Wikipedia:Help desk/Archives/2011 October 8

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October 8

Ratings panel problems

Hi, recently the ratings panel at the bottom of articles has been broken for me. I used to be able to see the current rating averages (via a "display ratings" link or something ... don't remember precisely what it was called). Now that has gone, there is a cryptic green arrow and blue box whose purposes are completely unclear, and when I assign a rating some unlabelled checkboxes and an email address, again all of unknown purpose, also appear. Basically it's all in a very broken-looking state, as if someone's currently in the middle of playing around with coding some new features but hasn't yet finished. 86.179.0.153 (talk) 02:43, 8 October 2011 (UTC)

It works fine for me. What browser are you on?-- Obsidi♠n Soul 09:37, 8 October 2011 (UTC)

IE 8 with Windows XP. Can anyone else test it with IE 8? 86.179.3.119 (talk) 11:16, 8 October 2011 (UTC)

Please report this at Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)#Article Feedback tool. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 11:26, 8 October 2011 (UTC)

Variations of English

If your goal is to promote unity in international topics by acknowledging different variations of spelling certain English words, would it not be more conducive to this goal by choosing the more international spelling of the word? In the case of fibre (fibreoptics, fibreglass, etc...), suffix -re- is used by the U.K., Canada, Australia, New Zealand, most British colonies, and most English-speaking parts of the world. Suffix -er- is only used by the United States. Why do Americans passionately defend their illiterate spelling of many words/pages on Wikipedia? Why do you allow it? (by dismissing it as "leave it in the original authors spelling.") An article looks poorly written when it uses -er- throughout, while all of its sources are using -re-. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.226.60.109 (talk) 05:45, 8 October 2011 (UTC)

The place to discuss this would be at WT:MOS, but if you look in the archives, I'm sure you'll find it has been argued to death already. By the way, your characterisation of American spelling as "illiterate", being both false to fact and offensive, is not likely to win you many supporters in any argument. --ColinFine (talk) 11:14, 8 October 2011 (UTC)

Questions about WP:LQ

I have some questions about application of WP:LQ and am wondering if there is a resident punctuation expert who would help me? Thanks for your consider. Ihardlythinkso (talk) 05:54, 8 October 2011 (UTC)

The right place for the question is Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style#MOS:LQ questions. - David Biddulph (talk) 06:13, 8 October 2011 (UTC)

Okay, thanks. But it is confusing, because over there it says:

This purpose of this page is to discuss Wikipedia:Manual of Style. If your post is about a specific problem you have, please ask for help at the Wikipedia:Help desk.

My Q is about application of the policy MOS:LQ, and thought maybe that was a "problem" not "discussion about the MOS". Ok, Ihardlythinkso (talk) 06:36, 8 October 2011 (UTC)

Updation of WP:OR#Translations and transcriptions

Per WP:OR#Translations and transcriptions, Faithfully translating sourced material into English, or transcribing spoken words from audio or video sources, is not considered original research. However, it does not state anything about whether the sourced material is about facts or quotes. After my translation was reversed yesterday, I have been given to understand that translating quotes is not ok, whereas translating facts is ok for Wikipedians. I would like to know if this fine point could be incorporated in WP:OR#Translations and transcriptions and in WP:NOENG, so that in future, other new Wikipedians do not commit the same mistake due to the lack of clarification about this fine point in the policy document. Thanks lot. Have a nice day! --Tinpisa (talk) 08:39, 8 October 2011 (UTC)Tinpisa (talk) 06:22, 8 October 2011 (UTC)

The WP:NOTENG section of Wikipedia:Verifiability has been reworded from time to time, but its intent has remained the same for several years. Here, for example, is the text from the end of 2007. It should not be changed without a wider discussion. -- John of Reading (talk) 09:32, 8 October 2011 (UTC)

Thankyou for the clarification. However, it says: Where editors use their own English translation of a non-English source as a quote in an article, there should be clear citation of the foreign-language original, so that readers can check what the original source said and the accuracy of the translation. This is exactly what I had done, but my post was reversed. So how was I wrong? Or rather was I wrong? Is there a place where such disputes can be resolved? Thanks. Tinpisa (talk) 12:48, 8 October 2011 (UTC)

