Wikipedia:Help desk/Archives/2017 August 13

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August 13

Best practices: how to credit an unconfirmed user for their suggested edit to a semiprotected page?

Is there a recommendation in a policy somewhere about recommended wording for crediting an unconfirmed user in the edit summary of an edit that implements a semi-protected edit request?

A brand new editor has done a good job in a requested edit to a semiprotected page Transgender (see this talk thread). We're still in discussion about user's proposed edit, but it will likely conclude soon, and I will add the user's proposed change to the article. My question is: how do I credit this user properly in the edit summary? I'm thinking of something like: this:

/* Media representation */ On behalf of [[User:Be the change scholar]]: Add comments about increased media visibility, per requested edit at Talk:Transgender#Proposed update to Media Representation.

If there were a policy link or essay about this with a specific recommendation, I'd like to know. Mathglot (talk) 04:03, 13 August 2017 (UTC)

Never mind... it's on the same page I linked to. Duh! But which of those templates is best? Mathglot (talk) 04:07, 13 August 2017 (UTC)

Hello Mathglot, which templates might you be referring to? (AFAIK, templates don't function in edit summaries). What you have originally written above seems absolutely fine for your edit summary. Lourdes 11:55, 13 August 2017 (UTC)

Potternewton

Please help . The ] caption underneath the old photo of Potternewton Hall on this page is half in red. It should state at the end of the caption that the photo is "circa (with the little dots underneath the letter "c" ... 1860-70" Please help and very sorry 101.189.97.127 (talk) 07:58, 13 August 2017 (UTC)

 Fixed You omitted a pipe character (|) between the template name and its parameter.--Jeffro77 (talk) 08:02, 13 August 2017 (UTC)

Having trouble in improving my article

I have tried to edit my article, but i still face some challenges. Please can you point out the lines or paragraph that i should make changes. I tried to read and follow the guidelines of writing article but sill my article has some issues. Please can you assist on what i should do improve my article? Joy Philip (talk) 09:53, 13 August 2017 (UTC)

Joy Philip: a phrase such as "is the burning issue" indicates that the writer is not neutral, and is therefore not acceptable in a Wikipedia article. You may believe that saving lives is good, and causing death and disease among young people is bad; but you should not allow this to influence what you write. Maproom (talk) 10:07, 13 August 2017 (UTC)

Joy Philip: We already have an article that deals with this subject in a more comprehensive and neutral way. Substance abuse Aspro (talk) 12:04, 13 August 2017 (UTC)

Potternewton

There is a strange sign in the text after ref number 11. I have worked hard on this page - adding a file etc. Please help remove the strange mark. Thanks so much 101.189.97.127 (talk) 10:06, 13 August 2017 (UTC)

I have removed the unpaired < from the end of a paragraph. Maproom (talk) 10:09, 13 August 2017 (UTC)

Picture Uploading Not Showing

Hi I've been trying to upload a photo of my father, the late Phil White (Mayor) and I've gone through the wizard - posted the file to WikiCommons and it's not showing on the website.

I admit that I'm a novice at this, so your assistance would be greatly appreciated. I just wanted to put the photo in the sidebar with other information.

I also wanted to put a capital "M" for mayor next to his name. We would capitalize a person's title if they were a President, Prime Minister, or Doctor and so I think I need to capitalize that, but the edit feature won't allow me in there. Can you please help with that as well.

Sincerest Thanks! Bryon White — Preceding unsigned comment added by Research Bry (talk • contribs) 12:11, 13 August 2017 (UTC)

Well, you seem to have fixed yourself as it shows up now. Philip White (mayor) Also, might be better to rename as simply Philip White and drop the mayor bit in the title. Can someone do that quickly and without fuss? It then brings the article into line with Category:Mayors of York, Ontario. Aspro (talk) 12:26, 13 August 2017 (UTC)

Philip White (mayor) is one of many people listed at Philip White. His article needs a disambiguated title. "(mayor)" in this context is a description of the subject and not a title of the subject. Lowercase is appropriate. We also say Graeme Clark (doctor) and so on. PrimeHunter (talk) 12:52, 13 August 2017 (UTC)

OK. So we keep it as it is. Aspro (talk) 13:14, 13 August 2017 (UTC)

Also, for completeness, is it known which member of your family took this photograph or was it taken by one of your father's entourage  ? Aspro (talk) 13:47, 13 August 2017 (UTC)

My recent changes to the Berlin Connecticut Railroad Station history page.

