Wikipedia:Help desk/Archives/2014 September 20

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September 20

Using small tags and br in infoboxes

So right now I have an issue with another editor by using small tags in movie titles inside the infoboxes. That editor had some of the titles in these articles (X-Men (film series)#Crew & Fantastic Four in film#Crew in smaller text size and I think it just looks so inconsistent and unnecessary. The editor stated that without the small tags, the text won't fit inside the infobox but it looks perfectly fine without the small tags.

Also, that user had the characters' codename separated from their birthname by erasing the "/" and replacing it with the br and putting the codename of the characters in smaller text size. --SuperHotWiki (talk) 08:19, 20 September 2014 (UTC)

Finding a template

In this WP Help page on templates, there are many templates divided according to category, but you have to know the category before you can find what you are looking for. I am looking for a template I once saw in a Talk page titled "Tangential discussion". I have no idea where to look and cannot see it on scanning the categories. Surely an alphabetical list of templates should supplement the category arrangement of templates? Where can I suggest this should be done and where I can find the template I am looking for, please? --P123ct1 (talk) 08:00, 20 September 2014 (UTC)

@P123ct1: An alphabetical list of templates can be found at Special:AllPages when switched to display templates. However, since there are over 330,000 template pages this isn't very useful. A better approach is to use the "Advanced" checkboxes at Special:Search to search for particular text strings in templates; but a search for 'tangential discussion' doesn't return much. I think your best bet is to search for the phrase "tangential discussion" in article talk pages and skim through the 77 results to see if you recognise any of the article names. -- John of Reading (talk) 09:00, 20 September 2014 (UTC)

Thanks. --P123ct1 (talk) 09:25, 20 September 2014 (UTC)

Very old stubs

Where can I find the list of articles created in the time period 2001-04 which are still stubs? Is there any tool for this?--Skr15081997 (talk) 10:55, 20 September 2014 (UTC)

The people who know about tools are found at WP:VPT.— Vchimpanzee • talk • contributions • 18:10, 20 September 2014 (UTC)

Software companies based in California

You don't have the company Spyrus. It's small but have done work with many large companies. Take a look at their website and see what you think about adding them to the list of software companies in California. Thanks — Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.197.228.150 (talk) 11:18, 20 September 2014 (UTC)

Wikipedia is is not a directory. Content must be WP:verified by reliably published third party sources. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 13:20, 20 September 2014 (UTC)

And also see the notability guidelines for companies.--ukexpat (talk) 15:36, 22 September 2014 (UTC)

User page interference

Hi there, I have had a wikipedia user account since 2007 and have chosen not to create my own user page. This has meant that my user name always appeared in red. Today another editor decided without reference to me, to create my user page and as a result my user name now appears in blue. I am unhappy with this situation as I don't like the fact that another user can edit my user page. How can my red link be restored and how can I prevent other users editing my user page? Graemp (talk) 12:01, 20 September 2014 (UTC)

I see he has already deleted the contents of your user page for you. But the link to it Graemp is still blue. I don't know why this is, or whether it can be changed. Maproom (talk) 12:14, 20 September 2014 (UTC)

My browser shows User:Graemp as red. GB fan 12:33, 20 September 2014 (UTC)

I have deleted your userpage and protected it so that only admins can create it. If you ever want to create your userpage let me or another admin know so that the protection can be removed. GB fan 12:29, 20 September 2014 (UTC)

My browser does now too. thanks Graemp (talk) 12:34, 20 September 2014 (UTC)

To address the unasked question, or at least how I'm reading it, if a page is created and then simply blanked by anyone, then the link will still be blue. The page exists it just doesn't have any content. It's like having a cupboard without any food in it. It doesn't change the fact that it's still a cupboard. Having an admin delete it however removes the cupboard from existence and thus the link is again red. Dismas|^(talk) 13:17, 20 September 2014 (UTC)

The other unasked question is "Why would an experienced editor want to have an empty/redlinked User page?" It usually suggests that the editor is new and probably inexperienced, clearly giving a false impression in this case. This is a general question, not specifically aimed at the OP, though they, of course, are welcome to reply. HiLo48 (talk) 22:24, 20 September 2014 (UTC)

A few experienced editors choose to have a red-linked user page as a form of "eccentricity". That might be the case here. A special form of protection could be implemented so that user pages and subpages could only be edited by the user, but that would be better discussed at Village pump proposals. Robert McClenon (talk) 22:38, 20 September 2014 (UTC)

Some "meta" questions about wikipedia.

