Wikipedia:Help desk/Archives/2009 July 18

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July 18

New account and password not honored

I attempted to create a new account so that I could ask a question on the Swedish wiki. The username and password seemed to be accepted, but then it reverted to logging in and the password was not accepted. Can you help?66.217.131.190 (talk) 01:36, 18 July 2009 (UTC)

What is your username? Did you create your account on the Swedish wikipedia, here on the English wikipedia, or in some other place? Algebraist 01:41, 18 July 2009 (UTC)

You have to either create the account at the language where you want to edit, or use unified login. PrimeHunter (talk) 13:36, 18 July 2009 (UTC)

Incorporating a brief article into a longer one

I'm new to Wikipedia. I created a brief article about Armilenium, and now I see that it really ought to just be part of the longer article about sandwich compounds.

The entire Armilenium article is two sentences, followed by four references. How can I properly incorporate it into the longer article? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Armdan (talk • contribs) 03:25, 18 July 2009 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Merge. Kayau |Jane Eyre| PRIDE AND PREJUDICE| les miserables 04:52, 18 July 2009 (UTC)

And see Wikipedia:Footnotes for how to make inline references which is better for the longer target article where they are already used. PrimeHunter (talk) 13:32, 18 July 2009 (UTC)

Official web site of biographical subjects

Many infoboxes have a field for the official web site of the subject of the article. The links are often placed in the external links section. Are there any guidelines for/against this practice? Anything that says it should just be in the infobox and not the ext. links section as well? Thanks, Dismas|^(talk) 03:44, 18 July 2009 (UTC)

Not really. There's no guideline regarding infoboxes; the relevant wikiproject would usually decide what needs to be included in them. In this case, it would be useful to have the official website in the infobox for easy access and reference. Wikipedia:EL#Maintenance_and_review says that "duplicative links may be deleted" so I guess that would apply. When it's included in the infobox and the external links section, that would be a duplicated link and one should be removed according to this. Since the infobox would present it better, I think the one in the External links section has to go. ≈ Chamal ^talk 03:55, 18 July 2009 (UTC)

I disagree. I don't think the fact that the link is available in a totally different place is a good reason to remove it from the external links section. A reader may well look for the link in the external links section, expecting it to be there, and be frustrated to not find it. Algebraist 04:51, 18 July 2009 (UTC)

I say you have both. Kayau |Jane Eyre| PRIDE AND PREJUDICE| les miserables 04:53, 18 July 2009 (UTC)

What if both are visible within the same page view. This is the case on many stub articles. Dismas|^(talk) 05:25, 18 July 2009 (UTC)

My feeling on this is that they should both be kept on the page. As Algebraist says, a reader may look for it at "external links" (not even looking at the infobox). Dismas - if both are kept, it should still be kept on the page if it is a stub, as eventually it will become a full-fledged article! PhantomSteve (Contact Me, My Contribs) 06:39, 18 July 2009 (UTC)

Keep both. It would not have occurred to me to look in the info box - I've looked at hundreds of info boxes that do not have a link.--SPhilbrickT 16:23, 18 July 2009 (UTC)

cars

who owns the maximum rolls royce —Preceding unsigned comment added by 117.97.147.233 (talk) 05:17, 18 July 2009 (UTC)

Have you tried Wikipedia's Reference Desk? They specialize in knowledge questions and will try to answer just about any question in the universe (except how to use Wikipedia, that's what the help desk is for!) Good luck! --Kraftlos (Talk | Contrib) 05:43, 18 July 2009 (UTC)

Poetry form description "How Fortunate the Man with None" by Bertolt Brecht

Poetry form description for "How Fortunate the Man with None" by Bertolt Brecht —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.133.70.209 (talk) 08:11, 18 July 2009 (UTC)

Please do your own homework. Welcome to the Wikipedia Help desk. Your question appears to be a homework question. I apologize if this is a misevaluation, but it is our policy here to not do people's homework for them, but to merely aid them in doing it themselves. Letting someone else do your homework does not help you learn how to solve such problems.
Please attempt to solve the problem yourself first. You can search Wikipedia or search the Web.
If you need help with a specific part of your homework, the Reference desk can help you grasp the concept. Do not ask knowledge questions here, just those about using Wikipedia. PhantomSteve (Contact Me, My Contribs) 09:04, 18 July 2009 (UTC)

About Zulfikar Ali Bhutto Article

I don't understand why the picture of bhutto was deleted, even though i have done it with my true spirit !!!!!

