Help desk
< December 31	<< Dec \| January \| Feb >>	January 2 >

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 1

Lupton family

Ref. number 119 is no good - unless you can fix it please, I cannot. I have replaced it with a new reference from the newspaper archive. Please remove or fix reference number 119. Thank you. 175.33.22.186 (talk) 02:20, 1 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Hi is this a good website? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Rochelmax (talk • contribs) 04:19, 1 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Hi, yes, it is a good website. Please fix ref. Number 119 as requested. Thanks 175.33.22.186 (talk) 04:44, 1 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Done. You had a URL that didn't work, and the wrong date. I have changed the citation from {{cite web}} to {{cite journal}}, and added the issue and page references to the citation. Happy new year. --ColinFine (talk) 11:55, 1 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Some image is not displaying properly on safari.

Hi. Some images appear to not be displaying properly on the Safari web browser on both my iPhone and Mac. If I use Google Chrome instead all the images seem to low just fine. Can I please get some help resolving this issue? Flags200 (talk) 04:21, 1 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

@Flags200: Please give an example and describe how it displays. PrimeHunter (talk) 07:44, 1 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

@PrimeHunter:

Theproblem seems to be happening to some of the flag images on some of the articles about countries. A few examples include the Kingdom of England, France, and Germany articles. It will show the name of the image but not the image it self. --Flags200 (talk) 20:42, 1 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

@Flags200: Please give an actual example as in "image A on page B". PrimeHunter (talk) 20:53, 1 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Article requiring extensive/total rewrite - What can I do?

Hi,

I was reading Multiplicity_(psychology) and it became clear that the article had severe issues. Without restating everything I wrote in Talk:Multiplicity_(psychology), the article has been "hijacked" almost, albeit probably with good intentions.

I've added NPOV and Expert Required tags and removed the worst of the content, but the article needs a lot of attention (and perhaps an intervention against the editors who have made these changes). I'd like to do something but I'm not an expert in the subject and I'm aware that the matter is probably quite sensitive and ought to be handled carefully.

Is there anything else I can do/anyone I can refer it to/any editors willing to help out?

Thanks, --Vitalis196 (talk) 04:34, 1 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Hello, Vitalis196. You might get some help at WP:WikiProject Psychology - the banner says that project is only semi-active, but if you post on its talk page, you might find somebody interested in working with you. --ColinFine (talk) 11:59, 1 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

@Vitalis196: Please also read WP:TNT. -Arch dude (talk) 19:30, 1 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

@ColinFine: @Arch dude:Thanks for the advice re:Tagging WP:Psychology and WP:TNT. Looking through the content I think it's worth beginning the AfD process. Looking back through the various versions of the article, the concept that the article refers to has changed multiple times, it's unclear whether Multiplicity refers to the use of multiple personality styles, Dissociative identity disorder, Dissociative identity disorder as experienced by some individuals, or somewhat irrelevant original research on how Plato and Shakespeare vaguely touched upon the issue. . All of these subjects are better covered by other articles. The most recent incarnation of the article is already covered atDissociative Identity Disorder#Rights movement.--Vitalis196 (talk) 21:34, 1 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Discussion is now here Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Multiplicity (psychology) (2nd) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Vitalis196 (talk • contribs) 21:45, 1 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Question about translating articles

I was reading through the criteria for speedy deletion and was confused by this, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Criteria_for_speedy_deletion#A2 Am I not allowed to translate articles from other language's wikipedias into english?

Thanks in advance. Pladica (talk) 08:19, 1 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

@Pladica: A2 refers to articles which were saved in a foreign language here at the English Wikipedia. You are allowed to save translated versions of articles although they will not always satisfy our content criteria. See more at Wikipedia:Translation. PrimeHunter (talk) 08:48, 1 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Image comment Rae Loch

Hi Folks!! Happy New Year!!. I came across this image [1]] which is used at Rae Loch. I know it is a micro or even a nano article, but there is barely anything that can be said about that wee loch, except it a profoundly beautiful. Not much else there. I did notice when viewing the image that when you click on it says A small seen through some reeds. I'm not sure how to actually fix the spelling mistake, if it is spelling mistake. I can't find where to update it. Thanks. scope_creep^Talk 12:56, 1 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I just found it. It is the alt prop. Please close this. Thanks. scope_creep^Talk 12:58, 1 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Adding an image to an article

