Wikipedia:Help desk/Archives/2014 March 9

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March 9

So upset

I'm very upset that you don't have 24 hour movies any more, all the other stations have less movies and more reality. I was a huge fan of LMN, so upset it's changed!!! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 108.8.109.163 (talk) 03:09, 9 March 2014 (UTC)

I suspect, based on your question, that you found one of our over 4 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.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 04:51, 9 March 2014 (UTC)

ancestery

how would i go about finding a village in Poland called Bialka? i understand there are several villages with the same name. all it says on marriage certificate is Bialka Polish Austria. the year is 1900 and i know there were a lot of changes in borders.

kansan — Preceding unsigned comment added by 162.232.113.107 (talk) 03:49, 9 March 2014 (UTC)

Have you tried the miscellaneous section of Wikipedia's Reference Desk? They specialize in answering knowledge questions there; this help desk is only for questions about using Wikipedia. For your convenience, here is the link to post a question there: click here. I hope this helps.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 04:52, 9 March 2014 (UTC)

How to align?

Hi, I'm making my guestbook and I'm using two same images, in the edit box I typed them in the same row, I have one image on the right and one on the left, however, although they are at the columns I want them to be at, they aren't at the same row, can someone put the right image at the top of the page for me please? --Yutah Andrei Marzan Ogawa¹²³|UPage|_☺★ (talk) 05:19, 9 March 2014 (UTC)

Thanks Fuhghettaboutit for correcting it, you help is much appreciated.--Yutah Andrei Marzan Ogawa¹²³|UPage|_☺★ (talk) 09:44, 9 March 2014 (UTC)

removing taxi cab driver

need to find a way to remove yellow taxi cab listed under self employed on Kenneth peil's facebook account — Preceding unsigned comment added by Kpeilll (talk • contribs) 09:59, 9 March 2014 (UTC)

Hi, this help desk is for asking questions about editing and using Wikipedia only, Wikipedia's help desk will not answer your question due to the fact that Wikipedia in no way is affiliated with Facebook. Ask Facebook instead. --Yutah Andrei Marzan Ogawa¹²³|UPage|_☺★ (talk) 10:25, 9 March 2014 (UTC)

That said, if you click on Kenneth's name at the top of the Facebook page, then click on "About" under the cover photo, you will get to his profile. On the left hand side next to the word "About" is a pencil icon. Click that and then Update Info. Dismas|^(talk) 10:30, 9 March 2014 (UTC)

community team

where and how can I add myself to teh community team?EbbaOssiannilsson (talk) 10:33, 9 March 2014 (UTC)

Could you be more specific about what community team you're referring to? Dismas|^(talk) 10:35, 9 March 2014 (UTC)

This is the page I mean Wikipedia:Communicate OER TeamEbbaOssiannilsson (talk) 11:29, 9 March 2014 (UTC)

Community OER team

I want to add my self to this pageEbbaOssiannilsson (talk) 10:40, 9 March 2014 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Communicate OER Team

Try following the instructions at the top of the page, where it says: "After you click "edit", start a new line, and put the following code (an asterisk, followed by 3 tildes) at the beginning of the line. It will automatically turn into a bullet followed by your username (after you save your edit). Then tell us something about yourself after the squiggly lines."--Shantavira|^{feed me} 11:25, 9 March 2014 (UTC)

Astray

I need the centa number of lakehaven secondary school I need to regist to another school so they need centa number — Preceding unsigned comment added by 93.186.31.240 (talk) 11:44, 9 March 2014 (UTC)

I suspect, based on your question, that you found one of our over 4 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..--Shantavira|^{feed me} 12:23, 9 March 2014 (UTC)

Referencing errors on ROLM

Reference help requested.

All I am trying to do is insert a clarifying statement in the article, as well as a reference for any one looking for more information or verification. I have never edited Wikipedia articles before and need some specific help from a live human. What is not at all clear to me is how you insert a reference and how that becomes a footnote. I have tried to follow what I thought were the instructions (which I find totally unclear), but I am obviously doing something wrong. I have caused an error on my insertion and appear to have overlaid some previous text that I intended to leave alone. I am lost and do not know what to do next. I am going to try to undo the damage, but I might end up making things worse. FYI, I DO NOT know HTML, which may be part of the problem. All my programming experience goes back to assembly language. Heck, I don't know how to even send this HELP message! Or if I send it what I can expect.

Thanks, Linvilleguy (talk) 14:26, 9 March 2014 (UTC)

@Linvilleguy: Hi Linvilleguy. Like most coding tags of any sort, after an open tag, e.g. <something>, you have to close it with the same tag that uses a forward slash: </something>. Here you used an opening ref tag to start the citation, <ref>, but never closed it with </ref>. It's fixed now. By the way, though there are many pages that describe adding references, a more basic one is at Help:Referencing for beginners. Best regards--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 15:54, 9 March 2014 (UTC)

Wikipedia tabs eating up a lot of resources the longer they're open

I think this is a relatively recent problem, but I'm frankly not sure since I've only kept an eye on the Chrome (latest version) task manager to diagnose in the last few days. My tendency for browsing Wikipedia is to open my watchlist, then start opening diffs I see there in new tabs. It has been the case in the past that I could open maybe 30 without an issue (other than maybe bandwidth as everything loads). Now as I start to open more than a couple, things start slowing down. And as I watch the older tabs' resource usage when new tabs are opened (e.g. the watchlist tab), its memory use keeps going up. It becomes really slow when its memory pushes over a gigabyte. Now, the idea that a *Wikipedia* page could be using a gig of memory is insane. This makes me wonder what's up. Could it be something in one of my custom javascript files here? Other ideas?--— Rhododendrites ^talk |  16:23, 9 March 2014 (UTC)

