Wikipedia:Help desk/Archives/2014 September 28

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September 28

Politician's spouse

Is the long, digressive paragraph about this politician's spouse appropriate for Wikipedia? It seems like someone is trying to show guilt by association. I thought Wikipedia was an encyclopedia, not a place for political innuendo. 32.218.33.209 (talk) 03:17, 28 September 2014 (UTC)

@32.218.33.209:I have reduced the size without reducing the information. However, the reason this paragraph looks so large is that the article is so small. ~ R.T.G 13:23, 28 September 2014 (UTC)

Create new article under existing title

There is already an article under my chosen title, but on a different topic. How do I create an new article with the same title? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Memorycosts (talk • contribs) 04:54, 28 September 2014 (UTC)

You can't - but see Wikipedia:Article titles#Disambiguation for how we deal with such situations. AndyTheGrump (talk) 05:00, 28 September 2014 (UTC)

Teopad

Hello, Someone lauch a deletion process on this page in English and French wiki (I have fix it on French wiki) but he hasn't done well. Sorry if I am on the wrong page, I don't know well this wiki.--Shev123 (talk) 11:44, 28 September 2014 (UTC)

I have tidied up the malformatted deletion nominations. Thank you for pointing out the problem. --David Biddulph (talk) 12:03, 28 September 2014 (UTC)

It has now been deleted. --David Biddulph (talk) 17:51, 29 September 2014 (UTC)

Basic help for a first-time editor

I posted an edit to the History section of this page. Micromarketing

Failed to navigate the Cite Error instructions, which are very unclear. Help please.

Bill.Corbin — Preceding unsigned comment added by Bill.Corbin (talk • contribs) 12:57, 28 September 2014 (UTC)

Fixed that for you. Basically the reference should be closed with </ref> Also don't forget to sign your posts here with four tildes. If you need any more help, click on my user name and ask on my talk page. Valenciano (talk) 13:07, 28 September 2014 (UTC)

With one edit, you added <ref><ref></ref></ref> to the article. With your next, you edited it to read <ref>Bill Corbin. Enfront.com, 2014<ref>. What you meant was <ref>Bill Corbin. Enfront.com, 2014</ref>. Maproom (talk) 13:12, 28 September 2014 (UTC)

Is User:Bill.Corbin the same person as <ref>Bill Corbin. Enfront.com, 2014</ref>? WP:COI?

—Trappist the monk (talk) 13:18, 28 September 2014 (UTC)

License of an image produced by a US State

This image File:Deborah Luster (lowres unfree).jpg, is sourced from this webpage. I added the file and I did so as an unfree fair use file. But now that I am re-reading the bio I see at the bottom of the page it says, "Profile photograph by the State of Louisiana." Works of a graphic nature produced by the US Government are in the public domain. I am not sure wether to change the license of this file to PD or not. This mightn't be the place to ask about this but... is it free or not? ~ R.T.G 13:08, 28 September 2014 (UTC)

The government of the state of Louisiana is a different entity than the federal United States government and not covered by the same copyright. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 14:22, 28 September 2014 (UTC)

In some states, the work would be public domain. See Copyright_status_of_work_by_U.S._subnational_governments; Louisiana is not discussed, so presumptively, no.--S Philbrick(Talk) 14:40, 28 September 2014 (UTC)

Great thanks, ~ R.T.G 16:04, 28 September 2014 (UTC)

Creating a page

I want help in creating a page — Preceding unsigned comment added by Btownkhazana (talk • contribs) 15:03, 28 September 2014 (UTC)

The first thing to do is make sure that the topic you want to write about does not already exist.

If it doesn't then read this and make sure that the topic meets the criteria for a stand alone article.

If it does, then begin gathering the reliably published sources that are not affiliated with the topic and discuss the topic.

Then follow the procedures at the "articles for creation page" where you will get guidance from other editors.

