Wikipedia:Help desk/Archives/2009 March 30

Help desk
< March 29	<< Feb | March | Apr >>	March 31 >

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.

March 30

Wikipedia Stats

I'm looking for non-article statistics about Wikipedia: number and edit activity of Talk pages, and number and edit activity of pages in the Wikipedia namespace. Thanks! Jeangoodwin (talk) 01:36, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

You may be able to find what you want with one of our article tools here — Ched ~ ^(yes?)/_© 05:24, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

This may be the tool you're looking for. — Ched ~ ^(yes?)/_© 05:26, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

do I need a cite for things like this......?

Resolved

(Off2riorob (talk) 16:20, 30 March 2009 (UTC))

if something is obvious or common knowledge or ,, say for example that .. I have never been to jail .. or ... micky mouse is a cartoon ... would these kind of things need a cite? they are true so no one has ever commented about them? the page in question is 1985 Rajneeshee assassination plot... In the lede it refers to Osho being the leader of this group of disciples.. and mentions Osho more than once.. and I feel that it infers that he was involved.. and I want to insert a comment that he was not charged with any involvment in the conspiracy. lower down in the charges and punishment table are the people that were charged and involved so it is a reality as he was never charged with any involvment...I have tried to insert a clause stating this but have been asked to provide a cite! How is it that this statement would need a cite when it is clear from the table of conspiritors...It is the inferance that he was involved.. in the lede that I am trying to balance! (Off2riorob (talk) 00:13, 30 March 2009 (UTC))

You could read up on WP:CITE and WP:V to understand the full explanation of what can and can not be included in articles. The short version is, if you want to add information, and the info is debatable, then you should (and could be required to), include a reference to verify that claim. If you are debating material that is already there - while you could technically remove it, and add a note in the edit summary as to why it was removed - you'd probably be better served by discussing the issue on the article talk page. Additionally, you can add {{fact}} tag to a statement in the article if you wish someone to provide a reference to a statement that you dispute. I see no references in the lead of the article, so I would probably add the tag, and explain your reasoning on the talk page. Best of luck. — Ched ~ ^(yes?)/_© 05:21, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

thank you Ched for having a look and commenting.

that is helpfull and informative. best regards. (Off2riorob (talk) 15:47, 30 March 2009 (UTC))

i need help;

first of all, i need find "the constitution of 1890 in mississippi". i must be, because i have presentation of that kind of stuff....... research on thoes things... i don't know exactly on research things........ so would you let me know about how to construct research paper, and investigation on "the constitution of 1890 on mississippi"? accordingm give me key point of "the constitution of 1890 on mississippi" —Preceding unsigned comment added by Alstlr91 (talk • contribs) 00:24, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

The Mississippi page briefly talks about the 1890 constitution, but I think you'd be better off looking outside Wikepedia. Try here: [1] page —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.141.65.194 (talk) 03:31, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

Most recent articles

Resolved

 – ♪Tempo di Valse ♪ 14:18, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

Is there a way to view a list of the most recent articles created on wikipedia? 79.75.233.8 (talk) 00:28, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

Yes. See Special:NewPages. Cheers, ♪Tempo di Valse ♪ 00:50, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

question

I can edit Ken Bruen and I made changes to Wililam Monahan and they were erased. I have a thing on my page that says an edit has expressed a concern about me but no one is talkign. ( 82.195.149.119 (talk) 00:37, 30 March 2009 (UTC) )

Maybe that was like gibberish. I came tonight and saw that everything was different and I couldn't enter the William Monahan article anymore. Its a rubbishy thing now. ( 82.195.149.119 (talk) 00:49, 30 March 2009 (UTC) )

William Monahan was semiprotected to prevent editing by sockpuppets of banned User:Manhattan Samurai. —teb728 t c 04:54, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

If 82.195.149.119 is indeed a sock, then that is the secondary explanation. The semiprotect that Teb728 mentions will prevent all anon. (IP addresses) from editing. Also, there is now an Abuse Filter in effect, which will display warning messages to users who may be posting questionable material. — Ched ~ ^(yes?)/_© 05:12, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

Watching user contributions

Resolved

 – ukexpat (talk) 20:06, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

Is there a way to watch a users contributions the way I can watch articles. I came across a spammer and have reverted their add edits but I would like to kept tabs on contributions by that user in the future. --droll [chat] 03:56, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

