Help desk
< March 1	<< Feb \| March \| Apr >>	March 3 >

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.

March 2

Help:Cite errors/Cite error ref no input

Please help with this page regarding no ref cite... no idea where I went wrong — Preceding unsigned comment added by DonutCW (talk • contribs) 00:01, 2 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I see you've now fixed this, DonutCW. In this edit, an IP editor removed a citation without removing the <ref></ref> tags, so they were left empty. --ColinFine (talk) 00:13, 2 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Which photo do I use?

A photo of the recently-discovered Sif Island was posted to Twitter here. A press website later used the photo in an article here, though they enhanced it by making it brighter. Which image should I use for the article? — Melofors T C 00:05, 2 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Melofors First of all, images are normally uploaded on Commons and not here, so I think you're asking the question in the wrong place. Second, this picture seems to be copyrighted, so I think it can't be used on Wikipedia.--SirEdimon (talk) 00:13, 2 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I'm afraid SirEdimon is right, Melofors. Neither of those pictures can be used anywhere in Wikipedia unless the copyright holder explicitly releases them under a licence such as CC-BY-SA. Please see Help:Copyright. --ColinFine (talk) 00:17, 2 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

ColinFine Oh, okay. Thank you. — Melofors T C 00:20, 2 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

It might be worth a shot to message the person who took the image and ask if they would be willing to publish it under CC-BY-SA. People are occasionally willing to do so. – Thjarkur (talk) 21:01, 2 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Lost my username eratosignis on Wikipedia

I used to edit pages since Feb 2009 under the name "eratosignis" which may have been changed to "Eratosignis" by Wiki software. I've just been locked out of my account which admittedly did have somewhat insecure password; I tried all three current email addresses, but fear that I may have originally used a Virgin email address that has now been discontinued by the Virgin company. Nonetheless, as far as I can see, nobody else has posted under eratosignis or Eratosignis and there is no record of a changed name for the account, so I don't think that my account has been hacked. It is just some mismatch with Wikipedia and what I thought was required for the account.

I'd like to recover the eratosignis account, and post under this name if possible. Any ideas?

Thanks for your help! — Preceding unsigned comment added by Eratosignis2 (talk • contribs) 00:33, 2 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@Eratosignis2: The first character of usernames is automatically capitalized. You can write it lower case in most places including the login screen but the real name is upper case. User:Eratosignis has not specified an email address in the account. If you don't know the password then you have to use a new account. The account was created in 2006 and made a few edits there before becoming more active in 2009. You can write on the user pages that you are the same user per Wikipedia:Sock puppetry#Alternative account notification. PrimeHunter (talk) 01:45, 2 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I see you recovered the password. You can set an email address at Special:Preferences. You can place {{lowercase title}} on User:Eratosignis and User talk:Eratosignis if you want eratosignis displayed at top of the pages. You can enter eratosignis in the "Signature" field at Special:Preferences if you want your signature to say eratosignis. Don't place a checkmark at "Treat the above as wiki markup". PrimeHunter (talk) 02:01, 2 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

This is correct! I found the password. Now I have it automated. I've set up the email address as you suggested, so now I have it secured for the future. Many thanks again for all your help, Eratosignis (talk) 15:00, 2 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Translations deleted

Hi there,

Last week I published 3 translations on the Pontifical Oriental Institute page. I translated from English to Italian, Arabic and Polish (along with many others). Those 3 translations have been deleted, and I'm wanting to know if it's possible to get them back? The translations were provided to me by professors at the Institute, so I am not sure what the reasons were for them being deleted.

Please let me know if it is at all possible to get the new translations back.

Regards, Brooke — Preceding unsigned comment added by 102.67.50.14 (talk) 07:02, 2 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

The history of the page Pontifical Oriental Institute shows no edit since 24 January. Are you perhaps asking about pages about the same subject in the Wikipedias that are in Italian, Arabic and Polish? If so, you'd have to ask for help there. However, I'll say one thing: Your mention of translation into "many" languages (as well as the three that you specify) suggests that you may have used translation software. If so, the result is almost certainly unsatisfactory; I'd understand it if the Wikipedia of another language deleted a machine translation. -- Hoary (talk) 07:11, 2 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Draft article ready for publication has no submit button.

