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"Cite" doesn't work (started yesterday)

When I'm editing and select "Cite", I get the "Templates" pulldown. If I choose anything, like "cite web" -- nothing happens. This is new behavior as of yesterday. Using Win7Pro and IE10. Where should I go for debugging problems like this? Thanks -- ResearcherQ (talk) 00:03, 26 April 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for the question. I would suspect this relates to your browser configuration - have you changed how you allow/disallow javascript? or cookies? Have you changed your preferences??? Hope this give you some ideas on where to look. Regards, Ariconte (talk) 04:09, 26 April 2013 (UTC)
You can get Wikipedia related technical help at WP:VPT (and I note that there is currently a discussion on the page related to problems with the introduction of changes to the citation system). For problems that are not related to Wikimedia software you can ask at WP:RDC. SpinningSpark 06:57, 29 April 2013 (UTC)

New Magazine Entry

I have found that entries exist for Tae Kwon Do Times and Black Belt magazines, two popular magazines which address the martial art of Tae Kwon Do. Another magazine named Totally Tae Kwon Do has published many superb interviews and articles, and frequently publishes articles by authors who publish articles likewise in TKD Times and Black Belt magazines, too; as well as authors who have published several books. Totally Tae Kwon Do is a legitimate magazine and growing in popularity, though not of the age of the other two. I started an entry with basic text, but did not submit it as it was not yet ready to be submitted..not even close. It was promptly removed from Wikipedia citing G11 as the reason. Is this something I should expect as I work on an article as a rough draft in some cases? I feel the article was deleted prematurely and without merit. Mike.e.swope (talk) 02:46, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

Hi, Mike and welcome to the Teahouse! There are two ways to work on an article without worrying about it being deleted before you are done. One is to use Articles for Creation. There you can work on an article as long as you need to and someone will review it before it is put into the encyclopedia. It is quite common for AfC to be backlogged, however and sometimes there is a delay of up to a couple weeks before your article can get reviewed. Another way is to create a sandbox for yourself to "play" in. I will make one for you and leave the link on your talk page. I would suggest you have someone review it before you move it to mainspace, however. It would be a shame for you to work hard on an article and end up getting it deleted. Be sure you read WP:GNG and WP:RS, the general notability policy and the reliable source policy. These are things you must understand if you are going to create an article. We encourage you to come back if you have any more questions! That's why we are here. Gtwfan52 (talk) 02:57, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

infobox gold color bar on name and background - how to get

I just added an infobox to a page and the name at top and on title "background information" is shaded in blue. On others, like Mariah Carey etc etc, it is shaded in gold. Is this a temporary blue or how do I get it to be gold color? MG1954mgtf (talk) 01:48, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

For {{Infobox musical artist}} it is determined by the background parameter. See Template:Infobox musical artist#background. PrimeHunter (talk) 01:58, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

infobox - how to add to page HELP

I cant see where to type up the info box and how to add to an established page. I can't even figure if this is the right place to ask as I posted a few minutes ago and don't see my question or know where to find an answer. Help. Keith1954mgtf (talk) 21:58, 30 April 2013 (UTC)

Welcome to the Teahouse, 1954mgtf! If you want to add an infobox. the first thing to do is go to the infobox page. For example, go to Template:Infobox film. Find where it says "Usage". See that light gray box with a dotted line border? Copy all the text in there. Now go to the article where you want to place it, place it, and fill out as much as you can. Delete anything you didn't use. The template may be in a separate heading every time, but just look for the light gray box with the dotted border. Happy editing! öBrambleberry of RiverClan 22:01, 30 April 2013 (UTC)
Ok - I found the Mariah Carey template and used it and filled in my own copy and have it saved in Word - Here is where I have a problem - Y say go to where you want to place it and place it -That is where I am stumped. It goes at the beginning of the page where there is no edit link. Or do I just go to the first "edit" link and it will show up? I can add picture later. 1954mgtf (talk) 22:05, 30 April 2013 (UTC)
You now at the top by the search box where it says "Read", "Edit", "View history". etc., and includes the search box? IF you click on that "edit" link, you get the whole page and can put the infobox at the very top. öBrambleberry of RiverClan 22:09, 30 April 2013 (UTC)
B the way brambleberry- I consider it a victory that I was able to find out how to ask a question and even got an answer from you and I thank you! Nice.

1954mgtf (talk) 22:12, 30 April 2013 (UTC)

Thanks so much - surprised that I got an answer and I will now go off ad try my hand at it. I do appreciate your kindness and taking the time.

1954mgtf (talk) 22:14, 30 April 2013 (UTC)

No problem! Wikipedia can be a scary place sometimes, and it's good to have people help you along. Have you considered being adopted? The adopt-a-user program is an opportunity for experienced users to provide a walkthrough for inexperienced users. My schedule is too busy to adopt any more, but you can just put {{Adopt me}} on your user page and someone will find you. öBrambleberry of RiverClan 22:17, 30 April 2013 (UTC)
THANKS, I was just too anxious - it now shows up in gold color.1954mgtf (talk) 02:13, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

How do I create links? For example links to persons who have influenced an artistJmcdan36 (talk) 20:22, 30 April 2013 (UTC)

Hi, anytime you want to link to another Wikipedia article you just put [[ ]] - square brackets around the name of the article you want to link to. So for example to link to the article you have created, a nice piece I might add, you just type [[Henry E. McDaniel]] to produce Henry E. McDaniel. The next trick after that is to link to an article and display some different text, this is achieved by using the "pipe trick". So if it was appropriate to refer to Henry as just McDaniel I could type [[Henry E. McDaniel|McDaniel]] to produce McDaniel. The pipe symbol is found on most English language keyboards as produced by ⇧ Shift and \. NtheP (talk) 20:43, 30 April 2013 (UTC)
Hello Jcmdan36, and welcome to the Teahouse! Links to other Wikipedia articles can be created using two pairs of square brackets, so [[Wikipedia]] would create a link like this: Wikipedia. External links are created using the URL of an external website, with a single pair of square brackets. For example, [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page] would give you [1]. Guidelines for external links can be found here.
For more information, see Help:Linking. Best regards, FrigidNinja 20:33, 30 April 2013 (UTC)

Wikipedia isn't printing out references

When I go to export, and select pdf, it all works like it should. The only thing that I notice is that the reference numbers in the article are blank, I only get the [] in the text. Also the reference list is empty.

