Wikipedia:Help desk/Archives/2025 January 4

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January 4

Is a map slideshow possible?

I have just uploaded three maps (each 4954 × 2868 pixels) of the Kaliningrad Oblast, one with placenames in Russian Cyrillic, one with them in Romanized Russian, and one showing the old prewar German names. I would like to be able to display these in one or two articles as a slideshow without sacrificing resolution or size so that a user can pore over the map as it were, full size, and see the names change every 15 seconds or so. I have tried .gif animation, but online apps always see fit to shrink the images and it does not work the way I'd like it to. Is there a way in which what I want can be done? Kelisi (talk) 03:59, 4 January 2025 (UTC)

@Kelisi: As that's likely to fall foul of WP:ACCESSIBILITY, I wouldn't bother but, instead, display the three adjacently. If readers want to compare them in detail they can zoom or download the images. Bazza 7 (talk) 10:52, 4 January 2025 (UTC)

Yes, that was my other idea, but if anybody else knows a solution for my first idea, I'm still all ears. Thanks. Kelisi (talk) 15:57, 4 January 2025 (UTC)

Copyvio or acceptable?

The article 1990 Luzon earthquake has two paragraphs with CN tags that are copied from https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/00001734.htm. Would this be allowed per https://wiki.riteme.site/wiki/Wikipedia:FAQ/Copyright#Can_I_add_something_to_Wikipedia_that_I_got_from_somewhere_else? or would it be copyvio? Wildfireupdateman :) (talk) 04:42, 4 January 2025 (UTC)

@Wildfireupdateman: Works produced by the U.S. federal government are in the public domain, so I don't think it'd be a violation. JJP_Master (she/they) 04:43, 4 January 2025 (UTC)

It's not copyrighted, so not copyvio. However, any paragraph-length direct copy must be attributed to avoid plagiarism. See WP:plagiarism. The attribution for a shorter direct copy is arguably handled by just citing the source, although that's a bit weak. It's more proper to use actual quotation marks and a cite. Plagiarisn: any copying without attribution. Copyvio: copying copyrighted material with or without attribution. -Arch dude (talk) 04:55, 4 January 2025 (UTC)

Renumbering items in a table

I have added two items (and expect I will have more to add) to the table in this entry List of New York State Historic Markers in Albany County, New York. They are the first #86 (Oriskatach) and the first #141 (Van der Zee Manor House). (Note: reviewing the table, I see Oriskatach actually claimed number 86, but now there are two number 87s.) However, because I copied and pasted an existing entry to work from, the row numbers were duplicated. I can go in and renumber all the items starting with the second #87, but I wonder if a template or other device was used that can now renumber the entries? I've looked through the archives and found this and also looked into static row numbers, but am quite uncertain about how to proceed. Any help would be appreciated, so I can understand how to fix it now and avoid the same problem when I add new entries. Many thanks. ~~~ TrudiJ (talk) 12:27, 4 January 2025 (UTC)

@TrudiJ: having read the linked helpdesk query, I think a manual update would be the simplest option. If you are making several changes you could add numbers like 86a, make a note on the talk page and then do a final manual renumbering.

@Teratornis:, you helped in 2009, do you know if anything has changed since then? TSventon (talk) 14:43, 4 January 2025 (UTC)

You might consider {{row counter}}.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 15:37, 4 January 2025 (UTC)

@TrudiJ: see Trappist the monk's suggestion above.

@Trappist the monk: I am glad to see that Wikipedia's code has improved since 2009. TSventon (talk) 12:23, 5 January 2025 (UTC)

@TSventon @Trappist the monk: Thank you both for helping to find the correct way to handle this. I have tried inserting and testing out {{row counter}} in several different places in the table parameters, but have struck out each time. If one of you, or another editor, could help me to place this correctly, I would appreciate it. I've left 87a and 141a as row numbers, but perhaps should make both their row numbers blank before the counter is included? entry [[List of New York State Historic Markers in Albany County, New York]]~~~ TrudiJ (talk) 13:22, 5 January 2025 (UTC)

@TrudiJ: I found an example at List of tallest buildings in Melbourne#Overall and copied the code into lines 1 and 2 and left line 3 blank, that seemed to work as expected. (Then I self reverted.) That page has a set of hidden instructions that would also needed to be adapted. TSventon (talk) 13:50, 5 January 2025 (UTC)

@TSventon Thank you for all the help you have given me! I've looked over the list that you found, and found the hidden instructions. I think that given my technical ability, I will probably follow your initial suggestion of temporary letter-enhanced numbers, the corresponding note on the Talk page, and manually renumbering when I get the ones I know of into the table. TrudiJ (talk) 16:08, 5 January 2025 (UTC)

Is a birth date required ...

