Wikipedia:Teahouse/Questions/Archive 227

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Article for an educational institution

I want to write for an article for an institution I'm planning to study in. The name of this institution is IIMTS. This is a growing company based in the UAE with branches in many countries. Would the article be accepted if I choose to write an article about this institution, provided I give the correct references? Link: www.iimts.com Zaidthunder1 (talk) 05:20, 2 July 2014 (UTC)

Welcome to the Teahouse, Zaidthunder1. Please be aware that I have only had the time to do a quick search, so please take my comments as preliminary. There is a presumption that accredited degree awarding institutions are notable. Please see our notability guideline for schools and colleges for more information. So, frame your discussion around that guideline. Is the school in question a routine diploma mill, or a legitimate degree-awarding institution? Or something else, such as a highly.notable diploma mill? I do not know, but what I do know is that the answer has nothing to do with the commercial interests of the educational institution. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 06:18, 2 July 2014 (UTC)

Hello, Zaidthunder1. Unfortunately, there are not only diploma mills, but also accreditation mills that provide phony accreditation credentials for diploma mills. There are, however, bona fide agencies in each country that can provide information on accredited institutions of higher education. Consult List of education ministries, or Council for Higher Education Accreditation, or http://ope.ed.gov/accreditation/ Best wishes to you on your academic career! Grand'mere Eugene (talk) 07:04, 2 July 2014 (UTC)

This institution is basically a distance education center which has technical collaborations with universities accredited by their respective governments and other respected accrediting bodies. Currently the institution has 3 universities with whom they have a technical collaboration, and from what I have been told, the University of Sussex is soon going to be affiliated with this institution. These universities are the ones who confer their degrees to their students. Zaidthunder1 (talk) 07:57, 2 July 2014 (UTC)

If another university confers the degree, and we already have an article about that university, then why should an encyclopedia have an article about an institution which is only a middle man, or a broker? Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 08:21, 2 July 2014 (UTC)

Although another University confers the degree, the relationship between the education center and the University is a technical collaboration. IIMTS provides the trainers, the infrastructure, does all the administration, the marketing, prepares the syllabus and conducts the exams. The only thing done by the University is marking the papers and conferring the degree to the students who has passed. Seeing that the institution does majority of the work, and also having its presence in the GCC and all over India in several cities, I feel the institution needs a page on Wikipedia to serve as a tool of information for prospective students, who may otherwise consider the institution as a degree or diploma mill. Zaidthunder1 (talk) 09:10, 2 July 2014 (UTC)

Hello, Zaidthunder1. I'm afraid that your last statement is problematic. No institution in the world "needs" an article on Wikipedia, or more accurately, Wikipedia does not care - at all - whether an institution thinks it needs an article. Articles are created and accepted for Wikipedia's purposes, not for the subject's purposes. If the institution meets Wikipedia's criteria of WP:notability, then there may be an article, but the purpose of that article is Wikipedia's encyclopaedic purpose of summarising information which has already been published. To "serve as a tool of information for prospective students" is a kind of Promotion, and explicitly forbidden. --ColinFine (talk) 09:23, 2 July 2014 (UTC)

I am very much aware of Wikipedia's rules of promotion and article context being neutral. What I meant by "to serve as a tool of information for prospective students" is that if a student would want information about the institution, he/she will look for it on Wikipedia, because Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, a source of information. For example, if I want to study at London Business School, I will look to Wikipedia as a source of information, to learn not only about the institution, but see its accreditation and see whether this will be a good school for me. I'm sure many people visit Wikipedia for this very reason. Similarly, if I want to become a student of this institution I will look for an article on Wikipedia, so that I can learn about the institution. The institution does meet the criteria of notability, but because there isn't an article on Wikipedia I have suggested there should be one. Zaidthunder1 (talk) 09:48, 2 July 2014 (UTC)

@Zaidthunder1: I'd have a look at the general notability guideline to make sure that the institution is notable by Wikipedia standards -- basically, multiple substantial independent press articles about the institution. If this is the case, you could attempt to start an article at articles for creation which is a good practice where there is a conflict of interest because it allows others to vet your article. You also might want to list the references you're proposing to use here, so that we can give you feedback about whether the school is notable based on the references. That could potentially save you a lot of time if the article is destined to be deleted. Calliopejen1 (talk) 22:29, 2 July 2014 (UTC)

How do I close my account?

Despite much searching for it, I do not seem to be able to find the link for closing my account. Can someone provide the correct link please. Mary IV (talk) 21:18, 1 July 2014 (UTC)

Hi Mary, welcome to the teahouse. Wikipedia accounts cannot be closed. Just stop using it. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 21:20, 1 July 2014 (UTC)

@Mary IV: Hello Mary! While it's true as that you can not close your account, you can stop using it AND put up a sign at your talk page so that other users understand what has happened. You can find several versions of messages at Wikipedia:Wikibreak. Perhaps the {{retired}} would be appropriate for you. Best, - W.carter (talk) 19:00, 2 July 2014 (UTC)

You're kidding! No? Mary IV (talk) 20:21, 2 July 2014 (UTC)

@Mary IV: Also, if you want to get rid of your username you can see Wikipedia:Courtesy vanishing. The most thorough way of disappearing would be vanishing, plus a sign at your talk page if desired, plus changing your password to a long, arbitrary password you'll never remember, and never logging in again. Calliopejen1 (talk) 22:32, 2 July 2014 (UTC)

Adding a company to an industry page

I am wondering what it takes to get a company included in an industry page. Specifically, the M2M (machine-to-machine) page lists companies as examples, and I have another company I'd like to include, but I am unsure about the vetting process. Can anyone provide any insight?

Thanks!

67.137.60.50 (talk) 20:59, 2 July 2014 (UTC)

There is no particular uniform process for all industry articles. Many lists require that entries included in the list have their own Wikipedia page, but it really varies. I'd recommend bringing up the issue at Talk:Machine to machine, and see if you get a response. If no one responds, I'd go ahead and make the edit to the page, and see if anyone reverts (undoes) it. I'd also recommend reading Wikipedia:Plain and simple conflict of interest guide if this is a company with which you are involved. In that case, best practices is only to edit the talk page, and not the article itself. Calliopejen1 (talk) 22:11, 2 July 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for the info -- much appreciated!

