Wikipedia:Help desk/Archives/2008 November 12

= November 12 =

Aligning my userboxes
I am User:De Mattia and i cant seem to be able to align my Joeys userbox into the centre of my user page

I want it to be like

Joeys (centred)

Then the rest of my user boxes just the way they are

Is this posible

Can this be done

If so can some one PLEASE tell me how I can do it on my user talk page

Thanks

De Mattia (talk) 08:05, 15 November 2008 (UTC)

what are the affiliates of wikipedia?
we will be reporting about the wikipedia. I would like to know what are those organization that help this web site to navigate? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 119.94.51.165 (talk) 02:43, 12 November 2008 (UTC)


 * Funnily enough, much of the information you seek can be found on Wikipedia's article on itself: Wikipedia. You may also want to take a look at Wikimedia Foundation. Confusing Manifestation (Say hi!) 02:56, 12 November 2008 (UTC)
 * If you need more information, see the links under WP:EIW, WP:EIW, and WP:EIW. I found this article helpful when I was new to Wikipedia:
 * --Teratornis (talk) 04:49, 12 November 2008 (UTC)
 * --Teratornis (talk) 04:49, 12 November 2008 (UTC)

Help
Can anyone help me with Image:BRoy.jpg? According to WP:FUC, it might not meet its criteria. Can anyone help? Thanks in advance, A  talk  02:25, 12 November 2008 (UTC)


 * Is it plausible that you, or someone else, could go and take a photograph of Roy, then upload it to Wikimedia Commons under a CC-BY-SA-3.0 or similar license? If so, then you're right, it doesn't meet the exemption criteria, and hasn't got a leg to stand on. Given that he's still alive, and still playing, my understanding is that the answer to my question is yes. Confusing Manifestation (Say hi!) 03:00, 12 November 2008 (UTC)

Meaning of "(top)"
Hi

On user contributions pages (such as my recent contributions here), some of the entries have the word (top) against them. I've often wondered what this means. Does anyone know? 86.134.10.50 (talk) 03:12, 12 November 2008 (UTC)
 * It means that that edit is still the most recent edit to the page. Icewedge (talk) 03:13, 12 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Thank you! What an odd way to put it. If anyone has the time and inclination, I think ideally this should be explained on the page or a more intuitive description should be used. 86.134.43.109 (talk) 12:26, 12 November 2008 (UTC).
 * The upper right corner of Special:Contributions displays a link to Help:User contributions which explains what the "(top)" means. I agree that the user has to work harder to figure this out from Wikipedia than most people would prefer. However, Wikipedia is a do it yourself system that uses your Web browser as a thin client. That means you have to do some work to read the friendly manuals and figure stuff out on your own. Humans are social creatures who train each other to expect they can ask questions in natural language. On Wikipedia, we have this Help desk to serve that role, when someone can't solve the do it yourself puzzle entirely on their own. Someday if computers pass the Turing test, we will program the expertise of the Help desk directly into the software itself (so you will be able to ask Wikipedia questions in what to you is plain English, and get responses as good as the Help desk currently gives). As far as putting things oddly, Wikipedia like most communities has its own cant. Wikipedia is unlike anything most people have experienced before, and the language here reflects that novelty. I thought it was strange at first too, but after a while I saw the logic. --Teratornis (talk) 18:17, 12 November 2008 (UTC)
 * It would be nice to link instances of the word "(top)" on the Special:Contributions page to its explanation. However, that is not something an ordinary Wikipedia user can do, because only a few highly privileged users can edit a special page. Part of the difficulty is that Wikipedia runs on the MediaWiki software, and thousands of wikis use the same software, in hundreds of languages. Therefore, MediaWiki ships with no help pages by default, and thus the dynamic portion of a special page would be full of red links if it linked to help pages (on a wiki that did not yet have destination help pages to link to). Everyone who sets up their own wiki that runs on MediaWiki has to create their own help pages. Since the special pages are part of the software, and not in the user-editable part of Wikipedia, we're kind of stuck with the generic versions. --Teratornis (talk) 18:26, 12 November 2008 (UTC)

