Wikipedia:Help desk/Archives/2010 February 27

= February 27 =

Redirect is vandalism.
There should be an article titled Instituto Regional Federico Errázuriz, but it redirects to List of gay, lesbian or bisexual people. Obviously this is someone idea of humor. How can this be fixed? I tried reading WP:redirect but that article itself is a mess. Help! Thanks. :) --Soy Rebelde (talk) 23:17, 26 February 2010 (UTC)
 * That redirect was created in November 2008 (!) by a now-banned editor. Thanks for finding it.  There was no article previous to that malicious redirect, so I deleted the page.  If you think an article is appropriate, feel free to create one. --Floquenbeam (talk) 23:21, 26 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Haha, that must be a record! Well, thanks for removing it so quickly. The only reason I came upon it is that there is some vandalism on WikiNews against the same school; seems those kids are really bored. Cheers! --Soy Rebelde (talk) 23:30, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

Vandalism of "Bilaal Rajan" page
Greetings,

An individual named "LilShtDropin" continues to vandalize the "Bilaal Rajan" page. He has been given a warning but continues to vandalize. I have changed the page back to what it should be.

I tried to find out what steps to take regarding the report of vandalism, but the help page on the subject is completely baffling (no offense). What steps do I have to take - specifically - to report vandalism? Thanks.

Better World 00:04, 27 February 2010 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Portpass19 (talk • contribs)
 * You can report obvious and persistent vandals at Administrator intervention against vandalism. Before posting there, a final warning in an escalating series should have been posted to the user's talk page (for example Uw-vandal4, Uw-spam4 or Uw-speedy4), and the user must have vandalized within the last few hours, including after the final warning was given. Various warning templates can be found at Template messages/User talk namespace. Your block request is unlikely to be acted upon unless you follow these steps. Cases that are not simple vandalism can be reported at WP:AN/I. Of course, in conjunction with warning against and reporting vandalism, you have the ability, mandate and are encouraged to revert all instances of vandalism you find yourself. --Mysdaao talk 01:25, 27 February 2010 (UTC)


 * I'm not completely certain that LilShtDropin's edits to Bilaal Rajan are vandalism. The user appears to have changed the subject's name to "Bilawl" and back repeatedly, and look more like experimentation to me.
 * Their latest edit, to Nintendo 64 was clearly vandalism and I have reverted it; but when I came to add a warning to their talk page, I see that User:Enviroboy reacted to LilShtDropin's very first edit by a message saying "This is the only warning you will receive for your disruptive edits". I don't understand why Enviroboy put such a warning on their page, and I am loth to follow this with a normal warning, as it may appear that we are not serious about vandalism. --ColinFine (talk) 08:53, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

User talk:Intelligentsium
": To input the cells, one would naturally use parameters, or arguments (such as ). However, the difficulties lie in how one would name the cells (i.e., 1x1, or cell1) and how one would tell which are which. As each cell may have different CSS, this may make coding them more confusing than simply coding the table manually. In a manually coded table, it is fairly easy to tell what section of code would affect what cell, but in a template, this become confusing. There are also many options for table CSS, and how specific or unspecific to be with these with regards to template parameters might also be a hindrance."

-  Intelligent sium  23:32, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

What difficulties would these be?174.3.99.176 (talk) 02:07, 27 February 2010 (UTC)


 * I don't fully understand what you mean; but in CSS generally you cannot refer to table cells by their position the table. One possibility would be to label specific cells with a class or id. --ColinFine (talk) 08:55, 27 February 2010 (UTC)


 * He mentioned difficulties. So I was wondering what these difficulties are.174.3.99.176 (talk) 21:04, 27 February 2010 (UTC)


 * I think I understand what you are trying to do now. You want to make the entire table one colour, correct? At first, I was under the impression you wanted varying colours (i.e., one cell green for a correct example, one cell red for an incorrect example). This can be achieved with some variation of:

If I input


 * foo
 * baz
 * foo
 * baz
 * baz

in the parameter, it would produce

Obviously, you will need to find a lighter colour to replace. Cheers, Intelligent  sium  19:29, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

Thanks! That is what I want. Is there a way to make the font red (a different shade)? I don't know if the borders should be a (different shade of) red.

Can you make the corresponding template (everything the same, but, replacing red with green) at Template:Xt3?

