Wikipedia:Help desk/Archives/2009 December 22

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December 22

how to donate my article to Wikipedia

I need your help. I want to donate to Wikipedia my article entitled “Molding Regional Unions for a Better Tomorrow,” which is already posted on www.nobleworld.org under the Blog of articles. I already have an account with you. If the following explicit permission appears on the website at www.nobleworld.org, will your bot now accept my article?

"The text of this website is available for modification and reuse under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-Sharealike 3.0 Unported License and the GNU Free Documentation license."

Shiv R. Jhawar 01:39, 22 December 2009 (UTC)sjhawar —Preceding unsigned comment added by Sjhawar (talk • contribs)

Wikipedia is an encyclopaedia. Per the neutral point of view policy, we cannot accept postings of blog articles or other content that reflects the opinion of its authors. Wikipedia articles must cover encyclopaedic, tangible topics and must also be based on facts that are already published in reliable sources that are then cited by the article. Essays and editorials are not considered to be encyclopaedic. We are also not here to promote your website or your views; Wikipedia is not a soapbox. There are also no bots involved in the process of article-writing; all articles must be written by a human being. Xenon54 / talk / 02:13, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

Even if you "donate" the text, the article may still not meet Wikipedia's guidelines for inclusion of material. See the General Notability Guideline for stuff that usually is acceptable, and What Wikipedia Is Not for stuff that is, well, not. --Jayron32 02:12, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

Similar post answered at WP:FEED. – ukexpat (talk) 02:19, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

Site blacklist

So I was going along, writing for an article with multiple sources, go to preview and get a warning that my edit included a blacklisted site (associatedcontent.com). The warning tells me to go back and remove it, but there is no way to go back with my content intact, I've lost it all. This needs fixed. Grsz¹¹ 01:40, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

Open notepad or other text editor. Copy text into notepad. Find problem and fix it. Return text to article, and save it. --Jayron32 02:11, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

I usually copy all text before, but I was just previewing. Ah, frustrating. Thanks. Grsz¹¹ 02:59, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

What works for me is to ignore the Return to link in the warning page. Instead, using the Go back button in my browser (Firefox 3.5) restores the edit window with all of my changes intact. HTH. Jan1naD ^{(talk • contrib)} 09:53, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

Preview doesn't show blacklist warnings so you must have accidentally hit Save and seen text from MediaWiki:Spamprotectiontext. It also works for me to use the browser back button in Firefox. PrimeHunter (talk) 12:31, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

My Settings / My Preferences

What is the difference between "My Settings" and "My Preferences" ? I am trying to get my custom signature http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Skychildandsonofthesun/sig2 to load when I input my signature into my posts.

The problem however is that I seem to be directed to two different user settings pages (one is called My Settings and is at "http://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Preferences" while the other is called My Preferences and is at "http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Preferences&success" Thanks! --Skychildandsonofthesun (talk) 03:08, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

The "My settings" page is on Simple English Wikipedia, which is completely different from this English Wikipedia - i.e. they are considered to be two separate languages, and thus have two separate versions of Wikipedia. It is on the same level as English Wikipedia and German Wikipedia. Simple English Wikipedia is intended for children and students of English; "preferences" is considered too complex a term for that audience. The English Wikipedia user settings page is, and always will be, called "My preferences". You can tell which language Wikipedia you are on by looking at your browser's address bar (Simple English addresses start with http://simple.wikipedia.org, English addresses start with http://en.wikipedia.org), or by looking at the logo at the upper-left corner of the page. Xenon54 / talk / 03:13, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

Thanks Xenon54. I now know not to worry about my settings on simple.wikipedia and just worry about editing my settings on en.wikipedia. Thanks. I still however am not able to get my custom signature to work. I have input the tag {{subst:User:Skychildandsonofthesun/Skychildandsonofthesun/sig2}} in the signature field of My Preferences and it still does not load the custom signature, either in the preview field or when I sign my sig to these posts: --{{subst:User:Skychildandsonofthesun/Skychildandsonofthesun/sig2}} (talk) 13:29, 22 December 2009 (UTC) What am I doing wrong. Thanks!

