Wikipedia:Help desk/Archives/2014 June 30

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June 30

I don't think I did the Did You Know correctly

I don't think I did the Did You Know correctly for Andrew Simmons (bus driver). It is located at Template:Did you know nominations/Andrew Simmons (bus driver)

Any help or support would be immensely grateful. -Mitchell328

Please help me. It is very confusing. Can some one please fix it up, that would be very helpful. -Mitchell328

Done. SpinningSpark 01:17, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

Two related questions about user subpage

I am trying to develop an article in user space, User:Robert McClenon/Wallace L. Hall, Jr., and am having two problems that I haven't seen before. Can someone with solid experience with references take a look at what is wrong? Thank you in advance. Robert McClenon (talk) 01:09, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

Thank you. Robert McClenon (talk) 01:52, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

Referencing is the most complicated part of creating an article. Can it be simplified? Probably not, because that would involve the software developers, who do not have any real testers. Robert McClenon (talk) 02:59, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

Personally, I don't use templates on articles I write. They load the edit window with so much extraneous code that the article becomes impossible to read in edit mode and they sometimes obstinately refuse to render as needed in odd cases. Also, change to the templates will result in the article changing years later without it ever triggering as a watchlist item. It is easy enough to format references manually (title in quotes, publication in italics), that is much cleaner in edit mode, and has predictable results. SpinningSpark 10:51, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

Disappearing headings

Two of the headings in the article, Early life and education, and Business, do not display. Robert McClenon (talk) 01:09, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

Reference eating article text

A reference is listing text that should be in the body of the article. Robert McClenon (talk) 01:09, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

The problems were caused by missing closing ">" on the ref tags. I also fixed some malformed cite templates and added article and journal names to the refs. SpinningSpark 01:44, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

Request for Editor Check

I have promoted the article into mainspace as Wallace L. Hall, Jr.. Since it is a biography of a living person, I would appreciate a few checks on it in the near future. I won't answer any comments in the next eight to eleven hours. Robert McClenon (talk) 02:57, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

The Kauai Writers Conference

Under the Page writers conferences, the Kauai Writers conference page is listed but the link is not in working order. There is indeed a Kauai Writers Conference and it can be reached at www.kauaiwritersconference.com. Thanks for making a correction. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.130.176.166 (talk) 01:11, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

If the page you are referring to is List of writers' conferences then the link already points to that url. SpinningSpark 01:52, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

Section transclusion and named references

I've been working through some named reference errors in Category:Pages with broken reference names. One article that I came across, Internet censorship in the United Kingdom, has errors because it transcludes sections of UK ISP-Specific Web Blocking Programmes which contain named references which are only fully defined in another part of the article.

I would have thought that if the MediaWiki software supports transclusion of sections it should also be able to figure out the full reference from the source article. Is there some trick to this that I'm missing or is this just broken?

Demoniccathandler (talk) 04:00, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

No, the transclusion is strictly only what is contained between the <includeonly> tags. The full reference must appear between the tags. The workaround is to swap the full reference outside the tags with a shortened reference inside the tags. SpinningSpark 11:11, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

System category bugged?

I've recently resolved dead links from the external link section, at Effects of global warming on human health. Yet the article is listed under the system category called All articles with dead external links, how do we fix this? prokaryotes (talk) 06:09, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

@Prokaryotes: Ref no. 107 points to a {{dead link}} in the section "Glacial melting". --Glaisher (talk) 06:13, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

@Prokaryotes:I've fixed it now. --Glaisher (talk) 06:19, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

Thank you, Glaisher. prokaryotes (talk) 08:09, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

About Publishing Content

Dear Sir/ Mam,

I am publishing content on your website. But every time I post the content, It is deleted automatically. And after editing the content I upload the content with the same title then It is giving warning about Duplicate Title. Please suggest me if the page is deleted then how the title could be duplicate. And also I am writing the content to promote my business and to aware people about my business. Then how could I write it in Informational way??

