Wikipedia:Help desk/Archives/2009 September 15

= September 15 =

How to remove a user page from a category
This user page contains a vanity article about a minor company and is linked into various categories (where it shows up under its "User:..." name - also looks very out of place). How would I go about removing it from the categories? The obvious way would be to delete the category links from the user page, but I suppose I can't just do that to another person's user page. It can't be removed category page-side, can it? Nectocaris (talk) 02:48, 15 September 2009 (UTC)
 * I have commented out the categories and left a note on the user's talk page - with a pointer to Categories. Although it is a user page, the editor does not own the pages there - it is generally reckoned polite to leave a message on the talk page and leave it to the user to sort it out, but as this user hasn't done anything since 11th March, they might not see the message for a long time! --  Phantom Steve  ( Contact Me, My Contribs ) 03:00, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

Disambiguation question
Hi, I am a newbie here and have a problem: If you search "Wesley Dennis", an article will come up about the singer. However, there was another Wesley Dennis who was an illustrator. So I wrote a stub called Wesley Dennis (illustrator). But my problem is, I want it so that when you search "Wesley Dennis", a disambiguation page will come up for Wesley Dennis, and you can choose between Wesley Dennis the singer and Wesley Dennis the illustrator. (See the draft for the disambiguation page here.) How can I do this? ESFJ Girl (talk) 04:45, 15 September 2009 (UTC)


 * Hiya, ESFJ Girl! Notability counts in the decision to make a Dab page or just hatnotes.  If both people are considered equally notable, then a Dab page is used.  If, say, the singer is more notable than the illustrator, then hatnote placed at the TOP of the article pages are all that's needed.  The hatnotes would look like this:


 * and a similar hatnote can be placed at the TOP of the illustrator's page:


 * If you decide that both artists are of about the same notability, then go ahead with your Dab page. There should be no pipes, so the entries might look like:


 * Wesley Dennis, an American country singer
 * Wesley Dennis (illustrator), an American author and book illustrator
 * Then place templates at the top of the artist pages. They'll look like:


 * (but the dab link will be to your new page.) Once all this is in place, it won't matter what a search for "Wesley Dennis" turns up, because all bases will be covered.
 * Hope this helps! &mdash;   .`^) Paine Ellsworthdiss`cuss (^`.   07:16, 15 September 2009 (UTC)
 * WP:DAB explains both the principles and the practice. --ColinFine (talk) 07:19, 15 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the help, Paine Ellsworth--now I have one more little problem. Your answer worked great on the Wesley Dennis singer page; but on the illustrator page, when I put in the "other uses" template, it says, For other uses, see Wesley Dennis (illustrator) (disambiguation).  How can I make the link be simply to "Wesley Dennis (disambiguation)"?  Thank you for your patience :)  ESFJ Girl (talk) 17:30, 15 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Try --AndrewHowse (talk) 21:03, 15 September 2009 (UTC)
 * You're very welcome, ESFJ Girl! and AndrewHowse is right – The "otherpeople" templates are much better than the "otheruses" in this case.
 * &mdash;  .`^) Paine Ellsworthdiss`cuss (^`.   22:12, 15 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Thanks, everyone! Now everything is working right.  ESFJ Girl (talk) 22:40, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

Spammy user page
I'd like to know if user pages like User:Ronewirl's are ok. It's full of religious quotes and has a link to a personal blog. -- Marawe (talk) 06:43, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

WP:CITE


 * I would say no, not because of links, but because of content. The entire content of the page is neither connected with Wikipedia nor about the user personally, but is in my view "Advertising or promotion of a business, organization, or group unrelated to Wikipedia". --ColinFine (talk) 07:31, 15 September 2009 (UTC)


 * Bear in mind though, that if a user creates a page in the main name space but it is deleted (for say spam), they may then recreate it in their user space, it seems fair to then give them some time to work on the page in their user space. All the best SpitfireTally-ho! 07:55, 15 September 2009 (UTC)


