Wikipedia:Help desk/Archives/2009 October 7

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October 7

Permissions

Aren't administrators allowed to give themselves and their legitimate alternate accounts permissions? The log shows that a lot of administrators are giving rights to other administrators. Intelligentsium^review 00:37, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

Yes, they can (if they abuse this, they would lose the admin tools). As for there being a "lot" of these, looking at the log for the last month, I see 2 times where an admin gave another admin additional rights, and 12 occasions where an admin gave themselves additional rights (almost all of them adding the Edit filter managers right - which was made available on this Wikipedia in March this year.) -- PhantomSteve (Contact Me, My Contribs) 07:55, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

Health care certification in US

Hi,

I am IT professional working in Healthcare company, I want enhance my knowledge in US healthcare business and want to pursue a career as a Business analyst in Healthcare insurance.

Can you please guide me about the certifications in US Healthcare system.

Thanks, —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.138.173.246 (talk) 03:15, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

This page is for questions about using Wikipedia. Please consider asking this question at the Miscellaneous 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 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) 07:59, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

Question about merging contributions

I contributed to wiki without a login for a while now and just recently (finally) joined. I was wondering if there was a possibility of merging my old contributions with my newly created account. Thanks.—Preceding unsigned comment added by Stephen293 (talk • contribs) 03:22, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

Unfortunately, no, it is no longer possible to reattribute anonymous edits. Also, please remember to use ~~~~ to sign your posts on talk and help pages. Regards, DoktorMandrake 03:30, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

Charlotte Beazley

Charlotte Beazley is an Australian actress.

Hints, Staffordshire

Resolved

 – Moved. Bencherlite^Talk 14:00, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

The entry Hints is just a redirect to Hint(disambig). Given that we have a page for the village of Hints, currently at Hints, Staffordshire, and this seems to be the only meaning of Hints as opposed to Hint, should I:

1. Set the redirect to the village, adding a hatnote
2. Rename the village as the simple Hints, also adding the hatnote
3. Anything else

Jan1naD - (talk) 12:44, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

I'd move the village to Hints, adding a hatnote to the top to point to "Hint". UK places tend not to have county names appended unless there's more than one with the same name. Bencherlite^Talk 12:50, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

Resolved

 – Thank you, Bencherlite, for the swap. Jan1naD - (talk) 14:01, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

New topic

This isn't the place for this discussion. Bencherlite^Talk 19:16, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

This discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
I am a former employee of Google. During my work for that company I was instrumental in giving WIKI a bias so as to cause it to appear as a good result for encyclopaedic type queries. I have since come to deeply regret my role in aiding WIKI to become a more respected and expected result for Google queries. Wiki, in its degraded state, simply does not merit such respect. Wiki needs to wake up to the problem that the US Government, and most especially the Department of Justice has an active program to bias Wiki article content. There are people here working as "editors" who are salaried employees of the DOJ who are ruining Wiki. They are a cancer on Wiki. You need to dig them out ,throw them out, and never let them back in. I will give you a perfect example -- the Wiki article on Minnesota Senator Paul Wellstone. Even though polls taken after his death indicated that a majority of Minnesotans believed he was assasinated, there is no such mention of this fact in the article. Even though conspiracy theories regarding JFK are respected in the main stream and Wiki in fact has a separate topic regarding these conspiracies, any attempt to include conspiracy information such as the fact that US armed forces have magnetic pulse lasers which can both blind pilots and fry their equipment, is quickly deleted. I would not even personally bother posting any such information on this article because I know it would be quickly deleted. My point is not to endorse these theories, but merely to point out that there is a immodest gusto to delete any such information which has a degrading effect on the quality and expectation of freedom from bias that serious users of Wiki are certainly noticing and being turned off by. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ivangrimm (talk • contribs) 13:43, 7 October 2009 (UTC) Without going into detail on the above claims, all I would say is that I assume you could provide some reliable sources of information on these allegations? Add them to the articles (using citations) and see what happens - the Minnesotans I have spoken to did not think that Sen Wellstone was assassinated - they think it was a tragic accident caused by human error. Of course, it could be that all the ones I spoke too are in on the conspiracy. That's the problem with conspiracies - those who totally believe them cannot be convinced. They say that the police, politicians, news organisations, web search companies, etc etc are all involved. My advice to you, Ivangrimm, would be to just not bother, as whatever you add will either be deleted by government agents, or by us simple editors who only want to add information which is verifiably correct with reliable sources. Incidently, the help desk is for helping with problems using Wikipedia, not telling us how tainted the Wikipedia system is. I'm not sure where the correct venue for that is, but it ain't here. -- PhantomSteve (Contact Me, My Contribs) 14:06, 7 October 2009 (UTC) I am surprised in reading your profile that you, Phantomsteve, a primary school teacher such as yourself from Croydon, UK, even knows where Minnesota is located within the USA, let alone sits around all day talking with Minnesotans about this topic. I, for instance, don't know where Croydon is located and I have zero interest in UK politicians. I had no idea that people in Croydon are experts on obscure, long dead American politicians from Midwest American states. Who are you really ? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.103.28.57 (talk) 14:42, 7 October 2009 (UTC) After disagreeing with Ivangrimm's edits in August he also suspected me of being an American conspirator posing as European on my user page. At User talk:PrimeHunter#I respectfully disagree he wrote: "you compose your writing in a manner consistent with someone whose mother language is American East Coast English". Welcome to the cabal Phantomsteve. PrimeHunter (talk) 15:15, 7 October 2009 (UTC) Long dead? 2002 isn't that long ago! To be honest, I'm not totally sure where Minnesota is - America is one big area! But I've heard of it - I'd guess that I've probably heard of a lot of the American states - in the UK, we don't tend to be so insular as certain other countries, and hear/know about a lot of other countries - they tend to be mentioned in the news, and so do several states of the US! I don't talk with Minnesotans "all day" - I haven't spoken to any (as far as I know) in a long time, but I used to be a regular in chat rooms at late/early hours here in the UK, which made it evening/night in the US - and I recall discussions about a politician whose airplane crashed a few weeks before an election he was involved in. When you mentioned the above, I looked up the article - now, I might have the wrong person, even the wrong state (in which case, I apologise), but although I couldn't be sure of the timeline (I was in chat 2001-2003), the facts fit with what the article says. I am not an expert on this politician - it was only reading the article that it reminded me of what some people had said over the space of a few days way back then - that their Senator had been killed in a plane crash (hence, I'm assuming they were Minnesotans) and that I don't recall any discussions about it being other than a tragic accident. Of course, it could be that in that time period, there was another Senator (or politician) who was running for office, who died in an air crash a few weeks before the elections - and that the one my online friends were chatting about was that one and not Wellstone. I am not in touch with any of them since MSN Chatrooms closed (was that 2005, 2006?) I am sure that someone could tell me if I am thinking of some other politician which would fit this description in the 2001-2003 time frame It is a sad fact that many Americans have no interest in UK politics, nor interest in politics beyond the water’s edge, while Europeans, at least the ones I talk to are quite conversant with American politics. I’ve often felt there was a plausible answer beyond provincialism – an action of the US is more likely to have an economic impact, positive or negative on, say Croydon, than the other way around, but it is still true, I believe, that there’s a disparity in relative knowledge. I don’t find it at all surprising that a resident of England would have passing familiarity with the death of an American Senator.SPhilbrickT 17:39, 7 October 2009 (UTC) As to whom I am really - I am an ex-primary school teacher, in Croydon, South London, UK - just as my user page says. Whether you choose to believe that or not, I don't really care. Although you may choose not to believe it, anyone with the right authority (ie CheckUser) would know that I am on a computer in the Croydon area (I'm leaving it at that, as Croydon is a large area - with a population of 1/3 of a million people, an area of 33.6 square miles - that still keeps me fairly anonymous!). -- PhantomSteve (Contact Me, My Contribs) 15:32, 7 October 2009 (UTC) Oh and before Ivangrimm says "how can anyone know the area that precisely?", I didn't - I knew the population (although that might be out of date now), but I looked up the area. -- PhantomSteve (Contact Me, My Contribs) 15:34, 7 October 2009 (UTC) Several observations -- Observation 1: people have written software which examines the ratios of Latin based English words to Anglo Saxon based words drawing on written examples of writing of people from known localities in the English speaking world, and yes, it is possible to identify the true location of people by the mixture of these words which they employ -- it takes tremendous mental concentration and knowledge of the English language to vary this mixture to mislead anyone. Observation 2: interogators know that the level of verbosity in a response to an accusation can tell you the truthfullness of that response -- responses intended to mislead are ALWAYS more verbose than responses which are short. PhantomSteve, thou doth protest too much. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ivangrimm (talk • contribs) 16:22, 7 October 2009 (UTC) For future reference: several does not mean two, it means more than 2 (but not much more). Wiktionary's definition of several -- PhantomSteve (Contact Me, My Contribs) 17:09, 7 October 2009 (UTC) Let me add in closing this discussion, that Wiki even has an article about how they caught the DOJ interfering with WIKI and threw them out. I find it ironic that you try to label me as a conspiracy freak when you actually have a WIKI article about the very problem which I raise: http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/US_Dept._of_Justice_IP_address_blocked_after_%27vandalism%27_edits_to_Wikipedia —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ivangrimm (talk • contribs) 16:42, 7 October 2009 (UTC) My short response: I don't care where you think I am, I know where I am. End of line. -- PhantomSteve (Contact Me, My Contribs) 17:06, 7 October 2009 (UTC) Please note that there is a difference between “Wiki” and “Wikipedia”. You appear to be new, and many newcomers make the mistake of not understanding the difference. SPhilbrickT 17:53, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