Please help me!!! — Preceding unsigned comment added by Rvermaee (talk • contribs) 06:50, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

I've no idea what you mean by content being 'deleted automatically' - but I'm not surprised it is being deleted if you are writing content to promote your business. This is an encyclopaedia, not free advertising space. AndyTheGrump (talk) 07:05, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

Read the guidlines on conflict of interest --Fauzan^{✆ talk}_{✉ mail} 08:47, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

There are two pages that have been created by this editor ExclusivElectronics and Welcome to ExclusivElectronics.in: Multi Brands Direct Store at Lowest prices. The title alone of the latter is enough to justify deletion. Neither were deleted "automatically"; they were both reviewed by a human editor who requested speedy deletion. Those requests were reviewed by a human administrator who then deleted the pages. Thus, they have both been examined by at least two human editors, which is two more than they deserved. I have looked at the deleted articles (which now makes three reviews) and can confirm that the speedy deletion was completely justified. SpinningSpark 11:48, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

Red flag traffic laws

Red flag traffic laws

1896 red flag law banned celebration, london - brighton <redacted> — Preceding unsigned comment added by 50.101.54.117 (talk) 07:15, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

There is no indication that that video was uploaded by anyone who actually owns the copyright of it, so I have removed the link. It certainly cannot go in the article without more information on the source. SpinningSpark 11:59, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

Non-breaking hyphen

I need a non-breaking hyphen, and went to wp:nonbreaking hyphen for the code. First, the code given there was missing the "#" character. When I corrected it, it did give me a non-breaking something, but it isn't a true hyphen. I've left the following message on the talk page there, but I'm sure no one will ever see it:

• I had to add a "#" following the "&" to make this code work. But the result does not look like a keyed hyphen - it's too short, and sits too high. This is what it looks like: "‑", and here's a hyphen: "-". And next to each other: ‑ -. Does anyone know the correct code for a true non-breaking hyphen?

Milkunderwood (talk) 07:35, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

I usually use &ndash giving the slightly longer – Sam Walton (talk) 08:05, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

Thanks, but that's even stranger looking - and it isn't non-breaking. Milkunderwood (talk) 08:36, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

So it isn't. Hm. I don't know then, sorry! Sam Walton (talk) 08:51, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

Hm... Hunting around online, 8209 is the HTML for what's considered to be a non-breaking "hyphen". I might do better filling the line with FFs and forcing the part before the hyphen down to the next line - but then you run into display problems where the break occurs in different places. So I guess 8209 is the only (albeit bad) solution. I tried "<nobr>-</nobr>" but this doesn't work here. Just out of curiosity, does the too-high and too-short 8209 character have a name, since it's a kludge rather than a real hyphen? Milkunderwood (talk) 09:14, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

The whole area is a bit of a mess. The thing on your keyboard next to the zero key is actually a hyphen-minus (Unicode U+002D), and not (typographically) either a proper hyphen (U+2010) or a minus (U+2212). Subject to the vagaries of the fonts you have installed, you should see that &$8208; (the "real" U+2010 hyphen) has the same appearance as &$8209; (U+2011) non-breaking hyphen. Of course that doesn't help because the rest of the text is probably full of hyphen-minuses and the two characters will look odd close to each other. AFAIK, there is no non-breaking hyphen-minus. A partial solution is to use the nowrap template, something like this: {{nowrap|first-second}}, which should render as a pair of words, "first-second" that won't be subject to word-wrapping. Rwessel (talk) 09:06, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

The "nowrap" template does the trick for me - that completely solves my problem. Thanks very much. Milkunderwood (talk) 09:26, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

Resolved

Deleting user pages?

