Wikipedia:Help desk/Archives/2023 June 29

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June 29

Template limits

I am aware that there are limits on the number of templates that can be used on a page, as discussed at Help:Template limits. I just encountered this problem with List of My Three Sons episodes, where the last season of the TV show's episodes are not displayed -- it just says "#invoke:Episode table". Unfortunately, Help:Template limits doesn't clearly explain how to resolve problems like this, and there are currently about 48 mainspace articles which have similar problems (not to mention a much longer number outside the namespace; see Category:Pages where post-expand include size is exceeded). -- Metropolitan90 (talk) 00:29, 29 June 2023 (UTC)

@Metropolitan90: Usually when that happens, it's best to start about thinking about splitting the article. That's what some of us did when the COVID-19 articles got too large. —Tenryuu 🐲 ( 💬 • 📝 ) 02:30, 29 June 2023 (UTC)

How to remove upper centuries from navseasoncats template?

We are using the {{navseasoncats}} template in Category:1990s assassinated politicians. But for some reason it also shows centuries and not just decades as intended. My question is if there is a way to stop centuries above the 21st from appearing. There is a parameter to place a max in the intended categories (for example, max=2020s) but I don't know how to do it with the unintended categories. Cheers! Thinker78 (talk) 02:33, 29 June 2023 (UTC)

@Thinker78 try max=1999 parameter as stated in {{navseasoncats}} Lightoil (talk) 09:37, 29 June 2023 (UTC)

page publish

Dear Wiki. I have created a wiki page on your portal, kindly guide me how to visible for wiki users. Best Rgds Yog Guru Surender Choudhary

user name Yogisurenderchoudhary Yogisurenderchoudhary (talk) 09:15, 29 June 2023 (UTC)

Yogisurenderchoudhary You edited your user page, which is not article space or space to draft an article. Your draft was very promotional as well so I deleted it. Writing about yourself, while not forbidden, is highly discouraged in part because people naturally write favorably about themslves. Please read the autobiography policy.

New accounts cannot directly create articles and must use the Article Wizard or Articles for Creation to create and submit a draft. Writing a new article is challenging, even more so when one is the subject of the article. Please use the new user tutorial and read Your First Article. Wikipedia is not interested in what a person says about themselves, but in what independent reliable sources choose on their own to say about them, showing how they meet the special Wikipedia definition of a notable person. 331dot (talk) 09:25, 29 June 2023 (UTC)

Hi @Yogisurenderchoudhary.

You have published text to your Wikipedia:User pages. Please note that the content of your userpage is currently a breach of the terms and conditions: you are not permitted to publish extensive self-promotional material to your user page.

If you want to create a Wikipedia article, please read Wikipedia:Your first article.

Every article on Wikipedia must meet the Wikipedia:Notability threshold. You must find independent, secondary sources that cover Surender Choudhary in detail, and then summarise them in your own words. That should make up the content of your article draft. Note that the sources must be:

- Reliable: Your article should rely on strong, reliable sources that are published by reputable institutions. Primary sources can be used for basic facts (such as a date of birth), but they should be supplemented with strong secondary sources that offer analysis or interpretation.

- Independent: Your sources should be independent of the subject, for example not self-published or from the subject's own website.

- Show significant coverage: Your subject should be discussed in detail in the sources you find. The sources should provide in-depth information or analysis about the subject, going beyond basic facts or promotional material.

- From multiple places: You should find at least three separate reliable, independent, secondary sources that discuss your subject.

- Not original research: Wikipedia articles should summarise existing knowledge about a subject, not present new research. This means you should avoid drawing your own conclusions or analyses from the sources. Stick to summarising what the sources say in a neutral tone.

If you cannot find multiple, reliable, and independent sources then I am afraid that Surender Choudhary would not meet the notability threshold at this time and therefore cannot have a Wikipedia article. Remember that Wikipedia is not a place for any type of self-promotion or advertisement. Wikipedia is an encyclopaedia: not an advertising platform, directory, or a way to promote a subject.

