Wikipedia:Help desk/Archives/2010 August 19

Welcome to the Wikipedia Help Desk Archives
The page you are currently viewing is an archive page. While you can leave answers for any questions shown below, please ask new questions on one of the current Help Desk pages.

August 19

Table

Resolved

 – — Xcalizorz (talk) 10:44, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

What's wrong with this chart below?

Result	Tournament	Surface	Results of games	Points earned
Second Round	2010 Western & Southern Financial Group Masters	Hard (o)	def. John Isner 6-2, 6-3; lost to David Nalbandian 4-6, 2-6	70

JeremyMcClean (talk) 01:36, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

You were missing pipes ( | ) between your table formatting and text. I've added them. Intelligentsium 01:46, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

Thanks! JeremyMcClean (talk) 01:53, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

User accounts

Do user accounts on Wikipedia automatically apply to other Wikimedia projects? Hallpriest9 (Talk) 03:11, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

See m:Help:Unified login. Cheers.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 04:00, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

Wikiproject

Where do you go to propose the closing of a wikiproject? :| TelCoNaSpVe :| 04:24, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

I would guess the best place to bring this up is Wikipedia:WikiProject Council there talk page is here.Moxy (talk) 04:28, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

Why do you want it closed? If it is because it seems inactive then see {{Inactive}} and Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Inactive projects. PrimeHunter (talk) 11:39, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

User:Raj6644/National Waterway 4 - Template:InfoboxWatertransit - Help

I have used Infobox Watertransit template in the article National Waterway 4. I tried using Image in the Infobox using

|image           = 
|image_size      =

But Error Mesg of [[Image:|px|Image]] is appearing in the Article Info Box. Pls help me in rectifying this error. Please have a look at the article Info Box to see the error. Even if i try to assign Image size to |image_size, its not working properly. ----Raj 6644(தமிழன்) 06:48, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

I fixed it. The "Image =" field should have the unprefixed file name ONLY, "India's_NW-4.png" while the "image_size =" should say "200px". I hope it looks as you want it, now. --Jayron32 06:54, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

Resolved

. Thanks Jayron! ---Raj 6644(தமிழன்) 09:09, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

Tallest Building in Singapore

Hi

Noted that in the article posted relating to the tallest buildings in Singapore, PSA building has been left out.

I think this building should qualify as being one of the tallest in Singapore but it was not mentioned in the article at all.

Hope you can help clarify.

Thanks —Preceding unsigned comment added by 63.216.144.83 (talk) 06:53, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

It's in that list at List of tallest buildings in Singapore, perhaps you missed it. It's number 20. --Jayron32 06:57, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

Substitution Templates

Resolved

 – OP figured it out. – ukexpat (talk) 15:17, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

Hi, I am trying to write a substitution template which renders directly to markup. I have tried to grok Help:Substitution but getting the result I am looking for has escaped me. Editors are more than welcome to have a look at User:Unomi/hex as a starting point for what I am trying to get done. Basically I would like the result of {{subst:User:Unomi/hex}} to be a 'clean' number with no logic being output to the page. Many thanks in Advance, un☯mi 09:01, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

Think I got it, disregard :) un☯mi 10:41, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

Additional information about the Sweedish actress Martha Hedman.

Martha Hedman wrote a book, 'Uncle, Aunt and Jezebel', published by Charles Scribner's Sons, New York. The copyright date is 1949 and there is a dedication to Henry Arther - '-the winter of our discontent was turned into glorious summer-' —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.50.20.210 (talk) 10:26, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

• If you should like to add this information to the biography of Martha Hedman, please go ahead and do that. If there's any other assistance you might require, do feel free to mention that. Warm regards. ♪ ♫ Wifione ♫ ♪ _―Œ ^{♣Łeave Ξ мessage♣} 11:56, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

how to make contents list in an article?

