Wikipedia:Help desk/Archives/2013 April 13

Help desk
< April 12	<< Mar | April | May >>	April 14 >

Welcome to the Wikipedia Help Desk Archives
The page you are currently viewing is an archive page. While you can leave answers for any questions shown below, please ask new questions on one of the current Help Desk pages.

April 13

Red reference errors

Resolved

Can someone please fix all the red errors in the References section at Oggy and the Cockroaches? They all say "Wikilink embedded in URL title (help)". I clicked on the help link and read the section about this type of CS1 error, but can't figure out how to fix it. So I was hoping someone could please correct the six references that have this error. Thank you! --76.189.111.2 (talk) 01:16, 13 April 2013 (UTC)

 Fixed. —Theopolisme (talk) 01:23, 13 April 2013 (UTC)

Thanks so much for your quick help! I just looked at your edit, so now I understand how to fix it. You made it look so easy. Haha. Thanks for teaching me something new! :) --76.189.111.2 (talk) 01:26, 13 April 2013 (UTC)

That works, but the documentation at {{cite web}} suggests you use |language=French instead. -- John of Reading (talk) 05:55, 13 April 2013 (UTC)

John, I corrected it per your instructions. Can you check to see if I did it correctly? Thanks. --76.189.111.2 (talk) 06:15, 13 April 2013 (UTC) 06:30, 13 April 2013 (UTC)

Looks good! -- John of Reading (talk) 06:46, 13 April 2013 (UTC)

Great, thanks. --76.189.111.2 (talk) 06:56, 13 April 2013 (UTC)

I have reworked the help page. Eventually the language parameter should add language markup to the title. --  Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 07:52, 13 April 2013 (UTC)

Thanks, Ed. 76.189.111.2 (talk) 09:10, 13 April 2013 (UTC)

Boggled By Citations!

I am somewhat of a wikipedia newb but have learned about archiving pages today and have fixed many citations on the animal collective page by searching archives. I have no clue how I messed up this citation number fifteen, I have looked over it many times and read pertinent help pages but cant figure it out. :'( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animal_Collective Izoanefts (talk) 04:14, 13 April 2013 (UTC)

 Fixed - You just named the cite incorrectly. You should have named it "veyesor post", which also applies to cite 14. So the error was caused because you gave the cite a name that didn't exist elsewhere, and didn't include a URL. Btw, I wouldn't consider you a newbie; you've been editing for a whole 9 hours! :p --76.189.111.2 (talk) 06:02, 13 April 2013 (UTC)

I would. I don't know what the strict definition is, but I'm pretty sure it's more than a matter of hours.--Launchballer 08:51, 13 April 2013 (UTC)

I was joking about the 9 hours, thus the ":p" (tongue sticking out) at the end of my comment. Although I assumed it was rather obvious. Haha. --76.189.111.2 (talk) 09:05, 13 April 2013 (UTC)

Sorry, I'm still so confused. I did not want to name it "veyesor post" because it is not the same post by veyesor it's an entirely~ different issue that doesn't have to do with cite 14 except that the same user veyesor was posting in the same forum in cite 14 but under a different topic. Also I was pretty brain dead when I did this late last night.. so I may not have included a url. :/ wat

I am confused by what you mean when you said "you gave the cite a name that didn't exist elsewhere"? Where else should it have existed? And can you just tell me if help desk is an okay place to come with all my little problems like this? There are quite a few citations that need fixing and I want to make it my job to do so and also not mess them up too hard. ~(;_;)~ I just wanna helppp Izoanefts (talk) 17:07, 13 April 2013 (UTC)

You can give one use of a citation a short name at the front. If you want to use it again you just use the name you gave it for other uses instead of writing it out again. See Wikipedia:Referencing_for_beginners#Same_reference_used_more_than_once. The help desk is the correct place. Some editors phone the Queen, Obama, and the Vatican. This desk is usually easier to get through to, responds faster, and probably will give better answers.--Canoe1967 (talk) 17:27, 13 April 2013 (UTC)

:D Ty canoe I understand short names for references already, I still can't figure out exactly what I did wrong but that's ok. I will keep coming here for help, I heard the new pope is busy right now. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Izoanefts (talk • contribs) 17:35, 13 April 2013 (UTC)

Hi; as Canoe1967 says, if someone gives a reference a name, e.g., <ref name="a name">cite goes here</ref>, that reference can be cited later by simply typing <ref name="a name"/> (note the closing slash). When you renamed <ref name="Collected Animals, Post by Brian Weitz, May 12, 2006"> to <ref name="veyesor post">, a cite that consisted only of <ref name="Collected Animals, Post by Brian Weitz, May 12, 2006" /> broke, as there was no longer a reference by that name. – 29611670.x (talk) 17:40, 13 April 2013 (UTC)

Thanks, now I get it. The citation that was formerly #14 was changed to #15 so there was no problem with citation #15. :D I will remember to fix that next time, and as suggested preview the page before saving my changes. Izoanefts (talk) 18:11, 13 April 2013 (UTC)

