Wikipedia:Help desk/Archives/2021 June 17

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June 17

Michael Francis Middleton

Ref 51 and 52 appear to be identical - shouldn't this be fixed? Please assist thanks115.70.23.77 (talk) 01:13, 17 June 2021 (UTC)

I think you mean 52 and 53 (someone may have added a new reference before them, which will have changed all the numbers thereafter: 51 is described as "Multiple sources" and contains eight different sources as a bullet-pointed list – unusual, but not as far as I know deprecated).

52 and 53 are nearly but not quite identical. They both refer to the same publication, but 51 specifies page 9 of it (just before the ISBN), while 52 specifies page 16. This is good practice, as the reader who wants to consult the source is told exactly where in a multiple-page work each cited fact is corroborated. I believe there is a more concise way of doing this, but only a code purist would worry about it. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 2.122.0.58 (talk) 02:59, 17 June 2021 (UTC)

That would be Template:Rp (reference page). Clarityfiend (talk) 03:12, 17 June 2021 (UTC)

Extended user not automatically confirmed

Dear wikipedists, although my user has accumulated over 500 edits (including deleted ones) and has been active on Wikipedia for more than 30 days (over 6 months), my user was not included in the extended confirmed user group. Why is that? All the best. Gore Voinicescu (talk) 05:26, 17 June 2021 (UTC)

@Gore Voinicescu: You gained the extended confirmed flag with this very edit ;-) (See the log). Victor Schmidt (talk) 06:03, 17 June 2021 (UTC)

Thanks! Gore Voinicescu (talk) 06:28, 19 June 2021 (UTC)

Obvious conflict of interest

What does one do in this type of situation? Is it an automatic restoration of the version prior to their editing + a notification on their talk page? Thank you. Abillionradios (talk) 09:23, 17 June 2021 (UTC)

Since the changes were almost completely unsourced and its not possible to tell wether they actually are the article subject, I have decided to roll the changes back and leave them a notice on their talkpage. Victor Schmidt (talk) 09:32, 17 June 2021 (UTC)

And yet Soorajtom Wiki has put all the same changes back again.--Gronk Oz (talk) 09:52, 17 June 2021 (UTC)

Contradictory sources at Amir Khan (singer)

Yesterday I happened upon the article Amir Khan (singer) and noticed the "Early life and background" section and the infobox made contradictory claims about the subject's birthplace. Since both were referenced, I added both in both places, put a {{contradictory}} tag on the page, and started a talk page section. I've since found three more sources that all name a third birthplace (but there are two places of that name and I don't know which one is meant) and seem more reliable to me than the previous ones. What's the right way to proceed now? Should I just remove the claims supported by those first two sources (and maybe the sources themselves) and only mention the third option? Should I name all three places in the article? Should I ask somewhere else? – Rummskartoffel 12:00, 17 June 2021 (UTC)

@Rummskartoffel: From a sourcing perspective, you should mention all three locations and all five sources. From an editorial and readability perspective, this is getting very messy, so I think you should mention your "best" source in the infobox, with a footnote, and do the same in the text but with "(sources vary)" and the same footnote, and then explain this mess inside the footnote, with all five references. Since you are unsure of which of the two places is the correct one, don't link to it from infobox or text, but link to both of them in your footnote. This is not a good solution, but I think it's the least-bad solution unless your research comes up with a definitive answer. -Arch dude (talk) 14:59, 17 June 2021 (UTC)

After further consideration, I think I'll leave out the first possibility, because that claim's source looks like it may be self-published, and just mention the other two. I'll keep digging until I can hopefully be certain where he was actually born. Thank you for your advice! – Rummskartoffel 16:58, 18 June 2021 (UTC)

Boomer Question

How do I revert edits on mobile? Panini!^🥪 12:17, 17 June 2021 (UTC)

Panini! You switch to the full version in a browser on your device and do it that way. :) The app and mobile versions do not have full functionality. 331dot (talk) 12:20, 17 June 2021 (UTC)

List of albums

Can you fix the category i made December 2021 in albums please. 98.186.54.177 (talk) 13:46, 17 June 2021 (UTC)

 Done. You entered a line break in the table, which the software interpreted as a separate cell. Getting rid of that fixed things. —Tenryuu 🐲 ( 💬 • 📝 ) 14:37, 17 June 2021 (UTC)

Google search snippet for wikipedia item on Jodha Bai

When i search for Jodha Bai on google, the snippet below the google search contains this comment that is an obscure part of the target article(a redirect to Mariam-uz-Zamani) "Paridhi Sharma played the role of Jodha Bai in historical drama series Jodha Akbar which ran from 2013 to 2015. Delnaaz Irani portrayed Mariam-uz-Zamani in ..."

When i search for Mariam-uz-Zamani, I see a far more meaningful result "Mariam-uz-Zamani was a wife of the third Mughal emperor, Akbar. In subsequent centuries, she has been referred to with several other names, including Hira ..."

