Wikipedia:Help desk/Archives/2014 January 11

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January 11

Formatting is broken on all pages?

Havn't been around in a while, but went to read a article, and the formatting's broken; the text of each article is somehow constrained, leaving a column of approximately two inches of whitespace on the right.

I've flushed my cache and such, still happening. As far as I can tell this is happening on every single page on Wikipedia, except generated pages such as my watchlist.

Has something been changed recently? I'm using Chrome, WindowsXP, everything's updated etc. — The Potato Hose 01:34, 11 January 2014 (UTC)

You are most likely using Typography refresh. You can disable it by clicking on the "Beta features" section of your preferences. ~HueSatLum 02:14, 11 January 2014 (UTC)

If you like the other aspects of the "Typography refresh" you can add something to your CSS page to disable the maximum width - see mw:Talk:Typography refresh#Max width / Narrow pages opt out option or my common.css page. -- John of Reading (talk) 08:51, 11 January 2014 (UTC)

Featured Article Error

Hi. New to this so bear with me. The main article for today (1/10/2013) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hon%C3%B3rio_Hermeto_Carneiro_Le%C3%A3o,_Marquis_of_Paran%C3%A1 has a pretty obvious error in it. The man's death date is listed as September 3, 2006 which would make leave him at the ripe old age of 205 (born 1801). Seeing as he was an early 19th century Portuguese monarch the date is absurd. Didn't know where else to tell someone with the ability to correct the mistake.

Sincerely

-Brian — Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.124.221.143 (talk) 02:07, 11 January 2014 (UTC)

Hi Brian. That was vandalism and was quickly reverted. If you still see it, try clearing your cache. ~HueSatLum 02:11, 11 January 2014 (UTC)

Autobiography as only source

Resolved

 – ~E:71.20.250.51 (talk) 15:52, 11 January 2014 (UTC)

I am assuming that using autobiographies as the only sources should not count as verifying notability in a "Wikipedia-sense". The article, James Gordon Partridge Bisset, indicates by its content the "notability" of the topic; however, the only sources are his autobiographies. To complicate things, there are no inline references, and there are no links to online sources of the (3) autobiographies for verification. The previous 'Notability tag' has just been removed with this edit: [diff] (...subject is notable) — Frankly, it seems to be notable to me; but, I was thinking about returning the tag and posting a comment in the article's talk page. However, I have yet to find chapter-and-verse WP policy; the closest I could find is WP:ABOUTSELF, which isn't really applicable. —Comments or suggestions?   ~Thanks, ~E:71.20.250.51 (talk) 02:09, 11 January 2014 (UTC)

You're correct in that articles require sources which are independent of the subject and thus an autobiography wouldn't count. I would suggest you definitely should reinstate the tag, as taking another editors word for it that the subejct is notable isn't good enough. Samwalton9 (talk) 10:32, 11 January 2014 (UTC)

@TheRedPenOfDoom: Thank-you for your edits.   {{primary}} is the template that I was looking for (assuming that I knew what I was doing). ~E

acounts

Redeemed 9,500,10% debentures of ₹100 each by converting the same into equity shares of ₹100 each. The equity shares were issued at a discount of 5%. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 180.178.25.61 (talk) 06:15, 11 January 2014 (UTC)

Sorry, we're just an encyclopedia!

Hello. Based on your question, there's a good chance that you found one of our 6,819,094 encyclopedia articles, and thought that we were directly affiliated in some way with the subject of that article. In any case, we unfortunately can't help you with practical problems that aren't related to this website. Please note that you are at Wikipedia, the free online encyclopedia that anyone can edit, and this website does not provide any services or support for anything outside this website. ~Good luck! 71.20.250.51 (talk) 06:56, 11 January 2014 (UTC)

DB Primary

hellow Wikipedia my name is ben I am trying to grt on db primary but it will not let me — Preceding unsigned comment added by 94.1.176.30 (talk) 09:16, 11 January 2014 (UTC)

