Wikipedia:Help desk/Archives/2008 October 15

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.

October 15

How do I add a citation when I find one?

I see in articles that there are notations of where a citation is needed? Does anyone know how to add those when I find them. Depending on whether it is a book or a website, it is hard to tell what is the proper format? If it isn't a bother could you put a link on my talk page? Thank you. Elmmapleoakpine (talk) 01:34, 15 October 2008 (UTC)

All questions get answered here, sorry. It seems what you're looking for is the citation guidelines, which gives an overview of citations. Most of the information you want should be there. --Alinnisawest,^{Dalek Empress} (extermination requests here) 02:39, 15 October 2008 (UTC)

You might find the template below useful:

Visual inline citation guide

Formatting references using inline citations

All information in Wikipedia articles should be verified by citations to reliable sources. Our preferred method of citation is using the "cite.php" form of inline citations, using the <ref></ref> elements. Using this method, each time a particular source is mined for information (don't copy word-for-word!), a footnote is placed in the text ("inline"), that takes one to the detail of the source when clicked, set forth in a references section after the text of the article. In brief, anywhere you want a footnote to appear in a piece of text, you place an opening <ref> tag followed by the text of the citation which you want to appear at the bottom of the article, and close with a </ref> tag. Note the closing slash ("/"). For multiple use of a single reference, the opening ref tag is given a name, like so: <ref name="name"> followed by the citation text and a closing </ref> tag. Each time you want to use that footnote again, you simply use the first element with a slash, like so: <ref name="name" />. In order for these references to appear, you must tell the software where to display them, using either the code <references/> or, most commonly, the template, {{Reflist}} which can be modified to display the references in columns using {{Reflist|colwidth=30em}}. Per our style guidelines, the references should be displayed in a separate section denominated "References" located after the body of the article.
Inline citation code; what you type in 'edit mode'	What it produces when you save
Two separate citations.<ref>Citation text.</ref><ref>Citation text2.</ref> Multiple<ref name="multiple">Citation text3.</ref> citation<ref name="multiple" /> use.<ref name="multiple" /> == References == {{Reflist}}	Two separate citations. Multiple citation use. References_________________
Templates that can be used between <ref>...</ref> tags to format references {{Citation}} • {{Cite web}} • {{Cite book}} • {{Cite news}} • {{Cite journal}} • Others • Examples

--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 02:54, 15 October 2008 (UTC)

Get to know WP:FOOT, WP:CITE, and WP:CITET. If you do, you will probably be in the top decile of Wikipedia editors by skill. If you look at WP:FACR and some featured articles, you'll see most of them have lots of references and format all of them with citation templates. That's one of the big differences between featured articles and much of the rest of Wikipedia. For Wikipedia to reach its goal of getting every article up to featured quality, either most of our 48,347,757 users will have to smarten up a whole lot, or we will need better software tools to make adding references so simple that the majority of Wikipedia users can do it (or bots can do it). I would like to see all publishers who want to get cited by Wikipedia (and who wouldn't?) adding citation data to their pages in some standard format accessible to, say, the Universal Reference Formatter (see {{Google scholar cite}} to see how that works). --Teratornis (talk) 04:51, 15 October 2008 (UTC)

Change page name

Hello,

I just wrote an article about Micro-x-ray fluorescence, but I misspelled the page name. I put Micro-x-ray fluoresence and it is supposed to be Micro-x-ray fluorescence. How can I change the page name? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Grullon21 (talk • contribs) 01:50, 15 October 2008 (UTC)

You can move pages when your account becomes autoconfirmed after 4 more edits. I'm not sure about the best capitalization but the main thing is probably correct spelling and I moved it to Micro-X-ray Fluorescence for now. PrimeHunter (talk) 02:13, 15 October 2008 (UTC)

How to Request a Title of Article be Changed

I tried to change (correctly) the name of an article but I got this message:

The page could not be moved: a page of that name already exists, or the name you have chosen is not valid. Please choose another name, or use Requested moves to ask an administrator to help you with the move. Do not manually move the article by copying and pasting it; the page history must be moved along with the article text.

I went to the "Requested moves" link but have no idea how to request there. There's no textbox or link where I can submit my request. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Stepusual (talk • contribs) 02:11, 15 October 2008 (UTC)

You can edit a section at Wikipedia:Requested moves by clicking "edit" to the right of the section. The best place depends on the move you want, and maybe we can fix it right here. What is it? PrimeHunter (talk) 02:18, 15 October 2008 (UTC)

creating a redirect

If I created a redirect for Scream 4 to go to Scream (film series), would I be given a stern talking-to? I'm not sure I should since the Scream 4 page has gone through so many deletions. Dismas|^(talk) 04:01, 15 October 2008 (UTC)

Unless one of the people who deleted the page before happens to be reading the Help desk just now (a possibility, I suppose), essentially you are asking the rest of us to predict what the people who deleted the page before will do when they see your new redirect. I can think of two ways to figure out what those people will do:

• Ask them.
• Create the redirect and see how fast they delete it (or not).

