Wikipedia:Help desk/Archives/2023 February 13

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February 13

Billy Wilder

Billy Wilder has a {{More citations needed|date=January 2022}}. There are many resources mentioned. It may need a hatnote for in-line citations. Any useful hatnotes? {{sfn}} work is needed. .... 0mtwb9gd5wx (talk) 00:27, 13 February 2023 (UTC)

Hello, 0mtwb9gd5wx. That article has 53 references and I assume that some are high quality reliable sources and maybe others are not. You can evaluate the sources and remove the weakest among them. You can remove any unreferenced content if you are not able to find any sources that verify those assertions. You can add new content based on what you find in your searches for coverage in reliable sources, and add those better references to the article. You can gradually rewrite the article to create a coherent narrative. If you follow those recommendations, that article will be much better when you are finished. Cullen328 (talk) 07:14, 13 February 2023 (UTC)

Ex officio

Is there a template for the phrase "ex officio"? If not, should this phrase be italicised? Thanks Misha Wolf (talk) 00:40, 13 February 2023 (UTC)

We have a rule of thumb at Wikipedia:Manual of Style § Common usage in English that says something to the effect: 'don't italicize words that appear in major general-purpose English-language dictionaries'. My 1974 Webster's New Collegiate Dictionary (p. 401) lists ex officio (italicized here because MOS:WORDSASWORDS) so in normal use, those words should not be italicized: the vice president is ex officio president of the senate not the vice president is ex officio president of the senate.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 01:41, 13 February 2023 (UTC)

Thanks. Misha Wolf (talk) 13:41, 13 February 2023 (UTC)

Global rename request

I don’t want it to be Travis frohnhoefer I’m Travis Wilson frohnhoefer is a legal name traviswilson112792 if that don’t work add a star Travisfrohnhoefer92 (talk) 04:50, 13 February 2023 (UTC)

You need to use this form: [1]. Beeblebrox (talk) 05:00, 13 February 2023 (UTC)

@Beeblebrox: can you see something warned in this above message?....0mtwb9gd5wx (talk) 06:34, 13 February 2023 (UTC)

I'm afraid I don't understand your question. Beeblebrox (talk) 07:35, 13 February 2023 (UTC)

Neither do I. Anyway, the poster has been renamed to User:Traviswilson1992 now. The first character cannot be lowercase. PrimeHunter (talk) 14:44, 13 February 2023 (UTC)

ultimatemovierankings

https://www.ultimatemovierankings.com is a link farm. I deleted random cites that had no infomation. Can this be put on a block like filmreference.com ? .... 0mtwb9gd5wx (talk) 06:34, 13 February 2023 (UTC)

If you're asking about blacklisting, 0mtwb9gd5wx, yes it can be blacklisted. But other options should be explored first. Please read and digest Wikipedia:Spam blacklist. -- Hoary (talk) 07:53, 13 February 2023 (UTC)

disabling all banners

is there a way to disable every single banner on here? I tried in the settings but there are 2 types of banners that can't be disabled for some reason so they keep appearing LICA98 (talk) 07:46, 13 February 2023 (UTC)

In "Preferences", LICA98, we are told: "Certain platform notices, such as those relating to site maintenance and special notices considered necessary to all users, will always be displayed." I infer that certain platform notices will always be placed within web pages. If, for some reason that I can't imagine, you want to remove them, I suppose that you could do so with Privoxy or similar. -- Hoary (talk) 07:58, 13 February 2023 (UTC)

I haven't seen a Wikipedia banner in years. What banner are you seeing? Shantavira|^{feed me} 09:28, 13 February 2023 (UTC)

It's possible that you achieve this through proper use of CSS property display:none in your common.css with the right classes; but to do that, you need to be more specific about exactly what you mean. Mathglot (talk) 11:18, 13 February 2023 (UTC)

well literally right now I got the "vote in the community wishlist survey" one and recently also the blue one about the new interface LICA98 (talk) 11:59, 13 February 2023 (UTC)

That sort of thing regularly appears in a box on my User:talk page, never as a banner. I understand a banner to be something placed at the top of every Wikipedia page so if you've turned banners off I'm baffled as to why you're seeing them. Shantavira|^{feed me} 17:45, 13 February 2023 (UTC)