Hi Ben. I'm afraid Wikipedia isn't connected with DB Primary, so we can't fix your problem. This help desk can help people to use Wikipedia, but if your login for DB Primary isn't working, you need to talk to someone at your school. Good luck. -Karenjc (talk) 10:19, 11 January 2014 (UTC)

Template

I recently updated the "List of college bowl games" page. On the "Map of Bowl Games" section, the new map appears but not the names of the new bowl games. I click on the map(Bowl games.jpg), go to the "File usage" section and click on the "Template:Bowl games map" and my changes are there. Why are my changes not posted to the new map?

Also, on the "File:Bowl games.jpg" page, within the "File usage" section, I uploaded another file called "File:Bowl games 2014.jpg" which I don't need. Can I or someone delete it?

Your help is much appreciated...

Roberto221 Roberto221 (talk) 10:13, 11 January 2014 (UTC)

When templates are updated the pages that use them can take a little while to update. You can make them update manually by purging the page, the easiest way to do this is to add "?action=purge" to the end of the page URL. This forces the page to update itself from the latest version of any templates etc on the article. As you can see the template has already updated itself on List of college bowl games since you posted this question :)

The File:Bowl games 2014.jpg image is actually hosted on Wikimedia Commons here, and thus will need to be requested for deletion there according to their deletion policy. Samwalton9 (talk) 10:29, 11 January 2014 (UTC)

Use of Wikipedia to study Persian

Dear Sir,

I want to study Persian thoroughly. Can you tell me how to use Wiki for the same.

I want resources for the same. I dont want to Edit anything.

Abdul Rasheed S

86.98.32.73 (talk) 13:44, 11 January 2014 (UTC)

This is the English language encyclopedia, Wikipedia. As such, it is unlikely to be much help for studying any language other than English. The Reference DeskWP:RD may be able to point you in a direction for resources for learning languages. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 14:36, 11 January 2014 (UTC)

(e/c) Hey Abdul. As an encyclopedia, Wikipedia (not wiki) only contains articles about topics. It does not have instructional classes. We do have many articles you can read in the area. I think your question is about learning Farsi but it's not completely clear, and could be about the country, its history, its people and so on. If this is about the language, you might start with exploring the various articles listed in {{Persian language}}. You might also head over to our article on Iran and see the many other articles linked at the bottom where you see "Articles related to Iran" (click "[show]" to expand that collapsed area). On a sister project, Wikibooks, we also have a course on learning Farsi. See Wikibooks:Persian. All this is predicated on you wanted to read/study these materials in English. Note that though they are generally less developed, we have Wikipedias in many other languages. Best regards--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 14:43, 11 January 2014 (UTC)

Boston Bar, Yale, BC, Canada

I have two very old photos of the Fraser Canyon and river plus one of either Yale or a town just above Boston Bar. They were taken sometime in the late 1890's or so as they show a wagon train downtown being pulled by steers, not mules or oxen. Would these be important to the article about the early history and how do I go about that? Tom Osvold — Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.111.138.95 (talk) 15:40, 11 January 2014 (UTC)

Granting a license

I've uploaded an image. I didn't know exactly how to grant the license, but am trying to do so. The Wizard wasn't clear, nor are your Image help pages designed for clarity. Your easiest licenses should be grantable as part of the path of uploading, with clear responses stating "You're done! The license is uploaded. We'll let you know if there are any problems." No, instead your licensing system has too many choices for the novice, not enough clear summarization, and no critical path funneling. Without this, the image upload process is making Wikipedia unfriendly, and reducing your potential volunteerism.

At upload, I was advised I should provide the license, and promised to do so. Wikipedia left me an automatic response, here, stating:

An email containing details of the permission for this file has been sent in accordance with WP:OTRS.

To who? To me? I haven't seen an email. To OTRS? What else do I have to do to ensure that this image isn't going to be deleted by an overzealous copyright enforcer?

