Wikipedia:Help desk/Archives/2008 June 28

= June 28 =

No longer autoconfirmed
I'm sure that I was an autoconfirmed user (I moved a page a day and a half ago), but I can no longer move pages, I was required to type the words in a CAPTCHA to add an external link, and I'm not listed as autoconfirmed in my preferences. Why? Greg Neer 00:02, 28 June 2008 (UTC)
 * That's really strange. It happened to another user too... don't know what to say.. Calvin 1998 (t-c) 00:14, 28 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Hmm... Oh, well... Greg Neer 09:42, 28 June 2008 (UTC)
 * I've taken this up with the Village Pump. Per a query on the admin IRC channel, I was advised to block the user pending investigations. This should not happen; and technically, it can't happen. PeterSymonds (talk)  10:10, 28 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Though I don't know the exact reasons given on the off site discussion that resulted in the idea to block this user "pending investigation", I don't think you were advised well and should reconsider this block. What goal of protecting the project from harm or future harm (the only reasons we block) warrants this? By the way, you should also be aware that there is a very long history of incredible drama and a general consensus that it is a very bad idea to block anyone based on a discussion conducted off site. I understand well that this block is considered neither preventative nor punitive, and that you posted to the user's talk page explaining that it's based on some type of technical concern, but I can't understand what technical concern could be addressed by the block, and of course, again, the discussion was off wiki, so I and everyone else can't see for ourselves.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 10:53, 28 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Point taken. I know the dangers of off-wiki discussion, but this wasn't a discussion; I was just told to. The admin was, who's more experienced than I am. "Pending investigation" was my own term for it being brought up at the VPT; it's not endorsed by anyone else. I've unblocked and am leaving a note at Chris G's talk page. I agree that this should be kept solely on-wiki, even though there was no secret discussion that went ahead off-wiki. PeterSymonds (talk)  11:12, 28 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Ok this was a bit of a misunderstanding on my part. To get everthing out in the open this is what was said in the irc channel(posted with permision)

 Anyone know why/how Autoconfirmed status would be revoked?  Two users have complained about it on the help desk I though he was asking about how to remove auto confirmed so I responded:  PeterSymonds, block the user PeterSymonds then blocked the user thinking it would do something to help get back to autoconfirmed. So all just a misunderstanding -- Chris  11:29, 28 June 2008 (UTC)
 * GregNeer, you don't use Tor (anonymity network) do you? That could cause you to lose autoconfirmed status. Prodego  talk  11:43, 28 June 2008 (UTC)

What? Why the hell would you block a user? &mdash; Werdna talk 10:00, 29 June 2008 (UTC)

Adding a picture?
How do you add a picture to a wikipedia page? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.125.82.244 (talk) 00:51, 28 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Click on the fifth icon from the left in the edit toolbar to insert an image, or alternatively, simply type in .  Gary King ( talk ) 01:14, 28 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Usually, images are uploaded to Commons, and can easily be displayed from there in a Wikipedia article. To upload an image to Commons, see commons:Commons:Upload.  To display a file in a Wikipedia article, see Help:Images and other uploaded files or just use the filename of the image on Commons in a format as Gary suggested above, or for example [[Image:Example.jpg|right|400px|thumb|Put the image caption here.]] to display it at the right in 400 pixel size with a caption. ☺ Coppertwig (talk) 02:19, 28 June 2008 (UTC)

Is it possible to shrink an infobox?
I was hoping I might be able to shrink a UK school Infobox. Is this possible? They can be awfully cumbersome. 79.77.150.110 (talk) 02:21, 28 June 2008 (UTC)


 * You can't resize it, if that's what you mean. You can adjust the horizontal width, however, but adding a fixed width to it. Is that what you want to do? Gary King ( talk ) 02:40, 28 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Do you mean hide/show the box? Have a look at Seventh Doctor; there is a box that you have to click on "show" to display the contents. That is called a Navbox - information about the template for these collapsible boxes may be found here.  You can find more information about information boxes in general  here. StephenBuxton (talk) 11:09, 28 June 2008 (UTC)


