Wikipedia:Help desk/Archives/2007 May 19

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May 19

No TOC template

Was fairly sure a template existed that eliminated the TOC on a page; can't find it. If one exists, can someone give me a link? DoomsDay349 00:37, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

It's not a template, but __NOTOC__ will work. Titoxd^{(?!? - cool stuff)} 00:38, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

Many thanks to you. That's what I was looking for. DoomsDay349 01:05, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

For the construction/alignment, elimination, or addition of TOC generally, one may also see Help:Section#Table of contents (TOC). Joe 04:59, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

Odd strings of symbols

Someone has inserted "   " (visible only on edit screen) between the numbers and their units in one of my texts. What does it mean, why is it necessary, and where can I find a list of other such expressions, with guidance as to their proper usage? Thanks in advance. Hertz1888 01:47, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

It's   described at nbsp. PrimeHunter 02:16, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

Japanese Bank

Dear Support team,

I am planning to re-finance my home loan through Japanese Bank. I am living in New Zealand. We own two houses here. We would like to apply for home loan through Japanese Bank. Could you please give us the contact details of the banks in Japan, so that we can approach them.

Thanking you, Siva

Have you tried the Miscellaneous 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's the link to post a question there: click here. I hope this helps.--Fuhghettaboutit 09:39, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

discourse analysis

I want to ask about the country or instance who publish this article. Because I use this article for my research, so I need the name, title of text, and year when publish it(I have known) and also the publisher, who is publish and where the place?

To cite a Wikipedia article, go to it and click on the "Cite this article" link on the toolbox on the left hand side of the page.--Fuhghettaboutit 09:35, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

newbie question

Hi, I am still in the process of working on my project page, but I want to save it without posting it to wikipedia until it is completely done.

Can I do that?

Thanks so much.

Liz

What do you mean by "project page"? If you just mean an article you are working on, you can submit it whenever you would like. Just save it on your computer as a text file, and when you are ready save it into an article. Prodego ^talk 02:53, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

In addition, you may choose to make a subpage off of your talk page. This can be done by making a link to the page and then creating it, such as: Talk_Page:Waterford/test. you may click into this red link and use it for your personal development of articles, saving it as much as you wish. Then once satisfied, you could copy the article back over to the real page and save it there. good luck! Matthew Yeager 03:07, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

Thanks so much. It is an article. I didn't want it posted until it was finished.

Related to Simon Park Orchestra

Dear Help Desk memebers,

I would like to know how could I purchase TV Department Catalogue no WHRCD501 about which I read in your Encyclopedia. I live in Australia and the contact details and method payment is for people living in Britain.

Thank you,

Ewa

Please read the notice at the top of this page that says "This page is only for questions about editing Wikipedia." In other words we can't help you with your question. -- _Hdt83 ^Chat 19:33, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

Enjoying the Wiki experience

Hi! I've been a regular contributor for over two years now and I love it. Often I think it would be great if there were a forum where we could just discuss stuff from the heart, without having to be concerned about POV. Is there such a Wiki forum? Cheers! --Gazzster 04:26, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

I don't think there's a Wikipedia forum for general discussion, though there is a #wikipedia channel on the Freenode IRC network, which is only actually discussing Wikipedia 25% of the time. If you need help connecting, see m:IRC instructions. #wikipedia-en tends to be more on-topic. Veinor ^{(talk to me)} 05:10, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

There are many wikis which cater to specific points of view, if by "discuss stuff" you mean discussing on a wiki rather than on an Internet forum. It's hard to imagine you could be asking for an Internet forum because there are thousands of them, and they achieved mass popularity earlier than wikis. Also see Usenet. --Teratornis 12:28, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

Geo-wiki shortcut?

I remember having seen some sort of template that, upon entering of the locality's coordinates, produced links to (I think) google maps and google earth etc... automatically. But I can't find it right now! Help please. MadMaxDog 07:04, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

One of these should work. WODUP 08:43, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

Thats it. Many thanks! MadMaxDog 09:10, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

You're welcome. :) WODUP 09:32, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

{{Coord}} is the one we are supposed to use now. --Teratornis 12:21, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

For more on the use of geographic coordinates here, one may see also the geographic coordinates WikiProject. Joe 18:32, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia

what is wikipedia? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.243.86.191 (talk • contribs) 12:29, 19 May 2007

See Wikipedia. Dismas|^(talk) 12:34, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia is an encyclopedia. WODUP 12:37, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

Also see Wikipedia:About, Wikimedia Foundation, User:Jimbo Wales, Jimbo's interview on CSPAN, and be sure to catch the following masterpiece: The Hive, by Marshall Poe, The Atlantic Monthly, September 2006 - an article describing the history of Wikipedia. In my POV, Poe's writing is excellent. The article is easy to read. It's an engrossing historical summary of what wikis are about and how Wikipedia came to be. Everyone should read this article. --Teratornis 20:14, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

Image locator dots

I have seen locator dots used on images like the one in the infobox at Death_Valley_National_Park. Can I use such a feature on a regular image like the one at 333 North Michigan? TonyTheTiger (talk/cont/bio/tcfkaWCDbwincowtchatlotpsoplrttaDCLaM) 14:22, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

Conception

I was disappointed to see that 'Conception from a feminist point-of-view' had been removed as many people would not even realise that there was a feminist point-of-view on the subject; however, I couldn't work out, as a new user, how to contest this deletion. Perhaps this message could be forwarded.

