Wikipedia:Help desk/Archives/2011 October 1

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October 1

Finding out about deleted article XtreemOS

As i was going to update it, I have discovered that a previous article I co-edited has been deleted. As I was not updating it recently, I was not able to detect when and why it was deleted (which process). I believe this information is needed before asking for undeletion.

The article in question is XtreemOS (open source distributed operating system from EU FP project).

Only infornation I got is that it was deleted years ago a first time, when submitted by other people in 2006; then it was recreated by me according to wikipedia rules and has stayed online for at least three years (at least until dec 2010, as far as I can remember), being updated at major releases of the software. About the new deletion, I cannot find any information from wikipedia.

reason for asking: Since other related articles (not written by me) have disappeared (e.g. list of FP6 related projects) in favor of a much more general description of the FP programme, I guess the article fell under the blade of an editor that sees any topic related to a EU research project as self-advertising. It should also be noted that pages in other languages exist for the same topic, which host similar content to the disappeared one, are still there and are accessed by users.

IF this happenend, since 1) the project has ended 2) it resulted in an open source platform supported by Mandriva 3) the article was properly written and not mere advertising, then I do not see why it should be discriminated w.r.t. e.g. GNU open source projects.

How do I get information about the moment and reason of the deletion?

Thanks for you help --Max-CCC (talk) 02:08, 1 October 2011 (UTC)

It wasn't actually deleted but redirected to Framework Programmes for Research and Technological Development earlier, and the content is still available behind the redirect (this is the last version). I'm not sure if any of the content was merged, but I didn't see any mention of XtreemOS at the target. If you think a standalone article is due, you should discuss this at the target's talk page — frankie (talk) 02:23, 1 October 2011 (UTC)

I found out in the meantime, and maybe I'm already doing the wrong thing... I have the impression that a lot of EU (mostly open source) projects got deleted only to converge in that page. I will start a discussion there; however, as far as I can see the case of this page is the result of a tag placed in summer, which was single-handedly turned into a redirect with no discussion. Is it a violation of wikipedia rules to restore and update the page (which was my aim) in the meantime? Thanks for the help and info. --Max-CCC (talk) 03:04, 1 October 2011 (UTC)

It wouldn't be a violation, I mean, it would be the R of the BRD process. But as you said many articles have been merged/redirected to that target, some of them following deletion discussions, so there is a slight consensus in the air supporting these merges. Since it's safe to say you'll end up discussing it either way, not reverting and starting a discussion directly would help avoid some unnecessary back and forth — frankie (talk) 03:19, 1 October 2011 (UTC)

I see, I went to the BRD link. I will take the risk with the XtreemOS page I was going to update (and note that in its discussion page) so that I can actually update it, but I will not touch the other they are deleting, or an edit war on any page; I will also start a discussion on the target, as I believe the kind of consensus they are reaching is based on valuing the standard more than the content, and IMHO this is NPOV that needs to be challenged. The evaluation of non notability and use of primary sources can be easily stamped on one hundred pages, destroying the work of many people without a case by case analysis. Thanks for the info so far, I'll come back asking advice if I see my method wreaks havoc or i cannot grasp the correct behavior to adopt. --Max-CCC (talk) 04:06, 1 October 2011 (UTC)

does wikipedia spam you?

thank you for your time

Dora Valiente Youngs

 — Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.108.231.69 (talk) 06:00, 1 October 2011 (UTC) 

No. Not in my experience. (I removed your email address. Please see the note at the top of this page.) 06:11, 1 October 2011 (UTC)

Complicated contributions

I have not posted anything of late due to the very difficult and often hostile reception I've received from some of the editors. If this is an open source site, then it shouldn't be for the elite of language and superior knowledge. After all, it is merely a compilation of facts, some true, others of dubious facts. It seems over the years, that Wikipedia has become most elitist. Reserving articles for people who have written dissertations. What about those of us who have only written thesis? Are we to be ignored, looked down on? We, too, have facts and knowledge to pass on. If it weren't so convenient, I'd not use Wikipedia and warn my family and friends to not use or trust it either. Thank you, Leeflea. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Owen7252 (talk • contribs) 06:09, 1 October 2011 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:An article about yourself is nothing to be proud of

Wikipedia is free, but bear in mind the thousands of anonymous unpaid ordinary people behind it who work to keep it free, accessible, and as reliable as they can. Only a handful of them probably have articles about themselves, yet they still willingly help out. Please do not add more to their burden by making Wikipedia a personal website for your resumé.

