Wikipedia:Help desk/Archives/2016 November 4

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.

November 4

Article on "Religious coercion" is horrendous and should be deleted, I just can't figure out how.

Hi, the article "Religious coercion" is utterly terrible, it used to be terrible before I stumbled upon it in May. Now, after a couple of months of trying to use the talk page (which resulted in a user removing a significant unsourced part, and me, later on, removing almost all of it because it was obviously OR and unsourced) I wanted to delted it. I put a PROD header on it, which was delted for a valid reason (previous AfD).

If you look at the article, it's barely one sentence, without any source. I think it should be AfD'd because of WP:A3 or WP:DEL6. DEL6 would have been good before May, because since then all OR and unsourced stuff was deleted, so I'm not sure if that counts. I understand that rewriting it would be the preferable option, BUT my English is far from decent enough to do that, and apparently nobody else is ready to do it.

Thus I would like to AfD it, but I don't know if I should or how to do so. I would appreciate some input from all of you, more experienced users. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2A01:C23:BC0E:F000:E43A:FA4F:30E6:49E6 (talk) 00:30, 4 November 2016 (UTC)

• Hello, the article has been redirected to Forced conversion for now. Thanks. Lourdes 03:44, 4 November 2016 (UTC)

Referencing errors on Mike Murdock

Reference help requested. Not sure how I broke the reference in my edit. I just wanted to make the page more academic and less bias Thanks, Pjlancer (talk) 03:00, 4 November 2016 (UTC)

Hey there, Pjlancer! If someone wants to use the same source multiple times in the same article, we can do what is called naming the reference ("ref") tag so we don't have to write the whole citation again and can do what is called invoking. What the bot is trying to say is that, in line 17, someone had previously invoked a reference named "Money2Relatives", but in your edits, you removed the root citation giving it nothing to invoke. The bot wasn't criticizing your edits in any way.
I hope this helped, if it didn't or if you need further clarification, don't hesitate to reply back! Thank you and happy editing! —Skyllfully ^(talk | _contribs) 03:27, 4 November 2016 (UTC)

Berney baronets

Please help me up load a legal pic on this page. (The pic is already on Wikipedia page) I have never done this before and it is very hard. Please help. Thanks Srbernadette (talk) 03:18, 4 November 2016 (UTC)

• Hello Srbernadette, by what you write, you probably intend to add an already existing image to the article rather than uploading a new image. Irrespective, I should suggest that you may first read Wikipedia:Uploading images and specially the section Wikipedia:Uploading images#Adding images to articles. As mentioned earlier, be bold in following the procedure mentioned within these pages, and add the image yourself. If you make a mistake, don't worry. It would be corrected soon enough. Thanks. Lourdes 03:38, 4 November 2016 (UTC)

It will take me a good afternoon with students - to learn this procedure properly. I am trying - but it is no good. Should I leave the funny stuff that I have added to the page and hopefully either I, or someone else will see what I was trying to do. ThanksSrbernadette (talk) 04:54, 4 November 2016 (UTC)

I have added the picture and removed the funny stuff. Maproom (talk) 07:42, 4 November 2016 (UTC)

Possibly need to report a paid editing company

Got followed on Twitter by http://www.wiki-service.org/ . There's a long list of problems Wikipedia has had on https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conflict-of-interest_editing_on_Wikipedia#Incidents . This looks like a new company intent on causing this kind of trouble - pay fee, get eligibility check/report, if possible get a new page. They do donate 10% of their fee to Wiki (or so they say) and they say they will do a check and advise, rather than blatantly edit, but still seems suspicious since it's companies/people paying for editing.

Haven't been able to find a page to report this on based on the various paid editing articles I went through on Wikipedia, so reporting it here. What's the right place? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.205.198.46 (talk) 10:17, 4 November 2016 (UTC)

Hi IP - wiki-service.org is not alone in being a service which offers Wikipedia articles. Unless we have information on the actual page they are working on, we can't really do much. If you do see any evidence of conflict of interest editing you can pop by the COI noticeboard to make a report. Thanks for mentioning this -- samtar ^{talk or stalk} 10:24, 4 November 2016 (UTC)

Serifed text

Hello to you,

I would like to add a word in serifed typeset within an article. Could you, please, tell me how, as I tried to find the way without sucess.

