Help desk
< April 5	<< Mar \| April \| May >>	April 7 >

Welcome to the Wikipedia Help Desk Archives
The page you are currently viewing is an archive page. While you can leave answers for any questions shown below, please ask new questions on one of the current Help Desk pages.

April 6

My wikipedia page got deleted, how do I restore it?

I had a wikipedia page for the past couple years, and it is something I use to guide people to for business and a general background on myself. I just pointed someone in its direction today, and was made aware that it somehow got deleted. I don't know how this happened, but I would like to see what needs to be done to get it back up and live. Thank you very much for your help. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Teagueegan (talk • contribs) 00:35, 6 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]

The article was deleted because, and I quote: "Not notable. Subject of article often edits this article for means of self-promotion." Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, not a free webhost. Please keep that in mind. Thanks. Kleuske (talk) 00:40, 6 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]

(edit conflict) Please see WP:NOTWEBHOST. Wikipedia is not intended as a profile site (e.g., LinkedIn) or to direct people to your business. That is most likely why "your" page (see also WP:OWN) was deleted and will not be recreated. Your user page is intended (only) to introduce you to other editors and provide them with basic information about you, not for advertising, autobiography or other promotion. General Ization ^Talk 00:41, 6 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Unable to log in on mobile (Safari)

Earlier today I accidentally logged out on my iPhone, and since then, when I attempt to log back in I get this error message:

There seems to be a problem with your login session; this action has been canceled as a precaution against session hijacking. Go back to the previous page, reload that page and then try again.

No matter how many page reloads and retries, I get the same error message. Lizard (talk) 02:37, 6 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Try deleting your cookies as described at Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)/Archive 153#Can't log into Wikipedia sites using Safari browser on Apple devices. PrimeHunter (talk) 09:54, 6 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]

How do I see a list of articles that share multiple categories?

If you click on category A at the bottom of an article it lists all articles sharing that category. Is it possible to see a list of all articles containing category A as well as category B for example? Ssyfy (talk) 03:14, 6 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@Ssyfy: That's list magic. Check this out: http://jura.wi.mit.edu/bioc/tools/compare.php

Here's another one: http://www.webtoolhub.com/tn561406-list-comparison.aspx

To help in extracting the lists cleanly, try the make list feature of WP:AWB.

Hope these help. The Transhumanist 05:14, 6 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]

P.S.: Drop me a note on my talk page if you find a better solution. -TT

@Ssyfy: There's also Wikipedia:PetScan. -- John of Reading (talk) 06:03, 6 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]

How to write something

Dear Sir,

Please guide me, i want to write about myself. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Sachin Raghuvanshi (talk • contribs) 07:02, 6 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]

The guidance is that you ought not to write about yourself, see WP:Autobiography. --David Biddulph (talk) 07:14, 6 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]

You can click on your username which will bring you to your userpage. On that page you can write about yourself and add whatever you want. -AnonWikiEditor (talk) 20:00, 6 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]

My edits are not being saved

Hello

I have three times edited an article about Nottingham Industrial Museum and saved my edits. I can see them in the revision history. But the page displayed does not include these edits.

As they are to correct the references I am keen to get this right, but am absolutely stuck.

I have read the help guides and can't find a reference to this problem.

I do have a funny message at the top of the screen, but I can't see how to add it to this request for help - I think it might be important. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Writingalltheway (talk • contribs) 11:04, 6 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]

See Wikipedia:Bypass your cache. Your edits went through, your computer is not loading the latest version of the article. Ian.thomson (talk) 11:10, 6 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Try refreshing the page by holding Ctrl+Shift+R or Ctrl+F5. That should reload the page fresh and not from cache. -AnonWikiEditor (talk) 20:01, 6 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Template keeping correct Homograph.

If a website being cited has an unexpected homograph in the title, is there a template that should be used either around the information or afterwards? For example, an article on a greek website about a singer on MTV, but in the title of the article the M and the T are actually a capital Mu and capital Tau. (The V is a roman letter V which doesn't have a Homograph in Greek. ) I'm just wondering if that should be commented in some way.Naraht (talk) 14:20, 6 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]

And if someone has a better word to use than Homograph for A, Alpha and A_(Cyrillic), I'd love to have itNaraht (talk) 14:24, 6 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Not really sure if I understand your question (a link that illustrates would not go amiss). In cs1|2, care must be taken when using templates in the parameters that contribute to the citation's metadata. This is because, very often, such templates include html, css, and wikimarkup that tells a browser how to visually render something but otherwise is unrelated to the information that is being rendered. The important parameters are listed in all cs1|2 template documentation pages.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 14:37, 6 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Elena Paparizou reference 86. The title of the reference page is Έλενα Παπαρίζου: Υποψήφια στα βραβεία του ΜΤV! Τι δηλώνει αποκλειστικά στο Υupi . The V is roman, the rest are greek.Naraht (talk) 15:30, 6 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Glyph?

I guess I see no real reason to comment, or somehow markup, the V in ΜΤV. If the Greek alphabet doesn't have 'V', but readers of Greek know about MTV, then somehow the editors of yupi.gr needed to create the acronym somehow (it would probably have been more correct to use all Latin characters ...).

—Trappist the monk (talk) 15:59, 6 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I'm actually slightly more concerned about the MT being switched from Greek to Roman without the reference being fixed. but I understand how templates inside templates can cause problems. Thanx.Naraht (talk) 19:04, 6 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I found that the correct term is Homoglyph.Naraht (talk) 21:24, 6 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Banning users: How do I not get banned?