For general advice see Wikipedia:Dispute resolution, but I see that you've made progress on the article talk page. -- John of Reading (talk) 11:23, 9 October 2011 (UTC)

Thanks a lot, for the help, John! Tinpisa (talk) 19:48, 9 October 2011 (UTC)

Simple English Editing

I'm new to editing Wikipedia, and I was thinking that it would be easier to start with the Simple English Wikipedia. I was just wondering if I could reword the origional page and/or use the same sources. Thanks! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.250.105.170 (talk) 06:25, 8 October 2011 (UTC)

Sure, please do. Thanks for your help. Dualus (talk) 06:39, 8 October 2011 (UTC)

Noise in File:Richard W. Fisher, FRBD.gif

File:Richard W. Fisher, FRBD.gif looks terrible at normal resolution on Chrome for Windows 7. Is it just me or does it have bad color codes in the .gif? Dualus (talk) 06:39, 8 October 2011 (UTC)

Perhaps a browser related issue? I can't reproduce the problem you describe. It looks ok for me in Safari (also under Windows 7). Toshio Yamaguchi (talk) 08:29, 8 October 2011 (UTC)

This is probably irrelevant since it is a non-free image of a living person, and therefore not allowed under Wikipedia rules; see point 1 at WP:NFC#UUI. -- John of Reading (talk) 09:16, 8 October 2011 (UTC)

Not only that but it also violates WP:NFCC Policy 10c. I am going to remove it. Toshio Yamaguchi (talk) 09:34, 8 October 2011 (UTC)

This is the last time I will ever ask for help on the Help Desk. I don't know who John and Toshio are, and I have no idea if they are following proper procedure, but if they are not aware that I asked about the photograph because I thought it was important, then I no longer want anything to do with them and this so-called "Help" desk. Dualus (talk) 09:42, 8 October 2011 (UTC)

Unfortunately it is irrelevant whether you think that an image is important. WP:NFCC Policy 10c requires "a separate, specific non-free use rationale for each use of the item, as explained at Wikipedia:Non-free use rationale guideline". The current rationale does for example not address the images replaceability with a free alternative. Therefore the correct procedure is to remove the image from the article per WP:NFCC#Enforcement. The correct thing for you to do would be to take a look at the file and add a valid rationale if you want to address the issues. Toshio Yamaguchi (talk) 09:49, 8 October 2011 (UTC)

Mirror threads

Is it allowed to use Mirror threads here on the English Wikipedia (for example at the Village Pumps)? Toshio Yamaguchi (talk) 09:00, 8 October 2011 (UTC)

The Mirror Bot is not yet approved, so I would guess not. -- John of Reading (talk) 09:22, 8 October 2011 (UTC)

Ok thanks. I think I will drop the operator a note. Toshio Yamaguchi (talk) 09:25, 8 October 2011 (UTC)

Sortable tables stop sorting

I have included sortable tables in about 40 articles. They worked fine. Today I notice that none of them will sort. The sort arrows are missing from the head boxes.

See Blue Duster#Tabulated race record for example. How can I fix this? I'm particularly anxious as one of the articles Fantastic Light is up for GA. Tigerboy1966 (talk) 09:42, 8 October 2011 (UTC)

I can make your table at Blue Duster#Tabulated race record sortable by changing the headings, for example replacing | '''Date''' with !Date. But, at least using today's version of the software, this loses the brown colouring that you've applied to the header cells.

The behind-the-scenes code for sorting tables was changed by the MediaWiki 1.18 upgrade a few days ago, and is still being worked on. I suggest you wait a few days before making any large-scale edits. You may find that the table behaviour will improve once the code has been tweaked some more. -- John of Reading (talk) 10:45, 8 October 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for that John of Reading. I will probably tinker with one of the smaller tables and leave the rest for a week or so to see what happens. Tigerboy1966 (talk) 11:03, 8 October 2011 (UTC)

Correct. I would like to point out though, that if you want something to be treated as a table header, you should make it an actual tableheader (thus use the ! syntax for them). We won't support sortable tables anymore where there is no true header. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 10:09, 9 October 2011 (UTC)

I am still seeing numeric values sorting alphabetically. At least currently commas are not being stripped before sorting. I see this in the examples at Help:Sorting and in other articles, in 3 different browsers. I read here about the MediaWiki 1.18 update a few weeks ago. Is it possible to know the status of bug fixes? MJ (t • c) 18:04, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