And no. The requirements for academics before they can have an article is stricter than simply publishing a dissertation. See Wikipedia:Notability (academics)-- Obsidi♠n Soul 08:03, 1 October 2011 (UTC)

I interpreted the post as a claim about the requirements to contribute to articles in general and not to an article about oneself. You certainly don't need neither a dissertation nor a thesis to be a Wikipedia editor. Some areas are hard to work in without some specialist knowledge but there are many ways to improve Wikipedia. Owen7252, your account was created recently and has not edited articles or article talk pages so I cannot see which problems you have encountered and I don't want to speculate. If you give an IP address or other username then I can look at your editing history and perhaps give you some hints about how to get a better editing experience. PrimeHunter (talk) 12:51, 1 October 2011 (UTC)

If that's the case, then yes, certainly. Anyone, regardless of education or background, is welcome to contribute to Wikipedia. -- Obsidi♠n Soul 12:48, 2 October 2011 (UTC)

Tryed to add the following links

Hi

I have tryed to add the following as external links but having failed l am rather worreid l may cause some problem to you site, could you kindly add for me. both for the external of Worcester, England www.worcesterpeopleandplaces.com Thankyou Pam Hinks — Preceding unsigned comment added by Oldsmiler (talk • contribs) 06:10, 1 October 2011 (UTC)

Worcester (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

The Wikipedia guideline on external links is more restrictive than many editors realise. I have removed most of the external links from that article, and I don't think your link belongs there either. In addition, editors are discouraged from adding links to their own websites, as described at Wikipedia:Conflict of interest and Wikipedia:Spam#External link spamming. -- John of Reading (talk) 08:00, 1 October 2011 (UTC)

Abuse Filter

On the main page of Special:AbuseFilter, it will tell you Of the last xx actions, yy (zz%) have reached the condition limit of 1,000. If the number is very high, how can we know which filter[s] are problematic and needs improvement? Do I have to go one by one and see from the filter description page, which one has high condition limit usage? Thanks. --Ben.MQ (talk) 11:25, 1 October 2011 (UTC)

I don't know. There may be more people with edit filter knowledge at Wikipedia talk:Edit filter. PrimeHunter (talk) 14:04, 1 October 2011 (UTC)

THE CASPIAN HORSE

Caspian horse (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

Hi

I have been given given the task of updating the first and main page for the Caspian Horse. I have been informed to contact you. I have a Word Document with the Caspian Wikipedia layout as envisaged. It includes the photographs as they would appear (in an ideal world). I have jpgs of all the photos. Wikipedia demand specially written copyright agreements for all photos used and we obtained all these at the time.

Our proposed layout was trying to follow the way it was set out by the previous American contributor before we changed the text, but, recent changes do not seem to have followed the previous layout. We have been informed some time ago that Wikipedia advised we had not put the text in properly and that she would need a Wikipedia mentor to help put the photos in and sort out the text into the proper format.

Please can you help or put me in the right direction?

Thanks

(Redacted) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 90.221.86.22 (talk) 12:14, 1 October 2011 (UTC)

Removed personal information. Please do not post contact details in Wikipedia. This is a very public page.

First of all, are you User:Bathleyhills? Please post under your registered username so we can see your edits. And please realize that there is no monolithic "Wikipedia" entity who decrees what should and should not go into the article. Everyone, including the user who advised you and reverted your edits are users like you and me.

Nevertheless we all have to follow the Wikipedia Manual of Style and Policies and Guidelines. They can be confusing, but people are always willing to help.

I suggest logging in (or registering a permanent account) and going here Help:Userspace draft. Then create a draft page and copy the contents of the Word Document (provided it's been formatted correctly already) into that subpage. That way other users can look at your draft and fix or advise you on problems it may have. When it's acceptable, it can then be transferred into the main article. Feel free to come back here if you have further questions.-- Obsidi♠n Soul 14:38, 1 October 2011 (UTC)

There's a related copyright question now in this archive. There, Bathleyhills (talk · contribs) signed as "Penny", so you should create another account for your own editing, as accounts must not be shared. -- John of Reading (talk) 14:53, 1 October 2011 (UTC)

