Wikipedia:Help desk/Archives/2010 September 22

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September 22

Adding to existing articles

Hello, I have some information regarding the history of flash file system, namely my own involvement. How do I submit this background for updating the information shown on the website ? Someone will have to choose from the background and edit the page to add the new information. Thanks, Kurt Robinson —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.121.53.231 (talk) 05:06, 22 September 2010 (UTC)

On Wikipedia, we can only add verifiable information from reliable published sources. If you have personal knowledge that is not published anywhere that we can cite, it would constitute original work which is not allowed on Wikipedia. However, if you see something factually wrong or incomplete in the Flash file system article, you can leave a note on Talk:Flash file system following the Talk page guidelines. Depending on the nature of your information, maybe someone can find an acceptable way to work it into the article. Also see Wikipedia:Conflict of interest. An exception (of sorts) to the "no original research" policy is that you can upload original media files such as photographs you may have taken, if you are willing to place them under a free content license (such as {{cc-by-sa-3.0}}) or in the public domain. If this sounds confusing, please briefly summarize the information you have in mind so we can judge whether it would be allowable. Anything which is remotely controversial, or dealing with living persons, could be problematic if it's your personal knowledge and you don't have published sources to cite. See WP:BLP. --Teratornis (talk) 07:12, 22 September 2010 (UTC)

Hello again, Your Wikipedia process background is very helpful even if I'm not following every detail. I have a very short text summary I would like to send to an editor who can then decide what, if anything to update. It would go under the category of addressing things that are "incomplete" -- my summary has many interesting details not noted in the flash file system article. There's another reference to related technologies you may also want to update. The verifiable sources are US patents, cited in my summary. I would just like to send my summary to an editor for this article and have them do what they will with the information. thanks, Kurt Robinson —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.121.53.231 (talk) 16:20, 22 September 2010 (UTC)

I suggest you add your text, including those patent numbers, to the article talk page - Talk:Flash file system. Add a new section to that page just as you did when asking your question here. -- John of Reading (talk) 16:34, 22 September 2010 (UTC)

Thanks. I may have comments appropriate to the "talk" page to help out with current questions, but that's not the case here. I'm trying to find out how to contact the editor for this page directly. I "was there" during these developments and have no easy way to avoid the "original content" issues if I post things myself. An editor can review my text, refer to my citations and sources, decide what is verified as likely determined by how much time he/she wants to investigage, and publish accordingly. If anyone can tell me how to relay contact information to a from this editor -- the flash file system article -- I would appreciate it. Thx, Kurt RobinsonKurtbrobinson (talk) 18:47, 22 September 2010 (UTC)

Wikipedia is a collaborative project; each page is typically edited by many different editors. The article talk page is the preferred venue where interested editors could review and discuss your text and decide what to incorporate into the article. Alternatively you can see the list of past editors of the Flash file system article by clicking on the "History" tab at the top of that page, or by following this link - see this help page. Next to each editor's name is a link to their own talk page. -- John of Reading (talk) 19:28, 22 September 2010 (UTC)

(continued) Actually I see now that the Flash file system article was begun as a sub-section within the File system article, with more editors mentioned in the history of that article. The first version of the "Flash" section was added by an anonymous edit in August 2007. I strongly recommend you post to the article talk page rather than trying to guess which editor to contact. -- John of Reading (talk) 19:40, 22 September 2010 (UTC)

Bob Pritchard - differentiating between articles with same name

{helpme} I would like to differentiate between Robert W. Pritchard (Bob Pritchard, politician), and Bob Pritchard, composer . Currently, a search for Bob Pritchard redirects to RWP, politician.

Thank you, Contrappunto71 (talk) 06:44, 22 September 2010 (UTC)

The basic tools you can use are disambiguation pages and hatnotes. If there are only two Bob Pritchards to disambiguate, hatnotes on each of their pages may be sufficient for now. --Teratornis (talk) 06:48, 22 September 2010 (UTC)

User:Nthep turned the Bob Pritchard redirect into a disamgibuation page. --Teratornis (talk) 06:55, 22 September 2010 (UTC)

I added hatnotes to Robert W. Pritchard and Bob Pritchard (composer). You could add an {{Infobox musician}} template to the latter article. --Teratornis (talk) 07:03, 22 September 2010 (UTC)

Image licensing question

In my opinion, the infobox in the article Swedish general election, 2010 looks ugly because the images of the party leaders have different aspect ratios. I could edit the images to have the same aspect ratio and reupload them under different names, but I am unsure about the license issues, because I neither took or uploaded the original photographs. What sort of licence should be used here? JIP | Talk 07:09, 22 September 2010 (UTC)