Deregistering an account

Can a bureaucrat delete all contributions of an account that has no contributions outside of its own userspace and "unregister" that account? If so, would WP:BN be the right place to request such an action? Toshio Yamaguchi (talk) 13:26, 8 October 2011 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Courtesy vanishing. PrimeHunter (talk) 14:20, 8 October 2011 (UTC)

Ok, thanks. Toshio Yamaguchi (talk) 14:27, 8 October 2011 (UTC)

Template:Maintained

Resolved

Under which circumstances am I supposed to add {{Maintained}} to an article? Do I have to be the creator of the article? Do I have to have an outstanding number of contributions compared to other users to the article? The documentation says "DO place this template on the talk pages of articles for which you either have strong knowledge of the topic or its sources." So can I simply go ahead and place this on an article where I think it is appropriate? Toshio Yamaguchi (talk) 14:18, 8 October 2011 (UTC)

Yes, you can, but be certain to add it only to talk pages of articles where you believe that you have strong knowledge of the topic and/or sources that most people don't. You don't have to be the creator or a major contributor to the article though. The template's purpose is for users to quickly find someone specialized to talk to if questions arise. For example, if you were a particle physicist working with the Large Hadron Collider at CERN on the ATLAS experiment, you would add the template to the article about the ATLAS experiment because you are in a superior position to answer questions about the subject. On the other hand, you probably shouldn't add the template to the talk page for Japan just because you are Japanese. Regards SoWhy 14:48, 8 October 2011 (UTC)

Thanks (and no, despite my username I am not Japanese). :) Toshio Yamaguchi (talk) 14:55, 8 October 2011 (UTC)

Interlanguage links

Resolved

In the Tom Hanks article, on the left bar, there are two languages links, one with "be" and one with "be-x-old". According to this page, which took me forever to find, the "be" is Belarusian, and the "be-x-old" is, well, something else - what exactly?--Bbb23 (talk) 14:43, 8 October 2011 (UTC)

According to this Google translation it is Wikipedia in "Belarusian classical spelling". Toshio Yamaguchi (talk) 14:50, 8 October 2011 (UTC)

"be-x-old" is "Belarusian Classical Orthography", i.e. a variant of Belarusian. See Taraškievica. Regards SoWhy 14:52, 8 October 2011 (UTC)

Criticism about the decision of obscuration of the Italian Wikipedia

Resolved

 – Wrong venue. Regards SoWhy 15:01, 8 October 2011 (UTC)

Hello everyone, I would like to draw your attention about the obscuration [[1]] of the Italian version of Wikipedia.

Regardless the reasons of the protests, I believe that this "strike" was a mistake, because:

1. the serious choice to close the Italian Wikipedia has been made by a limited number of people, on the basis of a discussion [[2]] that involved few participants;
2. the closure means that Wikipedia is not really free because its opening / closing depends on the decision of a few people, not democratically elected in any way by thousands of users of the Encyclopedia;
3. the protest was signed as "The Users of Wikipedia" ("Gli utenti di Wikipedia"), while in fact it was a grave decision made by a small group of people.

I am afraid that the freedom of the Italian Wikipedia is in danger, because few people cannot decide the obscuration of an entire site to which EVERYONE is free to participate.-- Omega Ray — Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.38.56.122 (talk) 14:57, 8 October 2011 (UTC)

We are well aware of this but this is the wrong place to discuss it. You might want to participate at meta:Wikimedia Forum/Italian Wikipedia. Regards SoWhy 15:01, 8 October 2011 (UTC)

Missing move button

I want to move Colossal Squid to Colossal squid, as per WP:CAPS, but there is no move button. I used {{db-move}} to request deletion of the former redirect at Colossal squid, but still no move button. I see a move button on other pages, and Colossal Squid doesn't appear to be protected. --Dennis Bratland (talk) 15:35, 8 October 2011 (UTC)

Actually, it was move-protected because it was the target of a vandal-move. I moved it for you. Regards SoWhy 15:47, 8 October 2011 (UTC)

Broken Afd link on article tag??

Alan johnson pinstriper has an Afd tag on it but it's got a red link where it's supposed to connect to "this article's entry on the Articles for deletion page." I'm not sure how to fix that or what part of the process went wrong.

