Wikipedia:Help desk/Archives/2013 December 8

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Help desk
< December 7 << Nov | December | Jan >> December 9 >
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.


December 8[edit]

Wikipedia not working in Firefox.[edit]

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.


But works in Internet Explorer? --78.156.109.166 (talk) 10:01, 8 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

It's working for me in Firefox (22.0). What exactly do you mean by "not working"? What are you trying to do? What happens when you do it? --ColinFine (talk) 10:20, 8 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]
firefox is working fine for me as well. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 13:10, 8 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Notifications not working?[edit]

I'm suddenly getting absolutely no Notifications when people link my username. Look at User talk:108.162.157.141, where people have twice linked it with the {{ping}} template; I've not gotten any notices there either time, and the only reason I discovered them is that I was reading through the page. Any idea what's wrong? I've checked the box in the "Web" column next to "Mention" over at Special:Preferences. I've just started using IE10 and Windows 8 for the first time, if that's at all relevant, but I'm running the same skin and .js as I've used for a long time. Nyttend (talk) 13:19, 8 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Nyttend, did you get this ping now? Is the problem that you don't see a red number, or it doesn't appear at all in Special:Notifications? You could also bring this up at WP:VPT or WT:Notifications. ~HueSatLum 14:06, 8 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I just got it. The situation is weirder than I said before: now that I check Special:Notifications, I remember that the first use of ping at the talk page worked fine (I wouldn't have gone back there if I hadn't gotten it), but the second one didn't provide a number and doesn't appear in the Special:Notifications list. The second was left by the IP address in question; does the username-mention thing only work when it's done by someone who's logged in? Nyttend (talk) 14:09, 8 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]
@Nyttend: A notification occurs only when an edit includes both a mention of your user page and the editor's signature. Here, the IP posted the signature in one edit and added your name in another. That may be too difficult for the software to cope with. -- John of Reading (talk) 20:44, 8 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I was unaware that anything was necessary aside from the link to my userpage. Thanks for the diagnosis! Nyttend (talk) 20:48, 8 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, Wikipedia:Notifications#Features says:
  • Mentions: When your userpage is linked to, in a signed post, on a talk page or in the Project: namespace
The mouseover at Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-echo doesn't mention the signature requirement. PrimeHunter (talk) 21:02, 8 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

External links in a different language[edit]

I recently made an article in the external links section but both the links were in a different language but the text on the English article is in English, see Alois_Hitler#External_links both the Lineage of Adolf Hitler - Density inbreeding and Hitler - No proof of Aryan descent are German language external links, is this okay to do?

Thanks.--Windows66 (talk) 15:11, 8 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

they are not really appropriate as external links (and neither were the other links, see the criteria WP:EL) but Der Spiegel is in general a very reliable source and the newspaper could be used as citations for specific content within the article if appropriate . -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 15:24, 8 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I only added the two German external links the other two were already there, I see you have removed them all.--Windows66 (talk) 17:51, 8 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Swedish translation needed?[edit]

Detta visade sig inte stämma och han greps och dömdes till döden för mord, tortyr och kannibalism..

What does 'inte stämma mean and how does it relate to the sentence? Thank you! --Ändersgoringer (talk) 17:33, 8 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

stämma is here a verb which can be translated as "to be correct/true/right" (without a positive value implied). I don't know a similar English verb. A full translation: "This turned out to not be true and he was arrested and convicted to death for murder, torture and cannibalism." An English text might just have said "be false" instead of "not be true". The context must have specified what wasn't true (maybe the murderer's own claim). For another time:
Have you tried the language 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) 18:36, 8 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]
A Google search found the quote in sv:Jean-Bédel Bokassa (English: Jean-Bédel Bokassa). It wasn't his claim but his expectation which was false. He thought he would be treated positively when he returned to his country. PrimeHunter (talk) 18:44, 8 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Translation in context: "This turned out to be wrong and he was arrested and sentenced to death for murder, torture and cannibalism". "Stämma" has an impressive number of possible translations depending on context. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 12:07, 9 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Problems with uploading information.[edit]

I have made changes to the following page, St John the Baptist Cathedral, Norwich to insert information into the Right hand side box attempting to update the "Administration" section. Part of the information is shown in the box but a great deal isn't. What have I done wrong? Carthanachta (talk) 17:50, 8 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Parameter names have to match those listed at Template:Infobox church, and they are case-sensitive. - David Biddulph (talk) 18:14, 8 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]
You didn't do anything wrong. Someone else added some incorrect parameters, e.g. "Bishop" instead of "bishop" and "Deacon & Est Manager" instead of "deacon". No wonder you were confused, since you didn't do anything that would cause problems. Using the documentation page for {{Infobox church}}, I've fixed the parameters. Nyttend (talk) 20:23, 8 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Image margin[edit]

How can I apply margins to image? I mean inset margin between image and border, for example:

[[File:Example:|thumb|margin=6px]]

Is it possible, if not then could you report it on bugzilla? --Rezonansowy (talkcontribs) 23:01, 8 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

You cannot do it with thumb. You could achieve a similar effect without thumb by placing the image in a table and setting a cellpadding there. You would need a good reason if you want to do this for a Wikipedia article. PrimeHunter (talk) 23:31, 8 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]
note that the instructions at WP:MOSTABLE explicitly prohibit using table formats for displaying pictures like this so you would need a VERY good reason. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 12:45, 9 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]