Good luck in your first article! -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 15:25, 28 September 2014 (UTC)

Many in-line references from one source - page numbers

(You're going to have to read this in "edit" as I don't know how to suppress some of the coding that I am asking about.)
I am planning to add page numbers to some references in an article on which I have worked (The Great Tea Race of 1866). The problem is that one source is used for 27 in-line references and another for 21 - the only way I know of adding the page numbers is to restate the whole reference. So instead of having "ref name=MacGregor/", I would have to put "" with the page numbers inserted. (The references are scatted around the source, but some will appear on the same page - hence the value in setting a ref name.)

I feel that the whole thing could turn into a great muddle. Is there any way of concisely defining the source and then added the page numbers on a bespoke basis - something like ref name=MacGregor pages=XX?

ThoughtIdRetired (talk) 16:09, 28 September 2014 (UTC)

References

I feel your pain. I used the {{rp}} template for this purpose, and I was pleased with the results. I'm too lazy to give you a full tutorial here, but there are good real-life examples here. If you need any further assistance, feel free to add to this thread or post on my talk page. ‑‑Mandruss (talk) 16:17, 28 September 2014 (UTC)

In hindsight, I could have accomplished the same thing using the superscript tag, as <sup>:p.96</sup>. The output would be identical. ‑‑Mandruss (talk) 16:34, 28 September 2014 (UTC)

See Help:References and page numbers for the various methods available. --  Gadget850 ^talk 16:46, 28 September 2014 (UTC)

Thanks, I reckon I can work something out with all this. Now I've just got to hope the sources have good indexes so I can work out where I got the info from. Should keep me busy for a while! ThoughtIdRetired (talk) 18:41, 28 September 2014 (UTC)

Redirected pages

How does one un-redirect a page, so as to turn it into an article in its own right?--Aspro (talk) 18:37, 28 September 2014 (UTC)

To editor Aspro: When you type in the name of the redirect, you will be taken to another article. But under that article's title is a note that says "Redirected from XYZ", where XYZ is the name of the redirect. Click the link, and you will find a page that looks like this:

Example

Edit that page, clear any existing content, and start a new article. I hope this helps; if you have any more questions, feel free to reply below. Anon126 (notify me of responses! / talk / contribs) 19:09, 28 September 2014 (UTC)

Thanks. I'll try it tomorrow.--Aspro (talk) 19:26, 28 September 2014 (UTC)

Application layer protocol article (Category:Application layer protocols)

Application layer protocol article (Category:Application layer protocols) lists "DHCP snooping" as a part of application layer protocol instead of "DHCP".

However, article DHCP (Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol) has the mapping correct (to application layer protocol). — Preceding unsigned comment added by Simpletry (talk • contribs) 18:52, 28 September 2014 (UTC)

It's there, just under "Dynamic...". It's a category, and by default uses the name of the article. Rwessel (talk) 05:14, 29 September 2014 (UTC)

Incorrect statistics

My contributions on the stat page for the Ebola virus epidemic in West Africa are not correct. It seems that user 86.2.30.89, who made only one edit to the article on September 21 when he changed the name of the disease to Poo poo disease, has taken my place as one of the major editors to that article. Could you fix that please. Thanks. Gandydancer (talk) 15:23, 28 September 2014 (UTC)

@Gandydancer: You are talking about the second "Top editors" pie chart here, yes? That does look odd, as 86.2.30.89 (talk · contribs · WHOIS) hardly changed the size of the article. The tool's maintainers are listed at the foot of the report; TParis (talk · contribs) seems the most active of them [ping!]. -- John of Reading (talk) 19:24, 28 September 2014 (UTC)

Clicking "More" twice shows that the tool thinks 86.2.30.89 made one edit which added 193,552 bytes. The edit [1] changed the page size from 193,560 to 193,552 bytes, so the size was apparently registered as the change for some reason. PrimeHunter (talk) 22:17, 28 September 2014 (UTC)

OMG so confusing and way way way too many steps

I am trying to add an artist Niccola DeVereaux and it seems impossible. I am not tech savvy and the process to add something is completely overwhelming. Please look into artists Niccola DeVereaux at niccoladevereaux.com — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2602:306:CE3A:9480:E8DC:D7A3:1F56:A2BD (talk) 19:36, 28 September 2014 (UTC)

Hello, if you want to make suggestion for a new article, the place to do so is At this page. If you wish to help create the article yourself, then you will need to create an account (it is free and more anonymous than editing via your IP) and follow the articles for creation process.