... for all Wiki biographies? Although it seems to be required as per the MOS, I wasn't sure in situations when we might not find it out even after searching for third-party sources.

Incidentally, as I tried to figure out where else in Wikidom I might get help on this miniscule point, I came across something called "Editor Assistance," which was supposed to offer one-on-one assistance. What a disappointment to learn at the landing page that it was no longer available and the page was being kept merely for historical reference. I hope the Wiki tekkies are working on something using the power of AI to take its place. Augnablik (talk) 16:12, 4 January 2025 (UTC)

1. You are expected to do your best to find a date of birth; but if there is none, say so, including any comments you may find about the lack thereof in the record.

2. Given AI's complete and utter unreliability, its tendency to hallucinate and fabricate, it's safe to say we will not allow the power of AI to mess us up. --Orange Mike | Talk 16:19, 4 January 2025 (UTC)

Agreed, AI isn’t ready to do a lot of things at this point. But it’s not too early for tekkies to begin working on things they want to make use of some day … Augnablik (talk) 16:37, 4 January 2025 (UTC)

Thanks for the clarification about BLP birth dates. Augnablik (talk) 16:39, 4 January 2025 (UTC)

@Augnablik If you haven't seen WP:DOB, it's worth reading. Birthdates are not gold to mined. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 08:44, 5 January 2025 (UTC)

Interesting! And good to know. Augnablik (talk) 11:09, 5 January 2025 (UTC)

@Orangemike and @Gråbergs Gråa Sång, are either or both of you experts on Wikipedia MOS who could answer style questions occasionally? Already I have a new question that I just discovered will come up on a BLP: this one about disambiguation, which I never expected.

Oh, if only that earlier Editor Assistance feature were still available! Augnablik (talk) 11:52, 5 January 2025 (UTC)

I'm no expert, personally I'd ask MOS-questions here or at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style. If I was after an expert, I might ask @SMcCandlish. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 12:40, 5 January 2025 (UTC)

@Gråbergs Gråa Sång, I've just followed through on your suggestion about SMcC. I've noticed across a number of different Teahouse and Help Desk discussions that you often suggest helpful ideas to address editors' situations in unique ways — as I see you just did at my Talk page on a different matter! 😊 A double dose of thanks to you. Augnablik (talk) 02:29, 6 January 2025 (UTC)

Augnablik, do you have Special:Homepage enabled? (In Special:Preferences, under "User profile", all the way at the bottom.) I think anyone who activates it should be able to get a mentor for one-on-one assistance. However, this venue and the Teahouse are very well staffed; often it's preferable to ask a question at a public venue like this: many editors will see the question, increasing the likelihood someone will have a helpful and well-informed answer. Folly Mox (talk) 13:50, 6 January 2025 (UTC)

@Folly Mox, I do have a regular mentor — but for some of Wiki’s more esoteric style intricacies that I recently found myself facing, I thought it would be helpful to ask someone particularly involved with that sort of thing.

Not that my mentor wouldn’t have responded; he always does. But I thought to “save him,” so to speak, for more of what he calls knotty problems with which he particularly enjoys helping and I’ve probably already peppered him way beyond my share of his time.

The Help Desk and Teahouse are indeed very well staffed, and I’ve always been grateful for the quality of assistance at both. Augnablik (talk) 17:59, 6 January 2025 (UTC)

@Folly Mox Per Wikipedia_talk:Growth_Team_features/Mentor_list#Wikipedia:Teahouse#Can_I_be_someone’s_mentee? it's still 50% new editors that "gets" a mentor. Apparently the other 50% aren't told on their homepage, but the effect is the same afaict. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 18:31, 6 January 2025 (UTC)

Oh! I thought it had been bumped to 100%. Looks like my understanding was reversely outdated. Thank you for starting this thread about it. Folly Mox (talk) 19:26, 6 January 2025 (UTC)

Oh that's literally the same thread you linked 🫠 Might be time for more coffee. Folly Mox (talk) 19:27, 6 January 2025 (UTC)

