Help desk
< March 30	<< Feb \| March \| Apr >>	April 1 >

Welcome to the Wikipedia Help Desk Archives
The page you are currently viewing is an archive page. While you can leave answers for any questions shown below, please ask new questions on one of the current Help Desk pages.

March 31

website hosting

How can you find what company host certain websites? Reason behind the question is: I am starting a web business that involves loading up lots of videos and I need to know about who host the sites with numerous video uploads. Thanks! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 144.226.230.36 (talk) 02:14, 31 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

This page is for questions about using Wikipedia. Please consider asking this question at the Miscellaneous reference desk. They specialize in knowledge questions and will try to answer any question in the universe (except how to use Wikipedia, since that is what this Help Desk is for). Just follow the link and ask away. You could always try searching Wikipedia for an article related to the topic you want to know more about. I hope this helps. Someguy1221 (talk) 02:24, 31 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Rename 2009 Lahore police academy attacks ?

We still have a naming issuse with it, acutally it's called Manawan Police Training School,not police academy,on the signboard outside it's maingate.What should we do now.yousaf465

That may be actual title, but would anyone searching for the article know that? The more colloquial title is probably a better name for the article, assuming the correct name is used within the article itself. – ukexpat (talk) 03:22, 31 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Editor passed away

Resolved

– User page protected by Bibliomaniac15. – ukexpat (talk) 04:08, 31 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I didn't know where else to put this, but I've never had to deal with this before. User:Nitelinger, who was mainly a researcher of the history of television in Milwaukee and has put out a book about the subject, made quite a few contributions here. He passed away on Sunday, March 29 of a heart attack while shoveling snow, which was confirmed by both a Milwaukee TV forum and the media writer for the Journal Sentinel. I would thus like to see his userpage protected and him be properly memorialized by someone familiar with a situation like this. Nate • (chatter) 03:50, 31 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I have protected it. bibliomaniac 1 5 03:59, 31 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you. Nate • (chatter) 04:02, 31 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I've written an obituary of sorts at WP:RIP as well. Unfortunately, this is my first time at something like this, and I was not fully acquainted with him, so you'd have to help me out. bibliomaniac 1 5 04:12, 31 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

You did great on it, thank you. I filled in more of the details, but I didn't have to add much. Thanks so much for your help on this. Nate • (chatter) 04:41, 31 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Please would you replace passed away with died? Kittybrewster ☎ 08:16, 31 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The use of that euphemism always bugs me too. – ukexpat (talk) 14:01, 31 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Actually, (and I know that for encyclopaedic entries to articles we use "died") I'm partial to passed away - Since the user page and memorial page kind of fall outside the normal "article policy and guideline" area - I'd be inclined to go with any wishes the family had expressed. Nothing I'd ever argue over of course, just a consideration to those closest to the situation. If I did have to mention a preference - I suppose I'd cite the spelling thing: in US articles: program ~ in UK articles: programme. All just IMHO. — Ched ~ ^(yes?)/_© 16:30, 31 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

And of course: my condolences to the family, friends, and WP acquaintances of Nitelinger. — Ched ~ ^(yes?)/_© 16:32, 31 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

My inclination would be to comply with the guideline in Wikipedia:Words to avoid#Death and dying even though this is not an article, because many Wikipedia users learn what to do by seeing examples rather than by reading our voluminous manuals. Everything we do potentially teaches someone else to edit similarly. If anyone should feel inclined to write my obituary on Wikipedia after I die (which could come at any time for anyone), please don't use any euphemisms. --Teratornis (talk) 19:54, 31 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I would add that people sometimes have personal feelings about our articles, too, but they don't override the guidelines. --Teratornis (talk) 20:13, 31 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Inaccuracy in Scott Vitale entry

"Having watched the movie Murderball just after his injury, Scott began to play wheelchair rugby in 2002." Since the movie was released in 2005, this wouldn't be possible. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.127.37.208 (talk) 04:22, 31 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Please feel free to fix it. ;) .. Anyone is welcome to edit the articles, you don't need to have an account to edit an article. (although having an account is nice for many reasons see: WP:Signup.) I'll post a list of links here from a template we use, and you can read through some of the stuff if you're not sure what to do or how to do it.

