Wikipedia:Help desk/Archives/2010 March 4

= March 4 =

Untitled
I don't know the technical term for the "pronouncer" after the topic/subject. In any event, mine appear to be in some language other than my own(English).

Here is an example:

Fascism, pronounced /ˈfæʃɪzəm/

All else is fine. Is there something to be adjusted on my computer?

Thankx! Ted —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.15.151.38 (talk) 00:31, 4 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Hi Ted. Wikipedia's pronunciations use a special set of symbols called the International Phonetic Alphabet. Whereas the letter "a" might have different sounds among English, Spanish, and German, while the IPA symbol /a/ always represents the open central unrounded vowel. For a more in-depth explanation plus a list of all symbols and their letter equivalents in common languages, I suggest you read IPA and related pages, such as IPA for English. Xenon54 / talk / 01:07, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

Uploading a Graph made w/ Excel
If I create a graph using non-free (Proprietary software) like Microsoft Excel, would I be able to upload it? Or would this result in some type of license violation? The upload page at the commons says that "# Graphs, maps, diagrams, and audio you have created entirely yourself." however its not very clear regarding how they have to be created. -- GateKeeper (talk) @ 04:12, 4 March 2010 (UTC)


 * It doesn't matter what program you use. That said, you're likely to get better results from a vector-based program (like Origin) if you have access to one (better both in that it'll likely look nicer, and will definitely be more scalable). -- B figura  (talk) 05:57, 4 March 2010 (UTC)


 * You shouldn't upload anything that can't be viewed by users who don't want to pay money to buy the program that is required to view your upload. Woogee (talk) 20:39, 7 March 2010 (UTC)

"New" message on my IP talk page
Am I in trouble? For the last week or so, when I link to Wikipedia but before I sign in, a "New message" alert appears, and directs me to the talk page for my IP address. The content is that an edit credited, or blamed, on me has been reverted, and I should learn how to write articles, and all such stuff. The putative offense was perpetrated on the article for Newport, Rhode Island, date 23 September 2009, time 23:32. I have read the history for the article, and the change credited to/blamed on me is as the reverter stated, not relevant. So far, so good.

The problem is that I did not write this. At least, so far as I can remember. The date of the change was 23 September, and heck, I don't even know where I was on 23 September. At 23:32 (that would be 17:32 CST), I would be eating supper, or walking the dog, or washing dishes, or something. I would certainly not be writing about Newport, RI. (I do not have anything against Newport; I wouldn't write about it because I don't know anything about it.)

So you can say that somebody snuck into my house while I was eating and used my computer without my knowledge and left a rather harmless trail on Wikipedia and no real harm was done and why don't I just shut up about it? I would ordinarily do that, but for two reasons: (1) Why is this message just appearing now, a half year after the event, when I have no way of remembering who was around my place at the time? And more importantly (2), how do I get rid of the warning message when I link in? I have read the message on the talk page; should that not remove the "New message" banner? Since that doesn't work, what should I do? PKKloeppel (talk) 04:17, 4 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Many ISPs use dynamic IP addresses which change every time you connect to the internet. It could be possible that someone else messed around with the page, got a warning, and then you got assigned that IP at a later time. I wouldn't worry about it, just log into your account to avoid seeing it. -- GateKeeper (talk) @ 04:21, 4 March 2010 (UTC)
 * x2 That IP, I believe, links to Rushville, Illinois. If you don't live around there, then I don't know what it is. If you do, then it must have  come from your connection. It could have come from another person in  your house or possibly in our ISP. My advice is to just ignore it, since  it isn't anything that disparaging. You might have a somewhat dynamic  IP inside your ISP, and possibly it just returned to that IP. But like I  said, just ignore it for now, since I don't see you getting into  trouble for any of it. –Turian   ( talk )  04:24, 4 March 2010 (UTC)