The phrase "I have been given the task of..." makes me wonder if this is a paid, and thus by definition also a COI, editor. Roger (talk) 15:14, 1 October 2011 (UTC)

Examining the past edit of User:Bathleyhills (another member?), seems more like an enthusiast group than any real commercial promotion (this group?). Though the descriptions are still quite POV, flowery, and unencyclopedic so still definitely COI.-- Obsidi♠n Soul 15:35, 1 October 2011 (UTC)

person reported missing that has not been missing

69.171.163.16 (talk) 14:10, 1 October 2011 (UTC)MOE A CHURCH MEMBER AT MESA BIBLE CHURCH IN (Redacted) NAME HER BOY FRIEND GETS TAX CREDITS FROM THE ARMY MY Sisrer reported ME missing she knew MY youngest SON CODI got into trouble she told ME he got into it he needs to deal with it with out me i was moveng my belongings off her and her boy friends properity at the time of this conversation took place short while later on inter net she reported ME MISSING I HAVE A WHITNESS THAT IS UP RIGHT YO THIS NOW I WAS TOLD BY MY YOUNGEST DAUGHTER I WAS REPORTED MISSING I NOTIFIED THE POLICE DEPT IN (Redacted) SO THEY WOULD KNOW THEY TOLD ME IM REPORTED MISSING ON INTERNET THIS SAME SISTER GOT A ON LINE CHAT AND WAS TOLD IF CODI AND ME WANTS HER TO KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT CODIS TROUBLE NOW I JUST FOUND OUT YESTERDAY THIS SAME SISTER COUNCILED MY OWN PERSONAL CHECKING ACCOUNT DEBIT CARD AND MY CHECKS I CALLED THE BANK OF AMERICA THEY SAID SHE (Redacted) DID IT THIS MONTH SHE HAD NO RIGHT TO CAUSE SHE KNOWS WITH OUT 130.00PER MONTH BEING AXCESSABLE TO CHILD SUPPORT THRU MY CHECKING ACCOUNT I CAN AND WII GO TO PRISION YET SHE DID IM NOT MISSING AND HAVE HAD CONTACT WITH MY BANK WHAT CAN I DO TO CLEAR UP WHAT SHE HAS DONE SHE PUT HER HOUSE INTO HER BOY FRIENDS NAME SO SHE COULD FILE BANKRUPTCY CAUSE OF DEBIT CARDS SHE CHARGED SHE HAS TO WAIT TILL ONE YEAR TO FILE THEN SHE CAN GET HER HOUSE BACK IN INTO (Redacted) IN (Redacted) IS TO VERY AWARE OF A LOT OF THIS I DO NOT WILL TO DEFEND MY SELF WHEN I WAS DONE WRONG BY TWO PEOPLE I TRUSTED SOME WHAT CES.

Please do not shout.

We cannot offer legal advice. Please see the legal disclaimer. Contact a lawyer.-- Obsidi♠n Soul 14:16, 1 October 2011 (UTC)

I can't access mobile.wikipedia.org since October 1, 2011. My browser gives me a parser error.

I am using a Samsung SCH-U430 cell phone to access the moblle version of Wikipedia. The URL that I have always used is http://mobile.wikipedia.org. All of a sudden the link won't work today, I get the error message "Parser Error".

My phone is using Obigo Browser Q04C1-1.22 built on Apr 27 2010.

I have tried other URL's such as m.wikipedia.org, en.mobile.wikipedia.org, and en.m.wikipedia.org.

They still give me the same parser error.

I also notice that that mobile Wikipedia site is a beta version.

Can anybody help me out to get mobile Wikipedia working again on my phone?

All my other bookmarks and other websites that I go to work as before. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.81.136.175 (talk) 14:24, 1 October 2011 (UTC)

Try posting in Wikipedia:Village pump (technical), instead.-- Obsidi♠n Soul 06:45, 2 October 2011 (UTC)

Editing

Am I reading the information on Wikipedia correctly? If I see an error in someone's biography, and I am logged in, can I change the information without them knowing who did it and how to contact me? That's what I seem to be reading. And if I change it without being logged in they will have a way to contact me? Such a lot of gobbledygook when it could be stated in much fewer wordsLghiggins (talk) 15:07, 1 October 2011 (UTC)

