Wikipedia:Help desk/Archives/2008 June 5

= June 5 =

'huggle whitelist'
what is the huggle whitelist; and why am I on it?

Is it a good or bad thing to be on?? If its bad, how do I get off it??

thanks (please tell me on my talk page when you have put in a response).

Aflumpire (talk) 00:36, 5 June 2008 (UTC)
 * It's very good! Huggle is an application used here to combat vandalism. The application has a whitelist, which is a list of users who can be safely ignored when searching for vandalism. Any person with huggle can choose to place another user on the whitelist. There's nothing bad with being on the whitelist (other than your username on the page taking up valuable server resources, of course :) ). Now, if you were on a blacklist, that would be a problem... but huggle doesn't keep a blacklist. Calvin 1998 (t-c) 00:41, 5 June 2008 (UTC)
 * How did you find out you were on this whitelist? Ideally, whatever you saw that informed you of this should also have contained some link explaining what it means. If the link is not there, then we should fix that if possible. Since Wikipedia is a do it yourself project (and probably the world's largest one), we need to make everything on Wikipedia as self-explanatory as possible. --Teratornis (talk) 04:08, 5 June 2008 (UTC)
 * I can't speak for Aflumpire, but I found myself on the whitelist by Googling myself ;) (No comments on the vanity of that, please :) :) ) -- ShinmaWa(talk) 06:29, 5 June 2008 (UTC)
 * 50% of computer users admit to Googling themselves - frequently and energetically - and the other 50% lie about it. --Teratornis (talk) 16:31, 5 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Calvin, honestly, the biggest problem isn't the server resources but its contribution to global warming -- and with regards to googling, my real name is such a generic anglo name, that I would never find the real me... Tiggerjay (talk) 05:42, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

External Links Question
Are external links from Blogger prohibited on WP? 71.122.32.84 (talk) 16:47, 5 June 2008 (UTC)
 * They're not prohibited, but blogs are not considered reliable sources of information. You generally can't use a blog to cite a fact. An external link might be appropriate if the person maintains a blog or fansite, but it's very rare that such sites are used to back up statements in our articles. &mdash;  The Hand That Feeds You :Bite 18:25, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

geometry
examples of planes —Preceding unsigned comment added by 122.53.190.237 (talk) 11:12, 5 June 2008 (UTC)
 * This page is designed for questions about using Wikipedia. Your question would be better asked at the mathematics reference desk. If you do ask it there please use full sentences, as I'm not quite sure what you are asking here. Raven4x4x (talk) 11:23, 5 June 2008 (UTC)
 * We have an article on planes: Plane (mathematics).--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 12:17, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

Information
where should i go to get imformation on a certain topic —Preceding unsigned comment added by 219.65.12.161 (talk) 11:26, 5 June 2008 (UTC)
 * You may be able to find it by searching for it here Special:Search. If you could be a little more specific, we may be able to point you in the right direction.  TN ‑ X - Man  11:44, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

Can someone help with my page
I am trying to get my page listed but I dont understand all the tags. I have put an image I created myself on the page and tried to put the right tags on this but it still is telling me that the image copyright isnt clear.

Also there are some other errors and I dont understand them. This is the second time I have tried to use Wikipedia and it is so confusing. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jontif (talk • contribs) 14:01, 5 June 2008 (UTC)
 * You need to clearly spell out where you got the image from, who owns the image (it looks like it's copyrighted) and why it should be included on Wikipedia. Furthermore, the page Subway collective does not explain why the band is notable (no chart singles or anything, see WP:MUSIC for what makes a band notable for inclusion in Wikipedia). Ten Pound Hammer  and his otters • (Broken clamshells•Otter chirps) 14:09, 5 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Since the text of Subway collective appears to be copied from http://www.subwaycollective.com/welcome.htm and that page is copyrighted, you are going to get a speedy delete for copyright violation. --——  Gadget850 (Ed)  talk  -  14:22, 5 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Unfortunately, Wikipedia is an encyclopedia where notable subjects have articles written about them. Wikipedia is not a site where your band is "listed" in order to promote their work.  Astronaut (talk) 23:31, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

