Wikipedia:Help desk/Archives/2018 April 18

= April 18 =

Uploading new version of SVG file; CSS warning
Hi everyone,

I'd like to upload a new version of File:Melbrail former present proposed.svg which I created from the current version, but when I try to upload my new version I get the following error message: Found unsafe CSS in the style element of uploaded SVG file. How can I fix this/get past the error message? NB: I'm not very familiar with SVGs or CSS, beyond knowing what they stand for and how they're used, so any instructions will have to be pretty basic for me to follow them. Thanks in advance. Triptothecottage (talk) 01:44, 18 April 2018 (UTC)
 * The guys over at our computing desk can probably help. What software did you use to edit the SVG? You can use a text editor to look at the original and modified SVG files and you may see something. -Arch dude (talk) 01:51, 18 April 2018 (UTC)

&lt;ref&gt; tag creating &lt;span&gt; with white bg
Hello; I have no idea where to ask this fairly technical question so I figure I'd put it here.

&lt;ref&gt; tags are wrapped in a &lt;span&gt; tag that looks like this:

This causes what is arguably an undesired display in any HTML element with a non-white background, as can be seen in the header row of the table at.

I can't see any reason to keep the  stipulation, but I also can't see where on en-WP or Mediawiki this might have been discussed. Thanks. — Hugh (talk) 03:33, 18 April 2018 (UTC)
 * @Hugh: It's not done for refs in general. Your example uses Episode table. Template:Episode table says at "Reference": "If Wikipedia's link colours are not WCAG 2 AAA Compliant with the background colour, Module:Episode table/ref is used." So the used template adds  to the references in this example because blue text on grey background is hard to read for some people. See MOS:CONTRAST. The white background disappears if the template is for example called with  . PrimeHunter (talk) 09:50, 18 April 2018 (UTC)

Archiving all URLs in an article
Is there a relatively fast way to archive all the URLs used in an article's references? It is possible to do individually, of course, but this is time consuming for one article, let alone several. I seem to remember having seen people archive all URLs at once, but remember neither how, nor if there are multiple ways to do it. Thanks, --Usernameunique (talk) 04:55, 18 April 2018 (UTC)
 * Usernameunique IABot does this. It can be accessed through the article's History tab | Fix dead links, then tick the box labelled "Add archives to all non-dead references" Noyster (talk),  11:50, 18 April 2018 (UTC)
 * Thanks, . I just tried doing this for the Colin Robert Chase article (with "Add archives to all non-dead references (Optional)" checked), but it didn't archive any of the URLs. Instead, it said:

Any suggestions? Thanks, --Usernameunique (talk) 20:26, 18 April 2018 (UTC)
 * Page title: Colin_Robert_Chase
 * Run duration: 1.7302000522614 Seconds
 * Page modified: No
 * Links analyzed: 0
 * Links rescued: 0
 * Links tagged: 0
 * Links archived: 0
 * I expect this has to do with the references in that article being in format and not themselves containing URLs.  The related URLs are in your "Bibliography" section, but the bot hasn't gone there. Whether there is a way to do this using IABot – can't find documentation, perhaps Cyberpower678 can tell us Noyster  (talk),  20:42, 18 April 2018 (UTC)
 * Nope, they have to be within references.— CYBERPOWER  ( Chat ) 20:45, 18 April 2018 (UTC)
 * &, thanks for the explanation. Just ran it on Leslie E. Webster, which primarily uses tags, and it worked perfectly. Is there no workaround or separate tool for sfn references? Leaving aside how much I like them, it would be a significant amount of work on pages such as Sutton Hoo helmet either to convert the format, or to archive the URLs by hand. --Usernameunique (talk) 04:44, 20 April 2018 (UTC)

Finding and editing world map
I'm trying to find the Wikipedia blank world political map. Where is this located? Also, how do I edit this map, for my purposes? I wish to provide a key and colour the respective countries according to the key. Your help would be much appreciated.Mrodowicz (talk) 08:25, 18 April 2018 (UTC)
 * World uses File:ColoredBlankMap-World-10E.svg. There are others in commons:Category:Blank SVG maps of the world. I don't know which is most common. You can request help at Graphics Lab/Map workshop. PrimeHunter (talk) 09:55, 18 April 2018 (UTC)

Thanks PrimeHunter- much appreciated. --Mrodowicz (talk) 04:03, 20 April 2018 (UTC)

Dormskirt editor
This editor has removed the revisions I made to the Atholl Highlanders page saying I did not provide references. Can you help I have read the Wikipedia reference help and I do not understand where I am going wrong. — Preceding unsigned comment added by AHCastle (talk • contribs) 10:12, 18 April 2018 (UTC)


 * It's Dormskirk, not Dormskirt, and he was quite correct to revert your edits. Try reading Help:Referencing for beginners. --David Biddulph (talk) 10:16, 18 April 2018 (UTC)

Editor on a topic appears to be a researcher in the field and is stating his own opinions uncited. Could someone help?
The Luwian language article has recently been edited several times by the editor Ilya.yakubovich (talk | contribs). Some of the content added appears to be personal opinions of this editor, with no citation of a source.

