Wikipedia:Help desk/Archives/2013 March 17

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March 17

Editing a page

I tried to edit a page, Martin Murray (boxer). I tried to add to the professional boxing record part of the page but it looks like I did something wrong and I don't know how to fix it. Could somebody please help? Thank you. BoxingGuru78 (talk) 02:23, 17 March 2013 (UTC)

I've undone your edit to the page, so the article now looks the same as it did before. It's fine to keep on experimenting with the addition until it works - edits can always be undone, so it won't break anything irretrievably. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 02:30, 17 March 2013 (UTC)

...but you should use the Preview button to see what the results of your edit are before you save them (it's right next to the Save page button). You can always cancel before saving, either by clicking the Cancel link or just leaving the page. —[AlanM1(talk)]— 03:04, 17 March 2013 (UTC)

Thank you. BoxingGuru78 (talk) 14:59, 17 March 2013 (UTC)

Tool Missing from my Tool Box

Today when I came to edit on Wikipedia, the "Cite" tool from my toolbox is gone. Wethar555 (talk) 02:54, 17 March 2013 (UTC)

This problem came up not too long ago, see: this archived discussion -- That time, it was a problem discussed at the Village Pump: archived here -- and the problem was soon fixed. — But, that time it was a problem affecting everyone (if I remember correctly), but right now, I my 'Cite' button is on my toolbar and works fine. –So, perhaps trying a browser cache purge and/or browser restart would be a good thing to try. ~E:74.60.29.141 (talk) 04:48, 17 March 2013 (UTC)

Creating new articles

To make an article do I have to write it myself, or can I get someone else to write it? Also, can I get it from another source like the subject's web page? --24.145.65.56 (talk) 05:14, 17 March 2013 (UTC)

A Wizard is available to walk you through these steps. See the Article Wizard.

Thank you.

You will need to first register an account, which has many benefits, including the ability to create articles. Once you have registered, please search Wikipedia first to make sure that an article does not already exist on the subject. Please also review a few of our relevant policies and guidelines which all articles should comport with. As Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, articles must not contain original research, must be written from a neutral point of view, should cite to reliable sources which verify their content and must not contain unsourced, negative content about living people.

Articles must also demonstrate the notability of the subject. Please see our subject specific guidelines for people, bands and musicians, companies and organizations and web content and note that if you are closely associated with the subject, our conflict of interest guideline strongly recommends against you creating the article.

If you still think an article is appropriate, see Wikipedia:Your first article and Wikipedia:How to write a great article, and please consider taking a tour through the Wikipedia:Tutorial so that you know how to properly format the article before creation. An Article Wizard is available to walk you through creating an article, but you will need to create an account to use it. if you don't wish to do so, you can submit a proposal for an article at Articles for Creation. —Theopolisme (talk) 05:25, 17 March 2013 (UTC)

Theopolisme's contribution is a standard response, but doesn't directly answer some of your questions. You may write it yourself, following the advice in Theopolisme's links, or you may request that somebody else do so via WP:Requested articles: you don't need to register to raise a request there (though there are man advantages in doing so). If you raise a request, there is no guarantee that anybody will get round to it anytime soon, though they might.

As for using the subject's website: almost certainly not, for three different reasons. First, that would almost certainly infringe their copyright; secondly, any article must demonstrate that the subject is notable, which almost always requires references to reliable sources independent of the subject; and thirdly, the tone of their website is usually inappropriate for Wikipedia, as it is probably not neutral, and may well be promotional. --ColinFine (talk) 00:34, 18 March 2013 (UTC)

I think my talk page contribution Obamacare wasn't spam.

Some time ago I put the below on the talk page for Obamacare. I didn't notice it as immediate reverted as spam until now. I was never notified.:'letter to New Haven Register by MaryAnn EllisonOpinion.LETTER: 'Penalty' is in Bush's Medicare Part D, too Published: Thursday, July 05, 2012 Share on facebookShare on twitterShare on stumbleuponShare on pinterestMore Sharing Services0By MaryAnn Ellison, Meriden

"I do not understand why I have not yet heard this fact mentioned by anyone during the health care reform argument: In 2006, President George W. Bush’s Medicare Part D drug coverage went into effect for seniors and disabled people on Medicare. Included in this legislation is a penalty for anyone who does not purchase this Part D coverage when they first become eligible. This penalty accrues every month until the individual is forced to apply for Medicare Part D coverage. This, over a period of time, could amount to a very large and unmanageable sum for individuals on a fixed income. Why was this mandate never litigated to the U.S. Supreme Court? Was it because the pharmaceutical coverage business was all “privatized,” doled out to individual insurance companies at added expense to those having to purchase coverage or be penalized? I see hypocrisy on the part of those who object so strenuously to “Obama-care” while finding no issues with a similar mandate enacted under a Republican president."

