Wikipedia:Help desk/Archives/2012 April 1

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April 1

April Fool's AfD

I would like to nominate Wikipedia for deletion as an April Fool's joke. How should I get permission for this? Interchangeable|talk to me 00:29, 1 April 2012 (UTC)

Read WP:POINT for instructions. --Jayron32 00:31, 1 April 2012 (UTC)

Am I the only one who thinks this April Fool's Day stuff is complete and utter bollocks?--ukexpat (talk) 00:34, 1 April 2012 (UTC)

No, properly executed, it can be fun, and funny. The problem is that it is so rarely properly executed. --Jayron32 00:40, 1 April 2012 (UTC)

It only works if everyone goes along with it, it's only just outside the bounds of credible, and it's utterly funny once pointed out. The Guardian newspaper did a brilliant one years ago, leading with a front page news story that scientists had worked out a way of controlling the weather, and were going to transform Britain's climate to be like the Riviera. Several big advertisers got behind this, particularly Guinness, who announced they were going to open a toucan park (toucans were used in their advertising), ran job adds for zoologists specialising in toucans, there was an article that printed plans for the proposed toucan park, other advertisers joined in. That was a truly great April Fool's joke. --Elen of the Roads (talk) 01:03, 1 April 2012 (UTC)

Making a hoax just outside the bounds of credible is one strategy. Another is making it seemingly incredible yet actually factual, as with the TFA blurb for April Fool's Day 2007. Adrian J. Hunter^{(talk•contribs)} 01:50, 1 April 2012 (UTC)

Another clever and well-executed hoax is Sidd Finch. The trouble is that it can't be automatic and repetitive. It needs to be well planned and well executed, else it just looks silly. --Jayron32 01:21, 1 April 2012 (UTC)

John Chung was another one (it's a redlink, I've been meaning to research this for a while); same concept with college football in (IIRC) the 50s. Had people going for months. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 02:26, 1 April 2012 (UTC)

John Chung is referenced in the article on Plainfield Teacher's College    → Michael J Ⓣ Ⓒ Ⓜ 03:06, 4 April 2012 (UTC)

No ukexpat, you are not the only one who thinks this April Fool's Day stuff is complete and utter bollocks. There's at least two of us. HiLo48 (talk) 01:11, 1 April 2012 (UTC)

It may not be funny, when someone already did it for real: WP:DDMP and [1]. Also, April Fools jokes aren't funny if you announce them in advance. RudolfRed (talk) 01:31, 1 April 2012 (UTC

April fools jokes should be kept out if mainspace. This means a real article like Wikipedia should not get a deletion tag. In previous years there have been several pranks about deleting process pages. See Wikipedia:April fools. There are already a couple of pranks about deleting articles in 2012. The pranksters sensibly omitted to place deletion tags on the articles but then a bot discovered the "missing" tags and added them: Special:Contributions/Snotbot. PrimeHunter (talk) 02:20, 1 April 2012 (UTC)

Snotbot continued adding such tags (and warning two users for removing them) until it was blocked until midnight for "April Fools' Day-related malfunction". PrimeHunter (talk) 03:05, 1 April 2012 (UTC)

And not everyone knows what April Fools' Day is. It's not a universal concept. 71.146.8.88 (talk) 04:39, 1 April 2012 (UTC)

Cite error: Closing </ref> missing for <ref> tag;

I am making my first Wikipedia page. I have read many pages of tips about getting started, and watched the video about how to add citations. And I thought I knew what I was doing. But after spending hours and hours trying to create this page, I still have two "Cite error" comments on my page in my Reference section.

The page I am creating is http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_DeFilippis

The error messages I am getting are: Cite error: Closing </ref> missing for <ref> tag; and Cite error: There are <ref> tags on this page, but the references will not show without a {{Reflist}} template or a <references /> tag;

Can anyone tell me what I need to do to fix these errors? I have read the descriptions of how to fix these problems but apparently I do not understand what I am reading because nothing I am doing seems to succeed at correcting the mistakes.

