Wikipedia:Editor assistance/Requests/Archive 113

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Wikipedia Policy Assistance

I have a few questions about a wikipedia page that I would like to make major revisions to. I don't want to undertake this task at the risk of violating wikipedia policies so I was hoping to speak to someone one on one, via instant messenger if possible, to receive a bit of guidance. Thanks in advance! BillH (talk) 17:08, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

The article's talk page is the usual place to discuss such changes. – ukexpat (talk) 17:28, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

Ukexpat is right that the content of articles should usually be discussed on their talk pages, but you are still welcome to ask policy questions here. You can also get live help chat at #wikipedia-en-help IRC chat room. Spinning Spark 19:11, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

Editor Request

Dear Wikipedia,

Thank you for this great great gift to life you ,we are creating here. I most humbly suggest there are many different types of people who read and need wikipedia. If we truly wish to be wiki, speedy and quick to arrive at information, we need to consider how easy it is for all types of people to not only read, listen, touch here we need to also examine as to how all types of people may reply to wiki or best of all contribute. Studies suggest one third of us learn mostly by our eyes and another third learn mostly by our ears and another third learn mostly by our touch. We also know interest leads learning hence wiki speed exists.

You might I most humbly suggest visit your web site as a humble simple person as I would, when I read about anything; say "telecommunications"; asI just did an hour ago; and I notice the person who invented radio filters and tuning; Reginald Aubrey Fessenden; is not even mentioned. Yet after Marconi who won the nobel prize as you point out; there would have been no more "telecommunication" without Reginald Aubrey Fessenden.

So when I try patiently to follow your instructions on how to contribute this simple fact to wikipedia; there are pages and pages of rules and details until it becomes, simply by chance, that I found this space, to directly write you, only these three words "Reginald Aubrey Fessenden" now forced into these three paragraphs and more by your excessive details. I humbly submit very very few people are responding to you this way and only those most academic in "for "your type of" eyes only reading". If "we" truly wish to reach all the population fully, nomatter how many reply now, then we must cater to the other two thirds probably more like ninety percent in fact who have already read wikipedia; wanted to comment but were silenced by pagesand pages or detail before any place any blank square to write into appears.

Please remember we don't all read as fast or as easily or as much as you no matter how much we may especially want them to. But they may in fact more selective, more informed, more in tuned than the rest of us here precisely because of this. Yet here they will likely not be read or heard from at all and that is not to mention that vast ocean of humanity through youth or deprivation are still only barely starting to learn to read and yet they too may have insights understandings yet untapped priceless treasures of knowledge, culture, faith and life we have not yet even set ourselves here to receive by providing this blank spacein a place easily availbale for all to contribute to. We have mostly deprived ourselves this window of opportunity by hiding this suggestion box off in a corner rather than on acenter peice where it can alight our entire room our entire universe.I believe it was most ancient Aristotle who some say invented the first encyclopedia in the form of the library if not one of the first who also suggested the best way the learn is by a blank slate.

So thank you at least for this however hidden blank slate here.

We need to visit our own web site as someone who is not "professional" at writing who is not likely "to be bold". We need to put this blank square to write comments in at the bottom of every page of Wikipedia where everyone can access it most easily. Anything less makes wikipedia a lie. But real access will make it true. My proof is that almost all other places on Google, Explorer, Safari, Firefox, do this putting comment boxes where they belong, easily obviously, available to us all. If that is not enough, then consider even the busiest most powerful people do this. Tgreat web sites such as The President of These Great United States are a shining example to us all. And freedom around the world is actually as you read this, more and more being won this way by easier ever more accessible information access and most important reply.

Now if you still don't believe this is very important; because you all are very important; for us all to be able to make our requests much much more easily to you; then perhaps you should consider this. Until today after all these years and near a century of history wikipedia makes no mention of Reginald Aubrey Fessenden without whom none of this would be possible at all. So just as old Regi got these signals through the tuned radio waves, hard wire, optic fiber am, f, digitally, multiplexed, tunned circuits to you here; would you please simply give yourselves and us all the same fullest of respect to let us easily tune you in and give us all an easy reply suggestion box to reply in kind to you at the bottom of every single wikipedia page.

Thank you for your heroic work God Bless you and I love you all

Harry H.Norrie. [phone # redacted] — Preceding unsigned comment added by 165.154.46.220 (talk) 23:50, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

We do, in fact, have an article on Reginald Aubrey Fessenden. It is true that he is not mentioned in Telecommunications, but he is mentioned in the more detailed History of telecommunications to which the main article links.
There is no restriction on you (or anyone) editing pages on Wikipedia. You are not required to learn all the guidelines first.
There is Wikipedia:WikiProject Usability to look at the kind of ease of editing issues you raise, although it does not seem to be very active any more. You might be better off discussing them at Wikipedia:Village pump (idea lab).
In what sense do you claim that Fessenden invented radio filters? He did not invent filters per se (see analogue filter) and any kind of resonator can be considered a filter - and early spark gap transmitters certainly had these.

Spinning Spark 00:24, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

Third party needed to verify possible editing dispute war

Hello, On Glenn McGee, it seems there's an ongoing dispute i've been watching where if someone edits the page, user David Eppstein will revert it and discount their edits.

Could someone look over this article and see just what is going on? The most attention seems to fall on the phrase "where he has recently come under fire." at the beginning of the article. — Preceding unsigned comment added by RedMongoose (talk • contribs) 04:55, 26 February 2012 (UTC)

This seems like a normal article content issue that should be discussed on the article talk page first. User David Eppstein informed. Spinning Spark 09:16, 26 February 2012 (UTC)

Request for senior editor intervention re use of Wiki as sound board for editor Mike-ely-kasama.

Discussion moved

– Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive741#User:EnRealidad deleting article talk page post by other user —/Mendaliv/^2¢/_Δ's/ 23:17, 2 March 2012 (UTC)

I am appealing to the Wiki mediation/oversight structure concerning what I believe is improper editing of the Wiki entry on the Revolutionary Communist Party, USA (RCP) and improper use of Wikipedia as a sound board for the promotion of the views on one of the individuals editing that site, Mike Ely. He has made edits under the name of Mike-ely-kasama.

I am specifically asking that senior Wiki editors monitor that page and block Mike-ely-kasama from making edits, as well as monitor the site for similar edits that could constitute "sock puppet" entries aimed at making the same edits, albeit under a different editor's name.

Today I removed several entries from the article on the RCP posted recently by Ely, and wrote the following on the Discussion page explaining the reasons for my actions:

Repost of content from talk

I have removed the paragraph about Mike Ely and his criticisms of the RCP. After looking carefully at this paragraph and Wiki standards, I do not feel the paragraph contributes to the purpose of Wiki entries – which is to present an objective, neutral, and carefully referenced description of the subject of the entry. In this case that means an objective description of the RCP's history and main activities and political views.

Wiki entries are not meant to be platforms for political debate between different groups, or over different perspectives. The paragraph as it existed was actually that. Such material violates Wiki standards of neutrality and objectivity, and does not contribute to an objective picture of the subject of the entry. It isn't the purpose of a Wiki entry.

I have also removed the reference to the last entry listed in the "Critical Opinions" section, called "Out of the Red Closet - Gay and Lesbian experiences in the previous communist movement". This is a collection of unsubstantiated personal stories and narratives by unnamed individuals. It does not meet standards of factual accounting of things and its inclusion in this entry frankly seems designed to do little or nothing more than spread innuendo and subjectivity. As such, it is a violation of Wiki standards of objectivity and neutrality.

The inclusion of the "Red Closet" link and the bulk of the paragraph on Ely's criticisms of the RCP were added by Ely himself. Further, the additions were little more than ways of sending a reader of the RCP entry to Ely's own website, Kasama Project. This ends up being nothing but self-promotion of Ely's own views. I thought it was notable that a couple of Ely's earliest entries as a Wiki editor – on the RCP entry as well as a couple others – were removed by "bots" because they were little more than links referring readers to his own Kasama site and materials posted there.

Ely was a member of the RCP at one point and left the organization several years ago, and has since published his criticisms of the RCP on the Kasama Project website and elsewhere. It is apparent from the entries on the Kasama Project site in particular and some other websites where Ely contributes that he has a personal vendetta against the RCP and especially its chairman, Bob Avakian. The RCP has published a public complaint about Ely and accused him of posting gossip and lies about Avakian and others associated with the RCP on the Kasama site, and publishing material on private and internal RCP affairs that persons outside that group have no business publishing.

Ely clearly has sharp disagreements with the RCP and an ax to grind. But the point is that Wikipedia is not the place for discussions of those disputes, nor are edits which simply direct people to a critic's own website and publications. The issue is not what one thinks of Ely's criticisms of the RCP, but whether the references improve the objective description of the subject of this entry, namely the RCP. I don't think so, and instead think it ends up turning what should be an objective description of the group's history and main activities and political views into a sound board for debate. That isn't the purpose of a Wiki entry.

Finally, I have also removed an entry that Ely posted on the Discussion page in response to comments saying that the entry needed to be rewritten. He stated that there were numerous errors in the entry as a whole and then proceeded to write several paragraphs discussing what he believed to be the organizational structure of the RCP in Los Angeles and in relation to the RCP nationally and speculation about the role of individuals in the RCP. By his own statements, Ely has not been a member of the RCP for a number of years and yet is trying to pass himself off as an authority on things about which he could not have any knowledge.

I do not believe Wiki should be a platform for discussion of private, internal matters of organizations, or of what is admittedly speculation by the person who posts such items. Further, entries about individuals and organizations should present things consistent with the public statements and views of the individual and organization, not what any person – especially any person who has the intent to slander and vilify – wants to post there. I understand the purpose of Wikipedia to be serving as an "encyclopedia" containing factual, neutral, and well-referenced articles on the subject matter of those articles. In the case of individuals and organizations, I think that means presenting things consistent with the public statements and views of the individual and organization, not what any particular individual thinks of those positions and views.

Mike Ely was formerly a member of the RCP but left that organization a number of years ago after forming sharp disagreements with the views of the RCP. (Both Ely and the RCP acknowledge this.) He then went on to form a website called Kasama Project and he also contributes to various other websites. As I said in my posting today on the Discussion page of the RCP article, it is apparent from Ely's entries on the Kasama Project site that he has a personal vendetta against the RCP and especially its chairman, Bob Avakian.

The RCP has publicly complained about Ely and accused him of posting gossip and lies about Avakian and others associated with the RCP on the Kasama site, and publishing material on private and internal RCP affairs that persons outside that group have no business publishing. If you are interested, you can see that public criticism at "Outright Piggery from the Camp of Counter-Revolution".

Whatever the merits of any criticisms or responses, my point is that I don't think Wikipedia is the place for discussions of those disputes, nor are edits which simply direct people to a critic's own website and publications. It turns what should be an objective description of the group's history and main activities and political views into a sound board for debate. That isn't the purpose of a Wiki entry. Such material violates Wiki standards of neutrality and objectivity, and does not contribute to an objective picture of the RCP, which is the subject of the entry.

