Wikipedia:Help desk/Archives/2015 August 20

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August 20

On the Waterfront

List of Big Five Academy Award winners and nominees omits "On the Waterfront" for 1954's Best Picture and other Academy Awards. I don't know how to correct it. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 146.115.135.212 (talk) 01:46, 20 August 2015 (UTC)

List of Big Five Academy Award winners and nominees is only for films nominated in all five categories. On the Waterfront was not nominated for best actress at 27th Academy Awards#Awards. It won best supporting actress but that doesn't count in the Big Five. PrimeHunter (talk) 03:28, 20 August 2015 (UTC)

Albert Kitson, 2nd Baron Airedale

Please check that the date format is OK (ref. number 12) - this ref was added as a request from an editor to verify where a quote came from - in this case, the Daily Telegraph UK 101.182.221.219 (talk) 05:18, 20 August 2015 (UTC)

I removed the date from the |publisher= parameter, creating the |date= parameter. I also removed the |quote= parameter as unnecessary in this case, and changed |publisher= to |work= per the template documentation. ―Mandruss ☎ 05:36, 20 August 2015 (UTC)

i edited a topic and accidentally screwed up a reference...

I just wanted to give a heads up so an editor may correct it. My apologies, it is an article which has been vandalized, and I have no intention of vandalizing anything here. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Chreaton (talk • contribs) 07:00, 20 August 2015 (UTC)

fixed it! Think I'm, getting the hang of it, I just discovered the sandbox and the show preview button. Chreaton (talk) 07:34, 20 August 2015 (UTC)

@Chreaton: Glad to hear you're finding your way around! If you ever accidentally perform an edit that you didn't mean to or accidentally broke something with an edit, you can navigate to the edit history (click the "View History" tab) and then click "Undo" next to your edit to reverse it entirely. That's particularly helpful when you're having difficulty figuring out why your edit broke something. Keep in mind that when you undo an edit, you'll have to manually redo any good parts of the edit. ~ Rob^Talk 08:51, 20 August 2015 (UTC)

I Want to Edit my Org's Details on Wiki

Can someone please guide me the way to edit my company's details on Wiki? We have an Updated Indentity and Logo. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.122.11.52 (talk) 13:02, 20 August 2015 (UTC)

Because it is your company you should not edit it directly. Instead you should leave a note on the article's talk page explaining what changes you would like to see, and someone else can come and make the changes (or not, if the changes are inappropriate). You can use {{request edit}} to draw the attention of people who will edit the article for you. ~ ONUnicorn^{(Talk|Contribs)}problem solving 14:04, 20 August 2015 (UTC)

Automatic review of new pages

When the Curation toolbar is open and I perform certain actions, it appears that the open page is automatically marked as reviewed. This can cause issues, such as when I add tags to a page with no intent to approve it. It has lead to this situation. Any advice? Also, Please provide some suggestions concerning how to better patrol for vandalism and on new pages. MopSeeker FoxThree! 14:57, 20 August 2015 (UTC)

Hi MopSeeker, You can set your preferences here Supdiop (Talk/Contribs) 14:52, 21 August 2015 (UTC)

Thanks! MopSeeker FoxThree! 02:03, 22 August 2015 (UTC)

Same sex marriage country listings.

Greenland also now permits same sex marriage, it seems to be missing from your list. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.106.100.84 (talk) 15:08, 20 August 2015 (UTC)

Is there a reason you can't fix that? Generally I'd go in to look myself, but as you didn't provide a link to the list I'm not quite sure where you were seeing the omission. Thanks! DonIago (talk) 15:16, 20 August 2015 (UTC)

We have many pages about same-sex marriage. It may be a list which counts Greenland under Denmark, or it may be a list which shows the current law and not Greenland's new law which goes into effect 1 October 2015. Or the post may be not be about Wikipedia at all. We get many posts about unrelated websites. The IP at Wikipedia:Help desk/Archives/2015 June 27#Same Sex Marriage also failed to say which page it was about. I wasted time investigating it and posted "Greenland is mentioned in all five SSM-related lists I found." There is a reason our edit window says "Please give the exact title or URL of any page you want help with." I really wish posters would do that. It should be common sense and not something we keep unsuccessfully asking for. PrimeHunter (talk) 16:26, 20 August 2015 (UTC)

