Wikipedia:Help desk/Archives/2008 November 19

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November 19

Donation banner

The banner has popped up for me again despite the fact that I have it suppressed in the Gadgets section of My Preferences. Is anyone else having the same problem, and can it be resolved?--Diniz(talk) 12:38, 19 November 2008 (UTC)

I'm really not sure, but you might want to try purging your cache. Pretzels^Talk! 13:26, 19 November 2008 (UTC)

The same happened to me, the weird thing is that I clicked Expand and it disappeared.--intraining ^{Jack In} 14:58, 19 November 2008 (UTC)

I just did that and it disappeared. Thanks for the tip!--Diniz(talk) 16:16, 19 November 2008 (UTC)

stock market trading in call and put

res/sir i am prakash i want to know that how can a fresher can trade in stock market through call and put option in nifty i want to know the basic element envolve in call and put . trhankyou. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Prakash123ibs (talk • contribs) 12:54, 19 November 2008 (UTC)

• Have you tried Wikipedia's Reference Desk? They specialize in knowledge 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, select the relevant section, and ask away. I hope this helps. - Mgm|^(talk) 12:56, 19 November 2008 (UTC)

Essays

Can essays (that aren't necessarily proposals or such) be put in the WP: space? What's the difference between that and one in userspace? -- Mentisock 15:19, 19 November 2008 (UTC)

An essay that remains in the author's userspace comes with the understanding that the author does not wish for others to edit it. Other essays can be placed in the WP space, where other editors can contribute to it. One that comes readily to mind is WP:HAMMER. Cheers! TN‑X-Man 15:33, 19 November 2008 (UTC)

Yeah but what about if it's not a law or anything? Just a pure conversational essay? -- Mentisock 16:20, 19 November 2008 (UTC)

I don't think it would be a problem, as long as it remains in your userspace. My take on userspace has always been that if it's not disruptive, it's not really a problem. TN‑X-Man 16:26, 19 November 2008 (UTC)

Actually I was talking about WP:. -- Mentisock 16:38, 19 November 2008 (UTC)

If you're talking about WP space, I think (but am not positive) it needs to be related to the project somehow. A conversational essay would stay in your userspace. If you wanted, you could create a redirect from WP space to the essay. Cheers! TN‑X-Man 16:48, 19 November 2008 (UTC)

plz help

How to write an article or how to upload an anticle —Preceding unsigned comment added by Chris imman75 (talk • contribs) 17:46, 19 November 2008 (UTC)

You will need to first register an account, which has many benefits, including the ability to create articles. Once you have registered, please search Wikipedia first to make sure that an article does not already exist on the subject. Please also review a few of our relevant policies and guidelines which all articles should comport with. As Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, articles must not contain original research, must be written from a neutral point of view, should cite to reliable sources which verify their content and must not contain unsourced, negative content about living people.

Articles must also demonstrate the notability of the subject. Please see our subject specific guidelines for people, bands and musicians, companies and organizations and web content and note that if you are closely associated with the subject, our conflict of interest guideline strongly recommends against you creating the article.

If you still think an article is appropriate, see Help:Starting a new page. You might also look at Wikipedia:Your first article and Wikipedia:How to write a great article for guidance, and please consider taking a tour through the Wikipedia:Tutorial so that you know how to properly format the article before creation. TN‑X-Man 17:50, 19 November 2008 (UTC)

• I offered this user help on their user talk page. - Mgm|^(talk) 20:04, 19 November 2008 (UTC)

wiki article doesn't come up in google search anymore

this worked yesterday and doesn't work today i am putting exact URL http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Terranova in google search —Preceding unsigned comment added by Bizpress33 (talk • contribs) 18:11, 19 November 2008 (UTC)

Ah the vagaries of Google indexing. It will show up again in Google searches in due course. But let's not forget we are here to create an encyclopedia, not win Google page-rank points. Finally, the Joe Terranova article looks to me like a curriculum vitae or a PR piece (hmmm judging by your user name I may be on to something here) and will need to be rewritten to avoid being deleted as promotional. – ukexpat (talk) 20:04, 19 November 2008 (UTC)

And as I was typing that it was tagged as a copyright violation, please see WP:COPYVIO. – ukexpat (talk) 20:07, 19 November 2008 (UTC)

• The article has been tagged for copyright violation, which probably adds tags as well that tell search engines to ignore the page. - Mgm|^(talk) 20:09, 19 November 2008 (UTC)

My Template

Dear Admins, Please check this out, I designed it. Can I register it as a template?:
Your numerical IP address has recently vandalised Wikipedia. If you did not make the edits, please Create An Account and edit while logged in. This will prevent confusion between multiple users of your computer. If you create an account and continue to vandalise, that will also become blocked.

