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Wikipedia:Teahouse/Questions/Archive 285

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How do I "save" a Wikipedia page on my computer like I can (super easily) do on my phone with the app?

I usually look up things on Wikipedia using the app on my android phone. I struggle with racing thoughts and ideas so I love being able to look something up quickly and then with two taps use the "save page" function if need be to refer to it later. The problem is that I am finding it basically impossible to figure out how to use my account seamlessly across my phone and computer now in this way. I created an account and can sign in on the Wikipedia page on my computer (and app) but I don't know how to access the pages I've saved using the app, nor can I figure out how to similarly save new pages on the website. The closest feature I could find is the watchlist option but I don't want that since I'm not trying to keep track of edits and I don't want to download the page or necessarily make it into a book. Thank you very much in advance for your help. I have tried to find this info on my own since I'm sure you all get tons of questions each day but unfortunately I could not. I do hope the solution isn't too obvious :\ Katekore (talk) 07:41, 15 December 2014 (UTC)

Hello, Katekore. The closest parallel to saving a page on your phone is to use the features of your browser to create a bookmark. Different browsers have different ways of doing this, but they all allow it. Another approach (which takes a bit more work from you, but will work across different browsers) is to edit your own user page to contain a list of wikilinks to pages you want to remember. --ColinFine (talk) 10:31, 15 December 2014 (UTC)
@Katekore: To add to the excellent answer above you can also install something like this (there must be some similar app) and then you just use the "Print" option and choose that which converts the article to a pdf to be stored on your computer in two clicks. The pdf's made this way contain refs and everything and can be transferred and copied between units. With a print/pdf-converter, anything that is printable is storable. Best, w.carter-Talk 10:46, 15 December 2014 (UTC)
Actually, w.carter, you don't need an external tool to do this. Katekore, there is a "Download as PDF" link on every page. --ColinFine (talk) 14:07, 15 December 2014 (UTC)
Ahh, (facepalm!) I've gone blind! So much easier. Thanks Obi-Wan, - w.carter-Talk 14:12, 15 December 2014 (UTC)
Hi w.carter, you already have lots of great ideas but just one more thought: what I usually do in such situations is to email a link to myself. This isn't Wikipedia specific, for any page there should be a simple option somewhere on your phone to share the page and one of those options is to email the URL and you can simply email the link to yourself and then access your email from the desktop. From there you can book mark it on your desktop if you want. Of course if you have bookmark sharing enabled on your browser and use the same browser on your desktop and mobile that is even easier. I don't do that because I like Firefox on my desktop but Safari on mobile. The advantage of sending a PDF is that you actually have a separate version of the info if you want it. But that's sort of a double edged sword because if the info changes on Wikipedia your PDF of course isn't updated. --MadScientistX11 (talk) 16:49, 15 December 2014 (UTC)
MadScientistX11: I see that we have at least one habit in common. :) I e-mail links to myself all the time, but this was a suggestion based on a question where I, perhaps mistakenly, thought that the editor might want to have a kind of "library" with pages they wanted to save. One that was not necessarily just for online access. So many ways to store and retreive data! :) Best, w.carter-Talk 16:58, 15 December 2014 (UTC)

I have no idea if I'm doing this right...I just wanted to respond to the responses to my question. First, thanks to everyone who took the time to offer suggestions. I guess it appears that the feature or integration of features I'm needing as far as using the app and the website in any sort of seamless fashion doesn't exist. I find this quite odd. If you use the app or take a quick look at it, you'll find that it has very little functionality in terms of what you can do in it vs. on the Wikipedia website, yet the save option is one of them. For instance, if you are on an article page and you hit the little menu icon on the upper right, you only have 5 options, "Save Page" being one of them. From the main screen of the app, if you tap the little menu button on the upper left (sorry I do not know the names for either the 3 horizontal line menu or the 3 verticle dot menus so I hope y'all know what I'm talking about!), you will find that there are only about 5 options there too, one of which being "Saved Pages." Does anyone else find it strange then that there is absolutely no way to access pages you've *saved to your account* using the app or to even save a page you'd like to refer to later on Wikipedia without the app, within Wikipedia, without having to download other apps or pdfs or figure out a separate bookmark option connected to a browser, yada yada yada. I've most likely made this super clear but just in case, this all baffles me. So, I suppose my question now becomes, how can I bring this to the attention of any Wikipedia tech people who may be interested in my feedback about this feature or lack thereof? Also please let me stress that I hope I don't sound like a jerk if any of this sounds written all angry or something. I can sometimes sound that way but it isn't my intention. I love Wikipedia and donate monthly and just want to be able to use it the way I need to use it and the current set up just doesn't make any sense to me. Also, this I guess is separate but the suggestion about being able to save articles to my user page, could you give me more information about that? Although if it makes all the pages I want to save public, that's not really something I want to do either. At any rate THANK YOU all for the help, and any more you may be able to give me! I really want to get involved more with Wikipedia (eventually help edit I hope, and I would like to create some books for myself based on my saved pages in the future) but I feel really dumb so far lol! It's quite overwhelming and I am not good with technical stuff and I don't know anything about how to do any of this, even how to format this answer, so hopefully it will actually go through! <3 KateKore (talk) 05:45, 16 December 2014 (UTC)

