Wikipedia:Help desk/Archives/2013 December 31

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December 31[edit]

Why does "File:Michigan state police.gif" (link to AR-15) appear at the top of Courtesy name?[edit]

Why does "File:Michigan state police.gif" (link to AR-15) appear at the top of Courtesy name? I can't tell which template has been compromised, if any

Thanks WhisperToMe (talk) 00:48, 31 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

"Related changes" in the Tools menu shows it was Template:Infobox Chinese/Korean. It was reverted long ago but the article had to be purged. PrimeHunter (talk) 00:57, 31 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you WhisperToMe (talk) 01:07, 31 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Does purging clear all caches or only some?[edit]

As noted above, Template:Infobox Chinese/Korean was vandalized with "File:Michigan state police.gif".

I have gone through and purged the following articles that showed the vandalized template:

Art name
Far East
Guanyin
Li Bai
Mahjong
Yellow Sea
Korean People's Army
Sun Myung Moon
Yalu River
Soju
Hapkido
Tael
Temple name
Han River (Korea)
Posthumous name
Jiangshi

They currently look OK to me, but I have always wondered if purging clears the caches for all users, or if purging only clears some of the caches.

I know that purging does not always work with images in Commons; I am curious whether the same situation holds with English Wikipedia articles.

Over the next few hours, could various people check the above articles and let me know if they still see the vandalized template?

Thanks! Stigmatella aurantiaca (talk) 01:28, 31 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I checked several and i didnt see anything unusual, but then again I hadnt been to the pages prior either.
Note that there has been a spree of vandalism to templates and the community is having a discussion about what if anything could/should be done: Wikipedia:VPP#Template_Vandalism.-- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 01:45, 31 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Anonymous editors see a different cached version than logged in editors do, so to be complete, you have to purge things while logged in and while logged out.—Kww(talk) 01:48, 31 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for the tip! I checked over my list while logged out, and they all look OK. Stigmatella aurantiaca (talk) 02:00, 31 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I know there are cases where IP's have seen an old version and logged in users the current version, but do you know or just guess that it's a factor whether a purging user was logged in or not? I haven't heard that before and the purge url's are the same. PrimeHunter (talk) 02:06, 31 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I know that there is a cache that only presents data to logged-out users. Exactly when and why it is selected is unknown to me, but I know that it can only be purged by a logged-out user performing the purge.—Kww(talk) 03:31, 31 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]
The last part doesn't match my experience and isn't mentioned in the help pages I have seen like Wikipedia:Purge and mw:Manual:Purge. It sometimes seems unpredictable who gets an old version and I will believe cases where it happened like that to you, but do you have a reference for "only"? PrimeHunter (talk) 04:04, 31 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Found the same problem on Eysteinn Erlendsson due to {{ill2}} vandalism - fixed --Michael Goodyear (talk) 15:37, 1 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

A template purge bot or manual purge assistant might be handy[edit]

Is there a project page where 'bot and/or tools authors get together to exchange ideas? I was thinking that a nice 'bot and/or manual tool to have would be one that can seek out all pages that transclude a recently modified template and apply a purge to those pages.

A manual tool would probably put less load on the servers, since I can easily imagine templates being edited in stages.

I was originally considering submitting a feature request to Bugzilla, but this doesn't exactly count as a bug or even a MediaWiki enhancement. Stigmatella aurantiaca (talk) 16:01, 31 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Would WP:VPT? -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 16:12, 31 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks, I'll raise my question over there. It seems a more likely place than here. Stigmatella aurantiaca (talk) 16:17, 31 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I got an answer from Wikid77. As I understand his/her explanation, when a template is modified, a job is enqueued to reformat the affected pages. There being millions of pages to reformat at any time, it takes a couple of days for the automatic process to get to the enqueued job. If we are aware of high visibility pages that need immediate attention, we can take care of them manually, but right now it sounds as if they are doing all that they really can. Stigmatella aurantiaca (talk) 19:27, 31 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Merge Discussion AND AfD AND page move ... AND complete re-write?[edit]

We had an article at Bollywood Hundred Crore Club which was essentially a series lists. Someone began a merge discussion to bring it back into the "parent list" article List of highest-grossing Indian films worldwide. Someone also initiated an AfD at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Bollywood Hundred Crore Club. While these are both going on, someone page moved the article to Bollywood films grossing above 100 crore.