I mainly work on Wikimedia Commons on images in “media needing categories”. Photos that have no category in Wikimedia Commons are usually untraceable and are lost for further use unless there is a real good description. When it concerns an image of a person, I search the various Wikipedias to see if there is an article about that person. When there is an article but no image I try to find out if the person of the image is the same as described in the article. For this I look at the description (age for example), the references in the article (often link rot and only text) and Google image search. When it is very likely for me that it is the right person, but I am not 100% sure, I add the image and add the extra text “PLEASE check whether this is the right person” with the caption. I do that because when I post the photo without "PLEASE check .." chances are that others will accept it as correct and use it that way. Those who contributed to the article will find it easier than me to see if the photo is the right person or not and adjust the accompanying text. I put the WP page on my watchlist until it is clear about the photo. If it is correct I can change the category of the photo and add the photo on the Wikidata page. The reactions are very different. There have been positive comments because there is now a correct photo, or stating that it is not the right person, removal of the photo without comment by anonymous users whose only contribution to Wikipedia is the removal of the photo and more aggressive comments like “ stop adding images in situations like this ”. I would like to hear opinions on this. Wouterhagens (talk) 16:20, 1 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

@Wouterhagens: your activity technically violates our policy against original research (WP:OR). It also violates our norms about making what are basically edit requests within the body of the article which results in the articles not being encyclopedic in tone. However, I think your effort is useful if you modify your approach a bit. Instead of adding the photo to the article, add a new section to the article's talk page to ask interested editors to follow up on your research. Provide the link to the picture and add {{request edit}} to your new section. You may wish to also create a subpage to your user page to describe your work, and link to that subpage also. Please note that this is my opinion and it is relevant to the English Wikipedia, but other Wikipedias may have different rules and may have editors with different opinions. Here at the help desk, we often get miss-directed complaints about incorrect pictures displayed by Google, because Google quotes Wikipedia and then grabs a non-Wikipedia picture from somewhere else. When we do have a picture, Google almost always uses our picture instead of an alternative. This means that your current approach would likely lead to more rapid corrections for miss-identification, but unfortunately, that's not part of our mission.-Arch dude (talk) 16:57, 1 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Hi @Arch dude: and @Wouterhagens: The request edit template is for users with a conflict of interest either because they know the subject of the article personally or they are paid by the subject to edit the Wikipedia article. This is indicated in the template's text, which is posted at Template:Request edit. I don't think this template should be used for the situation described above and I think Arch dude is correct that Wouterhagens's process is original research. I would post on the talk page of the user who uploaded the image and ask them to identify the person. Original research is not a familiar topic for me so I hope others comment below on this question. Please ping me if I need to clarify anything or you have a question for me. Thanks! Z1720 (talk) 21:58, 1 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

@Wouterhagens: I hope you don't mind me following you here from your talk page. The responses above are very sensible, but I'd like to suggest you do something even simpler: do five minutes of research before adding an image to an article to determine whether it's the right image in the right article. When you added File:Jess Walters.jpg to Jesse Walters, you might have asked yourself:

Given that the image is dated 1989, and shows some of advanced age, is it likely that it's Jesse Walters, who our article says was born in 1939? (it isn't)
Does the name in the image title or its description match the name of the article? (it doesn't: Jess Walters vs. Jesse Walters)
Can pictures of the subject of the article be found via Google Images and compared to this one? (they can)
Does the person in the image look like a judge of the Idaho Supreme Court?

I think if you'd taken a few minutes to consider issues like these we could have avoided five months of the article containing a picture of a totally different person. In the rare cases where you're genuinely unable to determine whether it's the right person you might start a discussion on the talk page of the article or the uploader, but in most cases you're surely more than capable of figuring it out for yourself. – Arms & Hearts (talk) 10:38, 2 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Vito Genovese why removed our company page

