Help desk
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December 14[edit]

Allied control council[edit]

I am a novice and I just tried to edit this and instead of just changing a few words I ended up adding the same paragraph with the changes but leaving the old paragraph with the picture. It was the last paragraph.

Sorry

Could you fix back. I was just trying to correct the word guards to military police that was in there and U.S. military guards to U.S. Army Military Police.

Thanks —Preceding unsigned comment added by Usber (talk • contribs) 00:23, 14 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I've undone that edit, and given you a welcome box on your talk page, with lots of useful links to help you edit. Thanks for asking for help - it's very easy to make a mistake on Wikipedia, and usually someone can fix it straight away when asked, best wishes, DuncanHill (talk) 00:29, 14 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Need help controlling image size and position[edit]

I need help controlling the size and position of the image on the article page TikiTag. Let me know on my talk page what I can do to help. --Christopher Kraus (talk) 01:17, 14 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The size you control by adding a size parameter to the image code. See Help:Image. The position you can roughly control with "right" or "left" parameters, as well as where you put the image code on the page. If you need finer control, you might need to put the image into a table. If you describe more clearly what sort of control you want, i.e. the exact size and position you want, someone could give you a useful example. --Teratornis (talk) 04:25, 14 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

SEALs page[edit]

Is there a userbox that says "This user is in The US Navy SEALs?"--U.S. Navy SEALs Commando (talk) 03:15, 14 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

This search finds a {{Finnish Navy Seal}} but it's not a userbox. This search finds {{User Navy O-5}} and {{User Navy CW-2}}, getting warmer, and showing us the Category:United States military rank user templates. Hopefully that is enough clues to let an operator keep searching. Put the {{Help desk searches}} template on your user page to have easy access to {{Google custom}} searches on Wikipedia namespaces such as Template: and User: where you might find the userbox you need, if it exists. If it does not exist, you could create it. --Teratornis (talk) 04:19, 14 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I poked around some more and found:

Given the light showing on the above two links, it's looking doubtful that a userbox exists for the US Navy SEALs. I'd expect if there was such a userbox, it would automatically categorize the user pages that transclude it, into a subcategory of Category:Wikipedians in the U.S. military, but as there is no subcategory tree for the US Navy there in the obvious place, it seems very unlikely that a subcategory for SEALs would be hiding somewhere. But you never know, sometimes the category structure is messed up because people can make categories without being aware of the structure they should fit into. --Teratornis (talk) 04:44, 14 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Statrep[edit]

Hello, how do you report your offline/online status--U.S. Navy SEALs Commando (talk) 03:35, 14 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Search Help desk for: offline status should find the answer. The second search hit seems to be on target. --Teratornis (talk) 04:21, 14 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

RfA Percentage[edit]

Hi Guys, What percentage of support is required to pass an RfA?--intraining ^{Jack In} 05:44, 14 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

To quote the WP:RfA page, "...but as a general descriptive rule of thumb most of those above ~80% approval pass, most of those below ~70% fail, and the area between is subject to bureaucratic discretion." To get a bit more specific, I've seen a few RfAs with between 65 and 75% pass, and there have probably been a few between 75 and 85% that failed, but these are somewhat rare, so if you're looking for a single clear number, it would probably be 75%, with a few exceptions. (Also, in case you weren't already aware, RfAs are passed or failed by WP:Bureaucrats, at their discretion, and technically not on the raw numbers.) AlexiusHoratius 06:01, 14 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

That is a excellent response thanks for that.--intraining ^{Jack In} 06:21, 14 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Blank space in article[edit]

In the modern skyscrapers article there is a large amount of white space between the first and second paragraphs of the section. I can't figure out why or if there is any fix. --Sultec (talk) 10:28, 14 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I don't see any excess whitespace, but it would depend on your screen resolution. I've moved the image up some, how does this look now? — Manti core 10:41, 14 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

That did seem to help on the monitor set for 1152x864 in that the text stayed together and the white space was under the section name. When I tried a different monitor at 1680x1050 it didn't show any excess whitespace. --Sultec (talk) 16:04, 14 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

It might be images and tables trying to occupy the same space. If the second image is too large to fit next to the right one, it usually gets moved down. What is your screen resolution? - Mgm|^(talk) 11:51, 14 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The basic problem is there were too many images to fit comfortably with the amount of text. I have removed a couple of the images and moved some others around to make it fit better on the page at different page widths. Astronaut (talk) 02:50, 15 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Gloria Stuart Titanic[edit]