---

I don't know whether or not MaryAnn Ellison is correct, but if she does turn out to be correct, her point should be mentioned in the article. Richard Peterson76.218.104.120 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 09:21, 6 July 2012 (UTC)'

• I think whether or not it should go in article, it was appropriate for the talk page. What do you guys say?76.218.104.120 (talk) 06:35, 17 March 2013 (UTC)

It was a copy of a letter to the editor; like a blog post, it was a mere expression of personal opinion and had no place here, per our guideline WP:NOT#FORUM. If this had been from a column by a noted journalist or an article by a prominent professor, that would be another matter altogether. --Orange Mike | Talk 08:29, 17 March 2013 (UTC)

If you can find a reliable published source which advances a similar argument, then the argument may be mentioned in the article, with a proper citation. Otherwise this is original research, and not admissible anywhere in Wikipedia. --ColinFine (talk) 00:36, 18 March 2013 (UTC)

Ok, thanks.76.218.104.120 (talk) 09:37, 20 March 2013 (UTC)

jonathon goldsmith

Your article on johnathon goldsmith is not correct asomeone didnt do there homework. Where is his diploma from Boston university?? A simple record check would verify more than 2 marriages. If your going to report the truth, then tell the truth. This man hurt millions in pyramid schemes — Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.10.24.41 (talk) 08:50, 17 March 2013 (UTC)

So fix it. That is the joy of Wikipedia - anyone can edit it.--Launchballer 08:58, 17 March 2013 (UTC)

His name is Jonathan Goldsmith. And the article does not say that he obtained a diploma from Boston University. Maproom (talk) 09:26, 17 March 2013 (UTC)

And Google does not find me any evidence that Jonathan Goldsmith was ever associated with a pyramid scheme. Maproom (talk) 16:43, 17 March 2013 (UTC)

Hannah Aitchison, tattoo artist

Hi. I am sorry to report that your information on Hannah's relatives is incorrect. She has not one, but TWO brothers, Guy (the tattoo artist) and WILL (the portrait artist). I would be grateful if you could add my name to your wikipedia article of 14 May 2012. Thank you, Will N. Aitchison. <redacted> and birth certificate in Ann Arbor Hospital, or whatever Identification or proof you need, I have. I just feel kind of excluded here, and people tend to be skeptical when I tell them she is my sister. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.225.68.190 (talk) 13:35, 17 March 2013 (UTC)

So fix it. Per Launchballer, that's the joy of Wikipedia: Anyone can edit it. iTAC ཏལྐ་ ཝོརྐ་ 16:42, 17 March 2013 (UTC)

I'm sorry, but all information in biographies of living persons is required to be referenced to published reliable sources. Her relationship to Guy is confirmed by an interview printed in a magazine (I assume that Prick magazine is considered reliable). Your driving licence and birth certificate are not to the point, because a reader of Wikipedia next week or next year has no way of accessing them to verify the claim. If you can find a published source that says that she is your sister, that's fine; otherwise I'm afraid the relationship does not belong in Wikipedia. --ColinFine (talk) 00:43, 18 March 2013 (UTC)

Meaning of /* ... */ in pre-filled edit summary

Hi.

Having made a minor edit (typographical correction), I wanted to provide an edit summary.

The one automatically supplied consisted of the section name between /* */ delimiters. Do I need to retain the delimiters? Do I place my summary after the section name? I couldn't find any guidance on this issue in the help on edit summaries.

Many thanks.