Hello. I have a new draft article that I created. The only option I have is to publish the draft. There is no resource to submit it for review as I am seeing is necessary for an article to be published. Also, I attempted to add photos to the article and the photo was not allowed. The upload tool said it could not establish that the photo was copyright free. The photo is from the subject of the article.

The article in question is titled "Wild Sugar" or maybe "Draft:Wild Sugar". I can't seem to remove the word 'Draft" from the title. And when I search for the article it does not come up:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Draft:Wild_Sugar — Preceding unsigned comment added by Herebedragons69 (talk • contribs) 07:04, 2 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

The fact that a photograph comes from the subject shown in the photograph does not show that the photograph either is free of copyright restrictions or is copyleft in one or other way that Wikipedia accepts. Further, your draft has no references. If you somehow managed to get it converted into an article, it would be returned to draft status if you were lucky, deleted if you weren't. -- Hoary (talk) 07:19, 2 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

(edit conflict) @Herebedragons69: The draft is not yet ready for mainspace; it has no references and if submitted will almost certainly be declined. Please see the general notability guide and also the more specific organisational one. Please also see WP:REFB for a guide to adding references. When you consider it is ready for mainspace you can add {{subst:submit}} to the top of the markup. This will produce a review notice; but please be aware there is a current waiting time of up to 3 months. When it come to images, the copyright lies with the photographer. See WP:UPI for more information. (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) 07:23, 2 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

My birth year

Dear team My Wikipedia page shows wrong birth year. A miscreant tried to change it each time it’s corrected.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/103.18.170.137 That’s the IP address. It’s clearly gives out wrong info and invades my privacy. Kindly help to resolve the same. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Manasi Salvi (talk • contribs) 07:15, 2 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Am I to assume you are referring to this article? Manasi Salvi Best Wishes, Lee Vilenski ^{(talk • contribs)} 07:19, 2 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I'll assume so. This Facebook page describes itself as "OFFICIAL PAGE Of Manasi Salvi", and says "Born on January 19, 1970". I infer from this that Manasi Salvi was born on January 19, 1970 and is happy that the world knows this. Am I making a mistake? -- Hoary (talk) 07:28, 2 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@Hoary: Don't "official" pages (i.e., that have been verified as belonging to the person by FB) have the blue checkmark icon, and isn't that still a primary source? —[AlanM1(talk)]— 09:12, 2 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Excellent question, AlanM1! I don't know. Meanwhile, of course I don't take use of the word "official" to mean "credible". There were, until I deleted them a few minutes ago, three other "sources": in reality, none of the three was a credible source for a claim of birth in any year. I'll leave it to you to delete the Facebook (non-) reference and the claim in the article of any birth date or year. -- Hoary (talk)

Assuming it's the right primary source, and there's no "backtalk" in other sources, it's ok to use a primary source for birthdate per WP:BLPSELFPUB and WP:ABOUTSELF. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 09:44, 2 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

As I look at ManasiSalviOfficial, I don't see any [public] posts since 2014. That's enough to make it look suspect. I'm about to delete the birthdate, and in view of the variety of IPs who are so keen to fiddle with the date of birth, I've already s-protected the article for one month (not its first period of protection). -- Hoary (talk) 09:54, 2 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

My first reaction could have been better, Manasi Salvi. Sorry about that. However, I have now stripped the article Manasi Salvi of any mention of date or year of birth. I hope that there's no reoccurrence of annoying behaviour there. But if there is, Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons/Noticeboard is probably a better place than here for you (or anyone) to post a request to have it stopped. -- Hoary (talk) 10:07, 2 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@Hoary: Should we be concerned about WP:REALNAME as well? —[AlanM1(talk)]— 01:27, 3 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Yes of course. But if this is an issue in this article, then I (sleepily?) fail to notice it. ¶ If you see anything problematic in the article, do please go ahead and fix it. -- Hoary (talk) 01:32, 3 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

"I'm feeling lucky" search url

We can use the url https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Search/%s for directly searching from browser search boxes.