Thank you for your suggestion. When you believe an article needs improvement, please feel free to make those changes. Wikipedia is a wiki, so anyone can edit almost any article by simply following the edit this page link at the top. The Wikipedia community encourages you to be bold in updating pages. Don't worry too much about making honest mistakes—they're likely to be found and corrected quickly. If you're not sure how editing works, check out how to edit a page, or use the sandbox to try out your editing skills. New contributors are always welcome. You don't even need to log in (although there are many reasons why you might want to).

Since you're familiar with the movie and I'm not - I'll let you go ahead and correct the information. Have a great day/night. ;) — Ched ~ ^(yes?)/_© 07:33, 31 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Quick question on regexes

I, as my contribs will show, was trying to make all/most links to WP:AF point to WP:FOWL, as the redirect has been re-targeted to WP:Abuse filter, rather than the former WP:WikiProject Artemis Fowl. I was using the regex find-and-replace function in AWB. I never finished, and forgot the regex I used. Does anyone happen to know the regex I should use? It must account for piped links. Thanks! Calvin 1998 ^(t·c) 04:25, 31 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not familiar with the regular expression syntax in AWB, but I've used regular expressions in Perl and the Unix shell (the syntaxes vary among the different programs and languages, but they're usually fairly close). For future reference, I suggest keeping notes on a user subpage to list all the regular expressions you use, because these things tend to be impossible to remember after a while. If no one immediately recognizes the regular expression you describe above, you could make a user subpage that lists a representative sample of find and replace patterns in a table that you converted earlier with the regular expression. From that it would be straightforward for someone who knows a regular expression dialect to tell you a regular expression find and replace command that would match all the strings in your "find" column and convert them to the corresponding strings in your "replace" column. Note that one of the drawbacks of using a GUI program is that (unlike using a scripting language) the GUI program is not self-documenting. If you did this kind of find and replace operation with a script, you would be able to look at your script file later to recall what you did. With a GUI, you essentially throw away the thinking you did to come up with a command after it finishes. By taking notes about what you do, you can preserve each insight you have as you solve problems, and over the course of years this will build up to a massive collection of know-how. Which you might then use as the basis to write manuals and books, or just have it for your own use. --Teratornis (talk) 19:41, 31 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

According to Wikipedia:AutoWikiBrowser/Regular expression, you use "\|" to match the pipe character. --Teratornis (talk) 19:57, 31 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

AWB syntax is essentially the same as other regex syntaxes. I was trying to use the find-replace rule (\[\[WP:AF)((\||\]\])) -> $1$2 but it doesn't seem to work, and I couldn't figure out why. Calvin 1998 ^(t·c) 02:50, 1 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The left side looks good but isn't $1$2 simply the whole expression, meaning you are successfully replacing WP:AF with itself? Did you mean (\[\[WP:AF)((\||\]\])) -> [[WP:FOWL$2 or more simply \[\[WP:AF(\||\]\]) -> [[WP:FOWL$1? Certes (talk) 21:35, 1 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, I did, sorry. I suppose I should try that ^-^. That would probably explain a lot :D Calvin 1998 ^(t·c) 04:42, 3 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia alphabetization policy

Where is it...?Smarkflea (talk) 04:49, 31 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Alphabetization of what? You may be looking for Wikipedia:LIST#Organization. Someguy1221 (talk) 05:14, 31 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Sort of, I mean what are the general guidelines for alphabetizing on Wikipedia? For instance, should the title "1959" come before "Apple" or in the 'N's? Should all titles starting with "Some" come before any title starting with "Somebody"? Thanks...Smarkflea (talk) 06:01, 31 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

yes and yes. Kittybrewster ☎ 08:12, 31 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

