Wikipedia:Help desk/Archives/2010 October 3

= October 3 =

Friendly merged to Twinkle
Could/should an administrator (or whoever is capable of doing this) remove Friendly from the my preferences menu. Hundreds of people would be surprised when friendly is suddenly yanked out from under them but at some point we gotta do it. Marcus  Qwertyus   01:10, 3 October 2010 (UTC)


 * Well, why? -- Extra   999  (Contact me  +  contribs) 02:45, 3 October 2010 (UTC)
 * What does Friendly mean? Feeling stupid, I remain yours faithfully, GeorgeLouis (talk) 04:42, 3 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Friendly is similar to Twinkle. --Onorem♠Dil 04:50, 3 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Ah, it's a tool to help editors revert vandalism, and so forth? Hmm. Why not just use the "Revert" function? You see, when I went to WP:Friendly, I was confronted with this: "Friendly is a collection of JavaScripts that provide an interface similar to Twinkle (by using the morebits JavaScript library) for Wikipedia's more friendly, collaboration-oriented tasks." Right. Sure. Maybe the WP:Twinkle page would be more, well, friendly. Let's see? "Twinkle is a set of JavaScript functions that gives registered users, autoconfirmed users and also confirmed several new options to assist them in common Wikipedia maintenance tasks, and to help them deal with acts of vandalism. It provides users with three types of rollback functions and includes a full library of speedy deletion functions, user warnings, pseudo-automatic reporting of vandals, and much, much more." Yes, actually that is a bit more understandable: The prose almost twinkles. Sincerely, your pal, GeorgeLouis (talk) 04:58, 3 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Your question gave the impression that you knew what Twinkle was, but not what Friendly was. My apologies for trying to give a quick answer. While reverting vandalism is one of the more common uses for these tools, they also aid in many other tasks. (warning, reporting, deletion requests, requests for page protection...) The "Revert" function is only useful in a narrow scope...to revert obvious vandalism. I'm sorry you're having a bad night. Hope the rest goes better. --Onorem♠Dil 05:06, 3 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Back to the original question, has it truly been merged entirely? If so a suitable place to bring up the redundancy of having both and removal of Friendly from gadgetes might be Gadget/proposals. You might also leave a note pointing there at Wikipedia talk:Twinkle.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 12:57, 3 October 2010 (UTC)

Who approves textboxes?
Pardon my dudgeon, since I am normally mild-mannered, but I just wonder who approves textboxes and how they can be changed or modified. I edit many different kinds of pages, and on some of them I see textboxes that either don't make sense at all or have some kind of error on them. Hmm. I wonder, first, who designed the textbox and got approval to paste it (seemingly) will-nilly on the article pages; second, could I remove it on the grounds that it doesn't fit a particular page; third, how can I edit it if I decide to do so? Questioningly, your friend, GeorgeLouis (talk) 04:41, 3 October 2010 (UTC)


 * By "textboxes" are you referring to infoboxes, which are the boxes that list dot-point facts about many article subjects, typically in the top right corner of the article? If so, there's generally no special editorial process that's any different from adding or editing anything else in an article.  Help:Infobox and Manual of Style (infoboxes) provide basic info, and Disinfoboxes provides criticisms of infoboxes that seem to match your concerns.  Adrian J. Hunter(talk•contribs) 05:35, 3 October 2010 (UTC)


 * If you are minded to remove an infobox from a particular article, the best way to go about it is to raise the issue on the talk page of that article, and allow time for discussion. You may also mention that you've made such a proposal at the talk pages of any relevant WikiProjects. Mjroots (talk) 08:40, 3 October 2010 (UTC)

Marriage certificate
Can we ask in your good office regarding certificate of marriage? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Prelemexam (talk • contribs) 06:37, 3 October 2010 (UTC)
 * You are at Wikipedia, an online encyclopedia. I'm not sure that I have understood your question, but we do have an article, Marriage certificate, which may help you with general background information. -- John of Reading (talk) 07:11, 3 October 2010 (UTC)
 * I fail to understand your question. --Monterey Bay (talk) 20:17, 3 October 2010 (UTC)

Received Notice in Error - is this common?
Received a notice from Wikipedia (on the site) that an unauthorized edit had been made from my I.P. address (adding a profanity to the page for ‘Lemmings’). Is this a common system error? Found nothing relevant in the FAQ. 154.20.16.68 (talk) 09:28, 3 October 2010 (UTC)
 * It's not an error. If you look at Special:Contributions/154.20.16.68, you'll see that the vanalism edits were made from the IP address that you are using. Perhaps it's not a fixed IP address and someone else had it when those edits were made? Cordless Larry (talk) 09:59, 3 October 2010 (UTC)


