Wikipedia:Help desk/Archives/2011 August 16

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August 16

Doesn't remember my login

As of tonight, when using Firefox, Wikipedia doesn't remember me, even though I told it to remember me for 30 days, etc. I've tried it several times, and it does not automatically log me in as it used to. Is this a known problem? Bubba73 ^{You talkin' to me?} 02:05, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

You probably have cookies turned off on your browser. Monterey Bay (talk) 02:23, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

Resolved

I was accepting cookies, but somehow "clear history when exit" got checked. With that unchecked it is back to normal. Bubba73 ^{You talkin' to me?} 02:28, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

The rating of an article

The article Steinway & Sons has for years ago been rated as "This article has been rated as C-Class on the project's quality scale.", see the template in the top of the talk page Talk:Steinway & Sons. I am not sure about what C-Class is. If it is about the quality of the article, then I think the rating must be upgrated to a higher level, because many things have changed in the article since it was rated C-Class. --Peoplefromarizona (talk) 03:44, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

Well, the banner and assessment are for WP:WikiProject Musical Instruments - you can see their assessment ratings here. You may want to ask for a re-assessment on the project's talk page. ^Avic_ennasis @ 04:16, 16 Av 5771 / 16 August 2011 (UTC)

Note also that, if you feel comfortable applying the criteria yourself, you can reassess the article to a different class. For example, if you feel the article clearly meets all of the criteria laid out for a "B" class article, feel free to just upgrade the rating. Note, however, that general "B" class is the highest class which can be unilaterally assigned; the higher classes (Good, A-Class, and Featured) require independent review. --Jayron32 04:19, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

...and that size isn't important :-) It's more critical that the article is well-referenced; take a look here, and notice the marks indicating reference links that don't seem to be working.  Chzz  ►  04:44, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

Thank you for your answers. --Peoplefromarizona (talk) 06:05, 17 August 2011 (UTC)

In re policy on ritual abuse.

It simply is not clear what independent references means. The clinical literature all in respected journals discounted as biased and not independent. There was an arrest and conviction in London: ..."A man has been found guilty of leading a "satanic" sex cult from his home in a small Welsh town." The Guardian 9 March 2011. Is this independent?

What is the policy? Right now ritual abuse is being classified as nothing more than a version of alien abduction. Is this classification set in stone or what? 86.166.93.5 (talk) 07:04, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

First, I suggest you create a user account. It's not essential, but I do recommend it.

Newspapers are almost always good references, yes; just remember that the article needs to give a fair view of the entire subject, so beware giving any undue weight to one point of view. But, keeping that in mind, just go ahead and edit it; discuss any potentially controversial edits (or, if someone undoes your edits) on the talk page, Talk:Satanic ritual abuse.

"respected journals discounted as biased and not independent" sounds like a content dispute. If you want to check if something is a good reference, ask on Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard. If someone disagrees with your opinion, try and come to an agreement; ask for input from other people if necessary; see Wikipedia:Consensus.  Chzz  ►  15:40, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

Split template does not generate a response

List of conglomerates has been tagged with Template:Split since May 2011. The editor adding the template started a thread on the talk page at Talk:List of conglomerates#Proposal to split article. Despite my reply, this has not generated any additional responses. How long is this template supposed to be on an article, after no further input is put into the discussion? Should I remove the template from the article? Should I ask the user who tagged the article to remove it? Does this "discussion" need to be formally closed? The documentation of the template says nothing about how to handle that. Any advice on how to proceed is welcome. Toshio Yamaguchi (talk) 08:30, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

Nothing formal.

If you're pretty sure it should be split, go ahead and split it - remember to give attribution. Or, speak to the other Wikipedian, Fsmatovu (talk · contribs). Or, if you think it'd be good to get more opinions, try asking on related WikiProject/s (e.g. Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Companies)(leaving a neutral note, just asking people to comment there), and/or ask on e.g. Wikipedia:Editor assistance, Wikipedia:Third opinion, or whatever you think appropriate. But, mostly, WP:BOLD.  Chzz  ►  15:32, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for the reply and the talkback message, Chzz. I will drop Fsmatovu a note and ask him what he thinks first. Toshio Yamaguchi (talk) 16:06, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

How do I delete my whole contribution

How do I delete my contribution in its entirety? — Preceding unsigned comment added by S. L. Lopez (talk • contribs) 09:38, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

You can't: the page has other contributors. Why do you want it deleted? Jarkeld (talk) 09:42, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

The only way you could get it deleted would be to demonstrate that the church has not received significant coverage in independent reliable sources. —teb728 t c 10:48, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

Every time you click 'Save', there's a note saying that By clicking the "Save Page" button, you [..] irrevocably agree to release your contribution under the CC-BY-SA 3.0 License....