EnRealidad (talk) 05:02, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

I don't see a clear violation of WP:NPOV in the text Ely posted, but I agree that some scrutiny is merited with the article edits given there could be a conflict of interest. However, I also agree with meco (talk · contribs) about your removal of Ely's comment from the talk page (which, by the way, is where I think further discussion should take place). —/Mendaliv/^2¢/_Δ's/ 10:27, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

An allied issue has been brought up at AN/I and I have reviewed the disputed TP edits there. The outcome of the AN/I discussion has been that the TP text deleted by EnRealidad has been restored with no further admin action required or justified. Kim Dent-Brown ^(Talk) 14:25, 2 March 2012 (UTC)

To what extent do we want to cover media coverage?

Answered

– Spinning Spark 10:00, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

Penn State sex abuse scandal (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) Specifically regarding the last two paragraphs of this section. It seems at first (to me) to be unencyclopedic. I understand mentioning a few various opinions expressed by people somehow related to the incident, university, or area, but if we really tried to summarize every random story that a random writer looking for some eyeballs decided to pen, I fear we'd look more like Huntington Post or TMZ than an encyclopedia. This concern makes me question whether these paragraphs and paragraphs like this in general are appropriate, despite the fact that they are excellently referenced. Does any guidance on this exist that someone could point me to? Lastly, I'm posting here instead of the article talk page because I'm looking for an opinion about policy or guidance in general, not just these specific paragraphs. Thanks in advance. jheiv ^{talk contribs} 21:21, 15 February 2012 (UTC)

I am not giving an opinion on whether or not these paragraphs should be included as I only gave the article a cursory glance. The most relevant policy is probably WP:UNDUE. If there is a suspicion that material is being inserted to make a point then WP:NPOV could also apply. If the person being discussed is alive (as in this case) then WP:BLP should also be followed, whether or not the article is actually a biography formally. Spinning Spark 18:04, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

Johnny Valentine

Answered

– Danger ^{High voltage!} 01:30, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

JOHNNY VALENTINE NEE WISNISKI

In the name of accuracy I would like to challenge most of the information in your article. John Theodore Valentine nee Wisniewski was Polish and Finn. He had strong ties to the Finnish Community. His mother, Ida and his stepfather, John Paabola, were Finn. He is survived by (3) sisters, Virginia, Gladys and Frances who all live in Seattle Washington, his birthplace. His first son is Greg "The Hammer Valentine" who currently wrestles all over the world. He was married in Columbus Ohio in 1950 November 9th to Nancy Singleton Hammner. He was Catholic as are all of his family. Of this marriage lasting 32 years, he produced 3 children, John Anthony Valentine, born (1951) San Francisco, CA , Holly Valentine, born (1952) Colunbus, Ohio and Brandon Valentine born (1954) Houston, TX. After the end of this marriage in the 80's he was married for the third time to the president of his Texas fan club. Much of the information in this article is incorrect due to the fact that this person had no oppurtunity to know any of the people of whom they speak with such authority.

Vince McMahon Sr., and his wife Juanita of Washington D.C., the Tunney family of Toronto Ontario Canada, Eddie Graham of Tampa Florida,and Fritz von Erich, Dallas TX, are better sources of personal information about Johnny Valentine and his life. Obviously much of the information in this article is incorrect.

Any book written about Johnny Valentine and his life, using information from the same source would be pure fantasy. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ramonaluna12 (talk • contribs) 18:03, 21 February 2012 (UTC)

What published sources do you have for any of this? We can't use unpublished claims. --Orange Mike | Talk 19:18, 21 February 2012 (UTC)

I'm trying to figure out exactly how the supplied passage serves to challenge any (let alone most) of the information in the current version of the article. At any rate, like OM says, published sources are a necessity. —/Mendaliv/^2¢/_Δ's/ 19:07, 26 February 2012 (UTC)

Assistance with autobiography

Answered

– Danger ^{High voltage!} 01:30, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

Dear Sir or Madam,

Please provide assistance with regard to the article I intend to submit to your kind attention. Please also provide information how to change the title of article (now autobiography) , due to the fact that previous version has been changed significantly. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Mjw23 Revision history: (http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:Mjw23&action=history)

Thank you for your assistance, Sincerely, Mark J.Wagner — Preceding unsigned comment added by Mjw23 (talk • contribs) 21:51, 22 February 2012 (UTC)

First of all, writing about yourself is not encouraged on Wikipedia because it is very difficult to write a neutral article, see WP:COI. It is much better to wait for another editor to take an interest and write it. This will certainly happen eventually if you are truly notable. Articles on Wikipedia are required to establish that the subject is notable, see WP:N. I took a very brief look through the references provided in the article and none of them appeared to establish notability, although I could easily have missed something. Notability on Wikipedia means that the subject is discussed in a non-trivial way in multiple reliable sources independent of the subject. Besides that the article is also not yet fit to be published because it has no inline citations, see WP:CITE and contains a large chunk of text in Polish. Spinning Spark 23:02, 22 February 2012 (UTC)

It also looks like WP:AFC has declined this article already, as well as another by Mark.

And to be honest, if this bio were put out to articlespace, it would pretty surely get speedily deleted as it lacks an assertion of notability. Even with that, the lack of reliable sources (or any sources for that matter) establishing notability as Wikipedia defines it, and the unencyclopedic tone and style, mean that this article is a very long way from being ready. —/Mendaliv/^2¢/_Δ's/ 10:03, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

Blocked from Swedish Wikipedia

Answered

– Danger ^{High voltage!} 01:30, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

I've been blocked from the Swedish version of Wikipedia by the admin Tournesol. No reason has been given for why I was blocked however the block was preceeded by a discussion about the article http://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacques_Wallner. Appearently we had different opinions on the matter which Tournesol could not accept.

I'd like to emphasize that I've not tried to edit the article itself in any way. I just made two posts in the discussion section arguing for my point of view in accordance to the Wikipedia guidelines. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.251.7.51 (talk) 16:26, 26 February 2012 (UTC)

This page is for assistance with the English Wikipedia. We cannot help you here, the matter must be dealt with on Swedish Wikipedia. As far as I can tell from machine translation you were blocked for arguing policy on an article talk page after being warned not to do so. While this seems a little harsh and would probably not have resulted in a block here, I can see some immoderate language in the translation, almost daring the administrator to block you. Your block will expire in three days. Spinning Spark 18:27, 26 February 2012 (UTC)

How to remove blacklisting of an url

Answered

– Danger ^{High voltage!} 01:30, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

Dear Sir, I tried editing the page http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kriya_Yoga. I inserted an url which is the home page of my Guru. When I tried saving this page after edit it is throwing an error saying that this particular url is blacklisted. My questions are - 1. how do I find out the reason why this particular url consisting very generic and urharmful content is blacklisted. 2. How can I send a request to whitelist this url so that I can include this url in this particular wiki page. Your quick reply to my questions will be highly appreciated. Thanks and Regards Bishwanath Banerjee user id biswbane — Preceding unsigned comment added by Biswbane (talk • contribs) 20:44, 26 February 2012 (UTC)

It is very probable that this site would not be acceptable to add as an external link even if it was not blacklisted. Please see WP:EL for guidelines, it is not enough that the site is merely "unharmful". If, after reading the guidelines, you still think there is a case for this site, you can ask for the domain to be removed from the blacklist at MediaWiki talk:Spam-blacklist or request that a specific url be whitelisted at MediaWiki talk:Spam-whitelist. Spinning Spark 00:11, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

Carlos Condit

Answered

– Danger ^{High voltage!} 01:30, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

Recently, I attempted to edit Carlos Condit's personal life by adding to his ancestory. I am his biological mother and added his ancestory from his maternal side. The information was deleted thereafter. How do I proceed with this edit to his personal life and wikipedia's verification of facts? Previously, I edited my name,occupation and residency in the yr. 2007, and that was also deleted? I am willing to go through the steps for verification of the facts. Thank you, Camille Prevost — Preceding unsigned comment added by The real camille (talk • contribs) 22:32, 26 February 2012 (UTC)

Please take a look at this page which explains what constitutes a reliable source for Wikipedia purposes. Hope this helps. – ukexpat (talk) 01:58, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

In other words, the "verification process" as you put it, consists merely of ensuring that statements on Wikipedia come from published, reliable sources. This is especially important when dealing with biographies of living persons. We want anybody to be able to go out and look at an article or a book and verify everything in an article. Hope that helps! —/Mendaliv/^2¢/_Δ's/ 10:43, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

Bloopers additional info

Answered

– Danger ^{High voltage!} 01:30, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

The 'Blooper' term originates from wartime censorship, and is short for "Blue Pencil" - which was used to cross out unacceptable parts of documents and letters by the 'blue-person'.

Jonathan Hewat was the first person in the UK to broadcast radio Bloopers [on a Bank Holiday Show on BBC Radio Bristol at the end of the 1980's]. He subsequently produced/presented a half-hour show on that station called "So you want to run a radio station." This was nominated for a Sony Award.

BBC Radio 2 heard of this small revolution in transmitting what were previously strictly private and personal broadcasters' collections for internal enjoyment at Christmas parties. They commissioned a series of six fifteen-minute programmes called 'Can I take that again?' with the legendary Jonathan James Moore (then Head of BBC Light Entertainment, Radio) somewhat nervously producing the series.

The success of this series led to a further five series on Radio 2, as well as a small number of programmes (called 'Bloopers') on BBC Radio 4.

Currently, Jonathan Hewat, who has a personal collection of 3,000 clips from over four decades of world-wide English-speaking broadcasting, feels that with clanger slots, especially on TV, being taken over by Dennis Norden and then by Terry Wogan and several others, they are no longer sufficiently unusual to warrant transmitting as complete programmes. As often happens, Radio Bloopers - involving the subtleties of language - are usually considerably funnier than the visual (TV) ones which so often involve endless clips of people falling over.

Some of the earliest clips in the Hewat collection go back to Rudy Vallee corpsing with uncontrollable giggles during a recording of 'There is a Tavern in the Town' and one of the very earliest OBs (Outside Broadcasts) of the Illumination of The Fleet. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.168.169.178 (talk) 09:28, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

I don't see any references here. Furthermore, the unqualified statement that radio bloopers are funnier doesn't really mesh with Wikipedia's neutral point of view policy. I also note that this text got added to the blooper article about 10 minutes after this post by BillNewland (talk · contribs), who I presume is OP. —/Mendaliv/^2¢/_Δ's/ 10:13, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

Implied Threat to a Public Official of National Power or Status

Dear WikiPedia,

I would like to draw your attention to the biography of "David James, Baron James of Blackheath" posted on Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_James,_Baron_James_of_Blackheath).

In the article give dates of his birth and a date, I assume to be his death as of 29 February, 2012?

If this is not factual, then I recommend it be removed immediately because it can be construed not only as a bad joke but an implied threat to a public official.

