Wikipedia:Help desk/Archives/2022 November 24

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November 24

Instrumentation list

Disregard, resolved

MyCatIsAChonk (talk) 12:46, 24 November 2022 (UTC)

@MyCatIsAChonk Did you edit this Help Desk page to remove your question and possibly any answers? If so, you should not do that. I would restore your question myself, if I felt confident that I could do it without reverting any of the later questions. Just FYI. David10244 (talk) 18:22, 25 November 2022 (UTC)

Transfer contributions made when not logged in to my account

Hi there! Thanks in advance for your help. I have made some contributions before I decided to create an account. Can these contributions somehow get transferred to my account? The IP is static, so I use it every day. Thanks! Kupferdachrinne (talk) 08:20, 24 November 2022 (UTC)

This is not possible in the slightest, regardless of if it's IP -> account, account -> account, or account -> IP. —Jéské Couriano v^_^v ^{a little blue Bori} 08:29, 24 November 2022 (UTC)

Hi Kupferdachrinne. There's no way to do such a thing since proper attribution needs to be maintained as explained in WP:DELETEACCOUNT. You can, however, post something on your new user page stating that you made some edits using that IP account if you want. Similarly, if you're worried about people being able to connect the IP to your new account, you can make a WP:REVDEL request so that the IP address is hidden from anyone who's not a Wikipedia administrator or above. -- Marchjuly (talk) 08:30, 24 November 2022 (UTC)

Alright. Thank you for the quick responses! Have a great day! — Preceding unsigned comment added by Kupferdachrinne (talk • contribs) 08:52, 24 November 2022 (UTC)

Ripon College Cuddesdon

Please repair ref number 3 on this page. but leave in the quotes if you can - thanks 175.38.42.62 (talk) 11:52, 24 November 2022 (UTC)

 Done Maproom (talk) 12:43, 24 November 2022 (UTC)

A re-re-re-directing problem

Talk:Keyboard technology #Incomplete re-re-re-directing

Ping welcome, Steue (talk) 12:13, 24 November 2022 (UTC)

Problem fixed (not by me). Maproom (talk) 16:12, 24 November 2022 (UTC)

How to cite an article that's available as a PDF with a password

I want to cite the following work: Gommers, Mark (2019). Analysis of offset joining knots (PDF).. It's a PDF article, not a book as such, but it wasn't published in a journal, but by the Professional Association of Climbing Instructors (http://www.paci.com.au). The PDF has the password "copyright". What's the right way to format the citation? --Slashme (talk) 16:21, 24 November 2022 (UTC)

{{Cite web |last=Gommers |first=Mark |url=http://www.paci.com.au/downloads_public/knots/Analysis_Offset-Joining-Knots.pdf |url-access=subscription |title=Analysis of offset joining knots |website=Professional Association of Climbing Instructors |date=2019}}

Gommers, Mark (2019). "Analysis of offset joining knots" (PDF). Professional Association of Climbing Instructors.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 18:43, 24 November 2022 (UTC)

Hi Trappist, I'd also like the reader to know the password - it's not secret, just a reminder that this is copyrighted material. Is there a field that can be used for this in the template? --Slashme (talk) 12:15, 25 November 2022 (UTC)

@Slashme I would use http://www.paci.com.au/knots.php as the url, since that page includes the instructions on how to open the pdf. I don't think |url-access=subscription is a suitable choice here, the source doesn't require a payment to access. 163.1.15.238 (talk) 12:40, 25 November 2022 (UTC)

Thanks, good idea. I'll do that. --Slashme (talk) 13:51, 25 November 2022 (UTC)

Tool to check all revisions of a page by a user?

is there a tool that, given a page and a user, lists all revisions of that page by that user? for now i only know https://sigma.toolforge.org/editorinteract.py , which i could put two users who edited the same page in it, then i get what i want in the timeline, but this is an indirect method. RZuo (talk) 18:23, 24 November 2022 (UTC)

@RZuo: At the top of the history tab there is a line of tools. The two labelled "Find edits by user" and, next to it, "Alternate" should do what you want. -- John of Reading (talk) 07:52, 25 November 2022 (UTC)

Linking in references

Hello, I'd like to know whether adding internal links within references is encouraged or not. To illustrate what I mean, here are two references from Baháʼí House of Worship that are formatted differently:

• Smith, Peter (2022). "Ch. 41: The History of the Bábí and Bahá'í Faiths". In Stockman, Robert H. (ed.). The World of the Bahá’í Faith. Oxfordshire, UK: Routledge. pp. 501–512. doi:10.4324/9780429027772-48. ISBN 978-1-138-36772-2.
• Garlington, William (2006). "Indian Baha'i tradition". In Mittal, Sushil; Thursby, Gene R. (eds.). Religions of South Asia. London: Routledge. pp. 247–260. ISBN 0415223903.

In the first example, the author, the editor, and the publisher are all linked, whereas in the second example none of those have links. Which way is considered better on Wikipedia? Thanks, Gazelle55 (talk) 22:38, 24 November 2022 (UTC)

If a Wikipedia article about an author or editor exists, it's usual to link the article in a reference. If an article doesn't exist, I personally don't think creating a redlink in a reference is a good idea. (An article about a different person of the same name might be created, and the link would then lead to an article about the wrong person. If an article about the actual author or editor should come to be created, the creator of the article ought to search for mentions of him or her in other articles and add the necessary links.) The publisher is a somewhat different matter: If the publisher has already been linked previously in the list of references, there's probably no real reason to repeat the link; and a link to a publisher's article may be thought unnecessary in any event. Deor (talk) 15:55, 25 November 2022 (UTC)

@Gazelle55: Forgot to ping. Deor (talk) 15:57, 25 November 2022 (UTC)

Thanks Deor, and does this mean if there are multiple sources with the same author or editor we should only link the first one (like with the publisher)? Gazelle55 (talk) 17:31, 25 November 2022 (UTC)

@Gazelle55: I would probably link only the first instance (especially if the reference list is short), but there are no firm rules or guidelines about the matter. Deor (talk) 18:36, 26 November 2022 (UTC)

The purpose of citations is to assist the reader in locating a copy of the source that supports our article's text. Wikilinking author- and editor-names, title, publisher, newspaper, periodical, website names doesn't really help with that. All of those wikilinks in a References section create a sea of blue that can obscure the important links to copies of the source. Yeah, I know that internal links are colored a different blue from external links but the difference isn't that great. For me, unless it is absolutely necessary to link these citation components, I would not do so. Except for organized bibliographic listings, you can't just link the first one because Wikipedia articles are not static; you can expect that citation order will change.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 18:00, 25 November 2022 (UTC)

Thanks for the advice, Trappist the monk. Gazelle55 ^{Let's talk!} 18:53, 25 November 2022 (UTC)

I think it's marginally useful for someone looking at a reference to see that an author is notable enough to have a WP article, and to visit that article if he or she wants to. There's a reason that "author-link" and similar fields are included in citation templates, after all. Of course, one should use discretion; there's no point in including a link to J. R. R. Tolkien in a ref that's in J. R. R. Tolkien. Deor (talk) 18:36, 26 November 2022 (UTC)