Please forgive the dumb question. Glenn 115.188.213.190 (talk) 20:17, 30 April 2013 (UTC)

The only stupid question is the question you don't ask - Idiomatic Proverb
Hello and welcome to the Teahouse. I'm sorry to hear that you are having difficulties. Could you tell me what article you are having difficulties with? Technical 13 (talk) 20:22, 30 April 2013 (UTC)
Thanks for the quick response. I've done three this morning, Dartmouth BASIC, which printed out ok, John Kemeny, which had those issues, and Thomas Kurtz, also issues.
I've had a think and perhaps its the formatting of the individual articles rather than a rendering error (perhaps). I don't know how to fix this, how do I bring it to the right peoples attention?
Glenn.115.188.213.190 (talk) 20:42, 30 April 2013 (UTC)
Glenn, this is a known issue. The difference between the three articles that you downloaded is that the Kemeny and Kurtz articles use {{citation}} templates and Dartmouth BASIC doesn't. Recently the citation templates were converted to use Lua and at the moment the pdf download tool is ignoring anything using Lua. NtheP (talk) 21:03, 30 April 2013 (UTC)

Cleaning up list

What does a Cleaning up list do?? Miss Bono (zootalk) 18:09, 30 April 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for clearing that up for me. Much appreciated.

Glenn115.188.213.190 (talk) 23:34, 30 April 2013 (UTC)

Where's that page that lists articles in need of editing?

It's one of my little gripes with Wikipedia that when I need to find a page like this that I know exists, I can't do it! Where DOES it hide, anyway??? -- Martha (talk) 05:48, 30 April 2013 (UTC)

Heya Martha, and welcome to the Teahouse. On the left side menu, open the section that says "Interaction" (if yours isn't already open) and select the "Community portal" link. There's also a direct link at Wikipedia:Community portal. About 1/3rd of the way down that page is PLENTY of options for helping out. Does that work for you? --Jayron32 05:52, 30 April 2013 (UTC)
Thanks! Actually, what I was looking for is articles needing copy edit, which I found via a link at the top of Wikipedia:Community portal taking me to Department directory, which lists it. The sad thing is that I'm sure I will forget again...and so far the phrase "Community portal" is not very suggestive to me, most certainly doesn't tell me that's where to look for a page like this! Oh well - if I did it more often I'd get better at it.... -- Martha (talk) 06:13, 30 April 2013 (UTC)
Hi, Martha. Consider joining the Guild of Copy Editors. You can click on the requests tab from any GOCE page to get to the list. There is also CAT:CE, short for Category:Wikipedia articles needing copy edit that separates requests by how long ago the request was made along with a link to the whole list. Hope this helps. DocTree (ʞlɐʇ·cont) Join WER 14:01, 30 April 2013 (UTC)
Hey Martha, if you are likely to forget the name of something like this, then why not just leave a link to it on your userpage. Your userpage is a great place to leave yourself notes or links for things you are likely to need in the future, but forget where it is. --Jayron32 14:46, 30 April 2013 (UTC)

Coordinates, maps and infoboxes

Hi, I've been trying to add infoboxes to some articles I've made (and some others too) but somewhere when it comes to adding the coordinates and making them appear correctly on the infobox map I get lost - the map doesn't show correctly or I can't get the coordinates as exact as I'd like. I've had the problem on several different types of infoboxes and with different maps, so I'm guessing its a problem of me missing something here. Is there any good tutorial about adding location maps, coordinates, infoboxes or all of it neatly packed into one somewhere? I've tried looking on my own a bit but to no avail yet... Many thanks for any hint! Yakikaki (talk) 20:50, 28 April 2013 (UTC)

Hi. Have you read Template:Coord? It's picky about things like coords being in WGS84 and the precision used. Revent (talk) 07:38, 29 April 2013 (UTC)
Forgot to mention, but that template is much niftier than other ways of doing it. Look at American Canyon High School and click on the globe next to the coordinates to see what I mean. I hate the static maps. Revent (talk) 07:43, 29 April 2013 (UTC)
Adding coordinates and location maps to infoboxes can be tricky, since (unfortunately) different infoboxes handle them in different ways, with different names for the relevant fields. A close study of the documentation for the individual infobox templates is usually the best way of figuring out what to do. On the general subject of adding coordinates to articles, WP:GEO is the best resource. The GeoLocator tool is a good resource for determiming exact coordinates, as long as you know where a place is—just place the marker on the spot and read off the coordinates; it even provides some basic forms of WP {{coord}} templates that you can just copy/paste into articles. If you need help with specific problems, feel free to ask on my talk page or at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Geographical coordinates, where someone should respond without too much delay. Deor (talk) 14:47, 29 April 2013 (UTC)
Many thanks! I'll try to sort it out... :) Yakikaki (talk) 16:46, 29 April 2013 (UTC)

Re my comment about the 'static maps'. They are redundant (the dynamic maps provide same info in a better way) and cause layout problems in infoboxes (They are often the wrong size to fit attractively). IIRC, they are an 'artifact' from before the better way existed. Revent (talk) 18:42, 30 April 2013 (UTC)

Changing edit box text size

Suddenly the font inside the edit box, including the one I am typing in right now, has become huge. I just can't work with it. I need to reduce it or set it back to normal. I see the option under Preferences where you can change the font type in the edit box, but there is no option for changing its size. Tortie tude (talk) 17:26, 27 April 2013 (UTC)

Hello and welcome to the teahouse!
Just a quick question - Is only the text in edit box bigger, or everything else too? If its the second one, Ctrl- might be good enough to get it back, and Ctrl+ would increase the size. Of course, based on your browser, it may vary.
Does that help?
TheOriginalSoni (talk) 17:29, 27 April 2013 (UTC)
Make sure you didn't accidentally turn on conflicting 'edit gadgets' in your preferences. Revent (talk) 18:45, 30 April 2013 (UTC)

What do I do?

