Wikipedia:Help desk/Archives/2009 August 10

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August 10

Can You Insert Text From One Wikipedia Article Into Another?

How does this work. Say there is an article X, and a section of it is relevant in article Y. Are you allowed to add the related text in article X and inserted into article Y within wikipedia? —Preceding unsigned comment added by The Sports Fan (talk • contribs) 03:15, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

The short answer is yes, provided you state in the edit summary that the text you're inserting is being copied from another article (and which article it's being copied from). The longer answer is that whether you should do so depends on circumstances. Generally, if there's an article about X, and a section about X in an article about Y, that section should be considerably less detailed than the article about X. See WP:SUMMARY for some explanation of this. Steve Smith (talk) (formerly Sarcasticidealist) 03:21, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

You could also use either {{see|article Y#section}} if it's a smallish section, which would give

Further information: article Y § section

or {{main|article Y}} if the entire article would be suitable, which would give

Main article: article Y

-- PhantomSteve (Contact Me, My Contribs) 07:44, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

Follow Up

Is there any way to add a comment like that into an edit summary after the edit is made? What should I do in this situation? —Preceding unsigned comment added by The Sports Fan (talk • contribs) 03:26, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

It is not possible to change the edit summary of an already-made edit. You could leave a note on the talk page, or make a dummy edit with an appropriate edit summary. Algebraist 03:42, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

Hiding category list

An editor suggested here that the long list of categories be hidden on the article. Is that possible? I suspect not. —teb728 t c 05:19, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

The list could certainly be pared down. There are clearly quite a few redundant categories there. --Jayron32 05:52, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

If you wanna quit, how do you??

How do you quit Wikipedia. (Just a little kid!) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Cam486 (talk • contribs) 07:11, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

You can quit Wikipedia??? I don't know how that would work! Seriously, see Right to Vanish ... basically, your account is self-labeled as not active, but the account always exists... once in, always in! -- PhantomSteve (Contact Me, My Contribs) 07:49, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

You can check out, but you can never leave... – ukexpat (talk) 14:27, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

hehe good one Ukexp! Ive seen alot of people use the retire user box to indicate they are leaving Ottawa4ever (talk) 17:01, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

Just stop editing. There is no need to announce your desire to "retire" unless you feel the need to make an attention-grabbing statement on your way out the door. If you don't want to edit anymore, just stop using your account. Functionally, there will be no difference between doing that and jumping through major hoops to make sure that everyone knows you are leaving. --Jayron32 18:30, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

Am I allowed to use a photograph of someone else's painting in a Wiki article if I bought that painting?

If not, am I allowed to if I have the artist's permission? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Rage707 (talk • contribs) 07:51, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

Although you may own the painting, the copyright belongs to the artist (and a photo of a piece of work is still copyrighted to the copyright owner). If the artist wants to release the copyright, then it would be ok, but see "Donating copyrighted materials" for how this can be done. -- PhantomSteve (Contact Me, My Contribs) 08:15, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

However, if the painting's copyright has expired, (if, for instance, it was painted prior to 1923 and is in the US) then you may upload the photo. If the painting is a "work for hire," Then whoever paid the artist owns the copyright (but you will need a copy of the contract to prove it.) Read WP:C. If you get the copyright holder's permission (usually the artist holds the copyright,) you will need to file an WP:OTRS. If, however, the artist creates an account and uploads the picture, the artist can state that the painting is an original work of the artist/uploader. OF course, if is is uploades, then anyne can use the picture for any purpose, on or off Wikipedia. The Wikipeia rules are complicated because copyright law is complicated, and Wikipedia complies with the law. -Arch dude (talk) 12:43, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for that, Arch dude. I assumed that as the OP has been working on the article about Kerry Hallam, that the work in question was one of his, in which case it won't have been painted until at least 1950, hence all his works are still under copyright. I'd forgotten about "work for hire" copyright details - thanks for clarifying that! -- PhantomSteve (Contact Me, My Contribs) 12:47, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

Is there any way to turn on line numbers?

