Wikipedia:Help desk/Archives/2023 November 16

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November 16

Thank you

Britain did not exist in 1513. You are placing modern ideas into then please stop this Ensb1 (talk) 06:20, 16 November 2023 (UTC)

Ensb1, we have 6,745,909 articles and people answering questions here are not mind readers. Which specific article are you taking about, and which specific passage? Vague griping is not useful. Cullen328 (talk) 06:25, 16 November 2023 (UTC)

Ensb1, "Thank you" is a polite but curiously uninformative heading. I note that on a possibly related matter, you recently wrote "end of exchange". -- Hoary (talk) 06:54, 16 November 2023 (UTC)

Ensb1, please read Great_Britain#Terminology.   Maproom (talk) 08:35, 16 November 2023 (UTC)

You already appear to have raised this at Talk:James_IV_of_Scotland#James_IV_king_of_Scots, which is the correct place. There is no need to mention it here as well unless you have a specific question about editing Wikipedia. Shantavira|^{feed me} 08:45, 16 November 2023 (UTC)

Re: template merges

This is a general Wikipedia question, so an answer isn't pressing but I'm just curious. The Vital article template has been planned to merge into the banner shell since May of this year. Is there any set time for these merges or is the merge simply done when someone with initiative who knows how to edit a template does? PARAKANYAA (talk) 06:40, 16 November 2023 (UTC)

There's an open request at WP:BOTREQ#Implement project-independent quality assessments to complete some step of the larger process that includes this merger. The template does not appear in Wikipedia:Templates for discussion/Holding cell. Folly Mox (talk) 02:30, 17 November 2023 (UTC)

@Folly Mox It does, actually. Under "other".PARAKANYAA (talk) 02:38, 17 November 2023 (UTC)

Whoops 🙃 Maybe someday I'll learn how to read. I hope my hastily posted two links give you some idea of possible template merger processes. Usually there's no set time, but depending on the scope, the processes can be very different. I recently took care of one of these myself, an easy case which could probably have been solved with a redirect (my own opinion at the TfD). Sometimes it requires a high degree of technical know how, as in the case you brought up. Folly Mox (talk) 12:07, 17 November 2023 (UTC)

@Folly Mox I completed a template merger myself and it seems to have gone (relatively) smoothly, though it has saddled us with 7,000 duplicate banners - though I think that was unavoidable. Vital article does seem to be far more complicated though, hence why I asked. PARAKANYAA (talk) 22:37, 17 November 2023 (UTC)

Government of the USSR and Premier of the USSR

Hi

The Government of the Soviet Union has its own article, which is good. But the Government of the USSR for the period 1922-1946 (then named Council of People's Commissars of the Soviet Union) also has its own article and the Council of Ministers (Soviet Union) also has its own articles. These articles more or less say the same thing. Moreover, one also has an article for the Council of People's Commissars. The Soviet Constitution clearly states that the Council of People's Commissars, Council of Ministers, Cabinet of Ministers el cetre are all "The highest executive and administrative organ of state authority of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics is Council of People's Commissars/Council of Ministers/Cabinet of Ministers". That is, they are the same bodies.

The argument for having distinct articles is that a) the government functioned differently in 1920 than in 1980 and b) having one article makes it difficult to see that. Not only is this wrong, most scholarly work on the USSR says the government and economy functioned more or less the same from the 1930s to the 1980s, it also begs the question why we haven't split up the HM Treasury, the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, Prime Minister of Norway el cetra for all these institutions have undergone name changes and, of course, undergone transformations in how they worked.

Likewise, we have an article, Premier of the Soviet Union which is WP:FL, good, which is about the Soviet heads of government. We also have, for no apparent reason, articles on the Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars of the Soviet Union and the Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the Soviet Union, which deal with the same topic and don't bring anything new.

My main point here is that, regarding the Soviet Government, we don't have one article on the topic but four. How that helps the reader is beyond me. The logical thing would be to have a "Government of the Soviet Union" article and a "History of the Government of the Soviet Union" article if one is interested in reading about the government's historical transformation.

