Wikipedia:Help desk

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March 26

Citation copying won't work

Hello, I am an editor for 2023 FIBA 3x3 Asia Cup, I've been trying to fix a duplicate reference on [1] and [2], but no matter what I try it just won't work, please help me! ~With regards, I followed The Username Policy (Message Me) (What I have done on Wikipedia) 01:38, 26 March 2023 (UTC)

@I followed The Username Policy:  Fixed in this edit. GoingBatty (talk) 02:01, 26 March 2023 (UTC)

Thank You So Much, it was driving me crazy, for some reason it works in the edit preview but not in the published version, I didn't know you had to set it for the second ref. ~With regards, I followed The Username Policy (Message Me) (What I have done on Wikipedia) 01:10, 27 March 2023 (UTC)

@I followed The Username Policy: I also removed url-status from refs with no archive-url. – _•Raven  ^.talk 02:05, 26 March 2023 (UTC)

Article naming issue

I'm working on articles about Polish statistical systems (TERYT, TERC, BREC, ULIC) and I have an issue with naming them. Let's take TERC as an example:

• The most commonly used name is the acronym, however there are multiple uses for TERC already, and therefore TERC cannot be used.
• The article could be titled by its full Polish name, which would be System identyfikatorów i nazw jednostek podziału administracyjnego, which is rarely used and against WP:USEENGLISH.
• Another solution would be to name the article by the translated Polish name, which would be System of identifiers and names of units of territorial division, however this name is almost never used in relation to TERC.
• The article could be named by something like TERC (Polish statistical system), but this is against WP:NCA.

Other wikis that have an article about TERC use just TERC as it is the most common name, however none of them have an article on Telomerase RNA component, which is another use for TERC.

The systems' acronyms are sometimes derived from Polish, such as SIMC (System identyfikatorów i nazw miejscowości). SIMC already has an article, titled by its Polish name.

What would you suggest doing? PRmaster1 (talk) 12:13, 26 March 2023 (UTC)

If it's known by it's acronym, then use that. You then need to find a suitable disambiguation, (statistics system) is reasonably close I'd say. Lee Vilenski ^{(talk • contribs)} 12:19, 26 March 2023 (UTC)

Political orientation

I have noticed that there seems to be a marked left-wing orientation within Wikipedia (in the United States, it corresponds to the Democratic Party). I would like an explanation as to whether this is really the case, or whether it is just my impression; furthermore, I would like to know, with proof, whether Wikipedia, according to its own laws, can have political orientations, or must, by necessity, always be neutral. I repeat: it would seem, in my opinion, that there is a not inconsiderable left-wing political orientation here on Wikipedia. JackkBrown (talk) 13:24, 26 March 2023 (UTC)

Putting "left wing" and "US Democratic Party" in the same sentence leaves me giggling. --ColinFine (talk) 14:46, 26 March 2023 (UTC)

JackkBrown This sort of discussion is probably better suited for the Village Pump. Users are not expected to leave their political affiliations at the door, so to speak, but are expected to civilly collaborate to achieve consensus. Having a neutral point of view is different from being without bias, which is impossible. We all have biases, as do independent reliable sources. Sources are presented to readers so they can evaluate and judge them for themselves as to bias and other factors in determining what they think. If an article seems to have too much of a slant, please discuss it on the article talk page. 331dot (talk) 13:32, 26 March 2023 (UTC)

I'll add that Wikipedia does not equivocate if reliable sources do not, for example with how the January 6 United States Capitol attack is described, or Joe Biden being found to be the winner of the election. 331dot (talk) 13:35, 26 March 2023 (UTC)

It can be argued that Wikipedia, as whole, is a socialist idea. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 08:17, 27 March 2023 (UTC)

I wouldn’t say socialist, but rather progressive or liberal (in the original, Locke-ian meaning of the term).

Wikipedia, as a political project, can fit in an egalitarian public education program à la Jules Ferry with a strong socialist tint. But it can also fit in libertarian framework of "everyone can learn how to swim, you only sink if you deserve it". (Also, Jules Ferry was hardly a socialist, but I disgress.)

I agree that in practice it attracts editors leaning left, but that’s only because information-control authoritarianism is a right-wing value in today's Western culture. That was not always the case (see, for instance, the USSR in the 1980s and 1990s). [EDIT: seems contentious, but I have no intention of arguing that point]

Tigraan^{Click here for my talk page ("private" contact)} 11:03, 28 March 2023 (UTC)

"information-control authoritarianism is a right-wing value in today's Western culture" - really? The whole woke cancel culture is usually associated with the left. Martin of Sheffield (talk) 13:49, 28 March 2023 (UTC)

Tigraan This is almost certainly not the forum for working this out, but since you made the statement: 1) Was it not Biden who wanted to create some "disinformation" watchdog office that correctly-thinking Americans objected to as an un-American ministry of propaganda worthy of Lenin or Stalin or Mao? and 2) is it not the Dems in government who are working with the social media to govern what ideas may and may not be discussed--on the theory that social media are not bound by that pesky Freedom of Speech clause that so-hinders Big Brother from telling us what's good for us to believe? Uporządnicki (talk) 15:43, 28 March 2023 (UTC)

Should an article about people objecting to (say) Rhubarb, be titled "Rhubarb protests" or "Anti-rhubarb protests"?

Someone has changed the name of article 2023 Israeli anti-judicial reform protests to 2023 Israeli judicial reform protests. Which name better fits Wikipedia's article naming conventions? Thanks Misha Wolf (talk) 14:10, 26 March 2023 (UTC)

I would go with whatever reliable sources use (WP:COMMONNAME) — PerfectSoundWhatever (t; c) 18:03, 26 March 2023 (UTC)

By and large, coverage in reliable sources uses neither of these terms. Misha Wolf (talk) 18:20, 26 March 2023 (UTC)

What do they use? — PerfectSoundWhatever (t; c) 19:09, 26 March 2023 (UTC)

All of the following terms are in use by reliable sources to describe what the government is doing: judicial changes, judicial overhaul, judicial plan, judicial reform, judicial reforms, judicial system overhaul, justice reform, legal overhaul, legal reform and legal reforms. When writing about protests, the prefix "anti-" is sometimes linked with one of these terms and sometimes not. Misha Wolf (talk) 17:17, 27 March 2023 (UTC)

Of course any protest is likely to be anti something, so the prefix may be redundant. Which is anti-judicial, the protests or the reform? —Tamfang (talk) 22:37, 27 March 2023 (UTC)

Why not simply 2023 Israeli protests (already a redirect)? Shells-shells (talk) 23:46, 27 March 2023 (UTC)

There are 9 months left in 2023. How do we know the Israelis won't be protesting something totally different next week? For example, the 2020 anti-mask anti-COVID lockdown protests in the United States could have conceivably been titled "2020 US Protests" - until George Floyd was killed and the U.S. started protesting something else. ~ ONUnicorn^{(Talk|Contribs)}problem solving 14:09, 28 March 2023 (UTC)

I think that we'll leave the title as is for now. It's part of a trio of closely related articles and it's best if their titles use matching terms:

• 2023 Israeli judicial reform
• Reactions to the 2023 Israeli judicial reform
• 2023 Israeli judicial reform protests

Misha Wolf (talk) 15:00, 28 March 2023 (UTC)

Template:WikiProject Antigua and Barbuda template task forces not being added

I have been working on Template:WikiProject Antigua and Barbuda, and while the first five task forces I have added to the template have been working fine, the last two are not showing up in the required categories needed section, and when I add those two task forces to a page, those two task forces do show up in the parameters, but to not add a category to the page, and do not show the task force label on the template. CROIX (talk) 16:20, 26 March 2023 (UTC)

