Wikipedia:Help desk/Archives/2010 February 20

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February 20

What's the difference?

What is the difference between the Book namespace and WikiBooks? Samwb123^{T (R)-C-E} 00:32, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Wikipedia Books are like volumes of an encyclopaedia – they contain only encyclopaedic content, because they are composed of Wikipedia articles. WikiBooks contains relatively little encyclopaedic content – content there generally illustrates "how" one would do something, which is discouraged at Wikipedia. Intelligentsium 00:58, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Time difference

Resolved

 –  – ukexpat (talk) 03:52, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

I just noticed February 20th already with one topic, yet it is only 7:51 p.m. my local time (eastern US). What is the location of this web site (or what time zone does the web site use)? NewYorkeruser (talk) 00:51, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

The page uses UTC for the timing of the page. ~~ GB fan ~~ ^talk 00:59, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Wikipedia, along with all other Wikimedia projects, use UTC or GMT time (the time in London, England). Samwb123^{T (R)-C-E} 01:02, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Some times use UTC, which is winter time in England. UTC, unlike local English time, does not change in the summer. Near the top of the page there is a "preferences" option, and within that there is a "Date and Time" tab where you can change the format of some dates/times and change the time zone for some dates/times. I've never tried to keep track of which dates and times are influenced by the preferences; I just set it to "use server default" which is UTC. I just find it to display some times in local time and others in UTC, so I display everything in UTC. Jc3s5h (talk) 01:12, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Thanks! I have three clock times on my computer. One for local time (EST); one for London, UK; one for Paris, France. The one for London now says 1:47 am, so that puts me five hours behind. I understand the time zone difference. No need for further comments. NewYorkeruser (talk) 01:47, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Poems?

Should poems be put on Wikipedia, Wikisource, Wikiquote, Wikibooks, another Wikimedia project, or can I propose at the village pump a new Wikimedia wiki for poems? Thanks. Samwb123^{T (R)-C-E} 01:09, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Published, free-content poems can go to Wikisource, though particularly short poems may be included in the article about them (for example, Ozymandias). Intelligentsium 01:14, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Would it classify as a free poem if the author died more than 70 years ago? (except for some countries) Samwb123^{T (R)-C-E} 01:22, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Free editing of Wikipedia

Resolved

 –   NewYorkeruser (talk) 15:44, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

User:Phantomsteve responded to one of my recent queries here. He gave the following quote:

Why does vandalism occur? Because this is the encyclopedia which anyone can edit.

Literally anyone visiting wikipedia can edit articles. One does not even need an account (am I right?).
With so much editing, re-editing, vandalising, deleting, undeleting (restoring), etc., I am surprised that wikipedia bothers to exist at all.
Wikipedia has policies concerning vandalism, edit wars, and other things.

This is not really a problem post. Just a query.

What if wikipedia changed some of its policies?

1. only let users continue to edit if they have proven themselves to be good editors
2. let users edit (create) articles only if they can prove they are knowledgeable in certain areas
3. maybe appoint certain editors with the job of checking for/reverting vandalism in certain specific topic areas
4. require users to have an account (and a user page) before they can edit articles, and they must be signed in
5. provide a page where users can prove themselves, including their field(s) of expertise

The above is a list of suggestions. Could any of this be possibile at all? NewYorkeruser (talk) 01:34, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Hi, I believe the village pump might be the place to discuss new policies/proposals. This is page is more for editing help and the how of Wikipedia processes. — Bility (talk) 01:48, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

I have no idea what I would say there, as I have never submitted anything like that. I am not even sure my suggestions would even be considered. NewYorkeruser (talk) 01:54, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Well your topics have been debated endlessly, to be honest. It would probably be better to just find the existing discussions. You might be interested in flagged revisions... — Bility (talk) 02:00, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

