Wikipedia:Teahouse/Questions/Archive 280

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Archive 275

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Archive 278

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Handling the gargantuan amount of stub types

Hello Teahouse! Is there any simpler way to find a good stub type for an article other than manually searching for the most appropriate one in this gigantic list of stub types (and sub-pages)? Does a script for simplifying stub sorting exist? Cheers! ► LowLevel ^(talk) 00:01, 2 December 2014 (UTC)

@LowLevel73: I've always found it easiest to look at similarly situated topics both to find the appropriate categories and the correct stub tags, by looking at the categories found. If I know a similarly situated topic I just go there and see what categories it's in, and if I don't, I simply do a Google search. For example, were I writing an article on, say, a British saxophonist, I might Google just that with a limiter: <"british saxophonist" site:en.wikipedia.org> (which returns 77 pages). Then open a few in tabs to see the categories looking for the best narrow fit and look at that category → open a few articles at random in new tabs, and I almost always find the correct stub tag (and if there are no stubs, then → to a few page history, and look at the earliest revisions). Best regards--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 04:42, 2 December 2014 (UTC)

Thanks, Fuhghettaboutit. :) Can you tell me if there is a bot that automatically changes a generic stub template in a more specific stub template, taking in account the categories to which the article has been assigned? ► LowLevel ^(talk) 11:56, 3 December 2014 (UTC)

Articles for deletion

Dear Teahous team, I am new editor in Wikipedia. I created one biographic page [[1]], but now my page under Endangered, because it is in category: Articles for deletion [[2]].

My greatest desire is that my first article was successful.

Could you please, help me to keep my page. --Lotus Flower in the Modern Art (talk) 01:08, 3 December 2014 (UTC)

@Lotus Flower in the Modern Art: Hi Lotus Flower in the Modern Art. There is one predominating measure of whether a topic warrants an article: whether or not reliable sources, independent of the topic, exist to evidence notability and to give you and us the ability to write verifiable content. An encyclopedia is, by its nature, a tertiary source that provides a survey of information already the subject of publication in the wider world. Per the articles for deletion discussion, a number of people have stated they have looked for such sources and found none. For that reason, there is nothing whatever you can do to save this article from deletion, unless you can find those reliable sources others have not. Don't let this discourage you. Now you know the single most important metric to gauge before starting another article and, so armed, your next effort should be successful. Best regards--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 02:18, 3 December 2014 (UTC)

Many people ask what they can do so their article is kept. If there are no independent, reliable sources, giving substantial coverage, there is nothing you can do but wait until there are.
It may help you to understand the situation if you read this essay - Arjayay (talk) 12:44, 3 December 2014 (UTC)

How do I properly request that a page be included in general sanctions?

I recently noticed a couple of (reverted) instances of vandalism on the Brad Wardell page, and I believe this to be connected to Gamergate - in particular, to an incident on Twitter that was recently drawn to my attention. Because of this, I feel that the page should fall under the currently active Gamergate general sanctions (WP:GS/GG).

Can I be bold and just add the 'Gamergate sanctions' template to the talk page myself? Or what exactly is the proper procedure here? 76.64.35.209 (talk) 12:11, 3 December 2014 (UTC)

It's my understanding per this quote from WP:GS/GG

Pages may be tagged with {{Gamergate sanctions}} which can be used to indicate that articles are within the scope of these sanctions.

That anyone can add the sanctions template to the talk page. However, to avoid future problems I would suggest you post a note at WP:AN saying 'unless there are any objections I'm going to add this template to the XYZ article." Then wait 3-4 days and if there are no objections go ahead. -- — Keithbob • Talk • 16:35, 3 December 2014 (UTC)

odd/even problem in navbox

What am I doing wrong with swapping even/odd for the metal-laces row on Template:Lace_types? Jo Pol (talk) 07:23, 3 December 2014 (UTC)

HTML is not my forte but for those who are adept at it here is the link to the edit in question [3] -- — Keithbob • Talk • 16:38, 3 December 2014 (UTC)

Where is New pages feed

In leftside bar is only recent changes feed. Four days ago I moved from Russian Wikipedia, there also were Recent changes and New Pages feeds. Is there a script to put New Pages feed link to leftside bar? Ochilov (talk) 13:21, 3 December 2014 (UTC)

Hi Ochilov. As far as I know, Special:NewPages is only linked from the legend in your watchlist. I'm not aware of any way to make it appear in the bar. G S Palmer (talk • contribs) 13:32, 3 December 2014 (UTC)

A way to do this was provided in the thread at Wikipedia:Help desk/Archives/2011 March 17#How to add a link to my left sidebar. I don't have time to test right now if this will still work. Best regards--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 13:57, 3 December 2014 (UTC)

Thank you, Fuhghettaboutit Ochilov (talk) 15:33, 3 December 2014 (UTC)

@Ochilov: I see you added it to your common.js and I'm guessing it's operational based on your response. Glad this worked out and thank you for the message on my talk page!--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 16:53, 3 December 2014 (UTC)

how i do find bio of ramkrishna das that i uploaded on 1 dec for editing

how i do find bio of ramkrishna das that i uploaded on 1 dec for I want to edit itNamaz ali (talk) 19:14, 3 December 2014 (UTC)

@Namaz ali: Hello Namaz ali. There has never been a page created here at that title, nor at a title I would expect at articles for creation. The account you posted this question under at this Wikipedia has no edits other than the above post, and also no deleted edits nor edits that were blocked by a filter. Can you advise what account you were using when you posted (or attempted to post) this content? If it was this account, then unfortunately your edit was never saved. This sometimes happens without a person realizing it. For example, sometimes the editing session times out and you may get a message when you try to save like "your edit was not able to be saved because of a loss of session data". Other times, especially when your edit includes external links, you may be asked to type in a captcha in order to save. Anyway, no edits by your above account were posted. I also looked in the deletion log back to November 30, for any deleted pages containing the word "krishna" that you might have posted under another account name (or by your IP address), and found only the following — are any of these what you posted?: Vadde bala krishna, User:Krishnakumar02, Wikipedia talk:Articles for creation/Sundar Balakrishnan, File:KrishnamRaju-Prabhas.jpg, File:Krishnam Raju Tandra Paparayudu.jpeg, File:KrishnamRaju.jpg, File:Krishnam Raju in his early career.jpeg, File:KrishnamRajuinHisEarlyCareer.jpeg, File:Krishnam Raju BJP.jpeg. Best regards--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 19:54, 3 December 2014 (UTC)

How should I structure an article about someone with a pseudonym?