Thank you, — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.249.182.146 (talk) 18:17, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

I don't think this is an implied threat. People add death dates every so often into article of living people. The easiest answer is to just undo the edit and restore the article. I have restored it to a point before the information was added. GB fan 18:24, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

Agree with the revert. These are usually just pranks. While there's only one editor involved, it would pay to keep your ears open; sometimes deaths get reported here before they make the major online news outlets. —/Mendaliv/^2¢/_Δ's/ 07:57, 2 March 2012 (UTC)

Corey Thering

Corey James Thering (born 1976) is a painter based in Los Angeles, California. He grew up in Madison, Wisconsin and attended Otis College of Fine Arts graduating in 2010 with a bachelors in painting.

In 2011 Corey Thering performed with Vaginal Davis at the Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA) in Ms. Davis' performance of Dejecta/Projecta. Additional artists involved with the project include Jennifer Doyle, ZacKary Drucker, Julie Tolentino. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Mistademenor (talk • contribs) 21:48, 2 March 2012‎ (UTC)

How can we help you with this? Did you perhaps want to request an article be written (click this link if so)? Regards, TransporterMan (TALK) | DR goes to Wikimania! 22:05, 2 March 2012 (UTC)

Konza Technology City

Request unclear

– Looks like an AfC submission. Dunno what else is wanted here. —/Mendaliv/^2¢/_Δ's/ 15:14, 5 March 2012 (UTC)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Lerionka/Konza_Technology_City Lerionka (talk) 11:27, 5 March 2012 (UTC)

category for celebrity marriages

I recently started trying to compile a list of long (10 years or more) celebrity marriages. I was surprised this wasn't a category I could click on at the bottom of the wikipedia page and it was hard to find the information I was looking for. Is it possible to create this category? I tried reading the rules about categorization, and it seemed to be acceptable, but I'm not sure.

I have already compiled a list of nearly 100 couples. I think it's information people would like to explore. If someone else wants to create the category, I can send the information. Or, if someone tells me it's a legitimate category, I could do it myself probably.

Jessica — Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.48.120.67 (talk) 08:35, 2 March 2012 (UTC)

This is just my opinion but I doubt that the Wikipedia community would find such a list to be worthy of a standalone article unless the subject matter of the list — longevity of celebrity marriages — would itself be notable enough for an article. That article probably ought to be written first to establish, first, the notability of the topic and, second, that ten years is the benchmark established in reliable sources to define what is and is not a long marriage. Without that, the list would be subject to being deleted because Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information. Next, writing the list article might itself be more of a daunting task than you might imagine since each entry upon the list would have to be documented by a citation to a third-party reliable source. Regards, TransporterMan (TALK) | DR goes to Wikimania! 22:20, 2 March 2012 (UTC)

Jessica is talking about a category, not a list article. The thing is... I don't think this would work except as part of a list article. What would we put in the category called "celebrity marriages"? Every celebrity who was ever married to another celebrity? Then you just have a list of celebs, which is not what I think we're talking about trying to create. And TransporterMan's concerns about creating a list are valid.

So, I don't think we're looking at something quite feasible. The current practice of having a "personal life" section in the article about the relevant celeb, which in turn contains links to the articles of people to whom that celeb was married, works just fine. —/Mendaliv/^2¢/_Δ's/ 23:13, 2 March 2012 (UTC)

There's also the question of what constitutes a "celebrity marriage". Does it include only TV stars, models, and other famous non-entities for whom the term "celebrity" seems to be reserved; or would it include people who have actually accomplished something, such as religious, spiritual and scientific leaders? Must both partners be "celebrities"? The questions are endless. --Orange Mike | Talk 15:43, 7 March 2012 (UTC)

new user, citations, verifiable sources, POV, COI, NOR, synthesis, all that good stuff

Abghty (talk · contribs)
Martin CJ Mongiello (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

The user created the article. It's a mess. It's been cleaned up by adding slideshare links, youtube links, links to Mongiello's own website, and synthesis of known things with swashbuckling claims. Several users have tried. I'm hoping a patient editor can try chatting with them from another angle. tedder (talk) 04:07, 7 March 2012 (UTC)

I have also attempted to enter into a dialogue with Abghty (talk · contribs) and received bluff, bluster, oratory, unpleasantness just short of incivility, or certainly borderline incivility, and more. I have attempted to clean the article with removal of non WP:RS material and have those attempts reverted by a bewildering flurry of edits done with such rapidity that it appears to me a number of people are using the account simultaneously, something I also infer from the user's own talk page.

I think an editor with infinite patience and sagacity is needed to attempt to mentor this user and to create some sort of order out of chaos. Fiddle Faddle (talk) 10:05, 7 March 2012 (UTC)

Since the company account has been blocked, I'm hoping things will calm down enough that we can trim away the detritus and see whether there's a salvageable article in there somewhere, under the "There must be a pony!" principle. --Orange Mike | Talk 15:49, 7 March 2012 (UTC)

Having run a severe editorial eye over 80% of the article and removed 80% of that as uncited/uncitabe self puffery, I think there may be a Chihuahua under it. I have my doubts about finding the pony. Fiddle Faddle (talk) 16:09, 7 March 2012 (UTC)

Synthesis or calculation when it comes to frequency?

Just wondering how the WP:OR policy applies to frequency lists extracted from (or based on) tables. There's a table of award wins and nominations for the Academy Award for Best Director that's been there since early 2008, and based on that I had gone about creating similar lists for for other Academy Awards, including the cited example of Academy Award for Best Picture. Those tables that I have added, identical to the one on the Best Director page, have since been removed from those pages by User:MikeWazowski (who, for whatever reason, has been unresponsive to my queries over the past few days despite being active), and yet the original remains on the Best Director page.

I'm just curious as to how the policy works here, if you'll excuse my ignorance, and I apologise profusely if I've missed some clear and obvious piece of codification. MikeWazowski cites it as OR and synthesis, but to my mind it would be classifed as a routine calculation. It's not a repurposing of the facts to assert a point, it's merely a frequency count of how many times a given name pops up in the tables - I'm not combining two different sources, I'm merely applying simple counting to one (already sourced) table. I don't think this puts across a POV or anything untoward, but provides the data in a valuable and digestible format for the reader. Surely counting from 1 to 10 is not OR, but again, apologies if I'm mistaken on that. Thefourdotelipsis (talk) 23:01, 7 March 2012 (UTC)

At first blush it seems a reasonable thing to do to produce a table of number of nominations. However, it is certainly possible to do a synthesis based on only one source and there are all kinds of traps one can fall into with this kind of thing. For instance, the deleted list counts only from 1951 (on the stated basis that prior to this the award was to the film studio). If the Academy had produced this list, would they have counted on the same basis? There is no way to know unless they actually produced such a table, in which case it could be cited. Another example, the Academy database for 1928/29 in screaming bold letters declares under each nomination that these are not official nominations - there were no official nominations that year. Should those be counted? There may well be more subtle issues as well that are not immediately apparent. In general, it is better not to ourselves process data from a sources database. I cannot offhand think of a reason why Best Director should be an exception to this. If you still feel that these tables belong in the articles the best thing to do is open a debate on the article talk page to try and gain consensus with the editors there - I do not see any discussion of this issue at Talk:Academy Award for Best Picture at the moment. It is open to you to start a WP:RFC (again on the article talk page) to get opinions from more editors. Spinning Spark 00:46, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

Of course, will do, and thank you very much for your assistance. Thefourdotelipsis (talk) 01:26, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

Tarrant County College

Where can I find the Wikapedia entry for Tarrant County College Southeast, in wikapedia...? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 50.11.87.59 (talk) 23:04, 7 March 2012 (UTC)

at Tarrant County College Fiddle Faddle (talk) 23:12, 7 March 2012 (UTC)

articles copied from other sources

Free_statistical_software (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) I'm wondering, what is the criterion for indicating that a Wikipedia article is a copy of an article from another source? In particular, this article Free_statistical_software is really a copy of a Citizendium article but the people who posted the Wikipedia article only said they incorporated text from the Citizendium article. Anyone object is I write on the Wikipedia article that it is a copy of the Citizendium article? By the way, I posted the same question on the talk page of that article and got no response. Socialresearch (talk) 00:03, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

Please refer to Wikipedia:Copyright which gives accurate details of Wikipedia policy. If you see a copyright violation you are welcome to flag it at will. Fiddle Faddle (talk) 00:17, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

You do need to understand the licencing of what you perceive to be an original source before flagging a copyright violation of that source. Note the licencing at the foot of the Citizendium page: "CZ is free. All original articles are available under the Creative Commons-Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported license or any later." You need to understand this licence. Material appearing form it on Wikipedia is licensed already for Wikipedia to use. Fiddle Faddle (talk) 00:21, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for the response. I wasn't asking about copyright violation though. I was asking whether it's acceptable for the header to say that the Wikipedia article "incorporates text from" the Citizendium article, when it actually is pretty much a copy. Shouldn't the header really say that the Wikipedia article is copied from Citizendium? Would it be okay if I re-wrote the header to say it's mostly a copy? Socialresearch (talk) 02:00, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

To do that you would have to be certain of your facts. Do you know whether it is a copy or incorporates the text? Are you certain? And, really,aren;t there better things that warrant your efforts here in terms of improving articles? Fiddle Faddle (talk) 09:16, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

This article clearly was copied from Citizendium as can be seen from the history of both articles. In the early days of Wikipedia a lot of material was copied wholesale from public domain sources. These articles are marked with a template (see for instance {{1911}} or {{FS1037C MS188}}) which is usually placed in the references section (not as a hatnote to the article). The wording is always "This article incorporates text from...". Incorporates means incorporates in whole or in part. One should not use "copied", even if it was originally copied, since Wikipedia articles change over time as other editors contribute. While this was useful early on to get articles established, we have really outgrown the need to do this sort of thing. Spinning Spark 11:07, 8 March 2012 (UTC), partially struck 11:14, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

Actually there already exists a Citizendium template for this, {{Citizendium}} so I have put it in. Spinning Spark 11:38, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for the explanation. Yes, Wikipedia should be beyond copying articles from other sources.Socialresearch (talk) 12:20, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

Actually, the coverage of jobs and occupations here is so poor that I'd like to start some articles by porting over content from the public domain Dictionary of Occupational Titles. Is there, or could somebody craft, a template for that? --Orange Mike | Talk 16:32, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

Check out Category:Attribution templates. You might be able to adapt one of those to your needs, although a lot of them seem to be hellish complicated for very little benefit. Spinning Spark 00:38, 9 March 2012 (UTC)

Need eyes/input on this

Hi, I watch this article which is regularly prone to peurile vandalism and I recently reverted a swathe of consecutive edits (19) with no edit summary, all by the same editor.[1] The second edit removed the page protection tag and the edits totalled almost 18.5k so I didn't look too deeply into each edit, although a lot of the material appeared to have been copypasted from academic sources, judging by the refs.
So, the user in question came to my talkpage to explain, and I have since replied on the article's tp as well as posting to Emtan1's talk page.
The problem appears to be that the user appears to be hellbent on adding this mass of info to the article so that they can get good grades. They are currently editing away like mad in their sandbox and have not replied or adressed any of the issues I have raised, particularly the copyvio aspect.
This is not a content dispute per se, I am just worried about the user's motivations and their sourcing. CaptainScreebo ^Parley! 17:48, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