Is one allowed to subst another page in one's signature? Even if you could, the code should be {{subst:User:Skychildandsonofthesun/sig2}} giving you this:   SKY_child  . – ukexpat (talk) 14:23, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

WP:SIG#NT: "Substitution of templates in signatures is discouraged, as any such template will typically either violate the reasonable length restriction of 255 characters or will be redundant to using the same content as a raw signature." There is no restriction against subst'ing, but there are really no advantages either. Xenon54 / talk / 14:35, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

So, the solution would be to take the code from that subpage and paste it in the box on the Preferences page, I think. It's supposed to be no more than 256 chars, so you might need to trim it down a little. --AndrewHowse (talk) 14:47, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

Thanks guys! Really appreciate the help. I also have to give credit to TriMoon (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:TriMoon) because his page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:TriMoon/Signature helped me to discover the right syntax (as I forget to check this help-desk article till now). Anyway, thanks everyone! My vanity project is now complete... --  SKY_child  05:39, 16 January 2010 (UTC)

Contesting deleted page?

Firstly let me apologize if this is in the wrong place or if I'm writing this wrong. I'm really new to using Wikipedia for anything other than reading, and it took me about 15 minutes to figure out where to ask for help. :X

Basically I want to create a page for someone I know, though I see it's already been attempted and it was deleted for this: (A7: No indication that the article may meet guidelines for inclusion: Self-published, not a credible claim to notability)

I was wondering if there's any way to ask about the deletion, and see if there's a way to overturn it/change it? I read the FAQ and I looked at the page about how to do it, but to be honest it's gibberish to me. >.< I couldn't quite understand what to do, and there were too many links to follow. I know, I'm a dunce, haha. But is there anything I can do? I think by now this person may have enough information to have an article, even if it's not a long one. He's self published yes, but pretty well known in his area and other areas for his writing. He's also a musician and a composer and a photographer and an athlete among other things. I don't know quite what Wikipedia defines as "notable" but in my own opinion (and some others) I think something here would be nice. And of course if there's any way to overturn this it'd be nice to surprise him. :P

Sorry for the ramble, I don't even know if I'm in the right place. But thanks for reading this!

Dizzyisy (talk) 03:30, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Deletion review. – ukexpat (talk) 03:37, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

You are in exactly the right place, and ukexpat has given you a pointer to your main question. But to answer your subsidiary question, what Wikipedia defines as "notable" is explained here: the important bit is that the subject is covered in multiple independent reliable sources. So if your friend has been covered by, say, several newspapers (more than just listing a gig!) that will meet the criteria; but if he's only features in blogs and other self-published sources, that won't. If you go ahead with it, you also need to note WP:BLP. --ColinFine (talk) 19:15, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

Overcharge

I was recently charged $40 for a wikipedia donation, but I only meant to contribute $20. As sad as it may sound, I can only afford $20 at this time, how do I go about getting a refund of $20??? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.2.40.35 (talk) 04:37, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

See information here: http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Contact_us —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 12:32, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

Huggle's adding to my watchlist, and I want it stopped

Whenever I use Huggle, every page I edit, including the automatic edits to the Huggle whitelist ends up on my watchlist afterwards. And I have to remove them from the watchlist each time. How can I stop the program from doing this? Thanks, Saebjorn! 05:22, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

Unfortunately there's nothing you can do. I use twinkle and every page I edit, including the automatic edits ends up on my watchlist afterwards. South Bay (talk) 05:38, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

That's odd. I use Twinkle as well and none of the pages I edit are added to my watchlist automatically. And as far as keeping pages from being added to your watchlist with Huggle, it seems that you can do that. See Wikipedia:Huggle/Configuration for more info. Dismas|^(talk) 08:06, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

Make sure that you don't have any of the three bottom boxes checked in the Watchlist tab of Special:Preferences (your Wikipedia preferences). You can customise Twinkle and Friendly to some extent but only if you install them directly in your custom JS file (monobook.js for the monobook skin), not if you have them installed as gadgets. – ukexpat (talk) 14:06, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

delete?

Resolved

 – Article speedily deleted; Afd closed accordingly. – ukexpat (talk) 16:57, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

Exun fails wp:club and wp:selfpublish so if some one could pls delete the article.

thanks. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 202.54.98.226 (talk) 05:34, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

Discussion has to take place first. See Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Exun. Xenon54 / talk / 13:34, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

Lower case name of article, how'd I do that?!

