Wikipedia:Help desk/Archives/2011 December 26

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December 26

Civil war argument

all right. That's enough
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
Why can't people get there shit strait? The civil war wasn't over slavery. You are all idiots. Fix it or ill keep sending how really stupid you truly are. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 166.137.140.177 (talk) If you have a problem with an article then you can post a sourced suggestion to its talk page, but note the policies Wikipedia:Neutral point of view and Wikipedia:Verifiability. Lots of reliable sources say slavery was a major factor and it would certainly be inappropriate for Wikipedia to claim it played no part. PrimeHunter (talk) 01:40, 26 December 2011 (UTC) What a great plan you've come up with to get pointed action on whatever it is you're on about! A post full of grammatical errors that provides no context nor cogent point smearing all 15,944,664 Wikipedia users as idiots. This idiot thinks you meant their, not there, used strait in place of straight, missed the apostrophe in I'll and that sending was a poor syntax choice.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 04:41, 26 December 2011 (UTC) That's quite enough of that. Closing down this unproductive thread. --Jayron32 04:44, 26 December 2011 (UTC)

DYK

As mentioned above, the DYK is an extremly time-consuming and fiddly process to go through. Not enough support for those unfamiliar with the process. Won't be bothering with that again. Mattun0211 (talk) 03:20, 26 December 2011 (UTC)

Are you asking a question, or posting a comment. You may only ask questions or answer them in this talk page. You can add comments on any other talk page than this. Please don't clutter our talk page with unreasonable comments. CPGirlAJ (talk) 21:12, 29 December 2011 (UTC)

Invitation to update "Template:Roadrunner United"

I would like to make an invitation to update Template:Roadrunner United, as adding all of the musicians and ensembles could be quite time consuming. How can I go about doing so?--Jax 0677 (talk) 03:31, 26 December 2011 (UTC)

Similar like all pages at Wikipedia, just hit the edit button/tab at the top and change/improve it. mabdul 03:38, 26 December 2011 (UTC)

You could post your request at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Albums. -- John of Reading (talk) 12:21, 26 December 2011 (UTC)

Editing Doodles Weaver "reference" section

There are a list of 8 references for the Doodles Weaver entry; the first one is my book on Spike Jones, but the title/info is incomplete. The Ref. list does NOT appear when I click on Edit the Page or try to Edit the section. Thank you, J.Y. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jordan R. Young (talk • contribs) 06:21, 26 December 2011 (UTC)

Referencing can be a bit confusing. If you would like to update the reference yourself, Wikipedia:Referencing for beginners may be able to help you. If you find that still confusing, just go to the "discussion page" for Doodles Weaver, located at Talk:Doodles Weaver, and leave the missing information. Someone with more experience at Wikipedia will be along at some point to update the article. --Jayron32 06:48, 26 December 2011 (UTC)

for any clarification call — Preceding unsigned comment added by 122.177.5.253 (talk) 08:57, 26 December 2011 (UTC)

I have removed this telephone number to protect your privacy. Most discussion of Wikipedia matters takes place on the talk/discussion pages. -- John of Reading (talk) 09:49, 26 December 2011 (UTC)

When you are reading an article and see a references section near the bottom populated by a series of numbered citations, you might think that if you edit the page, you will see those citations typed in that section and be able to edit them. However, normally what you will see is code similar to this:

     ==References==

   {{Reflist}} or <references/>

The text of citations is actually in the body of the article, directly next to statements or paragraphs the citations support, using <ref>(citation)</ref> tags, which display as footnotes (e.g.^[1][2]) when you are reading an article. The template code shown above in the references section colates and displays all of the citations within the article in a numbered list in which the numbers correspond to the footnote numbers in the text. By clicking on the ^ symbol next to a citation display, you can easily find exactly where in the body of the article the citation text appears in order to edit it. For more, please see Wikipedia:Referencing for beginners. Meanwhile, I have updated the citation to include full attribution, including the title.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 13:28, 26 December 2011 (UTC)

Rosie scott LIBEL

RE: Dr. Rosie Scott's profile

I was mortified this evening to check my wife's Wiki listing (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosie_scott) to discover the following libel had been added to her profile:

<redact>

I have edited this slanderous sentence out. Can you please identify the person who wrote it and take measures to ensure he/she does not vandalize the site again.

Thank your for your help.

Best wishes, Danny Vendramini — Preceding unsigned comment added by Dannyvendramini (talk • contribs) 09:39, 26 December 2011 (UTC)

Rosie Scott (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

Thank you for fixing the article; I'm sorry this wasn't caught sooner. I have added the article to my watchlist and will keep an eye on it. I have left a warning message at User talk:118.93.194.60; however, that IP address is all the information I have about the person who made the edit. -- John of Reading (talk) 09:59, 26 December 2011 (UTC)

Brenda Fricker

I'm trying to do a simple edit on Brenda Fricker, but all that comes up is her filmography. No other text is shown. Why is this? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Chris Ottaway (talk • contribs) 09:51, 26 December 2011 (UTC)

Brenda Fricker (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

If you click the "Edit" link at the top of the page you should be able to edit any part of the article. As a test, I've just made an edit to that page. Thank you for registering an account, by the way; I've left you some introductory links on your talk page. -- John of Reading (talk) 10:08, 26 December 2011 (UTC)

Donated money to wikipedia

Hi,

I donated some amount to wikipedia. But while i was on the last page of making transaction, my internet page expired. So, i just wanted to know that whether wikipedia received the money or not and if not can they provide me the details for the transaction so that i can claim money back which was going for a good cause.