general forums
does wikipedia have a forum about general issues in the world today? after much searching and no luck, i have decided to ask directly. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Fred eadie (talk • contribs) 15:44, 5 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Nope. That's not any part of what we exist for. -- Orange Mike  &#x007C;   Talk  15:53, 5 June 2008 (UTC)
 * See WP:EIW for a list of what we do have. On some of those fora and mailing lists, people discuss very small subsets of topics that might fall under what you call "general issues in the world today." After all, Wikipedia is important enough to be a topic of mainstream discussion now. However, "general issues in the world today" contains a very large number of topics that Wikipedia's venues do not discuss. If you want to discuss some topic unsuitable for a Wikipedia venue, there are many other sites out there, which you can find with a search engine, or by asking us. "General issues in the world today" is, well, a bit too general. Most likely you want to focus on something more specific, such as politics in the world today, women's rights in the world today, energy crises or food crises, etc. For each of the global topics, many sites exist for discussing them, but most sites have a narrower focus than all the issues in the world today. --Teratornis (talk) 16:43, 5 June 2008 (UTC)
 * And there is always Wikinews – ukexpat (talk) 17:01, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

okay i was just curious, was looking for something on the energy crisis at the moment, and thought that i could see other peoples opinions as well as the facts but i guess i should just look on some blogs from other websites :) thanks anyway —Preceding unsigned comment added by Fred eadie (talk • contribs) 11:48, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
 * "Opinions" is the issue -- Wikipedia is an encyclopedia and as such personal opinions and points of view are not appropriate here. Articles must maintain a neutral point of view. – ukexpat (talk) 14:12, 6 June 2008 (UTC)


 * If you have questions, you can raise them at the Reference Desk for help, but it isn't a discussion forum.  Corvus cornix  talk  22:22, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

Problems with svg
I was converting images to svg format just as i did many times before, this time i have a big problem after converting this file: Image:Board structure.pdf to svg and uploading the svg i got this: .Its all messed up and i don't understand way. In Inkscape it looked fine (and now i didn't save as Inkscape Svg i saved as simple svg). Can anyone help me fix it?--IngerAlHaosului (talk) 15:52, 5 June 2008 (UTC)
 * In the furture questions like this need to be posted at the reference desk.But from my analysis the picture looks fine.Are you sure somethings wrong?  Mr. Green  Hit Me Up   Userboxes  15:59, 5 June 2008 (UTC)


 * The text is outside the boxes in the preview; when you click to get the full image, the text is properly placed, but badly rendered. I'm not sure how to fix this.  It might be an artifact of the SVG to PNG conversion done by MediaWiki.  --——  Gadget850 (Ed)  talk  -  16:56, 5 June 2008 (UTC)
 * It was not an artifact of the SVG to PNG conversion done by MediaWiki it turned out to be a artifact of Importing the pdf version in Inkscape. It used a uncommon font "bitstream vera sans" after converting the text to "arial" Problem solved.--IngerAlHaosului (talk) 11:05, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

Alpha
Hi,

I've been adding to the album list by a British Electronic band called Alpha. I'm having a problem linking one album to the other. The page in question is 'Lost in a Garden of Clouds (Part 1) where I'm trying to link it's follow up album, 'Lost in a Garden of Clouds (Part 2). I've followed the usual steps, which have always worked for me before. However, when I click save, and despite several attempts, the album name (link) is staying red and cannot be linked. I've checked the spelling, lower/upper case etc and it appears ok, unless I'm missing something very blatant! I'd greatly appreciate any insight (I'm sure it's dead easy!!!!)

Thanks in advance,

The Blako. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Theblako (talk • contribs) 17:00, 5 June 2008 (UTC)


 * It says that there is no page called 'Lost in a Garden of Clouds (Part 2).Are you sure the page in question exists?  Mr. Green  Hit Me Up   Userboxes  17:25, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

Hi MrGreen,

I've just checked and it is now saying there's the page and it seems to have rectified itself. Maybe, there was too much traffic when I first created it, but sincerest thanks for your input anyway. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Theblako (talk • contribs) 17:31, 5 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Sometimes Wikipedia's servers take a while to process a change. You may see delays when you do other things that require some work from the servers, such as when you recategorize a page. Although I haven't kept careful track, I think I have noticed Wikipedia to be more responsive when I edit at night (I'm in the U.S.). The English Wikipedia probably gets most of its users during daytime hours for Europe and North America (especially the latter), so by the close of business in North America, most Europeans are probably asleep, and most North Americans have left work, leaving Wikipedia to the gnomes who stay up late and build all the cool stuff. You can also try linking to the pages you mention, right here on the Help desk:
 * Lost in a Garden of Clouds (Part 1)
 * Lost in a Garden of Clouds (Part 2)
 * Another way to check that you just did something is to see your contributions. For example, Special:Contributions/Theblako shows that you edited the above two articles. It would have been interesting to see whether your changes would have shown up correctly during the few minutes after you created Lost in a Garden of Clouds (Part 2) and its link was still red. Oh, and one more thing, asking on the Help desk about an article you just created tends to attract the attention of other editors, who will scrutinize the new articles for typical new-article problems, and if necessary add template messages such as notability and primarysources as the above two articles now have. If you're new-ish to Wikipedia, or even not so new, you might not know about our requirements for verifiability and reliable sources, or how to cite sources with footnotes, preferably using citation templates. Please read all the help pages I linked to, and let us know if you have any more questions. --Teratornis (talk) 18:00, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

