Wikipedia:Help desk/Archives/2011 March 12

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March 12

Alignment

I have 3 charts on my user page, but they are each on their own line. Is it possible to get them all on the same line? Would I have to embed the charts into another chart or something? --Thekmc (talk) 00:02, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

Is my edit ok? CTJF83 00:38, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

That was exactly what I needed. Thank you! --Thekmc (talk) 00:59, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

No problem. CTJF83 01:04, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

WP policy on audio

hey guys, I was wondering what the policy about having audio on wikipedia pages is, I've searched but I can't find it. I want to a add a 30 second long clip of a band's song to add to a section about the musical characteristics of said band, in an article about the band. would I still need to obtain permission from the copyright holder? if so, what form does this permission need to take and what exactly do they have to say? cheers Postrock1 (talk) 00:27, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

For non-free use see WP:NFC particularly WP:NFC#Audio clips and WP:NFCC and WP:SAMPLE. For getting permision see WP:COPYREQ. —teb728 t c 00:44, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

many thanks. Postrock1 (talk) 00:48, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

Oh, and tag it {{Non-free audio sample}}. —teb728 t c 00:54, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

Hmm, so if I understand Template:Non-free audio sample and the other pages correctly, does a sample that does not exceed 10% of the total length of the track, and is used in a section where commentary is provided on it etc etc not need permission from the copyright holder? I would of course ask the band informally, but the whole obtaining a license process seems quite long-winded. Postrock1 (talk) 01:03, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

Your talking about asking the band informally suggests that you may know them personally. If that is so, please make sure you are aware of the policies on conflict of interest, and be sure that anything you add meets the requirements of neutrality. --ColinFine (talk) 14:50, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

Saving in userspace

I created a page in userspace and clicked Save at the bottom. But when I tried to return to it later, it had vanished. What did I sdo wrong, and how can I save a page correctly?Multisyl (talk) 01:11, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

You were working in a public sandbox; those are cleaned out automatically. To create a sandbox in your userspace, call it User:Multisyl/Sandbox! --Orange Mike | Talk 01:24, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

Orange Mike is referring to edits last week seen at Special:Contributions/Multisyl. Is that what you meant or did you think you had saved something since then? There are no signs of anything being saved since by your account here at the English Wikipedia. If your edit contained external links then there should be an extra CAPTCHA step for your new account before the edit is actually saved. PrimeHunter (talk) 01:59, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

Tools to learn from Wikipedia articles?

Hi. Are there tools/gadgets to learn from Wikipedia articles, such as quizzes to make sure I understand the content? Cheers, 86.9.199.117 (talk) 01:14, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

There's Wikipedia:Tutorial! --Orange Mike | Talk 01:25, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

Sorry, but there are no quizzes on the article contents themselves. --Thekmc (talk) 01:55, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

Curiously, there is an active quiz page at Portal:India/Quiz. -- John of Reading (talk) 10:05, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

I was unaware of that. I stand corrected. --Thekmc (talk) 19:06, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

how do I increase the font size on wikipedia?

Everything else is big enough to read on my pc, but wikipedia is way too small. It is the only thing that is too small. HELP???? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.62.160.123 (talk) 03:21, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

If you're on a Windows machine, hold down the CTRL key and hit the +/= key to increase the text size. You can also hold CTRL and scroll the wheel on your mouse. Dismas|^(talk) 03:22, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

On Linux also; on a mac the same is working replacing the CTRL with the ⌘ Command button. mabdul 17:35, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

How do I edit this {{SI prefixes}} template or whatever it is?