67.137.60.50 (talk) 22:37, 2 July 2014 (UTC)

Is all copy editing a minor edit?

This question has really been bothering me. I copy edit a lot of different articles, and I often do different things. Also, i am really running out of things to on Wikipedia. I already have read this week's Signpost(I actually only care about the traffic report, really), I've done SuggestBot also. In a nutshell, i'm out of things to do. EMachine03 (talk) 19:16, 2 July 2014 (UTC)

I understand your frustration. At the moment I'm doing corrections via Wikipedia:Lists of common misspellings which you may find is a useful source (no pun intended) for your efforts. Good luck, and please don't give up, Wikipedia needs all the help it can get. Jodosma (talk) 19:53, 2 July 2014 (UTC)

@EMachine03: What sort of subject areas are you interested in, and what sort of skills do you have/what ways do you think you might be helpful? I'd be happy to point you in the right direction in terms of things to do, if I knew a little more about your interests. Calliopejen1 (talk) 20:52, 2 July 2014 (UTC)

You could join the Wikipedia:WikiProject Guild of Copy Editors! There's a big backlog of articles that need copy editing. And no, I think a minor edit is things like fixing typos, or maybe grammar fixes. Any more substantial rewriting wouldn't be minor. Margin1522 (talk) 01:11, 3 July 2014 (UTC)

Sandbox name

I have a link on my user page that I put there a long time ago, which takes me to "User:Margin1522/Sandbox". But when I click the Sandbox link at the top of the page, it takes to a different page, with a small "s" "User:Margin1522/sandbox". Does this mean I have two separate sandbox pages?

The sandbox with small "s" now seems to be a redirect to Sigurd Johannes Savonius, which I submitted with the new article wizard. Somebody approved it and created the page for me, but now I'm a little confused. Can I start something new by clicking Sandbox at the top of page, or this always going to take me to the article that someone created for me the last time? Margin1522 (talk) 01:47, 3 July 2014 (UTC)

Hey again. When the sandbox content (including its history) was moved to the mainspace it automatically became a redirect. I've deleted it, so you can now recreate and re-purpose the sandbox. Note that if you wanted to access and recycle the sandbox while it was a redirect, one easy way to do so was to navigate to the article through the link on your user page, whereupon you would have seen upon being redirected there, just under the page title: "(Redirected from User:Margin1522/sandbox)". If you had clicked on that blue link you would then have accessed the redirect page itself, and could have edited away or asked for deletion using {{Db-userreq}} or {{Db-u1}} (it's a bit messy that we have a lot of these redirects floating around from such moves, but it's no big deal).

Yes, you did have two separate sandbox pages but let me explain a bit. A sandbox is simply a subpage at the title of your user page or user talk page with "/name" appended to it where you can work on a draft until ready to go live (you can also use the new draft namespace for drafts BTW). So if you wanted to work up a draft of an article on, say, widgets, you might create the "sandbox" at User:Margin1522/Widgets. But the interface link to automatically create a sandbox defaults to the on-the-nose title, "User:Name/sandox"; there's no need to use that at all and you can in theory have an unlimited number of them, with no need whatever to actually use the word "sandbox". Best regards--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 03:38, 3 July 2014 (UTC)

Great, that's very helpful. I think I have it now. Margin1522 (talk) 04:25, 3 July 2014 (UTC)

References

For updating a company's wiki page what information can be re-used from the company's website? I know for most articles, one requires 3rd party, reliable references, but for a company can one cite their website for products, company size, ...?Robpater (talk) 04:41, 3 July 2014 (UTC)

Welcome to the Teahouse, Robpater. Assuming that the notability of the company is established by significant coverage in reliable, independent sources, then limited use of their website is fine. Please refer to WP:SELFPUB for some guidelines. Limit it to straightforward, non-controversial facts: name of the CEO, location of headquarters, and the like. Avoid anything "self-serving", so repeating "Amalgamated Widgets is the world leader in developing innovative, 21st century widget technology" is not acceptable. As for product lines, I recommend finding an independent source, and in any event, company articles should not overemphasize products. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 05:21, 3 July 2014 (UTC)

Etymology and pronunciation bloating first sentences

Lengthy etymology and pronunciation information often kill the simplicity and impede the usefulness of the first sentence in an article. They also bloat the partial quotes provided by web searches with information in which the searcher has, in all likelihood, no interest. Also, they are ugly. ;)

I can't be the first person to think this, so I would appreciate pointers to any related, past discussions. Thanks Whikie (talk) 04:51, 3 July 2014 (UTC)

The relevant pages are WP:PRON and WP:ETYMOLOGY. I mostly agree with you, and in my opinion, the IPA pronunciation provides little value to the average reader, although it is the academically preferred system. An alternative to including the IPA pronunciation in the lead is to move it to a footnote. As for etymology, I think that should be in the body of the article instead of the lead. See Ginkgo biloba for an example. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 05:07, 3 July 2014 (UTC)

Thanks, those are exactly what I was looking for. Whikie (talk) 05:12, 3 July 2014 (UTC)

You are welcome. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 05:23, 3 July 2014 (UTC)

Adding education details to our Alumni?

122.60.239.93 (talk) 22:48, 2 July 2014 (UTC)Our institution offers an accredited MBA degree. Our Alumni would like this recognised on their pages. How do I add this qualification to their education?122.60.239.93 (talk) 22:48, 2 July 2014 (UTC)

Welcome to the Teahouse. Articles about colleges and universities typically contain lists of notable alumni and faculty who have Wikipedia biographies. When such a list becomes very long, it can be spun out into a separate article, such as List of Yale University people. Such lists do not include the specific degree the person received. That level of detail is more appropriate for individual biographies.