Unencyclopedic edits that are nevertheless not vandalism

I feel silly having to ask this, since I thought I had a good grasp on WP policy, but I'm honestly not sure where to appeal for help with an editor who is adding un-encyclopedic walls o'text to an article and not responding to talk page requests to stop. The article in question is Beanie Baby, and a user who was first an IP and then user:Lovablehearts has been adding first-person, orginal-research-y commentary repeatedly, despite my efforts, first in edit summaries and then in a non-template message to the user's talk page, to convince him/her that the content is not appropriate for Wikipedia. I tried cleaning up their contribution and integrating it into the article where possible, but they undid those changes in favor of their full wall of text. A check of the article's history tells me that I've undone their edits longer than than I probably should have, and I'm not willing to carry on in that manner, so I need some sort of help.

These appear to be good-faith edits, so WP:AIV doesn't seem appropriate, and since it's just one editor, I suspect WP:RFPP isn't going to do me any good either. I'm not sure if this rises to WP:AN3 territory, and the only other thing I can think of is WP:3O, but since the editor does not seem to want to engage in discussion, I'm not sure how much good that can do. So...where do I go for issues like this? Please direct me and my question to the appropriate place to ask this, if here isn't it keɪɑtɪk flʌfi (talk) 14:15, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

I wouldn't call repeatedly adding content after being asked not to good faith. Try Administrators noticeboard for incidents. Jeffrey Mall (talk • contribs) - 14:20, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

I agree with Jeffrey, the repeated aspect of the behaviour means it has stopped being good faith Report it to ANI as suggested, remembering to use links to diffs illustrating that this is repeated behaviour, along with diffs showing your commuinications with the editor. -- PhantomSteve (Contact Me, My Contribs) 14:24, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

Taken to ANI. Thanks, guys. keɪɑtɪk flʌfi (talk) 15:17, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

removing outdated tag?

I revised my article extensively, addressing all the issues in the tag (below). I contacted the editor but have not heard back. My question---can I delete this tag on my own? And if not, how could it be revised to reflect the current article?

This article or section has multiple issues. Please help improve the article or discuss these issues on the talk page. It does not cite any references or sources. Please help improve it by citing reliable sources. Tagged since September 2009. Its neutrality is disputed. Tagged since September 2009. It appears to represent a biased viewpoint inconsistent with Wikipedia's neutrality policy. Tagged since September 2009. It is an autobiography, or has been extensively edited by the subject, and may not conform to NPOV policy. Tagged since September 2009. It may contain material not appropriate for an encyclopedia. Tagged since September 2009. Simonfamily (talk) 15:26, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

Short answer, yes, you can remove it.SPhilbrickT 15:56, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

Longer answer - still yes, but I wish we did a better job of providing good advice. Many, many editors who see these notices assume they should address the concerns, and the original person placing the template will return and remove when the conditions are met. While some do that, many do not. One possibility is proposing revised language on the temples - maybe I'll work on that later. Back to specific advice - I think it is very helpful to add something to the talk page, e.g, I saw the request for thus-and-so and I did this and that, and I think I've now complied with the request. That way, no one thinks you are dismissing the original concern, or just trying a perfunctory response. It can be put back if the original editor or another editor thinks the problem still exists, hopefully with a specific response to the talk page comments.SPhilbrickT 16:01, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

OK, first let's get the terminology right - it's not "your" article! You may be the major contributor, but that does not make it yours!

Secondly, I'm guessing from your username that you are connected to Bill Simon? Although it is not prohibited, editing an article on a subject over which you may have a conflict of interest is strongly discouraged! It can be hard to write with a neutral point of view.