New users
Hi, i'm trying to find the Special page for new users, i've looked for ages but I can't find it, it's not in the special pages list and i'm sure I saw it a 2 days ago... Can anyone help? – Jerry  teps  03:18, 12 November 2008 (UTC)


 * I'm not sure what you're asking for. The User creation log?  If not, please clarify. --barneca (talk) 03:30, 12 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Alternately, perhaps you mean []? --barneca (talk) 03:32, 12 November 2008 (UTC)


 * Ah, yes, it was the first one, thank you. – Jerry  teps  03:34, 12 November 2008 (UTC)

I made a mistake
About a half hour ago, I made a mistake when adding some information to a page. My intent was to edit (add info to) one section of the page (Awards) but, somehow everything beyond that point on the page seems to have bee deleted. I don't know how to fix this. Please help. —Preceding unsigned comment added by BChurchRNC (talk • contribs) 05:23, 12 November 2008 (UTC)
 * No worries. It was a missing tag; references should be bracketed like so: .  All fixed. For an exhaustive (exhausting?) treatment, you can see WP:References.  --barneca (talk) 05:28, 12 November 2008 (UTC)

Whew. Thanks so much. —Preceding unsigned comment added by BChurchRNC (talk • contribs) 05:37, 12 November 2008 (UTC)

Biographic info on a living person. There are very few existing references
I will be writing (or editing on Wikipedia) some biographical info an a living person. There are no publushed books about him. There is very little info on the internet, save for his own companies website and his personal, very short website. Wikipedia has only 2 lines about him. I may be one of the first to write a lot if history about him. I am getting all the info from the person in question, sort of an "authorized biography". How can I reference this when I may be the the first to publish all this info?

Thanks,

lunacricketLunacricket (talk) 06:55, 12 November 2008 (UTC)


 * Please read WP:Notability. If there is no published information about him, then chances are that the subject will fail Wikipedia's notability guidelines. Also see Biographies of living persons for more on this which might help you. Please note that if the subject of an article fails to meet the notability guidelines, that article will be deleted. Cheers.  C h a m a l  talk 07:03, 12 November 2008 (UTC)
 * If we already have two lines, chances are that they could actually be notable. Sources do disappear from time to time. - 131.211.151.245 (talk) 07:55, 12 November 2008 (UTC)


 * Unfortunately, getting the info from the person directly means other editors won't be able to verify the information. So it's unlikely adding that information would stick. You should publish the information elsewhere, so Wikipedians can access it for verification. - 131.211.151.245 (talk) 07:55, 12 November 2008 (UTC)


 * please read WP:Verifiability for more input on that aspect of the question Sssoul (talk) 08:49, 12 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Sorry but Wikipedia does not publish original research. Information must be published elsewhere first. —teb728 t c 09:01, 12 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Not just "elsewhere", but in reliable sources. – ukexpat (talk) 13:59, 12 November 2008 (UTC)

financial loan
how can i apply for financial loan —Preceding unsigned comment added by 202.125.156.122 (talk) 07:48, 12 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Have you tried Wikipedia's Reference Desk? They specialize in knowledge 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, select the relevant section, and ask away. I hope this helps. =- 131.211.151.245 (talk) 07:53, 12 November 2008 (UTC)

Linking to complex URLs
I need to link (from a talk page) to Google search results in the form:


 * http://www.google.co.uk/search?&q="the first and only"&sitesearch=en.wikipedia.org

As you can see, this breaks at the first quote mark. How can I use such URLs? Andy Mabbett (User:Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 11:25, 12 November 2008 (UTC)


 * This came up yesterday – see above. The answer is to replace " with %22. BencherliteTalk 12:45, 12 November 2008 (UTC)


 * In this case you also have to replace space by %20: http://www.google.co.uk/search?&q=%22the%20first%20and%20only%22&sitesearch=en.wikipedia.org. See Help:URL. PrimeHunter (talk) 13:58, 12 November 2008 (UTC)


