Wikipedia:Help desk/Archives/2009 August 9

= August 9 =

Checkusers
I have just been reading about checkusers, Seems quite scary to me. Do these checkusers need to sign a contract or are they allowed or can they ramdomly check peoples IP adress's at their discression, and how long do they keep the IPs before they are deleted from their records. How can the Wikipedia community be sure that these people are going to use the checkuser tool responsively.--Zthatin (talk) 03:15, 9 August 2009 (UTC)
 * The answers to all your questions can be found here. Access to checkuser is only granted rarely and the user must identify themselves to the Wikimedia Foundation. TN X Man  03:18, 9 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Great question, as you can find on the policy page, this may interest you: "On any wiki, there must be at least two users with CheckUser status, or none at all. This is so that they can mutually control and confirm their actions. In the case where only one CheckUser is left on a wiki (when the only other one retires, or is removed), the community must appoint a new CheckUser immediately (so that the number of CheckUsers is at least two)." Tiggerjay (talk) 03:23, 9 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Does that mean that no single checkuser can reveal somebodys IP.--Zthatin (talk) 03:26, 9 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Technically, yes, any particular checkuser could reveal somebody's IP. However, as the checkuser page (Checkusers) explains, we trust them not to, and they don't. Calvin 1998 (t·c) 03:33, 9 August 2009 (UTC)
 * If you're that scared of anyone finding out your IP address, you really shouldn't be on the internet. Whenever you access a website the people running the website get your IP. Algebraist 03:41, 9 August 2009 (UTC)
 * @Algebraist, That is not technically true. It depend if they host their own servers or not.--Zthatin (talk) 03:46, 9 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Actually technically yes, that information is available, it just depends on if the person/webmaster knows how to access that information. Also just as a reminder, it is disclosed to you when you created your account on wikipedia that your IP information is recorder and is available to a restricted number of people.
 * Yeah well I just can't trust anyone that sits on Wikipedia all day. I mean what would a persons personallity have to be to sit on a website all day everyday without even getting paid for it.--Zthatin (talk) 04:05, 9 August 2009 (UTC)
 * In that case, you're free to leave at any time. -- Jayron  32  18:47, 9 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Helpful? PrimeHunter (talk) 22:47, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

How come users delete pages I edit?
My page was deleted because of code. How come?! If this keeps on happening I will delete my user! No offence to be rude. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Cam486 (talk • contribs)
 * Blanking a page that you created yourself is seen as a request for deletion. Don't blank pages, and they will not be tagged with .—SpaceFlight89 03:45, 9 August 2009 (UTC)
 * As SpaceFlight89 says, blanking a page is seen as an invitation to delete it. I tagged TV3 plus 1 (New Zealand) with hold on, but that won't save the page for long: An article with little or no content is eligible for speedy deletion. If you you want time to work on a page, you should develop it in a personal sandbox, like User:Cam486/TV3 plus 1. —teb728 t c 05:07, 9 August 2009 (UTC) I changed it to a redirect to TV3 (New Zealand), which discusses "plus 1". That way it won't get deleted, and if sometime you want to expand the plus 1 article, you can re-convert the redirect to an article. —teb728 t c 06:46, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

Having problem creating an unified login
I have an account (zh:User:Patricka) at zh.wikipedia.org, and when I'm trying to create a global account I found that somebody has been using the same username here. He has no contributions. What should I do then? I have read Unified login and Help:Logging in but still don't know what to do exactly.--222.216.68.125 (talk) 06:30, 9 August 2009 (UTC)
 * See WP:USURP. --59.95.100.211 (talk) 06:36, 9 August 2009 (UTC)
 * More specifically, for your problem see Changing username/SUL. Deor (talk) 12:11, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

It has been solved. Thank you! --222.216.66.143 (talk) 11:33, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

Calulation of Wikipedia Depth
Hi All, I want to say that don't you people (wiki management team and members too) think that there is some fundamental flaw in calculation of "Depth" because Depth according to wiki standards is wikipedia quality means it doesn't refer to academic quality but wiki quality. And higher the Depth, better is wiki standard. But then there are many small and mid-sized wikis (1000-100,000 articles) whose Depths is way ahead of German, French, Russian, Japanese etc. wikipedias. It means that their wiki standard is better than that of these major wikis. It means these wikis provide more information then the aforementioned large wikis which is obviously not true. (They don't even provide more information on topics on which articles are available on them) And not only this there is restriction on smaller wikis (<100,000 articles) to have their Depths below 300. Then why this restriction? So don't you see any basic flaw in calculating Depth? May be the formula should be different so that automatically when you calculate Depth it should come out to be below 300 for smaller wikis and obviously how can a wiki with 100+ or 1,000+ articles be more informative than a wiki with fewer than a million articles. Thanks 59.177.72.238 (talk) 12:05, 9 August 2009 (UTC)