Editor has now replied to at least one message, would still appreciate second opinions. CaptainScreebo ^Parley! 18:05, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

In my opinion, it was not justified to mass revert this user's contributions; it seems to be a classic case of biting newbies and I would gently suggest you should be considering self-reverting. The material is all referenced to good sources, it is on topic, and no copyvios showed up in the few spot checks I did. The problems you mention are mostly easily fixed with simple edits: the pp tag can be restored, material can be moved out of the lede by adding a sub-heading (although the majority of the material was not added to the lede), and the lack of edit summaries can be dealt with by a templated message to the user. I see no evidence of the user being "hellbent" on anything: they have made the edit once, and when reverted joined a discussion as required by the guidelines. You are quite right that edits cannot be kept merely to maintain grades, but nor can they be deleted solely because they are gaining grades for the editor. Spinning Spark 23:18, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

Sorry but it was late and the first two edits were a fairly sizeable chunk to the lead and then the removal of the pp-vandalism tag. Thanks for informing the user of this post, although in the refs I checked I did encounter definite copyvios (the three refs for one of the sources). Now the user has replied I will try to help them work the article into shape. I do try to assume good faith but this article is regularly subject to vandalism, section blanking and insertion of spurious material. Thanks for taking the time to look in on this. CaptainScreebo ^Parley! 23:50, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

When you assert copyvio, it helps to provide the relevant diffs and urls. The nearest I found was the fragment "breaks a long message down" which appears in txtng the gr8 db8 but the surrounding text had been rewritten, so not a very serious plagiarism, and hardly a legal copyvio. The editor seems to be aware of the need to use their own words and little slips like this would likely get action if pointed out to them. Spinning Spark 00:32, 9 March 2012 (UTC)

Planck's constant article

Resolved

– Spinning Spark 14:02, 9 March 2012 (UTC)

I noticed that the article concerning Planck constant had what appears to be non-factual information added to it earlier today. I suspect (although I'm open to correction) that this is the same user who tried to add the same misleading statements to this article in October of last year (see the talk page), and judging from the talk page was blocked from editing said article because of it. I attempted to rewrite the article to indicate that this claim was dubious, but the same user re-inserted the same information. I'm not sure what the proper procedure is in this situation, and I didn't want to get drawn into an edit war, so I'm requesting assistance here. Johnny Assay (talk) 01:24, 9 March 2012 (UTC)

Yup - the same one, for sure, judging from the edit. I've reverted, and if the IP inserts this again, another block will probably be necessary. AndyTheGrump (talk) 01:43, 9 March 2012 (UTC)

Blocked editor and his socks, reverted Planck constant and Specific relative angular momentum to last good version, and semi-protected both articles. Spinning Spark 14:02, 9 March 2012 (UTC)

Delisting File:Taylor, Elizabeth posed.jpg from Featured Picture of Spanish, Persian, and Hebrew Wikipedias

I need someone who can translate my delisting proposal into either Spanish/español, Persian/فارسی, or Hebrew/עברית. Here is my English proposal:

This photo is proven to be created in 1955. Nevertheless, regardless of value of this photo, publication of this photograph of Elizabeth Taylor is not yet known at the time of this post. Deletion of this photo is currently discussed in commons:Commons:Deletion requests/File:Taylor, Elizabeth posed.jpg.

I tried searching the delisting section in Hebrew Wikipedia, but I could not understand Hebrew. --George Ho (talk) 04:27, 10 March 2012 (UTC)

You could try asking at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Spain for help with the Spanish translation, and so on. -- John of Reading (talk) 07:14, 10 March 2012 (UTC)

WP:TRANSLATE has a list of editors doing translation work. The focus here is on tranlation into English of course. Spinning Spark 09:52, 10 March 2012 (UTC)

Got the hebrew translation:

צילום משנת 1955. נסיבות פרסום לא ברורות וללא סימוכין. מציע למחוק.
— Translated by Gilabrand

Now I must find a delisting procedure, but I cannot understand Hebrew. --George Ho (talk) 06:15, 14 March 2012 (UTC)

Verification

I have been editing the page

How do I get the warning at the top about citations removed? All the facts in there are accurate and sources are cited.

Edmprice (talk) 19:29, 12 March 2012 (UTC)

I have removed the tag and done a little clean up - caps and external links.--ukexpat (talk) 20:11, 12 March 2012 (UTC)

Delegate counts

Please see this article for addressed issues: "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Results_of_the_2012_Republican_Party_presidential_primaries" 1. Conflicting delegate counts for Ron Paul. 2. Someone keeps editing Ron Paul's delegate count to more than 100 less than what is reported. I've tried to fix this, but someone seems to strongly need to falsify these result. If I am correct, Ron Paul also won the Virgin Islands. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 41.194.23.18 (talk) 14:07, 13 March 2012 (UTC)

All reports I have seen show Ron Paul with less than 100 delegates. The New York Times projects 47, the sources cited in the article says that Ron Paul has 24 bound or committed delegates, and 66 pledged delegates (projected). I have updated the table to 66, using the source it cites, but see no evidence that Ron Paul ever had any more than 100 delegates.--Unionhawk ^Talk ^E-mail 16:57, 13 March 2012 (UTC)

Possible abuse / spam citing "world pensions council?"

Discussion moved

– Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Finance#Possible abuse / ads citing "world pensions council" Spinning Spark 18:19, 16 March 2012 (UTC)

Hi. Some 9 pages related to economics cite views of "world pensions council", but they always read "Think-tanks such as the World Pensions Council". Isn't it a kind of weasel-word?

And, at least one article, commodity, looks misleading, and possibly giving biased advise. This 2012-03-11 version says that investments to "commodities and commodity-related infrastructure" has risen recently, citing this source, written by co-founders of WPC, but the source only mentions infrastructure, not at all to commodity in general. (This section is added to commodity in the last 2 edits.)

What should Wikipedia do? I don't have a good background in ecomomics / finance, so I'm not well suited for dedicated research on this issue, and I'd be glad if my report here could help someone to improve Wikipedia.

To list, the related pages are: Commodity, Treaty of Lisbon, Financial regulation, Capital Requirements Directive, European Fiscal Compact, Basel II, Credit rating agency, European Central Bank, European sovereign debt crisis. Thanks. --Ahora (talk) 05:03, 12 March 2012 (UTC)

I agree that "think-tanks such as..." is a weasely phrase if only one think tank is ever cited, it implies that think tanks in general hold this view. At least a second body should be cited or else it should simply be stated as the WPC's view. This is possibly WP:POV editing but it really needs the attention of editors with an understanding of the status of the WPC. I suggest you bring it to the attention of a relevant wikiproject such as WP:WikiProject Economics or WP:WikiProject Finance. Spinning Spark 11:15, 12 March 2012 (UTC)

Thanks, Spinningspark. "Finance" project looks good. --Ahora (talk) 23:45, 12 March 2012 (UTC)

Dear Ahora, Spinningspark,

The WPC is one of Europe’s leading think-tanks dedicated to pension investment research.

I don’t see anything misleading, biased or “weasely” (??) in the article on Infrastructure you refer to.

++ I’m not sure Ahora has effectively taken the time to (fully) read the sources in question:

The first article quoted (published jointly in Turkey’s JTW/ and France’s Revue Analyse Financière) clearly mentions “[primary] commodities” (1st and 2nd paragraphs) and energy-related infrastructure assets such as “power generation” and “power grids” (9th and 11th paragraphs).

The second article quoted (Euromoney magazine published in London) mentions specifically “commodity-rich” sovereign institutions (paragraph 14) active in the field of “oil and other commodities”, and, more generally, “energy” and “energy infrastructure”.

Bottom line: The article in question states the (rather mainstream) perspective of a leading European think-tank, backed by refs to mainstream financial (Euromoney, RAF) and poli. sci. (JTW) journals.

Cordially,

BJA

--B.Andersohn (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 17:25, 16 March 2012 (UTC).

I really think you are all going to be better off taking this conversation to the talk pages of the relevant articles or some central location such as a wikiproject. Actually, just noticed a discussion has been opened at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Finance#Possible abuse / ads citing "world pensions council" so I am going to mark this thread as "moved" after making this post. The accusation of "weasel words" has nothing to do with the presumed status, or lack of it, of the WPC. It is a reference to the wikipedia guideline WP:WEASEL. It means something is being implied without actually being stated - in this case the implication is other think tanks agree with the WPC. Spinning Spark 18:16, 16 March 2012 (UTC)

Grapsus grapsus

I believe the article's intro about the Red Rock Crab "Grapsus grapsus" to be a bit misleading. This crab is not common on the north-west coast of California (North America). The entry, "...The crab Grapsus grapsus is one of the most common crabs along the western coast of the Americas. ...", should be modified to include a geographical reference, "southern" part of the Americas:

"...The crab Grapsus grapsus is one of the most common crabs along the southwestern coast of the Americas."

Rock Crabs are common to the north-west coast of California and, I believe, well into Oregon.

Terry Jelcick California Crab Angler — Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.101.142.25 (talk) 18:49, 18 March 2012 (UTC)

The article seems fine to me. The third sentence "It is found along the Pacific coast of Mexico, Central America, South America (as far south as northern Peru), and nearby islands." seems to give the specifics you desire. Spinning Spark 20:09, 18 March 2012 (UTC)

Biased Wikipedia

Answered

– Covered at WP:BCE, Wikipedia:Neutral point of view/BCE-CE Debate, etc. —/Mendaliv/^2¢/_Δ's/ 00:07, 21 March 2012 (UTC)

I am doing a report on Ancient Egypt and there is something that has really been bothering me. Whenever discussing a date before the common era, articles always say BC (Before Christ). Since Wikipedia is an impartial database, I find this offensive. Articles should say BCE (Before common era), as this is the politically correct and unbiased term. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.118.51.53 (talk) 02:28, 14 March 2012 (UTC)

The dating system varies from article to article. To prevent edit wars, the standard used is "unless there is consensus for change, use whichever form the article originally used."