If I look at a comparison of selected revisions, Wikipedia always shows the comparison of the old text and the new in a side-by-side format. The comparison starts with a short line that reads "Line xxx:" indicating the position within the article where the revision is located.

This is a great help but, unfortunately, xxx may be a large number and counting down a thousand line numbers is not practical. However it is often desirable to see the change in a broader context. Having line numbers would be helpful. Or have I just missed something? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Gargoyle888 (talk • contribs) 13:04, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

AFAIK there isn't. It can be aggravating, but I usually look for the section headings so I don't have to literally count down the lines. Otherwise, most (all?) browsers have a "search" function, which I use to quickly find more context than the diff displays on its own. It may be theoretically possible to script something that adds line numbers, but that's way outside my pay scale. ~ Amory (user • talk • contribs) 14:24, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the reply. I've been doing what suggested: Using the heading names (but they are not always present) or using the browser "Find" utility. It just seems a bit pointless to provide line numbers and then not number the lines. --gargoyle888 (talk) 17:37, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

Switching from secured to unsecured page

I just learned today that I should not use links to a page on the secured server, when adding links to a help response as that link won't work for something that isn't logged onto the secure server. (I presume this advise applies broadly, such as including links on someone's talk page.) If I'm at a page I would like to link, is there an easy way to switch to the unsecured server, or, generate a link to the unsecured server? I thought I could edit the url, but that failed. --SPhilbrickT 13:47, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

The SSL server's URLs look like this: https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Wikipedia:Help_desk and the regular URLs look like this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Help_desk. So it should be rather straightforward to remove everything from "secure" to "en" and replace it with "en.wikipedia.org" (and then change the "https://" to "http://"). I can't think of an easier way to do it. Xenon54 (talk) 13:59, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Users outside the secure server will not be logged in when they click a link to the secure server and that's often impractical but they can still see the link. I think you can always edit url's to the English Wikipedia by replacing https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en by http://en.wikipedia.org, for example replacing https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Wikipedia:Help_desk by http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Help_desk. PrimeHunter (talk) 14:00, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

Did it work for you? I've tried several times and get a page load error. When I click on your last link, I get a page load error.--SPhilbrickT 14:12, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

Clicking on PH's link works fine for me (also on the secure server). What error are you getting? Xenon54 (talk) 14:15, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

Never mind. I was getting an error, but I've rebooted, and no longer get the error.--SPhilbrickT 14:43, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

Login unification

Excuse me, I have unified login (Dark Eagle) in Wikipedia & others Wikis but in English Wikipedia someone is using this name. Can I get that account?
I ask about that therefore I have 184 active accounts on project sites. Thanks. --89.18.196.57 (talk) 14:09, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

The user Dark Eagle has made edits and therefore you can't usurp it. Sorry. Xenon54 (talk) 14:17, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

And what I have to do? --89.18.196.57 (talk) 15:37, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

You'll need to use a different user name. As Xenon says, the user Dark Eagle on the English wikipedia is active, and so you cannot request the name. -- PhantomSteve (Contact Me, My Contribs) 16:19, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

I am not finding User:Dark Eagle. It seems to be available. // BL \\ (talk) 01:55, 14 August 2009 (UTC)

A red user page doesn't have to mean there is no account. Use Special:ListUsers to see accounts. It appears The former Dark Eagle was renamed to User:Dark Eagle (usurped) and 89.18.196.57 got the desired name Dark Eagle. PrimeHunter (talk) 12:39, 14 August 2009 (UTC)

CED Capacitance electronic disc system

My Aunt recently passed away and in going through her estate she had several CED's. I am not familiar at all with these and wondered if they are of any value? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 4.23.226.254 (talk) 15:20, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

You might find what you are looking for in the article about Capacitance Electronic Disc. If you cannot find the answer there, you can try asking your question at Wikipedia's Reference Desk. They specialize in knowledge questions and will try to answer just about any question in the universe (except about how to use Wikipedia, which is what this help desk is for). I hope this helps. TNXMan 15:35, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

