Wikipedia:Help desk/Archives/2020 November 17

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November 17

Ivis Williams

A local Labour Party councillor in the Royal Borough of Greenwich since May 2018.

@Dawneta: Did you have a question about using or editing Wikipedia? (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.) —Tenryuu 🐲 ( 💬 • 📝 ) 01:08, 17 November 2020 (UTC)

Extreme bias and inaccurate information on MeWe article

Discuss at Talk:MeWe

This article calls "Stop the Steal" a group of conspiracy theorists. This is inaccurate The election is contested, with very credible allegations of fraud currently being litigated in several states "Stop the Steal" is a broad-based movement of concerned citizens who want election laws and state and federal court orders respected, including one issued by the U.S. Supreme Court. Also, this article used the terms "alt=right" and "far right" to refer to conservatives, Republicans, and anyone concerned about massive reports of voting irregularities. It calls information shared by conservatives "misinformation." These are pejorative terms grounded in bias, rather than fact. Please flag this article as defamatory and an attempt to silence legal efforts to defend the rule of law. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:46:C801:A4C0:4E2:5B08:3E1C:74D7 (talk) Wikipedia reflects what reliable sources say, adopting a neutral point of view and giving proportional weight to differing perspectives. For instance, if the overwhelmingly common practice in reliable sources is to term Stop the Steal a conspiracy theory, that will be reflected when discussing the campaign. Not to do so would reflect bias in favour of Stop the Steal – it would be presented in a more flattering light compared to how reliable sources describe it. I've only examined the article briefly, but I do not see anything that obviously indicates these best practices are not being followed. If you still have concerns, comment at Talk:MeWe. – Teratix ₵ 07:07, 17 November 2020 (UTC) For other users, Trump is getting almost literally laughed out of court; most observers see their legal arguments as without merit(and in some cases they have no legal arguments at all other than "I didn't win"). 331dot (talk) 10:39, 17 November 2020 (UTC) Content disputes belong on the article talk page, not the help desk. -Arch dude (talk) 15:35, 17 November 2020 (UTC)

Heads up for spurious death announcements

I'm posting this here as it will be quickly seen: if there are other/more appropriate desks etc. for it, please feel free to copy or transfer it as appropriate.

This is a BBC report of a recent, accidental premature publication of ~100 pre-prepared obituaries of various well-known people, by Radio France International.

I imagine this may cause a spate of well-intentioned but erroneous attempts to edit the relevant articles. Perhaps someone might like to prepare a template or other stock reply and/or edit summary for use when reverting such edits. I'm sorry not to be able to put in more effort on this myself, but it's beyond my previous Wiki-experience, and I'm currently preoccupied by unfortunate family circumstances in Real Life. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 90.197.26.5 (talk) 08:05, 17 November 2020 (UTC)

Want the assistance of a Wikipedia Editor

Hi, Please I am looking forward to have any contact to a qualified wiki editor for creating a page for my company . for contacting me : sara tarek ,Brand manager (redacted)

41.41.3.131 (talk) 10:25, 17 November 2020 (UTC)

Wikipedia is not a place with "pages" about companies. Wikipedia has articles about companies that meet our criteria; a company must be shown with significant coverage in independent reliable sources to meet Wikipedia's special definition of a notable company. You should also review conflict of interest and paid editing. If you wish to allow other users to email you, you should create an account and add an email address to it, not post it publicly in this forum. 331dot (talk) 10:38, 17 November 2020 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Hello, Sara. I'm afraid that, like many people, you have a fundamental misunderstanding of Wikipedia. This is a volunteer project, and all editors are people who choose to work on it, and choose what they will work on. Promotion of any kind is forbidden: if at some point we have an article about your company, you will not own it, you will not control it, it will not be for your benefit,you will be strongly discouraged from editing it directly, and it will not necessarily say what you want it to say: see An article about yourself isn't necessarily a good thing.

If your company meets Wikipedia's criteria for notability, then we could have an article about it. This article will not be based at all on anything that your company says or wants to say, but only on what people who have no connection with your company, and who have not been prompted or fed information on behalf of your company, have chosen to publish in reliable sources.