A member of you named Vito Genovese deleted the company page we opened because it was "not worthwhile". We are the company that produces and e-commerce the most popular cosmetic products in our country. Now my question for you is; Who is this guy who can say that our company is "not worthwhile"? How can he make such a comment about a sector and company he has no knowledge of and delete the subject? I wonder.. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Dcyilmaz (talk • contribs) 17:02, 1 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Dcyilmaz, presumably your article on your company was considered to be overly promotional in nature (particularly with how you mention that you sell the most popular cosmetic products in [your] country) and not encyclopedic, which is something that Wikipedia does not do. Moreover, since you are writing about a company that you are affiliated with, please announce said affiliation on your user page to comply with Wikipedia's WP:PAID policy; you may use the {{paid}} template to do so (add your company name after |employer=). —Tenryuu 🐲 ( 💬 • 📝 ) 🎄Happy Holidays!⛄ 17:07, 1 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

While paid editors aren't prohibited from editing articles that involve them financially, it is better for them to stick with edit requests once the article makes it into mainspace. —Tenryuu 🐲 ( 💬 • 📝 ) 🎄Happy Holidays!⛄ 17:08, 1 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

@Dcyilmaz: This is your first edit to Wikipedia. What is the URL (or page title) of the removed article? It would help the respondees here if they know which (deleted) article you are talking about. Victor Schmidt (talk) 17:53, 1 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Dcyilmaz, you have uploaded File:Thalia Natural Logo.png to Commons, but this message on your User talk page on the Turkish Wikipedia I think is saying that an article called "Thalia Natural Beauty" has been speedily deleted there. I can find no evidence there has ever been such an article on English Wikipedia. If you are indeed talking about what has happened on tr-wiki, please be aware that they are entirely separate projects, and nobody here has any influence or authority there. --ColinFine (talk) 19:48, 1 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

How do I create a Wikipedia page?

I have a company which I think warrants a Wikipedia page and was wondering how I could go about having someone or none create one for my business... thanks in advance Byron — Preceding unsigned comment added by ByronPH (talk • contribs) 18:08, 1 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

@ByronPH: you can generally try Requested articles]. That being said, under Wikipedia editors, the Requested articles mechanism isn't exactly known for its speed. Since your question is "How do I create a Wikipedia [article]?", yes, you can in theory create one yourself; however, creating a new article is one of the hardest tasks on Wikipedia, and being affilated with the subject does not make things easier. You if you do want to create it yourself, there are guides including steps here, here or here. Victor Schmidt (talk) 18:43, 1 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

@ByronPH: Before you put any effort into this, please be aware that the subject of an article must be notable by our definition. See WP:NCORP. If other editors do not agree that your company is notable, your article will not remain on Wikipedia. We delete more than 100 articles every day due to lack of notability. -Arch dude (talk) 19:22, 1 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Hello, ByronPH. You also need 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 at some point Wikipedia has an article about your company, it will not belong to your company, you will not control its content, little of which will come from you or the company; and it could end up containing material that you do not want it to, if that material has been published in reliable sources. See An article about yourself isn't necessarily a good thing. --ColinFine (talk) 19:54, 1 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

What clock does Wikipedia follow?

What clock does Wikipedia follow? Rizosome (talk) 18:32, 1 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

You can change your time zone in the settings. We don't really have a "time" exactly, although some projects use GMT. Best Wishes, Lee Vilenski ^{(talk • contribs)} 18:34, 1 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

(edit conflict)@Rizosome: The Servers run on an UTC clock, however, different Wikis may use different timezones. For example, the german Wikipedia uses a CET respectively CEST clock for times, including in signatures. Victor Schmidt (talk) 18:37, 1 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

The English Wikipedia uses UTC. This is for example used in signatures, in log times seen by unregistered users and the default time zone for registered users, when Main Page changes content, when living people's displayed age change in the infobox on their birth date (assuming their biography doesn't need a purge), and so on. I used UTC at Wikipedia:Teahouse#Who made the first edit in 2021. PrimeHunter (talk) 18:58, 1 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

See also MOS:TIMEZONE for article content: "Give dates and times appropriate to the time zone where an event took place". PrimeHunter (talk) 19:10, 1 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Rendering error in Hebrew cantillation article

In the 21st line of the table in the section Names_in_different_traditions, the Hebrew fails to render, and instead, a red link with the text "safesubst:#invoke:RfD" appears.

It seems to be an issue with the template "Hebrew". Every use of that template in the article after the error fails to render correctly.

I checked multiple browsers on multiple computers, and the same issue shows up.

