Help desk
< January 5	<< Dec \| January \| Feb >>	January 7 >

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.

January 6

Question

When a page has been moved on Wikipedia, is there anyway to change the redirect that 100 articles will now have on their pages, to the new page. is there a tool to do this rather than attempting to do it manually. (which I won't try manually) Aaron106 (talk) 00:16, 6 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@Aaron106: That's not necessary. The link to the redirect can remain. See WP:NOTBROKEN. RudolfRed (talk) 01:02, 6 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Question about first-person plural pronouns

Let's say there's a sentence with a phrase like "the film changed how we view cinematic narratives". Could anyone please tell me how one would change "we" to something in the third person? Maybe "society" or "much of society"? Thylacine24 (talk) 03:53, 6 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Hello, Thylacine24. You need to read the reliable source that supports that statement, and re-write the content to summarize it in a neutral, encyclopedic fashion. Writing from the first person plural is not acceptable. Cullen328 (talk) 05:06, 6 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@Cullen328: I've checked what I think is the source (the footnote isn't until later in the paragraph, though) and it seemed to mostly refer to "academics and feminists" as the people to whom "we" refers.--Thylacine24 (talk) 05:27, 6 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Thylacine24, I am unfamiliar with the specific content issue, but as a general principle, we summarize the sources using neutral language. So, if the source devotes significant coverage to the topic, we summarize and cite that source. If reliable, independent sources do not mention the topic at all, then there is no good reason to mention it anywhere on Wikipedia. Cullen328 (talk) 07:11, 6 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

The issue seems to be that the source uses "we" in a sort of broad group that the author is a part of, presumably something like (western) feminist film scholars or something like that but this isn’t explicitly stated. They're looking for the best way to summarize a source. @Thylacine24: what’s the source (and page) in question? Umimmak (talk) 07:21, 6 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@Umimmak: It's not actually a film at all, but a reference to a scholarly article by Linda Nochlin, in this section of her page.--Thylacine24 (talk) 13:29, 6 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@Thylacine24 Just invert it: the film changed how cinematic narratives are viewed. Bazza (talk) 09:32, 6 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@Bazza 7, your proposed change seems to indicate that "how cinematic narratives are viewed" has (have?) been changed for everyone, which seems to be different than what the source says.

How about making the source explicit: "According to (whomever), the film changed how cinematic narratives are viewed by [some?] feminist film scholars" or something similar. Then the inline citation. David10244 (talk) 10:11, 6 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@David10244 Strictly, I was considering only the original question (getting rid of "we"). My suggestion is accurate, though, even if less precise: regardless of whose view has been changed, there has been a change. @Thylacine24 didn't specify whether it was important to retain the specificity of the source, and even hinted that a wide interpretation ("much of society") could be required although, unless the sources suggest that, I'd steer clear of such an explicit widening and stay ambiguous. Bazza (talk) 10:38, 6 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@Bazza 7 Thst makes sense. David10244 (talk) 03:55, 8 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Remove "thank" button from watchlist?

The "thank" button appears on my watchlist after every edit made by a logged-in user. Is it possible to remove the button from items on my watchlist? I don't mind seeing it after individual diffs but I would rather not see it on my watchlist. I read Help:Notifications/Thanks and [1] but they were no help. --Viennese Waltz 11:07, 6 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@Viennese Waltz, if you post over at WP:VPT, someone there might be willing and able to create a custom css hack which will remove the button from your personal watchlist. 199.208.172.35 (talk) 16:29, 6 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Oh, so it's not something straightforward that would just involve me tweaking my preferences? That's, uh, a little disappointing. Thanks anyway. --Viennese Waltz 16:54, 6 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@Viennese Waltz: You can add this to your CSS:

.mw-special-Watchlist .mw-thanks-thank-link {display: none;}

It doesn't remove parentheses around the link. If you want to remove them then you have to remove everything inside the parentheses

.mw-special-Watchlist .mw-pager-tools {display: none;}

There may be other links there. I have rollback links. PrimeHunter (talk) 17:31, 6 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

changing citation and date formats?

