Wikipedia:Help desk/Archives/2009 February 22

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

February 22

Darwin's evolution theory and related ideas

Resolved

 – discussion continued on talk pages. – ukexpat (talk) 01:21, 23 February 2009 (UTC)

Sirs,

Have I just MISSED it; when the "Big Bank theory" is discussed it seems the proponents feel that "Natural Selection" or some such Evolution process just followed; NATURALLY! While not an AVID reader of related materials; BUT, keep wondering WHAT exploded; was it an Atomic bomb or Hydrogen bomb type explosion??? THEN, of course; WHERE did the EXPLODING materials originate??? To paraphrase the opening line of Moses Genesis): "In the beginning God..." HOW would Darwin (Dawkins seems to have moved to the head of the class) write that first sentence??? What websites would be most likely to give "the answer" that Darwin (or compatriots) give to this (and related) questions?

Thanks,

Buford Rowe [email removed to protect against spam] —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.203.233.235 (talk • contribs) 00:50, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

We have an article about the Big Bang. Have you tried the Science section of Wikipedia's Reference Desk? They specialize in answering knowledge questions there; this help desk is only for questions about using Wikipedia. For your convenience, here is the link to post a question there: click here. I hope this helps. PrimeHunter (talk) 01:08, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

Darwin would have nothing to say about the Big Bang; he was a biologist not a physicist. Big Bang nucleosynthesis outlines how modern physicists account for the original matter in the universe. Stellar nucleosynthesis outlines how modern physicists account for heavy elements like those used in atomic bombs. —teb728 t c 01:36, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

Also note that "In the beginning God..." explains nothing, because it says nothing about where God came from. All known explanations for the universe must start with something that nobody can yet explain. Science explains progressively more as time goes on - for example, 500 years ago nobody could explain how bats fly around in the dark without hitting things, so a common "explanation" was that bats are possessed by evil spirits. Of course that explains nothing, because it provides no explanation for what evil spirits are or how they came to possess bats; neither does it lead to testable predictions of bat behavior. Today scientists know about echolocation in bats, so we no longer take the claims of evil spirits in bats very seriously. This is an example of God of the gaps - as science explains more and more things, the set of things that seem to require supernatural explanations shrinks monotonically. Perhaps in 500 years, science will have a more coherent explanation of what came "before" the Big Bang. In the meantime, humanity faces quite a number of more pressing problems: peak oil, global warming, overpopulation, nuclear proliferation, etc., and theological debates are unlikely to help with any of them. In contrast, writing a free encyclopedia might help. If you would like to join our happy project, a good place to start is by reading this book:

• Wikipedia - The Missing Manual (full text is here)

--Teratornis (talk) 06:53, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

Of course Wikipedia can help with theological debates too; see for example these search results:

• Search Wikipedia with Google for: why is there something rather than nothing?

I like Daniel Dennett's answer: "Why not?" which becomes more interesting the longer one ponders it. Why would most people seem to regard "something" as being less probable than "nothing"? Where did we get the idea that "something" instead of "nothing" is remarkable in any way? Do we even know that "nothing" is possible? After all, nobody has ever seen "nothing" - we only have experience with "something." We can't even really imagine "nothing", as in real nothingness, nothing at all. Just by being there to observe "nothing" we would be injecting "something" into it. --Teratornis (talk) 07:45, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

Also, I have found Aristotle's arguement of the Prime Mover to be compelling. If causality is real, then regardless of how far back you go, there must be a first cause. What is the first cause? It must be God, and it must be taken on faith that it is God, because no amount of observation can arrive at the First Cause, because observation can only determine a First Event. That event must have a Cause... You don't need to disbelieve any aspect of science or empiricle evidence such as the Big Bang or Evolution in order to fit God into the world, nor do you have to limit God or his reach. If you accept God as first the Prime Mover, then all we are doing is describing His Creation. Its a nice, tidy little way to meld Theology with Science. And someone only thought of it 2400 years ago. --Jayron32.talk.contribs 15:38, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

Theological debates are fun, but I was wrong to help stoke one on the Help desk. Continued on your talk page. --Teratornis (talk) 21:45, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

New page

How Can I make a Page—Preceding unsigned comment added by The Eagle217 (talk • contribs)

Before creating an article, please search Wikipedia first to make sure that an article does not already exist on the subject. Please also review a few of our relevant policies and guidelines which all articles should comport with. As Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, articles must not contain original research, must be written from a neutral point of view, should cite to reliable sources which verify their content and must not contain unsourced, negative content about living people.

