Wikipedia:Help desk/Archives/2023 November 13

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November 13

Edit-a-protected-page button

When you visit a protected page, you're shown a "View Source" tab instead of "Edit", and when you click it, you're given a button to make an edit request. There's no button if the talk page is also protected. There's a link to Wikipedia:Requests for page protection/Edit in the resulting message, but it's in a paragraph and less obvious. How could this be converted into a button like the one used when the talk page is not protected? 123.51.107.94 (talk) 00:37, 13 November 2023 (UTC)

I don't think we should do that. If the talk page is protected then it may be because the edit request button was repeatedly abused to post unwanted junk on the talk page. Let's not replace it with a similar button so the same junk can easily be posted to Wikipedia:Requests for page protection/Edit. That page cannot serve its purpose if it has to be protected so it seems OK to "protect" it a bit by requiring people to actually read a few instructions before going there. PrimeHunter (talk) 01:08, 13 November 2023 (UTC)

Deletion of text

An editor decided my unpublished article infringed copyrighted material. The editor deleted 90% of my article, destroying hours of my work. I cannot undo this destruction. Given that my article was unpublished, it seems to me that I should have had an opportunity to address the alleged copyright issues before most of my article was deleted.Sylvan1971 (talk) 05:29, 13 November 2023 (UTC)Sylvan1971 (talk) 05:27, 13 November 2023 (UTC)

User:Sylvan1971, given your background I won't spout policy at you. You may have luck requesting an admin at WP:RFU to email you a copy of the draft at the time it was revdelled. Folly Mox (talk) 05:32, 13 November 2023 (UTC)

For clarity though, anything saved to Wikipedia is technically "published", no matter what namespace it is in. WP:RFU also specifically states it will not provide copyvio material, which I misremembered. Folly Mox (talk) 05:38, 13 November 2023 (UTC)

Sylvan1971, this is exactly the reason why the "Save" button was changed to "Publish" a while back. Every page in Wikipedia - Userspace, Draft space, everything - is publicly readable and so "published", and copyright infringement is not permitted anywhere.

As a practical note, starting with copyright material and trying to edit it to make it acceptable sounds to me like an extremely unproductive and risky way of working - it is likely to lead to close paraphrasing. Though it is an entirely different issue from Writing Wikipedia articles backwards, it is similar in that what you are doing is starting with something unacceptable and trying to massage it into something acceptable. In both cases, it is possible, but difficult and much more work than the recommended approach. ColinFine (talk) 12:12, 13 November 2023 (UTC)

Appreciate your reply. Just to be clear, this was alleged infringement. Sylvan1971 (talk) 16:09, 13 November 2023 (UTC)

@Sylvan1971: to be clear, this deletion was needed to comply with the law. It's not just Wikipedia policy. When you make text available to others on the Internet, you are "publishing" it as the term "publish" is used in copyright law. It does not matter that you did not want others to see this material yet. Other websites, including major ones, are sloppy about this, but Wikipedia is not. In addition to ethical reasons, we also do not want hostile parties to claim that WP encourages or allows copyright violation. -Arch dude (talk) 14:49, 13 November 2023 (UTC)

Appreciate your reply. Just to be clear, this was alleged infringement. Sylvan1971 (talk) 16:09, 13 November 2023 (UTC)

By the way, the relevant statue defines publication as "the distribution of copies or phonorecords of a work to the public by sale or other transfer of ownership, or by rental, lease, or lending." Clicking the "Publish" button, particularly on a draft which has not yet been accepted, is not publication. However, I do recognize Wikipedia's right to create policies it deems reasonable. In this case, they are misguided. Furthermore, a single editor's determination of infringement, without granting the user a short window to reply or edit, is patently unfair.Sylvan1971 (talk) 18:40, 13 November 2023 (UTC)

As others have indicated above, Wikipedia assiduously strives not to break the law, for example by permitting copyright infringements on its servers.

If copyright infringement is alleged, the legally safer course is to remove it until it is proved not to be infringement. Wikipedia's site; Wikipedia's rules; Wikipedia's procedures.

Wikimedia's Legal Department concluded that saving material to a publically accessible page is, or could be construed by a court to be, publishing it.

A great many Wikipedia editors compose draft material in, or copy it to, documents on their own devices in case issues like these, or system glitches, etc., remove or lose the material.