Many thanks in advance Actia Nicopolis (talk) 11:48, 4 November 2016 (UTC)

@Actia Nicopolis: It's generally against MOS:FONTFAMILY to do it in articles but see Font family (HTML) for the code. PrimeHunter (talk) 12:22, 4 November 2016 (UTC)

What are you trying to accomplish? If it's to show computer code, we have the template {{code}} for that. If it's just to show emphasis, we have italics and bolding for that (''...'' or '''...''' respectively). Herostratus (talk) 12:37, 4 November 2016 (UTC)

I would like to show the word PREVESA, written in a serifed typeset.

Wikipedia has a sans-serifed typeset as a default.

Can I change the typeset to another one (in my case a serifed typeset)?

Actia Nicopolis (talk) 12:43, 4 November 2016 (UTC)

@Actia Nicopolis: Please give context when you are asked what something is for. I guess it's for User:Actia Nicopolis/sandbox#Type 1. (1854-1876) which currently says "bearing serifed PREVESA at top". Explicit mention of serif is nearly the only case where it's OK to use serif. Using code in Font family (HTML) you can write "bearing serifed PREVESA at top". PrimeHunter (talk) 12:54, 4 November 2016 (UTC)

@PrimeHunter: Thank you very much. This is what I wanted to do. Sorry for not making it clearer from the begining. Actia Nicopolis (talk) 15:52, 4 November 2016 (UTC)

How to cite a URL which includes a vertical bar

I am trying to add a reference to Micro Center using {{cite news}}. The problem is that the URL contains a vertical bar in the middle, which breaks that template. Is there a way around this?

The URL in question is: http://nl.newsbank.com/nl-search/we/Archives?p_multi=BE%7C&p_product=NJMNP&p_theme=njmnp&p_action=search&p_maxdocs=200&s_dispstring=Steady%20as%20she%20grows

Note that this URL is the newspaper's article search facility, because the article itself needs to be purchased - so I can't get a link directly to the article itself.--Gronk Oz (talk) 16:41, 4 November 2016 (UTC)

The url you posted here has no problem because it percent encodes the pipe as %7C. See Help:URL#Fixing links with unsupported characters. PrimeHunter (talk) 16:51, 4 November 2016 (UTC)

{{!}} may work too but encoded as %7C sounds better. --Lacrymocéphale 16:52, 4 November 2016 (UTC)

Resolved

Thank you! There seems to have been a translation when I copied the URL from the browser page (which included the vertical bar) above, but not when I put it into the {{cite news}}. I have made that substituteion now, and it works. It's fixed now; thanks again.--Gronk Oz (talk) 01:49, 5 November 2016 (UTC)

Entering a page name directly into the search bar takes me to a search page, not the page I entered

It's been a few years since I used Wikipedia regularly. My recollection is that if you entered an established page name directly into the search bar and hit enter, it would take you right to it. Now, whenever I try to go directly to a page by putting the name into the search bar, I'm taken to a search page instead of the page I want.

For example, if I put English into the search field, instead of ending up here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English

I end up at

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?search=English&title=Special%3ASearch&fulltext=Search

Everything I'm reading says that I should go to the former unless I use a tilde, so why isn't that what's happening? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Gopherbassist (talk • contribs) 17:54, 4 November 2016 (UTC)

What is your browser? Does it happen when you are logged out? What happens when you click Special:Search/English? PrimeHunter (talk) 18:08, 4 November 2016 (UTC)

Chrome, happens logged in or logged out. I changed to the MonoBook skin and it works the way I expected. Thank you for your reply though, Gopherbassist (talk) 06:35, 12 November 2016 (UTC)

adding a company page

Hi! Would it be possible to add a page for the company, Suburban Exterminating www.suburbanexterminating.com ? Thanks =) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:204:C500:3BD8:F410:8BD8:6A03:DD8C (talk) 18:27, 4 November 2016 (UTC)

