Wikipedia:Help desk/Archives/2009 September 23

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September 23

Better diff

Resolved

I'm really frustrated with the current way our diff is implemented. Is there any way to see what was changed here without copying this to an external file and using a file comparison tool? Usually I just let such edits pass, but the editor in question is a repeated vandal, so I want to be cautious. — Sebastian 00:30, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

It looks like a null edit to me. There was a single bit change between the two diffs; my guess is he removed a space or something like that. How is that vandalism? --Jayron32 00:48, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

Who said it was vandalism? — Sebastian 02:28, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

I use a tool (it might be Twinkle, I have so many tools enabled I'm not sure), wherein the diff screen has a button with the symbol "delta" (Δ), which, when clicked, will highlight changes. This tool tells me only a space was added. You might want to check it out. Intelligentsium 01:59, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

Not Twinkle, but wikEdDiff. ∙ AJCham^(talk) 02:08, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

thanks for checking this and for the link to the tool! — Sebastian 02:28, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

Need semi-protection ASAP on Law of the United States

Resolved

 – We are adjourned sine die. – ukexpat (talk) 14:23, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

Banned user User:Zephram Stark (a wacko who was banned for a history of offensive and racist remarks) is trying to start an edit war on the article and has been urging all his crazy friends on MySpace to join in. See details in my post at Wikipedia:Village pump (miscellaneous) as well as at Talk:Law of the United States. To any available admin, please impose semi-protection. Thanks. --Coolcaesar (talk) 01:57, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

Semi-protected for two weeks. This will not stop autoconfirmed users of course. If this intensifies, you can seek a change to full protection over at WP:RFPP. You may also wish to make a report at WP:ANI regarding all involved (don't forget to provide clear diffs, links, etc.) and a sockpuppet investigation may be warranted. My strong advice to you is to drop all characterization of the users involved ("crazy", "kooky" and so on). This cannot help you and can only help invalidate your posts. Let the facts, past arbitration case(s), checkuser results, blog posts, etc. speak for themselves; factum ipsa loquitur if you will.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 02:26, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

<latin>Um, res can do just as well for this one. Or, if you really want to use factum, which means deed, it's ipsum, not ipsa. </latin> :) Tim Song (talk) 03:04, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

You're going classic Latin on my bastardized legal Latin ass? At law, we use the doctrine of res ipsa loquitur commonly to mean the thing speaks for itself. The classic context is elevator cases where it fails to level, so a person walks out over open air or getting hit from behind in a car. Such examples apply typically to one thing rather than a series of deeds, so res doesn't quite work which is why I substituted factum (used for things like fraud in the factum, as opposed to fraud in the inducement). So its ipsum, huh? Fine, I hereby move to amend my post nunc pro tunc to include ipsum in place of ipsa:-)--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 03:41, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

Motion granted. Tim Song (talk) 04:16, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

Seemingly logged out on main page

This has been bugging me for a long time. On a fairly regular basis, the main page on EN will display as if I'm not logged in. After clicking any link I start showing as logged in again. That is, I really am logged in all the while, it just doesn't appear that way on the main page. Why is this and does it happen to anyone else? And, um, is there a fix out there :)? I'm currently using the most recent FF, but it's been an ongoing thing for months; I'm just bitching now because it's done it three times today ;-). Matt Deres (talk) 02:22, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

I don't know this is the cause, but it's possible the unlogged in version has been cached by your computer. Thus, I suggest seeing if clearing your computer's cache memory solves the issue. Cheers.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 02:31, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

I had this a week or so ago it is rather annoying, nothing thst clearing the cache and restarting the browser couldn't fix though. Jeffrey Mall (talk • contribs) - 03:38, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

Happens to me at work quite often. We're forced to use IE6 and we're not allowed access to clear the cache. Dismas|^(talk) 17:54, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

