Wikipedia:Help desk/Archives/2012 June 23

= June 23 =

George Nader page
Hello I don't have a question, but just wanted you to know that I was on George Nader's page and it is showing in edit mode. I'm not sure if anyone looking this page up will be able to edit it or not. I remember before looking up someone's page and it was in edit mode. Just letting you know. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.171.164.215 (talk) 02:46, 23 June 2012 (UTC)


 * Anyone can edit Wikipedia, so it is not a problem that someone can go to George Nader and edit the page. RudolfRed (talk) 03:36, 23 June 2012 (UTC)

American Jews
Should you not include Alan Arkin, the actor? You have his son under this heading — Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.24.239.170 (talk) 05:36, 23 June 2012 (UTC)


 * I'm not sure which article you're referring to, since American Jews does not list any of the Arkin family. But, if you do find an error or omission in an article, you can raise the issue on that article's talk page. RudolfRed (talk) 05:45, 23 June 2012 (UTC)
 * I'm pretty sure this is about Category:American Jews, which Adam, but not Alan, appears in. I never know with these categories whether they belong if the person's religion/ethnic background is not at the heart of what they're about, so I'm not going to add it (nor am I opposed to it). But it always seems a bit strange to me. I have no idea, to pick an example at random, if Clint Eastwood is Catholic or Presbyterian, or... and I think it would be somewhat odd if he was in any category like that because I have no association with religion for him, though I vaguely suspect he is from some Christian background. In the same way, I suppose I vaguely knew Alan Arkin was Jewish, but it would never come to mind as an identifier. I've seen lots of Alan Arkin Films and I viscerally think of him more as Puerto Rican because of Popi.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 07:54, 23 June 2012 (UTC)


 * I have no knowledge of the Arkin family, but it's entirely possible that both implied "classifications" are correct. "Jewishness" in the ethnic rather than religious sense is commonly taken to be inherited from one's mother, so for example if I, a male non-Jew (being probably only 1/8 Jewish, from my father's side) were to marry a Jew (not an unlikely scenario), our children would be considered Jewish. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 90.197.66.109 (talk) 10:42, 23 June 2012 (UTC)


 * The categorization of Jews is a thorny issue being discussed on the BLP notice board right now. My best advice is to avoid it altogether. The talk page for Bob Dylan has a long discussion about it as well as many other BLP articles.--Canoe1967 (talk) 12:12, 23 June 2012 (UTC)

This sandbox is in the article namespace. Either move this page into your userspace, or remove the User sandbox template.
I moved my sandbox to "user: Jeff Rollason" then realised to should have been to (article) Jeff Rollason. The article is published but it is headed with

"This sandbox is in the article namespace. Either move this page into your userspace, or remove the User sandbox template."

I have not figured out how to remove my first "move" to "user: Jeff Rollason". I also cannot find the "User sandbox template", that is: any template under user jeffrollason

Any suggestions? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jeffrollason (talk • contribs) 06:44, 23 June 2012‎
 * Looks like you're fixed. I tagged the leftover User:Jeff Rollason for deletion. Your article (Jeff Rollason) is likely to be deleted though. A published game that's received independent reviews in major publications, or the company that made it, might be notable enough for a Wikipedia article, but only if it's gotten significant coverage. The person doesn't have said coverage, as far as I can tell. You should have a look at WP:42 and WP:Notability for the rules about what warrants a Wikipedia article.  Equazcion  ( talk )  07:04, 23 Jun 2012 (UTC)


 * See also Autobiography. -- John of Reading (talk) 08:16, 23 June 2012 (UTC)

Cite web
I have a question about the template "Cite web". What is the difference between "title" and "work"? Thanks in advance.&mdash;Toccata quarta (talk) 07:47, 23 June 2012 (UTC)
 * According to the documentation at Template:Cite web, "work" refers to the title of the website and is rendered in italics in the citation. "Title" refers to the title of the individual web page and is rendered in quote marks.  Think of the example of an individual article in a book which is a collection of such articles.  Ka renjc 08:14, 23 June 2012 (UTC)
 * Wait... So, if I am referring to this section then work=Wikipedia and title=Wikipedia:Help Desk. Then how should I represent this section (Cite web)? Sorry for asking this but I am really confused with these parameters (the same applies to Cite book). Is there a help page for these? V ani s che nu mTalk 04:56, 24 June 2012 (UTC)
 * Help:Citation Style 1 and Help talk:Citation Style 1. - Purplewowies (talk) 17:03, 24 June 2012 (UTC)
 * Thank you so much! — Preceding unsigned comment added by Vanischenu (talk • contribs) 16:01, 25 June 2012 (UTC)

