Wikipedia:Help desk/Archives/2012 September 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.

September 11

Reference style for a whole multi-volume book with different ISBNs

I want to include, in the "Further reading" section of an article I'm working on, an entry for an eight-volume reference book whose volumes have separate ISBNs. Is there a way to incorporate them into one entry (with Template:Cite book, Template:Cite encyclopedia, or some other format), or do they have to be listed separately? A. Parrot (talk) 00:45, 11 September 2012 (UTC)

ISBN numbers will automagically format without any markup if you simply type ISBN + the Number, e.g., ISBN 1-886768-06-4 produces ISBN 1-886768-06-4. So at the end of a cite book template you can simply add any number of them outside of the closing curly braces, and label them as you see fit, such as Vol. I: ISBN ____; Vol. II: ISBN___; and so on. You also don't need to use a citation template at all. They are recommended because they provide consistency, freeing us from having to remember the standard ordering of the information or to hand format italics, quotation marks and so on, but they are optional.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk)

Thanks. A. Parrot (talk) 06:13, 11 September 2012 (UTC)

paraphrasing

An earlier version of an article I wrote -- abraham Zaleznik- contained some paraphrasing from a copyrighted source/ I eliminated the paraphasing and condensed the bibliogrpahic information but the top of the article still says that the article paraphrases. What do I do now? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Arielarry (talk • contribs) 00:57, 11 September 2012 (UTC)

If you fixed that problem, you can remove the tag. RudolfRed (talk) 01:02, 11 September 2012 (UTC)

Making new topics.

Hi, I would like to know how to make a new topic that currently isn't displayed in Wikipedia. Wikipedia currently doesn't feature an article about the book Itch by Simon Mayo.

Thank you! DSG2806 — Preceding unsigned comment added by 120.147.162.213 (talk) 08:48, 11 September 2012 (UTC)

Given that the book was published only six months ago, is it ripe? But you can go to Wikipedia:Articles for creation. —Tamfang (talk) 09:03, 11 September 2012 (UTC)

The book is already mentioned briefly in the Simon Mayo article. To decide whether the book is notable enough to merit an article in its own right, you should see whether it fulfils the criteria at WP:BKCRIT. If you decide to write an article, use Tamfang's link or take a look at Wikipedia:Your first article. - Karenjc 09:09, 11 September 2012 (UTC)

Reference removed - why?

Okay Wiki people, you've really got me stumped on this one. On the Michael Holt page, in the 'Personality' section, there was an already-existing mention of him lacking confidence, which has contributed to his disappointing level of success during his career. I added a reference to this sentence, linking to Holt's very own blog in which he candidly talks about his lack of confidence and how it has impacted on his career. What better, more reliable source material can there be on a subject than something that has come from Holt himself? Yet this reference has been removed - why? Please explain this frustrating, baffling and, quite frankly, ludicrous decision. I was under the impression that Wikipedia was "a free encylopedia" that "anyone can edit". It would appear that is not the case. --Noj3000 (talk) 09:20, 11 September 2012 (UTC)

Link for convenience: Michael Holt (snooker player) (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views). Dismas|^(talk) 09:23, 11 September 2012 (UTC)

The edit summary from the editor who removed it says that they did so because it's a blog. And I'd say that they are using Wikipedia:SPS#Self-published_sources as their justification. But... The editor doesn't seem to have read the very next section of that policy which states that blogs can be used if it's the subject talking about themselves. So, if it were me, I'd reinstate the source and use WP:ABOUTSELF as my justification. But... I'd remove the "He appears to need confidence to achieve his best results" line since this is original research where someone has read what Holt says about himself and then made a statement using their own judgement or opinion.

