Wikipedia:Help desk/Archives/2017 June 20

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June 20

Link to Wiktionary

How do I link from inside a Wikipedia article to a Wiktionary page/definition? Clivemacd (talk) 12:34, 20 June 2017 (UTC)

• @Clivemacd: the short answer is [[wikt:Wiktionary entry|Text]]. The long answer is WP:IW. Tigraan^{Click here to contact me} 13:56, 20 June 2017 (UTC)

Uploading Images

Every time I try and upload an image to my article, it gets denied for various reasons. Mainly because it's saying it is not my work. They are all 100% my photos. Thanks — Preceding unsigned comment added by Nicole4912 (talk • contribs) 14:00, 20 June 2017 (UTC)

Hello, Nicole4912. I can't find any evidence that you have uploaded any images to either Wikipedia or Wikimedia Commons: there's nothing in your contributions to either project, and if you had uploaded something and it was deleted, I would expect to find a message on your user talk page. Please say exactly how you were trying to upload your images. If they are your photos, you should have been given an option to license them under a suitable license as you were uploading them. --ColinFine (talk) 14:44, 20 June 2017 (UTC)

@ColinFine: the uploads were blocked by the edit filter on commons, see here. Pppery 16:04, 20 June 2017 (UTC)

Thanks, Pppery, I wasn't aware of that. Perhaps you could explain to Nicole4912 what the problem is? (I don't know what is meant by "Cross-wiki upload filter"). --ColinFine (talk) 18:25, 20 June 2017 (UTC)

@Nicole4912: if the images are related to the funeral home, please do not spend your valuable time. We will not be hosting an advertisement for it. In the unlikely event this topic is 1) notable, and you 2) first complied with mandatory paid editing disclosure and then could write an article that 3) demonstrated that by citing reliable, secondary, independent sources, and 4) did not write it as an utterly blatant piece of advertising as you did, only then should you think about photos.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 22:51, 20 June 2017 (UTC)

Advice on copying from a pre-1923 encyclopedia?

For a *pre-1923* edition of a reference work (Encyclopedia like), are there any particular guidelines on copying from it? If the text seems encyclopedic by Wikipedia standards is there any reason to rephrase? (In this case I'm looking to copy from the 9th edition of Baird's Manual of American College Fraternities, published in 1920 to create articles for Greek Letter Organizations that have existed on at least a dozen campuses) Also, in the case where the entire article is copied, is there any reason to include in-line references, or would simply including the book in the references be appropriate?Naraht (talk) 14:57, 20 June 2017 (UTC)

I would suggest footnoting the relevant chapter of the book. As to the content: older works like that may betray language and attitudes which are no longer deemed acceptable, or may violate NPOV. --Orange Mike | Talk 00:04, 21 June 2017 (UTC)

Orangemike Specific pages in this case, each Greek Letter Organization has a section. There are a few fraternities where the description uses 1920s terminology for African Americans, but those aren't the ones I'm looking at.

• PD Attribution is also needed of course. The easiest way is to add {{PD-notice}} to your reference citation, inside the closing </ref> brackets. That will announce that the source was not only used for reference, but for actual content, and confirming it is public domain. Crow^Caw 00:08, 21 June 2017 (UTC)

• Crow I'll add the PD-notice to the article.Naraht (talk) 13:15, 21 June 2017 (UTC)

Naraht, I suggest adding {{PD-old-text|title=Baird's Manual of American College Fraternities|year=1920|author=William Baird, ed.}} as a stand alone general reference in the references section (placed just above the reflist template). Best regards--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 22:01, 21 June 2017 (UTC)

Fuhghettaboutit That doesn't seem optimal. That means losing url and pages from the current cite book and PD-notice comboNaraht (talk) 09:11, 22 June 2017 (UTC)

Search results from sister projects

What's the correct place to discuss the new feature that includes results from sister projects on the search results page? Neither Help:Search nor Wikipedia:Wikimedia sister projects offers any clues. Best, – Arms & Hearts (talk) 23:30, 20 June 2017 (UTC)

There is discussion and links at Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)#Search results from sister projects... PrimeHunter (talk) 00:26, 21 June 2017 (UTC)

Thanks – not exactly what I was looking for though. I'm surprised there isn't a WP or Help namespace page for this feature. – Arms & Hearts (talk) 13:11, 21 June 2017 (UTC)

"Strange characters"

Is there a difference in the text in this edit? Nothing appears to have changed on my screen. Home Lander (talk) 23:33, 20 June 2017 (UTC)

