Wikipedia:Help desk/Archives/2012 November 3

= November 3 =

Lincoln mass hangings
Just need to know why there is nothing in the history of Lincoln's presidency about the largest mass hanging in U.S. History of the thirty eight innocent Sioux Warriors in Mankota Minnesota? I really believe that the truth of our history should be told, why is it the Native American history means nothing to the people of the United States. Why is it that it is never told that the United States Government murdered more Native Americans then Jews that were killed by the German Government under Hitler? But yet we here about Hitler's killings every year and we are taught that in our schools. Yet not one of those killings happened here on U.S. soil and had nothing to do with the history of this country. I am a Sioux leader and I am very disappointed with the way the aboriginal people of this nation are treated, as if we are nothing. You and what you represent are also contributing to the deception of the Native American and our part in the making of this country. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.146.103.194 (talk) 01:30, 3 November 2012 (UTC)


 * We have policies and guidelines governing the editorial content of articles, among them Reliable sources and Neutral point of view. If you can find neutral reliable sources covering this subject, you are welcome to present them on the talk page of the appropriate article. ~Amatulić (talk) 02:29, 3 November 2012 (UTC)


 * You misspelled Mankato, Minnesota so it didn't turn up in my first search but the mass hanging is mentioned in both Abraham Lincoln, Presidency of Abraham Lincoln, and a lot of other Wikipedia articles. 303 were sentenced to death. Lincoln pardoned 265. 38 were hanged. PrimeHunter (talk) 03:13, 3 November 2012 (UTC)

Lana Marks
Please note. Lana Marks is an African woman. She was born and raised in South Africa. Please give her community the honor and respect that they deserve. Lana Marks is the late Princess Diana of Wales FIRST BEST AFRICAN friend. Lana Marks is an outstanding member of the African community and she deserves to be recognized alongside President Obama for all of her great achievements. Lana Marks and her very prestigious husband, psychiatrist Dr. Neville Marks are great supporters of gays and lesbians in the fashion community.

76.170.67.99 (talk) 01:36, 3 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Other than a pro Lana Marks rant, what was the point of your comment? Do you need assistance on editing Wikipedia? C T F 8 3 !  01:39, 3 November 2012 (UTC)


 * The article Lana Marks is not about the woman, but about the fashion brand. My guess is that the OP would like to see an article about the woman. Maproom (talk) 12:42, 3 November 2012 (UTC)

Pasting in plain text
If I want to copy and paste plain text into Wikipedia so it appears verbatim, including honouring all line breaks and spacing, and not interpreting anything as a formatting command or HTML tag or whatever, what's the best way to do it? I do not believe I have ever found any satisfactory way. 86.176.211.219 (talk) 03:05, 3 November 2012 (UTC)
 * There is no way to do that because different people will be browsing Wikipedia by different methods, displaying different amounts of text per line. What you are describing would be for a published document, not a Wikipedia article. What is your purpose with this request? -- Orange Mike &#x007C;  Talk  04:57, 3 November 2012 (UTC)
 * A computer program, for example. There have been other things I've wanted to do too, but I can't remember the exact circumstances now. Sometimes, with a list of short items which one does not want bulleted, even just the loss of line breaks is a nuisance. As I say, it has occurred from time to time. I am fully aware that ordinary text line-wraps dynamically according to font and browser width. I'm not talking about that. 86.128.3.213 (talk) 12:01, 3 November 2012 (UTC)


 * I think the closest you can get to that is to use the HTML &lt;pre> tag thus:

Here is some text inside a pre tag which preserves spacing and line breaks.