@MarcusTraianus: is the main creator of these articles. We are discussing Talk:Council_of_People's_Commissars_of_the_Soviet_Union#Merge article to Government of the Soviet Union? in which it has become increasingly clear to me that he does not understand the topic at hand or how the government of the USSR works. This is, of course, a difficult subject, and I'm course lucky that I have devoted a thesis on the subject of communist institutions (which I handed in last week), so I know more than the average person and user. Writing on Soviet institutions on WP is very bad, and infactual. For instance, the Politics of the Soviet Union says the USSR had branches of government. The whole point of communist politics is the principle of unified power, that there is only one single branch of government, and that is the highest organ of state power. The editors who have written these articles clearly do not comprehend the subject and misinforms our readers as well.

@Feeblezak: You're also plinged since you reestablished the Council of Ministers page.

The reason why I took this discussion here is that no one is participating at the Talk:Council_of_People's_Commissars_of_the_Soviet_Union#Merge article to Government of the Soviet Union? other than I N and MarcusTraianus, which is troublesome. — Preceding unsigned comment added by TheUzbek (talk • contribs)

TheUzbek, coming here to get expert content feedback about USSR governance at a general help forum like this is not a reasonable expectation. I have almost certainly read more about the Soviet Union than a majority of Wikipedia editors and yet I am unprepared to comment about the substance of your claims without hours of reading and research. which isn't going to happen since I have many other things going on in my life. The content dispute should be resolved based on what high quality reliable academic sources say. What we will not do is make major changes based on input from a totally anonymous Wikipedia editor who claims to have submitted a thesis on the matter. Kremlinology and Sovietology are established academic fields, and Wikipedia editors are expected to summarize the work of the widely recognized experts in those closely related fields. Cullen328 (talk) 07:47, 16 November 2023 (UTC)

I totally concur, and as I tried to write, the sources are unanimous... If not here where are we going to get input? TheUzbek (talk) 07:53, 16 November 2023 (UTC)

And expert content; I need someone to see WP:OBVIOUS and WP:REDUNDANT. TheUzbek (talk) 07:59, 16 November 2023 (UTC)

@TheUzbek You made the merger proposal on 4 November but I don't see it mentioned at WP:USSR's list of announcements as a current proposal. I think you would get more attention by alerting the Project. Mike Turnbull (talk) 12:22, 16 November 2023 (UTC)

See Talk:Premier_of_the_Soviet_Union#Merge_proposal. A user tried that but failed. @Skjoldbro: TheUzbek (talk) 12:29, 16 November 2023 (UTC)

Запрещено кормить троллей. MinorProphet (talk) 00:27, 20 November 2023 (UTC)

How reliable of a source is Newgrounds.com?

Should I cite from there or avoid it entirely? Rubellaclinton (talk) 09:33, 16 November 2023 (UTC)

@rubellaclinton: generally, avoid it. it's user-generated content. ltbdl (talk) 10:19, 16 November 2023 (UTC)

Got it. Thanks. Rubellaclinton (talk) 11:06, 16 November 2023 (UTC)

Questions about Wikipedia for an application for a prestigous recognition for Wikipedia

Hi all

I know this probably isn't exactly the right place to ask this, but I'm not sure exactly where would be better place. To explain, I'm most of the way through writing an application to request Wikipedia is recognised on a prestigous international list of important cultural heritage. With others I've completed most of the application, however I would really appreciate some help and ideas with the following parts.

A. What makes Wikipedia as unique? e.g things where it is the largest, most viewed, largest community etc. Anything that sets Wikipedia apart from other websites which provide information.

B. There is a section where I need to answer questions on the reliability and accuracy of Wikiepdia. Any ideas very welcome, I've discovered an academic, Dr Amy Bruckman, who studied the accuracy of Wikipedia and she defined five different aspects of good systems that facilitate the construction of accurate knowledge:

1. Opportunities for review
2. Visibility of degree of review (that the review process is visible)
3. Support for consensus formation
4. Provide metadata on the provenance of information
5. Provide metadata on the credibility of sources

Please could you suggest which functions of Wikipedia fulfil these criteria?

