Wikipedia:Help desk/Archives/2011 February 19

= February 19 =

Taking down an article that is still a work in progress
I am currently working on an article and accidentally put it up "live" on the internet. It needs more work and still a work in progress--is there any way I can take it off the internet?

Jmgrants (talk) 01:12, 19 February 2011 (UTC)
 * I assume you're talking about this. I don't see any article namespace page that you've made, just a user subpage. That's live, too, but it's not part of the encyclopedia. There really is no need to take it off the internet. If you need help making it live, just ask me or someone at this help desk. Manish Earth Talk •  Stalk 01:19, 19 February 2011 (UTC)


 * What do you mean by on the Internet? It's still in your sandbox, as Manishearth notes. However, your sandbox is searchable on Google. Google has ways to prevent that - although I'm not sure how successful they are - which you can read up on. I vaguely recall some guidance on this issue at Wikipedia, but I can't remember where. Maybe someone else knows.--Bbb23 (talk) 01:24, 19 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Adding noindex to the page will discourage some search engines from recording it. It's safe to work on an article in your userspace (which is where your article currently is); many users draft articles in userspace first, before moving them to the main encyclopedia. However, if you would like the page deleted entirely, you can add the template db-user to it.-- Kateshortforbob talk  01:53, 19 February 2011 (UTC)
 * noindex - that's it! Sometimes my vague recollections are actually accurate. Thanks.--Bbb23 (talk) 19:29, 19 February 2011 (UTC)

How can my organization's editor, or I, do minor updates and corrections on your posted biography of me (Amory B. Lovins)?

 * Moved from the computing reference desk. This question is about using Wikipedia itself, not a reference desk question about computing. J I P  &#124; Talk 20:24, 19 February 2011 (UTC)

Last year I tried to enter some necessary corrections, but didn't realize that any entries not frequently saved would be lost. so several hours' work were for naught, and nobody could help. Now the professional editor of my nonprofit employer, Rocky Mountain Institute, is trying it again, but his edits keep being promptly reverted, apparently by one Arthur Rubin, for unknown reasons. Cam just found in the edit history a cryptic message from "Johnfos" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Johnfos) saying "rv, none of that was very helpful," but we don't know what/who "rv" is, nor how to reach Arthur Rubin or Johnfos to ask their help and solicit their cooperation. We are trying hard to follow your standards and to make the bio more accurate and up-to-date, but we are finding this difficult and frustrating, doubtless due to our being newbies. Please email us what to do, since we are having trouble figuring out how to use your doubtless excellent, but for us complex and cryptic, system. If you'd rather we submit edits somehow to someone else to consider and (we hope) enter, just tell us how. Thank you very much. -- Amory B. Lovins, editor Cameron Burns .208.45.129.136 (talk) 05:27, 19 February 2011 (UTC)
 * The material that camburns is adding is not encyclopedic, it is pure PR-speak. Wikipedia articles about a person are intended to be the same sort of articles that would appear in Encyclopedia Britannica, not the sort of thing that a personal agent would write.  There are many ways to open a discussion.  Each editor has a "talk" page -- for example Arthur Rubin has Talk:Arthur Rubin.  But more appropriately, each article has a talk page too -- in this case Talk:Amory Lovins.  I have no doubt that a message posted there will lead to a reasonable discussion -- although if the aim is to get the maximum amount of praise into the article (and that's what camburn's posts look like they are aiming at), the results might not end up being what you want.  Regards, Looie496 (talk) 05:47, 19 February 2011 (UTC)
 * I think Looie496 meant to say "Each editor has a 'talk' page -- for example Arthur Rubin has User_talk:Arthur Rubin". The link provided was to the talk page of an article about a person called Arthur Rubin, and not to the talk page of the Wikipedia user Arthur Rubin. --NorwegianBluetalk 09:55, 19 February 2011 (UTC)
 * "rv" means revert, it is one of the standard abbrevations in the edit summary. I've advised another user on editing their own article before, in this page. Terms like "…among the world’s leading innovators…" are peacock terms, unless you can provide a third-party reference that does describe you as such. You should provide references for all statements you make. However, even if these were provided, as Looie said, it does sound like standard-PR over-gushing, and is likely to be toned down by other users. CS Miller (talk) 06:08, 19 February 2011 (UTC)
 * There is a guideline against writing your autobiography on Wikipedia. The reasons are explained in Autobiography. --NorwegianBluetalk 10:12, 19 February 2011 (UTC)

Mr. Lovins, the best way to deal with this is to post to Talk:Amory Lovins saying that you are the subject of the article and saying what you think should be changed. It's usually not a problem to make simple error fixes (dates etc.) directly yourself, but directly making more substantial autobiographical changes are frowned upon for conflict-of-interest reasons. Please try to write any suggestions in a neutral tone that doesn't come across as self-promotion, as they will likely be better-received if you do that. Note: Arthur Rubin is a notable mathematician who is also a Wikipedia editor, so there are separate pages connected with him. Talk:Arthur Rubin is for development of the Wikipedia biography about him, while User talk:Arthur Rubin is the page you would use for contacting him about his Wikipedia activity. You might want to enroll an account yourself, so people will know who they are talking to. Regards, 71.141.88.54 (talk) 10:35, 19 February 2011 (UTC)

