Help desk
< May 3	<< Apr \| May \| Jun >>	May 5 >

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.

May 4

Derby Day USA

Factoid - Kentucky Derby (Day) Changes w each calendar year (as Determined by race track officials) Louisville, Kentucky USA 157.100.71.13 (talk) 00:13, 4 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

sorry, what? lettherebedarklight 晚安 00:20, 4 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Kentucky Derby says it is "almost always on the first Saturday in May". Mike Turnbull (talk) 11:25, 4 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Upload file?

How do I upload a file? I wanna upload the album cover of The Prophecy by Ninja Sex Party, but I cannot seem to find out where the upload file page is. HoveringSombrero (talk) 01:00, 4 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@HoveringSombrero: Go to Wikipedia:File upload wizard, click on the non-free image button, and follow the instructions. -Arch dude (talk) 01:43, 4 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

When I click on the button, it just refreshes the page. It does not take me to a new page. - HoveringSombrero (talk) 14:27, 4 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@HoveringSombrero: Strange. I cannot see what happened, so try using this alternative: Wikipedia:Files for upload. -Arch dude (talk) 03:14, 5 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Improving sentence structure

Have my latest edits to medical conditions actually improved sentence structure or violated the Manual of Style?— Preceding unsigned comment added by Aeschylus (talk • contribs) 02:05, 4 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I searched and found that this was added by Aeschylus. The most recent in Aeschylus's list of contributions is this. Aeschylus, I get the impression that you dislike the passive. The passive is a fully grammatical, very convenient and with rare exceptions (exemplified by the weaselly/risible "mistakes were made") fully acceptable device for changing the valency of an English verb, most suitable when the identity of the doer of the deed is of little or no importance to what is being said. (Highly recommended: "Fear and loathing of the English passive".) -- Hoary (talk) 03:19, 4 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Some of the changes are good. However, going from "If normal thoracic duct drainage is disrupted" to "If disruption of normal thoracic duct drainage occurs"; from "Chylothorax can also be congenital" to "Chylothorax can also occur congenitally"; from "It is especially common in surgeries requiring mediastinal dissection" to "in particular, it frequently complicates surgeries requiring mediastinal dissection": each of these seems unfortunate to me. (Only the first of these three goes from passive to active, of course. Another possible explanation: you have an odd aversion to the verb be.) There are more besides, but three examples should be enough to make my point. -- Hoary (talk) 08:07, 4 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Ok. When are to be verbs a good idea and when are they a bad idea?
I have heard that they are a bad idea, but I want to know when they are useful and then they clutter the sentence.
In addition, which of my changes were good compared to my bad changes? I want to know the difference between my good and my bad changes so I can avoid future issues.
Additionally, when is combining sentences a good idea? I want to remove clutter/wordiness from a sentence. What should I look out for? I used to have a great obsession with length, so added a lot of meaningleff fluff to my articles. How can I amke the text concise but easy to understand? aeschylus (talk) 20:08, 4 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Aeschylus, there are few simple rules. When you say that you've heard "to be verbs" are "a bad idea", I suppose that you mean some talk about occurrences of be somehow degrading the sentences they're in. Of course this is possible. I can add an utterly superfluous be to a sentence above, resulting in "It is especially common in surgeries is requiring mediastinal dissection". This is ungrammatical. But a writer of English as a first language who has no language impairment (and who isn't senile, drunk, very sleepy, etc) wouldn't accept this sentence. You're probably not asking about that kind of thing. As for uses of be that aren't ungrammatical, I can't think of any that's stylistically undesirable. You say you want to remove clutter and wordiness, but these should be examples of clutter and wordiness that stand out when you read them, not those that you identify via some "rule" propounded by the kind of fool "language expert" who tells people that they should avoid adjectives (a link I warmly recommend). -- Hoary (talk) 07:27, 5 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@Hoary, if possible, can you please show me a good and bad change I made so I can compare the two take into account what was helpful? When adding new content, I want to know if my structure is appropriate for Wikipedia. aeschylus (talk) 04:37, 7 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Aeschylus, please choose a sizeable paragraph you wrote that's of some concern to you, and, on your user page, point to it (or make a copy of it), and ping me to draw my attention to this new message. I'll read the paragraph and see whether there's any particular comment on it that I think is worth making. -- Hoary (talk) 05:28, 7 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@Aeschylus The PDF linked above is a good read. It discusses the relatively recent shunning of the verb "to be". I would argue that the advice you heard, that "to be" is bad, is bad advice. David10244 (talk) 05:00, 7 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Aeschylus, I've looked at your recent edits, and for me, most of them make the text harder to understand. The most recent introduced a grammatical error: "Surgery has in other animals has had limited success". Maproom (talk) 07:47, 4 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