@CROIX: Hi there! There are many redlink categories listed at Template:WikiProject Antigua and Barbuda that need to be created. If this doesn't answer your question, then I suggest you ask at Template talk:WikiProject Antigua and Barbuda and provide specific examples of the page names and which categories aren't listed as you expect. Hope this helps, and happy editing! GoingBatty (talk) 04:51, 27 March 2023 (UTC)

@GoingBatty While this did not answer my question, I thank you for helping anyways. However, the template talk at the WikiProject Antigua and Barbuda is largely inactive and not really reviewed by anyone but myself. Are there any other help forums available that I can ask questions at? CROIX (talk) 20:25, 27 March 2023 (UTC)

The two missing task forces in this template are these, while the task forces do appear in the template parameters while being inserted, the task forces and associated categories do not show up when the template is inserted into a talk page relating to that task force. An example can be seen at Freetown, Saint Philip's talk page.

|tf 6=

|TF_6_LINK = Wikipedia:WikiProject Antigua and Barbuda/Saint Philip |TF_6_NAME = Parish of Saint Philip task force |TF_6_IMAGE = |TF_6_PORTAL = |TF_6_QUALITY = yes |tf 6 importance= |TF_6_ASSESSMENT_CAT= Parish of Saint Philip articles |TF_6_MAIN_CAT = Parish of Saint Philip task force articles |TF_6_HOOK =

|tf 7=

|TF_7_LINK = Wikipedia:WikiProject Antigua and Barbuda/Barbuda |TF_7_NAME = Barbuda task force |TF_7_IMAGE = |TF_7_PORTAL = |TF_7_QUALITY = yes |tf 7 importance= |TF_7_ASSESSMENT_CAT= Barbuda articles |TF_7_MAIN_CAT = Barbuda task force articles |TF_7_HOOK =

CROIX (talk) 20:29, 27 March 2023 (UTC)

@CROIX: I confirmed the task forces don't appear at Talk:Freetown, Saint Philip, but don't see any issues in the template code. If you don't receive an answer from another editor here, you could try Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Templates. GoingBatty (talk) 14:08, 28 March 2023 (UTC)

Template:WPBannerMeta § Task forces → WPBannerMeta can accommodate up to five task forces...

—Trappist the monk (talk) 14:26, 28 March 2023 (UTC)

@Trappist the monk However, more than five task forces can be added through the use of hooks (Template:WPBannerMeta § Task forces), this template uses hooks. Have the hooks not been used properly? CROIX (talk) 19:31, 29 March 2023 (UTC)

Must not be ... {{WikiProject Antigua and Barbuda}} passes a variety of parameters including |TF_6_HOOK= and |TF_7_HOOK= with their assigned values to {{WPBannerMeta}}. In {{WPBannerMeta}} there is no reference to {{{TF_6_HOOK}}} or {{{TF_7_HOOK}}} so those parameters and their assigned values will be ignored by {{WPBannerMeta}}. The 'hook' documentation, like most template documentation, is woefully inadequate and I'm not all that interested in figuring out what it means or how it works. You might ask the editors who have contributed significantly to {{WPBannerMeta}} and {{WPBannerMeta/hooks}}. If you figure it out, improve the documentation.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 19:57, 29 March 2023 (UTC)

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

Good evening. Is there a specific reason why the Italian language Wikipedia page on Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolfgang_Amadeus_Mozart) is so much longer? Mozart is one of the most influential figures in all of music history, it seems strange to me that in the world's best Wikipedia (i.e. this one, en.wiki), the page has far fewer bytes of writing. JackkBrown (talk) 19:46, 26 March 2023 (UTC)

@JackkBrown: Nobody has chosen to expand it. Wikipedia is crowdsourced by volunteers whose work is loosely co-ordinated at best, with each volunteer doing whatever work they wish to do. Feel free to work on the Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart article. -Arch dude (talk) 20:03, 26 March 2023 (UTC)

@JackkBrown: Note also that a number of headings in our Mozart article are followed by "See also" and "Main article" lines, indicating that some aspects of Mozart's life are treated in separate articles here (perhaps because of splitting from the main article). I haven't looked at both articles in detail, but it could be that the Italian WP discusses everything about M.'s life in one article, whereas we do it in multiple articles. Deor (talk) 23:44, 26 March 2023 (UTC)

Former cricketer Elias Constantine

I would like to provide a picture of Elias Constantine. I am his daughter, Aurelia Constantine. How can I go about doing that? Thanks. Cricketgirl868 (talk) 21:21, 26 March 2023 (UTC)

Hi Cricketgirl868. Before you do anything else, please read through Wikipedia:Conflict of interest. Please understand that I'm asking you to do this for reference purposes only, not because you've done anything wrong. Being new to Wikipedia, there are probably lots of things about it that you're unfamiliar with and that page will help you get up to speed on some of them that relate to your situation. As for adding a photo to Elias Constantine, a lot of how that can be done depends upon the photo itself and its copyright status. If this is a photo that you yourself took, please take a look at Wikipedia:Donating copyrighted materials#Donating your photographs for some general information on options that are available to you; as it states on that page, such an image is probably better uploaded to Wikipedia's sister project Wikipedia:Commons. If this situation applies to you, please clarify and someone will be better able to help you. On the other hand, if the photo was taken by someone else or you don't know who took the photo, then things become more complicated. Generally, under the copyright laws of most countries like the US, the person taking a photo is considered to be its copyright holder and only the copyright can given the consent that Wikipedia needs to be able to host the file. In this case, the more information you can provided about the provenance of the photo, the easier it will be for someone to try and help you sort things out. If the photo is currently available somewhere online, then providing a link to the url address where it can be seen would also be helpful since whoever else is using it may have provided some informtation about its provenance. -- Marchjuly (talk) 21:40, 26 March 2023 (UTC)

@Cricketgirl868: The advice above is entirely correct, but let me insist on one thing regarding copyright: if you don’t know who took the photo, it’s probably not ok.

Yes, even if it’s a very old photo. Copyright is full of specific details but in many instances it expires 70 years after the death of the photographer (not after the photograph was taken). You don’t know who the photographer is? Too bad, unless your jurisdiction has a specific provision for orphan works.

If you think that’s crazy long, well, I agree, but you should take that with your local politician and ask them to change copyright law. Tigraan^{Click here for my talk page ("private" contact)} 11:26, 28 March 2023 (UTC)

Draft:Los Angeles FC 2

Can somebody move this page back to the mainspace? It was originally in the mainspace until User:Onel5969 moved it as a draft. The team actually starts play today, so it has relevance..

Roberto221 (talk) 21:51, 26 March 2023 (UTC)

 Courtesy link: Draft:Los Angeles FC 2.   Roberto221, did you read the "declined" notice at the top of the draft? Maproom (talk) 22:33, 26 March 2023 (UTC)

Hello, Roberto221. In order for Draft: Los Angeles FC 2 to be accepted as an article, it needs to include enough citations to suitable sources to establish that the club meets Wikipedia's criteria for notability. It does not do so at present (none of the sources cited has significant coverage of the club, and all four seem to derive their information from MLS Next Pro, and so are not independent.

It is quite likely that suitable sources do not yet exist, i.e. it is TOOSOON.

