Wikipedia:Help desk/Archives/2024 October 19

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October 19

Geelong College

Geelong College

I cannot get the circa - "built around 1936" - meaning "around" bit right when there are some dots. Please help and please be patient with me, I ma trying. 00:38, 19 October 2024 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 175.38.37.197 (talk)

Template:circa might be what you're looking for. Tutwakhamoe (talk) 01:51, 19 October 2024 (UTC)

{{abbr|c.|circa}} gives c. Mjroots (talk) 08:33, 19 October 2024 (UTC)

COI

Do I need to state a COI?<br>

I am a small business owner in the US. I don't have anything online about me & I serve only one small town. I do lawn mowing and snow removal.<br>

I was not sure if it was enough to require a COI statement. At this point I have not found a article that would need me to state COI, but wanted to check before I found one. <br> Thank you if you answer! Sheriff U3 talk 08:58, 19 October 2024 (UTC)

Unless you intend to edit about your business or its competitors, you don't seem to have a COI. COIs only need to be declared if relevant to your editing. 331dot (talk) 09:46, 19 October 2024 (UTC)

Ok thank you for answering. Sheriff U3 talk 17:32, 19 October 2024 (UTC)

Wikipedia truested platform form,?

My ducoments saved from Wikipedia? Ali 8613526 (talk) 10:00, 19 October 2024 (UTC)

Hi, I'm not clear on what it is you are asking. 331dot (talk) 10:01, 19 October 2024 (UTC)

@Ali 8613526. Because anyone can edit Wikipedia it cannot be trusted. See Reliability of Wikipedia. You may not save your documents on Wikipedia. That is not the WP:Purpose of Wikipedia. Shantavira|^{feed me} 10:20, 19 October 2024 (UTC)

New article - redirection problem

Hi, i want to create an article for the traid fair "Venus Berlin". Unfortunately there is an existing article for the award-show for this traid fair (Venus Award) and under the name "Venus Berlin" there is a redirection. (https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Venus_Berlin&redirect=no) How can i create the article "Venus Berlin" despite the existing redirection? Bildersindtoll (talk) 11:44, 19 October 2024 (UTC)

@Bildersindtoll: - you can work up the new article in your sandbox. When it is in a fit state to publish, copy over to the Venus Berlin redirect page (editing that page), and add a hatnote pointing to the current target. Mjroots (talk) 13:41, 19 October 2024 (UTC)

The sandbox variant sounds good, but how exactly does it work with the hatnote? Bildersindtoll (talk) 15:57, 19 October 2024 (UTC)

@Bildersindtoll: Hatnote could be something like

This page is about the trade fair. For the festival, see Venus Award.

Mjroots (talk) 05:52, 20 October 2024 (UTC)

Or, create and submit your Draft via the Wikipedia:Articles for creation route. When it's approved by the Assessor, it will be their job to sort out these issues (which you can flag up in the Draft's Talk page). As that linked Project page says, new or unregistered editors have to use this route, but any other editor is free to do so if they choose. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 94.6.86.81 (talk) 14:02, 19 October 2024 (UTC)

What is the preferred Bible translation on Wikipedia when quoting Bible verses?

I'm not sure if there are any past RfCs which established consensus on this. I can think of a few which are commonly used and the reasons which they might be used:

NIV - most popular version in the US, general-purpose translation, pretty much "the Google of Bible translations"
NRSV - popular version with scholars
KJV - iconic historical translation and public domain in most countries, thus allowing commercial use and avoiding any copyright issues, but has archaic English and based on less accurate manuscripts compared to modern translations
NASB - most literal translation
ESV - good balance between NASB and NIV

Which one am I supposed to be using when writing Wikipedia articles about biblical subjects? I personally use NIV the most in my own life, although I've used NASB a couple of times for a few essays in high school where I wanted to explain the original meaning as closely as possible while still using English, because everyone said that is the most literal translation. My English teacher in high school also occasionally used ESV. I rarely use KJV and NRSV. Félix An (talk) 13:55, 19 October 2024 (UTC)

Articles about biblical subjects are supposed to be based on secondary reliable sources. If and when a quote from the Bible itself is necessary, it would generally be best to quote from the translation that the source itself references, I'd have thought. Wikipedia certainly shouldn't be making decisions as to a 'preferred translation', given how contentious that can clearly be. AndyTheGrump (talk) 14:03, 19 October 2024 (UTC)

