Wikipedia:Help desk/Archives/2008 August 12

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 12

User toolbar

Hi! I wish to apply a user toolbar, similar to that on User:Cory Malik's page. How do I do it though? Thanks for considering my question. Sυρєrıor ^{(Reply!,Contribs)} 02:17, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

Based on a look at your talk page, it appears you have figured this out with some help from Cory. Do you need additional help with this? If so, post back here and let us know what you need. Thanks, --Clubjuggle ^T/C 12:34, 15 August 2008 (UTC)

civil engineering

How should a Estimation/Tender/Quotation be that is to be submitted to the Client? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 123.108.204.67 (talk) 21:50, August 11, 2008

This page is for questions about using Wikipedia. Please consider asking this question at the Wikipedia:Reference desk. They specialize in knowledge questions and will try to answer any question in the universe (except how to use Wikipedia, since that is what this Help Desk is for). Just follow the link, select the relevant section, and ask away. You could always try searching Wikipedia for an article related to the topic you want to know more about. I hope this helps. -Optigan13 (talk) 05:00, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

removing multiple spam links

Is there a tool to quickly select (and delete) multiple spam links in an article. (especially if they are to the same website)

additionally, is there a tool to go in and delete links from multiple articles e.g. raaga.com

ChiragPatnaik (talk) 05:24, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

I believe AutoWikiBrowser provides some tools for doing this in a semi-automated manner. Certainly there are methods to speed up the process even when doing this purely manually, such as using multiple tabs if many articles are affected, doing them in batches and using the find function of your browser to locate the offending text if it's buried. For a single article with many links, you can grab the text, place it in a word processing program, and use the programs find and replace function. Note that if a link qualifies for blacklisting, you can ask for its inclusion at Wikipedia:Spam blacklist. Criteria are set forth there. That is a local blacklist. There's also m:Spam blacklist which blacklists a link across all Wikimedia projects including the English Wikipedia.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 11:41, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

I forgot to mention: if there are a huge number of links making it a real pain to do this yourself, you may be able to enlist the assistance of a bot (maybe User:AntiSpamBot?).--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 11:52, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

If one editor has been adding spam links to lots of pages, then I believe administrators have an enhanced rollback facility with which they can revert all edits by a user with a single click. MSGJ (talk) 13:24, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

citing a web page only accessible through a html post form with no direct URL?

How would someone cite a web page that is only accessible through filling out a html post form with no direct URL (URL ends with "/show_page.php" not "/show_page.php?title=mypage")? I am trying to cite a search result/lookup from a US government database. The URL in question is http://www.fda.gov/cder/ndc/database/docs/queryndcprod.htm . A sample search would be 00085 and 1322. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Patcat88 (talk • contribs) 06:05, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

I saw this section here yesterday and am a little disappointed that no one has answered. I'm curious myself. I played around with URLs like http://www.accessdata.fda.gov/scripts/cder/ndc/getprodcode.cfm?lblcode=00085&prodcode=1322, but it got me nowhere. :( Sorry. WODUP 05:17, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

Protected Pages

Hi, I'll make this quick, and hopefully painless for you. I work for a city in these great states. I was going to edit the article about our city, as it is in dire need of a makeover. I thought I saw some city pages that were protected. Is this possible? I thought all pages were editable. I honestly couldn't find anything about protection or protected articles. Thanks for your time. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Klutch130 (talk • contribs) 07:24, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

You can read more about article protection by reading WP:PROTECT. Generally, when an article (or any page, really) is being vandalized in high amounts in a short period of time or if there is just too much disruptive editing (i.e WP:EDITWAR and such) to the article, it is protected by administrators. Protections have a certain time span depending on the protecting administrator's decision. Administrators can protect an article fully from editing except by administrators (only when autoconfirmed users are involved in the disruption) or they can semi-protect an article from editing by non-autoconfirmed users and IPs (only if non-autoconfirmed users and IPs are the only ones involved). If you can tell me (or give me link to) the article you were trying to edit, I would be able to tell you when the protection will expire if it has not already. Thanks, RyRy (talk) 07:38, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

getting information automatically

hi I just wanted to ask that is it possible to get some of my favourite articles or news under a routine to my mail? thanks Flaming.soshiant (talk) 08:27, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

See the links under WP:EIW#News for what's available (mailing lists, podcasts, etc.). See Wikipedia:Syndication for some RSS feeds. However, most of the broadcast-type services from Wikipedia focus on the internal workings of Wikipedia, rather than on the article content, and you did not tell us what your favorite articles are, so I don't know whether you will find what you want. --Teratornis (talk) 14:42, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Unable to undo a move.

