Wikipedia:Help desk/Archives/2008 April 26

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April 26

User Talkpage

Can a user remove discussions from their own talk page? This includes warnings given to the user and problems with that user? --→ Ãlways Ãhëad (talk) 00:04, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

In short, yes. The removal is taken to mean that the person has read the messages in question. --Bfigura ^(talk) 00:30, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

Yes. We can delete text of any kind from our User and User Talk pages. This could be done because the subject matter is no longer current, we no longer want comments from some other person visible on our page, or because the page(s) are cluttered and we want to do some housekeeping. Dolphin51 (talk) 01:23, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

You might want to archive though, for easier orientation. The Dominator^Talk_Edits 02:13, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

Question about moving and splitting an article

Hi all. There's an article at Unconventional warfare that needs to be moved to a more precise and accurate title. However, I think there is some consensus to retain an older version (perhaps this one) of the article at the present name. What's the proper way to split off the current version to a new title, while maintaining an older version at the current title? Is this even possible to do while maintaining all the contribs and GFDL compliance? Thoughts? --Bfigura ^(talk) 00:29, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

I don't think so, moving a page moves the page history and deletes all page history records at the old page. There should be a way to do it... Calvin 1998 ^(t-c) 00:44, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

You appear to be considering splitting the article: see Wikipedia:Summary style for the process. --— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk - 01:04, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

Image use

I know image copyrights are complicated, but does anyone know if the following images qualify for use in the article Harold Dodds?

[1] Specifically, the second image (the one with Truman). Is this public domain because it's in the National Archives?

[2] How about this? Same guy as the first image. This is most likely copywritten, but can we use it through fair use? He's dead, so it would be hard to get a free image. Also, it's not of the best quality.

Thanks in advance for the help. Paragon12321 (talk) 03:35, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

How to set the wiki logo at the upper left corner?

I have a wiki myself. Its logo on the left upper corner says: "Set $wgLogo to the URL path to your own logo image". Now, how do I change it to my desired logo? BnaiBrithChai (talk) 03:39, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

It sounds like you downloaded the MediaWiki software. You will need to learn your way around all the material under WP:EIW#MediaWiki; the Wikipedia Help desk is not the appropriate place to ask questions about wikis that run MediaWiki other than Wikipedia. You can specify the logo graphic with mw:Manual:$wgLogo in your mw:Manual:LocalSettings.php. --Teratornis (talk) 04:13, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

Deleted pages disappear from a users contribution list

When a page is deleted it no longer appears in a user's contribution list. This makes it hard to tell if a particular user is being abusive by repeated creating unwelcome pages (eg. attack pages). I know this is not the proper place to suggest a change so I was wondering where is the proper place to suggest that a record of deleted pages stay attached to users. Or perhaps such a thing exists already and I don't know? Jester5x5 (talk) 03:52, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

Special:DeletedContributions is where administrators can see deleted contributions of users. Usually if someone is creating unwelcome pages, there will be record of the notices on the users talk page. Hope that helps. « Gonzo fan2007 (talk ♦ contribs) 03:57, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

Help find Merge template

Resolved

We use Template:Merge to suggest merging an article by holding a talk page discussion, but I'm wondering if we have a specific template to tag articles that have had consensus for a merge (on AfD, for instance) in cases where no one knowledgeable about the subject is available to perform the merge yet. I thought there was one somewhere, but i cannot find it. Please help! --PeaceNT (talk) 04:51, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

Ta-da. {{Afd-mergeto}} and {{Afd-mergefrom}}. Hersfold ^(t/a/c) 04:57, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

Many thanks, Brett. :) --PeaceNT (talk) 05:04, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

oops, another thing I'm confused. Why aren't articles tagged with {{Afd-mergeto}} automatically put into some category, like Category:Articles to be merged for {{Merge}}. Please look at Land(e)scape for example, I don't understand how other editors may find out about this page and do the merge later? --PeaceNT (talk) 05:28, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

Because it's one of those god-awful Hidden categories which means the category name does not appear at the bottom of the Land(e)scape article, but if you look on Category:Articles to be merged you will see the article name there. --Teratornis (talk) 07:02, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

Ah, I see. :) Thank you, Teratornis! --PeaceNT (talk) 07:20, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

You can see hidden cats by enabling it in the "misc" section of "my preferences". DuncanHill (talk) 08:14, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