Thanks,

RK — Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.38.200.40 (talk)

Conception from a feminist point of view was deleted by User:Majorly with the reason "It is a very short article providing little or no context (CSD A1)." [1] I haven't seen the article but the topic does not sound compatible with Wikipedia:Neutral point of view and Wikipedia:Content forking. See Wikipedia:Deletion review for discussion of undeletion of articles. PrimeHunter 16:19, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

It's not a very detailed article - it just states that there is a feminist viewpoint on conception, challenging the egg-passive sperm-active idea (fair enough, I guess). However, it's certainly not a POV fork of anything - it states it as an opinion, nothing else, and isn't a rewrite of the main article to push its viewpoint. I've restored the article and marked it for merging. Shimgray | talk | 01:22, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

computer impacts

WHAT ARE THE IMPACTS OF COMPUTERS IN THE LIVES OF WOMEN—Preceding unsigned comment added by 196.47.83.10 (talk • contribs)

For the most part, women became better typists as they finally understood what the Caps lock key does. Additionally, it increased their reading ability, with sentences like "This page is for questions about using Wikipedia," or "For factual and other kinds of questions: use the search box or the Reference desk," written in big bold letters across the top of the page. I would also assume that they finally got some practice in following directions, like do your own homework. Based on these assumptions, I'm guessing you are not a woman impacted by computers. --Ybbor^Talk 16:29, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

Ybbor, you freaking win. ~Crazytales [talk] 20:39, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

See Women in computing, although that's more about women who work in computer science and engineering. The "impacts of computers in the lives of women" would also include the vastly greater number of women who interact with computers as end-users; Women, girls and information technology seems to deal with that topic. Just fire up Google search on Wikipedia and type in keywords like: women, computer, and so on. There seems to be at least one Wikipedia article on almost every conceivable topic. And straying toward the topic of food, I should say all this typing is making me hungry, or perhaps it was the 101 mile bicycle ride I just did. Time now for dinner. --Teratornis 20:55, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

How do I request help with disambiguation?

There's kind of a mess at this page. From reviewing the history, it appears that someone has uploaded a college paper on the topic, even though there's already a perfectly good article on personal computer game. Before that, the history indicates there's been an ongoing revert war, switching back and forth from a redirect to video game or personal computer game. It appears that the term "computer game" needs a disambuigation page, but even though I've read through the guides, I don't understand how to do it myself. How do I bring this to the attention of someone who can disambiguate? Sfmammamia 15:17, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

Asking at the Help desk is fine for this sort of request. Or you could have tried Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Disambiguation. I have made a disambiguation page as you described. There was actually a disambiguation page in the history - so you could have reverted to that version (but I just made the page from scratch).--Commander Keane 16:19, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

putting EndNote references into a wikipedia citation?

Has anyone set up a quick method for putting EndNote references into a wikipedia citation? alteripse 17:21, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

This question is a bit hard to understand. Can you illustrate a slow method? There are some citation templates, but I can't tell from your question whether you already know about those. --Teratornis 02:05, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

Endnote is a citation manager. I use it for my honours work, and will be using it for my thesis when I write it. You import the references, and then you can format and style them however you wish, following publishing guidelines - its a fantastic program. Viridae^Talk 02:07, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

I assume you meant EndNote. PrimeHunter 02:19, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

Yes, EndNote is a great program. I am just beginning to appreciate it. However, I could not figure out how to output a citation with our citation boilerplate and formatting but it seemed likely to me that someone has already done it. So I am asking here... alteripse 03:02, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

an index of userpages?

Despite 3 years of editing here, I still find difficult to find information in it. Do we have an alphabetical list of users linked to their user pages? Even better, an alphabetical list of users active within the last 6 months or having contributed more than a hundred edits? What's the closest thing we have? alteripse 17:21, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

Special:Listusers is pretty close. ~ Magnus animuM ≈ √∞ 17:25, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

Thanks. Certainly better than nothing. It would be nice to have it automatically purged of inactive accounts with less than 10 edits, or no edits for a certain numbe of years. alteripse 17:48, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

[this page] only lists users with userpages. --Ybbor^Talk 18:32, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

nicotin

please i jsed to yake a dreug called dexacotin please i want to know if it contain nicotin please help me.