There is no way to shadow a user like that. Dismas|^(talk) 04:14, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

You'll just have to bookmark the users contribs page, and refresh every so often. — Ched ~ ^(yes?)/_© 05:08, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. --droll [chat] 07:41, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

Logged me out

Resolved

 – tempodivalse [☎] 19:26, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia suddenly logged me out! Is there any explanation for this? P.S., I logged in again, but I just wanna know. Ciaran UK ^{rush jump} 04:34, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

This is purely speculation, but perhaps your browser has a cache level it's reached in the "keep me logged in" cookie. Just a thought — Ched ~ ^(yes?)/_© 05:07, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

This often happens to some users. See Help:Logging in for some tips on how to stay logged in. PrimeHunter (talk) 11:37, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

If you log in and then are inactive for a certain period of time, then the website might "time out" on you and log out automatically, without warning. This happened to me once. ♪Tempo di Valse ♪ 19:35, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

Can I remove the speedy deletion tag form this aritlce

Can I remove the speedy deletion tag form this aritlce [[2]] It a current event.yousaf465'

The article Speedy Delete tag has been contested, which means it will most likely go to WP:AFD. If you intend to work on this article, and intend to add improvements, you may want to read This first. This is not a judgment on the article, just a suggestion on Wikipedia policy to help assist you in your desire to keep the article. Best of luck — Ched ~ ^(yes?)/_© 05:01, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

It has been expanded and del tag has been removed by somebody.116.71.179.190 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 08:24, 30 March 2009 (UTC).

Article Help

There's an article that has achieved GA status. I'm interesting in improving it further for hopefully, FA status. However, I'm not sure how. Does anyone know how I could in contact with someone who could help me review the article and provide insight on how to improve it? The Clawed One (talk) 04:58, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

If it were me, I would probably start on the article talk page - leave a note as to what you want to do. If it's already GA, then there should be comments already on that talk page. You could contact some of the editors who have posted comments there, as well as looking at the page history, and contacting editors who have edited the article recently. Which article are you considering by the way? — Ched ~ ^(yes?)/_© 05:05, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver is the article in question. The problem is, when it comes to users who have made contributions to the article....I'm pretty much it. I worked on the article off and on for several months, bringing it from basically a stub to what it is now, and really, no one else has really edited it that much. There's the many peer review and the GA nomination that helped improve it to the current quality, but the peer reviews were largely unhelpful to me. The only other user who made any significant and frequent edits to the article was the user who was doing the GA review for me. The Clawed One (talk) 05:16, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

Hmmm .. Well, first let me congratulate you and thank you for such great work! Fantastic job! Have you looked over the Wikipedia:Featured article criteria article yet? I see that the talk page for FA (here) is pretty active, so I would guess that one of the editors there would be more than willing to help point you in the right direction. If you know any of the editors whom you consider to be top quality copyeditors, I would drop them a line and ask them to look it over. I have a couple folks that I consider to be very good at that type of thing, and often ask them to review my work. Peer review seems to be a funny thing - sometimes you get very little input, and other times you get a ton of great help. Sometimes too much .. lol. I've seen editors going back and forth trying to please first this editor then that one ... but I'm drifting off course here. There's a project somewhere that specializes in this type of thing too .. let me see if I can find it, and I'll get back to you. — Ched ~ ^(yes?)/_© 06:11, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

Thank you, and thanks for the advice. The problem is that as far as I can tell, the article does conform to the FA guidelines. When I nominated it for GA status, I was genuinely surprised when errors and shortcomings were found I had never thought of. Hence my desire for outside assistance. I'll ask on the FA talk page and can hopefully find someone to help. If you can find that protect that would be nice too. The Clawed One (talk) 06:16, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

There is an Editorial Team here that deals with the reproduction of Wikipedia, and while it is a bit of a fork from what you're specifically looking for, I might be tempted to look and see if any of the editors were interested in the same type of topics. If so, I wouldn't be shy, I'd just go to their talk page and ask them what they thought! Most folks here feel flattered when someone asks them personally to look at what they're working on (I hope - otherwise there's a ton of folks that think I'm a real pain in the but ... lol). Anyway .. I hope that give you a couple doors to knock on anyway. Drop me a note when you get it to FA by the way (which I quite imagine you'll do). I noticed you had reviews and such, but I didn't see any sales figures on the game, is that something you could include to expand on the topic in more detail? also, I'm not sure about references 6 - 16, I might look into that format a bit. Well, best of luck — Ched ~ ^(yes?)/_© 06:24, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

Thanks again, and actually, sales figures are mentioned, I found them on my own. As for formatting for references 6-16, I wasn't too sure myself at one point. One thing I did was look at other video game FAs and GAs, and many seemed to use the same format for direct quotations from the game, so I assumed it was alright. The Clawed One (talk) 06:40, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

• If you want to get it from GA to FA, your first port of call should be the person who did the GA review. I'm sure they'd have some ideas on how to go about it. - Mgm|^(talk) 11:35, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

Where's the talk page?