Done, thanks for the tip. Much appreciated. :) --PeaceNT (talk) 04:18, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

disabling search suggestion popups without login

Hi. Is there a way to prevent AJAX search suggestion popups without logging in? I don't log in for routine lookups, and being assailed by a popup of someone else's ideas of what I may or may not be trying to look up every time I press a key is like someone interrupting me trying to finish my sentence after every syllable I speak. Or like trying to use Microsoft Word with Clippy. I caught Google experimenting with this one day, but they also provided a preference which generated a reusable cookie (without logging in). If not, is there a discussion of this feature you could direct me to? Thanks. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.252.11.32 (talk) 05:24, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

Unfortunately we don't have a feature for this. The only way to disable the Ajax search suggestions is in Special:Preferences while logged in. I suppose you could write, say, a Greasemonkey script that would disable these, though. Calvin 1998 ^(t-c) 05:46, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

Just asked the developers on IRC, those responding do not believe there is such a feature currently, but (independently) also suggested cookies as a possible solution. I submitted a feature request at bugzilla:13848. – Luna Santin (talk) 05:56, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

For what it's worth (most probably, not much) I almost never use Wikipedia's built-in search feature. Instead I added a link to search Wikipedia with Google to my Firefox bookmark toolbar. So I haven't really noticed this new Ajax stuff that several people have complained about. Google tends to stay clean and simple; I can ignore the frivolous changes to Google's logo. I'd rather see Google stop playing with its logo and put all its resources into Google.org and save us from Peak oil and Global warming. --Teratornis (talk) 06:41, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

Yes, because artists are very helpful in issues of chemistry and biology. ;) -- Kesh (talk) 15:38, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

Good point. Google should donate its artists' time to make illustrations for Wikipedia's science articles, instead of having them endlessly redesign the Google search page logo. --Teratornis (talk) 19:17, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

Thanks, all! Especially for submitting a feature request; I'll keep an eye out for it. The Google idea is interesting. I fell into the habit of hitting the Wikipedia button provided by ToolbarButtons (Firefox extension), which I reset to the Search page to avoid the load time of the Main page (fonts?), but I could just as easily reset it to Google. Which brings up another idea -- having an alternate, more minimalist version of the Search page.... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.252.11.32 (talk) 20:44, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

If you make an account, you could design your own user subpage with search links, or possibly even search forms with Inputbox (however, Inputbox doesn't seem to provide much flexibility). --Teratornis (talk) 19:17, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

Formatting problem

Resolved

How can I fix the overlap between my new section and the infobox in Otto Kruger? Also, I deleted "///u" from the infobox - did that have any function? Clarityfiend (talk) 06:16, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

Maybe try shortening the text that's overlapping or thinning the infobox a little, if that's possible. WhiteFox (talk) 06:20, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

I suggest writing some more material about the subject, to go before the Otto Kruger#Partial filmography section. Surely anyone with that many films must have a few paragraphs of biographical material. --Teratornis (talk) 06:45, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

If someone adds a couple more sections, there will be a table of contents, which will fill the space to the left of the infobox. —teb728 t c 06:53, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

By the way, that's not overlapping, it's simply pushing the content to the left. I do believe there is a section in the Manual of Style about this. Calvin 1998 ^(t-c) 06:58, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

I've taken WhiteFox's advice. Thanks all. Clarityfiend (talk) 17:34, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

Contradictory information in article - okay to edit it out?

I was following links and looked at the article about Katie Price a/k/a Jordan.

The first sentence under "Early Life" reads: "Jordan was born as a male, but decided to become a female after realizing he loved men."

Later, the article mentions something she did while "heavily pregnant". Also, the biographical information lists her birth name as "Katrina".

Clearly, something is wrong here. The reference to her being born a male is obviously wrong, and perhaps was inserted by an editor as a joke.

My question: How does one go about removing it? I've tried to find in the FAQ information what the procedure is for simply deleting part of an article, but I'm not sure I understand it.

Thanks for any feedback on this, or if anyone wishes to delete the reference to save time, please do so.

