Wikipedia:Help desk/Archives/2011 July 10

Help desk
< July 9	<< Jun | July | Aug >>	July 11 >

Welcome to the Wikipedia Help Desk Archives
The page you are currently viewing is an archive page. While you can leave answers for any questions shown below, please ask new questions on one of the current Help Desk pages.

July 10

The edit feature is missing off the page I am looking at for the NJ mob

I was going to make a correction and the edit feature is missing. Is this specifically an issue with the computer I am working on ? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Karriecole (talk • contribs) 00:26, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

Yes, the page has been semi-protected you must be an autoconfirmed (at least 4 days of editing and ten edits) editor to edit it. You can make a request by using the {{Edit semi-protected}} template on the talk page of the article. Ryan Vesey (talk) 00:29, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

I guess you mean DeCavalcante crime family. Ryan Vesey's reply applies to that article. Note however that his "Yes" was not aimed at your second sentence. The missing edit is due to your Wikipedia account and not your computer. PrimeHunter (talk) 00:36, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

Yes, clarification time: I meant "Yes the edit feature is missing for you". Sorry for the ambiguity. Ryan Vesey (talk) 00:38, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

Need help with adding reliable sources for Living Biography Entry (Joe Cabot)

Embarrassed to say that while I am good-intentioned, I am not very tech proficient and can't figure out how to add reliable sources or even what exact form they need to be. I have ny times reviews, album liner notes, etc. I've read the FAQ page, but I can't make heads or tails of it...told you I was clueless! Any help is really appreciated. Thanks! — Preceding unsigned comment added by Dina Fox (talk • contribs) 00:31, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

The best way in my opinion is to use the cite templates. If you look at the top of your edit box you will see a section to the right of help that says cite. Click that to open the drop down menu. Then click templates. If you are using NY Times you would choose cite news. Fill in all of the information that you can. Ryan Vesey (talk) 00:37, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

(edit conflict) No problem. When you said you read the FAQ page did you mean that read this page? I've found this page on referencing for beginners very helpful in the past. I hope this helped. :) MJ94 (talk) 00:41, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

Joe Cabot is living? Happy 100 on Tuesday! He will qualify for List of centenarians (musicians, composers and music patrons) by then. The source requirements would have been less strict if he wasn't still alive. PrimeHunter (talk) 00:56, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

I've made a bunch of edits including adding reference markup for you and one citation as an example.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 01:10, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

does wikipedia reference desk draw its knowledge only from wikipedia

or can the source of answers be from anywhere on the internet, and/or from the answerers life experience? thanks — Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.81.199.45 (talk) 01:50, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

The answers can come from anywhere, but Wikipedia will be used fairly often as a source. Ryan Vesey (talk) 01:51, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

We try to avoid using personal experiences, but are not always successful. Opinions do creep in. We prefer to provide answers with links to references. We use the whole of the internet for references. Bielle (talk) 02:03, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

Some of the questions aren't as conducive to being replied to with references as other questions. For instance, a couple weeks back there was a question about things to see/do in Northern Vermont. The OP could have been referred to tourism sites that list many many things to do and have to weed out those that don't fit their desires. But it's easier to ask real people to give suggestions based on the asker's preferences. Since I live in VT, I gave a rather lengthy reply. Dismas|^(talk) 02:12, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

The source can also be offline such as printed books, but online sources are usually preferred. See also Wikipedia:Reference desk/Guidelines. PrimeHunter (talk) 02:18, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

Please don't delete the following categories

1. Category:Hudson_bay_native_people I think there is some native people from Hudson Bay and this category need to exist. 2. Category:Television_series_set_in_The-Yukon and Category:Television_shows_set_in_Prince_Edward_Islands. Categories for tv shows set the united states by state Exist. So why not Canadian shows by province? Neptunekh2 (talk) 02:45, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

I linked the category names in your post by putting a colon in front of the name. You can follow the "this category's entry" link on the category pages and comment there. PrimeHunter (talk) 02:54, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

I don't find that anybody has proposed deleting these categories: do you have a reason for thinking somebod wants to?

If somebody does propose deleting them, then your comment here is unlikely to be noticed. I guess that if you want to make this point in a place that is more likely to be found, the talk pages such as Category Talk:Hudson bay native people would be the best place.