Someone edited the Julianne Moore article to change the title of a film in her filmography from "Slaughterhouse II" to "sLaughterhouse II". This confused me, so I checked into the article for the film. None of the sources in the article use this camel-case spelling, "sLau...". So, I thought I'd move the article to "Slaughterhouse II" but somehow it ended up at slaughterhouse II (note the lower case initial letter). So, I tried to move it and fix it but when I hit 'move', the title is spelled correctly already. What's going on here? Dismas|^(talk) 07:34, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

The software prevents article titles from taking an initial lowercase letter even when it's the proper name, such as with eBay, so a kludge is in place where even though the article title really starts with a capital letter, a template makes the title display as starting with a lowercase letter. If you click edit this page for Slaughterhouse II you'll see at the top the following code: {{lowercase|title=Slaughterhouse II}}. Removing that, removes the lowercase display.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 07:43, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

P.S. I have removed the lowercase template as there is no indication in the article or through any external search I tried that the title doesn't take normal proper noun capitalization.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 07:57, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. I didn't know that template existed and thought that I had screwed up the move somehow. I didn't think to look through the code of the article. Thanks again, Dismas|^(talk) 08:04, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

As Fuhghettaboutit says, you can't start an article name with a lower-case letter, for technical reasons - hence the workaround for articles which need an initial lower-case letter. -- PhantomSteve/talk|contribs\ 09:49, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

I get lots of Google hits with "sLaughterhouse II" in the search "Slaughterhouse II" 1988. PrimeHunter (talk) 12:18, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

User pages

What's the point in having a user page? Is it just somewhere where users can place their thoughts or information about themselves? Chevymontecarlo (talk) 09:37, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

Well, WP:User page says Wikipedia provides user pages to facilitate communication among participants in its project to build an encyclopedia. Generally, you should avoid substantial content on your user page that is unrelated to Wikipedia. - it then goes on to list the kinds of things that should or should not be on there. For example, my user page has a list of articles and categories for me to look at, a list of pages that I have created or expanded, etc - but also a small section about me, just to give some background on who I am! But as you can see from my one, most of it is about the project, not about me. I also use it to store links to policies, essays, etc, that I have found useful, or which I quote from time to time. Again, reading WP:User page is a good place to start! -- PhantomSteve/talk|contribs\ 09:47, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

Blood group inheritance

does blood group differ from mother & father —Preceding unsigned comment added by 115.240.120.32 (talk) 13:29, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

Please see the beginning of this page: Blood Types Tutorial, and note for future reference that this page is for questions about using Wikipedia; knowledge questions should be asked at an appropriate reference desk section. Cheers.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 13:36, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

Second nomination for deletion

Resolved

 –  – ukexpat (talk) 17:40, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

I wish to nominate faux Cyrillic for deletion but there has already been one deletion discussion, how do I create a second AFD page for the same article? Thanks. Polarpanda (talk) 14:02, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Articles for deletion#How to list pages for deletion and note the language near the beginning: "If nominated before, use {{subst:afdx|2nd}} or {{subst:afdx|3rd}} etc.."--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 14:07, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. Polarpanda (talk) 14:13, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

Watchlist queries...

On my watchlist, there are numbers next to each page that has been edited, which are either red or green. Could somebody please tell me what these mean? Thank you. Rock drum (talk) 15:24, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

They indicate the number of bytes added or subtracted (net) by the indicated edit. For example, a green +130 indicates that 130 bytes (or characters) were added. TNXMan 15:26, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

Can't get new password because my email has changed

I signed up for Wikipedia several months ago. Since then, my email address has changed. I also forgot my password, but the new password has probably been sent to the old address, which I can no longer access. Any way to get ahold of my account? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.162.229.61 (talk) 16:36, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

I'm sorry, but there is no way you can gain access to your account without remembering the password or accessing the e-mail address you used. However, you can create another account, and using that account, edit your old account's userpage to mention that you no longer use it. Before creating the new account, please read up on Wikipedia's username policy, to make sure your account complies. Hope this has helped. --Mysdaao ^talk 16:39, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

If you never did any edits on the old account (and can remember what it was called!), then after you have created a new account, it may be possible to usurp it by following the instructions at that link. -- PhantomSteve/talk|contribs\ 17:10, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

Comments by Wiki staff on my editorial comments:

Resolved

 – I think we have fed this one enough. – ukexpat (talk) 15:13, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

1. Not one "edit" inserted in Wiki by me has been other than intended as informative and truthful (to the best of my belief).

