Wikipedia:Help desk/Archives/2012 February 17

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February 17

Adding RSS Feeds to Wikipedia

Is it possible to add RSS feeds of external pages to Wikipedia? If so, how is it done? Allen (talk) 03:15, 17 February 2012 (UTC)

No, although I suppose that technically, if the feed's text were licensed under acceptable terms for Wikipedia (i.e. those compatible with the WP:CC-BY-SA license), a bot could be used to update Wikipedia from the feed. PleaseStand (talk) 06:25, 17 February 2012 (UTC)

Formatting for Heading

In my User page, the heading for each paragraph of my article appeared. When search for the article in public view, the headings disappeared. How do I make sure the headings show up in published article? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 184.74.208.109 (talk) 05:59, 17 February 2012 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Cheatsheet is a table of common formatting codes used here. You can refer to that page for the code for "section headings". If you still cannot figure out the problem after referring to that page, can you tell us your username (as you apparently posted the above question while logged out) and which page are you looking at? PleaseStand (talk) 06:20, 17 February 2012 (UTC)

Putting image on userspace

Please help me how can I put an image on my userpage similar to that of User:Tiptoety. When i'm trying to copy-paste the code from his userpage, it resulted in a mess. --SupernovaExplosion ^Talk 07:18, 17 February 2012 (UTC)

Hmm. I suggest you ask the HTML experts at the User page design center. -- John of Reading (talk) 08:11, 17 February 2012 (UTC)

Clock

I have used template {{Time}} for displaying date and time, but i've to purge it to update the time. Is there there any other template that will show IST time without need for purging --SupernovaExplosion ^Talk 07:45, 17 February 2012 (UTC)

No. All these templates rely on the CURRENTTIME magic word, whose MediaWiki documentation notes that it doesn't work as one would expect. -- John of Reading (talk) 08:03, 17 February 2012 (UTC)

I see you use {{Time}} on your user page. If it's OK with something only you can see then a user script can probably do it and display it on all pages at the top. Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-gadgets already has a UTC version: "Add a clock in the personal toolbar that displays the current time in UTC (which also provides a link to purge the current page)." User:Davidgothberg/clock is also UTC only. PrimeHunter (talk) 13:41, 17 February 2012 (UTC)

how do i put something on wikipedia, a new contribution

how do I put something on wikipedia, a new contribution, a new article, something for the first time — Preceding unsigned comment added by Adabilis (talk • contribs) 08:02, 17 February 2012 (UTC)

Thank you for registering an account! I've left you some introductory links on your talk page, including a link to a Wikipedia:Tutorial. -- John of Reading (talk) 08:06, 17 February 2012 (UTC)

re J W Miller & Sons

This article that has been edited down from the original and all the references marked as Retrieved 18th July 2010. Can you tell me what that means and what has happened to the original article. Thanks R Telford — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2.101.197.19 (talk) 09:20, 17 February 2012 (UTC)

This article was created 18 July 2010 (as can be seen at the bottom of the page if you click the 'View history' tab next to 'Edit'); 5 of the references were added then, and 1 on the 20th (the |accessdate field in the reference citation format), showing the date they were cited, as online material may keep the same url, even if updated, but information (and grammar & spelling errors) may have been updated, corrected, etc. If a previous version of the article existed before the creation of this one, I cannot see it, although an admin could view deleted material. I find no record of a previous article's deletion discussion, although one is not always required. Scaling back of content occurs when someone compares the material to the sources, or to remove promotional phrasing (see WP:PUFFERY). Dru of Id (talk) 09:43, 17 February 2012 (UTC)

There has been no earlier deleted version of this article, at least not under this name; the references are all marked "Retrieved 18th July 2010" because that is the date the article was created. You can see the whole history of it by clicking the "View history" tab at the top: each line corresponds to one revision of the article. It has not been "edited down" - the numbers show the size of each version, and it has grown steadily from 5,679 bytes to its present 7,958. JohnCD (talk) 22:12, 17 February 2012 (UTC)

Converting Word to wiki markup

Is there a translation facility to translate English e.g. 'word' into a form suitable for 'wikepedia' . I have a paper and it is difficult to preserve the format? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Bparslow (talk • contribs) 11:03, 17 February 2012 (UTC)

Please see Help:WordToWiki.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 12:38, 17 February 2012 (UTC)

Deleted Edits?

