Wikipedia:Help desk/Archives/2017 September 28

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.

September 28

FLYING TIGERS, A.V.G.

DO NOT state that Daniel Ford is a FLYING TIGERS HISTORIAN!!!! They hated him!!!! I went to a FIRST TO FIGHT aces convention at the Champlin Fighter Museum in Az. with my newly purchased Daniel Ford's book about the FLYING TIGERS, in 1992. I went up to Dick Rossi to get him to autograph the book AND HE REFUSED!!!! He said there was nothing but lies in the book and added a few more words about Daniel Ford. So I promptly turned around and threw the book away and bought another book about JAMES HOWARD and so which I got 10 autographs, including SABURO SAKAI.

BUT PLEASE, DO NOT make Daniel Ford a historian after all the AVG pilots are not around to defend against his BS.......... MARK J. KREJCI65.212.92.138 (talk) 00:50, 28 September 2017 (UTC)

It is not uncommon for people who have been the subjects of unofficial biographies to loathe the work and despise the author of the work. Sometimes, this type of situation can end up in lengthy lawsuits. However, it does not make the author any the less a historian when someone hates their publication. BronHiggs (talk) 04:17, 28 September 2017 (UTC)

How to handle coordinates in articles that have more than one location?

Some articles, like Wooddale Church, have multiple locations. I tried putting two sets of coordinates into an article just for kicks, and it superimposed the two locations at the top of the page. What is the proper way to handle this - just choose one and go with it? Leschnei (talk) 01:00, 28 September 2017 (UTC)

If it cannot be defined by a single one, leave it off, and break down the individual campuses by giving each an entry in Wikidata. Then define each campus as "part of" Wooddale Church. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 01:08, 28 September 2017 (UTC)

Got it - thanks, Leschnei (talk) 01:27, 28 September 2017 (UTC)

{{Coord}} has |display=inline (actually the default) to only display the coordinates inline at a suitable place. |display=title displays it at the top and should be used at most once per article. PrimeHunter (talk) 18:00, 28 September 2017 (UTC)

@PrimeHunter: I didn't realize that you could use more than one set of coordinates as long as they have the inline parameter. That's good to know, thanks. Leschnei (talk) 20:42, 28 September 2017 (UTC)

@Leschnei: Another possibility: have a look at St Edmund Church, Godalming for the approach I used when I wanted to use 10 different sets of coordinates at various places in the article. Hassocks5489 (Floreat Hova!) 20:25, 28 September 2017 (UTC)

@Hassocks5489: I've never seen that before - that's really wild! Thanks, Leschnei (talk) 20:42, 28 September 2017 (UTC)

Registration of my company

Hi, if someone asked Wikipedia who my company was how would they know who and where we are and our net value

Flatbed hauling quotes inc Thank you — Preceding unsigned comment added by Thomasbattiste (talk • contribs)

They won't, and that's fine. Wikipedia is not a directory or a source of trade listings. --Orange Mike | Talk 03:53, 28 September 2017 (UTC)

Help with template parameter

I am working on Template:Ordination/sandbox and recently added a second collapsible section. However, in doing so, the parameter date of elevation appears in the base template without any parameters entered. I am not able to figure out how to fix this. Does anyone have any ideas? Ergo Sum 03:47, 28 September 2017 (UTC)

Tim Template
Tim in 2012
Biographical data Born (2000-01-01) January 1, 2000 Alma mater Wikipedia Website

There seems to be a problem with the design of the collapsible option. Here's the example from Template:Collapsed infobox section begin/doc with a blank "website". The website label still displays. Although there's no website, the parameter is not entirely blank because it contains the magic coding from the "end" template. One for Frietjes to think about, perhaps. -- John of Reading (talk) 06:12, 28 September 2017 (UTC)

It looks like {{Collapsed infobox section begin}} and {{Collapsed infobox section end}} are only intended for direct use in articles calling an infobox. Whether you use it in articles or try to use it in an infobox template, it adds non-displayed but non-empty content in the infobox parameter where it's placed, so the infobox will act like that parameter has content. Template:Ordination/sandbox says:

| label19 = Date of elevation
| data19 =  {{{date of elevation|}}}

{{collapsed infobox section end}}

That means data19 always has content, and then {{infobox}} will always display label19 and data19 per Template:Infobox#Making data fields optional. The example by John of Reading has the same problem because {{collapsed infobox section end}} is placed in the website parameter. PrimeHunter (talk) 10:40, 28 September 2017 (UTC)