I have a dozen other images, which I intend to release in low-res without restriction. But having run afoul of a copyright zealot here before, I don't want to go through the effort only to have it stomped on. Jax MN (talk) 16:20, 11 January 2014 (UTC)

The image is at File:Beta Deuteron chapter, University of Minnesota, Phi Sigma Kappa, 1933.jpg. Wikipedia:Media copyright questions describes how to add a copyright tag to an existing image and provides information on asking additional copyright questions. -- Jreferee (talk) 19:12, 11 January 2014 (UTC)

References within footnotes

I am currently drafting an article on Pieter Nieuwkoop in my userspace, and I am somewhat stuck on a particular referencing problem. Specifically I need to reference an explanatory footnote, but don't wish to separate the notes and references into two sections (that seems a bit silly as I am likely only going to have one explanatory note in the entire article). I have tried following the advice at WP:REFNEST but I think this is running into a problem where Cite.php tries to render the reference named in my "refn" template before rendering the template itself. It then thinks it has an unused list-defined reference and throws a tantrum. Is there any way to achieve what I want, or am I stuck having a "Notes" (or rather "Note"?) section containing a single note? Thanks. Equisetum (talk | contributions) 17:10, 11 January 2014 (UTC)

I've made an edit, which at least gets rid of the error message. But I don't know of any way to place the "nested" footnote after the "main" footnote. -- John of Reading (talk) 17:20, 11 January 2014 (UTC)

(edit conflict)

Looks like you have the {{refn}} use inverted. What you should have is:

{{refn|An embryonic cell layer which is destined to give rise to both [[endoderm]]al and [[mesoderm]]al tissues.<ref name=endomesoderm_def />}}

But, that will put the inner reference first in the reference list. Nothing you can do about that without separate reference lists. And with list-defined references, you can use only one nested reference. --  Gadget850 ^talk 17:23, 11 January 2014 (UTC)

Aha, thanks to you both. I think I shall just find another place to put an explanatory note so that one doesn't look so lonely. Equisetum (talk | contributions) 17:34, 11 January 2014 (UTC)

It isn't clear why you need a reference within an explanatory note. In most cases you could have two notes, one of which is explanatory and the other of which is a citation, and just put them in succession after the body text that is to be supported. Jc3s5h (talk) 17:39, 11 January 2014 (UTC)

In this particular case the only thing the citation supports is the content of the explanatory note; it doesn't directly support any body text. Equisetum (talk | contributions) 20:51, 11 January 2014 (UTC)

Scandalous

WP:DENY
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
Are guy you aware of inncuracys in the article regearding cashew nuts?! too many lies. --NutsAboutNuts (talk) 17:14, 11 January 2014 (UTC) What exactly is wrong with it? If you find issues please report them on the article's talk page. Samwalton9 (talk) 17:22, 11 January 2014 (UTC) While native to northeast Brazil, the Portuguese took the cashew plant to Goa, India, - LIES, They took the plant to Sri Lanka first. The shell of the cashew nut is toxic, which is why the shell is removed before it is sold to consumers BULLSHIT, only some varieties of the shell are toxic African countries used to be the major producers before 1980s NOT TRUE , they still are major producers. These are reasons why the article is rubbish. Fix it or let me fix it. --NutsAboutNuts (talk) 17:26, 11 January 2014 (UTC) Ok. You can go ahead and edit almost any article on the site, you know? As long as your information is backed up by a reliable source there's unlikely to be an issue with you making changes to the page. Samwalton9 (talk) 17:33, 11 January 2014 (UTC) I don't give a dam. I will edit whatever the hell I want and there is nothing you can do about it. --NutsAboutNuts (talk) 17:45, 11 January 2014 (UTC) Dream on sunshine... Anyone can revert your edits if they deem them to be incorrect. So we'll take a look at what you do to the article and judge your edits according to the generally agreed standards. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 18:11, 11 January 2014 (UTC) The community has a lot of collective experience dealing with disruptive editing. I left a welcome on your talk page— please review the relevant material. And remember that we are all here to make the articles more comprehensive and accurate. --  Gadget850 talk 18:21, 11 January 2014 (UTC) Here is some sourced information that can be summarized into the article (if not already there): "Since taken to Goa by the Portuguese, cashews have been much used in the cooking of Southern India." April 29, 1995 The Age[1] "Cashew was originally introduced to Sri Lanka from Brazil by the Portuguese in the 16th Century."[2] "because the cashew's hard shell is toxic. Regulations require that all cashews be shelled."[3] "Vietnamese production was estimated at three lakh tonne (lt) against India's 5.73 lt in 2006. The major producers in Africa are Nigeria (2.16 lt), Tanzania (1lt), Ivory Coast (90,000 tonne), Guinea Bissau (81,000 tonne), Mozambique (58,000 tonne), Benin (40,000 tonne) and Kenya (10,000 tonne"[4] -- Jreferee (talk) 18:54, 11 January 2014 (UTC) This appears to be User:Technoquat again - Arjayay (talk) 18:57, 11 January 2014 (UTC)