Thank you!!— Preceding unsigned comment added by CRiley1985 (talk • contribs)

I'm on this... Give me a couple of minutes... Adrian J. Hunter^{(talk•contribs)} 01:55, 1 April 2012 (UTC)

I've fixed it. What you had missed was that when you insert a citation, {{reflist}} automatically formats the list of references. You don't need to type them all out again. Elen of the Roads (talk) 01:58, 1 April 2012 (UTC)

I see Elen beat me to it. You might have been combining two different referencing styles. In some articles, such as Fungus, the details of all the references are written out down the bottom, and the article prose just contains <ref name=whatever/>. More commonly, the reference details are interspersed with the article prose, between <ref> and </ref> tags. But the two styles aren't normally combined within one article. Adrian J. Hunter^{(talk•contribs)} 02:10, 1 April 2012 (UTC)

Zodiac date

I am trying to find the zodiac sign for april first and on wat day it moves to the next sign — Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.214.152.104 (talk) 06:46, 1 April 2012 (UTC)

I think you'll find your answer at Zodiac#Table of dates. If not, you might want to ask again at the Reference desk, as this page is for questions about Wikipedia itself. Adrian J. Hunter^{(talk•contribs)} 06:56, 1 April 2012 (UTC)

I need help

how is that called when we write down all what in an video is saing? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Saludacymbals (talk • contribs) 09:50, 1 April 2012 (UTC)

I am not sure I understand what you are referring to. Do you perhaps mean a Synopsis? Anyway, you might get a better answer at Wikipedia:Reference desk/Entertainment. -- Toshio Yamaguchi (tlk−ctb) 09:55, 1 April 2012 (UTC)

I would call it transcribing, or making a a transcript. But Toshio is right that this page is for questions about using and editing Wikipedia, not general knowledge questions. --ColinFine (talk) 10:14, 1 April 2012 (UTC)

I replied on WP:RD/E#What its called when all waht in video shall be sayed written down?. Astronaut (talk) 15:11, 1 April 2012 (UTC)

Autocomplete off

How can I permanently turn off the annoying and undesired autocomplete function? Albert — Preceding unsigned comment added by 90.181.202.178 (talk) 14:36, 1 April 2012 (UTC)

I guess you refer to Wikipedia's search box. Logged in users have a lot of customization options and other benefits. At Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-searchoptions you can checkmark "Disable AJAX suggestions" and not "Enable enhanced search suggestions". It's free and easy to create an account at Special:UserLogin/signup. PrimeHunter (talk) 15:15, 1 April 2012 (UTC)

Template returning the second-largest number of a set?

I'm looking for a template (or some other method) to find the largest, second-largest, third-largest (etc.) number in a series. The Template:Max/12 works very well to find a maximum, but it doesn't seem to have the option to discard the largest and return the remaining numbers sorted from the largest to the smallest.

E.g. {{Max/12|161653|374576|11725|56995|174620|42759|57223|53973|7581|15401|24509|28019}} will return the maximum, 374576. What template should I use to find the second largest number (174620 in this case)?--eh bien mon prince (talk) 15:22, 1 April 2012 (UTC)

That is quite an unusual request. Category:Mathematical function templates lists all kind of mathematical stuff, but not something to find the 2nd highest. Astronaut (talk) 15:29, 1 April 2012 (UTC)

We don't have it currently. It would be possible but messy and inefficient to code a template with a limited amount of allowed numbers. What do you want to use it for? PrimeHunter (talk) 15:39, 1 April 2012 (UTC)

I need it for the Template:Infobox South African town (you can see it on pages like Randburg or Bloemfontein). South Africa has 11 official languages, and the infobox has only 5 fields for the languages (and including all 11 would be impractical anyway) so ideally the template should figure out by itself which languages should be included (the most widely spoken) and which ones should be left out. It already does this for the largest language by using Max/12, but I didn't manage to use it to determine the second, third, and fourth most spoken languages.--eh bien mon prince (talk) 15:48, 1 April 2012 (UTC)

That's already a very slow template. It takes me 30 seconds to preview a page with {{Infobox South African town|censuscode=77421}} (Randburg) and nothing else. Many large articles take less than 10 seconds. The template should be made faster and not slower. PrimeHunter (talk) 16:18, 1 April 2012 (UTC)