Dear Wikipedia helpers I am new to Wikipedia and have no knowledge of any markup language. Please tell me how to make a list of contents in an article underway. Kindly make Wikipedia more contributor friendly, by attaching simple rules for writing an article with the space given so contributors do not have to search Wiki page after Wiki page to write a few paragraphs, meanwhile other more experienced Wiki contributors easily write about the same new topic in a few minutes while new ones keep looking at the help pages. Sincerely QuantumashQuantumash (talk) 10:31, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

Hello, your answer can be found here. A table of contents is automatically added if an article has more than three headings. Thank you. Xcalizorz (talk) 10:36, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

The article wizard provides a walkthrough to help new contributors. Wikipedia:Your first article is also helpful. New good-faith contributions are welcomed and valued, but it's actually not easy as an inexperienced contributor to identify an appropriate topic for a new article and write something that complies with Wikipedia's many policies and guidelines. Many experienced Wikipedians learned their way around initially by improving existing articles, rather than attempting to start new ones - there's always plenty to be done in this area. Karenjc 12:35, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

Age

I am an extremely young user on Wikipedia. However, I create and improve many articles, am going to participate in the WikiCup, voted in the global sysops proposal, nominate and review GA nominations, am involved in a Wikipedia maintainence wikiproject, patrol recent changes, nominate DYKs, and I think I might become a rollbacker soon. And an admin in a few years. Will other Wikipedians take me less seriously if I say my age on my user page? Us441 (talk) 12:01, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

Firstly, I'd strongly recommend that you don't mention your age on your user page - purely as a matter of personal security.

Secondly, sadly, yes, probably. There does seem to be a tendency to judge less on editing maturity and more on biological maturity (or lack thereof). TFOWR 12:07, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

There is no age requirement for admins and some of them are young but revealing your age will probably hurt your chances. See for example this. See also Wikipedia:Protecting children's privacy. Information of young age may be removed from your user page. There have also been suggestions to block users who have revealed young age (to protect them; they would be allowed to start another account). PrimeHunter (talk) 12:36, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

I would concur with the above - do not mention your name. There is no reason to mention your age - for example, I am well above the age of majority in the UK, but do not have my age shown. If your edits are mature, then people will assume that you are older - if they are immature, they will assume the reverse. I could probably guess your age from what you say on your user page, but it would be just that - a guess (based on the date you plan to revamp your page). -- PhantomSteve/talk|contribs\ 13:30, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

Actaully, revealing any personal information is likely a bad idea. At wikipedia, your work should stand on its own merits, so the only thing that counts is what is in the edit window when you press the "save page" button at an article. Anything about you is irrelevent towards that end. Revealing personal information cannot help in any way build your reputation at Wikipedia, at best it is irrelevent, and at worst it can only hurt. --Jayron32 03:58, 20 August 2010 (UTC)

About stuff other than personal info, yes, people will take you less seriously, because I'm also an 'extremely young user'. Please read WP:Ageism. I also plan to be admin, but not till I manage to enter uni or something like that. Kayau Voting IS evil 04:05, 20 August 2010 (UTC)

"Revealing personal information cannot help in any way build your reputation at Wikipedia" - someone should mention that to Jimbo. I'm not saying the advice is wrong (I haven't outed myself for example), just noting that Jimbo seems to ignore it for some reason. Would it matter to Wikipedia if we had no personal information about participants who have the most influence? Perhaps Jimbo outs himself so we don't have to. --Teratornis (talk) 19:25, 20 August 2010 (UTC)

Also note that if youth is a problem, it is rapidly self-correcting. --Teratornis (talk) 19:25, 20 August 2010 (UTC)

Need a second set of eyes: can you see this picture?

I'm not seeing an image at Commons:File:Diegojourdan1.jpg. Do you? If not, I'll need to explore why not. If so, then the problem is presumably on my end. (The image should be, but is not, showing up at Diego Jourdan. FWIW, I use Mozilla Firefox.) --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 13:19, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

I can't see it either, the actual image just won't load. Possible file corruption? WhiplashInferno (talk) 13:24, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

Thanks. :) Now that I know it's not just me, I'll trot it off to Commons to see if I can figure out what's up. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 13:26, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

It's alright :). Kindest Regards, WhiplashInferno (talk) 13:27, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

This has been happening a lot for me both today and yesterday. Some images work, some don't. Thanks, Rock drum _Ba-dum^Crash _{(Driving well?)} 13:28, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

Hmmm. So it could be a technical issue with the website, perhaps. I'll mention that. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 13:31, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