Articles must also demonstrate the notability of the subject. Please see our subject specific guidelines for people, bands and musicians, companies and organizations and web content and note that if you are closely associated with the subject, our conflict of interest guideline strongly recommends against you creating the article.

If you still think an article is appropriate, see Help:Starting a new page. You might also look at Wikipedia:Your first article and Wikipedia:How to write a great article for guidance, and please consider taking a tour through the Wikipedia:Tutorial so that you know how to properly format the article before creation. – ukexpat (talk) 04:10, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

CHURCH WEBSITE ON WIKIPEDIA

We wish to provide information regarding our church in PUNE , INDIA on WIKIPEDIA pages Our website address is www.ChristTheKingChurchPune.org

How do we go about getting the information loaded on to the relevant pages on WIKIPEDIA ( for eg , ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCHES IN INDIA , ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCHES IN PUNE , ARCHDIOCESE OF PUNE etc )

You can create the article at Christ the King Church (Pune, India), and add it to Category:Roman Catholic churches in India. For more information on creating an article, see WP:My first article. Note that not all articles created on Wikipedia are kept. Make sure to read WP:Conflict of interest, as and note that all articles on Wikipedia must have a neutral point of view. It also must meet our notability requirements. If you need more help, feel free to leave a note on my talk page./ hmwithτ 15:19, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

VAS In Telecom

What is VAS in Telecom? What r top players in this industry? How much scope is there in VAS indutry for a non technical MBA?

• Have you tried Wikipedia's Reference Desk? They specialize in knowledge questions and will try to answer any question in the universe (except how to use Wikipedia, since that is what this Help Desk is for). Just follow the link, select the relevant section, and ask away. I hope this helps.

A member of congress and I share the same name and he has the listing on Wikipedia for the name tied up...

How would I go about adding my information...

I don't want to step on this persons toes... I just want to have a public profile... (I own a company in NYC) and have been asked about setting up a Wiki for myself and the company...

Thanks for your thoughts on this...

Mike Animationage (talk) 09:11, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

• That happens all the time. We have Disambiguation as a solution to have more articles with the same name, but be careful: it's not recommended to make an article about yourself and your company, because they'll almost always lack the required neutral point of view. Make sure you read WP:COI this page about sources. Write the the article in userspace first and get some opinions from established editors to avoid problems, or just be patient and wait for someone else to create it. Remember, Wikipedia is not a place to advertise the company, it has to meet inclusion criteria. -- Mgm|^(talk) 10:47, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

Hi, Mike. You can set up a Wiki for your company: the software to set up a Wiki is freely available. You will have complete control of your wiki and you can make whatever policies you want to on your wiki. If you do not already have a corporate computer thta is visible on the Internet, you can rent space for a very modest monthly fee from any of large group of hosting companies. Hundreds of organizations have done this, and its a great way to interact with your customers and partners. However, your wiki will be completely unrelated to Wikipedia. Wikipedia is a collection of wikis that comprise a not-for-profit collaborative encyclopedia. We only add article that meet our requirements for notability -Arch dude (talk) 21:38, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

Getting revision of "lacking references"

I have been working on the article on "The Children's Encyclopedia", adding new material and providing as many references as possible. However, it is still marked (as of December 2008) as "lacking references"... How does one get this assessment revised? Bergerie (talk) 10:50, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

Another editor's come along now and removed the {{Unreferenced}} tag: any editor, including you, can do this, so long as you've done the necessary work to correct the problem the tag identifies, and leave an edit summary explaining why you're doing so.

For what it's worth, the article still has a (lesser) problem with references, because it lacks inline citations. It's not possible to tell which detail in the article is demonstrated in which cited source. A good next step for this article would be to go and add those in. Gonzonoir (talk) 11:01, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

Aligning Text

Resolved

 – ukexpat (talk) 01:20, 23 February 2009 (UTC)

How do I centre align text? I appreciate that the majority of text is left-aligned but there are specific examples of when centre aligned is appropriate, short excerpt of poetry, for example. How do I do this? Cottonshirt (talk) 12:01, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

Put <center> at the beginning and </center> at the end of the text. Note the American spelling; if you spell it as 'centre', it doesn't work. AlexiusHoratius 12:17, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

• There are also quotation templates that provide nice layouts for quotes, but I can't remember exactly what they're called. Someone else might remember... - Mgm|^(talk) 13:06, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

• There are a bunch of quotation templates available at Wikipedia. Here's one, there are more here.masqueraid 13:24, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

Thank you very much, very helpful. Cottonshirt (talk) 14:02, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

You can also use <blockquote> and </blockquote> to nicely format a quote. hmwithτ 15:05, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

