Wikipedia:Help desk/Archives/2020 November 26

Welcome to the Wikipedia Help Desk Archives
The page you are currently viewing is an archive page. While you can leave answers for any questions shown below, please ask new questions on one of the current Help Desk pages.

November 26

Off-Wikipedia editing question

Hello! My name is Jason - I'm a longtime wikipedia editor who's only ever done minor tweaks to articles here and there and never really joined the editing community. I didn't have an account (or one I remembered log in info for) until today. I'm an administrator of Weezerpedia, however, which borrows nearly all its style and formatting from you all. I have a few questions about infoboxes and templates that I can't quite seem to figure out on my own. Some are quite simple (why are those phantom line breaks appearing at the top of this page?) and others are a little more complicated (can I make a template that will populate info into various other templates, most of which have differing formatting? For an example, see all the different places I'm currently manually entering in the same info about album reviews.) I apologize if this isn't the proper venue for asking a question like this. If anyone is game to lend me a hand, I'd be immensely thankful! Sincerely and gratefully, Jasondanielboxer (talk) 00:17, 26 November 2020 (UTC)

Jasondanielboxer I would also post this at WP:RDC if I were you. {{u|Squeeps10}} {Talk} Please ping when replying. 00:25, 26 November 2020 (UTC)

Squeeps10 - thank you! --Jasondanielboxer (talk) 00:29, 26 November 2020 (UTC)

Of course! Let me know if there's anything else I can do for you Jasondanielboxer. {{u|Squeeps10}} {Talk} Please ping when replying. 00:35, 26 November 2020 (UTC)

Where can I find a list of users who got "Senior Vanguard Editor" badge?

Where can I find a list of users who got "Senior Vanguard Editor" badge? Man Floor (talk) 02:55, 26 November 2020 (UTC)

@Man Floor: You could go to the pages for Template:Senior Vanguard Editor Userbox, Template:Senior Vanguard Editor topicon, and Template:Senior Vanguard Editor, and click on "What links here" on the sidebar. Set your namespace parameter to "User" from the dropdown menu and you can see which users have it on their user pages. —Tenryuu 🐲 ( 💬 • 📝 ) 03:02, 26 November 2020 (UTC)

Excellent, how to hide these repeated user names like this: IMAGE ?

I only want Senior Vanguard Editor Badge, why are you mentioning Userbox, topicon in your answer instead of just badge users which I exactly seeking for it? Man Floor (talk) 04:23, 26 November 2020 (UTC)

Not sure which one you mean by badge. If you are not looking for users of the userbox or topicon then just ignore those and just look at the other one. Also, know that the service awards are just for fun and are self-awarded, so there will be many many more users who meet that criteria than who have the award. RudolfRed (talk) 04:39, 26 November 2020 (UTC)

Man Floor, because they're arbitrarily given and different editors choose which one they want. —Tenryuu 🐲 ( 💬 • 📝 ) 04:50, 26 November 2020 (UTC)

How do I make a table of data that pulls data from other articles??

For example, there's an article on Hydrogen and it has an attribute "atomic number = 1" and state = gas. Another article for Helium has "atomic number = 2" and state = gas. And so on for the rest of the elements. How do I make a report or table of data that lists all the elements in column 1, atomic number in column 2, and state in column 3? The data has to be dynamically linked, meaning that when the data is changed either in the report on in the article, it must also update on the other. Is this possible? Thanks, Kenny. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Kennymcmack (talk • contribs) 04:50, 26 November 2020 (UTC)

@Kennymcmack: This is possible with Wikidata.--Jasper Deng (talk) 04:54, 26 November 2020 (UTC)

ThanksKennymcmack (talk) 05:03, 26 November 2020 (UTC)

@Kennymcmack: Yep, Wikidata is the right approach, but may require a fair amount of work. Wikidata is a database. The item of interest must be identified, which may require that you define a new data type in Wikidata. You then must add that data type in the wikidata record for each affected article, and then replace the raw text value in each article with a link to the Wikidata object instead. This will likely be easy if those articles are using a template that includes the data of interest. But all this work is useful beyond your immediate goal, because it allows other folks to use your new database item to make sophisticated queries. It is also the case that other editors will no longer be able to change the items in the "source" articles, but will be required to modify the Wikidata item instead. -Arch dude (talk) 18:32, 26 November 2020 (UTC)

I don't like the new Template:Infobox reality competition season

Inserting a name for a show that's different from the name of the page is impossible. Take a look at: X Factor (Romanian season 9) #eXtra Factor. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Monsterofain (talk • contribs) 08:23, 26 November 2020 (UTC)

Taika Waititi

Dear Wikipedia Editors

As a proud Kiwi(New Zealander)seeing Taika Waititi, winner of the 2020 Oscar for adapted screenplay, for his movie Jojo Rabbit, credited as being from the United States (of America).