Looking at the history just confuses me more [3] has a commented out bit saying "result=keep" but the whole article started October 8th so how could it have been through Afd? Plus it seems it was the creator that tagged it for Afd?? Cloveapple (talk) 18:12, 8 October 2011 (UTC)

It appears that the author tried to request deletion, but didn't create the AfD discussion page. I have tagged the article with {{db-author}}. Best, Alpha_Quadrant ^(talk) 18:21, 8 October 2011 (UTC)

Thanks. Cloveapple (talk) 18:37, 8 October 2011 (UTC)

Broken Links

I was reading the page about Battle of Leyte Gulf and tried to read the maps. the link to ALL the maps are broken, the thumbnails are too blurry to read the notations. I am not a programmer and have NO idea how to fix the links and not interested in trying to sped an enormous amount of time to find out how to fix it. I took me over tow hours just to find this posting through the labyrinth of misdirected F.A.Q. pages. The page with the broken links are . . . .

http://www.cs.mcgill.ca/~rwest/wikispeedia/wpcd/images/235/23589.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.cs.mcgill.ca/~rwest/wikispeedia/wpcd/wp/b/Battle_of_Leyte_Gulf.htm — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.62.105.12 (talk) 18:57, 8 October 2011 (UTC)

The page at http://www.cs.mcgill.ca/~rwest/wikispeedia/wpcd/wp/b/Battle_of_Leyte_Gulf.htm is a modified copy of the actual Wikipedia article, Battle of Leyte Gulf, whose URL is http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Leyte_Gulf The links in the Wikipedia article are working, and you can double-click the maps there to see larger versions. We have no control over the copy hosted by www.cs.mcgill.ca. -- John of Reading (talk) 19:17, 8 October 2011 (UTC)

Right. Pages at the English Wikipedia start with http://en.wikipedia.org. We allow others to reuse them if they give proper attribution. Many reusers are listed at Wikipedia:Mirrors and forks. Many others are not (there are too many to keep track of). http://www.cs.mcgill.ca/~rwest/wikispeedia/wpcd/index.htm indicates this reuser has a copy from 2007. Like most reusers, their copy cannot be edited. As you correctly say, the image links generally don't work there. We are unable to help with that. PrimeHunter (talk) 20:47, 8 October 2011 (UTC)

Template lead not optimum

See the lead to {{OEB}}. It does not present a useful view of the template as it is used. What it shows is the result of the template use when the mandatory parameters have not been supplied. I think this has to do with all the rules around <noinclude>, <includeonly> etc. which I have no knowledge. Can someone take a look and amend so that a first-time editor gets the format presented without having to search the examples to deduce the template format. Newwhist (talk) 20:36, 8 October 2011 (UTC)

I added a bit to Template:OEB/doc which is where you need to edit if you want to change the documentation. If you think it could be better explained, feel free to edit that page, which should be relatively straightforward. What ever is written there will appear in the documentation section at {{OEB}}. Monty₈₄₅ 21:02, 8 October 2011 (UTC) I misread what you were asking, but I see John of Reading has made the change you wanted. Monty₈₄₅ 21:05, 8 October 2011 (UTC)

Sorry, I should have posted here first to say I was working on it. See my comments at Template talk:OEB. -- John of Reading (talk) 21:09, 8 October 2011 (UTC)

Thank you very much - a more elegant solution! Newwhist (talk) 16:25, 9 October 2011 (UTC)

Fradelle

Hello, I have finished writing the Henri Jean-Baptiste Victoire Fradelle page thanks to the help of a number of Wikipedia specialists. I would appreciate it one of them could check that everything is fine and then take away the warning paragraph at the beginning. Many thanks again to all those who helped me change the artist's name and then set up this new biography. FG. Francois grosjean (talk) 20:52, 8 October 2011 (UTC)

Two of the bullet points if you click "show" on the wikify tag are:

• Arrange section headers as described at Wikipedia:Guide to layout.
• Add an infobox if it is appropriate for the article.

so it may be worth trying to address those. - David Biddulph (talk) 22:43, 8 October 2011 (UTC)

"as of"

The article Prostate Cancer Screening contains:

"questions regarding the usefulness of these measurements limit their widespread use {{as of|2000}}."

This is parsed as "questions regarding the usefulness of these measurements limit their widespread use As of 2000."

