Wikipedia:Village pump (assistance): Difference between revisions

SMK Tinggi Batu Pahat (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) is frequently edited by some users, one of whom (Kuebu (talk · contribs)) is a vandal along with some other editors (probably students from that school itself). A few editors (including myself) have been trying to revert vandalism there but in fact, our efforts were reverted back again. As there are many edit recently, I'm getting confused of which edit to revert or what to remove.
I think that a deletion (redirect - see WP:SCL section 5) might be appopriate if cleanups and blocking won't help, adding the fact that the article has no references. — Yurei-egg tart 05:54, 1 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Well, almost all high schools tend to be considered notable when put up for deletion, so that's probably not really the best approach. I just went through and cleaned up the majority of the vandalism and nonsense that I could find, which left the article a little spotty; I've got it watched, and warned the most recent perpetrator. If it goes nuts with IP vandalism. I can protect it. More eyes are always good on any article, especially schools... Tony Fox (arf!) 16:55, 1 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I truly appreciate your help there, but the vandalisms are getting more and more chaotic. I've been reverting a few times and I hope I won't break the 3-revert rule thingy (I'm not quite sure how it works). Can a drastic measure be taken against those vandals? People are adding more and more "infos" that I'm getting unsure which is a vandalism and which is a constructive edit - though my brain is processing in the way of assuming the following editors' edits = VANDALISM:

- - Kuebu (talk · contribs)
  - Hsdynamite (talk · contribs)

HALP! ~Merry go round~ @@ — Yurei-egg tart 08:52, 4 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The best way to handle 3RR issues with respect to vandalism is to assume that if it's not obvious vandalism (blanking the page, adding obscenities, deleting sourced text), then don't use the vandalism exception for 3RR; count it as one of your reverts. That can be frustrating, but if there aren't other editors paying attention to the page, it probably isn't getting a lot of viewing traffic anyway. Asking other editors to help is also a good solution. Deletion of the article, as noted above, is not. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 23:07, 7 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Jason Dolley

Our article at Jason Dolley is basically the same as what's at http://www.whosdatedwho.com/celebrities/people/profile/jason-dolley.htm, but I can't tell who's copying from whom. Our article appears to have had the information on it prior to July 7, 2007, which the Wayback Machine says was when the article at whosdatedwho got updated, but they only have one copy of that article at http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://www.whosdatedwho.com/celebrities/people/profile/jason-dolley.htm and that doesn't have this material in it. The "rock n roll fanatic" edit was added with this edit over a year ago. What's our option? Corvus cornix_talk 06:53, 3 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I don't see the problem. As you noted, the July 7, 2007 version of the whosdatedwho site doesn't have the information in question, so it's clear (at least to me) that it subsequently copied text from Wikipedia. Moreover, the article in Wikipedia had hundreds of edits before July 2007; that makes it extremely unlikely that the wording is exactly the same as wherever the information came from, eliminated the duplicate text/copyright issue. Plus what's in the article as of July 5, 2007 is factual; what really triggers copyright problems is lifting large chunks of text that are a mix of facts and analysis. (Facts can't be copyrighted.) -- John Broughton (♫♫) 23:02, 7 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

How to delete an empty category?

I have depopulated Category:Architecture and engineering occupations and was under the impression that it would delete itself after a few quiet days. It is still there. How can I delete it? BrainyBabe (talk) 11:58, 5 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

It doesn't disappear by itself; an admin has to delete it. Tag with {{db-catempty}}. –Pomte 12:38, 5 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, I hope that does it. BrainyBabe (talk) 12:56, 5 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Help with signature

I'm trying to make a sig for my first time and I'm having a little bit of trouble. If you go look at User:Icestorm815/sandbox, I want my sig to look like the first line, but when I try and put it in as a raw signature, I keep getting an html error. Help would be greatly appreciated! Icestorm815 (talk) 02:06, 6 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Try it now. Prodego ^talk 02:17, 6 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you very much! Icestorm815 • Talk 02:38, 6 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

#ifexist: linebreaks, and tables

Resolved

Could somebody please help me sort this out. (Instructions on page). Thanks! --omtay38 05:08, 6 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Got it, nvmd. --omtay38 17:55, 6 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Portrait of Ibn al-Haytham from an old Iraqi 10000 Dinar note.

