Wikipedia:Help desk/Archives/2009 June 9

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June 9[edit]

Create Biography[edit]

How to create a Biography? —Preceding unsigned comment added by USMC2007 (talk • contribs) 01:08, 9 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Before creating an article, 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. TNXMan 02:27, 9 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Page move gone wrong. Please help![edit]

Ok to start off, I just want to say that I was not the user who did this. A user with good intentions who was trying to move the article Church of God (Anderson) to Church of God (Anderson, Indiana), but made a mistake when moving the page. He/she mispelled the name so moving the article to Church of God (Church of God (Anderson, Indiana). As anyone can see this can't stay this way. I was attempting to move it to the correct title, but I discovered that Church of God (Anderson, Indiana) already existed as a redirect to the article.

So my question is, how do I move an article to a redirect that already exists? If anyone can tell me how please do, or if you know what you are doing and have time by all means do yourself. Thanks. Ltwin (talk) 05:42, 9 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I deleted the middle redirect under WP:CSD#R3 as an improbably redirect. It looks like the Church of God (Anderson) now redirects directly to Church of God (Anderson, Indiana) without any problems. I hope that helps! --Jayron32.talk.contribs 05:51, 9 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks alot. Ltwin (talk) 06:03, 9 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

eteeap policies for recruitment and admission[edit]

hi, good afternoon i spending to long time to find the answer to my problem can u help me about this. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Tadski (talk • contribs) 06:21, 9 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

This page is for questions about editing Wikipedia. Please consider asking this question at the 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. You could always try searching Wikipedia for an article related to the topic you want to know more about. I hope this helps. -Optigan13 (talk) 06:25, 9 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Solid Axles[edit]

How do differential action acts in an axle ? How differential lock performs and what they actually do to a differential and how and in what process? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Piku komal (talk • contribs) 07:39, 9 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

This page is for questions about editing Wikipedia. Please consider asking this question at the 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. You could always try searching Wikipedia for an article related to the topic you want to know more about. I hope this helps. Excirial (Contact me,Contribs) 07:50, 9 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

login account lost?[edit]

I forgot my password and chose the email password option but I did not get the email. My username is Kifo. I even got a password reminder in november last year. What can I do now? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 220.255.210.207 (talk) 10:07, 9 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Did you change email accounts in the mean time? If you got a password reminder last year, then why not use it to pull the password and access your account? (P.S. Check your email spam filter and trash can, sometimes email programs mistake password reminders as spam when they previously didn't. - 131.211.211.13 (talk) 10:24, 9 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The password reminder from Nov last year is no longer working. I am on Google mail and there is no password email in my spam mail folder.

Annoying mobile redirection...[edit]

I see that Wiki automatically redirects my iPhone to the mobile site 'http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/::Home' Furthermore, when I click on 'View this page on regular Wikipedia' it redirects me back to the mobile site. I have tried setting the User Agent in my Windows XP Safari to 'Mobile Safari 2.2.1 -- iPhone' and am redirected to the mobile page as before. However, this time the 'View this page...' works just fine.

Please, please, can we have a URL that will always bring up the Main Page.

One of the main reasons for having and iPhone is that the Web can be used in the same way as from the desktop. I do not want to use the mobile sites.

Would it not be possible to recognise that the browser is the iPhone Safari and therefore do not redirect the URL?

Many thanks. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Farfett (talk • contribs) 10:52, 9 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

See Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)#Mobile site. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) talk 11:03, 9 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

want to join[edit]

sir,i am an Indian citizen and i am 25 years old. Can i join French army if what will be the procedure??

