Wikipedia:Help desk/Archives/2020 March 15

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Help desk
< March 14 << Feb | March | Apr >> March 16 >
Welcome to the Wikipedia Help Desk Archives
The page you are currently viewing is an archive page. While you can leave answers for any questions shown below, please ask new questions on one of the current Help Desk pages.


March 15[edit]

Help![edit]

I’m locked out of my user page and I’m not receiving email from Wikipedia to rest my password ... help! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 49.179.18.48 (talk) 01:47, 15 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

See Help:Logging in for general help. If you say your username then we can see whether the account has stored an email address but not what it is. If you don't remember or get a password then you have to create a new account. PrimeHunter (talk) 02:15, 15 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
My username is Castlemate. Thanks — Preceding unsigned comment added by 49.179.18.48 (talk)
User:Castlemate has not specified an email address. If you create a new account then you can say on both user pages that you are the same user. See Wikipedia:Sock puppetry#Alternative account notification. PrimeHunter (talk) 16:36, 15 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Do you want me to give you my email address here? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 49.179.18.48 (talk) 17:37, 15 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
No.S Philbrick(Talk) 17:52, 15 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
No, I cannot do anything with it. An email address can be given at account creation or at Special:Preferences for users who can log in. PrimeHunter (talk) 17:55, 15 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Ok... can someone please tell me what todo? I’ve been going around in circles for days. I’m stupid and need a simple answer. Please don’t send me to Wikipedia pages that I need a PHD in computer terms to use. Help! Help! Help! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 49.179.18.48 (talk) 00:37, 16 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry, but your ONLY OPTION is to abandon the account and start create a new one, because the old account does not have an email address. You may then add notes to the user pages of both new and old accounts to tell other editors about the linkage. -Arch dude (talk) 01:02, 16 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

How can I add a note to an old account that I can use? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 49.179.18.48 (talk) 01:25, 16 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

supposedly I can: After creating an account, you can associate an email address to your account on Special:Preferences. You can navigate to the "User profile" tab, where you will see an “Email options” section. You can enter your email address in this section. But this need a password as well. Clearly nobody seems to know what has to be done. Can I have an expert opinion please. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 49.179.18.48 (talk) 01:32, 16 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
The problem is you don't like our advice: Create a new account and abandon the old one. You can edit the old user page with the new account to say you are the same person. I recommend storing an email address in the new account to reduce the risk of losing that account too. In rare cases server administrators may consider setting an email address for an account so you can use Special:PasswordReset. As far as I know, there are no public guidelines for it. I think they try to minimize the number of requests. You have to prove it is your account, e.g. because the account gave identifying information in a logged in edit. They also prefer accounts with advanced user rights. Otherwise you can just create and use a new account. You claim to be a user with 7412 edits but you still haven't managed to sign an edit in seven posts. That does not inspire confidence. You also make other beginner mistakes like top posting, wrong header syntax, failure to start a post on a new line, and posting to the wrong section. PrimeHunter (talk) 03:14, 16 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for your ongoing unhelpful abuse. No wonder I have dislike Wikipedia editors who are so unhelpful and have been for over 10 years. I really didn’t know I could sign posts when I wasn’t logged on. 49.179.18.48 (talk) 04:33, 16 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
PrimeHunter, I do not believe this is Castlemate (talk · contribs), but let's not waste any more time on this. Drmies (talk) 04:40, 16 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Article on new concept[edit]

Hi, I was advised by a Patent Lawyer to publish a new concept (such as Anthropocene as an example) on Wikipedia. I developed this concept and I am in the process of registering the trademark and legal rights to it. During my research on Wikipedia I came across the following and would like to know how a new concept such as Anthropocene got onto Wikipedia, if the following is correctly understood by me. Quote:

https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Editing_Wikipedia No original research Simply put, Wikipedia is not a place to publish original ideas. Rather, you should summarize what others have published in reliable sources about the topic. Articles may not contain any new analysis, and they should not synthesize published materials to reach broader conclusions beyond what the individual sources say.


