Wikipedia:Help desk/Archives/2022 July 18

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July 18

Carlton Rouh page

Hello, Carlton Rouh was born in Camden, NJ and died in Lindenwold, NJ. His wikipedia page says the opposite. A small matter but maybe someone could fix that. My mother, his niece, is still alive and can confirm. 173.61.72.123 (talk) 00:03, 18 July 2022 (UTC)

Your mother, his niece, is not a reliable published source as needed to be cited in order to change biographical content here on Wikipedia. Do you have a such a source for the change you are requesting? General Ization ^Talk 00:13, 18 July 2022 (UTC)

This published, military source, one of the references for the page, states that Rouh died in Camden, and the Military Times reported he was born in Lindenwold, both as currently reported in our article. General Ization ^Talk 00:16, 18 July 2022 (UTC)

FEDCO Stores

I have a newer FEDCO membership card than the one shown on the FEDCO Wikipedia page. I would like to donate a photo(front and back) of it for your FEDCO Stores page. How do I do that? I don't really want to be a page editor. I just want to help out by providing a more current membership card. Nose4News2022 (talk) 01:13, 18 July 2022 (UTC)

You can upload a new image by using the Wikipedia:File Upload Wizard, and add it to the article by editing the page and swapping the existing image for the new one. If you can't edit a page but still want to contribute the image, another user may be able to edit it for you. Of course, I'd advise against uploading the card if you're currently using it, or if it that has identifying information on it. WelpThatWorked (talk) 01:36, 18 July 2022 (UTC)

Wikipedia on iPhone 11

Wikipedia is not opening on my iPhone 11. I get an error message, "Unrecognized value for parameter 'action'". I have been a user and supporter of Wikipedia for many years and this problem just started. Halfcreek (talk) 03:55, 18 July 2022 (UTC)

@Halfcreek: I had a similar problem on my PC earlier today, but the issue quickly went away - see https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T301505. Are you still having the issue? Are you using an app or accessing Wikipedia via a browser. If a browser, which brand and version, and mobile or desktop mode? Thanks! GoingBatty (talk) 04:04, 18 July 2022 (UTC)

Question about Gerrit

Is it possible to make a private patch that isn't meant to go production, then later it could either be set to public (going to production), or removed? – Ilovemydoodle (talk) 04:09, 18 July 2022 (UTC)

Does this question relate to using Wikipedia (which is what this Help desk is for)? If not, you might be more likely to get a useful response by posting it on the Computers and IT Reference Desk. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 90.193.129.9 (talk) 04:42, 18 July 2022 (UTC)

It does! By 'gerrit', I mean Wikimedia Gerrit. – 05:06, 18 July 2022 (UTC) Ilovemydoodle (talk) 05:06, 18 July 2022 (UTC)

Pretty much everything on Wikipedia is public. Shantavira|^{feed me} 08:43, 18 July 2022 (UTC)

In that case, please ask at either WP:VPT, or at MW:Help. Must of the people who hang out at this page know little about the software underlying WP. ColinFine (talk) 10:32, 18 July 2022 (UTC)

Maybe the answer is to make a WP:SANDBOX? This allows experienting in Wikipedia format but in private. Or else a WP:USERPAGE?ch (talk) 19:10, 18 July 2022 (UTC)

@CWH: Userpages and sandboxes are visible to everyone. RudolfRed (talk) 20:02, 18 July 2022 (UTC)

True, but sometimes useful. I sometimes open a Sandbox, do some edits only "Previewing," not "Publish," then copy the whole thing into Word (or whatever), and only then "Cancel." OK, not very often, but sometimes I just want to try a draft to see if the links and formatting work.ch (talk) 22:01, 18 July 2022 (UTC)

Government of Ethiopia

I want an image of official portrait of president of Ethiopia and can you help how can retrieve their permission from the (URL with invalid security certificate removed)? I want serious help by someone else. The Supermind (talk) 08:10, 18 July 2022 (UTC)

I removed the URL from the above. Expired certificate warnings. - X201 (talk) 08:16, 18 July 2022 (UTC)

If the website's certificates are out-of-date, nobody here is likely to be able to help you - most modern browsers will prevent connections to websites whose certificates are bad. —Jéské Couriano v^_^v ^{a little blue Bori} 08:51, 18 July 2022 (UTC)

AfD duration

An article that I made was nominated for deletion two weeks ago, no other wiki user has commented on if it should be deleted other than the original nominator, how long will the AfD discussion stay if no one else posts? Seigerman (talk) 12:57, 18 July 2022 (UTC)

Seigerman, the discussion has been relisted twice and generally should not be relisted again per WP:RELIST, so the discussion could be closed after another week or so. Obviously that depends on how long an editor takes to see the discussion and decide to close it. TSventon (talk) 13:10, 18 July 2022 (UTC)

Number separator formatting

Hi,

Simple question, is there an adopted number formatting across wikipedia? We know that some countries use space, dot or comma to separate thousands and others use comma / dot for decimal units. Wikipedia being a worldwide open source of knowledge, I think that ISO-31 formatting should be considered, that is: space for thousands and dot for decimal.

