Wikipedia:Help desk/Archives/2015 October 14

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October 14

How long should it take for an edit to a page to be saved?

I have edited a page and the screen states "Saving Edit, please wait". I have tried this three times today and have left the screen sit for over 20 minutes with no page acceptance. I am receiving no feed back so have no idea if I have done something wrong in my edit. — Preceding unsigned comment added by JHFriedman (talk • contribs) 00:09, 14 October 2015 (UTC)

@JHFriedman: i use a lot of terrible connections and have never gotten "Saving Edit, please wait" - it will either save my edit within 5-10 seconds or dump me from the page . How long did it take to save the message you posted here? Are you using the new default "What you see is what you get " editing interface or have you changed to one of the older interfaces? Are you editing from a mobile device? What article were you attempting to edit? Were you including an e-mail or web address/URL?-- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 00:19, 14 October 2015 (UTC)

I used the default web page editor (perhaps that is the WYSIWYG editor) from my desktop computer on a high speed cable internet connection. I waited well over 10 minutes with the message "Saving Edit, please wait" on screen - I never got dumped nor received any error message. I will try it again now to see it today makes a difference and reply here if it succeeds. — Preceding unsigned comment added by JHFriedman (talk • contribs) 18:36, 14 October 2015‎ (UTC)JHFriedman (talk) 18:55, 14 October 2015 (UTC)

An edit via Firefox today failed, however editing the entry via Chrome browser worked immediately. Chrome is the way to go in future it seems. — Preceding unsigned comment added by JHFriedman (talk • contribs) 18:53, 14 October 2015 (UTC) JHFriedman (talk) 18:55, 14 October 2015 (UTC)

request edit

Re: Barry McGuire He also starred for a year in the Broadway musical Hair in 1968. Barry also appeared in an episode of "Matt Dillon". *I cannot find that there was ever a tv show named "Matt Dillon". The actual show name was probably "Gunsmoke". — Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.23.242.110 (talk) 03:48, 14 October 2015 (UTC)

• That page is not protected so you should be able to edit the page yourself. If you find an error on a Wikipedia article please fix it. However, please note that changes that may cause controversy should be backed up with reliable sources. --Stabila711 (talk) 03:53, 14 October 2015 (UTC)

I seem to recall hearing that Gunsmoke was called Matt Dillon in reruns. However, that's not the reliable source we're looking for.— Vchimpanzee • talk • contributions • 20:09, 16 October 2015 (UTC)

Statistics

Please advise how to get statistics of an aditor's input. — Сергей Олегович (talk) 09:56, 14 October 2015 (UTC)

A tool at Wikimedia tool lab gives you ample statistics. For instance, yours. Finnusertop (talk | guestbook | contribs) 10:01, 14 October 2015 (UTC)

Go to Special:Contributions/Сергей Олегович or Special:Contributions/CiaPan etc., scroll to the bottom of the page and explore the links 'User rights', 'Edit counts', 'Global contributions'.... --CiaPan (talk) 10:21, 14 October 2015 (UTC)

Thanks. Will try it. — Сергей Олегович (talk) 17:37, 14 October 2015 (UTC)

Thanks again, it has worked fine. If possible will ask a further question:

Q: Is there any tool for analysing all input in the Wikipedia as a whole? My goal is finding the median input by Namespaces per user. Each particular user page in X!'s has break down of input by Namespaces. Again, is it possible to calculate the median %% of input by Namespaces in a lang project of Wiki and/or in total? — Сергей Олегович (talk) 19:44, 14 October 2015 (UTC)

@Сергей Олегович: There isn't a tool to my knowledge. However, you can perform a database download and work through the data on something like Excel. Please be advised, that depending on the number of days you want to process it could amount to terabytes of data. So while it is probably possible (I have never done a database download myself) it requires an enormous amount of space and processing power to get all that information. --Stabila711 (talk) 19:51, 14 October 2015 (UTC)

Paul Bern articlw

Recently I submitted corrections to your page on Paul Bern and his family. There are suppositions here that are not correct and other errors. I never heard back about the changes which I know to be correct. He is my relative. Please let me know why the changes weren't made and I wasn't contacted. Thanks. Laura — Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.67.23.95 (talk) 11:17, 14 October 2015‎ (UTC)