Resolved

 – ukexpat (talk) 20:05, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

The article titled "homeopathy" does not appear to have a talk page. There is a discussion page instead, which I could edit, but that doesn't make sense. How do I make a comment about the content of the article?Criticalobservation (talk) 06:15, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

Discussion page and talk page are the same thing. You can make your comment there. Someguy1221 (talk) 06:37, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, I figured it out. I was expecting to see an older format and I didn't recognize it! Criticalobservation (talk) 08:33, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

Talk page to Article(Main) page Conversion

Dear Sir/Madam

I had a problem adding new article to wikipedia..

STage 1 ) when i tried to edit existing page, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mrinalini_Sharma I was being transfered to Discussion: Talk page..

Stage 2) When i added up new material, & i also added References, along with my signature. I saved the page.

Problem: The material which i added is appearing on Talk page http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Mrinalini_Sharma

How can i add the material, which i discussed on talk page, to main page i.e. article page.. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mrinalini_Sharma

Please Assist.

Regards,

Abutorsam007 (talk) 06:26, 30 March 2009 (UTC) Abu Torsam

I'm not sure what you mean by "I was being transfered to Discussion: Talk page". If you click "edit this page" at top of a page then you can edit that page. If you click it on the talk page then you edit the talk page. If you click it on the article then you edit the article. The article is not protected and you can edit it if you don't have a conflict of interest. See [3] for how to make the references display. PrimeHunter (talk) 11:35, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

Population in cities

percentage of the world's population staying in cities. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 117.200.98.65 (talk) 06:32, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

See Urbanization. Have you tried the Humanities section of Wikipedia's Reference Desk? They specialize in answering knowledge questions there; this help desk is only for questions about using Wikipedia. For your convenience, here is the link to post a question there: click here. I hope this helps. PrimeHunter (talk) 11:20, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

But you should do your own homework. – ukexpat (talk) 15:06, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

Delhi College of Engineering

Dear Sir,

This is about below link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delhi_College_of_Engineering

Section: Admissions

Problem: Wikipedia is an information source and an encyclopedia. It is not correct to bu Judgmental about preferences of one college over another.

Suggest this: The admission towards a full-time Bachelor of Engineering degree in Delhi College of Engineering and Netaji Subhas Institute of Technology is through Combined Entrance Examination (CEE) conducted by the University of Delhi, and All India Engineering Entrance Examination (AIEEE) conducted by the Central Board of Secondary Education. Out of the total 570 seats, 85% are reserved for students who pass from high schools in the National Capital Territory of Delhi or Delhi region. The remaining 15% seats are for candidates from outside Delhi region and are admitted on the basis of All India merit Rank in AIEEE[5]

Admission towards a Postgraduate degree at the Delhi College of Engineering is based on performance in the GATE qualifying exam, followed by an interview.

Over this: The admission towards a full-time Bachelor of Engineering degree in Delhi College of Engineering and Netaji Subhas Institute of Technology is through Combined Entrance Examination (CEE) conducted by the University of Delhi, and All India Engineering Entrance Examination (AIEEE) conducted by the Central Board of Secondary Education. Out of the total 570 seats, 85% are reserved for students who pass from high schools in the National Capital Territory of Delhi or Delhi region. The remaining 15% seats are for candidates from outside Delhi region and are admitted on the basis of All India merit Rank in AIEEE[5] Traditionally students tend to prefer NSIT over DCE, however the latter is more famous because of its long history. 39 out of top 50 students who sought admission in CEE 2008 chose NSIT over Delhi College of Engineering.[1]

Admission towards a Postgraduate degree at the Delhi College of Engineering is based on performance in the GATE qualifying exam, followed by an interview.