As for when they are starting play: There is no deadline in Wikipedia. ColinFine (talk) 22:33, 26 March 2023 (UTC)

A physician in Argentina

I was not sure if Wikipedia along with many other wonderful sources of information would be able to help me contact a very renowned physician in POSADAS MI SSIONES ARGENTINA. HE WAS THE HEAD OF THE PLASTIC SURGICAL SOCIETY OF LATIN AMERICA...HEIS EXPERTISE WAS BURN PATIENTS WHICH VERY FEW SURGEONS HAVE EXPERTISE IN. I MET HIM MANY YEARS AGO AND HE WAS A VERY KIND BENEVOLENT PHYSICIAN WHO WAS CALLED IN TO HELP PATIENTS IN IMPOSSIBLE SITUATIONS I LIVED IN NEW YORK AT THE INTERESTED AND HE WAS THERE SO OFEN AS WELL MANY OTER PLACES THROUT THE WORLD. WE WERE VERY GOOD FRIENDS HE WOULD STAY WITH MY FAMILY WHEN HE WAS HERE.I ALSO KNOW A PATIENT THAT I WANTEDI TO SPEAK TO HIM ABOUT. AGAIN HIS NAME.. DR LEON BUCHUK in POSADAS MISS MARY ELLEN SEEKAMP (talk) 22:48, 26 March 2023 (UTC)

MARY ELLEN SEEKAMP Please turn your caps lock off when posting, it is seen as yelling. We can't help you with contacting an article subject or other individual, sorry. 331dot (talk) 22:50, 26 March 2023 (UTC)

There is no article in English Wikipedia about, or mentioning, this person. A websearch found only one result, which was a location and address entered on a map service called vymaps.com, which unfortunately is blacklisted by Wikipedia so I cannot post a link to it. If you websearch on "Leon Buchak surgeon" (or doctor, or Dr) you may find it, or you could search on the map service yourself.

Since this information is published (and you could have found it yourself) I see no reason not to give it to you, on the understanding that Wikipedia's reasons for blacklisting it may include malware on it: we'll see if other editors here disagree and remove it. I have no idea whether the map location and address is still current (perhaps it's old and the Doctor has moved, or retired, or died), but you could at minimum write to the address given, and perhaps use it to help find further information.

Please also note that this Helpdesk, as it states at the top of the page, is intended only for help in editing Wikipedia. In future, please post factual queries not about Wikipedia on one of the WP:Reference desks. Hope this helps. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 90.205.101.197 (talk) 04:15, 27 March 2023 (UTC)

Curiosity

A curiosity: how come the articles in this encyclopaedia (which I consider the best version in the world) tend to be less long than those in Italian, but have more sources? JackkBrown (talk) 23:07, 26 March 2023 (UTC)

JackkBrown. Because that is the way that the volunteer editors in the English Wikipedia (and the Italian Wikipedia) have freely chosen to write and reference the articles. There is no formal coordination whatsoever between the two projects. Cullen328 (talk) 23:54, 26 March 2023 (UTC)

Why are you asking this question multiple times? See #Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart above where you were told the same thing. Star Mississippi 00:40, 27 March 2023 (UTC)

It depends which pages you compare. Special:Statistics currently says Content pages 6,635,398, and Words in all content pages 4,325,192,319. The average is 4,325,192,319 / 6,635,398 = 652 words per content page. it:Special:Statistics gives 884 546 844 / 1 804 067 = 490. If you try to compare specific articles then there may be differences in how much related material has been placed in other articles. Wikipedia:Wikipedia records#Languages says: "Language with the highest percentage of featured articles: Italian Wikipedia (3.7%)." But each language decides its own featured article criteria and processes so it's hard to compare. Many languages don't even use the concept. PrimeHunter (talk) 01:04, 27 March 2023 (UTC)

Each Wikipedia project has its own policies and guidelines, and has its own community enforcing them. This is one reason that articles found on other language Wikipedia's aren't automatically considered OK to be translated into English for English Wikipedia as explained WP:OTHERLANGS. Different language Wikipedia articles also aren't necessarily direct translations of one another; so, the Italian Wikipedia article might've been developed completely independently of its English Wikipedia counterpart. It's possible that some of the content found in the Italian Wikipedia article was also once in the English Wikipedia article, but subsequently was removed because it wasn't deemed appropriate for English Wikipedia. You can try checking Talk: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (including any archives) to see whether this has been discussed before. If you don't find anything, maybe scan through the article's page history to see if any major expansions made to the article ended up being subsequently reverted. You can also start a discussion about this on the article's talk page and see with others familiar with the subject matter might have to say. -- Marchjuly (talk) 01:37, 27 March 2023 (UTC)

@JackkBrown Another possibility is that things might be describable in fewer words in English than in some other languages. I have noticed this just by reading the back of a can of air freshener sold in the US (Glade, or Lysol, for instance). There are instructions and warnings in a couple of languages, and they say the same thing, but the English takes fewer (and shorter) words. A friend who translates English into French, as a job, says this happens between English and several other languages. Apparently, translators call this phenomenon "translation bloom". I predict that in the Wikipedia articles, the words aren't exactly the same, but English might be more concise than Italian. Just a thought. David10244 (talk) 07:58, 27 March 2023 (UTC)

English is one of, if not the, largest languages in terms of vocabulary. As David10244 indicates, many other languages have to use phrases where English uses a word. Consider potatoes = "pommes de terre" (lit: apples of the ground) or railway = "chemin de fer" (lit: horse road of iron). Also note that the French uses "horse road OF iron" whereas the English equivalent is "iron horse road", one word less. Martin of Sheffield (talk) 08:19, 27 March 2023 (UTC)

Not really important here, but "chemin de fer" translates literally as "path/road of iron", not "horse of iron". "Horse" is "cheval". Random person no 362478479 (talk) Random person no 362478479 (talk) 08:50, 27 March 2023 (UTC)

Oops, good catch. Martin of Sheffield (talk) 09:38, 27 March 2023 (UTC)

"Chemin de fer" is the correct translation of "railroad". However, I immediately understood "cheval de fer" (horse of iron) to mean "locomotive". It might be because of this film, I am not sure that it is all that common. Tigraan^{Click here for my talk page ("private" contact)} 12:22, 29 March 2023 (UTC)

Possibly it.wp prefers to consolidate pages where en.wp prefers to rely on links to smaller pages? —Tamfang (talk) 22:17, 27 March 2023 (UTC)

March 27

List of uncategorized redirects

I've been adding rcats to a few templates and I'm wondering if there's a category for redirects with no rcats added. I know of Category:Miscellaneous redirects but that's for redirects that have Template:Rcat shell with no parameters. MaterialWorks ^{ping me!} 01:14, 27 March 2023 (UTC)

@MaterialWorks: There's a discussion about this at Wikipedia talk:Special:UncategorizedPages#Uncategorized redirects, and a link to a database query listing one million redirects that were uncategorized in 2019. I spot-checked a few on the first page of the results, and they were all still without categories. So that list should give you plenty to work with. -- John of Reading (talk) 07:07, 27 March 2023 (UTC)

How Fork an Essay or Article and preserve history?

Aware that POV-fork is forbidden for mainspace articles, is it permitted for Essays? It seems we have many that directly contradict each other, or that argue opposite opinions.

I wish to take a neglected essay whose author left the project and fork it into a related but noticeably different thesis. Rather than start a whole new essay, I'd rather keep the history. How to do this?

Also in mainspace this may be necessary where an article has grown too big and needs to be split two or more smaller topics.

Regards, Jaredscribe (talk) 03:01, 27 March 2023 (UTC)

@Jaredscribe: If the essay is not being used for anything, you can continue maintaining the essay where it is, or move it to a new name. Either way retains the history. Otherwise you can reference the original essay somewhow, like in a "See also" section, for attribution. ~Anachronist (talk) 05:08, 27 March 2023 (UTC)

I've tried maintaining the essay, but since others are using its original thesis, it would be better to fork, in order to make the divergent opinions clear.

I'm rewriting as a separate essay, and giving attribution, but it would be nice to have the history and talk archives.