Oh, and yes, anyone can edit it. But not everyone is going to agree on just exactly what should be in an article. Dismas|^(talk) 09:37, 11 September 2012 (UTC)

SO can I re-insert the reference? Or will it just be removed again? How can I insert something and justify it's inclusion so that the editor does not remover it? It's like banging your head against a wall.--Noj3000 (talk) 09:58, 11 September 2012 (UTC)

I would be wary of readding it yourself (Dismas has already done it for you anyway) because you have already done so a couple of times - you're basically involved in an edit-war, which can be grounds for a block. Whilst I agree with Dismas' assessment above (self-published sources can be used, with caution, to verify information about themselves), I'd still suggest discussing this with User:Spc 21 either on their talkpage or on the article talkpage if the dispute continues. Yunshui 雲‍水 10:05, 11 September 2012 (UTC)

(edit conflict)I was bold and already put it back in here. But yes, you could have done so as well. Generally, people use their edit summary to make a case for their edits. In this case, I spelled out just why I was putting it back in. And why I removed the text that I removed. Sometimes it is a bit like banging your head against a wall but often it's not. If need be, that's what the article's talk page is for, working out what should and should not be included in the article. Dismas|^(talk) 10:07, 11 September 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for re-inserting the link, and thanks for clearing a few things up. I'm new to editing Wikipedia so am getting to frips with all the various aspects. Certainly, in future, I will use the edit summary. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Noj3000 (talk • contribs) 10:43, 11 September 2012 (UTC)

Title subcategories

Resolved

I used the Move function to change a title from 'Buccaneer 18' to 'Buccaneer (dinghys)' which was successful. However, when using the wiki search function and typing Buccaneer, I do not see my new page title i.e. the only thing that works in the search box is the full title. Can someone please let me know how to change the page name so that it is viewable when Buccaneer is entered in the search box — Preceding unsigned comment added by Agbonner37 (talk • contribs) 12:25, 11 September 2012 (UTC)

The "Search" box uses a copy of the main database which is typically updated once a day. If you wait 24 hours it will probably start working. See Help:Searching#Delay in updating the search index. -- John of Reading (talk) 12:33, 11 September 2012 (UTC)

It works for me now. There are many page names starting with "Buccaneer" and some characters are ignored so I don't get Buccaneer (dinghy) among the options displayed below the search box until typing "Buccaneer (d". This may never change. The top of Buccaneer has a link to Buccaneer (disambiguation) where John has manually updated [1] the first link under watercraft to say "Buccaneer (dinghy)" instead of "Buccaneer 18". This means everything now works as it should. PrimeHunter (talk) 12:43, 11 September 2012 (UTC)

It does not yeat work for me and there must be some way to make it work other than adding '(d ' as a suffix. Indeed, search Laser and you are able to see a subtitle of 'Laser (dinghy)'. I will wait until the 24 hours pass and hopefully that will do the trick. ((((( — Preceding unsigned comment added by Agbonner37 (talk • contribs) 13:14, 11 September 2012 (UTC)

Special:PrefixIndex/Laser and Special:PrefixIndex/Buccaneer both show too many articles to display all of them below the search box without entering more of the title. I don't know how the few displayed articles are chosen but please don't try to manipulate the system to get "your" article chosen over others. The intended way to find the article is to follow the disambiguation link at top of Buccaneer. Whether the autocomplete feature in the seach box happens to pick one article over another after entering one character more or less should not be a concern and could change at any time. Users with JavaScript disabled in their browsers don't have autocomplete at all, and the feature didn't even exist when I started here. PrimeHunter (talk) 13:32, 11 September 2012 (UTC)

Aha. I did not think to look at the (disambiguation) subtitle because it did not register in my lexicon for unknown reasons. I do think that there might be a better word than disambiguation but it is not jumping out at the moment. However, please let me know why the original title of 'Buccaneer 18' is not in the disambiguation page since that was the original which i just changed to 'Buccaneer (dinghy)'. ))) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Agbonner37 (talk • contribs) 14:37, 11 September 2012 (UTC)