What makes this particularly problematic is that Dr. Ilya Yakubovich is actually a scholar in this field; his current home page is here (in German). From the editor's contributions, I'm pretty sure he is that Dr. Yakubovich. In fact from the Talk page sections titled "Revision" and "Sociolinguistics of the Luvian Language", I think he's edited the article several times in the past. (The IP addresses in those sections are geolocated at sites where Dr. Yakubovich worked when they were posted, according to the biography on his home page, and the second one I linked explicitly mentions a monograph that can be found in his home page's list of publications.)

Personally, I welcome knowledgable experts editing articles on their fields, but they must follow the same rules as everyone else here. I would think that they would find it easier to do so, since citing sources is a normal part of their work, they know which sources are of high quality, and they should have plenty of access to such sources. The important thing they must keep in mind is that a reader of the article can't easily know whether any particular statement was written by an expert, an ordinary person, or even a crank with time on his hands. Nor can the reader know what sources back up that statement unless it has citations.

I'm not experienced in teaching or enforcing Wikipedia policies, and I can't spare the time; I only came across this by chance while reading some articles I was interested in. If someone else with more experience on the policy side could follow up with this user, I'd really appreciate it. --Colin Douglas Howell (talk) 11:00, 18 April 2018 (UTC)


 * Are there particular contributions that you are concerned about? Having glanced at his last few, they seem to be reasonably well-referenced, and I can't immediately spot places where they are in breach of Wikipedia policy.  TSP (talk) 11:12, 18 April 2018 (UTC)


 * Among his most recent edits, it was this one whose content really bothered me and led me to make this request: "The Lydian language, however, cannot be regarded as the direct descendant of Luwian and probably does not even belong to the Luwic group. Therefore, none of the arguments in favour of the Luwian linguistic dominance in Western Asia minor can be regarded as compelling, although the issue continues to be debated." That statement isn't cited, and I'm pretty sure it's his own opinion. It sounds like a claim you might find in an academic paper, and would be perfectly reasonable in that context, but in the end it's still only the opinion of one researcher.


 * The fact that the Talk page section titled "Revision" was written by a user claiming that Dr. Yakubovich's views were not yet accepted by the academic mainstream of the field only added to my concern. I don't know whether that is still true or not, but either way, that would make uncited claims more problematic and increase the need for citation. (I myself have no background in this field; like I said, I was just reading up on a topic I was interested in.) --Colin Douglas Howell (talk) 01:46, 19 April 2018 (UTC)


 * Hi Colin Douglas Howell,. Can grasp youre undeliing conserns.  How about this as a pons asinorum. We inform Dr. Yakubovich that it is in his 'own' interest that he makes it uneqvivable clear that he is indeead User:Ilya.yakubovich and not a imposter. That is simple. I, you or my cat can leave a pointer on his talk page Help available for editors with conflicts of interest.  Being an academic he may also be only familiar with the academic procces and not WP policy. If he is indeed  Dr. Yakubovich, he may not yet relise that under WP policy, he does indeed have a COI to declare. The other issues like not accepted by the academic mainstream can be takled later. Reseacher on th ecutting edge are allways in front of  the main stream, by the very nature that they are in the fore front of dicovery. Yet  Dr. Yakubovich may not understand that although he may be right... WP needs good 3rd party sorces – althoug we may alow exseptons in special cases. Aspro (talk) 11:30, 19 April 2018 (UTC)

How to create a wikipedia article page for my organisation
- We would like to create a page related to our organisation on wikipedia, as there currently isn't one.

How do we do this?

The sandbox only allows us to create a user page, but not an encyclopedia article.

Any help would be much appreciated.

Many thanks. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Pankajpiyush (talk • contribs) 13:47, 18 April 2018 (UTC)
 * Note: Identical question has been asked and answered at Teahouse. Please do not use more than one help page at the same time for the same question Noyster (talk),  14:16, 18 April 2018 (UTC)

Text to ask
Is there away you can text people tell them how they are doing — Preceding unsigned comment added by 3DWAFFLE33 (talk • contribs) 16:13, 18 April 2018 (UTC)
 * You can leave messages on their user talk page. Wikipedia does not support sending text messages to users' phones. Ian.thomson (talk) 16:18, 18 April 2018 (UTC)

Categories
I need to determine the number of categories that I have created. I have all the stats I need on my editing but don't know how to find this number. Best Regards, Barbara ✐ ✉  17:25, 18 April 2018 (UTC)


 * 12, of which 2 have been deleted, according to this page. --David Biddulph (talk) 17:29, 18 April 2018 (UTC)
 * Thank you. Best Regards, Barbara ✐ ✉  19:55, 18 April 2018 (UTC)
 * Fun fact; Technically you can only really know how many wikitext pages you created in the Category namespace. A category is automatically created as soon as it is first used and never truly deleted. Blue link or red link, the category exists. —Th e DJ (talk • contribs) 08:13, 19 April 2018 (UTC)
 * It's a matter of definition whether a category exists when a page has been placed in it but the category page has not been created. In normal Wikipedia terminology the category does not exist. Clicking the red link gives a HTTP 404 not found message although pages in the category are shown.  says the category does not exist. It is not indexed by search engines, including Wikipedias own search. PrimeHunter (talk) 15:41, 19 April 2018 (UTC)