Thanks, Qcne (talk) 09:25, 29 June 2023 (UTC)

Domingo Quiñones

I read your bio on Domingo Quiñones, latin singer; it falls short on his music starup. Mr. Quiñones grew up in Hartford Connecticut. He sang with many local latin orchestras. He sang for many years with local singers, one prominent singer Carlitos. Please change his Bio to reflect his time in Harford. Ernesto, Hartford residence since 1956. 2607:FB91:D30:81D:3442:5EB3:D950:800C (talk) 12:12, 29 June 2023 (UTC)

Hi!

Courtesy link. At the moment the article is quite poorly sourced, with a lot of paragraphs unreferenced: every fact and statement should be backed up by independent and reliable sources. This is so anyone can verify that the statements in the article are accurate. If you have suggestions or corrections for Domingo's article, you can either Wikipedia:Be bold and make the additions yourself, making sure that the additions you add are all sourced. Alternatively you can make an edit request Wikipedia:Edit requests on the article Talk page here: Talk:Domingo Quiñones.

Hope that helps, Qcne (talk) 12:18, 29 June 2023 (UTC)

Is it just my impression?

Is it just my impression, or the pages of famous women are less rich (in terms of information, I'm not talking about length) than those of famous men? 151.82.6.225 (talk) 12:30, 29 June 2023 (UTC)

Yes, this is a known problem. See Gender bias on Wikipedia. If you think you can add sourced information to female biographies, please do Wikipedia:Be bold and make the additions yourself! Qcne (talk) 12:38, 29 June 2023 (UTC)

Why is there this problem? Shouldn't Wikipedia stand for "equal rights and gender equality"?— Preceding unsigned comment added by 151.82.6.225 (talk) 12:54, 29 June 2023 (UTC)

Please remember to sign your comments. The link I provided goes over the reasons for the issue, but to sum up: most Wikipedia volunteers identify as being male and create and edit articles that interest them. This, unfortunately, has the side effect that female articles are sometimes neglected. There are a bunch of community events and projects dedicated to increasing the quality of female articles. As mentioned before, please do Wikipedia:Be bold and help increase the quality of female articles. Qcne (talk) 12:57, 29 June 2023 (UTC)

It is not just Wikipedia's problem though, if there are insufficient sources (or the sources have insufficient depth), then WP editors of either sex will not be able to progress further. This is increasingly true the further back in history one goes. For a whole plethora of reasons, men were recorded as doing things, their wives were either not recorded or just mentioned in passing. No records => no scholarly research => no or poor WP articles. Martin of Sheffield (talk) 13:07, 29 June 2023 (UTC)

WP:Systemic bias is another page with further information about the issues, internal and external. 199.208.172.35 (talk) 14:23, 29 June 2023 (UTC)

As an example of that, take Fatma Hatun, daughter of Osman I. Sure, she existed, but then what? Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 19:00, 29 June 2023 (UTC)

You may also be interested in the Women in Red project. It aims to increase the number of articles about women. There are also a number of projects related to women in the Category:WikiProjects_relevant_for_countering_systemic_bias. -- Random person no 362478479 (talk) 17:17, 29 June 2023 (UTC)

Tool to help "translate" text-form refs to sfn and similar formats?

I have adopted the use of sfn and CITEREF (mostly automatic) for all of my new articles. Periodically I come across older articles, like Foto-Mem, that I wrote before these tools were known to me and I try to update them. They have their citations in text format in ref tags, and there are often dozens and dozens of these, so updating them to sfn/cite is both tedious and error-prone.

I am wondering if there is a tool that semi-automates the translation of these sorts of old-school refs into citation templates? I imagine something that finds all the ref tags, lets me select an appropriate cite type, like web, journal, magazine, etc., and then split apart the ref text so I can select the right "part type" for each, URL, first, last, journal etc.