if I can go ahead, I've read that I should first edit 10 articles and I did one. How do I get back to edit 9 more articles? Just can't find it. thank you — Preceding unsigned comment added by 192.231.178.18 (talk) 02:38, 15 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Tell that patent lawyer that an administrator says he is absolutely wrong about Wikipedia and to never give that advice again. Honestly, I'd demand my money back for that session if a lawyer told me to do that.
We do not use nor publish original research. We are not a means of promotion. In other words, we do not allow people to do what that lawyer advised you to do and we will delete it from the site. You'd honestly better off publishing your concept by writing it on a public toilet's walls because it will last longer.
Our article on the Anthropocene is a summary of already published sources by scholars independent whoever coined the term, just as our article on Coca-Cola is a summary of history books and newspaper and magazine articles written by people who do not work with or for the Cola-Cola company. Ian.thomson (talk)
Oh! Also, because of the Creative Commons and GNU licenses that stuff on this site is published under, publishing here could royally fuck over later attempts to trademark your concept. Demand your money back. Ian.thomson (talk) 03:32, 15 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
As Ian said, this is absolutely the wrong place for original research, so thank you very much for asking here before you proceeded. The are other places on the Internet you can use. See WP:OUT for some of them. One alternative is github. Although usually used as a code repository, it can be used for any collection of related information that is organized as a directory structure containing files. From a purely legal perspective, github is just as good a place to publish as any other publicly-accessible location on the Internet. -Arch dude (talk) 03:37, 15 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Just to be clear, nothing above should be construed as legal advice. We're not patent lawyers, and we don't play them on Wikipedia. —[AlanM1 (talk)]— 08:36, 15 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I concur that we are not giving legal advice. That said, the lawyer doesn't have a clue.S Philbrick(Talk) 17:52, 15 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah; IANAL, but I am really sceptical that any actual intellectual property lawyer would give such hideously bad advice. --Orange Mike | Talk 18:30, 16 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I fail to think of any intellectual property type where publishing on Wikipedia would help. Our CC-BY-SA license means you waive essentially all copyright, a trademark claim would be weakened (see generic trademark), and it would kill a patent application (where you must prove that the patent was unkwown in the "state of the art", such "state of the art" including all Wikipedia pages at the date of application). TigraanClick here to contact me 14:38, 17 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
As the others said, forget about publishing your concept on Wikipedia and tell that patent lawyer he is completely wrong and clueless about Wikipedia. JIP | Talk 10:08, 18 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Need Help Updating My First Three Articles[edit]

Hello, I create a few articles on some interesting public figures and a sports company. Can someone help me research and update these articles for me?


Article (Pharaoic): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pharaoic Article (Spzrts): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spzrts Article (Davion Robinson): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Davion_Robinson — Preceding unsigned comment added by Johnson28.7 (talkcontribs) 07:46, 15 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Johnson28.7 I've tagged the articles with various issues. I'd strongly suggest that you consent to moving the articles to Draft space where you can work on them with less fear of deletion, and then submit them as drafts for a review before they are formally placed in the encyclopedia as they are now. Your articles lack independent reliable sources with significant coverage of the subjecst, indicating how they meet Wikipedia's special definition of notability. They also use some promotional language that should be removed. In the case of the company, Wikipedia is not interested in what the company says about itself(such as what it considers to be its "mission"), only in what others unaffiliated with the company say about it. Please understand that successfully writing a new article is the hardest possible task to undertake on Wikipedia. You should read Your First Article to get an idea of what is being looked for, and maybe use the new user tutorial. 331dot (talk) 07:55, 15 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

could you help me out by updating the information? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Johnson28.7 (talkcontribs) 08:01, 15 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]


Hello, I create a few articles on some interesting public figures and a sports company. Can someone help me research and update these articles for me?

