Wikipedia:Help desk/Archives/2022 November 5

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November 5

Jerry Lee Lewis is listed at October 28 2022 as dead, but.....

https://www.tmz.com/2022/10/26/jerry-lee-lewis-not-dead/ 72.17.81.138 (talk) 01:15, 5 November 2022 (UTC)

WP:TMZ says "Most editors consider TMZ a low-quality source and prefer more reliable sources when available." Dentsinhere43 is a new Wikipedian. 01:34, 5 November 2022 (UTC)

Yes, and also this was published before the official announcement of his death that's currently cited in Lewis's article. —VersaceSpace 🌃 01:37, 5 November 2022 (UTC)

As a rule we do not cite scandal rags, and this includes TMZ. —Jéské Couriano v^_^v ^{a little blue Bori} 01:52, 5 November 2022 (UTC)

User pages (not about myself)

Are users allowed to publically declare that they plan to commit suicide in the future on their user page? —VersaceSpace 🌃 02:00, 5 November 2022 (UTC)

Absolutely not. Follow the advice at Wikipedia:Responding to threats of harm and contact emergency@wikimedia.org immediately. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 03:52, 5 November 2022 (UTC)

How Can I Improve Ethiopia?

I am planning to make Ethiopia eligible for Good Articles. What text should be changed in the article? SpyridisioAnnis (talk) 08:47, 5 November 2022 (UTC)

See Talk:Ethiopia#GA Review. The assessment suggests that substantial work is needed - it isn't a matter of changing a few words of text, and will very likely need revision by someone both familiar with the topic, and with writing Wikipedia content according to relevant policies and guidelines. Not something I'd recommend for a newcomer to the project. AndyTheGrump (talk) 10:08, 5 November 2022 (UTC)

I Am Not New To Wikipedia SpyridisioAnnis (talk) 13:47, 5 November 2022 (UTC)

With respect, I'm not sure how Andy would know that, considering you have made 137 edits and are asking how to improve an article you haven't edited. Lee Vilenski ^{(talk • contribs)} 13:51, 5 November 2022 (UTC)

Your five months at Wikipedia (SpyridisioAnnis (talk · contribs)) have not been completely smooth sailing. Bazza (talk) 14:19, 5 November 2022 (UTC)

OK! I will fix it... SpyridisioAnnis (talk) 14:21, 5 November 2022 (UTC)

Hello

I retired a few months ago and requested my account's rights to be lowered as well. I have finally decided that I am going to contribute to Wikipedia again, can you please reinstate the rights of my account? Thankyou. zoglophie 13:46, 5 November 2022 (UTC)

I will write this request in appropriate page which I just found. Thanks zoglophie 14:04, 5 November 2022 (UTC)

wanted ads

Is there a place to put a wanted ad on this site? IE I am looking for someone to fix my car. 2001:569:F015:8D00:78E7:F02:518C:2821 (talk) 17:08, 5 November 2022 (UTC)

No is the short answer. I'm not sure if this has ever been asked before.--♦IanMacM♦ ^{(talk to me)} 17:10, 5 November 2022 (UTC)

Craigslist or similar sites are probably what you're looking for. —Tenryuu 🐲 ( 💬 • 📝 ) 18:04, 5 November 2022 (UTC)

No. This is an encyclopedia, not a jobs wanted website. ― Blaze Wolf^Talk_{Blaze Wolf#6545} 20:16, 5 November 2022 (UTC)

Try Yelp if it is available where you live. Cullen328 (talk) 18:30, 6 November 2022 (UTC)

Regex search usernames

Is there a way to search registered usernames using a regular expression? ■ ∃ Madeline ⇔ ∃ Part of me ; 20:04, 5 November 2022 (UTC)

I don't believe there is a way, at least not on Wikipedia. The closest thing I am aware off is this API query, which tells you for a given username wether it is able to be registered, and if not, why (including, but not limited to, usernames blocked by the antispoof extension). Victor Schmidt (talk) 22:31, 5 November 2022 (UTC)

Hm, I'm asking because in the past weeks I've seen several usernames in the form "location + political party" and thought it'd be interesting to see how many like that there are. ■ ∃ Madeline ⇔ ∃ Part of me ; 22:40, 5 November 2022 (UTC)

They would be inappropriate as implying shared use rather than identifying an individual. -- Verbarson  ^talk_edits 22:50, 5 November 2022 (UTC)

I know that and report them when they crop up, just wondered whether I could enumerate all of them. ■ ∃ Madeline ⇔ ∃ Part of me ; 22:53, 5 November 2022 (UTC)

@Maddy from Celeste Not regex but / it does have regex works well for querying usernames: global user search —*Fehufangą (✉ Talk · ✎ Contribs) 23:06, 5 November 2022 (UTC)

Thank you! From what I can tell there's no pattern with these obvious accounts, at least when it comes to the US parties. Very useful tool in any case. ■ ∃ Madeline ⇔ ∃ Part of me ; 23:24, 5 November 2022 (UTC)

Maybe not really helpful but, you can search user space for titles that contain the word 'party'. This simple search finds about 580 User talk pages that contain the word. I chose User talk because User space is more likely to have sandboxen etc with the word as a legitimate part of the subpage title. Here is a search for 'republican party' (~12 user talk pages), for 'democratic party' (19 user pages), and for independent party (1 user page).

—Trappist the monk (talk) 23:08, 5 November 2022 (UTC)

@Maddy from Celeste: This API query should be enough to write a script. RAN1 (talk) 23:17, 5 November 2022 (UTC)

Missed the regex comment. RAN1 (talk) 23:31, 5 November 2022 (UTC)

Quick review of Draft:Mark Keil before submitting for review

Hi All,

I have created a draft wiki page Draft:Mark Keil, a professor in the field of Information systems. I am planning to submit it for review. Can you please take a look at it and suggest any things to do before submitting it for review? I am not sure if there are any specific steps to be followed before submitting it for review. Thank you. Vamsy Alapati (talk) 23:22, 5 November 2022 (UTC)

@Vamsy Alapati You have lots of sources but I think the structure of the article is a bit wrong. WP:LEAD says that the first section (before the contents box that gets added automatically) should summarise the main part of the article. Hence I'm always a bit concerned when sources quoted in the lead are not used anywhere else. I suggest you move some of the material from the current lead into the body text. Some excellent articles don't mention sources at all in the lead. Mike Turnbull (talk) 18:02, 6 November 2022 (UTC)

Hi @Michael D. Turnbull, Thank you pointing that out. Even I felt a little discomfort in having those in the LEAD section of the page, but I couldn't think of a better way to write about them without make a big notes about it at the time. But I have submitted the article for review and it got approved. However, that section of the LEAD was deleted by a user saying it is not relevant over there (which you suggested above). Can you please have a look and suggest an idea on how to add the secondary sources in the article to make it stronger? Vamsy Alapati (talk) 18:01, 8 November 2022 (UTC)