At least one of the photos (probably all of them, I'm too lazy to check) are on Wikimedia Commons, so you would follow the advice in Commons:Commons:Derivative works and use Commons:Template:Extracted from. See for example File:Denzel Washington cropped.jpg and File:Denzel Washington.jpeg. All files on Commons are (supposed to be) freely licensed or in the public domain, so you would license your derivative work under a license compatible with the original work. Generally this means using the same license(s) that you see on the original file page. You can unify your account with Special:MergeAccount so you can automatically log in to Commons without having to re-register there. --Teratornis (talk) 07:21, 22 September 2010 (UTC)

You may find something useful or maybe informative in these entries from the Editor's index to Commons:

• bugzilla:7757 – Bug #7757 – allow cropping images when rendered – proposal to enable display of only part of an image
• Commons:User:Cropbot - a bot which crops an image without requiring the user to download a copy
• Commons:Commons:Collages - combination of multiple images arranged in a single image

--Teratornis (talk) 07:32, 22 September 2010 (UTC)

Wikipedia deleted my name from my family surname page

I can't imagine why Wikipedia would do that, but it happened. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.30.113.118 (talk) 07:13, 22 September 2010 (UTC)

I can't imagine your name or your family surname, making it difficult to look at the page in question to see what might have happened. If you're looking for an explanation, you'll have to tell us the page you have in mind. Probably everybody who edits on Wikipedia long enough sees some of their contributions deleted. It's a jungle out there. --Teratornis (talk) 07:25, 22 September 2010 (UTC)

Lots of people are deleted from surname pages, usually because they don't have a Wikipedia biography or don't appear to satisfy Wikipedia:Notability (people), but it's impossible to tell in your case when you don't say the name. The post here is the only edit registered to your IP address. PrimeHunter (talk) 12:29, 22 September 2010 (UTC)

Infobox doc mix-up

I moved Template:Infobox Archdiocese to Template:Infobox Archbishopric and thought that any of its sub-pages would move at the same time. The reason for the move was to match with Template:Infobox Bishopric. I then created Template:Infobox Archbishopric/doc, thinking the doc had not been created. I've realised that Template:Infobox Archdiocese/doc should have moved at the same time with the main template page. Could someone correct the mix-up by deleting the Template:Infobox Archbishopric/doc I created and for Template:Infobox Archdiocese/doc to be moved and take its place. --Scrivener-uki (talk) 13:47, 22 September 2010 (UTC)

 Done Bencherlite^Talk 14:01, 22 September 2010 (UTC)

Thanks. --Scrivener-uki (talk) 14:19, 22 September 2010 (UTC)

Ownership issues on John Calvin, where do we go?

There appears to be Ownership issue on the John Calvin page. One editor, User:RelHistBuff, has consistently refused any changes to his article, despite consensus to the contrary. He has bullied other editors, such as telling people they can't change the article because it was once a featured article, and etc. It is all fully documented on the talk page Talk:John Calvin. Since he is a seasoned editor (with rollback privileges too), he has made sure not to break the three revert rule, where do we go to get something done? TuckerResearch (talk) 16:49, 22 September 2010 (UTC)

You can request a third opinion from an uninvolved editor. You should also look at our dispute resolution process, as that may have tips that can help you. TNXMan 17:36, 22 September 2010 (UTC)

Thanks, I added a bit for a third opinion. Dispute resolution has been attempted, but an editor is clearly exhibiting ownership and bullying behavior. Since there is no "Ownership noticeboard" - I didn't know where to take it. TuckerResearch (talk) 17:46, 22 September 2010 (UTC)

how to move my article from english wikipedia to latvian wikipedia.

Resolved

 – Wifione _....... ^{Leave a message} 17:54, 22 September 2010 (UTC)

Hi! I just made a mistake. I wrote latvian article here on wikipedia's english version. I would like to know if or how it's possible to meve it to Latvian wikipedia. Thanks! —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ilzitek (talk • contribs) 16:54, 22 September 2010 (UTC)

The Latvian-language Wikipedia is a separate project. You will need to sign in there and create your article there; there is no way to move the articles cross-project. --Orange Mike | Talk 16:57, 22 September 2010 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Cut and paste your article text into a Notepad or Word file or similar and store it on your computer. Add the text {{db-author}} to the top of your English Wikipedia article, to request deletion. The go to the Latvian Wikipedia and start the article there, using your saved text. If your article covers a notable subject and it isn't covered here yet, consider translating it into English rather than deleting it. If you don't want to translate it yourself, you can list it at WP:PNT to see if someone else can do it. Karenjc 17:05, 22 September 2010 (UTC)

Done! Thanks! --Ilzitek (talk) 17:31, 22 September 2010 (UTC)!

