Wikipedia:Help desk/Archives/2012 March 8

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March 8

Editing the title to an article.

How does one edit the title to an article/page.

Specifically, the pages title "University of Texas at El Paso" and "University of Texas at San Antonio" should be titled "The University of Texas at El Paso" and "The University of Texas at San Antonio" as those are the correct full names of the two schools. Such correcting would bring the names consistent with the titles to the pages for the other campuses of The University of Texas, including "The University of Texas at Austin", "The University of Texas at Arlington", and "The University of Texas at Tyler".

Varscona72 (talk) 03:15, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

This is discussed at Wikipedia:Moving a page. 86.177.108.83 (talk) 03:19, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

Yes, I looked in the FAQ after sending the question, and saw the heading for the topic. I apologize for having asked the question before checking the FAQ. The instructions under the heading were easy to understand, and I have been able to make the necessary corrections to the headings of the articles that concerned me. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Varscona72 (talk • contribs) 03:41, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Naming conventions (definite and indefinite articles at beginning of name)#Universities. Google searches like "University of Texas at El Paso" -"The University of Texas at El Paso" site:utep.edu indicate it is common to omit "The" at the university so your moves sound controversial and should probably have been taken to Wikipedia:Requested moves. PrimeHunter (talk) 03:49, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

All of those page moves should be undone so that they can be discussed on the relevant talk pages.--ukexpat (talk) 14:26, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

• Having titles with "The" is okay like with "The Beatles": In the articles for those universities, I think the move-renames were acceptable (even though not pre-approved). Each university's official use of capital "The" is similar to rock bands "The Beatles" or "The Doors" (Jim Morrison), where phrases could state a "Beatles fan" or "owning a Beatles album" but the article title includes extra word "The" as "The Beatles". I doubt there will be much objection about those move-renames. -Wikid77 (talk) 05:54, 11 March 2012 (UTC)

Help creating template

Hi, is there somewhere I can go to ask for someone to create a template for me? This is so that the same chunk of text can be reused across two articles. The text is already written and can be copied and pasted. There is no programming logic required. Thanks, 86.177.108.83 (talk) 03:16, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Requested templates. Dru of Id (talk) 03:27, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

Thanks. I guess I should have thought of that! 86.177.108.83 (talk) 03:28, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

Alpha Phi

On the Alpha Phi page it gives away a secret motto, it needs to be deleted — Preceding unsigned comment added by 96.241.60.21 (talk) 04:03, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

You'll need to get consensus for that on the article's talk-page. I would say the chance of that happening is approximately zero based on reading the numerous times that same request has been rejected there. DMacks (talk) 04:51, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

I would just point out that it hasn't been a secret, if indeed it ever was, ever since it was published in the given source in 2004.--Shantavira|^{feed me} 11:20, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

A source that provides ample evidence that these sorts of things really aren't the ultra-exclusive "secrets" some members would have us believe. DMacks (talk) 15:14, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

Wallyball

In the description of the sport of wallyball and how it was created the facts regarding the inventors/creators are completely inaccurate. Bill Dejohge and Mark Decker are not the inventors/creators of the sport and do not have any factual documentation to prove such. Wallyball's inventor/creator was Joe Garcia and the web site uswallyball.co provides factual documentation, photos and timeline of the sports origins. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.94.65.233 (talk) 04:12, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

Discussion about the content of an article, and the cited sources which support the content, should take place in the article's talk page Petershank (talk) 06:45, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

Image problem

There's a random bit of image tag code showing up in the article I'm writing and while I've hunted around for the source, I can't find it anywhere, so I can't remove it. The image tag code that is visible on the 'read' page of my article isand it appears in the info box, *above* the photo file (which I inserted like this:into the Infobox scientist of my article. Ideas for how to remove that random snippet of code? Thanks Debrou (talk) 04:35, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

If you're talking about this article, I fixed it for you (and fixed another small item as well.--Bbb23 (talk) 04:46, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

Thanks!! Debrou (talk) 17:54, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

On Luther's Bible page - link missing

I am just learning, so am not an expert, but this quote is a very serious thing to be in error and the link provided was no good:

He called the Epistle of James "an epistle of straw," finding little in it that pointed to Christ and His saving work. He also had harsh words for the book of Revelation, saying that he could "in no way detect that the Holy Spirit produced it."[11]

http://www.wels.net/sab/qa/luther-03.html

I would like to know if the quote is actually true. Thank you. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 174.29.116.250 (talk) 05:10, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

Luther Bible (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

I have updated the Wikipedia page to point to an archive copy of the original web page, so you should now be able to read the reference. -- John of Reading (talk) 08:02, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

Is this blatant advertising?