If after this admonishment you consider going ahead, please read conflict of interest, paid editing, and your first article. --ColinFine (talk) 10:41, 17 November 2020 (UTC)

F Is for Family

Hi! A user suggested that this title should be changed to "F is for Family", which just lowercases the capital I. They were trying to explain some points, but they were getting pretty aggressive and wasn't taken too seriously. Here are the sides:

The I should be capitalized according to MoS. Is is a prefix, and should not be capitalized because that's just how it is on Wikipedia.according to MoS. Is is a prefix, and should not be capitalized because that's just how it is on Wikipedia.

The I shouldn't be capitalized because that's how the show stylizes the name according to the logo, and should represent that.

What accordance should we follow? I have no part in this discussion, and it won't benefit me in any way, I'm just figuring it out so I can report it to the user. Le Panini ^Talk 11:33, 17 November 2020 (UTC)

@Le Panini: The I should be capitalized per MOS:CT. Every verb is capitalized including "Is". —teb728 t c 11:49, 17 November 2020 (UTC)

Firstly, that's the opposite of what MOS:CT says; secondly, the article is illustrated with the title card showing that the show doesn't capitalise the I either. Straight-out no-brainer. ‑ Iridescent 13:53, 17 November 2020 (UTC)

Iridescent, No, it says there that "Always capitalized: Every verb, including forms of to be (Be, Am, Is, Are, Being, Was, Were, Been)". They want to abide this rule because the show's title card displays it as otherwise. Le Panini ^Talk 14:02, 17 November 2020 (UTC)

OH I MIXED THEM UP I FIXED IT so sorry. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Le Panini (talk • contribs) 14:20, 17 November 2020 (UTC)

recover user name

We have had a change over of personnel and would like to edit or pages, but no one remaining at the office has the username or password. Can you help me out with finding the user name? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.87.126.98 (talk) 15:15, 17 November 2020 (UTC)

Well, no. Please see Wikipedia:Username_policy#Shared_accounts. You cannot share accounts on this website. Furthermore, see Wikipedia:Conflict of Interest. You are strongly discouraged from editing from the point of view of an organization, especially if you are editing articles related to that organization. So, I suggest, if you wish to edit as an individual in a neutral voice and not in topics related to your organization, that you create a new account. ‡ Єl Cid of Valencia ^talk 15:18, 17 November 2020 (UTC)

(edit conflict)Who is "we"? Wikipedia accounts are single-person only. You will need a new account anyway. Please create one account for each individual in you office, and make sure that all accounts comply with WP:PAID and WP:COI. The username policy is at WP:USERNAME. Victor Schmidt (talk) 15:22, 17 November 2020 (UTC)

Hello. It sounds as if you have a common misconception that Wikipedia's article about your company is in some way yours to maintain or update. It is not. You are welcome to suggest changes on the article's talk page using the edit request mechanism, but that should be the limit of your involvement in it. --ColinFine (talk) 16:40, 17 November 2020 (UTC)

The Wikipedia article about your company is in no way connected with your company. Anyone in the world is able to and allowed to edit it. Your company, as the subject, does not enjoy any privilege over the article. In fact, because of conflict of interest reason, the employees of your company are specifically strongly discouraged from editing the article. JIP | Talk 17:20, 17 November 2020 (UTC)

I do not think you can 'recover' a username. Your IP address has a history of edits, four of them were done in two articles related to nudity: Special:Contributions/74.87.126.98. A history of edits in those two articles doesn't seem to contain any other systematic edits, related to your society. Are you SURE your former employee was using a named account in Wikipedia...?

Anyway, even if any account existed, it was either private or organization-related.

• If it was a private, personal account (say, JakeSmith or Naturist or something) you may not recover it, because it belongs to a specific person. Possibly to someone still active at Wikipedia, just not on your society's behalf.
• OTOH, if it was shared (like, say, NaturistSociety or NatSocStaff) then it was against Wikipedia policies and should be blocked. As a result, you may try to 'usurp' it but you will not be able to use it.