I'm not sure if I should answer but I can see the image, its portrait photo of a man. I'm not sure if tis was fixed already, so I hope this help? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Intouchwithbertj (talk • contribs) 12:09, 21 August 2010 (UTC)

Modflow

Hi there,

I am trying to edit the contents of the box on the right side of this page:

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

I cannot see how to do this; please advise. I see that this is a template, which is fine; I just need to update the software release version, developer, and website URL. thanks, —Preceding unsigned comment added by Whesch (talk • contribs) 13:31, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

Simply click on the "edit" tab at the very top of the page. This will allow you to edit the entire article. You should see, at the very top of the page, the template with the different parameters you can alter. TNXMan 13:35, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

(edit conflict) The information you need to change is in the infobox code (starting {{Infobox) - just edit the

| latest_release_version =

| latest_release_date =

| developer

lines -- PhantomSteve/talk|contribs\ 13:36, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

MonaVie Wikipedia

I just wanted someone to check into http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MonaVie. I have been involved in the company for quite some time and have found the product to be helpful with some health problems I've faced my whole life. I'm seeing some irrational allegations posted on that wiki page, which are backed up with the appeal to false authorities fallacy. There is a possibility that most of the information on that page was posted by persons who were involved with MonaVie but were unsuccessful in the business end of it. I'm just tired of the fear that is associated with using this product, given that if I even mention it to my peers I get insulted by people quoting your wikipedia article. What I propose is an article that explains the nature of the company, the products, the MORE project charity, and a section at the end explaining any criticism about the company. It appears that a majority of the article is criticism which is unjust. Thank you for hearing me out, and I hope to see a different article up in the near future. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.8.146.147 (talk) 13:37, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

If you feel that the criticism section of article is not neutral, feel free to tag it with {{criticism}}. Regards Kayau Voting IS evil 13:47, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

I could be wrong, but the sections of the article critical of MonaVie seem to be generally well referenced with reliable resources. These include what appear to be peer reviewed academic papers as well as links to articles published by well regarded publications Darigan (talk) 14:31, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

Image Display Problems on Existing Page

Resolved

 – Appears to have been database issue, now fixed. – ukexpat (talk) 15:23, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

On the Fort Andrews page, I have a map (Andrews_map.jpg) which won't show its thumbnail when clicked on. I also added a photo, Barracks-10.jpg, that will get as far as displaying a bordered thumbnail box, but then not display the thumbnail. All other images on this page seem to be working fine. I've fiddled with the syntax a good bit, but can't seem to find what's wrong. This was, I think, my first WP page, and I've done a few since then, but am a novice. Can you help? Pgrig (talk) 13:56, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

It looks fine now. There was a problem with Wikipedia showing images, but it's been resolved. See Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)#Rendering a picture. --Mysdaao ^talk 15:04, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

Image not rendered

Resolved

 – Appears to have been database issue, now fixed. – ukexpat (talk) 15:21, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

Hi!
The first image in Rebetiko#The_Bouzouki is not rendered any more (checked with current versions of SeaMonkey and IE; cache cleared), although the link to the file is given in the page's HTML-source.

The code [[Image:Leonidas Gailas.png|thumb|upright=1.5|left|Martinus Rørbye (1835): ''Leonidas Gailas da Athina, Fabricatore di bossuchi'']] is rendered into <img alt="" src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/3d/Leonidas_Gailas.png/330px-Leonidas_Gailas.png" width="330" height="215" class="thumbimage" />. The file is only accessible by clicking on the 'empty' area. Any ideas? →Alfie^±Talk 14:09, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

Edit: By now it's up and working again. Maybe just. some hiccups in the database. Case closed. →Alfie^±Talk 14:48, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

Table doesn't sort properly

Resolved

per edit summary on page, ~~ GB fan ~~ ^talk 12:29, 20 August 2010 (UTC)

I might be missing something here, can anybody tell me why this table isn't sorting properly, when clicking on the "Average Attendance" column sorting? This is the table: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010%E2%80%9311_Liga_I#Attendances

Thanks. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Cristane (talk • contribs) 15:32, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