@Home Lander: I looked at both versions, and I can't see any difference. But the system says there's a 64 byte difference. Obviously we're missing something.... Adam9007 (talk) 23:45, 20 June 2017 (UTC)

Update: There are indeed strange characters when I paste the former version into Notepad. Unicode maybe? Adam9007 (talk) 23:52, 20 June 2017 (UTC)

Someone's idea of a joke? In the older revision 'Several countries' was immediately followed by a bunch (I didn't count) of invisible U+061C Unicode Arabic Letter Mark characters.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 23:53, 20 June 2017 (UTC)

I tried the Notepad paste idea from above and it shows a bunch of little squares with "ALM" inside them. The symbol won't even paste into the Chrome search. Home Lander (talk) 23:55, 20 June 2017 (UTC)

It's probably either a joke, or very, very, very sneaky vandalism. By the way, I think the "ALM" (I get it too) means the system doesn't recognise it, but I could be wrong. Adam9007 (talk) 23:57, 20 June 2017 (UTC)

Try this converter: https://r12a.github.io/apps/conversion/ Paste the text from the old revision into the green box and click 'Convert'. You can Google U+061C to find out more about the character.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 00:04, 21 June 2017 (UTC)

The strange thing is that I don't always catch it when copying the former version. Adam9007 (talk) 00:07, 21 June 2017 (UTC)

Me neither, can't get it to paste. I've asked the IP how they saw it, out of curiosity. Home Lander (talk) 00:10, 21 June 2017 (UTC)

Thanks. I was wondering that too. I highly doubt they were copying and pasting things for the sake of finding these "invisible" characters... Adam9007 (talk) 00:12, 21 June 2017 (UTC)

Found an image on the web; this is what I am seeing. Home Lander (talk) 00:23, 21 June 2017 (UTC)

That's what I get in Notepad. I'm also trying to find the edit the edit in which the characters may have been introduced, but no luck so far. Adam9007 (talk) 00:27, 21 June 2017 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Notepad++ shows the characters. They are just blank boxes when I paste it there. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe · Join WP Japan! 00:28, 21 June 2017 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Should have clarified. I only see that in Notepad (or Wordpad) as well; it's invisible on the web, and won't paste on the web either. Home Lander (talk) 00:29, 21 June 2017 (UTC)

Found it: this edit. Appears to have been added innocently and inadvertently. Should we tell @Danisian:? Adam9007 (talk) 00:31, 21 June 2017 (UTC)

Only 17 bytes? I'm not sure that could have done it. Home Lander (talk) 00:33, 21 June 2017 (UTC)

Well, I copied and pasted it, and got the strange characters. Adam9007 (talk) 00:34, 21 June 2017 (UTC)

Of course, it's possible the strange characters were already there, so I'll keep checking. Update: yes, they were. I can even select it and copy it directly. Adam9007 (talk) 00:37, 21 June 2017 (UTC)

It was [1]. It added 32 Arabic Letter Mark in an empty looking | title =. "ALM" in Notepad must stand for Arabic Letter Mark. PrimeHunter (talk) 00:39, 21 June 2017 (UTC)

Thanks. So it was User:Danisian who added it inadvertently? Adam9007 (talk) 00:42, 21 June 2017 (UTC)

Seems to be. Makes me wonder if it exists elsewhere and was inadvertently copied and pasted here. Home Lander (talk) 00:46, 21 June 2017 (UTC)

I imagine there must be another collapsible list with it somewhere, and he copied it. Adam9007 (talk) 00:49, 21 June 2017 (UTC)

Notified him of this discussion. Home Lander (talk) 00:54, 21 June 2017 (UTC)

Well, {{Collapsible list}} is all clear. Can't think where else to look or what else to do. Adam9007 (talk) 01:02, 21 June 2017 (UTC)

{{Collapsible list/doc}} is clear as well. I'm guessing it may have come from another article. Home Lander (talk) 01:05, 21 June 2017 (UTC)

@Home Lander: For what it's worth, I found a way to make the characters visible: set your browser's encoding to Arabic. Here's what the strange characters look like: طœطœطœطœطœطœطœطœطœطœطœطœطœطœطœطœطœطœطœطœطœطœطœطœطœطœطœطœطœطœطœطœ (it may look different depending on your encoding). The original diff you linked to now actually looks like the edit did something . Adam9007 (talk) 01:45, 21 June 2017 (UTC)