2. Your own comments about them are unclear and not very helpful.

3. Your instructions are unclear and unhelpful.

4. I suggest that if you have a specific comment on an insertion made to existing material then your comment should be precise and more easily visited by the contributor to whom it is addressed. You could, for instance, have a notice that "there is a message awaiting the attention of XXXXXXX" (eg., Mentorsmentor) appear as a conspicuous heading immediately that particular correspondent signs in/logs in.

5. Some of the comments you have left for me (today) I do not understand. It would be sensible if you were always to quote the specific words to which objection is made or which are in question, and invite elaboration fron the contributor. For example: exactly when, how and where should I sign (Mentorsmentor (talk) 16:43, 22 December 2009 (UTC)) any insertion I have made.

6. I suggest you may be having difficulties because literate and well-intentioned contributors are perhaps outnumbered by subliterate and hostile interventions.

7. I have not forgotten, for example, the contributor who insisted remorselessly that "the LAY of the land" was an English term; because he did not know (a) that there are two separate verb infinitives "To lie" and "To lay", nor did he know (b) how to distingush them. (This particular ignorance is very conspicuous in most Hollywood TV and cinema scripts). Mentorsmentor (talk) 16:43, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

PS It is beyond your wit to devise a sieve or filter whereby you can collect a private group of reliable selected and dependable contributors as an editorial board or the like?

Just dealing with points 4 and 6 and your PS for now: 4: If there are new messages on your talk page, you should see an orange banner at the top of the page notifying you of same. It will remain there until you go to your talk page. 6: Casting aspersions on the literacy or otherwise of your fellow contributors does not create an atmosphere of consensus and collaboration. As for your editorial board idea, that would run counter to the whole idea of an encyclopedia that anyone can edit. The closest thing we have are Wikipedia Projects where editors with similar interests collaborate on and discuss matters of interest within the scope of the a particular project. – ukexpat (talk) 17:11, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

(ec)This is the Help Desk, staffed by volunteers who are interested in helping others with questions about Wikipedia. I sense frustration, but most of what you posted doesn't sound like a question.

You did ask when you should sign an edit. Roughly speaking, you never sign edits to articles, and you always sign edits to talk pages and other Wikipedia (non-article) pages. There are some arcane exceptions, but that rule will work 99.99% of the time, I think, unless I'm missing something.--SPhilbrickT 17:17, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Looking at 1-3, 5 and 7:

(1) Wikipedia isn't about whether edits are "intended as informative and truthful" - it is about whether edits add information which can be verified.

(2) Your own comments about them are unclear and not very helpful - which comments? where? you mean the edit summaries: they explain why your edits have been reverted

(3) Your instructions are unclear and unhelpful - some of the instructions can be hard to follow, but they are there to cover all eventualities and situations (well, as much as possible) - if you have specific instructions which you are unsure about, you can ask here abot them!

(5) Some of the comments you have left for me (today) I do not understand - Your talk page shows no comments left for you in a couple of months. Which comments are you referring to? The edit summaries seem to be concise, with messages like "unsourced", "uncited", "dubious".

(7) Without knowing the article/edits you are referring to, we cannot comment on this.

Are you sure that you are referring to comments/instructions on the English wikipedia? -- PhantomSteve/talk|contribs\ 17:18, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

• Can I also point out that Wikipedia (not Wiki, which is the software used by Wikipedia and many thousands of other wikis around the world!) has no staff. Editors are all volunteers. -- PhantomSteve/talk|contribs\ 17:20, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

(edit conflict)In addition, after a brief survey of your contributions it would seem that many are uncited and may consist of original research. In case this was not explained to you earlier, original content is not allowed; all information must be referenced. Intelligentsium 17:25, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

Indeed. Things like this are not just OR, either. They are potential WP:BLP violations - negative unsourced content about a living person. Tim Song (talk) 17:26, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

(edit conflict) As mentioned above, your additions (for example on Social class) were reverted as 'uncited, dubious': You did not cite any reliable sources for this information, and it appears to be your own opinion/research - and on Wikipedia, original research is not permitted. -- PhantomSteve/talk|contribs\ 17:29, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

You were already blocked once in May for precisely the same reason. If you want to, post the material elsewhere. Wikipedia is not your soapbox. Tim Song (talk) 17:35, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

