Help desk
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January 23

Dealing with Vandalism

Hi,

Recently, a page I created, Memphis River Parks Partnership, has been the victim of what I believe is vandalism (or at least some form of malicious editing). You can read all the details in the article's Talk page. I was wondering how I should go about reporting this vandalism and where I can find some kind of Wikipedia admin/moderator/etc. who can take a look at the situation and weigh in.

Thanks! — Preceding unsigned comment added by TazmilyKoala (talk • contribs) 01:24, 23 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

@TazmilyKoala: It wasn't strictly Vandalism (Vandalism has a specfic meaning on Wikipedia, to damage articles intentionally). However, I agree, those edit didn't have a place there as they were promotional. I am goign to warn the editor in question. Victor Schmidt (talk) 07:23, 23 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Article Submission Inquiry

Hello, I submitted an article for review and was wondering if I can get a status update about my submission. My submission is the article for "Humu (software). Thank you, Mariana — Preceding unsigned comment added by Morociogonzalez (talk • contribs) 01:33, 23 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Morociogonzalez You can examine your draft to check its status- it is still pending review. You will be notified when it is reviewed. 331dot (talk) 01:37, 23 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

@Morociogonzalez: While you are waiting for Draft:Humu_(software) to be reviewed, you can continue to work on it. You may need to add more references to show that the subject is notable. Take a look at WP:YFA if you haven't already. RudolfRed (talk) 01:41, 23 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Planet

Courtesy link: File:The Planet Status with our survival.pdf

Hello I have a question today I uploaded a file about a planet and it said that there is not enough information given and it told me to write Own work to show it is my personal work and I did not copy it I went to the file tapped on edit and it was already saying there source: Own work I am very confused may anyone tell me what is happening I worked hard I do not want it deleted — Preceding unsigned comment added by ScienceGirl-2011 (talk • contribs) 14:32, 23 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

@ScienceGirl-2011: Hi there! The fine folks at Wikipedia Commons would like to know whether you took these photos yourself or whether you found them somewhere else. I suggest you read Commons:Commons:Licensing and go to Commons:Help:Contents if you have any questions. Be sure you mention the file name and sign your talk page posts by typing ~~~~. Happy editing! GoingBatty (talk) 15:55, 23 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Mangi Tungi have Lift to go up ?

Is there Lift to go up to see adinath Statue — Preceding unsigned comment added by 103.140.106.208 (talk) 15:23, 23 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

According to the Mangi-Tungi article there are "around 3,500 (7,000 Up & Down) steps lead to the foot of the peak" — and no mention of an elevator. Please note that the Help desk here is not usually a place to seek travel guidance, only advice about editing and using Wikipedia. Mike Turnbull (talk) 15:34, 23 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

vaccine

Are the vaccines safe to use?? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 41.114.175.1 (talk) 15:41, 23 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

This page is for questions about using Wikipedia. Please consider asking this question at the Science reference desk. They specialize in knowledge questions and will try to answer any question in the universe (except how to use Wikipedia, since that is what this Help Desk is for). Just follow the link and ask away. You could always try searching Wikipedia for an article related to the topic you want to know more about. I hope this helps. Seagull123 Φ 15:44, 23 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

How to upload contribution

Dear Helper:-)

I have written a biograph I would like to upload, but have problems finding the entrance is it: Wikipedia:File Upload Wizard ? I have an account, and have contributed to 10+ articles. Thank you for your reply:-)

JSH2019 (talk) 15:59, 23 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

@JSH2019: Wikipedia:File Upload Wizard is for uploading files such as photographs or other images. For a biography that you would like to become a Wikipedia article, I suggest following the recommendations at Help:Your first article. Happy editing! GoingBatty (talk) 16:12, 23 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Please read WP:YFA to learn about creating an article. We use wikitext, so attempting to create an article on your own computer before you upload it will not work. Please note: Each article at Wikipedia must be about a subject that is notable by our definition: see WP:N. Do not put any more effort into your article until you are sure the subject is notable. We will delete any article whose subject is not notable. We delete about 200 articles every day. If your subject is not notable we have no way to help you: see WP:AMOUNT. We can help with any other problem you may have. -Arch dude (talk) 16:14, 23 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

@JSH2019:(edit conflict) The answer is still the same as 1,25 years ago, when you aksed a very similar question. Long story short, you probbably want to create a draft, check that it is in compliance with Wikipedia's policies, and then submit it. You can use the following form to get to the editing area for your draft:

I have coded the input box to automatically insert some coding in the edit area for you. Victor Schmidt (talk) 16:18, 23 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

WikiData interlanguage not appearing

Hello-

I recently created a new category at Category:Parliamentary State Secretary of Germany. There is a German equivalent category. I used the languages tab on the left side to add the interlanguage link. This appears correctly on the German category, and on the wikidata. However, it won't appear on the English language version of the category. I'm not sure how to go about making this appear properly. If I try to add it again, it just says it's already associated with a German page. The German category is here: de:Kategorie:Parlamentarischer Staatssekretär (Bundesrepublik Deutschland) matt91486 (talk) 17:29, 23 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

@Matt91486: See WP:PURGE. The server simply didn't update the english Wikipedia category page. I have forced him to do it now, and the link is showing. Victor Schmidt (talk) 18:40, 23 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

incorrect information about 1975 international world cross country championships senior women's race

I was there and ran on the women's team Maggie Keyes was not there, her sister, Kathleen Keyes was in 11th place and Paula Neppel was really named Peg Neppel thank you — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2603:8000:A403:888D:71B7:607C:541E:FB0 (talk) 20:25, 23 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Unfortunately, Wikipedia can't take personal eyewitness accounts as information has to be verifiable, which is usually done through reliable sources. If you know of any that corroborates the claim you've asserted, you can either add the information directly to the article with a citation to the reliable source, or provide those on the article's talk page as an edit request. —Tenryuu 🐲 ( 💬 • 📝 ) 20:40, 23 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

"Edit size" in XTools Edit Counter

I have been using the XTools Edit Counter at Wikipedia:WikiProject edit counters to count how many edits I've made. I'm curious about what it means by "edit size". Is it how much the article's length changed? Or is it how many of the bytes actually changed? And if so, how does it define which bytes changed? JIP | Talk 22:33, 23 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

@JIP: AFAIK the edit size is the difference of the version before you and your version. As with all sizes on Wikipedia, they are very likely what you would get if you save a particular revision on your local hard drive, using UTF-8 encoding. The developers probbably used strlen() for determining that. Victor Schmidt (talk) 07:06, 24 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

So it only looks at the length of the article? If I were to, for example, write the entire article backwards or in ROT-13, it would count it as 0 bytes? JIP | Talk 15:37, 24 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I have a problem with my sandbox

Hello
I don’t know if this is the right place to post this question: I have just placed a new section in one of my sandboxes, but when it was saved the section appeared without an edit function; I have checked the script but cannot see what is wrong with it (this happened once before, but the fault was a misplaced piece of a table; I can’t see that this time) Can anyone tell me what is wrong? Xyl 54 (talk) 23:30, 23 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

@Xyl 54: I speculate that it is the set of three contiguous equal signs after the word "inception". I cannot use an edit preview to verify tghis, of course, since edit previews do not show the edit "buttons". -Arch dude (talk) 23:48, 23 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

(edit conflict)@Xyl 54: The presence of the table code blocks the edit feature from appearing. I tried to play around with it and can't get the edit option to appear either unless the table is gone. This may be a bug. A more technical editor familiar with the underlying code will have to help. TimTempleton ^(talk) ^(cont) 23:50, 23 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Maybe @PrimeHunter: can help. TimTempleton ^(talk) ^(cont) 23:52, 23 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

@Arch dude:, Timtempleton: Thanks for that; it gave me a few ideas to try as well, though still no joy. The problem seems to be in the section above, but just I can't find it. Xyl 54 (talk) 04:06, 24 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

@Xyl 54: At the end of the line that starts with De Havilland Mosquito, you have <ref , with no closing angle bracket. If you remove those four characters, it works. -Arch dude (talk) 05:31, 24 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Ah! Magic! Thanks for that! Xyl 54 (talk)

Good catch Arch dude - that angle bracket can be a dangerous character. TimTempleton ^(talk) ^(cont) 15:56, 24 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

@Xyl 54 and Timtempleton: I catch such things by a binary search. I first copied the article to my sandbox, then began removing large chunks of it. When one removal fixed the problem, I re-instated half of it to see which half caused the problem, and continued in this manner. Brute force sometimes beats careful analysis. -Arch dude (talk) 17:06, 24 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

@Xyl 54: Note that if you enable syntax highlighting (pencil-like button to the left of the word "Advanced" above the edit box in the source editor), such problems are much easier to detect. The <ref part comes out in green and is hence pretty obvious. I saw 2 of them in the diff you linked to. Mike Turnbull (talk) 17:20, 24 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]