Wikipedia:Help desk/Archives/2018 August 15

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August 15

Margery Wentworth

Please help - ref number 2 is in red. Help please 175.32.106.109 (talk) 05:12, 15 August 2018 (UTC)

 Done. Maproom (talk) 06:56, 15 August 2018 (UTC)

Most livable cities in the world 2018

Three cities in Canada are listed in the top ten: " Canada had Calgary (fourth), Vancouver (sixth) and Toronto (joint seventh)". 

ref. https://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2018/08/14/most-liveable-cities-2018_a_23502017/

Calgary is in the province of Alberta, Vancouver is in British Columbia (BC), and Toronto is in Ontario. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.73.1.130 (talk) 05:56, 15 August 2018 (UTC)

Yes, they are, and these provinces are in Canada. So? Clarityfiend (talk) 07:32, 15 August 2018 (UTC)

The list is at Global Liveability Ranking#2018 results. We don't give the province in international lists but readers can click the city name if they want to know more. PrimeHunter (talk) 10:14, 15 August 2018 (UTC)

Using sfn to distinguish between books by the same authors published in the same year

reference info for Winston Churchill

unnamed refs	52
named refs	15
self closed	18
cs1 refs	89
cs1 templates	145
sfn templates	521
refbegin templates	1
use xxx dates	dmy
cs1|2 dmy dates	69
cs1|2 last/first	94
cs1|2 author	2
List of cs1 templates Cite book (1) cite book (49) Cite journal (1) cite journal (14) cite news (15) cite periodical (4) cite tech report (1) cite web (60)
List of sfn templates Sfn (22) sfn (382) sfnm (117)
explanations

In Monmouthshire Houses I'm trying to use sfn to distinguish between three books by the same authors, Fox and Raglan, which were all republished in the same year, 1994. I'd be very grateful if someone could have a look and tell me if I'm dong it correctly. Many thanks. KJP1 (talk) 11:24, 15 August 2018 (UTC)

No guarantees at all that this is the best practice, but personally I put (1994a) etc in the Sources eg "Fox, Cyril; Raglan, Lord (1994a). Medieval Houses..." That's normal practice in other publications where the listings start with the date Jimfbleak - talk to me? 12:08, 15 August 2018 (UTC)

Don't use "sfn", it always ends up going wrong, and even when it works it's hard on the reader. DuncanHill (talk) 12:12, 15 August 2018 (UTC)

it always ends up going wrong... Evidence to support that assertion? Always? Really?

—Trappist the monk (talk) 12:40, 15 August 2018 (UTC)

OK then "far too often, going unnoticed for months, leaving other poor sods to sort out the mess". I am sick and tired of trying to fix poorly defined sfn refs on obscure articles like Winston Churchill or David Lloyd George, where someone's forgotten a year, or a page number, or someone else has trimmed the further reading section that the ref was defined in, or it was never defined in the first place. And I see you don't dispute it being hard on the reader even when it works, which it is. Too many clicks to actually get to the ref. DuncanHill (talk) 12:44, 15 August 2018 (UTC)

It appears that your real complaint is against short-form referencing, not necessarily about {{sfn}}. At least with {{sfn}} there are tools that can help editors discover and fix flawed {{sfn}} and {{harv}} templates, something that is not possible with plain-text short-form references like Picknett, et al. at Churchill which doesn't have a matching long-form reference. Yeah, referencing at Winston Churchill is a mess.

Your [too] many clicks argument doesn't hold much water for me because the number is typically one from the superscript in the article text plus one from the short-form to the long-form equals two clicks (only one click if mw:Reference_Tooltips is enabled). I don't know, but I'd rather click twice than have to search a bibliography by eye or by CTRL+F search.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 13:33, 15 August 2018 (UTC)

I'd rather click once, or even better not at all - being able to hover over the ref number and read the ref in a pop up. My beef is with ref formats that make the reader work harder than they need to. They discourage the checking of refs, and they discourage people reading further. DuncanHill (talk) 13:54, 15 August 2018 (UTC)

Really? Short-form refs discourage people reading further? You have evidence to support that? I guess I'm skeptical because here and now in the 21st century, clicking links is what we do, we are well trained and accustomed to it; it isn't some sort of onerous taxing endeavor that will leave us lying gasping on the floor.

