Wikipedia:Help desk/Archives/2015 July 31

= July 31 =

Image size question
I have posted a Request for Comments as to which of two image montages to use for the city of Melbourne, Australia. I tried to have the images both display in the same way. However, at Talk: Melbourne, one of the images displays as full-width, completely across the talk page, and the other displays as half-width. The first question is whether I have done something wrong, and, if so, what. The second question, which would take care of the first, is if someone can fix the image size on the talk page. You are of course also welcome to !vote on the image question. I am neutral because I was the dispute resolution noticeboard moderator. Thank you. Robert McClenon (talk) 02:32, 31 July 2015 (UTC)
 * I made them look same by adding 590 px to the code. You can change the size by increasing and decreasing the number. Supdiop ( Talk 🔹 Contribs ) 05:12, 31 July 2015 (UTC)
 * Thank you. Robert McClenon (talk) 15:41, 31 July 2015 (UTC)

Mundane #1: Donations
Is there a record of my donations? If so, how/where do I find it? How do I know there's an answer to my questions posted, and how do I find the post?

Thanks!

PS: Thanks for the help and sorry about the depth and width of my ignorance! — Preceding unsigned comment added by Metalsmyth (talk • contribs) 05:00, 31 July 2015 (UTC)


 * Do you mean cash donations to the Wikimedia Foundation, which operates Wikipedia; or do you mean contributions to the contents of this and other Wikipedias? -- Orange Mike &#124;  Talk  14:59, 31 July 2015 (UTC)
 * If you mean your edits to the website then click Contributions at the top right of any page to see them. People will usually reply on the same page you asked. I linked your username in this post with  to give you a notification of my post but many users will not do that. You often have to watch out for answers on your own. See Help:Watchlist for a method that works better on pages with few edits. PrimeHunter (talk) 00:07, 1 August 2015 (UTC)
 * I have donated a few times to the Wikipedia Foundation and I received an email, but I have not seen a way to see past donations, other than in the saved email. --Frmorrison (talk) 15:34, 4 August 2015 (UTC)

How about holding the authority control data by wikidata and remove the Authority control templates
Hi. I am now running a robot trying to add to every zhwiki page that has the authority control data. I think it is better display it as interwiki language links instead of adding a template, but I am not sure if the idea is reasonable. How about showing the authority control data like the language links displayed in the left block, and remove all authority control templates?

If we should add the Authority control template; in my case, there're too many pages to check. I can only get 50 pages once time. (See zh:User:cewbot/log/20150109.) It will take one month to check and add all the pages. Are there any other ideas to improve the situation, or help me to resolve the problem? Thank you all. --Kanashimi (talk) 07:15, 31 July 2015 (UTC)
 * I'm too ignorant of such things to even be sure that I understand the problem, but I know that KasparBot has recently been working to integrate authority control on en.wp and Wikidata. If you contact the bot's operator, T.seppelt, perhaps he can have the bot help you out on zh.wp. Deor (talk) 13:08, 31 July 2015 (UTC)
 * Thank you. --Kanashimi (talk) 02:29, 1 August 2015 (UTC)

Correct wording: age versus aged
Not sure where to post this, so I ended up here. In many (all?) of those age/date templates, it will result in a statement such as "aged 25" or "aged 99". That wording seems unnatural and affected. Shouldn't the better wording be "age 25" or "age 99"? Where is the best place to deal with this issue of semantics? Thanks. Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 18:32, 31 July 2015 (UTC)


 * It should only say aged for deceased people. Have you seen aged with living people? Death date and age has 166000 transclusions so the place to discuss would be Template talk:Death date and age. Note it has been suggested several times in the archives. PrimeHunter (talk) 19:07, 31 July 2015 (UTC)


 * Thanks. I never noticed the difference between living and dead people.   I will have to check that out.  What is a transclusion?  And where do you see that this issue has been discussed several times before?  Can you give me the link?   Thanks.   Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 20:52, 31 July 2015 (UTC)


