Wikipedia:Help desk/Archives/2011 May 22

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May 22

history

Dear Sir/Madam,

My parents were involved with a country store which started in the 1890s and closed in 1972.

I am trying to compile a history of the store and was wondering if you could supply copies of photos of old product from that era and some of their histories.

Marcella Berry —Preceding unsigned comment added by 124.187.30.246 (talk) 02:04, 22 May 2011 (UTC)

I suspect, based on your question, that you found one of our over 3.5 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. GB fan (talk) 02:06, 22 May 2011 (UTC)

Citing The New York Times Magazine

If I want to cite The New York Times Magazine, a Sunday supplement to The New York Times, which template should I use: {{cite news}} or {{cite journal}}? —Cheng ✍ 03:40, 22 May 2011 (UTC)

I think either template would be acceptable. It's up to you, I'd probably use {{cite news}}, because it comes in the New York Times. It's really up to you, doesn't matter either way. Steven Zhang ^{The clock is ticking....} 03:47, 22 May 2011 (UTC)

I second Steven's choice. Template:Cite journal is typically intended for scientific journals rather than newspaper content. - Mgm|^(talk) 09:33, 22 May 2011 (UTC)

My new userbox

I'm unsure whether to place my new userbox, {{User:Rcsprinter123/UBX/Radio2/Steve Wright}}, here or here. Any help? Rcsprinter^{Gimme a message} 09:06, 22 May 2011 (UTC)

I assume you mean User:Rcsprinter123/UBX/Radio2/Steve Wright. Although your two alternatives link to the same place, I don't see why your userbox wouldn't fit there. Goodvac (talk) 09:23, 22 May 2011 (UTC)

Yes thank you. I've put it in the BBC section. Rcsprinter^{Gimme a message} 09:28, 22 May 2011 (UTC)

Math symbols don't show up

I am using Firefox 4 on windows 7 and I've noticed that some math symbols don't show up. There's no box, it's just completely blank. I've noticed this problem with set inclusion symbols and the wedge product, though there are probably others that don't show up either.

Anyway, I tried both fixes mentioned here, but neither worked. (Unchecking the allow overriding fonts box and changing the font to Ariel Unicode MS) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Help:Special_characters#Viewing Hiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii (talk) 12:50, 22 May 2011 (UTC)

Can you give some examples of symbols/articles you're having issues with? Cheers. Rehevkor ✉ 13:02, 22 May 2011 (UTC)

Well I kind of already did, but if you want a specific example of an article, Exterior Algebra is one. It appears to me like there is just a blank space between the u and v. Hiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii (talk) 17:17, 22 May 2011 (UTC)

"The exterior product of two vectors u and v, denoted by u ∧ v, lies in a space called the exterior square, a different geometrical space (vector space) than the original space of vectors. The magnitude[1] of u ∧ v can be interpreted as the area of the parallelogram with sides u and v, which can also be computed using the cross product of the two vectors."

The people at WT:WPM might be able to help. Meanwhile, check this list of Unicode symbols and see what percent of those symbols are showing up for you as intended. An empty square box in the left hand column shows a failure. EdJohnston (talk) 03:27, 23 May 2011 (UTC)

Oddly, all but three of the symbols (circled bullet, double plus and triple plus) show up for me on that page. All of the math symbols show up, even though they don't on Wikipedia. Hiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii (talk) 17:53, 25 May 2011 (UTC)

P.S. Sorry it took so long to respond, but whenever I tried before, it refused to save my edit.

New user upload image to existing or new page

Permission to upload an image is only granted after ten edits and I do not wish to edit any articles. I would like to upload an image that I've been working upon for the Empires section. All the information in my image has been extracted from Wikipedia pages and therefore there are no copyright issues. Can I upload an image without having to edit ten times. My image is of a modern empires chart 'Chart of Empires'. Thank you Cliffjohn —Preceding unsigned comment added by Cliffjohn (talk • contribs) 13:53, 22 May 2011 (UTC)

