Wikipedia:Help desk/Archives/2020 June 1

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June 1

How to set hydlide password system

Use megaman X password system — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2600:1017:B824:538:7137:8BCD:6FE9:65DA (talk) 00:12, 1 June 2020 (UTC)

Is this about Wikipedia?

This page is for questions about using Wikipedia. Please consider asking this question at the Computing reference desk. They specialize in answering computer 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 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. PrimeHunter (talk) 08:08, 1 June 2020 (UTC)

How to use citation needed on visual editor?

Hello there people! I've been using Wikipedia for a while, and I was just wondering how to put "citation needed" with the visual editor. Can you guys explain how to do that? Thank you! Ryan Huang-01 (talk) 00:13, 1 June 2020 (UTC)

@Ryan Huang-01: I've never used the visual editor, but look at this page: Wikipedia:VisualEditor/User_guide#Editing_templates. It shows how to insert a template while editing, and the example they provide is the Citation Needed template. RudolfRed (talk) 02:20, 1 June 2020 (UTC)

Ryan Huang-01, what I do:

1. Set caret to where I want to put the tag
2. Type {{
3. Type in citation needed and select from dropdown menu
4. Click the top-right button to add it —Tenryuu 🐲 ( 💬 • 📝 ) 05:23, 1 June 2020 (UTC)

Help:Cite errors/Cite error ref no input

@Zorzon: The error at Jaynie_Anderson has been fixed by another editor. Next time, please link to the article that is giving the error and sign your name with ~~~~. RudolfRed (talk) 00:44, 1 June 2020 (UTC)

Redirects appearing in default search bar

Hello,

I have a quick question regarding redirect pages. I've made many of them myself but some are not appearing in the default search. For example "1992 US presidential election in Texas" appears but the 1996 one doesn't. What makes redirect pages appear in the default search bar?

--Skim127 12:55 1 June 2020 (UTC)

@Skim127: 1996 US presidential election in Texas was created 30 April 2020. Many pages created since around that date are not appearing in the autocomplete feature of the search box unless you type the entire title. It's a bug and also affects articles, e.g. 2006 LNBP season. See Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)/Archive 181#Possible issues with search function and phab:T253114. PrimeHunter (talk) 08:05, 1 June 2020 (UTC)

Text highlighting querystring feature

Hi, I noticed that when accessing wikipedia articles from google search, there would be text temporarily highlighted in yellow. This occured using the #:~:text= querystring in the url.

Example:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tritiated_water#:~:text=Tritiated%20water%20is%20a%20radioactive,)%20or%20super%2Dheavy%20water.&text=It%20is%20also%20used%20as,studies%20in%20life%2Dscience%20research.

I was wondering if there was any documentation about this feature or how to use it?

Thanks, 電放三葉 (RadioTrefoil) 01:46, 1 June 2020 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Radiotrefoil (talk • contribs)

@Radiotrefoil: This is a feature of Google Chrome and not related to Wikipedia. I also get highlighting with http://primerecords.dk/#:~:text=tables at my own site which is just simple html and does nothing to achieve it. I don't know whether other browsers support it or have similar features. Your link doesn't highlight in Firefox, Internet Explorer or Microsoft Edge. I don't get such url's when I use Google search with Google Chrome so maybe it's a setting. You can ask for more at Wikipedia:Reference desk/Computing. PrimeHunter (talk) 07:54, 1 June 2020 (UTC)

@Radiotrefoil: Documented on Wikipedia with links to the original Chrome/Chromium documentation. See: Fragment_identifier#Examples or if you are using Chrome see it highlighted at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fragment_identifier#Examples:~:text=Chrome%20versions,night'). Lent (talk) 08:29, 4 June 2020 (UTC)

question re twinkle welcome templates

is there a numerical limit on how many custom templates that I can add to Twinkle, for welcoming new users? I tried to add at least ten templates, but it seems to limit me to seven custom templates total. please ping me when you reply. thanks. --Sm8900 (talk) 02:28, 1 June 2020 (UTC)

Hi, Sm8900. There might be somebody here who can answer that, but I would have thought that WT:Twinkle was a better place to ask. --ColinFine (talk) 09:14, 1 June 2020 (UTC)

Edits were undone

I just spent quite a bit of time fixing a very flawed article in terms of both structure and biased information and am very confused as to why it was all undone. Thanks. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Yeoutie (talk • contribs) 04:07, 1 June 2020 (UTC)

