Wikipedia:Help desk/Archives/2015 October 15

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October 15

What to do with a fake article on a user page that may be notable...

Dear editors: Usually if I come across a fake article on a user page, I would send it to WP:MfD. However, this one is probably notable. It's unsourced, though, and somewhat promotional, and being picked up by search engines. The user is a single-purpose account. My instinct is to move it to Draft: space. Is there a better option that I am missing?—Anne Delong (talk) 00:33, 15 October 2015 (UTC)

• I would send it to MfD. It hasn't been touched since March and it clearly falls under WP:FAKEARTICLE. --Stabila711 (talk) 00:38, 15 October 2015 (UTC)

i would say move it to draft space. She is probably close to WP:MUSIC having won ARIA [1] and an AM [2] and looks like major reviews [3] [4] and called "highly acclaimed" [5] -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 02:28, 15 October 2015 (UTC)

TheRedPenOfDoom The reason I said to put it in MfD was because it has been over 6 months since it was last edited. If it was in draft space (like it should have been all along) it would have been marked for speedy deletion under G13 anyways. There isn't anyone to work on it as the author (presumably the subject) put it up then never edited it again. Without sources and without anything else it should be removed as a fake article, or at the very least a BLP without sources. --Stabila711 (talk) 02:52, 15 October 2015 (UTC)

I have already put it in MfD. JIP | Talk 06:15, 15 October 2015 (UTC)

Speedy deletion criteria db-g13 is only for pages that have been either created through the WP:AFC process or which have been submitted for review at AfC. - not for all pages in Draft space. This page doesn't fit those criteria, but interestingly the same user did create a similar draft in AfC at about the same time. That page has been deleted, so one could argue that this content (or some of it) has been submitted at AfC.... Anyway, thanks for the opinions; I will follow up at MfD—Anne Delong (talk) 13:22, 15 October 2015 (UTC)

language choice

even if the English version of an article is usually the most detailed, it is not always the case. is there a way to know which language has the best (in terms of length, details, and verified info) version of an article, without having to check each language one by one? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 218.138.218.183 (talk) 00:55, 15 October 2015 (UTC)

No, but in general the major languages have more contributors so have more and better articles. Of course, an article about an item of interest to a particular language group will likely have more coverage in that language itself. For example, I'd expect the French article on French literature to be better and more complete. StuRat (talk) 01:06, 15 October 2015 (UTC)

The criteria length and level of details are not that relevant on a wiki, where much detail can be found in linked articles. E.g., in the English Wikipedia, the London article does not have much on the city's architecture, because we have a special article for that, Architecture of London. But there is a way to find good articles: Look at the sidebar: They are marked with gold and silver stars left of the language name. — Sebastian 08:39, 15 October 2015 (UTC)

Leeds General Infirmary

Please fix up reference number 12 on this page ThanksSrbernadette (talk) 03:39, 15 October 2015 (— Preceding unsigned comment added by 50.65.140.177 (talk) 06:00, 15 October 2015 (UTC) Please do help me fix up this tricky edit thanks Srbernadette (talk) 09:03, 15 October 2015 (UTC)

This information is from US Sources, and they are not valid. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 50.65.140.177 (talk) 06:00, 15 October 2015 (UTC)

Now 12th ref is gone. Thanks Supdiop (T🔹C) 09:13, 15 October 2015 (UTC)

And that WP:COATRACK section should not be added back - so there is no problem - Arjayay (talk) 09:17, 15 October 2015 (UTC)

Karen Dawisha

Hello, I created a wiki page for Karen Dawisha and have acquired 3 photos to upload by emailing Dr. Dawisha directly. But I am confused about the question of licenses. Through correspondence with the author, I have received the following information:

"...all three [photos] are in the public domain. The one with Putin is mine, taken with my camera. Head shot is public, taken at Miami U. I hold the copyright for my book [cover]. "

The problem is that no one has a physical paper copy of a license for these photos, particularly given that they were taken with the author's own camera. Can I post them? How do I answer the questions about whether I have a copy of the licenses, when there are no physical licenses in existence?