Well, I know that clearing the cache is a kind of magic bullet around WP, but it doesn't make sense to me. If I'm logged in fine at 3:02, then come back a few minutes later at 3:08 and find that I'm supposedly logged off according to the main page, how is that the fault of the cache? If anything, if I was seeing an old version of the page, shouldn't it show me as still being logged in even though I'd happeneed to time out between visits? Also, I use a hand-made start-up page on my PC; if I click the link to WP, it takes me to the main page, where I may or may not appear to be logged in. On the other hand, I often go directly to the RefDesk, where I've never yet had this issue. I thought maybe the main page was on a special, separate, server or something and the log-offs might be the result of slow data transfer. I dunno; it just bugs me. Matt Deres (talk) 21:40, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

Rattle

Resolved

 –  – ukexpat (talk) 14:36, 25 September 2009 (UTC)

Can you look at my edit to the above Dab page and tell me if my edit was an improvement or not? I am completely confused with the MOS the that type of page. Thank you.Kocs (talk) 03:37, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

Looks fine to me. --Jayron32 03:44, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

It was indeed an improvement. You traveled down the right path in identifying the red link as not proper on a dab page. That having been said, there were a few issues. You didn't capitalize the word, left off the comma, piped the link (links on dab pages should not be piped), and made the football implement uppercase but I don't think it's a proper noun. In any event, the football implement is a separate device which is described in the article on ratchet as similar, so I think the blue linked entry for that article's listing on the dab page should describe the subject of the article, rather than the separate football device the article red links and identifies as different. I have changed the entry accordingly. Cheers.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 04:20, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

Search past revisions for words

I know there's a tool to allow searching for particular words in past revisions of an article. I'm tired and can't think of it. I know that the word 'midline' belongs in and _was_ in the article Nipple but dropping into random past revisions isn't doing it for me. (It belongs near the word 'bilaterally'). Articles erode! Shenme (talk) 06:00, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

You're probably looking for WikiBlame. Graham87 06:15, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

Formatting of template:quotebox2

Resolved

 –  – ukexpat (talk) 14:18, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

Hi, I've added an Are You Ready box [1] to the Intro page of the Article Wizard. I'd like to shunt it off to the right-hand side, but when I make it right-aligned it mucks up the button formatting (the buttons on the left). Can anyone make that happen? Rd232 ^talk 19:36, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

I crafted quote box2 so that text flows around it. Add {{clear}} after it to force the following content down. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 09:31, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

But I don't want the content below the box - I want it next to it! Rd232 ^talk 09:39, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

The problem, presumably, is that the flowing of the quote box template interacts badly with the templates forming the buttons on that page. Rd232 ^talk 09:41, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

Ah. You can put two boxes side by side by setting one to right and one to left. I think you are going to have to reformat the button text for best results. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 11:26, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

Well I can't seem to make it happen [2]. Can you do it? Rd232 ^talk 12:16, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

Done. Tweak as needed. Left aligned has a 1em right margin and right aligned has a 1em left margin, so the total of the box widths should be ~96%. No one has asked for margin control, but it could be added if needed. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 13:11, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

Brilliant, thanks. I've tweaked as needed. :) Rd232 ^talk 13:59, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

Suppressing line break around square brackets in altered quotation.

Resolved

 – Peter cohen (talk) 19:44, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

Over at Cressida I have a slight problem in that the fifth paragraph is displayed with the line break between "remov" and "[ing]". I want to keep the two together, or at least have a hyphen inserted at the break. How do I tell the formatter to treat "remov[ing]" as one word? This is a general problem that would apply to keeping text together whenever someone wants to re-conjugate a verb in an otherwise verbatim quotation, so I assume there must be a solution somewhere.--Peter cohen (talk) 10:32, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

Using Firefox, the word doesn't split as I resize the browser. Not that that answers your question, but I can't reproduce the problem. Bencherlite^Talk 10:54, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

I don't see the problem, but {{nowrap}} should help. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 11:29, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

It most certainly does. Thanks.--Peter cohen (talk) 19:44, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