Green Ronin Publishing seem to be using their Wikipedia page mainly to list their entire product range (including phrases like "coming soon"). Not sure whether this requires any action. Simply delete the list and leave a warning?--Shantavira|^{feed me} 09:21, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

Yes it is - and given that the article is entirely promotional and has only ever been sourced to their website, I'm inclined to argue for its total deletion, hence I've tagged it for G11 speedy. Yunshui 雲‍水 09:25, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

Removed the list, and declined the speedy tag. Not blatant promo. CharlieEchoTango (contact) 09:26, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

Help please with subtitling

Help please! I tried to edit the article Breakfast by putting in a little on the "continental breakfast" and I tried to add some external links (see the talk page to this article to find the background to this). However, when I did this, I rather upset the sub-titling. We now have sub-title 3 "Europe" and sub-title 4 "Continental breakfast". As the continental breakfast would be a traditional breakfast in Europe, it would be better if I had made this a sub-sub-heading under "Europe", and made this sub-heading 3.3 - then Sub-heading 4 would be Latin America. Can you please remind me how you get what I call "sub-sub headings", such as 3.1, 3.2 and 3.3? Many thanks for your help, ACEOREVIVED (talk) 09:59, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

Fixed it for you. To change the depth of a header, you add or subtract from the number of = signs, thus: ==Level 2 header==, ===Level 3 header===, ====Level 4 header====. You should also review the guidelines on referencing, particularly what constitutes a reliable reference and how to cite references correctly. Yunshui 雲‍水 10:15, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

Many thanks for doing this - it is much appreciated. Again, thank you for your help, ACEOREVIVED (talk) 11:20, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

I just had a practice at Wikipedia: Sandbox and what you told me about putting in different number of equal signs is now working very well. Thank you for your help again, ACEOREVIVED (talk) 11:27, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

Handling an extremely doubtful article?

I stumbled upon the article Jules_Jammal some time ago. The article references a few sources of extremely doubtful quality, and includes some outlandish claims. I am not sure if it is all a hoax, or if it is part of some kind of strange propaganda campaign. I can't find any way to back up the claims in secondary sources: The battleship he is supposed to have sunk in a suicide attack never existed, I can't find any relevant information about the schools supposedly named after him or of the decorations he is supposed to have received. I tried to propose it for deletion, but it seems some of the editors wishes to keep the article. What's the correct next step? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Pehrs (talk • contribs) 10:35, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

French ship Jeanne d'Arc and ships listed in the articles in Category:Lists of ships of France, would suggest Pehrs is on to something. The sinking of a large battleship and loss of over 2,000 lives would be notable enough to be easy to find reliable sources for this. Meanwhile, I have flagged this issue on the article and on the talk page. Astronaut (talk) 12:42, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

(e/c) I've searched and agree though what exactly is going on here is fascinating. There are enough disparate sources presented in the article to at least back up that this is not a hoax by the article creator, but that there does appear to be a Syrian story about this person and his actions, though it's apparently apocryphal. The difficult part is that to call the veracity into question, you can only rely on negative evidence, but the negative evidence is pretty powerful in my view. A battleship by the name of Jeaane d'Arc did exist. We have a sourced article on it, French ironclad Jeanne d'Arc (see also here), but the sourced detail therein states that "She was condemned on 28 August 1883 and nothing further is known of her fate." That it was fully-manned and at the Suez Canal 73 years later and was sunk with 2,143 crew members aboard by a suicide attack and no information on this exists in boatloads of reliable sources is hard to imagine. I think your route is to take this to articles for deletion.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 13:18, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

I proposed the article for deletion. If Jules jammal is noteworthy for something it was certainly not for sinking a french battleship during the Suez crisis. Thanks for the advise! P.S. (talk) 15:46, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

