Wikipedia:Help desk/Archives/2022 October 27

Welcome to the Wikipedia Help Desk Archives
The page you are currently viewing is an archive page. While you can leave answers for any questions shown below, please ask new questions on one of the current Help Desk pages.

October 27

How to prevent continuous vandalism

Hello, I have a problem with a user that continuously adds unrelated information on a page and to make it legit adds a reference. However, when you check the reference(s) name of the person is never mentioned it. I told him several times about this, but still, the use insists. I wonder what would be the next step. Should I mention the problem on the "notice board"? Erfan2017 (talk) 01:12, 27 October 2022 (UTC)

Hello, Erfan2017. On Wikipedia, vandalism has a very specific and narrow definition, which is editing (or other behavior) deliberately intended to obstruct or defeat the project's purpose, which is to create a free encyclopedia, in a variety of languages, presenting the sum of all human knowledge. The edits you object to do not meet that definition of vandalism. There are several forms of dispute resolution available to you. Please use them and please be careful to avoid using the word "vandalism" unless it is indisputably accurate. Cullen328 (talk) 05:19, 27 October 2022 (UTC)

account

how can i delete my account? Mhloverbae64 (talk) 01:52, 27 October 2022 (UTC)

Accounts cannot be deleted for technical and legal reasons. —Jéské Couriano v^_^v ^{a little blue Bori} 02:08, 27 October 2022 (UTC)

@Mhloverbae64 Since you have only made four edits, three of which were WP:Reverted, I suggest you just abandon the account and not worry about it. No-one can trace the additions you made to your real-life identity. Accounts are not deleted because Wikipedia needs to know for copyright reasons which account was responsible for each edit made. Mike Turnbull (talk) 13:31, 27 October 2022 (UTC)

Armstrong Siddeley

Please repair ref number 9 and leave in quotes. Sorry and thank you in advance. 115.70.23.77 (talk) 03:10, 27 October 2022 (UTC)

Sorry - it is ref number 9 where the trouble is (there is red writing)- I cannot fix it. thanks 115.70.23.77 (talk) 03:28, 27 October 2022 (UTC)

In the error message the word "help" is in blue, indicating that it is a wikilink, in this case to Help:CS1 errors#invisible char. - David Biddulph (talk) 05:50, 27 October 2022 (UTC)

David Biddulph, this is our old technically-challenged friend from Australia who isn't (and will never be) able to follow such instructions. It's easier just to fix the (usually straightforward) problem in question, which I see Eagleash has already done. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 90.212.157.244 (talk) 04:17, 28 October 2022 (UTC)

David was in on this right at the beginning and knows the editor (and their issues) as well as any of us. Does persist in leaving similar advice though. I fixed the error via a CS1 category and did not see this thread untill I had done so. Eagleash (talk) 08:51, 28 October 2022 (UTC)

my page is blocked and unable to edit

Please let me know what changes required to be done, so that I can make changes accordingly . Being new to this, I do not know what all I can write.

Please allow me to edit the contents and make it live. Delhiraghu (talk) 05:03, 27 October 2022 (UTC)

Hello, Delhiraghu. It seems that you misunderstand the purpose of Wikipedia. Unreferenced, overtly self-promotional autobiographical content is simply not allowed here. Try Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, YouTube, TikTok or any other social media site where such content is encouraged. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, not a social media site. Cullen328 (talk) 05:10, 27 October 2022 (UTC)

How do I add this History to Wikipedia

A life-long native of Memphis, Tennessee Shelandra Ford was elected in August 2018 after competing in the Primary and General elections in Shelby County. Ford made History as she was elected as the first elected African American and first female elected to the position of Shelby County Register of Deeds. 167.29.0.4 (talk) 14:36, 27 October 2022 (UTC)

The county register of deeds, even of a major urban county such as Shelby (I'm from Chester County myself) is simply not notable enough to call for an article about them. Those people in Wikipedia who are or have been registers of deeds are in here because they also achieved something notable, such as membership in the state or federal legislature, etc. --Orange Mike | Talk 15:29, 27 October 2022 (UTC)

Also: I'm wondering whether it is possible that an African-American may have been elected to that office during the Reconstruction era, only to have the information forgotten or almost suppressed, in the period when the white power structure regained control in Shelby County? --Orange Mike | Talk 15:32, 27 October 2022 (UTC)

Geographic coordinates

How to easily generate geographical coordinates ? I need to add some geographical coordinates to the articles that I created recently. Thanks Taung Tan (talk) 16:49, 27 October 2022 (UTC)