My Watchlist
I'm just wondering, in my watchlist it has this to the side of every edit (+Number) or (-Number) The number varies, what are they? Are they scores or something? Jonni Boi 17:15, 5 June 2008 (UTC)
 * They are the number of characters added or deleted every edit. Mr. Green  Hit Me Up   Userboxes  17:18, 5 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Aye... it's the difference between the size (in terms of source text) of the previous diff and the current page version – in other words, how many characters were added or removed as a result of the most recent edit to the page. If you have a look at any page's history, you'll see the exact size of each version in bytes, but only the difference is shown in the watchlist since it makes identifying certain types of edit (page blanking, for instance) easier. haz (talk) 17:21, 5 June 2008 (UTC)
 * I think my answer was a bit easier to understand. (no offense) :) Mr. Green  Hit Me Up   Userboxes  17:27, 5 June 2008 (UTC)
 * To be completely clear, its the number of bytes, not characters. When it comes to Unicode, there's a difference.  -- ShinmaWa(talk) 18:22, 5 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Only the questioner knows what is easier for the questioner to understand. Some questioners want a simple summary, and some want more technical details with links for further information, so they can dig in and learn more about how Wikipedia works. Therefore, it is good when several volunteers provide different angles, so the questioner can take what he or she wants. To take yet another angle, when a question appears on the Help desk, we should ask why the user needed to ask the question. That is, why didn't the page the user was viewing answer the question itself? In the case of a watchlist, the page does answer the question, but perhaps too subtly. Near the top of the page, below the distracting Wikipedia advertising lines, I see this sentence:
 * You have 40 pages on your watchlist (excluding talk pages).
 * The sentence contains a link: watchlist which answers the question, that is if the user notices the link, realizes it links to a help page, clicks the link, and reads down to the section: Help:Watching pages. That might be asking a lot from a user who isn't already familiar with Wikipedia's help system. It's very easy to look right past that subtle watchlist link. Maybe expanding it slightly would help:
 * You have 40 pages on your watchlist (excluding talk pages). For an explanation of this page, see Help:Watching pages.
 * I think bolding the appropriate help page link might not be overkill. Hardly anybody will understand the Watchlist the first time they stumble into it, so bolding the help page link will draw the reader's eye. I don't understand why the term: talk pages doesn't also have a link to its help page, so I suggest linking it too. Not everybody knows about talk pages, either. If any administrator agrees with me, the interface page that produces this text might be MediaWiki:Watchlist-details. --Teratornis (talk) 18:27, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

Delete
Can someone please delete Mando songs for me. I meant to create a category. Grk1011 (talk) 18:16, 5 June 2008 (UTC)
 * It looks like it has already been deleted. Cheers!  TN ‑ X - Man  18:20, 5 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Thanks Gadget. Grk1011 (talk) 18:21, 5 June 2008 (UTC)


 * You are welcome. Next time, just blank the page and replace it with db-g7 and it will eventually be deleted.  --——  Gadget850 (Ed)  talk  -  18:22, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

More than one title for an article
How to associate an existing article to an index? My case: I created an article under Héctor Zumbado. I want it to be also under H. Zumbado, since that is the man's pen name, and many know him for H. Zumbado rather than as his name. How to do it?

Thanks in advance.

User:Alfredo J. Herrera Lago —Preceding comment was added at 18:29, 5 June 2008 (UTC)
 * What you're looking for is a redirect. You can do this by creating a new article with, which will redirect any visitors to the new page to the page referenced in the redirect. I've created the redirect that you've mentioned, but you might want to keep that in mind, in case you need it in the future! haz (talk) 18:32, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

That's it; thank you Haza-w!