There should also be a way to preserve history for mainspace articles that get too big and need to be split. No? Jaredscribe (talk) 18:35, 27 March 2023 (UTC)

@Jaredscribe Reusing content is perfectly valid with attribution. See WP:REUSE, and templates like {{Copied from}}. It is not needed here, but in article mainspace, sometimes complex merges require Wikipedia:Requests for history merge ~ 🦝 Shushugah (he/him • talk) 13:04, 29 March 2023 (UTC)

FYI, the forked essay is Draft:Wikipedia:Competence is desired

I welcome discussion on the talk page, and WP:Bold improvements to the diction and tone of the essay.

If you disagree with the basic thesis, then consider arguing your point by contributing to WP:Competence is required instead. Jaredscribe (talk) 18:06, 29 March 2023 (UTC)

Move an AfD article from mainspace to draft?

I have an article that was published too early, and now its in AfD.

Can I withdraw the article, put in draftspace, and publish it in a few months, years, or whenever I get more reliable sources to establish independent notability?

Jaredscribe (talk) 03:03, 27 March 2023 (UTC)

Hi Jaredscribe You can propose that the article be draftified in the AFD discussion, but you probably shouldn't unilaterlly do so yourself now that the article is being discussed per WP:AFDTODRAFT. "Draftification" is sometimes an alternative to outright deletion, but usually only when the prospects for the draft someday becoming a viable article are considered to be fairly high. The draft namespace is not really a place for storing content that has no realistic chance of ever becoming an article. If you propose "draftification" as an alternative to deletion, and the consensus agrees with you, then that's what will happen. If not, then the draft will just end up being deleted. -- Marchjuly (talk) 03:16, 27 March 2023 (UTC)

When sources become available, the deleted article can be restored to draft space for improvement. You would simply ask the deleting admin to restore it to draft space, or send you the wikisource code for you to create a new draft. ~Anachronist (talk) 05:28, 27 March 2023 (UTC)

@Jaredscribe Or you could copy/paste the wikicode out now to store somewhere on your own device. Then you wouldn't have to ask anyone but could just start over and expand that when you were ready. Mike Turnbull (talk) 12:03, 27 March 2023 (UTC)

ok thanks, Jaredscribe (talk) 18:07, 29 March 2023 (UTC)

Athlete

How to add an athlete on Wikipedia Mangoisthebest (talk) 05:24, 27 March 2023 (UTC)

@Mangoisthebest: See WP:YFA and WP:AFC for guidance. ~Anachronist (talk) 05:28, 27 March 2023 (UTC)

Mangoisthebest, please also read Wikipedia:Notability (sports). Cullen328 (talk) 07:13, 27 March 2023 (UTC)

Edit

Good morning. Is there an administrator who would like to correct this word on the Israel page?: "Israel,"; the comma should be placed outside the quotation marks. Non-administrator users may not edit this page. JackkBrown (talk) 09:06, 27 March 2023 (UTC)

@JackkBrown: you can make an edit request on Talk:Israel. See {{Edit fully-protected}}. You have to be more specific when making your request though, there are at least two occurences of Israel, in that article. Victor Schmidt (talk) 10:10, 27 March 2023 (UTC)

That seems to be a misunderstanding; there was only one with the comma inside quotes, as described. ◅ Sebastian 10:20, 27 March 2023 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Done. Since you are an experienced editor, and since this is the help desk, allow me to add that the suggested process in such cases per WP:FULL is “proposing them on its talk page, using the {{Edit template-protected}} template if necessary to gain attention.” (Maybe that should be mentioned in the hat note.) ◅ Sebastian 10:17, 27 March 2023 (UTC)

@SebastianHelm: I believe @Victor Schmidt was correct when he stated that {{Edit fully-protected}} is the proper template for @JackkBrown to use for an article. GoingBatty (talk) 14:12, 28 March 2023 (UTC)

What to do about unsourced pronunciations?

Resolved

 – 12:50, 27 March 2023 (UTC)

Many articles, such as Xi Jinping begin with unsourced pronunciations. While last year, in reply to I_want_to_add_pronunciation the consensus was that WP:RS applies, this is rarely followed in practice - in particular, when dealing with unofficial makeshift pronunciations of foreign names, such as in the case of Xi Jinping. Should those unsourced pronunciations be removed, then? I can see some use in them, since it is certainly better to pronounce “Xi” [ʃiː] rather than something like [ksaɪ]. — Sebastian 10:41 — continues after insertion below

I suspect WP:RS applies only in theory. If you see one that you believe is wrong, remove it. If you aren't challenged, then there is no problem. If it isn't sourced, but seems right, then there is also no problem. Gah4 (talk) 11:52, 27 March 2023 (UTC)

Thanks, Gah4. I agree with your suspicion. However, the term your reply hinges on seems to be “wrong”. As long as we don't have a source, that remains a personal judgment call. To my ears, the given pronunciation is clearly “wrong”, but the right one requires sounds that are not used in spoken English, and as I said, it's still better than some other alternatives, which is part of why I'm asking. That said, I now realize that it's less of a Help desk question, but rather a policy related one, so it may be better to move it to Village pump (policy). ◅ Sebastian 12:10, 27 March 2023 (UTC)

Reminds me of TeX, which many also don't know how to pronounce. I suspect, though, that it is even worse. Many (most?) don't know IPA well enough to know. There was someone on late night TV a few days ago, who learned to read young, and so learned many words without knowing how to pronounce them. The only one I remember from when I was young, is hysteresis, which I pronounced wrong for a long time. And I suspect for many, there is just close enough. Also, note that IPA only works if you know how to pronounce the sample words. Gah4 (talk) 13:19, 27 March 2023 (UTC)

Related previous questions:

• How_do_I_go_about_adding_IPA_pronunciations_to_Wikipedia? (2009): “I've not been able to find a page on the conventions for IPA notation.”
• Pronunciation (2019): No reply to question about policy.
• What_is_.28or_should_be.29_the_policy_regarding_spellings.2C_pronunciations_and_foreign_names_in_the_first_sentance_of_an_article.3F (2019): Answer refers to MOS:LEADLANG, which says nothing explicitly about pronunciation.

◅ Sebastian 10:41, 27 March 2023 (UTC)

The above discussion reminded me of eine kleine Nachtmusik, which I've heard pronounced “Nacktmusik” even by educated people. But that would mean "naked music"! So I looked up that article - and found a good solution there: Use a footnote. So I did the same for Mr Xi, which resolves this question. ◅ Sebastian 12:50, 27 March 2023 (UTC)

Here’s a very funny but absolutely untranslatable oral French pun.

A duchess invites a famous music critic for dinner. The duchess's daughter sings some Schubert. The duchess and the critic then exchange words: "Comment trouvez-vous que ma fille a chanté ce [lje]?" "Comme un [pi:d]!"

The duchess is asking the composer how her daughter sang the lied, but she mispronounces the German word as [lje] instead of [li:d]. The critic replies something incomprehensible due to his (voluntary) mispronounciation of "pied" (foot) in the opposite direction ([pi:d] instead of [pje]). Presumably the duchess does not understand, although more educated listeners might have picked off the duchess’s mistake and look for a spoonerism. The actual sentence is rather offensive ("comme un pied": lit. "like a foot" i.e. very poorly, especially in the context of singing - you would never give such direct feedback to a close friend, let alone to your hostess).

Tigraan^{Click here for my talk page ("private" contact)} 11:50, 28 March 2023 (UTC)

Help restoring edits

Hello,

I have done some edits to this page Clare McGlynn but another user @AlexBalder01 has taken them down saying my changes were not constructive. I have only updated the information regarding the scholar's most recent work (I am her research assistant). I understand there was a copuright issue with a photo but can you please leave the edits I made to the text?

