Wikipedia:Help desk/Archives/2016 April 29

= April 29 =

Edit Page
Hello,

I want to create my page on wikipedia. And would like to know more about it. Please say some suggestion in this regard. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Cma.shekhar (talk • contribs) 11:20, 29 April 2016 (UTC)


 * I'm sorry to disappoint you, but Wikipedia is an encyclopaedia, not a place to "create my page". You can say a little about yourself on your own user page User:Cma.shekhar (you can create that page), but this should not look like an article, and should not be a profile such as might appear on social media.  If you think you satisfy the strict requirements of WP:Notability and especially WP:Biographies of living persons, then you could request that an article be written about you at Requested articles.    D b f i r s   11:41, 29 April 2016 (UTC)


 * If I've misunderstood, and you just want to create your first article about some other topic, see WP:My first article, but you might like to get some practice at editing other articles first.   D b f i r s   09:14, 30 April 2016 (UTC)

Publishing a Draft Page
Hello!!

I have created & completed a page for Wave Church using the Draft feature. I'm unsure what the next steps are to send this draft for review to be published. I have read through your site thoroughly and am unable to figure out how to publish the article.

Thank you so much for your help!! — Preceding unsigned comment added by Timna.jones (talk • contribs) 14:30, 29 April 2016 (UTC)

This relates to Draft:Wave Church. Unfortunately the page has already been nominated for deletion as it is considered promotional. Eagleash (talk) 14:47, 29 April 2016 (UTC)

Automated map coloring?
How does one accomplish a map like "File:Countries by GDP (PPP) Per Capita in 2014.svg" using a list of values for each country (or other entity) without resorting to manual coloring for each country? Bytesock (talk) 15:15, 29 April 2016 (UTC)
 * In that particular case, it's rather easy, as it's a well-written SVG file.
 * You can download the file from Commons where it is stored as https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Countries_by_GDP_(PPP)_Per_Capita_in_2014.svg to your own computer, and edit it using a text editor such as Notepad. If you want to make, say, Thailand darker, you search the file for the string "Thailand", and find some lines looking like

Thailand  
 * etc. The "999900" specifies the colour used for Thailand, which happens to be yellowy-green. Then if you want to make it a darker green like Russia, you replace all the "999900"s in the Thailand section by "666600". Maproom (talk) 16:00, 29 April 2016 (UTC)

Searching for individual usage of a word.
Is it possible to do a search to find when a particular editor has used a particular word or phrase in, say, a talk page, or a edit summary? Tiptoethrutheminefield (talk) 19:43, 29 April 2016 (UTC)
 * For talk pages, you can specify the namespaces as the talk pages when you use the search page and search for the editor's name (in the signature) and the word/phrase. Edit Summaries are tougher. I think it can be done, but I don't know how.Naraht (talk) 19:46, 29 April 2016 (UTC)
 * I don't know in what pages the word might have been used on. All I know is the word, and the name of the editor that has used that word on a number of occasions over a long period. I want to find out the context of its usage by that editor in each case. I'm not interested in its usage as article content, and considering it again, nor in edit summaries. So, really what I should have asked is "Is it possible to do a search to find where on any page other than an article a particular editor has used a particular word?" So, lets say for myself - I've just used the word "particular" - can I search to discover where else I have used the word "particular" in a post. Tiptoethrutheminefield (talk) 19:54, 29 April 2016 (UTC)
 * Click on the hourglass next to the search box, it will take you to the search page. Click on Advanced which will enable selection by namespace, unclick the Article checkbox (and any others that aren't talk) like Template. Then search for the phrase and the name of the user (most talk pages will either autosign or have the bot go through and do it for them) so when I do it for tiptoethrutheminefield and particular, I get https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Search&profile=advanced&profile=advanced&fulltext=Search&search=Tiptoethrutheminefield+particular&ns1=1&ns3=1&ns5=1&ns7=1&ns9=1&ns11=1&ns13=1&ns15=1&searchToken=dzk6870zowohr6odzqbnam21y However, this may show pages where someone else posting to that talk page has used that phrase, so it may not be as useful. :(Naraht (talk) 20:10, 29 April 2016 (UTC)
 * Thanks so much. That solution seems to work. It does show other users posting the same word but it narrows down the number of pages I need to look through to something manageable. Tiptoethrutheminefield (talk) 21:16, 29 April 2016 (UTC)

Verifiability
I've found out that a person who has has a biography on WP no longer resides in the city given in his box. As he is semi-retired, no up-to-date biographical and publicly verifiable info is likely to appear. How would one go about updating WP in this instance? --Aspro (talk) 20:05, 29 April 2016 (UTC)
 * If the information is unsourced, I'd remove it entirely. It's better to have no information than possibly incorrect information.  If it's sourced, but you think it's out of date, you can move it to the article body and explain the issue in more detail there.  For example: "As of June 2007, he was living in London, England."  Infoboxes don't allow for much explanation of their data. NinjaRobotPirate (talk) 22:18, 29 April 2016 (UTC)

Global lock
Hey, my original account (Kailey 2001) got blocked for my protection by an administrator at the Wikimedia Foundation. I tried emailing the administrator and contacting the WMF on Twitter but no one will respond to me. What I want to do is create a new account (not this one) and start fresh, but I didn't know if that would be sockpuppetry or block evasion. Am I permitted to come back under a new name or am I banned like a vandal? KaileyGirl (talk) 23:19, 29 April 2016 (UTC)
 * I have let a WMF representative know of this and they will be contacting you. Other than that, there really is nothing more anyone here can do for you. Sorry. --Majora (talk) 00:41, 30 April 2016 (UTC)

Age of tree
I have circumference of tree (live Oak), need formula to determine age Tnx — Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.112.83.138 (talk) 23:43, 29 April 2016 (UTC)
 * The Help Desk is for asking questions on how to use Wikipedia. Try asking at the Reference Desk, where they answer general knowledge questions.  RudolfRed (talk) 00:23, 30 April 2016 (UTC)

Password help
How do I create the special character for my password? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.209.176.89 (talk) 23:45, 29 April 2016 (UTC)


 * In this context, a special character means anything that isn't a letter or number. So, all of these, !@#$%^&*_ would be special characters. Dismas |(talk) 00:31, 30 April 2016 (UTC)