Wikipedia:Help desk/Archives/2016 June 20

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June 20

Referencing errors on Willy Fick

Reference help requested.

Thanks, Angielittlefield (talk) 00:28, 20 June 2016 (UTC) I can't see what I did wrong, Please highlight the reference that is the problem.

A bot has repaired it with this edit. Eagleash (talk) 00:53, 20 June 2016 (UTC)

Help I'm lost

Resolved

 – Xender Lourdes (talk)

Hello

I'm looking for a writer to write about me as I understand I can't write an autobiography (totally fair). Could you give me some guidelines? I can be linked to many different wiki links of people that appear in my book and can verify it's me.

I really appreciate the help.

Julie Julie Hamill (talk) 11:24, 20 June 2016 (UTC)

• Hello Julie Hamill, please read Wikipedia:Your first article. Also read WP:COI. I have added two references so the current deletion template might go. But there is no guarantee that the article may remain on Wikipedia, as all biographies on Wikipedia have to adhere to our Notability guidelines. Xender Lourdes (talk) 11:36, 20 June 2016 (UTC)

Hi Xander thank you for your help I'm very grateful. I have read my first article but I find the language very difficult to follow. I did not publish the book myself, it was published by FBS Publishing. Could you make this change? Julie Julie Hamill (talk) 12:26, 20 June 2016 (UTC) PS I do understand and appreciate that I cannot write about myself, could you recommend an article writer? I'm at (Redacted) thank you — Preceding unsigned comment added by Julie Hamill (talk • contribs) 12:35, 20 June 2016 (UTC)

• Julie, I have changed the word "published" to "authored". Thanks. Xender Lourdes (talk) 13:18, 20 June 2016 (UTC)
• Hello Julie Hamill,

I see that you have written Julie Hamill a few hours after asking for input here. As already explained above, it is usually a bad idea to write about topics with which you have a close connection, and even though User:Xender Lourdes made a good work of editing that article, it will likely be deleted later on.

The reason is that Wikipedia covers only "notable" subjects ("notable" is not quite the same in Wikipedia as the common meaning of "famous"). In that case, the most relevant guidelines is WP:BIO and I do not think you qualify.

Notice also that your book might be notable even though your person is not. Tigraan^{Click here to contact me} 14:49, 23 June 2016 (UTC)

Social geography

Dear help desk,

There is a translation error concerning several geography pages, but and I could not find out how to change URL 'under' the other languages in the left hand menu.

Wikipedia considers Social Geography to be Sociale Geografie (when you click on 'Nederlands') and vice versa, but this is wrong. The Dutch 'Sociale Geografie' is Hunman Geography. The English Social Geography is a subdiscipline of Human Geography.

So, being a relatively new but ambitious editor at Wikipedia ;-), I tried to change the pertinent 'Other languages' links. And that is where I got stuck. I will tell you the exact procedure that I followed, so that you can tell me where I went wrong and what I should do.

1. I went to https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sociale_geografie.

2. I clicked on 'edit links' under the list 'In other languages'.

3. I got this page: https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q524273#sitelinks-wikipedia, with all the languages in the text box to the right.

4. I clicked on 'edit' at the top of that box

5. I changed, in the 'en' row, the word 'Social' in 'Human', because I could see no other way to edit.

6. I clicked on 'Save' and clicked, of course, on the bold-written 'Human Geography' choice in the pop-up menu, assuming that, since tghe menu recognized the entre, the Wiki software would do the rest.

7. But it didn't. An error message appeared. In the details it says: "The link enwiki:Human geography is already used by item Q12831143. You may remove it from Q12831143 if it does not belong there or merge the items if they are about the exact same topic."

8. I went to this item Q1283143 (it is clickable) and got this page: https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q12831143, which was, to put it mildly, no big help to me. I have no idea how to remove the link enwiki:Human geography from this item; I don't even see that link anywhere.

