Wikipedia:Help desk/Archives/2009 October 4

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October 4

Help with renaming an article

Can someone who knows how to rename articles take a look at Transhab. According to the article's sources, including from the (ostensibly) most reliable source, the US gvmt. NASA source (reference no. 1), the correct spelling of the name is TransHab (the latter is a redir page in WP but it seems it should be the primary page). What is the policy on this sort of subtle name change? And can someone help if it is okay to do it? Thanks. N2e (talk) 01:09, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

The move shouldn't be controversial, and because the target is only a redirect you should be able to do it by clicking "move" at the top of the page. Xenon54 / talk / 12:01, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

The last point of Wikipedia:Manual of Style (trademarks)#General rules is about CamelCase. A Google search shows both TransHab and Transhab are in use. Wikipedia doesn't always follow official names when they go against normal English. See Wikipedia:Requested moves if you want to suggest a move. The target TransHab has two edits [1] so I don't think you can make the move by yourself. PrimeHunter (talk) 23:18, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

mabinogi

how do i become a paladin —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.223.124.169 (talk) 03:39, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

You might find what you are looking for in the article about Mabinogi (video game). If you cannot find the answer there, you can try asking your question at Wikipedia's Reference Desk. They specialize in knowledge questions and will try to answer just about any question in the universe (except about how to use Wikipedia, which is what this help desk is for). I hope this helps. —teb728 t c 04:56, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

Searching for information in English only

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When I search information on a subject, most of it comes in Polish language. How do I get this information in English only ? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.193.111.101 (talk) 03:44, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

You aren't finding Polish articles on English Wikipedia are you? Assuming you are getting the Polish information from a search engine, you need to set the settings of your search engine. If you don't know how to do that, try asking at the Computing section of the Reference desk. (They answer general knowledge questions.) But be sure you tell them what search engine you are using. —teb728 t c 05:10, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

Perhaps you could enlighten us of what subject your talking about??? South Bay (talk) 07:10, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

Even better, run such a search, copy the URL from your Web browser's address bar, and paste it into a reply here so we can directly examine your search. That will tell us some important details that you may not know are important, such as the search engine you are using. --Teratornis (talk) 19:44, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

Ah. He gives more info at his user talk: He went to wikipedia.org and clicked on Polski. —teb728 t c 21:54, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

Well, that might explain it. --Teratornis (talk) 01:47, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

In my opinion this is not as trivial a question as some people might think. Once you get into another wikipedia, for example pl.wikipedia.org, there is no simple way that I can find to get back to the main page at www.wikipedia.org, short of starting again. Not everone has the address bar in the browser displayed, so my suggestion would be to keep pressing the back button till you get to a page you recognise. Jan1naD - (talk) 09:19, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

Unknown file type

When I try to open some Wikipedia files, Windows reports an unknown file format and offers to search for a program to open the file. However, it never does find such a program. It is irritating because the problem only arises periodically rather than constantly. Help! Thanks

Give us an example of such a file, like this: File:Voiceless postalveolar fricative.ogg. --Teratornis (talk) 19:41, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

wikipedia

When I type something such as {{wikipedia}}, the entire article shows. I am trying to do something so that when I ask a question, like I am doing now, I will be notified when someone responds. I will be notified with the new messages message (I will make a sub-page under my user page). To do that, I will need to moniter a certain section. Is there any way I can put only a section of an article on my page using {{}}? Whenever I put something like {{wikipedia#history}}, the entire article shows. What do I put if I want just one section to show?  Btilm  21:31, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

I don't believe so. You won't be notified of changes to templates on your talk page though.--Unionhawk ^{Talk E-mail Review} 21:41, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

The original poster was not referring to templates, s/he was referring to transclusion, the process by which pages are included within other pages. As to the original question, I think watchlisting is the closest one can get. Intelligentsium 23:59, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

Of course, you could also try the "<noinclude>" and "<includeonly>" tags, but you would have to actually insert them onto the page, which is probably not a good idea, especially for mainspace pages. Intelligentsium 00:03, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

Re: notifications to messages you receive from pages other than your user talk page. See WP:EIW#LT for information about Liquid Threads, which might someday provide expanded notifications on Wikipedia. I have no idea of when or whether Liquid Threads will come to Wikipedia. See mw:Extension:LiquidThreads#Rationale. --Teratornis (talk) 01:45, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

Question regarding possibility of "claiming" contributions made when one has forgotten to sign in

I have recently been asked if there is any particular way for an editor to somehow revise the history of edits he made while he was signed out so that they appear as his contributions. I can understand the question, but honestly have no idea if it is possible, or how to go about doing it. Any ideas? John Carter (talk) 21:47, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

You can change the signature of your posts on talk pages and forums, but you can't change the IP in the history. —teb728 t c 22:04, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

See WP:LOGGEDOUT for tips on this. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 02:13, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

Unknown File Type

Gaul (Latin Gallia) is a historical name used in the context of the Roman Empire in references to the region of Western Europe approximating present day ...

Name - History - The Gauls - See also en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaul - Cached

Hi = I asked the question about unknown file formats. This is one which returned the message I referred to. Thanks

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Help_desk" —Preceding unsigned comment added by 90.200.146.45 (talk) 21:47, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

I don't see a file on that page that should be causing you problems. What do you do to cause the error message to appear? (If you want to reply to this message, put it right below here - please don't start a new thread.) Xenon54 / talk / 22:28, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

The easy way to reply right below here is to click the "edit" link opposite to the section heading. —teb728 t c 22:47, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

You appear to be quoting from a Google search results page. Several users have reported getting an error message about unknown file type when they click a link to a normal Wikipedia article from a Google page. It depends on the browser and only happens sometimes (never to me). Google apparently attaches something to outgoing links which can cause problems in communication between Wikipedia and some browsers. If you manually copy the url to the browser address bar instead of clicking the link on the Google page then the problem will probably go away. PrimeHunter (talk) 23:04, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

Thank you both. It was indeed a Google feed and all I was doing was clicking on the link.

Thanks for taking time to reply —Preceding unsigned comment added by 90.200.146.45 (talk) 18:56, 5 October 2009 (UTC)