Wikipedia:Help desk/Archives/2019 December 1

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December 1

Help Correcting or Closing (Deleting Page)

Hi. I am a criminal justice professor and recently examined the Marcus Schrenker page. I noticed there are glaring inaccuracies. I corrected them and noted why I corrected them. But, it seems there are a group of people that want to tell a far more negative and slanted story on the guy. It seems more like a hate blog rather than a biography. The article refers to media publications which as we all know can be inaccurate. Relying on the media to write an accurate biography is not wise. I went to the trouble of going to court and state records and corrected the article. But, they keep reversing it back saying it "isn't constructive." What do I do? Should the page be deleted if no one can agree?

Jon 00:19, 1 December 2019 (UTC)

The Wikipedia model may seem strange to you. Our content is crowdsourced by anonymous editors, so we must depend on citing reliable sources. We try for verifiability, not truth: see WP:V. If you can find reliable sources that contradict the ones cited in the article, then you may describe the contradictions and cite your sources, but you cannot remove sourced material. Your investigation of primary sources constitutes original research, which cannot be used in Wikipedia: see WP:OR. If you choose to publish the results of your research in a scholarly work, you can (or preferably someone else) can cite it. -Arch dude (talk) 01:19, 1 December 2019 (UTC)

Category:Hồ Văn Trung

I am not sure why Category:Hồ Văn Trung should exist, or why it is a subcategory of Category:1958 deaths. 82.14.227.91 (talk) 08:39, 1 December 2019 (UTC)

I removed it from there. Ruslik_Zero 20:53, 1 December 2019 (UTC)

Motherwell F.C. players

I am also confused by the difference between Category:Motherwell_F.C._players and Category:Players_of_Motherwell_F.C. 82.14.227.91 (talk) 08:56, 1 December 2019 (UTC)

The former exists, but the latter doesn't. --David Biddulph (talk) 09:17, 1 December 2019 (UTC)

"Hover cards"?

I have inadvertently disabled the hover cards feature, which displays a preview of a linked term in an article. I need help to re-enable it. CouldBeBluffing (talk) 10:37, 1 December 2019 (UTC)

@CouldBeBluffing:: Go to Preferences at the top of the page, then tab Appearance. Section Reading Preferences. Click Enable. AddWittyNameHere 10:49, 1 December 2019 (UTC)

Thank you very much.CouldBeBluffing (talk) 15:38, 1 December 2019 (UTC)

Pressreader link check

Hi! Please could someone check for me if the link to the reference cited here works OK? It doesn't quite look right with a nickname in the link, but that's what I got when selecting 'Share'. (I've put it on the Emma Bonney article.) Thanks, BennyOnTheLoose (talk) 11:07, 1 December 2019 (UTC)

References

Hard to know what it is that you mean by works OK. When I look there I see a snippet about Snooker that does not support the claim that "[Bonny] was runner-up to Evans in the 2008 European Snooker Championships" (at least according to a google translation of that snooker snippet). When I click the Gazet image, only then do I learn that the cited source lies behind a registration barrier. You didn't provide an in-source locator (|page(s)=) so, were I registered, I would have to search every page to find out if there is something more than the snooker snippet. Don't make it hard on readers. Tell them upfront that they need to register to read the source. Provide sufficient bibliographic detail so that they can go quickly to the in-source location. Always do these things. Free-to-read sources that support en.wiki article text is preferred so perhaps cite a better source?

—Trappist the monk (talk) 15:16, 1 December 2019 (UTC)

Changes on the American University in Cairo Page

Dear Wikipedia editors We noticed some missing information on the American University in Cairo page and we added some content to make sure that the information is complete. We cited the requested references. We also updated some information such as the ranking of the University. Please advise on how to make sure that these changes go through and are not rejected. Is there any formal procedure that we should follow to make sure that our changes and updates are added to the University wikipedia page. Thanks Office of Marketing Communications and Public Affairs — Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.181.225.60 (talk) 13:27, 1 December 2019 (UTC)

This appears to be block evasion by the blocked User:AUCWIKI. Orange Mike--15:19, 1 December 2019 (UTC)

Sure. Do the following. Failure to do it this way will waste your time and ours.