uploading image in infobox but says connection error

i am creating a bio graphy of a person that is not available on wikipedia, in the section of info box i am trying to uploading image in infobox but says connection error, while my connection is good Nasir Gondal Wiki (talk) 08:27, 4 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Nasir Gondal Wiki If you are trying to upload the image directly to this Wikipedia, you lack the permissions needed as your account is not yet autoconfirmed. If you took the image yourself, you may upload it to Wikimedia Commons. Please see Files for Upload if you did not take the image yourself.

It seems you are trying to write about yourself, please read the autobiography policy.

Note that images are not relevant to the draft approval process, which only considers the text and sources. You don't need to add an image right away. 331dot (talk) 08:33, 4 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Article counter per saved articles folder is fake

Hi there, Am I the only one who has noticed that the article counter is sometimes wrong? I mean, for some folders of saved articles it does show the correct number of saved articles, whereas for some others it is wrong. By the way, none of my articles is available off-line, just in case someone decides to re-produce the problem. 87.255.2.43 (talk) 08:30, 4 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Are you using a Wikipedia app? Which one? —Kusma (talk) 08:33, 4 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

yep, the latest version from Google Play for Android. 87.255.2.43 (talk) 09:19, 4 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

See https://m.mediawiki.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Apps/Team/Bug_reporting for the instructions to report bugs in the app. —Kusma (talk) 03:20, 5 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Change to relevant category

I have submitted article, but I am unable to change the categories. would like display article in art, interior designing, nyc inter designing category. Please guide me.

Madhukogan (talk) 10:11, 4 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@Madhukogan Assuming this is about your Draft:The Designers Group, we don't categorise drafts, only accepted articles. There are various ways to add categories to items in mainspace but the most versatile is probably the WP:HOTCAT gadget. (Some people do add potential categories to the foot of their drafts in a way that means the actual category pages are not populated but I think that is a waste of time since it won't help the review of the draft.) Mike Turnbull (talk) 11:15, 4 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Understood. Yes it was for draft article. Thanks for the help Madhukogan (talk) 12:11, 4 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Copyright

I wish to use the aerial photo of the airfield in 1916, shown on Villers-Outréaux website, the photo if I can obtain permission will be used in an article for Flypast magazine published by Key Publishing UK.

Sincerely,

Anthony Moor AJMoor (talk) 13:50, 4 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

The file in question is hosted on Commons, and is listed as public domain. [1] See the notice on file status there. AndyTheGrump (talk) 13:56, 4 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

In other words, there is no copyright on that image and it can be used by anybody for any purpose with no restrictions. Cullen328 (talk) 17:27, 4 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

HotCat not loading

HotCat is back and working on my end - no need to leave this open any longer. -- Shadow of the Starlit Sky 18:58, 4 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

I noticed that despite downloading HotCat on my Wikipedia account (a long time ago) HotCat doesn't show up in the Categories section. Is this a bug or something? -- Shadow of the Starlit Sky 14:11, 4 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@Shadow of the Starlit Sky I don't know how HotCat was set up in the past but it is now an option within the gadgets/editing section of Special:Preferences. Are your preferences ticked correctly? See WP:HOTCAT for details. Mike Turnbull (talk) 15:29, 4 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

AFAIK I did set it up in Preferences. -- Shadow of the Starlit Sky 15:56, 4 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Merging an article

Hi all. I was browsing Wikipedia when I saw an article that had a deletion discussion closed as merge, but the merge has not been performed yet after more than a month since the closure of the discussion. How would I carry out this process myself? Can I? Article in question is Boo (character). — theki (hit me up) 14:22, 4 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia:Merging#How to merge has the step-by-step instructions. --Jayron 32 14:26, 4 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Changing the name of a page

