Wikipedia:Help desk/Archives/2009 January 19

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January 19

Putting an article in the mainspace

Resolved

 – ukexpat (talk) 01:11, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

I don't have the ability to move articles to the mainspace. Could someone please look at my userpage and move the article referenced there to the mainspace for me? Thanks, H₂O Shipper 00:52, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

I have moved it for you - it is at Fabulous Histories. DuncanHill (talk) 00:55, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

I know I responded at my talkpage, but I wanted to say "thanks" here as well. I appreciate the help. H₂O Shipper 01:09, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

IRC is just like wikipedia: Jibberish to the casual eye

I see some stuff about IRC, but it still makes very little sense. How do you send a plain comment to the channel? Can you send something other than text, like unicode or even a picture? What is the full regestration and cloaking process? How do you connect to the server? Please respond on my talk page.--Ipatrol (talk) 02:30, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

Hi. First you need to connect to the Freenode network (irc.freenode.net). To do that you can either download and use another program (like mIRC) or if you're using Firefox you can use the ChatZilla add-on. The WP:IRC tutorial might help you out a bit more. When you're connected you can join channels using the /join #channel command and type comments into the channel. You type all commands and comments into a box, usually at the bottom of the program's window. Wikipedia IRC channels are listed at WP:IRC. Anything you can type, you can send. You can send a link to an image, but not an image directly into the channel. Information on registering is here. Cloaking process is over here on Meta. If you need anything clarified feel free to ask. Regards, Matt (Talk) 04:45, 19 January 2009 (UTC) (also posted over on your talk page)

AUTHOR OF SAN LUIS OBISPO DE TOLOSA ARTICLE

My daughter is doing mission project on the above menitoned mission can you offer information for bibliography purposes on who wrote the article on the San Luis Obispo de Tolosa mission found on your website.… —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.190.251.10 (talk) 02:34, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

You could look in the "history" tab to see the people who contributed, but its likely to number in the hundreds. Wikipedia is a project created by MILLIONS of people. See Wikipedia:Citing Wikipedia for more information on how to properly cite Wikipedia articles. I would also recommend that your daughter find the sources listed in the article, and use those for further research as well. There is likely to be better information in the original sources than anything found at Wikipedia. --Jayron32.talk.contribs 02:40, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

Merging two (or three) articles

Resolved

 – ukexpat (talk) 18:36, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

I am currently working on article Pope John Paul II. One comment which came up in discussion was that the article was too long (see discussion on talk page) to be considered seriously for Featured Article. We have been gradually shortening the article, by moving information into daughter articles. I proposed moving the Further Reading section into a daughter article. On agreement I created Pope John Paul II - Further Reading with the rather long book list. I immediately had a proposal to merge this with existing article Cultural references to Pope John Paul II, which I agreed with.

Another thought I had was to merge three of the daughter articles articles: Cultural references to Pope John Paul II, List of places named for Pope John Paul II and the new article Pope John Paul II - Further Reading into one article, as they cover very similar material.

I've never merged an article into another before, and am not quite sure about what the correct procedure is to do it.

To merge the new article Pope John Paul II - Further Reading into Cultural references to Pope John Paul II, I guess I would just 'copy and paste'.

However, for all three I imagine it is more complicated because of the individual history of each article. Would this need an administrator to help?

Your advice would be much appreciated. Thank you. -- Marek.69 ^talk 02:48, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

Hi Marek. When we merge we don't need to do history merges as well. No administrator intervention is normally required. What is very important though, is that the merge complies with the GFDL, by 1) keeping the page history of the original (mergefrom) article, which we do by redirecting to the merge target (mergeto) once the merge is completed (or in rare cases, leave a disambiguation page in place); and 2) That when you save the mergeto article with the merged material, you include in your edit summary a clear note detailing the origin of the material and linking to the mergefrom article. So yes, you do just cut and paste, but there's more to it than that. More detail can be found at Help:Merging and moving pages and you should read that as I have only emphasised the more important GFDL compliance parts. If you treat each merge as separate and do each one separately there's no real difference between merging one article into another, and merging multiple into one. Cheers.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 05:09, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

I took a quick look at this. In my opinion, a merge would not be proper. How would you would merge these articles without giving the impression that the further reading section existed merely to support the pop culture section? You further reading article is a bibliography, and the precedent is to name these "Bibliography of foo"; see Bibliography of Harry S. Truman for example. The pop culture article needs a lot of work. --—— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk - 14:15, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the advice, I think I'll rename it to Bibliography of Pope John Paul II for the time being. Marek.69 ^talk 18:09, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

soceity

what is informative soceity? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 210.48.147.2 (talk) 03:04, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

Do you mean the Information Society? --Cameron Scott (talk) 03:06, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

Having one user account across Wikipedia.