 * ColinFine, I don't think this is advertising - merely trying to spread the word about Jesus - although I suppose that could be counted as advertising in one way! A look at the user's contributions shows that since July this year, they have been working on Jesus-related stuff. My guess is that they "found" Jesus in July, and want to go out and "make disciples of all men"!
 * Marawe, if you think that the user is wrong to have the content on the page, then the first step would be to leave a polite message on the editor's User_talk:Ronewirl user page. They are a user who has been around for a year, so not a newbie. Read through What may I not have on my user page? (and also What may I have on my user page). Let them know your concerns and give them a reasonable amount of time to respond. If you still think it is a concern, then you can put them up for discussion for deletion (it wouldn't meet any of the criteria for Speedy Deletion, and a Proposal for Deletion would probably be contested) - see Miscellany for deletion (MfD) for details of the process. If you do go to MfD, make sure you have relevant policies/guidelines to quote showing the reason why this page should be deleted - just saying "it doesn't look right" or "there shouldn't be religious quotes" or "there shouldn't be a link to a personal blog" wouldn't be enough - although the latter could be used as part of the argument - but bear in mind that that particular blog is an evangelising blog, rather than advertising a company per se - it not trying to sell anything apart from the message about Jesus. --  Phantom Steve  ( Contact Me, My Contribs ) 09:07, 15 September 2009 (UTC)


 * Steve: the third word in the sentence I quoted from WP:USER was 'promotion'. If that page is not promotional, I do not know what is.
 * Spitfire: creating a page in one's user space which one is working into an article is fine. But almost nothing in the current content of Ronewirl's user page is appropriate for a WP article, as it is determinedly promotional, and utterly POV.
 * I have done as Steve suggested to Marawe, and put a note on Ronweirl's talk page. --ColinFine (talk) 21:04, 15 September 2009 (UTC)
 * The message at the user's talk page was a good call and tactful. My thoughts are that "Extensive personal opinions on matters unrelated to Wikipedia" from the What not to have list sums it up perfectly. (no offense meant by referring to faith as opinion in this circumstance)Cptnono (talk) 23:21, 15 September 2009 (UTC)
 * ColinFine, thank you. -- Marawe (talk) 06:53, 16 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Colin: I knew/know that, but the question was are pages like that okay generally, so I was just answering that question SpitfireTally-ho! 07:34, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

auto tabulation of en wiki page text ?

 * More often I do translations at Marathi Language wikipedia. I am looking for some facility that will give me any all sentenses (or with comas to fullstop clauses) from selected english wikipedia page/s  in table format one after another with second blank column which we can use for translated sentense.

I want to do this for selected number of representative pages from each category. So we can build a frequently required translation corpus at our local wikipedia that will save our time to some extent.

Thanks and Regards Mahitgar (talk) 08:58, 15 September 2009 (UTC)


 * To my knowledge, this doesn't exist, but you can use a table to make one yourself.  hmwith  ☮  10:16, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

English Static Wikipedia download
I have twice downloaded wikipedia-en-html.tar.7z, but both 7Zip and WinRAR tell me it's broken and cannot complete the operation. Any help to get this working would be much appreciated. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 91.194.221.231 (talk) 09:04, 15 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Courtesy link: http://static.wikipedia.org/downloads/2008-03/en/wikipedia-en-html.tar.7z.  hmwith  ☮  10:14, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the reply. I assume this is an earlier and functional version. However, when I click on it, save target as, or copy shortcut, all it tells me is that it is 98 bytes and doesn't take me to the archive. Am I missing something? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 91.194.221.231 (talk) 08:49, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

engineering
can i please know how civil has applied in agricultural eangineering —Preceding unsigned comment added by Herbert kipruto 09 (talk • contribs) 09:19, 15 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Have you tried the Science 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. Zain Ebrahim (talk) 09:31, 15 September 2009 (UTC)


 * Pictogram voting delete.svg Please do your own homework.

