Help desk
< December 16	<< Nov \| December \| Jan >>	December 18 >

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.

December 17

I have an idea to help raise money for Wikipedia

Hi,

I don't know who I should send this too, but it occurs to me that there must be a lot of people out there who run businesses and use/support Wikipedia. Why not create an affiliate program that allows those businesses to market the site on their own site [making it a charitable deduction] with a "Help Wikipedia" page/portal and a catchy logo/tag line such as "We are Friend's of Wikipedia"

Allow the clients of that business to add a contribution to Wikipedia in their payment to the business. Alternatively just have the badge and the donation portal

Barry New Street Photography New Street Creative's

[P.S I', looking for work if there's any going ;-)] — Preceding unsigned comment added by BarryRobinson1964 (talk • contribs) 10:12, 17 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Dear Barry, you would have to discuss such ideas with the Wikimedia Foundation, which is the organisation that runs the servers behind Wikipedia. You can talk to them at meta:Wikimedia Forum. Sincerely, Taketa (talk) 12:55, 17 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Peter Todd /olga Lowe

i have been searching for my grandfathers family and just read an article on olga Lowe who was married to my great uncle Peter Todd I was just wondering where you got the information from and how I go about finding it myself — Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.132.217.169 (talk) 12:36, 17 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Hi, the article was mainly written by Scanlan. You can ask them for more information. Also you can see, on the bottom of the article, that he has used this Dailt Telegraph obituary and this page on the Internet Movie Database. All the best, Taketa (talk) 12:53, 17 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

The only source cited in the Olga Lowe article – though it is cited ten times – is her daily Telegraph obituary, which says "Later that year [1959], Olga Lowe married Peter Todd. The marriage was dissolved in 1962". Maproom (talk) 12:58, 17 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Edit clashes

Yesterday, here on this page, I replied to a posting, and was surprised to find that my reply appeared with a slightly earlier reply above it. I thought I might have somehow failed to notice the earlier reply. But today, immediately above, it has happened again, and this time I am sure that Taketa's reply was not there when I clicked the "edit" link. Has something changed in the way edit clashes are handled? Maproom (talk) 13:04, 17 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Maproom, this has happened to me in the past before - did you preview before saving? I only ask as I suspect it is something to do with the preview updating the section and bringing in the new edit.... -- samtar ^whisper 13:10, 17 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, I previewed. Taketa's reply may have been there in the preview – I only looked at the lowest paragraph, to check the spelling, formatting, etc. (and even so I missed a couple of typos). Maproom (talk) 13:14, 17 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Sometimes people edit a page between the time when you load and edit it. Also, MediaWiki is able to resolve some simple edit conflicts automatically. NinjaRobotPirate (talk) 13:35, 17 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

They certainly do, I type quite slowly. But I used to get a edit conflict message and have my edit rejected, rather than finding I have replied to a question that has meanwhile been answered. Has Mediawiki recently changed in the way it handles edit conflicts? Maproom (talk) 15:26, 17 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

This has happened to me occasionally for quite a long while; see my second post in this thread, for example. I don't think it has anything to do with a change in the software. Deor (talk) 16:28, 17 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I'm pretty sure it's the preview function... @Deor: do you often preview? -- samtar ^whisper 16:36, 17 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, except when I forget to. :-) Deor (talk) 16:38, 17 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Well I've just tried simulating it and I'm just getting edit conflicts, so maybe it isn't the preview function reloading the page =/ I'll drop a message onto the tech mailing list -- samtar ^whisper 16:48, 17 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Previewing doesn't bring in new content. The edit link pulls the latest version which is sometimes more recent than the page version you clicked edit on. Help:Edit conflict#Prevention says: "New since v.1.3 is CVS-style edit conflict merging, based on the diff3 utility. This feature will only trigger an edit conflict if users attempt to edit the same few lines". If you edit different paragraphs then you generally don't get an edit conflict. In the past, if two people added a reply at nearly the same time and the second saver didn't make a blank like before their reply then you got an edit conflict. It's possible this behaviour has changed to no longer require a blank line. PrimeHunter (talk) 22:22, 17 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Auto software relase update?

Hi, How does Firefox and Thunderbird automatically show the latest version without it being written in the source? in the Arabic versions, they edit them manually. Thank you —Ahmed1684, 13:16, 17 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Ahmed1684, it is updated manually on other pages and automatically inserted in the article. For example Template:Latest stable software release/Firefox. Sincerely, Taketa (talk) 13:21, 17 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Taketa, Thank you for the clarification. —Ahmed1684, 13:38, 17 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Great, thank you. Ahmed1684 (talk) 13:49, 18 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

My pages keep getting flagged, PLEASE HELP!