We work fast here at the help desk. As I said above, John has updated [2] the link in the disambiguation page. I tried to do it the same minute but he saved first. I have updated [3] the link in Template:Sailing dinghies and skiffs which is displayed in many articles, so there are currently only two articles left at Special:WhatLinksHere/Buccaneer 18. The English Wikipedia has hundreds of thousands of pages in Category:All article disambiguation pages. If the title indicates it's a disambiguation page then it nearly always ends with "(disambiguation)" so you are unlikely to get this practice changed. We even have the wonderfully named Disambiguation (disambiguation) with some amusing comments at Talk:Disambiguation (disambiguation)#A shining example of what a Wikipedia page should be. PrimeHunter (talk) 15:12, 11 September 2012 (UTC)

Very amusing and I will consider getting a Websters Unabridged Dictionary in order to expand my vocabulary and usage. In fact, I am now feeling pretty good about my new word and there should be no need to change how wiki does business since I think I can adapt. Agbonner37 (talk) 16:56, 11 September 2012 (UTC)

And, i have added what i think is a signature to the above but if you can add a big check mark to theses exchanges then I think that can be done if it delineates that we have resolved all my help requests......thanks again Agbonner37 (talk) 16:56, 11 September 2012 (UTC)

Second articles

I want to start a new article. My old article was accepted and is in Wikipedia. Can I delete it in my sandbox without affecting my first article? How can one work on two articles at once? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 131.92.192.152 (talk)

If your article has been moved and is in mainspace, then yes, you can delete your sandbox and reuse it. It may be that your sandbox has been left as a redirect, in which case you'll need to delete the redirect first. It would help if you could log in and post a link to the article and/or sandbox in question - your IP address has only ever edited this page, so we have no idea who you are or which pages you're talking about.

You can work on multiple articles by creating extra sandboxes; usually with the format User:YourUserName/NameOfArticleTopic. You can create as many of these as you need. Yunshui 雲‍水 13:28, 11 September 2012 (UTC)

Update: The page is "The Recombination Hypothesis". My user name is hardy1956. They must be linked because I removed some of the page in my sandbox and it disappearred from the main article. Can you take out the linkage? Many thanx!!!

Your sandbox was redirected to The Recombination Hypothesis so you weren't actually editing your sandbox, you were editing The Recombination Hypothesis. I've fixed it for you.[4] --AussieLegend (talk) 14:29, 11 September 2012 (UTC)

Thanks to all who replied and helped out!! hardy1956.

I have seen this happen on more than one occasion. Maybe there should be a reminder somewhere that when moving a user subpage draft to mainspace, it is probably not a good idea to leave behind a cross-namespace redirect?--ukexpat (talk) 15:33, 11 September 2012 (UTC)

The problem with that not all AFC reviewers are admins.... .Mdann52 (talk) 16:01, 13 September 2012 (UTC)

I think the suggestion is to remove the redirect code after the move, for example by blanking or changing it to a wikilink. PrimeHunter (talk) 16:22, 13 September 2012 (UTC)

Wikilink of second or later instance of phrase.

Resolved

In determining which instance of a word/phrase should be wikilinked, under what conditions should that *not* be the first link instance of the word/phrase in the article? The only case I can think of is where what is wikilinked is part of the article name itself (for example, don't wikilink Freemason in the phrase 'Guatemalan Freemason Temples' in the article 'Guatemalan Freemason Temples'.) are there any guidelines? (for example, avoid wikilinking words/phrases in image descriptions if they exist elsewhere in the article??)Naraht (talk) 14:16, 11 September 2012 (UTC)

Hi, try reading the information on this page, Wikipedia:MOSLINK, this covers all the aspects of what should and should not be linked, and how to decide on the appropriateness of the link. CaptainScreebo ^Parley! 18:37, 11 September 2012 (UTC)

Not much specifically to that in the actual article, but the talk page for it seems a much more appropriate place to ask the question.Naraht (talk) 19:03, 11 September 2012 (UTC)

Did you read this bit?