I wish to create a modified version of the table which this {{SI prefixes}} series of characters produces in an article, but I'm not sure if it a template or a "subst" code of some sort. When it is placed in an article, it produces a large number of columns and rows of text, and I want a version which leaves out many of them. What is it, exactly, where is the full text of what it plops into an article stored, and what page would tell me how to create a modified version? Every time I try to do some type of editing I don't normally do, I'm reminded of how confusing the whole editing thing must be to a newbie, and how "un-userfriendly" our editing system is. Thanks. Edison (talk) 03:37, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

{{SI prefixes}} is a template with source code at Template:SI prefixes. Can Template:SI-Prefixes be used for your purpose? PrimeHunter (talk) 03:43, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

I was confused because where it is used in an article, there is absolutely no reference to it being a template. I made it show its true colors by pasting {{SI prefixes}} in the sandbox, then adding a 1 after SI prefixes, so that it showed up as {{SI prefixes1}} as a redlink template. It should not be that tricky to figure out that it is a template. (Is there a code to add a template so it still says "Template" rather than having the brackets on either side?) Then I was able to create the desired template in my own sandbox by creating a new subpage,User:Edison/Template:Engineering notation prefixes copying the old template, and modifying it to be what I wanted. Thanks. Edison (talk) 04:27, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

OK; this is all about transclusion.

If you write e.g. {{Did you know}}, that will transclude the page called Template:Did you know - ie, if there is no specified 'namespace' then it assumes it is a template.

If you put {{Sausage}}, it will fail, because there is no Template:Sausage.

If you wanted to actually transclude our article about sausages, you could do so with {{:sausage}} with an extra colon, meaning 'don't assume'.

So If you want to transclude something in your own namespace, you have to specify it. For example, I have to put {{User:chzz/s}} to transclude my advice on signing, which is in User:Chzz/s.

Sorry...it is a bit confusing. Hope that helps?  Chzz  ►  08:59, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

Thanks. Edison (talk) 13:33, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

American_people_of_Zambian-Jewish_descent

I made a category of American_people_of_Zambian-Jewish_descent but for some reason it doesn't show on the American_people_of_Jewish_descent page. Could someone fix this please? Thanks! Neptunekh2 (talk) 05:28, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

It is already in the Category of American people of Jewish descent. You put it there. Dismas|^(talk) 05:58, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

Category:American people of Zambian-Jewish descent is a category, not an article. Stanley Fischer is the only article you placed in the category. There is no American people of Zambian-Jewish descent page. Just what is it that you wanted? —teb728 t c 06:26, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

Oh, I see. Category:American people of Zambian-Jewish descent shows up in Category:American people of Jewish descent under the A's and you were expecting it under the Z's. —teb728 t c 06:26, 12 March 2011 (UTC) I entered a sort key. Is that what you wanted? —teb728 t c 06:40, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

That seems to be a rather specific category and indeed the category is currently empty. Is it really necessary? Astronaut (talk) 17:07, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

Categories with a single entry

Due to User:Neptunekh2's question above, I'm curious now... Is there any guideline against having a category which consists of only a single entry? I didn't see anything about it at WP:CAT but it seems like overkill to have a cat for just one item. Did I miss it or is there no guideline on this? Dismas|^(talk) 06:02, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

Disregard. I found WP:SMALLCAT which essentially addresses what I was referring to. Dismas|^(talk) 07:03, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

The entry for Pluto (dwarf planet)

The present entry has under "Atmosphere" the following passage:

The first evidence of Pluto's atmosphere was found by the Kuiper Airborne Observatory in 1985, from observations of the occultation of a star behind Pluto. When an object with no atmosphere moves in front of a star, the star abruptly disappears; in the case of Pluto, the star dimmed out gradually.[85]

This is incorrect. The evidence was found from ground-based observation performed at the Wise Observatory in Israel, as the reference clearly indicates, and not by the Kuiper Airborne Observatory. The rest of the item is OK. ¬¬¬¬ —Preceding unsigned comment added by 132.66.222.3 (talk) 08:33, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

Thank you for your suggestion. When you believe an article needs improvement, please feel free to make those changes. Wikipedia is a wiki, so anyone can edit almost any article by simply following the edit this page link at the top. The Wikipedia community encourages you to be bold in updating pages. Don't worry too much about making honest mistakes—they're likely to be found and corrected quickly. If you're not sure how editing works, check out how to edit a page, or use the sandbox to try out your editing skills. New contributors are always welcome. You don't even need to log in (although there are many reasons why you might want to).  Chzz  ►  08:40, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