• We accept edits from individuals, not organizations. Create an account with an acceptable user name for yourself as an individual. See WP:USERNAME
• Declare your paid status. See WP:PAID
• Do not make edits to that article directly. Make suggestions for edits on the article's talk page. Include references. See WP:COI.

-Arch dude (talk) 16:47, 1 December 2019 (UTC)

Interwiki link "already attached to item"

I'm probably missing something fundamental about how the sidebar link to article equivalents in other languages works. But could someone explain to me why an attempt to link Nikolay Kedrov Jr. with its ruWP equivalent via the sidebar tool fails with this message: The page you wanted to link with is already attached to an item on the central data repository which links to Nikolay Kedrov Sr. on this site. Items can only have one page per site attached. Please choose a different page to link with. ? --Elmidae (talk · contribs) 16:54, 1 December 2019 (UTC)

Your problem is that the ruwiki page you are trying to link Nikolay Kedrov Jr. to is already linked to Nikolay Kedrov Sr.. * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 16:57, 1 December 2019 (UTC)

(edit conflict)It's because the Russian article is currently attached to the article on his father. I have changed this for you.If you see this again, you need to go to the wikidata item and delete the wrong article from the list, then you can re-add. Best Wishes, Lee Vilenski ^{(talk • contribs)} 17:00, 1 December 2019 (UTC)

@Lee Vilenski: Nikolay Kedrov Sr. seems to be the correct link for the Russian article based on the birth date of 1871. TSventon (talk) 17:08, 1 December 2019 (UTC)

@Lee Vilenski: The link was because the ruwiki article is about the father, not the son; look at the dates. You need to revert your changes. --David Biddulph (talk) 17:08, 1 December 2019 (UTC)

Whoops! My bad. Yeah, the Russian article is about the father, sorry about that. There is a redlink in the Russian article for the son, so WP:CXT may come up with an article one day. Apologies. Best Wishes, Lee Vilenski ^{(talk • contribs)} 17:12, 1 December 2019 (UTC)

Oy. Okay, that's a good reason. Cyrillic script... thanks for the heads-up. --Elmidae (talk · contribs) 17:15, 1 December 2019 (UTC)

Banners

How do I get rid of banners such as Participate in an international science photo competition!? Please ping me in your reply. Interstellarity (talk) 17:35, 1 December 2019 (UTC)

I think that you can just close them. Ruslik_Zero 20:51, 1 December 2019 (UTC)

There's a new one every other week, and when you close them on one project they still remain on other projects. Anyone willing to go complain to the WMF about these annoying and unnecessary banners has my full support. Interstellarity, there aren't any banners currently running for me that I can test this on, but back in 2010 this CSS (under the fundraising, meetup, and centralNotice section) did the job. Have a look at the CSS identifiers of these banners and display:none; them in your CSS file. – Thjarkur (talk) 21:55, 1 December 2019 (UTC)

Þjarkur, I'm a little confused by your answer. Can you please give me the exact code I should put in my CSS file I should use? Interstellarity (talk) 23:02, 1 December 2019 (UTC)

@Interstellarity:

#siteNotice{ 	display:none !important; }

should work. Victor Schmidt mobil (talk) 07:10, 2 December 2019 (UTC)

Victor Schmidt mobil, would Thjarkur's suggestion still work? Interstellarity (talk) 11:34, 2 December 2019 (UTC)

Interstellarity yes, but if you only want to get rid of every possible banner, using my code is the faster way because it hides the anchor where banners are placed in. If you want a few banners to be visible, you will probably be faster with his solution. Victor Schmidt mobil (talk) 12:51, 2 December 2019 (UTC)

Frequent updates needed

Hi everyone, Forbes 100 Richest Indians list 2019 was published few days ago by forbes but forbes profile(net worth column also) of these 100 people are not updated till now. So, what is the process to update all these 100 profiles(in wikipedia article)at one go? Thanks (21:09, 1 December 2019 (UTC)) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 223.230.162.47 (talk)

Which article(s) are you refrerring to? You may need to update them individually, or if there is a template then maybe only the template needs updating. RudolfRed (talk) 21:25, 1 December 2019 (UTC)

• This is our regular Shamsheer Vayalil edit requester. Eagleash (talk) 22:42, 1 December 2019 (UTC)

Bug or feature? A.y template, omitting day-of-month

Using {{A.y|1945|08|29|round=0}} works, to display "74 years" whereas omitting the "29" results in:

• (error message) Expression error: Unexpected < operator

(a) If I wish to omit the "29" is there another function I should use?