Adding an external website link

Hello I wish to add my website www.theyflysohigh.co.uk to the West Ham United page in Wiki - My website is dedicated to recording the history of the club through memorabilia, player photographs, autographs, in fact anything and everything associated with West Ham United Football Club Theyflysohigh (talk) 10:48, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

That appears to be a fan site - links to fan sites are strongly discouraged per the guidance at WP:ELNO.--ukexpat (talk) 14:33, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

USS Thresher submarine disaster in 1963

It is said the USS Thresher submarine imploded while on deep sea tests. I have it on good athority (to coin a phrase) that the USS Threher collided with a Soviet submarine. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.115.81.52 (talk) 11:44, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

If your good authority is a published reliable source, feel free to work it into the article. Unpublished assertions, though, carry little weight here. Yunshui 雲‍水 11:49, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

Information lacking

I am brand new to Wikipedia and have very limited knowledge of HTML. There is a page of candidates for the United States Senate that does not have our candidate, John Boruff, who has long been registered with the FEC, listed as running in California on the Republican ticket against Dianne Feinstein. How can we correct that?

Mel Calvert Director of Communications/Media John Boruff Campaign Mel.calvert (talk) 13:13, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

Hi Mel! One of the good things about editing Wikipedia is that you don't have to know how to code HTML to edit. But when it comes to adding info about a living person, especially a candidate for political office, then unfortunately a whole lot of Wikipedia policy acronyms come into play. They are not there to deliberately annoy you, but it may well have that effect... --Shirt58 (talk) 13:29, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

United States Senate election in California, 2012 lists him first, alphabetically, of the Republican party declared candidates (and referenced), with his campaign site at External links. I will add the reference and candidacy at United States Senate elections, 2012#Dianne Feinstein of California. Dru of Id (talk) 13:32, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

advice needed about reference errors in citatons

How do I correct reference errors in citations?

I have been adding new passages to an already existing file. I am stumped because "Cite error: Invalid <ref> tag; invalid names, e. g. too many" popped up. I have two questions.

!)I am not sure which portion of the passage this error message refers to in the first place. Does the message refer to the portion following the message?

2)In so far as I am concerned, I am correct in the way I created the ref.

Should I give the specific portion? Otherwise, no body would be able to say anything. Please give me your advice about this as well. Thank you. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Karinogawa (talk • contribs) 13:19, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

Which article? Which edit? - David Biddulph (talk) 13:27, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

Looking up the error message on Help:Cite_errors refers to Help:Cite errors/Cite error ref too many keys. It probably means you've missed out the quotes around parameter values in your <ref> tag, or included parameters other than "group" and "name" in the tag, or made a similar formatting error. Try looking at that? --Colapeninsula (talk) 13:40, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

T. S. Eliot was fixed by changing <ref name=early youth> to <ref name=earlyyouth>. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 13:47, 8 March 2012 (UTC)page, the

Why is info I submitted being deleted

I have tried to edit the page called "List of Foprmer TV Channels in the United Kingdom" with additional information not currently on the page.

However, it has been deleted twice now even though the information I provided was correct.

So how can I contribute without it being deleted. There is very li8ttle point of contributing if people are going to constantly remove information which the other user may not think is correct. By doing this they make the page subjective rather than objective and there is therefore absolutely no point in bothering to contribute if the information continues to be removed.

Please can you explain why the information I added was not considered to be correct or for some reason did not want it to be made known. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jimbo2012a (talk • contribs) 13:39, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

Well, depends.

1. It could be that the page already exists, but in a different way.
2. It could be that the article was of no use. (for example, the article Lizards, then some one makes the article: Lizard Habitats. That would already be explained in the Lizards article.

I also noticed that there is an article called "List of former TV channels in the United Kingdom". Could this be your article? If not, that this explains why your article is being deleted. There is already an identical article! :P Hope this helps. Ruler of Coasters  Talk  13:46, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

It looks as if none of your nine edits included any reference, on a page with 171 of them. Additionally, you are not the only editor there not using edit summaries, nor have you dicussed this at the article's talk page. Dru of Id (talk) 13:52, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

... added to which, a number of your attempted edits have broken the formatting of the table. Wiki tables need care, so before you save a change, check it with the "Show preview" button to make sure that you haven't broken the table before you save it. - David Biddulph (talk) 13:59, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

I still have problems with Wiki tables. Thats why I don't mess with them. :P Ruler of Coasters  Talk  14:01, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

I think the previous commenters have failed to notice what actually happened.