 * If you restart your modem, you ISP might assign you a new IP address (I know mine does that). Astronaut (talk) 04:30, 4 March 2010 (UTC)
 * If you only edit while you are logged in to your account, then you can ignore messages on an IP number's talk page. If that IP number gets blocked from editing, it won't affect your account, because you can still log in. In fact, creating an account (as you have already done) is how to prevent this very type of confusion. See WP:ACCOUNT. --Teratornis (talk) 05:07, 4 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Have you thought about registering an account. It has many benefits, including the fact that your IP would not be shown (or available) to 99% of all users (only CheckUsers have the ability to link an account name to an IP - and there are only 37 of those on Wikipedia). You would also have your own talk page (as opposed to the IP one which you have seen). --  Phantom Steve / talk &#124; contribs \ 08:33, 4 March 2010 (UTC)
 * @ Phantomsteve - he already has, the original post was by User:Pkkphysicist, an account which was created 28 March 2008. My suspicion is that he gets this message prior to logging in.
 * @ Pkkphysicist - I am in the habit of turning off all my hardware when not in use, to save electricity. When I start up again, my IP address is always different; it is allocated by my broadband provider. I have only ever made two three edits as an IP user, neither being  only one of which was from this PC, so if I see any "You have new messages" boxes prior to logging in, I simply ignore them and log in. -- Red rose64 (talk) 11:12, 4 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Since typing the above, I lost my login during a different edit - and it was saved under an IP address. Hrmph. -- Red rose64 (talk) 13:41, 4 March 2010 (UTC)
 * See WP:LOGGEDOUT. Which used to have some help on how to ensure you were logged in. ---— Gadget850 (Ed)  talk 14:07, 4 March 2010 (UTC)
 * I think it disappeared with . Thanks. -- Red rose64 (talk) 14:18, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

Bold move?
It has been suggested that Chile helps to Chile be moved to the Spanish title of this Chilian telethon (see Talk:Chile helps to Chile). This strikes me as such a no-brainer that I'm tempted to be bold and do the move straight away without waiting for 7 days of discussion/consensus building. It is quite possible that because the proposer is an IP editor, that is why there is even a proposed move rather than a bold move. If I was bold and did the move now, would I be messing up the procedure which has been set in motion? Astronaut (talk) 04:27, 4 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Something tells me you should, since the translation is wrong. I don't think there would be anything controversial, but that isn't a promise. I would support an instant change. –Turian  ( talk )  04:32, 4 March 2010 (UTC)
 * I frequently move articles without any discussion, when the title is an obvious bad title (mistranslation, misspelling, obvious violation of naming conventions, etc.) For translations, you may want to let the discussion go for a day or two to make sure the translation is "right", but once you are sure of that, it should be uncontroversial enough to forgo the usual 7-day discussion period.  -- Jayron  32  20:25, 4 March 2010 (UTC)
 * No issues here, imo. Go ahead, do it. But make sure you resolve all the double redirects. '' ▒ ♪ ♫ Wifione ♫ ♪  ▒  ―Œ  ♣Łeave Ξ мessage♣  05:16, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

Downloading Wikipedia software
Is there a place where I can download the Wikipedia software onto my computer so i can create my own wiki for my own sole use? If so, where do I go to do this? Keraunos (talk) 05:37, 4 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Yes. You want MediaWiki. -- B figura  (talk) 05:53, 4 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Also see mw:Manual:Wiki on a stick for instructions on how to run MediaWiki as your Personal wiki. The MediaWiki software alone is not enough; you must also run a LAMP (software bundle) such as XAMPP. --Teratornis (talk) 19:59, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

I need a MediaWiki that will allow me to create color boxes such as the one at right, for the research I am doing about various colors. Which ones will allow me to do that? Keraunos (talk) 20:56, 4 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Most of that functionality is not done in MediaWiki itself. Rather, it is the result of templates that are essentially just normal Wikipedia pages (with the ability to handle parameters) that are transcluded elsewhere. For example, the box you use here is located at Template:Infobox color where, if you click on "view source", will give you the code that is required to display it. I believe that most infoboxes and similar templates use a certain amount of CSS, so you have to do some fiddling around there, but I don't know enough about it (either in general terms, or in MediaWiki/Wikipedia-specific terms) to help you there. Confusing Manifestation (Say hi!) 01:21, 5 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Template porting is, in general, hard. To get a particular template to work on another MediaWiki wiki, you may have to consider all these dependencies:
 * The template you want may transclude other templates. You can see by editing the template and previewing it. Look below the edit window at the "Templates used in this preview:" section. Those templates, in turn, may transclude more templates. And so on, until you have pulled out all your hair.
 * If you don't need the entire hierarchy of template dependencies, you can collapse them by substituting the template on Wikipedia into a user sandbox page, and just copy the resulting wikitext to your destination template.
 * The template may use style classes from MediaWiki:Common.css.
 * The template may use MediaWiki extensions. There is no simple way to get a list of the extensions that a particular template uses. You can see the extensions installed on Wikipedia at Special:Version. If you see strange codes "bleeding through" to the rendered page when preview your template on your destination wiki, that may mean you need an extension you haven't installed there yet.
 * The template may rely on side effects of other software running on Wikipedia's servers, such as HTML Tidy. This can cause problems that are even harder to debug than missing extensions. The only example I know about is Navbox. Hopefully for the rest of your hair it doesn't happen to you.
 * Another complication is Wikipedia's template documentation system. It took me a while to port that. My advice is to skip it for a personal wiki unless you want to learn a lot more about templates than you might need.
 * Some templates on Wikipedia contain features that are overkill for a small wiki, such as extensive abstraction to share common features between many other templates you don't care about. Sometimes it's easier to design your own simpler template from scratch, since you won't have to worry about the incredible complexity here. You may also find simpler templates on another wiki that caters to a smaller specialist user community. Look up your topic of interest on WikiIndex and see what other people are doing. In general, you will notice MediaWiki wikis outside the WikiMedia Foundation family typically have far fewer templates than Wikipedia and they are generally simpler. There aren't a lot of skilled template coders in relation to the number of wikis.
 * Running your own wiki makes you realize how much value a skilled user community provides on a vibrant wiki like Wikipedia. The difference between Wikipedia and your own wiki is like the difference between a city and the wilderness. Each has its advantages and disadvantages, but if you have grown used to one, moving to the other is a shock. --Teratornis (talk) 19:29, 5 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Save it and follow the instructions at the top of the page to bypass your browser's cache. ---— Gadget850 (Ed)  talk 15:42, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