Sorting by average attendance works for me, but sorting by highest does not. Weird. – ukexpat (talk) 15:49, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

I know what is happening I think I know why it is happening. It has to do with the spanning headers. When you try to sort by the highest attendance, which is the 7th header it sorts the 7th column. That column is the round of lowest attendance. then when you try to sort by the average attendance it sorts by the highest attendance because those are the 8th header and 8th column in the table. The average attendance is close, but if you really look at it, it is not, it really stands out when you sort largest to smallest. right now the only way I can think of fixing it would be to add 2 more headers into the table. ~~ GB fan ~~ ^talk 17:11, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

upload page protected

Resolved

Why is the upload page protected? I tried it last night and again this morning, and when you try to start the actual upload, it rejects it, saying that it is protected and only admins can use it. Why is it protected and when will it be available again? Bubba73 ^{(You talkin' to me?)}, 15:37, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

Files are uploaded all the time by non-admins: [1]. Which link do you click, which file name did you try to upload, and which exact message did you get? Some file names are protected. PrimeHunter (talk) 18:32, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

I've uploaded over 100 files, but when I tried it last night and this morning, when I actually clicked the upload button, it said that the page was protected and only admins could change it. Bubba73 ^{(You talkin' to me?)}, 20:01, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

I just tried to do it again and got the same thing. I'm trying to upload a public domain photo from NASA. I couldn't link to the page, but it says this:

Unable to proceed From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia This page is currently protected and can be edited only by administrators. Why is the page protected? * Some templates and site interface pages are permanently protected due to visibility. Occasionally, articles are temporarily protected because of editing disputes. Most articles can be edited by anyone. * The reason for protection can be found in the protection log. If there are no relevant entries in the protection log, the page may have been moved after being protected. What can I do? * For move-protected pages, see requested moves. * Request unprotection of the page.

Bubba73 ^{(You talkin' to me?)}, 20:04, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

Sounds like the image info page is, for some reason, protected against creation. What is the name of the image? What happens if you try to navigate to the image info page directly, bypassing the upload, ie to File:insertimagename.jpg.? – ukexpat (talk) 20:16, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

You are getting MediaWiki:Protectedpagetext with a parameter for full protection. Which file name did you try to upload? We cannot say anything based on "a public domain photo from NASA". PrimeHunter (talk) 20:36, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

The file name may be the problem, I was using "Hasselblad 500EL/M.jpg". It might not like the slash in the file name. But why wouldn't it say that instead of saying the page is protected? Bubba73 ^{(You talkin' to me?)}, 20:50, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

The filename was the problem. But why wouldn't it say that instead of saying the page is protected? Bubba73 ^{(You talkin' to me?)}, 20:53, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

HOW CAN I RESEARCH THE NONES LANGUAGE (NOT LADIN) ?

I WANT TO KNOW MORE ABOUT THE NONES LANGUAGE ....NOT LADIN....HOW CAN I RESEARCH? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.207.25.141 (talk) 15:47, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

Have you tried Wikipedia's Reference Desk? They specialize in knowledge questions and will try to answer just about any question in the universe (except how to use Wikipedia, since that is what this Help Desk is for). Just follow the link, select the relevant section, and ask away. I hope this helps. Don't forget to say please and don't SHOUT! – ukexpat (talk) 15:52, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

Nones language redirects to Ladin language. I am not an expert in the area (the Reference Desk would be better for experts), but Professor Carol Genetti of UCSB says "Nones is the name of a variety of Rhaeto-Romance spoken in the Val di Non, a valley just north of Trento and just west of Bolzano in northern Italy. Nones is the name used by the people of the Val di Non to refer to their language. In the literature, the language is also known as Ladino Anaune, the Ladin variety of Anaunia, a term traditionally used for the Val di Non which dates back to Roman times. Other names for the language is Noneso-Ladina, and the German name Nonsberger Mundart." For some references/useful reading, see Prof Genetti's page at UCSB -- PhantomSteve/talk|contribs\ 16:17, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

Conversion

I know that we have a template that converts measurements, for example {{convert}} can be used in the form {{ convert | 10 | in | cm }} to give 10 inches (25 cm). Do we have, or could we create, a currency template that is updated with the current exchange rates? (I know that the existence question is a help desk question, and the invention question is a village pump question.) — Fly by Night (talk) 16:23, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

