Wikipedia:Help desk/Archives/2020 July 30

Help desk
< July 29	<< Jun | July | Aug >>	July 31 >

Welcome to the Wikipedia Help Desk Archives
The page you are currently viewing is an archive page. While you can leave answers for any questions shown below, please ask new questions on one of the current Help Desk pages.

July 30

Request an article, looking for writer

Hello, I am a Haitian poet and journalist. I have published multiple books. I'd like to have a Wiki page. I got everything ready. Can anybody help? NB: The person shall speak French. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jjuste02 (talk • contribs) 00:11, 30 July 2020 (UTC)

Jjuste02, while writing an article about yourself isn't banned, it's frowned upon. Do you have any reliable, independent sources that can attest to your notability per Wikipedia's standards? —Tenryuu 🐲 ( 💬 • 📝 ) 05:19, 30 July 2020 (UTC)

Layouts for company articles?

I've noticed that a lot of company articles are written by (suspected) COI or paid editors. I've also noticed this leads to a lot of poorly laid-out articles, or promotional-sounding headings & content.

I'm wondering if anyone has attempted to put together a community guideline for layouts of non-profit, company, or business articles in the past? Or if anyone has written an essay / suggested layouts for these types of articles (Similar to MOS:VG or just WP:VGLAYOUT)? My searches haven't revealed anything yet, so I thought I'd ask more seasoned editors :) - Whisperjanes (talk) 00:55, 30 July 2020 (UTC)

I find that one of the pleasures of editing Wikipedia is "busting" the jargon and "marketingspeak" of many of these articles. I have done a number of these and so far none has been altered and put back by the marketing men. See for example Sol Northampton where I changed "leisure area" to "cinema" which was more accurate. "Leisure area" was too vague. Recruitee is a more extreme example much of which has stumped me. Have a look at the "history." The company seemed to be selling computer software so why not say so? Another example was Debenhams where I changed "operating under a department store format" to "operating department stores." I am sure lots of other people do the same. The problems and challenges are not confined to businesses. Try Sexual script theory and see what you can make of that. Spinney Hill (talk) 09:14, 30 July 2020 (UTC)Spinney Hill (talk) 09:18, 30 July 2020 (UTC)

Hello, Spinney Hill. Thank you for your work improving Wikipedia. Is there anything useful at WP:WikiProject Companies/Guidelines? If not, perhaps you could get together with the people there to create something. --ColinFine (talk) 09:22, 30 July 2020 (UTC)

Spinney Hill Whenever I'm looking for a template, guideline, or layout for a type of article I haven't worked much with, I try to find an article about a similar topic that has achieved featured article status. Right now there are 17 featured articles about companies. Perhaps looking at them can give you an idea of what an excellent company article ought to look like. ~ ONUnicorn^{(Talk|Contribs)}problem solving 18:53, 30 July 2020 (UTC)

Oops; when I posted the above I tagged the wrong person. Whisperjanes, check out featured articles about companies. ~ ONUnicorn^{(Talk|Contribs)}problem solving 21:51, 30 July 2020 (UTC)

Thanks for the tips, Spinney Hill and ONUnicorn! I think starting some sort of suggestion/guideline would be somewhat helpful (especially for new users or those without much time on their hands), so I'll see who is interested in helping at the Companies WikiProject. And thank you for some examples to look into -- Originally I was looking up examples of non-profits I thought were large and well-known, but that was when I saw that non-profits don't seem to have a standardized layout, unlike biographies, movies, books, etc (and I was surprised how many of them still had COI problems! so FA is a good suggestion).

