Help desk
< July 8	<< Jun \| July \| Aug >>	July 10 >

Welcome to the Wikipedia Help Desk Archives
The page you are currently viewing is an archive page. While you can leave answers for any questions shown below, please ask new questions on one of the current Help Desk pages.

July 9[edit]

What If I Find An Article That Is Offensive Or Uses Offence Language?[edit]

ie. you might want to consider editing todays article on the main page about "gropecunt" i find the use of a particle word broken down from that word a little offensive and unnessary. im sure im not the only person who has this view. this website is available to children remember! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 121.208.164.176 (talk) 00:56, 9 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry. Wikipedia is not censored. That's non-negotiable, as it should be (and I speak as the father of a child, as well as a Wikipedia editor and admin). --Orange Mike | Talk 01:14, 9 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

As a parent and an editor, I agree with Orange Mike, that is a non-negotiable. If you don't want your children seeing words which you consider offensive, I suggest you block access to wikipedia by editing your computer's hosts file (see Internet blocking using the hosts file). Of course, this would mean that you would be unable to use it as well. However, I would say that any decent dictionary (i.e. non-school one) will have the word cunt, etc, in - your just need to make sure that you don't let your children have access to anything which you don't want them to. Having said that, as it was on the main page, you might want to follow PrimeHunter's advice below PhantomSteve (Contact Me, My Contribs) 07:08, 9 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Special considerations are sometimes made for the main page. See for example Wikipedia talk:Did you know/Archive 47#Appropriate for the main page? If you have a problem with the main page text for today's featured article then the place to report it is Wikipedia:Main Page/Errors#Errors in the summary of Today's featured article on the Main Page. Some editors have actually expressed they look forward to seeing the reactions. PrimeHunter (talk) 01:41, 9 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Editing Pages[edit]

How do I edit articles? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Fpie24 (talk • contribs) 02:20, 9 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

See Help:Editing. Algebraist 02:33, 9 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

If you give us an example of some articles you want to edit, and describe what you want to change, we can give you more specific advice. Different articles require different editing skills. --Teratornis (talk) 18:56, 9 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Incorrect internal link[edit]

I want to link to the BAND, Berlin, not the city in Germany. Right now, it defaults to the city, understandably. How do I change it? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.130.174.201 (talk) 03:34, 9 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Are you looking for Berlin (band)? You can make it look like Berlin by using the Pipe trick. Calvin 1998 ^(t·c) 04:16, 9 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Write it your internal link like this, [[Berlin (band)|Berlin]] Harlem675 06:52, 9 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

BUSINESS MANAGEMENT[edit]

—HI MY NAME IS OSCAR

I'M CURRENTLY DOING MY GRADE 12 THIS YEAR,NEXT YEAR I'M PLANING TO DO BUSINESS MANAGEMENT BUT I'M NOT SURE WHAT ARE THE REQUIREMENTS FOR ME TO OPTINE THAT . PLEASE ADVISE URGENTLY —Preceding unsigned comment added by 196.33.238.2 (talk) 07:09, 9 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

This page is for questions about using Wikipedia. Please consider asking this question at the Wikipedia:Reference desk. They specialize in knowledge 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, select the relevant section, 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 (Contact Me, My Contribs) 07:11, 9 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I suspect, based on your question, that you found one of our roughly three million articles, and thought that we were directly affiliated in some way with that subject. Please note that you are at Wikipedia, the free online encyclopedia that anyone can edit, and this page is a help desk for asking questions related to using the encyclopedia. Thus, we have no inside track on the subject of your question. Although you can try at the reference desk as Phantomsteve suggested, I don't really think they'll be able to help you with this. Chamal ^talk 07:17, 9 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Redhat - Sendmail[edit]

Hi,

I am using Redhat Enterprise V:3 and am trying to get sendmail to work? Need to send mail to clients.

Can any one help.