When you speak of "our institution", that raises concerns that you may have a conflict of interest, so please edit with that in mind. Editing of Wikipedia is done by individuals, rather than by groups or institutions. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 04:42, 3 July 2014 (UTC)

Hello, person posting from IP address 122.60.239.93. Cullen, I think the OP is talking about adding the qualification to individual existing articles about the alumni. On one level, that is perfectly fine, provided the fact of their having that degree is backed up by independent reliable sources. But conversely, the fact that it is the institution that wants to do this makes it sound like promotion, which is forbidden. OP, you say "our Alumni would like this recognised on their pages": how do you know they would like this? I think you mean that you would like this; and in any case, neither you nor the subject of the page have any special authority over what goes on the page. So, in short, I would suggest that you read the policy Cullen pointed you to, and then if you think it is appropriate, for each person involved you search for an independent reliable source which says that they have the qualification, and if you find one, post a request on the article's talk page that the information be added to the article, for somebody uninvolved to make the decision. --ColinFine (talk) 08:13, 3 July 2014 (UTC)

Citation of my article

hi please help me on citation and other issue on the article i created, since we dont have any source where to cite and prove that my article is reliable and correct that Delta Sphinx Family does exist, actually it does19dsf82 (talk) 01:31, 3 July 2014 (UTC)

Hello, 19dsf82 and welcome to the Teahouse. Wikipedia does not have articles on everything in the world that exists. It does not have one on me, for example, or my car, or my house, or the non-profit company I help run. Wikipedia requires that subjects of articles have already been written about, at length, by people unconnected with the subject, and published somewhere that has a reputation for checking facts. So it you have no reliable sources independent of Delta Sphinx Family that have written about it, then Wikipedia should not have an article about it. Sorry. --ColinFine (talk) 08:18, 3 July 2014 (UTC)

Slash in article names

I want to create an article on the Swiss architectural office "Annette Gigon / Mike Guyer Architekten". But they have a slash in the name of their office. Is that going to cause problems when I create the article?

The draft of this article currently resides at User:Margin1522/GigonGuyer. I did it that way because I'm a bit confused about the sandbox. Is there any way to get to that page except by checking my Contributions for the last edit to the draft? Thanks. Margin1522 (talk) 01:52, 3 July 2014 (UTC)

@Margin1522: Hey Margin1522. In some namespaces, a forward slash in a title will create a subpage of the name preceding the slash, but subpages are disabled in the article mainspace so I don't think it should be a problem. Some side effects may occur from this naming scheme though. Talk subpages will display at their top a link to what the software deems the main page it is a subpage of, so expect the talk page to display at the top a link like "< talk:Annette Gigon / Mike Guyer Architekten".

By the way, have you researched whether this is a common name of the firm? Article titles should generally be at the common name, so if this happened to be something else, that would avoid the issue entirely (a quick Google Books search indicates the common name in reliable sources appears to be also at a name with a forward slash but is "Gigon/Guyer Architekten" rather than ""Annette Gigon / Mike Guyer Architekten"). As for the second part of you question, just drop a link to the draft on your user or user talk page and you can click on it anytime you'd like. Best regards--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 02:21, 3 July 2014 (UTC)

P.S. Having looked at the draft a bit, it doesn't appear (yet) to be supported by sufficient secondary reliable sources entirely independent of the subjects to show both notability and verify the information content, which is especially important here since it focuses on living persons. It also has some language that sounds like it is intended for promotional purposes rather than to present a neutral encyclopedia article. Also, you have some naked URL links in the text. All those should be removed, or turned into citations, where appropriate.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 02:36, 3 July 2014 (UTC)

Thanks, I will do that (put a link on my user page). About the name, actually this is a translation of the article in the German Wikipedia, which is titled simply "Gigon/Guyer". Maybe that would be better. I also considered "Architects" instead of "Architekten" -- you see that on web as well. The long form with their first names is the official name on their website, so I thought I should use that. But maybe simpler is better. The article itself is only half finished. Still to come are a list of their major works, plus a list of books and monographs about them, and maybe a list of awards. I haven't checked the awards yet. The announcements might be a source for the promotional language if they still exist (highly subject to link rot). For architects it's kind of hard to avoid puffery and still say why people should care about them. They are nice buildings, so there's going to be some praise involved. Margin1522 (talk) 04:18, 3 July 2014 (UTC)

No, don't give any particular weight to their official name. See what the sources call them, and (assuming there is a consensus among the sources) use that. --ColinFine (talk) 08:21, 3 July 2014 (UTC)

Error made in moving a page

I recently tried to move Schutzmannschaft Battallion 118 after previously moving it to this name; however when I tried to correct my error with another move I found that the name I wanted to use, i.e. Schutzmannschaft Battalion 118 (this is the correct spelling) was already in use as a redirect. It looks like the correctly spelled name was previously moved to the incorrect name so now the page can't be moved back. It's a bit of a mess really and needs sorting out, but I don't know how to do it. Probably needs an admin to fix it. Jodosma (talk) 11:10, 3 July 2014 (UTC)

A little bit of a pickle. but nothing that can't be fixed. You're correct this does need admin attention. We have a procedure for requesting such moves, and you can find it at Wikipedia:MOVE#Moves_where_the_target_name_has_an_existing_page. Think of this as a fun introduction to intermediate-level Wikipedia editing! --LukeSurl^{t c} 11:24, 3 July 2014 (UTC)

Change default view on different devices?

