Wikipedia:Help desk/Archives/2021 September 26

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September 26

Can I submit first party biographical info?

I was looking at this page Sandra Ballif Straubhaar and i noticed that there is no listed date of birth or location. Would it be acceptable for me to contact Professor Straubhaar in order to find this info and then submit it to the page? If so, how would I properly cite it JohnSpinker (talk) 02:53, 26 September 2021 (UTC)

@JohnSpinker: Sorry, but that would be WP:OR and is disallowed. You could however contact the professor and ask if there is a published reliable source for this information, and then cite that source. -Arch dude (talk) 04:56, 26 September 2021 (UTC)

@Arch dude: alright sounds good. Figured it would count as OR but I wanted to verify. I'll try reaching out to her in a bit and I'll make the edits if she provides any sources that qualify JohnSpinker (talk) 05:07, 26 September 2021 (UTC)

@JohnSpinker: The only thing I would add to that is that you should be aware of WP:BLPPRIVACY. 192.76.8.74 (talk) 06:04, 26 September 2021 (UTC)

I usually agree, but here, if the subject themselves provides links to the source for the date of birth, presumably she does not object to it being mentioned on Wikipedia. Tigraan^{Click here for my talk page ("private" contact)} 09:36, 27 September 2021 (UTC)

@Tigraan: Yep, that would obviously fall under the sources linked to the subject such that it may reasonably be inferred that the subject does not object to the details being made public part of the policy. The reason I brought it up was to make it clear that the choice to only provide the year is deliberate, and that not everyone is going to want their birthday posted publicly. 192.76.8.74 (talk) 19:26, 27 September 2021 (UTC)

Question on Copyvio

I'm reading a draft, and it appears that there are grammar errors that are consistent with machine translation. I'm unsure for how to check for copyvio in this case (does copyvio apply to translations?) seeing as the automated tools don't work across language lines. I'm wondering if any editors have advice; I wouldn't approve the article as-is, but I'd like to address this potential problem. — Mikehawk10 (talk) 05:13, 26 September 2021 (UTC)

Yes, a translation of copyrighted material is still a derivative work of the original, and we treat it the same if we can find the original.

In general, I've had luck a couple times google-translating the given references and external links, and the foreign-language Wikipedia article if it exists, into English. I've also tried, with less success, translating the article back into the source language and then googling for short phrases in the result.

In this case, while I haven't found a source, I note that the draft's author is claiming the same name as the subject's founder. So - quite aside from the usual implications of that - it's worth asking for the original Lithuanian press release they presumeably machine translated from. —Cryptic 06:07, 26 September 2021 (UTC)

Native American article title

Why is the article for the indigenous people of the US called Native Americans in the United States and not "Native Americans"? isnt the word "American" in English normally used to refer to things from the united states? isnt this the english wikipedia? Svenurban (talk) 05:44, 26 September 2021 (UTC)

@Svenurban: Have you seen the discussion on Talk:Native Americans and the discussions at Talk:Native Americans in the United States/Archive 2#Requested move? 192.76.8.74 (talk) 06:15, 26 September 2021 (UTC)

@Svenurban: A move to "Native Americans" was suggested with no concensus at Talk:Native Americans in the United States/Archive 5#Requested move 23 November 2016. "American" alone nearly always refers to the US but "Native American" is more varied. It can both be used outside and before the US. It isn't merely the word "native" placed before "American". It's a compound word with capital N in Native. I'm Danish and might be a great Dane but a Great Dane is from Germany (and is a dog but On the Internet, nobody knows you're a dog). PrimeHunter (talk) 06:36, 26 September 2021 (UTC)

Also, there's a very good disambiguation page at Native Americans that pretty much exactly answers your question. EVhotrodder (talk) 12:41, 27 September 2021 (UTC)

I disagree with an edit on the "Cabazon Dinosaurs" article.

I disagree with some of the deletions made on September 25, 2021 to the article "Cabazon Dinosaurs" by Magnolia677.

Magnolia677 justified his/her deletions by stating that the article is about the Cabazon dinosaurs, not Claude Bell (who built those large concrete structures). Magnolia677 then deleted about a third of the text relating to Claude Bell, stating that Bell's work at Knott's Berry Farm is irrelevant, even though that is where he honed his craft of creating life-size figures out of concrete, he spent 35 years of his life working at Knott's, and he was working there while he built the Cabazon dinosaurs.

