Wikipedia:Help desk/Archives/2020 March 10

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March 10

Help with {{FJC Bio}}

As can be seen at its talk page, Template:FJC Bio is no longer fully functional, due to an update in how pages are identified on the Biographical Directory of Federal Judges website. They are no longer identified by a number, but use a name-based format. Therefore, it appears no longer possible to use the template to link to a judge's page except to the page of the judge who is the subject of the article (because it pulls the correct identifier from Wikidata). Can someone who is good with templates that link to external websites give this one a look? Ergo Sum 01:55, 10 March 2020 (UTC)

COI

How can you proof your innocence in Conflict of interest? Thank you.Robertbob12 (talk) 14:53, 10 March 2020 (UTC)

You'll get more and better quality answers if you tell us which article is involved. - X201 (talk) 14:56, 10 March 2020 (UTC)

This is not about a specific situation, but is there a procedure when you can adapt or refer. Many people say that this accusation is often harmful and don't know how to react.Robertbob12 (talk) 15:21, 10 March 2020 (UTC)

Robertbob12 I'm not sure who "many people" are- but why are you concerned about a conflict of interest? Other than the two on this page, your account has no other posts or edits to Wikipedia, and conflict of interest is an unusual thing for a completely new user to ask about. As X201 stated, it is hard to give you good answers without knowing more about what you are asking about. Have you reviewed WP:COI? 331dot (talk) 15:26, 10 March 2020 (UTC)

Thank you. I will read it again.Robertbob12 (talk) 15:44, 10 March 2020 (UTC)

It's not a matter of "innocence" and "accusations", Robertbob12; it's a matter of being in a situation where it is intrinsically harder to edit in a satisfactory way. An editor with a COI who is open about it and follows the recommendations for somebody in that position, has a right to expect other editors to be civil and helpful. What is more problematic is undisclosed COI editing. Even there, it is often just through ignorance.

I guess where the feeling of "accusation" and "innocence" comes in is that editors with a COI are often here in order to promote something: this is not just against the rules, it is fundamentally inconsistent with the purposes of Wikipedia. --ColinFine (talk) 16:26, 10 March 2020 (UTC)

Wikipedia history pages of 2011

Hello Wikipedia, I need the history dumps of 2011 for research work. How can I get the dumps of 2011? OR How can I identify in the history pages that this text belongs to the 2011 pages? I need old Wikipedia dumps. Thanks — Preceding unsigned comment added by 217.224.116.153 (talk) 16:41, 10 March 2020 (UTC)

Hi there. If you need dumps of English Wikipedia, I would recommend checking out WP:DUMP, where database dumps can be downloaded. These come in XML format, which can be read and processed by a number of tools. If you need the history of all edits performed in 2011, I would recommend the All pages with complete edit history dumps, as those will have just about every edit since the beginning of time. Phuzion (talk) 03:15, 11 March 2020 (UTC)

Adding a Public Figure Page

Hello,

I was wondering how I go about making a suggestion for a public figure page?

Thank you! Ed — Preceding unsigned comment added by 50.79.6.115 (talk) 17:05, 10 March 2020 (UTC)

Suggestions can go to Requested Articles, but the backlog there is severe. It would be quicker for you to write an article(not just "page") yourself using Articles for creation. You should follow the advice at Your first article and also make sure the "public figure" meets Wikipedia's special definition of a notable person as shown with significant coverage in independent reliable sources. 331dot (talk) 17:19, 10 March 2020 (UTC)

GateHouse Media / BridgeTower Media

BridgeTower Media links currently bring you to the GateHouse Media wiki page, they aren't the same brand though. BridgeTower should be a page separate from GateHouse. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ruslik0 (talk • contribs) 2020-03-10T20:50:53 (UTC)

Hello, Ruslik0. It is possible that there should be two separate articles, if GateHouse Media and BridgeTower Media are separately notable; but I'm inclined to doubt whether they are. In any case, the best place to discuss this is at Talk:GateHouse Media, where I see you have already started a discussion. It may be that nobody joins the discussion: if that happens, then by all means try and create an article about BridgeTower Media. --ColinFine (talk) 21:48, 10 March 2020 (UTC)

Problem with articles that I created

Hi. I am not sure if this is the right place to ask the next question, but I will try.

It happens that some articles that I have created in recent months do not appear in the Google search engine. These are the articles: Capture of the frigate Esmeralda, Lima Campaign, Sierra Campaign, Battle of Río Grande, Capture of HMS St. Fermin and English ship Dainty (1588).