I don't think such a template exists. The values of currencies fluctuate, so a template would have to pull current figures each time a page loads. I'm not saying it's impossible, but I don't know that anyone has attempted it yet. TNXMan 16:31, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

As a rule, in an article you find the current rate, and handcode it (for example, you would say "He earned $123,000 (£78,628.60) last year" rather than "He earned $123,000 ({{currency_convert|$|£|123000}}) last year" kind of thing). I'm not aware of it having been attempted before, as Tnxman307 says. -- PhantomSteve/talk|contribs\ 16:49, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

Well, "He earned $123,000 (about £78,600 at the time) in 2009". That avoids problems with both meanings of the term "currency":) {{currency}} can help you format the currency-symbols, MOS:CURRENCY has more guidelines for this sort of thing. DMacks (talk) 17:04, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

Using references such as "last year" or "recently" is meaningless in Wikipedia. You never know when the article will be read or where it will end up on the Web. It is better to use specific time and date references, such as "as of October 2009".—Quicksilver^{T @} 19:09, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

Search by suffix?

I would like to find articles that share the same suffix, specifically (fighter). Pages would have this suffix if there exists other pages by people of the same name, and there is likely to be a corresponding disambiguation page. Ultimately, I am trying to figure out how many disambiguation pages link to articles about fighters. If I search article titles, it returns all pages with fighter in the title (e.g, fighter pilot), which is far more responses than is helpful. Searches seem not to preserve the parentheses, even though they are a key part of the search request. Is there a way to get the search to preserve meaningful punctuation? Or is there some other way to perform this search that I haven't thought of? Osubuckeyeguy (talk) 16:34, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

As far as I am aware, you can only search by the same prefix (using Special:PrefixIndex). I can find no way to preserve the parentheses (I tried "(fighter)" and intitle:"(fighter)" to no avail -- PhantomSteve/talk|contribs\ 16:53, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

Yeah, I tried those too. Thanks for giving it a shot, though. This does seem like a potentially useful feature, doesn't it?Osubuckeyeguy (talk) 16:59, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

I think it would be useful if parentheses would be included if they are in quotation marks (e.g. if the search term was (test) then the brackets could be ignored perhaps, but if it was "(test)" then the brackets should be included! Perhaps you could bring this up at Wikipedia:Village pump or at Bugzilla (as the ignoring of the brackets in a quoted search would probably count as a bug)? -- PhantomSteve/talk|contribs\ 17:50, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

This thread has been copied to Wikipedia:Village_pump_(technical)#Search_by_suffix for further discussion. Osubuckeyeguy (talk) 18:09, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

I have added an option there after seeing the post here. PrimeHunter (talk) 18:35, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

Substituting new passage for old one

Yesterday, I rewrote an existing (erroneous) passage in the only Wikipedia article about Georgia's Chief Justice Carol Hunstein. The original passage is still there. Mine's there also, but in the "Reference" section. How do I substitute my writing for the original one? Thanks.Canebrake (talk) 16:40, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

It appears that you simply edited the wrong section. Ensure that you click the edit link next to the top of the section that you want to edit. Bk314159 (talk) 16:45, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

I have incorporated the new text into the existing section, see this edit. – ukexpat (talk) 16:54, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

Contacting a "celebrity" family member via any method, esp. E-mail

My favorite cousin, now deceased, Connie Monahan's son, Bill Monahan the screenwriter, I've been trying to contact since I bought this laptop 2 years ago, without success. Same with Bill's grandmother, my Aunt Mary Armstrong. Why are celebrities so removed? Granted, I'm web-ignorant, and at 74 am unlikely to improve much, but if you could help broadly if not specifically, I'd be forever grateful. Not caring about privacy, my name is Don Sniffin, and my phone is <redacted>. Please? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.136.27.19 (talk) 16:47, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

Have you tried Wikipedia's Reference Desk? They specialize in knowledge questions and will try to answer just about any question in the universe (except how to use Wikipedia, since that is what this Help Desk is for). Just follow the link, select the relevant section, and ask away. I hope this helps. I have redacted your contact details. – ukexpat (talk) 16:53, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

