Wikipedia:Help desk/Archives/2021 December 6

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December 6

Foreign titles

Is there an over-all policy on when articles should use original foreign titles of works of art (movies, books, plays, operas, short stories, etc.)? I sometimes have a hard time finding articles on foreign books and films because they are titled with the English version. I suppose the other way around would or does cause problems for people searching using the English versions. Kdammers (talk) 01:52, 6 December 2021 (UTC)

It's abbreviated WP:COMMONNAME. Basically, we are looking for the name by which the subject is commonly known in English. So if a work is commonly known by its German or Japanese title (like Mein Kampf), we'll use that; but otherwise, we use the English translation (like The Tale of Genji). --Orange Mike | Talk 02:39, 6 December 2021 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Naming conventions (use English) says: "The native spelling of a name should generally be included in parentheses, in the first line of the article, with a transliteration if the Anglicization isn't identical.". PrimeHunter (talk) 08:39, 6 December 2021 (UTC)

Thank you. Now, how can I tell how a work is generally known in English material? For example, I didn't know there was any-thing in English about the movie The Captain (2017 film), but it has a Wikipedia article under the English rather than the original, German title (which does not even have a re-direct). Is an Internet search legit for this? Kdammers (talk) 21:12, 6 December 2021 (UTC)

The German title Der Hauptmann is a redirect. The original title is usually mentioned in Wikipedia so you can search for it here even if there is no redirect. Quotation marks may remove some irrelevant hits. An Internet search like Google also works. PrimeHunter (talk) 04:03, 7 December 2021 (UTC)

Any way to detect maximum time differences between consecutive edits of a page?

I just proposed a redirect for deletion, and as a result, Twinkle did an edit (as me of course) to the creator's talk page (User talk:Oudegeest). Said creator's talk page only had a "Welcome to Wikipedia" message from when they were editing back in 2007. So 14+ years between edits to a page. Any way to find any longer gaps across Wikipedia?Naraht (talk) 08:08, 6 December 2021 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Wikipedia records#Talk pages says:

• Longest time between two edits on a talk page:
  • Talk:MySQLPHP, for the redirect MySQLPHP, which was blank between 2004-10-21 and 2021-11-22 (now points to the article's redirect target, at Talk:LAMP (software bundle)).

That's 17+ years. It's unsourced. Records on the page are often just the best somebody found. PrimeHunter (talk) 08:34, 6 December 2021 (UTC)

How do I start a new page on Wikipedia?

I want to start a new entry on Wikipedia for a bio on someone. When I go to the article wizard, all I get is a blank page. It expects me to write in some sort of computer based language, of which I have no knowledge. I do not see the wizard to prompt me through the various steps of the bio like a template. Please can someone assist me. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Mysky2blue (talk • contribs) 10:44, 6 December 2021 (UTC)

I will add some helpful tips on your Talk Page in a few moments. Mike Turnbull (talk) 11:43, 6 December 2021 (UTC)

@Mysky2blue: Hi there! Creating a new article is one of the hardest things to do on Wikipedia, especially if you've never edited Wikipedia before. To learn how to edit, you could view Help:Introduction and The Wikipedia Adventure. I suggest then spending a significant amount of time editing existing articles to hone your skills. Once you're ready to create an article, you would gather independent reliable sources that have provided significant coverage of the subject, and determine whether it meets Wikipedia's criteria for inclusion, called "notability". If so, you could follow the instructions at Help:Your first article, and be prepared for a process that may include months of waiting, rejections, and rewrites, before an article is created. Hope this helps, and happy editing! GoingBatty (talk) 16:08, 6 December 2021 (UTC)

Getting nowhere with a reasonable request to add something to a page that concerns land I own - how to resolve, or complain.

Good morning, I own Fenny Castle in Somerset (via a Community Interest Company with two other directors) and need to add to the existing Wikipedia Fenny Castle page/article that it is privately owned and any public access needs to be arranged via me. This is very important as there are several dead trees onsite which have the potential to injure people if they just wander on assuming it’s ok (plus a lability concern for us under the Occupies Liability Act duties). Yes we have private signs on the gate, but the Wikipedia page currently suggests it’s simply in the public domain and thus ‘open house’, which is dangerous and wrong. When I edited to add the necessary extra few words the alteration was it it was rejected. I re-edited it and then got a message that it had been rejected again because I have an interest - (something I didn’t know was even relevant as I’m new to all this). I then apologised but went on to explained why the extra info needed to be added, and that I was the owner - shortly after I was told that my request was going to be rejected because the editor couldn’t find secondary evidence that it was privately owned. This was odd as it has always been privately owned thus there is absolutely no evidence to suggest it is in the public domain……which the original page failed to address. When I provided an Email and phone number for the Historic England Officer who helped draft our agreed management plan that wasn’t accepted ……because ‘we don’t send Emails’. When I forwarded an extract from the Land Registry it received no further replies. How can I get the necessary changes made, or who can I speak with about a complaint? It really shouldn’t be this hard when I’m simply trying to protect the public and add a basic bit of info to something I actually own. Thank you Dr Simon Selby (redacted) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Dr Simon Selby (talk • contribs) 10:49, 6 December 2021 (UTC)