What is the code {{as of|2000}} meant to do? The result in the article does not seem useful.

Thanks, Wanderer57 (talk) 21:41, 8 October 2011 (UTC)

See Template:As of. Notice the lc parameter for lower case. PrimeHunter (talk) 21:52, 8 October 2011 (UTC)

Thank you. Adding the lc parameter fixes the case problem and results in "questions regarding the usefulness of these measurements limit their widespread use as of 2000."

But how to interpret this sentence? It seems ambiguous to me and I'm wondering if the template is used correctly here. Does it mean that the statement "questions regarding the usefulness of these measurements limit their widespread use" first became true in the year 2000? Or that, in the year 2000, it was true that questions regarding the usefulness of these measurements limited their widespread use (but that that may no longer be the case)?

Or should the statement actually read "questions regarding the usefulness of these measurements limit their widespread use. (As of 2000.)" Or something like that? Wanderer57 (talk) 01:49, 9 October 2011 (UTC)

The intended meaning of Template:As of is to give a time where it was known to be true without implying anything about the time before or since then. I think your last interpretation is closest but we don't generally use parentheses around "as of year". Perhaps it would be better to start with as of: "As of 2000, questions regarding the usefulness of these measurements limited their widespread use". The statement has an inline source published in 2000. If an editor finds a more recent source saying the same then the as of year can be updated. See also Wikipedia:As of. PrimeHunter (talk) 10:29, 9 October 2011 (UTC)

Website Removal.

Could you please remove, http://deletionpedia.dbatley.com/w/index.php?title=[redacted] from the internet as it is under my name and I would like to remove it from my Google search.

It would be greatly appreciated if you do it. The website has been on there since 06 Aug 2008.

It is something I wouldn't like on my name.

Thank you. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 58.167.82.113 (talk) 22:28, 8 October 2011 (UTC)

Deletionpedia is not Wikipedia. For more details see their their general disclaimer. - David Biddulph (talk) 22:37, 8 October 2011 (UTC)

I have redacted the title from your Deletionpedia link since this help desk is also indexed by Google. Wikipedia or the Wikimedia Foundation which runs Wikipedia has no control over content at Deletionpedia. It is one of many independent websites copying content from Wikipedia. PrimeHunter (talk) 00:06, 9 October 2011 (UTC)

AfD category

I just nominated a non-fiction book for deletion. I picked Media and music as the category (Template:Afd3 starter). Was that right? Is there an explanation of these categories or is it supposed to be self-evident (clearly not for me :-) )?--Bbb23 (talk) 22:43, 8 October 2011 (UTC)

It's not really clear...what is the book? If it is a science book it might go under "Science and technology"...there is nothing wrong with leaving the category blank, if you're not sure which one to stick it in. CTJF83 22:51, 8 October 2011 (UTC)

The Politics of Change.--Bbb23 (talk) 22:59, 8 October 2011 (UTC)

Media is a good topic, you could also tag it under "Society topics" I believe, because politics is a society topic. CTJF83 23:31, 8 October 2011 (UTC)

Use of Photograph in a my Proposed book

Dear Wikipedia people,

My Name is Liz Mariner and I am an ex-flying instructor of may years who is currently endeavoring to write a book on how to draw using Microsoft Word. Because of my background, aviation will HAVE to feature in my book.

I would like to teach my proposed readers how to draw a Piper Seminole using a beautiful photograph I found on you web-site on same. It is a dark green and white aircraft with the registration which looks like LZ-FTO. Is it possible for me to get permission from the Aircraft owner / Photographer / Photograph owner to use this photo? I am more than happy to supply you with a copy of my completed drawing so you can see what the finished product would look like!

I will wait to hear from you. (Redacted) I use Wikipedia all the time ~ keep up the good work!

Best regards,

Liz Mariner — Preceding unsigned comment added by 124.177.186.37 (talk) 23:18, 8 October 2011 (UTC)

Generally, Wikipedia doesn't create photographs. They are uploaded from other sources and vetted to ensure that Wikipedia can use them without copyright infringement. Take a look at the picture File:Piper-pa-44.jpg and the terms of the license. Then, you need to decide whether you can use the picture. We can't give you legal advice.--Bbb23 (talk) 23:32, 8 October 2011 (UTC)