Hi @Katekore:, I completely misunderstood your question with my first answer, sorry about that and thanks to @W.carter: for explaining my error to me. I'm going to take another shot at it. I think essentially what you are seeing is the difference between a mobile operating system like iOS or Android and a desktop OS such as Windows or OS X. The behavior for any site is going to be significantly different on a desktop vs a mobile device because the features provided by the underlying OS are significantly different. The major difference with a mobile operating system is there essentially is no file system. Try going to any arbitrary site with your phone and save or print a file. The behavior will be different than what you see on your desktop. That is why most large sites (e.g. Huffington Post, Facebook, etc.) all have Apps specifically written for the mobile platform. Because the default behavior you get with your browser isn't as powerful on the mobile platform. However, Wikipedia does not have apps for mobile platforms. We just use the browser based UI so it's not really a surprise that the behavior is so different. The reason is simple: $$. Developing a Wikipedia app for Android, iPhone, etc. takes a lot of effort. For for-profit sites it's more than worth it but the judgement on Wikipedia (which I think makes perfect sense) is that the small amount of extra features we would get from an app don't justify the cost to the foundation to support mobile apps, at least so far. BTW, if you look at the user interface on your phone you should notice at the bottom of every page there are two links: "Mobile | Desktop" clicking on one or the other will toggle the UI. If you want the desktop UI on your phone you can click that link and change it. You can also set your preferences one way or the other. But even if you do that you will still notice a difference in features because of the different underlying operating systems. So now to get to your question: should Wikipedia invest precious time and money to actually develop apps for mobile platforms? IMO no they shouldn't. The main thing you seem to want to do frankly is something I don't see much use for anyway. This isn't meant as a slight or anything, we all work differently, I'm just saying for most users and for the way I use Wikipedia I can't remember the last time I saved an article to a file. There just isn't (for me and most users) a lot of reason to do that for the reason I mentioned earlier: Wikipedia is constantly evolving and as soon as you save something it will be changed and be out of date. One last point: you might look into Google Drive: https://www.google.com/drive/ It's what's called a Cloud app. It takes a bit of getting used to but essentially it provides you with the equivalent of a hard drive for all your apps regardless of platform. You can save files from your phone to the cloud and access them from your desktop, other mobile devices, etc. Hope that made some sense. We've probably beaten this poor horse carcass enough but if you still have questions please drop me a note on my talk page. I like bloviating on these topics ;-) --MadScientistX11 (talk) 13:52, 16 December 2014 (UTC)
No problemo, MadScientistX11.   And KateKore: If you want to pursue this further, the "Techies" around here can be found at Wikipedia:Village pump (technical). Cheers, w.carter-Talk 14:13, 16 December 2014 (UTC)

How to identify a sub page as not intended for an AF C

I want to create some subpages within my user space for the purpose of organizing material. Such sub pages would not be intended for an AFC. Is there a template I can use at the top of the subpage to indicate my intent so I don't get a notification of deletion. Thank you Janvermont Janvermont (talk) 15:21, 16 December 2014 (UTC)

  • Hello Jan, and welcome to the teahouse! I've gone ahead and added a template to your sandbox page that should make creating new drafts easy and out of immediate AFC intervention while working on them. Happy editing! — {{U|Technical 13}} (e • t • c) 15:35, 16 December 2014 (UTC)
Hi Janvermont welcome to the teahouse. Just wanted to add to the good info that Technical 13 gave. First, keep in mind that any sub-pages you create have to be Wikipedia related. We can't use sub-pages as a kind of general purpose cloud for our personal stuff. But as long as it's Wikipedia related you don't have to worry about it getting deleted. The AFC only kicks in if you submit the article. If you just have an arbitrary Wikipedia:User page it won't be reviewed by AFC. There are a few minor things about user sub-pages to keep in mind: first if you copy articles to user pages it's a good idea to remove any categories. That way you won't run the risk of having your work in progress page show up if someone looks for pages in a category. Also, you should double check any images in a user page. Some images are only licensed for very specific uses. So as a specific example if I was going to rewrite the article about the Rolling Stones album Their Satanic Majesties Request and copied it into my sandbox or into some other user page I should remove the album cover art. Because album cover art is only licensed for the actual article, if you copy the article to a sub-page you should remove or comment out images that have usage restrictions. BTW, if you forget to do that there is a bot that will eventually notice and do it for you. To create a user page just type in the path you want in your browser. Actually, what I usually do is navigate to the path for my sandbox and then in the window with the URL replace "sandbox" with whatever name I want. Then hit return. Wikipedia will tell you the file doesn't exist and ask if you want to create it. Of course as Technical 13 said the most common thing to do is just use your sandbox for work in progress. But it's possible to create additional pages if you want. Hope that helps Please let us know if you still have questions. --MadScientistX11 (talk) 15:44, 16 December 2014 (UTC)
  • MadScientistX11, I put User:Technical 13/SandBox/DraftHeader in their sandbox. All they need to do to start a new draft is type the name of where they want the draft to end up in the input box and hit create. It would preload the page with the appropriate user sandbox header template and they can start typing. Hitting save will save the draft for them.. The big box on the /sandbox page itself uses some Special:PrefixINdex trickery to give a list of all the user's drafts. Even after the draft is moved, as long as a redirect exists, it will be listed in the box.  :) — {{U|Technical 13}} (e • t • c) 15:53, 16 December 2014 (UTC)

Can I block somebody from editing an article I created?

Hi im Zucat. I created an article with specific rules and guidelines that I expected other user to follow. And another user is helping me build the article, but is NOT following the rules and guidelines. If its not too much trouble, i would like to block this user from doing any future edits to my article. Or at least until they commit to the rules and guidelines. How can I do it?Zucat (talk) 17:34, 16 December 2014 (UTC)

You can't enforce your own rules on an article. See WP:OWN. If the user is violating some Wikipedia policies, such as edit warring or vandalism, then you can ask for help stopping that. RudolfRed (talk) 17:39, 16 December 2014 (UTC)
Assuming you are referring to List of Stuart Little characters you would do well to heed the advice on the talk page, given by User:SummerPhD a very experienced editor, before large sections of the article are removed as unreferenced. To re-emphasize the point above, it is most definitely NOT "your" article, and Wikipedia's policies and guidelines determine what is included, or excluded, not you. - Arjayay (talk) 17:56, 16 December 2014 (UTC)

Deleting User Pages?