Thanks in advance BelMattC (talk) 14:48, 27 March 2023 (UTC)

Since 2015, the photo is on the page. How many years have passed, then you didn't say there was a copyright issue with the photo, are you saying it now? AlexBalder01 (talk) 14:58, 27 March 2023 (UTC)

What are you talking about? I'm talking about the new photo I have tried to upload which has been rejected. I have no idea about the photo from 8 years ago.

I want the edits I made back because the information that is currently on the page is no longer accurate. BelMattC (talk) 15:01, 27 March 2023 (UTC)

But you're removing the photo from 8 years ago. AlexBalder01 (talk) 15:05, 27 March 2023 (UTC)

Only because the new one got rejected. Go on and leave the old photo until I contact my professor and get another one but leave my edits BelMattC (talk) 15:06, 27 March 2023 (UTC)

How do we know he's a research assistant? AlexBalder01 (talk) 15:01, 27 March 2023 (UTC)

Well for starters you could bother checking the references in the edits I made instead of just deleting them without any reasonable argument other than "it's not cosntructive". BelMattC (talk) 15:05, 27 March 2023 (UTC)

@BelMattC & @AlexBalder01: The best place for a civil conversation would be Talk:Clare McGlynn#Content dispute, so that other editors interested in the article can also participate. GoingBatty (talk) 15:06, 27 March 2023 (UTC)

@BelMattC, since you have a conflict of interest, please read and comply with WP:COI. If you are actually being paid by the subject as their research assistant, WP:PAID applies instead. 199.208.172.35 (talk) 15:07, 27 March 2023 (UTC)

@BelMattC and AlexBalder01: This matter is being resolved at Talk:Clare McGlynn. I don't believe further attention is required here. WikiDan61^ChatMe!_ReadMe!! 15:10, 27 March 2023 (UTC)

Sandbox documentation update

I watch Wikipedia:About the sandbox, which used to contain this text: "For easy access, there is a link labeled "sandbox" at the top right of every page between the Talk and Preferences links." However, at this talk page thread, a user pointed out that this is not applicable to Vector 2022. I've commented out the text for now because, as a screen reader user, I'm in no position at all to help out here. Could someone here update the offending text? Thanks! Graham87 15:00, 27 March 2023 (UTC)

I have added "on a user icon menu or ...".[1] PrimeHunter (talk) 15:14, 27 March 2023 (UTC)

If I'd known earlier about this technical village pump thread, I wouldn't have started this one. Graham87 05:06, 28 March 2023 (UTC)

Help with formatting

Hey. On my user page, I am trying to format my page so that a template can show up on the left and userboxes can show up on the right, using <div style="float: left"> and <div style="float: right">. I want the userboxes to be placed all the way to the right, but it isn't working. I also tried to nest the userbox div inside the template div, and to not include a div for the userboxes at all, but neither of these worked. I really don't know what to do, and I would appreciate any help. Cessaune [talk] 15:31, 27 March 2023 (UTC)

The Wikipedia:User page design center is defunct as an active project, but there are dozens of help pages there. Perhaps browsing through there will help you find out how to do what you want to do. --Jayron32 15:50, 27 March 2023 (UTC)

@Cessaune: Hello Cess! I might be able to help you. Would you mind telling me what the template you want to be placed on the left is? ― Blaze Wolf^Talk_{Blaze Wolf#6545} 19:25, 27 March 2023 (UTC)

{{User:FormalDude/Contributions/Templates/Random Cool Picture Generator}} Cessaune [talk] 19:26, 27 March 2023 (UTC)

@Cessaune:  Done, the issue was the template wasn't even placed inside the div. If you want all the userboxes to the right and not next to each other then I'll just have to place them in individual divs. ― Blaze Wolf^Talk_{Blaze Wolf#6545} 19:31, 27 March 2023 (UTC)

Is there a way to have them align to the opposite side of the image? Like, directly to the right of the image? Thanks for your help. Cessaune [talk] 19:34, 27 March 2023 (UTC)

@Cessaune: Yep. That would be placing each userbox in its own div because the image is being pushed down so all the userboxes can be displayed next to each other inline on the right side. I'll go ahead and do that now. ― Blaze Wolf^Talk_{Blaze Wolf#6545} 19:35, 27 March 2023 (UTC)

I was wrong. The solution was to add a line break after the first and second userboxes so that they would go underneath each other. I don't know why I htought placing them in their own divs would work as divs function horizontally and don't automatically add a line break. ― Blaze Wolf^Talk_{Blaze Wolf#6545} 19:39, 27 March 2023 (UTC)

Thank you for your help! This is exactly what I wanted. Cessaune [talk] 19:45, 27 March 2023 (UTC)

@Cessaune: No problem! If you need help with anything else regarding things that have to do with HTML and CSS feel free to ask me. ― Blaze Wolf^Talk_{Blaze Wolf#6545} 19:52, 27 March 2023 (UTC)

lock? block?

Hello! Something I've always been confused about has been the difference between a global lock and a global block. Both seem to do the same thing so I'm not exactly sure which term is correct. ― Blaze Wolf^Talk_{Blaze Wolf#6545} 19:23, 27 March 2023 (UTC)

@Blaze Wolf: Actually, I have asked this question to a candidate during the most recent steward election, at meta:Stewards/Elections 2023/Questions#Klein Muçi. Adapting from the reply there, a global block can only be done to IP adresses, do not affect meta, do not prevent people using that IP from reading Wikipedia, and has an error message that tells you pretty exactly what happened and for what reason, and allows fine-tuning of block settings (e.g. wether to block anonymous users, allow account creation or talkpage access). A global lock on the other hand applies only to registered users, will automatically end any active login session for the account and disallow creating new ones (which means its effectively enforcing an upper limit of zero concurrent login sessions), always affects all Wikimedia Wikis, does not allow fine-tuning (I believe the settings are effectively autoblock disabled, cannot edit own talkpage, email disabled, though the last two are a consequence of not allowing login sessions), and the error message you get when logging in does not tell you the lock reason, nor is the lock reason displayed on Special:CentralAuth or Special:Contributions unless you visit that account's version of these two on meta. Victor Schmidt (talk) 20:18, 27 March 2023 (UTC)

@Victor Schmidt: Interesting. I was not aware that it would not tell you the reason if you were locked. I wonder if there's a reason for that... ― Blaze Wolf^Talk_{Blaze Wolf#6545} 21:51, 27 March 2023 (UTC)

I think you can look at locks as an early crude interim hack, or charitably a blunt tool, until global blocks one day get implemented for accounts. See for example phab:T17294 which is a 15-year old bug. Don't hold your breath.. -- zzuuzz ^(talk) 22:16, 27 March 2023 (UTC)

Quoting in Book

I'm working on a book that will feature about 15 chapters, and each chapter will have an average of about four fairly extensive quotes from Wikipedia articles. Is it sufficient to display the Creative Commons license on a Credits page, or do I have to paste the license in every block of text that I quote?

