Wikipedia:Help desk/Archives/2011 February 11

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February 11

login information, please

Annett Strahan —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.6.194.238 (talk) 02:11, 11 February 2011 (UTC)

I have removed your email address to protect your privacy. What is your question? [[CharlieEchoTango]] 02:12, 11 February 2011 (UTC)

Does anything at Help:Logging in answer your question? -- John of Reading (talk) 08:35, 11 February 2011 (UTC)

Hypothetical

If we were living in the 15th century, would Wikipedia incorrectly show that the Earth was the center of the universe which happened to be 5,000 years old? It seems to me that Wikipedia mostly represents the institutionalized conventional wisdom where freethinking ideas are often pushed to the margins or not allowed to be included whatsoever. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Doors22 (talk • contribs) 02:38, 11 February 2011 (UTC)

The answer to your question is yes. Wikipedia publishes only what has already been published elsewhere. Conventional wisdom is a good way to put it. See WP:NOR, WP:RS and WP:V. [[CharlieEchoTango]] 02:48, 11 February 2011 (UTC)

While in total agreement with the above, a good article on the earth in the Wikipedia of the 15th century would have briefly mentioned the (obviously silly) theory that the sun was the center of the universe, citing to 3rd century BC Greek astronomer and mathematician Aristarchus of Samos, as well as Philolaus' proposal of the Central Fire being at the center about 100 years later.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 03:25, 11 February 2011 (UTC)

Note also that we've got far better techniques today for interrogating the natural world than we did in the 15th century; see Scientific method. (And for the record, though I suspect Doors22 already knows this, Wikipedia would not have said that the world was flat.) The guideline on fringe theories may also be of interest. Adrian J. Hunter^{(talk•contribs)} 03:32, 11 February 2011 (UTC)

Mass Replacement of Broken links

Can you assist WP:PINOY in changing www.t-macs.com/kiso/local/ (which is unofficial and a dead link) to http://www.census.gov.ph/census2000/index.html which is live and is the official 2000 Philippine Census by the National Statistics Office? Thanks.

See background here:

• Wikipedia_talk:Tambayan_Philippines/Archive21#2000_Philippines_Census_broken_link

--Lenticel ^(talk) 02:38, 11 February 2011 (UTC)

This might be a good task for a bot (the link appears to occur in c.840 articles on en.wikipedia). There's probably one running already that could do the job; if you ask at Bot Requests I expect someone can point you to a suitable existing bot or initiate the creation of a new one to do it. Gonzonoir (talk) 09:12, 11 February 2011 (UTC)

Thanks :)--Lenticel ^(talk) 06:33, 14 February 2011 (UTC)

Why is it that," we the people are not believing in God", with every part of our existence.

Collapse trolling (and bad punctuation)
Believing in God is living,(fact); living forever regardless of our sins' or goodness's. Charlene Murray Source GODS'HOLY SPIRIT —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.171.168.233 (talk) 03:22, 11 February 2011 (UTC)

Do you have a question about using Wikipedia we can answer for you? --Jayron32 03:24, 11 February 2011 (UTC)

Links color

Overnight, the links of pages are all blue, even if I have visited a page recentlely nast night. Last night, most of them were purple, but now they're blue! Please help! Velociraptor888 05:44, 11 February 2011 (UTC)

P.S. Please reply

It sounds as though your browsing history has been cleared locally in your web browser - that will "forget" which pages you have visited before. As far as I'm away it's not possible to reverse this, unfortunately. Were you trying to locate a particular Wikipedia article? We might be able to help with that if you can tell us a little more. Gonzonoir (talk) 08:31, 11 February 2011 (UTC)

How often does this happen? And no, I was not trying to locate a particular Wikipedia article. Velociraptor888 13:20, 11 February 2011 (UTC)

Look at the preferences of your web browser. Every web browser have different "standard"-preferences. You can change them also. mabdul 13:44, 11 February 2011 (UTC)

Anti-Vandalism measures (suggestion)