The death of "Zulfikar Ali Bhutto" was on 4th April 1979, so i dont understand why people contradict it with the date of coup of General Zia ul-haq, which was on 5th July 1977 (meaning his [bhutto] government has been toppled) .. so why people are mixing both dates.....

can anyone clarify these things for me thx.... Thank you. —Preceding unsigned comment added by ZHJ786 (talk • contribs) 08:25, 18 July 2009 (UTC)

The picture was deleted the first time because according to administrative logs, it was corrupt or empty of content. A blank picture, possibly. The second time, you failed to provide a fair-use rationale. As for your second question, voice your concern on the Zulfikar Ali Bhutto talk page or ask an editor directly. They will probably know why. TechOutsider (talk) 09:15, 18 July 2009 (UTC)

Help! Messages not being displayed on my talk page

For 4 months - since March 9 - I have not had any visible new posts. I can see new posts when I click on edit this page, and I moved some problem edits up to the top which made them appear on the talk page. I have tried testing it with dummy posts but nothing is registering.

All my tests are shown in the edits and the history. If anyone can help sort this problem out, I would be very grateful. Rikstar⁴⁰⁹ 10:24, 18 July 2009 (UTC)

Should be fixed now (and you should have loads of posts that appear to come from me - not my fault, honest!)

The problem was <ref> tags that weren't enclosed in <nowiki> tags - I added the <nowiki> tags and all should now be good.

Cheers, TFOWR^{This flag once was red} 10:28, 18 July 2009 (UTC)

You are a star, and a quick worker at that. Many many thanks. Rikstar⁴⁰⁹ 10:34, 18 July 2009 (UTC)

It went wrong in [1] and ~~~~ didn't expand to signatures and time stamps after that. They all expanded to TFOWR's signature and the current time when TFOWR fixed the page. The page history shows who posted what when. PrimeHunter (talk) 13:26, 18 July 2009 (UTC)

I've had this happen before (this isn't the first time I've fixed a mis-behaving talk page!) - is there any easy way to deal with this, or is it just a case of trawling through the history and using {{unsigned}} (or is there a better template)? Cheers, TFOWR^{This flag once was red} 09:34, 19 July 2009 (UTC)

I don't know a good fix. Going through the page history to fix multiple signatures is tedious. One could search-and-replace ~~~~ with an explanation like: The preceding comment was signed with ~~~~ but the signature was not expanded due to a wiki markup error earlier on the page. PrimeHunter (talk) 16:54, 19 July 2009 (UTC)

Why not just archive the existing talk page by moving it to a subpage and continue with a clean page?  – ukexpat (talk) 17:18, 19 July 2009 (UTC)

Font styles

How can I change the font face of what I'm typing into Rockwell Extra Bold font face?--Launchballer (talk) 11:24, 18 July 2009 (UTC)

If you're referring to the font of your actual question, that can't be changed, AFAIK (your talk page is the only place where I believe it's possible). You can change the font of your signature. Head over to this page for how to do so. TNXMan 12:24, 18 July 2009 (UTC)

Text entered in Wikipedia can be set to a specific font, but it almost always shouldn't. You can change the font you read Wikipedia in by changing your browser settings, of course. Algebraist 15:19, 18 July 2009 (UTC)

Picture vandalism

Can anyone work out how to revert the change to the tony blair picture. (Off2riorob (talk) 11:33, 18 July 2009 (UTC))

No! Odd, I fixed some image vandalism recently and it was straightforward. I've changed to a different image until this is resolved.

For reference, the vandalised image is commons:File:Tony Blair WEF 2008 cropped.jpg.

