Help desk
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September 2

Problem with lists and tables template needs fixing urgently

Something has happened to the template that controls the arrangement of tables and lists. The system is no longer recognizing words and sorting them in alphabetical order. The List of Ancient Greek temples has been rendered nonsense. It is not a problem with the article and not vandalism to the article itself, because that problem is manifest on earlier versions as well as the present. List of paintings by Leonardo da Vinci reveals the same problem. Could somebody please check this out at the right level, because there must currently be inoperable lists all over Wiki. NOTE: the problem only affects sortable lists. Amandajm (talk) 03:50, 3 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I have reverted recent changes to {{Ntsh}}, which appears to have fixed the problem. Yoenit (talk) 08:29, 3 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Thank You! Everything seems to be back to normal! Amandajm (talk) 12:11, 3 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The template was not broken. It is intended to sort NUMBERS. Setting the value of the first parameter to a non numeric value caused the error messages because the template expected a number and not a word. –droll [chat] 15:28, 3 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Can't find draft article

I set up an account and created and saved a draft article. I looked at the preview and saw that I needed to make changes. How do I find it again? Tom C — Preceding unsigned comment added by TankhouseTom (talk • contribs) 00:46, 2 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

It's here: User:TankhouseTom/Tankhouse. An easy way to find it is to click "My contributions" at the top of the screen. Adrian J. Hunter^{(talk•contribs)} 00:49, 2 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

You can also see all subpages in your userspace at Special:PrefixIndex/User:TankhouseTom. Toshio Yamaguchi (talk) 11:31, 2 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Autoconfirmed and confirmed users

Can users who are already autoconfirmed become confirmed users? mysterytrey (talk) 01:15, 2 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Yes. (If an admin gives them the 'confirmed' bit.) Reaper Eternal (talk) 01:16, 2 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you, Reaper Eternal. mysterytrey (talk) 20:48, 2 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Stop Letters from a Website

I asked for letters from the official website of Emma Watson. How do I stop receiving letters from it?

Unfortunately this page is for questions on how to use or edit Wikipedia. E Wing (talk) 02:23, 2 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Have you tried the Computing 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. PrimeHunter (talk) 02:25, 2 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Look closely near the bottom of one of the emails or letters you've received. There will almost certainly be instructions on how to unsubscribe there. If not, and you're trying to stop emails, the program you use for email surely has an option to blacklist the address that is the source of the emails. Adrian J. Hunter^{(talk•contribs)} 03:31, 2 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Help with blockquotes

I having a little trouble with the blockquote template on User:KAVEBEAR/Kingdom of Hawaii – Kingdom of Tahiti relations. I'm trying to show a letter but it's seems to be taking a lot of space. Is there another way of showing it?--KAVEBEAR (talk) 04:51, 2 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

It isn't a template, <blockquote> is an HTML tag. Do you need to quote that much? You should only quote what is succinctly relevant. You can add a reference to the full text. You can eliminate the use of <br /> by wrapping the text in <poem>...</poem>. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 05:14, 2 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

INCOTERMS

Dear Sir/Madam,

I appreciate your clarifications on the following,

I understand that some shippers/sellers are charged EBS or EBC - Emergency Bunker Surcharges/Charges ??.

I understand that the situation is as follows:

When seller/exporters ship out goods to say China on FOB, Port Klang, Malaysia INCOTERMS 2010 they are still charged EBS/EBC from the shipping company. The reason is that [there are not enough containers] in China and these exporters have to pay a surcharge due to the above reason.

Isn't this violating the regulations under INCOTERMS 2010 because under INCOTERMS 2010 rules, the seller/exporter is not responsible for any other payment after the goods have been put on board the shipping vessel. If so then why should a seller be expected to pay the surcharge of the freight when the element of freight does not even exist when the terms of sale is on FOB basis.

I understand that this rule only applies in ASIA. What is the rationale of this decision and the imposition of the surcharge?

Can this be avoided by shipping out say on EXW - Ex Works basis?

Appreciate your kind clarifications on this matter.

Regards and thank you.

AB Teoh — Preceding unsigned comment added by Abteoh (talk • contribs) 10:30, 2 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I suspect, based on your question, that you found one of our over 3.7 million articles and thought we were affiliated in some way with that subject. Please note that you are at Wikipedia, the free online encyclopedia that anyone can edit, and this page is for asking questions related to using or contributing to Wikipedia itself. Thus, we have no special knowledge about the subject of your question. You can, however, search our vast catalogue of articles by typing a subject into the search field on the upper right side of your screen. If you cannot find what you are looking for, we have a reference desk, divided into various subject areas, where asking knowledge questions is welcome. Best of luck. ^Avic _ennasis @ 11:29, 3 Elul 5771 / 11:29, 2 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

How to id edits which are not the most recent ones?