But it still interprets HTML entities such as &amp; which comes out as an ampersand, so it doesn't do all you are asking. --ColinFine (talk) 12:19, 3 November 2012 (UTC)
 * If you need to depict character entity references, you can do like someone did in answering my question from a few days ago — replace the ampersand in the reference with ampersand-a-m-p-semicolon, which appears like &amp;amp;. For example, to demonstrate the > character, you'd type &am&#8203;p;gt;.  Nyttend (talk) 15:40, 3 November 2012 (UTC)

Does anyone understand the point of that big ugly dotted rectangle? Is Wikiedia adding that, or is it a browser thing? 86.128.3.213 (talk) 18:01, 3 November 2012 (UTC)


 * The " big ugly dotted rectangle" happens when text starts with a space - it also prevents line-wrapping so please never ever use it for long texts. What it's actual intended purpose is I have no idea. Roger (talk) 18:09, 3 November 2012 (UTC)


 * For the record, I have subsequently found two other ways of achieving this for computer code:  and  . 86.128.3.213 (talk) 03:53, 4 November 2012 (UTC)

Censorship settings?
This has been bothering me for quite a while. Often, I am afraid to read certain articles because of the profanity in them. I know Wikipedia is not censored, and while I strongly disagree with that, it's necessary to maintain a NPOV. However, I also know that there is a setting to disallow the showing of potentially offensive images. Could a similar filter be made for words? That way, people like me who do not appreciate uncensored profanity could browse Wikipedia more comfortably. NealCruco (talk) 03:31, 3 November 2012 (UTC)
 * It would be even harder with words than images, because different people are bothered by different words. -- Orange Mike &#x007C;  Talk  04:58, 3 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Well, there are some words that everyone considers profanity, right? NealCruco (talk) 16:09, 3 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Such as? Roger (talk) 18:10, 3 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Relatively few, I would suggest. Profanity is a matter of opinion.  Discount those words objected to for purely religious reasons (which won't offend the non-religious) and you're mostly left with synonyms for sexual acts, bodily functions and bits of your anatomy.  Some people will disapprove of most of these; some may flinch only at the most socially taboo, or at none at all.  And, in the vanishingly unlikely event that you could somehow reach consensus on a list of "profane" words to filter (once you had agreed on a definition of "profane", and that would be just as unlikely), how could such a filter work?  Images can be filtered in MediaWiki because it's possible to categorise image files and to change your settings not to display certain categories, but no similar mechanism exists for individual words, which are not categorised. -  Ka renjc 18:50, 3 November 2012 (UTC)

Wiki page deleted and redirected
A wiki page named 'Scott Mathews' has mysteriously been removed and redirected to 'Capitol Records' page. Need help resurrecting the original page to it's real name with all it's info. Thanks! — Preceding unsigned comment added by Littleritual (talk • contribs) 03:35, 3 November 2012 (UTC)
 * What info? The following is the entire article, from the last non-redirect revision: "Scott Mathews (born July 25, 1955 in Sacramento, California) is a music producer, composer, multi-instrumentalist, vocalist, executive and entrepreneur." I'm new here, but something tells a one-sentence article won't cut it. NealCruco (talk) 03:47, 3 November 2012 (UTC)
 * The vast bulk of it was deleted in this edit with an edit summary which, when decoded, appears to mean that the editor thought the article was written by someone with a personal interest in promoting this person (which is not how Wikipedia is meant to work; all the articles are meant to be neutral and objective). 86.176.211.219 (talk) 03:51, 3 November 2012 (UTC)
 * I see that you've discovered how to restore an old version of the article. -- John of Reading (talk) 07:47, 3 November 2012 (UTC)
 * I see that you've discovered how to restore an old version of the article. -- John of Reading (talk) 07:47, 3 November 2012 (UTC)

how do I create a page?
I was a member of the original GreenSteam- a band quoted on the Misery page as containing members that were not part of that band. A mamber of Misery appropriated our name... and I'd like to correct that. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Truegreensteam (talk • contribs) 06:39, 3 November 2012 (UTC)
 * See Your first article for how to create an encyclopedia article here. But understand that an article must be based on published reliable sources not on personal knowledge. And an article must present a neutral point of view: you can't use Wikipedia as a soapbox for your point of view. —teb728 t c 08:20, 3 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Oh, and the subjects of articles must be "notable" by our standards; dozens of articles about bands are deleted every week because the bands art not notable. —teb728 t c 08:28, 3 November 2012 (UTC)
 * If the draft article on your user page were submitted as an article, it would be speedily deleted for not indicating the importance or significance of the subject. It also contains no citations of reliable sources. And the sentence about the other band would be unacceptably non-neutral. Sorry —teb728 t c 08:41, 3 November 2012 (UTC)

