Wikipedia:Help desk/Archives/2013 December 12

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December 12[edit]

Italic text in page title doesn't work[edit]

Hi! I recently moved the page "Benjamin Wade (Survivor contestant)" to Benjamin Wade (''Survivor'' contestant). I was trying to do this because Survivor is the name of a TV program and, thus, should be italicized. But the normal way to Italicize text (putting those marks around the text, like this) didn't work in this situation, as the word Survivor is not Italicized at all, but instead appears with those marks around it. Is there a way to fix this? What's different about Wiki markup when it comes to page names? Survivorfan1995 (talk) 00:50, 12 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Look at {{DISPLAYTITLE}} for how to change the the display of a title, such as adding italics. RudolfRed (talk) 00:59, 12 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I have moved the article back. There is no way to just italicize the word Survivor in the title. Either the whole title is italicized or none of it. GB fan 01:00, 12 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Not true GB...{{DISPLAYTITLE:Benjamin Wade (''Survivor'' contestant)}} will do it, and I have made the change. CTF83! 01:02, 12 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Learn something new every day. GB fan 01:04, 12 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Edit deemed nonconstructive[edit]

I just worked on the Ouran Host Club anime episode summary page. Cleaned up grammar and spelling. Also edited the text to reflect what the anime actually depicts, which is different from the manga and which the previous editor used as reference leading to inaccuracies in the summaries. When I saved the page, I was told that a report had been made but I saved it again because I know the edit is legit. I was told to report the "report" and so, here I am. Also...when I made an edit on the Ouran High School Host Club characters page and saved the page, an interim message came up that was nasty and derogutory. Please remove it. I really don't need to know that some editor out there sucks dicks. A little class would be nice but some people apparently lack same. Thanks for your help. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Luxartisan (talkcontribs) 02:03, 12 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I did not find any report made to your user name (see this). Your 8th edit to Wikipedia added +7,177 bytes (count up eight from the bottom here) The WP:AUTOCONFIRM feature requires at least 10 edits. The few number of edits, plus the large change, plus perhaps some word(s) in your edit triggered an automatic computer response to this edit. I'm not sure what interim message you are referring to, perhaps the "(Tag: possible BLP issue or vandalism)" added to your edit summary. That can't be removed. However, please consider revising the nasty and derogatory text in your post above. -- Jreferee (talk) 02:46, 12 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]
An automated filter detected you edited a page with "school" in the name and added content which sounded inappropriate for an article about a school. The article List of Ouran High School Host Club episodes is clearly not about a school but such things can be hard to tell for a computer program. There are unfortunately many students who vandalize articles about their school. The filter tries to warn about that. Just blame it on dumb computers. I also don't know what interim message you refer to. PrimeHunter (talk) 02:58, 12 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

User Biruitorul on Tismaneanu page is continually erasing a quote from a well-established Romanian politics authority Michael Shafir by using spurious complaints, thank you[edit]

(cur | prev) 02:35, 12 December 2013‎ Cimbalistu (talk | contribs)‎ . . (139,696 bytes) (+859)‎ . . (The format is proper. The previous time you deleted you invoked "(he was probably not a US citizen when he was still a Marxist)" which has nothing to do with the text. You clearly intend to censor this article. You clearly fear the truth!) (undo) (cur | prev) 23:45, 1 December 2013‎ Biruitorul (talk | contribs)‎ . . (138,837 bytes) (-859)‎ . . (please format properly) (undo | thank) (cur | prev) 20:14, 24 August 2013‎ Cimbalistu (talk | contribs)‎ m . . (139,696 bytes) (+859)‎ . . (reinserting sourced material by Michael Shafir, an authority on Romanian politics) (undo)

(cur | prev) 17:30, 2 May 2013‎ Biruitorul (talk | contribs)‎ . . (138,796 bytes) (-813)‎ . . (he was probably not a US citizen when he was still a Marxist) (undo | thank)

the quote in question is the following: In his 2010 book Radio-Grafii şi alte fobii [pp. 308–309], Michael Shafir picked up the story from there: "A true farce followed. On the one hand, the Civic Alliance's vicepresident Sorin Ilieşiu, a person close to Tismăneanu, reacted by putting the word 'analyst' in quotes, so that the journalist Andrei Bădin could then 'demonstrate' that Hall was no longer a CIA analyst, but had only served a probationary period of six months. The person who was the target of the criticism knew better: Hall had published in the journal which he had headed until recently (East European Politics and Societies). And therefore he picked up the phone and yelled at Richard Hall's superior, in a scene that could have been straight out of Stalinism for All Seasons."[91]

