Wikipedia:Help desk/Archives/2024 December 19

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December 19

Questions, Sources, and general advice request

I'm working on the Sacred Reich article (specifically a draft on my userpage for a major edit) and I've been struggling to improve the article recently due to a few problems, and I have been unsuccessful in solving myself; I've come here to ask for your input on it, and general advice on the draft if plausible.

A major problem I've run into is that I'm unable to properly add information to the article, just because of the lack of coverage on said information. For context, a part of the major edit is a section on their artistry (musical style, lyrics, etc.) However, I'm struggling to put anything useful together as most sources only briefly cover the topic of their artistry (i.e "continued to work on their political lyrics ..." without much—if any—deeper coverage on the topic. There are a few sources that are somewhat more descriptive of the topic, but it seems I can't write enough information (at least two paragraphs) to provide encyclopedic coverage of the subject, and without accidentally violating WP:SYNTHESIS. _{(On a sidenote, many sources either explicitly or implicitly mention the band's extensive and "aggressive" touring habits, but almost no coverage besides that, and I don't know how that could be used in the prose of the article.)}

Another problem I've had is that I'm beginning to believe that I have run out of sources for the article. I have already used most of the sources that show up in regular Google searches, as well as almost all of the results in Google Books, News, and all applicable sources in WP:MUSIC/SOURCES. On a sidenote, a large majority of posts on Google are relatively recent, which leads to more sources for more recent releases (i.e. the 20 sources for the Awakening subsection) than needed. The reverse also applies, with little information on their early releases (Ignorance, Surf Nicaragua, and The American Way), which are their most famous releases.

And—in my opinion—the hardest problem, is the section on the band's political views. The band (mostly frontman Phil Rind) has made several statements regarding Donald Trump and his followers and has been negative towards him on several occasions. Because of the BLP policy, NPOV, and just getting it right, I'm struggling to put this section together without "blowing everything up". This interview with Revolver Magazine I believe clears up Rind's viewpoint, with Rind going in-depth about his viewpoints regarding Trump. To avoid copyright problems, I would usually paraphrase Rind's opinion because of MOS:QUOTE and copyright reasons, but I feel obliged to quote him fully to avoid distorting the meaning of what he said. However, per copyright, I don't think I can without risking a copyright violation. I don't really know what to do in this situation, as it's squished between WP:BLP+WP:NPOV, and copyright problems.

Also, there may be some problems regarding the prose in general (irrelevance, flow, etc.) that I may have missed, and I would also like to request some general feedback on the draft in general. If you can provide insight into any of these problems I'm having, it would be highly appreciated. Thanks. —Sparkle and Fade ^talk_edits 01:47, 19 December 2024 (UTC) Sparkle and Fade ^talk_edits 01:47, 19 December 2024 (UTC)

Sparkle & Fade, it seems to me that you are overthinking things. The Metal Injection source makes Rind's political opinions very clear. You can pick two or three of the most evocative sentences, and quote them with attribution. You can then paraphrase the other things he said. He speaks clearly and frankly without evasiveness, and in my mind, what he said would be very easy to paraphrase. Cullen328 (talk) 04:55, 19 December 2024 (UTC)

Don't yearn for sources to say much more. Just summarize what the known sources say, and leave it at that. Cullen328 (talk) 04:58, 19 December 2024 (UTC)

Thanks again, Cullen328. Looking back, I think I was really overthinking things because I've been working on the article for a long while. Your advice has been very helpful in clearing my view on the whole thing, and I'm likely to finish the edit soon. Thanks for your help, Sparkle and Fade ^talk_edits 05:11, 19 December 2024 (UTC)

References

Archiving a talk page of a redirect?

