Jump to content

Wikipedia:Teahouse/Questions/Archive 315

Add links
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Archive 310←Archive 313Archive 314Archive 315Archive 316Archive 317→Archive 320

Looking for pointers - who can help advise where my articles need improvement

Greetings, wise and kind Teahouse residents. I recently published a new article on Warrick Couch, and as usual by the time I had finished with it I was just about convinced it was the greatest work of literature since the first scrawls on the wall of a cave. Well, maybe not quite - but you get the idea. Soon, some folks kindly tagged it as part of WikiProjects, with a rating of "C" on the Quality Scale. This really let the air out of my tyres, and left me feeling like I have wasted huge amounts of time. Looking at the Quality Scale, "C" means that "The article is ... still missing important content or contains much irrelevant material. The article ... may still have significant problems or require substantial cleanup" and "considerable editing is needed to close gaps in content and solve cleanup problems." All that work to produce a nearly-failed result. :-( My question is - where to go from here? I would dearly love to know what specific problems the article has and how to address them - both to improve this article, and more importantly to guide my work on future articles so they are better. I have left this question on the projects' talk pages, but nobody seems to be using those. I'm not asking Teahouse members to do a review, but is there any way to get some more specific feedback about what the problems are? -- Gronk Oz (talk) 06:55, 3 March 2015 (UTC)

Gronk Oz, you're gonna give yourself an ulcer! Many if not most, articles hit userspace as stubs or starts. C, especially if this is your first article, is pretty darn good. I'll take a look to see if I can give you any advice and leave you a note on your talk. John from Idegon (talk) 07:09, 3 March 2015 (UTC)
Hey, I did a major cleanup in Aisle 6 on a start-class article that pained me to look at, & all I got was a steenkin' C for it! WikiProject reviewer says I missed a citation & it needs more about the subject's life in it. Confused face as that was the main section I greatly expanded & referenced, seeing as it was an autobiographical article, & you have to be careful when writing about living persons. No tabloids allowed & all that. Anyhow, a C right out of the gate means you leapt over stub & start-class, so it's not that bad. Dinna fash yersel' o'er it. ScarletRibbons (talk) 18:34, 3 March 2015 (UTC)
Thanks to all those who replied here and on my Talk page. I am in the middle of writing another article at the moment and I will endeavour to use your suggestions with that first. Then once a little time has passed so I can be a bit more objective, I hope to come back and work on this page some more.--Gronk Oz (talk) 23:12, 3 March 2015 (UTC)

Cussing Out Wikicoding Big Time

I'm trying to plonk in a reference on an article (has a *citation needed* thingy inline), using the cite web template. Only it won't put in a ref # in the text when I preview it! It looks like this: "Everest's history marked in blood". www.stuff.co.nz. Retrieved 3 March 2015 instead.

I swear all the pipes are in the right places. It looks exactly like the web cite ref directly below it that I put into the article like 2 yrs ago that does give an inline ref #. Help has not been helpful. It never is.

Here's what it looks like in edting: (I left out the squiggly brackets & the cite web bit in hopes it will publish): |url=http://www.stuff.co.nz/world/asia/8729630/Everests-history-marked-in-blood%7Ctitle=Everest's history marked in blood|website=www.stuff.co.nz|accessdate=3 March 2015 - how is this wrong that it won't do what the gazillions of other cite webs I've put in will? ScarletRibbons (talk) 18:13, 3 March 2015 (UTC)

PS. I swear there's a pipe btwn blood & title! But it's screwing up just the same.ScarletRibbons (talk) 18:15, 3 March 2015 (UTC)

<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.stuff.co.nz/world/asia/8729630/Everests-history-marked-in-blood|title=Everest's history marked in blood|website=www.stuff.co.nz|accessdate=3 March 2015 }}</ref>
Stupid squiggly thingys LOL Fair enough. But why is the pipe separating the url from the title not working? ScarletRibbons (talk) 20:28, 3 March 2015 (UTC)
Hi ScarletRibbons try inserting a space ahead of that rebellious pipe. A space will definitively indicate to the cite building software that "the url ends here". Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 20:41, 3 March 2015 (UTC)
TYVM! That did the trick! ScarletRibbons (talk) 20:55, 3 March 2015 (UTC)
@ScarletRibbons: A space before a pipe is not needed in template parameters like {{cite web|url=http://www.stuff.co.nz/world/asia/8729630/Everests-history-marked-in-blood|title=Everest's history marked in blood|website=www.stuff.co.nz|accessdate=3 March 2015}}, This renders as:
"Everest's history marked in blood". www.stuff.co.nz. Retrieved 3 March 2015.
But if the template syntax is so wrong that it doesn't actually become template parameters then a pipe does not terminate a url. This means http://www.stuff.co.nz/world/asia/8729630/Everests-history-marked-in-blood|title=Everest's outside a template becomes one long url: http://www.stuff.co.nz/world/asia/8729630/Everests-history-marked-in-blood%7Ctitle=Everest's. PrimeHunter (talk) 23:21, 3 March 2015 (UTC)

My first article is declined

Hi All!

Could you please help me with my first article at Wikipedia? I am just learning how to write articles in the most neutral way and a bit confused. Please check the one I created and advise me how I shall correct it to fit the standards! Thank you in advance. Fashion Author (talk) 22:06, 2 March 2015 (UTC)

The article in question appears to be User:Fashion Author/Iryna Korolenko. I did a little very basic copy-editing, but it still needs quite a bit of work. Firstly, instead of just listing all the references at the end, they should be placed next to the statement which they support (see the quick example at Help:Citations quick reference or the more detailed instructions at Help:Referencing for beginners). In particular, the third and fourth so-called "references" do not include any mention of the subject at all, so I don't see why they are here.
Then the article needs to establish that the subject is WP:notable, in that specific Wikipedia sense of the word; that is, "has received significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject". You need to provide references where independent, reliable sources have talked about Iryna Korolenko. Stick to statements of fact, verified by those independent sources, and the article should be on its way.--Gronk Oz (talk) 04:26, 3 March 2015 (UTC)