John — Preceding unsigned comment added by John D Burling (talk • contribs) 13:55, 17 March 2013 (UTC)

It's usual to write your summary after the pre-filled edit summary. -- John of Reading (talk) 14:30, 17 March 2013 (UTC)

Yes. Also, if you want people to know what section you edited in, it's best to retain the delimiters. iTAC ཏལྐ་ ཝོརྐ་ 16:40, 17 March 2013 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Liz Willows

Please delete this page. I never created a page about myself on wikipedia and am very unlikely to do so. This was obviously created by someone other than myself, no doubt well meaning, however this article for deletion continues to haunt me, coming up as it does as the second article whenever my name is googled. Lizzie Demdyke (talk) 13:58, 17 March 2013 (UTC)

I was going to add the {{NOINDEX}} to the page, but looks like I was a few minutes behind. Give that a few days to see if that removes the page from Google. If it doesn't let us know. I am loathe to start a deletion discussion regarding a deletion discussion page, especially as it may defeat the entire purpose of avoiding it being picked up by search engines. Singularity42 (talk) 14:18, 17 March 2013 (UTC)

Indeed. I vaguely recall, from this page a few years ago, a person whose complaints were causing an infinite regress of deletion discussions and further complaints. Maproom (talk) 16:41, 17 March 2013 (UTC)

Maybe deletion discussion pages should all be {{NOINDEX}} by default.--Shantavira|^{feed me} 16:50, 17 March 2013 (UTC)

A good idea, but one I can't see working in practice, unless someone was willing to create a bot to add it. Perhaps this is something for WP:VPR? Singularity42 (talk) 17:45, 17 March 2013 (UTC)

I thought MediaWiki:Robots.txt was supposed to discourage indexing of all XFD files, but in this case the URL displayed by the Google search for "Liz Willows" includes ".../Wikipedia%3AArticles_for_deletion%2FLiz_Wil...", which isn't one of the encoding variations listed in the Robots.txt file. Don't know! -- John of Reading (talk) 21:12, 17 March 2013 (UTC)

Archive setup

I need help renaming the archive files for an article talk page here. Also, see page history here. Briefly, the problem is Archive 5 and Archive 6 need to be renamed Archive 1 and Archive 2 and display properly on the bot template. Please tell me how to make this right or who to ask. It may require admin-level permissions to fix this. Thanks. Ignocrates (talk) 15:13, 17 March 2013 (UTC)

I've moved the archives and fixed the MiszaBot template so that the bot will write to archive 2 next time. There are two redirects left behind, but I've tagged them with G6 and an admin should get round to deleting them. -- John of Reading (talk) 11:09, 18 March 2013 (UTC)

Thank you for taking care of this. Ignocrates (talk) 12:54, 18 March 2013 (UTC)

External link not working

Could someone please have a look at Ministry of Education and Training (Pakistan), to see what can be done about the cited link? It works if copied and pasted, but doesn't if clicked from the wikipedia page. Thanks. Sminthopsis84 (talk) 15:19, 17 March 2013 (UTC)

I tried, and failed. This is weird. If I click on the link I get an error message. If I then click on the URL box of my browser and hit Enter, it takes me to the cited page. Maproom (talk) 16:26, 17 March 2013 (UTC)

That's weird. It could be a problem with the wikimarkup and url, since the %3D. I'm going to go find out what that means, and replace %3D with it. iTAC ཏལྐ་ ཝོརྐ་ 16:28, 17 March 2013 (UTC)

Fixed for FF — Ok, that works. I just decoded the percent-encoding in the URL. I've only tested this out on Firefox so far, though. iTAC ཏལྐ་ ཝོརྐ་

Thanks, that's clever, but it doesn't work for me in FF or in Safari when clicked from the wikipedia page, though it does work perfectly when copied and pasted. Sminthopsis84 (talk) 17:04, 17 March 2013 (UTC)

Doesn't work for me on FF. I'm guessing the problem is likely caused by bad code, which somehow prevents the page from reading the GET parameter "q" when the request comes from an external source and thus displays nothing. Anyway I'm pretty sure that the problem is on their end and not caused by the Mediawiki software, as we have plenty of links that have URL encoding and work fine. The URL http://moptt.gov.pk redirects to the linked page and seems to work when the URL is called through that redirect. So I'd suggest simply linking that in the article and dropping the longer URL, since the user will be redirected there anyway. Chamal ^T•C 17:07, 17 March 2013 (UTC)

At the risk of confusing everyone who's puzzling over this, I've substituted a url that ought to link to a more useful page (but has the same problem). Sorry (but it seemed best to puzzle over a better substrate). Sminthopsis84 (talk) 17:13, 17 March 2013 (UTC)

Ah, okay, perhaps it would be best just to link to the top-level page, as suggested by Chamal. Sminthopsis84 (talk) 17:15, 17 March 2013 (UTC)