Welcome to the Wikipedia Help desk. Your question appears to be a homework question. I apologize if this is a misevaluation, but it is our policy here to not do people's homework for them, but to merely aid them in doing it themselves. Letting someone else do your homework does not help you learn how to solve such problems. Please attempt to solve the problem yourself first. You can or. If you need help with a specific part of your homework, the Reference desk can help you grasp the concept. Do not ask knowledge questions here, just those about using Wikipedia. Ojay123 (Talk•E-Mail•Contribs•Sandbox) 01:21, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

Class wiki
My college EN102 class has a class wiki page where the professor posts articles. Is there any specific way to search for such a page? Thanks MRamos45 (talk) 09:54, 15 September 2009 (UTC)
 * This is Wikipedia - the encyclopedia. You'll need to check with your professor to find out how to access your class wiki. Zain Ebrahim (talk) 10:04, 15 September 2009 (UTC)


 * Understand that Wikipedia is not the only wiki. "Wiki" is a generic, non-specific word that describes a concept, a class of Internet software, and a type of website. There are thousands of them. Try searching for it through a school website or Google until you can ask your professor for the URL.  hmwith  ☮  10:11, 15 September 2009 (UTC)


 * Is your professor Victoria Kingsley? If so, you probably want this - there's a help section in that page where you might find tips on searching. Zain Ebrahim (talk) 10:09, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

Possessive and italics = bold?
How do you avoid the problem of an italicised word that needs an apostrophe and an "s" turning everything into bold as in this example ? I changed it but the possessive of Leyden (it should be Leyden's not Leydens, but put the apostr. in and it is all emboldened) is now wrong. Thanks, Ericoides (talk) 10:39, 15 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Options: (1) reword it, as I have done. (2) USS Leydens doh! (3) USS Leyden ' s (click edit to see how option (3) is generated using "nowiki tags". BencherliteTalk 10:46, 15 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Great, option 3 was what I was looking for. Many thanks, Ericoides (talk) 10:49, 15 September 2009 (UTC)
 * (multiple) You can use something like nothing.  hmwith  ☮  10:52, 15 September 2009 (UTC)
 * There are more similar templates at Template:Void.  hmwith  ☮  10:53, 15 September 2009 (UTC)
 * See also Template:' PrimeHunter (talk) 10:56, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia server time
What timezone is it?Accdude92 (talk) (sign) 13:22, 15 September 2009 (UTC)
 * UTC.--Unionhawk Talk E-mail Review 13:59, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

So at what time in Central time does wikipedia's time reach midnight?Accdude92 (talk) (sign) 14:07, 15 September 2009 (UTC)


 * Details on all time zones can be found at Time zone. Details of central time zone at Central Time Zone (Americas) (which I think is the one you want). This is an online encyclopedia; type it in and search :) ≈ Chamal talk ¤ 14:13, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

But from UTC (GMT) to EST would mean that Wikipedia reaches midnight at 8:00 PM EST.

Ojay123 (Talk•E-Mail•Contribs•Sandbox) 00:52, 16 September 2009 (UTC)


 * I think that might be 8pm EDT, or 7pm EST. The answer to the original question would then be 6pm CST or 7pm CDT. --AndrewHowse (talk) 01:00, 16 September 2009 (UTC)
 * You're right - 0:00 UTC is 20:00 EDT (UTC-4), 19:00 CDT (UTC-5), 18:00 MDT (UTC-6) and 17:00 PDT (UTC-7). (Accdude, in your preferences there's an option to enable a UTC clock gadget at the top of the page. Personally, I prefer an old alarm clock on my desk because it's always in view.) Xenon54 / talk / 01:06, 16 September 2009 (UTC)


 * Excuse me, I guess I misread the question/forgot it was daylight savings time! Ojay123  (Talk&bull;E-Mail&bull;Contribs&bull;Sandbox) 01:05, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

Block
Please block 198.211.221.26 for vandilism.Accdude92 (talk) (sign) 14:14, 15 September 2009 (UTC)
 * . Thanks for your concern, but there is unsufficient recent activity to warrant a block at this time. In the future, please use WP:AIV to report vandalism. Regards, decltype (talk) 14:17, 15 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Reports on vandalism should be made to WP:AIV. And you have to warn them as appropriate before warning so that they have a chance to stop before being blocked. There is no need to block at this time, but I will kep an eye on it. ≈ Chamal talk ¤ 14:20, 15 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Redacted comment, and blocked the user. decltype (talk) 14:25, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

