Help desk
< May 17	<< Apr \| May \| Jun >>	May 19 >

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.

May 18[edit]

I want to translate articles FROM English TO native languages.[edit]

how to translate wikipedia articles from english to native language. Couldn't find any link or page, allowing me to do that. Thanks in advance. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Kaustubhajitshukla (talk • contribs) 04:56, 18 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

May be you use Google Translate? There are also a number of languages in which Wikipedia exists. BTW what is your language? Dipankan ^{(Have a chat?)} 04:59, 18 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

It's not clear to me what you want to do. If you want to do the work of translating a page, that is very welcome: see WP:TRANSLATION for how it works going from another language to English. If you want to read the foreign-language equivalent of an English page, you may find the language listed as a link for that page, but this depends on whether anybody happens to have written a suitable page in that language. If you mean that you want to read an existing English-language page in some other language, then there is no automatic tool to do this. You may use Google translate to read it, as Dipankan suggests, but that is not a good enough tool to create a Wikipedia page from. --ColinFine (talk) 06:45, 18 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

How do I delete pages from user space?[edit]

Hi. I think there's a template or category I can add to unwanted user pages to have them deleted. Does anybody know what that is? Meanwhile, if someone here has the tools, could you please delete:

Cheers. --Anthonyhcole (talk) 05:17, 18 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

{{db-user}} --kelapstick^(bainuu) 05:19, 18 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you, Kelapstick. --Anthonyhcole (talk) 05:35, 18 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I got wikipedia error404[edit]

I have no idea what is this about, but i never used wikipedia and i have error 404 from you, i cannot open webpage. Can you help me? Thank you. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2kristina2 (talk • contribs) 06:15, 18 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Can you post here the URL that you were trying to access? -- John of Reading (talk) 06:49, 18 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Error 404 is a universal error on the web, and it means that the page you are asking for cannot be found. This might mean that you have the URL for the page wrong, or that the server you are contacting is temporarily not working. What were you trying to access? You evidently managed to post this message here: if there is something you were trying to look at that consistently gives you 404, you must have the URL wrong; but we can't help you unless you tell us what you were trying to access.

On the other hand, once you are in Wikipedia (as you must be in order to post your question here) you can go to anything in Wikipedia by searching for it in Wikipedia's search box: that way you will not have to enter a URL. --ColinFine (talk) 06:50, 18 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

help posting[edit]

Hi i have written something in my sandbox can someone please tell me how to post it on the right page simon firth — Preceding unsigned comment added by The gate keeper of hell (talk • contribs) 06:22, 18 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I would recommend against posting that to the main article space on Wikipedia, as it will be deleted almost immediately because you do not explain why the subject is notable, you should read the general notability guidelines, the musician guidelines, and WP:42. Also you can use the articles for creation process, where you will get suggestions on how to improve the article. Hope this helps. --kelapstick^(bainuu) 06:25, 18 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

please create a redirect[edit]

...which links Abdul Rashid Kardar to Abdur Rashid Kardar. Thank you.--62.158.112.115 (talk) 08:46, 18 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Done here. The appropriate place for submitting redirects is Wikipedia:Article wizard/Redirect, just hit the I'm ready to submit my redirect button, fill in the form, then save the page. Your request will then be filed at Redirects for creation. benzband (talk) 09:15, 18 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Strange tool icon on "World's largest universities" page[edit]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World%27s_largest_universities has a strange, floating tool icon on the right hand side: "[x] This is a tool icon."

Interestingly, this page is redirected to "List of largest universities by enrollment". If you go directly to that page, it doesn't have the tool icon.

I'm running Ubuntu 10.04LTS, Chromium 18.0.1025.151 (Developer Build 130497 Linux) Ubuntu 10.04.