Magnolia677 also deleted most of the photos in the article, including the only two photos of Claude Bell!

By Maganolia677's logic ("This article isn't about Claude Bell, it's about the Cabazon dinosaurs...") then an article about the first moon landing should not include any photos of Neil Armstrong in it.

Sheesh.

With your system, I can't figure out how to communicate with Magnolia677. Perhaps you can assist.

Thanks,

DTParker1000 DTParker1000 (talk) 05:54, 26 September 2021 (UTC)

@DTParker1000: You can discuss these issues either at talk:Cabazon Dinosaurs or directly with the editor in question at User talk:Magnolia677. Mjroots (talk) 06:05, 26 September 2021 (UTC)

Help needed from Russian wikipedians, specifically runet and Valknut direct connect software

I am trying to revive this article[1] and I am hitting a roadblock to get more sources. It seems the software was well used in Russian nets because of it's Czech origin. It would be great if someone can find me reliable sources in Russian on this programme. I am also interested in moving it to someone else if they want. Greatder (talk) 06:08, 26 September 2021 (UTC)

@Greatder You can try asking at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Russia. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 12:22, 26 September 2021 (UTC)

An issue with organizing complex user-made infoboxes.

This was done at the sandbox without publishing it. Trying to create a unique profile-page. Unfortunately, it seems that when trying to put page sections after some technical infoboxes, they don't appear vertically as intended to, but horizontally! This hasn't happened to me before in the last 7 years, so I could use help here fixing that. Thanks. -2603:9000:A703:1EFD:A877:9009:BEF1:D175 (talk) 13:20, 26 September 2021 (UTC)

Hello User with the IP adress 2603:9000:A703:1EFD:A877:9009:BEF1:D175 and welcome to the Help desk. I see three issiues here: 1) You say "profile page", but Wikipedia has no profiles (thats a social media term, but We are an encayclopedia, not social media), Wikipedia has encyclopedic articles. 2) edits that aren't published aren't stored anywhere on Wikipedia's servers (except temporarely to generate a preview, as an example) and are therefore inaccessible to anyone but whoever made them. Note that the label of the button "Publisch changes" is somewhat misleading: It is supposed to be understood as "publish this so everyone who knows where to look at can find this", not "publish this to the encyclopedia". It was renamed that way so it is clear that everything here is visible to the public, if one knows where to look at. 3) the general Sandbox is regularely cleared and as such is more fitted for experiments with Wikipedia's syntax. Article drafts should be prepeared in the draft namespace or as a userspace draft (requires you to have a Wikipedia account). Victor Schmidt (talk) 15:43, 26 September 2021 (UTC)

Interrupting a Twinkle Script

I was opening an AfD for Mr Science Show and accidentally closed the tab after clicking "submit query" and I was wondering if it messed anything up. It appears to have worked fine, but I'm afraid I might have cut it short and the script was unable to complete some steps. TipsyElephant (talk) 16:52, 26 September 2021 (UTC)

@TipsyElephant: Everything looks OK to me. Deor (talk) 17:35, 26 September 2021 (UTC)

Making and updating a page remotely

For years I have been keeping information pulled from some small databases in a local MediaWiki instance on a Raspberry Pi. I have a script that collates information from these databases and turns it into a table. I create a table per month and have the ability to update these tables by simply replacing them with a new table of updates. I have written Bash and Perl scripts to manage this.

Creation and updating are achieved by running /usr/share/mediawiki/maintenance/importTextFile.php on the Pi, to which I connect using SSH to run a command using importTextFile.php.

It's my understanding that in more recent versions of MediaWiki this script has gone, and apparently the ability to create or replace a page has also disappeared.

I may have misunderstood this, but I'm struggling to understand what tools are now available to provide the features originally offered by importTextFile.php.

I would very much appreciate any light that could be shed here.

Dave

Hello, user from IP 82.69.110.159. This page is about help with editing Wikipedia: it is unlikely that many people here have much experience of working with the Mediawiki software. Please go to MW:User hub to find a more appropriate place to ask. --ColinFine (talk) 20:12, 26 September 2021 (UTC)

(edit conflict) The script isn't gone, it was renamed importTextFiles.php. See mw:Manual:ImportTextFiles.php. There's also edit.php, which you can use if you are editing only one page. * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 20:14, 26 September 2021 (UTC)