I'd lean toward asking them, if it was my problem. --Teratornis (talk) 04:41, 15 October 2008 (UTC)

It was protected and required an admin. I have redirected it. PrimeHunter (talk) 12:50, 15 October 2008 (UTC)

Thanks. Dismas|^(talk) 18:57, 15 October 2008 (UTC)

Government of New York

Why is Government of New York listed at Category:United States statewide political official templates?--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTM) 06:38, 15 October 2008 (UTC)

probably one of the templates has a problem. I'm looking now. Ling.Nut ^{(talk—WP:3IAR)} 06:54, 15 October 2008 (UTC)

Template:Current New York statewide political officials was recently edited to not include a couple of categories. I think that it might actually take up to a few days in some cases for all of the categories and pages to reflect changes. I know that I saw a notice to that effect on CAT:CSD or something pretty recently. WODUP 06:59, 15 October 2008 (UTC)

No... the template needed a /doc subpage, so I made one.. the cats should have been added there. Moved them. See Wikipedia:Template documentation. Ling.Nut ^{(talk—WP:3IAR)} 07:11, 15 October 2008 (UTC)

Then why is Government of New York still listed in Category:United States statewide political official templates? WODUP 07:16, 15 October 2008 (UTC)

I don't see it. Clear your cache? Ling.Nut ^{(talk—WP:3IAR)} 07:19, 15 October 2008 (UTC)

Well, it's gone now, but it was there... really... I swear... WODUP 07:24, 15 October 2008 (UTC)

Now the template and its documentation are in the wrong places. Category:United States statewide political official templates should contain templates not documentation pages.--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTM) 13:22, 15 October 2008 (UTC)

Request for a bot to do something

How do I set up a request please that a bot regularly goes through List of photographers, deleting anyone with a red link? Kittybrewster ☎ 09:30, 15 October 2008 (UTC)

Some people consider me an evialllll deletionist; but even I am uncomfortable with the idea of something that crucial being done by a bot. This is a serious matter; some of those folks may deserve their own articles, and a redlink can be a clue as to places where Wikipedia is lacking. --Orange Mike | Talk 13:24, 15 October 2008 (UTC)

Isn't there a bot that does something like this for date articles? For example, someone adds a redlink to October 15th and the bot reverts it. I think there are limitations though (e.g. the bot only reverts once per article per day). TN‑X-Man 13:58, 15 October 2008 (UTC)

Once a day would be fine. At the moment the job is being done by editors. Kittybrewster ☎ 17:43, 15 October 2008 (UTC)

Well, Pseudobot only works with date articles. I think (but am not positive) that many people agreed that the majority of redlinks added to dates were vandalism. I don't know if that applies to other articles/lists. I hope this helps. TN‑X-Man 17:51, 15 October 2008 (UTC)

IE hangs when loading into wikipedia

Hi i have a group of users who frequently access to wikipedia site. However lately they have been encountering this problem:

IE hangs when trying to load www.wikipedia.org. No responses from IE. I would need to terminate the session and restart again. Sometimes after shutting down and restart it works, but some other times it will just not response.

Is there any solution for this? or advise you could give relating to this problem? thanks —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.118.67.5 (talk) 13:26, 15 October 2008 (UTC)

This page is for questions about using Wikipedia. Please consider asking this question at the Computing reference desk. They specialize in answering computer 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 and ask away. You could always try searching Wikipedia for an article related to the topic you want to know more about. I hope this helps. Chamal ^talk _work 15:13, 15 October 2008 (UTC)

software that allows your files to speak to you

I am looking for a software program that will read the files I enter into my folers and instead of my reading then (I only have one eye and get eye tired quickly) it will read them to me.

I receive thousands of pages of legal files (paraticularly depositons) and I am looking for a way of reviewing them without going more blind.

If you are not able to assist me, please point me in the right direction. Thanks for your time and consideration.

www.securityoffice.com —Preceding unsigned comment added by 96.245.206.159 (talk) 14:30, 15 October 2008 (UTC)

This page is for questions about using Wikipedia. Please consider asking this question at the Computing reference desk. They specialize in answering computer 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 and ask away. You could always try searching Wikipedia for an article related to the topic you want to know more about. I hope this helps.BTW, please do not provide your personal information here. Chamal ^talk _work 15:06, 15 October 2008 (UTC)

Getting Started

how do I go about getting started? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 63.215.28.105 (talk) 14:46, 15 October 2008 (UTC)

