Wikipedia:Help desk/Archives/2013 September 28

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September 28

What are "tracking categories"?

I work on categorization and I looked through Category:Tracking categories. Some of the contents in this category relate to Wikipedia but otherwise they are kind of hodge-podge of subjects.

I searched Wikipedia for an explanation of what a tracking category is, what characteristics a category would have that would make it "trackable", basically some definition about what this administrative category is for. But I can find nothing, not in the Wikipedia pages on categorization, nothing outside of the existence of this category itself.

Thanks for any information you can provide. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 01:09, 28 September 2013 (UTC)

Hey Liz. If you look at the information template displayed on the page it provides: "This is a tracking category. It builds and maintains a list of pages primarily for the sake of the list itself. Pages are added to tracking categories through templates." I don't know if you saw this explanation at the category page but it might be a bit opaque without something concrete, so let me provide an illustrative example. We don't have a direct category for articles on books that don't provide an image of the book's cover, but it sure might be useful to track that (so that a person who wants to concentrate on book cover uploads would know where to look). So we create a category internal to {{infobox book}}, that places any article it it used in, in which the image parameter is left blank, into the hidden category: Category:Books with missing cover. Now we can track that condition (and thus call it a tracking category). All of these tracking categories are aggregated at Category:Tracking categories. Does that help?--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 04:23, 28 September 2013 (UTC)

Thanks, for the information, Fuhghettaboutit! I did read the information on the category page but I found it less than helpful. So, Tracking categories are one kind of Hidden categories? I didn't see that. Or, are all "Administrative categories" hidden categories (that is, no indication of the category being applied to the page where it is placed)? The only information I see about this is at Wikipedia:Categorization#Hiding categories.

Ah, answers just prompting more questions! Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 13:15, 29 September 2013 (UTC)

Alhaji Aliko Dangote.

I want know when ALHAJI ALIKO DANGOTE have first marriage and how many wives he have and childrans crantly now? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 196.46.246.57 (talk) 08:04, 28 September 2013 (UTC)

This page is for questions about using Wikipedia. Please consider asking this question at the Reference desk. They specialize in knowledge 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, select the relevant section, 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. Sophus Bie ^(talk) 09:00, 28 September 2013 (UTC)

User will not co-operate with me and is simply reverting info and ignoring talk pages

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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I have recently been editing and found myself seeing the User:MyMoloboaccount removing large amounts of info, editing large amounts of info, poorly citing sources for the text he/she uses and failing to co-operate with the talk pages, I have created two sections to try and speak to the user Talk:Master_race#Slavs_were_Aryans_but_not_part_of_the_Herrenvolk and User_talk:MyMoloboaccount#Slavs_were_Aryan_too and today User_talk:MyMoloboaccount#Please_discuss_in_talk_pages_and_simply_stop_reverting, this user has also reported me as a sockpuppet in which I am not which is outrageous and has annoyed me greatly, despite this user has had numerous of sections on their talk page about their wrongly editing.

If this user is failing to understand things then what can I do to stop the simple reverts and large wrong texts being put into pages. I have provided perfectly cited sources from Nazi documents themselves and this user is simply using 2 or 3 sources that use "Aryan" and "master race" as the same when that is not the same and two very different concepts.

"Albert Gorter, a prominent minister official gave the definition of Aryan as: The Aryans (also Indo-Germans, Japhetiten) are one of the three branches of the Caucasian (white race);they are divided into the western (European), that is the German, Roman, Greek, Slav, Lett, Celt [and] Albanesen, and the eastern (Asiatic) Aryans, that is the Indian (Hindu) and Iranian (Persian, Afghan, Armenian, Georgian, Kurd). Non-Aryans are therefore: 1. the members of two other races, namely the Mongolian (yellow) and the Negroid (black) races; 2. the members of the two other branches of the Caucasian race, namely the Semites (Jews, Arabs) and Hamites (Berbers). The Finns and the Hungarians belong to the Mongoloid race; but it is hardly the intention of the law to treat them as non-Aryans. Thus . . . the non-Jewish members of the European Volk are Aryans. . . ." this was the very official description which includes Slavs yet this user ignores the Slav bit and says the "Volk" means Germanic when it does not as volk can mean race, European or Germanic in this term its clear it means "European race" and the definition seen shows Slavs there. Another source is "From a purely racial standpoint all European peoples belonged to the Aryan family and were thus fundamentally "racially equivalent", and even according to German ethnology it was impossible to speak of a "Slavic race". The justification against the Slavs lay rather in the point of a "depopulation policy" of the East as Slavs and all non-Germans represented a major völkisch threat, as well as the Nazis struggle against Bolshevism in the East." and finally "The Nazis viewed Slavic people as Aryans, albeit of a racial order." which is all correct. I even explained on the talk page when the invasion of Poland happened the divisions were "Aryan" (Poles, Germans, etc) and the "Jewish" end many Jews even tried to pretend to be ethnic Poles to avoid persecution yet this user is also ignoring this.