Best Regards, Ritwik Bisaria —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ritwik.bisaria (talk • contribs) 10:36, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

I think the best thing to do is to propose your changes on the Delhi College of Engineering talk page. Or, you can be bold and make the change yourself. If someone reverts your change, then you can start a discussion with them and build consensus. TNXMan 11:54, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

Problems with category use in User pages

Resolved

I've been doing some tidying up of the various colour categories, because I have been finding non-colour pages showing up in the category. The one I am trying to correct at the moment is on User:Chimchar monferno's page. I should add that as this is someone's user page, I am explaining what I am doing on their talk page; however I have not had any response, so either they are not aware or not fussed about what I am doing.

Anyway, initially, the userpage showed {{Shades of green}} and the user page appeared on the category as a shade of green. I changed it to {{Category:Shades of green}}, which appeared to do the trick... until I discovered their page was now showing up in {{Category:Colors}}. I have now stuck No Wiki tags around the text, and promised the user I would try and find out what needed to be done. However, I am not getting anywhere fast. Is it possible to add the category box to a page without the page showing up as a category?

I'd like to find out before I start looking at making the same correction on {{Shades of violet}}. Stephen! ^Coming... 11:41, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

{{shades of green}} adds Category:Shades of green. Looking at the code, the undocumented option |nocategory=yes will suppress the category. --—— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk - 11:49, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

Templates that auto-categorize should probably, at a minimum, always have a namespace check—e.g., {{#ifeq:{{NAMESPACE}}|{{ns:0}}|[[Category:Foo]]}}—to prevent non-articles from being placed in article categories. It's rather common to demonstrate navboxes and such on talk or user pages, after all. — TKD::{talk} 11:55, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

Cheers for that. I must confess that I don't follow the use of If/else type of code that you describe, TKD, but I get the general gist of what you are saying LOL! If you know how to apply that code, then please by all means add it to the various colour templates. However, I do now understand what needs to be done to templates if they end up being categorised accidentally. Stephen! ^Coming... 15:53, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

monochrome TV transmitter and reciever

please help me with the block diagram of a monochrome TV transmitter and reciever —Preceding unsigned comment added by 117.206.32.67 (talk) 12:29, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

Have you tried Wikipedia's Reference Desk? They specialize in knowledge questions and will try to answer just about 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. I hope this helps. – ukexpat (talk) 15:05, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

Actually the OP tried at the RD at the same time (in two different desks) although didn't receive much help since this sounds a lot like a homework question Nil Einne (talk) 04:58, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

Trey Hooten

Trey Hooten is a singer song writer from Texas. Trey started writing songs in the 1970's with his first song Did you Know. Since then Trey has written songs such as Which road leads that way, I just can't let go, That ole tune, Dance my heart away, Picture Perfect, Gift of Love, Trials of Life, This working's not for us, Just put your head on my shoulder, Which road leads that way, and many more. Trey still continues to write and compose music. He still plays with Country Music Artist The Travelers. One of the best relationships I ever made was when I started playing with The Travelers "says Trey". These guys are great and are still great freinds. The Travelers formed with an idea for Robert Holder and Trey Hooten in the late 1970's. Trey's music can be heard on youtube.com or monthly on the Cove Country Opry in Copperas Cove, Texas.—Preceding unsigned comment added by Treybhoot (talk • contribs) 19:22, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

It sounds like you are trying to write an article. I would encourage you to read this guide, as well as this guide. Also the info on writing your first article may be of assistance. TNXMan 19:36, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

Is "The Travelers" mentioned here the same as The Travellers (band) - a Canadian group? If not, may I suggest that you go to pages on Country Western Music and try to establish, first, that the Travelers are a notable country group. If they are part of some sub-genre of country, edit that article first, so that the Travelers are mentioned as a notable example. If the Travelers are not a notable act, I don't think an individual member of the Travelers is notable enough to have a bio on Wikipedia (although you can sure try to add one anyway). But the ways that I know how to do a new article involve having a link to another article first. HTH. --Levalley (talk) 00:51, 31 March 2009 (UTC)LeValley

Trouble reverting vandalism

Resolved

 – ukexpat (talk) 20:07, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

I wasn't sure if I should bring this here or WP:AN first. I made several attempts to revert two consecutive vandalism edits on D-Generation X. First I used my new toy Twinkle, and each time I got a message that my rollback was successful, but when I went back to the revision history my edit wasn't there. Then I attempted the non-Twinkle Rollback and again got a message that rollback was successful, but the history didn't show my edit. Finally I resorted to using "undo" twice and the revert was successful. Is there something up with that page? I should note that I did go to new admin school and was able to successfully use non-Twinkle rollback, but still wasn't able to rollback the DX article. KuyaBriBri^Talk 19:51, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