Also, if you find that offensive, you're being way too sensitive. I would switch every article to BCE/CE, but come on, kids are starving all over the world, and it's a dating system that's offensive? Ian.thomson (talk) 02:33, 14 March 2012 (UTC)

See more at WP:BCE. PrimeHunter (talk) 14:29, 15 March 2012 (UTC)

Plot

Resolved

– —/Mendaliv/^2¢/_Δ's/ 00:04, 21 March 2012 (UTC)

I am currently working on a video game article for Lure of the Temptress - The biggest problem in the article is that there is no Plot/Story section - Well, atleast not full - the section stops at where the game starts, but there should be a full story. Since I don't know how to write story/plot sections, I'd like someone who's an (adventure) gamer to write it. If you haven't played the game, it was released as freeware and you can download it at GOG.com. - The game is only one hour and a half long, so you can just watch a YouTube walkthrough. Regards, -Khanassassin ☪ 14:22, 15 March 2012 (UTC)

I don't write about video games but have you seen Wikipedia:WikiProject Video games/Article guidelines? PrimeHunter (talk) 14:32, 15 March 2012 (UTC)

Yup. -Khanassassin ☪ 14:52, 15 March 2012 (UTC)

A suggestion: That's a pretty narrow request for this forum and there may not be such a person who watches this board. You might want to consider also making the same request at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Video games and perhaps even look at the edit history of some similar articles to see who has written similar sections in the recent past and specifically ask those editors if they would help. Regards, TransporterMan (TALK) | DR goes to Wikimania! 17:45, 15 March 2012 (UTC)

You really ought to be thinking in terms of writing this yourself, we can give assistance, but it is unlikely you will recruit an editor to entirely do it for you. We are all volunteers and we each already have a menu of stuff we would like to write. Look at the best articles for ideas, and the very best can be found at WP:FA#Video gaming. Spinning Spark 18:28, 16 March 2012 (UTC)

It's OK, I wrote it myself. --Khanassassin ☪ 12:22, 18 March 2012 (UTC)

Page linked to 'academic/errors'

Answered

– Does not appear to be a problem. —/Mendaliv/^2¢/_Δ's/ 23:43, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

On the page Special:WhatLinksHere/Paparazzi_Project, I saw a link to the Academic/errors page. One error page said "Score: 10, pattern: springer\.com". What does it mean? Is a citation wrong? How should I correct it?

I also see numerous links to other error pages. How should I correct the other errors?

Thanks. Wikfr (talk) 22:09, 18 March 2012 (UTC)

The page you're talking about is User:TedderBot/NewPageSearch/Academic/errors, which is an error report page for a bot. What you're seeing there isn't an error (the page itself says there are no errors), but probably debugging info for a bot script. There really doesn't seem to be any clear explanation as to what it means, or whether there is an error. I can't tell if there's anything wrong with Paparazzi Project in terms of the refs either. Might be worth asking the bot operator. —/Mendaliv/^2¢/_Δ's/ 23:57, 18 March 2012 (UTC)

The bot is apparently trying to guess the general topic of new articles by searching them for specific strings. Paparazzi Project got 20 points at User:TedderBot/NewPageSearch/Academic/errors for "Academic" as subject because it contains a link to the academic website springer.com. It got points for "aero" at User:TedderBot/NewPageSearch/aeronew/errors because it contains the word "aircraft" and is in a category containing the word "aircraft". I don't know what the information is used for but I don't think you have anything to worry about. PrimeHunter (talk) 00:24, 19 March 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for the help. Wikfr (talk) 01:18, 19 March 2012 (UTC)

Dealing with references behind paywalls

Several times recently I have encountered articles with references that use research papers that require payment of a fee in order to view. If I want to verify that the reference actually backs up the claim that is made in the WP article how do I go about that? Am I expected to actually pay for access to the paper so I can verify the reference? I do not believe that this is a tenable situation. I'd go broke before long. To me this undermines the credibility of some articles as it makes it virtually impossible to verify some references. How should I go about dealing with this? Dr. Morbius (talk) 17:47, 19 March 2012 (UTC)

The folks at Wikipedia:WikiProject Resource Exchange will probably be able to help you. -- John of Reading (talk) 17:51, 19 March 2012 (UTC)

It is absolutely acceptable to use such references. If we only used stuff that was freely available on the web we would be in a very sorry state and there would perhaps be little point in Wikipedia existing. Many academic journals are available in libraries, as are many good textbooks which gbooks obstinately refuses to let one view. Unless there is good cause not to, we usually take it on good faith that editors have accurately reflected the offline sources they cite. Spinning Spark 19:58, 19 March 2012 (UTC)

Virtually impossible is stretching it a bit. Even if your local library doesn't have database access, interlibrary loan frequently will be able to get you journal articles at little to no direct cost. And ask your librarian for help. Who knows, maybe he/she is a Wikipedian too... —/Mendaliv/^2¢/_Δ's/ 23:56, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

Assistance Cleaning Up Company Page

RJ Lee Group's page has the {{multiple issues}} template for a number of concerns. As a company employee with a COI, I don't want to make any further changes to the page -- so I was hoping that someone might be willing to help clean up the page. We're very open to feedback, discussion, and most importantly, assistance in cleaning up the page to meet Wikipedia's standards. I'm happy to provide suggestions for possible citations and such, if that would be helpful. Thanks! -- Amarksrjlg (talk) 13:40, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

That's what the talk page of the article is for; yet as of this second, there has never been anything posted to that talk page! That's the place to start this conversation. --Orange Mike | Talk 13:44, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

I apologize, my thinking was that there might not be a lot of traffic to the article, so the Talk page might not get noticed. I've gone ahead and started the conversation there, thank you! -- Amarksrjlg (talk) 13:50, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

I would just make the post first and see if anyone is watching the page. If no one responds in a reasonable time, say a few days, there are templates you can use to attract the attention of other editors. To request someone to make a specific edit you can use Template: Request edit. To start a discussion on a specific question follow the instructions at WP:RFC. Spinning Spark 14:05, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

Sounds like a plan, and will do. Thanks again. --Amarksrjlg (talk) 14:21, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

Close of short but one-sided article RfC requested from experienced editor

Resolved

– RfC has been closed. —/Mendaliv/^2¢/_Δ's/ 22:20, 22 March 2012 (UTC)

Please could an experienced and uninvolved editor carry out the following steps;

assess whether it is appropriate to conduct an early close of the discussion here.

if appropriate, close that discussion. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 23:39, 12 March 2012 (UTC)

Erdas Apollo

Resolved

– Article could not be salvaged, despite cleanup.--Unionhawk ^Talk ^E-mail 18:09, 21 March 2012 (UTC)

Hi there, the author has attempted to publish this article many times but has just been G11'd every time. I need some help copy-editing the article to meet the MoS and policy. Thanks Osarius Talk 11:57, 16 March 2012 (UTC)

Why? It's still a damned advertisement. (Hint: any appearance of the word "solution" which does not refer either to an equation's answer, or to a solute dissolved in a solvent, is a pretty clear sign of advertising!!!!) We do not exist in order for Intergraph to shamelessly advertise their products. --Orange Mike | Talk 13:18, 16 March 2012 (UTC)

Osarius, before you spend a lot of time CE'ing this, you should first chop out all the promotional language and undue detail and then take a really hard look at the remaining citations to make sure that they're, first, reliable sources and, second, to make sure that they aren't just uncritical repetitions of company press releases or product announcements. (Remember that in writing a new article, no one is going to judge what you don't include, so don't worry too much about whether what you take out might squeak in under some rule or guideline. If you don't like it or don't think it should be there, chop it.) Unless they can pass those two tests, then there's no point in wasting any further time on this. This product really has to be notable enough to have received some independent coverage in reliable sources or it's going to be AfD-bait even if it survives CSD. In any event, you are to be commended for taking pity on a frustrated newcomer. Regards, TransporterMan (TALK) | DR goes to Wikimania! 14:04, 16 March 2012 (UTC)

On the same note, I just removed all the marketing and promotional crap from the advert and the preview now looks embarrassingly short and non-notable. I checked the sources, and they're all a bunch of crap too so I don't think there's any point in keeping the article. I shall request a speedy deletion of the draft. Would you say create protect is required? I'm not going to request it unless I have a consensus. Osarius Talk 14:38, 16 March 2012 (UTC)

Depends whether you think that a reliably sourced article could be written one day. If there's nothing out there to show this is a notable product and it seems likely the editor will continue to attempt insetion then yes, request protection. I would be willing to create protect if you drop a note on my talk page showing you have made a reasonable effort to search for reliable sources (not necessarily write the aricle, just show that RS does/does not exist). However, no further attempts have been made since the article has been in user space so perhaps just let it lie. Spinning Spark 15:17, 16 March 2012 (UTC)

Mudiraj

Dear Wikipedia Editor,

I have the utmost respect to the service wikipedia has been to the online community for years now.

I recently observed that wikipedia has removed the article on "Mudiraj". This article had historic facts about aboriginal India groups which were prevalent in India. I want to request wikipedia to restore the article on "Mudiraj". Its one of the only resource available online and an important source for my generation and my next generations to know about our history, ancestors and the great culture which is near to extinction.

You can get back to me for any questions or concerns. I sincerely hope the wikipedia will continue the great service it has rendered over decades.

Thank you. --Narsingwiki (talk) 23:17, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

You may be speaking of Mudiraju which has not been deleted. There was never an article entitled Mudiraj. Skier Dude (talk) 00:10, 21 March 2012 (UTC)

That article was reduced to a stub in this edit. The previous content was entirely unsourced. If this information can indeed only be found on Wikipedia then it was rightfully deleted since Wikipedia is meant to be a tertiary source. Spinning Spark 01:51, 21 March 2012 (UTC)

To the Wiki Admin,

No Sir, I very clearly remember the article was titled "Mudiraj" and not Mudiraju. Its really unfortunate that you feel its entirely unsourced. It was published on wikipedia for more than few years. It clearly shows how endangered facts become when they are not well maintained. I see a culture at stake. This was the history of aboriginal Indians who have more than 80% of illiteracy now. OK, let me volunteer in this regard to gather facts. Can you please kindly provide me that previous post documentation and details so that I can very well do the necessary research and get back to you and the interested viewers with very comprehensive documentation and details about facts, artifacts, monuments and all the historic details possible. I feel its time for me to do my bit of service to wikipedia. Thank You. --Narsingwiki (talk) 04:47, 22 March 2012 (UTC)

Could have been on a different language Wikipedia, but there is not and has never been an article called Mudiraj on English Wikipedia. —/Mendaliv/^2¢/_Δ's/ 06:29, 22 March 2012 (UTC)

I have placed a copy of the earlier article in your user space at User:Narsingwiki/Mudiraju. Before you return this to main space I suggest that you (1) provide inline citations to reliable sources for all facts and claims in the article and (2) after doing that ask another editor to look it over for you. If your English is not good you can ask for a copyedit at WP:GOCE. Spinning Spark 08:19, 22 March 2012 (UTC)

Problem with Teleferico on Facebook

Answered

– As Ukexpat says, this is entirely a (very annoying) Facebook issue. —/Mendaliv/^2¢/_Δ's/ 22:17, 22 March 2012 (UTC)

Good afternoon,

My name is Xavier Alvarez and I am the Product manager for the Teleferico Company in Quito, Ecuador. We are trying to make our own facebook page but with your publication we are unnable to publish anything. So Please remove your publication from facebook, so we can use it for our own publications and interest.

If you need to confirm this email you can call us directly to (<redacted).

Thank you and please send me an email with your confirmation that this conflic is over.

