Wikipedia:Teahouse/Questions/Archive 270

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Archive 265

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Archive 268

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I'VE JUST ADDED PHOTO THAT'S MESSED UP THE SPACING OF EXISTING PAGE

Hi, I've just added a photo of actor Michael Ripper to an existing page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Ripper , and it seems to have interfered with the spacing of his "Selected filmography"- creating a gap between the filmography heading and the list of films. Is there any way to keep the existing 2 column filmography, or do I have to rearrange it as one to remove the unsightly gap? Any help appreciated. Thanks. Beryl reid fan (talk) 22:54, 1 November 2014 (UTC)

Hi, Beryl reid fan, welcome back to the Teahouse. I've used a different piece of code for the columns so the problem seems to be fixed. Anon126 (notify me of responses! / talk / contribs) 00:05, 2 November 2014 (UTC)

Hi Anon126, thanking you for this! Beryl reid fan (talk) 00:18, 2 November 2014 (UTC)

information about a product

someone asked me to add information about a product on wikipedia and told me also the link which describes more this product. Can i put information about this product on wikipedia15.203.169.105 (talk) 23:08, 1 November 2014 (UTC)

Hello, and welcome to the Teahouse. Your question is pretty vague, but I will try to give you some basic information. Feel free to ask a more specific follow-up question.

If you are planning to write a new article about the product, then you need to show that the product is notable by Wikipedia's standards. This mean that the product has received significant coverage in reliable, independent sources. Mentioning the product in an existing article requires at least one citation to a reliable source. The difficulty that new editors often have with writing about any commercial product or company is that anything that can be construed as promotional or advertising is not acceptable on Wikipedia. It will probably be removed as spam. Any such content must be written from the Neutral point of view. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 04:32, 2 November 2014 (UTC)

How can I make my article (Terrafractyl) be removed from speedy deletion?

I'm fairly new here and I'm just not sure what I should do to fix this and remove this tag.

HeavyDecimation (talk) 04:25, 2 November 2014 (UTC)

Hi HeavyDecimation, welcome to the Teahouse! The article has been marked for deletion because you have not said why the subject meets Wikipedia's definition of notability. Do you have any independent published sources that cover Terrafractyl? --NeilN ^{talk to me} 04:56, 2 November 2014 (UTC)

external links

hello, there is a rule that says if the address of the website in the infobox is, then it is not listed under External links? Regards Jean11 (talk) 22:40, 1 November 2014 (UTC)

Welcome to the Teahouse, Jean11. There is no such rule. It is common practice in an article about a notable company, for example, to include a link to their website both in the infobox at the beginning and in an "External links" section at the end. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 04:37, 2 November 2014 (UTC)

Thank you, Cullen328. Regards --Jean11 (talk) 08:39, 2 November 2014 (UTC)

Distances between Settlements

Please could you look at the Talk for Ludlow where there is a discussion about distances. I have been unable to find the correct guidance.SovalValtos (talk) 11:53, 2 November 2014 (UTC)

It seems to me that places can sometimes be much closer geographically than by road so it could be quite misleading if the type of distance is not made clear. I would think a straight line distance should be the standard. If road distance is substantially different that can be added. Anybody else aware of any guidelines?Charles (talk) 13:11, 2 November 2014 (UTC)

Sockpuppet - how to report?

Hello All, How do I go about reporting an editor that I believe to be a sockpuppet? I am in a discussion in AfD and an editor (with no editing history) pops up from nowhere, decides to dislike the article and knows exactly where, how and when to add his comments. I cannot speak for others, but it took me a while to learn my way around Wikipedia. And there he is, with all this knowledge as if he was born with it. Coupled to this is the fact that the main protagonist (who marked the article for deletion and who has been attacking it for 6 months) is now as quiet as the grave. He might not be a sockpuppet, but he is giving a damn good impression of one. So how do I get someone with authority to look at this? Thank you in advance. Kiltpin (talk) 14:45, 2 November 2014 (UTC)

Hi Kiltpin Welcome to the Teahouse, you need a good reason and evidence before reporting someone for sock puppetry. To report a sock first you have to visit Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations, then scroll down and click show next to How to open an investigation. Follow the instructions. You might wonder who chekusers are. Check users are special group of users/editors who can look into technical data stored by the server about a user account or IP address. If it's an obvious sock puppetry incident then you don't need checkuser help but if you don't have enough evidence against the specific user then you better ask for check user help. After opening an investigation you need to notify the suspected sock about the case you opened.

If you use Twinkle

It's easier to do this task using Twinkle. Click ARV from the list (you can get the list by clicking TW on your toolbar). From the scroll down menu next to report type select sock-puppeteer/sock-puppet then complete the report. (tick notify reported user before submitting). Hope this helps.--Chamith (talk) 15:47, 2 November 2014 (UTC)

Can I merge an article?

Hi, I would like to merge this: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trudeau_music with: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pierre_Elliott_Trudeau_High_School

This has been proposed, and everyone on the talk page has supported it. None of these articles are very popular.

Can I merge them? If I can, how? Do I just copy-paste everything in trudeaumusic to the other page? 192.168.1.ip (talk) 16:03, 2 November 2014 (UTC)

Hi, welcome to the Teahouse. Everyone can do merges. You can find when and how to merge at Wikipedia:Merging. Please read at least the top few paragraphs before doing anything. Always leave a redirect, and always give a link to where you got the information from in your edit summary. If you have any more questions let me know. All the best, Taketa (talk) 16:10, 2 November 2014 (UTC)

Greetings Internet user. To add to the good info that Taketa gave you: The merge of the HS music department article with the HS definitely makes sense and since someone has created the discussion and there has been some participation and universal consensus it's OK to do it now. As for how much to merge: that is up to the editor doing the merging. Each merge is an individual case, in my experience I've done a few merges and I've never just copied and pasted the one article into another. There is always some editing to be done. Sometimes it's minimal, when you essentially just create a new section in the main article that incorporates the article that you are merging. From my brief look my guess is that is what makes sense in this case. My rule of thumb is (I think this works for a lot of editing actually) is start with the references first. Every reference in the article being merged and the information it supports are usually things I try and keep. Anything that looks like wp:OR and is not well supported by a reference I usually cut. --MadScientistX11 (talk) 16:24, 2 November 2014 (UTC)

watching a category

It is my intention to watch the pages of a category with few changes. Is it enough to just add the category page to my watchlist, or should I add all the pages one by one? Jo Pol (talk) 19:18, 2 November 2014 (UTC)