• Generally, a link should appear only once in an article, but if helpful for readers, links may be repeated in infoboxes, tables, image captions, footnotes, and at the first occurrence after the lead.CaptainScreebo ^Parley! 20:06, 11 September 2012 (UTC)

hello

hello i would like to ask some one how i get my boyfriend from iraq here he is going to pay for visa and fare to get here i got to invite him how do i do that can u hellp me plz thnks donna louise kelly — Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.150.104.87 (talk) 15:45, 11 September 2012 (UTC)

This page is for questions about using Wikipedia. Please consider asking this question at the 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, select the relevant section, 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. Mdann52 (talk) 15:57, 11 September 2012 (UTC)

It would help if you told us which country you live in, as the details will be different. Rojomoke (talk) 16:06, 11 September 2012 (UTC)

But whatever country you are in, you would be much better asking the authorities or professional advisers in your country than asking random people on the Internet (which is what you are doing by asking at Wikipedia). --ColinFine (talk) 17:56, 11 September 2012 (UTC)

Gary A. Klein -> Gary Klein

Dear WIkipedia,

I am Gary Klein's research assistant, and have been trying to update his page. How do I change the page name from "Gary A. Klein" to "Gary Klein".

Also, I added 8 inline citations, but the page header still reads:

"This article includes a list of references, related reading or external links, but its sources remain unclear because it lacks inline citations. Please improve this article by introducing more precise citations. (February 2008)"

I've read all the FAQ's and googled several searches, but I'm still at a loss.

Thank you in advanced, Jack

Jackmacro (talk) 17:07, 11 September 2012 (UTC)

I've removed the "sources remain unclear" template, as the article does indeed now have inline citations. Good job!

The name thing is a bit more tricky. There seem to be several different people called Gary Klein that are notable, each for different things, so "Gary A. Klein" is useful as a way of being sure this is the Gary Klein we are talking about.

If I Google "Gary Klein" the first result I get is Wikipedia's entry Gary A. Klein, which Google helpfully previews as; "Gary Klein (born February 5, 1944 in New York City, New York, U.S.) is a research psychologist famous for pioneering in the field of naturalistic decision making." The second result is Wikipedia's disambiguation page for the name, which helpfully also lists the songwriter and the bicycle inventor.

A case could perhaps be made for removing the disambiguation page in order to lead any Wikipedia searcher directly to the better-known Gary Klein, but this would risk leaving people stranded if they were searching for the songwriter or the inventor. I'd welcome input from other Wikipedia editors on whether it would be appropriate in this case. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 17:37, 11 September 2012 (UTC)

I'd say no. The psychologist is not particular notable over the inventor or the songwriter, so the current situation with the dab page is fine. --Orange Mike | Talk 18:26, 11 September 2012 (UTC)

If he is not generally known with his middle initial, an alternative would be to move it to a version of the name with a disambiguation, such as Gary Klein (psychologist). This can be requested at WP:Requested moves. January (talk) 18:38, 11 September 2012 (UTC)

My Chromosomal rearrangement contributions (to Wikiowdia) being used by others for their gain

2006-12-27

Supergenes were hypothesized to have evolved from less tightly-linked genes coming together via chromosomal rearrangement.

To start this topic, “chromosomal rearrangement” to develop as a Wikipedia topic, I have a few staring thoughts to define the definition for “chromosomal rearrangement”.

“Chromosomal rearrangement” is the change from source not common to normal human evolution.

Look at the actually physical molecular distance of the chromosome physical object to a high energy beam wavelength closest to the same distance is the key. This is a possible chromosomal rearrangement explication.

Chained NANO material working molecularly to understand these chromosomal rearrangements. Since the NANO material is very much larger than a chromosome, these NANO devices should be able to generate some type of energy to measure the differences in chromosomal rearrangement.

Look at pharmacology substance that interacts with environmental, technology devices as they exist in common human.

