Wikipedia:Help desk/Archives/2012 September 27

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September 27

Making it easier to share articles

Does Facebook / Twitter sharing exist for Wikipedia? I tried looking for share buttons in articles but didn't quite find any. Would be quite cool. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ddr113 (talk • contribs) 01:28, 27 September 2012 (UTC)

See User:TheDJ/Sharebox.--ukexpat (talk) 02:18, 27 September 2012 (UTC)

how to change a title page heading

hi there wondered if you could change a title of a page the one I am trying to change is currently called List of Australian mental asylums which should in this day and age read List of Australian Psychiatric Hospitals.Cheers Rach — Preceding unsigned comment added by 121.200.231.130 (talk) 01:38, 27 September 2012 (UTC)

See Help:Move for more information. If you don't want to do it yourself, (and since you don't have a registerred account, you can't) you can request a move at Wikipedia:Requested moves. --Jayron32 02:04, 27 September 2012 (UTC)

I've moved it to List of Australian psychiatric institutions - a broader title than psychiatric hospitals, and in line with other uses in Wikipedia - e.g. "Mental asylum" is a redirect to History of psychiatric institutions. Arjayay (talk) 16:34, 27 September 2012 (UTC)

Review Waiting

I see the 'Review Waiting' box and also see a comment at the bottom of the box: • Warning: This page should probably be located at Wikipedia talk:Articles for creation/sandbox (move). • Warning: A page with this title exists. Please make sure that this proposed article does not already exist or that it does not need to be moved to a different title.

Should I move the article or wait for the review comment? Also, I clicked twice because nothing happened the first time - does the second warning reflect my first click? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Christopher Leadership (talk • contribs) 04:09, 27 September 2012 (UTC)

You don't need to do anything; you have correctly submitted the draft article to the review queue. -- John of Reading (talk) 07:24, 27 September 2012 (UTC)

Regarding our newspaper EKDIN

as per your records our newspaper EKDIN listed as below :

==================== ICore Ekdin http://ekdin. org/ The Daily Ekdin (একদিন Ekdin "One Day") is a major daily newspaper in West Bengal , published from Kolkata , Durgapur ...

====================

But since August, 2010 we are no more with "iCore"

So it is hereby requesting you to update the below mentioned fact on earlier basis.

Name : EKDIN Chief Editor : Partha Chakraborty Editor : Suvashis Maitra Language : Bengali URL : www.ekdin.org

Thanks & reagrds,

SUBRATA DAS Head - IT

Normally I would ask if you have a reliable independent reference to its status changing, but since there are no existing references in the article, and iCore is not mentioned, I've moved it to Ekdin. The article needs some reliable independent references, or it is liable to get deleted. --ColinFine (talk) 08:20, 27 September 2012 (UTC)

my article about my father Eddy Novarro

Eddy Novarro (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

I need help editing my article, I don't know what is going on but people removed important things and I want help so my article won't be an orphan! — Preceding unsigned comment added by Alexander Novarro (talk • contribs) 05:32, 27 September 2012 (UTC)

Um, It isn't your article. Wikipedia is a collaborative project, and you can expect many dozens of people to alter anything you do here. It's kinda how Wikipedia works. --Jayron32 05:40, 27 September 2012 (UTC)

I'm not quite sure what you mean by "people removed important things", unless it was personal recollections (which are not acceptable in any Wikipedia article: see WP:V. It looks like people are working with you to improve the article. You need to be aware of the importance of a conflict of interest in editing. As for being an orphan, that isn't to do with anything in the article, but on whether other articles link to it. --ColinFine (talk) 08:12, 27 September 2012 (UTC)

ColinFine, I know that the article is made by a lot of people, this site is so confusing to use..... But what I'm trying to say is that I started writing it because is about my father, one of the greatest photographers ever. And some people just deleted important information about his history! — Preceding unsigned comment added by Alexander Novarro (talk • contribs) 14:02, 27 September 2012 (UTC)

Alexander, the deal is this. We, at Wikipedia, want the information about your father and his work here to be correct. Now, what that means is that we need some way to check that it is correct. So what we need, before we add any information to an article, is to see that it has been published in a reliable source. Reliability and verifiability are both very important to us. It isn't that your memories of your father are not supposed to be important to you, and we definately aren't telling you they shouldn't be. It is just that, in a scholarly endeavour such as Wikipedia, we wish to be scrupulous in the information we publish here, and in order to do that we need to make sure that the information can be confirmed somewhere else. It isn't that we don't trust you regarding your father, it is that when someone comes along later, even 10 or 20 or 100 years from now to read this article about your father, they are going to want to know where we got any information in that article, and if it is only from your memories, there is no way that anyone can confirm it. If you have any published reliable information, things like magazine articles, books, or newspaper articles which directly deal with your father's life and work, thats the sort of thing we need to help with expanding the article. Your memories are valid and important to you, but our desire to have a reliable reference work here requires us to hold any additions to articles to a high standard. --Jayron32 14:10, 27 September 2012 (UTC)

Can someone guide me on how to expand a table?