There is a deletion notice on an image in use on Scientific method, I believe incorrectly. Can someone with access to the Commons update the provenance in Wikimedia commons, it comes from an old Iraqi 10000 Dinar note. --Ancheta Wis (talk) 07:37, 6 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

BROWN EYE PARENTS - BLUE EYE KIDS?

Valerie Breedt (talk) 11:19, 6 February 2008 (UTC)My son married a very pregnant girl and adopted her baby as his own. We all love the child very much and she is very spoilt by us, as she is our first grand child. A boy has also since be born.[reply]

Our daughter-in-law has since given us all the hell one could not hope for (flared up by the assistance of her parents). She is now calling for divorce with the most sickning reasons unheard of, nevertheless, we have to carry on.

My question is, the first born - the little that is not our son's biological child, has the most beautiful blue eyes. The mother (our daughter-in-law), has true brown and the man she claims to be the father, also has true brown eyes. Can this be so? Can a child have such lovely blue eyes, when both parents have prominent brown eyes?

(this is the first time I am making use of this service, please if I posted it on the wrong page, would you forward it for me and advise me how to do this in future. Thanks)

You probably should be over at the reference desk, but in short it is perfectly possible for two brown-eyed parents, see Eye colour#Blue. In relatively simple terms, the gene that produces blue eye colour is recessive, so both parents could have the gene, but their eyes would appear brown. If the child happens to inherit the blue-eyed gene from both parents (a one-in-four chance) then it will have blue eyes. Also the brown colour tends to increase as the child gets older, so it's posible that the child's eyes will turn darker as it grows up. David Underdown (talk) 12:18, 6 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

What to do with an article beyond cleanup?

Specifically this one: Smooth jazz. There are a large number of issues with the article, and just today, another editor found another two that he/she felt they could not be confident to deal with themselves. The article has a wide range of issues that I noted with first Wikipedia:Cleanup and the (not dead) Wikipedia:Cleanup Taskforce. Specifically issues dealing with reliable sources and verifiability, as well as neutral point of view (in particular the radio section which at one time became a magnet for spam links - WP:NOT#DIR and WP:EL), original research and peacock terms. The editor this morning added two more tags, another for original research and one for weasel words, with an edit summary of a "blatant WP:ATT vio".

The only thing that stops me hauling it to articles for deletion is that it is a notable and worldwide major subgenre of jazz, with significant press coverage and dedicated radio stations broadcast terrestrially, via cable, satellite and the Internet across the world. That and the fact that I listen to the genre daily!

Every post in the talk page talks of major cleanup of the article and I suggested the whole article should be rewritten from scratch, considering many of the issues and differences in opinion, reference finding and citations would be needed for everything written in the rewritten article. However, no-one has given consensus and no-one seems to be bold enough to cleanup the article, maybe because of the uphill task of doing so. I started citing and removing things from the opening paragraph but just gave up after that, and I have never gained the energy or determination to tackle it since.

Does anyone know if there is a way that the article could be treated considering the above issues? Thanks in advance. --tgheretford (talk) 20:56, 7 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

If you think that it is easier to rewrite the article completely instead of fixing the current article, you could create a draft. You can create a draft as a subpage of the talk page and use {{Draft}} to indicate that it is a draft.

Other places to get community help for articles include WP:PNA and, if it is really notable, WP:ACID.

I hope that helps. Billscottbob (talk) 00:34, 8 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for that. I'll look into those later when I get home. --tgheretford (talk) 08:52, 8 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Watchlist - Is there a way to automatically watch every page you view

Watchlist - Is there a way to automatically watch every page you look at, not just edit. Alexsanderson83 (talk) 07:44, 8 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Maybe a bot can help. Visit me at Ftbhrygvn(Talk|Contribs|Log) 15:52, 8 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

As far as I know, you can manually add any page to your watch list... even if you have never edited it. Just click on the "Watch" button at the top of the page when you look at the article. You would have to create some sort of bot to do it automatically. Blueboar (talk) 18:58, 8 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

No, a bot wouldn't help. A bot is just an automated user account, and it's impossible for another user account to know what pages you've viewed. Or what pages are already on your watchlist. Or (most importantly) to add a page to your watchlist.

Perhaps it might be possible to create a user script, which would see if the tab at the top of the page you're on reads "watch" or "unwatch", and where it says "watch", would "click" on the tab to change it.

Or perhaps an existing specialized editor (software), like wikEd, has this functionality, though that would surprise me. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 01:42, 10 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

don't link dab pages when one topic is less popular than the other?

