Wikipedia:Help desk/Archives/2018 August 11

Welcome to the Wikipedia Help Desk Archives
The page you are currently viewing is an archive page. While you can leave answers for any questions shown below, please ask new questions on one of the current Help Desk pages.

August 11

Automatic numbering rows on a table?

Is there a function which allows me to automatically number the rows on a table instead of hardcoding the row numbers?

Ex. I don't want to hardcode "Row 1", "Row 2", etc.

Number	Column 1	Column 2
Row 1	Column 1	Column 2
Row 2	Column 1	Column 2
Row 3	Column 1	Column 2

It would make it easier to add a row(s) to the middle of a table without have to renumber the table, especially when the table has more than 200 rows. Thank You...

Roberto221 (talk) 04:45, 11 August 2018 (UTC)

{{row indexer}}

Number	Column 1	Column 2
Row 1	Column 1	Column 2
Row 2	Column 1	Column 2
Row 3	Column 1	Column 2

—Trappist the monk (talk) 08:06, 11 August 2018 (UTC)

How long 'til page is published?

Just added my first article, and I'm kinda wondering how long it'll take until it's actually findable? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Stephaniegunnie (talk • contribs) 10:58, 11 August 2018 (UTC)

You have not yet added an article. You have produced a draft, but not yet submitted it for AFC review. Don't try to submit it for review yet, as it has no references. Try reading the guidance at WP:Your first article, and also read the Manual of style as there are many formatting errors such as inappropriate bold text. --David Biddulph (talk) 11:06, 11 August 2018 (UTC)

How long til approved?

Hello, I am writing to ask how long til the page that I created will be approved? It's been over a month and I am not sure how long the wait time is expected. Is there something else that needs to be done in order to get this page active? Thank you for your assistance and I greatly appreciate your time.— Preceding unsigned comment added by Bcapley (talk • contribs) 14:30, 11 August 2018 14:30 (UTC)

The current wait time for AfC review is about two months. Catrìona (talk) 15:16, 11 August 2018 (UTC)

(edit conflict)@Bcapley: Hello, Presumably this relates to Draft:Bishop Bryan Ouellette? If you consider that it is ready for submission for review you can place {{subst:submit}} at the top of the draft which will place it at AfC to be reviewed. First though, you should read WP:WFA and also WP:MOS. There are some minor fromatting issues which will need to be corrected. Some useful links have also been left at your talk page and you should read those as well. Please remember to sign your posts on talk pages by typing four tildes (~~~~). Thank you. Eagleash (talk) 15:21, 11 August 2018 (UTC)

I think @Eagleash: means WP:YFA, not WP:WFA. Don't worry about trying to achieve Featured Article status just yet. Rojomoke (talk) 23:32, 11 August 2018 (UTC)

Section headings

In Aladdin (soundtrack), there's a bot that keeps reducing the equal sings in the "notes" subsection from 5 on each side to three, saying that it "violates MOS:HEAD". However, the policy explicitly states "...and so on to =====Title=====", meaning that five signs on each side do not violate the guideline and are within the limit. Can someone look into this? Thanks. Javiero Fernandez (talk) 22:20, 11 August 2018 (UTC)

@Javiero Fernandez: The bot is right. You are trying to place a level 5 heading directly below a level 2 heading. "and so on" means a sequence of subsections which are each one level below the previous subsection. MOS:GOODHEAD explicitly says: "Nest headings sequentially ... Do not skip parts of the sequence". PrimeHunter (talk) 23:13, 11 August 2018 (UTC)

• I modified MOS:HEAD to clarify and link to MOS:GOODHEAD. -Arch dude (talk) 01:05, 12 August 2018 (UTC)

My article has been rejected because it is about multiple potteries.

That's what I want it to be. There is little information about potteries in Canada. There are a few of them and they should be pulled together in one page. Do I have to create a separate page for each pottery?

Also I want to upload example images of pottery and marks, but the system won't let me do that.— Preceding unsigned comment added by Sandycampbell (talk • contribs)

• @Sandycampbell: My usual advice if you're going to write an article about anyone or anything:

1) Choose a single topic whose notability is attested by discussions of it in several reliable independent sources. In this case, Pottery in Canada could be such a topic if there were relevant sources about pottery (in general) from Canada. You cannot combine sources about different specifics to arrive at a general claim.

2) Gather as many professionally-published mainstream academic or journalistic sources you can find.

3) Focus on just the ones that are not dependent upon or affiliated with the subject, but still specifically about the subject and providing in-depth coverage (not passing mentions). If you do not have at least three such sources, the subject is not yet notable and trying to write an article at this point will only fail. In this case, you will want to avoid the websites of potteries or websites that sell their products.

4) Summarize those sources from step 2, adding citations at the end of them. You'll want to do this in a program with little/no formatting, like Microsoft Notepad or Notepad++, and not in something like Microsoft Word or LibreOffice Writer.

5) Combine overlapping summaries (without arriving at new statements that no individual source supports) where possible, repeating citations as needed.

6) Paraphrase the whole thing just to be extra sure you've avoided any copyright violations or plagiarism.

7) Use the Article wizard to post this draft and wait for approval.

8) Expand the article using sources you put aside in step 2 (but make sure they don't make up more than half the sources for the article, and make sure that affiliated sources don't make up more than half of that).

Doing something besides those steps typically results in the article not being approved, or even in its deletion. Ian.thomson (talk) 23:23, 11 August 2018 (UTC)

• @Sandycampbell: An article on Pottery in Canada would ideally cover general history, current developments, relation to the global pottery scene, etc. Wikipedia does have "List of..." pages, and List of Potteries in Canada or List of Canadian Potteries are plausible approaches. Where the individual items are not notable enough to have their own articles, the list itself can still be notable; but that can be contentious.

You can add images if they are appropriately licensed. Even if you are the photographer and are willing to release the photo under CC-BY-SA or similar, it might be tricky: is the maker's mark itself subject to copyright? Wikipedia includes plenty of logos where fair use is claimed: you will probably be better off uploading the image files to WP rather than Commons. If you re-draw the marks yourself rather than getting photographs, does that change things? (Maybe not, copyright can be very broad.) Compare Blue Mountain Pottery, which does have a photo of the mark.

Keep developing the page! Add some structure with ==sub-headings== and/or * bullet lists. Even if it never makes it to main-space, you'll build up a collection of information that could be useful in other articles. I would suggest moving the content out of your sandbox to a subpage, like User:Sandycampbell/sandbox/Canadian Potteries. One approach is to create the red link at the top of your sandbox (or somewhere else convenient), then use that to create the sub-page: that way you can easily navigate back to it.

If the article comes across as just a business directory, then it won't be suitable for the encyclopedia, but could still be useful to you as a reference whilst researching the topic [hint]. If you do manage to get good coverage of the potters' marks, historical potteries, etc. then that could hold wider interest.

Also, you could make contact with people at WP:WikiProject Canada or WP:WikiProject Visual arts.

It can take time to gather sources, so the big question is: are you interested enough in the topic for it to be a long-term project?

Good luck! Pelagic (talk) 03:01, 12 August 2018 (UTC)