I am wondering whether it is possible to have different default views (desktop, mobile) set for individual devices. I have a PC, a mobile phone and a tablet, and while the mobile version is great for my phone, I prefer to use the desktop view on my tablet. I know tablets are considered mobile devices, but this is a 10" device. Is there any way to make this gadget automatically use the desktop view instead of having to change it every time I use wikipedia? It isn't a big deal, but it would be nice to have this feature available. I do hope I'm using the correct forum for this question! :-) ) Perrysaunt (talk) 12:46, 2 July 2014 (UTC)

@Perrysaunt: I'm not sure of the answer. Since this is a more technical question, you might want to try asking at the main helpdesk or the village pump technology forum where a lot of technically-minded users tend to hang out. Calliopejen1 (talk) 22:22, 2 July 2014 (UTC)

@Perrsaunt: As far as I know it isn't possible. If the folks on the village pump technology forum can't answer it, or they say that it is impossible, I'd be willing to pass your message on to wikitech-l which is the developer mailing list for Mediawiki (the software that Wikipedia runs on). Zell Faze (talk) 12:45, 3 July 2014 (UTC)

Confused about the whole set up

l am a new user who is frustrated by the way my articles get a 'speedy deletion' tag as soon as l post them. l have read the Help text on how to create articles and what passes and what doesn't and l apply this and yet, so far, no admin answers me directly, all l get are quotations of the text that l have already read. Please, can someone personally explain to me what is wrong, because this is my 4th article being deleted and l am about to give up being a wiki contributor. Ladiepre (talk) 11:36, 2 July 2014 (UTC)

It may be simply that you need a little help. WP:Mentoring can be very useful, as can Artciles for Creation. where you submit a draft for experienced eyes to review and discuss with you. Do you feel either of these mechanisms will be useful to you?

Your question is enormous, so I have interpreted it as a plea for help to try to turn it into a bite size chunk. Fiddle Faddle 11:49, 2 July 2014 (UTC)

Looking at your talk page it appears to me that you have been given good advice there. One of which is about potential paid editing here, which is deprecated. Wise paid editors always use WP:AFC and always declare their interest. I make the assumption of paid editing because of a comment made by another editor there. Fiddle Faddle 11:53, 2 July 2014 (UTC)

Welcome to the Teahouse Ladiepre. One suggestion I often give to new editors is to not jump in to creating a new article. There is so much work that needs to be done on existing articles. I suggest you look here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Community_portal and scroll down to where it says "Help Out". There are many categories of editing work and links to articles that need work. Also User:SuggestBot can provide you with suggestions for articles to edit that match your history. My suggestion is start doing some simple editing first, add references, wp:WIKIFY existing articles, etc. Once you've done some of that you will have a much better idea of what is required of new articles. --MadScientistX11 (talk) 12:21, 2 July 2014 (UTC)

Her account seems to have been blocked indefinitely. Should we do anything to try to help? Perhaps try to explain the guidelines on paid editing a little bit better and maybe have her pass word back to her employers about those guidelines so that they don't have unrealistic expectations? Zell Faze (talk) 12:51, 3 July 2014 (UTC)

What license should I use for my own images ?

Lucie-boyer (talk) 08:27, 2 July 2014 (UTC)

@Lucie-boyer: Welcome to the Teahouse. For the license, it depends on what type of pictures you are uploading. Can you please specify? Nahnah4 | Any thoughts? Pen 'em down here! | No Editcountitis! 09:02, 2 July 2014 (UTC)

Lucie: Graphs made on excel based on financial public data. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Lucie-boyer (talk • contribs) 09:05, 2 July 2014 (UTC)

@Lucie-boyer: Did you make the graph yourself or you found it on the Net? BTW remember to sign. Thanks! Nahnah4 | Any thoughts? Pen 'em down here! | No Editcountitis! 09:39, 2 July 2014 (UTC)

Lucie: I made the graphs myself using excel based on financial data extracted from a microfinance institution annual report.

@Lucie-boyer: In that case, you can choose any license that is compatible with Wikipedia. (When you try to upload, there will be a drop-down box where you can choose between different options.) I personally like Creative Commons Attribution Share Alike ("BY-SA"), whatever the most recent version is -- that license ensures that if someone else changes or improves upon your chart down the road, that their improved version will also have to be freely licensed. But any of the options in the drop-down box will work for Wikipedia -- you just need to decide which license has terms that you agree to. Note that all of the licenses allow reuse (even by commercial entities) and remixing. Calliopejen1 (talk) 22:26, 2 July 2014 (UTC)

If you are unsure I would recommend using Creative Commons Attribution Share Alike ("BY-SA") as it is the license that all of the text on Wikipedia is available under. Remember, like Calliopejen1 said though, anything you put on Wikipedia can be used for any purpose, commercial or otherwise. Zell Faze (talk) 12:54, 3 July 2014 (UTC)

Submitted a post - content showed up empty?

Hi , I spent 3 hours formatting and writing a post, getting references and it got rejected because the content was apparently empty. I even checked along the way with preview and everything looked great. What happened? How can I prevent this from happening in the future that I work hours on something that just disappears.

Thanks. WalkerJD (talk) 14:26, 2 July 2014 (UTC)

@WalkerJD: That is a horrible experience. I have some practical suggestions for you, ones I always use in case either some failure happens or I have finger trouble.

Always create a new article in your sandbox, or in a file like User:WalkerJD/New article draft rather than in main namespace. This allows ypu tp:
Save your work in progress often
Consider whether you need to use WP:AFC if you are not yet familiar with our standards, or whether you will move your draft, when you consider it to be finished, to the article name. If the former there is a template to add to it in order to submit it. I ought to know it but can;t recall. When you need it, ask. Someone will tell you.

I suppose it could be worse. Ah wait no, it could not. It just hurts after all that work.

We have had a large number of blank submissions recently. You are not alone in wondering what has happened. I am going to make a guess. Did you by any chance preview the article that you had not yet saved, and submit from the preview? At present, though I have not tried it, that is all I can think of. I'm going to go and test this in a moment. If that is the issue we must be able to do something here, though I am not sure what. I am not technical enough. Fiddle Faddle 14:39, 2 July 2014 (UTC)

Indeed that is a possible mechanism, though a dialogue box intervenes to ask if you really want to leave the page, followed by a SAVE prompt. I'm going to ask the scripting folk if there is anything that can be done here. Indeed Technical 13 is collecting enhancement requests, so I am pinging him so he is aware.