This sometimes jumps straight to an article, but often brings up the search results page if there are enough matches.

Is there a similar search URL or search option that always opens the first article in the results? (like Google's "I'm feeling lucky").

Evidlo (talk) 07:47, 2 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

It seems there is no option for doing that. The URL you have will always jump to an article if an exact title match exist, but if the exact match does not exist it will bring up the search results. – Thjarkur (talk) 21:08, 2 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Submitting draft page

How do I submit a draft page? Frodebjordal (talk) 12:00, 2 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Frodebjordal I've added the appropriate tag so you can submit it, but I would not do so yet, as I believe it would be rejected quickly. It reads as little more than a resume or CV, describing what he has written. Wikipedia summarizes what independent reliable sources with significant coverage state about article subjects. I would suggest that before submitting your draft, you read Your First Article and use the new user tutorial to learn more about Wikipedia. Successfully creating a new article is the absolute hardest task on Wikipedia, and knowing about the process will help. 331dot (talk) 12:04, 2 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

This appears to be about Frode Alfson Bjørdal, an autobiography that has been tagged for CSD, though I don't understand the timeline. —[AlanM1(talk)]— 01:34, 3 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Biased articles with no editing possible

A lot of your articles are biased and show only one viewpoint of an event be it political or sports in nature and then they are locked also so that no user can edit except the one who wrote it. I have in the past donated funds to Wikipedia but now realise that it was a mistake. Thanks. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 171.51.214.84 (talk) 12:58, 2 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

You should be able to propose edits on the article talk page of any article that is protected. You have the common misconception that Wikipedia is supposed to be free of bias- this is not the case. Wikipedia does not claim to be free of bias, as it summarizes what independent reliable sources state. Any bias in sources will be reflected in Wikipedia. Wikipedia requires the reliable sources to be provided so readers can view and judge for themselves their bias. Wikipedia also does not provide equal time to all points of view; coverage of a point of view depends on the sources. I'm sorry that you feel you are unable to collaborate with others who might have differing viewpoints from yours.

Note that contributions are collected by the Wikimedia Foundation that operates the computers Wikipedia is on, and not us editors. Contributions or the lack thereof have no impact on content or activities here, as if it did, this would cease to be an encyclopedia. 331dot (talk) 13:03, 2 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

(edit conflict)No articles are locked to those who wrote it. There are some articles that have protection against vandalism. However, you can still request an edit to the article by using {{edit semi-protected}} on the talk page. Wikipedia is written from a neutral point of view. If this isn't the case, it should be addressed, and the best way to do this is to request an edit. Best Wishes, Lee Vilenski ^{(talk • contribs)} 13:11, 2 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Lee Vilenski, I believe that you have a typo in your first sentence. -- Hoary (talk) 13:44, 2 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Creating an article on a person referenced in other wikipedia pages

Eric Easton, who was the first manager of the Rolling Stones, is referenced in several wikipedia pages, but does not have a page of his own. He died in 1995. I am in touch with his son and daughter who have enough information to create a page on Easton. How do I go about creating this page? — Preceding unsigned comment added by T Boy Jackson (talk • contribs) 13:06, 2 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

T Boy Jackson Note that personal information or other sources in private hands are not acceptable for sourcing a Wikipedia article. Wikipedia articles contain information found in independent reliable sources that are publicly accessible, showing how the subject meets the Wikipedia definition of notability(in this case, the definition of a notable person).