Uploading an Image File
The College's logo on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Ida_College is outdated. I would like to upload the new logo. How do I do that?— —Preceding unsigned comment added by 208.59.54.16 (talk) 16:53, 4 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Without an account you can't. You can request it be uploaded at Files for upload or an autoconfirmed user can do it for you. Hang on a sec and I will do it. – ukexpat (talk) 16:59, 4 March 2010 (UTC)


 * ✅. See File:Mt-ida-logo.png. You may need to purge and/or bypass your cache to get it to display in the article. – ukexpat (talk) 17:08, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

Help!
The last collapsible box on my userpage is swallowing up the rest of it and I can't figure out how to stop it! Can somebody fix it for me?-- Editor510  drop us a line, mate  17:42, 4 March 2010 (UTC)
 * I haved fixed it for you. You needed an extra |} to close the navbox.  Without it, everything below it was put into the navbox.  --Mysdaao talk 18:15, 4 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Thank you...I could have sworn that that was there...must have been confused.-- Editor510  drop us a line, mate  18:35, 4 March 2010 (UTC)
 * You're welcome. --Mysdaao talk 18:41, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

Two questions - posting images and verifying yourself if you have a wikipedia page
Hi

Furst of all I can't seem to upload an image to my own wikipedia page. Someone has created one for me so I wanted to make sure the details are correct and add an image. I can't find the correct page that tells me how to upload an image although i have found the html link ] I do not know how to get that jpg to show up on the page. Please can you help me?

Secondly my wikipedia page does not cite any sources - can I be that source as I am the person that page is about? I am pretty sure that I can ensure my page is accurate as I know pretty much everything there is to know about me!

Many thanks

GeebeeUK

GeeBeeUK (talk) 19:23, 4 March 2010 (UTC)


 * If you want to add an existing image to an article, add  to the area of the article where you want the image to appear – replacing   with the actual file name of the image, and   with a short description of the image. See our picture tutorial for more information.
 * If you want to upload an image from your computer for use in an article, you must find out what the proper license of the image is. If you know the image is licensed under a free-license, upload it to the Wikimedia Commons instead of here, so that all projects have access to the image (sign up). If you are unsure what license the image takes, see the file upload wizard for more information. Please also read Wikipedia's image use policy. I hope this helps.
 * You won't be able to upload images to Wikipedia until your account is autoconfirmed, which happens automatically when your account is at least four full days old and has made at least ten edits to any page on Wikipedia. You can upload images to Wikimedia Commons immediately though.
 * You can't be the source for the article about you. The policy at Verifiability is that material has to be attributed to a reliable, published source.  If a person were the source, there'd be no way for a reader of the article to verify the information.
 * You should be very cautious when you edit an article about yourself. This is a conflict of interest.  Minor edits like adding images and sources are probably ok, but any content changes should be brought up on the article's talk page first.  --Mysdaao talk 19:36, 4 March 2010 (UTC)
 * You should be very cautious when you edit an article about yourself. This is a conflict of interest.  Minor edits like adding images and sources are probably ok, but any content changes should be brought up on the article's talk page first.  --Mysdaao talk 19:36, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