{{quote box2}} has a lot of formatting options and documentation on how to implement more. --—— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk - 16:33, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

A couple of weeks ago I went to a Project page and asked a question. After three days no one had answered so I asked if the Project page was the right place to be asking questions. Four days go by and no one answered that question either so I left a message saying thanks, and "un-watched" the Project page and made up my mind to never edit any articles on that Project again. I came here to ask a question and it was answered in a quarter of an hour, and after an hour and a half there were three really helpful answers. So I left a note to say thank you and even after I had said I had the answer I wanted two more people have added additional answers, one of whom even left a note on my talk page to say he had left an answer. This has completely changed my opinion of Wikipedians. Thank you very much. Cottonshirt (talk) 21:47, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

I think it's probably fair to say that a lot of Project pages do not receive the volume of traffic that this page and the other help pages receive. Marking as resolved. – ukexpat (talk) 01:20, 23 February 2009 (UTC)

It's much easier to start WikiProjects than to recruit enough users to keep them going. In this sense, WikiProjects inside Wikipedia are like entire wikis on the World Wide Web. The vast majority of wikis that people start tend to languish because they don't attract enough users to form the needed critical mass. This Help desk has the advantage that it attracts users with many different topic interests, whereas WikiProjects by their nature have only a narrow appeal. Most WikiProjects tend not to be great places for users who are very new to Wikipedia, for example. That makes it hard for WikiProjects to get going, because the majority of users on Wikipedia at any given time tend to be new. (For example, Wikipedia has 47,352,635 registered user accounts, but only an estimated 75,000 or so have accumulated enough experience to be able to answer questions such as the one you asked. There just aren't enough experienced users to go around with all the projects and other needs.) Many new users will look at a WikiProject and have an unsatisfactory first experience like you did. This creates a Catch-22, because a WikiProject needs to recruit new users so they can grow into experienced users. A WikiProject cannot really compete with all the other screaming needs for the limited pool of knowledgeable users. --Teratornis (talk) 02:34, 23 February 2009 (UTC)

Question

Why do some people block users, delete pages, protect pages, and grant rollback to users without explanation? Filper01 (Chat, My contribs) 12:12, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

As a general rule, this should not be happening. Have you any specific examples? - Jarry1250 ^{(t, c)} 12:14, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

No. Filper01 (Chat, My contribs) 12:17, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

I have not personally seen this happen. If you have a specific complaint about a specific administrator, please take it up at the user talk page of that administrator. --Jayron32.talk.contribs 15:31, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

In cases of extreme vandalism, an administrator may take immediate action in order to prevent excessive amounts of vandalism. If an administrator feels that a user, whom is heavily involved in reverting vandalism, would benefit from Rollback, then they may grant them the right. For deleting pages, obvious attack pages, such as violating WP:BLP, will be automatically deleted. Users who immediately violate BLP without any provocation, previous edits, (ex. meatpuppet) will almost always automatically banned (NOT blocked There is a difference). Cheers. Imperat§ r^(Talk) 16:58, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

For review pertaining to a page deletion go to WP:DRV. For general admin abuse see WP:ADMINABUSE.Smallman12q (talk) 21:35, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

Handling contradictory articles

What should I do with two articles that mildly contradict each other, but I don't know which one is correct? Is there any way I can flag it, so others may be able to observe and decide? What should I do? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Teribin (talk • contribs) 14:04, Feb 22, 2009 (UTC)

You can add the template {{contradict-other}} to one of the articles (perhaps the one that attracts the most editorial activity), with an explanation of the contradiction on one of the articles' talk pages. (The template has parameters for the name of the other article and the location of the discussion; see the template page linked above.) Deor (talk) 14:20, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

What is the status of the sourcing of the contradictory content between the two articles? If one is verified and one is not, or one is verified by, say, a blog, while the other with The New York Times, you go with the sourced or more reliably sourced. If neither is sourced, you can try to find a source yourself to resolve the conflict. You can also slap a {{fact}} tag on each and, in some cases, you should just remove the contradictory unsourced content from both based on Wikipedia:Verifiability#Burden of evidence (WP:BURDEN). It might be a good idea to tell us what the two articles and what the problematic content is. Maybe we can resolve it immediately.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 14:51, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

wikipedia toolbar

how can i enter faster in wikipedia (ex: creating a toolbar)?—Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.114.206.47 (talk • contribs)

I'm not sure I understand your question. If you want to come here quicker, all you have to do is add it to your bookmarks; that, or you could drag this tab up above (Mozilla Only) Cheers. Imperat§ r^(Talk) 17:09, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

And if you have an account, there is the editing toolbar which can be enabled in the Editing tab of your account preferences. – ukexpat (talk) 17:22, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

See WP:EIW#EditSoft if you are asking about editing software that can work with Wikipedia. --Teratornis (talk) 02:20, 23 February 2009 (UTC)

Correct way to distinguish two British actresses of the same name?