9. I gave up and wrote you. How does one change the internal link 'under' a reference to another language?

Thanks in advance for your help! Kind regards,

Jur Schuurman (talk) 11:39, 20 June 2016 (UTC)

Hello, Jur Schuurman. You did it right - you just stopped before you got there. Unfortunately, Wikidata entries can point to only one article in any given Wikipedia, which means that if articles in different Wikipedias have different scope, they can't be linked together. If you are right that nl:Sociale geografie corresponds to Human geography rather than to Social geography (which I am not competent to determine), then, as you found, you have to remove the link from d:Q12831143 to Human geography before you can add it to d:Q524273. If you go to d:Q12831143, as you did, you'll see an 'edit' link at the top of the list of Wikipedia links.

I sort of feel that you should discuss this before making such a change, but I'm not at all sure where would be an appropriate place to discuss it - perhaps WT:WikiProject Geography, but whether there is anybody there familiar with naming the disciplines in different languages, I don't know. d:wikidata:Project chat is another possibility. But if you're confident that it is the right change, then be bold, and maybe leave a note in those places to say that you've done so. --ColinFine (talk) 12:13, 20 June 2016 (UTC)

Hello Colin, thank you very much for your help. And yes, I am completely confident that I am right in this case; this is textbook stuff for geographers (like me). However, I am still hesitant to go ahead with removing the link, because on https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q12831143 I see two removal options: one in the right-hand box with all the languages, where, if I click on 'edit' I see a trash bin next to each language code. Is that what I should do? Or should I click ion remove in the box 'topic's main category' that appears under Statements? Better safe than sorry...

Jur Schuurman (talk) 12:23, 20 June 2016 (UTC)

@Jur Schuurman: The first option, in the list of Wikipedias. —  crh ₂₃  (Talk) 14:22, 20 June 2016 (UTC)

Blocking mode

http://www.shabdkosh.com/hi/translate, This site has always stop me to do a continue search on their website for word meanings. They give this msg on the 2nd time of search of word meanings and that msg is" --45.250.244.56 (talk) 14:52, 20 June 2016 (UTC)Due to previous attempts of inappropriate automatic machine searches on this website, we now restrict the number of searches you can do in a period of time.

The set limit should not prevent any human user from using the dictionary for legitimate purposes.

Please try again in a few hours. Your search requests will be honored then. If that does not work, then please contact us to get the block removed. Please accept our sincere apologies for any inconvenience this may have caused.

WARNING

If you are attempting anything inappropriate, please stop!

And if you do not stop, then your IP address will be blocked forever. "--45.250.244.56 (talk) 14:52, 20 June 2016 (UTC)Bold text I REALLY TENSE ABOUT THIS MSG. PLEASE tell me that why they do this and what the means of this msg.

I might be misreading this, but how is this related to Wikipedia? It seems this is an off-site, unrelated issue. RickinBaltimore (talk) 14:54, 20 June 2016 (UTC)

The "date" template

I have used the "date" template in an article. (This template: Template:date.) Why is it always a day "off" or behind? Today is June 20 and the article says June 19. I noticed this on a few other days, also. Even if I "refresh" the page. The only "fix" is if I go into the article and "edit" the date template. I don't even really edit it. I simply type it in (again) exactly as it already was typed in. So, no real "edit" gets recorded (because I didn't change any text at all in the article). But, after this silly exercise in re-typing, then the date seems to change to the correct date. What's going on? Thanks. The article is List of offenders executed in the United States in 2016. Thanks. Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 17:20, 20 June 2016 (UTC)

@Joseph A. Spadaro: Did you Purge the page? —  crh ₂₃  (Talk) 17:27, 20 June 2016 (UTC)

(edit conflict):@Joseph A. Spadaro: The template doc states that "Wikipedia caches the current version of pages, and the template may display the date that the page was cached, rather than the current date." So when you do a null edit like you did, it purges the cache and refreshes the date. I just purged the page. - NQ (talk) 17:29, 20 June 2016 (UTC)

Never heard of this "purge" business. So, my question: Isn't there just a way to make the date always update automatically? I mean, that's the entire point of the template. No? I am not going into that article every day to purge it. If I were to do that, I may as well just type in a new date every day. Defeating the whole purpose of the template. No? Is that how these things work? Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 19:18, 20 June 2016 (UTC)

I would be cautious about the bold text on the template documentation saying This template should only be used internally in other templates. CaptRik (talk) 20:04, 20 June 2016 (UTC)