• Do you mean William Monahan? Unfortunately, the article has no link to an official website (if you could find that, you might be able to find a "contact" link there). I am afraid that I could find no official website, and so no way to contact him (or his staff). As Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, we have no way of giving contact details for celebrities or families, I'm afraid. Feel free to ask at the Reference Desk though, as someone there may be able to help! -- PhantomSteve/talk|contribs\ 17:00, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

Article question

Hi, I have 3 articles not published (pending but blocked), because I am supposed to get permission for the reference quotes used. However, I quoted the bible & the authors are long dead. How do I unblock my articles? - Thanks Tom —Preceding unsigned comment added by AdrianXXX777 (talk • contribs) 17:42, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

Which articles? Your contribution history shows only your edit to this page and two edits to DTA that have been reverted as inappropriate for that page.  – ukexpat (talk) 17:58, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

I'm not sure what you are talking about here. The only edits (besides this question) you are shown as having made, were to talk about a gaming alliance in some (online?) wargame; which is definitely not encyclopedic content, and had no place here. Is this what you are referencing? --Orange Mike | Talk 18:00, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

Like others, I'm at a loss to understand which articles you are referring to. Who told you to get permission for the reference quotes used? -- PhantomSteve/talk|contribs\ 18:06, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

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

Resolved

 – Article speedily deleted, user name blocked. – ukexpat (talk) 14:01, 20 August 2010 (UTC)

Hi guys,

There was a page created: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_Emirati_Association

This page is for a Not-for-Profit Organization committed to improving the relationship between two countries.. it is most certainly not spam. It is not selling or promoting any products.

Furthermore the page template is based on several other near identical organizations including

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

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

However, an editor has marked the page as spam and marked it for speedy deletion... wondering if you could help us with editing it to Wikipedia's guidelines to avoid deletion?

Many thanks for your help!

Uaeinteraction (talk) 18:10, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

I'm sorry, but the page makes no indication of why it is notable enough to warrant an article. Furthermore, it does appear to be advertising. I would encourage you to read our info on writing your first article and conflicts of interest. TNXMan 18:25, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

I'm sorry, but I have to agree with Tnxman307 here. Organisations are quite capable of "advertising" - they may not be advertising their products, but the language for promoting an organisation is similar to that for promoting a company or a product. -- PhantomSteve/talk|contribs\ 19:22, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

Me too, discussion also taking place at Talk:Australian Emirati Association. – ukexpat (talk) 19:25, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

Media upload or Commons sandbox?

Is there a way to perform test uploads of media, similar to the Wikipedia Sandbox, that can be linked to from the Wikipedia Sandbox to see how images and other media appear in articles and that get deleted automatically after 12 hours, or can be manually deleted by the uploader? I've had problems in the past with, for example, SVG images not working properly when uploaded to Wikipedia or Wikimedia Commons, and I've seen others having the same issues. The result is sometimes a long series of failed uploads in an attempt to get something that "looks right", and the attendant waste of storage space. Wikimedia Commons has its own sandbox, but it apparently functions like the Wikipedia Sandbox, allowing only text experiments. For media tests it wouldn't actually be necessary to upload to Wikimedia Commons, as the various Wikipedias are able to access local media files. As uploader of the media files one can tag them for Speedy Deletion, but that requires human intervention by an administrator and seems a bit cumbersome. —Quicksilver^{T @} 19:05, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

There isn't a mechanism for this, as far as I am aware. Also, spacewise it makes no different - you still have to store the temporary image, and all images (even "deleted" ones) still take up space. The only advantage of this would be that an admin wouldn't need to look for "author request deletion" requests - but to be honest, these are the easiest deletes: if you see a file/article with that tag, quickly check the history - if the author is the only significant contributor, and is the requester of deletion, then *click* it's gone! -- PhantomSteve/talk|contribs\ 19:25, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

I'm not an administrator currently, so I can't delete even my own uploads. Maybe this is a feature that should be considered for future improvements to the software.—Quicksilver^{T @} 19:38, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

