Wikipedia:Help desk/Archives/2024 January 31

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.

January 31

Help with the COI policy

I've read through WP:COI, but I'm struggling to figure out what I'd do in my specific scenario. I don't have any actual COIs at the moment, but I do have potential COIs that I've avoided editing. However, if I was to start editing some of these I would feel very uncomfortable publicly declaring those COIs due to many of them being specific enough that I'd be worried about my privacy - I'm very particular about what personal information I share. Would the best solution to just be to fully avoid editing articles where I have a potential COI, or is there a process for privately disclosing COIs? Suntooooth, it/he (talk/contribs) 02:26, 31 January 2024 (UTC)

Suntooooth, it's ultimately a matter of personal judgment. COI is a largely subjective spectrum, with the only hard rule being that editing for pay must be disclosed. I think in most cases, keeping one's potential biases in mind while editing and communicating with other editors is perfectly sufficient. Be bold, and if you otherwise follow site guidelines, you'll be fine. — Remsense诉 02:30, 31 January 2024 (UTC)

Fair enough, that makes sense. Thank you! Suntooooth, it/he (talk/contribs) 02:33, 31 January 2024 (UTC)

Suntooooth, best of luck, and happy editing! — Remsense诉 02:35, 31 January 2024 (UTC)

Lungo

The reference n. 4 presents a problem; not having added it, I don't know how to solve it. JackkBrown (talk) 02:29, 31 January 2024 (UTC)

 Fixed – the last name field contained a URL instead of the author's name. Tollens (talk) 02:33, 31 January 2024 (UTC)

@Tollens: thank you very much! JackkBrown (talk) 02:34, 31 January 2024 (UTC)

Salame genovese di Sant'Olcese

This page requires the creation of a discussion page. Everything I can do I do, frankly too much, but some (few) little things I "ask" for here; for example in this case I have never had the opportunity to create a discussion page in an article and, therefore, I never felt the need to find out how to do. JackkBrown (talk) 03:10, 31 January 2024 (UTC)

JackkBrown, created, using WP:RATER. TSventon (talk) 03:27, 31 January 2024 (UTC)

@JackkBrown: Another way to create a discussion page is to click the red "Talk" link on the article page. You can then click the "Start a discussion" button or the "Create Source" link, add any appropriate templates and discussion, and then save. Happy editing! GoingBatty (talk) 21:13, 31 January 2024 (UTC)

Buccellato di Lucca

This text doesn't seem good to me. I don't have a great knowledge of the English language; I can translate every sentence and every word of this language, but I have difficulty writing sentences from scratch. JackkBrown (talk) 02:14, 31 January 2024 (UTC)

@JackkBrown: I suggest you solicit input from Wikiproject Italy at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Italy, but you should be more specific about your concern rather than it just doesn't seem good. RudolfRed (talk) 04:59, 31 January 2024 (UTC)

That article describes its subject as a type of sweetbread. It isn't; it's a type of sweet bread. Maproom (talk) 08:57, 31 January 2024 (UTC)

I removed the sweetbread link. You do not need to be an expert in Italian cuisine to know that Buccellato di Lucca is not a thymus gland. Cullen328 (talk) 21:17, 31 January 2024 (UTC)

@Cullen328: of course in Italian I know what it's, but for an Italian it's easy to get confused between "sweet bread" and "sweetbread" (see this: Wikipedia:Help desk#https://en.m.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Buccellato_di_Lucca&diff=prev&oldid=1201517214); even the British and Americans, no offence intended, create confusion with, not a few, Italian words. JackkBrown (talk) 21:20, 31 January 2024 (UTC)

JackkBrown, I think that many native English speakers are unaware of what sweetbreads even means. It is an uncommon food, at least in the United States. I have eaten it a few times in "old school" Italian restaurants in San Francisco, but is very rarely seen on menus elsewhere, in my experience. Cullen328 (talk) 21:39, 31 January 2024 (UTC)

(In French, it's "ris de veau".) The wikilinked sweetbread makes it clear what it is. Maproom (talk) 23:13, 31 January 2024 (UTC)

Help with an unsourced POV article

The article is at Oba Michael Olobayo (Obaro Ero Il). It was created by an editor whose only contributions was the article itself. I've made several cleanup edits, and unsure how to proceed. Is this the proper forum for such a discussion? I considered putting it on the articles respective talk page, but it's pretty much dead and would never be seen. Professor Penguino (talk) 05:18, 31 January 2024 (UTC)

If there are no citations it can be tagged for speedy deletion under A7. Shantavira|^{feed me} 08:59, 31 January 2024 (UTC)

I've removed the tag and added sources. The subject is clearly notable. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 12:20, 1 February 2024 (UTC)

@Professor Penguino: On the article's talk page two wiki projects are listed. You can ask on those projects' talk pages. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 12:20, 1 February 2024 (UTC)

https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/oinochoe.