 * Doh! Of course. Thank you, both. Andy Mabbett (User:Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 14:10, 12 November 2008 (UTC)
 * If you don't feel like typing all those % characters yourself, you can use the  magic word. See: Help:Magic words. For example, this should fix up the original URL you typed above:
 * http://www.google.co.uk/search?&q=&sitesearch=en.wikipedia.org (click the edit link to see how I arranged the wikitext to make it work.)
 * However, since you want to link to a Google custom search on Wikipedia, a much cleaner method is to use the handy Google wikipedia template, like this:
 * Also see the documentation on the Google custom page for lots of cool searches you can do with Wikipedia templates. I wrote those templates specifically to do these kinds of searches from talk pages and user pages (not articles, as Google searches are not suitable for external links in articles). --Teratornis (talk) 09:05, 13 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Also see the documentation on the Google custom page for lots of cool searches you can do with Wikipedia templates. I wrote those templates specifically to do these kinds of searches from talk pages and user pages (not articles, as Google searches are not suitable for external links in articles). --Teratornis (talk) 09:05, 13 November 2008 (UTC)

How to get an unbroken static HTML dump file from Wikipedia
I downloaded the whole english wikipedia from this link []. When I tried to unzip the file using 7-zip, its giving a 'File is Broken' error. Any suggestion, or alternate method to get the english static html wikipedia dump? Raghu0891 (talk) 11:29, 12 November 2008 (UTC)


 * I tried downloading the dump a few weeks ago and it always aborted at 127M which of course is a broken archive. --—— Gadget850 (Ed)  talk  -  12:44, 12 November 2008 (UTC)

Finding a person's biography
I am not stupid, but I have been trying to figure this out for over an hour. Where can I run a search to find: 1) a bio of a fairly prominent person; 2) articles about that person? Many thanks. I'm a frustrated new user. I have read all the HELP desk FAQs and the Reference Desk answers. Nothing seems to help 14:57, 12 November 2008 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Westover2 (talk • contribs)
 * Have you tried the search bar on the left hand side of the page? If nothing comes up, it may be that the person does not have an article yet. If that's the case, you can create the article yourself! Make sure the person is notable, then jump in and create it. Cheers!  TN ‑  X   - Man  15:04, 12 November 2008 (UTC)
 * You can also use a search engine like [www.google.com google] to search within Wikipedia as well, by using the "site" parameter. I'm not sure if this is what you wanted to know, but this is what I understood from your question. Hope this helps. If you're thinking of creating the article, as Tnxman suggested, WP:YFA might help you. Make sure it is notable & well referenced. See WP:V & WP:REF. Cheers.  C h a m a l  talk 15:12, 12 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Who is it? Few people have other articles than a bio which are primarily about them, but many people are mentioned in multiple articles. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia which often updates bios with new information but rarely creates a second article about the same person. PrimeHunter (talk) 16:31, 12 November 2008 (UTC)

I guess it takes all sorts
I mean what saddo gives up their spare time to write articles about Pencil sharpeners ?? do they get paid to write articles or what?? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.75.203.112 (talk) 17:13, 12 November 2008 (UTC)
 * See the links under WP:EIW, for example Who writes Wikipedia. Also watch the video of Clay Shirky's talk,, where he describes his concept of the cognitive surplus. Quick summary: humans waste trillions of brain-hours watching mindless television shows. Commons-based peer production sites such as Wikipedia harvest a tiny fraction of the brainpower currently going to waste. Humans waste enough brainpower to support hundreds of projects on Wikipedia's scale which aren't being done yet. --Teratornis (talk) 17:38, 12 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Also note that humans have extremely diverse interests. I can't understand, for example, how anyone could want to sit in a chair and watch other people have fun in a spectator sport event when they could be actively enjoying themselves by riding a bicycle or editing on Wikipedia, but as we all know stadiums are full each week of thousands of people who feel that cheering for their local sports mercenaries is the high point of human existence, perhaps its very purpose. If you can present a logical argument showing that it makes more sense to spend money and time to watch other people play pointless games than to write articles about Pencil sharpeners, I'd like to read it. --Teratornis (talk) 18:45, 12 November 2008 (UTC)


 * What saddo (your phrase; please see WP:civil) gives up their spare time to write abut people writing articles about Pencil sharpeners ?? Andy Mabbett (User:Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 19:34, 13 November 2008 (UTC)

Camera location problem for an image
I've just uploaded an image to wikipedia, to possibly be used on an article. I wanted to include a 'Camera Location' box below the summary, as reference for others. But all it comes up with in the end is "Template:Location dec" in red writing, instead of the camera location box and coordinates I put in.