My understanding is that such material will still be accessible to Administrators with certain rights, and that you can appeal to them to check it and restore a copy to you if they judge this appropriate. I do not know the procedures myself as I have never been involved in such a situation, but I see you have been given relevant instructions on your User talk page, and I encourage you to follow them up. Complaining about the issue on this Help desk, most of whose responders are not Admins, cannot achieve anything. Sorry. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 94.2.5.208 (talk) 21:12, 13 November 2023 (UTC)

Google Earth link

Russian labels have been randomly showing up as placemarks on Google Earth all of a sudden. I tried turning off some layers and no success until I turned off Wikipedia. I love both GE and Wikipedia. I hope you can fix this. Andrew AMorgan (talk) 07:07, 13 November 2023 (UTC)

Seems to be fixed. Thanks! AMorgan (talk) 04:20, 16 November 2023 (UTC)

I want to make my own user page can anyone help

pls help XUnknown Entity (talk) 08:28, 13 November 2023 (UTC)

You've already made your user page- User:XUnknown Entity. 331dot (talk) 08:39, 13 November 2023 (UTC)

And please don't ask the same question in multiple places. ColinFine (talk) 12:13, 13 November 2023 (UTC)

Hello, I am trying to make a wikipedia page for my college.

My page is just being deleted because of the lack of the secondary sources. I have added the secondary sources what else should I do? BibekChand (talk) 08:57, 13 November 2023 (UTC)

BibekChand You should first stop attempting to edit the redirect. The best way to create a new article is to use the submission process via the Article Wizard. You will need to first gather the independent reliable sources you have and then summarize what they say- your attempt did not do that. See WP:BACKWARD. 331dot (talk) 09:03, 13 November 2023 (UTC)

Reminder: Kantipur Engineering College is currently nominated for deletion. 🛧Midori No Sora♪🛪 ( ☁＝☁＝✈) 10:45, 13 November 2023 (UTC)

Could the article Bromine rewrited as the follwing below?

Bromine is a chemical element; it has symbol Br and atomic number 35 instead of Bromine is a chemical element; it has symbol Br and atomic number 35. It would be useful of you if you are willing to support me in the work. 2001:EE0:4BC6:DB70:8C60:E4FE:CDA3:8239 (talk) 14:42, 13 November 2023 (UTC)

There is a full discussion of this topic at WT:WikiProject_Elements#"a"_chemical_element_or_"the"_chemical_element. Please comment there after reading that whole section. Mike Turnbull (talk) 14:49, 13 November 2023 (UTC)

No. I am not about to concern that matter. I may be here to please someone including you to fix some synchronizing errors while reading around any articles about chemical elements. Other way, I would recommend double checking the message I sent above. Thanks. 2001:EE0:4BC6:DB70:8C60:E4FE:CDA3:8239 (talk) 14:55, 13 November 2023 (UTC)

If you're not going to take the time to engage with a relevant discussion on a relevant page, why should anyone bother helping you on a less relevant page? —Tenryuu 🐲 ( 💬 • 📝 ) 15:29, 13 November 2023 (UTC)

This is the help desk, and most of the 100,000 or so active Wikipedia editors do not work on or read the help desk. You need to attract the attention of those editors who might be interested in your project. I recommend asking on the talk page of one or more of the projects listed at Category:WikiProject Elements. Take a look at those project pages and pick one that is active and that seems to be a good match for your project. If you wish to collaborate with other editors, it's a great deal easier if you start by creating an account, because communicating with an anonymous editor is not easy. -Arch dude (talk) 15:08, 13 November 2023 (UTC)

FYI

This seems to be the same Vietnamese editor whose original comment (now archived) triggered work to make our articles about the chemical elements consistent. We completed that work yesterday (as linked above) and I have no idea what the IP now wants us to do, since the first two snippets in the posting above are identical! Mike Turnbull (talk) 15:31, 13 November 2023 (UTC)

No, they are not identical:

'''Bromine''' is a [[chemical element]]; it has [[symbol]] '''Br''' and [[atomic number]] 35

vs

'''Bromine''' is a [[chemical element]]; it has symbol '''Br''' and [[atomic number]] 35

—Trappist the monk (talk) 15:36, 13 November 2023 (UTC)

Looks like they want the word symbol to be unlinked? —Tenryuu 🐲 ( 💬 • 📝 ) 15:36, 13 November 2023 (UTC)

