Wikipedia:Help desk/Archives/2009 May 10

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May 10

Having trouble with some tables

I'm having trouble with some tables here and I don't know why... help please. Raaggio 01:42, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

The tables stay smaller than the other ones, yet their mark-up is identical. I don't understand. Is there something I wrote wrong? Raaggio 02:53, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

I have no idea what you mean. Do you refer to some of the tables being less wide that the others? If so, that appears to be the result of the longest line of text among the column-spanning rows. There is probably some option to force all the tables to have a uniform width if that's what you mean. See Help:Table. Some of the table colors make the heading lines hard to read. You should use light colors for cell backgrounds so the black text is legible against it. --Teratornis (talk) 03:06, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

I'm using the same colors used in articles List of Lost episodes, List of Friends episodes and List of Grey's Anatomy episodes. Also, I found a solution I added width 99% to the tables. Don't know why I didn't think about it; I have done it with many sortable tables before, but because this one wasn't sortable, it wasn't routine for me. Raaggio 03:10, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

Is this legal?

Resolved

 – ukexpat (talk) 01:44, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

Just look at it and you will understand. It is a debate that was done on Wikipedia over merging musicmatch and yahoo or something. [1] —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.177.92.208 (talk) 01:56, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

I'm not sure what you're asking. Are you asking if it is legal for the website to copy the material from Wikipedia? If so, then yes, it is legal, as all material on Wikipedia is released under the GFDL. If you're asking whether or not it was legal for Yahoo to do what they did, then unfortunately, I don't think we can help. TNXMan 02:00, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

Oh yeah, I forgot about GFDL. Thanks! —Preceding unsigned comment added by Blackwing388 (talk • contribs) 19:28, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

Date of publishing

i need to know about the first date of publishing s page in wikipedia.i mean,i am looking for some articles and i want to know when is the time that a person has created this article(the first time).i have cheched the history but i found some info about revision and date of editing the pages. help me about this matte,thanks —Preceding unsigned comment added by Shadi21 (talk • contribs) 07:35, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

According to Wikipedia:Citing Wikipedia, the date of publication is considered to be the date of the most recent edit to the article, which you can find out by going to the history tab and looking at the most recent entry. To get the earliest date (i.e. when the article was created), go to the history tab and find the line saying '(latest | earliest) View (newer 50) (older 50) (20 | 50 | 100 | 250 | 500)'. Click on 'earliest' then scroll to the bottom to find the date the article was created. Tra (Talk) 09:52, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

Word Usage on wikipedia

For articles on wikipedia what is the proper usage of the word 'en route'? Is it 'en route' or 'enroute'? --PigFlu Oink (talk) 08:59, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

According to Wiktionary, 'enroute' is a misspelling, so I'd say you should use 'en route'. Goodraise 10:08, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

According to my grammar school French it's en route. I guess asking for it to be pronounced properly is asking too much? – ukexpat (talk) 01:42, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

Twinkle

Resolved

 – ukexpat (talk) 01:40, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

I now I have already posted this a year ago, but I didn't receive a very clear answer. How old must I be to use Twinkle? I have made 1061 edits, and am 8 months old, yet it reports "Your account is too new to use Twinkle"

From,
Limideen 10:35, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

Somebody reported the same problem at Wikipedia talk:Twinkle#TW-B-286 (feedback). You can post there. PrimeHunter (talk) 10:47, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

Thanks
Limideen 10:56, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

Although, I've gotta say that I think you hold the record of youngest Wikipedia editor at less than a year old. TNXMan 11:44, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

And please, please consider changing the colour combination in your sig - red on green is almost impossible to read, at least for these 49 year old eyes! – ukexpat (talk) 01:40, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

Outlook Express

How do I get Spellcheck towork on Outlook Express?92.26.195.62 (talk) 11:47, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

I'm not sure, as I use a Mac. However, our article on Outlook Express may help and you can always ask at the computing reference desk. TNXMan 11:50, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

Saving good contributions from bad users

If a user gets blocked and / or banned, for, say, civility issues, then sockpuppets to get around that ban, writing constructively for the encyclopaedia, is deletion of that content by an admin (after the charade is revealed) always unavoidable / automatic? Is it a point of principle to accept a little collateral damage in order to discourage sockpuppeting? Or can the content be userfied by an admin, reviewed by a "good" editor, and then put back into mainspace? I'm interested to find out what the guidelines are in this area, feel free to fire three letter links at me. - Jarry1250 ^{(t, c)} 13:14, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