User:Alfredo J. Herrera Lago —Preceding comment was added at 21:02, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

222.239.26.175 (talk) 19:12, 5 June 2008 (UTC)forgetting password
I have created my wiki account a few months ago, and now I find I forgot it. Is there any way that I can get it?! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 222.239.26.175 (talk • contribs)
 * Do you remember any of the pages you edited when you were logged in? If you do, you could check their page history to see if you recognize your username. -- Nataly a  19:21, 5 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Is it only the password you have forgotten? If you remember your username, and you gave your email address when you registered, you can ask it to email you a new password. —teb728 t c 20:14, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

Limiting my watch list
Still Open

Okay, I'm trying to get some use out of my watchlist. Unfortunately, I spend WAY too much time on the refdesks, so my watchlist gets a new entry every time anyone does anything with the refdesks. Thus, anything else gets drowned out in a flood of refdesk updates. Because, someone does something to the refdesks all the time. So, I'd like my watchlist to show recent updates to pages I've updated, but NOT include the Reference Desk pages. I can tell my list to ignore complete wikis, but I can't find a way to tell it "monitor the rest of en.wiki, but don't tell me the Reference Desks have been updated. The Reference Desks are ALWAYS updated.  They have too much activity to be listed here." Is this possible? -SandyJax (talk) 19:46, 5 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Not as far as I know, though there are only six of them or something, surely six doesn't make THAT much difference? -mattbuck (Talk) 19:49, 5 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Can you just unwatch them? -- Nataly a  19:49, 5 June 2008 (UTC)


 * (e/c)You can unwatch the refdesk. Go to the page and click "unwatch" at the top. It'll disappear forever. :) Best, PeterSymonds (talk)  19:50, 5 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Duh! That was easy.  Thanks! -SandyJax (talk) 20:29, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

Duh. No it _wasn't_ that easy. I just stuck my nose into something on the RefDesk, partly as a test, and, yep, the refdesk is now back on my watchlist because it's a page I edited, and all pages I edit automatically get watched. I wouldn't mind if it only showed sections I was involved with, but it looks like any edits to any section of any refdesk put the refdesk back on my watchlist. As if I need to be told that someone edited those pages. Again, I ask "How do I get my watchlist to not include the Reference Desk?" -SandyJax (talk) 21:15, 5 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Go to Special:Preferences. Click on the tab "watchlist". Is the box "Add pages I edit to my watchlist" ticked? If it is, unclick it, save the page and Ctrl-F5 to clear your browser cache. Let us know if it works. Best, PeterSymonds (talk)  21:20, 5 June 2008 (UTC)


 * If you're looking to watchlist all pages you edit, you can simply uncheck the "watch this page" box whenever you edit the reference desks. Someguy1221 (talk) 21:21, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