Assessment Ethics

Resolved

Nick-D (talk) 22:53, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

An editor assessed an article I wrote as "B-class", but neglected to fill in the "yes" answers to the B-class checklist. Since the list wasn't filled in, the assessment shows up as "C-class". Can I fill in the yeses, so that it shows up on the Talk page as "B"? Boneyard90 (talk) 10:41, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

Have you contacted the editor who made the assessment? -- John of Reading (talk) 10:51, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

This has happened several times with different articles and different editors, and I usually contact the assessing editor, but I always hate to bother them and sometimes they're slow to respond. It would be a simple thing for me to take care of, though I thought it might look inappropriate, even though I would be acting in good faith. That's why I'm asking.Boneyard90 (talk) 00:47, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

I'm not sure I know what I'm doing, but I decided to try to fix it myself. Although Boneyard doesn't say, I believe the article is Saigō-no-Tsubone. It looks to me like the assessing editor, User:Nick-D, inadvertently forgot to put yes for the sixth of b-class criteria AND he used a second template he shouldn't have (which has only 5 criteria). So, I removed the incorrect template and completed b6. I will notify Nick-D in case I'm wrong about my assumptions/conclusions.--Bbb23 (talk) 22:40, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

My assessment seems to have filled in all the criteria (and everything subsequently showed as B class). The B class criteria for WP:Japan were removed in this edit, which seems to have been what caused the problem. I'm active on Wikipedia most days, so generally respond fairly quickly to talk page posts ;) Regards, Nick-D (talk) 22:53, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

Thanks to all involved. And to Nick-D, perhaps I should have contacted you directly, I seriously didn't want to bother you or any other editor any more than is necessary. And as I said, I'd encountered a similar situation before. Thanks again folks! Boneyard90 (talk) 03:03, 14 March 2011 (UTC)

Advertising in article

I.P. 182.173.246.31 (talk) continues to put in what I consider advertising in Ludington, Michigan. I have taken out and given warning, however s/he continues. How do I get an administrator to look at this for a possible block on the I.P. address?--Doug Coldwell ^talk 12:02, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

I've added a level 2 warning at User talk:182.173.246.31 which contains some links to the relevant policy pages. It's not usually appropriate to block until/unless the editor has been informed of the policies and the consequences of ignoring them; see Wikipedia:Vandalism#Warnings. After a "final warning" the appropriate page would be WP:AIV to request a block. -- John of Reading (talk) 12:32, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

O.K., thanks....--Doug Coldwell ^talk 12:50, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

I've been bolder and removed most of the material on the local shops and restaurants per WP:NOTGUIDE. We'll see. -- John of Reading (talk) 21:59, 14 March 2011 (UTC)

Edit Help requires Edit Knowledge to Fathom

Hello,

I am a brand new user of Wikipedia. I wanted to make a quick note on the Nazi Germany page to suggest that it be made clear that the term "Nazi" is the sound in German language when saying the acronym "N.S." (Microsoft Bookshelf 97) Also I wanted to differentiate between a country and a nation, the country being all that exists in a land-based region, and the nation being the aggregate of a specific species within that country (which gets to be a fine mess for me as an animist/inanimist). :-)

Unfortunately, I am unable to put this information on the page, as your "how to edit" page is just as hard to understand and as narrow paradigmed as your editing paradigm, which I am sure is excellent, but how does one learn? The "how to edit" page(s) should look and feel and navigate more like standard everyday web pages out there; that's all I'm saying.

Thank You

Signed, (since I do not know what the tildas mean at all, yet...) Patrick L. Cheatham

MudHenF-15E (talk) 12:17, 12 March 2011 (UTC) ?

I think you'll find the Wikipedia:Tutorial a good place to start. If you want to see what anything looks like before you click save page, click the "show preview" button right next to it. If you had simply placed four tildes at the end of your post (these → ~~~~) and previewed, you'd see how they automagically sign with your username and a timestamp. Regarding your intended edits, please note our verifiability policy and the concerns discussed at WP:WEIGHT. Cheers.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 12:28, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

Moving a section from one article to another.