Hi guys.

I'm writing an article about Ben Trovato, a well-known novelist, columnist and satirist from South Africa. Ben Trovato is his pseudonym, which is well known, however his real name is Mark Verbaan. I am wondering if the notability of the article will depend on it being about Ben Trovato, and mentioning he is actually Mark? Who should the article be titled on?

He is also my father, but because he has written 10 books, and is a regular columnist and writer for satire show ZA News, I feel like I shouldn't be worried about conflict.

Thanks for any advice guys, keen to become more active here!

Verbaan (talk) 19:44, 3 December 2014 (UTC)

@Verbaan: Hey Verbaan. Without actually checking, it sounds from your post like your father is likely notable, as we use that word to mean the subject of significant treatment in reliable, independent, secondary sources from which a verifiable article could be written. That fact does not get us past the problems that arise from you having a flagrant conflict of interest in writing the article. Please note that many people have posted articles about themselves or people they are close to and then discovered they have no control and no ability to delete it after others have come along, found a point of view panegyric, and edited the article to include appropriately weighted and sourced criticism. Anyway, the title for the article should be the name that the topic is commonly known by in reliable English language sources (i.e., your father's pseudonym, if it predominates). Please see Wikipedia:Naming conventions (people)#Nicknames, pen names, stage names, cognomens for further information. Best regards--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 20:10, 3 December 2014 (UTC)

Warned about re editing page the was changed back to original 3 times.

Note: this question was added to the bottom of the page. I moved it to the top. --MadScientistX11 (talk) 18:50, 3 December 2014 (UTC)

Hi I edited an article referring to biblical history. The writer was evidently an atheist, which I always find odd as to why the are so interested in dissing the bible. Anyway the artical was one sided and untrue when I did an edit, it was changed back this happened 3 times and I got a warning. Surely only the facts can stated. How do I stand on this. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Justtruth14 (talk • contribs) 18:39, 3 December 2014 (UTC)

Greetings Justtruth14, welcome to the teahouse. Just to make sure we are all on the same page I believe you are talking about an edit you tried to make to this article: Historicity_of_the_Bible The beginning of the article says: "Archaeological discoveries in the nineteenth and twentieth century have supported few of the Old Testament's historical narratives and refuted many of the others.[1][2][3][4][5][6][7]" and you tried to change that to remove "few" and "many"; i.e., to change the meaning of the text so that it didn't state that archeological research supports few of the old testament stories and refutes many. When you disagree on Wikipedia you aren't supposed to just keep making the same change. When two users do this it's what we call wp:edit warring and it's very much frowned upon. If you want to offer evidence to support your claim the place to do it is on the talk page of the article which is here: Talk:Historicity_of_the_Bible However, I notice other people have raised the same issue already. Also, those 7 numbers each represent a reference to back up the information in the text. Seven references is a lot, I've seldom seen a claim have so many. If you want to challenge the claim the place to start is with those seven references. You need to demonstrate that either they don't actually support the text or that they aren't what wikipedia considers good wp:references. Keep in mind that on Wikipedia we always try to wp:assume good faith so we also frown on asserting that people have ulterior motives (e.g., being an atheist) for what they write. Also, btw I know of several very well respected authors (e.g. Bart Ehrman) who are bible scholars and agnostics or atheists. --MadScientistX11 (talk) 19:05, 3 December 2014 (UTC)

Hello Justtruth14. The Historicity of the Bible is a topic of entirely legitimate interest to people of many religious beliefs, or none at all. Atheists are just as welcome as believers to edit our articles on Wikipedia. As for "just truth", here on Wikipedia, we summarize what the full range of reliable sources say about a topic. Attempting to "correct" an article to reflect one's own abstract notion of the "truth" is not appropriate behavior for a Wikipedia editor. You tried to add the following sentence to the article, "I encourage you to read all of Dr. Wood’s analysis supporting a date of 1400 BC" and others like it. We never write in the first person in an encyclopedia article and never give direct advice to our readers. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 19:50, 3 December 2014 (UTC)

Hi, my problem is that to say 'few' when most of the people's and places spoken of in the bible have been discovered is an outage. I have no problem with people's beliefs as long as unsuspecting readers of their theory's aren't lead to believe it's 100% factual. As in this case it's just a view of a small group. I don't think many people would say that archeologists have only found a few things supporting the bible, that's how archeology began, looking for places in the bible and they found them. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Justtruth14 (talk • contribs) 20:22, 3 December 2014 (UTC)

Justtruth14, this isn't a forum to debate issues about the content of any article. Those discussions go on on the wp:talk page for those articles. The talk pages are where editors who don't agree debate and reach a consensus before editing. That is the way we avoid edit wars; the idea is when we disagree we talk it out on the talk pages, reach a consensus, and then edit. However, I took a quick look at your talk page and saw you have a comment from Dougweller that says four other editors disagree with you; I think on the same or a related issue so to be honest I think your chances of winning people over on this are small. But there are still lots of ways you can contribute to Wikipedia. Some of the best advise I got from an editor when I first started was to not work on articles I cared too much about because it was hard to be objective on such topics and objectivity is one of the five most important aspects of Wikipedia. --MadScientistX11 (talk) 21:43, 3 December 2014 (UTC)

You have been cautioned against edit-warring and have been cautioned to assume good faith by other editors, even they disagree with your religion. You have been advised to discuss article content issues on the article talk page rather than reverting or edit-warring. If the discussion on the talk page is not productive, read the dispute resolution policy for ways to resolve content disputes. Robert McClenon (talk) 22:36, 3 December 2014 (UTC)

Rabbi Israel Drazin Dr have asked my help to create an entry for him in Wikipedia.