Being in contact with Easton's heirs may give you a conflict of interest; please read the conflict of interest policy. If you do have the appropriate sources, you may use Articles for Creation to create and submit a draft for review.(it's a good idea to do that even if you have no COI, until you gain much experience in article creation) 331dot (talk) 13:18, 2 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

T Boy Jackson, it depends on what this information is. If it's in the form of news clippings or books that profile him, he may be notable. What kinds of information do they have? --valereee (talk) 13:32, 2 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Based on sources like [1][2][3], WP:NOTABILITY should not be a problem. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 14:11, 2 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

T Boy Jackson (talk) 15:22, 2 March 2020 (UTC) I have no conflict of interest. I just want to see this person who is important in the history popular culture have a page that other people can read when they have the same questions I had while researching the history of the Rolling Stones. His children are the only ones who can give this information to the public.[reply]

T Boy Jackson His children are free to create their own website or use social media to tell about their father or describe personal recollections about him. Personal information and sources inaccessible to the public can't be used here. If they have provided you with news clippings, it would be possible to use those and there does seem to be other sources(as GGS describes above).

I'm not saying for certain if you have a conflict of interest, it depends on your level of discussion with them and how much they are involved. If you offered yourself to them as an author of an article about their father, and have agreed to work with you, that is a conflict of interest that must be declared. 331dot (talk) 15:33, 2 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Stunning work by 331dot and Gråbergs Gråa Sång on the (worthwhile) article Eric Easton! -- Hoary (talk) 01:21, 4 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

And perhaps Serial Number 54129, somewhat. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 07:24, 4 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Have you seen a Serial Number, standing in your shadow? ;) ——SN 54129 08:38, 4 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Oopsie! Sorry, Serial Number 54129! Many thanks to you as well. -- Hoary 09:04, 4 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Joke photos for sandbox

Hello,

How do I add a photo to use as a joke for my sandbox? Commons won't work for obvious reasons, so how can I put a photo in the article? Thanks. --Rockin 14:30, 2 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

The edits you've made to your sandbox break the WP:NOTWEBHOST rules, that's not what Wikipedia is for. It may be a good idea to keep it on Reddit. - X201 (talk) 14:37, 2 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you and sorry @X201: I have deleted the infobox. --Rockin 14:42, 2 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

No problem. We all get a bit carried away in the moment some times. - X201 (talk) 14:44, 2 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

(e/c) While X201 makes a valid point, if (for future editing purposes) you want to know more about the process for uploading images - this article may help: Wikipedia:Uploading images. Chaheel Riens (talk) 14:46, 2 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

RockinJack18, also note that Commons might work. Commons' policy is that, generally, an image being used on any Wikimedia project is in scope, and that hosting a small number of images for use on userpages etc is acceptable. See Commons:Project:Project_scope#File_in_use_in_another_Wikimedia_project ~~ Alex Noble - talk 17:23, 2 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Deletion of photo

Hi, can you help me properly upload a photo to Jacqueline Hernández Wikipedia page?

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

Jack Rico 14:55, 2 March 2020 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Unirico41 (talk • contribs)

This This website should help out --Rockin 15:26, 2 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Unirico41, the above link is the right place, but only if you have an image of her that you took yourself and therefor owns the copyright too. As stated on that page, you can not grab a picture from her Facebook or whatever and use that. WP/Commons are strict about copyright stuff. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 15:50, 2 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Removing private informations

Hi,

How can i removed private informations as date of born of a artist wikipedia webpage ?

Regards — Preceding unsigned comment added by Celtic Secrets (talk • contribs) 15:45, 2 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

If it can be sourced it won't be removed. In this case Lynn Hilary did not have an adequate source, if one arises it will be readded. Hell in a Bucket (talk) 15:50, 2 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Not necessarily. She is living so Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons#Privacy of personal information and using primary sources applies. PrimeHunter (talk) 20:50, 2 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Help:Cite errors/Cite error references no text