(edit conflict) STOP HIM! He is continuing to vandilise skype!Accdude92 (talk) (sign) 14:26, 15 September 2009 (UTC) Please stop him!Accdude92 (talk) (sign) 14:31, 15 September 2009 (UTC)
 * He is blocked. It's not a good idea to publish your personal info here, and it's also not wise to reveal your wiki identity in your real life, particularly to people you can't trust (like the one sitting next to you). ≈ Chamal talk ¤ 14:37, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

It wasnt me who was!Accdude92 (talk) (sign) 16:48, 15 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Also, he can see my computer which shows my wiki details.Accdude92 (talk) (sign) 16:53, 15 September 2009 (UTC)
 * I forgot; if you want that information permanently removed, you can request it to be oversighted. ≈ Chamal talk ¤ 16:55, 15 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Ok can you do that for me please?Accdude92 (talk) (sign) 16:59, 15 September 2009 (UTC)
 * You have to send an e-mail with complete details to the address listed at WP:OVERSIGHT.--Unionhawk Talk E-mail Review 17:14, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

Guidelines
I see to remember it says somewhere that guidelines are not binding in the sense that users of specific projects/templates/etc. may choose collectively to deviate from guidelines. Where does it say so? Debresser (talk) 14:21, 15 September 2009 (UTC)
 * WP:IAR is what you are looking for, but make sure that it is for a good reason. ≈ Chamal talk ¤ 14:38, 15 September 2009 (UTC)
 * No, no. I am not talking about any personal initiative. I mean e.g. when a certain WikiProject would like to deviate from a global Wikipedia naming convention in articles that fall within the scope of their WikiProject. Debresser (talk) 20:36, 15 September 2009 (UTC)


 * WP:Naming conventions is policy, not guideline, though there are many sub-pages to it that are guidelines. The general disclaimer for policy matters is:


 * The problem may be that in changing the naming rules for a project, you risk that every random editor who looks at one of the pages makes changes to reflect the policy, not the project's consensus. // BL \\ (talk) 23:12, 15 September 2009 (UTC)


 * Guidelines are not "things you can safely ignore for any reason" or "stuff that is less stringent than policies" Guideline should be followed to the letter, exactly as policies should, except that for both guidelines and policies, in equal measure, WP:IAR can be applied if it can be shown that breaking with the guideline is required to improve the encyclopedia.  The terminology is more about how policies and guidelines are used around Wikipedia, not in whether or not they can be safely ignored... -- Jayron  32  03:28, 16 September 2009 (UTC)


 * WP:Naming conventions was just an example. I thought it was an example of a guideline. Guidelines have a different status than policies, as mentioned in many places. So nobody remembers something along the lines of what I am looking for? Debresser (talk) 06:55, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

the old "I accidentally showed my IP address" question
True or false: If your session logged out, and you accidentally saved an edit, thereby revealing your IP address, there's absolutely no way for an administrator to remove it from the edit history of that page. Cynwolfe (talk) 17:19, 15 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Admins can't link the IP address to the account, only a CheckUser can do that. The IP address will always show on the history of that page, but unless you make it obvious, no one will link your account to an IP address. The exception, of course, is if there are accusations of sockpuppetry against you. --  Phantom Steve  ( Contact Me, My Contribs ) 17:26, 15 September 2009 (UTC)


 * An administrator can delete the whole page and afterwards restore selected versions without restoring the IP version. The IP will still be visible to other administrators and the IP version may accidentally be restored later. However, Oversight says: "This includes hiding revisions made by editors who were accidentally logged out and thus inadvertently revealed their own IP addresses." The proper procedure is to go to Requests for oversight. There the edit can be deleted by an oversighter so administrators cannot see or restore it (oversighters can still do it but there are few of those). PrimeHunter (talk) 17:36, 15 September 2009 (UTC)