Why is this? How is it solved? And how to prevent it from happening with future articles? Thank you. --Muwatallis II (talk) 20:55, 10 March 2020 (UTC)

@Muwatallis II: Articles are blocked from search engine indexing until they are reviewed or until 90 days have passed. After that it's out of our hands and in the hands of the various search engines. I don't know what happened to Capture of the frigate Esmeralda. This policy is meant to slow down contributors whose main agenda is to get a topic onto the search engines, which clearly does not apply to your articles (thanks!) -Arch dude (talk) 22:22, 10 March 2020 (UTC)

@Muwatallis II: works for me. —[AlanM1(talk)]— 05:18, 11 March 2020 (UTC)

Copyright

Hi, there's an article on this platform dedicated to my persona, on the article there's a video of me giving a lecture at a university. This video was posted by someone that must have attended and recorded the lecture, however I never authorized being recorded, let alone reproducing such content. Is there anyway I could request the content gets removed? Any and all help will be greatly appreciated. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Kieran59 (talk • contribs) 21:24, 10 March 2020 (UTC)

@Kieran59: What part of this do you consider to be copyrighted by you? Not the video itself, since you did not operate the camera. Therefore, it must either be the performance or something inside the video such as slides, music, etc. I am unfamiliar with copyright with respect to performance, so you will need to research it. If you can be specific, you can take this issue to the c:Commons:Deletion requests (if the file is at Wikimedia Commons), where your issue will be treated very seriously indeed. If the file is hare on the English Wikipedia, look at Wikipedia:Copyright violations to see how to proceed, and we will also take it very seriously indeed. If you cannot claim copyright, then we will not remove the material based on your request unless you make a valid claim based on our "living persons" policy: see WP:BLP. -Arch dude (talk) 21:59, 10 March 2020 (UTC)

@Kieran59: Take a look at Copyright#Fixing to see if you think you can claim copyright on the lecture itself. -Arch dude (talk) 22:33, 10 March 2020 (UTC)

• @Kieran59: If you give us a link to the article or video, I will have a look at the copyright status, but we cannot guess which it is. Unless the university itself uploaded the lecture, it is likely that uploading such a recording would be a breach of copyright, and hence should be deleted. (On the other hand, I believe any claim based on privacy is unlikely to prevail: from commons:Commons:Photographs of identifiable people we are not required to remove photos (or videos) of people in public settings, which a university lecture would more likely than not be). Tigraan^{Click here to contact me} 12:53, 11 March 2020 (UTC)

@Tigraan: What legal doctrine would allow a university to assert copyright ownership of a video made by an audience member? The video may have been made in violation of university policy, and it may even be illegal under some law or ordinance, but that does not constitute a transfer of copyright ownership. -Arch dude (talk) 18:02, 11 March 2020 (UTC)

Per Wikipedia's copyright policy:

If you are the owner of content that is being used on Wikipedia without your permission, then you may request the page be immediately removed from Wikipedia; see Request for immediate removal of copyright violation. You can also contact our designated agent to have it permanently removed (but it may take up to a week for the page to be deleted that way). You may also blank the page and replace it with the words {{copyvio|URL or place you published the text}} but the text will still be in the page history. Either way, we will, of course, need some evidence to support your claim of ownership.

You can have the video removed per the files for discussion process (for files hosted on Wikipedia) or via Wikimedia Commons deletion request process (for files hosted on Wikimedia Commons). If you see a "Commons" icon in the corner, then you are viewing a Wikimedia Commons file. If you would like the file removed per the DMCA process, send an email to Wikimedia Foundation's designated agent, but you will have to affirm that you have a "good faith belief that the use of the material in the manner complained of is not authorized by the copyright owner, its agent, or the law." and that "the information in the notification is accurate, and under penalty of perjury, that you are authorized to act on behalf of the owner of an exclusive right that is allegedly infringed". Note that you must be the copyright owner or a legal agent of the copyright owner to pursue the latter. Aasim 04:08, 12 March 2020 (UTC)

@Arch dude: The video recording is a derivative work of the presentation, which itself is subject to copyright. The act of recording might create some copyright (if the threshold of originality is met, which could be argued against if the video has no editing, is taken from a fixed point of view etc. but it does not matter here), but the original copyright of the presenter (which might or might not have been transferred in part to the university) is infringed if the recording is published without consent of the copyright holder of the original work.