A while back I was thinking of spinning out a new article from a current article and I wrote a draft and saved it as user page. I decided not to do the spin out and I just blanked the user page I created, the material was instead kept in the existing page which I restructured. I assumed once it was blanked the system would just delete the file. But it still seems to be there: User:MadScientistX11/Method_(C++) Is there anything I should do to further delete that file and to delete user pages in general? MadScientistX11 (talk) 18:24, 16 December 2014 (UTC)

Add {{db-u1}} to the pages you no longer want and they'll join the queue for admin attention. Nthep (talk) 18:32, 16 December 2014 (UTC)
Cool. Thanks! --MadScientistX11 (talk) 18:37, 16 December 2014 (UTC)

What's up with the recent vandalism wave?

Today me and ClueBot had to revert several disruptive edits. I never had to revert anything besides false informations or informations that were not in the appropriate place, but edits that were intended to be constructive. Is it because kids are in winter vacation now? (I'm not sure if you north-hemisphereans have winter vacations).

And that raises the question once again: Can we prohibit IPs to edit stuff? I read somewhere that most of the edits by IPs end up being reverted, so what is the point? Tetra quark (talk) 20:02, 16 December 2014 (UTC)

I don't know why there's been more vandalism lately, but a proposal prohibiting anonymous contributions is about 99.9% sure to fail. --AmaryllisGardener talk 20:13, 16 December 2014 (UTC)
I haven't notice more vandalism on the pages I watch... but then again most kids probably aren't going to vandalize pages on topics like deductive classifiers or Computer Aided Software Engineering. For what it's worth I agree with you about the IP editing. I think the place to make policy proposals like that is here Wikipedia:Village_pump_(policy) Let me know if you do I'll support it. My guess is it won't pass though. Another policy change I would implement if I were the God of Wikipedia would be that people can't create new articles unless they have made at least some number of edits to existing articles first. I even wrote up a draft here: User:MadScientistX11/MadScientistPolicyProposal but I never bothered to submit it because I think the chance of it passing is also nil as well and better to focus on editing anyway. --MadScientistX11 (talk) 20:16, 16 December 2014 (UTC)
That makes sense. So basically IPs edit the encyclopedia more than registered users and that's why they also vandalize more, right? Well, from my short experience here, I see more users contributing than IPs, and the IPs who contribute often have their revisions reverted. But if that's the way things have to be, it's alright :) Tetra quark (talk) 21:13, 16 December 2014 (UTC)
Hi Tetra quark and welcome to the Teahouse! If you take a look at Cluebot's contributions you'll notice that there is a colossal amount of vandalism occurring all the time! Though there may indeed be fluctuations based on school times, it's not a rare thing to be reverting some vandals :) We can indeed prohibit IPs and new editors from editing a given page by semi-protecting it; requests for such protection are usually handled at requests for page protection, but are only granted on pages which have recently been vandalised, and they're only protected for as short a time as possible. As for most IP contributions being reverted, that actually isn't the case, and you can read more at perennial proposals. Sam Walton (talk) 20:17, 16 December 2014 (UTC)

Could an editor amend the incorrect info. stated in my email?

Good morning,

I have recently been on Wikipedia (of which I am a huge fan) to research some information on the Seville bullring. Upon reading the content I noticed that it is referred to as ‘the oldest bullring in the world’ which couldn't be further from the truth. This edifice is done in the Baroque style whereas there are many bullrings in France dating back to the Roman era.

Below are two Wikipedia pages that are conflicting and both wrong regarding the oldest bullring in the world. I am not sure which one this is but I would hazard a guess at either Nîmes or Arles in the South of France.

- Plaza de toros de la Real Maestranza de Caballería de Sevilla

- Bull Ring

Please could you amend this information or let me know how I can amend it?

I look forward to hearing from you.

Kind regards,

Dom

Dominique Cathérineau <redacted>

213.123.139.102 (talk) 10:38, 16 December 2014 (UTC)

Bonjour, Dominique. Welcome to Wikipedia. You can change them yourself, as long as the page is not semi-protected and you have WP:reliable sources demonstrating which is the largest (you might like to post this message on the article Talk page as well). If you don't feel comfortable doing this, however, I'm sure someone can step in and help out if the sources confirm these facts (or we can find definite mention of which bull-ring is the largest in the world). LouiseS1979 (talk) 10:52, 16 December 2014 (UTC)
Lstanley1979 the oldest bullring, actually. And Dominique, I removed the email address since you would not want spam, or if you intended to post it for promotional purposes, that is not allowed on Wikipedia.— Vchimpanzee • talk • contributions • 21:42, 16 December 2014 (UTC)

My first article, on a literary topic: can an experienced contributor look it over and advise me?

I'm a university lecturer in English literature, and have recently successfully edited a number of Wikipedia pages related to my own areas of scholarly expertise. I've got more ambitious and a week ago created a new entry which I thought conformed to Wikipedia's guidelines. When I uploaded it, I got an automated message telling me that it would take a month for it to be checked, and approved or otherwise. Of course, I was okay with that. But the next day I got a message saying it had been deleted by "Joe Docker" because it violated copyright. Fortunately I had saved it in my Sandbox. Could an experienced editor -- preferably someone with a knowledge of English literature -- look over my article, tell me if it's suitable, and if not how I can make it suitable. I am very happy to discuss this and learn, if anyone has the time. I guess if I sign this message, anyone who's interested will be able track down the draft article in my sandbox. (Is that right?) And where will I see any responses? Gregory Tanner (talk) 09:51, 16 December 2014 (UTC)