Also, at the moment, WP:WikiProject Companies/Guidelines doesn't seem to have much in terms of layout suggestions, but it seems the talk page has some good suggestions of where to start (these discussions seem to have petered out around 2011/2013, but they still are useful). Thanks again for the suggestions! - Whisperjanes (talk) 23:27, 30 July 2020 (UTC)

Use of ellipses when quoting the beginning of sentences

On a talk page, I'm trying to say something to the effect of the following example: "The sentence beginning with '[t]he store which sold appliances...'". Could anyone please tell me if there should there be a space (a non-breaking one, I assume) between the ellipsis and quotation mark? (Edit: Sorry to be a smart aleck by adding "a non-breaking [space], I assume" in parentheses.)--Thylacine24 (talk) 01:13, 30 July 2020 (UTC)

Okay, I just reread the relevant Manual of Style section and it says to not to use a space between the ellipsis and the closing quotation mark. Sorry about this. Could anyone please tell me if I'm being arrogant by turning down answers now?--Thylacine24 (talk) 01:48, 30 July 2020 (UTC)

Also, could anyone please tell me if the non-breaking space should still come before the ellipsis in this case? I assume the answer is "[y]es", but I couldn't go without asking because of my OCD. Also, sorry if I overused the decapitalization brackets for the "[y]es" in that sentence, and by extension in this one as well. I wasn't sure if it was appropriate, since any simple response beginning with or entirely consisting of that word would capitalize it. (Edit: Also sorry for all of these extra responses to myself, instead of adding concise edit notes to the first post.)(Edit: Also sorry for my lack of edit summaries here and elsewhere; I've been getting lazy in that area.) (Edit: Just realized that self-responses may give the impression of the question having been answered. Sorry about that, too.)--Thylacine24 (talk) 01:56, 30 July 2020 (UTC)

@Thylacine24: As I understand it, MOS:ELLIPSIS says that a quote of the fragment "prefix don't_quote_this_part suffix" with ellipses before, within, and after would be coded with "...{{Nbsp}}prefix{{Nbsp}}... suffix{{Nbsp}}...". That is, an ellipsis just after an opening quote is followed by an nbsp. An ellipsis just before a closing quote is preceded by an nbsp. An ellipsis in the middle of a quote is preceded by an nbsp and followed by a regular space. (I understand it's difficult for you, but please try harder to avoid all of the apologies and other commentary – all it does is distract the reader from understanding the root issue that you are attempting to discuss. Thanks.) —[AlanM1 (talk)]— 06:50, 30 July 2020 (UTC)

@AlanM1: Sorry, but I didn't understand the first sentence of what you wrote. Also sorry, ironically, to apologize in this and the previous sentence when you told me not to. Anyway, I understood the rest of what you wrote, but I want to make sure that the rules in MOS:ELLIPSIS applied to quoting just the beginning of a sentence as well (as opposed to dialogue ending in an ellipsis). Could you please tell me if that's the case? I think you responded in the positive to that question, but I like to be absolutely sure.--Thylacine24 (talk) 17:46, 30 July 2020 (UTC)

@Thylacine24: The reason for its use doesn't affect the syntax, AFAIK. If you're talking about the example you started with: "The sentence beginning with '[t]he store which sold appliances...'", a nbsp should be inserted before the ellipsis. Also, if it's on a talk page, the MoS is not mandatory, especially with regard to such a fine point. You'll see many experienced editors routinely use non-MoS styles in talk. —[AlanM1 (talk)]— 18:34, 30 July 2020 (UTC)

@AlanM1: Thanks for telling me that, and sorry to be pedantic about it.--Thylacine24 (talk) 19:15, 30 July 2020 (UTC)

Pages that link to section or anchor

Is there a way to see what pages link to a specific section or anchor of a page? I just came across one link that apparently used a previous name and would like to check if there are others that need to be corrected.

(By anchor, I mean {{anchor}}, not the anchor as defined in Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Linking#Principles.) ◀ Sebastian 05:33, 30 July 2020 (UTC)

@SebastianHelm: I use search. E.g., to find links to usage like [[PageName#SectionName]] or {{Slink|PageName|SectionName}}, I search for "PageName" insource:/[Pp]ageName *[\#|] *SectionName/ (I think that's the right regex – I haven't used it for a while and I forget the exact syntax of the fairly crippled regex used by search or even where it's fully documented). —[AlanM1 (talk)]— 07:07, 30 July 2020 (UTC)

Cool, thanks! This worked. There's one detail to keep in mind: Simply using the PageName and SectionName may miss some links, since underscores can occur instead of spaces. To find all, one can represent those with '[ _]', as in '"C0" insource:/C0[ _]and[ _]C1[ _]control[ _]codes *[\#|] *C1[ _]set/'. After reading mw:Help:CirrusSearch#Regular_expression_searches, I was a bit afraid this might time out with a short search string such as "C0", but it was done in less than a second. With this and the corresponding query for "C1" I found three pages. ◀ Sebastian 10:35, 30 July 2020 (UTC)

