Wikipedia:Help desk/Archives/2010 October 16

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 16

Upgrade my unit

Dear Sir, My Cpu details as below.

Cpu - 1400 Ram - 256 Hd - 20 Model- SCE-D Mother board no:01322-AII GS 1 0828546.

I would like to upgrade my unit. Please advise.

Thanks, Gopal 60.49.12.225 (talk) 01:26, 16 October 2010 (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. --- cymru lass ^{(hit me up)}⁄_{(background check)} 02:12, 16 October 2010 (UTC)

House not yet on the historical division roster

Intended Recipient,I live in a home that i believe should be on Historical Homes Roster if anyone knows their contact address please contact me with it at(<removed>)Thank you for all true accurate results.Sincerely Eddie Billings Jr —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.62.104.20 (talk) 01:53, 16 October 2010 (UTC)

I suspect, based on your question, that you found one of our over 6 million articles and thought we were affiliated in some way with that subject. Please note that you are at Wikipedia, the free online encyclopedia that anyone can edit, and this page is for asking questions related to using or contributing to Wikipedia itself. Thus, we have no special knowledge about the subject of your question. You can, however, search our vast catalogue of articles by typing a subject into the search field on the upper right side of your screen. If you cannot find what you are looking for, we have a reference desk, divided into various subject areas, where asking knowledge questions is welcome. Best of luck. Also, I have removed your e-mail address. -- Bk314159 (Talk to me and find out what I've done) 03:14, 16 October 2010 (UTC)

References

I am trying to write an article on the Russian singer, Pelageya, and expand it but there are no third party references available for her as of this date. So I keep getting messages at the article saying "This article needs references that appear in reliable third-party publications. Primary sources or sources affiliated with the subject are generally not sufficient for a Wikipedia article. Please add more appropriate citations from reliable sources." Well, there are no appropriate citations from reliable sources. What am I supposed to do, not write the article. If not, what a shame. In the meantime, I am looking for third party references and will use them as soon as they become available. I am even looking for them in Russian, which is the most likely language in which these references will be found, when and if they become available. In the meantime, it is aggravating to see an admonition telling me to do the impossible. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Joseph4430 (talk • contribs) 02:18, 16 October 2010 (UTC)

Unfortunately, if there are no independent reliable sources on a subject, then it is not notable, and therefore, does not belong. -- Bk314159 (Talk to me and find out what I've done) 03:17, 16 October 2010 (UTC)

The article is a copyvio of http://english.pelagea.ru/biography and has been tagged for deletion accordingly. – ukexpat (talk) 03:34, 16 October 2010 (UTC)

If the notes are asking you to do the impossible, it must be that you have already embarked on an impossibility: in this case, to create an article on a non-notable subject. Sorry.

Incidentally, if reliable sources existed in Russian, they would be sufficient to establish notability for Wikipedia. --ColinFine (talk) 09:16, 16 October 2010 (UTC)

Sounds like she's "up and coming" and thus not eligible for an article yet. --Orange Mike | Talk 14:59, 16 October 2010 (UTC)

test

test —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.105.73.105 (talk) 04:09, 16 October 2010 (UTC)

It worked my friend! Please use the sandbox for any further tests. Adrian J. Hunter^{(talk•contribs)} 04:44, 16 October 2010 (UTC)

Izabella Arazova

Resolved

 – The reference has been fixed by Jayron32; no need to continue the thread just to criticise an editor's word choice GiftigerWunsch [TALK] 10:47, 16 October 2010 (UTC)

Could someone help me with the reference link on this page? I can't get it to work. Thanks. Pkeets (talk) 06:06, 16 October 2010 (UTC)

I fixed it. Square brackets in the URL fuck up the wiki code, so you need to replace them with escape codes. See Template:Cite_web#Required_parameters for an explanation. --Jayron32 06:12, 16 October 2010 (UTC)

Language! -- John of Reading (talk) 06:58, 16 October 2010 (UTC)