 * Academic quality of Wikipedia languages cannot be measured by computer generated statistics. I don't know any method which could give a reasonable quality rating without a large number of qualified multilingual people comparing a lot of articles. I'm guessing most people don't care about the depth listed at List of Wikipedias. It's also to the far right and would require scrolling for many readers. There are some old discussions about depth at meta:Talk:List of Wikipedias/Archive 4. PrimeHunter (talk) 21:19, 9 August 2009 (UTC)


 * I think you've misunderstood the sense in which depth is used here. As it says at the top of the page PrimeHunter cited

"The 'Depth' column ((Edits/Articles) × (Non-Articles/Articles) × (Stub-ratio)) is a rough indicator of a Wikipedia’s quality, showing how frequently its articles are updated. It does not refer to academic quality, which cannot be computed, but to Wikipedian quality, i.e. the depth of collaborativeness—a descriptor that is highly relevant for a Wikipedia. Depths above 300 for Wikipedias below 100 000 articles have been automatically dismissed as irrelevant. (Emphasis added)"
 * You might find Wikipedia good articles more to your taste. --AndrewHowse (talk) 02:22, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

Ok, thanks a lot to all. 59.177.74.189 (talk) 09:26, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

flipflop article with redirect?
The article name Phillipine Porcupine is mispelled, however the correct spelling Philippine Porcupine is a redirect to it. It is spelled correctly in the first line of the article. While I can do a move for Phillipine Porcupine, the fact that the redirect is there prevents the move. Is there any way that I as a non-administrator (but experienced user) can do the flip flop between the article and its redirect and if not, could an administrator do the flip-flop?Naraht (talk) 12:58, 9 August 2009 (UTC)
 * You need administrator help because the redirect has to be deleted before the page can be moved there. Go to Requested moves and follow the directions in the "Uncontroversial requests" section. Xenon54 (talk) 13:08, 9 August 2009 (UTC)


 * Done. Cheers.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 13:19, 9 August 2009 (UTC)


 * Thanx.Naraht (talk) 00:24, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

Black Country
hi all not finding it easy to find the answer to my querry so best i ask

in the reference section of the black county i place a link to a no profit or no advertising page this is called black country connection. it consists of a project to link all the common name of the black country together but for some reason this link keeps getting deleted there are a few links similar to language and general forum but they remain un touch so i was wondering what is the problem cheers peterjd —Preceding unsigned comment added by Peterjd (talk • contribs) 18:50, 9 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Ask the people who are deleting the link. They should be able to explain why they are doing so.  -- Jayron  32  19:09, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

thankyou —Preceding unsigned comment added by Peterjd (talk • contribs) 20:03, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

ive had a look and unable to work out who deleting it is there anyway i can stop this from happening as if it the same person who has done it in the past then i can only think its out of mallice —Preceding unsigned comment added by Peterjd (talk • contribs) 20:30, 9 August 2009 (UTC)


 * Looks like it happened here. Let's assume good faith until we know otherwise. Looks to me like someone trying to add a link, not doing a very good job, and maybe accidentally overwriting your link. Try adding it back again. It is gets removed again, we can probably assume it isn't an accident. -- SPhilbrick  T  20:47, 9 August 2009 (UTC)
 * (fixed link)-- SPhilbrick  T  12:06, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

ok thank you for you help —Preceding unsigned comment added by Peterjd (talk • contribs) 21:44, 9 August 2009 (UTC)
 * I see that it was removed again, but this time by an established editor with a reason. I suggest you contact the editor at McGeddon, where you can discuss why you feel the link is appropriate. -- SPhilbrick  T  11:10, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

Dec. 19, 2006 Help Desk archive
I continue to read the archives because some of the questions and answers are fascinating and I wouldn't encounter them anywhere else.

I have found missing archives before when there was more than one day under a particular day's heading.

I have fixed red links from when a new bot procedure didn't work right. But I think this one may be beyond my capability. Vchimpanzee ·  talk  ·  contributions  · 21:39, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

I think I did it.

I went back in the history (I sure am glad I noticed you could narrow by date) and then it didn't turn out to be as hard as I thought. I couldn't find the actual questions for a while, and I didn't know how to tell when the Help Desk got archived. I kept looking for a Bot in the history but I guess I just didn't look closely enough.

Assuming no one answered a question posted on Dec. 19 at a time after 06:59 on Dec. 21, we're in good shape.