Sorry, I didn't make that bit clear: you just tag it as "Author requests deletion", and an admin will soon delete it - it's one of the easiest delete decisions we need to make! -- PhantomSteve/talk|contribs\ 19:48, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

For test images uploaded to Commons, see Commons:COM:D for the various ways to request deletion, particularly Commons:COM:SPEEDY. Use Commons:Template:Speedydelete and specify the reason field as: "Author requests deletion (it was a test)" or some such. --Teratornis (talk) 19:13, 20 August 2010 (UTC)

Wikipedia article Featured in most Languages

I've been trying to research this and I can't seem to find it, but I'm sure someone here will know it (or at least have some ingenious method to figure it out). What article (or articles) have been promoted to Featured Article status on the most Wikipedia projects in different languages (though obviously including English as one)?

Peace and Passion ☮  ("I'm listening....") 20:55, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

I've never heard of such a function or utility in the Wiki software. It might require custom coding or patient, manual slogging through all the different language Wikipedias to gather.—Quicksilver^{T @} 22:44, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

Well, we have Template:Link FA, which is used to mark interwiki links to articles that are featured in other-language Wikipedias. Going through the "What links here" list for that page will show you what pages it's transcluded on; but I, at least, am unaware of a way to determine how many times it's transcluded on a particular page without going to the page and counting. (Going to Earth, for instance, I see that the equivalent article is featured in 9 languages, counting English, and is a Good Article in 5 others.) Someone who knows more than I about writing computer programs—that is, more than nothing—could probably come up with gadget to perform such a count, though. Of course, the presence of the template may depend on actual human beings identifying such articles and adding the template here, so checking its use may not give an entirely accurate count. Deor (talk) 01:12, 20 August 2010 (UTC)

That's interesting, I hadn't even thought of that. Too bad I don't know how to code a program either. Guess it's just a random tidbit of information which I'll never be able to figure out. Thanks for the help!

Peace and Passion ☮  ("I'm listening....") 03:38, 20 August 2010 (UTC)

Putting the search function to use, I found Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Miscellaneous/2007 October 28#Most Featured Article, which indicates, at least then, that it was Moon which then and now has ten; William Shakespeare mentioned there is now tied with moon at ten, but another, Julius Ceasar is featured in thirteen, and was once an FA here but was delisted in 2005.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 04:32, 20 August 2010 (UTC)

This is the sort of tidbit that would possibly be easier to determine if we had the semantic web. Currently, Wikipedia mostly answers the types of questions that someone anticipated you'd want to ask. With semantic wiki technology, Wikipedia might answer a much broader range of questions without requiring developers to anticipate every single question. --Teratornis (talk) 19:07, 20 August 2010 (UTC)

gastric bypass

In Canada will manitoba medical cover the costs of gastric bypass in persons with type 2 dibetis —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.216.121.252 (talk) 22:52, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

Hello. I suspect, based on your question, that you found one of our over three million articles, and thought that we were directly affiliated in some way with that subject. Please note that you are at Wikipedia, the free online encyclopedia that anyone can edit, and this page is a help desk for asking questions related to using the encyclopedia. Thus, we have no inside track on the subject of your question. You can, however, search our vast catalogue of articles by typing a subject into the search field on the upper right side of your screen. If you cannot find what you are looking for, we have a reference desk, divided into various subject areas, where asking knowledge questions is welcome. Best of luck. TNXMan 22:56, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

Show/hide text box thingy...

I want to streamline longer conversations on my talk page now and then by being able to collapse and expand sections. I know there is...

this

Yadda-yadda-yadda

...but sometimes all the text it displays is {{{2}}}. I'm not sure what the problem is. Is there a section regarding these or can someone help me out here?  Mbinebri  ^{talk ←} 23:15, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

The documentation for {{hidden}} mentions the use of header= and content= fields in order to give more specific control over what the various text components are. There are several ways to trigger mis-interpretation when relying on positional (un-named) parameters in a template. If you have a specific example where you see the wrong behavior, someone can probably spot what's happening. But regardless, named-parameters should solve it. DMacks (talk) 23:28, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

Ah, okay, I get it now. Thanks!  Mbinebri  ^{talk ←} 00:06, 20 August 2010 (UTC)