Wikipedia:Help desk/Archives/2019 August 17

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August 17

Incorrect information

There is a link on your website entitled, "Murder of Cooper Harris". This could more appropriately be titled "Death of...". Although it is public knowledge that Cooper's father was convicted of murder. We, the family and many, many others know that this was a tragic accident. The courts got it wrong.

I have long supported and contributed to Wikipedia, and do not agree that this presumption is appropriate and in keeping with accuracy and truth, should be corrected.

Thank you. Sue M Scott — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2602:306:3B5D:2B20:318F:F099:3EDC:FA7C (talk) 00:38, 17 August 2019 (UTC)

WP:PROVEIT. - FlightTime (open channel) 00:42, 17 August 2019 (UTC)

We need more than just you saying the murder conviction is incorrect, we need independent reliable sources discussing that view on their own to mention it in the article- and even that cannot remove the use of the term murder, as he was convicted in court of murder. If he was wrongly convicted, he (or you) should seek legal counsel. 331dot (talk) 01:15, 17 August 2019 (UTC)

I would add that while your donations to the Foundation are appreciated, they have no bearing on Wikipedia content, as if they did, anyone could buy the content they wanted, or blackmail Wikipedia to preserve content. 331dot (talk) 01:18, 17 August 2019 (UTC)

Nathan McCall wiki page

Mr. McCall is listed as a rapist. Mr. McCall did talk about in his book raping a woman but he has never been convicted of any rape. Makes me Wanna Holler is listed twice. One entry is a good short review of the other book. The other refers to his rapist past. Calling him a rapist when he hasn't been convicted subjects you to potential litigation.

Here are the two lines in question.

Nathan McCall (born 1955) is an African-American author and rapist who grew up in the Cavalier Manor section of Portsmouth, Virginia.

In his first book, Makes Me Wanna Holler A chapter titled Trains details his rapist past.

In his first book, Makes Me Wanna Holler,[1] McCall provides a detailed story of his life and the hardships he experienced growing up with racial profiling, class differences and peer pressure.[2][3] — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:603:1F7F:B75E:D861:DF57:7F16:2445 (talk) 00:44, 17 August 2019 (UTC)

 Fixed – This material was added in last week and wasn't caugt then. If you see other such violations of our biographies of living people policies you can usually edit the page yourself and remove it. – Thjarkur (talk) 01:19, 17 August 2019 (UTC)

World Quizzing Championships page - help requested

Hello,

My name is Jane Allen, I am the managing director of the International Quizzing Association which runs the annual World Quizzing Championships event. One of the people who has won the competition on numerous occasions, Pat Gibson, plays for England, but this keeps being erroneously changed to 'Ireland'. Pat was born in Ireland, but has lived for around 25 years in Wigan, England. As such, he chooses to represent England and not Ireland, as is his right.

Please can you advise on how to stop whoever it is that keeps changing his nationality to Ireland from doing this? Pat is even a member of the England team in international competitions. He does not represent Ireland.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Quizzing_Championship

Many thanks Jane. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.8.53.149 (talk) 06:18, 17 August 2019 (UTC)

Comment: I see that our article on Pat Gibson describes him as Irish, and says that he "competes as part of the England quiz team". Maproom (talk) 06:52, 17 August 2019 (UTC)

The Irish claim was made by an anon editor from Balbriggan who presumably wanted to claim Pat for Ireland. Please let us know if the false claim reappears. Dbfirs 07:49, 17 August 2019 (UTC)

Jane: Very many thanks. I don't know who the anon editor might be, but he/she isn't an organiser of the event. Pat definitely represents England. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.8.53.149 (talk) 09:23, 17 August 2019 (UTC)

Ctrl+c / Ctrl+x jumping issue

Hi - when I'm editing content, if I cut or copy text, my cursor always jumps up to the top of the screen, meaning I have to scroll down to find where I was before. This is pretty annoying if I'm just reordering sentences or moving refs around or whatever. It only happens to me when editing Wikipedia - it doesn't seem to be something I've enabled generally on my computer, I can use word or whatever without it happening. Has anyone else experienced this, and can anyone suggest a fix? (Please ping me if you respond, my watchlist is massive) Thanks GirthSummit _(blether) 06:33, 17 August 2019 (UTC)

Hello Girth Summit. I can’t say I’ve ever experienced this, so I’m guessing it is a problem with your compiter. Maybe try doing Ctrl+c/Ctrl+x on other Wikimedia websites to see if it has and affect there? Regards, Willbb234^Talk (please {{ping}} me in replies) 09:08, 17 August 2019 (UTC)

Willbb234, thanks for the suggestion. I just tried editing my user page on meta, and the problem did not occur - I can copy or cut text, and the cursor stays where I expect it to, at the point where I copied/cut. If I edit my user page (or any other page) on enWiki, even if I'm write down in the categories section, as soon as I copy/cut the cursor jumps to the top of the page.