Try asking at WP:VPT.— Vchimpanzee · talk · contributions · 19:51, 12 March 2014 (UTC)

Work keeps getting deleted

I am wondering why the informative article I have been trying to post keeps getting deleted. Initially, I removed all external links and wording as suggested to imply promotion etc, then resubmitted it. It was up for a a day or so then deleted again. I'm not understanding why when I classified it as a talk article. The purpose was not only to mention the book series, but to distinguish it as not being a part of a gaming or card deck series, which it gets mistaken for a lot. What am I doing wrong or where should it be listed? How else would you submit information on something people may not be aware of etc...does someone else have to write it or something?? No copyrighted information was shared, I am the author of the works, it makes no sense Newt39 (talk) 18:28, 9 March 2014 (UTC). — Preceding unsigned comment added by Newt39 (talk • contribs) 18:19, 9 March 2014 (UTC)

It looks like another user has left a message with more information as to why it was deleted on your talk page (click this link). Many common questions people have when creating an article are addressed at Wikipedia:Your first article (because they come up so frequently). It looks like it was an issue of notability, which is a standard for what's important enough to include on Wikipedia, and is defined not by people's opinions of importance but demonstrated by citing sources that show it to be important. --— Rhododendrites ^talk |  19:28, 9 March 2014 (UTC)

Basketball team color infobox?

I was creating a page about a pro basketball player named Nils-Paul Skara. He plays for the team Bærum Basket but when I publish the article, it shows a blank team color (black text, grey background). But for some other teams like Panathinaikos B.C., it is different. For example, see the Roko Ukic page. The team color this time is white text and green background. How do you create team colors for teams that don't have one yet? I want the background to be #00578a and the text to be white, as that is the team's colors. Temple of the Mousy (talk) 18:31, 9 March 2014 (UTC)

@Temple of the Mousy: The team color is generated by {{Infobox basketball biography/style}}. The absense of the color seems to suggest that the template doesn't get a valid return value from the other checked templates. -- Toshio Yamaguchi 21:06, 9 March 2014 (UTC)

@Toshio Yamaguchi: Thanks, but is there any way to add this team color? Temple of the Mousy (talk) 00:02, 10 March 2014 (UTC)

@Temple of the Mousy: The documentation of Template:Infobox basketball biography/style lists the templates that are checked for the color. Since Bærum Basket is a european team, it seems that it needs to be added to {{Euroleague color}} together with its team colors. Then using {{Infobox basketball biography/style|Bærum Basket}} should do the trick. -- Toshio Yamaguchi 21:23, 10 March 2014 (UTC)

Controlling the appearance of a 'Needle Mover' graphic using markup

I am attempting to construct a wiki page that presents a graphical status summary of various pieces of data using a simple semi-circular needle gauge graphic. The graphic I am using currently sits within excel and the position of the needle is set by a single parameter within the spreadsheet.

Ideally, I would like to use the same graphic within wiki, with the position of the needle being passed to it by wiki script rather than the much more cumbersome route of uploading a screen dump of the spreadhseet into wiki each time I want to move the needle.

Any ideas?

19:01, 9 March 2014 (UTC)145.30.124.10 (talk)

Try asking at WP:VPT.— Vchimpanzee · talk · contributions · 19:57, 12 March 2014 (UTC)

Patrolling English Wikipedia

Original text:Как я мог статься патрулирующим Английской Википедии? Я сейчас патрулирующий на русской Википедии. Или кнопка [Mark this page as patrolled] показывается всем автопотвержденным участникам?--Toмa646 (talk) 19:31, 9 March 2014 (UTC) Translate text with Google.How could I become patrolling the English Wikipedia? I now patrolling on Russian Wikipedia. Or button [Mark this page as patrolled] shows all autoconfirmed users?--Toмa646 (talk) 19:31, 9 March 2014 (UTC)

If I understand you, I think you are talking about Wikipedia:Autoconfirmed#Autoconfirmed_users-- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 21:36, 9 March 2014 (UTC)

I think they're either referring to new page patrolling or the autopatrolled user right. - Purplewowies (talk) 08:13, 10 March 2014 (UTC)

The last sentence should be translated "Or is the button ... shown to all autoconfirmed users?" --ColinFine (talk) 16:55, 10 March 2014 (UTC)

Perhaps a person who is unable to pose the question in English is not the best candidate to be patrolling the English Wikipedia? Just a thought. WikiDan61^ChatMe!_ReadMe!! 20:28, 10 March 2014 (UTC)

Can't read some of the text on the pages.

Hi,

I can read most of the text on the pages, but much of the pages look like partial letters in slanted italics. This includes many of the links as well. I have tried changing the zoom features, and switching to Internet explorer instead of Google Chrome, but this doesn't seem to help either.

Thanks in advance for any advice that you may offer.

-A — Preceding unsigned comment added by Anastasiacthornton (talk • contribs) 23:56, 9 March 2014 (UTC)

Please give an example with a link to the page and quote of the text. Does it happen at other websites? Does it help to clear your entire cache? What is your operating system? Can you try another computer? PrimeHunter (talk) 02:16, 10 March 2014 (UTC)