You can make an efficient search by starting with linksto:. You usually get good results with a simple insource: string like linksto:"C0 and C1 control codes" insource:"C0 and C1 control codes#C1 set". It does give a false positive here, and like many searches it misses [[C0 and C1 control codes#C1%20set|C1 set]] in STS. I spotted that one a bit randomly with linksto:"C0 and C1 control codes" insource:"C1 set". PrimeHunter (talk) 11:36, 30 July 2020 (UTC)

I cannot move my Draft Wikipedia page to the mainspace

I recently created an English translation of the German page: [Service Provider]. It was made as "Draft". I don't seem to have the rights to move a page. There's no way. There are also no technical restrictions that make it impossible to publish it. I think I need to get the rights to move a page on the English Wikipedia.

Can someone offer help?

Thanks a lot in advance! — Preceding unsigned comment added by Iris Dings (talk • contribs) 11:58, 30 July 2020 (UTC)

@Iris Dings: Yes you are correct, you do not (yet) have WP:AUTOCONFIRMED rights which would enable you to move pages and / or create directly in mainspce. At this stage it may be best to submit for review by placing {{subst:submit}} at the top of the 'markup'. This will poroduce a review notice and an WP:AfC participant will either accept the article or ask for improvements if necessary. This can take up to 8 weeks (at present) so please be patient. Alternatively, you could make some more valid edits to existing articles to the pont where your account becomes 'autoconfirmed'. (Please remember to sign your posts on talk pages by typing four keyboard tildes like this: ~~~~. Or, you can use the [ reply ] button, which automatically signs posts.) Thank you. Eagleash (talk) 13:02, 30 July 2020 (UTC)

@Iris Dings: Courtesy link to draft in question Draft:Shipping Service Provider. It's an OK start, but will need better sourcing - source #5 doesn't even mention the term. There needs to be evidence that this is a thing worthy of an article, versus just a subsection in the Package delivery article. TimTempleton ^{(talk) (cont)} 19:58, 30 July 2020 (UTC)

Herman Cain

I went on Wikipedia to search Herman Cain and was utterly APPALLED to see PORN in two large places on the page. I tried to see if Wikipedia could be contacted but this was the closest I could come to. Can anyone help get this removed? I’m sure someone hacked the page and how horrible to do such a thing on the day of this great man’s death! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:602:A7F:CBA0:ADB0:3B7B:933C:74CF (talk) 15:05, 30 July 2020 (UTC)

This vandalism has (already) been removed, and the page is currently protected to prevent the re-adding of this material. Thank you for your attempts to assist. Cheers ‡ Єl Cid of Valencia ^talk 15:21, 30 July 2020 (UTC)

It has already been removed multiple times and the IP editor who added it has been blocked for vandalism. The page has also been temporarily protected. —Tenryuu 🐲 ( 💬 • 📝 ) 15:25, 30 July 2020 (UTC)

Interlanguage links not showing up on the sidebar?

In the article Entrenched clause, the list of interlanguage links on the sidebar is incomplete with 4 of the links listed on Wikidata missing. I recently merged another Wikidata item about the same topic into it, transferring all the links, but the changes are not appearing. How do I fix this? StellarHalo (talk) 15:20, 30 July 2020 (UTC)

StellarHalo It looks okay to me- there are 7 links on Wikidata (including English link), and the 6 other links are all showing for me on Entrenched clause. Your browser may be caching an old version try bypassing your cache. Joseph2302 (talk) 16:01, 30 July 2020 (UTC)

I've just done a purge, and that seems to have done the trick. --David Biddulph (talk) 16:04, 30 July 2020 (UTC)

Thank you! It is working now. StellarHalo (talk) 16:41, 30 July 2020 (UTC)

Donation site banner

I have been contributing to Wikipedia for the past four years, and I have never seen a site banner for donation up there so consistently. Is there a particular reason why this is happening? I hope WMF is not running into a financial problem. -- Cheers! 180.151.92.123 (talk) 15:42, 30 July 2020 (UTC)