If there's something wrong with an article, then fix it; no need to delete it, unless it's not an appropriate encyclopaedic topic.  Chzz  ►  15:42, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

Can't contribute to referendum

I'm logged in as Apuldram and planned to make a contribution to your Image filter referendum. When I click on the link to that page I'm asked to log in again. When I do so a message appears "There is no user by the name Apuldram. Usernames are case sensitive. Check your spelling, or create a new account". I have now tried several times. Is there another way of contributing? Apuldram (talk) 10:33, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

The referendum is on meta.wikimedia.org, which I believe has separate accounts from English Wikipedia unless you have a unified login. —teb728 t c 11:03, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

You should be able to go to Special:SecurePoll/vote/230 and then click on the button to get to the actual poll. GB fan please review my editing 11:10, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

Try Special:MergeAccount.  Chzz  ►  15:47, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

Resolved

Thanks for the help Apuldram (talk) 19:05, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

omanual - freeware need (container)or Program to open it.

Moved to Wikipedia:Reference desk/Computing § omanual file format

 –  Chzz  ►  15:57, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

hello My Name is Nathan L King I'm trying to find more Info on a new file ext.(?). I down lodead a omanual from internet archive.org on several ifixits to repair Sony Playstation 3's,Canon cameras and there in a omanual format witch is a xml and something else. I'm not sure how to do what im recomending so im just doing something in hopes it gets to the right person to get things asked the right people. I use your en.wikipedia all the time and try to use freeware in the hope that someday will be able to DONATE someday. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.135.163.250 (talk) 15:49, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

Try asking your question at Wikipedia:Reference desk/Computing. Ryan Vesey Review me! 15:52, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

(edit conflict)

This is the Wikipedia helpdesk - for help with editing Wikipedia.

Your question belongs on our reference desk, so I've moved it to Wikipedia:Reference desk/Computing#omanual file format - look for replies there.  Chzz  ►  15:56, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

Problems with my Talk page: David J Johnson

Resolved

Twice today, my Talk Page has been vandalised by 93.139.9.145.

On the first occasion it was spotted by another person and returned to the original. However, the same IP address has again vandalised my Talk Page. There is no Talk Page for 93.139.9145, how can I prevent this vandalism occuring again?

Best regards,

David J Johnson David J Johnson (talk) 16:42, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

• A) Warn the user, see WP:WARN - which I just did [1].
• B) If they carry on, maybe give a 'final warning', then ask for them to be blocked - WP:AIV or, if more complicated, WP:ANI.

Note, both those actions are much easier if you use the WP:TWINKLE gadget.

• C) If your page was being vandalised frequently by different IP addresses, you could request page protection - but, that's not necessary in this case, at the moment.
• D) If you want, you could ask for those edits to be removed from the page history, see WP:REVDEL.  Chzz  ►  16:47, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

• Thank you very much for all your help.

Best regards, David J Johnson (talk) 16:53, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

Incidentally, I think you mean your user page (User:David J Johnson), not your user talk page. And, there is a user talk page for 93.139.9.145, there isn't one for 93.139.9145. Links, 93.139.9.145 (talk · contribs)  Chzz  ►  16:47, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

You are correct. Very many thanks & regards, David J Johnson (talk) 16:56, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

Rick Richter

Can someone please help me with my entry for Rick Richter? I can't seem to clear the comments. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.45.79.16 (talk) 17:40, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

Please clarify why you mean by "clear the comments"? The last edit of that page and it's talk page was June 12 (I am assuming that you are talking about this page. Rabbitfang 18:25, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

I suspect you are referring to the maintenance tags at the top of the article. The article will likely need to be re written to have them removed, as all the issues they represent still appear valid. The article has been built over a period up by a series of single purpose accounts which can signify a conflict of interest and a possible effort to promote the subject rather than write a balanced encyclopaedia article. Яehevkor ✉ 18:31, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

Editor count

How many editors have their been in the history of wikipedia?--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 17:42, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Wikipedians. The number keeps going up, but it is not possible to know how many of the "usernames" are unique people. -- kainaw™ 17:59, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