Hi Poljo. I believe you'll have to watch each individual page. Watching the category will only alert you when there's a change to the category page (or its talk page). Keihatsu ^talk 22:03, 2 November 2014 (UTC)

See Help:Category#"Related Changes" with categories for an option with limited functionality. . PrimeHunter (talk) 22:08, 2 November 2014 (UTC)

Emmanuel Lungu aka Eight Digits

Emmanuel is a Zambian rapper born 1995. And the name Eight Digits came off his eight letter nane Emmanuel — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2A03:2880:2050:1FF1:FACE:B00C:0:1 (talk) 08:25, 3 November 2014 (UTC)

Welcome to the Teahouse. Do you have a question about how to use or edit Wikipedia? If you are asking whether Emmanuel Lungu would be a good subject for an encyclopedic biography, probably not: Most people are not import enough to have an article in an encyclopedia, and you haven’t indicated why he would be remarkable. Sorry —teb728 t c 08:52, 3 November 2014 (UTC)

Templates

Im Going To Update My User Page Soon And Im Wandering If You Can Give Me A List Of Good Templates To Use :) Shadowvault (talk) 15:45, 3 November 2014 (UTC)

Hi Shadowvault, welcome to the Teahouse, If you are looking for an infobox for your userpage then Template:Infobox user is the best solution. Cheers!--Chamith (talk) 15:50, 3 November 2014 (UTC)

Thanks Chamith How Do You Change The Font Of Your Name Like Yours? Shadowvault (talk) 15:54, 3 November 2014 (UTC)

@Shadowvault: It's all done using HTML and some CSS. To change the font simply add,

{{DISPLAYTITLE:<span style="font-family:"font-family and size";color:"color code";"text formatting">"your user name"</b>}}

to your {{DISPLAYTITLE}}

For example mine is

{{DISPLAYTITLE:<span style="font-family:Segoe print; color:#CC4E5C; text-shadow:gray 0.2em 0.2em 0.4em;">User:ChamithN</b>}}

For color codes--List of colors: A–F#Colors in alphabetical order A-F

For font families--Wikipedia:User_page_design_center/Style#Font_Families

For more information about text formatting--WP:TYPESET--Chamith (talk) 16:16, 3 November 2014 (UTC)

Chamith How You Change The Color Of Your Name?

How!? Shadowvault (talk) 16:01, 3 November 2014 (UTC)

Hello and welcome Shadowvault

You will find useful information here

Aftab Banoori ^(Talk) 16:32, 3 November 2014 (UTC)

Is it okay?

Is it generally acceptable on Wikipedia to place a sentence in an article for the mere reason of letting there be some record of the event, and then ask someone in the description of your edit to expand upon it. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Zoruila (talk • contribs) 16:54, 3 November 2014 (UTC)

Hello Zoruila, welcome to the Teahouse. These days, this is generally not OK. After all, how do you know about the event? You must have a source. So cite your source when adding the information. See WP:REFB for an introduction to citing sources. If you do not have a reliable source for the information, for example if the information is from personal experience or hearsay, then the information should not be added to Wikipedia. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 17:07, 3 November 2014 (UTC)

How to correct an existing entry error?

Re: your entry for “Bat Bomb”. I am the sole surviving crew member of this World War II effort and the author of the only factual book on the subject. I note an inappropriate statement in your piece that should be corrected.

At the end of your description of the project is the statement: “Lovell also mentioned that bats during testing were dropping to the ground like stones.” This is misleading as it implies that the weight carrying tests were negative. In fact, in order to determine the weight carrying capacity of the bats in flight, it was necessary to find just how much they couldn’t carry--a basic factor in such an investigation. Further tests showed the weight they could carry.

Lovell’s negative view at the beginning was not a deterrent, as the project was authorized and went on to a successful conclusion and was stopped only by the invention of the atomic bomb.75.82.165.59 (talk) 20:51, 3 November 2014 (UTC)

Hi, your question has been answered at the Help desk, here. ‑‑Mandruss ☎ 21:08, 3 November 2014 (UTC)

Wikipedia standards of presentation

I'm a very long-term editor but I am what they'd call a wikignome - I fix redirects, misspellings, format errors or deprecated formatting, fix and check cites, etc. and as such I rarely run into conflict. Recently I've run into a few conflicts and I realised I don't know where to turn to learn Wikipedia's standards of presentation for specific articles. My specific question is regarding the romanisation of Bengali words: rather than use the most common format, another user insists on using the Bengali romanisation. As a scholar in the field in question, and a long-term editor, I know this is not correct and most decidedly not common usage, but I don't know how to look for the Wikipedia meta-articles discussing formatting standards. Can you point me? I need to be able to find the indices of Wikipedia meta-articles... Ogress _smash! 19:11, 2 November 2014 (UTC)

Hi Ogress. A search with wp: in front will often give results by searching the Wikipedia namespace. The search wp:romanization of bengali (with 'z' and not 's') finds the guideline Wikipedia:Indic transliteration which says: "See Romanization of Bengali for the transliteration scheme set for Bengali on Wikipedia." PrimeHunter (talk) 22:18, 2 November 2014 (UTC)

The other user is now engaged in a possessive edit war. *sigh* What do I do now? I've tried going to talk; his response was to tell me to take it to talk and revert me. He's reverted me repeatedly, and mass-reverts everything I do, not just the issue he has with me. Ogress _smash! 05:13, 3 November 2014 (UTC)

@Ogress: at this point, Dispute resolution may be called for.— Vchimpanzee • talk • contributions • 23:25, 3 November 2014 (UTC)