@Ergo Sum: the {{Collapsed infobox section begin}} / {{Collapsed infobox section end}} templates are basically a hack in response to a request to collapse infobox sections in articles. I would never recommend using these templates in template space, only in article space on a case-by-case basis. there are far better ways to create collapsed subsections of an infobox (i.e., see the last example in {{subinfobox bodystyle}}). however, if you really want to use the {{Collapsed infobox section begin}} / {{Collapsed infobox section end}} templates, you can make it work by disabling the label when the data isn't specified (like this). Frietjes (talk) 15:14, 28 September 2017 (UTC)

@Frietjes: I didn't know that template combination wasn't intended to be used in the template namespace. Thanks for letting me know. For {{subinfobox bodystyle}}, I don't see anywhere to collapse a section. Also, the last example is for sidebars, whereas the template I'm working with is an infobox. Ergo Sum 16:20, 28 September 2017 (UTC)

@Ergo Sum: the reason for not recommending the widespread use of {{Collapsed infobox section begin}} / {{Collapsed infobox section end}} is that assume that the infobox is generated with table markup, and may require HTML Tidy or Linter to clean up the generated markup (depending on the particular situation). the subinfobox method described in the documentation for subinfobox bodystyle is probably more robust in that it doesn't assume that the box is an HTML table, and there has been a movement to change boxes from table-based markup to div-based markup. of course, if we do change infobox to be div-based, we can probably make a similar change to {{Collapsed infobox section begin}} / {{Collapsed infobox section end}}, so it's not that critical of an issue. it's just that I believe that the subinfobox method is more robust and is less of a hack. but, others may disagree. Frietjes (talk) 16:27, 28 September 2017 (UTC)

@Frietjes: Got it. Would you mind explaining how to use subinfobox bodystyle to collapse a section? Ergo Sum 16:31, 28 September 2017 (UTC)

@Ergo Sum: did you check the "the documentation for subinfobox bodystyle" link I provided above? Frietjes (talk) 16:33, 28 September 2017 (UTC)

Ah, I see it there now. Just had to purge the page to get your documentation update. Ergo Sum 16:34, 28 September 2017 (UTC)

@Frietjes: One thing I don't see in the documentation is a way to set the expansion preference of the collapsed section. I currently have |expanded={{#ifeq:{{{expand|}}}|History|yes}} set for {{collapsed infobox section begin}}. Is there a way I can accomplish the same with the other template? Ergo Sum 16:41, 28 September 2017 (UTC)

@Frietjes:, you would use something like {{#ifeq:{{{expand|}}}|History|<!--empty-->|mw-collapsed}} where you see mw-collapsed (see Help:Collapsing for some documentation on the various classes). Frietjes (talk) 16:47, 28 September 2017 (UTC)

@Frietjes: I've been trying to implement your suggestion at Template:Ordination/sandbox, but I've run into one issue. When I insert the }} to close the second collapsible infobox (after | data201 = {{#if:{{{bishop 180|}}}|{{{consecration date 180|}}}}}, this causes the belowstyle and below code to not function and be treated as outside the template (as can be seen on the sandbox page now). Do you know what is going wrong here? Ergo Sum 15:39, 29 September 2017 (UTC)

Problem solved. There was a stray }} that was causing the subinfobox to terminate prematurely. Ergo Sum 18:34, 29 September 2017 (UTC)

Review ASAP!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Draft:Corey_Whipple

Draft:Corey Whipple is in the queue for review. When it is eventually reviewed, if it's still in its present state, it will be rejected, as it fails to establish that its subject is notable. It does cite three sources, but none of them mentions him. While you're waiting for an official review, you could read Wikipedia:Notability, and maybe Help:Referencing for beginners, and try to improve it. Maproom (talk) 07:43, 28 September 2017 (UTC)

Research Papers Citation

Can I cite any research papers for any articles I am writing? Amallalds (talk) 09:45, 28 September 2017 (UTC)

• @Amallalds: yes, you can (and it is fairly common in science-related topics). See WP:REFB for how to do so. Keep in mind though that (1) citing articles for no reason other than promoting those is not allowed; and (2) extraordinary claims require extraordinary sourcing, so that a single source is rarely enough for strong claims; (3) medical information is subject to the strict guideline WP:MEDRS. Tigraan^{Click here to contact me} 10:40, 28 September 2017 (UTC)

We are looking for a volunteer, to help and to write and with a wikipedia artist page

Hello,

We are looking for a volunteer thad can help us written a wikipedia artist page.

