Wikipedia:Help desk/Archives/2017 December 27

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December 27

Help me stop fake California history

I've been a WP editor since 2009, with a special interest in California history. For several years I've been battling efforts to plant a false historical narrative - that an independent "California Republic" (similar to the one in Texas) existed prior to the Mexican-American War (or at any other time). I first noticed this revisionist effort when an accurate article titled "Bear Flag Revolt" was redirected to an already-existing revisionist article with the misleading title California Republic. Most recently, my edits to remove fake history from List of Governors of California before 1850 have been reverted. I've stated my concerns repeatedly on the article's Talk page, and don't want to get into an edit war with the reverter, an unregistered user at 172.91.216.239. This fake history is not obvious vandalism or spam, so I'm reluctant to take the case to a WP administrator and am unsure how best to proceed. Some knowledge of California history is required in order to understand the problem. Help and/or suggestions will be appreciated. WCCasey (talk) 03:00, 27 December 2017 (UTC)

Have you tried over at Wikipedia:WikiProject_California? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2606:A000:4C0C:E200:F89E:4736:5756:93D4 (talk) 05:19, 27 December 2017 (UTC)

Are you saying that our article on California Republic is a hoax? --Guy Macon (talk) 05:56, 27 December 2017 (UTC)

I am also having trouble reconciling this claim from the Los Angeles Times; "Although the California Republic was short-lived — it lasted from only June to July 1846..."[1] with your claim that no "California Republic" existed prior to the Mexican-American War (or at any other time). --Guy Macon (talk) 06:02, 27 December 2017 (UTC)

Yes, the so-called "California Republic" was very short lived, but it existed. I happen to live very near to where it ruled for a few weeks before the United States took control, and have visited many of its historical sites many times. Its history is very well documented. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 06:15, 27 December 2017 (UTC)

Link Social Media

Please also add official social media accounts [twitter,insta,FB, SnapChat] links for reference's. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 212.118.114.242 (talk) 06:08, 27 December 2017 (UTC)

Hi IP, while you haven't been clear which article you want links added too, as a general rule, we don't link those sites to articles, please refer to external links. NZFC^(talk) 06:47, 27 December 2017 (UTC)

• Having said that, Template:Cite tweet exists for use in certain circumstances. It can be useful when a football club's official Twitter account issues a tweet on (say) the death of a former player and it is the only available source. See also WP:SPS and WP:SELFSOURCE. Eagleash (talk) 07:20, 27 December 2017 (UTC)

Sanjay Datta

please change the DOB of Actor Sanjay Datta — Preceding unsigned comment added by 117.197.254.129 (talk) 07:37, 27 December 2017 (UTC)

Hi IP, I couldn't find Sanjay Datta, there was a Sanjay Dutt that has recently had their DOB changed. Appears there is an IP that had made a number of deliberate errors to articles that I have now reversed and warned the user. Thanks for letting us know. NZFC^(talk) 07:52, 27 December 2017 (UTC)

Creating a DAB page

Hi there, I created a DAB page for the title Teresita as there are numerous people, places and a genus of moths which share this name. I created it as Teresita (disambiguation) and changed the page about the moth to Teresita (genus) however a search on "Teresita" still goes to the moth and not to my new DAB page. I can't figure out how to move things around and re-title them to get "Teresita" to go to the DAB page. TIA! MurielMary (talk) 08:26, 27 December 2017 (UTC)

MurielMary I've redirected Teresita so it goes to Teresita (disambiguation). The way to do it is if you search Teresita it went to Teresita (genus), and said redirected from Teresita. If you click the link, you can change where it redirects. Joseph2302 (talk) 09:11, 27 December 2017 (UTC)

Great, thanks very much for your help! Should the page I've named "Teresita (DAB)" actually just be called "Teresita" now? MurielMary (talk) 09:16, 27 December 2017 (UTC)

Yes it should per WP:DABNAME. As it won't let me move the page myself, I've asked at Wikipedia:Requested moves/Technical requests. Joseph2302 (talk) 10:11, 27 December 2017 (UTC)

Heather Menzies-Urich

Heather Menzies-Urich Information is incorrect. She is alive and lives in ChanHassan Minnesota. She was Marta In the sound of music not Loosia. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.73.208.21 (talk) 13:23, 27 December 2017 (UTC)

Hello, please see the results of this Google search Thank you. Eagleash (talk) 14:37, 27 December 2017 (UTC)

You might be thinking of Debbie Turner who played the role of Marta Von Trapp and currently resides in Chanhassen. Which is reflected on her Wikipedia page. uhhlive (talk) 14:43, 27 December 2017 (UTC)

Line numbers

Hi there. After close to an hour of searching I'm unable to find a way to show line numbers while editing or reviewing diffs. This might be implemented somewhere but if it is I simply can find it. I might be daft or maybe I'm just searching with the wrong words in the wrong places. Maybe such a thing doesn't exist.

Anyway, if it helps I'm come from sort of a "computery" background and my editor of choice is vim. I'd be okay with using a separate external tool for editing if it helps me with the line numbers.