I moved the following comment here from the next section.—Odysseus1479 00:47, 4 March 2015 (UTC)

Gronk Oz, thank you very much - I can see that the article looks much better now. I understood about refernces and will try to find more recent publications about the subject. The third and fourth references include the photos of the subject.. Could you please advise how I can input pictures as most of the references about models/designers are visual. Thank you in advance for your support! I am very excited about learning about writing articles on this fantastic resource Fashion Author (talk) 17:08, 3 March 2015 (UTC)

How to add a town in Wikipedia

How to add a town in Wikipedia , I tried a lot but totally failed. Please help me — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jafor.jannat (talk • contribs) 07:48, 4 March 2015‎ (UTC)

Welcome to the Teahouse Jafor.jannat. You actually created a page at Kalain Town, but it was deleted after about three hours because you didn't provide any substantive content. For general advice on creating an article see Wikipedia:Your first article. —teb728 t c 08:22, 4 March 2015 (UTC)

How to post a wiki page live

Hello,

How would I go about posting a page live- Also I read that pages are deleted- Will that mean all the work I put into making the page will be gone and I can not recover it? Techtuneups (talk) 17:08, 3 March 2015 (UTC)

If you do the article in your Sandbox, it won't go away if a published article is deleted. ScarletRibbons (talk) 18:17, 3 March 2015 (UTC)
  • Hi Techtuneups I'm assuming your referring to User:Techtuneups/Ryan Carroll in which case there is a button at the top "Submit your draft for review!" click this and follow the instructions and your article will be reviewed at some-point but not deleted. If you moved the page into the main article space your correct it could get deleted, so most if not going via the review process would create the main article page and copy and past (thus keeping the original). However, I would not advise this as I doubt this would currently pass Wikipedia:Notability specifically Wikipedia:Notability (people). None of the first three links appear to mention the subject and the rest of the references are to non notable High School and College swimming. As such the article as it stands looks like a personal page of a non-notable (in Wiki standards) person. Cheers KylieTastic (talk) 19:23, 3 March 2015 (UTC)
KylieTastic: while in general I agree with your advise to Techtuneups, I recommend never even suggesting that somebody use copy and paste in Wikipedia. While there are times when it is acceptable, usually there are better ways of handling it, and it generally breaks attribution. Techtuneups: I recommend you read your first article for advice on how to go about writing an article which doesn't get deleted. --ColinFine (talk) 11:26, 4 March 2015 (UTC)

Some articles with spelling errors please

articles please? Superkid 761 (talk) 09:52, 4 March 2015 (UTC)

Not again, it's you again. Superkid 761, you do not just ask questions like this on the Teahouse. As I said, why are you, a 9-year-old here? I know you might be bored from editing, but take time to explore this website. You'll soon fall in love with this site! Take your time, no rush. Thanks, (should we use Singlish?) Nahnah4 (talk | contribs | guestbook) 10:11, 4 March 2015 (UTC)
Hello, Superkid761. The Guild of Copy Editors coordinates things like this - have a look at their Requests page, which has instructions for copy editors (people fixing the spelling and grammar) as well as lists of articles which have been reported. But you are gong to have to be much more careful with your own writing (spelling, punctuation, grammar) than you have been, if you want to convince people that you are going to be helpful in this endeavour). You need to begin with following the "instructions for copy editors" on that page. --ColinFine (talk) 11:38, 4 March 2015 (UTC)

How to publish a new article

This article https://wiki.riteme.site/wiki/Draft:David_Fishelov is ready to be published and I don't know how to do it and how to remove the "Draft:" words from its title. I'll appreciate any assistance. Thanks! Davidgute (talk) 11:57, 4 March 2015 (UTC)

Hello, Davidgute. You removed the "Submit" button with your third to last edit: I have restored it. However, do not submit the article at present, because it is nowhere near being ready to publish, because it does not have a single reference to a reliable source which talks about Fishelov. Please understand that a Wikipedia article, especially one about a living person, must be based almost entirely on what other people, unconnected with the subject, have said or written about the subject, and published in reliable sources. Every single piece of information in the article should be individually referenced to a reliable source which provides the information; and apart from uncontroversial factual data like places and dates, the information must come from sources unconnected with the subject. You need to find articles in major newspapers, or sections of books from reputable publishers, which discuss Fishelov at length: any information in one of those sources may appear in the article. If you cannot find any, then it may well be that he is not at present notable in Wikipedia's special sense, and there cannot be an article on him at present.
The list of publications is all very well, but this is an encyclopaedia, not an academic directory: the bulk of the article needs to be prose summarising what people have written about him.
One more point: the reference attached to 'Bahat Prize' is actually to the he: Wikipedia. Please be aware that Wikipedia is not a reliable source (because anybody may edit it) and may never be used as a reference. You may wikilink to it (the template {{ill}} is designed for wikilinking to an article in another language Wikipedia where there is no corresponding English article). If it is to mention his winning the award, the article must reference a reliable source that says he did so.
I suggest you read referencing for beginners. Best of luck. --ColinFine (talk) 14:22, 4 March 2015 (UTC)
@Davidgute: Hi David. I edit conflicted with Colin, so some of this might be redundant but: There is a large notice at the top of the article that starts with "Draft article not currently submitted for review" and ends with "Submit your draft when you are ready for it to be reviewed!" Click that green button. However, the entire biography section is unsourced and it appears to me that all your references are for the purpose of showing the existence of his works, and are not about him directly. What we are looking for are reliable, secondary sources unconnected with Fishelov, that discuss him substantively, to verify the article's content and to demonstrate the notability of the topic. Also, all your citation are just linked titles, no detail to allow us to see what the source is, such as publisher, date, author, etc. See Wikipedia:Citing sources#What information to include. Best regards--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 14:32, 4 March 2015 (UTC)
Hello ColinFine and Fuhghettaboutit, Thanks for your comments!
Re a reliable source about David Fishelov's biography - I have added a link to the official site of The Authority for Research and Development of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in which David Fishelov's biographical details, as well as his academic appointments, major publications and research interests are described.
Re The Bahat Prize I have added a link to the official site of the Bahat Prize at Haifa University.
Re independent discussions of David Fishelov's works, I have added the details of reviews of his first book published in different academic journals as well as a link to Google-Scholar with citations of this book. I have the details of more such reviews of his other books published in different academic journals and literary supplements and I can send them to you too.
Please let me know if this is the kind of information that you are looking for and the right way to present it.Davidgute (talk) 21:32, 11 March 2015 (UTC)