 * All this and more at WP:LOGGEDOUT. ---— Gadget850 (Ed)  talk 15:18, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

Question about code for ~ and inclusion via Signature template
Hi. I am trying to add the timestamp to my signature so that it would only activate it on use of the signature. I tried this code:  , but it turns out like this:    ... Any body have any ideas how else to do this? (Sorry if its in the wrong place) Lcawte (Message me). 18:45, 15 September 2009 (UTC)


 * I'm unclear on your request - could you be a bit more specific? Five tildes automatically substitutes to a timestamp, whether it is in a signature or not, just as 4 tildes translates to the username and timestamp (or to whatever the user specifies under preferences), and just as 3 tildes translates to the signature without a timestamp. By "Activate", do you mean that you want a link in the timestamp? Please explain, thanks. UltraExactZZ Claims~ Evidence 19:28, 15 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Ah, never mind... Comment below sort of kills the need for an awnser for this..
 * I see you signed your post by transcluding User:Lcawte/Sig. That is against Signatures. I'm not sure what your question is about but I suspect it is also something which would be against signature rules. PrimeHunter (talk) 20:17, 15 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Ok, so does that mean I have to do ? -- Lcawte (Message me).


 * Yes, but it is unneeded when you can just make it the raw signature instead. Signatures says: Substitution of templates in signatures is discouraged, as any such template will typically either violate the reasonable length restriction of 255 characters or will be redundant to using the same content as a raw signature. PrimeHunter (talk) 15:17, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

How best to handle an article that is a duplicate?
If you find an article that is a duplicate of another article such as these: María_Del_Rosario_Espinoza and Maria_Del_Rosario_Espinoza

what is the best way to handle it? Do you redirect one to the other and blank it?

What if it is a case where it isn't just an accented spelling, but actually a typo that the editor had then fixed such as these: Shinto religious symbol\ and Shinto religious symbol

Thank you! ConcernedVancouverite (talk) 18:53, 15 September 2009 (UTC)


 * I redirected both to María del Rosario Espinoza, an older and better article. – ukexpat (talk) 19:20, 15 September 2009 (UTC)


 * And I left a terse note for the user who had tagged an Olympic gold medal winner for speedy deletion on the grounds of "no assertion of notability"... (Well-spotted, both of you!) BencherliteTalk 19:23, 15 September 2009 (UTC)


 * Thank you both! ConcernedVancouverite (talk) 19:42, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

Requests for adminship/Dwayneflanders
Could one of the admins that hang around here delete this? It was one of those new-users-who-don't-know-what-adminship-is-RfA's and the user who created is blocked now (I think) for socking. As far as I can tell, it was never transcluded, doesn't seem to fit under any CSD, and doesn't really deserve an MfD. (Or do old RfAs never get deleted, no matter how ridiculous?) Thanks. Xenon54 / talk / 19:28, 15 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Dwayneflanders doesn't appear to be blocked, and was making edits less than an hour ago. Ioeth (talk contribs twinkle friendly) 19:43, 15 September 2009 (UTC)
 * My fault - I misread the result of the sock investigation. It appears only the sock was blocked. Xenon54 / talk / 20:01, 15 September 2009 (UTC)


 * Bspurrell, a suspected sock of Dwayneflanders, was blocked by MuZemike at Sockpuppet investigations/Dwayneflanders/Archive. Dwayneflanders has not been blocked. Old RfA pages usually don't get deleted unless the RfA was never officially opened by being transcluded to Requests for adminship and the creator requests deletion. PrimeHunter (talk) 20:01, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

Major lag and javascript problems
I was new page patrolling with twinkle, all going just fine, until suddenly when I would refresh the page it would sometimes show new pages from several hours (or days?) ago, pages that I knew existed it would say didn't exist, and my watchlist said there was a server lag of 9835 some seconds. I restarted Firefox, which got rid of the lag, but the little tabs of twinkle and friendly will not work. It may just be the school computer I'm on, but does anyone have any suggestions as to what may have happened and how to prevent it happening in the future? Ks0stm (T•C•G) 19:29, 15 September 2009 (UTC)