Thanks &Regards, Vikrant — Preceding unsigned comment added by 125.21.183.72 (talk) 09:52, 26 December 2011 (UTC)

Thank you for your interest in donating. Please email problemsdonating@wikimedia.org with more detail, and someone will try to sort this out. (Please don't post any bank details on this public page, of course). -- John of Reading (talk) 10:24, 26 December 2011 (UTC)

Entry: 1st Special Forces Airborne Regiment (Airborne)

sir,

The proper unit name of the Philippine Special Forces is: Special Forces Regiment (Airborne). To check, you could enter the Philippine Army website where this information could be verified.

Thank you. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Greenarcher90 (talk • contribs) 10:47, 26 December 2011 (UTC)

I hunted on the website and saw this, so yes, I've moved it to Special Forces Regiment (Airborne). Cheers,  Chzz  ►  15:36, 26 December 2011 (UTC)

Help with disambig.

Hi all,

So AAC redirects to Advanced_Audio_Coding, and I think it would be an improvement for AAC to redirect to the disambig page AAC_(disambiguation) - is this something I can do boldy? or is there a particular process to follow? Failedwizard (talk) 14:17, 26 December 2011 (UTC)

It's a question of, whether Advanced Audio Coding is or is not the "primary topic" for AAC. I'm not offering an opinion on that, right now; but you should a) read WP:PRIMARYTOPIC and decide, and b) if you think it isn't the primary topic, you should file a requested move suggesting that "AAC (disambiguation)" be moved to "AAC".  Chzz  ►  15:27, 26 December 2011 (UTC)

Using the Book Creator feature?

I have created a book using the book creator feature that I am having difficulty recovering and using upon subsequent log-ins. What the easiest way to do this? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Chauncey Moore (talk • contribs) 18:14, 26 December 2011 (UTC)

I have confirmed your account so you can now save books. If the book you were working on is not at Special:Book then I'm afraid it's gone. PrimeHunter (talk) 20:35, 26 December 2011 (UTC)

Dangerous code on wikipedia page

I'm not sure if this is the place to do this but I find wikipedia feedback options extremely confusing. The following makes me very hesitant to ever return to wikipedia.

When viewing an article; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hover_ad

If you scroll down to the heading "EXTERNAL LINKS" and click on "Hover ad examples" this causes a serious computer error. I tried it several times and it completely shut my computer down every time after which, upon restart, my computer said it had recovered from a serious error.

This really should be removed

Win XP/firefox — Preceding unsigned comment added by 142.167.196.22 (talk) 21:08, 26 December 2011 (UTC)

Agreed; it's nothing malicious, but definitely dodgy code. I removed it [1]. Discuss it on Talk:Hover ad. Thanks, and happy Xmas.  Chzz  ►  21:11, 26 December 2011 (UTC)

In case it isn't clear, "External links" means links to external websites outside Wikipedia. The code that caused problems was not in Wikipedia which has no control over that website, but a Wikipedia article contained a link to it. There is protection against damaging code here at wikipedia.org, but there is no check of the content when a user adds a link to an external site. PrimeHunter (talk) 22:32, 26 December 2011 (UTC)

BlackBerry browser 5.0 does not trigger mobile view

Unlike Opera Mini, which triggers mobile view (even when the normal address is entered directly), the BlackBerry browser 5.0 does not trigger mobile view. Since it can render the mobile version just fine (and in fact, better at it compared to normal version), why not make it automatically trigger mobile view like Opera Mini? Surely adding a few more user agent strings will not hurt? Especially for the sake of compatibility?

If anything, the normal view renders like garbage. There is barely enough room for a few words per line. It certainly does not offer the best experience. I need to enter the mobile version manually because if I do any search within mobile version, it switches back to normal version — Preceding unsigned comment added by 206.53.148.144 (talk) 21:26, 26 December 2011 (UTC)

A better place to ask this would be at WP:Village Pump/Technical. --ColinFine (talk) 22:41, 26 December 2011 (UTC)

Spelling bot

There are a number of occurrences of "assesment" for "assessment". How can I best alert a bot that would correct them? Some are in redirects, therefore appropriate, but many aren't. Itsmejudith (talk) 22:22, 26 December 2011 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Lists of common misspellings. PrimeHunter (talk) 22:37, 26 December 2011 (UTC)

Secondary citation

Suppose I am citing a secondary source, which, as per WP:NOR, is meant to constitute the bulk of source material for articles. What if the key point in the secondary source is a quotation from a primary source? We aren't supposed to use primary sources too much, because of the risk of creating our own synthesis out of them, but generally, secondary citation (citing a source within a source) is discouraged, as per the previous discussion: Wikipedia:Help_desk/Archives/2010_January_7#Referencing_sources_inside_sources_.28back_again.29. What does one do when the key point of the secondary source is to make a point about the primary one?

In my case, this has come about because I am editing a section regarding the Baha'i Faith (not from that article itself) and I want to include a point from the Baha'i Writings, which means Baha'is regard it as Scripture. So the Writings go "ABC" and the secondary source goes "The general idea is XYZ, which is best illustrated by this quote "ABC." " How do I proceed? The point (several of them in fact) are really made by the primary source quote, so do I quote "Book X quoted in Book Y"? IBE (talk) 23:25, 26 December 2011 (UTC)

ip address or username of edited postings

How can I find out the username and details or ip address of the person who edited a posting on wikipedia? A libelous comment has been posted, and i want the details of the creator. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.27.200.30 (talk) 23:28, 26 December 2011 (UTC)

At the top right of the article is a "View history" tab, which will show you all the edits for a page and which user made the edit. RudolfRed (talk) 23:46, 26 December 2011 (UTC)

If you would like to have the material removed, without making is more obvious, read Wikipedia:Requests for oversight, which will give you an offline place to request deletion, and deletion in such a way that readers cannot see it even when checking the history.--SPhilbrick(Talk) 01:17, 27 December 2011 (UTC)