There are a bunch of ways to get started editing Wikipedia. The best way is to find a subject that interests you and look for ways to improve articles. You can also create an account, which has a lot of benefits. Be bold and help out! If you have any questions, feel free to ask them here or on my talk page. Cheers! TN‑X-Man 14:57, 15 October 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia is a do it yourself system, which means you have to read lots of friendly manuals to figure out what to do. Start reading at Help:Contents. Take the tutorial. Be bold, but always in proportion to your knowledge of Wikipedia. As you know from real life, the less people know about something, the more cautious they should be with it. However, Wikipedia is much more rugged than most things; almost any mistake you can make here is relatively easy for other editors to revert, so you can learn by trial and error with considerably less bloodshed than is typical in real life. If you want a human to personally guide you, see WP:ADOPT. If you want a structured introduction to Wikipedia, see Wikipedia - The Missing Manual. For general information about Wikipedia, see Wikipedia, wiki, and MediaWiki. You could also read this Help desk every day and follow the links from the answers to questions. The Help desk illustrates very well the kinds of problems successive waves of new users run into repeatedly as they try to figure out the giant puzzle of Wikipedia. By learning from other people's problems, you will experience fewer of them. If you are serious about learning to edit on Wikipedia, I recommend making an account so you can begin editing your user page. Your user page is a place to write notes about what you are doing, add links to the articles you are working on, and to the internal document pages you are studying or refer to often. For example, you will want to remember the Editor's index - the single page that probably answers more questions about Wikipedia than any other. --Teratornis (talk) 18:48, 15 October 2008 (UTC)

Probably the easiest way to start is to read articles that interest you, and fix any typographical errors you see. Wikipedia always has lots of misspelled words and so on, especially in articles that attract a large proportion of casual editors and have had lots of recent editing activity. You can fix most typographical errors even before you have learned much of Wikipedia's wikitext markup language. See Help:Editing and Help:Wikitext examples. Also, you did not tell us what subjects interest you. Many people who edit on Wikipedia tend to focus on particular subject areas. For many subjects, there are corresponding WikiProjects where editors coordinate their efforts. --Teratornis (talk) 18:56, 15 October 2008 (UTC)

Help

The main template for the page The Simpsons (season 20) isn't looking like it's suppose to - can anyone help? Ay ^{(Reply!,Contribs!)} 15:29, 15 October 2008 (UTC)

I have hidden the table of contents on the page and the page now resembles season 19. Is that what you meant? Cheers! TN‑X-Man 16:03, 15 October 2008 (UTC)

Thanks! I meant the template itself was broken, but now it's fixed. Now, without the Table of Contents, it matches season 19. Thanks a lot! A _talk 18:30, 15 October 2008 (UTC)

Using columns within a table cell

Hi, I'm having a hard time finding a method of instituting multiple columns of text within a table cell without having it look crappy or distorting the rest of the table. Specifically, I'm trying to divide the Coauthors cells into columns in the Jeffrey A. Wilson article, because they are very long and stretching the cells vertically. I've tried the {{col-begin}} template and using a nested table (like this), but despite basically doing what I wanted, they either end up distorting the parent table or creating a visible minitable in the cell which is an eyesore. Is there any way that I can divide the lists of coauthors into columns without it being ugly or harming the rest of the table? Abyssal (talk) 20:27, 15 October 2008 (UTC)

Just glancing at it offhand, I'd suggest trying to make multiple columns for the coauthors in the main table, and using a colspan to put a single heading over the two or three coauthor columns. Then you can manually distribute the coathors among their columns. You can probably figure out how to not draw a line between the coauthor columns. I'm too lazy to work out an example here, but I could if you don't follow what I mean. Look at all the table examples under WP:EIW#Table to get more clues. --Teratornis (talk) 00:53, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the suggestion. :D I've since implemented it. How does the article look? And no I couldn't figure out how to get rid of the border between the columns even after RTFMing. Any help on that front? Abyssal (talk) 10:16, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

I killed the borders for you in one cell, you can do the rest; note also the valign. I really dislike the periods and so rmv'd a few, but you can stick them back in if you insist upon them. :-) Note also my comments on the article's Talk... Ling.Nut ^{(talk—WP:3IAR)} 11:13, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

Thanks, Ling! Abyssal (talk) 15:11, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

Recent Changes Transcluded only

Special:RecentChangesLinked/whatever will show all changed pages both linked to and transcluding the target whatever. Is there a way of hiding the linked pages to show (only) the transcluding pages, for example Special:RecentChangesLinked/Template:whatever&hidelinks=1 does not work ? Peet Ern (talk) 12:08, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

I tried asking this at Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)#Recent Changes Transcluded only a few days ago but have not got any responses.

Peet Ern (talk) 22:59, 15 October 2008 (UTC)

Now answered at Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)#Recent Changes Transcluded only. At the moment it does not work but is "on the to do list". Peet Ern (talk) 02:09, 17 October 2008 (UTC)