Wikipedia:Help desk/Archives/2008 May 17

= May 17 =

adding to bibliography
there is a subject that i've been enjoying reading about on wikipedia. i thoroughly looked through your bibliography for additional references on the subject and i could not find a certain source that i've read previously in the national geographic magazine. how do i go about submitting this info to wikipedia? thanks, tom. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Geronimofoxen (talk • contribs) 00:53, 17 May 2008 (UTC)
 * First of all, thank you for wanting to help contribute to Wikipedia.  National Geographic Magazine is an excellent source for citations in Wikipedia.   To start, look at Introduction to familiarize yourself with how Wikipedia works.  Second, please take a look at our page on how to cite sources.  Lastly, take a peek at the Cite_journal template.  This template most closely matches the one that you will likely be using for your citations.  Good luck!  -- ShinmaWa(talk) 01:00, 17 May 2008 (UTC)
 * If you would like an exact answer, please state an exact question. What is the title of the article about the "subject that (you've) been enjoying reading about"? What is the "certain source that (you've) read previously in the National Geographic Magazine"? (Ask a riddle, and at best get a riddle.) If you provide those simple and obvious bits of information, we can tell you exactly how to cite that specific source. On the other hand, if you prefer to plow through our pages of mind-numbing instructions and figure it out for yourself, that's actually better, because Wikipedia is a do it yourself project, and we need all participants to be as self-reliant as possible. (And boy, do we have the incredibly complete instructions to make this possible.) But I think most people grasp the instructions faster if they see a concrete example of how to solve a problem that they find personally relevant. For example, your question motivated me to look again at the outstanding National Geographic site, and I noticed the June 2008 online edition features an article about Peak oil, probably containing some information we can add to our article on the subject, so I'm looking into it. When I need to cite the article, I will use the handy WPCITE extension for Mozilla Firefox which I learned about by seeing the entries under: WP:EIW. WPCITE generates, with a click, the wikitext code one needs to transclude the Cite web template for a source; in this case, the raw code from WPCITE looks like:


 * I hand-edited the code slightly, adding some information that WPCITE was not clever enough to add on its own, to get this version which I will be able to insert into the Peak oil article as a footnote:


 * As you can see, I added a  field to the   tag; I edited the   field; I turned the   field into a wikilink to our article for the periodical; and I added the author's name and   and   fields (the article does not list an exact day for a publication date). The resulting citation will look like this:
 * That's the exact method I use to create a citation for an online source; there are a variety of other methods, so you can find the method that works for you. The straightforward but hard way is to hand-edit the approprate citation template from scratch, but compared to using a citation tool that's kind of like hitting one's head with a hammer. After I hit my head with that hammer a few dozen times, I decided to look at the citation tools more carefully. --Teratornis (talk) 14:04, 17 May 2008 (UTC)
 * That's the exact method I use to create a citation for an online source; there are a variety of other methods, so you can find the method that works for you. The straightforward but hard way is to hand-edit the approprate citation template from scratch, but compared to using a citation tool that's kind of like hitting one's head with a hammer. After I hit my head with that hammer a few dozen times, I decided to look at the citation tools more carefully. --Teratornis (talk) 14:04, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia roles
What are some of the different roles people can have on wikipedia other than an admin and how do you apply for them? --Npnunda (talk) 03:34, 17 May 2008 (UTC)
 * You can just be a plain editor; all of the other things don't offer to much else. The only one a non-sysop really has a shot at getting is rollback, but you can just use Twinkle to do that. Other ones include bureaucratship and checkuser. Paragon12321 (talk) 03:51, 17 May 2008 (UTC)


