Help desk
< April 29	<< Mar \| April \| May >>	May 1 >

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.

April 30[edit]

Edit request to a blocked page[edit]

Could someone please take care of this: User talk:slakr #Was speaking with SineBot but I needed to talk to you personally ?

Ping welcome, Steue (talk) 00:57, 30 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I think you're looking for this? DonIago (talk) 01:04, 30 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

hi @Steue and welcome to Wikipedia! you may want to try posting an edit request over at Talk:Sushant Singh Rajput. happy editing! 💜 melecie talk - 01:05, 30 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Template to tag a reference to user-generated content?[edit]

Is there an inline template for tagging a reference to indicate it is to user generated content, like twitter, and should be replaced with a better reference? RJFJR (talk) 02:38, 30 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

{{user-generated source}}/{{user-generated inline}} * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 02:40, 30 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you. RJFJR (talk) 02:48, 30 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Ancestry[edit]

someone removed all of my files regarding my families history. How do I get it restored? 2603:7000:8803:BBD2:A827:FCAC:FE77:6649 (talk) 03:40, 30 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

What 'files' are you referring to? Wikipedia is an online encyclopaedia, not a file-hosting service. AndyTheGrump (talk) 03:46, 30 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Length of category pages[edit]

Is there a way to change the limit to how many entries are displayed on a category page?

The "What links here" function has a "limit" parameter that you can use to show more or less items on each page. I could not find any information about a similar feature for category pages. ~Anachronist (talk) 04:59, 30 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@Anachronist: It cannot be changed by users. A whole wiki can change its fixed number with mw:Manual:$wgCategoryPagingLimit. User:PrimeHunter/Sortkeys.js shows sort keys for a category and lists the first 5000 category members but they are unlinked in an ugly API format designed for programs and not people. On Category:Living people it produces Sort keys. Removing sortkeyprefix from the url gives [1]. It gives no easy way to get the next 5000. The search incategory:"Living people" can use the search feature to change the number of results. PrimeHunter (talk) 12:54, 30 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Link in the history to a deleted contribution[edit]

In https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Contributions/Gnostics&target=Gnostics&offset=&limit=500 ,
down at the bottom, there is a link to a section ( Talk:Saint Titus #Titus and Tyre ), but this whole section was removed.

It can only be found in the old version: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Saint_Titus&oldid=169756455#Titus_and_Tyre

Is there a way to fix this so that the link in the history leads directly to the old version of this talk page, even down to the section?

Ping welcome, Steue (talk) 08:11, 30 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

You can use a WP:permanent link, but this is an unusual case: it is not normally appropriate to remove material from a talk page, unless into an archive. ColinFine (talk) 09:09, 30 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@Steue: If you mean the link on "→‎Titus and Tyre" in the edit summary of [2] then there is no way to change it. Edit summaries cannot be changed. PrimeHunter (talk) 12:35, 30 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you ColinFine

So far I have found two such cases: both:

are the very first two contributions of user "Gnostics" ( now blocked indefinitely for such gnostic contributions) and
are done/deleted by User:Michaelbusch ( now retired from wp. )

I fear "Michaelbusch" has rigorously deleted all such "insider"/gnostic contribs from user:Gnostics on/from talk pages.

Ping welcome, Steue (talk) 12:41, 30 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@PrimeHunter

Yes, this I mean.

But my intention is not to change the edit summary of the original editor (user:Gnostics) but to link the link in the history to the old version,

at least like a link to a diff, or directly to the old version, like with "old id ...".

What has the edit summary to do with the links in the history?

I mean: I suppose the history links to sections, not to edit summaries.

Ping welcome, Steue (talk) 12:58, 30 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@Steue: Please describe precisely where you see the link you want to change. I thought it was the link on the grey text with an arrow "→‎Titus and Tyre" at the start of the edit summary. Such links are made automatically for section edits where the prefilled edit summary starts with /* Titus and Tyre */. The text can be edited before saving the edit and is just the first part of the edit summary.[3]. It is converted to a section link when MediaWiki displays the edit summary but the link always goes to the current version of the page. PrimeHunter (talk) 13:23, 30 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@ PrimeHunter
1: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Contributions/Gnostics&target=Gnostics&offset=&limit=500 .

2: Scroll down to the very bottom,

3: there is the link Titus and Tyre.