Hi Wikipedians,

how can I find those my edits which are not the most recent ones to the respective page?

I have the HD page bookmarked, so I can always see what's been happening in the most recent topics, but say, I didn't check HelpDesk regularly, or one of my questions wouldn't be commented on by anyone, so it would "drop off the top" of the HD page.

Is there a way to check within my contributions (or a similar list) whether the respective section has been changed after my edit? That would be a great help, for example my edits to Talk:Signature (disambiguation) and Signature (disambiguation), as they would pop up if there was any opposition or criticism to the merger. The new section on Talk: T-72 would be another example,

Thanks in advance, - ¡Ouch! (^{hurt me} / _{more pain}) 10:34, 2 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

If I understand correctly, you mean you start a topic for example here at the help desk, then perhaps log off. After that, someone replies to your thread, but after that (and before you log in again) a number of other threads have been started below your thread? Then, when you come back and check your watchlist again, you see the latest change to the page which is to a new thread started after the one you started. Is that what you mean? If so, then yes, this is kind of a problem, as it is not possible to watch only a specific section of a page. There is a talk system currently in development called LiquidThreads which would solve this problem (see Wikipedia:LiquidThreads). However, this has not yet been enabled here on the English Wikipedia and I don't know if or when it will be. What I do to keep track of discussions taking place at specific sections of a long talk page is I create a direct wikilink to the section / thread on my userpage (see User:Toshio Yamaguchi#Active discussions). This reminds me of the fact that there is a discussion going on at a specific section of a talk page and I can quickly jump to that section by clicking on the link. I don't know if that is a solution for you, though. Toshio Yamaguchi (talk) 10:57, 2 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

There is another possible solution. Go to My preferences and on the watchlist tab the first item under Advanced options says "Expand watchlist to show all changes, not just the most recent". That will modify your watchlist so that there is a drop down next to each of your watchlist items that have multiple edit in a day. If you click the triangle all the edits will show and you can see if any modified a section you are concerned with. GB fan please review my editing 11:26, 2 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks GB fan and Toshio Yamaguchi. - ¡Ouch! (^{hurt me} / _{more pain}) 12:50, 2 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Stale draft

Is it OK to move User:Mdiamon2/Special Boys Unit to article namespace? It looks OK, but author is inactive Bulwersator (talk) 12:12, 2 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Done, now at Special Boys Unit. – ukexpat (talk) 13:13, 2 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

(edit conflict)On quick review, it looks well sourced. The lead and title are a bit at odds, and searching shows that Small Boys Unit is probably more proper. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 13:16, 2 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Good catch, now moved to Small Boys Unit. – ukexpat (talk) 13:47, 2 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Editing Biographies

I have been asked to rework the existing biography of a living person. There are no objections on behalf of the subject and the information is basically the same as the current biography but has been reworked to maximize readability. Is it as simple as editing the page cutting the current information and pasting the new material in? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Wikihelp615 (talk • contribs) 14:53, 2 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Technically, yes. However, please read our information on conflict of interest and biographies. All of the material added must sourced to independent reliable sources. TN X Man 15:02, 2 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

As I've pointed out on your talk page, "There are no objections on behalf of the subject" is totally irrelevant to the matter: we neither seek nor desire the permission of subjects to create, edit and/or delete articles about them, although obviously we want to know about any inaccuracies that have crept in. --Orange Mike | Talk 15:16, 2 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Question on Adding a recent submission

Hi I just recently added an image and a little snippet about a new internet search company that I found in Boston. I placed my comments under Economy section, but I don;t see it listed?

Please advise — Preceding unsigned comment added by Iwim (talk • contribs) 15:33, 2 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

your edits were reverted here by Hertz1888 with an edit summary of "Unconstructive: bad grammar, wrong context, promotional language, etc." The place to discuss your edits is on the article's talk page. GB fan please review my editing 15:43, 2 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Difficulty making correction to article references directed to a portal

- - Issue (non-issue) resolved. User error. URL update correction attempted amidst Aug. 2011 Hurricane/Irene recovery phase while user was multitasking and distracted. Apologies. 71.188.228.165 (talk) 23:44, 2 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Greetings:

I've just been looking at the Port Jervis, New York article and found a reference that points to an incorrect url.

When trying to make the correction myself I was unable to do so and seemingly was redirected to the Hudson Valley Portal. Here I was also stymied and found it difficult to find who/how should be contacted to address the issue.

