Wikipedia:Help desk/Archives/2014 August 28

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August 28

Lists and categories

Is there a good way to find the overlap between a category and a list, and to note the entries that do not overlap? So if I had Category:Foo and List of Foo, I could determine which members of the category are not on the list and vice versa? 128.189.135.100 (talk) 03:04, 28 August 2014 (UTC)

One way to do this is the "List comparer" dialog that is part of AutoWikiBrowser. You would have to download and install the software, but you can skip the "request permission" step if you are only using the "List comparer". There's a screenshot and some brief instructions at Wikipedia:AutoWikiBrowser/User manual#Tools. This will work provided the category isn't too big - I think the limit might be 1000 articles. -- John of Reading (talk) 06:31, 28 August 2014 (UTC)

Singular they? Acceptable?

In regards to the page on Ga-ga, a fellow editor has changed "he" and "his" to "they" and "one's". I feel that the singular they is absurd, especially after just recently reading a book on grammar. I also feel that "one's" is a lot more clunky than "his" in this scenario. The other editor linked to the page on singular they, which states consistently and from varied sources that the singular they is incorrect English, despite being used by notable authors for long periods of time. Is this correct Wikipedia editing lingo? A link to the revisions comparison is included here. StainlessSteelScorpion (talk) 03:18, 28 August 2014 (UTC)

I found Wikipedia:Gender-neutral language, Singular they and Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Register#Gender-neutral language. They seem to agree that there is no agreement here. I, like the OP, think it's horrible. HiLo48 (talk) 03:29, 28 August 2014 (UTC)

Mongolian Horse

The Wikipedia article has been hacked and I'm not sure how to perform a rollback automatically. Help? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Adamgold33 (talk • contribs) 04:07, 28 August 2014 (UTC)

It's been fixed. For future reference, if you click on the "View History" tab at the top of any page, you'll see an "undo" link beside any change. Rojomoke (talk) 05:08, 28 August 2014 (UTC)

my vocal group's wikipedia

Hello,

I am very confused about the way this whole thing works. I was advised to get a wikipedia for my vocal band The Sound Collage. I gave my definition, that I wrote about my group. I use it on my website on my " about us" section. One of my agents copied it from my website and put it on his section describing my band. I was told it would have a "speedy deletion" due to copy write issues. The definition is my definition of my band in my words. I have informed my agent, Steve Beyer, he needs to take down my definition until I can get this resolved. Please advise how I can get my bands description on wikipedia and who I need to talk with to explain that this is no copy write issue, as it is all my words.

Thank you

Shannonjoyel (talk) 04:44, 28 August 2014 (UTC) Shannon Huslig

I don't know who gave you that advice, but it is wrong - this is an encyclopaedia, not a provider of free publicity. Though the article has been deleted, I have found a cached copy on Google, and I can assure you that regardless of the copyright issue (where it seems we were mistaken) the article would have been deleted anyway. It is entirely unencyclopaedic, and cites no sources whatsoever. To merit an article on Wikipedia, subjects need to meet our notability guidelines (in this case Wikipedia:Notability (music)#Criteria for musicians and ensembles), as demonstrated in third-party published reliable sources - which the article fails entirely to do. Furthermore, I can see little evidence, from a quick search via Google, that your band has any hope of currently meeting the notability criteria, and if and when it ever does, per our Wikipedia:Conflict of interest guidelines, any article on it would best be written by uninvolved third parties. I wish you luck with your band, but suggest you find other venues to promote it - you are unlikely to be permitted to do so here. AndyTheGrump (talk) 05:01, 28 August 2014 (UTC)

Spelling Error on Main title

How does one change the title of a page.. A persons name is spelled incorrect. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Calmorder (talk • contribs) 07:19, 28 August 2014‎

To change the title of a page you move the page. In order to do that, however, you need to be autoconfirmed, which you are not yet. If you tell us what page, someone here could move it. —teb728 t c 08:22, 28 August 2014 (UTC)

It will also depend on what you think the error is. If its changing Ron Allbright to something like Ronald Allbright, that would probably not be done, because his common name is Ron Allbright. - X201 (talk) 08:32, 28 August 2014 (UTC)

I see someone has moved Ron Albright to Ron Allbright. Thank you for pointing it out. —teb728 t c 08:38, 28 August 2014 (UTC)

Mistake on Shangani Patrol (Film)

Hi

On your web page 'the Shangani Patrol (film) there is one Glaring Error- It States twice that the opening Setting is Ft Salisbury- Where Major Alan Willson is Seen taling to his wife, and later the reference 'Fort Salisbury has a serious problem; it is surrounded by hordes of menacing Matabele warriors,'

Yhis is incorrect. Major Wilson was from Ft Victoria. Ft Victoria was threatened by the Matebel and most of the locak (black) tribesmen in the area had been killed by them or taken refuge in the Ft. Leander Starr Jamison, Administrator of Mashonaland Held his metting with the Matebele Nduma about 6 miles from Ft Victoria.