I had a draft (User:Msmarmalade/Kaze no Matasaburo (1940 film)) in my user sub pages for an article, but have since moved it into the public space. Is it necessary to keep the user pages for the sake of the history of the page? Or can I go ahead and use Template:db-user to clear up my sub pages? —Msmarmalade (talk) 08:02, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

Hi Msmarmalade, you definitely can go ahead and CSD it with that rationale. I usually do with my old draft article areas for tidiness. As for the history concern, when you moved the page it took the entire history with it anyway. Sam Walton (talk) 08:07, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

Thanks :) —Msmarmalade (talk) 09:33, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

What is (or was) in your user space is or was only a redirect. As Samwalton9 says, the history was moved into mainspace. The only history associated with the redirect is its creation by the move. You can request speedy deletion with a user request. Robert McClenon (talk) 14:25, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

Am I Smart Enough To Edit Wikipedia?

I only have an 8th grade education (technically 10th grade, I dropped out of High School after 2 years but those last 2 years I got C's and D's and did the absolute bare minimum of schoolwork) and my tested IQ is around 112 (slightly above average). I just wanted to ask if a person like me would be able to participate and edit on Wikipedia since as I've browsed the website the past 2 or 3 years I see how many of the users here are probably very intelligent and educated and use proper grammar consistently, whereas my grammar isn't the greatest. It's been about 10 years now since I've had any formal education and I notice my brain is rusty on certain things when I type e.g. proper placement of commas, syntax issues, and other grammar issues. What do you think, how educated do you have to be to edit and participate on Wikipedia? How important are things like correct grammar and placement of commas, etc.? BikeRider95 (talk) 08:51, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

Everybody is allowed to edit Wikipedia.--Freshman404^Talk 09:28, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

BikeRider95, you'd be very welcome to edit here, as there are no formal restrictions on editing. Plus, in your post above, I don't see any major issues in terms of grammar and syntax. That means if you do make any mistakes, other editors will fix them. If you need any help with what you're writing, or understanding your way round here, you're welcome to ask me on my talk page (link here.) Valenciano (talk) 09:33, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

BikeRider95, I agree that you sound quite okay in your post. Welcome. Here is what I think. If you decide to edit and participate, I believe you will learn and become more educated. I find that Wikipedia keeps my brain sharper because I read so many articles and make edits in so many different subjects. Likewise, you will improve in the areas you desire to. Attitude counts for a lot. Happy editing and all the best! Fylbecatulous talk 17:01, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

• Welcome to Wikipedia BikeRider! I've never seen it posted anywhere that one must be "smart" to edit Wikipedia, so that should set your mind at ease some. The only real requirements to edit here is that you must understand that this is an encyclopedia, and not a social website (there's plenty of those around if that is what you are looking for); you must exhibit good intentions - by this I mean that those that are just here to cause disruption through trolling or vandalism don't last very long and as long as you're not doing those things you should be fine; you must understand that copyrighted works are generally not accepted and we do not allow copy and pasting from other sites (using other sites as sources is encouraged, but the content must be paraphrased in your own words). Any content you add that someone else might not agree with should be properly referenced. There are a ton of of things that you will learn about editing here, and the best place to start is by reading the five pillars and going from there. — {{U|Technical 13}} ^{(e • t • c)} 17:27, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

The rule to which User:Bikerider95 is referring is probably competency is required. The cases that I have seen where there were competency issues had to do with: some (not all) young teenagers, and I assume that Bikerider95 is either an older teenager or that the 95 doesn't have its expected meaning; editors whose English is poor and who do not realize that their English is poor, and Bikerider95 appears to be a native user of English; some (not all) editors who have mental conditions (e.g., some Asperger people make excellent editors, and some make terrible editors); and editors who simply lack collaboration skills and won't try, possibly because they are here to promote so-called truth. Trolls are a special case, because they aren't incompetent; they are just using their competence maliciously. The fact that Bikerider posted here is a sign that he is collaborative, and that is what makes a difference. Robert McClenon (talk) 17:44, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

Have a go and see how you get on! Your grammar looks pretty good to me. If you get stuck on anything, there is always the Help Desk here to sort out problems. You will probably be surprised how quickly you pick things up about editing in Wikipedia. Good luck. --P123ct1 (talk) 19:10, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

Template that rotates text?