I did not revert your edits or leave comments for you. Somebody did so, and you can find out who it was by looking at page histories. But you are addressing the hundreds or thousands of people who look at this page, and accusing each of us of offending you. Please do not do this. --ColinFine (talk) 19:27, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

3,079 watchers, just now. --AndrewHowse (talk) 01:49, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

While I applaud the efforts of your founder

Wikipedia has lost its credibility. In the global warming article there is no reference to the little ice age, the medaevel warming period and so on. What with the emails that were released from the CRU it can be clearly seen these global warming alarmists were only seeking to preserve their funding. All to do about money how pathetic. There has to be a complete change in this article right now its speculation by a few. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.158.73.189 (talk) 18:05, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

• Anyone is welcome to add well-sourced information from reliable, independent sources - although to do this, you will need to mention what information (and the sources) on the article's talk page - due to persistent vandalism, the article is semi-protected, so IPs and non-autoconfirmed editors can't edit it, but they can add a {{editsemiprotected}} tag onto the talk page and explain what could be added. -- PhantomSteve/talk|contribs\ 18:18, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

Wiki to HTML

I just hate creating tables using the wiki syntex, so I use an HTML to Wiki converter often. I have come across a table that I would like to edit, but want to do it in HTML. Does anyone know of a Wiki to HTML converter that also converts tables? Also, how do you link a picture to another page on wikipedia? Btilm_{Happy Holidays!} 20:53, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

I don't know how to convert wiki syntax to HTML, but you can link an image to a page using the link parameter. [[File:Example.jpg|100px|link=Article]] creates:

Wikipedia:Images linking to articles has more information. --Mysdaao ^talk 00:10, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

Note that this is functionality that should be used within limits, because the link is usually the description page with the source information, and pointing the image to something else may not be allowed by the copyright license of the image. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 00:38, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

Werewolf article

The Edit links have been removed from the Werewolf article. This has prevented me from fixing two factual errors therein. The errors lay in the opening section. In the last paragraph of that section, the first sentence reads, "Werewolves are a frequent subject of modern fictional books, although fictional werewolves have been attributed traits distinct from those of original folklore, most notably vulnerability to silver bullets." The vulnerability to silver bullets comes from the account a local hero in Eastern Europe who is said to have killed a were-wolf. This man claimed to used a silver bullet to kill the beast as it was impervious to all other metals.

the second error lay earlier in the article, but the error above was more grievous and must be understood first. The first sentence of the first paragraph in the opening section of the article reads, "A werewolf or werwolf, also known as a lycanthrope (from the Greek λυκάνθρωπος: λύκος, lukos, "wolf", and άνθρωπος, anthrōpos, man), is a mythological or folkloric human with the ability to shapeshift into a wolf or an anthropomorphic wolf-like creature, either purposely, by being bitten or scratched by another werewolf, or after being placed under a curse." The error is in the unstated, yet heavily implied, notion that being scratched or bitten by a werewolf could turn one into werewolf comes from the original mythology. That concept came from Hollywood and was stolen from the myths of vampires.

I hope these error will soon be corrected. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.14.74.118 (talk) 21:51, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

The intro of an article never has an edit link. To edit the article, just find and click the tab that says edit. Btilm_{Happy Holidays!} 22:12, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

The article cannot be edited because it is currently protected becauce of recent problems with vandalism. If you want to make suggestions to fix the article, start a new thread at Talk:Werewolf and put {{editprotected}} at the top of your suggestion. Someone will come and evaluate your suggestions. --Jayron32 22:13, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

But do, please, give references to reliable sources for the information you want to add. --ColinFine (talk) 20:00, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

Mac computer--gmail email movies with quicktime

When I get a gamil from someone I download the attached movie and I get a message that says for me to install the QuickTime Player. I all ready have QuickTime on my mac computer.

Any suggestions? (gig) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Gigaway4u (talk • contribs) 23:09, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

• This page is for questions about using Wikipedia. Please consider asking this question at the Computing reference desk. They specialize in answering computer questions and will try to answer any question in the universe (except how to use Wikipedia, since that is what this Help Desk is for). Just follow the link and ask away. You could always try searching Wikipedia for an article related to the topic you want to know more about. I hope this helps. -- PhantomSteve/talk|contribs\ 23:19, 22 December 2009 (UTC)