Wikipedia:Help desk/Archives/2023 April 21

Help desk
< April 20 << Mar | April | May >> April 22 >
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.


April 21

edit

Adding or changing an image in solar eclipse infobox

edit

I haven't figured out how to edit images of the solar eclipses. Someone who knows how infobox works could help me out on this. MarioJump83 (talk) 02:29, 21 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@MarioJump83: Someone would need to upload a new image to Wikipedia (or Wikimedia Commons) and then someone could edit the infobox to reference the new image. If you could please provide the name of the article, we could provide more detailed instructions. GoingBatty (talk) 02:46, 21 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Solar eclipse of April 20, 2023. There is an image for total solar eclipse in East Timor rather than partial eclipses on Indonesia, but I could not change it myself. There's also a lot of images for Solar eclipse of March 7, 1970 in Wikimedia Commons which hasn't added into the infobox just yet. I intend to add an image to the infobox the way they did on the April 20, 2023 article. MarioJump83 (talk) 03:03, 21 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@MarioJump83: Well, {{Infobox solar eclipse}} seems to work differently from other infoboxes, as it "uses information from the NASA Solar Eclipse Database". Overriding the image with the |image= parameter didn't seem to work for me. I suggest asking at Template talk:Infobox solar eclipse if you don't receive a response here. GoingBatty (talk) 03:24, 21 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
That's disappointing. The infobox is probably overly complex for me to understand. MarioJump83 (talk) 04:22, 21 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@MarioJump83: The image is decided by [1] in Module:Solar eclipse/db/200 which is for 2001–2050. Module:Solar eclipse/db/195 is for 1951–2000. PrimeHunter (talk) 13:38, 21 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks, I'll do something later. MarioJump83 (talk) 15:35, 21 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Looking for categorization reporting tool

edit

In the "Categories" section at the bottom of this page - please add the link Liberal Unionist Party as well as Harriet Martineau and James Martineau. These links appear to be certainly relevant. Thanks 175.38.42.62 (talk) 03:01, 21 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Hi there! The links you mentioned are articles, not categories. The articles you mentioned are already linked within the body of the Martineau family article. I suggest you reword your request on the article's talk page: Talk:Martineau family. GoingBatty (talk) 03:18, 21 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry, I don't quite get what you mean, so I'll keep out of it. Thank you again 175.38.42.62 (talk) 09:07, 21 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not sure you know what categories are. If you click "Catherine, Princess of Wales" after "Categories:" on Martineau family then you are not taken to an article but to Category:Catherine, Princess of Wales. See more at Help:Category. PrimeHunter (talk) 13:19, 21 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Moving article when target article is its redirect

edit

Hi, I'm trying to change the name of Muvattupuzha Taluk to Muvattupuzha taluk as "taluk" is part of the descriptor, not the title, and it is not normally capitalized in prose. The latter article already exists, though, as a redirect to the former. I'm not able to complete the move. Is there a quick way to resolve this? (There is very inconsistent capitalization among many article titles like this, so I want to be able to do it myself if possible!) Thanks!! Wracking 💬 09:54, 21 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

As an extended confirmed user you should be able to move an article to a new name which is currently a redirect without history. As Muvattupuzha taluk has some history you will probably need to use Wikipedia:Requested moves/Technical requests, which is fairly quick as long as no one objects. TSventon (talk) 10:17, 21 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Got it, thanks! Wracking 💬 10:36, 21 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Looking for support

edit
  FYI
 – Added section header. GoingBatty (talk) 14:27, 21 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

looking for a support 197.255.196.190 (talk) 13:54, 21 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Hi there! How can we help you with Wikipedia? GoingBatty (talk) 14:28, 21 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I need to change the article name as I enterd a wrong title Nourine soliman (talk) 17:03, 24 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Username change