Hi, I'm writing without italics all the known terms of the English language that relate to Italian food, using this dictionary: https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/oinochoe. I remembered that I had previously written oinochoe and tondo in italics, so I looked these two terms up and, unfortunately for me, they appear in this dictionary. Should I delete the italics from these two pages? Is it right for me to take this dictionary literally? However, mine isn't a question about italics, but rather whether I should rely solely on the English dictionary for all cases (e.g. for Italian food it's correct, because it's a limited subject, however vast). JackkBrown (talk) 06:50, 31 January 2024 (UTC)

According to WP:ITALICS you should be italicizing foreign words unless they're in common use in English. I think you were right to italicize oinochoe and tondo even if they're in a dictionary because they're very rarely used in English. I don't quite get your other question, but dictionaries don't have any special status as sources per WP:RS, though they are fine to cite. HansVonStuttgart (talk) 08:21, 31 January 2024 (UTC)

@HansVonStuttgart: I, actually, only use the dictionary to identify common and uncommon foods in the English language. JackkBrown (talk) 08:30, 31 January 2024 (UTC)

Timothy Busfield

In the article about Timothy Busfield. The phrase "traveled frequently" in the sentence "Busfield studied drama at East Tennessee State University and traveled frequently with the Actors Theater of Louisville, which took him to Europe and Israel." What does that mean? Phong Dang (talk) 08:28, 31 January 2024 (UTC)

Who can tell? Perhaps the person who wrote this long, detailed, and very feebly referenced article. As there's been a "needs additional citations for verification" template atop this thing for over a decade, and as it's about a living person, I think it's high time somebody took an editorial machete to it, chopping out everything that isn't well referenced. That person could be you, Phong Dang! -- Hoary (talk) 08:51, 31 January 2024 (UTC)

Hoary: I am researching more about this man's life using all other outside documents, hoping that I will find reliable sources to include in Wikipedia. Thank you for responding to my question. A good day! Phong Dang (talk) 09:59, 1 February 2024 (UTC)

Doesn't it simply mean toured? Shantavira|^{feed me} 08:54, 31 January 2024 (UTC)

Thanks. Phong Dang (talk) 09:59, 1 February 2024 (UTC)

Is this a bug?

I was starting recent changes patrolling, when i saw a blocked user submitting an unblock request, intrigued i went to the talk page and saw this:

Screenshot

Why are there accept and decline buttons? Im sure they probably dont do anything, but i wanted to know, cause i checked other unblocks and it showed the same thing. Begocci (talk) 09:54, 31 January 2024 (UTC)

Begocci, are you still seeing that? Their block appeal has been declined, and the page looks correct in Vector 2010. I looked at the pre-decline version, and that looked okay to me as well. But it doesn't seem like you should have seen that screen at any point. You might consider asking again at WP:VPT or posting a link here from there. Mathglot (talk) 11:23, 31 January 2024 (UTC)

Ok, ive gone to a more recent unblock request, still shows the same two buttons and thing to fill in, and yes, if i go to an earlier revision i can still se the buttons. help?

2nd screenshot

Begocci (talk) 11:52, 31 January 2024 (UTC)

i have absolutely no words for this, what the fuck? Begocci (talk) 12:09, 31 January 2024 (UTC)

Just to confirm, you don't have any userscripts installed for this? Lee Vilenski ^{(talk • contribs)} 12:13, 31 January 2024 (UTC)

checked this and found nothing, currently disabling user scripts to check Begocci (talk) 12:29, 31 January 2024 (UTC)

After disabling ALL my userscripts its normal (no accept/decline buttons), but i never installed something like this, do i do not know what to do. Begocci (talk) 12:57, 31 January 2024 (UTC)