This page is for questions about editing Wikipedia. Please consider asking this question at the 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. You could always try searching Wikipedia for an article related to the topic you want to know more about. I hope this helps. Excirial (Contact me,Contribs) 11:04, 9 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

procedure to obtain an oekotex certificte for apparel garment[edit]

pls let me knoew the total system to obtain an oeko tex certificate for apparel garment? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 116.212.109.210 (talk) 11:30, 9 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

This page is for questions about editing Wikipedia. Please consider asking this question at the 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. You could always try searching Wikipedia for an article related to the topic you want to know more about. I hope this helps. Excirial (Contact me,Contribs) 11:33, 9 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Same file name[edit]

The English Wikipedia and Commons have independent files. If an image name exists in both places then only the English Wikipedia version can be displayed in articles here. See Help:Images and other uploaded files#File name. You can change the name at Commons. PrimeHunter (talk) 13:11, 9 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Advice on request to remove a photo[edit]

I'm looking for advice on how to respond to this request for removal of a photo. I know that Wikipedia is not obligated to remove it -- it's correctly licensed and provides a good illustration for several articles -- but it could probably be replaced without too much trouble; there is no reason these articles need to be illustrated with this particular person. It's unlikely to generate much discussion on that talk page, so I'm trying to figure out where to go for advice on this? Thanks, cmadler (talk) 14:18, 9 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

There seem to be two separate issues here: whether to delete photo altogether, or just remove it from certain articles.
  • Deleting the photo seems unwarranted. See WP:CENSOR. If Wikipedia deleted everything that bothers somebody somewhere, we wouldn't have much of an encyclopedia left. For example, we have Depictions of Muhammad that bother a billion Muslims a lot more.
  • You can illustrate an article with a photo of someone else, although in my opinion the case is weak even for doing this (see WP:NOTMEMORIAL which applies to the inverse case of memorializing non-notable people, and illustrates Wikipedia's lack of special concern for the sensitivities of the recently bereaved). To look for alternatives:
See Commons:COM:EIC#Flickr for instructions on how to upload images from Flickr to Commons. I documented a complete example of uploading an image with the Flinfo tool. Regardless of the outcome of this case, if you are interested in the subject of reenactment, you could upload a lot of nice images from Flickr and help the project. --Teratornis (talk) 20:19, 9 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for the suggestions; I am not going to change the illustrations myself, but have suggested to the inquirers that they could both acheive their goal and help Wikipedia by finding and uploading a better image for these articles. Thanks, cmadler (talk) 20:34, 9 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Sign Talk page automatically[edit]

Why isn't this automatic? Shouldn't MediaWiki know the difference between an article page and a talk page, and append a signature automatically in a talk page? How many hours have been spent encouraging and reminding new users to do something that a computer can do for us?--Sphilbrick (talk) 14:36, 9 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

SineBot does just that, but it is a bot not part of the MediaWiki software. – ukexpat (talk) 15:12, 9 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
And that's why slakr is awesome. However, it doesn't catch every single comment. hmwithτ 20:29, 9 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
And remarkable as it may seem, some users specifically opt out of having their unsigned posts automatically signed. See Category:Wikipedians who have opted out of automatic signing. (No, I don't understand this either.) Thus if automatic signing became part of the MediaWiki software, some people would object. As far as spending hours encouraging and reminding new users, it's usually enough to put the {{Unsigned}} template after their unsigned posts (if for some reason SineBot doesn't do it automatically), which displays a link to a document page that will teach the new users what to do. If new users cannot learn by picking up clues and reading the friendly manuals, they aren't likely to get very far on Wikipedia. Plus I like using the {{Unsigned}} template because it's less personal - it doesn't give the new user the feeling of having been corrected by another person. People tend to feel less bothered when corrected by a machine, because nobody feels socially inferior to a computer. --Teratornis (talk) 20:32, 9 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
For completeness, I might mention the variant template {{Unsigned2}} which is more convenient since it does not require reversing the order of the time and user name from the history. --Teratornis (talk) 20:37, 9 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

How do I properly attribute my information to another article?[edit]