Olympus µ article naming

The category Category:Olympus cameras lists several compact cameras made by Olympus Corporation. This question concerns the Olympus mju, or Olympus µ, line, which is also known as Olympus Stylus in North America. The category includes articles whose names come from all three styles of the name: mju, µ, or Stylus. It's the same product line - it's just named differently. Shouldn't all the articles be named either "Olympus mju" or "Olympus µ" to make them consistent? JIP | Talk 18:32, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

Probably, consistency is advisable per WP:NAMINGCRITERIA. The question though is which to use, according to Wikipedia:Manual of Style (trademarks) use of special characters like µ should be avoided. Redirects should also be made for the other names by which they were released. Should probably try discussing it first in Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Photography though, just to make sure everyone agrees with any changes.-- Obsidi♠n Soul 21:31, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

Re: Michael Jingozian biography

[This request concerns the following article:]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Jingozian

Dear Wikipedia professional:

I apologize for this intrusion into your busy day, but I wanted to follow up on a biography that I’ve recently submitted to Wikipedia.

My name is Alan Lohner, a journalist with more than 25 years of experience in Portland, Oregon. I was recently commissioned by Michael Jingozian, one of the prominent leaders of the Libertarian National Party, to rewrite his Wikipedia biography in a journalistic style. Wikipedia had tagged Mr. Jingozian’s prior biography with three objections.

These three objections were: --“This biography of a living person needs additional references or sources for verification.” --“It is written like an advertisement and needs to be rewritten from a neutral point of view.” --“It may have been edited by a contributor who has a close connection with its subject.”

I relied on these very valid objections to rewrite Mr. Jingozian’s biography so that it may meet all of Wikipedia’s high standards. I believe that I’ve created a biography that’s accurate, informative, balanced, and enlightening for Wikipedia readers. The new biography was posted on Wikipedia two weeks ago. However, the same three objections are still posted.

I greatly respect your time, and I realize your workload must be enormous, given the wealth of information on Wikipedia. At the same time, I am concerned whether I may have missed the mark in any way. My goal is to follow your direction to create content that is completely within your guidelines.

With that in mind, would it be possible to expedite a review of Mr. Jingozian’s biography to determine whether I’ve satisfied those prior objections? I apologize in advance if this is an inconvenience. But I am eager to ensure that the biography is written honestly, impartially, and fairly.

I eagerly await your response and further direction.

Thank you very much for your consideration.

Sincerely,

Alan Lohner 50.53.73.223 (talk) 20:25, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

"I was recently commissioned by Michael Jingozian, one of the prominent leaders of the Libertarian National Party, to rewrite his Wikipedia biography in a journalistic style"??????? Oh, yeah, that's really gonna take care of that pesky "edited by a contributor who has a close connection with its subject" problem. I'm sorry, Alan, but that's the worst possible kind of way to deal with a problem biography, however strong your own background may be. --Orange Mike | Talk 20:40, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

Alan, are you the editor who goes by the username User:Mjingozian? --Orange Mike | Talk 20:43, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

Also please note that the people who write the articles and reply to questions here are all volunteers. None of us are being paid to do it, and we certainly are not professionals.-- Obsidi♠n Soul 21:19, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

Article revision problem

When previewing the last eight edit revisions of Howling Bells (album), the whole block of text in the Singles section is completely red each time. The first instance of this happening was on July 24, when the section was expanded, but every edit to the section since that date has been minor. Does anybody know why this is happening and what can be done to fix it? Mattchewbaca (meow) 20:54, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

Looks perfectly normal to me (Firefox 5). What browser are you using? --ColinFine (talk) 21:47, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

My bad, I am referring to diffs. If you look at the diffs do you see what I am talking about? I really need to update, I am still using Firefox 3.6. Mattchewbaca (meow) 00:49, 17 August 2011 (UTC)

Are you referring to diffs? Some of them display a lot of red in that section but I don't see any in [2]. wikEdDiff will often give better diffs. PrimeHunter (talk) 23:38, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

If you can see the whole section as red too than that must mean there is something wrong. Do you know of anything that can be done to fix this? Mattchewbaca (meow) 00:49, 17 August 2011 (UTC)

It's a known issue that the diff engine often produces a lot of red without identifying a simpler way to display the difference. The section in question has a source line with around 10,000 characters. Help:Diff#Miscellaneous says: "The diff shows differences per line. Some editors find that adding manual line breaks improves the diff function." It doesn't have to be blank lines. It should be enough with single newlines without effect on the rendered page. PrimeHunter (talk) 01:27, 17 August 2011 (UTC)

