Wikipedia:Help desk/Archives/2008 September 2

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September 2

How to refer to a specific section within a Wikipedia article?

I would like to make a referral or reference or wiki-link to a specific section within a wikipedia article. How do I do that? — Ayapota (talk) 00:16, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

Append a hash, then the section name, to a normal link. For example, Wikipedia:User access levels#Developers. Xenon54 00:32, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

(edit conflict) See Help:Section#Section linking - or just see how I made that link! PrimeHunter (talk) 00:35, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

Yes! That works, PrimeHunter. Thank you. Thank you. - Ayapota (talk) 01:04, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

an error

Hi, My name is Greg DePaul. I'm a screenwriter and the original writer of BRIDE WARS, an upcoming movie starring Kate Hudson. The writing credits on the movie as listed on your site are incorrect. The Writers Guild of America is the sole determiner for screen credits for this movie. The Guild recently ruled that the screen credits for screenwriting shall read:

Story by Greg DePaul Screenplay by Greg DePaul and Casey Wilson & June Diane Raphael.

It may take some time for the credits to be changed on other websites, such as IMDB, but they will change.

And the movie poster will list the credits as I just did above.

You can confirm credits by contacting the WGA(west).

Sincerely,

Greg DePaul —Preceding unsigned comment added by 96.225.31.122 (talk) 02:46, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

You could be bold and go change the information yourself. Don't forget to source it it you can by putting your source in <ref></ref> tags. NuclearWarfare ^{contact me}_{My work} 04:02, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

You have been added to the article.[1] Wikipedia content should be based on published reliable sources and this seems to be what is verifiable at the time. PrimeHunter (talk) 01:59, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

Use of Wikipedia for Commercial Research

I am in the early stages of developing a new (commercial) product that will include questions and answers. I would like to use Wikipedia as a research tool to help me gather this information (which I would then validate with additional verifiable sources). I would not be reproducing any part of any article.

Is there any copyright issue with my plan? Is there any legal or ethical reason that I should not do this?

FranMC (talk) 07:08, 2 September 2008 (UTC)Fran

If you use only the information in Wikipedia and not the presentation, there would be no copyright issue. There may be an accuracy problem, however: Because anyone can edit Wikipedia, it is possible that some of the content is accidentally (or even intentionally) incorrect. But since the information in Wikipedia is supposed to be referenced, you could use it for references to more reliable sources. —teb728 t c 07:21, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

Password request

I have asked twice to getmy password replaced and I have received no email.Please can you email me: <removed>

Thankyou, Rod —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.170.159.84 (talk) 07:50, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

Unfortunately, the "email new password" is the only way to receive a new password for an account. It will send an email to whatever address you gave when the account was created, or any address it was changed to in your preferences. It may be the case your email was never confirmed, and you could look through your email history for this. But if your email address was not attached to your account, then I'm sorry to say that it's lost forever, unless you remember the password. Someguy1221 (talk) 07:54, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

Please do not include contact details in your questions. We are unable to provide answers by any off-wiki medium and this page is highly visible across the internet. The details have been removed, but if you wish for them to be permanently removed from the page history, email this address. Dendodge|Talk^Contribs 08:13, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

Removing large amounts of white space?

I know there are various Wikipedia projects and groups who try to de-orphan articles, or add references to them, or fix broken links, but where do I go to report articles with (seemingly random) large amounts of white space in them? See here, for example. Or, alternatively, how do I fix those sorts of problems myself? Thanks in advance. It Is Me Here (talk) 09:18, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

We don't seem to have a specific whitespace project, group, taskforce or template. As for how to fix it, that depends on the cause of the whitespace; I removed some here by moving images around. Algebraist 09:24, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

I see. I'm afraid to say, though, that there is still quite a lot of white space in that article; is there any way to completely remove it? It Is Me Here (talk) 19:47, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

What browser and browser version are you using to view pages? The white space shown may also vary depending on which web browser you're using. For example, Internet Explorer v6 would frequently insert white space where newer browsers would not. --- Barek (talk • contribs) - 20:24, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

I'm using IE7 with whatever the latest update is, installed. I daresay that would apply to most readers, if not editors, of Wikipedia, and so this is something that is worth looking into. Also, I looked at Water cooler using both IE7 and FF3, and white space occurs in both renditions of the article, albeit in different places. It Is Me Here (talk) 06:42, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

What is your screen resolution? I see whitespace in IE6, but very little in IE7 or FF3. But a different screen resolution might also explain the difference. --- Barek (talk • contribs) - 14:15, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

1680 * 1050 px; 32 bit. Hope that helps. It Is Me Here (talk) 16:15, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

Hmmmm, At 1280X1024, there doesn't seem to be any problem with FF3.As for your whitespace taskforce, I'm not really sure, but Wikipedia:WikiProject Wikify could probably help. Pie is good ^{(Apple is the best)} 01:53, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

How does this Harvard citation work?