Regards,

Darwin

<email removed> —Preceding unsigned comment added by 196.213.197.2 (talk) 07:14, 9 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

This page is for help on using Wikipedia. I think your question is about the functionality of some software and we can't assist with that. You can try at the computing reference desk but I think the best thing would be to contact the support team of this software. Chamal ^talk 07:19, 9 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Just to be kind, this link might help, but not being a technical bod, I've not read much, so it may not: Redhat Manual Reference Guide - Email MTA. Otherwise, you'll need to contact the Red Hat support. PhantomSteve (Contact Me, My Contribs) 07:35, 9 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Can I direct web links to WIKIPEDIA in my APPLICATION about accounting ? ,Can i save webpages like an offline ?[edit]

Presently i am doing M.com,now i am doing a project work which will help to learn and refer accounting ( now only basic details )in visual basic.It is an online based application ,you can go to web sites directly while using that program for references (mainly i set all link to WIKIPEDIA). Normally i am out of resources , so i am using data s from WIKIPEDIA web site. I also have a plan to set web pages in offline(many of my friends don't have any net connection) that is loading web pages which is already saved in the system without changing anything (including WIKIPEDIA).I don't know any problems with copyright.

Is there is any problem in saving the web pages and providing it like an offline connection (i am not changing anything )?

Is there is any problem in using the word " Powered by WIKIPEDIA " in my application ? I don't have any other intention , it is only for learning purpose ! )

Is there is any problem in selling my application which contains the WIKIPEDIA web pages ? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Vineethkvenugopalan (talk • contribs) 08:53, 9 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, you can provided that the terms of use conditions are met. For your convenience, I copied them here:

You can re-use content from Wikimedia projects freely, with the exception of content that is used under "fair use" exemptions, or similar exemptions of copyright law. Please follow the guidelines below:

Re-use of text:

Attribution: To re-distribute a text page in any form, provide credit to the authors either by including a) a hyperlink (where possible) or URL to the page or pages you are re-using, b) a hyperlink (where possible) or URL to an alternative, stable online copy which is freely accessible, which conforms with the license, and which provides credit to the authors in a manner equivalent to the credit given on this website, or c) a list of all authors. (Any list of authors may be filtered to exclude very small or irrelevant contributions.) This applies to text developed by the Wikimedia community. Text from external sources may attach additional attribution requirements to the work, which we will strive to indicate clearly to you. For example, a page may have a banner or other notation indicating that some or all of its content was originally published somewhere else. Where such notations are visible in the page itself, they should generally be preserved by re-users.

Copyleft/Share Alike: If you make modifications or additions to the page you re-use, you must license them under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share-Alike License 3.0 or later.

Indicate changes: If you make modifications or additions, you must indicate in a reasonable fashion that the original work has been modified. If you are re-using the page in a wiki, for example, indicating this in the page history is sufficient.

Licensing notice: Each copy or modified version that you distribute must include a licensing notice stating that the work is released under CC-BY-SA and either a) a hyperlink or URL to the text of the license or b) a copy of the license. For this purpose, a suitable URL is: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

For further information, please refer to the legal code of the CC-BY-SA License.

Additional availability of text under the GNU Free Documentation License:

For compatibility reasons, any page which does not incorporate text that is exclusively available under CC-BY-SA or a CC-BY-SA-compatible license is also available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License. In order to determine whether a page is available under the GFDL, review the page footer, page history, and discussion page for attribution of single-licensed content that is not GFDL-compatible. All text published before June 15th, 2009 was released under the GFDL, and you may also use the page history to retrieve content published before that date to ensure GFDL compatibility.

Re-use of non-text media:

Where not otherwise noted, non-text media files are available under various free culture licenses, consistent with the Wikimedia Foundation Licensing Policy. Please view the media description page for details about the license of any specific media file.

Cheers!