Please reply on my talk page.—Preceding unsigned comment added by Limideen (talk • contribs)

Templates do not need to be "registered". You can just create your template in Template space - ie with a Template: prefix in the name. Just like any other contribution it will be open to editing, possible deletion etc. See Help:Template. – ukexpat (talk) 20:20, 19 November 2008 (UTC)

The user warnings are pretty well standardized now and are listed at Wikipedia:Template messages/User talk namespace. Welcome templates are listed at Wikipedia:Welcoming committee/Welcome templates/Table. Your template seems to be redundant with {{Welcome-anon-vandal}}. --—— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk - 22:12, 19 November 2008 (UTC)

And while you're perusing Wikipedia:Template messages/User talk namespace, be sure to admire the {{Wikipedia template messages}} navbox at the bottom, with its spiffy link to search (most of) the template message summary pages. When one runs into a problem on Wikipedia that is in any way generic (that is, experienced by potentially lots of people), there is often a generic solution already worked out and stored somewhere. The trick is to find it. The Editor's index is often a good place to look first. --Teratornis (talk) 00:02, 20 November 2008 (UTC)

How can I copy and paste edited content from a redirected article (or template)?

I can see the links by clicking on the history of Template:SiriusChannels (music) and Template:XMChannels (music), but it requires clicking on "Edit" to see what is actually there, since some of the links would be piped.

I did a lot of work last week but someone chose to redirect without consulting me. My contributions are not there, and they deserve to still be there. I did the work to ensure the material wouldn't be gone.

Update: it is not even possible to see what was there before when I look at Template:XMChannels (music).Vchimpanzee · talk · contributions · 21:08, 19 November 2008 (UTC)

I think I have found your contributions here. It looks like TravKoolBreeze did a lot of redirecting and I'm having a hard time tracking the changes. You may want to ask TKB what's going on. I think the link I provided you will allow you to copy/paste your earlier work, but please let me know if that's what you're looking for. Cheers! TN‑X-Man 21:36, 19 November 2008 (UTC)

I posted on his talk page to ask if my efforts had helped him any, but he didn't respond. Thanks. As for copying and pasting, that won't work with links. I can't tell what's piped and I went through all that last week. As I said, I need to see what was there when one clicked on "edit".Vchimpanzee · talk · contributions · 21:41, 19 November 2008 (UTC)

Well, I was able to click on "edit" with what you gave me, but when I added the material to what was there, there was a template for speedy deletion. I'm pretty sure that wasn't there before.Vchimpanzee · talk · contributions · 21:45, 19 November 2008 (UTC)

I would guess that this is a result of the Sirius and XM companies merging; it seems logical that the two templates would be merged to {{Sirius XM Channels (music)}}. --—— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk - 21:55, 19 November 2008 (UTC)

The templates were not merged properly. In fact, you're not even supposed to merge without giving credit to those who contributed. And I'm not doing the work to fix the links that don't work now. I did all that work last week. Someone needs to find the old XM template. It must still exist somewhere.Vchimpanzee · talk · contributions · 21:57, 19 November 2008 (UTC)

Click on the old link, then after being redirected, click on the backlink to the redirect at the beginning of the template; you can go through the history. --—— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk - 22:05, 19 November 2008 (UTC)

I did that.

   * (cur) (last)  19:57, 14 November 2008 TravKoolBreeze (Talk | contribs) (49 bytes)
(←Redirected page to Template:Sirius XM Channels (music)) (undo)
   * (cur) (last) 18:44, 14 November 2008 TravKoolBreeze (Talk | contribs) (47 bytes)
(moved Template:XMChannels (music) to Template:SiriusXMChannels (music): Merged channel list for the Sirius and XM music channels.)

(Latest | Earliest) View (newer 50) (older 50) (20 | 50 | 100 | 250 | 500)Vchimpanzee · talk · contributions · 23:43, 19 November 2008 (UTC)

If you'll forgive me, I need to live real life until tomorrow at about noon Eastern U.S. time.Vchimpanzee · talk · contributions · 23:47, 19 November 2008 (UTC)

{{XMChannels (music)}} got moved to {{SiriusXMChannels (music)}}, so the new template has the history. {{tl|SiriusXMChannels (music)} should be redirected to {{Sirius XM Channels (music)}}. --—— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk - 01:05, 20 November 2008 (UTC)

Wait. Now where's the history I saw yesterday? I think I did everything, though. That's right. I did all that work I said I wouldn't do.