Rabbi Israel Drazin Dr have asked my help to create an entry for him in Wikipedia. He provided the article describing his life. He is not just a rabbi but author of many books, most of them are highly read about the Jewish religion. He has a great following on his personal website as well. Now, this article he provided and I added to Wikipedia was rejected twice for copyright saying: "Your recent article submission to Articles for Creation has been reviewed! The submission has not been accepted because it included copyrighted information, which is not permitted on Wikipedia. You are welcome to write an article on the subject, but please do not use copyrighted work."

The article does not contain any information that is not written by the Rabbi, so copyright laws were not challenged. I don't understand what I am doing wrong and what I have to do to have this entry on Wikipedia.

Thanks for your help!

kapushiv Kapushiv (talk) 22:04, 3 December 2014 (UTC)

Has the rabbi released the copyright under a Creative Commons license? If not, the use of the material would still violate his copyright. Robert McClenon (talk) 22:24, 3 December 2014 (UTC)

Welcome to the Teahouse, Kapushiv. Wikipedia does not include large blocks of copyrighted text, even in an article about the subject, as our content is freely licensed and that is incompatible with our goals. A few sentences, in quotation marks, and properly cited, may be OK under the principle of fair use. You and the rabbi should read and follow our guideline on conflict of interest. By the way, I have written two biographies of rabbis, Joseph Asher and Lee Bycel, and was very careful to follow Wikipedia's policies and guidelines. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 22:40, 3 December 2014 (UTC)

I haven't read any of the material, but in general, even if copyrighted material can be used, it is often not written in a style appropriate for Wikipedia. It would likely violate neutral point of view.— Vchimpanzee • talk • contributions • 23:04, 3 December 2014 (UTC)

Title

How do I make it so my title is about the article instead of being User:Ahung315/sandbox? Ahung315 (talk) 23:24, 3 December 2014 (UTC)

Hello, Ahung315. I see you worked out how to move the article; however, you moved it to the Wikipedia: workspace, which is the wrong place for it; and then to the Category: workspace, which was still the wrong place for it. So I have moved it to main (article space), and fixed your sandbox to redirect to where it now is. [I also made a wrong attempt to delete the redirection page which was left hanging, and in the process accidentally nominated the real page for deletion, which put a notice on your talk page. If you saw that notice before I removed it, please ignore it: it was my mistake. I am tidying things up afterwards]. --ColinFine (talk) 00:04, 4 December 2014 (UTC)

How can I put the album cover to my editing album article?

Hi, I'm writing an article about music album. And like other album articles, I want to put the album cover to my article. But I warned from wikipedia friend that I can't put the picture because of the copyright. I couldn't find that image in Wikimedia Commons. Do you have any ideas or suggestions about putting album cover? Here is my sandbox link about editing my new article https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Myeonghanyu/sandbox Myeonghanyu (talk) 03:19, 4 December 2014 (UTC)

@Myeonghanyu: Hi Myeonghanyu. The vast majority of album covers used here are non-free copyrighted, and so you can click on the album covers you find in such articles to see the manner in which others have licensed them. We allow fair use uploads of for display in articles about the album (it is an exclusive relationship – the image is fair for use there and not elsewhere). When you visit a properly situated one you will typically see two issues dealt with: 1) a fair use rationale, usually placed by {{album cover fur}}, and ii) details on the license, usually placed by {{Non-free album cover}}. Take a look at File:Metallica - ...And Justice for All cover.jpg for an example. What you must understand is that you should only do the upload, and you can only display the image in the page, once it's in the article mainspace, i.e., you cannot use it while the article is a draft in your sandbox. By the way, above you used the URL of your sandbox. You never need to do this for a page here. Just take its title and enclose it in double brackets → [[User:Myeonghanyu/sandbox]] Hope this helps.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 04:56, 4 December 2014 (UTC)

@Myeonghanyu: I've added a first sentence to the draft with a citation to a reliable source and added a references section.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 05:28, 4 December 2014 (UTC)

Mount Everest

Where is the location of Mount Everest. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Biswaranjan1994 (talk • contribs) 08:28, 4 December 2014 (UTC)

Biswaranjan1994, it will be better for you to look at the page Everest. And, in teahouse, you should ask questions about editing. Ochilov (talk) 08:39, 4 December 2014 (UTC)

How to edit an article?

I'm a new comer and i dont know to edit yet. — Preceding unsigned comment added by JMLigad (talk • contribs) 08:30, 4 December 2014 (UTC)

Hi JMLigad, welcome to the Teahouse. Editing Wikipedia is easy, or at least it's easy to learn. To edit an unprotected article just click edit button at the top of the article. Help:Editing has everything you need to know. Cheers!--Chamith (talk) 09:24, 4 December 2014 (UTC)

Weird encoding failure?

Hello. I noticed something is wrong at the Town of Salem article. Do you guys see a long patch of blue, red, and other colours before actually seeing the article all the way down? If you guys don't see it, I'll take it as my computer has a problem. If there is, I think it is an encoding failure or something else, but the colour patches are really irritating to begin with. Ping me. DEW. Adrenaline (Nahnah4) 09:23, 4 December 2014 (UTC)

It is okay now, I fixed it. DEW. Adrenaline (Nahnah4) 09:25, 4 December 2014 (UTC)

Marked for unwanted Deletion

My draft has been marked for speedy deletion and it's saying I marked it for that but I haven't. I'm making this article for a class project of mine and need to turn in it today. How can I remove this notice? Thanks Secahill (talk) 13:51, 4 December 2014 (UTC)

Hi Secahill, welcome to the Teahouse! I've removed the notice for you. [4] --NeilN ^{talk to me} 13:57, 4 December 2014 (UTC)

Thank you! Secahill (talk) 13:58, 4 December 2014 (UTC)

When will the notice be gone? because it still appears under mine when I look at it......Secahill (talk) 13:59, 4 December 2014 (UTC)

@Secahill:, the problem is that you have your draft existing in three separate places - Draft:SandForests, Draft:Sand Forests and User:Secahill/sandbox. Which one do you want to keep and which two would you like to be deleted? Nthep (talk) 14:32, 4 December 2014 (UTC)

submitting draft

I'm ready to submit a draft, how do I do this?Secahill (talk) 14:05, 4 December 2014 (UTC)

