Wikipedia:Help desk/Archives/2015 April 11

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April 11

Stray whitespace at top of page

Today I advanced three pages from Stub to Start by greatly expanding the lead sections: 1952 NBA Finals, 1953 NBA Finals, 1954 NBA Finals. Both before and after my work, the 1953 page displays (via my Firefox browser) about six blank lines at the top, in contrast to both the 1952 and 1954 pages which display without leading whitespace. I don't see the difference and need another pair of eyes. --P64 (talk) 00:18, 11 April 2015 (UTC)

Something to do with |radio_announcers=. -- Gadget850 ^talk 00:40, 11 April 2015 (UTC)

One article had the network list in announcers instead of network. Have fixed it - but would have to ask one of the infobox maintainers, why the display was corrupted to begin with. GermanJoe (talk) 00:50, 11 April 2015 (UTC)

Non-Latin characters in article name

Is it OK for an article in English Wikipedia to have a name in non-Latin characters (e. g., "三河")? --Djadjko (talk) 00:45, 11 April 2015 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Article titles: "On the English Wikipedia, article titles are written using the English language". AndyTheGrump (talk) 00:49, 11 April 2015 (UTC)

However, we can (and probably should) create redirects for the non-English titles, if they are in the native language. --Jayron32 01:57, 11 April 2015 (UTC)

Disambiguation pages are different. Here, numerous locations are referred to by the same two Chinese characters, so it makes sense to have a disambiguation page for those locations. Making it part of Three Rivers wouldn't help as much, because the characters are irrelevant to most places called "Three Rivers". Nyttend (talk) 12:10, 12 April 2015 (UTC)

Off-wiki statements

Suppose you had a discussion with an editor through email. Are you allowed to reveal those statements on-wiki? As long as they can be evidenced and they are not personal in any shape or form. OccultZone (Talk • Contributions • Log) 01:33, 11 April 2015 (UTC)

• See WP:EMAILPOST. As a first principal, no, you should respect the privacy of the off-wiki communication unless given permission. But there is a fair amount of wiggle room there, to either solve the problem, or get yourself in a lot of trouble. Monty₈₄₅ 01:42, 11 April 2015 (UTC)

@Monty845: And what when that person had also revealed your off-wiki statements without permission? OccultZone (Talk • Contributions • Log) 11:27, 12 April 2015 (UTC)

I think that the answer would be: Doesn't rule out that you should respect the privacy. Am I correct? OccultZone (Talk • Contributions • Log) 11:37, 12 April 2015 (UTC)

My sandbox link in personal toolbar

Within the past few days, I've suddenly had a link to my sandbox (currently a redlink since I've set up my sandboxes at a non-standard title) show up in my personal toolbar at the top of the page. I remember this used to be a gadget (as described on this page), but I never liked the link due to it pointing to the wrong place, so I had the gadget disabled. Now it seems it's enabled automatically? It doesn't show up in my preferences/gadgets screen, so I can't get rid of it. I could probably write a short javascript function to get rid of it, so it's not that big of a deal, but I'm more wondering what changed globally and where was the discussion to make that change. Or am I the only one experiencing this?--Dudemanfellabra (talk) 05:01, 11 April 2015 (UTC)

@Dudemanfellabra: It's not just you. There's a long discussion which may help you at Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)/Archive 136#Sandbox link. As a simple solution, I have User:SchreiberBike/sandbox as a redirect to my usual place where I keep notes etc., so it isn't a distracting red link for me.  SchreiberBike | ⌨  05:15, 11 April 2015 (UTC)

I just created my sandbox by saying there that I don't like that red link.— Vchimpanzee • talk • contributions • 21:45, 14 April 2015 (UTC)

Table codes

I need to learn a few things. I was trying them out on this table, but couldn't figure out the codes. I need to make the type face much smaller, and i need different colors in the header row and other rows. How to do that simply? Aditya^{(talk • contribs)} 14:37, 11 April 2015 (UTC)

Since no one has answered, I would suggest WP:VPT.— Vchimpanzee • talk • contributions • 21:45, 14 April 2015 (UTC)

Referencing errors on Tutuila

Reference help requested. I cannot see where I made a reference error. What I do know is that the information I added to the article is accurate. It is unfortunate that a minor technical error can get in the way of the facts. Please help me better understand. Thanks, Lvpapa (talk) 17:17, 11 April 2015 (UTC)

You deleted a chunk of text that included the named reference <ref name=Dragicevich>...</ref>:

The island is also known popularly as the "Rock".<ref name= Dragicevich>{{cite book|last= Dragicevich|first= Peter|author2=Craig McLachlan |title= Lonely Planet Samoa & Tonga|pages=84–85|accessdate=December 18, 2010|url=http://books.google.co.in/books?id=Uvtoe6kC-BkC&pg=PA82&dq=Fagatogo&hl=en&ei=mdDgTP3kKYmKvgPy_5HFDg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=9&ved=0CFAQ6AEwCA#v=onepage&q=Fagatogo&f=false|publisher=Lonely Planet|year= 2009|isbn=978-1-74104-818-6}} </ref>