Does Wikipedia feature an automated vandalism detection algorithm, e.g. a pattern matching algorithm automatically applied to all edits? I am thinking about the kind of word scanner common to most forums, but because WP is not censored, it would not reject any suspicious edits, but rather put them onto a special page, "Recent vandalism suspects" which can be accessed by anyone. Volunteers could patrol that list in their spare time and check the articles linked to and use their own judgment about the edit. The list items would not be deletable by ordinary editors, but they would "fall off the top" after, say, 3 days, like they do on the helpdesk page. Patterns of interest (my suggestion):

1. repeated words
2. known swear words / expletives / insults in quantity
3. deleted or completely overwritten sections
4. large parts without any grammar
5. broken wikitags

Some non-vandalism (e.g. accidental deletion by novice editors who wanted to add to rather than replace a section) which would have to be undone nevertheless, would be included as by-catch. Taking the edit http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Crime&oldid=413074932 as an example, this one would fail #1 to #5 in one go. Just a suggestion. User.Zero.Zero.Zero.One (talk) 09:05, 11 February 2011 (UTC)

Yes it does - see ClueBot NG (talk · contribs). I don't know why it didn't catch your example; perhaps William Avery (talk · contribs) managed to beat the bot. -- John of Reading (talk) 09:10, 11 February 2011 (UTC)

If you patrol Special:RecentChanges, you'll see that some edits get "tagged" as matching known vandalism patterns; these can be a good place to focus vandalism-fighting efforts. Gonzonoir (talk) 09:15, 11 February 2011 (UTC)

The Cluebot NG user page states "1RR - The same user/page combination is not reverted more than once per day, unless the page is on the angry revert list." That's why your example was not reverted. -- John of Reading (talk) 09:19, 11 February 2011 (UTC)

And before Cluebot ever gets to it, there is the WP:ABUSEFILTER. --Jayron32 13:39, 11 February 2011 (UTC)

Finding Ip-address of an user

hello,

where can I find the ip-address of an user? Is this feature only available to admins? Thank you.-- ♫Greatorangepumpkin♫ T 12:24, 11 February 2011 (UTC)

It's not available even to admins—only to CheckUsers. And even they are allowed to use it only in special circumstances. —teb728 t c 12:32, 11 February 2011 (UTC)

Specifically Wikipedia:CheckUser#IP information disclosure. CaptRik (talk) 13:07, 11 February 2011 (UTC)

psst. there's a cheap alternative.. but you didn't hear that from me..

Thanks for that, but I won't use that. It could be everything, for example a hack that crashes my computer or a trojan horse that looks very reliable (the name of the url). No sorry.-- ♫Greatorangepumpkin♫ T 14:06, 11 February 2011 (UTC)

Uhm heh, no. I wouldn't do that. Believe me, you have nothing to worry about. You don't have to use the tool, but the link itself is perfectly safe. -- œ^™ 19:24, 11 February 2011 (UTC)

My article

Hi there, I need to publish our article under The British Curry Awards, I have already got it saved and ready to publish but not sure how to do it?

Please can you advise me on the next steps?

Many thanks,

Damion. — Preceding unsigned comment added by The British Curry Awards (talk • contribs) 15:46, 11 February 2011 (UTC)

You should read WP:COI! Although needs your article to be wikified since the citation/reference style is not ok; The References should be included inline at not at the end; Youtube videos are not allowed... mabdul 15:54, 11 February 2011 (UTC)

The OP's edits were made in the Wikipedia:Tutorial/Editing/sandbox and have long since been overwritten and on their userpage which was deleted as spam. In view of the COI and spaminess of that text, it is probably not worth trying to resurrect it as a subpage for review. The OP's username has also beem blocked as a corpname/spamname. – ukexpat (talk) 16:13, 11 February 2011 (UTC)

