Wikipedia:Help desk/Archives/2017 September 8

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September 8

Article "Touchard polynomials"

Hello! I need to get in touch with the editor/author of that article and explain the situation with it.

Khristo Boyadzhiev — Preceding unsigned comment added by Kboyadzhiev (talk • contribs) 01:48, 8 September 2017 (UTC)

• Hello Khristo, welcome to Wikipedia. While articles at Wikipedia don't have any designated particular editor/author, I notice that at Touchard polynomials, you have been trying to add a statement to the article claiming the title is misleading, while PlyrStar93 has been reverting the same. The suggested method in such a case is to start a new discussion at Talk:Touchard polynomials giving your comments on what you feel needs to be changed. Interested editors would chip in with their viewpoints and then any changes can be undertaken by consensus. You can of course come back here in case you face any challenges. Warmly. Lourdes 02:33, 8 September 2017 (UTC)

Template

Is there a cleanup template for entire articles that are basically trivia? I see a LOT of these types of articles on DYK, mostly involving Donald Trump. KMF (talk) 01:49, 8 September 2017 (UTC)

Template:Reduce trivia. Lourdes 02:39, 8 September 2017 (UTC)

I mean articles whose topics are trivial, such as Donald Trump and handshakes. (According to the TFD archives, there used to be an "unencyclopedic" template until it was deleted because people were confusing it with {{notability}}, which, even to a deletionist, seems like a really fishy reason to nominate a template for deletion.) KMF (talk) 02:42, 8 September 2017 (UTC)

There's also Template:Tone. Lourdes 02:51, 8 September 2017 (UTC)

...and Template:Cleanup title. Lourdes 03:05, 8 September 2017 (UTC)

Naming of Dab pages

Hi all,

From Template:Dablinks/FAQ#But that link is supposed to go to the disambig!:

"In the case of a disambiguation page lacking the word "(disambiguation)" in its title, it is impossible for the [DPL]bot to recognize the link as correct. You can follow the lead of John Smith (disambiguation) redirecting to John Smith and create a link with "(disambiguation)" redirecting to the desired (disambiguation)-lacking disambiguation page."

1. What difference does it make for a dab page to have (disambiguation) in the title or not?
2. Does this have anything to do with the reason why incoming links to dab pages are disapproved of?
3. Is it better for a dab page to be renamed rather than redirected, and why/why not? e.g.

a) Linking in an article (or a hatnote) to a page (e.g. Paul Davidson) although it has a {{dab}} template

b) linking to it with [[Article_Name (disambiguation)]]

c) renaming it [[Article_Name (disambiguation)]]

Thanks, MinorProphet (talk) 03:39, 8 September 2017 (UTC)

See WP:PRIMARYTOPIC and come back if you still have questions. PrimeHunter (talk) 10:26, 8 September 2017 (UTC)

Thanks for the link, PrimeHunter, which led to WP:Disambiguation. If I understand correctly, pages should only have (disambiguation) in the title if there is a primary topic, like Electron (disambiguation). Simple dab pages, like my Paul Davidson example above, should not have (disambiguation) in the title: if it doesn't exist, a redirect page e.g. Paul Davidson (disambiguation) should be created, and hatnoted in each article. This keeps incoming links to the main dab page to a minimum, and DPLBot will be happy. Thanks once again for your assistance, MinorProphet (talk) 09:59, 9 September 2017 (UTC)

NB The redirected hatnote for articles linked in the dab page, e.g. Paul Davidson (producer) should go like this (thanks to Russbot): {{About|the German film producer|similarly-named people|Paul Davidson (disambiguation){{!}}Paul Davidson}}, resulting in

This page is about the German film producer. For similarly-named people, see Paul Davidson.