Hello, User:Gregory Tanner, and welcome to the Teahouse and to Wikipedia. Wikipedia does take suspected copyright violations very seriously, so check you're not importing text in from elsewhere. A bot does check new articles that go live to mainspace (that is, if you just created and uploaded the article without first submitting it as a draft to e.g. WP:Articles for Creation), and new page patrollers like myself tend to find these quickly.
I'll have a look at your article and get back to you ASAP. LouiseS1979 (talk) 10:07, 16 December 2014 (UTC)
Hi again. I see you submitted to WP:AFC. Were you given any notice as to the source that the wording came from? First up, from what I can see, you seem to be writing a biography of your subject, but not all of what's in there is encyclopaedic. The examination of the correspondence is WP:Original research; what needs to be written in the article is only what is available in secondary sources, which you need to cite. That section should really only contain references to publicly available sources, not private correspondence; we're not a vehicle for publishing your work on her correspondence - that needs to be published elsewhere before it can be used in a Wikipedia article. (The thrust of the original research policy is that WP isn't meant to replace traditional scholarship sources, but once your analysis has been published elsewhere, it would become relevant in a Wikipedia article.)
Same goes for all that biographical detail, particularly since Fairburn is still alive. (See the policy on the biographies of living persons; personal details must be sourced properly.)
If that text is taken from elsewhere it needs to go from the site - it cannot stay on the site, even in a private area such as a sandbox (we don't allow fair use images in userspace either; if anything, user pages are more tightly policed). As it stands, it needs to be better sourced to reputable scholarship on her life first before it appears here. From the sources you have quoted, it appears she is notable, so prune back to the basic facts that are already published in the sources you do quote, and make sure you're not just taking text from elsewhere, and that would be a viable article. Once the analysis of her correspondence with Tolkien is published and sourced, it can go in, but not right now, unfortunately.
Hope this is of some help. LouiseS1979 (talk) 10:19, 16 December 2014 (UTC)
Lstanley1979, just to clarify, there are no "private areas" on Wikipedia. There are areas where an editor's work will likely be respected until it is ready for mainspace.— Vchimpanzee • talk • contributions • 21:45, 16 December 2014 (UTC)
Vchimpanzee - thanks for your correction. No, there aren't any private areas - bad choice of phrase. What I meant was user space, which is, as you say, where people can work on their articles relatively undisturbed (while being visible to the public, as are most things here). However, the other point still stands - copyright law still applies to user space as much as it does at WP:AFC or in the main article space. LouiseS1979 (talk) 21:51, 16 December 2014 (UTC)

Want to create a public figure page

I need to create a page for a public figure(Indian Artist). Please let me know how to do that.

Thanks

(Mkagrohiya (talk) 11:31, 15 December 2014 (UTC)

Just go to the artist wikipedia page. Type it in the URL. It will say that the page does not exist and will give you the option to create it. Tetra quark (talk) 11:46, 15 December 2014 (UTC)
Hello Mkagrohiya and welcome to the Teahouse. To add to the somewhat hasty answer given above, you should first start creating the article in your sandbox and when you are confident about it move it to a Draft page for the article, where you may invite other editors to help you establish the Wikipedia:Notability of the person to see if the person warrants an article on the Wikipedia. Since you say that you "need" to create the article, I hope that the person is not you, since that would create a conflict of interest. Please read about this. To help you in all this please read Wikipedia:Your first article. When the draft is done, you can submit it for review, and the article may be accepted. If you just write an article in the main as suggested above, chances are very big that it will be marked for speedy deletion. Happy editing, w.carter-Talk 12:47, 15 December 2014 (UTC)
Hi Mkagrohiya, welcome to the Teahouse. It is recommended for new users to use Wikipedia:Article wizard. PrimeHunter (talk) 12:43, 15 December 2014 (UTC)
To add to what W.carter said, you have a conflict of interest even if it is not you, if the article subject is closely connected with you.— Vchimpanzee • talk • contributions • 22:13, 16 December 2014 (UTC)

Format for referencing theatrical Playbill

Hi,

I am working on an article about a theater set designer. Many of the references that I have found are of show Playbills that the artist worked on. How do I make a correct Playbill reference? I can't figure out if it is Book, News or Journal. It would also be great if someone could explain how to properly fill out the reference since the Playbill has little information other than the theater, date and all of the people involved. Thanks in advance!

Borister (talk) 21:11, 14 December 2014 (UTC)

Hello, Borister. Are these playbills published, in some book about them? If not (if they are just in your collection, for example) they would probably not count as reliable sources: the crucial thing is, can a random reader in principle get hold of the resource? Needing to request it from a public library would be OK, but needing to ask somebody who happens to own a private collection would not. If these playbills are published then they can be used as sources, but they will be Primary sources, which can be used in only limited ways. The bulk of the article must be based on reliable published secondary sources, unconnected with the subject, which discuss the subject at length. Please see referencing for beginners for more information.

--ColinFine (talk) 21:39, 14 December 2014 (UTC)

Welcome to the Teahouse, Borister. I am taking a friendly guess that our esteemed colleague ColinFine resides in the UK, and therefore may not realize that Playbill is a monthly US theater magazine published in New York for 130 years and distributed at live theaters in major cities across the country. Circulation is over four million copies. I am sure that the New York public libarary and many others maintain archives. The publication also has an online database. Accordingly, I would use the "News story" template. Cullen328 Let's discuss it 23:05, 14 December 2014 (UTC)
@Cullen328: Do you by any chance have a link for that template? I tried using "Template:News story" but failed to get any hits that made sense. Best, w.carter-Talk 23:32, 14 December 2014 (UTC)
I apologize for naming it wrong, W.carter. The template I had in mind is Template:Cite news. Cullen328 Let's discuss it 02:25, 15 December 2014 (UTC)
Thank you very much Cullen328, I will add it to my notebook. Cheers, w.carter-Talk 09:53, 15 December 2014 (UTC)
Thanks for that, Cullen328. It indeed did not occur to me that Borister might be talking about a magazine, because "show Playbills that the artist worked on" did not seem to me make sense under that interpretation; and if "the Playbill has little information other than the theater, date and all of the people involved" as Borister says, it does not sound like a substantial reference such as one would expect to use a magazine for. But I bow to your local knowledge. --ColinFine (talk) 01:37, 15 December 2014 (UTC)
The magazine is customized with a cast and crew list for each show where it is distributed free, at pretty much every major "legitimate theater" in the US, ColinFine. Cullen328 Let's discuss it 02:30, 15 December 2014 (UTC)