X!s Edit counter says I have 2 deleted edits but when i click deleted only on contribs it comes up with nothing.User Talk:Willdude123 15:06, 17 February 2012 (UTC)

Only administrators can see edits to deleted articles. I don't know why ordinary editors like you or me are still allowed to see the "Deleted only" checkbox. -- John of Reading (talk) 15:12, 17 February 2012 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Only admins can see deleted edits (via Special:DeletedContributions), and the checkbox on Special:Contributions only shows revision-deleted edits. Reaper Eternal (talk) 15:13, 17 February 2012 (UTC)

(2nd ec) In case you wonder, there was probably nothing wrong with your edits; "deleted edits" only means that you made edits to a page that later was deleted. jonkerz ♠talk 15:14, 17 February 2012 (UTC)

I'm an admin and can confirm your account has 2 deleted edits: Blanking User:Willdude 132 (it was later created again but the deleted edits were not restored), and reverting somebody who added "Also sister is very attractive!" to Lucan Valerius which was later deleted at AfD. PrimeHunter (talk) 18:52, 17 February 2012 (UTC)

How to credit translations

I'm translating an article from the French Wikipedia. How do I credit this? Pkeets (talk) 16:03, 17 February 2012 (UTC)

Use {{Translated page}} on the talk page. See also Wikipedia:Translation and Wikipedia:Copying within Wikipedia. jonkerz ♠talk 16:11, 17 February 2012 (UTC)

Page about "Ferdinand A. Hermens"

Recently a page was created on "Ferdinand A. Hermens". If the contributors to this page are interested, I can provide certain general family information, etc. since I am his daughter. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Boomer 430 (talk • contribs) 18:01, 17 February 2012 (UTC)

In terms of Wikipedia's rules only previously published information from reliable sources is acceptable. If your information complies with these requirements you are welcome to share it on the article's talk page. Thanks for your offer. Roger (talk) 18:44, 17 February 2012 (UTC)

Requesting general review by non-creator for new article

I've just finished working on an article - Stencyl - and have copied it from my userspace. If anyone would be so kind as to provide some general feedback and remove the "new unreviewed article" template that I added, I would greatly appreciate it. Disclaimer; I'm a regular user of the software. Regardless, I made every effort to ensure that the article contents were verifiable and inserted citations where I felt appropriate. I don't believe I made any biased statements, weasel words, etc that would render the contents non-encyclopedic. You're welcome to utilize the talk page for the article, but I will check back here as well. Thanks for your time! DotHectate (talk) 18:10, 17 February 2012 (UTC)

Would some experienced editors go take a look, this appears to be totally non-notable, and also WP:PROMOTION, in fact after checking the refs AND the EL, it has been mentioned on Wired.co.uk and BBC click, methinks it needs knocking into shape, putting some of the ELs into refs etc. Sorry, but have done my wiki-bit for this evening, over and out! CaptainScreebo ^Parley! 22:34, 17 February 2012 (UTC)

Placement of photos

How and where do I place photos in the "Skeleton clocks" article? I've added a section beginning with "There are several books on skeleton clocks:" and I've got three photos. Is there a min/max resolution requirement?

The help files suggest using the sandbox to upload photos but attempting an upload appears to send the photo to the entire site.

I appreciate that editing articles should not be too easy but perhaps it's become to complex which tends to discourage some people with specific knowledge but not enough time to master what appears to be almost a programming language. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Dbvogt (talk • contribs) 20:31, 17 February 2012 (UTC)

I'm confused by your statement about uploading "appears to send the photo to the entire site". Have you tried to upload yet? If not, don't worry. First, please note that it's best to upload images that you've created by yourself; if these images are by other people, it's a bit more complicated (for legal reasons), and you'll probably find it easier to understand how to upload your own images properly first. In general, the bigger the image the better; our servers can take anything up to 100 megabytes. You should go to http://commons.wikimedia.org and register for an account (it's just like registering for an account here), and then go to http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/special:upload to upload the picture. Explain what the picture shows, add text saying that you yourself took the picture, and pick a license (a statement of the ways that people may use the picture) from the "Your own work" portion of the menu that appears next to "Licensing", below all the buttons. When you've done that, you should click "Upload", and the image will be online momentarily. Once that's done, it's easy to add the images: just go to the article, type the filename and a few extra things, and it will appear. For example, if your image is called "Skeleton Clock.jpg", you can get it to display on the right side at 200-pixel resolution with a caption of "A skeleton clock" by typing:

