Wikipedia:Help desk/Archives/2011 January 21

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January 21[edit]

baby great white sharks.[edit]

Hello, could you please inform me how long a baby great white shark (pup) is at birth? thanks. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 121.218.211.23 (talk) 04:09, 21 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

This page is for questions about using Wikipedia. Please consider asking this question at the Science 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 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.--Danger (talk) 04:11, 21 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
My reply wasn't good enough?! – ukexpat (talk) 04:27, 21 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
There are approximately 3-5 ft at birth. --Monterey Bay (talk) 05:34, 21 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Contacting OTRS[edit]

WP:OTRS says look at WP:Contact us to find how to contact OTRS. WP:Contact us has no email address for OTRS. THF (talk) 12:27, 21 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

WP:Contact us has a section called "Provide licensing permission" which links to Wikipedia:Contact_us/Permit, which has the information you need. Adrian J. Hunter(talkcontribs) 12:35, 21 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
That doesn't seem like the right address to contact for BLP problems that need to be discussed off-wiki? If it is, it needs to be added more explicitly to the three article pages. If it isn't, I still an answer. THF (talk) 12:39, 21 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
My apologies, I assumed far too much. Perhaps you want Wikipedia:Contact_us/Article_problem/Factual_error_(from_subject)? That has an email address near the bottom, and is linked from WP:Contact us via "Report a problem with an article", which links to Wikipedia:Contact us/Article problem. Adrian J. Hunter(talkcontribs) 13:05, 21 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
See also Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons#How to complain to the Wikimedia Foundation.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 13:07, 21 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, both pages give the same email address. Adrian J. Hunter(talkcontribs) 13:30, 21 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Composite article under one name[edit]

The article Christopher R. Johnson seems to contain information about more than one person with the same, or similar name. This is noted on the Talk page, and my own attempts to make sense of the info have led me to a similar conclusion. Is there a "standard" way of indicating this in the main article, that at least directs readers to the talk page? Jan1naD (talkcontrib) 13:35, 21 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Answering my own question. I'm going to pick on the person the current article matches most closely, move it to Christopher W. Johnson (for it is he - see here), and remove any and all information that can not be backed up by references.
You may want to add a hatnote to direct people who are looking for the Glaswegian from the R. page to the W. page. Hatnotes are an area where covering misinformation is useful.Naraht (talk) 15:18, 21 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
See, for example, Samantha Power and Samantha Power (actress); but even then, there can be confusion since both of these women appear to have been born in exactly the same place, although three years apart. --Redrose64 (talk) 15:38, 21 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Two articles about the same Topic[edit]

Someone has made an article about Me and my Monsters and I believe that that I write my version before the the other persons version.

My article

There article —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.130.20.196 (talk) 16:06, 21 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Bit of a tough situation. While "your" article was written first, no other articles link to it. The other article is more complaint with editing guidelines (i.e. correct article title) and all wiki articles link to it. There are a few avenues to take here, but I'm not sure which is best. Rehevkor 16:18, 21 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Definitely should not have two on same topic in this situation. WP:MERGE has some information about merging multiple pages into one. DMacks (talk) 16:22, 21 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
(edit conflict) The process to go through is described at Wikipedia:MERGE#Proposing_a_merger and Help:Merging#Proposing_a_merger. The content can be merged under one of the titles, removing redundant content and leaving that content which best meets Wikipedia ideals with regard to well-written and well-referenced text. There is no preference given to the article which was first, just which content, from either article, is best, even if content comes from both articles. --Jayron32 16:23, 21 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Not in this case. I have tagged Me and my Monsters for speedy deletion as a copyright violation. You can't create a Wikipedia article by copy+pasting text from elsewhere. -- John of Reading (talk) 16:34, 21 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Good catch. I have merged the infobox box as I think that's all that was salvageable. Rehevkor 16:42, 21 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
...and I deleted the article as confirmed copyvio even back to its original creation. DMacks (talk) 16:47, 21 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
...and then I created the redirect so we can avoid having this happen, even accidentally, in the future. --Jayron32 17:00, 21 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

template - normally closed[edit]