Λuα ^{(Operibus anteire)} 09:21, 9 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Question about the Forgot Your Password option[edit]

Someone with this IP: 68.147.36.191 (trace) requested a new login password for my account.

Someone from the IP address 68.147.36.191 requested that we send you a new login password for the English Wikipedia.
The new password for the user account "Aditya" is "removed". You can now log in to Wikipedia using that password.
If someone else made this request, or if you have remembered your password and you no longer wish to change it, you may safely ignore this message. Your old/existing password will continue to work despite this new password being created for you.

~Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia http://en.wikipedia.org

Is it possible to find out who this user is (through a CU, for example)? Aditya ^α _ß 12:29, 9 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I don't know if a Checkuser will be performed simply to find out who made a false password request. They happen all the time. It's quite simple to put someone's username in the box and send them an e-mail. Geolocation puts the user in Calgary, but that's all you can find out as the user has made no contributions to Wikipedia. As the e-mail says, you can safely continue editing as normal as the user does not know the either the new or the old password. Xenon54 (talk) 12:48, 9 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Gropecunt featured article[edit]

do we really need this on the front page of a reference site that countless children use every day? let them find cunt references on their own maybe? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.73.248.204 (talk • contribs)

See Wikipedia:Sexual content and WP:CENSOR. You're right about children seeing the article, but the featured article process is used to show the best articles Wikipedia has to offer and thus deserve their place on the main page. Aditya ^α _ß 13:05, 9 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not sure that the IP is right about children seeing the article or the main page. Responsible parents will, of course, be preventing that. Irresponsible parents may be using Wikipedia as a free child-minding service, of course, but Wikipedia can't be held responsible for poor parenting. Cheers, TFOWR^{This flag once was red} 13:06, 9 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

There was a question about this earlier today - I recommend reading the replies and some of the articles linked. — QuantumEleven 13:08, 9 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

unification of reference citation formats?[edit]

I know how where there are different acceptable conventions for doing something in an article, that in general whichever convention is already used should be continued, so as to avoid silly edit warring back and forth. A simple example is the use of British/American English: if an article is started using one or the other, its continued editing should maintain the same system.

I would think this maxim applies to reference citation formatting as well: use whatever has already been used, be it Harvard style, citation templates, or whatever. Citing sources says "Where there is disagreement, the style used by the first editor to use one should be respected" My question is, what if there is no formal system in use in an article, the ref tags nearly all look like <ref>title, author, date, source</ref>, or some permutation inside the tag. Is it considered gauche to go through a heavily sourced article to change all such raw references to (say) citation templates? I would imagine the unification of how the references present in the article would be a good thing. I would also imagine some might find such action disruptive. This has become an issue as I generally use citation templates when I add sources, but then I noticed that on some pages the previous references were just raw text.

I appreciate any guidance on this issue. Thanks, Baccyak4H (Yak!) 13:37, 9 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

See Wikipedia:Citing sources#Inline citations. If the article does not use one of those systems, then chose one and clean it up. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 13:46, 9 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I think there are two issues here: if an article uses a mixture of reference formats, for example Harvard style, <ref></ref> and bare internet links, then yes it should be cleaned up to use just one style. If an article uses a single style, say just bare internet links within <ref></ref> tags, then I don't see a problem going through those links and changing them to use {{cite web}} or other appropriate citation template. – ukexpat (talk) 14:13, 9 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

literature[edit]

what are the lifestyle of the filiponos during the spanish colonialism? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 121.96.201.128 (talk) 13:51, 9 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

You might find what you are looking for in the article about Humanities. 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. Algebraist 13:54, 9 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

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. PhantomSteve (Contact Me, My Contribs) 13:59, 9 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Generic content for sports people - cycling prejudice[edit]

Why does wikipaedia have a prejudice to cyclists in having a generic content including the chapter of doping? I have looked at athletes pages eg Sebastian Coe, the runner and they don't. This is prejudice and unfair and specifically detrimental to the sport of cycling.Plopty (talk) 14:15, 9 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