Editing text above edit box

How to edit the text above the edit box? Like when I edit this page there are several bullet points telling me to "fill in a descriptive topic for the question" and "read/search the FAQ before asking a question here". Is this something only the administrators can do, if so where to request the edit?—SpaceFlight89 16:00, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

Those are edit notices, which you can read more about on this page. I have mine set up for my talk page at User talk:Tnxman307/Editnotice. The one for this page is Wikipedia:Help Desk/editintro.TNXMan 16:02, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

The one for this page is actually at Template:Editnotices/Page/Wikipedia:Help desk. :) hmwitht 16:08, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

Help template

This template Supervillian when posted on sites keeps getting redirected to other template files meaning that it has more than one name and has been moved around. It needs to have only one link on both the file and posted name of the file. And the name preference of the file should be DC supervillians. Please fix it. Captain Virtue (talk) 16:11, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

Hi, It looks to me as if some of those redirects exist because you've moved the template around; in any case it doesn't matter because I don't think this redirects do any harm. I would suggest the template should be at Template:DC Comics supervillains since that distinguishes them from any other supervillains (and spells 'villain' correctly!). If you agree then feel free to move it yourself, and don't worry about the redirects. There's no need to "fix" them either - see WP:NOTBROKEN. Cheers, --AndrewHowse (talk) 16:48, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

asexual reproduction

why are male cells are not produced in binary fission...instead of daughter cells —Preceding unsigned comment added by Piyush 6994 (talk • contribs) 16:27, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

This question belongs on the Science reference desk. Please note that Wikipedia will not do your homework for you. Xenon54 (talk) 16:31, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

Please do your own homework.

Welcome to the Wikipedia Help desk. Your question appears to be a homework question. I apologize if this is a misevaluation, but it is our policy here to not do people's homework for them, but to merely aid them in doing it themselves. Letting someone else do your homework does not help you learn how to solve such problems.
Please attempt to solve the problem yourself first. You can search Wikipedia or search the Web.
If you need help with a specific part of your homework, the Reference desk can help you grasp the concept. Do not ask knowledge questions here, just those about using Wikipedia.--Notedgrant (talk) 17:23, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

Are open accounts allowed

Resolved

 –  – ukexpat (talk) 17:57, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

User:Default911Has an open account where the pass is visible is this allowed --Notedgrant (talk) 17:21, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

That's just asking for trouble - I have blanked the page and will report the username as potentially disruptive. – ukexpat (talk) 17:26, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

Thankyou--Notedgrant (talk) 17:30, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

The user page has been deleted and the account blocked. – ukexpat (talk) 17:57, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

thankyou again :D--Notedgrant (talk) 18:19, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

Biographical article

The article about Henrik Brockmann has had a section about Henrik's history with a band cut by the subject of the article, because he doesn't want to be associated with the particular band. In my opinion this violates WP:BLP and WP:OWN, but to be on the safe side, I'll ask here - how much can the subject of the article control the contents? Kotiwalo (talk) 18:17, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

They can't provided that the article complies with relevant policies and guidelines. If they have a problem with an article, there is a process set out at WP:BIOSELF. – ukexpat (talk) 18:30, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

Thank you. Kotiwalo (talk) 18:37, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

can't log in

i can't log in. maybe i don't remeber my password correctly? what should i do? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.217.11.102 (talk) 18:21, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

Did you provide an e-mail address when you created your account? If so you can ask the system to e-mail your password to you. – ukexpat (talk) 18:29, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

Also make sure you have your cookies enabled. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 96.232.52.200 (talk) 18:51, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

And see Help:Logging in. What is your username? PrimeHunter (talk) 22:35, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

Today's featured article

Resolved

Why is today's featured article actually not featured: it does not have a star. --96.232.52.200 (talk) 18:41, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

It is, check the article's talk page. I'm not sure where the star is supposed to show. Kotiwalo (talk) 18:42, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

It is supposed to show at the upper-right corner of the article. --96.232.52.200 (talk) 18:47, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

Vandalism. Someone deleted the external links, categories, language links, and featured article template. -- kainaw™ 18:50, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

(ec) I have restored it now. Theleftorium 18:52, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

Changing the title of an article

Hi

I have made several amendments to the Wikipedia article entitled Concordant Literal Version. After a discussion with the president of the Concordant Publishing Concern, who publish the Concordant Version, I have become aware that the title of the article should be "Concordant Version" ie., the word "Literal" should fall away. Apparently, the Concern never uses this title to refer to its published scriptural translation works.