Article, Music of Cuba

In the article they have given credit to a lot of musicians, but not credit to, Gerry Zaragemca, which also did and article about Jazz, mentioning several Cuban jazz players, 'Zaragemca brief on Jazz Music'. The article is featured on several websides, including. Allaboutjazz.com. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 207.126.210.31 (talk) 20:03, 11 January 2014 (UTC)

we base our content on reliably published sources with a reputation for accuracy, fact checking and editorial oversight. Content is also selected on how well it seems to represent the mainstream academic views about the subject. If you can find sources in a place like books.google.com or mainstream newspapers or websites for reputable music magazines, then you can enter the content yourself and cite the sources. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 00:49, 12 January 2014 (UTC)

Gerry Zaragemca is written about in Cuba native teaches art of 'nonverbal' communication. However, that article would be a source for Wikipedia articles such as Gerry Zaragemca or International Club of Percussionists (but neither topic seems to meet WP:GNG). Zaragemca's brief on Jazz Music probably could not be listed as an external link in either Music of Cuba or Jazz due to the requirements of Wikipedia:External links. As for using Zaragemca's brief on Jazz Music as a source of information in the Music of Cuba article, you may want to post at User talk:Macdonald-ross, who is a Wikipedia contributor that wrote much of Music of Cuba.[5] -- Jreferee (talk) 13:04, 12 January 2014 (UTC)

Writing An Article Question

Hello,

I am an NYC Comedian and although I know I can't create a page for myself, I have someone that is interested in doing so. How can they do this?

Thanks,

Mike Joseph — Preceding unsigned comment added by 50.12.52.180 (talk) 20:17, 11 January 2014 (UTC)

They probably still shouldn't due to their conflict of interest. They may find it hard to write about their friend/colleague in a neutral and encyclopedic way. Either way, if they do start the article, they should go through the Articles for Creation process where they can be helped along the way. And they would also need to create an account. In order for the article to be kept, they would have to establish that you are notable enough for a biography by referencing sources that are independent of you such as magazine articles about you, interviews with you, etc. Dismas|^(talk) 22:03, 11 January 2014 (UTC)

You can find someone that is interested in creating the Mike Joseph article by posting at Wikipedia:Requested articles. If you want to try drafting the article yourself and you have some Wikipedia reliable source references, you can create a draft article at Wikipedia:Articles for creation. Your name, Mike Joseph, is way too common for editors to find independent, reliable source information about your life. If you want a Wikipedia article on Mike Joseph, you will have to provide the sources. If you have URLs to press coverage of you that is independent of Mike Joseph where that coverage includes biographical information about your life (e.g., early life and career information), I would be happy to write the biography article. Feel free to post on my talk page at User talk:Jreferee. -- Jreferee (talk) 12:31, 12 January 2014 (UTC)