There is no way to make a page update automatically each day. Pages are cached for performance reasons and the page is only evaluated and rendered again in case of certain events like the page being edited or purged. User:Joe's Null Bot is approved to do that for certain pages but there is no valid reason to do it for List of offenders executed in the United States in 2016. In fact it's problematic that the page claims "as of [a date which is the last time the page was rendered]", because new executions could happen without the page being edited the same day. PrimeHunter (talk) 00:08, 21 June 2016 (UTC)

This whole conversation is going way over my head. Getting too complicated. So, let me back up a bit. I have seen many pages in Wikipedia, where they state "today's date". For example, in all of those articles about really old people (age 110+), it will say: "their age as of today, June 20, 2016". And so forth. So what is the correct template to do that? I assumed I was using the correct template with that "date" template. Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 00:18, 21 June 2016 (UTC)

Can you give an example? I get no search hits on "their age as of today", and it would be a dumb formulation considering such pages would also often display a past date. For example, Oldest people currently says "Age as of 20 June 2016". It's 21 June now (in UTC which Wikipedia uses), but the page doesn't claim the mentioned date is today. There is a practice to allow templates with automatically updating ages on articles about living people although that could also turn out to be wrong if they die without the page being updated. On a page like List of offenders executed in the United States in 2016 I'm not aware of any practice that allows automatic updating of an "as of" date. Template:As of#Syntax (not used on that article but maybe should be) says: "Please do not use {{As of|{{CURRENTYEAR}}|{{CURRENTMONTH}}}} or similar; that defeats the point of the template." PrimeHunter (talk) 00:39, 21 June 2016 (UTC)

Thanks. (1) Re: "their age as of today". That is not the exact wording. It is a phrase to that effect. (2) I just looked at the Oldest people page. It says "†^ denotes age at death, or, if living, age as of 21 June 2016" (right above the very first chart). That is the kind of thing (phrasing) that I was referring to in #1. (3) I am still totally confused. What's the point of this "date" template? What is it used for? (4) Is there some template that allows today's current date to be printed in an article? Thanks. Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 02:32, 21 June 2016 (UTC)

When I posted at 00:39 21 June it said "denotes age at death, or, if living, age as of 20 June 2016". It deliberate avoids claiming "today". {{date}} and many other templates do update automatically but just at unpredictable times and not every day at midnight. That still gives plenty of possible uses when editors avoid claiming "today". Similar templates are for example used in hundreds of thousands of biographies of living people to calculate the current age in years. The result may be one off for a few days around their birthday but that is considered acceptable. There is no template that will automatically give today's date to all readers. Some pages have a link for readers to purge the page so it updates to the current time, for example "Refresh the clock" in the infobox at Mountain Time Zone. The English Wikipedia gets around 7 billion page views per month. Rendering a page with all its templates, parser functions and so on is too expensive to do 7 billion times a month. The Wikimedia Foundation doesn't have server resources for that so rendered pages are cached. The same cached version may be served to thousands of readers during a period of days or more. PrimeHunter (talk) 10:40, 21 June 2016 (UTC)

So, again, what's the point and purpose of the "date" template, if not for the very thing that I used it for? Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 18:19, 21 June 2016 (UTC)

List of offenders executed in the United States in 2016 currently says:

As of {{date||mdy}}, 2016, fourteen offenders have been executed in the United States this year.

If a fifteenth execution takes place tomorrow without the page being updated then the code will make the false claim:

As of June 22, 2016, fourteen offenders have been executed in the United States this year.

The recommended method for "as of" statements per Wikipedia:As of would be:

{{As of|2016|June|21}}, fourteen offenders have been executed in the United States this year.

This will always render as:

As of 21 June 2016, fourteen offenders have been executed in the United States this year.