The question arose while reading physical properties (mass and radius) of the Sun and Earth here on wikipedia, where units are not consistent between pages. I am sure this matter was already considered (maybe some numbers are stores as strings of text if not introduced in proper format by the writer)

Thank you, Alexandr Rosca Mawerick mc (talk) 15:58, 18 July 2022 (UTC)

@Mawerick mc: Welcome. Wikipedia uses . (dot) as the decimal separator never a comma. Sometimes comma is used for grouping and sometimes spacing such as in science and technology articles. See WP:DECIMAL and WP:DIGITS for more info RudolfRed (talk) 16:03, 18 July 2022 (UTC)

Adding a name

I am trying to add my name to the list in the category “Trans rights activists from the United States.” But seems I keep getting it wrong. Is there anyone who can help please? Below are the details including my name which can be found in other categories of trans activism in Wikipedia but can supply references if needed to support my addition to the page.

Thanks very much Anthony Barreto-Neto T.O.P.S Transgender Officers Protect and Serve, 1995 State of Florida. tbnlh (talk) 17:09, 18 July 2022 (UTC)

Hi tbnlh Categories are not lists of names, they are lists of articles. At the foot of each article are the categories that article is listed under - as you do not have an article, you cannot, therefore, be included in any category - best wishes - Arjayay (talk) 17:24, 18 July 2022 (UTC),

Hello, Tbnlh. A Google Books search indicates that you are probably notable and therefore eligible for a Wikipedia biography. I see you and your work discussed in at least five books. Cullen328 (talk) 21:26, 18 July 2022 (UTC)

Liason with professional organization?

If I want to encourage my professional academic group to think about organizing help, who should at Wikipedia should I contact? ch (talk) 19:17, 18 July 2022 (UTC)

Probably someone involved with WP:Wikied. ~ ONUnicorn^{(Talk|Contribs)}problem solving 19:26, 18 July 2022 (UTC)

What happened to the named reference option in source editor?

When editing with the source editor, there used to be an option to pull up named references (see the ref toolbar at Help:Referencing for beginners. Now, despite using the source editor, I am seeing the citation option in the visual editor seen at WP:REFVISUAL. The re-use option is greyed out, so the only way I can see to use a named reference is to search for the reference name in the article. (If I switch to the visual editor, it does allow me to reuse a reference). Additionally, it seems unusual that there is no option to name a reference when filling out the new citation form without manually going into the source editor. Is using named references no longer encouraged? Thanks!  Ryan Vesey 19:28, 18 July 2022 (UTC)

Hello, Ryan Vesey. I cannot help you with the technical challenge, because I create my references manually, using citation templates. I can assure you that named references are definitely encouraged and I create them all the time. Cullen328 (talk) 21:31, 18 July 2022 (UTC)

Hi @Ryan Vesey. It is still there for me. You have to click on the "Cite" at the end of the first line of the toolbar to make the references part of the toolbar appear. See meta:Community Wishlist Survey 2019/Status report 1#Named References in VE for a discussion of the difficulties with named references in the Visual Editor. StarryGrandma (talk) 22:28, 18 July 2022 (UTC)

@Ryan Vesey - but when I enable the beta feature "New wikitext mode" in preferences, I see what you are seeing - the VE toolbar and the grayed out reuse references even though there are named references there. You can turn it off in the Beta tab in your preferences. StarryGrandma (talk) 23:22, 18 July 2022 (UTC)

Create my actor knowledge panel

I am an Indian film actor and I want you to create my wikipedia knowledge panel — Preceding unsigned comment added by ActorsFirdaush (talk • contribs) 19:32, 18 July 2022 (UTC)