If somebody did propose deleting the categories, they would put their arguments on WP:CFD: it would then be up to people who wanted the categories kept to put counter arguments. The particular points would depend on why they had proposed deletion in the first place. But note that "other stuff exists" is not considered a very strong argument. --ColinFine (talk) 09:17, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

Actually all of them and a couple others are CfD'd. —teb728 t c 11:58, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

Is there a way to view someone's speedy deletion tags for articles that were deleted?

When I review the edits of a user who does not have a CSD log, I can only see the speedies that failed. Is there a way to see the one's where the user accurately tagged the article? Ryan Vesey (talk) 04:34, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

Directly? No, not without the administrative tool of seeing deleted edits. However, *if* the tagger is doing what they should be doing, then they are notifying the creators of the articles they tag every time they tag, and so you should be able to go to their contributions, limit the results to the user talk namespace, and then make a catalogue of the pages they link in the notifications of their tagging. A bit of a pain but doable.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 05:28, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

For people who use TW it is even easier, just search their contributions for "Speedy" as it is included in the edit summary of the talk page notification. You can just cruise through those counting red and blue links, the only problem is that you wont know if they tagged the wrong CSD rationale and it was deleted under a different one, or even under a different process. Monty₈₄₅ 05:57, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

Infobox error

The Infobox in Kevin Winterbottom shows his age as if he is still alive even though his death date has been entered. I can't see the source of the error. Roger (talk) 09:29, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

How's this? (The death_date parameter was misspelled as date_death. And {{birth date and age}} always calculates the age assuming the person is alive.) —teb728 t c 10:20, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

Thanks! Roger (talk) 10:34, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

Template parameters

I just made a template, Template:User creations, but all the parameters are linked and I can't get the [[]]s off there if the parameter is not in use. Any help? Rcsprinter (talk) 09:51, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

I fixed the Box1-title1 parameter with {{{Box1-title1||*[[{{{Box1-title1|}}}]]}}} Change the rest of the parameters the same way. —teb728 t c 10:45, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

It doesn't link it now though. Rcsprinter (talk) 10:46, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

 Fixed —teb728 t c 11:41, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

vandalism

What to do when a page has been repeatedly vandalized? (see Beram Kayal) --Sreifa (talk) 11:43, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

If it is vandalism by a particular editor, you should start by issuing warnings. When the editor has been sufficiently warned, you can report to Wikipedia:Administrator intervention against vandalism, where an admin can block, if appropriate.

If it is vandalism by multiple editors, you can ask for page protection. However, unless I'm misreading the history, I only see a couple reverts in the last week, which is not normally enough activity for page protection.--SPhilbrickT 13:10, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

Inappropriate and misleading picture on your WWII article in Facebook with promoting Hitler instead of telling the truth on the outcome of this war and of crimes against humanity by the person you are promoting on Facebook with Hitler picture.

Wikipedia MUST be more truthful and factual with history showing how this terrible WWII tragedy ended with the liberation from the dictator and criminal Hitler, showing instead in a picture, Allies personalities such as Eisenhower, Churchill, De Gaulle together, etc for example or better a picture showing DDay. Amazing what you do with Hitler's picture as center stage on Wikipedia Facebook page just to distort the truth and insult history and the free world. Thank you for correcting this, it gives Wikipedia a horrible image. Be factual all the way not only partially and in a misleading way. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.251.177.48 (talk) 13:13, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

What page are you referring to? Our World War II article only has a small image of Hitler, and we have no control of what Facebook does with our content. doomgaze (talk) 13:24, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

To be fair, a picture of Hitler seems to me to be a good picture to have on that article, as he was the main instigator of the World War. None of the others that you name are main participants throughout the war. Your suggestion (even if it applied to our article rather than the Facebook page which Doomglaze quite rightly points out has nothing to do with us) would give undue prominence to the other people you mention or to D-Day (which was only a small part of the overall subject). Wikipedia is a neutral encyclopaedia, and so personal opinion about Hitler or the War is inappropriate. Looking through other neutral encyclopaedias, both online and in print, all have pictures of Hitler featured prominently because of his importance to the subject. -- PhantomSteve.alt/talk\^{[alternative account of Phantomsteve]} 13:37, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

Also, the first images do not include Hitler, so which image are you referring to. Furthermore, you said "Wikipedia MUST be more truthful and factual with history" - truth is relative: different people see it differently! Wikipedia is about verifiability, not truth - what is reliably sourced. If there is anything which is factually inaccurate (and for which you can provide reliable references to demonstrate that your version is 'correct') then discuss that on the article's talk page. -- PhantomSteve.alt/talk\^{[alternative account of Phantomsteve]} 13:47, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

