Wikipedia:Help desk/Archives/2022 July 11

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July 11

Edits to Rege Jean Page entry

Hello, I am making a constructive Edit to a Wikipedia page and I am being told by another editor that it is not appropriate. I have explained my reasoning, and think it's in the rules and scope of Wikipedia. Can you please help me understand why these are called inappropriate? I am looking at other biography entries and see similar information being provide.d Teachr332 (talk) 01:36, 11 July 2022 (UTC)

Teachr332, you seem to keep trying to add a recent dating relationship to the article, which you think is notable. Another editor thinks it is not, and that type of information belongs on a fansite and not an encyclopedia. There is no discussion on the talkpage of the article (Talk:Regé-Jean Page). This is a content dispute and if an agreement cannot be reached on the TP, then there are methods for WP:DISPUTE RESOLUTION. Do not continue to WP:EDITWAR, Wikipedia works by reaching WP:CONSENSUS. MB 01:56, 11 July 2022 (UTC)

Teachr332, in my opinion, you are trying hard to add gossipy content to this article. Plus, you are pretty close to edit warring, which is behavior that can result in a block. So, I advise you to rethink your approach, and gain consensus for your proposed changes at Talk: Regé-Jean Page. Cullen328 (talk) 02:50, 11 July 2022 (UTC)

Hi -- I am sorry, I am new to Wikipedia editing and do not wish to start a war. So thanks for letting me know how to dispute. I tried to defend my points, but it seems it needs to be done on the page. I will do that, because I believe my edits are appropriate information for a biography of a living person. Thanks. Teachr332 (talk) 02:55, 11 July 2022 (UTC)

@Teachr332: See also the Wikipedia:BOLD, revert, discuss cycle essay, which reinforces the advice you received above. Happy editing! GoingBatty (talk) 03:22, 11 July 2022 (UTC)

Thanks. That was helpful. I think this was resolved in the meantime, but that article helps me understand how to edit collaboratively. Teachr332 (talk) 04:09, 12 July 2022 (UTC)

My godson wants to help edit Australian Football pages

Hi, hope you can help. My 14 yo autistic grandchild has a total passion for Australian Rules Football statistics and obscure details relating to this sport. He has an almost total photographic recall of all data relating to all past game. A few months ago, he informed me he was editing data on pages where the details e.g. the scores of a game had been incorrectly reported by the producer of the entry. I was encouraging of his efforts but quite surprised he had been able to figure out how to do the edits by himself because he still struggles with literacy skills. Anyway, this was seemingly going along well for a few months until he informed me one day he had been banned from doing any more editing but was not sure why. I told him I'd look into it and help him get over this hurdle if its possible. I have some idea to continue in this role he probably needs to be registered with the Wiki community. By the way, I cross checked a few of the statistical corrections he had made and they were always correct. Can you please advise how to proceed? I myself am an oldy but Wiki is something very precious to me and, although a pensioner, I provide a small amount of funding to this critical project every year. John Quelch Geelong, Australia 58.179.176.196 (talk) 04:38, 11 July 2022 (UTC)

The problem is that your grandson is using his own memory, which can't be verified, a key component of Wikipedia. Other people need to know where that information comes from, and that is given by reliable sources. This means that even if what your grandson recalls is the truth, that's not how Wikipedia works. See Wikipedia:Verifiability, not truth. —Tenryuu 🐲 ( 💬 • 📝 ) 05:43, 11 July 2022 (UTC)

Hello John, I have two blindingly intelligent and detail-focused (excuse the inadequate term!) grandchildren aged 17 and 19, so I am fully aware of the scenario. (I well remember, when our grandson lived with my wife and me, our then 12 or 13-year-old saying "Can't wait till tomorrow when we can discuss string theory, Pappa" -- and being relived that I had 20 hours to swot!). I support Tenryuu's remarks but I can envisage the day when your grandson develops more advanced research skills that will allow him to contribute verifiable material. So my advice is: encourage him to come back in say three years. And in the meantime, speaking from personal experience, you'll need to become rather familiar with the editing process in Wikipedia so you can guide him. Open an account, which makes it easier for communication, including allowing people to catch your attention -- see the clickable elements in this signature? At the Help Desk you'll find plenty of really helpful people who can guide you along the way. Suggestion: look up pre-1950s newspaper articles in Trove, the National Library of Australia's digital newspaper repository, and search for -- say -- Geelong, wait till you see something interesting then add your findings to an existing article. I'd be very interested to find any newspaper articles about industrial action and other measures that contributed to Ford's departure.  :-) Cheers, Simon –  SCHolar44 (talk) 07:58, 11 July 2022 (UTC)

• The advice above is excellent, but it presupposes that your grandson was actually blocked for making edits without references. If your grandson edited without having registered an account, he might have been blocked through no fault of his own: non-registered users are blocked by IP address, and IP addresses are rotated between subscribers of the same internet service provider, so a block of some IP address might have been caused by person A’s actions but fall on person B. If you can point us to an article your grandson edited (assuming it is not too high-traffic) we can check out who edited it and see if any of those editors have been blocked.

It is not mandatory to register an account to edit Wikipedia, and edits from non-registered users ("IP users") are not supposed to be treated differently than edits from registered users. Registering does have some other advantages, such as being able to be granted some advanced permissions, easier communication with other editors, better attribution of edits, and the avoidance of IP-based blocks.