^ Michael Shafir, Radio-grafii si alte fobii, Iasi: Institutul European, 2010 — Preceding unsigned comment added by Cimbalistu (talkcontribs) 02:43, 12 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

So your position is that Michael Shafir made some statements in his 2010 book, and in 2008, referring to such claims, Tismăneanu asked some questions regarding such claims?[1] -- Jreferee (talk)
Thank you for your response. Biruitorul has been deleting this quote from a published book by a highly credible source. The first time Biruitorul did it, he deleted it claiming it said something about Tismaneanu having been a Marxist. Clearly, the quote that he deleted says nothing of the like. The second time he did it, he invoked format, yet his only point was a missing diacritical. It would appear the content bothers Biruitorul. Tismaneanu's 2008 quote clearly has nothing to do with a book that wasn't published until two years later. Indeed, in the text of the 2008 article citing Tismaneanu Hall isn't even mentioned. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Cimbalistu (talkcontribs) 04:07, 12 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]
You posted the quote in the wrong place in the article because where you chose to post it makes it look like Tismăneanu is replying in the year 2008 to a year 2010 quote, which is impossible. As for whether the quote can/should be posted in the article, you may want to first post a thread on the article talk page and invite User:Biruitorul to discuss the issue. In general, the steps at Wikipedia:Dispute resolution should be followed. The Vladimir Tismăneanu is one of the worst biographies I've seen in a while. Most of those views and opinions by others about Tismăneanu do not belong in that biography because the topic of that article is the life events of Tismăneanu, not what others who are not qualified to make critical analysis of Tismăneanu's life events think about Tismăneanu. The Albert Einstein article is 105,817 bytes[2] and the 1951-born Vladimir Tismăneanu article is 137,571 bytes.[3] I don't think Vladimir Tismăneanu's life has more notable events than Albert Einstein's life. You can trim the Vladimir Tismăneanu first by removing any information source to Vladimir Tismăneanu himself since it is not independent of Tismăneanu himself. Second, remove the opinions of others about Tismăneanu, his writing, his views, from the article when those opinions are not critical analysis or are not from someone qualified to make critical analysis about Tismăneanu, his writing, his views. -- Jreferee (talk) 13:59, 12 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Also, I do agree with you that Biruitorul needs to base his decisions on Wikipedia policies and guidelines, not personal views. Looking over the article history page,[4] you both would benefit from reading/rereading the edit summary conduct policy and Help:Edit summary. -- Jreferee (talk) 14:12, 12 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I certainly do base my edits on policy. When a new user with an agenda (and one who happens only to edit on one topic so far, and starts off his Wikipedia career with an insult ("better a cymbalist than an eternal Stalinist") probably does have an agenda, indeed could be a sockpuppet of User:Anittas) comes in and degrades an well-written article, of course we need to either fix or remove that material.
And really, "one of the worst biographies I've seen in a while"? You are certainly entitled to your own opinions, but there are two things to be said here. First, prior to its current state, the article was a battleground of fringe editors/IPs insisting on portraying Tismăneanu as an evil Jewish communist. The problem was even worse on Romanian Wikipedia - indeed, although there were attempts to fix it, for almost two years, it's mentioned his Jewish origins in its first line, which are simply not that relevant. Anyway, second, of course others' opinions of Tismăneanu are relevant, provided those opinions are expressed by the right people in the right venues. (A matter of editorial judgement, but I think the article strikes a good balance.) First we detail life events, then analysis. He's an important public figure who's been commented on extensively, and we would not be giving readers a full picture were we to omit that. - Biruitorul Talk 15:14, 12 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I wouldn't say that it is the worst biography that I've ever seen, I'd say that it is one of the worst that hasn't been obvious vandalism/joke article. There is *no* way that 20 pages of analysis of every book he's published belong in a wikipedia article. It is almost twice the length of the biography of Czech President Vaclav Havel (To pick the first modern Eastern European that I thought of).Naraht (talk) 15:59, 12 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Creating a page[edit]