@Yeoutie: your edits were reverted by another editor, probably because you made very large changes to History of the United States Democratic Party without first discussing them. This is one way we reach consensus, which we call bold-revert-discuss (WP:BRD). Your next step is to discuss your changes on the article's talk page. To see who reverted your edits, look at the page history. Ping the reverting editor, @Materialscientist:, as part of your discussion. Materialscientist is a very experienced editor who will probably interact with you in a positive way to reach consensus, so assume good faith (WP:AGF). -Arch dude (talk) 04:23, 1 June 2020 (UTC)

Non notable songs that fails WP:NSINGLE

Category:Indian songs has lots of non notable Indian songs, most of they clearly fails Fails WP:NSINGLE. What should I do to get most of them mass deleted ? I started some PRODs but is there any more convenient approach? Thanks // Eatcha (talk) 05:25, 1 June 2020 (UTC)

I don't know, but throw Bloodmoney on the pyre if you learn how to start it, good luck! InedibleHulk (talk) 05:32, 1 June 2020 (UTC)

Hello, Eatcha. If the songs exist and the articles are not copyright violations, then they are not eligible for speedy deletion. Your only choices are PRODs or the Articles for Deletion process. Please read Wikipedia:Deletion policy for more details. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 05:37, 1 June 2020 (UTC)

If you nominate them for deletion, I strongly recommend you avoid a mass nomination. That would almost certainly get shot down. Clarityfiend (talk) 08:32, 1 June 2020 (UTC)

Resolved

 – Thanks everyone // Eatcha (talk) 11:07, 1 June 2020 (UTC)

Become admin

I want to become admin how can i become that — Preceding unsigned comment added by Pratham Rawat (talk • contribs) 08:30, 1 June 2020 (UTC)

Pratham Rawat You spend a significant amount of time(months if not years) developing a good edit history that contributes to the encyclopedia, shows that you understand Wikipedia guidelines, have good judgement, a good temperament, and have a need for the administrator tools. You would then be noticed by other editors who would then nominate you for a community discussion at Requests for Adminship to see if the community feels that you merit being given the tools. Keep in mind that you can perform probably 95% of tasks on Wikipedia without being an administrator. Administrators are no better than any other editor, they simply have tools that would be irresponsible for the entire community to have. 331dot (talk) 08:34, 1 June 2020 (UTC)

@Pratham Rawat: One of the questions you would be asked is "Why do you want to be an administrator?". Can you answer that here please? —[AlanM1 (talk)]— 08:03, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

Publishing Challenges

Hello,

I am having trouble with an article I recently created title "Canopy Forum" about an online platform.

When I selected "Publish" it seemed to go through and become a published article. However, now if I search for "Canopy Forum," no article comes up. I'm confused as to whether or not my article has been properly published or if I need to do something else.

This is not the first article I've written on Wikipedia and last time there was a whole template and a review process and it was very clear that my article was still considered a "Draft." Now, I honestly have no idea if my Canopy Forum article has been properly published or not. How can I tell / can you help me out with this?

Thank you so much for taking the time to read and respond to my question. --TaraF99 (talk) 15:05, 1 June 2020 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by TaraF99 (talk • contribs) 15:04, 1 June 2020 (UTC)

Hello, TaraF99. Your article has been published, as Canopy Forum, and if you search for it inside Wikipedia you will find it; but new articles do not get indexed by external search engines until they have gone through new page patrol, or for 90 days if the NPP hasn't happened in that time. Last time you must have used articles for creation, but this time you just created it directly in main article space.

In my opinion, the article will not survive NPP, because it has no independent sources at all: without these, the article cannot establish that the subject is notable. I believe that a patroller will either delete it or draftify it, depending on whether they think that suitable sources exist. I suggest you find some independent sources to establish its notability. (I may mention that in my view it is impossible to write an acceptable article without first finding independent sources, because the bulk of any article must come from such sources: Wikipedia is basically not interested in anything that the subject, or people closely associated with the subject, say or wish to say about the subject). --ColinFine (talk) 15:14, 1 June 2020 (UTC)

One more point: I see you have disclosed your status as a paid editor on your user page: thank you. This means that using AfC is strongly preferred to creating the article directly; clearly, from the above, that was just a mistake on your part; but it means tha the article does not necessarily get the scrutiny it should get. In any case, you should also put the {{connected contributor (paid)}} template on the article's talk page Talk:Canopy Forum. --ColinFine (talk) 15:19, 1 June 2020 (UTC)