So, the only option is to create a new account. But this is NOT a GOOD option, as it would be likely breaking the policies of WP:COI and WP:PAID, if not WP:SHARE. Additionally, such accounts usually are likely to edit against WP:WWIN, esp. WP:PROMO and WP:NOTDIR, which ends in a block. --CiaPan (talk) 18:10, 17 November 2020 (UTC)

CiaPan: I don't think that last is helpful advice. They have a legitimate interest in the article about their company, and as long as they follow the principles various people have given them, and do not attempt to edit the article directly, they should be fine. --ColinFine (talk) 20:56, 17 November 2020 (UTC)

@ColinFine: It's not an advice; it's an option, and – as I emphasised – not a good one. I have no idea why you call it an advice when I say something is not a good choice. Their best option is to refrain from touching articles connected to them and make edit requests at relevant talk pages instead. This can be done either with a named account or from an IP address. But whichever they choose, with the attitude presented they are likely to slip into editing (actually, they did already: Special:Diff/989209191), hence the warning at the end of my entry above. --CiaPan (talk) 22:21, 17 November 2020 (UTC)

Errors in Simultaneous Interpretation article

The historical note in this page refers to "Gordon Finley." It seems that the reference should be to Alan Gordon-Finlay, who has his own Wiki entry. Also, he is referred to as an emplyee of IMB. That probably was meant to be IBM, although the Gordon-Finlay Wiki never says that he was employed by IBM. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:19B:4401:31D0:CF5:5CFF:6091:A575 (talk) 15:28, 17 November 2020 (UTC)

I agree, and have updated the article accordingly. In future, you can also ask at the article's talkpage, which for this article is Talk: Simultaneous interpretation. Joseph2302 (talk) 15:38, 17 November 2020 (UTC)

Feedback on draft of article

I have recently started work on an article in my userspace about GCSE English as it was pointed out GCSE Science existed but none of the other core subjects existed. The draft can be found here. I am not asking for a full review as it isn't ready yet but just for a rough idea if I'm doing things correctly as this is my first article. Thanks Eyebeller (talk) 17:11, 17 November 2020 (UTC)

Hello, Eyebeller. I don't see any independent sources. If you start writing an article without independent sources, you're quite likely to have to rework it from scratch when you find some. --ColinFine (talk) 21:03, 17 November 2020 (UTC)

I see your point, I'm not sure where to find independent sources though. But surely official sources would be better? Eyebeller (talk) 21:13, 17 November 2020 (UTC)

Vandalism help request

I have noticed some vandalism at Transient Lingual Papillitis Transient lingual papillitis.

Namely, this politicized and absurd statement was added in a recent edit. "Another known cause for lie bumps is if you voted for Joe Biden in the 2020 us election.

Would an editor please assist me with fixing it? Thank you,

Terry

2600:1702:1030:E220:D8C1:260A:2719:2172 (talk) 17:54, 17 November 2020 (UTC)

In the future, please take comments like this to the article talk page, in this case: Talk:Transient lingual papillitis. However, the vandalism has been removed. Cheers ‡ Єl Cid of Valencia ^talk 18:11, 17 November 2020 (UTC)

The page is also not protected, so for simple vandalism like that you can go into the article's history and undo the change yourself. —Tenryuu 🐲 ( 💬 • 📝 ) 18:31, 17 November 2020 (UTC)

Marguerite Littman

Hi, I am familiar with uploading front and back of press photos at Wikimedia Commons, where the software allows me to list the alternate image on each file page under "other versions=". However, when uploading a fair-use image on Wikipedia, I do not see such an option. While uploading File:Marguerite Littman.jpg and giving it a fair-use license, I also uploaded the back of the photo here: File:Press photo of Marguerite Littman (back).jpg. Now I am getting a bot message on my talk page telling me that if I don't add the latter image to an article, the file will be deleted in 7 days. Do I have to worry about that? The back of the photo only corroborates the image details that I listed under File:Marguerite Littman.jpg. Or is there another way that I could combine the two images into one file that won't be deleted? Thank you for your help. Yoninah (talk) 19:28, 17 November 2020 (UTC)

@Yoninah: Well, that one is a bit of a mess. On the one hand, File:Press photo of Marguerite Littman (back).jpg is almost certainly not covered by copyright, since it contains merely text without any creative content (Threshold of originality not met). So you could just relicense it with the template {{pd-because}} (none of the more specific pd templates really fit).