It may not be the mechanism you have encountered. If you can recall it please tell us in as much detail as you can. Fiddle Faddle 14:46, 2 July 2014 (UTC)

My first question is this, do you have a check next to Preferences → Editing → Warn me when I leave an edit page with unsaved changes? The only thing that can be done about this for future users will be through JavaScript to make sure that option is checked (through the GuidedTour I have envisioned). — {{U|Technical 13}} ^{(e • t • c)} 14:53, 2 July 2014 (UTC)

I do, but I have no idea whether this is a default for new users. @WalkerJD:, having suffered form this are you willing to help by answering T 13's question form your perspective? Fiddle Faddle 14:59, 2 July 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for the prompt reply, fortunately clicking back a lot gave me an earlier draft of the file saved in my history (not everything, but the bulk of it.) I can't remember whether it was in preview mode, but I expect it was because I was checking this often to see if the layout was OK. Looks like I managed to submit with the content there OK, so fingers crossed. I'll definitely keep your advice in mind. :)

WalkerJD (talk) 15:23, 2 July 2014 (UTC)

The first time you probably encountered the problem I posted about at Wikipedia talk:Article wizard/Archive 3#Don't submit before saving. My suggestion has not been followed so it's still easy for new users to make this mistake. You have now successfully saved a page at Draft:The Central Asia Rally, but you haven't submitted it for review. Do that by clicking the green button, but only after saving your latest changes. PrimeHunter (talk) 18:53, 2 July 2014 (UTC)

@PrimeHunter: I'd be willing to try to hunt down a willing admin to make the change you discussed in the Article Wizard talk page. I think that would be useful. I might start a new discussion there to bring the topic back up again. This does seem to be a common issue. Zell Faze (talk) 12:42, 3 July 2014 (UTC)

I'm an admin but haven't worked with the Wizard or general AfC setup so I only made a proposal for consideration. I don't review AfC submissions but have heard there are many blank ones. Bringing it up again sounds good. PrimeHunter (talk) 12:57, 3 July 2014 (UTC)

Abreviation

What's the abbreviation for StJulian — Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.203.133.192 (talk) 13:17, 2 July 2014 (UTC)

Hello, person posting from 72.203.133.192. This page is for help on using and editing Wikipedia, so your question is not appropriate. You might try on the Reference desk, but if you do, you'll need to be clearer about what you want. What StJulian? In what context? Why do you think that "the abbreviation" is meaningful? --ColinFine (talk) 08:25, 3 July 2014 (UTC)

Maybe you can find what you want at Saint Julian. For example, the Maltese town St. Julian's has postal code STJ. PrimeHunter (talk) 13:20, 3 July 2014 (UTC)

Sandbox

I submitted a paragraph and it was rejected. I closely followed another person's profile but it was not accepted. Alphonso Jones, II 22:29, 30 June 2014 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Alphonso Jones, II (talk • contribs)

This shows the wisdom of never following anyone else! Aim high, find references about yourself Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL may do the trick, but be prepared, like all who write autobiographies here, to discover that you do not pass our notability threshold. I don't, and i don't care!

Once you find references, wrote the article around them, not around yourself. It's hard to do. As it stands User:Alphonso Jones, II/sandbox is not ready. It takes work, like being a dancer. Fiddle Faddle 23:27, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

Hi Alphonso Jones, II, welcome to the Teahouse. You submitted a completely unsourced and unformatted page at User:Alphonso Jones, II/sandbox. Maybe you intended to submit User:Alphonso Jones, II instead. I have added code which displays the references.[1] You can submit the page by adding {{subst:submit}} at the bottom. PrimeHunter (talk) 23:32, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

Please note that unless you took a photo yourself you do not own the copyright to it. So those photos you added to your user page may get deleted unless you can prove that you either took them yourself or have the photographer's permission to upload them. Other than that your user page looks fine as a draft to me. Zell Faze (talk) 13:38, 3 July 2014 (UTC)

Can we post our Creative Commons-licensed Wikimedia-hosted multimedia (images, audio, videos, etc) to Wikipedia?

Can we post our Creative Commons-licensed Wikimedia-hosted multimedia (images, audio, videos, etc) and applications to Wikipedia? It has been suggested that this would not be possible due to Wikipedia's "original research" restrictions, is this correct?

@Siduri-Project: That question is basically impossible to answer in the abstract. I'd recommend reading over WP:OR and WP:SYN to get a sense of what is not allowed in Wikipedia. Some files that would not be appropriate in Wikipedia might still be acceptable at the media repository Wikimedia Commons, if they are useful for educational purposes. Please see commons:Commons:Project scope for what sorts of files can be hosted at Commons. Calliopejen1 (talk) 22:18, 2 July 2014 (UTC)

@Calliopejen1:Hi Calliopejen1, thank you for the WP:OR and WP:SYN, I will review them carefully. All of the multimedia we are proposing to generate would be educational and customized to the subject to create a more multimedia rich Wikipedia page.Siduri-Project (talk) 22:43, 2 July 2014 (UTC)

@Siduri-Project: Also, as a general matter, instead of attempting to launch a huge, sweeping project that encompasses virtual reality, bots, etc., I would recommend starting small and contributing some media items in a slower fashion. That way you can engage with the community on a few specific examples and figure out whether your approach is compatible with Wikipedia's approach before investing (and possibly wasting) a lot of time and energy. Calliopejen1 (talk) 22:21, 2 July 2014 (UTC)

@Calliopejen1:Yes, I completely agree with your advice. I never wanted this to be proposed as a huge sweeping project with the focus on virtual reality etc, but simply a project focused on improving a single page, starting with custom images, then video and going on from there. We have to crawl (images), before we can walk (audio and video), run (custom applications) and eventually sprint (virtual reality). A great example of the Siduri Project starting to "crawl" is the custom community created multimedia on the Spanish Epic of Gilgamesh: https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poema_de_Gilgamesh, Hosted jpg image location: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:La_Epoca_del_Gilgamesh.jpg

1) The multimedia volunteers worked on the creating the background and layout image,

2) a cuneiform expert (Andrew George) provided the relevant highlighting,

3) I performed a Google translation version and posted it to the Siduri project translation table,

4) a Spanish speaker corrected and confirmed,

5) we posted to Wikimedia and then integrated into the relevant page, providing a customized Spanish image for that page.

We want to create Wikipedia pages that are rich with multimedia, applications and anything else that will engage, immerse and educate a visitor.

