Help desk
< January 3	<< Dec \| January \| Feb >>	January 5 >

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.

January 4

Self-promoting or commercial articles: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killer_Tracks

Hello,

When finding articles, such as at the link below, that simply self-promote and are completely commercial, is it advisable to simply delete them or flag them?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killer_Tracks Malcolmkettering (talk) 01:50, 4 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Companies which do nothing but promote the subject of the article and would require a fundamental rewrite in order to become encyclopaedic may be speedily deleted by an admin under criterion G11, or marked for deletion under the same criterion by any user; however, the article does not seem to meet the criterion. It is neutrally worded and states a claim of importance. It needs some work, but doesn't appear promotional to me. GiftigerWunsch [TALK] 01:52, 4 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Tagged for issues. Should probably be merged with Universal Music Publishing Group. – ukexpat (talk) 01:55, 4 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Trouble reviewing reverted edits in history

I have been trying to review some reverted edits in some of my contributions, especially Ollie P. Roberts. The reverted edits have been greyed out. Am I missing something here? I don't understand what has happened. Help would be great.--Adam in MO Talk 04:53, 4 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The grayed out edits have deleted by an administrator. --Monterey Bay (talk) 04:56, 4 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Specifically, they were deleted for being copyright violations. See this deletion log. --Jayron32 04:56, 4 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

what percentage of wikipedia users hail from OUTSIDE AMERICA?

bonus question: what percentage of wikipedia EDITORS hail from outside AMERICA?--Voluptuous Nature (talk) 08:32, 4 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Some information is at Wikipedia:Wikipedians and Wikipedia:Statistics. However, since Wikipedia does not publish information on users' country of origin (and does not appear even to collect it), and since personal information disclosed on user pages does not constitute a reliable source, it is unlikely that either of your questions can be answered, however loudly you shout. Ka renjc 08:48, 4 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

According to http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/foundation/a/a7/Wikipedia_General_Survey-Overview_0.3.9.pdf, 85.83% of users are from outside America. 205.193.96.10 (talk) 23:25, 6 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

No, that says 85.83% are from outside the United States. "America" is an ambiguous term. --Orange Mike | Talk 23:43, 6 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

CAN CHINESE USERS ACCESS WIKIPEDIA?

or are they blocked by the no-good commies (in other words the COMMUNIST GREAT FIREWALL OF CHINA)?--Voluptuous Nature (talk) 08:33, 4 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

See Blocking of Wikipedia by the People's Republic of China. Ka renjc 08:41, 4 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

thank you that was a very good article and it has ANSWERED MY QUESTION.--Voluptuous Nature (talk) 09:09, 4 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

See also Internet censorship in the People's Republic of China. This question should really have gone at the reference desk since it doesn't have to do with how to edit Wikipedia. And please, STOP SHOUTING! It's rude. Dismas|^(talk) 08:43, 4 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

@Voluptuous Nature: No personal attacks please Kayau Voting IS evil HI AGAIN 11:43, 6 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

In all fairness, « no-good commie », is not a personal attack. It is of bad taste though. [CharlieEchoTango] 12:21, 6 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The OP (User:Voluptuous Nature) has been blocked indefinitely for block evasion, so this question and any discussion regarding it is now moot. --Saddhiyama (talk) 12:31, 6 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

uploading photos

I wanted to upload a few of my mountain photos to the appropriate pages (e.g. 'Bugaboos') but all the copyright hurdles have confused me to the point that I probably won't bother. How about making this simpler for potential contributors who just want to add a few of their own photos to articles they would enhance?

BeiJiaLi (talk) 12:18, 4 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I agree that these "upload" forms are baffling for new users. I had to ask for help here when I first tried to use them.

If these are photos that you have taken yourself, then the page you need is this one at Wikimedia Commons. From the "licensing" choices you can either select the "recommended" choice to retain some rights in the photos, or "Public domain" if you're happy to hand them over completely. Feel free to ask more questions here if you get stuck. -- John of Reading (talk) 12:32, 4 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

No change to watch on minor edits?

