Wikipedia:Help desk/Archives/2024 September 23

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September 23

Photos of living people

Hello. How does one go about uploading photos of living people to their infobox? I have started creating articles of the living and would like to add their photo, but the rules are different to the deceased. For example Juliet Harbutt or Paul Shearer - any suggestions gratefully received. BJCHK (talk) 04:54, 23 September 2024 (UTC)

Just like photos of people who've since died, except that you cannot cite "fair use" for the use in any article of any photo that is neither in the public domain (as this term is understood in the context of copyright law) nor copyleft according to one or other of the licenses that are acceptable for en:Wikipedia. Suggestion: Meet these people and take photos of them. -- Hoary (talk) 06:26, 23 September 2024 (UTC)

Thanks @Hoary - will try that (the meeting thing would be tricky. I live in Hong Kong and these two people are in the UK and NZ!) BJCHK (talk) 07:21, 23 September 2024 (UTC)

Ah, sorry about those geographical hurdles, BJCHK. The cheese lady says that in the past she was an "IT nerd"; this being so, perhaps you could persuade her to upload a selfie to Commons, as (truthfully!) her "own work". Google suggests that Shearer has a LinkedIn page. I'm not a member so can't see it, but perhaps you could persuade him to announce there that one of his photos of himself is copyleft (NB strictly according to Commons' requirements), or of course you could persuade him too to upload a selfie. -- Hoary (talk) 09:03, 23 September 2024 (UTC)

@BJCHK WP:A picture of you may have something helpful. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 09:12, 23 September 2024 (UTC)

@Gråbergs Gråa Sång this is such a helpful link - I will send it to them and see if it works. Thanks! BJCHK (talk) 10:00, 23 September 2024 (UTC)

@BJCHK: You uploaded File:Peter Phillips (conductor).jpg a few weeks ago, and Peter Phillips (conductor) is living. You've also uploaded File:Peter Phillips and Steve Smith, co-founders of Gimell Records.jpg, File:Mark Isaac-Williams.jpg, File:Dustin Nicholls aka Astra Zero.jpg, File:Lindsey McAlister, theatre director.png and File:Graeme Mitcheson, sculptor.jpg, who are all living people; so, it's not clear why you're suddenly asking the above question. Did you take all of these photos yourself? Some of your other uploads like File:A gemel (or gymel) from the Eton Choirbook.jpg, File:Portrait of Mrs Claud Mullins.png, File:Bauhinia blakeana, watercolour painting by Mark Isaac-Williams.jpg and File:William Cobbett (1763-1835) bust.jpg seem to have questionable licensing. Are you aware that the term "own work" has a special meaning when it comes to image copyright, and that photographing someone else's creative work can be a case of c:COM:2D copying or c:COM:Derivative work? Did you, for example, take File:Amelia Behren-Furniss in standard diving gear.png back in 1921? -- Marchjuly (talk) 09:39, 23 September 2024 (UTC)

Hello @Marchjuly In answer to your many questions:

• I contacted Peter Phillips, Mark Isaac-Williams, Dustin Nicholls, Lindsey McAlister and Graeme Mitcheson and asked them, as I had a point of contact for them. They all gave me images to upload with their permission.
• I took the photo of Mark Isaac-Williams' work with his express permission.
• I took the photo of William Cobbett's bust myself.
• Peter Phillips photographed the gymel directly from the Eton Choirboy and sent it to me to upload.
• I have tried contacting other people in the past with whom I have no link and have had very limited success. I didn't know if there was a way of doing this without this step, that's all.

Of course I didn't take a photo of Amelia Behren-Furniss in 1921 - I am still learning this and obviously made a mistake when I listed that image. I find this aspect of Wikipedia very tricky to navigate and can only try my best. I honestly found your reply rather unhelpful and not in the spirit of my question. I will continue to ask questions and take friendly help from those willing to offer it.

@Gråbergs Gråa Sång and @Hoary thank you for your suggestions.