About misinformation on Wikipedia

Here I have to say that if I ever seen a articla with misinformation may be it is a wrong image and any thing. Because I don't have an appropriate source to displace that one but I can prove my validity of my knowledge and want to just light up that area in your mind to replace with real or right one. But I just seen that, there is no any option to report only. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Prabhakar4225 (talk • contribs) 13:04, 13 February 2023 (UTC)

Every article has a talk page, which is the appropriate place to begin a discussion about improving the article. ColinFine (talk) 13:13, 13 February 2023 (UTC)

Also place the tag {{cn}} after the contested statement. This becomes a [citation needed] tag, and alerts readers to the fact of a dispute and makes a visit to the talk page more likely. See WP:Citation needed and WP:Dubious. Doug butler (talk) 13:54, 13 February 2023 (UTC)

About WP:RW

I want to use this tool, but I don't know where the icons in the picture on the right are. Can you tell me where these are located? -- ginaan(˵⚈ε⚈˵) 13:46, 13 February 2023 (UTC)

Hi @기나ㅏㄴ, when viewing a diff, like Special:Diff/1134575198, you should be able to see the buttons. If you hover over the icons there are tool tips on what they do, most of them instantly reverts the edit that you are viewing, feel free to test it using the diff above, but be careful as misclicking is easy with these. Happy editing and hope this helped. Justiyaya 13:57, 13 February 2023 (UTC)

Thanks for helping me :) But the toolbar is still not visible. The Page Icons and "restore this version" icon are visible, but the rollback icons in the picture above are not visible.

• User:기나ㅏㄴ/redwarnConfig.js

Maybe my settings are wrong? ginaan(˵⚈ε⚈˵) 15:30, 13 February 2023 (UTC)

@기나ㅏㄴ: Are you on the most recent revision? —Tenryuu 🐲 ( 💬 • 📝 ) 05:35, 14 February 2023 (UTC)

• Special:diff/1139262231

I can't even see the icons in the link above. But I can see button and this toolbar. -- ginaan(˵⚈ε⚈˵) 06:15, 14 February 2023 (UTC)

Oh, I changed the language from my native language to English in special:preferences and I can see the icons. I don't know if this is intended behavior. Thanks to those who helped me:) -- ginaan(˵⚈ε⚈˵) 06:27, 14 February 2023 (UTC)

Because of "includes("Latest revision"); in 2788th and 2789th line of user:RedWarn/.js, it doesn't seem to work properly when set to another language. ginaan(˵⚈ε⚈˵) 07:30, 14 February 2023 (UTC)

Pagewide noinclude

Could someone explain to me the use of having what I believe is a pagewide "noinclude" tag (since the the tag is never closed) for articles, like at the top of North Island Surface Volcanism? Isn't that meant for excluding parts of templates from substitution? The documentation is not very enlightening in that respect. Cheers --Elmidae (talk · contribs) 14:43, 13 February 2023 (UTC)

@Elmidae: It's not pagewide. Windows browsers can search the current page (e.g. an edit window) for a string with Ctrl+f. There are two <noinclude>...</noinclude> blocks. Articles can be transcluded with a colon in front like {{:North Island Surface Volcanism}}. Special:WhatLinksHere/North Island Surface Volcanism shows a transclusion at Volcanism of New Zealand#Kermadec Arc. noinclude blocks are omitted in both transclusion and substitution. I sometimes add a source comment saying why not to remove noinclude/includeonly/onlyinclude tags from articles to reduce the risk that somebody does it, e.g.: <!-- Do NOT remove noinclude, it's needed to control partial transclusion of this page at [[Volcanism of New Zealand#Kermadec Arc]] -->. Wikilinks are not clickable in source comments but nearly all editors probably know what the code means and can search the page if they want. PrimeHunter (talk) 15:53, 13 February 2023 (UTC)

Ah, so partial transclusion in another article. Thank you! --Elmidae (talk · contribs) 16:45, 13 February 2023 (UTC)

Wikipedia Library

Is it just me, or is WP:LIBRARY down? ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 19:27, 13 February 2023 (UTC)

for me: WP:library is up, so it might be a problem on your end -a really self-degrading name(speak of the devil)- 19:33, 13 February 2023 (UTC)