On Taikas' personal Wikipedia page he is correctly identified as being born in New Zealand (Aotearoa).

I hope this helps to correct this small error.

Cheers

Kenneth van Bergen — Preceding unsigned comment added by 210.55.232.219 (talk) 10:14, 26 November 2020 (UTC)

(I added a title to this question.) Hello Kenneth. Hopefully you'll return to this page and see this reply. It's not clear to me from your message what your issue is with the Jojo Rabbit article. The article doesn't describe Waititi as American. It does describe the film as an American/New Zealand/Czech Republic co-production, which is correct. If you could clarify your concerns it would be very helpful. Finally, you landed on the wrong Wikipedia page for this type of query. This page is for queries on how to use Wikipedia. The best place to discuss your concerns is on the article's talk page. You could also probably discuss it at the entertainment reference desk. Best wishes, --Viennese Waltz 10:43, 26 November 2020 (UTC)

Oh wait, are you talking about the infobox in the article Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay? When it says "Country: United States" in that infobox, it's not referring to Waititi's nationality. It's referring to the country in which the award is given. --Viennese Waltz 10:49, 26 November 2020 (UTC)

When to remove unreferenced content, rather than tag with cn

Hi. I came across these edits today. I am not sure what the IP editor's issue is, but I don't think they are right to delete statements from the two articles without giving interested editors opportunity to provide missing sources. It isn't clear whether the IP editor believes those statements are false - they look plausible to me? Curb Safe Charmer (talk) 10:47, 26 November 2020 (UTC)

@Curb Safe Charmer: Wikipedia:Citation needed gives me the impression that if the information lacking sources is plausible/uncontroversial/etc (unless about a BLP), adding/keeping the {{cn}} tag is preferable to removing the content. WP:FAILEDVERIFICATION doesn't seem to provide any further information (to me, at least). In this case, I agree that the content looks plausible, so I'm not sure whether removing it all was the best option or not. Maybe discuss it with the IP to see what they think? Seagull123 Φ 13:06, 26 November 2020 (UTC)

Per WP:BURDEN, the burden to demonstrate verifiability lies with the editor who adds or restores material. I think there is often good reason to remove uncited claims even if you know the claim is true - for example, with the aim of tidying up articles as part of bigger work, maintaining a good standard, and defending them from slowly accumulating more dubious stuff. Adding information that is true and useful but not cited is not necessarily a net gain for the encyclopaedia. That's my 2c.

If someone adds an uncited claim to an article I watch, and it's definitely something that would improve the article, I will generally do the work and try to find a citation for it. But the onus is not on other editors to do this work. Popcornfud (talk) 13:17, 26 November 2020 (UTC)

@Popcornfud: It seems to me that they've been over-zealous, removing almost every paragraph that doesn't have an inline citation, which ignores or is a mis-interpretation of WP:MINREF. The article has a bibliography section. Curb Safe Charmer (talk) 13:32, 26 November 2020 (UTC)

Curb Safe Charmer, to be quite honest, I haven't looked at this specific case and instead just barged in to give my 2 cents on removing uncited claims generally. Sorry about that. This editor may have been out of line. Popcornfud (talk) 14:01, 26 November 2020 (UTC)

I was the IP editor responsible for these two edits. The two articles concerned were originally edited quite extensively by me also, and I did try to provide adequate online citations. Two other editors obviously disagreed. My issue is, that simply inserting the "citations needed" banner at the top of an article already containing citations, without even a token attempt to identify problematic statements in the text by using the inline "citations needed" tag, is aggressive, intimidatory and unhelpful. I had an editorial conflict in another article over this point, the result of which being that I "retired" and blocked my Wikipedia account by changing the password to a random digit series which I then discarded. I would like to make it clear that I only deleted my own work in these two articles. If anyone wishes to restore the deleted text, feel free. I'm replying here out of politeness, but I would like to make it clear that I do not wish to be involved in any serious editing of Wikipedia again as a result of this conflict, nor do I intend to make any further monetary contributions.

Submit an article about an actor

Hi, I would like to submit an article about an actor, if you could advise how to create or submit one, I'll be grateful.

Regards

Usman — Preceding unsigned comment added by Musmanaman (talk • contribs) 12:07, 26 November 2020 (UTC)

Hi Musmanaman, info can be found at your first article. I would, however, comment that making a page is one of the harder things to do on wikipedia, and you'd be better served editing a few articles to get an understanding first. Best Wishes, Lee Vilenski ^{(talk • contribs)} 12:11, 26 November 2020 (UTC)

Successfully writing a new article is the absolute hardest thing to do on Wikipedia. It takes much effort, time, and practice. You will greatly increase your chances of success if you first spend time editing existing articles in areas that interest you, to get a feel for how Wikipedia operates and what is expected of article content. You should also use the new user tutorial to learn more about Wikipedia.

