Wikipedia:Help desk/Archives/2018 April 15

= April 15 =

Template:R from alternative language not working properly on
If I've understood the instructions correctly, this template takes an ISO 639 code for the redirect source language (in this case English, so en) and another for the redirect destination language (in this case Lithuanian, so lt). Only, it's not recogising lt, instead sticking by its default of "an as yet undetermined language". I can't figure out why; I've triple-checked and lt is indeed the correct code.

Whatever the issue turns out to be, this will require an admin to fix, as the template is full-protected.--Newbiepedian (talk · contribs · X! · logs) 00:38, 15 April 2018 (UTC)
 * The template relies on a language category existing for the redirect. I have created Category:Redirects to Lithuanian-language terms. PrimeHunter (talk) 01:07, 15 April 2018 (UTC)
 * Ah, right! Thanks for that. Do you know if there's any particular reason for that to be the case? Seems a bit arbitrary, it'd surely make more sense to recognise all languages (for which the technical capacity exists), automatically tag it with a redlink category, and then have someone create the category. This approach seems like working in reverse!--Newbiepedian (talk · contribs · X! · logs) 01:10, 15 April 2018 (UTC)
 * I don't know the reason. Category:Redirects to Lithuanian-language terms is a hidden category but non-existing categories cannot be hidden so a red link would have displayed for everybody. We usually don't want that in articles but it sounds harmless on a redirect. Many users wouldn't have created the category right away, and only registered users can create categories. PrimeHunter (talk) 13:25, 15 April 2018 (UTC)

Help with footnotes
I recently made this edit to the SCP Foundation article so that I would be able to use the same footnote for two different sections of text. The page now has two red cite errors on it, even though the footnotes did what I wanted them to do. What am I doing wrong, and how can I remove these cite errors? Spirit of Eagle (talk) 04:29, 15 April 2018 (UTC)
 * Spirit of Eagle There were two tweaks to make: (1) both your notes named "b" had content in them, even though the content was in fact identical; (2) your note "Including deliberately humorous..." was without a  parameter, which I have now supplied  – if you wanted to display this note separately to the list of other notes it would need another "notelist" call, with no  . I hope the edit I made will produce what you wanted Noyster  (talk),  07:44, 15 April 2018 (UTC)

Big problem- lost 2 hours of work
I accidentally closed a tab for an edit I worked for 2 hours on. Is there a way to get it back? I opened it immediately and it's gone. Alex of Canada (talk) 06:08, 15 April 2018 (UTC)


 * Unfortunately, Wikipedia has no autosave facility. Sometimes the back button in your browser can take you back to an open page, but if you closed the tab and opened a new tab then the work has probably been lost.  The same thing has happened to many of us in the past.  It's often a good idea to make smaller edits and manually save every five minutes.  An alternative is to copy the source to a text editor or to a sandbox to work on, then paste back the improvements into the article, but I would not recommend this because it is easy to ruin formatting, and to overwrite intervening edits.  In two hours, an edit conflict is quite likely for many articles, though you could use a Template:In use tag to temporarily protect against this.   Dbfirs  06:44, 15 April 2018 (UTC)
 * Damn, alright. Wikipedia should add some sort of autosave perhaps every 10 minutes or so. Plenty of sites have it, so it can't be that hard. Alex of Canada (talk) 00:59, 16 April 2018 (UTC)
 * Most of those sites don't have multiple people working at potentially the same time on the same content though, makes it a bit harder :) —Th e DJ (talk • contribs) 19:34, 17 April 2018 (UTC)
 * Best advice is to edit individual sections and save often. I rarely keep an edit window open for more than five minutes if I can avoid it. Leaving a window open for an hour or more is pretty dangerous as I'm sure you are now aware. Even if you don't outright lose your work, you might end up with an edit conflict with someone else, and it could take just as long to fix the edit conflict as it took to write the content in the first place.  G M G  talk  19:40, 17 April 2018 (UTC)

Family of Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge
Ref number 119  has been  used unnecessarily  twice in the grandparents section on this  page. Please remove if you can and you also think it is unnecessary, as I do. Thankyou175.32.12.25 (talk) 08:11, 15 April 2018 (UTC)
 * ✅ I fixed it, thanks for mentioning it. HickoryOughtShirt?4 (talk) 08:32, 15 April 2018 (UTC)

Inserting image
Hello i am creating user page on wikipedia.please guide me about how to insert a image and details like place of birth etc etc in the page.Thanks — Preceding unsigned comment added by Perfectdiva (talk • contribs) 11:16, 15 April 2018 (UTC)
 * Hello and welcome Perfectdiva! Our User page design center looks like what you want. You may want to think carefully about how much personal detail you put on your user page, as this is a highly public site Noyster</b> (talk),  12:30, 15 April 2018 (UTC)

