Wikipedia:Help desk/Archives/2008 November 10

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November 10

Archive box issues

Can someone please take a look at my talk page tell me what I'm doing wrong for all of my discussions to be archived in only one place? Archives 2&3 remain completely empty and Archive 1 only holds the first batch of archives, which means many more have been archived, well, nowhere. --Crackthewhip775 (talk) 02:26, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

mobile skin

is there a skin for mobile phones (like the iPhone)?Portable101 (talk) 03:55, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

See WP:EIW#Mobile. --—— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk - 04:22, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

Made mistake by accident now need help to fix the error

While working on Chiang Kai-shek I made some mistakes at Chiang Kai-shek#Names. Could someone fix the problem for me?Arilang1234 (talk) 08:42, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

It had a bunch of empty lines, which were screwing up the spacing. Perhaps the intent was to prevent the images from flowing into the next section. I removed the empty lines and added a {{clear}} at the bottom of the section. Is that what you wanted? —teb728 t c 09:16, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

registration confirmation problem

Hello

I registered with Wikipedia yesterday. I had to do so via 'Create an account', rather than the straightforward click-click-click process, because when I typed the confirmation text and clicked 'Submit', the next page said the confirmation text was incorrect. I'm writing this from memory, so the exact phrase 'confirmation text' may be wrong. What I mean is the wavy, fuzzy phrase in a box that I had to type out in a box below.

The fuzzy text was clearer than it often is in such boxes, and the phrases were plain English, such as 'trialrun', 'cleartext', and such. They were all lower case, with no spaces between the 2 words. I typed them that way. I tried 3 times, and was presented with 3 different phrases, and each time I failed. I also tried putting a space between the 2 words; that didn't work either.

So I'm wondering whether you've got a problem with the bit of code that interprets what a user types in this box; or whether it's a browser problem (I use Opera in WinXPPro). The one thing I'm pretty sure of is that I didn't mistype what I saw, and that what I typed was the exact string in the fuzzy-characters box.

Best wishes

Mary —Preceding unsigned comment added by Mlordbernard (talk • contribs) 10:51, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

I don't know what the error message calls it but such fuzzy words are named a CAPTCHA. They are also required when unregistered users add external links. Can you add an external link like http://www.google.com/ to this section when you are logged out? Warning: This will reveal your IP address if you are succesful. PrimeHunter (talk) 13:57, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

It sounds like you retried each new CAPTCHA by using your browsers back button. Try refreshing the page, and typing in the new code. Hope this helps. — Hucz ^{(talk · contribs)} 07:30, 14 November 2008 (UTC)

Generating a list of most popular articles in a project

Hello. I seem to remember someone posting a link to generate a list of the most-browsed articles in the Theatre wikiproject a while back, but I can't find it now. How can I generate such a list? DionysosProteus (talk) 11:23, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

• The tool is probably listed at WP:TOOLS.- 131.211.151.245 (talk) 13:01, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

Raibin

I am trying to resubmit this for review and addition to Wikipedia having now re-written and ammended it according to the Reviewer's instructions but can't see how to re-submit it for inclusion.

This is all factual and can be verified if you go to google so don't understand why it cannot be included.

Thankyou Amy Moosah

AFC SUBMISION P Nadia Raibin'is recognised as the manager and brains behind the worlds first opera band Amici forever which she formed in collaboration with Geoff Sewell- tenor of this multi platinum selling artist. Nadia Raibin signed the group which was originally known as Tenors & Divas before changing its name to Amici forever - in one of the largest recording deals for a classical artist to the USA - RCA Victor (SONYBMG). They went on to sell 2 million albums worldwide, had a No.1 on the US Billboard Chart with their debut CD "The Opera Band" and reached Gold disc status in the UK as well as charting at No.2 in the Classical Charts. They were recognised with platinum sales for their 2nd album DEFINED in New Zealand and Australia. The original Amici forever group comprised of Geoff Sewell, David Habbin, Joanne Appleby, Tsakane Valentine and Nick Garrett. After the release of their 2nd album Nadia Raibin was removed as manager and Nick Garrett then departed the group. Their recording contract was not renewed by Sony/BMG . Nadia Raibin was also the originator of the classical dueo Operababes, two sopranos Rebecca Knight and Karen England who were found busking in Covent Garden and who Nadia Raibin signed to Sony. Operbabes attained a Gold Disc for their debut album in the UK selling 60,000 units. Nadia Raibin most recently formed and signed a unique childrens choir to EMI Records called Kindred Spirits - which she formed alongside the New London Childrens Choir director Ronald Corp and who released their debut album in December 08..