To add, this might be limited to certain geographic areas, but I am not sure. --Cheers! 180.151.92.123 (talk) 15:43, 30 July 2020 (UTC)

The site itself, https://en.wikipedia.org, is not displaying these banners to me here in the U.S. If you are seeing them elsewhere, either you are being intercepted at a proxy server, or Wikimedia is serving you something different based on your IP address. Try using a VPN via a US VPN gateway. You can also try asking a question on the WMF site. We at the English Wikipedia help desk cannot do anything about this.-Arch dude (talk) 17:25, 30 July 2020 (UTC)

@IP editor: First, thanks for your contributions. IIRC, you can make them go away by registering an account, which allows the site to recognize that you have dismissed the banner and therefore won't show it to you again. There are lots of other gadgets and customizations available to registered users, and it can be more secure since you're not revealing your IP address (and therefore your service provider and rough location) when you post as a logged-in user. —[AlanM1 (talk)]— 18:53, 30 July 2020 (UTC)

Thank you for the responses. I was not trying to make it go away, I just wanted to know why the campaign was being hosted. --Cheers! 2402:3A80:15D0:A822:0:3:C91:B601 (talk) 20:40, 30 July 2020 (UTC)

I don't see the banners, so can't comment on whether there is something different this year or not. I think they have an annual campaign with the banners, etc., that lasts about a month, based on the comments we see here at the help desk. AFAIK, the WMF is financially healthy, with a substantial reserve. Financials can be found here, if you want details. —[AlanM1 (talk)]— 20:52, 30 July 2020 (UTC)

I'm on the executive board of a non-profit myself, and I cannot kid myself that the Wikimedia Foundation's modest endowment of $60 million is a "substantial reserve" for an project of our size. --Orange Mike | Talk 02:08, 31 July 2020 (UTC)

Thank you again! --Cheers! 180.151.25.198 (talk) 05:15, 31 July 2020 (UTC)

Use of "protagonist" as an adjective

Could anyone please tell me if it's acceptable to use "protagonist" as an adjective ("a … protagonist role", to quote the page I'm trying to edit), or if it should be "protagonistic"?--Thylacine24 (talk) 20:09, 30 July 2020 (UTC)

@Thylacine24:, try an internet search for "protagonist role" and "protagonistic role" and you should find an answer to this kind of question. It's what I do when I have similar dilemmas. TSventon (talk) 21:20, 30 July 2020 (UTC)

@TSventon: Thanks. Could you please tell me if you're talking in term of the number of search results?--Thylacine24 (talk) 21:53, 30 July 2020 (UTC)

@Thylacine24: Yes, the number of search results, possibly reinforced by a message like: "Did you mean: protagonist role". TSventon (talk) 22:10, 30 July 2020 (UTC)

@TSventon: Thanks for telling me.--Thylacine24 (talk) 22:40, 30 July 2020 (UTC)

Thylacine24, it's not an adjective, it's a qualifying noun - we do this all the time in English. I have never encountered the adjective "protagonistic", though it is recorded 44 times in the iWeb corpus. Only one of these is followed by "role", against 57 instances of "protagonist role". --ColinFine (talk) 21:32, 30 July 2020 (UTC)

@ColinFine: Thanks. I've never used iWeb before.--Thylacine24 (talk) 21:53, 30 July 2020 (UTC)

FYI, see Noun adjunct NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 00:57, 31 July 2020 (UTC)

How do I put all of the userboxes to the right?