You have this installed, which has this installed, which has User:Enterprisey/unblock-review.js installed. Nobody (talk) 13:00, 31 January 2024 (UTC)

Thank you, now to go and enable everything else :D Begocci (talk) 13:03, 31 January 2024 (UTC)

Probably best to just take the scripts from the base place, and not the one that has other things listed. Lee Vilenski ^{(talk • contribs)} 13:34, 31 January 2024 (UTC)

The alphabetically ordered list of administrators shows nobody between Beetstra and Beland. But who knows: perhaps you have acquired a new power. Remember: With great power comes great responsibility. -- Hoary (talk) 12:23, 31 January 2024 (UTC)

Special:UserRights/Begocc looks normal - just extendedconfirmed. I have the same groups, and I'm not seeing the accept and decline buttons, so it's presumably an issue on Begocc's end and not with the template? Caeciliusinhorto-public (talk) 12:39, 31 January 2024 (UTC)

I have regarded the issue in Talk:B and Wikiproject Languages

Please go there and tell me your thought. 2001:EE0:4BC8:DF00:B50C:773B:1A40:16BA (talk) 11:45, 31 January 2024 (UTC)

My thoughts are that you are obsessively trying to impose a rigid consistency between articles which (a) is unnecessary and (b) may be at odds with the actual factuality of letters' histories. Or it may not, but the matter is so trivial that I am not going to invest time in examining it more closely.

Speaking generally, the world is messy. Attempts to impose over-strict, over-simplified classifications on it are doomed to failure. Being myself somewhat 'rule-rigid' by nature, though not suffering from full-blown OCD, it has taken me decades to come to acceptance of this, but doing so has enabled me to discard a great deal of totally unnecessary angst: I recommend that you, too, 'loosen up.'

Those are my thoughts, like 'em or not. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 90.205.103.187 (talk) 17:39, 31 January 2024 (UTC)

new article and linking

I'm a new editor. I made a new page today that in OTHER articles has a red link Wikipedia:Red link should I begin linking the red ones to my new article Qstor2 (talk) 12:55, 31 January 2024 (UTC)

Qstor2, yes, you can link mentions in other articles. I assume this is 1st Maryland Cavalry, CSA. I suggest moving the article to 1st Maryland Cavalry Battalion (Confederate), following 2nd Maryland Cavalry Battalion (Confederate). TSventon (talk) 13:16, 31 January 2024 (UTC)

Yes, thanks! I followed the format for a link I saw elsewhere. How do I change the format to 1st Maryland Cavalry Battalion (Confederate). Will it affect the links to the old page I did earlier today? Qstor2 (talk) 13:19, 31 January 2024 (UTC)

Qstor2, you need to move the page, see Help:How to move a page. You need a reason, you could select other reason and "consistent with 2nd Maryland Cavalry Battalion (Confederate)". 1st Maryland Cavalry, CSA will remain as a redirect, so the links you have already done will still work. TSventon (talk) 13:32, 31 January 2024 (UTC)

Thanks have a great day Qstor2 (talk) 13:36, 31 January 2024 (UTC)

When you create an article, you can also use Edward Betts' tool which looks up other articles for the title of your article so you can review and see if you need to link those pages. Lee Vilenski ^{(talk • contribs)} 13:55, 31 January 2024 (UTC)

Thanks! Qstor2 (talk) 17:30, 31 January 2024 (UTC)

@TSventon (talk) sorry one more thing. How do I fix the space in the "box" on the right between Valley campaigns of 1864 and Overland Campaign? Thanks in advance. Qstor2 (talk) 17:51, 31 January 2024 (UTC)

@Qstor2 I put all the engagements in one line as in 2nd Maryland Cavalry Battalion (Confederate), which didn't have the blank line. That fixed the problem, I am not sure why. To ping, you copy the first bit of the signature as I did here or use {{reply to|Username}} Message text. ~~~~. Unfortunately pings don't work if you get the code slightly wrong or you don't sign. TSventon (talk) 18:57, 31 January 2024 (UTC)

Tabot image

For several years Ethiopian Christians have been occasionally removing this image from the Tabot page because of religious concerns about viewing a tabot uncovered. Do we have a policy which specifically addresses whether such an image can or should be used? Thanks. GordonGlottal (talk) 13:16, 31 January 2024 (UTC)