I have rewritten a draft article that is not "list" based at User:TheRedPenOfDoom/sandbox/B100CC and have some support to move it live at the talk page Talk:Bollywood_films_grossing_above_100_crore#Unaceptable_moving_of_Bollywood_100_Crore_Club_to_Bollywood_films_grossing_above_100_crore but I am not sure with all the other stuff if I should just wait till the AfD is done or if I should just put it live now and ask for a speedy close of the afd or what is the best way to cause the least disruption? -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 02:39, 31 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I'd wait for the AfD to close since your article topic is different from the list article currently at the Bollywood Hundred Crore Club location. The AfD closer should also close out the merge and other co-pending discussions after closing the AfD. -- Jreferee (talk) 04:52, 1 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

How do you use it?[edit]

How do you use it? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Clampit3222 (talkcontribs) 03:29, 31 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I suspect, based on your question, that you found one of our over 4 million articles and thought we were 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 for asking questions related to using or contributing to Wikipedia itself. Thus, we have no special knowledge about the subject of your question. You can, however, search our vast catalogue of articles by typing a subject into the search field on the upper right 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. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 03:46, 31 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Question regarding Citation Style 1 parameter deprecation[edit]

Hi. Hopefully the help desk isn't understaffed right now (I don't mind waiting).


I want to know where centralized discussion regarding the deprecation of CS1 parameters might be found, since I have questions on the status of coauthors and month. I do a lot of heavy work updating pages' references, and don't want to do the wrong thing to hundreds of pages.

Are they "officially" deprecated, or just tentatively so?

I ask because although they're clearly struck out on the {{cite web}} page, yet other pages such as Wikipedia:Template messages/Sources of articles/Citation quick reference and especially the "citation toolbar" still use them. Have we not gotten around to updating them, or are we wavering on whether to abandon these?

I tried reading Help talk:Citation Style 1 but it got too confusing. One person said the deprecation wasn't really in effect and "why fix something that isn't broken", but another seemed to say it was deprecated and should no longer be used? Is Help talk:CS1 where centralized discussion takes place for this or what? Should I update all the doc pages I find that mention this, or hold off on that?

Very confused. meteor_sandwich_yum (talk) 03:59, 31 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I don't have an answer for the big questions, but yes, Help talk:Citation Style 1 is the centralized talk page for Help:Citation Style 1 as well as all templates that use that citation style. - Purplewowies (talk) 06:34, 31 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you. That narrows my search significantly. meteor_sandwich_yum (talk) 08:40, 31 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Reboot Video Game Was Canceled, Not Sure if Page Should Be Renamed[edit]

There is currently a page called Command & Conquer (2013 video game). The year is part of the title because it shared the same title as Command & Conquer (1995 video game). However, the game slated for release in 2013 was ultimately canceled. I would think that the 2013 should be removed from the title, since it's not going to be released in 2013 (or any time in the future), but there needs to be some way to distinguish it from the earlier game. It seems to me like the options are:

  • Keep Command & Conquer (2013 video game), which may lead to confusion about whether or not it was released
  • Change to Command & Conquer (canceled video game), which doesn't have a precedent on Wikipedia (all such page titles are redirects)
  • Change to Command & Conquer (canceled 2013 video game), which is rather wordy

The Wikipedia policies don't seem to cover what to do in an unusual situation like this, and I can't find any precedent for a game like this. I decided the best thing to do would be to ask here to get the opinions of those with a better understanding of the page naming conventions on Wikipedia. -Thunderforge (talk) 05:10, 31 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

A redirect and merge into the series. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 16:20, 31 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]
That may be a long term goal (we do have a List of canceled Command & Conquer games), but it doesn't answer my question unfortunately. For now the article is too large and, like articles for other canceled games such as Ultima X: Odyssey, it may still belong on Wikipedia. So a rename is the next step to take before bigger steps. -Thunderforge (talk) 04:14, 2 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Muhammad Ilyas Qadri[edit]

Dear all,

I have edit following page three time then I got warning :-O ... detail is here edit this :-

Muhammad Ilyas Qadri — Preceding unsigned comment added by Summations (talkcontribs) 09:42, 31 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Views of Ulma E Ahlesunnat about Muhammad Ilyas Qadri

Many Great Sunni Muslim Ulma E Kiraam of the world like Kaukab Noorani Okarvi , Allama Hashmi Miyan , Mufti Faiz Ahmed Owaisi , Arshadul Qaudri , Muhammad Muneeb ur Rehman , Allamah Syed Irfan Shah Mashhadi ETC consider Ilyas Qadri is great Leader of Muslim Ummah.