If I remember correctly, this started happening a few months ago when I installed a bunch of scripts that were recommended to me when I started doing WP:NPP work. I wonder whether this is a known feature/bug of any script. I guess I could uninstall them all, see if it goes away, then reinstall them one by one and see whether I can find which one (or which combination of them) is causing it - I thought I'd ask here though before going through all that. Cheers GirthSummit _(blether) 10:28, 17 August 2019 (UTC)

Girth Summit, I've been having the same problem for at least several weeks now. It's extremely frustrating. If you figure out which script is causing it, please share. Schazjmd (talk) 12:41, 17 August 2019 (UTC)

Schazjmd, I'm glad it's not just me (while simultaneously being sorry that you're experiencing it too, it's a real pain!). I'll do some experimenting later this afternoon, and update here if I can figure it out. GirthSummit _(blether) 12:43, 17 August 2019 (UTC)

Girth Summit, until you brought it up, I wondered if I'd just misremembered that it had always worked that way and it didn't occur to me to try and troubleshoot it. So, I went through all of my scripts and couldn't fix the problem. Then I went to Preferences and reset to default (ouch) - bingo! No cursor jumping. Now I'll have to go through each setting to identify which one causes the jump. Schazjmd (talk) 13:26, 17 August 2019 (UTC)

Schazjmd, ouch indeed! Thanks for letting me know, that saved me some time. I think I've found the preference setting - when I disable 'Enable the editing toolbar', in the 'Editing' tab, it stops happening. That's a bit of a pain though, because you lose access to the 'Cite' tool, which I use all the time. What to do - is this a trip to the Village Pump do you think? GirthSummit _(blether) 13:40, 17 August 2019 (UTC)

Girth Summit, hmm, I can't repro your experience. I have "Enable the editing toolbar" selected and it isn't happening. I've restored all of my settings, except "Gadgets", so I think the culprit (at least for my browser) is in there. Schazjmd (talk) 13:43, 17 August 2019 (UTC)

Schazjmd Hmm. I wonder if it's two things combining to cause the problem. Like, if you have the editing toolbar and something else enabled, it happens, but not if you have one or the other. Is there any way for us to view each other's preferences, to compare what I've got switched on and you've got switched off? That might be easier than going through one setting at a time trying to replicate it. GirthSummit _(blether) 13:46, 17 August 2019 (UTC)

Girth Summit, I think you're right about two things. I just noticed that while I've been testing, I didn't have syntax highlighter turned on. As soon as I turned it on, the jumping problem came back. So now I have to start again from the beginning to figure out what script or setting is interacting with syntax highlighter to cause the problem. Schazjmd (talk) 13:50, 17 August 2019 (UTC)

Schazjmd Update - good think you mentioned the browser there. I generally edit using MS Edge, but I just tried it in Chrome and it isn't happening. Maybe it is something that affects different browsers differently, which might make it more difficult to replicate. I guess I could work around it by just editing in Chrome, but I'm kind of used to the way everything looks in Edge now - Chrome just looks weird to me. GirthSummit _(blether) 13:49, 17 August 2019 (UTC)

Girth Summit, me too, I've gotten fond of Edge. So our problem is Edge + syntax highlighter + <unknown>… Schazjmd (talk) 13:51, 17 August 2019 (UTC)

Or maybe not. I just removed all scripts and reset preferences to default, but as long as I have syntax highlighter activated, it jumps. I guess it's an Edge defect. Schazjmd (talk) 13:54, 17 August 2019 (UTC)

Weird. I've never used Syntax Highlighter - I don't have that switched on now, and it's happening. The only way I've found so far to stop it is to lose the Editing Toolbar - which is probably too big a sacrifice to get rid of the jumping cursor. I'll keep tinkering and see whether I can find any other way of getting rid of it. GirthSummit _(blether) 13:56, 17 August 2019 (UTC)

Girth Summit, that's a pain. And it's weird we have the same problem but different configs. But I've figured out that I can toggle syntax highlighter off while I'm doing copy/cut editing to avoid the jump, so thanks for motivating me to look into this. Sorry that your fix is so unusable! Schazjmd (talk) 14:00, 17 August 2019 (UTC)

Schazjmd Never mind, it's kind of interesting tinkering around in preferences! I've found I can fix it by disabling the 2010 editing toolbar, but enabling the 2006 one. Looks kind of retro, but I might be able to get used to it. Otherwise I could just try to get used to Chrome... Cheers GirthSummit _(blether) 14:05, 17 August 2019 (UTC)

@Schazjmd: Your query about two users viewing each others preference settings is intriguing, it would be nice to have a Special page similar to Twinkle's preferences. I use that page to C/P settings between my main account and public and phone accounts, but I'm no developer, so not even sure if such a thing is possible :P - FlightTime (open channel) 14:12, 17 August 2019 (UTC)

Can we trust!