Wikipedia page about me

Hi I’m Bob ‘Bobke’ Roll, my marital status is DIVORCED, please correct that!! Thank you — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:645:C47F:DBB0:514B:CA63:4F8E:261A (talk) 18:06, 1 June 2020 (UTC)

Are you by any chance referring to a photo or text shown to the right of a Google search? Google's Knowledge Graph uses a wide variety of sources. There may be a text paragraph ending with "Wikipedia" to indicate that particular text was copied from Wikipedia. An image and other text before or after the Wikipedia excerpt may be from sources completely unrelated to Wikipedia. We have no control over how Google presents our information, but Google's Knowledge Graph has a "Feedback" link where anyone can mark a field as wrong. PrimeHunter (talk) 19:34, 1 June 2020 (UTC)

Is it this article? Bob_Roll? It doesn't mention marital status that I see. RudolfRed (talk) 19:50, 1 June 2020 (UTC)

Exact time of an edit

How do I view the time of an edit with accuracy to the second? Or even better the edit's Unix timestamp? The history page only shows accuracy to the minute. --78.8.159.10 (talk) 21:10, 1 June 2020 (UTC)

• Great question. I didn’t even realise it was an issue. A long time ago, I changed my preferences to use the ISO 8601 time format (which includes seconds); you can do this too if you create an account. Other than that, I don’t know how to show the times to the second. Also, I don’t know to what precision the times are stored. Brianjd (talk) 08:11, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

As he said, if you create an account, you can see the timestamps in a number of different formats, including second in the ISO8601 variant. Try, in the history page, clicking on the timestamp itself, which should be linked. That will show you the page as of that version, including a box at the top which may have the more accurate timestamp in it (e.g., the last edit to Unix timestamp links to this). If that doesn't work, click on the prev link to the left of the timestamp, which provides a diff from the previous version, and may provide a different format of timestamp as well. Other than that, create an account. It's fast, easy, more anonymous that revealing your IP as you do when posting without one, and gives you access to all sorts of gadgets and settings to improve your experience. —[AlanM1 (talk)]— 08:18, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

Resolved

 – Thank you both, this resolves my question. I will create an account.--78.8.159.10 (talk) 01:56, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

How to include a new profile?

Hi,

I would like to know how to include a high profile person's biography on Wikipedia?

Thank you,

Sanjay Srivastava — Preceding unsigned comment added by Srivastavask (talk • contribs) 21:13, 1 June 2020 (UTC)

Wikipedia is not a social media site with profiles. It is an encyclopedia which has articles on subjects which meet its criteria of notability. If you believe that the subject satisfies that requirement, and if you are familiar with editing Wikipedia, you will find advice at WP:Your first article. --David Biddulph (talk) 21:31, 1 June 2020 (UTC)

RM

Requesting an admin to complete this RM. The page protection is preventing me from performing the move. Thanks. Jerm (talk) 22:10, 1 June 2020 (UTC)

 Done bibliomaniac15 00:53, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

My fandom wiki

Can I link it I need members BorisKhlivski (talk) 22:57, 1 June 2020 (UTC)

No. See WP:NOTADVERTISING. --Guy Macon (talk) 23:08, 1 June 2020 (UTC)

Capitalization of "to this" between quoted sentences

I'm currently writing a section on the talk page of an article to which I made an edit that I'm unsure about. In it, I write the following, double-spaced lines original:

"... I changed the following sentence:

[Original sentence]

To this:

[Edited sentence]"

Could anyone please tell me if the first letter of "to this" should be capitalized?--Thylacine24 (talk) 23:56, 1 June 2020 (UTC)

@Thylacine24: Talk pages do not use formal writing, so go with whatever you prefer or are comfortable with. RudolfRed (talk) 01:55, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

@RudolfRed: Thanks for responding. I understand what you mean, but feel uncomfortable not using the correct capitalization. Could you please tell me what the formal rule is? Sorry to give you a hard time.--Thylacine24 (talk) 02:11, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

@Thylacine24: No capitalisation's fine. —Tenryuu 🐲 ( 💬 • 📝 ) 02:21, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

@Tenryuu: Thanks for telling me. (Edit: Added user reply template, sorry to not do so in the first place.)--Thylacine24 (talk) 02:29, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

• @Thylacine24: We all have trouble with the user reply templates. They are supposed to notify a user that you have replied (this is called “pinging”), but apparently this doesn’t work unless you add the template in the same edit as your signature. If you forget to add the template the first time, then you will need to make another edit to add the template and add a new signature. (There may be other reasons that the notification doesn’t work. It’s so unreliable that in some cases you’re not even allowed to use it.)