All contributors (multimedia volunteers, cuneiform expert, translator and myself) for the Spanish Epic of Gilgamesh image agreed to release this to Wikimedia under a Creative Commons license. I guess a more specific question is, can this particular image be used on Wikipedia? Or is this multi-contributor process and/or resultant work, a form of "original research" and thus not allowed? I will look into this myself, but you have significantly more expertise in this area than I do.Siduri-Project (talk) 22:43, 2 July 2014 (UTC)

@Siduri-Project: To me, that image looks fine, but I'm far from an expert in the subject area. I'd recommend discussing on the talk page of the article into which you'd like to insert the image (presumably Talk:Epic of Gilgamesh). As a side note, please do not add watermarks/author credits to images. As a matter of practice, image credits go on the image page and not in the image itself or in the image caption. (This is along the lines of article writers' credits going on the history page rather than in the article text.) Calliopejen1 (talk) 22:49, 2 July 2014 (UTC)

@Calliopejen1:Great, thanks for the input, I will also double check the regulations to make sure this is OK. Also, thanks for your advice regarding regarding the watermarks/author credits, this was also mentioned by Doug Weller, but I hadn't got around to fixing it. Here is the new corrected version:

Also, one of the main things we are proposing is to put all the image, video, audio (etc) source data files on Wikidata so in the future anyone would edit, correct and/or modify any data file, such as this image, in any way. The goal being to make a user-friendly step-by-step way for anyone to contribute to anything, text, image, video etc.Siduri-Project (talk) 23:12, 2 July 2014 (UTC)

I wouldn't even suggest discussing this on the talk page. It'll generally take weeks or months to get a response (with the exception of the most heavily-viewed articles, where a response can occur in a few hours or days), so I would just add the picture in and if someone reverts you, talk to them on their user talk page. (See WP:Be bold) --Jakob (talk) 22:53, 2 July 2014 (UTC)

@Jakec:Thanks for the advice, I will remove that pledge, but as we get into more complex data files I think the beta-testing page is warrented to protect Wikipedia's front page.Siduri-Project (talk) 23:12, 2 July 2014 (UTC)

I was wondering what happened to my three Wikipedia accounts, they all point to one page now, including the "sandbox" account which I was going to use for beta-testing new multimedia prior to release. I assume this was done by an admin, although I am not sure why. Are we not allowed multiple accounts for different purposes? Best, JimSiduri-Project (talk) 23:54, 2 July 2014 (UTC)

That action was taken by administrator Future Perfect at Sunrise. Our general policy is that "Wikipedia editors are generally expected to edit using only one (preferably registered) account. Using a single account maintains editing continuity, improves accountability, and increases community trust, which helps to build long-term stability for the encyclopedia." Please see WP:SOCK for full details. Limited use of alternate accounts is sometimes acceptable, so please discuss your concerns with that administrator. On another matter, Siduri-Project, Wikipedia is edited by individuals, not groups. Your frequent use of the word "we", combined with your user name, may well create suspicions that you are editing on behalf of a group. I recommend first person singular pronouns. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 05:49, 3 July 2014 (UTC)

UTC)

@Cullen328:Thanks Jim, that is good advice. I will try to use "I" wherever appropriate, as I (Jim) am the only one who accesses this Wikipedia account. The almost habitual use of "we" comes from writing too many non-Wikipedia proposals and also because I have to ask for help from lots of contributors and volunteers to actually make this Wikipedia-customized multimedia (I am no expert). But I will follow your advice. I also followed up with the admin and proposed a justification for the beta-testing Siduri page as a place to test new multimedia and applications without potentially messing up Wikipedia's front page. I don't know if this is allowed yet, but it seems to make common sense, so I hope it is allowed. Best, Jim Siduri-Project (talk) 13:42, 3 July 2014 (UTC)

Remove Navigation Pane during editing ?

CCan Can Can I change my Preferences so that the Navigation Pane does not show when I am editing a article ? FDLeyda 14:50, 29 June 2014 (UTC)

@FDLeyda: Hey FDLeyda. I have a clarification request: can you describe what you mean by the "Navigation Pane"? Thanks.

P.S. on an unrelated matter, I suggest going to your preferences and taking the checkmark out of "Treat the above as wiki markup." This should fix your signature, which right now does not link to any one of your user page, talk page or contributions, which is technically required. Best regards--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 04:15, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

The panel of options that are on the left side of the screen. I would like to have them not show so that I would have more room on the page during editing. OK. I unchecked the box. FDLeyda FDLeyda (talk) 11:48, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

I know of no way to do that, sorry. Someone else might, or might be able to confirm whether it's possible. In the meantime, if you don't already know, you can expand the edit box's size at Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-editing.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 12:23, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

@FDLeyda: If you use wikEd, it has a full-screen feature that will show nothing at all but the edit window. Might be worth checking out if this feature is a high-priority for you. WikEd does not work on Internet Explorer, has a bit of a learning curve and is a little slow. Please see the project page and user manual: User:Cacycle/wikEd help, for more information. You can enable wikEd from your Preferences menu; it is listed under Gadgets, and then the Editing subsection. -- dsprc ^[talk] 04:02, 1 July 2014 (UTC)

Thank you guys for your suggestions. I will look into them. FDLeyda (talk) 12:39, 1 July 2014 (UTC)

@FDLeyda: I wrote a userscript that does this for you on the website. If you edit User:FDLeyda/common.js and add importScript("User:Zellfaze/expandEdit.js"); //Expands edit window to full screen to it then the left navigation menu will disappear when editing. Zell Faze (talk) 14:02, 3 July 2014 (UTC)

How do I get a warning banner removed?

On https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maciek_Pysz there are 2 warnings - one about not meeting notability, the other about formatting. I have corrected the formatting and added detailed explanation of how the subject meets notability criteria for musicians on the Talk page - an editor (Piotrus) says he is satisfied with my explanation. But the warnings remain and I wonder if they discourage people from reading the article if they think it is poorly researched and drafted. Which it is not! Please can you tell me how and when these warnings are removed? Thank you.