Dr Simon Selby Do not post your email in this public forum, for your protection; Wikipedia matters are handled here on Wikipedia unless sensitive personal information is involved. Wikipedia has no central authority to direct a complaint to; issues with articles are discussed on the article talk page or using dispute resolution processes.

Your attempted edit sounded like an advertisement for your property, which is why it was removed. I don't see anything in the article that suggests (at least as I see it) that the property is wide open for public access. Quite frankly- and I apologize- Wikipedia is not here to help you regulate access to your property. If an independent reliable source(which does not include government documents or communications with government officials) discusses access to your property, that might be a way to get some sort of mention of the status of access to your property(but not a "call me for access"). 331dot (talk) 10:59, 6 December 2021 (UTC)

@331dot: In addition, there is a phone number to be redacted from Dr Selby's talk page. ClaudineChionh (talk – contribs) 11:02, 6 December 2021 (UTC)

We aren't a repository of information. If you have issues with people believing this is public land, that is not our issue. If there is something in the article that suggests that it is, then that would be different, but there isn't. Best Wishes, Lee Vilenski ^{(talk • contribs)} 11:36, 6 December 2021 (UTC)

Hmm. I see the difficulty, Dr Simon Selby. The article does not say that the site is open, but it can be read that way - I would think that a lot of people who see that it is a Scheduled Monument might assume that this meant it was freely open to the public (even though it actually means nothing of the sort). Our problem is that everything in Wikipedia is required to be supported by a published reference, because otherwise a reader has no way of telling whether it is accurate, or has been added mistakenly or maliciously. Has your project been covered in the local press perhaps? In this case, I would even be prepared to add something to the article about access based on your own website (you should not do that, because of COI, but I could) - but your own website says nothing at all about as far as I can see. --ColinFine (talk) 12:38, 6 December 2021 (UTC)

@Dr Simon Selby: if you maintain an "official" web site for Fenny Castle as its owner, we can provide a link to that web site just as we do for any other corporate entity. Our article can then use statements of fact from you site in a limited way, like "privately owned" and "access required permission". If you choose to place contact information on your own web site, that's up to you. We do not place such information here on Wikipedia. -Arch dude (talk) 17:43, 6 December 2021 (UTC)

Line feed character

Does someone know how to remove it from a reference at Lascar (volcano)? Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 12:01, 6 December 2021 (UTC)

 Done in this edit by removing some unnecessary spaces. Mike Turnbull (talk) 12:08, 6 December 2021 (UTC)

Writing above image

Hey.

I am currently editing an article about Håvard Bustnes (https://no.wikipedia.org/wiki/H%C3%A5vard_Bustnes). I have managed to add a photography, but above the photo it is written fil:lcenterllframeless .

How do I make it go away?

/Henrik

Henrik Schefte (talk) 12:10, 6 December 2021 (UTC)

Henrik Schefte Hi, this Help Desk is for the English Wikipedia; it's unlikely many will be able to help you with edits on the Norwegian Wikipedia. There should be a Help Desk or other forum there to request assistance. Each language version is its own project. 331dot (talk) 12:13, 6 December 2021 (UTC)

Apparently someone fixed the problem for you. Looking at the differences, the problem was that you added the full wikilink code to insert an image, when you should have just added the image name. JIP | Talk 19:22, 6 December 2021 (UTC)

Help needed, please

The Wikipedia Volunteer Response Team suggested I try here for an answer. Might someone please tell me how to delete my two searches, by accident-- by some unknown means, at least a year ago, on Wikipedia? Here is what comes up every time I go to enter a search. And yes, I have tried FAQ and a host of possible links, etc. but to no avail. And I clear searches, caches, history on my browser almost daily. Two names pop up, Harold Frazer and Telus phone number,from two searches I would have made on Google not W. I cannot post a screenshot of this, W. won't let me. But when when I try to search for an article on W. these names appear as if they were choices and I cannot find a way to delete them. Please help me fix this glitch. My computer is otherwise functioning just fine and even restarting hasn't solved this.