Have a great day,

Xavier Alvarez Product Manager <redacted> — Preceding unsigned comment added by 200.107.7.89 (talk) 19:40, 22 March 2012 (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. - We have no control over what is posted to Facebook. --Orange Mike | Talk 19:49, 22 March 2012 (UTC)

Facebook community pages may incorporate content from Wikipedia— such use complies with Wikipedia policies on reuse of content. We at Wikipedia have no control over how the content is included nor can we help to remove it. Facebook does have a topic on Community pages and profile connections on their Help Center.--ukexpat (talk) 20:06, 22 March 2012 (UTC)

Photo Image is NOT Paula Wagner

Answered

– here and at Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons/Noticeboard.--ukexpat (talk) 19:29, 23 March 2012 (UTC)

The image for Paula Wagner is not the person, Paula Sue Kauffman Wagner, that the page is representing. How can this be prevented from happening in the future? It seems that there are plenty of verifiable photos all over the internet of Ms. Wagner available to ensure that those such as this, an obviously incorrect image, not be left on the page. I have tried to change the image, but there are limitations due to the photos that are made available via the collective are the only photos and images that can be uploaded. Any suggestions? Thank you. ~sp1~ — Preceding unsigned comment added by Scooterpie1 (talk • contribs) 17:21, 23 March 2012 (UTC)

What makes you think it isn't her. It looks like her compared to many other pics. Spinning Spark 18:14, 23 March 2012 (UTC)

Would Like to Help with Great Firewall Section(s)

Here's what I put on the talk pages for these articles:

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:List_of_websites_blocked_in_the_People%27s_Republic_of_China http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Great_Firewall_of_China

I live in Beijing. Have lived here for five years. Looks like the information is a bit out-of-date. For instance, I just checked Picasa Web Albums (https://picasaweb.google.com/home), and it worked for me. Same with zh.wikipedia.org. Likewise, my blog -- http://sujinyan.com/ -- which is a wordpress blog works just fine, so putting "All Wordpress-powered blogs are still blocked as of November 2011" isn't correct. docs.google.com is working for me as well.

The restriction of access to websites in China is a big deal, so I think folks should probably spend a bit of time to get the information on this page updated... and keep it updated.

Perhaps some sort of table format, which sights the last time a page was checked?

Also, perhaps saving screenshots of the messages that occur as proof? Sujinyan (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 10:47, 24 March 2012 (UTC).

Thanks for the information, but Wikipedia is not a news service. We don't use information we have gathered from the public directly or other such sources. We could not, therefore, amend articles on the basis of tests you have done in China unless they are first published somewhere else. We do use information in reliable secondary sources such as newspapers which can be verified by anyone. If you have such reliable sources you are welcome to update the articles. Spinning Spark 12:22, 24 March 2012 (UTC)

Thanks! Let me see what I can do with setting something up with a secondary source.:)

How does Wikipedia handle corrections? For example, docs.google.com and Picassa Web Albums are working for me, even though they're listed as being blocked in China. Sujinyan (talk) 22:35, 24 March 2012 (UTC)

You just go ahead and edit the article. See WP:CITE for how to format references. A discussion is only necessary if there is disagreement, see WP:BRD. Spinning Spark 23:25, 24 March 2012 (UTC)

Thanks! Sujinyan (talk) 03:34, 25 March 2012 (UTC)

Graphic designer/editor

Answered

– Tips given on how to volunteer. —/Mendaliv/^2¢/_Δ's/ 22:15, 25 March 2012 (UTC)

hello my name is adnan khalid i want to do ajob as a graphicdesigner or o editior — Preceding unsigned comment added by 175.107.232.34 (talk) 15:19, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

There's always plenty to do here at Wikipedia - for ideas, go to the Wikipedia:Community portal and scroll down one screen to the section headed "Help out". But be aware that this is all unpaid work by volunteer editors. -- John of Reading (talk) 16:09, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

Bikini Girls on Ice

Resolved

– List entry fixed. —/Mendaliv/^2¢/_Δ's/ 22:09, 25 March 2012 (UTC)

This movie is clearly not American. Many characters speak with a French-Canadian accent, and all of the French spoken is joual, une dialecte franchement canadien français. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 50.40.249.88 (talk) 08:02, 23 March 2012 (UTC)

You are quite right, the cited source for that film agrees that it is Canadian. I have changed the film's entry in the list. -- John of Reading (talk) 08:43, 23 March 2012 (UTC)

article deliberately sabataged

Someone has deliberately sabataged this article, filling it with profanity. This should be punishable. http://lohere.net/kulkapedia/samuel/Government_Street_(Mobile,_Alabama) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.21.62.4 (talk) 11:27, 23 March 2012 (UTC)

Could it be because that page is not a part of Wikipedia? Our article Government Street (Mobile, Alabama), is fine as far as I can see--Jac16888 ^Talk 12:29, 23 March 2012 (UTC)

Looks like a parody. I don't see the problem. —/Mendaliv/^2¢/_Δ's/ 22:14, 25 March 2012 (UTC)

I need some serious help in editing wikipedia

Request unclear

– —/Mendaliv/^2¢/_Δ's/ 22:07, 25 March 2012 (UTC)

I want to know exactly how I can edit -- without being bossed about/used by admins. — Preceding unsigned comment added by WOLfan112 (talk • contribs) 17:20, 23 March 2012 (UTC)

Could you explain more clearly what you need help with? --Orange Mike | Talk 18:55, 23 March 2012 (UTC)

RfP/Reviewer

Almost all of my time on Wikipedia is spent fighting vandalism at RecentChanges. I would like the Reviewer permission, even though it treads absolutely no weight or privilege. Is there an admin out there who is still willing to grant this permission I can't ask for anywhere else? Thank you! Cheers, An Illusive Man (Contact) 04:13, 25 March 2012 (UTC)

Why do you need the reviewer permission? It is associated with Wikipedia:Pending changes, but this was only ever implemented on a trial basis and the trial has now ended. While it was live permission was requested at Wikipedia:Requests for permissions/Reviewer but the page is not accepting requests at this time (it may do so in future if PC is reinstated). I would not be willing to go against the position stated on the request page unless you have a very good reason for needing the permission. Spinning Spark 09:10, 25 March 2012 (UTC)

Kevin Annett

Resolved

– Most or all of the bad content removed; could still use some further cleanup, reference improvement, etc. —/Mendaliv/^2¢/_Δ's/ 23:23, 26 March 2012 (UTC)

I stumbled on this while working through a list of articles with "cite errors". The article needs a bolder editor than me to assess the last month's edits, and perhaps the earlier content too. -- John of Reading (talk) 11:43, 26 March 2012 (UTC)

Holy moley. Those are some pretty hefty BLP problems, plus some copyvio material... I'm picking over the article right now, and erring on the side of caution. —/Mendaliv/^2¢/_Δ's/ 15:40, 26 March 2012 (UTC)

Gutted about 70% of the article, cleaning it up substantially. There are a couple remaining short sections that may merit getting rolled into a general history section, or that might just be removed per WP:NOTNEWS or WP:UNDUE... they describe matters of unclear significance. —/Mendaliv/^2¢/_Δ's/ 15:58, 26 March 2012 (UTC)

Thanks, it looks like a Wikipedia article now. -- John of Reading (talk) 16:02, 26 March 2012 (UTC)

Elaine Radford

I am Elaine Radford. The Wiki says that I was born in Shelby, North Carolina, which I wasn't. It isn't possible that anyone had a "verifiable reference" that says I was born there, because I wasn't. My reference is my Mom. Oh, and my passport from the U.S. State Department which says "Virginia U.S.A" on it. I tried to correct the information but someone already changed it back. I'm not going to do your homework for you and jump through a lot of hoops to fix YOUR mistake, but if you want the site to be accurate, you should remove the incorrect information.

Elaineradford (talk) 23:19, 27 March 2012 (UTC)

You were reverted by a bot, which didn't like the link you added for some reason. If you could give us a reference that does say your birth place that would be helpful, for example you could add it to your website. Alternatively you can use WP:OTRS to verify that you are Elaine Radford, then you will be able to use the {{editrequest}} template on the talk page of the article to correct any other errors--Jac16888 ^Talk 23:27, 27 March 2012 (UTC)

Honestly, we can just remove the birthplace from the article since the statement is unreferenced, disputed, and in a BLP. —/Mendaliv/^2¢/_Δ's/ 00:59, 28 March 2012 (UTC)

Er, looks like you already got that Jac. Disregard. —/Mendaliv/^2¢/_Δ's/ 01:01, 28 March 2012 (UTC)

Photo manipulation

Help for (or attention to) others, please -- and perhaps a reprimand for myself.

Was I perhaps too bitey here?

I'm writing in that diff about one of a set of edits that seem to be related to this project of the University of Toronto. (I hadn't heard of this project until today.) English is perhaps not the first language of the particular contributor, but I'd take that as another reason for caution in editing. (Although of course WP has "WP:BOLD" -- an idea that's meant well but is often disastrous in its implementation.)

The particular writer seems to be under User:Bryangopaul (contributions), but the "instructor" herself (the person who I infer is heading all this) seems not to have a username.

This may be unwikipediaish of me, but while I have considerable tolerance for unfamiliarity with WP's sometimes arcane guidelines and markup (and of course for awkward wording), I do expect effort befitting a university if (as I infer here) university credits are on offer.

Another pair of eyes on that article, please. And perhaps also on the other articles in this ambitious U Toronto project. (Meanwhile, I have to turn off my computer and attend to WP-unrelated business.) -- Hoary (talk) 02:13, 28 March 2012 (UTC)

I've dropped a note at the campus ambassadors' talk pages pointing out your concern. Regards, TransporterMan (TALK) | DR goes to Wikimania! 13:47, 28 March 2012 (UTC)

EmergingArtists

Dear Editor,

This piece which I sent for inclusion in wikipedia have been rejected more than twice. This is site started by an established art gallery to create a platform for many new artists in India who has no access to display thier works. I will be so happy if you can tell me why this piece has been rejected.

Thank you and will appreciate your feedback.

warm regards, Hoihnu

Submitted article

www.EmergingArtists.in is an initiative of Art Alive Gallery, New Delhi to promote young and emerging talent in fine arts from all over India. It is an online art gallery that provides a platform for young artists to showcase their art to audience worldwide and for collectors to spot young talent and acquire their works at reasonable prices. Launched in January 2012, the site has drawn a good response from artists. As of now, there are over 600 works on display by more than 100 artists from different parts of the country.

www.EmergingArtists.in provides a platform for innovative, challenging, imaginatively provocative and experimental art. The submitted works are vetted by the site’s panel of experts and works are displayed only after it goes through a selection process. The website encourages artists of all genres to submit their work and get market feedback, something vital for their own growth. One of the main objectives of the online gallery is also to bridge the gap in the market that exists between emerging young talent and potential art investors from across the globe.

