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Wikipedia:Help desk/Archives/2008 December 19

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December 19

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WP:EL mentions that external links to MySpace should not be used, but what if the MySpace page is also the person's official website (which are inclusive according to WP:ELYES)? Copana2002 (talk) 03:34, 19 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

That situation is covered by the footnote at the recommendation against social networking sites (such as MySpace). Click the footnote link looking like [1] at the MySpace remark to see the footnote which says "a link to a social networking site may be included when it is the official website". PrimeHunter (talk) 03:50, 19 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Yep, featured articles "Weird Al" Yankovic and Opeth both link to Myspace. As long as the myspace page is official, it should be fine. Rtyq2 (talk) 03:51, 19 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Consensus appears to be as Rtyq2 states it. See Wikipedia talk:External links#Linking to multiple official sites and social networking sites for some discussion of a broader topic which also comments on this, if slightly obliquely.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 03:57, 19 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Ira Hayes

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I recently placed on Discussion Tab my discussion about Ira Hayes. I have not seen it published as yet. I did find it difficult to access discussion domain. How can I access Discussion about Ira Hayes.

(email address removed for your security) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 124.185.36.166 (talk) 04:18, 19 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

If you refer to Talk:Ira Hayes, note that Wikipedia's talk pages are for discussing how to improve the associated articles, not for general discussion about the subjects of articles. See Wikipedia:Talk page guidelines. If you are new to Wikipedia, note that Wikipedia confuses a large number of first-time editors, because Wikipedia is different than anything most people have experienced before. For starters, Wikipedia uses its own markup language, with fantastically complex editing rules. You can practice editing by using what we call the sandbox and by taking the tutorial. Keep the cheat sheet handy as it briefly lists the most common markup codes. As to why Wikipedia is the way it is, that is not possible to explain concisely, but the Wikipedia article is a good start. --Teratornis (talk) 04:51, 19 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Subdirectories

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I've got several pages (mostly userboxes) under my user page. But I can't always remember all that I've made. I feel like this is a stupid question, but how the heck do I get a list of subdirectories or subarticles or whatever below any particular directory/article? In other words, I want to know everything beneath User:Mqduck. --MQDuck 05:14, 19 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Use Special:Prefixindex/User:Mqduck/. -Seidenstud (talk) 05:16, 19 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Question added by User:Johntcullen

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Could you please delete me as a member? Thanks. User=Johntcullen —Preceding unsigned comment added by Johntcullen (talk • contribs) 07:21, 19 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Hello. What do you mean by "delete [you] as a member"? Is there a specific WikiProject you were associated with? If so, you can just delete your name from their user list to leave the project.
If by this you mean to drop your account from Wikipedia, note that this is not possible. You have the right to vanish or to retire and no longer use your account, but your account cannot be canceled. We love editors on here; please consider staying. If you do decide to leave, I hope you enjoyed your time at Wikipedia, and we'd love to have you back in the future. Hope this answers your questions; cheers! ←Signed:→Mr. E. Sánchez Get to know me! / Talk to me!←at≈:→ 08:16, 19 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Password-protected pages as sources

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Do we have a policy/guideline on accepting sources from pages that require registration or login in order to read the source? I understand the editor's intentions in providing this information, but (s)he went and placed his/her account login and password on my talk page. (I guess that's another question o_O). Any information is helpful. Thank you. ←Signed:→Mr. E. Sánchez Get to know me! / Talk to me!←at≈:→ 08:11, 19 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

  • If registration is required to read a source, the link to that source should indicate that is the case:
Some online source (registration required)

-- Mgm|(talk) 08:26, 19 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

How to edit title of a page?

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I created a page but I have a typo in the title, how can I fix it? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Rainbow1360 (talk • contribs) 08:18, 19 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

  • People who have been around for four days and made at least ten edits will get a move tab on the top of the page. I see you created a duplicate, so I'll delete the old one. _ Mgm|(talk) 08:24, 19 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I CSD'd the new one in case that one wanted to be moved, but it matters not. :) Best, PeterSymonds (talk) 08:26, 19 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

About admission in Class V from Class IV in same School under Govt. of West Bengal.