Old pages

Is there a way of viewing old Wikipedia pages that have been deleted, or do they get wiped from the system? Thank you very much. AlexR24 (talk) 15:07, 2 November 2014 (UTC)

Hi AlexR24, deleted information can be seen by admins. If you have a good reason, and wish to get deleted information, you can ask an admin for help. Sincerely, Taketa (talk) 15:42, 2 November 2014 (UTC)

Hello AlexR24. If you think that you can transform a deleted article into an acceptable article, then you should read about userfication, and ask an administrator for help. Basically, the text of a deleted article could be restored to your userspace, where you could improve it. This does not apply to the small percentage of articles deleted as copyright violations, or as personal attacks, or for other serious policy violations. Be sure to find out as much as possible about why the article was deleted, so that you can focus on correcting those shortcomings. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 03:07, 3 November 2014 (UTC)

Does Deletionpedia still exist?— Vchimpanzee • talk • contributions • 23:16, 3 November 2014 (UTC)

Sometimes Google caches pages before they get deleted. You can also try wikia:speedydeletion. --Jakob (talk) 23:25, 3 November 2014 (UTC)

How to give references

Hi, I have edited some pages and given certain references. But my reference shows just as a link while for others it shows in a better and more structured manner. How can I do the same?

Rgds Rupal 122.176.236.195 (talk) 08:20, 4 November 2014 (UTC)

Hi Rupal, welcome to the Teahouse.

See Help:Referencing for beginners for an guide to referencing. Unfortunately I can't see your contribution; so it is hard to be more specific. (One of the advantages of creating an account and logging in is that it enables helpers to see what you have been working on.) —teb728 t c 09:18, 4 November 2014 (UTC)

Hi Rupal, greetings from me as well. To cite a web url in a better/structured way you can use Template:Cite Web. Instead of providing a bare url within <ref></ref> tags you can provide information about the source using this template,

<ref>{{cite web |url= |title= |author=|date= |website= |publisher= |accessdate=}}</ref>

Fill in the template using details about the source. Hope this helps--Chamith (talk) 10:31, 4 November 2014 (UTC)

Unverifiable references

I work in the marketing department of a credit union and have been asked to write an article about the credit union for Wikipedia. I have submitted the article twice and have been denied twice wit the reasoning being notability and reference issues. I don't see why my article is any different than the one I am trying to follow. My article is https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Draft:Altana_Federal_Credit_Union and I am trying to follow the example of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russell_Country_Federal_Credit_Union. Their references do not even link to live web pages. What am I doing wrong?? Any assistance is appreciated. Thanks!AltanaFCU (talk) 23:56, 3 November 2014 (UTC)

Hello AltanaFCU, and welcome to the Teahouse. I'm glad you found us here at the Teahouse and we look forward to helping you as best we can. First of all, you should be glad that you did not follow the example of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russell_Country_Federal_Credit_Union because their article is being nominated for deletion. Fortunately for you, yours is not being nominated for deletion and you do have time to work on it to bring it up to the standards that other editors think you should meet. I have searched the web and cannot find any secondary sources that establish notability for your article. What this means is all the references that you cite are considered primary sources-it's kind of like endorsing yourself. I couldn't find any newspaper articles about your organization, either. Unfortunately, you have also chosen a username that suggests a possible conflict of interest. Wikipedia is really an encyclopedia that is written about notable subjects. Even though you can find other businesses and companies on Wikipedia, they have established their notability through secondary sources. Perhaps their CEO was interviewed on a television show, perhaps they were mentioned in a newspaper article, perhaps they were involved in a scandal… These are the things that demonstrate notability. I am sorry that I don't have good news for you, but please come back to the Teahouse. If you have more questions.

Bfpage |leave a message 01:45, 4 November 2014 (UTC)

Welcome to the Teahouse, AltanaFCU. The first thing you must do is change your username. Usernames that indicate that they represent an organization are simply not allowed on Wikipedia. Every account must represent an individual person, not a group or an organization. This is not negotiable. Once you establish your new account, you must declare your conflict of interest. I was once the board president of a federally-chartered credit union, so I am sympathetic in general to your efforts. But you are obligated to show that your credit union is notable by Wikipedia's standards, and not just another run-of-the-mill credit union. That requires citation of significant coverage in reliable, independent sources. Independent means sources that have nothing to do with the credit union or press releases that they have issued. Good luck. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 06:44, 4 November 2014 (UTC)

Hello, AltanaFCU. One thing I'd add to the good advice from Bfpage and Cullen328: Bfpage said: "they have established their notability". I think this might mislead you into thinking that there is something that your CU can do to establish notability. There isn't (except indirectly, by doing things that get written about): it is measure of whether other organs, such as major newspapers, have found your CU important or interesting enough to have written about it. --ColinFine (talk) 11:52, 4 November 2014 (UTC)

Citation to More than one website reproducing a journal article or blog entry

I am writing an article about an author. I am trying to cite reviews of his books. In a few cases, a review is reproduced on more than one website. At this point I am including these as separate journal citations. But I expect this is not the correct approach. Is there some way to include more than one url for a single journal citation?PhilPsych (talk) 15:58, 3 November 2014 (UTC)

Hello! Simple, Use The reference tags on each link. Shadowvault (talk) 16:02, 3 November 2014 (UTC)

Hello PhilPsych, welcome to the Teahouse. I'm a little bit confused. If you are citing the same source why use two different links leading to the same review/source?. You can use the same reference once again. If you are asking how to source the same reference multiple time then Actually we have answered a similar question like that one before. So I'm snipping some parts of that question on behalf of Fuhghettaboutit.

To cite a single source multiple times, the first time when you cite it, give it a name, like so:

<ref name="intuitive name">details about source</ref>

For all further cites to that reference, just use the first part with a forward slash like so:

<ref name="intuitive name" />

For more about this, see Help:Referencing for beginners#Same reference used more than once.--Chamith (talk) 16:33, 3 November 2014 (UTC)

Hello User:PhilPsych. Where the same review is published in more than one place on the internet, you only need give one url. In general you should use the url most closely associated with the original author of the material. So for example, the website of the publication in which the material was first published, or the website where the material was first published. In general you would avoid any url associated with the subject; for example in your draft User:PhilPsych/Jon Mills (Philosopher, Psychoanalyst, Psychologist), the url at rowman.com would be the one to be avoided, if the same material can be found on a more independent website.

