Help desk
< September 6	<< Aug \| September \| Oct >>	September 8 >

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.

September 7

Article italicization

I can't find the code in Peter Potamus, which shouldn't be italicized. Clarityfiend (talk) 00:45, 7 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Clarityfiend: {{Infobox television}} will automatically italizise the title unless you set "italic_title=no" RudolfRed (talk) 00:51, 7 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. The article is actually about the TV series, which should be italicized, so I have requested a page move. Clarityfiend (talk) 03:05, 7 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Clarityfiend, the article is confusing because the lead seems to be about the character but the title and infobox seem to be about the TV show. Can you correct that? Cullen328 (talk) 04:16, 7 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Sfn in Efn (or something better)

Draft:Marienaltar (Conrad von Soest) (not my creation) had [ a laborious referencing system]; partly to improve the draft, partly to increase my fluency with Template:Sfn (which I've usually been too lazy to use), I suggested replacing it. I got approval, and have started. As you'll quickly see, the conversion is currently ... half baked.

Note (d) currently reads "For example ^[12]." I want it instead to read "For example Engelbert 1995, pp. 161ff.", though I'm most open to the alternative, better suggestions of editors skilled in the necessary arts. -- Hoary (talk) 02:54, 7 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Hey Hoary. Maybe you'd like to use Template:Harvnb? It's like Sfn that isn't wrapped in ref tags (I'm simplifying). Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 03:00, 7 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Excellent, Firefangledfeathers; just what I wanted. Thank you! -- Hoary (talk) 04:15, 7 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

bookmark or watch list a page

Hello, When I find an interesting article on the web I can bookmark it with a title that is provided or I can rename. For the life of me I can't find a star or a watch button anywhere on any page I visit. I would think it would be easy to keep track of your studies. Please help me. Thanks I'm a newbie but a monthly contributor. Deanprine (talk) 05:36, 7 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Deanprine, this does not seem to be a question about Wikipedia (which is what this page is for), but instead a question about the web in general. You could ask it at Wikipedia:Reference desk/Computing; but if you do so, be sure to specify the browser that you are using. -- Hoary (talk) 06:10, 7 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Deanprine: See WP:WATCHLIST for how to get notifications when an article or other Wikipedia page changes, but I am not sure that is what you mean. RudolfRed (talk) 19:09, 7 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I mean - keeping track in a file within wiki the pages I visit to remind me of my research. Thanks Deanprine (talk) 00:55, 10 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Deanprine: I feel you're better off using some type of management software for that if it's not related to Wikipedia. —Tenryuu 🐲 ( 💬 • 📝 ) 01:36, 10 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Paragraph line break issue

When I insert two newlines in Chocolate#History it is formatting it as a space. Rollinginhisgrave (talk) 06:53, 7 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not sure which edits you are referring to but the net effect of your recent changes has been to remove large chunks of the article. I don't doubt you have good intentions but I think you should have mentioned on the article's Talk Page that you intended to make such big changes, with a summary of what you are hoping to achieve. Mike Turnbull (talk) 10:31, 7 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The edits I'm referring to are "containers.[24][25][26] While Spanish" are separated by a space, even when I try to make it a new paragraph.

I've just rewritten History of chocolate and have nominated it for GA. So have rewritten Chocolate#History as a summary of that article, and used Template:main to try to denote that it is what I'm doing. Rollinginhisgrave (talk) 10:46, 7 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I added a {{clear}} template which fixed the problem, which (I guess) was caused by the adjacent image. Mike Turnbull (talk) 11:18, 7 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Thankyou, very helpful. Good to know about that template. Rollinginhisgrave (talk) 11:40, 7 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Spoke too soon, on my device I can see it has created a very large gap in the page. Rollinginhisgrave (talk) 11:41, 7 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, that can sometimes be a problem with that template. Just revert my addition. I don't know why the standard double newline character didn't work. I tried three newline characters, which did work but gave extra space. We'll have to wait for User:PrimeHunter to explain how to fix it! Mike Turnbull (talk) 11:51, 7 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I would have made the same fix as Deor. I actually tested it in preview but didn't have more time. PrimeHunter (talk) 00:14, 8 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Rollinginhisgrave: I'm not sure why it worked, but I've added a carriage return after the image call at the beginning of the section, and it appears to be displaying correctly now. Deor (talk) 15:00, 7 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Citing ProQuest

What's the best way to cite an article from ProQuest? Should I enter "https://www.proquest.com/docview/" + the article id in the URL parameter or should I use the template:ProQuest in the id parameter? Or should I do both? Or can I put the template in the URL parameter? Or is there a completely different and better way to do this? TipsyElephant (talk) 09:21, 7 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@TipsyElephant There are some good examples of ProQuest sources in the article Elayne Harrington created recently (not by me). Citations #9, #11, #14 and #16 show the result. Mike Turnbull (talk) 10:25, 7 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Mike beat me to it, I had the same example in mind. I saw the ID-thing somewhere else and used it. These takes manual work to fill in the data, I don't know of any autofill-gadget that "gets" ProQuest. Come to think of it, using both url and ID params may be redundant, though harmless. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 10:30, 7 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, redundant. But if you must include |url=, mark it with |url-access=subscription so that readers don't click away from en.wiki only to discover that they don't have access. When using |url= also include |via=ProQuest so that readers aren't surprised when the land there when they expected to land at Sunday Independent, etc.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 12:08, 7 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Good point. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 13:24, 7 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Any way to mass categorize pages?

Is there a way to create and add to a category a group of pages at once, without having to go to each page separately? BlackYaroslav (talk) 17:02, 7 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

BlackYaroslav You could ask at Wikipedia talk:Categories for discussion. This would be a bad idea if the category is in any way controversial. TSventon (talk) 17:20, 7 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]