Ed Begley
Ed Begley played Brady in the original Broadway production, but did not appear in the movie. Frederic March played the role on screen. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.96.225.234 (talk) 07:52, 23 June 2012 (UTC)
 * See our articles Inherit the Wind (1960 film) and Inherit the Wind (1965 film). Fredric March did indeed play Brady on the big screen in the former, but Ed Begley played the role in the latter - a TV film - reprising his Broadway stage performance.  There is ample evidence online to confirm both performances.   Ka renjc 08:26, 23 June 2012 (UTC)

Languages names spelling in interwiki links
Does anyone know why do some languages' names in the interwiki links box starts with the lower case letter (for example 'português' or 'русский') while other names start with the upper case letter ('Deutsch' or 'Simple English')? Teyandee (talk) 08:02, 23 June 2012 (UTC)
 * This is discussed at Village pump (technical). Apparently the change will be reversed when the next release of the software is installed in a week or two. -- John of Reading (talk) 08:14, 23 June 2012 (UTC)
 * Thanks. Teyandee (talk) 14:22, 23 June 2012 (UTC)

Redlinks unlikely to be created
Template:Asia topic is used on articles such as List of islands of Japan. On a page like List of islands of Japan the template contains a number of redlinks which in my opinion are unlikely to be created, like for example List of islands of Mongolia, List of islands of Bhutan or List of islands of Christmas island. What could be done about this? -- Toshio Yamaguchi (tlk−ctb) 12:29, 23 June 2012 (UTC)
 * Whether or not an article will be created on a topic is usually a matter of opinion and so I usually leave these in place unless I have a strong reason to suspect that nobody will ever write an article on the topic. In this case, I believe you have a very strong reason to suspect that land-locked countries and single-island territories will never have a an article created to spell out a list of their nonexistent islands. Even if they were to change borders or to conquer other islands or something, Wikipedia concerns itself with the present and not the future per WP:CRYSTAL. So feel free to remove these from the template. -Thibbs (talk) 12:43, 23 June 2012 (UTC)
 * The problem is, I don't know how to remove them, due to the the links being created automatically. Is there a way to hide those links? Perhaps I am just mamooaming here, not sure. -- Toshio Yamaguchi (tlk−ctb) 12:54, 23 June 2012 (UTC)
 * The problem is that the Template:Asia topic is automatically used for a lot of things with an argument so that with "Cuisine" it becomes a template with links to the Cuisine of all of the countries and with Parks it becomes links to the Parks of all of the countries. I don't know if there are enough countries that would be removed that it would make sense to make an islands specific template or not... But List of Islands of Mongolia is pretty funny...Naraht (talk) 12:59, 23 June 2012 (UTC)
 * Yepp and per WP:REDNOT those redlinks shouldn't be there. Now one could argue those redlinks do no harm, but that seems to be a poor rationale to keep something which is pretty useless. -- Toshio Yamaguchi (tlk−ctb) 13:07, 23 June 2012 (UTC)
 * I think the best move might be to create a mirror template for these "list of islands of X" articles but make this template require manual additions rather than automatic additions. And of course don't add countries like Mongolia to this manual template. As Naraht points out, there may not be enough countries with islands to warrant the creation of a specific exclusion. -Thibbs (talk) 14:44, 23 June 2012 (UTC)

Wikipedia page on Martin Gillingham
Hi there - I am Martin Gilllingham and the Wikipedia entry about me is very poor. I'm not a Wikipedia contributor and do not know how to amend it myself. However, I would be grateful if someone can. There is plenty of stuff on the internet about me so would be grateful if someone can address this. thanks. MG — Preceding unsigned comment added by 95.149.216.56 (talk) 12:53, 23 June 2012 (UTC)
 * This page is designed to help editors with questions about how to use Wikipedia. There are a number of ways to request improvements to articles including posting on the article's talk page (found here), posting a request for improvement on one of the talk pages of one of the WikiProjects affiliated with the article (found at WT:BIOG, WT:OLY, and WT:WikiProject Running), and posting a request backed by a financial bounty (found here). Another option that Wikipedia wishes to encourage is for people to boldly improve articles on their own. This can be accomplished simply by clicking on one of the several "edit" buttons located on every page and then altering the text and clicking the "Save page" button at the bottom. If you would like to contribute to an article on the topic of yourself, however, you should read through Wikipedia's rules on Conflict of Interest before beginning. -Thibbs (talk) 15:03, 23 June 2012 (UTC)
 * I'd like to thank you on asking about improving the article in this way. The best way is probably to go to the talk page for the article Talk:Martin Gillingham, and start adding the facts with a place they can be referenced to.Naraht (talk) 22:29, 23 June 2012 (UTC)

Page View Counter
A friend and I were researching Alan Turing this morning after viewing Google's homepage featuring the Turing Machine. In the course of our research, we happened across Entscheidungsproblem. After barely understanding the article, we had two ideas that might be useful for your site.