Hello guys, I am a new user and my username is HotsVeronica. I am sorry but I am going to be a little bit frank. You know, the blue words that appear in movie wikipedias or biographies, that if you click on it it will take you to a different page. For example in the movie, "The fault in our stars" there is Shailene Woodly's name and it is blue. If i click on it then it takes me to her page. Can anyone please tell me how to do that? You know, how to write blue letters that if anyone clicks on it, it will take them to a page based on that word. Please help. — Preceding unsigned comment added by HotsVeronica (talk • contribs) 17:39, 4 March 2015 (UTC)

@HotsVeronica: Hi, you are asking about wikilinks. You create wikilinks by placing two square brackets on either side of the word. For example, to link to the article on chocolate, you would do this: [[chocolate]] which will produce this result on the page: chocolate. Please be sure to read WP:WIKILINK and WP:OVERLINK, as there are various guidelines that will inform you of the appropriate use of wikilinks. We don't link to common words/concepts, we typically don't need multiple links of the same word/concept (with some exceptions) and we have to make sure that we are linking to a disambiguation page. For instance, if you were writing about a book, and there was a character named Choco, you'd want to be sure you were pointing to the correct article, not to this page. Good luck. Cyphoidbomb (talk) 17:55, 4 March 2015 (UTC)
Hello @HotsVeronica: and thanks for stopping by and asking a question. If you want to blue-link a word to link to an article, you can blue link it by adding double brackets around the word, for example typing [[George Washington]] produces George Washington. If you want to link the words to something different, just put the "pipe" character | and the words you want written after the link. For example [[George Washington|The First President of the United States]] produces The First President of the United States. You can read more about this at Help:Link which contains even more information. I hope that helps! --Jayron32 17:57, 4 March 2015 (UTC)


using an em dash in a title Review of Books 1993--1994

It seems my title is not being accepted. It's something like Variety Review of Books 1993-1994. I get an alert after. I've tried adding an emdash with 2 hyphens and using what I thought was code &mdash ... I can't get rid of the alert. The book itself is a text that was published in 1996.Deesm (talk) 18:45, 4 March 2015 (UTC)

@Deesm: Instead of using two hyphens or the &mdash code, use the actual em-dash character. You can get all sorts of extra characters at the bottom of the edit window. If you look down, you'll see a little menu that says "Insert", and then next to it is a series of bluelinked special characters. The em-dash is the second one. You can just click it and it puts it in — like that. --Jayron32 19:06, 4 March 2015 (UTC)
Hi Deesm, and welcome to the Teahouse. Are you referring to your Draft:Rarebirdfilms and citation 4, which has red alerts in the References list? If so, the date formatting problem is not wit the date in the title, but with the publication date, formatted as (Sept 1, 1996) rather than using one of the approved formats for dates. Cheers! — Grand'mere Eugene (talk) 19:28, 4 March 2015 (UTC)
@Deesm: Hi Deesm. I've fixed the citation in your draft in various ways. I believe (though I'm not sure) that the alert that brought you here was the red error text in the references section, stating "Check date values in: |date= (help)" The reason that error was displaying was because you used "Sept" instead of September and had nothing to do with the dash between the dates in the title. By the way, the other red error message you were seeing for that citation display resulted from your use of both the parameters page= and pages=; they are mutually exclusive because they are both for providing the relevant page(s) where the citation appears – use the first if it's one page OR the latter if it's a span of pages. In other words, you can't use both, and "pages=" is not for listing the number of pages in the work. Best regards--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 19:19, 4 March 2015 (UTC)

The Medicine Hat Cubs Junior “B” Hockey Club has been deleted from Wikipedia. How do I get us relisted on Wikipedia?

The Medicine Hat Cubs are one of the longest running Junior “B” Franchises in Alberta, and are listed in the Alberta Hockey Hall of Fame. We have sent 2 players, Murray Craven and Blaine Lacher, to the NHL. Several other former players have gone on to play in the Minors, Europe (Professional Hockey), WHL, Junior “A”, NCAA, Canadian Universities and Colleges. Other notable for players include Drew Barnes who is the Medicine Hat MLA and soon to be leader of the Wild Rose Party, which is the official opposition in Alberta; Terry Bartman who is the scout for the Spokane Chiefs also played for us. Brian Varga, who is a current City of Medicine Hat Council member coached our club. Other former players, coaches and directors have gone on to be doctors, lawyers, dentists, fire fighters, professional tradesman and have proven themselves leaders in our community. In the past 42 years over 1000 hockey players from across Canada have come through our system and most hockey players from Medicine Hat hoping to advance their hockey career will be affiliated with us at some point and time. All our home games are broadcast live online. We use our local television sports broadcaster personalities to do our live online broadcasts and this has been working great for both them and us. We get more and better coverage on our local T.V. broadcasts and local newspaper. Last year’s broadcast crew Braden Malsbury and Dave Dawson were offered promotions, in part because of their exposure with our club. Braden is now the broadcaster for the Laronge Ice Wolves of the S.J.H.L. and Dave has accepted a position at Shaw T.V. in Edmonton, AB. Our Local paper has pictures and articles about us several times a week during the hockey season; even a rural reporter from the Prairie Post paper has started attending our games and written a few articles about us. We are expecting to see our first U.S. born players make our team this year. As a non-profit organization I am sure you realize how important it is to get as much information out to the general public as possible. You never know who is checking out sites and may be willing to donate time or money to a cause. Thank you for reconsidering your position on our removal from Wikipedia. Sincerely Bill Berard Vice president & General Manager Medicine Hat Cubs Hockey Club 108.181.217.210 (talk) 02:43, 5 March 2015 (UTC)