But before you head of on either of those, you should read the cliffs notes version of criteria for a stand alone article to see if the subject you want to write about meets the criteria.-- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 19:51, 28 September 2014 (UTC)

i see that you had been to WP:RA already and i do agree that opening up that page and seeing that wall of scrawl would be very intimidating. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 02:19, 29 September 2014 (UTC)

it does look like they are aware of the issues and have a new tool that will be rolling out sometime soon. Wikipedia_talk:Requested_articles#Update_on_the_requested_articles_tool. And while that doesn't really help you now, if you have a suggestion in the future, it will probably be easier!-- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 03:05, 29 September 2014 (UTC)

I looked at the web site that the OP referenced. I had expected that the web site would be overly promotional. It doesn't seem to be overly promotional (on the contrary, it looks rather amateurish), but it doesn't provide any significant evidence of the artist's notability in the Wikipedia sense of providing information from reliable sources about her importance. In order to pass Wikipedia's standards for the creation of the article, the OP will need to provide more information than is on the web site. I agree with the OP and with TPROD about requested articles, a very backlogged and intimidating process. Robert McClenon (talk) 02:35, 29 September 2014 (UTC)

I just want to report some incorrect information

I just want to report some incorrect information on the page "Songs written by Jimmy Holiday." It says he wrote "Baby I Love You" (the Aretha Franklin song). That's wrong. The Aretha Franklin song was written by Ronny Shannon, as you can see on the 45 label depicted here: http://www.facerecords.com/shop/popup_image.php/pID/80815

Jimmy Holiday did write--and record--a song with the same title, but it is a different song. His own version scraped onto the pop charts in 1966. Little Milton charted with it in 1970. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FjQ1H1GaySs You can see in this video that the songwriter is Jimmy Holiday.

I think you should just make this say "NOT the Aretha Franklin song." — Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.89.237.32 (talk) 21:22, 28 September 2014 (UTC)

I have made the change. If I was incorrect, I'm sure someone will tell me.— Vchimpanzee • talk • contributions • 22:04, 29 September 2014 (UTC)

→Thank you! (I did try to follow the directions to edit the page but unfortunately I couldn't make heads or tails out of them.) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 100.33.54.122 (talk) 00:43, 30 September 2014 (UTC)

African-American Categories

What criteria determines whether or not a person is placed into categories such as "African-American singers" or "African-American actors"? The reason I'm inquiring is because numerous times on Wikipedia I have come across a person who is biracial or multiracial and is being placed into one of these categories. Frequently these persons do not even appear African-American (which in the U.S. is basically a synonym for black) e.g. Derek Jeter, Alicia Keys, Mariah Carey, and many others who have a similar "ethnic mixed" appearance. How do we even know these people identify as "African-American"? Also if there are no sources saying they do, then why are they automatically being placed into these specific racial categories? 2604:2000:7FC0:1:E8D7:5FA9:D5A4:AD1 (talk) 22:47, 28 September 2014 (UTC)

see WP:BLPCAT -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 23:19, 28 September 2014 (UTC)

BLPCAT does not answer my question. Can someone with knowledge in this area please help explain the proper WP policy for this category issue, thanks. 2604:2000:7FC0:1:E8D7:5FA9:D5A4:AD1 (talk) 10:47, 29 September 2014 (UTC)

This user posted near-identical threads in four places, contrary to WP:MULTI: Wikipedia:Help desk#African-American Categories; Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)/Archive 115#African-American Categories; Wikipedia:Village pump (miscellaneous)/Archive 47#African-American Categories; and Wikipedia:Reference desk/Miscellaneous#African-American Categories. Of these, the last one was reverted as a duplicate of the first three; and the most comprehensive answer was given at Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)/Archive 115#African-American Categories. --Redrose64 (talk) 12:28, 29 September 2014 (UTC)