Wikipedia:Help desk/Archives/2009 November 14

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November 14

Editing Problems

I don't know how to edit some please help! (Darkspartan4121 (talk) 02:13, 14 November 2009 (UTC)) Lol you faill!!! —Preceding unsigned comment added by Darkspartan4121 (talk • contribs) 02:16, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

See Help:Editing. Ks0stm ^(T•C•G) 02:25, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

You seem to have figured it out without this. Intelligentsium 03:27, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

A short, but not bad, article

I have edited an article which is about as short as a stub, but it is only short because there isn't any more encyclopedic information that can be added to the article. It doesn't need cleanup, and it doesn't have any unsourced fancruft or anything of the like. Should it still be assessed as stub-class, even though (in my opinion) it is better quality? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Akrabbim (talk • contribs)

Yep. No date of birth, place of birth, family information, educational background? Definitely a stub. Biographies are about more than discography! --Orange Mike | Talk 02:54, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

Hmm. I guess there still is a lot missing. I guess just because it isn't poorly written or there isn't cleanup required doesn't matter if there are large amounts of information missing. Thanks. —Akrabbim^talk 04:21, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

Researching obscure bios

As a follow-up question, how would someone go about finding that sort of information? He doesn't have any kind of official bio written about him. I would like to know for some other bios, especially ones like Matt Thiessen, where early life/birthday is mentioned, but there is no source I could find that supplies that info. All the searching I have done only comes up with crappy Wikipedia mirrors. —Akrabbim^talk 04:58, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

This is a common problem. If you don't want to peruse local libraries, than Google scholar and google books are usually good methods. Worldcat can also be very useful. If you can't find any books or industry magazine that mention him, then basically, it's waiting until someone writes about him. :( —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 16:58, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

Poor editing!

I made a rather clumsy edit with poor choice of words. And I think that there is a proper way to add such information. Would anyone take a look and comment? Feel free to edit the line. (PS: Should the word book be replaced by the word novel?) --Siddhant (talk) 07:48, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

Template:Otheruses Ks0stm ^(T•C•G) 08:04, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

Not poor editing at all, a simple mistake, but thats all. I've used {{Distinguish2|the novel of the same name by David Morrell}}, if you follow the link to Template:Distinguish2 and read the template documentation, I think you'll find it very useful incase you have future need of such templates. Hope this helps you, cheers Spitfire^Tally-ho! 09:01, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for your comments and help. --Siddhant (talk) 07:06, 16 November 2009 (UTC)

re: pictures

I have written two previous questions about copyrights. May I now ask general questions.

I am writing a psychology book and I want to make many references to psychologists such as Sigmund Freud, Carl Rogers, Aaron Beck, etc. by placing their pictures in my book.

1. Are pictures of faces copyrighted? 2. I have written to their websites to ask permission but they have not replied. Am I now free to place their pictures while acknowledging the URL where their pictures are found?

Thank you.

Gonzalo B. Misa —Preceding unsigned comment added by Gonzalobmisa (talk • contribs) 13:24, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

1. Yes images of faces are copyrighted.
2. No, lack of response does not nullify the copyright. You NEED permission of the original photographer/owner of the image.

You can use advanced Google search to specify that you are looking for images that have a license that allows reuse of an image or even commercial use of an image. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 17:04, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

You can also contact something like Getty Images and buy photo's from them. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 17:05, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

Copytright Question??

Am i allowed to use the pictures on wikepedia?? I need to use quite a few pictures. i need your permission for my ict dida unit course, and if i can use the pictures and edit some of them using photoshop?

please could you reply as soon as possible

Dipali

15:27, 14 November 2009 (UTC)15:27, 14 November 2009 (UTC)15:27, 14 November 2009 (UTC)15:27, 14 November 2009 (UTC)15:27, 14 November 2009 (UTC)15:27, 14 November 2009 (UTC)15:27, 14 November 2009 (UTC)15:27, 14 November 2009 (UTC)15:27, 14 November 2009 (UTC)15:27, 14 November 2009 (UTC)15:27, 14 November 2009 (UTC)15:27, 14 November 2009 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.28.195.127 (talk)