@ActorsFirdaush: I'm sorry, but Wikipedia does not have knowledge panels, rather, it has articles about notable subjects. Note that it is strongly not recommended to write about yourself, as then you would have a conflict of interest and it would be harder to write neutrally. Hope this helps. weeklyd3 (block | talk | contributions) 19:34, 18 July 2022 (UTC)

...but if you really want to do it, you can try the Articles for Creation project, where drafts are written and then reviewed by someone else before appearing in Wikipedia's article space. weeklyd3 (block | talk | contributions) 19:36, 18 July 2022 (UTC)

You may also want to use the article wizard. weeklyd3 (block | talk | contributions) 19:37, 18 July 2022 (UTC)

Are you by any chance referring to a photo or text shown to the right of a Google search? Google's Knowledge Graph uses a wide variety of sources. There may be a text paragraph ending with "Wikipedia" to indicate that particular text was copied from Wikipedia. An image and other text before or after the Wikipedia excerpt may be from sources completely unrelated to Wikipedia. We have no control over how Google presents our information, but Google's Knowledge Graph has a "Feedback" link where anyone can mark a field as wrong. The same feedback facility is also provided on Bing and some other search engines.~ ONUnicorn^{(Talk|Contribs)}problem solving 19:38, 18 July 2022 (UTC)

FYI - account has been globally blocked for spamming. TimTempleton ^{(talk) (cont)} 21:12, 18 July 2022 (UTC)

How much weight do dictionaries get?

How are reputable dictionaries weighted compared to other reliable secondary sources on wikipedia?

For example, if the consensus among scholars in a field like psychology is different or more nuanced than the most common dictionary definition, then which definition has precedence on the page? And does this change for a specialized dictionary like a medical dictionary?

WP:NEUTRAL, WP:DICTIONARIES and WP:RELIABLE don't make it clear how different types of sources should be weighted, other than a preference for secondary sources. But let's say you're on a page that covers many topics and academic fields, such as woman. If you have 100 reliable sources that say one thing, and the dictionary definition says a slightly different thing, then which consensus gets the lede? I'm aware of WP:LEADFOLLOWSBODY, but it seems like this is often a chicken and egg issue where there is resistance to changing the body based on what's already in the lede.

And also, it would seem that dictionaries are mostly reliable, but may sometimes go counter to this line in WP:UNDUE: Keep in mind that, in determining proper weight, we consider a viewpoint's prevalence in reliable sources, not its prevalence among Wikipedia editors or the general public. Since English language dictionaries are usually representative of the general public (common usage), does that mean there are situations where they are not WP:RELIABLE? — Preceding unsigned comment added by The void century (talk • contribs) 19:35, 18 July 2022 (UTC)

Wikipedia articles are more than dictionary definitions. I would give substantive sources a lot more weight in any article than a dictionary. However, are you talking about specialized use of terms vs. common use of terms? If so, ideally both would be covered. Perhaps in one article, or perhaps in multiple articles, such as what we have for water.~ ONUnicorn^{(Talk|Contribs)}problem solving 19:47, 18 July 2022 (UTC)

 Courtesy context link: Talk:Woman § Propose adding word "typically" to lede

Regarding "...where there is resistance to changing the body based on what's already in the lede": I see no evidence to support this statement. The opposite is rather the case: there is often a rush to change the lead, in the absence of having laid a proper framework in the body to support it. This is a very typical newbie approach, and can even be seen among more experienced editors and is not altogether surprising, as the lead is the first thing one sees in the article; studies show that many readers never read past the lead (and editors were readers first). As you pointed out, WP:LEADFOLLOWSBODY is the way to go. Mathglot (talk) 20:19, 18 July 2022 (UTC)

Needing help with a table

I have been working to update the Tornado intensity#Typical damage chart with the most recent scale and came across an issue that I can't solve. If you look at the scale, the T0/T1 + T2/T3 + T4/T5 need to be in the middle of the three IF scales (IF0, IF1, IF2) respectively. The chart currently has the T numbers as 1 large followed by a 2 large block. If anyone can fix the chart to where it is in the middle of the 3 IF scale numbers, it would be much appreciated. Elijahandskip (talk) 20:59, 18 July 2022 (UTC)

@Elijahandskip: It depends on the browser. It already looked as wanted in Firefox but not Edge. Setting a larger width in T0 than IF0- and so on didn't work for me (they both displayed at the larger width). I found another solution [1] that works for me but it's not elegant. Screen readers may ignore the hidden borders and report a lot of cells to the left of "Intense" but that seems acceptable. PrimeHunter (talk) 23:56, 18 July 2022 (UTC)