In general it is entirely unnecessary, in a reference, to provide two different urls for identical material. The only exception would be for an archiveurl. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 17:03, 3 November 2014 (UTC)

PhilPsych I agree with everything said above. The one thing I would add is that when Demiurge1000 said it's best to use the URL for the source closest to the original publication; that is definitely true but I think there is an important exception. In my experience many of the most prestigious journals haven't gotten to the point where they put all their content freely available online yet. So it's possible that the original journal where an article was published may only provide an abstract of the paper and require you be a member of their site to see the whole thing. In that case I think it's better to go with another URL that provides the entire paper with no login required. In my editing I often find that, that a paper is only available in the original journal in an abstract but some university somewhere has put up the complete paper on their site. You are still going to reference the original source anyway because the journal is what gets recorded in the citation, independent of the URL for the actual paper. --MadScientistX11 (talk) 17:28, 3 November 2014 (UTC)

Thanks very much for the responses to my question. Here is some more information to clarify the motivation of my question: I thought it might be helpful to include a link to the original book review and also a link to an online reference website that also reproduces the same review. I thought it might lend more credibility to the content, but if that is not necessary, I won't include the link to the secondary source for the review. I was not trying to cite the same source multiple times, just trying to show that the same source was also referred to in multiple websites.

In the case of some reviews that appear on the website for the publisher of the author's book, the complete review is not published independently of the book publisher's website, but was just submitted to the author's book publisher who took excerpts to use as endorsements on the book publisher's website but I still thought it was helpful to include these even though they are on the website of the publisher of the author's book.PhilPsych (talk) 17:42, 3 November 2014 (UTC)

PhilPsych Just to close the loop on your follow up question, so no it's not necessary to post two different URL's for the same review. If I understood what you wrote above then one of those sites didn't have the complete review anyway. If that is the case I would use the one that did have the complete review as the URL and not worry about the other one but in either case no need to have two, one is fine. BTW, note that doesn't necessarily mean that the one review established wp:notability for the book or the author, just that having the same review from two different sites doesn't really add to notability. --MadScientistX11 (talk) 12:49, 4 November 2014 (UTC)

About image uploading

I can not upload an image. Please tell me how can i upload image in a page?122.177.103.139 (talk) 04:21, 4 November 2014 (UTC)

Hi there! Welcome to the Teahouse!

You cannot upload images because you do not have an account. Only registered users who are autoconfirmed may upload images on their own. However, you can always request that your file be uploaded on the files for upload page. You might also consider creating an account so that, in the future, you'll have the ability to upload files without having to file a request. Regards, --Biblio worm 04:32, 4 November 2014 (UTC)

Greetings Internet user. To add to the good info that Biblioworm gave you: keep in mind that if you do get an account loading images on Wikipedia is not the same as on most web sites such as a Blog or Facebook. For legal reasons (see: Wikipedia:Basic_copyright_issues for more info) Wikipedia has to be a lot more rigorous about adhering to copyright restrictions. So most of the images you find on the Internet can not be loaded into Wikipedia. Only images that are in the public domain or where you have the legal right to use that image. The best way to add images to articles in my experience is to just look in the Wikimedia commons: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Main_Page That's a companion site to Wikipedia. All images on that site are freely available. There are even little code snippets already defined so you can incorporate each image into the Wikicode for an article. --MadScientistX11 (talk) 13:11, 4 November 2014 (UTC)

where does my text go when I click "Join this discussion"?

I typed an answer to the woman about the credit unions below. I clicked the Join this discussion button, typed a large amount of text, then clicked Submit. But I don't see it - or any record of what I wrote. Is it in some type of approval queue or something? Eileen JA (talk) 22:19, 4 November 2014 (UTC)

Hi Eileen JA! Welcome to Wikipedia!

I'm personally not aware of any approval queue. It was most likely a bug in the response window. To prevent this, you may want to reply by clicking "Edit source" instead. --Biblio worm 22:25, 4 November 2014 (UTC)

Has Spaceship One been to space yet?

I have watched a video about it but do not know if it has been to space yet.114.142.230.7 (talk) 23:48, 4 November 2014 (UTC)

Hi there - are you talking about SpaceShipOne? If so, our article specifies that it completed its first manned private spaceflight back in 2004. For future reference, the Teahouse is a place to ask questions about using Wikipedia. For general questions about non-Wikipedia things, you can check out our reference desk, or consider searching elsewhere (e.g. Google, Quora, etc.). Thanks! ~SuperHamster Talk Contribs 00:12, 5 November 2014 (UTC)

Advertisement article in a non-English language

Hello Teahouse! A recent English article has been speedy-deleted because of its extremely promotional tone. The article was a translation of a corresponding article in the Spanish Wikipedia, which of course appears to be promotional as well. What do you do when you find questionable content in non-English pages? I had trouble at finding a template for the Spanish Wikipedia that was similar to WP:PEACOCK. LowLevel73^(talk) 23:22, 4 November 2014 (UTC)

Hi there @LowLevel73: Each language-version of Wikipedia, while similar in many ways, operate independently from each other - for instance, the Spanish equivalent of the Teahouse, I believe, is located at es:Wikipedia:Café/Archivo/Ayuda/Actual. I'm not very knowledgeable with the Spanish Wikipedia, but I'll give it a go. If you wish to tag the article for speedy deletion, the Spanish Wikipedia does have a relatively similar speedy deletion system, viewable at es:Wikipedia:Criterios para el borrado rápido. Speedy deletion criteria G3 (Páginas promocionales) is for promotional pages. They also have es:Plantilla:Promocional, which allows for a 30-day grace period to improve a promotional article before it's deleted. If you want to simply tag the article with a maintenance template indicating that the article is promotional (but not enough to be deleted), you may consider es:Plantilla:Publicidad. Hope this helps, ~SuperHamster Talk Contribs 00:22, 5 November 2014 (UTC)

Hello SuperHamster, thanks for the answer and for the links! The topic of the article seems notable and I think that I'll just add a simple promotional tag. Thanks again! LowLevel73^(talk) 00:56, 5 November 2014 (UTC)

Thanking

I received a notification from another editor "thanking" me for my edit to an article. How can I do this for others? kara❈talk 22:11, 4 November 2014 (UTC)

Hello Satkara! Welcome to the Teahouse!