Today, I unfortunately had to watch as Seanharger gets indef block for personally attacking me several times, including profanity, and for a potential sockpuppet I discovered. I feel bad, because he was likely here to do the right thing, but he just made some very poor decisions and he had to take the hit. While I'm glad I and Alex2564 (he reported him to the AIV.) did the right thing, I feel bad that I scared him away and got him blocked (although I'm no admin (yet)), for he could've been a great editor. Any way I should process this. I'm not upset, I'm still being cool, neutral, and civil, but I'm just feeling a little guilty, for I have bitten once before. Thanks guys. WorldTraveller101Did I mess up? 01:40, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

uncited claims about living people on a talk page

A recent anonymous edit on this talk page

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk%3ABrisbane_State_High_School&diff=553125924&oldid=439914116

appears to make allegations against people who I presume to be living without any sources to back it up. What can I do about it? Is this a job for an admin to remove it permanently? Kerry (talk) 06:00, 2 May 2013 (UTC)

Hello, Kerry, and welcome to the Teahouse. When you see unreferenced, unsigned negative information about presumably living people like this anywhere on Wikipedia, just remove it yourself, immediately, with an edit summary that mentions "BLP violation". If the problem is persistent, ask an administrator to protect the page, and if the content if truly offensive, an administrator can remove it from the edit history, through this procedure: WP:Revision deletion. I deleted it. Thank you for pointing this out.Cullen328 Let's discuss it 06:11, 2 May 2013 (UTC)

Newbie Needs Feedback

Hello Teahouse. I'm new here, and every time I submit an addition to a new page to expand its content, one person (the same person) comes in behind me and undoes everything I add.

I've tried to use the Talk function with this person with no reply from them. Because I'm new, I'm asking for some mentoring to give me feedback on the information I'm including. The last addition I made was "undone" by the same person stating, "(undid 301man edit as it does not follow wikipedia guidelines)."

Will someone with Wikipedia experience please tell me which guidelines I did not follow? I've read the guidelines, and I don't see where they've been broken.

Your help is appreciated.

Here's the link to the latest update to the page comparing the two edits.

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Warm_Mouse&diff=next&oldid=552634638

Thank you

301man (talk) 06:15, 29 April 2013 (UTC)

TBH, the other user is violating policy by not properly justifying his reverts either in edit summaries or the talk page, as well as WP:DNB. Also, the only real problem with what you are doing is a lack of cites and not wikilinking correctly, but that would justify an edit to fix it, not a revert.
BTW, to link to a WP article properly, don't use the whole URL in a ref. The proper way is to use the article title like this, [ [Not a real article] ], without the spaces between the square braces. Revent (talk) 09:11, 29 April 2013 (UTC)
I agree that Among Men (talk · contribs) is the one not following policy very well; however, it would be ill advised for him to be bluntly told that. I agree, the problem with the edit that was reverted by that user was likely due to you using referencing Wikipedia as a source inside of <ref>...</ref> using a poorly formed wikilink with a full URL to be displayed something that should have just had a simple wikilink. For example, infrared heater <ref>[[infrared heater|http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infrared_heater]]</ref> should have been [[infrared heater]] which would have resulted in a usable link like infrared heater and it wouldn't have been a <ref>...</ref> as you can I'm pretty sure you meant can't. :) Revent (talk) 12:20, 29 April 2013 (UTC) use Wikipedia as a reliable source to cite even on Wikipedia.
When I first read Revent's response, I though that he was saying that your diff link on this page should have just been a wikilink because of the way he added it as an afterthought, and that isn't correct (which wasn't what he was saying but it took me some figuring to realize that). If you thought that was what he meant as well, you should know that the way you did it is fine although I prefer to use the {{Diff}} template myself as I think it looks nicer. ;) Technical 13 (talk) 11:43, 29 April 2013 (UTC)
Yeah, I was referring to the links in his edit, not here. Sorry I was unclear.
If you do use links like you did for the diff, though, you can collapse them with single square brackets around them, like this [2] (it's the same link you posted), which is much more readable. It's not a footnote, even though it looks like one. Revent (talk) 12:11, 29 April 2013 (UTC)
LOL More readable to you perhaps. I personally like something more than [3] which leads us to our next tutorial so-to-speak, you can wrap it in single square brackets, add a space after the URL and type a short description like this revision to "Warm Mouse" Technical 13 (talk) 14:42, 29 April 2013 (UTC)
WOW! Thanks for all the comments and suggestions. I hope I understand them. I'm going to resubmit the edits using the brackets around the words instead of references. BUT BUT BUT BUT BUT..... what should I do if he follows me again with another "undo" of my work? Then, what should I do? Yikes! I thought this would be fun. I've never been a quitter. Thanks again.... 301man (talk) 15:16, 29 April 2013 (UTC)
Come back and let us know. ;) Technical 13 (talk) 16:58, 29 April 2013 (UTC)
Thanks everyone for your help. Here's what I spend most of my day doing..... If you like it, it's a reflection of the support you gave me! Thank you!!!! Warm Mouse

301man (talk) 21:51, 29 April 2013 (UTC)

OMG..... Unbelievable! He came back and undid my entire day's work! Is that the proper way to work collaboratively on a page at Wikipedia? Is this the norm here? H E L P ! ! ! Thanks again for your insight and assistance.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warm_Mouse

301man (talk) 04:21, 30 April 2013 (UTC)

Here's the two posts. He deleted all my work completely and continues to put just his work on the page. What should I do?

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Warm_Mouse&diff=552833062&oldid=552792887

My Post... http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Warm_Mouse&oldid=552792887

What did I do wrong? I really thought it was a good start, and I even have some more ideas for content. Yikes! 301man (talk) 04:45, 30 April 2013 (UTC)

I've undone his reversion with an edit summary suggesting telling him to take it up on the talk page and I've sent him a {{uw-disruptive1}} on his talk page as well. Technical 13 (talk) 11:09, 30 April 2013 (UTC)


hello all, said person who has been editing warm mouse page here. when i first came across this article it was written like an advertisement (just look at the first edits in the history of the article, the account was created on the same day as the article was created and was never used again. likely made by whatever company that has interests in this product) and i did a lot of cleaning up. then 301man comes along and adds nonsense and with many of his citations going to other Wikipedia articles and missing lots of other citations so i tried to look over it to see if i could salvage any of his edits before removing most of it but i couldn't so i undid it all. i'd rather have a stub article than one with improper citations and sources, possibly misleading the reader. Among Men (talk) 15:17, 30 April 2013 (UTC)

