Help desk
< September 29	<< Aug \| September \| Oct >>	October 1 >

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.

September 30

Picture keeps get deleted.

Dear Wikipedia Helpers, I hope this email finds you well, I was just wondering why some pictures that i keep uploading on some people's personal biography, keep getting deleted each time? Thank you in advance. All best. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Sandra Berjaouii (talk • contribs)

I'm not an admin, so I can't see which images have been deleted. But judging by this image and these search results, I very much doubt that you were the person who actually took the photo. In other words, I very much doubt that you own the photo. And thus cannot donate the rights to use it here. They aren't yours to donate. †dismas†|^(talk) 02:22, 30 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Oh, and this link is where "your" two existing images are being put up for deletion. †dismas†|^(talk) 02:25, 30 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Link corrected -- John of Reading (talk) 06:46, 30 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

yes you are right. these 2 pictures that im using are for my 2 close friends and who i am actually doing the biography for. they let me use it. how can i fix this and prevent the pictures from getting deleted???? thank you so much.John of Reading

Sorry, biographies of friends or family aren't allowed on Wikipedia. See WP:COI. Codyorb (talk) 16:18, 30 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

oh, even if they are famous actors and celebrities in Lebanon??? i mean it's not a biography for a regular person.:p — Preceding unsigned comment added by ‎ Sandra Berjaouii (talk • contribs) 23:25, 30 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Especially if they are famous actors and celebrities, as they are more likely to be injured financially and/or to sue if it turns out information you write about them turns out to be false and/or defamatory, or an image you post of them or on a biographical page about them turns out to violate someone's copyright. We don't know who you are, or that you are who you say you are. General Ization ^Talk 23:43, 30 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

everything i am writing about them is 100% true. and the pictures i am using are their own and they gave me permission to use them. so my whole point is that how can i prevent the pictures from getting deleted??? — Preceding unsigned comment added by ‎ Sandra Berjaouii (talk • contribs) 00:14 01 October 2017 (UTC)

You can't. See above. General Ization ^Talk 00:21, 1 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

* @Sandra Berjaouii: What is 'needed' in order to add these images, is evidence of the 'legal' ownership of the copyright. Simply get the photographers 'themselves' to send in an OTRS to provide us with that evidence. Wikipedia doesn't go by declarations of truth by any editor but the verifiability provided. Here is a simple template that the photographers can fill in and email to us: OTRS Email template for release of rights to a file. Without such a OTRS being sent in and accepted, these image will continue to get deleted. Aspro (talk) 12:29, 2 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Aside: Just being the subject of a photograph doesn't automatically grant the subject legal ownership of the copyright, so any 'permission' they may give you is legally moot. Leaving 'you' (not them) with suffering any the legal consequences that may arise. The legal onus (from uploading) is on you - not them. As performers that receive some of their income from copyright royalties they know this and should not be taking advantage of your naïveté in this way. Aspro (talk) 13:06, 2 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Creating a new page for my son, The Backpack Kid

I would like to create a new page, my son, Russell Horning, TheBackPack Kid, has reached a degree of success where it has been suggested we put up a page for him. I need to know how to create a new page from scratch. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Rhperformer (talk • contribs)

Rhperformer, please see WP:COI. It is strongly discouraged that you create an article about a person or entity that you have a close connection to. †dismas†|^(talk) 02:17, 30 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@Rhperformer: Writing an article for Wikipedia is harder than many people realize. Even professional writers find that the format and style needed for a good encyclopedia article are different than what might be appropriate for other venues. You could:

Get someone else to do it—If your only goal is to make sure that an article is added to Wikipedia, you can request that someone write an article on the subject.
Start by editing other articles—If you are interested in becoming an editor at Wikipedia, our experience demonstrates that it is better to start by improving existing articles, which will help you get a sense of how this place works, and then you will be ready to write your first article from scratch. A good place to visit is the Wikipedia backlog, where there are literally hundreds of thousands of articles needing help from editors. Find an article in a subject area you know, and add a source, or a reference, or simply help write it better.
Go ahead and try—If you do decide to write an article immediately, please read our policy on conflicts of interest, then read our guide to writing your first article, which will repeat some of the good advice above. Then please use the Article wizard, which will help you through the steps. I urge you to accept the option to save your first draft in your user subpage, which will reduce the chance your work will be deleted before it is ready.