Thanks!100110100 (talk) 21:32, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

my buddys b-day
can i make a joke page on wikipedia about my friend for his b-day? i promise it wont be too offensive and besides, he'll get a kick out of it and laugh his ass off, then you guys could delete it after a couple of weeks if you wanted to. i think it would be a funny present to him so let me know if this is ok or not. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Michealthurston (talk • contribs) 02:47, 27 February 2010 (UTC)
 * The simple answer is yes, but it is an inappropriate article. If you make the page it will be promptly deleted. Please do not create the article.   GB fan  talk 02:52, 27 February 2010 (UTC)
 * No, the simple answer is no. We're here to make a serious encyclopaedia. Creating the article will only waste our time and your time, as it will surely be deleted before you can send the link to your friend. There are plenty of other websites, such as Uncyclopedia and Encyclopedia Dramatica that encourage less-than-serious entries -- although both still have basic guidelines for inclusion. Xenon54 / talk / 03:16, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

Is it edit warring...
to continuously revert edits by 1 vandal who is making the same edit to the same article? Ham tech  person  02:56, 27 February 2010 (UTC)
 * It is not edit warring to do multiple reverts of vandalism. The policy on edit warring specifically states that it is not edit warring.   GB fan  talk 02:59, 27 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Thanks. Ham  tech  person  03:15, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

Blowing off steam
Hi - I'm a frequent Wikipedia browser, that has a nasty habit of getting drunk and vandalising articles that I find offensive and/or non-sensical (which is basically anything that appears to me to have an unwarrented left-wing/liberal slant, or anything to do with "scientology" or "homeopathy", or any other such self-evidently untrue doctrines).

Is there any way that I can vent my spleen without actually vandalising articles (and having them embarassingly put right within minutes)? Some kind of "padded-cell" area where I can mule-and-puke and rant incoherently to my heart's content, without actually having any bearing on anything important?

If not, may I suggest creating such a space? It may save a lot of heart-ache and hard work... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.5.68.95 (talk) 04:30, 27 February 2010 (UTC)


 * You can use the sandbox to do almost anything. It is also a great place to practice constructive edits.  GB fan  talk 04:33, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

...more blowing off steam...
Hi - Thanks to GB Fan for your prompt reply to my previous question. I understand that the "sandbox" is a kind of test-bed for unproofed articles....it's not really what I'm after, though.

What I'm looking for is a place where under-empowered, semi-educated loons such as myself can register disgust and disagreement with a particular article, without fear of consequence.....essentially to "throw a tantrum". I feel that a lot of vandalism may be avoided if such a space existed. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.5.68.95 (talk) 04:45, 27 February 2010 (UTC)
 * It's called Conservapedia. Nothing done there is taken seriously. -- Orange Mike  &#x007C;   Talk  04:58, 27 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Another option might be Uncyclopedia depending on the exact type of ranting you have in mind. For example, see their take on Scientology and Homeopathy. On Wikipedia itself we are to transcend emotion. This takes time, so it's good there is no deadline as I still harbor the occasional vestige. --Teratornis (talk) 05:14, 27 February 2010 (UTC)
 * And don't miss Uncyclopedia's take on Liberal Bias. --Teratornis (talk) 05:39, 27 February 2010 (UTC)


 * You can try WikipediaReview.com. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 17:02, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

moving to the mainspace?
I created my first article in a subpage in January and cannot figure out how to move it. I look for the "move" tab in the top right and there is not one. Is this because I am not yet autoconfirmed? Do i have to edit 10 OTHER entries in wikipedia to get that status. I'd like to request it to be moved to the mainspace. It's the subpage for "Todd Gogulski" a living person, and can be moved with to a page with that name. Any help is appreciated! Thanks! Toddwina ```` —Preceding unsigned comment added by Toddwina (talk • contribs) 04:58, 27 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Done, per your request. -- Orange Mike  &#x007C;   Talk  05:03, 27 February 2010 (UTC)


 * And yes, it was because you are not yet autoconfirmed, which requires at least ten edits total (not to ten separate articles).--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 06:00, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

thank you! ```` —Preceding unsigned comment added by Toddwina (talk • contribs) 11:16, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

Founder Travancore Federal Bank Ltd
The founder of Travancore Federal Bank Ltd is V.O Chacko,Nedupuram.Later this Bank was Undertaken By P.K.Hormis —Preceding unsigned comment added by 117.206.34.173 (talk) 06:29, 27 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Hello. You are at the Wikipedia help desk where you can ask questions about how to use Wikipedia. You haven't asked anything and exactly what you seek by telling us this is unclear. I suppose you may be intimating that the information in the article Federal Bank is incorrect, in that it lists Hormis as the founder and not Neduparam. If that is what you are here about, you can raise that issue on the talk page of the article, which you can access at Talk:Federal Bank. You can also make the change yourself but please attempt to find a published, reliable source that verifies the information and cite that source in the article. Or if you come back here and tell us a source, someone may make the change for you.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 07:25, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

vga connected from computer to projector
I am attempting to play dvd movie via the vga connector between my computer and my projector. When connected and turned on the Windows screen is projected onto the wall but as soon as windows has loaded the projector goes blank with a "no signal" message. Can anyone assist me in playing a DVD? Thanks —Preceding unsigned comment added by Akedm (talk • contribs) 12:26, 27 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Hi Akedm. This is the help desk for Wikipedia, which is only for questions about using this site (as is announced at the very top of this page). Knowledge questions may be asked at an appropriate section of Wikipedia's reference desk.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 13:34, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