I've uploaded a screenshot of the issue here: http://www.undue.org/ToolIcon.png — Preceding unsigned comment added by 62.189.175.250 (talk) 08:55, 18 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Hi, i can't see any such "tool icon". Maybe it's to do with your browser? benzband (talk) 12:16, 18 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

It's happening on quite a lot of pages today, actually - although I can't see a link between the ones that have it and the ones that don't. I'm using Chrome on OSX, here. --90.245.54.210 (talk) 12:21, 18 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I've seen it on quite a lot of pages using Safari on my iPad, but none so far on Chrome in a PC running Windows Vista. I guess it depends on the browser but it hasn't happened until today. AndieM (Am I behaving?) 14:22, 18 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Same problem confirmed with latest release of Chrome, latest release of Safari and latest release of Firefox on OS X 10.7.4. Tested and confirmed on Safari on iPad but NOT (AFAIK) iCabMobile on iPad (even though they use the same rendering engine IIRC). Also tested and confirmed in WebPositive r580 on Haiku R1A3. No testing has been performed on any other browser or OS. Also worth noting is although not every page is affected by it, it appears consistently on any affected browsers81.102.143.118 (talk) 20:21, 18 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Problem is generated in HTML by the "mwe-pt-toolbar" div tag and child "mwe-pt-toolbar-close" and "mwe-pt-toolbar-main" div tags as identified here: http://img850.imageshack.us/img850/4981/screenshot20120518at213.png. The exact cause as to why this only happens on certain pages is still a mystery, but my guess is it's a rogue debug flag. The123king (talk) 20:51, 18 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Based on that, I'd guess it has something to do with development of the "New Pages Feed" (the "mwe-pt-toolbar" and other tags mentioned come from the PageTriage extension). Anomie ⚔ 16:30, 19 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

As of posting this comment, Chrome on OS X (as defined by 81.102.143.118, aka me) is now apparently working properly on affected articles. All other tested browsers still show the bug. The123king (talk) 21:10, 18 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I too see the glitch on RAF Bottisham and Truro railway station. Using Internet Explorer 9. See http://files.myopera.com/wikipedian/files/wikipedia.jpg. Edit: And the problem is on and off. It sometimes comes and goes. --Tyw7 (☎ Contact me! • Contributions) 21:47, 18 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

You will probably find the same pages are affected in the same way across all affected browsers and all (affected) users, just not on every page. The123king (talk) 22:20, 18 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks to everyone for commenting and reporting this where we can see it; we've got a thread going with the New Pages Feed devs right now to try and work out what's going on and fix it :). Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 18:21, 19 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- I've turned off the extension for now. Kaldari (talk) 18:48, 19 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

EDITING...[edit]

Dear All, It seems that almost any one can simply edit a section in Wikipedia.Is their any one who looks over the edited page?I mean i jus nw tried editing a small article jus to see whter any one can edit...and to my shock the article jus got editoed by me...how on earth will a user come to know whether wat he is reading is correct & complete????

and now How shud i correct the page edited by me??? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 120.63.186.236 (talk) 10:06, 18 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

In general an editor with the page on his/her watchlist will notice if any obviously disruptive edit is made, and will revert it as someone has done in your case. If you want to make test edits, please do so in a sandbox, and please learn to spell before you try to make edits to articles in Wikipedia. - David Biddulph (talk) 10:59, 18 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Isn't there some Wikipedia principle somehwere that people should not be discouraged from contributing otherwise worthwhile material just because their English is not perfect? 86.167.19.246 (talk) 03:29, 19 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Xi'an, China[edit]

Hi, guys, Yes, I'm Pete Vroom, teaching at Ming De College in Xi'an, China for a year. I'm up to my proverbial "-" between teaching here and online for Troy University, and only signed up because I had some first-hand knowledge regarding what Wikipedia datedly calls Xian Institute of Posts and Telecommunications, vs. what it is officially known here as: XUPT, or Xi'an University of Posts and Telecommunications. (I recently gave a lecture there on the environment, at the request of the Vice Dean of the Social Sciences College there.) All that said, if there is any research or confirmation needed regarding Xi'an - especially its post-secondary education system - I'm here until the next Chines New Year in February, 2013, and willing to help, and obviously have contacts who can give me insights which (hopefully) I can confirm before contacting you again. Regardless, best on 'ya for what you do.Peter Vroom (talk) 12:12, 18 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

If you have knowledge which can improve or update an article in Wikipedia, you are very welcome to contribute, either by editing the article in question, or posting suggestions at the article's talk page. If you are going to edit the article directly, it would be useful to read the five pillars of Wikipedia and the principle of verifiability first. --ColinFine (talk) 09:22, 19 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Pilgrimz (Band)[edit]

Moved to here from Wikipedia talk:About (diff).

A little help anyone?

I'm new to wikipedia. And it's confusing me :-( I'm creating a band-page, for a Denmark based Metal band.

everytime i log in, it keeps saying that the page is about to be deleted, or might be?