Dear friends. There are several awards and nominations missing from the site of one of my favorite films, "The Tourist (2010". It seems like it was edited by people who don't like the film. The also left out the "37th People's Choice Awards", where "The Tourist" was nominated for3 awards, of which it won one!

Also, the "Redbox" Movie Awards. It won Best Drama there. No mention.

I have tried to expand the table, but it's too hard. Can someone help me? Pilotrocksbig (talk) 06:48, 27 September 2012 (UTC)

What specificly do you want added? Write out the 5 things listed on the table for each award and a source if you have it. CTF83! 07:05, 27 September 2012 (UTC)

My account of 5 years has been deleted?

My account has been in good standing for approx 5 years. It had an email account in case of password issues and User ID number was provided as proof upon opening account. Years of information stored on the account and has to be recovered. I should not need to open a new account, how is that fair to delete years worth of searches and start all over again?

If i accidentally clicked "remember me for 180 days" that still should not close down the account. How can my User Id number help us recover it?

Signed: Frustrated!! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 174.118.28.29 (talk) 07:06, 27 September 2012 (UTC)

It is impossible to delete user accounts. Can you provide the user name so someone may provide more help. CTF83! 07:09, 27 September 2012 (UTC)

Are you sure the account was with Wikipedia? What were you using the account for? You mention saving searches, which is not something Wikipedia normally stores as far as I know. --Colapeninsula (talk) 15:39, 27 September 2012 (UTC)

Analysis tool within Wikipedia

Hi

Can you advise me on the method for analysing content within wikipedia please...such as number of views on a subject or person? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.224.124.254 (talk) 09:50, 27 September 2012 (UTC)

Hit "view history" at the top, then 1/3 of the way down hit "page view statistics" or any of the other queries. CTF83! 10:20, 27 September 2012 (UTC)

Test Creation of Talk Pages for Templates

Hi. Umm...how do I handle someone that keeps create talk pages for templates saying "Hello and goodbye" and labels their edit summary as a test? I wanted to try to add a SD tag for the talk pages but I wasn't sure if the G2 criteria was okay for this or not. See here. SassyLilNugget (talk) 11:51, 27 September 2012 (UTC)

{{db-g2}} seems OK. I will delete the pages. PrimeHunter (talk) 12:36, 27 September 2012 (UTC)

Resolved

Thanks, SassyLilNugget (talk) 12:47, 27 September 2012 (UTC)

Special Pages - too much information

Hi Team,

Created a new page in a table and want to have the top ten newest pages in the table to code for this is

{{Special:Newpages/10}}

but when i preview it, its contains, names, dates, content of the page lots on information that i need to cut down

How can i simplfy this so its just the Name of the page, what day it was added and by who

all the best

Added 'nowiki' to the above. --ColinFine (talk) 15:41, 27 September 2012 (UTC)

I doubt if you can. What you are doing with the '{{' code is to include the contents of that page in your page (usually used for templates, but can be other pages, as here). There's no way to edit that page on the fly, which is what you are wanting.

If there is a way, it will not be by including a Special page, but by using WP:Parser functions - but i doubt if there's any way short of writing some Javascript (and I'm not sure it will be possible even then). --ColinFine (talk) 15:45, 27 September 2012 (UTC)

thnaks Colin, had a go, but no joy, looks like it will be a manual update — Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.79.208.19 (talk) 11:05, 28 September 2012 (UTC)

My edit was deleted

Hi,

I am a semi-retired veterinarian. I thought I would spend a few month updating or making corrections to some Wikipedia articles on pet health care topics that I am experienced in. Some articles on that subject on Wiki are good, but some really need help.

This morning, I attempted to add a sentence to an article concerning why dogs sometimes lick and chew on themselves: Lick granuloma The sentence went something like "Older dogs with arthritis are more prone to spend time licking when they have difficulty getting around" My sentence was immediately deleted by some form of program that claimed it was there to prevent vandalism (Clubot). Might you explain this to me and might you tell me what I can do to prevent this from happening in the future?