Looking at Note 22 ("Ellis 2005, pp. 106–111") at Degrassi: The Next Generation, when you click on the "Ellis 2005" link you get jumped down the page and you see the correct reference highlighted in blue. How does this work? Although I am familiar with <ref>s I can not work out how the note is associated with the book.--Commander Keane (talk) 09:47, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

{{citation}} (in the references section) creates an anchor 'CITEREFEllis2005' which is linked to by {{Harvard citation no brackets}}. To make it work, you need to use both templates, and ensure the author surname and year information are the same in each. Algebraist 09:55, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

Ahh ok, thank you! A follow up question, should I stop using {{Cite journal}} (and the book, and news variations) and start using {{Citation}} or are there some advantages with staying with {{Cite journal}} and friends?--Commander Keane (talk) 10:03, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

Both methods are in use on Wikipedia. There's some discussion of the merits of each at parenthetical referencing#Pros & cons, and probably elsewhere. Algebraist 10:13, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

Does the {{Citation}} method work even if you have two sources from the smae person on the same year, eg 1997a, and 1997b?--Commander Keane (talk) 11:01, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

As I said, the templates create a link and an anchor from the author's surname (or authors' surnames) and the date. The links will work as long as the relevant template parameters match exactly. So if {{harv}} and {{citation}} both have the year set to 1997a, it will work. Algebraist 11:08, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

Unable to save page after edit

Starting a few minutes ago, I cannot save any page that I edit. I get a red warning message "Sorry! We could not process your edit due to a loss of session data. Please try again. If it still does not work, try logging out and logging back in." I have logged out and back in, and get the same result. Anyone know what's going on? Thanks. Truthanado (talk) 14:10, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

Interestingly, it let me edit and save this help page. Truthanado (talk) 14:11, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

It's working okay now. Guess the servers were on a wikibreak. Truthanado (talk) 14:13, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

I see this if I leave an edit window open for a long time. When I get this message, saving the page again usually works. --—— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk - 14:35, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

What's the cause of these messages popping up at times anyway? -- RyRy (talk) 04:45, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

Multiple reference styles

Hi. There are quite a few pages with two different tracks of footnotes due to multiple reference styles. E.g. Woodstock Festival. The ones I have noticed will have one series of citations using the "ref" tag, mixed in with a different series of citations using a pair of single brackets "[]" with a url. This results in an unsightly and confusing system, where one footnote number will yield two completely different results.

In other words, you can click footnote number 1 on the Woodstock page, and you will get a citation in the references section at the bottom of the page; you can click on a different footnote number 1, with a completely different subject matter and reference, and be forwarded to a non-Wikipedia web page.

(Although I see only one overlap on the Woodstock page, I have seen pages where there are a lot of them.)

First question: Should these be cleaned up?

Second: Is there an easier way to clean these up than going through the entire article, identifying each use of single brackets, and adding "ref" tags instead?

Third: Is there a way to prevent this systematically, perhaps by not numbering the single bracket references?

TYAI Apollo (talk) 15:18, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

Yes, this needs to be cleaned up, as this is a mix of footnotes and in-line links. The links need to be placed in between <ref>...</ref> tags so they get properly numbered. The footnotes in the Woodstock article use citation templates, so the links should be updated. --—— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk - 15:25, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

You could try adding this to your css file: #bodyContent a.external { color: #008000 }. The code is from User:Barek. The code turns all external links green, which will let you distinguish reference links from external links. Here is a link about this sort of thing Help:User_style. Silverfish (talk) 16:28, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

Poisson process article

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poisson_process gives me the error below. Shift-reloading the page does not help :-( Other pages load fine.

Our servers are currently experiencing a technical problem. This is probably temporary and should be fixed soon. Please try again in a few minutes.

You may be able to get further information in the #wikipedia channel on the Freenode IRC network.

