Wikipedia:Help desk/Archives/2012 December 7

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December 7

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HI i want to edit a articular but there's no edit button or rating thing. Can you help, Spidershift — Preceding unsigned comment added by Spidershift (talkcontribs) 00:24, 7 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I need help editing a page — Preceding unsigned comment added by Spidershift (talkcontribs) 00:25, 7 December 2012 (UTC) i want to edit an artical — Preceding unsigned comment added by Spidershift (talkcontribs) 00:28, 7 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

What specific page? CTF83! 00:29, 7 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
If instead of edit, it says view source then that specific page has been protected, see WP:PP. Tiggerjay (talk) 04:21, 7 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
If you click on "view source" there are directions for suggesting changes to the article.— Vchimpanzee · talk · contributions · 22:42, 10 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Convert function

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I was editing Blue Moon (beer) and after saving my edits I noticed (Expression error: Division by zero kJ/L)in bright red when I saved the page. Worried that I had somehow clicked something and done it myself, I looked into this and discovered that something was set wrong initially. I tried a few things with preview to fix it and none of them worked. I then looked around the Help Desk for a bit and couldn't find the Convert function anywhere.

Where is the convert function information? Autkm (talk) 01:07, 7 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Should be fixed now. Wikipedia:Village_pump_(technical)#Recent changes to MediaWiki. --— Gadget850 (Ed) talk 01:50, 7 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Malicious alteration of article on "Butch Jones"

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I noticed obvious bogus changes on the following page and then observed additional changes of the same type while I was on the pageTherapyCat (talk)TherapyCat

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Butch_Jones — Preceding unsigned comment added by TherapyCat (talkcontribs) 03:59, 7 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Can you provide more specific information, it appears there was various acts of vandalism against that page which have been reversed, see this edit. Tiggerjay (talk) 04:23, 7 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Editing a location template

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With the recent updates to MediaWiki that cause malformed {{coord}} templates to produce errors, our longstanding {{Location map USA Alaska}} template is messed up; according to the display, it's centered at more than 200ºE, which isn't possible because numbers only go up to 180º. Looking at the code, I'm guessing that the map centering is caused by the

| y = (100*({{{2}}} - 72)/(51 - 72))
| x = (100*(({{{3}}} + ({{{3}}} < 0)*360) - 172)/((-129 + 360) - 172))

code, but I'm not sure how to change it to work properly. Could you please suggest changes? Note that it's fully protected, but since I'm an admin I'll be able to implement any changes that you can suggest. Nyttend (talk) 04:56, 7 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Fok_it

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There is a Finnish newspaper comic strip called Fok_it with an underscore. Now Wikipedia seems to consider spaces and underscores as equal in article titles. If I were to write an article about it, would the title appear as "Fok it"? Would this be a problem? JIP | Talk 05:49, 7 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The page would have to be called "Fok it", but you can change the appearance of the title by adding {{DISPLAYTITLE:Fok_it}} anywhere on the page (preferably at the top). The Anonymouse (talk • contribs) 05:58, 7 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
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How does the Wikipedia search box determine which articles should be suggested first? Eg. the first suggestion for 'A' is 'Animal'. Till 11:04, 7 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

  • My explanation was a bit simplistic, because Anime was more popular over the last 30 days than Animal, but you can see that items are roughly ordered based on popularity: maybe the popularity index used for autosuggest was last updated several months ago. Maybe other criteria are also taken into account: with Google, for example, it seems that autosuggest may also be partially based on your past search history if you are logged in.
  • It seems that the Page Index is updated on a daily basis, so maybe the popularity ordering also varies on a daily basis. HTH (Hope This Helps). LittleBen (talk) 11:45, 7 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Currency

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Hi, i need the currency template for the Argentine peso but cannot find it. I know it will look something like this: {{currency|11,495|GBP}}. Can someone point it out to me? Thanks Jenova20 (email) 11:21, 7 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

ARS? AR$11,495
ISO_4217#Active_codes CTF83! 11:36, 7 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Oh that's champion CTF83! Thank you very much Jenova20 (email) 12:24, 7 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Div tags

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Is there a way to put some text in a <div> tag without creating a line break? -- ypnypn (talk) 15:13, 7 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

If you don't want a line break you should be using a <span> tag instead, I think. -- John of Reading (talk) 15:47, 7 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks, it worked. -- ypnypn (talk) 17:48, 7 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
[1]. Deor (talk) 22:33, 7 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
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Hi, I spent 7 hours drafting an article yesterday and included around 30 links that were fine yesterday. I've gone back in today to continue editing and none of them work, it simply says 'bad title'.

Please can you help or point me in the right direction, I've spent a lot of time on this.

Alec Zoonvansnook (talk) 15:37, 7 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

They don't work because the syntax is incorrect. When linking to a wikipedia page you should use the format [[TARGET PAGE TITLE|What I want to call it]] and for external links [targeturl(SPACE)Title of target]. Keri (talk) 15:46, 7 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
If you are the subject of the draft (User:Zoonvansnook/sandbox), please read WP:AUTOBIOGRAPHY. And please also read WP:OVERLINK and WP:External links for additional guidance on internal and external links.--ukexpat (talk) 15:49, 7 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Help with WebCite archiving