-- Seagull123 Φ 10:13, 30 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Comment: It may have been suggest by some well meaning friends that a page be created but I bet and will be willing to put money on it that the suggestions didn't come from any child psychologists. Sure, if the kid comes from a family of show biz people who know how to protect his soft underbelly at this age, that is one thing, but as a flash-in-the-pan he is not encyclopedic and this type of 15 minutes of fame may make him imagine he is something 'special' in the way that teenagers think of 'special'. Better to encourage his talents. Show biz is built on the rubble of one-hit wonders and the odd one-trick pony. Do him a favor and give up the idea. Not forgetting at the same time, to explain the bigger picture to him. Aspro (talk) 13:39, 2 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Help:Cite errors/Cite error references duplicate key

name- ijaz khan son of said rahim shah cnic no ^{[details removed]} i want to change my test center from peshawar to karachi for etc test 7 october — Preceding unsigned comment added by 27.255.29.38 (talk) 03:20, 30 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I suspect, based on your question, that you found one of our over 5.4 million articles and thought we were affiliated in some way with that subject. Please note that you are at Wikipedia, the free online encyclopedia that anyone can edit, and this page is for asking questions related to using or contributing to Wikipedia itself. Thus, we have no special knowledge about the subject of your question. You can, however, search our vast catalogue of articles by typing a subject into the search field on the upper right side of your screen. If you cannot find what you are looking for, we have a reference desk, divided into various subject areas, where asking knowledge questions is welcome. Best of luck. -- John of Reading (talk) 06:44, 30 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Icons invisible

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T176884

It's probably a problem on my end with Microsoft Edge, but would anyone know why the icons for the Alerts and Notifications (in the top right corner) as well as the star that indicates whether a page is on my watchlist or not(at the top of the article) would not be displayed on my screen? They are still 'there'(I can still click on them) but are invisible. It seems to only be on Edge, as when I used Chrome they could be seen. 331dot (talk) 09:23, 30 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@331dot: Yes, other editors have noticed this, and it's been reported at Phabricator. It's possible that bypassing your browser cache might help. -- John of Reading (talk) 09:56, 30 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@John of Reading: Thank you for the information. 331dot (talk) 10:13, 30 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Dhakre origin

The first dhakre was made by the blood of demons guru sukracharya and his blood taken by demons king Bali on the leaf of dhak. The dhakre was a man who fought against gods{{subst:usngiedn|Ram dhakre}}

That's nice. I happen to like Raisinettes. That is as seemingly random and context-less as your post. Do you have a question about editing Wikipedia?--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 15:01, 30 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Immanuel Kant

It's my first time seeing a page which has been vandalized and blocked for editing. How would I correct punctuation errors? Thank you. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 50.25.183.177 (talk)

You can click the "View source" tab to submit an edit request. PrimeHunter (talk) 13:20, 30 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

How to collapse

There are two collapsible sections on Template:Ordination. Each can be expanded by entering the name of the section (e.g. History) in the expand parameter. However, I would like to make an option so that an editor can enter multiple entries separated by commas. I would also like to have an option for editors to enter ALL and expand all the sections. Does anyone know how to do this? Basically, I am looking for an "or" option to insert in the code {{#ifeq:{{{expand|}}}|History||mw-collapsed}}. Ergo Sum 16:43, 30 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

The easiest way to make an "or" on the same value is Help:Switch parser function:

{{#switch:{{{expand|}}}|History|ALL=|mw-collapsed}}

PrimeHunter (talk) 17:08, 30 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@PrimeHunter: I see. I don't quite understand how switch parser function works, but why do you have ALL=? Having read the documentation, my intuition is to have {{#switch:{{{expand|}}}|History|ALL||mw-collapsed}} in order to have it such that entering "History" or "ALL" causes the section to expand. Ergo Sum 22:01, 30 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

The switch syntax has "=" before potential return values (except a default value at the end). There can be many such values in a switch so the syntax has to specify their location. PrimeHunter (talk) 22:34, 30 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@PrimeHunter: Thank you, I've implemented that suggestion. Is there an easy way to allow editors to enter comma separated entries that would cause each to expand, without needing to code into the template each possible combination? This is so that if more than two sections are added in the future, the template editor need not account for every possible combination of section names. Ergo Sum 00:29, 1 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

You could use {{Str find}} to test whether "History" is a substring of {{{expand}}}:

{{#ifeq:{{Str find|{{{expand|}}}|History}}|-1|History doesn't occur|History occurs}}

It doesn't test whether "History" occurs as a whole term or part of a longer term but that doesn't look necessary unless you have section names which are substrings of eachother. You want to add mw-collapsed if "History" doesn't occur and {{{expand}}} isn't "ALL". This should do:

{{#ifeq:{{Str find|{{{expand|}}}|History}}|-1|{{#ifeq:{{{expand|}}}|ALL||mw-collapsed}}|}}

PrimeHunter (talk) 10:45, 1 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@PrimeHunter: Thank you. That worked great. Ergo Sum 16:15, 1 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Term

What is the WP term (not "undue weight") when an article such as this: William Baldwin uses the lede as a filmography list and does not summarize the article properly, re: personal life, career, etc? looking to use it when I go in to scrub / clean this and other articles. Thanks Maineartists (talk) 17:26, 30 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Hello Maineartists, hope you're dong well. I don't know if this is what you're looking for, but I generally would quote MOS:INTRO or MOS:BLPLEAD while cleaning up the lead. Other editors here might have better suggestions. Thanks. Lourdes 18:23, 30 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Great, Lourdes! Thanks for the BLP connection! This helps! Maineartists (talk) 20:21, 30 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Trying to add new information on the page called 'Najaf'

Hello Wiki Team,

I'm trying to add some historical information on the page called 'Najaf' and I've also referenced my information I gave. Some user named 'Emir of Wikipedia' keeps editing and removing that. How do I get this issue resolved?