They are currently Lucy Griffiths (born 1919) and Lucy Griffiths (II) (born 1987). The II doesn't feel right to me. Would date of birth be a better way to distinguish the two? I.e. the first article would stay as is and the second become Lucy Griffiths (actress born 1987).Itsmejudith (talk) 17:23, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

I thought that Equity had rules to prevent this sort of thing happening. DuncanHill (talk) 17:29, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

Just a thought, but at the moment neither actress is DAB-ed with "(actress)" - so Lucy Griffiths (II) could become Lucy Griffiths (actress). Slightly odd, but less ugly than the "II" DAB. (e/c) Per DuncanHill it might be worth double-checking spellings; I'd be surprised if the Equity comment wasn't correct (though it is possible that the later Lucy isn't an Equity member). Cheers, This flag once was red^propaganda_deeds 17:32, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

(E/C) The first actress's page says aka Lucy Griffith, which may give a clue. It may be worth moving the page to that, keeping the disambiguation links at the top of both articles. - Jarry1250 ^{(t, c)} 17:36, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for suggestions, and I think it needs a bit more unpicking. I'm uneasy about moving the article for LG1 to Lucy Griffith because I don't trust the unreferenced "aka" statement in the article or the IMDB entry it probably came from. I'm not sure about moving the article for LG2 to Lucy Griffiths (actress) either, because it's not really logical when both were/are actresses. It's useful to know about the Equity rule, but it may not be applicable because LG1 had died before LG2's career took off. Would there be any problem if I implemented the solution I proposed above? I'd raise it on the talk page first. Itsmejudith (talk) 17:45, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

Footballers with the same name are handled in a way similar to your suggestion. – ukexpat (talk) 17:54, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

I'm for disambiguating with birthdates in this situation. As ukexpat said, it works well with footballers - cf. Andy Gray (footballer born 1955), Andy Gray (footballer born 1964), and Andy Gray (footballer born 1977). Whether someone is looking for the pundit, the manager, or the Charlton Athletic striker, it can be easily figured which one is which by birthdates. Xenon54 (talk) 18:09, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

Really, helpful, thanks. I also like the neat progression of the football career: playing, managing, punditing. Itsmejudith (talk) 20:49, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

But I'm back again, to check on the correct sequence of the page moves to keep the histories and talk pages manageable. We should end up with three pages: Lucy Griffiths, a disambiguation page; Lucy Griffiths (actress born 1919); Lucy Griffiths (actress born 1987). Any guidance would be helpful; in the meantime I'll leave messages on both talk pages. Thanks. Itsmejudith (talk) 20:55, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

Should be OK to move LG1 to "LG (actress born 1919)" (and move talk page too), then LG2 to "LG (actress born 1987)" (and move talk page too), then finally create a new "Lucy Griffiths" page to serve as a DAB page. That should keep everything sweet, but hopefully someone will chime up if I've forgotten something ;-) Cheers, This flag once was red^propaganda_deeds 21:17, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

Correct, except that you won't be creating a "new Lucy Griffiths page", you will be editing the page move redirect to turn it into a disambiguation page. – ukexpat (talk) 01:17, 23 February 2009 (UTC)

Collapsing talk page discussion

Resolved

 – ukexpat (talk) 01:13, 23 February 2009 (UTC)

What is the template for collapsing talk page discussion? I'm on a talk page where there are a lot of rants that have nothing to do with the article that were made by and about a banned editor, and I'd like the talk page to focus on the article, rather than the personal dispute. THF (talk) 18:53, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

You can collapse a particular section with {{hidden}} and you can close a discussion with {{Discussion top}} / {{Discussion bottom}}. You can also archive discussions per Help:Archiving a talk page. --—— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk - 19:42, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

Thanks: hidden top and hidden bottom were what I was looking for. THF (talk) 19:53, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

1993 Brazilian Referendum

I require information pertaining to the 1993 Brazilian referendum for my politics course. I need to the know the reasons for the referendum, campaigning and outcome, with the results. Any information would be greatly appreciated. This is my last attempt as there is no other information that I can find on the internet. Thanks

See WP:DYOH. The only reference we have to it is Elections in Brazil#Referendums. – ukexpat (talk) 20:06, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

This is the page for questions about Wikipedia. You may want to try at Wikipedia:Reference Desk, but, I agree with Ukexpat: do your own homework. There doesn't appear to be good discussion of the issue in the Wikipedia articles on Brazil or Constitution of Brazil, where articles tend to be biased toward recent events that happened since Wikipedia was created. There's always the library. If you do find reliable sources about the subject, how about adding an article and filling in that hole? THF (talk) 20:09, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

What administrators do..