 * It helps if you are more specific. If you are asking if you can change the width of Infobox UK school, then the answer is not readily.  That infobox—as are most others—has a set width, in this case 21em.  That is a minimum, as an image that is too large will force it wider.  If you want to change that set width, you will need to discuss it on the Infobox UK school talk page.   --——  Gadget850 (Ed)  talk  -  15:19, 28 June 2008 (UTC)

Putting category= inside a thing inside a thing
I'm working on the new redirect meta-template This is a redirect, which embeds other templates as chosen by the user. I'm trying to get it so that if one uses the template with "cats=no", then none of the embedded templates give their categories. (With many templates that categorize, one can use the argument "category=" to cause no categorizing to happen, as explained here.)

Simplifying it somewhat, here's an example of what I'm dealing with:

Using tests with substing and R from brand name, I found that currently, what happens is that the embedded template takes "category=" as the content of its first argument (that is, it thinks "1=category="). (Everything else works.)

I've tried using a template whose content was literally, so it might "print" the string "category=", but no luck. What does work is to put the "category=" before the ifeq, so that R from brand name takes the argument "category=result of ifeq" — but that won't ultimately work with what I'm trying to do.

Any ideas? $$\sim$$ Lenoxus " * " 04:38, 28 June 2008 (UTC)
 * It's possibly due to having templates within templates confusing things. Hmmm...  RichardΩ612  Ɣ ɸ 08:33, 28 June 2008 (UTC)
 * This is weird, I can see no reason why it's not working. As Lenoxus mentioned, it seems to take the cats param as part of . Odd indeed; I will have another look later. If anyone else solves it in the meantime, I would be very interested to know how!  RichardΩ612  Ɣ ɸ 10:21, 28 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Just as a general observation, the MediaWiki parser may contain bugs. Some templates on Wikipedia do not work on other MediaWiki wikis that aren't running HTML Tidy - that's probably not a factor here, but it points out how MediaWiki's wikitext syntax isn't well-defined for some of the complex template stuff. And of course your example above uses the ParserFunctions extension. You might want to ask on WP:VPT which a larger number of technically-inclined users frequent. It would be nice if MediaWiki had a template debugger, that would let one step through all the transclusions and parameter expansions in the order that MediaWiki's parser (and possibly, HTML Tidy) apply them. --Teratornis (talk) 15:41, 28 June 2008 (UTC)

Google picks up my sandbox contents
I was just Googling a subject about which I'm writing an article, and one of the search results was the very, very rough draft in my sandbox. Er, I don't think this is a good thing. Have I skipped some important step to prevent this from happening? -- hamu♥hamu ( TALK ) 05:10, 28 June 2008 (UTC)
 * There isn't a way, the robots.txt at http://en.wikipedia.org/robots.txt prevents Google's web crawlers from seeing stuff like special pages, but doesn't prevent the search engine crawlers from crawling the user: space. Additionally, there isn't a way to hide your userspace from them. By posting your things to Wikipedia, you agree to let anyone with internet access see it. If you don't want to, don't post it. That's one of the fundamental rules of the Internet, as well as Wikipedia. So to answer your question: no, it's normal, and you haven't forgotten any step or anything. Calvin 1998 (t-c) 05:52, 28 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Okay, makes sense. Thanks very much! -- hamu♥hamu  ( TALK ) 05:54, 28 June 2008 (UTC)
 * On an un-related note, it's interesting how there's a lot of questioners but almost no answerers around about right now. Calvin 1998 (t-c) 05:57, 28 June 2008 (UTC)
 * You can hide your sandbox from Google by blanking it while you are not editing it. Google only indexes the current revision of a page. Google does not see into the page history (which is part of the so-called Deep Web). When you want to come back and work on your sandbox again, revert it to your previous revision that contains your actual content. Presumably you will only spend a few hours editing here and there, minimizing the "window" during which Google might happen to index your sandbox again, but most of the time your sandbox page will appear blank to Google's indexing bot. Thus the odds would be greater that Google would see a blank sandbox page. See: Help:History and Help:Revert. Also, Google appears to index all of Wikipedia except article talk pages, but that probably doesn't help in this situation because you aren't allowed to use an article talk page as your personal sandbox. --Teratornis (talk) 14:45, 28 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Also, as Wikipedia is not your blog or personal web host, I don't see any valid reasons to hide things from Google. Oops, Calvin already said this... carry on. Tan   |   39  14:48, 28 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Google's PageRank algorithm tends to elevate Wikipedia pages in its search results. Thus the sandbox page might appear higher in the search results than its rough-draft status might warrant. Whether that is good or bad could depend on the person who searches - an extremely naive user might believe everything on the sandbox page, but such a user will be at risk from indiscriminately believing other Web pages. I have found some useful pages in the User: namespace by searching Wikipedia with Google, and I can usually figure out when I'm seeing a rough draft. For example, I might notice the word "sandbox" in the page title. --Teratornis (talk) 15:12, 28 June 2008 (UTC)
 * You can add userpage to the top of your sandbox page. --——  Gadget850 (Ed)  talk  -  15:22, 28 June 2008 (UTC)

