Wikipedia:Help desk/Archives/2019 October 30

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October 30

Administration: Katherine Maher's email to me accidentally deleted.

Willing to donate again but how? Cannot find provision to do so. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Music daughter (talk • contribs) 02:04, 30 October 2019 (UTC)

WMF:Ways to Give/en may help. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 08:39, 30 October 2019 (UTC)

Using the verb "compare" without a direct object in the active voice

Could anyone please tell me if it's ever acceptable to do this? Example: "The wall was fine. I compared to another wall."--Thylacine24 (talk) 02:31, 30 October 2019 (UTC)

Here's where you want to ask that question: Wikipedia:Reference desk/Language Herostratus (talk) 02:51, 30 October 2019 (UTC)

Thanks, and sorry, both for asking here and responding so late. Fortunately, Maproom gave an answer below, so I don't have to ask there. Sorry further if the previous sentence came off as rude in any way.--Thylacine24 (talk) 02:00, 31 October 2019 (UTC)

By the way, the Reference Desks are not nearly as active as they were a few years ago; try also english.stackexchange.com. —Tamfang (talk) 07:18, 1 November 2019 (UTC)

I can't think why you would ever want to write that. Normal English would be "The wall was fine. I compared it to another wall." Maproom (talk) 16:54, 30 October 2019 (UTC)

Thanks, and sorry for responding so late.--Thylacine24 (talk) 02:00, 31 October 2019 (UTC)

New article

I created a new article, paraphrasing every sentence, using this as a source https://www.encyclopedia.com/science/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/astara but it was deleted. Even my draft has been deleted. How can it be done so as not to be deleted again (conforming to the rules of wikipedia)? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Spasiba5 (talk • contribs) 06:41, 30 October 2019 (UTC)

Hi Spasiba5. Wikipedia:Close paraphrasing gives some guidance on paraphrasing and copyright. It is best to use several sources and to avoid language that is close to the original. Dbfirs 07:32, 30 October 2019 (UTC)

Cannot register username Vulgaris

Cannot register username Vulgaris - is this restricted? It does not appear in your user list, but still it is not available. Can someone unlock this name? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 193.226.178.91 (talk) 09:13, 30 October 2019 (UTC)

If I go to this page https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Vulgaris it says User account "Vulgaris" is not registered. So it looks like it is available? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 193.226.178.91 (talk) 10:45, 30 October 2019 (UTC)

Special:CentralAuth/Vulgaris shows the name is registered at the Spanish Wikipedia. This means you cannot register it here or at other Wikimedia wikis. It's possible you will be allowed to usurp it on request at meta:Steward requests/Username changes but it's much easier to just choose another name. PrimeHunter (talk) 10:52, 30 October 2019 (UTC)

(edit conflict)That's not quite the whole story. On User:Vulgaris there is a box stating that: "This user has been renamed. The rename log is provided below for reference." which then goes on with "03:53, 22 April 2015 Maintenance script talk contribs renamed user Vulgaris (1 edit) to Vulgaris~enwiki (SUL finalization)". "SUL" is the global username function that was set up some years ago. The user Vulgaris clashed with a user of the same name on another Wiki, and the English one was renamed. I've just had a quick look, and [1] has the name on the Spanish Wiki. Martin of Sheffield (talk) 11:01, 30 October 2019 (UTC)

Taking down an uploaded picture

Hi. I uploaded a picture to the Wikipedia through the Common Wiki. Is there any way to take that picture back or have it removed so it is no longer public? HaydeB (talk) 12:57, 30 October 2019 (UTC)

A more appropriate venue for this would be the commons help desk, but from what I can tell if the file is unused and less than seven days old you can add {{SD|G7}} to the commons description page, using Commons' speedy deletion. Otherwise you will need to make a deletion request. Danski454 (talk) 13:18, 30 October 2019 (UTC)

Wake Christian Academy

Why does wikipedia allow people to put false info on this site? I know that it is not a credible site but come on — Preceding unsigned comment added by Goblue35 (talk • contribs) 13:01, 30 October 2019 (UTC)

Hello Goblue35. Your edits were undone becuase you removed sourced infomation and replaced it with unsourced content, if you have a Reliable Source to support your change, please include that with the edit. also, please sign your talkpage comments with four tides ~~~~. This will add your username, a link to your userpage and your talk page, and the date of posting to the end of your comment. Thank You. LakesideMiners^{Come Talk To Me!} 13:11, 30 October 2019 (UTC)

That info at Wake Christian Academy seems well-sourced, though it's not ideal that it's pretty much the only text in the artcle. Consider finding WP:RS about other aspects of the school and adding them, or suggest they be added at the talkpage. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 13:59, 30 October 2019 (UTC)

Can you make an image smaller in an article?