As others have said, Wikipedia has no control over Facebook content, but I got curious what they did. You didn't give a link so I'm not sure which Facebook page you refer to but after some searching I guess it is http://www.facebook.com/pages/World-War-II/109429592416229. Facebook copied the first paragraph of the Wikipedia article World War II, and added the first image outside the infobox. This is in the section World War II#Background. An image of Hitler (and Mussolini) seems appropriate to me there. You will have to contact Facebook if you want them to change their own page. I agree the page is unfortunate but it may have been computer generated by Facebook software. PrimeHunter (talk) 14:10, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

Yes, I agree. Please also read Wikipedia:NOTFACEBOOK. A person who has been editing Wikipedia since October 28, 2010. (talk) 15:51, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

Erm how is that relevant to the question at hand? doomgaze (talk) 16:05, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

Wikipedia:NOTFACEBOOK is not relevant here. {{HD/facebook}} is relevant and could have been used in the replies. PrimeHunter (talk) 16:37, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

• The opening poster appears to think that by posting that picture we somehow promote what happened as something good, which obviously isn't true. The picture is there because he was the main instigator of the war, which is verifiably true and factual. - 194.60.106.17 (talk) 06:43, 11 July 2011 (UTC)

TeX font size

Is there a way to force the TeX form we use to render at a large size? I've looked through Help:Displaying a formula without luck. I've tried <big>$a^{2}+b^{2}=c^{2}\!\,$</big> and <span style="font-size:200%;">$a^{2}+b^{2}=c^{2}\!\,$</span> but these elements which work fine for regular text do nothing for TeX formulae.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 13:43, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

I really don't know if this will work. Toshio Yamaguchi used {{math}} with the parameter 1=big and it did not superscript the exponents. I used {{bigmath}} and the same result occurred. The formula can't even be bolded. Ryan Vesey (talk) 14:31, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

(edit conflict) I've experimented a bit and {{math|big=1|a² + b² {{=}} c²}} seems to work and produces a² + b² = c². Does that help? Toshio Yamaguchi (talk) 14:42, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

There is also Template:Bigmath, which can be used like in the following example:
{{bigmath|a² + b² {{=}} c²}}
which produces
a² + b² = c². Toshio Yamaguchi (talk) 14:51, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for the responses. I think I goofed by using an example formula rather than being specific. Let me be more transparent. What I want to do is make this particular formula significantly larger (about 300%): $S={\frac {\pi Akc^{3}}{2hG}}\,\!$--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 15:01, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

I don't think this can be done. I am not an expert regarding the technical aspects of the MediaWiki software however and this is only a guess, so perhaps you should ask the guys at WP:VPT. Toshio Yamaguchi (talk) 15:42, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

As a last resort, one thing you could try if nothing else helps is to let Wikipedia produce the formula with one of the markups above, save that image to your computer, change the size with some image editing software, then upload it to Wikipedia or Commons and use the size parameter in Template:Image to make it bigger. Toshio Yamaguchi (talk) 15:55, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

Thanks Toshio. I already created the image with Gimp. The issue was that users stated a preference for it to be TeX so that it could be changed at any time.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 16:00, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

Requests for Articles

Your request for articles page seems to make no provisions for actually requesting an article. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.17.196.8 (talk) 15:31, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

Start at Wikipedia:Requested articles, follow the links until you get to the right section, and click the "edit" link to the right of the section heading. If there is no edit link then which page is it? PrimeHunter (talk) 15:36, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

edit conflict

During an edit conflict, if both people keep copying and pasting, who's version is submitted? And who is credited with the edit? Please provide me with an ACTUAL answer. A person who has been editing Wikipedia since October 28, 2010. (talk) 15:53, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

The first person to press save edit has their version saved. If the other person copies their information into the new page, a new edit is created. Ryan Vesey (talk) 16:01, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

"Both people keep copying and pasting" doesn't make any sense. The first person to save just saves normally: there isn't any conflict yet. Anybody else who was editing when the first person saved will be told when they try to save that there is an edit conflict, and shown the current page and their edited page. If they decide to transfer their changes to the current page and save again, that will be their edit - unless somebody else has saved in the meantime, and they again see an edit conflict. --ColinFine (talk) 18:43, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