Strange citation error

In my draft User:Toshio Yamaguchi/List of islands of the Federated States of Micronesia there is a strange citation error. I am sure that error wasn't there when I last edited the page. I guess it is because of this edit to {{Cite book}}. I've read Help:CS1 errors#parameter ignored but still don't understand what I have to do to resolve that error. It seems that the editor[n]-last= and editor[n]-first= parameters are no longer supported, probably since this edit to the template, although they are listed at the documentation of {{Cite book}}. What do I need to do? -- Toshio Yamaguchi 09:10, 13 April 2013 (UTC)

That citation really never worked properly. Three of the editors should have been listed followed by et al. The problem is because |editor[n]-last= and |editor[n]-first= are not valid parameters so were ignored, |editor-last=, |editor1-last= are synonyms as are |editor-first= and |editor1-first=

Cite book comparison

Wikitext	{{cite book|chapter=Appendix C|date=1991|editor-first=James S.|editor-last=Olson|editor[1]-first=Robert|editor[1]-last=Shadle|editor[2]-first=Ross|editor[2]-last=Marlay|editor[3]-first=William G.|editor[3]-last=Ratliff|editor[4]-first=Joseph M.|editor[4]-last=Rowe, Jr.|isbn=0-313-26257-8|no-tracking=true|page=722|publisher=Greenwood Press|title=Historical Dictionary of European Imperialism|url=http://books.google.de/books?id=uyqepNdgUWkC&pg=PA722&dq=Eauripik+atoll&hl=de&sa=X&ei=lsQcUYKFB-aL4gSJuIFw&ved=0CDsQ6AEwAg#v=onepage&q=Eauripik%20atoll&f=false}}
Live	Olson, James S., ed. (1991). "Appendix C". Historical Dictionary of European Imperialism. Greenwood Press. p. 722. ISBN 0-313-26257-8. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |editor[1]-first= ignored (help); Unknown parameter |editor[1]-last= ignored (help); Unknown parameter |editor[2]-first= ignored (help); Unknown parameter |editor[2]-last= ignored (help); Unknown parameter |editor[3]-first= ignored (help); Unknown parameter |editor[3]-last= ignored (help); Unknown parameter |editor[4]-first= ignored (help); Unknown parameter |editor[4]-last= ignored (help)
Sandbox	Olson, James S., ed. (1991). "Appendix C". Historical Dictionary of European Imperialism. Greenwood Press. p. 722. ISBN 0-313-26257-8. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |editor[1]-first= ignored (help); Unknown parameter |editor[1]-last= ignored (help); Unknown parameter |editor[2]-first= ignored (help); Unknown parameter |editor[2]-last= ignored (help); Unknown parameter |editor[3]-first= ignored (help); Unknown parameter |editor[3]-last= ignored (help); Unknown parameter |editor[4]-first= ignored (help); Unknown parameter |editor[4]-last= ignored (help)

Correcting the editor parameter names:

Cite book comparison

Wikitext	{{cite book|chapter=Appendix C|date=1991|editor-first=James S.|editor-last=Olson|editor2-first=Robert|editor2-last=Shadle|editor3-first=Ross|editor3-last=Marlay|editor4-first=William G.|editor4-last=Ratliff|editor5-first=Joseph M.|editor5-last=Rowe, Jr.|isbn=0-313-26257-8|no-tracking=true|page=722|publisher=Greenwood Press|title=Historical Dictionary of European Imperialism|url=http://books.google.de/books?id=uyqepNdgUWkC&pg=PA722&dq=Eauripik+atoll&hl=de&sa=X&ei=lsQcUYKFB-aL4gSJuIFw&ved=0CDsQ6AEwAg#v=onepage&q=Eauripik%20atoll&f=false}}
Live	Olson, James S.; Shadle, Robert; Marlay, Ross; Ratliff, William G.; Rowe, Jr., Joseph M., eds. (1991). "Appendix C". Historical Dictionary of European Imperialism. Greenwood Press. p. 722. ISBN 0-313-26257-8.
Sandbox	Olson, James S.; Shadle, Robert; Marlay, Ross; Ratliff, William G.; Rowe, Jr., Joseph M., eds. (1991). "Appendix C". Historical Dictionary of European Imperialism. Greenwood Press. p. 722. ISBN 0-313-26257-8.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 10:41, 13 April 2013 (UTC)

The error message is new, but the problem has been there all along. Someone updated the {{Cite book}} documentation to use last[n] and it appears someone interpreted it literally. And since that section is supposed to be copy/paste, I can't blame them. I will look at fixing this. --  Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 20:07, 13 April 2013 (UTC)

nxtbook pages allowed as references ?

Hi,

I discovered today nxtbook website through this link, used as a reference in a Wikipedia article. I wonder if this is allowed, as it seems strange to me that full magazines could be legally available for free on the web. The article NXTbook Media didn't help me much. Thanks in advance, Freewol (talk) 11:07, 13 April 2013 (UTC)