I just read about being able to sign into multiple, if not all, Wiki, with my main Wiki account. I cannot find that article or topic now, nor do I remember where to go to actually sign into all accounts. I am on two now. Could you please help me accomplish that task, if I do remember it correctly? ~ Di Wolfe (talk) 03:06, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Unified login. CHeers! --Jayron32.talk.contribs 03:21, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

Put this link on your user page: WP:EIW, and then you will always be able to find everything you remember reading about Wikipedia. --Teratornis (talk) 20:55, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

Help me

Hi,

I have recently created an account in Wikipedia with the user name being Bedfordgroup.

I have written the article on the user page and then I pressed save but when I do a search for what I have just written, nothing comes up. Why is this? How do I make the article live? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 150.101.29.98 (talk) 04:38, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

Hi and welcome to Wikipedia. What you wrote can be found here. Not to make you feel unwelcome, but it might be deleted because it seems to be advertising the company it is about. The username Bedfordgroup also seems to be promotional in nature (which violates our username policy) so it might be blocked. You might like to read WP:COI, WP:SPAM and WP:FAQ/Organization before continuing. Regards, Matt (Talk) 04:50, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

I see you've submitted a request to be renamed, but it was declined. Is there another username you'd like? You can submit another rename request by clicking here (but make sure you're logged in under Bedfordgroup). Regards, Matt (Talk) 04:58, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

What was created at User:Bedfordgroup was speedily deleted as a blatant advertisement for the organization. We don't permit advertisements on Wikipedia; and we do not permit the creation of what we call "role accoutns": accounts held by a group of persons. Please review our guidelines on conflict of interest for further guidance. --Orange Mike | Talk 14:45, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

Can't log in

Resolved

 – ukexpat (talk) 14:10, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

The IP I am using now isn't blocked. I am using firefox. But I can't log in. Please help. Thanks. --203.177.74.138 (talk) 05:24, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

• Are you getting any error messages we can use to see what's going on? - Mgm|^(talk) 05:29, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

• Nothing. I've just installed firefox. When I log in using explorer, it does. Is there's something wrong with the software? settings? Please help me. I prefer firefox. --203.177.74.138 (talk) 05:32, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

• Well, assuming it's not a widespread problem then all we can fall back on is standard troubleshooting procedure. Purge your cache, upgrade Firefox if it is not the most recent, and maybe try to clear out Firefox's store of cookies (in Tools -> Clear Private Data). Also, if you are letting the browser enter a saved password then make sure it has saved the correct password. —Noah 05:40, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

• Oh thank you. --203.177.74.138 (talk) 05:44, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

• Thanks. It works. --203.177.74.138 (talk) 05:52, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

U K Culture

Please tell me that how i can get the information u k culture —Preceding unsigned comment added by Abhishek211 (talk • contribs) 05:51, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

By reading the article Culture of the United Kingdom, its references and external links. –Capricorn42 (talk) 05:54, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

• Well, start here and maybe end about here. No, just kidding. This page is for helping you use Wikipedia, you may want to go check out the Wikipedia:Reference_desk/Humanities. —Noah 05:57, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

HELP

I am new and do not know the uses of this site can someone help? please —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.189.188.231 (talk) 06:06, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

There is an article here that explains a lot about how to cite things WP:Cite Ched (talk) 06:21, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

Hi, this is Wikipedia, a free online encyclopedia. You will get all the information about this site in the linked articles. –Capricorn42 (talk) 06:26, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

Perhaps you might want to look at Wikipedia:Welcome, or Wikipedia:Introduction, or maybe both. Xenon54 (talk) 12:35, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

Why did the Wiki for the RSS Reader FeedGhost get deleted?