To create an article, follow these steps:

1. Read Your first article carefully.
2. If you don't have an account, consider creating one (it's not essential, but it makes some things easier, especially communicating with other editors) and logging in.
3. Learn the basics of editing with the Wikipedia:Tutorial
4. Make sure the subject is notable enough to warrant a stand-alone article
5. Gather reliable sources to cite in the article
6. Make sure no article on the subject exists under a different title by typing the subject into the search box and clicking 'Search'
7. Use the Article Wizard to create a draft.
8. Create the article, including all your references, making sure you adhere to the Manual of Style and our article layout guidelines. Base the article on what the references say, rather than on what you know.
9. Once you believe that your draft meets Wikipedia's requirements, submit it for review by picking the "Submit your draft for review" button in the draft.
10. Be aware that many drafts are not accepted the first time, or even the second time they are submitted for review, for failing to adhere to our policies and guidelines. New articles by new users are particularly likely not to be accepted, due to new users' unfamiliarity with our rules. Consider gaining experience by editing existing articles before attempting to create new ones.. Also, please sign your posts by typing four tildes (~~~~) or clicking the signature button above the edit box which looks like this: , but do not sign in articles. Pppery 19:16, 4 November 2016 (UTC)

Are you (unregistered editor) working for Suburban Exterminating? If so, please read the conflict of interest guideline and make the appropriate disclosure. Robert McClenon (talk) 16:07, 7 November 2016 (UTC)

Search field preview editing

When one enters a search term into the search field from the main www.wikipedia.org search page, before one hits the 'enter' key it sometimes shows an image related to the article and it shows a brief description of the article content. How does one edit the description of the article content here, especially if it has been vandalized? Thanks Air.light (talk) 18:38, 4 November 2016 (UTC)

The description is taken from Wikidata. Click "Wikidata item" under "Tools" in the left pane of the article. The image is selected automatically by mw:Extension:PageImages. PrimeHunter (talk) 18:50, 4 November 2016 (UTC)

I found it and it worked. Thanks a lot. Air.light (talk) 18:58, 4 November 2016 (UTC)

First Contribution to Wikipedia

I just posted my first contribution to Wikipedia and it came up as a "Draft." How do I post it as a permanent entry which can be found in the Wikipedia search engine? (Or is this part of their review process?) I would be grateful for any information you offer. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Wackywikiwoman (talk • contribs) 19:49, 4 November 2016 (UTC)

Please, see Wikipedia:Drafts. Ruslik_Zero 19:52, 4 November 2016 (UTC)

The draft in question is Draft:My Buddy's Nuts. It would be a good idea to leave it in draft space. It has notability issues and tone issues. If it is moved into article space in its current form, it is likely to be nominated for speedy deletion as advertising, or possibly for not making a credible claim of significance. Since you explicitly address wanting to have it found by search engines (and presumably you actually mean Google's search engine), I will ask whether you have a connection with the company. Please read the conflict of interest guideline and, if necessary, make the appropriate declaration. Robert McClenon (talk) 20:09, 4 November 2016 (UTC)

Another thing which you ought to address before you submit the draft for review is the referencing. Try reading Help:Referencing for beginners. --David Biddulph (talk) 21:29, 4 November 2016 (UTC)

2017 in music

Hi I Would like to wonder if you can create the 2017 in music article but I don't know how to create an article but were getting closer to 2017.2600:8803:7A00:19:BC99:C4D4:C401:50F2 (talk) 23:09, 4 November 2016 (UTC)

This would likely go against WP:TOOSOON, basically that you dont make articles in anticipation for events, only after the event transpires, so the creation of a page involving a year usually waits for that year if its in the future (unless its car models due to the way they give them years.), However if you choose to make another article, you would search it in your search bar, then if it says "page does not exist, would you like to create it, you would click on it, and fill it in with info and citations. Hope this helps. Iazyges Consermonor Opus meum 00:41, 5 November 2016 (UTC)