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Hi, I wondered if someone could have a go at archiving this link with WebCite. I've just made several attempts to do it myself, but keep getting an error message, like this one. I don't usually have problems with it, and have archived a couple of things successfully today, so I'm not sure what's going on. Paul MacDermott (talk) 17:21, 7 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Done.--ukexpat (talk) 17:27, 7 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks, not quite sure what went wrong for me. Paul MacDermott (talk) 17:36, 7 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

citations and resources

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I'm in the middle of putting together a new article. My sandbox is looking good. Where do I add my resource list and how do I use the citation tab? — Preceding unsigned comment added by ShefAdam (talkcontribs) 17:40, 7 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

In the place you want the link to the footnote to appear (like this:[1]), type the following: <ref>your source</ref>. Then, at the bottom of the page, add a section called "References", and type the following: {{Reflist}}. After you save the page, your source will appear in the References section. -- ypnypn (talk) 17:52, 7 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Alternatively take a look at WP:Referencing for beginners.--ukexpat (talk) 19:16, 7 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Deleting a Sandbox article and creating a new Sandbox

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Can anyone help advise me on the following difficulty? I created a Sandbox article and then moved it to Wikipedia. Today I wanted to start a new article, went to the Sandbox (or so I thought), did not know how to delete the article that had been moved, and promptly started the new article while leaving the old title in place. Later, to my horror, I discovered that the new draft had somehow replaced the 'live' article that I believed I had moved out of the Sandbox. I've reverted so that the damage is now undone. However, I still have the problem as first stated. How do I delete this article http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Kim_Traynor/sandbox so that it no longer appears in my Sandbox; and how do I start a new article in the Sandbox once I've done that? Also, is there any way of deleting the crazy edits from the new draft now appearing on the viewhistory page of the live article? Does the Sandbox space become immediately available as a blank space following deletion? Any advice would be much appreciated, even if it's only to tell me where to look for the proper instructions which I haven;t been able to find yet. Kim Traynor (talk) 18:32, 7 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Your confusion came because on moving your sandbox to article space the sandbox was left with a redirect to the article in mainspace. Hence when you went into your sandbox again you began to edit the article in mainspace. i have now replaced the sandbox redirect by just a link, so now you can go into the sandbox and replace it by whatever you want next. - David Biddulph (talk) 18:40, 7 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
If you find yourself in the same situation again in future, when you get redirected you'll see a note at the top of the article saying that you've got there via a redirect. A blue link there will get you back to the redirect page and let you edit there. See WP:Redirect. - David Biddulph (talk) 18:46, 7 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
That's fantastic, David. Thanks for your very prompt and clear explanation and help in returning the Sandbox back to virgin territory. I'll copy and paste your explanation for future reference. I edit a lot on Wikipedia, but I still don't understand its various mechanisms and am never sure how to look anything up when seeking guidance. I appreciate what you've done for me. Kim Traynor (talk) 20:23, 7 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Display problem with bullet followed by an indent

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  Resolved

Consider the following hypothetical discussion;

  • A
B
  • C

When I scroll away and come back to this, I can see a second bullet (infront of C). But on the instant I click on somewhere within the page to place the cursor, it disappears. Am I the only being being able to see this phenomenon? (This was first observed on viewing the section Wikipedia:HIGH#Wikipedia:Five-million pool (2050 or later))···Vanischenu「m/Talk」 19:33, 7 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I see it too. When I go to another tab and come back, it disappears. Popcornduff (talk) 19:53, 7 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I see it as well. Sort of cool, but needs to be fixed...Naraht (talk) 20:07, 7 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I see it too. But I fail to see how this is a problem, considering you should never use such badly formatted lists. Edokter (talk) — 20:07, 7 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
It is very interesting to watch this. So a wikipedian might waste time by playing with this instead of doing some constructive works (but this is not as entertaining as hovering mouse over the here[1] :)···Vanischenu「m/Talk」 21:20, 7 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
If it's that big a problem, Bugzilla is thisaway...--ukexpat (talk) 21:27, 7 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Is this a WP problem or a browser problem? RJFJR (talk) 21:38, 7 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Just to mention, this effect can be produced more easily by pressing the scroll button of your mouse, if present. (I don't have a bugzilla account!)···Vanischenu「m/Talk」 21:38, 7 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Is this browser-specific? I don't see a second bullet under any conditions in Firefox 17.0.1.--ukexpat (talk) 21:44, 7 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, I cannot see this effect on Fitefox 16.0.2, but strangely, two bullets are there. The difference is that it would not disappear on clicking. However on Google chrome 23.0.1271.95 m, the effect is still there. Hence the problem is now resolved (I must have looked for this before starting the comment!)···Vanischenu「m/Talk」 22:24, 7 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

username change

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Hey, I started setting up my wikipedia page "MarioButterfield" and noticed that I forgot to put a space inbetween Mario & Butterfield... How can I make that change? Or can you make it for me? — Preceding unsigned comment added by MarioButterfield (talkcontribs) 19:49, 7 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

See WP:UNC. You can apply to have it changed, but given that you've only made two edits, this request and a edit that has been revered on your userpage, it is easier for you to simply create an account under the new name and simply forget about the old one.Naraht (talk) 20:13, 7 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
And please note the following point listed there at Wikipedia:Changing username,
We hope this helps and would like to hear from you. Thank you.···Vanischenu「m/Talk」 20:19, 7 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I've corrected a Wlink in Naraht's response.— Vchimpanzee · talk · contributions · 22:45, 10 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Billion

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  Resolved

Which billion is used in WP? 1x10^9 or 1x10^12? 3|9|3|0|K (talk) 20:35, 7 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

10^9. WP:ORDINAL. Cheers. Doniago (talk) 20:44, 7 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]