It say's in her wikipedia bio that her mother married Fred Finch and he had a son Frank thay was a sports writer for L.A. Times but fact is he was her actual brother born Frank Stewart Jr as they are in 1920 Santa Monica census. Alice 32 Gloria 9 Frank Jr 8 and last name Stewart as Gloria changed name to Stuart later. 1930 census has Alice married to Fred Finch a banker and Gloria and Frank are in census as Finch. And her half sister Patricia who was 6. Since she is still alive she can confirm that Frank was her real brother. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Hockey75 (talk • contribs) 16:43, 14 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The best thing to do would be to discuss this on the article's talk page here: Talk:Gloria Stuart. Please do not type in all caps as it is usually considered to be the equivalent of shouting. Hope this helps. – ukexpat (talk) 17:02, 14 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

De-capped for accessibility. Andy Mabbett (User:Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 22:57, 14 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Box[edit]

If a article have like over 60 footnotes or references. Isn't there a solution to have them in a closed box, if anyone want to see the references he can press 'show'. Instead of references and footnotes making an article page very long why not put them in a box?--Nicoliani (talk) 17:08, 14 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The idea is that references are so important to the articles (they provide so much of the "credibility" of an article), that hiding them would be improper. This does get me thinking about a new gadget userscript btw. I could easily write something that hides the refs by default, and unfolds them only upon request by the user (all navboxes). I'll might do that tonight, depending on how much time I have. --TheDJ (talk • contribs) 17:15, 14 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Let me know when you have it done, want to see how it will look like. Hopefully a new added feature dedicated my splendid idea and your work ;)--Nicoliani (talk) 17:34, 14 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I think this is covered by the intent of Wikipedia:Citing sources#Avoid scrolling lists. I am quite sure that an article with a hidden reference list will never make it to FA. --—— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk - 00:40, 15 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

importScript('User:TheDJ/foldrefs.js'); There you go :D --TheDJ (talk • contribs) 14:01, 15 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Copy image to Commons[edit]

I tried to copy an image (ReflectionRainbow.jpg) to Wikimedia Commons, in order to use the image elsewhere. I tried using CommonsHelper and CH2, but failed. So now I added the template "Copy to Wikimedia Commons" to the image file. Will that help?

No, that template just tells people "I want this moved to Commons but won't do it myself." If you want it moved, just download it to your harddrive and upload it to commons directly. flaming lawyer^cnever for get 22:25, 14 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

List of chess books[edit]

list of chess books won't load. Is it too large? Bubba73 (talk), 18:46, 14 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

It loads fine for me - anyone else having any problems? _Gb^T/c 18:49, 14 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

It's loading now. At 134K, it's big but not overly so. Probably just a hiccup. Tan | 39 18:50, 14 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

It still won't load for me - a full minute and nothing happens. I've had problems with large files in the past. Bubba73 (talk), 18:53, 14 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

WP:ANI is currently at 194k or thereabouts - do you have the same issue with that page? _Gb^T/c 18:55, 14 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

No, that loaded in about 3 seconds. Bubba73 (talk), 18:57, 14 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

List of chess books wouldn't load for me, but too many edit conflicts prevented me saying so here. Then it would load - now I'll try it again. DuncanHill (talk) 18:58, 14 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I got list of chess books to load, but it took about half a minute. Most times it would not load. It has a lot more links than AIN. Bubba73 (talk), 19:00, 14 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Now it loaded in 42 seconds. Bubba73 (talk), 19:02, 14 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

It will load for me now, but it is slow. DuncanHill (talk) 19:05, 14 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Very slow for me too. Not sure what the problem is, but there are way too many wikilinks on that page. The authors' names should only be wikilinked the first time they are used, not every time: Wikipedia:Manual of Style (links)#Overlinking and underlinking. – ukexpat (talk) 20:58, 14 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I think that one of the reasons for having the author linked each time is so that an editor can go to that page and copy that into the references of another article. Another reason why it might be slow is in the formatting all of those "cite book"s. Bubba73 (talk), 21:38, 14 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

It loaded very slowly for me, too. I'm sub-dividing it. I do wonder if it complies with WP:NOT, or whether it should be moved to project-space. Andy Mabbett (User:Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 23:03, 14 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Dividing into two parts still takes about 34 seconds to load for me. Bubba73 (talk), 01:08, 15 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

All parts of the divided article loaded immediately for me. Insidious backgammon cabal? --Fullobeans (talk) 08:14, 15 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Maybe something wrong on some servers. When this type of thing was happening before, it happened to people using some servers but not others. Bubba73 (talk), 13:45, 15 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Problem Solved[edit]

Hello, Last week I asked a question on here. The problem I was have was that I could not click the symbols when editing article (I had to copy and paste them instead). I found the problem, in Preferences - Gadgets I had the Twinkle box checked when I don't have twinkle. I unchecked it and I could click the symbols again. I don't don't a lot about this sort of stuff as to how this cause's that to happen but can somebody else please try it before I report it as a bug. I was asked to report here if I found the problem.--intraining ^{Jack In} 19:48, 14 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