Ft Salisbury is (was) 200 Miles North. The invasion of Matebeleland came from three directions- Botswana (Bechuanaland Border Police commanded By Pieter Raff), Ft Victoria (Victoria Rangers, commanded by Major Willson) and Ft Salisbury (Salisbury Horse, commanded by Major Forbs.

Best refernce book is 'Persuit of the King' by John O'Riley. I comment as the man who lead the excavation of the battelsight in December 1993, acted in the Film, and Had John O'Riley as my History teacher before he became a catholic Priest. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 90.238.0.125 (talk) 08:09, 28 August 2014 (UTC)

Are you saying that the article's description of the film's plot is inaccurate, or that the events depicted in the film are inaccurate? If the latter, then complain to the producers of the film, not to us. An "historical accuracy" section could be added to the article provided that it is sourced. SpinningSpark 08:53, 28 August 2014 (UTC)

Outlook & CCH error i get when trying to file an email within outlook to CCH

outlook & CCH error procedure or function dm _ document email detail _ insert' expects parameter '@from', which was not supplied — Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.20.79.153 (talk) 09:21, 28 August 2014 (UTC)

I suspect, based on your question, that you found one of our over 6 million articles and thought we were affiliated in some way with that subject. Please note that you are at Wikipedia, the free online encyclopedia that anyone can edit, and this page is for asking questions related to using or contributing to Wikipedia itself. Thus, we have no special knowledge about the subject of your question. You can, however, search our vast catalogue of articles by typing a subject into the search field on the upper right side of your screen. If you cannot find what you are looking for, we have a reference desk, divided into various subject areas, where asking knowledge questions is welcome. Best of luck. —teb728 t c 10:13, 28 August 2014 (UTC)

I cannot access my login

I forgot my password and Wikipedia sent me via e mail a new password which would be valid for 7 days. I have tried so many times today to get you to accept this new password, but to no avail. I am fedup. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 197.86.139.179 (talk) 13:44, 28 August 2014 (UTC)

Can you explain exactly what stage you are having difficulties with? Are you seeing any error message? Perhaps you are not correctly filling in the Captcha word. SpinningSpark 14:30, 28 August 2014 (UTC)

section headings

Resolved

After looking at MOS:HEAD, WP:BODY and Help:Section, I am unable to find policy related to section headings that discourages excessive capitalization. I.e, "Early Life" should be "Early life" and "See Also" should be "See also". Where is a policy regarding capitalization in section headers. In order to avert an edit war, I think I need some policy backup.--TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 15:06, 28 August 2014 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Capital letters#Section headings -- Sincerely, Taketa (talk) 15:30, 28 August 2014 (UTC)

(edit conflict) @TonyTheTiger: check out MOS:SECTIONCAPS. benzband (talk) 15:32, 28 August 2014 (UTC)

Thanks.--TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 19:23, 28 August 2014 (UTC)

CS1 errors: dates

What is the easiest way to find dates in article that generate a CS1 error? I'm trying to go through a cleanup list of articles with CS1 errors (example) but when an article has numerous citations with dates it is cumbersome and time-consuming to manually find the offending dates.--Wolbo (talk) 15:48, 28 August 2014 (UTC)

CS1 date errors are currently hidden. To show all CS1 error meaasages, see Help:CS1 errors#Controlling error message display for instructions.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 21:29, 28 August 2014 (UTC)

@Trappist the monk: Thanks for the response. However it does not make clear to me how to (easily) find the dates in an article that generate a the CS1 date error. Any help on that?--Wolbo (talk) 11:42, 31 August 2014 (UTC)

At least it shows you which citations have date errors. I often

1. copy unique or identifiable text from the rendered citation
2. click the edit tab
3. paste copied text into browser search box
4. analyze and repair the error
5. show preview to confirm the fix

lather, rinse, repeat until all of the errors are fixed.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 12:19, 31 August 2014 (UTC)

Drawing a sphere

Hi there,

Wikipedia's Reference Desk is a great place but I am wondering if what I intend to do is possible. In the article Sphere (or 2-Sphere) the first drawing is a projection of a sphere with latitudinal and meridional lines. I need to complicate this drawing quite a bit. For instance I would like to remove some of the lines, fill one of the spherical rectangles with gray shade or color it somehow, write some formulas, draw arrows, etc. After that I would like to post my question in Desk/Mathematics section using the drawing as illustration.

I guess my question is: does Wikipedia have means to draw such complicated figures? Thanks, --AboutFace 22 (talk) 16:41, 28 August 2014 (UTC)

Unfortunately not, those drawings were done off-wiki in scalar vector graphic (SVG) format using a package like Adobe Illustrator or Inkscape. Wiki markup language does not have such sophisticated graphic capabilities but will render such diagrams when asked.  Philg88 ^♦talk 16:51, 28 August 2014 (UTC)

"..... but will render such diagrams when asked" Would you please explain what it means? --AboutFace 22 (talk) 17:39, 28 August 2014 (UTC)

• What you need is a 3D computer graphics software. I've done some work with Autodesk 3ds Max, but not enough to recommend it, per se. But it will do what you want it to do. --Jayron32 17:55, 28 August 2014 (UTC)