edit

Hi all. I'm here to ask about changing my username and if it's possible. I know there is a policy for whether or not it is deemed appropriate to change one's name yet I am not sure where to find it. The reason I want to change it is mainly because I just don't like it—it resonates with me in an improper way, is at least somewhat immature in my eyes, and, additionally, the name carries a lot of history/baggage behind it that I don't want people seeking out so easily as it was created when I was in a younger, less mature age, when I did not care so much about digital footprint (this, of course, has changed). I am here to ask what the policy for username changes is, what effects it can have (will it also affect my Wikibooks, Wikidata, etc. accounts?), and if I should even go about it or if it's just too much effort for a trivial matter. I am really quite conflicted here. - Cheers, KoolKidz112 (hit me up) 14:10, 21 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Guidance is at Wikipedia:Changing username. - David Biddulph (talk) 14:14, 21 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you, I will look over it. - Cheers, KoolKidz112 (hit me up) 14:20, 21 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

How to efficiently determine who introduced a claim into an article?

edit

One of the ways I often edit is because I'm interested in a topic so I want to read beyond the Wikipedia article, including reading the cited sources. One issue I've seen a lot is that someone will make some claim in an article and I'll think it sounds kind of dubious, so I read the cites and those cites don't actually make the claim which the article text makes (and thus claims that the cite supports). So I'll say "WTF? No, article does not say that" and take it out.

Sometimes these bad cites seem to me like someone is deliberately misrepresenting something, and I want to figure out who was responsible and punish them somehow. I acknowledge of course that we should assume good faith, and we (even outside of Wikipedia) we should not ascribe to malice what can be explained by poor reading comprehension. But even so, I kind of want to slap the relevant accounts with some sort of "You did a reading comprehension fail, please read sources more carefully in future" thing. Even if it's just me whining on people's talk pages or something.

The problem is that I don't know a good way to efficiently identify the edit which introduced a cited claim. I mean, I'm pretty technically sophisticated, so I guess I could do a lot of programming and implement something, but I would think/hope some kind of fuzzy "where did most of these words in about this position in the article probably come from" had already been created because I hate doing work. Or that at least that some people had the same kind of feeling of wanting to figure out who screwed this article up in this way originally happened, and tried to think about what to do with it.

The fundamental problem is that it's extremely low-cost to introduce something wrong into an article and cite some news story about the article's subject which doesn't actually support it, at least compared to accurately verifying that the cite does not actually support the claim which cites it. So my brain naturally wants to do something to balance these costs out somehow. IDK, maybe it's a lost cause. Or maybe, even if there is some good way to determine who introduced some claim, making fun of them for bad reading comprehension isn't a good solution or good for Wikipedia community. I'm willing to accept these things. Nevertheless, what prior work, if any, exists for how-do-I-figure-out-who-originally-added-X-to-article? Dingsuntil (talk) 14:29, 21 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@Dingsuntil: Hi there! I enjoy using WikiBlame to do this. Happy editing! GoingBatty (talk) 14:53, 21 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
There is also a Media wiki tool mw:Who Wrote That?, but I have not used it myself. TSventon (talk) 15:00, 21 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I've used this extension before, and it's helpful in determining who wrote a particular string of text in an article. OP, just be aware that other editors may have also edited that string, and you should always compare it with the article's history to make sure you're leaving a message for the right person. —Tenryuu 🐲 ( 💬 • 📝 ) 19:22, 21 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Template error

edit

On the page "Battle of Borodino", I found an error in a template; I work very little with this type of template, so I don't know how to solve it. Caption: "Ney's infantry push Russian grenadiers back from the [flèches] Error: [undefined] Error: {{Lang}}: no text (help): unrecognized language tag: f4 (help) (which can be seen from the rear in the background). Detail from the Borodino Panorama.". JackkBrown (talk) 14:29, 21 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

The broken template was a {{Lang}} template, whose language tag seems to have been a typo of "fr". In that case going into where the template was added in wikitext and changing {{Lang|f4 to {{Lang|fr would resolve the issue, which I have fixed just now. If you would like to resolve a problem relating to templates, but don't know how, it might be useful to use the visual editor's template editor which provides an often-documented list of parameters that you can change about the template; going to the page of the template (linked at the start) can also help you figure out how to resolve the error as it typically contains exhaustive documentation about the template itself. - Cheers, KoolKidz112 (hit me up) 14:48, 21 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Changes

edit

I tried to update the Sorcery Band page but the bot didn't seem to approve of my edits. I am the founding member of Sorcery and all the things I added or changed are correct. Loudguitar (talk) 15:04, 21 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

