Wikipedia:Help desk/Archives/2016 March 19

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March 19

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Why did a bot delete my request for comment tag on the Yahweh article?

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I believe the Yahweh article has some major issues but wanted others' opinions so I put a request for comment tag on the talk page, but it seems a bot deleted it (and the edit description says because it was "expired"?). https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk%3AYahweh&type=revision&diff=710724909&oldid=710724904 I'm confused. Did I use this wrong? It won't let me revert the edit.

-KaJunl (talk) 01:21, 19 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

@KaJunl: Yep, you used it wrong. RfC banners need to go at the top of the section. The bot removes the tag based off of the first timestamp immediately after the banner (while still in the same section). Since the banner was at the bottom the bot got confused and removed it. Place it at the top and you should be good to go. Generally, you should start a new section when starting a RfC. That way the banner, and the bot, function correctly. Also, new sections should go on the bottom of the talk page. --Majora (talk) 01:28, 19 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
@Majora: Thanks. I was adding to a discussion I'd started months ago and wanted comment on it, so it was not a new section/didn't think I needed a new section. I'll try reinstate. -KaJunl (talk) 21:31, 19 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

fixing my organization's wikipedia page

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I understand that I should not be editing the article for an organization I work for. Is that correct? If so, what is the process to improve such an article? Or is this only a problem if I basically write it as an ad? Thanks! Tenbergen (talk) 02:33, 19 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

@Tenbergen: The relevant guideline is WP:COI. There's no specific rule against editing an article with which you have a conflict of interest, but editors are discouraged from doing so. This is because it's difficult to realize when you've unintentionally inserted POV prose. Minor edits, such as fixing errors and reverting vandalism, are uncontroversial. It's a bit bureaucratic, but the suggested method is to propose changes on the talk page and gain consensus for them. You can use {{request edit}} to formally request that an uninvolved editor make an edit for you. One important rule is that the WMF's Terms of Use require editors to disclose any paid editing. You should read that part of the ToU carefully if you have received any compensation for editing Wikipedia. NinjaRobotPirate (talk) 03:27, 19 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Referencing errors on 2016–17 NHL season

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Reference help requested. I Need Help With This Article Thanks, 68.102.40.154 (talk) 02:38, 19 March 2016 (UTC) Thank you 68.102.40.154 (talk) 02:38, 19 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Done. URL was mangled and causing errors. That article has a lot of redlinks, including a navigation template that apparently doesn't exist (yet?). Someone who knows sports articles should look into that. Maybe it's misspelled or needs to be created. NinjaRobotPirate (talk) 03:48, 19 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Referencing errors on 2016 in American television

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Reference help requested. I Need Help with this article Thanks, 68.102.40.154 (talk) 02:41, 19 March 2016 (UTC) Thank You 68.102.40.154 (talk) 02:41, 19 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Done. Citation syntax was a bit mangled, and the URL was incorrect. I think I found the right one via a Google search. NinjaRobotPirate (talk) 03:37, 19 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Long paragraph break

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Hi! Is there a code (such as an html tag) that would allow me to make a long paragraph break? There is an article with a fairly long inbox stretching down the right and I would like to insert a table in the article itself. Right now, its size is being squished down to fit to the left of the infobox. However, I need this table to be at a 100% width, so it would need to go in the article below the bottom of the infobox (leaving a blank space above it on the left). I know I could use a bunch of returns or <br /> tags, but is there a way for the wiki to automatically make a space large enough for the table to be able to span the whole article? Thanks! ThatsSoElliot (talk) 03:40, 19 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