Hi again. I'm looking for a template that will display text vertically (for column headings on my user page). There's a Template:Vertical text but that's not what I'm looking for. I found this one, Template:Transform-rotate, e.g:

Vertical text.

Which does what I want, but sometimes comes out blurry (for no apparent reason). And also overlaps text if you don't put in breaks. Is there an alternative that isn't blurry? ——Msmarmalade (talk) 11:10, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

@Msmarmalade: It depends on the browser you are using. If you are using Firefox, it would appear to be better than Chrome. There is no easy way to achieve a consistent, nice rotation in CSS and there are at least 4 ways to achieve this and each works for only one major browser. This template has all of them. (-(moz|ms|o|webkit)-transform) --Glaisher (talk) 12:26, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

Categories Don't Show in Preview

When editing an article is there a way to make categories show when you click preview? I just tried adding a category and nothing showed up when I clicked preview. BikeRider95 (talk) 11:17, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

Try looking at the bottom underneath the edit box, the categories should show up there :)

—Msmarmalade (talk) 11:27, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

Repeating text in an article

Could somehow advise or guide me to a wikidocument on any policies regarding text being repeated in an article and how it should be handled? Thanks. 195.162.87.201 (talk) 11:24, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

If the exact same text is repeated in an article, just remove one. If there are two articles which are about almost the same subject, then WP:MERGE is the page (not a policy) you are looking for (there are exceptions). --Glaisher (talk) 12:35, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

Major content should generally be covered twice - once in the WP:LEAD in a summary format and then in a more detailed manner in the body. (in short articles that dont have sections, that is not really applicable as the lead section and body are essentially the same)-- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 12:57, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

Ivan Kamenec- Bratislava, Slovakia

Ivan Kamenec is my second cousin on my father's side. He was originally named Ivan Kurcz He was born in Topolcany, Slovakia.he has a brother named Stefan. His father was Desider Kurcz; His mother was Elisabeth (Alsbeta). The family escaped being sent to Auschwitz like their other relatives in late 1944 by hiding in a hole in the ground in the woods near their home during the winter of 1944-1945, being brought food sporadically by local peasants. When the Soviet army arrived in late winter 1944-45, they emerged from their hiding place. Because of anti-Semitism in Slovakia at that time, the father, Desider, decided to change the family name to Kamenec. I am several years older than they, being born in 1932, and I remember visiting the family as a child. Probably the last time I visited was in 1937, before the two boys were born, since we had to leave Austria, where we lived, in 1938 after the Anschluss. So I never met my cousins, but I do remember their parents. My mother, Maria Rixner Kurcz, visited the family some time in the 1960s and told me about that visit. Lisa Kurcz Barclay, Ph.D. Charleston, SC, USA — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.204.236.26 (talk) 14:16, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

This page is for help about using Wikipedia. If you wish to suggest an article you may do so at WP:RA. Note that in order for a subject to have an article, there must be significant coverage of the subject by reliably published third party sources. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 14:23, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

I think Lisa Barclay is offering information for the Ivan Kamenec article. The information is interesting; but without a published source, unfortunately, we will be unable to use it. Maproom (talk) 16:43, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

Line spacing

Where can I find the Wiki Help on line spacing and how to change it? (For example, if I want to make the space between a heading and the text under it not a double-line space, but a 1.5 line space.) I have looked but cannot locate it. . --P123ct1 (talk) 19:21, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

Also asked at Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)/Archive 127#Line spacing, which is probably a better place. --Redrose64 (talk) 21:13, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

That's precisely why I asked there - was getting no response here. --P123ct1 (talk) 22:06, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

Citing non-online resource

What is the rule/procedure for citing documents that I have access to physical copies of and that exist in some form in a few places (such as contracts or charters or other such documents) but that are not online? Alec6134 (talk) 19:55, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

@Alec6134: Citing offline sources is perfectly fine, assuming the source is accessible by pretty much anyone (for example, if it's a contract, it should be accessible in a reputable library, archive collection, etc.). If it's limited in availability (e.g. private company documents not available to the public), its use should be avoided.