Where, - How can you get to the part where you can create articles on Wikipedia — Preceding unsigned comment added by Zachog1000 (talkcontribs) 06:44, 12 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

See these instructions here: Wikipedia:Your first article. Mlpearc (open channel) 06:50, 12 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia won't let me copy/paste to Windows Live Mail anymore[edit]

AS of 12/11/13, if I try to copy a snippet of an article from Wikipedia, it lets me copy it, but when I try to paste it into the body of an e-mail in Windows Live Mail, it will not let me. If I try to paste using CTRL-V, it does nothing. It acts as if there is nothing in my clipboard. But if I right click and select PASTE, it crashes Windows Live Mail.

At first, I thought it was an issue with Windows Live Mail for some reason not being able to handle rich text since most Wikipedia articles have hyperlinks every line or so with footnotes, etc. But I have no problems copying and pasting rich text, with links and all, from other sites. And I never had this problem with Wikipedia before yesterday, and I know for a fact it worked fine just this past weekend. So something has changed on some end t suddenly cose WLM to crash from Wikipedia links. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.67.106.1 (talk) 08:36, 12 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I don't know whether you are copying direct from Wikipedia articles, or from their edit pages so as to include the hyperlinks etc. But either way, what you are putting into your clipboard is just a string of characters. If pasting a string of characters into WLM causes WLM to crash, then there is something wrong with WLM. Maproom (talk) 09:07, 12 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Though – just a guess – maybe it's really something wrong with the browser you are using to look at Wikipedia. What happens if you use a different browser to copy a snippet into your clipboard? Maproom (talk) 09:10, 12 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]
The weird thing is, if I try to paste from wikipedia to another browser it works. However...if I try to paste something from another site, that has links, it works fine in WLM. The first thing suggests a WLM problem,, but the second suggests a Wikipedia problem.

Also, if I paste it first into my browser's URL window (which would past it as text only, it is works, and then I can copy that and paste it to WLM. So WLM is handling paste fine. Just not direct copy and paste from a Wikipedia article. And it is the main article page, not an edit page.

I also don't know what could have changed. It worked fine just one day earlier, and I even did a system restore going back a few days, to a point where I know for a fact I was able to paste from Wikipedia. So I am baffled. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.67.106.1 (talk) 06:37, 14 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I can't seem to find a reason why we italicize words in titles (Rosebud (The Simpsons) for example, where the show title is italicized but we don't use quotation marks around the episode title. CTF83! 10:57, 12 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

The policy is at WP:TITLEFORMAT. Enter "quotation marks" in the archive search box at Wikipedia talk:Article titles for discussions. Quotation marks are separate characters and not just styling. I think they would look awful in article headings, categories and other places, especially when the whole name is in quotation marks. PrimeHunter (talk) 13:30, 12 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Ok, thanks. CTF83! 00:38, 13 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Links to SeacoastNH.com or J. Dennis Robinson[edit]

I am the webmaster for SeacoastNH.com The site is built in joomla and we use the extension SEFAdvance that used to use underscores (__) in links, but the new version doesn't allow underscores and instead uses dashes (-) in links. Consequently many of the links and references on wiki that use the old underscored links now present 404 errors. I've been able to go in and edit many of the links on wiki but items in reflists are not available to me. There is an example on this page: Foster's Daily Democrat. Here is the 404 link that's on the page: http://www.seacoastnh.com/History/As_I_Please/The_Newspaper_Riot_of_1865/ Here is an example of the correct link: http://www.seacoastnh.com/History/As-I-Please/The-Newspaper-Riot-of-1865/ Is there a way for me to change these links globally? Can I access the reflists to make changes to the bad links on the site? Any help is appreciated. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Adcetera692 (talkcontribs) 14:25, 12 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Post a request at Wikipedia:Bot requests to have a bot coded to go around and change the seacoastnh.com link underscores to dashes. -- Jreferee (talk) 14:33, 12 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Jreferee's advice sounds like a good way to go (I'm glad he/she answered because I didn't know of a way to do this globally) -- but for future reference if you edit the page for Foster's, you should be able to do a find and replace through your web browser to track down the links. What might be confusing is that the references/notes at the bottom are actually footnotes written within the article text. When I searched for "seacoast" on that page I found the link you referred to in this block of text:

Foster was already known, by then, as a political firebrand; one of his previous publishing ventures had been the States and Union, a pro-slavery paper in nearby Portsmouth, New Hampshire, during the American Civil War.<ref>Robinson, J. Dennis. "[http://seacoastnh.com/History/As_I_Please/The_Newspaper_Riot_of_1865/ The Newspaper Riot of 1865]". SeacoastNH.com, accessed August 9, 2007.</ref>

The <ref></ref> tags create a footnote. As long as you change the link there, you'll be good. I went ahead and fixed that one myself. --— Rhododendrites talk |  14:40, 12 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]
My suggestion is to go to [ https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:LinkSearch&limit=500&offset=0&target=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.seacoastnh.com] and search for _ in the URLs on the left.Naraht (talk) 18:28, 12 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

create a new page[edit]

I want to create a page for my husband and wellknown singer Mr. Aziz Naza, and want to know, how can I create a page in encyclopedia, please help — Preceding unsigned comment added by Mumtaz Naza (talkcontribs) 17:24, 12 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Basically, you don't. If he is seriously notable, someone else will. Please read our conflict of interest policy and our guideline on autobiography. In any case, Mr Naza would need to be notable in the special Wikipedia sense, that is, have been written about substantially in independent reliable sources. That means no blogs, no directory entries, no press releases. Mainstream publications such as newspapers, magazines, books published by major or reliable publishers, and similar sources are preferred. If such sources exist, you could try articles for creation, but expect a wait of a month or more after you draft a possible article. Please read the pages I have linked to here, and your first article before even trying this. DES (talk) 17:34, 12 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]
As of right now, Mr. Aziz is mentioned in the Music of two Films: Qurbani (1980 film) and [Trishna (1978 film)]], both of which have Hindi (and I think Nepalese) equivalent pages. But neither of them gives any information on the Music of the films.

I created a Commons account - can I add an image to an article?[edit]

I would like to add an image to this article: Elaine Turner

But I don't want to have to make 10 edits to other articles before being able to add it. I work for Elaine Turner and we own the image, so copyright is not an issue. Can I still add the image after adding it to the Commons?

Thanks, Kristin Elaineturner (talk) 17:32, 12 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Once an image is on commons it may be added to any article where it is appropriate by any editor, confirmed or not. See Wikipedia:Picture tutorial. However, since you work for Turner you have a conflict of interest and in general should not edit the article at all. Instead post suggestions on Talk:Elaine Turner, possibly using the {{edit request}} template to get attention to your proposals. Please read the COI page I linked to before proceeding. DES (talk) 17:42, 12 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Also, you should know that to add an image to Commons, it's not enough to own the copyright, you need to release it under an appropriate licence, so that it can be used anywhere else. Rojomoke (talk) 18:26, 12 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Vimeo[edit]

Is Vimeo considered an acceptable source to link in 'External links' section? - (I suspect there might be the same copyright issues as with Youtube). Specifically would it be okay to add Elephant Clock (English) -to- Elephant clock #External links. ~Thanks, ~E: 71.20.250.51 (talk) 18:18, 12 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

If the specific link is to a copyrighted (or probably copyrighted, and most are) video not posted by the copyright holder, then as per WP:ELNO don't link. If in doubt, don't link. DES (talk) 18:23, 12 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]
After a little checking, the poster is Museum of Science and Technology in Islam (MOSTI) from museum.kaust.edu.sa. — Advice? ~E: 71.20.250.51 (talk) 18:45, 12 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Since WP:ELNO doesn't mention anything relevant to this entry, I'll go ahead and add it, and see what happens. ~E: 71.20.250.51 (talk) 20:06, 12 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]
You could ask the guys at WP:RSN any they might be able to advise you further. CaptRik (talk) 13:42, 13 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Having Terrible Problems with the Posting of Article[edit]