Sources General news items from www.kindredspiritschoir.com; www.amiciforever.com; www.massmovement.uk.com; google for "Nadia Raibin", album credits on Opera Band, Defined, Kindred Spirits, Operababes, Russell Watson, Classical X website and other reputable press articles —Preceding unsigned comment added by Amymoosah (talk • contribs) 12:36, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

• You only gave global domain names for your sources and saying there are press releases on google is not enough. You actually have to point to them directly. If you can't find a direct link for a press release, just provide enough information so someone else can find it. (Title, author, date, publication, etc) - 131.211.151.245 (talk) 12:58, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

You made a misspelling and omitted formatting characters in [1]. When you have added precise verifiable sources, copy the exact text displayed here to the page:

{{AFC submission|P}}

The text is processed by software which alerts editors by tagging the page and placing it in Category:Pending Afc requests, so the text has to be exact. PrimeHunter (talk) 13:42, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

Press releases are not reliable sources, anyway. Little Red Riding Hoodtalk 19:51, 11 November 2008 (UTC)

Sockpuppets

How do you add somebodys name to the suspected sock puppeteers list...and it has been proven. HairyPerry 14:31, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

If it has been proven, then the user should have been blocked. The template {{sockpuppetproven}} should be on their user page. If it is suspected, then place the template {{sockpuppet}} on their user page and open a request at checkuser. Cheers! TN‑X-Man 14:36, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

Well Apawk has confessed on Talk:Relapse (album) that he is indeed UnrealSpiritX. So is that still suspected or is that confirmed? Considering it was a blatant confession and on Apawk's talk page before somebody deleted it he said he was going to use multiple sock puppets to get back on here at Wikipedia. HairyPerry 14:41, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

Ah. Then the page you want is WP:SSP. That's the place to report sockpuppetry. Once an admin reviews the case, the user will be blocked as is deemed appropriate. Cheers! TN‑X-Man 14:43, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

The user has already been blocked, but it was not for sock puppetry, but for vandalism only...but he is continuing to use sock puppets as a way around the block (block-evading sock puppets), so my real question is...is he confirmed or suspected? HairyPerry 14:55, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

If s/he has admitted to it, I guess it would be (mostly) confirmed. The only way to be honest-to-goodness positive is to request a checkuser. But if s/he admitted to it, well, that's almost as good.

As a side note, the original user may have been blocked for vandalism, but the other accounts may eligible for blocking as socks. I hope this helps and that I haven't confused you more than I answered your question! TN‑X-Man 15:01, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

[2] Now he is back on Talk:Relapse (album) with the new name ApawkA. HairyPerry 15:03, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

Well, from the looks of it, I would just report him to WP:AIV. He's not making any positive contributions and appears to be a vandalism-only account. Cheers! TN‑X-Man 15:10, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

Hmm..if he keeps on using a sockpuppet to ban evade, I would recommend perusing account-creation. However, as ApawkaA said, checkuser on the different accounts to be certain. Imperat§ r^(Talk) 15:01, 11 November 2008 (UTC)

Grr...I meant Tnxman307. :> Imperat§ r^(Talk) 15:14, 11 November 2008 (UTC)

Please move page

to be consistent with other Russian submarines from Russian submarine K-141 Kursk to K-141 Kursk. Kittybrewster ☎ 14:59, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

It got the current title after a discussion at Talk:Russian submarine K-141 Kursk#Move to Russian submarine K-141 Kursk and listing at Wikipedia:Requested moves, so I don't think it should be moved without prior discussion. There are currently also articles like Russian submarine Kursk explosion, Russian submarine AS-34, Russian battlecruiser Pyotr Velikiy. PrimeHunter (talk) 15:13, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

I see you ignored my discussion advice and moved it to a third title RFS Kursk K-141 which has 3 Google hits, all of them from Wikipedia mirrors. PrimeHunter (talk) 15:44, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