Hello,

I want to change the name of Deborah Berke Partners to TenBerke because they changed their name. Martiacosta (talk) 16:38, 4 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@Martiacosta I have undone most of the changes you made to that article. I left the new name in, but also added the old name back in. I got rid of the long, unsourced list of awards you added, and the list of completed projects you added (leaving the ones that were already there). Now, as for the article's title; see WP:NAMECHANGES. Basically we don't move an article automatically when an entity changes its name. We wait until we have sources demonstrating that the new name is the name being used by most sources. ~ ONUnicorn^{(Talk|Contribs)}problem solving 16:53, 4 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Ok thanks, but the long list of awards I added did have sources as well as a lot of the projects. I can readd them and link to the websites... Martiacosta (talk) 17:25, 4 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@Martiacosta, based on your username, you seem to not only have a conflict of interest with this subject, but to be a paid editor. Please read WP:PAID and follow the disclosure requirements. 199.208.172.35 (talk) 17:08, 4 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

What to do if the administration of Wikipedia ignores the request?

Short description. I am a rather active editor of my national Ukrainian branch of Wikipedia. More than half a year ago, my account was restricted from creating new articles. I asked to remove this restriction, but the administrators ignore my request. What should I do if the administrators ignore the request? Who can help with ukrainian group of admins?

* I corrected that problematic article for which restrictions were imposed on me. BlackStar1991 (talk) 20:11, 4 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@BlackStar1991, English Wikipedia has no control over other Wikipedias. The only folks with cross-platform powers are Wikimedia's stewards - see here. 199.208.172.35 (talk) 20:31, 4 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

thanks for help BlackStar1991 (talk) 20:37, 4 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

IP Addresses

how do i report a suspicious IP address who's only edit is support in a discussion. Everyone in the discussion is in support as well so i can't tell if he's a sock or if he is who's sock is it? Blitzfan51 (talk) 20:19, 4 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Which discussion? Without seeing the context it's hard to know if I should point you to {{Single-purpose account}}, or WP:AIV or WP:ANI or WP:SPI or tell you to leave it alone, or something else. ~ ONUnicorn^{(Talk|Contribs)}problem solving 20:30, 4 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

it's here. Blitzfan51 (talk) 22:57, 4 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@Blitzfan51, IPv6 addresses for a single user can change over time. In most cases, addresses with the same initial 64 bits belong to the same person. See IPv6 address for more details. In practical terms, if you append "/64" to the URL of an IPv6 user's contributions page, you can see all of their contributions. In this particular case, Special:Contributions/2601:5CE:4380:3A0:40FC:A02C:968:6D1C shows only one contribution, but Special:Contributions/2601:5CE:4380:3A0:40FC:A02C:968:6D1C/64 shows many more. The most likely explanation is their address changed recently and they have made only one contribution under the new address so far. CodeTalker (talk) 00:51, 5 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Dash

In "MOS:DASH" this type of dash is not listed: "--" (broken). The sentence in question is as follows: "Earlier texts, such as the 1340 treatise De Heraudie, for example, makes no mention of the rule--even when discussing armorial bearings that violate the supposed rule. Other 14th century authors like Bartolo and Johannes de Baudo Aureo do not make mention of the rule either.[2]" (I have indicated the dashes in bold). Page: "Rule of tincture". JackkBrown (talk) 22:20, 4 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

In "MOS:DASH" this type of dash is not listed: "--" (broken). Really? I didn't have to read very far before I found this:

Do not use a double hyphen (--) to stand in for a dash.

The obvious solution to the sentence in Rule of tincture is to replace the double hyphen with an 'approved' dash; either a spaced ndash or an mdash; you choose.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 22:48, 4 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@Trappist the monk: I meant that this hyphen, among the dashes that it is correct to use, doesn't exist (as specified in the "MOS:DASH" guide), and I didn't know if the person who wrote the sentence wanted to use the en dash or the em dash. JackkBrown (talk) 23:07, 4 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

You did not say that. When writing posts here, say what you mean and mean what you say. It does not matter what that other editor wanted. This is wikipedia; tons and tons of stuff is broken or malformed. Out of 6,908,645 articles, you found one where hyphens are used in a way that is contrary to the MOS. WP:SOFIXIT. How you do that (which 'dash' you use) is entirely up to you.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 23:29, 4 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]