Thank you in advance. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Insidesense (talk • contribs) 11:05, 28 September 2017 (UTC)

• Try posting the details at Wikipedia:Requested articles. Crow^Caw 22:16, 28 September 2017 (UTC)

found a duplicate while editing wikidata - please merge ?

Musa Dogon Yaro and Musa Dogonyaro are obviously the same person. Could you please merge ? --Hsarrazin (talk on wd) 12:30, 28 September 2017 (UTC)

Another editor has done so. --David Biddulph (talk) 12:53, 28 September 2017 (UTC)

Mysteriously heavy letters

I copied the term "le­gion­ella pneu­mo­phila" from here to here and it showed up as a redlink. So I Googled our article (with the original copy), copied the same string from there and replaced it. It showed up bluelinked, weighing eight bytes less.

They look the same to me. What gives? InedibleHulk (talk) 14:34, 28 September 2017 (UTC)

The original text contains four soft hyphens ("Le-gion-ella pneu-mo-phila"). You might be able to see them if you copypaste into a text editor or force a word-wrap. -- zzuuzz ^(talk) 14:48, 28 September 2017 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Thanks, I learnt something today. I suspected it was a breaking vs. non-breaking space thing, and forcing the word-wrap lead me to the conclusion that a "can break word here" invisible character existed. Tigraan^{Click here to contact me} 15:00, 28 September 2017 (UTC)

I tried pasting from the Times into TextEdit and zooming, and saw nothing. But when I paste from Wikipedia, I see a strikethrough. Zoomed even further to find small breaks, but it goes all the way through. Craziness. Thanks. InedibleHulk (talk) 15:27, 28 September 2017 (UTC)

Sometimes when I read news articles on the Apple News app Unicode symbols for soft breaks, or HTML code will show up as text, or I will see underscores separating words. Once everyone is HTML5 compliant, most will disappear. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 20:56, 28 September 2017 (UTC)

Most underscores and text, I hope you mean. InedibleHulk (talk) 09:08, 29 September 2017 (UTC)

Link question

Sorry in advance for this question — I suspect when I hear the answer, I'll kick myself for not figuring it out myself.

I'm looking at what links to this article: 2012–13 NCAA Division I women's basketball rankings

What links here: Special:WhatLinksHere/2012–13_NCAA_Division_I_women's_basketball_rankings

I see a large number of entries and I'm failing to track down where the link is in some of these, for example: 2012–13 Gonzaga Bulldogs women's basketball team

I'm guessing it's due to some template, but I haven't yet figured it out.Tracking down a link.--S Philbrick(Talk) 16:20, 28 September 2017 (UTC)

• That is indeed quite mysterious, even more so because the WhatLinksHere option to hide transclusions does not seem to have any effect. There are no weird redirects either and a ctrl-F on the page fails to produce any result. Tigraan^{Click here to contact me} 16:36, 28 September 2017 (UTC)

2012–13 NCAA Division I women's basketball rankings#AP poll (should have said "#AP Poll") is linked on "AP Poll" in {{2012–13 West Coast Conference Women's basketball standings}}. I found it with view html in my browser and a Ctrl+F browser search. "Hide transclusions" at Special:WhatLinksHere/2012–13 NCAA Division I women's basketball rankings only hides pages which transclude 2012–13 NCAA Division I women's basketball rankings. There are no such pages. "Hide transclusions" is mainly useful on template pages. There is no feature to hide links which only come from a template used on a page (it's frequently requested). PrimeHunter (talk) 17:51, 28 September 2017 (UTC)

Yep, that's it. The article had a ranking section, and had rankings in the schedule, which seemed like the place to look. I even glanced at that box, but I was thinking it was just standings. Thanks. I figured you would know.--S Philbrick(Talk) 20:13, 28 September 2017 (UTC)

M Music Bit

M Music Bit Entertainment,s Ltd was founded by Al Imran in 2017 and the channel's distributions is handled by Paris-based Agents Thema. The M in M Music Bit stands for the genres of the channel's playlist which covers classical music (DJ Ft.), crossover music (e.g. Il Divo) and cinema music.