BJCHK (talk) 09:57, 23 September 2024 (UTC)

@BJCHK To take just one of your examples. File:Peter Phillips (conductor).jpg will be deleted on Commons later today in 7 days because although you say it was provided to you by Phillips with permission to upload it, you have not provided evidence of this to Commons Volunteers. To do that, you need to get Phillips to email them to say he did give such permission. The process is described at c:Commons:Volunteer Response Team. Similarly for all the other files you personally did not take. Don't worry if the files are deleted before the emails from the subjects arrive: Commons admins can undelete files. Make sure the emails state the file names you used and your username. Mike Turnbull (talk) 10:51, 23 September 2024 (UTC)

Thank you @Michael D. Turnbull I will contact Peter and ask him to fill in the form. BJCHK (talk) 10:56, 23 September 2024 (UTC)

@BJCHK: My apologies if my first post seemed a bit harsh, but image copyright can be tricky and it's easy to make mistakes. My suggestion to you is to maybe refrain from uploading any more images (particularly to Commons) until you've had a chance to read through c:Commons:Licensing and c:Commons:Copyright rules by subject matter. Mistakes are understandable, and most Commons administrators are willing to help people sort them out; however, Commons administrators may be less inclined to be lenient with those who've made so many mistakes and might feel stronger action needs to be taken. One important thing to understand about image copyright is the person taking the photo, not the subject of the photo, is considered to be the copyright holder and it's that person's permission Michael D. Turnbull is referring to. So, even if the subjects of these photos have told you its OK to use them, their consent would be meaningless if they didn't take the photos themselves or didn't somehow formally acquire the photos' copyrights from those who did. This is what Hoary was implying when he suggested Meet these people and take photos of them since that would make you the copyright holder and then you could license the photos as you see fit. Of course, things aren't always that simple in each and every case, but it tends to apply when it comes to taking photos of identifiable living people. -- Marchjuly (talk) 11:30, 23 September 2024 (UTC)

How to find all my edits to Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/ subpages

I recall leaving several comments at an AfD nomination last year but I don't think I !voted so I haven't been able to find that specific AfD page using AfD Stats. Is there a tool/way to look up all my edits to Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/ subpages so I can find the lost page? Thanks in advance. Nythar (💬-🍀) 07:31, 23 September 2024 (UTC)

@Nythar: Assuming you signed the comments, a search like this one should list all the AFD pages that you edited in 2023. -- John of Reading (talk) 08:25, 23 September 2024 (UTC)

I found it. Thank you. Nythar (💬-🍀) 08:45, 23 September 2024 (UTC)

How to deal with awful articles?

In my time on Wikipedia I've come across a few (not many) truly horrible articles. Most of which should not be deleted, just very heavily altered. How do I go about doing this? Is there a way I can request help or draw attention to certain articles? Dr. Carrotflower (talk) 15:00, 23 September 2024 (UTC)

@Dr. Carrotflower I don't think there is a general answer. If you don't want to nominate an article for deletion, perhaps because you recognise it is on a notable topic, then your first step should be to boldly edit it with improvements. If you find some sources it does not yet include but don't want to incorporate them yourself, it is helpful to add them to the associated Talk Page. That's also where you'll find any related projects that have stated an interest in the article. Each Project should have its own Talk Page with centralised discussion for interested editors: although some Projects are defunct. There is a process of WP:TAGGING pages to indicate problems but I'd advise you not to do that unless you are also prepared to work on the article before you tag it for any remaining problems. Mike Turnbull (talk) 15:20, 23 September 2024 (UTC)

@Dr. Carrotflower:The most direct thing you can do is to make the change yourself. Articles aren't going to improve themselves, they're only going to get fixed if editors make the necessary changes.

Understandably, you might not want to make that commitment. One alternative is to identify the problem and suggest specific changes on the article's talk page. However, don't hold your breath. But you can still feel that you've made your contribution, it's not your fault if nobody acts on your suggestion. Note that many articles have talk page archives, and if there's no activity regarding your comment on the talk page for some period of time, the concerns you express may fall into obscurity when your suggestions are moved to the talk page archive for that article.

You can also add the article to WP:Articles for improvement/Nominations. Note that this should be restricted to articles of some significance, as this is a comparatively elite list and your everyday "run of the mill" articles are perhaps not the best candidates for this list. Fabrickator (talk) 15:41, 23 September 2024 (UTC)

An article that is too far gone to be able to be salvaged may be nominated for deletion and deleted, even if it was agreed that Wikipedia should have an article on that (just not that article). After doing so, a new article may be started from scratch. See WP:TNT. Cambalachero (talk) 16:40, 23 September 2024 (UTC)

I'm a little skeptical on the idea that an article is "too far gone", unless there have been changes to "reality" that made it "out-of-date". Just reset to some version before it was "too far gone" and voila, your articles is no longer as bad as it used to be. Fabrickator (talk) 16:51, 23 September 2024 (UTC)

I interpret "too far gone" as meaning "in too dire a state to be rescued", not as implying that it was once better. It's very unusual for an acceptable article to become unsalvageable - even becoming out of date does not usually do that. ColinFine (talk) 17:19, 23 September 2024 (UTC)