 * Ok, so do I take it from the lack of response that no one has anything to say on this matter??? Ks0stm (T•C•G) 02:15, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

Can you use an personal image as a signature, and if so how can it be done? (claification of question asked a few days ago)
Help_desk/Archives/2009_September_11

The reasons sound fair enough, but how about a teeny-tiny image one that's less than 20 lines by 20 lines. I'm thinking about creating a few of my own characters (e.g. alternatives to Latin, Cyrillic, Arabic, Chinese, etc.)

Thanks people.192.30.202.21 (talk) 19:35, 15 September 2009 (UTC)
 * No. The signature policy is clear on this. Images are a vandalism target and cause unnecessary server load, and I can tell you from firsthand experience that they're incredibly distracting, no matter what the size. Xenon54 / talk / 19:41, 15 September 2009 (UTC)
 * So is there an alternative? a list of exotic characters?192.30.202.21 (talk) 19:53, 15 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Well, most symbols that already exist can be found below the "Save page" button. There's a dropdown with a generic "Symbols" option, then Latin, Greek, Cyrillic, Hebrew, Arabic, and the IPA. Additionally, pretty much any character in the known universe can be found in your OS's character map (Start->Run-> for Windows, not sure for Mac OS, varies in Linux). As these are no different than a Latin letter, they would be fine to use for your signature. (All this is assuming you get an account and then gain the ability to change your signature.) Xenon54 / talk / 22:29, 15 September 2009 (UTC)


 * That drop down is called Edittools, the non-Javascript version is at MediaWiki:Edittools. You can use pretty much any Unicode character, but some readers may not see the intended glyph. ---— Gadget850 (Ed)  talk 22:47, 15 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Do I understand correctly that you want to create your own font? If so, you need to know that the glyph in in the font could be displayed only on computers where the font is installed--in other words only on your own computer. —teb728 t c 01:09, 16 September 2009 (UTC)
 * If you add any type of image, somebody can just switch out the image to something obnoxious, sort of like when people use templates for signatures. If you write everything out for the signature, you're guaranteed to be the only one able to access it unless the apocalypse comes and someone figures out how to hack an actual WikiMedia server!   Ojay123  (Talk&bull;E-Mail&bull;Contribs&bull;Sandbox) 01:17, 16 September 2009 (UTC)
 * I can't really see the use for this because you're an IP user, and you therefore can't specify a signature anyways...  Ojay123  (Talk&bull;E-Mail&bull;Contribs&bull;Sandbox) 01:18, 16 September 2009 (UTC)
 * All good answers eveyone. I intend to create an account. I was thinking of creating an image more or less specific to my would-be-username--also mentioned in my would-be CC or PD release, so I don't see how one would, with appropriate notification in and about the image, would "switch out the image to something obnoxious". Very well, if barred by policy from doing so in Wikipedia (at least the English Wikipedia), how about other wikis (particularly non-Wikimedia wikis)? True, they might have their own policies regarding such, but in the absence of (stated) policy, how would it work technically--again, I'm talking something that would be no more than 20 points high and 20 to 200 points long--something like 1-3 kilobytes or less.  Thanks everyone,192.30.202.13 (talk) 16:37, 17 September 2009 (UTC)
 * We can't really help you about other wiki's as many of them (especially non-wikimedia wikis) have their own rules and regulations. It would be best to ask on those sites. Livewireo (talk) 19:37, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

fully protected pages in wikipedia?
How can I look through a list or search through only pages that are fully protected or locked in wikipedia? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 169.226.84.204 (talk) 20:35, 15 September 2009 (UTC)


 * You could start at Category:Wikipedia protected pages and pick any subcategory of your interest. Probably Category:Wikipedia protected pages without expiry. Debresser (talk) 20:39, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

Thanks! That did the trick. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 169.226.84.205 (talk) 20:16, 16 September 2009 (UTC)