I have about 2-3 wrong edits fixed and Gwendy and other users have helped me, but I am new and don't know how it works and am worried I'll get banned. How do I avoid being banned? — Preceding unsigned comment added by GermanGamer77 (talk • contribs) 16:59, 6 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Please stop making changes to things that you think are wrong. All edits should be supported by reliable sources and articles aren't a place for you to provide commentary or guesses. Acroterion (talk) 17:05, 6 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Cite your sources and be sure of your edits. -AnonWikiEditor (talk) 19:52, 6 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Editing issues

I've noticed recently that I'm not always getting the tools when I click on the edit buttons on pages, and that some scripts aren't working. For example, the toolbar with bold, italic, AB, etc, sometimes doesn't appear, and there are no 'insert' options below the edit summary box. Things like the fixing dashes tool at the top of the screen are also not often working properly. I usually edit in Chrome, but tried using IE this evening to see if the problem happens there. After making one edit to fix dashes, things stopped working again. Is this something I need to fix, or is it a general problem that others have experienced. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance, This is Paul (talk) 20:54, 6 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]

NB: The toolbar problem seems to be at its worst when editing sections, but often will work if I edit from the 'edit this page' tab. This is Paul (talk) 20:55, 6 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Clade tag

{{clade
   |label1=[[Coelurosauria|Coelurosaurs]]
   |1={{clade
     |1=[[tyrannosauroidea|Tyrannosauroids]]
       }}
}}

I find the clade tag on many biology pages but cannot find the HelpPage which describes how to use it. Can some kind person point be to it? Nick Beeson (talk) 21:05, 6 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@Nwbeeson: You can find it at the Template:Clade page. If you want to find any template, then you just type in Template:x, where "x" is the template you want. Hope that helps. Thanks! RileyBugz ^{Yell at me} | _Edits 21:07, 6 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Hi someone please come and check this weird project page.

Hi everyone, I'm new here. So I assume I met a bunch of weirdos, they started a project last year in November maybe, and they are trying to catch users everywhere on Wiki, suspect they are all "Sockpuppets" of a user called "MOKEZHILAO", I don't know who he/she is. But they actually try to locate and block people's IP. I'm not sure if that is legal? Project Page Thank you for your help. Sokkwo (talk) 23:10, 6 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]

<pulls up a chair to watch the show> Maineartists (talk) 23:26, 6 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]

All sorts of quirky groups operate on Wikipedia - there are those who accuse users of citing their own articles or books and try to have them blacklisted; then there are those who go around deleting all external links, further reading references and issuing a caution to anyone who has the audacity to add an external link to an article; then there are those who try to exert ownership of specific pages and delete any new content on "their pages" irrespective of how relevant or well-sourced that content might be; other individuals go around inserting commas or colons - usually where no punctuation was required. Some groups go around trying to create wikilinks for almost every term used in an article which results in extraordinary irrelevancies appearing within the article - but clearly the editors believe it is an improvement. Some groups focus on replacing "inferior" references (usually blogs which are despised; but may be primary sources which are widely considered to be "evil") with "reliable" references. Some individuals won't accept direct quotes, not even short phrases, such as official definitions, and go around reframing quotes in their own words, often leading to highly corrupted explanations that are wide open to misleading interpretations that were never intended in the original passage. Some groups will not allow the use of illustrative examples in articles and will delete any sentence that begins with "For example, ..." . Other users have a penchant for changing spelling to the American form - even though WP policy is to employ the spelling used by the original creator of the article, regardless of whether it was British or American English (and even those who insist on Americanisation, rarely change all spellings, so that after their edits, the article still has a mix of spellings). Yet other individuals focus on reformatting references even though WP has no specific guideline on reference format - clearly they think 'their way' is superior to any other format. These are just some of the idiosyncracies that are evident on Wikipedia. And, I haven't even mentioned the vandals who will insert their favourite company name into an article, and those who love to go into tables or lists of numerals and change one bit of data, so that the whole table becomes nonsense. My advice is don't waste your time trying to understand the motivations of these groups or individuals - it defies logic, and for the main part, when challenged, they cannot articulate why they are doing it - they will usually say inane things like "some content just doesn't belong on WP" or "we don't like it".Don't challenge them, because they will get their friends to gang up on you and may even follow you around WP, deleting all your contributions. And, don't even bother reporting this type of behaviour to WP administrators because your issues are unlikely to be taken seriously. WP has a bizarre operating culture - you will need to try and accept it or move on to a different forum.— Preceding unsigned comment added by BronHiggs (talk • contribs)

BronHiggs I don't know who you are, but you have just become my WP hero! Maineartists (talk) 00:20, 7 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@Sokkwo: Yes, that "project" is "legal." There are some users who are not here to help the site (for example, here to vandalize articles, or here to advertise companies who hired them) will create multiple (illegitimate) accounts to try to evade their block. Blocks and bans apply to the person (not just a single account they use), so it is necessary to have an entire section of the site dedicated to investigating potential alternate accounts. Ian.thomson (talk) 00:29, 7 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Hello, Sokkwo. You seem to have confused two different things. Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations is an important part of how Wikipedia works. Because, as Ian.thomson says, there are people who try and get round restrictions placed on them by creating multiple accounts, it is necessary to have a mechanism for investigating and blocking them. The page you linked to was about the activities of MOKEZHILAO, and the process of blocking all that user's sock-puppets. Since only administration can block users, MOKEZHILAO cannot have done any blocking. --ColinFine (talk) 14:24, 7 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]