Help desk
< February 20	<< Jan \| February \| Mar >>	February 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.

February 21

Removal of link

Sir/Madam,

I have run www.naval-history.net since 1998, an internationally known site, which is being taken over by a major British museum. As a group project, we have a wealth of information that we would like others to be aware of. On that basis I have added a link two or three times to Royal Navy, to find it is rapidly removed.

I cannot understand this. The last time I made changes or added links to Wikipedia was many year ago when I had an email saying I was adding too many links. I immediately stopped doing so and this is now the first time I have returned. I am not on your blacklist, so how can I continue to add links to new material that will be of value to your readers?

Thank you, Gordon Smith — Preceding unsigned comment added by GordonSmith1941 (talk • contribs) 01:30, 21 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Hello, GordonSmith1941. Just as anyone can add material to Wikipedia articles, anyone can remove it as well. What content stays is determined by consensus of editors. The editor who reverted your addition explained in an edit summary: "doesnt really add to the article per WP:EL" (diff) and again "already been removed. Go to talk page and discuss" (diff). I suggest you heed their advice and start a discussion at Talk:Royal Navy to get this resolved. – Finnusertop (talk ⋅ contribs) 01:40, 21 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Also, if you "run" the website of the link you're trying to add to a Wikipedia article, you should've proposed the addition on the article's talk page with the disclosure of your connection to it to avoid any possible conflict of interest. - ^theWOLFchild 02:37, 21 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Section Watching

How do I watch a specific section in a page? 400 Lux (talk) 03:13, 21 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

@400 Lux: That would be really useful, but unfortunately I don't believe it is possible. One thing that might help a little is that if someone edits a section, the default edit summary begins with the section title. (So my edit summary begins "/* Section Watching */") So you could watchlist the page and look for the section title in the edit summary. Of course that doesn't work if someone edits a different section later, or if someone edits the whole page. —teb728 t c 06:29, 21 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

@400 Lux: This is a popular proposal. See Wikipedia:Perennial proposals#Technical. Dismas|^(talk) 22:38, 21 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

@ @Dismas: That *entire* page was interesting. Thank you. 400 Lux (talk) 01:14, 22 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

What's different between "Edit source" and "Edit"?

I saw two buttons, "Edit source" and "Edit", in the article List of muscles of the human body, but I don't know what is different between two. --Osteology (talk) 03:30, 21 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Hi, great question! When you click edit source, you will be taken to a page where you can edit the Raw Wikitext of the page. That looks like this. When you just press edit, you will use the Visual Editor. Editing the raw source is more powerful, and you can do more things, but it can be confusing as a new user. The Visual Editor makes basic editing very easy. --allthefoxes ^(Talk) 03:43, 21 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Editing using the Visual Editor is easier when it works. Have the bugs been worked out finally? Robert McClenon (talk) 18:16, 21 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Jorjafak

This spelling is wrong. I was able to correct it to Jorjafk in the text of the article. How can I correct the main title from Jorjafak to Jorjafk. Any help for correction or instructions how to do it is appreciated.69.117.200.235 (talk) 12:43, 21 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

The article's reference 1, and this link, give the spelling Jarjāfk. I am reluctant to change the name of the article to something which appears not to be the usual name of the village. Maproom (talk) 13:23, 21 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

The reference 1 is from US military, and I am not sure what is their source for names and the correlating English transliteration. There are many references about Jorjafk fault in reputable scientific journals about earthquakes. If you search this references you will see the costant spelling as Jorjafk. I lived in Jorjafk and served as the only physician there for more than a year. This correction will keep the stability of the usage of the same old spelling, and will also help geographical locating systems to show Jorjafk on their serving pages. Thank you for attention. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.117.200.235 (talk) 02:02, 23 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Help filing an SPI?

Sorry. Bit out of practice. Pretty sure I did this wromg... Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 14:00, 21 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I've no idea whether you did it right, but it doesn't seem to have made it onto this list. Maproom (talk) 23:17, 21 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

To Kill a Mockingbird

Hello, sorry for my bad english;

I think several paragraphs of To Kill a Mockingbird#Biographical background and publication, especially the third, are copy/paste from [1]. Thanks, Kotovol (talk) 15:35, 21 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

@Kotovol: Alright, so I have cleaned up the article. The material was added after the source was published so I can assume that the reference came first, not the other way around. I have also added a revdel request template to scrub the copyvios from the article's history. Thank you very much for reporting this. It is greatly appreciated. --Majora (talk) 17:22, 21 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Please consider a closure of this Rfc

A user (Spirit Ethanol) has requested that Palestine be displayed as a sovereign state in its own right over at List of state leaders in 2016, and he has, in my opinion, falsely worded his Rfc question: "Inclusion of Palestine as a sub state of Israel"—which, in my estimation, is a blatantly biased question, as hardly anyone would ever infer that Palestine (i.e. the Palestinian National Authority renamed) is purely some sort of "substate" of Israel, more accurately rather a "quasi-sovereign state partially under Israeli occupation". Most of the contributors over at the Rfc seem currently unaware that the status quo is in fact Palestine being listed as a separate sovereign entity, believing that the Rfc is a proposal to revert this to what the status quo actually is at present, hence the confusion and commotion. Personally, I honestly believe that the user is simply trying to score pro-Palestinian political points (as per WP:POINT) and is simply in denial of the reality on the ground over at that disputed area or perhaps unaware. Due to the sensitive nature of the dispute, the survey has become heated somewhat with editors misled in believing that Palestine is somehow displayed as a subnation within Israel. This is 100% untrue. Per WP:WEIGHT and WP:NPOV, Palestine is not considered a sovereign state on par with Israel and other independent nations. If you could review the dispute, please consider either closing it altogether or temporarily halting it (a moratorium), as the neutrality of its wording has been called into question by at least two other editors involved. On a further note, the issue was not even discussed on the talk page before the Rfc, as the aforementioned user decided to skip this part of the process, further calling into question his conduct and reluctance to seek local consensus first. All that said, I believe that WP:IJUSTDONTLIKEIT seems to be his argument at the moment—as he has not sufficiently laid out his reasoning as to why Palestine should be displayed as a fully independent & sovereign nation. Note: I have previously queried this concern over at Number 57's talkpage, although I feel I may get a swifter reply here. Thanks.