1. Include a page view counter recording how many times a specific page has been visited. (We have to think Entscheidungsproblem isn't very popular).

2. It could be interesting/ amusing to have a "Dumb it Down" button to put complex language/ ideas into a simpler format for the non-Alan Turing's of the world. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.135.235.58 (talk) 14:26, 23 June 2012 (UTC)
 * Page view counter already exists - go to the history section and look for 'revision history statistics'. As for 'dumbing down' the language, you could take a look here. -Cntras (talk) 15:08, 23 June 2012 (UTC)
 * Cntras, correct me if I'm wrong, but I think "revision history statistics" only provides edit information, not views. There could be more (perhaps many more) views than edits. Cresix (talk) 16:19, 23 June 2012 (UTC)
 * I think he may have meant "Page view statistics" (also located under "view history"). -Thibbs (talk) 16:55, 23 June 2012 (UTC)
 * Yes, I meant the page view statistics tab. -Cntras (talk) 07:10, 24 June 2012 (UTC)

Artistic depictions
Most Wikipedia articles about general things like Music or Mathematics feature artistic drawings related to the articles. This is extremely philosophical and unfriendly to readers. Your opinions? 123.24.99.159 (talk) 16:24, 23 June 2012 (UTC)
 * This page is designed to help editors who have questions concerning how to use Wikipedia. If you would like to propose that drawings should be removed from all music- and mathematics-related articles then you can do so here where other editors will be able to discuss your proposal. Good luck. -Thibbs (talk) 16:53, 23 June 2012 (UTC)

Global user info - Hidden Level?
Haven't found any useful info about this: Can someone point me to any documentation that describes what "Hidden Level" means that appears under "Global user info" in the "Global user manager" special pages ? Otherwise, any information about this would be helpful: Curious as to what it means, why it's there, what function and purpose does it serve, who can ask for it, what the different levels are and associated privileges, and who has authority to change it? Ablazeone (talk) 16:29, 23 June 2012 (UTC)
 * It shows whether the global username is hidden from global user lists. Ruslik_ Zero 17:06, 23 June 2012 (UTC)

Nayko Island
Dear Sir/Madam

I have set up the page Nayko Island and there is a message on the page saying it is going to be deleted but I don't understand why. I am not Danielle Watson but I do have her permission to set up pages about her and her book. Please can someone tell me why the page is going to be deleted? Is there anyway the page can be kept?

Kind regards — Preceding unsigned comment added by Maddie6130 (talk • contribs) 19:48, 23 June 2012 (UTC)


 * Click the button in the notice to contest the deletion. However, since you have provided anything in the article about why the subject is important.    You might want to start by working on the page in your sandbox, and then after it is ready move it to mainspace.  WP:YFA will help.  RudolfRed (talk) 19:54, 23 June 2012 (UTC)
 * See WP:CSD, criterion A7 for the reason for proposed deletion. Essentially, the notability of the subject has not been established with reliable sources. Additionally, if you are in any way affiliated with the subject, you are strongly discouraged from editing articles related to the subject; see WP:COI and WP:AUTOBIOGRAPHY. Cresix (talk) 19:58, 23 June 2012 (UTC)

New editor feedback
Newer editors are asked how Wikipedia makes them feel (happy, sad, etc.) It is a prompt at the top of the page. I have disabled this feature multiple times, but whenever I log in to a new IP, it prompts me for my feedback again. Can someone please ask the right someone to please fix this? Thanks. Biosthmors (talk) 19:57, 23 June 2012 (UTC)
 * You may want to cross post this question/request to Village pump (technical) where the readers are more likely to understand the technical underpinnings of the problem. Monty  845  04:37, 24 June 2012 (UTC)

Interwiki case presentation
Recently the interwiki presentation on mainspace articles has changed to appear to be in random (upper or lower) cases. Is something going on?--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 22:27, 23 June 2012 (UTC)


 * See Village pump (technical). It looks like the upper case will return. It isn't random. Languages are in lower case if that's the normal way to write them in that language, but the mix of upper and lower case looks bad. PrimeHunter (talk) 22:32, 23 June 2012 (UTC)