@Michael D. Turnbull: It's not linked at the moment. They probably want it linked, which is probably reasonable. Bazza (talk) 16:08, 13 November 2023 (UTC)

DOH! It was supposed to be linked (see the discussion at the link I gave). Bromine was done by User:Praseodymium-141 yesterday and seems to have gone wrong. I think that all the others are correct: with the link, as we intended. Mike Turnbull (talk) 16:13, 13 November 2023 (UTC)

Problem

I no longer receive notifications of discussions, only some. JackkBrown (talk) 15:41, 13 November 2023 (UTC)

JackkBrown, what do you mean by 'notifications' and 'discussions'? Make sure you are subscribed to each discussion you want to receive notifications for. Sungodtemple (talk • contribs) 15:45, 13 November 2023 (UTC)

Always be specific when you report an issue, e.g. posting a diff you think should have notified you. PrimeHunter (talk) 15:54, 13 November 2023 (UTC)

@Sungodtemple: thank you very much, I solved it! JackkBrown (talk) 16:15, 13 November 2023 (UTC)

@PrimeHunter: anyway, here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Dicklyon; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Italy; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Pecorino_Sardo. JackkBrown (talk) 16:18, 13 November 2023 (UTC)

@JackkBrown: I have linked to your user page, so you should receive a notification about this post. In this post,this post, and this post, the users didn't link to your user page or use the {{ping}} template, so you would not receive a notification (unless you subscribed to the page or section). For more information, see Help:Notifications. GoingBatty (talk) 17:27, 13 November 2023 (UTC)

I have not received a parcel from your shop

5 Wikipedia pens 80.42.41.235 (talk) 16:49, 13 November 2023 (UTC)

The store is not directly connected to Wikipedia, no one here can help you. You'll have to use the Contact us link at the bottom of the store page - X201 (talk) 17:02, 13 November 2023 (UTC)

Referencing errors on Chennai Formula Racing Circuit

Reference help requested.

Thanks, Davidindia (talk) 19:07, 13 November 2023 (UTC)

It appears this has been resolved. Tollens (talk) 20:54, 13 November 2023 (UTC)

Unable to edit from the Safari browser even when logged in

A few days ago I started experiencing a weird problem on my home Apple laptop: When I try to edit Wikipedia from the Safari browser, even when logged in as Nsk92, I get blacked with an error message "This IP address has been blocked from editing Wikipedia. [...] The IP address that you are currently using has been blocked because it is believed to be a web host provider or colocation provider. To prevent abuse, web hosts and colocation providers may be blocked from editing Wikipedia." The issue only affects Safari and I am able to edit from other browsers such as Chrome and Firefox. I am connected to the Internet using WiFi (via my Verizon internet router) and I am not using a VPN or anything of the sort. Safari is my default browser and I am used to working with it, so this issue is rather annoying even though I can currently get around it. Still, can anyone tell me what's gooing on and why this is happening? And is there some fix that would allow me to edit from Safari? Thanks, Nsk92 (talk) 21:43, 13 November 2023 (UTC)

That does sound odd. Techie types tend to hang around WP:VPT more than here, so you might get more response there. ColinFine (talk) 22:03, 13 November 2023 (UTC)

Suspect this is because of the usage of iCloud Private Relay. See https://support.apple.com/en-us/102022 —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 10:54, 16 November 2023 (UTC)

to my bio and photo to Puerto Rican artist and?

Hola I'm a Puerto Rican actor; 'Cheo Tapia' you could Google me? would like to add me in the Puerto Rica list of actors and artist CheoT505 (talk) 22:48, 13 November 2023 (UTC)

what? no. ltbdl (talk) 01:37, 14 November 2023 (UTC)

@CheoT505: Lists like that one are not lists of people. They are lists of Wikipedia articles about people. Unless there is a Wikioedia article about you, your name cannot be added to that list, so wait until an article about you is added to Wikipedia. Before you ask: it is unlikely that we can have an article about you. to have an artilce, you would need to be notable by our definition: see WP:NACTOR. Please do not try to add an article about yourself: it is not easy and it usually does not end well. Take a look at WP:TOOSOON, WP:AUTO, and WP:AMOUNT. -Arch dude (talk) 03:14, 14 November 2023 (UTC)

Got it

COPY CheoT505 (talk) 16:59, 16 November 2023 (UTC)