The Wikimedia Foundation is a non-profit organisation which hosts some of the most popular sites on the Internet, including Wikipedia. It has a constant need to purchase new hardware. If you would like to help, please donate.

If you report this error to the Wikimedia System Administrators, please include the details below.

PHP fatal error in /usr/local/apache/common-local/php-1.5/includes/Skin.php line 1622: Call to a member function escapeFullURL() on a non-object

--Masatran (talk) 16:05, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

I would recommend waiting a few more minutes and then try again. Try bypassing your browser's cache also. ṜέđṃάяķvюĨїήīṣŢ ^{Drop me a line} 16:08, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

Are you able to view the article, or do you too get the error message? Please let me know. --Masatran (talk) 16:17, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

I see no error on the page. -- kainaw™ 16:59, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

Same. No error. Does the screen still show up for you? I have seen this screen before, but it goes away rather quickly. ṜέđṃάяķvюĨїήīṣŢ ^{Drop me a line} 17:19, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

English Wikipedia Internal Account Creation Interface

Hi guys! I'm trying to create an account on the English Wikipedia Internal Account Creation Interface. I entered in all of the information, clicked the second checkbox, skipped the signature box, and hit submit. I got something that looked like:

"Query failed: INSERT INTO acc_user (user_name, user_email, user_pass, user_level, user_onwikiname, user_secure, user_welcome, user_welcome_sig, user_welcome_template) VALUES ('NuclearWarfare', 'EMAIL WAS HERE BUT I REMOVED IT', 'HASH WAS HERE BUT I REMOVED IT', 'New', 'NuclearWarfare', '0', '0', , 'welcome-personal'); ERROR: Unknown column 'user_secure' in 'field list' "

Can anyone tell me what is wrong? I've read Wikipedia:Request an account/Guide over and I can't see what's wrong. Thanks for your help! NuclearWarfare ^{contact me}_{My work} 16:22, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

Might want to post at technical village post. Woody (talk) 18:07, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

Or file a bug report at : https://jira.toolserver.org/browse/ACC or contact a developers at: http://stable.toolserver.org/acc/team.php Gtstricky^{Talk or C} 18:09, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

I am looking for a job

Resolved

 – The troll has been blocked. TN‑X-Man 18:04, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

Hello I just finished school and I am looking for a job . I live in New Zealand but I can work on Wikipedia or Wikiversity. I can be a professer on Wikiversity or an admin on Wikipedia. I am looking for around $300 NZD an hour for 6 hours a day? Pleae get in touch and I will send you my CV. Many thanks. Trevor Beltsford. --WellingtonUnemployed (talk) 16:59, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia and Wikiversity are written by volunteers, not paid staff. -- kainaw™ 17:00, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

Can I get a paid role? Surely a few people must be paid, as Wikipedia and Wikiversity cannot run for free. --WellingtonUnemployed (talk) 17:02, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

They are hosted by WikiMedia. -- kainaw™ 17:05, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

Then can I work for Wikimedia? I have a secondary school qualification in English , Grade C. I need to pay for a apartment. --WellingtonUnemployed (talk) 17:08, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia is not WikiMedia. You need to go to WikiMedia and ask. Basically, this is like calling up the show Jeopardy and asking if you can get a job at CBS. I seriously doubt anyone at WikiMedia is willing to hire someone who is unable to figure that out. -- kainaw™ 17:10, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

(ec) Probably not - I don't know of any current vacancies. I suggest finding another job and editing Wikipedia for fun - that's what we do! Dendodge|Talk^Contribs 17:11, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

(whisper: I do know they have current open positions. I just wanted to see if the guy could figure out the extremely easy job of going to MediaWiki's website.) -- kainaw™ 17:14, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

What about Wikiversity? Can I go to that? What diplomas do they offer? --WellingtonUnemployed (talk) 17:18, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

Is this another Ouija-whatever again?