The image is here - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Horlock_and_Constantine_Courts.jpg#Summary

w33nie (talk) 17:20, 12 November 2008 (UTC)
 * If the Camera Location link is red in Image:Horlock and Constantine Courts.jpg, that means you referred to a template which does not exist. I'm looking to see what template you should be using. One way to find a suitable template is to look for another image page that shows the camera location in the way that you want to, and then copy and edit the wikitext that page uses. --Teratornis (talk) 17:47, 12 November 2008 (UTC)


 * That's exactly what I did though. The code matches that of this image - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Hulme_Arch_and_Beetham_Tower.jpg


 * w33nie (talk) 17:59, 12 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Not exactly. commons:Image:Hulme Arch and Beetham Tower.jpg uses the Location template. The wikitext code you wanted to copy, paste, and edit from that image page is: . --Teratornis (talk) 18:04, 12 November 2008 (UTC)


 * Tried that. Didn't work. :S


 * w33nie (talk) 18:19, 12 November 2008 (UTC)
 * commons:Image:Hulme Arch and Beetham Tower.jpg is on a different wiki called Commons, whereas you uploaded Image:Horlock and Constantine Courts.jpg to the English Wikipedia. The inconsistent behavior of the Location template suggests it is probably different on the two wikis. Let's check:
 * Template:Location on Wikipedia redirects to Template:Coord, primarily for use in articles rather than image pages.
 * commons:Template:Location on Commons is a completely different template. Wow, that is an annoying inconsistency.
 * The most straightforward solution is probably to move your image to Commons, so you can use the image-specific commons:Template:Location. --Teratornis (talk) 18:35, 12 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Unless someone knows where to find a version of commons:Template:Location on the English Wikipedia. I did a quick search of the Template: namespace and didn't come up with anything. It's better to put your freely-licensed images on Commons anyway, so all the other Wikimedia Foundation wikis can use them. --Teratornis (talk) 18:50, 12 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Okay I'll do that then.


 * Thanks for the help.


 * w33nie (talk) 20:31, 12 November 2008 (UTC)

I would like to delete my URL
Madam or Sir:

I would like to delete the URL that I have administrator rights to. Please let me know how to accomplish this task.

Thank you,

Bill Motsenbocker —Preceding unsigned comment added by 130.184.211.125 (talk) 17:47, 12 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Have you tried the Computing section of Wikipedia's Reference Desk? They specialize in answering knowledge questions there; this help desk is only for questions about using Wikipedia. For your convenience, here is the link to post a question there: click here. I hope this helps. Algebraist 17:49, 12 November 2008 (UTC)

ADMIN
Can I please get an admin to go look at my request for Rollback, please and thank you, Hairy  Perry  18:40, 12 November 2008 (UTC)


 * Please be patient; it will be seen to shortly. Best, Peter Symonds ( talk ) 18:47, 12 November 2008 (UTC)


 * With all due respect, asking 1 2 3 4 admins for rollback at one go and requesting it at WP:RFPERM seems, well, let's say a bit odd. —αἰτίας •'discussion'• 19:18, 12 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Indeed, see WP:FORUMSHOP. One request is enough, someone will get to it eventually.  The only thing to gain by spamming requests across multiple venues is to anger a whole bunch of people... --Jayron32. talk . contribs  20:52, 12 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Anger is what it's all about for most admins here. Don't give them an excuse. ♠ ♥ Trickrick1985  ♦ ♣+2¢ :: log 21:20, 12 November 2008 (UTC)