You can thank an editor by clicking the "thank" link in the page history. It is just to the right of the "undo" link. Here's a picture.

Please feel free to post here if you have any more questions. Regards, --Biblio worm 22:18, 4 November 2014 (UTC)

The top right of a diff also has a "thank" link. PrimeHunter (talk) 01:34, 5 November 2014 (UTC)

Moving pages

Hi again! I was going through the category of pages needing copy edits and found the article University of California Davis Graduate Studies. It's not a great article and the talk page confirms that it was written by a department press member. I wanted to combine the page with the page on UC Davis (since the graduate studies article only has extra sentence, and then just a list of rankings). I searched the teahouse archives and read that it's okay to do moves like this as long as they aren't controversial.

So... how do I know if this is controversial? An IP posted a "merger proposal" on the talk page, but that was in 2008 and no one had a relevant reply. kara❈talk 01:02, 5 November 2014 (UTC)

Controversial means "giving rise or likely to give rise to public disagreement". So given the Merger proposal from 2008, and the paucity of responses, it would appear that either this would be uncontroversial or that not enough discussion has occurred. A good way to see if public disagreement is likely is to use a Request for comment. RfC has some good information on publicizing an RfC. In terms of gaging the potential disagreement, it may be helpful to look at the edit history. The article has had less than 250 edits since 2008. Also, there's less than 100 articles that link to it, despite being part of a template. Personally, I think the lack of additional content makes this a good candidate for merging, and he old proposal seems to have done the first steps for that. But I don't see that contributors were given notice, which may be a good next step. Recent contributors to the main page for UC Davis may be interested in this. Alternatively, you may want to make contributions to the article so that it could stand on its own.Becky Sayles (talk) 02:27, 5 November 2014 (UTC)

seeking feedback on proposed edit.

How can I connect with editors in philosophy topics? For three months I've posted talk questions on proposed revisions of the instrumentalism article and related topics, without a single content-related response. Same with a post on philosophy project. Many thanks.TBR-qed (talk) 20:41, 4 November 2014 (UTC)

Hi TBR-qed. I was going to suggest you ask for someone to respond to you at WikiProject Philosophy but I notice you've already done that with no response which is a shame. The next best alternative I can think of is to find editors in the history of that article or who have posted on the talk page of it who appear to know what they're doing. Hope that helps. Sam Walton (talk) 22:54, 4 November 2014 (UTC)

@TBR-qed: I think you should boldly make the changes you've previously suggested for a few reasons: It looks like there are few interested in the article; swaths of the existing text is unsourced; it looks like you are aiming to source your edits (which is great, and if not, please do); just going ahead by someone knowledgeable, interested and willing is the predominant way that real improvements come about here; and often, where talk page discussion remains unresponded to before bold edits are made, a reversion and then discussion taking place is not uncommon (see the Wikipedia:BOLD, revert, discuss cycle). I suggest you make your edits in discrete chunks, even if you've rewritten the entirety and could do it all in one edit. This allows someone to selectively revert you, i.e., avoids the problem of someone not agreeing with 10% of your change but feeling it necessary to revert the whole to protest the part.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 23:11, 4 November 2014 (UTC)

TBR-qed I've edited a few philosophy articles and am pretty well read in several areas of philosophy. I just took a quick look at your comments on that talk page and decided this wasn't something that could benefit from a quick look. I agree with Fuhghettaboutit (I usually do) it's fine to just be bold and edit... but I will take a closer look and add my 2 cents on the talk page either tonight or some time tomorrow. One minor comment, and this was after a very brief look so I apologize if I misunderstood but it seemed like you were proposing to branch off an additional article to the current one and to focus on a couple philosophers in that branch. My recommendation would be to not do that for now and to focus first on getting the current article in good shape and also expand the current article. The existing article is pretty short (and from the comments on the talk page and my quick look not in great shape) so I think better walk before you run. If the article gets a lot bigger it's always easy to branch out a new article. --MadScientistX11 (talk) 00:27, 5 November 2014 (UTC)

Welcome to the TeahouseTBR-qed. I'm glad you are here and you have asked a very good question. I create articles and perform major edits like reorganizing sections, leaving posts on the talk page. And this is in the area of Lepidoptera. I have also solicited for comments and suggestions for improvement, and no one has responded. And then I go to other pages and other articles and I see the talk page just filled with comments and interest. Since this is happening to me, I also do the bold thing, I keep chugging along just waiting for someone to show a slight bit of interest.

Bfpage |leave a message 12:27, 5 November 2014 (UTC)

Why have I been denied on changes I've made?

I have been trying to enhance the information on Lakeland, Florida's Dixieland Historic District webpage. I have submitted articles with references from Bay News 9 and The Lakeland Ledger. Can you please give me guidance on what I may be doing wrong? Thank you for your feedback.

Wileywanda (talk) 01:07, 4 November 2014 (UTC)WileywandaWileywanda (talk) 01:07, 4 November 2014 (UTC)

GreetingsWileywanda, and welcome to the Teahouse. We are glad you have come here and hope to answer some of your questions. First of all I went to look at the article to which you refer. To me, it looks like you want to add valuable information on this topic. I have done some editing on the article and have moved some of your external links to the reference section. I referred to the links that you provided and was able to add information to the text of the article. Providing external links is not exactly the same as writing the article with information. I would suggest that you visit the webpages that you originally inserted as external links and grab some information off of those websites so that you can put the information into the article and instead of listing the website as an external link, it will then become an actual reference for the article. Because of my editing, I was able to remove the template that said that the article needed additional references. You have the right idea, and I'm not sure why the person who removed your edits didn't do the same thing that I did. Please come back to the Teahouse. If you have additional questions.