Finally, please do not give any more money than you can safely contribute. Wikipedia (or more accurately the Wikimedia Foundation, the organization behind it) is not at any risk of folding soon; if anything, the (unpaid) editors think it raises too much money for its own good, and that the alarmist fundraising banners ("Wikipedia needs you" etc.) are deceptive. Tigraan^{Click here for my talk page ("private" contact)} 10:00, 11 July 2022 (UTC)

Your grandchild may very well be right in the errors he finds. When he does find something that doesn't match his amazing memory, he just needs to find a published, reliable source that agrees with him. I hope that some of the published sources will be "correct". If he finds a published source, he can correct the article and cite (click here) the source. (He can't make corrections for cases where he can't find a source.) That will be the best outcome for him, and for Wikipedia's readers. 71.228.112.175 (talk) 09:22, 12 July 2022 (UTC)

Colorado Mesa University Student Trustee page deleted?

At one time there was a Wiki page that listed all of the Colorado Mesa University Student Trustees, I was using this for research, but it seems to have been deleted. I wondered if you might have a snap shot that you could send or re-create the page. Thank you. 2600:6C67:2C7F:D3F3:517F:ECA2:6C6A:AB2C (talk) 05:08, 11 July 2022 (UTC)

The page was redirected to Colorado Mesa University after the discussion at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Colorado Mesa University Student Trustee, so it is unlikely to be re-created, but all of the content is still available in the page history – for example, see Special:Permalink/976174770. DanCherek (talk) 05:11, 11 July 2022 (UTC)

Horrified by a search suggestion

I was looking for "Prime Number Theorem" and I accidentally typed "Prime Nimber Theorem".

I was horrified by the Not Found: did you mean this suggestion. Please fix. 161.168.148.43 (talk) 09:09, 11 July 2022 (UTC)

I'm not sure how that issue can be fixed. It is a close spelling to what you typed(albeit accidentally). There are legitimate reasons someone might search for that word. Wikipedia is not censored for any reason whatsoever. 331dot (talk) 09:11, 11 July 2022 (UTC)

In particular, the N-word is used in several article titles. It's an unfortunate suggestion here but hard to do something about without making it more difficult to actually find those articles. I think it would be too much censorship to make a list of offensive words the search suggestion may not suggest. PrimeHunter (talk) 09:39, 11 July 2022 (UTC)

Every mathematician knows that nimbers are never prime, hence there is no theorem. Clarityfiend (talk) 11:10, 12 July 2022 (UTC)

Clarityfiend Does the concept of division even exist on nimbers?Naraht (talk) 14:48, 13 July 2022 (UTC)

My mistake. Nimbers are never prume. Clarityfiend (talk) 22:42, 14 July 2022 (UTC)

Wikipedia is not censored, but that still looks like an algorithm failure. The suggested search isn't an article title, and the suggested egregiously-offensive term isn't the closest match to a Wikipedia article title or to any real word. (The proposed n-word is two letters away from nimber, whereas the correct 'guess' number is only one letter different.) TenOfAllTrades(talk) 15:45, 13 July 2022 (UTC)

It appears to no longer happen [1]. Bazza (talk) 15:50, 13 July 2022 (UTC)

I don't know the algorithm but the N-word search does give two non-title results. Maybe the algorithm checks that the suggestion does give at least one result but doesn't want to spend time testing whether other suggestions give better results. PrimeHunter (talk) 16:49, 13 July 2022 (UTC)

I never saw it happen for the "Nimber" version, but it does if you use an "n" for the "m": "prime ninber theorem" - R. S. Shaw (talk) 03:27, 14 July 2022 (UTC)

Talk page archive

Hello there, when will cluebot archive my talk page? I have been having lots of issues with it but I think I have sorted it now. I set it to 1 only archive if at least 1 discussion I think, although do you know when this will be? I originally took this to the bot operator although it seems they haven’t been around since January. Thanks! Blanchey 💬 • 📝 17:53, 11 July 2022 (UTC)

@Blanchey: Archiving bots usually run once a day. After you reduced minkeepthreads today [2] there should be something to archive in the next run. The time of day for a specific page can vary. You can come back if it hasn't archived in two days. PrimeHunter (talk) 20:09, 11 July 2022 (UTC)

You can also perform the archiving manually if required. You may wish to enquire about how to do that. Pablothepenguin (talk) 19:14, 12 July 2022 (UTC)

It turned out I hadn’t coded it correctly hence why it wasn’t working. Another editor helped me and let me copy theirs! Blanchey 💬 • 📝 21:05, 13 July 2022 (UTC)

Wikipedia Library

Since I've been a user on Wikipedia for about 6 months, I'm now elegible for the wikipedia library. Can anybody of you please tell me what is it about and what is its use? ~~~~ ♡Shenshouting♡^{talk and talk} 18:09, 11 July 2022 (UTC)

@Shenshouting: The Wikipedia Library lets you access sources in certain databases on websites like JSTOR, ProQuest, De Gruyter, and much more. This can be really helpful if you are trying to locate or access sources for an article, because they would otherwise be behind a paywall. Wikipedia:The Wikipedia Library has more information about it, so I recommend trying it out and seeing the available databases for yourself. (There are some collections that automatically come with TWL, and others that you can apply for if you want to access them.) DanCherek (talk) 18:15, 11 July 2022 (UTC)

Thanks ♡Shenshouting♡^{talk and talk} 18:30, 11 July 2022 (UTC)

Is this a CopyVio?

On the page for Montcuq, there was an external link to a DailyMotion video, which I'm pretty sure was not properly licenced from the copyright holders. I removed it already

Was this a copyright violaion? QuickQuokka ^{[⁠talk • contribs]} 20:28, 11 July 2022 (UTC)

@QuickQuokka: Yes. Linking to copyright violations is no different from adding them to the article directly. (See also WP:ELNEVER.) —Jéské Couriano v^_^v ^{a little blue Bori} 21:42, 11 July 2022 (UTC)