Hi all,

Looking at the Augmentative_and_alternative_communication article, I like to move the section on rate enhancement to the Speech_generating_device article, where it sits much more naturally. In this case I've got to do a bit of work on target page before the section gets moved but I was wondering where I might find some guidlines on 'transplanting' sections like this - there's lots on moving whole pages but I've got a little lost in the mess...

Failedwizard (talk) 13:18, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

This should be fine. Just be sure to leave a clear trail in the edit summary and on the two talk pages so that it is still possible to track down the original authors of each sentence. I suggest you use the two templates {{Splitfrom}} and {{Split-to}} described at Wikipedia:Splitting -- John of Reading (talk) 14:18, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

Password help

Well..i forgot my password and the email id i used to make my wikipedia account please help . —Preceding unsigned comment added by 122.163.97.55 (talk) 13:58, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

Please read Help:Logging in#What if I forget the password? -- John of Reading (talk) 14:05, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

Former hospital template?

Hello! I'm quite new to Wikipedia and I'm writing an article on the Royal Waterloo Hospital. Is there any advice on what is the right thing to do? Are there any specific templates I should follow? Thanks TehGrauniad (talk) 15:56, 12 March 2011 (UTC) I should add that I've taken a photograph of the former hospital building, how would I upload this? TehGrauniad (talk) 16:01, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

I suggest you use the Article wizard so that the page starts out as a userspace draft where it can be reviewed easily. For specific templates, have a look at those used by any similar articles that you can find; {{Infobox building}} will help you format the summary panel at the top right of the article.

To upload a picture that you have taken yourself, go to the Wikimedia Commons upload page and select the first of the options there. -- John of Reading (talk) 17:13, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

Not letting me edit references

Will Hubbell, Author and Illustrator

I am being told that the FIRST effort I made to include citations was made by someone else and that I should try to include the second effort into the first, but it is not letting me make any changes. ALSO, it would REALLY help to be able to see other wiki pages reference and "citations" samples.Elura (talk) 16:12, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

I changed the above wikilink to point to the article rather than directly to the edit window. Maybe it will be of help to read WP:CITE. Usually you would use ref tags for your sources. These are placed inside the text, where the source should appear. Toshio Yamaguchi (talk) 16:43, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

Quite a good link is, Wikipedia:Referencing for beginners.

I will also add some help on this user's talk page.  Chzz  ►  18:44, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

article

Ronnie Fuller (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) I'd like to know why the article I posted titled "Ronnie Fuller" was deleted. This person no longer performs and this was not posted to promote his work. This is historical with regard to the entertainment industry.

Wayne Mutza — Preceding unsigned comment added by Wayne Mutza (talk • contribs) 16:20, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

The reason given in the deletion log was "(G11: Unambiguous advertising or promotion)", so I guess at least two people disagreed with you about it not being promotional. Hope that helps. Rehevkor ✉ 16:29, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

If you want to take this any further, please refer to Why was my page deleted? -- John of Reading (talk) 17:02, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

Note that "promotional" is as much a judgment on the style and content of an article as on the intention with which it is written. --ColinFine (talk) 18:19, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

"what links here" tool statistics

Hi. Are there statistics regarding the "what links here" tool? For example, the average number of links to a Wikipedia page, the variance, etc. Also, is the MediaWiki API good for retrieving "what links here" data? Thanks. 131.111.1.66 (talk) 16:52, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

I'm not familiar with the tech behind the tool, but Help:What links here may be of some help. Rehevkor ✉ 17:24, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

For an introduction to the available statistics about Wikipedia, see Wikipedia:Statistics. The API corresponding to "what links here" is described here, but if you are planning to use this to compile statistics on the whole of Wikipedia, it would be better for you to download a copy of the database and use direct SQL queries on that. -- John of Reading (talk) 17:47, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