Thank you. WickedBear (talk) 20:27, 27 March 2023 (UTC)

@WickedBear: You must attribute each quote to the appropriate specific place in Wikipedia separately (in a footnote, perhaps). Each attribution could reference the license but does not need to include the text of the license in full. Then, place a single instance of the full text of the license in an appendix. However, at some point the amount of Wikipedia material becomes so large that your book as a whole becomes a "derivative work". At that point, you will need to license the entire book under CC-BY-SA. I'm not a lawyer, so I don't know when that point is reached. -Arch dude (talk) 20:44, 27 March 2023 (UTC)

Thank you. WickedBear (talk) 20:48, 27 March 2023 (UTC)

@WickedBear: Hi there! You may find the information at Wikipedia:Citing Wikipedia helpful. GoingBatty (talk) 14:15, 28 March 2023 (UTC)

March 28

content translation

I am attempting to translate an Arabic wiki page to english with the translator but I keep running into "Translation services not available for the selected languages". Arabic is cleary a supported language so I don't know what is going wrong. you can translate it here PalauanReich (talk) 00:56, 28 March 2023 (UTC)

@PalauanReich: It refers to machine translation which is disabled at the English Wikipedia for quality reasons. It is therefore not available for any language. You should still be able to start manually from empty paragraphs or by first copying the original Arabic text. PrimeHunter (talk) 01:51, 28 March 2023 (UTC)

PalauanReich, please read Wikipedia:Translation. You need to have a reasonable level of competency in both languages, and you also need to be sure that the translation complies with the relevant Policies and guidelines, especially that the references transferred over actually verify the content. And for important legal reasons, you need to be sure that you have properly attributed the translation to the source article. Cullen328 (talk) 03:11, 28 March 2023 (UTC)

Good to know, thanks PalauanReich (talk) 14:06, 28 March 2023 (UTC)

Editing|Sandbox

 Courtesy link: Draft:David Greg Harth

I was wondering if I could get some help from someone. I was trying to create a page (I rarely edit wiki) but when I didn't have enough info, the subject of the article wasn't "notable" and when I added too much, the article "read like an advertisement." I am tying to find that balance of notability without coming off like an advert. I think the time has nearly past where the draft will be removed from my sandbox. Thank you for any advice! Bequebmemory (talk) 03:33, 28 March 2023 (UTC)

One thing that might be helpful: the article should not contain any 'value judgements' or 'descriptions of quality' written in Wikipedia's voice, so to speak. So if the subject is a scientist, phrases like '. . .he published an influential paper . . .' or 'he made a groundbreaking proposal . . .', etc., would be non-neutral and sound promotional or like advertising – negative descriptions would be just as bad. Such terminology could only be included as a cited direct quote: see Wikipedia:PEACOCK and WP:NPOV. As a test, take any adjective, etc. in your draft that describes a quality of the subject or their work, and substitute one meaning the opposite. If it makes you wince, the original adjective was probably peacock; if it merely seems incorrect, the original was probably OK in non-promotional terms. {The poster formerly known a 87.81.30.195} 90.205.101.197 (talk) 04:34, 28 March 2023 (UTC)

@Bequebmemory: It looks like you're approaching this from the wrong direction by trying to make your subject notable after you've written about it. Have a read of WP:BACKWARD. Bazza (talk) 11:31, 28 March 2023 (UTC)

It might help to realise that Wikipedia is not interested in what the subject of an article says or wants to say about themselves, or what their associates say about them. Wikipedia is only interested in what people who have no connection with the subject, and who have not been prompted or fed information on behalf of the subject, have chosen to publish about the subject in reliable sources. If you find yourself writing anything about the subject that the subject or their associates have said, stop and ask yourself whether that is neutral. ColinFine (talk) 11:45, 28 March 2023 (UTC)

Unless the articles listed on Harth's press site are all trivial mentions establishing notability should not be hard. One thing that stands out to me in the draft as it currently stands is that it lists some projects without giving any information as to why they are important or noteworthy. Adding a sentence or two to each about its reception would probably help. If there are reliable sources for it information about the reception of the artist himself would also improve the article. I mean things like is he controversial, is he influential, is he held in high regard, are his works expensive, are they displayed in notable museums, etc. Random person no 362478479 (talk) 00:41, 29 March 2023 (UTC)

Biography

Hi, After my page was accepted and published in the Hebrew Wikipedia - I would like your assistance with the English version. In fact, I wrote the entire biography in English, following all the remarks I received with the Hebrew one. So, your assistance please. How do I start? Shall I upload it ? Thank you very much. Dan Gaton MD פרופ. דני געתון (talk) 09:36, 28 March 2023 (UTC)

פרופ. דני געתון Please see WP:TRANSLATE for guidance. As different language versions of Wikipedia have different standards and policies, it's probably a good idea to run a translated article through the Articles for Creation process. 331dot (talk) 09:45, 28 March 2023 (UTC)

Hello, פרופ. דני געתון . A couple of things I notice about he:דני געתון: first, it has not a single inline citation. That is not acceptable for an article in English Wikipedia, especially for a biography of a living person. Secondly, it does not appear to have any sources independent of Gatton. That means that it is incapable of establishing that Gatton meets English Wikipedia's criteria for notability, and will not be accepted here without a complete rewrite based on such independent sources. Thirdly, judging from your user name, you are Danny Gatton. Autobiography is strongly discouraged in English Wikipedia, and if you choose to try it, you must use the Articles for creation process. ColinFine (talk) 11:56, 28 March 2023 (UTC)

Article Submission

Exactly how does one go about submitting sn article for inclusion on Wikipedia? The article in mind is about a renowned academician who is mentioned in various wikipedia articles but whose bio isn't available. Seems an injustice. Thank you 74.98.241.237 (talk) 13:36, 28 March 2023 (UTC)

If you are talking about Articles for Creation, see WP:AFC. Writing an article is one of the hardest tasks you can try on Wikipedia. See WP:YFA for not-so-simple instructions. Sungodtemple (talk • contribs) 13:41, 28 March 2023 (UTC)

@74.98.241.237 who is the person? Just because they are mentioned on other Wiki articles doesn't mean they are automatically notable or merit and article of their own. See WP:PROF PalauanReich (talk) 14:08, 28 March 2023 (UTC)

• Step 1: make absolutely sure that the subject is notable. See WP:N. Notability is our only absolute requirement. If the subject is not notable by our definition, then we will delete the article, wasting your time and ours.
• Step 2: read a few articles on subjects similar to yours to see what a Wikipedia article should look like.
• Step 3: proceed to WP:YFA.

-Arch dude (talk) 15:46, 28 March 2023 (UTC)

Missing Page

Hello, years ago we created a page for artist, Hubert Shuptrine. It has been a while since it was updated (maybe 2 years) but I can no longer find the page on Wikipedia. How can a page be deleted or go missing? Thank you. Shuptrine's (talk) 15:47, 28 March 2023 (UTC)

@Shuptrine's: Are you sure it was Hubert Shuptrine or Draft:Hubert Shuptrine? I'm not seeing a deletion log on either page. Also please be aware that sharing an account (by your use of we) is not allowed by Wikipedia's account policies, not to mention that Wikipedia is not a site for promotional purposes, and that if you're editing on behalf of someone, you must disclose a conflict of interest on your userpage, especially if it's a paid relationship. —Tenryuu 🐲 ( 💬 • 📝 ) 16:04, 28 March 2023 (UTC)

Thank you. It would have been Hubert Shuptrine, I don't think I even did a draft. So you can see no history of this page? I appreciate your help. By "we" I meant the family, nothing promotional. Shuptrine's (talk) 16:09, 28 March 2023 (UTC)

@Shuptrine's, it seems you have an undeclared conflict of interest around the Shuptrine family. Please review WP:COI. 199.208.172.35 (talk) 16:16, 28 March 2023 (UTC)

@Shuptrine's: Phrases like Shuptrine continues to create new works as he plans for his an upcoming museum exhibition. He also provides watercolor lessons and workshops geared towards all levels of artists and [h]e will [be] offering workshops and an exhibition of his works in the on-site FLOW Gallery seem pretty promotional to me. —Tenryuu 🐲 ( 💬 • 📝 ) 16:45, 28 March 2023 (UTC)

@Tenryuu: There's always Alan Shuptrine, with a considerable amount of promotional text by the same user. Bazza (talk) 16:14, 28 March 2023 (UTC)

Yeah it looks like an unregistered editor had done some trimming down themselves. —Tenryuu 🐲 ( 💬 • 📝 ) 16:27, 28 March 2023 (UTC)