MarycjamesMarycjames (talk) 16:26, 3 July 2014 (UTC)

Just edit your page and remove it. If an administrator put it there, ask them first. If a regular wikipedian put it there, just remove it.SkaterLife (talk) 16:29, 3 July 2014 (UTC)

Thank you SkaterLife. Do I just use the Undo feature? I have added a lot of changes since the editors put the warnings. Will I lose all the edits if I select undo? Marycjames (talk) 16:37, 3 July 2014 (UTC)Marycjames

Hello, Marycjames. I see you've worked out that you just need to edit the file and remove the template. --ColinFine (talk) 17:20, 3 July 2014 (UTC)

Yes, thank you ColinFine. Getting the hang of wikipedia now! Marycjames (talk) 17:23, 3 July 2014 (UTC)Marycjames

Is there a length of time counter?

I've seen the little things like this (imagine it with curly brackets): Birth date and age|1964|3|23|mf=yes, where it calculates the person's birthdate and automatically keeps track of how old they are. I need one that calculates the length of time a person has been on death row. So like, I type in the date they were sentenced and it says "14 years" or whatever. Does such a thing exist? Bali88 (talk) 17:57, 3 July 2014 (UTC)

Hello Bali88and welcome to the Teahouse. Perhaps this can help you? Template:Day count to DHMS/doc? It's the one I found. Best - W.carter (talk) 19:02, 3 July 2014 (UTC)

Thanks. I'll keep searching. I think someone on death row for 30 years may just be a little much to view in days. I found one that says "years ago" instead of just "years". It would work...it would just look weird. Hmm... Bali88 (talk) 19:05, 3 July 2014 (UTC)

Bali88 This might be better Template:Age in days There are several other examples on that page. - W.carter (talk) 19:07, 3 July 2014 (UTC)

Thanks, but I definitely don't want one in days. Most people think of things in terms of years. Knowing someone has been on death row for 3,576 days won't mean much to people. The reader will want to know it in years. Bali88 (talk) 19:12, 3 July 2014 (UTC)

@Bali88:Like I said: There are plenty other forms of counters listed on that page. If you only scroll down a bit and look at the bottom you will find several kinds of counters with years, months and so on, such as Template:Age in years, months and days and many more. Cheers, - W.carter (talk) 19:37, 3 July 2014 (UTC)

Found it!!! Template:How long ago. Thanks for your help. Bali88 (talk) 19:38, 3 July 2014 (UTC)

Archiving

How can I archive my talk page? SkaterLife (talk) 16:14, 3 July 2014 (UTC)

Hi SkaterLife - welcome to the tea-house
Archiving can be done manually, or automatically - the how-to explanations are at Help:Archiving a talk page - Arjayay (talk) 16:17, 3 July 2014 (UTC)

Could someone help me do it? I don't understand the whole process with the ClueBot archiveing format.SkaterLife (talk) 16:23, 3 July 2014 (UTC)

User:W.carter appears to have done it for you. If you experience any problems with the archiving, feel free to ask again here. Calliopejen1 (talk) 19:57, 3 July 2014 (UTC)

Article submission & COI

I would like to either create or submit for creation an article about a non-profit volunteer organization I belong to - Share the Beach - a sea turtle conservation organization on the Alabama Gulf Coast. I have read about the Conflict of Interest policies and I think it applies to my (our) situation. I also feel it would be suitable for inclusion into Wikipedia as a " focus on factual information to cover the thing or concept for which the article name stands."

How can we, within policy guidelines accomplish the inclusion of information about this organization?

Thank you, IslandRagtop IslandRagtop (talk) 18:18, 3 July 2014 (UTC)

Hello, IslandRagtop, and welcome to the Teahouse. Thank you for researching Wikipedia's policies and coming and asking. As you'll have seen when you read the pages on conflict of interest, you are not absolutely forbidden to write on your organisation, so one possibility is that you use the articles for creation process, being open about your connection, and expecting careful review. Another is to request an article at requested articles. But in any case, your very first step will be to determine that the organisation meets the criteria of notability: principally, that there are multiple reliable sources, unconnected with the organisation, which have written about it at length. If you can overcome that hurdle, then it is worth proceeding one way or the other; but if these sources do not (yet) exist, then don't spend any more time on it, because such an article will not be accepted. --ColinFine (talk) 18:52, 3 July 2014 (UTC)

Hi, IslandRagtop. I might add to this that your reliable sources need to show some geographic diversity. That is one of the differences for the standards for companies and organizations linked above and the general notability guideline. If the only place your organization is getting coverage is the local area, an article on it will not be accepted. If newspapers, etc. from out of your local area, or magazines which circulate nationally have noted it, then it probably will. John from Idegon (talk) 23:29, 3 July 2014 (UTC)

Link Rot

I just started looking at the article Knowledge-based engineering Three of the first four refs go to the site: http://legacy.coe.org/ That site isn't responding for me right now. I'm going to check again later in case the site is just down and also try with another browser just to make sure it's not something weird with Firefox but if the site doesn't respond I seem to remember hearing about some tool to discover if a site has moved or the info is archived or something. Is there such a tool? MadScientistX11 (talk) 04:42, 3 July 2014 (UTC)

@MadScientistX11:Hello again! I don't know about the tool. One way is to go to the "start page" of the site and see if you can find out where they have moved the information. Be a detective! :) You should be able to do that with the information in the link. And of course try again later. Sometimes the page is just down for maintenance. If all this fails you should not remove the link, but put a notice after it {{Dead link|date=July 2014}}. Read about it at Template:Dead link Best, - W.carter (talk) 09:09, 3 July 2014 (UTC)

Ok, I mucked about with the links, and they really seems to be dead as doornails. No wonder though, they were retrieved in 2005, not many links survive that long. And .org-things are cleaned out regularly. That means you have to go on a Google-hunt to see if you can find the same information somewhere else to replace the dead links with. Do not delete or replace unless you are sure the links cover the same thing. Best, - W.carter (talk) 09:26, 3 July 2014 (UTC)