That doesn't sound right. You don't have to "have Twinkle" in order to enable it in Gadgets. Enabling the gadget should add the Twinkle functionality to your account. – ukexpat (talk) 21:00, 14 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I tried "installing" twinkle a while ago by adding certain text to my monobook.js page. It did not work for me, I could not get twinkle to work, I tried everything. I think it was still checked from when I went through that phase.--intraining ^{Jack In} 21:14, 14 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

It wouldn't make a difference, since the gadget actually installs it, it doesn't just look for it. — neuro^(talk) 02:26, 16 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

modern skin issues[edit]

I'm using the "modern" skin. On all of the RefDesks, the shortcut at the top (where it says "WP:RD/MA," "WP:RD/C," etc.) is the same color as the bar at the bar at the very top, and you can't see it. At all. You wouldn't know it was even there if you hadn't seen it before in a different skin. I can't edit WP:Reference desk/header, so if someone could do something about that...
And another skin issue. On this page (WP:HD), the box at the top (that has the "skip to the bottom" link on it) is covered up by the user bar (that has Userpage, My talk, My preferences, etc.). I also can't edit WP:Help desk/Header so if someone could do something about this, too... flaming lawyer^cnever for get 20:22, 14 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

What browser are you using? I can't reproduce this. — neuro^(talk) 02:25, 16 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Firefox 3 pre-pre-pre-beta edition (codenamed Shiretoko), but (as far as I know) it displays everything the same as Firefox 3. flaming lawyer^cnever for get 23:59, 16 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

step by step help making an archive on talk[edit]

How can I set-up an archive for an talk page , and also add a new talk page after 1 archive page. The process I read on this was too technical for me to do on my own. Is there a simple , lay-man's terms on how to accomplish this process.Rio de oro (talk) 20:37, 14 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Move your User talk:Rio de oro to User talk:Rio de oro/Archive1 or something similar.
Go to User talk:Rio de oro and remove the redirect (it will look like #REDIRECT [[User talk:Rio de oro/Archive1]]).
This is your new talk page.

Alternately, you can cut and paste the contents of User talk:Rio de oro to the archive subpage. HTH, Hermione1980 20:42, 14 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Remember to recreate your main talk page and provide a link to the archive. See my talk page as an example. :) PCHS-NJROTC ^(Messages) 21:16, 14 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

BTW, do you intend to archive the entire page, or just part of it? PCHS-NJROTC ^(Messages) 21:36, 14 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Use the format User talk:Rio de oro/Archive_1 (with a space), which is compatible with archiving tools and templates which you may later want to use. Andy Mabbett (User:Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 23:01, 14 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Using StatCounter in own user space[edit]

I'm thinking of adding a code to a page in my own userspace that would track how many people viewed User:GO-PCHS-NJROTC/GFDL, what date and time they viewed it, and who their ISP is. However, I'm not 100% sure that inserting such a code is permitted, and I'm not sure how to properly do it. The code was provided by my.statcounter.com. PCHS-NJROTC ^(Messages) 21:15, 14 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

It's not permitted, but more importantly, it's not possible. It would show up on your userpage as just plain text. Javascript (which is what statcounter uses) is converted to plain text by MediaWiki (which is what Wikipedia runs on). flaming lawyer^cnever for get 22:23, 14 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

This might be of assistance to you. — neuro^(talk) 02:24, 16 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Click on some of the links in his username, hes prob a sock 75.166.85.36 (talk) 00:14, 18 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

no width but line-break-able[edit]

My sig is kinda long, and it can never get split by linebreaks (either the whole sig is on one line, or it's all on the next). Is there a character that will let it get split, but not actually seperate the letters at all? Like a normal space, but with no width. flaming lawyer^cnever for get 22:41, 14 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I don't know; but, as it is, your signature is hard to read, and omitting space will also make it hard to read for people (typically, blind people) using screen reading software. Please reconsider. You can ask on WP:ACCESS for additional accessibility advice. Andy Mabbett (User:Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 23:15, 14 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

There are many other things we can do on Wikipedia that actually help someone or some thing. I will never understand the appeal of all this twiddling with signatures, which only seems to have the effect of making talk pages harder to read. There, that was my Andy Rooney moment; now I must go trim my shaggy eyebrows. --Teratornis (talk) 01:27, 15 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

You could try adding a <*span style="display:none">&nbsp<*/span> to it (obviously without stars), although I don't know if that would divide it. I suppose it depends on the renderer. — neuro^(talk) 02:23, 16 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]