Wikipedia:Help desk/Archives/2010 July 25

= July 25 =

subst and new messages alerts
I added a warning to a user's talk page and realized a little later I forgot to subst: it. Would the orange new messages alert have been triggered again when I added the subst:? Winston365 (talk) 02:48, 25 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Yes.  Kayau  Voting  IS   evil 02:54, 25 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Good to know. Thanks. Winston365 (talk) 03:04, 25 July 2010 (UTC)
 * You're welcome.  Kayau  Voting  IS   evil 03:07, 25 July 2010 (UTC)

Multiple Russian Links
I have spotted multiple Russian links down under "Languages" on the left hand side of the majority of Wikipedia's "The Missing Manual". I'm pretty sure they aren't meant to be there... As I am relatively new to Wikipedia, I'm not sure if I should be reporting this here or not. I could not find a place to report general problems with Wikipedia help pages.

Example: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Help:Wikipedia:_The_Missing_Manual/Editing,_Creating,_and_Maintaining_Articles/Editing_for_the_First_Time

Tristanlbailey (talk) 10:14, 25 July 2010 (UTC)


 * Thanks for reporting this. I have fixed Help:Wikipedia: The Missing Manual/Editing, Creating, and Maintaining Articles/Editing for the First Time by moving the interlanguage link  (Bulgarian actually) to inside noinclude tags in transcluded templates: . If you see similar links on other pages and they remain after purging the page then you can post here again. PrimeHunter (talk) 10:30, 25 July 2010 (UTC)

I own the copyright of paper, but do not know how to prove that
To whom it may concern

A while ago I uploaded a scientific paper to the page:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cheetah

i.e.

http://roberteklund.info/pdf/Eklund_Peters_Duthie_2010=Purring_Cheetah_DomesticCat.pdf

I instantly got messages warning me that I needed to claim copyright to the paper, which is a good thing.

The paper is my own, with my co-authors, and we hold the copyright.

However, although I have spent considerable time to either communicate to you that this is the case, or specify that this is the case, I have not succeeded in finding out how to do this. Finally, I gave in and added links instead, but it would still be nice to (generously) upload the paper.

Q: HOW do I upload a paper so that you do not delete it, despite the fact that I have every right to distribute the paper?

Note that I am very grateful for your concern about copyright.

Yours,

Dr Robert Eklund —Preceding unsigned comment added by Tallis40 (talk • contribs) 11:24, 25 July 2010 (UTC)


 * Hi Dr Eklund. If you haven't already, take a look at Donating copyrighted materials. It explains how to proceed. You would retain existing rights: "When you contribute material to Wikipedia, you are not giving us exclusive use of it. You still retain any rights you previously held, but you are giving non-exclusive license [to the Wikimedia foundation]".
 * If that doesn't fully cover your concerns, let me know. I'm not a copyright expert on Wikipedia by any stretch, but I know other editors who are and I can raise the issue with them. TFOWR 11:43, 25 July 2010 (UTC)
 * You can follow the procedure in Commons:COM:OTRS to document your granting of permission. Another option is to declare within the paper itself that you are licensing it under an acceptable free license such as cc-by-sa-3.0. --Teratornis (talk) 17:26, 25 July 2010 (UTC)

Also note that if the paper was not published in a peer-reviewed journal, it may be rejected as original research anyway. -- Orange Mike  &#x007C;   Talk  15:41, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

Delphic Games
Could anyone please tell me, whether this edit is correct. reverted my edit, adding the most detailed information about one of the organizations, making the amount of info (copied from IDC Berlin article) about it enormous. So the article became not neutral at all, as IDC Berlin's presence compared to IDC Moscow's is too big. DarDar seems to be somehow affillated with IDC Berlin, usually making ad-like statements about it and totally suppressing information about IDC Moscow... Could anyone please compare the two versions - mine, and DarDar's - and tell, which one is more neutral and appropriate. Thankyou in advance! Ivan Moskalev (talk) 11:43, 25 July 2010 (UTC)

An interview as a reliable source...?
So I found an amazing musician who I reckon is notable, but doesn't have an article. Problem: a dearth of sources that are not just raving reviews about his skill. Let's say I rang him up and recorded an interview by phone, stating at the start that I'm User:Sonia doing this for Wikipedia and releasing the interview under whatever license is necessary. I then upload the recording to Commons, and get him to email OTRS from his official email certifying the voice in the recording is him. Would that recording be an acceptable source? What if I cited part of his bio to his official site- it's not third party, but surely it's accurate. Is that also allowed? so nia ♫♪ 11:55, 25 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Sonia, I'm surprised you have to ask the first part of the question, because it is rather obvious that if you ring somebody up, interview him and upload it to the commons, it's OR. Citing the bio on his official site is discouraged per WP:PRIMARY. Nobody will try to get your article deleted for citing the bio, (I've done so, too, for a small part of Jesse Lee Kercheval), but it's highly unlikely to become a GA or FA in the future.  Kayau  Voting  IS   evil 12:48, 25 July 2010 (UTC)