Wikipedia does not give medical advice. Please consult a medical professional. --Ybbor^Talk 19:15, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

According to the National Cancer Institute, dexacortin (which is I think what you mean), is a non-U.S. name of Dexamethasone, which is "a synthetic adrenal corticosteroid with potent anti-inflammatory properties" [2]. I am not a chemist or doctor so I can't tell you anything about its use or prooerties . We have an article on that drug, here. Please note for future reference that this page is for asking questions about using Wikipedia. The reference desk would be a better fit for this type of question.--Fuhghettaboutit 19:21, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

a little help with table column widths

hi, can someone please help me on article in relation to the column widths in a table: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_UEFA_Champions_League_broadcasters

I would like the following widths - Country-100px, Language-100px, Tuesday Night-200px, Wednesday Night-200px. Even if they don't quite look right, I should be able to change the widths on my own, its just that I've tried everything and it won't change!Htb50 20:18, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

You may wish to see WP:TABLE, if you need any more help leave a note on my user talk page. Hope that helps! — The Sunshine Man 20:26, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

Users manual

We recently downloaded the mediawiki software for our website. And as I am sure you know, it isn't like most out of box solutions where there is a nice backend control panel to set things up. Like how to create categories, manage users, etc. Is there a manual that explains how to work with mediawiki from an adminstrator role?

When you first install MediaWiki, it puts up a simple default Main Page with a few lines of text, including:

MediaWiki has been successfully installed.

Consult the User's Guide for information on using the wiki software.

Clicking the link takes you to a page you will need to consult often, with more links including:

MediaWiki Handbook

For readers | For editors | For moderators | For administrators | Search meta.wikimedia.org

(OK, I fibbed a little; I added that last search link because it's handy.)

MediaWiki "out of the box" is in a very bare-bones state. If you are used to editing on a well-developed wiki such as Wikipedia, it can be a shock to browse around your barren nascent wiki and learn how many features you took for granted on Wikipedia are actually add-ons that you don't have yet. To get your wiki into something you might consider a usable state could take lots of work (installing extensions, copying useful templates from, say, Wikipedia and editing them for your site, coming up with your category scheme, deciding what to do about the initially non-existent help pages, designing your Main Page, and perhaps the biggest challenge of all: training your users who may never have edited on a wiki before). You can expect to spend months, maybe years learning how to build wikis that do not suck.

MediaWiki is the software designed to run Wikipedia and the other Wikimedia Foundation wikis, and it's available "as is" for free. It's not designed to be a slick, preconfigured, easy-to-manage wiki for any particular group of users who are trying to do something else (such as corporate wikis). However, thousands of people have managed to run wikis with it; some are of quality comparable to Wikipedia; and the administrative back-end features, while far from comprehensive, are steadily improving with each release. It helps that almost everything you see on Wikipedia is relatively straightforward to copy to your wiki, so at least you don't have to reinvent all the cool stuff you see here. You merely have to figure out how to copy and re-implement it. It helps a lot if you or someone you work closely with has extensive experience editing on Wikipedia, someone who has worked with categories, designed templates, read the friendly manuals, maybe even answered a pile of questions on the Help desk. If the wiki you just installed is the first wiki you are going to try editing on (the fact that you did not sign your question raises some doubts there), you are facing a difficult bootstrapping problem, because a large fraction of the power of a wiki is not actually in the software, it's in the community of experienced wiki users, who can monitor the first fumbling attempts of newbs and help them out. If you haven't already, maybe you should spend a few months editing on Wikipedia before striking off on your own. But whatever you do, don't give up. There's a whole lot of great stuff you can do with MediaWiki, and the effort you put into learning it will pay off.

I've been thinking about the wiki startup problem lately, now that I'm starting up a third wiki, and contemplating a fourth. It's probably possible to speed up this process with bot programs, but I haven't gotten that far yet.

Oh yeah, strictly speaking your question belongs on mw:Project:Support desk, not on the Help desk, but some of us will try to answer anything on the Help desk, even the stuff that isn't supposed to be here.

And just to add to your confusion, there are lots of wiki software packages. MediaWiki may not be the best for what you want to do (whatever that may be). For example, TWiki's partisans claim it is a better fit for corporate wiki applications. The problem, of course, is that to properly evaluate a wiki software page, you have to work with it extensively; who has time to evaluate gazillions of these things? I doubt there can be many people with expert knowledge of more than a few wiki packages. Even if you took that time, by the time you finished, many of the packages would have gone through multiple revisions and they might have become very different. And naturally they are all incompatible with each other, so it's not easy to port an existing wiki from one package to another. The wiki package you start with is probably the one you will be stuck with. Depending on your needs and budget, you might want to think about paying for some expert advice. --Teratornis 01:29, 20 May 2007 (UTC)