Wikipedia:Help desk/Archives/2008 November 27

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.

November 27

Warning: Default sort key "Darrell Figgis" overrides earlier default sort key "Figgis, Darrell".

This has appeared at the top of Talk:Darrell Figgis, a page on which I am editing. My questions are , 1) what does it mean? and 2) how do I fix it? Thanks. RashersTierney (talk) 02:12, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

The listas parameter in the WPBiography template is causing the message, but I don't know how to fix it except to remove "Figgis, Darrel" after the parameter. – ukexpat (talk) 02:20, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

Parameter I understand, in its general meaning. Listas I don't understand. I know I could begin the process of understanding it, but really its the word WARNING that got me going. Is something about to 'break'? RashersTierney (talk) 02:29, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

Have removed 'DEFAULTSORT:Figgis, Darrell'. Waiting for Wikipedia to implode! RashersTierney (talk) 02:36, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

Fixed. Algebraist 02:48, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

Thanks. RashersTierney (talk) 11:38, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

Commons name conflict

So, I uploaded the public domain image image:Grub.png. On November 1st, I made it a candidate to be copied to the Wikimedia Commons. Now, I feel up to moving it myself, but find that since then, an image of the same name has been uploaded to the Commons. It is telling me that the Wikipedia image should be renamed. I don't really care what gets renamed, but I would like to know how to resolve this or have it resolved with no naming conflict, and the 4 grub*.png here moved to commons. ~ 10nitro (talk) 03:08, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

• Moving an article to commons usually involved reuploading it there and tagging it for deletion here. I would recommend changing the filename to something that has your username in it. That way everyone can see you made the image and it avoids naming conflicts too. Calling it 10nitro_Grub.png would work, I think. - Mgm|^(talk) 05:47, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

Submission

How do I submit a page? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Floral2blue (talk • contribs) 04:22, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

Before creating an article, please search Wikipedia first to make sure that an article does not already exist on the subject. Please also review a few of our relevant policies and guidelines which all articles should comport with. As Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, articles must not contain original research, must be written from a neutral point of view, should cite to reliable sources which verify their content and must not contain unsourced, negative content about living people.

Articles must also demonstrate the notability of the subject. Please see our subject specific guidelines for people, bands and musicians, companies and organizations and web content and note that if you are closely associated with the subject, our conflict of interest guideline strongly recommends against you creating the article.

If you still think an article is appropriate, see Help:Starting a new page. You might also look at Wikipedia:Your first article and Wikipedia:How to write a great article for guidance, and please consider taking a tour through the Wikipedia:Tutorial so that you know how to properly format the article before creation. – ukexpat (talk) 05:04, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

Template caption not centering properly

Please see {{Earthquake}} at 1968 Illinois earthquake. It is not centering the caption properly.--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTM) 06:29, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

The caption was centred in the right column of a table. I changed it to span columns. Perhaps instead it should be put into the caption parameter of the image. —teb728 t c 07:43, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

public health engineering

write an article about the history of public health engineering with relation to the following topics

        (1)water supply
        (2)sewerage treatment
        (solid waste and soil management  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 212.49.78.171 (talk) 07:57, 27 November 2008 (UTC) 

Welcome to the Wikipedia Help Desk. Your question appears to be a homework question. I apologize if this is a misevaluation, but it is our policy here to not do people's homework for them, but to merely aid them in doing it themselves. Letting someone else do your homework does not help you learn how to solve such problems. Please attempt to solve the problem yourself first. If you need help with a specific part of your homework, feel free to tell us where you are stuck and ask for help. If you need help grasping the concept of a problem, by all means let us know. Thank you. Have a look at water supply and sewerage for starters and let us know if you get stuck. Zain Ebrahim (talk) 08:08, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

using searches

Until recently your search engine was great but now something seems to have changed and I don't understand how to use it any more a search on English civil war returns nothing. At the next stage English+civil+war in any articles also returns nothing. Yet there is a page there - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_Civil_War. What am I doing wrong? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.32.88.200 (talk) 10:25, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

Works for me. I typed "English civil war" into the search bar and clicked search and it returned this. What did you do exactly? Zain Ebrahim (talk) 10:28, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

You could use the Wikipedia Google search. --StewieGriffin! • Talk Sign Listen 12:03, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

Humor

how to be humor —Preceding unsigned comment added by 218.50.131.100 (talk) 15:18, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

The most I can do with that is point you to humor. Zain Ebrahim (talk) 17:33, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

Making content boxes

How can i create a box with contents in on my posts? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Gothminion (talk • contribs) 17:11, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

Does looking at Wikipedia:Article message boxes help answer your question? Zain Ebrahim (talk) 17:35, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

Userbox

Can someone tell me what I have done wrong with this userbox? It's just that when I try to put it into by little scroll box it doesn't work. Wikisaver62 (talk) 18:01, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

1,000,000

This user likes lying about their contributions so claims that they have one million edits.