Although the link may now be dead, provided it was properly referenced, it can often be retrieved from an archive like the Wayback Machine. See Help:Using the Wayback Machine for how to use this, and how to re-link to the archived copy. Arjayay (talk) 09:36, 3 July 2014 (UTC)

Ahh... New knowledge. Nice!:) Thanks, - W.carter (talk) 09:44, 3 July 2014 (UTC)

Thanks so much! I even knew about the Wayback Machine, I used it once for some personal work a while back, but for some reason it didn't occur to me in this context but of course! thanks again. --MadScientistX11 (talk) 12:01, 3 July 2014 (UTC)

Hey it Worked! If I can be allowed a personal comment this is why I like editing here, along the way I end up learning so much useful stuff for myself as well. At least one of those links is in the archive, here it is in case anyone is interested: https://web.archive.org/web/20120324223130/http://legacy.coe.org/newsnet/Jun05/knowledge.cfm Also, from my first look this link seems like it was a good reference to me, it wasn't (as I suspected) just some promotional BS it was some good info. This generates a follow up question, I'm assuming that I can't use an archived site like a reference(?) so what I really should do if I'm up for it is read the info, make sense of it and see if I can find another reference somewhere that says the same thing and use that as a reference, preferably to a book or journal article that will have more permanence than just a URL. If that's wrong or if anyone has more useful info please let me know. I know this field (AI in business) pretty well although not so much this subdomain (CAD) but the ref makes sense to me and I think I can and will do that. thanks again. --MadScientistX11 (talk) 12:23, 3 July 2014 (UTC)

@MadScientistX11: Congrats to making it work! :) Well if the ref now is in a reliable archive with a stable url, you should first make it into a "real" ref instead of the dead link (I can help you if you want) so that it is accessible for anyone. And if it's out there and easy to access, I see no reason why you should not use it again, but it's never wrong to shine a light from different angles on a subject, like having multiple refs so keep on digging. Best - W.carter (talk) 19:30, 3 July 2014 (UTC)

OK. I didn't know that. I just assumed something archived and no longer live shouldn't be a reference but now that I think about it why not? as long as it's stable. I think I can figure out how to do that but I will ping you if I need help. I'm planning on doing a bit more reading now of that material and other refs and then just redoing the whole article. I will probably add some better refs anyway but in general my usual philosophy is more refs are always better and those archived links are a good resource even if I also find better ones. --MadScientistX11 (talk) 19:40, 3 July 2014 (UTC)

@MadScientistX11:On-line archives are becoming more and more frequent and many organizations or (the ones I usually deal with) museums are using them. As for multiple sources, if you look at this article you can see them used that way in many places. There are some helpful things when dealing with on-line archives here Template:Cite web scroll down a bit and you'll get the parameters for archives or for some fancy archives see Template:Cite additional archived pages. Best of luck! - W.carter (talk) 20:02, 3 July 2014 (UTC)

Good to know. One last thing I just want to let you know I saw your change and your edit history comment and realized I was doing it a bit wrong and will make sure to distinguish in the future on the reference from the archive site and the original site. Thanks again to everyone for all the great ideas and help. --MadScientistX11 (talk) 01:03, 4 July 2014 (UTC)

Issue Alerts and how to remove once remedied?

I have made a lot of changes to a page and don't believe the Issue Alerts are now warranted. How are they removed? I saw this topic mentioned below and have now sorted thanks.Natalie GoodSense (talk) 03:10, 4 July 2014 (UTC

Welcome to the Teahouse, Natalie GoodSense. I agree that you have improved the article, but I don't agree that all the issues are resolved. The phrase "signature pattern", for example, sounds like advertising or marketing language to me, and a subtle promotional tone seems to pervade the article. So, I recommend another rewrite, striving for a dry, "just the facts" tone. Please see WP:NPOV for the details.

Once you are sure that you have resolved all the issues, simply edit the wikicode to remove the templates that generate the tags. They are the first few lines of the code. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 03:31, 4 July 2014 (UTC)

Why replace a detailed and properly sourced article?

I recently expanded the article on the actor Anthony Sharp, which as it stood featured a prefatory warning regarding a lack of citations and the fact that the article only had one source. I did a great deal of research on Sharp, adding several sources and many details regarding his stage career as actor, director and writer, whereas the previous version concentrated almost exclusively on his appearances in TV sitcoms. Yet now I find someone has reverted the article to its previous state. The request "Please help improve this article by introducing citations to additional sources" was fully complied with by me. So I'm wondering why a properly sourced and much more detailed article has been discarded in favour of a stub about which there had been complaints? Frankly, I'm baffled!Clamias (talk) 16:38, 3 July 2014 (UTC)

Hello Clamias and welcome to the Teahouse. On inspection of your edit, it was merely an expansion and was not vandalism. I've reverted the revert. The user was using an automated editing tool to perform 'rollback' which rolls back all the contributions of a user back to the content of a different user. @Solarra: may have saw one particular edit that may have looked like vandalism, which sometimes happens when you patrol pages, but when they hit the revert button, it rolls back all the edits by one user. There may be other content errors such as a lack of citations in your edits, but otherwise, I see the expansion as beneficial and I welcome you to continue them. Tutelary (talk) 17:01, 3 July 2014 (UTC)

Specifically it was this edit that appeared to break the referencing in two sections of the article. When editing it is paramount to make sure you use edit summaries to help ensure such things do not happen :-) ♥ Solarra ♥ ^{♪ 話 ♪} ߷ _{♀ 投稿 ♀} 21:25, 3 July 2014 (UTC)

Hello, Clamias. Thanks for improving that article! I noticed that you made use of "ibid" in the reference list. Unfortunately, ibid doesn't work in Wikipedia articles, because another editor is likely to come along and add intervening facts and references, making the "ibid" point to the wrong item. To use a reference more than once, it's better to use named references. —Anne Delong (talk) 21:51, 3 July 2014 (UTC)

Many thanks! And not using 'ibid' is pretty obvious, now you mention it - will avoid in future! Clamias (talk) 07:03, 4 July 2014 (UTC)