Hi @Secahill: Just place {{subst:submit}} at the top of the draft and you should be good to go! Note that it could take anywhere from a day to several weeks for an editor to come by and review your submission, since there's a pretty large backlog of 2,000+ draft submissions. ~SuperHamster Talk Contribs 14:34, 4 December 2014 (UTC)

How to create a Multiple Header Sandbox

Hi there! My question is: How to create a Multiple Header Sandbox? I want to create a multiple header Sandbox at My Bengali Wikipeida User Page: [5]

Would you please, let me to know how? Or just create at my Bengali Wikipedia User page and oblige thereby. --- Sufidisciple (talk) 11:26, 30 November 2014 (UTC)

Hi Sufidisciple. What do you mean by a Multiple Header Sandbox? PrimeHunter (talk) 12:00, 30 November 2014 (UTC)

PrimeHunter, Thanks for your response. Actually I have one Multiple header Sandbox in my English Wiki User likewise this: [6]] - - - Sufidisciple (talk) 14:02, 30 November 2014 (UTC)

@Sufidisciple: User:Sufidisciple/sandbox transcludes User:Technical 13/SandBox/DraftHeader. If you want all the current functionality then you would have to copy and adapt several pages to the Bengali Wikipedia. The part creating links to your subpages is {{:Special:PrefixIndex/User:{{{1|{{#titleparts:{{BASEPAGENAMEE}}|1}}}}}}}. Is that enough? PrimeHunter (talk) 23:16, 30 November 2014 (UTC)

PrimeHunter Obliged for your kind reply and for the given syntax but there is difference. After applying the syntax using --- BASEPAGENAMEE}}|1 / BASEPAGENAMEE}}|2 / BASEPAGENAMEE}}|3 --- it is showing 3 links of my sandbox. All those 3 are going to same page. I need 3 different links of sandbox 1, sandbox 2, sandbox3. Those should go to 3 different sandbox of an individual user. It will help me to develop 3 articles simultenusly in three different different sandbox as of my own. Sample: My Eng.Wikipedia sendbox [7] is the sample and I need same at My Bengali Wikipedia User Sandbox [8] I would like to send you a sample snapshot. Please, try to provide me and oblige thereby. --- Sufidisciple (talk) 08:11, 2 December 2014 (UTC)

@Sufidisciple: Do not post email addresses. It violates our privacy policy. The code should only be there once and not repeated with |2 and |3. It automatically creates links to all the pages which have been created. It doesn't create red links to non-existing pages. Neither does User:Sufidisciple/sandbox. I don't need a sample snapshot. I need to know what you want. I now get the impression that you mainly want to know how to create a page. User:Sufidisciple/sandbox has a box which can help with that but you don't need it. You can for example enter the full pagename including User:Sufidisciple/ in the search box. The resulting page should include a link to create or edit the pagename you entered. You can also first create a link like User:Sufidisciple/sandbox2 or bn:User:Sufidisciple/sandbox2 and then click that. As mentioned, once the page exists it will be listed by the code I posted. PrimeHunter (talk) 13:18, 2 December 2014 (UTC)

I copied my template to bnwp and it seems to mostly work. I can't read the characters there, so feel free to modify the template for translation. Also, none of the preloads will work as I don't know what is over there for sandbox style templates or userboxes or whatnot. Happy editing! — {{U|Technical 13}} ^{(e • t • c)} 13:48, 2 December 2014 (UTC)

PrimeHunterWaoooo!!! I am really happy! This is the result that I have been demanding. O! It’s quite enjoying. Thanks for your kind attention and cooperation. Earlier I could not understand the process, it’s done following your instruction. Obliged indeed. --- Sufidisciple (talk) 15:21, 4 December 2014 (UTC)

{{U|Technical 13}} ^{(e • t • c)} Obliged to you too for the reply. Thanks Bro. the problem has solved following the code {{:Special:PrefixIndex/User:{{{1|{{#titleparts:{{BASEPAGENAMEE}}|1}}}}}}}. --- Sufidisciple (talk) 15:21, 4 December 2014 (UTC)

Changes rejected

Hello, I have been trying to edit the profile for my Organization ABC Bank (Kenya) and somehow the changes reflected. However, the changes are no longer visible and am wondering what could be the issue. I added a column for Awards and listed some of the awards we have gotten as a Bank. I also changed the History sub title to About and added a few things to it. In addition, I added tow more links for our subsidiary companies to external links but all this is no longer reflecting.

Please let me understand why this was not captured. I will appreciate your kind response. Thank you.Joy Avia (talk) 12:54, 4 December 2014 (UTC)

@Joy Avia:. Hi Joy Avia. Every article has a tab at the top labeled "History" at which you can view what was done at every revision and the edit summaries people have left when they made changes. If you visit the page history of ABC Bank (Kenya), you will see that your edits were reverted by User:Mean as custard with the comments "Revert to less blatantly promotional version". For some context about that edit summary, please see WP:PROMOTION, WP:PEACOCK and our policy on neutral point of view. I agree with this revert. The content you added was highly promotional material, essentially corporate ad-speak ("It facilitates its business clients through innovative tailor-made financial solutions, emphasizing on its main strengths in asset finance..."), that I expect to see on some organization's homepages puffing themselves, but never in an encyclopedia article. Please also note our conflict of interest guidelines. Best regards--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 14:03, 4 December 2014 (UTC)

The original poster says that she was trying to edit the "profile" for her organization. As a newcomer to Wikipedia, she may not understand that Wikipedia does not have "profiles". It has articles because it is an encyclopedia, and they are written from a neutral point of view, and it should in general not be edited by editors with conflicts of interests. Robert McClenon (talk) 16:36, 4 December 2014 (UTC)

If someone is disqualified for enlistment into the United States Army because of a juvenile drug charge, can they get that charge expunged and be eligible to enlist?

This question has been removed. Per the reference desk guidelines, the reference desk is not an appropriate place to request medical, legal or other professional advice, including any kind of medical diagnosis, prognosis, or treatment recommendations. For such advice, please see a qualified professional. If you don't believe this is such a request, please explain what you meant to ask, either here or on the Reference Desk's talk page.

Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 18:56, 4 December 2014 (UTC)

Notability of Wikipedia

Please take this conversation to the article or user talk page

How is it possible for an article such as List of scientists opposing the mainstream scientific assessment of global warming to claim notability simply because it says its contributors have articles named for them. This is a disingenuous and circular argument which anyone can use to further their political claims by using Wikipedia to promote their own political ideas. It is just not good enough to say someone is notable because they have an article about them on Wikipedia; this would mean that Wikipedia itself was self-referencing. There are hundreds of articles on Wikipedia which have no notability but they don't make any claims about it. This is why they are allowed to stick around. One of the supporters of List of scientists opposing the mainstream scientific assessment of global warming is user:NewsAndEventsGuy who seems to have a blantant disregard for anyone who dissents. Are bullies allowed now? Whoever "Guy" is uses lots of Machievellian arguments against anyone who dare contradict this self-proclaimed guardian of the world. I have had a bellyful of such drivel. The Teahouse is probably not the place for this but if I put a message on "Guy"s page it would very likely be quickly removed so where else can I make my point? A second point is that I suspect many admins may agree with "Guy" (maybe "Guy" is a (sock) admin) so it would be difficult to do anything about it. Jodosma (talk) 21:16, 4 December 2014 (UTC)

Hello Jodosma. You already know that the Teahouse is not the place to complain about some aspect of Wikipedia that you dislike and it is most certainly not the place to speculate about whether someone is a sockpuppet. This is a place to ask and answer questions about how to edit the encyclopedia. Sorry. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 21:31, 4 December 2014 (UTC)

Greeting Jodosma, welcome to the teahouse. First, regarding the specific issue I noticed you added a "needs citation" tag to that article which NewsAndEventsGuy reverted. I think that reversion was reasonable. Essentially the claim you were saying needed a citation was that "Each scientist listed here is notable enough to have his or her own Wikipedia article" It seems to me that a claim like that doesn't need a citation since every scientist is listed and their names are links. So they clearly do have Wikipedia articles. But stepping back from that specific issue keep in mind one important concept of editing is that we wp:assume good faith It's not a good idea to use words like "drivel" when talking about arguments made by other editors nor to speculate without evidence that they are sock puppets. If someone is bullying you that's a different matter but I didn't see any evidence of that in what you described above. --MadScientistX11 (talk) 21:37, 4 December 2014 (UTC)

I boldly removed the sentence "Each scientist listed here is notable enough to have his or her own Wikipedia article" because I didn't think it was required, but I've been reverted, I started a discussion on the talk page. Theroadislong (talk) 21:41, 4 December 2014 (UTC)

e/c

Gee, Jodosma, thanks for the kind words. They're especially curious since

(A) You have not addressed a single comment directly to me, much less attempted to use WP:Dispute resolution to resolve any differences we might have; and

(B) Since I invited criticism that proposes an implementable solution.

My guess is you're in a bad mood after spending all that time in line on Black Friday hordes, but geez.

NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 21:43, 4 December 2014 (UTC)

Standard output for reflist using citation template, format options

I'm very glad the Teahouse is here! I have a question about citation formatting and templates. When using the citation template within the visual editor -- using the "cite" button to get the form that creates a nicely formatted citation -- it seems like the default reflist output is a modified APA style. In other words, the template enters info in a generic format (i.e., "cite book|last1=Lastname|first1=Firstname|title=Book|date=YYYY|etc."), but the reflist at the bottom of the article outputs those in APA-ish style: Lastname, Firstname. (YYYY.) Title-in-italics. etc. Is that correct? And if so, is there a code or way to change that so that the default output looks more like MLA or other styles? And please let me know if I'm not describing my question well. Thanks! AmandaRR123 (talk) 19:35, 4 December 2014 (UTC)

Hi, AmandaRR123, welcome to the Teahouse! Yes, what you describe is an APA-ish format called Citation Style 1. Contributors are free to use other citation formats (including MLA) without using those templates, but I don't believe there is currently a way to convert the templates to MLA automatically. Anon126 (notify me of responses! / talk / contribs) 22:30, 4 December 2014 (UTC)

Wikilink to a Section of an Artical

I'm currently editing Circassian cuisine to make it more adequate for the encyclopedia. I want to link to this section on the list of cuisines: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cuisines#Ethnic_and_religious_cuisines

Is there any way to do this using the wikilink system?

Crossark (talk) 17:06, 4 December 2014 (UTC)

Welcome to the teahouse Crossark I think what you want is this: [[List_of_cuisines#Ethnic_and_religious_cuisines]] which looks like this: List_of_cuisines#Ethnic_and_religious_cuisines What I do is navigate to the section; click on the article then click on the section heading from the TOC. The end of the URL in your browser at that point is the wikicode you need; just copy that; paste it and then use the link tool to make sure everything worked properly and to edit the text of the link as needed. --MadScientistX11 (talk) 17:14, 4 December 2014 (UTC)

Thanks, that really helped! Crossark (talk) 17:23, 4 December 2014 (UTC)

Just to add to MadScientistX11's reply, Crossark: in a URL, the spaces need to be replaced by underscores, but in a wikilink, they don't have to be. So. [[List of cuisines#Ethnic and religious cuisines]] has the same effect as Madscientist's link, but appears as List of cuisines#Ethnic and religious cuisines. --ColinFine (talk) 17:22, 4 December 2014 (UTC)

I typed it that way, put a vertical bar after it, and added "Ethnic cuisines", but it wouldn't link properly, which was why I asked the question in the first place. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Crossark (talk • contribs) 17:26, 4 December 2014 (UTC)

@Crossark: You were nearly right in [9] but you wrote Cuisines instead of cuisines. Page names are case sensitive except for the fist letter. This also applies to page links so List of Cuisines has the same problem. PrimeHunter (talk) 20:21, 4 December 2014 (UTC)

Thank you! That's good to know. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Crossark (talk • contribs) 22:56, 4 December 2014 (UTC)

Help with editing on Wikipedia

Hello friends, I was invited to the Teahouse about a year ago, but I am new to this. I am in need of help on how to edit on Wikipedia as there are specific guidelines to follow on Wikipedia. What are some tips and guidelines that experienced editors follow that new editors should know about? Angel Light17 (talk) 00:51, 5 December 2014 (UTC)