LINK: Chromosomal rearrangement

Tommy Carl Taylor — Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.216.108.253 (talk) 17:17, 11 September 2012 (UTC)

Hi, that article was started in 2004. You can see its complete editing history here. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 17:25, 11 September 2012 (UTC)

But there's no edit in its history on that date, so I don't know where you added this material. However, if you had added that material to an article, it would probably have been removed quite quickly, as it reads like original research, which is not allowed in Wikipedia. --ColinFine (talk)

If you published your ideas in Wikipedia, you have little recourse if others are making money from them anyway. AndyTheGrump (talk) 18:22, 11 September 2012 (UTC)

Or do you mean something else, like WikiIdea or some other name with "wiki" in it? --Orange Mike | Talk 18:28, 11 September 2012 (UTC)

I think that possibly the article in question may be Supergene, though again I can't find the edit referred to. AndyTheGrump (talk) 18:34, 11 September 2012 (UTC)

Wierd section order on geographical location

Hi, randomly came across this article, Indian Harbour Beach, Florida, and the section ordering struck me as a little odd, what with "Public Safety" first. From a brief look at similar articles, it tends to go "History", "Geography", "Demographics" and so on, had a quick root around WP:(thingy), but couldn't find a specific guideline, anyone want to reorder the article's sections into a more Wikipedia-style format, and post the guideline or MOS that lays this out? cheers. CaptainScreebo ^Parley! 19:14, 11 September 2012 (UTC)

If other articles follow a similar layout, I would just go ahead and edit the section order of this one to match.--ukexpat (talk) 19:17, 11 September 2012 (UTC)

Yeah, for sure, but i'm just certain that there is a template/guideline for town/city/county/country articles somewhere in the entrails of the Wikiservers! CaptainScreebo ^Parley! 19:22, 11 September 2012 (UTC)

The folks at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Geography may know.--ukexpat (talk) 19:43, 11 September 2012 (UTC)

Cool, I'll go put the question to them. CaptainScreebo ^Parley! 19:56, 11 September 2012 (UTC)

WP:USCITY is what you want. Nyttend (talk) 21:23, 11 September 2012 (UTC)

Brilliant, exactly what I was looking for. Cheers. CaptainScreebo ^Parley! 21:56, 12 September 2012 (UTC)

Deleted revisions not in log

I cannot find the log for the deleted revisions of User:RAIDENRULES123. What happened here? Ryan Vesey 21:47, 11 September 2012 (UTC)

Probably Wikipedia:Oversight GB fan 21:57, 11 September 2012 (UTC)

It can't be oversight because no content was removed, just the revisions. Oversight would never remove a revision of edit history if it didn't also revert the information. Ryan Vesey 22:02, 11 September 2012 (UTC)

It was oversight. I'm an admin and cannot see the oversighted revisions. We don't know their content. We can only see the change in total size. The page content after the latest edit is visible but not the diff. The user probably removed some content but added more so the page became bigger. It doesn't require a revert to remove content. PrimeHunter (talk) 22:15, 11 September 2012 (UTC)

Presumably the oversight action was performed after Heatherawalls edited it, since you're correct that the latest revision can't be removed. Note that this is not real oversight — it's just a form of WP:REVDEL that only oversighters can perform and un-perform. If it were real oversight, nobody would even be able to see that the revisions once existed. Nyttend (talk) 00:46, 12 September 2012 (UTC)

Speculation is fun! --Robert Keiden (talk) 06:34, 12 September 2012 (UTC)

Oh, I see what you mean now. It doesn't appear like an appropriate oversight to me. Is there any way to find out who performed the oversight? Can another oversighter check? Ryan Vesey 20:25, 12 September 2012 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Suppression, which is techincally what was performed. The technical oversight tool deletes the revision, while suppression is essentially revision deletion that is logged in Special:Log/oversight (invisible to non-OS) and hides revisions from administrators in addition to non-admins. Reaper Eternal (talk) 20:35, 12 September 2012 (UTC)

The point of oversight is to avoid attention for something. Please stop speculating publicly. Email an oversighter if you have an issue. They can see logs. PrimeHunter (talk) 21:03, 12 September 2012 (UTC)

These aren't the droids we're looking for.--Robert Keiden (talk) 01:05, 13 September 2012 (UTC)