@ThatsSoElliot: Could you tell us what article you are talking about so we can take a closer look at it? There are a few things you can do but each one is for a different purpose. --Majora (talk) 03:43, 19 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
@Majora: I made a quick "article" (although not at all an actual article) with an infobox and a small table on my sandbox. Is there an html tag I can put above the "Table" section so the entire section appears below the bottom of the infobox? ThatsSoElliot (talk) 03:59, 19 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
@ThatsSoElliot: Oh yep. That one is easier. Just put {{clear}} before the section, right at the end of the introduction paragraph in that example. And that will force the section to clear everything before displaying. That is not really preferred however, since it leaves large gaps and doesn't really look very nice. But if that is all you can do, whatever works. --Majora (talk) 04:02, 19 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you so much! ThatsSoElliot (talk) 04:13, 19 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Of course, that begs the question as to WHY you wish to do this. What is wrong with a table that is a little narrower and bumps into the infobox? Looking at Dangerous Woman (album), which may be the article to which you refer, I can't really tell, the wide table is well below the info box on my screen anyway. (BTW, I usually don't run browsers maximized...) -- SGBailey (talk) 22:31, 19 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Schools and notability

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Hello. I have a question about consensus regarding the notability of schools. I recently nominated a school article for deletion at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Good Shepherd English School, because I felt that the school did not meet our notability requirements, but also as a bit of a test case. The AfD has been closed as snow keep, after some editors pointed to WP:SCHOOLOUTCOMES. Now, that page is not presenting a policy or guideline, but rather summarising typical results of AfD discussions. Isn't closing an AfD as keep because an essay says that such AfDs are typically closed as keep a case of circular reasoning, though? How would one challenge this consensus? If I try to challenge WP:SCHOOLOUTCOMES, then editors there can point to all of the recent AfD keeps, but articles are being kept because of WP:SCHOOLOUTCOMES. If the latter was a notability guideline, then I would discuss proposed changes on its talk page, but this essay is not inaccurate - most secondary school AfDs do indeed close as keep, but through circular reasoning. Any suggestions where I should take this? Cordless Larry (talk) 08:53, 19 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I would suggest raising this at Village pump (policy) as it is a centralised policy discussion page where you'll have a higher chance of getting more attention and opinions. CaptRik (talk) 09:28, 19 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks, CaptRik. I'm not sure I've ever posted at the Village pump in all my ten years of editing, which is probably why I didn't consider it. I'll give it a go. Cordless Larry (talk) 16:11, 19 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I agree that review is needed and will look forward to seeing it at Village pump (policy). Robert McClenon (talk) 18:02, 19 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
A discussion is now underway at Wikipedia:Village_pump_(policy)#Schools_and_notability, Robert McClenon. Your input would be appreciated. Cordless Larry (talk) 18:20, 19 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I asked a similar question recently. I wanted to start an article for a local church, and was told "it's probably not notable". I asked: "How are all of these local high schools all over the place notable?" I was basically told that educational institutions fall under a lot of governmental oversight. As such, they are always included in many official reports and such. This provides reliable sources. Thus, they become "notable" through reliable sources. So, I am just throwing this information out there. Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 18:11, 19 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Also some consider schools to have "inherent notability" because even for small schools there will be thousands of people who know of them and are affected by them. Zell Faze (talk) 22:53, 21 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

How do you add a category to an article?

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You used to be able to click in the Category section at the foot of the page and start typing, and possible matches would appear that you could select. I can't see this feature any more. How do you know what categories might be appropriate for any given page? Peteinterpol (talk) 10:28, 19 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

@Peteinterpol: Enable HotCat at Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-gadgets. It sounds like you disabled it by accident. PrimeHunter (talk) 11:05, 19 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Brilliant, thank you PrimeHunter. Peteinterpol (talk) 12:42, 19 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Alternatively, Peteinterpol, the manual way to do it is to add [[Category:Category name]] to the bottom of the article. See Help:Category on this. Cordless Larry (talk) 16:38, 19 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Editing images on iOS app

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The article on the TV show House shows a picture of Sherlock Holmes in the search results as well as in top image spot, on the iOS app. This is only one of several images within the article, and not the first one. The first image in this article is of the House logo, which should be the one at the top as well as in the search results. How can I edit this? werewolf 16:25, 19 March 2016 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Revirvlkodlaku (talkcontribs)

It does it on Android as well, Revirvlkodlaku. I don't know why, or what you can do about it. Normally the mobile app simply shows the first image in the file, but not here. Star Wars (for example) doesn't have the same problem. I wondered if it might be that the logo in House (TV series) is an SVG file, but Discipline Global Mobile has an SVG logo and that works correctly. I suggest you ask at WP:Village pump/Technical. --ColinFine (talk)

Ok, will do, thanks ColinFine werewolf 23:30, 21 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

How do I format this table correctly?