I want to know that website "Knowledge @ Wharton" exist really or it is fake. Can I trust on the content provided on that website? I found some important information on that website and want it to add in one of the article. I checked about it on "WP: Reliability of Reference" but I couldn't find, this website name there. Please! anyone tell that this website exist really and can I trust fully on it's content? Thanks. (09:22, 17 August 2019 (UTC)) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 223.230.145.71 (talk)

223, I see that you have posted a request to Jayron32's talk page. You posted it to the top of the page, where it is quite possible that Jayron32 will never notice it; you should post requests and comments to the bottom of the page, as you have done here. And your request is about a specific article, which you describe as about "Dr. Shamsheer". It would be helpful and polite if you gave a link to the article instead of expecting Jayron32 to search for it, particularly as Wikipedia has several articles about people called Shamsheer. (Maybe you mean Shamsheer Vayalil, but I can't be sure.) Maproom (talk) 10:07, 17 August 2019 (UTC)

@Maproom: Yes it certainly appears to be our perpetual requester of edits in respect of Shamsheer Vayali. See #Please response above Wikipedia:Help_desk/Archives/2019_August_15#Please_response for explanation of his 'interest'. Eagleash (talk) 12:17, 17 August 2019 (UTC) Archived.— Vchimpanzee • talk • contributions • 21:22, 23 August 2019 (UTC)

• Ok! I am trying to edit myself but if something becomes disruptive, for that I'm sorry.

Thank you. (223.230.145.71 (talk) 16:14, 17 August 2019 (UTC))

Alan Dershowitz

I noticed there is nothing in Alan Dershowitz’ biography about his recent legal issues and the page is not editable to “protect” - what exactly? To protect Alan Dershowitz? I have donated to Wikipedia in the past because I thought Wikipedia was a platform for the public and not for private protection of individuals who want to write whatever they want to write about themselves regardless of recent news. Is that no longer the case? Who is allowed to edit Wikipedia? Why is Alan Dershowitz protected? Birgitte Jensen — Preceding unsigned comment added by 210.232.14.183 (talk) 10:28, 17 August 2019 (UTC)

Hi Birgitte Jensen - protection is usually put on pages that attract significant amounts of vandalism, or (since this is a biography of a living person) possibly it's because a lot of people were adding unsourced controversial material. It's quite lightly protected, and most editors with established accounts can edit it - it's just very new accounts and unregistered users (who are usually the ones who vandalise pages) that can't. I can assure you that this individual has no more (or less) protection than we would give any living person. If there are specific edits you would like to be made to the article, you can put an edit request on its talk page - just makes sure you are clear on what you want to be added, and that you provide at least one reliable source that supports the assertions you want to make - then another editor will look at what you are suggesting and, provided it meets our policies on biographies of living persons, the change will be made. Cheers GirthSummit _(blether) 10:35, 17 August 2019 (UTC)

Creating an article on wikipedia

How can one create an article on wikipedia — Preceding unsigned comment added by Makokha Thomson Otyola (talk • contribs) 11:45, 17 August 2019 (UTC)

@Makokha Thomson Otyola: I would caution you that successfully creating a new article is probably the hardest task on Wikipedia. It takes much time, effort, and practice. New users who dive right in to creating articles often end up disappointed and with hurt feelings as something they worked hours on (likely without a good understanding of the process) is mercilessly edited and deleted by others. I don't want to see that happen to you. New users are much more successful at creating articles when they first spend time(weeks or even months) editing existing articles in areas that interest them, to get a feel for using Wikipedia, the editing process, and what goes into creating articles. Usually such users start with small edits like spelling fixes, move up to more substantive edits and lastly work their way into creating articles. I would suggest that you pursue such a path. You may also want to use the use the new user tutorial.

However, if you still want to attempt to create an article, you should first read Your First Article. Then, you can use Articles for Creation to create and submit a draft for a review before it is formally placed in the encyclopedia. This way, you get feedback on it beforehand, instead of afterwards when it will be treated more critically. 331dot (talk) 16:47, 11 August 2019 (UTC)

Posting a profile

How do I post a profile on Wikipedia and how can I start a business line of writing and posting other people's profiles on Wikipedia — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ruthrence (talk • contribs) 15:24, 17 August 2019 (UTC)

Short answer: you don't. Wikipedia is not social media, articles about people are only included if they are notable in WP's terms. Martin of Sheffield (talk) 15:27, 17 August 2019 (UTC)

Also, please sign your posts with four tildes: ~~~~ Martin of Sheffield (talk) 15:28, 17 August 2019 (UTC)

See also PAID and COI. Also remember that, if you write an article (we don't do profiles) about someone, neither you nor they own it - any editor can change the content, provided they do so according to our relevant policies; or indeed any editor may nominate it for deletion if they don't think the subject is notable. I would advise you not to go down this route. GirthSummit _(blether) 17:01, 17 August 2019 (UTC)

Help:Cite errors/Cite error references no text

I'm trying to fix the reference error for Zoe Telford's info box. Anyone? Thanks in advance! — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jack.D.Tipper (talk • contribs) 16:50, 17 August 2019 (UTC)

I see that you've fixed it. - David Biddulph (talk) 17:36, 17 August 2019 (UTC)

Jack.D.Tipper To easily fix or expand bare references, I like to use this reFill tool from wmflabs. Regards, Willbb234^Talk (please {{ping}} me in replies) 18:12, 17 August 2019 (UTC)