Ah, I've seen this before. When you use an automatic script (Twinkle, etc.) to an undo an edit, there must be something there for it to undo. In your case, the IP editor added something, then removed it. So when you undid the edit, Twinkle saw that there was no net change (since the vandalism had been removed by the person who put it there originally) and did nothing. It still gave you a "successful" message, but didn't actually do anything. TNXMan 19:55, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

Another d'oh! You can WP:TROUT me now. Thanks. KuyaBriBri^Talk 20:00, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

Nah, no trout for you. It's a legitimate question and tripped me up several times when I started using Twinkle. Best, TNXMan 20:19, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

how to format user page?

on my user page User:Off2riorob everything is on the left ..how do I add things on the right and middle? (Off2riorob (talk) 20:17, 30 March 2009 (UTC))

I know that you can use the <center> </center> tags to... well, center items. You can also use info box templates that default to the right side. I'm not sure about the <left> tags, if someone has not responded further - I'll look it up when I get back. I'd offer more input here, but rather than post faulty info - I'll wait til I have more time to be accurate. I would imagine another editor will have provided some more formatting tips by then as well. Best — Ched ~ ^(yes?)/_© 21:10, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

• quick note: most items do default to the left side because an encyclopedia is designed that way for flow of text. — Ched ~ ^(yes?)/_© 21:12, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

You can align things using HTML, DIV, or WIKITABLE. First, you can align only text using the following:

<p align="center"> THE TEXT</p>

However, this may not align templates or userboxes. The other way is using DIV, which is more preffered. You use the following:

<div style="text-align:center"> THE TEXT </div>

The other way is using the Wikitable. This may make a complication, but useful when aligning userboxes or templates. It is also useful when aligning items and placing a border at the same time. You use the following:

 {| align=center ;"
|-
THE TEXT OR TEMPLATES
|} 

This is only beginning stuff, so you can master these first before moving to more complicating things. ZooFari 22:28, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

Copyright

This is the statement I received when trying to set up our page:

[edit] San Juan High School This is an automated message from CorenSearchBot. I have performed a web search with the contents of San Juan High School, and it appears to include a substantial copy of http://www.softcom.net/users/whiskeystill/SJhistory.htm. For legal reasons, we cannot accept copyrighted text or images borrowed from other web sites or printed material; such additions will be deleted. You may use external websites as a source of information, but not as a source of sentences. See our copyright policy for further details.

I am the originator of the document, that is also posted to The San Juan Class of 1960 Page, owned by Jerry Still - - http://www.softcom.net/users/whiskeystill/SJhistory.htm

I am the organizer of the San Juan Alumni Association who tracks all the history of the San Juan Alumni Association. If you need verification that I am not using a copyrighted page, you can contact Jerry Still at <redacted>.

How can I continue to post and set up our page?

Thank you, Barbara Morarity-Van Dyke San Juan Alumni Association (e-mail address redacted to avoid spam) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Sanjuanalumniassoc (talk • contribs) 22:31, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

There are two basic solutions:

1. Rewrite the Wikipedia article so it is not a substantial copy of the text posted elsewhere.
2. If you control the content on that other site, consider releasing it under a free license such as the GFDL. Most people who put up Web sites are not familiar with this sort of thing yet. By default, Wikipedia assumes everything on the Web is under copyright unless it explicitly says otherwise, so we can only copy text from other Web sites that clearly indicate they release their content under a GFDL-compatible license. To do that, you would have to persuade the site owner to accept the license terms and display the indication of license.

Let us know if you have any questions. --Teratornis (talk) 00:04, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

Most likely rewriting the article would be easier, but it's up to you to make the choice.

And BTW, sign your posts with ~~~~. MathCool10 ^{Sign here!} 02:36, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

Rewriting the article is almost certainly easier than trying to explain what free licensing means to the site owner, and convincing him or her to join the free content movement, if the site owner has never heard of this before. But if the site owner was already thinking about it, and just hadn't got around to it yet, he or she would only need a few minutes to release the site content under a free license. Therefore I mention the free license option on the (admittedly slim) chance that this option could be practical. --Teratornis (talk) 20:18, 31 March 2009 (UTC)