Wikipedia:Help desk/Archives/2019 August 13

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August 13

Long Pig.

Various articals which I have read intimate that "Long Pig" is related to cannibalism and the eating of human flesh and one of the sites mentioned is Papua New Guinea. I respectfully disagree with this idea. I spent many years in PNG and it became very obvious in my early time that "long" is used in Tok Pisn, the language commonly used in that area, in an almost adjectival manner when describing a place or event and I am able to well imagine a conversation by cannibals after partaking a meal of human flesh in saying that "dis pela kai kai emi olsam long pik" which loosely translates as "this food tastes the same as pork". I would be interested in reading other views on this subject. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 122.151.43.247 (talk) 06:15, 13 August 2019 (UTC)

Hello! Please ask this question at Wikipedia:Reference desk/Humanities, it fits better there. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 07:20, 13 August 2019 (UTC)

Long pig redirects to Cannabalism. The article uses the term once, with a reference. If you can find a reference for your assertion, we can add it to the article, but we cannot do that without a reference. See WP:V. Your observation constitutes original research (WP:OR), and we have no mechanism to verify it. -Arch dude (talk) 17:22, 13 August 2019 (UTC)

Suggestions for appropriate infobox

I couldn't find an appropriate infobox template for use in AusStage, which is an online database containing info about the performing arts for researchers, a bit like an online library, with built in indexes allowing multiple ways of searching or browsing. Is there one I've missed, should I use library, or is it best just left out? Any suggestions? Laterthanyouthink (talk) 08:06, 13 August 2019 (UTC)

p.s. Just discovered Infobox project. It is a project of sorts, although no end date...? Laterthanyouthink (talk) 08:31, 13 August 2019 (UTC)

The IMDB and WikiData entries here use Infobox website. - X201 (talk) 08:51, 13 August 2019 (UTC)

Thanks for that, X201. That'll do - seems to have more appropriate parameters. Laterthanyouthink (talk) 09:33, 13 August 2019 (UTC)

Oceanarium, the Bournemouth Aquarium needs updating

Hi there,

I am Marketing Co-ordinator at the Oceanarium in Bournemouth and some of our information is wrong and needs updating on Wikipedia. I have registered and tried to edit the information but it won't let me process this and says there's issues with the authenticity even though I have cited and made sure the text isn't subjective. The image also needs updating as we have a different logo?

How can I go about doing this as it needs updating as soon as possible so customers aren't being given the wrong information?

Our page URL is https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oceanarium_Bournemouth

Thank you — Preceding unsigned comment added by Shark95ray (talk • contribs) 10:28, 13 August 2019 (UTC)

Hello Shark95ray, there is some bad news here. As you can see, the article is now nominated for deletion, because of problems with/caused by WP:PROMO, WP:COI and WP:PAID. You can comment in the deletion-discussion if you like, if you want to argue that the O in B fulfills WP:NORG. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 11:28, 13 August 2019 (UTC)

Laverne Cox

Why was my edit of Laverne COx considered vadalism I simply put his birth name as Roderick which is true why was it removed. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 118.211.214.253 (talk) 14:30, 13 August 2019 (UTC)

It was not considered vandalism. As the note that only appears in the edit window(and you partially removed) states, policy is that we use the most common name for a subject, not necessarily official or birth names, in infoboxes. Please read MOS:MULTIPLENAMES and MOS:GENDERID for more information. 331dot (talk) 14:34, 13 August 2019 (UTC)

Some talented soul needs to correct an entry

FWIW, I'm approx 70-yo, so the Talk and Edit pages remind me of wading through IRS tax jargon! I don't want to embarrass anyone (especially myself) nor start a grammar war or break a page, and I don't have the energy or inclination to wade through and learn Wiki's editing syntax process.

For anyone who knows how, I found a simple but crucial grammar brain fart on the below HEMOLYMPH entry that needs editing.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hemolymph

First Para states: "...analogous to the blood in INvertebrates"

Since the phrase attempts to differentiate the liquid (hemolymph) existing inside INVERTEBRATES by alluding to the similarity to BLOOD in VERTEBRATES, it's pretty clear the writer meant to say: "analogous to the BLOOD in Vertebrates".