[1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7]

Okay now I can understand that youtube and dailymotion can not be authentic sources BUT (1) how about others two books which I mwntion one in in english language second one is Urdu language? . (2) and how can that video link un reliable while In video all scholars which I have written clearly saying as I written... In videos famous and athentic scholars saying directly about ILYAS QADRI that he is great. how this will be unreliable although it is youtube link or dailymotion ?

Please ans me , I have also sent direct msg to editor who had edit my update but he is not answering ......... — Preceding unsigned comment added by Summations (talkcontribs) 05:59, 31 December 2013‎ (UTC)[reply]

any one can ans?— Preceding unsigned comment added by Summations (talkcontribs) 07:43, 2 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

References

Yashpal[edit]

Hello This is about an entry in thr Wikipedia under the title Yashpal. In the past edits were made in the article, adding misleading information. When we corrected that, most of the text was removed by Wikipedia for the fear of copyright violation. I own the copyright. How may I assure you that I am the owner of the material that I will resubmit? I checked the information in Wikipedia about using copyrighted text. I found information about copyright violations, but not about using copyrighted text by the owner. O also intend to insert links for further reading, as well as reformat the article so that the text complies with the editorial suggestions. Your answer and help will be much appreciated. Anand [details removed] — Preceding unsigned comment added by 122.163.230.231 (talk) 06:29, 31 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

See WP:Donating copyrighted material. --David Biddulph (talk) 09:26, 31 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I have removed your email address to protect your privacy. -- John of Reading (talk) 12:19, 31 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Wrong content[edit]

Hi team ,

change the content of below Link.

Suzanne Khan — Preceding unsigned comment added by 180.151.3.98 (talk) 09:22, 31 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

What do you think should be changed? RegentsPark altered the article to point to Hrithik Roshan, an article about her former husband, with the edit message "Restore redirect. No evidence of independent notability and previously deleted in an AfD." In other words, RegentsPark is saying that an article about her is not justified as she does not meet Wikipedia's criteria for notability, and that this was the consensus when it was discussed previously. If you believe that an independent article about her is justified, then please post at Talk:Suzanne Khan, making your case, and accompanying it with references to the several reliable sources independent of her which have written about her at length. If such sources do not exist, then there will not be an article in Wikipedia about her.
If you mean something else, please explain. --ColinFine (talk) 12:30, 31 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

to start a new topic on wikipedia[edit]

Sir Kindly guide how to start a new topic on wikipedia Dr. RK Gorea — Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.235.52.114 (talk) 09:36, 31 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

WP:Your first article. --David Biddulph (talk) 11:27, 31 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Footer related articles template help for the Arabic Wikipedia (translation of an infobox used on the English Wikipedia)[edit]

Hi! I'm trying to make a footer related articles template on the Arabic Wikipedia easier to edit. The template in question is here: ar:قالب:منظ حادث طيران. The English template it is based off of is located here: Template:Aviation accident orgs.

I tried making the items bulleted in the Arabic like in the English, but the effect isn't the same, and on the Arabic it looks like a bulleted list instead of a condensed list separated by bullet points. What is going on?

Thanks WhisperToMe (talk) 10:18, 31 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

You need to copy the line |listclass = hlist to get the items formatted as a "horizontal list". -- John of Reading (talk) 10:25, 31 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Done. Shukaran! (Thank you) WhisperToMe (talk) 10:38, 31 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Vandalism that CAN'T BE REMOVED[edit]

Please help! Go to the page "Andorra", as in the country, go down to the subsection "largest cities" (itself a subjection of the section "Statistics"), and there should be an image titled, "Cache me if you can.gif", that links to "List of United States senators". It's obviously vandalism, BUT I CAN'T REMOVE IT, it doesn't seem to show in the "View history" mode, and it shows up in BOTH Firefox and Chrome, so this is no browser bug. Please help, can anyone remove the vandalism? Many thanks to you if you do! -- 58.35.229.132 (talk) 12:11, 31 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