List of monoclonal antibodies

Under list of monoclonal antibodies. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_monoclonal_antibodies

antibody 8H9 binds to target B7-H3, use for radioimmunotherapy of brain metastasis

references: B7-H3:

Xu H, Cheung IY, Guo HF, Cheung NK. MicroRNA miR-29 Modulates Expression of Immunoinhibitory Molecule B7-H3: Potential Implications for Immune Based Therapy of Human Solid Tumors. Cancer Research 69:6275-6281, 2009

Radioimmunotherapy of Brain metastasis

Kramer K, Kushner BH, Modak S, Pandit-Taskar N, Smith-Jones P, Zanzonico P, Humm JL, Xu H, Wolden SL, Souweidane MM, Larson SM, Cheung NK. Compartmental intrathecal radioimmunotherapy: results for treatment for metastatic CNS neuroblastoma. Journal of Neurooncology, 97:409-418, 2010. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Cheungn (talk • contribs) 15:51, 1 April 2012 (UTC)

What is your question? If you think information is missing from an article, and you have a source, then be bold and add it yourself. You can also use the article's talk page to suggest changes. RudolfRed (talk) 18:40, 1 April 2012 (UTC)

IP adding links

Seems this IP is adding external links. They seem questionable to me as to the value to the articles. Special:Contributions/118.71.47.9 Admin may want to look into it.--Canoe1967 (talk) 15:54, 1 April 2012 (UTC)

The user has received a final warning for spamming links; if it continues, feel free to report the user to WP:AIV. ItsZippy ^{(talk • contributions)} 17:50, 1 April 2012 (UTC)

 Done Reported to WP:AIV after IP ignored final warning.--Canoe1967 (talk) 19:05, 1 April 2012 (UTC)

how to cite an article in a book

I've been going through articles trying to clean up their citations using citation templates. I ran across the article Transformation processes (media systems) and in it there are several citations of named articles that are part of a book, or collection, of articles on a given topic. Both the article and the book itself has an author/editor. Which citation template should i use?

Below is an example:

* Hallin, D. C., & Mancini, P. (2004a). Americanization, Globalization, and Secularization: Understand the Convergence of Media Systems and Political Communication. In F. Esser & B. Pfetsch (Eds.), ''[http://www.cambridge.org/gb/knowledge/isbn/item1150734/ Comparing Political Communication. Theories, Cases, and Challenges]'' (pp. 25-44). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN: 9780521535403

--Mblumber (talk) 15:58, 1 April 2012 (UTC)

You could use the chapter information parameters in the {{cite book}} template. An article where you can see this in use is History of deaf education in the United States (I cited a book where different people wrote each article/chapter, and the entire book was compiled by an editor). - Purplewowies (talk) 18:31, 1 April 2012 (UTC)

Burca

The Portuguese page about the Burca appears to be correct (http://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burca) but the English page just states that the burca is a kind of butterfly (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burca). That may be correct, but if people are looking for information about the clothing called the Burca, the English page will be disappointing. H Buchtel — Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.40.26.217 (talk) 19:04, 1 April 2012 (UTC)

I guess you are looking for Burqa, which is spelled differently to the butterfly. ItsZippy ^{(talk • contributions)} 19:10, 1 April 2012 (UTC)

I've added burqa to the hatnote in burca. --ColinFine (talk) 21:13, 1 April 2012 (UTC)

photographs

how become a wikipedia photographer and find which articles need photographs? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Nandita.raivani (talk • contribs) 19:25, 1 April 2012 (UTC)

You can take a look at Category:Wikipedia requested photographs in order to find articles needing photographs. You might also want to read Wikipedia:How to improve image quality and Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Images. WikiPhotographers are always welcome. -- Toshio Yamaguchi (tlk−ctb) 19:55, 1 April 2012 (UTC)

You become a Wikipedia photographer by taking a photograph and uploading it at Commons:Special:UploadWizard. Be sure you understand, however, that Wikipedia photographers do not get paid, and they must free license their photos to permit anyone to reuse them anywhere for anything. —teb728 t c 20:01, 1 April 2012 (UTC)