See Wikipedia:Reusing Wikipedia content for more information on using Wikipedia content in other applications. With pictures, you must carefully check each picture's lisence. Some pictures are license under Wikipedia's CC-BY-SA or GFDL copy-left lisences, and have fairly easy reuse guidelines. Other pictures are used under "Fair Use" claims, and cannot be used outside of Wikipedia, as their copyright is held by places outside of Wikipedia. So, please read all of the relevent policies VERY carefully, and check each image file's information page (click the picture to see it) for full details on reusing images. --Jayron32 15:42, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

Edits not saved

Someone kindly created a page on me unfortunately it does not state some matters that are more significant and above all its out of date. I left it alone for a couple of years but my daughter has persuaded me that its important to get it right. So I created a new page yesterday and saved it and previewed a couple of times but it did not work - the previous page is just as it was. Please advise. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 137.222.163.18 (talk) 15:46, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

We will be able to help you better, if you can tell us the name or topic of the page. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 15:56, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

My name is Tariq Modood Sotm (talk) 16:11, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

OK, this is a link to the discussion page of the article about your persona. I advice you to indicate any mistakes in the article right there. It is best if you can post links to newspaper articles, books or other reliable sources that can be used to verify these facts. Editing the article about yourself is usually discouraged due to our conflicts of interest guideline. If you do decide to edit, you should read that guideline and prepare your edits well. If you feel you need help getting your article sorted out, you can follow this guide that will help and direct you to people that will help you or take care of the problem. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 16:44, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

Thank you thats helpful. I think the best thing is if I send what I think is a better and updated article about myself and others can edit it etc and put it on the Wikipedia page. Can I send it as an email attachment to you? Or to whom? Sotm (talk) 17:17, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

Actually, we'd encourage you to follow TheDJ's suggestion and post your comments to Talk:Tariq Modood. Wikipedia is a collaborative encyclopedia, edited by many people from all over the world, and comments should be in a public place where everyone can see them, rather than emailed to one specific person. GlassCobra 17:23, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, I'll do that. Sotm (talk) 17:54, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

So I place my text, firstly on my own talk page and then later on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Biographies_2#Tariq_Modood_Bio_Stub but I have had no response. Does that mean that nobody is interested? I was only trying to improve the page so that if anyone should alight on it they would be better informed about the siginificant and current aspects of my work than the existing bio page allows. Sotm (talk) 18:28, 17 November 2009 (UTC)

Copying and Pasting a Wikipedia Article

Whenever I copy and paste a Wikipedia Article to a Word document, the "blue" words do not get transferred: Instead, what gets transferred is the web address of the Wikipedia article about the topic represented by the blue words. I'd like to be able to paste the original words, not the linkage. What do I need to do to allow this? (I'm on a Mac, if that matters.) Thanks. —Preceding unsigned comment added by ChasPopper (talk • contribs) 16:49, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

If you post information about the browser+version and the microsoft word version that you are using, I can try and help, but it depends if I have that installed on my computer. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 17:11, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

I don't have a Mac, but here are some things to try:

• The PC version of Microsoft Word has a paste as text option which strips out all the markup. Maybe the Mac version has a similar option.
• Another option on the PC is to paste into any text editor program. On the PC an example would be Notepad (Windows). On the Mac you might try TextEdit. You might have to figure out how to tell TextEdit that you want a plain text file. Once you get a plain text file, you can copy from there and paste into Word.
• Lynx (web browser) displays pages in plain text format. It is extremely plain but that is what you want here.

