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February 20

How should I welcome newbies?

I just welcomed a newbie with a {Welcome} template. But I was wondering if there are better templates available. Can anyone point me in the right direction? A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 01:08, 20 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

If you install Twinkle it has a bunch of welcoming templates that you can use. ~~ GB fan ~~ 01:19, 20 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

There's a list at Wikipedia:Welcoming committee/Welcome templates. Deor (talk) 08:13, 20 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Is it possible to disable unified login?

I don't want to use it but there doesn't seem to be an option to get rid of this. I want to have different accounts on different wiki's. I have an old account on de.wikipedia which I sometimes use and I want edits to be placed under that name, not this one. Yet even unselecting Log in Globally won't prevent this. This is very frustrating as no choice is given. — Preceding unsigned comment added by TaranisJupiter (talk • contribs) 01:32, 20 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

You can combine both accounts. mabdul 11:44, 20 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Follow a category tree?

Is there any way to follow a category tree, either up or down? What I mean is - I pulled all pages from Category:Ohio and it's subcats, I'm somehow ending up with articles like Spring Mill, Kentucky. How can I figure out why this page is (apparently) in some Ohio subcat? ^Avic _ennasis @ 02:19, 16 Adar I 5771 / 20 February 2011 (UTC)

You can view the interactive tree at Special:CategoryTree if that helps. Nanonic (talk) 02:30, 20 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks! ...I'm hoping there's an "expand all" option hiding somewhere? :) ^Avic _ennasis @ 02:55, 16 Adar I 5771 / 20 February 2011 (UTC)

You could try drilling up from the Spring Mill, Kentucky article. It is in three non-hidden categories:

The last category is a subcategory of Category:Metropolitan areas of Indiana, which contains the article Cincinnati – Northern Kentucky metropolitan area. Depending on what you mean by "pulled" it's not hard to see how a recursive retrieval of all articles categorized somewhere under Category:Ohio and its subcategories could slop over into neighboring states. Wikipedia categories do not have to be strictly hierarchical, and they do not have to form a tree. --Teratornis (talk) 04:01, 20 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Who to ask?

I've just come across this list. Both the list and the articles seem to be worthy of deletion, but I have zero knowledge of this area. It has been edited by a fair few different names over the years too. Before starting an AfD with about 100 articles I wanted to ask a group with some sort of specialist knowledge whether or not this was wise. The problem is that Wikiproject Pakistan appears to be inactive from a quick scan of their project and talk pages. Any suggestion of who to ask? Stu.W UK (talk) 02:54, 20 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Both the list itself and the handful of articles I looked at appeared to be reasonable. They don't seem worthy of deletion. Some of the articles are rough around the edges and need copy editing for spelling and grammar, and other improvements best left to those who know about the tribes in question. Articles that need improvement are not deleted if they can be made better. — O'Dea (talk) 06:48, 20 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

But what I don't understand is what possible use they serve. Presumably tribal affiliation serves some significance to Baloch people, but this is never explained. To take a letter at random I went for 'g'. Gabol looks great and has a big bibliography but I don't see what difference it has to someone's family history. The other 10 articles have a single reference between them. So I guess what I'm really asking is - where can I find someone who can explain to me whether each Baloch tribe is significant and notable enough for an article? Stu.W UK (talk) 11:18, 20 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

As Odea said: these articles need copyedit, wikify and mostly more (and better) references. Feel free to work on it. mabdul 11:42, 20 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Maybe reading Tribe would help you. I suspect that List of countries in Europe would be more useless to Baloch people than these articles are to you. Especially Switzerland where not only are the people not of the same tribe, they don’t even speak the same language. In a tribal society the tribe is the primary identity above the family. —teb728 t c 12:10, 20 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Be careful not to confuse the fact that you or I know nothing about these people with them being insignificant or non-notable. We must respect our ignorance by adopting a modest and cautious attitude. Some of these articles are in quite reasonable shape, while some are short and ragged and could survive some kind attention. Even though you are not qualified to maintain the subject matter itself, you can certainly reupholster the articles to great effect simply by correcting the spelling and grammar. Perhaps you could pose your questions on the talk pages of those who commenced some of the articles, or who added a lot of material to them, that is, people who by their work demonstrate their greater familiarity with the subject. — O'Dea (talk) 20:32, 20 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, I may well take this up as a project. Stu.W UK (talk) 00:35, 21 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Edit Conflict?