Vandalism
Hi! I have some questions about vandalism, I have read some info about it but I haven't found what I was searching for. I have been noticing some edit I would call vandalism on the article Two Door Cinema Club. The text added in the edits is spam, there is no notible source for them. I read that to report a user for vandalism you have to warn them first. Can any user warn another user for vandalism or should I ask someone, like a moderator, to do it? (The users that have been adding spam are: and ). I would be glad if someone helped me or gave me some advice what to do! --Garnesson... 13:05, 27 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Slap one of these on their talkpages. Begin with a level 2 warning, then continue with a level 3 and then 4 if they continue. (Level 1 warnings are generally in the style of "Welcome to Wikipedia: thanks for testing, but you're not supposed to do that" and aren't really appropriate for the majority of vandalism.) If they continue soon after receiving a level 4 warning, they can be reported to Administrator intervention against vandalism, at which point an administrator will review the users' edits and block them as necessary. Xenon54 / talk / 13:28, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

help
how do i add referrences to a edit i will make--67.246.254.35 (talk) 14:30, 27 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Very simple. Just add  using website.com as an example. Replace it with the URL of your source.  Nerdy Science Dude :)  (✉ click to talk • my edits • sign) 14:39, 27 February 2010 (UTC)
 * See Referencing for beginners. ---— Gadget850 (Ed)  talk 18:21, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

killer whales in the north sea
was there killer whales spotted around the oil platform Brae (A) in the north sea. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.241.65.244 (talk) 14:46, 27 February 2010 (UTC)
 * [[Image:Symbol move vote.svg|20px]] This page is for questions about using Wikipedia. Please consider asking this question at the 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. You could always try  for an article related to the topic you want to know more about.  I hope this helps.  --Mysdaao talk 15:04, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

Becoming a sysop
I would like someone to check my contributions and edit count to see how close I am to being able to have a successful request for administratorship, as although I know I am not currently ready to become an sysop, this is a long-term goal I have. Regards. Immunize (talk) 16:36, 27 February 2010 (UTC)
 * It's not that simple, see WP:RFA. There are many subjective criteria that are considered, edit count is relatively unimportant. -- Red rose64 (talk) 16:41, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

Looking at my history on Wikipedia, would you see me becoming an admin in several months, or longer? Immunize (talk) 16:46, 27 February 2010 (UTC)
 * It would be entirely improper of me to voice an opinion. The sort of criteria that count are covered at WP:GRFA (long guide) and WP:MRFA (mini guide). However, you can see the sort of questions you might will be asked by checking the pending requests on the WP:RFA page. Unless you are a known disruptive editor (for whom the answer would almost certainly be "no"), the only real way of finding out if you have a chance is to actually be nominated (or nominate yourself) and go through the grilling that every candidate receives. If things get too hot, you have the right to withdraw your nom. -- Red rose64 (talk) 17:01, 27 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Edit count can mean very little in your RfA, or it can mean a lot. It really depends on your other merits. Take a look at what adminship is not first; take particular note that adminship should not be your "long-term goal". If you do decide to go through with an RfA, commenters would most certainly focus more on what you've edited, rather than how much you've edited. In this case your editing is 60% in article space and about 28% in all talk spaces, with most of the balance being userspace. If you still have these ratios a few years from now this would indicate familiarity with article-writing and constructive discussion, which are always desired qualities. However, only 3% of your edits are to project space; this would likely cause concern because it shows you don't have much experience with the administrative side of the project. As far as I can tell you don't have any edits to filespace though that isn't as much of a concern if you don't want to work with files in the first place. You should focus on increasing edits to project space, decreasing edits to userspace, and keeping the amount of edits to article, talk and usertalk the same; most importantly, wait a couple of years first to really gain the necessary experience. Xenon54 / talk / 17:32, 27 February 2010 (UTC)