Hi Bill. I'm sorry your article got removed. You'll want to talk to the administrator who deleted your page with specific concerns, who is listed at the location of the deleted page. However, I do want to speak to your comments above. The way editors decide on what articles to include or not is based on a concept called notability, and there certain ideas that editors generally agree upon when it comes to articles about organizations. An organization is generally not notable just because it is associated with notable people or entities. It's also important to understand that Wikipedia is not a vehicle for promotion, regardless of whether the organization is a profit-seeking one or not. The general way to demonstrate that the hockey club has notability is to provide evidence that it has received substantial coverage in multiple, reliable, and independent sources. The local papers and the Prairie Post articles are a good start, as long as they are not routine coverage. I, JethroBT drop me a line 03:44, 5 March 2015 (UTC)
Hi Bill, it looks like your team's article was deleted back in July 2011 according to Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Medicine Hat Cubs. The main reasons given have to due with the team's lack of notability. Being previously deleted from Wikipedia page does not necessarily mean gone forever. Things change over time, so perhaps your team now is notable enough for an article. The administrator who deleted the page back then was Mkativerata and they are still an active Wikipedian. So, you can post a query at User talk:Mkativerata, explaining why you feel your team now satisfies Wikipedia:Notability (organizations and companies) and asking for advice on how best to continue. You could also try asking for assistance at the talk page for WikiProject Ice Hockey since that is the Wikiproject that deals with hockey-related articles. The editors there have experience with these types of article and they probably know what is needed to establish notability. Good luck. - Marchjuly (talk) 05:16, 5 March 2015 (UTC)

Category for bio of person whose real identity is unknown?

Lubov begins

Lubov (real name unknown) is the pseudonym of a Russian-born painter (born in St. Petersburg)...

The article is flagged for a number of problems involving lack of references, but that's not my question.

The article is categorized in Category:Year of birth missing (living people). Now, this is hardly surprising, given that nobody (in general) knows who "Lubov" really is. But is there a category for people who are known only by a pseudonym, so that much or all of their biographical data is unknown?

I don't have any plans or ideas for what to do with such a category, except that we should have it.

To discuss this, please {{Ping}} me. --Thnidu (talk) 01:15, 5 March 2015 (UTC)

@Thnidu: Lubov could be added to Category:Pseudonymous artists and Category:Unidentified people. PrimeHunter (talk) 01:27, 5 March 2015 (UTC)
Thanks PrimeHunter. --Thnidu (talk) 09:00, 5 March 2015 (UTC)


Articles on Wikipedia

Can I add an article about me? Superbkc (talk) 11:00, 5 March 2015 (UTC)

Hi Superbkc welcome to the Teahouse. Firstly for you to have a Wikipedia article you must meet notability criteria. Even if you did it's not recommended to write an autobiography as it causes conflicts of interest and most of the time it violates Wikipedia's neutral point of view.--Chamith (talk) 11:31, 5 March 2015 (UTC)

Help with assessing an article

This really is an editing question and I have great trust in the opinions of the Teahouse hosts and hostesses. I came across an article concerning a Mexican man accused of crimes he was never tried for or found guilty. I am uncertain if it should be deleted or not. Can you let me know what your thoughts are on this: Mario Alberto Sulú Canché

  Bfpage |leave a message  13:35, 5 March 2015 (UTC)

Hi, I am trying to nominate Jr. NTR's filmography for FLC, by first editing it in the sandbox, posting the pictures, then copying it to his article. I took Hrithik Roshan's filmography as a reference. Now, all I want to do, is to upload a few more pictures, and place them in the article.

Regards, Maheshreddy2 (talk) 15:44, 5 March 2015 (UTC)Maheshreddy2Maheshreddy2 (talk) 15:44, 5 March 2015 (UTC)

Actually, most contemporary photos uploaded to Commons are still copyrighted, but the copyright holder usually freely licenses the photos under a Creative Commons license. The copyright holder still has the right to be credited. Cullen328 Let's discuss it 16:15, 5 March 2015 (UTC)

list of convention and exhibition sites

how do we list our convention venue on this site 134.241.1.131 (talk) 16:17, 5 March 2015 (UTC)

Hello, welcome to the Teahouse. We have certain requirements for things to be listed on Wikipedia. If you believe it meets those requirements, please read through this guide, which explains what you need to know to write about something you are connected with. Anon124 (+2) (notify me of responses! / talk / contribs) 17:41, 5 March 2015 (UTC)

Correction to Iredell county North Carolina

The new sheriff Darren Campbell was the first new sheriff in 20 years he was just sworn this past December 2014........ The page say 1994 that was the old sheriff

Thanks I hope this helps — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.106.176.171 (talk) 03:54, 5 March 2015 (UTC)

Help needed in starting an article!

Hello,

So i want to write an article about Matthew Patrick from youtube who started 'The Game Theorist' channel (url:https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCo_IB5145EVNcf8hw1Kku7w). I have researched about some game theorists and he is the only one with no references in Wikipedia.I have written an rough article with decent amount of references.

But the problem is I am not able to find from where to start an article.Secondly, can someone tell me if it will be charged for the case of notability.

Thank You

Komchi (talk) 19:43, 5 March 2015 (UTC)

(edit conflict)Hello Komchi and welcome to the Teahouse. To answer your first question, you can have a look at Wikipedia:Your first article and perhaps do The Wikipedia Adventure (look for the link at the top of this page). I have also placed some links on your talk page to help you with your editing. I'm sure some other editor who knows more about the person you mentioned, will come along and answer your second question. Best, w.carter-Talk 21:50, 5 March 2015 (UTC)

Thanks a lot KylieTastic !