--Publicgoods (talk) 16:29, 6 December 2021 (UTC)

@Publicgoods: If your browser is anything like mine, hovering your mouse cursor over the unwanted search terms should make a "trash" icon appear to their right, which can be clicked to remove the offending items. The problem is noting to do with Wikipedia per se. Mike Turnbull (talk) 16:33, 6 December 2021 (UTC)

Recover Deleted Sandbox

I had a page that I was working on in my personal SandBox that was deleted. The reasoning was cited as: (G6: Housekeeping and routine (non-controversial) cleanup). I was under the impression that I could store pending work in my SandBox without worries, but now a great deal of work has disappeared. Is there a way I could recover what was lost? Ajallphin (talk) 16:51, 6 December 2021 (UTC)

It was deleted as a duplicate of an already-existing article, Photon-counting computed tomography. --Orange Mike | Talk 17:04, 6 December 2021 (UTC)

@Ajallphin: I see you got a copy but let me mention two errors which may contribute to sandbox deletion. Wikipedia's license requires you to attribute the source if you copy content from another page. This includes your sandbox which is visible to everybody. See Wikipedia:Copying within Wikipedia. Second, you kept the code [[Category:Tomography]] at the end. This added your sandbox to Category:Tomography which is only for articles in the real encyclopedia. {{Draft categories}} is one way to avoid this. PrimeHunter (talk) 21:12, 6 December 2021 (UTC)

Updating Wikipedia's biography page - Pamela Ditchoff

I would like to know how to correctly update my current Wikipedia page to include my latest novel and a few changes to the biographical text. I tried going by guidelines in Help pages; I made changes and ended up with many more red letter warnings. Is there a page that has step by step instructions on how to correctly edit my existing page? Thank you.Pjditch (talk) 17:08, 6 December 2021 (UTC)

Pjditch Courtesy link:Pamela Ditchoff. I would correct you in that it is a Wikipedia article about you, not "my Wikipedia page". I'm not sure what warnings you got but there has been no significant edits to the article since June. Please review the autobiography policy. It is best in most cases for you to propose edits on the article talk page, Talk:Pamela Ditchoff, detailing changes you feel are needed. More editors will see your proposal if you do it as an edit request (click for instructions) but that's not required. Please keep in mind that Wikipedia is primarily interested in what independent reliable sources say about you, but any proposed edits are welcome. 331dot (talk) 17:17, 6 December 2021 (UTC)

Hello

I want to make a donation but I have Google pay.. please add Google pay to your payment options. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 103.142.107.164 (talk) 17:11, 6 December 2021 (UTC)

Suggestions on improving the donation process should be sent to donate (at) wikimedia.org RudolfRed (talk) 17:14, 6 December 2021 (UTC)

Yapperbot Query

I have mostly been satisfied with the requests that I get from User:Yapperbot to comment in Requests for Comment. I received one this afternoon which seems to be about an RFC that was already closed at the time that I received the feedback. That's a minor issue, but one that I wanted to mention to the bot operator. However, the bot operator appears to have been User:Naypta, and that user doesn't seem to have edited within the past year. On the one hand, the fact that the bot is running unattended with no major problems for more than a year is good. On the other hand, the fact that the bot is running without an operator is not so good, unless someone else is actually supervising the bot and hasn't officially taken it over. So, first, has someone taken over the bot, whose name doesn't appear as its operator? Second, if not, I have forgotten the answer that I was once given to this same question. How do I request that a human take over management of a bot whose previous human is not editing? Robert McClenon (talk) 17:49, 6 December 2021 (UTC)

The issue with the specific RFC is very minor and can be ignored. The fact that a bot is running without a human is not causing a problem, but is a procedural problem. Robert McClenon (talk) 17:49, 6 December 2021 (UTC)

@Robert McClenon: What happened here is that the RFC was closed yesterday [1]. Leechjoel9 reverted the closure of the RFC for some reason earlier today by performing a manual revert [2], before being reverted about an hour later by M.Bitton [3]. The reverting of the closure must have led the bot into thinking that an RFC was active on that page and needed some more input. The bot seems to be working fine here, the issue was the close being reverted out of process. The source code for yapperbot seems to be published under a GPL licence, so if it does break at some point in the future another operator should be able to take over maintenance of it. 192.76.8.80 (talk) 18:13, 6 December 2021 (UTC)