Somebody moved Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar International Airport to Nagpur - Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar International Airport which is not correct. I tried to undo his move from the page history. When I click undo the next page says the action can be undone but when I click save, nothing happens and page remains same. Somebody help to undo this move. We never append city name in front of it's airport. --gppande «talk» 08:29, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Hi. Can you cite a specific guideline for naming airports? Looking at the contributions, it seems the editor inquestion has been moving a lot of pages. Perhaps some discussion is needed to sort out the title of all these articles before reverting? In case you're sure about the name, you may try the revert button here for the page in question. :) --PeaceNT (talk) 08:44, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

I have reversed the move. We don't title articles for airports with the city prefixed to the airport name if it is not actually called that.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 11:20, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Thanks. --gppande «talk» 16:01, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

How to clear the interview

I am really upset about interview, first I am not getting any offer,if i get i am not clearing aptitiude please help to clear the aptitude and provide some solution about technical question.

Thank

Irsh—Preceding unsigned comment added by 63.216.59.225 (talk • contribs)

Hello Irsh. You are are at Wikipedia, the online free encyclopedia that anyone can edit, and this page is a help desk for asking questions related to using the encyclopedia. I suspect, based on your question, that you may have found yourself at one of our over two million articles, and thought that we were directly affiliated in some way with that subject. Unfortunately, we have no way of knowing what interview you are talking about, what aptitude you need help clearing up or what technical question requires a solution.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 11:02, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

about admiission & eligibility in various post graduate courses at mit(university of cambridge)

please name the post graduate courses that massachusates institute of technology provides with eligibility. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 122.163.47.31 (talk) 10:11, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Have you tried the miscellaneous section of Wikipedia's Reference Desk? They specialize in answering knowledge questions there; this help desk is only for questions about using Wikipedia. For your convenience, here is the link to post a question there: click here. I hope this helps.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 10:55, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

An equals sign in the hidden template

It seems that Template:Hidden can't handle = either. What should I do in this case, especially if it's part of an URL? -- Mentisock 10:50, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Equals signs in unnamed template parameters are interpreted as marking the boundary between the name of the parameter and its value. You need to name the parameter explicitly: {{hidden|1=foo=bar|2=bar=foo}} should work:

foo=bar

bar=foo. Algebraist 11:03, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

I don't usually use = though, except with headercss... I tried putting an = before the contents parameter anyway like you said and the output is still {{{2}}}. -- Mentisock 11:16, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

You need to put '2=content here' (this definitely works elsewhere, by the way; I'm not sure why it's not working right here). Algebraist 11:18, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Yep, it works now. Thanks! ^_^ -- Mentisock 11:29, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Link to create new section

Resolved

If you click a URL such as http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:Msgj/test&action=edit&section=new you will be taken to a page which invites you to add a new section to a page. My question is this: is there a URL which will specify the name of the new section? I suppose this could be done by preloading a template with section markers, i.e. == Title ==. I just wondered if there was a neater way. Thanks. MSGJ (talk) 13:06, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Maybe I could give some more background on this question. Preloading a template does not work if the target article already exists. I am looking for a way to make it work, e.g. by appending the template onto the bottom of an existing page. One way to do this is by creating a new section, by using a URL like http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:Msgj/test&action=edit&preload=Template:AFC_preload&section=new but this is messy because I don't really want the clicker to have to specify the section name. So if there is a way to add a preload template to an existing article, that would be the cleanest solution. MSGJ (talk) 13:18, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

I got an answer to this on the village pump. MSGJ (talk) 23:19, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

Closed communicators

I am wondering what has happened to an article that has disappeared from Wikipedia. I have checked the discussion boards for every deleted entry since the date I last saw it and it was not mentioned. The article was called "closed communicators (or communicating)." It is the only instance I have been able to find anywhere of this type of communication and I have a researcher who is very interested in the topic.

Is there any way this article could be reinstated? Or, since it was not discussed, perhaps it was deleted by mistake? I would at the very least love to be able to explain to the researcher why the article was removed.

I appreciate any thoughts or advice on this matter and thank you in advance for your time. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 199.202.95.19 (talk) 13:56, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

I have searched the deletion logs for all possible alternatives and can find no indication that there was ever an article of this name. Is it possible that you are mistaken? MSGJ (talk) 14:10, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Sometimes one gets lucky by searching Wikipedia with Google (using {{Google wikipedia}}).