(outdent) I think the reason for not wanting Google to index sandbox pages is obvious. I have literally dozens of half-formed articles in my user space at any one time. I do not care in the least who reads them and am certainly not going to go to the trouble of trying to hide any of it. However, it will do no good to the reputation of Wikipedia if innocent Google searchers are picking up these half baked essays and taking them to be "proper" articles. This could so easily happen, the average Google user is unlikely to be an experienced wiki editor able to distinguish article space from userspace. It should be possible for users to specify "norobots" on a userpage. Apologies for soapboxing, I am now going to the bottom to ask the question I came here for. By the way, I believe Google weights the results according to your past browsing history so it is quite likely to give you results from your own userspace near the top, but a long way down for everyone else.  Sp in ni ng  Spark  18:00, 28 June 2008 (UTC)
 * How would Google obtain my past browsing history? The PageRank article says nothing about that. --Teratornis (talk) 07:38, 29 June 2008 (UTC)

Creating a new page: 2 persons with the same name
Hello, I am about to create a page on the ballet dancer Thomas Lund of the Royal Danish Ballet. But since there is all ready a Thomas Lund (a Danish badminton player) listed, I'd like to know what to do, so I don't mess up!!! Can you help me in this matter?

Kindly Henrik Emmer —Preceding unsigned comment added by Henrikemmer (talk • contribs) 05:58, 28 June 2008 (UTC)


 * The easiest thing to do, and probably the right thing to do, is create your own article at the title Thomas Lund (ballet dancer). Then add the text


 * To the top of the existing article, Thomas Lund. This will place a notice at the top of the article that the other article exists. This is only one of several possible ways of doing this, which you can read about at Disambiguation. But since there are presently many links to the existing article on Thomas Lund, it's easiest to leave that where it is. Also, make sure to read Your first article before creating it. Someguy1221 (talk) 06:22, 28 June 2008 (UTC)
 * As you edit: Thomas Lund, ballet dancer, please type edit summaries. Also read Help:Talk page and follow Wikipedia's talk page guidelines, especially: sign your talk page comments. See WP:RS, WP:FOOT, WP:CITE, and WP:LAYOUT. If English is not your native language, you can request copyediting assistance. --Teratornis (talk) 15:25, 28 June 2008 (UTC)

Article creation
how to makean article —Preceding unsigned comment added by Rexter (talk • contribs) 06:54, 28 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Before creating an article, please search Wikipedia first to make sure that an article does not already exist on the subject. Please also review a few of our relevant policies and guidelines which all articles should comport with. As Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, articles must not contain original research, must be written from a neutral point of view, should cite to reliable sources which verify their content and must not contain unsourced, negative content about living people.


 * Articles must also demonstrate the notability of the subject. Please see our subject specific guidelines for people, bands and musicians, companies and organizations and web content and note that if you are closely associated with the subject, our conflict of interest guideline strongly recommends against you creating the article.


