Wikipedia:Help desk/Archives/2010 May 13

= May 13 =

Why would you destroy a good article and leave only the negative information which happens to be incorrect anyway.
Sirs or Madams

You had an article in your "famous persons from Michigan City" article which included the following persons: Rev Tina Redden: International Gospel Singer songwriter musician Rev Neil Singleton: 6 time world heavyweight kickboxing champion Ken Young: National 16 time National Heavyweight Tae Kwon Do Champion Timothy Redden: National Middleweight Tae Kwon Do Champion Terry Redden: National Heavy weight Tae Kwon Do Champion

All of these statements could have been very easily substantiated. However, they were removed and the only African American listed was Johnson Van Dyke Grisby who was noted for spending the most time in the Indiana State Prison and he was not from michigan City Ind any way. We have many minorities that has made tremendous names for themselves and this town other than one that was not born here but committed a crime and was imprisioned in the state the crime was committed.

The five persons first mentioned does reside in Michigan city and has accomplished what was written about them, google their names and find out.

Johnson Van Dyke Grisby was not from michigan city, this type of article gives our young people nothing to be proud of and they are being instructed not to include wiki in any of their school studies as well as the local higher education facilities. You need to correct this. Making African Americans to look only as prison material is not what wiki should be striving for. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.239.178.165 (talk) 00:10, 13 May 2010 (UTC)
 * If you have some reliable independent sources of information that verify that those five individuals meet Wikipedia's notability guidelines (and especially the guidelines on the notability of living people), then please do add them to the article, with those citations. With regard to Johnson Van Dyke Grisby, if you have reliable sources which show that he is not from Michigan, then remove his name and cite the sources in your edit summary. --  Phantom Steve / talk &#124; contribs \ 00:16, 13 May 2010 (UTC)


 * One thought I had was the Michigan City, Indiana article could have been subject to vandalism to deliberately remove some people and not others. However, I am now puzzled by 71.239's question.  The list of 10 prisoners who have been held at Indiana State Prison was removed in January 2010 (incorrectly IMHO since it seems many prisoners were quite notable, including John Dillinger, though I cannot say whether Johnson Van Dyke Grisby was notable but he has never had an article written about him).  It is also worth noting that it was a list of prisoners held at the prison, not prisoners from Michigan City.
 * As for the Redden/Young/Singleton family, they were added in April 2007 and then removed three times in Aug/Sept 2007, each time because there were no articles about these people. The list is for notable people, which many people take to mean they should have a Wikipedia article about them.  However, like PhantomSteve hints at above, if they meet Wikipedia's notability criteria then please do write articles about them.  I'm sure once articles are established, there will be no difficulty adding them to the Michigan City article and having them stay there.  Astronaut (talk) 09:16, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

Ojay123 (Talk&bull;E-Mail&bull;Contribs&bull;Sandbox)(Respond on my talk page! 17:32, 16 May 2010 (UTC)

User talk page question
I have been taken to task by an editor for responding to another editor's comments on his/her own talk page. I was a bit surprised by this as it seems to be fairly common for editors to do this. On checking the user talk page guidelines I cannot find anything that forbids editors from responding to comments on user talk pages not made by the user. I will appreciate any information or advice on what is considered appropriate in this respect. Thanks. Afterwriting (talk) 05:15, 13 May 2010 (UTC)
 * If I understood you correctly, then you're User C in this situation: User B posts on User A 's talk page, and User C notices B's post.
 * Many User As don't mind if user C replies to user B on their talk page, especially if A and C know each other on Wikipedia. Such is the case with User:Jimbo's talk page. However, if A asks C not to carry out discussions on their talk page, it would be polite if C respected that request. If community discussion is required, it can be done on an article talk page and user C can request A and B to join in there.
 * Did I understand your question correctly? liquidluck ✽ talk  05:29, 13 May 2010 (UTC)


 * Thanks for replying. Yes, I am User C in this situation.  The editor who was critical of my commenting was User A who criticised me for commenting on a message from another editor ( User B ).  I can appreciate an editor asking me not to comment in this way if that is their preference - but I cannot find any policy or guideline about this and User A seems to believe that such a policy exists.  Any further clarification about this will be appreciated.  Thanks.  Afterwriting (talk) 05:47, 13 May 2010 (UTC)


 * There is no such policy, because users do not actually own their userspace. However, it really is so pointless to argue about, it's better to just let the user have his way. Almost no good ever comes from trying to convince someone otherwise. Someguy1221 (talk) 05:58, 13 May 2010 (UTC)