Komchi (Discuss with me) 21:50, 5 March 2015 (UTC)

How to report vandals?

I recently suspected a vandalism act on Simon's Cat page.I think I know the person as he may have changed the correct grammar to wrong ones. Help!

Komchi (talk) 19:50, 5 March 2015 (UTC)

I don't see any obvious evidence of recent vandalism on Simon's Cat. If someone changed the grammar from correct to incorrect, the best option is to assume good faith and assume that the editor who changed the grammar was mistaken, and change it back, but discuss on the talk page. If you haven't already read the policy on vandalism, read it again with particular reference to what is and is not vandalism; most incorrect or ignorant edits are not vandalism. If you see what is clearly vandalism, the first action is, again, to revert the vandalism by restoring the last good version. Second, you may warn the editor, using one of the Twinkle templates, that further vandalism will lead to a block. Third, if the editor continues to engage in vandalism, report it to Administrator Intervention against Vandalism. I hope that this answers your questions. Robert McClenon (talk) 20:15, 5 March 2015 (UTC)
Thanks for the reply I think that just might a ignorant edit. Thank you!

Komchi (Discuss with me) 20:31, 5 March 2015 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Komchi (talk • contribs)

Thanks a lot w.carter!

Komchi (Discuss with me) 21:57, 5 March 2015 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Komchi (talk • contribs)

Is it possible to change the titles of articles?

Hi. Is it possible for ordinary Wikipedia users to change the titles of articles? For example, the article entitled MecA (gene) should be changed to mecA (gene) because (a) the name of the gene is mecA (not MecA) and (b) gene names are always italicized (to differentiate them from gene products). Your advice would be much appreciated. Thanks, tH0r (talk contribs) 14:51, 2 March 2015 (UTC)

See WP:MOVING for information on how to rename (move) an article. Also, italics cannot be used in the title of an article, but should be used in the body of the article when they are appropriate. Another editor may be able to give you more advice. Robert McClenon (talk) 16:29, 2 March 2015 (UTC)
Robert probably intended to point you towards WP:MOVE, rather than the redlink WP:MOVING. --David Biddulph (talk) 16:39, 2 March 2015 (UTC)
Actually italics can, and should, be used in the titles of certain articles - see WP:ITALICTITLE "Use italics when italics would be used in running text; for example, taxonomic names, the names of ships, the titles of books, films, and other creative works, and foreign phrases are italicized both in ordinary text and in article titles". Please note many of the italic titles are created automatically by the use of certain infoboxes. If done manually this is done in a different way than usual, do not put ''Title'' see WP:ITALICTITLE for the "how-to". - Arjayay (talk) 16:44, 2 March 2015 (UTC)
Welcome to the Teahouse tH0r. Actually you don't want to move the article but only change how the title is displayed. You do that with the WP:DISPLAYTITLE magic word, thus: {{DISPLAYTITLE:''mecA'' (gene)}}. I put that in the article for you. —teb728 t c 17:26, 2 March 2015 (UTC)
David Biddulph and Robert McClenon, not red any more. I realized it was probably all right to make it a redirect.— Vchimpanzee • talk • contributions • 22:36, 5 March 2015 (UTC)

What does this mean - Hay House (disambiguation)

There is a link on Hay House. I am struggling to get an understanding on the link to "Hay House disambiguation" any ideas? Empowering you (talk) 21:56, 5 March 2015 (UTC)

Hi Empowering you. "Disambiguation" is the process of resolving the conflicts that arise when a single term or phrase for a page title is ambiguous—when it refers to more than one topic covered by Wikipedia. In the case case of Hay House, there are multiple topics that that phrase can refer to, so we have a page that tells readers, in effect, "these are all the existing topics the phrase "Hay House" might refer to and you might be looking for; you choose from this list". We name such referral pages TOPIC (disambiguation), so Hay House (disambiguation) is that type of page. Not to go too far afield but sometimes we will place the same type of page at the "base topic" name (i.e., without affixing "(disambiguation)" to the title), but we only do that when there is no primary topic. Does that help? Best regards--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 23:02, 5 March 2015 (UTC)

Font

I'm seventy and i can't see the periods in Wiki's font. Could you send me a new copy of Wikipedia,mine is about worn out.73.192.68.141 (talk) 21:08, 5 March 2015 (UTC)

Hi. I have the same problem but it is not the fault of Wikipedia. The web browser that you use to read Wikipedia has a Zoom function somewhere that will let you increase the size of the letters. StarryGrandma (talk) 21:35, 5 March 2015 (UTC)
Hi, and welcome to the Teahouse! I'm not sure I fully understand your question. If Wikipedia's text is too small to read comfortably, many web browsers will allow you to either increase the text size or zoom in on the page. This can typically be accomplished by accessing your browser's "View" menu or similar and selecting "Zoom". If this does not adequately address your question, please leave a follow-up and I or another Teahouse host would be happy to assist you. —Mz7 (talk) 21:34, 5 March 2015 (UTC)
Registered users have many options to customize Wikipedia. One of them is selecting "Cologne Blue" at Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-rendering. It looks like https://wiki.riteme.site/wiki/Wikipedia:Teahouse/Questions?useskin=cologneblue. There are many changes. One of them, at least on my screen, is a font with larger periods. Maybe you will also find other characters more clear without having to enlarge them. If you know CSS then registered users can make their own in your CSS and choose any font their browser supports. PrimeHunter (talk) 00:17, 6 March 2015 (UTC)

My Article Josh Lord is accepted but it is an orphan. I am trying to create links so that it is no longer an orphan, but struggling with how to do this. In the info box I tried to link Visual Art or Artist as a link but it doesn't seem to be correct. Can I please get some advise. Thank you WriteaboutArt (talk) 00:50, 6 March 2015 (UTC)

Welcome WriteaboutArt and thansk for your question. I will go to the article and assist you with linking, and I will follow up on your talk page. The article being an orphan means that no other Wikipedia articles link into yours (not the other way around}. Links are created by placing [[ before the name of an article, and ]] after it. So typing [[AC/DC]] looks like this: AC/DC. I hope this helps. Flat Out let's discuss it 00:55, 6 March 2015 (UTC)
Therefore to stop your article being an orphan you need to find other articles which mention Josh Lord, and make those mentions links by putting the brackets around to make it [[Josh Lord]] which renders as Josh Lord. If there are no mentions of him in other articles yet, you need to find articles which should mention him, and ensure that any mentions which you add are linked by making them look like [[Josh Lord]]. --David Biddulph (talk) 01:04, 6 March 2015 (UTC)

Vandalism?