My apologies for not being clear. I often edit the refdesks. I also, occasionally, edit other pages. I want to be told if there are newer edits on the main article pages that I have edited, plus user space, etc. So, I want to leave the "pages I edit" box checked. I don't, however, need to be told every time that any of the refdesk pages get edited. Partly because that's where I spend all my time anyway, and partly because those six pages get hundreds of edits per day (RD-Science is up past 70 for today). Any other entries in the watchlist get buried by all of the refdesk (and, now, helpdesk) entries. I am trying to ask if there is a way of telling the watchlist generator to NOT put particular pages on the watchlist. "Unwatch" the refdesk is a simple task, but it must be done after every edit, or my watchlist rapidly grows to 16 pages, which, I submit, is unwieldy. As I pointed out at first, I'd like to make the watchlist useful. It's not, when all edits to the refdesk (and now the helpdesk) get entries in my watchlist. -SandyJax (talk) 21:40, 5 June 2008 (UTC)
 * I think there are two things you might try. First, on your watchlist page, there's a link at the top for "view and edit watchlist". That lists all of the pages you have watched with checkboxes. You can go through and check all of the pages you no longer wish to watch, then simply click "remove from watchlist" at the bottom. Secondly, the only way (that I am aware of, anyway) a page gets added to your watchlist without clicking "watch this page" at the top, is to have the checkbox right underneath the edit summary checked. It may be that when you respond to a refdesk question, that box is accidentally checked. Hopefully, that helps!  TN ‑ X - Man  21:46, 5 June 2008 (UTC)
 * I've been doing your first; that's what made me realize the problem. Your second is my best answer so far, but again it depends upon my keeping track of that checkbox, which is minor but it's one of those things that a computer, or network of computers, should be able to automate for us.  In fact, it _is_ being automated for me, and I want it to stop.  At least, for those 7 pages. -SandyJax (talk) 21:53, 5 June 2008 (UTC)
 * I have verified that manually editing the watchlist and adding an entry with a minus sign in front "-Wikipedia:Reference desk/Language" does nothing but add that as another article to be watched. In red, of course, because there is no such article. -SandyJax (talk) 21:57, 5 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Hmm. Interesting. Are you making automatic edits (using Twinkle, Huggle, or the like)? Those scripts may have settings that automatically add certain pages to your watchlist. I know that Twinkle does it with PROD tags and reverts unless specifically told not to add them.  TN ‑ X - Man  22:00, 5 June 2008 (UTC)
 * I think you have two choices: You can either leave the “watch pages I edit” checked and manually uncheck “watch this page” when you save a ref desk edit. Or you can uncheck “watch pages I edit” and manually check “watch this page” when you edit other pages. Another possibility might be to write some code in your monobook.js to check or uncheck “watch this page” depending on the page you are editing. —teb728 t c 22:10, 5 June 2008 (UTC)
 * If you have "watch pages I edit" checked, and you edit a page that is already on your list, it doesn't get added again, so the code that adds pages clearly does a test for "already there" before adding it. Thus, the possibility exists for that function to be invoked.  Anyone have access to the code that does this?  There should be a way to add a page to the list in the negative sense, as in "Don't watch this page".  I'm not up to writing that.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by SandyJax (talk • contribs) 23:01, 5 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Heck, I can't even remember to sign my entries, much less remember that check box. -SandyJax (talk) 23:17, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

I've having difficulty seeing that a watchlist of 16 pages is "unwieldy". Many editors here will have much more and can scan watchlists without difficulty for what is actually important enough to check. (I have 2,800 on my watchlist at present and I'm hardly unique in that.) How hard can it be to think "oh, that's a reference desk edit, so I won't check that"?! BencherliteTalk 23:25, 5 June 2008 (UTC)
 * It's entirely possible that you can contribute more resources (time, brains, whatever) than I can. Um, how many of your watched pages get more than 100 edits per day?  That's the key, here.  If the page only occasionally changes, well then maybe it would be nice to have the servers tell us when that happens (Hey! let's create an automated watchlist to tell us!).  If, however, a page gets so much activity that you already know it's been changed, and you need to go see it, then all you get by having it "watched" is several hundred entries per day that do nothing but make it hard for you to find the changes you want to know about, in the seldom-edited pages.  Let's NOT watch the pages that have such churn.  Let's figure out how to turn it off.  -SandyJax (talk) 23:56, 5 June 2008 (UTC)


 * OK, I'm confused. The watchlist shows only the most recent change on each page, so with 16 pages, you'll have at most 16 "most recent edits" on display - not hundreds at any one time. BencherliteTalk 00:08, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
 * See: Help:Watching pages and Help:Watching pages. Maybe you selected the expanded watchlist in your preferences. You probably want the simple watchlist. This may be another example of why the watchlist page needs a more obvious link to its help page. --Teratornis (talk) 06:48, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Why doesn't the Special:Preferences Watchlist tab link to the help page that explains the options? I can see why the checkbox: "Expand watchlist to show all applicable changes" would confuse someone. --Teratornis (talk) 06:53, 6 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Responded to the version at Help talk:Watching pages. Here is simple javascript that unchecks the "watch this page" button if the page name contains Wikipedia:Reference_desk:

if( wgAction.match(/edit|submit/) && wgPageName.match(/Wikipedia:Reference_desk.*/) ) addOnloadHook(function{ var o = document.getElementById("wpWatchthis"); if(o) o.checked=false;});
 * Add this to User:SandyJax/monobook.js to activate it. It is not meant to be customized with some long list of pages; it is just meant to be short.
 * I think we've already covered this, but in case it is not clear. The problem described can only happen if the user changes two preferences: 1. watch pages I edit, and 2. show all edits on watched pages, not just the first.  The easy way to solve the problem is turn one of those off.  Some people want both on, but things like refdesk (and helpdesk and village pump) get pretty spammy.  This javascript is just a simple way of turning of the "1." preference for the refdesk. JackSchmidt (talk) 18:37, 6 June 2008 (UTC)