Train wreck

Resolved

I was looking at Train wreck and noticed that the article is about train crashes but other stuff is mentioned. Would the "other uses" template or a link to a disambiguation page be appropriate for the other information available separately?Cptnono (talk) 10:55, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

I see there's also a band and an album named Trainwreck, so I suppose a disambiguation page could be created for the term. In which case it would be appropriate for the article to have a hatnote linking to the DAB page. Regards, decltype (talk) 12:24, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

Thanks!Cptnono (talk) 12:25, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

Forgot password and changed email

Resolved

Hey, I created an account for my bot (YATBot) about a month ago with a certain email. I no longer have that email, so therefore I can't reset the password. Is there anything I can do about this? Thanks for your help. AHRtbA== ^Talk 12:27, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

If you can't access the email, you can't reset the password. I'm afraid there's nothing to be done but trying to remember the password. ≈ Chamal ^talk ¤ 12:31, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

(edit conflict)Since the account has no edits, you could create a new account with a different name, and usurp the old username. Regards, decltype (talk) 12:32, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

Ok. Would the bot flag follow over? Thanks. AHRtbA== ^Talk 12:34, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

Hmm...it's a very special case. It would be a bit silly if you would have to re-request the flag if the bot is the same. I'd ask a BAG member or crat about it. Regards, decltype (talk) 12:39, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

Thanks all. AHRtbA== ^Talk 12:40, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

How to search for articles that share two different categories?

Resolved

Is there a way to see all articles listed in both "Category:A" and "Category:B"? 90.219.50.157 (talk) 12:50, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

CatScan ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 12:56, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. 90.219.50.157 (talk) 14:04, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

I'm confused about something with your article deletion policy

Resolved

Hello, I've got a question: An article about a company I know, viddler, is not showing up. After reading a bit I found that your administrators deleted the article for (G11: Unambiguous advertising or promotion) by a tedder. what's confusing is on this page (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_video_hosting_websites) of companies like viddler, viddler is the only one that had their page deleted. I'm not sure, but I would have to assume that if one is deleted they all should be deleted.

I can't say whether or not the page had "umambiguous advertising or promotion", because I never read the article. But will say that this page (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vimeo), specifically promotes on that company's products. Are there different rules for different people? (sorry for sarcasm, but I just don't understand why one would be deleted and others are not)

I'm not sure if this is the correct way to bring this up, but if it's not, please point in the correct direction to whom I can speak. I understand that this is your site and you have the ultimate say in who appears on your site and who doesn't, but I thought this was supposed to be an open encyclopedia of information gathered by the people for the people. So, my only question is, how does one company get deleted when other companies in the same field don't.

Thanks for your time and I really am looking forward to your response.

Thanks, 1 confused person —Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.9.12.98 (talk • contribs) 12:57, 23 September 2009

Wikipedia tries to cover a subject from a neutral point of view. In order to have an article on a subject, it meet the general inclusion criteria by demonstrating significant coverage of a subject in reliable independent sources. If you need help, feel free to submit the article to Article for creation where some of the quirks can be worked out before putting it up. Hope this helps! --Kraftlos (Talk | Contrib) 13:02, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

It's hard to tell without seeing the article - was it copied off your website? was it written like an advert? Both of those would have caused it to be deleted. It could well be that some of the other articles on that list need to be deleted as well. --Cameron Scott (talk) 13:03, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

Having looked at the article, it was clearly not written from a completely neutral point of view, however I disagree that it was "unambiguous advertising" as described in criterion G11 for speedy deletion. I suggest you ask User:Tedder to restore the article, in which case it should be rewritten a bit to adhere to a more NPOV. If he refuses to do this, you can contest the deletion at deletion review. Regards, decltype (talk) 13:07, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

Hey Thanks for the response. I will take your advice and speak with Tedder. How do I contact this person? I don't see a way to contact him via user page. FYI-I did not write the article, I just noticed it was deleted, but all the other companies in that field were not. I thought that was weird. ;) Thanks again.