If your sources are accessible, then you can find the type of information we typically include for various types of citations at Wikipedia:CITE#Examples. I also recommend using these citation style 1 templates to make citing easy and organized. ~SuperHamster Talk Contribs 20:13, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

I am not sure what you are thinking of citing here, or why, but contracts would not normally make good sources even if they were publically available, which usually they are not. See WP:PRIMARY. SpinningSpark 21:01, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

Clean - up

Can i please have a link to the list of clean-up tags. thanks NickGibson3900 (talk) 20:02, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

@NickGibson3900: Wikipedia:Template messages/Cleanup ~SuperHamster Talk Contribs 20:06, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

I have unused accounts!

I have 2-3 unused accounts!But I forgot the username of these accounts! I think I will be blocked because of sock puppetry!What can I do! Because I forgot my username,I can't add {{retired}}! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 117.79.232.177 (talk) 22:07, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

You don't need to do anything. If they are unused, no one will connect them together. You don't know the usernames, you can't use them. Forget about them. GB fan 22:58, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

If you don't use the accounts, I don't think it is sockpuppetry. If you don't use the accounts, CHECKUSER certainly won't associate them. Robert McClenon (talk) 23:49, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

Are you sure on that? It seems once they are used, CHECKUSER would still be able to look them up to associate them. But I agree with the other poster, that sockpuppetry simply won't apply to them.Naraht (talk) 15:53, 1 July 2014 (UTC)

I'm no expert on Wikipedia policy, but from what I understand, having multiple accounts is not in itself a policy breach. It's only the abuse of having multiple accounts which is prohibited. If your other accounts are totally dormant, there wouldn't be any breach of Wikipedia:Sock puppetry#Inappropriate_uses_of_alternative_accounts policy, would there? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 58.168.149.224 (talk) 15:31, 1 July 2014 (UTC)

change my username..

Hello, I am considering creating my own page as I am a recording artist/songwriter and there is a lot of press and thing I have created out there on the internet and it seems to be the time to do it. I created a username and decided I want to change it.. how do I go about doing this? Also, is it ok to create your own page or should I hire someone else to do it?

Thanks — Preceding unsigned comment added by Lacyyounger3 (talk • contribs) 22:18, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

I will say more later, but for now, I would suggest that you try to read WP:COI before you do anything else. Make sure that you don't choose a username that makes you appear to be endorsing something. Dustin (talk) 22:35, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

• @Lacyyounger3: The process for changing a username is given at Wikipedia:Changing username. TheGeneralUser (talk) 00:55, 1 July 2014 (UTC)

Hello, Lacyyounger3. No, you should not create an article on yourself, and no, you should certainly not pay somebody to do so. Promotion of any kind, no matter how worthy, is forbidden on Wikipedia, and if you attempt to do any you are likely to meet hostility from editors. If there is a lot of press out there about you (but not press that you have created) then you may meet Wikipedia's criteria of notability, and we could have an article about you; but you should not write it. After reading the links that TheGeneralUser and I have suggested, if you want to request an article be written, you can do so at Requested articles. --ColinFine (talk) 08:58, 1 July 2014 (UTC)

online admins list.

Where do I find a list of online admins? Thanks. Alex ^{discussion ★} 22:43, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

Try this: Wikipedia:List of administrators/Active. Piguy101 (talk) 23:26, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

If OP is looking for a list of admins currently online, that list is kind of moot, since it shows all admins who have made 30+ edits in the last 2 months. Perhaps there's a tool for it somewhere, but what I usually do when I need to find an admin is go through the recent changes and see if I can spot one. ~SuperHamster Talk Contribs 04:06, 1 July 2014 (UTC)