Cheers, TFOWR^{This flag once was red} 11:38, 18 July 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, i'll have a word at commons. (Off2riorob (talk) 11:40, 18 July 2009 (UTC))

Cool. I've got an account there, so I figured I could fix it, but I can't see anything in the file's history. Ping me if there's anything I can do with my commons hat on. (Oh, and re: Gordon Brown, I'm still waiting for a couple of PC-related deliveries so I'm free for the time being to do GB stuff). Cheers, TFOWR^{This flag once was red} 11:44, 18 July 2009 (UTC)

The log indicates something went wrong on 9 July.[2] It may require a commons admin to sort out. I have posted to commons:User talk:Martin H.#File:Tony Blair WEF 2008 cropped.jpg. Google's cache shows the vandalized version was on Tony Blair 16 July so I guess it has been there since 9 July. PrimeHunter (talk) 13:14, 18 July 2009 (UTC)

It appears that when Google's cache says "It is a snapshot of the page as it appeared on 16 Jul 2009", that only applies to the text and not the images, so I cannot say whether a vandalized image was displayed on 16 July. PrimeHunter (talk) 11:38, 19 July 2009 (UTC)

I just reuploaded it from flickr. Can images be full protected like normal pages? This one's used on 40 pages across wikipedia[3]. —SpaceFlight89 13:39, 18 July 2009 (UTC)

Images can be protected. I'm not active at commons but see commons:Commons:Page protection PrimeHunter (talk) 13:53, 18 July 2009 (UTC)

I answered on my talkpage already. I dont know how this is possible. The original image was cropped by Kelson from an WEF image, it was vandalized with some rotten.com image of a dead foot, I deleted this vandalism and also the following revert by Timrollpickering, just to keep the image in the original uploaders gallery. Now a poster of the lemon party is indicated as Kelsons 2008-03-27 upload. I dont know how this is possible without any entry in the log or file history. Needs technical assistance, maybe it is something like commons:File:2001-2002 Holden VX II Commodore Executive sedan 03.jpg added to commons without a log entry or a filepage (no history). Im realy interested who vandalized the image. --Martin H. (talk) 14:21, 18 July 2009 (UTC)

It's not a poster for a political party. The content of the displayed url (not safe for work) is described at Shock site#Lemonparty.org. PrimeHunter (talk) 17:17, 18 July 2009 (UTC)

Very interesting, perhaps there has been some kind of internal wikipedia oversight? It's quite amusing...thank you for repairing . (Off2riorob (talk) 20:58, 18 July 2009 (UTC))

Images

Im on creating a page for International Cricket Captain 2009, but i want to add the box art. A found out that i needed to upload the image to wikipedia but im unable to do this as i am not a autoconfirmed user or something like that. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Troggy3112 (talk • contribs) 14:23, 18 July 2009 (UTC)

Yes, this is Wikipedia's policy. Wait a few days and this permission will be automatically granted to you. If you drop me an email at connorjackturnbull@googlemail.com I can upload this SporeFan (talk) 14:51, 18 July 2009 (UTC)

WARNING

This is not meant to be a hack or anything...I have no clue where to put this so I will put it here. I am a BZP user, and our website was recently hacked by a group who call themselves the "Men in Black." They're pretty effective hackers, and they have named you next, so I would suggest making any preparations against them soon.

This account was created soley for the purpose of delivering this message. Please close it once an admin sees this.

-MT —Preceding unsigned comment added by MT Zehvor (talk • contribs) 15:44, 18 July 2009 (UTC)

Thank you for the warning. I am confident that wikipedia is entirely safe from hacking, they will probably just try to vandalise, and we deal with hundreds of vandals daily, but thanks anyway, all the best Spitfire^Tally-ho! 16:36, 18 July 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia will have such, much more powerful security protection against hacking as it is such a big site 92.3.214.97 (talk) 17:29, 18 July 2009 (UTC)

It's Westerly Armory Museum not Westerly Army Museum

Resolved

 – by Ottawa4ever. Entry now correct.

Thank you.