VisualEditor has a "manual" tool which is very similar to what I am imagining, but appears to only work for new cites, not existing refs. Is there a way to do this, or perhaps another tool that does? Maury Markowitz (talk) 14:16, 29 June 2023 (UTC)

Why would you want to change to sfn? It's horrible, and there are only two or three of us working on Category:Harv and Sfn no-target errors. Anyway, according to WP:CITEVAR you need to get consensus first on the talk page before changing. DuncanHill (talk) 14:24, 29 June 2023 (UTC)

Duncan is right to point out CITEVAR, you don't own the page even if you wrote it. However I strongly disagree with his comments about sfn. It's a clean, logical system that enables you to find citations without endless repeated and disordered entries in a mass of text. IMHO any time you see <ref> ... </ref> it is a clear indication the the page is old, written by an inexperienced editor or by someone unused to clarity. Martin of Sheffield (talk) 15:02, 29 June 2023 (UTC)

Your opinion and associated personal attacks related to harv are exactly the reason CITEVAR exists. Please don't make those sorts of comments here anywhere. DMacks (talk) 15:16, 29 June 2023 (UTC)

Category:Harv and Sfn no-target errors currently stands at 4,713 which is down significantly from where it was 28 March 2020 (47,403). This is a tribute to the persistence of those two or three [editors] working on [the category] because most editors are unaware that the errors exist (error messages were first created 27 March 2020 and then hidden 28 March 2020). This search indicates that about 50 editors have have enabled the error messaging display in their personal css and this search indicates that there are about 740 editors using one of the available error-detecting scripts. To enable display of error messages related to {{sfn}} and the {{harv}} family of templates, see Category:Harv and Sfn template errors § Displaying error messages.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 15:47, 29 June 2023 (UTC)

Thanks Trappist. I've updated my common.js to use your script rather than Ucucha's and linked in the "Harv and Sfn no-target errors" category on my home page. Martin of Sheffield (talk) 16:15, 29 June 2023 (UTC)

Not sure this is germane? But,for my part, not being super up with code and regex or whatever, I just use {{reflist|refs=...}} define all my refs there with names, and the body text only ever has to supply the ref name, eg <ref name=Smith/> which is about as minimal as you can get I guess. Granted, this doesn't work well if you're citing different pages from the same book at various places, but it does work well if you have a mix of sources -- books, magazines, websites, underwear labels, and so forth -- which for me is a typical mix. I don't see this much and I'm not sure if its well know, but it is legit. AFAIK there's no big downside to this, altho I'm willing to be educated otherwise. Herostratus (talk) 17:40, 29 June 2023 (UTC)

I'm not sure how this so rapidly devolved, but if you care to have a look at the linked article, I'm asking about turning this:

<ref name=lawsuit>[https://www.casetext.com/case/hoffman-v-estabrook-co-inc/ Hoffman vs Estabrook & Co., Inc.; 587 F.2d 509 (1st Cir. 1978)]</ref>

into this:

<ref name=lawsuit>{{cite web |url=https://www.casetext.com/case/hoffman-v-estabrook-co-inc/ |title=Hoffman vs Estabrook & Co., Inc.; 587 F.2d 509 (1st Cir. 1978) |date=1978}}</ref>

...using some sort of editor such that I don't end up clipping off the "h" in "https" for instance. Maury Markowitz (talk) 18:03, 29 June 2023 (UTC)

The CITEVAR guideline explicitly opposes "adding citation templates to an article that already uses a consistent system without templates". But for the case (ha!) at hand, you'd probably want to use {{court case}} rather than {{cite web}}, so you don't get redundant year but instead get better COinS tagging. DMacks (talk) 00:22, 30 June 2023 (UTC)

Again, this isn't really answering the question.

Does such a tool exist, or no? Maury Markowitz (talk) 19:15, 30 June 2023 (UTC)

Does WP:REFILL do what you want? CodeTalker (talk) 20:54, 30 June 2023 (UTC)

@Maury Markowitz: to my knowledge, there is not tool that does this in an automated way. As CodeTalker mentioned, there is ReFill, which can do a more basal step - take a ref of the extreme bare-bones form "http://www.foo.com" and turn it into a template while fetching a page title and publisher from the source as best it can. You can't supply these data yourself in this process and sometimes it just gets it wrong; you can check what it does for the Casetext ref at Foto-Mem - not a great improvement. But it can be a time-saver, especially for many refs from a common source. --Elmidae (talk · contribs) 11:55, 1 July 2023 (UTC)