Steue (talk) 13:42, 30 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@Steue: The only "Titus and Tyre" link I see there is the one I described. For me it's grey text with an arrow "→‎Titus and Tyre". It's made with /* Titus and Tyre */ at start of the edit summary. I said the text could be changed before saving but that only applies to existing sections. The edit was adding a new section and in that case, MediaWiki automatically makes the whole edit summary: /* Titus and Tyre */ new section. Regarding [4], blank lines between indented replies is against WP:TALKGAP. PrimeHunter (talk) 13:56, 30 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@ PrimeHunter

Sorry for the gap, it wasn't intentional.

We mean the same link.

I understand the problem as follows:

At the beginning this link, which appears in the history, linked to the appropriate section,
then "User:Michaelbusch" deleted the target,
now this link only can lead to the top of the current version of this talk page and
this link can not be changed.

Solution:

How about entering a new topic (in the talk page) (with the same title) which then only contains a perma link to the old version of this section? The user would simply have to click on this link.

This wouldn't make the downloads of the talk page much slower, however the title would appear in the table of contents.

Question:

If a section got archived, is it possible to get the link of/in the history to link to the archive?

If I understand your explanations right, this would not be possible. Which would mean that all users, following a link to a section which got archived would have to manually search in the archive.

If this is so, the wiki software should be improved re. links to sections which later get archived.

Steue (talk) 14:26, 30 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@Steue: You can enable "find-archived-section: navigate easily to an archived section after following its broken link" at Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-gadgets. Your idea to make a new section with a link to the old revision would work but I oppose it. If the removed section is worth giving access to then restore the actual section. Otherwise ignore it and let the link remain broken. The content can still be found by clicking the time stamp or a "diff" or "prev" link. Section links also break whenever a section is renamed, unless an {{anchor}} with the old name is added. There have been attempts to make new discussion software but the implementations are not popular. Wikipedia:LiquidThreads was abandoned. Wikipedia:Flow is enabled in some wikis but the English Wikipedia doesn't want it. There is no simple, good, general solution to the problem with broken links to old sections. There is a bot which sometimes updates broken links in wiki pages to point to an archived section. It cannot change links in edit summaries. PrimeHunter (talk) 15:12, 30 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@ PrimeHunter

Thanks for the gadget.

That's what the time stamp, as a link, is for, in the history. I rember having seen it, being a link, but I seldom cared to try or use it; and I wasn't really aware of it's purpose.

These contribs from user:Gnostics are "insider" informations, and I see no way to find them in a 'reliable source', so they can't be used in the wp., but still are interesting -- to me. So I will use the time stamp, and leave them deleted. Plus: It seems that most readers mis-understand/mis-interpret them as trolling.

My idea was a kind of invisible redirect, invisible like this  or an anchor.

That the 'edit summaries' aren't editable is a weak point I've come across several times alredy. I wish this would be improved. I'm sure it's possible. Almost everything is possible -- in software; hackers are demonstrating it every day :) .

As for incomplete 'edit summaries', which get created because I un-intentionally hit the [Enter] button, my solution is to revert and redo the edit, and also to prepare everything in my computer, before I load it up, although time consuming. This has the advantage that I have a copy, no matter what happens outside, plus it saves me waiting time and the wp-server traffic.

Steue (talk) 00:21, 2 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@ ColinFine
"Permanent link" is what I just meant with the old version, like with "old id ...".
Problem: I don't make the history. The history is created automatically. So I don't see a place where I could place such a perma link.
Steue (talk) 13:06, 30 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Letter æ[edit]

Is this letter allowed in users' nicknames? Dr Salvus 14:34, 30 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Yes. WP:NONLATIN.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 14:40, 30 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

But it is Latin... —Tenryuu 🐲 ( 💬 • 📝 ) 15:10, 30 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, I know, but if the CJK logograms, and Hebrew, Greek, Cyrillic, Arabic, etc, characters are allowed, it must follow that the Latin ligatures are also allowed. I did not create the MOS section title nor its shortcut, but the content of the MOS section still applies. The only prohibited characters are those explicitly listed at WP:NONLATIN.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 15:27, 30 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Are usernames containing the word "Wikipedia" or "Wikipediæ" allowed? Dr Salvus 09:03, 2 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, as long as they don't try to pass themselves off as being official or having special privileges e.g Wikipedia Admin. They are also - like all accounts - only to be used by a single user. - X201 (talk) 09:29, 2 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Tifo[edit]