 Working Technical 13 (talk) 16:27, 30 April 2013 (UTC)
 Done Okay, I've gone through and "tweaked" the article a little. I don't think it look advertisemental any more (it "barely" was before). I did notice one claim that isn't cited IMHO, and I've tagged it as citation needed, if one of you could find a citation for that and replace it using the proper citation template, the article might even be upgradeable to "start class" instead of "stub". Technical 13 (talk) 17:20, 30 April 2013 (UTC)
This is my first Wikipedia project. Certainly does take time. Technical 13, good to read your comments because I found some interesting data on how cold hands respond to infrared heat after 20 minutes of use. There's photos, too. So, I'm hoping to upload some images if I can cite the sources properly. I agree with your history assessment, stating that the original work didn't really look like an advertisement. I think it just needed to be cleaned up, word-smithed and references cleaned up. The collaborative effort we started here really looks better. But, adding more information about the benefits of using infrared heat "ergonomically" at a work station may be helpful, too. I don't want to sound like an advertisement, and that wouldn't be my intention. Learning how to talk about an item without it sounding "addy" can be a challenge if Among Men had a problem with the original content. I agree with moving it from Stub to Start Class, and moving it may give it more interest to other editors. I added two new citations today. Please check my work and let us know what else we need to do. I don't want to work on any other Wikipedia pages until this one is finished. Getting one good one under my belt is really a good way to learn how to use the system. Thanks to Revent, too for paving the way. Really appreciate the mentoring here. Hope I can help someone else someday. 301man (talk) 22:10, 1 May 2013 (UTC)
HELP NEEDED AGAIN! Same person removed the two really great references I spent hours researching yesterday! I guess he didn't understand the warning you gave him to stop. My gosh..... What should I do? Thanks.... 301man (talk) 03:57, 2 May 2013 (UTC)
Among Men is relentless and is starting to go in circles with edits. The page finally looked good and made sense. What can we do to put an end to this merry-go-round? Thank you.... 301man (talk) 04:06, 2 May 2013 (UTC)

Can you help me edit the R62 and R62A subway car pages?

I am trying to update the subway lines that the R62 and R62A run on but I can't find a way to edit it. Can you help me find out how? Thank You Union Tpke 613 (talk) 00:24, 3 May 2013 (UTC)

Welcome to Teahouse! Can't you see the "Edit" links there? See if this links works! Alternatively you can press Alt+⇧ Shift+E in that page. --Tito Dutta (contact) 02:18, 3 May 2013 (UTC)
That's not the problem I'm trying to figure out how to update the subway lines run on the r62 and r62a because it just says 
| lines = {{NYCS const|car}}<!-- please ONLY change this line by editing the NYCS const template and ONLY when the source given at the bottom of the article changes —>
and I don't now how to get to that template.


Newsletter Issue

I have recently copied some work I have been doing in a sandbox into Wikipedia:WikiProject U2/Outreach/newslettermay13 . And I need to know how to send it out to the members of the project. Does it need to be substituted or trascluded? Also I need a bot to send it to all WP:U2 members. Can anybody help me? Miss Bono (zootalk) 15:46, 2 May 2013 (UTC)

Hi. Usually such newsletters are substituted rather than transcluding, but there are exceptions like this one at my talk page. If you use transclusion, then it can be changed whenever you want, just by changing where it was transcluded from. You can find the bots who deliver messages at Category:Newsletter delivery bots. The way to do it differs from bot to bot. You can follow the instructions on the bot's page. Cheers --Ushau97 (talk) 16:12, 2 May 2013 (UTC)
Thanks! I followed the instructions in the page you pointed out, is it normal that the process lasts too much?  Miss Bono (zootalk) 17:10, 2 May 2013 (UTC)
I'm not sure it exactly. But I think that it will be processed, the next time the bot is run. --Ushau97 (talk) 17:19, 2 May 2013 (UTC)
when exactly I'll know that the bot is delivering the newsletter properly?  Miss Bono (zootalk) 17:26, 2 May 2013 (UTC)
Which bot did you pick from the category Miss Bono? Technical 13 (talk) 17:54, 2 May 2013 (UTC)
This one ENewsBot  Miss Bono (zootalk) 17:57, 2 May 2013 (UTC)
From User:ENewsBot/Requests: "If you do not have an update on your request within two weeks, please feel free to email newsbot.requests@gmail.com." Technical 13 (talk) 18:25, 2 May 2013 (UTC)
Can I remove my request and do it manually just for this month?? Due we have only 11 members by now?  Miss Bono (zootalk) 20:05, 2 May 2013 (UTC)
You can leave the request, do it manually, and inform everyone that due to the processing time of setting the bot up, they may get the first issue twice and they may delete or ignore it. ;) Technical 13 (talk) 20:45, 2 May 2013 (UTC)

Editing Locked Pages

Is it possible to edit a locked page? Like to unlock the page? Ellyerin25 (talk) 15:40, 2 May 2013 (UTC)

Unfortunately, locked pages can only be edited by specific people such as administrators or as specified by the lock reason. You can request the page to be unlocked to an administrator, but other than that, that's all I could say. Good day :) --A Wild Abigail Appears! Capture me. Moves. 15:42, 2 May 2013 (UTC)
Hello and welcome to the Teahouse. All pages can be edited one way or the other. There are many different kinds of "locks" on Wikipedia. Could you tell me which page you are seeing the lock on that you want to edit? Could you tell me what color the lock is? Technical 13 (talk) 15:43, 2 May 2013 (UTC)
As all your previous edits have been vandalism, it is unlikely that anyone will hurry to unlock pages to allow you to edit them. You are lucky that your account has not been indefinitely blocked as a vandalism only account. - David Biddulph (talk) 15:49, 2 May 2013 (UTC)
David, that is kind of harsh, and yes, I've looked at every one of their edits. I see a lot of test edits and stuff that might be okay as an edit summary or a note on the talk page but not as article edits. I think this is a new and young user that hasn't taken the time to read through any of the rules and policies or general guidelines of wikipedia that isn't old enough to posses a reasonable amount of common sense. I'll drop a "full" welcome template on their page and see if that doesn't help educate them. Technical 13 (talk) 16:17, 2 May 2013 (UTC)
Some unusual replies here, given that this is the teahouse! As I'm merely a Junior Wrangler here, not a Host or Serjeant-at-Arms or any of the other more elevated ranks, I'll leave that aspect and just comment on one issue of practice and policy.
If an article is fully protected, the accepted method of getting changes made to it is to discuss the proposed changes on the talk page of the article. If a change seems reasonable it will then be made; if no-one is around to make it, then one would use Template:edit protected to request someone come and make it. There's also Template:Edit semi-protected for pages that are semi-protected.
Making an assumption that the article has been protected wrongly, and that therefore the first step is to request removal of the protection, seems a little close to assuming whoever made the decision made a mistake, which is not always the most collegial thing to be assuming! --Demiurge1000 (talk) 23:27, 2 May 2013 (UTC)

I'm not sure who you think assumed the article was wrongly protected, but nonetheless, the OP has been blocked as a vandalism only account; to which I've made a protest of them block on their user page, suggested they read the links in the welcome message I posted and offered to adopt them in a week if they chose to request to be unblocked. Technical 13 (talk) 00:02, 3 May 2013 (UTC)