Thanks — Preceding unsigned comment added by 96.227.138.245 (talk) 14:32, 13 August 2019 (UTC)

Fixed, thanks for the warning. It had been changed without explanation. - X201 (talk) 14:45, 13 August 2019 (UTC)

Thanks for telling us! Since you do want to help, you can continue to help us without learning all that editing stuff. Just put your requested change on the talk page of the appropriate article, just as you placed this note here at the help desk. Please add the following strange-looking character string to your request: {{request edit}} (that is, the two left curly braces, the words request edit, and the two right curly braces). This will cause an interested editor to come along and fix the problem you found. You do not need to learn any other magic editing syntax, just use English, but it's very helpful (mandatory in some cases) to tell us where the information came from. -Arch dude (talk) 17:02, 13 August 2019 (UTC)

Arch, I must be blind as a bat as I only just noticed yours and X201's prompt replies. Thank you both for the warm reception, hope you see this. As I had no acct and block most all cookies, didn't expect a personal reply from one much less two volunteers and didn't realize Wiki was set up to use an IP as a courier pigeon. Clever. FWIW, I'm a WASA (A for Atheist) from 'murica. Read your Wiki bio so am compelled to nudge your ribs good-naturedly with a reminder that the sand in your Singularity Prophecy hourglass is about to run out. :) Considering the state of the world, methinks you're gonna need a bigger hourglass - room for several hundred years worth of sand. (I still say Malthus was correct, just a little off in his timing.) I've devoted much of my life to disseminating accurate information and correcting misinformationists as a writer, Adult Ed instructor, designer/consultant, horticultural volunteer for a state Cooperative Ext Service, content provider and editor for newsletters and web sites, and moderator for various forums dating back to the early days of AOL. Wish I'd known it'd be this easy to assist you folks. Had always eschewed scaling the Wiki edit wall; but with your workaround, I'll give it a go. Time's limited and unpredictable, so compared to a veteran WIkiGnome, contributions will be modest. Thanks again. ~ Allen

Karren Brady

When I Googled her name, I noticed that at the top of the Wikipedia box that appears on the right, below her name, right at the top, it reads "Member of Parliament of the United Kingdom". Well, that's just factually incorrect - she's never been an MP. Defining her as a life peer is equally daft - her fame is as a businesswoman, football executive and TV personality.

I presume the text is somehow scraped from our article, or Wikidata or Authority control or some other knicknack I am too stupid to understand. So, where is that coming from and how can it be fixed? --Dweller (talk) Become old fashioned! 15:35, 13 August 2019 (UTC)

According to the article, she was made a life peer with the House of Lords in 2014. According to a BBC article, "Football boss and Apprentice TV show star, Karren Brady, is among 22 new peers announced by the government." It seems to me that would make her an MP. If I'm wrong I can be corrected but the article certainly indicates she is an MP. Thanks ‡ Єl Cid of ᐺalencia ^ᐐT₳LKᐬ 15:41, 13 August 2019 (UTC)

@El cid, el campeador: In the UK, MP or Member of Parliament refers to those who are elected to sit in the House of Commons which is the lower house. As a life peer, Baroness Brady sits in the House of Lords whose job is to monitor the work of the Commons. Although part of the legistature system she would not be styled as 'MP'. I cannot find in her Wiki article that she is referred that way by 'us'. Google drags info. from all sorts of places and have seemingly got this incorrect description from elsewhere. Eagleash (talk) 16:06, 13 August 2019 (UTC)

She is not an MP, nor should she be styled as such. Roxy, the dog. wooF 16:10, 13 August 2019 (UTC)

(edit conflict) @Dweller: Google often displays information in a way which implies that it is from Wikipedia when, just as often. it is not. There is a feedback button at the bottom of the 'box' in the search results. Eagleash (talk) 16:12, 13 August 2019 (UTC)

Perhaps Google has failed to heed our helpful hatnotes and confused her with Karen Bradley? Either way, it's wrong, but there's nothing we can do about it (beyond filling out Google's feedback form). – Arms & Hearts (talk) 19:30, 13 August 2019 (UTC)

Thanks all --Dweller (talk) Become old fashioned! 08:10, 14 August 2019 (UTC)

Guidelines needed for examples in language articles

A lot of articles about language/linguistics suffer from a shared problem: people adding their own examples without citations. This should normally be considered original research, but it is accepted to a certain extent. For example, most people would probably not object to adding that cat is pronounced as /kæt/ without sourcing it. But once you get more detailed transcriptions, it gets fuzzier.

Then you have grammar and examples. Everyone speaks their own language natively, this makes people think they're experts on their native language (which they're not). First you have cases where people give a translated example sentence to demonstrate a point. German grammar has several tables with translated examples that lack citations. Then you have more complex examples such as the French grammar article. The adjectives section gives more detailed information about a specific process called liaison, again, no source. Would this need a source? Then you have highly technical examples about specific linguistic topics that no layperson could normally understand. Again, these oftentimes have no source.