 * Note the message at User talk:154.20.16.68 is from March where the last edits by the IP address were made. Maybe nobody visited Wikipedia with that IP address since then so you got a "new messages" banner. As the bottom of User talk:154.20.16.68 says: "Some IP addresses change periodically, and may be shared by several users." PrimeHunter (talk) 13:08, 3 October 2010 (UTC)

Is there any policy on drug safety information for pharmaceutical product pages and any policy on drug companies having responsibility for these?
Dear helpful person,

I just came back from a conference called "Digipharm" which is for marketers in the pharmaceutical industry to discuss the use of Web 2.0 and social media. A question that came up a few times was around Wikipedia. Obviously for many pharmaceutical drugs, the pharma industry has staff that could add a lot to the pages on drugs they manufacture. So long as they complied with our policies like adding citations and being NPOV and disclosing COIs, I don't see how this would be a problem. However there is clearly the opportunity for bias to be introduced and some people might find it, dare I say, "sinister" that a large corporation would try and edit its own page? Has this been discussed in detail before anywhere?

My second issue is related to regulations around safety information. Although it's not clear yet how regulators such as the FDA or EMEA (in Europe) will treat Wikipedia, in the rest of the online world pharma has a responsibility to provide safety information. For instance if you go to a branded drug.com site like say prozac.com you'll see lots of boilerplate text about its approved indication and side effects. Some companies might interpret that to mean that their Wikipedia drug page should contain all that info as well to avoid a telling off / fine from the regulators.

I'd be very grateful for any guidance as to which project groups or policy folks might be the best people to speak to. Cheers, --PaulWicks (talk) 12:51, 3 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Regarding the first question, yes it has been extensively discussed. I'll summarize my take on it: WP:COI is a guideline, not a policy. It "strongly discourage[s]" COI editing, but does not prohibit it, however, it does note that failure to comply with policies can lead to a block.


 * Best practice for someone employed by a company (or a paid lobbyist) is to add factual information, with solid sources and/or propose edits on the relevant talk page. Then, a neutral edit can assess the information, and make the edits as suggested if appropriate or reword them if needed.-- SPhilbrick  T  14:02, 3 October 2010 (UTC)
 * I second the above. However, I can't see how any company would be required by regulators to include material on Wikipedia, when they aren't in control of what gets included on the site. Cordless Larry (talk) 22:54, 3 October 2010 (UTC)


 * Hi Paul,
 * A similar discussion happened at WT:MED recently. You might like to read it in the archives.  WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:00, 3 October 2010 (UTC)

Editing a template/infobox
I am trying to find out how to alter an infobox to include a couple of extra optional fields, so that they can be used on certain articles, this is following a discussion at Talk:Giant's Causeway. The infobox in question is Geobox, I made changes to Template:Geobox/type/nature thinking that would allow the extra fields to be used, but nothing happened at Giant's Causeway when i tried using the new fields. What did i do wrong please? BritishWatcher (talk) 13:16, 3 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Possibly caching. Try making a "null edit" to the article - add some whitespace, click "Save page", and check again. TFOWR 14:05, 3 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Could you please check the edit i made to the geobox page TFOWR, i dont want to redo it all to try the caching thing if its just some other mistake ive made. Ive already made a bit of a mess on the geobox history lol with so many edits there. Im not even sure if that was the right place to edit. BritishWatcher (talk) 14:26, 3 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Not really got time right now, to be honest, and Giant's Causeway is one place I really don't want to be more than I have to (i.e. blocking obvious socks). My advice would be - copy the template code to a sandbox, and then test it from another sandbox. I don't know if you remember how Codf1977 and me tested templates for WT:BISE? Have a look at User:TFOWR/Sandbox/BISE and User:TFOWR/Sandbox/BISE/Template. That way you avoid folk dumping a  on your talkpage when you break a template (which has happened to me before, more times than I care to remember ;-) TFOWR 15:36, 3 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Ditto. I mainly work on singlechart, and I do all my testing at User:Kww/singlechart and User talk:Kww/singlechart. Nothing like a typo screwing up 10,000 chart entries to make you feel humble.&mdash;Kww(talk) 15:43, 3 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Ok thanks, ill give it a try and create it separately on two userpages to mess around with there. BritishWatcher (talk) 15:59, 3 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Ahhhh, i am lost already lol. How do i make the template testing page work from the template at my userspace rather than the standard live one. BritishWatcher (talk) 16:15, 3 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Edit the template name in the test page, i.e. instead of  .&mdash;Kww(talk) 16:52, 3 October 2010 (UTC)
 * User:BritishWatcher/3 is where i copied all of the data over from Template:Geobox/type/nature and  User:BritishWatcher/4 is where i copied the template used on the article. When i try to get the template on 4 to be in line with 3 either it simply gets a red link or it produces a complete copy of whats on 3. Im so confused lol :( Is tht title of my page a problem? does it have to be the same name as used in the template?BritishWatcher (talk) 17:04, 3 October 2010 (UTC)