[left]. Hi. I edit heavily in the musical theatre area, with about 100,000 edits on theatre-related subjects. You do not need to use the cite templates at all. Indeed, I think it is preferable *not* to use them. Their only function is to act as a sort of checklist. For an article at Playbill.com, you can just give the bibliographic details within the ref tags like this: <ref>Smith, John. [url "Title"], ''Playbill'', date, accessed December 14, 2014</ref> For "Who Was Who" sections in Playbill, where there is no author name, you can do it like this: <ref>[url "Designer's Name"], ''Playbill'' for ''The King and I'' at the [[St. James Theatre]], Date of performance, accessed December 14, 2014</ref> -- Ssilvers (talk) 04:40, 15 December 2014 (UTC)

I agree with everything said above but I just wanted to add that while it may not be necessary to use the cite templates in this case in general I think it is a very good idea to use them. For one thing it standardizes the reference which cuts down on pointless debates and looks clearer to readers. For another, cite templates correspond to meta-data standards so that automated tools can process and leverage the reference information in various ways. --MadScientistX11 (talk) 05:46, 15 December 2014 (UTC)
Will the reference format change if the show does not have a "Playbill", but a similar document for that particular theater? Some of the show booklets are from other countries and smaller shows at Universities.
Borister (talk) 15:51, 15 December 2014 (UTC)
I moved this question to where it belonged. My opinion is that Borister is referring to actual playbills and not the publication. I don't know precisely how the publication works, though.— Vchimpanzee • talk • contributions • 22:30, 16 December 2014 (UTC)

Is this allowed/appriopiate?

The article here (Human trafficking in the United Kingdom) under it's Protection section has a whole 2 paragraphs referring to the reader as 'you' as if trying to appeal to the reader if they themselves have experianced those issues and where they're eligible for compensation. Is this something that is allowed because I always thought Wikipedia is an encyclopedia and hence, it should rather be information (so no direct referral to 'you' and instead, what exists and it's detail) instead of an appeal to the reader? CorrectiveMeasures (talk) 20:18, 16 December 2014 (UTC)

No, CorrectiveMeasures, you are right: that is entirely inappropriate in tone. See WP:YOU. Also note that Wikipedia is not a how-to guide: I suspect that at least part of that section doesn't belong in the article at all. --ColinFine (talk) 23:43, 16 December 2014 (UTC)

my wikipedia pages are not online

I have created and bought a full month of wiki. My 2 pages are not online why23:35, 16 December 2014 (UTC)76.95.255.209 (talk) 23:35, 16 December 2014 (UTC)

We don't post articles in exchange for money, nor do we have monthly rates. RudolfRed (talk) 23:43, 16 December 2014 (UTC)
And this is the only edit by your IP address se we have no idea what you refer to. PrimeHunter (talk) 23:46, 16 December 2014 (UTC)

YouTube screenshots

Are videos like teasers and trailers uploaded in YouTube by film studios, like Warner Bros, Paramount Pictures or Sony Music etc. through their official channel, open-sourced? Can screenshots obtained from such videos be used in article as free images? -- Sriram speak up 23:16, 16 December 2014 (UTC)

Hi Sriram. The short answer to your question is "no". The fact that something is made publicly available, and for free, does not in any way make it public domain. Each company retains their full copyright, which you must assume is completely non-free in all ways unless you have affirmative evidence of some type of release (e.g., something with the clear imprimatur of the company stating a free copyright license) or the copyright has been lost by operation of law (e.g. a U.S. work that was published prior to 1923). Note that we do allow uploads of non-free content under the doctrine of fair use, but only if the use meets the stringent requirements of the non-free content criteria. Best regards--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 23:27, 16 December 2014 (UTC)
It sucks, Siriam. I know. Tetra quark (talk) 01:24, 17 December 2014 (UTC)

How do I offer calming feedback to a controversial figure's biography's review?2602:30A:2CF9:C110:85CB:BD2A:551D:78D8 (talk) 00:51, 17 December 2014 (UTC)

I was looking at the biography editing for Christopher Lynn Hedges. I wanted to add to the the discussion of his biography editing that in his time Chris Hedges is a controversial figure and makes any definition of him difficult. 2602:30A:2CF9:C110:85CB:BD2A:551D:78D8 (talk) 00:51, 17 December 2014 (UTC)

Greetings Internet user, welcome to the teahouse. I'm not sure if you actually tried to make that edit or not but if you did I could see how someone would object. That kind of language is very subjective and not very objective When you look at what is currently in the article for Hedges, in the section on his political opinions almost at the beginning it says: "In May 2003, Hedges delivered a commencement address at Rockford College in Rockford, Illinois, saying: "We are embarking on an occupation that, if history is any guide, will be as damaging to our souls as it will be to our prestige and power and security."[21] His speech was received with boos and his microphone was shut off three minutes after he began speaking" That kind of language is more encyclopedic, it doesn't make a judgement it gives a fact that clearly shows he is controversial and leaves it up to the reader to draw the conclusion. Anyway, the place to have these discussions is on the talk page for the Hedges article. I did notice that there were some heated exchanges there, given the subject I would actually be surprised if there weren't. My advise is for a new editor to try something less controversial first, those kinds of articles are very hard to edit and can be time consuming because it takes a long time to reach consensus. --MadScientistX11 (talk) 01:26, 17 December 2014 (UTC)

Need help locating our "staff page"

Greetings, In chat I was told to make corrections in our "staff page." I thought I'd find it on our wiki page but don't see anything about staff. Can you help me locate this page?NigelCovington85 (talk) 21:49, 16 December 2014 (UTC)