My question is, where do we draw the line? Some cases could be argued as not requiring a source, others are more complicated. Right now the status quo is that examples and grammatical descriptions don't have a source (unless it's from an exotic language). It is very common to see whole paragraphs of grammatical descriptions and examples without a single citation. I'd considering deleting some of them, but I'm not sure how it interacts with WP:BLUESKY, as some of these examples are common sense for speakers of that language. I rambled on for a bit, but should anything be done about this, or should we just keep it as usual?--Megaman en m (talk) 15:53, 13 August 2019 (UTC)

• I would say that issue occurs in most technical articles (maybe linguistics is a worst-case domain, but I doubt it). Plenty of articles in physics have long unsourced calculations.

Others might suggest a reasonable course of action, but I am pessimistic about what we can do about it. I mean, when presented with a claim that (1) you know to be clearly true (but only due to your familiarity with the topic) and (2) you cannot quickly find a source for, the Right Thing To Do™ is to slap a or remove it, but is it really an improvement for the reader? Tigraan^{Click here to contact me} 16:10, 13 August 2019 (UTC)

This isn't a problem just with language articles, articles which contain information on the spelling/pronunciation of a word also have this issue. I recall one such issue on Ollagüe for example, regarding the name of that volcano. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 16:12, 13 August 2019 (UTC)

@Megaman en m: the formally "right thing" is to tag it with (see WP:V), but I feel that this should be done only if you are not sure its true and genuinely want a reference for yourself. Eventually, some editor will truly want the reference and will so tag it. If it looks odd, then maybe use . If it's somewhere in between, use your judgement. -Arch dude (talk) 17:10, 13 August 2019 (UTC)

Ip hopping vandal at Corvette

How do I get admin help at the article Corvette? There is an ip-hopping vandal who is disrupting the page by insisting an image of a taiwanese corvette be placed at the very top of the article. I can't count the number of times I've reverted him. There was consensus on the talk page that the image is not a good one for a corvette, but the ip ignored that commentary. Llammakey (talk) 17:48, 13 August 2019 (UTC)

This guy Llamakey is lying. Please check the logs and you can see that the picture of the Taiwanese corvette was already on the page for a very long time prior to the vandalism by Llamakey. Llamakey has arbitrarily changed the status quo a few weeks ago by, suddenly, with no consensus and without any logical explanation, censoring and hiding the picture of the Taiwanese corvette while inserting another picture of a Chinese corvette. And he is continuing to censor and hide the picture of the Taiwanese corvette without no logical or rational explanation. And make sure you take a look at the so-called talk page “consensus” mentioned by Llamakey, it was recently just created and fabricated by Llamakey to support his censorship of the Taiwanese picture. There was never any real or legitimate consensus for this censorship to begin with if you go back a few months, Llamakey just fabricated this entire farce. Thanks — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2600:1011:B01E:C902:DCC9:E292:2968:6EF0 (talk) 17:57, 13 August 2019 (UTC)

You both need to stop edit warring. If you can't come to agreement by discussing on the article's talk page, or by following WP:DR, then just leave the article alone. RudolfRed (talk) 18:05, 13 August 2019 (UTC)

So I guess that's a no eh Rudolf. Thanks for nothing. I'm leaving the page alone now. Let some other editor try and deal with ip-hopping vandalism. PS, the editor has moved on to Tuo Chiang-class corvette to ip hop vandalise. Llammakey (talk) 18:22, 13 August 2019 (UTC)

@Llammakey: When you come to the help desk, unpaid volunteers try to help you. In this case, RudolfRed told you that you are in what we call an "edit war", and told you what to do next, which is to read Wikipedia:Dispute resolution and follow the processes described there. Have you done that? The help desk is not the place to discuss the merits of the dispute or try to resolve it-Arch dude (talk) 18:55, 13 August 2019 (UTC)

I asked for Admin help. See this page User:Mfb/Taiwanese articles for the sheer list of articles this user has affected. Thanks for nothing, once again. Llammakey (talk) 19:14, 13 August 2019 (UTC)

User:Llammakey was clearly not edit waring... What the heck RudolfRed? Horse Eye Jack (talk) 19:57, 13 August 2019 (UTC)

@Llammakey: You can make a request for admin help at WP:ANI, but watch out for the WP:BOOMERANG. RudolfRed (talk) 19:27, 13 August 2019 (UTC)

Now you are threatening me with a boomerang? I come for help, and get threatened. What the hell is wrong with this place????? Llammakey (talk) 19:34, 13 August 2019 (UTC)