With regard to Winston Churchill, I suspect that the James 1970 {{sfn}} references should really be Rhodes James 1970 which perhaps Editor Midnightblueowl can confirm (and repair since that editor placed most if not all of the {{sfn|James|...}} templates with this series of edits).

—Trappist the monk (talk) 14:25, 15 August 2018 (UTC)

I've been trying to get the Churchill refs fixed since October last year. I admire your optimism. If it was an article about a famous person I expect most of them would be fixed by now because people would be reading the refs, but as he's such an obscure figure nobody reads the article to see the tags placed on so many of the refs. If people read the refs, or the talk page, they might do something to fix them. People don't read the refs - or they don't give a damn that the refs are duff. DuncanHill (talk) 14:47, 15 August 2018 (UTC)

And as for "I suspect that the James 1970 ref is..." - not only should we not have to "suspect" what a ref is, we should never try to guess, that way leads to outright false refs. DuncanHill (talk) 14:49, 15 August 2018 (UTC)

I could have probably chosen better words because at the bottom of the diff that I linked you will find this:

{{cite book |last=James |first=Robert Rhodes |year=1970 |title=Churchill: A Study in Failure 1900–1939 |location=London |publisher=Weidenfeld and Nicolson |ref=harv}}

which was later modified with this edit made by ... you.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 15:00, 15 August 2018 (UTC)

Which was well after I was tagging all the duff refs - it was the James with no dates that were really worrying. Thanks for pointing that out - it's a good example of exactly the sort of problem caused by this reference style - someone corrects an author's surname, and it breaks something that is not clearly associated with it. As you are such a fan of that style of refs perhaps you'd like to fix it? DuncanHill (talk) 15:08, 15 August 2018 (UTC)

You should also use |loc=preface not |p=preface, since preface is not a page number. – Finnusertop (talk ⋅ contribs) 12:34, 15 August 2018 (UTC)

Many thanks indeed for the advice. I'm afraid "don't use sfn" isn't something I could follow, as I've forgotten any other and I actually rather like it. But I shall try the rest. KJP1 (talk) 12:50, 15 August 2018 (UTC)

Yes, that seems to work. I don't think it's too cumbersome for the reader, one click from the cite to the Notes and then one more to the Sources. And "loc" does indeed work for the preface. Thanks again, all. KJP1 (talk) 13:52, 15 August 2018 (UTC)

What happened to Wikipedia's partnership with HighBeam?

I had a HighBeam account through the website's partnership with Wikipedia and was hoping to renew it, but all of the information on how to renew your account was blanked from WP:HighBeam late last year, without explanation. I asked about this on that article's talk page a couple days ago, but haven't received any response. Does anyone know if HighBeam still has a partnership with Wikipedia and why I can't find any information on this? --Jpcase (talk) 14:25, 15 August 2018 (UTC)

Jpcase, I just checked The Wikipedia Library Card Platform page (which has replaced the old system of separate pages for signing up for partnerships). Highbeam is not included among the partners listed on that page, which makes me think that perhaps the partnership has ended. Eddie Blick (talk) 01:45, 16 August 2018 (UTC)

Teblick - Thanks for looking into that! Someone else just confirmed to me that the partnership did indeed end, although the person who told me this didn't seem to be entirely clear on all of the details. Perhaps more information will come later. --Jpcase (talk) 13:03, 16 August 2018 (UTC)

Subj's; Nicholas II, and U.S.S.R.

It has long been thought that the Soviet Union had the Romanov Family assassinated. It can't be. The USSR, as we knew it, did not come into existence until 1921, and 3 years after the mass murders. Either the information on Nicholas II's Wikipedia page is wrong, or the Wikipedia page on the Soviet Union is wrong. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.122.161.118 (talk) 14:44, 15 August 2018 (UTC)

• Thanks. When you see problem with the contents of an article, please either fix it yourself or put a comment on the article's talk page. In this case, maybe put comments on both talk pages. If you fix it yourself, please cite reliable sources (WP:RS). If you are not comfortabl fixing it yourself, please put those citations on the talk page. When reliable sources conflict, the article(s) should mention the conflict. -Arch dude (talk) 15:07, 15 August 2018 (UTC)

Removing templates message on the top of the Winnipeg Table Hockey League (WTHL) page