There does not appear to be any reason that can be seen for its deleteion. —Preceding unsigned comment added by AKAJohnDoe (talk • contribs) 06:33, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

FeedGhost was deleted by Kingboyk per CSD#a7 (notability concerns). You can ask for a deletion review –Capricorn42 (talk) 06:41, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

badminton

What is the size of a badminton court? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 59.98.36.232 (talk) 07:56, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

Badminton#Playing_court_dimensions –Capricorn42 (talk) 08:20, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

This page is for questions about using Wikipedia. If you have any other general knowledge questions, please ask them at the reference desk. —teb728 t c 08:32, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

does Wikipedia has any feature which enables internal discussion forum

Hi, I searched the Wikipedia archives regarding this, but didn't find anything. Does Wikipedia has any feature which enables it to be used as internal discussion (for corporate users) forum, or we need to install Mediawiki or other CMS on our Intranet. Shambhu.1980 (talk) 10:25, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, and any discussion here is with the aim of improving the encyclopedia. Discussion here is also always public. If you want to discuss things in private, or discuss things not related to Wikipedia, you'll have to do it elsewhere. Algebraist 10:28, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

You'd need to install a private wiki software to communicate in an intranet, yes. -- Mentisock 12:32, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

You seem to be confusing MediaWiki, the software used to build Wikipedia, and the encyclopedia itself. In short, yes, the software has the capability to do what you want, and no you cannot use this website for that purpose. But you can install the MediaWiki software elsewhere, and use it for exactly the purpose you are describing. --Jayron32.talk.contribs 12:43, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

Redirects

Do redirects that point to deleted articles get deleted automatically? -- Mentisock 12:32, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

No. Every article needs to be deleted individually. Which specific article (or redirect) do you need help with? --Jayron32.talk.contribs 12:41, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

You can use {{Db-redirnone}} to get them speedy deleted under CSD criteria G8. Chamal ^talk 12:46, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

• Or you could link it to some other suitable target. - Mgm|^(talk) 13:55, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

How to code a telnet link (telnet://1.1.1.1) on a wiki page

Resolved

--Breakingaway (talk) 01:43, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

We use a wiki at work and I'm moving an html website to the wiki. The wiki does not accept the telnet://x.x.x.x shortcut. Is wiki capable of creating a telnet link like html does?

Thank you

Ok, so I see the telnet links work on wikipedia.org, but they aren't working on our wiki. Is there an update that will make these links work on our site?

--Breakingaway (talk) 13:57, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

This page is only for questions about Wikipedia. It sounds like you have a problem with MediaWiki, the software that runs wikis like Wikipedia, a question which unfortunately cannot be answered here. Try asking at the MediaWiki support desk, or #mediawiki IRC or the mediawiki-l mailing list. Xenon54 (talk) 15:06, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

The Technical Desk at the Village Pump may also be able to help as well. --Jayron32.talk.contribs 22:51, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

I found the answer to this if anyone happens to want to know: Add $wgUrlProtocols = 'telnet:\/\/ to the LocalSettings.php file. --Breakingaway (talk) 01:42, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

BALLARAT RED DEVILS

I have now been wiating for basically a week and have had no answer to the question that i asked relating to "why is the Ballarat Red Devils had a speedy deletion still on the page that we are trying to start.

Duncan

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Rduncansmith" —Preceding unsigned comment added by Rduncansmith (talk • contribs) 14:05, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

All organizations that have an article on Wikipedia must be notable, which means they have received in-depth coverage in independent reliable sources. It sounds like your article didn't show that. I would suggest working on the article in a sandbox (which I can set up for you) before moving the article to the main Wikipedia space. Cheers! TN‑X-Man 14:12, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

Ballarat red devils has been speedily deleted (that's why it's a redlink) under A7 of the speedy deletion criteria because it was an Article about a group or club, which does not assert notability. If you wish to work on the article in your user space, please contact the admin who deleted it, Orangemike. – ukexpat (talk) 14:20, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

Table coding on Juliette Lewis

Resolved

 – ukexpat (talk) 18:39, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

I just noticed that the filmogrphy table on Juliette Lewis is a little wonky. My table coding skills are zero so would someone more expert than I please take a look at it? Thanks. – ukexpat (talk) 15:03, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

Done, it was a stray closing bracket. Woody (talk) 15:07, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, there are still some missing vertical lines between cells - well it's not clear whether they are missing or just different table layout formats - but you are a scholar and a gentleman for looking at it so quickly! – ukexpat (talk) 17:16, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

Tables go a bit wonky if you are zoomed in or out. Try Crtl 0 to reset your view. --—— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk - 18:31, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

Fixed - a server purge and browser cache bypass did the trick. Thanks all. – ukexpat (talk) 18:39, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

3RR Question

Does the 3 revert rule apply if you're reverting a vandal who undid your vandalism reversion 3 times? TopGearFreak 16:05, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

Absolutely not, as long as it is blatant vandalism. See WP:3RR#Exceptions for further information. Best, PeterSymonds (talk) 16:07, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

And if they keep it up, I would suggest reporting them to WP:AIV. TN‑X-Man 16:20, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

Why not create a new part of Wikipedia where users could combine words to make new ones?