 * Thanks. I'm not interested in arguing or asserting a right to make such comments - I was only really interested in having this matter clarified in terms of policy or etiquette guidelines, especially since other editors have sometimes made unwelcome responses to other editors' comments on my own talk page.  Afterwriting (talk) 06:10, 13 May 2010 (UTC)


 * You are allowed to remove posts from your own talk page as you desire (with certain exceptions). Its preferred that you archive them, but it isn't necessary. Check out WP:REMOVED and USERTALK for more information. liquidluck ✽ talk  01:00, 14 May 2010 (UTC)

Beta today
Could someone point me to the discussion that showed that people have to use Beta from the start and then turn the features off, instead of the usual layout with the option to turn them on? And that it is switched from this week? Simply south (talk) 08:39, 13 May 2010 (UTC)
 * I can't find it offhand, but it was discussed at meta - as it involves all the WMF projects. If you are on the mailing list for announcements, it was there; I'm pretty sure that the Signpost covered it a while ago. I'm also pretty sure that it's been covered in the press as well. --  Phantom Steve / talk &#124; contribs \ 11:38, 13 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Also see this post on the Wikimedia Technical Blog. Graham 87 14:29, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

Socks 01 - WWE Socks
Is it possible that my old user name Socks 01 could be "joined" with WWE Socks. I was formerly Socks 01 previous to 2007 and now only use WWE Socks. Could those edits made with Socks 01 ever be transfered to WWE Socks or not? Just asking. Thanks  WWE  Socks  08:39, 13 May 2010 (UTC)
 * As it appears that you created a new account rather then ask for your old one to be renamed, the edits cannot be re-allocated to your new account. You could have your old talk page redirect to your new talk page, and on your old user page have a note explaining that this is your old account, and linking to the new account. --  Phantom Steve / talk &#124; contribs \ 11:17, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

Need help on creating page.
I have created a page for my company and product. But don't know how to edit the things in WikiPedia. I need help from someone. Kindly find the page at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trinken. Asking someone to help. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Mhgroupbd (talk • contribs) 10:13, 13 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Hello, and welcome! Unfortunately, it looks like your page will be deleted soon under our criteria for speedy deletion because it seems to exist purely to promote something. Wikipedia is not here to be used to advertise companies or products. Unfortunately, your username could also be a problem as it does not comply with our username policy. Again, the problem is that it is promotional, and the fact that it appears to represent a group of people. Your username must only represent one individual (you!) You are welcome to request a username change to something non-promotional, but even then, you should not write articles about companies or products that you are connected to in real life. See: Conflict of interest and Autobiography. Please post if you have any other questions. -- Beloved Freak  10:39, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

Get rid of beta
I want this new "beta" style gone but I don't and can't have an account. How do you get rid of it without signing in? 82.44.55.254 (talk) 10:56, 13 May 2010 (UTC)
 * As far as I am aware, the only way to do so is to have an account. All unregistered users need to use the default "Vector" skin. When I logged out and looked, there was no option to change it (as you don't have "preferences" unless you are logged in. --  Phantom Steve / talk &#124; contribs \ 11:15, 13 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Would it be possible to write a greasemonkey script that could force monobook to be the default skin? 82.44.55.254 (talk) 11:18, 13 May 2010 (UTC)
 * I don't know! You said that you "can't have an account" - the IP doesn't appear to be blocked from creating an account, so do you mean that you don't want to? Is there a particular reason why you don't want to? --  Phantom Steve / talk &#124; contribs \ 11:37, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

On some computer networks in schools and workplaces, there are filters to stop people creating accounts, at least in my school there is. This could be why... Chevymontecarlo. 12:15, 13 May 2010 (UTC)


 * I feel we should allow IP's to have some option of getting out of the new features, but I am not sure if it is technically feasible. Immunize (talk) 14:55, 14 May 2010 (UTC)
 * See the page where you can request an account that will be created.-- m o ɳ o 02:15, 16 May 2010 (UTC)

a new look for the environment
To whom it may concern,

Recently I heard that dark backgrounds for one's screen saves more energy than Light backgrounds, this apparently is because using a white screen requires more energy. This is why Google has created a custom search known as Blackle (http://www.blackle.com/), where the screen is completely black. Now, I know that Wikipedia is a very well known source of information and many people around the world use it. So I was wondering If we could save energy together for our planet's sake and change the main color of Wikipedia to black. It may not be big but every bit counts..and we have come to a point where a change must be done. I thought that to save the environment, I might ask you to please make this change. I know maybe this might make the layout less pleasant But I find it important we do so!

