Wikipedia:Help desk/Archives/2014 October 12

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October 12

Finding keywords in articles

Hello - how can I search a specific article for a keyword, such as a name, similar to "Find" in MS Word? Thanks! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 97.122.202.239 (talk • contribs) 03:07, 12 October 2014 (UTC)

It's the same as in Word. Go to the article and use your browser's Find function which is usually invoked by typing Ctrl-F. Dismas|^(talk) 03:48, 12 October 2014 (UTC)

IT Wire

Hello Help Desk,

I am the CEO of itwire.com which is the largest Information Technology News Service. We have 4,080,000 readers per year from the News Site and also a Newsletter 8,840,000 readrers per year. I notices that our number 2 and 3 competitors are also on Wikipedia. Given we are the number 1 in our IT News space in out geographic I would like your advice of how I would set op and entry on Wikipedia. I use Wkipedia every day and many times a day for research.

Hoping you can assist.

Regards Andrew Matler CEO iTWire IT News Service — Preceding unsigned comment added by 110.22.32.95 (talk • contribs) 03:10, 12 October 2014 (UTC)

Please read Wikipedia:FAQ/Organizations —teb728 t c 07:34, 12 October 2014 (UTC)

Also please read the conflict of interest policy. Aside from the question of whether your organization is notable in the Wikipedia sense, you are associated with it and may not be able to describe it neutrally. Robert McClenon (talk) 14:28, 13 October 2014 (UTC)

Module:Citation/CS1

Please delete deprecated variable in CS1 modules. (e.g. coauthor and cointerviewers) It should be removed after 1 October 2014.--Namoroka (talk) 07:22, 12 October 2014 (UTC)

@Namoroka: Have you seen that date mentioned somewhere? You can post suggestions to Help talk:Citation Style 1. PrimeHunter (talk) 10:15, 12 October 2014 (UTC)

@PrimeHunter: See Module:Citation/CS1/Configuration. "... is deprecated; remove after 1 October 2014; ..." (use Ctrl+F to find)--Namoroka (talk) 10:24, 12 October 2014 (UTC)

@Namoroka: Thanks. Category:Pages containing cite templates with deprecated parameters is large and I don't know whether the date has consensus but mention the comments in Module:Citation/CS1/Configuration if you post a suggestion to Help talk:Citation Style 1. PrimeHunter (talk) 10:42, 12 October 2014 (UTC)

Discussion at Help talk:Citation Style 1/Archive 6#Deprecated parameters?. --  Gadget850 ^talk 10:49, 12 October 2014 (UTC)

Thank you, both.--Namoroka (talk) 10:54, 12 October 2014 (UTC)

Auto-asking me to edit pages - why did it stop?

When I first signed up to edit Wikipedia pages, it kept asking me to edit pages over and over again. After I have closed the browser that Wikipedia was in, and then opened Wikipedia again, it did not provide an option to easily go back to editing page after page.

How do I get back to that?

Thanks!

-Tom — Preceding unsigned comment added by Bigoil55 (talk • contribs) 08:19, 12 October 2014‎ (UTC)

@Bigoil55: It sounds like the feature described at Wikipedia:GettingStarted. It's only shown automatically to new accounts but others can see it by adding ?gettingStartedReturn=true to a url, for example https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia?gettingStartedReturn=true. Another way to see possible articles to edit is clicking "Community portal" under "Interaction" in the left pane. PrimeHunter (talk) 10:09, 12 October 2014 (UTC)

Deleted wiki article still in the search results on google

Even though wikipedia deleted the page, it still shows in the search results. And I wouldn't like my business partners to see a wikipedia article that's already been deleted because it's irrelevant when they're searching my name. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Anniewelsh (talk • contribs)

It was deleted today. Google will remove it next time Googlebot visits the page and detects it has been deleted. Wikipedia does not control when this happens. PrimeHunter (talk) 11:46, 12 October 2014 (UTC)

I see mismatch in Dates but I do not know the proper answer

While reading I find mismatch in data. I do not have verifiable info about Sir William life period. Currently Sir William was killed by person who died several months before12:01, 12 October 2014 (UTC)Petr.kozlov (talk)

from articles of Wiki

Sir William Douglas of Nithsdale (c. 1370 – c. 1392 AD) Thomas de Clifford, 6th Baron de Clifford, also 6th Lord of Skipton (c. 1363 – 1391)

from article about Thomas de Clifford In 1391, Clifford was in the Baltic, and became involved in a brawl with Sir William Douglas, an illegitimate son of the earl of Douglas, in which Douglas was killed.