See the Collation article for information about how the world outside Wikipedia does this. The MediaWiki software has its own built-in collation rules which you will see in action in Special:Allpages, category pages, and other computer-generated lists. Maybe MediaWiki uses the so-called ASCIIbetical order which is common in computer programs. My quick search did not show that Wikipedia has its own explicit collating sequence in the manual of style for editors to follow. For one thing, the English Wikipedia contains some words in foreign languages, so we would have to account for their collating sequences as well. --Teratornis (talk) 20:08, 31 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia_talk:Manual_of_Style/Archive_107#Alphabetization_and_collation lists several debates on this topic with many useful comments but few definitive answers. Certes (talk) 21:26, 1 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the replies, I've got some ideas now...Smarkflea (talk) 01:42, 2 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Royal Descent

1. Statement:recenting I found out that my oldest ancestor are from Western Russia back in 609 AC (70 generations) 2.Question:What is the oldest library in Russia and where is it? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Gallo999 (talk • contribs) 05:03, 31 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

This page is for questions about using Wikipedia. Please consider asking this question at the Wikipedia:Reference desk. They specialize in knowledge questions and will try to answer any question in the universe (except how to use Wikipedia, since that is what this Help Desk is for). Just follow the link, select the relevant section, and ask away. You could always try searching Wikipedia for an article related to the topic you want to know more about. I hope this helps. Someguy1221 (talk) 05:11, 31 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

External links

I am writing an article on a person, I added relative external references and the person's publications, and I get the following message:

The external links in this article may not comply with Wikipedia's content policies or guidelines. Please improve this article by removing excessive or inappropriate external links. Tagged since March 2009.

How do I find the inappropriate external links?

Thanks

Robertoaiello (talk) 06:19, 31 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

WP:BLACKLIST may be of help to you. Dismas|^(talk) 08:04, 31 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The editor who added the issue at Roberto Aiello said it was a linkfarm. This refers to excessive external links – presumably referring to the lists of publications. —teb728 t c 09:12, 31 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Luciano Zotti

Collapsed article text

Dear Sir or Madame,

I would like to include an article about my father who was a song writer and composer of some importance. There is evidence of his achievement and I include here the article to see if this is good enough to be published on Wikipedia:

ABOUT LUCIANO ZOTTI by Paola and Alfredo Zotti

A MUSICIAN"S STORY

Born in Italy in the city of Bari on 7-1-1934 and as a very young child he demonstrated a great passion for music. He was encouraged very much by his mother Francesca who bought him his very first and own accordion. Very early he started performing at school concerts and in competitions. He was so talented that soon he begun piano lessons, spending hours studying and exercising. Luciano finally graduated at the "Niccolo Piccinni Conservatorium" of Bari under the famous Maestro Nino Rota (author of the music theme: The Godfather). It was the 60's and time to form his own jazz band, and as a band leader, the group called the "5 from the south" toured the best venues in Europe. He introduced jazz in Italian restaurants and night clubs and was very successful. The band recorded many singles and LP's with RCA Italy and performed live in various radio programs. In 1961 he won the 2nd place at the Trieste Jazz Festival with his composition "Smog" In 1964 came the opportunity to work as Music Director for Carlo Alberto Rossi who at the time had one of the best and most equipped Recording Companies and recording studio of Europe "The Fonorama" in Milan. In 1968 Luciano conducted the symphonic orchestra at the International Festival of Zurich which was broadcasted in Eurovision. As a song writer and excellent arranger, Luciano received many awards. His song "Come Back Here With My Heart" gained second position in the Top Ten charts in England's "Hit Parade". Luciano decided to migrate to Australia with his family in 1973. He joined the Musician's Union and became member of the Music Arranger Guild Association. He opened a Music School and later started his own Publishing Company: P.D.L. Music Australia. In 1979 which was dedicated to: International Year of the Child, Luciano was one of the organisers and conductor of the Multicultural Minifestival for children, a fund raising event for the Sorella Radio Child Care Centre of Fairfield. In 1976, Luciano was the link person for the release in Australia of Pope John Paul II Lyrics album sang by Sarah Vaughan in a special recording: "One World One Peace". As an Australian citizen. Luciano has been a good Ambassador for Australia. In fact due to his interest in 1987, for the first time, Australia was represented at the International song festival for children "Lo Zecchino d'Oro" held in Bologna, Italy, with his song: Bush Babies which gained second position. Australia participated again in 1990 with Luciano's song: Rossella Parrot and P.D.L. Music sponsored Rebecca La Manna, an 8 years old child, who attended this special event to sing the song, and again in 1993, Luciano, in cooperation with Ministry of Maori Development was able to send another child to the same competition. Mihiarangi Piripi represented New Zeland with Luciano's song: Aotearoa. In 1992 Luciano won the 1st prize for the best composition at the Italian Song Festival in Sydney. Over the years Luciano has always promoted, supported and encouraged young artists. Finally Luciano was presented by S.I.A.E. (similar to APRA in Australia) with a gold medal in Terni-Italy in 1996 for 40 years of Membership with the Italian Society of Authors and Publishers. There is so much more to say but this recognition was very well deserved by Luciano Zotti: and excellent musician, pianist, composer and arranger. The family is very proud of his achievements and is grateful for the best gift he left: his Music. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 121.218.25.196 (talk) 08:01, 31 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

This is not the place to post article suggestions. If you have reliable sources to support notability please go to articles for creation and post there. Alternatively, create and account and create a draft article in a user subpage for review. – ukexpat (talk) 13:59, 31 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

3G Card

Hi Wiki World,

I have searched for 3G Card in your database but couldn't find one, even i tried using the line "third generation" no result.

If this new technology is avalible in you database it could be benefitial.

Thanks —Preceding unsigned comment added by Vinothas 22 (talk • contribs) 09:59, 31 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Try 3G. Xenon54 (talk) 10:04, 31 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Australian Number

my friend tel no in australia <blanked> but i dont know which state . pls help his name sanjay dhodi —Preceding unsigned comment added by 59.182.176.244 (talk) 13:31, 31 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not sure to what you're referring, but you may find the answers you want in the article on Australia. TN X Man 13:33, 31 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thankfully, we have a page on Telephone numbers in Australia that lists Australian area codes. Livewireo (talk) 13:39, 31 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Editing the title of the page

I created a page and in front of the title the word "User:" appears. How do I correct this?

Ruben Lindo (talk) 13:46, 31 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

You'll need to move the page from User:Ruben Lindo to Ruben Lindo. However, I strongly encourage you not to do this, as the article is written like an advertisement and does not cite an reliable sources. TN X Man 13:52, 31 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Please read WP:Spam and WP:BIO in addition to the links in Tnxman's reply. – ukexpat (talk) 13:56, 31 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

abanded propery law

If property is left on land for 3 yrs. and not taken what is the law in ny state.my boy friend is going though palamony suit. please respond <e-mail redacted> —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.115.59.132 (talk) 15:59, 31 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Please see our Legal Disclaimer - we cannot give legal advice, please consult an attorney. – ukexpat (talk) 16:03, 31 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Subject line on the page I entered is not showing up as ALL CAPS like it should.