Ok, so it's a glitch in the system. I might try to create a second paragraph in that section to see if that corrects the problem. Thanks for your help. Mattchewbaca (meow) 02:53, 17 August 2011 (UTC)

• A second paragraph fixed the issue. Thanks. Mattchewbaca (meow) 11:53, 19 August 2011 (UTC)

information missing in an article

In the article "tim alexander" (the drummer) there's information missing in discography. He produced, co-composed and performed on the album "The brides - Dalmatian car" from 1997. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 190.31.123.150 (talk) 21:28, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

If you have an independent reliable source for that information, you are welcome to add it to the article. If there isn't such a source, then it doesn't belong in the article. --ColinFine (talk) 21:49, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

How to insert a photograph into a wikipedia article from your computer

Hello

I have tried to insert a photograph into a wikipedia article and it doesn't turn out. First I downloaded the photograph from my computer onto webshots, since it doesn't appear that you can download a photograph directly from your computer. I cut and pasted the http into the formatting link. I still get no photo. can someone please give me clear and concise instructions? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Wordswerth (talk • contribs) 23:06, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

• If you want to upload an image from your computer for use in an article, you must determine the proper license of the image (or whether it is in the public domain). If you know the image is public domain or copyrighted but under a suitable free-license, upload it to the Wikimedia Commons instead of here, so that all projects have access to the image (sign up). If you are unsure of the licensing status, see the file upload wizard for more information. Please also read Wikipedia's image use policy.
• If you want to add an image that has already been uploaded to Wikipedia or Wikimedia Commons, add [[File:File name.jpg|thumb|Caption text.]] to the area of the article where you want the image to appear – replacing File name.jpg with the actual file name of the image, and Caption text with a short description of the image. See our picture tutorial for more information. I hope this helps. PrimeHunter (talk) 23:22, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

Wikipedia talk:Peer review

There is an automated message there warning it is getting full. What to do? Thanks. Jesanj (talk) 23:37, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

Sec.  Doing...  Chzz  ►  00:04, 17 August 2011 (UTC)

"<p858snake|l> that is the, we have no limits, the message that we used to display was because some older browsers had issues displaying and saving pages
<p858snake|l> *that is the answer
<p858snake|l> i would assume the bot is designed/based off the same size suggestions as we used to display in that interface message"

Pay no attention to the messages, also I'm having a look as to why this bot is making those edits as I can't see a task approval for it. Peachey88 ^{(T · C)} 00:32, 17 August 2011 (UTC)

Pay no attention to my previous comments since I mis-understood what size warnings the message was referring to. Peachey88 ^{(T · C)} 07:47, 17 August 2011 (UTC)

The message is referring to Wikipedia:Template limits#Post-expand include size. This is a very real problem which has caused many articles in Category:Pages where template include size is exceeded to stop transclusions. PrimeHunter (talk) 00:45, 17 August 2011 (UTC)

It affects pages like Peer Review, GA, and FA in particular, because they transclude many large pages of discussion, and because of a longstanding bug that causes the same bytes of output to be counted multiple times if the transclusions are nested. — Carl (CBM · talk) 01:26, 17 August 2011 (UTC)

I fixed the size problem by changing the largest three peer reviews to partial transclusion. I was offline and did not see the notice until recently. Please keep this warning function as it is very useful. Ruhrfisch _><>°^° 02:11, 17 August 2011 (UTC)

Rename and Redirect?

Resolved

In response to a needed page, I created the page Rattus salocco, because of the multiple pages that linked to it. After starting it, I realized the general consensus was to name the article after the common name instead of the scientific one. My question is how can I rename the article after the common name (Southeastern Xanthurus Rat) and then redirect all links to Rattus salocco to the newly named article? Any help and solutions are appreciated. Wmcscrooge (talk) 23:55, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

Just move it, as I just did [3] - no worries.

The old name will redirect to the new; bots will take care of the rest. Sorted.  Chzz  ►  00:01, 17 August 2011 (UTC)

(edit conflict)The way to do this is to move the page. At the top right of your article you should see a drop down and there should be a link to Move. A new page should come up and you can put in the new name and a reason why. It will also create a redirect from the current name to the new name. If you have any questions please ask. GB fan please review my editing 00:02, 17 August 2011 (UTC)

Thanks a lot Wmcscrooge (talk) 00:04, 17 August 2011 (UTC)