linking to a wikipedia article
I see many times on other web site a link to a specific article on wikipedia. May I also do that on my web page. What is the procedure or rules? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 184.36.135.49 (talk) 10:25, 3 November 2012 (UTC)
 * You sure can. In fact, you can directly copy and paste any article directly onto your website. See Text of Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License for more info. C T F 8 3 !  10:38, 3 November 2012 (UTC)

On The definition of Efik.
EFIK as a language is never used or interchanged as Ibibio-Efik...Never.the two languages though with same meanings at times have different pronounciations,accents,phrases and so on,and more-so are spoken by two different ethnic groups.Efik is peculiar to the areas under the control of the great Obong of Calabar,and this areas extend all the way to the bakasi peninsula,and the creek town,while Ibibio is a language spoken by people in Akwa-Ibom state,under a different ruler...These people are different. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.128.55.201 (talk) 11:04, 3 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the information. Is there something that we could help you with? This is the Help Desk. Wifione  Message 13:56, 3 November 2012 (UTC)
 * I think the OP is objecting to the statements in the Efik language article, "The name Efik is also used for Ibibio-Efik", and in the Ibibio-Efik languages article, "Ibibio-Efik, also known as Ibibio and Efik ...". The best place to discuss this must be on the talk pages of those two articles. Maproom (talk) 16:20, 3 November 2012 (UTC)

i have 4 days and 13 edits and still cant edit semi protected pages
i have 4 days and 13 edits and still cant edit semi protected pages, what am i suppose to do,,,--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 13:42, 3 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Keep editing. If you require to edit any semi protected page, you can request edits to a semi-protected page by proposing them on its talk page, using the template if necessary to gain attention. It's quite possible you may be editing from a Tor, in which case, the confirmation period is much longer. Alternatively, you can request the confirmed status at Requests for permissions/Confirmed. I hope that answers your query.  Wifione  Message 13:55, 3 November 2012 (UTC)
 * According to my calculations, 6 more hours are left for you to complete 4 days. Can you please check it. In your "My Contributions" page, the "User rights" link at the bottom will give the exact date and time your account was created. -- Anbu121 ( talk me ) 13:59, 3 November 2012 (UTC)
 * It's not four days from the system's point of view: it's 345,600 seconds, which happen to make exactly four days when we add them up. As far as our software cares, all time limits are down to the second.  Nyttend (talk) 15:37, 3 November 2012 (UTC)

Please, help me quickly
I created this account recently, but I had already created User:Kharzaii, but I missed an I, and I don't want to use that account. It's not a sock account, just a mistake from me. Can you eliminate account User:Kharzaii? please? Thank you Kharzaiii (talk) 14:25, 3 November 2012 (UTC)
 * There's no need to eliminate it. Just don't use the account. Wifione  Message 15:20, 3 November 2012 (UTC)

Main page Section is HORRIBLE
Your "Did you know..." section hurts my brain to read, based on its horrible grammar and structure. Please stop posting all of the items as questions that all start with the word "that". It makes inane facts sound passed off as fascinating information, with the sentence structuring of a middle school book report. The section should be structured in the following fashion: 1) Change the heading to "Did you know?", rather than "Did you know..." 2) Change bullet points to statements, rather than the second half of questions. This will make the section much easier to read and much less infuriating. Signed, This Isn't Ripley's — Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.196.70.2 (talk) 15:07, 3 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Thanks for informing us about your views. I'll pass on the comments to the DYK desk. Kind regards. Wifione  Message 15:26, 3 November 2012 (UTC)

