Help desk
< October 17	<< Sep \| October \| Nov >>	October 19 >

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.

October 18

Can I report my employer for editing their own Wikipedia article?

I work with a fairly large company that has a detailed and fairly-sized Wikipedia article, and I know that they've been editing it to remove negative details and insert sometimes fictitious positive ones for a while now. Is there any way I can report them to get the article flagged/locked/watched? Milhaus44 (talk) 01:17, 18 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

What article/company is it? ~Hue Sat Lum 01:23, 18 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

MicroStrategy. Milhaus44 (talk) 01:50, 18 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

@Milhaus44: - Yes, you can post at Wikipedia:Conflict of interest/Noticeboard. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 03:20, 20 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

The article reads likes an advertisement with heavy usage of marketing language. I'm not even sure where to begin to fix it. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 02:12, 21 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I took a small stab at trying to fix some of the more obvious problems,[1] but it still reads like an advertisement. There's also something else I discovered which is troubling. The article calls this company's software "scalable" in Wikipedia's voice. The cited source was behind a paywall[2] with no easy way of validating whether the source actually supports the sentence. But the source is supposed to be Information Week. So I tracked down the original source[3] and it failed verification. Can we have a few editors place this article on their watchlist? A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 02:41, 21 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I'll keep an eye on it. Yintan 19:23, 21 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Minor Location articles in other countries

On New Pages Feed, I came a cross a series of articles concerning small villages in Malaysia. Keeping in mind both GNG and WP:OTHERSTUFF I was minded to tag for AfD, but given that we do have an article for every town, village, and CDP in the U.S, that feels discriminatory. Is there a guideline about local placename inclusion? Or, failing that, a central location where I can bring these articles as a group instead of starting discussions on each separately? Thanks. --Eggishorn (talk) (contrib) 01:37, 18 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Cities and villages are generally kept at AFD, regardless of size, as long as their existence is verified through a reliable source, see WP:NPLACE. GB fan 01:46, 18 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks --Eggishorn (talk) (contrib) 01:54, 18 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Officially named populated places and natural geographic features are generally accepted to be "inherently" notable, an article needs to only provide RS prooof that it exists/existed. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 09:08, 18 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Edit page

Hi

We have a page (https://wiki.riteme.site/wiki/User:Teafragger/Sandbox) which I have edited and that I want to put out live. But it says Teafragger/Sandbox as the name and not Swedish Hasbeens. What can I do?

Cheers //Fia Haak, PR & Marketing manager Swedish Hasbeens — Preceding unsigned comment added by Swedish Hasbeens (talk • contribs) 08:19, 18 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

What you should do is read our Conflict of Interest and Notability guidance pages. The page as it stands will almost certainly be deleted almost immediately if it goes live. You need to find substantial third-party independent references to your company to establish that it's notable enough to have a page on Wikipedia, and you are strongly advised as an employee of the firm not to produce the article yourself, as it will be difficult for you to maintain the neutral tone we need. Please remember that Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, not a medium for advertising or promotion. Rojomoke (talk) 12:07, 18 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Just for documentation, the username has been blocked.— Vchimpanzee · talk · contributions · 20:53, 21 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Popularity section of Blog article, following up/expanding

Hi, quick question. I was doing a bit of editing in the "Popularity" section of the Blog article. At the end of the section there was a small part about a forecast by Gartner - the note above it said the section was out of date, but interesting and would anyone follow up. I'd love to do that, do I need to post that somewhere additionally? Or can I just start as soon as I'm here again? Thanks for your help!CindyMalRS3 (talk) 09:24, 18 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

You don't need anyone's permission to edit an article, or to find more up to date information that can be cited to reliable sources and supplement or replace outdated information. Nor do you need to announce it anywhere. If you are unsure about what should be done, or want to let other editors know what you are doing (particularly if your edit must be in multiple sections), you can post on the article's talk page, in this case on Talk:Blog. DES ^(talk) 13:32, 18 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Searching Wikipedia's other languages

I remember a few years ago when you would search for something, there was an option to look in all the languages of Wikipedia, not just English. What happened to that? I can't find how to do it anymore. I can use Google, but I would like something that gives me just articles with the title that I specify. Eric Kvaalen (talk) 09:30, 18 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

@Eric Kvaalen: Hey Eric. You can use the Global Wikipedia Article Search tool. Best regards--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 11:01, 18 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Dooley Wilson, actor