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How do I format this table correctly? Please see my table below. I want all of the columns to be "center aligned". However, the exception is the column entitled "Name" (George Washington, etc.). I want that column to be left-aligned. Furthermore, I want the names (George Washington, etc.) to be indented a little bit to the right (perhaps 2 or 3 or 4 spaces). I gathered (from some other chart somewhere probably) that I am supposed to use a command or computer code that looks like this:

| style="padding-left: 2em;" |.

But I can't figure out the exact syntax (is that the right word?) to make it work. What exactly do I need to type and where?

Basically, I want it to appear like the "John F. Kennedy" name entry appears below. But I want to use that "padding left" command, instead of the non-breaking space command ("nbsp"). Thanks. Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 18:16, 19 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Number Year Name Party State Country Notes
1 1976 George Washington Democrat Wisconsin United States Note 1
2 1962 Abraham Lincoln Republican Texas United States Note 2
3 1997 Thomas Jefferson Republican New York United States Note 3
4 1931       John F. Kennedy Democrat Massachusetts United States Note 4
If you want to style a column then you must apply the style to each cell in the column. Your padding code is correct. The cell content comes after a pipe. You can combine left alignment with padding:
| align="left" style="padding: 2em;" | John F. Kennedy
Padding will often be a disadvantage on narrow screens so there is rarely good reason to use large padding like 2em. When it's used with left alignment it can also mean the text ends up to the right of the center. That looks bad. PrimeHunter (talk) 22:09, 19 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
@PrimeHunter: Perfect! Thanks! Let me try that. Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 03:49, 20 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
@PrimeHunter: OK. I tred it. See table below. When I added in your code, why does it have the affect of making the "John F. Kennedy" row taller (greater height)? Can't your code be added, while still keeping the "John F. Kennedy" row the same height as all of the others? Thanks. Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 03:58, 20 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Number Year Name Party State Country Notes
1 1976 George Washington Democrat Wisconsin United States Note 1
2 1962 Abraham Lincoln Republican Texas United States Note 2
3 1997 Thomas Jefferson Republican New York United States Note 3
4 1931 John F. Kennedy Democrat Massachusetts United States Note 4
@Joseph A. Spadaro: I've eliminated the vertical padding by changing the style in your table from "padding" to "padding-left". -- John of Reading (talk) 06:41, 20 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
@John of Reading: Perfect. Thanks. Are there other measurements that can be used? Or must this be done with "em" measurements? I'd prefer something more intuitive. Is anything else available? Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 08:11, 20 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
@Joseph A. Spadaro: The main alternative to "em" is "px", an exact number of pixels or "screen dots". But that's not recommended, because readers using different devices will see very different effects. My search also found "padding-left: 8%" in the chart caption at Solar energy#Photovoltaics, telling the browser to leave 8% of the available space unused to the left of the coloured squares. -- John of Reading (talk) 08:31, 20 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
@John of Reading: Perfect. Thanks. This should be enough info to get me going. Thanks. Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 17:20, 20 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, all. Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 17:41, 20 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

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The Wikipedia page on Tital Motorcycles @ Titan Motorcycle Company has a link at the bottom of the page that was supposed to be to the official Titan Motorcycle page. Clicking on that link leads to a malicioius site. Thanks for help killing that link! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:5C7:8201:85E3:C0E6:3213:BB2E:D10F (talk) 18:31, 19 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for reporting this. The web site seems to have been taken down since it appears that the company went out of business. I've removed the web site from the article. Dismas|(talk) 19:27, 19 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

How to fully revert an edit after several more edits have "buried" it?