Advice please?--198.58.112.253 (talk) 08:20, 28 September 2013 (UTC)

Maybe I am misreading the edit history, but it appears to me that MyMoloboaccount has been adding material and that 198.58.112.253 has been removing MyMoloboaccount's edits, having the effect of reverting them. The place to discuss this content dispute, which is otherwise likely to become an edit war, is the article talk page. I would caution 198.58.112.253 to look out for the incoming boomerang. Robert McClenon (talk) 22:17, 28 September 2013 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Boomerang came back and hit IP address, who has been blocked as open proxy used as sockpuppet. Robert McClenon (talk) 01:14, 1 October 2013 (UTC)

Annoying feature

Why can't the main page open with the cursor already in the Search box? prefix:Talk:Main Page — Preceding unsigned comment added by 209.162.10.142 (talk) 15:24, 28 September 2013 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:FAQ/Main Page#Why doesn't the cursor appear in the search box, like with Google? PrimeHunter (talk) 17:03, 28 September 2013 (UTC)

Bookmark https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Search It is a page that puts the focus into in the search box. RudolfRed (talk) 01:42, 29 September 2013 (UTC)

my edited content changes and uploaded new photo are not showing up

Hello! I've updated the info on my wiki page - Candida Royalle - and hit 'save'; and also created an account for myself and uploaded a better and more up-to-date photo. None of which are showing up now. Have I done something wrong? Or does it all need to go through a process of approval first? Thanks for your help! Candida Royalle (talk) 15:45, 28 September 2013 (UTC)

If you click on the "View history" tab at the top of the article you will see that the edit was reverted. The reason was given in an edit summary by the editor who did the reversion. You can see the difference here. You need to read WP:Autobiography and WP:Conflict of interest. Remember that it is not your Wikipedia page, but an article about you. - David Biddulph (talk) 15:59, 28 September 2013 (UTC)

@Candida Royalle: Changing a photo in an article is a two-step process: (a) upload the photo (preferably to Wikimedia Commons, but that isn't required), and (b) change the file name in the Wikipedia article. With regards to (b), the infobox photo is this file: File:Candida Royalle adjusted.jpg, a 2005 upload.

If you have indeed uploaded a photo (I haven't checked), then you need to do the second step, by editing the article. I note that Wikipedia does encourage people to submit photos of themselves, as opposed to editing the text in articles about themselves, which is strongly discouraged. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 22:57, 28 September 2013 (UTC)

Reflist missing

I revised the article on Sir Thomas Green [1], and inadvertently deleted something, as a result of which there is now a message in red stating that there are ref tags on the page which won't show up without a reflist. I've included a reflist for the references cited in the text of the article, but I suspect this message relates to citations in an ahnentafel on the page compiled by an earlier editor. Any help with fixing this would be much appreciated. NinaGreen (talk) 16:36, 28 September 2013 (UTC)

If you want to use reflist twice then you can fix it by saying {{reflist|close=1}} the second time. See HELP:MULTIREF. PrimeHunter (talk) 17:01, 28 September 2013 (UTC)

Thanks! I tried it and it worked. NinaGreen (talk) 18:51, 28 September 2013 (UTC)

Slow to load

Is there a reason why Wikipedia is so slow today? It's reminiscent of when I had a dial up - painfully slow. I don't think it's me. I don't have problems with other sites that I know are big to load. SlightSmile 23:11, 28 September 2013 (UTC)

I haven't noticed it. You could try asking at WP:VPT. RudolfRed (talk) 23:29, 28 September 2013 (UTC)