Article (Pharaoic): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pharaoic Article (Spzrts): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spzrts Article (Davion Robinson): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Davion_Robinson — Preceding unsigned comment added by Johnson28.7 (talkcontribs) 09:14, 15 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@Johnson28.7: No need to repeat yourself. (Joined with previous section with same content). Also, Please sign your messages on talk pages by adding a space and four tildes to the end of the last line of your message, like this:
This is the last line of the message. ~~~~
The four tildes will be automatically converted to a signature that contains your linked username and a timestamp, which helps keep conversations organized. —[AlanM1 (talk)]— 09:48, 15 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Lewis capaldi certifications[edit]

Hi I was just wondering if anyone could help me with updating lewis capaldis page. I looked into how to do it but I'm afraid I will mess the whole thing up. His nvpi certifications aren't on and none of his swiss ones are either. The nvpi ones are confirmed on there site. I'm not sure if his swiss ones are confirmed on the ifpi site. But I know he has them as he is pictured with his platinum album award on the universal music switzerland Instagram page and he was given an award live on stage for his song someone you loved selling over 200,000. That is also in the universal music switzerland page. I was also told by the ums that several of his song have went gold or platinum in Switzerland. But not one of them has been confirmed on his page. Sorry for bothering you with this but as I said I don't want to mess up lewis page. Thanks. Kind regards Scott. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.97.240.214 (talk) 13:25, 15 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Go to Talk:Lewis Capaldi. There, post a message similar to the one that you posted immediately above, but providing the URL (http://whatever, or https://whatever) for each specific web page that you reference. Doing this will greatly reduce the amount of work you're hoping that some other person will do, and will therefore increase the likelihood that they'll do it. -- Hoary (talk) 22:47, 15 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Changer name[edit]

Good morning,

I am trying to change my name of my page from aaronsmithphd to simply Aaron L Smith. Unfortunately, I don't know how to make this request. Could someone please assist me in getting it changed so I can start?

Thanks. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Aaronsmithphd (talkcontribs) 14:29, 15 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@Aaronsmithphd: That's your username, and that page is your user page: see WP:USERNAME and WP:USERPAGE. The purpose of a user page is to tell other editors about yourself as a Wikipedia editor, not a general CV. You appear to be trying to create waht we call an article, not a user page. Please don't. See WP:AUTOBIOGRAPHY. we delete any article whose subject is not notable by our definition. See WP:N -Arch dude (talk) 15:55, 15 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Edit timestamps[edit]

Hi. I notice in all page history logs, the timestamps are shown rounded to the nearest minute. Is it possible to get them displayed to the nearest second instead? 81.108.190.108 (talk) 18:24, 15 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

If you register an account, you can customize much of your Wikipedia experience. At Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-rendering, you can set the date format to ISO, which gives timestamps like 2020-03-15T18:33:45. —[AlanM1 (talk)]— 18:33, 15 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Nice! 81.108.190.108 (talk) 20:29, 15 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Done draft[edit]

Hello, I did a draft named Draft:Radko Sáblík. Now I would like to move it to "Radko Sáblík". I cannot move it myself. Can someone help me? Best wishes, Petr — Preceding unsigned comment added by Petr0101 (talkcontribs) 19:53, 15 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Hi, your draft was missing the Articles for Creation box. I inserted it for you. There should be a button now, that you can click to submit your draft for review. --Info-Screen::Talk 19:57, 15 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Notice on my page[edit]

Hi all A wikipedia page I manage is showing a notice https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jehangir_Hospital Can anyone help? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Nidhitaparia (talkcontribs) 20:17, 15 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Nidhitaparia When you say you "manage" the page, do you do so as a hospital employee or representative? What is it that you do not understand about the notice? 331dot (talk) 20:23, 15 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Nidhitaparia the sources on that page do not appear to establish notability. See Wikipedia:Common sourcing mistakes (notability).-Arch dude (talk) 20:39, 15 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]