Makes sense: SS New York, RMS Titanic, etc... - 131.211.151.245 (talk) 15:49, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

• That discussion wasn't particularly highly visited... Was mainly the idea of just one person (based on the talkpage). The whole thing should be in line with other submarine articles. (MacGyverMagic) - 131.211.151.245 (talk) 15:45, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

Where is the requested moves discussion? - 131.211.151.245 (talk) 15:52, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

The discussion itself was not at requested moves. The discussion at Talk:Russian submarine K-141 Kursk#Move to Russian submarine K-141 Kursk was just linked from there for 5 days where nobody opposed.[3][4]. Kittybrewster has now started a section at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Ships#Category:Russian Navy submarines. "SS New York" has 25000 Google hits and "RMS Titanic" has 375000 so I don't think that is a fair comparison to 3 hits in Wikipedia mirrors for "RFS Kursk K-141". PrimeHunter (talk) 16:10, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

• The K-141 bit is probably skewing the results. Why are you relying on Google so much? Most relevant results would be in Cyrillic - Mgm|^(talk) 18:15, 10 November 2008 (UTC)
• A discussion at the WikiProject ships is, in my opinion, the best results. No one opposing the move on the article talk page doesn't necessarily mean consent, as it's quite possible for someone to miss the suggestion between the 2.6 + million articles we have around here. Russian submarine K-152 Nerpa on the main page is named differently. Seems to be part of the whole thing too. - Mgm|^(talk) 18:19, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

The English Wikipedia generally uses common English names. It is one of the most notable submarines in the world and has a huge number of mentions in English sources. kursk (submarine OR uboat) gets 69500 Google hits and 10100 Google News hits for all dates.[5] The city Kursk is far from oceans so I guess a large part of the hits are on the submarine. It seems significant to me that out of tens of thousands of mentions, nobody else has apparently called it "RFS Kursk K-141". PrimeHunter (talk) 18:58, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

This conversation should be happening elsewhere. There are MANY related Wikiprojects where one could ask for help in determining consensus, and there is also the options of WP:RFC and WP:3O. The help desk is unlikely to generate any more opinion on the matter than the article's own talk page, since the Help Desk isn't really designed for this sort of question. The purpose of the help desk is really about helping people navagate and work with the techinical aspects of using Wikipedia, not for carrying on content disputes... --Jayron32.talk.contribs 20:46, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

Per naming conventions, the article should be at Russian submarine K-141 Kursk. Problem solved? —Ed 17 ^{(Talk / Contribs)} 22:00, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

FYI: An additional discussion on this has been started at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Ships#Category:Russian Navy submarines. --- Barek (talk • contribs) - 22:26, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

I am Unable to upload a personal photograph.

I am trying to upload a photograph that I took for the entry "Mamani Mamani." I already licensed it through the Creative Commons Attribution website. But when I click on the link to upload, it sends me to a page that says that I cannot upload because I am not an administrator. I've read a bit about how to become an administrator but the process is not exactly clear to me. I am not so interested in becoming an administrator, I mainly just want to upload this picture. Abraham —Preceding unsigned comment added by Abrahamdwise (talk • contribs) 17:47, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

You should not have received such a message. You should have received a message saying you cannot upload because you are not autoconfirmed. You can become autoconfirmed by making 8 more edits to Wikipedia (or 98 if you're editing through TOR). Algebraist 17:50, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

As you created the image, you should consider uploading it to Commons where it will be available for use in all WP projects. Commons does not have any autoconfirmation requirements. – ukexpat (talk) 19:46, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

Citation templates and archived/cached web sources

(moved post from earlier)

I've just come across an article I created a couple of years ago that now points to dead links because the cached google version I linked to is no longer valid. I want to solve this by using WebCite. To avoid this happening again, I would like to include a cache version of any references I make in new articles (so any editor coming across the article can fix deadlinks to sources). I thought there was a field for that in citation templates but I can no longer find that. Should I use HTML comment tags or did I miss something? - Mgm|^(talk) 00:26, 9 November 2008 (UTC)