I saw that the RFC had been closed early. So the bot may be working correctly and the editors working incorrectly. However, the fact that the code for the bot is available provides me with relatively little assurance. I was a maintenance programmer as a young man, and I know that some code is easily maintained and some code is difficult to understand. Having found that the bot has no maintenance programmer available, I would prefer that one be found when we don't need one, rather than in a panic when we do. Robert McClenon (talk) 18:47, 6 December 2021 (UTC)

@Robert McClenon: the bot noticeboard might be the best place to bring this up – that's where potential new maintainers are likely to hang out. ClaudineChionh (talk – contribs) 22:00, 6 December 2021 (UTC)

• I will post something on there with my thoughts, since the problem is more general than this one bot. Tigraan^{Click here for my talk page ("private" contact)} 12:42, 7 December 2021 (UTC)

Help with transcluding article section

I need an example of transcluding a section from an article to another. Specifically Shizuka_(band)#History. There is really no straightforward examples at Help:Transclusion. I tried some given syntax in there to no avail.talk@TRANSviada 18:40, 6 December 2021 (UTC)

The easiest approach is {{Excerpt|Shizuka (band)|History|subsections=yes}} * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 18:54, 6 December 2021 (UTC)

@Pppery:That did the work. THanks.talk@TRANSviada 20:08, 6 December 2021 (UTC)

Contribution to Wikipedia

I HAVE RECENTLY contributed so why is an alert coming up every time I use Wikipedia? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2A00:23C4:770E:7C00:B52E:367A:F11C:29AA (talk) 22:10, 6 December 2021 (UTC)

If you create an account, you can hide the fundraising banners. RudolfRed (talk) 22:26, 6 December 2021 (UTC)

As stated in several sections above, when accessing Wikipedia as an anonymous visitor, the Wikimedia servers have no way of knowing whether you have donated. GoingBatty (talk) 22:34, 6 December 2021 (UTC)

Before donating again, you might want to read Wikimedia_Foundation#Finances.--Shantavira|^{feed me} 09:40, 7 December 2021 (UTC)

AfD finder finding irrelevant AfDs

On the page Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Arnolds (2nd nomination) there is a list of all AfD discussions concerning the Finnish bakery Arnolds. Notice that it has also included two completely irrelevant AfD discussions: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Arnolds Corner, Virginia and Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Arnolds Mencis, apparently only because the article titles start with "Arnolds". Is there anything that can be done to fix this? JIP | Talk 23:21, 6 December 2021 (UTC)

You can change the AfD to not show SpecialPrefix, and just list them manually. I suspect this isn't something that is very common. Best Wishes, Lee Vilenski ^{(talk • contribs)} 23:28, 6 December 2021 (UTC)

I have modified it.[4] PrimeHunter (talk) 01:44, 7 December 2021 (UTC)

Help editing a table

Hello, looking at Tunnels underneath the River Thames and I tried to edit the table to improve things (something I've been doing lately). I usually use the Visual Editor, but it didn't fancy letting me edit the table. No worries I thought - I'll swap to the other editor, I can do that. And the table looks like a complicated mess with qid codes (don't understand what that means!) and I don't know where to begin to look to decipher what it means at it's back end! Help appreciated! :) Turini2 (talk) 23:30, 6 December 2021 (UTC)

What exactly are you trying to change in the table? The table in question gets most of its data from Wikidata so can't be edited directly. * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 23:47, 6 December 2021 (UTC)

The name column has pencil icons with links to the Wikidata item the data is taken from. PrimeHunter (talk) 01:49, 7 December 2021 (UTC)

@Pppery: Oh, I see. That's not very userfriendly for editing! What's the best way of continuing - replacing the table in a actual editable format, or just leaving it alone...? What's the policy on making people move to another site to edit things? (Wikidata is not clear/easy to use at all!) Turini2 (talk) 09:59, 7 December 2021 (UTC)

@Pppery there's no formal policy, but specific WikiProjects might discuss integrating Wikidata en mass, for example WP:BIO makes use of Wikidata in all of the Template:Infobox persons, while for another Infobox it might make less sense due to ease of editing/reliability of data etc.. I don't disagree that Wikidata can improve from UX interface improvements. It's multi language portability is a bigger asset to smaller language Wikipedias than English Wikipedia specifically. For individual Wikipedia articles, you're free to be WP:BOLD. ~ 🦝 Shushugah (he/him • talk) 10:16, 7 December 2021 (UTC)

As Pppery asked, what exactly are you trying to change in the table? We can usually give better advice if we know what posters want. Changing the notes column, changing other columns, adding, removing or reordering rows all have different answers. PrimeHunter (talk) 13:23, 7 December 2021 (UTC)