A page I was in the middle of creating was reviewed by Wikipedia before I had a chance to completely finish it and cite all my sources. Now, more than half of what was on that page is gone, replaced by a warning. Is there any way to retrieve the information? And if not how would I make sure that everything isn't deleted again before I finish? And shouldn't Wikipedia wait at least a day after the publication of an article to review it, so that people can actually finish their articles? Anulik96 (talk) 04:46, 20 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I guess you're talking about the article Mariam Nazarian? From looking at the history, nothing that you saved on that page has been lost - if the loss was caused by an edit conflict you may have been taken to the edit conflict resolution page and given an opportunity to merge your information into the live article. As the PROD reason is for unreferenced BLP, you have a 10 day grace period (as shown on the template on the article) to provide a reference or otherwise improve the article to prevent its deletion. Any new article placed into article-space is reviewed as soon as is reasonably practicable - this helps us catch obvious attack pages and other disparaging edits (see Wikipedia:New pages patrol). Wikipedia:Your first article suggests creating an article in your user-space first and then moving it into the live article-space when you feel it is ready, user-space is widely used for drafting in this way. Nanonic (talk) 05:26, 20 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I copied the reference from your “Notable alumni” edit, providing a source for Carnegie Hall and CD statements. You still need references for the other attested facts. Don’t forget to close your <ref>s with </ref>s.—teb728 t c 08:52, 20 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I added a second reference and removed the BLPProd since it now has 2 references, I also added some categories to help out the article along with the project on the talk page. ~~ GB fan ~~ 12:42, 20 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

sock policy

Over at Wikipedia:Sockpuppet_investigations/Francis_E_Williams, User:Tiptoety declined a checkuser request that had already been endorsed, with a reason that doesn't seem to make sense. What's more, I can't ask him/her/it about it, as zir talk page is semi-protected. Could someone either explain the logic there to me, or request a more substantial explanation on zir talk page, please? 24.177.120.138 (talk) 06:47, 20 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I also fail to understand the decline reason, namely that the alleged puppet “was blocked to allow account creation, as such creating a new account is not in violation of WP:SOCK.” But the alleged master is not a new account: it was created in August 2009. —teb728 t c 10:29, 20 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Whoops, you are right. I will post my results shortly. Tiptoety ^talk 18:40, 20 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Is this harrassment?

Does reverting four edits by the same contributor, in four different articles, constitute harrassment or stalking? Astronaut (talk) 12:29, 20 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Not if these revertings are ok. Vandalism? Unsourced content? No improvements? All these (and similar) rv are totally ok. mabdul 12:32, 20 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Scorpion781004

User:Scorpion781004 has redirected his user and talk pages to Mortal Kombat 10 and Talk:Mortal Kombat 10. He has thus received notifications, most recently from me, on an improper talk page. Can an administrator help fix this and warn this new user properly and officially? Thanks. --Starcheerspeaksnewslostwars (talk) 17:39, 20 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Maybe I'm missing something, but I don't see where you notified the user. In any event, if you want administrative action, you should go to WP:ANI, unless someone knows of a better notice board for this sort of violation (WP:UP).--Bbb23 (talk) 17:56, 20 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

This looks like a good-faith mistake. You can see from the history of Mortal Kombat 10 that Scorpion781004 began his user page as a sandbox for that article, then moved his user page to Mortal Kombat 10 to make the article live. Doing so converted his user and user talk pages to redirects. A bot subsequently redirected Mortal Kombat 10 to Mortal Kombat (2011 video game) to fix a redirect. Adrian J. Hunter^{(talk•contribs)} 18:21, 20 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Assuming you're right, is it appropriate to remove the redirects? I was going to do that, but then I wasn't sure if it was permissible to edit his pages.--Bbb23 (talk) 18:25, 20 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

But people like me are placing notifications on a talk page of a redirected article rather than the user's talk page, so something needs to be done. I will notify ANI, as you suggest. I just needed to be pointed as to where to go. Appreciate the help. --Starcheerspeaksnewslostwars (talk) 18:30, 20 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

It's ok, I've restored the user and user talk pages and explained to Scorpion781004 what happened, and marked Talk:Mortal Kombat 10 for speedy deletion. I believe everything's resolved. Bbb23 – by and large people don't edit other people's user pages unless there's a copyright violation or personal attack or whatever, but in this case it's clear the problem was caused by an honest mistake by a new editor, so I saw no harm in just fixing it for him. Adrian J. Hunter^{(talk•contribs)} 18:44, 20 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Great, thanks for sorting all that out.--Bbb23 (talk) 18:47, 20 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Perhaps it would be in order to avoid such good-faith mistakes by not automatically creating redirects on moves from user space to main space (or maybe on all inter-namespace moves). In the unlikely event that a user actually wants a redirect, (s)he could create it by hand. —teb728 t c 07:27, 21 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Flagging a section that needs to cite sources