Thirdly, I will go through the points in the tags individually, and give you my take on them (please note that this is my own opinion, YMMV):

1. It does not cite any references or sources.

Although there are now sources given, these are not used inline (i.e. a specific statement in the article referencing a specific source)

1. Its neutrality is disputed.
2. It appears to represent a biased viewpoint inconsistent with Wikipedia's neutrality policy.
3. It is an autobiography, or has been extensively edited by the subject, and may not conform to NPOV policy.

These are all to do with the fact that it was written by someone obviously connected with the subject (see this diff] when the issues tag was put on the article).

• It may contain material not appropriate for an encyclopedia.

I think this is probably refering to the "Tributes" section.

I am amending the tags, to mention inline citations being needed, about the possible COI, plus a quick tidy up (for example, the Manual of Style says that only his surname is used apart from when his full name is first given at the lead of the article). -- PhantomSteve (Contact Me, My Contribs) 16:11, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

Correcting information in articles

I find some of the details of the Help Desk too confusing.

But I have noticed that with some of the data like e.g Disney releases, some of the information is wrong. I don't know how to correct it and everything is al over the place so what do I do to edit the page? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Lolly64 (talk • contribs) 15:55, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

If you want to edit information in articles, just click on the "edit" button and go ahead! However, I would make two recommendations: firstly, check the article's talk page - there may be a reason why the information appears incorrect; secondly, make sure that any information you add/change has reliable sources, and if possible use citations to show this. -- PhantomSteve (Contact Me, My Contribs) 16:16, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

Vertical space

Is there a way to have two images separated by non-zero vertical space? Have a look here at the second entry ("Scenes in and around the capital"). There are two pictures in the last column which appear as one. I would like to separate them somehow. bamse (talk) 16:09, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

I have added a blank line between the images, which seems to work. Gandalf61 (talk) 16:17, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the fast help. bamse (talk) 16:26, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

can i adda aprticular page to view it later ...like favorite types ? or if i have added it to my book i can only print it but hw can i view it again?

can i adda aprticular page to view it later ...like favorite types ? or if i have added it to my book i can only print it but hw can i view it again? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Advo.apurva (talk • contribs) 16:16, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

Yes you can add pages to your watch list to view them later you can add the link of your pages to your userpage too --NotedGrant Talk 16:21, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

304-A 337 ipc section

what is 304-A 337 ipc section ? please tell me as early as possible —Preceding unsigned comment added by Neelambujji (talk • contribs) 17:17, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

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. --DoktorMandrake 19:39, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

Rules about using <br>

Are there any guidelines/policies about using breaks (<br>) in article prose? On an article I'm watching, someone keeps adding
to a few sections. Doc2B (talk) 17:18, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

Since we are moving to HTML 5, the proper tag is <br />. Wikipedia uses HTML Tidy to convert various forms of the break tag to <br />, but articles may be reused on other sites where HTML Tidy is not enabled. Thus, we should always try to use proper HTML.

There is no specific prohibition on the use of the break tag. You would have to give us a specific example so we can evaluate this. If you need to separate paragraphs, an extra enter will do the trick. If you are quoting a poem or other text that should maintain breaks, you can wrap the content in <poem>...</poem> extension tags. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 17:50, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

Here is the page where it is used: St._George's_University#The_School_of_Medicine and St._George's_University#2009_Tuition_costs. I had removed them before, but another user added them back. Doc2B (talk) 19:06, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

There should be only a single vertical space between paragraphs. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 19:20, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

Help with first article search on google!

I made an article a few days ago and that was nominated for speedy deletion and got deleted. My current page's name is TalkBack and it is running just fine. However, in my google search, the old article titled TalkBack, DawnNews still appears, and also Talkback and some other articles but not mine. Even when i type in TalkBack Wikipedia or TalkBack alone it does not show up and i know it should. Please delete the old article!!! please help!!! Urgent!!! HGhori HGhori (talk) 08:22, 7 October 2009 (UTC) 10/7/09

Question was posted in wrong place - moved from Wikipedia:Help desk/Archives/2009 October 4 --DoktorMandrake 18:23, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

As far as I can tell, TalkBack DawnNews was never nominated for deletion, and has been in place since it was created. Rather than delete it, I have redirected to the identical TalkBack article. However, please take into consideration the issues highlighted at the top of the page, otherwise it may yet be nominated for deletion. DoktorMandrake 18:35, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