The fixed date means the statement doesn't become false if a new execution takes place without updating the count. The date should only be manually updated after an editor has checked that the count is still valid. PrimeHunter (talk) 18:38, 21 June 2016 (UTC)

You are not answering my question. You are answering the question: "what is the "date" template not used for?". I am asking: what is it used for? Again -- as I said above -- what it its point, purpose, and function? In other words, why do we have it? What do we use it for? Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 18:51, 21 June 2016 (UTC)

It's used by many other templates [1] to format a date which is usually supplied as a parameter. If no date is supplied then the default is to use the current date. One of the points of the template is that it allows many input formats for a date given in a parameter. This is irrelevant if no date is given at all. PrimeHunter (talk) 19:18, 21 June 2016 (UTC)

Thanks for the explanation. Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 22:09, 22 June 2016 (UTC)

Thanks, all. Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 22:09, 22 June 2016 (UTC)

Wikipedia:WikiProject on open proxies/Requests

What is this page? It appears to me that it could easily be used vindictively to accuse another editor whose edits one doesn't like - just use the magic words "suspcious edits". 32.218.46.78 (talk) 17:58, 20 June 2016 (UTC)

The purpose of that page is described at Wikipedia:WikiProject on open proxies. Rwessel (talk) 18:02, 20 June 2016 (UTC)

That page explains nothing. 32.218.46.78 (talk) 18:05, 20 June 2016 (UTC)

First, your statement that the page explains nothing says nothing, because you don't ask a question. Second, an IP block will only be blocked if there both are suspicious edits and the IP addresses really are found to be open proxies. Robert McClenon (talk) 18:37, 20 June 2016 (UTC)

Third, just because your IP address has been reported for "suspicious edits" to a controversial article (which it has) doesn't mean that it will be blocked as an open proxy; it will only be blocked if there really is an open proxy due to misconfiguration by Frontier or to deliberate misconfiguration by a cracker (both of which are unlikely, because Frontier is a responsible ISP, although either is possible). Fourth, if you register an account, there are provisions for bypassing the blocking of open proxies. Robert McClenon (talk) 18:48, 20 June 2016 (UTC)

Fifth, harassment by spuriously reporting another completely innocent user to Wikipedia:WikiProject on open proxies/Requests as having made "suspicious edits" is considered perfectly legitimate. (Might as well flush WP:CIVIL down the drain because McCarthyism is given a pass on this page.) Thanks for explaining that so clearly. 32.218.46.78 (talk) 19:03, 20 June 2016 (UTC)

You just did flush it. No one else did. Everyone else is still bound by it (as are you, but at this point you are just flaming). Robert McClenon (talk) 19:26, 20 June 2016 (UTC)

My remark was about the Wikipedia:WikiProject on open proxies/Requests page, not another editor. So disparaging Wikipedia is now uncivil? 32.218.46.78 (talk) 20:11, 20 June 2016 (UTC)

As others have said, if you are not using an anonymizing proxy (see WP:PROXY) then there is nothing to worry about. I can explain that the "suspicious edits" is part of the pre-filled report form, as a template to encourage a description of the problematic behaviour. It's often replaced, but in this case the reporting editor actually made a fuller description of their complaint inside a comment (a common problem). The report has now been fixed, and closed. You are no worse off because of this page. -- zzuuzz ^(talk) 20:51, 20 June 2016 (UTC)

While the original poster is no worse off because of the mistaken report at the Open Proxy project, they are worse off. It appears that they have been Check-User blocked for block evasion by a blocked or banned user. They may have been hit by their own boomerang for posting here, or they may have been reported by someone else. On the one hand, a new editor made an incorrect good-faith report, and the report has been closed. On the other hand, an IP range has been blocked for block evasion. Robert McClenon (talk) 02:56, 21 June 2016 (UTC)

I have added the "reliable source" that is requested in the "tag" NOW how do I remove the "tag?

I have added the "reliable source" that is requested in the "tag" NOW how do I remove the "tag? Wizard188 (talk) 18:15, 20 June 2016 (UTC)

Please provide a link to the page in question. If you are referring to Jack Turner (Playwright) it still needs more references I think. Thanks. (And it will have to be moved so the occupation is in lower case). Eagleash (talk) 18:26, 20 June 2016 (UTC)

It's been moved. Maproom (talk) 18:39, 20 June 2016 (UTC)

Wizard188 doesn't seem to have added a reliable source to any tagged article. Are you by any chance also editing as JackTinWNY and/or JackTinSD? If so, please read WP:Sock puppetry. David Biddulph (talk) 18:41, 20 June 2016 (UTC)

He is (arguably) notable as an SF writer. So why does the title say "(playwright)"? Maproom (talk) 18:45, 20 June 2016 (UTC)

• While the article was brought to AfD and it may not be wise to remove the tag, other editors might look at the page and want an answer for similar cases, so I will answer the original question.