I use it frequently, often in complete sentences. --Jayron32 07:06, 16 October 2010 (UTC)

Cute, but what would be so hard about changing the word you used to the word "mess"? You'd still get your point across.--Bbb23 (talk) 10:11, 16 October 2010 (UTC)

Angola international airport

Hello, I have written the article above. I am asking now if the article was verified and if he is ok like that? Please advise, Regards--Cruks (talk) 08:51, 16 October 2010 (UTC)

There are some stylistic problems with the article (it appears that you translated the German Wikipedia version), but what would be most helpful would be to add inline sources that support what you've said. For some help, see WP:IC and WP:RS. For example, take the first sentence: "Angola International Airport is the future name of the currently under construction major airport of the Angolan capital Luanda." For stylistic reasons, I would change that to: "Angola International Airport is a new major airport currently being built in the Angolan capital of Luanda." Then, although there may be better sources, you could use the source you currently have listed as the fourth external link. Although that piece is about a delay -- and it's old, from 2007 -- it supports some of the first sentence. It would be better, though, to find more current sources because the article says it's being built now. Although I don't read Portuguese, even the Portuguese external links seem to be old.--Bbb23 (talk) 10:33, 16 October 2010 (UTC)

Hello Bbb23, thanks. The problem is there is nothing to find in the net what is really actually happening there in Angola. No pics, no reports, nothing. So I must take what I have.--Cruks (talk) 12:15, 17 October 2010 (UTC)

Struck Contributions

What do the striking mean?

Resolved

I've just come across a user, some of whose contributions have been struck out (have a line through them). The same edits are struck out on the respective pages' edit histories. Take a look at the screen shot on the right. What does it mean? Any suggestions? Thanks in advance. — Fly by Night (talk) 09:24, 16 October 2010 (UTC)

That's the result of revdeletion. Admins see the same but have a couple of extra links to access the deleted content. -- zzuuzz ^(talk) 09:29, 16 October 2010 (UTC)

Excellent! I hadn't seen that before. So I guess Revdel is one down from oversight? — Fly by Night (talk) 09:34, 16 October 2010 (UTC)

Basically. If you check the history log of the article you'll see the deletion. If there's no deletion record then it was oversighted and even admins can't see it. -- zzuuzz ^(talk) 09:38, 16 October 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for the info Zzuuzz. — Fly by Night (talk) 10:49, 16 October 2010 (UTC)

Edit Counter

how can I see my edit counter? This link ({{edit count link}}) does not work, can someone help me? --G DEULOFLEU ™ 10:42, 16 October 2010 (UTC)

Go to your contributions page. Scroll down to the very bottom and there's a link to Edit Count. — Fly by Night (talk) 10:46, 16 October 2010 (UTC)

Thank u so much! --G DEULOFLEU ™ 10:48, 16 October 2010 (UTC)

Duplicate links

Is there a program on the Toolserver or elsewhere that is able to remove duplicate links in an article? For example, if I link [[Cat]] in an article and then several paragraphs later I link [[Cat]] again, is there an automated tool that can go through the article removing all links to [[Cat]], leaving only the first link? Thanks in advance, Wackywace ^{converse | contribs} 12:18, 16 October 2010 (UTC)

All subsequent links shouldn't be removed. See WP:REPEATLINK. PrimeHunter (talk) 13:31, 16 October 2010 (UTC)

Yes, not ALL subsequent links, but if the same page is linked multiple times in the same article, and not far apart, then WP:REPEATLINK does not apply. Wackywace ^{converse | contribs} 13:42, 16 October 2010 (UTC)

Correcting our title (company name)

Hello, How can I correct our company name? It's listed as avid technical resources, when it should be AVID Technical Resources (AVID is an acronym).

Thank you,

Brian Tomasello —Preceding unsigned comment added by Btomasel (talk • contribs) 13:30, 16 October 2010 (UTC)

The bigger issue now is that the page has been nominated for deletion. The rationale given (annotated with wikilinks to the appropriate policies) is:

"Non notable company. Created and edited by COI accounts. Most of the company's recognition is regional and national rankings are not of sufficient note (3899 of 5000 on the Inc. list; 26 of 44 in its industry - the reference to which was published by the subject on a PR site.). No third party sources beyond rankings are provided to support notability. No g-news hits."

