Wikipedia:Help desk/Archives/2017 January 12

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January 12

False and slanderous statement about me

To whom it may concern.

My name is Allen Quist. Your description about me includes a statement that it totally false and that amounts to slander. The statement is, "While in the Minnesota House, Quist gained some national attention for racking up a cumulative 30 hours in a single session speaking on the House floor about sex.[14]" I am asking you to remove that statement at once. The statement is not only false, something as outrageous as this would not be allowed in any legislature in the United States.

I am Allen Quist former Minnesota State Legislator and former candidate for Governor of Minnesota. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2600:1014:B043:36DD:D007:A6A6:2946:709A (talk) 01:13, 12 January 2017 (UTC)

Here are a couple links to help anyone who wants to look into this. MarnetteD|Talk 01:27, 12 January 2017 (UTC)

• Allen Quist (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)
• This is the source used which supports the info in the article

Calm down dear. We have ways of dealing with these issues but that was reported by journalist Andy Birkey and we, so far , only have your word that you are who you say you are.--Aspro (talk) 01:31, 12 January 2017 (UTC)

(edit conflict) The article is Allen Quist. The statement in question seems to be a reasonable summary of the source (here), which says: "He gained some fame in the late 1980s, as a state legislator, for bold conservative stances. In the 1988 legislative session, he racked up a cumulative 30 hours on the House floor speaking about sex." So the issue turns on whether this is a reliable source, since " contentious material about living persons that is unsourced or poorly sourced should be removed immediately and without discussion." Can anybody comment on "Colu.mn" as a source for this material? --Gronk Oz (talk) 01:35, 12 January 2017 (UTC)

The Wikipedia article incorrectly states: "in a single session." The source does not say "single session." It says "cumulative," as does this article, but source does not say "single." DonFB (talk) 01:43, 12 January 2017 (UTC)

In the 1988 legislative session. My guess is there was confusion over the meaning of session as used here. —67.14.236.50 (talk) 02:44, 12 January 2017 (UTC)

For the complaining party who posted on this Help Desk, a Wikipedia page contains an email address to which you may send a message to lodge a complaint. DonFB (talk) 01:50, 12 January 2017 (UTC)

Source

It appears that most of the articles out there about this reference an article in the St. Petersburg Times in 1994. Given my search in the archives of the paper, my guess is that it is "In Minnesota, it's politics as unusual Series: COLUMN ONE Vick, Karl; St. Petersburg Times; Jul 16, 1994; p. 1.A" But I don't have an account on http://pqasb.pqarchiver.com/.Naraht (talk) 15:28, 12 January 2017 (UTC)

More sources from Newspapers.com

Hey guys, I have a Newspapers.com subscription which really comes in handy in situations like this. I have found several reliable sources for this, and will include screenshots also for people who do not have subscriptions.

• Smith, Dane (10 April 1994). "QUIST: Call him humble, or call him weird, he's giving Carlson a run for governor". Minneapolis Star Tribune – via Newspapers.com. [1]
• "Quist says public wants what he offers". St. Cloud Times. 25 June 1994. p. 5A – via Newspapers.com. [2]

I will add these as corroborating sources to the article also. It is my opinion that the 30 hour sex talk thing really did happen. There are more sources than these two by the way. Psiĥedelisto (talk) 23:12, 13 January 2017 (UTC)

Forcing character-wrap

Is there a way, a template or something, to force a long, unbroken string to break across lines rather than causing a horizontal scroll bar to appear? For example, in a discussion displaying a URL that includes a very long hash. —67.14.236.50 (talk) 02:37, 12 January 2017 (UTC)

If it's a URL that you want, then linking it would seem like a good way to prevent that... So, something like [http://www.SomeReallyLongURL.com This is what would display] would simply display as This is what would display. †dismas†|^(talk) 03:19, 12 January 2017 (UTC)

The URL in question is blacklisted, though. Cannot be linked. So it’s nowikied for discussion purposes. But given any long string of unbroken text, is it possible to force it to wrap without altering the text itself? —67.14.236.50 (talk) 04:36, 12 January 2017 (UTC)