(edit conflict) I guess it means "will cause such images to appear correctly on the reader's screen, if they are placed in a Wikipedia page". And as a pedant, I will point out that this is not true. All Wikipedia does is cause the SVG file to be served to the user, it does not care whether the contents of the file are meaningful. The actual rendering is done by the reader's browser. Maproom (talk) 17:57, 28 August 2014 (UTC)

And you don't need special software to edit an SVG image. The contents are human-readable, and you can edit them with a text editor such as Notepad. For instance I made this change by manual editing. (I once started to learn to use Inkscape, but found it just made things more difficult). Maproom (talk) 18:13, 28 August 2014 (UTC)

Well, it is all Greek to me :-) but I will try to comprehend it eventually. Many thanks everyone. --AboutFace 22 (talk) 18:06, 28 August 2014 (UTC)

If I may be the pedant for a moment, the framework does render SVGs—it renders them in PNG format so the SVG code never goes anywhere near a user's browser. If you don't believe me right click on any article SVG image and select "Save image as..." Hey presto! It's a PNG, which is why you have to click through to the underlying file if you want it in its native format.  Philg88 ^♦talk 18:59, 28 August 2014 (UTC)

If you have a specific use on Wikipedia, then the WP:Graphics Lab can help. --  Gadget850 ^talk 19:43, 28 August 2014 (UTC)

I see,  Philg88 , that you are right. Thank you for teaching me something. Maproom (talk) 21:11, 28 August 2014 (UTC)

Russ Stevens of Children of the Day

I noticed that you have nothing about Russ Stevens of "Children of the Day". You only have Marsha (Carter) Stevens-Pino. He (Russ) has been married to his current wife for some 35 years and just recently moved to North Carolina. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 129.118.12.69 (talk) 18:01, 28 August 2014 (UTC)

Hi, thank you for informing us. There can be several reasons for a topic not to have an article. It might simply not have been created yet (in which case anyone is invited to create the article) or sometimes members of a notable band, are not individually notable enough for their own article (see WP:BAND for the criteria). I hopes this answeres your question, if not feel free to ask. -- Sincerely, Taketa (talk) 18:48, 28 August 2014 (UTC)

Is AllMusic a reliable source?

Dear editors: A lot of musician and band articles have references to http://allmusic.com. Reading the Wikipedia article about this site, I get the impression that it has editorial oversight. However, some of the material, for instance the bios, look as though they may be user contributed, and I have been avoiding adding them to articles. There are a lot of album reviews that would be useful sources if they were known to be vetted by an editor. Is any of this site reliable and independent, or should I avoid it altogether? —Anne Delong (talk) 19:03, 28 August 2014 (UTC)

Hi Anne Delong, I am not well read in this topic, but I found this: User:Michig/How to find sources for popular music articles#Other websites. I hope that will help. All the best, Taketa (talk) 19:11, 28 August 2014 (UTC)

According to Wikipedia:WikiProject Albums/Sources (a handy reference list for music related sources), yes it is for the most part. If you have questions regarding the source there may be a better place to ask. Яehevkor ✉ 19:14, 28 August 2014 (UTC)

The trick, Anne, is to use bios and reviews written by known reviewers with bylines at the site. I believe you are correct that some of their content is user-generated, or less reliable. However, material from their regular editorial staff, such as Stephen Thomas Erlewine and the like, is generally good stuff. For any specific entry, if you have questions, it may be best to ask at WP:RSN. --Jayron32 00:20, 29 August 2014 (UTC)

Thanks to all of you for the excellent advice! Since I work on so many music articles, I'll be sure to check out all of those links. —Anne Delong (talk) 03:48, 29 August 2014 (UTC)

A problem with the Google Chrome article

I'm having a problem with the Google Chrome article. Lately, there's been a release for Google Chrome only for Windows (37.0.2062.102) on this link here. All the other OS's show 37.0.2062.94 on this other link here. I wanted to update this template, but when I tried doing this and then got to the Google Chrome page, it only shows the Windows release, but not the release for Mac OSX or Linux! I need help! --Angeldeb82 (talk) 23:28, 28 August 2014 (UTC)

Isn't anyone answering me? I need help! --Angeldeb82 (talk) 01:46, 29 August 2014 (UTC)

We are all volunteers here. Complaining two-and-one-half hours after your initial post is not a way to attract volunteer help. It isn't clear whether you are having a Wikipedia problem, in which case this is the right place to ask (and please be patient), or whether you have a question about the browser itself. In the latter case, either discuss on the talk page, Talk: Google Chrome, or ask a question at Reference Desk: Computing, or both. In any case, please don't annoy volunteers by complaining about not getting instant answers. Robert McClenon (talk) 03:04, 29 August 2014 (UTC)

@Angeldeb82: There was a small error in {{Latest stable software release/Google Chrome}} - there was an extra <noinclude> tag telling the software to ignore part of the template. I have removed it and then purged the article, and the extra information is now showing. -- John of Reading (talk) 03:24, 29 August 2014 (UTC)

I see. Thanks for your help. --Angeldeb82 (talk) 04:02, 29 August 2014 (UTC)