@Angel Light17: Hello, welcome to Wikipedia! Some of the main guidelines that are policies on Wikipedia are the following:

Don't get overwhelmed by all of these policies, you can just skim through a specific one of them that's on the subject that you may need clarification on. If you have any other questions, just feel free to ask me! -Fimatic (talk | contribs) 01:35, 5 December 2014 (UTC)

Autoconfirming my profile

Its been three days and i have done more than 20 edits but still i am not being able to edit semiprotected pages. How to know if my profile is got activated please help me out. Thanks in advance .Sjain raipur (talk) 07:24, 5 December 2014 (UTC)

Hi Sjain raipur, welcome to the Teahouse. Actually to get autoconfirmed your account needs to exist for four days and you must make more than ten edits. If you have already have made 20 edits then your account might get autoconfirmed tomorrow. If not, you should visit WP:PERM/C to manually request user rights. Cheers!--Chamith (talk) 07:39, 5 December 2014 (UTC)

Special:Log/Sjain raipur shows your account is only two days old so there are still two days to go. PrimeHunter (talk) 11:50, 5 December 2014 (UTC)

Frustrating of strict "independent, reliable" sources

I'm so frustrated, that my new article Draft:Wiki_on_a_Stick was the third time declined. Also my other changes on other wiki pages, like Personal wiki, List of wiki software, Comparison of wiki software, Comparison of notetaking software were removed because of "no article about woas". I know that there have to be some reliable and independent sources there for true information. I have a lot of links about Woas, but they are not good enough and many references are also bad. But then I suggest other articles about applications to delete because that there are no reliable and independent sources only link to project page. Go on Personal_wiki and look the first MoinMoin, Zim_(software), and other. I spent a lot of time editing my article to give precise and true information about woas. Now I know that was wasted time. Thank j⚛e decker for reviewing and for his advice. Tomaswoas (talk) 13:15, 5 December 2014 (UTC)

Hello, Tomaswoas. I'm sorry you're frustrated, but unfortunately it doesn't make any difference how much time you spend on a draft article if the subject isn't notable. The problem is that if the independent reliable sources don't exist, then it is impossible to write a satisfactory article, because there is no information which may be put in the article. If you think other articles are insufficiently referenced, by all means tag them with {{unreferenced}} or {{refimprove}}; and if you think the sources do not exist for them, nominate them for deletion by the procedure in WP:articles for deletion. --ColinFine (talk) 13:36, 5 December 2014 (UTC)

thanks ColinFine for your quick replay. I think I have sufficient information from independent sources about Draft:Wiki_on_a_Stick and you can see Draft:Wiki_on_a_Stick (from 10:20, 2 December 2014) 24 references from other independent sources and no one good. I though that would be great to have much more wiki software for compare to others, but it's not. I have no more effort to change, delete or post some other article. Tomaswoas (talk) 14:11, 5 December 2014 (UTC)

@Tomaswoas: A Google books search finds this German book: [10] (yes you can cite foreign language sources, the kicker is knowing what it says), and a number of others that do not have any available text but the results indicate they do contain the exact phrase and thus may have cite-able content. A large library might have some of them. Unfortunately Google news being broken for the past few years has vastly cut down on the ease of finding good sources (or determining a lack thereof) for something of relatively recent origin like this. I tried Highbeam and Questia and found nothing. I can only suggest the library armed with the list from Google. Best regards--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 13:50, 5 December 2014 (UTC)

thanks Fuhghettaboutit Tomaswoas (talk) 14:14, 5 December 2014 (UTC)

Hello, Tomaswoas. I'm afraid I have more bad news. I have now looked at Draft:Wiki on a Stick, and in my view in its present form it is completely unsuitable for a Wikipedia article, and would need to be written again from the start. It reads like a cross between advertising puff and a users' guide, neither of which is appropriate for a Wikipedia article. An article should be almost entirely based on what reliable sources have already written about a subject, it should not contain "How to" information or address the user directly, and it must not contain any kind of evaluation, good or bad (including comparison with other subjects) unless that evaluation is directly attributed to a cited reliable source.

I'm afraid that in my view the only way to save the article is to find the independent reliable sources and start all over again, basing the article only on what the sources say. Sorry. Please have a look at your first article and What Wikipedia is not. --ColinFine (talk) 15:03, 5 December 2014 (UTC)

sorry, maybe sombody else, Tomaswoas (talk) 14:09, 9 December 2014 (UTC)

query on how to do a named cite with different page numbers

I'd like to cite as a reference the same book in several positions in a WP article, but with different page numbers. So to avoid repeating a lot of info, I'm trying to use the (lessthan)ref name="fred"(morethan)blabla(lessthan)/ref(morethan) format. How do I cite fred page 53 at the end of one sentence and fred page 87 at the end of another sentence? Apologies if this info appears elsewhere in the reference manual on references- I can't find it. The article in question is Rotogravure Gravuritas (talk) 12:59, 5 December 2014 (UTC)

If you're using named refs, you need {{rp}}. Works like this: <ref name="fred"/>{{rp|53}} (assuming you're citing page 53 of Fred's book). Yunshui ^雲 _水 13:24, 5 December 2014 (UTC)

Having said that, in the specific example of Rotogravure, you're only citing three consecutive pages of Otto Lillien - you don't really need to specify which of those three pages is being referenced, since it's such a short run of pages (presumably a single passage on the subject). If you wanted to reference page 40 of Lillien's book as well, that's when page numbers would be useful. Yunshui ^雲 _水 13:29, 5 December 2014 (UTC)

@Gravuritas:And for other future articles where you want to cite pages from more books and different places in them, the Wikipedia:Harvard citation template examples might be what you are looking for. See how it is used in this article. You simply add the books in a Bibliography and then use {{sfn|author of book|year|p=103}} in the text. Look in the coding of the article, it is often easier than reading the help-page. The books must have a full cite book template with a "|ref=harv" added. Best, w.carter-Talk 13:36, 5 December 2014 (UTC)