Thanks very much

John Cummings (talk) 11:18, 16 November 2023 (UTC)

John Cummings, rather obviously, Wikipedia is very big. People use it because people use it; and in this regard, it's very similar to Facebook, Twitter-that-now-has-a-sillier-name, eBay, LinkedIn, Youtube, IMDb, and a few more. Also, while Google develops different search bubbles for different people, if an English-reading person looks up XYZ Google does seem to have a general tendency to prioritize the English-language Wikipedia article on XYZ. (This is also true for Japanese. I wonder about Swedish.) My ideas on the reliability and accuracy of Wikipedia depend considerably on the quality of the articles I've most recently read, and what mood I'm in; I see no reason why anyone other than myself should prioritize them over the results of academic studies, some of which are cited by the articles Reliability of Wikipedia and Wikipedia and fact-checking. In English-language Wikipedia, I do notice an enormous difference between (A) the (moderately stringent) demands made of drafts before they can be promoted to articles, and (B) the (extraordinarily permissive) attitude towards junk articles that have already sat around for years. Good luck with your enterprise! -- Hoary (talk) 11:46, 16 November 2023 (UTC)

A See this page of statistics. For me, the biggest thing that sets Wikipedia apart is that it is a wiki in which (with a few exceptions) every single edit on every article and every Talk Page is still available in the page history, so the evolution of the present text is available to those interested.

B These aspects are often discussed in The Signpost, so that's where I would look for insight and analysis. Mike Turnbull (talk) 12:07, 16 November 2023 (UTC)

Thanks Michael D. Turnbull, can you think of any specific articles from Signpost that might be relevant? John Cummings (talk) 12:17, 16 November 2023 (UTC)

I was mainly thinking about the "Recent research" section that appears in nearly every edition, e.g. in the archives for 2022 which looks at how Wikipedia has been commented on in external academic research. Mike Turnbull (talk) 12:54, 16 November 2023 (UTC)

Thanks again Michael D. Turnbull, really helpful. John Cummings (talk) 13:13, 16 November 2023 (UTC)

@John Cummings: as part of your research, perhaps you could update our self-referential Wikipedia article and its related articles. -Arch dude (talk) 17:47, 16 November 2023 (UTC)

WP:PRESS 23 and preceding pages may have something of interest. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 21:45, 16 November 2023 (UTC)

football kit/pattern

Hi, when entering the codes for the colors of a team's shirt, I should put that the shirt is both half of one color and half of another, and that it has a white cross in the middle, but I can't find the pattern anywhere GAALIIAV (talk) 18:02, 16 November 2023 (UTC)

@GAALIIAV: Hi there! It looks like Template:Football kit has lots of useful information, including how to create a new pattern. Happy editing! GoingBatty (talk) 23:11, 16 November 2023 (UTC)

I tried to create a new pattern as written on the page, but when I go to use it, it doesn't accept it GAALIIAV (talk) 13:29, 17 November 2023 (UTC)

conflict of interest

Hi, I read that if you are writing a page on behalf of a third person, I have to declare my conflict of interest by writing that the page is made on commission. Where should I write the conflict of interest? GAALIIAV (talk) 18:05, 16 November 2023 (UTC)

Hi, please refer to WP:COIPAYDISCLOSE for where you can declare it and what you need to declare. If you have further questions please let us know Best,--PeaceNT (talk) 18:09, 16 November 2023 (UTC)

Donation change?

Maybe a silly question, but I received a donation request today. It made me feel that I should increase the monthly amount I'm already donating. But I couldn't figure where/how to do that. All the "Donation" places I found assumed I would be a "new" donor and, while I could do the math to make it work out the same, it seemed silly to end up with two different donations every month!

So, two questions:

1. Can someone tell me how to get to a page that will allow me to just increase the amount of my existing donation?

2. Will someone please suggest to TPTB to add to all "donation" pages & requests just a line (in small font would be fine) like:

"Already a monthly donor, but want to help more? Thanks! Just click <here> to increase the amount of your monthly donation."

Paul Pdalton (talk) 19:25, 16 November 2023 (UTC)

Welcome and thank you for your question about donations! To hide the fundraising banners, you can create an account and uncheck Preferences → Banners → Fundraising. The Wikimedia Foundation does not track the identity of IP addresses, so it doesn't know your age, income level or whether you donated in the past.
None of the Wikipedia volunteer editors here who add and improve content in articles receive any financial benefit. We all simply contribute our time because we care about building a great encyclopedia for you and innumerable others around the world to use.
If you cannot afford it, no one wants you to donate. Wikipedia is not at risk of shutting down, and the Wikimedia Foundation, which hosts the Wikipedia platform and is asking for these donations, is richer than ever.
You are welcome to communicate directly with the donor-relations team by emailing donate@wikimedia.org. Thank you! Beeblebrox (talk) 19:32, 16 November 2023 (UTC)