Roberta Mudge Humble President Westerly Armory Restoration, Inc. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.245.74.6 (talk) 17:31, 18 July 2009 (UTC)

We don't seem to have an article about the Westerly Army Museum. Did you have a problem with some of our content? Or did you have a question about using wikipedia? In either case could you please make your question a little clearer, kind regards Spitfire^Tally-ho! 17:33, 18 July 2009 (UTC)

It's listed on List_of_museums_in_Rhode_Island - and the official website shows this, so I am going to amend the entry. PhantomSteve (Contact Me, My Contribs) 17:35, 18 July 2009 (UTC)

already corrected :) Ottawa4ever (talk) 17:36, 18 July 2009 (UTC)

So I see... thanks, Ottawa! PhantomSteve (Contact Me, My Contribs) 17:39, 18 July 2009 (UTC)

And me sitting here scratching my head in confusion :). Thanks guys Spitfire^Tally-ho! 17:40, 18 July 2009 (UTC)

lol... i just did a quick search on wikipedia, and found it listed on that list of museums! Anyway, I'm glad it's not me being confused this time! PhantomSteve (Contact Me, My Contribs) 17:42, 18 July 2009 (UTC)

EDITING

How do I change the title of the article? —Preceding unsigned comment added by SOTHEBY'S (talk • contribs) 19:21, 18 July 2009 (UTC)

See Help:Moving a page. Theleftorium 19:23, 18 July 2009 (UTC)

You can't yet, as your account is too new. I'll move it for you. Algebraist 19:24, 18 July 2009 (UTC)

We now have two articles about the same guy - Vitali Shvedul and Vitali Schvedul - anyone know the correct spelling? Google comes up with nothing. – ukexpat (talk) 01:04, 19 July 2009 (UTC)

The articles themselves both spell it "Shvedul". —teb728 t c 01:12, 19 July 2009 (UTC)

Google has a few for "Vitaly Shvedul", too. Algebraist 01:20, 19 July 2009 (UTC)

OK thanks, redirected. – ukexpat (talk) 01:28, 19 July 2009 (UTC)

Disambigaution

If I can't find the exact article to fix a disambiguation, what is the correct procedure: (a) leave as is; (b) tag it with {{dn}}; (c) redlink it so that an article may get created by another; (d) change to point at Wiktionary? For specifics, please see Talk:Mandate --Redrose64 (talk) 20:01, 18 July 2009 (UTC)

If there's no appropriate article, I think the link should just be removed. We shouldn't start linking to Wiktionary whenever we use a common English term. Algebraist 20:04, 18 July 2009 (UTC)

Musician page

I'm trying to create a page about my musical project named Necromanther but wikipedia keeps deleting it, i'm always trying to post the content and I always put the important information.

Please help, I can't understand why my article is always deleted! :( —Preceding unsigned comment added by Necromanther (talk • contribs) 21:21, 18 July 2009 (UTC)

You have now been blocked for 31 hours, after this period expires you are welcome to edit constructively, but please do not continue to introduce inappropriate pages. I can not see the content of the page you created, and so cannot judge it, however I assume C.Fred, the user who blocked you, knew what he was talking about and so please don't recreate the article, instead we welcome you to edit constructively in other areas after your block expires, if you would like more information about how to edit constructively please post a question about it here after your block expires. Best wishes Spitfire^Tally-ho! 21:48, 18 July 2009 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Why was my page deleted?. In your case, the article doesn't seem to indicate encyclopedic importance— the musical project may be important to you, but including articles just to keep someone happy will make Wikipedia unmanageable. Before recreating the article again, I suggest you find reliable sources that discuss the project and create the article in your sandbox. If you are unable to find independent sources, then perhaps the project isn't notable yet and hence unsuitable for Wikipedia (but maybe suitable in the future if you work hard on your music). When your block expires your are free to edit articles, but self-promotion isn't appreciated. --59.95.99.203 (talk) 21:59, 18 July 2009 (UTC)

How do you find reasons or information about deletions?