I don't even know where to start in fixing this issue. Any assistance would be very welcome.

A screenshot of the error:

- Dπ (talk) 22:05, 1 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Upon further examination, it seems that every template is broken after that point. - Dπ (talk) 22:12, 1 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

@Dave314159: Fixed by [2]. A redirect at Template:Hebrew was nominated for discussion and caused Category:Pages where template include size is exceeded when it was used 123 times in the article. PrimeHunter (talk) 22:37, 1 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

The search hastemplate:Hebrew incategory:"Pages where template include size is exceeded" currently finds 12 other articles with the same issue. Maybe you or somebody else will make the same fix? PrimeHunter (talk) 22:43, 1 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I'm changing {{Hebrew}} to {{Script/Hebrew}} in those twelve articles ... —[AlanM1 (talk)]— 05:46, 2 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Done ... and also another 34 articles that were not yet over the limit, but had potential to get there. I ended up replacing it in articles with ~ 50 or more instances of {{Hebrew}} using various ranges of this. This is not an exact solution, since the sizes may be inflated by other templates, but ones in the neighborhood (like Kaddish, with 48) had sizes of 1.2–1.4 MB (out of 2 MB limit), so we should have some breathing room.

It would be good to have a query (do we?) that could spit out the articles that are approaching the various limits, but not yet exceeding them. —[AlanM1 (talk)]— 06:50, 2 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Editor not showing as autoconfirmed

According to [3] the user ElementaryPenguin is not autoconfirmed. But, they should meet the criteria, based on their contributions list. Most recent edit was on Dec 29, so it should not be a server lag issue. Does autoconfirmed show as a user right on that page? And if so, why is this user not autoconfirmed? RudolfRed (talk) 23:12, 1 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

RudolfRed, implicit user groups don't appear on Special:ListUsers, if you go to Special:UserRights/ElementaryPenguin, you'll see that they are autoconfirmed. Dylsss^{(talk contribs)} 03:06, 2 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the explanation. RudolfRed (talk) 04:57, 2 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Why no age verification for 18+ wiki articles?

Why no age verification for 18+ wiki articles? Rizosome (talk) 23:51, 1 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

@Rizosome: Wikipedia is not censored and has no age restrictions. See WP:YOUNG and WP:AFP for advice for young users and their parents. RudolfRed (talk) 23:54, 1 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

So Wikipedia forever remain uncensored? Rizosome (talk) 23:55, 1 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

That is the goal, yes. RudolfRed (talk) 00:58, 2 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

also, Wikipedia is not subordinate to any Government, and different countries have different age limits. So would be difficult/impossible to impose this properly anyway. Joseph2302 (talk) 01:05, 2 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Rizosome Age verification would also be difficult from a technical and practical standpoint. There are various actions you can take on your end to prevent children/minors from viewing content you find objectionable, such as programs to limit the content that is seen. 331dot (talk) 01:14, 2 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

As a formerly babyfaced child mentally scarred by exposure to pro wrestling, I suggest an old-fashioned aerosol can temporarily induce blindness. "Perfume" from an atomizer probably beats spewing Asian mist in today's climate, of course, safety first. Powder shouldn't be used on very innocent children, though, and fireballs to the face should arguably be prohibited altogether, even for consenting seniors. InedibleHulk (talk) 02:29, 2 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Heck, in all seriousness, if my mom had simply sprayed me with a hoseful of harmless tap water when she caught me looking at something age-inappropriate, I'd have probably stopped right there. InedibleHulk (talk) 02:40, 2 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

The Wikipedia servers are in the state of Florida in the US, so at a minimum we must comply with the laws of the US and the state of Florida. This is why we must adhere to copyright law and certain laws related to child pornography. The "not censored" rule means we do not impose additional censorship that is not required by law. -Arch dude (talk) 02:48, 2 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

How could that even be implemented (in a way that can't be easily circumvented)? Clarityfiend (talk) 05:46, 2 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Same way we keep them out of everywhere they're already unwanted, visual biometric comparison to their driver's licenses. No car? No cam? No CC-BY-SA consent? No problem! Encyclopedia Dramatica is two blocks down, kid, enjoy your walk of shame! InedibleHulk (talk) 06:28, 2 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]