Segregated into different genres of works, the gallery features separate sections on paintings, mix-media, digital prints, sculptures, tribal art and photography accompanied with professional details of the artists. The site showcases an interesting kaleidoscope of works – abstract, narrative, figurative, experimental, etc. One can view a variety of works with fresh imagery and ideas as these artists are young and come from diverse cultural backgrounds from all over India. Some of the works are intense yet beautiful while some are fresh but promising. In all, it is a huge art bank with varied works in assorted forms for all pockets. There are also intriguing tribal motifs in bright acrylic on canvas depicting an almost forgotten culture of certain communities in the country. The site is easy to navigate and the works on display rotate regularly in order to show the wide gamut of art on display. The website also has a category for the “Artist of the Month” which is announced every month based on the work selected by our jury members. EmergingArtists.in plans to organise an annual showing of outstanding works selected by a jury of eminent art critics and senior artists. The first such show would be held in August 2012. To encourage outstanding talent, the site would also institute an award and a scholarships for deserving young artists.

— Preceding unsigned comment added by Hoihnu (talk • contribs) 12:13, 28 March 2012‎(UTC)

You don't seem to have created any articles so I'm not sure what page you're refering to however, if it was the content above, it will have been deleted because it is overly promotional and does not demonstrate any notability--Jac16888 ^Talk 11:18, 28 March 2012 (UTC)

See Pravraes (talk · contribs) and the deleted article EmergingArtists.in. It's been deleted thrice by CSD and is now salted. I'm presuming that Hoihnu and Pravraes are the same person. —/Mendaliv/^2¢/_Δ's/ 13:44, 28 March 2012 (UTC)

Also note that Art Alive Gallery, New Delhi, an article created by Pravraes, may need some scrutiny. —/Mendaliv/^2¢/_Δ's/ 13:51, 28 March 2012 (UTC)

Add comments related to: Maslow's hierarchy of needs

Maslow's hierarchy of needs theory consists of (1) lower-order needs (physiological, safety, and social needs) and (2) higher-order needs (self-esteem and self-actualization). However, this lower-order and higher-order need classification is not universal, but quite dynamic due to individual, cultural, and environmental factors in the region or country. Further, the changes regarding the importance or satisfaction of needs may also vary depending on culture and stress (e.g., stress caused by the Persian Gulf War when comparing peacetime vs. wartime of human needs).

Tang, T. L. P., & West, W. B. 1997. The importance of human needs during peacetime, retrospective peacetime, and the Persian Gulf War. International Journal of Stress Management, 4 (1): 47-62.

Tang, T. L. P., & Ibrahim, A. H. S. 1998. Importance of human needs during retrospective peacetime and the Persian Gulf War: Mideastern employees. International Journal of Stress Management, 5 (1): 25-37.

Tang, T. L. P., Ibrahim, A. H. S., & West, W. B. 2002. Effects of war-related stress on the satisfaction of human needs: The United States and the Middle East. International Journal of Management Theory and Practices, 3 (1): 35-53.

— Preceding unsigned comment added by Professortlptangmtsu (talk • contribs) 22:16, 28 March 2012‎

If you have suggestions for the article, please post them on the article's talk page, Talk:Maslow's hierarchy of needs. Since the suggestions involve journal articles that you wrote yourself, you should read WP:SELFCITE. -- John of Reading (talk) 07:05, 29 March 2012 (UTC)

about me

Hello,

Can i ask to wikipedia for to write about me ??? Ismaël Devènes / Ismael Devenes, speedskier world cup.. ?

thanks for your help. Best regards

Ismaël — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ziziski (talk • contribs) 08:54, 29 March 2012 (UTC)

You should make this request for a new article at Wikipedia:Requested articles/Sports#Skiing. However, a quick search for sources turned up (besides your FIS record) only your crash at the 2010 World Cup. Are you sure you want an article with that as the main content? Spinning Spark 11:53, 29 March 2012 (UTC)

Pieces of a Dream past band members

Resolved

– Unionhawk ^Talk ^E-mail 16:15, 4 April 2012 (UTC)

I have been a past member for Pieces of a dream for 10 years and I do not see my name in the list of past bandmebers. I also wrote 3 songs that landed on 2 of their cds. "You and I" (Ahead to the Past/Blue Note Records) "Your Love" and "Triflin" (Acquainted with the Night) my name is Cherie Mitchell I played keyboards along with James Lloyd You can verify on Pieces of a Dreams website or google www.sweetcherie.com Kindly make adjustments. Thank you — Preceding unsigned comment added by Shashebo (talk • contribs) 14:06, 4 April 2012 (UTC)

Done (after checking verifiability) — TransporterMan (TALK) | DR goes to Wikimania! 15:21, 4 April 2012 (UTC)

Re article with major factual problems

Discussion moved

– To Talk:Bilquis Sheikh#Recommended deletion of almost whole section on supposed 'Personal Background'. Spinning Spark 09:45, 6 April 2012 (UTC)

Dear Sirs There is an article Bilquis Sheikh, which has many factual problems and gives an entirely false and made up account of the family background/origins of the subject. I have already commented on the article itself and would also please like to draw yoour attention to the fact that even some of the references/citations given therein are fake. For example, regarding the subject's parentage, the memoirs of late Shaukat Hayat Khan are cited (p 17 etc) but no where is the subject of the article mentioned, only Shaukat Hyat mentioning his own birth, background etc. I would be very grateful, as a member of the Hayat family of Wah, if this matter could be please refered to a neutral editor who may check each reference and each point of this article. Thank you. 39.54.63.228 (talk) 09:20, 5 April 2012 (UTC)Yasir Hyat Khan (Wah family)

Re Bilquis Sheikh

Dear Editors at Wikipedia, I am neither an editor nor a regular user; but I have already tried to make some complaints regarding this suubject or article, as mentioned above. It is trying to misrepresent facts on the basis of some citations or references that in fact dont mention the subject at all, and claiming that the subject is someone she wasnt, please. For detailed comments and explanations, please see the article and its associated pages. I would be very grateful as a member of the Hayat family of Wah if the whole section wrongly purporting to be closely connected to one of our clan elders be either removed or changed/amended, please. Thank you. I must apologize for my lack of proper organization of hos things, requests etc operate here. Many regards, 39.54.123.210 (talk) 12:10, 5 April 2012 (UTC)Yasir Hyat Khan

Another editor is working on the article and has made some comments on the talk page. You should discuss the issues there first before trying to involve others. I see you have also tried to request a third opinion. You should not request help on multiple forums at the same time; this leads to confusion and duplicated effort. In any case, you have not correctly initiated a third opinion. The template goes on the talk page, not the article, and the dispute must be listed at WP:3O before anyone will pick it up. If you need to request a third opinion again in the future, please carefully read the instructions on the page. Spinning Spark 09:40, 6 April 2012 (UTC)

any assistance?

im a newbie and im having difficulty editing on the article "al-ahbash"..the article is not neutral and some editors are preventing any contribution by other editors..it needs serious expansion as it is a stub...how can i file a dispute resolution effectively? Baboon43 (talk) 01:12, 6 April 2012 (UTC)

What is it that you want to dispute, article content or editor behaviour? Spinning Spark 10:11, 6 April 2012 (UTC)

Seems discussion is happening at Talk:Al-Ahbash, but may be stalled/deadlocked. Could be a matter better suited for WP:ECCN given the flavor of the dispute as it continues. —/Mendaliv/^2¢/_Δ's/ 13:04, 6 April 2012 (UTC)

its both article content and editor behaviour..ok ill try out eccn. Baboon43 (talk) 18:30, 6 April 2012 (UTC)

Unclear why this is being removed?

Answered

– Jezhotwells (talk) 14:50, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

Hi,

I am new to Wikipedia and still trying to figure everything out, so please bare w/ me and thank you for your patience!

I am attempting to add information to a few articles, including Vegetarianism by Country. The source is a verifiable, published policy paper. Here is one of the additions, exactly as I had it written:

Livestock has also been identified as a primary contributor of the greenhouse gas, methane, which has 21 times the global warming potential as carbon dioxide. ^[1]

MacDonald, Mia; Iyer, Sangamithra (December 2011). "Brighter Green Veg or Nonveg: India at the Crossroads" (PDF). Brighter Green. Retrieved March 27, 2012.

One admin on the article's talk page said this was okay. But it was deleted by another admin, and this admin told me, " We don't permit single purpose conflict of interest accounts to canvas links to sites, regardless of the site. If you continue to do this, you will be blocked"

I've attempted to get assistance from the admin who removed my edit, but haven't been able to get much help and am still unclear about the issue.

Obviously I am not attempting to go against Wikipedia guidelines and do not want to be blocked. I presume this admin stated my account is a single purpose account because I have only yet sourced from this single article on a few different pages. However, it's a verifiable, published article with information that I believe can add to the content of Wikipedia and I would like to offer it to the public. Why, exactly, are my additions not being allowed? And why, exactly, is this source not being allowed?

And for additional info, I am not the author of the paper, nor do I work for the organization.

Thank you very much for your help! Jlanea4 (talk) 18:28, 2 April 2012 (UTC)

People are discouraged from adding external links to partisan or agenda-pushing sources. Your only purpose here appears to be to advertise this paper. --Orange Mike | Talk 18:40, 2 April 2012 (UTC)

Thank you for the response. My purpose here is to get the information from the paper out to the public- not to advertise the paper. Additionally, this paper is unbiased- not agenda-pushing, as can be seen from the paper itself. What I have attempted to add are factual, unbiased statements. Will you please offer some assistance as to how I am able to offer information to Wikipedia and the public without giving an appearance that I am advertising a paper? I am still unclear as to why my citation is appearing to be advertisement, when other credible citations are not. What makes this source different than other credible, published papers? Thank you so much for your help!Jlanea4 (talk) 20:22, 2 April 2012 (UTC)

This paper comes from a site that whose purpose is to push to influence policy and therefore fails WP:NPOV. It has not been published in a peer reviewed journal, and therefore fails to meet WP:RS. Any contribution to Wikipedia citing this as a source therefore fails to meet WP:V. It is also not suitable as an external link failing WP:EL. Several other editors have already directed you to some of these policies and guidelines: please now take the trouble to read them. There is really no shortage of reliable sources from books and peer reviewed journals if you really want to write something about greenhouse gases from cows. Spinning Spark 21:27, 2 April 2012 (UTC)

Plot

Answered

– Jezhotwells (talk) 14:52, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

Hi! I have been here for a request for someone to write the plot for Lure of the Temptress a month ago or so. Well, I managed to write that myself, but that's because that's a 1990 1,5 hour long game. This time, a friend of mine wrote the plot for In Cold Blood. While I think he did great for a WikiNewbie, it is a bit overlly detailed and long, and I shortened just a bit, but I was wondering if someone with more Plot-experience could help me out. - You don't really need to be familiar with video game article editing for this. All the Best, --Khanassassin ☪ 12:43, 3 April 2012 (UTC)

Hold on a second, the only recent major edits to the article were from your account. Permitting others to use your account is against policy, and is a form of sockpuppetry (see WP:ROLE). —/Mendaliv/^2¢/_Δ's/ 11:00, 4 April 2012 (UTC)