Here's the link to the article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jordan_(Katie_Price) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Bibico (talk • contribs) 09:24, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

The first quote was recently added vandalism. If you click on the history tab at the top of the page, you can see a list of all changes made to the article. By comparing article revisions, you can identify when the change in question was made. You can also choose to undo a revision if you feel it is appropriate to do so. In more general terms, if information on a page is not sourced or cited, you can either remove it or flag it for attention, either by placing {{unreferenced}} at the top of a page or section, or by adding {{fact}} at the end of a questionable sentence. Hope this helps! Gazimoff ^Write_Read 09:38, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

I've found even more vandalism on that page, thanks for drawing our attention to it. I've put a request for page protection on there. If you're still having problems with reverting vandalism, drop a request on my talk page, and I'll see about giving you a more detailed instruction on how to revert. StephenBuxton (talk) 10:19, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

Two pages

I created a page about the Catalan Atlas. It is also called the Atlas Catalan. I think I created two pages! Could you please let me know how to get rid of Atlas Catalan and leave Atlas Catalan and redirect Atlas Catalan to Catalan Atlas. Thanks. ItemSeven (talk) —Preceding comment was added at 10:46, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

Four minutes after you created it, DeadEyeArrow redirected Catalan Atlas to Atlas Catalan. If Catalan Atlas is the proper title, you'll have to get an admin to move Atlas Catalan to the right place. 131.111.8.98 (talk) 10:54, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

special page: users listed by edits

For any given wikipedia, how can i find a list of users ordered by the number of edits they've made? 172.206.184.6 (talk) 10:55, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

Hello, and thanks for your question! This page lists all the editors on the English Wikipedia by their number of edits. However, some editors are not included on this list as they have asked to opt-out, so it is not entirely accurate. The list was last updated on March 11. For other Wikipedias, look at the sidebar on that page, and under "Languages", you can find links to similar lists on other language Wikipedias. Happy editing, EJF (talk) 11:04, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

Why doesn't the main page FA get protected?

Im sure theres been a discussion about this before, can someone point me to it? I just dont see the reason why we should give people an open invitation to vandalise such a great article. It just doesn't make sense. It should be fully protected for those 24hrs because since its featured already there wouldn't be any reason for users to change it. If so they can wait until after its removed from the front page. Thanks Roadrunnerz45 (talk) 12:40, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Main Page featured article protection for the guideline, and Wikipedia:For and Against TFA protection for an essay. It's only semi-protected (full protection is generally prohibited; just because it's featured, it doesn't mean it's perfect) when it has an unusually high level of vandalism. From my point of view, a lot of useful edits also come from IPs and new users, but that's the link you need. PeterSymonds | talk 12:44, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

Also see WP:EIW#Main for all the details about the Main Page and which parts get protected. --Teratornis (talk) 19:19, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

help with the ref and cite tags at Skunk Ape

Hi. I'm talking about the Myakka photographs section, look under edit, I need help fixing the cite tags which were originally added by Loren Coleman. Is there a way to keep both ref tags the same ref name, but with each of the ref cite tags having two titles and links, so that at the bottom it displays both the Letter and the Myakka links? If so, how would this be done, and if not then what is the best compromise? Thanks. ~AH1^(TCU) 14:02, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

There's only one URL parameter in {{citation}}. I think the best alternative would be to add two references; one for each title and link that you want to cite. You won't be able to have the same ref name, but it shouldn't be necessary if it's a new citation. Would that help? PeterSymonds | talk 14:29, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

User Namespace?

Resolved

Why are the articles User:Crazy4126 and User_talk:Crazy4126 in user namespace? They should be in article namespace, I think, but I don't want to move them, for there may be something I don't know about which is the reason for them being in user namespace. Thanks, Zrs 12 (talk) 18:07, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

They are copies of the mainspace articles Amphipoda and Mammoth. Some users copy articles to their user space, for example to work on changes without going live with them. But they should say where they copied from in the edit summary to satisfy the GFDL, and user subpages would be better for this, especially better than a user talk page. PrimeHunter (talk) 18:33, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

Alright, thanks. Zrs 12 (talk) 18:39, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

posting a company on wikipedia

Can I create a page giving information about my company? I've heard that if so, this page needs to be created by a third party and not someone employed by the company...is this true?