I am not sure how to change the title.

I would appreciate any assistance.

Thanks

Craig du Toit —Preceding unsigned comment added by Csanctuary (talk • contribs) 19:50, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

See WP:MOVE, but your account must be autoconfirmed before you can move pages. If you are writing or editing this article on behalf of the publisher, you have a conflict of interest and should exercise extreme caution when editing to maintain a neutral point of view. – ukexpat (talk) 19:56, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

COI issues aside, I'm moved it to Concordant Version, which is the appropriate article title. --Orange Mike | Talk 20:03, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

The article needs a lot of work, as it fails WP:NPOV and other tests. I had to tear out a big chunk because it was a copyright violation. --Orange Mike | Talk 20:04, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

Unable to open wikipedia addresses found in Google -- Windows XP says no file extension associated

Recently I have been unable to open Wikipedia articles found in Google searches. Windows XP gives me a message that it has no file extension associated with the site, and is unable to find the appropriate program. What program is associated with Wikipedia files? Thanks.Fredhartung (talk) 21:12, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

This is a problem others have reported but it apparently only occurs for some people using a combination of incoming links from Google and Internet Explorer. Google attaches something to the link which maybe causes problems with the communication between Wikipedia and some browsers. Other than changing browser or copying the url from Google to the browser address bar instead of clicking the link, I don't know a solution. Does Internal Wikipedia links and links from other sites than Google work normally for you? Which browser do you have? PrimeHunter (talk) 22:21, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

Pages that contain only an infobox and a "reflist"

Hi I was doing some work for WP Films and i was wodnering if there was anything wrong with just creating an infobox on a page, and leaving it like that. To see an example seeBig Animal thanks --Tim1357 (talk) 21:43, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia has many articles like that. Opinions vary but if they have a sentence defining the subject (like Big Animal does) and a notable subject then they are usually accepted. But please add a stub category (see Wikipedia:WikiProject Stub sorting/Stub types) and at least one non-stub category when creating it. Then other editors with interest in the subject can better find it and maybe expand. An external link to the Internet Movie Database or another site also helps. PrimeHunter (talk) 22:31, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

Using Variety, Chicago Tribune, The Seattle Times and (last but not least - perhaps!) the Hartford Courant, I have added more info to that particular film! It is now definitely more than just an infobox and a reflist! Still a bit of work required though... right, now I'm off to bed (after a quick cigarette!) - incidently, there are other sources of reference out there, I just found 4 useful ones via Google News Search. Good night everyone! *yawn* -- PhantomSteve (Contact Me, My Contribs) 00:50, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

Block and Ban

What sititions will happen if I have been "baaned" instead of be blocked?Bus88MRT (talk) 23:43, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

A ban is a direction that you may not edit a page, class of pages or Wikipedia entirely. It is a social injunction that does not rely on any software, though if you are banned entirely, this may and is often coupled with a block. A block is a function of the software which stops you from editing Wikipedia entirely for a given period of time. So if you are banned from editing any pages, for example, that relate to Monty Python (a "topic ban"), and you go add some material to the Fish slapping dance, you will have violated your Monty Python ban, and very well may then be blocked from editing as a result of violating the ban. If is helps, you can think of a ban as a court order to refrain from some activity and a block as a set of handcuffs which actually stops you. Does that clear up the distinction?--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 23:52, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

as listens, "edit" icon will remove at bannees' wikipedia page? is it right? Single site such this English Wikiepedia or whole wikimedia project?Bus88MRT (talk) 00:23, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

Does partly block applied (some pages will be blocked, but another pages can edit freely)?

Finally, blocking to modify other user's userpage is appliable? Thank you. Bus88MRT (talk) 00:23, 11 August 2009 (UTC)