Yep, I removed what looked like the worst of it and have added a COI tag (the article still needs work). I'll leave a note on the talk page. 199.208.172.35 (talk) 16:38, 28 March 2023 (UTC)

Why are some people missing

I would like to know why some people e.g. the author and explorer Graham Hoyland do not have Wikipedia pages or entries. Are some people allowed to refuse entries? Pfpm1956 (talk) 18:39, 28 March 2023 (UTC)

There are basically two reasons why there is not an article about a given subject: either because it isn't notable according to wikipedia's criteria or simply because no one has bothered to write an article (yet). Random person no 362478479 (talk) 00:45, 29 March 2023 (UTC)

Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · NYT · TWL

I think Graham Hoyland probably doesn't meet the general notability guideline for a standalone article. He was married to Sarah Champion.--♦IanMacM♦ ^{(talk to me)} 18:47, 28 March 2023 (UTC)

Thanks for the feedback. (Yes I spotted he was once married to Sarah Champion.) Good to know that once you become notable enough to get an article you can’t influence its existence :) Pfpm1956 (talk) 19:12, 28 March 2023 (UTC)

Teradoctyl

why p-teradoctyl and not teradoctyl 84.217.35.16 (talk) 19:20, 28 March 2023 (UTC)

The article Pterodactyloidea states the word is "derived from the Greek words πτερόν (pterón, for usual ptéryx) 'wing', and δάκτυλος (dáktylos) 'finger' ". GoingBatty (talk) 19:44, 28 March 2023 (UTC)

I thought it was because English has its own rules that it usually doesn't follow. ― Blaze Wolf^Talk_{Blaze Wolf#6545} 19:46, 28 March 2023 (UTC)

Is p-teradoctyl an isomer of teradoctyl? One must distinguish between the wing-fingered dinosaurs and the scary-fingered ones. The latter are terror-dactyls. Ok, but seriously: there is discussion about Greek initial pt- at [2]. As pointed out there, we have medial -pt- in words like archaeopteryx and helicopter where pteron is the suffix rather than the prefix. ⁓ Pelagic ( messages ) 20:38, 28 March 2023 (UTC)

Privacy

I am begging someone to help stop the accessing my device thru my calendar sto selling my information and IP address on here and other websites my Amazon account is hacked I believe it’s been going on for years from my MSN account I had since 2001 because last I checked their was a Linux computer logged in my email in Chicago Illinois and I am in Ohio also someone has added a vpn to my kids device and grouped my family 2603:6011:853A:692A:D07E:2B7E:709B:E2AF (talk) 21:25, 28 March 2023 (UTC)

This is the help desk for editing Wikipedia (i.e. how to edit Wikipedia), not for trouble shooting hacking of your various online accounts or devices. Sorry, I do not think we can help you. Heiro 21:27, 28 March 2023 (UTC)

If you don't want your IP address to be displayed on Wikipedia, you should create an account. Shantavira|^{feed me} 08:29, 29 March 2023 (UTC)

Caption

The caption I will show below is not understandable, so if it needed editing, I could not do it. Would someone kindly correct it? Thank you in advance. "Sir Muhammad Iqbal 1935 by Lady Ottoline Morrel". JackkBrown (talk) 22:32, 28 March 2023 (UTC)

You didn't provide a link, but I assume that this is a caption for a photograph, painting or drawing of Muhammad Iqbal, created by Ottoline Morrel. --Orange Mike | Talk 22:58, 28 March 2023 (UTC)

I assume that it is this photo File:Sir Muhammad Iqbal 1935 by Lady Ottoline Morrell.png used at Muhammad Iqbal#Urdu. I see no problem with the caption used there: "Sir Muhammad Iqbal in 1935, by Lady Ottoline Morrel". Random person no 362478479 (talk) 00:33, 29 March 2023 (UTC)

@Random person no 362478479: because the caption was corrected at 22:40, by @Deor: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:MobileDiff/1147111289. JackkBrown (talk) 00:47, 28 March 2023 (UTC)

OK, that explains it. Problem solved. Random person no 362478479 (talk) 01:00, 29 March 2023 (UTC)

March 29

"Ugali or posho or sima"

Does it need a comma after "or"? "Ugali or posho or sima" (ugali). JackkBrown (talk) 01:06, 29 March 2023 (UTC)

@JackkBrown: Nope. GoingBatty (talk) 05:40, 29 March 2023 (UTC)

Better to avoid the repeated "or": "Ugali, posho or sima". Martin of Sheffield (talk) 07:30, 29 March 2023 (UTC)

I just want to point out that a large number of articles are severely biased

Hi, I would only like to point out (Think of it like a type of complaint) that certain topics on Wikipedia (I am now referring to religious demographics) are very heavily biased towards a very specific viewpoints completely going against Wikipedia's rule of a "Neutral point of view". What I am refering to is that articles about a country's religious demographics are biased towards either a very secularist bias or a bias towards a minority religion. I would like to recommend a massive cleaned operation. Hope more people could understand. Belson 303 (talk) 05:39, 29 March 2023 (UTC)

@Belson 303: Hi there! The best place to suggest improvements to a specific article is on the article's talk page. GoingBatty (talk) 05:42, 29 March 2023 (UTC)

I don't agree, but your comment is very vague. It would really help us to understand your complaint if you could provide specific examples. But as GoingBatty says, the best place to address this is on the talk pages of the relevant articles. Please make it clear exactly what you think needs to be changed, and include reliable sources that back up your assertions. Shantavira|^{feed me} 08:25, 29 March 2023 (UTC)

Belson 303, there are many articles that to some extent are "about a country's religious demographics", and if you're envisaging a "massive cleaned [cleaning?] operation", I fear that the suggestions above could lead you to post near-identical comments/complaints/recommendations on many talk pages. This would be a great waste of people's time. So, if you believe that a number of articles are similarly "biased towards either a very secularist bias or a bias towards a minority religion", then choose one article and write on its talk page. After you've persuaded editors there to change the article, move on to a second article. And thence (but not simultaneously) to a third, and so on. -- Hoary (talk) 12:55, 29 March 2023 (UTC)

Searching for text strings in references?

Hello I would like to search for a four-letter text string (eg abcd) in the *references* of all Wikipedia articles. I have tried simple searches, no luck. Then I looked at Help:Searching to see if there are any tips - and this page was rather too hard for me to understand (however I searched the long article for the word "reference" and there is nothing specific to that).

I assume I am using the search facility wrong. What should I be doing? Many thanks for help.

AnOpenMedium (talk) 11:32, 29 March 2023 (UTC)

It would really help if you tell us exactly what you are searching for, as it makes it so much easier to supply you with a working solution. - X201 (talk) 11:58, 29 March 2023 (UTC)

@AnOpenMedium WP:Village Pump (Technical) has more people who are familiar with regular expressions and scripts you could use. I suspect all the references you want are mostly commonly wrapped in {{cite}} template so something like

{{cite journal| title="ABCD"}}

could be found by using something like

{{cite.*ABCD

in a search bar. But my regex sucks. ~ 🦝 Shushugah (he/him • talk) 12:10, 29 March 2023 (UTC)

@AnOpenMedium You can just use an insource search. Hence this search finds all articles containing ABCD, giving 1395 hits. Finding it specifically within references would be more tricky but provided your search string is fairly specific you should be OK just to look at all the answers. Mike Turnbull (talk) 13:36, 29 March 2023 (UTC)

@Mike Turnbull: thank you so much, this is exactly what I needed. As you say this works fine on unusual search strings. @Shushugah: thank you also but sadly my Wikiskills are limited so I am not understanding. But I appreciate the support! AnOpenMedium (talk) 13:55, 29 March 2023 (UTC)

@AnOpenMedium: If you need a case-sensitive search, you could search for "ABCD" insource:/ABCD/ instead, which only gives 1,017 hits. GoingBatty (talk) 16:15, 29 March 2023 (UTC)

User spamming fake edits

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.