Please enlighten me about temolates, sometimes I goto articles and they are closed and sometimes opened, I would like to arrange for one to be permanently closed, how is it done - Specifically in relation to the one at the bottom of this BLP Julian Assange. Off2riorob (talk) 17:15, 21 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

You add " | state = collapsed" according to the docs. Rehevkor 17:21, 21 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I had already gone ahead and done that. But yeah, you add "state = collapsed" to force it to collapse. It looks like someone just tried to enter the word "collapsed"; the Navbox templates use so many parameters that every one is defined, so you need to indicate the parameter and its value. --Jayron32 17:26, 21 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Its only working now because I have just edited the template definition. -- John of Reading (talk) 17:29, 21 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Ah, many thanks all, I had the idea it was an issue in the template definitions - I will have a look and learn how to do that in future. My issue was just that although connect to the subject, on his BLP article, some of them are imo tangential and imo better to leave closed for users that really want to investigate the broad field of information. Thanks. Off2riorob (talk) 17:35, 21 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Family[edit]

My mother was living maid for the covent back there between 1946/1948 until she got married her name was Hermina Caraballo . I also had an aunt whose was Isabel Robledo do you have any info . on any of these ladies, my mom passed away around 1949/1950 would like to have as much info on her. Any info. that you can give me is deeply appreiated regards Mary M. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.194.181.192 (talk) 19:34, 21 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Hello Mary. I have to admit I'm not sure anyone will be able to help you here. There are other websites that can be used for tracing past family members and such information but Wikipedia generally does not contain such information. A cursory search myself wielded very little related to these two people. If you believe your family members to be notable you can always file a request at Wikipedia:Requested articles. Rehevkor 20:03, 21 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I don't know what "the covent" refers to. I suspect, based on your question, that you found one of our over 3.5 million articles and thought we were affiliated in some way with that subject. Please note that you are at Wikipedia, the free online encyclopedia that anyone can edit, and this page is for asking questions related to using or contributing to Wikipedia itself. Thus, we have no special knowledge about the subject of your question. You can, however, search our vast catalogue of articles by typing a subject into the search field on the upper right side of your screen. If you cannot find what you are looking for, we have a reference desk, divided into various subject areas, where asking knowledge questions is welcome. Best of luck. PrimeHunter (talk) 21:18, 21 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

List of Railroad Museums in Canada[edit]

Good day! I am a director on the board of the Northern Ontario Railroad Museum & Heritage Centre in Capreol, Ontario. We have a museum with rolling stock & a museum house (the former railway superintendent's) full of memorabilia & pictures of the last 100 years. We actively serve the public from May till September.

It has come to my attention that we are not listed on your site. How would I go about having this added to the list of Railroad Museums in Canada? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_railway_museums#Canada

Thanks!

Wendy Paul —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.70.201.134 (talk) 20:09, 21 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Hello Wendy. Generally in a case like this the best option is to give a shout at the article talk page: Talk:List of railway museums. The people there will be more likely to assist you in adding the entry or do it for you. In this case there is already an article to link to at Northern Ontario Railroad Museum, and I have amended this onto the list for you. I have also created a few redirects to make the article easier to find in the future. Rehevkor 20:58, 21 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Probably a better idea would be to leave a message on the talk page of the Railways Wikiproject. – ukexpat (talk) 21:08, 21 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

printing[edit]

the article shows 10 pages of information but only prints out the 1st one.. anyway to get the additional pages for viewing?? Jconway587 (talk) 21:29, 21 January 2011 (UTC)--Jconway587 (talk) 21:29, 21 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Which article are you asking about? —teb728 t c 21:37, 21 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I have worked some related issues. but we need to know the article and your browser version. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) talk 03:45, 22 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

recommending wikipedia pages on facebook[edit]

Why can I no longer recommend a wikipedia page on Facebook? It appears that that option is no longer available and I am very upset about it...my friends and I do it all the time and really miss it.! 173.3.137.142 (talk) 22:14, 21 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

How Facebook behaves has nothing to do with Wikipedia. I believe you'd have to contact Facebook and request they rectify this. Rehevkor 22:17, 21 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]