It is still showing the same behaviour with my Chrome. Incidentally, "%3D" is an encoded "=". An equal sign is not a normal thing for a URL to end with. I had tried deleting the "%3D", and I had tried replacing it with a plain "="; both ways, it still (for me, using Chrome) showed the same strange behaviour. Maproom (talk) 17:30, 17 March 2013 (UTC)

Thank you both; I guess the thing to do is to try to find an alternative way to build that wiki page, without linking to these web pages. Sminthopsis84 (talk) 20:55, 17 March 2013 (UTC)

A possible bug in the "Categories" area - need advice

On your request, I successfully added five categories to the entry "Barton McLean." There were previously no categories listed. The problem is that when I click on each category, the name is listed alphabetically under the FIRST name. In other words, it is listed under the "B" area, "Barton," not the "M" area, "McLean." This is contrary to all the other names listed in that category.

How can I get the last name "McLean" listed under the "M" heading instead of the "B" heading?

Thanks, PriscillaAnne — Preceding unsigned comment added by PriscillaAnne (talk • contribs) 17:16, 17 March 2013 (UTC)

Fixed. You needed to add {{DEFAULTSORT:McLean, Barton}} to tell the category to sort by last name RudolfRed (talk) 17:31, 17 March 2013 (UTC)

Wikidata ??

Why deletes Wikidata interwikis, so that for example german users can't see now the Interwikis after Bots deleted them. 178.3.21.63 (talk) 17:25, 17 March 2013 (UTC)

The page for the bot in question might explain it. Do you have an example of such an edit? RudolfRed (talk) 17:47, 17 March 2013 (UTC)

Please see Wikipedia:Wikidata. --Rschen7754 18:23, 17 March 2013 (UTC)

convert duplicated refs to named refs?

Could someone please convert the duplicated refs in Dan Gill to named references? I assume there is some automated tool to do this.TCO (talk) 18:11, 17 March 2013 (UTC)

 Done with AWB. I expect there are other tools to do this job. -- John of Reading (talk) 21:03, 17 March 2013 (UTC)

Thank you very kindly.TCO (talk) 21:13, 17 March 2013 (UTC)

Fixing the page title to the correct one Vysochanskij-Petunin inequality

The page URL is http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vysochanski%C3%AF%E2%80%93Petunin_inequality This must be fixed but I do not have permissions to fix titles. Please help. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Gchoul (talk • contribs) 19:08, 17 March 2013 (UTC)

Like most editors, I have the power to make a name change. But I am not seeing those characters (which I think represent a Cyrillic ї) in the title of the article Vysochanskiï–Petunin inequality. Maproom (talk) 20:04, 17 March 2013 (UTC)

That's because I didn't look properly. The doubly-encoded stuff wasn't there, just a plain ї. Anyway, I have replaced the ї by a j in the title. Maproom (talk) 20:09, 17 March 2013 (UTC)

Now I am wondering if I should have left the title along, and asked you to use instead the spelling "Vysochanskii–Petunin". There are plenty of other articles in Wikipedia that use that spelling, see the list at Special:WhatLinksHere/Vysochanskij–Petunin_inequality. Nothing is actually broken now, but there are all those articles using the -ii spelling but linking to the article which uses the -ij spelling. Maybe a more experienced editor can comment. Maproom (talk) 20:24, 17 March 2013 (UTC)

You have inserted a wrong code — Preceding unsigned comment added by 190.152.162.91 (talk) 00:05, 18 March 2013 (UTC)

I don't know what the last comment is about...anyway. And I am actually not so clear what you are trying to say Maproom. But I actually see Vysochanskiï–Petunin inequality used more commonly than either its anglicized name with the i or j; here is one example. See WP:UE. I think the name should actually go back to what it was. When requesting a title change, one should give a reason why it should be changed. Kinkreet^{~♥moshi moshi♥~} 00:24, 18 March 2013 (UTC)

But the article you cite does not use the -iї spelling. It uses a character I can't find in Unicode, an i with one dot and a horn-upward crescent above the dot. Incidentally, the letter ї is Ukrainian, see Ukrainian alphabet; Vysochanskiї and Petunin were both Ukrainian. Maproom (talk) 08:37, 18 March 2013 (UTC)

This request is still being discussed on the article's talk page. Someone had put a {{Help me-helped}} tag at the top of the discussion, deterring contributions from experienced editors. I have removed the tag. Maproom (talk) 14:03, 19 March 2013 (UTC)