Better and better, thanks all. MinorProphet (talk) 01:51, 10 September 2017 (UTC)

I have been working on the World's Columbian Exposition article

because someone had a "Reference Needed" tag (which I hate) on the American Artists section and now I have used the same source a dozen times and I am going to use it that many more and I know that there is a better form to use than just repeating "Carr, Carolyn Kinder, et all, Revisiting the White City : American Art at the 1893 World's Fair, National Portrait Gallery, Washington, D.C. 1993 p.__"" a few dozen times. Can you help me out? Einar aka Carptrash (talk) 05:23, 8 September 2017 (UTC)

See WP:Citing sources#Repeated citations. Basically, you use <ref name="Carr"> (or whatever you want to call it) the first time with all the details, then just <ref name="Carr"/> thereafter. Clarityfiend (talk) 06:35, 8 September 2017 (UTC)

@Carptrash: Help:References and page numbers describes various ways to reference different pages of the same book. -- John of Reading (talk) 07:12, 8 September 2017 (UTC)

(Talk page watcher) Further to the previous posts, I left a message on Carptrash's talk page, which I think may have done the trick, so  Done. MinorProphet (talk) 02:12, 10 September 2017 (UTC)

Adding subcategories?

Hi, glancing at the "Digital humanities category" I see that there are very few subcategories. How do I add a subcategory? For instance, there should likely be a subcategory for "Digital humanities projects" so these projects can be labeled properly. (I'm also noticing right now that I don't know how to Wikilink category pages otherwise I would have!) Sonofsnape (talk) 08:29, 8 September 2017 (UTC)

@Sonofsnape: [[:Category:Digital humanities]] with a colon in front produces the link Category:Digital humanities. Subcategories are added by placing [[Category:Digital humanities]] on the wanted subcategory. New categories are created by creating a page in the Category namespace. See more at Help:Category. PrimeHunter (talk) 10:18, 8 September 2017 (UTC)

Many thanks @PrimeHunter:! Sonofsnape (talk) 17:30, 8 September 2017 (UTC)

@Sonofsnape: Note that per WP:SUBCAT, if an article is in Category:Digital humanities projects then it usually shouldn't be in the parent Category:Digital humanities. PrimeHunter (talk) 19:52, 8 September 2017 (UTC)

@PrimeHunter: noted, I will keep an eye out for this. Thank you! Sonofsnape (talk) 20:05, 8 September 2017 (UTC)

Template for 2017–18 National League 1 table

There is a problem with the league table template on article 2017–18 National League 1 which I cannot solve. The league table is now showing correctly in the article, but when I click on the template edit none of the information is shown. Jowaninpensans (talk) 09:10, 8 September 2017 (UTC)

2017–18 National League 1 (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

@Jowaninpensans: There are currently two copies of that league table. One, at {{2017–18 National League 1 Table}}, was created on 5 June and is full of zeroes. The other, at {{2017–18 National League 1}}, was created by you on 3 September and contains some data. Unfortunately both copies contained an error in their "Edit/Watch/Discuss" headings, so that each one tried to edit the other.

I have edited both copies to correct this, so the situation should now be less confusing. Which copy do you want the article to use? -- John of Reading (talk) 10:01, 8 September 2017 (UTC)

Many thanks. Would prefer to keep {{2017–18 National League 1}} as this is the one that is uptodate. Jowaninpensans (talk) 10:06, 8 September 2017 (UTC)

Hurricane Irma and Wikipedia

I am wondering if use of Wikipedia will be affected by Hurricane Irma, which now seems like it will go right up the Florida peninsula, and it was my understanding that servers for Wikipedia were located in Florida. 331dot (talk) 09:11, 8 September 2017 (UTC)

They're pretty redundant (see data redundancy and high availability), so fingers crossed eh -- There'sNoTime ^{(to explain)} 09:15, 8 September 2017 (UTC)

The main servers are in Ashburn, Virginia, the fallback site is in Carrollton, Texas, and the caching and routing facilities are in Amsterdam and San Francisco. None are anywhere near Florida. ‑ Iridescent 09:19, 8 September 2017 (UTC)

@Iridescent: Guess my info is out of date.  :) Thank you and There'sNoTime very much. 331dot (talk) 09:28, 8 September 2017 (UTC)