it has bought to my attention about violating WP:CITEVAR and WP:DATEVAR for edit1 and edit2. as far as i am concerned both edits converted both bare references to cs1/2. am i missing something? <_> jindam, vani (talk) 14:53, 6 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@Jindam vani, there were no bare web addresses displayed in the article when you made those changes. It is not necessary to use citation templates for sources, and changing to templates in an article that was not written using them is an example of violating WP:CITEVAR, "Editors should not attempt to change an article's established citation style". StarryGrandma (talk) 17:15, 6 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

fair enough. <_> jindam, vani (talk) 17:55, 6 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Creating Profile

How do you go about creating a profile of yourself or does someone else have to create that? Valachu (talk) 16:48, 6 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Valachu Wikipedia does not have profiles, not a single one; Wikipedia has articles about topics that meet the special Wikipedia definition of notability(such as a notable person) as shown with significant coverage in independent reliable sources. Autobiographical articles, while not forbidden, are highly discouraged, in part because people naturally write favorably about themselves, and have difficulty summarizing what others say about them while setting aside what they know about themselves. Please read the autobiography policy. If you truly feel you meet the definition of a notable person, and can write as required, you may create a draft at Articles for Creation.

You could also be referring to your user page, which is a place you can tell about yourself as a Wikipedia user only(not anything and everything about yourself). Your user page is as User:Valachu. 331dot (talk) 16:52, 6 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

getting a false positive but then it doesn't show up in reporting false positive page

An automated filter has identified this edit as potentially unconstructive, so it has been disallowed. If this edit is constructive, please report this error. Disruptive behavior may result in being blocked from editing.

Why is this happening on the Gabe Dunn page? Gabedunn (talk) 18:34, 6 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

What edit are you trying to make? We need more information to determine why it might be giving you this warning. Also, are you Gabe Dunn? If you are, Wikipedia has rules about editing pages about yourself. If you are not, Wikipedia has rules about using other people's names as your username. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 18:44, 6 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

This is the edit filter log from the Gabe Dunn article; I'm not sure if these are valid edit filter hits or false positives, but there has been a LOT of activity today from a certain IP address. --Jayron 32 18:49, 6 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@Oshwah: may be able to look into the situation better; he's the edit filter manager who developed several of the filters that seem to have been recently pinged. --Jayron 32 18:53, 6 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

From a very quick peek at the logs myself, most (if not all) of the "bad word" hits appear to relate to repeated attempts to name-drop the full title of this book: https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Bad-with-Money/Gaby-Dunn/9781501176333 XAM2175 ^(T) 01:59, 8 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Editing templates

Where can I read about how to use the whole |group2=, |list2={{Navbox|subgroup thing? I try and try, and the results are unpredictable. I want to add a new main category to a template, which messes up the whole thing. Rhynchosaur (talk) 18:54, 6 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Many templates contain documentation that explains how to use it. If you go to the page titled "Template:XXX" where XXX is the name of the template you are trying to use, it should contain instructions for how to use it correctly. Can you be more specific about which template or which article you are running into trouble with? If we can see where you are running into trouble, we can provide better help! --Jayron 32 18:59, 6 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

It's this one: Template:Arthropods I want to push Myriapoda and Pancrustacea(Crustacea + Hexapoda) to the right, and replace their space with a new section called "Mandibulata", which messes up everything. I have tried several approaches, but nothing works. Rhynchosaur (talk) 19:03, 6 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@Rhynchosaur It appears you achieved what you wanted with this edit Are you happy this is resolved now? Mike Turnbull (talk) 15:07, 8 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, I was finally able to figure it out, so everything should be OK. Rhynchosaur (talk) 18:04, 8 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Hakeem jeffries

How about instead of listing prospect park,Brooklyn, ny as his place of residence you inform readers mthat he lives ON ft Hamilton base where his rent is minuscule 69.117.143.136 (talk) 19:53, 6 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

If you think an article can be improved, please post a suggestion (preferably with a citation to a reliable published source) on the article's talk page. ColinFine (talk) 20:21, 6 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Proposed changes can be discussed on the articles talk page, please have at least one reliable source with the edit(s) you wish to be made. StarryNightSky11 ^☎ 01:18, 7 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia:Help desk/Archives/2023 January 6

Contents