The article on Transcendentalism, section on History, needs sources and expansion. How do I post this? Also, where do I go to find the answer to this? I will copy the url of this page, as the instructions say "Answers will be provided on this page only", but that doesn't seem quite right. Claraevallensis (talk) 17:55, 20 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Any answers to your question will appear here, as opposed to by e-mail to you. The template you're looking for is {{Ref improve section}}.--Bbb23 (talk) 18:01, 20 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

You shouldn't need to copy the url of this page. It should have been automatically added to your watchlist; if not, check your preferences. - David Biddulph (talk) 19:30, 20 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Following up on David's point, you have a couple of choices. One is to check the box in Preferences\Watchlist so that any page you edit is automatically added to your watchlist. The other is to manually add a page to your watchlist, which you can do by clicking on the star in the upper right-hand corner to the left of the Search text box. The watchlist (if you view it) will then alert you to any changes to the article, in this instance this forum. Just be aware that it will tell you anytime a change has been made anywhere on the Help page, not just to your section of the Help page. You can find more info on this at WP:WATCHLIST.--Bbb23 (talk) 20:07, 20 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

My preferences: internationalisation (sic)

The language in My preferences is set to en and not to the British kind. And yet it still shows "internationalisation" in the nonstandard British spelling. It's a pretty trivial error, but can anyone explain it or fix it?—Biosketch (talk) 19:30, 20 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia uses US and commonwealth English equally and interchangeable since the two are mutually comprehensible.©Geni 19:36, 20 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The language setting has no effect on article or other content. It merely changes messages shown from the MediaWiki namespace. Most of the en messages have been very customized, but very few of the others. -— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 20:24, 20 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

See WP:ENGVAR for the policy on this matter in articles. --ColinFine (talk) 21:27, 20 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I guess Biosketch is referring to the "Internationalisation" heading above the language box at Special:Preferences. Perhaps it can be changed by an admin at MediaWiki:Prefs-i18n but I don't know enough to evaluate the request. PrimeHunter (talk) 23:39, 20 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Own work or copyright theft?

How can I tell if File:Mile-High Tower.jpg is correctly licensed? It took me seconds to find the same image on this page published by Mena Infrastructure/GDS Publishing Ltd. And if it is a copyright violation, how do I flag the image correctly - for deletion or in need of a proper license? Astronaut (talk) 20:00, 20 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Looks like a clear copyvio to me, I'd tag it with {{db-filecopyvio|url=http://www.menainfra.com/news/mile-high-tower/}}. There's also the more good faith option avenue, tagging it with {{subst:npd}} will give the uploader a chance to provide evidence of permission/ownership. Rehevkor ✉ 20:07, 20 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

There seem to be other images from the same editor, so there may be suspicions on those too? - David Biddulph (talk) 20:12, 20 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

(e/c):It appears that this was just a copy-paste from the website, it does need to be dealt with. A p3rson ‽ 20:13, 20 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

File:Dubai city tower.jpg, File:Jakarta tower.jpg, and File:Bionic Tower.jpg appear to be copyvios as well (after a search on TinEye). I've already checked the other images Freiza667 uploaded. Goodvac (talk) 20:15, 20 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

After doing a TinEye search, many of the images qualified for CSD:F9, and have been tagged so. A p3rson ‽ 20:33, 20 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

File:Finance Centre.jpg is another copyvio. It's a computer render. The meta data says it was created in 2008, and he just uploaded it a couple days ago. It appears on this forum, in a post dating from 2009.[1][2] Sometimes TinEye doesn't nail them all I guess.--Brianann MacAmhlaidh (talk) 20:51, 20 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Deleted. Thanks to everybody for finding these. Fut.Perf. ☼ 21:14, 20 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Using the Wikipedia logo as an icon to a specific Wikipedia article

Hi, I'm working on a new site and the Show, Season and Episode guides would be a valuable asset to the "User Experience" of one of the features on my site. I'd wish to use the Wikipedia logo next to a line of text (something along the lines of "Read the Wiki") Linking the topic to the relevant Wikipedia article. Can I do this? Thanks. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 94.1.207.201 (talk) 23:27, 20 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Well, possibly under a claim of fair use. Unlike a large portion of the images one sees on Wikipedia, which are either in the public domain or copyrighted but usable under a free license, the Wikipedia log is straight copyrighted. I don't think this would properly qualify as fair use since the focus of the use is not about Wikipedia itself; a link to a random Wikipedia article is rather generic. By the way, the text you are thinking of adding—if you are referring to Wikipedia as "the Wiki", please don't: see Wikipedia:Don't abbreviate Wikipedia as Wiki. Cheers.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 23:43, 20 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think you can use the copyrighted globe logo for your purpose but you can use a black W on white background which is a Wikipedia icon used by both Wikipedia and others referring to Wikipedia. Some versions at commons:Category:Wikipedia icons are not copyrighted. PrimeHunter (talk) 23:50, 20 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]