@Dr. Carrotflower, often the best way to solve this kind of thing is to remove the unsatisfactory content or to do a WP:BLAR to a related target. But I don't recommend that you, personally, do this yet. Leave it for when you have more experience with wikipedia editing, for two main reasons: one, you'll have a better sense for what other editors broadly agree is "too unsatisfactory to keep", and two, your removals will be much less likely to be contested or reverted without comment by people who think you're just out to vandalize the encyclopedia if you wait to do this until you're extended confirmed. Focus on building the encyclopedia for now. Save the major renovations for later. -- asilvering (talk) 18:15, 23 September 2024 (UTC)

If it's just badly written or organized, slap on a Template:Cleanup tag. Clarityfiend (talk) 22:35, 23 September 2024 (UTC)

@Dr. Carrotflower:

1. Check the article's Talk page.
2. Start small, on a topic you are especially interested in improving.
3. Look for good secondary references.
4. Always, always add references for changes you make.
5. Freely delete any unsourced content.
6. Alway annotate each edit with an edit summary.
7. If you really believe content that is sourced should be deleted, add a short analysis paragraph to the corresponding Talk page.
8. Encourage other editors with polite and cheerful discussion!
9. Repeat steps until you have fixed everything ;-)

Johnjbarton (talk) 22:53, 23 September 2024 (UTC)

Why does the heading of this table overlap the first data row?

Miss World Philippines#Titleholders has two tables, formatted the same way but with different numbers of columns.

In my browser, the first table's header rows are shifted down to obscure the first data row. It should look like the second table.

I'm looking at the wiki-markup and I cannot figure out why one table displays incorrectly and the other one doesn't. The markup for both looks correct to me. ~Anachronist (talk) 15:49, 23 September 2024 (UTC)

Hmm, they look fine in an incognito window. Must be my user preferences. ~Anachronist (talk) 15:56, 23 September 2024 (UTC)

Nevermind. It was the sticky table header setting in my preferences. Disabling that fixed the problem. I don't know why it affected only the first table, however. ~Anachronist (talk) 15:59, 23 September 2024 (UTC)

@Anachronist: The tables are in a div with overflow:auto. It's the issue at MediaWiki talk:Gadget-StickyTableHeaders.css#Not working at The Economist Democracy Index#List by region. PrimeHunter (talk) 19:27, 23 September 2024 (UTC)

I see. I wondering why that auto-overflow div is even needed. If the table is too big for the container, I get scroll bars, and whether the scroll bar is for my browser window or for a css container, both are equally bad. ~Anachronist (talk) 20:52, 23 September 2024 (UTC)

Is There A Way To Mark That A Reference Is Region Blocked?

I've seen icons for PDFs and paywalled articles and so forth that visually mark articles in reference lists but I was reading an article now and wanted to go to one of the references and discovered it's region locked and I can't access it in my country. Is there a way to indicate this in a reference/citation? Watman (talk) 19:31, 23 September 2024 (UTC)

I would be interested in the answer to this. There have been a couple of times when news sites in US say not available in your region (UK). Knitsey (talk) 19:34, 23 September 2024 (UTC)

Agreed - some distinguishing text would be useful - several US sites are continuing to impose EC restrictions on UK readers - although the UK left the EU on 31 January 2020 - Arjayay (talk) 19:41, 23 September 2024 (UTC)

If the citation is using a H:CS1 type of template (e.g. {{cite web}}), the use of the |url-status=, |url-access= or |others= parameter might work as a way of letting readers know that access to the site has been regionally restricted. I believe those parameters work in most CS1 template and there's usually some general description on how to use them on a template's documentation page; for example, WP:URLACCESS could be set as |url-access=limited and then H:CS1#Others might be able to be modified as |others=Source cannot be accessed in country ABC or something similar. If adding such information within the template doesn't work too well, then adding some relevant text (perhaps as a parenthetical) after the template's syntax but before the closing WP:Reftag (e.g.<ref>{{CS1 template}} (text) </ ref>) probably would work. Same goes for citations added without using a template, relevant text should be OK to add to the template after the citation itself but before the closing ref tag. Trying to create a specific parameter for this kind of thing, though, probably should be discussed at WP:VPT given that such templates are widely used and even a minor mistake could cause tons of articles to be suddenly flagged for Help:CS1 errors. You'd also need to be sure that this is an issue not affecting just a single user or a few users, but everyone in the region. -- Marchjuly (talk) 20:12, 23 September 2024 (UTC)

|others=Source cannot be accessed in country ABC Don't do that. It is a misuse of |others= which is intended to be used to name 'other' contributors to the cited work.

