Wikipedia:Help desk/Archives/2017 November 11

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November 11

William H Macy

William H Macy did NOT study veterinary medicine at Bethany College. He and I went to Bethany together. Bethany is an undergrad school only, no vet school or med school of any sort. He was pre-med, but transfered out and changed majors. John Anderson

Fixed. I can't say never, but entertainment TV shows like Inside the Actors Studio are almost never reliable sources, as you noted with this article. Article content shouldn't be based on unreliable sources, so I've removed the components derived from this TV show. Thank you for drawing attention to this problem. Nyttend (talk) 01:06, 11 November 2017 (UTC)

Hijacked page

I think that Wikipedia talk:Special:ListDuplicatedFiles page has been hijacked. It's in Chinese, and google translate would suggest that it has nothing to do with duplicated files. There is one edit in the history, and it is the only edit for this particular IP address. I was going to undo it but there is no undo button on the page. Can someone here take care of it, or is there someone I should notify? Leschnei (talk) 00:56, 11 November 2017 (UTC)

Hello, Leschnei. I deleted that talk page, which is not associated with any actual page. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 01:08, 11 November 2017 (UTC)

Special pages don't have talk pages so we adapted MediaWiki:Perfcachedts to link such talk pages in special pages like Special:ListDuplicatedFiles. The content was unrelated in this case so there was no reason to keep it. PrimeHunter (talk) 01:22, 11 November 2017 (UTC)

Thanks for the help, but that raises another question: if special pages aren't supposed to have talk pages, why does Special:ListDuplicatedFiles link to the page that was just deleted? Leschnei (talk) 01:28, 11 November 2017 (UTC)

Special pages don't have talk pages but the MediaWiki software displays MediaWiki:Perfcachedts at the top of some special pages. By default it only contains the message seen at MediaWiki:Perfcachedts/qqx. At the English Wikipedia we changed the message to also link a page in the Wikipedia talk namespace so editors can find a place to discuss the special page. We could have linked any page. It is not a "real" talk page for the special page so there is for example no tabs connecting the pages. MediaWiki:Perfcachedts or other MediaWiki messages create similar links on many other special pages. The talk pages should contain {{Special page talk}} but the deleted page did not. PrimeHunter (talk) 02:04, 11 November 2017 (UTC)

That's very clear - thanks for the explanation. Leschnei (talk) 02:18, 11 November 2017 (UTC)

Color error that I can't fix

In most state-level lists of US municipalities, the list has three colors: one for normal municipalities, another for county seats, and a third for the state capital. List of municipalities in North Carolina is typical in that way (Cary, Charlotte, and Raleigh are the three colors in that order), but somehow the capital color's messed up — the first, second, sixth, and seventh columns are the proper shade of blue, but the third, fourth, and fifth (which are encased in a template) are black, rendering them illegible unless you highlight the text. What's going on? County seats have the color #c5f0cd, both inside and outside their column 3-5 templates, and Raleigh has the color #ccf in both places; there's no difference in the coding aside from the colors. It's directly related to the template color specification; for example, every column in the Springfield line of List of municipalities in Illinois (which doesn't use templates) is the proper #ccf color, and the Indianapolis line of List of cities in Indiana is white (because it uses the template without specifying a color), and the addition of |bgcolour=#ccf causes it to become black likewise. Nyttend (talk) 01:17, 11 November 2017 (UTC)

It works for me in Firefox but the used template {{Change}} and its subtemplates use the deprecated bgcolour=... instead of style="background:...". bgcolour is not supported in HTML5. Here is a constructed mixed example where the 3rd and 5th column say bgcolor=#ccf like the template, but I changed the 4th column to style="background:#ccf":

2

Raleigh ††

458,880

403,892

7001136145306170960♠+13.61%

City

Wake (seat), Durham

Do you see the problem in the 3rd and 5th but not 4th column now? What is your browser? All columns look the same to me. PrimeHunter (talk) 01:47, 11 November 2017 (UTC)

You're correct: the problem appears in 3 and 5 but not 4. Must be a browser issue; I'm in IE. Nyttend (talk) 02:10, 11 November 2017 (UTC)

I have changed the deprecated code per WP:HTML5.[1] List of municipalities in North Carolina now looks right to me in IE. The above example is hardcoded without using the template so it will continue to look wrong in IE. Here is the version using the template and looking right in IE:

2

Raleigh ††

458,880

403,892

+13.61%

City

Wake (seat), Durham

PrimeHunter (talk) 16:22, 11 November 2017 (UTC)

Yes, I too see this just as I'd expect. Sorry I couldn't help; I was looking up the NC list because I was planning the trip that I made today to the Raleigh metropolitan area. Nyttend (talk) 03:29, 12 November 2017 (UTC)

boy scout council list for sates???

would like to inform you folks that as of 1-2-17 the lewis and clack council in il became part of the greater st louis council, may need to update this info . thank you — Preceding unsigned comment added by 50.45.49.152 (talk) 03:53, 11 November 2017 (UTC)

Thank you for the information. Could you point us to any articles that might need to be updated? Dbfirs 15:49, 11 November 2017 (UTC)

I've updated List of councils (Boy Scouts of America) and Scouting in Illinois. Don't know whether anything else needs fixing. Deor (talk) 22:39, 11 November 2017 (UTC)