 * Edit count should mean a lot more than it already is in RFAs. Coming up with an admin with really low contribution and expertise in editing may only be frustrating for other editors in the long run in an online encyclopedia when the case involves edit conflicts and hard debates. Though contribution count -not edit count- is important, 3 other things to be mentioned are your relation with other community members, your knowledge in ways of wiki and your devotion to spend time. We should separate contribution count with edit count in wikipedia as soon as possible since it is a really misleading indicator. Kasaalan (talk) 15:07, 28 February 2010 (UTC)
 * You might want to have a look for some RfA standards that editors have. Mine is here, and you can find a lot more here --  Phantom Steve / talk &#124; contribs \ 17:12, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

"Baseball" needs editing
This page is really difficult to navigate around. i just wanted to say that your page for "baseball" is incomplete. I have some collector cards called "Origin or Baseball". there one card that i felt was needed on the page. it has a picture on the front of 2 figures made of wood, i believe. they are from around 700 a.d. One figure is holdin a bat and the other a ball. they are also wearin armor.

the back says " Bat and ball games go back thousands of years. theses figures from Mexico, 700 a.d., may ave been involved in some form of game or ritual. several bat and ball games were played in the early America. "Old-Cat" was a game played in New England where a pitcher threw a ball against a barn wall. The hitter would strike the ball on the rebound and run to the wall and back, before the pitcher could retrieve the ball and strike him with it. countless variations of such games existed, including "Tip-Cat, Ond-Old-Cat, Round-Ball, and Town-Ball"

by the mid-1800's, informal bat and ball games were a regular sight in America's parks and college campusus. Sticks and rake handles were typical bats. Balls of every sort were used--stones, blocks of wood, balls of yarn. Rules varied and were adjusted to meet the needs and desires of the group. A common rule among most variations was hittin the runner with a ball to make an out, known as "soaking" or "plugging"

Im not sure if this is anything that new but i know you didnt have the 700 a.d. anywhere on the page. hope this may help a little. thanks —Preceding unsigned comment added by Adumb sewell (talk • contribs) 17:13, 27 February 2010 (UTC)
 * It sounds as though the interpretation that the Mesoamerican picture shows a ball game is speculative (note "may have been involved in some form of game" in the material you quoted), and I'm not sure that "collector cards" fall under our definition of reliable sources. That said, any information of this sort that can be reliably sourced would probably be more appropriate in Bat-and-ball games than in Baseball, since its relationship to baseball specifically is rather tenuous. Deor (talk) 18:19, 27 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Adumb sewell appears to be referring to Mesoamerican ballgame. Nyttend (talk) 23:35, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

Translation
Hi, I would like to translate the article "Symphony No. 9 (Beethoven)" from English to Icelandic, but for the life of me I can't figure out how. I plan on maybe translating some other articles to in the future and it would really help to get some information on how. SpikMessiah (talk) 17:32, 27 February 2010 (UTC)
 * If the problem you have is an inability to read or write in Icelandic, I may not be able to help you. :) However, if you're comfortable with the language, a good place to start would be is:Wikipedia:Notendur sem geta þýtt. If you need clarification of that or assistance, you may do better to ask questions there, since individuals wikipedia projects have their own standards and practices. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 18:03, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

Using an image from Commons when a Wikipedia image has the same name
Hi. I probably ought to know this, but I don't. Is it possible to use an image file from Commons that has the same name as a Wikipedia image that is different? If so, how? As I understand it, the functionality defaults to the local wiki. Help appreciated. :) --Moonriddengirl (talk) 17:34, 27 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Prefix it with "commons:" as in, see Help:Interwiki linking. -- Red rose64 (talk) 17:46, 27 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Thanks, but I'm afraid what I'm trying to do is display rather than link. :/ For example, commons:File:Crations.jpg renders commons:File:Crations.jpg. I should have thought of this before uploading. I'm hoping there's a fix! --Moonriddengirl (talk) 17:49, 27 February 2010 (UTC)
 * The image exists on both English Wikipedia and on Commons, and they are bitwise-identical images. Why do you want to link specifically to the Commons one? -- Red rose64 (talk) 17:57, 27 February 2010 (UTC)
 * I don't. That's not the image I want to use. It's a "for example." :) --Moonriddengirl (talk) 17:59, 27 February 2010 (UTC)
 * I've gone ahead and requested a rename of the file I uploaded. I'm still curious as to whether or not this is possible, but it seems it'll make it less complicated should anyone else ever want to use it anyway. :) --Moonriddengirl (talk) 18:05, 27 February 2010 (UTC)
 * After much poking around in Wikipedia and coming up empty, I popped over to commons and on their FAQ page I found this. Sorry... -- Red rose64 (talk) 19:18, 27 February 2010 (UTC)
 * (e/c) Hey Moon. At least in prior times, there was no fix for this. Any local image would always override a commons image with an identical name, requiring that the local image be deleted, or a new image be uploaded to Commons under a new name. Of course, the ability to move images has made dealing with this much easier, but I believe the technical impossibility remains.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 19:21, 27 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Thanks to both of you. Too bad I didn't think to look into this before I uploaded it. :D --Moonriddengirl (talk) 21:01, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