You might also want to read the policy on biographies of living people. The first thing to understand is that neither you, nor us, nor anybody, "owns" the monopolistic right to edit an article about you here on Wikipedia. Articles, even those about you or your accomplishments, are treated like all other Wikipedia articles - anyone can edit them. Biographies can be particularly sensitive subjects - so we take special care with biography articles to make sure that there is no libel, incorrect, or potentially dangerous information; and if there is such content, you can request immediate intervention at Biographies of living persons/Noticeboard. If persistent vandalism is occurring, an administrator can protect the page from editing. Otherwise, though, the article about yourself is subject to consensus editing, even if you don't like the way it turns out. (Unless there's actual slander or factual error). Particularly, read the section of Wikipedia's official policy on dealing with articles about yourself. You are not the first person to discover potential issues in a Wikipedia article about yourself - we have hundreds of thousands of similar cases, and most turn out pretty smoothly. Nimur (talk) 19:22, 19 February 2011 (UTC)
 * To add to the above points:
 * Apologies for the cryptic abbreviation in the edit summary left by User:Johnfos. We have a Wikipedia abbreviations page that defines most such abbreviations, but that's admittedly a bit inside baseball, i.e. something a Wikipedia non-specialist would be unlikely to know, or know how to find. Accordingly, conscientious Wikipedia editors will take the time to link their Wikipedia-jargon terms in their edit summaries, to manual pages that define them. When I was new to Wikipedia, one of my early frustrations was decoding the actions of other editors. It would be nice if the MediaWiki software that powers the site had a feature that would explain those actions so anyone who wasn't already versed in Wikipedia arcana could understand them.
 * Your difficulties with editing articles about you and your organization are common on Wikipedia, since we have articles about many notable people and organizations, generally written by uninvolved inviduals, which then attract the attention of involved individuals who understandably want to shape what is being written about them on such a widely-viewed site. In the blizzard of links above I don't see a few more that apply: Neutral point of view, Verifiability, Citations, Sources, and FAQ/Organizations. It's hard to justify investing the time to understand Wikipedia's often unintuitive rules for a one-off edit. Enlisting help from someone who has plowed through and understood the manuals can make your progress easier. You might not be able to make the articles about you say exactly what you want, but Wikipedia's goal is to ensure they are accurate and dispassionate.
 * Wikipedia is not the only wiki, only the most famous. There are many others, with different rules. You or your editing staff may like Appropedia, which differs sharply from Wikipedia's neutrality in that it explicitly invites organizations involved with sustainability and appropriate technology to write about their activities, and even use the wiki as a tool for their workflow. At the moment Appropedia has a few articles that mention you or RMI. If you are interested in getting involved over there, leave me a message at Appropedia:User talk:Teratornis.
 * --Teratornis (talk) 21:27, 19 February 2011 (UTC)
 * I have removed your email addresses, as is usual for this page. -- John of Reading (talk) 12:43, 20 February 2011 (UTC)

template AFD
Hi, does anyone know the format to edit a little template that links to the afd for an article? Off2riorob (talk) 16:57, 19 February 2011 (UTC)

is the only way I can thing of making it any simpler. Annoyingly doesn't work. If you want it any simpler, I guess you'll have to find someone who can write a template to make lafd, following on from the other la templates. SmartSE (talk) 17:35, 19 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Ah, OK SmatSE, I appreciate you looking. I will use that one for the time being, I agree the AFD abbreviation would be an improvement, thanks. Off2riorob (talk) 23:48, 19 February 2011 (UTC)

Just wrote the lafd template! --- c y m r u . l a s s  (talk me, stalk me) 00:30, 21 February 2011 (UTC)

Flagging articles with no references
I searched and I can't figure out how to flag an article which has absolutely no references. It could very well be listed somewhere, I just can't find it.Daffydavid (talk) 19:23, 19 February 2011 (UTC)
 * or does the trick, I think that's what you want. Zakhalesh (talk) 19:25, 19 February 2011 (UTC)
 * How did you search? One starting point is the Template messages page, which has links to subpages listing various types of messages. Peruse Template messages/Sources of articles. --Teratornis (talk) 20:27, 19 February 2011 (UTC)