Moving an AfD to the "Articles for deletion/Old" page

I canot figure out how to move this current discusssion on Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Texas Disposal Systems Landfill v. Waste Management Holding to the AfD/Old page for administrative review. The /Old page's last entry on my computer is September 14th (nothing from there forward and no September 22 list). I've purged the page, refreshed, etc. Where do I move it to? I would have thought it would be to a September 22 list. Thanks Austex • Talk 18:15, 22 September 2010 (UTC)

This has been answered on your talk page. – ukexpat (talk) 18:24, 22 September 2010 (UTC)

Google Search

My wikipedia page on William Griffin Gallery does not seem to come up on a google search, but wikipedia pages seem to rank highly for most other searches I do for other places, terms, people, etc...

Any idea why this is? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Griffin2902 (talk • contribs) 19:01, 22 September 2010 (UTC)

Welcome to Wikipedia. If you are affiliated with some of the people, places or things you have written about in the article William Griffin Gallery, you may have a conflict of interest. In keeping with Wikipedia's neutral point of view policy, edits where there is a conflict of interest, or where such a conflict might reasonably be inferred, are strongly discouraged. If you have a conflict of interest, you should avoid or exercise great caution when:

1. editing or creating articles related to you, your organization, or its competitors, as well as projects and products they are involved with;
2. participating in deletion discussions about articles related to your organization or its competitors; and
3. linking to the Wikipedia article or website of your organization in other articles (see Wikipedia:Spam).

Please familiarize yourself with relevant policies and guidelines, especially those pertaining to neutral point of view, verifiability of information, and autobiographies.

For information on how to contribute to Wikipedia when you have a conflict of interest, please see our frequently asked questions for organizations. Thank you. --Orange Mike | Talk 19:06, 22 September 2010 (UTC)

Discussion is now underway at Wikipedia:Conflict of interest/Noticeboard#User:Griffin2902. --Orange Mike | Talk 19:19, 22 September 2010 (UTC)

Looking for the copyvio template

I'm trying to replace this page with a massive box containing "Possible copyright infringement", however I can't find it. I found the source for which the text may have been copied from, but not the template. Instead, I PRODed the article containing the source. Minimac (talk) 19:18, 22 September 2010 (UTC)

It's already been deleted but I think you are looking for {{db-copyvio}} with the |url=sourceurl parameter. – ukexpat (talk) 19:30, 22 September 2010 (UTC)

Thanks to the admin who deleted it, but actually I'm not looking for the speedy deletion template, I meant the big black box containing the copyright logo and has the heading "Possible copyright infringement". Minimac (talk) 19:42, 22 September 2010 (UTC)

{{copyvio}} is what you want, I believe. It uses {{copyviocore}}. TNXMan 19:43, 22 September 2010 (UTC)

article uploading

How can I upload a new artivle in wikipedia? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Gkionis (talk • contribs) 20:38, 22 September 2010 (UTC)

WP:Your First Article is a good start. -- wiooiw (talk) 20:52, 22 September 2010 (UTC)

A Wizard is available to walk you through these steps. See the Article Wizard.

Thank you.

Before creating an article, please search Wikipedia first to make sure that an article does not already exist on the subject. Please also review a few of our relevant policies and guidelines with which all articles should comply. As Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, articles must not contain original research, must be written from a neutral point of view, should cite reliable sources which verify their content and must not contain unsourced, negative content about living people.

Articles must also demonstrate the notability of the subject. Please see our subject specific guidelines for people, bands and musicians, companies and organizations and web content and note that if you are closely associated with the subject, our conflict of interest guideline strongly recommends against you creating the article.

If you still think an article is appropriate, see Wikipedia:Your first article. You might also look at Wikipedia:How to write a great article for guidance, and please consider taking a tour through the Wikipedia:Tutorial so that you know how to properly format the article before creation. An Article Wizard is also available to walk you through creating an article. – ukexpat (talk) 15:11, 23 September 2010 (UTC)

Changing the demographics of wikipedia

Are wikiprojects allowed to encourage members to try to change the demographics of wikipedia by asking them to make contact with certain groups (like based on ethnicity) to see if they will contribute to wikipedia because some think they are under represented? BritishWatcher (talk) 23:41, 22 September 2010 (UTC)

If they agree to abide by WP:NPOV, WP:RS, WP:SOAPBOX and so forth, why not? But the ethnic groups underrepresented here are not English-speaking residents of the UK, the EU, or the U.S., but rather the rest of the planet. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Orangemike (talk • contribs) 23:51, 22 September 2010 (UTC)

Encouraging recruitment based on a persons nationality or skin colour seems very biased to me and it is something that will simply introduce a new bias into articles. We should actively recruit non Europeans/Americans? Sounds like Positive discrimination to me. BritishWatcher (talk) 23:57, 22 September 2010 (UTC)