(edit conflict)Gravuritas, thanks for stopping by. Looking at the article I guess the source you want to make repeated reference to is Otto Lillien's book? So there are a variety of ways you can do this but all start from the same premise and that is at some point in the article (normally a sources section) you fully define the book and all it's general parameters like this Lilien, Otto M (1972). History of Industrial Gravure Printing up to 1920. Lund Humphries London.. Then various ways of refering to it include

Named references. So the first time you make reference to a page or range of pages you would define it as <ref name="Lillien p20">Lillien p. 20</ref> then on every subsequent use you just put <ref name="Lillien p20"/> make sure you don't miss out the /
Shortened footnotes. This makes use of Harvard referencing so each reference is like this {{sfn|Lillien|1972|p=20}}, {{sfn|Lillien|1972|pp=30–32}} This method requires you to use the |harv= parameter when you cite the book in the sources section of the article.
Use of {{rp}}. Here you name the whole source just once so <ref name=Lillien>details of book</ref> then follow each use you follow the ref immedaitely with {{rp|20}} where the number is the page or pages you are referring to.

Hope this helps. Nthep (talk) 13:51, 5 December 2014 (UTC)

Many thanks for all this help- now absorbed and in use on the Rotogravure article. (I think I've possibly made the cites over-detailed, but knowing how to do this will be very useful in editing future pages). Thanks again.

Gravuritas (talk) 16:34, 5 December 2014 (UTC)

Adding banners to problem articles.

I've edited numerous Wikipedia articles over the years. All of my edits, however, have been to pages where I could either add or correct information. In addition, whenever I find an error in an article, I always fix it if I'm able.

I'd like to know how to handle articles with "problems". We've all come across these articles, with banners at the top describing the problems with the articles. I'm unable to find help on how to do that. (Mostly, I don't really know what to search for!)

Example: I was just reading an article where the second half is totally lacking any references. I'm unable to add the references myself, as I don't know where to find the information. (Otherwise I'd just do that!) I'd like to mark the article, so that someone who's more knowledgeable than I can fix it.

How would I do that?!? Can anyone add these banners if they find an article such as the one I described? If so, how would I set it up, and where would I find the information I need to mark the article with a "Needs References" banner?

Thanks so much! Ge0nk (talk) 02:23, 5 December 2014 (UTC)

Welcome, and thanks for doing 'maintenance'. There are templates for lots of different maintenance messages; see WP:TM. I find Twinkle to be a useful tool; see WP:TW. Regards, Ariconte (talk) 03:08, 5 December 2014 (UTC)

To mark an article as needing references, the standard template is {{refimprove}} (just add that code, with the curly brackets, to the top of the article). As Ariconte points out though, there are others... If you want to find references, I've got some suggestions and links here that might be useful. Another link you might find useful is WP:GBD, which lists 'problem' pages in need of attention. Yunshui ^雲 _水 11:57, 5 December 2014 (UTC)

Thank you both for your recommendations! I'll check out these suggestions and see which one works best for the article I'm trying to fix. Ge0nk (talk) 17:52, 5 December 2014 (UTC)

Why is my article declined?

I wrote the article Shahmahmood Miakhel (which was/is a Draft till today). It got declinced and i dont know why. Pohyal98 (talk) 20:02, 5 December 2014 (UTC)

if you look at the box at the top of Draft:Shahmahmood_Miakhel it explains why. RudolfRed (talk) 20:17, 5 December 2014 (UTC)

Tone of an article

Hi teahouse, I recently contributed to wikipedia by posting an article called "Biodegradability of Athletic Footwear," and a post came up stating that I need to use a better tone. I was wondering if you could explain to me where in my article I could better it and use a better "tone."Knixon4 (talk) 17:11, 28 November 2014 (UTC)

Hi Knixon4. The reason for that tag being added is probably because the article reads a little like an essay. Examples of essay-like sentences include "This article discusses...", "According to Katarzyna,...", and that the article has a Conclusion section. The link in the tag should be helpful to you, as would looking at other wikipedia articles, in particular those marked as Good Articles. Hope that helps, Sam Walton (talk) 18:43, 28 November 2014 (UTC)

I'm not at all sure that "According to Katarzyna,..." is an inappropriately essay-like tone. It's a bit of a grey area though. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 19:06, 28 November 2014 (UTC)

That's true. But with no context as to who Katarzyna is it's not a very useful thing to write, and is something more commonly seen in essays/papers. Sam Walton (talk) 19:09, 28 November 2014 (UTC)

Thank you so much! I am doing this as a class project for an environmental chemistry course, so I am very new to this. Thank you for the help! Knixon4 (talk) 05:48, 29 November 2014 (UTC)

Hi, Knixon4. It did read a little bit like a journal article or essay (a good one, if I might add). The main difference is that a magazine article will often lead in by describing the background or interesting facts, whereas at Wikipedia we jump right in to the topic, e.g. "Biodegradable shoes are shoes that are biodegradable." It's very blunt. That's what this article is about. So I took the liberty of adding a new lead, which is just a short summary of the main points of each section. That took care of the tone, so I removed the tone tag. Another point is that the key paragraph about "initiatives to produce environmentally friendly athletic footwear" didn't have a source. Could you find a source for that, perhaps from one of the papers cited? Also, my lead assumes that such shoes already exist, which may not be true. Please fix that if necessary. In any case, we want the article to be about one topic. After reading this, I'm interested in when such biodegradable materials might become widely used, so maybe you could cover that. Anyway it's quite a good article, thanks for the contribution. – Margin1522 (talk) 09:07, 29 November 2014 (UTC)

Hi, Margin1522. Thank you for reading my article and giving me feedback. I will source the line you suggested to source. In addition, there are a pair of shoes out there that are considered "more biodegradable," but no one hundred percent. My goal was to simply describe possible biodegradable materials that could replace the non-degradable ones that are polluting the landfills and releasing toxins to the environment. How would you suggest I state when these degradable materials may be used? I felt that I stated that within the entire article. Thank you so much for all the help. Knixon4 (talk) 16:22, 2 December 2014 (UTC)