I add info that shoul be there but it is called vandalism why is that — Preceding unsigned comment added by Pigs1111 (talk • contribs) 02:53, 5 March 2015 (UTC)

Welcome to the Teahouse. The answer is in the numerous messages of advice which you have received on your user talk page. If you did not read the messages before you deleted them, you can get back to them through the history tab. --David Biddulph (talk) 03:04, 5 March 2015 (UTC)
@Pigs1111: "Vandalism" may have been a wrong term but your edits were inappropriate for Wikipedia. A claim that electrokinesis is a real psychic ability fails Wikipedia:Fringe theories, and a claim that you personally have evidence of it would also fail Wikipedia:No original research. But it's a common term about superpowers in fiction so I have added a hatnote [1] to the article you edited. PrimeHunter (talk) 01:10, 6 March 2015 (UTC)

Can I take Youtube videos as references?

Hi!

Youtube personalities such as Jordan Maro(a.k.a CaptainSparklez)'s articles are stub and need references about his early life and career. So, I wanted to ask can we take videos as references or are they not reliable?

Thank You

Komchi (Discuss with me) 22:45, 5 March 2015 (UTC) -— Preceding unsigned comment added by Komchi (talk • contribs) 07:45, 6 March 2015 (UTC+9)
*Note: Added "unsigned" template per WP:TPG#Attributing unsigned comments - Marchjuly (talk) 01:31, 6 March 2015 (UTC)

Welcome, Komchi, to the Teahouse! You can use YouTube videos as references, however, be careful about using them as sources as they can be more easily misued. The usage of YouTube videos as sources are normally restricted under the verifiability and reliable sources guideline. Make sure that the YouTube video is either a published, reliable, and verifiable source, or it is a video about themselves that meets the self-published source requirement.
However, if the latter applies to the video, note that that video is a primary source, and you must be careful about using primary sources, because it is easy to include original research by misusing them. They normally must only be used for "straightforward, descriptive statements of facts that can be verified by any educated person with access to the primary source but without further, specialized knowledge". Keep this in mind if the latter case applies.
Nonetheless, as soon as you exercise some caution when editing, be bold in editing!
If you have any more questions, don't hesitate to ask. Thanks for your contributions to Wikipedia! Esquivalience t 01:38, 6 March 2015 (UTC)
So,I actually wrote the whole life of Jordan Moran (a.k.a.CaptainSparklez on Youtube) but it was based on 'Draw my life' video, does that count? Because Dwpaul cancelled for that not being reliable!Thanks for the reply though! Komchi (talk) 01:53, 6 March 2015 (UTC)
@Komchi: Hi Komchi. I'm afraid that isn't going to be a reliable source because it is self-published. You'll need to provide sources that have an identifiable kind of editorial review like a news organization or a book (that is not self-published). I, JethroBT drop me a line 02:29, 6 March 2015 (UTC)

Sockpuppet problem

I am a new user, and just try to improve article with problem. However, recently I try to improve the article of "Universidad Empresarial de Costa Rica", there are other users Huon say me is Sockpuppet. Maybe my network is public network. How can I solve the problem? Is it some article be prohibited for new user to edit? Safetylun (talk) 09:11, 5 March 2015 (UTC)

Hi Safetylun welcome to the Teahouse. If you are not a sock then you have nothing to worry about. Your investigation has endorsed a CheckUser. Checkusers are a different group of users who have access to a tool called CheckUser tool. So it won't be Huon's decision to block you or not. If you believe your IP address is public then that won't be a problem either. Because if you are not a sockpuppet of User:Chan f.c then your edits (or articles you edited) must be significantly different from the ones Chan f.c made/edited. Cheers!--Chamith (talk) 11:45, 5 March 2015 (UTC)

Hi, Chamith. Thank you for your information! If so, I will be less worry. Best regards! Safetylun (talk) 12:12, 5 March 2015 (UTC)

Safetylun, that particular article has a very difficult history - lots of arguments and edit wars. Have a look at its Talk page and you will see just how much trouble there has been. As a new user, you might be best to find different articles to work on until you get some more experience. There are thousands of other articles that also need your help, which will not cause these problems.--Gronk Oz (talk) 15:27, 5 March 2015 (UTC)
I agree with Gronk Oz. It'd be better if you stay out of that topic for a while. When dealing with articles like this always discuss the matter on talk page before making significant changes, especially if it's controversial. That's the best way to prevent edit wars.--Chamith (talk) 16:57, 5 March 2015 (UTC)

Gronk Oz, ChamithN Ok! Understand about that. I see there are no editors try to make consensus with others, no help for new comer, and just edit warring. Anyway, I will keep away from that topic. Thanks! Safetylun (talk) 02:36, 6 March 2015 (UTC)

How do you edit a heading?