Hello everyone, i'm quite sure that these question were already addressed but i was unable to find them through browsing the reference desk. So i hope that some kind user with good knowledge could help me. So let's start.

1. If i understood correctly the wikipedia's reference desk is like a Q&A site. But i see only "new" question in the section of the reference desk. This mean that if a question doesn't receive an answer within a certain time it gets archived? Or even if it gets answers after a certain time it gets archived nevertheless?(like reddit threads?) Does this method encourage replication of questions since a lot of users (me included) maybe are not able to find the same answer in the archives ? Could an "old question" receive a new answer or the archives are immutable?
2. I'm for the opinion that a good answer is the one that "fits" the reasoning of the reader (so it is not unique in general), but an helper for this is normally the reputation/votes/credits of the answerer. As far i saw on the wikipedia's reference desk a reader has no clue about the "reputation" of the answerer because that is not quantified like on stack exchange, quora and somewhere else. Did i miss it? Is there a way to show it? If there is no "numerical index for reputation" (like GDP is a numerical index of the economic power of a country) there are other methods to check it?
3. For now i don't have other questions, but many thanks in advance. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Pier4r (talk • contribs) 12:09, 20 September 2014 (UTC)

(1) Yes, all threads are archived after a week or so, and as a result the same (or very similar) questions are sometimes asked more than once. A repeated question can therefore receive a new set of responses. Usually, some smart-ass ref-desker—like me, for instance—will link to the earlier thread(s) on the topic in the responses. (2) Theoretically, the point of the ref desk is to direct querents to outside sources or Wikipedia articles that provide the information they are looking for. (That's why it's called the reference desk, not the "answer desk" or some such.) The value of the responses should therefore be independent of any qualifications or "reputation" that the individual respondents might have, so that such qualifications should ideally be completely irrelevant when the ref desk is operating as it should be. Deor (talk) 13:10, 20 September 2014 (UTC)

Caveat emptor and free advice is almost always worth what you paid for it. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 15:40, 20 September 2014 (UTC)

Sorry TheRedPenOfDoom i don't get your sentence, could you elaborate? Deor Many thanks, especially for the "theoretical" objective of the reference desk. Besides, could someone fix "question" to "questions" in the title (not so good in English here), since i end always in an edit conflict. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Pier4r (talk • contribs) 16:09, 20 September 2014 (UTC)

My comment was essentially a joke "If you get free advice that is not helpful, hire a lawyer to demand your money back"

But to your point, no Wikipedia is not going to institute any policy of rating editors or the quality of their edits.

The reference desk has numerous people watching and attempting to help, and if something completely inappropriate is offered, one of the other watchers is likely to call it out. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 16:22, 20 September 2014 (UTC)

Search indexing not working?

Last weekend I created two new articles: Amelia Watson and Firemen's Memorial (Manhattan). I've noticed that, a week later, neither of these pages appear in WP's internal search, and some other pages which I've edited also do not appear to have been indexed in that period. Is there something wrong with the indexing service? (Google picked up the new pages within minutes.) Pburka (talk) 13:22, 20 September 2014 (UTC)

This has been noted, but as stated in this thread

"Nobody is looking into the failure (that's why the [Bugzilla] ticket is marked as WONTFIX) as CirrusSearch will replace Lucene soon, and CirrusSearch is pretty ready for production"

AFAIK all efforts are being put into finalizing the new search, rather than mending the old one. - Arjayay (talk) 16:04, 20 September 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for the link. I'm disappointed that a core feature like search would be abandoned for some indeterminate number of weeks while waiting for a replacement to be deployed. Pburka (talk) 17:38, 20 September 2014 (UTC)

Citing Social Media esp. Twitter

Hi. Are there formal rules about citing social media and more specifically, using Twitter?