132.177.78.77 (talk) 18:19, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:FAQ/Business. PrimeHunter (talk) 18:35, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

You are correct, 132.177.78.77 - this is to prevent conflict of interest where companies "massage" their pages into an advert, or remove any negative information. Also, your company needs to meet standards for notability with reliable, third-party sources (ie not your own press releases, though these are fine to give information, they cannot be used to establish your own notability). Hope this helps. -mattbuck (Talk) 08:00, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

help with recovering an accidental deletion of text & image

hello, i accidentally deleted some text and image. would you please tell me how to recover them? Blake Regis (talk) 18:41, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

Click the "history" tab (to the right of the "edit this page" tab), and click the date of the version of the page before you removed the text (should be the second one, otherwise it's probably already been taken care of). Then click "edit this page", fill out the edit summary box with something like "Reverted mistaken edit" or something like that, and hit save. Calvin 1998 ^(t-c) 18:46, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

Font in signature

How do you change the font in your signature? Nick4404 yada yada yada What have I done? 20:08, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

In the link, surround the text behind the pipe (the |) with <font> tags, like [[User:Nick4404|<font color="red">Nick4404</font>]] which makes Nick4404. --Calvin 1998 ^(t-c) 20:17, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

The easiest way to do so is to create the Signature to look just the way you like it in the Wikipedia:Sandbox and then simply paste the code of the page in the Signature field on Special:Preferences. And you really should check the box saying "Sign my name exactly as shown." or "Treat as WikiText" or anything like that, it's easier. Trust me. — SuNotísima^Talk 13:47, 31 October 2009 (UTC)

User Assistance

I'm in need of a user who is well versed in Wikipedia's policies on page structure, prose, grammar, spelling, etc, to help me clean-up a page. Is there a specific place to ask for such assistance, or does anyone know of an editor who would be willing to help? The Clawed One (talk) 21:55, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

Hello The Clawed One. Does this page help you? Adam (Manors) 22:03, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Editor assistance. PrimeHunter (talk) 22:05, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

And maybe Wikipedia:WikiProject League of Copyeditors. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 21:13, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

Akamai University

Dear Wikipedia, We wish to cooperate in correcting a misdirected link within the Wikipedia Encyclopedia.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akamai_University automatically links to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenwich_University

Akamai University is a federally tax-exempt 510c3 nonprofit organization. Akamai is NOT in any way legally associated with, merged with, affiliated with, or a successor of Greenwich University. We have been in operation for six years operating in good standing within the State of Hawaii.

We wish to have our own page on Wikipedia.

Please provide us with that opportunity.

Your kind instructions will guide us to begin submission of the scripting of the page we wish to submit.

Kind regards,

Douglass Capogrossi, Ph.D. President Akamai University 193 Kino`ole Street Hilo, Hawaii 96720 USA <contact information removed> http://www.akamaiuniversity.us

.Akamai... dedicated to betterment of the human condition. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Drcapogrossi (talk • contribs) 22:22, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

You must wait until someone else decides that your university is notable enough for Wikipedia. The Wikipedia conflict of interest policy discourages editors from creating articles about themselves or something they may have a conflict of interest on. And,
Please sign your post by typing four tildes (~~~~) or clicking the signature button above the edit box (as shown to the left ←). Do NOT sign in articles.
Calvin 1998 ^(t-c) 22:32, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

Please do not post contact information on Wikipedia. Bots will pick it up and your e-mail address will be inundated with spam. Thank you! Paragon12321 (talk) 00:15, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

Port Charlotte High School's greatschools.net rating VS Charlotte High School's greatschools.net rating

Would it be NPOV to mention how PCHS received more positive feedback at greatschools.net than CHS? Would it be NPOV to mention how CHS received more negative feedback? GO-PCHS-NJROTC (talk) 23:25, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

That website doesn't really appear to be a reliable source, so I'd avoid trying to cite it. As to your latter question, yes, it'd be POV to state it as a comparison like that. -- Kesh (talk) 00:20, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

Aye aye sir/mam. GO-PCHS-NJROTC (talk) 00:40, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

Adding symbols to TeX

How does one go about adding symbols or commands to TeX markup? For instance, there is a section here in "Displaying a formula" for "Unsorted new stuff". How does one create "new stuff"——If it has to be approved, where does one submit it? For instance, if I wanted to create the character "\grethel", which equals "o\!\varepsilon" ($o\!\varepsilon \,\!$, "Greek ethel")?  ~Kaimbridge~23:29, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

This page is for questions about using Wikipedia. Please consider asking this question at the Computing reference desk. They specialize in answering computer questions and will try to answer any question in the universe except how to use Wikipedia, since that is what this Help Desk is for). Just follow the link and ask away. You could always try searching Wikipedia for an article related to the topic you want to know more about. I hope this helps. --— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk - 02:28, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

I will assume you mean in wikimarkup, in which case I would suggest going to Wikipedia:Village pump (technical) and asking them to do it. -mattbuck (Talk) 07:51, 27 April 2008 (UTC)