Terrible Articles
What do we do about bad articles? I have found two ice hockey articles: Cardiff Devils and Telford Tigers. Neither cite a single source, and both read like word for word copies of match day programs and/or fan club publications. Their style is terribly informal, for example "During this period he scored 443 goals and notched up 316 assists" and "Under JL [the coach John Lawless], Telford finished as runners up...". The Telford Tigers article has been tagged since January 2009 and no improvements have been made. We need to make those in the know start to improve these articles. As they stand they are not properly sourced and they do now read properly. What can we do? •• Fly by Night (talk) 18:24, 27 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Pretty much the only thing that can be done is to fix the articles in question. They're not going to go away, as "It's rubbish" is generally not a valid reason for deletion, unless, of course, the article is a BLP or copyright violation. I would notify WikiProject Hockey to see if anyone there is interested in fixing them. Xenon54 / talk / 18:33, 27 February 2010 (UTC)


 * Welcome to Wikipedia, where there are thousands of poorly-written articles that aren't maintained properly, and a lot of them aren't even tagged for improvement. WP:SOFIXIT or going to a related WikiProject is pretty much the only remedy if the article has been properly tagged.  This, incidentally, is why I nominate articles like Beauty Turner for deletion; the nomination failed because it was absolutely imperative that Wikipedia have an article on Beauty Turner since two newspapers mentioned her obituary, and that article hasn't been touched since the AFD closed. THF (talk) 18:37, 27 February 2010 (UTC)


 * This is more of a meta-note but an indirect way to fix this is to give support the next time someone makes a serious proposal to enforce verifiability with teeth (we do nothing at this time). See, e.g., Requests for verification. The hole we are in is very, very deep.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 19:42, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

Feature Request for the Random Article function
I'm not certain this is the proper forum, but couldn't find one better, so feel free to ignore it or suggest a separate channel, if so. This is a minor feature request, intended to improve on the current 'Random article' macro. Would it be possible to permit the finding of random articles as constrained by (user-selected) filtered categories of interest? My thought was that this could save time, and would permit browsing in a more natural manner, akin to paging or leafing through a real-world, brick-and-mortar encyclopedia. Thank you, Necromancerian. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Necromancerian (talk • contribs) 19:11, 27 February 2010 (UTC)
 * 1. This would be for the Village Pump. 2. This is a perennial proposal, which as I understand it is not easily accomplished due to the limitations of our software. -- Orange Mike  &#x007C;   Talk  19:15, 27 February 2010 (UTC)
 * There is a Toolserver tool that does this: here. Intelligent  sium  19:47, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

help with adding an article to an already exsisting biography
There is an exsisting article on a nigerian artist and i want to know how to go about adding an article about his father19:44, 27 February 2010 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Empress2000 (talk • contribs)
 * Is the father notable? That is, are there published, reliable sources that are independent of the father that discuss him in any depth? If so, then I suggest you first learn about the nuts and bolts of editing through the tutorial and then create the article through the Article wizard, being sure to cite the sources you consult to write the information.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 19:51, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

Upload support
Dear Wikipedia support, Where is the upload button for me to add my articles in here? Thank you, annett strahan

Requesting immediate assistance in adding this article above to our community, please. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Letsbefrienz (talk • contribs) 22:18, 27 February 2010 (UTC)
 * The upload button is in the toolbox, but it won't be active for you until you are autoconfirmed. To become autoconfirmed your account must be at least 4 days old {yours is} and have made at least 10 edits, {only 9 to go}.  If you make 9 more edits to day you should have access to uploading.   GB fan  talk 22:25, 27 February 2010 (UTC)


 * GB fan is referring to Upload for uploading images and multimedia. We refer to new articles as "creating" articles, not uploading articles. Registered users can create articles right away. See Your first article. In you refer to "my retail lines". This sounds like you may have a conflict of interest. See FAQ/Organizations. PrimeHunter (talk) 23:03, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

Viewing by iPhone
How can I change the layout of the info on the page when reading from it's normal setting back to the layout for iPhones where the different sections are hidden and can be opened by pressing the view buttons as it is easier to use and read on a small phone screen? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.132.139.16 (talk) 23:12, 27 February 2010 (UTC)


 * I don't have a mobile device. Are you referring to the issue at Enable mobile version? PrimeHunter (talk) 23:21, 27 February 2010 (UTC)