Change of username and privacy
Hello, I recently changed my username, but a lot of my previous discussions on talk pages bear my old signature and link to my present userpage. Is there any way to prevent old signatures on talk pages from linking to my present userpage? I'm asking this for reasons of ensuring my privacy and preventing harassment. Thank you. (gnanvit (talk) 13:28, 15 April 2018 (UTC))
 * . The old user and talk page were moved and left redirects behind. The redirects can be blanked or deleted. See Help:Redirect. But the username change can still be traced. If you really want privacy then you have to create a new account and abandon the old. See Clean start and "Clean start under a new name" at WP:SOCK. PrimeHunter (talk) 13:46, 15 April 2018 (UTC)
 * Thank you very much . My concern is that my previous username/signature has been indexed by google search engine (in many talk pages) and can be used to redirect to my present user page. (gnanvit (talk) 14:08, 15 April 2018 (UTC))
 * Gnanvit, as PrimeHunter correctly said, the only way to move ahead in your case would be clean start. What you did was change your username, which is different from Clean start. When you change your username, your old account gets redirected to your new account and your old contributions are renamed to your new name (for example, if you go to the history of any article where you contributed with your old name, now you'll see your new name listed in history as a contributor). That defeats the purpose of privacy. Abandon your current account, and start anew, per the clean start policy. Don't connect any of your past user names to your current one. In such a case, Google will index only your past usernames to each other. Thanks, Lourdes  23:29, 15 April 2018 (UTC)

Template formatting (done)
Hello, I've just edited Template:Infobox isotope, and while doing so, I was wondering why there are those several identical lines  in the section beginning with. As I've realized, this is not the case in the other sections, so would there be a way to adapt or rather improve the formatting within the section in question by avoiding those redundancies? Best regards--Kohlscheid (talk) 18:49, 15 April 2018 (UTC)
 * This is a very inefficient code. It checks (using a long chain of "if" clauses) if one of parameters is present and then creates "nuclear data" section. Ruslik_ Zero 20:19, 15 April 2018 (UTC)
 * I have simplified the code.[//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Template:Infobox_isotope&diff=836624881&oldid=836592577] PrimeHunter (talk) 22:13, 15 April 2018 (UTC)
 * Thanks a lot, PrimeHunter! Best--Kohlscheid (talk) 17:26, 16 April 2018 (UTC)

Disagree with an article assessment
I recently spent time greatly expanding and improving an article on a Swiss location I know well. (By no means the first edit I have made in Wikipedia). I now see the rubric: "This article is written like a manual or guidebook. Please help rewrite this article from a descriptive, neutral point of view, and remove advice or instruction." Furthermore two edits have been made ("citation needed") where I have explained something precisely because it needs explaining, not cross-referencing,as no such references exist in Wikipedia. Whilst I am happy to review what I wrote, and make one or two modifications, I simply disagree with the assessment of it being a "manual" (!) and I would argue that any article in Wikipedia that includes descriptions of a place used for recreation or tourism inevitably has overtones of a "guide-book" - and if so, so what? According to Wikipedia's entry "encyclopedia articles focus on factual information concerning the subject named in the article’s title." In the article I am referring to, Thyon, there is nothing that is not fact, and I have in any event tried to give references where it would be helpful. I am very willing to "improve" but I would like to know: who makes such assessments? how and where can they be debated? Divonnais (talk) 20:49, 15 April 2018 (UTC)
 * User:Guliolopez added that tag here. The best place to discuss the issue would be on the talk page Talk:Thyon Vexations (talk) 21:04, 15 April 2018 (UTC)
 * Thyon reads more like an extract from a brochure for skiers, than an encyclopedia article about a place. There's no mention of its population (maybe it's deserted in the summer – in that case the article should say so), or its history, or what language its inhabitants speak. Maproom (talk) 06:13, 16 April 2018 (UTC)
 * I assess and reassess many articles. I don't believe I've ever had anyone disagree with my assessment. I remove the template on the article after I address the concerns of the editor who put it there. That doesn't mean that you should do the same. If an article is contentious, there might be a need to work it out with another editor. If you are interested in writing content about your experiences and travel, Wikivoyage is always looking for editors. Best Regards, Barbara ✐ ✉  17:22, 18 April 2018 (UTC)

On images within data tables
Is it generally considered acceptable to include pictures inside data tables, especially when doing so would result in a considerable lengthening of it? I haven't found much in the MOS about this. <span style="font-family:'Trajan Pro','Perpetua Titling MT',Perpetua,serif"> RAVEN PVFF  &#124; talk ~ 23:07, 15 April 2018 (UTC)
 * Hello, Manual of Style/Tables contains some guidance on the same. So does Manual of Style/Tables. My experience in adding images to data tables has been in two Featured Lists I have contributed to, namely, List of Indian Premier League seasons and results and List of Formula One Grand Prix wins by Ayrton Senna. In the first, you'll see flag icons inside the data tables; in the second, you'll see some of Senna's races; if you notice, the image use in these tables has been done in such a manner so that the table doesn't become longer. Nevertheless, as long as the images contribute editorially and benefit the reader, there's no harm in making the table longer. Thanks, Lourdes  23:41, 15 April 2018 (UTC)


 * The page Nut_(hardware) has a data table with extensive images in the data table with images also on the page that may be of some help. While it lengthens the table, the images shown by each name is what makes it a great resource. hope that helps, Another suggestion,   is making sure the images stay a reasonable and uniform size for the table. this code can be set upin the table so future images will be displayed keeping the columns in line.2602:306:CE27:DC90:6D17:FC9C:2DE2:A659 (talk) 01:20, 17 April 2018 (UTC)