After reading the Wikipedia:Verifiability page, It states "In Wikipedia, verifiability means that other people using the encyclopedia can check that the information comes from a reliable source." Between the several different reputable Mainstream newspapers and TV News organizations cited in the References section alone this page clearly validates their Verification more so than other pages that exist on Wikipedia. I believe the "This article needs additional citations for verification.' issue has been adequately addressed and should be removed leaving just the one existing issue and with time it can be removed as the contributors to this page increase and with the one left it would take away the large template that states "This article has multiple issues" as there would only be one issue. Can someone please assist? Thanks in advance. Scapizzi (talk) 16:00, 15 August 2018 (UTC)

Addis Ababa Zoo Park Center

[Copyright violation removed. See talk page]

— Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.166.88.74 (talk) 16:05, 15 August 2018 (UTC) 

If you think that this information should be added, I suggest you discuss it on Talk:Addis Ababa Zoo (without including copyright material). --ColinFine (talk) 17:38, 15 August 2018 (UTC)

SLANDER https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/InfoWars

Do not feed the sockpuppet.

InfoWars (stylized as INFOWARS) is a far-right American conspiracy theorist and fake news website and media platform owned by Alex Jones's Free Speech Systems LLC.[15] It was founded in 1999. It should read This, but it is locked. InfoWars (stylized as INFOWARS) is a Classical Libertarian and News website and media platform owned by Alex Jones's Free Speech Systems LLC.[15] It was founded in 1999. — Preceding unsigned comment added by TruthSeeker369666 (talk • contribs) 17:51, 15 August 2018 (UTC) It lists a dozen reliable sources that call InfoWars "far-right", not "classical libertarian". Can you find sources that are more reliable or numerous and say the latter? – Finnusertop (talk ⋅ contribs) 17:56, 15 August 2018 (UTC) This isn't the place to ask for an update to a page protected article, you need to do so on InfoWars Talk page. Also it isn't slander as it's backed up by reliable sources what is said on the page and I'd be careful of making any legal threats. NZFC(talk) 18:02, 15 August 2018 (UTC) There is a request for comment about this very issue on the article talk page. Your comments belong there.~ ONUnicorn(Talk|Contribs)problem solving 18:59, 15 August 2018 (UTC) Is it NPOV to use the word "fake news" to describe any sites (other than those self-proclaimed ones) in definitive tone on the first paragraph when there are apparently some opinion disagree with such assignment?C933103 (talk) 01:11, 16 August 2018 (UTC) We go by what reliable sources say and we do not entertain "opinion disagreements" when those come from biased or unreliable sources. See WP:FALSEBALANCE. For instance, there is a large body of "opinion disagreement" about whether homeopathy, crystal healing, scientific creationism are pseudosciences as described by our articles. Feel free to provide reliable sources to the contrary. TigraanClick here to contact me 08:02, 16 August 2018 (UTC) What I mean is that, it might be better to write this out using a descriptive tones, something like "InfoWars is a far-right American conspiracy theorist website and media platform that is known to spread fake news and ...." would appears to be better than directly characterize it using the description of "fake news website". C933103 (talk) 14:43, 16 August 2018 (UTC)

Trying to add an image to a Wiki page after uploading it through Commons

Hi there. I've successfully uploaded a company's logo through Commons, and indicated it as fair use. I was brought to a page that provided all of the information about the image, but now I'm unsure how to actually add the image to the page? When I search for it under the "upload new image" function, I can't find it. Any ideas? Thanks so much!Droshis (talk) 18:13, 15 August 2018 (UTC)

Commons does not accept "fair use" images. If you have uploaded one there as "fair use", you should expect it to be removed when someone there notices. Maproom (talk) 18:22, 15 August 2018 (UTC)

I see you haven't uploaded anything to Commons (or if you have, it's gone again). However you have uploaded "File:Canadian Club Toronto, updated logo as of August 15 2018.jpg" here to English Wikipedia. Maproom (talk) 18:28, 15 August 2018 (UTC)

Right, my mistake. Am I able to now add this photo to the wiki page now that it's been uploaded to English Wikipedia?Droshis (talk) 19:43, 15 August 2018 (UTC)

• Yes, though I'd be more concerned about the article. Every source is primary and if it was nominated for deletion, it probably wouldn't survive in its present form. It needs third-party reliable sources to show the notability of the Club. Black Kite (talk) 19:49, 15 August 2018 (UTC)

That's good feedback, thank you! I am in the process of updating it. Droshis (talk) 20:06, 15 August 2018 (UTC)

What exactly does it mean if a template is "deprecated"?