Dooley Wilson didn't play Little Joe Jackson in Cabin in the Sky it was Eddie "Rochester"Andersons role. After all my research Dooley Wilson had nothing to do with Cabin in the Sky although there were many great actors in that movie...Ethel Water as Petunia, Eddie Rochester Anderson as Little Joe Jackson, Lena Horne as Georgia Brown, Louis Armstrong, Oscar Polk, Willie Best, Bill Bailey, Butterfly McQueen and Duke Ellington. It is a funny and warm the most endearing film a wonderful childhood memory and as an adult I watch it whenever it comes on tv. Wiki sites the cast IMDB had it wrong, google the movie the DVD cover sites it to be sure

Thank you, Anne Bosio — Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.196.198.37 (talk) 13:52, 18 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

The article Dooley Wilson or Cabin in the Sky (and other articles) may be edited by anyone to remove or correct inaccurate information. It is best if you can cite a source, although for negative info that is often hard -- no source will say "Wilson was not in the cast of...". I would advise posting on the talk page of the article (Talk:Cabin in the Sky) explaining your changes and citing a source for the correct cast list. Cabin in the Sky currently says that Wilson played the role on Broadway, and Anderson took over the role for the film. Do you have a source that says differently? DES ^(talk) 17:03, 18 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Horsham, Pennsylvania

Hello. I am contacting you from Horsham Township, Pennsylvania. I work for the township and we have revised and edited our "Horsham Township, PA" page on Wikepedia but just found out that there is another page also on Wikipedia called "Horsham, PA" which has inaccurate information. The URL is: http://wiki.riteme.site/wiki/Horsham,_Pennsylvania

Can you please take down this page as I do not wish to have to update two differnt pages on the same website for the same township.

Thank you. Colleen Wilson Administrative Assistant Horsham Township 1025 Horsham Road Horsham, PA 19044 — Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.95.179.230 (talk) 13:59, 18 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

You don't "have to" update any of Wikipedia's articles "for" anybody, although appropriate, high-quality sourced updates are always appreciated. As a town employee you have a potential conflict of interest and should familiarise yourself with the policy and edit with caution if at all; however, your recent updates don't appear to be inappropriate. As for your request, the two pages could possibly be merged to preserve their edit histories if they are on the same subject, but a quick glance tells me that one is about a "township" and the other about a "census-designated place" (ie a town) that forms the greater part of that township. They have different geographical areas and different population totals. I am not familiar with the terminology of US local and regional administrative geography, or the criteria for deciding which units qualify for articles and which don't. Maybe someone more familiar with the subject can take a look at the articles? - Karenjc (talk) 14:38, 18 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

It looks as if the demographic information in the "Horsham, Pennsylvania" article is rather too detailed and is in any case out of date (based on the 2000 census), thus much of it could be removed. Having done that, there would not be enough material left to justify it as a separate article: so it could be merged with the other article. ----Ehrenkater (talk) 15:26, 18 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

2014 Kansas Governor race.

I became a Candidate for Kansas Governor October 8Th, 2013 for the 2014 election. You keep dropping me off your publication. Why???? Herbert West III, Republican candidate for Kansas Governor 2014. http://herbertwestiiicandidateforksgovernor.blogspot.com/ — Preceding unsigned comment added by 165.201.59.155 (talk) 14:29, 18 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Do you have independent, reliable confirmation, that is, independent as in not from your own blog then we can help you. Surely some news reports or some such has carried this? --Jayron32 14:43, 18 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

You have been adding your name to the list at Kansas gubernatorial election, 2014, but without any reference to prove that you you have declared. Until you can provide such a reference, it is likely that it will continue to be removed. Meanwhile, I have formatted it correctly. Maproom (talk) 14:49, 18 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I have found, and added, a reference. Maybe your name will stay there now. Maproom (talk) 14:55, 18 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Though, the article says you're a Republican, and the reference says you're a Democrat. I'll leave this to someone who understands US politics. Maproom (talk) 14:59, 18 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I have removed the reference, as that was for the 2010 election, not the 2014. - David Biddulph (talk) 15:52, 18 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I did not find any reference noting Herbert West in 2014 and kansas.state-election.info does not list Herbert West and nothing is shown at kssos.org or kssos elections upcoming candidate.asp. -- Jreferee (talk) 03:17, 21 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Request for an editor to review the errors on the Whole Foods Market article

The article for Whole_Foods_Market has several flags/errors to be reviewed by editors. But no editors are seemingly reviewing or addressing those errors. :-(

Is there a place to request an editor to review the article to take appropiate action on the flags/errors? I'd appreciate it!