 * A transclusion is when  is used to display a template on another page. See more at Transclusion. I clicked "What links here" at Death date and age and then "Transclusion count" to see 166000. Template talk:Death date and age has a box at the right with links to two archives. aged/age has been discussed in both. PrimeHunter (talk) 21:24, 31 July 2015 (UTC)


 * I don't usually get involved in this sort of discussion, but to me, "age 25" is incoherent unless it is part of a phrase like "at age 25" or "of age 25". Standing alone it makes sense only punctuated as "Age: 25". In prose, "aged 25" is the only form I would expect to find. --ColinFine (talk) 22:01, 31 July 2015 (UTC)


 * Are you saying that, in prose, you would expect to see: "John Doe, aged 21, is the suspected gunman" and not "John Doe, age 21, is the suspected gunman"? Are you in USA or elsewhere, like maybe in Britain?  I have never heard/seen the former and have only heard/seen the latter.   Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 22:39, 31 July 2015 (UTC)
 * the above edited to remove unnecessary BLP issues -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom  00:05, 1 August 2015 (UTC)
 * I agree with, I'm only ever heard/seen "aged 21" used in this context. Could be a British/American English thing, as I've from England. Joseph2302 (talk) 22:58, 31 July 2015 (UTC)


 * I think it must be an American versus British preference in semantics. I don't think I have ever seen "aged" in the circumstances described above.  I have always seen "age".   Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 05:13, 2 August 2015 (UTC)


 * Yes, I just checked the entry for "aged" in Wiktionary. (See here: aged.)  It gives the definition as "having reached the age of".  It specifically says that this usage is primarily non-US. Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 05:18, 2 August 2015 (UTC)

Thanks, all. Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 03:44, 4 August 2015 (UTC)

i want t o add a photo
i want to add a photo but i am not very good at editing this type of thing add to this page https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norman_Malcolm — Preceding unsigned comment added by Billkapp (talk • contribs) 19:23, 31 July 2015 (UTC)
 * Have you uploaded the photo? C T F 8 3 !   19:29, 31 July 2015 (UTC)
 * if the image you want to upload is free, you can upload it to Wikimedia Commons here. If it is copyrighted, it may only be uploaded to Wikipedia if you believe it is eligible for fair use, and meets Wikipedia's non-free content criteria. As only autoconfirmed users (accounts with 10 edits that are 4 days old) can upload images, you may request for the file, if it is non-free, to be uploaded at Files for upload. — Bilorv(talk)(c)(e) 19:52, 31 July 2015 (UTC)

E-mail
Am a new user, have user name and password. Must I wait 4 days to be able to pring an article? John — Preceding unsigned comment added by Tippyjb1114 (talk • contribs) 19:48, 31 July 2015 (UTC)
 * Hello John. I assume you found a semi-protected article and found that only autoconfirmed users can edit them. If you create a new section on the talk page of the article, with the code  at the top of your message and a clear description of exactly what you want to be changed (citing reliable sources if necessary), someone will perform the edit for you. — Bilorv(talk)(c)(e) 20:00, 31 July 2015 (UTC)
 * (edit conflict) I'm not sure what you mean by "pring" an article. If you mean create an article, then you should be able to do that right away.  If you mean move or re-name an article, you have to be autoconfirmed, which means having at least 10 edits and your account being at least 4 days old.  ~  ONUnicorn (Talk&#124;Contribs) problem solving 20:04, 31 July 2015 (UTC)


 * Typo for "print" maybe, via the PDF book generator?--ukexpat (talk) 20:35, 31 July 2015 (UTC)
 * Or does the OP mean "ping"?  → Michael J Ⓣ Ⓒ Ⓜ 16:18, 1 August 2015 (UTC)

Timing out
For a while now, when I try to save an edit, Wikipedia frequently says I've timed out after an absurdly short length of time. It last happened to me a few minutes ago when I wasn't even in mainspace, just on somebody's talk page. Clarityfiend (talk) 20:14, 31 July 2015 (UTC)
 * join the club Village_pump_(technical). --Neil N  talk to me 20:22, 31 July 2015 (UTC)