It is also a founding principle of this project that anyone be able to edit (most) articles without registration. Proposals to change this have been frequently proposed and rejected. Take a look at Wikipedia:Perennial proposals#Prohibit anonymous users from editing. --Mysdaao ^talk 03:44, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Can I also add that someone worked out (I can't find it at the moment) that 80% of all edits by unregister accounts (i.e. IP addresses) are constructive (and also that 80% of all vandalism is done by IPs). Many editors do not want to register an account (indeed some very prolific editors have always edited from IPs). Forcing registration would actually drive away contributors. Your suggestions have some merit, but they would actually prevent the "drive-by" editors who see a problem in an article on which they are an expert - and so errors will remains. It is important not to throw out the baby with the bathwater here! -- PhantomSteve/talk|contribs\ 08:37, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Okay, thanks. If a lot of good editing is done by users without accounts, then it makes sense to continue to let them do it. This is the only web site of which I have been a member that allowed non-members to do anything but join (to my knowledge). Wait a minute. is 80% of vandalism done by users without accounts? Are the two statements you made concerning percentages both true? NewYorkeruser (talk) 02:02, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

Both statements are true according to the studies cited at Wikipedia:IPs are human too. The total number of edits from user without accounts is far more than the total number of vandalism edits. It might help to look at results in this chart. --Mysdaao ^talk 13:42, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

Thanks! I looked at the pie chart. It makes sense to me. I see that only 8.1% of all editing is vandalism. Though most of the vandalism is done by unregistered users, those users have contributed to 29.4% of nonvandalizing of articles. That is more than a quarter of the pie. I am satisfied with the results. NewYorkeruser (talk) 15:44, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

Phantomsteve is thinking of WP:HUMAN --Redrose64 (talk) 09:47, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Using quote with book reference

Hello, I want to know how to add a quote with a book reference. I am using Template:Harvnb for the draft in User:Defender of torch/Communist antisemitism. Is there any way by which I can add the quote from a book with Template:Harvnb? If not, can I use Template:Google books quote? How to use Template:Google books quote? I have used Template:Google books quote in this way, but it does not follow the manual of style. --Defender of torch (talk) 03:58, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Can you give an example of how it's not working? Why can't you do as you're already doing on your user page? For instance, "quote text"<ref>{{Harvnb|Last name|Year|p=Page #}}</ref>. — Bility (talk) 04:39, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

It is not working see this. Is there any kind quote parameter within <ref>{{Harvnb|Last name|Year|p=Page #}}</ref> e.g. <ref>{{Harvnb|Last name|Year|p=Page #|quote=}}</ref>? --Defender of torch (talk) 04:53, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Oh. You don't need to put the quote in the reference, just reference the source. Interested parties can read the source if they don't believe you. On the other hand, if you want the reader to see the quote, just put it in the main body. — Bility (talk) 04:58, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Well, there is a quote parameter in Template:Cite book. Which is why I was asking if the same can be done with Template:Harvnb. I know the quote is not necessary, but it is good to provide the quote is case of contentious information. Anyway could you please tell me how to use Template:Google books quote or is there any other way by which I can provide the exact quote in the footnote? Thanks. --Defender of torch (talk) 05:03, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

If you add |quote=Blah, blah, blah to {{cite book}} in your Bibliography section, your {{cite book|author=W.R. Iter|title=The great text|year=2010|quote=Blah, blah, blah.|ref=harv}} will create:

• W.R. Iter (2010). The great text. Blah, blah, blah. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)

if that's what you are after. Then to refer to a statement on page 15 of W.R. Iter's great text insert inline: <ref>{{harvnb|Iter|2010|p=15}}</ref> to create: which is hyperlinked to the entry in the bibliography. Clear? I went ahead and tweaked your draft. If you like, switch the citation to cite book, it should work the same way. User:LeadSongDog come howl 06:08, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Extra text while editing

When editing things like T:TDYK, WP:ER, WP:AfD, here, and some user talks, there is some extra text above the edit box while editing. How can I add this to a page? Kayau Voting IS evil 04:02, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

That's an edit notice. Check the link for more details. – ukexpat (talk) 04:05, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Edit Toolbar

In my prefences, I have the check box checked for "Enable Edit Toolbar". I do have JavaScript enabled, but its still not there. I'm using the Monobook skin. How may I serve you? Marshall Williams2 Talk Autographs Contribs 04:02, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

In fact, none of my tools seem to appear at all!!!! How may I serve you? Marshall Williams2 Talk Autographs Contribs 04:09, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Try and clear your cache. For IE that's Control-F5. That should reload all the tools. User:LeadSongDog come howl 06:02, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Still not working. How may I serve you? Marshall Williams2 Talk Autographs Contribs 02:52, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Never mind! It's working now! --How may I serve you? Marshall Williams2 Talk Autographs Contribs 02:51, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

Special pages - Wanted Categories

Special:WantedCategories has not work for some time now, is there another location for this information? --Traveler100 (talk) 07:14, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Tags suggestion?