I have only managed to find so far a section in: Wikipedia_talk:Citing_sources/Archive_33#Citing_Twitter.3F but nothing more formal. What someone tweets isn't any more reliable than forums or blogs surely? Richard Nowell (talk) 14:12, 20 September 2014 (UTC)

I haven't checked the policies in detail, but I would say that Twitter is reliable in one special situation, and that is with respect to what was tweeted by the subject of the article. Other than that, Twitter is just a way for anyone to blog in 140 words at a time. Robert McClenon (talk) 14:29, 20 September 2014 (UTC)

The formal rules are: mostly dont because in most situations it is not appropriate. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 15:08, 20 September 2014 (UTC)

The section cited by the original poster was a question about the format for the reference in citing Twitter. As the discussion said, citing Twitter is only appropriate as information as to what the subject of the BLP had said. Also, the section cited by the original poster was in the policy talk page, and was never added to the policy. Robert McClenon (talk) 15:25, 20 September 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for replies. I ask because a well-known scientist who was born in Nairobi, Kenya tweeted that he was English, and this is then used as a ref in the WP article about him. A person could claim to be any nationality, surely? The quote from that tweet was, by the way: "Thank you. I am English. Perhaps you're too young to remember a little thing called the British Empire?" Richard Nowell (talk) 15:25, 20 September 2014 (UTC)

it could not be used to establish his nationality; but, particularly if third party sources covered the tweet, it could be used for something like "In a tweet, he identified himself as a member of the British Empire." -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 15:34, 20 September 2014 (UTC)

Not knowing the person, or their date of birth it is difficult to comment, however, Kenya is particularly complex - see British nationality law#Residual categories and particularly British Overseas citizen - However, he would not be English, he would be British - Arjayay (talk) 15:42, 20 September 2014 (UTC)

The individual in question, as noted, may be British as a British overseas citizen. He apparently self-identifies as English. Whether that self-identification is worth including in his BLP article is a matter of judgment, but a tweet may be a reliable source as to his self-identification. Robert McClenon (talk) 15:59, 20 September 2014 (UTC)

The WP article is on Richard Dawkins and the reference used is in the first sentence.Richard Nowell (talk) 16:19, 20 September 2014 (UTC)

I've opened a discussion on the article talk page. Robert McClenon (talk) 17:13, 20 September 2014 (UTC)

The above article has been edited to provide clarification. For myself, it still seems strange that Twitter 'tweets' can be used at all. A person, celebrity etc could tweet whatever, then get another person to add that tweet's content to WP, ref'd by Twitter and all is well. That does not seem a reliable source of information- indeed it seems a very poor one. However, a third party editor could not remove the tweet's content as it is ref'd and OK. Much like blogs! Richard Nowell (talk) 10:18, 21 September 2014 (UTC)

See WP:SPS, which covers both this and blogs. In short, if Richard Nowell claims something on his own blog, or Twitter account, or whatever, we can cite that claim in our Richard Nowell article as a basis for saying "Nowell claims X". Whether or not the claim is accurate, nobody can dispute the simple fact that he has made such a claim. Of course, there are other issues at hand (e.g. undue weight; is the content even relevant?), for which reasons we might decide not to include it, but purely on verifiability grounds, there's no reason to exclude such a statement with such a source. Nyttend (talk) 11:45, 21 September 2014 (UTC)

Thankyou, that explanation is helpful.Richard Nowell (talk) 12:23, 21 September 2014 (UTC)

The Captain America Bike

Mr. Peter Fonda has E mailed me about this bike (The Captain America Bike) that is going to auction. you can see my letter to MR. Fonda there his posted reply to me on Peter Fonda's FACEBOOK PAGE. It is on the left as you look at Mr. Fonda,s FACEBOOK PAGE

This bike is a FAKE BIKE!!

Mr. Fonda is now looking into this Bike to see if it is in fact an original bike. and not a rebuilt bike

This was on Sept. 19th 2014 14:48, 20 September 2014 (UTC)118.172.199.218 (talk)

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.--Skr15081997 (talk) 14:53, 20 September 2014 (UTC)

I presume that you're referring to this section: Easy Rider#Motorcycles. You may have more luck posting on that article's talk page. Pburka (talk) 14:56, 20 September 2014 (UTC)

Links to Wikipedia in other languages

I'm a complete beginner and intend making a contribution on the same subject to the English version and the Italian version of Wikipedia. My contribution includes a list of people who are on or the other, but not both and other people who are (for example) on the Spanish or German version. When I requested help on the Italian Wikipedia, I was told in that it was against the rules to include links to other language versions (although I attemped and it works), but I should create a "red" link to a page that says there is no page on the person in question (which theoretically should encourage another contributor to create the missing page). Are the Wikipedia rules not the same worldwide? If so is the sort of link I'd like to include (Interwikilink?) allowed or not?ScozzeseVolante (talk) 15:55, 20 September 2014 (UTC)