@NigelCovington85: I haven't seen the chat but maybe it was referring to http://nationalreport.net/staff/ at your own website. Wikipedia articles require reliable published sources so if you want changes to the article then it's good (but not always sufficient) it the wanted content is already on the official website. PrimeHunter (talk) 22:11, 16 December 2014 (UTC)
@NigelCovington85: Greetings and welcome to the teahouse. If you do plan to continue editing the National_Report article (assuming you work for the site) you should make sure to familiarize yourself with the wikipedia:conflict of interest policies. Wikipedia content is meant to be wp:objective and the thinking is that it's hard to be objective about the place where you work, yourself, etc. You can however still do some kinds of edits such as correcting clearly erroneous information or vandalism. Hope you have what you need to know, please let us know if not. Cheers! --MadScientistX11 (talk) 22:18, 16 December 2014 (UTC)
Hello, Is it possible that I can review my chat conversation from earlier today?NigelCovington85 (talk) 22:26, 16 December 2014 (UTC)
@NigelCovington85: Hi Nigel. Do you mean Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents#I need to prevent someone from hijacking our Wikipedia page to post inappropriate material, how can I do this? (?) I found this by looking at your contributions, which you can access by clicking "contributions" at the top of the page while logged in. If you mean something else by "chat", please advise and provide some detail on how you accessed it, what it looks like, etc., so we have the context to answer. Best regards--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 23:09, 16 December 2014 (UTC)
Erm, do you possibly mean your account's talk page at User talk:NigelCovington85, which you have never edited but which has content directed at you? You can always access your talk page by clicking "talk" just to the right of your username at the top of the page.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 23:14, 16 December 2014 (UTC)
Hi again @NigelCovington85: so I figured it out. I think you used the Wikipedia help chat feature which can be linked to from the help page: Wikipedia:Help_desk I chatted with one of the support people there and they remembered you. They don't log the chats though. Anyway, their advise was the same as ours. You need to understand no one owns a Wikipedia article. Anyone can make changes to an article. What matters are that an editor has reliable sources for all the claims that they add or edit and that they write in a wp:neutral encyclopedic style. Also, that since you work for the site you have a wikipedia:conflict of interest and you need to follow the guidelines for declaring that and editing as defined in the COI article. The most important page for you to look at besides the ones we linked to here is the talk page for the article for your company which is here: Talk:National_Report That is where you should post requests for most changes, corrections, etc. --MadScientistX11 (talk) 03:43, 17 December 2014 (UTC)

Feedback on article

Hi,
I know that I'm a relatively experienced user compared to complete newcomers, and furthermore, I am a host here, but at least I know that I'll receive a quick and friendly response at the Teahouse.
Would someone care to look over RIMS Warren Hastings and give an opinion on it? I'm planning to keep working on this and maybe get it up to GA someday. I'm particularly concerned about close paraphrasing, but there's really a limited number of ways to word things... --Biblioworm 04:01, 17 December 2014 (UTC)

If you need articles, I have access to britishnewspaperarchive. I can take a look for useful stuff and email you some if I strike gold. Drop me a line on my talk page.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 05:01, 17 December 2014 (UTC)

translation and citing

hello there, as a recent beggining wiki-editor, I'm most interested in contributing by translating into spanish, french, italian, and german.

I wonder what the guidelines are for translation. Specifically: what should one do with the original info source, which is in english? should one link to the english source? or try to find a source in the target language?

thank you

Jokudasai (talk) 20:39, 16 December 2014 (UTC)

Jokudasai - hi and welcome to the Teahouse. I'm about to go to bed, but as well as inviting another host to answer you more fully, there is a pre-packaged guide right here at WP:Translate us. Basically, much of it is simply creating the translated article on the target Wikipedia, but you must check the bits about how to acknowledge the original article on the English-language Wikipedia. LouiseS1979 (talk) 22:03, 16 December 2014 (UTC)

Hello Jokudasai and welcome to the Teahouse. To add to the answer above (Good Night and sleep well LouiseS1979^^) here are some of the things you may have to think of:
  • WPs in different languages have very different rules and standards. Articles and facts that are good to publish on one WP are not automatically OK for other WPs. That said, the English WP have one of the highest standards for articles among the WPs, so most articles that you find here could be considered on other WPs.
  • If you translate texts from one WP you must also "bring along" the references for that text. If the text in the original language is unreferenced, you must find references yourself to support the text you have translated. Some WPs allow references in a foreign language, other prefer not to have them. You must ask this at the WP in the language you are planning to translate articles to. Most WPs have something similar to the Teahouse where you can ask. (Some of them are called "Cafés") A translators role on the WP is very different from translators in other places. When you translate a piece of text to a WP, you become responsible for that text in the same way as if you have written it yourself, you can't blame the first editor who wrote it if anything is wrong in it.
  • You must put a template on the articles talk page about the translation. These templates should contain information about what article version the text is collected from and which version on the other WP that it is inserted to. See Template:Translated page, and here it is used on one talk page translated to the English WP. It is the small box with two flags. This is so that the editors that originally wrote the text get credited. There are similar templates/boxes on the WPs in other languages.
Happy editing! w.carter-Talk 22:28, 16 December 2014 (UTC)
Thanks, W.carter - those are some good points. LouiseS1979 (talk) 07:20, 17 December 2014 (UTC)

Sandbox: Best way to delete text

I'm a little confused. How can I delete the stuff I was fooling around with in my Sandbox; see here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Marilyn_Nix/sandbox to reuse for a new project? Or, should I start a new Sandbox somehow?