[[File:Skeleton Clock.jpg|thumb|right|200px|A skeleton clock]]

You must always use the [ and ] characters for our software to understand that you want a picture; the "thumb" is needed to force the caption to display; the "right" is used to force the image to the right side; and the "200px" sets the image size. Any other problems? Just come back here and ask; we'll be happy to try to help. Nyttend (talk) 01:56, 18 February 2012 (UTC)

referances request

I add 3 referances to the article but the is a mesage ask me to add my source why?? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Hegazawy (talk • contribs) 20:47, 17 February 2012 (UTC)

It would be helpful if you told us which article. If you mean Emy Samir Ghanem, it has no references at all. If you mean Donia Samir Ghanem, one reference is to her official site, which is acceptable as a source of uncontroversial biographical facts but not to establish notability, and the other is to a facebook site, which is almost never acceptable as a reference. Please read WP:Notability: for an article to be acceptable in Wikipedia, the article itself must show that more than one independent reliable source has written about the subject. Furthermore, according to the policy on living persons, in a biography of a living person all information must be specifically referenced to a reliable source. Please read the pages I have linked to, and also WP:Referencing for beginners.

Finally, there is no automatic mechanism to remove the notice that somebody has added to the top of the Emy Samir Ghanem article. When you or anybody has fixed the problems listed then you or anybody may remove the tags that generate the warning. --ColinFine (talk) 21:58, 18 February 2012 (UTC)

Franklin Hansen incorrect information

I've tried changing information about Franklin Hansen twice and it always reverts back to the incorrect information that was there originally. Franklin was married to my great aunt; I have his death certificate, marriage license, and lots of family information. He was born May 2 1897 in Saugerties NY and died Jan. 13 1982 in Newport Beach CA.

And his middle name was not Bernhard...that's a different Franklin and not the guy who worked in Motion pictures. The Franklin I knew had no middle name. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.25.172.243 (talk) 21:18, 17 February 2012 (UTC)

Do you have published information? Because the thing is, not everyone has access to your family lore and documents. What we need is reliable sources which have vetted your information. Like you, everyone else at Wikipedia wants to get this correct; unlike you, however, we don't have access to your family history, so to insure the information is verifiable, it needs to have previously appeared in published works (like books, magazines, journals, etc.) Unpublished documents like death certificates and marriage licenses aren't vetted, and aren't readily availible to anyone, so Wikipedia needs more. If you have access to such writing, the correct place to discuss this is at Talk:Franklin Hansen, which is the discussion page for that article. Please remember that other people are acting in the best interests of Wikipedia, as we are sure, are you; its just a matter of making your case with reliable documentation that we all can access. Thanks for your help with the article, and good luck. If you have any more questions, feel free to ask! --Jayron32 21:31, 17 February 2012 (UTC)

There are four five references in the article, none of which support the material contested by the IP; IMDb, where the contested personal details are listed, is an external link and is not a WP:RS, and which the IP has stated is incorrect. While the IP has failed WP:BURDEN, so have the established editors who have reverted the material. I am unable to find material supporting either version, except in what I suspect are mirrors. Dru of Id (talk) 02:45, 18 February 2012 (UTC)

Film reference as an RS

Just wondering how the Film Reference site is regarded as an RS. It doesn't look like any volunteer can rock up and edit content at will but I can see no info given on its site for how it sources its info. Thanks Span (talk) 22:35, 17 February 2012 (UTC)

I'm inclined to say tread with caution. Most of the pages on that site are from Schirmer Encyclopedia of Film, which is definitely reliable. For example, the entry for Academy Awards ® is a copy of the entry from Schirmer Encyclopedia of Film. You can verify by searching on Google Books a quote from the entry. I used this search. Just make sure the entry is a copy of Schirmer Encyclopedia of Film before you use it as a source. The entries I've checked are all from Schirmer Encyclopedia of Film. Goodvac (talk) 22:48, 17 February 2012 (UTC)

Great answer. Thanks for your help. Span (talk) 23:01, 17 February 2012 (UTC)