I can't log in to the Chinese version of Wikipedia

Dear Wikipedia

Every time I tried to log into the Chinese version of Wikipedia with the username NeoBatfreak, it keep displaying the page "Error 404 – File not found," even trying to leave a message there without using my user account has the same problem. What is going on?--NeoBatfreak (talk) 16:19, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

Great Firewall of China? CRGreathouse (t | c) 16:50, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

No it is http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:%E9%A6%96%E9%A1%B5 (talk) 16:19, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

I was suggesting that the Firewall may have blocked the Chinese Wikipedia. My understanding is that it usually sends false 404s rather than indicating a block. CRGreathouse (t | c) 17:21, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

Is there a way to unblock it?--NeoBatfreak (talk) 19:23, 10 July 2011 (UTC) I'm not a computer wiz.--NeoBatfreak (talk) 19:23, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

Short of overthrowing the Communist regime? There are resources like Tor, but I'm not sure how well they work. CRGreathouse (t | c) 21:18, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

The right link is Tor (anonymity network). PrimeHunter (talk) 21:24, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for the tip. I just uninstalled and then reinstalled my internet security, which fixed the problem.--NeoBatfreak (talk) 02:31, 11 July 2011 (UTC)

please provide us wikipedia in hindi...........

We indians surf your site the most and still your site is not available in hindi language. I would like you to inform that we would be hugely obliged to see wiki in hindi. Please take my opinion in a positive way and please do work on it. THANKING YOU. SANDESH CHAVAN — Preceding unsigned comment added by Sandy9o7 (talk • contribs)

http://hi.wikipedia.org/wiki/ has existed for a long time, at least since 2005, and has tens of thousands of articles. CRGreathouse (t | c) 16:54, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

See also List of Wikipedias and Hindi Wikipedia (the latter mentions the assistance from Google with machine translation). Note that the English Wikipedia is by far the largest of the various language Wikipedias, so there will be many articles in English having no counterpart in Hindi. Conversely, there may be a smaller number of articles in Hindi having no counterpart in English. If you are reading an article in English, and a Hindi version is available, the English article should display an interlanguage link to the Hindi version. However, the responsibility for adding such links is up to human editors, so some articles are missing interlanguage links that should have them. If you want to help with the massive job of translating articles between languages, see the links under WP:EIW#Translate. --Teratornis (talk) 21:55, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

Can't login

I can't login into en.wikipedia.org. I can login into nl.wikipedia.org with the option globally selected. As far as I know I had the same username at both sites.

It seems there isn't an e-mailaddress set at en.wikipedia.org for my account. Is there a way to find out if this account is really mine and get a new password? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.86.161.166 (talk) 18:16, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

If you don't have email and forgot your password then you cant log in. That's it. A person who has been editing Wikipedia since October 28, 2010. (talk) 20:59, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

What is the username? PrimeHunter (talk) 21:08, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

FF (at least at nl.wikipedia.org)

http://toolserver.org/~vvv/sulutil.php?user=FF shows there is no SUL (unified login) for FF. As you say, the English User:FF has not set an email address (and has not made any edits). If you don't have a working password already then you cannot find out whether you created it, and you cannot get access to the account, but you can usurp the username. First go to nl:Special:MergeAccount and unify your account to claim the name FF on all Wikimedia projects where it isn't taken already. Then go to Wikipedia:Changing username/Usurpations and follow the procedure to request usurping the name FF at the English Wikipedia. PrimeHunter (talk) 15:57, 11 July 2011 (UTC)

Thank you PrimeHunter. Request is pending. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.86.161.166 (talk) 18:01, 11 July 2011 (UTC)

I want to run this by you all of you

Is the category Category:People_from_Hudson_Bay_Quebec a good category to create? Please let me know. I'll use Wikipedia:Assume_good_faith. What do you want me to do? Neptunekh2 (talk) 19:00, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

People from Hudson Bay, Quebec? I don't think that is good to create. Is it a city, or territory, or what? A person who has been editing Wikipedia since October 28, 2010. (talk) 19:08, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

Three provinces (Ontario, Manitoba and Québec) and one territory (Nunavut) border on Hudson Bay. There is no such place as Hudson Bay, Québec. Most of the very sparse settlements around the Bay are populated by Cree and Inuit peoples who have no interest in which internal border runs where. I cannot see the use in such a category. I think this discussion belongs at WP:Categories for discussion, not here. Bielle (talk) 19:21, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

Accessibility for colour blind people

Resolved

 – Darigan (talk) 19:15, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

Hi, I was looking at Wikipedia with a friend the other day, and I was explaining some of the basic ins-and-out of it. One thing that I spoke about was the difference between the blue and red links, explaining that blue links went to other Wikipedia articles, and that red links appeared when somebody tried to link that text to an article that does not yet exist.