Editing
Hi wiki

I recently edited the shine page ad said that it refers to black people but it keeps getting removed. shine is a legitimate name that people use to refer to black people, especially around the Peoria and Chicago areas of illinois. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.120.207.155 (talk) 18:18, 3 November 2012 (UTC)


 * Its not a common term and is consider racist  - a pejorative word for black people . Things of this nature can be found at List of ethnic slurs.Moxy (talk) 18:25, 3 November 2012 (UTC)

Appropriate for semi-protection? Or another solution?
Since mid June, or possibly sooner, there has been a sustained pattern of edits to a number of articles related to the Scots language (most recently the main target being History of the Scots language) by a variety of IPs but which seem to be by the same user, not least because they often style themself as "Cassandra". Most of the edits are to talk pages, using them like a discussion page and promulgating either unsupported WP:OR, or lately more often purporting to be supported by sources which, on investigation, say at best something quite different to what is claimed by the IP or indeed quite the reverse of what they are claiming. Although it is possible that the user is extremely incompetent in their understanding of the sources they purport to be citing, it seems more likely, particularly after such a sustained period and with such a consistent pattern, that they are intentionally misrepresenting sources to give their personal views credibility. As well as to talk pages, there is also a number of related edits to the article pages themselves.

I, and some other users, have often simply reverted these edits, with explanations in edit summaries. I have however also, at some length (e.g. at Talk:History of the Scots language, also at Talk:Scots language but much of it subsequently deleted per WP:NOTFORUM), tried to engage with the IP on article talk pages, trying to help them understand the purpose of those talk pages, explaining about OR and often providing detailed analysis of their misrepresentaion of sources, initially in the hope that they would understand how to use sources correctly, then lately that the exposure of their mendacity would get them to desist or use sources accurately and honestly.

In the main these discussions would have been better carried out away from the article talk pages as they pertain more, or entirely, to the IP's editing rather than discussion of improvement to the article per se. As numerous and changing IPs are used by the editor it would serve no purpose to address them on one of these IP talk pages. A request to engage on my own talk page has not been accepted and I have also tried to encourage them to open a user account, to no avail. The usage of multiple IPs makes it difficult to keep track of their edits and I think it is credible that they may be avoiding opening an account to avoid sanctions that could be applied (accumulation of warnings and possibly resultant blocks). Their usage of multiple IPs also unfairly calls into question any IP edits which happen to be made by another editor entirely.

It seems clear now that the misrepresentation of sources indicates that the edits are not in good faith. The IP shows no sign of mending their ways and continues to persist in making edits in the same vein as before. I'm not sure that semi-protecting affected article talk pages to discourage forum-style posts, tedious as they are to deal with, would be regarded as appropriate although I'd be interested to hear advice on this. It may be more appropriate to semi-protect article pages but as the edits in question are spread over a number of articles and, though sustained over some months now, usually made with gaps of at least several days or weeks to any individual article.

The pattern is sustained across more than one article rather than particularly frequent to any individual article, so is semi-protection an appropriate tool here? If it is, I think the most-affected article currently is "History of the Scots language". Is there any other advice as to how this matter could be addressed? Mutt Lunker (talk) 20:10, 3 November 2012 (UTC)


 * You'll probably get more of a helpful response if you post this to Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents. Scarce2 (talk) 21:31, 3 November 2012 (UTC)

Thanks, I've taken the matter there. Mutt Lunker (talk) 22:54, 3 November 2012 (UTC)

Reliable Source for CD Recordings
Hi ~ does anyone know how to satisfy a "citation needed" in response to a CD recording? (ex. In 1964, [said performer] release the album "...") Very little is allowed for online links: Amazon, Allmusic, etc. How does one actually prove an artist released a CD recording that would be allowed within the article itself and not in the external links? Is there a template that would include UPC codes and Labels? I know there is "Album-notes" and "DVD-notes" but that doesn't prove when it was recorded or released. It seems like a catch-22 since very little suffices Wiki-editor's need for citations. My problem is that even though I have direct links to these albums that prove what I have stated within the article, there are "citations needed" placed next to statements within the article under: Recordings. Thanks in advance! Impromp2Music (talk) 20:53, 3 November 2012 (UTC)