I have a second question. I do a lot of bird medicine. I noticed that you have a page for Proventricular Dilitation Disease: Proventricular Dilatation Disease and another for avian bornavirus disease: Avian Bornavirus They are one-in-the-same. I would attempt to combine them if I knew how. Perhaps you might give me some advice on how I might do that as well once I solve the deletingrobot problem.

I know you don't suggest I put my email address here. But I just don't expect a lot of hostility regarding the changes I propose to make. So you can reach me at yourpetsfriend at gmail dot com

Thanks, Ron Hines DVM PhD — Preceding unsigned comment added by Caralampio2 (talk • contribs) 15:55, 27 September 2012 (UTC)

The word "licking" may have triggered the 'bot, especially since you didn't provide a source for the assertion. Counter-intuitive though it may seem, we cannot simply accept your expertise and experience on the topic. We need a proper footnoted source for this statement.

As to the other: you need to propose a merger of the two article, preserving the edit history. For how to do that, see Help:Merging. --Orange Mike | Talk 16:19, 27 September 2012 (UTC)

(edit conflict) ClueBot is a bot that uses algorithms and math and stuff to guess if your edit was vandalism or a test. Sometimes it's wrong, and if it was wrong here you can report it and make the edit again (and if you edit right after ClueBot has, it will not revert your new edit because ClueBot will not revert to a version attributed to itself). As stated in the bot's message to your talk page:

ClueBot NG makes very few mistakes, but it does happen. If you believe the change you made was constructive, please read about it, report it here, remove this message from your talk page, and then make the edit again.

Reporting false positives allows the bot's owner to make improvements to the math it uses to figure out if an edit is unconstructive. If you report the false positive, it will help to make sure it is less likely to revert something like that in the future.

On your second question (about combining), I say you propose a merge or request that someone more experienced propose a merge. If you propose a merge, use the templates found here: Wikipedia:Template messages/Merging. You will need to decide which name is the best to merge to. If you need any help with this, feel free to ask on my talk page. - Purplewowies (talk) 16:21, 27 September 2012 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Regarding Lick granuloma: your edit was mistaken by a "bot" (an automated process) for vandalism. I have restored your contribution to the article (though the bot may try to remove it again). I have also tried to use the approved method to report the bot's mistake, but the method does not work, so I have failed. I see that Purplewowies has provided a link to the broken report page. I shall try again, not using the approved automated method this time. Now successfully reported. Maproom (talk) 18:27, 27 September 2012 (UTC)

Regarding Avian Bornavirus and Proventricular Dilatation Disease: these aren't really the same, one is a pathogen and the other is a disease which it causes. The page for each mentions and links to the other. This seems reasonable to me. Maproom (talk) 16:27, 27 September 2012 (UTC)

What is the maximum number of references that should be provided to help verify a single piece of information?

I'm currently spending some time cleaning up fork bomb, and one of the things that I most want to do is get the page to state where the "additional citations required" notice is no longer appropriate. Most of my initial questions had well fleshed out answers in the help documentation, but one thing I've been unable to determine is the point at which there are too many references for something. I assume there can be too many references for a single point (I presume that this is why the pages of well documented phenomena aren't saturated with references). At what point does convention warrant the non-addition of further references? Thanks. Cdwn (talk) 16:30, 27 September 2012 (UTC)

Generally when a statement either doesn't contain a fact, or when it contains only facts that are very common knowledge, there is no need to cite it. You don't need more the one citation for a particular fact unless it is very controversial or actively in dispute at the page. On the page your editing, while there are a few more things you could cite, I think it would be fair to remove the general citation needed template at the top, and request in your edit summary that editors use inline {{cn}} templates to direct your attention to anything they feel still needs a citation. Monty₈₄₅ 16:37, 27 September 2012 (UTC)

Take a look at WP:Citation overkill too. Roger (talk) 16:44, 27 September 2012 (UTC)

Thank you both, that's extremely helpful. Cdwn (talk) 16:48, 27 September 2012 (UTC)

What is the meaning of 'Currently Active' ?

On this project membership page, Wikipedia:WikiProject Christianity/Methodism work group/Members, the active ones are highlighted in green. Does this mean they are currently online at this very moment? Or, does it only just mean they have made an edit in the last 30 days?

S. Jenkins (talk) 16:59, 27 September 2012 (UTC)

It means somebody added highlighted text to the page that says that they are still involved in it. It could have been them, or someone else. - Purplewowies (talk) 17:22, 27 September 2012 (UTC)

All the highlighting was added in this series of edits by David FLXD (talk · contribs) last July. You'll have to ask him what criteria he used, and whether he plans to keep it up to date. -- John of Reading (talk) 17:25, 27 September 2012 (UTC)

Ok, thanks. Will do. S. Jenkins (talk) 17:36, 27 September 2012 (UTC)

Register edited pages

How can I register some pages I edited to my user? Those where registered with my IP, not y username.