A similar example would be if I film the screen during a movie. I am not allowed to put the result on Youtube, because even if my act of recording created some original copyright, it would be in violation of the movie's director copyright. Another example: freedom of panorama says that (in countries where it applies) you can freely take and distribute pictures of monuments in the public domain even if said monuments are copyrighted, which is a specific exemption to the general principle that a derivative work could not be distributed without the consent of the original work's copyright holder. Tigraan^{Click here to contact me} 11:26, 13 March 2020 (UTC)

@Tigraan: My question was directed to two points: is the lecture subject to copyright, and if so why would the university own the copyright? It is highly unlikely that the performance itself can be copyrighted: see Copyright#Fixing. This differs from your example of sneaking a copy of a film, because the film is already "fixed" and copyrighted, while the performance (the lecture) is not. It is highly unlikely that the university would own the copyright, since copyright cannot be conveyed except by an explicit "writing". These are the two points that I hoped you could address. I am already aware of both our policies and the laws that come into play if there is in fact a copyright violation, but there cannot be a copyright violation if there is no copyright. -Arch dude (talk) 15:44, 13 March 2020 (UTC)

In some parts of the world (not mine, Germany), the university indeed asserts copyright over everything that it's professors and instructors produce as part of their employment. In Germany, I hold the copyright for the composition of what I put together in my talks and lectures. Filming me in Germany without my consent is indeed a violation of copyright. And if I am at the university, I have the right to decide who can take pictures of me and who can't. This is different if I am in a public place. So yes, this can be a copyright issue. --WiseWoman (talk) 21:16, 13 March 2020 (UTC)

Harvnb/Cite book template help

Hi all – in relation to the article Northgate, West Sussex, which I'm actively working on, can anybody who is more skilled at templates than I am work out why the Harvard reference to Williamson et al. (2019) isn't working? I have specified 4 authors, which I believe is supported by this template. Cheers, Hassocks5489 (Floreat Hova!) 21:32, 10 March 2020 (UTC)

Name order matters. The {{harvnb}} templates have the name order:

Williamson Musson Hudson Nairn

the {{cite book}} template has the name order:

Williamson Hudson Musson Nairn

—Trappist the monk (talk) 21:46, 10 March 2020 (UTC)

Resolved

@Trappist the monk: Many thanks – I'd been staring at that for ages wondering what was wrong! Hassocks5489 (Floreat Hova!) 22:13, 10 March 2020 (UTC)

Selected publications

How can I find the most important publications for an academic? I want to add a Selected publications section to David Dumville as the previous one was removed on 10 August 2018‎ for being indiscriminate. TSventon (talk) 23:23, 10 March 2020 (UTC)

• I am not sure we should have such a section at all, TSventon. The problem, precisely, is that there is no easy criterion to decide which are important and which are not. One possibility for literary/social science academics would be to list books and not papers (since one is bound to not publish that many books during one's career). Tigraan^{Click here to contact me} 12:58, 11 March 2020 (UTC)

• Tigraan Thanks for your answer, it is a pity if there is no easy criterion. I am thinking of academics in the humanities and think publications can be important and useful, e.g. Neil Ripley Ker lists seven books. I have now realised that Dumville's article is little more than a c.v. and it will be difficult to improve it until more sources turn up. TSventon (talk) 15:13, 11 March 2020 (UTC)

Corrections to my Wikipedia Bio

Hello,

I would like to personally make correction to my Wiki page. There are alot of errors and incomplete information on here. Please grant me access to do thi

Ruth — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ruthobih (talk • contribs) 23:34, 10 March 2020 (UTC)

Hey, I'm Info-Screen. Sad to hear, that there are errors on the Page about you. I guess you refer to the Page Ruth Obih. Especially this edit of yours, which was later reverted. This means that you are not lacking access to the Article, but another editor thought, that the edit you made was not Constructive (see the notice on your Talk Page). Generally users are discouraged to write Articles about themselfes. You might want to read the Wikipedia:Simple conflict of interest edit request. If you have questions regarding this, don't hesitate to ask. --Info-Screen::Talk 23:48, 10 March 2020 (UTC)

Hi Ruth. Unfortunately since you are the subject of the article, you have a Conflict of Interest and must follow the guidelines provided. Thepenguin9 (talk) 00:13, 11 March 2020 (UTC)

Hello, Ruthobih. WP:AUTOPROB has some guidance for people in your position. --ColinFine (talk) 00:21, 11 March 2020 (UTC)