The reference in question in the Port Jervis article is #2 "Port Jervis Lynching indictments". New York Times. June 30, 1892.

Its url is currently :http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?res=F60710FC3E5C17738DDDAA0894DE405B8285F0D3

The correct url should be: http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?res=F30E12F63E5C17738DDDA90B94DE405B8285F0D3

There was some prior controversy and mediation of which I was part regarding inclusion of information about the above incident in the article. The mediator concluded that information should be included which was consistent with the view I had proposed. Given this history it might be reasonable to affect some sort of edit protection. However, other references there are not of such a controversial nature and seemingly would not need to be protected

Broadly speaking I found the difficulty in determining how the article reference might be accessed and, in this case corrected, user unfriendly.

Thank you. 71.188.228.165 (talk) 16:57, 2 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Daily Article editing

I am puzzled as to whether the editor of the Daily Article has a bet with himself. Three articles about Australian military veterans have appeared in the last two months and nearly a dozen about warships since the beginning of the year.67.160.58.243 (talk) 17:41, 2 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

You should ask at this talk page, but I doubt what you say is the case. TN X Man 17:50, 2 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

(e/c) Only the very best quality articles appear at the top left of the Main page. If there's a topic area that interests you, you too could dive in to improve those articles to meet the featured article criteria. If there is a bias towards military veterans and warships, then this merely reflects the interests of the most skilled contributors here. -- John of Reading (talk) 17:57, 2 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

It may also reflect the fact that there is a great deal of *exact* information out there, both from primary government sources and from secondary sources. The fact that the USS Telephone participated in the Battle of Stuffed Lion Reef had two hits a-midships from the XSS Sticky Note and had 68 Sailors killed and 27 injured is going to be available from both the US Navy and from several long established Military related websites. The fact that it was launched on March 4th, 1935 from Brooklyn ship yard isn't really going to be up for debate. With the exception of a few ships (USS Liberty for example, though the attack gets its own page), there really isn't *that* much that is debatable or unreferenced in them which helps to contribute to that type of article being relatively easy to make a Featured Article.Naraht (talk) 18:21, 2 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Administrator status?

I want to become an administrator here on Wikipedia. How can I do so? King of smart alecks 18:15, 2 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

You should read this page. The requirements for adminship vary, but you generally need several thousand edits with experience in creating content and no/few negative interactions with other editors. TN X Man 2:20 pm, Today (UTC−4)

Here is a good place to start, Wikipedia:Guide to requests for adminship. GB fan please review my editing 18:26, 2 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

It's not all its cracked up to be. Basically, it causes a massive loss in stature within the rest of the Wikipedia community. You get a few insignificant tools that if you actually use them when they are really needed will make you an instant pariah. Good luck and have fun! --Jayron32 18:56, 2 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Singaporean national anthem recording

Hello. It appears that the US Navy Band's rendition of Majulah Singapura has not been uploaded onto Commons. Currently the WP article contains a copyrighted version with a fair-use claim. Would someone please assist with converting the file to OGG format, or at least tell me how I can do this myself? Ragettho (talk) 19:22, 2 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I tend to use Audacity for this kind of conversion. It's pretty simple - Open file in program, then (I believe) File >> Export as Ogg Vorbis. ^Avic _ennasis @ 20:01, 3 Elul 5771 / 20:01, 2 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Picture doesn't display

hello,

in Jessica Pegula, the infobox picture doesn't display. Please someone fix it. Thanks.--♫Greatorangepumpkin♫_Hey ^{it's me}_{I am dynamite} 20:43, 2 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Fixed, apparently, though I have no idea what was wrong with the previous version. -- John of Reading (talk) 21:43, 2 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Category question

There is a redlinked category at the bottom of the page called "Articles with Afrikaans language external links". It's not in the source of the page, so it must be generated somehow by the use of {{af icon}} or something. I'd actually like to get rid of it, but (a) I don't know how and (b) maybe it's serving some purpose. I can see it's part of a hidden category with a similar name, but that doesn't explain this category.--Bbb23 (talk) 22:53, 2 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, it's coming from that template but what I don't understand is why it is red-linked. The category exists: Category:Articles with Afrikaans language external links, and so should be blue in the article, as it is in the template page, but it's red-linked in every article I've checked that uses the af-icon template and in this sentence. It may be some type of work queue issue. I'm going to try a null edit to the category.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 23:08, 2 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Okay, so I was fooled by the fact that categories that have not yet been created, show content as if they exist, and here there were multiple pages linked to the category so it was populated. I just created it.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 23:13, 2 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks.--Bbb23 (talk) 23:59, 2 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]