I'm not sure if this will help you, but Wikipedia:Line-break handling#.3Cwbr_.2F.3E and soft hyphens describes :<wbr /> as "a word break opportunity; that is, it specifies where it would be OK to add a line-break where a word is too long..." --Gronk Oz (talk) 10:08, 12 January 2017 (UTC)

Would that affect the ability to copy and paste a URL? Edit: No, it doesn’t. —67.14.236.50 (talk) using public network 151.132.206.26 (talk) 15:32, 12 January 2017 (UTC)

Year end video from 2014

What happened to File:Wikipedia Edit2014.ogv?--TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 06:54, 12 January 2017 (UTC)

@TonyTheTiger: Commons:Commons:Deletion_requests/File:Wikipedia_Edit2014.ogv - Although it's not spelled out in detail, I assume the video included an image that turned out to be non-free. -- John of Reading (talk) 07:08, 12 January 2017 (UTC)

It was apparently a version of commons:File:Wikipedia Edit 2014.webm which was nominated at commons:Commons:Deletion requests/File:Wikipedia Edit 2014.webm. In that case a new version without two images was uploaded and only the old version was deleted. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ci0Pihl2zXY is probably the original version. PrimeHunter (talk) 11:29, 12 January 2017 (UTC)

I have posted a notification at commons:User talk:VGrigas (WMF)#File:Wikipedia Edit 2014.webm 2. PrimeHunter (talk) 11:44, 12 January 2017 (UTC)

Company page monitoring

Hi,

I work for HomeServe UK and on numerous occasions we have noticed that there have been incorrect changes made to our company page (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homeserve). When I've rectified the changes, I have always clicked the 'watch this page' tick box and haven't been notified when changes are made.

A quick question from a confused Wiki-user: am I wrong in thinking that we are supposed to get email notifications?

Any help you can shed on the matter would be greatly appreciated and any advice you have on helping us monitor the page would be great too.

Thanks,

HomeServeUK (talk) 11:26, 12 January 2017 (UTC)

• @HomeServeUK: Before I answer your question,I will point you to WP:PAID - you are currently violating the terms of use of the Wikimedia Foundation, and any further edits in contradiction to that will probably get you blocked (prevented from editing). Moreover, your username is against the internal policies of the website, see WP:ISU.

"Watch this page" adds the page to your watchlist, a Wikipedia-internal mechanism. You can receive emails in addition to it, but it needs an additional step: tick the box in Special:Preferences -> "user profile" tab -> Email options -> "Email me when a page or a file on my watchlist is changed".

(Convenience link: Homeserve) Tigraan^{Click here to contact me} 12:10, 12 January 2017 (UTC)

I don't think WP:PAID is the correct assumption here. WP:COI seems to fit better. The editor has an undeniable Conflict Of interest, but WP:PAID makes the assumption that the editor is being paid specifically to make edits - that doesn't seem to be the case here. OP only says that he works for the company, not that they pay him to maintain the article about them. AGF, and all that. Chaheel Riens (talk) 14:10, 12 January 2017 (UTC)

Hmmm, their account name lead me to think they were acting in official capacity. (If they were instructed by a supervisor to perform the edits, it falls under PAID even if it was not in the employment contract). This being said, Special:Contributions/HomeServeUK shows most edit during lunch hours, so you are correct that we can WP:AGF that it is not the case. I've stricken that part. Tigraan^{Click here to contact me} 15:50, 12 January 2017 (UTC)

How to edit a table

I have just tried to add two new programmes to an existng table. The edit page is not in table format so I followed the format which appeared during editing. However when I saved my changes and looked at the page, I noticed that my additions appear at the top of the table as a separate line, and not in the table. The link to my edit is: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cross-border_cooperation

How can I fix this?