I want to align all of the userboxes on my user page to the right of the page. What is the easiest way to do it? I don’t want to have a border around them if that is possible. Thank you.--EsotericJoe (talk) 21:12, 30 July 2020 (UTC)

Is it possible for me to have the userboxes in a box with some on the left side and some on the right side? Thanks.--EsotericJoe (talk) 21:28, 30 July 2020 (UTC)

@EsotericJoe: For the right aligned boxes with no border see This revision of my sandbox. ~ ONUnicorn^{(Talk|Contribs)}problem solving 22:00, 30 July 2020 (UTC)

@ONUnicorn: Thanks for your help. Is it possible for me to have ten userboxes on the left side and ten on the right side of the page?--EsotericJoe (talk) 22:05, 30 July 2020 (UTC)

EsotericJoe, I imagine you use {{userboxtop||right}} for some and left for others. Fiddle Faddle 22:08, 30 July 2020 (UTC)

The code would be something like:

{{userboxtop|toptext=|bordercolor=none}}
<!-- Right aligned boxes here -->
{{userboxbottom}}
{{userboxtop|toptext=|bordercolor=none|align=left}}
<!-- Left aligned boxes here -->
{{userboxbottom}}

Danski454 (talk) 22:12, 30 July 2020 (UTC)

(edit conflict) EsotericJoe here it is with 10 on the right and 10 on the left. I just used the {{userboxtop}} template twice, one for the right and one for the left. I added some empty exampleboxes since you didn't have 20 on your current page. Obviously you can replace them with whatever you want.~ ONUnicorn^{(Talk|Contribs)}problem solving 22:14, 30 July 2020 (UTC)

Thanks for your help.--EsotericJoe (talk) 22:54, 30 July 2020 (UTC)

John Saxon

Thank you for producing Wikipedia. I used to sit with my computer on my lap as John and I watched movies. He would ask, is he still alive? I would go to Wikipedia to read about the person’s life. We would pause the movie and talk about the person based on your information. Therefore, I am writing to ask for the following corrections and additions be made to John Saxon’s page:

Mary Ann Saxon ​(m. 1967; div. 1979) Elizabeth Saxon ​(m. 1987; div. 1992) Gloria Martel ​(m. 2008; died 2020)[3]

Should be:

Mary Ann Saxon​ (m. 1967; div. 1979)

Elizabeth Saxon Hass ​(m. 1987; div. 1992)

Gloria Martel Saxon ​(m. 2008; died 2020)[3]

Page statement: Saxon was married three times, first to screenwriter Mary Ann Saxon, then to actress Elizabeth Saxon, and finally to Gloria Martel. He had one child with Mary Ann, a son named Antonio.

I am Gloria Martel Saxon. (This page incorrectly refers to my professional name, Gloria Martel: see gloriamartel.com)

John has a son Antonio Saxon AND a stepson Lance, a stepgrandson Mitchell, and a great stepgrandson, John

Page statement: “He was renamed John Saxon.” Correction: John chose his name, John Saxon. They wanted to call him Randy, but he was not keen on that idea.

Please add this to the paragraph about “The Appaloosa:”

John was so excited during “The Appaloosa,” he suggested the scorpion scene and was asked to write it. Brando told John he would never get credit for writing that scene or any of the other scenes.

Please list the movie “God’s Ears,” 2008, in his filmography: It was a special movie for John and he gave a touching performance. It has been shown to many groups who have autistic children. You do have “God’s Ears” on your Wikipedia.

Gloria Martel Saxon Esthetician, author and speaker.

IP editor, if you have reliable, independent sources that back up your claims, you are more than welcome to make those changes with citations in the articles they belong in. If you are unable to do so, make an edit request on the articles' talk pages. —Tenryuu 🐲 ( 💬 • 📝 ) 22:51, 30 July 2020 (UTC)

IP editor: you have what we call a "conflict of interest" for the John Saxon article and related articles. This is not a problem, it's just a fact. Please read our guideline on this: WP:COI. We request that you please avoid direct edits to this article. Instead, make suggestions on the article's talk page. Please also declare your COI. You will find it easier to do this if you create an account so you can declare the COI just once instead of every time you suggest an edit. -Arch dude (talk) 02:24, 31 July 2020 (UTC)

Volunteer translator

How does a person become a volunteer translator for Wikipedia? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.166.123.90 (talk) 22:32, 30 July 2020 (UTC)

As with most things Wikipedia; one just starts doing it. I reccomend reading the instructions at how to translate, as there are tools to help you and important legal considerations about maintaining attribution for copyright purposes. Joining Wikipedia:WikiProject Intertranswiki is also a good place to start. ~ ONUnicorn^{(Talk|Contribs)}problem solving 22:38, 30 July 2020 (UTC)