They don't offer diplomas, just learning materials. Dendodge|Talk^Contribs 17:22, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

But it is a University. Where can I sign up for a Diploma in Sovietology? Who will be my professor? --WellingtonUnemployed (talk) 17:23, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

It's not a university, but a repository of learning materials. Dendodge|Talk^Contribs 17:25, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

The troll has already been reported. No need to continue responding. -- kainaw™ 17:28, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

:::: Then why call it Wikiversity? Why not Wikilearningmaterialsipedia or Wikirepositoryoflearningmaterialipedia? --WellingtonUnemployed (talk) 17:30, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

Crime and rent prices in city articles

I was curious as to whether information about crime and rent prices are appropriate for Wikipedia articles about cities. A few editors in the Perth article have disagreed about the appropriateness of including such information.Black-Velvet 17:20, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

I personally think that crime would be just fine to add, I don't really know about rent however. ṜέđṃάяķvюĨїήīṣŢ ^{Drop me a line} 17:30, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

(edit conflict) I don't know if there is a Wikipedia-wide consensus about it. Your best bet may be to establish a consensus on the specific article's talk page. Has/have the crime rate/rent prices been the subject of independent coverage? If they have, I would think they could be included. Cheers! TN‑X-Man 17:31, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

You may also want to ask at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Cities, as that WikiProject has the city articles as its main focus. --- Barek (talk • contribs) - 18:02, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

(ec) Crime rates are quite appropriate, I'd think; there should be plenty of reliable sources that discuss the crime rates in most cities. Rent prices, maybe not so much unless, as noted above, they've been pointed out for specific reasons that make them stand out for some reason. Tony Fox (arf!) 18:04, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

I heard about some other collaborative editing project outside Wikipedia which accumulates crime statistics on (I think) a Google Maps mashup. (Crime tends to be a very localized phenomenon, so the overall crime rate for a whole city may be about as meaningless as the average depth of a river. You drown, or not, depending on the depth of the river where you are. Thus you'd really like crime statistics on a fine spatial resolution.) If you can't find that project by {{Google}}ing for it, I could try to remember where I saw it. (Maybe I'm recalling that Clay Shirky mentioned it in one of his lectures on YouTube, and possibly in his book Here Comes Everybody.) Since Wikipedia is not a directory this type of detailed information for its own sake might be difficult to build consensus for on Wikipedia. --Teratornis (talk) 18:14, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

FWIW, there's a complete article on Crime in Sydney, from a historical perspective. Corvus cornix_talk 18:18, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

How do you create timelines?

I want to create a timeline in a "List of (Band) band members" article, as in List of Oasis band members, List of Slipknot band members and List of Dream Theater band members, but do not know how to start it. When I copy the basic outline from these articles, it malfunctions as I change the information. Help on this, please? Andre666 (talk) 21:39, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

One emerging method is to mark up text entries with hCalendar microformats (preferably through templating). We'll then be able to create {{UF-timeline}} is a template which will link to timeline services - like {{kml}} does to mapping services, for lists of coordinates - see the instance of KML on Tame Valley Canal. Let me know if you need help with that. hCalendar is in use on Band of Brothers and here's a simple timeline (not very exciting, for regularly-spaced weekly episodes; but it proves it's possible). Andy Mabbett (aka Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy Mabbett; Andy Mabbett's contributions 22:08, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

The articles you listed make use of mw:Extension:EasyTimeline, you can also check out {{include timeline}}. Xenon54 21:49, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

Featured B&W

Hello, is there any way in the Featured Pictures section either here or on the Commons to have it only display such images that are in black and white/greyscale/other non-color variant scheme? Alternately, to only display images of a certain age? Thanks, 199.89.180.65 (talk) 22:57, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

Not that I am aware of. It is either all or nothing. Gtstricky^{Talk or C} 02:37, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

How about a new category Category:Wikipedia images by color scheme? — Twas Now ( talk • contribs • e-mail ) 05:03, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

Adding a navbox to a template

Is there any way to add a navbox to a template where the navbox will appear at the bottom of the page using the template? Or are navboxes usually added on a page-by-page basis? Louis Waweru  Talk  23:04, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

There isn't a way to make the navbox show up on the bottom of the page (that wouldn't mess everything else up), so you must add them on a page-by-page basis. Calvin 1998 ^(t-c) 23:16, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

Okay, thank you =) Louis Waweru  Talk  23:31, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

Double redirects

EEK HELP! DOUBLE REDIRECTS! I just merged five pages into asphalt (concrete, asphalt concrete, tarmac, sidewalk, and pavement (a disambig page) - concrete alone has over 500 double redirects, no way i can fix all of those, would take year,s any idea how to mass fix them?—Preceding unsigned comment added by Mrqwerty987 (talk • contribs) 23:15, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

A bot should do it some time soon. ...... Densock .. Talk^{(Dendodge on a public network)} 11:38, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

Except that nonsense has been reverted. PrimeHunter (talk) 12:11, 3 September 2008 (UTC)