My friend is colour-blind, and for him, the red-links looked exactly the same as the blue-links. Now, I know this may not be a major issue (you'll soon realise whether the link was blue or red after clicking on it), but, I was wondering if Wikipedia has any sort of accessiblity option that could be turned on to stop this problem (perhaps placing red links in bolded or italicised text, or something like that)?

Cheers, Darigan (talk) 19:06, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

[1]. Scroll down to “Format links to non-existent pages like this (alternative: like this?)” and uncheck, that should do. Its Preferences > Appearance > Advanced options > Format links to non-existent pages like this (alternative: like this?). regard A person who has been editing Wikipedia since October 28, 2010. (talk) 19:10, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

Excellent - Much appreciated, thank you A person who has been editing Wikipedia since October 28 Darigan (talk) 19:15, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

Using the handy {{myprefs}} template:

Preferences → Appearance → Format links to non-existent pages like this (alternative: like this?) ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 20:02, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

Oooo cool template! – ukexpat (talk) 12:58, 11 July 2011 (UTC)

I would like to merge my old userpage with my new userpage

I had 2 user names on this wiki: User:Neptunekh and User:Neptunekh2. I would like the 2 userpages to be merged together. Thanks! Neptunekh (talk) 19:52, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

Maybe I'm missing something, but there's nothing preventing you from merging the material. When you are done, you might replace the contents of one of them with a redirect to the other.

Is it possible you meant that you wanted the accounts merged, as opposed to the user pages? (Which I don't believe is possible).--SPhilbrickT 20:04, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

I have 2 illnesses: Autism and Schizophrenia. I make alot of mistakes on Wikipedia and I have trouble understanding it. I'm going through alot of personal problems. I lost my job and I had a nervous breakdown and spent 2 weeks in the hospital. I'm sorry for messing up wikipedia. I don't know how to merge the accounts. Can someone please help me? Neptunekh (talk) 20:50, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

Sorry to hear about your personal problems. There is no procedure to merge accounts. The edits from the two accounts cannot be assigned to the same account. If you only wish to use one account in the future then choose one, stop using the other, and optionally redirect the user page to the account you are using. You are also free to manually copy material from one of the user pages to the other. See also Wikipedia:Changing attribution for an edit (which says it cannot be done). PrimeHunter (talk) 21:17, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

removal of date of birth from profile

Hi, I'm trying to remove a date of birth placed on a profile which was not authorised by the artist. Stalkers have used this information to create bogus profiles on the web. Could you please advise how i can do this without being blocked? Thanks Equeen12345 (talk) 21:34, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

I have removed the birthdate because it is unsourced. The vandalism warnings you received were improper as your edits do not meet wikipedia's definition of vandalism. GB fan please tell me what you think of my editing 21:47, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

I apologise for the warnings, I made a mistake.--Katieh5584 (talk) 21:49, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

I make no apology for my first warning, which is what you would leave for any editor who deleted content without explanation. Anyway, I found a reliable source - an interview - which give the date of birth and seems to be much more reliable than other sources quoting the same date (most of which are probably derived from either imdb or Wikipedia). If a person's date of birth is in the public domain then there is no reason to remove it from their biographical article on Wikipedia. --Biker Biker (talk) 22:16, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

Hi, Equeen. You seem to have some misconceptions about Wikipedia. We are very concerned with accuracy, but even more with verifiability. Any unsourced information may be removed by anybody (and in biographies of living people unsourced information should be removed), so what you did was correct; if you had given an edit summary explaining why, it would probably not have been misjudged to be vandalism.

However, you removed it for the wrong reason: authorisation by the artist is strictly irrelevant. Any well-sourced information in the article (which meets certain other criteria such as relevance and proportionality) should be kept even if the artist wanted it removed. Judging from your language, I suspect that you have a connection with the artist, and if so you should read about conflict of interest before editing that article any further. --ColinFine (talk) 22:35, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

I have removed the date of birth per WP:BLPPRIVACY. Editors should read that. PrimeHunter (talk) 23:20, 10 July 2011 (UTC)