Bfpage |leave a message 01:40, 4 November 2014 (UTC)

@Bfpage: I'm not 100% sure what you mean Bfpage when you say "grab some information off of those websites so that you can put the information into the article", but I take this as intending to advise that the information should be verifiable in the sources used. That is, that when information is added to an article in a person's own words, the facts included should be corroborated by (reliable) sources and we ask that users cite those sources in accessible way so that anyone reading the article can follow the source cited to see for themselves. The reason I have written this as an intended point of clarification, is that the sentence I quoted, even if it was quite unintentional, can easily be read in my view as an instruction to copy and paste the source material. Best regards--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 17:45, 4 November 2014 (UTC)

Thank you Fuhghettaboutit and I appreciate you bringing this up for discussion. I do think I wrote the above statement in a ambiguous way and I do want to be as clear as possible when I communicate. I would never recommend anyone to cut and paste from an article directly into Wikipedia because then that would be a copyright violation. One thing I do, though, I cut and I paste material from an online book, journal, or website into an off-line document program like Microsoft Word. From there, I am able to edit the information for brevity, clarity and style. I also make sure that I do not use any verbatim section of the original material unless I put it quotes or it is a phrase that is more than four words long. All of the content that I inserted into the article, Dixieland Historic District by me was created in this way.

Bfpage |leave a message 12:36, 5 November 2014 (UTC)

Page creation denied, sorry but i'm a newbie

Hello there, I have had my topic denied:

This submission's references do not adequately evidence the subject's notability—see the guidelines on the notability of organizations and companies and the golden rule. Please improve the submission's referencing, so that the information is verifiable, and there is clear evidence of why the subject is notable and worthy of inclusion in an encyclopaedia.

But I used the Costa Del Mar page as my guide, so I could create a page like theirs. Please help me to understand why it could not be allowed and theirs could.

Kind regards PaulGoochgoochie002 (talk) 12:47, 5 November 2014 (UTC)

Greetings PaulGoochgoochie002, welcome to the teahouse. Regarding the Costa Del Mar page, you should understand that Wikipedia is a work in progress The policies and procedures are constantly changing. The result is that unfortunately there are at any point a lot of articles that aren't of the highest quality. Just because an article is published doesn't mean it is a model for future articles. One way to tell if an article might not be a good model is: any article with one or more issue templates (the boxes that have an exclamation mark icon) at the top probably is not something you want to use as a guide. As you can see the Costa Del Mar article is flagged in that way and is described as an advertisement. Regarding your article what the editor who decided not to publish yours means by notability can be better explained here: wikipedia:notability But in a nutshell notability means that the subject of an article must have some significant coverage in wikipedia:reliable sources So for a business typically that means things like newspaper articles, magazine articles, etc. Things from the companies own web site for example, while they can serve as a source for some basic facts can't establish notability. Not every topic merits a Wikipedia article. If there isn't significant coverage from independent sources then the topic isn't notable enough for a Wikipedia article. Your draft article had no references at all. Here is an article about how to create references: wp:references for beginners One other thing you should be aware of is that if you work for Fortis eyeware that is considered a wp:conflict of interest Hope that was useful, feel free to reply back if you have additional questions. --MadScientistX11 (talk) 14:14, 5 November 2014 (UTC)

Why was article about CEO deleted?

I recently wrote an article about the CEO of PetSmart, David Lenhardt. I see many similar articles on Wikipedia with similarly sourced materials. I would like to understand why this particular one was deleted. And it was deleted so quickly that I didn't get a chance to contest it. ReachingtheStars (talk) 07:40, 5 November 2014 (UTC)

Welcome to the Teahouse, ReachingtheStars. Only an administrator can view the text of your deleted article, so the two best people to comment are the administrators DGG who nominated the article, and Drmies, who deleted it. In my experience, both are reasonable administrators well versed in our policies and guidelines, and both are invited to comment here. It seems that the article did not show that this person is notable by Wikipedia standards. Please note that the English language Wikipedia has over 4.6 million articles, and experienced editors know that many of these really ought to be either deleted or improved. So your claim that your article is just as good as unnamed articles which may also be worthy of deletion is not a very convincing argument. We delete hundreds of articles here every day. Instead, you should be offering persuasive evidence that David Lenhardt is notable. Speedy deletion is the appropriate outcome when that evidence has not been provided. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 07:58, 5 November 2014 (UTC)

Thank you Cullen328, and ReachingtheStars, thank you for your question. Yes, deletion was appropriate here: since there is no inherent notability for CEOs they have to pass the regular notability guidelines (WP:GNG), and in this case the article itself made no claim of importance (by our standards) for this person other than their job. If your subject is, say, a federal judge or a cabinet member of some country, that's different, but CEOs are not automatically notable by virtue of being a CEO. I suggest that if you wish to try again, you submit a version through WP:AFC. Thank you, Drmies (talk) 15:03, 5 November 2014 (UTC)

Custom "mini-wiki"

Is There A Way I Can Create A Wiki In Wikipedia? Shadowvault (talk) 15:40, 5 November 2014 (UTC)

Greetings Shadowvault, welcome to the Teahouse. If I'm understanding your question you are asking: "can I use the Wikipedia software to set up my own Wiki, e.g. for a software development or some other project?" Is that the question you are asking? If so the answer is Yes and No. It's "Yes" in the sense that all the Wikipedia software is open source which means it's freely available to anyone for just about any use. It's "No" in the sense that you can't use the Wikipedia servers or infrastructure for your own projects. So for example if you wanted to set up your own personal Wiki using wp:user pages for a project you are collaborating on with others that has nothing to do with Wikipedia that is not allowed. You can only use the Wikipedia infrastructure to edit and add to Wikipedia. For more about the Wikipedia software here are some things to look at: Wiki History_of_Wikipedia https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/MediaWiki Hope that answered your question, if not please reply back and say a bit more about what you are trying to do. --MadScientistX11 (talk) 16:22, 5 November 2014 (UTC)