I'd still appreciate someone checking this. Vchimpanzee ·  talk  ·  contributions  · 21:58, 9 August 2009 (UTC)


 * Checked with small fixes. RefDeskBot missed archiving here. PrimeHunter (talk) 22:20, 9 August 2009 (UTC)


 * Thanks. I'm not sure just how you knew what to do, but I'm relieved. Vchimpanzee ·  talk  ·  contributions  · 22:29, 9 August 2009 (UTC)


 * I looked at the history of surrounding archives to see who created them and when. It was RefDeskBot so I looked at contributions by that bot around that time: . It didn't edit between December 21 and December 28. I have also archived the help desk manually several times before. PrimeHunter (talk) 22:40, 9 August 2009 (UTC)
 * I checked that too. I'd better delete or edit what I said on the appropriate talk page now that it's fixed. Thanks again. Vchimpanzee ·  talk  ·  contributions  · 22:46, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

Moving article from user space to new article space
I have completed a new article in my user space but cannot figure out how to move this to the new article space. Can you help me do this?

--Bismarckboy 22:26, 9 August 2009 (UTC)Bismarkboy August 9, 2009  —Preceding unsigned comment added by Bismarckboy (talk • contribs)
 * You can simply move it to the main space, when prompted for the new name, remove your username, so it simply reads the article name. Tiggerjay (talk) 23:45, 9 August 2009 (UTC)


 * Your account is not autoconfirmed yet so you cannot move pages. Because you are the only contributor, you can copy-paste it to a new article without violating the license requirements for other contributors. See Your first article. You can also make 3 more edits at which point you will be autoconfirmed and get a move tab at the top of pages. Don't use all caps in section headings. PrimeHunter (talk) 23:57, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

Accidental redirect
I created another redirect that I didn't mean to create: Ryuji Sakachi. Can anyone please delete it? Please let me know when that has been taken care of. Thank you.Kitty53 (talk) 22:32, 9 August 2009 (UTC)


 * Deleted. You could have tagged it with Db-author. PrimeHunter (talk) 22:44, 9 August 2009 (UTC)


 * Thank you. I had forgotten what to do to tag an accidental article for deletion, that's why. Thank you, PrimeHunter!Kitty53 (talk) 00:27, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

How do I verify information about myself that is on my wikipedia page?
Hello Wikipedia. Please forgive me if this question is somewhere on your site as a FAQ-I couldn't find it.

This question is about the Wikipedia page on Paul Hanson. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Hanson

I didn't start a Wikipedia page about myself but I'm flattered by the attention. In recent months I have seen incorrect information-deleted it, and also I've added some biographical information to it. I realize now that it is not a good idea to do this yourself for your own page, as Wikipedia states it is not a good idea. However-I do know this information is true about myself. For example: I performed with Billy Higgins and Billy Childs in 1995 at Mad Hatter Recording studio in Los Angeles. The main artist was bassist Pat Senatore, the album was PASQUALE and it was released on Moo Records. I did perform with Wayne Shorter at the 2000 Monterey Jazz Festival-I was in the chamber orchestra alongside Wayne and his band John Pattituci, Brian Blade and Danilo Perez. I did perform with Dewey Redman and Bob Moses at Yoshi's in Oakland California in 1999 with guitarist Joel Harrison. I don't understand how I can verify this information for the Wikipedia page. Do I need for someone else to verify this information for me?

Thank you very much for your time-sincerely,

Paul Hanson Tokyo, JapanPaulbassoon (talk) 23:38, 9 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Thank you for posting! You can find the information you are looking for at: Verifiability Tiggerjay (talk) 23:44, 9 August 2009 (UTC)


 * You may also want to read BLP, in particular the section about "Using the subject as a self-published source". If you operate a personal website, blog or similar, those can be used as a source to verify basic factual information about yourself, as long as the information meets WP:SELFPUB. There is also a lot of helpful information at Biographies_of_living_persons/Help. Regards, decltype (talk) 23:57, 9 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Also, Do not let WP:COI frighten you. Yes, we strongly reccommend against writhing about yourself, but you are certainly free to correct errors and add facts and references. Just stay away from adjectives and opinions, and you'll be OK. -96.255.161.148 (talk) 02:04, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

1000 year old equadorian artifact
My family has had these artifacts for many many years now im interested in knowing more about them, i heard they come from a tribe that lived in equador more then 1000 years ago. Can someone please point me in the direction of were can i learn more or possibly sell them in the future. thank you lydia —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.187.47.23 (talk) 23:58, 9 August 2009 (UTC)


 * Maybe History of Ecuador has information about the tribe. Have you tried Wikipedia's Reference Desk? They specialize in knowledge questions and will try to answer just about 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. PrimeHunter (talk) 00:03, 10 August 2009 (UTC)