Putting info and acheivements on user page

What do you have to do to be able to show everyone who looks at your page what projects you are involved in, and your achievements on your user page? Kendall 15:24, 1 May 2013 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Kendanne (talk • contribs)

For example, you can place the relevant userboxes on your user page, or if you have received awards (ie. barnstars, food, drinks, smiles, kittens etc.) from other users before, copy and paste the awards to your user page. Perhaps other users can give you a better answer or another suggestion as well. Cheers. Arctic Kangaroo 15:28, 1 May 2013 (UTC)
  • If you want to talk about your offline achievements you can just write as you did to ask this question. "Hi, my name is Kendanne and I am a ..." — Crisco 1492 (talk) 15:29, 1 May 2013 (UTC)
    • Hi, Kenndanne, and welcome to the Teahouse. Altho you are welcome to discuss some of your off-wiki interests on your userpage, please take care that it doesn't start looking like you are trying to promote yourself or trying to host your CV or resume here. Neither of those things are allowed. You may wish to reference WP:USERPAGES for more info. Gtwfan52 (talk) 05:10, 3 May 2013 (UTC)

False reported for a sandbox edit?

I went ahead and copied WP:SANDBOX's enitre HTML code and I got reported to WP:AIV for tripping edit filter 139. Why is fixed positions disallowed? Alex2564 (talk) 06:11, 30 April 2013 (UTC)

Hmm, I can't find the report, nor any evidence that the page has any kind of archive. I posted at that talk page asking for help finding it. What I can tell you is that you absolutely should not have been reported - that page is for repeat vandals that have been warned. As far as edit filters, I have no idea what edit filter 139 is, and I can't find anything. I'm a rather experienced editor, so you clearly brought some major documentation problems to our attention. Ego White Tray (talk) 12:44, 2 May 2013 (UTC)
Apparently, whatever you copied to the sandbox included some code frequently used by vandals. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:AbuseFilter/139 describes it. Looks like the program made a mistake. Sorry for the trouble. Ego White Tray (talk) 02:58, 3 May 2013 (UTC)

Hello there! This might be silly, but I wanted to know if anyone was experiencing the same issue. Since this morning, whenever I google phrases from suspected copyright violations and there's a match, it no longer shows it in boldface, making it hard to identify such a match. In fact, none of the results are in boldface, when there used to be at least a couple. Does this have to do with browser settings, or did google change something? I'd appreciate some simple-to-understand clarification. Thanks! FoCuSandLeArN (talk) 18:50, 2 May 2013 (UTC)

Honestly, FaL, I'm not sure as I don't use Google to compare for copyvio's. I use this tool on toolserver (when it's not down) instead. I know that doesn't answer your question, but I think you might find it useful anyways. There is a list of other resources that you might find useful as well on WP:CPP/T. Technical 13 (talk) 19:04, 2 May 2013 (UTC)
Yes, but I initially do a quick one there. Thanks anyway! FoCuSandLeArN (talk) 19:17, 2 May 2013 (UTC)

As a new editor I want to know if this Article is acceptable for Wikipedia as I am staff at Parmenides Pub?

Is the following text acceptable as a new article? I'm staff at Parmenides and if I post this, I do not want to be blocked. It is based on many other academic publisher articles on wikipedia. Thank you.

Parmenides Publishing is an academic publishing house established in 2000 and is based in Las Vegas, Nevada, with editorial offices in Zurich, Switzerland. It aims to renew interest in the origins and scope of thinking as method. The academic publishing program concentrates on the humanities, especially on the Presocratics, Plato / Platonism, Aristotle, Hellenistic Philosophy, and Neo-Platonism. Parmenides publishes the Plotinus Series edited by John M. Dillon & Andrew Smith. Since 2005, the publishing scope has been widened to include Audiobooks and Philosophical Fiction.

Imprints __________________________________________________________ • ParmenidesAudio • ParmenidesFiction

External Links __________________________________________________________ • Official website


→ Text for the box on the right-hand side: Parmenides Publishing Founded 2000 Country of Origin United States Headquarters Location Las Vegas, Nevada Publication types Books, Audiobooks Official website http://www.parmenides.com

GaleCarrLV (talk) 21:53, 3 May 2013 (UTC)

Hello Gale, and thank you for asking. That text in itself is mostly OK, but as you guessed, because of your conflict of interest you need to be very cautious about writing about the company. The main thing wrong with your text for an article is that it has no references at all to sources independent of the company. Any article requires these in order to establish that the subject meets the criteria for notability: in principle, everything in an article must be sourced to a reference. Much of the material that you have written is straight factual information, and so it would be acceptable to source it to the company's own website (though it still requires explicit references); but it still needs at least a couple of substantial references to independent sources in order to establish notability. Also, statements such as "It aims to renew ... " sound like advertising, and would be acceptable only if an independent reliable source (such as a newspaper article - not the company's press release!) had said this, and the article could then cite this source.
I suggest that you first make sure that there are enough mentions of your company in independent reliable sources to establish that it is notable by Wikipedia's standards; and then read WP:Your first article and WP:Conflict of interest. If you think after reading these that you are able to write a sufficiently neutral article, create one as suggested in the first link I gave you; or otherwise you can request somebody else to write an article by going to WP:Requested articles. --ColinFine (talk) 22:17, 3 May 2013 (UTC)
Thank you Colin. This is much appreciated advice. I'll be back once the corrections are made for a final approval or if I have additional questions. GaleCarrLV (talk) 23:00, 3 May 2013 (UTC)

Moving the pages

Hello dear Wiki Hosts !