I moved this conversation to BritishWatcher's talk page and set up sandbox versions for him.&mdash;Kww(talk) 04:13, 4 October 2010 (UTC)

What do you do if you think an entry should be monitored because the entry is growing into a heated issue?
I think the Ron Johnson (Wisconsin) page should be monitored by actual Wikipedia people. Ron Johnson is running in the 2010 Senate Race in Wisconsin and may have some problems with conflicting ideas about his history and standing in the community.

Please contact me to see how I can help or if you can help the page? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.117.0.136 (talk) 14:04, 3 October 2010 (UTC)


 * To watch the page: Create an account for yourself. After you do this, on the article, there will be a star at the top of the article page (next to the View History button). This will add the page to your watchlist. This will cause any eits made to the article to show up on your watchlist. You can click on a diff link to show the changes that were made to that article in that edit. -- Bk314159 (Talk to me and find out what I've done) 17:56, 3 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Requests for page protection is the place to go if you think it needs protection. WP:ANI is the place to go if you merely want some eyes to pay attention to it.-- SPhilbrick  T  18:37, 3 October 2010 (UTC)

Uploading images into English Wikipedia
Hi, am trying to insert a digital photo which I took into the page I created on Manchester Law Library. I'm a techno-fool and have read the instructions on uploading but can't follow them. I seem to have uploaded the image to Wikipedia Commons, and to have inserted the filename into the article but I cannot make it appear as a picture. Would much appreciate any assistance and am sorry that I can't follow simple instructions but I just can't.  KJP1 (talk) 14:58, 3 October 2010 (UTC)


 * The guide for adding images is at Images, I have added the image to the article so you could just have a look at the code used. MilborneOne (talk) 15:25, 3 October 2010 (UTC)

Here comes Santa Claus
Could anyone suggest a profile template for Santa Claus please? There is one for God, but nothing for Satan... or Santa! Any suggestions?-- Myosotis Scorpioides  16:59, 3 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Can you explain more clearly what you mean by a profile template? Do you mean for god the template god?--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 17:18, 3 October 2010 (UTC)

Sorry: Like Infobox actor, Infobox musical artist or Infobox Greek deity.-- Myosotis Scorpioides  17:28, 3 October 2010 (UTC)


 * There is no infobox template specifically for Santa, although, depending on what you want to do, other templates might work for you. See Help:Infobox for more information.--Bbb23 (talk) 17:39, 3 October 2010 (UTC)
 * If you had said this about articles in general I might have thought you meant an infobox, but you specified that "[t]here is one for God", but the article God does not have an infobox. You must have meant a different sky daddy-related article. You might want to look at some of the templates in Category:Religion and belief infobox templates for this.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 18:00, 3 October 2010 (UTC)


 * Now Santa Claus is one of the article I would think twice about editing, considering the readership for such topics may extend into an age group that might be upset to discover the existence or otherwise of such a person. Maybe young readers would search for Father Christmas instead. Who knows! Having scanned those articles though, they seem a little too academic for me, never mind my children; still, if my children are good, they will get their presents every Hogswatchday (32 December) as always --Senra (Talk) 19:49, 3 October 2010 (UTC)

forgot password, email no longer exists
I forgot my password and the email account I used no longer exists. Can you reset my account for me. Username: Mark.van.wolferen

If you need any proof to establish my identity let me know at E-mail address removed.


 * Please don't post personal information here. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.101.217.238 (talk) 19:30, 3 October 2010 (UTC)
 * The easiest thing to do would be to just create another account. Battleaxe9872

وکیپیڈیا 19:34, 3 October 2010 (UTC)
 * (Reformatted replies above) To amplify what Battleaxe said, if you no longer have the email account you registered with, then there is no way that anybody can recover your password. I'm afraid that creating a new account is all you can do. Sorry. --ColinFine (talk) 21:10, 3 October 2010 (UTC)

Help with User talkpage move
Tried to help out a new editor by moving an article from the Userpage to a subpage. Before I could catch it, the talk page was moved as well. Can you help move it back? Not sure what to do. It is at User:Cavalier Toy Spaniel. Cindamuse (talk) 20:30, 3 October 2010 (UTC)
 * User:JamesBWatson took care of it. Oh, and good on ya for finding the copyvio. Cheers.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 21:33, 3 October 2010 (UTC)