I cant publish article 'Sanat Sawant' as there is abc in reference and name is missing. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Septo2002 (talk • contribs) 16:50, 2 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@Septo2002: The ref name has been added to the content like so <ref name=abc/> but the name has not been assigned to a reference I.e.<ref name=abc>{{reference content}}</ref>. Then you can just add the ref name as above at second or subsequent uses. However, that is not the reason the article cannot be published. Reviewers have determined that the subject is not suitable for Wikipedia and unless there is more to be added to demonstrate notability the draft will not be accepted. Sorry. Eagleash (talk) 17:03, 2 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Note: Draft had already been deleted once by the time of OP. Submitted and rejected multiple times subsequently. Now deleted (salted) and account (and IPs) blocked. Eagleash (talk) 23:27, 2 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Article verification

Hi,

I just publish an article about an actor and I was wondering how I know if the article is pending for validation, accepted or need any modification to be accepted. Someone can help me ?

Here is the article : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Chiconono/sandbox#Noam_Yaron

Thank you ! — Preceding unsigned comment added by Chiconono (talk • contribs) 20:37, 2 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Chiconono I have added the appropriate information to allow you to submit the draft for review. Just click the "Submit your draft for review!" button. There are thousands of draft awaiting review, so you will need to be patient. 331dot (talk) 20:45, 2 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Remove IP addresses from edit history

Hello...I made some changes to a Wikipedia page. In all cases my IP address is shown in the edit history. I did not set up an account before I made the edits (I had no idea how easy it was). Could you please remove the IP address from the three edits I made (and possibly replace them with my new user name)? Thanks. — Preceding unsigned comment added by ExTTY (talk • contribs) 20:56, 2 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

ExTTY I have hidden your IP address. Unfortunately, there is no way for me to attribute the edits to your username. ~ ONUnicorn^{(Talk|Contribs)}problem solving 21:01, 2 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Hunter Pence

Your Wikipedia page shows Hunter Pence’s current team as the Texas Rangers however down under his Professional Career you show him signing with the Dan Francisco Giants as of February 7, 2020. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:500:8302:2050:15C:FA78:1DAA:5D2D (talk) 21:10, 2 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

It's not "our" Wikipedia page. Wikipedia is a community project. If you think Hunter Pence's current team is wrong, you can edit the article to fix it yourself. JIP | Talk 21:27, 2 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

See Hunter Pence#Return to the Giants. He is apparently back to SF for 2020. The infobox does not yet contain the 2020 season (correctly, since it hasn't started yet), so it does not yet appear there (the last season is Texas Rangers (2019), which is also correct). For future reference, the best place to discuss specific articles is the article's talk page – in this case, Talk:Hunter Pence. —[AlanM1(talk)]— 02:01, 3 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

question re hiding sub-sections from table of contents

Hi. I would like to hide some sub-sections within one section from the Table of Contents, but not do so for all of the other sections of the entry.

So is there a way to suppress the listing of subsections in the Table of Contents for one specific section, but not for all sections within the entry? Please ping me when you reply. thanks! --Sm8900 (talk) 23:21, 2 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@Sm8900: The only way to do that is if the subsections you want to hide are at a different level than the subsections you want to show. See the example at Help:Section#Limiting_the_TOC's_depth. RudolfRed (talk) 00:22, 3 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

How do I upload pdf citation information?

I would like to upload downloads of older websites or private publications like a museum acquisition report to prove that the artist I'm writing about is in their collection. If you could please recommend the best way to submit proof that isn't listed online or in a book that would be greatly appreciated. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Asurdam (talk • contribs) 23:25, 2 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

No, Wikipedia can't accept uploads of either archives of older websites or what I imagine would be bulky PDFs. Or do you perhaps mean that you'd like to add references to these? If a web page that disappeared in 2016, for example, would be a reliable source if it still existed, and if there's an archived version of the web page at the Wayback Machine, then you can cite the archived version in a reference. These "private publications" -- are they available in libraries outside the museums that produced them? -- Hoary (talk) 01:39, 3 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia:Help desk/Archives/2020 March 2