WP:BAN says "Anyone is free to revert any edits made in defiance of a ban ... This does not mean that obviously helpful edits (such as fixing typos or undoing vandalism) must be reverted just because they were made by a banned user, but the presumption in ambiguous cases should be to revert ... Users are generally expected to refrain from reinstating edits made by banned users in violation of the ban". Does that answer your question ? Gandalf61 (talk) 14:31, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

Hmm... I suppose it does. Is that how it's de-facto applied? Have their been any precedents? - Jarry1250 ^{(t, c)} 19:51, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

RE: Radio Freq 26.965 - 27.995 mhz

Team,

I have the same question as before regarding the above subject if you have that model. Also what models you have and what freq they have. Please advise.

Regards

Rimatu —Preceding unsigned comment added by 202.6.122.64 (talk) 14:31, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

Have you tried the Science 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. TNXMan 14:33, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

Nope sorry none of these Thanks anyway I'll just create another account

Watchlist

Can I subscribe (Monitor through my watchlist) any edits made by vandals that I rollback

Basically, add any pages that the vandal edits to my watchlist

Thanks!
Limideen 15:09, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

Not really, there exist a number of automated tools that might help however, WP:Autowikibrowser is one, WP:Huggle is another, more specifically designed to fight vandalism. Neither can do exactly what you want as far as I know, but you might find them useful. Equendil Talk 20:19, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

If you'd like to suggest a feature, however, you can do so at Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals). hmwithτ 23:33, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

ItsJustSomeRandomGuy

1. How do I get people to see the article, other than posting on a WikiProject talk page and WP:PEER REVIEW?
2. WP:SIZERULE states an article of 60KB or more can be split and/or be justified. How do I know if this is justified? If not, I would have to make ItsJustSomeRandomGuy videography
3. I don't know if it's notable to add the length of the videos. What should I do?

Thanks, Raaggio 15:42, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

Allow me to answer your questions:

1. I'd say those are the best ways to let people see the article. You could ask some editors who you respect to voice their opinions on it, but don't spam anyone.
2. You can use summary style to split the page. The videography is very long and takes up most of the article. I'd say that could definitely be split into its own article, with a summary left on the original page and a {{main|ItsJustSomeRandomGuy videography}} under the section title.
3. The length of videos isn't usually mentioned.

I hope these help, hmwithτ 23:30, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

PDF version messing up

Hi, The 'PDF version' of Wikipedia articles is not working on my computer. I have tried on several pages and all I get is this:

An error occured on the render server: traceback Traceback (most recent call last): File "/home/mwlib/py25/lib/python2.5/site-packages/mwlib-0.11.3.dev-py2.5-linux-x86_64.egg/mwlib/apps/render.py", line 182, in __call__ env = self.get_environment() File "/home/mwlib/py25/lib/python2.5/site-packages/mwlib-0.11.3.dev-py2.5-linux-x86_64.egg/mwlib/apps/render.py", line 93, in get_environment env = self.parser.makewiki() File "/home/mwlib/py25/lib/python2.5/site-packages/mwlib-0.11.3.dev-py2.5-linux-x86_64.egg/mwlib/options.py", line 150, in makewiki script_extension=script_extension, File "/home/mwlib/py25/lib/python2.5/site-packages/mwlib-0.11.3.dev-py2.5-linux-x86_64.egg/mwlib/wiki.py", line 268, in makewiki script_extension=script_extension, File "/home/mwlib/py25/lib/python2.5/site-packages/mwlib-0.11.3.dev-py2.5-linux-x86_64.egg/mwlib/wiki.py", line 185, in _makewiki script_extension=script_extension, File "/home/mwlib/py25/lib/python2.5/site-packages/mwlib-0.11.3.dev-py2.5-linux-x86_64.egg/mwlib/wiki.py", line 84, in image_mwapi script_extension=script_extension, File "/home/mwlib/py25/lib/python2.5/site-packages/mwlib-0.11.3.dev-py2.5-linux-x86_64.egg/mwlib/mwapidb.py", line 381, in __init__ self.tmpdir = tempfile.mkdtemp() File "/usr/lib/python2.5/tempfile.py", line 328, in mkdtemp _os.mkdir(file, 0700) OSError: [Errno 31] Too many links: '/tmp/tmpuQsc-z'

Is this just me?