Use that tool with caution. Do not trust the tool to get it right. Every edit that the tool makes must be carefully scrutinized. Why do I say this? Because currently the tool is not being maintained. There are editors who desire to do the maintenance but there is a large amount of under-the-bonnet technical stuff that must be resolved before even the simplest bugs can be addressed. Use the tool with caution and check every edit so that other editors don't have to cleanup after you.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 12:18, 1 July 2023 (UTC)

@DMacks: There is no {{court case}} template. If you meant {{cite court}}, that template does not create COinS metadata.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 12:18, 1 July 2023 (UTC)

Thanks for fixing my brainfart, and the COinS detail. I don't deal with the back-end of citing, so I don't know if that is something that can or should be upgraded. DMacks (talk) 13:03, 1 July 2023 (UTC)

Song by African American male

I don't know anything about how to operate within the parameters and rules of the site. My main reason for wanting to be connected to Wikipedia was not to answer questions but rather to ask questions. If I am allowed to ask my question I will ask it in the box below.

Song in the 1980s or near. Song by African American male. Lyrics within the song. Don't go climbing the highest mountain telling people a lie. Cause when you come down there's going to be some people asking you why? OddieKent (talk) 15:51, 29 June 2023 (UTC)

This helpdesk is for questions about editing Wikipedia. If you want to ask more general questions, you can try Wikipedia:Reference desk. TSventon (talk) 15:55, 29 June 2023 (UTC)

@OddieKent: Questions about how to use Wikipedia as a reader also belong here. PrimeHunter (talk) 16:00, 29 June 2023 (UTC)

Specifically, try asking at Wikipedia:Reference desk/Entertainment. --Metropolitan90 (talk) 16:02, 29 June 2023 (UTC)

Questions regarding a long standing page. Can I speak in person to someone

I would like to speak in person 2600:100A:B030:DB0D:7C80:D172:93F4:D405 (talk) 17:05, 29 June 2023 (UTC)

If by "speak", you mean on the telephone, that is not a service that Wikipedia offers. We prefer for conversations to be transparent and visible to everyone. So, ask your questions here. If there is a genuine need for confidentiality, you can email an administrator, such as me. Cullen328 (talk) 17:27, 29 June 2023 (UTC)

Halal or not

Give me details and certificates in India KFC HALAL OR not 103.212.91.174 (talk) 18:14, 29 June 2023 (UTC)

Hi IP user.

This is the help desk for the online encyclopaedia Wikipedia specifically. Please use a search engine like [1]https://www.google.co.in/ to find the answer to your question. Qcne (talk) 18:55, 29 June 2023 (UTC)

assistance

Hi, i need assistance. File:Government Seal of Bangladesh.svg is the standard version. We have been alawys using this version on wikipedia. However recently a user (likely a sock TheRaihanRahman) uploaded File:Seal of The Government of Bangladesh.svg and started replacing (using IP Special:Contributions/103.162.58.115). There was no consensus to do so. I reverted IP's edit but the IP keeps doing it. Can someone stop the IP please. আফতাবুজ্জামান (talk) 18:18, 29 June 2023 (UTC)

Also file should not be added like this. Thanks user:Drmies for quick action. --আফতাবুজ্জামান (talk) 19:25, 29 June 2023 (UTC)

Including hats (tables) in talk pages (lists)

How do I include the templates {{hat}} and {{cot}} in the middle of an indented discussion segment so that the list doesn't break and replies show up at the right place? Aaron Liu (talk) 19:01, 29 June 2023 (UTC)

@Aaron Liu As the documentation for {{cot}} mentions, the templates only work as intended if not preceded by colons. Hence the easiest method is to "edit source" and ensure there are no indents. This limitation has caught me out with {{talkref}}, which has the same requirement. Mike Turnbull (talk) 10:12, 30 June 2023 (UTC)

I know that, so I'm asking for a way for it to not break indents. Aaron Liu (talk) 11:54, 30 June 2023 (UTC)

Do you have a specific example we can use to experiment, and could you clarify what you mean by a reply showing up "at the right place"? It's easy to hat list entries in general, without messing up the visual result for the hatted items or the items after them. DMacks (talk) 12:31, 30 June 2023 (UTC)