Thank You and please do consider my comment. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 202.129.235.3 (talk) 11:09, 13 May 2010 (UTC)
 * An interesting idea! However, the Help desk is probably not the best place to ask - you might consider placing a proposal about this at the Village Pump (proposals) - To make it easier, here is a link to create a new section there. --  Phantom Steve / talk &#124; contribs \ 11:31, 13 May 2010 (UTC)


 * A couple of things, 1) Blackle is unconnected to google and 2) Google themselves reject the idea saying that it would use as much energy if not more. --Cameron Scott (talk) 11:38, 13 May 2010 (UTC)


 * Registered users can go to Special:Preferences, click a tab called Gadgets and select "Use a black background with green text". It's unlikely to become default due to readability. Note that only CRT monitors may have a noticeable energy reduction with a black background. LCD monitors work in another way. http://hubpages.com/hub/How-much-power-do-we-save-if-GOOGLE-screen-turns-black-or-grey says: "But an LCD monitor displaying any color is using far less power than a CRT monitor displaying a dark screen. If you're concerned about energy savings, use LCD over CRT." See also http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2007/08/is-black-new-green.html which says: "flat-panel monitors (already estimated to be 75% of the market), displaying black may actually increase energy usage". The 75% must have increased since 2007. PrimeHunter (talk) 11:54, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

New Article to appear when searching wikipedia
I have recently created a article in my user space at: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:GoldsmithKA/The_Second_Regional_Forum_on_the_Prevention_of_Genocide&redirect=no I moved the article out of my space to: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Second_Regional_Forum_on_the_Prevention_of_Genocide

When I search for the page on wikipedia main page, it does not appear as the new page and i have to search first using my username page one. How can I make the new page appear in the search results and how do I stop to username page from doing so.? —Preceding unsigned comment added by GoldsmithKA (talk • contribs) 12:07, 13 May 2010 (UTC)
 * It may take a while for the server to update itself, so maybe that's why you can't get it in the main area search results yet. Chevymontecarlo . 12:14, 13 May 2010 (UTC)


 * The page was moved only two hours ago. It often takes time for search results to be updated with new articles.  Just wait a day or two.  --Mysdaao talk 12:13, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

Why is there hundreds of German place articles tagged here?
Did a bot just blitz all of these articles and tag them all? Not too long ago there was only a couple of pages in this category, now there are thousands and they're all German places. Why is this? Chevymontecarlo. 12:13, 13 May 2010 (UTC)


 * It is due to a change to . On May 7, the template was changed to automatically add a reference for population data.  It was discussed and requested at Template talk:Infobox German location.  The template is fully protected, so if you want it changed, you'll have to discuss it on the talk page.  --Mysdaao talk 12:19, 13 May 2010 (UTC)


 * (Automatically updating population figures? That's really cool!)
 * According to Category:Pages with missing references list, SmackBot should fix this (i.e. add in the missing at the top and save the page.
 * Add  to the top of the other page.
 * Regards, PleaseStand (talk) 23:03, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

Articles for same-named folks
Hello help desk! I wanted to ask some people knowledgeable on procedures before I wrote an article and maybe stepped on someone's toes.
 * I want to write a biography of an individual, but that person's name is the heading of another article about a different person. The original person doesn't seem very notable and has been dead for a long time, and doesn't have many links pointing there, so I was wondering if it would be okay to just "take over" this article and make it about this still living, more notable person, or if I should try to get the article deleted due to notability and then remark the article. Thanks. Peter Napkin Dance Party (talk) 22:41, 13 May 2010 (UTC)
 * You should do neither. To resolve title conflicts, a qualifier in parentheses after a topic is used. If there is no primary topic, the unqualified title becomes a disambiguation page. If there is, the pimary topic occupies the unqualified title with a hatnote pointing to a relevant disambiguation page. Intelligent  sium  22:49, 13 May 2010 (UTC)