Looking at the article's talk page, there seems to be some dispute as to whether the article should list channels that have changed their name, rather than closed down. You listed a bunch of channels which still exist under different names, and User:Jasmeet 181 seems to have removed your changes because he/she doesn't think they should be included, but unfortunately he/she didn't explain his/her actions, which is rather rude and unhelpful. So that's why the content was removed: in the interpretation of one person, it did not belong there (because the channels you posted are not former channels, because they still exist under different names).

You could discuss this on the talk page and attempt to establish a consensus to include renamed channels. As an alternative, you could either create a separate section on the page for channels that changed their name (this has already been discussed on the article talk page, and there is some support for this) or you could consider creating a separate page on channels that have changed their names. --Colapeninsula (talk) 14:04, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

I notice you've already tried to communicate with Jasmeet 181. That's a good way to proceed. Hopefully you can resolve this yourselves. --Colapeninsula (talk) 14:09, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

Is it possible to request for this to be reviewed soon please?

I would like to request that 'Articles for creation/David Domoney' is reviewed soon please. I would like to get the article live soon. Do you know when this might be? Thanks. Bobby987 (talk) 14:18, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

Well, you can create an article immediately if you are an auto confirmed user, I believe. All you have to do is search it, and it will ask if you would like to create an article called what ever you typed in. Now, if you don't want that, and you want it to be reviewed, I have no idea. Ruler of Coasters  Talk  14:25, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

If you look at the top of your article, you will see: "This submission is waiting to be reviewed. This might take several days. There are currently 475 submissions waiting for review at this page." Maproom (talk) 14:31, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

Thank you. I saw that at the top of the page but the submissions seem to keep increasing and not many are being reviewed and I was just wondering if I was able to help out at all. Can't work out how to run the script available to download for reviewing articles. Bobby987 (talk) 14:42, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

Please, add citations for the biographical information (Early carrier and Personal life sections). Ruslik_Zero 17:43, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

For Info, we get about 200 submissions every day, and we review about the same number every day too, so we are reviewing them, but that's why it states it may take a couple of days sometimes to review an article.- Happysailor ^(Talk) 21:33, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

I've added citations - thanks for pointing that out for me. Hadn't realised you got so many submissions - thank you for letting me know - hopefully won't be too much longer then. Bobby987 (talk) 12:44, 9 March 2012 (UTC)

Is there any way of printing the whole of a page with links e.g. List of British monarchs?

Is there any way of printing the whole of a page with links e.g. List of British monarchs? When I try using the print button I just get the header down to Main article: House of Stuart, when I was expecting WYSIWYG. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.104.73.242 (talk) 14:56, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

You could try "export as PDF" from the left hand side menu. This gives you some options about what you want in your printed version. The Interior (Talk) 16:02, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

Ah! thanks. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.104.73.242 (talk) 16:23, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

Writing an article

What is the process for submitting an article, please? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Keithdghowell (talk • contribs) 15:05, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

The easiest way is to use the Article Wizard. Yunshui 雲‍水 15:09, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

(edit conflict) I've put some links on your talk page, including Wikipedia:Your first article . - David Biddulph (talk) 15:10, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

Mobile site

Please add a random article link to the moble page. Thank you. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.184.19.233 (talk) 15:48, 8 March 2012 (UTC) Why? Ruler of Coasters  Talk  17:43, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

Try this: http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random --Hallows AG (talk) 19:30, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

"Dual posting" reverse?

Hello, Was editing Terraria http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Terraria&action=history And forgot to login, so I closed my browser and posted it again, Yes, i forgot to check if it was posted. Is there a way to reverse my first post? This is not actually about the minus rating i got, but it would be nice to not lose all the rating when you try to spend time improving articles with false facts!

Thank you in advance!