First, you would be better off to request closure of the RFC, which I agree is worded in a misleading and non-neutral way, at WP:AN. Did the originator open the RFC before or after being given the warning about WP:AC/DS? If the originator had already been warned, arbitration enforcement might be in order, but it appears that it was the RFC that resulted in the warning. However, since you have posted here, an administrator who reads this page and thinks that the RFC is as bad as I think it is may choose to close it as non-neutrally worded. Robert McClenon (talk) 18:14, 21 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

@Robert McClenon:

An apparent ally of Spirit Ethanol / SE (Super Nintendo Chalmers) has already requested Rfc closure at the behest of SE—with SE believing that the consensus is in his favour, and refuses to acknowledge anything wrong with the questionable wording of the Rfc question.
This is not a short story, although Bbb23 did mistakenly block the two of us (evidence here and here) for apparently breaching WP:1RR (a mistake, as he believed that the article involved was under arbitrary sanctions, which it was not). I had initially reported SE for breaching WP:3RR.

Both I and GoodDay tried to contact several admins, including Alison and Number 57. With the latter admin, I had received a non-sympathetic reply from a different user (TracyMcClark); although I thank you, Robert, for your professional and forthright perception of this dispute. I hope I have sufficiently answered your questions.--Neve –selbert 19:14, 21 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

RM's advice is spot on. GoodDay (talk) 19:19, 21 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Kashmir is a disputed territory??

Can you please edit the page, the state of Jammu and Kashmir is a soverign part of Democratic country known as India aka Bharath aka Hindustan. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 43.224.129.61 (talk) 17:54, 21 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

This sounds like a content dispute, and should be discussed on an article talk page. What page do you want edited? In any case, discuss on a talk page. If discussion is inconclusive, read the dispute resolution policy and follow one of the procedures described. Be aware that ArbCom discretionary sanctions apply to disruptive editing or tendentious editing in accordance with the ArbCom India and Pakistan ruling, which is even more reason to be collaborative and to discuss on a talk page. Robert McClenon (talk) 18:07, 21 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Non-English sources

The rule states: "English-language sources are preferred over non-English ones whenever English sources of equal quality and relevance are available." What does "preferred" mean in this context? Is it only an advice to me to make a search for a source in English as earnestly as I can? Or this rule gives other editors some right to dismiss (i. e. to revert) my edit because it is supported by a non-english source? Especially: 1) What if equally reliable sources (e. g. works of reputable scholars from different countries) disagree and some of them are in English, while others are in other languages? 2) What if I am unaware of the relevant source in English whose reputability if fit to the claim? 3) What if I cite sources of different national origin to show how widespread the opinion is? 4) if someone have suspicion that I've mistranslated a source, what part of the burden of proof each of us have to bear? Woud it be sufficient that I give relevant quotations from the source and my literal translation of them? Help me please to clarify. Эйхер (talk) 20:35, 21 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Эйхер, a source cannot be dismissed only because it is not in English. There are a substantial number of articles on the English Wikipedia that have no English sources at all. 1) In a case of disagreement between sources of equivalent quality and reliability the language of the sources is irrelevant. 2) You can only cite sources you have access to, irrespective of the language. 3) That's a perfectly legitimate use of non-English sources. 4) Including a quote and translation in the reference is a good idea if it might be a contentious point. Finding other editors fluent in the source language is not difficult for most languages, so a second opinion is also an option. Hope this helps. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 22:09, 21 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Thank You very much! Эйхер (talk) 07:44, 22 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I would like to add my two cents to Roger's excellent response. I don't know which article you are talking about in particular, so I'm not sure how relevant this is, but where there are reliable sources which disagree, it is not Wikipedia's role to decide which is "correct". Instead, we should report the discrepancy in a balanced way (see WP:BALANCE.--Gronk Oz (talk) 00:23, 22 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

It isn't about a particular article in English Wikipedia. There is some debete in Russian Wikipedia about proposed correction of the wording in the local rule abour Reliable Sources, and I decided to study existing practices of other chapters. Thank You very Much. Эйхер (talk) 07:44, 22 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

site wikipedia

How do I site Wikipedia in a research paper? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.91.238.2 (talk) 21:48, 21 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

On the left hand side under the Tools header should be a link that says "Cite this page." However, it is probably unwise to cite Wikipedia directly. Wikipedia should be used as a starting point that points towards reliable published sources. These sources can be found in the references section of any article. It would probably be much better if you were to work off of those than the article directly. --Majora (talk) 21:51, 21 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

For a detailed explanation, see Wikipedia:Citing Wikipedia. – Finnusertop (talk ⋅ contribs) 21:51, 21 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

If you are writing a research paper, you should probably know that "site" is a noun and "cite" is a verb. --Thomprod (talk) 15:17, 23 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]