Is this something in google, or something in wikipedia(maybe on the redirect page) displaying this? I think the latter(or some other part of the lead) is clearly the better one to show

Assassin (talk) 16:28, 17 June 2021 (UTC)

@Assassinx.x: Sounds like part of the Google Knowledge Graph, which pulls info from many sources, often in a confusing way. RudolfRed (talk) 16:34, 17 June 2021 (UTC)

@RudolfRed: Thanks for the comment(trying wiki text for first time, so apologise if there are issues). It does not seem to be on the Knowledge Graph. It seems to show under the google result for the wikipedia item(where usually a short portion from the original website is shown).Assassin (talk) 16:40, 17 June 2021 (UTC)

Interestingly, the knowledge graph box on the right does seem to show a better result than the one underneath the search resultAssassin (talk) 16:41, 17 June 2021 (UTC)

If it's a snippet, assume a little of column A and a little of column B. The snippet is going to be a passage from the Wikipedia page, but the passage is likely going to be one that Google considers to be the most relevant to the query. —A little blue Bori v^_^v ^{Jéské Couriano} 16:45, 17 June 2021 (UTC)

Thanks for that. Will try raise it with google. No particular interest in the subject, but the current result looks like promotion of a particular actress rather than providing something useful Assassin (talk) 17:06, 17 June 2021 (UTC)

LaTeX quick edit from visual editor

In the visual editor, when I wish to write formulae in LaTeX the fastest way I know is to type "<math", which opens an editor that hides most of the page. On the contrary, clicking on existing TeX formula within an article brings up a "Quick Edit" box that doesn't hide the page and shows how the formula will appeared rendered inline. Is there a shortcut to bring up the quick edit box rapidly? Failing that, is there another way to enter TeX quickly short of editing source? Krb19 (talk) 17:18, 17 June 2021 (UTC)

@Krb19: I'd never heard of LaTeX before reading your post, and don't use the visual editor, but there might be some help for you here, or you could ask on the related talk page. TimTempleton ^{(talk) (cont)} 18:46, 17 June 2021 (UTC)

@Timtempleton: Thanks Tim, I'll try that talk page.Krb19 (talk) 21:18, 17 June 2021 (UTC)

Article type?

How can I tell the type of template an article is? ie: This is a country https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jordan VS this is a person https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Jordan my question is where is that filed(other than obviously reading the description). where is that indicator on the page? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.88.190.12 (talk) 19:11, 17 June 2021 (UTC)

Wikipedia has no concept of an "article type" in the way you are suggesting. Many articles have a WP:short description which says what kind of thing the subject of the article is, and MOS:LAYOUT contains recommendations for how to structure articles on certain kinds of subject, but there is no kind of reliable classification of articles. --ColinFine (talk) 19:26, 17 June 2021 (UTC)

Perhaps you are asking about the box of info on the right side of the page. This is called an Infobox, and there are different types of Infoboxes for things like countries, people, etc. RudolfRed (talk) 19:39, 17 June 2021 (UTC)

Yeah, how do you know the infobox type, and is this (type of infobox) available trough some sort of API?69.88.190.12 (talk) 19:48, 17 June 2021 (UTC)

Wikipedia has a public API which can export certain things yes, though getting the infobox type is pretty hard. This is because for the software behind Wikipedia, an infobox is just another tempalte that needs to be expanded. If you would need to query this from the API, you will need to fire an API query similar to this, which can give you all templates a given page (or a list of pages) has. You then have to manually sort through the array in query.pages[index].templates after things starting with "Template:Infobox". Keep in mind the API has an ettiquette, you can find it here on the website about the sofware behind Wikipedia. Victor Schmidt (talk) 20:28, 17 June 2021 (UTC)

Wikipedia itself is a encyclopedia consisting of articles that are primarily intended to be read by humans. We have a sister project, Wikidata, that is database with relationships between items. Each Wikipedia article has an associated Wikidata item, and each wikidata item may have the "instance of" relationship with one or more other items. The Wikidata API for queries is probably more suitable for your purpose. -Arch dude (talk) 21:03, 17 June 2021 (UTC)

We figure it out by reading the article. Infoboxen are not added by bots. —A little blue Bori v^_^v ^{Jéské Couriano} 22:41, 17 June 2021 (UTC)

report for articles with old tags

is there a report that can list articles that are tagged for "issues" (sometimes "multiple issues"), that can be sorted by date?

examples of "issues" templates: More citations needed & Disputed

skakEL 22:20, 17 June 2021 (UTC)

@Skakkle: Take a look at WP:BACKLOG. Find the type of issue you are intested in, and you will find it organized by date. For example, for citations, I found Category:Articles_lacking_in-text_citations which has it organized by month back to August 2006. RudolfRed (talk) 23:06, 17 June 2021 (UTC)

so, there isn't a tool somewhere off wikipedia that can just do some range limits and sort by one or two other attributes? (article size, edits per day.) That backlog page seems like a giant hierarchy of categories. and the way categories always sort alphabetically seems really unhelpful for prioritizing. and the norm here for managing all this just seems to be just "keep breaking down into smaller categories". Just hoping for a tool off wikipedia I guess. skakEL 01:18, 18 June 2021 (UTC)

See WP:PetScan. Zoozaz1 talk 01:32, 18 June 2021 (UTC)

Seriously!

When are you Leftists Dirtbags going to cease lying to the American public?

Hello editor with a Canadian IP. Our no personal attack policy may be of interest. Zoozaz1 talk 23:27, 17 June 2021 (UTC)

We can't do a thing about it if you don't tell us what article you are having a problem with. And as much as this might surprise you, not all of Wikipedia's readers are American. JIP | Talk 12:25, 18 June 2021 (UTC)

The exact moment right-wing nutjobs do the same. Clarityfiend (talk) 05:20, 19 June 2021 (UTC)

Thank you, very cool! Chess (talk) (please use {{reply to|Chess}} on reply) 21:27, 19 June 2021 (UTC)