Back to the point of this request, however, I agree that the plot summary for that game is overly detailed and needs shortening. From the looks of things, the plot summary details every storyline task in the game, which is just too much. The video game article style guidelines don't provide much guidance beyond advising us to avoid trivial details, but just going by that we can clip out a lot of what's in the ICB plot summary (e.g., in the paragraph on the "land train", noting that there are five cars). A good length for a plot summary for a game like this would probably be 2-5 paragraphs. —/Mendaliv/^2¢/_Δ's/ 11:05, 4 April 2012 (UTC)

He did not use my account. He re-played the game, wrote down the plot in Word, then he send it to me and I added it to the article. --Khanassassin ☪ 12:16, 4 April 2012 (UTC)

@Mendaliv: Isn't the real problem here not puppetry, but a copyvio? Khanassassin has admitted that he has introduced someone else's work into an article. While I don't doubt that he's telling the absolute truth that he did so with the author's permission, I don't think that kind of informal permission is enough to satisfy Wikipedia's copyright policy unless the author grants permission directly to Wikipedia via one of the methods set out in the copyright policy. What do you think? Regards, TransporterMan (TALK) | DR goes to Wikimania! 15:34, 4 April 2012 (UTC)

Me and a man (he doesn't want me to reveal his name, becuase he says he wants to stay "behind the curtains") - I mean, really? You need that permission for some guy I know on Facebook to let me use the text? Which he wrote in Word in the last week or so because I asked him to do so? God. I came here to get help on the plot... It's more "editor annoyance" than "editor assistance." --Khanassassin ☪ 16:06, 4 April 2012 (UTC)

Yeah, copyright is one of those areas, like biographical information about living persons (due to defamation issues) and a couple of others, that Wikipedia is very conservative about due to the possibility of liability. Since under the US law and most international law everything a person writes is automatically copyrighted as soon as the ink leaves their pen or their fingers strike the keys or — well, you get the point — under Wikipedia's terms of use stuff you grant a Creative Commons Attribution-Sharealike 3.0 Unported License (CC-BY-SA) and the GNU Free Documentation License license for everything you yourself write in Wikipedia, but even that creates interesting situations such as even restricting how things can be copied from one article to another. Let's see what Mendaliv thinks, but I'm pretty sure there's a problem. Regards, TransporterMan (TALK) | DR goes to Wikimania! 17:35, 4 April 2012 (UTC)

I only brought up the socking issue as it leaped out at me, and granting others access to your account is just a bad idea. But since I see that's not the case here, feel free to ignore what I said. =) As to the copyright issue... IANAL (yet), but while the other guy may have implied permission by sending you the text to publish, Wikipedia's own policies and guidelines go beyond the bare legal requirements (see WP:COPYOTHERS and WP:COPY generally). It is my understanding as a layman that, although previously unpublished, copyright is still held by the actual creator of the content, and would therefore require permission to be secured (see WP:IOWN). This is the case even if we feel there is no credible legal threat. Furthermore, any subsequent edits to that article wind up carrying the taint of being a derivative work of that possibly improperly licensed material. For Wikipedia to achieve its goals, the material we contribute must be properly licensed. There is no presumption that what your friend wrote is in the public domain, therefore, attribution is also necessary. This may merit input from the people at the copyright problems board, as it may ultimately require revision deletion of the text. —/Mendaliv/^2¢/_Δ's/ 19:32, 4 April 2012 (UTC)

posting interview videos

Answered

– Jezhotwells (talk) 14:53, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

Dear Wikipedia,

I work for the Leon H. Charney Media Foundation. A lot of the video material we have on archives are in-depth interviews of politicians and military men like Ezer Weizman and Peter Malkin. I tried posting this as an external link http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PP7g4fQXvsE&feature=relmfu on Peter Malkin's entry but my addition was revised.

Will you please let me know how do i post our videos that will will not violate any copyright laws.

thanks!

honeylemonz

Hi there. Your edit was undone by a bot, which is a computer program that doesn't evaluate the content of the links it removes. I've looked at the site and I think the interview is an acceptable external link. If you have the interviews hosted on the Foundations website, that would help keep the bot from undoing links.

It would be best, if you have not already done so, if you read our guidelines for editors with conflicts of interest. If your additions are removed by someone other than XLinkbot (you can check in the page history at the top to find out who edited after you), you should suggest adding the interview on the article talk page, but you're free to just undo the edits that XLinkbot makes Thank you for sharing your organization's material with us. Danger ^{High voltage!} 22:01, 4 April 2012 (UTC)

Please assist with edits that others - in particular one editor - keeps on reverting ("Lego" Wikipedia page)

Answered

– Discussion occurring on Talk:Lego--Unionhawk ^Talk ^E-mail 15:56, 17 April 2012 (UTC)

Hello

On the Lego Wikipedia page, I seek to correct a popular myth that the concept that we now know as "Lego" (blocks) originated not in Denmark but in England.

There is a Wikipedia page that accurately describes the origins of interlocking blocks, that was copied by Lego. This page can be found by searching Wikipedia for "Kiddicraft".

One particular editor keeps on reverting my respectful, accurate edits. Their username is Saddhiyama.

My goal is information on the Lego page that accurately details the origins of interlocking blocks now known as Lego. I am suspicious that there are commercial interests that seek to ensure that the myth, that the blocks were invented by Lego in Denmark, continues to be repeated and believed.

Thank you for your consideration.

Robin— Preceding unsigned comment added by ‎Pohutukawa (talk • contribs)

You should be initiating a discussion at Talk:Lego. There exists an editing cycle that should be followed at this point, Bold, Revert, Discuss. You made a bold edit, you were reverted, now you should discuss. reverting further is only likely to end in a block. You should not presume you are right, other editors obviously disagree with your edits, go to the talk page and gain a consensus before editing the article further. Яehevkor ✉ 10:46, 14 April 2012 (UTC)

Thank you. We are now at Talk:Lego and will try to achieve an acceptable consensus. --Pohutukawa (talk) 19:53, 14 April 2012 (UTC)

Aamir Liaquat Hussain

I plan to cut out his degree, video, and lynching controversies and compile them all under one section Controversies and Criticisms. Since this is a WP:BLP I just need some brief input on this from a more experienced editor. Thanks. The Determinator p t c 20:01, 12 May 2012 (UTC)

Controversies sections are generally frowned upon. You may get better input at WP:BLPN. Jezhotwells (talk) 23:23, 12 May 2012 (UTC)

How to do major revision of article?

Answered

– Jezhotwells (talk) 20:53, 20 May 2012 (UTC)

The above article has evolved with incremental changes over many years and many editors. It is built around a small computer programming example that is hard to change without affecting most of the article. On May 9, I published a draft of a major reworking of the article, with changes to content, example, tutorial style, and organization. The change to example led me entirely rewrite all the existing content instead of attempting to thread in isolated sentences from the original article. But it comes across as throwing away all the work of prior editors.

One former user (likely an anon editor) has objected to this entire replacement.

Until there is some community agreement that the new article is an improvement, the old article should remain easily visible. One question I have, is how to neutrally have both versions of this article online for awhile; not as a permanent fork, but as a transition aid? The method I'm now using is an external-style url link to Wikipedia's change history version of the article. Is there a less kludgy way to do that? Also, this precludes the original article from evolving further when the rewritten article owns the article title and history. That might be better done as (hopefully temporary) fork of the article. What are the naming conventions for that? Which version, if either, should be given default placement at the orginal article title page?

thanks, DBSand (talk) 18:11, 13 May 2012 (UTC)

The early versions are kept in the article history, creating forks is not a good approach. resolve your differences on the talk page or raise a request for comment. Jezhotwells (talk) 19:03, 13 May 2012 (UTC)

Yes, agreed, forks in mainspace are against WP:CFORK and draft forks elsewhere can create licencing problems. I have explained the reasons for this in more detail on your talk page. Spinning Spark 23:31, 13 May 2012 (UTC)

Question about a living persons biography needing content

Answered

– Jezhotwells (talk) 20:54, 20 May 2012 (UTC)

Hello, My name is Rich and I am fairly new here, but have been doing some reading and studying. I am really interested in advancing my skills and contributing to the Wikipedia cause. I found a project I could work on for practice, but I need to ask a couple direct questions from an editor first.

The biography is of a professional skateboarder named John Rattray and he is a friend of mine and I would like to help him get sources like Wikipedia updated regarding his long career. I have a ton of updated information covering around 25 years of his famed career ready to go.

Should I copy and past his current bio page into my sand box and work on it there, or how do you recommend I approach this?

How do I structure the biography, is there a template to use, or do I build it as I go? More advice would be great here.

Do you want to see my information from John Rattray in order for you to help me better, or will you watch, or walk me through this first edit?

I think that about sums up my questions for now. I do need some guidance for sure though, because John is some what of a celebrity skateboard professional in the skateboarding circles and I want to do it correctly and professionally.

Thank you and I look forward to meeting you soon.

Rich Vansman1 (talk) 06:07, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

It is fine to copy the article to your sandbox if you do not wish to work on the live article, but please note a couple of things: firstly, even in sandbox material about living persons must comply with the WP:BLP policy; secondly, it is possible other editors have added to the article in the meantime so when you paste it back to the live article you should check the article history to make sure you are not unintentionally overwriting new material. You might want to take a look at the reliable sources guideline if you have not done so already. There are some guidelines for writing biographies at WikiProject Biography but the best templates to use are biography articles that have already been promoted to Featured Article status (you will find a list on that page, just pick a relevant one) which are considered our very best articles. There is no need for anyone to approve or watch over your edits (unless you want them to), the convention here is to Be bold. I think that covers everything you asked, Spinning Spark 10:29, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

As a friend of the subject, you should also be aware of WP:COI. Spinning Spark 10:34, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

Good quality photographs to offer.

Answered

– Jezhotwells (talk) 20:55, 20 May 2012 (UTC)

Is there a simple way of offering photographs for use on Wikipedia? I have numerous good quality photographs of aircraft in particular that would be of benefit to articles. My current interest comes from learning that my photography of the N1K2-J Shiden Kai aircraft offers an excellent photo of one of only four remaining WWII Japanese in the world.

The image is quite large, can be reduced and the watermark removed.

Here is a link to my High Dynamic Range photo of the N1K2-J Shiden Kai : http://www.panoramio.com/photo_explorer#view=photo&position=0&with_photo_id=72114471&order=date_desc&user=6088756

Dikjenkins1 (talk) 16:08, 15 May 2012 (UTC)

High quality images are always welcome. Please upload them to Commons so that they are available to all Wikimedia projects. Hope this helps.--ukexpat (talk) 16:44, 15 May 2012 (UTC)

After that you can draw attention to them on the talk page of relevant articles, or just insert them directly in the article yourself. Spinning Spark 16:49, 15 May 2012 (UTC)

^ MacDonald, Mia; Iyer, Sangamithra (December 2011). "Brighter Green Veg or Nonveg: India at the Crossroads" (PDF). Brighter Green. Retrieved March 27, 2012.

[1] MacDonald, Mia; Iyer, Sangamithra (December 2011). "Brighter Green Veg or Nonveg: India at the Crossroads" (PDF). Brighter Green. Retrieved March 27, 2012.

[1]