 * See Biographies of living persons. PrimeHunter (talk) 12:53, 25 July 2010 (UTC)


 * Thanks PrimeHunter, that answers part of my question. @Kayau: Aye, it is OR in a sense, but I'm not going for GA or FA. This man deserves a half-decent article and whilst there are hundreds of newspaper reviews worldwide about him, none are going to bother to cover his life. Common sense tells me that an interview by me on behalf of Wikipedia would be better than just not sourcing it; in fact, if I could get a video, wouldn't that be quite an interesting thing for the encyclopedia? I could possibly draw from my contacts and wrangle a video of him performing, exclusively for Wikipedia. Is there a precedent for this sort of stuff or am I going into unmarked territory? so  nia ♫♪ 13:05, 25 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Sonia, IMO if the papers just won't publish his life, then it's completely impossible to add it in any article because his life is not notable; it's his techniques that are. Your 'interview' reminds me of Wikinews; if there is anywhere that you can publish the interview, it's on WN.  Kayau  Voting  IS   evil 13:10, 25 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Wait, let me get this straight. The music critics are by nature interested (as are their readers) in his performance. Simply because they are paid not to review his life but his skill, his life is not notable? How can a person be notable and his life not notable? Scrap the video interview, since I can see how that would be deeply problematic, but would it be acceptable to film him conducting (he's a conductor) and embed that video in the article?
 * @82.7 below: There are reliable sources (a lot of articles, half of which are in German), but none are covering his life in more than the briefest detail because they are after all news and want to focus on the present- what new role he's taken on, or his prowess. Is that enough to meet WP:BAND's criterion 1? He's conducted across the world and is currently music director of two orchestras, halfway across the world from each other. I'm sure there are other notable subjects which have poor coverage on parts? Forgive my lack of clue, please. so  nia ♫♪ 05:11, 26 July 2010 (UTC)
 * I do believe that there is no problem with filming him conducting and embedding that video in the article as long as its purpose is to illustrate the entire article, or illustrate a cited point of the article in a non-biased way. Though, IMO, it isn't the best way to do it because it won't appear in print versions or PDFs. I'll leave the second question to IP.  Kayau  Voting  IS   evil 05:18, 26 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Covering his life is not necessarily required, the question will be are they about him. i.e. if the articles focus on him and how great he is, then they are perfectly usable for an article. If on the other hand they are about (say) a concert and just simply making a passing one line mention of how skilled he is, then probably not. --82.7.40.7 (talk) 06:31, 26 July 2010 (UTC)
 * The requirement of the WP:GNG is multiple independant reliable sources covering him an a non-trivial way. Any interview you perform would fail on being independant (as most interviews do) and being a reliable source - I assume you aren't a recognised authority on the subject, it won't be published by a reputable publisher and is unlikely to be fact checked etc. As per Kayau if there aren't reliable sources writing about him then chances are he doesn't meet the notability standard because the world at large hasn't "taken note" of him in a biographical way. --82.7.40.7 (talk) 17:37, 25 July 2010 (UTC)
 * You can probably write about this musician with fewer constraints on one of the other wikis that specialize in music. See Category:Music on WikiIndex. Also see WikiProject Music or one of its sub-genre projects. There you could likely find other Wikipedia users with an interest in music who might know more about navigating Wikipedia's rule maze. --Teratornis (talk) 19:30, 25 July 2010 (UTC)

Changing the display font of Wikipedia
Everytime I select Widipedia I get a consistent, yet crazy and hard to read font. This is not the font I have for any other web page (Times new roman). My global font on Firefox is times new roman. How does one change the font? You can see this font on this very post! Lew W. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 208.69.211.148 (talk) 16:55, 25 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Actually we can't see the font that you are seeing. The problem is specific to your system, either your browser or the OS. --Teratornis (talk) 17:30, 25 July 2010 (UTC)


 * Wikipedia does not specify a particular font; rather it uses the default sans-serif font defined in your browser. Refer to this this webpage for assistance in changing it.  AJ Cham  20:02, 25 July 2010 (UTC)