 * FYI the article concerned is Aaron Robinson (composer) Roger (talk) 21:21, 3 November 2012 (UTC)

I just needed the question answered, Roger, not more eyes directed to the article. I'm trying so hard to do this right. But thank you anyway. The question in particular is: "In 2004, Robinson recorded Black Nativity – In Concert: A Gospel Celebration,[citation needed] a Gospel Christmas album that recreates the original performance of Langston Hughes's Black Nativity, which premiered on Broadway in 1961. The film Black Nativity – In Concert: A Gospel Celebration documents the 2004 performance." The film obviously documents the recording of the album, but I can't seem to include a citation that suffices the need for editor citations needed. Perhaps it's worded incorrectly ~ but it just seems cart before the horse. How can a documentary state that it documents the creation of the gospel album recorded in 2004, and yet a citation is needed for the album itself. That's where I get stuck. Thanks everyone who is here to help! Impromp2Music (talk) 21:37, 3 November 2012 (UTC)


 * Cite video is used for videos, dvds, cds etc. - you can use it to cite a recording directly. - Ka renjc 21:42, 3 November 2012 (UTC)

Ah! THANK YOU! Karenjc!!! I will try ... let's see if it works! I really appreciate your help! PS Do I change "video" to "CD"? or just use "video"? The template is specific to video ... won't this just be declined? Impromp2Music (talk) 21:48, 3 November 2012 (UTC)


 * "Cite video". It's the template's actual name, and like other citation templates it simply makes it easier to format a citation - just fill in the appropriate fields and paste in at the appropriate place.  If you have a look at the template's documentation page (my link above), it says Purpose: This template is used to cite sources in Wikipedia, specifically, audio and visual media sources (my bold).  So you're fine. -  Ka renjc 21:09, 4 November 2012 (UTC)

Copying Wikipedia articles
I am building an iTunes collection. I have been copying all or parts of Wikipedia articles about specific pieces or the people who wrote them and then pasted them in a Pages  file for my personal use. I have edited these down in my file -- not in Wikipedia. I do not intend to use them professionally in any way. I am not -- I repeat -- not trying to change Wikipedia articles in any way.Is this a violation of Wikipedia usage? On one of these articles, Brandenburg Concertos, I received a message from someone who was very upset, saying, among other things, "Please do no save any test edits." Is what I've been doing "saving test edits"? If it is, I will stop.184.21.0.169 (talk) 22:38, 3 November 2012 (UTC)


 * If you don't show your copy to anybody then you should be OK. If you distribute it, also non-commercially, then you must credit the source to satisfy the license. See Reusing Wikipedia content. Copying an article and editing it are completely different operations, and you shouldn't be editing when you make a copy. It sounds like you accidentally edited an article. Maybe you thought that the "Save page" button below the edit box would save a copy on your own harddisk, but it saves a new version of the article on our servers. The closest I could find for Brandenburg concertos was this edit which resulted in a message at User talk:99.96.45.223, but that was a year ago and apparently from another US state. PrimeHunter (talk) 23:10, 3 November 2012 (UTC)

Weird citation error that appeared independently of edits
On the Dragon C2+ page every single ref has an error. This happened within the past couple of days. I initially thought the errors were caused by an edit to the page but reverting it doesn't fix the issue. I've gone through the code and nothing looks broken so can anyone help me?--Craigboy (talk) 23:14, 3 November 2012 (UTC)


 * If the .ogg and .ogv files are removed from the gallery then the references work. I don't know why it goes wrong. At Village pump (technical) there is another issue where something went wrong in articles containing ogg files. I don't know whether it's related. PrimeHunter (talk) 00:59, 4 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Okay, thank you.--Craigboy (talk) 18:41, 4 November 2012 (UTC)