It says I am violating copyright laws, but I am citing the source for every sentence. How can I correctly attribute the information to this website? http://www.michigan.gov/dhs/0,1607,7-124-5459_7097-174062--,00.html —Preceding unsigned comment added by TheRossmanGroup (talk • contribs) 16:30, 9 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia cannot accept material that is copied and pasted from another website. If you look at the page in question, at the bottom, it states "Copyright © 2001-2007 State of Michigan". Since the material is copyrighted, we cannot use it. TNXMan 16:33, 9 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
As a further note, you could re-write the info in your own words and cite the page as a source. Also, this page may be of use. TNXMan 16:38, 9 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Citing sources is a remedy for plagiarism, not copyright violation. As Tnxman307 notes, rewrite in your own words, but still reference, to note the source of the concepts.--Sphilbrick (talk) 17:44, 9 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

microsoft medications for bert sugarman[edit]

please tell me how I can retrieve my list of medications that were placed on 4-15-09 when i had a Dell computer.

I now have an IMAC> Thanks —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.202.37.13 (talk) 16:58, 9 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Have you tried the computing section of Wikipedia's Reference Desk? They specialize in answering knowledge questions there; this help desk is only for questions about using Wikipedia. For your convenience, here is the link to post a question there: click here. I hope this helps. – ukexpat (talk) 17:00, 9 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
(edit conflict) I'm sorry, but this help desk is questions about using Wikipedia. We have no way of retrieving info from your old computer. Someone at the computing reference desk may be able to help you. TNXMan 17:01, 9 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

To histmerge or not to histmerge[edit]

Resolved
 –  – ukexpat (talk) 01:59, 10 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I'd been casually helping out a new user with the new article John of Arderne, but have since noticed that we already have the more substantial John Arderne, and the newer article should be merged and redirected. Reading a question at RfA recently made me wonder whether this is a case for a histmerge. There's little from John of Arderne that's likely to make it into the target article, but do we need to preserve what edits we have for GFDL purposes? Or am I overthinking this? Gonzonoir (talk) 17:39, 9 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I'd say go ahead and redirect John of Arderne to John Arderne. All the edits to the former will remain in its history, and if any material from it is added to John Arderne, simply indicating "information merged to John Arderne" and "information merged from John of Arderne" (with the wikilinks) in the edit summaries will ensure GFDL compliance. Deor (talk) 18:18, 9 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks Deor. I thought I was probably overcomplicating this. Gonzonoir (talk) 18:49, 9 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Duplicate title, different info/person[edit]

I would like to contribute a biographical article about a jazz musician named Steve Hobbs. There is already a wikipedia article entitled "Steve Hobbs" about a congressman from the midwest (I think). How do I create anothwer article about a different Steve Hobbs? Thanks. Slappy645 (talk) 19:12, 9 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Please see Wikipedia:Disambiguation. Someguy1221 (talk) 19:31, 9 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

creating a new topic[edit]

how will I create a new topic and post it for general view?—Preceding unsigned comment added by 118.95.42.99 (talk • contribs)

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. – ukexpat (talk) 20:22, 9 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
What do you want to write about? --Teratornis (talk) 01:30, 10 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

List_of_Jewish_actors[edit]

I seem to have a problem reverting a particular edit. The history of the problem was that I made an edit earlier this week which was marked as Vandalism and deleted by another user. I don't want to enter into an edit war with the user, but my intention was made clear on the talk page for the article for two months prior to the edit allowing him or any other user an opportunity to object. I subsequently left him a message on his talk page asking him to discuss the reasons for his reversion which he has failed to do. So I sought to return the article to the format it was in before his editing - but every time I re-enter the content the server returns a http 500 error and fails to update the page. Is there something specifically wrong that I need to address in order to return it to the earlier state? I should add that the mass of formatting I had to do to fix the inherent problems in the previous article was all tested in Sandbox5 and successfully submitted both there and in the original edit of the article but can't be submitted since his reversion. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 149.254.217.49 (talk) 21:18, 9 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Update, got an error page this time (reverting to an even older edit) this messgae reads: Request: POST http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=List_of_Jewish_actors&action=submit, from 149.254.217.61 via knsq7.knams.wikimedia.org (squid/2.7.STABLE6) to 91.198.174.14 (91.198.174.14)