What's the standard practice on whether to archive talk page discussions when a page becomes a redirect? There are some talk pages that will seemingly stay on the list of longest talk pages forever[1]. Wizmut (talk) 07:50, 19 December 2024 (UTC)

WP:TALKSIZE states that talk page discussions can be archived when the byte size of the talk page exceed 75 KB, or have many closed or resolved discussions. Archiving talk page is usually left to the bots, but if you want to archive them manually, the procedures are on H:ARC. Tutwakhamoe (talk) 20:23, 19 December 2024 (UTC)

Illustration of an event from description

There's currently a once nearly-boiling-over and now relatively minor dispute regarding illustration of an event for which there exists no free media. If I were to illustrate the event myself using descriptions of the event (which can be safely and reliably attributed), could these be included in the article, and would this count as original research? Departure– (talk) 16:22, 19 December 2024 (UTC)

Non-photographic illustrations are, in principle, fine. Most articles about historical people and events from before the advent of photography have them. For articles about fictional people and places, they are also pretty unavoidable. That said, if the depiction might be controversial, which is what this sounds like (no idea what the topic is), then I think I'd avoid it. If no free media exist or could be created, a copyright photo can be used under fair use; see, for instance, the image captioned "Cutty Sark on fire, in May 2007" in Cutty Sark fire. But it's often worth ask the photographers if they are willing to upload the images to Commons, first; they might be happy to freely license it. HLHJ (talk) 16:59, 19 December 2024 (UTC)

The debate regards the 1925 Tri-State tornado, and the argument can be seen at Talk:1925 Tri-State tornado#This image shown here is photoshopped and not the real tri state tornado. The part I'm focusing on is towards the bottom, where I floated the idea of illustrating the topic from a few descriptions of the event. It's not just that no free media exists of the tornado - no media at all is known to exist, much like the elusive 1990 Plainfield tornado. Anyway, I was told that the descriptions were somewhat open to interpretation, and thus any illustration would be original research, even with attribution. Departure– (talk) 17:15, 19 December 2024 (UTC)

I think that it is a bad idea for a Wikipedia editor to try to create an illustration of a historical event based on a written description. It runs afoul of the policy against original research. Just quote and attribute a couple of sentences, or paraphrase a longer passage. Cullen328 (talk) 19:01, 19 December 2024 (UTC)

Page containing page question

I do not know what a page that contains a page is called. I know that it is invoked by the {{}} symbols, but I am unsure what it is called. I also want to ask another question about it. Caleb's World11 (talk) 16:27, 19 December 2024 (UTC)

They're called templates. And what's your other question? Hacked (Talk|Contribs) 16:29, 19 December 2024 (UTC)

The main page seems to use templates of pages, but it wont update information that was edited on those pages. I already tried to purge the page, but that did not work. I am trying to update the 7.3 Magnitude earthquake in Port Vila. Caleb's World11 (talk) 16:37, 19 December 2024 (UTC)

Nothing seems wrong/not up to date to me. And just to confirm, is this the template you're talking about? Hacked (Talk|Contribs) 16:47, 19 December 2024 (UTC)

I think the actual word that I am looking for is Transposed, but with your response, I am unsure. To be clear, I want the heading on this page to match what is on the main page, but it doesn't. This page is at the top of the news section. Caleb's World11 (talk) 16:55, 19 December 2024 (UTC)

Oh, now I know what you're talking about. My bad. So the main page says 19 fatalities yet the article says 14. Is that the problem you're trying to highlight? Hacked (Talk|Contribs) 16:57, 19 December 2024 (UTC)

Yes. Caleb's World11 (talk) 17:00, 19 December 2024 (UTC)

Well, to get information into the main page, we have to edit here. However, they're only accessible to Administrators. To fix this, you might want to contact the administrator, who is User:Stephen, who changed the death toll from 14 to 19, and alert him for the mistake he made. Hope this helps. Hacked (Talk|Contribs) 17:04, 19 December 2024 (UTC)

Hi, @Caleb's World11. The word is WP:transcluded. But the main page does not (mostly) transclude other articles, but specially written summaries.

There is a section on how to report errors in content currently or imminently on the main page, on Talk:Main Page.; ColinFine (talk) 17:52, 19 December 2024 (UTC)