The page National Career Fairs should be showing the subject line in all CAPS, however, just the first word is showing in CAPS. I cannot figure out how to edit it to make it correct without having to delete the entire page. It should read, "National Career Fairs. Instead, it is now reading, "National career fairs." Please help. Nofxfan1Jstevenfaulk (talk) 16:15, 31 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

What you want is not ALL CAPS but "Title Case". Somebody already redirected National career fairs to National Career Fairs. --Orange Mike | Talk 16:34, 31 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

For future reference, you can fix this type of problem by following the instructions in WP:MOVE. --Teratornis (talk) 19:23, 31 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Fixing Infobox template

I'm working on updating Audi Quattro. Using Firefox v3.0.8 the infobox shows "Audi" to right of the image instead of below it. It looks correct in IE7. I know its the Automobile infobox, but I don't know how to find that template to try and fix it. Could someone please tell me 1) how to find a template once I know the name, 2) how I might go about correcting this issue. I'm new to Wikipedia, but have some experience using HTML. Madmonky (talk) 17:25, 31 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Looks OK to me with FF 3.0.8. Try a purge or bypass. --—— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk - 19:14, 31 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

new web pages

how can I be constantly informed about new webpages on wikipedia about a specific topic?79.20.76.24 (talk) 17:42, 31 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

You can't. Although you can periodically monitor an interesting category and look for new pages manually. Someguy1221 (talk) 17:47, 31 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

If there is a WikiProject covering the subject and if they have registered with User:AlexNewArtBot, then the bot will generate a list of new article matching defined rules for that project. --—— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk - 19:13, 31 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Deleting your user account

How do I delete my user account? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Red Dwarf Geek (talk • contribs) 18:55, 31 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

You can't. See Wikipedia:Username policy#Deleting your account. If you do not want to edit any more, simply stop. --—— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk - 19:10, 31 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

You can also exercise the right to vanish. – ukexpat (talk) 19:23, 31 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

chemistry

when a drop of bromine is added to asolution of an alkene, it loses its orange colour. why? matwist 21:03, 31 March 2009 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Modipam (talk • contribs)

Perhaps our article on Bromine will have your answer. If not, please take your question to the Science reference desk as this page is for asking questions about how to use Wikipedia. Xenon54 (talk) 21:18, 31 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Sciences

Resolved

– ukexpat (talk) 00:29, 1 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Do we have any active wikiprojects connected to science? I wanted an assessment on Samar Chatterjee because I don't have the expertise to check if he's notable or not - where can I find some experts on this subject if the main wikiproject science is complete dead (as it seems to be). --Cameron Scott (talk) 22:52, 31 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

It looks as though Wikipedia:WikiProject Environment, or perhaps WikiProject Ecology, may be the one you're after. A list of science-related projects can be found at Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Directory/Science. Deor (talk) 23:09, 31 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Cheers! --Cameron Scott (talk) 23:12, 31 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

What do we call articles like this one:

Nietzsche and Philosophy? It appears to be an orphan, it says it shouldn't be confused with an article on the Philosophy of Nietzsche, but what is it? It says it's a stub - but for what? I'm trying to participate in a couple of WikiProjects and one of the articles needing work was this one, for WikiProject Philosophy, but shouldn't it just be deleted? So far, in looking at the tasks for the philosophy project, it's mostly about looking dozens of articles that are orphaned, stubs or of dubious notability. I enjoy trying to de-orphan articles, but most have been impossible to link up anywhere and this one really has me stumped. Any clue on what its intended content might have been? Should I nominate for deletion?--Levalley (talk) 23:59, 31 March 2009 (UTC)LeValley[reply]

If you cannot find an reliable sources to support notability, then it looks bound for Afd. – ukexpat (talk) 00:27, 1 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

It says clearly what it's about in its one sentence: it's about a book by Gilles Deleuze. There's almost no content, and no indication of notability, so I've prodded it. Algebraist 12:04, 1 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

And it's been deprodded by the creator with an (IMHO) inappropriate edit summary... – ukexpat (talk) 15:32, 1 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

So what happens now? I'm just very curious, as I am helping out in two projects where there are hundreds of orphaned articles and oddball things like this? If I put the prod back on, what happens next?Levalley (talk) 23:50, 1 April 2009 (UTC)LeValley[reply]

Do not put the prod back on. Either take the article to AfD or (better) talk to the article's creator. Algebraist 23:52, 1 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]