Thank you — Preceding unsigned comment added by Sebnemsozer (talk • contribs) 13:03, 12 January 2017 (UTC)

Editing a table in Wikipedia is difficult. You have to use |- at the start of each row, and | at the start of each cell, for the items you add. I have fixed the table at Cross-border cooperation. Maproom (talk) 13:10, 12 January 2017 (UTC)

Multi-genre glitch in Comic Book infobox

I've just noticed over at Leviathan (2000 AD) that the infobox doesn't quite make sense. The infobox lists the genre as " , horror, steampunk" - ie beginning with a comma. The infobox parameters are:

|Horror = y
|Steampunk = y
|multigenre = y

which seems to make sense - but any changes I make do not fix the initial comma. Additionally, 2000 AD (comics) is also multigenre (albeit different types) but doesn't have this issue and displays correctly. Any help? Chaheel Riens (talk) 14:05, 12 January 2017 (UTC)

It needed "|Horror = first" rather than "|Horror = y". I don't know why 2000 AD (comics) got away without the same. --David Biddulph (talk) 14:37, 12 January 2017 (UTC)

Titles of foreign untranslated works

Hi, what is the preferred way of citing the titles of foreign works that have not been translated? I've thought about first citing the foreign title in italics and then the English translation inside parentheses and quotation marks – e.g. Hymnus an den heiligen Geist ("Hymn to the Holy Spirit"), but should it be styled in some other way? --Eleassar ^{my talk} 14:44, 12 January 2017 (UTC)

The main citation templates have a |trans-title= parameter. See e.g. Template:Citation#Title or Template:Cite web#Foreign language and translated title. If you don't use such a template then I suggest using the same format as the template produces. PrimeHunter (talk) 15:38, 12 January 2017 (UTC)

Thanks a lot. --Eleassar ^{my talk} 01:54, 13 January 2017 (UTC)

2017 Mountian West football Conference season article

Can you please put the atrticle in Blue and start it now. 2600:8803:7A00:19:87C:38CC:BD10:84CB (talk) 17:16, 12 January 2017 (UTC)

The 2016 Mountain West football article was created in July of 2016, I'm curious as to what information is appropriate to add now, less than a week after the end of the 2016 CFB season.Naraht (talk) 18:58, 12 January 2017 (UTC)

Archiving pages with apostrophes

Recently, I've been setting up auto archive with ClueBot III for a bunch of Disney Parks related talk pages. For the most part, it has worked correctly. However, for two of them, Talk:Disney's Animal Kingdom and Talk:Disney's Hollywood Studios, it is archiving the pages to the wrong place (for example Talk:Disney's Hollywood Studios/Archives/ 1 instead of the specified Talk:Disney's Hollywood Studios/Archive 1). Can anyone help me out, or help me better set up the archive box to go to the new page? Pinging @Cobi: for help and/or an explanation about this.

Also, I set up the auto archive on Talk:It's a Small World. ClueBot III archived the discussions to Talk:It's a Small World/Archives/ 1 instead of the previously made Talk:It's a Small World/Archive 1. I'm not sure which one to merge into the other, so I'm hoping for advice. Elisfkc (talk) 18:35, 12 January 2017 (UTC)

• Hi, Elisfkc. There's no need to merge it. I've created an archive box with both links. Just keep a watch when clue bot archives it next and tell me if something goes wrong. And with respect to the misdirected archive page creation, I'm pinging PrimeHunter, who might have a resolution. Thanks. Lourdes 17:39, 14 January 2017 (UTC)

I have moved Talk:Disney's Hollywood Studios/Archives/ 1 to Talk:Disney's Hollywood Studios/Archive 1 and merged Talk:It's a Small World/Archives/ 1 to Talk:It's a Small World/Archive 1 without leaving redirects. PrimeHunter (talk) 18:10, 14 January 2017 (UTC)

@PrimeHunter and Lourdes: Thanks Elisfkc (talk) 19:49, 14 January 2017 (UTC)

getting some help, how?