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Halloh, I want to know about the admission procedure in Class V from Class IV in the same School under WBBSE after passing annual examination in Class IV. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Susise (talk • contribs) 09:09, 19 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

  • Have you tried Wikipedia's Reference Desk? They specialize in knowledge questions and will try to answer any question in the universe (except how to use Wikipedia, since that is what this Help Desk is for). Just follow the link, select the relevant section, and ask away. I hope this helps.- Mgm|(talk) 09:15, 19 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I want to update a picture on an article

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Rockhampton, Queensland is the article i would like to edit the picture i would like to replace is the one under the sub-title "Economy" and update the "Crane" photo —Preceding unsigned comment added by Dannhaha (talk • contribs) 10:03, 19 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Reply given on talk page; user waiting on autoconfirm for upload. — Manticore 10:20, 19 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Table sorting

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Hi guys, would someone mind looking at my "Help request" here please, cheers. Ryan4314 (talk) 10:21, 19 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I don't see any sorting problem in the table in User:Ryan4314/Sandboxes/Signatories. Every column appears to sort the way I expect. Please describe exactly what problem you are seeing. --Teratornis (talk) 18:03, 19 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I can't get the dates to sort properly, it seems the dates sort by the 1st number in the cell (the day), not in actual chronological order. Ryan4314 (talk) 19:34, 19 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I looked at it before and you had Xs in those fields. You can create a sortkey for those date fields using {{dts}}. --—— Gadget850 (Ed) talk - 19:41, 19 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Yea sorry, at first I thought I'd have "X"s but now I wanna use the dates. So will that DTS thing sort them it then? Ryan4314 (talk) 09:53, 20 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Watchlist RSS feed for Google Reader

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Is it possibel to generate an RSS feed of my watchlist which I can view in Google Reader? I have tried various methods on Wikipedia:Syndication but none of them work for me. If I click on the feed link then I get the feed in Google Reader but it says: "Error (wlnotloggedin) You must be logged-in to have a watchlist". Any ideas or work-around for this? Thanks Andeggs (talk) 13:32, 19 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Template

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I need a template that says that I will be sporadically editing from now on. Can somebody help me. HairyPerry 15:02, 19 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Try {{busy}}, which can be customized, or {{Semi-retired}}. --—— Gadget850 (Ed) talk - 15:10, 19 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

There's also {{vacation}} and {{user broken wrist}} (for the more unfortunate among us). TN‑X-Man 15:54, 19 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Saving references

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Is there any wiki portal to save files, for example to save a sourced web-page, PDF-file or anything else so it won't get lost? --Nicoliani (talk) 15:08, 19 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I think Wikisource may be what you are looking for. It's a library of free-content publications. Cheers! TN‑X-Man 15:47, 19 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Not sure, I remember when first reading the help files (although I can't now locate it) it had a external web-link where you could save a reference web-page in case the original URL in some feature time would disappear. --Nicoliani (talk) 15:52, 19 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

It sounds as though you're thinking of WebCite, Nicoliani. Deor (talk) 16:06, 19 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Yes probably, thanks. --Nicoliani (talk) 19:49, 19 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

So now when using WebCite for a particular web-source, how should the note be displayed. Example should it be: '1. ^ WebCite query result. www.webcitation.org. Retrieved on 2008-12-21'. Or should I use the original source code '1.^ origins. members.tripod.com. Retrieved on 2008-12-21', but link the URL to the webcitation permalink? --Nicoliani (talk) 20:03, 21 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Use the |archiveurl= & |archivedate= parameters of the {{Cite web}} Template and it will automatically do the formatting for you. For example,
...he hopes to reclaim the $21 million dollars he paid the company over a two-year span.[1]
  1. ^ Klotz, Irene (2008-11-26). "Grounded space tourist wants $21 million refund". Yahoo News. Archived from the original on September 26, 2008.

-- GateKeeper(X) @ 21:27, 21 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Can someone fix Infobox ski area?

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The ski area Infobox has a place to insert coordinates. They work find in the infobox, but some switch has been left on that means they also appear at the top of the page. Since the infobox is at the top of the page, this is not only redundant, but ugly.

Can someone that understands templates fix this?