This was vandalism to Template:Largest cities‎. The damage was repaired yesterday, but it looks as if the servers haven't got round to refreshing all the affected articles. I have purged the Andorra article, so if you reload the page it should be OK for you now. You may have to bypass your browser cache as well. -- John of Reading (talk) 12:17, 31 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Pakistan Cricket Board[edit]

Sir, Pakistan Cricket Board, a member of International Cricket Council, is the only competent body to manage and run cricket affairs for Pakistan Cricket team. The page titled “Pakistan Cricket Board” needs some correction and updates. It would like to seek your factual advice. Media Department, PAKISTAN CRICKET BOARD. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 182.178.214.244 (talk) 17:53, 31 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

As`per WP:OWN, no one "owns" a Wikipedia article, or has an exclusive or final right to control its content. Moreover, our Conflict of interest policy says that in general, peoplke with a close affiliation with a topic should not be directly editing the article(s) on that topic. You would be well advised to post on the talk pages of the articles you are concerned about (such as Talk:Pakistan Cricket Board, and perhaps use {{helpme}} or {{editrequest}} to draw attention to your comments if no one responds in a day or two. DES (talk) 18:01, 31 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]
(edit conflict) If you go to Talk:Pakistan Cricket Board you will be able to suggest improvements, and provide published reliable sources independent of the subject to support your proposals. --David Biddulph (talk) 18:04, 31 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Css/js changes to hide interface elements[edit]

Can anyone instruct me on hiding an element of the editing interface? For example, if I wanted to hide/block .mw-changeslist-legend Thanks in advance.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 20:01, 31 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Add
.mw-changeslist-legend { display: none; }
(or whatever class/id you want to hide) to your common.css. ~HueSatLum 20:22, 31 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Perfect. Got rid of that and .editOptions and what a difference that makes. Thanks.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 20:54, 31 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Adding External Links?[edit]

I would like to add the nonprofit homecare and hospice agency to the "external Links" section of the towns we provide services to. I was warned that this might appear to be "spamming Wikipedia" and the webpage link I was listing could be blacklisted. Is this appropriate? and if it is how can I make sure that the website is not blacklisted?

Brian — Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.175.132.141 (talk) 20:40, 31 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

In general, Wikipedia is not a directory of services. Unless the site has information about the town it should not be on the town article. See WP:ELNO. Moreover if you are affilated with this site, much less work for this provider, read our conflict of interest policy. You should not add such links. If, after reading our policies linked her you think the link is valuable, suggest it on the talk page of the articles concerned, not too many at once please. DES (talk) 21:01, 31 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]
(e/c) Please don't. It is not a reflection of whether your agency is wonderful or not but an issue of weight and focus. A homecare and hospice agency is only indirectly related to an article about a locality and therefore would not belong unless there were some reason to make an exception, such as that it was the majority employer in a small town and thus would be a significant focus of the article or some similar scenario. Please see Wikipedia:External links#Links normally to be avoided, and especially point 13. Although it's directed at a slightly different kind of situation, please see also, by analogy Wikipedia:Wikipedia is not here to tell the world about your noble cause. The website will not be blacklisted if it isn't spammed. In other words, avoid what you are indicating you wish to do, and their will be no reason for blacklisting. Best regards--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 21:06, 31 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Ads?[edit]

Hello, if you go to the Burma page it has an Impeach Obama "advertisement" it seems that I am unable to remove it and as far as I know Wikipedia doesn't use advertising. The file name is Cache_me_if_you_can.gif — Preceding unsigned comment added by Orasis (talkcontribs) 23:54, 31 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Unfortunately what you're seeing is spam which has been added to a template somewhere. I don't know which one though as I can't see it and it's probably been reverted. Samwalton9 (talk) 00:05, 1 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]
It was Template:Largest cities that was vandalized, and it was reverted. I can't see the vandalism, although I purged the cache anyway. (FWIW, you can see what specific template was vandalized by clicking "related changes" and then filtering just the template namespace: [1]) ~HueSatLum 00:21, 1 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]