Edit page interface jerking me around

This seems to happen quite often: I click the edit link and start typing some text. Several words later, the page reloads for some reason - possibly to load a banner image, over my slow connection? - and consequently I lose my place in what I was writing, and the cursor ends up in some unexpected location. I'm afraid I'll end up entering stray bits of text in the wrong place. Where is the department of mildly annoying bugs, for me to report this to?  Card Zero  (talk) 17:43, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

Easiest way to deal with: wait these short seconds ;)

What banner is loaded? The "fundraising banner" or similar? try to deactivate them in the preferences. mabdul 17:45, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

Hmm, I hadn't considered patience, I'll give it a go. (I don't always want to be logged it, BTW, which makes disabling banners only a partial solution.) Currently the banner say "Help Write the Next Chapter of Wikimedia’s History", which links to a page inviting me to "help us make our technology and our processes better", ironically enough. Not entirely sure I should blame my connection, either, since it has low latency and the reload is the problem, not the size of the thing the page is being reloaded for.  Card Zero  (talk) 17:56, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

The "department of mildly annoying bugs" is Village pump (technical). Your bug is similar to others that have been described there recently, for example in this archived thread. -- John of Reading (talk) 18:03, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

OK, thanks.  Card Zero  (talk) 18:10, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

This happens to me all the time, too. I click 'edit', click somewhere in the edit window, and start typing - then the screen re-draws, and half my new text ends up at the start of the page instead of where my cursor was. I then press CTRL-Z to undo everything I added, to avoid things in the wrong place...and start again. Or, as stated above, I just wait for several seconds until the screen appears to have finished sorting itself out, before I start editing. Which then means, I get more edit-conflicts (such as, yesterday, 9 in a row on the very busy article 2011 Sendai earthquake and tsunami). I just file this under 'generic background irritations'; at least it gives me something to complain about. And copious tea, brewed during the waits, helps.  Chzz  ►  18:51, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

If your Internet connection is poor enough to degrade productivity, consider installing MediaWiki on your personal computer as your personal wiki under a software bundle such as XAMPP. (See mw:Manual:Wiki on a stick.) A personal wiki makes a great tool for sophisticated note-taking, and you get the editing reliability you expect from any other personal productivity application. This is fine for prototyping large slabs of text that you can later paste (quickly) into a Wikipedia page. It is not so good when your editing depends on complex templates, MediaWiki extensions, or other features of Wikipedia that are difficult to port to a personal wiki. Someday (perhaps shortly before the Technological singularity), our computers will be smart enough to download precisely as much of Wikipedia as we need, so we can edit offline in a local environment that duplicates the remote one, and then smoothly merge our changes when the Internet is reliably available again. It goes without saying that our computers would store indestructible copies of all our work, even when Wikipedia's deletionists deem it unworthy. --Teratornis (talk) 20:01, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

Royal Waterloo Hospital for Children and Women

Hello! I've just created this article Royal Waterloo Hospital for Children and Women. User John of Reading gave me some excellent advice on creating it. Can someone look at it to see if it meets Wikipedia's extremely strict standards?!

I also have a couple of questions: 1. it doesn't seem to show up if you type it into the search box. Why is this? 2. How does one link this article to other search terms, such as "Royal Waterloo Hospital", "Royal Waterloo Infirmary"? TehGrauniad (talk) 18:07, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

It looks like a decent start. Of course, all articles can improve.

One specific suggestion is, in the references, to make the title of the article referenced be the actual link. So what I mean is, instead of;

<ref>‘Seventy-Eighth Annual Meeting of the British Medical Association, London, July, 1910’, The British Medical Journal, Vol. 1, No. 2568 (1910) <http://www.jstor.org/stable/25289985> [accessed 1 March 2011] 703-706, p. 705.</ref>

...you could put...

<ref>[http://www.jstor.org/stable/25289985 Seventy-Eighth Annual Meeting of the British Medical Association], London, July, 1910, The British Medical Journal, Vol. 1, No. 2568 (1910) [accessed 1 March 2011] 703-706, p. 705.</ref>

...which makes the title itself into the link, ie Seventy-Eighth Annual Meeting of the British Medical Association.