Hello, Taung Tan. Please read Wikipedia:How to add geocodes to articles. Cullen328 (talk) 17:00, 27 October 2022 (UTC)

@Taung Tan: I've added coordinates to Shwe Yin Myaw Pagoda as an example. If you want help with other articles, ask me on my talk page. (Or if you're willing to wait a bit, The Anomebot2 runs every few weeks, tagging articles with the {{Coord missing}} template, and I or some other editor who monitors the various categories of articles needing coordinates will eventually add the coordinates.) Deor (talk) 17:31, 27 October 2022 (UTC)

Probably the wrong place, but is this template showing up with a broken image to anyone else

Well sorry, I'm sure this is the wrong place but I couldn't think of a good place to ask this. Is there some sort of technical board for this? Regardless, {{Finland-musician-stub}} is appearing oddly for me. Invoked here:

It seems to have a broken image for me; however, if I visit the file referenced in the template File:musicalnotesFinland.png I can see the image fine. I'm not sure what's going on and if this is just me or happening to others as well. TartarTorte 18:40, 27 October 2022 (UTC)

I'm having the same issue. WP:VPT might be a better place to ask if people here can't answer it. ― Blaze Wolf^Talk_{Blaze Wolf#6545} 18:44, 27 October 2022 (UTC)

Sounds good. Glad(?) to hear it's not just me. I'll take it over there. Thanks! TartarTorte 18:45, 27 October 2022 (UTC)

 Fixed ■ ∃ Madeline ⇔ ∃ Part of me ; 18:50, 27 October 2022 (UTC)

@Maddy from Celeste: What do you mean? It looks the exact same. Only different is it has a link now. ― Blaze Wolf^Talk_{Blaze Wolf#6545} 18:55, 27 October 2022 (UTC)

@Maddy from Celeste: I'm still having the issue —VersaceSpace 🌃 18:55, 27 October 2022 (UTC)

Is it? [1] (which is what {{asbox}} is generating) is showing "Our servers are currently under maintenance or experiencing a technical problem." Bazza (talk) 18:57, 27 October 2022 (UTC)

Huh, it certainly fixed it for me … ■ ∃ Madeline ⇔ ∃ Part of me ; 19:00, 27 October 2022 (UTC)

What's your browser and OS? ― Blaze Wolf^Talk_{Blaze Wolf#6545} 19:02, 27 October 2022 (UTC)

Firefox on macOS currently, but it was my edits to the template which made it render as normal for me. ■ ∃ Madeline ⇔ ∃ Part of me ; 19:03, 27 October 2022 (UTC)

Hmm... interesting. I'll try making a null edit and see if that fixes it. Nevermind I can't make a null edit cause it's template protected lol. ― Blaze Wolf^Talk_{Blaze Wolf#6545} 19:03, 27 October 2022 (UTC)

You mean {{Finland-musician-stub}}? Because that isn't protected… ■ ∃ Madeline ⇔ ∃ Part of me ; 19:06, 27 October 2022 (UTC)

Oh. I thought I had clicked on that template but I must've accidentally clicked on the as box. ― Blaze Wolf^Talk_{Blaze Wolf#6545} 19:07, 27 October 2022 (UTC)

Intermittent? The error message from Wikimedia is "Request from <ip-address redacted> via cp3055 cp3055, Varnish XID 745869069

Upstream caches: cp3055 int Error: 429, Too Many Requests at Thu, 27 Oct 2022 19:01:45 GMT". Bazza (talk) 19:02, 27 October 2022 (UTC)

This is also discussed at Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)#{{Finland-musician-stub}} shows image as broken for me despite the image file invoked in the template being fine. It's likely that nobody is actually seeing the 40px image in {{Finland-musician-stub}} but some users see the original unscaled image which is automatically offered by MediaWiki as an alternative size in this case. The underlying problem may be that File:MusicalnotesFinland.png contains invalid or incompatible code so MediaWiki cannot scale it to other sizes. PrimeHunter (talk) 22:09, 28 October 2022 (UTC)

Footnotes & Summary Box on right

I am a volunteer administrator for a friend, which includes updating his Wikipedia page. I am having a problem with footnotes: Wikipedia will not allow me to insert the URLs he has given me ... it either inserts inappropriate URLs or only allows his title and no URL. I also am unable to input (or locate) appropriate titles (incombent) for the Summary Box in upper right corner.

I have the footnotes and summary box typed on one sheet - can I email the sheet to you for guidance?