If you mean the edits made by Raleighroo, they were reverted as unsourced speculation. You'll see the reason in the article history. What you know to be correct is not relevant for Wikipedia; what matters is what can be verified by references to published reliable sources independent of the subject. - David Biddulph (talk) 11:30, 14 October 2015 (UTC)

References

Newcastle Cathedral

I work for St Nicholas Cathedral in Newcastle upon Tyne. There are two Cathedrals in the city, so they are referred to by name rather than one being Newcastle Cathedral. Therefore the name of this article needs to change to St Nicholas Cathedral. It is causing clashes with our facebook page too, meaning there are two listings for the same place on facebook. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.27.121.247 (talk) 11:28, 14 October 2015 (UTC)

1) If you would like to see Newcastle Cathedral moved to a different name, the place to discuss it is on the talk page of the article in question, which is located at Talk:Newcastle Cathedral. 2) Wikipedia has no control over what Facebook does with our content. If there's an issue at Facebook, it can only be fixed by Facebook, so you need to contact Facebook and not Wikipedia with your concern. --Jayron32 13:00, 14 October 2015 (UTC)

The editor put a request edit template on the talk page but they mixed up the syntax. I've corrected it. Full disclosure: I don't know anything about Newcastle. Dismas|^(talk) 13:46, 14 October 2015 (UTC)

St. Nicholas' Cathedral already exists as a disambiguation page, to all the cathedrals dedicated to St. Nicholas see Talk:Newcastle Cathedral. - Arjayay (talk) 14:19, 14 October 2015 (UTC)

Frequent updates

A user is updating 2015 Men's European Volleyball Championship matches set by set. I think I have read before that this is not ok here on Wikipedia, but I do not remeber the policy. Maybe I am just wrong, am I wrong? It is ok to edit set by set results? Thanks Osplace 16:23, 14 October 2015 (UTC)

I'm afraid it is not clear cut. Template talk:Match in progress states at the top:-

There is currently no overall general consensus on whether to forbid the practice of updating scores in real time, especially when many of these edits may come from new or unregistered users. Please follow the policies and guidelines of assume good faith, please do not bite the newcomers, and edit warring before reverting such edits. Although some WikiProjects like WikiProject Football and WikiProject Snooker may forbid the practice, a proposal to add the rule to the general "What Wikipedia is not" policy page failed with no consensus.

So, unless there is a specific policy about Volleyball, all you can do is ask nicely - Arjayay (talk) 17:01, 14 October 2015 (UTC)

Having hunted around Wikipedia:WikiProject Volleyball the Wikipedia:WikiProject Volleyball/Guidelines are fairly short and do not cover this, and I can't find any other comments about volleyball scores.
You could consider adding {{current sport|sport=volleyball|event=volleyball tournament}}, to the article, which produces this template but that may just incite even more frequent updates. - Arjayay (talk) 17:15, 14 October 2015 (UTC)

WP:EPHEMERAL and WP:NOTNEWS and just basic WP:V requiring a reliably published source for content claims, not the primary source of the games themselves. there is WP:NODEADLINE for us to have "the most up to the minute" information. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 18:29, 14 October 2015 (UTC)

Thank you very much. Maybe we should start a discussion for a proppose guideline for the WikiProject Volleyball, but must of the discussions end up nowhere because active user are not interested in participate. For now I will let the user keep updating without any notices or warnings. Osplace 01:19, 16 October 2015 (UTC)

I want to create a company Wikipedia page. Please help

I want to create a company Wikipedia page. Please help — Preceding unsigned comment added by Benzerpharmacy (talk • contribs) 16:27, 14 October 2015 (UTC)

Please read WP:COI. Basically, you shouldn't. If a company merits a Wikipedia, eventually someone who is not payed by the company will come along and create a Wikipedia article about it. It appears you are trying to create an article about a company you are employed by or payed by or have an interest in in some way. Because you have a conflict of interest, you shouldn't be doing so. --Jayron32 16:30, 14 October 2015 (UTC)

Please read the conflict of interest policy and what Wikipedia is not. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, not a directory or an advertising vehicle. If your company is notable in the sense of having been described by multiple independent reliable sources, a neutral editor is likely to create an article. However, you may create a draft article in draft space via the Articles for Creation process and submit it for review. If, as is likely, it is promotional, or reads like an advertisement, it will be declined, and it is possible that, if the company is notable, neutral editors may be able to create a neutral article. Robert McClenon (talk) 16:32, 14 October 2015 (UTC)

can someone help to add feature comparisons in list of disk editors?