I see that you found his talk page, so I'm setting this to resolved. Regards, decltype (talk) 13:33, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

Xbox CD

Resolved

 – 1Referred to Ref Desk.  – ukexpat (talk) 14:36, 25 September 2009 (UTC)

how do i creat a xbox cd/dvd.

Have you tried the Computing 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. TNXMan 13:46, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

How do I solicit broader input on a policy question?

Resolved

 –  – ukexpat (talk) 15:31, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

Category:Anti-gay propaganda was created recently, and questions arose on the article Homosexual agenda about that category, first as to whether the article should have that classification and then as to whether the category itself should exist. Discussion can be found at Category talk:Anti-gay propaganda.

I would like to get feedback from more experienced editors, but I am unsure how to bring this to general attention. How does the question "Is this category appropriate and should it exist?" get resolved? TechBear (talk) 15:05, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

WP:Categories for discussion maybe? – ukexpat (talk) 15:12, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

That is exactly what I was looking for, thanks. TechBear (talk) 15:18, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

No problem, resolved. – ukexpat (talk) 15:31, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

How do I check out whether I have had any interactions with another user

Resolved

Hi. Someone did tell me how I check whether another user and I have ever edited the same pages. But I can't remember how now. Would be grateful for the reminder, thank you. Itsmejudith (talk) 16:19, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

This tool will tell you any pages that both you and the other user have edited, but it won't tell you how close together chronologically those edits were. It's a starting point, but it'll still take some work to find out where you've had previous interactions. There may well be a better way, but this is the only one I know of. -- Vary | (Talk) 16:32, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

Could be good, but it wasn't the one I used before. That one was within English Wikipedia - perhaps it had something to do with User Contributions. Thanks Vary but if anyone else has a lead I'd be grateful. Itsmejudith (talk) 21:19, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

Ah. Was it this one? -- Vary | (Talk) 22:52, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

Oh, I see I misread your second comment, so I'm guessing it probably isn't what you were looking for. Sorry -- Vary | (Talk) 00:01, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

Not at all, this tool did exactly what I needed, even though it still wasn't what I used before. Very grateful for your help. Itsmejudith (talk) 22:17, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

Why can't I see the change?

Resolved

 – Jan1nad (talk) 20:12, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

Another user has made this change on Wikipedia:Village pump (policy), but I can't see it on the page itself, even if I refresh my browser (which has always worked in the past). I have not come across this phenomenon before. Help! Jan1nad (talk) 20:07, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

Have you tried purging? It's different than just refreshing, and usually fixes these problems. Xenon54 / talk / 20:09, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

DNA Structure

Hi, I'm extremely interested in the field of Cancer Research; I was wondering if anyone out there is a specialist in the structural form of DNA. If so, please leave your e-mail below, for I have a word document with a DNA Model I have drawn which I would like to have looked over and checked. Please Help!

Thanks, 74.184.100.154 (talk) 23:25, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

Hello. I suspect, based on your question, that you found one of our roughly three million articles, and thought that we were directly affiliated in some way with that subject. Please note that you are at Wikipedia, the free online encyclopedia that anyone can edit, and this page is a help desk for asking questions related to using the encyclopedia. Thus, we have no inside track on the subject of your question. You can, however, search our vast catalogue of articles by typing a subject into the search field on the left hand side of your screen. If you cannot find what you are looking for, we have a reference desk, divided into various subject areas, where asking knowledge questions is welcome. Best of luck. Intelligentsium 23:40, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

Okay, I guess I'm looking for the reference desk; there aren't any articles that show the structure of DNA. Thanks, 74.184.100.154 (talk) 23:46, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

If you want to compare your document to those already available type in "dna" in the search field and read the article which has too many images. You can also do a google image search like the rest of us or checkout the Wikipedia Commons link at the bottom of the DNA article.Cptnono (talk) 10:58, 24 September 2009 (UTC)