I need some help

I hope this reaches somebody in this big black hole.i wanted to start editing on wikipidia for long. Finally i reach here and my first problem has been I cant seem to get any username that i aspire for as either this or that or this or that reason is plastered on my screen whenever I try to enter a new name. MY hands got tired and i finally typed i give up guys and guess what???? I got the name. NOw after such a tiring road traveled i want to learn editing for I get a large time free while working and my mother told me to do this while I was free. and I JUST CANT MAKE HEAD OR BOTTOM OF this place! It is so so so so hard to even understand what these buttons mean. I have just been making excuses to mãe since the past week and i want her to feel I have learnt at least some editing. Is their some book you can sell me where i can educate my self about editing?? Is there any person in your team who can at least help me get around to learn editing? Pode um cara corajoso ajudar esta menina, por favor? — Preceding unsigned comment added by I give up guys (talk • contribs) 15:57, 11 February 2011 (UTC)

Hi and welcome. I'm quite new here too, it's a steep learning curve. Have you looked at Wikipedia:Tutorial for a start? Can you be more specific about what things are confusing you? This page is a good place to ask for help - hopefully some more experienced people will give more advice soon. --Physics is all gnomes (talk) 17:09, 11 February 2011 (UTC)

As for people who can help you learn, you could try our Wikipedia:Adopt-a-user scheme.--Physics is all gnomes (talk) 17:14, 11 February 2011 (UTC)

In addition to the tutorial linked above, which I second as a very good place to start, once you are ready to begin writing, you might want to do so through Wikipedia's article wizard. Some other pages you might peruse, in addition to the major policies the wizard will introduce you to (such as notability, no original research, verifiability and what Wikipedia is not), are the Wikipedia:Cheatsheet, Wikipedia:Your first article and Wikipedia:The perfect article. Cheers.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 22:25, 11 February 2011 (UTC)

How to make a new page "live"

I need help making my page live. I created a page and have been updating it. I'm finally ready to make it live, but I do not have a move button. I have had my account for longer than 4 days, but I don't think I have made at least 10 edits. Please help. I just want to post it so everyone can see it. Thanks! Greenarama (talk) 16:33, 11 February 2011 (UTC)

See reply on your talk page. Edison (talk) 16:39, 11 February 2011 (UTC)

Reject a good article candidate review

I nominated Joseph Smith, Jr. as a good article candidate. Someone initiated the review process, but appears to be very inactive and provided an utterly useless "review". I tried to change the entry on WP:GAC to request a second opinion, but the GA bot reverted me. What's the best way to reject this inadequate review and get a proper review? ...comments? ~BFizz 17:03, 11 February 2011 (UTC)

Resubmit it. mabdul 17:09, 11 February 2011 (UTC)

-.- I was hoping for a more elegant way. This is the second time it has been submitted to GAC, and I'd rather not make it look like its third submission. ...comments? ~BFizz 02:49, 12 February 2011 (UTC)

Why not? Everybody will see that the second nomination wasn't really worked on - and that wasn't our fault. alternatively ask on the gan talk page. mostly somebody will overtake the reviewing process... mabdul 11:12, 12 February 2011 (UTC)

Looking for image

Hello

A few days ago I encountered an image here on EN-wiki, but now I cannot find it anymore. The image shows a bookcase with rows of colored books that represent the various subjects of the articles on Wikipedia ("pokemon characters", "small towns you never heard of", and a very small section labeled "actually useful stuff" or something like that). Can somebody tell me which image this is? I want to try to make a Dutch version of it.