Links and photos
When I uploaded 3 photos and placed them in my article, they turned into links. When you press them, it goes to the picture in a new page, but on a wikipedia page. How do I minus the links? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Iliada (talk • contribs) 19:39, 12 November 2008 (UTC)
 * If you're referring to your user page, I can see the photos there. If you click on the photos, it takes you to the page where the image exists. Is that what you were referring to? Cheers!  TN ‑  X   - Man  19:51, 12 November 2008 (UTC)


 * BTW, you can get an image by doing the folling: [[Image: | | |thumb| ]] . That works for anything on the wiki. Cheers.  Im per a t § r (Talk) 20:14, 12 November 2008 (UTC)

Fair use
All right, the fair use policy for images boggles my mind a little bit. Could someone with a better understanding of it tell me if this image qualifies for fair use? And if so, what would the fair use rationale be for it? And lastly, would adding a rationale keep the image from being removed from articles by bots? --Fullobeans (talk) 21:34, 12 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Fair use is actually easy, its just that people want to find ways to get around it, and so make it more complex than it is. In order to qualify for fair use, the following 2 conditions must be met:
 * Creating your own free version would be impossible and
 * The image in question is vital to the article it is being added to
 * People are often stymied by #1; for example you can't make any claim of "fair use" for, say, a copyrighted image of a building that is still standing, or of a person who is still alive, since anyone could just take a new picture of those subjects and upload it under the proper "free use" liscence. If the boat in the picture still exists, then the picture shown cannot be claimed as being "fair use"... --Jayron32. talk . contribs  21:40, 12 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Actually the #1 criterion (replaceability) is a little more complicated than that: An image can’t be used under fair use if it could be replaced by any free image or by pure text with the same effect. In particular Image:Pilot.jpg can’t be used under fair usjust to show an example of a pilot boat because there 8 free images of pilot boats atPilot boat. —teb728 t c 22:09, 12 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Hmm. The image in question was being used in an article about the boat pictured (Roseway (schooner)). The boat does still exist, but it is no longer a pilot boat and it looks pretty drastically different from the way it did back then (the pilots shortened the masts, got rid of the bowsprit, and rigged up those little triangular sails; subsequent restorations returned the boat to its original rig, and also gutted and reconfigured the deck and interior). So, while there are photos of the boat from the present day, there are, to my knowledge, no other photographs which illustrate how it looked during its 30-odd years of pilot service (which is arguably the most important period in the boat's history, since it appears to have been the last pilot schooner active in the United States). One could even defend the picture's use in the pilot boat article, since none of the eight other images depict sail-powered pilot boats, which were in use well into the 20th century. And since working pilot schooners often seem to have employed the unusual rig shown in this photograph, one couldn't simply snap a picture of a schooner which used to be a pilot boat and call it historically accurate (I don't know of any schooners which currently use the rig pictured).


 * In short, I'm still confused. I can argue that the image is vital; someone else can argue that it's not. So what decides who's right? Consensus? Or would attaching a decent fair use rationale to the image placate the majority of editors, provided that the image is used judiciously? --Fullobeans (talk) 23:28, 12 November 2008 (UTC)
 * In either article it would have to be accompanied by substantial discussion of the special appearance that you mention—discussion that is not now present. For use on the pilot boat article you would have to demonstrate that no free or public domain image exists of a sail-powered pilot boat. —teb728 t c 23:50, 12 November 2008 (UTC) Perhaps I should mention that Wikipedia’s policy on non-free content is substantially more restrictive that US fair use law. —teb728 t c 00:30, 13 November 2008 (UTC)
 * And realize Wikipedia is not the bad guy here - the bad guy (from our point of view) is the copyrightholder who won't release an image under a free license. When you present arguments about the importance of a particular object, and thus the need for a photo, you people whose needs you implicitly invoke have no standing under copyright law. Copyright law does not exist to defend the general interest, it exists to defend the interests of intellectual property holders. Like you, I believe information wants to be free, but the powers that be do not. If Wikipedia breaches copyrights held by other people, the whole project could be endangered. I don't like fair use content on Wikipedia in general, because it gums up our ability to provide content that everyone can reuse freely. The idea on Wikipedia is to give the world content that anybody can use without restrictions. If there is some content which we would like to share with the world freely, but we can't because someone is sitting on its copyright, then don't yell at Wikipedia, go yell at the information hoarders. If it was up to me, I'd replace every fair-use image on Wikipedia with a notice clearly identifying the person(s) responsible for our inability to share a freely copyable image, along with instructions for registering complaints with the obstructionists. Rather than fret over particular images that we don't have, why not make the best use of images we do have? There are enormous numbers of free images at Commons which are not in any Wikipedia articles yet, or not in every related article that they could be. It's much less vexing to put the horse ahead of the cart - go browse around Commons looking at images, and then look up the Wikipedia articles they could be in. That way you find the articles lacking images for which free images are ready to insert. If you go at it the other way, starting with articles and trying to find images, often most of the applicable images are under copyright, and much vexation ensues. --Teratornis (talk) 00:41, 13 November 2008 (UTC)