And later in the content the reference is used again: <ref name=Dragicevich />. This causes the message -- Gadget850 ^talk 17:49, 11 April 2015 (UTC)

Default sort key overriding errors

A number of pages (List of minor planets: 79001–80000, List of minor planets: 77001–78000, List of minor planets: 78001–79000, and others) have a series of warnings along the lines of Warning: Default sort key "List of minor planets 79101-79200" overrides earlier default sort key "List of minor planets 79001-79100". Is there any way to get rid of these warnings? —Granger (talk · contribs) 17:53, 11 April 2015 (UTC)

Never saw that error before. But the list is transcluded from other lists, all of which have their own DEFAULTSORT. Try wrapping the DEFAULTSORT for the transcluded lists in <noinclude>...</noinclude>. -- Gadget850 ^talk 18:02, 11 April 2015 (UTC)

That does the trick—thanks for the help. —Granger (talk · contribs) 18:09, 11 April 2015 (UTC)

noinclude works. Another possibility is {{DEFAULTSORT:sortkey|noerror}} which will prevent that particular DEFAULTSORT from producing an error if there is an earlier DEFAULTSORT, but it doesn't prevent earlier or later DEFAULTSORT from producing their own errors so you would still need to do something for nearly all DEFAULTSORT. PrimeHunter (talk) 00:46, 12 April 2015 (UTC)

how to get rid of a vandal of my talk page?

How do I get rid of a vandal of my talk page... without having to confront the vandal myself?

Hi. I really couldn't find a better place to ask this question, even after looking thru FAQs and searching "vandal".

Some user have repeatedly vandalized my own user page [1] and [2].

How do I stop it, without having to interact with the vandal myself? I assume nobody else is patrolling my user page, so unless I flag this myself, nobody else is going to. But I don't want to initiate a conversation - this is what he wants based on his his edit comments, so I'm not going to do anything else than reverting his changes.

Specifically, I do not want to talk to this guy, not on my talk page, nor on his, nor anywhere else. I do not want to warn him: putting up a warning template will probably only encourage him. I don't want to give him any indication I am responding to him.

Please do not respond on my talk page. Please do not use talkbacks or anything else that might clue the vandal in on this discussion.

I am looking for a reply along the lines of "report the vandalism at xyz, they will deal with it; unless he stops he's going to get blocked, all without any further intervention from you"

What options do I have? I feel almost stalked here...

Again, apologies if this is asked at the wrong place.

CapnZapp (talk) 18:44, 11 April 2015 (UTC)

Maybe you know something of his previous history. But his edit history with that user name, just those two edits to your user page, suggests to me cluelessness rather than vandalism. Maproom (talk) 21:04, 11 April 2015 (UTC)

First, I agree with Maproom that the user is probably clueless rather than a vandal. He posted to your talk page, which in general is available for posting by other editors. Second, if you want to report vandalism, it is normally reported at , WP:AIV, administrator intervention against vandalism. Robert McClenon (talk) 23:03, 11 April 2015 (UTC)

Wikipedia and penalties for off wiki cyber bullying.

This page is only for questions about how to use or edit Wikipedia.
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
I was wondering if there's a history of cyber bullying, particularly doxing unpopular or popular editors by other Wikipedia editors; and how this would be dealt with if it was all done off wiki. Does Arbcom ever work with law enforcement and does being a doxer on other sites make one a cyber criminal on wikipedia? I'd think educators would care if their students were fighting off campus. Bullets and Bracelets (talk) 19:34, 11 April 2015 (UTC)

How do I upload an updated image?

The photo in the Heather Bresch article is dark and muddy. I've Photoshopped it to make it more pleasing to the eye, but I can't figure out how to upload my new file. It should certainly be in the same place as the old one, so people can compare them and see who uploaded what. Who can help me? Lou Sander (talk) 23:50, 11 April 2015 (UTC)

I don't work in this area so others may know more about practices but do you have a link saying "Upload a new version of this file" at commons:File:Heather Bresch.jpg? Note that this process will make it impossible to display the old version on other pages although it will still be visible on the file page in the "File history" section, like commons:File:George bernard shaw.jpg#filehistory where clicking a version shows the full resolution. It appears from current examples at commons:Commons:Graphic Lab/Photography workshop that it is also common to upload it with a new name like "(retouched)" added to the old name, and link the file pages to eachother with templates. Both versions can be displayed anywhere with that method, but if you want the new version to be displayed then you have to change the file name in pages using the old version. See also commons:Commons:Picture retouching. Commons has a help desk at commons:Commons:Help desk. PrimeHunter (talk) 00:30, 12 April 2015 (UTC)