And I fixed a problem with the link to "AC/DC radio".Vchimpanzee · talk · contributions · 16:50, 20 November 2008 (UTC)

page redirecting

hi whenever i type in online business in the search window...the page redirects to electronic business...How can I stop the page from redirecting.The same is true for internet business...it gets redirected to dotcom business. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Nettrekker (talk • contribs) 21:44, 19 November 2008 (UTC)

That is the purpose of redirects. Online business used to exist as a rather bad article before it was merged to electronic business; internet business has always been a redirect to dot-com company. What can you not find in the two existing articles? --—— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk - 21:59, 19 November 2008 (UTC)

Some articles have more than one name, for example the article online business redirects to Electronic business because the topic is covered there and the page servers only as a redirect. If still want to go the first article, you can click on the link that appears at the top of the page after you get redirect or click HERE. You should only go to the redirect page, if your trying to change it for a good reason -- GateKeeper^(X) @ 22:02, 19 November 2008 (UTC)

Click the Search button below the search box if you want to search on the terms instead of going directly to a page. PrimeHunter (talk) 22:05, 19 November 2008 (UTC)

Patrolling the articles you created

I've been here for over 4 years (well, three really, I had a break) and the amount of articles I created or made significant contributions too is starting to become hard to handle. I would like to be able to check all the edits made to an article since I last checked it and somehow tag a certain edit as 'clear' without having to edit the article myself if there's nothing wrong. My watchlist can only go so far, after a few days old edits disappear. How do other editors keep track of which edits they already checked for misinformation, vandalism and other problems? (In particular, I want to avoid wasting time by checking the same set of edits twice). - Mgm|^(talk) 22:48, 19 November 2008 (UTC)

What you request sounds like the individual user's view of a Collaborative filtering system. Something like this could be handy to have, but I don't think Wikipedia has anything like this in its basic kit. Since I view Wikipedia as more of a recreational activity, albeit a serious one, I tend to focus on whatever strikes my interest at the moment. That is, I take a bit more of a desultory approach to Wikipedia, correcting whatever I happen to notice as a problem, with less worry about whether I looked at it before. It's possible I could look at something a year later and realize something I initially marked as 'clear' would need further changes. I've actually experienced a lot of that in my editing of energy-related articles, because the field is very complicated and the more articles I read in the topic area, the more I am able to belatedly recognize gaps and inconsistencies in articles I read earlier - in my present slightly further state of groping toward enlightenment I might read it differently. Thus it wouldn't help me much to know I had approved an article in my earlier state of ignorance. I don't see myself as personally responsible for anything more on Wikipedia than making the occasional improvement. That is, I'm not the last line of defense against every damage that might occur to some article I edited in the past. I have to trust the other 47,327,959 users to help me out with that. --Teratornis (talk) 23:50, 19 November 2008 (UTC)

I do recommend keeping notes on user subpages about anything one edits extensively. That way for example I can save copies of searches I do (using {{Google}}, {{Google custom}}, {{Google scholar cite}}, etc.) when looking for references, and I can write notes to myself or to anyone else who wants to see what I'm doing, about what I was thinking when I edited something. Having a big page where I summarize my major edits in a given topic area (such as User:Teratornis/Energy) gives me a nice global summary of what I've done and what I've thought about doing. This doesn't, however, come close to being a convenient method to track the state of all the articles I've edited. I suppose one could use subpages as a tedious and grossly inefficient method to keep track of the article ratings you are talking about. If you were really determined. I'd hope there was an easier way if you really needed to do this. --Teratornis (talk) 23:57, 19 November 2008 (UTC)

• The articles I edit tend to be obscure, so vandalism and mistakes tend to hang around longer. I feel responsible to keep them clean, especially when I'm the initial creator. Would it be feasible to make a subpage list the last checked revision and have some script change it for you, similar to patrolled edits? It would mean I'd have to check on people I trust, but it keeps things in order... - Mgm|^(talk) 00:06, 20 November 2008 (UTC)

That sounds like something a bot could do, but I wouldn't know offhand of a suitable one. If nobody else chimes in with a winner, you could start following links from WP:EIW#Bot and maybe find something. If you have computer programming skills, you could probably write your own bot that would maintain your own customized watchlist. Also see WP:EIW#Watch which seems to list some custom watchlist tools (of which I know nothing, other than that's where I would start to look). --Teratornis (talk) 00:20, 20 November 2008 (UTC)

There might be something in Comparison of website monitoring tools. Lots of people like to monitor arbitrary Web pages, so I can't imagine Wikipedia's built-in watchlisting is the last word in this technology. --Teratornis (talk) 00:38, 20 November 2008 (UTC)

Nobody else has anything to add? (That's mildly frightening if so.) --Teratornis (talk) 04:19, 20 November 2008 (UTC)

Yes! I've done this before with a user script incomporated into my monobooks. You can do that with your monobooks by writting a code, or borrowing one from another user. I borrowed a couple codes from some users, however it sometime created unwanted effects. See Help:User style and Wikipedia:Skin. A good example of a monobook code is the automatic peer review. Check out my monobook.js edits and maybe you'll figure out which code it was I used. --CyclePat (talk) 16:57, 20 November 2008 (UTC)