Hello,

i've created a article in german wikipedia about a company in my region. It's called "LEAG" and a direct link to this: LEAG. Well, i want to translate it into en wikipedia to provide this information in english too. So i went into the translation tool and the information box there told me, that new authors in enwp should not use this tool. I understand that and i'll try to find some help getting this article translated. In german Wikipedia we have a program called "mentor program". New users can subscribe to it and they'll get an advanced user who helps by the first steps of creating and article. Is there any possibility here to? I didn't found a link or something for that. It would be nice to have somebody to explain my wishes and who helps by upcoming problems and issues by creating an article. (If this company meets the relevance criteria.

Thanks in advane for your help. /Pearli123 (talk) 19:23, 12 January 2017 (UTC) P.S.: A ping would be nice, because i didn't watch really often at my watchlist in other wikipedias =)

@Pearli123: I think you are looking for Wikipedia:Adopt-a-user, but I could be wrong. Elisfkc (talk) 19:31, 12 January 2017 (UTC)

Hi Elisfkc, noc, i think you're right. I think thats the thing i was looking for. Thanks for your help ;) /Pearli123 (talk) 19:34, 12 January 2017 (UTC)

Cameo and the recent deletions and additions

To whom this May concern, I am Arnett Leftenant, Phd. one of the founding members of Cameo. My brother Nathan Leftenant attempted put in accurate information on Cameo past and current for whatever reason you decided to block his information, is there a reason why this was done? It would seem if Wikipedia's mission is to provide up to date accurate information on the artists and groups you have on your site. That the input from the very artist you are writing about would be Germaine, there are currently two Registered Trademarked groups or bands TM 87212124 touring and releasing music known as Cameo. Made up from members of both groups. There is a current legal litigation in progress between the two. If there were Two groups known as the Beatles I am sure your print would accurately portray this. Your print does not reflect what Cameo is doing that a new release is currently selling around the world titled "We In The House" that there are countless online radio, press releases interviews that you can source check. Also please understand you are talking about our lives and lively hood, and we meaning all of the members of Cameo want accurate information Not a commercial wrought with untruths, you are posting as our lives.

Thank you for time and Concern Best Regards, Arnett Leftenant, Phd. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Nettyfed (talk • contribs) 20:22, 12 January 2017 (UTC)

The reasons are explained at User talk:Leftenant.nathan. He was removing text which had references to sources, and he was adding unsourced text. That's why his edits were reverted and eventually, as he ignored the warnings, he was blocked from editing. --David Biddulph (talk) 20:32, 12 January 2017 (UTC)

Complaint from Traffickfree

I am having people attack me on the wikipedia about what I do and who I am with incorrect information. It is almost blasphemous. How do I find out who is doing this or block them? I keep making the changes and they keep doing it. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Traffickfree (talk • contribs) 20:26, 12 January 2017 (UTC)

This appears to be about the edits to Theresa Flores. Please discuss it at the article's talk page, per WP:BRD. Do not engage in an edit war. Also, one of your comments said that someone was not "authorized" to write something on the page, which is not how Wikipedia works. RudolfRed (talk) 20:43, 12 January 2017 (UTC)

Emit (artist)

Three years ago a page was created for me as an artist. The page has been up and consistently updated. Just recently the page was removed, because the author was removed or banned, but that has nothing to do with my 3 year old page or me as a relevant artist. Please restore it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emit — Preceding unsigned comment added by Emitdfatt (talk • contribs) 22:56, 12 January 2017 (UTC)

I believe this refers to Emit (artist) which has been removed as being created by a banned user. (Heading added by me) Eagleash (talk) 23:09, 12 January 2017 (UTC)

• As previously explained, this was deleted under WP:CSD#G5 and must not be restored. It is likely that the article was paid for by the subject or his representatives, and all edits were by an undisclosed paid editor or one of a small number of IPs / SPAs with no history on any other article. Guy (Help!) 17:50, 13 January 2017 (UTC)

Edit summary typo

How do I correct a typo on an edit summary? Obviously it's better not to make the mistake in the first place, but accidents do happen. ThoughtIdRetired (talk) 23:33, 12 January 2017 (UTC)

Edit summaries cannot be changed. In serious cases you can make a dummy edit with a new edit summary but there is rarely reason to do that. PrimeHunter (talk) 23:40, 12 January 2017 (UTC)