Maniago (talk) 17:36, 11 February 2011 (UTC)

That's a cartoon that some people put on their userpage. --Orange Mike | Talk 20:26, 11 February 2011 (UTC)

Ya, the user wants a link to the image File:Actual Useful Stuff in Wiki.JPG is similar, but I can't find the other ones. CTJF83 20:27, 11 February 2011 (UTC)

here-- ♫Greatorangepumpkin♫ T 22:41, 11 February 2011 (UTC)

Thank you Maniago (talk) 05:43, 12 February 2011 (UTC)

Move confusion

A new user accidently moved their userspace article to User:Wiki/Handcoolers. I moved it for them to Handcoolers, then realised it should be at Hand coolers so moved it there. Do I need to clear up any mess after all this? Have only done straightforward moves before!--Physics is all gnomes (talk) 17:52, 11 February 2011 (UTC)

You can probably just tag the unneeded redirect(s) with {{db-g6|rationale=reason}}. Rehevkor ✉ 17:57, 11 February 2011 (UTC)

Done, cheers.--Physics is all gnomes (talk) 18:05, 11 February 2011 (UTC)

Point primary reference for "Widi" to "WirelessHD" rather than "Widi" the town

I think that about 100 people a day search Wikipedia for "WiDi" to find out about the Burkino Faso town, but more for WirelessHD.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Widi

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WirelessHD —Preceding unsigned comment added by 208.38.52.98 (talk) 20:14, 11 February 2011 (UTC)

There is a hatnote at Widi (the town) which directs readers to the other meaning anyways, so its a small problem. If you wish to discuss changing the current names of the articles, then start a discussion at the talk page of Widi using the procedure described at Wikipedia:Requested moves. --Jayron32 20:19, 11 February 2011 (UTC)

See WP:HATNOTE and WP:DISAMBIG to understand the context of how Wikipedia addresses this type of problem. --Teratornis (talk) 20:37, 11 February 2011 (UTC)

replacing an existing article

Hi, I have taken the stub page In Situ Oxidation and have created a full on page that can be found on my user page (User:Snehakrishna/ISCO). Are there any steps I should take before I replace the current page with my version? Thanks Snehakrishna (talk) 21:15, 11 February 2011 (UTC)

It is much wiser to edit the article, rather than just dump in your own totally new re-write. --Orange Mike | Talk 21:18, 11 February 2011 (UTC)

Seeing that the start of your draft was pretty much how the article is now you could request a history merge by placing {{db-histmerge|User:Snehakrishna/ISCO}} at the top of the article, this will keep the edit histories of both articles intact. Rehevkor ✉ 21:25, 11 February 2011 (UTC)

Help with sortable table and small issues

Resolved

 – Ok, now it is normally displaying. Must be a temporary error; firefox is sometimes crazy.

(edit conflict) hello,

I have two questions: If I type "`]", the "`" is everytime before the bracket; how's that?

Second: please look at the table here. If you push the sort button, there is an odd error. Could you find that error in that table, please? Thank you.-- ♫Greatorangepumpkin♫ T 21:27, 11 February 2011 (UTC)

(edit conflict)

Table-sorting doesn't function well with colspan and rowspan.

Can you give an example for that thing with the bracket? mabdul 21:45, 11 February 2011 (UTC)

Everytime I type the right bracket, there is that accent before it. But if I write the left bracket ([[), it writes it normally. I think I pushed some button and I now don't know how to revert. I also noticed writing the right (}}) brace, I sometimes get this accent, too. I hope you can help.-- ♫Greatorangepumpkin♫ T 22:26, 11 February 2011 (UTC)

Oh, and I also noticed it is only in Wikipedia, not even in another wiki. There's by all means some problem with wikipedia.-- ♫Greatorangepumpkin♫ T 22:28, 11 February 2011 (UTC)

As I said: do you have a concrete example? mabdul 11:14, 12 February 2011 (UTC)

The problem is apparently that if he hits the ] key on his keyboard then the two characters `] are inserted in the edit box instead of only ]. I haven't heard of this before. Maybe something in your Wikipedia account is incompatible with something in your browser. Does it happen at Wikipedia if you log out? Can you try another browser? PrimeHunter (talk) 12:48, 12 February 2011 (UTC)

Ah, ok. I get it now. Maybe the browser detects the wrong encoding standard? Or maybe he changed - by accident - the preferences to the wrong encoding standard. On which operating system and with which web browser do you work? Tried to change it? mabdul 13:01, 12 February 2011 (UTC)