I am using Firefox on Windows XP. Thelb⁴ 16:19, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

It's not just you - I'm getting it too. Also Firefox 3 on Windows XP. Cheers, This flag once was red^propaganda_deeds 16:23, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

You can try discussing it at WP:Village pump (technical) or you can report/view bugs at WP:Bug reports and feature requests. hmwithτ 23:25, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

Publish Judicial Decisions???

Hello, I am wondering, is it possible for Wikipedia to become a source for complete and unedited publishing of legal decisions from the state and federal courts? Currently, Westlaw and Lexis Nexus have a virtual monopoly on access to these cases, and I really think that the breath and scope of wikipedia users could provide the ability to make wikipedia an alternative source for this information. Right now, if you do not have a subscription to Westlaw or Lexis, you might go to a legal library to get access to legal decisions. This is not available everywhere, and highly unfortunate to those who can't afford expensive subscriptions. Yet, all the cases are public information. So the problem is simply making them available through their publication on an accessible forum, rather than developing the information.

Also, today, many courts already provide electronic versions of their decisions. Yet those are not available prior to the last 10 years or so.

I know that providing unedited, primary source documents is not what wikipedia normally does. But it seems like the most appropriate forum. The history of American legal jurisprudence is vital information, and it should be protected from the commercial services. I think Wikipedia can do that.

Moral of the story, is it possible?

Thanks, joe —Preceding unsigned comment added by Marogilj (talk • contribs) 16:51, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

No comment on whether it's possible (I'm unfamiliar with US law - actually, I'm unfamiliar with the law in general!) but Wikisource would be a more appropriate repository. You could try asking there, maybe? Cheers, This flag once was red^propaganda_deeds 17:18, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

Hi, thanks for the response. As for whether it is legally possible, it absolutely is. All judicial opinions published in the USA are public information. The problem is that most have not been published electronically, and only a few for-profit companies have digitized the information. They then add some useless comments to the cases, and contend that they have copyright. Of course, they can't copyright the cases, so all they have is copyright over their useless comments. But, unfortunately, they then control the distribution. And that is a problem for anyone wishing to find case law on any subject, because you need a very expensive subscription to get access. I will look at wikisource to see how well it fits the needs. But the key element is the desire of a community to provide access to this information, not specifically the location.

Thanks again, Joe —Preceding unsigned comment added by Marogilj (talk • contribs) 18:15, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

See also Wikipedia:WikiProject Law for what Wikipedia's legal-minded users are doing, and check Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Law and its archive pages to see if other users have discussed an idea like yours. If not, you could start a new discussion there. There might also be other wikis outside of the Wikimedia Foundation's scope which specialize in what you want to do, because the Wikimedia Foundation does not try to be all things to all people, but it gives away its MediaWiki software to all people, so they can do all other things - just in case you can't find enough interest here. See Wikiindex:Category:Law. The problem you describe is common to many professional fields, maybe all of them - the practitioners within the field want to freely share some of their knowledge, but historically it has been locked up by information provider companies. This is especially silly in the case of science, which is theoretically supposed to be about free inquiry and exchange. Yochai Benkler writes about these problems, and predicts that Commons-based peer production will increase in many domains. Wikipedia happens to be leading the way when it comes to writing an encyclopedia, in part because the extremely broad scope of Wikipedia allows a large user community to participate. For a project such as the one you have in mind, the pool of potential participants is small, because only a few people would have specialized knowledge of law, the technical knowledge of how to use wikis, and the willingness to donate some labor. However, knowledge of how to use wikis is spreading gradually, thanks in no small part to Wikipedia which acts like a training ground. Someday, what is obvious to you right now about how to make a collection of disorganized information more useful will become obvious to everyone. --Teratornis (talk) 18:37, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

Links in Lead? Not in MOS or Linking article

Resolved

 – ukexpat (talk) 01:35, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

Hi, a question about linking. In general, should a term only be linked the first time it occurs in an article? The specific context concerns terms that first occur in the lead section - is it acceptable to link it again the first time it occurs in the body text? I'm assuming not, but don't really know. I don't see anything specific in the MOS or the Linking article (but may have missed something, of course.