Hannacarol (talk) 11:24, 15 October 2015 (UTC)

The fact that they were taken with Dawisha's camera is completely irrelevant. The copyright lies with the person who took the picture, not the person who owns the camera. Likewise for whoever took the head shot at Miami U. --Orange Mike | Talk 12:29, 15 October 2015 (UTC)

Also, you are saying that the book cover is both in the public domain and that Dawisha has the copyright for the book cover. When something is in the public domain, all rights are released. So it can't be copyrighted. I'm also skeptical about either of those claims since the book's publisher often owns the copyright on the images on its books. Dismas|^(talk) 13:16, 15 October 2015 (UTC)

Hello, Hannacarol. Many people misunderstand the phrase "in the public domain". It means that there is no copyright at all in the item, either because copyright has expired (for very old items) or because the copyright holder has explicitly and irrevocably relinquished all rights to the item. It is possible that the copyright holder has released these pictures into the public domain, but unlikely - and a private communication to you would probably not be enough to do so. If the copyright holder (who may or may not be Dawisha, as Dismas says) wishes to release them under a licence acceptable to the Wikimedia foundation, they (not you) should follow the procedure in donating copyright materials. --ColinFine (talk) 22:38, 15 October 2015 (UTC)

"reference not defined" error when it is defined

This is strange - I'm seeing a lot of odd ref errors lately and now this. Please see Florent Groberg reflist. I'm getting the error: "Cite error: The named reference washpost was invoked but never defined." "washpost" is clearly defined in the preceding section. Can anyone help? Thank you! —Мандичка^YO 😜 11:40, 15 October 2015 (UTC)

Your problem was that the preceding section was being ignored because of an unterminated ref tag in the section before that. I've cured it with this simple edit. - David Biddulph (talk) 12:02, 15 October 2015 (UTC)

Appreciate it! Thank you! I didn't even think of that. —Мандичка^YO 😜 13:08, 15 October 2015 (UTC)

Coretta Scott King

Please correct the reference error on Coretta Scott King. "Cite error: Invalid ref tag; name "Bagley" defined multiple times with different content"--76.14.45.22 (talk) 14:03, 15 October 2015 (UTC)

Sorted. -- Elmidae (talk) 14:51, 15 October 2015 (UTC)

I'm glad to see this being done now, because I've accidentally made the mistake several times.— Vchimpanzee • talk • contributions • 21:07, 16 October 2015 (UTC)

Tool to convert string cites into journal template cites

I'm looking for a tool that will make it a bit easier for me to turn inline refs of the type "Foo, J. (2014). Study about stuff. Stuff Journal 31, 51-76." into correctly-filled {{cite journal}} (or web, book, etc.) templates. The former type is generally what people tend to put into newly expanded zoology articles, and if they are well referenced, I'll be tapping away for 15 mins to get all the cites ship-shape when I do a cleanup run. I'm aware there's a variety of automated options, but not sure which one would be suitable here. Any pointers? Cheers -- Elmidae (talk) 14:47, 15 October 2015 (UTC)

First of all, Elmidae, please remember that there is no requirement for any article to use citation templates such as {{cite journal}}. (By the way, {{tl}} is very handy for mentioning and linking to templates.) If the article already has an established citation style using templates, then as per WP:CITEVAR new additions should conform. Contrawise, if a new article or one that had no or very few citations in the past is expanded with manual citations in the form you mention, that sets the style and as per WP:CITEVAR it should not then be changed without discussion and consensus.