Can you elaborate on this extraction from Wikipedia pages? You say "therefore there are no copyright issues" but many of the images on Wikipedia are copyrighted and being used in specific places under a claim of fair use. If the "extraction" is from any of these images then copyright is very much at play. Many other images seen here are not in the public domain but remain copyrighted under a free license, which requires any reuse to comply with that license. This once again means that just because it's seen on Wikipedia does not mean careful evaluation of copyright is unneeded. Regarding the autoconfirmation issue, if my concerns over copyright are unfounded and the image is free, then it shouldn't be uploaded here at all but to the Wikimedia Commons instead, so that all projects have access to the image (sign up). A secondary benefit of this is that there is no editing autoconfirmation threshold at the Commons. Finally, making ten edits is easy: Just search for a common misspelling and fix it in ten article. This list will make that easy.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 15:17, 22 May 2011 (UTC)

no verifiable sources

If a Wikipedia article about a living person has no verifiable sources linked to as well as no citations does it quality for deletion? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Pirhounix (talk • contribs) 14:01, 22 May 2011 (UTC)

Yes, provided it was created after March 18, 2010. See this page for details, and this one for general discussion of all forms of deletion. -- John of Reading (talk) 14:11, 22 May 2011 (UTC)

Charles Hollis Jones

I've been trying to deorphan Charles Hollis Jones by linking to the article from Hot Wax (album), List of furniture designers, and List of American artists 1900 and after. While I can clearly see the links to Charles Hollis Jones on those three articles and those links are working properly, the list of incoming links does not show either of those articles. Any idea what the problem might be? Neelix (talk) 14:47, 22 May 2011 (UTC)

I thought this might be a job queue issue so I purged all the pages involved and performed null edits to each. Whatever the reason for the lag, it appears to be fixed now. Cheers.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 14:58, 22 May 2011 (UTC)

Awesome. Thanks! Neelix (talk) 17:17, 22 May 2011 (UTC)

You're welcome!--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 11:31, 23 May 2011 (UTC)

My Whole Page has been deleted for no real reason and i want it back!

After spending hours typing out my page, I saved it, viewed it, was happy with it, until i checked it a few hour later and some nice person has done a speedy deletion of my page! (thanks!) i found this error on talk section: 15:40, 22 May 2011 Discospinster (talk | contribs) deleted "Get Connected Magazines" ‎ (A7: Article about a company, corporation, organization, or group, which does not indicate the importance or significance of the subject) What a load of rubbish! It was significant because im going to be the first person to create a medium sized business with no capital or finance. The subject being me! ANDREW ANDERSON! So please can you put my page back up, or at least email me a copy of exactly what i put, along with the exact error's wikipedia doesnt like outlined in it!

Wikipedia is supposed to be an online enclyclopedia for everything! not just what wikipedia likes or doesnt like. —Preceding unsigned comment added by GCMagazines (talk • contribs) 17:23, 22 May 2011 (UTC)

If you like, you can contact the admin who deleted the article. See WP:UND ("If you feel an administrator has erred in closing a deletion discussion or in applying a speedy deletion criterion, please contact them directly."). It doesn't sound like you have any hope of having it undeleted, but you may be able to get the content sent to you.--Bbb23 (talk) 17:34, 22 May 2011 (UTC)

Where did you get the idea that "Wikipedia is supposed to be an online enclyclopedia for everything!"? Perhaps you are confusing Wikipedia with Facebook. -- kainaw™ 18:24, 22 May 2011 (UTC)

It looks like you were trying to create an advertisement about your own company. Wikipedia is not a place for advertising, but an encyclopedia. I think you were simply confused about what kind of web site Wikipedia is. After you have begun your business, and it has become well known, other people will write about you and your company in a neutral way, without your having to lift a finger. The best thing for you to do is not worry about Wikipedia, and focus on building your business. -FisherQueen (talk · contribs) 18:36, 22 May 2011 (UTC)

Please read WP:ORGFAQ and WP:COI. I believe an admin can restore the content of the deleted page as a user sub page for you; but from what you have said about it, there is no point in your spending any more time trying to make it into a Wikipedia article at the moment.) --ColinFine (talk) 18:45, 22 May 2011 (UTC)