Thanks. Jomeara421 (talk) 21:07, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

• Yes Jomeara - links should occur (in general) to the first time that the term is used in an article.--VS ^talk 21:59, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Linking#General principles says:

• Link only the first occurrence of an item. A link that had last appeared much earlier in the article may be repeated, but generally not in the same section. (Table entries are an exception to this; each row of a table should be able to stand on its own.)

See also Wikipedia:Linking#Link density. PrimeHunter (talk) 22:16, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

• Thanks, that's very helpful. I obviously missed the piece from the Linking article. John Jomeara421 (talk) 00:24, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

HELP, Im lost I have been reading for hours

This is place bigger than Japan, I have Created a page after many hours of reading how ever My template didnt come on it. Im Really confused, Finally I uploaded a photo, That took a long time. But I cant find it nor can I add it to the page. Here is the page I have Generated.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Zealand_Miniature_Fox_Terrier Can any one help Clean it up so to speak. Because I havent been able to attach a Template yet. I will be adding alot more links etc. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Nzminfoxys (talk • contribs) 21:15, 10 May 2009 (UTC) Will add to this, Had no idea How it all works on here. So have Removed all information. There is a Dog in NZ that is the Miniature Fox Terrier, Just like with the hunterway it has been here since the 1800s. Can some one help me. Cheers.. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Nzminfoxys (talk • contribs) 21:53, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

• People have started helping - your article is a good start. Where did you upload the photograph?--VS ^talk 21:58, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

I uploaded it on my files. This dog is a real breed in our country, I would like to apologize for any mistakes i have made.NZMinifoxys 22:08, 10 May 2009 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Nzminfoxys (talk • contribs)

Your photo is at File:Mesha and pups 001.JPG. I have added it to the article for you. Tra (Talk) 22:53, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

Better check with WP:WikiProject_Dogs/Dog_breeds_task_force before you go to too much trouble. There is already some information about your breed under Miniature Fox Terrier. People in the task force may not accept your article or, on the other hand, they may help you in writing it. Either way, you win. Sincerely, GeorgeLouis (talk) 23:00, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

Irish Immigrants to 1840's America

Hello, What office can I contact to try to trace my great grandfather's passage to America? I have a name Calvin Jackson no middle name at this time. He went on to live with the Chickasaw Nation in either Tennessee or Arkansas,and we believe he may have come from Cork. I will have more info. soon, I just thought I would get a headstart on this question. Thanks,Hawkwheels (talk) 21:25, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

Hello. I suspect, based on your question, that you found one of our over 2.8 million articles, and thought that we were directly affiliated in some way with that subject. Please note that you are at Wikipedia, the online free encyclopedia that anyone can edit, and this page is a help desk for asking questions related to using the encyclopedia. Thus, we have no inside track on the subject of your question. You can, however, search our vast catalogue of articles by typing a subject into the search field on the left hand side of your screen. If that is not fruitful, we have a reference desk, divided into various subjects areas, where asking knowledge questions is welcome. Best of luck. TNXMan 21:51, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

Hey, this is actually the help desk, where we answer questions about how to use Wikipedia. We don't really do that sort of ancestry research here. However, there are many websites who do. Try using a search engine to find one of those. hmwithτ 23:06, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

How to Cite a Nickname

My High School is commonly referred to by a well-known nickname, yet one of the moderators maintains that I need to cite a third-party source before putting the nickname on Wikipedia. In order to remedy this I have started an online petition that I can cite, how many signatures do I need? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.98.155.17 (talk) 22:59, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

That actually doesn't qualify as a reliable source (see link for more information). hmwithτ 23:03, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

Now, according to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Reliable_source_examples#Popular_culture_and_fiction it is possible to use sources not usually considered reliable for popular culture, such as accepted school nicknames, viz. the bar at the top of school pages that say "Commonly known as." So in order to get a well known nickname on to Wikipedia, how would I cite it? The name appears on urban dictionary, facebook groups, inside the 2008 yearbook, one written petition with 120 signatures, and one online petition with 30 signatures and counting. 68.98.155.17 (talk) 23:52, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

That article is not related to popular culture and/or fiction. hmwithτ 02:10, 11 May 2009 (UTC)