Hi, Knixon4. That would be good, to mention that "more biodegradable" pair of shoes, perhaps as a mid-term solution. Usually the problem with the long-term solution and the way these articles end is cost, namely that the biodegradable materials are just as good but cost twice as much, so that more research and innovation is needed to lower the cost. Whether that will be possible, and when. Although actually this is not your responsibility. The articles does a good job of covering its topic. Now if someone else wants to explore different aspects of it they can research those aspects and add them to article. Which is what I expect to happen as people stop by to add categories and links from related articles. – Margin1522 (talk) 18:25, 2 December 2014 (UTC)

Hi, Margin1522. That is a great idea. Where would you suggest I mention the mid-term solution? Should I add a new section, and if so where would you suggest I place it so that the article flows. P.S. sorry for such the late responses, finals are coming up! Knixon4 (talk) 21:03, 5 December 2014 (UTC)

Copyright issues with Brian Finch photograph

I have been greatly expanding the Brian Finch article. I am concerned that the photograph [11] used in the article is copyrighted and marked as "Use limited to Wikipedia" would someone else care to look into this, as the uploader seems to have serious "issues" with all my edits. The photograph's source states "Copyright © 2014, Lightshaw Meadows" Thank you. Theroadislong (talk) 13:59, 5 December 2014 (UTC)

@Theroadislong: The subject is deceased so a photograph can be used under a proper claim of fair use if there are no freely-licensed or public domain photos of him (if there were NFCC#1 would bar the use). You're correct that a statement like "for Wikipedia use only" is useless when such statement is offered for the purpose of saying in effect "we can use this here because it has been licensed by its copyright owner for our use even while we retain non-free copyright". We see that all the time and it's wholly invalid for that purpose. However, here, the statement "Use limited to Wikipedia" is part of the fair use rationale, targeted at WP:NFCC#2, and is offered for the purpose of saying it is not too high a burden on the commercial opportunity of the work – the field of {{Non-free use rationale 2}} it is under is for explaining why our use of the file will not unduly infringe on any commercial interests of its copyright holders, by competing with the work's original market role. I don't think the statement offered is typical or a good one for that field, but it does not raise the specter of "wikipedia use only" licensing that I think raised your alarm.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 14:26, 5 December 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for your reply, I'm still not clear how it can be used, if the copyright rests with "Lightshaw Meadows' and not the uploader? Theroadislong (talk) 14:32, 5 December 2014 (UTC)

The very definition of fair use is taking someone's fully-copyrighted material, and claiming that it meets the law's exception to display such fully-copyrighted material for limited purposes such as educational aims. In other words, every single use of a file on Wikipedia (or elsewhere) where fair use is claimed is use of a work that us copyrighted to someone else and we're using it anyway. To put it yet another way, for every single fair use file, it would be true to say that the copyright "rests with [someone else] and not the uploader", because that's the very nature of a claim of fair use. I must go, but I'll change the field that prompted this thread to something else later, like the fact that it's a low resolution photograph.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 14:57, 5 December 2014 (UTC)

Many thanks for the explanation, I understand now.Theroadislong (talk) 15:35, 5 December 2014 (UTC)

Great, anytime.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 23:29, 5 December 2014 (UTC)

Need permission to overhaul an existing article?

An organization I'm in has an existing article:

     https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Food_Addicts_in_Recovery_Anonymous

We have a new version we would like to put in place:

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:EbenVisher/sandbox/FA

Do I need someone's permission to make the change?

Do I simply do a copy/paste on the existing page?

I've searched around, of course. However, I haven't seen the answer. I'm frustrated and feeling short of time (in life in general :-)). I thought it would be nice if someone could bootstrap me with simple answers or by pointing me to somewhere that I haven't found.

Thanks so much for your help.

--Eben Visher EbenVisher (talk) 18:00, 5 December 2014 (UTC)

Hi @EbenVisher: - it's probably not a good idea to edit a page relating to an organisation you're involved with, per the conflict of interests issue. The version you are proposing is basically a mission statement - it's not an encyclopaedic article sourced to third-party, neutral sources. (The sources you're adding are mostly from your own organisation - which would only be helpful in a promotional context.) It's also rather poorly formatted and a Wikipedia article should not be used to present a lot of promotional external links - those would all soon be removed by other editors if they went live. (Addendum - they could possibly be converted into citations, but they would need to be WP:Reliable Sources to begin with, not just articles written directly from press releases from the local organisations represented in them.)

It might be best to leave the article to be improved/expanded by people without a specific connection using some of the content of your draft. Now you've posted here, it's probable that other editors will take some of the better material from that page to fill out the existing article, but please don't immediately replace anything with that draft. LS1979 (talk) 19:34, 5 December 2014 (UTC)

@EbenVisher: Just FYI, there were also some errors in the references in the version in your sandbox. I fixed one of them (reference number 8) for you and I think the problems with the other refs are the same. The format for dates in references shouldn't use dashes as separators. I replaced the access date in reference 8 from something like "31-July-2014" to "31 July 2014" I think a similar change will fix the other refs. --MadScientistX11 (talk) 01:38, 6 December 2014 (UTC)

How do you give a link a name?

I've seen links be given certain names and I always fail to imitate it. For example: I've seen something like, http://www.nintendo.com but in the article, the link said Official Nintendo Website. How do I do that? –GoogleGlassHuman • 23:42, 5 December 2014 (UTC)

Hello GoogleGlassHuman, welcome to the Teahouse! You can create a link like the one that you described using the following syntax:

[http://www.nintendo.com/ Official Nintendo Website]

There is a lot more to discover about links, both internal to Wikipedia and pointing to external sites: you can find the most important link-related guidelines in Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Linking and Wikipedia:External links. Happy editing! ► LowLevel ^(talk) 00:07, 6 December 2014 (UTC)

GoogleGlassHuman Also, fyi the link tool in the editor makes this really easy. Highlight the URL (or the word or phrase if you want to link within wikipedia) then click on the link icon. You get a window with two fields, one for the URL (for an external link) or the name of the article for an internal one and the other for the text to display. It then generates a little snippet of code that is properly formatted. Also, if you are linking to an article it does type ahead completion so you can see what possible articles match the phrase you've typed so far. --MadScientistX11 (talk) 01:46, 6 December 2014 (UTC)