Maury Markowitz (talk) 16:17, 19 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

{{Infobox ski area}} uses {{coord}} with display=inline,title. If you look at the documentation for coord, you will find "{{coord}} is used by tools which parse the raw Wikipedia database dumps, such as Google Earth. To ensure that the coordinates are parsed correctly display=title must be used." If you still have an issue with this, take it up at Template talk:Infobox ski area. --—— Gadget850 (Ed) talk - 17:11, 19 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
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I get picture related formatting errors on some pages such as Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571. What I mean by that is that sometimes where a picture appears correctly the text will leave a big gap sometimes between the section heading and the starting text. I am not familiar with the wiki on other computers so is this normal? Do I need to correct my browser or the page in question? Only occurs on some pages but several at least. ~ R.T.G 17:51, 19 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I don't see exactly the problem you are describing (I'm using Mozilla Firefox) but I do see bunched up edit links. See WP:BUNCH for instructions on how to fix that problem. --Teratornis (talk) 17:59, 19 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
No not that. Let's say we added a thumb picture to the right of this section and the headline was at the top of the picture area but the part that says "I get picture..." didnt start until the bottom of the picture leaving a big gap between. Have you any gaps in text on the page Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571? My browser is Internet Explorer (it is the IE8 beta2 but I am sure this occurred while on IE6). Hopefully I can at least establish if anyone else has these gaps in text (without calling round anywhere xD) ~ R.T.G 19:19, 19 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I still don't understand. Can you post a screen shot so we can see what you are referring to? Thanks. – ukexpat (talk) 19:50, 19 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I don't see any gaps either. I've thrown a couple of {{clear}}'s in there, but nothing significant has changed. It may be something with your browser. TN‑X-Man 20:26, 19 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I see the gaps. I use IE6, and it is set full screen with small text. For example, the group photo straddles the first section header, and there is a gap between that section head and the text under it, the text is pushed down to match the top of the map. (The reason for the straddle is that the lead section and TOC has less hight than the infobox and the group photo.) If I set the screen to half width I get only one gap. That in the “The mountain rescue” section, where the photo at the very bottom of the preceding section pushes the text down to match the photo of the wreckage. —teb728 t c 01:20, 20 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah it must be a mismatch between Internet Explorer and the Wiki software. It is particularly bad (in an artistic sense) on that Flight 571 article because the pics are quite long and numerous hence long gaps in text. It occurred to me to ask because there is mention of Good Article on that artice but with the gaps an article may subconsciously lose a point or two on review. Anyway it is quite rare. (The new IE8 beta2, teb728, has lots of little gadgets although some glitches) Sorry Expat, no screenshot software and the last time I tried one it hijacked my search engines. ~ R.T.G 04:15, 20 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Actually the gaps only occur twice on that page and is most notable under the "Mountain Rescue" section heading ~ R.T.G 04:28, 20 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I managed to fix that by moving the "[[image:" entry to below the text ~ R.T.G 13:52, 20 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

What is the art work you see if a page loads slowly?

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Once the page has loaded, it is still on the top of the page and part of the left side.Vchimpanzee · talk · contributions · 21:37, 19 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not sure what you mean. Was there a specific page to which you could point? TN‑X-Man 21:39, 19 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Do you mean the book? That's just the normal monobook background. Dendodge TalkContribs 21:40, 19 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
It's the book in File:Headbg.jpg. PrimeHunter (talk) 23:12, 19 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

inline template forcing line breaks in one article only

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This is weird. The {{respell}} template is an inline formatting and pronunciation key link. (It's rather crude; I'd appreciate any suggestions on how to trigger an internal {{sm}} format on specific cells, rather than just the penultimate one.) However, in the article List of names in English with counterintuitive pronunciations, it forces a line break on every instance, whether one uses FF, Safari, or IE (look under US place names), though this is not apparent from the edit preview window. I haven't seen this behavior on any other article. kwami (talk) 22:04, 19 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

FWIW, it's broken in the preview window too, as long as you edit the article, not just the section. Algebraist 22:15, 19 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I removed a linebreak from {{respell}} and it now seems to be behaving reasonably. Still not sure why it wasn't breaking reliably though. Algebraist 22:21, 19 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks! Since it wasn't breaking reliably, I'd assumed in was a general bug w Wikipedia. kwami (talk) 23:22, 19 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
It probably is, just a very subtle one. Algebraist 02:00, 20 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
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