Wikipedia:Help desk/Archives/2009 October 22

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October 22

what is truth?

How can I encourage my children to use this website as a source of truth? It is a mad mad mad mad world when we turn over history and truth to subjectivity and randomness. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.204.56.9 (talk) 00:52, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia is not a collection of "truth". It is a collection of information gathered from reliable resources. If all the reliable resources are full of lies, then Wikipedia is full of lies. We go on the assumption that most of the reliably resources contain some amount of truth. -- kainaw™ 00:56, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

(edit conflict) If you do not trust Wikipedia to be a source of truth, then perhaps you should use Encarta or Encyclopædia Britannica? In my experience, most of what I find on Wikipedia is accurate - but there are mistakes (whether deliberate or vandalism). However, traditional paper encyclopedias have mistakes in them too - with the added disadvantage that they are not up-to-date, whereas by its very nature, Wikipedia can be updated instantly. Traditional encyclopedias that you might want to buy include Childcraft, Children's Illustrated Encyclopedia, The Illustrated Science and Invention Encyclopedia, Merit Students Encyclopedia, Collier's Encyclopedia... to name just a few. A couple of those may not be currently in print though.

Oh, and your question was "what is truth?" - have you read Truth, Truth (religious) - or one of the other articles referred to at Truth (disambiguation)? -- PhantomSteve (Contact Me, My Contribs) 01:09, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

And if you want a more light-hearted approach to the subject, read Wikipedia:The Truth (which in a nutshell says "Your opinions are The Truth, and thus are unquestionably correct.") -- PhantomSteve (Contact Me, My Contribs) 01:09, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

You can use Wikipedia to teach your children how to evaluate truth claims. Start by teaching them to spot every one of these in ordinary discourse:

• List of fallacies

and be sure they are able to recognize when someone is trying to appeal to their emotions with loaded language, glittering generalities, or even the If-by-whiskey argument. Also see that they become aware of:

• List of cognitive biases

You cannot teach your children all the truth they will need during their lives, because much of it has not been invented yet. But you can teach them how to think critically. --Teratornis (talk) 01:23, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

hurricanes

I understand that there has been some recorded hurricanes on rattlesnake mountain. Could you please give me more information dates, level, ect.

Thank You —Preceding unsigned comment added by 209.216.178.138 (talk) 03:10, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

Which Rattlesnake Mountain? -- kainaw™ 03:15, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

Saving the page links

Hi. Suppose I visit 20 wiki pages (articles) and I like 6 of them. Using my own account, can I somehow keep a record (maintain a history)of those 6 links? I mean can I save them as favorites, just like we organize mail folders in email clients or save favorite links in web browsers?

Can you please help? Ankursplace-music (talk) 04:39, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

You can place them on your watchlist, which allows you to not only refer to them easily, but to see if any changes have been made to them recently. Alternatively, you can put a list of your "favourite articles" on your user page (User:Ankursplace-music) - similar to the "list of articles I'd like to work on" on my user page. Does that answer your question? — QuantumEleven 08:20, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

Article on Me

I want some one to write an article about me. how to go about it?—Preceding unsigned comment added by Arunchitlangia (talk • contribs) 07:21, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

Hi, and welcome to Wikipedia! Two things to note: first, all articles on Wikipedia must be notable, so only if you are notable enough should you have an article on Wikipedia (note: if someone hasn't already written an article about you, then chances are very high that you are not notable enough - sorry). Second, as we strongly discourage autobiographies, if, after you've read our guidelines on notability (see the link above), you decide that an article on you should be included in Wikipedia, you can submit it to our list of requested articles. I hope that helps to answer your question. — QuantumEleven 08:15, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

translation of english pages to tamil

Hi, I am interested in making available technical pages in English into Tamil language. can i use tha same template of English and translate it in Tamil? Is that permitted?