Hey, we assume good faith! Heaven knows we are all painfully conscious of how biased towards the First World this project is in English. --Orange Mike | Talk 00:00, 23 September 2010 (UTC)

The "Bias" simply reflects usage. Ive no problem with trying to encourage more editors to contribute, or to recruit editors with knowledge of African or Asian cultures so they can contribute in areas where there is limited information. But i see that as very different to "change the demographics of Wikipedia by contacting people and asking them to join Wikipedia because of their skin colour or country of origin". Every language wikipedia has this "bias" people seem to be so concerned about. If there was just one language wikipedia i could understand the concern. But whilst the overwhelming majority of editors and readers come from Europe and North America, content rightly reflects that. BritishWatcher (talk) 00:15, 23 September 2010 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Systemic bias and Wikipedia:WikiProject Countering systemic bias. I don't entirely agree with the unstated assumption that just because people are white English speaking males of a certain age range that this renders them incapable of writing anything useful outside a narrow list of topics. There's a huge amount of diversity just within that particular demographic, and no white male club with secret handshakes. If other groups are underrepresented here, it is not necessarily a "problem" requiring a "solution", unless they want to edit and are somehow being actively excluded. Maybe there just happen to be more white males who are interested in this process and are willing to put up with all the deletionism and content disputes, and will read the endless manuals. We don't necessarily have to force every activity to have exactly the same proportional representation from every identifiable group, or view disproportionate representation as inherently evil in every case. Editing on Wikipedia is, after all, a recreational activity, which doesn't necessarily lift people out of poverty or advance their social status. It's something you do after your life is already stable enough to give you some spare time when you aren't worried about where the next meal is coming from. --Teratornis (talk) 00:47, 23 September 2010 (UTC)

Wikipedia:WikiProject Countering systemic bias is the wikiproject i was concerned about. Its final task on that page states...

"Change the demographic of Wikipedia. Encourage friends and acquaintances that you know have interests that are not well-represented on Wikipedia to edit. If you are at a university, contact a professor in minority, women's, or critical studies, explain the problem, and ask if they would be willing to encourage students to write for Wikipedia. Contact minority or immigrant organizations in your area to see if they would be interested in encouraging their members to contribute. The worst they could say is, "No". But keep in mind that immigrant organizations may well have a different point of view than the majority of people in the countries they emigrated from (their members may, for example, be members of a minority themselves or may have emigrated because of a disagreement with the government not shared by the majority of the population), which introduces its own systemic bias."

This stinks of positive discrimination, its basically saying go out of your way to recruit non white editors. BritishWatcher (talk) 01:05, 23 September 2010 (UTC)

Sure, but it's not hurting anything. It's not like Wikipedia has become detectably more hostile to white males, or is experiencing any shortage of them. If somebody wants to write some politically correct postmodern nonsense on a WikiProject page that few people are even aware of, who cares? It doesn't interfere with any editing I want to do. There's no way to identify anyone's skin color or gender on Wikipedia anyway unless they choose to disclose those tidbits. If somebody wants to go out recruiting non-white non-male editors with time to kill, more power to them. There's nothing to stop you from recruiting more white males if you want. --Teratornis (talk) 01:14, 23 September 2010 (UTC)

I doubt a wikiproject encouraging recruitment of white males to counter changes to wikipedias demographics would be seen as acceptable and nor should it be. As i said above ive no problem with encouraging people to recruit editors with knowledge of areas that are under represented, but to state as a task, try to recruit editors based on a persons ethnic group to change the demographics of wikipedia seems wrong to me. Its a point of view wikipedias demographics need changing, i think British unionism is under represented on wikipedia, i would not be allowed to actively recruit unionists on that basis, i fail to see why skin colour or national origin is any different. BritishWatcher (talk) 01:26, 23 September 2010 (UTC)

It almost does seem to violate the spirit of WP:CANVASS if not the letter. But that guideline is a prohibition against recruiting existing Wikipedia editors to an ongoing dispute in an attempt to stack one side. Even so, it's vaguely related, the idea that someone would recruit new editors to Wikipedia with the assumption that they would change the average viewpoint on Wikipedia (whatever that is). Anyway, we're getting beyond the scope of the Help desk here, which is for questions about using Wikipedia. We can't resolve questions of policy here. --Teratornis (talk) 01:38, 23 September 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for your comments, i wasnt really sure where else to raise this, doesnt seem serious enough for an admins noticeboard, but its annoyingly problematic. lol BritishWatcher (talk) 08:39, 23 September 2010 (UTC)

Editors' political views should of course be irrelevant to editing here, and should not be overt. If an editor's political position can be deduced from their edits, it raises the question of whether they should be editing here at all. WP:NOTFORUM. Ghmyrtle (talk) 08:58, 23 September 2010 (UTC)