Wikipedia:In the news/Candidates#U.S. Supreme Court strikes down affirmative action Aaron Liu (talk) 12:50, 30 June 2023 (UTC)

Ah yes, the contents of the box are not treated as their own list, not items of the preceding list. So "*:" in the box creates a new bullet for the first level rather than being ":" of the preceding "*". That's a semantically unresolveable situation for now. But in terms of visual layout, you can simply use "::" instead to push it in to the correct depth without rendering the bullet. DMacks (talk) 16:23, 30 June 2023 (UTC)

What I want to do is make replying show up below the box, not above. Aaron Liu (talk) 16:28, 30 June 2023 (UTC)

How do I add photos of my work, to my Wikipwdia page?

How do I add photographs to my Wikipedia page? 2603:8001:9807:6D00:1130:A6CC:4725:AD12 (talk) 19:17, 29 June 2023 (UTC)

Hi there,

Firstly - we have articles not pages on Wikipedia. This is an important distinction, because you do not own your Wikipedia article, even if it about yourself. Anyone can edit an article. Please see: Wikipedia:Ownership of content

Secondly, we highly discourage you from editing an article about yourself due to the Wikipedia:Conflict of interest. If you want to make text edits to the article about yourself you should make an Wikipedia:Edit requests on the Talk page.

Now that is all out of the way: to upload images please follow the guide here Wikipedia:Uploading images. Uploading images are fairly complicated from a copyright perspective, so please do read it carefully.

Hope that helps, Qcne (talk) 19:30, 29 June 2023 (UTC)

Remember that if you donate pictures of your work to Wikipedia, you can only do that under a license which allows other people to exploit and reproduce those pictures, including using them for commercial purposes. Do you really want to do that? --Orange Mike | Talk 00:46, 30 June 2023 (UTC)

Edit errors in my husband's wikipedia page

My husband is John Parker Glick, an American potter who died in April 2017. Somehow his name has gotten changed on his page to "John Walker Wick." This is clearly wrong. Much of the information about John Parker Glick remains intact, but "John Walker Wick" has gotten inserted in multiple places throughout his biography. I would like to correct these. I created a Wikipedia account today in order to make the changes. I don't want to do anything else on Wikipedia; (I don't want to learn about editing anything else, so I don't want to spend the time working through the initial steps after creating my account.) Can this be made simple for me to do, please? Once it's corrected, I would like it to STAY that way. Thank you. My name is Susie Symons, and I am John Glick's wife. LilyFrances (talk) 22:52, 29 June 2023 (UTC)

@LilyFrances: Someone vandalized that article about a month ago, changing the name. I've reverted those edits, so you don't need to do anything at the moment. I'll put the article on my watchlist and keep an eye on it. Deor (talk) 23:01, 29 June 2023 (UTC)

@LilyFrances: Unfortunately, there is no way to guarantee that the article will not be vandalized again, we can only be vigilant and reverse it if it does happen. If there is a persistent, intractable problem with vandalism on the article about your husband, steps such as requesting page protection can be taken. 331dot (talk) 23:03, 29 June 2023 (UTC)

The perp (probably in Twin Falls, Idaho) made a lot of silly edits in a short period, it seems. Strangely, the same IP number was also responsible for constructive edits in the same period (example). There doesn't seem to be any simple way of countering near-randomly-occurring silliness. LilyFrances, your reluctance to spend more time on Wikipedia is understandable; but if you'd care to do the occasional minor tinkering here and there (rephrasing awkwardly worded sentences, etc), you probably wouldn't need to read any instructions. Wikipedia benefits from the judicious participation (even just occasional) of large numbers of people who have their heads screwed on right and who aren't intent on promoting themselves, their employers, the companies whose stock they've bought, etc. -- Hoary (talk) 23:46, 29 June 2023 (UTC)

Thank you for your encouragement and clarification. I'll just watch over my husband's page more frequently. I'm not able to spend more time than that. I spend a huge amount of time writing and editing for my HOA, where I am supposed to be (and feel) retired. LilyFrances (talk) 00:28, 30 June 2023 (UTC)