Wikipedia:Help desk/Archives/2008 December 7

= December 7 =

Where to ask about de-listing a link from spam list
I think the links to typemock.com have been marked as spam by error. Now i can't add them where they make sense. Several questions: - where can I see the reason they were marked as spam? (can I see all the places they were in?) - who do I ask to re-review the status? is there an email I can send somewhere? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 194.248.169.52 (talk) 08:22, 7 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Typemock was WP:blacklisted at least in part because of WP:spamming by Special:Contributions/62.219.148.11. —teb728 t c 08:47, 7 December 2008 (UTC) It was not blacklisted in error: See User talk:62.219.148.11. You could apply for removal by following the instructions at Spam blacklist. But it would be a waste of time unless you could persuade them that links to typemock would be beneficial to Wikipedia. They will be quite skeptical. —teb728 t c 09:14, 7 December 2008 (UTC)
 * I see you are trying to evade the blacklisting by using www.typemock.net, which redirects to www.typemock.com. That is not a good idea: It will just that domain blacklisted and you blocked from editing. —teb728 t c 09:29, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

Watchlisting user contributions
Is it possible to watchlist a user's contributions page? For example, if I wanted to see when edits had been made by User:HypotheticalExample, could I go into Edit Raw Watchlist and add "Special:Contributions/HypotheticalExample"? If it IS possible, what would be the correct syntax to add this to the raw watchlist? I tried a couple of different variants, and nothing worked, leading me to think that either a)I have the wrong syntax, or b)I am attempting to do something that cannot be done. Thanks! GJC 02:55, 7 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Why don't you try it? I realize that the idea of "doing things yourself" might seem scary, but it's OK when it's over. flaminglawyerc neverforget 03:33, 7 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Hey, I've got an idea. Let's play a game. It's called "Let's use the Help Desk to actually provide a HELPFUL answer, or for that matter, actually READ the question (you know, the part where I said "I tried a couple of different variants and nothing worked...")." Oh--wait. We were already playing that game, and you lost. Good show. GJC 04:54, 7 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Flaming already tried different things. I don't think it can be done. PrimeHunter (talk) 04:02, 7 December 2008 (UTC)
 * You could enter the user's name into my contributions and save it into your favorites on your browser. Doing it that way means with one click you can check recent contributions.-- intraining  Jack In  04:15, 7 December 2008 (UTC)
 * I did think of that, and it may end up as my solution...I was just hoping there was a way where I could have it pop up in my watchlist without having to anticipate where the user might try to edit. :::shrug::: Oh well...Thank YOU, at least, and PrimeHunter too.GJC 04:54, 7 December 2008 (UTC)
 * It is technically impossible to watchlist a contributions page, or any Special: page at all. All of the Special: pages are created only when you call them.  They are basically database calls which take raw information from the database and send it to your webbrowser based on certain criteria.  When you watchlist a page, you are watching an actual page at wikipedia saved in the database.  The contribs list doesn't actually exist as a "page", per se, until you call it, so there is nothing to "watch". --Jayron32. talk . contribs  05:23, 7 December 2008 (UTC)
 * If you were really desperate, you could make a bot to put a "Special:Contributions/User" into a page, then put that on your watchlist. Except that the bot would have already done the job... But redundancy is the key to life, so it makes even more sense. flaminglawyerc neverforget 05:46, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

font change
WTF. Did WP just change fonts/make the text smaller? I was just wandering around (with normal text size/font), then, all of a sudden, the font gets smaller and much harder to read. It even happened on the bar at the top that says Project Page, discussion, edit this page, etc. What happened? :( flaminglawyerc neverforget 03:30, 7 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Maybe you accidentally changed font size in your browser, for example (depending on the browser) by hitting '-' on the keypad or holding down Ctrl while scrolling down on the mouse. PrimeHunter (talk) 03:53, 7 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Yay! That fixed it. flaminglawyerc neverforget 04:33, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

Footnote won't hyperlink correctly. I think it is because the URL contains a { and a }
This is the footnote. Veecort (talk) 11:05, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