LYCONET‎ and Lyconet

Hello, while working on NPP I ran across the new page LYCONET‎. The correct title, according to the references (and their website), is Lyconet, but there was already a page of that name. I proposed a merge, but then in the merge discussion found that the situation was a bit more complicated. In 2015 it was repeatedly redirected to Lyoness by a now inactive account, in a bit of an edit war with another now inactive account. The discussion at Talk:Lyconet#Proposed merge of LYCONET into Lyconet clarified the problem somewhat, but I'm not sure how to proceed. There wasn't really a proper consensus for the merge in 2015. The new article contains new information.

There are several options to resolve this: merge LYCONET‎ to Lyoness? Wait for the merge discussion to come to a consensus? AFD LYCONET‎? Other? I really don't want to AFD, as I can't see a problem with its notability and don't think it should be deleted. Is AFD is the "right way" to resolve this? Wikishovel (talk) 19:54, 16 November 2023 (UTC)

Hello, the prior edit war seems to be quite some time ago so you can wait for a new consensus to emerge and go ahead and merge it yourself. If the merge is reverted, then AFD will be the right venue per WP:ATD-R. --PeaceNT (talk) 22:18, 16 November 2023 (UTC)

Thanks, that sounds sensible. Wikishovel (talk) 05:29, 17 November 2023 (UTC)

Wikishovel, mostly for future reference: A company is entirely free to trumpet itself by referring to itself as (for example) ⟨LYCONET⟩. But -- unless perhaps the commonest pronunciation is something like (to continue with this example) "ell why see oh en ee tea" -- Wikipedia ignores this and instead writes ⟨Lyconet⟩. -- Hoary (talk) 00:48, 17 November 2023 (UTC)

I was thinking more of WP:COMMONNAME, but forgot to mention that above.

I've often noticed that editors are reluctant for some reason to create an article at a redirect. Once I was told by an editor with over a year's good edits "I don't know how". Other times it's been an evident dodge of consensus, but I see no evidence of that here. Wikishovel (talk) 05:29, 17 November 2023 (UTC)

WP:HOUNDING vs WP:Competence is required

I recently raised an issue on ANI which got archived without a response relating to an editor engaging in edit warring, adding in unsourced material or misrepresenting sourced material, etc. It appears to be an ongoing, persistent problem and I've tracked the users edits for a while simply to keep tabs on where low quality content is being introduced. That said, I've tried to avoid reverting their edits beyond a few pages I was previously active on but at this point I'm concerned about reopening an ANI issue considering the last was closed without comment and I sincerely want to avoid WP:HOUNDING. I'm definitely uncertain of what to do about WP:HOUNDING when there's serious issues with misrepresenting sources, edit warring, and low quality edits as a significant percentage of a user's content without any response from the admins at an ANI, even when other users weighed in that this editor had caused issues before.

Is there an appropriate way to handle this? I've never had an ANI report simply get archived without comment, especially when reporting a user for ongoing behaviour they've previously received a temp ban for and I genuinely don't want to come across as harassing that user if the report dropping off was intentional. Warrenᚋᚐᚊᚔ 20:20, 16 November 2023 (UTC)

 Courtesy link: Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive1141 § WP:ADVOCACY editor Yokubjon Juraev. It's true that there was no admin engagement (sometimes this is due to lack of topic area expertise rather than a meritless report; sometimes it's an outcome of the lack of a technical way to mark something as "no action needed"). There were comments from two other editors.

I've never restored an unactioned thread from a noticeboard archive, but it is sometimes done. Maybe an admin reading this thread can remark on whether the reported actions require admin intervention, or stop by the reported user's talkpage for a word.