I think what you are looking for is on the left hand margin, at the foot of the menu options, and is the cogwheel'Edit links' item by the Languages line. A good example is our Main Page, which has a load of links to other language versions of this main page. We, ordinary editors like you and me, create these links by knowing the language the other article is in, and by following the prompts to link to it. This is, naturally, only for articles about the same topic. Fiddle Faddle 16:01, 20 September 2014 (UTC)

I think Fiddle Faddle may have misunderstood your question.

Firstly, there is no global rule - each language Wikipedia makes their own rules, so what is un/acceptable on the Italian Wikipedia does not hold here.
I think you need to read Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Linking#Interwiki links and the pages linked to from there - The general advice is "Inline interlanguage linking within an article's body text is generally discouraged because it leads to user confusion, but the use of {{ill}}, {{ill2}}, or {{ill-WD}} templates to show both a red link and an interlanguage link may be helpful in some cases" - Arjayay (talk) 16:22, 20 September 2014 (UTC)

@Arjayay: Fiddle Faddle is correct. ScozzeseVolante is asking about inter-language links, not interwiki links. Within the last couple of years, all of Wikipedia has moved to using Wikidata for language links. --NeilN ^{talk to me} 18:01, 20 September 2014 (UTC)

Here is more specific help: Wikipedia:Wikidata#Managing_Interlanguage_links_with_Wikidata --NeilN ^{talk to me} 18:09, 20 September 2014 (UTC)

@NeilN:- Hopefully ScozzeseVolante will enlighten us. However, he was told it was "against the rules to include links to other language versions" (I don't think interlanguage links are "against the rules" even on the Italian Wikipedia) and he asked about "a "red" link to a page on the person in question" and I don't think Wikidata's interlanguage links can create a "red-link" - can they? Almost the same text as my quotation appears at Help:Interlanguage links#Inline links - to my understanding, he is asking about Inline links- Arjayay (talk) 18:48, 20 September 2014 (UTC)

@Arjayay: I see what you mean. My apologies. Yes, you can't link to a German article in the body of an English article, for example. --NeilN ^{talk to me} 18:57, 20 September 2014 (UTC)

This is perhaps not the correct way to follow up on your suggestions.... please advise if I'm using the wrong method... I'll try to give a clearer example of my query... there will be a list of opera/theatre directors with whom the person I'm writing the contribution about has worked. Two of them (Lluis Pascal and Huo DeAna) only appear on the Spanish version of Wikipedia - how can a create a link to their pages on my English or Italian contribution?ScozzeseVolante (talk) 18:55, 20 September 2014 (UTC)

@ScozzeseVolante: Are you going to write an Lluis Pascal article on the English Wikipedia? --NeilN ^{talk to me} 19:00, 20 September 2014 (UTC)

If you are, if you go to the Spanish article you'll see a "Editar los enlaces" link on the left hand side, right at the bottom. Clicking it goes to here. You can add a link to your English article after you've created it. --NeilN ^{talk to me} 19:13, 20 September 2014 (UTC)

Are you perhaps asking about how to make an English article's text include a link to a parallel article in another Wikipedia? If that's what you want, just place a colon, the language code, another colon, and the name of the other article, and put them all in brackets. The language code is in the URL, before "wikipedia.org"; ours is en, the Italian is it, German is de, and Spanish is es. For example, to provide a link to the German version of the Help Desk, https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Fragen_zur_Wikipedia, just type [[:de:Wikipedia:Fragen zur Wikipedia]]. Alternate idea Were you hoping to add a link from our article to an existing article in another language, since we don't have an article on the topic? Just use {{ill|language code|article name}}, e.g. since we don't have an article about Naturschutzgebiet Warsteiner Kopf, {{ill|de|Naturschutzgebiet Warsteiner Kopf}} will produce Naturschutzgebiet Warsteiner Kopf — it provides a link that would go to our article if we had one, and a link to the German article that already exists. If someone creates an English Wikipedia article entitled "Naturschutzgebiet Warsteiner Kopf", the link to the German article will disappear. Nyttend (talk) 19:48, 20 September 2014 (UTC)