 * If you still think an article is appropriate, see Help:Starting a new page. You might also look at Your first article and How to write a great article for guidance, and please consider taking a tour through the Tutorial so that you know how to properly format the article before creation.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 07:48, 28 June 2008 (UTC)

FIRE DEPARTMENT DISPATCH LOG
I was wondering if someone could tell me if there is a web site where I can go to and look up a fire department dispach call log for perris california. thank you      Personal info removed   —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.110.38.183 (talk) 12:47, 28 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Hi there. The Help Desk is to ask questions about using Wikipedia, not to asking question about real life. Cheers, Juliancolton Tropical Cyclone  12:55, 28 June 2008 (UTC)
 * The place to ask questions about real life is our Reference desk. You can also try Google search:
 * or call the fire department in question. --Teratornis (talk) 15:31, 28 June 2008 (UTC)
 * or call the fire department in question. --Teratornis (talk) 15:31, 28 June 2008 (UTC)

Copyright question
I am very confused and would appreciate your assistance. I have rewritten my father's biography and plan on publishing it for him as a gift. Although not for commercial use, there may be several copies printed for family members/history purposes. With that in mind, I have found it extremely difficult to understand the different copyright requirements (I assure you, not from lack of trying). That said, here are my questions:

1. I have included some historical information from Wikipedia (not the whole book, just a couple of excerpts located in different sections rather than on one page). What specifically do I need to include with regard to GNU copyright and where does it need to be located?

2. Does the entire license need to be included.

3. If the copy right information is placed after the title page, how do I delineate specifically those sections or paragraphs the license refers to?

4. When do I use a tag and how to I determine what tag (they are all greek to me)?

5. Lastly, If I use images from your site, is that a different license? What I need to do differently?

I would very much appreciate your assistanc........

Thank you--Rhonda Allenson

ps. What is invariant?? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Rallenson (talk • contribs) 13:09, 28 June 2008 (UTC)
 * I have an answer to questions four and five:
 * 4. If you're talking about tags like PD-self, those are only used when you are uploading images to Wikipedia.
 * 5. Each image has its own license. You can find what license the image is under by clicking on it - this will take you to the image information page, where you should find the license tag by scrolling down. If you want to reuse an image, you must abide by the terms of the license the uploader has released it under. This may or may not be the GNU GFDL.
 * For the post-script, see our Invariant article. Xenon54 13:54, 28 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Ignore everything else, all you have to do is read: WP:C (if you changed what you used from Wikipedia) or Verbatim copying if you just copied. Prodego  <sup style="color:darkgreen;">talk  14:50, 28 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Hello,
 * The invariant section is an optional section to the GFDL - Wikipedia does not require an invariant section, so you can ignore that bit.
 * Images have different licenses - click on the picture on Wikipedia to see its description page, where the license will be included. Most images on Wikipedia can be used freely, so long as you attribute the person who took the photograph.
 * If you've only quoted a few paragraphs from Wikipedia, with a note saying where it came from, then this will probably be fair use. This is an exemption to copyright; if the quotes you used are fair use, you don't need to license your book under the GFDL.
 * Using the GFDL means that the text you write for the book can also be used by others (this is known as copyleft). In this case, you would need to include a copy of the GFDL (most books put this in the appendix, see example).
 * --h2g2bob (talk) 16:44, 28 June 2008 (UTC)

import a photo into a article
with this embedd file icon I cant import a phota to a text, how to da that ? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Heinz10 (talk • contribs) 17:24, 28 June 2008 (UTC)


 * You are not allowed to upload images until your account is 4 days old. After that, a link to "Upload file" will appear in the toolbox on the left.  Click the link and follow the instructions.  Make sure that your image has valid copyright permission if you did not create it yourself, otherwise it will get deleted.  Happy editing.  Sp in ni  ng  Spark  18:24, 28 June 2008 (UTC)
 * As well as being four days old, your account needs to have made at least ten edits (at present you have two). Algebraist 00:19, 29 June 2008 (UTC)