Walloon or Flemish speaker

I have removed the Prod nomination from the Kaye Styles article, as the nominating IP appears to be confusing WP:OR with WP:COI. However, the article is rather promotional, several links are dead, and others, e.g. discogs, are not WP:RS. The artist probably is notable as he has issued several records and had a single on the Belgian charts for 26 weeks, peaking at No 3. I don't speak Walloon or Flemish, so cannot read several of the references - is there a Walloon or Flemish speaker who could look at this article ? - Thanks - Arjayay (talk) 13:12, 8 September 2017 (UTC)

Walloon is a dialect of French, Flemish is a dialect of Dutch. Maproom (talk) 16:33, 8 September 2017 (UTC)

I know that, but it doesn't answer my question - Arjayay (talk) 17:50, 10 September 2017 (UTC)

New page

To whom it may concern,

I would like to create a wikipedia page for this guy. He was the largest shipowner in the world before the war.

http://www.gestionmaritime.com/history-timeline

How do I go about doing this? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Rgstephenson1 (talk • contribs) 17:06, 8 September 2017 (UTC)

Hello, Rgstephenson1. You should read Wikipedia:Your first article. – Finnusertop (talk ⋅ contribs) 17:12, 8 September 2017 (UTC)

Great Tea Race of 1866 edit 15:56, 8 September 2017

This edit adds a link to a podcast which (in my opinion) largely plagiarises the Wikipedia article in which it has been inserted. The plagiarism gets worse as it goes on - towards the end it is clear that parts of the podcast are read directly from Wikipedia. The site on which the podcast appears also uses the map of the track of the Ariel in the race. This exists only on Wikipedia, but I can find no credit of that fact anywhere on the page.

Since I put in a lot of work on this article, I am probably too close to the subject to give an unbiased opinion. Also, I am not much of an expert on Wikipedia protocols and procedures - I am more interested in ensuring that the content is complete and accurate. Hence the following questions:
(a) Is it OK for someone to plagiarise a Wikipedia page so extensively?
(b) Should they credit the route map picture as being sourced on Wikipedia?
(c) Is there any action that should be taken on this by any Wikipedian?
(d) My inclination is that the edit adding the link to the podcast has no place in the article - so am inclined to revert it - but, again, I may be too close to the whole subject. Would reversion be appropriate? (After all, why should Wikipedia advertise a site with such parasitic behaviour?)
ThoughtIdRetired (talk) 18:53, 8 September 2017 (UTC)

On looking further at the contributions by User:Lantzy, there have been a large number of additions of links to the same podcast site. Listening to a few of them with the corresponding Wikipedia article open at the same time, there does seem to be an extensive reliance on Wikipedia as an unacknowledged source.

I also note that Futility Closet was nominated for deletion very recently, but survived the experience. My immediate thinking is that Wikipedia is being used as an advertising device for this site and its podcasts, but, as above, I am possibly not unbiased in the matter.ThoughtIdRetired (talk) 19:20, 8 September 2017 (UTC)

Have now found activity on this on Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Spam but would still appreciate any guidance from someone with a wiser head than mine of the subject. I did put a comment on the Spam page - I don't know if that was helpful.ThoughtIdRetired (talk) 19:32, 8 September 2017 (UTC)

how to remove visible IP address

Hello,

I did not realise my IP address would be visible to everyone if I made an edit. I made some edits. Then I created a user account.

I want to remove all edits with my IP address and replace them or recreate them with my new User account.

thanks — Preceding unsigned comment added by SwitzerlandFan (talk • contribs) 20:45, 8 September 2017 (UTC)

@SwitzerlandFan: Edits cannot be reassigned to an account but the IP address can be hidden in some cases. See Wikipedia:Requests for oversight. PrimeHunter (talk) 21:03, 8 September 2017 (UTC)

@SwitzerlandFan: It used to be possible to re-attribute edits from IP addresses to named accounts, but not since 2005 (see this page). However, as that page says, you can list your contributions made with the IP address(es) on your user page.  Seagull123  Φ  13:28, 9 September 2017 (UTC)