A regex in AWB could be used for the kind of conversion you speak of, the problem is that any given regex or tool would need to be specific to the input format. Writing a tool that correctly handles "Foo, J. (2014). Study about stuff. Stuff Journal 31, 51-76." and "Foo, J. Study about stuff. Stuff Journal 31, 51-76. March 2014" and "Study about stuff by John Foo. Stuff Journal 31, 51-76 (2014)." (and many other plausible manual formats) would be a hard task. (I do such tasks professionally from time to time. Trying to auto-detect manually constructed formats is a hard problem, trust me, unless the possibilities are very constrained.) DES ^(talk) 20:04, 15 October 2015 (UTC)

I see. If it comes down to writing a regex or manual copy-paste, there's probably not much to chose between them re arduousness. Just thought that maybe it already existed. I was also of the impression that the more highly parameterized versions (i.e. cite templates) are generally preferred because they perform error checking on the content - the plain sentence ref will not, e.g., tell me in bold red font that the date has a typo. But as per WP:CITEVAR, I probably should obsess a little less about that. Well, that ought to make life easier :) Cheers -- Elmidae (talk) 20:55, 15 October 2015 (UTC)

Well, Elmidae a regex might be write-once, use-many-times, if the incoming format is fairly consistent. And it may be that someone has written such a regex already (Wikipedia talk:AWB would be a place to ask) or a tool embodying one. The real problem comes if the incoming format is more or less different each time.

I for one do prefer the citation templates, partly for the error-checking, partly for the consistency, partly for the scrape-able meta-data. If I am starting a new article, or advising a creator, or working on an article with no cites, or only bare URLs, or no established citation style, I will go for the templates every time. But I won't change an established style without a talk page discussion first, and I regard use vs non-use of templates to be a difference in citation style. (Not everyone does, there have been arguments over this on project talk pages.) I doubt there will ever be consensus to impose a single house citation style here. DES ^(talk) 21:33, 15 October 2015 (UTC)

People's names

Is there a way to search on a word and see results that are only real peoples' names. For example, I am trying to remember someone who's nickname was "Hurricane", so I want to type in hurricane and see a list of real people whos wikipedia page is for their stagename starting with hurricane, for example, "Hurricane Smith". — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jerryldixon (talk • contribs) 15:34, 15 October 2015 (UTC)

I don't think that there is anything in Wikipedia's search facilities that will let you do that, but Hurricane (disambiguation) has a section on people, which in turn includes an entry Hurricane (nickname). Inclusion on that list does of course rely on the subject having been considered sufficilenty notable (in Wikipedia's terms) to have an article written about them, and then on that article having been linked from the Hurricane (nickname) page. - David Biddulph (talk) 16:23, 15 October 2015 (UTC)

sort articles by last modified date

OP want knowMahfuzur rahman shourov (talk) 16:24, 15 October 2015 (UTC)

@Mahfuzur rahman shourov: Could you be more specific? Are you talking about your watchlist? Because it's already sorted that way by default. Dismas|^(talk) 17:02, 15 October 2015 (UTC)

not watchlist, all articleMahfuzur rahman shourov (talk) 17:29, 15 October 2015 (UTC)

@Mahfuzur rahman shourov: Are you looking for Special:RecentChanges maybe? Dismas|^(talk) 17:32, 15 October 2015 (UTC)

@Dismas:all articles last modified before date ABC, time XYZMahfuzur rahman shourov (talk) 17:36, 15 October 2015 (UTC)

Giving that detail in your original question could have saved us both some time. As far as I know that isn't possible though you can see all the edits after a certain date/time. At the end of this link, you'll see where there is a time stamp starting with the current year, month, date, and time in hours, minutes, and seconds. If you change that value, you can see edits since a particular time but I don't know how to get the edits before that time without just getting everything. Dismas|^(talk) 17:54, 15 October 2015 (UTC)

We do have WP:Dusty articles, which lists the 100 articles that had gone longest without an edit as at 21 June 2015. At that date they had not been edited since 2008. Then there is Wikipedia:Database reports/Forgotten articles, a more up-to-date report but using a broader criterion of any action affecting an article (not just edits); this lists articles "untouched" since March 2013: Noyster (talk), 10:13, 16 October 2015 (UTC)

Referencing

Hi, I created a page for "Ritesh Rajan" which has been proposed for deletion due to a lack of references. I was hoping someone could guide me in a step by step manner as to what sort of reference meets the requirements. I have included 2 citations, one for an existing wikipedia page, and another for an IMDB page. Is that sufficient?