GordonGlottal WP:NOTCENSORED is probably what you are looking for. Sungodtemple (talk • contribs) 13:27, 31 January 2024 (UTC)

@GordonGlottal: If it's a long-term and regular issue, ask at WP:RFPP for "long term semi protection", explaining why. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 14:40, 31 January 2024 (UTC)

I've removed it again. I can't really argue with WP:NOTCENSORED, except that it says not to include potentially offensive material if it isn't encyclopedic, and I'm not convinced that we must (nor should) include it: there is already a picture of a covered tabot, in its intended context (as opposed to a looted artifact), and the article goes on to explain (now citing a source) that the tabot is supposed to be hidden from public view. (Perhaps to look at this another way: Wikipedia could put an autopsy or nude photo in the Infobox of an article about a celebrity, because after all WP:NOTCENSORED, but that doesn't mean we have to.) The bare tabot, as far as I can tell, is no longer in the Linden-Museum's inventory, and no longer appears on its website. I reached out to the uploader on Commons (as their image, so far as I can tell, was made available independently of the museum), but they haven't been active since 2015. If I had to guess (I don't actually know), the uncovered tabot is war loot and that's how it ended up in the museum, which has seemingly removed it from its collection (whatever the actual provenance; (add'l. edit) even if it's not war loot, then the museum ought to have given serious thought about displaying it this way, which it seems that they have). I don't think my inference is reckless; the British Museum still has a tabot (that was most assuredly war loot) in its collection, but they have removed it from display, both within the museum and on their website link. If the museums have qualms about placing stolen war booty on display, then that ought to tell us something (meanwhile, Westminster Abbey at least covered up the stolen tabot it currently holds in one of its chapels link). -- Gyrofrog (talk) 15:47, 31 January 2024 (UTC)

Gyrofrog, if there is further disagreement about the image, there should be a discussion on the article talk page,rather than via edit summaries and the Help desk. TSventon (talk) 21:58, 31 January 2024 (UTC)

On that note, this is now under discussion at Talk:Tabot#Tabot image. -- Gyrofrog (talk) 22:21, 1 February 2024 (UTC)

An IP user has also edited the English caption to File:Ethiopia Plate of portable altar.jpg to say "IT'S OFFENSIVE AND WILL BE PUNISHED". I've raised this at C:COM:Village pump#Inappropriate caption. ColinFine (talk) 15:29, 31 January 2024 (UTC)

I'd meant to ask whether this might be a question for Commons, since that's where the images are kept. The discussion was moved to C:COM:Administrators' noticeboard#Inappropriate caption. As I noted there, another image of an uncovered tabot no longer appears in the MNW's collection, or at least not via its website (link). Thanks, -- Gyrofrog (talk) 17:19, 31 January 2024 (UTC)

Yes any decision on what is deleted on Commons needs to happen on Commons. TSventon (talk) 21:58, 31 January 2024 (UTC)

Catalan and Basques

Why are Wikipedia editors so anti identifying people as Catalan and Basques instead insisting on calling them Spanish? Examples include Pep Guardiola who everyone knows is Catalan, except some individuals on Wikipedia who instead on refering to him as Spanish/Spaniard. Sure he played for Spain and has a Spanish passport but he himself clearly identifies as Catalan and closely supports the movement for Catalan independence. Any thoughts please? HackneyGlyn21 (talk) 14:00, 31 January 2024 (UTC)

Wikipedia should simply report what reliable sources say, so please check the citations. If those sources state that someone identifies as Catalan or whatever I see no reason to change that. Shantavira|^{feed me} 14:16, 31 January 2024 (UTC)

There is some guidance at MOS:NATIONALITY, which says A 2018 RfC on Spanish regional identity in the lead resulted in consensus to use the regional identity used most often in reliable sources with which the subject identifies most. TSventon (talk) 14:18, 31 January 2024 (UTC)

Dead Wayback Machine (archive) links

In the featured article Adamson Tannehill, the following archive (Wayback Machine) links are dead: Notes numbers 30-33, 37, 39, 42, 45-47, 49-51, 59, 64, and 67. All are references from the Univ. of Pittsburgh Library System or the Univ. of Pittsburgh. I cannot fix the archive links. Could someone lend a hand?