Can you change a heading title? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Thom122 (talk • contribs) 02:29, 6 March 2015 (UTC)

Welcome to the Teahouse. Yes you can. If you click on the "Edit" link alongside the heading of this section, the edit window includes the heading as well as the content of the section. --David Biddulph (talk) 02:32, 6 March 2015 (UTC)
Hi Thom122, welcome to the Teahouse. The above reply refers to section headings. If you mean the heading of a whole page then we call them page names or titles and not headings. See Wikipedia:Moving a page for how to change them. We can say more if you say which change you want to which name. PrimeHunter (talk) 02:47, 6 March 2015 (UTC)

"fix "WP:TOOSOON. Album title is too ambiguous to be made into a redirect to the band article"

How do you fix the issue of WP:TOOSOON. Album title is too ambiguous to be made into a redirect to the band article?Pmahon628 (talk) 22:46, 5 March 2015 (UTC)

Hi and welcome. WP:TOOSOON isn't something that you can fix. What that means is the subject just isn't popular enough yet and doesn't have enough outside sources. You can instead work on adding information about the album into the authors page. EoRdE6(Come Talk to Me!) 01:55, 6 March 2015 (UTC)
WP:TOOSOON refers to things about which it is "too soon" to write an article. These generally include forthcoming albums, before there is any hard press about them (i.e. other than speculation). The way to fix this is to wait until the album has significant coverage in independent reliable sources. All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 02:04, 6 March 2015 (UTC).
Hi Pmahon. Are you referring to The London Session? This is just my opinion, but it seems that an article about an album which has not been released is going to be kind of hard to find reliable sources for per WP:CRYSTAL which is probably why the article was proposed for deletion. Furthermore, it appears from the edit sum you gave for this edit that you might have a conflict of interest and that your intent is to help promote the album on the behalf of the record company. Please try and understand that this is not really what Wikipedia is about. I suggest you take a look at both Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not and Wikipedia:Plain and simple conflict of interest guide to familiarize yourself with relevant Wikipedia policies and guidelines and avoid any potential problems. - Marchjuly (talk) 02:21, 6 March 2015 (UTC)
The second part "Album title is too ambiguous to be made into a redirect to the band article" is not directly related to the first. It explained why the proposer of deletion did not think the article name should become a redirect to the band Umphrey's McGee. PrimeHunter (talk) 02:53, 6 March 2015 (UTC)

rejection: due to style or content or both

Hi, I am creating a page about my art practice as an experimental contemporary artist (visual arts). My draft was rejected, I'm just wondering if I could have a bit more elaboration on what more is needed.

thanks Paul Litherland

the page is located at https://wiki.riteme.site/wiki/User:Sloow/Paul_Litherland

Sloow (talk) 03:45, 6 March 2015 (UTC)

Hi Sloow. It appears that your draft was declined for reasons related to the notability of the subject matter. Since the article is intended to be a page about an artist, I suggest reviewing the criteria listed at WP:ARTIST to see if they are satisfied. Moreover, since you seem to be trying to create an article about yourself, I also suggest that you take a look at WP:AUTOBIOGRAPHY. Writing article's about yourself is something that is highly discouraged on Wikipedia because of conflict of interest issues. When you write about yourself, you neither own the article nor have any special editorial control over it once it officially becomes part of the encyclopedia. In other words, how you envision the article to be and how it actually turns out to be once others start editing it may be quite different. This is not meant to discourage from participating in Wikipedia, but COI editing can be really tricky to pull off and is something that tends to be highly scrutinized by other editors. If you feel you are truly notable for a Wikipedia article, then the best course of action might simply be waiting until another unconnected editor writes "your" article, or requesting that another editor write it for you. - Marchjuly (talk) 04:42, 6 March 2015 (UTC)
Thank you for clarifying!

Sloow (talk) 04:57, 6 March 2015 (UTC)

Reference Library?

Is there a place where people have put a list of references that editors can use? I always struggle to find references and found an article for video game references and just wondered if there was any other pages like this or even if one exists. thanks Wrightie99 (talk) 19:56, 5 March 2015 (UTC)

Hey Wrightie99. Not exactly, but see:
Also note that certain Wikiprojects have pages set up to attempt to guide people to specific sources in their focus area. For example, since you mentioned video games, see Wikipedia:WikiProject Video games/Sources. Best regards--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 21:52, 5 March 2015 (UTC)
Oh, I should also mention (and you may say "duh" in response, but I am sometimes surprised by this being unknown to people), that instead of using a Google or other search engine web search, start with Google Books and Google Scholar (Google News is sometimes useful as well though it's been essentially broken for about two years) as they concentrate reliable sources.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 22:43, 5 March 2015 (UTC)
If you don't mind me asking @Fuhghettaboutit: whats broken with Google News> It's my favourite source finder... EoRdE6(Come Talk to Me!) 02:00, 6 March 2015 (UTC)
@EoRdE6: Whoa, they've 80% fixed it, as of December (and I obviously wasn't aware)! The archives were down (for about two years). There were a number of discussions about it because it really hurt our research capability. See for example Wikipedia:Village pump (miscellaneous)/Archive 44#Google news archive search? Basically, you could only find news content from the past thirty days through Google News directly so it was basically useless for anything but an article on a recent event. There was a limited workaround. Instead of using Google News at all, you would do a regular web search but place there site:google.com/newspapers, and this would access some limited portion of the former archive but it was extremely limited. Whole swaths of newspaper were gone, like The New York Times; you'd find maybe 1/8 of the former results. Also, an extremely powerful tool was gone (and is still gone, which is why I said it's "80% fixed: you can't target your search to a date range). That's still broken. They do provide the facility to do such searches, but it just doesn't work. For example, here's a search of "Abraham Lincoln" from 1850 to 1920, which returns zero results. It's still under a serious deficit but I would no longer describe it as "essentially broken".--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 04:00, 6 March 2015 (UTC)
@EoRdE6: Nuts. I take it back. It is restored to a small extent, but still substantially broken. After leaving here thinking it was mostly fixed, I went back to a draft project I had started but basically abandoned pending Google News' return, because I knew it would provide the material I needed to flesh out the article. When I started this in 2013 I remember finding a few hundred results using Google New Archive for his name in quotes, which now only returns three results, and misses, for example, the 100 articles mentioning him in The New York Times. In fact the poor workaround I mentioned above finds 41 results so it's not back.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 05:38, 6 March 2015 (UTC)

Hello,

I was in the middle of editing an article when I saw a relevant site which could be used to add a history section in the page. However, the whole thing (which consists of 5 short paragraphs) only leads to that one relevant source.