Adding Links to other Articles

My boss’ page had the notice below at the top of his Wikipedia page:

This article needs more links to other articles to help integrate it into the encyclopedia. Please help improve this article by adding links that are relevant to the context within the existing text. (March 2015)

I was able to add about 7 links to the existing text on the page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_Dooley

The notification is still there though. Does this mean I need to add more links? Or does this sort of thing take a while before the system is updated and the notification goes away? How do I know when there are enough links to relevant content on our page?

Thank you very much for your help! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.42.18.124 (talk) 16:45, 20 August 2015 (UTC)

First of all, if this is a page about your boss (it is not his page) then you have a clear conflict of interest and should not normally be editing the page at all.

Secondly, those tags are not automatically added or removed. When an editor thinks there are too few links s/he may add such a tab. Later when any editor thinks the problem has been fixed, s/he may remove the tag. If in doubt, discuss the issue on the article talk page. DES ^(talk) 17:18, 20 August 2015 (UTC)

Twinkle

How do I install and use Twinkle? I was never able to learn from Wikipedia:Twinkle how to install it. Blackbombchu (talk) 16:52, 20 August 2015 (UTC)

You can simply enable it using the gadget tab in your preferences. Ruslik_Zero 20:44, 20 August 2015 (UTC)

moving text from sandbox to article status

How do I accomplish this? I seem to be stuck in my sandbox today. Julie Saeger Nierenberg (talk) 16:57, 20 August 2015 (UTC)

@Julie Saeger Nierenberg: You should move the page to article space, but if you are referring to your own sandbox page, it doesn't seem ready to be moved to article space yet. The Average Wikipedian (talk) 03:09, 21 August 2015 (UTC)

Deletion nomination notification

After I nominate an article for deletion, which people am I supposed to notify on their talk page about it's nomination if I see in its history that nobody contributed more than a small fraction of its content, like for example https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Double_circulatory_system&offset=&limit=500&action=history? You can check Special:Contributions/Blackbombchu to see which people I already notified. Does twinkle automatically notify the people who should be notified? I wish I knew how to install twinkle. Blackbombchu (talk) 17:07, 20 August 2015 (UTC)

You should only notify the article creator. Notifying other editors is optional. Ruslik_Zero 20:43, 20 August 2015 (UTC)

Alright, I'll do that. Blackbombchu (talk) 14:50, 21 August 2015 (UTC)

Why are the time stamps not in synch?

I just added a comment to a Talk Page (here: Talk:Hillary Clinton email controversy). When the Wikipedia computer program added in the date and time stamp, it placed in the notation: "17:47, 20 August 2015 (U T C)". However, when I went to look up my comment in the edit history of that same Talk Page, it lists my comment as being placed at "13:47, August 20, 2015‎". Why would the two "logs" keep time with two different systems? Seems bizarre. Anyone? Thanks. Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 17:51, 20 August 2015 (UTC)

What it says in the text on the talk page is "16:47, 20 August 2015 (U T C)". In your preferences, however, you can (if you wish) choose to have times displayed to you in the current time zone for your locality. --David Biddulph (talk) 18:05, 20 August 2015 (UTC)

That preference was causing the time displayed in these messages to be reshuffled to my local time; I've therefore put spaces between the letters in U T C to try to fool it. - David Biddulph (talk) 18:12, 20 August 2015 (UTC)