How to see the coordinates of a place in the phone

Hi everybody! I use a lot the coordinates option of the top right corner in the wikipedia articles (on the computer) to see where things are placed with maps. But I can't find this option when I am using my phone. I use firefox in Android. Is it possible to see the coordinates? not even requesting desktop site thanks — Preceding unsigned comment added by Davidrdguez (talk • contribs) 15:07, 11 November 2017 (UTC)

Hello Davidrdguez. Log onto the desktop site, go to your Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-gadgets; scroll down to #Testing_and_development and check the box for Add map popups to coordinates in the mobile website, press Save. The map symbol should appear on the top left side while mobile-browsing Wikipedia articles that have coordinate details. Hope this helps. Thanks, Lourdes 16:40, 11 November 2017 (UTC)

Help:Cite errors/Cite error references missing key

The article about Sir George Hill, 1763-1839 had an error in it.

His mother was Hannah McClintock and she was the daughter of John McClintock, but his dates of birth & death were wrong. He should be "John McClintock of Dunmore House, Carrigans, Co. Donegal, 1687-1754" He was not an Irish MPSylvia McClintock Wright (talk) 17:47, 11 November 2017 (UTC)

References

This is about Sir George Hill, 2nd Baronet. We appear to have two Sir George Hills and two John McClintocks. Very confusing! I've removed the unsourced claim. Is your reference published anywhere? Dbfirs 18:52, 11 November 2017 (UTC)

English Minority National Dress representef

I would like to see a new Wikipedia Established page of representative the national historical dress of England which should be represented as

Hawkers and Criers of London from centuries 1600-1700-1800 with illustration and description and pictures stating this.

 Georgian Press gangs

The May day dress of England Mummies of Georgian Merry milk maid Garland with representation of Vauxhall Garden picture and regency painting with Harlequin and regency painting of Perro clown dress , Admiral Nelson costume.

Religious Dissenter Stuart dress and rural Stuart dress

Regency painting of rural occupation and Street sellers

Medieval Middle English Saxon dress and other Medieval English dress.

The information in world martial arts English martial art Quatrain joust With Sword and Shield, Boat joust , Stick wrestling joust, human kick joust with a on there legged stool and Swing joust.

Camping ball from East Anglia Medieval football Civil play boxing element and kick camping kick camping shins

Morris. Dancing stick dance and sword dance — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.144.96.223 (talk) 18:02, 11 November 2017 (UTC)

Cite error ref no input

Trying to edit this article which has several important errors in it. Need help with cite errors.

Thanks — Preceding unsigned comment added by JHWoo1999 (talk • contribs) 18:05, 11 November 2017 (UTC)

• Fixed, I think. Every <ref> tag needs to have a corresponding </ref> tag to close it before opening a new one, and you can't have an empty one, which there was at the very top of the page. The easiest way to format them is to click the "Templates" dropdown just above the edit box and fill in the information there. It will then format and insert it. Thanks! Crow^Caw 18:33, 11 November 2017 (UTC)

Sandbox

Galobtter declined my first article. that was my sandbox. and it said that I should not write about myself. what kind if information is allowed to be written in my sandbox? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Majid.shab (talk • contribs) 19:06, 11 November 2017 (UTC)

Your sandbox can be used for starting articles on WP:Notable topics, but WP:Autobiographies are strongly discouraged. It is usually better to start articles in WP:Draft space where others can easily contribute and help you to get things right. You might like to read WP:Your first article. Wikipedia allows articles only about subjects that have been written about elsewhere in WP:Reliable sources. You may say a little about yourself on your user page, but this must not be an imitation of an article. Your user page can also indicate your interests and how you intend to contribute to the encyclopaedia. Dbfirs 19:28, 11 November 2017 (UTC)

Links

Hello:

I understand being a small donor supported ad free website their are going be short coming in contents and its validity. Anyone looking for information should use the journalism principle of verifying facts from multiple sources.

Regardless, that was not the reason for keyboarding this email communique.

It appears that WIKIPEDIA in its objective to be free of outside influence may be constricted in its resources. Case in point, heavy use of links to other sites which is source of the article referenced, makes it at mercy of that site to keep the link active. The source has no obligation to do so as they too are constructed by store space.

So far I have not said anything that operations at WKP is not aware off.

I would like WKP to fund raise for a CLOUD which will have capital and operations cost. The ideal site should be low cost country remotely managed from WKP headquarters. You will need skeleton staff to maintain the site which could combination of locally trained natives and engineering/software u/g student looking to intern for real world experience.

I hope efforts are made in this direction! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.196.233.19 (talk) 19:37, 11 November 2017 (UTC)

When possible, when a link goes dead, Wikipedia will switch links to an archive source such as the Wayback Machine. See WP:LINKROT for more information on this topic. RudolfRed (talk) 22:37, 11 November 2017 (UTC)

On the Psychology of Physics

I would like to contribute my article On the Psychology of Physics. how may I do so? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Peter Sheehan (talk • contribs) 20:51, 11 November 2017 (UTC)

Hello, Peter Sheehan. Please read Your first article and follow the excellent advice there. Please also be aware that Wikipedia does not publish original research, but rather summarizes what previously published reliable sources say about the topic. We do not use "On the . . ." as part of article titles, so Psychology of physics would be a better title, if the topic is notable. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 21:01, 11 November 2017 (UTC)