Can administrators lose their rights for only working on articles they have interested in? This one sometimes do delete articles, or block users (mainly who vandalise the articles they themselves work on). It's not really administrator-like to just work within one wikiproject. --99.227.230.197 (talk) 21:13, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

To learn more about admins, please see WP:Admin.Smallman12q (talk) 21:27, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

And lots more information is here: WP:EIW#Admin. --Teratornis (talk) 21:46, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

As far as I know, there is no requirement for administrators to work on any particular part(s) of Wikipedia. Different administrators will specialize in different areas, just like all Wikipedia users do. Nobody can comprehend all of Wikipedia - it's just too huge. It doesn't matter whether an administrator edits one million articles or only one article. Every edit by every user has to comply with the same set of policies and guidelines. If you have a dispute with an administrator, you should be able to resolve it without regard to the rest of the administrator's editing (or lack of editing). Looking at an editor's other contributions may help shed light on why an editor made some particular edit, but the other contributions neither validate nor invalidate that particular edit. Wikipedia has to work this way because we allow unregistered users to edit, and with floating and shared I.P. addresses, it can be difficult to associate a single user with a collection of unregistered edits. Therefore we must be able to evaluate any edit by itself. --Teratornis (talk) 02:12, 23 February 2009 (UTC)

Auto named refs?

Is there a script of some kind available that would allow me to convert bare refs to named refs? I'm looking to do this for William Barley, an article I wrote. There are a bunch of refs that could be combined into named refs, but I don't really want to do this manually if I can avoid it. Thanks, BuddingJournalist 22:32, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

You can use

<ref name="refnamehere">

which will replicate the ref it names whenever

<ref name="refnamehere" />

is used.  GARDEN  22:39, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

I know that; I'm asking if there's a way to automatically convert bare refs that are repeated (asdfasdf.<ref>blah blah</ref> asdfasdf.<ref>blah blah</ref>) to named refs (asdfasdf.<ref name=blah>blah blah</ref> asdfasdf.<ref name=blah />). BuddingJournalist 22:43, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

And you can use reflinks.py to do this for you, the script will create <ref name="autogeneratedNUM"> labels for you. The web version of Reflinks is also available which will do the same for URL/Webpage references if required. Nanonic (talk) 22:45, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

Not exactly what I'm asking for either. Those links are concerned with formatting bare URLs in ref tags (<ref>http://google.com</ref>). BuddingJournalist 22:56, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

reflinks.py will do them though if you try (e.g. William Barley), but to be honest I haven't found anything that's perfect. Nanonic (talk) 22:59, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

Ah, I see, thanks! BuddingJournalist 01:08, 23 February 2009 (UTC)

You may want to look into commonfixes.py which combines unnamed references with half decent names. — Dispenser 06:34, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

Machine translation

Hi. I'm currently using Google Translate and Babel Fish (website) as an aid to translating in preparing articles for wikipedia.

Having read the user agreement I could see any problem with this - but am not sure.

Is anyone aware of any problems in this respect - or perhaps someone can tell me it's ok?

Thanks.

As long as you proof the, ah, interesting English that comes out and make sure it makes sense, I don't know of a problem. Hermione1980 22:52, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

Specifically I couldn't find anything in the 'user agreement' about 'for profit', or indeed 'not for profit use' - so I guess it's ok?

I'm not a lawyer, but it seems to me that if you use an automatic translation tool to translate a work that is licensed under the GFDL, the translation will be a derivative work and also under the GFDL. But I'm only guessing here. To be on the safe side, just be sure to reword every sentence, which you probably have to anyway given the uneven output of machine translators at their current state of development. It seems unlikely that a professional (human) translator would emit many of same sentences, verbatim, that a machine translation gives. --Teratornis (talk) 02:18, 23 February 2009 (UTC)

Yes, I was thinking the other way round - though unlikely - that the translation service might prevent the use of it's service for other than 'personal use' - (an article that may be read by more than 1 person is not for personal use).

The user agreements don't seem to cover this at all - but I'm not a lawyer too, and tend to find it very difficult read a whole one without falling asleep - I suppose as I am definately not using them for personal profit (which is often a restriction) - I'm ok? (I use the translation as a guide - obvious I need to type my own text - the grammar is atrocious etc.)FengRail (talk) 02:53, 23 February 2009 (UTC)