I would like to place a simple question out of my experiences which I come across daily while New Page Patrolling. There are a lot of wiki-newbies who are creating pages of their own profile or personal information on wiki and creating as an article page. My initial steps would have been to mark them CSD:A7. Lately, I came across that these pages are being moved to User pages instead of article, which, in my humble opinion is good to increase the motivation for the new contributors, simultaneously I have a fear that wiki pages will soon be turning into a social-networking website like facebook or twitter, where every contributor will come across the personal User pages more than the actual useful material. So in this situation I would like to place this question , how appropriate it actually is to move every article space to a user space, which is created by a new and fresh wikipedian ? thank you Ghorpaapi (talk) 12:40, 3 May 2013 (UTC)

Hi Ghorpaapi. I think in instances like this one has to view each page on its own merits; it's not really sensible or even possible to create a blanket rule for all such submissions. Some may be acceptable in userspace but not in article space (in which case they can be moved), some may actually be suitable for mainspace (if the subject/creator is actually notable, though they may need tidying up), some just aren't appropriate anywhere. You have to deal with each one as it comes up, I'm afraid. In instances where you want the page userfied, you'll probably have to alert an admin, as in many cases the page will have been moved from userspace leaving a redirect (which will have to be deleted). The best course of action is to let the user know that you are concerned about their page; we have the template {{uw-userpage}} for this purpose. Yunshui 雲‍水 13:10, 3 May 2013 (UTC)
An alternative, if you're impatient like me, is to proceed directly to WP:MfD in order to begin a deletion discussion about the page. I do this, after first calming myself with a Nice Cup of Tea and a Sit Down, whenever I get suddenly irrationally angry about some person who has no intention of contributing to the encyclopedia, putting drivel about their family history and personal website etc into userspace. (WP:NOTWEBHOST is often the rationale for deletion.) It's not actually as widespread or problematic as you might expect.
There are also speedy deletion criteria WP:CSD#G11 for unambiguous advertising, WP:CSD#G10 for attack pages, and others. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 18:52, 3 May 2013 (UTC)

Undo an edited article

Suppose I have made some mistakes while editing an article and saved it. Is there any way through which I can restore the previous article as it is?Sona 06:36, 3 May 2013 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Dibyendu Ash (talk • contribs)

Hello, Dibyendu, and welcome to the Teahouse. A good question, and you'll be pleased to hear that you can. If you pick the 'History' tab at the top of the page, you can see a list of all the edits that were made, with who made them and when; and you can pick any particular version and see that; and then you can save it (it will give you a warning that you are editing an old version, but it will let you do it.)
In some circumstances you may see an "undo" link (I'm not sure exactly when, or whether everybody sees this, so I'm being a bit unclear) If that appears by your edit in the history, you can just pick it to undo it. You can find more information at WP:PAGEHISTORY. --ColinFine (talk) 07:01, 3 May 2013 (UTC)
Although if it wasn't the last edit, you might get a message that you have to undo the edit manually.— Vchimpanzee · talk · contributions · 21:13, 3 May 2013 (UTC)

A partisan, blog-like article

Hey folks.

This article Tom Kovach, in my opinion, requires a major rewrite - a task which I am not nearly experienced enough to handle yet. Consider the following entries:

  • "is currently growing a beard to fit in with his liberal friends"
  • "won a low turnout special election"/"barely squeaked by with a win"/"To avoid losing another re-election"/"Liberal Kovach narrowly defeated Izzo"/"beaten to a pulp "
  • "promised his commitment to make a difference in county government, then voted to giveaway taxpayers money to Fisker a failed electric car company"
  • " was backed by his special friend Mike Castle"

The talk page is empty, so I am not sure if posting my concerns there would elicit a response.

Thanks in advance for your advice. Ratha K (talk) 02:50, 30 April 2013 (UTC)

Hi Ratha K, thanks for coming to the Teahouse. I reverted those edits as they were clearly inappropriate. I should probably have let you do it, so apologies for that, though you didn't seem comfortable doing it yourself. Next time feel free to make edits yourself, and if you need a little advice we are here. Good catch! heather walls (talk) 03:01, 30 April 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for your prompt response, Ms. Walls. And you did right with the edits - way beyond me at this present point of time. Thanks. Ratha K (talk) 03:19, 30 April 2013 (UTC)

I reread this just now (the 'disputed' text, which doesn't belong, is still omitted) and added a couple of inline 'citation needed' flags to specific (uncontroversial) statements. Specific reasons are embedded, and should be in a tooltip if you hover over the flags. Revent (talk) 18:27, 30 April 2013 (UTC)
The page looks much better now, with the menu and tables. Thank you. I've included the required citations, with the exception of the last one - "As president Kovach has worked to promote transparency and decrease the size of county government". Couldn't find anything to support that. In such cases, should we just delete it? Thanks. --Ratha K (talk) 15:06, 1 May 2013 (UTC)
Technically, it's an unsupported statement of opinion, but it's probably something he's said, which is why I flagged it (which adds it to a couple of 'hidden' categories that people pay attention to) and the comment I left 'should' let readers know that the statement is 'questioned'. It's not controversial or derogatory or anything, so IMO it's okay for now.
BTW, the 'dead link' flag also puts it on a list to get attention. Revent (talk) 04:01, 3 May 2013 (UTC)
I did some more style work here, and fixed the citations (there were two cites to the same place, they weren't completely filled out or consistent, etc.). Also, FYI, the 'correct syntax' is with the cites after the punctuation (no spaces in front of or between the ref tags if there are more than one), and only one space between the end of the sentence and start of the next. Otherwise the 'typography' renders wrong. :P
To elaborate, since it's definitely of 'general interest' (and wrong seemingly everywhere) having "end-of-sentence.single-spaceStart-of-sentence" exactly like that is not a matter of 'style', it's actually in the HTML standard. Doing it wrong can break font rendering. Browsers are supposed to detect the end of a sentence, and transpose the correct Unicode space character. This allows the proper rendering of text in any font.
Using multiple spaces between sentences is an artifact of people using a typewriter, which of course only has a 'fixed-width' space character, attempting to replicate the appearance of a 'properly' typeset book. Proper layout is that the white-space gets wider as you go word-space, sentence-space, line-space. Depending on your browser and font, you should be able to see this if you look at this rendered text closely, except for the end of this sentence. The space before this sentence is very broken for people with incompliant browsers, or using a font that doesn't have all of the space characters (this is depressingly common). Revent (talk) 04:30, 3 May 2013 (UTC)
One of the sources, the Washington Post, is a url that's been moved behind their paywall and isn't on the Wayback Machine, but since it's AP it's probably floating around lots of other sites. Not going to look now, tbh, but it wouldn't be too hard for someone to Google it and find another copy. If so, try to find one that's also on the WM, please. :) Revent (talk) 03:46, 3 May 2013 (UTC)
Man, thanks for the tips, and the work you did there. Much appreciated. I will reciprocate in kind and work on the article tomorrow based on your feedback. Thanks, Revent. --Ratha K (talk) 01:14, 4 May 2013 (UTC)

how will we be an admin in Wikipedia??? =

— Preceding unsigned comment added by Do do doggy (talk • contribs) 23:01, 2 May 2013‎ (UTC)

Hi and welcome to the Teahouse! An admin promotion is a community discussion, and typically if there is 75% support a promotion will occur. A few dozen to a few hundred users vote on most requests for adminship. Everybody has their own standards, but here are some tips:

  • 234 edits is too few to be promoted to admin. Most people will look for 2000 to 5000 at the very least.
  • One month of experience is too little, I'd suggest 6 to 12 months of experience at least.
  • People will look for some experience in areas such as speedy deletion, articles for deletion or other deletion venues, username reporting, page protection requests, etc.
  • Contributing content (writing or expanding articles) is always a bonus.
  • Also, I'm a bit puzzled what you mean be "how will we be an admin...", only one person is allowed to use a given account.
  • If you want consistent help from an experienced editor, you may be interested in WP:Adopt-a-user. King Jakob C2 23:12, 2 May 2013 (UTC)

Also, I'm a bit puzzled what you mean be "how will we be an admin...", only one person is allowed to use a given account. (i don't get this part) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Do do doggy (talk • contribs) 23:01, 2 May 2013‎ (UTC)

What the answer was saying is that you had referred to "we", and if there is more than one person you should not be using the same account. - David Biddulph (talk) 10:47, 3 May 2013 (UTC)

What Do You Think?

Should Wikipedia be embraced as a learning and teaching recourse?

I am writing a piece about Wikipedia to do with education and want to know your thoughts on this subject; if you could take 5 minutes and respond, it would be really helpful to my research. Thank you. ClaraRoper (talk) 18:30, 4 May 2013 (UTC)

Hello and welcome to the Teahouse! Unfortunately your request falls under WP:NOR, so I'm sorry, but I'm afraid I can't respond. Happy editing! Technical 13 (talk) 19:13, 4 May 2013 (UTC)
@Technical13, I don't think she means she's writing a Wikipedia article on the subject. King Jakob C2 19:35, 4 May 2013 (UTC)
Hello, Clara. I think a good place to ask this would be at the Wikipedia:Village pump, which is a set of pages about the community. --ColinFine (talk) 21:47, 4 May 2013 (UTC)
Did you mean "resource"? A recourse—which is the word you used—refers to a source of help, usually for important security purposes. Sorry if I'm wrong, but it didn't seem like "recourse" made as much sense in your context.
 — |J~Pæst| 22:58, 4 May 2013 (UTC)

what to do with notice at top of article

An article was marked as needing copy editing (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KAMU-TV). I fixed several small grammatical errors and made a few improvements to the flow of the text. Since the article is so small, I'm pretty sure I fixed the problems the notice was referring to. Can I delete the notice right away or is it supposed to stay up? Jakobcornell0 (talk) 01:38, 4 May 2013 (UTC)

Welcome to the Teahouse, Jakobcornell0! One of the rules of Wikipedia is be bold. If you feel as if you have fixed the problems of an article, you don't need confirmation; you can just get rid of the notice. The opposite side is that if another editor thinks the issues haven't been addressed, they can always be bold and put the notice back. The bottom line is not to worry about making mistakes on Wikipedia, because as long as you mean well and other editors assume good faith, you'll be fine. Happy editing! öBrambleberry of RiverClan 01:44, 4 May 2013 (UTC)
Jakob, yes once you have corrected whatever needs correcting you should go ahead and delete the notice. Also, if you come across any articles with maintenance notices and you see that someone else has already fixed the problem, then the notice longer applies and you can remove it in this situation as well. -- Ϫ 09:26, 4 May 2013 (UTC)

Editing Notes

I've found some Notes with expired links, & with URLs that don't have a proper name appended. Except I went in to edit, &, um, they're not really there. There's just squiggly stuff: {{}} So, how does one edit those things when one cannot actually see them? TYVM ScarletRibbons (talk) 22:42, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