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Hi~ This revision did not seem to be useful:

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Diego_de_Peñalosa&diff=prev&oldid=690152069

I wasn't really sure if it had useful mixed with non-useful parts in the same edit..
It included gibberish "jhfsjdfasghgzsdafdfskj".
However, portions of it still remain, such as "Trol Government". (What is that?)
But the article has since been edited several times.

  • How do we remove only the messed up portions while keeping the useful edits which were later made by others?
  • Do we need to manually try to separate the real edits from the non-useful ones?

Thank you very much and have a great day~:) Zeniff (talk) 21:47, 19 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

It's difficult to revert vandalism that occurred between useful edits. Sometimes Mediawiki, the software that Wikipedia uses, will allow you to undo it, but usually it's impossible for older edits, as people will have edited that section since the vandalism was inserted. In those cases, the best thing to do is check the diff to see what changed, then manually fix it yourself. For example, in the diff that you posted above, you can see that some text was moved around the article, and "Trol" was added to a header. The "trol" thing is almost certainly vandalism, and that "nowiki" thing is also vandalism. I don't know if the text should have been moved, because I don't know anything about the subject. It looks like it shouldn't have been. It looks like it probably messed up the timeline by moving the text around like that. NinjaRobotPirate (talk) 23:41, 19 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I think I fixed the article. What I did was compare the version before the vandalism and the one that exists now. In the earlier version of the article, it flowed from 1661 to 1662 to 1663 to de Peñalosa's death in 1687. The vandalized version moved a few paragraphs around, so that it didn't make much sense any more, and the 1662 history was transposed to the 1687 part of his history. I moved the paragraphs back to proper placement. I'm pretty sure, at least. NinjaRobotPirate (talk) 23:52, 19 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
(Sorry for late reply!) Thank you very much for your time and effort to fix it and also your detailed answer with examples! :) When I had tried to read that original diff, I couldn't make out almost anything..o.o I'm still not quite used to reading "diff" stuff, especially when text is moved around since it's hard for me to see if other stuff changed at the same time or only moved, but I'm trying! :) And, I'm okay if I have to try manually in the future because at least I might learn something about the topics, as in your example. I'll keep in mind what you suggested from now on:) Zeniff (talk) 07:17, 12 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Where the subsequent edits are short and simple, it can be easier to undo to the point before the vandalism, then re-do the subsequent edits before saving, but, if you use this method, be sure to check that you have retained the genuine edits. Opening a separate window where you can compare differences as you edit helps to keep track. Dbfirs 09:42, 21 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
(Sorry for late reply!) I see! Oh, I can use that for my edits too. Previously, I had been trying to combine all my changes into 1 edit each time. That makes sense if edits are split up smaller to see the diff more easily. And, that's a great idea about a separate window! I'll try to use your suggestions from now on:) Thank you very much!:) Zeniff (talk) 07:17, 12 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Why is there no articles for creation tag/rating on my article?

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I created both of these articles through the articles for creation wizard: Chain-ladder method Bornhuetter-Ferguson method

The first one has an articles for creation tag on the talk page and was rated on the quality scale, but the latter wasn't. Why? Can someone add this? Thanks. -KaJunl (talk) 22:33, 19 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

This has to do with the method the draft was accepted. In the case of the first draft, it was moved using the AFC helper tool, which automatically adds those tags to the talkpage. The second page was manually moved, and had the project tags manually added. I've updated the class, but I'll leave it to others with the Wikiproject AFC tag, and the other project's importance. -- The Voidwalker Discuss 00:53, 20 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I've added the Wikiproject AFC tag to the talkpage of Bornhuetter-Ferguson method. -- The Voidwalker Discuss 01:03, 20 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]