Human rights in Japan

Hello Japanese government has, a very good reputation about supporting human rights, as lots of people know, but in some countries like 3rd world countries the Japanese embassy are fighting there employees in the court system after over 10 years of work, and refusing to pay them there due rights, which is destroying this good reputation. If any one interested about this subject , e mail me or post on my wall face book, and ill provide all evidence and details, that condemned’s such Embassies and how such Embassy are waste the Japanese money for lawyers to fight human rights , as I am facing this matter right now myself in the court! And so are so many other helpless individuals. If you want to know more please feel free to e mail me and I will send you all the papers that you need to prove it Thank you Arasi

This page is for posting questions about using Wikipedia. Did you have a question? RudolfRed (talk) 19:34, 1 April 2012 (UTC)

If you're trying to promote a cause, Wikipedia is not a soapbox. If you're trying to suggest improvements to an article, go to that article's talk page, but be sure you have reliable sources which are also independent. These papers you claim to have might not qualify.— Vchimpanzee · talk · contributions · 20:15, 3 April 2012 (UTC)

Positioning blockquotes

I have added a blockquote box to my sandbox, but I can't figure out how to position it. You can see my sandbox here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Popcornduff/sandbox

I'd like it so the box comes under the "Recording and relation to Kid A" header, to the left of the text. Can anyone help me/edit it so it's right?Popcornduff (talk) 19:26, 1 April 2012 (UTC)

You can remove clear: right; PrimeHunter (talk) 19:32, 1 April 2012 (UTC)

Thanks! — Preceding unsigned comment added by Popcornduff (talk • contribs) 19:48, 1 April 2012 (UTC)

Gene Kelly

If I google famous atheists, it lists Gene Kelly the actor and director If I google Gene Kelly's biography, it says in the personal life section that Gene Kelly was an agnostic. which is it? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.22.69.94 (talk) 19:45, 1 April 2012 (UTC)

Have you tried Wikipedia's Reference Desk? They specialize in knowledge questions and will try to answer just about 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. I hope this helps. RudolfRed (talk) 19:50, 1 April 2012 (UTC)

de:wikipedia image needed in en:wikipedia

Resolved

Can I link a de: image to en:?

• http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Datei:ThomsonMessbr%C3%BCckeRFT.jpg

I babelfished the copyright tag and it translates as 'free picture'. If that means public domain, I could just re-upload to commons, but I would like a German reader to confirm. I would put mention of the de: image in the commons file attribution.--Canoe1967 (talk) 20:22, 1 April 2012 (UTC)

I think I did it correct:File:Wheatstone bridge.png--Canoe1967 (talk) 00:39, 2 April 2012 (UTC)

Why can't I print a pdf rendering of the Luisitania Page?

I rendered a pdf file of this page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luisitania I have no problem printing out other pdf pages

When I try to print the file on my computer (Windows 7, Adobe Reader 9)I get an Information Message: The document could not be printed.

When I click <OK> I get another Information Message: There were no pages selected to print.

Thanks for any insights.

Mac 21:26, 1 April 2012 (UTC)

I tried a number of things, but at least wanted to say that I seem to have the same problem, same error message. MyNameWasTaken (talk) 22:21, 1 April 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for taking the time to verify the problem. I wonder if there are some bad characters embedded in the article. Mac — Preceding unsigned comment added by 108.15.45.30 (talk) 23:42, 1 April 2012 (UTC)

Can preview tell me if there is an edit conflict?

Can the preview show if there is an edit conflict? Sometimes I take a little long to make my edits, looking at "show changes" and "preview" to make sure I didn't introduce a typo or other goof, and then when I click submit I get the edit conflict. Is there any option or setting so that I can be notified of a conflict when I preview my changes? RudolfRed (talk) 22:27, 1 April 2012 (UTC)

Not directly. "Show changes" will show a diff to the current version and not to the version when you started your edit, so this can give you an indication. If the same paragraph has been edited then you generally get an edit conflict. Otherwise it can be complicated to figure out. PrimeHunter (talk) 22:35, 1 April 2012 (UTC)

Thanks. RudolfRed (talk) 01:40, 2 April 2012 (UTC)