Hi, I made some changes to correct some historical inaccuracies in the Early Stations section. I would like to include my references, but I have been unable to do so. I would appreciate any assistance anyone can help me with this subject. Thank You, John DiSarro III — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2602:252:D78:D0A0:6D14:1B0F:D57D:412A (talk) 15:38, 13 August 2017 (UTC)

@2602:252:D78:D0A0:6D14:1B0F:D57D:412A. When you are reading an article and see a references section near the bottom populated by a series of numbered citations, you might think that if you edit the page, you will see those citations typed in that section and be able to edit them. However, usually what you will see is markup similar to this:

==References==
{{reflist}} or <references />

In that case, the text of citations is actually in the body of the article, directly next to the first statements or paragraphs the citations support, using <ref>...</ref> tags, which display as Footnotes (e.g.) when you are reading an article. The template code shown above in the references section collates and displays all of the citations within the article in a numbered list in which the numbers correspond to the footnote numbers in the text. By clicking on the ^{^} symbol next to a citation display, you can easily find exactly where in the body of the article the citation text appears in order to edit it. For more, please see Help:Referencing for beginners. I've edited the page so that the reference works, but if you need any more help, let us know.  Seagull123  Φ  17:11, 13 August 2017 (UTC)

Please delete this suspicious entry. It is not my doing.

To Whom it may concern:

Please forward the following communication to the appropriate department:

I'm just seeing this for the first time today.

Please delete the following:

2 Speedy deletion nomination of User:YourFreelancer/USHIO, AMERICA, inc.[edit]

I do not know from where it came--may be on a personally owned computer at SCHELL SCENIC STUDIO, 841 S FRONT STREET AND AT 66 W WHITTIER ST FL2, COLUMBUS, OHIO 43206, where I used to work.

It is not my doing, and I will change my password today, Sunday, August 12, A.D. 2017.

Respectfully,

Lance P. Jones — Preceding unsigned comment added by YourFreelancer (talk • contribs) 19:36, 13 August 2017 (UTC)

The page in question was already deleted on 19 July 2017. Ruslik_Zero 20:05, 13 August 2017 (UTC)

For July 2017, read July 2016. --David Biddulph (talk) 20:08, 13 August 2017 (UTC)

@YourFreelancer: Your account created a page at User:YourFreelancer/USHIO, AMERICA, inc in December 2011. In July 2016 it was nominated for deletion. You were notified of the nomination in the post you quote, and the page was deleted. You are free to remove or ignore the post at User talk:YourFreelancer. If you didn't hear about the post before now then it's because you haven't logged in for a year. That's perfectly OK. Accounts never expire and no actions are required. PrimeHunter (talk) 20:28, 13 August 2017 (UTC)

Related articles

As a matter of interest, where does the decision on what are listed as "Related articles" at the foot of the mobile view of an article come from? As an example the mobile page https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Handyside_and_Company shows Barton Swing Aqueduct, Outwood Viaduct, and Handyside Bridge as related articles. I can't see anything relevant in the article wikicode. I wondered whether this was something else which comes from Wikidata, but I can't see anything there either. --David Biddulph (talk) 20:14, 13 August 2017 (UTC)

It's determined automatically by a search function unless a tag is added and I have never seen that. See mw:Extension:RelatedArticles. PrimeHunter (talk) 20:51, 13 August 2017 (UTC)

edit and reference section with valid link.

i am trying to edit and add reference and link. I have done after saving change it is not appearing in wiki page. can you help to add my reference and link. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Sumanta26 (talk • contribs) 20:17, 13 August 2017 (UTC)

Sumanta26: you succeeded in editing the article Moringa oleifera, but your addition was removed by another editor, as it was to an original medical research paper. Such references are not welcome in Wikipedia, for reasons explained at Wikipedia:Identifying reliable sources (medicine). Maproom (talk) 20:25, 13 August 2017 (UTC)

Converting unformatted dates

Is there a quick of way of converting normal dates such as 17 October 1945 to {{Start date}} format as {{start date|1945|10|17}}. Thanks.--Nevé–selbert 20:29, 13 August 2017 (UTC)

I'm not sure I understand exactly what is wanted, but consider the following which use {{extract}}:

• {{extract|17 October 1945|show=ymd}} → 1945-10-17
• {{extract|October 17, 1945|show=ymd}} → 1945-10-17
• {{extract|17 October 1945|show=%Y{{!}}%m{{!}}%d}} → 1945|10|17

Johnuniq (talk) 22:33, 13 August 2017 (UTC)