Yes, the latter of the two cases is the problem I'm trying to address.... I want to make my English text include a link to a person mentioned in my English article to an article on him in another Wikipedia.... the last of your suggestion seems the best to me, but as far as the Italian article I want to write is concerned, Italian contributors have said that I should only provide a "red" link which, when used, shows a message to the effect that there is no article on that person.ScozzeseVolante (talk) 23:00, 20 September 2014 (UTC)

Hello, ScozzeseVolante. In English Wikipedia you may link to an article in another Wikipedia if there is no such article in the English Wikipedia (contrary to what NeilN says). Nyttend explains two methods of doing so, but I strongly recommend his second method, because if somebody subsequently creates a relevant article in English, the link will point to that without needing to be changed. Italian Wikipedia may have different rules, and may not permit such links. --ColinFine (talk) 12:21, 21 September 2014 (UTC)

ttrain station in bic

location of ttrain station in bic — Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.223.173.69 (talk) 16:01, 20 September 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. Robert McClenon (talk) 16:06, 20 September 2014 (UTC)

Gadget coding

I use the gadget that Special:Preferences describes as "Display an assessment of an article's quality as part of the page header for each article. (documentation)". The script provides a link to failed featured-article candidacies, but not successful ones; it causes anthropology to give a link to Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Anthropology/archive1, but it doesn't make Minnesota give a link to Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Minnesota. What code would cause it to provide a link to a successful FAC? Pyrospirit says that he'll happily make small changes, but "I do not plan on adding whole new features". If someone could suggest code to provide links to successful FACs, I assume that he'd be happy to add it. Nyttend (talk) 19:55, 20 September 2014 (UTC)

Original research

Dear editors: I came across this article, Barabasti, which is supposed to be about a district, but has a large amount of unsourced information about politicians. It reads to me as though the information has been added by someone who lives in the district and knows these people, so I added an "original research" tag. Is this the appropriate tag, or is there something more specific to the situation of adding "notable people" where the editor decides who is notable? The article is not a BLP, and although it contains unsourced information about living people, it's not particularly controversial stuff. —Anne Delong (talk) 21:49, 20 September 2014 (UTC)

As a minor point, this was a case where the "multiple issues" tag could have been used to combine the two tags that you put on the article. The biographies of living persons policy does apply to articles that contain lists of people. It is my understanding that the BLP policy permits the deletion of the names of the people, except for those who are referenced. Robert McClenon (talk) 21:59, 20 September 2014 (UTC)

I applied the "multiple issues" tag. Robert McClenon (talk) 22:06, 20 September 2014 (UTC)

I didn't see a cleanup tag that had to do with lists of people in an article that is not itself a BLP. Robert McClenon (talk) 00:36, 21 September 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for checking this out, Robert McClenon. —Anne Delong (talk) 06:21, 21 September 2014 (UTC)

If the list entries were negative or controversial, it might be in order to actually delete them. Robert McClenon (talk) 14:31, 21 September 2014 (UTC)

Deleting a page for the first time

I'm having trouble nominating Reality distortion field for deletion. I followed all the instructions on the "how to delete a page" page but something didn't come out quite right. Any help would be appreciated! StainlessSteelScorpion (talk) 23:23, 20 September 2014 (UTC)

 Done you had a typo. I fixed it for you. Fiddle Faddle 23:33, 20 September 2014 (UTC)

Damn typo. What exactly had I done wrong? StainlessSteelScorpion (talk) 23:35, 20 September 2014 (UTC)

You had {{subset:afd2.. instead of {{subst:afd2.... --David Biddulph (talk) 12:46, 21 September 2014 (UTC)

Reverting an edit without triggering notification

Is there a way to revert an edit without triggering notification? I have tried removing the 'undoafter' and 'undo' parameters in the url. Will that suffice? Kingsindian (talk) 23:58, 20 September 2014 (UTC)

Why would you want to do that? Britmax (talk) 12:53, 22 September 2014 (UTC)

Hit undo, but instead of saving, copy/paste the resulting contents into a text editor. Go back to the current version of the page and click "edit", and then copy/paste from the text editor into the article. As far as the software cares, this is no different from you editing the page so that it has these contents. Nyttend (talk) 23:17, 23 September 2014 (UTC)