Hello,

I have been editing the Draft:WillNE article for a bit now, to try and get it into mainspace, and yesterday i uploaded a picture of WillNE to Commons to use in the article infobox. However, the picture is way too large, and it makes the page look stupid. Can you make a image smaller in an article?

Thanks, Groiglery1217 —Preceding undated comment added 13:28, 30 October 2019 (UTC)

I've made the image smaller for you. In general images in infoboxes should not have square brackets around them. However, you need to add the correct licensing tag to the image on commons. Danski454 (talk) 13:44, 30 October 2019 (UTC)

Looking at the source of the image, I do not think it has a license compatible with commons. Danski454 (talk) 13:47, 30 October 2019 (UTC)

Unless you have taken this image, or it's been released under cc-by-sa it's not a free image. You will want to add this information if you have either these things, or it'll likely be nominated for deletion. Best Wishes, Lee Vilenski ^{(talk • contribs)} 13:48, 30 October 2019 (UTC)

I've marked the file as a copyright violation from Tumblr. theinstantmatrix (talk) 18:00, 30 October 2019 (UTC)

Please publish on my article article name khan Bela

Please promote my wiki pedia article hurry up and quickly fast jaldi jaldi Mera yah kam karo mujhe a FIR message nahin karna pade ok bye thank you — Preceding unsigned comment added by 789saif (talk • contribs) 14:12, 30 October 2019 (UTC)

789saif, No.

Your article does not appear notable.

User:789saif/sandbox for reference. MoonyTheDwarf (Braden N.) (talk) 14:55, 30 October 2019 (UTC)

I stand corrected. --MoonyTheDwarf (Braden N.) (talk) 15:03, 30 October 2019 (UTC)

Is this a populated place? If you can find a source that it is, it's usually notable, per WP:GEOLAND. It had an unsourced article for years at Khan Bela, which is now a redirect. If this is a city, I can't believe it isn't notable, and just needs sourcing (and this particular draft to have the puff removed.) Best Wishes, Lee Vilenski ^{(talk • contribs)} 15:01, 30 October 2019 (UTC)

Efficiently verifying and where necessary correcting thousands of links to "Foo"

Suppose there were thousands of links to Foo, of which half really meant Foo and the other half meant to link to Placeholder name.

Now suppose some wikipedia editors are insane enough to audit this chaos to sort it all out. Can anyone suggest tools to expedite the work and keep it organized?

Thanks (If you really want to know, this is related to the recent rename/move/redirect discussion here). NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 14:17, 30 October 2019 (UTC)

I'd maybe try splitting that list between editors, mark in an Excel file which is which, and then take all the articles that need to be changed and use WP:JWB to update them. – Thjarkur (talk) 19:02, 30 October 2019 (UTC)

Thanks that's a good idea. Do you know about categories and templates? In lieu of doing manual offwiki tracking I'm thinking of creating maintenance categories to assist. In Step 1, someone who knows how could put everything that links to FOO into the "unverified Foo link" category, and as auditing happens, the auditing editor could move them into the "Foo link reviewed and if needed changed to Placeholder name" category. But I'd need help thinking through the nuances and setting all that up. Is that in your wheelhouse, Þjarkur? NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 21:07, 30 October 2019 (UTC)

​I'd recommend just splitting it into batches in userspace. Adding to categories or adding "" would require an edit to each page and is probably not worth the watchlist clutter. Come to think of it, if you're only going to change some links to Climate change (general concept) (and not change the other links to Climate change (current)), you could just use WP:JWB directly instead of marking anything in Excel. – Thjarkur (talk) 23:30, 30 October 2019 (UTC)

Thanks for the thoughts... its just too big to try to do manually. I don't know how to get the count but heard there's something like 4000-5000 of them. More than I care to track on a separate page file drawer. If we can get that structure set up, I plan to solicit help programming a script so the eds doing this work can have an easy tool to (A) switch a link to one of a few options or pause the cursor for manual editing, and (B) when done switch the categories to verified" and save the changes. This script can also toggle add/don't add to watch list. Finally, for long term maintenance, I think we should probalby change them all now, so 12 months from now "What links here" will return a very short list of only the new ones, and pretty much anyone can easily get through them without fancy bells and whistles. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 23:54, 30 October 2019 (UTC)