Also, the archive link in number 1 is an erroneous link to someone other than Tannehill, and the number 38 archive link will not fully load. Could I get help reviving them too? I greatly appreciate the help! Tfhentz (talk) 16:43, 31 January 2024 (UTC)

I had a go with IABot but it didn't do much good and has been reverted. Quite frankly, the refs are a complete unwieldy unreadable mess and you may be wasting your time with the Wayback Machine for each specific page, especially if there is a complete online version. Reffing individual pages with their own url is essentially pointless, an example of gnomishly taking things to extremes. The Uni of Pittsburgh's own site throws up similar error messages to Wayback when I looked for the James B. Tannehill book [1]: this seems to be a problem at their end, but I found a url somehere else. There may be other websites than Uni of Pittsburgh hosting the books. I would suggest at least adding a url to the main cite, e.g.:

Tannehill, James B. (1940). [https://www.wikitree.com/photo.php/2/23/Tannahill-64.pdf ''Genealogical History of the Tannahills, Tannehills and Taneyhills'']. Washington, D.C.: Gibson Bros., Inc. OCLC 1298766782.

• Tannehill, James B. (1940). Genealogical History of the Tannahills, Tannehills and Taneyhills. Washington, D.C.: Gibson Bros., Inc. OCLC 1298766782.

Or you could use {{cite book}} to create proper cites for each book in the bibliography using a single url - here's an example:

{{cite book |last=Tannehill |first=James B. |date=1940 |title=Genealogical History of the Tannahills, Tannehills and Taneyhills |place=Washington, D.C. |publisher=Gibson Bros. |oclc=1298766782 |url=https://www.wikitree.com/photo.php/2/23/Tannahill-64.pdf}}

• Tannehill, James B. (1940). Genealogical History of the Tannahills, Tannehills and Taneyhills (PDF). Washington, D.C.: Gibson Bros. OCLC 1298766782.

You can then either use a simple <ref>Tannehill, pp. 41–2</ref> or use {{sfn}}s as in {{sfn|Tannehill|1940|pp=41–2}}: the latter would need consensus to change the reffing style. MinorProphet (talk) 18:48, 31 January 2024 (UTC)

Flatlist Plainlist template; list of Italian dishes

Could someone help me insert the flatlist plainlist template (User:Belbury claims it's correct to add this template for ingredients as well, whereas I claim it should only be inserted for countries of origin) on all the foods on the list of Italian dishes page? Please. The ones that need the template are about 90/95, not many, in two or three we can do it in about ten minutes or twenty. JackkBrown (talk) 17:24, 31 January 2024 (UTC)

I haven't said anything about the flatlist template, only that you were wrong to characterise {{plainlist}} as "not used for ingredients" in food infoboxes. Template:Infobox food explicitly includes plainlist as an option for that field. Belbury (talk) 17:53, 31 January 2024 (UTC)

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Buccellato_di_Lucca&diff=prev&oldid=1201517214

In the English language, is there a difference between "sweet bread" and "sweetbread"? JackkBrown (talk) 20:58, 31 January 2024 (UTC)

@JackkBrown: Yes – "sweet bread" is bread which is sweet, while "sweetbread" is, quite confusingly, meat. Tollens (talk) 21:03, 31 January 2024 (UTC)

@Tollens: thank you very much for the clarification. JackkBrown (talk) 21:04, 31 January 2024 (UTC)

Tollens is definitely on the right track. "Sweetbread", normally corresponding to a word with stress on the first syllable, commonly means a kind of meat. With this meaning, it's not "compositional": if they only know the meanings of "sweet" and "bread" and an elementary fact about English grammar, people will not be able to determine this common meaning of "sweetbread". By contrast, "sweet bread", normally corresponding to stressed "sweet" followed by stressed "bread", parallels "good bread", "cheap bread", "poor bread", "fine bread", and so forth: with this meaning, it's compositional, simply meaning bread that's sweet. But there are two complications. First, English has no one recognized authority (organization, dictionary, or similar) decreeing either the meanings or the spellings of words and word sequences. Secondly, even though there are plenty of areas where most (or even all) users of English as a first language agree (and perhaps most would agree on this difference between "sweetbread" and "sweet bread"), individual people have their own idiosyncrasies of typing and so forth. -- Hoary (talk) 22:44, 31 January 2024 (UTC)

@Hoary: excellent explanation, thank you very much! JackkBrown (talk) 00:48, 1 February 2024 (UTC)