An actor merits a Wikipedia article if they receive significant coverage in independent reliable sources showing how they meet the special Wikipedia definition of a notable actor. Not every actor merits an article, but you truly feel that the one you wish to write about does, you may use Articles for Creation to create and submit a draft for review by another editor, before it is formally placed in the encyclopedia. This way you find out any problems first.

If you work for or represent this actor, you must review the conflict of interest and paid editing policies for information on formal disclosures you may be required to make. 331dot (talk) 12:15, 26 November 2020 (UTC)

@Musmanaman: The central issue is notability: See WP:N and especially WP:NACTOR. A subject must be notable, or its article will be removed from Wikipedia. We remove more than 100 articles each day. Please do not waste any time on this effort (yours or ours) unless you first convince yourself that the actor meets our notability guidelines. If the actor is in fact notable, we can help you fix any other problems, but the most perfect article ever written will still be deleted if the subject is not notable. See WP:AMOUNT. -Arch dude (talk) 17:58, 26 November 2020 (UTC)

See: Evelyn Knight (Singer)

Every time I try to load a photo of Evelyn I keep getting notices that I've not provided sufficient licensing info, despite mentioning the photo came from her personal archives with credit given to Bruno of Hollywood ©1946. I am Evelyn's daughter and owner of her print, broadcast, and recording assets. Evelyn died in 2008. Bruno of Hollywood closed for business in the 60s and Bruno himself died in 1987. I'm not trying to monetize Mom's image, I just want to replace the one already there with a better one.

Advice please. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Knightfamily (talk • contribs) 18:36, 26 November 2020 (UTC)

Knightfamily, this is a matter for Wikimedia Commons, where you have uploaded the image and where a bot has proposed its deletion as lacking adequate information on its copyright status. You should discuss it there, not here at English Wikipedia; perhaps at their Help desk. The issue is not the ownership of the photo, it's ownership of copyright in the photo, which will belong to the photographer (or their heirs) unless there's a contract that says otherwise. Maproom (talk) 21:21, 26 November 2020 (UTC)

Citing an image that I was given permission to use

I was given permission to use an image by its owner, but the image is neither mine nor copyright-free. How should I cite it? — Preceding unsigned comment added by JPD10113519 (talk • contribs) 20:50, 26 November 2020 (UTC)

@JPD10113519: See WP:DONATEIMAGE for instructions on how the copyright owner can verify the permission. even though it mentions images already online, I think you can use the same form/email method for images not online yet. RudolfRed (talk) 20:59, 26 November 2020 (UTC)

Also, what do you mean by "its owner"? Ownership of a physical or digital copy of a picture does not give you any right to license its use; instead, such right resides in the holder of the copyright. --Orange Mike | Talk 21:36, 26 November 2020 (UTC)

@JPD10113519: "Permission" is irrelevant, and "permission" from anyone other than the copyright owner has no meaning. The copyright owner (not you) must license the image to us (and everyone) with a CC-BY-SA license. If we have no such license from the copyright owner, then the only alternative is a free use rationale, which is highly restrictive (see WP:FREEUSE) but which requires no permission from the copyright owner or anyone else. -Arch dude (talk) 06:06, 27 November 2020 (UTC)

@JPD10113519: Arch dude meant to say "fair use rationale, which is highly restrictive (see WP:FAIRUSE)", and which means non-free use. —teb728 t c 09:52, 27 November 2020 (UTC)

Is there a way to determine if a template was placed with subst?

I was browsing through WP:TFD and noticed several templates proposed with the reason that they are not used. OK, makes sense. My question is, if a template is always subsituted and never transcluded, is there any way to tell how much it is being used? For example, {{submit}} is always placed with {{subst:submit}}. Is there any way to know how much this template is used? RudolfRed (talk) 21:30, 26 November 2020 (UTC)

@RudolfRed: I think you have to look for pieces of code from the transcluded template. Many templates (e.g., the Uw-* warning templates) include their name in an HTML comment. E.g., to see uses of {{Uw-vandalism4}} in User talk namespace, search for insource:"<!-- Template:uw-vandalism4 -->" like this. Unfortunately {{Submit}} (actually {{AfC submission/submit}}) doesn't include such a comment, so I think you're stuck with searching for the code it produces, like this (may not cover all possibilities, but I think this is most of it). Of course, it would still include results where people entered the same code manually, or perhaps other templates producing similar code. —[AlanM1 (talk)]— 03:27, 27 November 2020 (UTC)

Thanks! RudolfRed (talk) 17:42, 27 November 2020 (UTC)