What are you talking about? Algebraist 14:22, 9 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

(edit conflict) What are you referring to? Most biographies I have seen about cyclists have no content about doping. Was Sebastian Coe involved in a doping case? PrimeHunter (talk) 14:22, 9 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia articles should be written in a neutral point of view, so in short they contain both the good and the bad. If there are any accusations like that they should be included (with reliable sources to verify them). There is no case of prejudice anywhere, but not all of our articles are complete and therefore some may lack certain information while others may contain a good coverage. Chamal ^talk 14:26, 9 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

@PrimeHunter: Just did a check, and apparently Coe has been accused of it [1]. But it also says he's a "fierce critic of doping in sport". Chamal ^talk 14:32, 9 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Plopty, could you give us examples of articles? I've looked at a couple of random (modern) cyclists, and they don't mention doping. If you give us a list of some of the ones that mention it where it is inappropriate, we can look at them. PhantomSteve (Contact Me, My Contribs) 14:41, 9 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

You may wish to bring this issue up at one of the noticeboards, neutral point of view or biographies of living people. Baccyak4H (Yak!) 15:04, 9 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Note: You might want to discuss this on the individual article's talk page PhantomSteve (Contact Me, My Contribs) 15:19, 9 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

(undent) Some relevant articles appear to be:

and others. It seems the coverage of doping in cycling is pretty complete. If the original questioner feels our coverage of doping in other sports is inadequate, he or she can fix that problem by writing more about those cases. Wikipedia's coverage of doping in cycling reflects the level of scrutiny that cycling has received - and undoubtedly cycling has received more scrutiny than many other sports. I suspect this may have something to do with the ownership structure of various sports. Cycling teams are constantly mobile, have no home stadiums, have relatively low franchise values, and constantly form and disband. This is in contrast to the firmly-established team structure in many other sports, such as American football. A sport like American football has franchise values approaching a billion dollars each. These teams are local institutions in their cities, commanding near-religious devotion from their fans, with stable ownership often dating back for decades. The owners control the league, and the players are represented by a powerful union. It seems unlikely that the league's internal drug-testing program will be as vigorous as an independent testing program would be. However, scrutiny in one sport (such as cycling) tends to increase scrutiny in other sports. There are a variety of drugs that dramatically improve the performance and recovery ability of athletes across a variety of sports, and only an extremely naive person could believe the situation in cycling is unique. As far as what has been "detrimental" to the sport of cycling, I would say that has to be the behavior of professional cyclists themselves, and the rather strange public attitude toward doping. (I cannot understand why society tolerates far more dangerous drugs that are purely recreational, such as booze and tobacco. Anyone who objects to doping in sports should be thousands of times more concerned about the drugs that kill people in much larger numbers. Just my opinion.) --Teratornis (talk) 19:22, 9 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

References[edit]

Resolved

– – ukexpat (talk) 16:48, 9 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

How do I reference the same reference twice wheni have info from that source in multiple areas of the text? I've looked through other pages but i can't seem to get it to work on mine. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Bingo478 (talk • contribs) 15:49, 9 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

You can do this by giving the reference a name, like this:

<ref name="ref1">Reference information</ref>

When you want to re-use that reference subsequently, you can call it with

and then place <references/> or {{reflist}} in your "References" section as usual to display the references. Each name reference will only appear once, but there will be links to the parts of the article you are citing to it in the form ^{a b} etc. More information is available at this guide. --Kateshort forbob 16:24, 9 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Similar stuff at WP:NAMEDREFS. – ukexpat (talk) 16:48, 9 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

thanks a lot! —Preceding unsigned comment added by Bingo478 (talk • contribs) 16:29, 9 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Anonymous edits credited to new named account?[edit]