(g-news stands for "Google News") -- Bk314159 (Talk to me and find out what I've done) 14:37, 16 October 2010 (UTC)

unchecking "Watch this page" by default

At the edit screen there is a checkbox for "Watch this page". If checked, then, after saving, the page is put on my watchlist. By default, everyone time I edit a page, this checkbox is in checked state. Is there a way to change this behavior so that it is in unchecked state by default? Arthena^(talk) 13:34, 16 October 2010 (UTC)

In your preferences on the watchlist tab. There are four options that control the way that works. ~~ GB fan ~~ 13:36, 16 October 2010 (UTC)

Thanks, for some reason I missed that. Arthena^(talk) 13:39, 16 October 2010 (UTC)

hiding article warnings

Many articles have 'warning boxes' in them, such as "this article does not have enough references", "this article sounds like an advertisement", etcetera. Is there a way I can prevent these warning boxes from showing up on my screen? I find they are taking up too much space on my screen. Arthena^(talk) 13:37, 16 October 2010 (UTC)

The only way to prevent the warning boxes from showing up is to fix the problems and then remove the template from the article. Sorry. ~~ GB fan ~~ 13:48, 16 October 2010 (UTC)

At Wikipedia:WikiProject User scripts/Scripts#Page appearance I found User:Gary King/smaller templates.js. Add this to Special:MyPage/skin.js:

importScript('User:Gary King/smaller templates.js')

This should make the boxes smaller. I just tested it and it works for me. PrimeHunter (talk) 20:35, 16 October 2010 (UTC)

Ahh thanks, it works :). Arthena^(talk) 20:42, 16 October 2010 (UTC)

Deleting a picture

I uploaded a screen shot to illustrate my previous question. To get it deleted, do I just put the CSD G7 template on the file description page? Thanks, Rojomoke (talk) 13:51, 16 October 2010 (UTC)

Yes. PrimeHunter (talk) 13:56, 16 October 2010 (UTC)

Thanks Rojomoke (talk) 16:17, 16 October 2010 (UTC)

"What links here" bug

I have just started looking through the "What links here" page for Republic of Ireland. Out of the first 50, 1 was a talk page, 15 were linked to the page as part of the article and all the rest were not linked to the page at all but had some template about world countries within which there was a link to the page. This is a problem if I want to look through all the pages that link to Republic of Ireland of which there will be hundreds if not thousands and two thrids of them will just be a waste of time. ~ R.T.G 16:56, 16 October 2010 (UTC)

For those who had a hard time figuring this out (like me), one of the sites that links to Ireland is Australian English. That has the template {{English official language clickable map}}, which in turn has a link to Ireland (among many other English-speaking countries). I don't have an answer to RTG's question, which, essentially, is whether there is a way to filter out such sites, or perhaps use a different tool. If no one has an answer, my suggestion is to try posting the question at Wikipedia:Village pump (technical).--Bbb23 (talk) 17:29, 16 October 2010 (UTC)

I went ahead and posted there. If the problem isn't clear try this, some templates are on many hundreds of articles, especially templates of countries of the world and languages, sports... many. If the article Football is on a template, and the template is used on 1,000 articles, when you look for "What links here" for Football you will have an extra 1,000 articles on that list which may be about hockey or skydiving just that they are sport. So they are nothing to do with Football and don't even have a link except some sport template which, once you look at the template once, you know what the link looks like and how it is used. Looking at it 1000 times will not reveal anything new from the first time. To highlight this, the first 15 on the What links here/Football page, excluding talk pages, include: 2 dates, August 22 and April 11, and 7 articles which do not have a link to Football in the article text, Australian rules football, Baseball, Basketball, Bowls, Canadian football and Curling. Obviously the link is found in a template. So, that is around 50% false positives. Excessive. The page lists 3954 "what links here" under "(Article)" space. It's not hard to imagine that 1000-2000 of those are incorrect. That's a lot of clicks and article searches for nothing. ~ R.T.G 19:18, 16 October 2010 (UTC)