Regards, — Preceding unsigned comment added by Maurozb (talk • contribs) 17:34, 27 September 2012 (UTC)

It used to be possible to re-attribute edits from IP addresses to named accounts, but not since 2005 (see this page). However, as that page says, you can list your contributions made with the IP address(es) on your user page.--ukexpat (talk) 17:59, 27 September 2012 (UTC)

Converting sizes or acreage

I noticed on the Epcot page it converts 300 acres to (120 ha), and on Disney's Animal Kingdom it also changes 500 acres to (202 ha). But on the Magic Kingdom page, it converts 107 acres to (0.43 km2), and on Disney's Hollywood Studios it changes 135 acres to (546,000 m²). Lastly, on the Walt Disney World page it changes 30,080 acres to both (12,173 ha; 47 sq mi). Which of these conversions are to be used since I understand consistency is important for readers' understanding. Thanks in advance ihafez (talk) 17:40, 27 September 2012 (UTC)

Do those articles use the {{Convert}} template? If so, the parameters can easily be edited to provide consistency, if indeed that is desirable.--ukexpat (talk) 17:56, 27 September 2012 (UTC)

It is definitely desirable to use units of comparable scale, acres to hectares, square miles to square kilometres, and so on. Nobody measures distances between cities in centimetres or the height of basketball players in miles. Roger (talk) 07:46, 28 September 2012 (UTC)

The pages each use a different {{Convert}} template for converting acres (a measurement of land space), so I was wondering which one I should change them all to. I'm asuming acres to hectares would be the most logical. ihafez (talk) 18:50, 30 September 2012 (UTC)

Bush IAH Airport edit removed

Hello, I edited an article pertaining to Bush IAH Airport in Houston. Edit addressed a new and unique car wash service now available at all parking garages and now my edits have been deleted. Please advise

Mike Mineo, — Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.1.87.115 (talk) 19:24, 27 September 2012 (UTC)

Sorry Mike, Wikipedia isn't the correct place to advertise or promote your car wash business. Please see Wikipedia:FAQ/Organizations, especially the first question, which is germaine here. --Jayron32 19:47, 27 September 2012 (UTC)

If I see an RfA...

...that should definitely be closed as WP:NOTNOW, and the user hasn't filled it out correctly or transcluded it, what do I do? Transclude it? Notify someone? Do nothing? - Purplewowies (talk) 19:28, 27 September 2012 (UTC)

If it hasn't been transcluded, it's not considered to be "open", so it can be ignored for now. Hersfold non-admin^(t/a/c) 20:47, 27 September 2012 (UTC)

You definitely shouldn't transclude any RfA without permission from the user. The user is supposed to transclude but may wait or never do it. If you contact someone then it should be the user if they are acting in good faith. PrimeHunter (talk) 20:56, 27 September 2012 (UTC)

getting "The webpage cannot be found" while opening perticular wiki page by providing complete path

Hello

I developed wiki portal, everything is working fine. now I wanted to provide couple of links to my users to view perticular wiki pages.. while doing so, I copied complete url of the page(eg [unwarranted link to porn site removed]) and placed the link in MS Excel.

Now the problem is open clicking this link, getting my organization sso login screen, after entering required credentials system displaying "The webpage cannot be found".

how can I resolve this... please help me

regards, Krishna — Preceding unsigned comment added by 12.169.71.4 (talk) 19:50, 27 September 2012 (UTC)

Your "eg" link went to a porn site with no apparent relation to wikis. If you are serious and not trying to drive traffic there then please post either a real link to a wiki or a partial real link (use copy-paste, the non-porn part of your link may have been mangled) where the domain name has been removed. PrimeHunter (talk) 20:46, 27 September 2012 (UTC)

References to "move log" (or such) in watchlist

Whenever a page from my watchlist has been moved (or deleted) by an administrator, the "my watchlist" special page simply lists the words "move log" without giving the name of the page that has been moved (or deleted), or even a link to the relevant line in the move log. The only way I found is to view the full log, which is immensely long (thousands of entries per day), and search for the time at which the log occurred. When the line is several days old this is more or less impossible. Is this really the only way? It sounds completely absurd so I wonder whether I'm missing something obvious. --Gro-Tsen (talk) 19:59, 27 September 2012 (UTC)