User:Jojit fb did put a otheruses-template on top of the page FAMAS (which is about the french rifle "Fusil d'Assaut de la Manufacture d'Armes de Saint-Étienne"), in order to link to the article Filipino Academy of Movie Arts and Sciences Award, which is referred to as FAMAS as well. This link was removed by another user, who explained on the talk page, that this link does not belong there (according to WP:NOT as he said). The reason he named was, that the other meaning is obscure and most people who type in "FAMAS" seek the rifle, not the film organisation. Is that true? And if yes: what is the otheruses-template good for anyway?--79.212.239.47 (talk) 00:21, 9 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I think it would be better to create the page FAMAS (disambiguation) and then, at the top of the article FAMAS, use an otheruses template to redirect to this disambiguation page. That's less distracting to the reader than a link to a relatively less popular article.

In other words, I'm suggesting using the otheruses1 template rather than otheruses4, as you did. (And I completely fail to see what WP:NOT has to do with this - is there a particularly section of that policy that's particularly relevant?) -- John Broughton (♫♫) 01:31, 10 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I submitted the disambiguation page to Wikipedia:Articles for creation/Today#FAMAS (disambiguation).--79.212.220.29 (talk) 19:11, 10 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

OK the dab-page is at FAMAS (disambiguation) and I've put a Otheruses1 template on FAMAS. As I'm understanding, this should be fine and there should be no reason to remove the otheruses-template now(?).--79.212.242.77 (talk) 21:51, 10 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I've tweaked the disambiguation page, put the otheruses1 template back on the FAMAS article, via revert, and have posted a note about the revert on the article talk page. If that doesn't solve the problem, please drop me a note on my user talk page. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 00:14, 11 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia:Transclusion costs and benefits has been redirected

Editor SvNH has redirected the page Wikipedia:Transclusion costs and benefits (which was an essay) to the guideline Wikipedia:Transclusion, saying that the latter "covers all important aspects of the subject. The rest is mere speculation and probably wrong.". Given the relative obscurity of the essay, I'd appreciate if other editors would take a look.

In particular, I note that the version just prior to the redirect, the section "How transclusion works" is indeed in the guideline. But the rest of essay is not, as far as I can tell, part of the guideline (including several diagrams), nor (as far as I can tell) part of any other page.

So: (a) leave the situation as is, or (b) move some of the content from the essay to the guideline, but leave the redirect in place, or (c) reverse the redirect and leave the essay in place, or (d) something else? -- John Broughton (♫♫) 01:20, 10 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

WP script

Hello!
I have a bit of a basic problem with the java script I have; I was trying to use addOnloadHook( function() where I append text upon clicking on a certain tool bar button, and it did not work. I have tried to look at friendly's welcome script but it had too many parameters I did not need. I am novice at java script to say the least, and I would appreciate if someone could help me with this-perhaps providing the script needed if it was short :)- I know this should be simple enough, and I am quite sure that I have nothing wrong with the procedure (bypassing cache, importing scripts from their locations, monobook.js, etc.) so the problem must be with the script I wrote. Thanks Λua∫Wi se ^{(Operibus anteire)} 15:48, 10 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

@@ Line 117: / Line 117: @@
 ::I submitted the disambiguation page to [[Wikipedia:Articles for creation/Today#FAMAS (disambiguation)]].--[[Special:Contributions/79.212.220.29|79.212.220.29]] ([[User talk:79.212.220.29|talk]]) 19:11, 10 February 2008 (UTC)
 ::OK the dab-page is at [[FAMAS (disambiguation)]] and I've put a Otheruses1 template on [[FAMAS]]. As I'm understanding, this should be fine and there should be no reason to remove the otheruses-template now(?).--[[Special:Contributions/79.212.242.77|79.212.242.77]] ([[User talk:79.212.242.77|talk]]) 21:51, 10 February 2008 (UTC)
+:::I've tweaked the disambiguation page, put the otheruses1 template back on the [[FAMAS]] article, via revert, and have posted a note about the revert on the article talk page. If that doesn't solve the problem, please drop me a note on my user talk page.  -- <font style="font-family:Monotype Corsiva; font-size:15px;">[[User:John Broughton|John Broughton]] </font>  [[User talk:John Broughton |(♫♫)]] 00:14, 11 February 2008 (UTC)
 == [[Wikipedia:Transclusion costs and benefits]] has been redirected ==