What exactly does it mean if a template is "deprecated"? For example, see this page: Template:Sortname. (I read this page: Deprecation.) Thanks. Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 21:07, 15 August 2018 (UTC)

It means that it probably still works, but you are strongly recommended not to use it because there's a better way to do it and it may one day stop working. Maproom (talk) 21:32, 15 August 2018 (UTC)

OK. Thanks. That is what I had assumed, more or less. But, this is the part that I don't understand. When a template (eventually) becomes "deprecated", there are probably many, many uses of that template all over Wikipedia. In other words, people made use of that template before it became deprecated. So, what happens to all of those "prior" instances of the template being used? At some point, all of those articles will be negatively affected and will not "work"? Thanks. Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 21:52, 15 August 2018 (UTC)

That is exactly why such a template is first deprecated for a time before it gets deleted, to give editors enough time to replace it on such pages before it dissapears. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 21:57, 15 August 2018 (UTC)

I've just checked, there doesn't seem to be a tag or category to mark/list pages that use deprecated templates, thus no way for editors to know that such articles need remedial attention. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 22:02, 15 August 2018 (UTC)

That would seem to be a problem. I am sure that some templates are utilized literally thousands upon thousands of times, throughout Wikipedia. Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 00:19, 16 August 2018 (UTC)

Thanks, all. Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 03:20, 16 August 2018 (UTC)

Linking to an article based on its Wikidata id

For example, wikidata:Q503129 is the entry for the "Chocolate brownie" article. How can I make a link to that Wikipedia article by using that id only, but not the actual article title? If the article should ever be retitled, the link should still point directly to it (not via a redirection). --Theurgist (talk) 22:08, 15 August 2018 (UTC)

You can use a pipe, like this: chocolate brownie. The code is [[:wikidata:Q503129|chocolate brownie]] TimTempleton ^{(talk) (cont)} 23:02, 15 August 2018 (UTC)

No no. I need a link to the article in the English Wikipedia, a link to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chocolate_brownie (or whatever other title it may have one day). --Theurgist (talk) 23:40, 15 August 2018 (UTC)

Add the chocolate brownie article to your watch list (click the star on the article's tab), and if its name ever changes, which is highly unlikely, you'll get an alert and can make the change then. TimTempleton ^{(talk) (cont)} 23:48, 15 August 2018 (UTC)

I actually don't know if what you're requesting is possible, Theurgist, at least not without a sophisticated template, none of which I am aware exists for this purpose. The closest I can think of accomplishing that would be something like [[{{PAGENAME}}|chocolate brownie]], but that would only work on the Chocolate brownie and Talk:Chocolate brownie pages because {{PAGENAME}} is a magic word that replaces itself with the current name of the page on which it is placed in the rendered output. The result of using it on this page is the following: chocolate brownie (notice the wikilink target).

I seriously doubt that will help you here, but am I at least understanding the sort of behavior you are describing? A wikilink piping (or template equivalent) that never redirects because it always uses the most recent live page name? I know you mentioned Wikidata, as well, which just adds more complexity to this very specific request. Given that what I just described does not appear to exist at this time, a more specific iteration involving the Wikidata item as the anchor inherits that. If I'm mistaken and something like this does exist, I would love to be proven wrong.

With that said, if what matters to you is simply monitoring the article for page name changes, then TimTempleton's suggestion above is the solution. You can do the same for the Wikidata item. —Nøkkenbuer (talk • contribs) 00:06, 16 August 2018 (UTC)

Oh wow, after thinking about it for a while, I recall that every page has an ID in its page information page, so I searched for templates using that. In fact, there is a template for this very purpose, called {{Pageid to title}}! For example, the page ID for Chocolate brownie, according to its information page, is 497794. Therefore, [[{{Pageid to title|497794}}]] (notice the wikilink brackets around the outside of the template, per its documentation) should provide a permanent live link to the article that never redirects and that always displays the current page title: Chocolate brownie. There you go!