The edit [1] was signed "17:47, 20 August 2015 (UTC)", where UTC is Coordinated Universal Time. This time zone is used by Wikipedia's servers and always stored in the wiki source of a page when you sign a post, regardless of your own time zone. Times in logs like page histories and user contributions are stored in a time field in the servers and rendered each time a user views the page. It is displayed in the time zone you choose at Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-rendering. David refers to another feature at the English Wikipedia. At Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-gadgets you can enable "Change UTC-based times and dates, such as those used in signatures, to be relative to local time." This will attempt to interpret times stored in wiki source and automatically convert the stored text when you view the page. PrimeHunter (talk) 19:29, 20 August 2015 (UTC)

Huh? I did not understand a single word from the posts above. So, I will ask again. On the Talk Page, why does it have a date/time stamp of "17:47, 20 August 2015 (U T C)" (at least, on the page that is visible to me from my computer), while on the Edit History Log, it has a date/time stamp of "13:47, August 20, 2015‎" (at least, on the page that is visible to me from my computer)? Thanks. Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 21:16, 20 August 2015 (UTC)

The text *in* the talk page was inserted at the time the posting was signed. Since it's just text the signing procedure (I assume you used the four-tilde thing), has to pick something, and they picked UTC. The problem is that when the page is rendered, that date/time is just text, and can't really be changed. The edit history stores an actual time, and isn't rendered until the history page is displayed. So it's rendered in the format you've set in your preferences. If that's not UTC, it'll be different than what ~~~~ inserted. Rwessel (talk) 22:13, 20 August 2015 (UTC)

David confused the matter by speaking about a gadget he has enabled but you probably haven't enabled so ignore that part for now. When you sign a post, the UTC time is stored in the wiki source just like any other text in your edit. Everybody (who haven't enabled the gadget) see the same time in signatures, just like they see the same text in other parts of the edit. The time is just a string of characters which happens to represent a time. Like any other part of a saved edit, it might be removed or changed in later edits. The time displayed in page histories works completely different. When you save an edit, different data related to the edit (like user, time, revision number, edit summary, page changes, ...) are stored in different fields in a database which cannot be edited or accessed directly by users. Whenever somebody views a page history, the MediaWiki software retrieves these fields from the database and displays them in a way which can vary for different users depending on their preferences. Not only their time zone but also language setting and other details. The page history you see is nothing like viewing a stored text file. It's a combinationtion of a lot of different data which is put together for you personally each time you view a page history. If you go to Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-rendering, click the time zone field and select the first option "Use wiki default (UTC)" then you will in the future see the same UTC time in page histories as in signatures – except they are sometimes 1 minute different (very rarely more) because they are taken at different stages of the edit processing or by different servers. The gadget tries to go the other way and convert UTC time stamps in signatures to your local time zone. This is done by manipulating the displayed time in your own browser so you no longer see what the page actually contains when it's sent to you from Wikipedia's servers. The method has limitations and can cause confusion. PrimeHunter (talk) 22:32, 20 August 2015 (UTC)

OK. Thanks. I am starting to "get it" now. So, why can't the two different pages be synchronized? I am sure that computers (or software or whatever) today have the capability to do that. No? This is how my question/dilemma began. I saw a post on the Talk Page. And I wanted to "thank" the person who posted that post. So, I looked at the date/time stamp of the editor's post. Then, I went to the Edit History Log (which contains thousands upon thousands of edits, in chronological order). And I scanned down the list, looking for the time stamp that would have coincided with the time stamp I saw on the Talk Page. Needless to say, I did not find one. Not even close. Hence, I came here to ask my question. So, the related question is: when presented with a list of thousands of edits, how would I submit a "thank you" to the correct person for the correct edit, if I can't synchronize the time stamps? I can look at the "diffs" (is that what they are called?). But I am not about to look at thousands upon thousands of these diffs to find the right one. Seems like the process should/could be much easier. Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 03:03, 21 August 2015 (UTC)

Again, the way signature timestamps are generated, it's just text on the page. Once set, it's set. A technical solution would be to change the way the signing works to insert a reference to a template with the (UTC) time as a parameter, that would then render the time in the format selected by the user. That might not be a bad idea, but I'm not sure how the selected options are available to templates. Anyway, There's not a real problem finding the log entry, you just have to consider the differences in the timezone used for the timestamp. Just as if you were calling a friend in London. Rwessel (talk) 03:20, 21 August 2015 (UTC)