I haven't looked into the diffs in the filing – and I'm not an admin – but the accusations are serious, and I don't think you'd fall afoul of HOUNDING if you made a second report. They don't seem to edit particularly frequently, at least. Folly Mox (talk) 02:50, 17 November 2023 (UTC)

I was intentionally not raising the thread in question to avoid hounding in the first place; sorry if that was inappropriate. I figured better to err on the side of caution with vaguery than harass someone unintentionally if there was a reason behind how this played out. Warrenᚋᚐᚊᚔ 02:52, 17 November 2023 (UTC)

Hello, Warrenmck. I am an adminstrator who saw that thread and chose not to comment. I lack the subject matter expertise to determine whether the disagreement about Xinjiang versus East Turkistan is just a routine content dispute (which does not belong at ANI) or a genuine behavioral issue. The evidence presented was unconvincing, at least to me on first reading. Obvious edit warring should be reported to Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Edit warring as opposed to ANI. Misrepresenting sources is a very serious issue that does belong at ANI, but you need to present ironclad evidence in the form of diffs that make the case persuasively. Do not expect adminstrators to read between the lines and do their own research. You need to make a convincing case yourself when you file a report like this. Cullen328 (talk) 10:06, 17 November 2023 (UTC)

@Cullen328 Sure thing, I can provide ironclad evidence of edit warring going on during that ANI and since, including the editor in question being called out for edit warring by a third party during the ANI. I don't think it's intentional misrepresentation, hence the title of this post. A huge amount of "there is a speculative theory of X" content from sources is being presented in articles "scholarly consensus is X", and immediate reverts of any attempt to either soften or correct those statements, even when direct quotes to the original sources are provided in edit summaries or talk page posts are made pertaining to them. You're right that the East Turkistan issue is arguably more of a content dispute. I think this is at the limit of what I can in good faith say/provide without a user ping (and possibly beyond it?).

Since this person has already been temp banned for edit warring and they're (still) misrepresenting sources, should I reopen at ANI? My big issue, and the reason I'm bringing this up again, is there's still an anomalously high number of low quality edits being added regularly, and the speed with which they edit war and their refusal to engage, coupled with admin inaction in any direction in an ANI, puts me and some other editors in a bind of either being perceived as edit warring ourselves or leaving poor quality information which contradicts sources on Wikipedia, hence my concerns specifically relating to WP:HOUNDING and WP:Competence is required.

As an aside, I think if this was an evidentiary issue on my part, that would have been quite helpful to know, rather than ending up here with this post. Though I understand you all must dig through an ocean of ANI reports with that same issue and it'd probably be a lot of spoons to deal with all of them. Warrenᚋᚐᚊᚔ 11:49, 17 November 2023 (UTC)

(Non-administrator comment) You did provide some diffs in the initial report, but for example you linked Special:Diff/1183914475 (source misrepresentation) with the text "Adding in a source that does not make the same claim it’s linked to then edit warring over it", without providing any diffs of edit warring. I think the framing was probably a turn-off as well, with the bit about being a proponent of Uzbek language preservation (a non-issue) distracting from the genuine problems. I'd probably wait for more evidence before rereporting, and concisely explain the source misrepresentation / speculation recast as fact in wikivoice (the two really serious, ANI style problems) with diffs supporting each assertion. It might not hurt to propose an admin action, like the imposition of 0RR in the Turkic language topic area or something.

I don't envy your task. It's niche, but the "proto-Turkic" topic area is actually super fraught, with POV pushers and mediaeval ethnicity genre warriors whose research style can often be characterised as "find any citation matching this search string and add it to my preferred claim without context or assessment for fringeiness". Countering them requires some experience in things like historical linguistics, central Asian history, and sometimes competency in languages that most people here can't read. Hopefully your diligence got more eyes on the problem, and more people can coach the user towards proper source usage like the conversation a few months back at Talk:Turkic languages#Tatar in Romania.

Lastly, it was kind of you to avoid mentioning the specific ANI thread archived without action, but it's very difficult for people here to answer questions accurately based off generalities, which is why I dug up and posted the link. Folly Mox (talk) 13:16, 17 November 2023 (UTC)

I'd probably wait for more evidence before rereporting

Since that ANI, they’ve engaged in further edit warring and most of their recent edits which aren’t formatting are either unsourced content which, in my attempts to be supportive rather than just instantly revert I cannot even remotely verify, or cite textbooks in a way that misrepresents the underlying citation. If I made a weak case, that’s firmly on me, but my case aside something does need to be done about incorrect information regularly being added to Wikipedia followed by edit warring over it as an extremely routine behaviour. Warrenᚋᚐᚊᚔ 18:51, 17 November 2023 (UTC)