Alternatively, you might want to use {{citation}} templates - see User:Chzz/help/refs and Wikipedia:Citation templates.

Also, it would be nice to add it to some categories.

1. it doesn't seem to show up if you type it into the search box. Why is this?

Give it time. It would work if you typed exactly 'Royal Waterloo Hospital for Children and Women', but it doesn' t yet come up in the 'predictive text', because it takes some time to be indexed. Several hours. Give it a day, before worrying that anything is wrong.

2. How does one link this article to other search terms, such as "Royal Waterloo Hospital", "Royal Waterloo Infirmary"?

You make redirects - a short page with one single line. To demonstrate, I have just created a page called 'Royal Waterloo Hospital', containing the line,

#REDIRECT [[Royal Waterloo Hospital for Children and Women]]

So now, and going to Royal Waterloo Hospital now redirects to the article. See here. You can make as many of those as you like - they're cheap :-)  Chzz  ►  18:22, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

Hi Chzz! Thanks so much for your excellent support with answering my questions and supporting the article! TehGrauniad (talk) 00:03, 14 March 2011 (UTC)

I used to have an entry

Hello

There used to be an entry for Ray Kampf or maybe Raymond Kampf (I can't remember which) - I am a designer and author of the Bear Handbook and The Holiday Account of Dr. Frankincense? - and it is no longer there... what happened to it?

Ray Kampf18:48, 12 March 2011 (UTC)RayKampf (talk)

The article was deleted at Articles for deletion, see Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Ray Kampf, the general consensus was that the subject didn't seem to be notable. There were also concerns that it was an auto-biography or there were conflict of interest issues. See WP:AUTO and WP:COI for more on that. Cheers. Rehevkor ✉ 18:53, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

(edit conflict). The discussion is here, Ray: Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Ray_Kampf

If you think this was the wrong decision, you could start a deletion review here: Wikipedia:Deletion review. You should look at the guidance at WP:PROF and WP:AUTHOR to help you decide if this is worthwhile.

Cheers. --FormerIP (talk) 18:55, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

Fire Extinguisher - wrong information about history.

Your document on fire extinguisher, cites Almon M. Granger as the first to patent the fire extinguisher.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fire_extinguisher

The REAL first patent holder is from one year earlier, French C. Hopffer in 1722.

1722 •French C. Hopffer patents the fire extinguisher. http://inventors.about.com/od/timelines/a/Eighteenth.htm

Eric M Vancouver, Wa —Preceding unsigned comment added by 184.232.65.249 (talk) 21:13, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

Hi there. You might want to take that up on the article's talk page. The help desk is more a place for questions about how to do things on Wikipedia. BurtAlert (talk) 22:08, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

Help with tables

Let's say that I have the following table.

Name	State	Title
John Smith	Illinois	President
William Jones	West Virginia	Vice President
Mary Patterson	Tennessee	Secretary
Linda Morrison	Rhode Island	Treasurer

However, I want the table's cells to have an increased left margin (within each cell). That is, I want a little extra "blank white space" to the right of the (gray) vertical column dividing line and to the left of the actual entry within the cell. So, I want the above table to look like this table below.

Name	State	Title
John Smith	Illinois	President
William Jones	West Virginia	Vice President
Mary Patterson	Tennessee	Secretary
Linda Morrison	Rhode Island	Treasurer

Is there some type of convenient formatting function or command (e.g., increased margin? increased border? buffer? cell attributes? whatever?) that will allow me to do this without having to type a whole lot of non-breaking space ( ) commands? Thanks! (Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 21:22, 12 March 2011 (UTC))

You could use style="padding-left##px", where ## is some number. An example is displayed below with 20px padding:

Name	State	Title
John Smith	Illinois	President
William Jones	West Virginia	Vice President
Mary Patterson	Tennessee	Secretary
Linda Morrison	Rhode Island	Treasurer

Is that what you're looking for?--Dudemanfellabra (talk) 04:04, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

Thanks! Yes, that is exactly what I am looking for. Now ... is there a way to have that setting/format/command applied to the entire table (in one fell-swoop, with one general command)? Or do I have to type the command in for each and every cell entry (e.g., you had to type it in 12 separate times in the example above)? Thanks! (Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 04:48, 13 March 2011 (UTC))

Well, if you had access to Wikipedia's CSS, you could make a certain table class (e.g. "padded-table") and say that all "td" elements in those tables should have padding-left:20px.