M Music Bit avoids long form concerts and operas traditionally associated with classical music on Youtube chanel and instead replaces them with short form music videos, more widely associated with pop music, DJ Ft. — Preceding unsigned comment added by AlImran6566 (talk • contribs) 17:29, 28 September 2017 (UTC)

Did you have a question about using Wikipedia? --David Biddulph (talk) 17:44, 28 September 2017 (UTC)

Quote within a quote that starts with <apostrophe>cause

I'm quoting an interview where the interviewee recalls what he said as, "I said, 'Joel, just give me all the music from it, all of Nitzsche's music, 'cause I got an idea.'" I want to leave "all of Nitzsche's music" out of the single quote section because it doesn't seem like something that was actually said, but because the next section begins with a word that needs an opening apostrophe, the rest of the sentence becomes italicized. Is there something I can put between the single quotes before the word cause to prevent the italicization? Thanks! Danaphile (talk) 17:55, 28 September 2017 (UTC)

I wonder if this works: ''cause I got an idea'? Yes, it does. But it's an ugly bodge. I suspect there's a better way. Maproom (talk) 19:53, 28 September 2017 (UTC)

I guess you could also enclose the apostrophe in nowiki tags? –FlyingAce^✈hello 19:59, 28 September 2017 (UTC)

Or this: ''cause'. Maproom (talk) 20:07, 28 September 2017 (UTC)

• I think nowiki is purpose-made for this: to enter stuff you don't want treated as markup. Crow^Caw 22:14, 28 September 2017 (UTC)

I decided to go with nowiki. Thanks so much! Danaphile (talk) 03:04, 29 September 2017 (UTC)

display of mathematical formulas

Some of the mathematical formulas do not display correctly any more. What I see is a display like " u ⋅ v = η ( u , v ) {\displaystyle u\cdot v=\eta (u,v)} " Can you please help! thank you very much in advance. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.119.60.207 (talk) 18:06, 28 September 2017‎ (UTC)

Could you please give us a wikilink to a relevant article? If you are referring to Minkowski space, it displays OK for me. --David Biddulph (talk) 18:20, 28 September 2017 (UTC)

And what is your browser including version number, and your operating system? It may be a problem with MathML in your browser. This works correctly for me in Firefox:

$u\cdot v=\eta (u,v)$

I see this image: https://wikimedia.org/api/rest_v1/media/math/render/svg/6bd01625f585a771901d7aed1f45c4a01cc66b38. Your browser may attempt to render the formula instead of displaying the image. PrimeHunter (talk) 19:54, 28 September 2017 (UTC)

The page was "Minkowski space" indeed. Another example of a page where I see this phenomenon is: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cartan_matrix I am running Windows10 and Explorer 11 version 11608.15063.0

Citation problems

Hello,

I am trying to cite the additional information I am adding to a post and cannot figure out how to properly do that.

Please remember to sign your posts with ~~~~ so that we know who you are (say) User:Polistudents and which articles you are attempting to edit. Thanks. Aspro (talk) 20:39, 28 September 2017 (UTC)

WP:REFB is a good place to start. RudolfRed (talk) 22:18, 28 September 2017 (UTC)

Removing legitimate female authors of mysteries from List of female detective/mystery writers

Who decides what author under the article of female authors and mystery writers are notable enough to be included? Someone keeps taking out my edits and I got a notice that I am 'vandalizing' the page listing female authors. These authors are what are called, Golden Age Detective writers and have many many books published. A few were quite famous in the past and are still well known today. Some authors I added are in PRINT today. What individual thinks they know more about female detective novelists than someone, myself, who has spent years collecting, selling, and writing about said authors? This is unacceptable. Other women who are knowledgeable about this subject have also had their edits removed. I'd like an explanation please.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_female_detective/mystery_writers — Preceding unsigned comment added by Finsbry (talk • contribs)

For an article like that, it is whether there is a wikipedia page about the writer .Naraht (talk) 22:40, 28 September 2017 (UTC)

That said, it's not appropriate for someone to slap a templated warning on a new editor's talk page accusing them of vandalism. A lack of familiarity with Wikipedia's guidelines should not be mistaken for bad faith. User:NewEnglandYankee, going forward please bear in mind that it is possible to communicate with other Wikipedia contributors using non-templated messages as well, and that WP:BITE is just as much a guideline as WP:NLIST. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 23:15, 28 September 2017 (UTC)

You're quite right, and I was quite wrong to do so. @User:Finsbry, please accept my apologies. I'll reply more fully on your talk page. NewEnglandYankee (talk) 01:03, 29 September 2017 (UTC)

Ok. I understand the guidelines now. Thank you for your clarification and I accept your apology. I will enlist some experts on golden age detective literature to contribute pages. There are several authors I am shocked don't have pages yet. Some quite influential. I will try to write a page at some point as well. Thank you. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Finsbry (talk • contribs) 03:20, 29 September 2017 (UTC)

This is how it should work!

I may want to use the above conversation as an example of "This is how it should work!" on Wikipedia! Thank you to both Finsbry and NewEnglandYankee for being sane!Naraht (talk) 11:16, 29 September 2017 (UTC)