Wikipedia:Help desk/Archives/2011 February 13

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February 13

Southern University Sit-In at S H Kress 1960, Baton Rouge, LA

§§ (UTC)JJanette Harris (talk) 03:22, 13 February 2011 (UTC)jJanette Need to find out the role of the NAACP in this Sit-In Case And was it the first 1960 Sit-In case ( Garner v Louisiana), ( 369 US) to go to the U S Supreme Court.—–J Janette Harris (talk) 03:22, 13 February 2011

This page is for questions about using Wikipedia. Please consider asking this question at the Humanities reference desk. They specialize in knowledge questions and will try to answer any question in the universe (except how to use Wikipedia, since that is what this Help Desk is for). Just follow the link and ask away. You could always try searching Wikipedia for an article related to the topic you want to know more about. I hope this helps. Danger (talk) 03:41, 13 February 2011 (UTC)

Editing Glitch with Ref tags

Hi everyone, I asked last week about a glitch I'm having with the Reflist tag. I'm creating an article on my userpage about a business guru, but I can't continue because of a reference glitch. I can't edit, add sections, or more or less do anything to the article -- every time I do, about half my page is automatically deleted and the page insists there's a reflist tag error. I'm using Firefox and I've already tried on several browsers. Am I doing something wrong? Is there a way to fix this? Thanks. Catchthedream (talk) 09:52, 13 February 2011 (UTC)

Assuming you're talking about User:Catchthedream/Issamar Ginzberg, I made a small edit. See if that helps you out. I'm not quite sure what you were having problems with. Dismas|^(talk) 10:00, 13 February 2011 (UTC)

Thank you. It didn't work, but I appreciate the help! Catchthedream (talk) 10:12, 13 February 2011 (UTC)

EDIT: I also noticed that the reflist will not update. I have two references tags with "1" that lead to two different places. Help? Catchthedream (talk) 10:28, 13 February 2011 (UTC)

You had both the refs named the same thing. Dismas|^(talk) 10:30, 13 February 2011 (UTC)

Reflist still malfunctioning. All I did was add a wikilink and entire sections vanished. Catchthedream (talk) 11:24, 13 February 2011 (UTC)

I don't know how you did it, but your edit at 11:19 removed half the draft. I've restored it for you. -- John of Reading (talk) 11:38, 13 February 2011 (UTC)

I don't know why the end of the source text often disappears when you save regardless of the used browser. I have worked at the help desk for years and don't recall reports of this problem. I don't think it has anything to do with references. Part of the disappearing source text just happens to be {{reflist}} and this causes an error message about missing {{Reflist}}. Maybe there is a problem with your account settings, computer or internet connection. Have you enabled something under Gadgets at Special:Preferences? Will you try editing while logged out? It will reveal your IP address. Can you try another computer? PrimeHunter (talk) 12:37, 13 February 2011 (UTC)

Thank you, both of you. Problem solved :) Catchthedream (talk) 19:47, 13 February 2011 (UTC)

Nevermind. Still a problem. I have no idea how to fix this, and I'm on a different internet server with default settings. Who do I go to about this??? Catchthedream (talk) 09:58, 15 February 2011 (UTC)

Why is my ID in red?

Everybody seems to have a blue ID, what should I do to get that?

Eravian (talk) 13:38, 13 February 2011 (UTC)

It is only because nothing yet has been added to your user page. If you just put a full stop or dnfkhdhfkfh or something, then click save, it will turn blue.--Aspro (talk) 13:43, 13 February 2011 (UTC)

Links to nonexistent pages are always red, not just user pages. See Wikipedia:Red link. And see Wikipedia:User pages for things you can put on your user page. PrimeHunter (talk) 13:49, 13 February 2011 (UTC)

Create your own user page. See WP:UP for details of what you can and can't have. I *cough* "borrowed" *cough* some of my stuff off other editors, and I also know that some other editors have done the same with stuff I put on my user page. There's no rule against that! Mjroots (talk) 16:49, 14 February 2011 (UTC)

alt + f

alt + f is supposed to search wikipedia, but i'm using google chrome and it just brings up the tools menu. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.218.164.224 (talk) 21:00, 13 February 2011 (UTC)

I don't think it's meant to search. Alt- keys combination are usually determined by your browser or OS, not the websites. Are you thinking of ctrl-f, which will (usually) search for and find text within the open page of the browser? Rehevkor ✉ 21:04, 13 February 2011 (UTC)

The tool tip when I hover over the search box says "alt + shift + f". --ColinFine (talk) 21:23, 13 February 2011 (UTC)

I think he got that from Wikipedia:Keyboard shortcuts, where it's actually Alt+Shift+f which brings the cursor to the search box in later versions of Firefox, but I don't know about Google Chrome. -- œ^™ 21:28, 13 February 2011 (UTC)

Alt+⇧ Shift+f works for me with Google Chrome on Windows Vista. PrimeHunter (talk) 22:39, 13 February 2011 (UTC)

Wally George

Hello- I am a California artist/ art teacher and I'm Wally George's niece. I didn't really know Wally when I was a child but became closer when his 9th wife, Janis, had their baby daughter around the same time I had my daughter. His daughter is MY cousin. Ironically, without knowing it, we both named our girls Holly ! For the first time we started celebrating family holidays together and Janis and I took the 'Hollys' on fun day trips like apple picking in Oak Glen. Wally's divorce from Janis really upset him (shouldn't have been a big surprise since she was only 19 when he brought her here from England to marry,and he was almost 60 years old !) She may have been the only wife that decided to leave HIM! Wally and I continued to have outings with our girls (post divorce) and he'd come to our house for Christmas , Easter and Bar-B-Que in the summer. He didn't get along very well with my Mom (his sister) but my husband and I and our friends always thought he was fun to be with. He was also a kind man with a good sense of humor and I miss him.

I know little about editing but I wanted to add more information to his Wikipedia bio. Please feel free to fix and rearrange what I have written so it flows better. I realize I should have added the 'marriage info' at the bottom 'Personal ' section. I'm working on an illustrated children's book right now about celebrities (as kids) and I've done all the artwork and ideas behind the stories, NOT the actual proper wording and placement of sentences !! Thank you, Susan — Preceding unsigned comment added by Smilingbluecat (talk • contribs) 23:27, 13 February 2011 (UTC)

See WP:V and WP:RS. On Wikipedia, it doesn't matter what you know to be true, it only matters what you can verify with reliable published sources. Wikipedia is not a collection of original work; instead, Wikipedia's articles merely re-factor information that has already been published, to organize it better than the often chaotic World Wide Web. The most useful information you can provide to Wikipedia about Wally George or anything else is reliable published sources about the subject. One of the limiting factors on Wikipedia is finding sources. --Teratornis (talk) 03:41, 14 February 2011 (UTC)

--70.40.190.90 (talk) 16:53, 19 February 2011 (UTC)= February 14 =