FYI-ping to @Michael D. Turnbull, I think you told me that editor homepage=mentor, but that doesn't seem to be the case. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 22:50, 6 January 2025 (UTC)

@Gråbergs Gråa Sång That was my understanding but I now believe I may be wrong. See the thread you linked for all I currently know! I haven't investigated further but it is possible that only about 50% of new editors get a mentor, while 100% get the homepage feature. As it happens, I transferred Augnablik to be under my mentorship after she had had several Talk Page discussions with me. Mike Turnbull (talk) 10:26, 7 January 2025 (UTC)

Then we're at the same level of knowledge. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 10:28, 7 January 2025 (UTC)

Searching for contents of Redirects (or specific redirects)

I thought doing a insource search for /REDIRECT\[\[Alpha / would enable me to find all pages which redirect to a wikipedia page starting with Alpha, but that doesn't work. Is the issue tied in with Phab:T204089? If so, is there a good way to do this? (Ideally, I'd like to search for those pages which redirect to any page starting with an english spelling of a greek letter followed by a spaceNaraht (talk) 18:05, 4 January 2025 (UTC)

@Naraht: As usual, the AWB database scanner can do searches that other tools can't. I tried the search you asked for, but the full list of results was going to be huge. Knowing your interest, I restricted the scan to redirects where the target begins with the English names of two Greek letters; that's at User:Naraht/Redirects to two greek letters. I can compile and post the full list if you'd like it. My database dump is a couple of months out of date, so the results do not reflect any changes made since then. -- John of Reading (talk) 14:00, 5 January 2025 (UTC)

Oops - Duplicate pages

Hi, I was asked to create a page for a person. I took a couple of days and didn't realize that another had been created in the meantime. Now there are two: James Brown (Montana politician) and James Brown (Montana Politician). Sorry. Can someone help fix this? Thanks. H0n0r (talk) 18:54, 4 January 2025 (UTC)

I have redirected Montana Politician to Montana politician as some of the text had already been copied over and added talk page templates to confirm this. TSventon (talk) 19:49, 4 January 2025 (UTC)

Thank you so much! H0n0r (talk) 00:21, 5 January 2025 (UTC)

:Hello, @H0n0r. You say you were "asked" to create a page for Brown. Who asked you, and what connection do you have with Brown? Please review Wikipedia's policies on editing with a conflict of interest, and paid editing. ColinFine (talk) 22:13, 4 January 2025 (UTC)

It looks like H0n0r was simply asked by another editor interested in American politics. Helpful Raccoon (talk) 22:38, 4 January 2025 (UTC)

Oh, right. I have struck out my comment. Thank you Helpful Raccoon --ColinFine (talk) 23:16, 4 January 2025 (UTC)

Yep, just getting pages made for newly elected/sworn in people. Thanks so much. H0n0r (talk) 00:23, 5 January 2025 (UTC)

When previewing a change, how do I make corrections

I thought a while ago you could keep editing in the preview mode until you got it right, but now I don't see a way to do that. The only choices I have are to go ahead and publish as is without making needed corrections, or leave the page to abandon the edit and start over. I must be missing something! Thanks, Spalding (talk) 20:52, 4 January 2025 (UTC)

@Spalding: You have enabled "Use the wikitext mode inside the visual editor, instead of a different wikitext editor" at Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-editing. With this mode the top left of a preview page should have a left arrow < which goes back to the edit window and remembers your changes. You may have to also click X in a popup box before making other changes. Does this work? The arrow is on the same line as the publish link. Your browser interface may have a back arrow higher up. Don't use that. PrimeHunter (talk) 21:20, 4 January 2025 (UTC)

Yes, that worked. Thanks, PrimeHunter! Spalding (talk) 21:28, 4 January 2025 (UTC)

Ì forgot to login and created a Talk page for an article...

How can I delete this? Starlighsky (talk) 23:28, 4 January 2025 (UTC)

Email me or another admin the details and the IP info associated with the edit can be WP:REVDEL'd. DMacks (talk) 00:02, 5 January 2025 (UTC)

How do I email you or an administrator? Starlighsky (talk) 00:31, 5 January 2025 (UTC)

@Starlighsky: Special:EmailUser/DMacks. JJP_Master (she/they) 00:33, 5 January 2025 (UTC)

Thanks. I just emailed the issue. Starlighsky (talk) 00:37, 5 January 2025 (UTC)