   <div style="float:left; border:2px solid #f5faff; margin:1px;" class="wikipediauserbox">
{| cellspacing="0" style="width:238px; background:#a3b0bf;"
| style="width:45px; height:45px; background:#cedff2; text-align:center; font-size:14pt; color:black; padding:1px; line-height:1.25em; ; vertical-align: middle;" |'''1,000,000'''
| style="text-align:left; font-size:8pt; padding:4px; line-height:1.25em; color:black; ; vertical-align: middle;" | This user likes lying about their contributions so claims that they have one million edits.
|}</div>

I suggest using {{userbox}}. --—— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk - 21:31, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

I did but it changed to this. Wikisaver62 (talk) 14:03, 30 November 2008 (UTC)

articles

I had create several article under the name Durham Hockey Association

and now they are deleted. I would like to know why? I do know that the DHAlogo did not have a copyright license initially, but does so now, yet my pages are still gone —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jdoghitz (talk • contribs) 19:47, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

Here's its entry in the deletion log. It was deleted by User talk:Thingg per Wikipedia:CSD#A7. To avoid speedy deletion, articles need to assert notability. Whether the subject is actually notable is a different debate. Leave a message at the deleting admin's talk page if you want to query this further. If you don't get any luck there, you could try a deletion review. Zain Ebrahim (talk) 19:55, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

Also, contrary to what you say above, Image:Dhalogo.jpg still has no licensing information. —teb728 t c 20:42, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

Refrences not working

Why don't the references work for User:Yellow Evan/Hurricane Fausto(2008)? Leave Message ,Yellow Evan home , User:Yellow Evan/Sandbox

Fixed. I think you use those slashes when calling up the ref. Zain Ebrahim (talk) 20:41, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

Use <ref name=Foo> for the first time you use the reference, with the {{cite web}} template and </ref> to close, and then use <ref name=Foo/> for each time after that you use that reference. Mjroots (talk) 20:45, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

One half a million dollars..*little finger in corner of mouth*

Hi as many have said before. I hate the huge Donate thing at the top of wikipedia. Where do I express an opinion to remove it from anonymous users? Also where do I highlight that [1] expect to spend $ 1/2 Million on a fund raising team? (with utterly vague objectives See [2] search for 'What's the upshot here: how much bigger is this year's budget compared with last year's? Where are you spending more, and why?'

FYI The second-largest increase is $510K for fundraising expenses: this includes three new positions (Head of Major Gifts, Head of Community Giving, and a Development Associate), as well as an allocation for fundraising expenses (technical help with the database, design support, usability and A/B testing money, fundraising related travel, an allocation for events, etc.)

How much do I have to donate that I get a listed opinion that the current method of generating donations sucks, wikipedia already has plenty of funding for wikipedia to provide a wonderful service, trying to grab a greater portion of the charities market is not required. Pricing plans for various sized fonts appreciated. GameKeeper (talk) 22:37, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

Most of that appears to be rhetorical, but you can contact the Wikimedia Foundation.--Fullobeans (talk) 03:12, 28 November 2008 (UTC)

If you are wanting to hide the banner, you can use some code in your monobook.js - but for the life of me I can't remember what it is - or you could block 'siteNotice' with ABP. — neuro^(talk) 05:42, 28 November 2008 (UTC)

Over riding default image size in infoboxs

This is with regards the article Wen Xiu, the image in the infobox is oversized for the default setting to the extent that the picture has become pixellated. I've tried a number of ways to try and reduce the size of the image but to no avail, can anyone help. Thanks. KTo288 (talk) 23:59, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

Fixed.[3] It depends on the infobox. The documentation at Template:Infobox Chinese Royalty does not mention a size parameter but I looked at the source and saw imgw. PrimeHunter (talk) 00:22, 28 November 2008 (UTC)

Thanks, templates are not really my thing. KTo288 (talk) 00:53, 28 November 2008 (UTC)