I wish to ask if there is an appropriate way of linking the whole section? Should I put the link in the heading (which I gathered from Wikipedia's Manual of Style is highly discouraged), should I put the reference at the end of each paragraph and use the "ref name" tag instead or is there something else I can do to fix this problem? Any help would be highly appreciated! Jeunine 05:28, 5 March 2015 (UTC)

Hi Jeunine, I would put it at the end of each paragraph and use "ref name". All the best, Taketa (talk) 06:22, 5 March 2015 (UTC)
Hi Jeunine. Just because you only have one source for that section today does not mean it will always be that way. Tomorrow you may find another source. Doing as Taketa suggests means it will be very straightforward for you (or another editor) to incorporate those extra sources when they turn up.--Gronk Oz (talk) 15:34, 5 March 2015 (UTC)
Thank you for your advice, Taketa and Gronk Oz! Jeunine 05:50, 6 March 2015 (UTC)

Medical terminology Setswana translations

Hi, I am working on a 3-phase study of Wikipedia as an mHealth tool in Botswana. As part of the study we are hoping in create a Wikipedia article with a table of medical terminology Setswana translations and other information about Setswana language as it relates to the medical field and speaking with patients. I know there are some other table-like formats as Wikipedia articles such as acronyms and abbreviations. Just wanted to get some people's thoughts on this as a new page. Was also considering adding it to WikiBooks because we definitely want it to be under the Wikimedia umbrella since Africa and the Middle East have just gotten access free of data charges (http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Wikipedia_Zero). Thanks! Abchave1 (talk) 12:49, 5 March 2015 (UTC)

Hi Abchavel, I'm sorry, but I don't think this would be appropriate for Wikipedia. This would be original research, which we don't publish. We only do encyclopaedia articles on subjects that have been extensively talked about elsewhere. It would also run afoul of our WP:NOTGUIDE policy. I don't know much about Wikibooks, but it sounds like a good fit for that site. Best of luck. Rojomoke (talk) 13:23, 5 March 2015 (UTC)
That sounds like a worthy project, Abchavel. But as Rojomoke says, Wikipedia is not the place for it. In addition to the reasons that Rojomoke gives, also remember that Wikipedia can be edited by anybody, at any time. This means that it would not be reliable enough for medical use.--Gronk Oz (talk) 15:04, 5 March 2015 (UTC)
Thanks for the comment. Interestingly, studies have shown that despite the fact that anyone can edit Wikipedia, Wikipedia is still one of the most widely used online references by medical students, residents, and physicians for looking up medical information. We agree that Wikipedia should never be used for final decision-making in the clinical setting, however it is a useful starting point for information, especially in places such as rural Botswana where the information they are using are books from 7 years ago, and they have no access to scientific journals. Abchave1 (talk) 07:40, 6 March 2015 (UTC)
Also, the formatting of adding the Setswana medical terminology translations would follow the formatting of others such as:
Links reformatted as wikilinks for clarity by ColinFine (talk) 10:48, 6 March 2015 (UTC)
You might want to post this question at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Medicine and in particular take a look at this translation project; people there will probably have more specific thoughts on your idea. Opabinia regalis (talk) 08:02, 6 March 2015 (UTC)

Submission like an adv

Hi, I'm writing the following page https://wiki.riteme.site/wiki/Draft:Sentinet3 and the submission it's been declined because it seem like an adv. I have seen pages of similar products and they are very similar to the page I've submitted. How can I modify my submission in order to be approved?

Thank you very much. Mikii la (talk) 16:32, 5 March 2015 (UTC)

Hello, Mikii la. I'll try and show you what the commenters mean by "like an advertisement".
The first sentence of your draft currently reads "Sentinet3® is a unified proactive monitoring solution based on Open Source Project Nagios, is further developed, enhanced and supported by Fata Informatica." A translation of that from marketing-speak into English would be something like "Sentinet 3 is a hardware and software monitoring program developed by Fata Informatica from the Open source Nagios program". We don't use '®' in Wikipedia, 'proactive' and 'solution' are marketing words which hardly ever belong in a Wikipedia article ('solution' would be OK if the article were talking about solving a particular problem or about physical chemistry); 'unified' is meaningless puff without text explaining what it is unified from or how it is different from something which is not 'unified'; and 'enhanced"' is an evaluative word which should never appear in a Wikipedia article unless it is directly referenced to an independent published reliable source which says that the thing has been enhanced.
If there are other articles which have the same faults, please tell us which ones, so that they can be improved or deleted. They are not a reason to accept a new draft which is unsatisfactory. --ColinFine (talk) 11:21, 6 March 2015 (UTC)
ColinFine thank you for your suggestions and advice. I modified the submission like you said. Could you pls give a quick look if it's ok?

Thank you again Mikii la (talk) 12:02, 6 March 2015 (UTC)

What is the actual difference between a Source and a Reference?

Hello, I actually am having a very hard time getting the difference between source and references. When I write a section in an article it often gets removed from the article for not having reliable sources even though i have given decent amount of references. Help.

Thank You!

Komchi (talk) 10:15, 6 March 2015 (UTC)

Hi Komchi. Thing is, Wikipedia won't accept just anything as a source. We have a requirement that sources must be reliable, which means that many potential sources (such as blogs, self-published books, sales sites, extremist websites and forum postings) are not usable here. In practice, the words "source" and "reference" are interchangable here - the key word is "reliable", and that's where I think you're running into difficulties. Have a read of Identifying reliable sources to get an idea of the sort of thing you need to look for. Yunshui 雲水 10:27, 6 March 2015 (UTC)
@Yunshui Thank you! Komchi (talk) 11:05, 6 March 2015 (UTC)
Most precisely, a "source" is a single work from which information is taken; a "reference" is a single instance of attributing information to a source. Powers T 13:23, 6 March 2015 (UTC)
Retrieved from "https://wiki.riteme.site/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Teahouse/Questions/Archive_315&oldid=1090622422"