On the other hand, the image is fairly useless in itself; maybe you should just copy the information it contains to the description page of the other image, and put a link to the source of the information there. (The vast majority of Commons description pages are unsourced, which is a bad thing IMO.) Tigraan^{Click here to contact me} 17:07, 19 November 2020 (UTC)

@Tigraan: thank you very much for your advice. I will do that. Yoninah (talk) 18:24, 19 November 2020 (UTC)

Category with wrong alphabetical entry.

I am having an issue with an article (Aime Hansen). I recently added some categories to the article and a defaultsort. The subject is properly alphabetized in the categories I added (20th-century Estonian poets and 21st-century Estonian poets). However, another category I added (University of Tartu alumni) shows her entry correctly in the H column, but last; not properly alphabetized. Rather confusing. Any ideas? Thank you ExRat (talk) 19:47, 17 November 2020 (UTC)

@ExRat: This should resolve itself in a few days. A software change is being installed behind the scenes - see here and here for discussion. -- John of Reading (talk) 19:59, 17 November 2020 (UTC)

Ah, I see. I thought I was doing something wrong and just couldn't figure it out! Cheers and thanks. ExRat (talk) 20:26, 17 November 2020 (UTC)

New page created

Good evening,

I created a new page on Wikipedia and would like to submit it to an editor for approval and publication. Could you kindly help?

User:Thecastle2020/sandbox/Lebohang Kganye

Many thanks,

Julie — Preceding unsigned comment added by Thecastle2020 (talk • contribs) 21:56, 17 November 2020 (UTC)

I have added the appropriate information to allow you to submit your draft for review. 331dot (talk) 22:00, 17 November 2020 (UTC)

Wikipedia Community

Is it possible to look for other wikipedians and if it is how? Also, I don't know how to add my self to the participants list for Wikipedia holidays.MargeIn (talk) 23:24, 17 November 2020 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by MargeIn (talk • contribs) 22:53, 17 November 2020 (UTC)

@MargeIn: What do you mean by "look for other Wikipedians"? To add yourself to the list you can click on the "edit source" link and add your name to the list. I might also suggest you try out The Wikipedia Adventure to get a hands-on interactive introduction to using Wikipedia. (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.) —Tenryuu 🐲 ( 💬 • 📝 ) 23:18, 17 November 2020 (UTC)

Thank you. What I meant about looking for other Wikipedians is connecting to them personally and discussing topics or contents with them, is this possible?MargeIn (talk) 23:39, 17 November 2020 (UTC)

MargeIn, Wikipedia focuses more on the content than the editors, so there's no directory to speak of. The closest things would be WikiProject groups and conversations would usually be carried out on someone's talk page. Just keep in mind that Wikipedia is not a social network and that striving to improve content is paramount. —Tenryuu 🐲 ( 💬 • 📝 ) 23:42, 17 November 2020 (UTC)

OK, thank you.MargeIn (talk) 23:46, 17 November 2020 (UTC)

I don't have a talkpage

Hi colleagues, I'm a user from the Italian Wikipedia! I still don't have a personal talkpage here on Wiki.en, it could be a problem if someone wants to talk with me. Thank you! Cicognac (talk) 23:06, 17 November 2020 (UTC)

Cicognac, if someone tries to start a conversation on your talk page, it will be made. —Tenryuu 🐲 ( 💬 • 📝 ) 23:11, 17 November 2020 (UTC)

Ah, don't you post some kind of "Welcome, dear new user!" template? We do in this way in Wiki.it whenever a new user is registered. Cicognac (talk) 23:16, 17 November 2020 (UTC)

Cicognac, it's not automated. They're arbitrarily given by friendly editors. —Tenryuu 🐲 ( 💬 • 📝 ) 23:20, 17 November 2020 (UTC)

Ok, next time I can ask someone to reply in a new page. Thanks! Cicognac (talk) 23:25, 17 November 2020 (UTC)