If you are logged in, you can change any article that is not protected. The article's edit history will record your change. If you are not logged in (but using Wikipedia as an IP), you can also change any article that is not protected. Again, the history will reflect your change. Because you have so few edits since registering, you cannot edit certain semi-protected articles. See WP:AUTOCONFIRM. As a registered user, it is a better practice to log in before making changes to articles. In addition, by editing under your registered account, you will eventually be autoconfirmed. I have left some general information about Wikipedia on your Talk page.--Bbb23 (talk) 16:15, 1 October 2011 (UTC)

If you're concerned about people being able to contact you, you can see the Wikimedia foundation's privacy policy here (see also Wikipedia:Wikimedia policy). --Colapeninsula (talk) 14:25, 3 October 2011 (UTC)

Template trouble

How do you edit a template, and how is anybody without an advanced degree in wikipedia supposed to know that? I tried this and it didn't work. I've edited this template twice. Nothing makes any sense. Noloop (talk) 17:43, 1 October 2011 (UTC)

You did edit the template. Edits to templates may not show without the template page's server cache being purged, and pages the template is transcluded on also being purged. See Wikipedia:Purge (you may also experience a problem seeing that what you have done is working if your computer is caching the look of the page: see WP:BYPASS). Meanwhile, the reason your edit was reverted, and rightly so, is that you did not provide any edit summary, and even after being reverted for unexplained removal, you posted an opaque edit summary when you re-reverted, with no link to, or description of where, the RFC you refer to is located. Expect to be reverted when you blank any content without explanation and the reason for doing so is not self-evident.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 22:36, 1 October 2011 (UTC)

The edit in your diff broke the template formatting by removing three too many } in header10. You removed three left triples {{{ but four right triples }}}. I agree it can be complicated to keep track of. If a template is supposed to make a box but doesn't then it's often due to unbalanced curly brackets. PrimeHunter (talk) 00:18, 2 October 2011 (UTC)

The script User:Ais523/bracketmatch.js checks bracket matching. Let me know if you need help installing it. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 01:52, 2 October 2011 (UTC)

Username Eio

I am trying to create an account with the username Eio to be able to merge it with my German and Italian accounts. If I try to create an account with the name Eio on en.wiki i cannot because it already exists, but if I look for it, it does not exist. Any Ideas? 77.186.4.90 (talk) 19:45, 1 October 2011 (UTC)

User:Eio does exist on this wikipedia. It has 3 deleted contributions in 2004. You can go to WP:USURP and ask to take over the username. GB fan 19:54, 1 October 2011 (UTC)

Is your password on the German and Italian Wikipedias the same? If not, change it so that they are. Then enter your username and password at m:Special:UserLogin. Then go to m:Special:MergeAccount. It should create a single user login for your account, and you will be able to log in on any Wikimedia foundation wiki without creating a new account. Because the username is taken on the English Wikipedia you will need to go to WP:USURP to request the username. Alpha_Quadrant ^(talk) 19:59, 1 October 2011 (UTC)

Thank you!! Ok, i created this user, and i will ask to change name into Eio -- Eio-en (talk) 20:29, 1 October 2011 (UTC)

It appears that there is also an unattached account on the Chinese Wikipedia. Alpha_Quadrant ^(talk) 22:39, 1 October 2011 (UTC)

It might be owned by another user. I do not speak Chinese! --Eio-en (talk) 06:10, 2 October 2011 (UTC)

How many attempts to log in allowed?

For some reason unknown to me, I was logged out 15 minutes ago (between two edits), and seems firefox has suddenly forgotten my password. I'm already getting the catchaps stuff, is there a limit? And No, i didn't have an email address. 81.165.79.230 (talk) 22:16, 1 October 2011 (UTC)

never mind, found that you can see stored passwords in preferences.. 81.165.79.230 (talk) 22:29, 1 October 2011 (UTC)

template collapse-show

Resolved

Hi - in this Talk:Campaign for "santorum" neologism - this article has been mentioned by multiple media organizations collapsed template - why is it not showing when clicked? Off2riorob (talk) 22:19, 1 October 2011 (UTC)

Hi, when you collapsed the list, you changed the template from {{Online source}} to {{Press}}. The latter does not accept the parameters year and monthday. I fixed the problem. Quasihuman | Talk 22:50, 1 October 2011 (UTC)

Ah, many thanks - I wish all these templates had mix and match parameters - I will have a look at your resolution for the future - many thanks - Off2riorob (talk) 22:54, 1 October 2011 (UTC)