There's also Wikia. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 17:08, 5 November 2014 (UTC)

my own pictures

I took pictures around my downtown where I live. Our city has a wikipedia article. Is it allowed for me to upload my pictures? they're high quality, high-res. Antonina Markovic (talk) 19:20, 5 November 2014 (UTC)

Hey there @Antonina Markovic: Yes, definitely! Wikipedia's sister project, the Wikimedia Commons, is Wikimedia's repository for free media. You're free and encouraged to upload your pictures there. Since Wikipedia and its sister projects aim to be a source of free-to-use information, most images should be freely licensed (the exceptions being things like movie covers, video game covers, logos, etc., which fall under our fair use guidelines). As long as you upload your pics under one of the free licensing options available on the Commons that allow anyone to use your images for any purpose, with attribution, you're good to go :) Feel free to ask any more questions regarding specifics, if needed. ~SuperHamster Talk Contribs 19:26, 5 November 2014 (UTC)

Hi Antonina Markovic, to add to the good advice from SuperHamster. You can upload files using the Upload Wizard, which you can also find on Commons by clicking on the left side on the "upload file" button. All the best, Taketa (talk) 19:43, 5 November 2014 (UTC)

Change User Name

Hello, I need to change my User name, how should I do? Thank you in advance Nobili Vitelleschi Camilla (talk) 17:25, 5 November 2014 (UTC)

Hello Nobili Vitelleschi Camilla and welcome to The Teahouse. You start with reading this page: Wikipedia:Changing username At the bottom of that page there are two venues you choose from to go forward with your request. Best, w.carter-Talk 17:36, 5 November 2014 (UTC)

Hi Nobili Vitelleschi Camilla, you have been renamed. All the best, Taketa (talk) 19:50, 5 November 2014 (UTC)

how to stick to "encyclopedic style"

I am trying to learn more about how to contribute to Wikipedia articles. In doing so, I would like to understand why notices (e.g with the broom icon) may show up at the top of some articles. For example I came across the following article which is within my area of interest "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Object_relations_theory". I was hoping someone could give me some specific examples about how this article does not conform to "encyclopedic style" making it warrant this notice. I clicked on the links in the notice, but it would still be helpful if someone might use this article as an example to help me understand why this kind of notice would show up?PhilPsych (talk) 20:07, 5 November 2014 (UTC)

Welcome back to the Teahouse, PhilPsych. You've raised an important question about encyclopedic style.First, checking the article's history, you can discern whether there have been many edits since the article was tagged in June 2012. Turns out there have been approximately 60 edits since then, so some of the concerns about the article's tone may have already been addressed. But there are still some issues related to the content, which is not thoroughly referenced, and in some places may be original research, as, for example, these unreferenced sentences: "The strong animosity in England between the school of Anna Freud and that of Melanie Klein was transplanted to the US, where the Anna Freud group dominated totally until the 1970s. Until the 1970s, few American psychoanalysts were influenced by the thinking of Melanie Klein." There are other unreferenced conclusions, which lead to questions about whether the origin of those conclusions have been published elsewhere in a reliable source, or were original to the editor writing them. Without references, other editors cannot verify the information. With your expertise, you can help by finding citations to each idea not referenced, or deleting the text that cannot be substantiated. Be BOLD. — Grand'mere Eugene (talk) 20:42, 5 November 2014 (UTC)

Background

How to do a background

Welcome TetrahedronX7 to Teahouse! Would you mind expanding and clarifying your question so we could help you? Thanks, ///EuroCarGT 04:02, 5 November 2014 (UTC)

Could you help me — Preceding unsigned comment added by TetrahedronX7 (talk • contribs) 19:52, 5 November 2014 (UTC)

Hi TetrahedronX7, we can help you if you tell us what your problem is. What do you mean by how to do a background? What background? Please clarify your question--Chamith (talk) 21:21, 5 November 2014 (UTC)

What to do when finding text that isn't supported by the cited source?

If I find a paragraph or sentence in an article, and then go look at the cited source, and the source doesn't support some of the information written in the article, what's the best course of action? I've seen those little blue warning things in articles. Is it better to just delete it? Or a way to contact the writer and see if they have more sources to back it up? Want to learn how to edit correctly and be fair to people, but also help accuracy. Antonina Markovic (talk) 19:44, 5 November 2014 (UTC)

The little blue things are templates. In this case it might be appropriate to add the {{failed verification}} tag. In the wikitext, right after the closing </ref> of the cite you want to call attention to, do it like this: </ref>{{failed verification}} . That will display like this: ^[1]^{[failed verification]}

Talking it over with the editor who added the source is a good idea, just to let them know that you don't necessarily disagree with the point they are making but feel that we need a better source. They may not have one, but that's OK too. Someone else may see the tag and know of one. That's what we're doing, not criticizing but just asking for a better source.

Anyway, this is a good thing to do. If readers check the source and it doesn't support the point, they may start wondering whether other cites in the article can be trusted. We really want to avoid that. – Margin1522 (talk) 22:32, 5 November 2014 (UTC)

Why was Bobby Shmurda birth date changed?

His birth date is August 1,1994 not April 4,1994 please correct it! Bobby Shmurda Rapper Ackquille Jean Pollard, known by his stage name Bobby Shmurda, is an American rapper from Brooklyn, signed to Epic Records. Wikipedia Born: August 1, 1994 (age 20), Miami, FL Nationality: American Record label: Epic Records Albums: Bobby Bitch Siobhan516 (talk) 05:31, 5 November 2014 (UTC)

Welcome Siobhan516! From the Article History, the date of birth for Bobby Shmurda was last changed on October 31[1]. And the user cited the source [2]. Information in most wikipedia articles can easily be changed by clicking "Edit" at the top of each article. But before changing information about a living person, you should become familiar with wikipedia policy. Information about living people must be verifiable using reliable sources, among other things. Becky Sayles (talk) 05:59, 5 November 2014 (UTC)

@Becky Sayles: note that the article is semi-protected, so Siobhan516 cannot edit it. An IP made an edit request earlier today on the page's talk, and I also asked for a source for the date chane there. Stickee (talk) 07:26, 5 November 2014 (UTC)

That's Pretty Intresting Cosidering That's His Actuall Page For Wikipedia.