Now, I have no clue about the Wikidata part of it all, which seems to involve some sort of piping that is not possible or otherwise a nonexistent template that can perform it, but maybe this is what you're looking for. If not, then explaining why you need such functionality may help. —Nøkkenbuer (talk • contribs) 00:30, 16 August 2018 (UTC); last edited 00:38, 16 August 2018 (UTC)

Yes, you're understanding what behavior I'm describing. I want a link that points to an entry in the English Wikipedia that does not depend on its current title, but on some other, permanent and unchangeable identifier. Note that some articles are more likely to ever get renamed than others; I'm using the chocolate brownie just as an example.

Thanks for that {{pageid to title}} template, it seems to work.

By the way, take a look at the tables at meta:Wikimedia CEE Spring 2018/Structure/Kazakhstan. If you view the code of any table, you'll see that its entirety consists of wikitext such as:

{{#invoke:WikimediaCEETable|table|Q483236|Q1236973|Q1046502|Q2369181|Q4275564}}

It only contains Wikidata ids, and yet the live version displays and links to the actual article titles. How does it manage to do this? --Theurgist (talk) 01:06, 16 August 2018 (UTC)

My guess is that it has something to do with the code at Module:WikimediaCEETable, Theurgist. In order for something like that to work here on the English Wikipedia, I suspect a similar Lua module would need to be created along with a template using that module (which does not seem to exist at the Meta-Wiki) in order for a user such as yourself to use it in talk pages. Regardless, it would be a rather sophisticated coding project. Especially when considering the page history and WhatLinksHere for {{Pageid to title}}, I suspect that any such template or module would have very low utility here. Even so, if you want to be the one to try making that a reality here, you are free to suggest it at the Village pump. —Nøkkenbuer (talk • contribs) 01:36, 16 August 2018 (UTC); last edited 01:43, 16 August 2018 (UTC)

And {{pageid to title}} can make only internal links, but not URLs so as to link to an article from outside, right? --Theurgist (talk) 01:51, 16 August 2018 (UTC)

In principle, I suppose it can link anywhere, including external links, so long as the markup outside the template is correct. For example, [[d:Q503129|{{pageid to title|497794}}]] renders as Chocolate brownie. For an external link: [https://wikipedia.org/ {{pageid to title|497794}}] renders as Chocolate brownie. In both examples, the links do not change, but the page title will always remain current. However, as far as I can tell, there is no way to do something like [[{{pageid to title|Q503129}}]], which just renders as Q503129. At that point, something like {{Wikidata entity link}} is probably the closest equivalent.

For {{pageid to title}}, the options appear to be limited to piping and other link formatting, but not interwiki IDs within the template. That would require changing the template or creating a new one. —Nøkkenbuer (talk • contribs) 02:06, 16 August 2018 (UTC); last edited 02:12, 16 August 2018 (UTC)

I mean linking from outside Wikipedia: storing a URL elsewhere. --Theurgist (talk) 02:17, 16 August 2018 (UTC)

If you mean using this template in another part of the Wikimedia project, then no unless the template also exists on that project (which it probably doesn't). A similar template might exist there, but I doubt it. If that is not what you mean, then I do not understand. The template was created on the English Wikipedia to only work on the English Wikipedia by only using internal page IDs on internal page information pages. Any use outside of that is beyond the scope of the template. —Nøkkenbuer (talk • contribs) 03:24, 16 August 2018 (UTC)

I understand that the template works only on Wikipedia. I meant creating a URL, such as https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?id=Q503129 or something, that could be used in emails or whatever, outside Wikipedia, to link to the Wikipedia article. I imagined this would be a fairly straightforward question. Thanks for the info anyways. Probably discussions like this one can ultimately prompt the implementation of such a functionality. --Theurgist (talk) 11:54, 16 August 2018 (UTC)

Sorry for misunderstanding you, Theurgist; I was reading too much into your messages. That would be achieved with curid in the URL. For Chocolate brownie: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=497794. As stated in mw:Page id, page IDs do change under (at least) one condition: when the page is deleted and restored. That is the only situation in which your curid link is likely to ever break. Barring some administrative mishap, however, I doubt well-maintained and -established articles like Chocolate brownie (or whatever) will ever be deleted so long as Wikipedia hasn't been. Even if so, apparently MediaWiki 1.27+ is capable of restoring the original page ID when possible.

If you have any other questions, feel free to ask. —Nøkkenbuer (talk • contribs) 12:21, 16 August 2018 (UTC); edited 12:27, 16 August 2018 (UTC)

Thanks, that's exactly what I wanted! --Theurgist (talk) 14:11, 16 August 2018 (UTC)