If you don't get a good answer here, ask again on Wikipedia:Reference desk/Computing. --Teratornis (talk) 17:15, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

It will depend on your version of Word. Early versions did not support html, later ones do. If I select part of a page and copy into my Word - I get all the blue link words (and when I hover the mouse over a blue link) up pops a box that shows the link, with "ctrl+click to follow link". Alternatively if you select Edit... Paste Special from the menu, then you can just select "Unformatted Text" to paste the page with no links and or web addresses. My Word version is Word 2003.  Ronhjones  ^(Talk) 18:19, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

All you need to do is go to the article you'd like to copy, click on the link for "Printable version", which is the bottommost link on the toolbox on the lefthand side of the page. The resulting page will be able to be copied and pasted with no links. By the way, if you want to get rid of links in Word for Mac documents that have been transferred from the web, highlight the linked text and click Apple+K → remove link. Cheers.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 20:47, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

Size of Photo

I successfully uploaded a photo into an article I am editing...but the photo is larger than I would like on the final saved page. I used photoshop and reduced the size of the image, and uploaded a second version, but the size remained the same on the new saved page.

How do I reduce the size of the image?

Buckyboot (talk) 18:18, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

I assume you mean "Elijah C. Wadhams". Your first photo was 900 × 1,162 pixels, and the second was 600 × 775 pixels. Note: You did not need to create a new photo page - you could have uploaded the smaller one onto the same page - it would have replaced the original. You may want to consider deleting one of them. The size of the picture shown is not fixed by the uploaded file, it's fixed by the "Image" line in the Article, which you have set at 325px - make that smaller and the picture will be smaller (or remove the size completely and it will revert to a default thumb).  Ronhjones  ^(Talk) 18:27, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

Thank you - that worked Buckyboot (talk) 20:28, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

BTW: How do I delete a photo from my gallery? Buckyboot (talk) 20:29, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

Can you explain what you mean by "gallery"? Plymouth, Pennsylvania has no gallery in the sense of the word I just linked, which is the sense I think many regulars would interpet it. If you mean how do I delete an image I uploaded locally, just go the image and place {{db-g7}}. An admin will then most likely delete it in a short time (in rare cases G7 requests are refused where the article or image is considered useful to be retained).--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 20:38, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

Images on Commons have different rules - see Commons:Commons:Deletion requests/Speedy deletion  Ronhjones  ^(Talk) 17:22, 15 November 2009 (UTC)

Hopefully A Fresh New Pair Of Eyes

A few days ago, I asked

You know how typing

== Thingamajig ==

will display a headline, then an edit box to the right, that you can click on ("edit" is in blue and square bracketed).

How do I do this, but I don't want it to show up in the table of contents and you can't actually click on the "[edit]" to edit the section (the color should be retained).

I've got a few answers, but they had a few variations:

{{col-begin}}
{{col-break}}
<font size = 4> Section Header </font>
{{col-break}}
<span style ="align:right">[<span style="color:#0000f1">edit</span>]</span>
{{col-end}}
----

Jayron32

This puts a too much space between the section header and the long underline. Also, the "edit"s indent to the left.

<pre><h2><span class="mw-headline" id="Header">Header</span></h2></pre>

<h2><span class="mw-headline" id="Header">Header</span></h2>

If the anchor is not needed, don't use spantag.

Gadget850

This version doens't have the "edit"s, but has everything else right.

Anyone have any ideas or know how to fix the problems?

I have my own idea. I could use a table:

• Table has 2 columns; 1 row
• Put <span style ="align:right">[<span style="color:#0000f1">edit</span>]</span> on the right column
• Put <font size = 4>Section Header</font> in the left column

But I need the table to have no color, no borders. No formatting in other words. How do I do that?174.3.111.148 (talk) 23:52, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

I believe if you have "__NOTOC__ __NOEDITSECTION__" somewhere on the page, that should achieve what you desire. To see its effects, check my userpage. GlassCobra 02:37, 15 November 2009 (UTC)

Hhmmm, that makes ALL the sections uneditable. Is there a way to make specific sections uneditable?174.3.111.148 (talk) 03:14, 15 November 2009 (UTC)

It would help if we knew what you are trying to do. I think you can do this, but only as a template:

{| border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" width="100%" style="background:transparent; border: none"
|-
| style="padding-left: 0.5em;" |