad bin Hani al Andalusi al Azdi|Al-Andalusi]]. This will convert the redlink into a redirection to his article, while preserving the author's original terms. Alternatively, you could just change "Al-Andalusi" into "Muhammad bin Hani al Andalusi al Azdi" (but don't do that with bibliographical and reference listings, etc.) --Orange Mike | Talk 15:35, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

You can create a redirect page containing #REDIRECT [[Muhammad bin Hani al Andalusi al Azdi]]. {{Redirect}} does not create a redirect. PrimeHunter (talk) 16:22, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

Source

Hi, does Collective work under the direction of Louis Cardaillac, Les Morisques et l'inquisition, Publisud, 1990, preface of the book cover is an acceptable source on en.WP ? Regards--Morisco (talk) 14:37, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

You may want to ask at WP:RS/N. People who patrol that noticeboard are generally better at answering such questions. --Jayron32 16:09, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

Thank you !--Morisco (talk) 16:11, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

Requesting assistance: Occidental Petroleum

Hi there-- I've proposed adding a section to the Occidental Petroleum article, but due to a potential COI, I'd like to get someone else to look it over. The draft can be found in my user space at Occidental Petroleum Financial performance. If you think this section is ready to rock, please leave a note on the Occidental talk page indicating so, or feel free to add it to the article yourself. Thanks! --CBuiltother (talk) 15:19, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

I'm only speaking for myself here; but this doesn't look like encyclopedic content to me. Rankings and quarterly results and the like are emphemeral; we're not Barron's or Valueline or the WSJ. --Orange Mike | Talk 15:29, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

Thanks, I should have noted that I've followed the example of British Airways, which is one of the better-rated articles in WikiProject Companies. Sainsbury is another example, although with even more information. The Wikiproject discussion page isn't very active, which is why I came here. --CBuiltother (talk) 16:38, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

Satellite

I have been a susscriber of satilight radio since 2007. Lately i am getting verry discouraged with your proggramming. I am 65 yr's old and like to listen to a mixture of relaxing music but it seems that your as of late only caters to the under 30 and over 80 croud even the sinatra station has more jazz than it should. I like light jazz 'but the stuff you people play is terrible. Why don't you play more Diana Krall or Etta James. My two favorite stations where The bridge and the love music station. Why did you take them off. I like Paul McCartny but to hear his music over and over again is a little nerve racking. If this is the Kind of programming I have to look forward to then I may have to start listening to FM radio again. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.12.200.8 (talk) 16:24, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

Hello. I suspect, based on your question, that you found one of our 3,507,551 articles, and thought that we were affiliated in some way with that subject. Please note that you are at Wikipedia, the free online encyclopedia that anyone can edit, and this page is for asking questions related to using or contributing to Wikipedia itself. Thus, we have no special knowledge about the subject of your question. You can, however, search our vast catalogue of articles by typing a subject into the search field on the upper right side of your screen. If you cannot find what you are looking for, we have a reference desk, divided into various subject areas, where asking knowledge questions is welcome. Best of luck. TNXMan 16:27, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

حجة

رجاء ، رجاء لا تشارك في حرب الجهاد ضدنا. ونحن على أشخاص أبرياء. الرجاء احترام لنا في عيد الميلاد. ونحن لم تفعل شيئا. الرجاء عدم مهاجمتنا. دعونا نكون اصدقاء. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.112.128.153 (talk) 16:26, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

This is the English Wikipedia - if you ask your question in English we will try to help. Alternatively, the Arabic Wikipedia is here. – ukexpat (talk) 16:30, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

Based on a machine translation of your post, this may also be relevant:

Hello. I suspect, based on your question, that you found one of our 3,507,557 articles, and thought that we were affiliated in some way with that subject. Please note that you are at Wikipedia, the free online encyclopedia that anyone can edit, and this page is for asking questions related to using or contributing to Wikipedia itself. Thus, we have no special knowledge about the subject of your question. You can, however, search our vast catalogue of articles by typing a subject into the search field on the upper right side of your screen. If you cannot find what you are looking for, we have a reference desk, divided into various subject areas, where asking knowledge questions is welcome. Best of luck. PrimeHunter (talk) 16:34, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

The text is in Arabic. It reads:"Please don't participate in the jihad war against us. We are innocent people. Please respect us as we are in Christmas and we didn't do anything. Please don't attack us. Let us be friends." The text itself seems to be automatically translated. --Meno25 (talk) 07:37, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

Article not being shown

The article i have created "muhammad bin hani al andalusi al azdi" does not show up in the results when i search it in wikipedia. Instead the results tell me to create a page with that name, although i have alredy created the article..whats the problem? plz help me, as this is my first article..i dont know wats gone wrong as everything i have done is following the guidelines. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Tahashoeb (talk • contribs) 16:39, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

I copypasted "muhammad bin hani al andalusi al azdi" from your post into the search box, and it takes me to your article Muhammad bin Hani al Andalusi al Azdi. Most likely you have mispelled the name in your first search. --Saddhiyama (talk) 16:43, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

Or you failed to capitalize. Wikipedia is very picky about capitalization, punctuation and spelling; if you type any of this in wrong, you don't get a connection. --Orange Mike | Talk 19:41, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

For me, and apparently for Saddhiyama above, the search found it when I put it into the search box exactly as the OP had it. - David Biddulph (talk) 21:30, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

However, the article has not been indexed by the search function yet. This will happen automatically. Until then you only find it if you enter the exact title except for capitalization. PrimeHunter (talk) 22:04, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

Minor touchup for math?