@AirshipJungleman29 I can access it but if you still can't, or have any specific questions about the Library, they have a Talk Page at WT:TWL. Incidentally, eligibility to use the Library is checked on an ongoing basis, i.e. each time you log in. The edit activity requirement is 10 edits over the last 30 days. So if you don't currently meet that criterion you can make a few edits and try again. Mike Turnbull (talk) 12:13, 14 February 2023 (UTC)

gilded age

 Courtesy link: gilded age

"...a gain of 48%" a gain of 38% ? Afrazer113 (talk) 19:38, 13 February 2023 (UTC)

@Afrazer113 could you link to the page you need help with? we cant really help when we dont know what article you need help with -a really self-degrading name(speak of the devil)- 19:43, 13 February 2023 (UTC)

Im really bad at this, see courtesy link. TSventon (talk) 20:16, 13 February 2023 (UTC)

It's under People's Party then click on the highlighted Gilded Age. See second paragraph. Afrazer113 (talk) 21:38, 14 February 2023 (UTC)

Just as a heads-up, I see an IP account has recently (23:29, 11 February 2023‎) changed some of the dates in the article lede, without an edit summary. For all I know, they may be right (it's not my field of expertise), but someone better qualified should check, and perhaps further edit the article, add references, or revert as appropriate. {The poster fomemrly known as 87.81.230.195} 51.198.141.181 (talk) 00:11, 14 February 2023 (UTC)

help with an edit

i corrected four errors in the article on Marie Ann Lenormand. However when i published it the formatting of the table was altered for those entries. information in the contiguous boxes were conflated with the box i edited. how do i move the info back to its right box?

also, how do you toggle between italic and normal type? i could access italic but couldn’t go back to normal unless i hit the up arrow. Shorthand54 (talk) 20:47, 13 February 2023 (UTC)

@Shorthand54: Hi there! Looks like Nthep fixed the issue with the Marie Anne Lenormand article in this edit. When I'm using VisualEditor, I type all the text first, and then highlight what I want italicized and click the Italic option. However, it works if you click the Italic option, then type, and then click the Italic option again to turn it off. See Help:VisualEditor#Getting started: the VisualEditor toolbar. Hope this helps, and happy editing! GoingBatty (talk) 04:11, 14 February 2023 (UTC)

"How do I close my Wikipedia account? - and/or - delete my user pages?"

A newbie editor asked me several questions via email => "How do I close my Wikipedia accoount?" - and/or - "How do I delete my Wikipedia user page and user talk-page?" - I could not find an answer - is there a way to do this after all? - in any case - Stay Safe and Healthy !! - Drbogdan (talk) 21:29, 13 February 2023 (UTC)

@Drbogdan: User pages can be deleted - the user just needs to post {{Db-self}} on it. Talk pages can be blanked, but not deleted. Accounts can't be deleted - they can ask for a courtesy vanishing (WP:VANISH) perhaps, or replace all of the content of their pages with {{Retired}}, or just log out and never log in again (removing their email account and scrambling their password for extra effect). 199.208.172.35 (talk) 21:35, 13 February 2023 (UTC)

Thank You *very much* for your reply - and comments - they're *greatly* appreciated - Thanks again - and - Stay Safe and Healthy !! - Drbogdan (talk) 22:45, 13 February 2023 (UTC)

Silent films: Running time ?

It can be hard to find the actual length of a silent film. The info concerning length is often informed in number of reels or feet/metres. Here is an example where the infobox informs that the running time is 60 minutes; 6 reels (6,220 feet). But an online web-version of the movie (that is placed right under the box) runns 84 minutes. I've understand that 1 reel is 1000 feet (305 metres), and that one reel is either 11 or 15 minutes (depending on fps). 11 min = 24 frames per second and 15 min = 18 frames per second. The last part is difficult to find out and I don't know if I trust all the info concerning this. Ezzex (talk) 22:23, 13 February 2023 (UTC)

The frame rate was not standardized in the silent era. This can make it hard to say how the length of the film on the reel is translated into the run time. --♦IanMacM♦ ^{(talk to me)} 08:23, 14 February 2023 (UTC)