No, the problem was clear to me when I posted (it just took me some time to figure it out). I just thought a little more information, including an example of a template that causes you the problem, might be helpful for others. I'm glad you posted on the pump. Hopefully, either here or there, you'll get an answer, although I'm not sure it will be to your liking.--Bbb23 (talk) 19:42, 16 October 2010 (UTC)

I posted some links at Wikipedia:Help desk/Archives/2009 September 2#What Links here - filter problem? PrimeHunter (talk) 20:43, 16 October 2010 (UTC)

There are already filters for talk pages and stuff, WP pages etc, so it's one for the programmers if they can see it. It also is a problem for accurately guaging the number of links and as templates improve and spread all the time so it becomes more significant. ~ R.T.G 11:14, 17 October 2010 (UTC)

And for Bbb23 Primehunter, I just won't use MW bugzilla. There is no point to show my email address to the internet. It's so backward on a site which only function is to fix problems.... Do you drive a car with a busted wheel? I don't. I've said stuff like this about bugzilla here before. In fact I am a bit annoyed about it this time. The suggestion to use a dummy account is not helpful. I have an SUL. I can be contacted by email through any wiki I have a userpage on. Sorry but it sucks and it now seems to be one of those "goes around comes back in your face." I had an email account with my own full name on it. It was spammed every day for months by around 30 new .info crap every day. I didn't even click one link of them and it went on for months, long after I ditched the account. Finish with that. If you make a site and don't know a problem like that... your sites not worth it... sorry. That's playskool. ~ R.T.G 11:32, 17 October 2010 (UTC)

Changing the font size

I have an visual impairment (RP). Can you give me advise on changing the font size of articles as the text is too small for me. Thanks. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Trilegs (talk • contribs) 21:29, 16 October 2010 (UTC)

In many browsers you can hold down Ctrl and press the + key or scroll up on the mouse. PrimeHunter (talk) 22:17, 16 October 2010 (UTC)

Auto-log-out

I haven't found a pattern of instances when I get logged out automatically, but it happens regularly, and frequently only a few seconds after WP-activity (reading a page, or even editing). It's starting to bother me, and I hope I never hit "save page" without noticing I've been logged out. I recall reading about this somewhere a few months ago, but I can't remember where. Does anyone know any remedies against this? Does anyone have a link to a page where it is explained? (This didn't use to happen. I got logged out automatically after an hour or so of idleness, but nothing like this). ---Sluzzelin talk 21:39, 16 October 2010 (UTC)

Help:Logging in has some tips. PrimeHunter (talk) 22:13, 16 October 2010 (UTC)

Thanks, PH. It shows some possible reasons (no idea which one applies, probably the apparently not that infrequent "glitch" scenario, since this happens to me on several completely different computers using different browsers). ---Sluzzelin talk 17:11, 17 October 2010 (UTC)

How to have 2 footnotes for the same book but at different page ranges?

Given

<ref name="mybook"> {{ cite book | title=Cat in the Hat | author = Dr. Seuss |page=3}} </ref>

I know I can use that ref again as

<ref name="mybook">

but then it would reference page 3.

How can I have another footnote to that same book but to page=6  ?
Is there a better forum for this question?
More generally, it would be nice to be able to override the quote field as well. I tried looking it up in the template:cite_book help and ref help and asked an individual editor.--Javaweb (talk) 22:28, 16 October 2010 (UTC)Javaweb

See Wikipedia:Manual of Style (footnotes)#Style recommendations for another option where the main reference and the page numbers are split. PrimeHunter (talk) 22:33, 16 October 2010 (UTC)

Template:Sfn looks like my answer. Thank you! Javaweb (talk) 23:33, 16 October 2010 (UTC)Javaweb