Oscar — Preceding unsigned comment added by OscarAkesson (talk • contribs) 17:30, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

You can go to "History" then you can undo edits. Ruler of Coasters  Talk  17:45, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

(ec)What "rating" are you talking about? I'm not aware of any editor rating system on WP. There is an article rating system but it is not connected to editors. Roger (talk) 17:49, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

If you are talking about the (-1) which occurs against your recent edit in the article history, that is merely saying that you reduced the size of the article by 1 byte in your edit. It isn't a rating. - David Biddulph (talk) 17:53, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

Thank you for your quick reply David. That helped out a lot! Thank you once again. I understood something wrong when reading the article rating system. — Preceding unsigned comment added by OscarAkesson (talk • contribs) 18:14, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

"Community Pages" from Wikipedia on Facebook

Hello!

I work at Lake Superior College in Duluth, MN (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Superior_College) and on our "Facebook Community Page" (https://www.facebook.com/pages/Lake-Superior-College/109724235720282?sk=info) it has a photo of a building that's located in what appears to be the Middle East...instead of the main photo we use on our Wikipedia page. I know the info from the Lake Superior College Facebook Community page is pulled from Wikipedia...and we'd like to display the correct photo - Ie., the one on our Wikipedia page.

Question: Is this a Facebook issue...or a coding thing? Anyway, if anyone can help, that would be awesome. Thanks!

Gilderman33 (talk) 18:48, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

It's a Facebook thing, not a Wikipedia problem. - David Biddulph (talk) 18:53, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

Facebook community pages may incorporate content from Wikipedia— such use complies with Wikipedia policies on reuse of content. We at Wikipedia have no control over how the content is included nor can we help to remove it. Facebook does have a topic on Community pages and profile connections on their Help Center. PrimeHunter (talk) 18:57, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

I don't think this is the right place to bring this up, anyway. Ruler of Coasters  Talk  19:24, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

Who produces the rules by which Wikipedia works ?

Hi ! I haven't found any information on who decides how Wikipedia works. Where should I look please ? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.140.116.44 (talk) 21:23, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Consensus. - David Biddulph (talk) 21:27, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

move from User space to Template space (doc) needs repair?

When I visit Template:Sfhof, the documentation displays unintended content of my User space --namely, content of User:P64/FSF/Sandbox, where I composed the template documentation five months ago.

When I visit Template:Sfhof/doc in edit mode, that unintended content is not in the code.

Unfortunately I don't recall my October steps. Evidently I composed the documentation in User space and created the documentation in Template space by moving the entire User page there (view history at User:P64/FSF/Sandbox). Apparently I cut the unintended part of the page after the move, and pasted it back in User space, overwriting the redirect that was automatically created by the move.

Explanation of my mistake will be appreciated and it may be valuable to other editors. I suppose that somewhere this work needs repair, too. --P64 (talk) 21:30, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

In your Template:Sfhof/doc you've got a line that says:

{{User:P64/FSF/Sandbox |id=1483 |name=Nine Princes in Amber}}

Isn't that transcluding your sandbox content into your template documentation? - David Biddulph (talk) 21:44, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

Username

Hi, I have username Blaze3000, although i haven't logged in for years. I have edited pages in the past, and found my username cited as a contributor. For example, on Prospect(magazine) article for 28 Apr 2008. However, when i go to the 'forgot password' option at the login it doesn't recognise the username, nor does it do so if i click on links to the username. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.178.180.65 (talk) 22:12, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

I'm sorry, but your password cannot be reset since you did not associate an email address with it. Feel free to create another account (noting that "Blaze3000" is your older account), and you could even usurp the username back if you wanted it. Good luck! Reaper Eternal (talk) 22:18, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

Thanks very much! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.178.180.65 (talk) 22:46, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

The appearance of User:Blaze3000 actually indicates the username is recognized but doesn't have a user page. It's optional for users to make a user page. A non existing user like User:Aaqwawiurhso says the user account is not registered. But without a password or stored email address it doesn't help you. PrimeHunter (talk) 00:25, 9 March 2012 (UTC)

It looks like you remembered your password, for Special:Contributions/Blaze3000 has a contribution today. —teb728 t c 10:10, 9 March 2012 (UTC)