• Search Wikipedia with Google for: closed communicators

The closest result on the first page may be Albert Mehrabian, which mentions non-verbal communication and "closed body language". What kind of communication are you talking about? What is the specific research interest of the researcher you mention? (Please tell us the name of his or her discipline.) Communication is an extremely broad topic, including everything from semiotics to animal communication to telecommunication. Can you remember when you saw the article you seek? Can you remember what led you to the article? That is, did you find it with a search engine, by following a link from Wikipedia, a recommendation from a friend (Collaborative filtering), or a reference in a book? If you can remember how you found the article, you might be able to retrace your path to it. --Teratornis (talk) 14:51, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

No < >

Is there a way to tell MediaWiki/Wikipedia that I do not want a section's < > characters converted to &lt; &gt;? The <nowiki> tag doesn't help. -- kainaw™ 14:19, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

I don't think so. If you could do that then you could add arbitrary HTML to Wikipedia, which would be a Bad Thing. Algebraist 15:02, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia uses HTML Tidy to cleanup HTML output to try to maintain the same look across browsers. It cleans up tags like <br>, <br/> and </br> and converts them to the proper XHTML <br />. --—— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk - 15:24, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Montana Tucker

Hello,

I have just created the Montana Tucker wikipedia page in the English Directory. It now comes up saying some of the material is copywritten, and shows the link to Montana Tuckers official web page bio. We are her co-manager, and wrote the bio for her webpage. Also her webpage is shown at the external links part of the new page I created.

Could you advise. Its obviously not a copywrite infingement if we did it.

Also, I have a photo I'd like to upload for her wikipedia page, but it says I do not have this authorization.

Thank You, Joe —Preceding unsigned comment added by Musicguy3399 (talk • contribs) 15:30, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Hello Joe, WP:IOWN is the guideline you need to read. You also might like to read WP:COI, because writing about something/someone that you involved with is strongly discouraged here! All material must be written from a neutral point of view. Best wishes, MSGJ (talk) 15:44, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

My edit only shows up when I'm logged in

I recently edited an article, but the edit is only visible when I'm logged in to my account. When I surf the site as an unregistered user, I can't see it. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Cq9001 (talk • contribs) 15:50, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Sounds like a caching problem. Clear your browser cache and purge the server cache. Algebraist 15:58, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

(ec) Asking this question was your only edit - are you sure you submitted it?...... Dendodge .. Talk^Contribs 15:59, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Was your edit maybe on some project other that English Wikipedia? —teb728 t c 16:09, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

EST

hello

on the est page - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Est - , about 3/4 of the way down there is a section as follows

Time Eastern Standard Time - three separate time zones use this name: the Australian time zone at UTC+10 the Brazilian Eastern time zone at UTC-3 the North American time zone at UTC-5

the 'Eastern Standard Time' text links to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eastern_Standard_Time_(disambiguation)

which if i click gives garbage, however this page

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eastern_Standard_Time_%28disambiguation%29

works fine

i wondered if there was some issue in your server with parsing brackets?? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 193.32.30.72 (talk) 18:04, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

I can't see the problem, both the ( and the %28 links work for me. This might be a browser issue? Scottydude _review 19:00, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

personalising wikipedia homepage

I would like Wikipedia as my homepage but I want to have my country's(India) information rather than information on the the whole world. So can I have my homepage Wikipedia English personalized for INDIA ? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 117.199.49.194 (talk) 18:09, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Are you saying that you want your user page to show up only for users viewing it from India and not show up for users anywhere else in the world? That cannot be done in any reasonable way. -- kainaw™ 18:12, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Alternately... Are you asking if you can set your web browser to use Wikipedia with information about India as the homepage? Set your homepage to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/India -- kainaw™ 18:13, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Another option is to set your Web browser's home page to Portal:India (URL: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portal:India), which contains entries about recent news in India. I imagine the good folks at Wikipedia:WikiProject India are updating those news items regularly. --Teratornis (talk) 18:38, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Portal for information about portals. Portals act like alternatives to the Main Page, focusing on various special interests. For example, many users with an interest in India created and maintain Portal:India to function like an alternative Main Page which focuses on India. --Teratornis (talk) 18:44, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

'Anti-personal attacks' rules as a means of inflicting censorship

Hi, I am being threatened by certain individuals for pointing out they are clearly POV'ed in the Macedonia naming dispute article-group. This is unacceptable for the normal operation of wikipedia. People should be allowed to point out instances they think are against NPOV. At the same time they seem determined to push for bans while keeping their POV camping on those articles. It may be "insulting" to name certain individuals but if you are going to point out what you think is not NPOV, you have to say where you saw it. What advice would you give? --Leladax (talk) 20:52, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Apparently someone pushed for it and achieved a ban (see my talk page). Please help, it is unacceptable to ban editors of wikipedia for pointing out what they think is not NPOV. --Leladax (talk) 20:54, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