Article titles
Is it possible to place subscripts in an article title? If so, how is it done, I have already tried the  tags and it doesn't work.  Sp in ni ng  Spark  18:17, 28 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Article titles can only contain unformatted characters.-- Oni Ookami Alfador Talk 18:22, 28 June 2008 (UTC)
 * I wasn't entirely sure, so I created a page and tried using the pagemove feature, but the destination field did not accept unformatted characters so no, there is no way.-- Oni Ookami Alfador Talk 18:26, 28 June 2008 (UTC)
 * You can put subscripts in the title as seen by the reader with downsize. Algebraist 22:01, 28 June 2008 (UTC)
 * You can also put any formatting into an article title by using override. This allows any formatting to appear at the top of the page. - tholly  --Turnip-- 20:37, 29 June 2008 (UTC)

Template for incomprehensible article
What is the right template for an article which is incomprehensible to the layman? DuncanHill (talk) 18:42, 28 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Perhaps cleanup-jargon; see Template messages/Cleanup for more. --——  Gadget850 (Ed)  <sup style="color:darkblue;">talk  -  20:13, 28 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Perhaps confusing or obscure? BencherliteTalk 20:16, 28 June 2008 (UTC)


 * I went for technical, but all the above would be suitable too. Many thanks. DuncanHill (talk) 20:18, 28 June 2008 (UTC)

Require List of India's pincodes by State in xl or Pdf file
Dear Sir,

Kindly go through our background or vision of Organization: -

Dada Bhagwan Foundation has been set up with the objective of spreading spiritual, social & moral awareness and upliftment amongst all the classes of society irrespective of caste, creed, religion or community. The Foundation is a non-profit making organization.

Visit at: - www.dadabhagwan.org

Our Requirement:-

We are distributing the monthly magazine under name “DADAVANI” to all over India and foreign in 3 different language(Guj / Eng / Hindi). We have more than 30,000 membership currently active.

For better distribution purpose and efficiently spreading the spiritual awareness amongst our community, we require updated India’s pin code database in xl or pdf format. With the help of this we can easily get the missing pin codes of India.

Also let us know if any charges / cost we have to pay?

Kindly reply as early as possible.

Thanks & Regards, Dada Bhagwan Foundation Dipesh Gangar Simandhar City Personal info removed —Preceding unsigned comment added by 124.125.170.59 (talk) 19:09, 28 June 2008 (UTC)


 * I suspect, based on your question, that you found one of our over 6 million articles and thought we were 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 for asking questions related to using or contributing to Wikipedia itself. Thus, we have no special knowledge about 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.
 * Alternatively, you might like to visit the IndiaPost website
 * Astronaut (talk) 23:40, 28 June 2008 (UTC)

Sandbox
Can i create a own sandbox? AlwaysOnion (talk) 20:05, 28 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Of course, simply create it in your own userspace (for example User:AlwaysOnion/sandbox). Click the link I provided and test there. If you want the page to be deleted at any time, then you can tag it with db-u1 and an admin will (usually) delete it relatively quickly. <small style="font:bold 12px Trebuchet MS;display:inline;"> RichardΩ612  Ɣ ɸ 20:08, 28 June 2008 (UTC)
 * And it's also a good idea in my experience to add the User Sandbox template at the top just so it's clear to all that it is a sandbox (well if you give the sub-page a name other than "sandbox"). – ukexpat (talk) 13:09, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

New template Talkarchivehist
I wrote User:Flatscan/Template:Talkarchivehist based on Template:Talkarchive. It displays useful historical links below the header, as described in Help talk:Archiving a talk page. It appears to work in my limited testing, but any fixes or optimizations are welcome. Is there anywhere to request non-technical feedback?