Hello and welcome to the Teahouse! I don't suppose you could tell us the name of the article you are trying to edit, could you? Technical 13 (talk) 22:46, 1 May 2013 (UTC)
Well, that was fast :-) & TYVM for the welcome (& the badge from last time I was here). I was just coming back to edit this question because I *thought* I followed directions & (WPs voodoo) code correctly when inserting a footnote after adding an obscure factoid to an article, & I got the dreaded *missing or empty title* thing next to it. I can't add a title in (it's |title, right, but, um, where does it go in the code? help is never helpful, I did have a looksee at it) because this list of References seems to have the same issue where I can't see it in edit mode to correct the mistake. That article is on Ed Viesturs & it's footnote 21. The one I originally inquired about was on Jon Krakauer. I discovered a dead link in there just by clicking on them to read the citations, & there are also a few lacking titles that I could possibly repair *if* I could see them! ScarletRibbons (talk) 23:10, 1 May 2013 (UTC)
I've fixed the Ed Viesturs and I'm looking at Jon Krakauer now. Click on the link here to see how I fixed it (it was actually ref 15, 21, and 22 that needed fixing). Technical 13 (talk) 23:20, 1 May 2013 (UTC)
You did it for me! And I still don't know how you did it, because I still can't see it if I open the edit thingy up (backed out, touched naught). What is up with that? Would you mind explaining how you can see it & I get squiggley stuff & no list? Yeah, 15 & 22 were in need of help, too, but I was fretting over 21 because I did it & it turned out wrong. TYVM. ScarletRibbons (talk) 02:48, 2 May 2013 (UTC)
Okay, I've also fixed the Jon Krakauer article. Click on the link here to see how I fixed it (was a misplaced character in the URL, and I added some more detail from the article to the reference). Technical 13 (talk) 23:33, 1 May 2013 (UTC)
4 & 5 under Notes there is driving me nuts because the author's name is misspelt in both. Please tell me the secret of how to see something other than squiggle squiggle ref list squiggle squiggle! TYVM ScarletRibbons (talk) 02:48, 2 May 2013 (UTC)
The details of the reference are defined not in the references section, but in the section where the text is to which the reference applies. From the references section, click on the caret ( ^ ) next to the reference number, and this will take you up to the section to which the reference applies. Click on the [edit] link at the start of that section. For more details, see WP:Referencing for beginners. - David Biddulph (talk) 03:13, 2 May 2013 (UTC)
Oh, no, I've stopped looking at those tuts. They're quite unhelpful & give me a headache. It's less of a pain to open up an article & study its guts than it is to burn incense, stick pins in voodoo dolls, & sacrifice woodland creatures to the gods of WP coding :P But TYVM for trying to help with the link anyway. Caret-clicking is good to know. I shall go see if I can get it to work & correct those misspellings that are making me crazy to look at. TYVM! :-) ScarletRibbons (talk) 03:24, 2 May 2013 (UTC)
Yesss! No more misspelling! Y'all rock over here. I feel like I have magic dust now. Sprinkle sprinkle references & notes misspellings begone! :-D I'm going to go make those title-less references behave now - I hope. (Let's not get too cocky.) ScarletRibbons (talk) 03:33, 2 May 2013 (UTC)
Yeah, I knew it didn't pay to happy dance too early. Sigh.
OK, you can't see what the actual note will look like in preview mode. One of the links I wanted to fix on Krakauer (Notes,15) seems to now have part of the title caught in the URL. What did I do wrong there? 2 other links (13 & 14) have some really weird ju-ju going on what with all the stuff included in it. I'm thinking somebody maybe just gave up & let them stand as URLs because of that? Trying to make titles instead of URLs out of those (I had to just go back in & revert my own self LOL & am probably driving someone who's watching the article nuts by now) was kind of a guess as to where to put the title stuff, & I guessed wrong. I got *title=* splattered all over the place, & none of them worked. Oh, jeez, I just noticed I missed 13 when reverting myself, but I'm not going back in there now, not until I can figure out what went wrong. (Edit: I lied, But I meant it when I said it!):::::Sorry. But this is such a silly way of doing this! Why can't you just access the Notes list? Or at least see it when editing a section? I think I'll just go back to being the Spelling Police. ScarletRibbons (talk) 04:42, 2 May 2013 (UTC)
Hello ScarletRibbons, I know that wikicode can be frustrating. It can be useful to experiment with things in a sandbox page until you have figured out the coding. I am not by any means a skilled programmer but have managed to accomplish what I want by studying code in similar articles to learn the various tricks that other editors use. You may also be interested to learn that the Wikimedia Foundation is making a major effort to develop a "what you see is what you get" editing interface. Maybe by 2014, Wikipedia editing will move into the 21st century.
I also notice that you are working on biographies of mountaineers. I am an old climber, and started out here on Wikipedia by writing and expanding biographies of rock climbers and mountaineers. Then I moved on to "everything under the sun". Thanks for helping out with this outstanding encyclopedia. Don't get frustrated. Just keep trying and you will learn the ropes, to use a climbing analogy. Cullen328 Let's discuss it 04:52, 2 May 2013 (UTC)
Close, but no cigar. I thought I solved 15. It had no cite web or squiggles in the code! Inserting that did get me the title - not linked at all - AND kept the URL. Oy. Why is help never helpful? 14 only had squiggles at the beginning but forgot to close with them. So I inserted them. Now I have squiggles in the now not working link. Oy. And I do not know why I am even bothering with that one because the coding is such a mess all it does is go to the website, not the author's page at the website, anyway. 13 has a *%7C* at the end of the URL that I swear is not visible in edit mode. It ends with a comma, not a C. So now I have part of the title snarled in the URL. Yeah, the URL is still there on that one, too. Oy.
Hi Cullen, I actually started out with Krakauer (where I am still mired) because I randomly decided I'd check out Authors I Have Read, & it kind of snowballed from there. (I should develop a link-clicking allergy.) Old climber is good. Some of them didn't get there, alas. I hear that WYSIWIG thing is just a panacea they mention when people are tearing their hair out ;-) Now that you mention it, I suppose transferring the stupid code elsewhere to tinker with it beats driving anyone who's watching the page nuts with trying to fix my own mistakes every 10 min. Help should be so helpful. TYVM ScarletRibbons (talk) 05:27, 2 May 2013 (UTC)
Oh, I am so glad you popped in, Cullen! Separating the code from the article text in my sandbox thingy was like flashing a huge red glaring neon sign! Whoever inserted those footnotes also neglected to put in the url= part. Why on Earth do they not have text & ref tags be different colors? I might've seen that plus the lack of squiggles & cite web stuff long ago. Then I had to go fetch a stupid template to actually see if I got it right finally. 14 & 15 are now dusted :-D 13 still wants to make the access date be part of the title, though. Help very helpfully tells me it's a CS1 error & how to fix it. Now I know how that % thingy got in there. Help is, however, stupid & a liar. When vertical bars occur in parameter values that are not URLs, replace each vertical bar with |. WHAT?!? Help knows I am ready to throttle it so doesn't dare suggest a solution for that. Help has made a wise choice there because I am ready to strangle it for its supreme unhelpfulness. Help would've been a lot more helpful if it had told me all that stuff was missing from the code to begin with. Help sucks. So I stared at the code some more. Then I look at what Technical did earlier, & compare the two. Now I really want to do Help some bodily harm. Whoever put this code in also forgot to do accessdate=! So now I have cracked 13 as well :-D TYVM, all 3 of you, because you each played a part in helping me crack this crippled code! Plus I feel a whole let better knowing it was really someone else's mistakes that made me do mine :P ScarletRibbons (talk) 06:23, 2 May 2013 (UTC)

(unindented for readability) The correct way to mark dead links is with template:Dead Link (the directions are simple). This flags them for attention. The correct way to fix them is to edit the actual citation (if needed convert to template:Cite web) and add the 'archived' site parameters. Do not delete anything, the original site location will still be part of the displayed citation. This is why it is so important to include the access date when you cite web locations. Here is an example of a 'fixed' dead link.

"List of psychotropic substances under international control" (PDF). 30 April 2005. Archived from the original (PDF) on 11 September 2005. Retrieved 6 July 2005.

I'm referring to the code, which is from the documentation. Just noticed it wasn't a citation to a 'real' place, and goes to a 'does not exist page' at the Wayback Machine. Doesn't matter, just look at the code, please. :) Revent (talk) 01:32, 3 May 2013 (UTC)

(this is a reply to something said earlier, but here for readability) References don't actually have to be defined inline, though it's normal. Look at WP:LDR.
Also, (this is a quote from that page, but 'buried' in the text).
When you edit a single section of a page, the footnotes list will not be visible when you preview your edits. Thus you ordinarily cannot see how your footnotes will later appear when you save your edits.
You can insert a { {Reflist} } into the edited section temporarily and remove it before saving; you will still not be able to see named references which were defined in other sections.
Revent (talk) 04:51, 3 May 2013 (UTC)
TYVM, Revent. I realized the reflist template thing was necessary when I followed the suggestion to use the sandbox in trying to turn URL links into titled links. The dead link about which I inquired was an error with someone adding an unnecessary character to the URL, which Technical caught & which I then saw immediately comparing the revisions. Still on learning curve. ScarletRibbons (talk) 03:41, 5 May 2013 (UTC)
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