Normally, I would ping the other user on your behalf. But in this case I think it’s not important.

By the way, why did you use {{nbsp}} after the ellipsis? Brianjd (talk) 08:18, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

• MOS:ELLIPSIS Brianjd (talk) 08:20, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

@Brianjd: Thanks for replying. Could you please tell me if I shouldn't answer your question with the strikethrough? I feel like an annoyance to ask about it, but would also feel bad not to ask about it.--Thylacine24 (talk) 20:10, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

@Brianjd: Also, could you please tell me why you added a link to MOS:ELLIPSIS? I'm confused.--Thylacine24 (talk) 20:12, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

• @Thylacine24: To answer both your questions: After I wrote the question, I found out that MOS:ELLIPSIS contains the answer to the question, which means that I didn’t need to ask the question after all. Since the question was now unnecessary, I struck it out (so, to be clear, I don’t expect you to provide an answer now). I also added the link to MOS:ELLIPSIS to explain why I struck it out. Brianjd (talk) 03:18, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

@Brianjd: Thanks for replying. Sorry not to understand that earlier.--Thylacine24 (talk) 13:03, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

Non-breaking spaces using space bar

Could anyone please tell me if a non-breaking space is what one gets when they hit the space bar on this website? This question pertains to my previous question on this page, and if the answer is yes, then I plan to remove the "nbsp" template from it and just use the space bar, to reduce memory usage. Sorry that I didn't ask this first; I was impulsive.--Thylacine24 (talk) 23:59, 1 June 2020 (UTC)

You do not get no-break space from the space bar.

Memory usage is a non-issue. More important is to use {{nbsp}} only when absolutely necessary (which is almost never); see MOS:NBSP. What you see on your device when an article is rendered is almost certainly not what I see, or what average readers see on their devices. Browsers are designed to use the display space as best fits the device they are rendering to; don't inhibit what the browsers do.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 00:15, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

Trappist the monk Thanks for responding. I asked this question because I was using an ellipsis and the Manual of Style section on ellipses says to use a non-breaking space. I understand that "[m]emory usage is a non-issue", but I would still prefer to just use the space bar, and not the "nbsp" template; it's an OCD thing. Could you, or anyone else here, please tell me if it's all right to use the space bar in the areas around an ellipsis? Actually, on reading the section more thoroughly at the moment, I learned that it distinguishes between non-breaking and regular spaces, so I guess I should just use the template. Still, any response is appreciated.--Thylacine24 (talk) 00:54, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

I am, how shall I say, space dot ampersand nbsp semicolon dot ampersand nbsp semicolon dot surprised by the degree of your interest. It's all right. -- Hoary (talk) 05:23, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

@Hoary: Thanks. Could you please tell mle me if there's there a joke I'm missing here?--Thylacine24 (talk) 20:06, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

There is no joke. -- Hoary (talk) 22:45, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

@Hoary: Thanks for telling me. It's sometimes hard for me to tell on the Internet.--Thylacine24 (talk) 01:19, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

@Thylacine24: There is a way to generate a non-breaking space character, but it is undesirable and should not be used, since you can't visually see the difference when editing (or in the rendered article), and people (like me) will end up having to "correct" them since we can't see them. Use either {{Nbsp}} or  . I personally use WinCompose to map it to a compose-key sequence.

Nbsps do have a couple important uses, including between a value and its related unit symbol (e.g., 110 V), before an endash (more easily done using {{Snd}}), as well as before (and occasionally after) ellipses. —[AlanM1 (talk)]— 08:31, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

@AlanM: Thanks for the reply, but I don't I can remember all of that. Could you please tell me if it's all right to just use the "nbsp" template?--Thylacine24 (talk) 20:06, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

@AlanM: Sorry to not understand you earlier.--Thylacine24 (talk) 01:19, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

AlanM writes "Use either {{Nbsp}} or  ". Within that, "where appropriate" is understood. So yes, you can just use {{Nbsp}} where appropriate. (And WP:NBSP tells you where its use is appropriate.) -- Hoary (talk) 22:45, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

HoaryThanks for telling me.--Thylacine24 (talk) 01:19, 3 June 2020 (UTC)