@Nevé: I guess you may want exactly the same output as that from {{start date|1945|10|17}}. That is possible, but I would not recommend the following ugliness in an article. If wanted, a discussion could be started on a template talk page about how to get {{start date}} to handle a human-formatted date and you might like to ping me if that happens. If you put the following into Special:ExpandTemplates you will see that the output produced by each line is identical:

{{start date|1945|10|17}}
{{extract|17 October 1945|show=%B&nbsp;%-d,&nbsp;%-Y<span style="display:none">&#160;(<span class="bday dtstart published updated">%Y-%m-%d</span>)</span>}}

The % codes used in show=... are documented at Module:Date. Johnuniq (talk) 07:57, 14 August 2017 (UTC)

I have since manually converted the dates I wanted done automatically, but thanks anyway for the informative reply. --Nevé–selbert 20:35, 14 August 2017 (UTC)

Line numbers in diffs

I was asked the question on my talk page[1] and did not have the answer (Help:Diff had nothing):

"when checking out a diff on a very long page, the diff view shows a LINE:# and then a + sign in the margin showing the diff. Let's say it's LINE: 357 - is there a way to find that line in the article view below the diff section? I'm not seeing where the lines are numbered, and can't figure out what purpose the line # has in the grand scheme."

So what good are those line numbers? --Guy Macon (talk) 20:36, 13 August 2017 (UTC)

I don't know any on-wiki way to use the line number except getting a rough idea how far into the page it is. The text can be copied to an off-line editor with line numbers but I have never used it for that. To find the location below, I ignore the number and use a browser search to find some pure text from the diff. Specifically in Firefox, I mark a suitable string with the mouse and click Ctrl+C (copy), Ctrl+F (search), Ctrl+V (insert). It only takes seconds but requires a rendered string with no other occurrences. PrimeHunter (talk) 21:18, 13 August 2017 (UTC)

In Firefox, the Ctrl-C and Ctrl-V are not needed. Just select the text and press Ctrl-F. That works in the current tab. If wanting to search in, say, the normal article, you need to do the select and Ctrl-F in the current window (where the selected text is) before doing a Ctrl-Click to open a new tab where you then press F3 to search. Johnuniq (talk) 22:24, 13 August 2017 (UTC)

old school photos

Hi i attended ford primary school in Plymouth Devon in 1971/72 and i would love to have a old school photo of me, please help — Preceding unsigned comment added by Allison Howard (talk • contribs) 20:40, 13 August 2017 (UTC)

I suspect, based on your question, that you found one of our over 5.4 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. Crow^Caw 20:46, 13 August 2017 (UTC)

You might try contacting this school directly Ford Plymouth School Contact Details . Make sure your email contains no grammatical nor spelling errors and that your punctuation is correct, otherwise they may put you on Detention. Aspro (talk) 13:31, 14 August 2017 (UTC)

My new contribution doesn't show up on google

I contributed a new article on the notable scholar 'Ruth Katz'. While it can be accessed through Wikipedia homepage, it doesn't appear when I Google 'Ruth Katz'. How do I make it show up on google? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Zadik Nistar (talk • contribs) 22:44, 13 August 2017 (UTC)

We're not Google. Ian.thomson (talk) 22:47, 13 August 2017 (UTC)

(edit conflict) It was decided last year that new pages would be NOINDEXed until they were patrolled through the new page patrol process. there are over 16 thousand pages in the queue at Special:NewPagesFeed, with a backlog of over 6 months. If it doesn't get patrolled within 90 days, the NOINDEXing will automatically be removed. --David Biddulph (talk) 22:51, 13 August 2017 (UTC)

Potternewton

Ref 16 seems to be dead - it is the same content as ref number 15 which is all good. Please fix up number 16 (or remove) if necessary. Thanks Srbernadette (talk) 23:11, 13 August 2017 (UTC)

The guidance regarding dead links is at WP:Link rot. A template which you can use to tag a dead link is {{dead link}}. --David Biddulph (talk) 23:18, 13 August 2017 (UTC)

And to remind you of something which you have been told on numerous occasions, please do not use the same title for a new section as has already been used for previous sections on the same page. Where do you expect the section link #Potternewton to go? --David Biddulph (talk) 23:21, 13 August 2017 (UTC)

Please help - I find it hard to remove the dead link. I will leave it in. SorrySrbernadette (talk) 23:55, 13 August 2017 (UTC)

(edit conflict) No worries, Srbernadette. It was confusing as the preview made it seem as though reference 15 was removed as well; and placing the "dead link" tag made it look like it removed it entirely. It has been fixed! The dead link has been removed. Thanks! Cheers. Maineartists (talk) 00:00, 14 August 2017 (UTC)