For example, the following code could be added to the stylesheet:

 table.padded-table td { 
	padding-left:20px; 
	}

You could then add class="padded-table" to the table on the page. Other than that, I'm not sure it's possible on Wikipedia. You could ask over at MediaWiki:Common.css to see if they'll add it or know a better way; chances are they won't, but you could always give it a shot.--Dudemanfellabra (talk) 05:10, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

Thanks. Your first suggestion (that is, the style="padding-left" format) makes a lot of sense. And it will do exactly what I need it to do. Even though it is somewhat inconvenient to have to type the same command for each and every cell entry (especially in a long table). Your second suggestion (creating a stylesheet in CSS) went way over my head, and I really didn't understand what you meant. I am not that well-versed in creating tables. I just about have the "basics" down. So, the second suggestion was too complex for me to wrap my brain around. I could probably figure it out, but I think that the first suggestion -- as repetitive as it is -- will have the effect that I need. I imagine that the second suggestion involves me creating some basic template that requires a lot of effort upfront, but that can then be used subsequently with ease. But, I can't invest the upfront time or effort or wade into that learning curve ... even if it would later pay off. I will stick with the padding-left format option. Thanks! (Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 22:53, 13 March 2011 (UTC))

Linking Wiki to Facebook

How Do you link wikipedia articles to school pages on facebook? — Preceding unsigned comment added by J milan93 (talk • contribs) 21:56, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

Hello. I'm not sure what you mean by that, but I am assuming that you want a Wikipedia article about a school to have a link to its official Facebook page? You should put it in the external links section of the school's article. So you would add this to the bottom of the Wikipedia article about Example School:

== External links ==
* [http://school.edu/ Example School's Official Website]
* [http://Facebook.com/exampleschool Example School's Facebook page]

BurtAlert (talk) 22:06, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

Please also be aware that per WP:ELNO links to social networking sites such as Facebook should normally be avoided. You should get a consensus on the respective article's talk page to determine if it's worthwhile linking to it. Rehevkor ✉ 22:28, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

In a lot of cases (not just schools), I've seen Facebook display the relevant Wikipedia article on an organization's Facebook page, when there isn't any real content on the Facebook page. If this is what the OP is asking about (I'm not sure), then it's probably something in Facebook's code or whatnot; the OP would probably need to ask Facebook about this. Wabbott9 (talk) 03:49, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

neville skelly set up page

how do i instigate a page and information about singer songwriter Neville Skelly —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.0.9.105 (talk) 22:10, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

As you are unregistered, you could make a request at WP:ACR. If Neville Skelly is to have an article on Wikipedia, then you will need to demonstrat that WP:COMPOSER is met. Mjroots (talk) 06:03, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

"View source" instead of "Edit"

The first time I visit any page on Wikipedia, I see a "View source" link instead of an "Edit" link. This has nothing to do with the protection status of the page, and refreshing the page then gives me the normal "Edit" link in place of "View source". Maybe it's related to browser settings or cookies...? But I don't understand it. This never used to happen. Can someone explain? I'm using Opera 11.01 (and I never used to have this issue in Opera; it's only happened for the past few weeks). 86.184.132.79 (talk) 22:11, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

Others have reported this. I don't know the cause but "View source" and "Edit" have the same url so you should be able to edit by clicking "View source" on unprotected pages. PrimeHunter (talk) 22:42, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

SOS  !!!!!!