Photographer
Where can I become a photographer for Wikipedia? I'm forgetting.  MR.   Pre  Z  18:01, 25 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Some information is linked under Commons:COM:EIC. It would be best to photograph "for" Wikimedia Commons rather than just one of the Wikipedias. That is, if you upload your photographs to Commons, they become usable on all the Wikimedia Foundation project wikis, and not just on one of them. See WP:MITC. --Teratornis (talk) 19:22, 25 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Also see Contact us/Photo submission, which may or may not apply depending on what you have in mind. What subjects or locations do you photograph? --Teratornis (talk) 19:24, 25 July 2010 (UTC)
 * There's also Requested pictures -- John of Reading (talk) 20:04, 25 July 2010 (UTC)


 * And also WikiProject Photography. – ukexpat (talk) 00:37, 26 July 2010 (UTC)
 * I plan to photograph anything suitable to be shown in a picture on Wikipedia, and thanks.

Vandalism on the Undertaker article
The Undertaker's page has become a victim of vandalism by a user Shanewatson136. He keeps editing the height and weight on that page constantly to 6'11 or 7'0 and 300 lbs or 310 lbs or 315 lbs, though the correct billed height and weight as per the Undertaker's profile on the WWE's website http://www.wwe.com/superstars/smackdown/undertaker/bio is 6'10.5 and 299 lbs. However, everytime I or any other user corrects it, he makes it incorrect again. We have given him several warnings on his talk page also, but to no avail. Please look into it. Mayankeagle (talk) 19:27, 25 July 2010 (UTC)
 * The best place to report an issue like this is AIV. The user has received a final warning and has not edited since then. If they repeat the edit, AIV is the place to go. TN X Man  21:36, 25 July 2010 (UTC)

Max Cleland
how do i get ahold of max cleland —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.241.236.204 (talk) 19:30, 25 July 2010 (UTC)


 * Please note that you are at Wikipedia, the free online encyclopedia that anyone can edit, and this page is a help desk for asking questions related to using the encyclopedia. Thus, we have no inside track on the subject of your question. I tried a quick Google search for Max Cleland, though, but didn't find an obvious email address or telephone number. -- John of Reading (talk) 20:34, 25 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Normally, contact details like that are kept secret, unless they have a phone number/email specifically for fans but that's unusual. Chevy  monte  carlo  - alt 08:37, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

More edit notices?
Has it ever been considered by the Wikipedia community to incorporate the edit/page notice on more WP pages? For example, at AIV, in the edit notice, there is a list of different templates for different responses. I just recently found that there are many templates specifically designed for use on the Help Desk that could be used much more efficiently. Just a thought... A p 3 rson ‽   19:39, 25 July 2010 (UTC)


 * Sound interesting you should bring this up at the Village pump page as this is were they could work on this.Moxy (talk) 19:43, 25 July 2010 (UTC)
 * One thing to take into account, however, is that the Help Desk is quite often a new user's first or second stop on Wikipedia. It's a big website, with a lot of syntax and rules to learn. Overusing templates can be perceived as cold and off-putting to a lot of people. There's a guide linked at the top of this page called How to answer, which give some tips on answering questions here - definitely a useful read. TN X Man  21:35, 25 July 2010 (UTC)

Watchlist options
At the top of my watchlist, there is a box labelled "Watchlist options". It had a button with the caption "dismiss". I clicked on it and some of the content disappeared. There aren't any buttons captioned "show", "expand" or anything similar. I wish to make that appear again, but I don't know how to do it. --Theurgist (talk) 21:32, 25 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Important messages often appear on your watchlist since it's a page where you are likely to visit at some point. In this case, I believe it was a message asking you to comment on the recent trial of pending changes. Normally, such messages (such as meetup announcements) appear above the "Watchlist options" box, but the pending changes messages is inside the box. Quite confusing. Don't worry, you're never able to permanently hide anything important! Xenon54 (talk) 21:36, 25 July 2010 (UTC)


 * I don't know how to make watchlist notices reappear on the watchlist but the message can be seen at MediaWiki:Watchlist-details. It's unrelated to the watchlist which is just a chosen place to display the message. PrimeHunter (talk) 21:41, 25 July 2010 (UTC)

Named References
I will be using a number of references multiple times in an article. I know that the software lists references with the same name under the same number using a, b, c, etc. but do you have to have anything in each subsequent ref. tag? For example, would this work:

This is some text. This is some more text

Thanks, --tb240904 Talk Contribs 22:09, 25 July 2010 (UTC)
 * That's all correct except for the last bit of the second reference. It should look like . See this page for more details.  TN X Man  22:23, 25 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Thanks for your help :) --tb240904 Talk Contribs 22:38, 25 July 2010 (UTC)