Joseph A. Spadaro when you look at a signature, you need to note the stated time zone. Then you need to make the proper adjustment when viewing history pages, which will often use a different timezone. It is as simple as that. DES ^(talk) 03:24, 21 August 2015 (UTC)

If you enable the gadget then signatures and page histories should match, but you may be confused when people write something like "Joseph's 17:47 edit" and the gadget displays another time like 13:47 for you. You may also confuse others if you refer to edits by stating the modified time the gadget is displaying to you. UTC doesn't have summer time but I do so my local time varies betwen being one and two hours from UTC. That can be a source of confusion when I convert times mentally. PrimeHunter (talk) 04:50, 21 August 2015 (UTC)

Thanks, all. Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 03:49, 22 August 2015 (UTC)

Road miles of a city

how do I find out the road miles of a city? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 198.24.6.135 (talk) 18:16, 20 August 2015 (UTC)

You can check with the reference desk. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 19:35, 20 August 2015 (UTC)

category issue

Hello. I recently made this category: Category:Future Elections... but apparently, one similar to that exists already - Category:Future elections. The latter one actually is not good. It is extremely confusing. It has subcategories, and so many that it is almost ridiculous how many subcategories there are there. It's difficult to navigate. It has for example a continent navigation - and so I click on Canada, and low and behold it says "2016 elections in Canada", and takes one to an irrelevant page that has no information pertaining to future elections. Hence I am wondering if these two pages can be combined in an easy to understand manner? One where perhaps all elections would pop up on one page - there would be what, about 50-60 all total I think? (Lilic (talk) 18:41, 20 August 2015 (UTC)).

You should have checked that a similar category already existed but since you are a newbie, it's understandable that you missed it. I have nominated your category for speedy deletion as we can't have two categories with identical names, apart from a letter case. Your main point seems to be around the content of the category, so I suggest you start a discussion on Category talk:Future elections on what articles and sub-categories should be part of it. Snappy (talk) 19:16, 20 August 2015 (UTC)

Most categories have sub categories and sub sub categories. This is to prevent them from becoming unwieldy and difficult to navigate. The bottom category you referenced, Category:2016 elections in Canada actually does have one page pertaining to 2016 elections in Canada; 41st Manitoba general election. As for all elections popping up on one page, there'd be far more than 50-60 total. There would be THOUSANDS. ~ ONUnicorn^{(Talk|Contribs)}problem solving 19:27, 20 August 2015 (UTC)

Virtual Builders Exchange, LLC

I would like to know how to put in a definition of a Builders Exchange? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Virtual Builders Exchange, LLC (talk • contribs) 18:53, 20 August 2015 (UTC)

@Virtual Builders Exchange, LLC: - Hello! Wikipedia is not a dictionary - we don't do "definitions" - we write encyclopedia articles about topics that have been discussed in a significant manner by third party sources. (ps you are probably going to need to change your user name)-- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 19:34, 20 August 2015 (UTC)

Burmese–Siamese War (1809-12)

Can someone explain how do I remove the automatic redirect for the Burmese–Siamese War (1809-12) article from Burmese–Siamese wars?--Catlemur (talk) 21:05, 20 August 2015 (UTC)

Catlemur The "Article" Burmese–Siamese War (1809–12) never had more than one or two sentences of content. The longest version in the history read in full: "The Burmese-Siamese-war of 1809-1812 was fought between Burma and Siam. Siam won the war and defended Junkceylon due to Maha Senanurak and Chan and Mook." It was redirected because an "article" that short was of no value, but someone might search on it or might have linked to it. Unless you want to create a proper article on that subject, the redirect should stay where it is. I will however, remove the link as it is now a self-link in the summary article. This is done by simply removing the brackets, leaving the text unlinked. Does that answer your question? DES ^(talk) 22:15, 20 August 2015 (UTC)