OP unable to type muchMahfuzur rahman shourov (talk) 17:00, 14 October 2015 (UTC)

Leo giamani wilkipedia page

Good afternoon.

A strange business

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

---

I've just discovered I cannot view the content of Jeremy Corbyn or its corresponding talk page. If I click on "edit this page" then that is viewable, but not the page itself. All that appears there is its pending changes log. No other article seems to be affected by this. Can anyone explain this mystery? This is Paul (talk) 18:09, 14 October 2015 (UTC)

I don't have a problem with the article page or talk page. There may be some problem with your browser. If the problem persists, you might want to ask for help at Village pump technical and tell what web browser, version of the browser, and operating system you are using. Robert McClenon (talk) 18:25, 14 October 2015 (UTC)

Must confess I did wonder if it was a malware issue (having just watched something about malware on the news), but it looks like it was part of the update bug that's mentioned below. Working fine again now. Cheers, This is Paul (talk) 18:32, 14 October 2015 (UTC)

Non-blanked page appearing blanked

2014–15 Rangers F.C. season appears blank when I try to look at it, but looking through the history, I can't tell why. If I go to edit the page, I can see what's supposed to be there in an edit preview. I've tried refreshing and purging. Stranger still, this is only true for me on Chrome. I'm able to see the page normally on Firefox or Internet Explorer. Some sort of coding disagreeing with Chrome? Other pages are displaying normally. --BDD (talk) 18:09, 14 October 2015 (UTC)

I'm glad not to be the only person experiencing this odd phenomenon. Have you tried clicking 'edit'? I just did and you can get the editable text. This is Paul (talk) 18:14, 14 October 2015 (UTC)

Fixed. There was an error in the weekly update that caused a whole bunch of problems. The update has been reverted and the server is back online but some pages may have been cached with problems. A purge fixed the issue. --Stabila711 (talk) 18:16, 14 October 2015 (UTC)

I just saw this on a Talk page. Given that I was the last editor to edit that page (several weeks ago) I thought perhaps I'd inserted something erroneous at the time. Cutting and pasting my text back in fixed the issue; didn't occur to me to try a purge. DonIago (talk) 18:18, 14 October 2015 (UTC)

Note to help desk volunteers and others regarding "blank" pages

There was a problem with the weekly software update that caused the server to lock. Pages that were loaded during this time appeared blank. Pages cached during this time will continue to appear blank unless they are purged or updated. This is just to let everyone know that questions regarding this issue may be happening in the future.

See: Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)/Archive 141#Why do all pages look blank? for details. --Stabila711 (talk) 18:20, 14 October 2015 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

adding a photo to my personal Wiki entry page

I would like to know how to upload my photo to go with my bio entry; I am the only Marge Simon you have. Marge Simon

Thank you! — Preceding unsigned comment added by Marge Simon (talk • contribs) 18:26, 14 October 2015 (UTC)

The photograph you wish to up load may have not had you finger on the shutter when it was taken. In other-words someone else may own the copyright. All you need to do is contact that photographer and ask s/he to email an OTRS to us. All explained here. Commons:OTRS. We can do the rest for you.--Aspro (talk) 18:53, 14 October 2015 (UTC)

@Marge Simon: please note that is not "your personal wiki page" - that is: a Wikipedia encyclopedia article about Marge Simon. Even if you are the subject of that article, you have no ownership or control over what appears on that page. You DO have a lot of control over what goes on your user page User:Marge Simon , as long as it is within the general parameters outlined at what is allowed and what is not allowed. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 23:24, 14 October 2015 (UTC)

yesterday's notice/blurb

hi can anybody repost for me yesterday's header blurb about access to various reference sources (jstor, etc) via Wikipedia library or some such? got distracted before I could start clicking. thanks. Gzuckier (talk) 19:29, 14 October 2015 (UTC)