Resolved

 – by Bility (talk) 22:13, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Per the page, it shows a tag called "test edits". I assume this tag is still in use, since unlike some of the lower tags in the list, it doesn't say "This tag is inactive." Yet, I can not find any results when I search for it, and I do not have anything hidden. On a hunch that the tag was disabled or broken, I ran a search on all articles with the text "Headline text" and got 3,079 results. This is the default text for the button, adding == Headline text ==. to the page. So:

• If the tag is broke, it should be fixed.
• If the tag is inactive, the tag page should say so.
• If I am doing something wrong which is causing my searches to fail, I would appreciate some education.

--Avicennasis 08:35, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Looks like someone turned it off at the end of December. BTW, when you were "searching" for test edits, you mean you were using the tag filter on RecentChanges or user contribs, right? — Bility (talk) 16:55, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Yep. Should go to the admin's talk page and ask why is was turned off, or is there a better place to take that discussion to? --Avicennasis 21:18, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

The admin may be able to provide a rationale, otherwise someone may discuss turning it back on with you at Wikipedia talk:Tags. — Bility (talk) 21:31, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Ok. I have asked on the admin's talk page, and depending on feedback, will go from there. Thanks for your help! --Avicennasis 22:16, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Citing from software

If you have used a software and then used it to edit a page, how do you refer to it?--Mikespedia (talk) 09:31, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

We don't seem to have a dedicated "cite software" template (or if we have, I can't find it). We do have {{cite video game}}, whose parameters can be applied successfully to other types of software, so that template might be your starting point if you're referencing specific aspects of the software that could be verified by another user. However, do be aware of WP:NOR. Your own experiences using the software are what Wikipedia would term "original research", and you would need a reliable third-party source to support your observations before the information could be included in an article. Karenjc 12:34, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Also, the question is possibly ambiguous. By "page" do you mean an article? Another type of page is the image page, and many Wikipedia (and Wikimedia Commons) users indicate the software they used to edit image files. See for example {{Inkscape}}. But you did say "cite" so if you mean you want to cite the software as a source, Karenjc's comments apply. I would add that you could read WP:CITE, WP:FOOT, and WP:CITET. Also, depending on what statement you want to source from the software, you might be better off citing the user manual for the software. In which case the generic {{cite}} template would probably work. Note that there is no requirement for using citation templates, unless you want an article to be featured in which case you would need to use one of our orderly citation methods. A bare URL is adequate as a source (provided it points to something reliable), although not the nicest way to provide sources. --Teratornis (talk) 00:39, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

Dreadful image

Please could an expert in images sort out the picture at the bottom of Talk:Charles_Arbuthnot. Many thanks. Kittybrewster ☎ 12:24, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

It shows up small because it needs cropping to remove those acres of whitespace. --Redrose64 (talk) 14:01, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Cropped. In the future, you can also make a request at the Graphic Lab. — Bility (talk) 17:02, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

I fixed the license template name; it was {{pd-art-life-70}} on one and {{PD-LIFE-70}} both of which showed as a redlink; it should have been {{PD-art-life-70}} (template names are case-sensitive except for the first letter). --Redrose64 (talk) 17:33, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Notable

As a function of the number of times someone appears in the references of articles now, what is the probability they should have their own article? —Preceding unsigned comment added by IPadophile (talk • contribs) 15:10, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

If you're just wondering, try asking on the misc. village pump. If you want to use the answer as the basis for article creation, refer instead to WP:NOTE, as those are the guidelines to use rather than appearances in reference sections. — Bility (talk) 20:04, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

(e/c) I'm not sure anyone has ever attempted to measure such a correlation although the correlation certainly is valid much of the time; it might not be with, for example, a large walled garden of original research that we do find festering sometimes. So sure, it's an indication that notability might be present, but is not a good method for determining notability or arguing that a topic is notable because the general notability guideline already provides a direct yardstick for that assessment. So if you see lots of mentions of a topic in many articles, it may be a useful indicator, and from there we can say: "hmm, this topic is probably notable, maybe I should write an article, let me check" and then perform a Google books, Google news archive search or many other checks one can do depending on the topic, to see whether this indication of likelihood pans out with actual evidence of notability.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 20:10, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Help