You are supposed to see time, username, old pagename, new pagename, edit summary in the watchlist. Here is an example from my watchlist (links are not included, "block" is because I have an admin account):

(Move log); 22:25 . . Anthony Bradbury (talk | contribs | block) moved page T-10 Heavy Tank to T-10 tank ‎(sources do not support "Heavy Tank" being an integral part of name; use lowercase "tank" for coherence with T-50 tank and others)

I haven't heard this problem before. First try to completely clear your cache. If that doesn't help: What is your browser? What is your skin at Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-rendering? Which setting at "Expand watchlist to show all changes, not just the most recent" at Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-watchlist? Which setting at "Group changes by page in recent changes and watchlist (requires JavaScript)" at Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-rc? Does your browser have JavaScript enabled? PrimeHunter (talk) 20:32, 27 September 2012 (UTC)

OK, I figured it out. What happens is that when there are several consecutive relevant lines in the move or delete log, which is almost always the case (since pages get moved or deleted along with their talk page), there's a bit of JavaScript which collapses them, and they are replaced with a blue triangle thingy in the margin (screenshot here), and I never thought of clicking on this triangle because there's no visual hint that it's clickable (the mouse cursor doesn't appear like on a link when you hover over it), I just thought it was some kind of marker of any move/delete log line. I guess I'm an idiot. (But maybe it would be worthwhile to make it more obvious that this triangle is clickable, by giving it link properties.) --Gro-Tsen (talk) 12:54, 28 September 2012 (UTC)

You have apparently enabled the two preferences I mentioned. They are disabled by default and then the triangle-expand feature is not present. As your screenshot shows, the triangle also appears when there is more than one normal edit to a page. Giving it link properties similar to category trees at for example Category:Great West Conference sounds like a good idea. PrimeHunter (talk) 13:48, 28 September 2012 (UTC)

This is apparently bugzilla:36211: "[Regression] Show special cursor for expanding/collapsing in enhanced wachtlist/recent changes". PrimeHunter (talk) 14:03, 28 September 2012 (UTC)

How to submit a fact about an article

How to submit a fact about an article? I was reading the Kevvy Mental (Kevin James maher) page, and it mentions artists/ bands he likes, and I know for a fact that he likes Korn and I'm not sure exactly how to add that in... Maybe if someone let whoever wrote that article know to add korn... It mentions nirvana and everything, just not Korn, and I know that it was because of korn that he decided to play guitar... Anyways, just an FYI heads up. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 199.216.46.203 (talk) 21:24, 27 September 2012 (UTC)

There's two things here 199.216.46.203. First, "know for a fact" isn't something we base Wikipedia articles about. Think about it, when someone comes along years from now and wants to know where Wikipedia got its information from, that someone "knows for a fact" that something is true really won't pass muster. That's why we insist that everything we write at wikipedia is verifiable in reliable sources. That is, all of the information here needs to be written down somewhere else first, and that somewhere else should be a trustworthy source of scholarship, not just someone's blog or facebook feed. Secondly, even if it is true, it doesn't mean that it is relevent. It may be, or it may not be. In this case, you may be correct in its relevence, but even if you find the fact in a reliable source, you should always be prepared to argue that the fact is necessary for the article, and not just there because it is true. Not everything which is true is always terribly important. It may be, or it may not be, in this case, I don't know. But be sure it is, and that you can make a clear case that it is. --Jayron32 21:34, 27 September 2012 (UTC)

Kevin James Maher#Influence is currently unsourced and not an example to follow. All of it was added in [1] by an unregistered user. Hmm, the whole article is poorly referenced. PrimeHunter (talk) 21:44, 27 September 2012 (UTC)

References columns

Not sure why 2 columns not working. CTF83! 23:38, 27 September 2012 (UTC)

I don't see a problem. Which problem do you see and what is your browser? If the problem is that you see all references in one column then see Template:Reflist#Browser support for columns. PrimeHunter (talk) 00:10, 28 September 2012 (UTC)

I'm only seeing the references in 1 column instead of 2. I'm at work, so all they have is shitty IE 8...which may be the problem, especially if you can see 2. CTF83! 00:13, 28 September 2012 (UTC)

I see 2 columns in Firefox and 1 in IE9. This is as expected. PrimeHunter (talk) 01:12, 28 September 2012 (UTC)

Shitty IE, why would anyone use it? Thanks! CTF83! 05:09, 28 September 2012 (UTC)

I use it because it does what I want and Wikipedia's text goes all wonky in other browsers on this computer. - Purplewowies (talk) 05:18, 28 September 2012 (UTC)