• @Gzuckier: Is this what you are looking for? MediaWiki talk:Sitenotice#Protected edit request on 2 October 2015 --Stabila711 (talk) 19:32, 14 October 2015 (UTC)
  • yes thanks. Gzuckier (talk) 19:39, 14 October 2015 (UTC)

Adamn Levine and Adam DeVine articles are exactly the same

So this article Adam Levine about Adam Levine the singer from Maroon 5, is correct. However this artivle Adam DeVine about Adam DeVine is exactly the same as the one about Adam Levine when it should be about the comedian Adam DeVine. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.167.163.224 (talk) 19:31, 14 October 2015 (UTC)

• It looks like it was already fixed. See [1] --Stabila711 (talk) 19:34, 14 October 2015 (UTC)

Changes don't show up

I made some changes (added some photos) to Fort Morris about 50 minutes ago, but they don't show up. I've flushed my cache and tried a different browser, but they don't show up. What is the problem? Bubba73 ^{You talkin' to me?} 20:53, 14 October 2015 (UTC)

@Bubba73: I fixed your gallery markup in this edit. That what you were looking for? Dismas|^(talk) 20:55, 14 October 2015 (UTC)

Thanks, that is it. I didn't notice that one little typo. Bubba73 ^{You talkin' to me?} 20:56, 14 October 2015 (UTC)

Resolved

Inflammatory or biased information on a WIKI page

How can you get inflammatory or bias information permanently removed from a WIKI page? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Paige Marie Turner (talk • contribs) 21:54, 14 October 2015 (UTC)

• @Paige Marie Turner: That would really depend on the exact type of information you are talking about. Looking at your edit history I can assume you are talking about Little River Band in which you have already been informed on your talk page that the removal of properly sourced information without a reason and without talking about it on the article's talk page will probably be reverted. If this is not what you are talking about please specify. Thank you. --Stabila711 (talk) 21:59, 14 October 2015 (UTC)

Read the dispute resolution policy, which says that the first place to discuss is on the article talk page, Talk: Little River Band. You haven't tried discussing on the article talk page. Also read the edit-warring policy, because some of your previous efforts to remove information have been edit-warring. Robert McClenon (talk) 22:06, 14 October 2015 (UTC)

What did I do wrong?

Can someone please tell me what I did wrong here to mess up the table? Thanks, This is Paul (talk) 22:09, 14 October 2015 (UTC)

Just an update, this is now fixed thanks to Fort esc. Apparently I made a spelling mistake which I didn't spot because two of the letters look similar. This is Paul (talk) 22:54, 14 October 2015 (UTC)

Want to make it so that that never happens again? Anonymous Pro is a free font designed so that characters that could be mistaken for one another (O, 0, I, l, 1, etc.) have distinct shapes to make them easier to tell apart. [2][3][4][5][6] --Guy Macon (talk) 07:38, 15 October 2015 (UTC)

Paul swapped s and a, writing rowapsn instead of rowspan. I don't know his current font but if somebody can make this mistake without seeing it in a brief diff where they are looking for an error then "never happens again" sounds strong. PrimeHunter (talk) 10:30, 15 October 2015 (UTC)

Too many late nights, I think. This is Paul (talk) 18:35, 15 October 2015 (UTC)

Pelican Island (Texas) vandilism

This page has false information on it, and has characteristic sophomoric humor (unfunny and unflattering) that needs to be removed.

Thanks and Gig 'em.

p.s. here is the url: Pelican Island (Texas) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 100.43.10.72 (talk) 23:32, 14 October 2015 (UTC)

Sorry about that. It was added two days ago, I've just removed it. In the future you can just edit the article and remove it yourself. If the vandalism had been added recently, it can be "reverted", instructions for doing so are at Help:Reverting. Or you can just use the "edit" tab at the top of the article, and delete the offending text. I hope you decide to edit Wikipedia yourself in the future, it's easy to do and we can always use the help around here. --Jayron32 23:43, 14 October 2015 (UTC)