For reference what I'm looking for is something like this (note to left-hand numbering):

— Preceding unsigned comment added by Kxxvii (talk • contribs) 15:38, 27 December 2017 (UTC)

There is no way to do what you asking for. Ruslik_Zero 20:17, 27 December 2017 (UTC)

• Wiki markup (and HTML) are not line oriented. Line breaks depend on the width and character size on the user's screen. Therefore, line numbering is fairly meaningless. That said, I would also like to see some finer granularity in the diffs. For example, it would be nice if the user had the option of showing diffs broken up at sentence boundaries. -Arch dude (talk) 03:33, 28 December 2017 (UTC)
• As mentioned, line numbers are not useful. A much better diff tool is available with JavaScript: WP:WIKEDDIFF. Johnuniq (talk) 04:51, 28 December 2017 (UTC)

Hi there, thank you for your answers. They gave me some peace of mind. I just find it confusing that the common diff tool actually mention line numbers but I'm not really sure what they correspond with. I agree that finer granularity for diffs would be preferable. I'll check out the JavaScript diff tool. Kxxvii (talk) 14:07, 11 January 2018 (UTC)

Collette Smith 1st Female Coach of NY Jets

Id like to submit some neutral non promotional content. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.14.24.69 (talk) 16:23, 27 December 2017 (UTC)

Hello, IP user. Nobody has answered you yet, so I'll try to do so. It's not quite clear what you're asking. If you wish to add some material to New York Jets that you think is appropriate, by all means do so: it's strongly preferred that you cite a reliable published source when doing so, as otherwise it is just an unsubstantiated claim. If you're not sure where to add it, or how to cite a source, you could post a suggestion on the talk page Talk:New York Jets the same way you did here.

If you are talking about creating a new article about Smith, that is also possible; but creating a new article is one of the harder tasks on Wikipedia. You should read Your first article, and make sure that Smith meets our requirements for notability.

One word of caution: if you have a source that said that Smith is a coach for them, that could go into the article (though just because some thing is true does not necessarily mean that it is appropriate to go in an article - I don't see anything else about coaches other than head coaches); but a claim that something is the first (or biggest, or oldest or whatever) needs a source actually making that claim: concluding that by looking at the list of items would be original research, which is not allowed in Wikipedia articles. --ColinFine (talk) 10:48, 29 December 2017 (UTC)

Help with wikicode

Hello! At Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Seth Gonzalez, a new report has been added, but the template is not being substituted correctly. I tried copying it to my sandbox to tinker with it – but it shows correctly there. What gives? –FlyingAce^✈hello 17:27, 27 December 2017 (UTC)

There's a missing close bracket in the link to Levi Gonzalez in the first piece of evidence. {{3x|p}}ery (talk) 17:38, 27 December 2017 (UTC)

Aangan

Hi! Please check out the page, there have been an edit dispute between me and an anonymous. The whole conversion of us is on the talk page, while the page edit history can also be checked. Someone please help, and also check if the references cited there are RS or not. Can I request for "page protection over edit disputes"? Hope for your kind response, Thanks! M. Billoo 19:01, 27 December 2017 (UTC)

@M.Billoo2000: If there has been edit warring, it can be reported at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Edit warring. Requests for page protection are handled at Wikipedia:Requests for page protection. –FlyingAce^✈hello 14:01, 28 December 2017 (UTC)

@FlyingAce: Hi, Thanks for your response! There is only the edit dispute, no 3rr has violated. In its talk page, I am giving the text from RS and GA and trying to discuss with the anonymous user about the lead para. However, he is not understanding, and the way he talks "leave it as it is" seemed to me like he is not even reading my messages completely. If anyone please respond on its talk page, it may help. Thanks! M. Billoo 14:12, 28 December 2017 (UTC)

@FlyingAce: Hi! "He" almost emptied that talk page, and that I will count as fourth dispute revert of my edits. Please help anyone, Thanks! M. Billoo 15:48, 28 December 2017 (UTC)

@M.Billoo2000: I understand this must be frustrating to you. I wish I could help more, but I know nothing about the subject matter and cannot access many of the sources due to the firewall at work. My best suggestion would be to try a form of content dispute resolution, such as a third opinion. Hope this helps! –FlyingAce^✈hello 17:11, 28 December 2017 (UTC)

Spacing II

With reference to this thread, I would like to ask whether the formatting problems kindly revealed by Maproom signifies a formatting error in fact that could be reported somewhere – particularly as the issue also appears in other Wikis.--Dormius (talk) 19:42, 27 December 2017 (UTC)

I am not sure that this is an error. Ruslik_Zero 20:18, 27 December 2017 (UTC)

I'm sure it's not an error. Someone has deliberately used a comment consisting only of linefeeds and a <br /> 'to produce an apparent paragraph break in the souurce code and in the generated text code while preserving the indentation level. (Whether doing that is a good idea is another question. But the Wikipedia software is behaving as intended.) Maproom (talk) 23:32, 27 December 2017 (UTC)

How Do I Get A Template Message Removed From A Page

Hello,

 I see that there's a template message on the following page https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LaMont_%22ShowBoat%22_Robinson

that says the following:

This article contains wording that promotes the subject in a subjective manner without imparting real information. Please remove or replace such wording and instead of making proclamations about a subject's importance, use facts and attribution to demonstrate that importance. (December 2017)

I have no idea how that got there and what I need to do to remove that message. The instructions I saw when I clicked on the (Learn how and when to remove this template message) made no sense to me.

Please help me..— Preceding unsigned comment added by Jehof (talk • contribs) 27 December 2017 23:23 (UTC)

I've removed some of the unreferenced promotional hype from the article. Once the rest of it has gone, that template message can be removed. But the article is still at risk of deletion, as it lacks adequate references to establish Robinson's notability. Maproom (talk) 23:49, 27 December 2017 (UTC)

(edit conflict) @Jehof: The tag was added earlier today by an experienced editor. To address the issues and remove the tag, any language that appears to praise or otherwise 'exalt' the subject would need to be removed or re-written in a more neutral tone. Although not the worst example of a puffed article much of his career is unsourced and is a little too 'glowing' about his achievements. Please sign your posts on talk pages by typing four tildes (~~~~). Thank you. Eagleash (talk) 23:59, 27 December 2017 (UTC)