Is the word "tifo" common in English? I wrote it in italics, because outside Italy I don't think it's common; if I've made a mistake, I can correct it. JackkBrown (talk) 16:30, 30 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I had never heard the word, and hadn't a clue what it meant; but then I don't follow football. The NoW corpus (17.2 billion words from 20 English-speaking countries) has only 527 instances of it. ColinFine (talk) 17:46, 30 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@ColinFine: then I'm sure it's correct to write this word in italics. JackkBrown (talk) 17:53, 30 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@JackkBrown: Or, even better, use the {{lang}} template: so {{lang|it|tifo}} gives tifo. Bazza (talk) 19:13, 30 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Publish draft from Sandbox to Wikipedia[edit]

Hi, I have a new page I created about a person in my Sandbox.

I would like to kno:

How to publosh it to Wikipedia?
How to change the name of the page instead of "My Sandbox"?

I am a new user, Thank you all. BnayaMeir (talk) 16:30, 30 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

BnayaMeir, before the contents of your sandbox can be accepted in article space, you'll need to bring it up to the standards required of an article. In particular, you'll need to establish that Paldor is notable by citing several reliable independent published sources with extensive discussion of him, and to remove all statements that aren't supported by any cited source. Maproom (talk) 17:07, 30 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I'm afraid that, like almost all new editors who try to create an encyclopaedia article in Wikipedia, you have gone about it backwards: you need to start by finding the reliable, independent, published sources about Paldo (remembering that nothing said, written, or published by Paldo or his associates will contribute) and write the article based on what those sources say, not on what you know. ColinFine (talk) 17:55, 30 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Mystery template[edit]

Can someone tell me what the template {{-}} means? I encountered it while editing this stub; it's at the bottom of the page, below the references and above the categories. It doesn't seem to have any visible effect, and a search for it in MOS pages, help pages, and template pages turns up no result. I left it in place since I didn't want to be the guy who thoughtlessly removed it and thereby caused the WMF servers to burst into flame, but I'd still like to know what it does. Thanks, Choliamb (talk) 17:41, 30 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

See Template:Clear for documentation of what it does. * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 17:42, 30 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@Choliamb: You can look up a template by placing template: before the name in the search box. template:- redirects to Template:Clear. Not all templates have documentation but this one does. In Arikhankharer it's placed before the stub templates so they always display below the infobox. In a wide screen or small font they might otherwise be displayed to the left of the infobox. I don't know wether this use of {{clear}} is recommended. PrimeHunter (talk) 18:58, 30 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. I had encountered {{clear}} before, but not {{-}}, and I think I forgot to drop the brackets when I searched for Template:-, probably because it just looks so weird. I see from the talk pages of both templates that I am not the first person to ask about this redirect, and that some of the supporters of {{-}} were not happy when it was merged with {{clear}}, which just goes to show that there is no invisible HTML formatting trick so small that it cannot inspire strong tribal allegiance — like whether to crack your eggs at the big end or the small end, or whether to put on your footwear sock-sock-shoe-shoe or sock-shoe-sock-shoe :). Choliamb (talk) 20:53, 30 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Choliamb How can you possibly bring that up? It is obviously small end and sock-shoe-sock-shoe. :)Naraht (talk) 13:41, 2 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

On the matter of eggs I have no opinion, but only insane people prefer sock-shoe-sock-shoe. There is no room for debate about this. Choliamb (talk) 19:42, 2 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Choliamb Apparently we need Wikipedia:Third opinion here.Naraht (talk) 13:03, 3 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@Choliamb I crack eggs in the middle. David10244 (talk) 10:18, 3 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

David10244: That's fine if you were raised in the woods by wolves. But civilized people eat their eggs from an egg cup, and the point of entry is arctic, not equatorial. The only question is whether the egg should be placed in the cup with the big end or the little end upward. Choliamb (talk) 14:05, 3 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I thought about this this morning. sock-clog-sock-clog-laces-laces Make of that what you will! Martin of Sheffield (talk) 10:56, 3 May 2023 (UTC) [reply]

Ultras[edit]

Within the sub-paragraph "United Arab Emirates" of the paragraph "United Arab Emirates", on the page "Ultras", the captions have been formatted in a very strange way. JackkBrown (talk) 18:11, 30 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I have removed some odd stuff from that section. Maybe someone smarter than me can work out what it was meant to be. Maproom (talk) 19:33, 30 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]