---

User @Bluutankalpha has been spamming fake edits. I am not sure if this is the right place to report this. Blutankalpha (talk) 13:00, 29 March 2023 (UTC)

This is incorrect, I am the real bblutankalpha and you are a naughty little rapscallion!!! Bluutankalpha (talk) 13:01, 29 March 2023 (UTC)

This is fake pls ban Blutankalpha (talk) 13:02, 29 March 2023 (UTC)

l+ration+dadless+blutanknoasdiherjh+ccgs+cock+balls Bluutankalpha (talk) 13:02, 29 March 2023 (UTC)

ratio* Blutankalpha (talk) 13:03, 29 March 2023 (UTC)

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.

Please Fix This Error

I edited the page called Farzand and I added a link to Kondaji Farzand to the Wikipedia Marathi page and this backlink show error and does.

not redirected to the original page of Kondaji Farzand In Marathi. VIPsupport8513 (talk) 13:07, 29 March 2023 (UTC)

@VIPsupport8513 You needed an interlanguage link ({{ill}}), which I've done for you. Mike Turnbull (talk) 13:27, 29 March 2023 (UTC)

Question

Good morning. In the following sentence, which words should be written with a capital letter and which with a lowercase (I don't think the word 'regions' should be written with a capital letter)? "the Province of St Francis of Assisi in Pakistan and St Clare's Province in India, as well as three Regions, which are expected to develop into full provinces.". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bridget_Sequeira. JackkBrown (talk) 13:35, 29 March 2023 (UTC)

@JackkBrown agreed with you in this case. See MOS:CAPITALIZATION and generally keep the article consistent. There is WP:ENGVAR and sometimes bad grammar on Wikipedia. ~ 🦝 Shushugah (he/him • talk) 13:51, 29 March 2023 (UTC)

Article deleted strangely?

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.

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Please could admin have a quick check that everything is above board. 2023 global banking crisis now deleted - the discussion was ongoing with a great many 'keep' and 'merge' votes. A huge amount of well referenced information has just been binned. The page on the March 2023 United States bank failures has four lines on 'Beyond US' then 'see 2023 global banking crisis' - the page now gone. Is this foul play? Thanks Thelisteninghand (talk) 14:52, 29 March 2023 (UTC)

See closure message at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/2023 global banking crisis. The correct place to appeal deletions is WP:DRV, but as the close states, things need to be notable when something is created, not sometime in the future. Lee Vilenski ^{(talk • contribs)} 15:12, 29 March 2023 (UTC)

It is notable now. There are 8 KEEP or MERGE votes, 6 Delete. Bizarre. Thelisteninghand (talk) 15:18, 29 March 2023 (UTC)

WP:AFD is WP:NOTAVOTE. Once again, DRV is the suitable location to talk about the result of an AfD. Lee Vilenski ^{(talk • contribs)} 15:20, 29 March 2023 (UTC)

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.

Where to discuss a category of undersourced articles?

All the articles in "Category:Western astrological signs" have a serious absence of sources. In particular, they all have {{Infobox zodiac}}, and few if any articles provide sources for the parameters element, quality, domicile, exaltation, fall, detriment, or varna. There is a steady stream of edits changing these parameters with little to no discussion of why the changes were made. What would be an appropriate forum to discuss this issue? Jc3s5h (talk) 15:54, 29 March 2023 (UTC)

You can try the talk page of the Astrology WikiProject. But I don't know how active that project is. Random person no 362478479 (talk) 16:36, 29 March 2023 (UTC)

Prev icons

When I click on Prev, I see two icons toward the upper right of the screen saying "Visual" and "[[]] Wikitext". I'm fairly certain this just started today. No idea what they do and doubt I care; how do I get rid of them? Thanks.--Bbb23 (talk) 16:18, 29 March 2023 (UTC)

The buttons allow you to change diff view between visual and source. Sungodtemple (talk • contribs) 16:46, 29 March 2023 (UTC)

The buttons are for switching between Wikitext diff (what you're used to) and visual diff (showing changes in the rendered result instead of in the source code). This had been a beta feature for a while, but was enabled for everyone this week (T314588). There doesn't seem to be any setting for turning it off completely, but it won't affect you if you're not interested. That said, if you really just want to hide the buttons, adding the following to your common.css should do the trick:

.ve-init-mw-diffPage-diffMode {
    display: none;
}

Rummskartoffel 17:21, 29 March 2023 (UTC)

@Rummskartoffel: I added the code, and it seemed to work when I tested it on common.css itself, but then when I tested it on other pages, e.g., this page, the buttons were hidden but the diff showed in visual, which I don't use. I suspect I'm doing something wrong, but what? I've backed out the changes from common.css. Better to have the buttons than look at a diff in visual. Thanks.--Bbb23 (talk) 17:54, 29 March 2023 (UTC)

Bbb23, did you try out the visual mode before you added the CSS? I just tested it, and it seems to remember your last choice. The reason it seemed to work on common.css is because there are no visual diffs for CSS pages.

In any case, that snippet is just a quick hack. There may be more reliable ways to do it. Rummskartoffel 19:30, 29 March 2023 (UTC)

@Rummskartoffel: You're absolutely right. Seems to be fine now. If you ever hear of something more "reliable", or especially one that eliminates it completely instead of hiding it, please let me know. Meanwhile, thanks very much for your help.--Bbb23 (talk) 19:35, 29 March 2023 (UTC)

What should I do now, after I have finished editing my new article?

https://ro.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utilizator:The_Movielizer/teste The Movielizer (talk) 16:53, 29 March 2023 (UTC)

@The Movielizer: This is on the Romanian Wikipedia, which we have no jurisdiction over on here, the English Wikipedia. You're best served asking on that project instead. —Tenryuu 🐲 ( 💬 • 📝 ) 16:57, 29 March 2023 (UTC)

There is a problem with this article currently, as it does not have any citations at all. This would lead to a problem with verification and notability guidelines.--♦IanMacM♦ ^{(talk to me)} 17:00, 29 March 2023 (UTC)

You appear to be trying to write an article in English, in Romanian Wikipedia. This will not work. I suggest you create a draft in English Wikipedia (see Articles for Creation), and copy the source (not the text - use the source editor) from your original in ro-wiki.

But, as IanMacM says, your complete lack of sources means that the article has no chance of being accepted in to English Wikipedia in its current form. See BACKWARD. You need to start by finding the independent reliable sources which contain significant coverage of the film, because if you cannot, then the film does not meet English Wikipedia's criteria for notability, and all further time you spend on the article will be time wasted.

Another problem is that you have made a legal assertion that you are the copyright owner of the poster. If you are, then you evidently have a significant conflict of interest in writing about this film. Please be aware of our practice in this case. (You might also wish to be aware that you have already granted an irrevocable legal right to anybody in the world, to alter or reuse the poster for any purpose, as long as they attribute the source). ColinFine (talk) 18:49, 29 March 2023 (UTC)

copyright

Hi Guys,

On the Swiss Saber page the picture entitled "A Swiss Saber" is my picture of my work.

How do I get credited for the work and the picture?

Please credit www.todsworkshop.com

Thanks

[email protected]todsworkshop.com 78.143.204.143 (talk) 19:01, 29 March 2023 (UTC)

Article is Swiss saber and file is File:Swiss_Sabre.png#file. The image was incorrectly uploaded as having a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license. I have requested that it be deleted as a copyright violation with an incorrect description. Meters (talk) 19:16, 29 March 2023 (UTC)