Help! and thanks! Marilyn Nix (talk) 05:02, 17 December 2014 (UTC)

Welcome to the Teahouse, Marilyn Nix. Wikipedia offers lots of possibilities. You can edit your sandbox page, erasing all the current content, if you want. Then, you can start fresh. Or, you can start one or more new sandbox pages. Add a slash "/" to the URL at the top of your current sandbox page, followed by a mnemonic that you can remember easily. Perhaps something really original like "Sandbox 2" or something boring like "Fabulous super-duper sandbox page". The name is up to you. When you hit "enter", you will get a message saying that page does not exist. But there will be an option to create that page. Click that, type something like "hi", and save it. You now have a new page, and can do whatever you want with it, as long as it is for the purpose of improving the encyclopedia. Cullen328 Let's discuss it 05:54, 17 December 2014 (UTC)
Thanks so much; problem solved and I got a decent stub up.

Marilyn Nix (talk) 07:55, 17 December 2014 (UTC)

What to do with contributor feedback

Hello, I am a university student who created a wiki page regarding women in psychology for my educational psychology class project. It has been moved from my sandbox which I appreciate. I am a brand new user to Wikipedia, and so this is my first experience. I Have been getting feedback from one user/editor and she is beginning to be very rude to me. She believes my page is not valid or pertinent. Would it have been accepted out of my sandbox if it were not done well? I don't understand what to do. Should I delete it? No one else commented such things. I am not sure how to proceed. Unfortunately this now has not given me a welcome feeling to Wikipedia. Psycschool (talk) 21:12, 16 December 2014 (UTC)

I'm sorry you're having that experience. There are always mean editors, but fortunately they are a minority. If not, this huge encyclopedia wouldn't be possible. I've been in edit wars before and the best thing you can do is just ignore these people and not let them affect you emotionally. Tetra quark (talk) 21:16, 16 December 2014 (UTC)
I don't think User:PamD is being rude at all. Direct, yes, but there is much much worse on the wiki. The user, who is quite experienced, is trying to help you, and it would be wise to heed their advice. For reference, the article (Women in psychology) has now been redirected as essentially a duplicate. As far as your question, Would it have been accepted out of my sandbox if it were not done well?, yes, there are many articles accepted out of sandboxes that are horrible. I haven't looked at yours, so I don't know exactly, but you cannot assume that just because somebody moved it to mainspace that it's perfect. ansh666 21:33, 16 December 2014 (UTC)
Hi, Psycschool. I'm sorry you have had a bad experience. As Tetra quark says, please don't let it get to you or stop you participating on Wikipedia. The problem is, this happens a lot - it's nothing personal, but course tutors constantly try to use us as a blog for hosting class projects without reading the guidelines Wikipedia has set up for them using us as genuinely collaborative projects. This unfortunately often rebounds on students like you who edit in good faith.
I think the article might have, however, been in a position where one person thought it was encyclopaedic and another person didn't. Such conflicts will happen a lot while there are a lot of people each with their own perception of what Wikipedia is or is not. I would actually take some reassurance from this that, even though you didn't succeed this time, someone (whose name I recognise as a regular contributor) did at least think the article was all right. This suggests that with a few tweaks to your approach (and with careful studies of policies/guidelines such as WP:ESSAY and WP:What Wikipedia is not, you might be able to contribute more in the future to areas of your scholarly interest. LouiseS1979 (talk) 21:47, 16 December 2014 (UTC)
I'm sorry, Psycshool, that you found my advice rude. It was meant constructively - as you can see, another editor has decided to obliterate all your work and make a redirect to the category (which is incomplete, as I've already mentioned). I think that was wrong and will reinstate it, but you can see evidence that there's something amiss with your article. I learn elsewhere that you're part of Education Program:University of North Dakota/Educational Psychology (PSYC 313) (Fall 2014): either your instructor failed to give you the right instructions about putting a banner on the article talk page, or you ignored those instructions. It helps everyone if people follow the system. Your article could make a useful "List of women psychologists", along the lines of List of women photographers: name, nationality, dates, and a single sentence outlining their major contribution, easy for someone to scan through and find the person they want to read more about. If you have information which isn't in the existing articles on these women, add it to those articles - and keep a note of this and point it out to your prof, because those would be valuable contributions to building the encyclopedia, rather than adding that new information to a parallel article which won't be seen by someone who goes directly to the woman's article by name. PamD 23:01, 16 December 2014 (UTC)
I now see that the course page at Education_Program:University_of_North_Dakota/Educational_Psychology_(PSYC_313)_(Fall_2014)#Article_banners does indeed instruct students to add a banner to the article talk page, but you chose to ignore that. I've done so now. It helps all round if people follow the rules when joining our editing community. PamD 23:50, 16 December 2014 (UTC)

Thank you all for your input and assistance. I am brand new and hope that the seasoned editors will continue to assist novice editors like myself grow. I did not intentionally ignore rules or instruction. Wikipedia is a daunting world for those of us still learning the inner workings. Psycschool (talk) 17:45, 17 December 2014 (UTC)

@Psycschool: we've all been there. I remember how overwhelming things were when I started as well. No one meant to imply you did anything malicious or anything I'm sure. Thanks for your work so far and we hope you continue and feel free to come back and ask more questions if you need to. Happy editing. --MadScientistX11 (talk) 18:09, 17 December 2014 (UTC)

Copyrighted work

An image I uploaded had a banner for speedy deletion, in that banner it said that if you believe this should be subject to speedy deletion then say something on the talk page. I contested the deletion, but it was still deleted with my objection not being answered. --Eng. M.Bandara-Talk 18:03, 17 December 2014 (UTC)

Hi, WP is touchy about copyright violations and those editors often shoot first and explain later to protect WP from legal harm. If your objection was deemed frivolous ie didn't address the core issue, then it may have been disregarded. It's hard to comment on this situation without you citing the specific image file and/or discussion for us to look at.-- — Keithbob • Talk • 19:48, 17 December 2014 (UTC)
@Eng.M.Bandara: You haven't uploaded any files to the English Wikipedia so I guess it is about one of your deleted uploads at Wikimedia Commons: commons:Special:Log/Eng.M.Bandara. Administrators at the English Wikipedia do not have access to deleted files and pages at Commons so I cannot see what was said. See commons:Commons:Undeletion requests. PrimeHunter (talk) 22:15, 17 December 2014 (UTC)