The classic guide to all this is Kevin Brownlow's "Silent Films: What Was the Right Speed?" in Sight and Sound, Summer 1980, p. 164 [pdf 34]. A blog considers this here. Everyting gets rather confused when transferring original films onto video or digital, examined for example here. The whole subject is a complete minefield, best of luck. MinorProphet (talk) 00:55, 16 February 2023 (UTC)

Thanks for the answers.--Ezzex (talk) 20:06, 16 February 2023 (UTC)

Reporting user on another language

What's the best way to report a user for investigation across languages? I was looking at the article for Cambodia and noticed that user "Igsiters" has repeatedly blanked the page on the Khmer wiki and made other disruptive edits. - Indefensible (talk) 22:26, 13 February 2023 (UTC)

@Indefensible I would think Google Translate wold be your friend and ally in this endeavour, including finding the correct home for logging issues there. 🇺🇦 Fiddle^Timtrent Faddle^Talk to me 🇺🇦 22:42, 13 February 2023 (UTC)

What's the on-wiki process? I'm not really interested in trying to report in Khmer, and not sure how capable the Khmer wiki's admin team is for handling these issues. - Indefensible (talk) 22:49, 13 February 2023 (UTC)

@Indefensible No idea, simply because I'd make the attempt there. Sorry, coz that isn't what you want to do. 🇺🇦 Fiddle^Timtrent Faddle^Talk to me 🇺🇦 22:58, 13 February 2023 (UTC)

@Indefensible: The on-wiki process is to report it to an Admin on that language's Wikipedia (whatever the WP:ANI equivilant is there). Each Wikipedia has its own rules and processes, so admins on the en-Wikipedia can't do anything about a user's behavior somewhere else. RudolfRed (talk) 22:59, 13 February 2023 (UTC)

That assumes every language has a wiki admin team which is capable of processing it though, right? Does that really hold true on every language?

@RandomPoopedBoi: I noticed in the article's history that you were reverting the deletions, can you comment on the Khmer wiki's review process and report the issue there? - Indefensible (talk) 23:03, 13 February 2023 (UTC)

What do you mean by "the on-wiki process"? En-wiki has no authority over any other Wikipedia, and cannot resolve problems there. As far as I know, there is no authority outside a Wikipedia that can manage affairs within that Wikipedia. m:Steward requests/Global is where to go to request global blocks, and it may be that if you can show that the user is vandalising across multiple Wikipedias that would be relevant. It's outside my knowledge, though. — Preceding unsigned comment added by ColinFine (talk • contribs) 23:00, 13 February 2023 (UTC)

Yeah, that's what I meant, if there is a group or process above en-wiki like at meta-wiki or the Wikimedia Org. I might try going to Steward requests. What I am concerned about is potentially organized influence on Wikipedia including government censorship. - Indefensible (talk) 23:08, 13 February 2023 (UTC)

As I say, it is my understanding that the stewards will not normally intervene in any dispute or activity within one Wikipedia: in that sense, nobody is "above en-wiki" or any other language wiki. But if you're right that this activity is cross-wiki, then I think they might. ColinFine (talk) 23:35, 13 February 2023 (UTC)

Indefensible Whether it's government agents vandalizing Wikipedia or private citizens, it is treated the same. I don't know if the Foundation should be made aware of government activities in case they want to pursue legal action against those governments(though often the courts of such countries are rubber stamp bodies that will say its okay). 331dot (talk) 12:18, 14 February 2023 (UTC)

That's not entirely true. If there is a project that has no active admins, global stewards may respond to a request to intervene on meta.wikimedia.org See here and read the instructions carefully. As noted, the first place to go is to the admins on km.wikipedia and let them know. If there are no active admins, or if you get no response after a reasonable amount of time, then try the meta.wikimedia.org stewards. --Jayron32 19:09, 14 February 2023 (UTC)

Good to know, thanks for the info. - Indefensible (talk) 02:01, 16 February 2023 (UTC)

@Indefensible: A user generally needs to be indeffed on two or more sites before you can request a global ban for cross-wiki abuse. See the criteria at m:Global bans#Criteria for global bans. But the blocks come first, so report individually at each relevant site. Mathglot (talk) 08:10, 16 February 2023 (UTC)

Thanks for the pointer, it seems the issue was addressed by sysop User:Minorax. - Indefensible (talk) 16:42, 16 February 2023 (UTC)