Regards, Ilan —Preceding unsigned comment added by Elan116 (talk • contribs) 09:19, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

As everything on the English Wikipedia is free to reuse, then you can. However, be warned that some of the templates rely on other templates to be in existence, and these may not be on the Tamil wikipedia. I'm not sure how active it is, but you might want to leave a message on the WikiProject Tamil civilization's talkpage asking for help. -- PhantomSteve (Contact Me, My Contribs) 09:36, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

how to change an article name

I am trying to change the name of an artcle, but can't find out how. The specific example is this: I'm working for the filmfestival CPH PIX. Our name used to be written with a colon (CPH:PIX), but we have just decidet to write it with a blank space instead (CPH PIX). I would like to change this on wikipedia as well, but I cannot see how to do it. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Frahm-2 (talk • contribs) 09:43, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

Well, on the official website, all the mentions say CPH:PIX not CPH PIX (see Google search for "CPH PIX" at the site), so unless evidence can be shown that the name no longer has the colon, then it would not be appropriate to move it. However, as a good will gesture, I will move it from Cph:pix to CPH:PIX and create a redirect from CPH PIX to CPH:PIX. Until the name change becomes official (i.e. is reflected on the official website), CPH:PIX would need to remain the name for the article. -- PhantomSteve (Contact Me, My Contribs) 10:12, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

How to use {{Wrongtitle}} with pipe characters?

The Rochester-High Falls International Film Festival just changed its name to "360 | 365 Film Festival". The pipe character is not allowed in page titles, so I had to call the article 360 365 Film Festival. Wikipedia:Naming conventions (technical restrictions) says that we must use {{wrongtitle}} when this is done, but I can't figure out how to show what should be the correct title (since it has a pipe in it, the template interprets it as a parameter delimiter). Help? Powers ^T 12:33, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

There might be a way to code it. Let me have a look. UltraExactZZ ^Claims ~ Evidence 12:37, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

The unicode value for the pipe is 007C; I can't figure out how to use that, though. UltraExactZZ ^Claims ~ Evidence 12:47, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

Wikimarkup for that is {{!}} - giving "|". I have corrected the Wrongtitle template to include it. -- PhantomSteve (Contact Me, My Contribs) 12:59, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

Page Protection

How do I know if a Page needs to be protected?Accdude92 (talk) (sign) 13:26, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

Generally a page is protected if it has a high frequency of disruptive edits by a number of users. But since we are the "free encyclopedia that anyone can edit", we don't protect pages for every little thing. Read the protection policy. Protection of a page can be requested at WP:RFPP. ≈ Chamal ^talk ¤ 13:33, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

Editor Review

What is it?Accdude92 (talk) (sign) 13:43, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Editor review says it all. ≈ Chamal ^talk ¤ 13:47, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

How to upload the image I am autoconfirmed user

Hi i am autoconfirmed user of the wikipedia,. How to upload the image in my project named Mahudi —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ravi1121 (talk • contribs) 13:53, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

No, you're not autoconfirmed. Your account is only 1 day old. I'm afraid you'll have to wait 3 more days until your account is autoconfirmed. However, you can upload the image at Commons if it is not a non-free image (that is, something that you hold the copyrights to, or something in the public domain or released under a free license accepted here). ≈ Chamal ^talk ¤ 13:56, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

To make your account active on Commons, go to Special:MergeAccount. See WP:SUL for more information. --Teratornis (talk) 21:03, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

Recent Changes/New articles box

Resolved

 – camr ^nag 19:46, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

I used to have a nice box on the left that had all the new articles and recent changes, but it dissappeared... now I can't make it come back... any idea?--camr ^nag 14:55, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

I THINK you refer to these scripts created by Thejosh: User:TheJosh/Scripts. In order to use these scripts they should be placed inside your monobook Special:Mypage/monobook.js. Also make sure you have activated javascript in your browser as scripts will not run without it. Hope this helps, Excirial ^{(Contact me,Contribs)} 17:54, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

You've been most kind. Thank you!--camr ^nag 19:46, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

Missing Spdr gold trust article

on 10-15 we pulled up an article titled "spdr gold trust". Now when I try to pull it up, I am redirected to "gold exchange-traded fund". Where did the original article go??? It had specific information about that particular gold ETF that I need. The new article has general information. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.10.196.166 (talk) 15:24, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