Thank you! — Preceding unsigned comment added by Cr8wiki6 (talk • contribs) 17:19, 15 October 2015 (UTC)

Please read WP:RS and WP:REFB. Specifically you cannot use Wikipedia as a reference, and IMDB, while useful, is not generally considered reliable as its content is, like Wikipedia, user-generated.--ukexpat (talk) 17:30, 15 October 2015 (UTC)

@Cr8wiki6: the specific format of the citation matters much less than the fact that the sources are "reliably published", not related to the subject, and cover the subject in a significant manner". In Wikipedia "reliably published" sources are those with reputation for fact checking, accuracy and editorial oversight - like major newspapers, major book publishers or academic journals, not blogs or random websites or self published books. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 18:09, 15 October 2015 (UTC) second sign to active ping -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 18:09, 15 October 2015 (UTC)

Aprille Joy Ericsson

The bio you are using is being incorrectly redirected. I have not used the formerly marriage name Ericsson-Jackson in 15 years. Additionally, the Bio is 15 years old. I am providing my most up to date bio. If you have any questions please email me at NASA.

Aprille Joy Ericsson. Ph.D. NASA Program Manager, Instrument Project Manager, Aerospace Engineer (Rocket Scientist) and Academic

Extended content
<redacted, as probable copyright violation, Wikipedia is not a place to promote yourself and also unsourced information about minors> — Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.183.60.80 (talk) 18:55, 15 October 2015 (UTC)

Courtesy link to article: Aprille Ericsson-Jackson. PrimeHunter (talk) 19:23, 15 October 2015 (UTC)

Our article was created in 2014 with information gleaned from various published sources. We use published sources so that the information can be verified. Furthermore, the article must remain neutral in tone so as not to sound too promotional. This is an encyclopedia after all and not an advertising medium or talent agency. If you have changes that you'd like to suggest, you make make those suggestions (with references to published sources, web sites, etc) on the talk page which is at Talk:Aprille Ericsson-Jackson. Thank you, Dismas|^(talk) 19:49, 15 October 2015 (UTC)

A couple of comments to the OP and others. Firstly, I've done diving segments on the bio you provided and I was unable to find it anywhere on the web so I think it unlikely to be a copyright violation, but that really only affects what's here on the help page. Secondly, Wikipedia uses published sources, that includes the web. Would you say that http://www.usasciencefestival.org/x-stem-short-speaker-list/item/1025-dr_aprille.html is a good place to start with information on you and your career?Naraht (talk) 04:49, 16 October 2015 (UTC)

Berney baronets

Please fix up ref. number 9 in this article. I have tried twice! Thanks M.Srbernadette (talk) 22:56, 15 October 2015 (UTC)

I have fixed the citation, Srbernadette but it needs to be changed to cite the actual newspaper article, not a search. DES ^(talk) 01:03, 16 October 2015 (UTC)

Berney baronets Is this page Ok now? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 101.189.13.6 (talk) 06:48, 16 October 2015 (UTC)

No it isn't, in fact. Currently, the following citations all link to searches rather than to documents.

• No 3: "Burke's Peerage 107th Edition - Berney (Baronets)". Search on Henry Dubs Middleton, Page 494. Retrieved 6 October 2015.
• No 4: "The Late Mr H. D. Middleton / Middleton and Sons Leeds". ( via Genes reunited) 24 June 1933 and also 9 January 1907 Yorkshire :Evening Post West Yorkshire, England. Retrieved 4 October 2015
• No 8: "Burke's Peerage Second World War Edition". Copyright © 1995–2015 Burke’s Peerage All rights reserved Listing number: 132,013 - Page number 126.
• No 9: "Will of Mr. A. Middleton, Leeds". Leeds Mercury. 20 June 1907.
• No 10: "OBITUARY. Sir Henry Hanson Berney, Bart". Manchester Courier and Lancashire General Advertiser Greater Manchester, England - 28 February 1907

The following have other issues:

• No 5: "University College Oxford". University College Oxford. Retrieved 4 October 2015 This links to a list of archived papers, wich does not directly support the stated facts.

This article needs serious improvement in its citations. DES ^(talk) 21:51, 16 October 2015 (UTC)