 * To elaborate, if the person is a musician named Winston Churchill, for example, you could name the article something like Winston Churchill (musician). Then add to the top of the other article so that readers can find yours. PleaseStand (talk) 22:53, 13 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Ah! Thanks for the information and the quick response. I really think the article that is currently at the person's name is not notable, would it be okay in this case to create a new article with (whatev) after it, and then delete the article that is just the name, and then move (whatev) to the name with the ? This is assuming, of course, that there is made a consensus that the article is not v. noteworthy. Peter Napkin Dance Party (talk) 22:58, 13 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Move the existing article to the new name and then where it says (Redirected from Winston Churchill) when you go to the name you want to put the article at, click that link and then use the "Edit" function at the top of the page to add your article. If you have started a userspace draft, you should use the move function to move the draft over the redirect you have just created by performing the first move (you should not need to be an admin to do that, but if it fails ask at WP:RM). PleaseStand (talk) 23:14, 13 May 2010 (UTC)
 * If you think the existing article should be deleted, you can nominate it for deletion. Please read WP:deletion policy, which explains the different processes and criteria for deleting articles. --ColinFine (talk) 23:19, 13 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Thanks for your help dudes! I really appreciate it. I just added a prod or something to the unsourced, imnotable person article. I appreciate ur help here. :) Peter Napkin Dance Party (talk) 23:27, 13 May 2010 (UTC)
 * I have removed your ProD; you used the BLP prod, but the subject is not a living person. In addition, having competed in the Championship Car series seems to meet the criterion of "competed at the fully professional level of a sport, or a competition of equivalent standing in a non-league sport such as swimming, golf or tennis, [...]" of WP:ATHLETE.  Intelligent  sium  23:34, 13 May 2010 (UTC)
 * LOL, I knew that person was dead, but for some reason it didn't register when I kept reading living person. Sorry for the mistake! I did look at the WP:ATHLETE and thought that it proved this guy wasn't notable. I'm not the best rememberer when it comes to policy and "what it is that it means." I just took a look at the motorsport section of WP:NSPORT and I guess this guy does meet the requirements. Please do not look down upon me for being a bit too hasty. :) Is there anyway to get him deleted since the article has been around for years, doesn't cite anything, and has very few articles pointing at it? Peter Napkin Dance Party (talk) 00:29, 14 May 2010 (UTC) (thanks for all of ur help everyone)
 * Notability is permanent; if the guy meets our standards, he stays. Just go ahead and create the new article for the second person, with the distinguishing characteristic [(frog breeder) or (comedian) or whatever] in parenthesis after. We don't create a disambiguation page for situations where there are only two people of that name. -- Orange Mike  &#x007C;   Talk  13:39, 14 May 2010 (UTC)

Wikipedia doesn't work on the PS3 browser
Not sure if this has been raised as an issue already, but Wikipedia pages do not seem to render correctly on the browser built into the PS3, since the introduction of the new page style. I seem to get two vertical blank strips, about a third of the way and two thirds of the way across the page, which probably blank out about half of an article's content. I have tried various settings on the browser but it always seems to render the same. SilverTrack (talk) 22:57, 13 May 2010 (UTC)
 * This appears to be a known issue as there are several users who already posted this issue on the feedback page, you may be interested in 1, 2 and 3. Cheers, Jeffrey Mall (talk • contribs) - 23:43, 13 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Thanks Jeffrey. Hope they can fix it soon because I, along with one of the other posters, tend to use the PS3 for a lot of browsing, including Wikipedia. Thanks again SilverTrack (talk) 18:59, 14 May 2010 (UTC)

im not a spammer i just want to help people
Im not a spammer and never have been. I believe the content on my sites is very valuable information for other readers also on some blogs there is some very good medical help for sufferers. My comments say that some of my sites are the biggest source of information they have foun don the web as some are over 1000 pages long. So am i still allowed only to post a couple of links? Or can i post more? I just dont want to get banned, i prefer to go by the rules. Please advise, thanks. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Owlpal (talk • contribs) 23:52, 13 May 2010 (UTC)
 * If your content is valuable, people will find it. That's how the Web works - there are all sorts of ways for people to recommend things they like to their friends. Stuff that isn't being promoted by its consumers probably is not valuable. Read WP:EL and WP:SPAMHOLE. On Wikipedia we generally don't need or want a lot of external links; what we need and want are reliable published sources to use in footnote references. Also see WP:COI, WP:NOBLECAUSE, and Medical disclaimer. Wikipedia does not issue medical advice, nor would we want to seem to be endorsing sites that do, unless they are properly licensed to practice medicine. If you want to see coverage of your sites on Wikipedia, get your sites written about in the news media. Get enough media coverage, and eventually some of that may filter into Wikipedia. If the news media doesn't care about what you are doing, then it probably is not notable enough for Wikipedia. --Teratornis (talk) 00:25, 14 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Nicely said. Also, see WP:NOT for more info related to the subject.-- m o ɳ o  02:21, 16 May 2010 (UTC)