According to the history of the article, Spdr gold trust was created at 03:47, 10 October 2008 (UTC) as a redirect to GLD, and then the editor realised that was a disambiguation page, so a minute later they changed the redirect to Gold exchange-traded fund. As this was created on the 10th, and you are referring to an article you looked at on the 15th, they cannot be the same one. Perhaps you had found another page? Even using capitalisation (SPDR Gold Trust, SPDR gold trust) doesn't bring up anything other than the "spdr gold trust" page. Perhaps you are thinking of the GLD disambiguation page where it has an entry that reads SPDR Gold Trust, a gold exchange-traded fund traded on the New York Stock Exchange with ticker symbol GLD - which has a link to the "Gold exchange-traded fund" article. -- PhantomSteve (Contact Me, My Contribs) 16:31, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

That is interesting. So basically we saw a page that never existed. I sure wish I would have printed it on the 15th! I am pretty sure we typed "spdr gold trust" because I wrote it down so that I could go back to it. And it talked all about how they bought gold bullion, how much gold the fund has, the fact that it now has more gold than the government of China and the fact that their trustee HSBC of London stores the gold bullion. AND MUCH MUCH MORE that I wish I could remember or find again! Do you have any other suggestions????? 75.10.196.166 (talk) 17:08, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

Suggestions, do we have suggestions:

• You can Search Wikipedia with Google for: spdr gold trust. Try clicking on the links that say "Cached" next to the search results. I see one of Google's cached copies dates back to October 13. You might find a cached copy of the page you viewed on the 15th, whatever that page may have been.
• You can also check on Deletionpedia in case the article you seek has been deleted from Wikipedia.
• For future reference, I recommend taking notes whenever you find interesting content online. One convenient method is to use your own Personal wiki - you can easily start new pages about new topics and organize them nicely, and they don't go away until you delete them (or your computer breaks and you neglected to back up).
• You can check your Web browser's history to see the exact URLs you viewed on October 15th (probably).
• You might want to install a Desktop search tool to allow easier searching among Web pages you have viewed (for example Beagle (software)).
• Note that Wikipedia has no original research. That means the text of Wikipedia contains only information that has already been published elsewhere (unless somebody typed in content that is original, in which case it will probably get deleted eventually if nobody can find reliable sources for it). Thus if you read a legitimate article on Wikipedia, the odds are pretty good that the same information is available elsewhere on the Web (or in a library somewhere). Google away. (Many images on Wikipedia are original, but that probably does not affect the problem you are having now.)

--Teratornis (talk) 20:58, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

new editor trying to make an article go "live."

Hi. I am a new editor trying to find information about how to make my new article go "live." The wikipedia documentation identifies this as a "move" but I'm not sure what to do. Does an Administrator need to do this for me?—Preceding unsigned comment added by Timlabor (talk • contribs) 15:36, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

Looks like you figured it out - the page is in the mainspace at Open Fist Theatre Company. – ukexpat (talk) 15:40, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

The article was created in the main namespace which means it was "live" from the beginning. Some article drafts or suggestions are created in other namespaces and may later be moved to the main namespace to go live. PrimeHunter (talk) 17:46, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

Cannot re-enter to continue contribution started 10-21-09 (yesterday)

To Whom It May Concern: RE: Item titled: "KCKN (defunct)" I entered information for a new item. I have entered approximately one-half of the data. My original password became dysfunction, so I obtain a new one ("<redacted>") which was operational last night. However, today (10-22-09), the new password does not work. I thought it beter to contact the Help Page than to just keep piling up additional passwords.

Please review and advise. Thank you. 24.31.247.34 (talk) 17:10, 22 October 2009 (UTC)Jack Lester24.31.247.34 (talk) 17:10, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

Do you see an error message when you attempt to log in? If so, what does it say? Thanks. – ukexpat (talk) 17:13, 22 October 2009 (UTC)