(b) Is there something wrong with the function (i.e. where does the "<" come from) Pi314m (talk) 21:29, 1 December 2019 (UTC)

@Pi314m: I don't think there is an error. The template is wanting to use the day for calculation, and you left off the day, which confused it. {{Age}} might be an alternative if you want to provide only month and year (if I understand the example there correctly). RudolfRed (talk) 21:54, 1 December 2019 (UTC)

Refname with quotes

Hello! These are all questions related to the quote description in citations, possibly in combination with refname syntax.

1) Suppose I come across a page where a reference is used multiple times. The citations are identical, but one contains a |quote="bleh"|... description. Is there a simple way to combine these with refname syntax? Based upon my searches, this does not seem to be the case.

2) Is there another citation structure amenable to quotes? I'm thinking somethings similar to how one can add page numbers to a given citation using Template:rp.

3) Is there a general recommendation on using quotes in general? I see it as useful when one is citing a longer article, but it may be excessive.

Thanks! Jusadi (talk) 22:34, 1 December 2019 (UTC)

My answers:

1. no; if one contains a quote not appropriate to the others, it is not identical so cannot be combined with the others; this is the same for different pagination or other bibliographic detail
2. if the quote is truly important (truly important – I think that the vast majority of quotes are not) then place the quote in the article text and cite that quote to the source
3. see #2

—Trappist the monk (talk) 22:47, 1 December 2019 (UTC)

Sounds good. One last clarification: I may have been slightly imprecise in my language. When I was mentioning quotes, I meant in the context of a description in a citation template. Are you implying that this part of the template should not be used in general? Thanks again!

Jusadi (talk) 22:35, 2 December 2019 (UTC)

If you are talking about |quote= to hold quoted text from the source, then we are talking about the same thing. Yeah, the parameter is there. Without discussion, in 2006, an editor added |quote= to {{cite book}}. Though quickly reverted, the originating editor reverted the revert with the edit summary revert. I need it, and it doesn't break anything. The editor who tried to keep |quote= out of {{cite book}} until suitable discussion could justify the need for it was unable to gain enough support for any meaningful discussion. The upshot being that we now have the |quote= parameter. So, yeah, |quote= is, in my opinion, much-too-much overused and that overuse, is misuse.

If you are talking about |quote= to hold a description of something that is not a direct quote from the source, then perhaps we are still talking about the same thing. Using |quote= (or any cs1|2 template parameter) for something other than its intended use, is a misuse and should not be done. Someday, someone will come along and correct the misuse so you might as well not misuse the parameter in the first place.

Are we talking about one of these or something different?

—Trappist the monk (talk) 22:52, 2 December 2019 (UTC)

We are on the same page. Thank you for the exposition and the history--pretty interesting! Per your suggestion, I'll avoid use of the method. Thanks for your discussion, and have a good one!

Jusadi (talk) 03:39, 3 December 2019 (UTC)

Creating a page that already exists in other languages

Hello!

How can I write a new article that already exists in other languages? Do I really need to wait 5 months until the page is published after volunteer revision, as Article Wizard actually says?

Many thanks,

Martí — Preceding unsigned comment added by Martiboltaselva (talk • contribs) 22:41, 1 December 2019 (UTC)

@Martiboltaselva: For new editors, that is the best process. Each Wikipedia has different rules on articles, and creating a new article, even if starting from one in a different language, is not an easy task. When you get more experience, you can create the article directly, without waiting for a review. I suggest starting with WP:YFA, which will explain what is required for an article here at the English Wikipedia. RudolfRed (talk) 01:05, 2 December 2019 (UTC)