Petr.kozlov (talk) 12:01, 12 October 2014 (UTC) William Douglas of Nithsdale

Petr.kozlov (talk) 12:01, 12 October 2014 (UTC) Thomas de Clifford, 6th Baron de Clifford

Point out the conflict on the two article talk pages, Talk: William Douglas of Nithsdale and Talk: Thomas de Clifford, 6th Baron de Clifford. Robert McClenon (talk) 14:35, 13 October 2014 (UTC)

It is possible that this inconsistency may not be resolved soon. Records from the medieval period are not always reliable and consistency. What we can do is to note the inconsistency. Robert McClenon (talk) 14:35, 13 October 2014 (UTC)

The error appears to be in the article on Clifford, since the article on Douglas notes that Clifford had died in 1391. Robert McClenon (talk) 14:40, 13 October 2014 (UTC)

User creation date

This list shows all user names starting with Scoooter. I never noticed before, but some accounts, including Scoooter, have no creation date. I thought that all accounts, regardless of whether there are any contributions, have that date. Can someone please explain how this works? Thanks.--Bbb23 (talk) 14:22, 12 October 2014 (UTC)

The creation date of accounts was not logged many years ago so old accounts may display no date. PrimeHunter (talk) 14:53, 12 October 2014 (UTC)

Thanks, that was my guess. You don't happen to know when creation dates started being logged or some way I can find out?--Bbb23 (talk) 15:00, 12 October 2014 (UTC)

It appears from "oldest" at Special:Log/newusers that it was 22:16, 7 September 2005 (UTC). Some of the older users at Special:ListUsers display a date which must be taken from elsewhere. Special:ListUsers/Jimbo Wales says 2001. PrimeHunter (talk) 15:27, 12 October 2014 (UTC)

Not very satisfying technically, is it? When I sorted the username list by creation order, the earliest was 2001. Oddly, it wasn't really in strict order. Putting aside some of the month missorting, there was even a 2003 sandwiched in between two 2001s. Ah, well, I'm going to go with your explanation as to why there are creationn dates on many acccounts that predate 2005, although there are none on others. Thanks for your help.--Bbb23 (talk) 15:39, 12 October 2014 (UTC)

MS Windows Media Player as default Wikipedia player

I don't know why, but on my PC and just ONLY on Wikipedia the default media player is Quick Time Player! On my PC are present: -MS Windows Media Player -QuickTime Player -Xiph QuickTime Components -Xiph Open Codects -QuickTime Object (ActiveX control) If I disable QuickTime Object or uninstall Xiph QuickTime Components or uninstall QuickTime Player, an error occurs. If I try to open .ogx file(link) with MediaPlayer, a warning occurs, that this is not a MPlayer's file. Is it possible set Windows MediaPlayer as Wikipedia's default player, and if yes, how? 79.50.192.31 (talk) 15:56, 12 October 2014 (UTC)

The only Windows Media Player that can play Quick Time files is WMP 12. If you have another version of WMP it will not play them and will display an error message. Ruslik_Zero 19:04, 12 October 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for answering. I have installed the MP12, but my issue are not QuickTime files. I only want that MP becomes the wikipedia's default player. I just want that, when I click on a media, that media should be played with MediaPlayer and not with QuickTime Player. If I remember well, some years ago, it was possible select the default player, (between MS Win MediaPlayer, QuickTime Player and a third one). Now I can't find that link, anymore! 79.50.192.31 (talk) 23:36, 12 October 2014 (UTC)

Closing bracket ignored

When sending a link such as https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Southern_Cross_(South_Australia) to a Wikipedia article in an email message, the expected blue link fails to call the article directly, as the closing parenthesis is ignored. Is this unique to my version of Windows Live Mail or something deeper, and is there a remedy? I have no problem sending other links. Doug butler (talk) 21:30, 12 October 2014 (UTC)

I have no idea where the problem arises, possibly the email client, which displays the message and detects a part of the text as URL does the job incorrectly. You might try replacing ( with %28 and ) with %29, like this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Southern_Cross_%28South_Australia%29 - the parentheses are then not decoded until the Wikipedia server resolves them (which is done correctly). --CiaPan (talk) 21:39, 12 October 2014 (UTC)

Clunky, but it works. Thanks for a really prompt reply! Doug butler (talk) 21:44, 12 October 2014 (UTC)

Glad to help. :) I had the same problem myself a few years ago, and solved it the way I described. --CiaPan (talk) 21:50, 12 October 2014 (UTC)

Those times some internet browsers and most email clients could not properly interpret parentheses and some other characters in URL, so Wikipedia used to percent-encode parentheses in URLs to itself, as well as all non-ASCII characters of non-English names and words. The simplest way to get such address then was to right-click an article tab of the Wikipedia page and copy the link from there. Nowadays, however, most browsers can handle parentheses properly and Wikipedia stopped to encode them, so we must do it manually if needed. --CiaPan (talk) 08:20, 13 October 2014 (UTC)