• Nice tidbit: One of the suggestions they make to a student/programmer looking for a project with them is to: "develop a wikipedia bot which scans new wikipedia articles for cited URLs, submits an archiving request to WebCite®, and then adds a link to the archived URL behind the cited URL." If such an effort was made (and expanded to older pages), we would suffer a lot less linkrot. Only people removing their content from the archive could then interfere with link stability. - Mgm|^(talk) 00:32, 9 November 2008 (UTC)

Hiya. The |archiveurl= attribute is probably what you're looking for. I know it works with {{cite web}}, not sure about the other templates. [roux » x] 20:13, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

• You can't really archive anything else than a website, so I doubt it would work with another template. Why does Wikipedia:Citation templates not show the attribute? - Mgm|^(talk) 22:14, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

College Textbooks?

Are the informative parts of these alright as authoritative secondary sources? I assume they would be. WP:NOT#TEXTBOOK says the instructional parts are not to be emulated, but doesn't address the issue of sourcing. Thanks. Trickrick1985 (talk) 22:56, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

WP:RS#Primary, secondary, and tertiary sources says:

• Tertiary sources such as compendia, encyclopedias, textbooks, and other summarizing sources may be used to give overviews or summaries, but should not be used in place of secondary sources for detailed discussion.

However, note that WP:RS is a guideline, not a policy. Which means you can bend it in some situations. We can't tell what situation you refer to because you posed a general question rather than a specific question. Wikipedia does not consist of ironclad general rules that we can blindly apply in every situation. Instead Wikipedia is much like real life, a complex series of judgment calls. The bottom line on Wikipedia is we are always trying to guess what we can write that other users won't clobber. Therefore, someone like me trying to advise you on what you can do won't predict how other Wikipedia users will react to what you do in a specific situation that I know nothing about. Another way to look at it is to ask when the reliability of a source matters. If you are backing up a non-controversial claim, such as "The Amazon River discharges more water into the ocean than any other river on Earth", you could probably cite my cat and get away with it, but if you wanted to make some extraordinary claim that other users are likely to challenge, then you must take care to defend your claim against all the easy objections, the most obvious one being the reliability of the sources you cite. --Teratornis (talk) 00:48, 11 November 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the thoughtful response. I was considering going through a textbook on Integrative medicine and citing (not reciting) the information found there which is not yet in the article. I'm not sure if the book has received attention from secondary sources, but it has been adopted at several universities. Would I have to prove that in order to use it as a basis for a large amount of material? Trickrick1985 (talk) 02:38, 11 November 2008 (UTC)

Integrative medicine is a redirect to Alternative medicine which appears to be a controversial topic. Please read the big warning at the top of Talk:Alternative medicine before you do anything. You should also read all the talk page archives there, and the arbitration committee discussion. This is a perfect example of why a general question about what constitutes a reliable source is so impossible to answer - certain topics by their nature are highly controversial (for example: religion, politics, pseudoscience) and editing on these topics is completely unlike editing on topics where no significant controversy exists. If an article has had big edit wars in the past, you could be walking into a minefield if you just start editing them without first studying the past disputes. --Teratornis (talk) 04:44, 11 November 2008 (UTC)

I was going to do something similar about Industrial sociology which is an extremely important sociology topic that has shockingly gone very neglected on Wikipedia. Trickrick1985 (talk) 02:53, 11 November 2008 (UTC)

I don't see any warnings on Talk:Industrial sociology. It might be safer to start there first. Don't be "shocked" that Wikipedia has thus far neglected particular topics. Wikipedia has systemic bias due to the kinds of people who are attracted to Wikipedia. A contributor has to be fairly good with computers, and has to be able to learn by reading instructions. People like that are not evenly distributed across all fields. There are lots of fields where not many people are computer-oriented, so it takes a while for Wikipedia's coverage of those fields to develop. Even in areas with significant coverage, very few articles have attained featured status. Just about everywhere you look on Wikipedia you will find articles that need work. For example, I've found a seemingly endless number of gaping needs in Energy-related articles. Every WikiProject you look at has a big to-do list. Click on Special:Random a few times and see how many articles appear to be in finished form. It would make more sense to be shocked when you find an article that you can't see any way to improve. --Teratornis (talk) 04:44, 11 November 2008 (UTC)