 * But I don't want to join a club that would have me as a member ... Clarityfiend (talk) 20:38, 31 July 2015 (UTC)
 * Fine, then I'll join a club and beat you over the head with it :-) When it gives you the "session data lost" message and you re-save, does it work fine?  I get the message rather often, but virtually never does it give me the same message twice for the same edit.  Nyttend (talk) 20:46, 31 July 2015 (UTC)
 * Greetings, since I joined Wikipedia in March, 2014 this time out problem comes & goes. Same thing with needing to hit F5 to do a page refresh. I have done thousands of edits, mostly article assessments & WikiProject article improvements. And there seems to be no pattern as to when these issues start and when they stop - totally random. Sometimes I think it might be my slow DSL connection & timing of Wikipedia server database updates? (just guessing) Regards, JoeHebda (talk) 00:59, 1 August 2015 (UTC)
 * I haven't tried resaving immediately, but the problem seems to have gone away ... for now. Clarityfiend (talk) 02:00, 2 August 2015 (UTC)
 * It came back, and what do you know, resaving works. Thanks, Nyttend. Clarityfiend (talk) 23:21, 3 August 2015 (UTC)

What did I do wrongly?
I closed an ANI discussion earlier today, and it looked just like it should: section "Inappropriate non-admin closure" has my rationale, just like I expected. I just learnt that the situation was otherwise than I thought, so I amended the closing statement by striking out the original and adding a new rationale that included a URL. To my surprise, the entire rationale box has disappeared. What did I do wrongly, and how do I fix it? Nyttend (talk) 20:51, 31 July 2015 (UTC)


 * I'm assuming the template Archive top does not support urls. I've formatted the url using diff template and it's fine now. - NQ (talk)  21:03, 31 July 2015 (UTC)
 * Thanks; I never think of that template. Nyttend (talk) 21:10, 31 July 2015 (UTC)
 * The problem was the equals sign in the url. If an unnamed parameter contains an equals sign then it's interpreted as trying to assign a value to a parameter whose name is the left-hand-side of the equals sign. The workaround is to say  in front of the unnamed parameter to indicate that the following is the first unnamed parameter and any equals sign will be part of the value. PrimeHunter (talk) 21:31, 31 July 2015 (UTC)
 * Thank you very much! Very helpful. - NQ (talk)  21:43, 31 July 2015 (UTC)

WHRO-FM
I am having some issues with another editor mass deleting my edits on WHRO-FM. A quick summary: I added a list of full power repeater stations for WHRO-FM, which is standard operation procedure (SOP) for radio station listings. And a list of WHRO's HD subchannels, which is SOP on Wikipedia. I added info on the station's radio reading service (RRS), again SOP on Wikipedia pages, and also info on a translator station that re-airs a HD subchannel and not the main WHRO signal. The RRS and the HD translator is information that will not be on any other page in Wikipedia, as RRS's and translators do not merit their own article. This editor mass deleted all of my edits on that page. And i discussed such with him on his User talk page. User_talk:Neutralhomer/Archive13 The editor's main gripe was that the info i added was unverifiable. I added that the info was easily verified with the existing links to Radiolocator.com, fcc.gov, live station ID's on the individual webstreams and the station's webpage, all of which are linked numerous times in WHRO-FM. One gripe i have with his edits is it's not using the standard format which we edit radio station articles, and the deletions are of information that is not readily available elsewhere on Wikipedia. Any help would be appreciated. --JeffConn (talk) 23:49, 31 July 2015 (UTC)
 * This is content dispute and should go on the article's talk page. Frankly I think we list too much trivial and uncited info about broadcast stations, many of which fail the WP:GNG but are kept by a group of enthusiasts. DES (talk) 13:39, 1 August 2015 (UTC)