Thanks, Pat Grady Digital Marketing Analyst Whole Foods Market — Preceding unsigned comment added by Iampatgrady (talk • contribs) 19:30, 18 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

It looks to me like a comprehensive rewrite is needed to fix the issues. For rexample, how the founders showered is of absolutely no relevance to the company and needs to be removed. Using the term "Memorial Day" instead of an actual date is also innapropriate - readers outside the US won't know the date of Memorial Day and the fact that the flood happened on that particular day has nothing to do with the price of organic tofu. The tone of the writing is also wrong for an encyclopedia. Basically it's a fairly poor puff-piece and needs radical surgery if it is to become an acceptable encyclopedic article. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 11:20, 19 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

@Iampatgrady: Pat, the answer to your question is no - there is no place to post something like "Here's an article that needs fixing". That's because there are literally scores of thousands of articles on Wikipedia that are marked with flags/error messages. Since virtually everyone here is a volunteers, whether an article gets fixed or not usually comes down to whether anyone is personally interested.

Having said that, there is a way to make it more likely that specific errors are fixed. You can post suggestions - the more specific, the better, including suggested wording - at Talk:Whole Foods Market. But please, please don't do that unless you also include reliable sources that support your suggested changes. (If the source is online, all you need to do is mention the url.)

As for the general problem noted at the top of the page - that "This article appears to be written like an advertisement" (I removed the other warning, since it's outdated, I believe), unfortunately dealing with that is, as Roger said, going to require a rewrite by an experienced Wikipedia editor. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 03:13, 20 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

insurance

Hi,

I am happy to find this page.I was just telling you that please add my website link with this page https://wiki.riteme.site/wiki/Life_insurance .Its my site http://(Redacted).co.uk/life-insurance/. I hope so you will thin about that. Thanks — Preceding unsigned comment added by Katherinekatie1 (talk • contribs) 20:13, 18 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia articles are not directories of the web, nor marketing tools. The link you mention appears to be an insurance company or agency site. The article is intended to explain what Life Insurance is, not to list the many many places where it might be obtained. DES ^(talk) 21:30, 18 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Katherinekatie1 is now indeffed as a spam only account. Peridon (talk) 09:50, 19 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Three clicks to get to a footnote

Is this kind of footnote okay? This is a featured article candidate, and I'd like to know if there's a better way to set up this footnote. The way it is now, you click on "a" in the article text. That takes you to a note with a footnote at the end, so you click that. This leads to merely the author name, so you click that to finally get to the source. Three clicks to get to a source! Okay, or not?Anythingyouwant (talk) 20:59, 18 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

@Anythingyouwant: It's working exactly as it should. It's fine. I think you're looking at it in sort of a skewed way. It's not three clicks to get to it, unless you concatenate the note with the citation to the note. It's one click to get from the note markup (^[a]) to the text of the note. That's direct. The citation appended to the note (^[1]), is not verifying the text in the body of the article but the text of the note, so you wouldn't count body → note → bibliography, because the citation is not verifying any text in the body, i.e. they're two separate events: a note, and a citation to a note. It's thus two clicks to get from the citation on the note to the full citation in the bibliography, which is the same as every other citation in the article, and which is the same as every citation in any article using shortened footnotes. Best regards--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 03:22, 19 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Okay, thanks for the reply. I will forget about it (until they make me click four times).Anythingyouwant (talk) 13:55, 19 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Short citations are useful when citing to multiple pages in the same reference. There's more reasons for using them at Help:Shortened footnotes. To me, they convey that newspaper articles in that article have the same weight as books. -- Jreferee (talk) 15:05, 20 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Correction to AL RAI newspaper Kuwait

Ali Rooz is the vice Editor and not an occasional correspondent The correspondent in Beirut is Wissam ABOU HARFOUSH and not Wesam The correspondent in Brussels in Elijah J Magnier

Best — Preceding unsigned comment added by 94.109.4.191 (talk) 20:59, 18 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I have corrected the information about Ali Rooz, since that is supported by his Wikipedia article. As for the rest of the information, I deleted - entirely - the unreferenced "Staff" section, because it is a violation of our policy about what Wikipedia is NOT - specifically, Wikipedia is NOT a directory. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 02:45, 20 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Adam Dreamhealer

Are we able to start a page on Adam Dreamhealer? He is noted in 2 articles in Wiki First Nations University of Canada and Edgar Mitchell

Thank you Flmcl — Preceding unsigned comment added by Flmcl01 (talk • contribs) 21:10, 18 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

It depends on the sources you have for the article. First see the Notability, Verifiability and Reliable sources policies, then decide if your sources are adequate. If you believe you can do an article pleas see the Your first article guide. If Mr. Dreamhealer is currently alive the article must comply with the Biographies of living persons rules too. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 11:33, 19 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

The request is at Wikipedia talk:Articles for creation/Adam Lance McLeod. -- Jreferee (talk) 02:15, 20 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Editing photo caption

I need to correct the caption to the photograph on Budapest String Quartet. How do I do that? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Aginsrh (talk • contribs) 21:13, 18 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Click "edit" at the top of the article and change the text of the caption. Dismas|^(talk) 21:34, 18 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Why am I being constantly logged out?