Sample Special:ExpandTemplates input (currentpage parameter may be omitted):
 * Context title: Talk:UCLA Taser incident/Archive 1

Thanks. Flatscan (talk) 02:56, 27 June 2008 (UTC) —cross-posted from Village pump (technical)/Archive 142 as suggested there

Thanks. Flatscan (talk) 22:56, 28 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Is there a specific place to request comments on templates? If not, I'll just mention it on the Talk page I linked above and start using it myself.
 * When should I move it from my user space into the Template namespace? I'm confident that it works properly, but I want to make sure that there are no formal procedures that I missed.
 * Go ahead and be bold — you won't (as far as I know) be breaking any "rule" if you go ahead and create and propogate the template, as long as in doing so, you don't take away any of the functionality of the replaced template (for example, any categorization it may do). $$\sim$$ Lenoxus " * " 18:46, 30 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the reply, I'll go ahead soon. As far as I can tell, it should be fine. Flatscan (talk) 02:26, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

Editing
I'm not really sure how to create links and put the links at the bottom of an article. When do I need to make a bibliography? What are Citations? Please post the answers of these questions in my talk page, thanks. John26razor (talk) 23:20, 28 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Hey John26razor. Perhaps reading Footnotes may help you? Best wishes, —αἰτίας •'discussion'• 23:25, 28 June 2008 (UTC)


 * (edit conflict) If you mean references, you put your reference between where you want the little superscript number to appear in the text, and make sure there's a references section containing where you want the list to appear.  The easiest way to see this in action is to pick an article with references in it, and have a look at how they are done by looking at the wiki-markup (ie. click "edit this page" - you don't have to save any changes)  Astronaut (talk) 23:30, 28 June 2008 (UTC)

Arabic wiki
Hello, arabic wiki, is run by three (more) sunni muslim administrators, they block, prevent, any one who tries to put facts on sensitive articles, related to islam, and even related to politics, such as: wikipedia, the caliph othman, etc... Help me please, to progress on this issue, arabic wiki seems to be a heaven for fanatics, nd retrogrades. --81.22.82.30 (talk) 23:29, 28 June 2008 (UTC)
 * I'm sorry but we have no control over events at another Wikipedia and their administrators. It may be that you can can get something out of bringing up the issue at Meta-Wiki, the site that coordinates all of Mediawiki's projects. You could try their help forum.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 04:12, 29 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Do you refer to the Arabic Wikipedia? (The word wiki is a general term, and Wikipedia is a more specific set of wikis.) If you refer to the Arabic Wikipedia (as seems likely), note that Wikipedia says:
 * ... the various language editions are held to global policies such as "neutral point of view," ...
 * The neutral point of view inherently conflicts with a literal interpretation of many religions. Religions are based on subjectivity and faith - that is, believing in things for which there is either no evidence, or no conclusive evidence, which is to say, imagination taken seriously - whereas the neutral point of view is more in keeping with the Western philosophic traditions of critical thinking, objectivity, and the scientific method. While millions of religious people from many traditions edit successfully on Wikipedia, they like everyone else with a strong point of view must avoid asserting their opinions, and merely describe them, when they edit articles that touch on their faith. This may be harder for some religious people than others, particularly people who follow the more aggressively proselytizing and intolerant varieties of religious fundamentalism, which may even regard the neutral point of view as a form of, or often leading to, blasphemy. (Someone who believes they possess the Absolute Revealed Truth may have difficulty understanding why any other point of view deserves an equal hearing, and may regard some expressions of other points of view as deeply offensive or even sinful and worthy of violent response - see for example Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons controversy.) Given the intensity of Islamic fundamentalism in some parts of the Arabic-speaking world, it seems inevitable that the objectivist nature of Wikipedia will lead to an ideological conflict. As far as what you can do about it, see the links under WP:EIW, perhaps: Wikimedia Embassy might help. --Teratornis (talk) 16:44, 29 June 2008 (UTC)


 * thanks Fuhghettaboutit.
 * Yes Teratornis, it's the arabic wikipedia, i translated the english article of the caliph ottoman as an example to arabic, but the 3 admins, where extremely harsh on it, nd me, i'm even blocked from editing now, my account is Stayfi, in the arabic wiki.
 * there's an ideological conflict of coure here, as u know for sure, but if wikimedia embassy can help it, it will be great.

Sorry to bother u again, but help please on this issue (there's an arabic admin, who speaks english, he may confirm that to u, imagine, he's also HELPLESS, THEY ARE A CABAL, a religious one.) --81.22.82.27 (talk) 22:05, 29 June 2008 (UTC)