My name is Marisa Diaz and I run the Communications Department for NetWorth Services, Inc. My employees, who among other things, write content for our company, submitted an article on NetWorth Services to Wikipedia. Immediately the article was inaccurately identified as being plagiarized because some of the people who write for our company website also contributed to this article. The copyrights for the content on our website and our Wikipedia submission belong to us, therefore we have the write to use it. There were also numerous article links that substantiate different subject matters that are referenced in our article as well as links to articles that have been written about our company including the New York Times. There has been a "call" for corrections but no one is doing anything so it is therefore sitting as is in this state which does not look good for our company. I would greatly appreciate any clear instructions of something that must be corrected so that it can be completed and properly posted. Thanks for your attention. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Marisakdiaz (talkcontribs) 19:05, 12 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

You can find relevant information at WP:DCP. Ruslik_Zero 19:22, 12 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Even if the copyright is cleared, the text you posted as the initial version of the article is so promotional that it would be quite likely to be promptly deleted. You (or someone) would need to completely rewrite the content in any case, so the copyright issue is not really relevant. Please read WP:NPOV and WP:COI, and you and any other employees have a clear conflict of interest. If you choose to proceed, I advise using articles for creation. DES (talk) 21:25, 12 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

About adding external links[edit]

Hello!

We have a series of videos of nesting behaviors that I thought I would add to the Wikipedia pages for those birds (Bornean Stubtail, Whitehead's Trogon, Short Tailed green magpie and Eyebrowed Jungle Flycatcher). These videos are just footage of birds feeding their nestlings, etc. Is this a bad thing to do? Sorry, did not realize that this would activate "spamming" software or may be against rules or regulations. Please let me know.

150.131.77.41 (talk) 19:27, 12 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

1) You can donate the films to Wikimedia commons and then insert directly into the article Wikipedia:Donating copyrighted materials (although, editors may determine that it is not of appropriate value and remove it)
2) You can go to each individual talk page and initiate a discussion to see if there is a consensus from editors to add the link bearing in mind the WP:EL guidelines. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 19:59, 12 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Please help[edit]

I tried to italicize the page title for Barna Hedenhös, and only succeeded in adding quote marks to the title. Could you help? Thanks, Yoninah (talk) 19:41, 12 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Sorted - rather than moving the page, just add the template {{italic title}} to the top of the page. Yunshui  19:53, 12 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks! Yoninah (talk) 19:59, 12 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Finding who did it[edit]

Hi! If I see some particular piece of text or image in the article (for example, a vandalism), how can I find out who inserted it into the article? Do I have to go through whole article history step by step to find it, or is there some faster and easier way? Sometimes, there are dozens of edits after that particular vandalism, and it's hard to find who did it. Vanjagenije (talk) 20:11, 12 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

At the top of the article history page there is a line labelled "External tools". The second tool, "Revision history search", is the tool you are looking for. There's some documentation at Wikipedia:WikiBlame. -- John of Reading (talk) 20:16, 12 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks! That's exactly what I was looking for. I did not notice it. Vanjagenije (talk) 20:19, 12 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Or use the Article Blamer. Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 20:20, 12 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I tried both. Both gave me same results. Thanks! Vanjagenije (talk) 20:24, 12 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Hemingway[edit]

How do I download information or a link? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Mjdoerr (talkcontribs) 21:16, 12 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

The link is Hemmingway, but what you're asking for is not clear. Can you clarify what you're trying to do? RudolfRed (talk) 22:03, 12 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

[edit]

I'm the new station manager and I need to change the current logo. Please let me know how this is done. Thank you — Preceding unsigned comment added by 129.8.40.39 (talk) 21:27, 12 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

first be aware of the conflict of interest policies.
then follow the instructions at Wikipedia:Picture tutorial. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 00:47, 13 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Only autoconfirmed users can upload fair-use logos. Please give a url to the logo. Is it http://kfsr.org/wp-content/themes/kfsr/images/logo.png? PrimeHunter (talk) 01:00, 13 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Visually impaired user[edit]

A very nice man has asked via OTRS for a way of getting Wikipedia to display with bigger fonts. He's not very tech savvy. If anyone has a good idea or would like to help him via email, please email me. Thanks. Guy (Help!) 22:25, 12 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

On most browsers hold down the control key and press the plus sign. (or hold down control and roll the scroll wheel on the mouse up.) RJFJR (talk) 22:49, 12 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I've sent an email, also noting browser options and some other matters.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 22:57, 12 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]