And Another Thing That Intrests Me Is That Wikipedia Is Using An Older Version Of OpenSQL (Open Secure Query Language) For These Items, For Safety On My Websites I Use OpenSSL 10.6.5 which is from a few months ago. Which Wikipedia Is Using OpenSQL 1.9.7 I Believe. Shadowvault (talk) 15:52, 5 November 2014 (UTC)

Hello, Shadowvault. I'm not sure what you're trying to say in either of these comments. Either Wikipedia has a page on a subject, or it doesn't (or very occasionally, people have created two pages with slightly different names, not noticing that there is already one). If you mean that you think that any page on Wikipedia belongs to the person who is the subject of it, then you are wrong: nobody owns any page on Wikipedia.

As for your second point, OpenSQL and OpenSSL are completely different pieces of software which perform different functions. Any comparison between version numbers of these two is completely meaningless. --ColinFine (talk) 23:26, 5 November 2014 (UTC)

Trying to set up new page article declined

Hi, I am trying to set up a wikipedia page for an arts centre where I am employed. My first draft was declined. Could you tell me what was wrong with it aznd how I could improve on it. ThanksTriskel Christchurch (talk) 15:27, 5 November 2014 (UTC)

First and foremost, it was a copyright violation - the text was either directly copied or closely paraphrased from the arts centre's own website and a couple of others, none of which are not licenced for free reuse in accordance with Wikipedia's requirements. Secondly, the tone of the text was not particularly neutral - much of it read like an extract from a corporate website (which, of course, it was). Thirdly, the article did not cite any sources to indicate why it was notable enough for an article - Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information, and is not intended to host articles about anything and everything.

If you want to resubmit the page, you'll need to start from scratch. Write it in your own words, using a neutral tone of voice and backing up everything you write with reliable sources. You could try using the Article Wizard to aid this process, and you may also want to read through this help page before trying again. Yunshui ^雲 _水 15:40, 5 November 2014 (UTC)

Thank you for responding. I was unaware I could not use material from our own website, my apologies. Is there any way I can re-access the article in order to edit it further?Triskel Christchurch (talk) 16:43, 5 November 2014 (UTC)

I have attempted to submit an amended page. I am new to this so not sure if I have done it correctly. Triskel Christchurch (talk) 17:24, 5 November 2014 (UTC)

Hello, Triskel Christchurch. I see that Theroadislong has posted good advice on your talk page about editing with a conflict of interest. I would like to suggest that you are thinking about Wikipedia as something different from what it is. I am going by the phrase in your question: "set up". That is not a phrase I would use about an article (in an encyclopaedia, or, for that matter, in a magazine). It is a phrase I would use about a page on a proprietary website, or perhaps on social media. Wikipedia is an encyclopaedia: it has neutrally written and (ideally) well referenced articles about subjects: the articles absolutely do not belong to the subjects and indeed people affiliated with the subject of an article are strongly discouraged from editing the article. --ColinFine (talk) 23:36, 5 November 2014 (UTC)

Hi, Triskel Christchurch. It's not yet submitted, but I've added a box at the top that lets you submit it when you're ready. I don't recommend that you submit it right now: You still need to find sources as Yunshui mentioned, and cite them by following the instructions at the introduction to referencing. Please do reply if you have any more questions. Anon126 (notify me of responses! / talk / contribs) 18:56, 5 November 2014 (UTC)

Some articles that require simple editing

Hello,

I have just finished The Wikipedia Adventure, and I would like to get my feet wet by doing simple edits to some finished articles. Is there an easy way to find articles like that?

Thank You!Jmm75093 (talk) 03:43, 5 November 2014 (UTC)

Heya @Jmm75093: Welcome! Wikipedia:Community portal contains lots of places where you can help out. If you look at the first section, where it says "Help out" you can find lists of articles that need various kinds of work. Some of these lists are as simple as fixing spelling and grammar. Perhaps you can find something there to help with? --Jayron32 03:55, 5 November 2014 (UTC)

Welcome to the TeahouseJmm75093. I wrote the following article: Butterfly house and you are welcome to practice editing that page. You won't be any trouble because I'll check back every once in a while and I'll probably see that you're doing a fine job. One thing to remember is that another editor may see your edits and could reverse them or change them. But if that happens it still an easy thing to correct and you won't cause Wikipedia to crash or something horrible.

Bfpage |leave a message 12:21, 5 November 2014 (UTC)

Hello Bfpage, thank you for your response. I edited your article on "Butterfly House," please let me know what you thnk.

--jmm75093

Jmm75093 (talk) 23:37, 5 November 2014 (UTC)

Translating from other languages' Wikipedia articles

Hello Teahouse. I'm a new user who just joined two days ago. I intend to help out with some of the articles that are incomplete. However, I have ran into a slight problem. Is it alright to translate information from another language's corresponding Wikipedia article, which contains more information, to the English Wikipedia? And if so, must I say anything about the translation (e.g.: This is cited from another language's Wikipedia article.)? Thank you in advance.

PrismAira (talk) 00:22, 6 November 2014 (UTC)

Hello @PrismAira: Welcome and thanks for asking this question! Absolutely it is OK to translate from another Wikipedia to English Wikipedia. We actually encourage that, Wikipedia's copyleft license is deliberately written to encourage this sort of copying (with proper attribution, of course). There's some pretty good guidelines at Wikipedia:Translation which explains how to properly go about translating other articles to English Wikipedia. Go ahead and read through that page, and feel free to ask any questions you may need for clarification. Good luck, and I hope this helped answer your question! --Jayron32 00:35, 6 November 2014 (UTC)

Thank you for your swift reply and guidance. I now understand the rules of translating. PrismAira (talk) 00:45, 6 November 2014 (UTC)