 * There is a page about this: User access levels. It is quite detailed as to their functions. In the most commonly mentioned ones though are auto-confirmed users (automatically given after 4 days), rollbackers (request for rollback), admins (requests for adminship), bureaucrats (requests for bureaucratship), checkusers (assigned by the arbitration comittee) and oversight-ers (also assigned by the arbitration comittee). You can read up what each of them can do on the user access levels page. Hope it helps! James086 Talk &#124;  Email 05:45, 17 May 2008 (UTC)
 * One role I recommend is to be a Help desk volunteer (or a volunteer on one of our other question pages). This is not an "official" role that involves any increase in user privileges or need for approval; you don't even need an account to answer questions on the Help desk, although virtually all Help desk volunteers do have accounts. All you need is to be bold. Answering questions on the Help desk, and studying the answers that other volunteers provide (especially any corrections to your wrong answers - the surest way to remember a lesson is to foul up in public), will give you an extremely broad understanding of how Wikipedia works, and how to look up answers to almost every question that comes up in the course of editing articles on Wikipedia. The Help desk needs lots of volunteers, because we get questions around the clock, and many hands make light work. For more information, see Help desk/How to answer. Even though technical support is often one of the least popular aspects of the computer industry, for both vendors and customers, on Wikipedia our technical support works better than any commercial tech support service I've seen (and I've seen my share). Wikipedia has managed to make tech support so much fun that people will do it for free (anyone who has worked in a commercial tech support shop will grasp the immensity of this miracle). It's well worth volunteering on the Help desk just to learn about Wikipedia's ingenious tools and social organization for providing support - and maybe you can add your own bit of genius to further improve the tools. If you have any interest in computing either as a user or from working in the field, you will not regret any time you spend learning how Wikipedia does support. (Sorry for getting on the soapbox, but this is all true.) --Teratornis (talk) 14:25, 17 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Somewhere else where help is always appreciated is deletion discussions - anyone can take part with these. This will be of particular interest to anyone who likes doing a bit of detective work in seraching for sources to justify the articles inclusion, or maybe finding a lack of them to justify the article's deletion.  Rather a simplistic outlook, but should give you a good indication if this is for you.  Before you do take part in any, please familiarise yourself with WP:NOTABILITY.  If you want to do that, and wish to know more about it, feel free to ask here, or drop me a note on my talk page. StephenBuxton (talk) 15:09, 17 May 2008 (UTC)
 * I should point out User:Steve Crossin/Adoption/Permissions. It tells pretty much all the roles and how to apply. RyRy5 ( talk ) 19:19, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

Finding WP pages
There are lots of WP pages but I never can seem to find them, except for the ones that I already know. I mean pages such as WP:vand, WP:welcome. At this point I'm looking for something about friendliness, which I think exists somewhere, but I don't know the exact name. Where can I find some kind of overview over WP pages?? Lova Falk (talk) 12:06, 17 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Try the list at Index. haz (talk) 12:15, 17 May 2008 (UTC)
 * I think the exact page you're looking for is either WP:CIVIL or WP:BITE. -mattbuck (Talk) 12:41, 17 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Go to Special:AllPages. SimsFan Talk to Me • Sign Here and Get a Thank You Award 12:56, 17 May 2008 (UTC)
 * You seem to be asking about Wikipedia's project-related pages (i.e., our internal instruction documents) rather than our articles. A topically organized list of our project-related pages is the Editor's index to Wikipedia. You might also see our list of shortcuts. --Teratornis (talk) 14:30, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

Thank you all of you! The exact page I was looking for was WP:KIND. Lova Falk (talk) 15:40, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

Userboxes
I have a userbox page on Uncyclopedia which is. I've transcluded this page onto my Uncyclopedia page, but can I transclude it onto my Wikipedia Userpage. I prefer those userboxes and it would be cool if I could! Osama bin dipesh (talk) 13:00, 17 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Unfortunately, you can't transclude templates from different wikis. If you want to use the userbox code on your Wikipedia user page, you'll need to copy and paste the code from the template page for each userbox. haz (talk) 13:05, 17 May 2008 (UTC)
 * You can actually recreate the ubx to that wiki. But I don't think you can use the image though.-- Ryan Cross ( talk  ♠  Review ) 22:54, 17 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Uncyclopedia is not affiliated with the Wikimedia Foundation. It is run by Wikia, a for-profit company owned by Jimbo, Chair Emeritus/Godking of the Foundation. Confused yet? Paragon12321 (talk) 05:16, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

Damn Osama bin dipesh (talk) 12:45, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