(undent) I might add that another horse-before-cart strategy applies to finding sources for articles. It's often much easier to start by reading material that can constitute reliable sources for Wikipedia articles, and then look for the Wikipedia articles to add the sources to. It can be harder to start with an arbitrary article and then spend hours trying to Google up some sources for it. Perniciously, we know that someone out there is probably just now reading the reliable source we need for the arbitrary article we happen to be looking at. That other person didn't have to make any effort to find that source, he or she just ran across it in the normal course of whatever they were doing, but when we go at it the other way we often run into needle-in-the-haystack problems. Many problems on Wikipedia and in the real world are much harder than their inverse problems. I think the best way to enjoy editing on Wikipedia is to find the paths of least resistance. There are lots of worthwhile things to do on Wikipedia which hardly have any potential to create conflict or headaches. We might as well start by picking all the low-hanging fruit. Maybe by the time we get to the difficult stuff, it won't be as difficult. For example, maybe in ten years Wikipedia will be so overwhelmingly popular that it will create tremendous pressure to reform the image copyright laws. On Wikipedia, there is no deadline, so it doesn't matter which tasks we do first. We might as well knock off all the easiest tasks first. --Teratornis (talk) 00:54, 13 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Ok, I think I've got it. If an image meets the criteria discussed above, then it may qualify for fair use in certain, specific contexts. But the rationale for fair use must be clearly elaborated for each individual, particular context; just because an image is fair to use in a particular article doesn't mean it's fair to use all over Wikipedia. And, since the whole point of Wikipedia is to provide free content, fair use images are confusing (obviously) and can create problems and extra work for us editors (as seen here). Thus, their use is discouraged, though not forbidden, and is subject to review. Have I got it?


 * Tera, thanks for the horse-before-the-cart tip. Unfortunately I made the grave mistake, a while back, of writing a list of articles to create, so I suspect I'll be chasing my carts around for the foreseeable future. At any rate, thank you all for responding so promptly. --Fullobeans (talk) 02:57, 13 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Wow, that;s one of the most concise explanations I have seen of fair-use! That should seriously be the nutshell definition on the policy page! --Jayron32. talk . contribs  03:05, 13 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Ha, thanks! I don't dare edit the policy page for something I didn't understand twelve hours ago, but feel free to steal my phrasing in the interest of a less jargon-y lead and/or an illustrated Socratic dialogue exploring content guidelines. --Fullobeans (talk) 05:49, 13 November 2008 (UTC)

Correcting entry
The entry on Barack Obama appears to have an incorrect number of years listed between his graduation from Columbia University and the beginning of his studies at Harvard Law School. The number of years he is said to have spent in New York and then Chicago in this period exceeds the time between those two educational milestones. I was unable to find out how to bring this to Wikipedia's attention. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.112.70.12 (talk) 22:05, 12 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Columbia University is in New York. As I read the article, he was in New York for 4 years from 1981 to 1985, the first two of those years at Columbia. He was in Chicago for 3 years from 1985 until going to Harvard in 1988. If you still think there is a problem then you can post to Talk:Barack Obama. PrimeHunter (talk) 22:20, 12 November 2008 (UTC)