question about a guideline posted on wrong page
I posted a question about guidelines concerning permissibility of certain content in article about a town, in Wikipedia talk:Policies and guidelines but now think this was wrong place. Should I delete it and post it somewhere else and if so, where? Sorry -- good faith error. Michael P. Barnett (talk) 19:53, 19 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Wikipedia talk:Policies and guidelines is probably a bit too general for such a geographically specific question. Your post location is not so much "wrong" as it is unlikely to be seen by anyone with such a specific interest. Note that Wikipedia's rules are not always consistently applied. Rather, the rules act as a rough way to predict what sort of edits are likely to persist on Wikipedia. The more closely your edits comply with other editors' understanding of the rules, the more likely your edits are to "stick". Or, if a dispute should arise, the side with the better understanding of the rules will usually "win". Unfortunately, despite Wikipedia's amazingly extensive rules, they do not resolve every case, so it is sometimes necessary to do what you are doing: ask other interested editors what they think about a proposed change. The trick is to find the interested editors. I suggest asking on the talk pages of the articles and WikiProject(s) most directly related to your subject of interest, i.e.:
 * Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Worcestershire
 * Talk:Malvern, Worcestershire
 * Talk:Colwall
 * I suggest moving your question to the most active of the above pages, and posting notices on the others to see the main discussion on the talk page you chose. See Talk page guidelines if you have not already. --Teratornis (talk) 20:41, 19 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Thanks. Your directness is consistent with my reasons for pessimism concerning WK. Michael P. Barnett (talk) 02:58, 20 February 2011 (UTC)
 * I like to think of Wikipedia editing as an experiment. We throw things out there, and see what other editors do to our edits. If the result is not what we want, we adjust and try again. It helps not to have firm preconceptions about the outcome one desires. That can lead to disappointment. Collaborative editing is distinctly unlike any type of writing I did before I started editing on wikis. It takes some getting used to, and a bit of sangfroid. Again, the more one knows about Wikipedia's rules, the greater the chance of success. On Wikipedia there is no common sense. --Teratornis (talk) 19:07, 20 February 2011 (UTC)

Need to code collapsible table without row height increase.
A normal wiki table has rows of the same height, as shown in Table 1.

If collapsible lists are added to the table cells, the row height increases substantially, because when a collapsible table is contained in the cells to achieve the drop-down list effect, a good deal of cell padding is automatically introduced (as well as undesired shading of the words "fruits" and "vegetables"). This creates a bloated and inconsistent appearance, a very unsightly distortion, as in Table 2.

How can a wiki table with collapsible lists be coded to prevent this thickening, where the row height does not increase, and where there is no darker shading of the words "fruits" and "vegetables", as in Table 3, which is my desired objective?

I am more concerned by row height than by the shading, but I would like to eliminate both if possible. (Table 3 contains dummy collapsible lists for concept illustration.)

If a normal wiki table can not be adjusted to eliminate this thickening, can an alternative approach be deployed using a standard-coded HTML table, with Javascript for the Show/Hide effect? I find when Javascript code is introduced in a normal article page that it is not interpreted; the bare code is merely shown in the article. I wondered if I could write a special template including Javascript and then include that in an article by adding to the article page. I cannot find help to explain how to write a template with Javascript in it. — O'Dea (talk) 22:31, 19 February 2011 (UTC)
 * The formatting is there because you are telling it to: you are inserting a table (class "wikitable collapsible collapsed") inside the table cell - so it is formatting it as a table, as you told it to.
 * I don't know whether there is a way to get what you want. Help:Collapsing says "The code that performs the manipulation only checks for table elements, so these classes will not work for other elements, such as or  . There is a similar feature for use with   elements, called "NavFrame". See NavFrame". Perhaps NavFrame will help you. --ColinFine (talk) 21:20, 20 February 2011 (UTC)


 * Thank you for your suggestion which has been quite helpful. I have replaced the collapsible tables with the NavFrame coding technique and achieved a visible measure of improvement as shown by Table 4, below.


 * {| class="wikitable"

Fruits Apple Banana Grapefruit Lemon Pear Vegetables Cabbage Carrot Onion Potato Spinach
 * + Table 4
 * style="width:10em"|Table cell||style="width:10em"|Berries||style="width:10em"|Nuts||style="width:10em"|Table cell
 * Table cell||
 * Table cell||
 * Table cell
 * Table cell||Grasses||Trees||Table cell
 * }
 * }


 * Still, this is not quite what I illustrated in Table 3, above, as my desired objective; it is part of the change. The height of the rows containing hidden data has certainly been reduced, though not enough to equal the other row heights, and instead of a grey-shaded background, I now have a distracting, vivid blue. The blue and underlined link-word "show" in the cells is enough to indicate the presence of more data without the need for colour.


 * If anyone else has any ideas for reaching my goal (Table 3), I am still keen to learn how to do it. Thank you again to ColinFine for the improvement; Table 4 is certainly much neater than Table 2 and I am encouraged by the progress. — O'Dea  (talk) 22:18, 20 February 2011 (UTC)


 * Later — I have forced Table 4 further towards my ideal by suppressing native NavFrame style by introducing my own over-riding CSS style code, resulting in Table 5:


 * {| class="wikitable"

Fruits Apple Banana Grapefruit Lemon Pear Vegetables Cabbage Carrot Onion Potato Spinach
 * + Table 5
 * style="width:9em"|Table cell||style="width:9em"|Berries||style="width:9em"|Nuts||style="width:9em"|Table cell
 * Table cell||
 * Table cell||
 * Table cell
 * Table cell||Grasses||Trees||Table cell
 * }
 * }


 * This has grown very close to my original intention. If I could reduce the height of the middle row to normal, it would be perfect. It's a very vulgar and offensive way to achieve results in software: using a tool in an unrecommended way, then crippling its normal operation to warp it into something roughly resembling the shape you want, but speaking pragmatically, it nearly works.  — O'Dea  (talk) 02:57, 21 February 2011 (UTC)