User
There is one user that seems to keep vandlaising the article on Nature. Is there a way that anyone cxan stop that user from continuing to do so. JoeC 4321 (talk) 15:17, 17 May 2008 (UTC)
 * You can bring vandalism to the attention of the administrators (who can block the user concerned, if appropriate) at this page. GBT/C 15:19, 17 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Just went to that page and it looke like someone already had. Thanks for your help. JoeC 4321 (talk) 15:20, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

Why can't a page be edited?
I am curious about why there are no edit links on this page ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judaism ), either at the top or within the content. Can you please explain why this page cannot be edited? Thank you. Encheiridion (talk) 15:19, 17 May 2008 (UTC)E.
 * I didn;t see any problem with editing but I know basically nothing about Wikipedia so you will have to have another user explain your problem JoeC 4321 (talk) 15:22, 17 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Looks absolutely fine to me - there's the usual buttons at the very top, and each section has its own edit link... GBT/C 15:23, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

I just saw a message saying Note: This page has been semi-protected so that only established users can edit it. Does this mean anything? JoeC 4321 (talk) 15:23, 17 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Yes, I think new accounts (under 4 days or so) cannot edit semi-protected pages. --WinHunter (talk) 15:25, 17 May 2008 (UTC)
 * That's correct - under the WP:Protection policy IPs and non-autoconfirmed accounts (ie. accounts under 4 days old) cannot edit semi-protected pages. For some reason the page wasn't marked as such - if you have a look now you should see a small silver padlock in the top lefthand corner. GBT/C 15:29, 17 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Should be top righthand corner I think, the padlock looks like this: [[Image:Padlock-silver.svg|20px]]. --WinHunter (talk) 15:33, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

Thank you so much for your information--but WHY wasn't the padlock on the page before and why does it now have the word "hide" next to it? I have never seen a page without edit buttons or a page that was "semi-protected" but didn't show the padlock. Thanks again. Encheiridion (talk) 15:38, 17 May 2008 (UTC)
 * After an admin protects a page, they should add the proper template. Judaism was protected on 12 May, but sprotected2 was just added at 11:28 UTC today— it may have take a little bit to show up.  --—  Gadget850 (Ed)  talk 15:47, 17 May 2008 (UTC)
 * There's a bot that removes the padlock from pages that aren't protected, but there isn't one that adds it to pages that are...in this case, the protecting admin overlooked adding the padlock after they protected the page. GBT/C 17:04, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

Image upload troubles
Hi. Please see User talk:Eustress for details. Thanks. ~ A H  1 (TCU) 20:29, 17 May 2008 (UTC)
 * You can save as a different filetype by opening it in paint and changing the option in 'save as'. [[Image:P computing.svg|20px]] This page is for questions about using Wikipedia. Please consider asking this question at the Computing reference desk.  They specialize in answering computer questions and will try to answer any question in the universe except how to use Wikipedia, since that is what this Help Desk is for). Just follow the link and ask away. You could always try  for an article related to the topic you want to know more about.  I hope this helps. ...... Dendodge  .. Talk Help 20:34, 17 May 2008 (UTC)
 * (e/c) In my opinion it was a Wikipedia-related question... I've replied on AH's talk page. PeterSymonds (talk)  20:37, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

Side
Hello,

I have noticed that many articles have pictures on the right side. Some have small tables and other things on the right side as well. And many have text left of the picture or table. I looked through the FAQs, but I could not figure out how to put the picture or table on the right. If someone who could tell me how to do that I would be happy.

Remilo (talk) 21:47, 17 May 2008 (UTC)
 * For pictures use: ...... Dendodge  .. Talk Help 21:49, 17 May 2008 (UTC)
 * For tables and text, use ...... Dendodge  .. Talk Help 21:50, 17 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Thank you Remilo (talk) 22:03, 17 May 2008 (UTC)
 * For future questions, you may want to  search the Editor's index in addition to the FAQ. For example, WP:EIW has lots of links to pages about images on Wikipedia. Another tool is to put the Help desk searches template on your User page for quick reference. --Teratornis (talk) 22:27, 17 May 2008 (UTC)
 * In many cases, the image is in an infobox, which can also be used to include a basic summary of the article. Confusing Manifestation (Say hi!) 06:06, 18 May 2008 (UTC)