There and external reffrance in a link from some other user.

The band page is:

Pilgrimz (Band)

How does it get offecially? -so when you search in the searchbar the name will pop up?

Please help! ANYONE!

H. Jess. — Preceding unsigned comment added by JessJessen (talk • contribs) 13:04, 18 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

That message at the top of the article was added manually by an editor. It is not a deletion warning, but rather is a notability template (indicating an editor was concerned it didn't have references proving the subject met Wikipedia guidelines for notability and references). Although the template on the article is for general notability I recommend you read Wikipedia:Notability (music) which is the notability guide specifically for music (including bands.) After reading that see if you can find further references (you'll want to read WP:RS too, so you know what Wikipedia considers a reliable source). RJFJR (talk) 13:56, 18 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I suspect from your words that you want to create this article in order to publicise the band. If this is so, DO NOT DO IT. Promotion (for any cause, commercial, artistic, charitable of anything else) is forbidden on Wikipedia, and the article will be deleted. You can write about a band only if they are notable, i.e. other people have already written substantially about them. --ColinFine (talk) 09:53, 19 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Helpful add on or script?[edit]

Is there a script/addon for firefox or chrome that makes adding templates and editing much easier? Basically what's important to me is to have quick access to things like {.{.db-spam.}.} and such because I cant find all of them listed anywhere. Ravelair (talk) 13:45, 18 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Try WP:VPT.— Vchimpanzee · talk · contributions · 16:23, 18 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Use Twinkle You can either add it to your javascript or go to My preferences→Gadgets→Browsing section→Twinkle, a set of tools that automates common tasks such as reporting vandalism, warning vandals, requesting deletion, welcoming users, and tagging articles. Check the twinkle one. Ryan Vesey Review me! 17:18, 18 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Odd result from "Random article" link[edit]

When I clicked "Random article" I was taken to the page for "Cajole", which had the following text:

Wikipedia does not have an encyclopedic article for Cajole (search results). You may want to read Wiktionary's entry on "cajole" instead.wiktionary:Special:Search/cajole

If there's no article for "cajole", how did "Random article" land there? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 205.143.205.150 (talk) 14:48, 18 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

(Laughing) We do have an article named Cajole, but the article says we don't have an article... What you saw was the actual article. It merely says to go see the Wiktionary for the definition. RJFJR (talk) 14:51, 18 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Actually it says we don't have an encyclopedic article. So is there any way to make the random article skip them? And is there any phrasing that would help in the wiktionary redirect template?Naraht (talk) 16:34, 18 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Editing help[edit]

I am writing an article about a site that is about GlamTech. The article got deleted quite a few times I tried to write it. It is now in my sandbox and I don't know what to do next so that it gets published and does not get deleted again. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Kiraan Javed (talk • contribs) 15:33, 18 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

You would have to establish that this website is in some way notable, which it certainly doesn't seem to be. If it were notable (and there is no hint of any such thing in the sandbox), then the draft could be turned into better English. --Orange Mike | Talk 16:06, 18 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

i am a notary for sc can i marry people with out the notary seal i have a notary lic[edit]

i am a notary for sc can i marry people with out the notary seal — Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.182.188.46 (talk) 15:59, 18 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I suspect, based on your question, that you found one of our over 6 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.; besides, we NEVER give legal advice. --Orange Mike | Talk 16:04, 18 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

If you are a notary, why do you think that some random people on the internet will know what you can do better than you? --ColinFine (talk) 09:55, 19 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Is it completely unreasonable to expect a notary in the US to be capable of at least basic fluency in written English? Roger (talk) 22:42, 19 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Toolserver user soxred93 account has expired[edit]

Resolved

Hi, I used to use this link from toolserver.org[1] to keep track of my editing statistics. I don't know who created this tool, but apparently their account has expired. Does anyone know what happened? More importantly, is there a way to fix this or use a different tool? A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 16:12, 18 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Change soxred93 in the link to tparis. Here is a working link [2]. Ryan Vesey Review me! 16:16, 18 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks! A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 16:29, 18 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Category rename[edit]

Can someone rename Category:Educational organizations in the Denmark to Category:Educational organizations in Denmark ? Thanks GrahamHardy (talk) 22:03, 18 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I have listed it at Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Speedy. PrimeHunter (talk) 01:13, 19 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks GrahamHardy (talk) 00:14, 20 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]