Um. the quotes are actually each a pair of single quotes, but whatever. Oh yeah, The footnote is the very first reference in the "ITT Technical Institute" article. (BTW, ITT Tech is a Scam.)Veecort (talk) 11:09, 7 December 2008 (UTC)
 * It was actually because there was a forced linebreak between the start of the link and the closing bracket and closing ref at the end. Putting it all on the same couple of lines fixed it on my screen. - Mgm|(talk) 13:01, 7 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Thanks. I actually saw that "forced linebreak" when I pasted it here and I disregarded and deleted it.  Veecort (talk) 13:11, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

Medaglie, decorazioni ed ordini cavallereschi italiani
In a number of relevant articles, an anonymous editor has tried to indicate a helpful link to the Italian version of Wikipedia, but it doesn't quite work in the "See also" section -- see diff. Three possible corrections occur to me, but I'm uncertain about which one represents the better choice in terms of this array of articles -- or perhaps another way of handling this is best?

For example, at Bronze Medal of Military Valor, the link would be improved by adding "it:" inside the brackets -- Medaglie, decorazioni ed ordini cavallereschi italiani and then
 * ... leaving the link to a page of the Italian Wikipedia as it is under "See also"?
 * ... creating a new "External links" section for this plausibly helpful option?
 * ... repositioning link after Categories?

To me, this doesn't appear to have been vandalism -- just an error which needs tweaking? --Tenmei (talk) 17:49, 7 December 2008 (UTC)


 * I have fixed it in this and the related articles using the proper interwiki link formatting XXXXXX

. – ukexpat (talk) 18:03, 7 December 2008 (UTC)
 * I added a comment to User talk:84.220.18.15 with links to: Help:Interlanguage links and WP:EIW (and, evidently, it:Aiuto:Interlink for the Italian Wikipedia version). That way perhaps the editor will know what to do in the future. Also, the editor should read Help:Unified login and check Special:MergeAccount, so he or she can automatically log in to the English Wikipedia after (presumably) logging in to the Italian Wikipedia. --Teratornis (talk) 20:03, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

Using Wikipedia Info on my own site
Hello

As a sufferer of Fibromyalgia I am finding navigation quite difficult.

I have one question: Am I able to use the information you have regarding Fibromyalgia on my own site or take extracts from it without linking to you? I cannot seem to find the answer anywhere?

I do not want to be sued for copyright

I hope you can help

Many thanks

Lisa —Preceding unsigned comment added by Lisafibrochat (talk • contribs) 23:34, 7 December 2008 (UTC)
 * See WP:EIW and especially Reusing Wikipedia content. If you follow the instructions, you can copy all the Wikipedia content you like with virtually no risk of getting sued. (It might be possible to get in trouble by copying content from Wikipedia that someone else uploaded improperly. Other Wikipedia users watch out for copyright violations here, but you should check the references for all the content you copy, to make sure you are not accidentally copying something that should not have been on Wikipedia in the first place.) As to your difficulty with navigating Wikipedia, I can't tell whether you mean your difficulty has something to do with having Fibromyalgia. Quite a few people (healthy or not) have difficulty navigating Wikipedia at first, depending on what they are trying to find. Wikipedia is one of the largest Web sites in the world, so it takes a while to learn, and there are plenty of ways to get lost. If you refer to some specific difficulty that results from being differently abled, see WP:EIW and something there might help. --Teratornis (talk) 00:39, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

Bad interwiki links
On the Israel Police page, I want to delete two bad interwiki links but can't find their source. They appear to be duplicates of the Hebrew and Russian that appear correctly amd in proper alphabetical sequence below in the list of (six) other languages, but these upper ones lead to some template page in two those languages. What to do? -- Thanks, Deborahjay (talk) 23:38, 7 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Template:Israeli Intelligence Community was lacking noinclude arround its interwiki links. I added them. —teb728 t c 23:52, 7 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Aha, I'm too unfamiliar with Template syntax to have realized that was the problem. If you'd kindly advise further: what to do about that "nonexistent" Law Enforcement in Asia" template? -- Deborahjay (talk) 00:06, 8 December 2008 (UTC)
 * The Law Enforcement in Asia template is sort of a virtual navbox that uses the Asia topic template. To turn it into a real template, see some examples of real templates based on Asia topic, by checking the backlinks: Special:WhatLinksHere/Template:Asia topic. For example: Crime in Asia seems to be one of the few that is more or less properly put together. There's no way to explain template coding in a short Help desk answer. You can learn by reading Help:Template and by studying the wikitext of templates you find interesting. --Teratornis (talk) 00:53, 8 December 2008 (UTC)