I *rarely* want to change whether or not I am watching a page if I'm making a minor edit. I would like someway to have my preferences so that a minor edit does not change the watch status. This would presumably be done so that if a specific preference on the watchlist tab were done then clicking the minor box would cause the "watch this page" box to change to whatever the "watch this page" status was when I started editing the article. Firstly, do people think it is a good idea? Secondly, is it something that could be done with a javascript addition? Thirdly, if it can't be done with Javascript, where would the the appropriate place to request it as an additional preference on the watchlist section of the preferences?Naraht (talk) 13:41, 4 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Those functions are two separate entities. A minor edit should not add or remove a page from your watchlist (unless the "watch this page" box is checked below the edit summary). Are you saying this does happen for you? TN X Man 15:04, 4 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I suspect Naraht has "Add pages I edit to my watchlist" selected under User Preferences, and is asking can this option be refined so pages where he only carries out a minor edit are not added to his watchlist.
Arjayay (talk) 15:31, 4 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Correct.Naraht (talk) 02:10, 5 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

How can we create texts with brackets like this?

As shown in the picture, how can we create/arrange texts in such order/manner, particularuly, with short and long brackets like that? Thank you so much.

Aristitleism (talk) 14:59, 4 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I don't know. You can do klunky things with table borders, like:

Item 1
Item 2
Item 3
Item 4

86.135.28.170 (talk) 23:12, 4 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Where did the Album covers go

I must have inadvertently hit a wrong selection because now when I search a musical album, the jpeg of the album no longer appears. What did I do, and how can I fix it? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 12.195.27.200 (talk) 17:07, 4 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Do you see any of the pictures in Wikipedia articles? You may have accidentally told your browser to block all images from the server that hosts Wikipedia images, http://upload.wikimedia.org. See Help:Options to not see an image for other things you might have done by mistake. -- John of Reading (talk) 17:15, 4 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Brad Johnson (1924-1981) actor

I recently completed an article about actor Brad Johnson. I have a great deal of information supplied to me by his widow. There are articles which I would be willing to copy and send to anyone who wrote the articles about Brad. These articles are from the 1950's and are not available on line. I can be contacted at <e-mail redacted>. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 161.185.151.121 (talk) 17:27, 4 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I have redacted your e-mail address to protect your inbox from a spam invasion, this is a highly visible site on the internet. With respect to your question, from looking at the edit history of Brad Johnson (television actor), it would appear that User:Billy Hathorn is the most active editor of that article. I suggest that you contact him via his talk page. I will do the same and let him know about your offer. – ukexpat (talk) 17:54, 4 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Changing a link from a bad URL to the correct one?

I am new to editing Wikipedia. I am aware of a bad link on a Wikipedia page:

   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fostoria_Glass_Company

I thought I would go in and make the correction, but when I attempt to edit the page in the References section, I cannot "see" ANY of the existing links. I would like to modify link #5, which references a page on the National Depression Glass site. The current link ends in ".htm" while at least a year ago, maybe more, I changed all of the pages on the site to end in ".php."

The old link is: http://www.ndga.net/advertising/advfostoria.htm

The "new" link to the same page should be:

      http://www.ndga.net/advertising/advfostoria.php

I would love to have been able to modify it myself, but once I got to the Fostoria_Glass_Company page, and clicked on [Edit] for the References section, I got NOTHING to edit.

Thanks for your assistance. I love wikipedia.

David Adams Webmaster, National Depression Glass Association www.NDGA.net — Preceding unsigned comment added by DCAShark (talk • contribs) 17:30, 4 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The place to edit is not in the references section, but in the section where the reference is cited. If, in the references section, you click on the ^ sign at the start of the reference, this will take you to the place where the reference is called up. If you go to the top of that section and click the [Edit] link there, you'll find where the old reference is specified. Change it there. - David Biddulph (talk) 17:36, 4 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

(edit conflict) Link has been replaced. Jarkeld (talk) 17:38, 4 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Requesting assistance

I've proposed a revision to Occidental_Petroleum#Chemical. The Occidental Petroleum talk page isn't very active, so I'm coming here for asking for assistance. Due to a potential COI, I'm seeking feedback from the community before making this addition. I've made this request here before and received good feedback from one editor, but I'd prefer to have another look it over.

