Wikipedia:Help desk/Archives/2021 December 8

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December 8

Ampersand in section passed to maplink

I have added a {{PoIgb}} and matching {{GeoGroup}} to Embsay and Bolton Abbey Steam Railway § The route of the EBASR. In order to make it work properly (to stop the map appearing with no coordinates) I had to remove the ampersand (&) from the section heading, which was originally "The route of the E&BASR". This is obviously a rather clumsy work-around; I assume there is some way of expressing the section name (including the ampersand) as a parameter of GeoGroup. Can someone better versed than I in wiki markup and template parameters please tell me how I should do it in order to leave the ampersand in place?--Verbarson (talk)

Scorched earth/ No Mans Land

Hello. I’ve read your articles on these matters and thank you for having them.

How long does it take for the earth to recover from a scorched earth policy or, as in WWI, recover from No Mans Land? How can that section of the earth recover to where it is hospitable? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2600:1700:2771:26F0:90AD:9DAC:39E2:B691 (talk) 00:31, 8 December 2021 (UTC)

You will probably want to ask this at the science reference desk. This page is for asking questions about using or editing Wikipedia. —Tenryuu 🐲 ( 💬 • 📝 ) 00:35, 8 December 2021 (UTC)

Question about grammar in articles

Note that Wikipedia uses formal written English per MOS. I frequently copy-edit music and similar pop culture articles where the first sentence omits the expected verbs, pronouns or both. I almost always replace these. For example, I'm currently copy-editing Speak Now, where the first sentence read; "Speak Now is the third studio album by American singer-songwriter Taylor Swift, released on October 25, 2010, through Big Machine Records.". I added verbs and pronouns, and divided it into two sentences here. The change was reverted here and I re-reverted them here with an explanation in the summary.

Let me explain: "by" suggest someone or something performed an action but the sentence omits the action that was performed: the album was recorded, it didn't appear out of thin air. The verb phrase "that was" is also needed to link "released" with the album and its creator, otherwise "released..." dangles.

I wouldn't write; " Wet and Sticky is the third cake by Fred, sold on Monday.". If I'd have written like that at school, I'd have been wearing the Dunce's hat and writing 50 lines. And don't get me started on the dangling participle in the second sentence...

I know this is pedantic but I consider it to be an issue about standards. The opening sentences give readers an overall impression of the article. I don't wish to edit-war with anyone but I'd love to know why this omission of verbs and pronouns is considered acceptable in Wikipedia articles, even in Featured Articles that appear on the main page. I don't, however, wish it to be prescribed that "verbs and pronouns must not be omitted". Maybe we need an RfC... Cheers, Baffle☿gab 03:57, 8 December 2021 (UTC)

@Baffle gab1978: If you have not already done so, please investigate Wikipedia:WikiProject Guild of Copy Editors and see if you wish to join. Project members there may be able to help or give you some history on this or related issues. -Arch dude (talk) 05:22, 8 December 2021 (UTC)

@Arch dude: Baffle has been a member of the GOCE for much longer than I have. —Tenryuu 🐲 ( 💬 • 📝 ) 16:22, 8 December 2021 (UTC)

I disagree with your change. wiktionary:by#Preposition says:

5. Indicates the creator of a work: Existing through the authorship etc. of.

There are many well-known plays by William Shakespeare

This is a completely normal use of "by" understood by everybody. Albums are recorded, plays are written, paintings are painted, etc. It sounds stilted to me to add such words, and makes me wonder whether it adds meaning beyond the normal "by". Consider your "Speak Now is the third studio album to be recorded by American singer-songwriter Taylor Swift". Does that mean it's planned but not done yet? (The next sentence reveals no). Does it mean she made other albums she didn't record, whatever that means, e.g. writing but not performing the music? And when you broke the sentence you wrote lowercase "it" after a period. PrimeHunter (talk) 05:36, 8 December 2021 (UTC)

I wouldn't write; " Wet and Sticky is the third cake by Fred, sold on Monday.". If I'd have written like that at school, I'd have been wearing the Dunce's hat and writing 50 lines. I wouldn't write that: its punctuation is alien to me. That minor matter aside: There have been a vast number of courses in English, composition, etc, to pupils speaking English as a first language. A substantial percentage of them have been taught by bossy teachers with bizarre notions of English style. If you'd have been wearing the dunce's hat, perhaps it was not you but the teacher who was the dunce. -- Hoary (talk) 06:02, 8 December 2021 (UTC)

Hey Baffle. It's probably better to ask this on one of the Manual of Style's talk pages. I checked out writing guides like Purdue, which seem to support the existence of another verb before by, but Wikipedia doesn't necessarily follow third-party guides. —Tenryuu 🐲 ( 💬 • 📝 ) 16:48, 8 December 2021 (UTC)

Please, exclude donors from the fundrising pop-ups

Dear Wikipedia Team,

Please let your software recognize the IPs or devices of the people who are already your donors, so that I am not chased all the time by your ask for funding donations. Or please add the button "I am already a donor", and let your website to remenber this choice. It's annoying to people like me - to pay and despite that being nagged for money anyway.

BTW: I love you and use your resources very often, so don't be angry for me for that complaint.