Use of public records to improve vague statement

I am currently using a tabloid-like article from the San Antonio Express-News[1] to edit this article. The article contains the vague phrase "the situation "is a bit troubling" because the public access was delayed for a long time." The San Antonio Express article does not say when the organization was granted tax-exempt status and so a reader would assume it was in 1998. Public records such as this one show that it was granted tax-exempt status on August 2002. Can I include this information in the article? Ajaxfiore (talk) 17:09, 17 December 2014 (UTC)

Hi and welcome,
This website [2] is not a reliable source because it shows a purported reprint of a news article which is a copyright violation that WP would not want to link to. If you can find the original publication it may be a reliable source however the quote "the situation is a bit troubling" sounds like a non-notable side comment anyway and it would seem to be undue weight (WP:UNDUE) to include it.
Regarding tax status, we can't "assume" anything as for as WP content goes it needs to be cited. However, this [3] seems like a reliable source for that info and it could be included in the article and infobox.
-- — Keithbob • Talk • 19:45, 17 December 2014 (UTC)
Thanks Keithbob! Ajaxfiore (talk) 22:27, 17 December 2014 (UTC)

Removal of content by another editor

Another editor has removed content that I published at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sri_Lankan_presidential_election,_2015, it included content that was sourced and referenced. In the talk about he simply states that he does not consider those references as reliable. I dispute this assertion, and assert some of the references he uses is not reliable.--Eng. M.Bandara-Talk 22:29, 17 December 2014 (UTC)

Hello Eng,
Before doing anything else, it may be helpful to leave the user a message on his talk page and ask him why he considers the sources to be unreliable. If your attempt to resolve it on his talk page fails, you may consider making use of the Dispute Resolution Noticeboard. Regards, --Biblioworm 22:39, 17 December 2014 (UTC)
I would ask that someone mointers the history of that section https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Sri_Lankan_presidential_election,_2015&action=history I did his revision, and asked why he considers the sources unreliable, at his talk page, the articles talk page and the comment on the revision. I see that this user has described Sinhalese people as 'evil forces' on his page before https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:Obi2canibe&oldid=260205028. ----Eng. M.Bandara-Talk 22:48, 17 December 2014 (UTC)

Hi - in Archived Article 59, the question was from 2012 - how to encode an external link (in my case - from the references list) so that it would automatically open in a new tab or a new window. Using the standard coding that includes target = blank fails to work. When I click on a link, it navigates away from the main article page. In the 2012 article, it said that this can not be done via encoding, that it is necessary for each user to set their browser settings to open the link in a new tab.

Has anything changed since 2012 on this? Is there now a convenient method for me to get my article reference links to open in a new tab? Many thanks! Fusedsolutionsbowen (talk) 23:35, 17 December 2014 (UTC)

Hi Fusedsolutionsbowen, welcome to the Teahouse. The archived discussion at Wikipedia:Teahouse/Questions/Archive 59#Making a link open in a new tab still applies. You cannot code a link to open in a new tab or window for others. Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-gadgets has an option for registered users: "Open external links in a new tab/window". PrimeHunter (talk) 23:48, 17 December 2014 (UTC)

How to resolve a move war?

I've started out editing under an account by picking a small-enough cleanup category backlog and working to clear it. In the course of this, I seem to have walked into the middle of a move war. I created the talk page and opened a discussion about the naming dispute. The village appears to have two names, one in Albanian and one in Serbian. Vanjagenije promptly appeared on the talk page and there was some back-and-forth where I came to favor the name in Serbian Latin script for the purely arbitrary reason that it looks more like vaguely pronounceable English. Ardiman1 has moved the article back, seems to be trying to censor references to the village's Serbian name, and has yet to appear on the talk page. I've left a message on his user talk page asking him to come the discussion, but have yet to receive a response. I then found my invitation to the Teahouse and decided to come here and ask for advice. Pathore (talk) 00:55, 18 December 2014 (UTC)

@Pathore: You should leave new questions at the top of this page, as is described in a large box when you try to edit this page. I just want to clarify to other users that there is no real move war at "Dumnice e poshtme" article. I moved the article to new title, the original author of the article moved it back, and that was it. Much larger problem is that the same user, Ardiman1 is constantly removing the Serbian language name from the article ([4][5][6]) although I added two sources that show Serbian name, and although Serbian is one of two official languages in Kosovo. Vanjagenije (talk) 01:09, 18 December 2014 (UTC)
@Vanjagenije: I used the "Ask a question" button, as described in the large box. There is clearly a dispute, although perhaps "move war" is an overly-hasty jump to make, although I got the sense of a brewing move war because Ardiman1 kept changing it, even trying to set the display title, when the article was at Donja Dubnica before finally moving the article without ever discussing anything on the talk page. If characterizing this as a move war was overly hasty, I apologize for jumping to conclusions. Pathore (talk) 01:54, 18 December 2014 (UTC)
@Pathore: Hi Pathore. Putting aside the question of whether there actually was or was not a move war here, what you can do is (variously), start a formal requested move discussion on the talk page (which can be couched as something in the vein of "I have no opinion... these are the two apparent two sides ... I'm making this request to quell the edit war that's been waging...); if there's been a stable name and an undiscussed controversial move takes place, ask for the page to be moved back for that reason, as a technical request, 3) ask for the page to be move-protected at Wikipedia:Requests for page protection; and in some extreme cases, ask for the party or parties to be blocked for warring, tendentious editing, disruption, etc. Best regards--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 02:24, 18 December 2014 (UTC)
Thank you. I've made note of this to refer back to if it does blow up. I'll leave it on my watchlist and go do other things. Again, thanks. Pathore (talk) 02:33, 18 December 2014 (UTC)
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