This topic has been raised before at Help talk:Citation Style 1 with never a consensus to implement. You can trawl that page's archives for the appropriate discussions.

The correct place to discuss changes/fixes/enhancements to the cs1|2 citation templates is at Help talk:Citation Style 1, not WP:VPT.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 20:49, 23 September 2024 (UTC)

Thanks Trappist the monk for clarifying. For what it's worth, my suggestion was off the cuff and I'd a feeling that it might not work too well. In addition, thanks for pointing out the best place to discuss this. For those who might be interested, one of the discussions you mentioned above can be found at Help talk:Citation Style 1/Archive 94#Request url-status 'regional' for geographic IP restrictions. That discussion seems to indicate there are more similar discussions buried in that talk page's archives. Perhaps adding this type of query might be worth adding to WP:PERENNIAL if it's something that comes up a lot. -- Marchjuly (talk) 21:12, 23 September 2024 (UTC)

Showing the table of contents on the left for desktop UI

Hi. I've been using Wikipedia quite a lot but suddenly sometimes the table of contents (TOC) on the left is gone. The UI shows a small floating square in the upper left corner and if I click it the TOC shows. Also, on pages with the TOC, there is a small button next to "Contents" which says "Hide". I guess if I click the TOC will go away into the square. How can I unhide the TOC?? Thanks! Johnjbarton (talk) 21:58, 23 September 2024 (UTC)

@Johnjbarton: If you click the square to display the TOC then there should be a "move to sidebar" button. PrimeHunter (talk) 22:05, 23 September 2024 (UTC)

@PrimeHunter Thanks, I expected as much, however sadly there is no such button. Johnjbarton (talk) 22:15, 23 September 2024 (UTC)

@Johnjbarton: I made some tests and the option disappears in narrow windows. I guess it's deliberate. PrimeHunter (talk) 22:52, 23 September 2024 (UTC)

@PrimeHunter Bingo! I guess I set my browser zoom to +125% so I could read the print and that made the software go haywire. Once I reset the zoom the TOC came back and the "move to sidebar" reappeared. Thanks! Johnjbarton (talk) 22:58, 23 September 2024 (UTC)

New Article problem

Hello,

I have created several new pages for books in the past. I am attempting to create a page entitled "Unthinkable: An Extraordinary Journey Through the World’s Strangest Brains", but I keep getting an error stating the following:

This page is on the title blacklist, so only administrators, template editors, and page movers can create it.

I have never seen this error before. Can someone help me in clearing the blacklist so that I can create the page? (A draft is now visible in my sandbox, which you can use to verify that it is well-sourced and reliable). Thank you! Michelangelo1992 (talk) 22:09, 23 September 2024 (UTC)

Methinks it's because of your apostrophe (the shameless, curved hussy). I get the message with it, but not if I use the Wikipedia-approved straight one. Clarityfiend (talk) 22:42, 23 September 2024 (UTC)

That's it. The red link Unthinkable: An Extraordinary Journey Through the World’s Strangest Brains makes an edit link with redlink=yes. This redirects to a non-edit page which doesn't explain it. If you click the "Create source" tab there then you get an edit link without redlink=yes and should see a detailed explanation. PrimeHunter (talk) 23:10, 23 September 2024 (UTC)

That makes sense! I have noticed before that all of my apostrophes get corrected by a bot later. Do you know how I can type the straight apostrophe directly? On my screen / keyboard, the apostrophe to the right of ";" appears as a straight apostrophe, but Wikipedia seems to think differently. Michelangelo1992 (talk) 00:18, 24 September 2024 (UTC)

@Michelangelo1992: I guess the keyboard makes a straight apostrophe but some of your software may convert it to curly, especially if you use a word processor to prepare edits. If you copy-paste text from somewhere then you may also get curly apostrophes without noticing it. There are different tools to edit Wikipedia but below the edit box you may have a menu where you can select "Insert" or "Wiki markup" and click a button to produce a straight apostrophe. PrimeHunter (talk) 01:02, 24 September 2024 (UTC)

I have never noticed that "insert" button before. I will be sure to use that going forward. Thank you! Michelangelo1992 (talk) 01:16, 24 September 2024 (UTC)

Michelangelo1992, one minor comment. I quote: "A review in the Washington Post [...] addresses directly the reader." No, this isn't what you meant to say, but there it is. ("The way the book addresses the reader directly"? NB I haven't read the review. Or indeed the book.) -- Hoary (talk) 23:25, 23 September 2024 (UTC)

I have no idea why I typed that - I have fixed it. Thank you! Michelangelo1992 (talk) 00:16, 24 September 2024 (UTC)