I've never been able to understand how to find out about why articles have been deleted. For example, the following deletion does not even appear in the deletion log of the editor:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fixed_rate_mortgage_calculations_(USA)

SalineBrain (talk) 21:50, 18 July 2009 (UTC)

It does here. --59.95.99.203 (talk) 21:54, 18 July 2009 (UTC)

• How to check the deletion log. --59.95.99.203 (talk) 22:13, 18 July 2009 (UTC)

---OK, so the deletion log shows exactly the same information as the deleted page: Proposed deletion (PROD), but still no idea of why it was proposed nor example supporting proposal... SalineBrain (talk) 00:23, 19 July 2009 (UTC)

Somebody tagged the article with {{subst:prod|reason}} and it was deleted after 5 days without any discussion. Usually the admin who deletes prods quotes the deletion reason in the log, but in this case they didn't. To know the reason you will have to ask an admin to look at the deleted edits (and you can also get the article restored if you want). 59.95.100.45 (talk) 04:08, 19 July 2009 (UTC)

The prod said "This is an instruction manual, something that fails WP:NOT." PrimeHunter (talk) 10:33, 19 July 2009 (UTC)

cant find saved new document in my space

I wish to start a new page. Per your help page I started constructing the article in my user space and saved it repeatedly.

When I came back to my account, there is no trace of the saved document.

What's up? How can I search for it?

Thanks —Preceding unsigned comment added by HITfirefighter (talk • contribs) 22:45, 18 July 2009 (UTC)

I'm not sure to what you are referring. The list of all your contributions is here (you have no deleted contributions). Is it possible that you hit "show preview" instead of "save page" at the bottom? TNXMan 23:00, 18 July 2009 (UTC)

Do you remember the exact title under which you saved your article? Algebraist 23:03, 18 July 2009 (UTC)

Chief Medical Information Officer was the title. I know that I saved it because the first time I did not, so I went back recreated by draft buy copying and editing a similar page and then gave the edit a name and saved it, made more edits, saved it, etc. Did this about 4 times but as you demonstrated, the log shows none of that. Clearly there must be a flaw in the system that does not issue a error message if you try saving and it is not capable of completing the command. —Preceding unsigned comment added by HITfirefighter (talk • contribs) 23:22, 18 July 2009 (UTC)

You said you saved it in user space, but Chief Medical Information Officer is not a user-space title. Do you remember the user-space title? —teb728 t c 23:36, 18 July 2009 (UTC)

I can find no trace of it. Are you sure of the following:

1. You clicked "Save page" like when you posted here and not "Show preview".
2. There was no message telling you it could not be saved or asking you to do something else after you clicked "Save page".
3. The page was displayed in your browser after you saved it.
4. You were at the English Wikipedia.
5. You were logged in to the account HITfirefighter and not User:Alexjohnas or any other.

When did you first save it? I could only find User:Alexjohnas with Wikipedia's search function but it takes some time to update the search index after changes. If your browser had lost your login during the session (this often happens) then it might have been saved under an IP address for the used computer. Do you see it if you log out and click Special:Mycontributions? If you reveal the IP address then I can also check for deleted edits (which are only visible to admins) by that IP. PrimeHunter (talk) 23:50, 18 July 2009 (UTC)

I had the same problem. Saved a new article and now can't locate it. bulsonroad

How to link to an ambigious term

How do I make a link inside a wiki article to an ambigious term? I am trying to link the word "masses" to the "Mass (liturgy)" wiki article. Of course "mass" is an ambigious term which could refer to many articles and I want the link to take the reader directly to the Catholic mass article.

The page which I am trying to do this at is "Bishop Guilfoyle High School". The code which I thought was correct for this action is "Masses". According to what I've learned on wikipedia, the code should direct the text "Masses" to the page Mass (liturgy) but wikipedia is saying that such a page doesn't exist.

I have tried many variations on the code to try and fix it but none have worked. Thank you,

--Baumgaertner (talk) 23:24, 18 July 2009 (UTC)

Thus:masses. See Help:Link for more info. Algebraist 23:26, 18 July 2009 (UTC)

Your link target has a non-breaking space, not a regular old space. Algebraist 23:30, 18 July 2009 (UTC)

your masses link works but mine doesn't and the only difference I see is that yours doesnt use

a capital on "masses". Is there something more I need to know here? --Baumgaertner (talk) 23:35, 18 July 2009 (UTC)

I've got it working now, however I can't get the capital "M" on masses. No big deal. Thank you. --Baumgaertner (talk) 23:39, 18 July 2009 (UTC)

What? I told you the difference between the two: you're using a crazy space character. Algebraist 23:41, 18 July 2009 (UTC)