Resolved

 – ukexpat (talk) 17:50, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

I recently tried to put a word I created out of two words in and it got deleted pretty fast. Now, it may just be me but I think user's should be allowed to do that, not necessarily on Wikipedia itself. But I think it would be fun for people and they could vote on the words (people could search by typing in 1+ of the words in the combo).

I would appreciate it if people could give feedback on this. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Thatoneguywhomightbethatguy (talk • contribs) 17:11, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

Interesting idea, but Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, not a neologism depository. Perhaps a blog, or another less-serious Wiki. Tan | 39 17:13, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

yeah, I meant a less-serious Wiki —Preceding unsigned comment added by Thatoneguywhomightbethatguy (talk • contribs) 17:33, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

Urban Dictionary might be what you are looking for. They too have an "accept or reject" process though. –Capricorn42 (talk) 17:16, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

thanks, that was what I was looking for. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Thatoneguywhomightbethatguy (talk • contribs) 17:36, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

Fireside Bowl

Resolved

Hello, I am the owner of Fireside Bowl last week I rewrote the history of Fireside Bowl and put it into Wikipedia, but it did not get formatted on the page can you fix it? Thanks, Jim Lapinski —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.1.211.90 (talk) 18:37, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

Done. –Capricorn42 (talk) 18:40, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

Possibly redundant categories

Just wondering about any Wiki policy I might have missed on categories. In adding nationality cats to various fashion model articles, I've found that many will be tagged as either, for example, "Finnish models" or "Finnish female models." But in looking at the category, it seems that "Finnish models" implies that they're female (as the lists in either cat are identical, with the few male models limited to their own subcat). Doesn't that make categories like "Finnish female models" redundant (since "Finnish models" is the same list) and therefore deletable? Or is it policy to maintain the divisions based on gender; i.e., if there's a male one there has to be a female one?  Mbinebri  ^{talk ←} 21:01, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

I would guess that "Finnish female models" is a subcategory of "Finnish models" so better to use just the more specific category "Finnish female models". – ukexpat (talk) 21:10, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

Categories tend to start out general, and then later other people create more specific subcategories, but they don't always migrate pages from the general categories into the more specific subcategories. In general, the categorization of a given page reflects some person's knowledge of the category structure at the time when he or she categorized the page. (People cannot see into the future to know which better categories will exist someday.) Back then, the more specific category(ies) might not have existed. When people change the structure of categories with many pages in them, they may like to use bot programs to assist with recategorizing the pages. See WP:EIW#Cat and especially WP:EIW#Catbot. --Teratornis (talk) 22:03, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

I need to know who the last one to edit a page was

I am doing a project and I need to know who the last one to edit The Dark Knight(film) page was. How do I do this? Thank you very much! Harrypotterfanfreak (talk) 22:41, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

To view the revisions in the page history, click the "history" tab at the top of the page. This will show the time, date, editor in a list. For a direct link, see here, which shows that the last revision was made by 70.224.37.251 (talk · contribs). Best, PeterSymonds (talk) 22:46, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

By the way, if you want to cite a Wikipedia page, go to the page and click on "Cite this page" from the toolbox links on the left hand side of the page, which will provide pre-formatted citations in various styles.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 00:30, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

Undo of vandalism: one step instead of two, how?

Here I reverted vandalism by an IP but since SineBot had already added a signature for the IP I had to work backwards chronologically, first undoing the SineBot edit and then the edit by the IP. Was there a way I could have accomplished this in one step?--Goodmorningworld (talk) 23:07, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, that is irritating! There's no way to rollback past SineBot, so there are three options. One is using popups to revert back to the revision before the vandalism. Two is using Twinkle, going back to the revision before the vandalism and clicking "restore this revision". Three is to go back to the revision before the vandalism and save the old revision. Each does number three in a way, but Twinkle/Popups are a much faster way of doing it. :) Best, PeterSymonds (talk) 23:12, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

If, from the history page, you click on the "(cur)" link next to an edit, it will show the diff between that edit and the current version of the page, which should have an "undo" link on it to allow you to revert back to that version. Confusing Manifestation(Say hi!) 00:41, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

I use PeterSymonds' third option: select the History tab, go back to the last good version and select that one. Then select Edit this page, and save it. Add an edit summary saying Reverting (#) edits to last version by (User name or IP address). Dolphin51 (talk) 02:52, 20 January 2009 (UTC)