Proposed revision.

If you have any feedback, please leave it on the proposal talk page (my comments are there as well), or if you think it's good enough to add to the article, feel free to make these changes. Thanks, --CBuiltother (talk) 22:00, 4 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Changes during my Wikibreak

I was on a Wikibreak for over a year, and returning I find a couple of changes that I don’t know how to deal with:

When I left a new user interface was in beta testing, and you could click links to switch in and out of the new interface. Now those links are gone, and I get the old interface when logged in and the new as an anon. How can I get to the new interface?
Before I left when I clicked on a deleted image, it took me to the deletion log (or was it a page with a link to the deletion log). Now it takes me to the upload page with no link (that I can find) to the deletion log. What is the easiest way to get from a deleted image to the reason for its deletion? (BTW, it seems to me that taking users to upload page is almost an invitation for them to re-upload the deleted file.)

Thanks —teb728 t c 23:10, 4 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

To use the new default skin, go to your preferences, click the Appearance tab, select Vector, and save.

I don't think there is a way to get from seeing a non-existent image on a page to its deletion log with any links. When I want to do this, I copy the file name and paste it into search or into the URL in my browser. --Mysdaao ^talk 23:54, 4 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

See User:Gadget850/FAQ#Show file deletion logs. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 15:40, 5 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Breaker Morant

Hello, I have received a message noting a conflict of interest on the Breaker Morant pages. I am the person working to secure a pardon for Morant, Handcock and Witton and have made a numebr of contributions to the Morant page. I acknowledge a possible conflict but assert the pages on Morant contain a series of assertiions about his criminal culpability and the case for pardons is futile (my words)

I believe I have been singled for trying to educate the public about facts about the case in favour of pardons, facts that have been presente3d to the Britiosh goverenment. While I agree the site is not a forum for my own views to secure pardons, citing web sites etc, I think I am entitled to provide the public with the most recent information about this interesting case of military history and how it is being handled by the Britiosh government eg my revelation of orders to shoot prisoners given by British officers. Surely, this evidence is of public interest and should be revealed on the Morant site given that earlier claims have been made that such orders did not exist.

I think there is a fine line between conflict of interest and presenting facts and earlier authors of the Morant pages have been permitted to make various assertions about Morant's guilt. As a militay lawyer and someone who has significant knowledge about the trial and sentencing of Morant, I challenge such assertions and should be permitted to make the case and provide balance to the case that has been portrayed on the site in favour of the case for Morant's conviction and execution.

I ask for a response and justification for editing my contributions while permitting contributions that could be rejected for the same reason as mine have been.

Thanks Jim Unkles — Preceding unsigned comment added by James unkles (talk • contribs) 23:30, 4 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Ok, here it is in a nutshell - the reversion of your edits was correct since Wikipedia deals in facts, not unsubstantiated claims (some call it heresy) by a third-party (see WP:SOAPBOX. As such, your edits will not be allowed to stand as WP does is not the proper place for such activity. ArcAngel (talk) ) 23:42, 4 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Actually, ArcAngel, I don't entirely agree. The last set of edits were of the form "Jim Unkles has rejected ... ", and are, presumably, facts. They were (correctly) reverted because they were unsourced. The criterion for inclusion in Wikipedia is verifiability, not truth. Jim Unkles, if you can point to an independent, published reliable source which has reported on your campaign, then information about your campaign may be added (though probably not by you, because of WP:COI: list it on the article's talk page for other editors to consider). Equally, if other people have put unsourced material into the article, any editor may remove it. What you may not do is add unsourced information or, original research, or remove existing properly-sourced information that you happen to disagree with. --ColinFine (talk) 00:04, 5 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]