I believe you have some confusion regarding "..supposed to be an online enclyclopedia for everything", because Wikipedia is not. It is for notable subjects which is beyond what you believe is notable, but by following those guidelines. I highly suggest you review Your First Article for some great guidelines. Among them, you will read that if you have a conflict on interest in the subject (which you do) then the preference would be for you to suggest the article be created instead of making it yourself. It is unfortunate that you created the page yourself and spend considerable amount of time to create it, which an administrator can possibly return to you, moving forward, please start with the referenced article above first instead of trying to make the article appropriate on your own and simply re-adding it. If you believe your company may meet the notability guidelines, please feel free to reach out to me. Tiggerjay (talk) 23:00, 22 May 2011 (UTC)

As a courtesy, I have put the contents of the article in my sandbox here. It will almost certainly be overwritten within a couple of days, but can be retrieved from the edit history thereafter.--Wehwalt (talk) 23:09, 22 May 2011 (UTC)

As a courtesy, I'm providing a link directly to the correct revision, because I seriously doubt that ANDREW ANDERSON is going to know how to navigate the edit history of your sandbox. 24.177.120.138 (talk) 05:09, 23 May 2011 (UTC)

Regarding user names

Where would I go to issue a complaint regarding a editor's user name? Sarujo (talk) 19:07, 22 May 2011 (UTC)

See wp:Badname Regards, FM [ talk to me | show contributions ]  19:11, 22 May 2011 (UTC)

How to remove a page from a Catagory

Greetings - Criticism of Science has been placed under Anti-Scinece category.

How do I remove it or go about getting someone to remove it.

BTW, the page is well sourced with many well know Intellectuals as references.TDurden527 (talk) 19:52, 22 May 2011 (UTC)TDurden527

If you click edit, near the bottom of the page you will see the categories, something like [[Category:Living people]] for a living people category. You just need to remove the link to the category that does not belong. It might be good to bring up the category on the article's talk page and explain why you think the category should be removed prior to doing it. GB fan (talk) 20:03, 22 May 2011 (UTC)

It appears that there is already a discussion about merging this article into the anti-science article which you appear to have voice your input on, and it even appears that the consensus is that they are two different issues. As such, you're welcome to boldly remove the category.Tiggerjay (talk) 22:52, 22 May 2011 (UTC)

Mobile App?

Is there a mobile app for editing Wikipedia? I have tried browsing on my Blackberry but have found it very frustrating. And I don't think I'd even try editing. AndyJones (talk) 20:11, 22 May 2011 (UTC)

It's no better on iPhone, I assure you.--Wehwalt (talk) 23:07, 22 May 2011 (UTC)

Article for Deletion / Disambiguation / Other? The New Earth

I was looking for some information on the book A New Earth and ran into the page The New Earth. It appears that The New Earth is a page highly unbalanced towards Christianity, and sounds like something more appropriate as an article in a Christian magazine than a Wikipedia entry. I don't think Wikipedia is the proper resource for a scholarly Christian explanation of a Biblical phrase.

I don't know Wikipedia rules so well, but I think a proper initial handling of The New Earth would include a notice of unbalanced viewpoints and a disambiguation to include A New Earth. Furthermore, the page The New Earth should probably be suggested for deletion. At most, I would think The New Earth could have a simple definition reference and some indications of various uses of it.

Perhaps not *directly* germane to the issue with the page The New Earth, I do believe that the book page A New Earth would have more basis for inclusion in Wikipedia due to it's massive popularity, articles written about it, pop culture involvement, etc. while The New Earth is simply a phrase from the Bible which is being expanded upon from a Christian perspective. Also note that I don't believe there's a significant distinction of the phrases due to the difference leading words "A" and "The". The page The New Earth mentions "A New Earth" several times in the main body and the references.

I hope this is the correct place to post this issue. Apologies for any errors in the way I am handling this. Thanks - Louis —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.191.106.214 (talk) 21:41, 22 May 2011 (UTC)

Thank you for sharing your concerns, a good place to voice these concerns with people who would be best equipped to address some of these issues would be posting at Wikipedia:WikiProject Christianity or on Talk:The New Earth. I will take a quick look to see what I can determine, but an expert view is probably needed. Tiggerjay (talk) 22:42, 22 May 2011 (UTC)

Article Quality Ratings

I wanted to know how and when an unassesed article becomes assessed, and if it is possible to take part in that. illogicalpie^{(eat me)} 23:03, 22 May 2011 (UTC)

Here is additional information regarding that process Wikipedia:Assessment Tiggerjay (talk) 23:11, 22 May 2011 (UTC)