Is there any way to attach edits I made before creating an account to my new username? I have the IP address from which I made them. MilCivHR (talk) 16:50, 9 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Edits can't be reattributed anymore. You can disclose the contributions you made as the IP on your userpage though. --59.95.113.73 (talk) 17:03, 9 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

removing a completely inaccurate page until corrected?[edit]

Is it possible to simply remove the information from a page that is full of incorrect information until an editor has time to correct the whole piece? Mhairston (talk) 17:38, 9 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

You can (provided you have reliable sources that demonstrate the correct info), but you may want to let other editors know what's going on via the article's talk page. Removal of large sections of articles tend to raise flags. To which article were you referring? TN X Man 17:42, 9 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

It appears you are referring to Cooleemee. This article appears to be written neutrally (minus one half of one sentence, which I've removed) and is well-sourced. Per your post to another editor's talk page, it appears that you have a conflict of interest with regards to the material. If that is the case, please refrain from editing the article, but feel free to make suggestions on the article's talk page. TN X Man 17:48, 9 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

(e/cx2) I assume the page you're talking about is Cooleemee. I see you've already blanked the page once - don't do that, it will only get you blocked. The page is well-referenced from reliable sources, so it's very unlikely that the page is "competely inaccurate" and "full of incorrect information" as you say. Do you have any particular reasons as to why you believe the page needs a complete rewrite? (Please make sure you're looking at the correct article; perhaps you're looking for the article on a town of the same name in North Carolina?) Xenon54 (talk) 17:50, 9 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Mhairston, on Berean Hunter's page, you say that the family asked for it to be removed? The article does not involve anything untoward about the current family who live there - and even if it did, I think you'd need some proof that the family object to a piece of the article - you saying they asked you doesn't really prove they did! The article is well-written, and I see nothing objectionable about it, so I think you need to give proof of inaccuracies. PhantomSteve (Contact Me, My Contribs) 18:25, 9 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

MHairston, are any Hairston's still the owners of the house? I was under the impression that it is under relatively new ownership (3+ years). If they do still own it, how closely connected are you to those owners? Also, I note that you say that it is a private residence...one that opens its doors for tours, I presume.
⋙–Berean–Hunter—► ((⊕)) 18:44, 9 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The Hairstons still own the house, and it has never been owned by anyone outside of the family. It is a private residence, as it always has been, and is still not open to the public for tours. How beyond saying we (the family) object to the article would you like us to prove this? Mhairston (talk) 19:23, 9 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

You are an anonymous person on the Internet. For all we know, you could be a dog that has learned to type ("you could be dog" is a common Internet joke, not an insult). You must provide a reference to back your assertion. -- kainaw ™ 19:31, 9 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Also... Where in the article is there a claim that anyone else owns the house or that it is open to the public? Are you actually reading the Wikipedia article or something on some other website? -- kainaw ™ 19:34, 9 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Just to be clear, what is it that you wanted to change? We may be able to help you more efficiently if we knew. TN X Man 19:38, 9 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

You are not of the Hairstons that own the house, correct? You are from the other branch. Contrary to your statement about no tours, I know otherwise. My mother toured the house a couple of years ago and I know a good number of people that went with her.

Which specific things in the article would you like to see corrected?
⋙–Berean–Hunter—► ((⊕)) 20:30, 9 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Going back to your initial question... "full of incorrect information"... could you tell us what information is incorrect - and give reliable sources to prove this? You say "we (the family) object to the article" - what, precisely do you object to? As kainaw says, you are an anonymous individual... I could have created the username Shairston and claim to be in the family - it wouldn't prove that I am! Let me restate the important facts: if you believe the article to be factually incorrect, provide reliable citations of evidence showing this. The only bit of the article that I could imagine the family might object to is the assertion that 'the Hairstons were not only the largest slaveholding family in the South, but also slave traders' - if you have evidence (reliably sourced evidence), let us know... but the article seems to be well sourced to me. PhantomSteve (Contact Me, My Contribs) 21:17, 9 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]