Error: ERR_READ_TIMEOUT, errno [No Error] at Wed, 10 Jun 2009 06:36:43 GMT

So Wikipedia is Proxying the connection but the timeout on the connection is too slow - is there anything that can be done to bypass the proxy or alter the timeout?149.254.217.61 (talk) 06:43, 10 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Ah, I see you managed to make the changes. I suspect there's no way to avoid this problem, other than repeatedly trying until you aren't getting a timeout. From a look at the changes you made, the table seems like a good idea organisationally (although I don't know much about the subject in general). Unfortunately, an unregistered editor making significant changes to an article seems to raise red flags with some editors and bots for vandalism, although this was not the case here. The editor who reverted your changes doesn't seem to have edited since their reversion, so he/she may not be online and might not have seen your query yet. Needless to say, I think if no-one commented on your proposed change after two months, it was reasonable to go ahead with it; that's what we have bold-revert-discuss for after all, and your edit summary should clarify matters.
Perhaps, if you experience the same errors again, the people at the the technical village pump might be able to help. I suspect that due to the article's size, any future edits might run into the same problem. I wonder if there would be any value in splitting the article?--Kateshortforbob 11:05, 10 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
yes thanks, it was a round-about way revert to the oldest (and smallest) of the articles and then remake any changes by other users between that and the final reversion. Splitting the Article is almost certainly required and I think a split on Nationality will be the best soloution but I was only casually interested in the article (looking for some information that I had difficulty locating in the old list) and saw the need for the change. I'm not currently commited enough to do all the work required to create the split. 13:10, 10 June 2009 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 149.254.219.53 (talk)

Can't see the article I just wrote and saved ....[edit]

I created an account. logged in, and wrote an article titled Earthian Society.

When I search for the article, it comes up blank. When I log in to my account, and look at "my edits" there is nothing there. Where is my article?

Thanks —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.185.217.149 (talk) 22:18, 9 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

You are not logged in now. What account were you logged in to? —teb728 t c 22:50, 9 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
We need this information. If the page was deleted then only administrators can see the edits in the contributions for the account. PrimeHunter (talk) 03:00, 10 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I cannot find any article by the name of Earthian Society in the deletion logs. – ukexpat (talk) 03:23, 10 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Ditto, I can't find one for Earthian Society, Earthian society, The Earthian Society, The Earthian society, or any other similar name. What was the exact title of the article? hmwithτ 11:29, 10 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
If you provide your username, we can also find the exact title. hmwithτ 11:30, 10 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Yaha. I've found User:Deejay52 which may be it. Can somebody else can answer the question, sorry I don't have time? - Jarry1250 (t, c) 17:02, 10 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Wikipedia has updated its search index since my first post. I guess that is how Jarry1250 found User:Deejay52. Is that you? The account has no deleted edits. If you log in to it and click "my contributions" then you should see Special:Contributions/Deejay52 which shows 3 edits to User:Deejay52. That is your user page and not an article. If the content was moved to an article like Earthian Society then it should be speedily deleted per WP:CSD#A7. As a user page it also risks being speedily deleted per WP:CSD#G11. If you want to write a real Wikipedia article then see Wikipedia:Your first article. But your organization does not appear to satisfy Wikipedia:Notability (organizations and companies) and you have a conflict of interest so I recommend against it. See also Wikipedia:FAQ/Organizations. PrimeHunter (talk) 19:13, 10 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Much of the content of your draft page is copied from the referenced external site, which is marked with a copyright notice. The Terms of Use page at that site does not grant a free license. So your draft page could also be deleted as a copyright violation. Please rewrite it in your own words. Also the edit summary of your first edit to your draft says, "This page should not be edited." Please note that all content on Wikipedia is subject to editing by anyone. —teb728 t c 00:58, 11 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
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