Wikipedia uses templates, which are a way to include content that is rendered with special rules. (I would say it resembles Server Side Includes but there is a good chance that I miss a fundamental technical difference.) Templates are placed within curly braces like this: {{}}. For instance, {{ok}} renders as Y.

In that case, the offending template is {{notability|date=June 2016}} (the part behind the | introduces the arguments of the template; in that case, it says the date tag was put). But again, removing maintenance templates should be justified - leave at least a meaningful edit summary. Tigraan^{Click here to contact me} 15:59, 23 June 2016 (UTC)

Creation of page about Dr Pamela Schulz OAM

I created a page about Dr Pamela Schulz OAM 7 days ago and submitted it for review. My understanding was that the page would appear on wikipedia after 7 days or that I'd receive some kind of update. I've not heard anything and the page has not appeared... can anyone help?

Hey there, I assume you are referring to the Draft:Pamela_Schulz article! It is still waiting for review from an experienced editor! This can take some time, unfortunately. Thank you for your patience. --allthefoxes ^(Talk) 19:07, 20 June 2016 (UTC)

Hello, I have taken the liberty of addressing the referencing errors (every ref had a red error message) with the exception of Ref. No. 4 which seems to require a download. Eagleash (talk) 19:33, 20 June 2016 (UTC)

Thanks for your help... I'm new to the process so I appreciate your support. Is there anything more I can do to get the page up? I've checked again today and it's not yet live. (27 June 2016)

Is this expired or copyrighted?

It says here [2] that media belonging to Charlton Comics is mostly expired. Does this means I can upload pictures from here? Without restriction? [3]

If so, please can someone leave me message as I will be away from Wikipedia. Thanks.--Taeyebaar (talk) 23:58, 16 June 2016 (UTC)

@Taeyebaar: You may find that posting your question at Wikipedia:Media_copyright_questions is a better place for this kind of question. CaptRik (talk) 20:11, 20 June 2016 (UTC)

Company advertising problem

When someone googles Centerpoint Energy - our company CP Energy information comes on the screen to the right - Company name, address, PHONE NUMBER and picture of our business. I contacted Google regarding this and they told me I had to contact you. Can you PLEASE help me with this??

Thank you!! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.72.16.176 (talk) 21:02, 20 June 2016 (UTC)

Normally you would contact Google through the "Feedback" link at the bottom right corner of that box that you're talking about. But since they sent you back to us, why don't you tell us what the problem is and we'll see if they told you the correct action to take. You never said what was wrong with that box or the information in it. Dismas|^(talk) 21:11, 20 June 2016 (UTC)

(edit conflict) It's not clear to me what your problem is. It sounds like you get another result from Google searches than me (I'm in Denmark, Europe), but I suspect you got wrong information from Google or miscommunicated with them. Here is a stock reply to similar posts:

Are you by any chance referring to a photo or text shown to the right of a Google search? Google's Knowledge Graph uses a wide variety of sources. There may be a text paragraph ending with "Wikipedia" to indicate that particular text was copied from Wikipedia. An image and other text before or after the Wikipedia excerpt may be from sources completely unrelated to Wikipedia. We have no control over how Google presents our information, but Google's Knowledge Graph has a "Feedback" link where anyone can mark a field as wrong. PrimeHunter (talk) 21:16, 20 June 2016 (UTC)

Wikipedia does not have an article on "CP Energy". It does have one on "CenterPoint Energy", which does not give a phone number. Google often collects information from Wikipedia, and then displays it in the wrong context – we here at Wikipedia have no control over that. It is not clear to me (or to the others who have replied) what Google is displaying about your business, or why you want it changed. Maproom (talk) 21:34, 20 June 2016 (UTC)

Drug pronunciation

I don't know where to post this suggestion / request. I think that it would be very helpful if there was an audio link for the accepted pronunciation of the names of drugs. Where would be the best place for this suggestion? --GC2013 (talk) 21:41, 20 June 2016 (UTC)

Maybe Wikipedia:WikiProject Spoken Wikipedia would help? Dismas|^(talk) 22:09, 20 June 2016 (UTC)