I am trying to develop my wikipedia editing skills for my resume and decided to begin writing on any company, association or small business in my town (jupiter, fl) so that I could maybe help emphasis our town and those doing well in it. I started with a company down the road from my husbands work. I do not have any affiliation with them, I just picked them at random while visiting my husbands work (also unrelated, with no connection). i called and asked if they would allow me to create one for them (after finding through a search that they did not have one) and they agreed. To describe who they are and what they do is a bit difficult without using the wording that they have on their websites, so i called and asked permission and they said i could use whatever they had online. If I need to reword those few places that I did use their previously created content, then I can work on doing that, but I know they'd rather me word it a specific way as they are a non-profit and have to be described a certain way for legal reasons. If someone could please help me figure out what I'm doing wrong and how to become better at wikipedia, that'd be extremely helpful. I don't want to continue to make these kinds of mistakes when creating new content. Thank you! — Preceding unsigned comment added by WikiContentEditor (talk • contribs) 17:18, 17 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

@WikiContentEditor: Please see my reply on my user talk page. WikiDan61^ChatMe!_ReadMe!! 17:39, 17 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

(edit conflict)Hello, WikiContentEditor. I'm afraid you have some misunderstandings about Wikipedia. First, Wikipedia is not an appropriate place for anybody's resume. If you mean an article about you, then we could have one if you meet the criteria for notability - basically, that several people unconnected with you have published substantial information about you in reliable places such as major newspapers or books from reputable publishers - but you should not write it: autobiography is strongly discouraged.

Secondly, "emphasising" a town and those doing well in it (or anything else) is not part of our purpose here. We write neutral articles on subjects which people unconnected with the subjects have already published about them. Wikipedia has almost no interest in what a person, a business, or anything else says or wants to say about themselves: it is only interested in what independent people have published about them. So to write about those businesses you should find independent articles in reliable sources such as major newspapers, and write the articles based on these (but not copying their words). Using material from a company's own website is usually inappropriate, except for uncontroversial factual data like places and dates, if they can't be found in an independent source. --ColinFine (talk) 17:43, 17 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

(edit conflict)Hello, ColinFine. I am simply trying to learn wikipedia to BETTER my personal resume, not to write about me or anyone or anything specific. There will be no posts about me or any autobiography's. I would just like to take a moment to thank you for better clarifying what exactly wikipedia does and does not do. That's all I really needed, some solid direction so that I could clear up any confusion on my behalf. So if I would like to create a page from scratch about an organization for example, I would need to write all of the article myself, as original content, and link to resources that are independent of the organization (like a news article done about them, etc). Am I understanding correctly? WikiContentEditor (talk) 18:14, 17 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

More or less, WikiContentEditor. Ideally you would have more than one independent source, and you would cite the sources (which will include a link if the source is online, but should always include bibliographic information to let a reader identify the source). See referencing for beginners for more information.

I would always advise a new user to get some practice editing existing articles before trying to create a new one; but if/when you do decide to create a new one, I suggest reading Your first article, and using the Article wizard. --ColinFine (talk) 18:13, 18 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

By the way, WikiContentEditor, I'm a little troubled about your user name, which might suggest to some people that you are editing in some official way on behalf of Wikipedia. I suggest you change it: see WP:CHU. --ColinFine (talk) 18:25, 18 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Monetary Donations

I have received requests to donate money by pay pal or credit cards , which I don't have either . I would gladly mail you a donation by money order if you provide me with a mailing address for wikipedia. May I suggest that you include on your site the mailing address as a method of donating money along with pay pal and credit card options. There is many people who don't possess credit cards and I am one of those individuals on a fixed senior citizen income but I would gladly mail your a five dollar money order instead of the three dollars you've requested for a donation. Thank you! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.83.42.89 (talk) 19:31, 17 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

This page describes all the ways you can give, including addresses to mail your check to. --Jayron 32 20:28, 17 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Question about sources

My addition to the article hypercorrection was tagged as "missing references or sources". Well, I translated the section from fi:hyperkorrekti muoto, and that article cites two sources. Unfortunately, it doesn't say which parts came from which sources, and I haven't read the sources myself. Can I still add them to the English article? JIP | Talk 20:21, 17 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

It'd be questionable. Generally, you should never add a source to a statement unless you've directly read the source yourself. I would either obtain and read them, or, find someone who can, to see if they confirm what is being said. --Jayron 32 20:27, 17 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]