There is a saying "let him who is without sin cast the first stone". Meaning: you are both guilty of edit warring. Tgeorgescu (talk) 19:41, 13 August 2019 (UTC)

Instead of just attacking and threatening me, can someone just point me in the direction of an admin that could look at the page? Possibly? Instead of shitting on me? As my in my original statement How do I get admin help at the article Corvette? Llammakey (talk) 19:48, 13 August 2019 (UTC)

You know what, forget that last statement. I already unlinked that page and no longer watch it. But you guys did a bad job of answering my question, which was how do I get admin help at the article Corvette? Thanks for all the attacks guys. Especially supporting someone who called me a liar and a censor. So much for AGF. You guys were definitely on the right side of that fight. Llammakey (talk) 19:53, 13 August 2019 (UTC)

@Llammakey: The gist is that admins punish behavior, they don't decide upon content issues. Tgeorgescu (talk) 19:58, 13 August 2019 (UTC)

This falls under WP:3RRNO specifically #4. You appear to be incorrectly suggesting that User:Llammakey engaged in an edit war when their behavior clearly falls under one of the common exemptions. Horse Eye Jack (talk) 20:06, 13 August 2019 (UTC)

My mistake, then. @Llammakey: As I mentioned before, you can ask for admin help at WP:ANI RudolfRed (talk) 20:42, 13 August 2019 (UTC)

I’ve requested semi-protection for this page at Wikipedia:Requests for page protection which should put a lid on the issue for a few weeks or months. If the problem persists you can do so as well, be sure to include User:Mfb/Taiwanese articles in the short description as there are already a number of Admin rulings on the subject. Horse Eye Jack (talk) 20:52, 13 August 2019 (UTC)

infobox

My image keeps being "filtered/ denied" and the message says: "We could not determine whether this file is suitable for Wikimedia Commons. Please only upload photos that you took yourself with your camera, or see what else is acceptable. See the guide to make sure the file is acceptable and learn how to upload it on Wikimedia Commons." Can you fix that — Preceding unsigned comment added by Lil Molly (talk • contribs) 20:09, 13 August 2019 (UTC)

Lil Molly before you worry about the image, I think you have larger issues that you need to work out first.

1. If you are Lil Molly, then you should know that autobiographies are strongly discouraged. See WP:AUTOBIO.
2. Lil Molly doesn't seem to be notable enough for an article based on Wikipedia's standards for notability. Notability for a musician would be gained by having articles written about them in major music publications or web sites, winning awards, etc. Please see WP:MUSIC.

If you have any questions on these items, please post them here. †dismas†|^(talk) 20:41, 13 August 2019 (UTC)

... and did you take the photograph yourself? Dbfirs 20:45, 13 August 2019 (UTC)

Upload a Photo

How do I upload a photo on the Royal Australia Regiment page. I have tried many times. The photo is of the Regimental Colour of 1 RAR

Or can I e-mail it for you too add?

Cheers

Col Bishop — Preceding unsigned comment added by A227611 (talk • contribs) 23:29, 13 August 2019 (UTC)

@A227611: First, get the image file (i.e., your photo) onto your computer. Then, click on the "upload file" link in the left-hand column of any page (or click here), and follow the instructions to upload the file to Commons. Finally, follow the further instructions to add this image to the article on Wikipedia. If you get confused at any specific step in this process, come back here for help. Of special importance: You must be the photographer that took the picture in the first place, because the photographer owns the copyright and we require the owner to license the copyright to us under the CC-BY-SA license. There are other possibilities, but that is the typical one. Another alternative arises if the photo is of just the colour and the colour has no copyrightable "creative elements". -Arch dude (talk) 01:16, 14 August 2019 (UTC)

Issue with Reference

There is a reference on Turkey Lacrosse Association (#6) that is in the reference section, but not actually anywhere in the article. I’m not sure what to do so I was hoping someone could help me. I also don’t know if I went to the right place but I don’t know where else to go so I apologize if this isn’t the right place to ask. Twooeight (talk) 23:44, 13 August 2019 (UTC)

Interesting. The ref appears as a parameter "|founder =" in the infobox. Normally I would expect any parameter not defined in the infobox template to be ignored, but in this case although the text has been ignored the ref has been included. Others with better knowledge of infobox processing may be able to answer further. Note that I moved your message from the position where you had put it at the start of the Aug 13 section to the end where it belongs, as it apparently wasn't noticed at the earlier position.- David Biddulph (talk) 09:17, 14 August 2019 (UTC)