Where are the episode counts in the character infobox?
Take The Sopranos for example, when you edit this page it displays their episode count (see Tony Soprano, Carmela Soprano, Christopher Moltisanti), but when you read the article it isn't present. What's the deal? None of the characters have the episode count information anymore. Even The Shield and Nip/Tuck characters have an episode count on the edit page, but its not visible on the main article. Why? Geeky Randy (talk) 20:32, 4 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Sorry, don't know what you mean. The Sopranos has "No. of episodes 86 (List of episodes)" in the infobox, and when editing it shows 86, which is consistent. Which section are the episode counts in that you are thinking of? -- Red rose64 (talk) 20:47, 4 March 2010 (UTC)
 * OK I think I've got it. Your problem is not with the article The Sopranos itself, but with the individual character pages. The facility for displaying the episode counts in was removed 20:47, 18 February 2010 with ; it had been discussed at Template talk:Infobox character. If you don't agree with the decision, you'd best take it up on that discussion. -- Red rose64 (talk) 21:12, 4 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the link. I'm now a part of that discussion.  Geeky Randy (talk) 00:53, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

Excuse me...
Could you please direct me to the page in which formatting for inserting "userboxes" at the top of the page, that state that the user is often away for any reason, is given? A polite British-style inquiry of  2J Bäkkvire Maestro  what are you looking at? 21:27, 4 March 2010 (UTC)
 * I think you want Wikibreak.  Ron h jones (Talk) 21:38, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

How To Add Scripts
How do I add this script to my account?100110100 (talk) 23:37, 4 March 2010 (UTC)
 * You go to the script page and copy and paste the code in the box. Then you create the page User:100110100/monobook.js and paste that code onto that page. That is your personal Javascript for the Monobook skin, and when you put that code there, the six tabs feature should show up on all the pages you view while signed into that account. -- Brandon 5485  00:45, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

!xt3
I am trying to remove the borders. How do I do that?174.3.110.108 (talk) 23:45, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

No padding, no margins. What other parameters are there?174.3.110.108 (talk) 23:54, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

cf. : How do I remove the margins or/and or or\and borders?174.3.110.108 (talk) 00:01, 5 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Don't use, as it is styled with borders— see MediaWiki:Common.css. What does this template do?  Beside violate the accessibility standards per WP:COLOR. ---—  Gadget850 (Ed)  talk 00:17, 5 March 2010 (UTC)


 * This template is usually only used on wikipediaspace pages.174.3.110.108 (talk) 00:30, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

2010 California gubernatorial election
I just submitted my 'Statement of Intention, FORM 501' with the Secretary of State'. Can I Add/Edit a Wikipedia Article on myself stating only factual data, with no references since I am myself? One that looks a lot like the Meg Whitman article. Cheers, --i am the kwisatz haderach (talk) 23:56, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

No, an article must be referenced with reliable sources. You should also be aware that editing an article about yourself would be a violation of our conflict of interest policy, see WP:COI. Regards, RadManCF (talk) 00:24, 5 March 2010 (UTC)
 * COI is a guideline, not a policy. Woogee (talk) 20:42, 7 March 2010 (UTC)


 * You have no references. How could you state facts?174.3.110.108 (talk) 00:48, 5 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Hi SpecialAgent777, nee Kwisatz Haderach, you could try leaving a request at WP:REQUESTED ARTICLES and let other established editors create your article in case they can find reliable sources.'' ▒ ♪ ♫ Wifione ♫ ♪  ▒  ―Œ  ♣Łeave Ξ мessage♣  05:05, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

Aso!!!, Me Like. I can be here and there at the same time, two places at once. And the Kwisatz Haderach prophecy will be Internetly woven. I actually came back on this board to ask this very question, and it's answered before I even ask it. Again, the power of the Kwisatz Haderach, literally the jumping of the path/way/road. Cheers, --i am the kwisatz haderach (talk) 21:52, 5 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Wifoine, thanks much, first time using that Wiki-bit. I think I did it right, check it out.  And I'll end this with a Puff Daddy Quote: Tell your friends, to get with my friends, and we can all be friends. --i am the kwisatz haderach (talk) 22:23, 5 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Thanks Kwisatz. Actually, you haven't done it right. If the article you want to create is, for example, on the person known as JohnJohnJohn, then I'll suggest that you simply add the following JohnJohnJohn at WP:REQUESTED ARTICLES. Although I have to warn you that blogs/facebook references do not come under reliable sources, which are necessary for us to create articles. Do kindly go through the following link that would tell you what are reliable sources and how they are used in creating articles. Feel free to write back. Thanks and cheers '' ▒ ♪ ♫ Wifione ♫ ♪  ▒  ―Œ  ♣Łeave Ξ мessage♣  06:31, 6 March 2010 (UTC)