I am a long term user who always signs in for 30 days at a time. Five times today I have been logged out, even between edits, without my computer being turned off or any other problems on my end, as well as twice yesterday and the day before. I run an Asus computer with Windows 7 and a Safari browser. I have not changed any settings or installed any programs for weeks. I have had two glitches in the past related to an edit tool when wikipedia updated something in regard to certain browsers. Is there a general problem like this now? Thanks. μηδείς (talk) 21:25, 18 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

The cookie that WP stores may have become corrupted. Try deleting it and logging in again. On a Mac, you can use the "Reset Safari" menu option to do this. I would think it's the same on a Win. machine though I don't have access to one right now to find it. Dismas|^(talk) 21:54, 18 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, I did reboot, and it seems to have stopped. I do know how to delete cookies if it comes to that. Thanks for the answer. μηδείς (talk) 01:03, 19 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

It happened again, so I have deleted all wiki cookies. μηδείς (talk) 04:36, 19 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Deleting my cookies seems to have solved the problem! Thanks. μηδείς (talk) 15:49, 20 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

How long does it take to register an account? What if I receive no password?

I requested an account on the English Wikipedia from 86.186.148.151 on 14 Oct, received an instantaneous acknowledgement giving me an ACC # number and a web address at which to complete the request, which I followed up immediately. I was told I would receive a confirmation email with my password shortly, but that was over 4 days ago and still nothing has happened.

In case the confirmation email was lost I went to Special:PasswordReset and entered my email: the automated response said I would receive an email with a new password, but again no email has been received.

My Requested user name does not show up in the Wikipedia list of usernames.

What do I do now? I can find no info covering this eventuality. 31.51.250.227 (talk) 21:36, 18 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Have you checked your spam filter? Dismas|^(talk) 21:39, 18 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, several times! 31.51.250.227 (talk) 21:43, 18 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Nothing ventured, nothing gained — I tried registering (again) using the "Click here to register" button on WP:Tutorial/Registration. This invited me to suggest my own password and this time my request was immediately acknowledged. I'm now – after five days – a registered user. Wellset (talk) 09:33, 19 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for joining the registered editors community. Please accept my apology on behalf of the Wikipedia Account Creation Team for this delay. We currently have a backlog at Account Creations that results in such delays as you experienced. Hope you enjoy editing Wikipedia. -- SMS ^Talk 20:54, 20 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Where do I ask a BLP notability question?

I'm considering writing an article on a living person, but I'm not 100% sure he's notable. I'd like to link to some sources and have other editors help me decide. Should I do that here or somewhere else? Thanks, HtownCat (talk) 22:11, 18 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I thought I recalled a notability notice board. I can't find one. I suggest you assemble some sources, or perhaps even a draft article, on a page in your userspacve, and ask one or more experienced editors to look them over. Or you could use the Articles for Creation process, where you create a draft and a reviewer assesses it, with notability being a major aspect of the assessment. DES ^(talk) 23:20, 18 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

@HtownCat: This is probably the best place to ask, once you've assembled a list of sources (at a user page, like User:HtownCat/ArticleName. I do suggest that these be more than URLs (article title, and publisher, are extremely useful), and I also suggest your writing a first sentence for this possible article - that's where a claim of importance is normally made. I don't think it's worth writing a draft article until/unless you get positive feedback on your list of sources. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 02:38, 20 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks to both of you. I also thought there was a notability notice board at one point. I'll start in article space with sources then ask back here. HtownCat (talk) 13:49, 21 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Spelling Error

Hello.

I don't need any help but you do have a spelling error when editing a page.

Whoever wrote the information at the top has written "Encyclopedic content must be verifiable." but the word is spelt "Encyclopaedic". Just thought you might want to know.

Only in British English - and that seems to be gradually adopting the American spelling (possibly because many people don't know how to type a ligature in place of the "ae"). Wikipedia uses both British and American English, so "encyclopedic" is perfectly acceptable here. Yunshui 雲‍水 23:11, 18 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]