Hi

I cannot remember my access codes &c so can't log in You have no process like most organisations to have one's password resent or reset My email is [redacted] Thanks —Preceding unsigned comment added by 62.249.244.188 (talk) 22:34, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

If you have stored an email address for your account then you can click "E-mail new password" at the login screen. If you haven't stored an address then you may have to create a new account. PrimeHunter (talk) 22:45, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

We do indeed have such a process, and like most organisations, it can only be to the password email address which was used when the account was registered. --ColinFine (talk) 18:32, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

I've corrected the previous sentence -- John of Reading (talk) 08:45, 15 March 2011 (UTC)

Wikipedia Research

Hello,

I'm doing a research project for school about online trends. I was wondering if someone could help me out with the following: approximately how long is it between a major event occuring in the world and the first updates about it beginning to appear on Wikipedia? A few minutes? An hour? A day?

If someone could help me with even three recent examples - or explain to me how to go about finding this type of information - it would really help me out.

Thanks in advance! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 109.64.2.223 (talk) 22:39, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

You could find three different major events on Wikipedia, and then click the "History" button at the top of each article. You can see exactly when the article was updated from this page. Just make sure you compare the article historys, and make sure you don't find an article update unrelated to the major event. Just remember, we don't do your homework for you, see WP:HOMEWORK. --Thekmc (talk) 23:43, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

One more thing. Make sure when you do the math figuring out how long it took, take into account that Wikipedia uses (I think) the UTC time zone. You might have to do some conversion to make sure you get accurate measurements. Just tell me if you need help. --Thekmc (talk) 00:19, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

You should also be aware the Wikipedia is an encyclopedia not a news medium. So while editors may react promptly to major events, doing so is not our function. And since Wikipedia content is supposed to be based on secondary sources, updates should not appear here ahead of their appearance in secondary sources. —teb728 t c 00:22, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

Out of interest, really: The 2011 Sendai earthquake and tsunami took place on 11 March at 05:46 UTC, and the article was begun at 06:18. It has been edited 1,465 times since then (so far).  Chzz  ►  00:31, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

Several articles with different titles are often created independently after major unscheduled events like natural disasters. The redirects [1] to 2011 Sendai earthquake and tsunami show both many which were started as articles and many which were always redirects. The oldest of the articles [2] was created 06:11. PrimeHunter (talk) 01:23, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

---

You guys are fantastic and really helped me out. Thank you!

contributions User:Chindia (China-India)

Hi, Can somebody with more experience have a look at contributions of User:Chindia (China-India)?

• Most look at first sight ok, but
• Relative new user (March 10, 2011) seems to have a lot of Wikipedia experience. -> sock puppetry?
• Some changes are rather drastic
• Several inline references are removed
• Changed for Talk:N. R. Narayana Murthy for the WikiProjects Biography and India the quality level from Class B to A. For a 2-days user??

This doesn't look normal to me. Is this subtile vandalism or just enthusiastic newbie. -- SchreyP (talk) 23:24, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

Other than the Talk page, you've given very few specifics ("rather drastic"?). One possibility is the editor could be a veteran IP editor who decided to register. If you suspect the editor is a sockpuppet, you could raise that on Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations, but I think you'd need more evidence than you have. As an aside, I undid the Talk page change Chindia made as I saw no basis for the changes (s/he is not a member of either project). If I was wrong to do that, I suppose I'll hear about it.--Bbb23 (talk) 01:05, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

"Editor could be a veteran IP editor who decided to register" is a valid point. But no or vague edit summaries, and the removal of references, is still a point of attention. Thanks, this means checking edit by edit. I will take what I can. -- SchreyP (talk) 07:53, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

I sincerely sympathize. I've put the user on my watchlist, but only to remind me to occasionally check his contributions as Wikipedia doesn't allow me to watch his contributions. I can see he has made some significant changes to different articles (and in some cases those changes have been subsequently partly or fully backed out by others), but I find India articles to be daunting in so many respects that it's hard for me to evaluate the nature or appropriateness of his changes.--Bbb23 (talk) 15:06, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

Much appreciated. I have reverted/updated some edits, like the deleted references, for N. R. Narayana Murthy, and left a friendly message on his talk page. More I can't do either for the same reason. -- SchreyP (talk) 21:51, 15 March 2011 (UTC)