If you are a founding member of Sorcery making changes to an article about your own band, it can present a conflict of interest; please make sure to take the necessary precautions before attempting to edit the page further—I would advise you read the page on conflict of interest. Additionally, please be sure to cite your sources otherwise edits you make could be reverted as most claims are useless if it is not backed up by reliable, trustworthy sources. It is worth noting that being the founding member of the band does not give you the stance to provide unsourced information with the evidence being "I made the band, so I know everything about it." It is preferred to provide secondary sources to a claim as those are at least somewhat removed from the source of information most closely related with the subject and thusly are generally considered more acceptable and are preferred over primary and tertiary sources in Wikipedia. I hope this helps. Feel free to ask any more questions if you are still confused. - Cheers, KoolKidz112 (hit me up) 15:19, 21 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
It was not a bot that reverted your edits: it was a human editor that goes by Ryanisgreat4444. Wikipedia is not interested in what the subject of an article says or wants to say about themselves, or what their associates say about them. Wikipedia is only interested in what people who have no connection with the subject, and who have not been prompted or fed information on behalf of the subject, have chosen to publish about the subject in reliable sources. ColinFine (talk) 16:50, 21 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Wikimedia Commons Is Down

edit

When I Try accessing wikimedia commons it says this:

Your connection is not private

Attackers might be trying to steal your information from commons.wikimedia.org (for example, passwords, messages, or credit cards). Learn more

NET::ERR_CERT_AUTHORITY_INVALID


I tried another computer it said the samething but let me continue to site, there is one word one the whole page "RESET". PaulGamerBoy360 (talk) 15:47, 21 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@PaulGamerBoy360 I have been using Commons all afternoon without problems and have uploaded several files. Thus the problem is probably your end. The precise URL link I use to access Commons is this one. Mike Turnbull (talk) 16:08, 21 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I think an hacker is trying to pretend to be commons.wikimedia.org, so Google is blocking it, because it worked for link one minute but when I reloaded the page the message in my original post happened. PaulGamerBoy360 (talk) 17:23, 21 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

AI for article creation

edit

Not sure this is the right forum, but I wanted to flag the issue of possible use of AI in article creation. At Peer review, I came across this, a use of AI in reviewing. That led to this GAR discussion, AI again, where it became apparent that User:Esculenta was also creating articles at a very fast rate.[2] I'm not competent to assess whether or not they are making use of AI, whether it would be a good/bad/right/wrong thing if they are, or whether their actions are in fact completely appropriate. I know the use of AI here is currently a topic under quite heavy discussion although I'm not aware any conclusions have been reached/guidance or policy written. So I wanted to flag it to enable those with the necessary technical competence to have a look. Very happy to flag it elsewhere if this isn't the right place. I have let User:Esculenta know I've raised it. KJP1 (talk) 16:23, 21 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I would suggest this is more for Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents. --Orange Mike | Talk 16:35, 21 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
OrangeMike - Many thanks, wasn't sure where was best. I'll flag it there. KJP1 (talk) 16:37, 21 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Addressed at ANI. KJP1 (talk) 17:24, 21 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

new skin on english wikipedia

edit

was it implemented to force people to make an account so they could switch back to the previous skin? 103.62.153.129 (talk) 19:08, 21 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by incompetence. Maproom (talk) 19:16, 21 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I find both the above remarks rather offensive. I am not a Wikipedia programmer, and had no part in designing or implementing the new interface. But I have no doubt that the volunteers who put their time and effort into it did so with the intention of improving it. OK, you don't like it. But the suggestions of either malice or incompetence are unworthy and disrespectful. (For the record I neither particularly like nor dislike it). ColinFine (talk) 23:30, 21 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
There are workarounds for IP editors described here and here. 199.208.172.35 (talk) 19:42, 21 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]