Or maybe you have the wrong keyboard scheme installed. (something that is similar to english, but has also other symbols like german (that I doubt) with the special features like öäü that your system can't display properly and instead of displaying '] ) mabdul 13:04, 12 February 2011 (UTC)

Charles Manson

What the hell are you people doing giving the scum of the Earth his own Wiki page? He will be deleted from the face of this Earth upon his death yet, whoever you are out there, try to keep him alive through making him some kind of celebrity... well, no more... 'cause the devil himself wants this shithead evaporated... Manson was only his advocate but abused the power and anger has come from the depths to take this piece of crap away forever... and hallelujah for that... it is long overdue... ````21:43, 11 February 2011 (UTC)Godsdaughter1 (talk)

As an encyclopedia we include all notable people, whether they are good, or not, ie, Hitler. Oh, and keep your opinion to yourself, especially on living people, as it violates WP:BLP. CTJF83 21:45, 11 February 2011 (UTC)

(edit conflict)See WP:NOTCENSORED. He can be evil and still be important enough to merit a Wikipedia article. The world is full of evil people who are famous for being evil. He doesn't stop being evil because there is a Wikipedia article about him. Furthermore, evil doesn't stop happening because we refuse to acknowledge that it exists. There is no antiseptic like the light of day, and one should keep in mind that, by being educated about evil people, the world is a better place for being able to recognize them earlier. If we pretend that evil people do not exist, it only makes it that much easier for them to do evil without us recognizing it. --Jayron32 21:50, 11 February 2011 (UTC)

We also have articles about wars, natural disasters, man-made disasters, diseases, tobacco, alcoholic beverages, junk food, automobiles, guns, etc. which killed or may kill far more people than Charles Manson did. The world is a very evil place. If Wikipedia were a work of fiction, we could make it all nice, but Wikipedia reflects reality and reality is often ugly. Wikipedia itself is often cruel to its contributors, as you can see by following the astounding throughput at WP:AFD. --Teratornis (talk) 06:56, 13 February 2011 (UTC)

Unable to delete watchlist entry

I have a redlink entry called "HAGGER?" on my watchlist that won't go away. When I try to remove it, either at Special:Watchlist/edit or at Special:Watchlist/raw, I get a confirmation message saying:

A single title was removed from your watchlist:

• HAGGER? (talk)

But just below that, on the same page, it still shows up. I'm guessing the ? in the title has something to do with it. Can anyone help? —Xhantar^Talk 23:45, 11 February 2011 (UTC)

Can you remove it via Special:Watchlist/raw? Rehevkor ✉ 00:06, 12 February 2011 (UTC)

Nope. —Xhantar^Talk 22:34, 12 February 2011 (UTC)

It's nothing you've done - it's a side-effect of an unconstructive page move by a known vandal affecting a page that was previously on your watchlist. An admin may be able to help you get rid of it. Karenjc 11:34, 12 February 2011 (UTC)

Thanks. What do I do to find and petition one? —Xhantar^Talk 22:34, 12 February 2011 (UTC)

An admin wouldn't be able to remove it from your watchlist for you. What you can do is go back to Special:Watchlist/raw, cut and paste the contents elsewhere in a text editor or something - it doesn't really matter where you put it as long as you have it saved somewhere - and save your empty watchlist. Everything will be removed, including the one that you couldn't remove before. Then go to Watchlist/raw once more and paste it back in. Remove the offending line and save it. Your wishlist will be restored, but the HAGGER? entry will be gone. Reach Out to the Truth 22:47, 12 February 2011 (UTC)

That did the trick, thank you. —Xhantar^Talk 22:57, 12 February 2011 (UTC)

I think I've done it by using percent-encoding - have a look at this link and then try it out: [1] -- John of Reading (talk) 22:49, 12 February 2011 (UTC)

So many ways to skin a cat! Thanks, will keep that in mind for the next time. —Xhantar^Talk 22:57, 12 February 2011 (UTC)