Also, note that Wikipedia does not have control over what Google does and does not list in its search results. Google has programs that scour the web and "indexes" new pages, but until one of the programs hits the page it will not appear in any search results. Xenon54 / talk / 19:01, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

Help please

October 7th 2009 Good morning. Kindly would like to ask for your help since unable to open and read wikipedia files in Italians. System return to opening a small mask asking if I want to look for a readable format in the world wide web. Is that correct? do I have to effect some changing or up-dating my browser? which is currently Explor8 Thank you very much. Have sample of the mistake in a word file saved in case I can send an e-mail somewhere By now thank you very much —Preceding unsigned comment added by 217.203.104.121 (talk) 19:13, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

This sounds like a problem that has been mentioned before, which occurs when opening Wikipedia links in Google using Internet Explorer - someone else may be able to provide more information.

However, note that the various language editions of Wikipedia are run independently of one another. This is the Help Desk for the English language Wikipedia, and as such our ability to help you with a problem on the Italian edition is limited. If you are able to access their help desk, that would be a better place to ask your question. DoktorMandrake 19:27, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

Translate French Wiki article to English

What is the most efficient way to translate an article in the French Wiki data base, e.g. http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_Nicolas_de_Clerville, to an article in English wiki? GloverEpp (talk) 20:44, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

Please see Wikipedia:TRANSLATE#How_to_translate. Regards, DoktorMandrake 20:47, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

Why did none of my changes save???

I just spent over an hour updating my page and nothing saved when I selected the "Save page". Is there any chance that I can still find my "saved changes"? I did a comparison of versions and none of my changes show up. It even listed all my changes after saving, so then I tried clicking "show page" which proceeded to show the old page. I could not go back to at least copy and save my changes. Does this mean that I have to start all over again? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Michacha1 (talk • contribs) 20:46, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

I suspect that instead of clicking on Save page you clicked on Show Changes. Unfortunately, if you did not click on Save Page after that, there is no way to get your edits back. Your Contributions List shows only one edit before you posted here, a minor change to the My Phone article. -- PhantomSteve (Contact Me, My Contribs) 21:35, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

How do you put pictures in Wikipedia articles?

I have several pictures I would like to add to Wikipedia articles, but I don't know how to do it. Please help! ~~—Preceding unsigned comment added by CeresVesta (talk • contribs) 21:34, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

Assuming the image already exists on Wikipedia (or in Commons), just use [[File:Example.png|thumb|alt=Example alt text|Example caption]] in the article where you want the image to be (it can be a jpg or other formats as well as png).

If the image isn't already on Wikipedia, just click on the Upload link on the left hand side of the screen (Under Toolbox) and upload it. Please make sure that you read the upload screen carefully - there are limits on the kinds of images that we can accept. Once the images is uploaded, use the [[File]] syntax given above. -- PhantomSteve (Contact Me, My Contribs) 21:41, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

YOUR VOICE COUNT

I'm one of the few who knows nothing about using the wiki. I received an email thats says the reports I need to read have been uploaded to the W&I section of the Your Voice Counts WIKI. How do I find this? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.160.251.242 (talk) 22:18, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

• I suspect, based on your question, that you found one of our over 6 million articles and thought we were 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 for asking questions related to using or contributing to Wikipedia itself. Thus, we have no special knowledge about the subject of your question. You can, however, search our vast catalogue of articles by typing a subject into the search field on the upper right side of your screen. If you cannot find what you are looking for, we have a reference desk, divided into various subject areas, where asking knowledge questions is welcome. Best of luck. -- PhantomSteve (Contact Me, My Contribs) 22:21, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

Please note that the English Wikipedia is not the only wiki available; there are literally thousands of them, completely unrelated to us. Wikipedia is not even the origin of the term - that honour belongs to WikiWikiWeb. We have no special knowledge relating to other wikis and I, personally, have never even heard of the Your Voice Counts Wiki. Sorry, DoktorMandrake 22:28, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

See Wikiindex: for a list of thousands of wikis. However, a search there for your voice counts comes up empty. I also didn't see anything promising in the first few pages of a Google search. By the way, it is not correct to suggest that few know nothing about using "the wiki". The vast majority of people have little idea how to use wikis, as wiki techology is still new, at least on the time scale of social change. If you would like to actually get an answer to your question, you might try phrasing it a bit less cryptically. What do you mean by "the wiki"? What are "the reports"? What is the From: address on the e-mail you received? Have you dealt with these people before? If so, in what context? What does "W&I" stand for? --Teratornis (talk) 08:13, 8 October 2009 (UTC)