Can someone fix the last MATH in Safety factor (plasma physics) for me? I can't figure out what I'm doing. Maury Markowitz (talk) 18:28, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

Actually none of them are rendering they way I would like. I would like the formulas to be in the "this over that" format instead of /'s. Maury Markowitz (talk) 18:30, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

Is [1] OK? PrimeHunter (talk) 19:08, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

Mark Gall

The article Mark Gall is tagged orphan but seems to have lots of links. I removed the tag and someone said it has no "incoming" links. I'm confused, (inexperienced). Can someone look and tell me why the orphan tag should be there when there seem to be lots of links in the text? Thanks. Mark^Dask 19:28, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

It refers to other articles having links going to Mark Gall. The box at top has a link on "link to it" showing no articles. PrimeHunter (talk) 19:44, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for that - one more lesson learned. Mark^Dask 21:14, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

Image with a copyright statement in its filename

The article NHS primary care trust contains a picture of which the filename is "JerichoHealthCentre20050326 CopyrightKaihsuTai.jpg". Is this permissible? --rossb (talk) 20:10, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

You should try asking at WP:MCQ, which is a noticeboard better equipped to handle your question. --Jayron32 20:12, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

Lowery's painting of Ebbw Vale

I think it would be of interest if Ebbw Valians were made aware that the famous artist Lowery's painting of Ebbw Vale hangs in the Coventry Art Gallery. I have a copy and I have taken a photograph of a similar view from the top of the old Newtown Hill. It is the largest painting he ever did, and quite detailed, unlike many of his large scale ones. You can spend a lot of time picking out features such as the steelworks, St Paul's and Christ Churches, the brickworks, the TV mast on Hilltop etc, etc. It would be interesting to have the two side by side as I have hanging on my wall. Gripo —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.7.198.128 (talk) 21:38, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

It might be interesting, but it may be inserted in Wikipedia only if a reliable source has said it; otherwise it is original research, and not permitted. I know this can seem bizarre, but read the pages I linked to (plus WP:V) for the reasoning. --ColinFine (talk) 23:43, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

I turned up some references about this and have added a sentence about Ebbw Vale's appearances in notable artwork to Ebbw_Vale#Sport_and_culture. Gonzonoir (talk) 09:27, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

Need category help

Could someone please look at the categories in Safe sex? There are two strange ones, "California-centric | The USA-centric", which do not seem to be in the code for the page in the edit box. What is happening here? How can I edit these categories? Blue Rasberry 22:31, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

The categories were added by {{Globalize}}. I have fixed it.[2] PrimeHunter (talk) 22:40, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

Political Bias Regarding UK Post Office/Royal Mail Description

If you Google the Royal Mail, the shortened description of its entry in Wikipedia, there is the following: "Royal Mail is the slow, poorly run and unefficient national postal service of the United Kingdom. Royal Mail Holdings plc owns Royal Mail Group Limited, ..." This description does not appear to be in the longer version when you click on the Wikipedia full description of Royal Mail. It is also politically biased and highly subjective. A encyclopaedia should be objective and not politically biased. It also has bad spelling. The word is inefficient not 'unefficient'. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.146.15.154 (talk) 23:11, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

James McGill —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.31.10.34 (talk) 23:21, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

The Royal Mail article was vandalised and the comment you refered to was removed with a minute of it being added. It just happens that Google took a snapshot within that minute. Google will refresh at some point but we have no control of when/how Google samples the articles. MilborneOne (talk) 23:23, 20 December 2010 (UTC)co

The Lion King 4

The Lion King 4 Directors:Brent Ayres&Andrew Stanton Producer:Dennis Williams,Jr Written by:James McGill Director of Animation:Jamie Thomason Cast&Crew Tristan Ayres as Miley Matthew Broderick as Simba Neve Campbell as Kiara Julie Carmen as Evil Johnna Andy Dick as Revenge of Nuka James Earl Jones as Mufasa Robert Guillaume as Rafiki Moira Kelly as Nala Nathan Lane as Timon Jason Marsden as Kovu James McGill as Dennis Erine Sabella as Pumbaa Notes:Maybe Release in September 9th 2011 and Begin in May 12th-August 12th 2011. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.31.10.34 (talk) 23:28, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

Please use a descriptive title in future questions. I have added one.

This is a page for asking questions about using Wikipedia. Have you got a question?

If you want to insert information into Wikipedia, it does not belong here, it belongs in an article; but the information you have given is unlikely to be suitable for inclusion because 1) it does not give any reliable sources for the information, and so should not be inserted into any article, and 2) in any case is about a future event, and it is very rare for this kind of information to be suitable. --ColinFine (talk) 23:53, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

If the work gets released we'll have an article about it in due course. In the meantime see The Lion King (franchise). --Teratornis (talk) 00:14, 21 December 2010 (UTC)