​Maybe some of the people over at the project Wikipedia talk:Disambiguation pages with links have some ideas or are willing to assist. Neelix's 50,000 pages were checked by only a handful of people, so this is possible :) If Climate change is turned into a disambiguation page, the people at WP:DPL will eventually get through them although it would be best to fix the links beforehand – Thjarkur (talk) 00:11, 31 October 2019 (UTC)

Thanks again, those are good leads. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 00:46, 31 October 2019 (UTC)

Like disambiguation, this task is best done by editors familiar with the topic. It might help to replace those uses of [[climate change]] which are about the current effects by [[global warming|climate change]] or some other redirect such as Man-made climate change. We normally avoid bypassing redirects in this way, especially with semi-automated tools, but in this case it could be valuable to distinguish checked links from links which have not yet been assessed. Certes (talk) 00:32, 31 October 2019 (UTC) edited: see below

Thanks, if we don't just change it to global warming that's the general idea, indeed. I had also thought we could mark assessed ones with an invisible inline comment, though I'd want a tool of some kind rather than typing it out over and over. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 00:46, 31 October 2019 (UTC)

AWB or WP:JWB could do the job, as could DisamAssist if run in Disambiguate links to primary topic mode on Climate change (disambiguation). Certes (talk) 00:55, 31 October 2019 (UTC)

Thanks, I've been on the AWB list for a couple years but never started the learning curve. Guess that's on my todo list now. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 00:59, 31 October 2019 (UTC)

On reflection, let's use a redirect rather than [[global warming|climate change]], so we can keep links to climate change (modern sense) distinguished from links to global warming. The two may one day end up in different articles or at least lead to different sections of one article. Certes (talk) 10:42, 31 October 2019 (UTC)

The specifics are being worked out, but this isn't the place for it. The scope of this thread is just to explore availabe tools for this type of work. By all means, join us at WP:PROCC if you're interested. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 10:48, 31 October 2019 (UTC)

edits disappeared

Hello, I edited/expanded the stub page on Dilemma Stories yesterday, and all my edits have disappeared. Can you tell me why, and whether or not I should try again? This is very discouraging... Thanks, Rochelle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dilemma_story — Preceding unsigned comment added by 129.101.229.240 (talk) 21:33, 30 October 2019 (UTC)

The edits you made were apparently a copyright violation. You cannot just copy text from elsewhere and use it here. You must summarize the sources in your own words and then cite the source; see WP:CITE. 331dot (talk) 21:40, 30 October 2019 (UTC)

I did cite both sources (Jablow and Bascom), and clearly used quotation marks for the Jablow quote I included and a footnote citation, with page numbers, for the brief story I used as an example. I don't understand what else could have been expected. I would really like to improve this article; what else is required? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 129.101.229.240 (talk) 23:29, 30 October 2019 (UTC)

Please read MOS:QUOTE and Wikipedia:Quotations The quoted content was not enclosed by quote marks (") nor by <blockqote>...</blockqote> tags. (Only the title was in quote marks.) The source was not attributed in the article prose. MOS:BQ says It is more usual to attribute the quotation in an introductory sentence or fragment, ending with a colon and the source citation for it. In short, the quotation was not clearly marked as such, althoguh i woulds have considered reformatitng it rather than removing it. The matter could be discussed on the article talk page as per WP:BRD. DES ^(talk)_{DESiegel Contribs} 23:45, 30 October 2019 (UTC)

Okay, thank you, I will reformat in block quote form. I don't suppose the original text is saved anywhere? I'm hoping I don't have to reconstruct it all from memory. I appreciate your responses; thanks again.

The original text and citation is in the article history. All changes are always saved, and normally can be viewed at any time. In some rare cases they can be hidden so only editors with special permissions can see them. See Help:Page history for more details. DES ^(talk)_{DESiegel Contribs} 00:25, 31 October 2019 (UTC)

I tried to see previous versions on the Edit History page but the cur and prev links are not active. Do I not have access to them? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 129.101.229.240 (talk) 18:12, 1 November 2019 (UTC)

Not in this case. Those revisions of Dilemma story contained a copyright violation, and an administrator has hidden them from public view for legal reasons. -- John of Reading (talk) 18:21, 1 November 2019 (UTC)