The city of Najaf, back in the 1300s was known as Mashhad Ali means city or shrine of Ali. I have given my reference for that information but it kept being removed again and again without the person even providing an explanation.

My 2nd question is that if this person continues to do so and I have no other option but accept what hes doing, can I open a new page on wikipedia?

Can I request that if someone decides to remove another information from an article, they should give a solid explanation as to why they're doing this.

Thank you for your assistance.

Zaid Shah

He did leave an explanation of a sort, but basically the source you used for that information may not meet our criteria for sources: WP:RS. The correct course of action is to discuss the issue on the article's talk page: Talk:Najaf. When in a dispute, such as this, creating a new page with your preferred version is not typically allowed. Crow^Caw 21:54, 30 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Hello Crow,

I appreciate your response. Could you please guide me towards where he has given explanation of why he has removed my information. I'm sorry but I could not find it.

I would also like to thank you for guiding me towards the criteria page for sources. I used this source for my article http://englishattheuniversity.weebly.com/uploads/1/0/5/3/10532852/ibn_battutas_travels.pdf. This is a translation by English writers of the travels of Ibn Battuta. Could you please tell me what makes this book fall out of the criteria to use as a source for information pertaining to city of Najaf or the grave of Ali (May Allah be pleased with him).

Thank you sir,

Zaid Shah

Hi Syed z. The explanation referred to by Emir of Wikipedia was in the edit summary, appearing in the article's page history, where he wrote (as linked): "...Is that a WP:RS?" You should be leaving edit summaries for your edits too. An earlier edit summary upon another revert of you said "How was this retrieved in "2009-09-13"?" – where "retrieved in..." refers to the date one has looked at a source, so you were saying in that edit, in effect, "I am citing a source that I looked at eight year ago". The source you used may be reliable for what it says, but it is a primary source, you used for a very long quote, which I don't think belongs. It was prepended by essay-like commentary you wrote in Wikipedia's voice ("it would be best to mention an eye witness account of his grave..." "...very interesting account from..." ) that has no place in an article. By the way, your signature must contain a link to your user page talk, page or contributions. Please fix it (it might be that you need to take the checkmark out of the box for "Treat the above as wiki markup" under Signature at Special:Preferences).--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 04:48, 1 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Hi, Syed z, and welcome. I see that you are new to Wikipedia: please do not get discouraged. That looks like a really good reference, but the ref is not formatted in a way that makes this obvious. What you should do is add a section to the article's talk page at talk:Najaf, and ask for help on formatting your ref. This will allow you and Emir of Wikipedia to discuss your additions.

Hi There and Hello. Thank you very much for guiding me towards the preferences page and how to make edit summaries. I appreciate your encouraging words and hoping that I am also allowed to share knowledge and information as long as its authentic. I will definitely create a section on the Najaf talk page where we can discuss. I will paste what I had posted earlier and request for assistance on formatting. I'll be glad to make any changes to my input as long as I'm permitted to share the historical finding discovered about this place. Syed z (talk) 21:35, 3 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Talk page for "Sunshine pop"

I would like to leave a comment about the article "Sunshine pop". When I click on the blue-colored tab "Talk "at the top of the page, it brings me to my own user talk, which isn't where I want to go. I want to go to the discussion of this article, where I can lay my case against its accuracy to the other editors. But I can't get into the discussion. Why can't I? Thanks.

Here is the talk page for that article: Talk:Sunshine_pop RudolfRed (talk) 21:48, 30 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

For future reference, you only will see links to Talk pages for articles when you're on the actual article page. The link will then be in the upper-left next to the Wikipedia Globe logo. The Talk that appears in the upper right on every page is your own, as you found out. Crow^Caw 21:51, 30 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Delete User Page

Hi, I have crated my User Page by Wikimedia and I want to delete this one but I don't know how to do it. --Felipe da Fonseca (talk) 23:56, 30 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@Felipe da Fonseca: Do you wish to delete the content? If so just delete the source content. If you wish to have the page deleted from Wiki altogether then place {{Db-G7}} at the top of the page and an Admin. will delete it for you. Eagleash (talk) 00:07, 1 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@Eagleash: Thanks.--Felipe da Fonseca (talk) 00:21, 1 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]