I can't remember what codes to put in to create a background and border for text. Can you help? Mr. Prez (talk) 16:00, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

View in edit mode to see the wikicode: background border. Please use a more descriptive header next time Xenon54 / talk / 16:12, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

See also, {{color box}} if you're okay with a simple black border. — Bility (talk) 17:13, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

ClueBot III

Hello, is User:ClueBot III down? I have ClueBot III automatically archive my talk page after 7 days... I still have a stale thread 12 days old on my talk page. Thanks, Arctic Night 17:15, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

This question is best answered by the bot's owner; you can ask him about the bot on this page. Robert Skyhawk ^{So sue me!} (You'll lose) 17:36, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

That was done several days ago re archiving of WP:RFF - no response. And see above. – ukexpat (talk) 19:05, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

According to Wikipedia:Requests_for_feedback/Archives, "Request threads automatically archived by Werdnabot after 30 days.", not ClueBot. Intelligentsium 19:12, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

According to the archiving template at the top of WP:RFF Cluebot does the archiving. Maybe at one time it was Werdnabot. – ukexpat (talk) 19:29, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

My login/username

Hi!

I registered the user ID "qorogh," but when the confirmation email came, it was spelled "Qorogh" instead, as was the welcome on the after-login screen. Just for correction, I use this ID on other sites as well. It is a name in the Klingon language, and therefore, "Qorogh" is an incorrect spelling. The q must always be a lowercase letter. Is there a way to send confirmations and list IDs in the system EXACTLY as they're entered? I know it's a minor point, but it's a detail I feel should be shown correctly.

Many thanks!

Pat

aka "qorogh" here on Wikipedia —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.187.219.247 (talk) 17:46, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

All user names automatically have the first letter upper cased, so there's no way to "correct" your user name, short of a developer modifying our configuration of MediaWiki. Perhaps if you can convince the Federation to petition on your behalf you could get such an act enabled. Short of that, try putting {{lowercase}} on your user and user talk pages to change the appearance of your user name in the top page heading and page title. — Bility (talk) 18:24, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

When you created your login, there would have been quite a bit of explanatory text on the screen. The box on the right (headed "Username policy") includes the sentence "The first letter of a username is automatically capitalized." at the bottom. Also, on one of the help pages reached from there (at Help:Logging in#Login issues and problems) it says "the first character of the username ... is capital by default". --Redrose64 (talk) 19:20, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

In addition you can create a signature which controls how your name appears whenever you sign your name on a talk page. See WP:SIGNATURE for information. --SPhilbrickT 01:19, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

We need article that lists countries by "agricultural surplus" and overview of specific agricultural practices of countries.

We need a better overview of agricultural systems and practices with historical figures from all world countries. Especially interesting would be percentage of "agricultural surplus" and state of agriculture in world countries and overview how agricultural practices could be bettered in countries.

This page is for requesting help in using Wikipedia. If you would like to request that an article be written, see Requested articles. You are also welcome to write the article yourself. Robert Skyhawk ^{So sue me!} (You'll lose) 20:36, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

You could discuss on Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Agriculture. But first, be sure you have read all the articles relating to Agriculture. What you want may already be in Wikipedia somewhere. When Wikipedia has dozens of articles relating to a topic, you have to spend time reading just to get a grip on what's here. If it's hard to find all the relevant articles, maybe we need some more navigation box templates. Also read Wikipedia:Lists and Wikipedia:Categories, lists, and navigation templates. And peruse some featured lists to get inspired. --Teratornis (talk) 07:02, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

I don't know how to fix this ...

Take a look at the "cleanup-rewrite" box on this page, WP:Template_messages/Cleanup. It contains the following goofy text, which should be fixed, but I don't know how:

"This may need to be rewritten entirely to comply with Wikipedia's quality standards, as article."

Andrew Gradman ^talk/_WP:Hornbook 20:25, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

 Done it was a missing pipe. --Redrose64 (talk) 20:50, 20 February 2010 (UTC)