Thank you, Susannah Susan5615 (talk) 20:45, 27 October 2022 (UTC)

 Courtesy link: J. Michael Diaz - 199.208.172.35 (talk) 21:13, 27 October 2022 (UTC)

Hello, Susannah. It sounds as if you and your friend have a (very common) misunderstanding about Wikipedia. The article about your friend is not in any way at all "his page", it is Wikipedia's article about him, and it is neither owned nor controlled by him.

If you are a volunteer, then you probably do not count as a paid editor, for whom it is mandatory to make a formal declaration; but you certainly have a conflict of interest, and you would be well advised to declare this on your user page, and to avoid editing J. Michael Diaz directly. What you should do rather is to make edit requests on the article's talk page (see that link for details).

Please remember that Wikipedia is not interested in what the subject of an article says or wants to say about themselves, or what their associates say about them. Wikipedia is only interested in what people who have no connection with the subject, and who have not been prompted or fed information on behalf of the subject, have chosen to publish about the subject in reliable sources. Not much of the text is sourced, which is not acceptable in a biography of a living person; but if it can't be cited to sources unconnected with Diaz, then most of it should not be in the article. That is wehy several of your edits have been reverted.

The problem was you've had with references seems to be that in your last edit you put both the title and the URL in the |url= field, which of course the software isn't happy with. ColinFine (talk) 22:04, 27 October 2022 (UTC)

Identification of Death in Wikipedia articles

I was reading a Wikipedia article that includes a list of people, some of whom are deceased. For deceased persons, the author included a "death dagger" immediately following the name. This seemed confusing to me because the symbol "looks" almost identical to a textual "t".

For that reason, I felt the "death dagger" should somehow be clearly distinguishable from a "t".

My 1st thought was to edit those "death daggers" to appear higher (as Superscript), but I don't know whether that CAN be done in Wikipedia or - if it can - HOW to do it. If a superscripted "death dagger" can't be done, is there another method of more clearly identifying that a person is deceased?

Thanks — Preceding unsigned comment added by Pdalton (talk • contribs) 21:00, 27 October 2022 (UTC)

@Pdalton: Please always link pages you refer to. I can guess from your contributions that it's United States Wrestling Association. It uses the dagger character U+2020 which renders as †, e.g. in Ronnie P. Gossett†. It doesn't look much like the letter t to me but the rendering of characters depends on your software. {{dagger}} uses an image instead, e.g. in Ronnie P. Gossett†. Is that better on your device? For me it's even more clear it's not a t. PrimeHunter (talk) 21:45, 27 October 2022 (UTC)

User:Jimbo Wales' talk page

Does User:Jimbo Wales respond to requests made on his talk page? Or are the other users the only ones that do it for him? I found one of his administrative actions from 16 years ago that I would like him to reverse. StellarHalo (talk) 22:38, 27 October 2022 (UTC)

Hi, StellarHalo, have you tried to check Jimbo's contributions list at Special:Contributions/Jimbo_Wales? --CiaPan (talk) 22:54, 27 October 2022 (UTC)

I just did and it seems that Jimbo has not been on this site very often let alone his own talk page. Does this mean I cannot count on a response from him if I make a request? StellarHalo (talk) 01:49, 28 October 2022 (UTC)

It seems like you'd find out much faster simply by asking Jimbo, rather than asking us if he responds quickly. Why are you wasting time with this? --Golbez (talk) 02:22, 28 October 2022 (UTC)

Well I thought that I would have more chance of success if I keep the request strictly between me and Jimbo. But you are right. I should not be hesitating. StellarHalo (talk) 02:25, 28 October 2022 (UTC)

As an admin, will you be answering my unban request if I post it on Jimbo's talk page? StellarHalo (talk) 03:06, 28 October 2022 (UTC)

Didn't you say something about not hesitating? --Golbez (talk) 03:51, 28 October 2022 (UTC)

Jimbo Wales has never been a particularly active editor. He only has about 15,000 edits in total across all Wikimedia projects, and roughly half of those are to User talk:Jimbo Wales. His editing frequency peaked in 2011 with 2086 edits and has been declining steadily ever since, with only 69 edits in 2022, and none in October. For what it's worth, I have made six times more edits in 13 years as Jimbo has made in 22 years. Cullen328 (talk) 04:15, 28 October 2022 (UTC)

@StellarHalo: User_talk:Jimbo_Wales has over 4000 watchers. Posting there is not a private conversation "strictly between me and Jimbo". This account you are using is clearly not banned. f you have another account that is banned, stop using this one and post your request on that account's talk page. RudolfRed (talk) 04:41, 28 October 2022 (UTC)