Regards - Ava (donor for the last 4 years) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 45.25.108.61 (talk) 05:05, 8 December 2021 (UTC)

The software can't do that, because IP addresses can change on a whim. The easiest way to stop seeing the banner is to create an account, go to your preferences, navigate to the Banners tab, and uncheck Fundraising. —Tenryuu 🐲 ( 💬 • 📝 ) 05:12, 8 December 2021 (UTC)

You don't have to give an email address or other personal information and you can remain logged in for up to 365 days. PrimeHunter (talk) 05:42, 8 December 2021 (UTC)

Changing author of article

Draft:Kewsong Lee

Hi. I'm currently working on getting this article approved. However I noticed the article is attributed to Irishmarxman. Considering that I pretty much had to redo it from start, I don't think its really fair to give credit of the article to that user. Is there a way to change who created the article? Or do I have to delete it and start again? -Imcdc (talk) 05:58, 8 December 2021 (UTC)

Aside from a humdrum message on a user talk page, how would either Irishmarxman or you be given credit for its creation? It was created by its creator. And unless you're an administrator, you can't delete it. Even if you are an administrator, "Transfer of credit for creation" is not a valid reason for deletion. -- Hoary (talk) 06:07, 8 December 2021 (UTC)

Wikipedia keeps track of our contributions. Its how we know your supposed latest article creation is Stephan Vanfleteren -Imcdc (talk) 06:18, 8 December 2021 (UTC)

That's true, Imcdc, but does anyone care about such things? If anyone does, then they'll see that although Morris Bishop wasn't created by me, I contributed the most verbiage to it. (But this isn't necessarily praiseworthy: the verbiage might have been waffle, or spam.) An article's history will show what really happened. -- Hoary (talk) 06:44, 8 December 2021 (UTC)

How do I submit an article with COI?

Can I submit a draft article with a disclosure of COI on a talk page or do I have to request that the article be written by someone else if I have COI? I made the disclosure on my own user page but am not sure about the next steps to take to create the article. Tenzin169 (talk) 07:33, 8 December 2021 (UTC)

@Tenzin169:  Courtesy link: User:Tenzin169/sandbox aka Padre Mu. It's discouraged to write articles with a COI, but not forbidden. I don't think you've demonstrated notability of the subject yet, regardless of COI. See WP:GNG. You have to find more than passing mentions, and avoid press releases and other sites controlled by the subject. You need more in-depth profiles in independent third party media to demonstrate notability. I'm sure others here will also give you advice. TimTempleton ^{(talk) (cont)} 08:21, 8 December 2021 (UTC)

Like TimTempleton says, it's allowed and you seem to have made the paid-statement correctly at the draft talkpage. If the article is accepted you should stop editing it. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 08:29, 8 December 2021 (UTC)

Page creation failed

Dear Wiki Users, I have created a new article which I believe have enough notability Please advise if it's a good one and what can I improve --217.165.122.30 (talk) 12:25, 8 December 2021 (UTC)

Do you mean Draft:Carlton Hotels and Suites? -- Hoary (talk) 12:29, 8 December 2021 (UTC)

Trying to make a donation with PayPal

The wheel just spins. I seem to recall it worked a while back. — Preceding unsigned comment added by JCN9801 (talk • contribs) 12:20, 8 December 2021 (UTC)

Click here for information on what to do if you are having problems with donating. —GMX🎄^{(on the go!)} 14:24, 8 December 2021 (UTC)

Account

Can my account please be deleted — Preceding unsigned comment added by Kingbob25 (talk • contribs) 15:59, 8 December 2021 (UTC)

Unfortunately, it cannot. You have two options 1) If you don't want to edit Wikipedia anymore, you can just stop. 2) You can exercise your "right to disappear", also known as "courtesy vanishing", by having your account locked and renamed. Information can be found Wikipedia:Courtesy vanishing. --Jayron32 16:02, 8 December 2021 (UTC)

To explain further, there's both no technical option to delete accounts in the software, and being able to do so would put Wikipedia in violation of its own content licences, as attribution is a requirement for using both the GFDL and CC-By-SA licences. This is why we have courtesy vanishing instead, to allow someone on good terms to leave Wikipedia while ensuring any edits they've made are still attributable to something (even if it is a generic alias like "Renamed user 89574629763892"). —A little blue Bori v^_^v ^{Jéské Couriano} 11:59, 9 December 2021 (UTC)

Funding for your organization

i want to help out by sending money BUT i have no means to send it. if you would kindly set up a page for users without Credit Cards or Cell Phones, it would be a asset to your company to enable people to use their debit cards to access funds. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 142.167.162.138 (talk) 17:35, 8 December 2021 (UTC)

I could be wrong (since I've never attempted to donate before) but I'm fairly sure you can input your debit card info when paying with a credit card as they function very similar, one just takes money directly out of your bank account. ― Blaze The Wolf^Talk_{Blaze Wolf#6545} 17:41, 8 December 2021 (UTC)

donations

I Donated $30 less than 6 mo ago stop asking for more I'm a poor old lady — Preceding unsigned comment added by Lindasue1955 (talk • contribs) 17:48, 8 December 2021 (UTC)

Lindasue1955 As you have an account, you can turn off the donation requests in your account preferences. Wikipedia certainly does not want you to donate beyond your means, but no one here on the website knows if you have or have not donated. 331dot (talk) 17:52, 8 December 2021 (UTC)

Since you have an account, you can go to preferences and turn off fundraising banners. RudolfRed (talk) 17:55, 8 December 2021 (UTC)