@Félix An Just to add that the Bible is not considered a reliable source on which to base any Wikipedia content. See Wikipedia:RSPSCRIPTURE. Shantavira|^{feed me} 15:19, 19 October 2024 (UTC)

@Félix An, there is no "established" version. See Template:Bibleverse which lets us link to online versions when used as a reference. The template has a long list of available versions. See the Jonah article for multiple examples. When it comes to meaning, however, and proper translation, then use a reliable secondary source and attribute the meaning or explanation to that. StarryGrandma (talk) 20:06, 19 October 2024 (UTC)

Why wikipedia is biased

Not an issue for Help desk/Archives. Referred elsewhere

 – --♦IanMacM♦ ^{(talk to me)} 15:31, 19 October 2024 (UTC)

Gl 2409:40E5:7:14AA:8000:0:0:0 (talk) 15:15, 19 October 2024 (UTC)

You might be interested to read Wikipedia:Systemic bias. Shantavira|^{feed me} 15:20, 19 October 2024 (UTC)

Is there a faster way to cite resources?

I'd like to add references to wikipedia articles as efficiently as possible.

For example, today I added the first reference to this page: Secure multi-party computation the whole process took about 15 minutes, with most of that being typesetting and correct errors in my data in the reference template.

Are there any guides on inserting reference rapidly? (of course I will still be copy-editing whatever a tool would generate!) Yoderj (talk) 16:13, 19 October 2024 (UTC)

Yoderj, from your contributions it looks like you are using the 2010 source editor, where Wikipedia:RefToolbar/2.0 is available to you. You could also switch to WP:VisualEditor for adding references (see Help:VisualEditor § Adding a new reference), then switch back again, or try your luck with WP:reFill. Rummskartoffel 17:22, 19 October 2024 (UTC)

Thank you. I really enjoyed the Visual Editor when it came out some time back, but forgot about it. It's nice to be using it again. And it's great for adding Arxiv citations with the automatic feature of the new editor! Yoderj (talk) 20:15, 19 October 2024 (UTC)

I use Visual Editor it for references and links, but then switch to the Source Editor for everything else. Sheriff U3 talk 04:11, 20 October 2024 (UTC)

[C]opy-editing whatever a tool would generate is a great start, but automated references must also be checked for errors and completeness. Publishers with structured metadata (like those of academic journals) typically end up with correct and complete citations, but most websites will contain errors or omissions due to how the citation tools scrape the source pages. Even sites like google books, worldcat, and Internet Archive will often have errors like duplicated authors, editors attributed as authors, book digitizer attributed as publisher, etc.

That said, switching in and out of the Visual Editor to generate a citation to edit is a great way to get started without typing all the syntax every time, and will not often produce template errors. Folly Mox (talk) 15:08, 20 October 2024 (UTC)

Oh right also see Help:Citation tools Folly Mox (talk) 15:09, 20 October 2024 (UTC)

Yes! There are some great tools on that page. I find that Citer specifically allows for decently speedy citing of certain kinds of references and has sped up my work creating citations quite a lot. Jessamyn (my talk page) 22:40, 20 October 2024 (UTC)

Why is autoconfirmed displayed differently than extended confirmed at Special:ListUsers?

At Special:ListUsers it says The automatically assigned autoconfirmed user right is not displayed here [...] But it does show the extended confirmed. Both rights are automatically assigned after some number of edits and account age. Why is autoconfirmed excluded from the ListUsers page but ExtendedConfirmed it not? RudolfRed (talk) 20:06, 19 October 2024 (UTC)

@RudolfRed: Autoconfirmed is not a fixed property. It's not stored with the account but checked each time it's required. Somebody who was autoconfirmed at a past action may not always be. See WP:AUTOCONFIRM. A wiki can also change the current requirements for autoconfirmation. wgAutoConfirmAge and wgAutoConfirmCount are set for Wikimedia wikis in https://noc.wikimedia.org/conf/highlight.php?file=InitialiseSettings.php. PrimeHunter (talk) 20:25, 19 October 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for explaining it. RudolfRed (talk) 19:57, 20 October 2024 (UTC)