@DESiegel: Just to avoid problems: Castlemur's article currently uses a regular hyphen (and is a complete article), the second link in your post is with en-dash. These are two different pages. As other Burmese-... articles use en-dash too, it might be better to move Castlemur's article to the correct version for consistency. GermanJoe (talk) 22:23, 20 August 2015 (UTC)

GermanJoe is right effing hyphens again.--Catlemur (talk) 22:28, 20 August 2015 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Ah I missed that, thanks, GermanJoe. We need to preserve the history behind the redir, I think, but I will move the complete article over the redir and re-link. That will leave a proper redir from the hyphen version to the ndash version. I hope that will assist you, Catlemur. DES ^(talk) 22:31, 20 August 2015 (UTC)

• Thanks a lot.--Catlemur (talk) 22:33, 20 August 2015 (UTC)

 Done. Catlemur, please confirm that all links now point where they should. Thank you. DES ^(talk) 22:40, 20 August 2015 (UTC)

• • Everything is alright.--Catlemur (talk) 07:58, 21 August 2015 (UTC)

Housing/Landlord./Trouble.

Dear Help Desk. I'm in Court with <redacted>. Management has Agreed that I get my lawyers & their lawyers to sit down together & settle this matter at once so I can get my Keys to return Home at <address redacted>. So I went to see the Judge, & the Judge has Decided that payment be made On the 23rd. so I can get my Keys to return home at <address redacted>. Judge also order that I"ve get Access to my place six hours & ten minutes. So I can cook at home & do Laundry and to continue taking care of myself. "cause this is A Big Bill that I'm going to have to pay On the 23rd. When the 23rd arrived one of his lawyers said that he has A Travers Meeting to go unto that he cannot afford to be Late one mn. So they adjouned until today I still don"t have my Keys in my Hands Yet. All this time the money has being in the Court Room 406 holding by guy name <redacted>. Since the Case has Decided that payment be made On the 23rd so that I can get my Keys to return Home at <address redacted>. Therefore, force them to take the money so I can get my Keys. beside they have messed the Judge order that I"ve got Access to my place. <redacted> # <number redacted> <redacted> <number redacted> or Blondine <number redacted> (sister). The guy that"ve got the "World" Do Not Take "No" For Answer "cause I Need My Keys In My Hands For My Apt <number redacted> . ( only a couple times I"ve got Access to my Apt. F=8). I will be waiting to hear from you. <redacted> — Preceding unsigned comment added by 209.2.60.95 (talk) 21:56, 20 August 2015 (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) 22:07, 20 August 2015 (UTC)

Also, Wikipedia will not give legal advice. Robert McClenon (talk) 22:08, 20 August 2015 (UTC)

Contact info removed. DES ^(talk) 22:20, 20 August 2015 (UTC)

Citation bug

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T109781

When I am editing a Wikipedia article, and click the citation dropdown>Template, and any citation template (Web, News, Book, Journal), the space where citation info would usually go is comp blank. Looks like a bug has removed all data. This worked fine before but since today it no longer works. Help please?--Shreerajtheauthor (talk) 22:10, 20 August 2015 (UTC)

It also fails for me currently in both Firefox and Chrome. If I disable "Enable enhanced editing toolbar" at Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-rendering then I get another toolbar where Cite seems to work. PrimeHunter (talk) 22:56, 20 August 2015 (UTC)

@Shreerajtheauthor: I have reported it at Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)/Archive 139#Cite tool fails. PrimeHunter (talk) 23:09, 20 August 2015 (UTC)

Also getting this bug, started today as well.Cepiolot (talk) 23:39, 20 August 2015 (UTC)

Ipso ditto, first observed about three hours ago. --Thnidu (talk) 17:29, 21 August 2015 (UTC)

I've just reported it on Phabricator, T109864: Citation template interface coming up blank. --Thnidu (talk) 17:34, 21 August 2015 (UTC)