If you want to refer to a specific edit without naming the editor, post it as a diff: go to history, select the "before" and "after" versions, and copy and paste the link showing the differences between the two (for example: your recent posts here). The cardinal rule of NPA is essentially "talk about the content, not about the contributor." For the record,WP:NOTCENSORED applies mostly to article content, not to talk pages. Talk pages are sometimes censored in that they must remain focused on improving the article in question and not get too far off topic. SDY (talk) 21:01, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

• Leladax is just forum-shopping now. Ignore, people. Moreschi (talk) (debate) 21:03, 12 August 2008 (UTC)
  • Moreschi is the person that banned me. --Leladax (talk) 21:07, 12 August 2008 (UTC)
    • Yes, and you're still forum-shopping. "Asking the other parent" will get you nowhere. Moreschi (talk) (debate) 21:09, 12 August 2008 (UTC)
      • Trying to intimidate me does not change reality. --Leladax (talk) 21:11, 12 August 2008 (UTC)
  • Moreschi, you shouldn't be telling people to ignore this if you are the person who banned him. Let him seek restitution, and let interested editors look into it if they want to. If what you're saying is true, they can choose to ignore him. — Twas Now ( talk • contribs • e-mail ) 21:33, 12 August 2008 (UTC)
    • Please see WP:FORUMSHOP, forum shopping is a form of canvassing. If Leladax keeps pushing the issue on other forums he is just going to be warned to stop, and it will count against him on future bans. Please don't give such advice to poor newbies, if you tell them that it's ok to complain to the other parent then they are going to keep pushing until they get labelled a disruptive editor or even blocked, and they won't understand why. --Enric Naval (talk) 02:51, 14 August 2008 (UTC)

template keeps autocollapsing

Template:Law enforcement agencies of the United Kingdom2. tried all parameters. ninety:one 21:04, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

It uses Template:Navbox with collapsible groups. — Twas Now ( talk • contribs • e-mail ) 21:27, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

By default, boxes are collapsed, but there is a parameter to have 1 or more boxes open. — Twas Now ( talk • contribs • e-mail ) 21:29, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

according to the /doc that param is "uncollapsed", but i've tried that and it doesn't work. ninety:one 22:10, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

What exactly do you want this template to look like? Is "Law enforcement agencies in the United Kingdom" supposed to show its contents ("Police forces" and "Non-police law enforcement agencies") but the subcategories (such as "Police forces") are not supposed to? Or it supposed to default to being totally uncollapsed? -—Pie4all88 ^{T C} 23:02, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

I wanted "Police forces" and "Non-police LEAs" to be uncollapsed, that's as far as you can control a Navbox - the constituent parts of "Police forces" and "Non-police LEAs" cannot collapse. ninety:one 23:05, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Is this what you wanted? — Twas Now ( talk • contribs • e-mail ) 05:39, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

As a side note, it is generally preferable for templates to be autocollapsed, especially large ones like this. They take up much space, and with several on a page they become an eyesore. Readers can decide if they want to open it or not. — Twas Now ( talk • contribs • e-mail ) 05:41, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

the point is to use it one pages which require all three templates (Template:UK Police1, Template:UK Police and Template:Law enforcement agencies of the United Kingdom). thanks very much! ninety:one 10:08, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

Increasing Pages Shown on Special:NewPages

I've looked through my preferences, but couldn't find any way to change the number of pages that show up in Special:NewPages. It's stuck at the default 50, but I'd like it to be at least 250. --Alinnisawest(talk) 21:24, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

There's a link on Special:NewPages, but it doesn't remain when you go away and come back. I suppose the obvious thing to do is to use javascript to create a link in your sidebar to http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:NewPages&limit=250. Algebraist 21:28, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

To do the above add the below code to your monobook.js.

addPortletLink ('p-navigation', '/w/index.php?title=Special:NewPages&limit=250', 'New Pages');

- Icewedge (talk) 21:47, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

That won't work. You need

addOnloadHook(function(){
    addPortletLink ('p-navigation', '/w/index.php?title=Special:NewPages&limit=250', 'New Pages');
});

(slightly different code will put it somewhere other than the bottom of the navigation box, give it a mouseover tooltip, etc.) Algebraist 22:15, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Oh, well, yeah. Thanks for pointing that out Algebraist. - Icewedge (talk) 22:44, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Userpage mishap

Hey everyone. I changed my userpage header from this to this except now my userpage looks like this!!! I can't figure out why the strapline has caused this. Help please. Thanks, Scottydude _review 22:27, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

The first div is unclosed. Algebraist 22:30, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

(e/c)Well I've now realised its because I didn't close something properly in the code here. Thanks Algebraist! Scottydude _review 22:31, 12 August 2008 (UTC)